Star Trek - Log 9

by Alan Dean Foster

  Ample use of local vegetation had been made, and the buildings gave every indication of being well camouflaged from the air. Off to the left, across a grassy open space, light danced and flared, indicating the presence of extremely powerful energy barriers—the partial source, at least, of the radiation that had so engaged the attention and curiosity of Lieutenant Arex.

  "What do you keep on the other side of those fields?" Spock inquired, nodding in their direction.

  "Our important experimental subjects, of course," Kor responded. "You will have an opportunity to see them at close range before too long—under unfavorable circumstances, I fear." He looked toward the swirling, shifting barrier. "At the moment they are all down toward the far end of the island. They prefer to stay as far away from the controller as possible."

  "You mentioned this controller before," McCoy reminded him.

  "Yes. It is the device which produced the frequency that drove your attacker away," Kor explained, "and incidentally stunned your Pandronian friends. Our true-thinking Pandronians," and he again pointed to the silent rebels around them, "are provided by us with special devices that fit over the head and cancel out the frequency. We have located one, you see, which causes considerable discomfort to all Pandronian life forms."

  "Monsters you are," bn Bem growled. "Will never the Klingon Empire now bring Pandro under its influence. Ourselves will align with the Federation."

  bn Bem's declaration constituted a Pyrrhic victory at best, Kirk knew, since it was growing more and more unlikely the commander would be able return to Tendrazin to convey his recommendations to the government. Kor's threats were hardly idle. Given the severity of the treaty violation represented by this installation's presence on Pandro, he couldn't chance releasing any of them alive. That had been self-evident from the moment Kirk had identified him as a Klingon, back near the jungle's edge.

  "But what's your purpose behind all this?" he asked, indicating the extensive illegal station. "Why are you risking so much to carry out a few experiments? Or are you going to let these rebels use your frequency modulator to attack Tendrazin?"

  "Certainly not," Kor insisted. "That would be dangerous to us, as well as unnecessary. For one thing, our rebel friends don't really have the expertise required to operate such advanced equipment as the controller. For another, its widespread use could be easily detected by any off-world observer. The Pandronians themselves would know immediately that the device was not developed on Pandro, and could notify any number of nosy busybodies."

  "The Organians, for example?" suggested McCoy.

  "There are certain parties," Kor admitted, "that might frown on such aid to one group of dissidents on an independent world. And there is that awkward treaty you mentioned, Captain Kirk. No, the controller is not a subtle weapon. And strong-willed Pandronians could resist it enough to fight back. Our friends are still few in number."

  "Is clear now," a slightly subdued bn Bem observed. "They seek the collapse of our society for their own ends."

  "Everything suddenly makes sense," Spock agreed. "The rebels destroy the present Pandronian government and take over, thus instigating a massive wave of disassociation among the planet's sole intelligent species. The Klingons, who are waiting on the sidelines, promptly step in, declare themselves selfless benefactors, and commence restoring Klingon order amid the chaos they themselves have helped to bring about." He reached for his translator, eyed Kor expectantly. But the confident Klingon captain offered no objection to Spock's use of the instrument.

  Turning to the nearest black form, the first officer more or less repeated what he had just said, concluded by saying, "I am surprised you Pandronian rebels, whatever your personal beliefs, do not realize this."

  "We assurances have," the Pandronian replied, "that once present unnatural government of Pandro is broken, Klingons will leave us in free disassociation. We only need permit them to establish base or two and count planet Pandro among their worlds of influence."

  "If they go back on their promise to you," Spock argued, "you'll have no effective government with which to oppose them."

  The Pandronian made his equivalent of a shrug. "Is disassociation and return to natural order that important is most. All else incidental is."

  Spock gave up. "Rousseauian philosophy carried to a dangerous extreme, Captain."

  "Mad," was bn Bem's evaluation. "All are mad."

  "You will be properly dealt with soon enough, Captain Kirk," Kor told him. "But there is no great hurry, and as you have expressed an interest in our experiments here, and as to how we intend to aid our rebel associates, I see no reason why you should not go to your extinction well educated." He drew out a small control device.

  "This remote is locked into the large controller inside the installation. It is convenient to be able to work out in the open, especially since our more successful experiments could never fit inside. Let's see"—he gazed down the wall of energy on their left—"I think the nearest cell will be most appropriate. The barrier also splits into individual cells for different experiments, you see."

  He adjusted controls on the small box. Again the whine they had heard earlier sounded, but it was not as intense this time.

  "It is now a bad headache like," bn Bem complained, wincing noticeably.

  "It will get worse," Kor told him without a trace of compassion. "The various broadcast units are already operating full strength at the other end of the island, thus driving the creature toward us instead of away."

  McCoy was staring intently through the energy barrier. "I don't see anything."

  "Patience, Dr. McCoy," Kor advised him. "It is a large island, and the objects of our experiments must have room to move about freely."

  They continued to wait in expectant silence. Except for a few intermittent flashes of fire across its fabric, the energy barrier was perfectly transparent. Most of the time there seemed to be nothing there at all, but Kirk knew that if he walked forward he would eventually encounter an invisible wall capable of stopping much more than a lone man.

  As promised, the whining grew stronger, until bn Bem and the other Pandronian soldiers were once again writhing in pain. Captain Kor coldly ignored them and turned a deaf ear to McCoy's entreaties.

  "Ah, it approaches. One of our noblest products to date, Captain Kirk."

  "Something is certainly coming toward us, Captain," Spock announced, staring off into the distance.

  Totally awed, they all gazed openmouthed as the living mountain moved toward the barrier. It dwarfed the monstrosity which had attacked them on landing at the island, made it appear a newborn puppy by comparison. Nearer it came, nearer, until it seemed it couldn't be any larger. And yet there was more of it behind.

  Kirk forced himself not to flinch as the colossus halted on the other side of the barrier barely five meters away.

  "We are quite safe," Kor told them. "There is a double barrier, one inside the other, in case by some unlikely mischance one should fail. Each is quite able to restrain such creatures. We take no chances with our experiments, you see."

  Gazing up and up at the gargantuan thing, Kirk could understand why. It was hard to believe the mountain was alive. It was easily a hundred meters high and at least twice that in length. Comparing it again to the monster that had attacked them earlier found that smaller beast a model of symmetry compared to this thing. At least it had faintly resembled an organized creature. This sported head and necks in no special place or order. Only the legs appeared even vaguely arranged according to natural law. From time to time new eyes or ears or mouth orifices would appear along the rolling, quivering flanks, while other organs would vanish within. The creatures apparently existed in a continual state of reintegration and disassembly.

  "An impressive mass," Kor observed rhetorically. "It weighs many thousands of qons." There was an evil pride in his voice as he enumerated the virtues of his crime against nature.

  "This is the most mobile one of its size we have been able to produce, alth
ough the barrier restrains some much larger but not nearly so agile."

  "How," McCoy wondered, staring up at the burbling mountain, "did you succeed in getting so many small integrals to combine into such a monstrosity? Even Pandronian nature operates according to some laws."

  "It is a forced, artificially induced association, of course," Kor explained. "The integration is accomplished by employing a combination of controller frequencies and a hormone we have synthesized. The hormone is essentially the antithesis of that used by the Pandronians in their weapons, such as the fasir. That drug forces Pandronian life forms to disassociate, while our chemical impels them irresistibly to associate, to combine into larger, ever larger forms."

  "It's still impossible," McCoy insisted. "How could something that big feed itself?"

  "To begin with," Kor told him, "it is basically carnivorous. You can tell that from the preponderance of teeth and claws. Such a mass would ravage this entire swampland quickly enough, would eat its way across an entire planet in short order. We synthesize enough raw protein to keep our experiments like this one satiated. Of course, when we eventually succeed in developing a creature with high mobility, it will support itself when necessary."

  "I would still know your purpose behind this," Spock said quietly.

  "Oh, come now, Mr. Spock. I expect better of a Federation science officer. The universe is full of weapons. Not all need to be inorganic. A creature of this size," he went on as the experiment in question began to pound with awesome but silent futility against the inner force screen, "could assault a position defended even by phaser cannon. Because when one small portion of itself is destroyed, the rest continues on, thanks to its individual integrals.

  "One would need to concentrate an enormous amount of firepower on it to reduce it to sizes susceptible to hand-weapon fire. By that time the creature would already have overwhelmed any field position, no matter how well emplaced and defended. The controller would see to that."

  "Impractical," Kirk snapped. "Transporting several such monsters to a world in combat would be an impossible problem in logistics."

  "Not at all," Kor countered. "We simply use the Pandronians own disassociation drug—in a diluted formula—thus causing the creature to disassemble into manageable sizes. These will then be transported like any breakdown weapon to the world in question and there reassembled on the battlefield through the use of the integrator hormone and the controller.

  "Naturally," the Klingon captain added after a moment's pause, "not everything is perfected as yet. The problem of high mobility, for example. But do not worry—perfection is not far off. When that comes, Pandro will be turned into an organic arsenal for the Empire!"

  IX

  "What," Spock inquired as they were being led toward the nearest building, "do your Pandronian allies think of your plans?"

  Kor showed no hesitation in replying. "The brave Pandronians who have chosen our assistance to aid them in their struggle against the repressive autocrats of Tendrazin care nothing for what we might wish to do in the swamplands, provided we permit free association and disassociation among intelligent beings on Pandro. They know that the results of our experiments will be utilized on other worlds, not here."

  Kirk tried to imagine the colossus thundering against the impenetrable barrier before them let loose on a mechanized battlefield, or dropped into the center of a large city whose inhabitants might elect to resist Klingon rule—and he shuddered.

  "The reb—patriots," Kor continued, "have granted us full permission to make use of all the Pandronian lower life we require for our experiments."

  "You're not going to use the frequency modulator, you're not going to unleash your abominations on this world, and yet you say you're going to help the rebels topple the government without using Imperial weaponry. I'd like to know how," Kirk wondered.

  "The Pandronian government will fall of its own accord, rotten as it is," Kor announced solemnly.

  "You mean, unhelpful to Klingon as it is, don't you?" said McCoy angrily.

  "Actually," the Klingon captain added in less pontifical tones, "it will collapse because we aided the rebels in one slight sortie."

  "The theft of the Tam Paupa—so that's how this motley assortment of fanatics managed to pull that off."

  "You malign our patriots," commented a disapproving Kor. "Nevertheless, it is here. Would you like to see it?"

  "The Tam Paupa . . . it here is?" a reverent bn Bem whispered, his head ringing.

  "Would I lie to you?" grinned Kor.

  "Would a Klingon—" McCoy began, but he was restrained by Spock. Why he couldn't have his say he didn't know, since they were going to be killed anyway; but Spock always had good reasons for employing physical restraint. The comment died aborning.

  "Inside, please," Kor commanded them. They entered the building.

  bn Bem expressed relief. "They have turned off the controller, This One thinks."

  "I still can't believe you haven't used heavy weapons on Pandro, in contravention of still another treaty point," Kirk essayed. "How do you keep the dangerous swamp life clear of your pathway through the varbox, not to mention off this island?"

  "That's no problem, Captain Kirk. Consider the modest experiment you encountered just inland. We let a few that size roam more or less freely about the perimeter of the island, and run some back and forth through the swamp path we've chosen with the use of controller remotes like this one." He tapped the control box at his waist.

  "Most Pandronian life gladly makes haste to other regions. Those that do not help by reducing somewhat our need to produce synthesized protein." He smiled wolfishly.

  "By the way, Mr. Spock, I know that you've had your communicator on open broadcast since we captured you." The first officer stiffened slightly. "It is of no consequence. Your unit could not penetrate the radiant screening around this installation. Even if it could, our operatives on board the Enterprise have evidently accomplished their task of disrupting your ship's communications equipment.

  "By the time they have ship-to-surface capability restored, you will not be around to signal for beam-up. But your communicators will, so that you can be beamed back aboard—what's left of you, that is. I might point out that the modern weaponry which so concerns you, Captain Kirk, still has not been used on Pandro—but only on the Enterprise."

  He pushed through a door leading into a busy lobby. Variously uniformed Klingons mixed freely with black-clad Pandronians. "Before too long the absence of the Tam Paupa will begin to make itself felt in government circles. Soon word of its absence will breach government security and spread to the general populace.

  "Panic will ensue. The government will be in complete disarray. The Pandronians' natural bellicosity will come to the fore and cusim—no more planetary government."

  The group halted at the end of the lobby, where Commander bn Bem and the other Pandronian soldiers were separated from Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

  "If not meet again, Kirk Captain," bn Bem murmured softly, "was for This One good to have known you. For you sentiments same, Spock Commander, McCoy Doctor."

  The Pandronians were led away, while the Enterprise officers were taken down a nearby narrow corridor. At its end was a door flanked by a pair of arrow-straight Klingon guards. Kor used an electronic key attuned to the electron levels of the lock alloy to open the door. They entered, saw a small, dimly lit room. The room itself was almost empty and as warm as the outside. Some stands holding a smattering of scientific equipment were placed around the chamber. Cases and cabinetry lined one wall. At the far end was a bench supporting a medium-sized glass case.

  "In there, gentlemen," Kor advised them as he pointed toward the case, "lies the Pandronian Tam Paupa. If local records are accurate, and we have no reason to believe they lie, the most frantic search the Pandronians could mount would not locate another for at least two hundred of their years. Their government and civilization should collapse inside forty."

  "I can see why it's so diffi
cult to locate," McCoy commented, squinting. "I can't see it even now."

  "The inferiority of the human form," smirked Kor.

  "That may be," Spock conceded, drawing a vicious glare from McCoy, "but it does not apply to me, and I see nothing inside that case save some shredded vegetable matter."

  Kor's smirk gave way slowly to confusion as he also stared at the case. "It should be in plain view," he muttered. "Watch them closely," he directed the guards as he walked rapidly toward the bench. He looked down into the case.

  "Odd." Taking a metal probe, he reached inside and stirred the bark shavings which apparently served to cushion the Tam Paupa. His stirrings grew frantic.

  "Something the matter, Kor?" Kirk wondered pleasantly. But the Klingon captain's eyes had widened and he showed no sign of having heard.

  "Guard—chamber guards!" Both tall Klingons who flanked the doorway stuck their heads into the chamber.

  "Has anyone had access to this chamber since," and he hurriedly checked his personal chronometer, "eight fluas ago?"

  Looking puzzled, the guard replied in Klingon, "No, Honored Captain. But we assumed duty only six fluas ago."

  "Get back to your post!" Kor screamed. Rushing to one of the cabinets lining the left-hand wall, he thumbed an intercom switch, then spoke in Klingon, which all three officers understood reasonably well.

  "Security Central . . . this is Captain Kor speaking. Who was on duty in the secure chamber as of seven fluas back?" A pause, then, "And for the period before that?" Another pause, followed by a violent command: "Get all of them up here immediately! I don't care if they are on rest period!" Kor's voice dropped menacingly. "Would you like your head separated from its shoulders like a Pandronian? You'll find reattaching it not so simple."

  They waited while Kor glared furiously from empty case to intercom and kicked at another cabinet as if it were personally responsible for his troubles. Abruptly his attention returned as someone reported at the other end of the intercom.