Ice Trap

by L. A. Graf

  The doctor shrugged. "My guess is differences in physiology. That, and whatever is causing Nordstral's planetary problems is probably exacerbating whatever magnetic properties are messing with people's brains."

  "What can we do, Dr. McCoy?" the navigator asked.

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. "At the moment, nothing. But if we could get our hands on Enterprise's computer, I think I could come up with some courses of action."

  A groan shivered through the iron hull, and they all fell silent, eyes wide.

  "That's not the kraken's digestive tract, is it?" McCoy asked hopefully.

  The navigator's hands slammed the console screen and she spun her chair around. "Hit the deck! It's another quake!"

  McCoy flung himself to the floor and grabbed for the nearest purchase. This time he felt the sea drawing away from under the ship, the ship dropping into the undersea trough with a sickening lurch that left his stomach behind, the gathering of potent energy that was the tsunami. The ship groaned as the sea picked her up, and McCoy prayed that her seams would hold this second assault. Something crashed into them, or them into it, then the sea had them and they rolled completely over.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE QUAKE-SPAWNED TSUNAMI slammed the cliff face with a sound like shattering glass. One blow, three blows, sixthe ocean exhausted itself against the worn rock face, salt spray billowing across Chekov and the others in wild, breathy roars. What moisture surged up the steps around them froze to walls and floor with a hiss of brittle cracklingonly enough to make footing treacherous, not enough to soak anyone or wash them down into the water. The ground beneath them bucked a single, half-hearted spasm before stilling again.

  "Down the steps." Alion gestured impatiently, and the harpoon-wielding Kitka behind him supported the order with a sharp jab of warning. "I want your blood to spill into the water, not all over these stairs."

  Chekov hesitated, mentally calculating the distance between himself and the shaman, the likelihood of disarming either Kitka before they could turn on Ghyl or Uhura. The inside of his throat already ached from the cold, though, his lungs feeling tight and too small. Even a short fight without his breath filter could prove disastrous.

  As if reading his thoughts, Uhura tugged at his parka hem in an effort to bring him down to her level. "No," she whispered over their private communicator channel. "He'll poison you, and we don't have any more antitoxin."

  Alion leveled a chilling scowl on Chekov. "I'm impatient, Lieutenant Chekov. Start moving."

  The oceanside ledge ran barely wide enough to hold them all, slick now with a new coating of ice, thanks to the tsunami and its resultant choppy waves. Chekov let Uhura drag him toward a corner far from Stehle's body, waving Howard to bring Ghyl close to them so they could keep both women between them. A futile effort, Chekov knew, but one he had to try nonetheless. There was nowhere to run on this wasted expansenot with Alion and his man outside the steps, and water below every ledge and drop-off. Bracing his back to the rocky wall, Chekov hid his shaking hands inside parka pockets and tried to keep his breathing quiet. He could at least hide his unsteadiness from Alion, for all the good that would do them.

  "You cannot kill them." Ghyl's wavering voice rose loud and shrill above the snarling waves. She stirred beside Uhura, fists clenched. "God will not take them, and the ice turns rotten with their bodies."

  Alion laughed a very human laugh at her objection. "The kraken god will learn to eat them, if we spill their human blood enough. Maybe being prey of the god will finally convince them they should leave our planet. Failing that, I only want to make sure these few never report back to their Federation about what I've been doing here."

  "We've already reported," Chekov told him, taking deep breaths to keep his voice firm and steady. "There's a shuttle on its way even now."

  Turning his knife slowly in one hand, Alion shook his head. "Liar. The company had only two shuttlesboth are now destroyed. I've paid plenty of men to sabotage Nordstral's equipment through the years. This latest crop were my best." He paced along the edge of the drop-off, occasionally glancing down at whatever lay below him. "So now you're stranded here, where only I and the kraken make the laws."

  Chekov watched the ersatz shaman drift from one end of their lineup to the other, waiting for him to sheath his knife, or turn his back, or something. Of course, he didn't. Insanity, in Chekov's experience, tended to be more irritating than helpful. "What is it you gain by killing us?" he asked, hoping to keep the Kitka talking.

  Alion shrugged. "Freedom."

  "You've got that." He wondered if it was water beyond Alion's feet. That would be convenient.

  "Not the kind of freedom I want," Alion said bitterly. "Not the freedom to grab and hold whatever power I can. No one at the equator would worship me, but among these primitive northern tribes, the knowledge and weapons I learned growing up in the cities give me power to make them believe anything I tell them to." He halted his pacing, knife clenched, trembling, in one hand. "I know god speaks to me. I know that I can rule the world, if only I can rid it of the humans who would teach Kitka to think for themselves. No matter what your Federation says, you're here to give Nordstral its independence, and that means you take power from me! I won't allow you to do that!"

  Pushing away from the cliff face, Chekov gained his feet carefully to keep from alarming Alion or his army of one. One of the other unfortunate things about insanity was that you frequently couldn't reason with it. Especially when you were half sick and barely able to stand.

  Switching off his external mike, Chekov pulled the parka's hood across his face as though to protect his breathing. Alion stayed where he'd last stopped pacing, loudly explaining his plans for ruling the northern Kitka.

  "Uhura?" Chekov whispered. "Howard?"

  "Sir?"

  "Chekov, don'tif he hears you"

  Chekov cut her off, not wanting to take up time they might be running short of. "Listen to me. They're both smaller than we are, but armed. If I distract Alion, can you two take care of his man?"

  Howard hesitated slightly, then nodded without voicing a reply. Uhura angled a goggled look up at Chekov, her hand still on Ghyl's arm while the elderly woman fingered her belt knife. "Distract him how?" she asked, unhappy.

  Chekov didn't worry about a verbal reply. Dashing forward in the midst of Alion's speaking, he dove low for the shaman's middle, knowing he might not have the strength to tackle him otherwise. God, I hope it's water! he thought again as his shoulder plowed into Alion and overbalanced them both.

  Then, driven onward by the force of both their weights, they plunged over the drop-off into whatever waited below.

  Soroya ended her travails upright and slowly oozing water. Emergency lighting bathed the interior a lurid orange-red and a klaxon shrieked.

  "Turn off that damned thing!" Kirk ordered close by McCoy's ear, and the sound cut off. The doctor realized he was pinned under his captain and a female crewman. He shifted as Kirk got up, and the crewman rolled aside to free his legs.

  "Sorry, Dr. McCoy."

  "Under different circumstances, my dear, the pleasure would be all mine." McCoy slowly got to his knees, then stood. He felt battered over every inch of his body. "Jim?"

  "Come here, Bones." Kirk was across the bridge, he and Nuie on their knees beside the navigator's sprawled form.

  McCoy knew by the angle of her head, even before he touched her, that she was dead. For benefit of the others, he snaked a hand beneath her skull and felt along the neck. "Hangman's fracture," he muttered.

  "What?"

  "She must have hit her head. Her spine's severed at the second cervical vertebra. I'm sorry, Nuie."

  The Kitka bowed deeply, touching his forehead to the cooling skin of the navigator's face. He remained that way a moment, then straightened. Tears dampened the sides of his nose.

  God, I want to getout of here. McCoy looked around. "Jim?"

  Kirk was busy with each of the crew, helping them to their f
eet, making certain they were all right, that there were no other deaths, no life-threatening injuries. He stood in the center of the bridge, hair awry, sweater hanging in tatters. Bathed in flashing color the shade of a desert sunset, he looked like nothing so much as a barbarian warrior out of history, bathed in the blood of his enemies. Only now his enemy was nothing he could touch, and McCoy knew from experience that Kirk didn't like those kinds of odds.

  "Let's assess our damages." Kirk's voice was hoarse with strain. "Get someone out to check the rest of the ship. The rest of you, stop the flow in here if you can. Slow it down, at least." He staggered and dropped into a chair.

  McCoy was instantly at his side, one hand stealing around his captain's wrist. Kirk shook him off irritably. "Don't mother me, Bones, I don't have time for it!" He shook his head, eyes clearing.

  Only a fool or the inexperienced ever argued when that tone came into Jim Kirk's voice. McCoy subsided, eyes watchful, and wished he had his medikit on the bridge. Funny to think of it still back in the wardroom. For all he knew, it was underwater by now.

  "Looks as though someone else sustained damages, Captain." One of the crew nodded toward the viewscreen and reached to twist a knob and fight the picture into better focus.

  The kraken floated before them and off to starboard. She hung in the water like a bird suspended in flight, but this bird was wounded. A long rift had opened in her abdomen. Gouts of bright blood jetted out of the cut and stained the water like vermilion blooms.

  A cry welled from Nuie and the kraken shifted as though she heard. His eyes were stark with pain, their iridescent color even odder in the red light. McCoy touched him, but the first mate didn't respond.

  "Captain!" A crewman's cry tore everyone's eyes, except Nuie's, from the wounded animal. He straddled one chair, a comm link pressed tightly to his ear. "A call coming in! It's it's the Enterprise!"

  Uhura staggered back, sent sliding by the force of Chekov's lunge for the Kitka shaman. She watched in horror as the two men toppled over the rim of the ice-coated ledge, her breath catching as she waited for the fatal splash of water that would follow. It never came. Instead, she heard the painful thud of bodies hitting ice, then the yammer of a nearby Kitka wail.

  "Howard!" With a start, Uhura recollected the second Kitka they were supposed to be taking care of. She spun around to see the security guard circling the armed native, arms lifted defensively as he tried to avoid the threatening harpoon. Ghyl crouched on the ice beyond them, looking down over the edge where Chekov had vanished.

  An idea hit Uhura and she tapped at her communicator controls swiftly. "Tactical surprise, Mr. Howard," she warned across their insulation suit channel.

  "Aye, sir." Howard paused briefly in his circling, and Uhura dialed the volume of her communicator up to feed the output directly to her external mike. With an intensity that startled even her, a shrieking wail of auroral interference shattered the arctic silence. It sounded like a cavalry troop of Kitka coming over the horizon. The white-feathered native yowled in shock, swinging around to see where the noise was coming from. His dark-tipped harpoon moved away from Howard for an instant, and the watchful security guard sprang. A moment later the Kitka lay sprawled and disarmed on the ice.

  Howard straightened up with the harpoon in his hand, breath puffing around his filter. "Sir!" He waved the harpoon, and Uhura skidded across to him to get it. "Go help the chief! I'll get this guy tied up."

  "All right." Uhura took the bone-carved weapon in a careful grip, aware of the deadly stain of kraken venom glistening at its tip. She turned and ran for the place where Chekov and Alion had disappeared, passing Ghyl's small wind-ruffled figure as she went. The Kitka woman lifted her knife, but Uhura waved it aside as she rushed past. "It's all rightI've got a weapon." Instead, Ghyl took up a steady, keening ululation at Uhura's back.

  Uhura skidded to a halt at the far edge of the ledge, dark rock dropping down to a wave-lapped platform of crystalline green ice. Two fur-clad bodies struggled on that treacherous surface, one dark and silent, one white and spitting Kitka curses. Their breath grunted out in white explosions as they heaved and staggered across the narrow rock shelf. With a gasp, Uhura saw that Chekov was doggedly pushing the shaman toward the sea, ignoring the battering of blows Alion rained against his bent head and shoulders. The security officer's strategy was clear: he meant to knock them both into the freezing ocean water.

  "No!" Uhura flung herself recklessly down the sheer rock face, boots slipping on its solid glaze of ice. She hit the bottom hard. Her breath slammed out of her lungs and left her gasping, but Uhura tried to scramble to her feet anyway. Her left knee spasmed into fire-hot protest with the motion, and she fell back onto the ice with a cry of pain.

  The sound of her arrival must have jarred the fighters apart. Uhura looked up, slitting her eyes against the dazzle of pain-sparked tears, just in time to see Alion's pale bulk looming over her. The shaman didn't waste any time with words. He pulled the harpoon out of her fingers with a savage yank, then turned and swung at Chekov.

  "Spock!" Kirk's face was graced with the smile McCoy hadn't been certain he'd ever see again. "Patch him through."

  McCoy cut Kirk off before he could speak: "Well, they say bad news comes in threes. First we have a kraken, then a tsunami, and now you, Spock."

  "Greetings, Dr. McCoy." The Vulcan sounded as dry and droll as ever. If he'd been there, McCoy would have hugged him, past history be damned. "It is good to hear your voice, as well."

  "Spock? This is Kirk."

  "I'm gratified to learn you're still alive, Captain. Commander Scott has completed the shuttle modifications you have requested and can rendezvous with your party as soon as you bring the Soroya to dock. How long do you think that will take you?"

  "I'm not sure, Spock. The Soroya's been hit by two tsunamis, and we've sustained a lot of damage. We have partial power" Kirk glanced at the pilot for her confirming nod"and only about six hours of oxygen left. Right now, we don't even know where we are or how far we may have drifted off course. We're looking for open water, but if we don't find it, we're going to be trapped under the ice. There's no way we can break through."

  "Unfortunately, the Enterprise cannot help with that. Her sensors will not penetrate Nordstral's magnetic field sufficiently to allow me to locate your position. We can only track you so long as we maintain radio contact."

  "Which," Kirk sighed, glancing grimly at McCoy, "we already know is sporadic. What about the rescue team? Any luck in contacting them?"

  "Yes, sir. Lieutenant Chekov, Lieutenant Commander Uhura, and Ensign Howard have survived an attack by the Kitka. They report seeing Nordstral personnel murdered by one of the Kitka's shamans, and there is evidence that the crew of the initial shuttle were murdered as well. According to Lieutenant Commander Uhura, this Kitka shaman has been 'feeding' Nordstral staff to the ocean in some sort of native ritual."

  The hiss of air drawn through clenched teeth drew McCoy's eyes to Nuie's face. The Kitka stood rigidly over the navigator's sprawled body, fists clenched at his sides and an expression in his eyes which McCoy could not divine.

  Kirk scrubbed at his forehead, frowning thoughtfully. "Why the hell would the Kitka do that? All the reports I've seen indicate they're completely peaceable."

  "I am not certain that the ritual itself is a warlike act, Captain. Dr. Stehle's files on the magnetic biota indicate that, given the strength of Nordstral's magnetic field, their growth potential is limited only by the presence of basic amino phosphatic nutrients." Spock's voice took on the faintly abstracted tone McCoy always associated with the Vulcan's most impressive deductions. "Due to the Kitka's protein-rich diet, these nutrients tend to become concentrated in their bodies. Were they all to die on the glacial ice and remain frozen there, the sea would become barren within a few thousand years. Apparently the Kitka have come to somehow understand that, and have evolved this system to keep the planet's ecosystem in balance."

  McCoy's eyes widened as he g
lanced at Nuie. "So that's what you were trying to do when the lab flooded"

  "I was only trying to do what's right for a Kitka," Nuie said, smiling faintly. "I told you it wouldn't be good for you to feed the ocean, too."

  Soft as the exchange was, Spock must have overheard it. "Indeed it would not, Doctor. The human nutrients in your body are entirely unsuitable for maintaining Nordstral's ecologic cycle."

  "Then why are the Kitka murdering Nordstral personnel?" demanded Kirk.

  "On that point, Captain, I do not have enough data to hazard a conjecture." Spock paused. "However, I can state that the Kitka's efforts to keep their planet in balance have been completely overwhelmed by the harvesting activities of Nordstral Pharmaceuticals."

  "What's the harvesting got to do with it?" Kirk demanded.

  "The secondary magnetic component!" McCoy pounded one fist into the other, mind racing ahead of his words. "My God, it's the plankton, isn't it, Spock?"

  "No, Doctor. It is the magnetic biota."

  "Dammit, Spock, you know what I mean!"

  "Well, I don't," Kirk broke in. "Will somebody please explain this to me?"

  McCoy swung around to face him. "The plankton on Nordstral are magnetic, Jim! Spock said there was a surface component to the planet's field that was causing the poles to reverse. It's the damned plankton!"

  "Technically, Doctor, it is the absence of biota that has triggered the reversals," Spock corrected. "My computer models indicate that Nordstral's marine microorganisms exert a stabilizing effect on its internal magnetic dynamoone that must have evolved through many milennia in order to keep the planet suitable for life. Much like the Gaia hypothesis developed for Earth"

  "Spock," Kirk interrupted. "You're telling me all the tectonic problems on Nordstral have been caused by too much plankton harvesting?"

  "Indeed, Captain."

  Kirk began to pace the deck. "How long will it take the planet to recover if we stop all harvesting immediately?"