The Entropy Effect

Spock struggled to regain control of his body, but Mree’s understanding of the aggressive move was thorough, and she had incapacitated him just short of unconsciousness. He could not help but admire her for mastering the technique: humans who tried it usually either failed to produce any effect at all, or used it so aggressively that it proved fatal. Only an unusually proficient student could produce immobility with consciousness.

Dr. Mordreaux hesitated. Spock could see him at the edge of his vision, but he could neither turn his head nor speak.

“All right,” Mordreaux said abruptly.

They filed into the laboratory. Spock struggled unsuccessfully to regain some feeling, some power of movement.

A wash of rainbow light, a dazzle of ultraviolet energy, told him he had failed again. They were fleeing, to some place he would never find, and he could come back again and again and again, earlier and earlier, further fragmenting the very substance of the universe as he attempted futilely to repair the damage being done. But he would always fail, he knew it now, something would always happen to cause him to fail. Entropy would always win.

As it must.

He cried out in despair.

Fighting the hopelessness that washed over him, somehow he flung himself over onto his chest. Every nerve and muscle in his body shrieked as he reached to drag himself along the floor like the crippled creature he was, like the first primordial amphibian struggling for breath on the shores of a vanishing lake, knowing instinctively in the most primitive interconnections of his brain that he would probably die, if he continued, that he would surely die, if he stayed, that his only chance was to keep going, to try.

Hunter wandered into sick bay, wishing she were almost anywhere else in the universe. She stopped in the doorway of McCoy’s office.

“Leonard,” she said, “Mr. Spock’s twelve hours are nearly up.”

“I know,” McCoy said miserably. “Hunter, he told me he had an outer limit of fourteen hours—”

“Oh, gods,” Hunter said, exasperated. “Leonard—”

“Wait—” McCoy looked up. “Did you hear—it’s the sensors!” He jumped up and ran past her into the main sick bay.

In the critical care unit the signals had fallen to zero, but not because the toxin had finally overwhelmed Ian Braithewaite’s life. Hunter took one look at the empty bed and ran out into the corridor. She caught a glimpse of Ian disappearing around the corner.

“He’s trying to get to the transporter!” McCoy said.

Hunter raced after Ian. He was still very weak and she narrowed the gap between them, but he stumbled into the lift. Hunter launched herself toward him and crashed against the closed doors, an instant too late.

“Damn!” She waited seething; McCoy caught up to her as the lift returned. They piled inside, and as soon as it stopped again Hunter rushed out and after the prosecutor. He had already reached the transporter room, already opened the console: he stared down at the bioelectronic construct that bulged up out of the module like a glimmering malignant growth.

“Don’t, Ian! Gods, don’t!”

“It’s the only way,” he whispered.

Supporting himself on his elbows in the doorway of the laboratory, Spock whispered, “Dr.

Mordreaux...”

The small group of time-travelers parted, turning to look at him, all of them startled to hear his voice.

And all of them were there.

Spock could not force his eyes to focus properly: he thought he was seeing double. But then the second Dr. Mordreaux stumbled off the transporter platform and fell, as Spock had, and the first Dr.

Mordreaux, the one who belonged in this time, this place, knelt beside him and turned him over. The older professor groaned.

Using the doorjamb for support, Spock dragged himself to his feet. Mree looked from one Mordreaux to the other, then back at Spock.

“Sir—” Spock said.

“Nothing changed,” Mordreaux said. “Nothing . . . changed ...” His voice was like sand on stone, skittering, dry, ephemeral. “I waited, but the chaos ...”

Spock forced himself across the few meters of space between him and the professor, and fell to his knees. The present Dr. Mordreaux stared down at himself.

“They are determined to go, sir,” Spock said. “I tried to show them what would happen—”

Mordreaux’s hand clamped around his wrist. “I don’t want to die like this,” he said. He looked back at himself. “Believe him. Please believe him.” He sighed, and his eyes closed, his hand fell limp beside him, and the life flowed slowly from his body.

The present Dr. Mordreaux sat back on his heels.

“My god,” Mree whispered. “My god, look.”