The Entropy Effect

“Not here, not now—not doing what we’re doing. What happens to... to this probability-version of all of us? Do we just fade out of existence?”

“No, Dr. McCoy, I do not believe that is what will occur.”

“What, then?”

“Nothing.” Spock closed the panel and opened it again, checking that the addition could be concealed in the available space.

McCoy snorted with frustration.

“You see,” Spock said, “if I succeed, this probability-version of us will never have occurred. We will not fade out of existence because we never will have existed in the first place. It is quite simple and logical.”

“Sure.” McCoy gave up. He could feel his pulse accelerating with nervousness, and even fear; he did not even want to think about what his blood pressure must be just now. “Let’s do it and be done.”

“Very well.” Spock picked up the larger device and slung it over his shoulder. It dangled from its strap, glimmering like a cluster of large amber beads.

“Spock, wait—how will you get back ?”

“As you so astutely pointed out,” the Vulcan said, “if I succeed I will not need to come back. But if I should be forced to return, the energy required is far less. In fact, after achieving threshold energy, one is virtually dragged back to one’s own time. One sets up a strain that must eventually be relieved. The changer’s power-pack will be sufficient.”

“Should I wait for you here?—Will you come back immediately after you go? Or—” McCoy could not resist. “Or before?”

“I will endeavor not to return before I leave,” Spock said with perfect seriousness. “Though it would be

an intriguing experiment...” He paused, then returned his attention to the business at hand. “The calculations are far less complex if one remains away as long as one spends in the past. I expect to be gone no more than an hour.”

“I’ll do my best to be here.”

“Dr. McCoy ... if I am gone for an unconscionably long time, it is essential that I, or whatever remains of me, be brought back here, to my own time. Otherwise the conflict between where I am and where I should be could create difficulties; there is also the possibility of a damaging paradox.” He showed McCoy a control on the unit he had attached to the transporter. “The auxiliary changer will pull me back. All you need do is activate it. But this signal cannot be accurately aimed. It is not likely that I would survive if you were forced to use it.”

“Then I won’t.”

“Youmust . If I am gone more than . .. one day, you must.”

“All right, Mr. Spock.”

Spock stepped up onto the transporter platform.

“Goodbye, Mr. Spock. Good luck.”

Spock touched a control on his unit of the time-changer. The transporter hummed to life, but instead of the usual stable beam surrounding the figure on the platform, there was a tremendous flash, like rainbow lightning.

The lights went out. More frightening, the soft sound of the ventilation fans ceased, and the ship lay in a moment of darkness and silence so complete that McCoy thought the explosion had deafened and blinded him.

The Enterprise had lost all power.

Ian Braithewaite suspected instantly what was happening when the power went out: the same thing had happened on Aleph Prime when Dr. Mordreaux began playing around with his time-travel device. That was what had first alerted Braithewaite to the peculiar activities, and what had drawn him into this horrible complicated matter of conspiracy, treachery, terror, and murder. He cursed himself for underestimating Spock and Mordreaux; he cursed himself particularly for being too timid to run the investigation aggressively. He should have called in civilian police from Aleph long before now; he should have called in Starfleet as well. But he had been trying desperately to keep the time-travel capability as secret as possible, as he had been ordered; there was no point in suppressing the work if it were publicized all over the Federation.

Emergency generators brought the ship back slowly to an eerie half-light. Ian flung himself out of his cabin and pounded down the corridor toward Mordreaux’s cabin, fearing that the device had been used to take the professor out of even the absurd semblance of custody he had been in on the Enterprise . He wondered how long it would take before the ship was diverted from its course toward Rehab Seven—an suddenly realized that he had no way of knowing it already had not, except that surely Mr. Scott would know and tell him.

And how long will it be before we’re all told our fate? he wondered. To be sold to the Klingons, or to the Romulans, as hostages, and the starship peddled to the enemy; or were the plans for starship and crew more direct, more private? Ian Braithewaite knew that if he ever had such a creation as the Enterprise in his own hands, he would not let it go for any amount of treasure.