Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: Short Stories

by William Rotsler

  Kirk sighed. “How did I know that would be your response?”

  “Logic, Captain,” Spock said.

  “Spock, are you smiling?”

  “Me, Captain?”

  “No, that wouldn’t be logical, would it?” Kirk shrugged, then shot a glance at his First Officer. “Spock?”

  “Looked at from a certain viewpoint, Captain, even humor is logical,” Spock said.

  Kirk stopped walking and looked at his taller companion. “You know, Mister Spock, you are a neverending source of amazement to me.” Spock looked slightly surprised. Kirk pulled out his communicator. “Enterprise, this is Kirk. Do you read me?”

  “Enterprise here, Captain,” Uhura said.

  “Prepare to beam us up. We have a deadline to meet.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Oh, and put it on the ship’s bulletin: beginning after we leave Base IV, Mister Spock will be conducting classes in arriving at logical conclusions derived from insufficient data.”

  “Really, Captain,” Spock protested.

  “Yes, sir,” Uhura responded. “May I be the first to sign up?”

  “Of course, Uhura, and I’m second. Some of us need it more than others.”

  Spock’s expression grew sedate again. “That’s logical, Captain,” he said.

  Kirk gave him a sharp look, but already the transporter beam was scanning them. There was a sparkling, and the gray metal corridor was empty.

  As Old As Forever

  “Captain Kirk, distress call on the emergency band!” Uhura said sharply.

  “Put it on the screen,” Kirk said, swinging his command chair around.

  The image was streaked and blurred, then cleared up somewhat as Uhura worked on it. “It’s coming from Hippocrates Four, sir,” Uhura reported. “Osler, an Earth-type planet with a single colony.”

  “… rak … sturm …” The words were scratchy and blurred, but gradually Uhura strengthened and clarified the distant signal. “Help … anyone … we’re the only ones left … help … need help … Help … anyone…”

  “It’s a recorded transmission, sir,” Uhura reported. “The computer says the colony was established fourteen years ago as a medical research center.”

  “Mister Sulu, chart a course for Hippocrates Four.” The Chief Helmsman gave a crisp response, and the U.S.S. Enterprise altered its star-spanning flight.

  • • •

  “No life forms inconsistent with previous indications,” Mister Spock reported. “Some grazing animals to the southwest of the station, but only one energy reading at the colony itself.”

  “Very well,” Kirk said, thumbing a switch. “Lieutenant Collins, prepare a landing party to investigate the emergency—”

  “Aye, sir,” the security officer responded. “Any indication of danger?”

  Kirk smiled. “Every new planet is dangerous, Lieutenant. Standard precautions.”

  “Will you be accompanying us, sir?”

  Kirk caught Spock’s look. “No. No, Lieutenant, not this time. Kirk out.” The lithe captain smiled at his First Officer. “You don’t like me leaving the ship, do you, Mister Spock?”

  “It does seem unnecessary at times, Captain. But I am learning more of human nature all the time.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that one of the reasons the human race rose up into the stars is the very urge that makes you want to leave the bridge and beam down: to see.” Spock shrugged.

  “Mister Spock,” Kirk said with a smile as he stood, “you have talked me into it.”

  “Captain, I had no intention—”

  “C’mon, Spock, go with me. Breathing some air that hasn’t been recycled a hundred times will do you good.”

  Spock snapped off a control. “Very well, Admiral Kirk, of course.”

  “Mister Sulu, you have the conn,” Kirk said.

  • • •

  The surface of Osler was mostly drab and frozen tundra, with a band of habitable land at the equator. The medical station was a cluster of domes, interlocked by connecting passages. A kind of blue moss grew in patches all over the dome cluster. There were no lights except that of Collins and his men as they emerged from the main dome.

  “Oh, Captain Kirk,” Collins said in surprise. He gestured around at the tundra. “Mister Chekov would like this.”

  “Mister Chekov was raised in Leningora, an archeological structure housing almost a million people,” Kirk said. “He hates snow.”

  “Well, we got a youngster here who loves it,” Collins said, gesturing to his men to bring forth the child. “She doesn’t want to go.”

  Kirk saw Doctor McCoy bend down as he talked to a child of about seven. She was pale and beautiful, staring with blue eyes at the red-coated security men. Then her eyes focused on Kirk and he felt a jolt, as though someone had touched his brain with a mild electrical shock.

  “Jim, this is Pandora,” the medico said, smiling. “She’s the only survivor.” The doctor came over to his commander and spoke to him and Spock quietly. “Her parents and all the rest died four years ago. Four years, Jim. She’s been all alone, here, for four years. Luckily they had some protein-processing machines that didn’t break down.”

  “What happened to her parents?” Spock asked, his eyes thoughtfully focused on the pale child.

  “I don’t know. The bodies … well, they’re in one room. She doesn’t go in there, she says. I’ll do an analysis, see if it is something contagious.” He hesitated. “Jim, I hate to say it, but we’d better keep everyone here awhile. I’ll bring down Doctor Chapel and we’ll work as fast as we can.”

  “Very well, Doctor,” Kirk said. He pulled out his communicator and gave some orders.

  • • •

  The little girl sat quietly in the prefabricated dome the Enterprise had beamed down. She was watching a children’s television show about blue dragons invading Earth and being fought off by Thunderman. Admiral Kirk entered the dome and looked at her, then walked over to Spock, who was intent on a portable megatricorder.

  “Spock.”

  “Captain.” He indicated a screen, and Kirk raised his eyebrows. “That indicates the metabolic rate of our survivor.” At Kirk’s continued questioning stare, the Vulcan explained. “The most efficient I have ever seen. She quite literally gets every particle of nourishment from her food.”

  “Her mother would like that.”

  “Her mother may have caused it. The records show her mother to be Doctor Marie McDowell and her father Doctor Philippe Metchnikoff. Her mother won the Nobel and her father the Salk Award. Extremely well known, Captain. Their specialty was biology.”

  “Is that why they came here, to this?” Kirk asked, gesturing around. “Some kind of isolated experiments?”

  Spock nodded. “Pandora was born here. Four years ago, something happened. An automatic signal was sent.” He looked at the child. “But why did she survive?”

  “Perhaps McCoy can get answers.”

  • • •

  “Phenomenal,” McCoy said eagerly. “Jim, look at this. Her metabolic pathways are the most unusual I’ve seen. Her metabolite synthesis is—”

  “Doctor!”

  “Her catalism is—”

  “Doctor McCoy! Bones!”

  McCoy grinned apologetically, the tundra wind whipping his brown hair. “I’m sorry, it’s just that she’s a wonder, Jim, a medical wonder. She can live on scraps of food, on moss, or even just water. Her cells rebuild themselves almost at once. She’s fantastically healthy and she’ll live—I’d stake my reputation on it—she’ll live almost forever!”

  They all looked toward the dome where the girl was, and Kirk’s scalp crawled; she stood in the hatch, just looking at them. Kirk took McCoy’s arm and pulled him away.

  It was getting toward dark and it was colder now, but the child, dressed in a simple thin jump suit, seemed unaffected. “Bones, is she … is she dangerous to the ship?”

  McCoy looked astonished. “Jim, she’s a ch
ild! A perfectly normal child. Well, she has been alone here, and … well, Jim, she’s unusual, true, but…” He shook his head. “I don’t see how.”

  “What have you found on the research being done here?” the starship officer asked.

  “It’s truly marvelous, Jim. I’m having the notes and equipment boxed up. It will be a monument to all of them.”

  “Yes, but why did they die?”

  McCoy sobered. “I, I don’t know yet.” He looked around. “How many new worlds have we been on, Jim? Not just us, but Starfleet? Thousands? Millions? And no two alike. It is nature’s treasure chest out here. There hasn’t been one place where humans didn’t need some kind of help. Domes like this, antitoxins, phasers, harvesting machines, and a thousand other aids.”

  McCoy looked back at the girl, still staring at them solemnly. “But what her parents discovered will give us an edge, Jim. Our bodies will become really efficient! We may become immune to disease, to wounds, to—”

  There was an explosion in one of the domes. Shards of the moss-covered hemisphere flew in every direction and flames shot up. As Kirk whirled to order in the security people, he caught a glimpse of Pandora. She didn’t seem surprised or startled … or afraid.

  • • •

  “Everything’s ruined,” McCoy said. “Everything. Some kind of electromagnetic impulse blanked the tapes, the notes and equipment were destroyed.” The medic’s shoulders slumped. “One of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind, lost.”

  Spock stood nearby, watching McCoy report to his captain. But he was also looking at Pandora quietly watch a television show of mile-high green ogres striding across a purple sea to threaten tiny, cute cartoon people.

  “Well, then, Doctor, let’s go aboard and take Pandora back to Earth,” Kirk said. “She’ll get the finest care and—”

  “No.”

  They all looked at Pandora, who was still watching the screen. “I don’t want to go back. It’s scary there.”

  “Pandora,” smiled Kirk, going to her. “What you’re watching is just entertainment. It’s not like that at all.”

  “They lie, then?”

  “No, it’s not lying, it’s just … imagination. Didn’t you have shows like this?”

  “No. And I’m staying.”

  “Pandora, you can’t stay here, not alone.”

  “Why not? I have.”

  “But that was—”

  “No, Captain Kirk.” The child was firm, and Kirk smiled as he stood up.

  “Lieutenant Collins,” he said into his communicator. “Prepare to beam aboard. Mister Spock, Doctor, Pandora—”

  The child jumped up and was out the door with blinding speed. Even Spock was unable to grab her. Kirk and the others ran into the night, but she was out of sight.

  Spock’s tricorder showed no life form energy readings. An hour’s search among the humps and gullys of the tundra turned up nothing. Kirk ordered everyone back to the ship.

  “I’ll stay here in the dome,” he said. “Maybe she’ll come back. If only one person is here she may not be afraid.”

  Reluctantly the others left. Kirk sat down on a portable chair and stretched his legs. It’s been a long time since I was a child, he thought, and a long time since I had much to do with children.

  He thought of her, out in the deepening cold of the night. Bone-chilling cold. The cold of death.

  • • •

  “Huh?” Kirk came awake with a start. Pandora stood there, looking at him. “Oh. Hello, child. Pandora. Do you want to go now?”

  “No.”

  “Pandora, you—” He reached out to touch her, and there was a spark between his fingers and her cheek. Kirk was slammed back, falling backwards in his chair.

  “I told you I didn’t want to go,” she said. “I just came to tell you to leave.”

  “But it’s lonely here,” Kirk said, getting up slowly.

  “It’s always been lonely here, and since all of you have come, it’s crowded.”

  Kirk thought of a few people on the surface of an Earth-sized planet. “No, it’s just that you’re unused to—”

  It was like a scream in his mind.

  All she did was reach out to him, to touch him. Like fire the feeling streaked to his brain, and he fell backwards into unconsciousness.

  • • •

  Kirk awoke in an ice cave. It glittered dully in the light from several spots along the rock peeking through the ice. Here moss grew, and the shallow yellow light came from hand-sized spots.

  No, he realized, from hand-shaped spots. Child’s hands. A child had touched the moss and it glowed.

  He was cold, bone-cold. Even the built-in heat controls in his landing suit had been overloaded. His nose, hands, and feet felt numb. The ice was all around in great clumps and crystals. And he was alone.

  Kirk got to his feet, his teeth chattering. Then he heard movement and turned to see Pandora come gracefully around a turn in the cave’s icy wall. She looked pale and pretty, dressed in a thin blue jumpsuit with embroidered pink and red flowers.

  “Pandora, what happened?”

  “Oh, good, Captain, you’re awake.”

  “How did I get here?”

  “I brought you here,” she shrugged. She handed him a packet of concentrated food. “I found this in the dome. It’s too rich for me, but maybe you—”

  “Pandora, you’re a child, you couldn’t have lugged me in here! Now who else is here?”

  “No one.” She looked at him, then put down the packet on a hump of ice. “Didn’t Doctor McCoy tell you about me?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’m really very strong when I must be, you know. I just think about it and I get very, very strong. I learned it myself,” she said proudly. “Mommy and Daddy didn’t know I could. Course, I was only three then. They were trying to make me do something.” She shrugged and sat down primly on another hump of ice. “They were always trying to make me do things I didn’t want to.”

  “Pandora, they … they were your parents, they were trying to do what was good for you.”

  She shrugged and smoothed the legs of her jump suit. “Maybe. I dunno. I think I was more like an experiment to them. Maybe they weren’t even my real parents.”

  Kirk sighed and squatted down near her. She watched him a little warily. “Lots of children think … well, they sometimes think their parents aren’t their real parents because they don’t get along with them at times. But—”

  “I don’t want to talk about that, Captain Kirk. I want you to tell me a story.”

  “Darling, I’ll tell you all kinds of stories, but first we’ll go up to the ship and—” It was then Kirk discovered he had neither phaser nor communicator. “Where are my things, Pandora? I want them returned.”

  “No. I hid them. They can’t find you here. I found out about Mister Spock’s tricorder and the sensors on the ship. That’s why we’re here. They can’t read us here. And you can’t get out. I iced up the entrance.”

  Kirk looked at her for a moment. “You want to kill me?”

  “No. I want you to tell me stories.”

  “But I’ll die here. I’ll freeze. So will you.”

  Pandora laughed gaily, smiling for the first time. “Oh, you’re funny! I can’t freeze! Not ever. I can use the ice to get energy. I’m really very good at it, I found out. Vegetable matter is easier, but I can get energy from just about anything.”

  She smiled and motioned for him to sit on a hump of ice. “Really, Captain, you’re very funny. I like to laugh. It’s so strange, laughing, when you think of it.”

  “Pandora … dear … I’m the captain of a starship. They need me. I can’t stay here telling you stories and—”

  “Captain, I don’t care. You came here and now I’m going to have someone to play with. I thought about Mister Spock, but he’s spooky. And Doctor McCoy, well, he wanted to take my blood, just like the others.”

  “The others?”

  “Mommy a
nd Daddy and the others. They were always taking my blood and reading me with things and all that. I finally told them to stop, and when they wouldn’t I made them.”

  A chill went over Kirk; it had nothing to do with the surrounding ice. “You … made them … stop?”

  She nodded. “Uh-huh. I don’t want to talk about it. I was only three or four, you know. But they just wouldn’t leave me alone. Now, tell me a story. About how the ice man flew to the sun. That’s a good one.”

  “I don’t know that one, Pandora.” Kirk started to kneel next to her, to tell her of the importance of getting back. But the child shrank back and put her chubby little hand on his face.

  Intense whiteness.

  Pain. Spots. Blackness.

  A faint red haze seemed to be over everything. He was falling, in slow motion, crashing back into the ice, breaking it, falling, sliding … pain … red … black…

  • • •

  “You’ve got to stop doing that,” Kirk said with a moan. “I mean you no harm.”

  “You scared me.” She pouted. “You shouldn’t scare me. I don’t like that. The cheebors scared me and I made them go away, too.”

  “Cheebors?” Kirk sat up groggily, testing his body for bruises and wounds.

  “The grazers. They’re very territorial, my father said. I can’t go walking without them running at me.”

  “And you—?”

  “I found one asleep and I touched him and he ran off and told the others, I guess, and they haven’t been back.”

  “Pandora, I really must insist. Come back to the ship. Everyone will be worried.”

  “No, they won’t. Not anymore. While you were resting I went up and checked. There were all kinds of people there, but they went away.”

  “Went away?”

  “Very pretty really. They just sparkle and go away.”

  “Pandora, how long have I been down here?” Jim Kirk was suddenly very aware of a deep hunger and a bone-weary weakness.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Twelve turnings, I guess. They’ve gone, though. I knew they would because my Daddy said humans are very impatient.”

  “Humans? You’re human, Pandora.”