VII
One new image after another flashed across the Enterprise's bridge viewscreen as her automatic cameras and recorders scanned the world below. Panoramas alternated with sequential closeups, building a composite picture of the surface.
Basically it was a dry world, a desert planet. Seemingly endless plains of fine sand, deep as oceans in spots, were interrupted only by occasional upthrusts of naked, worn, black rock that registered amazing hardness on the ship's sensors. It would have to be, to withstand the gargantuan dust storms that must everlastingly abrade the skin of the uninhabited globe. The ship's tracking computer finally settled on a medium telescopic view of an area somewhere beneath them.
Sunset there, second sunset, with the blue-white sun already down and the reddish binary turning the sand the color of dried blood. Long shadows turned the surface the color of coal behind the few protruding spires.
The Enterprise slid inside the orbit of the planet's single, insignificant moon as Kirk activated the log.
"Ship's Log, Stardate 5514.6.
"We have located and made preliminary scan of a hitherto unidentified binary system with one marginally habitable world. Preparations are now underway for first advanced survey. Second advanced survey with actual landing party will probably not be carried out this trip, unless some unexpected new factor dictates in its favor."
And from the look of that dead, motionless surface, Kirk expected nothing in the way of startling developments. He looked up from the log mike.
"Mr. Spock, have you got those preliminary statistics ready?"
"Here, Captain." Kirk joined his first officer at the library computer. A small screen was playing back the initial probe and sensor reports from their first, fast orbit around the planet's equator. All were neatly correlated and broken down to essential components.
The Enterprise's planetary detection equipment took a world apart, reduced it to a series of figures that were taken into the library computer. There the ship's brain sorted them out, packed them together, and generally translated them into terms a well-educated Starfleet officer could comprehend.
Arex remained at the helm, keeping a close check on their position to insure that their orbit wasn't varying, while M'ress continued her search via communications equipment for any signs of intelligent life. If any such existed in the sandpit below them, they weren't very talkative. So far she'd found nothing, not even a hint of a primitive crystal set
All these bits and pieces linked up with the computer's preliminary evaluations. This was no world to nourish intelligent life.
"Parking orbit holding, Captain," said Arex over a shoulder. "All weapon's systems on defensive standby." Spock had returned to his station and was again studying the computer readouts for the latest information.
"No evidence of even a primitive society, Captain, though there are signs of standard organic forms—a normal dry-planet ecology."
"Reasonable," Kirk murmured idly, staring at the screen. They wouldn't be here terribly long, then. A subsequent expedition could study what little this world had to offer at some future date. He saw no reason to tie up the Enterprise in a painstaking study of local flora and fauna.
"Atmosphere at surface, eight hundred millibars," the science officer continued. "Gravity, one point two. Mean temperature—hot, but within Class-M limits. Seasonal fluctuation . . ."
Chapel finally lowered the crystal and returned her attention to Harry Mudd. "I'll let you know the results of my analysis. It'll be thorough, I assure you."
"But the crystal is so sensitive, my dear. However carefully executed, laboratory tests would probably destroy it. Once broken, it's completely useless. And it's the only one I have left." He smiled, and his tone became urgent.
"Why not try it out the way it's meant to be tried?"
"No," Chapel protested—weakly, he thought. "I don't think I ought . . ."
"Darlin', consider! If it does what I say it does—and it does," he paused significantly, "Spock will be yours forever. And there are no side effects, nothing to show that it wasn't the real thing."
She still hesitated, considering, and finally came to a decision. She nodded and slipped the hand phaser back onto her belt. "I just break the crystal and let the liquid sink into my skin?"
Mudd smiled. "And then touch him."
Chapel raised the crystal once again, staring into its crystalline depths, then she abruptly closed her fist on it. There was a faint, ethereal pop, like the shriek of some miniscule animal as the crystal turned to powder. The oily liquid now covered her palm.
She brought both hands together and rubbed it into them. For good measure she touched a bit of it to her cheeks. Hands and face dried rapidly as the alien substance either sank into her pores or evaporated.
Suddenly she began to sway dizzily, gasping for air, and sank quickly to the floor in a half faint.
"What is it?" she stammered, crouching on her knees and putting both hands to her head. "What's happening?"
Mudd casually stepped over the boundary of the now deactivated force-screen and bent over her. “Nothin' at all, darlin'. A temporary reaction engendered by absorbing the potion. It'll pass right away."
As he spoke, he gently took the hand phaser from her belt. A moment's further search turned up a thin strip of plastic, which he also pocketed.
Chapel struggled to get to her feet, wobbled, and had to steady herself with a hand on the deck. Her vision was starting to clear.
"Here, darlin' . . . let me give you a hand." He got an arm under hers and lifted, careful not to touch her where the liquid had been applied.
"I . . . I feel better, I think."
"Of course, didn't I tell you it would be over fast?" She was sweating and shaking her head, still slightly dazed from the strange aftereffects of the drug.
Several things were troubling her, but the fog in her mind seemed to solidify around them rather than clear. Wait a minute . . . one of them, at least, was staring back at her.
"You . . . you should be in the brig, Harry."
"Why so I should," Mudd observed amiably. He took a couple of steps backward until he was standing in the cell again. Chapel hit the force-field activator on the wall. She had to repeat the gesture, missing badly on her first try. Once again Mudd's outline wavered as the distorting field appeared between them. But now she was sure that the waver was in the field . . . not in her suddenly cleared mind.
"Why don't you, ah, go find Spock?" he suggested. "The liquid won't stay potent forever, you know."
"Yes," she muttered, then repeated more firmly, "Yes . . . I’ll do that." She headed up the corridor.
Mudd paced quietly around in his cell for several minutes, inspecting it from all angles. After he was sure the elevator had started on its way, he reached into a pocket and brought out the hand phaser. A careful adjustment of the aperture to what he estimated would be the minimum necessary setting, and he pressed the trigger.
There was a flash, the beam of energy contacted the minimal force-shield, and it winked out. Mudd grunted his satisfaction and repocketed the phaser. Smiling and whistling happily, he strolled out of the cell and headed for the elevator.
Mudd got off on a little-frequented service deck. He needed a quiet place, a temporary refuge, and the service area seemed the best place to find it.
Walking down the main corridor, he checked room after room. Anything that showed recent signs of visitation, he skipped. Likewise he bypassed any chamber containing material that might be needed for the minute-to-minute operation of the starship.
Finally, he located a near-empty storage room that also possessed an inside lock. This would do for a few hours. He did not expect to be there long.
Sitting down on a canister marked EMERGENCY LUBRICATION SUPPLY and using a big metal crate for a workbench, he took out the thin, flat strip of plastic that he had taken from a pouch at Nurse Chapel's waist. After setting it carefully on the crate, he reached for his boot. The heel clicked aside and yielde
d up a tiny packet of miniature tools.
Humming to himself and working deftly but quickly, he first erased Nurse Chapel's identifying picture from the Starfleet Identity Card. From the packet he produced a tiny, flat piece of metal about the size of his thumbnail. Slipping it delicately over the now gleaming blank space on the card, he pressed down on it with his thumb. There was a slight click.
When he let off the pressure and slid the tiny square aside, it was his own smiling visage that beamed back up at him from the card.
He put the subminiature tridee duplicator aside and started in on the card with several of the other tiny tools. It would take some time and precision work to erase all Chapel's identification and replace it with his own.
The private quarters of the Enterprise's first officer were much like their tenant—ordered, reasoned, logical. A place for everything and everything in its place. Even the art on the walls reflected a somber regularity of composition much like the man who had purchased it.
Just now that man was working at the large desk which dominated the main room. Spock was running through information being displayed on the readout screen of the desk's own computer annex. The door chime sounded once. He spoke without looking up.
"Come."
Chapel entered, moved to stand next to him. She was carrying a flat microtape cassette in one hand and several other things in her mind. All were intended for Spock.
Trying not to shake, Chapel stood patiently behind Spock while the desk computer hummed and clicked. Finally, he paused in his work, turned to look up at her.
"Yes, what is it, Nurse?"
"I brought the medical summary for the arrest report, Mr. Spock—the one you asked for?"
"Yes. Thank you, Chapel." He swiveled in his chair, reaching out for the microtape cassette. As he did so, she took a step forward and stumbled awkwardly, falling into his lap.
The startled Spock caught her reflexively. She clutched at him, managing to effect a good deal of physical contact. He looked at her uncertainly.
"Sorry, sir," she apologized, feigning surprise. She paused expectantly, still resting in his arms. Spock sat still, waiting for her to get up. When it became apparent that, for unknown reasons, she wasn't going to move, he rose himself and deposited her on her feet.
"Are you injured, or something, Nurse Chapel?" He couldn't keep the irritation out of his tone, though his expression remained neutral, as always.
"No, I'm fine," she replied, in a voice that indicated she was anything but.
Vulcans have several interesting abilities and senses that humans do not. Sensing sudden rises in blood pressure, however, was not among them.
"Are you feeling all right?" she asked hopefully.
"Perfectly normal." He picked the cassette off the desk. "I will append the summary to the report," He waited. When she didn't say thank you, good-bye, or anything else, he shrugged ever so slightly and sat back down at the annex, resuming his work.
Several minutes passed before he noticed that she was still standing behind him. Now he was concerned instead of irritated.
"Was there something else, Nurse?"
Chapel stuttered, one hand moving out to him and hurriedly pulling back. "Wouldn't . . . wouldn't you like me to . . . stay? To help you?"
"I am managing quite easily by myself, Nurse Chapel. For you to stay would be unnecessary, duplicative, and illogical. Do you not see this?"
"Yes," she whispered. Then her voice turned tight, controlled. "Yes—it'd be damn stupid, in fact." She spun on a heel and marched from the room.
For a minute Spock continued to stare after her, puzzled. Her actions seemed more than normally . . . human. Then he shook his head—no matter how long he lived and worked among humans he would never fully understand them—and returned to his work.
Chapel had some work to do, too. She ignored the casual greetings of fellow crewmembers as she moved down several corridors on her way to the brig, turning over in her mind the various indignities, both verbal and physical, she intended to subject one Harry Mudd to.
Eventually, the single security elevator deposited her in the Enterprise's security corridor. She was speaking before she reached the cell.
"All right now, Harry Mudd. You're in for it, you illegitimate, swindling . . ."
She came abreast of the cell, glared in—and came up short, gaping, No fluttering, apprehensive outline greeted her. Not even a smiling, unwavering one. The force-field barrier was truly off, and the cell itself absolutely empty.
She whirled quickly, thinking perhaps he had somehow managed to slip out and even now was preparing to jump her. Her hand went to her belt for her phaser and clutched nothing but fabric. It shifted, moved up to her head where, she was beginning to think, it might also contact nothing.
The dizzy spell—aftereffects—over quickly. She glanced down at her waist belt as if the hoped-for phaser might somehow respond to visual if not tactile identification. No luck. It wasn't there.
"Oh no," she muttered softly. Then she was running for the elevator.
SHUTTLECRAFT BAY—AUTHORIZED
PERSONNEL ONLY
Mudd examined with pleasure the boldly printed words on the door blocking his way. Then he moved to a small blank screen set in the wall to one side and stood in front of it.
Taking a deep breath, he slipped his newly modified identification card into the slot beneath the screen. If anyone in ship security decided to make a routine check on this shuttle-bay entry it would all be up for him—he didn't look even faintly like Christine Chapel. But the screen only flared once, with white light, as the automatics processed the visitor. There was a brief wait that seemed to Mudd to last only one or two millennia, then a green light winked on beneath the screen. A hum, and the door slid obediently aside. Taking the card out of the slot, Mudd released his breath and hurried through. He paused inside as the door slid shut behind him.
The shuttlecraft hangar was filled with the normal complement of offship Starfleet vehicles. There was a small, superfast scout ship, a heavily armored landing vehicle for worlds with surfaces even more inhospitable than the one rumored to be revolving beneath them, and a hovercraft for those planets with totally antagonistic surfaces, or even none at all.
There were also several light planetary atmosphere fliers, and three compact shuttlecraft themselves. He rubbed his hands together and wished he could let out with a really good bellow of laughter, but someone might have a mike open someplace. So he contented himself with the thought.
Harry Mudd, triumphant again!
He moved at a fast walk toward the waiting vessels.
Unaware that the subject of his arrest report was preparing to invalidate same, Spock had switched off the small desk computer annex and was now concluding that report, dictating into a tiny hand recorder.
". . . and appended hereto is a medical summary and evaluation of the prisoner with statement by Nurse Christine Chapel . . ." He stopped abruptly, drew a deep, startled breath.
Broke into a wide smile. It was fortunate he didn't happen to be gazing into a mirror just then. The shock might have rendered him unconscious.
He blinked, coughed. The smile vanished as abruptly as it had appeared. Facial muscles unused to the expression were protesting angrily. He cleared his throat again, resumed dictating.
"Uh . . . Nurse . . . Chapel . . . summary appen—"
Again the sharp hesitation, but this time astonished hands fluttered to his upcurved lips. He shook his head violently, then scrambled to his feet, shoving back the chair like a man suddenly possessed—which was exactly the case.
"Christine . . . Chap-el." The last syllable trailed off in a deep, heaving sigh. "Dear, lovely Christine." He sighed again, and his face contorted in horror. He stumbled into the desk, jerked away as though it had transformed itself into a monstrous, four-legged spider.
"Christine—" A sharp pain hit him, as if someone was pounding with steady rhythm on his stomach.
Chapel would have
recognized the sensation.
It ought to be fully fueled, ready for an extended mission at any time. Mudd examined the long-range scoutship lovingly. The onboard computer, a miniature of the one that ran the Enterprise, could draw on its parent machinery for information. Before anyone caught on, it should be able to give him the ship's current position, accept his fast course setting—for Ilyria, say—and put him instantly out of detector range.
Of course, the Enterprise could easily track and overtake him—if anyone noticed his departure, that is. There were steps he could take to insure that no one would. All he needed was five minutes at the scout-ship's nominal but still impressive warp-drive, and he would be over the hill and far away before—
Something hit him hard on the back of the neck. Everything went space-dark for a time, space flecked with an appreciable number of stars . . . though not of solar magnitude.
When his vision cleared, his eyes presented him with an extreme close-up view of the deck. Instinctively one hand went up and back to caress his aching neck. He grimaced when it touched. A slow heave and he rolled himself over, then almost wished he hadn't. In its own innocent way, the deck was a preferable view.
Christine Chapel, looking very unlike an angel of mercy at the moment, reached down and scooped up the hand phaser that had fallen from Harry's belt. She pointed it at an indelicate portion of his anatomy.
"I've come to collect on your guarantee, Mr. Mudd."
So close—he'd come so close! He grumbled in frustration as he climbed to his feet.
No one on the bridge happened to be scanning the shuttle bay, so Kirk, Arex, M'ress, and Scott continued to be unaware of the play being acted out below.
McCoy was at Spock's vacant library computer station, indulging himself in some minor research of a nonmedical nature. Everyone else was at his station—calm, relaxed. No one glanced up right away when the elevator doors slid back, and Spock stepped onto the bridge.
Star Trek - Log 3 Page 11