Star Trek - Log 8

by Alan Dean Foster

  "That's all so far. Lieutenant Arex is supervising information resolution. He hopes to have a more specific analysis of the data within an hour."

  "Very good, Scotty." He muttered to himself, "Northeast." Then, louder, "That's the direction of the signal we received, Mr. Scott."

  "I could transport you to the region of life-form concentration, Captain."

  "Negative to that, Scotty. We don't know that the missing crew is part of that concentration. They could be anywhere in between, and we can't risk skipping over them. We'll have to do this kilometer by kilometer. Let us know the moment Mr. Arex comes up with a determination of that reading, though. We'll continue in the plotted direction for a while longer. Kirk out."

  "Aye, Captain. Engineering out."

  Kirk put the communicator away as they carefully picked their way down the dune. They paused at the edge of the jungle, fascinated by the way the rich flora appeared to spring with supernal suddenness from the periphery of bone-dry desert.

  "I don't like it, Jim," McCoy finally ventured. "Too many unlikelihoods here. Why only the one short signal? You can argue all you want, but to me that implies something other than mechanical failure."

  "I'm not ruling out anything, Bones," Kirk replied slowly. "Their inability to respond further could be due to something we can't imagine. It does prove that at least one member of the survey team is still alive, though. Alive and alert enough to be monitoring an unexpected query."

  "Apparently alive, Captain," Spock amended. "The signal could have been sent by other than human hands."

  "There's no profit in pessimism, Mr. Spock. For the moment I choose to believe they are alive."

  They reached the edge of the stream. McCoy glanced at it briefly before kneeling to satisfy the thirst that had built up in him during the desert crossing.

  His hands had barely broken the surface of the water when Spock put a restraining hand on his shoulder. The doctor looked up, puzzled, to see Spock staring at the pool.

  "Allow me to test the water first, Dr. McCoy."

  McCoy eyed the first officer dubiously, then turned his gaze downward again and stirred the water with a finger. He shrugged. "Go ahead, Spock, but I've analyzed enough water to know a drinkable stream when I see one. You know that, too."

  "Nevertheless," Spock insisted. The readjusted tricorder was played over the surface of the rippling brook. Spock concluded the brief survey and studied the subsequent readouts, sending semaphore signals with his eyebrows.

  "Well?" an irritated McCoy finally pressed.

  "As you surmised, Doctor, the water is certainly drinkable."

  McCoy looked satisfied, if still irritated, and bent again to drink.

  "However, that is not what prompted my uncertainty," Spock concluded. McCoy looked up at him. "Captain, this water is too pure."

  McCoy grimaced and scooped up a double handful. He downed it, sipped a second and third, concluding by wiping his parched face with wet hands.

  "It tastes just fine to me, Spock."

  "Despite that, it is too pure, Doctor," Spock insisted emphatically. "Consider what that means."

  Kirk chose his words carefully. "Then what you're saying, Spock, is that it's too good to be true?"

  "I would say that evaluation is decidedly understated, Captain." Spock studied the silent wall of green as if it might disgorge a hostile alien horde at any moment.

  "Water of this purity flowing freely through thick vegetation growing on loose, loamy soil is not only unnatural, it is positively illogical. As illogical"—and he made a sweeping gesture with one arm—"as the proximity of such a rain forest as this to the desert we just crossed." He knelt and scooped up a handful of dirt.

  "Note the composition and consistency of the ground we are standing on now." He sifted it through his fingers. "Fine sand and well-worn gravel of feldspar, quartz, and mica." He stood and dropped the dirt. "It barely supports a few stunted shrubs."

  He took two steps forward. "Suddenly, I am in a region of climactic floral development, standing on soil"—and he kicked at the thick soil—"of self-evident fecundity."

  "I'm not sure I follow you, Spock," the captain commented.

  His first officer gestured all around. "Don't you see it, Captain, Dr. McCoy? It's the abruptness. There is no blending of jungle into desert, desert into jungle, or desert into thermal lowland. The borders between widely divergent ecologies are as sharp as if they had been drawn with a knife."

  "Which means what?" wondered McCoy.

  Spock drew himself up, then spoke slowly. "It is my theory that what we have seen and encountered since we've landed has been carefully manufactured and not naturally evolved. Environmental manipulation on a large scale has taken place here."

  "Terraforming," McCoy muttered. "Or Vulcanforming, or whatever . . . I see. A process which implies the presence of highly intelligent life forms." Suddenly he found himself staring at the green ramparts with nervous expectancy.

  Kirk rubbed at his dry chin. "Reasonable as far as it goes, Mr. Spock. But Terraforming usually follows a consistent pattern." He kicked at the ground, sending yellow sand to stain the dark earth of the forest. "On the strength of your own observations, this hardly seems consistent."

  "It does appear to be almost random choice, Captain. Unless, of course, the randomness is the pattern."

  McCoy sighed resignedly. "Spock, don't you ever say anything straight out?"

  Spock turned a blank stare on him. "I thought I just did, Doctor."

  "Gentlemen, please," Kirk pleaded, "not now. We have work to do."

  A short march parallel to the lush greenery brought them to a path that charged in lazy curves deep into the forest. It might have been worn by the passage of many jungle dwellers . . . or it might have been cut. It was another piece of a puzzle that seemed to be growing more and more complex.

  The jungle itself bore one similarity to the desert region they'd crossed—its familiarity. Like the Canopus III desert analog, this jungle possessed an almost recognizable pattern which Kirk struggled to place in his mental catalog of well-known alien environments. But identification of the forest world in question remained just beyond his thoughts.

  Kirk studied the fibrous exterior of the large tree ferns they were now passing between. Those striking purple-and-puce convolutions were familiar from a well-studied text. To find the environment of one planet reproduced here was startling enough. To find two in such close proximity to each other held profound implications.

  "Spock," he began easily, "what do you think of—"

  A violent warning cough sounded in front of them. It was followed by a hoarse roar. One, two, three forms and more appeared on the open trail ahead. The powerful spotted bodies showed bristling dark fur and deep-set, angry eyes.

  The pack of doglike creatures remained frozen, obviously startled by the appearance of the three figures. They sported huge curved claws more suited to some clumsy digging creature like a sloth, and long thin fangs. Insectoid antennae projected from the thick ridges of thrusting bone above the eyes.

  Those eyes narrowed now, with all the expectancy of an archaeologist coming upon the bust of an emperor instead of yet another pottery shard. Visual evidence of unfriendly intentions seeped from thick-lipped muzzles. The pack began to edge toward the intruders.

  With corresponding caution and patience the three men started retreating.

  "There was a cave in that cliff face we just passed," Kirk whispered. "It didn't look too deep—but it's bound to be better than standing here in the open. If we can make it . . ."

  They picked up their pace slightly, still facing the approaching pack. But, whether through impatience, hunger, or divination of Kirk's intentions, the pack leaders abruptly charged.

  "You two, run for it!" Kirk shouted, pulling his phaser and dropping to one knee. "I'll hold them off. They can outflank us all here."

  "May I suggest, Captain, that three phasers—"

  "Get moving, Mr. Spock!" The first of
ficer hesitated, then turned and ran with McCoy for the cave. His phaser still set to stun, Kirk fired at the nearest of the loathsome apparitions. It yelped once before folding up on the ground.

  That was the signal for the rest of the pack to split up. Sinister rustlings and cracklings began to sound on both sides. Kirk fired again, dropping one lean shape that showed against the green on his right. He couldn't hope to get them all—they would come too often from too many directions.

  He saw movement out of the corner of an eye and whirled to find Spock and McCoy racing back toward him.

  "I thought I told you two to set up your defense in the cave!" he said angrily.

  Spock's phaser beam shot past him to knock the legs out from under one of the creatures that had crawled to within jumping distance of the captain. The animal quivered and was still.

  "There is a small problem," he explained smoothly.

  "A large problem," corrected McCoy, turning to point back the way they had come and simultaneously firing at a low shape.

  With Spock and the doctor covering, Kirk was able to divert his attention long enough to peer back down the path through the jungle. From here the cave entrance was barely visible, a dark shadow beneath the looming, fern-studded cliff.

  Something was coming out of that cave.

  It slid sinuously along the soft soil, emerging from the recesses of the cave like a worm from an apple. It was massive, reptilian, and two-headed. Further description called for extreme adjectives Kirk had no time to dwell on.

  "Stay together—and keep backing up toward it," he ordered tightly.

  "Jim . . .!" McCoy started to protest.

  "No time to argue, Bones—do it!"

  McCoy looked anxious but took up a position alongside the captain. Spock was already firing from his other side. As the pack started to emerge from the forest, the officers kept retreating toward the cave—and toward the horror that was coming out to meet them . . .

  II

  It reached the point where McCoy decided he would rather turn his phaser on himself. "Jim . . . we can't keep . . ."

  He didn't even have time to argue any more, so tight had the pack closed in. Not only that, but it turned out that the resistance of the doglike creatures to the phaser beams was considerable. The beams knocked them out, but those first stunned were back on their feet again and once more closing in for the kill.

  "When I yell," Kirk ordered, "cut your phasers and dive for that thick copse over there."

  McCoy looked in the indicated direction, but saw only a large clump of high grass too thin to keep out a determined mouse, much less a mass of bloodthirsty beasts.

  And Spock nodded, apparently concurring in this madness!

  The pack was nearly on them now. It had become so bad that McCoy almost beamed Kirk in taking one of the monsters before it could sink scimitarlike fangs into the captain's right shoulder.

  At that point, Kirk shouted, "Now!" and plunged headfirst toward the high brush. Spock sprayed the pack with a last sustained burst of phaser fire and joined him. Both were a step behind McCoy.

  The pack leaders sprang ahead. That concerted action drew the undivided attention of the oncoming leviathan. Its foremost segments expanded. The driving head opened to seize the nearest pack member in one set of jaws.

  The quasi-canine screamed, twisted, snapping uselessly at the armored skull. Its fellows, their memories extending only to the immediate prey, forgot their smaller quarry to attack the flanks of the snake-thing.

  Two sets of long fangs cut and stabbed at the iridescent yellow and green body. Pained, the Janus-snake twitched convulsively, pure muscle sending the two attackers flying into oblivion among the surrounding trees.

  Less-bloodied eyes watched from the safety of the neutral grass.

  "Stay low and slow," Kirk urged his companions, "and let's edge around behind this."

  Nothing challenged them, and they reached the head of the path, the point where the pack had emerged, without incident. They kept to the bordering brush for another thousand meters, though, despite the fact that the pack's attention was occupied elsewhere. Like all creatures of limited intelligence, the dog-beasts' span of attention was brief and easily diverted. There was no point in drawing unnecessary attention to their retreat.

  Behind them, the monster reptile snapped and coiled about the harrying pack . . . a colossus assailed by hornets.

  "I begin to understand the difficulties even an experienced survey team might encounter here." Spock breathed evenly as they jogged down the path, now well away from the bloody clearing.

  "I don't see how anyone could survive on the surface of this world for six weeks, cut off from a base ship and outside support," puffed McCoy.

  Kirk observed sharply, "Don't prejudge them, Bones—we're still alive, aren't we?"

  "That's true, Captain," Spock observed, slowing, his gaze focused on something high up and ahead of them. "However, it is arguable if this can be called surviving." He gestured at the cause of his comment.

  "I wonder if hunting is merely bad hereabouts, or if we constitute some sort of edible novelty to the local fauna."

  Through the gap in the trees ahead, Kirk could see three narrow-bodied winged horrors heading straight at them in a long, gliding dive. They shared some of the characteristics of both the pack and the two-headed snake-thing. They had reptilian snouts and scaly wings, but the lithe bodies were coated with fur, and they didn't have the cold eyes of the unblinking reptile.

  "Keep your phasers on stun, but be prepared to shift to a stronger beam if necessary," ordered Kirk—rather tiredly, McCoy thought.

  McCoy was right. Kirk had had about enough of this world's unrelenting attacks. In light of the steady assault, the Federation edicts forbidding the avoidable destruction of alien life were beginning to grate a bit.

  Once more the three officers assumed firing position, once again triple poles of light crossed open air. And the winged dragon-shapes continued their confident dive right toward them.

  "Useless!" yelped McCoy, his fingers moving to adjust the setting on his weapon.

  "Steady, Bones," urged Kirk. "These are just like the dargoneers on Maraville—the stun charge will get to them eventually."

  "Before they get to us?" McCoy murmured, his finger moving back from the setting wheel. He held down the trigger of his phaser, as the flying reptiles continued to come nearer and nearer.

  Then a most peculiar thing happened.

  The dargoneers jerked up in midair, their heads snapping up and back and their wings abruptly beating unsteadily at the air. Ignoring the continued beaming, they seemed to get control of themselves one by one, turned, and flew off in separate directions.

  With nothing left to beam, McCoy clicked off his phaser. Lower jaw hanging open, he stared at the spot in the sky where the seemingly unstoppable aerial meat-eaters had come up short.

  "Now that," he observed bemusedly, "is more than passing strange."

  "An invisible force field, Doctor," Spock observed. "The knife I was talking about before." He turned to look at Kirk. "I think if we attempt to return the way we've come, Captain, we will find similar fields separating the three environments we have thus far encountered. They were absent when we landed but have apparently been restored."

  "Plausible enough, Spock," replied a worried Kirk. "But why shut down such fields in the first place?"

  "I cannot imagine, Captain. To find out, I believe we must locate those who have created the fields in question, as well as transformed this section of the planet into a multitude of adjoining alien environments."

  "That implies—" Kirk began, but something cut off his breath. He had the sensation of being lifted clear off the ground, experienced that peculiar sense of helplessness one has when one's feet no longer have contact with anything solid. It was a common enough experience in free-fall space, but highly disconcerting on solid ground.

  He felt something like a metal band fastened around his waist. When he looked
down he saw a gray, wide coil tight around his middle. It didn't look like metal. He put both hands against it and shoved.

  It didn't feel like metal, either.

  Then he turned and looked behind him and saw what had picked him up as neatly as an elephant plucks a lone peanut. He was in the grasp of the tail end—he supposed it could as easily be the front end—of a creature some six or seven meters in length. It was built low to the ground and had no visible external features. No eyes, mouth, head, arms, or legs—nothing save this single flexible tail or tentacle.

  It looked very much like a common garden slug, yet it wasn't ugly. The aura of intelligence, of purposeful, controlled power that Kirk sensed, removed any twinge of xenophobia he might have felt at the mere sight of it.

  The creature started to move off down a partially concealed path. Kirk tried to observe its method of locomotion and found he couldn't see beneath its slightly horny, skirtlike lower edge. Whether on legs, cilia, horny plates, or something unimaginable, the creature moved smoothly across sometimes uneven terrain.

  At the moment Kirk was more interested in the front end of the creature, for he had to assume it was traveling headfirst. That end showed a single tubular mouth that seemed to study him at length before turning back ahead. Although unable to slip free, he discovered he could turn his upper body easily enough. Looking back, he saw McCoy and Spock following, each similarly pinioned in the grip of one of the dull-hued creatures.

  The limb that held him terminated in several smaller divisions, which were in turn separated into still smaller wiggling filaments. The flexibility of those digits was promptly demonstrated when he tried to reach his phaser. One curled around it and plucked it from his waist.

  He managed to pull his communicator clear, but that surprisingly delicate organ circled another part of itself around the compact instrument and tugged it firmly from his hand. The action was irresistible without being crudely violent. Whatever had control of him, then, was interested in keeping him intact and reasonably healthy.

  That knowledge, along with the fact that no attempt was made to draw him closer to that strange tubed mouth, enabled Kirk to relax ever so slightly.