to his word, that's what he made of the galley. We
didn't eat well, but we did eat. At least we wouldn't
faint from hungermthat is, if the broccoli with peanut
butter sauce didn't kill us first. As the hours passed,
we found out how the computer system worked, found
out how the warp engines were tied into it, found out
which circuits, foils, trip-joints, and conduits were
responsible for the navigational lockup. I allowed
them time for sleep, but only barely enough, and only
on Dr. McCoy's insistence as senior medical officer. I
catnapped, but only when he exercised his medical
authority, and even then I did nothing but dream about
which circuitry panel I was going to try next. I refused
to believe the obvious that we were trying to break an
unbreakable program. The more obvious it became,
55
the more determined I was to find that one flaw, that
one backdoor that would give me access to control
over the ship I supposedly commanded.
By the third day of this, we were all showing effects
of the strain. Scanner, especially, since most of the
pressure--and my wrath--landed on him. I wasn't a
technical specialist, but I did have a way with ma-
chines, only because I didn't compltely understand
them and they didn't completely understand me. Deep
down, I knew they were stupid, no matter how brainy
they pretended to be. There was a way to wheedle
into, out of, past, or through just about any system,
any program, and if I had to force unprecedented
performances, I would do it. There was a way to hack
into that navigational programming and I would find it.
"If it kills me, you'll find it!" Scanner finally ex-
ploded when I muttered my intents as we both lay on
our back under the dismantled bridge panel. He
crawled out, unfolded himself, and got to his feet,
primed for a tirade. His face was drawn and pale, his
eyes ringed with exhaustion. Behind him, Merete had
been trying to piece back together one of the circuit
boards I'd picked apart. She paused to listen, but did
not interrupt as the volcano bubbled up in Scanner's
face. "We've tried everything we know. Logic over-
ride, process of elimination, systems confusion, drop-
snag, memory-circuit jumping--I don't know what
y'ali want anymore! It's Mr. Spock's program! Where
d'you come off thinking there's a flaw?"
I stood up and brushed several years' worth of
construction dust from the legs of my flight suit.
"Even Spock knows better than to design a com-
pletely impenetrable system, Scanner. You know he
could get into it if he had to." "He can. We ain't him!"
"I don't care. There's a way. I'm going to find it."
I stepped past him. My own momentum swung me
around when Scanner clasped my arm and pulled me
56
back to face him. I hadn't realized until then the extent
of the frustration he felt. Nor, I think, had he realized
the extent of my determination. We squared off, sepa-
rated only by a circuit-drenched expanse of bridge
space.
"Look," he said hoarsely, "I know you got Lieuten-
ant Commander slashes on your sleeve. I know you're
the youngest hoo-hah ever to get the Medal of Valor,
and if you pulled my socks off and tickled my feet I'd
have to admit you deserved it. But one big bang don't
add up to eight or ten years of experience and if you
scratch the surface you're gonna find out you're just
like me and Sarda and everybody else, just fresh outa
the plum tree, and we need help to do this! You can't
just 1olly in here and pop off orders to break program-
ming by somebody like Spock, you just can't! You
can't!"
His words grated on my bones. The truth of them,
the spark within them, lit the burning need to establish
myself beyond the boundaries that had been set for
me, the cavernous desire to be worthy of Kirk's
expectations, even beyond my own. And even beyond
the deep humiliation of being told off by someone who
was supposed to be under my command, there rose a
special indignation. Closer and closer it came to the
surface, until finally, in a rumbling, chilling tone of its
own, it broke free.
between myself and Scanner, hardly recognizing my
own voice. "You can report status to me. You can tell
me what's happening, and what might happen, and
what happened in the past. You can tell me I'm suck-
ing antimatter. You can tell me anything you want to
tell me. But don't ever tell me what I can't... do."
The words sizzled in the air between us. They had
been hardly more than a whisper, the hissing voice of
some command demon that had been dormant within
me.
57
Scanner stared at me. Evidently he expected my
reaction even less than I did. I'd never seriously
exercised those commander slashes before.
He blinked slowly, and his eyes went down. For the
first time both he and I understood the separation we
must work within, and I genuinely felt--for the first
time in my life----the intense desolation of command.
Rather than waiting for the situation to thicken, I
turned and walked off the bridge. Merete was waiting
in the narrow corridor as I stepped through. Our eyes
met. Her tolerant expression manifested itself in a
gentle tone of voice. "He's right, you know."
And the demon flushed back into power. My chin
snapped upward. Wrong time, wrong mood.
"I'm in charge, Doctor," I snapped. "I'll tell you
when he's right."
The desolation followed me as I made my way deep
into the ship, trying to find a moment of peace in the
midst of my obsession. I didn't like the sounds that
had come out of me. I wondered if Captain Kirk had
ever found himself in a situation like this, standing
alone against the people he was trying to protect.
What was it like for him? He had close friends too--
Spook, McCoy, Scott--how did he manage to com-
mand them, order them around when he had to?
Where did he draw the line? Where was the distinction
between _fi??nd and commanding officer? Perhaps
ere wasn t any distinction at all. Perhaps the friend-
ship had to be sacrificed altogether. Did I dare believe
that? It seemed the easiest way right now, for me, ira
lonely way.
The engineering circuit-boards to the steering mech-
amsms on the transport were spread around me as I
lay on my side before an open access-chamber, drown-
ing my insecurities in snapping voltage, when I be-
came aware of a second presence. I didn't feel guilty,
so it couldn't have been Scanner. I didn't feel any
waves of sympathy, so it wasn't Merete either.
58
"Feel better now?" the tolerant voice began.
"I'm not sur
e," I admitted.
There was a shuffle beside me, and Dr. McCoy
slipped into view as he sat down near me. I continued
working. The beleaguered circuits crackled their fa-
tigue.
"Are you going to tell me I'm behaving irratio-
nally?" I asked him.
He shrugged, one brow raising into an arch. "Irra-
tionally? Not yet. Obsessively... maybe." "And obsession isn't irrational, sir?"
"Depends on who's displaying the tendency," he
said casually. "Question is, do you think you're acting
irrationally."
It might have been in question form, but something
about it wasn't a question at all. I paused in my circuit
junctioning and looked at him. "Defiance is a perfectly
rational process," I said, hoping it sounded reason-
able.
Now both brows went up. "New one on me," he
muttered. Then he looked directly at me and asked,
"Are you sure, really sure, that you want to break the
captain's programming?"
I settled back to work, rather as a buffet around my
answer. "Yes, I do."
"We'll be at Argelius in twenty-eight hours," he
pointed out. "Maybe your answer will be there."
"And maybe it won't." I tried not to sound flippant.
"Sir, you know Captain Kirk. You know he'd never
allow this to happen to him. I can't help but think he
expects the same from me."
He tipped his head calmly. "You'll tear yourself
apart if you keep comparing yourself to him."
My hands, now scored with a dozen tiny electrical
burns, felt hot and clammy inside the access chamber.
I pulled them out, knowing I was fooling myself about
gaining entry into the system by any mechanical route.
I scooted out and leaned up against the bulkhead.
59
"I'm comparing myseff to me," I told him.
McCoy pursed his lips and said nothing more about
it, though I could see and sense him thinking deeply,
possibly analyzing my mental state with his years of
experience with deep-space psychology. Actually, I'd
have relished the chance to talk to him, to sift out my
conflicting feelings, perhaps even to ask his advice,
but there wasn't time.
"Sir, you know Commander Spock. How would he
program a system ff he wanted it to be impermeable by
anyone but himself?"
McCoy spread his hands out. "You're asking me? I
don't even know how he makes the computer play
chess with him. He'd do it logically, of course... one
by one eliminating every possible flaw. He'd probably
get the computer to help him set up the system in the
first place. Double indemnity."
"But there's a way into any system," I persisted.
"It's just a matter of--" I scouted for a better word,
but there wasn't one. "Odds," I said.
He puzzled for a moment, then held up a finger.
"Oh. You mean like ff you fire an infinite number of
shots at an infinite number of monkeys..."
"You'll eventually kill Shakespeare." A grin broke
my frown and some of the tension flowed away.
"But you're overtaxing our resources, Piper," the
doctor suggested. "There isn't the technical knowl-
edge on board this ship to outguess a computer expert
of Spock's level. From what I can see, you've already
tried every possible way of getting into that system.
You've exhausted your options."
As we sat on the floor, leaning up against opposite
bulkheads, Dr. McCoy's untechnical presence and his
obvious emotional empathy for my situation gave me a
portal to slip through. In that quiet, sequestered place
I found a clarity of purpose that had eluded me, no
matter how directed my goals seemed, and a simplicity
that just might be my salvation.
6O
"All the options," I murmured on a sigh. A sigh of
surrender, perhaps.
He too had been lost in thought, and now looked up.
"What? Oh. Yes. At least, looks that way to me."
I stared into the access chamber. The circuits snick-
ered back at me.
Scanner appeared, or shall I say peeked, through the
narrow doorway, his fatigue-drawn face wearing its
most puppyish expression. "Permission to come aft?"
I peered at him for a moment, then felt myself relax.
"Granted."
He crouched near Dr. McCoy in the cramped area
and sighed, hanging his head and not looking at me
until he absolutely had to. "I thought about trying to
cross-connect the spiral circuits into the computer
bank, but I thought I'd better get your okay before I
blow up the ship."
I dropped my gaze for a moment of private amuse-
ment, realizing the lengths I'd pushed poor Scanner to
in his attempt to satisfy me. He seemed completely
serious. He was that desperate. A faint shudder passed
through me. Cross-fed spiral circuits. Br,,,.
"Sit down, Scanner," I said. "Take a break. Believe
it or not, I'm not out to wear you down."
He slumped onto his haunches against the bulkhead
and waved a weary hand. "Nah, s'okay. I'm just the
comedy relief."
McCoy shifted his legs on the cool metal floor and
said, "I think we should all get some rest." Then he
paused and regarded me soberly. "Assuming we've
admitted we're going to Argelius."
My next words tasted bad coming up, but I let my
pride slide away long enough to say them, for the
sakes of the people I was responsible for. It wasn't
desperation that was driving me, after all; I didn't have
the excuse of trying to save lives or the success of my
mission. It was, as Scanner had muttered at me a day
ago, "plain cussed mulishness." Lacking any honor-
61
able excuse for my behavior, somewhat deflated by
Dr. McCoy's accuracies about trying to imitate Kirk, I
sank into remission and said, "We've done our best.
Even Kirk couldn't ask more of us. We've tried every
normal way of breaking the programming."
Scanner rubbed his eyes. "Everything but voodoo
conjurin'."
My neck ached as I wearily nodded. I stared with
unfocused eyes past my arms as they ,ested on my
knees, past the circuit cleaver still hanging from my
fingers. Aware of everything, I saw nothing. Voodoo,
he'd said.
"Every normal way," I mumbled. I continued to
stare.
Vague movements in my field of vision, McCoy and
Scanner shared a glance, then looked at me again.
"Uh-oh," Scanner moaned. "Lookit that. I'm
scared of that smile."
Maybe I was smiling. I wasn't sure. My fatigue-
stiflened cheeks did feel tighter, but I wasn't paying
attention. Inside my head a tiny schooner suddenly
came hard about in the face of its enemy and slashed a
new course across lmpossible's bow. My fingers be-
gan to tingle.
"We've been going about this all wrong," I said.
Scanher's head drooped between his knees. "I knew
it, I knew she was gonna say that... I knew it..."
"Come on!" I got up and led the way back to the
bridge, hardly aware of my own movements and the
aches of strain and fatigue. They followed me, proba-
bly as much out of curiosity as to follow my order, and
even Merete, who could sleep through a supernova,
was awakened by the electric anticipation in the air.
She came out of her cubicle and followed, groggy but
aware that something was happening. We emerged
onto the bridge amid the scattered mechanical debris
of Scanner's second attempt to reroute the computer
62
program through the main guidance system. I settled
into the command chair.
"We've been sailing the wrong tack," I said.
Scanner shook his head, and his bangs fell over tired
eyes. "What's a tack?"
McCoy and Merete crowded near us as I continued.
"Instead of thinking about the programming, we
should have been thinking about who programmed it."
Scanner grimaced in perplexity. "Spock pro-
grammed it."
"Of course. A perfectly rational program, impos-
sible to break by rational means."
"What are you getting at?" McCoy asked.
"I'm going to force the machine to be irrational."
"You can't do that," Scanner argued. "This is a
computer. You can't fool a computer."
"It's a machine, Scanner. Machines are idiots.
They're marvelous tools, but they're stupid. You
know why they don't put legs on computers? Because
they'd walk off a cliff if you told them to."
Drained and now confused, Scanner dropped into
the nearest seat and slumped. "Okay," he resigned,
"but the only one who knows what's going on inside
that machine is the machine itself."
"My thoughts exactly." I settled into the command
chair and punched into the computer link. "Computer,
identify my voice pattern."
"Working. Lieutenant Commander Piper, Star Fleet
identificationre"
"Now identify the commander of this vessel."
The instruments quietly hummed. "Lieutenant
Commander Piper, command status authorized Star
Date 3374.4."
"Verify my personal authority to engage Class A-1
priority command under master's voice pattern."