Authors: Alan Dean Foster
"That wasn't really what was bothering me," responded Kirk. "It was your use of the term 'eventually.' How long is eventually?"
Hivar transmitted a mental shrug. "It could be tomorrow . . . or it might be a hundred years. I would tend toward the former."
"I sincerely hope you're right," declared Kirk with feeling.
Once back on the bridge, Kirk's first concern was that the complex telepathic communications system—which, after all, relied on an adolescent of an alien species—was functioning smoothly.
"Mr. Spock, what's the maximum acceleration Hivar's mechanism can match?"
Again the relaxation into semistupor, which no longer troubled Kirk; then the first officer replied, "Warp-three, Captain. Should we attempt to travel any faster, the six moons which form the bulk of the system will fall behind, soon to be lost to control."
Kirk nodded and glanced at the helm. "All ahead warp-three, Mr. Sulu."
"Ahead warp-three," came the acknowledgment. It was followed by a hesitant question: "On what course, sir?"
Kirk looked expectantly at Spock, who informed him, "Hivar says to use your own judgment, Captain. One course should prove as efficacious as the next, so long as we continue to move outward from our galaxy."
"Um. Mr. Sulu, resume our former course heading, continuing on out from Boqu."
"Aye, Captain," the helmsman replied unquestioningly.
Kirk's gaze went to the main viewscreen. It provided an expansive panorama of obsidian emptiness, speckled fretfully with the pale light of far-off galaxies and star clusters hundreds of thousands and millions of light-years distant.
Given the
Enterprise
's marvelous instrumentation, of course, it was next to impossible for them to become lost. Even so, one could not be certain of anything this far from familiar starmarks. The idea of becoming lost in this benumbing nothingness, to wander forever on the fringes of the galaxy, was an eventuality he had no wish to cope with. Resolutely, the captain forced it from his mind.
There were other things to think about. Like the actual size of the mysterious jawanda, for example.
"Activate rear scanners, Mr. Arex," he ordered. The depressing view ahead was temporarily replaced by a shrinking Boqu aft. Raging upper-atmospheric disturbances stirred orange-and-maroon clouds like a giant's finger dipped in paint. And there was something else.
Six points of darkness, artificially highlighted by the ship's scanner-computers, were following them at a respectful distance. Six moons, detached from orbit, trailed the
Enterprise
like balls on a string. Kirk assumed that the long line was for convenience of manipulation. Surely the actual use of the moons in jawanda capture involved some more-complex configuration.
The lift doors slid aside, and McCoy strolled onto the bridge. "You'll be happy to know, Jim, that Lieutenant Randolph is fully recovered. I discharged her from Sick Bay an hour ago." His gaze went to the screen. "Our six attendant satellites?" Kirk nodded.
"I hope Hivar knows what it's doing with that archaic hunk of machinery." McCoy gestured at the trailing moons. "Even if they are all smaller than Luna, I'd hate for Hivar to make one of them zig when it should zag. If the
Enterprise
accidentally got caught between them, we'd end up looking about as streamlined as a Lactran."
On the sixth day out from Boqu, Lieutenant Uhura turned from her communications console and informed Kirk, "I am receiving broadcasts in the range indicated by the Boquian scientist, Captain."
"You're certain, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, sir. Pickup is clearly within the frequency specified."
"Mr. Arex, obtain a fix on the broadcast source. As soon as you have it placed, instruct Mr. Sulu on the necessary alteration in our course for planned intercept."
"Very well, sir," the Edoan navigator replied.
Kirk glanced back at Uhura, intending to thank her—and hesitated. The lieutenant was chewing her lower lip, and she looked more than simply thoughtful.
"Something the matter, Uhura?"
"I don't think so, sir. It's just that . . . well, I'm sure I recognize those sounds. I've heard them before."
"That hardly seems likely, Lieutenant," commented Spock.
"I know, Mr. Spock," she admitted, "but I'm still positive I've encountered these particular noises in the past—or at least sounds very similar."
"Amplify and put them on the bridge speakers," Kirk decided.
She spent a moment adjusting the controls; then the bridge was filled with a moderate crackling sound. It alternated occasionally with a regular electronic chirp, which devolved rapidly into a low buzzing. One moment it sounded like random noise, the next almost like a programmed broadcast.
"My apology to Lieutenant Uhura," Spock finally said into the silence. "I recognize the sounds myself." Kirk was about to add that he also was familiar with such noise when Spock added, "I have communicated our discovery to Hivar, who is anxious to hear it."
"By all means. Uhura, transmit to the Bulk Transporter Room the Boqus is located in." There was a long wait.
"It is the cry of a jawanda," Spock announced, Hivar's own conviction mirrored in the first officer's tone.
Kirk was only confused further. "But that's a familiar sound, Mr. Spock. Large radiotelescopes, even the oldest ones on Earth, have been picking up buzzes and crackles like this one for hundreds of years. Of course," he added softly, "there are many whose origin has remained a mystery."
"Certain of those unsolved origins may now be explained, it seems," Spock went on, showing excitement of an intellectual sort even in his role of communicator. "It appears that in addition to quasars, pulsars, radio nebulae, and other known phenomena which are sources of deep-space radio waves, we must now include the jawanda."
"Proceeding on new course, Captain," Sulu announced, "warp-factor three."
Kirk had a sudden thought. "Mr. Spock, the Boquian mechanism restricts us to a maximum speed of warp-three. Ask Hivar how fast a jawanda can travel."
The reply took longer than usual. "No faster than our present velocity, Captain . . . or so it is believed. There is no way Hivar can say for certain, since its race was always concerned with putting distance between them and the jawanda and not closing it."
Kirk found himself once again trying to adjust to the idea of a creature which could move at a speed exceeding light. It made no sense—but then, the universe was full of things which did not make sense.
"Quarry is traveling at an angle to us, Captain. There is no indication that it has taken notice of our presence. We are proceeding on an intercept course which will bring us to capture range within twenty hours."
But it was a day longer before the extremely long-range visual sensors were able to pick anything up. There was a pause while Sulu adjusted instrumentation—and then they were gifted with their first sight of a jawanda.
It was all at once more magnificent and unexpected than Kirk had anticipated: an enormous rippling rectangular shape. The sensors were observing it from its flat side; otherwise, as with Saturn's rings, there would have been almost nothing to see. Were it not for the fluorescent colors which ran rippling across its featureless surface, even the computer-enhanced visual pickups would have shown nothing. The dancing lights, radiation consumed and transformed, gave outline and dimension to the creature.
"Looks like a big plastic sheet trying to digest an aurora," McCoy offered.
"Details, Mr. Spock? Preliminary measurements?"
Spock was bent over readouts and indicators. "Its method of locomotion is unknown, Captain, though it appears to throw off energy as well as to absorb it. Thickness is apparently constant from one end to the other, with no significant tapering at either end."
"How thick, Mr. Spock?"
"Approximately one millimeter, Captain. Viewed from the side, even at close range, the creature would effectively vanish. By contrast, its length and breadth are considerable."
"You're starting to sound as vague as a Lactran, Spock," grumbled McCoy.
"It is difficult to estimate its surface area, Doctor."
"Why—because some of it appears edge on?"
"No—because there is so much of it, and because the rectangular appearance is only approximate." He looked up from his readouts and gazed straight at Kirk. "I would say that this particular specimen is capable of covering most of the North American continent on Earth . . . though, of course, only to a depth of one millimeter, and that assuming the continent to be uniformly flat. Actual surface area is concomitantly somewhat less."
"That's . . . all right, Spock," Kirk assured his first officer, when he had his voice back. "It's big enough for our needs—and the Lactrans'." He sat staring at the unimaginably huge creature. Electric purples, mauve, metallic green, and azure drifted through its nearly transparent vastness, the discharges ample evidence of continual energy transfer.
"As a collector of stray radiation, it is a wonderfully designed organism," commented an admiring Spock. "It maximizes surface-collection area while minimizing mass. Absorbed radiation is converted into operating substance and at least two kinds of radiant discharge. One is the radio wave we detect, while the other doubtless propels it through the cosmos in some fashion we do not yet fathom. I would give ten years of my life to know how it does this."
"If we can capture it, the Lactrans may give you the chance to find out, Spock."
"Captain!" Kirk looked sharply at Sulu. "It's changing course."
"Spock, ask Hivar if we're within capture distance yet."
Quickly now: "No, Captain. Hivar says we must move considerably closer before the mechanism can be effectively employed."
Sulu spoke again. "Definitely senses us, sir—moving almost directly away from us now."
"Speed, Lieutenant?"
"Warp-three, sir."
Kirk rubbed tiredly at his forehead. "Can it sense a trap?"
"Most certainly it can detect the gravitational fields of the six moons trailing us, Captain," Spock pointed out.
"If that's the case, then we're going to have trouble getting close to any of the beasts." He considered a moment and decided, "Let's continue following for another half day. It may grow tired."
But as he made his way back to his cabin to sleep, he found himself skeptical of outlasting a being which existed comfortably in the space between galaxies . . .
Sure enough, when he returned to the bridge he found the jawanda still traveling with apparent ease at warp-three, directly away from them. They had not closed the distance by a meter.
The simplicity of the dilemma didn't lessen Kirk's frustration. If they accelerated to warp-four, they would overtake the fleeing quarry—but without the means necessary to capture it. And there was something else he was beginning to wonder about, something which intruded on his thoughts to the point where he found it necessary to put the question to their guests, via Spock.
"Is a jawanda dangerous, Mr. Spock?"
"Hivar does not know, Captain, nor do the Lactrans. The Boquian mechanism was always operated from ground control, never from a ship. Hivar actually has no idea how a jawanda might react to one—particularly one moving free of the protection of a strong gravitational zone."
"I thought our guest considered it impolite to read thoughts," Kirk observed mildly.
"Hivar apologizes, Captain, but replies that the image in your mind was so strong it could not ignore it."
The image the Boqus was referring to involved Kirk's proposal to drop clear of the trailing moons and proceed at a higher speed to overtake the jawanda.
"Once we do that," Kirk concluded, "we'll have to find some way of turning the creature back toward the six satellites."
"Hivar is not certain," Spock relayed slowly, "that this is a good idea. Despite its apparent fragility, a jawanda remains a being of unknown defensive capabilities, but one through which courses a good deal of controlled energy. Hivar desires that its ignorance of such abilities not serve as a pretext for foolhardy action."
"I see. What is the Lactrans' opinion?"
"They are of a similar mind, though equally uncertain."
"Does any of them have any better ideas?"
A hopeful wait, after which Spock declared, "They do not, Captain. Free space is not the element of Boqus or Lactrans. It belongs to the jawanda—and, at present, to us far-ranging primitives. The Lactrans concede that you must make the decision."
"What of Hivar?" Kirk pressed, knowing that without the Boqus's cooperation further pursuit of the jawanda was useless.
"As Hivar can think of no alternative save to disengage and search for a jawanda at a more favorable intercept angle—"
"Which might not happen for that proverbial hundred years," Kirk pointed out sharply.
"—he consents, reluctantly, to follow your designated course of action."
"Tell him to break free of the six moons, then."
"He has already done so, Captain. He adds that—" but Kirk had no time now to listen to the cautions and concerns of Hivar the Toq, or the superior-minded Lactrans. Primitive creature or not, it had been given to him and his fellow savages to successfully bring to a conclusion this unique hunt.
For the first time since they'd left Lactra, he felt in complete command of his ship.
"Mr. Sulu!" he barked. "Mr. Arex! Compute new course to bring us around and in behind the jawanda." Both helmsmen and navigator rushed to comply.
Sulu looked back alertly moments later. "Course computed and laid in, sir."
"All ahead on new heading, warp-factor five," Kirk ordered.
Moving far faster than their quarry now, the
Enterprise
leaped ahead, circling in a great arc around the fleeting creature, the ship's powerful engine enabling it to all but vanish from the jawanda's immediate vicinity.
"Any indication it's detected us, Mr. Spock?" he finally asked when they were moving toward the creature instead of away from it. The
Enterprise
's science officer studied the information fed back by long-range scanners.