Star Trek: The Original Series - 147 - Devil’s Bargain (3 page)

Hannah looked troubled, as if she had said something she had not meant to. “I only mean that we Vesbians are people who are very near to nature,” she replied after a moment. “For most of us, the thought of leaving this world is akin to dying. And that, Captain, is an emotion I
do
share with most of my people.”

They returned to the government center and a feast that was the equal of the repast they had enjoyed upon first arriving. Kirk was impressed with the official dining room. Often such official venues were decorated in a cold and overbearing manner, but the Vesbians seemed to be expert at setting a grand spectacle.

First there was the table itself, which was not
an indeterminate laminate but crafted of a hard and durable local wood with a beautiful grain. The chairs were large, each fit for a king. And the platters set before them would have befitted a royal feast as well. The smell was delicious.

When he was about halfway through devouring a local roasted fowl with traces of rosemary and some local herb that was its perfect complement, Kirk looked up to see Hannah Faber watching him eat.

She laughed. “I take it you are pleased with the
bürste henne,
Captain? It’s a specialty of my home section. A planetary native, and entirely free range, but we’ve selectively bred them for their meat. The plumage also makes a matchless insulation for certain purposes.”

“The taste is . . . incredible,” Kirk said.

“And that’s a
good
thing?”

“A
very
good thing,” Kirk replied, and he quickly returned to chowing down.

When Faber and his retinue pushed back their chairs and made motions to return to their duties, Kirk decided the time had come for frank talk.

“Chancellor Faber, please indulge me for a few more moments, and hear out what I have to say. We’ve come a long way, and we did not travel here merely to tour your beautiful world and leave. We have been sent on a mission, to keep your people from dying when the asteroid strikes this planet. Since it is obvious that you understand this danger
is looming, what I would like to do is emphasize the extent of the damage the asteroid will cause when it arrives.” Kirk held up his hands to forestall any objections. “Please allow me to attempt this, I beg of you. If not for your own sake, then for your people’s.” Kirk looked over at Hannah. “And for the sake of your children,” he added.

Faber sighed but sank back into his chair. “Very well, Captain Kirk. I will listen. But I must tell you that I doubt you will say anything that I have not heard before. As a matter of fact, you may be surprised to learn it, but Major Merling made the same argument and has long championed it to me and to the Council.”

“Absolutely,” said Merling. “It is my opinion that this colony must leave Vesbius, immediately. I have come to believe that the only way this can be accomplished is through military coercion. I believe that, for the sake of the people, these methods should be employed at once. This democracy with which we govern ourselves must give way to a stronger government, at least in the short term.”

“Treason,” muttered one of the large men who had accompanied the chancellor. And then he shook his head and said something that Kirk didn’t quite catch but that sounded like “exo” or “exos.”

Evidently Merling heard him and understood.

“No! I believe Chancellor Faber is the man to lead us, not some revolutionary junta. If only I
could convince him of this.” Merling trailed off, shaking his head. This was clearly an argument he’d had with Faber before, and had lost before. But it was equally clear to Kirk that Merling was an obsessive, not to say rigid, sort of character—a type Kirk had encountered all too often before—and that the major was not about to give up on his argument.

“I didn’t say anything about needing a military government. Democracy can accomplish much when you give it a chance,” said Kirk. “But I can tell you the consequences of remaining—consequences that are entailed on a purely physical, scientific basis. It’s not pretty.” He turned to his first officer. “Spock, can you explain it to them?”

Spock leaned forward and templed his fingers together. “Ladies and gentlemen, the captain is correct. I estimate the chance of extinction at 98.253 percent in the two planetary years after the asteroid strikes.” Spock shook his head, as if considering any possible alternative and regretfully rejecting it. “Mister Chancellor, your shelters are not a long-term solution. They will not work, and your people
will
die.”

Two

Spock was frustrated. Although he strove to maintain what he considered a healthy detachment from the emotional consequences of problems he encountered, the situation on Vesbius called for action. The colonists were capable of rational behavior, yet they were not engaging in it.

The science officer recalled the intense efforts that he had employed in the attempt to divert the asteroid that was headed on a collision course with the planet Amerind. It had been an extremely . . . frustrating experience. At first he had attempted to use the ship’s deflectors to push the enormous asteroid off its path. When this failed, he had employed the ship’s full complement of phasers to try to split the asteroid. All of this he had done while his captain was absent, lost on the planet toward which the asteroid was headed. Logic dictated the course he followed, but Spock was troubled by the thought that his friend was in the path of that asteroid and, worse yet, might be hurt and in need of aid.

He knew the capabilities of the
Enterprise,
but
he had come up against their limitations on that mission. As a Vulcan he avoided making intuitive decisions, but he had put a great deal of faith in Mister Scott based on past experience. The chief engineer always seemed to come through with engineering miracles when called upon, and Spock had trusted that Scott would be able to succeed. But he had asked too much of the ship and of her engineer; the
Enterprise
had been crippled.

The asteroid that had been headed toward Amerind was larger than the one that was hurling toward Vesbius, yet the energy necessary to deflect the Vesbius asteroid from its course had increased exponentially as it approached the planet. At its current position, there was no way that the
Enterprise
could deflect it onto a harmless vector. In fact, the asteroid had been extremely close, but not on a collision course, when it was perturbed by a conjugation of the two moons of Vesbius on the far side of the planet; the combined gravitational wells that resulted pulled it into a direct path for the planet. As a scientist, Spock did not deal in absolutes without proof. However, there had never been a chance that this asteroid could be moved to another course.

Furthermore, this asteroid was a different composition from the Amerind one. Sensors indicated that it had a semicometary structure, with a rock and ice accretion around a central metallic core. This was not an asteroid that could be split like a
diamond in the manner attempted with the Amerind asteroid. It would require structural faults to do this, and the object presented no such fault lines.

Spock sought a way to communicate the dire nature of this threat to the Vesbians, to get to what, his experience told him, was the heart of the matter.

On a platter before Spock was one of the melons that the planet produced. It was similar to a Vulcan
meela,
and also shared characteristics with an Earth cantaloupe. The Vesbians, however, had applied some sort of quick-freeze method to the melon, and when served it was ice cold and quite tasty. Spock picked up the melon—this particular specimen had not been opened yet—and held it before him.

Yes, this will do,
he thought.

“The asteroid that is headed in this direction is in fact a captured comet about one billion Earth years old,” Spock began. “In many respects, its properties resemble those of this melon. It has a hard exterior crust and a softer, more liquid interior. Unlike this melon, however, there is an iron-nickel central core around which the ice of the comet has congealed. You might imagine that such a structure will be less devastating to the planet upon impact, but this is not the case. In fact, the concentration of water and rock is of the perfect consistency to produce multiple and widespread strikes after atmospheric entry, ensuring that the strike will produce a splatter effect.”

Spock drew back his arm as if to throw the melon.

“If I were to toss this against the wall over there, you would observe the target spread of such an impact. And in fact, the pieces of the falling asteroid would be carried by elliptical trajectories around your world, and, slowed by atmospheric friction, even the side of Vesbius facing away from first impact would receive massive ancillary strikes.”

Spock noticed that the Vesbians around the table had flinched, perhaps thinking he meant to actually throw the melon. He noted that if he were human, he would probably take some pleasure in this reaction. The Vesbian prejudice toward him and toward all aliens was illogical as well as a personal hindrance to carrying out his mission. Nevertheless, he must do what he could. Spock placed the melon carefully back on the platter before him and considered it.

“The Chicxulub crater, the geologic structure on Earth which is most probably the impact site of the asteroid or comet that hastened the extinction of the dinosaurs, is slightly oval, indicating an angled descent. It is approximately one hundred and seventy-seven kilometers across. This is just the middle portion of the impact site, furthermore, and the entire structure is three hundred kilometers across. Based on these figures, the asteroid itself would have been a little over ten kilometers wide and would
have struck with the kinetic energy equivalent to about ninety-six teratons of TNT explosive.”

Spock gazed around the table and noted the general expressions of bewilderment on the faces of the colonists. “I would offer the comparison of the largest nuclear weapon ever used by humans. This was the Soviet Union’s Tsar bomb, which had a yield of fifty megatons. The largest volcanic eruption on Earth is the cataclysm that formed the La Garita Caldera in North America. The explosive yield of that event was equivalent to two hundred forty gigatons of TNT—that is, four thousand eight hundred times more powerful than the Tsar bomb. As you know, a teraton is one thousand gigatons. Therefore the destructive power of the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs on Earth was equivalent to ninety-six million megatons, or one million nine hundred twenty thousand Tsar bombs going off simultaneously.”

The science officer saw he was still not getting through to some of his listeners. “Or consider it in terms of antimatter reactions. Most schoolchildren know the story of Philos D, the moon that used to circle the fourth planet in the Beta Geminorum system. This was where initial experimentation with dilithium crystals took place. On that moon, one kiloton of antimatter was accidentally exposed to ordinary matter, and that explosion not only utterly destroyed a small-sized moon but made the planet below uninhabitable. This was equivalent to
roughly half the destructive potential of the asteroid heading your way.”

“But our scientists assure me that the planet will not be broken into pieces,” Faber said. “In fact, while the asteroid will leave quite a scar, Vesbius is much too large to be geologically destabilized by it.”

Spock raised an eyebrow. What would it take to make them understand the danger they faced?

“In under one second, the asteroid impact will have dug its way through the planetary crust, blasting up streamers of superheated steam and molten rock, including not only vaporized portions of the asteroid but the material excavated from the crater. Some of this material will be accelerating so rapidly it will achieve escape velocity and fly into space. Most of it, however, will remain suspended for a time in the atmosphere. An enormous dust cloud will form, blanketing your planet.”

“Yes, global cooling,” said Faber. “We are aware of the effect.”

“Since Vesbius is more than two thirds covered with water, you should also be aware that, depending on where the asteroid hits, the impact will likely create a mega-tsunami that will crest at three to four kilometers in height and will move inland for hundreds of kilometers. On Earth, the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs generated a tsunami that, on the North American continent, traveled all the way inland from the coast to the middle of the
continent.” Spock picked up a napkin and carefully held it over his plate. “Worldwide earthquakes and volcanic eruptions will be generated that may last for centuries. Steaming new basalt plains will form, devoid of life. There will be hurricane-force winds, and wildfires will burn all exposed vegetation to a crisp. At first, the fires will create a rapid temperature rise and the greenhouse effect. But soon supercooling will result. The resulting sulfuric and carbon dioxide components in the air will eventually fall back down as acid rain. During this time temperatures will plummet. A global ice age will begin that will last for millennia.” Spock dropped his napkin on the plate and put his hand over it. “You will emerge from your shelters, if you emerge, into a devastated world. A world that is as close to hell as this one currently is close to heaven.”

Chancellor Faber looked pale, and his daughter, who sat beside him, seemed overcome by the summary Spock had just delivered. The Vulcan reflected that at least he had gotten through to some. But would it make a difference?

Major Merling, on the other hand, was trying to keep a smile off his face and nodding in the most self-satisfied manner. Spock thought it ironic that the man who seemed to despise his presence was also his ally at the table.

“Doomed,” muttered Hannah Faber. “We’re doomed.”

“Not if you let us get you off this planet,” said Captain Kirk.

Spock nodded in agreement. “It would seem the only logical solution,” he said. “But to achieve this objective, we must begin immediately.”

“No, you don’t understand,” said Hannah. “We’re not leaving. We can’t leave. But our poor world—it will die.”