Foundations Book Two Read online

  A Lawgiver.

  Another of Landru's enforcers was standing at the mouth of an alley. A third had appeared as if conjured by magic, standing in a doorway to Scott's right.

  "They're coming out of the woodwork," Lindstrom said. Scott noted the anxiety in his friend's voice as he turned to see that another Lawgiver was standing in the street behind them, blocking the path that they had used to get there.

  They were surrounded.

  Chapter

  8

  "They must think we're lonely."

  Al-Khaled's quip did nothing to ease Scott's escalating tension as he regarded the four Lawgivers that had taken up stations around him and his companions.

  "Whatever happens," he said, "we canna let them near the torpedoes. We only have to hold them off for a few more minutes."

  "Less than five," Lindstrom offered, holding his tricorder up for emphasis. "We need to get away from here." Scott agreed. Though the torpedoes would not produce anything resembling their normal violent explosive force upon detonation, the electromagnetic pulse they would emit could still cause severe neurological damage to anyone standing too close. He had no intention of setting the weapons off until he and the others had found some form of cover.

  "I don't think our friends are going to just let us walk out of here," Ghrex said. Scott had to agree with the Denobulan's observation as he studied the Lawgivers, who had assumed nearly equidistant positions from one another, creating a circle with Scott and his companions in the center. The Starfleet officers quickly took up a defensive posture, facing outward with their backs to each other.

  "You attack the Body," the Lawgiver in front of Scott said, pointing his staff at the engineer. "You will be absorbed."

  Then he heard the whine, faint at first but growing in intensity with each passing second as, only a few meters in front of him, a pinpoint of light appeared. It stretched and elongated, taking on an unmistakable humanoid-like shape.

  "Landru," Lindstrom said.

  "A projection," Scott said, remembering Mr. Spock's report and its details of the holography Landru had demonstrated. Scott had hoped to study the mechanisms behind the incredible display of technology, provided enough time remained between the completion of his repair duties and the arrival of the Enterprise to pick him up.

  I know, he chided himself. Be careful what you wish for, and all that.

  "You are the enemy," the projection said. "The infection you carry is lethal, and your destruction is necessary to the continued health of the Body."

  Scott shook his head. "I dinna think so." To the rest of the group he said, "Time for us to leave, people." Taking aim once more at the Lawgiver nearest to him, Scott pressed the firing stud on his phaser.

  Click.

  Frowning, Scott tilted the weapon up to examine its power setting and, seeing that it still possessed most of its charge, attempted to aim and fire it again. Once more, the phaser refused to cooperate.

  "Mine doesn't work, either," al-Khaled said, followed quickly by similar reports from Lindstrom and Ghrex.

  "Your weapons have been neutralized," Landru said, "Just as you shall be. You will become one with the ultimate good."

  As if in response to the computer's statement, the Lawgiver in front of Scott stepped forward and pointed once more to the engineer with his staff. "You will come."

  "What do we do now?" al-Khaled asked.

  Scott did not know. After all, Captain Kirk's the one who knows how to talk to these blasted contraptions. The engineer's expertise with computers was limited to the realm of keeping them operating at peak efficiency and diagnosing and repairing malfunctions.

  He also knew that negotiating with Landru was out of the question. The computer was merely following the directives its creator had imparted to it thousands of years previously. So too were the Lawgivers, each of them controlled by the sliver of microcircuitry embedded within their bodies. Their subservience to Landru was absolute, and even if it was not, Scott had no time to figure out how to circumvent their programming.

  "Why don't they just kill us and get it over with?" Ghrex asked.

  "It would go against Landru's programming," Lindstrom said. "Violence is used as a last resort when it senses that no other options are available. Its directive is to absorb its enemies and stamp out the violence and hate it believes they represent. Turning his enemies into allies of its notion of good is a larger victory than simply responding with violence in kind." Suddenly his expression darkened. "Maybe that's it."

  "What's it?" Scott asked.

  Rather than replying, Lindstrom instead returned his phaser to his hip. Then, raising his hands to show that they were empty, he said to the Lawgiver nearest to him, "We obey the will of Landru."

  Scott was aghast. "Chris, what are ye doin'?"

  "Buying us some time," Lindstrom countered.

  "You will find peace and contentment within the Body," the Landru projection said calmly, as if responding to Lindstrom's act of surrender.

  The Lawgiver pointed his staff at him. "You will come."

  "This is crazy," al-Khaled said, and Scott had to agree. What was Lindstrom thinking? He could applaud the man's bravery, and though the number of options open to them was rapidly dwindling, Scott had no intention of willingly handing himself over to these goons. Frantically he looked about the courtyard, searching for something that could be used as a weapon, anything that might give him some kind of advantage.

  Then he saw the clock.

  The giant clock at the end of the courtyard, its massive white face highlighted by the black numbers and hands denoting the time. He had not given it much thought in the past few minutes. As his eyes focused on it, however, he realized that the clock was all that really mattered now as it began to chime, sounding out across the courtyard and echoing off the brick facades of the surrounding buildings.

  Six o'clock.

  "It's time!" al-Khaled called out.

  What had once been known here as "the Red Hour" was now the signal for Scott and his friends to put their plan into motion. In his mind's eye the engineer could see other members of the Starfleet contingent, stationed at key points across the city, carrying out their assigned tasks. Some of that work entailed disabling independent power control mechanisms that had already been installed by engineers from the Lovell to replace those systems that Landru had once overseen. In some extreme cases, workers at this very moment were, if things were proceeding according to plan, even going so far as to physically cut power lines or destroy control consoles in various underground facilities where Landru had presided with total autonomy. Scott knew that actions, drastic as they may be, were the only methods to protect those critical systems that would be needed after Landru was deactivated once and for all.

  None of that'll matter though if we canna do anything.

  Apparently Lindstrom had not forgotten this, either.

  Drawing abreast of one Lawgiver, the sociologist then flicked several switches on his tricorder. Suddenly several of the robed figures went into some kind of seizure, collapsing to the ground and shaking violently.

  Lindstrom grabbed the Lawgiver's staff and wrenched the weapon free, then ran toward one of the Lawgivers who wasn't affected by whatever it was the sociologist did. Swinging the staff like a bat, Lindstrom struck the Lawgiver in the left shoulder, sending the man tumbling to the street.

  "Watch out!" al-Khaled shouted even as he tried to take advantage of the distraction. He launched himself at another of the non-seizing Lawgivers as the enforcer aimed his staff at Lindstrom, tackling the robed figure and sending them both to the ground before the weapon discharged.

  The projection of Landru, seemingly unfazed by the rapid turn of events, continued to speak in the same calm manner. "You attempt to harm the Body. You must therefore be destroyed for the good of all."

  Scott called out to his friends, "Let's get out of here!" The four officers sprinted away from the torpedoes, heading for an alley that Scott had already see
n and decided upon as the best place for cover in the limited time available to them. As they ran, Scott reached for his communicator, flipping the unit open and activating it.

  Almost there. Just another few seconds.

  Beside him, Lindstrom was trying to read the status display on his tricorder. "Hang on, Scotty. I don't know if everyone's ready for us or not."

  "They bloody well better be," Scott replied as the group dodged into the alley. Throwing himself against one wall, he gave his communicator a final glance to ensure that it was set to the correct frequency before resting his thumb atop the transmit control. "Because we're out of time."

  He pressed the switch.

  The explosion was not nearly as loud as it would have been had the torpedoes' original payload been allowed to detonate. Still, it was impressive enough. Scott felt the shock wave hit the building they were hiding against as it buffeted the brick exterior, and the ground vibrated beneath his feet in response to the massive electromagnetic pulse the torpedoes unleashed.

  "You will be absorbed," were the last words of the Landru projection before it twisted and distorted, disappearing altogether as whatever source that had powered it fell in the face of the pulse.

  Other effects became apparent immediately as well. First, Scott's communicator promptly went dead in his hand, the transtator circuitry offering no resistance to the pulse. Lindstrom's tricorder suffered a similar fate, as the sociologist was unable to deactivate the unit in time to protect it from the blast.

  Within seconds the effects of the explosion began to dissipate, fading almost as quickly as they had appeared. Then there was only silence.

  Poking his head around the corner of the building, Scott saw the four Lawgivers lying scattered across the courtyard near the casings of the three torpedoes. It was not hard to figure out what had happened to them, he realized grimly. The pulse would have overloaded the implants at the bases of their skulls as well. If the resulting shock had not killed them outright, the least it would have done is render them unconscious.

  "Scotty," al-Khaled called out softly. As Scott turned to face his friend, the Lovell engineer held up his tricorder, which had been deactivated during the torpedo detonation. "According to my scans, most of the critical systems were shut down in time. We did lose some secondary power distribution relays, but nothing serious. Our plan worked."

  Nodding, Scott said nothing at first. Instead he looked out again on the scene of the fallen Lawgivers, which to him illustrated profoundly the nature of what they had just done here. Once again they had cast off the oppressive hand of technology left to run rampant so that it could no longer control the free will of living beings.

  Now what?

  "Engineers. All you know how to do is fix machines."

  Scott, al-Khaled, and Lindstrom walked down the sidewalk bordering one of the city's main streets. All around them, Betan citizens were going about the tasks of cleaning up the city in the aftermath of Landru's nearly successful bid to regain control over their lives. Various people offered smiles and warm gestures of greeting as they walked past. It was an altogether different scene from the one that had transpired here less than a day before.

  "Are ye saying that this wasna engineering problem, Mr. Lindstrom?" Scott asked. "Besides, that stunt you pulled on the Lawgivers looked like an engineering solution to me."

  Lindstrom smiled sheepishly. "Well, I knew the high-level scan could induce that kind of seizure in some of the Lawgivers. It happened by accident before, so I thought it was worth a shot to do it on purpose this time."

  Exchanging a wry grin with al-Khaled, Scott said, "Well then, lad, perhaps you'll enlighten us as to where our thinking is wrong."

  "It's not wrong," Lindstrom countered. "But where your expertise is in the machinery, mine is in the people those machines were built to serve. Landru wasn't out to kill us, merely to negate us as a threat. If we had continued to resist him and the Lawgivers, however, he would have eventually ordered his men to kill us, to protect himself if nothing else."

  "But if we cooperated," al-Khaled added, "then his programming dictated that the Lawgivers take us to their absorption chambers. In other words, we should have just let them escort us far enough from the torpedoes so we could set them off anyway?"

  Lindstrom nodded. "Exactly."

  "A mighty bold idea, lad," Scott said. "So tell me, why didn't ye stick to it?"

  The sociologist could only smile sheepishly. "When the clock sounded, I wasn't sure what the Lawgivers would do. I remembered about the scans, and I just reacted."

  "Ah," Scott replied. "Spoken like a man after Captain Kirk's own heart. He'll love the report you'll surely be filin' once all the dust settles here."

  "That could be a while," al-Khaled said. "It will take some time to acclimate these people to their new situation. Some of them will not believe that Landru is gone forever, and still others will actually miss the control he once possessed. I do not envy you your task here, Mr. Lindstrom."

  "It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Lindstrom said. "With help from Starfleet and the Federation, these people will have everything they'll need to make a better life for themselves. Even with Landru permanently disabled, the automated network he controlled is more than enough to keep essential services operational. It'll also provide a nice foundation for bringing in more advanced equipment to help with the transition. The Betan people have all the skills they need to work and thrive, they simply need a guiding hand to help them evolve socially and culturally."

  Al-Khaled said, "Early reports indicate that Starfleet wants permission to use Beta III as a starship maintenance facility. It will take years to work out solutions to problems these people do not even know they are going to face yet, but who knows? One day, this could be one of the premiere planets in the Federation. I almost regret that I will not be around to see it."

  Scott almost agreed with his friend, though he knew that neither al-Khaled, nor himself for that matter, would ever have as much passion for such an endeavor as Lindstrom obviously possessed. The challenges the engineers sought lay elsewhere, after all.

  "But that's why we're glad for experts like you," al-Khaled added. "While you want to meet new races of people and learn about their culture and maybe help to improve their lives, we just want to take apart all of their toys."

  "Fair enough," Lindstrom said, "but suppose you and that shipload of engineers of yours are the first ones to come across a newly discovered race. You'll be able to figure out their hardware, of that I'm sure. But who's going to talk to the people who own it?"

  It was an interesting question, one for which neither Scott nor al-Khaled had a ready answer.

  At least, not today.

  Chapter

  9

  Stardate 53676.2

  "I'm hungry," Bart Faulwell said as his stomach growled for the third time in ten minutes.

  Involved as he was with his work at the main computer station of the Senuta ship's compact command deck, Soloman nevertheless paused to regard his companion. "I have noted the indicative sounds emanating from within your torso."

  Faulwell chuckled at the perfect deadpan delivery of the statement. In his experience, the Bynars as a species weren't normally given to frivolous wordplay. They preferred instead to concentrate on ensuring that any communication was restricted only to what was essential to the accomplishment of a given task. This was especially true with verbal interaction, which was typically employed only when dealing with other species that did not possess the Bynars' fantastic ability to communicate at speeds rivaling the most advanced computer processors. Like other members of his race, Soloman much preferred interacting with machines instead of living beings, as it freed him of the need to slow down the process of giving and receiving information.

  However, he had been taking infrequent, tentative steps of late to engage various members of the da Vinci crew in verbal discussion when it related to the assignment at hand or, more recently, in more casual conversation
. Faulwell wouldn't categorize Soloman's attempts as "banter" or "chit chat," but it was a departure, and a most welcome one at that, from what had once characterized the Bynar's normal behavior.

  "Well, if you know what it means," Faulwell said as he continued to study the array of computer display screens dominating the rear wall of the command deck, "then you also know that it's not something I'm going to want to ignore for too much longer."

  Despite his teasing comment, he knew he only had himself to blame for being hungry. There had been plenty of time to grab something to eat prior to beaming over from the da Vinci, but Faulwell had elected to spend that time writing a quick note to Anthony. He'd spent thirty minutes painstakingly updating his partner on their current mission, composing his thoughts on paper by hand as he always did before transcribing the missive for transmission via subspace communication. The handwritten letter, like all of the others that he wrote to Anthony, would be saved until such time as Faulwell could deliver them in person. The intimate ritual was one of his few private pleasures, and he had become so engrossed in it that he had nearly lost track of time. When the reminder to report to the transporter room came from his computer terminal, Faulwell had been forced to leave the note unfinished until he returned from the Senuta ship.

  And after I get something to eat, he reminded himself. Sorry, Anthony.

  Looking up from his console, Soloman said, "You will be pleased to know that I have nearly completed restructuring the interface to the operating system and providing a simpler means for the Senuta crew to interact with the computer. It will not give them the entire range of capabilities the original interface possessed, but it will be sufficient to make up for the loss of the ship's computer technicians." His brow furrowing slightly, the Bynar added, "There is a great deal of security integrated into the various applications software, not unexpected for a vessel originally constructed for military use. In order to affect the interface, it was necessary to deactivate or bypass much of those protection schemes. I am preparing to run a final diagnostic to ensure the interface functions properly before instructing the Senuta on its operation."