"Is precisely what worries This One, Kirk Captain," bn Bem told him softly. "Should we have been assailed by unwholesome lifes several times by now. Not only has that happened not, but is little sign of any kinds of lifes, antagonistic or otherwise.
"In fact, the deeper into varbox we go, the scarcer becomes all life forms. Is strange. Is worrisome. Is most unsettling."
"Is it possible," Spock ventured, "that the rebellious Pandronians, who presumably have retreated through here on many occasions, could have committed so much destruction and taken so much life that the surviving inhabitants of this region have fled to other sections of the swamp?"
"Would take army of Pandronians all equipped with fasirs to clear even tiny portion of varbox," the commander countered, "and then would suffer heavy casualties in process. Would not think Mad Ones had such power or abilities at their command. If so, would believe they would have caused Pandro government much more trouble than they have before now. Find possibility unworkable, Spock Commander," he concluded firmly.
"Can you offer an alternate explanation for the comparative tranquillity of our passage, then?" the first officer wanted to know.
bn Bem openly admitted he could not. He repeated his feelings again: "Worries me."
Lud eb Riss, who was in command of the second raft poling alongside them, didn't share the commander's paranoia. "I see not why it should," he exclaimed almost happily. "Lucky can These Ones count themselves. Personal opinion This One is that if we not another meat-eater see again, will be more than pleased. Not to look gift zintar in the masticatory orifice."
They made excellent, unimpeded progress through the varbox all that day. When it grew too dark to travel accurately, they camped on the rafts for the night, mooring them to each other and to four great trees. The thick boles formed a rough square, and their net of vines and creepers provided a psychologically pleasing barrier overhead.
Soft hootings and muted howls colored the night, but none of them came close enough to trouble the sleepers or the Pandronian troops on guard duty. Except for the humidity, the following morning was almost pleasant.
"When do we reach this place by your ship's supposedly infallible instruments located, Kirk Captain?" an irritable eb Riss wanted to know when the morning had passed.
Kirk turned to his first officer. "Well, Mr. Spock?"
Spock frowned slightly, his attention shifting from the view forward to the figure-covered sketch he held in one hand. "We should have reached it already, Captain. I confess to being somewhat discouraged, but we may still—"
A loud Pandronian shout caused him to break off and, along with everyone else, look ahead. The second raft was moving a little in advance of the other, and a sharp-eyed trooper standing precariously on the foremost log was chattering excitedly in Pandronian. bn Bem and eb Riss were both straining to see something no one else had.
Kirk, Spock, and McCoy did likewise, and the reason for the lookout's enthusiasm became evident seconds later. They were once more nearing solid land. It rose in a smooth, firm bank from the sludge's edge. Despite the thick cover of growth, there was no concealing it. The ground looked as solid as that they had left the long Pandronian day before.
"I thought you once mentioned, Commander," Spock murmured, "that the width and length of this swampland was far greater than this."
"So This One did," bn Bem replied positively. "And so it is." He gestured at the muddy beach they were approaching. "Cannot possibly be other side of varbox. Can only one thing be: an island in varbox middle."
"But you cannot be certain?" the first officer persisted.
bn Bem turned to face him. "Cannot, since no Pandronian has ever penetrated into varbox this far—and returned to tell about it. But can be ninety-eight percent positive is not other side of varbox. Island must be. Could be many others."
"We can count at some future date," Kirk interrupted them. "Right now I'm interested in finding out what's on this particular one."
"Is seconding feelings, Kirk Captain," said bn Bem fervently, his hand fondling the dark sidearm strapped to his hip.
Both rafts grounded on the muck of the narrow beach. Amid much grunting and struggling by Pandronians and Federation officers alike, the waterlogged rafts were pulled far enough up onto the mud-cum-earth to insure their not drifting away. Probably they needn't have bothered with the effort, since the current here was nearly nonexistent.
No one, however, wanted to chance being marooned in the center of the dismal region without an immediate means of retreat. If the island turned out to be small, there might not be enough suitable lumber present to duplicate the rafts.
But as they moved cautiously inland it became slowly apparent that the island they trod was one of respectable size, despite the difficulties of seeing very far to either side because of the dense ground cover. Had it not been for bn Bem's and eb Riss's assurance that they could not possibly have traversed the entire swamp, Kirk would have felt certain they had landed on its opposite shore.
Gradually the trees gave way to brush and thick bushes, the jungle turning reluctantly into less dense savanna. It appeared they might even be entering an open area, like a grassy plain. The low, easily ascendable hill looming ahead of them was almost barren of growth. Only a few scraggly bushes poked forlorn stems above the waving pseudograss.
"We ought to be able to get a good look at the rest of the island from up there," Kirk surmised, indicating the low summit. "This can't be a very high island. Not if the varbox maintains its similarity to Terran swamplands."
Starting forward, he pushed aside several bare branches and took a step upward.
The hill moved.
Jumping clear, Kirk joined the rest of the party in retreating back toward the jungle. Disturbed, the hill continued to quiver and rise heavenward.
"Nightmare!" bn Bem shouted in Pandronian. But Kirk felt he could translate the commander's exclamation without resorting to instruments.
At full extension the apparition was at least ten meters tall, equally wide. As to how long it actually was they had no way of telling, because they couldn't see around the thing.
A minimum of twelve heads glared down at them. Each head was different from the next, no two alike, boasting various numbers of eyes and nostrils and ears. Each mouth save one (which showed a round sucker at its end) displayed varying but impressive stores of cutlery.
Each head bobbed and twisted at the end of a different neck. Some were long and snakelike, others short and heavily armored. Still others were jointed like a long finger. Several of the "growths" Kirk had noted on the creature's side and top moved independently, along with limbs of all shapes and sizes scattered seemingly at random along both sides of the horrible mass.
Grossest abomination of all was the huge body itself, a bloated ellipsoid whose skin alternated from feathers to scales to a smooth, pebbled epidermis not unlike the surface of certain starships. The skin was squared in places, round in others, concave in still more.
It looked as if something had taken a cargoload of creatures and thrown them into a vast kettle, then pounded and boiled the entire collection together and somehow reanimated the ghastly concoction. As the thing moved, the most awful cacophony of whistles, tweets, howls, and bellows issued from the various mouths. Round eyes big as a man glared down from one skull, flanked by slitted pupils in a second. One great burning red crescent shone in the midst of a third.
Somehow the beast moved, on an assortment of limbs as diverse as the rest of it. Short, thick pseudopods alternated with stubby, thick-nailed feet and long-clawed running limbs. It humped rather than walked toward them.
Still retreating into the jungle, the Pandronians fought to assemble their fasir. With phasers set on maximum, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy blasted away at the oncoming behemoth. It was like trying to stop a three-dimensional phalanx instead of a single creature.
Various sections and integrals would drop away—injured or killed—but the undisciplined collage would retain its
shape and purpose. One, two, three heads were sliced away by the powerful handguns. The remaining nine continued to dart and probe for prey as if nothing had happened.
The Pandronians had almost assembled the dart-thrower when a high whining sounded. Every Pandronian, from the lowest-ranking soldier up to bn Bem, abruptly fell to the ground. They lay there, moaning and holding their heads.
Completely unaffected, a dumbfounded trio of Federation officers stood nearby, uncertain whether to aid their fallen allies or to continue firing at the lumbering mountain in front of them.
Events decided for them. As the first whine sounded, the creature's dreadful roars and yowls turned into a pitiable assortment of mewings and meeps and cries of pain. It turned like a great machine and began flopping off gruesomely toward the south, smashing down vegetation as it went until it had passed from sight.
Once the beast had vanished, the sound stopped.
When no explanation for this fortunate but inexplicable occurrence presented itself, Kirk turned his attention to something hopefully more understandable.
"What happened to the Pandronians, Bones?"
McCoy looked up at him. He was bending over one of the soldiers. "Beats me, Jim. The sound that drove off that grotesque impossibility also hit them pretty hard. Don't ask me why, or what produced it."
The soldier's normal healthy blue color had faded drastically. Every other Pandronian had similarly paled, though now their normal hue began to return.
"Inside my head, suddenly something," a panting bn Bem told them. "Painful, but more shock than anything else, This One thinks. Could tolerate if had to, but would rather not."
"From the look on your face, I can understand why," a sympathetic McCoy agreed. "What felled you drove off the monster as well. I suppose we should be grateful for that, but somehow I'm not so sure. At best this was a pretty indiscriminate kind of rescue."
"I do not think that term is entirely appropriate, under the circumstances," a voice objected. Everyone turned to its source.
Standing in a slight gap in the undergrowth leading toward the center of the island stood a semicircle of Pandronians. Kirk experienced no elation at the sight of their black robes and hoods. They wanted their suspicions about the Pandronian rebels confirmed, but not under these conditions.
More important even than the presence of Pandronian rebels here deep in the varbox were the modern hand weapons they held trained on the government party. They differed noticeably in their sophistication from anything Kirk had seen on Pandro so far. He almost recognized them—no, he did recognize them.
The source of the weapons—and probably the explanation for a great many other as yet unexplained occurrences—was to be found in the middle of the Pandronians: one, two . . . three Klingons.
Holstering his own sidearm, the one in the middle walked forward, stopped an arm's length from Kirk. "Captain James Kirk, I presume? I am Captain Kor of the Imperial Science Division. You and your companions—he gestured to include the dazed Pandronians as well as Spock and McCoy—"are my prisoners."
"What's the meaning of your presence here, Kor?" Kirk snapped, unintimidated. "What are you up to on this world?"
"You will probably find out in due course, Captain," Kor assured him. "Until then, I require your sidearm, please?" He held out a hand for the gun in Kirk's fist.
Kirk studied the surrounding group, all armed with Klingon weapons, and then reluctantly handed over his phaser. Spock and McCoy followed.
Black-clad Pandronians immediately ran toward them, disarming their counterparts and confiscating anything resembling a weapon, including the partially assembled fasir.
Under close guard, the helpless group started into the island's interior.
"Actually," Kor said imperiously, "you should all thank me for saving your lives. Had I not ordered the controller activated, the creature would likely have exterminated you by now."
"Not true," protested bn Bem with dignity. "Fasir would have induced deintegration in monster."
"Perhaps," Kor admitted, showing white teeth in a wide grin. "Primitive though they are, your local weapons are effective, in their fashion. And the creature was, after all, only one of our more modest experiments."
"Experiments?" echoed a curious Spock.
"First and Science Officer Spock," Kirk said tightly, "and this is our ship's chief physician, Dr. McCoy."
Kor did not acknowledge the introductions. After all, the officers were prisoners. "Experiments," he conceded, "yes. Experiments which it has been your misfortune and our inconvenience for you to have stumbled upon, Captain Kirk. Why could you not simply have returned to your ship and taken your trouble-making selves elsewhere?"
"I don't know about the misfortune part," Kirk replied, glaring as a black-clad Pandronian prodded him with the muzzle of a weapon, "but you can bet on the inconvenience. The presence of armed Klingons on a world of high sentience like Pandro, without the knowledge and consent of the Pandronian government, is strictly forbidden by all Federation-Klingon treaties. Your presence here constitutes a violation of the most serious order, Captain Kor."
"No doubt certain parties would consider it so," the Klingon captain replied, "if it were ever to come to their attention." His grin turned predatory. "But that will not happen. And besides," he added, affecting an attitude of mock outrage, "we are not here without the Pandronians' permission."
"I beg to differ," said Spock. "No one in the government mentioned anything to us about the presence of a Klingon mission on Pandro. They surely would have."
"Can be of that certain," bn Bem finished.
"That depends on who you chose to recognize as the official government, Mr. Spock," Kor pointed out pleasantly. "We happen to feel that these representatives of a free society are the legitimate representatives of the Pandronian people." He indicated the black-clad figures escorting them. "Not the illegitimate government which has its seat in the city of Tendrazin."
"Government has support of overwhelming majority of Pandronian people," an angry bn Bem protested.
"A question of figures—mere quibbling," countered Kor, obviously enjoying himself.
"How do you have the gall to call these rebels a legitimate government?" Kirk demanded to know.
"They are for free disassociation and reassociation of all Pandronian life," the Klingon explained.
bn Bem could not longer contain himself. "Means destruction of civilization!" he shouted. "Would These Mad Ones destroy all civilization on planet Pandro by having intelligent Pandronians return to unordered integrals!"
"Anarchy," Spock concurred, "would be the undeniable result." He quieted when one of the Klingons gestured warningly with his gun.
Kirk suddenly looked thoughtful. "A lot of things are becoming clear now. How the rebels managed to simulate our communicator signals and get themselves beamed aboard the Enterprise, for example. And if they were responsible for the breakdown of communications between the ship and ourselves, how they knew where to go and what to destroy. Klingons were helping them every step of the way." He glared at Kor.
"I would be unduly modest if I denied aiding these brave Pandronian patriots," the captain confessed. "When you do not return to your ship, Captain Kirk, your death will be attributed to the malignant Pandronian swamp life—which will in fact be the truth." Kirk didn't like the sound of that one bit.
"It is hoped," Kor continued, "that the Enterprise will accept that information, along with your bodies, and leave Pandro orbit."
"You don't know Scotty," Kirk warned him.
"Scotty?" The Klingon looked puzzled.
"My current officer-in-charge. He's not the kind to gracefully accept three corpses without a more detailed explanation of how they came to be that way."
"Our explanation will be sufficient, Captain," Kor assured him. "We will concoct something so reasonable, so logical, that even the most skeptical mind will accept it. The story will have the advantage that none of you three or any of these misguided Pa
ndronians," and he indicated bn Bem and the soldiers, "will be in a position to refute it."
"If you want us dead," Spock asked, obviously confused, "why didn't you allow that creature to kill us when it had the chance?"
"A couple of good reasons," Kor replied readily. "First, the possibility did exist that the Pandronians' fasir might have caused the creature to permanently disassociate. We do not like our expensive experiments ruined, not even the small ones."
"Small one," McCoy muttered.
"It was still a viable subject for further experimentation," the Klingon continued, "and therefore valuable to us. More important, we could not have permitted the destruction of our most valuable Pandronian operative."
Kirk stumbled, saw that bn Bem was too shocked even for that "Valuable operative? Are you saying . . .?"
"It would appear," Spock said, looking around carefully, "that our good friend Lud eb Riss has gone elsewhere."
bn Bem uttered a long string of Pandronian curses.
"The good eb Riss," Kor informed them, "is already ahead of us, on his way to our headquarters building. He has kept with him a small, supremely efficient Imperial communicator. With this we have easily been kept apprised of your progress." The Klingon shook his head sadly.
"You should have followed his advice to turn back instead of entering the varbox. He did his best to dissuade you, but you fools wouldn't listen. It would have spared me some awkwardness, not to mention what it would have spared you." He sniffed.
"However, you are here. So now you must be disposed of, and in a manner to satisfy your Mr. Scotty and everyone else on the Enterprise, Captain Kirk."
Another several dozen meters and the brush vanished entirely, revealing a cluster of fairly large prefabricated structures of Klingon style. Despite the speed with which they had clearly been put together, the buildings conveyed an impression of solidity. Multiple antennae bristled above one structure. Kirk also took note of what appeared to be a barracks for Klingon regulars and a series of interconnected science labs.
Star Trek - Log 9 Page 13