  STAR TREK LOG FIVE Alan Dean
Foster Based on the Popular Animated Series
Created by Gene Roddenberry BALLANTINE
BOOKS [*thorn] NEW YORK Copyright
at were 1975 by Paramount Pictures Corporation
  All rights reserved under International and
Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
  SBN 34So-24532-6 tilde 125 First
Printing: August, 197So Cover art supplied
by Pilmation Associates PRINTED IN CA
NADA BALLANTINE! BOOKS A Division of
Random House, Inc. 201 East 50th Street,
New York, N.y. 10022 Simultaneously
published by Ballantine Books, Ltd.,
Toronto, Canada
  For my best friend, Fred Foldvary....
Who knew and had confidence years before it all
started.... CONTENTS PART I The Ambergns
Element 1 PART ii conThe Pirates of Orion
81 PART iii Jihad 133
  STAR TREK LOG FIVE Log of the
Starship Enterprise Stardates 5527.0 tilde
5527.4 Inclusive James T. Kirk,
Capt., USSC, FC, ret. Commanding
transcribed by Alan Dean Foster At the
Galactic Historical Archives on S.
Monicus I stardated 611 1.3
  For the Curator: JLETTER
  PART I THE AMBERGRIS ELEMENT
(adapted from a script by Margaret Armen) (sun
to Queen four plus two)
  "StarrfleetAcademy?" M'mar murmured
wonderingly. "You werre brained as a historrian,
daughterr. Historry, sociology,
anthrropology ... those werre yourr forrtes in
school. Not physics or spatial engineerring or
some such."
  M'ress" mother reclined on the lounge, her
expression one of concern, feline pupils of carved
jet narrowed against the warm evening day of
mid-summerset on Cait.
  "Is it something else that's led you to this line of
thinking, daughters? Perrhaps something else trroubles
you . . . that boy, now . . ."
  M'ress made a soft sigh of exasperation. "It
has nothing to do with N'nance, materr. Orr with
V'rrone, orr D'irraj, art any of my
frriends. I've simply decided that . . ."
  "You've decided," M'mar whispered half
to herself.
  "... I.want to learrn morre about people as they
arre now instead of how they've been. Is that so
surrprrising7 Becoming a Federration Starriteet
officers is the best way to do that."
  "And what about yourr litterr mates? What do
they think of this sudden switch in mid-stalk?"
  M'ress looked smug "Sister M'nass thinks
I'm as crrazy as you do, but both brrotherr
M'rest and More'sitt say it's wonderful . . . and
typically me."
  "They'rre half fright," M'mar muttered.
"Take carre, M'ress. As eldest of the
litters, you have a rresponsibitity to set good
examples forr them. Considerr that whateverr you do is
IL-KELY to be copied."
  "I rrealize that, maters," M'ress
replied, tail flicking nervously from side
to side. It was that very thought 3
  r 4 STAR TREK LOO FIVE
  which had caused her to delay the announcement this
long. "But I'm deterrmined on this thing."
  M'mar eyed her daughter appraisingly, but
M'ress refused to break the stare. "All fright
then," she finally conceded, "if you'rre bound on it,
trry yourr best. By the Prrey, yourr academic
evaluations are high enough. But be tilde varre,
daughter, you could end up on a
satellite-to-planet shuttle in some farr
corrnerr of the galaxy and see no morre in a
lifetime than that one corrnerr."
  "I'm not worrried about that, materrea2'
M'ress countered, with the confidence of the young. "One thing
at a time. Firrst I have to get into the Academy."
  "And if you can't, despite yourr evaluations?"
  "Then I'll apply fort braining as common
crrew, of courrse," she said matter-of-factly.
  M'mar offerred the ultimate Caitian argument.
"This will separrate the family."
  Now M'ress was forced to look away, and her
voice dropped. "I know, materr, but this is something
I have in my hearrt and mind to trry.
Paterr will un- demtand."
  "Yourr crrazy sirre underrstands everrything!"
M'mar half spat. "You inherrited yourr
foolishness from himl He even pretends to underrstand
yourr po- etrry." She quieted abruptly,
held out a paw to stroke her daughter's forehead with.
"Naturrally, we'll both brreak ourr dewclaws
to help you make it...."
  (satellite four to Probe six less one)
  "The branch classifications have been posted!"
  Lena, the human cadet-aspirant with whom
M'ress was quartered at the Academy, burst into the
room. Her face was flushed, her breath racing.
  Instantly the hair on M'ress' neck rose.
Her tail flicked from side to side, bottled up.
Lena caught her breath long enough to answer her
roommate's unasked question.
  "We both made the twenty percent cut. That's
all I know, Kit."
  M'ress relaxed to the point of collapse.
Only the top
  STAR TREK L tilde PEE 5
  fifth of an applicants who were accepted
to Starfleet were passed on for the full multi-year
course of training. Now the arduous
six-month ordeal of endless
tests[*thorngg'physical as well as
mental[*thorngg'was over ... and she had made
it, she had actually made it!
  Almost as one they reached for the switch which would
activate the tiny computer screen each room came
equipped with. Lena hit it first. The rectangle
lit, and the words AWAITING INPUT appeared. At
that point the enormity of their accomplishment
supplanted the initial excitement, and the fear that it
was all a dream took over.
  "You do it, Lena . . . you firrst."
  "No . . . I can't. All of a sudden, I
can't."
  "You'll rriddle you forr it."
  "Oh no!" Lena grinned warily. "You're much
too good at word games for me." She let her
gaze travel around the immaculately kept
room, eventually spotted the ancient toy top
resting on the pile of workbooks.
  "I'll spin you a dredel for it."
  "Orrf! All rright . . . choose sides."
  They did so. Lena spun the tiny top on the
counter in front of the screen. "Gimel," M'ress
chorded triumphantly. "I win." tilde
  "You always win, Kit," Lena grumbled, but omb
briefly. After all, they had both made the cut.
She punched out her name with the attendant request far
information.
  An ultra-rapid series of pictures
blurred the screen as the desk-top brain hunted
through the records. Finally, an immensely detailed
  chart[*thorngg'Lena Goldblum reduced
to numerical
  molecules[*thorngg'appeared.
  "One thousand eighty-three," she read from flee
blow-up of the bottom line.
  Excellent out of ten thousand ... about average
among those who would advance. And of the two thousand, only
twenty percent again would graduate . . . the Four
Hundred.
  "Not too good, but I have plenty of time to bnug it
up," she observed confidently."
  "Yes, and that's betters than his
  6 STAR TREK Ed tilde
  "And look!" Lena shouted excitedly. "I've
been approved for my first request, security
traimng!"
  Two numbers, M'ress thought, that would determine
their lives for the next several years.
Class ranking and section. Two numbers.
  "'ationow you, Kit."
  M'ress made the request. Again die
high-speed hunt, again the computer settled on the
necessary card.
  It was hard to say which girl was the more flabbergasted.
  "M'ress," Lena gulped, 'I never knew."
She looked at her roonunate for half a year as
if she were seeing her for tile first time.
  There it was . . . class ranking: 0022.
  "Means nodiing," M'ress whispered. "Someone
aIways has to frank numbers one and someone has
to rrank ten thousand. They'rre not absolutes ...
just troughs. Just a convenient statistical abstrract
for the administrration."
  "But, M'ress . . ." Lena stopped, sensing a
sudden shift in her friend's attitude. "Kit,
what's wrong? Sure it's only a rough number,
but even so, aren't you pleased?"
  "Look." M'ress pointed to the other critical
number. It translated as: COMMUNICATIONS. "I
wanted Science Section," she growled bitterly.
"Administrrative science with a culturral
anthrro over-majorr leading to executive
officerrship and eventual Captaincy."
  "Practically everyone savants administration and a
chance at command, Kit," said Lena
  comfortingly. i'allyou know how pitifully few even
get a chance to try for it. There's always the
possibility of a field commission, though."
  "In commulucations?" M'ress cried.
  "Look, at least you've got a chance to reach the
Bridge. That's a lot closer than I'll ever
get. Of course, I know I would never have it
upstairs for command anyway."
  She forced a smile.
  "Maybe the computer read some of your poetry."
  M'ress had to smile at that.
  "I suppose I should be thrilled even to pass
on. But
  - STAR 1 tilde LOG FIVB- 7
  I've been making rrankings lice that all my
life and you get to expect them afriend a while."
  "This is Street Academy though, Tress,"
Lena reminded her. "Not some[*thorngg'excuse
me provincial school."
  "That's so," M'ress was forced to admit. She
brightened. "Yes, by the Prrey, I ought to be
prroud, and excited, miserst Ssst . . . if I
have to worrk my way up thrrough
communications, then it's thrrough communications I'll
worrk."
  "That's the spirit," encouraged Lena
  "And I'm going to keep on with my poetrry,
too . . . no matter wherre it puts me in the
mind of some centrral collection of solenoids and
scrrews."
  (sun to Black Star . . . even!)
  "M'ress . . . we've been hit, badly!"
  Tress looked up from her seat at the library
viewer and stared anxiously at Ankee, the short,
stocky Jarite engineering ensign who had become one
of her closest companions on the heavy cruiser
Hood. Their sections were totally different in
function, as were their individual assignments; but they
shared a deep and abiding interest in the construction of
reform-era poetry.
  Now he looked exhausted, badly battered about
one side of his head, and a little scared.
  "I felt a slight shudder, Ankee, but I
didn't think . . . I only heard the yellow
alert sound and saw no harm in continuing with this work."
  "Surprise attack" he told her tiredly.
"No one had time to do more than react instinctively.
Not even time to sound battle stations." He
added, seeing her brow furrow, "Kzinti."
  "Oh, we hit back at them, all right.
Knocked out both engines, from what I hear; and
scuttlebutt has it she's lost a lot of
atmosphere, but . . . ," he paused worriedly,
"there's been no further word from the Bridge in some
time."
  "What Bridge?"
  M'ress looked past Ankee as her friend
turned. Lieutenant Morax was standing in the
doorway, fighting to
  8 STAR TREK Lo
  keep from shaking. Despite his three legs, the
soft- voiced security officer looked none too
stable.
  "The Bridge is gone."
  "What?" both ensigns gasped
simultaneously. tilde
  "Gone," Morax continued to mutter, in a tone that
hinted he still didn't accept it himself. "Just . . .
gone Captain Oxley, Commander Umba,
Lieutenant Com- mander D'Uberville . . .
everybody."
  "Then who's in command?" wondered Mearess.
""That would leave . . ."
  Morax shook his head sadly. "Chief Ellis
was on the bridge, too. Which means[*thorn]"
  "You," Ankee put in.
  "Me. Believe me, it's an honor I could do
without."
  "What happened?" M'ress pressed.
  Morax made a complicated gesture. "tilde
The first at- tack. Direct hit on the Bridge
by a disrupter bolt before we could get our screens
up. We missed deflecting it by seconds. Too
long." The security chief seemed about to cry.
  "What's ourr status?" M'ress asked
tightly.
  "Engines disabled, Bridge gone, Fire
Control scrambled to hell and gone. "We're a
derelict," Morax told them. "The
E"zinti's in little better shape. You know what that
means."
  "Open to salvage," Ankee said huskily.
  M'ress had moved quickly to the tiny computer
console. She cleared off her work
project[*thorngg'three weeks" study gone,
no time to mourn[*thorngg'ran through several shunting
operations while the other two watched. She tried
again, a third time, finally quit in disgust.
  "I could have told you," Morax said
  sympathetically, ""our communications are
completely gone, as well."
  "So," guessed Ankee, "we sit here, both
ships drift- ing forever in space, unless by accident
. . ."
  "No, Ensign," Morax cut in. "The
Kzinti is totally disabled from a mobility standpoint,
true. Offensively, true. But our remaining
backup sensory equipment indicates they are
managing to put out a signal[*thorngg'faint, but
a signal nonetheless[*thorngg'toward their nearest
relay station.
  "We're deep in Federation territory, but we
might as
  STAR TREK LOG PIVE 9
  well be on the Galactic rim since we can't
generate a similar signal. When theirs is picked
up, it'll send another Kzinti warship racing here.
They'll take the Hood in tow, after disposing of any
inconvenient vermin happen to be witnesses, of
course."
  "So that's it, then," cursed Ankee
fatalistically, slumping in the portal. "No way
of fighting back. We can't run and we can't
fight[*thorngg'we can't even call for help. But
they can."
  M'ress was thinking furiously, then she asked,
"What arre you going to rrecommend?"
  "A great deal of prayer," Morax replied.
He turned to leave.
  "There's another possibility. Less spiritual,
but with a betterr chance of succeeding, I think."
  Morax stopped, gaped at her.
  "Come now, Ensign, I . . ."
  "No, rreally[*thorngg'if yDu'rre
cerrtain the K2inti communications arre still
intact."
  "We've got a definite indication they're
putting out a signal," the security chief
replied. "It will take some time to reach a Kzinti
border relay post, considering the lack of power behind
it. But it will reach."
  "So," M'ress went on, "if we could get
contrrol of that same transmitter and beam to one of
ours stations, a Federration vessel would get herre in
half the time the rearrest Kzin could."
  She waited while Ankee and Morax exchanged
puz. zled glances.
  "I'm not sure what you're proposing,
Ensign," Morax said finally, "but if it's what
I think, I absolutely . . ."
  She slid out of the chair, came to the door. Her
words were low, urgent. "You've got no choice,
'Acting Captain Morrax."
  "We Caitains and the Kzinti sharre common
genetic rroots in the farr past, as do the
Vulcans and the RR-OMULANS. With a little carreful
makeup, I could pass for a Kzin. A small one,
but pass I would. Communications arre my
specialty. With Lieutenant Tavi gone . . .
," she swallowed stiffly, "I'm the best
qualified to trry this.
  STAR TRBR: LOG PIVB
  "I can speak Kzin well enough to fool meirr own
warr council. And the last thing they'll be expecting
is a boarrding parrty of one. Now, what's ourr
trrans
  porrter capability?" tilde "I haven't had
time to check," began Morax, "but . . ."
  "when find out, and if anything stm worrks, have
someone stand by to beam me aboarrd when I'm rready.
If I can rreach theirr station and hold it long enough
to get a single burrst off towarrd the Cetacea
system . . .
  "How long," protested Ankee, "do you think you
could hold such a spot against an aroused bunch of
Kzinti? Against even one Kzin?"
  "All I need is a couple of minutes
to re-align the di- rectional
antenna[*thorngg'they've got to be using the
dirrec- tional, otherrwise one of ourr
patrrols might pick up theirr signal and get
off one little scrream."
  "And after that?" wondered a worried Morax.
"What about the chances of our beaming you back aboard
when you're finished[*thorngg'in one piece. The
odds . . ."
  "Let us not exerrt ourrselves with minorr
details, acting Captain," she cut in. "I
don't want anyone rre- trieving me until I
signal back that I'm good and rready, too."
  "Well," she added, when neither officer essayed
any- thing further, "arre you both of a sudden
tongueless?"
  Ankee stared at the deck while Morax ...
Morax looked exceedingly unhappy.
  "If there were another way, no matter how
extreme or unlikely the chance of success ...
You know what the Kzinti would do to you?"
  "Morre details," she snapped, but trembling
inside. "As you arre well awarre, there is no
other way." She started past them. "I'm going down
to Recreation. Someone down therre ought to be able
to make me up.
  "Meanwhile, acting Captain, you might have some-
one go overt the interrnal schematic of a Kzinti
crruiser. It won't help if I'm set down in
the middle of one of theirr interrogation chamberrs."
  STAR TREK LOG FIVE 11
  Against all probabilitiescomagst all hopes and
prayers and reasonablesgg*thorngg'the scheme worked.
  Of course, as soon as the signal was changed and
beamed out toward Federation territory, other tilde
zinti on board the warship got wind of what was
happening.
  Still, M'ress almost got away unscathed,
thanks to the timely and incredibly precise
manipulations of the officer manning the transporter
controls.
  Almost.
  Fortunately, the majority of scars were
correctable by surgery, the others cosmetically
concealed. The" cause in which they were obtained was the
reason why after only two short years on
active duty, Ensiga M'ress was promoted to the
rank of lieutenant and as" signed the prestigious
post of alternate communications officer the
U.s.s. Enterprise.
  Actually, the hardest part had not been making it through
Starfleet Academy, nor had it been the
deception she'd so devastatingly performed on the
Kzinti.
  No, the hardest part had been the steady separation from
the traditionally close-knit Caitian family.
She smiled to herself. Her mater had been right about her
setting an example for her younger sister and brothers;
all three were now serving in Starfleet in various
capacities. So M'mar had learned to bear up under
the hotter of having not one but four kits achieve
officer grade in Starfleet.
  A litter of warriors and militarists, she'd
raised[*thorngg'she often grumbled. But
privately, she was proud, proud.
  And her sire, M'nault, wasn't private
about it.
  (white Satellite to Black Sun two,
plus one. Check)
  44Check."
  M'ress blinked, looked up across the
multilevel game board.
  "There's a great deal on your mind,
Lieutenant," ob" served the concerned figure
seated across frown her, "besides your next moves.
If you wish, we can continue the game at another
time."
  "You'rre Fright, Mrr. Spock. I wasn't
  concentrrating."
  Spock pushed his chair back, rose. He
touched a switch set in the top of the game table. The
blue
  12 STAR TREK LOG PI
  striping on the table rim slowly turned bright red,
an indication that there was a game in suspension on it and
no one should disturb the pieces.
  "I do not like to pry, but your concentration was so
intense[*thorngg'if I can do anything . . ."
  "It's nothing, Mrr. Spock." She let out a
deep, purr
  - ing sigh. "Nothing at all, rreally. Some
unimporrtant memorries, that's alt."
  Spock studied her skeptically, but elected not
to pursue the matter any further. Not that the
intimate details of M'ress' history or her
mental
  preoccupations intrigued him so much. But as a
student of intelligent behavior, he was curious as
to what "minor" matters could distract an outstanding
player like Mtress to the point where she would make
several moves as foolish as her last.
  Such a thing would never happen to him, of course.
  Kirk was concluding a log entry as Spock
entered the bridge. The first officer of the Enterprise
moved to stand-near the command chair, at ease and at the
ready, while Kirk dictated. The captain
noticed his arrival, acknowledged it with a barely
perceptible nod and continued on without a break.
  The subject of said log entry was currently
visible on the main screen: a smallish, intensely
blu tilde green globe. The light of a modest
G-type star reflected phosphorescently
back from the spines of
  interminable ocean. Misty cloud cover added an
angelic air to the scene.
  The planet's name was Argo. It was one of a
surprising multitude of water worlds thus far
discovered m the explored section of the Galaxy.
  Argo's one peculiarity worth remarking
on[*thorngg'and worth the Er tilde terpr tilde
se's presence here[*thorngg'was that
unfit quite recently (according to drone probe
analysis), it had been largely a landed planet.
Now its surface was ninety-seven per cent water.
  No great ice caps had melted to cause this; no
mydeaological Terran forty days and forty nights
of rain had fallen. According to the data relayed back
over the indifferent light-years to Starfleet Science
Center by the drones, this world had been subjected to a
series of
  STAR TRIM 7.og revs 13
  evenly spaced seismic convulsionscomintense without-
being cataclysmic[*thorngg'in a very brief
span of time.
  Forty days and forty nights of tectonic
activity, perhaps. The fact that these convulsions had
caused the major land masses to subside and vanish
beneath the waves was not especially remarkable, Speck
mused. It was the time factor which made Argo a world
worth a second, more detailed look. That, and the
chance that such emergence[*thorn)'subsidence
activity might be cyclic in nature. Because there was
at least one other, well-populated, world in the
Federation which gave hints of being similar to Argo.
  A number of techniques for dealing with such
subsidings on a selective basis had
been
  developed, but only in theory. To put them
into practice would require a world like the inhabited
one. Since the inhabitants of the planet in question
frowned on experimentation with the planetary crust and
other such intimate chunks of their home, a
substitute world had to be located.
  Argo was such a world . . . maybe. If so, the
Enters poise might have a chance to try out some of those
hopefully effective techniques.
  Kirk wrapped up the entry, flipped off the
recorder and glanced up at Spock.
  As some sort of comment appeared to be in order the
Vulcan ventured, "Hardly the sort of world one
would expect to be riven at any moment from core
to surface, Captain."
  Kirk nodded, and his gaze shifted to the screen.
""No, Mr. Spock. It certainly seems
placid enough on the surface. It's what's under the
surface thattll be interesting But we'll make the
standard on-site survey first.
  "Very good, Captain."
  Kirk rose and both men started for the door.
  They might, Kirk mused as the elevator took
them toward the shuttle hanger, simply have
beamed down with life-support belts to maintain
them. The forcefields would keep them supplied with
sufficient air while preventing them from drowning.
  The trouble was, movement in a liquid
  environment while encased in a personal
support field was peculiarly
  14 STAR TREK LOO PIVI!
  awkward. And mechanical transportation would be
far faster
  The small door slid aside and they strode
into the concavernous hangar. Two men met them by the
water shuttle. One[*thorngg'young,
brown-haired,
  Lincolnesquebearded and
mellow-voiced[*thorn)'saluted: Lieutenant
Clayton, their pilot.
  His companion simply smiled. "Hello,
Jim. Hello, Spock."
  "You're coming with us, Doctor?" asked Spock.
  "No, Spock," McCoy shot back. "I'm
here to evaluate the possibilities of flooding the
shuttle hangar five centimeters deep so that when
the shuttle departs, the water will freeze solid and
we'll have the largest interstellar skating rink in
existence."
  Spock paused a moment, considered
  thoughtfully, finally observed cautiously, "You are
being sarcastic again, Doctor."
  "It's observational capabilities like that which
make me glad that at least one competent
  observer is going on this trip."
  "Three, actually, Doctor," Spock
continued, "but we wD1 not be offended if you come
along
  anyway."
  Kirk cut off McCoy's inevitable riposte
by starting for the shuttle with the young lieutenant in tow.
"Clayton?"
  "Sir"...'t
  "How long," and he gestured at the nearing
craft, "since you piloted one of these?"
  "It's been a while, sir," the subordinate
replied readily, "but as designated shuttle
pilot for this mission, I've been reviewing the
appropriate tapes and techniques for the last
several weeks."
  Kirk muttered something inaudible, turned back
before entering. "All right. Mr. Spock, Dr.
McCoy ... if you're quite finished?"
  The long ovoid shape of the shuttle was
broken only by a clear plexalloy dome set
midway back on its top. One section of this was
raised. A small retractable stairway led
into it. Spock, McCoy and Clayton followed the
captain into the crew section.
  While the three senior officers settled
into thickly
  STAR TREK LOG Fly IS
  padded seats set into the bulkheads, Clayton
eased himself into the one adjustable one that faced the
instrument panel. He ignored the conversation of his
superiors and concentrated instead on running a final
check of the internal computer, phaser controls, and their
inorganic relatives.
  "Is this trip really necessary, Jim?" asked
McCoy over the beeps and hums of the responding
com- ponents. "Not that I'm complaining, mind.
I'm tickled for the chance to get a look at another
water world. Fascinating ecologies on all of
them. But can't we get all the information on seismic
abberations from onboard instrumentation?"
  "Yes, Bones. But the regs say that any world
holding life bigger than a bacterium and more complex
than a coelenterate requires at least one
hands-on survey by a visiting ship. It's
especially necessary in this case. You know how much trouble
drone probes have getting accurate data on the
life of water planets."
  "That's true, Jim," McCoy admitted,
"even so ..."
  The clear voice of Lieutenant Clayton
cut him off.
  "Ready, Captain."
  "All right, Lieutenant, when you're set."
  Clayton manipulated controls. Slowly,
  majestically, the two massive doors of the
hangar deck began to drift apart, moving with the ease
and speed of milkweed seeds in an autumn
  breeze. Ebony blackness speckled with
brilliant pinpoints of light backed the stage.
The
  blue-green-glowing principal performer lay below
them and slightly to starboard.
  The lieutenant was as good as his word[*thorngg'and
his homework. He had a little trouble handling the entry
into the atmosphere, but that was understandable. Kirk said
nothing. The shuttle had been designed with
underliquid
  maneuverability first in mind, in-flight
navigability second.
  Once they had penetrated the shifting cloud cover
and Clayton had gotten the feel of the little ship in
atmosphere, the operation grew
  gratifyingly smooth.
  With a single exception, the surface of Argo in this
region was wholly water. The shuttle skimmed low
over roiling swellscomall shades of blue and green
that endless
  16 SIAR TREK Loo Few
  ocean was: azure, cerulean, deep
turquoise; emerald, periodot, and flashing
olivine. And where a wave crested, broke, the sea
turned to amber foam flecked with white.
  A strong concentration of mineral salts would be
needed to stain the water that orange-brown
hue[*thorn] manganese, perhaps, Kirk thought.
  The single exception hove into view: an island
now, once the topmost crags of some mountain
range. Stone exploded from the sea like a
hallucinatory vision of a medieval castle.
Battlements of naked basalt and porphyry offered
challenge to endless legions of siegewaves, and
amber moss festooned the rock-turrets with the
banners of still defiant land.
  Clusters of brilliant-hued shells
rested in niches and crevices of the rock, and some
shone
  phosphorescent even in the strong light of day.
The amber color was prevalent here, too. It
seemed to engulf the island and form a
  secondary atmosphere above the sea.
  Not manganese then, Kirk thought. Whatever
peculiar trace minerals were present here in ocean
and air were likely as not alien to Earthly chemistry.
He hoped the shuttle's
  recorder-sampler was operating at peak ef-
ficiency.
  Assuredly, there was more of interest here than
occasional earthquakes.
  Clayton adjusted controls and the shuttle cut
speed, eased downward to a damp landing. They hit
gently and then slid smoothly toward the island.
  They lay in the lee of the prevailing current, the
island serving as shield, so here the surface was
unusually smooth. As the shuttle came to a halt.
Kirk and the others unfastened themselves from the
protective seats.
  McCoy and Spock moved to the storage
  lockers, started to remove the equipment they would
need to properly sample what lived and was
lived upon on Argo. But it was the
  enchanting vision of an accidental island that drew
Kirk's attention.
  He moved forward to stand by the busy
  Clayton. Through the plexalloy the jagged
bastions now towering nearby resembled more than ever an
impregnable repository of watery secrets. The
dark shadow it cast
  STAR TREK LOG FIVE 17
  on the otherwise unmarred ocean looked
  unnatural and faintly forbidding.
  4'Spock?"
  The first officer looked over from where he was
carefully constructing a small, self-powered mesh.
It would skim the surface outside the shuttle for
microscopic life and return automatically when
full.
  "Yes, Captain?"
  "This is the largest remaining land mass on the
planet, isn't it?"
  "Yes, Captain." Spock turned back
to his work, continued speaking as he fitted another
part. "There are other outcroppings, but all are
smaller than this. Yet according to readings taken from the
ship, the ocean bottom hereabouts is fairly
close to the surface. This suggests that the subsidence
was unequal in places[*thorngg'or else we
are floating above what would be regarded as a
monstrously high plateau on Earth or on
Vulcan. I think the irregular subsidence theory
the more likely."
  "I suggest," McCoy broke in, "that we
stop debating theory and get doom to some practical
work ... Iike obtaining some specimens."
  "for once I agree with you, Doctor," Spock
ret sponded. Kirk smiled.
  "Lieutenant Clayton, open the hatch and let
our two impatient scientists get on with their
business."
  "Aye, sir." He reached toward the side-mounted
lever which would raise the entranceway of the dome. As he
did so, McCoy gestured sharply to port.
  "What's that?"
  "I don't see anything, Doctor," Spock
said, studying the indicated spot.
  "There's something in the water there," McCoy
countered, beginning to feel like a mighty fool. Had
he seen something or not? "There, see where the water is
fountaining slightly7"
  McCoy's fears of seeming a fool were
put to rest by a wild churning and frothing at the
indicated place. They were supplanted seconds
later by more tangible fears as a brace of enormous
tentacles broke the surface and hooked down like a
pair of gargantuan anacondas to embrace the
shuttle in a crushing grip.
  18 STAR TREK LOG PIVB
  Kirk was yelling something about activating the engine,
but whatever had them was shaking the shuffle violently and
his words were lost in the steady banging about.
  Released from their protective loungers the four
men tumbled about the interior like dice in a cup. There
was a sudden jolt as if the ship had abruptly
slammed into something hard.
  Either the thing had accidentally struck a sensitive
portion of itself with part of the unyielding craft or
else it was generally infuriated by its inability
to crack the hide of this strange prey, because it had
thrown them end over end to bang to a stop against an
inoffensive wave.
  The shuttle automatically rolled to an upright
position. Kirk then pulled himself to his feet,
saw they were still seaworthy and watertight.
  "Spock . . . Bones . . . Lieutenant
Clayton?"
  Replies came back promptly.
"Surprisingly sound, Captain." "I'm an right,
Jim." "Okay, I think, sir."
  He stumbled to the dome, holding one hand to the large
red bruise forming on his left cheek. "What was it,
anyway?"
  "At the moment my scientific curiosity stands
in abeyance, Jim," McCoy groaned. "Just so
long as it doesn't come back . . ." He
struggled to his feet.
  Kirk took a quick step back from the dome.
"No such luck, Bones. Clayton . . ."
  Before Kirk could say anything else, the upper
portion of the Argoan life-form erupted from the water
hard by the shuttle. From what they could see, it
resembled a cross between an oversized snake and- a
whale, with the addition of four side-tentacles thick
enough to embarrass Earth's grandfather squid. that they were
fully functional had already been amply
demonstrated.
  It was Spock, not the more severely stunned
Clayton, who slipped into the pilot's seat and
edged them around in the water. He was taking action even
as Kirk ordered it.
  "Firing phasers on stun, Captain."
  Two pees of fiery red light bolted from the
nose of
  STAR TREK LOG PIE
  the shuttle, enveloped the head of the monster in a
glowing nimbus. The concentrated light danced on
amber and copper colored scales.
  Incredibly, the creature continued toward the
shuttle for another couple of seconds. Then its
continual roaring faded to an echo. Still moving weakly,
reflexively, it sank from sight beneath the waves.
  Uncaring swells dusted the place clean, left
nothing to indicate the apparition which had loomed there
moments before. Spock paused at the console a moment
longer to make certain it was no ruse on the part of the
monster, then moved to aid Dayton.
  "It's all right, Mr. Spock." The younger
officer was limping slightly. "I twisted an
ankle a little, that's all. I'll be okay."
  Spock nodded once, then walked to the dome
to stare at the spot where the creature had disappeared.
Clayton returned to his position at the front
console, sitting down carefully.
  "What the devil was that thing?" McCoy
  murmured.
  As usual, the doctor gave in to his
oft-times infuriating affectation for redundancy,
Spock mused[*thorngg'and as usual, he held
the easy retort in check.
  "Clearly one of the multitude of life-forms which
the drone survey neglected to record."
  "Hard to see how something that big could be
overlooked," Kirk mused. "Still, with such a large
area to cover in so short a time, I'm not
surprised. The presence of a predator that size is
a sure sign of a thriving ecology. I don't
think I've ever seen anything quite like this one."
  "A rough combination of Terran Cetacea and
Cephalopoda, with unique characteristics of its own,"
Spock added.
  Kirk appeared to reach a decision.
  "Let's get another look at it before the stun
wears off," he announced. "That was a pretty
strong jolt it aWill sorbed . . . we should be
safe."
  He glanced back over his shoulder.
  "Submerge, Lieutenant. Keep the currents
here in mind."
  "Aye, sir, submerging ..."
  ll
  Clayton maneuvered the streamlined
craft with ever greater skin. After several minutes of
searching they had found no sign of the monster. But the
view about the dome made up for it.
  They had sunk into a green mist tinged with the
ever-present amber and were now making their way through a
world of green glass. The bottom here was close enough
to the surface so that sunlight penetrated all the
way to the sand.
  If the world above with its monotonous, unvarying
seascape and its looming island appeared simple and
unchanging, the bottom presented a gaudy contrast.
  Exotic marine flora abounded, formed a
  kaleidoscopic background for the alien zoo that
lived in and about it. The slanting sunlight combined with
an Argoal coral-analog to
  enhance the similarity to an Earthly topical
lagoon.
  Some of the ichthyoids wore broad, feathery
tails that would have been more at home on a peacock
than on a swimmer. And the moss which so strikingly
decorated the island peaks grew even more
abundantly below the surface.
  Here and there schools of thousands of minute
crimson fish darted in and about the densest mosses,
so thick in places that the water appeared
to be on fire. They reflected
  metallically off the polished backs of lumbering,
clownish molluscs which scoured the nooks and
crannies in the coral like old women at a
rummage sale.
  "There it is," McCoy exclaimed, even as
Clayton was turning the shuttle in the direction of the
somnolent sea monster. The creature had drifted
slightly south of where it had gone down. Now it
rested immobile on the amber sand.

  STAR TREK L tilde FIVE 21
  "Look out," Kirk observed. "Try and set us
down close by the head, Lieutenant."
  "Yes, sir."
  As the smooth metal hull settled gently into the
soft bottom there was a slight grinding noise.
Moss and hypnoticaUy swaying ferns
genuflected in opposite direct tilde ons,
while a small colony of crustaceans protested
this unannounced eviction from their apartment rock with
considerable verve.
  Spock and McCoy adjusted their tricorders,
began to take basic readings. McCoy found something
which stimulated the first scientific controversy
of this exploration.
  "Iggual respiratory system," the doctor
observed. "Lungs and gins."
  "Most odd," Spock agreed. "Unless our
  assumptions are correct. If land subsidence
and emergence here w cyclic, then it would be natural
for the animal population to stand ready to live in either
environment.
  "However, one specimen cannot be considered
representative of every species on the planet.
More readings of other types are essential."
  "There's that amber moss, too," McCoy
pointed out. 'At seems to grow just as well above
water as below."
  The stunned monster chose that moment of temporary
disinterest on the part of its bipedal observers to stir
slightly. Its tentacles quivered, disturbing the
sand. Abruptly, the gigantic tail jerked
spasmodically.
  The glancing blow was powerful enough to send the shuttle
tumbling across the sea bottom, to come to a stop against
a sand hill. Amber rain fell on the plexalloy
dome as the displaced sand settled back toward the
bottom.
  A groggy Kirk decided that this
particular specimen reacted a mite too
unpredictably for casual study. A second
stun burst as strong as the first might kill it,
anything less prove ineffectual.
  As Kirk stared out the dome, the monster
momentarily seemed to have developed eight tentacles
instead of four. And two heads. Also, there were two
Spocks and two McCoys pulling themselves to their
feet.
  However many limbs the creature possessed, at
the
  22 STAR TRBGG'C L tilde PI
  moment all of them were moving in furious motion as it
fought to regain its internal balance.
  "Take us up, Lieutenant, it's coming around, and
I think we'd better be elsewhere when it does."
Clayton nodded
  The shuttle angled upward, rose from the sand and
started toward the island. Kirk had one final
glimpse of the beast, still thrashing about aimlessly, before the
angle of ascent cut off his view.
  Any normal creature, having received such a
pounding, would have escaped as its first thought. This
inhabitant of Argo, however, was used to running from
nothing, except perhaps a larger one of its own
kind. Its flailing quelled for a moment .. . then the
creature rolled over with a weird whistling roar and
shot off with incredible speed in pursuit of the rising
shuttle.
  Melting greenness gave way to blue sky and a
view of the island dead ahead. l tilde dispectmg
to see nothing but calm water, Kirk looked out the
rear of the dome. And as expected, the surface
rolled on unbroken[*thorngg'until the father of
geysers erupted almost on top of them, the burst
sending the nose of the shuttle slamming forward and down.
It bobbed up like a cork
  Kirk had had enough of maintaining concern for
nonsapient alien life-forms. "Prepare to fire
phasers . . ."
  Spock moved to the console, adjusted the proper
controls, leaving Clayton free to steer the craft.
He snapped a hurried look at Kirk when a
certain critical light failed to wink on as
expected.
  "Phasers do not respond, Captain.
Obviously we have sustained some damage from being
  struck below."
  Relief or no relief, he still should have ordered
a check as a matter of course, Kirk
cursed. Too late for recriminations. He looked
back again, hoping that the monster had perhaps lost interest
or gained satisfaction.
  Instead, he saw that the hunter had moved off,
turned, and was now rushing back at them, mouth agape
and wide as the corridor of an underground
transportation system.
  "Lift off, Mr. Clayton, nowJust"
  The lieutenant worked the proper instruments,
  SITAR TRB tilde [tilde Fly 23
  paused as if shot, ran through left-brace be
sequence again twice as fast before throwing Kirk an
anguished look.
  "No response, sir! Propulsion units have
been cracked . . . I'm not registering a thing."
  That cavern of a gullet was drawing closer and
closer. Stalactites and stalagmites of polished
amber ivory lined its roof and floor.
  Kirk didn't waste time on shuttle
  communications. If both phasers and lift engine
were out, chances were bad for the more delicate beam
transmitter to have survived. He used his pocket
conununicator.
  6'Kirk to Enterprise[*thorngg'red alert!"
  Engineer Scott's voice reflected the
urgency in Kirk's own.
  "Enterprise, Scott speaking[*thorngg'what
is it, Captain?"
  "We're under attack, Scotty,
emergency[*thorngg'beam us aboard." His last
words were drowned in the thunderous bellow which erupted from
He
  monster's throat.
  Ill ahead, Mr. Clayton . . . to was The
lieutenant hit controls, but not fast enough; the great
tentacled head rose up, up, blotting out sun and
sky[*thorngg'then came down. Kirk barely had
time to grab for a hold before the gargantuan skull
slammed into the shuttle.
  Another deafening howl penetrated the dome and it
grew dark as two huge jaws closed on the aft
section of the tiny vessel.
  Despite various grips, the impact sent
everyone sprawling Part of the upper jaw came down
on the plexalloy dome. The transparent melding
was incredibly strong, but its designers had never
meant it to take this kind of pressure. It finally
cracked.
  Shaking the shuttle lice an infuriated mastiff
with a piece of meat, the monster banged it
against a rocky protrusion Iying just under the
surface. That finished the remainder of the dome.
Another shake sent shards of dome, torn internal
components, and McCoy and Clayton flying.
  The interior was a shambles. High-impact seats
were twisted like licorice sticks. Spock lay
jammed between the pilot's chair and the base of the control
console, and Kirk divas entangled in the
remnants of some restraining straps.
  24 STAR TREGG'C LOG FIVE
  Both men were unconscious, their limp forms bent
and loose. But they didn't come free as the
creature swam off, still battering at its stubborn
prey.
  "We've lost contact, Captain, a tinny
voice yelled from somewhere within a maze of twisted
metal. "We've lost contact. Come in,
Captain, come inl Spock . . .1"
  McCoy let out a whoosh as he broke the
  surface, looked around fearfully. But the only
struggling form he saw was weak and small. He gave
Clayton some support, helped him clear the
water from his lungs.
  Together they stared at the distant but still visible form of the
monster, the cylindrical shape of the shuttle
still clutched tightly in its tentacles . . . what
was left of it. Even as they watched, the creature
rolled over on its back and vanished beneath the
waves.
  McCoy tried to shout, call, but couldn't
manage the breath. Once more the water was calmed,
once more the distant island the only projection above
the gentle swells. The shuttle, the monster . . .
Xirk and Spock . . . all cone.
  Hopefully they had been thrown free,
probably in the other direction. As he and
Clayton had been oh, hopefully!
  As McCoy was about to surest they start searching, a
not-so-alien mist distorted As vision and he
experienced a brief sensation of falling.
  Once the feeling had passed, he found himself standing
in the main transporter chamber of the Enterprise,
staring at the distant forms, of Scott and
Transporter Chief Kyle across the room. There
was the sound of flesh meeting plastic alongside him,
and he turned to help the fallen Clayton.
Scott was there in a second to assist him.
  "What happened, Bones?" But before McCoy could
form a reply the chief had turned and was calling
back to Kyle, "Call Sick Bay, have
them get a team up here double-timel" He gazed
back into the transporter alcove.
  "The captain, and Mr. Spock ..." His
voice faded as he saw the look on McCoy's
face.
  "I didn't know . . . for certain, Scotty.
We revere tak
  STAR TRBX: t tilde PI 25
  ing readings on the local version of a sea serpent
and . . . we got a little careless. It's
  reaction-recovery time .. . phenomenal ..."
A hand ran through hair matted with amber salts.
He was aware he probably sounded as tired as
Clayton looked.
  "It attacked instinctively[*thorngg'wrong
bedamned instinct! Threw the shuttle around like a
toy. A previous attack had rendered the phasers
and lift engine inoperable, but we didn't find that out
until too late. I don't know if we could have
outrun it on the surface anyway. That thing was
fast." He took a few steps, found out how tired
he really was and sat down at the edge of the alcove.
  'if don't know what's happened to the captain or
Spock. I hope they got thrown free like
Clayton and myself."
  @.'Itll get a search party together immediately,"
Scott announced. McCoy was too exhausted to do
more than nod.
  Planetary ocean stretched unbroken to infinity.
ODIY an occasional curl of foam turning in on
itself broke the translucent evenness.
  That, and 8 small slim boat of silver. A
small slim boat which had been plying the surface
of Argo for some time now, plying zig-zag and spiral
routes across computer-suggested courses.
  The narrow silhouette was broken only by a pair
of compact powerpacks attached to its stern . . . and
three irregular shapes seated within.
  McCoy and Clayton stood in the bow,
patiently scanning the horizon with telescopic
binoculars. The doctor paused to rub his tired
eyes, something he was doing with increasing frequency.
  He stopped, stared at the dappled surface without
the aid of the mounted telefocals. "Five days and
we've found nothing. Nothing."
  "They can't just have dropped out of sight, sir," said
a sanguine Clayton. McCoy turned to eye
him sadly, shook his head.
  "Currents, scavengers, a little shift in the lie
of the
  26 STAR TREK LOG PIVE5
  bottom ..." He shrugged. ""They're gone,
that's all there is to it."
  Clayton said nothing and both men turned their
gaze back to the telefocals. It was the
lieutenant's turn next to break the silence.
  "I see something, anyway. Barely above sea
level, bearing thirty, forty degrees to starboard,
about three kilometers off, I'd say." He
fiddled with the fine adjustment on the precision focals
as McCoy turned his own glasses in the indicated
direction. Clayton's voice rose.
  "There's something on them catching the
sun[*thorngg'and I don't think it's rocket"
  All the exhaustion had gone from McCoy's
eyes now. His gaze was surgeon sharp. Scott
had moved to stare through his own set, rest turn or
no.
  A dark mass of cracked, tumbled boulders,
worn smooth by the constant wave action. The highest
point on the low-lying island rose barely two or
three meters from the water. McCoy pressed the
telescopic switch, and the image jumped nearer.
  Details revealed odd-shaped fragments of
reflective material ... bits of the
hull and cabin section of the lost shuttle, for sure.
They lay displayed on the rocks like ornaments on a
tree.
  McCoy lurched slightly as the boat shifted,
lost his gaze. Scott was swinging the prow around. He
gunned the twin power-packs and they jetted toward the
rocks.
  "Any sign of them, Bones?" the chief engineer
shouted as he nosed the gig into a notch between two
protruding rocks. McCoy shook his head.
Clayton scrambled out with a rope in one hand,
secured it around a projecting knob of worn
obsidian that looked solid enough to anchor the
Enterprise itself. Clearly, this island had not
appeared within the last couple of days.
  McCoy climbed out of the gig. Ignoring the
debris strewn around his feet, he started for the peak
of the little islet, picking his path carefully around sharp
edges of metal, plastic and volcanic glass.
  No doubt about it, though, the bulk of the shuttle
had been washed up[*thorngg'or tossed
up[*thorngg'here. He topped the gentle rise and
looked down the other side.
  STAR TREK FIVE 27
  That's when he spotted Kirk and
Spock.
  On the other side of the islet the water was barely
a meter deep, washing up over
  amber-white sand into a miniature bay. The
motionless forms of the Enterprzse's captain and Srst
officer lay face down in the sand.
  "They're here!" he yelled back. "Hurry!"
  Seconds later Clayton and Scott were
splashing through the water, dragging in panic at the two
bodies.
  "You think they're still alive, Bones?" Scott
didn't look at his friend as he said it.
  McCoy's reply was grim, honest. "Not if
they've been down there for five days."
  Both forms seemed to weigh tons. They fought
to move Kirk to the nearest dry land while keeping his
head above water.
  "They might have swum here, crawled ashore
dazed, and just fallen into the water recently from
weakness, "McCoy said wishfully. "Very recently,
I hope."
  They finally managed to drag Kirk's
  waterlogged form onto a flat section of island.
Leaving his feet dangling in the water, they went
back for Spock.
  As soon as both men were Iying alongside one and
other, McCoy reached into his backpack and
removed the medical tricorder. Adjusting it
quickly, he passed it over Kirk's chest, then
reset it and did the same with Spock. Then he
made additional adjustments and repeated the action,
including head and neck this time
  While Scott and Clayton looked on
anxiously, McCoy studied the resultant
readouts. Without a word, he ran through the entire
sequence again, Snally sat back and frowned at the
instrument as though it had suddenly grown arms and
legs.
  "For the sake of Reaction, say somethin'l"
Scott eventually exploded. "Are they alive?"
  McCoy blinked, appeared to come out of a dream.
He looked at Spock without seeing
  hm[*thorngg'then ran through the examination yet
  another time.
  "Their life systems are still functioning," he
Snally said, as Scott was about to scream.
"Metabolism is slowed, heartbeat slightly
faster, all other bodily functiobs
altered[*thorngg'b within acceptable parameters"
He looked up in
  confusion.
  28 STAR TREI: LOG Fly
  "I say "acceptable" because they're
incontrovertably alive. But there's something about their
lungs and the rest of their respiratory systems I
can't figure at all." He shook the tricorder.
"Not with this toy, anyway."
  Clayton interrupted, gestured at the bodies.
"They're coming around."
  Kirk's eyes opened first . . . opened, and
opened, until they stared skyward in shock and fear.
He grabbed at his throat, and his words came out in a
feathery, agonised whisper as he twisted on the
damp stone.
  "Can't . . . breathe. Suffocating . . . 1"
  "No . . . air . . . choking . . . odd .
. ." Spock said huskily, like a dying
asthmatic.
  All three officers stared at their two comrades
in horror: helpless, confused, uncertain.
Spock's hands went to his chest in a reflexive
spasm, Kirk's shifting between chest and throat.
Both men began tearing at their shirts, the actions of
someone fighting to clear some invisible constriction from his
lungs.
  That was when McCoy first noticed me fine mem-
brane stretched between their fingers. It looked
organic, not artificial[*thorngg'alm like
webbing, in fact. And that slight, silvery-amber
flaking on the backs of Kirk's hands ... why, it
was as if the captain had grown scalesl
  "Help . . . to was Kirk whispered hoarsely,
"Can't . . . breathe . . ."
  "What's happening to them, Bones?" Scott
pleaded. "What's gain' on?"
  "Someming's changed their whole respiratory
struc- ture," McCoy whispered in awe. "They
can't live in the atmosphere anymore. Not a
gaseous one, anyway." He stood, grabbed
Kirk's arms. "Get his ankles' Help me
get them back in the water!"
  They had an easier time wrestling the two men
back into me shallow pool than they had had pulling
them out. As soon as Heir faces passed beneath me
clear surface, both men ceased struggling. Instead
of grabbing at Heir chests, they relaxed
completely.
  - McCoy stared in disbelief, even though he
half
  expected what would happen, as Kirk
rolled over on the sand and stared up at him through the
crystal-clear
  STAR TRIERV'S 29
  surface. As to which officer was the more shocked, no
one could say.
  Scott walked over to stand next to him,
likewise gazing down at his two good friends in
horrified hscination.
  "What do we do now, Doctor?" McCoy
  hesitated, then tweed to the chief engineer and
spoke with conViCti less-than not.
  "We get the captain and Mr. Spock on
board, Scotty." And he went on to outline what
had to be done.
  The corridor was empty except for McCoy.
The security chambers in Sick Bay were used
  (infrequently, at that) for the care and treatment of
criminals or dangerous aliens. Now one of them
had been converted to a much different[*thorngg'and more
vital[*thorngg'use. McCoy would encounter no
one as he spoke into the recording pickup.
  "Medical log, Stardate 5S27.1
Captain Kirk and First Offlcer Spock were
rescued[*thorngg'with qualifica-
tions[*thorngg'forty-eight hours ago."
  He turned the last corner into the recently
empty chamber. In place of the double-security
door just inside the entrance, a rather different restraining
wall had been installed. It consisted of a plate of
clear plexalloy, backed by an air space, and
then another plexalloy plate. Beyond this airtight
seal the chamber was filled four-fifths full with
water[*thorngg'a special kind of water, at
that.
  McCoy was taking no chances with substitutions from
the En tilde erpnse tilde s own tanks. The
water which filled the room had been transported up
in containers from the Argoan world-ocean[*thorngg'f the
inlet where Kirk and Spock had been found. The
amber sand that covered the floor of the room came from the
same location. McCoy's only liberty had been
with the air supply: he had to substitute a pump
for the natural plant
  oxygenation system below. So far, neither officer had
demonstrated any ill effects from this one concession
to convenience.
  Kirk and Spock were at the far end of the room,
  30 STAR TREK COG PI
  moving aimlessly, dispiritedly over the boKom sand.
They were deep enough in thought,
  undoubtedly musing on their present situation, so
that they failed to notice the doctor's entrance.
McCoy studied them, resumed speaking into the
pickup.
  "They have no recollection of what happened after
they were thrown from the shuttle. Medical analysis
has revealed the presence of an unknown and as yet
unidentified substance in their bloodstreams. There
is a high probability that this substance is
responsible for the alteration of their metabolism and for
changing them into water-breathers."
  He stopped, shut the recorder off. Both men
had noticed his arrival and were moving toward the
transparent wall. As they approached, McCoy
once again marveled at the process which had somehow
altered his friends" internal structure so
efficiently..
  Even their eyes had been affected. They were now
covered with a transparent film like the second
eyelids of some lizards. And of course there were the
primary manifestations of the change such as the
pronounced scaling and toughening of the skin, increased
layers of subcutaneous fatty tissue, and webbing
of fingers and toes.
  While the two officers stared at him
mutely, he moved to a panel set in the wall,
examined the gauges and meters it proffered.
  Temperature, pressure, salinity, oxygen
content ... everything read normal . . . for a fish.
He nodded to the watching Kirk and Spock. Kirk
acknowledged with a single jerk of his head and McCoy
touched a switch in the bottom of the panel.
  A metal section in the nontransparent portion
of the wall slid aside. McCoy entered the
pressure cubicle and touched another switch,
closing the door behind him. A nudge on the belt
at his waist, and the glow of a life-support system
enveloped his form in soft yellow radiance.
  At the adjustment of a simple lever set inside
the cubicle, water began to creep up around his
feet, ankles, knees. When the chamber was
completely filled,
  STAR TREK L tilde FIVE 31
  McCoy slid the interior door aside and
walked clumsily into the water room.
  Kirk and Spock were waiting for him. As usual,
their voices held a slight fuzziness, like a beam
transmission coming in unamplified from across too many
lightyears. That they sounded even halfway normal
was in itself remarkable, but whatever had touched them
had been thorough . . . their vocal cords had been
altered for speaking under water.
  "Well, Bones?" was all Kirk said.
  "We're stumped, Jim. Nothing's worked.
We've pretty much settled on this new hormone
in your blood as the root cause of the entire
mutation. Antidote doesn't automatically
follow
  identification, however. There are some of the
weirdest-looking molecules involved you ever saw,
and they go on forever. So far the situation defies
analysis."
  Kirk just no.ed[*thorngg'there wasn't much
else he could do. "What about the other thing . . . are
you sure the alteration wasn't performed naturally?"
  McCoy shook his head. "No, Jim.
Someone's been working on the both of you. I'm certain
of that. There are too many signs of penetration at
key structural points[*thorngg'y had to receive the
hormone artificially."
  Kirl: let out a bitter, bubbling laugh.
"Bang goes the theory of mere being no intelligent
life on Argo." He paused, thoughtfully.
""The medical computers have the entire medicinal knowledge
of the Federation in their archives. Can't you
duplicate the procedure on a lab animal, men
work backwards to find the antidote?"
  McCoy didn't mention the nagging fear that the
mutation might be irreversible. "Sorry, Jim.
The surgicochemical methodology here is
utterly alien to us[*thorn)'ffme, anyhow.
Highly sophisticated, too. If I knew how
to begin to approach the
  procedure, I might ..." His voice trailed
off.
  "So we are left with locating a previously
unknown, unsuspected sapient life-form below,"
Spock put in. "Evidently the initial
surveys saw nothing but simple marine forms."
McCoy looked hesitant.
  "I don't see how even a dumb drone could
miss a race capable of this kind of medical
technology."
  32 STA-A Tropic tilde OG PA
  "Medical technology is not highly visible,"
Spock countered. "Knowledge of that sort does not imply
knowledge of, for example, advanced structural engineering
or other highly visible signs of civilisation.
Many primitive cultures possess basic,
yet complex medical abilities."
  "You're reaching, Spock," said McCoy.
  'It is ordy one of several possible
explanations," the first officer readily admitted.
"Another lies in the composition of the Argoan sea
itself. The presence of large amounts of dissolved
metals and mineral salts could easily distort
delicate sensor readings, block others
entirely. Also, such sensors were probably set for
shallow scans, ignoring possibly inhabited
depths."
  McCoy smiled.
  "All wry plausible, Spock. But if true,
where does that leave us? We can't carry out efficient
underwater exploration without the aqua-shuttle, and that was
our only vehucle designed for
liquid-environment study." He gestured at the
belt circling his waist.
  "We can exist underwater with life-support
belts, but out time is limited and our mobility even
more so. Also, if there's somebody down there who wants
to stay hidden, it would be pretty damn difficult
to hide a bunch of floating yellow light bulbs his
  'bled, we aren't limited!" Kirlc blurted in
frustration. "5pock and I go anywhere in that ocean
as efficiently as the natives." He
smiled grimly. "We've been designed to do so."
  McCourt face took on a look of alarm.
"Too risky, Jm. Argo is totally
unexplored. If sensors couldn't penetrate that
metalized soup you want to go swimming about in,
chances are
  communications won't be much good, either. And if there
are any more mmnows down there like the one that hit the
shuttle . . ."
  Kirk's smile widened, but the grimness
  remained in his voice. "We don't have a
choice, Bones." He waved a webbed hand. "I
can't
  command a ship from in here . .. hell, I cants
own live in here! We'd go crazy in a week!"
  "The captain somewhat exaggerates the
  subjective time involved," Spock corrected
evenly, "but the inept
  STAR TREK L tilde Few
  lability of his prediction is one I'm not
prepared to argue with."
  "I know how you feet Jim, Spock," said
McCoy. "But there's still a chance we might find a
solution in the lab. If you go down into that ocean, out
of contact . . ." Kirlc cut him off.
  "Right now the percentages give us two choices,
Bones. Live in an aquarium for the rest of our
lives like curiosities, freaks[*thorngg'or
stay on Argo as her andment Pederaffon settlers.
I refuse to accept either one of them."
  McCoy slfifted his attention from the stubborn
set of Kirk's face to appeal to Spock.
  "What about you, Spock7 You can view this in a
log" ical, dispassionate manner."
  "The captain states the case emotionally, of
course," Spock replied instantly, "but
correctly."
  McCoy's expression fell. "I would be of very
lithe value to this ship[*thorngg'or
to myf[*thorngg'if I were to remain confined to a
tank in Sic right-brace Bay." He paused,
added, "In a way, we are total invalids,
Doctor. Something you should be able to
  understand. We must seek any possible treatment,
no matter what the corollary dangers."
  Kirk raised his right hand, studied the webbing.
"Any intelligence that can produce this kind of
mutation ought to be able to change us back. Ha,
to change us back." He lowered the hand and stared
unwaveringly at McCoy.
  ""There are some other physicians in this
ViCiDity, Bones, and we've got to find them .
. ."
  Ill
  The sun of Argo, slightly yellower than
Sol, glinted sharply off mirrorgg'ike swells,
struck the small silver splinter excitedly and
raced on to illumine the island.
  Kirk, Spock, Scott and Clayton filled
the gig, the latter two holding phasers as they
surveyed the surrounding surface for signs of
anything even faintly inimical The tiny boat
bobbed just outside the long morning shadows cast by the
towering island.
  Kirlc and Spock made final adjustments of the
dark green vinyl that clung to their bodies like a
second skin. Bubbles burst occasionally inside the
awkward, water-filled maslcs they wore.
Spock moved to the side of toe gig while Kirk
turned to face his chief engineer. Is words came
through the mask barely comprehension ble.
  "We'll make contact as soon as possible,
Mr. Scott."
  "Aye, sir," Scott replied uneasily.
He felt no better about this than had Mc)
oy.
  Kirk moved to the side of the gig, looked at his
first officer.. Spock nodded once. Both men
took a deep breath, the water level fading
visibly within their faceplates. Then they
hurriedly removed both masks and attendant
tanks,
  dropped them into the boat, and dove over the side.
  Scott moved to the side, looked down at both
men floating comfortably just under the surface. Kirk
looked up at him, waved once, and turned to swim
downward. The water was clear and Scott continued
staring for a 104g time, until both men had finally
disappeared from view . . .
  There are three habitable zones to most
life-giving worlds: the air, the land and, lastly, the
sea. And those who have claimed either of the first two have
clearly not deigned to get their feet wet.

  STAR TREK L tilde rem 35
  It's not merely the incredible lushness that
mesmerizes those who plow beneath the surface, nor is
it the overwhelming abundance of life that comprises such
lushness. To most, it's the constant motion that contrasts
so heavily with the stilted, jointed world of
airbreathers. Everything underwater is part of a single,
unending baUet- a dancing ecology, where every
inhabitant from the lowliest worm or plant to the
bemuscled and tanged carnivore knows its assigned
steps and performs uncomplainingly a perpetual
  choreography.
  Such was the world of green glass through which Kirk and
Spock now probed a leisurely path.
Descending gradually, they levered off about a dozen
meters from the sandy bottom, began to swim outward from
the island. Clusters of amber moss sequined with
phosphorescent sheds and tiny crawling things
drifted lazily in the gentle current. Tight
formations of brilliantly hued little fish wheeled and
spun in Prussian cloudUets, while larger
solitary swimmers observed enviously.
  The two bipeds began to move in a widening
spiral, now well out from the lonely gig bobbing far
above and behind them. Finally, on the fourth curve out,
Kirk and Spock encountered what looked very much like a
cultivated area. The garden was laid out in an
unearthly but undeniably artificial fashion.
Instead of distinct rows of different plants, all
grew together, but neatly spaced among themselves. There was
no crowding, no competition for light or sandy
soil among the green, pink and amber vegetation.
  Climbing over low sand dunes, the garden appeared
to thicken in the distance. A few kicks brought Kirk
and Spock to the outlying growths. WordUess, they
exsmined the unmistakable signs of hand planting,
constant weeding and care. Spock pointed and without a
word they swam to the top of the first dune. They gently
nudged through the dense vegetation crowning its top and
studied the view beyond.
  The garden, farm, or whatever it was stretched out
impressively, occupying the sandy plain in all
directions for a considerable distance. Far more commanding,
however, were the shapes that swam slowly and
purposefully among the intricate patterns.
  36 STAR TRBGG'C LOG FIVE
  They were humanoid and had almost human
foregg'imbs. But the rear limbs bore no
  resemblance to anything mankind had ever
  possessed. The legs appeared almost boneless,
while the feet were true flippers, supple and
flexible. A small dorsal fin set lust back
of the neck between the shoulder blades added to the alien
aspest. The skin was a variant of the omnipresent
amber, with shades of gold or green, while strands
of vestigial hair the colon of silver and
gold tinsel topped the skull
  The race was obviously mammalian, women
mixing in about equal numbers with men in the garden.
Both sexes were clad in close-fitting garments of
minute, metallically colored shells arranged in
a multitude of individual designs.
  "Once again, the basic humanoid model
  dominates," Spock murmured softly,
'allyully adapted for oceanic survivaLike"
  "Even so, Spock, they still seem to retain some
above-water movements. Maybe instinctive, maybe
habitual . .. I don't know. Here's another
sign of the rapid subsidence of land hereabouts."
  He paused. "And I think we've been
noticed."
  Sure enough, several heads had turned to stare in
their direction. Some of the figures were moving hastily
backward, giving signs of alarm.
  "I cannot vouch for their other senses," Spock
commented appraisingly, "but their hearing is evidently
acute."
  "Well, we came to find them," Kirk sighed.
He kicked with both legs, moving through the soft growth
and down the slope. Spock followed.
  At this first hint of movement, several more
of the Argoans moved away, while others stood their
ground and brandished tools which were none the less
lethallooking for all their agricultural design.
One of tlie natives drifted slightly in
front of his companions, then mouthed something
momentarBy incomprehensible at Kirk and Spock.
Apparently the linguistic pattern was relatively
standard. The tiny universal translators strapped
beneath the green body-quits hummed softly and the
message came out in their ear speakers as, "Go
away, air-breathers. You are not wanted here."
  STAR TREK Lo Pa 37
  Kirk had hoped for a friendly greeting at best, a
curious one at the least. But this expression of
familiarity combined with hostility had taken him
aback.
  Keeping his gaze on the speaker, he directed his
voice toward the pickup set in the concealed
translator. It rescrambled his voice into something
the sea-dwellers could comprehend.
  "We won't harm you ... we are friends. We
seek only friendship . . . and knowledge."
  "Leave us!" a woman shouted from the crowd. Yt
is enough for our young to have saved your lives once. If
you go on, nothing wp1 save you again." She
turned, swam with powerful strokes over the next
dune.
  Others turned, started to follow. "Wait,
listen," Kirk implored those departing, "we only
. . ."
  "Go away!" the man at the head of the mob shouted.
He lingered longer man the others; but eventually he,
too; turned and swam furiously to catch up.
  A mystified Kirk and Spock found themselves
Boating alone in the field.
  "It doesn't make any sense, Spock. They
said that they saved us once; and so they have, but why . .
. r"
  "excuse me, Captain," Spock cut in,
"but I believe their exact phrasing was, "our
young saved your lives once." was That gave Kirk
pause.
  "Yes, that's right[*thorngg'and these adults
didn't seem to approve." He stared in the
direction taken by the vanished Argoans. "The
answers appear to be that way, Mr. Spock."
  As they swam after the retreating farmers, Spock
mused, "They are not particularly rational," he
observed in a mildly reproving tone, "or at
least one of them would surely have realized that
we were badly outnumbered as well as apparently
weaponless.
  "Yet even so, they were frightened. Their primitive
fear of air-breathers and this," he gestured around them,
"evidence of simple hand farming hardly indicate a
race capable of highly advanced surgical
procedures. A curious
  dichotomy here, Captain. Our observations will not
readily supply a solution."
  "Then we'll just have to press a little harder,
Spock.
  3 8 STAR TREK PI
  Eventually something's going to have to give. With
answers, I hope." They swam on in silence
  Several minutes of steady swimming brought them to the
base of a coral-studded reef which rose to the
surface. Kirk treaded water easily as they
studied the sweeping escarpment. It swept off
unbroken to left and right.
  "Surely they didn't go over the top of this,
Spock."
  "Possible but not likely, Captain, I
agree. I suggest we separate and study
potential
  approaches, staying within sight of one
another."
  "All right." Kirk swam off to the left,
Spock went the other way. Soon thereafter, he
turned at a feathery yell from his first officer..
  "Here, Captain . . . 1"
  A moment later he drifted alongside
Spock, where the latter floated by a crevice in the
undersea palisade[*thorngg'a fathomless, gaping
wound that penetrated the reef for an unknown distance.
  "excellent place for an ambush," he
muttered.
  "True, Captain. Yet why arrange so
elaborate a deception? They could easily have
overpowered us earlier. I submit they went through here
. . . without stopping." He nodded toward the
  horizontal shaft.
  Both men worked at their suit belts, produced
thin, seated cylinders powerful undersea lights.
Kirk activated his, turned to throw a tubular
beam of brightness into the crack. He moved it around,
and the beam revealed nothing but naked rock, dead
coral, and a few stunted plants and some terrified
dwellers in darkness, who quiclc right-brace you
darted out of sight into private abysses of their own.
  Keeping both beams fairly parallel,
they entered the trench.
  It was longer than Kirk expected. In places
it became almost a tunnel, as the walls arched
overhead to blot out all hints of the surface.
  He forced himself to concentrate on the finite cane
of rock illumined by the light. This was a place for
observation, not imagination, to hold sway.
  Something touched him on the shoulder and he jerked
sharply, but relaxed when he found it was only
  STAR TREK FIVE 39
  Spock's hand. The first officer extinguished his
light, motioned for Kirk to do the same. They waited
silently while their eyes readjusted to the absence of
light. Or was it absent?
  For several moments while they floated in darlEvery
coolness, he saw nothing. Then he became aware that
he could make out the faint outlines of the trench around
them, albeit dimly.
  The illumination appeared to emanate from somewhere
close ahead. A few kicks brought them
into increased light from overhead once again. Eventually
they reached the end of the trench
  Here the coral rampart dropped off in a steep
cliff to a broad sandy plain deeper and wider than
the one they'd past left. What rose lofty
and ethereal there made the manicured gardens and
jeweled schools of fish they'd seen pale
to insignificance.
  What they had come upon was an underwater city,
constructed with complete disregard for any ancient
cataclysm, any present currents, any concern
of an' sort save aesthetics . . . a
metropolis of faery.
  Thin winding towers emulated the internal
configuration of spiral seashells in grace and
strength. Another huge, shell-shaped structure
dominated the city, rising in its canter. It was as
if the city had been poured whole, entire, from a
single, carefully sculpted meld, instead of being
built by piece and bit.
  At the point nearest the base of the coral
cliff, a large archway formed a prominent break in
the wall that surrounded the city. Variously clad
infiabitants were swimming in and out in a steady
tramway stream, intent on unknown aspects of
Argoan commerce.
  "Beautiful ... and fascinating," Spock
commented. Notice the wall and use of the archway, when
both are easily avoidable. Both carry-overs from
land-dwelling times."
  "AU the more reason to wonder, Spock," said
Kkk, shaking his head in puzz lament. "A
  civilisation comcapable of building something like this, able
to withstand continental subsiding, capable of medical
accomplishments unheard of in the
Federation[*thorngg'why should they be afraid of us,
Spock?"
  40 STAR TREIC LOG FIVE
  "Perhaps the proper term would be abhorrence,
Captain, not fear. It is quite possible they find us
grotesque and ugly. Basis enough for their reactions
thus far. There is ample precedent in Eartll's
history."
  Kirk nodded slowly. "Agreed. Still, we've
got to get inside, no matter what they think of our
features. There seems to be much less activity
on the far side." Spock strained his gaze.
  "I also feel no cultural inhibitions about
ignoring the archway, Captain."
  Dodging occasional solitary Argoans and taking
care to remain a good distance from the city proper, the
two men began to swim in a broad curve away from
what they'd determined to be the city's main entrance.
  EventuaDy they approached a section of wall
that looked deserted. Even so, they felt
  conspicuous against the bright white and amber sand
bottom. They waited until the lowing sun formed a
dark shadow behind one thick tower, then swam for it.
  A quick survey revealed they were in a little fro"
quented section of the city. Kirk motioned and they
swam slowly toward its center. He had no
definite plan in mind[*thorngg'there was nothing
to formulate one on only that they had to contact the
physician-scientists who had instigated the
initial mutation. Persuasion would hopefully
follow.
  They made rapid progress, keeping close
to the walls of low-lying structures wherever feasible.
Once they almost kicked head-on into a crowd of
busy Argoans as they stumbled into a central
crossway. They had to dart back into a nook between
buildings and wait for the aliens to pass.
  "where it is," Kirk finally whispered.
  They were floating on the opposite side of a
broad, open plaza from the huge shell-shaped
central structure. Right now it was devoid of
strokers, and both officers wondered at the absence of
citizens.
  "Perhaps everyone is out in the fields at this time,"
Spock speculated, "or deep within the
structures engaged in daily tasks we cannot conceive
of. Or it may be that . . ."
  Words and actions were cut off abrup tilde dy as
a large
  STAR TREE0 PI 41
  weighted net dropped neatly over them. Two
males appeared on either side and above them, crossed
in a deadly precision maneuver beneath the two startled
officers and pulled the net tight.
  Kirk and Spock found themselves unable to get a
purchase on anything solid, unable to get any
speed in the folds of the net, and unable to break it.
All the while they were discovering these depressing
facts, their captors were towing them efficiently
toward the very domed edifice they'd sought to reach.
  Kirk finally stopped fighting the netting and
relaxed. They might need their strength later and have a
better chance to use it. He also tried to look on the
bright side of things
  They had wanted to enter the sheUs-shaped
building[*thorngg'v wed, it seemed they were going
to do that. Not as stealthily as he had planned, perhaps,
but half an apple was better than none.
  They entered through a broad, low, open arch much like the
anachronistic city gate, were towed through
several twisting, winding halls. Inside, at least,
the Argoans had managed to shuck off enough of their
landbased memory to build without regard to land-based
gravity.
  Some of the hallways dipped up in curves,
others ran down to undisclosed depths at crazy
angles. Eventually they emerged into a huge
auditorium near the roof of the building As they did
so Kirk realised why they had seen so few
Argoans swimming over the rooftops.
  Most of the buildings were doubtless arranged like this
one, with transparent or translucent roofs to let
in the light of day. Mass movement overhead would not
only be disconcerting, it would block the light as
well as eliminate privacy.
  Kirk then turned his attention to more
  immediate matters. The chamber wads were
  decorated with huge globes of a creamy,
  pearl-like laster. There was a raised dais at the
far end of the chamber. Its three carved seats were
occupied by male Argoans.
  It was difficult to judge age with any
accuracy. But judging from their attitude and bearing as
much as outward appearance, Kirk felt these three were
fully ma
  42 STAR 1 tilde K LOG Fly
  fore specimens. One was slim and appeared to be
regarding them with a thoughtful, though amused air. The one
on the far right was slightly paunchy, and his
expression was less readable. Between them, the tallest
of the triumvirate studied Kirk with piercing amber
eyes that seemed to cut right through him. A remarkable
personality, Kirk decided instantly, and the one
to be watched most carefully.
  There was a lower dais set to the left, again with
three seats. Two of its occupants were males, the
third female attractive in a fishy sort of
way. They were generally little smaller than the other
three. But their motions were quicker, their eyes moved
faster, and Kirk had the definite impression that they
were considerably younger than those sitting on the main
platform.
  Time for analysis vanished as Kirk found himself
tumbling head over heels toward the dais, net and
all. He thrashed about, trying to regain his balance in
the enclosed space.
  "Here are the spies, Tribune," the
translator reported in his ear[*thorngg'the words
of one of their captors. There was an unmistakable
hint of disgust in his final words:
"Air-breathers!"
  The tall one, the one with the eyes, rose from the
dais to hover in the water before them. He studied
Kirk and Spock coldly, and the translator
managed to convey some of that coldness
  across tilde unemotional circuitry.
  "You stand."
  "Inaccurate," mumbled Spock, struggling
to turn erect within the clinging coils of the net.
  "I am Domar," their questioner began, "the High
Tribune of the . . ."
  "Aquans" was the nearest the translator could come
to interpreting the unpronouncable name these folk had for
themselves.
  "These are my advisors, Cadmar and Cheron,"
the imposing speaker continued, indicating the beings to his
right and left.
  Kirk gave up trying to extricate himself from the
net, settled for striking a dignified post within.
"I am Captain James Kirk of the Starship
Enterpnse. This is my first officer, Mr.
Spock."
  STAR llIBK LOG PIVBBLEDC
  The thin brows of the High Tribune drew together
uncertainly. "Your words are meaningless. You
are air-breather enemies from the surface. We have
been expecting you for a long time, never letting down
our guard from the Old Days."
  "If you find my words meaningless, I confess I
find yours confusing, Tribune," Kirk admitted
truthfully. "We came here in peace."
  Domar's frown deepened. His two companions
gazed grimly at the officers.. "The ancient
records," he announced, 'yearn that air-breathers
never come in peace."
  "Are you saying," broke in a new, challenging
voice, "that they come in war, then ... without any
weapons?"
  Kirk looked sharply to his left. The young
female was on her flippers, staring belligerently
at the Tribune. On her right side one of the
males added, "Can we do nothing without consulting the
ancient records? Have we no ability to analyse
and decide without the advice of the lon tilde dead?"
  Obviously this was a very different society from,
say, that of Ed; for this challenge produced definite
hind of hesitation in the attitudes of two of the
Tribunes[*thorn] Cadmar and Cheron. One
  minute they appeared as inflexible as the walls of the
city, the next and their convictions showed
cracks at the first objection from their younger
colleagues. If the High Tribune Domar
felt the same lack of assurance, he didn't show
it.
  There was an unmistakable weariness in
  Cheron's voice as he countered, "Why do the
Junior Tribunes always wish to change the
records? Are the words of those who built this city
empty for them? Are they. . . ?"
  Domar put out a quieting hand, then the council
leader turned and made a gesture to the two guards.
  "Let the mesh be removed[*thorngg'b stand
ready. Be- ware the air-breather's
deceptiveness."
  With considerable relief, Kirk and Spock felt
the netting being removed. As they were freed, all six
Tribunes inspected them with renewed interest. The
powerful amplifier in the tiny translator brought
Kirk a
  44 SITAR TREK L00 FIVE
  whispered translation from[*thorngg'he
struggled to recall the vaguely Greco-Roman
sounding names.
  Lemas[*thorngg't was the youngster's name.
  "The surgeons did their jobs well,"
he was murmuring. "Observe the perfection of the
metamorphosis and the ease with which their bodies have
adapted."
  Kirk felt faintly flattered[*thorngg'the
sort of mild exhilaration one experiences when
participating in the hardwon success of others. Still,
the Tribune's words were not conclusive evidence. The
process still might have been initiated naturally and
only completed by artificial means. It would pay
to be sure.
  His natural inclination was to address himself immediately
to the younger, seemingly friendly Tribunes. He needed
his years of diplomatic experience to tell himself that
their elders wouldn't look kindly on the implied
slight. So he directed his first words to Domar.
  "Then your scientists did induce these
  mutations in our systems?"
  "We had no other moral choice. Unlike
air- breathers," he finished roughly, "tilde e
do not wish to kill."
  "You could simply have left US where we were and
let us drown," Spock pointed out.
  A twinge of contempt was added to Domar's
coldness.
  "Indifference to the injured is merely
another form of murder. A typical air-breather
  observation. You were brought here unconscious,
barely alive. You were returned to a place near
where you were found still unconscious, far more alive. Our
obligation was discharged."
  "It would seem that their own ancient records are
as well preserved as ours," Cadmar put in.
"They found us again anyway, to come among us as
spies."
  Again that shrill female voice cut the water.
"You do not give them a chance to defend or explain
themselves, Cadmar. Our law does allow that, even for
unmentionable air-breathers who come among us."
  "Rela is correct," said Domar, then turning
back to Kirk and Spock. "You may speak ...
if you have the nerve."
  STAR TRE,: LOG PIV-EVERY 45
  "Look" Kirk began, ignoring Domar's
invitation to fight, "you've apparently had some
pretty bad expert ences in the past with the last
remnants of whatever branch of your race remained
on the surface of this world. I can tell you with some
assurance that you've no longer anything to fear from that
quarter!
  "As for ourselves, we come from another world
entirely. Our only desire in returning to your
cit tilde which we found simply by following some of
your farmers was to ..."
  He did not get a chance to finish. The
  excitement his words had generated in the younger
Tribunes finally spiced over.
  "You do not live on the surface places?"
Rela in- quired wonderingly.
  "Not of this world," Spock began, "we . . ."
  The conversation was getting too complicated for
Cadmar, at least. "Enough!" he cried, the
violence of his comment bringing him out of his seat.
"Clearly, this is a great lie. Another world,
indeed! The situation is plain. The air tilde
breathers are come again to wreak havoc among us."
  "You are mistaken, sir," Spock objected
quietly. "As Captain Kirk was about to say, our
only purpose in returning here was to find a means
of reversing the mutations you induced in us."
  "That, at least, is impossible," Domar informed
them brusquely. "There is nothing in the surgical
records we retain that designates a method for
reverse mutation."
  Kirk slumped inwardly. That was it, then. He was
doomed to spend the rest of his life drifting
in a portable container. A curiosity, a freak for
Federation scientists to ponder on and take periodic
samples from.
  Spock, undoubtedly, would handle it better than
he. He wondered what it was going to be like to spend the
rest of his life at the wrong end of a microscope.
  The slight dot took on shape and form as
Scott adjusted the telefocals. It resolved
into a long, narrow creature with broad fins, a tong
thin tail, flapping wings and fishlike body. It
skimmed low over the distant sur
  46 STAR TREK L tilde Fly
  face and he thought he could make out feathery gills
on comthe back of the thing's neck.
  Apparently an amphibious flier. Interesting.
He wished Spock were here to see it and venture an
opinion.
  He wished Spock were here, period.
  There was a buzz at his hip. He acknowledged the
communicator can and McCoy's voice drifted up
from the speaker.
  "Enterprise to Mr. Scott."
  Scott watched a moment longer as the flier
folded leathery wings against its body and dove into the
water. Then he turned his attention to the
communicator.
  "Scott here . . . what is it, Doctor1"
  "All departments have been proceeding with their own
missions, as per Jim's orders, Scotty. We
just got a bulletin from seismology. There's a
major quake due in that area."
  "How soon?"
  "Meter can't be certain, but it's going to be a
bad one. Complete topography shift."
  "All right, he can't be exact . . . I know
those guys down there. What's their best estimate?"
  A pause at the other end, and then McCoy's
voice came back tense, worried. "Probably
within four hours, Scotty. That's a conservative
guess."
  "And inside the captain and Mr. Spock's
report-in time," he replied in alarm.
  "Inside! Can't you contact them before that?"
  "Kinna do it, Doctor. They've no
  communicators and ..." He stopped, thought a
moment. "Wait ... there ought to be a trace
signal from their translators. Those gadgets are
small, but they use a lot of power. We can try like
blue blazes, anyway. Scott out."
  He flipped off, turned to the anxiously
waiting Clayton. "Let's get out those other
suits and the life-support belts, Lieutenant.
Contact our other boats. We're gain' fishin'."
  The green body suits were the closest thing
to camouflage they had. But there was no way to disguise
the glow from the belts. One by one the belts were am
  tivated and the little party dropped over the side.
  STAR TREK [tilde PI 47
  Scott descended rapidly, braked to study the
reading on the wrist guage he had donned along with the
suit and belt. He turned slowly, finally stopped
facing toward deeper water.
  "Directional pickup indicates they're in that
general direction, toward those dunes. Let's go."
  The little knot of crewmen started off in the
indicated direction, shining like fireflies in the
clear water.
  Searching eyes roved over gorgeously colored
underwater life, exotically shaped, remarkably
shaded. Plant or animal or both, all were
resolutely ignored. The party was hunting for more
simply clad, more awkwardly built
  swimmers.
  Two pairs of eyes studied them from behind a
concealing dune of amber sand and rock. One
pair belonged to one of the farmers Kirk and Spock
had encountered earlier.
  "More air-breathers," she reported to her
companion. "We must inform the Tribunes." The
other nodded and they streaked away, weaving in and out
among the bemmies and beds of
  pseudo-kelp.
  "The name of our starship, our above-the-air
vessel," Kirk explained to the intent
Tribunes, "is on the wreckage of our underwater
craft. If you want proof, examine the
remains."
  "Yes," insisted Rela, "let us examine the
wreckage before we pass judgment."
  "To what end?" wondered Cheron tiredly. "The
fact that their vessel has a name is no proof of
extra-Argoan origin." Kirk was about to point out
that they would find more conclusive evidence in the wreck
when the discussion was interrupted by the breathless arrival
of two females at the far end of the chamber. They
rushed forward.
  Kirk noted that no one objected to their entrance,
no one sought to bar them from the room. This society had
much to commend it, he reflected.
  "Important news, High
Tribune."
  Domar made a curt gesture. "Speak."
  "Several air-breathers have invaded the outskirts
of
  48 STILL" TRB tilde Lo tilde
  the cultivated areas. We saw them. They were
moving toward the city. They glowed most
  strangely."
  "That's only . . . ," Kirk began, but
Doman drowned him out as he turned angrBy to the
Junior Tribunes. "Defensive screens, as
the records speak off Do you still believe these
creatures come la peace?"
  Some of Rela's self-righteous assurance faded,
apparently drained by this unexpected
  information. "tilde e do not know what to believe,"
she Snally whispered un happily.
  Domar looked satisfied, turned his attention
to the pair of guards who stood ready behind Kirk and
Spock.
  "Take these spies to the surface and leave them
there. They wish to return to their element. So be it.
Justice enough for our enemies . . . 1"
  By
  Kirk choked, gasped for breath. He
got a half mouthful of water and gulped it
gratefully.
  Whether Domar, the other Tribunes, or the
guards were responsible for the particular agony he and
Spock were being subjected to he didn't know. But
right now all he wished for was a smooth scaly neck
under his fingers.
  They had been taken to the spot where McCoy and
Scott had found them and tied securely to the
low-lying boulders there, just barely above the water
line. Occasionally 8 wave would sweep over the
rocks and give them a momentary
  respite from slow suffocation.
  But the steady deprivation of air-rich water was
making them weaker and weaker. At their present
infrequent intake, they wouldn't last much longer.
Nor was there any hope here of a life-giving incoming
tide.
  So weak were they that neither saw the slim form which swam
nearby, staring at them sadly. Rela.
  A glint of metal as the wave receded elsewhere
caught her eye and she kicked toward it, her
flippers propelling her rapidly through the water.
Holding her breath, she poked her head and arms out
of the water and examined the shards and scraps
with a kind of resigned curiosity. Several of the
pieces were bigger than she was and were almost intact.
She noticed that one seemed to have some kind of writing
etched into it. With her finger, she traced the cryptic
indentations.
  U.s.s. Enterprise ... the bumps meant
nothing to her, of course.
  Another section, caught high up on a rocky
projection, caught her eye. She took a deeper
breath, raised her head and stared. It seemed to be
part of a dome ... a dome of some strange,
transparent material. Judging from its curve, it
must have enclosed a sub

  50 STAR TREK L tilde Fee
  stantial area, though she couldn't get any good
idea of its original size or shape. She
clambered out onto the rocks, struggling clumsily.
  Beneath the broken dome was a section of metal lined
with interesting instruments. There were also several sealed
cases which had broken loose from their catches and
tumbled about within. One was jammed shut, but two of the
others lay broken open, their contents scattered
nearby.
  She picked up the remains of what
seemed to be a book[*thorngg'b the material was
impossibly, incredibly fragile. Opening it
carefully, she thumbed through it, her eyes growing
wider and wider at each subsequent waterlogged
revelation.
  There were pictures of strange vessels, others
of absurd underwater creatures she had never seen,
and others[*thorngg'of air-dweUers! Such
  incredible monsters couldn't possibly exist ...
on her world, she realized with a start.
  And that meant ... she plunged into the water, swam
furiously, perilously close to the sharp edges of the
rocks. Taking another deep breath she scrambled
up onto the flat boulder to which Kirk was bound,
knelt over him.
  "Conserve your strength," she bubbled, "I win
free you... somehow."
  She tugged at the cords, Lying to loosen the
knots. She dug her Dippers into a crack in the
rocks and pulled with all her strength, gasping,
straining, water running out her mouth and down her chin.
No use.
  While Kirk continued to gasp weakly she turned
and plunged her head back under the surface for a long
moment. Coming back up she said in that odd,
gurgling voice, "The mesh is too strong!"
  "Go," Kirk somehow managed to sputter,
  "toward the big island . . . assistance there,
maybe . . . friends . . ."
  Rela nodded, or at least that was the
  impression Kirk had. After giving both men long
draughts of fresh water, she plunged back in and
disappeared.
  If, Kirk mused painfully, she decided not
to come back . . .
  STAR TREK L tilde FrVE 51
  Clayton looked over the side of the gig. A
moment later, Scott, the lime-yellow aura of his
life-support belt stiRather glowing brightly, popped
up. He reached up, clung to the side of the small
craft.
  "See anything?" asked Clayton. Scott
shook his head dispiritedly.
  "Still no sign of "em. I wish we carried more
underwater equipment. The captain and Mr. Spock
are adapted for gettin" around in this environment.
We just can't match "em, tryin" to swim in a
life-support aura.
  "Besides which, the directional tracker isn't
pickin" up their signal anymore. Lost
it a while back and I'm damned if I know why .
. . unless their translators are broken." He
patted the one affixed to his own chest beneath the green
body-quit.
  "The only signal I get now is from mine, and
I'm not too sure it works. I thought I saw some
big, manshaped form watchin' us from one of the big
kelp beda I yelled at it and it disappeared."
  "It might have been a fish," Clayton argued,
"but I suppose it could have been one of our
  mysterious locals. I don't think it's the
translator, sir, I ..." He broke off,
staring, as an alien shape broke the water only a
couple of meters from the gig. His phaser came around
automatically.
  But it lowered at the same time they were given proof
of the translator's efficacy.
  "Follow me, quickly!" Rela implored. Without
waiting for a reply, she turned and started off in the
direct tion of the distant boulders.
  "Wait a minute!" Scott shouted hurriedly,
"who are . . . ?"
  Rela whirled in the water, yelled back at
them. "Follow me. Your friends need your help."
She ducked her head and shot off again.
  While Scott climbed into the gig, Clayton
focused his telefocals on the distant, moving fin.
"I've got her clearly, Mr. Scott. She's
swimming just under the surface."
  Scott nodded, switched off his life-support
belt and moved to the controls of the gig. A second
later the
  52 [*thorn] STAR TREK LOG
FIVE
  powerful side jets came to life and the compact
vessel shot off in pursuit.
  Kirk's chest felt like the rotten leather of an
old bellows, and his hoarse rasping sounded like one.
There were more pleasant ways to die, he thought, than
suffocating to death. He sensed its nearness, and the first
hallucinations confirmed it.
  It started with the gurgling shout he dreamt he heard
nearby. Vague forms seemed to move
  before his glazed eyes, almost human . . .
angels, perhaps? It seemed that hands fumbled at his
sides . . .
  A warm coolness washed over him . . . a
temperature incongruity? No ... he drew in
another breath, felt himself growing stronger, drew
another and another.
  His vision cleared with awesome abruptness, and he
found himself staring into the non-angelic but no less
welcome face of an anxious Scott. He sat
up, looked around. Spock stared back at him across
the sandy bottom.
  Scott joined them, once again activating his
yellow halo. Kirk seated himself on something soft
and, he hoped, nonlethal.
  "Good to see you, Scotty."
  "Not as good as it is to see you, Captain." The
look in the chief engineer's eyes embarrassed
Kirk. He turned to Rela.
  "Rela, this is my chief engineering officer,
Mr. Scott. Tribune Rela is an
Argoan-Aquan, as Heir name for themselves
translates. Their city is a short distance away.
I'm afraid Mr. Spock and I didn't make
a very favorable impression on its rulers."
  "We're obliged for your help," Scott said
hurriedly, forcing gaze and curiosity away from the
drifting Rela. "Captain, we've been trying
to contact you for two hours. There's a severe quake
due in this area soon. According to the
  seismology people, it will disrupt this entire
region. That won't bother us, of course,
but . . ."
  The translators were good, not perfect. Some of
me strange mouthings of the air-breathers came
to Rela garbled and devoid of crucial nuances. But
if some of
  STAR TREK L tilde Fly 53
  the terminology was vague, the look Scotty
gave her was enough to put his point across.
  "There are many legends of such events," she told
them. "When the great surface places sank into the
sea Much of the knowledge of the ancients was destroyed."
  "I still do not understand," put in Spock, "how such
a radical, complete racial mutation could take
place in such a short time."
  "You are right, Mr. Spock," Rela complimented
him. "Evolution played no part in it. When the
surface places began to sink, many
  air-breathers[*thorngg'my distant
ancestors[*thorngg'were altered to breathe and live
beneath the sea by surgery, as you were. Such surgery
extended even to the . . ."
  it came out "genes."
  "Thus, the change was made
hereditary[*thorngg'for those who accepted the change.
There were those who did not . . . hence my
people's instinctive fear of you."
  "Strange that the air-breathing remainder of your
race should turn to useless violence," Kirk
wondered, "considering their accomplishments."
  "It seems as if those who remained on the
surface didn't believe the continental subsidence
would be this extensive," Spock theorised. "I would
guess that somewhere, sometime, they lost the ability
to change themselves into
  water-breathers. A few generations would serve
to breed sufficient hatred and envy for those immune
to the coming catastrophe."
  "whey hunted and killed among us," Rela
recounted grimly. "We learned to hate anything that
lives in the air. That is why it has always been
forbidden to mutate back to such a state."
  A starded glance passed between Kirk and Spock
before the Captain commented excitedly to her, "Then
reverse surgery is possible. Domar lied to us."
  "Not wholly," Rela corrected. "There are
stories of sealed places in the ancients"
air-city where many records remain. It is
rumored that . . ."
  A dull rumbling echoed through the water around them.
Sand was jolted upward, fish scurried
frantically for the nearest cover, and Kirk and
Spock found themselves bounced from their seats. The
turbulence sent Scott and Rela tumbling
slightly.
  54 SIAR TREK LOG PIVOT
  Sand continued to cascade in gritty falls from
clumps of rock, clouding the water with drifting
debris.
  "Less than two hours," Scott warned them.
  "How far are these ruins, Rela?" Kirk
asked.
  "Not far . . . in a direction away from the
city."
  Kirk already had his mind made up . . . but a
second oppugn was always goad policy. "Mr.
Spock?"
  "We have no choice, Captain. If there is a
chance for us, it lies there."
  "But these are only stories," said Rela,
alarmed at the reaction her information had produced.
"In any case, I cannot take you there. It is
against the Ordainments.
  Kirk swam close to her. "It's vital,
Rela. Not just for Mr. Spock and myself, but for the
population of another world much like yours,
threatened with similar disaster. AFTER-GO'S ancient knowledge
could help save them."
  The Aquan hesitated, staring at the three
aliens. If she chose to whirl and swim away it was
doubtful that either Kirk or Spock could catch her.
She made a sharp, enigmatic gesture.
  "I wD1 take you as far as the reef barrier."
And be" fore anyone could thank her, she had turned
and started off at a right angle from the course back
to the sunken city.
  Kirk and Spock followed, having to push themselves
to keep pace. It seemed as if they swam for
hours, traveling over the endless amber-tinted plain,
dodging coral heads and dunes.
  Kirk noticed the way the fish thinned out as they
moved on, and he wondered. Maybe it was something in
the water, or maybe a lack of nutrients.
  Rela seemed to be growing more and more nervous the
further they swam, her eyes darting constantly in
all directions. Looking for an aqueous
poltergeist, he decided, would be a particularly
difficult proposition.
  It turned darker as they neared a barrier. A
long, winding reef, much like the one he and Spock had
encountered on their way to the Aquan city.
Only this one was still living.
  Rela came to a stop, gestured upward toward a
  STAR lllEIC LOG FIVEI 55
  wide-mouthed hole in the rampart, lined with plants
vhich jerked and swayed violently.
  "The ruined city lies through there. Take care, the
currents are strong."
  "Aren't you coming with us?" Kirk asked.
  'Leo," she replied emphatically, backing
away, "I can go no further. I will wait for you with
your friends."
  She turned and, kicking powerfully, raced off
into the distance. They would be wasting time and probably
effort in trying to convince her to come with them. As one,
both officers moved cautiously toward the gaping
cavity.
  Kirk soon felt a slight rippling of water
over his body. It increased rapidly. Soon he
was exerting all his strength JUS-THAT to stay in one
place[*thorngg'b to no avail. The current had
a firm grip on them and was pulling them inexorably
into the cavern.
  The interior of the cave soon shoved blue sky
overhead . . . it was another reef rift, not a
tunnel But the walls of this one were lined with
jagged spikes of dead coral, twisted spines
representing the combined toil of a billion tiny
lives.
  He fought the current, glad of his webbed hands and
feet, as the suction pulled at them. Kicking
furiously to stay level and at the same time avoid
a reaching coral pike, he found himself wondering why
Rela simply hadn't directed them to go over the
top of the reef. The currents might be strong there,
too, but could they be this violent?
  Then it came to him. The reef probably stayed
near the surface in most places, even breaking
through. Ilie idea of wading across the reef on one's
flippers had probably never occurred to her.
  Without warning, they were ejected from the reed They
came to a tumbling halt, still amid stone, but stone
whose edges were not formed by a patient nature.
  They were drifting in a giant's playpen of
crumbling blocks and archways and unbalanced
pylons an jumbled together by some unimaginably
violent cataclysm in Argo's past.
  Down they drifted, past spires, turrets,
towers, strum
  ,56 STAR TRBIC LOG PIVB
  tares that resembled great temples,
others that encircled a coral-encrusted
marketplace. AU alien, but still more familiar than
the underwater city of the Aquans. This was a city made
to live in the currents of wind, not water. A
broad avenue curved away before them, lined with a
crazy tilde uilt pattern of broken stone and
paved here and there with the ever-present amber moss. Much
of the sunken metropolis was overgrown with waving
plant life. It stretched off to the horizon,
dwarfing the city of the Aquans.
  "Fascinating," Spock murmured.
"Probably an entire portion of the continent sank
within minutes and with minimal upheaval."
  "Rela said the records repository would be a
tall, triangular structure," Kirk reminded
him. They started down the relatively clear
avenue, eyeing dark crannies and long shadowed areas
cautiously.
  Of course, the Aquans" "Ordainments" were
standard, susperstitious taboos, but that didn't mean
this skeleton city couldn't be home to some less
ecclesiastical dangers.
  As they moved deeper into the ruins they encountered
buildings in a better state of preservation.
Slanted towers rose around them, jagged
cracks showing in their walls. But they still stood. How
many more serious tremors their weakened foundations could stand
Kirk could not ten.
  The boulevard made a sharp turn to the right and they
found themselves facing a broad plaza At its far
side stood a tan, pyramidal building. A
deeply etched, gold-colored medallion was set
into its top. The Argoan hieroglyphics were
hardUy eroded, testament to the knowledge of Relays
ancestors. The medallion shone brightly in the
urban graveyard, catching the filtered sunlight.
  At first it appeared the structure was blessed with a
multitude of entrances. Ruined windows, broken
doors but all were blocked by internal cotstapse.
They began to circle the building, checking each
opening.
  Then Spock spotted the large bloclc that
projected outward at the base of the building.
Brushing aside sand, prying away encumbering
shells, they uncovered
  STAR TRB tilde L tilde PI 57
  a Bat stone of a substance substantially different
from the rest of the building. It looked more like alabaster
than anything else, yet it was clearly
artificial. Most important, there was a
metallic emblem set into its front that matched the
big disk at the buDising's apex.
  Spock swam to the far side, dug webbed feet
into the sand and shoved. For a moment noting happened, then
the block suddenly slid aside as though oiled.
  Their lights revealed a clear passageway
leading upward as far as the beams would reach ... and
steps, honest steps.
  A short swim brought them to the first of many
interconnected chambers. Every other room was lined with
drawers and cases of metal. After a little initial
tugging, they came apart and broke open Badly.
Most of the cases were badly
  corroded, their contents long since destroyed.
  Some, however, remained sealed, and these an had tiny
plates of gleaming gold set into them. Each plate
had a miniature bas-relief engraved in it,
underlined by more of the indecipherable hieroglyphics. They
went through a seemingly endless stream-of sealed
contauners. In the sixth chamber Spock held one
of the containers out and caned to Kirk. Kirletter dropped
the one he was studying and swam over.
  Alongside the expected rows of hieroglyphs was
cut the form of an upright human figure, split
down the middle. One side of the torso was
normal. The other resembled, more than anything
else, the body of a iish.
  "I do not think Me meaning could be more clear,
Captain." Spock gestured at the open case behind
him. ""There are three others set with the same
engraving, a fourth with something rather nauseating. I only
hope they hold medical records and not the
reproduced work of some longed Argoan surrealist"
  The men swam rapidly now, tracing their patli
back out of the temple or museum or hospital
or whatever it had been, back toward the edge of the
city.
  A long, curved pillar marked the end of the
avenue, a roadblock to fleeing inhabitants
during the age old disaster, but not to swimmers. The
obstruction lay
  58 STAR TREK L tilde Fly
  across the road from still upright cousins, supporters
of a dark mausoleum to their right.
  Spock started upward then halted in
  mid-stroke. Kirk pulled up just as sharply behind
him. He had nodced the movement in the fallen
column, too.
  Another column joined the first, fluttering. A
huge form rose into view from behind the partly
ruined structure. They weren't stone, those
columns; and Klrlc frantically damned himself for
not recognising the first.
  They were the arms of a creature they had met before, a
creature capable of blind fury and incredible strength.
If anything, this snake-squid was even bigger than
the one that had destroyed the shuttle.
  They turned and swam furiously back up the
aver Due. The snake-squid started to follow, its
roars ratHing Kirk's water-filled ears.
Evidently they had stumbled across one that had been
half asleep, or they would both have been fish-fodder
already.
  He looked back over his shoulder. The muscles
in his legs were starting to knot up under the unaccustomed
demand. The monster was still well behind them, but closing
ground fast. It still wasn't fully awake.
  Another roar shook hm[*thorngg'literally. A
deeper, grinding scream that sent him tumbling head
over heed WaDs and towers came crumbling down
  around them as the quake tortured the old
buildings. Kirk held onto his two cylinders for
dear life.
  One gigantic block of cut stone struck their
pursuer near the skull. It paused,
drifted motionless in the water for a moment, stunned.
Then it suddenly turned[*thorngg'all thoughts of
tiny prey forgotten now and rocketed away.
  For long minutes they lay in the protective
shadow of the hospital-temple, ready to dart back
into the entrancoway at the first sign of a probing
tentacle.
  "A most interesting creature," Spock
  commented. "Instinctively aggressive and blessed with
remarkable offensive equipment. It would be interesting
to . . ."
  Kirk managed a grin, held up the pair of
cylinders he was carrying. "If these don't contain the
necessary
  STAR TREE PIVB 59
  medical information, we may have an ample number
of years to study it first hand."
  No further tremors troubled them as they left the
city this time, nor did they encounter the snake-squid
or any other predator.
  Returning tbrouth the hole in the reef was
pretty much out of the question. Possibly one of
Rela's people could have bucked the po backslash verful
current, but Kirk didn't think his legs could
manage it. Fortunately, they were able
to confirm an earlier supposition.
  Swimming upward, they discovered that the reef did
indeed break the surface m numerous places.
By walicing carefully and tale deep breaths at the
multitude of pools that pockmarked the top, they were
able to cross it on foot. Eden so, Kirk was
relieved when they iinaUy reached the far side and were
able to descend once again. He could understand why the
Aquans were reluctant to consider such an idea.
  One sealed cylinder proved a complete dead end,
but the others contained between them the complete details of the
air-to-water mutation procedure, as well as
water-to-air. There was also a great amount of
additional information which kept much of the Enterprise
scientific staff drooling over the shoulders of the
linguists. As each new revelation or bit of
ancient theory was translated, a small covy of
men and women would bear away their booty for intensive
study with all the enthusiasm of a bunch of Goths at
the sack: of Rome.
  Kirk pressed up against the glass of the water
room and stared out at McCoy. Two-way
pickups brought the soft click-click of the computer
annex through to him as the doctor ran through the
relevant material a final time.
  McCoy was hoping to find a substitute for the
prescubed methodology. Pailing that, he had
searched for a substitute for one particular compound.
No use. The formula specified by the ancient
Argoans was inflexible..
  Turning, he spoke into the pickup. Of the
translations are all correct, Jim, the mutations
are brought about by a timed series of injections.
To return your
  60 STAR TREK L tilde FIVE
  circulatory and respiratory systems
to normal, supposedly all we have to do is
provide you with sufficient dosages at properly
spaced intervals."
  Kirk waited. When McCoy didn't continue,
he ventured, "Only . . . there's a problem."
  "Yes. I can duplicate most of the required
chemicals in the lab ... except for a
derivative from a local venom. Weirdest
arrangement of proteins you ever saw. No way I
can synthesise it."
  "All right," Kirk replied calmly, "where do
we get
  "It's a good thing the chemical text was
accompanied by diagrams ... and
pictures. Not surprisingly! the venom is
produced by the poison glands of a large local
meat-eater. Judging by both the visual and written
material, its not as rare as the Argoans wished it
was."
  He touched another switch, punched out a combination
on a keyboard in the annex. There was a hum and a
sheet of printed plastic popped out of a slot.
McCoy took it, walked over to the glass and
pressed the sheet up against it.
  Kirk and Spock studied the carefully
  reproduced drawing made by some long-dead
Argoan biologist. They ignored the translated
text because they didn't need it. The creature
sported a snakelike body, a circular,
toothed gullet, and four enormous tentacles.
  McCoy pulled the sketch away. "I don't
know where you're going to find one, or how you're going
to capture it. The venom must be taken while the
creature is alive and active. A phaser stun
would numb the poison-injection
  mechanism. Dissection is out, too, because death
causes the venom to lose its potency
  immediately. It's got to be gathered while the
creature is alive and kicking."
  "Don't worry about us finding one, Bones,"
Kirk assured him. "As for handling a live one,
we've already had plenty of experience in how not to .
. ."
  Rela had arranged a clandestine meeting on the
outskirts of the cultivated areas. The two other young
Tribunes, Nefrel and Lemas,
  listened attentively to
  STAR TREE: LOG PI 61
  Kirk's description of the impending quake. Their
looks turned to alarm when he began to detail the
request.
  "We need your help to capture one of the snake
tilde uds ... alive," he told them,
"snake-squid" coming out as a series of
unpronouncable
  gurglings. "We can't do it ourvs[*thorngg'the
only craft we possess for perfonnir tilde
g such tasks here was destroyed by one of the
creatures."
  The three young Aquans exchanged uneasy
glances. "Rda was observed leading you toward the
Forbidden Zone," Nefrel explained. "Domar
has warned us that if we brealc the Ordainments again
we risk being exiled to the open seas."
  "We cannot reverse the mutations you induced in us
without the serum the captain has told you about,"
Spoclc said firmly, "and we cannot make that serum
without the snake-squid's venom."
  6'But the Ordainments@." Nefrel persisted,
"also state that capturing one is forbidden."
  "See how all is cleverly tied together!"
Lemas exclaimed. "It is forbidden to capture a
  cpheryAmraj because its poison is needed
to reverse the sea-change. Tell me, Nefrel,
will the Ordainments protect us from the upheaving of the
sea-floor? These travelers say their science can
help us, but we must help them first. That iSo
JUS-THAT."
  Kirk didn't bother to correct Lemas. They
would aid the Aquans as best they could, no matter
what.
  "We must break the Ordainments, Nefrel,"
insisted Rela, "even if Captain Kirlc could not
aid us."
  The reluctant Tribune finally acquiesced,
whereupon the five left the meeting place and started
back toward the sunken city of the ancients.
  "We do not need to return to Llach-sse,"
Lemas told him. "We can obtain what
we need from the outlying storehouses."
  Kirk's confidence suffered an unexpected
letdown when he saw that the three Aquans intended
to use to capture one of the huge carnivores. It was
a net ... uncomplicated, with no secret
devices of a subtle undersea science concealed in it.
  Of course, he and Spock had been unable,
despite
  62 STAR TRB tilde LOG FIVE
  their most violent efforts, to so much as loosen a
strand of the net that had been used to capture them.
Maybe the material was far stronger than he had
suspected. He eyed the thin webbing and hoped so.
  This was no time for criticism of the Aquans"
efforts[*thorngg'he had to hope they knew what
they were doing
  The next step tools a great deal of persuasion
on Kirk and Spoclc's part. Lemas and
Nefrel in particular refused to believe one cord
simply walk over the forbidden reef and avoid the
  treacherous, current-torn crevice.
  But exhilaration replaced fear when they finally
completed the crossing, without a single injury or
moment of panic.
  Trying to stay out of sight as much as
possible, they circled the city and approached the
entrance from behind, from the region of the
  hospital-temple. Kirk hoped they tilde
voutd be able to find the large cypheryAmaj that had
ambushed them before.
  Rela was swimming well in advance of the rest of the
party. Suddenly, she put up a hand in a bans
culturat gesture, and they moved up quietly
alongside her.
  Wlien Kirk and Spock had stumbled across the
snake-squid it had been dazed and drowsy, half
asleep. Now it appeared fully quiescent, perhaps
sleeping off the blow it had absorbed from the falling
stone. It lay motionless on the sand, coiled in among
a cluster of huge boulders.
  Kirk knew how deceptive that peaceful scene
was. At any moment, any suspicion sound, the
monster might awaken and make a quick meal of them
ad. That another timely quake would be in the oiling was
highly unlikely.
  Carefully the three Aquans unrolled their
weighted net. Lemas and Nefrel unfurled it
while Rela took care to keep it parallel to the
bottom and untangled.
  At a mutual sign, they started
swimming smooth and fast for the snake-squid.
  Bither they reached a crucial point or someone
lost his nerve, because both Lemas and Nefrel
suddenly stopped moving forward. Rela let go of the
back end of the net. Inertia and weight kept the
net moving forward
  STAR TRBXLOGP tilde 63
  and curving slightly downward. All three
Aquans retreated toward the crumbled wall they had
left . . . and waited, and watched.
  Palling in a gentle arc, the net kept its
shape as it neared the bottom, began to settle
softly over the snak tilde squid. The beast
quivered slightly when the ilrst strands touched it; but
when the body of the net made contact, the cpheryhm
tilde j erupted.
  While Kirk and Spock watched anxiously,
unable to intervene for fear of getting in someone's way
at a critical moment, the three Aquans shot
downward.
  The more the monster struggled, the tighter the mesh was
drawn. Both officers admired the design of the
net, which they now saw was equipped with an intricate
series of cross-puUs and cords that tightened around
any prey.
  And Kirk's liopeful analysis of the netting was
proven correct ... not a strand parted, not a square
broke.
  Judging from the urgency in Rela's voice as she
yelled to them to hurry, its invincibility was finite,
however. Both officers moved rapidly downward,
hurriedly readying the makeshift
  container-collectors McCoy had designed,
flexible pouches from each of which protruded a long
suction tube with a wide mouth.
  The snake snake-squid had a better view
of the offlcers than it did of the dodging, darting
Aquans. Tentacles and teeth strained for the two
maddeningly near shapes. Reflex reaction sent a
jet of dark fluid toward both men.
  Kirk edged the mouth of a suction tube into the
slowly dispersing cloud, touched a control on the side
of the tube. He moved the flexible gathering mouth from
side to side. McCoy had warned them that they needed
as much venom as they could obtain.
  Dark poison dissipated around the captain. The
Aquans had assured him the poison was harmless
unless injected. He kept that resolutely in mind
as he directed the tube toward a darker patch,
missed it when a sudden current sent him
  tumbling.
  Rubble showered down from surrounding
  towers. Much of the already battered structure they'd
hidden
  64 srARTRBGG'C LOG Fin
  behind came down. Some of the venom already collected
drifted from the open mouth of the suction tube and Kirk
hurriedly closed it off. A series of violent
after tilde hocks made things more difficult..
Rela was alongside him unexpectedly, watching the
procedure worriedly. She directed his attention
downward.
  While the admirable material of the net had
proven equal to the explosive spasms of the
snake-squid, it had fallen victim to some of the
toppling stone. Rocks and carved pillars had
driven the pinioned carnivore into a frenzy. They
had also abraded sections of the net to the point where the
monster was able to break them.
  It was still trapped, still bound awkwardly . . . but
it had discovered the weakened portions and was tearing at
them with mindless malevolence.
  "We must leave now, quickly," Rela insisted.
She turned, started for the top of the reef where they would
be safe.
  Kirk examined a gauge set in the side of the
tube, called after her. "We need more venom."
  "There is no timer" she shouted back. "There . .
."
  A thunderws, echoing moan drowned out her last
words. Two of the muscular tentacles and part of the
Upper body of the snake-squid were already free of the
netting. Another minute or two and the creature would
free the rest of its thick torso. They couldn't
hope to outswim the maddened beast.
  Cursing silently, Kirk raced off in
pursuit of the rem treating Aquans. Spock
risked a
  reaching tentacle for one last inhalation of poison
before following.

  Kirk had tried floating on his head, swimming
off the walls, counting rockscomin general, doing
everything imaginable to dampen his impatience while
McCoy ran a final series of checks on the
mildly toxic chemical.
  So many things could go wrong if even a small
portion of the ancient formulae was wrong, out of date,
inaccurately set down. And there was no Aquan
physician present to look for signs of
failure.
  Kirk studied McCoy and Nurse Chapel as
they moved slowly in their underwater
gear[*thorngg'too much precisioi was required
now for life-support belts.
  With Chapel's aid, McCoy was locking a
small bottle of fluid into a spray-contact
hypo. Now, if only Spock's metabolism and
his would adapt to Argoan medical procedure as
readily as did Bones' equipment.
  McCoy's voice, distorted by the broadcast
apparatus and the intervening water, broke the nervous
silence.
  "We've set this up as best we can, Jim.
Only a small section of the relevant records
was missing. I don't think[*thorngg'I
hope[*thorngg'x isn't critical."
  "But I thought you said . . . ," Kirk began.
  McCoy made calming motions. "Oh, I'm
sure about tl tilde e composition of the serum,
Jim, that portion of the records is intact and
plenty scientific. The section that's missing . .
." He shook his head.
  "Something to do with the dosage per unit of body
weight. I've had to approximate without
the complete charts. We might never turn them up."
  He motioned the two men toward the budlike
slabs that would serve as a resting place.
  "The experiments I ran on local fish-life
show that if the serum dosage is too strong, it
causes an over-mutation which then can't be reversed
by any means. Inject 65
  66 STAR TRIM PIV-EVERY
  too lithe and there can be violent side effects.
The stuff is tricky, slid too potent for my
liking.
  "I'd dike to conduct further experiments, but we
. . ."
  "Haven't got enough venom," Spock finished for
him.
  "Not only that, but the potency of what you brought
back fades rapidly. The composite serum has
to be used right away. If you could obtain some more
.ea.tion He stared at Kirk, but the captain made
a negative gesture.
  "tilde We've already drawn on our credit with
Rela and her friends to the point of exhaustion,
Bones. Em not sure we could convince them to repeat
tlie hunt. I'm not sure I avant to . . .
we might not be so lucky a second time."
McCoy sighed, resigned.
  When Ill have to make do. Eve decreased the
maximum allowable dosage by one
quarter[*thorngg't should be proper for your systems,
Vulcan as well as human."
  Kirk nodded ""All right. How many
infusions?"
  "Two smelt one large."
  "Lees get started."
  Both officers assumed reclining positions on the
slabs, head higher than feet McCoy checked a
gauge on the side of the hypo, made a last
adjushnent. If he had miscalculated half a
cubic centimeter either way, the damage to their
bodies could be irreversible.
  McCoy pressed the hypo's nozzle to Kirks
upper arm, then stepped back and studied his wrist
chronometer intently. Several minutes slid
by before-the first change appeared.
  Kirk's son was changing, the pigmentation darkening
slightly. First it deepened to a rich golden hue,
then to a familiar ember. The captain's lids
drooped low, lower, finally closed tightly.
  Abq tilde y, the amber color drained like
bourbon from a brolren bottle, leaving
Kirk a pale, nearly albino white. They all
studied him anxiously, but he showed no signs of
movement. McCoy
  frowned uneashy and hurried to exchange the hypo
for a purveyed tHcorder.
  He passed it carefully over Kirk's limp
form, muttering to himself Also the while. "Pulse fading
. . . all internal functions slowed . . .
heartbeat weakened . . ."
  STAR LOO FIVES 67
  66Andrenalin . . . aldrazine?" ventured
ChapeLike McCoy shook his head, pulled the
'corder away.
  "6There's enough in his system now that doesn't
bee long there. Give the serum another couple of
minutes."
  Sure enough, normal color began to tint
Kirk's face, returning with the same suddenness it
had departed He stirred slightly on the makeshift
pallet.
  Cliapel let out a bubbling sigh of relief.
Spock rem mained e tilde pressio tilde
ess as usual, but McCoy noticed how an
unnatural tenseness had suddenly left the first
offlcer's muscles.
  Again he made a pass with the tiny machine.
66Pulse and heart normal, other BhiftSo
within acceptable parameters ... good. Nurse?"
  Chapel handed him the second of the three botHes
and he exchanged it for the first, reset the dial on the
side of the hype. This time he pressed it over the
Captain's chest, just below the left lung, held it
there a second, then moved it to the right side and
repeated the injection.
  Kirk's body reacted instantly this time, jerking
spasmodicaBy on the slab like a puppet with
snipped strings. Before McCoy could have
  countered with anotEier injection tilde any kind,
Kirk collapsed. Once more the amber hue hooded
his face. Once agrun McCoy used the compact
"corder.
  "Something's really given his system a
kick[*thorngg'his metabolism"'6 a good ten
times normal speed."
  "Doctor," Spock interrupted, 6'his
hands."
  McCoy's gaze moved down the unconscious
form. The thin webbing which had formed
  between the fingers was dissolving like so much gelatin, the
faint scaling begmnmg to smooth out. His
stare went lower and he saw that the same process was
at work on the feet.
  McCoy checked his watch, made yet another
pass with the instrument.
  "Metabolism normal and everything else!" He
couldn't keep the optimism from his voice, didn't
want to. "Indication of physiological alteration
in the lungs . . . he's beginning a complete
reversal. Nurse . . ."
  Chapel handed him the final bottle. Carefully
  68 STAR TREK By Fly
  McCoy locked the vial in place beneath the
pistol-like hypo. tilde
  ""This is the final dose," he said, to no one
in particular. "The major infusion. Roll him over
please, Christine."
  Chapel slowly turned Kirk on his stomach .
. . easy enough in the water. McCoy recalled the
translated instructions, prayed that the ancient
recorder was precise in his technique and made the
last injection as it had been described.
  He pulled the hype away, nodded to her. She
turned Kirk over on his back again, let him
relax. Nothing happened. McCoy was about
to program a minute sect ondary dose
when Kirk suddenly doubled up in agony, his legs
threshing wildly and an expression of pure pain
invading his face.
  The pitiful moans of a man having nightmares
filled the water around them. Scales erupted like
scars on his face and the backs of his hands.
  Twitching with uncontrollable violence, he spun
from the pallet and onto the sand. So powerful were the
jerks and kicks that McCoy and Spock were unable
to get a grip on him.
  Finally the explosion quieted and Kirk came
to rest motionless and face down on the sand. The back
of the skin-tight green body-quit started to bulge
slightly, showing an eruption of dorsal fin.
Chapel didn't scream[*thorngg'she'd seen
too many
  mistakes of nature in McCoy's lab to be
terrified by another[*thorngg'b her eyes widened
in horror. Spock, uncharacteristically, looked
helpless.
  "Too strong . . . me serum was too strong!"
McCoy groaned. The spasms struck again and
once more Kirk was thrashing water. The amber color
deepened even former and revealed a faint yellowish
overlay.
  But this time, as he twisted in the sand, the scales that
had formed momentarily on his face and hands began
to fade, the bulge on his back disappeared and was
reabsorbed.
  The kicking and tumbling slowed, stopped. As he
lay still on me bottom me yellow tinge vanished from
his skin, followed soon Hereafter by Me amber.
McCoy
  STAR TREK L tilde PI 69
  drifted over to the limp form. Again the tiny
tricorder did its work.
  When McCoy looked up again there was a note of
satisfaction in his voice. "He's starting to breathe
steadily again. Quick we must get him out of the tank."
  Together, the three of them wrestled the motionless body
into the airlock. Spock remained inside. While
McCoy supported Kirk, Chapel
manipulated the controls. Both watched Kirk's
face Venously as the drains in the floor rapidly
sucked the water from the lock.
  Kirk started to choke, Bailing at the water with
bow arms. McCoy didn't wait for the water
to leave completely. Instead, he slammed a palm
down on the red button on the console labeled
Emergeru y Cycle.
  They nearly fell as a gush of water
half-carried them from the airlock. Together they laid
the captain on the floor. He stopped kicking almost
immediately, coughed a couple of times, water dribbling from
one side of his mouth.
  Then he rolled over, still wheezing, but with less
force now. The coughing finally died and then he was breathing
deeply ag[*thorngg'andforthe first time in a long
while, normally.
  "llasy, Jim, how do you feel?"
  Kirk continued to take long draughts of air,
eyed McCoy as if the doctor were a little
unbalanced. "Tired, a bit dizzy . . .
otherwise fine."
  Chapel reappeared with a large thermal
  blanket. She draped it around Kirk"...ness
shoulders as he got to his feet.
  "Better make dry clothes your first priority,
Jim?" McCoy advised him. "Along with the
  metamorphosis of your respiratory and
circulatory systems? there've been some
extensive changes in your epidermal layers. I
half anticipated them, from what the old records
said. But so help me, I didn't think they'd- come
colorcoded!" He grinned. "After what
you've just been throuib, it would be damned silly for you
to catch a cold."
  Kirk nodded, then McCoy turned his attention
to the water room's remaining occupant. "You're
turn next Spock, if after watching? you still want
to go through with it."
  70 STAR TREK L tilde Fly
  Spock's gaze remained on Kirk. Only
when the captain finally gave him an "everything's
okay" smile did he reply, "I await the
procedure with a modicum of impatience,
Doctor." That was just Spock's way of saying
1be waiting was driving him up the walls.
  Kirk sat down in the command chair . . .
slowly, enjoying the use of his legs for something other
than horizontal locomotion, luxuriating in the
chair's dryness more than anything else.
  He looked left, to where Spock and Scott were
explaining the various functions of the bridge's
instrumentation to the goggling Domar and Rela.
  Both Tribunes wore body suits and
transparent, water-filled masks. Their tanks
rested on the back of the wheelchairs that Scott's people
had improvised.
  It had taken all Scott's
persuasive powers to convince even the adventurous
Rela that the strange attire would keep them alive
and healthy out of the water. But it was Domar who had
agreed to the trial visit to the Enterprise first.
  The qualities which had made him High
  Tnbune diand fated mat he not appear craven
before mere airbreathers, nor allow a Junior
Tribune to seem the braver. Actually, he
resented the powered chairs more than the water-suits.
But while his legs were immensely powerful, they would
tire rapidly under the steady pull of gravity in a
waterless environment[*thorngg'and his flippers were not
designed for walking.
  So it was necessary for him and Rela to tour the
Enterprise from me self-contained chairs. In me
shadow of many wonders, however, he rapidly lost
an sense of indignity.
  Just now he was staring at a large rectangle of
light in the middle of which a multicolored globe
hung poised against speckled blackness. The
air-breather next to him, me one called Scott,
had assured him mat what he was looking at was his
own world[*thorngg'all of it.
  Normally, he would not even have deigned to laugh at
the air-breather. But he had seen enough of His
magical vessel to convince him that anything might be
true. Why, he was still trying to recover from the
  STAR TREK L tilde PI 71
  claim that there was neither water nor air outside this
ship"
  The one called Kirk, Tnbune-equal, was
  gesturing at the screen. From his chest, a small
machine carried mechanical-sounding words to the High
Tribune, who struggled to fathom their meaning and
glimpsed it dimly. Many of the air-breather's words
translated poorly, while others, he was
afraid, would remain forever only noises to him.
  "Careful placement of a few large photon
torpedoes, combined with a selective
  bombardment of fault areas with phaser beams, should
shift the epicenter of the quake sufficiently
northward for your city to survive with minimal
damage," Kirk divas saying.
  ""That's what the theory claims, anyway.
It's a technique we planned to try. Now we have
  something more than an abstract reason to attempt it
for. We think it has an excellent chance of working."
  'ation nety-four point seven percent," Spock
qualified.
  Comprehension of what these people were about to try
was enough to finally overcome Domar's aloofness.
  "I did not believe such knowledge existed." For the first
time he permited himself an open stare of amazement,
taking in the entire sweep of the bridge.
  "It is incredible . . . an of this."
  "Approximately three minutes to the first
significant fault shift, Captain." Kirk
glanced back to the engineering station.
  'thank you, Mr. Scott. Mr. Spock,
confirm coordinates for torpedo strike to effect
  re-alignment of epicenter."
  Spock bent over his hooded viewer.
  "Confirmed, sir." He looked up. "The
results should prove most interesting To my knowledge, this win
be the first time in Pederation history that a starship's
offensive armament has been deployed according to the
instructions of the geology section."
  Kirk turned his attention to the helm-navigation
console. "Mr. Arex, Mr. Sulu, I know that the
coordinates and firepower required has an been
precalculated and preprogramed. Hold yourselves in
readiness, however,
  72 STAR TRY L tilde PI
  for any last minute adjustments. They have a way
of cropping up at the most awkward times."
  "Aye, sir" ... "Aye, Captain," came
the dual ace knowledgment.
  Kirk nodded once. "Fire torpedoes, first
phasers."
  Both men initiated the sequence of
  computer-directed firepower that would alter the
internal heavings of a planet.
  Far to the north of the submerged Aquan city,
several super-fast objects dropped through the
amberhued atmosphere and vanished beneath the surface
of the roiling sea. So fast did they travel that there
was no towering fountain of water, no great splash where
they entered.
  Nor was there any sound. But far, far below the
waves the multiple detonations of the precisely
spaced photon torpedoes created a shock wave
felt for hundreds of kilometers around.
  Seconds later, while the deep-water
creatures and bottom ooze were still settling back
into ages-old quiescence, twin beams of light
brighter than a sun lit the underwater abyssal plain
with a radiance that illumined simple-minded crawlers
for the first and last time of their primitive lives.
  "Report, Mr. Spock."
  'qbo early yet to tell, Captain,"
Spock declared without looking up from the viewer.
"Another minute or so before the major shift is
due."
  Domar still did not entirely comprehend what was
taking place around him. Nor did he
  understand the process by which certain things were being
altered. He knew only that these strange people, these
air-breathers from (was it possible?) another world, were
presently engaged in some obscure activity that would
decide one way or another the fate of his beloved
city.
  Domar did not for a moment think that
  whatever the outcome of that activity he, at least,
was safe from impending destruction. He was aware that the
motives of these beings were not wholly altruistic. From
what he had been told they had a world of their own much
like his on which some day in the future a similar
crisis was likely to occur. If proven
successful the methods now
  STAR TREK LOG FIVE 73
  being employed to save his people would someday be utilized
to save their own.
  He mentioned nothing of this. For one thing, everyone in
this chamber of miracles was silent and expectant
now, in a way that suggested they were hardly
indifferent to the outcome of their efforts. For another,
voicing his dark suspicions would have been
undiplomatic.
  Spock's voice, when he finally elected
to break the silence, was no higher, no louder, no more
expressiveb modulated than ever. But it resounded
on the tense bridge like the brass section of an
orchestra.
  "Sensors indicate," he announced, "that the
epicenter of the just-concluded quake was in the north
polar seas, Captain ... a totally uninhabited
area, according to Domar's people."
  The interpretation was a Wt much for even the usually
omnipotent translators to manage. Doniar
looked at once relieved and confused.
  "This means, then, that my people are safe?"
  "That's right, Tribune," Kirk said happily,
turning from the screen to face him. "It doesn't
mean, though, that your city won't be subject to such
dangers in the future. We can't make the ground
around your city more stable. All we can do is bleed the
instability to a region where no one will be
endangered."
  "What the captain is saying, Tribune
Domar," Spock elucidated, "is that the
technique we have used is effective, if not
constructive."
  "When can we beam down, Spock?"
  "The section of sub-continent on which the Aquan
city is built has been subjected to a considerable
if not violent realignment of the substrata,
Captain. This will stabilize fully within a few
hours . . ."
  "Where would you like to be set down, sir?"
  Kirk took up his position in the transporter
alcove, next to Spock. Domar and Rela sat
in their chairs by the transporter console, looked on
in fascination. They had expressed a desire to see
the process by which they'd been brought aboard and would
beam down later.
  He eyed Chief Kyle thoughtfully. "You have the
  74 STAR TREE L tilde Fly
  coordinates of the spot where Dr. McCoy and
Chief Scott first found us after we'd been
changed?"
  Kyle punched appropriate switches, checked
a readout and nodded.
  "I think that will do, Chief."
  "All right, sir. Energizing."
  "Perhaps someday, Mr. Spock" Kirk
began, as he felt the familiar disorienting caress
of the transporter, "they'll take this Hanged whine
out of the transporter mechanism."
  Spock didn't have time to reply.
  Just before a person winked out for elsewhere the whine
rose to an unbearable pitch and for a split second
ho felt like his teeth were coming apart. Not that they
weren't, of course, but the sensation of dental dim
integration was
  distressingly convincing.
  The ocean of Argo was as softly amber and calm as
Kirk remembered it, with wave-crests the hue of
cream chiffon. The memory of the
  transporter computer was also accurate. They were
standing on a pile of jumbled rocks and dead coral,
just slightly above sea-leveLike But something was wrong,
something had changed.
  The shallow pool where Scott and McCoy had
discovered their water-breathing forms lay just below and to their
left, an right ... but now it was only a low
sand-Sued depression scooped out of the rocks. And the
little island seemed much increased in area He looked
to the other side, saw jagged bits of metal and
plastic. The remains of the long-ruined underwater
shuttle.
  No, this was their proper pHe of stone ... only
it had been raised high above the water. Spock
noticed Kirk's uncertainty, explained.
  "Sensors indicated considerable subsidence of the
sea bottom near the quake's epicenter,
Captain. It was ape parendy accompanied by a
corresponding rise of the ocean bed in this area"
  He pointed behind them.
  The basalt fortress which had dominated Uleir
attention when dopey had first set down on Argo now
towered even father into Ule azure sky. The shift here
hadn't been unduly violent, for the Areas of moss
drooped
  STAR TREK LOG P tilde 75
  undisturbed from unbroken crags and spires.
But there was clear evidence of change nonetheless.
Instead of dropping sheer into crashing waves, the island
was now ringed by a broad beach of dark sand, until
recently part of the bottom.
  Kirk sniffed, wrinlded his nose and found ample
olfactory hints of change, too. Fish and other
ocean dwellers, too slow or stupid to flee the
slow rise, had been trapped by the receding waters in
small pools, now evaporated. Decay had set
in with a vengeance and generated a miasma in
sharp contrast to the visual splendor of the scene.
  But the most spectacular sight of all lay
hidden from view until they rounded the crest of the
island. It took Kirk only seconds to place
that graveyard of toppled towers, imploded domes,
tumbled rocks and alabaster walls and foundation
stones. Despite the upheaval, the sunken city of the
Aquans" air-breathing ancestors had risen
once more into the light fairly intact. Now it lay
exposed and naked, drying in the bright sun of midday
like some massive pressed flower.
  "Argo appears to have a new city, Captain,"
Spock observed, "or rather, one reborn."
  "Well put, Mr. Spock," a new voice
agreed. They turned.
  Domar spoke as he and Rela struggled from the
water, masks and tanks still in place. They moved
better on the soft sand than they had on the
Enterprise, but Kirk and Spock walked
politely down to meet them at water's edge,
nonetheless.
  "We did not entirely escape the effects of the
quake," Rela informed them, indicating that she and
Domar had beamed down to the city, "but our people
survived with minimal
damage[*thorngg'and less
iniilry[*thorngg'thanks to your help. If we
had remained near what you call the epicenter, we
surely would have been destroyed."
  "We owe you and your companions much
  gratitude, Captain Kirk," Domar said
gravely. There was an odd emphasis on the word
  "gratitude," as if the translator had been
unable to reflect the Aquan's meaning exactly and
had selected only the closest analog.
  "Is there nothing we can do for you?"
  76 STAR TREK LOG PIVE
  "The ability to transform us into
  water-breatherseatilde @. Kirk explained,
"is something on which our scientists have labored for many
hundreds of years, with only the most limited
success. If we might have permission to make
copies of those and other medical records of your
ancestors . . . ?"
  "All will be placed at your disposal, Captain
Kirk." assured Domar. "What we have left, of
life as well as knowledge, you have given us. It is yours
by right."
  Such adulatory obeisance made Kirk
acutely uncomfortable. There were many times
when Spock's directness was welcome. Now he
relieved Kirk by changing the subject.
  "The technique of sidling stariliIp firepower
to alter stress patterns in fault systems has
been proven effoo" five. By permitting us to do this you
have enabled us to test a method which win mean much
to threatened Federation worlds with similar problems.@.@.
  Domar made the Aquan equivalent of a
smile. "It takes a consummate diplomat
to make
  salvation come out like an apology, Mr.
Spock."
  "So bright, so warm-it is here!" Rela purred,
stretching lazily. 'if will be glad when the surface
places can be inhabited."
  Yt will have to be done slowly, carefully," Kirk
admonished her. "You'll need more than the ability
to breathe air. There's the problem of your skin, for
example."
  "tilde What's wrong with my skin?"
  "As it stands, nothing," Kirk dead-panned.
"Tut it's adapted to a perpetually moist
environment. It will dry out, crack, and blister
unless given some form of protection . . . Such as the
body suit you're currently wearing."'7
  He frowned abruptly.
  "What do you mean, "inhabited?"' his
  Domar gestured toward the risen city of the
ancients. '1he young among us have decided
to rebuild the great shelters of our forebears."
  "Only the young?" Kirk queried. Domar
  sounded apologetic.
  "Mature Aquans cannot adjust to the thought of be
  STAR TREK LOG PIV11 77
  coming air-breathers. There are no formulas in the
old records for altering one's outlook on such
things. So most of us will remain in the world we know.
Air-life is for the pioneers among us."
  "Don't lose contact with each other like your
ancestors did, in case of another continental
adjustment."
  "We will pass ordainments to forbid this."
  "And this time we won't ignore them," Rela
finished impishly.
  "It is always the psychological and not
physiological differences that are the real
dangers," Spock pointed out. He nodded at
Kirk. "The history of Captain Kirk's own
world is especially revealing in this respect."
  Rela stared at Kirk in surprise.
"You have waterbreathers on your home world too,
  Captain?"
  'ationo." The young Tnbune looked disappointed.
"Mr. Spock is referring to the fact that in my
people's past, great conflicts took place which
supposedly had their root causes in small
physical differences, but which were actually cantered in
the mind. Small minds seize upon such differences
to exploit their own mental deiiciencies . . .
apparently a universal trait."
  A faint fog began to form in front of his eyes,
and he saw that a familiar glow was beginning to distort
his view of Spock.
  "What happened to the others?" Rela asked
quickly. "Were they exterminated?"
  "Others?" Kirk's mind reaced. "Oh, you
mean the ones who were different7 As I said, the
bodily differences meant nothing. In the end, the ones
with the mental imbalances found themselves pitied
into extinction."
  "I don't understand, Captain Kirk," came the
final confused words of the Aquan, of Rela, the
water-sprite.
  A mild stab of nausea shook him as his
  perception of the universe went blotto.
"Neither did they," he finished.
  "I beg your pardon, sir?" said a puzzled
Chief Kyle. fork blinked. They were back on
board the Enterprzse. 'laid you say something about
extinction, sir7"
  Kirk noticed Spock was watching him with mild
interest "No, Mr. Kyle . .. nothing at ale
Execution ...
  78 STILL" -- tilde K LOG PI
  I was complimenting you on the execution of your dut
tilde es.
  "Thank you, sir," Kyle replied
uncertainly.
  Kirk stepped out of the transporter alcove,
withSpock following right behind. Spock noticed the
smile spreading slowly over the Captain's face.
  'iallyou find something amusing, Captain?"
  "The timing of certain demands made by the human
body, Spock."
  'ationow that is a subject for considerable
amusement," Spock agreed drily. "tilde
What
  particular aberration of your unfortunate self
strikes you as humorous at the moment?"
  "The fact, Spock, that, after an
I've gone through this past week, immediately upon leaving
Argo I can find myself experiencing the desire I
currently do."
  "QV-HICH is?" his first officer prompted.
  Kirk's smile twisted slightly. "I'm
thirsty." Spock continued to stare at him and Kirk
stopped, his smile fading. Novell, what's the
matter, Spock? You may not find it fanny, but .
. ."
  'It's not that, Captain, the humcrous
  coefficients of the elemental coincidence are
decidedly scrutable. I merely am appalled at
my lack of basic knowledge where the human body is
concerned."
  "tilde What do you mean?" Kirk eyed him
unsurely.
  "I had not known that a case of aggravated thirst
. . ."
  "At isn't aggravated," Kirk protested,
but Spock ignored and went on.
  "dis . . could produce such startling changes in
pigmentation. Or perhaps it has nothing to do with thirst at
all, but is an aIter-reaction to our
retransformation back to normal."
  "Spock, what the hen are you talking
about?"
  "You will see more clearly in a mirror, Captain
No," he put up a hand to forestall the coming words,
"I am not talking in riddles, Captain. You know
me better than that But your coloration most
definitely is not normal. How do you feel?"
  "Thirsty, as I said ... and a little tired.
Normal
  STAR TREK LOG FIVE 79
  enough, under the circumstances." His voice turned
slightly irritable. "I feel perfectly fine,
Spock ... I don't know what you mean.
  'Coloration" again! It's nothing at all, nothing
at all . . ."
  PART 11
  THE
  PIRATES
  OF
  ORION
  lAdaPted from a script by Howard
  Weinsteinl
  vl
  "Captain's log, stardate 5527.3," Kirk
declaimed into the armchair pickup as he surveyed
the bridge. "My "nothing at all"
turned out to be the first symptoms of
choriocytosis.
  "Despite an initial outbreak during which
several members of the crew apparently contracted the
disease simultaneously, it appears to be under
control now. Dr McCoy insists it's no longer
even as dangerous as pneu mania, and we have
experienced no significant drop in performance.
Therefore I foresee no difficulties in completing
our newly assigned
mission[*thorngg'representing the Federation at the
dedication ceremonies for the new in
  - terspecies Academy of Science on Deneb
Five."
  He
  clicked off the log, looked to his left.
  "Status, Mr. Spock?"
  "All systems operating at prime efficiency,
Captain. We are on course and on schedule. I
anticipate no deviations from the norm."
  Kirk leaned back in the command chair and mused on
the arduous duty they would be subjected to upon making
landfall on Deneb Five. They would be forced
to cope with an endless round of parties, gourmet
dinners, the brilliant conversation of new
acquaintances and the warm chatter of old ones. Yet,
after what they had been through these past several months,
he somehow believed they would succeed in muddling through.
  "Be nice to play diplomat for a change, eh,
Spock?"
  Dead silence.
  "Look, Spock," he continued, turning in the
chair, "I know you find the hypocritical
methodology of inter- stellar diplomacy somewhat
obscene, but that shouldn't prevent you from enjoying the
fringe bene[*thorn]"
  Without a word, without a sound, without a shift in 83
  84 STAR TREK L tilde PI
  expression or pose, Spock abruptly
toppled over and crashed to the floor.
  Kirk was quite capable of reacting quickly and
efflciently to anything from the sudden
  appearance of half a dozen belligerent warships
on the fore screen to impending dissolution of the
Enterprise, from the sight of a being a hundred times
larger than the ship to an entire metropolis no
bigger than the bridge. But Spock's collapse
was so totally unexpected, so deathly quiet and
matter-of-fact, that for one of the few times during his
tenure as commanding officer of the Enterprise
he found himself momentarily paralyzed.
  Even so, he recovered before any of the other equally
stunned crew. A hand slammed down on the intercom
switch.
  "Kirk to Sick Bay[*thorngg'Bones,
we've got an
  emergency."
  While seemingly hours passed without aid
appearing, they fought to control their feelings and do what
they could. There wasn't much they couLittle do, beyond
untangling the first officer's crumpled limbs and
laying him flat on the deck[*thorngg'and wondering
what the heck had
  happened. Kirk had put an ear to Spock's
chest and found temporary relief in the steady beat
of a Vulcan heart. But no amount of exterior
stimulation[*thorngg'OE pleading[*thorngg'cd
return Spock to consciousness.
  McCoy finally appeared, a mobile surgical
bed and two medical techs in tow. Kneeling over the
still form, he made a quick pass over head and torso
with a portable medical transceiver, then directed
the pair of assistants as they laid the motionless
Spock on the bed.
  Kirk followed them out, knowing better
than to trouble McCoy with dozens of as yet
  unanswerable questions. As soon as answers were
available, the good doctor would supply them without
having to be asked.
  On reaching Sick Bay, McCoy had Spock
  transferred from the mobile pallet to one of the much
better equipped diagnostic beds. While the
doctor smoothly adjusted the requisite
  instrumentation for Vulcan physiology, Kirk
hovered nearby, watching, waiting for a
  determination of some sort. Kirk knew something about
every instrument and machine on board the Enterprise, but
many of the figures which blossomed on the glow
  STAR TREK L tilde PI 85
  ing panel above the bed head meant little to him. Those
whose meaning he could vaguely identify seemed
to indicate the presence of an uncommon
abnormality within the science officer's system.
  McCoy prepared and administered a hastily
concocted injection. Only when the applied serum
took did he appear to relax slightly.
  "I brought him out of shock, Jim," he finally
said. "He's sleeping normally now.
Choriocytosis is a strange disease. It's
relatively simple to handle in races with
iron-based blood, but in others . . ."
  A warning tingle started in Kirk's mind.
  "Get to the point, Bones."
  McCoy appeared to consider something else for a
moment, shook it off and eyed Kirk steadily.
"Spock has contracted the disease. It's a
nuisance to humans. To Vulcans it's fatal.
Ninety-three percent probability, as was his words
slowed and finished almost imperceptibly
"[*thorngg'Spock would say."
  Kirk cleared his throat. "You're sure it's
choriocytosis?"
  "I've triple-checked, Jim, given the
  instrumentation every opportunity to prove me wrong."
He shrugged helplessly. "I wish to God I was
wrong, but you can see it eating at him. Look . .
."
  He urged Kirk to activate a nearby view
screen. While the captain did so, McCoy went
to a cabinet. Selecting a tiny cassette, he
slid it into a slot beneath the glowing screen, punched out
commands on the operating panel.
  A few seconds of blurred images raced
across the screen as the cassette ran up to the place
McCoy had requested. It slowed and
commenced normal playback. You didn't need a
medical degree to understand what was happening. One
sequence stayed with Kirk long after he had left
Sick Bay.
  It showed a collage of healthy, green-tinted
Vulcan cells. From screen right, a flowing
yellowish substance slid like sapient gelatin
into view. It divided, subdivided, to surround
each individual cell. On being engulfed, the
afflicted cells started to jerk unnaturally, their
steady movements interrupted. Healthy green
deepened
  86 STAR TREK LOG FIVE
  to light blue, then azure, almost to purple before
an in- ternal motion ceased and cellular disruption
took place.
  On that threatening note, the tape ran out.
  McCoy slid the casette *tee, juggled it
idly in one hand, flipping it over and over as he
spoke.
  "The sequences you say, Jim, were highly speeded
up. Simply, the infection enters the blood and
affects the cells so that they can't carry oxygen. For
some reason, iron-based hemoglobin fights off the
encirclement much better than
copper-based. I wish I knew why. The result
is obvious."
  "Eventual collapse," Kirk supplied
softly.
  McCoy quit flipping the casette, put it
back in its place in the cabinet then closed the
sliding door with more force than was necessary.
  "That's it, Jim."
  "tilde You said ninety-three percent
probability of death, Bones. What about that other
seven percent? Does that mean there's a cure?"
  "Not always. But there's a drug that would certainly
improve the odds in Spock's favor
astronomically[*thorngg'if we could get it."
  "We'll get it," Kirk told him. His
reply would have been the same if McCoy had
requested the heart of a dead sun.
  "It's a naturally occurring drug called
strobolin. Sixty years in the lab and nobody's
been able to synthesize it. It's a rare drug,
Jim, but choriocytosis is a rare disease."
  Kirk nodded, moved for the switch that would open the
wall intercom and connect him to the bridge. Then
something that had been scratching at the back of his mind
finally broke through.
  "Bones, if you knew we were experiencing an
outbreak of choriocytosis on board and that it could be
fatal to Spock if he contracted
it[*thorngg'why didn't you order him into isolation
until the disease burned itself out?"
  McCoy looked away. "I didn't want to have
to tell you, Jim."
  "Didn't want to have to tell me what, Bones?"
Kirk shot back, a little angry. "What could
anything have to do with not telling me?"
  . jar
  tilde - ,
  -
  STAR TREK t tilde FrvEvery 87
  "I said choriocytosis was a rare disease. My
guess is your system was laid open
to it[*thorn]" he looked back,
"[*thorn)'"the multiple alterations your
circulatory system vas subjected to while on
Argo. In which case[*thorn]"
  "You didn't want to tell me that Spock and I
had infected the whole ship." McCoy nodded,
watched the captain anxiously. But Kirk appeared
to bear up well under a revelation that might have
affected a lesser man dangerously.
  "Then, why did I and plenty of others get
sick, go through the disease and get cured, and then an of a
sudden Spock collapses?"
  McCoy looked tired. "Incubation period,
Jim. It's a lot longer for Vulcans than for
humans. There was no point in telling Spock,
nothing to be gained. If he had it, there wasn't a
thing I could do about it."
  "Why is the incubation period so much?" Kirk
began, but McCoy cut him off angrily, his
voice rising.
  "Why, why, why, why! If I knew the answers
to an the whys, choriocytosis wouldn't be such a
putrid, disgusting[*thorn]"
  "Sorry, Bones," Kirk interrupted softly.
There wasn't much else he could say. McCoy'd
only been expressing the same frustration he
felt.
  Instead he activated the nearby computer annex.
"Library!"
  "Awaiting input," came the instant,
mechanical reply.
  "What is the nearest strobolin supply world to our
present position?"
  "Canopus Two," the library
responded promptly. "Four days distant at
maximum warp."
  Kirk flipped off the annex and headed for the
door, then stopped in mid-stride and-returned,
to stare down at the corpselike[*thorngg'no, not
corpselike, he hurriedly corrected
hmf[*thorngg'the sleeping form of Spock.
  "How long can he last without the drug?"
  McCoy considered carefully, his momentary
outburst already forgotten by both men. "I said
strobolin couldn't be duplicated in the lab. That's
so[*thorngg'b there is an artificially produced
related Seationm I ought to be able to make up.
  88 STAR TREK LOG PI
  "All it can do is slow the disease, not stop it. The
destructive agent rapidly builds an
immunity to the serum. Despite all forestalling
efforts, at the rate his blood is losing the
ability to carry oxygen, I give him three days
at best, Jim. Four days to reach the
drug[*thorn] and Spock will die in three in
spite of everything I can do. That's," an odd
expression came over hhn, "logical.
  Unless[*thorn]"
  "Unless what, Bones?"
  McCoy looked guarded. "What about a fended
vous?"
  "Of courser If we caret reach the drug in time,
there's a chance that another Federation ship might be
close to Canopus Two right now.
  There's got to bel" He was back at the intercom
in seconds.
  "Kirk to Bridge[*thorngg'get me
Starfleet operations control for this sector,
Lieutenant."
  'transmitting, Captain."
  The logistics seemed beyond immediate
  solution. However, it was startling how much
bureaucracy and red tape one could cut through by bringing
the proper amount of priority demands, prime
requests and insinuations to bear all seasoned with a touch
of judicious threats.
  It was eventually decided that the starship
Potemkin, presently on patrol in the region
of Canopus, would pick up the requisite amount
of strobolin. This would then be transferred to the
interstellar freighter Huron for delivery to the
Enterprise.
  Kirk would have preferred meeting the
  Potemkin himself and avoiding any
  intermediaries. But there were certain requests even
he couldn't have filled[*thorn] tying up two
starships for speedy delivery of a drug was one of
them.
  Spock was a valued officer[*thorngg'b he was
only one. StarDeet had a plethora of
personnel and a distinct shortage of starships.
Vessels the class of the Enterprise and Potemkin
were too few and far between for their missions to be casually
aborted[*thorngg'or so said the reply to his
request.
  Kirk didn't argue with the logic of the missive,
but the word "casual" in reference to Spock filled
him with
  STAR TREK L tilde Fly 89
  a quiet hatred for some unknown officer whose career
had been spent behind a desk pushing paper.
  On the other hand, if all went well they would still
receive the drug in plenty of time. And McCoy had
assured him that strobolin's
  effectiveness matched its rarity.
  McCoy leaned against the wall in Rirk's cabin
and watched his superior officer and good friend going through
mental nip-ups. With the exception of Spock, he
was probably the only one on board who
knew that this was the first time Kirk had ever traded on
his reputation to produce desired results.
  Kirk hated officers who used "pull" to get
what they wanted. So his embarrassment at doing so
himself was understandable. McCoy repressed a smile.
If the captain only knew the awe the rest of the
crew held him in for being able to generate such action
on the part of a notoriously
  somnolent bureaucracy.
  Naturally no one showed the admiration they
felt[*thorn] everyone knew it would only
embarrass him more.
  As for himself, he mused exhaustedly, he had done
everything it was humanly[*thorngg'or for that matter,
Vulcanly[*thorngg'possible to do for the mortally
ill first officer. Now he must devote his energies
to ensuring that Kirk wouldn't fold up as the
critical rendezvous approached. The last thing he
wanted was two important patients.
  "What are the symptoms like, Bones?" Kirk
finally muttered idly, staring at the ceiling. The
three-dimensional desert diorama projected above
his bed offered little comfort.
  McCoy shrugged, tried to make the terrifying
sound casual. "Increasing difficulty in
breathing, coupled with a corresponding drop in
efficiency. All the signs of someone working under
extreme altitude conditions. Kind of like the standard
Academy mountain survival test. Remember that
one?"
  That memory produced a small grin .. . very
small It vanished when the door buzzer sounded
politely.
  "Come."
  The panel slid aside, and the subject of all
the recent activity walked in. Spock showed no
sign of the con
  90 STAR TREK LOG FIVE
  cern or trouble cantering on him. His uniform and
posture were immaculate, as usual. His
expression was bland as vanilla, as usual. Only
in his movements could one who knew him well detect
something amiss. Lift of hand, drive of leg, all
were just a hair slow, the movements of a man recently
arisen from a deep sleep.
  Or slipping into one, Kirk thought morosely.
  "You wish to see me, Captain?"
  "Yes, Spock. Sit down."
  With a quick glance at McCoy, who in trying
to avoid it only made his concern more
obvious, Spock took up a seat facimg
Kirk. The captain swung his legs off the bed,
sat up.
  "We've arranged a rendezvous to pick up the
drug you need."
  "I trust it will not affect our scheduled arrival
at Deneb Five, nor our duties there?"
  "No, it won't," Kirk said gently.
  "What's the matter, Spock?" put in
McCoy in a forced attempt at levity,
"afraid you'll miss the first dance at the Federation
Academy ball?"
  "I'm afraid I do not dance, Doctor."
  "You can say that again," McCoy countered, but he
did it without a smile and the attempted joke fell
flat.
  An awkward pause ensued while Kirk
  considered how to proceed. With any other member
of the-crew he wouldn't have had to. But could he
simply say what had to be said to Spock? The first
officer perceived certain things differently than others.
Would he be offended? Angry? More than anything
else, Kirk wished now he knew more about Vulcan
customs tilde and eti- quette, in particular.
  "Will that be all, Captain?" Spock
asked, giving Kirk no more time to hope for divine
  intervention.
  "One more thing, Spock," he began, without meeting
his first officer's gaze. "I've considered very
carefully. Based on Dr. McCoy's
  recommendations[*thorn)')t's it,
make.bones the heavy, James T.
Chickengg[*thorngg'I've decided to cut your
duty time in half."
  A faint glimmer of something close to emotion
seemed to shine behind dark pupils. "Captain, that
won't be necessary. I am perfectly capable of . .
."
  STAR TREK L tilde PI
  A hand came down on his shoulder and he glanced
around and up. McCoy, firm, not joking now.
  "No argument, Spock. Doctor's orders."
  Kirk watched his first officer carefully. No
reaction. Of course not[*thorngg'a sign of
health in itself.
  'allythat's all, Spock," he said curtly,
before his friend could offer additional rejoinders.
"Disnussed."
  Spock nodded once, rose and walked slowb to the
door. McCoy relaxed perceptibly as
soon as the portal closed behind him.
  "Whew. He took that better than I
expected."
  "He took it like Spock[*thorngg'no, that's
not fair of me, Bones."
  "Forget it, Jim. I know how you
feel[*thorngg'x's hard, watching him like that and
waiting for the collapse you know is coming. I just wish
there was something more I could do for him."
  "It'll hurt seeing him go steadily downhill."
  McCoy looked philosophical. "The only
other alter- native is to confine him to quarters, or
to Sick Bay. I don't see any point in that.
It won't do anything for him from a physical
standpoint and it could only hurt him mentally. So I
see no harm in letting hm[*thorn]"
  "Feel useful in his last hours?"
  Both men stared quietly at each other, each
lost in his own thoughts[*thorngg'the strongest presence
in the room that of one who divas no longer there.
  Streamlining had given way to functionality in the
latter part of the Twenty-First Century. So the
ships which carried freight between the stars were equal parts
ugly and efficient, ungainly and profitable.
  The.s. S. Huron was typical if
this class and its crew typical of crews on such
ships. There were some who insisted that the small living
quarters on board such craft made for small men.
In reality, the reverse was usually true. They were
no less daring, no less brave than starship
personnel only sloppier and more independent.
  Captain O'Shea of the llurorz probably fen
about midway between fiction and reality. Outwardly there
was little to distinguish him. He was of average build
  ,..:
  92 STAR llUl tilde L tilde P
tilde
  and temperament, excepting the special sole of his
left shoe, constructed to accommodate the fact that the
one leg was a number of centimeters shorter than the
other one. On such minutiae do careers in
Starfleet hang.
  Naturally, that detail made him stronger than
those he was passed over in favor of. O'Shea
needed that strength. The duller the task, the more inner
strength a man needed to survive.
  His face, at least, was noble, adequately
laden with planes and angles inscribed by years of
service. It might have been taken from the bust of a
Roman patrician, despite the
incongruity of the five tilde clock shadow.
  At the moment he stood in the small, curved
cham- ber which served as the bridge for the Huron. His
two assistants were seated before him at the compact
con- trol console, staring at the fore viewscreen.
  Quarters were snug. On board a freighter
everything was sacrificed for the comfort of the cargo.
O'Shea and his crew were classed with the other
incidental equip" meet.
  'Tme to rendezvous . . . ," Elijah paused
briefly to check a readout, "dis . . two hours
seven minutes, Cap- tain."
  O'Shea grunted in acknowledgment. It was his
favor- ite mode of expression, bemg at once
eloquent and
  comeconomical. He also had an excellent
negative grunt.
  O'Shea could produce a veritable spectrum,
an alla Poe
  drida of grunts, constituting a language in
themselves.
  comBut the unusual importance of this run compared to
  their usual assignments compelled him to greater
loquaciousness, his ambivalent feelings about the job
notwithstanding.
  ""Must be a pretty important drug
we're carrying for the Enterpnse. I'd just as soon
get rid of it and get back to shipping plain
dilithium."
  The Huron's first officer, John Elijah,
smiled to him- self. Despite his constant
complaining, he knew O'Shea was revering in the
attention they had received. The captain had been
hard-pressed to keep the seams of his jacket intact
when the priority call had come through from Starfleet, with
its companion orders.
  O'Shea already had had a chance to do a little strut
  STAR TREK L tilde PI
  tiny before the crew of the Potemkin. Now he was
looking forward to playing hero before the officers of one
of the most famous ships in the Pederation, the
Enterprise.
  No wonder he was feeling talkative!
  He felt a tap on his arm and looked across at
his partner. Lieutenant Fushi eyed him
  questioningly, directed his attention to a certain readout
on the other side of the console. Like nearly
everytlung else, the by-play caught O'Shea's
affection..
  "What are you two on about?"
  "Sir," Fushi confessed, openly puzzled,
"our sensors are registering the presence of a ship
ahead." Several intriguing new crevices
appeared in the captain's mobile face.
  "Odd. Could the Enterprise be this early?
Sure, and this is listed as a pAoAty meeting, but
. . ."
  "Still too far away to tell what it is, sir,"
Fushi replied
  "What's its approximate course?"
  "Toward us, sir."
  O'Shea grunted. Elijah and Fushi had no
trouble translating it to, "Well, that's an very
interesting information Lieutenant, and I certainly
hope it is the Enterprise; but since we're not
sure yet perhaps you'd best keep an eye on it."
  In the hands of a master like the captain the content of a
barely verbalised monosyllable could be truly
startling.
  Kirk halted dictation into his private log and
looked to the helm. "Time to rendezvous, Mr.
Arex?"
  The Edoan checked the chronometer readout, compared
it with the declaration of another gauge. "One hour
forty-three minutes, Captain."
  Kirk considered this briefly before turning his
attention to the BA-DGE engineering station, where Scott
was keeping a close watch on
  numerous gauges.
  "Scotty, I hate to ask this, but . . ."
  Scott simply looked back and nodded.
"Aye, Captain, we'll squeeze a bit more
speed out of her somehow."
  94 STAR TREK LOG PI
  "If it'll help, Scotty, I'll get out and
push."
  "Any of us would, Captain. Let me see what
I can do."
  An insistent buzz pulled Kirk's attention
back to the chair intercom.
  "McCoy to bridge."
  Kirk opened the channel. "What is it,
Bones?"
  "Tell Spock it's time for another shot."
  Kirk lowered his voice as he looked over toward
the science station. "Again, Bones?"
  "Again, Jim."
  Kirk sighed. "All right, I'll send him
down." He raised his voice. "Mr. Spock."
There was no response. "Mr.
SpockJ"tilde Now Sulu had turned to stare,
and Uhura had swiveled "round at her station.
  "He looks tired, Bones," Kirk said into the
pickup. "Just a minute." He got out of the chair
and walked toward his first officer. "Spock?
Spocki"
  The first officer's eyes, which had been closed as
Kirk approached, opened slowly. He gazed
blankly up at Kirk for a moment. Then both
eyes and mind seemed to clear simultaneously.
  ""I was conserving energy, Captain."
  Kirk nodded matter-of-factly, trying not to let
his relief show. "McCoy wants you in Sick
Bay. Time for ark other injection. tilde -
  Spock rose from his seat[*thorn)'slowly,
carefully, but without aid[*thorngg'and walked toward
the elevator with the same measured movements.
  The silence on the bridge was deafening.
  O'Shea leaned between his two juniors and studied
the abstract overlay on the viewscreen. So far it
could show no more than a moving
  blip[*thorngg'enigmatic and uniformly
namformative.
  Fushi had been staring into a gooseneck viewer for
long moments. Now he sat back,
flipped a single switch and rubbed his eyes. He
had collated the mass approximations,
extreme-range silhouette configuration
estimates, energy registration and a dozen others.
These enabled him to make a single terse announcement.
  "It's not the Enterprise closing on us, sir,"
  STAR TREK L tilde Fly
  "Another Federation vessel?" There was more hope
than confidence in O'Shea's voice now.
  "NO, sir. It's an outsider for sure. A
design I don't recognise. That's not to say
half the helmsmen in the Federation wouldn't
recognise it, but I don't."
  "That's good enough for me," O'Shea
  acknowledged grimly. "Are we close enough yet for
visual pickup?"
  "Three minutes on our current course should
bring it within range of our fore telescanners,
sir."
  O'Shea considered. From the beginning he'd enjoyed
this mission. It had provided a chance for some
infrequent recognition as well as an
opportunity to present himself as a person of
importance. Everything had run smoothly.
  Now there was a loose neutron in the
reaction chamber, slid he found he didn't like it
one bit.
  Fushi was doing his best with the Huron's
telescopic pickups. The abstract overlay
vanished from the main screen, to be replaced by a
wavering, fuzzy starfield. In its center was what
appeared at first glance to be a red star.
  Pushi made adjustments, and the star became a
ship. O'Shea studied the unknown visitor
intently. Its design was different, but not
extreme[*thorngg'alien without being radical. It
was colored blood red, a choice which might be
coincidental, theatrical, or intentional.
  One out o' three, he mused, ain't good.
  "You sure it's coming toward us?" he asked again.
  Eiljah was busy checking gauges.
"Definitely on an intercept course,
Captain. Estimates of speed ... it'll reach us
before we make contact with the Enterpnse."
  "Maybe," said Fushi quietly, '1hey just
want to chat."
  "[Maybe," agreed O'Shea, staring at the
alien image as it grew nearer and nearer. "Maybe
. . ."
  "Maybe we can dispense with these injections
soon, Spock," MoCoy told him.
  Spock was Iying down on one of the diagnostic
beds. Nurse (chapel stood nearby. McCoy
wielded the air hypo like an artist with a brush,
placed it against the first offlcer's shoulder.
  96 STAR TRBXL tilde PI
  "This won't hurt a bit now, Spock."
  "An unnecessary reassurance, Doctor," his
patient replied, Yin addition to being untrue."
  McCoy- grimaced as he administered the
  serum. "That's the last time I waste my best
bedside manner on a Vulcan." His
  Spock, rolling down the sleeve of his tunic,
started to sit up. "Such restraint would be welcome,
Doctor."
  McCoy put a hand on the first offlcer's
untreated shoulder and gently pressed him back.
"Agreed, provided you show some of the same,
Spock. Lie there quietly."
  Nodding to Chapel, he directed his full
attention to the screen over the head of the bed. Chapel
adjusted the complex diagnostic
  mechanism. The result was a series of brightly
lit printouts on the screen which the patient, in his
reclining position, couldn't see.
  Respiration, circulation[*thorngg'McCoy
went through the succession of figures, compared them with those
taken four hours earlier. There was nothing there he
hadn't expected to see. That made them no less
depressing.
  Considering the massive doses Spock had been
receiving, one would think those strobolin analogs would be
more effective. To an observer basing his opinion on
the present readings, all those injections would seem
to have been worse than useless.
  But McCoy knew that without those injections he would
not be reading any results on Spock now.
Corpses generate singularly uniform figures.
He looked down at the subject of all this
analysis, who waited patiently for permission
to get back to his assigned tasks, and smiled in
manner belying his true feelings.
  "Well, that's not too bad . . . not too bad
at all. I'm afraid it's back to the salt
mines for you, Spock."
  Spock started to get up, nearly fell.
McCoy managed to restrain himself to the barest twitch
and kept himself from extending a supportive arm.
  "Thank you, Doctor," Spock said evenly,
getting to his feet slowly but steadily
now. Like a man in a dream, he left the room.
  Chapel's professional smile didn't fade
until he was gone. "The drug isn't working any
more, Doctor. tilde it
  STAR TREIFFC LOG PIVB 97
  was, he wouldn't have lost that much ground in four
hours." McCoy turned from her, troubled.
  "I know, Christine, I know. The additional
injections can't hurt his system and
  psychologically they may help. Don't worry
. . . we'll have the strobolin soon."
  That was what McCoy said. But a person did not
have to be as familiar with him as Chapel was to read what
he meant.
  They'd better have the strobolin soon . . .
  "They've increased speed, sir," Fushi
reported tightly. "Closing fast on us now."
  "Why do I have this nagging impression they want more
from us than just talk?" O'Shea muttered. "Open
hailing frequencies, Mr. Elijah. Standard
intership call."
  The first officer of the Huron reached for the red
  quired instruments, manipulated several.
"Open, sir. They're plenty close enough; should
pick us up easy."
  O'Shea moved forward, spoke toward the
  directional mike.
  "To unidentified alien vessel. This is
Captain Svenquist O'Shea of the Federation
freighter S.s. Huron on whose course you are
currently closing Please state your registry and
intentions." Me paused, repeated, "Please
identify yourself."
  "No use, sir," a vexed Elijah
reported. "They've got to be receiving . . . but
they're not answering."
  Well, that left No possibilities. The first
was that the stranger was in sufficient difficulties
to render his broadcast instrumentation inoperative.
  The second was that O'Shea was in a lot of trouble
and needed help, but fast.
  "We've got a hold full of dilithium
to protect, not to mention that drug," he ventured.
"I don't like people who come at me fast and silent.
Evasive makeovers."
  Fusbi and Elijah were good. They tried
  right-left anale shifts. They put the Huron
through turns warp-drive craft weren't designed
for. They sent her galloping off course in a
random-number spiral.
  None of it fazed their silent pursuer. Whatever
sought close contact with them was simply too fast to
  98 STAR TRBGG'C LOG FIVE
  be denied. Time and again it would slip off the
Huron's screens, only to reappear moments
later. And with each new maneuver tried, each option
exhausted, the alien grew harder and harder to shake.
Their pilots might not have been any
better[*thorngg'b their navigational computer and
engines were clearly designed for more intrieate work
than traveling from point A to point B.
  "It's no good, sir," a tired Fushi
confessed. "Not only can't we lose them, they're still
closing on us."
  "AU right." O'Shea was running down a list of
responses to possible challenges. "Resume
course, and send out an emergency signal to the Enter
tilde nse. By drone. Subtly."
  "Yes, sir." He programed the drone
properly, sent it on its robotic way. "Might
be a good idea to ready a backup, in case." His
hands moved to make the necessary demands on the Huron's
equipment[*thorngg'and hesitated as a certain
telltale commenced a steady winking.
  "Message coming in, sir."
  "I can see that, man. Let's hear it."
  Elijah acknowledged the call, put it on the
speaker. They had cut in n'ud-broadcast.
  It didn't matter. The message directed at
them was as understandable as it was incomplete.
  "dis . . or prepare to be destroyed. Stand
by to surrender your cargo or prepare . . ."
  vll
  "Captain, rm getting a signal from the
  Huron[*thorn)'"automatic emergency
beacon."
  Kirk stiffened in his seat. "Are we close enough for
direct ship-to-ship contact yet?"
  Uhura checked a readout. "Possible,
sir[*thorngg'fringe tangency$'i
  4'Try it."
  "Yes, sir." There was a pause, then,
"Nothing, sir. Either we're still too far off
or[*thorngg'x's definitely an emergency
beacon doing the broadcasting."
  She didn't have to elaborate.
  "Sensor report, Mr. Spock. Have they
reached the designated coordinates?" It took
Spock several seconds longer than usual
to make the check and reply.
  "No, sir. Long-range scanners also
indicate a course change. They are veering
off[*thorngg'and have reduced speed considerably."
  "Compute new course to intercept, Mr. Arex.
Lieutenant Uhura, keep trying to make
contact. Let's find out what's going
on[*thorn]"
  It took longer than Kirk expected to make the
rendezvous, not because of the course change but because the
Huron had not merely cut
  speed[*thorngg'she had practically stopped.
  Visual contact soon revealed the reasons why.
The freighter sat there on the main viewscreen,
drifting aimlessly in space. All entreaties for
acknowledgment were ignored with frightening uniformity.
  Spock's attention was on his hooded viewer.
"The Huron's power levels are functioning at the
bare minimum required to maintain life-support
systems, Captain. And sensors are picking up
considerable metallic and other inorganic debris."
  "Natural cause?"

  1OO STAR TRBI: L tilde PI
  Spock looked up from the viewer. ""No,
  Captain. Extrapolating from
preliminary data I would say without qualification
that she was attacked. Indications are . . .
indications are ..."
  He swayed in his chair, eyelids fluttering.
  "Spock!"
  For a moment the first officer's eyes opened wide and
clear. Then a faint suggestion of uncertainty
crossed that stolid visage. "Captain, I . .
."
  Kirk started forward[*thorngg'caught the limp
form before it struck the floor. Uhura was already on the
intercom.
  "Bridge to Sick
Bay[*thorngg'Emergencyl"
  Kirk felt no need to ask McCoy for a
detailed interpretation of the readings that winked on and
off on the screen above Spock's head. Anyone
with a minimal knowledge of Vulcan physiology could see
that they were appallingly low.
  McCoy studied he unconscious Vulcan.
"We've got to have that strobolin, Jim. The
synthetic is useless now[*thorngg'hell, it's
been useless for half a day! He has lapsed
in!coma." He looked
  unwaveringly at Kirk.
  "If we don't get that drug soon, very soon,
he'll never come out of it."
  "Do what you can, Bones." It sounded pitifully
inadequate. "And 111[*thorngg'111 do what
I can."
  Now they had another problem to cope with. What had
happened to the Huron? He gave
  McCoy a hesitant, encouraging pat on the
back and left Sick Bay.
  McCoy watched him go, his one note of
  satisfaction in this being Kirk's continued
steadiness; then he turned his attention back to his
patient. He examined the readouts again. For the moment
they were unchanged. Temporary, false
pleasure[*thorngg'they could only change for the
worse.
  "Blasted Vulcan!" he yelled at the motionless
form, "tilde Why couldn't you have red blood like any
normal man?"
  He prayed for a comforting insult.
  He got only sibilant breathing[*thorngg'and
silences
  Arex was manning Spock's station as Sulu
positioned the Enterprise close to
  theeaunresponsive Huron.
  STAR TREK L tilde PI 1Ol
  "Status?" Kirk queried sharply, striding out
of the elevator.
  "Her engines are dead," Arex reported,
studying the telltale sensor screen. "Backup
battery power is operating life-support systems
at a low but acceptable level."
  "Anyone left alive?"
  "There appears to be, sir. Several weak
readings. I can't tell how many for certain."
  "We'll find out soon enough. Mr. Scott,
Lieutenant Uhura, come with me. Mr. Sulu,
you have the con. We're beaming over to the Huron."
  Dissolution ... nausea ... teasing oblivion
. .. ream sembly.
  Kirk looked around and saw that Kyle had put
them exactly where he had specified. They were standing
on the Huron's bridge. Or rather, on what was
left of it.
  It looked as if something had taken the Huron
by its stern and slammed the-upper end against a
nickel-iron asteroid. Signs of severe
concussion were everywhere[*thorngg'in the shattered
gauge covers, the slight ooze of liquid around
loosened paneling from cracked fluidstate
switches, in the decided chill in the air from the
release of super-cooled gases.
  Further evidence was to be found in the condition of
two of the three skulls belonging to the crew.
  Chapel made a quick examination of the
  physical damage and tended to FU-SHI the most
severely injured of the three, first. Whatever had
battered the Huron had made no distinction between
accouterments living and dead. Her three officers were
scattered about the bridge with the same disregard and in the
same condition as the furnishings.
  Kirk waited with agonized impatience as
Chapel moved quickly from Pushi to O'Shea
to Elijah.
  "They'll all live," she said finally. Kirk
turned.
  "Scatty, check the cargo hold for the strobolin.
Every freighter has a double-walled refrigerated
chamber for storing extremely valuable cargo. It
should be located close by the central accessway. The
drug will be in it."
  102 STAR TRE)'BBL tilde Fit
  "Aye, sir." Scott turned, started back
into the bowels of the ship.
  "Uhura, see if you can get a
playback off their log I want to know what
happened here."
  Uhura nodded, moved to the chaos of the fore control
console and commenced trying to make sense out of the
tangle of wiring, torn metal and shredded
plastics.
  Kirk examined what was left of the smaDo
engineering station, wished Scotty were around to explain the
destruction. Whatever had ruined the freighter had
been guided by an intelligence with a definite
purpose in mind. The damage here was
severe[*thorngg'b still controDed. Something had
disabled the freighter without destroying it.
  It was difficult to fault their thoroughness.
True, they had left O'Shea and his crew
alive[*thorngg'barely. But there was no reason
to expect three severely wounded men drifting
powerless in a
  little-frequented section of space and existing on
stored enlergy to ever be rescued and bear witness against
their attacker.
  No, the Huron might very wed have gone down on
shipping schedules as lust one of those infrequent
vessds marked "never arrived[*thorngg'cause
unknown," if it" weren't for the fact that the
ship was to meet the oncoming Enterprise in free
space. Something Kirk doubted her attackers had
known, or they would have taken care to leave no one
alive. They had made a mistake.
  Possibly a fatal one.
  There was a buzz close by, and Kirk flipped
on his communicator.
  "Scott to Captain Kirk," the familiar
voice of the chief engineer came. Kirk glanced
around the shattered bridge. Chapel had turned her
  ministrations to O'Shea. Vhura deftly
avoided a sudden shover of sparks, then bent with
renewed vigor to the task of extricating the
remnants of the Huron's log.
  "Kirk here . . . all steady forward,
Scotty. Report."
  "Em in the main bay, Captain. The
Huron's equipped with a security bin, an
right[*thorngg'only it's been forced.
  STAR TREK L tilde PI 103
  It's as empty as the rest of the cargo hold.
There's nothin" down here, Captain."
  "No sign of the strobolin?"
  "Not a single ampoule, Captain. The
Huron's listed cargo for this trip was
dilithium. Not a crystal in sight, either. The
hold's been stripped clean."
  "Life-support systems?"
  "Stable here. No, if this was caused by a natural
disaster it's been repaired with the slickest patch job
I've ever seen. also, it must have been a mighty
select five disaster. The only major damage
is to the security chamber and the cargo locks. I
kinna tell for sure from this distance, but I think they were
blown open and then resealed."
  "All right, Mr. Scott. Report back up
here."
  "Aye, Sir. Sorry I am . . ."
  No drug, a voice howled in Kirk's mind.
No drug, no drug! He flipped off the
communicator and walked over next to the busy
Uhura. She looked up at him and wiped a forearm
across her brow. The humidity was bad in here and
getting worse, despite the valiant efforts of the
damaged life-support system.
  "All recorders are gone, sir[*thorngg'b
indications are that the log tapes are intact. I
think I can extricate them without damage. We'll
have to play them back on board ship, though."
  "Good enough, Lieutenant." He left
her to her work and turned his attention back to Chapel.
She continued to labor on O'Shea.
  "How is he, Nurse?"
  "Scrambled inside, concussion
upstairs[*thorngg'he needs surgery but," she
smiled slightly, "he'll live, Captain.
Nothing we can't fix. Another couple of days,
though, and an three of Hem would have been gone."
  Kirk moved away, Finking hard. He flipped
me communicator open again just as Scott re-entered
the bridge.
  "Kirk to Enterprise. We're ready to beam
over, Arex. Have a full medical team standing by.
We need[*thorn]" he glanced at Chapel,
who nodded
  approval as he spoke, "[*thorngg'Tree
pallets with tech-teams. Tell Dr. McCoy
he's got a triple surgery on his hands."
  104 STAR TREICL tilde Pi
  "Very good, sir," the thin voice piped back.
  They left the Huron where and as it was, it's
automatic beacon still calling plaintively to an
indifferent universe. Scott had installed a
fully charged power pack to run the beacon when the
freighter's emergency batteries finally
gave out.
  The shattered transport could be recovered later,
by someone else. Right now something other than salvage
dominated Kirk's thoughts. And Scott's, and
McCoy's, and Sulu's and those of every other member
of the Enterpr tilde se's crew[*thorngg'though
they might not have admitted it.
  Such thoughts were doubtlessly the cause of the pounding
headache Kirk suffered from as he paced the outer
room of the Sick Bay. His attention was
gratefully drawn from the miners excavating his
skull when McCoy entered from a side doorway.
The reflective figure, clad in transparent
surgical garb, beckoned Kirk to a familiar
chamber.
  Kirk walked past the base of the bed where Spock
lay immobile. He glanced once at the
diagnostic readouts on the screen above, looked
hurriedly away. By now even the figures were
painful to see.
  He tamed in time to see O'Shea wheeled in from
surgery. Two medical techs transferred the
Huron's captain gently from the mobile pallet
to a duplicate of the bed Spock lay in.
  Both officers walked over, McCoy
peeling the protective sealer from his face. "Hops
this one, Bones?"
  6'jh, hell pull through all right, Jim. Just
a little rearrangement of his plumbing . . . no
permanent damage." He paused. "Jim, what the
hell are we going to do about Spock?"
  ""The best we can, Bones."
  'Tomorrow not sure that's going to be good enough, Jim."
  Kirk could see that McCoy was sorry for the words
as soon as he had said them. He was under more
pressure than anyone else on board just now, and
it manifested itself as frustration.
  Probably there was nothing as agonizing to a
doctor of Bones" ability as knowing exactly
what to do to cure
  STAR TREK L tilde Fig 105
  a patient and simply not having the material to do
it rith.
  "If we don't have that strobolin in twenty
hours, he'll die," McCoy continued flatly.
"That's a minimal figure, but it's pretty
accurate. I wouldn't like to have to stretch it even five
minutes."
  There was nothing he could say . . . just as there was
nothing he could do.
  No, no[*thorngg't wasn't entirely
true. There was stiBut a chance, still some hope. The
dimness of the readings on the diagnostic indicators
over Spock's head were matched by the snail's pace
of his thoughts.
  "We still might[*thorn]"
  "Might what, Jim?"
  "Wait till I see the log tapes we took
off the Huron. If they're wiped, or if the
recorder was destroyed too soon[*thorn]"
He stopped abruptly. "See you later, Bones.
Do what you can for Spock, and let me know the minute
any of those three," he nodded to where Elijah was being
brought in to join O'Shea, "recover sufficiently
to tallc."
  Never enough time, he thought, never enough . . .
  As Arex ran the Huron tapes through the library
computer, Kirk stood nearby and urged the dawdling
computer to faster action.
  Eventually, the Edoan made his equivalent of a
satisfied sigh. "Some of the last tape was burned,
Captain. I've been able to reconstruct the
damaged sections, however. The Huron was
  definitely, as we suspected, attacked
by another vessel. It is interesting
to observe that the belligerent ship is a new
design, one apparently never before encountered by a
Federation ship. There is also evidence to suggest that it
possesses an older form of propulsion than
modern warp drive."
  "I don't care if it came from the far side of
M one one three eight and is powered by ten
million invisible gerbils[*thorngg'an I
want to know is, can we track it?"
  "That's the significance of its out-of-date
drive, sir. If you'll look here . . ."
  He hit a switch. Immediately a blank grid
appeared on the sman screen above the science
console. Another
  106 STAR TREK LOG FIVE! --
control produced a star-chart nearby. Arex made
a last adjustment and the two blended together.
  Kirk squinted. There were glowing dots on the
composite screen which were not stars.
  "The Huron's attacker may be sophisticated
in many ways," Arex explained, "but its
propulsive units are possessed of a few
archaic features. One of these is that they generate a
faint residue of radioactive particulate
matter. Unless they are aware of us and have
carefully laid a false trail for us
to follow[*thorngg'wh I strongly
doubt[*thorngg'we should be able to find them.
  "The most recent deposits give a bearing of
two hundred twelve plus, one hundred
seventy-five minus to the Galactic ecliptic.
The half-life of the ejected material is quite
short. If we had arrived on the scene as much as
three days late, our sensors would have found nothing."
  "Lay in that course!" Kirk shouted back to the
heEn. "Ahead warp seven, Mr. Sulu." He
turned back to Arex. "Run through those tapes
ag[*thorn)'slowly, Lieutenant[*thorngg'and
let me know if you find anything else you think
significant. I'll be down in Sick Bay."
  Kirk found McCoy seated at his desk, his
head resting in his hands. "How is he, Bones."
  "Worse man he was when you left, Jim,"
McCoy re- plied, looking up. "And hell be
worse the next time, and worse after that . . .
until we get that drug.
  "It's his breathing that worries me most.
Pretty soon I'm going to have to put him on forced
respiration. Thatll draw reserves from other parts
of his body already hard-pressed by the disease."
  "Well, we're following the attacking ship's
trail."
  Teeth gleamed. "We're going to crawl right
up[*thorn]"
  "Ship?" McCoy interrupted. "How do we know
there's only one ship involved in this?"
  "Lieutenant Arex is certain the
radioactive residue comes from a single
vessel."
  "Sure, only one ship attacked the Huron.
What ham pens if they rendezvous with another and
transfer cargo? Or with two others, or make
multiple transfers?"
  "Dammit, Bones," EC-IRK-HALF shouted,
"this one's got
  STAR TREK LOG PI 107
  to be the only one. It's got to be." McCoy
looked apo2ogetic, but Kirk waved off the
incipient sorrys.
  "Don't complicate things with factual
  possibilities, okay? If there's more than one
ship, well ... that's probably it, then. We
haven't enough time to go chasing all over the cosmos after
several ships, even if their trails would last that
long."
  "A transfer," McCoy finished relentlessly,
"would seem the logical thing to do." His voice
cracked on the word "logical."
  "Sure, if you anticipate immediate pursuit.
But every sign points to these beings[*thorngg'whoever they
are[*thorngg'n expeoting another vessel in this
region. Certainly not one capable of overtaking
them.
  "The tapes indicate they weren't much on
conversation. Chances are that if O'Shea had been
given the opportunity to explain he was about
to rendezvous with a heavy cruiser, they might have
called off the whole thing."
  "Y'm sure that'll be a great consolation
to O'Shea when he comes around," snorted McCoy.
He walked slowly back to stare down at Spock.
  "What's the good of being a physician,
anyway7" lurk heard him mutter angrily.
"We're only as good as current drugs and
technology make us. We've got a few more
books, a little more knowledge. Eliminate all the
mechanical
  conveniences, and I might as well be practicing in
the middle ages. There's nothing I can do for him."
He walked a few steps away, slammed
a hand against the door sill.
  "Me[*thorngg'me, Fm helpless. Totally
dependent on instrumentation and pre-programed
chemicals. There isn't a thing I personally can do.
So what's the point of it[*thorn] what's the
point?" He stared down at the Boor.
  "Better to be an engineer like Scotty. If one
of his patients burns out, there's always a
  replacement in the catalog" A hollow laugh
forced itself out.
  SB-ENOE.
  Then, "If you really believed that, Bones,"
Kirk told him softly, "you wouldn't still be a
doctor after twenty-five years. Especially a
ship's doctor.
  "And that's something else I've always wondered
  108 STAR TREK L tilde PI
  about, Bones. Why did you bother entering the
service? With your skill you could have made a fortune
in government or private practice."
  McCoy glanced back sharply, an unfathomable
expression on his face. "You're going to find this
funny, Jim, but . . . I entered the service
instead of striking out on my own because I'm greedy."
  "Greedy?" As Spock would say, that
sounds like an irrefutable contradiction in terms."
  McCoy shook his head. "It's no different for
me than for you, Jim. I'm here because challenge
means more to me than money. And because
  money can't buy a sense of accomplishment.
  "Besides, could you see me sitting in a private
clinic on Demolos or on Earth, pandering to the
private phobias of overweight matrons and
spoiled kids?"
  "I admit it's a tough scene to picture,"
Kirk agreed, amused. "I'm glad your avarice
drove you to become doctor on this ship his
  'listen," McCoy began, "if Spock pugs
through[*thorn]"
  "You mean when Spock pulls through," Kirk
countered forcefully. "When Spock pulls through
1311 see what can be done about rounding up some more
interesting illnesses for you to play with. I don't
want you feeling unchallenged."
  "Thanks awfully, Jim," McCoy
responded, a touch of his normal sarcasm coming
back. "I'd appreciate some really different
germs for a change. Trouble is, the people on this ship
refuse to cooperate. You're all too damned
healthy."
  Kirk turned to leave. "Well Bones, you've
got nobody to blame but yourself."
  The dilithium, Kirk mused as he strolled
down the corridor, he could understand. As good as
currency[*thorn] no, better. A load of
good crystals would be easy to market to some of the
  Federation's less reputable concerns. Or to any
of many non-federation worlds.
  But why did they take the strobolin? Why?
Pirates would hardly have known what it was. And if
they had, they would have realized it wasn't particularly
  STAR TREK L tilde FIVE 1 tilde
  valuable[*thorngg'x was demand, not rarity, that was
responsible for that.
  Come to think of it, he considered as he entered the
lift, that was probably it. They had taken the
strobolin out of ignorance, reasoning that anything worth
proteeting so well was worth appropriating.
  If only they had left the drug, he could have
over- looked the assault, forgotten the injuries,
ignored the monetary loss. Suddenly he grew
cold as he realized that they might now have discovered the
drug's true value and simply have destroyed it,
or dumped it in space[*thorngg'ou of anger,
perhaps, for the valuables the security chamber
had failed to yield.
  - He tried not to think about it, just as he tried
to ig
  nore McCoy's hypothesis about intership
transfers of
  the stolen goods.
  In one way the situation was made simple for
hirn. Because of the restrictions imposed by time, he was
reduced to only one course of action, spared the need
of choosing among several tortuous possibles.
  All they could do was follow the thread of radioac-
tive residue and hope it led to the intact
ampoules of strobolin. Hope it did so quickly.
  Exiting onto the bridge he automatically
scanned left to right, insured himself that everyone who
belonged at hissther post was present. Arex, he
noticed as he took his seat in the command chair, was
back at the navigate for's station.
  Handling the dual assignment was hard on the
Edoan, he knew. But he was a better backup
to have there than anyone else in a situation like this.
Sulu could cover for him where necessary.
  Besides. he mused bitterly, one way or the other
the navigator wouldn't have to occupy the dual position
, much longer.
  "Report."
  Emanations from the radioactive matter still
registering strongly on applied sensors,
Captain," Sulu informed him. "Bearing still two
hundred twelve plus, one hundred
seventy-five minus. We are moving up on a
massive grouping of solid material."
  "SI-OW to standard cruising speed," Kirk
ordered, fin
  110 STAR TREK LOG FIVE!
  gers ta tilde tapping on an arm of the chair.
  "Free-space asteroidal belt or globe,"
he muttered to himself.
  Sulu was busily replacing the abstract
  information listed on the main screen with a view from the
ship's fore scanners. Such groupings, Kirk
reflected, were not common, but neither were they rare enough
to arouse unusual interest.
  Visual sightings confirmed that this was a normal
coDage, jagged fragments ranging in size from
microscopic pebbles to a few moon-sized
specimens. At the moment, however, abstract
analysis was far from his mind.
  "The trail of radioactives enters the tilde
group and begins a weaving pattem,
Captain," Sulu reported.
  Kirk nodded slightly. He had half
expected as much They had been closing steadily on
their quarry, judging by the upsurge in radioactive
intensity of the trail. This was the closest thing to a
hiding place open space offered to an
  interstellar craft.
  "They're taking evasive action. A sensible
makeover, wouldn't you say, Mr. Sulu?"
  "tilde he ideal place to try and shake us,
Captain," the helmsman agreed. "BspeciaDy
if there are any natural concentrations of
radioactives in this belt." He studied his port
instrumentation.
  "Preliminary indications point to many of the
asteriods as having unusual energy properties
that[*thorn]" He stopped, staring at a
particular readout.
  "Share it with Also of us, Mr. Sulu," Kirk
said sharply.
  UB tilde treme-range sensor scan
indicates that the trail of radioactive debris
we have been following ends in the approximate center
of the grouping."
  "Could be trying to cover their train somehow,
trying to throw us off by running on a different drive
system, or perhaps arranging some kind of unpleasant
welcome," Kirk murmured, to no one in
particular. "We can be sure of one thing,
now[*thorngg'they know they're being pursued." He
  glanced back to Uhura. "All deflect tore
  up[*thorn)'sound yellow alert,
Lieutenant. Mr. Sulu, cut speed and
maintain evasive approach pattern."
  A chorused "Aye, sir" came back to him,
while
  STAR TREGG'C LOG FIVE 111
  bright flashes paired with suitably cacophonous
whoops resounded throughout the starship.
  "All sections secured and ready, Captain,"
Uhura was able to report minutes later.
  "Thank you, Lieutenant. Approaching
  unknown's approximate sphere of confluence.
Stand by for[*thorn]"
  A brilliant flare momentarily obliterated the
scene depicted on the viewscreen, and the
Enterprise shook to the force of destructive
energies.
  "What in the Pleiades was that?" Judging from the
violence of the Bare, Harry horns should have
been sounding steadily.
  Arex worked furiously to secure an answer.
What he learned wasn't exactly encouraging, but
neither did it appear they were under attack from some kind
of um Icnown super tilde veapon.
  "Unusual energy properties indeed,
Captain. It seems certain asteroids are composed
of
  anti-matter. This entire belt is remarkable for
having both matter and anti-matter existing side
by side a highly unstable configuration.
  "Walking on a field of mined eggshells is more
like it," Uhura suggested.
  "All fragments explode on contact with each
other[*thorngg'decidedly a dangerous place for a
chase, Captain," the navigator finished.
  "Their maneuverability's reduced, too,
don't forget that," Kirk countered, scowling at the
screen as if the universe were personally trying
to make his life miserable. It was not a near sensation.
  "tilde Keep those deflectors on
maximmn, Mr. Scott." The chief engineer
acknowledged the order from his place at the bridge
engineering console.
  "Captain? There's enough power locked in this
belt to run whole Beets of starships. It would
require a major industrial effort to tap it, but
the amount of potential energy involved[*thorn]"
  "Enough to do a lot of damage, also, Mr.
Scott. Steady and easy, Mr. Sulu, steady and
easy." Sulu nodded.
  They continued on through the belt, crawling
impatiently along the still radiant, damning
traiLike Deeper and
  112 STAR TRBGG'C L tilde PI
  deeper into the grouping they moved. Only the
occasional flare of antagonistic elements
obliterating each other in inorganic suicide
registered on the sensors.
  Finally something else rocked the Enterprise. It
was a substantial jolt, but no one was thrown from his
seat, and Uhura was soon able to report all
sections in with no damage, no casualties.
  This time the buffeting was caused not
by matter-anti-matter disintegration, but by a deep
blue beam which had struck at the Enterprise from just
over the horizon of a large asteroid below and
to starboard.
  "Mr. Sulul"
  "Fractional calibration completed,
Captain. They're running, but I've got them."
  "Pursuit speed, Mr. Sulu. Phasers stand
by."
  It was only a matter of minutes, now. As they
passed he considered strategy.
  Chances were their assailant had taken his best shot
first, hoping to disable the Enterprise before she could
retaliate. But the barrage they had taken wasn't
anything on, say, the order of what a Klingon
battle cruiser could put out[*thorngg'though it
could have messed them up pretty badly if the
deflectors had not been up.
  On the other hand, the belligerent vessel's
com- mander might be trying to draw the Enterprise
into a more tactically advantageous position for him.
It was too soon to judge. Best be ready for
anything.
  First round to the Enterprise, though[*thorngg'the
attacker had forfeited the element of surpAse.
  The starfield pinwheeled on the screen. One
glowing blob[*thorngg'blood red, unround, and of
  irregular outline[*thorn] was finally locked
into its center.
  "Hold them, Mr. Sulu." Another probing
blue light momentarily erased the view.
"Analysis?"
  Sulu was working smoothly, efficiently at the
controls. "Standard frigate-class phasers,
sir, slightly modified.
  "Plenty hot enough to make scrap of an
  unarmed freighter like the Huron. They'll never
get through our screens," Kirk noted with
satisfaction.
  "Captain," Arex broke in, "I've finally
placed the ship's markings. It's an Orion
vessel."
  STAR TREK LOG PIVB 113
  "OA-ON," Kirk echoed thoughtiuUy. The
Orions were an isolated, humanoid race who
stuck close to their small system of three
inhabited worlds and shunned contact with outsiders. There
had never been any reason to suspect them of
  antagonism toward other peoples. They were
simply thought to be naturally
reclusive[*thorngg'until now, he mused
furiously.
  Theyffwere very homan-like, but emphatically not in"
forested in joining up with the Pederation, with the Klingon
Empire, or with anyone else. The coronary was that
members of those and other multisteUar
political leagues expressed lithe interest in
expanding relations with the OA-ONS.
  The perfect cover, Kirk reflected, for some
widescale, unsuspected piracy. He found
himself wondering how many ships had been pushed onto the
missingand-presumed-lost register at Stardeet
HQ through the intervention of the fndi tilde ercnt
Orions.
  "They're hailing us, Captain"" Uhora
announced, just as he was about to order the first phaser
burst.
  "Put them tilde rough, Lieutenant."
  Uhura made the necessary adjustments, and they were
rewarded by the face of the Orion captain. It was
accompanied by a harsh, defiant voice forming
compre" hensible words. It affected Kirk, who had
been threatened by the
  commanders of full battle fleets, not in the least.
  Had O'Shea or Pushi or Elijah been
present, ho tilde vever, the first response to the
alien's words would have been immediate and distinguished by its
colorful inveo. five.
  "Enterprise," the Orion commander began,
indicating that their detection instrumentation was working as
well as their diffusion beam, "we demand you
cease your pursuit immediately. As a
representative of a recognized neutral
  government, I must protest."
  Kirk controlled his anger with an effort. For the
moment he had to tilde diplomacy. Besides, the
Orion commander was technically correct.
  "This is Captain James T. Kirk, commanding
Who said we were engaged in a pursuit?"
  The-Orion didn't change expression. 'Eve
  detected a maliunetion in your
  114 STAR TRE-LCan L tilde PI
  phaser systems and thought you might require aid.
You are experiencing a malfunction?" He gunned
sardonically.
  "No[*thorngg'b the way you crept up on us,
we could not be certain your intentions were not hostile."
  "I compliment you on your method of
  discovering whether or not they were," Kirk snapped
back. "It leaves no room for idle speculation.
As for your neutrality, Orion's position has
been in dispute ever since the affair regarding the
Cordian planets and the Babel Concordance of
stardate ... well, I'm sure you're familiar
with both date and circumstances.
  "But it's a matter of more recent
history that cons cerns me at the moment,
Captain. Yesterday a Pederation freighter, the
Huron, was attacked in this quadrant, its cargo
hijacked. As the first alien vessel encountered in the
area, we request you to submit to search, as per
Babel Resolution A twelve. Do you require
time to consider your response?"
  The Orion didn't go for the lead. A request for
time would constitute an admission of guilt. Instead,
the Orion managed a respectable smile.
  "Orions are not thieves. I am sorrowed
to hear of the hVacking of the Pederation ship. We
certainly hope you find the instigators of such
villainy. As for ourselves, we hold no Pederation
cargo of any kind. And our papers permitting us
to travel in this sector are quite in order. I must
insist, Captain, that you end your hostilities toward
us. If this harrassment does not cease im stantly,
we will lodge a formal protest with your
government.",
  Kirk made a quick slashing motion, glanced back
over his shoulder as the Orion's image vanished.
"Tell him to stand by, Uhura."
  "All right, sir." There was a brief pause,
then skis looked back at him. "They
want to know why, sir."
  "Tell them I have some internal bodily
  functions to attend to. If they avant further
details, supply them."
  "Sir," Uhura responded readily.
  "Mr. Sulu, anything yet?"
  "A second, sir, I'm reconfirming." The
  helmsman had been working furiously at the
project ever since
  STAR TREK L tilde PI
  they had made close contact with the Orions. He
proved as good as his word, looked back to the command
chair wearing a smug grin.
  "Sensors confirm the presence of massive
amounts of dilithium on board the alien ship,
sir. It must be packed in-their spare rooms and
empty corridors. They're fairly bulging with it
n
  "What about the strobolin?" Kirk demanded.
  Sulu's smile faded. "According to what I've
been told, there was no reason for the drug to be
shipped in large amount, sir. If they have it, it's
too small a quantity to detect through their hull."
  Kirk grunted. "All right. Reopen the
channel, Lieutenant."
  Channel open, sir," Uhura replied as the
puzzled face of the alien commander reappeared on the
screen.
  "Enterprise to Orion vessel, Kirk here,"
he began. He had made a mental note of how
careful the Orion Captain had been in avoiding the
mention of his name, those of any of his crew, or his
ship.
  "I have a proposal to make. If, by some
miraculous chance, you did happen to encounter the
Huron and if you decided[*thorngg'in the
interests of common decency[*thorn)'ffsalvage
its valuable cargo, and if by chance you overlooked the
three[*thorn]" his voice rose slightly
"tilde criticaDy injured personnel on
board, you might also have obtained a small quantity
of perishable drugs from a no doubt accidentally opened
security chamber. We need those drugs rather
desperately."
  The Orion commander was manifestly not an idiot.
Kirk could see the gears spinning in his opposite
number's head while the silence
  lengthened. PinaBy, the other commander looked up and
ventured softly, "What would this drug be worth
to you[*thorngg'frivolously assuming we
had
  experienced the totally unlikely series of
circumstances you detailed?"
  Kirk leaned forward, his fingers clenching fighter
than he wished on the arms of the chair.
  "You keep the dilithium shipment. No mention of the
entire incident to Starlet or in my log. Plus
an additional standardweight container of dilithium as
.. . ,"
  116 STAR ORBS LOG FIVE
  he hesitated, grinned tightly, "dis . .
payment for the salvaged drug."
  Another long silence while the Orion
  commander appeared to consider the offer. When he continued
there was a hint of suspicion in his
tone[*thorngg'understandable enough under the circumstanced But
there was something else, an undefinable something Kirk
detected which hinted almost of desperation.
  Obviously he understood his strategic position.
He had lost the element of surprise. He had
lost the chance that the Enterprise might run afoul of
an unexpected matter-anti-matter explosion.
  Despite his natural instincts he probably
found him! self in a position where he would have to risk
the deaLike
  "We keep the dilithium," he said finally,
cautiously, "plus, our neutrality remains
intact?"
  Kirk nodded. A briefer pause this time, before the
alien commander replied firmly, "We will consider your
proposal."
  "Very well. But make it fast. Kirk out." He
immedk ately switched to intercom. "Kirk
to Sick Bay."
  McCoy here," came the rapid reply.
  "Bones . . . how much time?"
  "Less than an hour, Jim. The strobolin'll
be ninety percent-plus effective right up till the
end[*thorngg'n much longer than an hour. His
internal collapse is starUng to snowball.
There's not much I can do to slow it and damn little I can
do to halt it. If I had one lousy
ampoule[*thorn]"
  "Hold on a little longer, Bones, a little longer.
We're close, very close, to getting it."
  "The Orion is hailing us, sir," Uhura
  interrupted apologetically.
  "I know you can do it, Bones."
  "It's not up to me anymore, Jim," the
filtered reply came back. "It's up
to that abstract community of proteins we call
Spock. Skill doesn't matter
anymore[*thorngg'j chemistry."
  "Kirk out." He s tilde viveled. "All
right,
  Lieutenant, I'll take the call now." He
steeled himself for whatever answer the Orions might
give.
  "Your proposal is agreeable, Captain . .
."
  STAR TREK L tilde Fig 117
  rk slumped a little in his chair.
  "dis . . with one qualification."
  Kirk sat straight again, suddenly wary. "What
kind of qualification?"
  "Whether your people come for the drug or we transfer it
to you involves the interchange of at most, minor
personnel. Expendables." Kirk started
to protest, but the Orion commander made a tired
gesture requesting silence and Kirk forced himself
to sit back quietly.
  "No aspersions intended, Captain. But without
assuming any real risk you could obtain what you
want and then turn on us."
  "What," Kirk replied slowly, Should
it take to cow Face you of our sincerity?"
  "More persuasion than the universe possesses.
Ho tilde vever, we win settle for a
face-to-faco exchange, the drug for the container of
dilithium. In the absence of available
absolutes, risking one's own neck is considered
the best substitute. I will meet you myself."
  "tilde ace to face." AD kinds of danger
signals were going off inside him. "Where?"
  "An extremely large planetoid close
by my ship. You doubtless have it on your screens. It
has an atmosphere acceptable to both of us. We can
predetermine the time and beam down
  simultaneously. I will hand you the drug
  personally.
  "Your own presence will be most reassuring,
Captain. Compared to it, the extra dilithium
crystals are superduous." A faint, nebulous
hint of humor. "I believe we can do without them."
He assumed a rigid, waiting posture. "Now it
is your turn to consider."
  "I'd . . . Iike to consult with my staff."
  The alien made a sign of agreement.
  "You'll receive an answer shortly. Kirk out"
  V111
  Yt's got to be some sort of trap, Jim."
McCoy's fist slammed into the smooth wood of the
  briefing room table top in an uncharacteristically
violent gesture.
  "I don't buy this business of not trusting
"expendable" suborandtes. I don't believe it
anymore than I believe this space-pucky about
your own presence being required on the
  exchange to satisfy some inexplicable alien
sense of uneasiness. What's wrong with your giving
personal assurance by communicator? I'll bet
they've cooked up this whole scheme just to get a
clean shot at your"
  Kirk's reply was noncommittal.
""Maybe my presence is required for spiritual
reasons, Bones. We don't know much about
OA-ON culture, you know. Still," he added,
forestalling another Aesculapian outburst, "I
find myself agreeing with you.,"
  "No doubt of it in my mind," Scott added from
the far end of the table.
  "Yeah. Sure." Kirk put both hands on the
table, leaned forward intensely. "I could be a trap.
But we've got no time to consider options, no time
to devise means of devious suWety
to secure the strobolin.
  "If we don't get our hands on it fast,
Spock is going to die. Would he do less in a
similar situation for any of us?"
  McCoy was shaking his head sadly. "Why did you
bother with this meeting, Jim. You had already made up
your mind."
  "Yes," Kirk confessed, "I had. But I
wanted to see if either of you had another option to put
forward[*thorngg'however hare-brained. Obviously,
you don't."
  "Oh, we're not going to do this without precau-
tions tilde on't worry on that score. My
  communicator channel will be frozen open so that every
word of what 118
  STAR TREK 9
  goes on will be broadcast on the
bridge[*thorngg'even if it seems to the Orion
Captain that I turned it off.
  "Scatty, you'll be ready at the transporter,
which win be locked on me at all times. At the first
sign of anything underhanded, well . . . ," he stared
at his chief engineer, "I'm trusting you."
  "If this doesn't work, Jim," McCoy went
on worriedly, "we could lose Spock and
you."
  "Nothing unique about the situation, Bones. Men
have been going through similar ordeals since the dawn of
civilisation." He exchanged glances with each in
turn. "Let's go to it, gentlemen, double or
nothing."
  The bridge of the Orion pirate was
  considerably smaller than its spacious counterpart
on the Enterprise. Its complement was
  correspondingly reduced.
  But the officers who manned its compact consoles and
panels had more to worry about.
  Everything had gone so well, her captain
reflected, brooding in the command chair. The Huron
had proven a rich prize, and they had ambushed her
well out of communications range of any other ship.
With no armament to speak ofanda small crew, she had
been an easy take.
  Only this g tilde slachch drug, this
strobolin, had been intended not for delivery to some
distant world, but for a free-space ship-to-ship
transfer. To a ship already dangerously near. To a
  Federation battle cruiser, no lessl
  Now, despite his helmsman's best efforts
to elude pursuit, the huge vessel had
run him down and cornered him here. When he considered
what would happen if news of the Huron attack ever
reached diplomatic channels, he had made the-
inevitable decision. The only decision possible,
realty.
  But to be sure first, as is the bya tilde hee
bird before striking. He looked down to his
executive officer..
  "Status, Cophot?"
  "We can't outgun the Enterprise and we can't
outrun it, Wit. Nor can we penetrate her
shields sufficiently to discourage her."
  "No chance of escape?" he pressed.
  "No, Wit, none."
  120 STAR TRI5GG'C LOG PIVOT
  The commander made his racial analog of a sigh,
found no inspiration in a moment's
  meditation "Orion's official neutrality comes
before this ship, its crew[*thorngg'or its commander.
There is too much at stake to take the word of one
man[*thorngg'any man. He cannot give enough
  assurances that he will not at some time report the
incident to Starfleet."
  "No, sir," his exec admitted. '7he
only way to prevent that now is by achieving
the destruction of the En. terprise. And the only way
to do that," he hesitated in spite of himself, "is
to destroy ourselves, too."
  "Agreed. I had thought perhaps, an unexpected
surge on our part, at the moment of exchange.
Ram, overload their shields[*thorn]"
  "tilde Your pardon, Wit," his first officer
objected, "but there is a better way." He
looked suddenly reluctant.
  "Well, come on, out with all, Cophot."
  "These asteroids," the other began, "contain among
their number many which are anti-matter. Of those that are
matter, many contain a high proportion of unstable
radioactives. No danger to a man, they are
concentrated in the planetary core, as
in[*thorn]"
  "The one below us, that I'm scheduled to meet
Captain Kirk on?" Understanding dawned.
  "I have ascertained that this is so," the executive
officer admitted. "Both ships tilde 11ay
to hard by the planetoid. So close, if the core
is triggered to reaction, both
  I be destroyed, despite the strongest
defensive screens any ship could mount. The
difficulty lies in the method of
detonation. Mere phased fire will not suffice."
  "What then?"
  "An adequately powerful explosive, which would
provide the minimum number of
  high-energy particles. The material to make such
a compact device has beer providentially
provided for us.
  "Dilithimn, yes," the commander agreed. "How
could such a device be triggered?"
  "I can manufacture a remote control which
win[*thorn]"
  The captain's eyes brightened, and he waved his
exec off.
  STAR TRBGG'CL tilde F tilde 121
  "No, no. I've a better idea, Cophot.
I'll do it by hand, carry the device down with me when
I go to meet Kirk. I want the satisfaction of
handing him his precious medicine and then seeing his face
when I tell him he and his entire crew are going
to the Dark Place with us. Besides, do not
  underestimate the detection equipment of this class
of Federation cruiser. It could detect an old shoe
beamed down to the surface, not to mention your proposed
exterminator package."
  "As you wish it, Wit," the science
officer said admiringly. "I will commence work."
  "Be certain, Cophot, you do a worthy job.
It is not everyday one has the privilege of composing
the mechanics of one's own destruction."
  The first officer made a silent gesture of
concurrence.
  "A call coming in from the Enterprise, Wit," the
voice of the communications master broke in. The
Orion commander turned his attention from his first officer
back to the viewscreen.
  "What is your decision, Captain Kirk?"
  "I"accept your terms."
  "Very well," the elt replied, keeping his tone
carefully level. "We will provide suggested
coordinates, or[*thorn]" he performed the
movements of indifference "[*thorn] you may
select them yourself. We will beam down in fifteen of
your minutes."
  Kirk stared at the screen, noticed McCoy's
glum expression.
  "What now, Bones?"
  "I still don't like it, Jim, but as you said, we
haven't got any more time. Spock . . ." He
shook his head slowly.
  The Orion commander spoke again.
"Fifteen minutes or not at all, Captain
Kirk."
  "Yes, yes," Kirk replied absently.
"Agreed. Enter- prise out."
  The screen blanked.
  It was a world of compact extinction, where one could
see the work of oblivion in small doses, and
comprehend.
  True, it possessed a breathable atmosphere,
a thin
  122 gIAR TREIC LOG Fly
  gaseous envelope through which jagged
  mountains rose against a deep purple curtain.
Nothing crawled over its pockmarked surface.
Nothing flew through its sad sky.
  It was not an embryonic world, awaiting only the
right combination of heat and water to give Wrdl. Rather it
was a king among cinders, a shard of some long gone
larger globe which in itself had never seen life.
  But now life appeared on its surface, in the
form of two electrically hued pillars. There was
nothing to oh, serve this visitation save the constituents
of the pillars themselves. The two commanders
rematerialized barely a couple of meters apart.
  Immediately the Orion captain noticed the
tricorder Kirk held in one hand, while
Kirk's gaze went first to the overlarge backpack
slung over the Orion's shoulders.
  Consideration of its purpose and contents were forgotten
as his eyes were drawn down to the plastic cylinder the
other held. It was filled with tiny cylinders, and they
in turn were filled with the fluid that could give life
to the dying Spock
  Most of the printing on the cylinder's label was
too small to read at the distance he stood from it, but
the name STROBE stood out clearly above the archaic
red-cross symbol. So that there would be no doubt, the
Orion took several steps closer and held the
container out to him for a better look.
  "As promised, Captain, your serum. Scan it
if you wish." He gestured at the tricorder.
  McCoy had preset the sensors himself. Kirk
pointed it at the translucent cylinder, pressed a
switch. If the contents of the container were something
cleverly designed to simulate strobolin, they would
have to be the work of a master chemist. McCoy had gone
over the "corder's programing a dozen times.
  The reading the intricate mechanism showed was
clear, however. There wasn't a hint of molecular
funny business. On the starship's
bridge, everyone breathed a sigh of relief as the
captain's voice sounded over the open
  communicator.
  "Pure strobolin, Bones." He rolled the
container of
  STAR ORBS tilde PI 123
  dilithium over the smooth surface. It bumped
to a halt against the Orion's legs.
  "My half of the bargain. Want to check it?"
  "No, Captain Kirk. I trust you."
  "Now you trust me." Kirk shrugged. "However you
please. I'll take that now and then we can both beam
up." He reached for the cylinder.
  The Orion commander skipped backyards a few
steps.
  "No, Captain Kirk, rm afraid I can't
permit that. You see, no matter how I strive
to convince myself, I can't believe that word of this
incident will not ultim tilde tely reach your
superiors. If that happens, my world win lose its
neutrality and be subject to Federaffon
retaliation."
  "Look," an exasperated Kirk began,
"we've been through this already. If my solemn word is
not good enough for you, you must know that you can't
escape the Enterprise. We can follow you
anywhere."
  "Only if you have something to follower, Captain, and
somethung left to do the following in, and someone to do
it."
  Kirk gaped at him and tried to unravel the
riddle, not liking the way his thoughts were leading him.
  On the bridge, Arex heard, and muttered,
"I've been getting wme unusual sensor
readings, Mr. Scott. That planetoid's putting
out a lot of noise and all kinds of radiation. But
this is
  different[*thorngg'x's localized around the
captain and the alien."
  "What is it?"
  "I'm not sure[*thorngg'x's not around them,"
he said excitedly, "it's in with them. There's
dilithium down there with them."
  "Of course," Scott noted. "The Captain
took down with him, for the exchange, a[*thorn]"
  tilde No, not" The Edoan's voice rose
to an
  abnormal shrillness as his voice-box tried
to catch up with his thoughts. "This is different. It
appears to be barely etabilizedl"
  "You've been staring at my pack," the Orion
commander was telling Kirk. "I don't wish to keep
secrets. It's an explosive device. When
triggered by me it will
  124 STAR TREK LOG Fig
  detonate the radioactive core of this
planetoid. The resulting cataclysm will be
  considerable tilde uite sufficient to destroy your
ship."
  "Yours too," Kirk countered. He wasn't
  familiar with Orion culture, true, but somehow
he was sure the expression that slid over the commander's
face was his equivalent of a snide smugness.
  "Why do you think my people have been able to maintain our
operations for so long, so secretly and well,
Captain Kirk? It is because all unsuccessful
Orion missions end in suicide. When possible,
we enjoy company."
  "Mr. Scott," Arex half pleaded for a
decision, a command, a call to perform something.
  "We can't warp out, because we'll lose the
captain[*thorn] and Mr. Spock," Scott
thought out loud. He couldn't beam the Orion commander
aboard because triggering the device on board would set
off the dilithium in the ship's engines. The
Orion commander . . ."
  "The dilithium!" he shouted, battering at the
intercom switch. "Transporter
room[*thorngg'Scott here dilithiurn
crystals on the Orion commander, Kyle, pinpoint
'em and beam 'em up[*thorngg'fastl"
  "An interesting experience, is it not, Captain?"
the Orion was musing, his hand hovering over a switch
set into his belt. "Often I've wondered what
instant dissolution would feel like. Is there time to feel
pain, to sense the coming apart of one's body? An
intriguing question."
  "Pinpointed, Mr. Scott," Kyle's voice
resounded over the open speaker.
  "Do itl"
  Kyle shifted the proper instrumentation in rapid
sequence, his eyes glued to one small dial.
  "Ah, well," the Orion commander finished, "it
is one thing to philosophise, but another
to experience. I have made my peace[*thorngg'let
us have reality."
  He reached for his belt a second before Kirk
leaped at him. Kirk grabbed both alien
  wrists[*thorngg'too late. The Orion's
eyes clenched tight as he winced in
anticipation, his finger breaking the trigger contact.
  Another second and he found himself fiat on the
  STAR TREK tilde PI 125
  ground. Byes open again, he discovered to his
horror he was still capable of discerning the stars
overhead. They formed an irregular halo around the
angry face of Kirk, staring down at him.
  Kirk was able to relax his grip some, still keeping the
Orion pinned to the ground. The alien commander was in
shock. He offered little resistance.
  "Reality, huh? 1 tilde 11 give you
reality." He directed his words to the open
communicator. "Scotty, energise."
  That brought the Odon awake and kicking. He
struggled to reach his own communicator. Kirk jammed
a knee into the region of the other man's solar
plexus, put pressure on both wrists. The
alien slumped, grimacing in pain.
  'A know it's not total dissolution," Kirk
told him through clenched teeth, "but it's the best I can
do[*thorngg'for now." He felt a twinge of
vertigo, saw his vision start to fog. Soon the
surface of the asteroid was bare of life once more.
  Kirk's first sight on coming out of transport was
of two burly security guards who stood
covering the alcove from opposite angles, phasers
drawn and ready. Then he looked back, saw
Engineer Scott enter the transporter room.
Scott made no attempt to conceal his rehef.
  The guards immediately took hold of the Orion and
effectively immobolized hm[*thorngg'though he
was still too bewildered to offer much in the way of coherent
resistance. While they checked him for weapons
somewhat less lethal than planet-busters, Kirk
was on his feet, rearranging his tunic and walking
toward the waiting Scott.
  "Captain," Scott began, emotionally drained,
"that was too close. So close thatcom n
  "Take your time, Mr. Scott, and think of
something appropriate." He turned, approached
the-pinioned Orion and his guards. "I'll take
that, Ensign," he said to one of the guards, taking the
plasic container from his grip. "It's not a-weapon."
  He moved rapidly to the intercom, the precious
cylinder of strobolin ampules now safely in hand.
"Kirk to bridge his
  126 STAR TRBR [equals PUB
  "Captain," Sulu's voice responded, "we
  heard[*thorn]"
  "Later, Mr. Sulu. Right now I
suggest moving us several diameters out in case they
decide to try that little trick again."
  "Aye, sir!"
  "Kirk out." He clicked off, looked back
to Scott. "Let's get up to the bridge." Then
a glance backward as he addressed the security people.
"Bring him along, too." The five men started for the
elevator.
  "By the way, Scotty, where's the dilithium he
packed?"
  "Stabilized and on its way to the engine storage
chambers, Captain, where it will be put to better
use."
  On board the Orion pirate, the battle on
the bridge raged between confusion and desperation.
  "I tell you they're both gone, sir!" the
communications officer reported.
  "Gone!" The science officer was incredulous.
  "I was scanning as ordered, Bhar, when they
vanished from the planetoid's
surface[*thorngg'both the Earther and the elt. There
was no warning, and sensors detect nothing like an
explosion."
  "If it didn't misfire," the exec thought
furiously, "then they must have discovered the
dilithium pack and disarmed it, somehow."
  "Bhar, the Enterprise is moving. They are
leaving the potential radius of destruction."
  "Not only have they disarmed it, they know exactly
what we intended. That also means that the elt has either
been killed or captured." He hesitated.
"We have one final choice. Contact engineering and
tell them to arm the engines to self-destruct."
  "We are going to try and ram, Bhar?" the
cornmunications officer asked questioningly. The first
officer was too depressed to frame his reply in
contempt.
  Instead, he simply repeated what was already known.
"They could lose us or destroy us on a whim. But
if the elt has been killed, or performed
Vyun-pashan, we still have a chance to preserve
Orion's neutrality. To prove such a serious
accusation they will need more proof than mere tapes can
provide. We can at least deny them that."
  STAR TRB-LFFC L tilde PI
  "Open hailing frequency, Lieutenant,"
Kirk ordered as he emerged onto the bridge.
He took up his position at the command chair while
Scott moved to engineering
  The Orion captain was positioned behind the
chair where he could see the screen clearly over
Kirk[*thorngg'and where he would be in clear range
of the screen pickup. Kirk started to sit, noticed
a subtle movement out of the corner of his eye. The
Orion was moving his arm and hand upward, toward his
mouth.
  "Stop him."
  Both guards reacted instinctively. Each
grabbed one of the alien's arms, forced them up and
back.
  Kirk turned to eye the other closely. The
Orion stared stonily at a point beyond Kirk's
forehead.
  "What are you doing?"
  The Orion tried to sound bored. "My cheek
itched, Captain. Does it starde you that I might
try to scratch it? If you'll direct these idiots
to let me go . . ."
  "In a minute," Kirk answered absently.
He looked downward, then knelt to pick up a
small dark capsule. It was unmarked He waved
it under the other's mouth.
  "Do I have to ask what this contains?"
  Silence again.
  "It is poison, isn't it?"
  Still no reply. Kirk sighed, resumed his seat
and dropped the deadly capsule into the chair-arm
disposal UD-IT.
  "Commander," he said, carefully considering his words as
he lectured the alien, "I'm sure your ship is
preparing to destroy itself. Everything you've tried and said
so far points to it as the logical course of action.
  "E it does, your entire crew will have died for
nothing Because we're not going to let you commit
suicide. Whether they live or die, you'll still stand
trial. I'm sure both Federation officials and the
representatives of other governments will be very
interested in the results of the mind scans. I
suspect it won't take very many to put a permanent
end to Orion's little game of neutral piracy.
  "Any reaction, Uhura?"
  "I've finally raised them, sir."
  128 STAR TREK LOO PiVB
  Kirk nodded, peered back at his alien
  counterpart. The expression on that worthy's face
was unreadable. Quite possibly it reflected similar
emotions to those Kirk felt as he stared
upward[*thorngg'hate, and respect.
  To some races death meant little. Kirk didn't
think it applied to the Orions. This man
had meticulously planned his own destruction for the
good of his people. Regardless of racial
  motivation, the key ingredient was still guts. Kirk
had to admire them for that.
  "They're acknowledging aural exchange only,
Cap" fain," llbura reported.
  "That'll do for now, Lieutenant." He spoke
into the pickup. "This is Captain Kirk spreading
to the acting commander of the Odon vessel. We hold
your commanding officer prisoner." He glanced back
at the man in question, then continued.
  "He is in excellent health and perfectly
capable of communication[*thorngg'voluntary or
otherwise. Rest assured he'll remain so." He
stopped, spoke more softly to the silent figure behind
him.
  "Your choice again, sir."
  The Orion captain made a resigned gesture
with his bead. Obviously he had already made up his
mind. If confirmed Kirk's belief in the
Odon's essential respect for life. He
nodded to the security guards.
  Both men let the alien go, but continued to watch him
closely. Kirk leaned to one side and allowed the
other a clear shot at the pickup.
  "Bhar Cophot7"
  Instantly visual contact was established, and
Kirk saw the uncertain face of the Orion ship's
executive officer staring anxiously back at him.
  "Elf? Your orders?"
  "Disarm the self-destruct system." Kirk
noticed he didn't bother to ask if it had been
engaged. The exec looked reluctant. "And
prepare for formal surrender."
  "Very well, Wit. Cophot out." The screen
went dark[*thorngg'b not before the two aliens had
  exchanged a complex salute.
  Something else impressed Kirk. Despite
ample evil dence of intricate preparation for
  self-immolation, both mental and physical, the
Sirst officer of the Odon pirate
  STAR TREK PIVB 129
  hadn't objected to the surrender order, hadn't
argued, hadn't protested.
  Having been presented with an unavoidable
situation and having exhausted all preferable options,
in the end they had elected to do that which would preserve
life[*thorngg'much to Kirk's relief. There was
hope for the Orions, it appeared.
  Their moral foundation was
sound[*thorngg'only the edifice itself was roKen.
Once a few reforms had been introduced into their
presently one-sided view of interstellar
economics, they might prove to be good friends.
  Kirk dictated the log entry as he strolled
back toward Sick Bay. It was the kind of entry
he enjoyed making.
  "Captain's log, stardate 5527.4. The
Orion privateer crew is in protective
custody and their ship in tow. The Enterprise is
back on course for Deneb five.
We[*thorn]"
  No . . . no. He ended the entry. There were a
host of details he could have added[*thorngg'b
to what end? This was one entry that had intruded on an
already hectic routine mission. A good place for
brevity.
  Their appearance at Deneb Five with an Orion
vesse] in tow would cause enough excitement. And
Kirk had little use for fancy entrances. He much
preferred a safe exit.
  But it would eventually be good for the ship (the ship, the
ship[*thorngg'alw the ship). The fact that solving
an unknown number of
  disappearances might gain him a promotion
never crossed his mind[*thorngg'merely that it might
enable them to get a few requisitions filled rather more
quickly than Starfleet's sluggish bureaucracy
usu- ally managed.
  The rewards of heroism, he mused as he turned
a corner. Out of such odd things as the illness of one
man do great things come.
  Orion neutrality would be shown to be as solid
as a shaji. The Klingons and Romulans would lose
a potentially mischievous ally. And an enormous
quadrant of uncertainty on the Federation's fringe
would now be opened as safe for shipping, enabling
escort vessels and personnel to be shifted to other
tasks.
  All because of a drug. He wondered how many times
  130 STAR TREK LOG PI
  in the past the history of whole nations could have been
altered by the presence of an aspirin at the right
place and time.
  He heard the voices even before he entered Sick
Bay. Glancing left as he entered, he saw
Spock sitting up in bed and looking Vulcan for the
first time since they had left Argo. Not atypically,
he and the ship's chief medical officer were engaged in
a raucous difference of opinion.
  "There's no way you can deny it, Spock!"
McCoy was shouting.
  'I can deny it," Spock countered patiently,
"by pointing out . . ."
  McCoy cut him off, rambled[*thorngg'or rather
  rumbled, on. Sometimes Kirk wondered if they
ever argued in complete sentences.
  "I've waited a long time for this," McCoy
eras proclaiming loudly, as Kirk walked up
to them, "and you're not going to cheat me out of it."
  "Out of what?" Kirk inquired politely.
Both Spock and McCoy temporarily turned
their
  attention to him.
  "Nothing, Captain. Dr. McCoy is
endeavoring to gloat[*thorngg'a reprehensible
condition characteristic of his unpredictable prehistoric
leanings."
  "Spock, that special blood of yours may have
saved you a dozen times on other occasions, but this time
it almost did you in. You can't deny it, now." The first
couldicer leaned back in the bed and folded his arms.
  'on the contrary, Doctor, I still have ample
grounds for preferring my physiological
structure to yours. As far as
psychological structures are concerned, there is of
course incontrovertibly no contest."
  "I see, gentlemen," Kirk broke in,
unable to suppress a smile, "that things are back
to normal."
  McCoy scowled tilde
h-huh[*thorngg'he's as stubborn as
  ever,
  Jim n
  "Rational, Doctor," Spack corrected
easily.
  "Insane, Jim," McCoy shot back
  Sometimes I wonder if anyone on this ship is
operating with undamaged circuitry, Kirk
  mused.
  'ally am surprised that you raise the question of
sanity, Doctoreament" Spock went on, "as .
. distion
  STAR TREK LOG FIVE 131
  Kirk gave up and walked away. He had had
several questions he had wanted to put
to Spock.eaClearly they would have to wait until
McCoy's peculiar brand of rehabilitation
therapy concluded.
  Meanwhile, at least he had the
satisfaction of knowing that both patient and doctor were
doing well, thank you....
  PART 111
  JIHAD
  lAdaPted from a script by Stephen
  Kandel)
  lx
  As things turned out, it was fortunate Spock's
recovery was rapid. "Things" came in the form of a
Oass-A Security Prime
Order[*thorngg'a classification so strict that
Kirk was required to unscramble it himself, using a
locked computer annex, in the sanctuary of his own
cabin.
  The instructions revealed by decoding were brief,
even curt. They generated feelings of both
puzzlement and anticipation in Kirk.
  Something of both must have shown in his face as he handed
Lieutenant Arex the slip of paper.
  "Set course for arrival at these coordinates,
Lieutenant."
  "tilde Very good, sir." The Edoan
navigator took the slip, examined the figures
inscribed thereon and commenced transferring them into the
  navigational computer. Only after he had
  completed the assigned task did he allow himself
a moment of personal reflection.
  When he eventually spoke, his statement was both
fact and query.
  "Captain, the indicated coordinates have been
programed. We are proceeding toward them at standard
cruising speed.""
  "Thank you, Mr. Arex." The navigator
  continued to eye him. "Was there something else?"
  "Captain, I do not possess a perfect
memory. However, there was something about our
  intended destination which prodded at me. Upon concluding
programing, I checked out my
  supposition and found it confirmed.
  "There is nothing of planetary size in the
region we are headed for[*thorngg'much less at
the specified coordinates."
  If he elected Kirk to make a counterclaim
or sup- 135
  136 tilde STAR L tilde PI
  ply some new information, he was disappointed.
"You're quite right, Mr. Arex. That quadrant's as
empty as a spatial equator."
  "A rendezvous, then, with another ship?" the
navigator asked hopefully.
  "At this point I'm not permitted to say,
Lieutenant. Although," and his voice dropped to a
faint whisper which Arex coWould barely pick up,
"you might say something like that."
  Arex turned back to his console, more
  confused than before. It might have consoled him to know that
Kirk was equally puzzled. Fearful of having made
a mistake in unscrambling, he'd gone through the
decoding process three times. Three times he
received the same reply from the bowels of the computer.
  And each time the answer was just as
  enigmatic as before.
  Ordinarily he would have requested
  clarification of orders so extreme from
Starfleet. But Class-A Primo
  these orders were not to be questioned, only obeyed. Such
orders emanated only from the highest echelons of
Starfleet HQ. Something critical was up.
  And yet, if it was so vital, why did the orders
specify they proceed at normal cruising speed?
And what were they expected to rendezvous with?
Clearly, secrecy took precedent over
execution in this.
  There was nothing cryptic about the
  instructions themvs[*thorngg'only the
rationale behind them. They stated simply that the
  Enterprise was to proceed to such and such
coordinates, whereupon they would meet
  somethingstsomeone at whose disposal they were to place
themselves.
  That was all. No additional details or
  instructions.
  It wasn't like Starfleet to supply such sketchy
information to back an important order. So much
hushhush suggested something else.
  "Someone is badly frightened," Spock agreed.
McCoy had finally released him from Sick Bay,
to the great relief of both. But he could shed no
further light on the orders.
  "There are no facts on which to speculate,
Captain."
  STAR TREE L tilde PI tilde 137
  "Welt then, Spock, we'll lust have to wait
until someone supplies us with some."
  There were surprises from the moment they neared the
rendezvous coordinates, days later. An awful
lot of people seemed to know about what purported to be an
ultra-secret enterprise.
  "I have multiple contact, sir," Sulu had
reported, "at the
coordinates[*thorngg'with something big at the
center."
  Hours passed. "Put what you can on the screen,
Mr. Sulu."
  The v isual which resulted was revealing indeed.
Numerous spacecraft were grouped loosely- around
the rendezvous point. They were as curious a
collection of interstellar travelers as Kirk had
seen in a long time.
  At least half a dozen civilisations were
represented here, possibly more. Att were
arranged[*thorngg'one couldn't quite say
orbiting[*thorngg'around a huge green-and-silver
bats. It radiated with the brightness of artificial
atmospheric lighting Against the total blackness of
deep space and in the absence of a sun, it seemed
to pulse gently.
  Too small to be a planet, too small to be
even a rogue moon. Too big to be a
spacecraft.
  In point of fact, it was all three.
  Spock's gaze was riveted to the main
viewscreen with an intensity rarely seen. "A
Vedalan asteroid," he murinured. "I have never
seen one before outside of bad pictures and
worse
  sketches."
  "Nor have I, Spock," admitted Kirk,
likewise awed.
  "Welt I've never even heard of them, or it,
or whatever you're taticing about," Uhura broke
in. "Somebody elucidate."
  "The Vedala," Spock explained smoothly,
"are the oldest-space-traversing race known. They
are so old that they long ago abandoned their worn-out
home worlds to begin a nomadic life wandering among the
stars.
  "They travel at great speeds on large
asteroids or small planetoids which have been
remade to suit their environmental requirements.
In addition to tremendous mobility, these tiny
artificial worlds provide them with
  138 STAR ORBS PIVB
  both personal and racial
privacy[*thorngg'a quality they are known
to value above all else.
  "Yet for some reason, they now apparently
require the presence of outsiders."
  "And we're to place ourselves at their disposal,"
Kirk murmured, studying miniature
mountain ranges, admiring the pocket oceans and
  manicured plains which studded the silver globe.
  "Captain," reported Uhura, all business
once more, "we're being scanned."
  Kirk was reminded that the Vedala affected a
pastoral veneer and took pains to avoid flaunting
their tesllnological knowhow.
  What could they need the Enterprise for, then? Or
these other ships, for that matter?
  "everybody sit tight," he ordered. T me
passed as they drew nearer, then Uhura announced
the replacement of the scanning signal with another.
  "We're being hailed, Captain. No
visual."
  "Let's hear what we came to hear,
Lieutenant."
  Uhura adjusted controls and an eerie, piping
voice filled the bridge.
  "Welcome, Enterpnse. Welcome, Captain
Kirk and First Officer Spock. We will expect
you as soon as possible. Your coordinates for
  transporting down are . . ." and the voice ran
off a series of figures which Uhura recorded,
played through to the main transporter room.
  "Please be kind enough to pardon the lack of
visual welcome," the voice concluded, "but as you
may know, we are extremely protective of our
privacy. We regret any offence this may cause
. . . but it is required."
  "No offence taken," Kirk replied.
"Coordinates received."'7
  "Polite enigmas, aren't they?" Sulu commented.
  Kirk was about to press further when an
unobtrusive palm covered the armchair pickup.
  "I think we had best meet politeness with
politeness, Captain. Even asking the name of our
greeter might be construed by the Vedala as an
intrusion even an offensive gesture."
  UI think you're over-reacting, Spock, but
... all
  STAR TREK L tilde Fly 139
  right." Deductions would wait until they finally
met their hosts. He rose from the chair.
  "Mr. Scott, you're in charge until Mr.
Spock and I return."
  "Very well, sir. Uh, might I ask, when
might that be?"
  "No idea, Scotty," he said, moving toward
the door. He looked back at a sudden thought.
"Why, Scotty, the Vedala have a
reputation for paranoid secretiveness, sure. But
they're not belligerent. Surely you're not worried
about them doing us harm?"
  "Not the Vedala, Captain, no[*thorngg'though
I Idnna trust "em as completely as you seem
to." He indicated the assembled starships circling
the Vedala homeship. "But there're some ships out there
that belong to folk who've been known to get nasty now
and again They could have
  representatives down there, too."
  "I don't think the Vedala would let anyone
run amuck on their homeship, Scotty, but
don't worry. Mr. Spock and I will keep our
communicators close at hand."
  "Dinna worry[*thorngg't's one order I
never can seem to obey, Captain," Scott
murmured[*thorngg'b Kirk and Spock were already
in the elevator.
  "Any idea what the specified coordinates will
put us down on, Mr. Kylel" Kirk asked the
transporter chief.
  "Something in the atmosphere seems to produce the
daylight they receive on the surface, Captain,"
Kyle replied. "It makes direct visual
observation very
  difficult."
  "Consistent with what we know," Spock observed.
  "However, the people down in cartography are fairly
certain you'll be setting down on dry land, in a
relatively level region."
  Kirk and Spock assumed positions in the
alcove.
  "If you'll just take a half-step to the left,
sir," Kyle requested. Kirk did so. Kyle
manipulated several instruments at once, put his
hand on the main switch "EL-NERGIZMG, sir."
  They stood in a grassy glade encircled
by tall, lushly leaved trees. A small stream
wound merrily down the low slope just before them.
  140 STAR ORBS L tilde Fit
  But the sky overhead was strange. Kirk thought he
detected a reflection from something solid. They
stood under a transparent dome that sealed them off from
the rest of the homeship. He could see where it curved
down in the distance to meet the
surface[*thorngg'undoubtedly to seal them in and
avoid contaminating any more of the home than was
required by common courtesy.
  Yet, they had transported straight through it.
Kirk didn't feel too confident about the
  accomplishment. Little enough existed in the way of
Vedalan artifacts, but it was known that they were oustanding
chemists.
  Something that resembled an explosive was just as
lilcely to be a composite made from vegetable
shortenings, while a soap bubble might prove
impervious to the strongest phaser. Yet any
deceptiveness on the part of the Vedala was
unintentional[*thorngg'or had been till DOW.
It
  remained to be discovered whether that record would
remain unblemished.
  They could have made a great contribution to Federation
civilisation[*thorngg'or any Galactic
  civilisation, for that maker. All entreaties
to join or participate, however, were met with the excuse
of painful shyness by rarely contacted
  representatives of the race.
  It was the Vedalan way of refusing without
insulting.
  Besides, what could anyone offer them they did not already
have or could not obtain on their own terms? For
example, the presence of the Enterpnse and various
other vessels to carry out some as yet unknown tasks
But that was only common sense.
  When the Vedala found it needful to call for help,
it was in the best interest of all to respond.
  Kirk couldn't tell whether the being standing before them
now was the one who had addressed them on their approach
or another. The Vedala was a small, furry
creature, utterly inoffensive looking. It
reminded Kirk of the pictures he had seen of the
extinct aye-aye of Terran tropical forests.
  Kirk looked around, found he was standing before a
grassy knoll that formed a crude but comfortable-looking
seat. Either Kyle had been inhumanly precise in
his calculations or the Vedala had somehow seen to it
they set down where they were wanted.
  STAR TREK L tilde Fig 141
  For the moment, Kirk's attention was wholly drawn
to the representative of the ages-old race standing in
front of them.
  The Vedala made a gesture. Kirk blinked,
stared. The grass around them was no longer flat and
empty. Now he saw several other grassy
knolls arranged in a semi-circle around the
Vedala. They were occupied, and their occupants
revere neither human nor Vedala.
  "Welcome, Captain James Kirk and
Commander Scott," the Vedala intoned
solemnly, turning Kirk's attention away from the
other knolls. The creature spoke with a soft
feminine contralto, which was at once reassuring and
forceful. There was nothing fragile about it, and its
strength belied the appearance of the toylike being who
produced it. There was the power of millennia behind it.
Kirk paid attention.
  "I will introduce you to the others," the Vedala
continued. It gestured first to a far knoll on which a
winged humanoid rested, leathery wings
  fluttering uneasily against the too-near earth. The
creature stood over two and a half meters high.
Kirk recogruzed it from tridee tapes, though he
had never met a representative of the Skorr before.
  "This is Tchar," the Vedala told them,
  "Hereditary Prince of the Skorr, master of the
Eyrie."
  It divas a measure of the strength of Tchar's character
that Kirk and Spock paid any attention to him at
all, considering the mountain that snuffled and grunted
next to him. This butte of intelligent
protoplasm the Vedala identified as one Sord.
The reptile snorted a greeting. He very much
resembled the bipedal dinosaurs who had dominated
a long-dead piece of Earth's chaotic
past.
  But the forehead here was high, the forelimbs ending in
hands with opposable thumb and
  fingers, the intebigence self-evident. Nor was
Sord from a world like Earth. His body was bulkier
than would be needed there, muscles on muscles the
sign of a heavy-planet dweller.
  The Vedala went on to the third member of the
group, and for a moment Kirk and Spock failed
to notice it, their eyes adjusted to creatures the
size of Sord.
  142 STAR TREL1CLOG FIVE
  In direct contrast to its massive neighbor, it
sat shivering on its grassy chair, trying to withdraw
into the loam. Before the Vedala could proceed it
interrupted, its voice thin and breathless.
  Multiple cilia in place of upper limbs
rippled nervously, goggle eyes darted from side
to side in perpetual search for avenue of escape.
"I was sentenced to this mad expedition," the asthenic
ambassador announced, "I don't like it here.
It's too quiet. I don't like any of
you[*thorngg'no offence intended[*thorngg'I just
wish I were back home in my city burrow."
  "City cell is the correct
appellation, I believe," the Vedala finally
managed to say.
  "l tilde m-three-green[*thorngg'an
expert picklock and thief of extraordinary though
peculiar talents, when he is not too terrified
to demonstrate them.
  "Em-three-green's people are . . . ," the
Vedala hesitated ever so slightly, "dis . . of
an extremely cautious bent."
  "We're cowards, you mean," corrected
  Lm-threegreen, not defiantly, of
course[*thorngg't would have been utterly out of character.
"And I," he finished almost proudly, "am the
biggest coward of all. I want to go home."
  "Oh, shut up. I'm sick of your
belly-achingt" broke in a disgusted, very
human-sounding voice from the ciliated
safecracker's right.
  Em-three-green uttered a sharp whimper, tried
to bury himself even deeper into the grass.
  "This," the Vedala continued, indicating a young
female humanoid, "is Lara." She was clad in
a tight-fitting, multi-pocketed one-piece
tunic that covered her from neck to ankle.
  "Lara is a huntress from a people who are
natural hunters. She also possesses a
unique talent[*thorngg'a flawless sense of
direction which is as real to her as sight or hearing are
to you. A necessary sldll for where you are going."
  "I was about to bring that up myself," Kirk replied.
"We're going someplace, then? I was instructed
only to place myself and my ship under your direction.
We
  STAR TREE L tilde Fly 143
  were told nothing more . . . not even the fact that this
expedition is to be multi-racial in makeup."
  "4ationor were any of these others," the Vedala
informed comhm expansively. ""This was done
to preserve secrecy."
  "You know as much now as we do," Lara added
sharply. She looked toward the Vedala. "Who are
these new ones?"
  "Human and Vulcan," the Vedala informed her,
with distressing matter-of-factness. "Mr. Spock was
chosen for his analytical ability and overall
scientific expertise. Captain Kirk, for his
qualities of leadership and initiative, and a
remarkably high survival quotient.
  "There is, as you others know, one among you who
knew by necessity the reason for bringing you
here and the purpose to which your diverse abilities shall be
put. Tchar will explain the mission, Captain
Kirk, as he has to the others."
  The Skorr rose, wings fluttering more
violently. The words came out in a steady stream, in
short, clipped phrases underlaid with controlled
fury.
  "Two or three centuries ago, humans, my
people the Skorr were purely a warrior race. Our
entire racial energies were bent to achieving one
goal- a perfected militaristic society. This
drive, coupled with our ability to reproduce
rapidly, soon made us a threatening force in our
sector of the galaxy.
  'Today, we are a civilised people. Though we
retain our military traditions and potential, we
no longer live for war and destruction. All this has
come about because of . . . ," and he traced an
abstract design in the air, his voice turning
reverent, "dis . . Alar."
  ""I know the name," Kirk recalled, nodding
thoughtfully. "A religious leader with a reputation that
extends beyond the Skorr."
  "Our salvation and teacher," Tchar intoned sol-
emnly. "'He brought peace to us by showing
how we might reconcile our violent desires with
civilisation, how we could direct our energies
inffconstructive paths. He brought realisation to the
Skorr." Again he performed the peculiar, vaguely
figure-eightish gesture.
  'The complete brain patterns of this Alar," the
Vedala explained, "were recorded by his
apostles before his
  144 STAR TRBICCL tilde PA
  death and sealed in a flawless piece of sculpted
indurite."
  "And it has been stolen!" Tchar shrilled, wings
ilaring upward in anger. "Our soul, the soul of the
Skorr peoples, has been taken from us!"
  "To an outsider," the Vedala continued, "the
effect of this theft on the Skorr verges on the
inexplicable. The reaction has been extreme,
violent, and uncontrolled. Thus, what this Alar
was able to achieve in so short a time seems all the more
remarkable.
  "The Skorr have always been . . . ," the Vedala
coughed delicately, "a paranoid race. Hence the
havoc the disappearance of the soul has wrought among
them. Exertions by others, most notably by the
Vedala, for moderation in reaction have been
ignored by the Skorr, whose latent belligerence has
waited only for a cause to rise again to the fore. They
now have that cause[*thorn] though they would deny any
desire to return to their ancient ways.
  "Denials avail nought against the storm the theft
has raised among them. Despite the fact that neither
the thief nor the reason for the theft are known, the
Skorr are preparing for war."
  "But if the thief isn't known," Kirk
objected, "who do they prepare against?"
  "Since no Skorr could even conceive such blas-
phemy," Tchar informed him bitterly, "the abomination
was clearly carried out by non-Skorr. That is whom
my people prepare against. They will go to war with the rest of the
known Galaxy and fight until they are no longer
able to make war[*thorngg'or until there are none
left to make war against. Unless the soul is
returned."
  Shocked silence[*thorngg'eventually
punctuated by a series of basso whoops from the
bulky Sord. Lara the huntress smiled.
  Kirk-started to smile, too, until he
noticed that not only wasn't Spock amused, he
appeared unusually grim. He considered. The
Vedala had made no move to counter what
sounded on the surface like an outrageous
claim[*thorngg'therefore, perhaps it might not be quite so
outrageous.
  After all, what did they know about the Skorr,
  STAR TREK LOO FIVB 14So
  whose numerous worlds lay dozens of parsecs from the
nearest Federation planet?
  "It is a very real danger," Spock murmured.
"Extrap" orating from the most recently obtained
figures, the existing Skorr population could breed
an army of two hundred billion within a few
years, with weapons technology to match. In the
Skorr, fertility is tied to the aggressive
instinct. The more anger generated, the more the population
swells.
  "According to the information supplied by Tchar and the Vedala,
the Skorr now have the incentive to breed
exponentially."
  "But to fight the entire
Galaxy[*thorn)'surely they couldn't win," the
incredulous Lara objected.
  "No, but what has that to do with it?" Tchar countered
sadly. "You still fail to comprehend the mental state
into which my people have been driven. Death now means nothing.
Revenge, assuaging their angercom that has
become all.
  "No, my people could not win such a war, but what would that
mean to the millions who would die, Skorr and
non-Skorr? Fortunately, there are those among Us
who can still control their anger enough to realize what a
jihad would mean to the Galaxy. But they can restrain
the fury only so long, before they too are drowned in
it and carried along by the madness.
  "We must recover the soul before these final bastions
of reason crumblet"
  Kirk turned to the silent Vedala. "And there's
no hint of who stole the soul?"
  "None," the Vedala replied.
  "It is hard to understand," Tchar told them. 'what
other race stands to profit from such a cataclysm?
Yet to provoke such seems the only possible
motive for the theft. Unless, of course, it was carried
out by the mad."
  "Insanity," the Vedala observed, "is
possessed of and by its own motivations. The keys
to unraveling such convoluted reasoning are merely
less obvious. We have not been able to discover them."
  The Vedala made its equivalent of a shrug.
  "Someone, somewhere, may be furious beyond reason at
what, no one knows. Or the theft may be
part
  146 STAR TREK were -- Fig
  of a grandiose suicide wish. None of this concerns
us in the least. What does concern us very much is that such
a war may hinder the free movement of the Vedala through
space. Hence, we are involved."
  tilde "The Vedala," Kirk shot back, "are
known to possess certain technological
abilities beyond the combined talents of our Federation and
other governments. Why don't you[*thorn]"
  The Vedala held up a restraining hand. "We
prefer not to interfere directly. Also, there are
indications that, were we to do so, whoever has stolen the
soul would take steps to destroy it. We can
direct, however, and suggest."
  "All right," Kirk agreed. "If you can't
take part openly, and you've no idea who engineered
the theft, do you have any hints to the present location of the
soul?"
  Turning, the Vedala struck at empty air.
At least, it looked empty. Whether the gesture
somehow activated some invisible switch, Kirk
couldn't tell. The Vedala were known to
  encourage confusion in others. It was a matter of
protective coloration: what cannot be com-
prehended is difficult to coerce.
  Whatever the method, the gesture resulted in the
appearance of a large holographic projection. It
drifted in mid-air in the center of the semicircle,
just-behind the Vedala. And as they watched, it moved and
changed.
  A star in space was all that was shown, at first.
Then the star grew nearer, larger. Three planets
were shown circling round it. Again they were drawn into the
projection, which drew near to the middle world.
  "The mad world," the Vedala announced, for the first
time something like fear appearing amid that invulnerable
calm. "See how it all writhes?"
  Now they were plunging headlong toward the surface,
now wheeling up to run parallel to it in a long,
steady scan. A scan that revealed roiling, heaving
plateaus; violently unstable crust; volcanos
erupting, to be promptly enclouded by multiple
cyclones; mountains upthrusting. Vortices of
strange gloving gases suddenly appeared in a
seemingly normal abnosphere,
  STAR TREK L tilde Fig 147
  only to dissipate in minutes. Hail was
supplanted by a rain of fiery ash.
  'The recording you are seeing," the
Vedala said quietly, "is being rebroadcast at
normal speed."
  Kirk whistled, leaned over to whisper to Spock.
"And I thought the Terratin world was bad!"
  Spock nodded agreement. "There are indications that
the planet in question may be somewhat unsuitable for
habitation."
  Kirk muffled a reply as the Vedala spoke
again.
  "Seismically unstable, with radical seismic
activity and unpredictable tremors. A most
inimical climate. Severe tidal disturbances
caused by the unceasing action of five moons
possessed of the most perverse orbits[*thorngg'the
list is endless, beings. The globe is a compendium
of
  catastrophes. The temperature varies from
twenty degrees Kelvin to two oh four above."
  The Vedala made another gesture, causing the
projection to shrink in size without disappearing
completely. Kirk looked around the semicircle,
saw with relief that here was something everyone present could
agree on. All showed attitudes of respect.
  "Somewhere on that world," the Vedala went on, "the
soul of Alar is hidden." Again that odd
hesitation, that hint of a crack in the pose of
racial perfection.
  "Three expeditions have so far attempted
to locate and recover it. Three expeditions have so
far disappeared. More care than before has gone
into choosing the members of the
  fourth[*thorngg'yourselves.
  "If you consent to participate. We Will force no
one."
  The alternative, of course[*thorngg'Kirk
smiled to himself. That dlreat was enough to persuade any
rational being to want to help.
  - "Naturally, Mr. Spock and I will go," he
said.
  The Vedala looked gratified, offered no
thanks, then looked around at the others. Sord
grunted as though it made no difference to him one way
or the odher. Emthree-green might have declined, but
was too thoroughly terrified to do more than shiver
violently on his grassy knoll.
  Lara acknowledged wid1 a sharp whistle, while
  148 STAR TREK L tilde Fig
  Tchar's participation was apparently taken for
granted.
  "Seems we're agreed," Kirk
observed.
  "Then it is done," said the Vedala simply.
  What happened then was in retrospect
  sufliaently impressive to onhreight any
suspicion of obfuscatory technique. The
Vedala began to glow, expanding, changing to a
collage of misty particles.
  At the same time the holograph enlarged. It
swallowed the Vedala-mist, but didn't stop there.
They were submerged in it. It flooded out the view of the
garden around them. The sound of the lithe stream became a
roar.
  An unseen, unfelt torrent he could only
hear washed over him and he felt himself falling,
falling. Like being in a transporter operating somehow
at a fifth normal speed[*thorngg't was it.
  Vision returned to him the same way, slowly,
things coming into focus with painful patience. Globs of
light and color gradually took on form and shape
around him.
  Minutes, and the globs had turned into rugged
mountains, rain, vast glaciers filling narrow
gorges, glowering storm clouds. The cult drone in
his ears split into winds buffeting his body, the
patter of raindrops on naked stone, and the
violent hissing of volcanic ash and lava meeting
an advancing river of ice. Kirk was stunned
to see that the glacier advanced fast enough that the movement
could actually be seen.
  He turned slowly.
  They had been set down on a broad, flat
rack of immense size, utterly devoid of any
growth whatsoever. Mountains towered on three
sides. Bracing himself, Kirk leaned into the wind.
Presumably this Divas the stablest place the
Vedala could find to set then" down at. Until
he saw the cart, he wondered if the Vedata
expected them to find and recover the soul wit
right-brace bare hands and intuition.
  The crude-looking wheeled vehicle seemed
hardly to represent the zenith of Vedalan
technology. But closer study revealed it was
designed with typical Vedala cunning. Most of
its capabilities were concealed behind the
  awhrard-looking exterior.
  STAR TREK L tilde PI 149
  To fool any potential attackers,
undoubtedly.
  Kirk recognised the basic design of the
compact drive system. It would drive the
cart up anything other than a vertical face. The
suspension system was of matching sophistication.
Kirk hoped the on-board equipment had been
prepared with equal thoughtful- ness.
  A shrill cry came down to him from above. Leaning
back, he saw that Tchar was now in his
  element[*thorngg'whirling, diving, coming down
finally to hover just above them.
  "A cannot feel the soul!" he saeamed angrily.
"It is nowhere near. We have been tricked!"
  "I think not," Spock disagreed, raising his
voice only enough to rise above the smothering susurration
of the wind. "Consider that the surface of this planet
is in constant flux. The Vedala warned us of this.
I would guess they have provided us with some means of
determining the proper direction."
  Kirk had already mounted the cart and was examin- ing
the protected instruments. There were plenty, and it
took him time to sort out the various controls. They
had been designed for use by Features with all
kinds of different manipulative members. But the
drive controls were not what finally drew a smile from
him, but rather the very instrumentation Spock had suggested they
would find.
  Kirk became aware of motion beside him,
saw that 13m-three-green stood there, staring under his
arm. Finding himself detected, the little alien hastily
moved away on the pretext of studying other
controls. Apparently he found any close
scrutiny threatening.
  Kirk moved to the railing, saw that Sord and
Lara had joined the argument.
  "All right, save your breath, friends. There's
direc- tional equipment on board and it's already
tuned.
  Guess what it's been tuned to?" --
"Refined indurite," Spock said without hesitation.
  "Exactly."
  "Then why not tell us that before, instead of riskin"
anything like dissension?" Lara wondered.
  "The Vedala," Kirk explained, "probably
don't want
  150 STAR TRBICCLOG FIVE
  to take any chance on our starting out
  overconfident.. Putting us down here mentally
naked was putting us down alert."
  "Small worry of overconfidence,"
Em-three-green grumbled from behind him. "I can
operate this ma- chine, Captain Kirk."
  "That's all right, Em," Kirk told
him. "I'll manage
  it."
  "No, let me, Captain," the little
safecracker protest- ed, with a rare show of
determination. Hiswere' will feel use- ful, we will get
where we are going faster, and," he added softly, "it
tilde 1 help keep my mind off this spine" lined
burrow of a world."
  Kirk nodded, watched as Em-three-green
clambered into the control seat and touched controls with
deft as- surance. Instantly, a smooth rumble
sounded beneath them, rose to a roar of power before settling
down to a steady hum.
  Spock climbed aboard, moved to examine the
direct tional instrumentation. Kirk best to give
Lara a hand
  [*thorn] up. Grinning, she made a starding
leap, grabbed the railing with both hands and pulled herself
up.
  That left only Sord. Kirk eyed him
uncertainly and was rewarded by a bellowing laugh.
  "There's room for you in the back, Sord."
  ""No," he boomed, "you little ones ride if
you wish."- The shove tilde like head moved like a
crane to take in the landscape. Hiswere' like this
place[*thorngg'x's got variety. And I would
crowd you."
  Kirk studied the glacier, fascinated. Now it
appeared to be retreating visibly.
  "Captain," Spock called.
  Kirk walked over, his attention going immediately to the
small glowing screen-the first officer was working with. A
grid lay over the lit rectangle, beneath which a web
of flexible lines weaved and pulsed. Abruptly they
shrunk to a single, pulsing dot.
  "It would seem our direction is clearly
indicated," Spock observed.
  Even as he spoke, the carefully aligned grid
suddenly
  - shifted, the dot expanding into a loose maze of
questing
  STAR TRBEACCLO-O P tilde Vs 151
  lines racing crazily across the screen. A red
glow began to suffuse the clear plexalloy.
  "The position is shifting," Spock commented, "
think . . .-
  Em-three-green leaned over from the pilot's
chair. When he got a look at the screen, his
already wide eye. bulged enormously.
  "Shifting[*thorngg'the control elements
are unphasing!" As the solid lines of the grid
began to break up, Em screamed and jumped out of the
chair to dive behind the metallic bulk of the engine.
  A whistling sound began, rose rapidly in
volume. Small whisps of smoke appeared from behind
the screen's upper corners. The whistle began
to pulse alarmingly.
  Spock glanced at Kirk, whereupon both men
dropped to The deck. Thus they were missed by The
flying shards of acrylic and metal which screamed
by overhead as She screen blew up.
  Getting to their feet slowly, they griinly eyed the
smoking, sparking ruin that had been their one hope for
tracking down the soul. "What did the Vedala
call it?" Kirk muttered tightly. "The mad
planet?" He gestured disgustedly at The ruined
instrumentation.
  His('How do you explain that, Spock?"
  "A confluence of unbenign electronic forces,"
the ilrst officer responded slowly.
  6'In odder words, you don't know?"
  "Precisely," Spock confessed.
  6'Doesn't matter."
  Ark turned, stared at Lara. She grinned.
  PI know the way," she said. Hiswere' got
a good look at that thing before it went mockers." She
turned, cocked her head slightly wI0hout
losing the grin and nodded in a direction slightly to the
southwest. Her voice was matter-of-fact,
confident. "That way."
  A querulous inquiry drifted down from above:
"Are you certain, human?" questioned a hovering Tchar.
  Thor sureness, birdman," Lara threw back.
"I can't be fooled about directions and I can't get
lost. That's why I'm here." She pointed again,
downslope and out
  152 STAR TREK COG PTVB
  of the mountains. "It's that way, or I'll eat
my killboots."
  "The Vedala would not have chosen Lara had her
abilities been less than perfect," Spock
commented.
  "So then," Kirk observed, "we know which way
we're supposed to go[*thorngg'b we're meant
to travel on the ground. An overview could be very
  helpful." He glanced upward
significantly.
  Tchar's wings spread wide and he beat
  downward to gain altitude. "I will scout
ahead," he replied simply. Beginning a
wide circle that brought him into the updrafts
sweeping up the granite flanks close by, he
soared effortlessly higher.
  Spock studied his progress for a long moment,
then looked idly over at Kirk. "I will
acquaint myself with our supplies." He moved
toward the rear of the cart and the metal cabinets bolted
to the deck there.
  Lara watched him go, moved a step nearer
Kirk. "Vulcans," she muttered. "Never liked
"em much myself. Cold-blooded critters, every one
of 'em. Not an ounce of real feelin" in the whole
pack."
  "A wouldn't be quite so harsh," Kirk objected.
"Especially on Mr. Spock. He's something of a
unique personality."
  "But not human, like you and me," she said husldly,
eyeing him boldly.
  Kirk said nothing, stared back in disapproval.
She wasn't intimidated.
  "Look, maybe you got different customs where you
come from, Captain. My world, there's a lot of
women, not so many men. When we find a man
attractive, we say so." If anything, her
gaze grew even less inhibited. "I'm
sayin" so. How do you find me?"
  "Fascinating and not- a little overwhelming," he
replied, responding to the frontal assault with
complete honesty. "The only problem is, we're not
here on a pleasure trip."
  "All the more reason to take whatever pleasure there
might be in it." She laughed, brushed teasingly
close and walked to stand at the front of the cart.
  Kirk studied her progress, the supple form and
smooth stride. A host of alternating images
melted to
  STAR TREK LOG PI
  "ether in his mind to form a single, highly confusing
whole.
  The muted hum rose in volume as
  Em-three-green got the cart moving. It lurched
down the gentle slope in the direction Lara had
indicated. Sord loped along just ahead, his
movements cumbersome,
awkward[*thorngg'irresistible.
  "I've checked out the supplies, Captain."
  4'Hmmm[*thorngg'what?" Kirk mumbled
absently.
  "The supplies, Captain, I have completed an
inventory," Spock repeated, slightly
more forcefully. Kirk finally turned his attention
to his first officer.. Spock made a show of clearing
his throat, continued.
  "As expected, the life-support material is
more than adequate. There are specific provisions
for Sord, Tchar, and Em-three-green.
And[*thorngg'there are weapons."
  "Against what would we need weapons?" Kirk
mused. "I thought the only hostility we revere
expected to encounter arose out of the planet itself?
There's not supposed to be any native life hero
unless the Vedala plan another surprise for us."
  "I would not rule out anything at this stage,
Captain. Judging from the Vedala's outspoken
aversion to this world, it would not surprise me to discover that
their preliminary survey of it was less than
all-inclusive. We have the evidence of three
previously unsuccessful expeditions to back this."
  He scanned the overcast, threatening landscape
pessimistically.
  "Nor are they, by their own admission,
  omnipotent. We must rely on our own
abilities, I think. Overmuch reliance on
Vedalan intervention may have doomed our
predecessors here." He nodded toward the
horizon.
  "tilde To steal something like the soul of Alar and then
depend wholly or mechanicals to safeguard it
strikes me as unworthy of any beings capable of
devising such a theft in the first place. Also
illogical I suspect that before we regain
possession of the soul, we may have to deal with those
immoral beings personally."
  Kirk murmured agreement and turned to
  contemplate the terrain ahead. Spock had only
recited the obvious, yet it seemed as if the
pulverised stone that crunched steadily beneath the wheels
of the cart now
  154 STAR TREE LOG Fig
  whispered imperceptible threats at every turn of an
axle, and unknown forms of extinction paced them while
staying just out of sight.
  In all this world, he sensed not a hint of
welcome. He would be glad when they left it.
  Or if . . .

  Eventually the slope levered out and the mountains sank
beneath the horizon behind. Gravel and rock gave way
to a broad, flat, desertlikeplain of sand and
fine, soft stone. Only scattered
monoliths of black basalt broke the gently
robing plateau, volcanic plugs[*thorngg'the
mummified hearts of long-eroded fire-spitters.
Portunately the cloud-laden sky cut much of the
daytime heat, or they would have been broiled quite
thoroughly. In fact, a brisk breeze had
sprung up and now blew coolingly in their faces.
  A short, violent chuff brought them to a halt.
Sord snorted again and pointed ahead with a finger the
size of a man's thigh.
  ""Now what coilld that be?" Everyone stared
into the distance.
  Moving in their direction was what looked like a
solid curtain of dark gray. The breeze
freshened and beat at them with increasing intensity.
Kirk glanced questioningly at their furry driver.
  "Em, is there a top to this thing?"
  'at don't know,?-the little alien replied
fearfully. He started hunting among as yet unused
controls.
  "I think so . . . no, that's not it . . . nor
that . . ." The grey wall had moved nearer and was
now charging down upon them.
  "If there is, you'd better find it fast,"
Kirk warned. He yelled ahead. "I
hope when you said you liked variety, you mean a
broad definition of the word, Sord." The huge
reptile did not reply. He was staring at the
approaching wall.
  The deluge reached them moments later, a rain of
seeming solid intensity. Kirk had experienced a
downpour like this only once before, on a deceptive
world in 155
  156 STAR TROT L tilde Fig
  the Taurean system. He and Spock had been in
the jug there, too.
  Em-three tilde green finally unraveled the
mystery sequence involved and got the translucent
canopy up, just before they would have been washed away.
  Lara wrung water from her hair, smiled
  radiantly beneath the damp strands. "Rezil
weather."
  "And a half," Kirk agreed readily, looking
out through one of the clear ports. "You'd almost thinkcom n
  Before he could finish the thought, the rain stopped
[*thorngg'z abruptly as a curse, to be
replaced by a blaze of sunlight. Clouds began
to form immediately, but under the attack of the sudden inferno,
broad shadow lakes disappeared before their eyes,
hissing, all but boiling off the sand.
  Where vision had been obscured seconds
  earlier by a solid wall of water, now the
landscape shivered and rippled under agonizing heat.
Distortion waves added ridges and hills to the
desert where none existed. And the distortions were suddenly
multiplied as a faint quake shook the cart.
  'we'll all die here!" Em-three-green
wailed as he put down the canopy. Every one of his
many cilia were locked to a control or structural
segment of the cart.
  "A statistical probability," was Spock's
uninspiring comment. Lara eyed him disgustedly.
  "Don't you ever act on anything besides your
precious statistics, Vulcan?"
  "Yes, but philosophy does not appear to be
an adequate vehicle on which to base a course of
action here," he replied unperturbed. "Nor do
I find reliance on ins stinct satisfactory, as
you seem to."
  "Oh well," she shrugged, "to each his own."
  Further discussion was interrupted by a shrill keening
from above. A faint spot appeared, resolved into a
slim, limber body cantered between a pair of
batwings[*thorngg'Tchar. Kirk
  wondered for a second how the birdman
had survived the fury of the momentary monsoon, then
realized he must have climbed above it.
  "I can see something far ahead," he shouted down
to them, "it's ... ," and his last words faded
into inaudi
  STAR TRBGG'C LOG FIV1! 157
  bility as he banked and glided down to land atop
dhe next rise.
  Em-three-green swung the cart needy against the
base of The low hill Tchar had perched on. It was
a short climb for The rest of Them.
  The object which had excited Tchar's concern was far
enough away to be little more Than a hazy outline. It was
impressive nonetheless.
  A simple cube of some black material, The
structure sat utterly alone at the bottom of the
vast sink. A sense of its enormity penetrated
an the way to The valley's rim[*thorngg'though
Kirk couldn't be certain just how large it was. The
object was still too far away to judge accurately.
  It also, he noted, lay exactly along the dine
Lara had indicated.
  Tchar was fluttering, hopping about on tile sand
neryously. 'A sense it, I can feel
it[*thorngg'the soul of Alar is down
there!"
  A gigantic rumble shook the earth behind diem,
and the ground shivered in pain. Lara whirled, shouted
something in shock that was drowned by Em-threegreen's
screams and Sord's locomotive whistle.
  With absolutely no warning, a fountain of black
ash and smoke had exploded from the ground. Like a
film running at thrice normal speed, the
crevice widened, expanded: then a half-formed
volcano erupted sky tilde vard. In
seconds, it was a hundred meters high and growing with
incredible speed.
  A crack appeared in the southwest cliff of the
cinder cone. A stream, then a river of syrupy
red-orange lava poured from the flank eruption. It
rushed toward them like a wave of red-hot sand. The
pressure below, Kirk knew, must have been
enormous to produce such a voluminous flow in so
short a time.
  They hardly had enough time to realize how precarious
their present position was. They sat on a slight
rise, but one that was still well below the level of the cinder
cone. It would wash this tiny summit clean before the
flow subsided.
  "It seems that everytfung happens with
remarkable
  158 STAR TREE Fig
  speed on this world," Spock observed. "We may
expect volcanic action at any time."
  "I can see that, Mr. Spock. Question is, how do
we go on remaining observers?"
  "The Vedala made you the nominal leader here,
Kirk," Lara admonished him. "You think of a way
out."
  "We have several minutes before the flow reaches us,"
Spock commented easily. "Plenty of time."
  Not enough, it seemed, for Em-three-green.
Whether it was the molten death racing toward them or
Spock's seeming indifference toward it no one
knew, but the little alien let out a pitiful screech
and dashed down the slope to cower between the huge wheels
of the cart.
  Lara eyed Spock as if he were personally
responsible for the approaching disaster, then she loped
down to try and comfort Em. Sord huffed once, sat
down on the sand and engaged in some steady
nonverbalization of his own.
  "I must point out, Captain," Spock went
on, "that the vehicle we have been provided with
lacks sufficient speed to escape so
rapid a flow."
  He peered into the distance. "I also estimate that the
flow is too wide for us to outflank."
  "Not entirely true, Spock. We can still
outrun it[*thorngg'if we let the engine draw
maximum,
  unhindered power. I know this type. There's enough
energy there to run circles around that flow."
  "One high speed might be possible," Spock
con- ceded. "But the power leads must be rerun,
certain safeguards removed, emergency insulation
installed. The total readjustment is complex and time
consuming."
  "Can't you handle it, Spock?" The first officer
hesitated, finally shook his head.
  "I know what is involved, Captain, but I have
not the skill to perform so complex and complete an
operation in so short a[*thorn]"
  "Excuse me for interrupting." They both
turned" looked down to see the skill shaking form of
Em-threegreen staring up at the-more. "I have some
skill at digital manipulation. I can do it in
time, I think, if," he gazed
  STAR TREK L tilde Fly 159
  evenly at Spock, "you can direct me
as fast as I can work, sir."
  "Still not enough time," Spock insisted.
  "We might be able to divert the lava flow
temporarily, Spock," Kirk suggested. They
had started down toward the cart. Bm-three-green was
already laying out the tools he would require. He
glanced back over his shoulder. "Tchar, see if
there's a suitable place."
  The Skorr shrilled acknowledgment and
  launched himself into the pumice-darkened sky.
  "Such a diversion would be at best of short
duration, Captain, unless the flow of molten rock
lessens signllicantly. It shows no sign of
doing so."
  "You worry about reprograming the cart engine,
Spock, and let me worry about the lava."
  They stared at each omer a long moment, then
Spock nodded. "Quickly then," he yelled
to Em-threegreen. Kirk noticed that he didn't
bother to question the alien's abilities.
Em-three-green had better be able to do what he
claimed, and that was all there was to it.
  Spock had the protective panel over the
engine housing off in seconds. A moment sufficed
to satisfy him as to its contents.
  "This is Federation equipment," he told the
toolladen Em-three-green, "can you . . . ?"
  "Anything anyone put together I can take apart,"
the little alien piped firmly. "We're wasting time."
  Spock simply nodded, began: "Terminal
M-three red leads to diode channel
twenty-seven,
  cross-connects to CC-A-FOURTEEN ... taking
care not to break the fluidstate sealed component
Three-it . . ."
  Em-three-green's cilia were a blur. Spock
experimentally stepped up the pace and the little alien
kept pace easily, rearranging and realigning the
critical instruct mentation as fast as Spock could
recite instructions.
  Spock was willing to concede as how they now had an
outside chance at survival[*thorngg'b still
outsidel
  "Capain Kirk!" Kirk looked upward,
away from the work in progress on the cart, to see
Tchar hovering overhead.
  - "There is a ravine," the flyer shouted,
"sixty meters
  160 STAR TREKIVB
  to your left." Kirk stared in the
indicated direction and spotted the slight break in
the ridge between them and the volcano, which roared on
unabated.
  "A see it."
  "If it can be blocked," Tchar said, even as
Kirk came to the same conclusion, "the lava will flow
past and have to top the ridge to reach us. It will save
some time."
  "Good enough." He turned. "Sord?"
  ""I heard him," the organic mountain
grumbled. Llephantine legs working smoothly, he
lifted himself from the sand and lumbered off toward the
ravine. Kirk and Lara followed as fast as they
could, Lara politely slowing to keep pace with the
slower Kirk.
  "Carefully, Lm-three-green," Spock
warned, perceiving what he thought to be a just-missed
movement on the part of the alien that would have caused a
fatal short. One improper
  connection, one mixing of supercooled fluids, one
wrong touch of an instrument on a live
  component, and the cart could go up in
pieces[*thorn] along with its present pair of
occupants.
  "I know, I know," Em-three-green
muttered softly. 'Tomorrow trying to be as careful as
possible at this speed. Please try not to make me
nervous."
  Spock returned to the dull, steady drone of
instmo" lions. He forebore to mention that
Em-three-green's impossibly rapid,
seemingly haphazard style of making the most
delicate adjustments was making him not a little
uneasy himself.
  Sord was containing his impatience with difficulty
by the time Lara and a wheezing, puffing Kirk finally
arrived at the far end of the ravine.
  Lara didn't bother to rest; instead she scrambled
spiderlike up a sheer cliff. She looked toward
the volcano, then back down at them and made
hurrying gestures.
  Kirk took out his phaser. Adjusting it for
tight-beam, high-intensity work, he began slicing
huge chunks of rock from the opposing cliff face.
He was cutting at another piece before the first
gigantic slab of sandstone crashed to the ground. -
  Sord put his sternum against the bulkier, slipped
  STAR TREK L tilde PI 161
  both hands around and under, and shoved. By the time Kirk
had another block cut from the ravine
wall, the huge reptile had the first one set in
place.
  Cut and place, place and cut, while Lara
shouted constantly at them to hurry.
  The mouth of the arroyo was finally sealed, faster than
Kirk would have believed possible. He hadn't counted
on Sord's incredible strength and endurance. They still
had some time, so he busied himself cutting smaller
fragments. Sord used them to chink small gaps in
the main boulders.
  They stopped only when Lara's anxious cry of
"Here it comes, get out!" reached them.
  As Kirk turned and ran, he could hear the nearing
hiss from the lava as it sizzled over the sand. He
glanced backward, like Lot's wife[*thorngg'and
fell.
  A moment later the sand was rushing past beneath him.
Sord had-scooped him up and was carrying him
easily in both hands. Behind them the hiss rose to a
furious, tense, spitting sound. Sord reached the
end of the ravine and felt confident enough to turn and stare.
  Jets of molten stone squirted between the
uncaulked chinks in the makeshift dam. The
topmost boulder seemed to quiver a little at the
impact and slide backward slightly.
But it didn't fall.
  Lara pulled up next to them, panting from the run.
She looked from Kirk back to the dam.
  "tilde orkin' real nice. For a minute there
I wasn't sure it was gain' to hold. The flow's
spreading sideways now, though. The lava in the
cracks is cooling fast, cemeeting the whole
job."
  "How soon before the flow reaches the
  ridge-top?" he asked.
  "Soon enough[*thorngg'b it doesn't matter.
I've got our escape route."
  "It better be a direct one." He gestured
back toward the dam. Sparks were already dancing above
it. They comhad a few extra minutes at most before
the lava reached it and flowed down toward them once more.
  A shout behind them. They turned in time to see the
huge cart send up a shower of sand as
Em-three-green swung it to a stop.
  162 STAR TRBGG'C LOG PI
  "The drive has been reprogramed expertly,"
Spock announced. "Quickly, Captain. I do not
know how long it will last."
  They raced for the ladder as Tchar swooped low,
spiraled overhead. Kirk hustled
aboard, with Lara right behind. A rumbling query sounded
behind him.
  "Captain, I'm afraid that while I'm near
to being invulnerable, I am not immune to the effects of
molten rock. I fear I must crowd you
temporarily."
  "Get aboard, Sord," Kirk told him.
"We'll manage." He and Lara moved to the
front of the cart Spock joined them there, leaving
only Em-tbree-green near the back, at the
drive controls.
  Moving as quickly as possible but with infinite care,
the great reptile struggled onto the rear of the cart.
Even so, he nearly overturned it in the process.
  "Careful, you monstrous scaly lump!"
Em-three- green squeaked[*thorngg'ou of fear,
of course, not boldness.
  "Move this machine, insect-eater," Sord
countered disdainfully.
  "qallyventy-one degrees east," Lara ordered,
pointing, "to take us out of the flow path. Then we can
circle around and back toward the cube. I don't
think[*thorn]"
  A titanic explosion shook the ground, nearly
knocking everyone to the deck. Kirk looked
behind them, was starded to see that a secondary cone had
joined the first slid was pouring out lava at a rate
equal to its neighbor. The flow had suddenly
doubled.
  By tomorrow the abrupt action of wind, flood, and
quake would probably have wiped out all signs of the
entire eruption, he mused. They didn't have time
to wait around and witness it. They didn't have even
minutes.
  The new eruption sent a shower of glowing sparks
raining down on them. The engine roared, coughed, roared
coughed.
  They weren't moving.
  "Something is wrong!" Em-three-green shrieked,
nearly losing his voice from panic. Behind them, a
red-orange wave from the second cone surged against
the ridge-top[*thorngg'flowed over and downhill.
The added influx of fresh material was too much for the
hastily
  STAR TREK PI 163
  erected dam. It collapsed. A stream of
lava, topped with broken black crust, raced out and
headed toward them.
  "Quickly, quickly!" Tchar shouted down at them.
6'What's wrong?"
  "I do not know." Em-three-green frantically
studied gauge upon gauge, tried two dozen
switches. "Something has caused the front shaft
to lock. It must be[*thorn]"
  Spock was already over the side and ducking underneath
the cart, tools in hand. Kirk raced to the railing,
leaned over. Spock was out of sight.
  "Spock?"
  'tone moment, Captain." A hysterical
pause, then, 66I have it. Sand has entered the
mechanism through a broken lubrication seal. I'm
cleaning it out and taping it, but it will clog again."
  'forget it, Spock, the power plant will have burned
itself out by then." He looked to the ridge. The lava
would reach them in three, maybe two minutes. "For
Vulcan's sake, get back aboard!"
  "A second, Captain. There, completed."
Spock came into view, his hands and face smeared with
some blue" tinted grease. At the same time, the first
volcano regurgitated a plug of platonic
phlegm. A storm of fiery sparks and small
globs of lava hailed down on them.
  Kirk tried to cover up, as did everyone else.
The bombardment passed quickly. He looked over the
side again.
  6'Spock[*thorngg'Spock!",
  The first officer was sprawled on tlie ground like a
broken doll. One hand fluttered feebly at his
head.
  Kirk didn't think. Both hands on the cart
rail, he vaulted over the side and landed with a jar
on the sand. He rolled Spock onto his back.
  66Leave," he muttered painfully, Ball of
you . . . go."
  6'ationot without you," Kirk objected.
  Captain, I..."
  Kirk got a shoulder under an arm, lifted
Spock to his feet. '4ationo, Sord, stay
aboard. It'll take too long for you to get back
on." Kirk staggered toward the ladder.
  "Tell Captain ... ," Spock was mumbling,
"... get others away."
  164 STAR TREK L tilde Fly
  "we're all getting away," Kirk whispered.
Another explosion sent fire down on them. The
odor of sulfur had grown nauseating. This time, no
one was hit except Sord, who simply brushed the
sizzling embers off his hide. Lava bombs the
size of the one that had struck Spock he didn't
even feel.
  Em-three-green was gesturing hysterically at the
approaching river of flame, screaming. Even
Lara's reserve seemed ready to crack. Sord
eyed the flow, then leaned over slowly. The cart
creaked, supports and axles groaned. The wheels
on the cart's opposite side rose off the sand.
Em-three-green was too terrified to scream as the
vehicle tilted precariously.
  A massive paw grabbed Spock around the waist
and lifted him onto the cart.
  "Gol," Kirk screamed, clinging to the ladder.
  Fear lent even more speed to Lm-three-green's
incredible reaction time. A roar of power drowned out
even the sound of the closing lava as the cares engine,
rigged to permit it to pull energy unrestrainedly from the
power pack, cut loose.
  Kirl: felt himself wrenched backward, locked
arms and legs around the ladder and prayed the metal would
last as long as his muscles. The front of the cart
rose into the air from the force of the blast as it shot
forward at an incredible turn of speed.
lim-three-green adjusted controls, aBut four
wheels hit the sand, and * shot down the slope
seconds before an advancing cliff of red covered the
spot where they had been.
  Lava boiled angrily behind them, orange
talons reaching after. But the flow was receding rapidly
into the distance. Drive whining madly, wheels and
axles spinning at a rate for which they had not been
designed, the wagon raced away from the burning
crest behind. Sparks were starting to fly from anguished
components.
  Tchar watched as the cart below reached the gap in the
slope Lara had indicated. It raced through, over
another slope and down a winding ravine, narrowly
scraping stone walls and abutments. Here the downward
slope of the land lay tilde to the south instead of toward
the black cube. The lava river would slam up
  STAR TREK L tilde PIE
  against the Adge they had just raced over and turn
harmlessly to the left.
  At the end of this pleasant thought, there was a
violent, gAnding wail from the engine, mirrored by one
from Em-three-green. He shut everything down with
incredible speed, still not fast enough to reduce the shower of
sparks now spitting from more and more see" lions of the
car.
  "Off, off, off, everyone off!" the little alien
cued, even as he was running for the ladder. Flames
began to belch from sealed innards.
  With Sord carrying the still dazed Spock, they
hurriedly abandoned the smoking cart. Taking shelter
behind the first rank of sand dunes, Kirk turned, could
make out a thin line of red orange flowing to the south.
He turned his attention back to the cart. The
expected explosion failed to materialise.
Em-three-green had cut the power in time to keep
anything from reaching dangerous overload and blowing itself
to bits. Whether he had done so in tune to keep the
cart mobile was open to question.
  Tchar glided down to a smooth landing next to them.
The Skorr was panting heavily.
  y would like to know what the Vedala put in that cart,
Captain. I could not fly fast enough to keep up with
you."
  "It was a standard Federation engine and drive
system," Kirk told him. "The credit for its
abnormal burst of speed goes to Mr. Spock and
Em-three-green."
  He glanced over at his first officer, who now
stood unaided nearby. Spock said nothing, while
Em looked embarrassed and tried to hide, the tips
of his cilia running through a series of color
changes.
  "Close," Lara said into the awkward
silence, staring toward the far river of lava.
  Car too close," agreed Spock. He was
rubbing at the back of his head. "I prefer less
substantial precipitation. And while I
appreciate your actions on my behalf,
Captain, your first duty should remain to the group and the
mission."
  "Yougg'uite right, Spock. I felt it
paramount to maintain our expedition intact. Don't
think anything as primitive
  166 STAR 11 tilde : LOG PTVB
  as emotion entered into my decision." He made a
movement over his chest. "Cross my heart and hope
to die."
  "tilde he injection of humorea"...Spock began
  reprovingly, "does not obviate the fact that you
risked the success of the mission to[*thorn]"
  "[*thorn)'save the best science officer in
Starfieet," Kirk cut in.
  A massive paw smote the sand between them. "Are
you two going to argue each other's merits tin I
throw up, or do we get on with it."
  Kirk grinned, turned to face the irritated
reptile. "We[*thorn]"
  A blast of cold air hit them,
staggered Kirk. Everyone looked back toward the
volcanos. Neither peak could be seen. Both lay
hidden somewhere behind and beneath the towering range of
cumulonimbus clouds that had piled up out of
nothing.
  It seemed to be raining beneath the black cloudbank.
tilde No, not raining," Kirk muttered to himself.
Instead, the storm was putting forth a blizzard of
considerable ferocity. A violent hissing sprang
up from the land beneath the
  clouds[*thorn)'snow striking the lava. He
shook his head, and wondered. A world most mad
indeedl Mad was a mild adjective for this
paranoid planet.
  The dune, at least, would provide some slight
protest lion. Everyone scrambled over to lie in the
sheltering lee. The marching clouds caught them moments
after.
  "And I was just going to ask," Lara shivered,
flapping her hands at her sides, "what next?
Wish this place would make up its mind a body
can't find time to get comfortable here."
  "We've no time to seek comfort," Kirk told
her. "As Sord says, we've got to get on with
it."
  It took Em-three-green all of five
minutes to determine that the cart wasn't going anywhere
without several major repairs, for which they had been
equipped with neither time, skill, nor parts. Kirk
felt they could have managed the first two, but the matter
of replacement components
  defeated him.
  "Completely burned out," the tiny mechanic an-
nounced dolefully, his nose wrinkling at the
pungent
  STAR lllFrom tilde L tilde Fat 167
  odor drifting up from the bowels of the engine housing.
  Kirk sighed. "That means Tom here on we
carry what we need."
  No one voiced an objection, or an
alternative. Kirk and Spock moved to the rear
deck of the cart, opened the supply lockers, and
began portioning out loads.
  xl
  Kirk eyed the deceiving circle of the sun above,
put his head down and into the wind. It had changed
direct lion four, maybe five times since
they'd begun the trek.
  He'd been right about the deceptiveness of this
world[*thorngg'and that included distance. It
felt as if they had been walking for years without
drawing any nearer to their objective.
  Thanks to the intermittent blizzard and freezing
rain, many sandy areas had acquired a thin plating of
ice. Walking on such terrain was next
to impossible. They couldn't have managed it at all
had not Sord volunteered an obvious solution.
As a result, the big reptile was soon carrying
the bulk of their equipment on his back. Doing so
did not slow him up any.
  Eventually the last snow and rain ceased, but the
cold wind continued to blow.
  "I don't understand," Kirk muttered, "we should
have been there long ago."
  "Perhaps, Captain," Spock replied, "the
defences surrounding the soul include image
projectors. What we may have seen from afar might
have been a false construct."
  "What about Lara's certainty of direction, then,
and Tchar, insisting he sensed it?"
  "That is so. It may only be a matter of
distance, then." He looked thoughtful. "If none of the
preceding three expeditions had one of Lara's people,
or a Skorr, with them, that might explain their
demise. They could have hunted false
projections in this malign wilderness forever."
  Kirk paused, cupped his hands to his lips and
yelled up into the chilled air.
  "Tchar, see anything?"
  A faint reply: "Wait . . ."

  STAR TREK tilde Fly 169
  Tchar rose higher, stared into the distance. It was there,
as he had known it would be[*thorngg'past
tentacles and fields of ice-blocks at the
bottom of the valley. A gigantic, featureless
black monolith. He knew the soul of Alar lay
within that ominous repository. They were on the course
the humanoid tilde era had indicated. He would have
to tell the others.
  "Yes!" He plunged downward, pulled up at
the last second. "Ahead, Captain,
it[*thorn]" There was a low rumble, and he
instinctively lifted off the ground. Kirk and
Spock had no such ability and were knocked off their
feet.
  Somehow Lara kept her balance. Sord divas
not affected, of course.
  "Another quake!" Lara cursed.
  All around them was the horrible crunching
sound of ice breaking up. backslash
  Someone screamed. All eyes turned toward
Em- three-green. He had been trailing
slightly behind. A vast ridge of ice had risen
beneath him, cracked, twisted, opening crevices in the
ice and in the earth below.
  Using every cilium, Em-three-green tried
to scramble clear. But the huge slab of ice was
tilting sharply, and fine cilia are not equipped with
claws or hooks. They found no purchase on the
slick surface. Clawing frantically, he found
himself sliding backward toward the abyss.
  Everything happened fast, then. Spock took
several long strides and threw himself stomachfirst
onto the ice near the tilting slab. He slid to the
edge of the crevice, reached out, and grabbed
Em-three-green by the scruff of the neck just as the
latter was sliding in. Kirk got there barely in
time to grab Spock's ankles to prevent him from
going in with Em-three-green.
  With a doomsday groan, the enormous frozen
mass crashed into the depths.
  Kirk grimaced with the strain of holding both
Spock and Em-three-green. He tried to dig his
toes into the frozen sand, found himself to his
horror sliding slowly, slowly forward.
  A coil of rope flew over his head. He
reached up, slipped the noose over Spock's
legs.
  Immediately the
  170 STAR TREE L tilde FIB
  cord went taut. He pulled himself to the lip of the
crevasse, stared down past the dangling form of
Spock to where Em-three-green still hung in the
Vulcan's grasp, swaying slightly and moaning.
HIS eyes were shut tight.
  Kirk felt Spock's body moving backward,
crawled along with it. A glance showed Sord
carefully bringing in the cord. Then Tchar had taken
Em-three-green's weight from Spock and the first
officer was easily pulled clear.
  They took a long break there[*thorngg'n because
they were especially tired, but because
  Em-three-green was too frightened now to move.
Spock administered the medicine they had found in the
supplies, but that would take time to work, too.
  It it could have any effect at all. For when
Em's violent shaking had calmed sufficiently for
him to talk, it became clear that their mechanic was now
beyond even terror. It was reflected in his
tired voice, his miserable attitude.
  "I can't go on any farther," he barely
managed to whisper.
  Kirk bit back his instinctive reply. A more
woebegone being he had never seen. No surprise,
really[*thorngg'Emthree-green had been frightened
and uncertain on the Vedala asteroid, let alone
here. He had probably been pushed through more
  today than any member of his race had been forced
to endure in the past hundred years.
  That he was still alive instead of dead from shock was
proof enough he was a remarkable specimen of his type.
Kirk eyed Em-three-green in a fresh light,
took stock of their battered but still intact little
company.
  Sord sat invincible, a bored block of steel,
ignoring the biting wind. Lara leaned against an
ice-block, confident, athletic, secure in her
knowledge of where she stood in relation to the universe, her
lacquered exterior punctuated only by an
occasional worried glance at
  Em-three-green.
  Spock, nearby, was as calm as ever, ready for
whatever might offer itself as an intriguing problem. And
Tchar, free and safe as the air, hovered
patiently above.
  STAR TRBIC L tilde rem
  And himself, of course[*thorn)'cccerned,
anxious, but still in firm command. He shook his head
again. He hadn't the slightest doubt that the finest
representative of an the races present was the
miserable lump of shivering cilia huddled in their
middle and presently suffocating in his own misery and
self-pity.
  "I'm not even afraid anymore," the subject
of Kirk's scrutiny murmured. "Just very, very
tired. So very tired."
  "Come on, Em," Lara urged with surprising
gentleness. "We know where it is, and we've seen it.
It's ast a little further."
  "No!" Em-three-green shouted, with
  uncharacteristic force, "I'm finished, I tell you!
I've had enough. Let the murvlgeed Skorr go
on their gurvlmeed jihad! Let the Galaxy blow
itself to its assorted perditions, for all I care.
I'm . . . ," and the last Word came out long and
slow and low, "dis . . tired."
  Kirk tried to find a way to say what had to be
said diplomatically, and came to a dead end. He
firmed himself.
  "I'm sorry, Em-three-green, but there's still the
possibility we'll be needing you." He glanced up
significantly. "Sord..."
  13m-three-green had enough srength left
to protest as he an but vanished in that massive
paw. Sord placed him carefully on his already
heavily loaded back. The picklock fought to his
feet.
  "Let me go, you outrageous hallucination!"
  "Shut up and hang on," Sord muttered over
his shoulder. His head was bigger than
  Em-three-green's entire body. "Dig down
under the seal-tarp, between those boxes. You can get out of the
cold and wind." He started off downslope at a
steady trot.
  "And be still! If you itch, I may forget the
source and scratch you!" -
  "1311 scout on ahead," Tchar suggested,
rising into the wind.
  Kirk nodded absently as he, Spock and Lara
fell in at Sord's flank. Above them, from under the
edge of the tarp, a high voice muttered with an
equal mixture
  172 STAR TREK L tilde Fig
  of pain and pathos, "Some day, you
grotesque blob of creation, I'm going to cut you
down to size."
  Sord did not deign to reply.
  Wind faded and clouds ran. The sun returned
to melt the ice under their feet[*thorngg'fast enough,
fortunately, to prevent the formation of much mud. As
soon as the earth had dried sufficiently, they
continued on.
  They entered a region of low, sandy hills and
encountered for the first time some local
vegetation[*thorn] scrub bushes and the toughest
looking grasses Kirk had ever seen. They'd have
to be to survive here, he mused. Even the brush
grew parallel to the ground instead of up into the
unpredictable sky.
  "Wait," came a rumbling warning.
  Kirk moved up alongside Sord.
  "What is it."
  "Quiet." Kirk looked in the direction
Sord was looking, toward a thicket of bushes.
For a moment, he thought he saw what had given the
reptile pause[*thorn] something dark and
vaguely sinister moving among the branches.
  "What is it?"
  "You espy it too, then?"
  "A thought I saw something move, though it might
have been wind action. Hell, on this world it might have
been anything."
  "S. There is not supposed to be any animal
life on this planet."
  Reptile and man stared harder, but there were no more
hints of movement.
  "I wouldn't be surprised if the plants
  themselves had learned how to run away from things here,"
Kirk commented. Sord continued to stare, finally
grunted.
  "Guess you're right. This world just gets on your
nerves."
  When they topped the next rise, the black cube
loomed just ahead. But there were no cheers, no shouts,
no cries of eureka! Everyone was too bone
tired, emotionally and physically. They were resigned
rather than elated, for now their mission really began.
Or would those sheer walls of unmarked, unbroken
black prove
  STAR TRB tilde LOG PIVE t73
  deceptively easy to penetrate? None of them
thought so, in the depths of their various minds.
  "I can sense the soul," Tchar told them. He
fluttered his wings as he stood near
Kirk. "This is no illusion[*thorngg'x is
here!" He beat the air, lifted.
  "I wit fly round, examine the structure, and
return to meet you. There may be an entrance above the
ground. If so, I will find it far more easily than
any of you." He soared upward.
  "Tchar!" Kirk yelled.
  The Skorr stalled, hovered.
  "Captain?"
  "Watch it[*thorngg'we need you, too."
  Tchar paused, added thoughtfully, "I win be
careful, Captain." He dipped slightly, then
rose and shot falconlike toward the roof.
  "Tohar is right in his analysis," Spock
finally de- ciared, "but we should continue to search at
ground level, if only to find shelter from the next
meteorological aberration."
  'excellent idea, Spock," Kirk agreed,
starting toward the nearest wall, "1311 see you
shortly."
  "A moment, Captain. I[*thorn]" Kirk
cut him off curtly.
  'ationot this time, Spock. If something unexpected
gobbles me up, dissolves me, or otherwise
renders me in corpus kaput, we're
going to need you around to figure out how it was done and then
to devise a way to circumvent it."
  Spock appeared ready to protest further.
  "And that's an order," Kirk finished.
  He started down the slope. Before he had gotten
ten meters from the others, he felt a warm presence
alongside[*thorngg'Lara.
  "tilde 11 go with you." It wasn't a question.
  "Uh-uh, as long as I'm in charge
you'll[*thorn]"
  "Don't uh-uh me, Kirk. Remember,
scouting's sort of thy job. By rights, I ought to be
coin" this by myself. You've already gotten all the use
out of my sense of direction you're gain' to. I'm
more expendable than anyone. But if you want to join
me in gettin' yourself shot at, well, it'll be
nice to have company."
  Kirk started to yell[*thorngg'then found the
incipient lecture
  174 STAR TREK LOG PIV-EVERY
  had turned into a mental smile that was mirrored
on his face. They walked on together.
  Spock, meanwhile, was trying to take his mind off
the fact that Kirk was out ahead of them, out of range
of immediate help, and nearing a structure they
had every reason to believe contained hostile defences
ready for
  unannounced visitors.
  "Sord, what did you think you saw back there?"
  The massive brow frowned, forming a small
facial crevasse. Its owner spoke without booking
down.
  "Don't know for sure, Vulcan. A
shape[*thorn]" Sord shook his head as if
to clear it of a fog. Profound cogitation apparently
wasn't one of his specialties. "Probably
seeing things, as the captain figures."
  Spock didn't look satisfied. "There should be
no mobile life on this world." He started down
determinedly after Kirk and Lara.
  Em-three-green slipped off Sord's back,
took two steps to every one of Spock's as he
followed at his heels.
  "You keep saying that, Spock."
  "Yes," Spock admired. The key word is
  "shouldn't." The Vedala should have informed us."
  Sord sighed, sounding like an ancient
  steam-engine, and followed too. "Maybe, the
Vedala didn't know about whatever it was we saw."
  "No, I still consider that an
impossibility," Spoak muttered.
  "You think that," the dragon snorted. "Me, I
ain't so sure. The longer I'm on this dump, the
less I'm convinced of the omnipotence of our alien
mentom. Now, mind you," he went on, "I'm just
saying there are aspects of this they don't know nothing
about.
  "Leastwise, that's what I tell myself to explain
why I'm here instead of them and their supposed
superscience. I don't know what you tell yourself,
Vulcan."
  Spock glanced up at the toothed laws but was
unable to read any expression there. However much the
facts argued against the reptile's words, there were some
odd points to consider about this entire undertaking.
  Looking at it from a purely rational standpoint,
now . . .
  STAR TREK L tilde PI 175
  There was a last little sand dune. Kirk and Lara
topped it. The fortress loomed over them, barely a
hundred meters away. It was surrounded by a field
of black gravel.
  "That's it." He grinned at her. "End of one
long hard journeyl've no desire to repeat."
  "Ah, but we still have to go back,
James." She moved close and this time he didn't
edge away. It was not because he was too tired to.
  "I'll tell you something true," she began, staring
into his eyes. "I find you one of the most
attractive men I've ever met. If we were . .
. ," she hesitated, "together, the rest of this would be
easier. And if anything happened, why," she
shrugged, "we'd have some green memories."
  "I already have a lot of Preen memories," he
told her gently. "I sometimes think too many."
  Lara didn't trv to hide her disappointment.
"Oh." He put a comforting hand on her shoulder and
squeezed.
  ""Maybe some other time, Lara. If it means
anything, I think it would be one of the greenest of the
preen." He pulled his hand away as she reached for
it. "But not now[*thorngg'we still have work to do."
  She brightened. "At least you're willing to argue the
point."
  "I'm always open to logical persuasion."
  The enormous, nearly perfect cube of
metallic black was even more impressive when one
stood at its immediate base. Nowhere could Kirk
detect a hint of a sealed joint, bolt, or
riveting of any sort. It was almost as if
the monolith had been created in one piece, corns
plete and perfect.
  Nor was there any sign of an entrance. An
awe- some bit of engineering. It would have been domi-
nating in a city. Here, on the bare sandy plain ringed
by its black gravel border, it was awesome.
  When nothing appeared to blast them from the earth,
Kirk waved twice[*thorn)'bbh and above.
Sord, Spock, Em-three-green and Tchar joined
him and Lara at the base.
  176 STAR TREK LOG PI
  "Is this not the shape," Spock asked the
Skorr, "of the more primitive temples of your people?"
  "Yes," Tchar admitted in surprise. "I
had not known your knowledge extended so far, Mr. Spock."
He stared upward. "Though there has never been
anything as grand and beautiful as this. It is the work of
some familiar with the Skorr, yet with an ability and
singlemindedness of purpose my people have never known."
He
  pointed to the right.
  "If it is true to the old schematics, the
entrance should be there." He flew toward the corner and
they followed.
  The carved door was cut just inside the
corner, as Tchar had indicated. The complex motif
engraved in the door itself probably meant something to the
birdman, but he didn't find it worthy of
explanation and no one inquired.
  "Truly, it is the same as the old temples,"
Tchar announced. "But the inscription is different.
I cannot make it out, wholly. Much of it appears
to consist of a warning, which is to be expected."
  "Can you open it?" Kirk asked
  "No." Tchar looked distraught. "It is a
familiar door[*thorngg'b it has no lock."
  Kirk's gaze, followed soon by everyone
else's, turned to rest on the shivering form of
  Em-three-green. He looked better now,
though. Obviously the rest and shelter he had enjoyed
while riding Sord had done him much good. Not that he
felt any different about this craziness. He still
wanted out at the first opportunity. But he was
studying the door in spite of himself, pro- fessional
curiosity being about the only thing capable of distracting
him from his fright.
  "There's a lock on my oculars was he
declaimed firmly.
  recognize the type[*thorngg'rare, subtle
and expensive."
  Kirk stared hard at the door, tried to spot the
mechanism Em-three-green was talking about and saw
nothing but designs and inscriptions in an alien hand.
  "I'll take your word for it[*thorngg'I have
to," he admitted. "Can you open it?"
  ""There's no lock, seal, jam, portal
crawlway or door in the Galaxy I can't
open," the pickiock announced.
  "STAR TREK LOG PIVB 177
  As Em-three-green unslung the small pack
from his back, Kirk studied the overhanging brow of the
doorway and wondered at the motivation behind it. There
was a brooding, fanatical malevolence behind all
this. A cunning madness that sought only the deaths of
millions of innocent beings.
  The key question now was[*thorngg'how much
  confidence did these extremists place in their
hiding place? Was it sufficient in their eyes, or
were there less passive forms of argument awaiting their
entrance?
  The pack produced a belt of flexible dark
plastic equipped with a multitude of tiny
compartments. Emthree-green laid it neatly on the
ground, revealing a tool kit of gleaming,
exquisitely handicrafted devices that
would not have been out of place in a surgery.
  The picklock's gaze studied a series of
depressions which formed a regular, roughly
diamond-shaped pattern in the approximate
canter of the door. Kirk wouldn't have recognised
them in a million years as being apart from their
neighboring carvings or as constituting a lock.
Em-three-green selected a number of the tools with
an assurance which Kirk found remarkably comforting.
Having thus armed himself, he walked to the door and
began work, his body shielding most of his actions from
sight.
  Kirk only hoped the alien's skill matched his
confidence.
  Something moved above them. He glanced
  upward sharply, saw nothing. Easy, James,
watch out or the boolum tilde ll get you. He
returned his attention to Emthree-green.
  Abruptly, an anticlimactic click sounded
from somewhere inside the door. This initiated a steady
hum.
  Em-three-green's reaction was anything but
relieved. Instead, his cilia moved more rapidly
than ever. He seemed to be working twice as hard, and
he looked frightened[*thorngg'wh might not
mean anything at all, since that was his normal
mental state. But still[*thorn] . "Anything
the matter? Can't you do it?"
  "I'm doing it, I'm doing it," the picklock
muttered tightly, nervously.
  "That's wonderful," Lara complimented him.
  178 STAR TREK LOG PIVP
  "No, you don't understand," he told her. "This
lock is keyed with a timed series of irregular
pulsations. If I don't cut the
  combination[*thorngg'eliminate the pulses in the
proper sequence and within a certain time[*thorngg'x
explodes."
  Lara looked uncertain. "Does it matter
whether we force the door neatly or otherwise?"
She took a couple of wary steps backward,
spoke to Kirk. "Why not let it blow itself open?"
  Em-three-green supplied the
answer[*thorngg'wh pleased Kirk, because he
didn't have one. "Such an explosion is designed
to melt the metal of the door and any tunnel beyond,
sealing it against unauthorised
visitors[*thorngg'sometirnes permanently.
  "Spock, what's your opinion?" Kirk asked.
Spock ignored him. The captain
noticed his first officer was staring upward. "Spock?"
  The science officer's warning shout sounded even as
Kirk was turning his gaze toward the top of the cube.
  Wings in wind[*thorn]
  Kirk ate sand as one of the cube sentinels
swooped down at him, wicked hooked talons
barely scraping his back. In unnatural- silence
the flying gargoyle banked and started in for another
pass. There were two of the monsters[*thorngg'huge,
threatening, not particularly swift, but immensely
powerful-looking.
  Kirk rolled to get his back against the cube,
reaching for his phaser. Out of the corner of an eye he
saw that Lara had her chemical gun out. She
crouched just inside the entranceway. Em-three tilde
reen couldn't be seen, but his terrified moans could be
heard from behind Sord. The big reptile had moved
to block the entrance.
  "Keep working," he rumbled over his shoulder.
"I'll cover you."
  Em-three-green was too busy working at the lock
to offer a reply. In any case, he was in no
position to argue with Sord. The big carnivore
might possibly survive the threatened explosion,
but Em-three-green would be reduced to
  scattered hunks of fur.
  A shrill keening sounded directly above. Tchar
charged into the two sentinels, breaking their formation and
disrupting their attack. If one of the dark guardians
  STAR TREK LOG Fig
  got its claws on him, Kirk thought, the
dogfight would be over instantly. But Tchar was
clearly much faster. And he seemed to have the uncanny
ability to dodge at the last second, before wing or
claw could strike. It was almost as if he knew what
his attacker was going to do before he did it.
  The Skorr occupied the full affection of one of the
sentinels. The other, the one that had just missed
Kirk, was coming on again. Kirk fired. A second
beam passed over his left
shoulder[*thorngg'Spock was firing
simultaneously.
  Both beams made contact[*thorngg'and
reflected off the polished throat of the gargoyle.
It neither slowed nor swerved. A rapid series of
explosions sounded from near the door. Lara was firing
her out-dated but lethallooking pistol.
  Maybe the explosive pellets did more
damage than the phasers, or perhaps the monster was
distracted by the noise. Whatever the reason,
it shifted course in mid-dive and angled for the
exposed huntress.
  Kirk bit his lip, forced himself to keep a steady
stream of energy trained on the sentinel, which was taking
both phaser beams broadside, now. Lara
dropped to one knee, tried to hit its underside.
  They couldn't tell whether it was the
  concentrated phaser fire, the explosive
shells, or both, but suddenly the creature came
apart in mid-flight. The explosion wasn't
particularly impressive[*thorngg'b the amount of
debris and the size of the area it was strewn over was.
Also the composition of that debris.
  Kirk kicked at a fragment of it, heard the
slight ring as it went tumbling across the gravel.
  "Mechanicals," Spock observed interestedly.
"Sord felt he might have seen something watching us,
back along our path. And you too, Captain."
  He looked satisfied. "The Vedala revere
right. There are no living creatures
here[*thorngg'only
  mechanised protectors."
  A cry from above reminded them the bathe wasn't
over. Tchar had gotten a grip on the back of the
remaining sentinel. Unable to strike a
significant blow at the irritation on its back,
the mechanical wheeled and fluttered in frustration.
But neither could Tchar effect tively incapacitate
the armored filer.
  180 STAR TRBX LOG FIVE
  It shook free. Then, as though directed
by outside authority, it suddenly changed its mind.
Folding its wings, it dove toward the door. Sord
tried to edge even tighter into the slight indentation of the
doorway.
  "Hurry, small one," he rumbled. Again
  Em-threegreen had no time to answer.
  Kirk and Spock shifted their phasers to cover the
second mechanical[*thorngg'then hesitated as
Tchar charged straight down in pursuit.
  "Don't fire!" the Skorr screamed.
  Moving incredibly fast, Tchar slammed across the
skull of the monster. A low grinding noise came from
it. Either the distraction was effective, or else the
creature had decided it wasn't going to be able
to get past Sord. It spread ponderous wings and
soared skyward again.
  Tchar closed-with it once more near the top rim of the
cube. They locked together and vanished over the edge.
Byes human and
  otherwise locked there for long moments.
  Distantly, the cough of an explosion. They
waited a long time. Tchar did not reappear.
  "No way to tell what happened up there,"
Kirk murmured. "Can't even be sure the
mechanical blew up." He ran a hand over the
slick-smooth wall. "Tchar may be up there,
wounded, unable to fly. We can't reach the roof from the
outside maybe there's a way up from the interior.
We can damn well look for[*thorn]"
  A soprano cry of exhaustion and triumph
came from his right. It was followed by a jerky, piping
laugh Sord backed away.
  A deep protest of stone against metal sounded
briefly, and then the door began to twist open,
moving smoothly on unseen gears. They crowded
around the entrance.
  A driving, icy rain began to fan from a sky that
had been clear and warm minutes before. Even so, the
tunnel revealed was anything but inviting, dark as the
pit and just as empty.
  Kirk looked around at the rest of them, hunching his
shoulders against the pelting rain. "We could rest here
awhile."
  STAR TREK L tilde Fig 181
  tilde No," objected Lara firmly.
"We've come this far without stopping. If I sit
down and rest I don't think 1"'11 feel much like
getting up again."
  "Let's finish it," Sord snorted, "or
give this deadfall a chance to finish us." He
grinned, displaying a wicked set of customised
cutlery.
  "I too, would prefer to press on, Captain,"
admitted Spock. "There may be other
mechanicals on guard. We still have the advantage
of some surprise, I think. The faster we move the
more off-balance any enemy will be. He will be forced
to improvise instead of prepare."
  "All Aght, that's what I want, too. But this
is nominally a democratic expedition," Kirk
told them, matching Sord's grin in spirit if not in
flash. Turning, he led the way into the cube.
  Spock and Kirk both had belt lights, which they
used to advantage. No automatic lights
brightened Heir way, but neither were they challenged
by cousins of the metal gargoyles.
  After a short jog, they reached a spot where the
tunnel opened into a vast open space. Spock
turned his light on each of them in turn as
Kirk took a brief roll call. No one had
disappeared through a hidden door.
  Man and Vulcan increased the intensity of their
beams, playing them around the interior. They stood in
one immense open space which the two lights could
barely illuminate. The walls were a mirror of the
outside. They had a slick look, possibly
due to internal condensation, and were devoid of markings
or features of any kind.
  Which starkness made the discovery of the soul all the more
dramatic.
  Spock's beam flashed on something overhead. The
science officer searched carefully with the
light[*thorngg'and then he had it. A
scintillating lacework of three golden mobius
strips floating in free air. It was
beautiful[*thorngg'b to the little knot of beings below,
hardly awesome enough to inspire
  fanatical devotion in an entire race. The knowledge
of that power, however, outshone any physical
trappings and gave it impressiveness to spare.
  "Pretty bauble," Sord ventured, breaking the
silence, "but how do we reach it?"
  182 srbledR TRIMOG rive
  By way of reply, Spock turned his
light on the wall behind them, played the beam up,
down and sideways on it. He ran his palm over
the metal.
  "Unusual alloy[*thorngg'x would take a
warfleet to penetrate this. Using the door was
  preferable[*thorngg'the Vedalan way. There is
not the slightest indentation, nothing that would permit
climbing. A remarkable piece of engineering,
executed with devotion and care."
  "Y'm sure the builders would be flattered,"
Kirk snapped drily. "How do we get up? The
walls aren't climbable without special equipment,
which we don't have." He ran a bootheel along the
floor. The soft squeaking sound echoed dimly in the
va/s.
  Hither we find a way to reach it," and he nodded
in the direction of the soul, agonisingly near yet
infinitely out of touch, "or we've come all this way
for nothing."
  A vaguely familiar rumble then[*thorngg'the
sound of the door twisting back into place. It closed
with a dull boom.
  At which a pale white light began to fill the
chamber.
  Em-three-green was the first one to the
closed door. He had to hunt to find the barely
  perceptible hairline crack it formed with the wall.
  "No lock on the inside," he observed
  professionally. "4ationo evidence of pressure
easement." He looked at them helplessly. "y
can't open solid metal. We're prisoners."
  "So we are," Kirk agreed. Spock turned
to stare at the captain- in confusion. His response
wasn't quite what he expected.
  "You don't seem very surprised, Captain."
Kirk was wallang back toward the now well-lit
  chamber, examining the walls thoughtfully.
  "Three previous expeditions tried to recover the
soul and were lost. Admittedly, this world is
unrelentingly hostile[*thorngg'b any forewarned
team prepared as we were should have been able to survive as
we have." He surveyed the room.
  "I see no bones or anything else. No
sign of the previous expeditions. Their remains should
be here if they
  srbled's Tropic LOG Pave 183
  got this far. That not one of them did so I find
too hard to believe."'7
  "You are suggesting, then, Captain . . . r,
  "I'm suggesting nothing,
Spock[*thorngg'yet. Only that we've been
luckier than we think, so far." He turned from
Spock's inquiring stare to look back up at the
soul.
  "Still, we've no evidence anyone else did
make it this far." He lowered his gaze and pointed.
"Look there, on the far watl."
  The ledge divas barely a meter and a half
wide and the same color and composition as the walls.
It curled gently around the interior of the building,
circling upward. It wasn't surprising the ledge
had escaped Spock's probing beam. Without the
interior iltumination that had come on at the door's
closing, they might never have spotted it.
  They approached the ledge. It started two meters
up. Fir right-brace took a short run, leaped,
grabbed the edge and started to muscle himself onto it.
  A second later he fairly exploded
upward. Getting his balance, he looked backward
as Sord let out one of his now familiar rumbling
laughs. Their reptilian strongman handed Spock
up, then Lara and, despite frantic protests,
Em-three-green.
  "I'm terribly afraid of heights," the
picktock sniffled, hugging the wall and
shaking
  "You are terribly afraid of everything,
Em-three- green," Spock commented. "There is no
need to constantty apologize for your natural
condition."
  "I'm not apologising!"" Em-three-green
shot back defiantly; then he sank in on himself
in embarrassment. PI-,SE forgive me for yelling,
but . . ."
  "Later," Kirk instructed him. He stared across
at their massive companion, but Sord stepped
back, shaking his shovel-like head.
  "No, I'm not built for that sort of thing."
Kirk kicked at the metal ledge with one boot.
  "lot hold you, Sord. It's an extrusion of the
wall it
  But Sord replied reluctantly, "Maybe
it'll hold me. No, you'd better go on without
me. I'd crowd you and
  184 STAR TREK L tilde Fig
  Ed look funny walking on tiptoes. rll
wait for you down here."
  They climbed slowly and patiently. The ledge
wasn't dangerously narrow, but neither was it the broad
boulevard Kirk wished for, and there was no
railing.
  It was remarkable, he reflected, how one could
float in a suit, free and weightless, outside the
Enterprise and feel perfectly calm and relaxed,
and still grow nauseated and dizzy on a climb like this.
  He stared up and out at the object of their search.
The ledge reached out a thin tentacle of itself, but
stopped short of the soul. What they would do when they
reached that point he didn't know.
  He felt himself shaking[*thorngg'andthe cause was
external.
  "Hug the ledge!" Spock yelled. The four of
them dropped net, trying to dig nails and toes
into the unyielding metal. The quake stopped, then
came on again stronger. But there was more bluster than
threat in the tremor. There was no sign of the walls
coming down or of the ledge collapsing beneath them.
  "tilde We already know this world is geologically
perverse," Spock commented, rising to his fqet.
"It would be illogical for this edifice to be built
without keeping that information in mind. Most likely it
is mounted on flexible supports which absorb most
of the violence of the quakes."
  "That's what I need right now," muttered
Em-threegreen.
  Kirk was tempted to add that the picklock shook
even when the earth didn't. He quickly quashed the
thought, which was undiplomatic and unworthy of a leader.
  It was just that, as they drew nearer and nearer their
objective, his built-in warning system was winding
tighter and tighter. They couldn't simply reach out and
pluck it[*thorngg'they couldn't! Someone had gone
to an incredible amount of trouble to build this supersafe
on this unholy world. To believe they could get this
close without additional opposition was naive in the
extreme.
  The ledge turned a sharp corner and narrowed
considerably. Sord could never have negotiated it.
They had to turn sideways, backs against the wall,
and edge
  STAR IBM LOG Pa 185
  across carefully. Then it was up, up, mounting ever
higher[*thorngg'until they reached a point where the
ledge broadened to a stop, from which a long, narrow arch
extended out toward the floating soul.
  They needed a respectable hunk of nerve to walk
out onto that thin projection, and even more to look down
the dizzying drop to the floor below. Em-three green
huddled close to Lara and
  concentrated trig full attention on
remaining in the precise confer of the platform.
  The metallic protrusion ended a couple of
meters from the souLike "Close," Em-three-green
groaned, "so closet"
  Lara was enwinding a length of cord from her belt.
Maybe I can get a line on it."
  Spock restrained her.
  "We have no idea what kind of force field may
surround it. Best to wait and save direct contact
as a final option."
  They hardly had time to discuss other possible means
of retrieving the soul when a violent cnanp sounded
behind them. Everyone ducked
  instinctively, but the blast was not repeated.
  Kirk looked back the way they had come and saw
that a wide section of ledge had vanished. Smoke
still rose from the edges of seared metal. They were
marooned on the platform.
  That it had taken this long for their tormentor to show
himself was all that surprised Kirk. But the motives
of the mad are obscure and difficult to analyze.
Kirk stared up into the far reaches of the fortress. They
were t tilde ro-thirds of the way up[*thorngg'f
where he saw that near the roof the walls were not
entirely unmarred. Instead, they were pocked
with carved images, crevices, small craters and
tiny dark tunnels.
  "A told you there had to be something watching,
protecting here besides just a locked door. There had
to be something besides reliance on freakish weather and the
occasional earthquake. There had to be something besides this
superegomaniacal metal box. Something more
subtle, something even the Vedala couldn't defend
against."
  "Which would be what, CaptainThat" Spock
inquired.
  186 STAR TREK LOG PI
  Kirk's reply was tinged with sarcasm.
  "A worm in the apple, Mr. Spock. A
  monkeywrench in the works, an activated
  positron in the dilithium, a rottenness in
Denmark." He shook a challenging fist at the vast
expanse of the roof.
  "I know who you arel" he shouted, his eyes
searching, hunting. Who could have placed the soul in a
restraining field here, three hundred meters up in
open air? Who would think to build this travesty of a
holy temple as a monument to annihilation? Who,
but the Skorr themselves?
  "Show yourself, Tchar! The masquerade is
over[*thorn] take your bow."
  Nothing happened for several seconds. Then the
prince of the Skorr dropped from an as yet
undetected hiding place. He dove toward them and
spread batlike wings at the last moment, braking
to hover on the other side of the soul. Laughing,
whistling, jabbing accusing fingers at them tilde ocking
civilisation, and WO-RShall
  "Tohar," Lara muttered wonderingly, "in the
name of the seven gods of the hunt, why did you do this?
You and your little clique of militarists?"
  Kirk shook his head sadly, tiredly. "It
seems history is doomed to repeat itself even across
racial and spatial borders. It's not a little
fascinating, and not a little sad. You and your
accomplices would start a meaningless crusade of
blood across the Galaxy, initiate the murder of
your people and other innocents[*thorngg'for what, for
what? Tell us why, Tchar."
  "The Skorr were a warrior race!" Tchar
  shrilled, whirling about in anger. "Slaves to the
illusion of peace are we now[*thorngg'cowards,
grown soft through the comforts of trade and weak by mental
miscegenation." He yes" lured at the soul.
  "This sick dream," he spat, "stole
our souls, it did not heal them!" Now a hint of the
fanatic's pride crept into his voice. "But
there were a few of us high ones, a very few, who
revere wise enough to perceive this gigantic illusion which
had sapped our racial determluation and courage.
  "We planned the theft, and none stopped us. None
  ll stop us! There will be no time for another expedi
  STAR TUBE I.og PIVB 187
  tion before fury returns my people to glorious
tradition. I, myself, came along to insure this. I
alone saw the need, when I was told who would
participate. And I was right[*thorngg'I was
needed.
  "I, Tchar, hereditary prince, waster of mine
enemies, drinker of blood[*thorngg'I will lead
my people into glory and revenge!"
  4'At best you can win only a Pyrrhic
victory," Spock replied calmly, not in the
least impressed by the sturm-und-drang speech of
Tchar. "Most, if not all of your warriors will
eventually be tracked down and lulled. The Skorr
homeworlds will be scoured clean of life when the
warrior races of the Federation rise to do battle with
you[*thorngg'z will the empires of the Klingons, and
Romulans, and Also the others."
  "Perhaps," Tchar admitted, in defiance of
Spock's logic. "A noble death risked to van a
great dream."
  He shook angry talons at them.
  "But no longer will we live like worms, crawling
in the dirt. We will rise and conquer. You will be the
fourth group sacrificed to the cause. But you have my
respect only you came this far. Only you
necessitated my personal intervention. You will die
in grace, as befits the enemies of a hereditary
prince."
  "Tchar, wait!" Lara called, too late. The
Skorr had already wheeled up to disappear back into the
dark places of the ceiling.
  Far, far below a massive figure watched and
tried to understand. Sord could tell something had gone
wrong, but the sound from above dissipated in the vast
expanse of the chamber. He had seen the ledge cut,
of course, but there was nothing to be seen from below that could
tie Tchar to the sabotage. Massive thoughts were
considered and discarded as he tried to make sense of
what had happened.
  Lara had walked to the very edge of the precipice and
stared calmly over. "Absolutely unclimbable,
as Mr. Spock said. She shook her head
disparagingly. "We'd bounce awful high."
  As if to confirm her words, she suddenly drifted
upward, followed by the others. Em-three-green
spun frantically, clawing for a foothold.
  . .
  188 STAR TREK L tilde PI
  "I believe this renders the problem academic,"
Spock declared.
  "Gravity neutralizer[*thorngg'the
building's equipped with null gravity," Kirk
explained tightly.
  "It may be part of the edifice's own
  components," Spock added, spreading arms and
legs and trying to keep relatively motionless. "It
would surely explain how this structure has been
able to survive the multitude of tremors and other
natural disasters that must have struck this spot."
  Kirk found himself spinning despite his best
efforts. Below, Sord found himself drifting, too, but
had reacted more rapidly than any of them. He'd
kicked out at the last instant, struck the 900r a
titanic blow, and sent himself sailing upward. His
aim had been excellent. Reaching out, he had
gotten a solid grip on the projecting ledge,
pulled himself atop it, and was now the only
one not floating free.
  Somewhere nearby, Tchar was whistling
  amusedly at them. Kirk struggled to orient
himself, finally located the teasing, darting birdman.
  "Now you can fly and fight as a
Skorr[*thorngg'a worthy way to die, is it
not7"
  Kirk started to reply, but was interrupted
by Sord. "No oflfense, little one, but let me have
him." He slapped his chest with one paw, a blow that
would have buckled the wall of a starship. But there was more
to this situation than bulk and strength. Tchar would cut
the clumsy Sord to pieces before the reptile could
get a grip on him.
  "No, Sord, not in free fall."
  "Use your phaser on him, quickly!"
  Em-three-green suggested nervously.
  "Yes, Captain Kirk," the voice of Tchar
mocked, "use your phaser on me."
  An invitation to destruction, Kirk knew. Tchar
wanted them to fight him as a Skorr, so he could
reassert his madman's version of Skorrian
bushido. That meant hand-to-hand combat. No modern
accouterments like hand phasers.
  If this structure was equipped with
electronics as sophisticated as a gravity
neutralizer, he had no doubt
  STAR TREK L tilde Fig 189
  there was something trained on them this very minute capable
of canceling out their
  phasers[*thorngg'perh even keying on their
energy cells. To fire one might cause it to blow
up in one's face.
  "It must be on his terms," he told
  Em-three-green.
  They might work this to their advantage. If they
expressed a reluctance to fight, Tchar could
probably dispose of them from a convenient distance.
Instead he chose personal combat. His controlling
phobia demanded he kill them
  personally.
  "Spock, how long since you've done zero-gee
combat exercises?"
  "I subscribe to the prescribed dosage,
Captain."
  That told him Spock was up on technique,
without teeing Tchar any more than was
  necessary. Let him interpret that as he might.
  "Well," he shouted to Tchar, steeling himself,
"what are you waiting for?"
  Tchar was hard put to restrain his laughter. "You
are turning slow circles, Captain Kirk, with
no sign of tilde topping. A most
disadvantageous tactical position."
  Tchar was right. Before they could do any maneuvering of
any kind they needed a firmer purchase than thin
air. Tchar didn't want the kill to be too
easy, then. Worse for him.
  "Lara, throw your line to Sord." The huntress
nodded. Uncoiling the line and wrapping one end around
her right wrist, she tossed the gently weighted other
end towards the braced and ready Sord.
  The action sent her spinning, but Sord caught the
loop easily and puBed her in. While he
braced her she reeled in Em-three-green,
Kirk, and Spock.
  "Very good, Captain, very good!" Tchar
  applauded mockingly. Kirk thought he detected
the gleam of insanity in the Skorr's eyes even at
this distance. He was working himself up good and proper.
  So much the better. "If we can get him to lose
control of himself, Spock, get him to stop thinking .
. ."
  "An admirable objective, Captain,"
Spock whispered back. "Should T have a
choice,
  however, I believe I would opt for a fast kick
to the jugular."
  Kirk smiled grimly.
  19OSTAR TREK L tilde Fig
  "Let's go, then."
  Bracing himself, Kirk drew an imaginary line
and kicked free of the platform. Spock did
likewise, kicking harder. Thus he reached the
fareawall first and pushed off again to approach Tchar from
the other side.
  Tchar whistled, charged straight at Kirk.
Obviously he intended to deal with them one at a time.
He had plenty of time to bleed Kirk, turn, and
deal with Spock.
  Kirk had aimed for the soul. It was the only cover
of any kind available in the dangerously open
space. The maneuver generated only
  contempt in Skorr's eyes. He'd expected
better than a desperate dash for the soul.
  Talons extended, he headed for Kirk's
face. The human's soft hands worried tilde him
not at an. Kirk first, then the Vulcan, then the
others at his leisure. The large stupid reptile
would take many cuts to die.
Em-threegreen he would save for last. It would be
interesting to see if he could frighten him to death
  But first[*thorngg'the human.
  Wings beating to his sides, forelimbs
  extended[*thorngg'then Kirk moved. Tchar
momentarily lost his poise and tried to change his
angle of approach.
  At the last possible second, Kirk had
curled into a tight spinning ban. When he came out
of it it was with both legs tucked tight into his chest.
He extended them just in time to meet Tchar's
midsection.
  One claw struck home[*thorngg'only
to glance
  harmlessb off the thick sole of Kirk's boot.
But the unblocked leg drove deeply into the
Skorr's stomach.
  As he tumbled awkwardly from the blow,
  screaming in pain and rage, the hereditary prince
of the Skorr was met from behind by the late arriving
Spock. Too late, Tchar sensed he had been
duped, that the timing of the two bipeds had been
planned to bring about just this situation.
  He'd committed a terrible
  error[*thorngg'underestimating his
opponents. Now the Vulcan had a grip on both
arms and despite his best efforts, Tchar couldn't
dislodge him from his back.
  Kirk had continued on to the soul, met the
expected force-field and used it to kick back
toward Tchar. But
  STAR TRBIC LOG FIVB 191
  this time Tchar was ready for the tumble-and-kick and he
twisted away, slashing out with a clawed leg.
  Kirk wrenched aside and the claw ripped down his
front, drawing a little blood. Straining, the
Skorr managed to fight his way over to the force
field. A couple of rough jolts against it were enough
to knock Spock loose. Furious, Tchar turned
to rend the Vulcan.
  But Spock was far from incapacitated. Although he
had been shaken off, he had managed to get a grip
on the outline of the force field. Now he used it as
a barrier between himself and Tchar.
  By then Kirk had struck the far wall, kicked
off, and was coming back for more. Tchar spotted him at the
last instant,, but by now he had had about enough: this
exercise had been interesting and instructive, but it
had taken rather too much time. Instead of turning to meet
Kirk's charge he strove for altitude.
  "Very good," he called down to the two men bobbing
near the soul. "Surprisingly good. But it was you,
Captain Kirk, who called for an end
to masquerades. Now this too, must end.
  Folding his wings, he dropped like a stone toward
Kirk. Sord, 13m-three-green and Lara
watched, worried. Kirk was drifting free.
I3ven if he reached the forcefield around the soul,
Tchar's power dive would drive curved talons right
through him.
  Kirk reached the soul, got a grip on its
edge. Tchar screamed in triumph just as Kirk
turned. Both sets of claws slammed
into Kirk's
  backpack[*thorngg'and stuck.
  The force of the blow had almost knocked Kirk off the
field[*thorngg'alm. Then, as Tchar screamed in
frustration, Spock crawled carefully round and got
a grip on the Skorr's wings.
  They made contact with the soul and contact with the thief.
Now was the time. -- "Lara, call for retrieval!"
  'ationo!" Tchar shrieked desperately. Kirk
had sock Deeded in his aim, making the Skorr
forget everything but the fury of battle. They had to have
him pinned before they issued that
  irreversible call. Had to, because there was a
button on Tchar's belt, a button he now
fought vainly to reach, a button which undoubt
  192 STAR TR8," LOG P'VB
  edly controlled the gravity neutraliser and in an
emer- gency could have sent them an tumbling to the metal
floor where, as Lara had predicted, they would have
bounce very high indeed.
  But Lara could now throw the switch on her pack
without fear of that.
  A faint smell of ozone was in evidence as the
air around them crackled. They had only one
remaining fear[*thorngg'cd the Vedala
retrieval field penetrate the force-field
holding the soul of Alar? Or would it retrieve
only them?
  Or would the force-field interfere with the retrieval
field and leave them all drifting in limbo?
  He speculated on it as his vision began
to fade, as Tchar's wrenching cry of, "Let me
diet" echoed in 08 ears.
  No Tchar, Tchar of the soaring wings and mad dream,
you're coming back with us tilde though I trub wish
that I could grant your wish . . .
  Running water played counterpoint to the
wind in the grass. Kirk felt a warm breeze
on his face and smelled the smell of green things
growing. He looked down at himself.
  There were no scratches on his arm, no gash in his
chest where Tchar's claws had struck. They were stand-
ing in a familiar glade, back on the Vedala
asteroid.
  Baring unabashed stares of astonishment, they stood
as they had stood days ago[*thorngg'rested,
clean, refreshed[*thorn] before the expedition had
begun. Had he dreamed it an[*thorngg'had the
quest only taken place in their minds? Or, he
thought as he turned to face the small, confident
figure standing in the glade's center, had it all
been simply an elaborate display of some
strangely Vedalan sense of humor?
  "We give you thanks," the Vedala intoned
solemnly. He moved aside to reveal a
triplet of moblus strips, glowing golden against the
greensward. "The soul of Alar is returned to his
people. There will be no iihad!"
  He gestured and the soul vanished. Presumably
it was already well on its way to the central Skorr
home

  STAR TREE 193
  world[*thorngg'along with a recommended list of
  precautions to prevent any future theft.
  "What about Tchar?" Kirk asked. "How are you
going to cleat with him?"
  Another gesture and they saw Tchar, arms and wings
bound, sneering at unseen tormentors.
  "The hereditary prince is proud and brave and
has many useful qualities. We win make a
small adjustment in his personality. You would argue
the morality of this, Captain Kirk, as is the
peculiarity of your race[*thorn] but you will not
argue its efficacy.. He will be made sane again."
The picture of the bound Tchar faded.
  "We cannot reward you with other than our thanks and the
knowledge of what you have prevented. Nor can the Skorr, for
this must remain hidden from them. Tchar's
co-perpetrators will be found out and dealt with, without
subjecting their people to racial shock. The Skorr must
never suspect that this monstrousness was engineered By some
of their own, or they would engage in a vicious,
useless witch-hunt for more blasphemers."
  "Oh well," Sord rumbled airily, "got
nowhere to wear a medal anyway."
  "There will be questions," Spock remarked.
  The Vedala smiled softly at the Vulcan.
"You win see, there win be no questions. Goodbye . .
."
  The Vedala began to dissolve.
  Lara moved over to stand next to Kirk.
  "Goodbye, James. It's too
bed[*thorngg'we almost could have . . ."
  Her voice faded and became inaudible as Kirks
vision began to blur once more.
  Scott and Sulu were in the transporter room
when Spock and Kirk rematerialized. And
  although Kirk was glad to see them, he noticed
something about their expressions.
  "Captain" Mr. Spock," Sulu began
anxiously, "what went wrong?"
  Kirk took a moment to look down at himself,
saw nothing wrong, glanced over at Spock.
Everything seemed perfectly normal
here[*thorngg'except Sulu and Scott's
attitude..
  194 STAR TREE WG P tilde
  "What do you mean, Mr. Sulu?"
  "You went over and came right back," Scott
ex- plained. "Mid the Vedala call this off,
give you orders, or what?"
  "Now wait a minute, what[*thorn]"
  Spock made a gesture indicating silence.
  "How long have we been gone, Mr. Sulu?"
Spock inquired.
  Sulu shrugged. "About two minutes, maybe
three, I guess. Just enough time for me to get down here
after you beamed dirtwards."
  A great deal passed between Kirk and Spock in a
single look.
  "The Vedala changed their minds," the captain said
briskly, stepping off the transporter platform.
"They needed some fast advice and we answered their
one question. Back to your stations, now. This was just a
momentary detour, a sidestep. Mr. Spock . .
."
  "Yes, Captain?"
  "Y'm going to my cabin to make the official
log entry. I'll see you on the Bridge."
  "Very good, Captain." Spock started for the
elevator.
  "Oh, and Spock . . ."
  "Sir?" Spock turned and waited.
  "When you get there, instruct Uhura to contact the
nearest StarReet base for orders. Maybe this time
they can find something a little more interesting for us
to do."
  "Intereshng, Captain?" Spock threw back
his head in surprise as Kirk walked up beside him.
"It is interesting ... to learn that understatement is not
the exclusive province of Vulcans."
  The doors closed behind them.
  Scott leaned against the transporter console
while Sulu stared in confusion after the two departed
commanding officers.
  "Now what do you suppose all that was about?" the
helmsman wondered out loud. Scott smiled.
  "It's verra simple, Mr. Sulu. Easy
to understand when you've been around the captain and Mr.
Spock
  STAR TREK tilde tilde Fig 195
  as long as I have. See, they're both crazy.
Only the captain tries to fool us into thinkin"
it's a cover, and Mr. Spock is too polite
to admit to it."
  Scott let out a long breath, moved away from the
console.
  "Well, you heard the orders. I suggest you get
back to the Bridge. Me, I'm gain' back
to Engineerin' and my engines. At least they're not
loonie. It's easy to stay sane back
there," he finished as he stepped into the elevator.
"Because when anythin' goes wrong with them, I can always
call on the little people to come and fix "em."
  The lift doors closed.
  Sulu stared at them for a long moment, then muttered
something no one was there to hear. It didn't
matter[*thorngg'mankind had heard it before, had
known it to be true since the beginning of time.
  "Everyone's crazy here but me and thee," he
sang, "and sometimes I'm not so sure about thee."
  Whistling cheerfully, he ambled toward the
elevator and the bridge beyond.
  tilde HAT BAUNTINQ. LutlAsy tilde
A LEAD tilde BBAIN SURGEON tilde
4t." MEL BROOKS
  IN 3 equals YL tilde ANIA? tilde
[*thorn] [ILM tilde
  1l tilde 3 H
  A NOVEL BY GILBBRT PEARLMAN
BASED ON THE SGREENPLAY BY GENE
WII.BER and MEL BROOKS PLUS. 18
PAGES OF FABULOUS PHOTOS FROM THE
8MASH 20th CENY-URY-FOX MOVIEI
$1.50 . Avallablo at your heal bookstore
or mdl tho capon below .
,comcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcom . .
.his
  tilde com8AIJ tilde CAST! SALES
  W tilde P.o. Box 505,
WestmInstet, Mnryland 21157 1
  Pleas tilde e send rne the following book
bargains:
  IlUA-LLILTY NO. TITLE
AIIOUIIT I
  . 24268 Young Franbosteln 1.50 tilde .
  Ailow throe vreeks for delivery. Mall
left-brace ng and handling .50
  Please onclose check or money order.
SOTAL I
  Wo aro not rosponsiblo for orders conta tilde
ning cash. [*thorn] I 5 1Pr,S
tilde PR-MThat c
  tilde 5
  I NAMBLEH 5 I A.-KESS 5
  I CITY SSAT8 ZIP -- I
  Bi3 21/75
  SUPERB S-F I from BALLANTINE
BOOKS POLICE YOUR PLANET Lester del
Rey and Erik van Lhin S1.50 A CASE
OF CONSCIENCE James Blish $1.50
GATHER, DARKNESS! Fritz Leiber S1.50
THE BEST OF FREDERICK POHL With an
INTRODUCTION by Lester del Rey S1.75 A
GIFT FROM EARTH Larry Niven .
  S1.50 MARUNE: ALASTOR 933 Jack
Vance $1.50 THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION
OF THE YEAR bled Terry Carr, Editor
$1.50 CLOSE TO CRITICAL Hal Clement
S1.50
  . Available at your local bookstore Ot
mail the coupon below . r tilde -------------
------------ . .
  I tilde BALLANTINE CASH BALES I
W p.o. Box 505, Westminster, Maryland
21157 I PleaBe send ma tbe following book
bsrgsing: 1 I IIUANTITY NO. TITLE
AMOUNT I O 2446So Police your
Planet S1.50 tilde dis . I . 24480
A Casa of Consclence $1.s I I .
24S85 Gather, Darknessl $1 U tilde
I
  I . 24S07 The Best of Frederick
Pohl $1.75 I . 24509 A Gift From
Earth $1.50 tilde l . 24S18 Marune
tilde Alastor 933 $1.s
  . 24529 TftethBeesyteaSrCIBLENBLEDENCE
tilde 5ic52[*thorngg'tion tilde
  . 24S08 Glose to Critical $1.50
tilde I
  I Allow tbree weeks for deRvery.
Maillng sad handling .60
  I Please enclose check or money order.
TOTAL We are not responsible for orders containing
cash I left-brace PLEASE PR-NBLEDT
CLEARLY) I
  NAME I
  I ADDRESS . . distilde I
  I CITY 9TATE ZIP I
  Lcomcom . . . . . . . .
. J BB

  WINNER OFT-NOT! n -- tilde ,tilde
,AND JOHNNY LAIR
  tilde . tilde . tilde .
  tilde . . . .
  The book for all readers)
Rlehlylmaginative. .. compelling . . .
powerfully evocative of the mysterious universe. .
. inaseelon scientific fad. "dis . .
story-telling of the highest order . . .
parpe"...ual surprise . . . breothlesssuspens
tilde [*thorngg'NEW YORK SUNDAYTIMES
vi. . . tilde taut rrgrstery-suspense
storm.gg*thorngg'PUBUSHERS WEEKLY Arthur
C Clarice's first novel since 2001's A
SPACE ODYSSEY. $1.75 . Arallabb at
your local bookstore or mal the Coupon btffow .
  tilde CA -- SACS
  w no. aox 506" We tilde nstsr,
MBU1BND 2 tilde 670 I
  Pla tilde ue a tilde t me the
toLeaowlng book barge -- His
  I IlUAN-TLTLETTER NQ TmEvery .
UIIIOVI-TThat I
  O . 24175 Rendezvous with Ralea $1.75
.
  ALEAo tilde 1hree wa tilde for dell
tilde rery. Malllng and handl tilde g .60
tilde Please euclo" qheclc or money order.
.total I We aationi not raspondble for ordsra
contdulng cad tilde [*thorn] I tilde
ASB tilde NAMB. tilde diso. tilde disp.
tilde . I tilde caret tilde .
  I Cll tilde lITA-LLL . . . .
.zip
  Lcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomountilde
J BB 14176























 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
