This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS ? POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Visit us on the World Wide Web http://www.SimonSays.com/st http://www.startrek.com Copyright © 1982 Paramount Pictures. All rights Reserved. ? STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of Paramount Pictures. ? This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc., under exclusive license from Paramount Pictures. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 ISBN: 0-7434-1212-5 POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc. For Albert Nessim Hassan and in memory of his parents Maurice and Regina Hassan Prologue The fire-presence tuned the precognon. Mists of thought and the flow of time meshed to show four small lives at a fire in a crystal cave. “Both species are young,” the fire-presence said, “but of some interest. The divided one, V-Two, spans both worlds. It will state the problem: “Prometheus brought fire to man and for his reward was chained to a rock to be eaten by vultures. What is disquieting is that intelligent life forms all over the galaxy understand that legend—both the fire-bringing and the vultures.” “Sublevel One, analysis of content—analogy of our research problem to the ancient legend of the subject’s Human half-world,” the cool one said. “Sublevel Two indicates understanding of irony. Sublevel Three: Does the level of thought indicate a possible advanced Level One concept?” “Unlikely,” the fire-presence said. “However, the subject is the anomalous, potentially outside-the-maze radical subject, V-Two. It is atypical. It is a half-breed. We have tagged it for longitudinal lifetime study with special emphasis on its nonstandard cross-connects with other individuals, which are unusual.” “Its thought will continue?” “If it lives.” The forward probability construction continued in the mists of time. The dark-haired, pointed-eared younger V spoke in the crystal cave: “There is both the god in man, which reaches for fire and stars, and that black-dark streak which steals the fire to make chains, exacts a price from the firebringer—and lets loose the dogs of war and the vultures of destruction. There is the greatness and the callousness. Nor are we alone in that duality—your species or mine. Every solution to the Promethean flaw that intelligent life in the galaxy has found is, at best, partial. It is also . . . temporary. Nevertheless, it is our solution.” “Forward construction of thought level does rate advanced Level One,” the cool one said. “That is unknown in these subjects. The out-of-maze subject V-Two has subject-to-subject designation?” “Spock of Vulcan.” “Now project a similar level of forward construction for the other out-maze radical, V-One.” The projection swirled and shifted to another scene. It appeared to be on a primitive star travel ship. The older Vulcan, V-One, spoke: “The essence of the classic double-blind experimental design is that neither the subjects nor the experimenters who manipulate or observe them shall know which subjects are in the experimental group and which are the controls. It is the only scientific design that defeats the illogical susceptibility of intelligent beings to placebo effects and terminal self-delusion. That is not, however, of much consolation to the control subject who dies while the experimental group gets the real cure for cancer. Nor to those killed by false cures. The price of the fire has always come high.” “V-One has also previously demonstrated some possibility of Level One, has it not?” “For ten of its planet revolution time spans.” “Now project V-Two’s atypical cross-connects with his H Primaries, and the effect of the introduction of V-One?” The scene widened to show the H subject—fair, smaller than the two Vulcans, yet clearly a commanding presence. Behind him stood yet another H male, dark of hair and blue of eye, his vibrations supportive, nurturing. They spoke: H Primary One: Then—we are the subjects? H Primary Two: Or—the controls. V-One: Both. And such ‘experimenters’ as we have reached are as blind as we about which worlds serve what purpose. The grand design is elsewhere—and the Designers yet unknown. V-Two: However, the Designers must also have some blind spot. Callousness is always blind. There must be something that we could use—a third blind . . . H Primary One: Spock, you’ve hit it! Gentlemen, do you remember the story about the rats who trained the psychologists . . .? “Extrapolation indicates a pronounced ‘observer effect,’” the cool one said. “The subjects have detected much of the experimental design and conceived a plan to confront it. If the subjects know that much, will it not affect the experiment?” “That has been taken into account,” the fire-presence said. “No subject on all the experimental and control worlds has yet correctly formulated the experimental design question: Is there some fatal flaw in the design of intelligent life as such—and if so, can it be separated from the greatness . . . ?” “And if these subjects should succeed in doing so?” “Then it will be time for the ‘psychologists’ to interview the ‘rats.’ ” “This group of little ones is quite interesting.” “It is not a group. They have not yet met V-One.” The fire-presence turned to the First-Among for decision. “I concur in the design,” the First-Among said. “Initiate test to destruction.” “It is begun,” the fire-presence said. THE H PRIMARY ONE SUBJECT WAS DISORIENTED. IT HEARD VOICES THAT HAD NOT YET SPOKEN. IT REMEMBERED THE FUTURE AND FORGOT THE PAST. ITS JUDGMENT WAVERED IN THE FACE OF PRESENT SHOCK AND FUTURE NIGHTMARE. IT RAN—AND DID NOT KNOW WHETHER IT RAN FROM DANGER OR INTO IT. . . . PICK UP H PRIMARY ONE SUBJECT FOR FULL BODY-BRAIN PROCESSING. . . . The order went out, completing the pattern which had already begun. Chapter One Captain James T. Kirk angled his horns menacingly and bluffed out a devil-horned Helvan who tried to bar his way. Without pause he ducked past and around a corner, out of sight of the horned crowd that had become a mob. He scaled up over a fence and flattened into a handy alcove while the pursuit pounded past. For a long moment he had not thought he would make his rendezvous with Spock and the landing party. Dr. McCoy’s elegant semisurgical makeup jobs on the horn implants were supposed to make Helvan safe for Kirk’s democracy. They had not. He wore the short horns of a Helvan male in a dormant phase, not the deadly spiked horns of a Helvan male in falat. The fact that the short horns would strike any Human as devilish was neither here nor there—let alone how they looked on Spock, who had the ears for it. . . . The Helvan sky shaded from lavender to great flaming clouds of red-gold, which seemed always caught by some sunrise or sunset of the double sun. The Helvan culture was little beyond Stone Age, but much of the city was built of great crystal sheets and columns from some natural quarry. The effect was mirrored red-gold splendor, as easily a scene out of tomorrow as a vision of hell. Kirk reached to use his communicator. Somehow in this atmosphere atmosphere of revolution the Helvans had spotted him for a danger. Worse, what was now happening to Spock, Bones, and the landing party? It suddenly occurred to him to wonder why he had ever divided his forces in this dangerous situation. Then he looked up—and his stomach knotted. Spock waited for the rendezvous with almost Human impatience. He did not say worry. Yet his brief question to Kirk as to the wisdom of separate missions in the street-mob Helvan atmosphere of impending revolution had been brushed aside with uncharacteristic brusqueness. True, time was limited. The disappearances on many planets, including especially this one, were increasing alarmingly. Once Spock might have pressed the argument further. The 2.8 years he had spent with the Vulcan Masters, attempting to expunge his Human half, had not wholly been erased by his return to the Enterprise. Nonetheless, Spock should have insisted on the foolhardiness of separation. Kirk was 4.5 minutes late. McCoy was overdue. Chekov appeared to be in some rather vague state. Uhura was missing. And Spock was far from the total logic of Kolinahr. . . . Kirk backed against the wall. The beings who had come out of nowhere were not Helvan. They were not of any known species. And they struck Admiral, Acting Captain, James T. Kirk, possibly the most experienced commander in the galaxy in dealing with unknowns, as gut-level terrifying. They were not large—perhaps a head shorter than he was. They had conical noses on mouthless heads that had a vaguely mechanical look. Yet he sensed that they were beings, not robots. How he knew it, he did not know. But he knew also that there was some sense of utter callousness about them, as if they had no empathy or fellow-feeling for a living being. He shook off terror and tried a standard nonverbal greeting. One no-mouth raised an appendage and sent a shimmer like heatwaves toward him. It seared his nerves. He didn’t fall, but he couldn’t move. They came to him and one inspected him. Hard finger-tentacles probed into his ears, mouth, then felt him over like prime beef or breeding stock, adding rage and d...
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