The footfalls grew louder, closer. They saw a light flicker, then fill the cave.
A moment later, Doctor Brown appeared. He held his searchlight off to one side, so as not to blind them.
"Gentlemen," he said. He held out his hand to Martinez. "It is so good to see you."
Martinez took his hand, shook it.
"We were about to give up hope," he said.
Brown chuckled. "Just imagine what it's like to wait five years—and more." He glanced at Stuart and then at Banks. "Will you follow me?"
Stuart fell into line behind Brown, and Martinez came after him. Banks brought up the rear, as he'd fully expected.
The caves turned out to be beautiful, in a way. Brown's searchlight picked out purplish iridescences and quartzlike gleams among the dusky blue surfaces. The stalactites, of which there were many, seemed to glow a sullen red.
"Be careful where you walk," the archaeologist told them. "We're about to skirt the edge of a large pit. Not all the footing here is as solid as it appears."
As if for emphasis, Brown cast his light along the brink. Beyond it, Banks saw, there was nothing but black emptiness. The light couldn't begin to find the bottom.
He swallowed and hugged the opposite wall, keeping as far away from the pit as possible.
Their trek seemed to go on for some time. Banks glanced at his chronometer, saw that they'd been descending for more than an hour. It was no wonder Brown had been a little late.
Shortly thereafter, they began to pass through a series of arches. Banks couldn't get a very good look at them, because Brown held the only light, and he was up ahead. But it was plain that they weren't natural formations.
Nor could Brown and his companion have built them. For one thing, there were too many of the things. For a second, they couldn't have had the equipment.
Where, then, had the arches come from?
Martinez must have been wondering the same thing, because he asked Brown about it.
The archaeologist's voice carried well in the narrow corridor. "It seems, Captain, that they were fabricated by an indigenous race—one which may have lived on the surface before the sun here began to dim. At first, we speculated that the arches gave support to otherwise weak portions of the tunnels. After studying them, however, we've concluded that they are merely decorative."
Only a few minutes later, they came to a diamond-shaped slab of metal, seemingly embedded in the rock. Brown pressed his hand against a small plate to one side of it, and the slab moved—not unlike the doors on the Hood, Banks noted.
One by one, they passed inside.
"Nice place you've got here," said Stuart, surveying some sort of parlor. He glanced at Brown with those deep-set, pale green eyes of his. "Another leftover of the previous inhabitants?"
"The structure of the place, yes," said Brown. "But not much else. We were able to salvage a great deal from our ship." He gestured. "That computer, for instance. It controls the ventilation and lighting systems, among other things."
Martinez nodded. "Where's your colleague—Zezel?"
The captain looked uncomfortable down here, Banks observed. Trapped, in a way. And as usual, Stuart only echoed the mood of his superior.
The science officer saw nothing amiss, however. Only some rather interesting architecture.
"He must be in the next room," said Brown. "We should take a peek in there, in any case. That's where you'll find the discoveries to which I referred."
"Good," said Martinez. "Let's have a look."
Brown opened the door to the next chamber, and they followed him through. It hissed closed automatically behind them.
There was no sign of Zezel in there. But what they saw made them forget him for the moment.
"All right," said Martinez. "It's big enough. But what is it?"
Banks recoiled inwardly at his captain's brusqueness. Perhaps later, he could apologize to Doctor Brown.
"What it is," said the archaeologist, unruffled, "is a device for the creation of artificial life-forms."
Banks saw Martinez glance at Stuart.
Brown smiled a thin-lipped smile. "You seem incredulous, Captain. And to be honest, I don't blame you. But this machine can create life." He paused. "Perhaps a demonstration would change your mind. I promise you—you won't be disappointed."
The captain grunted. "Sure, go ahead. Demonstrate if you like."
"Thank you," said Brown. He traversed the room and opened a compartment near the wall. With some difficulty, he removed something large and grayish green, carried it over to a circular platform.
Banks felt a dryness in his throat. He had heard of instances in which artificial life had been created. Read reports. But to see such a thing, close up …
He watched carefully as Brown laid his shapeless burden on the platform, then brought the lock down across it.
The archaeologist looked up. "And now," he said, "I need a volunteer." He fixed his gaze on Martinez. "Captain?"
Martinez smiled. "Sorry. Machines break down. I don't want to be inside this one if that should happen. And I'd prefer not to place my men in that kind of danger either."
Brown looked a little sad. "I assure you," he said, "it's quite safe. We've tested it inside and out."
"I'm sure you have," said the captain. "But it doesn't change my mind."
"Sorry," said a voice. "I'm afraid we must insist."
Banks whirled, saw the figure standing directly behind them, in the shadows of the machine. It took him a moment to realize that it was holding some kind of weapon.
By that time, his fellow officers had gone for their phasers. There was a blast of yellow-white light, jolting Stuart off his feet. Martinez rolled, sending a red stunbeam in the newcomer's direction. But it missed, glancing off the stone wall of the cavern.
As the captain rose to a kneeling position, to get a better bead on his target, there was another, tighter blast—and his phaser went flying out of his hand.
Only then did Banks remember his own weapon. His heart thudding against his ribs, he reached for it.
But just as he drew it out, something clamped around his wrist. Something powerful, for suddenly the bones in it were close to breaking.
Banks screamed with the pain.
His hand opened reflexively and the phaser clattered to the floor. Then, abruptly, he was released. He fell to one knee, clutching his wrist to him like a wounded bird.
And looked up into the expressionless face of Doctor Brown. Through the haze of his pain, Banks wondered where the man could have gotten such strength.
Slowly, with the captain's help, Stuart got to his feet.
"Are you all right?" asked Martinez.
The first officer shrugged. "I've been worse. I guess he has a stun setting too."
Martinez glared at the man in the shadows. "Well, Zezel? Aren't you going to tell us what this is about?"
The man stepped clear of the shadows, his weapon still leveled at them. He was a handsome man, Caucasian, medium height and build.
And he looked naggingly familiar.
"Kirk?" whispered Martinez, taking an involuntary step forward. "Jim Kirk?"
The man with the weapon smiled. Charmingly, it seemed to Banks.
"Good to see you again, Joaquin. It's a pity it couldn't have been under more cordial circumstances."
Banks remembered now. The cocktail party on Starbase Five. James Kirk, commander of the Enterprise. But …
"I … I don't get it, Jim," said Martinez. "I just don't get it."
"You will," said Kirk. "Unless you take your hand away from your communicator."
Martinez frowned, did as he was instructed.
"Now," said Kirk, "over toward the platform. Move."
Martinez just stood there, watching his adversary. Hoping he could frustrate him into making a mistake.
Kirk made a quick adjustment in his weapon. "Move," he repeated evenly, training it on Stuart. "Or I'll kill your first officer."
"Don't do it, Capt
ain," said Stuart.
Brown took a couple of steps toward Kirk. "If you harm him," he said, "it will make matters that much more difficult."
Kirk glanced at the archaeologist. "I don't need you to tell me that, Doctor." He looked back to Martinez. "Well?"
Reluctantly, the captain moved toward the platform.
Within minutes, Brown had him locked into place alongside the gray-green mass. Martinez struggled against the lock, saw that he'd have no success with it.
"You won't get away with this," he said. "Either of you." He craned his neck to look at Kirk. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but Starfleet won't look kindly on it."
"Starfleet," said Kirk, "won't know anything about it—until we've already carried out our purpose." He nodded to Brown, who stood now by a control console. The archaeologist pressed a series of buttons.
The platform began to turn.
"You wanted to know what our game was," said Kirk, over the growing hum of the machinery. "This will help to educate you."
He regarded Stuart, then Banks. His gaze was cold—ever so cold.
"And soon, gentlemen, you'll receive the same education."
The platform speeded up, until Martinez was nothing more than a blur.
Banks began to tremble.
Chapter Four
"HOW IS HE?" asked Kirk.
Nurse Christine Chapel stood at the foot of the P'othparan's bunk, consulting the life-support displays on the wall above him. Tall and fair, almost stately in her bearing, she glanced at the captain as he approached.
"He needs a lot of rest," she said. "But the surgery was a complete success. Doctor McCoy says the boy's leg will be as good as new." She scowled in imitation of the chief medical officer. "Maybe better," she rumbled.
Kirk laughed softly, inspecting the P'othparan's face. Some color seemed to have crept back into his cheeks.
"Good," said the captain. "I was a little worried."
The youth stirred then. He moaned, turning his face to one side and back again. Chapel moved to the head of the bunk and, gently, brushed a long strand of golden hair from the boy's eyes.
"I told the authorities on the mainland," said Kirk, "that he'd probably be well enough to beam down in a few days. Any problem with that?"
Chapel shrugged. "Obviously, we'd like to monitor him for a little longer. But he'll be better off in familiar surroundings, no question about it." She looked up at Kirk. "Of course, Doctor McCoy will want to have the final say."
Kirk grunted. "Of course. Why should this matter be any different than countless others?"
Chapel smiled. "Actually, you can get it from the horse's mouth if you care to wait a few minutes. Doctor McCoy said he would stop by to check on our patient—on his way somewhere else, apparently."
Kirk nodded. "I know. I'm the someone he's going there with."
"Oh?"
"Yes. We have a little wager—and we're going to settle it tonight."
Of course, tonight was a relative term. But the Enterprise ran on a twenty-four-hour clock so as to minimize any disruption of the crew's circadian rhythms.
"What sort of wager?" asked Chapel.
"It has to do with … a physicals," he admitted.
The nurse frowned, but there was humor in it. "You mean," she asked, "Doctor McCoy has agreed to let you forgo your physical? If you win a bet?"
Kirk shrugged. "Not forever, mind you. Just for a while."
"I don't believe it," she said. "I know how you hate physicals, sir—your disregard for your own well-being has assumed epic proportions among the crew. But how did you convince Doctor McCoy to go along with this?"
"It wasn't easy," he agreed. That got a laugh out of her.
There were some people whose laughter was precious, like sea treasure. Christine Chapel was one of those people.
But just as Kirk was starting to enjoy it, he saw tears stand out in her eyes. A moment later, she had to dab at them with her fingers. She reddened, embarrassed.
"Something I said?" he asked, confused.
Chapel took a deep breath, let it out. She looked around sickbay. It was empty, of course, but for the two of them and the sedated P'othparan. The life-support display provided an undertone to the silence.
She turned again, finally, toward Kirk.
"I'm sorry," she told him. "I didn't mean to do that. It's just that …I need to thank you, sir. For what you did. Or rather, what you didn't do."
It took Kirk a moment to figure out what she was talking about. When he did, it was his turn to be embarrassed.
"That's not necessary," he said.
"I think it is," she insisted.
She removed something from the pocket of her uniform. It was a computer tape, which she popped into a nearby playback device.
"'Captain's log, stardate twenty-seven-twelve point seven. Unfortunately, like the two expeditions that preceded us, we have been unable to turn up any evidence which would point to the survival of Doctor Roger Korby on Exo III. Two of my crewmen, Rayburn and Matthews, were lost in the course of a comprehensive search that took us deep into the planet's subterranean passages, where Korby was believed to have preserved himself.'"
Kirk remembered the words. They were his, of course.
"'My recommendation is that no further searches be conducted, nor personnel placed at risk. We must resign ourselves to the fact that one of our most brilliant and innovative minds is gone, having perished in the pursuit of truth.'"
She stopped the tape and removed it.
Kirk shrugged. "Doctor Korby was a great man, Christine. What happened on Exo III doesn't change that."
"That's the way I've come to think of it also," said Chapel. "But then, I was in love with him."
For a long moment, silence.
"Well," she said finally, "I just wanted you to know how I felt." She paused. "It's important that good deeds get noticed—by someone."
Kirk felt awkward. He didn't know what to say to that.
In the end, it was McCoy who bailed him out, showing up at the entranceway.
"Hah!" said the doctor, striding across sickbay as if he owned it—which wasn't, after all, far from the truth. "I see you're willing to put your money where your mouth is, Captain." He stopped beside the P'othparan, bent over the youth's leg.
"You know," said Kirk, "that I can't resist picking up a gauntlet."
McCoy made a derogatory noise as he inspected the wound.
"That," he said, "I know you can do. It's the triple dip I have my doubts about."
Chapel raised an eyebrow, Spock-like.
"Triple dip, sir?"
Her voice was even, free of the huskiness that had marked it when she'd spoken of Korby.
"Triple dip," he confirmed, glad to see she was herself again.
"Christine," said McCoy, "would you be so good as to get me a new dressing?"
Chapel moved crisply, efficiently.
And Kirk sat, knowing that it would be a few minutes before the doctor finished his ministrations.
He had taken a chance in logging that white lie, hadn't he? If anyone in Starfleet found out the truth, his goose was cooked. No—incinerated.
But Korby had deserved a better fate. And if men couldn't show each other a little mercy, of what value were all the Federation's lofty ideals?
Lord knows, he mused, if what happened to Korby ever happened to me, I'd sure as hell be grateful for that kind of mercy.
Besides, he asked himself—what harm could it possibly have done?
By the time they got to the gym, there was a small crowd around the horizontal bar.
"Somehow," said Kirk, "I get the feeling that news of our wager has leaked out. Any idea how that could have happened?"
McCoy smiled angelically. "As my great-aunt Florence used to say, 'The people have a right to know.'"
"Was that the same great-aunt Florence who kept her shades down all the time?"
The doctor harumphed. "Perhaps it was."
As
they approached the stainless-steel apparatus, Kirk overheard a muted argument.
"Never," said one of the voices. "Our class champion could barely manage three and a half."
"Aye," said another voice, in a familiar Scottish brogue. "But yer class champion didna have th' advantage of a mature mind in a mature body. It takes more than muscles, laddie."
"A guy his age is lucky to do two. At most."
"Y're daft. Or maybe ye just dinna know th' captain as a' do."
Kirk glanced over his shoulder to see who Scotty was contending with. But there were a number of new crewmembers standing around the chief engineer, and the conversation stopped when they saw him look their way.
Only Scotty himself met Kirk's gaze. He winked—a gesture of encouragement.
The captain couldn't help but smile as he dipped his hands into the tray of chalk powder or as he rubbed the stuff into his palms.
"What are you smirking about?" asked McCoy. "I'm the one who should be smirking."
Kirk approached the apparatus, took up a position just below the bar.
"Don't count your chickens, Bones."
And with that, he leaped up and grabbed the bar. A moment later, he'd swung himself up to a position where his hips rested against it.
Again, he heard the subdued conversation.
"A nifty move, that, if a' say so m'self."
"Not bad," said one of the others. "For a dinosaur."
"A dinosaur, is't? Why …"
Kirk cut the distraction short with a well-placed bon mot.
"It's all right, Mister Scott. I'm enjoying my sunset years."
That got a laugh from the crowd.
Kirk took a deep breath, dropped down again so that he hung perpendicular to the floor. After all Scotty's protestations, he told himself, he'd better prove that he wasn't a dinosaur.
In four swings, his feet had reached the height of the bar. In two more, they had well exceeded it.
Then, before his arms could grow too tired, he put an extra effort into his foreswing and let go of the bar. A split second later, he tucked his legs in as far as they could go.
The room spun once, almost lazily. Then faster the second time, and the third was just a gut-wrenching blur. At what seemed like the right time, he unfolded and thrust his feet out.
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