Trials and Tribble-ations Read online

  "Still doing your biotechnics?" McCoy asked, without looking up from taking a sample of blood from a tribble.

  "Yes, sir," Bashir lied. "I'll get back to it, if I'm not disturbing you."

  "You're not. Funny …" McCoy was distracted by something in his readouts, and he was not very interested in Bashir.

  That was good. Best not push.

  He retreated to the anteroom with the computer terminal he had been working on before, knowing that this time it would do him no good. He had to pretend to work, then come up with a reason for McCoy to give him clearance to beam back to the station. Not clearance of such import that it would require reporting to the bridge, but enough clearance to override the canceled shore-leave order. And he had to have a reason for an assistant to come along with him, for O'Brien would have to come along. The transporter officer would have to receive clearance for two beamings from the chief surgeon.

  Bashir sat down to think, and to appear to be working. Barely had the seat cushion compressed beneath him before the door panel opened in the outer office. He stayed quiet, and listened.

  "Anything to report, Doctor?" came a deep voice.

  "If I had anything to report, Mr. Spock, I would've reported it. At the moment, the only thing I have to tell the captain that's different from an hour ago is that now I have eighty-two tribbles instead of eleven."

  Bashir peeked out into the other room very carefully, then suddenly became even more careful. That was a Vulcan. A Vulcan could hear him moving about in here, even moving softly.

  He stood very still and simply listened.

  "Yes," Spock said pointlessly. "My computations on them are becoming oppressively high. I have them here for you."

  There was a pause, the hum and bleep of medical equipment, and a few moments of silence from the two science specialists.

  Then McCoy asked, "What's the matter, Spock?"

  Spock's voice was deep, unenchanted. "There's something disquieting about these creatures."

  "Oh? Don't tell me you've had a feeling?"

  "Don't be insulting, Doctor. They remind me of the lilies of the field … they toil not, neither do they spin. But they seem to eat a great deal. I see no practical use for them."

  "Does everything have to have a practical use for you?" the doctor asked with disapproval. "They're nice, they're soft, and they make a pleasant sound."

  "So would an ermine violin, Doctor, but I see no advantage in having one."

  Pressed against the inner doorframe of the anteroom, Bashir smiled at the sparring.

  "It is a human characteristic to love little animals," McCoy told him fiercely, raising his voice, "especially if they're attractive in some way."

  "Doctor, I am well aware of human characteristics, I am frequently inundated by them, but I have trained myself to put up with practically anything."

  Fielding the insult, McCoy straightened a little. "Spock, I don't know much about these little tribbles yet, but there is one thing that I have discovered."

  "What is that, Doctor?"

  "I like them. Better than I like you."

  Without a beat, Spock parried, "Doctor, they do indeed have one redeeming characteristic."

  "What's that?"

  "They do not talk too much. If you'll excuse me, sir."

  Outside, the door panel gushed open, then closed.

  Amazing! They had been teasing each other! A Vulcan—teasing!

  Fascinated by the exchange, Bashir almost went through the wall when his communicator chirped—at least Spock was gone. He ducked to the deepest corner and turned his face inward as he snatched for the communicator. Before the thing made any more noise, he flipped the grid open and brought it to his lips.

  "Bashir," he whispered.

  "Sisko here, Doctor. Odo caught Darvin."

  "Where are you, sir?"

  "Mess hall, Defiant."

  "Can you beam me aboard?"

  "Negative. Stay there. Keep a low profile. We may still need you aboard the ship. We'll contact you once we wring Darvin 's plans out of him."

  "Understood, sir. Happy wringing."

  "Welcome back, Mr. Darvin."

  Odo dropped off the Defiant's transporter-bay platform and wrestled Arne Darvin, old or not, roughly down after him. On the other side of the old man, Worf had a grip on Darvin, too, and was even angrier than Odo. He crammed Darvin fiercely against the nearest bulkhead. Neither his nor Odo's mood improved any when they noticed that Darvin seemed completely happy and unconcerned.

  "The pleasure's all mine," the disguised Klingon said.

  Worf seemed ready to peel the disguise off, surgical or not, so Odo quietly warned, "Worf …"

  Reluctantly, Worf turned the old man loose and took a cushioning step back.

  Odo stepped into the empty space and faced Darvin. "You realize you're facing some very serious charges when we get back."

  Darvin smiled. "You wouldn't dare put one of the greatest heroes of the Klingon Empire in the brig."

  "You are no hero to the Empire," Worf thundered.

  Looking up with the same smile, Darvin told him, "I will be. I've been thinking about my statue in the Hall of Warriors. I want it to capture my essence. Our statues can be so generic sometimes, don't you think?"

  Feeling his own future melt before him, Odo said, "I take it, whatever your plan is, you've already set it in motion."

  Darvin leaned back in the chair they'd pushed him into. "I see myself standing with Kirk's head in one hand, and a tribble in the other!"

  Blistering, Worf leaned forward with unveiled threat. "What have you done? Did you hire someone to kill him? Did you sabotage the Enterprise?"

  "Nothing so mundane," Darvin said. "I've had plenty of time to think about this, about what Kirk did to me and how he should die. Let me just say Kirk's death will have a certain poetic justice to it."

  "Sisko here."

  "Sir, we have him. His plan is already in the works."

  "What's the plan, Odo? Did you get him to tell you?"

  "Well, yes, Worf … squeezed it out of him. He intends to inflict poetic justice on James Kirk, by blowing him up with a tribble."

  Sisko looked up at Dax. They were both pretending to work again, with the communicator perched inside an open drawer, out of sight of the crewmen crossing behind them. "He put a bomb in a tribble?"

  "It's his 'revenge.' Originally, Kirk saw the way a tribble reacted to Darvin and realized he was a Klingon."

  Odo sounded doubtful of hope.

  "He wouldn't tell us where this tribble is," the constable went on, "but he did say it would go off within the hour."

  Glancing out into the corridor, Sisko was confronted with the same hopelessness. There were thousands of tribbles crowding the deck, and crewmen picked through them with dismay on their faces.

  "It could be anywhere," he uttered.

  "Benjamin," Dax said, "I think we should risk going to the bridge. If we can use the internal sensors, we could scan the entire ship for explosives in a matter of seconds."

  Sisko nodded. Into the communicator he said, "Dax and I will take care of the Enterprise. The rest of you beam over to K-Seven and begin searching over there."

  "Understood, but I think Mr. Worf should remain here. It seems that he's … allergic to tribbles."

  "All right."

  "Captain—" It was O'Brien's voice. He must be there, and that meant Bashir probably was, too. "I don't think we'll be able to get to K-Seven's internal sensors."

  "Then you'll have to manually scan every tribble on the station."

  "There must be thousands of them by now!"

  "Hundreds of thousands." Yes, Bashir was there.

  Dax nodded as if they could see her. "One million seven hundred and seventy-one thousand five hundred and sixty-one."

  The voices on the communicator went silent. It was an audio stare.

  Sisko gave her the visual one.

  She bobbed her brows. "That's starting with one tribble having an a
verage litter of ten every twelve hours. After three days, you'd—"

  "Thank you," Sisko cut off. "You have your orders, people. Sisko out."

  CHAPTER 10

  THE PLAN WAS woefully inadequate. By the time Sisko found himself in the turbolift, standing with Dax and heading for the bridge, the muscles in his neck, arms, and back were all pounding from tension and a headache was beginning to percolate.

  When the bridge doors opened, he drew a breath and had a hard time letting go of it. He was in shock. He almost forgot what he had come for.

  He was stepping out onto the bridge.

  The bridge of the Enterprise. Imagine walking out onto this bridge!

  Its colors were simple, primary, tantalizing, and efficient, appointed in black here and there. The glossy black consoles were rimmed in a single line of red, and the lights and switches were clear and attractive. On the viewing trunks, the squarish monitors with their beautiful pictures of near-space, the bright red bridge rail in contrast to the blue-gray trunks and bulkheads, the soft lighting, and the bright colors of the crew members' uniforms all reached out and drew him into a mythical embrace. Across from where he stood, the big main screen was framed by its mounting, and an engineer strode across the picture, a brilliant representation of Deep Space Station K-Seven and the hovering Klingon cruiser beyond it. This was the grandest ship—the first of her kind, the one which had taken the hardest knocks of early exploration. The actual first Starship Enterprise.

  Sisko felt supremely and proudly human as he stood here. The sounds, soft whoops and blips of working machinery, each sound a subtle reassurance, all seemed familiar. He wanted to stand here and enjoy what he saw, smelled, heard, and what he felt. The sheer privilege of walking out onto this bridge …

  A muffled trilling shook him out of his charm—there were tribbles everywhere, gently singing against the steady sounds of the starship's beautiful bridge. There were tribbles on the consoles, tribbles on the carpet, and tribbles crawling slowly along the bright red rail. Tribbles, tribbles, many colors, many sizes, all purring.

  And one of them … or one of the other thousands …

  Sisko sustained himself with his purpose and led Dax to the forward port-side engineering console. She played the controls briefly, then quietly said, "You take the science subsystems station. I'll send you data for analysis and isolation."

  "Where?" he asked.

  "If I remember, it's over on the starboard side, by the main screen. Over there."

  Trying to appear at home, Sisko crossed in front of the big main screen, avoiding the eyes of the navigator and helmsman, who at the moment didn't have much to do but maintain orbit about the station. No problem, except that the station had no notable gravity.

  The navigator and helmsman paid him no attention. They were both groggily stroking tribbles.

  Sisko took up post at the science subsystems monitor, noting with some trepidation the presence of Commander Spock off to his right at what must've been the main library computer console.

  The Vulcan's presence was magnetic and held constant undercurrents as he sat quietly and worked his cooperative computer with legendary thoroughness. Sisko's hands were actually cold.

  And colder still when the turbolift door whispered and James Kirk strode slowly onto the bridge. Lines of dissatisfaction grooved the captain's young face, as if he already sensed or even knew there was too much trouble brewing under these events.

  For an instant, Sisko thought the captain was looking at him, but relief poured through as he realized Kirk was actually looking around at all the tribbles. Kirk moved with enviable familiarity along the bridge rail and down to his command platform. Without looking at his chair, he dropped tiredly into it. There was a squawk of animal protest, and the captain instantly bounced back up and fished a tribble out of the command chair.

  Sisko bit his lip, but nothing more happened. No explosion. Relief made Sisko smile. Well, relief and the whole spectacle of Jim Kirk sitting on a living squeak.

  Kirk cradled the tribble, annoyance creasing his features, accepted a smile and shrug from Dax, then punched his comm panel. "Dr. McCoy, would you mind coming up to the bridge?"

  He stood up then and prowled the helm, scanning the tribbles hypnotizing his helmsman and navigator.

  Dax finished her work at engineering, picked up one of the old-style padds and crossed the forward bridge to Sisko.

  "I rerouted the sensors," she said quietly.

  "It worked," Sisko said, checking his instruments. "I'm scanning the bridge for the explosive. Nothing up here …"

  Leaning forward, Dax plucked a tribble from his console. "That's a relief. When Kirk sat on that tribble, I half expected it to go off. They're so cute … I can't believe Darvin would put a bomb in one."

  "Mmm," Sisko agreed noncommittally. "Nothing on the first six decks."

  "Lieutenant Uhura," Kirk's voice cut through sharply, as he hustled with an armload of tribbles to the woman at communications, "how did all these tribbles get onto the bridge?"

  Again Sisko witnessed a wonderfully human side to Kirk the legend, Kirk the commander. All this with the tribbles was, to Kirk, a bunch of nonsense. He was thoroughly human. He joked, he got annoyed, he got headaches, he had close friends, and occasionally he was just plain winging it. Like now. He had no idea what to do about an enemy that everybody wanted to hug and cuddle.

  Sisko smiled. He liked this Kirk a lot better than the Olympian hero portrayed one hundred years later.

  "I don't know, sir," Lieutenant Uhura was saying with a sheepish smile. "They do seem to be all over the ship …"

  The lift doors opened and a medical officer came toward Kirk.

  "Dr. McCoy!"

  McCoy approached Kirk with an easy stride. "Yes … did you want to see me, Jim?"

  Dax watched the doctor and squinted. "I know him …"

  "Must be McCoy," Sisko said uselessly. "The ship's doctor."

  She kept looking. "McCoy … McCoy …"

  Kirk confronted his chief surgeon with two fists full of tribbles in the face.

  "Well, don't look at me," McCoy protested. "It's the tribbles who're breeding. And if we don't get them off the ship, we're gonna be hip-deep in them."

  Squinting, Kirk ordered, "Could you explain that?"

  "Well, the nearest thing I can figure out is that they're born pregnant." He grinned. "Which seems to be quite a time-saver!"

  Wearily Kirk murmured, "Well, I know, but really…"

  "And from my observations, it seems they're bisexual, reproducing at will. And, brother, have they got a lot of will."

  Sisko grinned again, and turned to hide it. The doctor was completely unintimidated by Kirk. So Kirk had McCoy, and Sisko had Dax. Maybe fate made sure that men on the cutting edge of adventure always had somebody to keep them from getting too filled up with themselves.

  "Leonard McCoy—" Dax gulped suddenly. "I met him when he was a student at Ol' Miss!"

  Sisko kept his voice down. "Who met him? Curzon?"

  "No, my host at the time was Emony. I was on Earth judging a gymnastics competition—"

  "Captain, I'm forced to agree with the doctor." Spock swiveled around, his arms folded and his posture surprisingly relaxed. "I've been running computations on their rate of reproduction and the figures are taking an alarming direction. They're consuming our supplies, and returning nothing."

  "Oh, but they do give us something, Mr. Spock," Lieutenant Uhura protested. "They give us love!"

  As the men glared at her in varying degrees of scoff, she added, "Well, Cyrano Jones says that a tribble is the only love that money can buy."

  "Too much of anything, Lieutenant," Kirk said painfully, "even love, isn't necessarily a good thing!"

  He shoveled his tribbles into her arms.

  Uhura struggled not to drop her load. "Yes, Captain …"

  "I guess he took my advice," Dax murmured, and smiled as Sisko looked up at her. "About becoming a doctor. I told him he ha
d the hands of a surgeon."

  "I get the picture." Now that he had armament for future teases, Sisko clicked off his console. "I've scanned every deck. The bomb's not on board the ship."

  Dax straightened, and he saw the same worry in her eyes that he felt in his own. "It must be somewhere on K-Seven."

  Yes, he thought. Somewhere.

  CHAPTER 11

  "STOP THE LIFT."

  Sisko waited until Dax grasped the controls and caused the turbolift cab to stop between decks. They'd gotten off the bridge only minutes after Kirk himself, Spock, and McCoy had also left. Staying on the bridge was too touchy.

  He pulled out his communicator, which luckily was rigged with twenty-fourth-century scramblers and directionals. "Sisko to Odo."

  "Odo here."

  "Are you on the station?"

  "Yes … unfortunately."

  "Explain that."

  "Sir, there is barely any visible floor left. The tribbles are covering everything. Including the bartender. Is Captain Kirk all right so far, sir?"

  "He was a few minutes ago, but of course that doesn't mean anything. He might have headed over to the station. If you see him there, contact me. The bomb's not on board the Enterprise, so it must be over there."

  "We've only been able to get through two decks. We're running out of time."

  Hearing the frustration and hopelessness in Odo's voice, Sisko glanced at Dax. "I can send more teams from the Defiant."

  "It's not a question of manpower, Captain," Odo told him. "It's a question of multiplication. The tribbles are breeding so quickly, we can't keep up with them."

  "Benjamin," Dax interrupted, "maybe we can narrow things down a little. Presumably, Darvin put the bomb somewhere he knows Kirk is going to be in the next half hour. If we stick close to Kirk—"

  "He might lead us right to it."

  "It's worth a try," Odo agreed, "but there's no reason for us to stop searching over here."

  "Keep at it for now, Constable." Sisko closed the communicator and clasped the lift control. "Deck Five."

  "It should be easy," Dax said. "All we have to do is follow Kirk and try to anticipate a little."