Yes. Perhaps it was time after all.
Raising himself up from his haunches, he made his way down the ravine. Tiny rocks ground underneath his boots. His artificial hair fluttered in the breeze and he combed it back into place with his fingers.
"It's the leader," said Channing, when Brown was close enough.
He saw once again the way her human counterpart had pleaded for her life. The way Thomasson had gripped her by the throat and constricted his fingers about it and held her like that until she stopped struggling.
"You mean Kirk," he said. Perhaps Channing and the others had been programmed to think of Kirk that way—but he had not.
She shrugged. "Kirk—the leader. He's asking for you."
"Of course," said Brown. He slipped past her into the shack—a lean-to, really, constructed of bits of debris he'd collected on his forays into the colony center.
When he saw him, Thomasson rose to give Brown his seat, choosing a section of the shack where he wouldn't bump his head against the slanted roof.
Nor did Brown pay any more attention to him than he had to. For he had terminated the existence of the human Thomasson himself, and this was not the time to be distracted by such things.
The android leaned closer to the speaker grid.
"This is Brown," he said.
"Greetings, Doctor," said Kirk. "I see you've had some success down there."
"I have done what was asked of me," said Brown.
"Which is all any of us can do," said Kirk. A pause. "I'm calling from the U.S.S. Enterprise—now under my command. . . ."
So. He too has been successful. But was there ever any doubt? Nothing can stop him—he had said so himself.
"We are about to establish orbit around Midos Five," Kirk continued. "Soon, we'll be beaming down. I trust you have made arrangements for my arrival at the governor's office?"
"Arrangements have been made," Brown responded. He did not mention the difficulties involved, because Kirk had not asked.
It had been one thing to kidnap humans at random—to incapacitate them and bring them back here to the installation. The capture of a specific individual, however—especially one who seldom went out-of-doors, one tied so tightly into to the governmental hierarchy—that had been a different matter entirely. And then to return that person to the colony before it was suspected there was anyone missing …
"Good," said Kirk. "Then be prepared. After I've done my song and dance for the governor's committee, I'll be bringing the first group down for conversion. Just remember—they'll be anything but cooperative."
"We have acquired weapons," said Brown. "There has been no deviation from my instructions."
He thought he heard Kirk chuckle, but the signal was not so pure that he could be sure. Even so, something rankled within him.
Perhaps it was the other android's tone. So glib. So …condescending. He had almost forgotten how much he resented it.
Or was there something else as well? Some other thing that disturbed him?
"You say the first group," Brown went on. "How many groups will there be?"
He could almost see Kirk shrugging his shoulders.
"A great number, Doctor. Unless I see a reason to stop, I'm going to convert the entire crew." A moment of silence. "Why do you ask?"
The entire crew. Some four hundred and thirty humans, he thought.
Four hundred and thirty whose faces will replay their deaths for me. . . .
"Is it wise to convert so many?" he asked. "We were more cautious on the Hood."
"It was a different situation there," said Kirk. Suddenly, his voice had taken on a sterner tone. "We were in a hurry to get the machine off Exo III. And to gain control of a second vessel—this vessel. Now that these things have been accomplished, we may proceed differently."
"I see," said Brown. "Yet …"
"Yet what, Doctor?"
"I don't know if the machine will be able to stand up under so many conversions in so short a time."
"If it does not," said Kirk, "the deficiency will be yours—not the machine's. It would be a pity to discover at this late date that you were not capable of carrying out the Creator's plan."
Of course, he was right. The machine had virtually no limitations. Given an adequate supply of raw materials, there was no reason why it should not be able to duplicate the crew of the Enterprise.
Then why should he resist Kirk's decision? Because there was something about recalling the human deaths that disturbed him?
Certainly, this was a dysfunction on his part. Could he allow it to stand in the way of Doctor Korby's objectives?
No. Of course not.
"Brown? Are you still there?"
"I am here," said the android. "And I will make certain that the machine can perform all the necessary conversions."
"That's better," said Kirk. "Much better. I knew I could count on you, Doctor."
"Of course," said Brown. "Will there be anything else?"
"No, that's it. For now. Kirk out."
A moment later, the communications device fell silent again.
* * *
Kirk and Spock had no sooner materialized in the governor's committee room than they were assaulted by the man.
He was short, slender, bald-headed but for a monk's fringe of reddish hair. And so baby-faced that his sharp-edged fury seemed wildly out of place.
"About time you got here!" he raved, poking a finger into Kirk's chest. "Of course, you've got better things to do than worry about some poor, defenseless girl, who …"
Another man came up behind him, took him by the shoulders. This one was tall, with gray hair cut short and bristly, though his beard was dark as pitch.
"Channing," he said. "They've come as quickly as they could. A starship—"
"Starships be damned!" sputtered the smaller man, spraying flecks of saliva. "This just isn't a high priority for them. They'd rather be blasting Klingons to kingdom come so they can rack up some more medals. What's a few missing miners compared to—"
"Channing!" bellowed the one with the beard. "That's enough!"
The smaller man came forward suddenly, grabbed Kirk's tunic in his freckled fists.
Out of the corner of his eye, the android saw Spock tense. He knew that the Vulcan would move to subdue Kirk's assailant at the first hint of a weapon—or at a word from the captain himself.
But the human Kirk, in this type of situation, with the colonists' nerves understandably taut, would not have given that word—so neither did he. Nor did he take any action on his own.
"No," said the one called Channing. "It's not enough. Not nearly. Because if she dies, I'm going to …"
But before he could finish, the bearded man wrenched him away.
"Damn it, get a hold of yourself," he barked, shaking his fellow committeeman. "It's not their fault. They're here to help!"
Channing glared at him for a moment. Then, slowly, his anger turned into something else. Tears stood out in his eyes, glistened. He heaved a sigh that was almost a sob.
"Let me be, Chewton." It was only a whisper, all he could manage in his emotion-racked state.
But it was enough to tell Kirk what he wanted to know. The bearded one, then, was Chewton—the governor. It was a necessary bit of information, considering the captain had met him only a few months back, and the governor would not expect to have been forgotten in so short a time.
"Let me be," Channing repeated. And with more strength than Kirk would have given him credit for, he thrust the governor from him.
"Channing …" began Chewton.
But the smaller man didn't seem to hear him. He turned toward the pair from the Enterprise.
"Find her," he told them, his voice an empty husk now. Again, for just a second, anger flared red and hot. "You find her!"
Then he turned again, as if he would leave the room. But he'd hardly taken two steps before his knees buckled and he slumped to the floor.
The bearded man started toward him, but the
rest of the committee was closer. In an instant, they had surrounded him.
Chewton looked apologetically at Kirk, and then at Spock.
"Sorry," he said. "You have to understand—the man's daughter is among the missing."
Kirk nodded. "Of course," he said, as gently as the occasion dictated. "I do understand. Completely."
By then the others had gotten Channing to his feet. With their help, he moved toward the doorway again.
"Perhaps," said Kirk, "I should have my ship's doctor take a look at him."
The governor thought for a moment, shook his head.
"No," he said. "All he needs is some rest. He's been up in a flitter every day and night for the past week." He paused. "When we called," he said, "we did hope you could've gotten here sooner."
Spock raised an eyebrow. "Sooner, sir?"
"Mister Spock, we transmitted a request for help nearly two weeks ago." Chewton's brow, already lined with care, creased even more. "When we established this colony, we were assured that help would never be that far away."
"Two weeks," echoed Spock. He turned to Kirk. "Interesting. And we only received a message from Starfleet a couple of days ago—ship's time."
The android muttered a curse. "Must have gotten lost in the bureaucracy somehow—though I've never heard of a screw-up as bad as this one." He shook his head, regarded Chewton soberly. "You have my abject apology, sir. But now that we are here, let's make the most of it."
The governor nodded. "Of course," he said, gesturing toward the oval table in the center of the room. The seats around it were filling up again as the other committee members returned to them.
Kirk took an empty chair next to the governor's. Spock sat down beside him.
The captain scanned the faces around the table, wondering which of them was an android like himself. Of course, it was impossible to tell just by looking. But without a doubt, it was one of them.
Otherwise—if Brown had failed to kidnap and replace the committeeman in charge of telecommunications—a call would really have gone out to the nearest starbase. And a starship would have been deployed to Midos Five, but it probably would not have been the Enterprise. First of all, there were other ships that had been closer—the Hood among them; second, Kirk's crew had been on shore leave, and it would have taken time to recall everyone from the planet.
This way, however, it had been assured—the Enterprise would be the vessel which came to the colony's aid. And that was a crucial cog in the mechanism of Kirk's plan—for how could he duplicate the crew without bringing it to Midos Five?
"All right, ladies and gentlemen," said the governor. "You ill know the captain and Mister Spock. And I need not tell you why they're here."
Kirk noted the resentment in their eyes—only a glimmer of what he'd seen in Channing's, but there nonetheless. Unlike Channing, however, they kept it to themselves.
Nor was the android among them any more noticeable than before. Whichever one he was, he wore the same slight frown as all the others.
"Why don't we start at the beginning?" Kirk suggested. "When did the disappearances start?"
"Twenty days ago," said a committee woman with dark hair and darker eyes. "Twenty days exactly."
"Rachel Mphalele," added another woman, this one big-boned and lightly complected. "Her father's the foreman at Northridge. They have an outpost home not far from the mine."
"What first alerted you that she was missing?" asked Kirk.
"She wasn't home for dinner," explained the governor, "and apparently she was very punctual by nature. Her father became worried, called everyone he knew in the area. One of his neighbors said that he'd seen her on his way home. She'd been picked up by a flitter."
"And since her boyfriend had a flitter," rejoined the big-boned woman, "Rachel's father contacted him. But the boy said he hadn't seen her all day."
"He had an alibi?" asked Spock.
The dark woman shook her head from side to side. "No, not really. So naturally, we suspected that he was lying and took him into custody. But then there was another disappearance—an engineer named Thomasson. And a third—Channing's daughter Karen." She looked Kirk in the eye. "That's when I placed the call to Starfleet."
Ah. The android did nothing to acknowledge that he knew who she was—what she was. But having dropped her hint, she would have assumed that the connection had been made.
"Since then," said a burly man with smallish features, "there have been eight more disappearances. We've been completely ineffectual in trying to guard against them. And for all we know, there's another one taking place even as we speak."
Kirk leaned forward. "You mentioned that the girl was seen getting into a flitter. Was the man who saw it able to describe it?"
"I'm afraid not," said the big-boned woman. "But a flitter was reported missing that same day—and it hasn't turned up since."
"No suspects then?" asked Kirk. "No leads?"
"Captain," said the dark woman, "this is not a big colony. No one could hide anything here for very long. It seems obvious to us that whoever's doing this is himself one of the missing."
"That's right," added the other woman. "He's got to be hiding out there in the wilderness, flitting in just long enough to do his dirty work and then flitting out again."
"That seems the most likely possibility," agreed Kirk. "But I'm not ruling out any others."
"Indeed," said Spock. "How do we know that the individual in question isn't one of your outpost residents?"
"We've searched all the outposts," said Chewton. "Including Mphalele's. No sign of anyone or …" He scowled. "No evidence of foul play."
"And we've had the outposts watched since the third or fourth disappearance," contributed the dark woman. "Nothing unusual has taken place at any of them."
The governor turned to Kirk. "Captain, couldn't your long-range scanners find someone if he was out there?"
"Actually," said the android, "we're in the process of trying that now. But we're not having much luck—and the scanners will pick up any life-form that's out in the open. We must conclude that our abductor—as well as those he's abducted—are in a cave or something, somewhere the scanners can't reach."
Or else, those we seek are inorganic, and therefore unscannable. But none of you has thought of that—not even Spock.
The burly man grunted. "Then what are we talking about? Shuttlecraft?"
"I'm afraid so," said Kirk. "It'll take some time for us to comb every space within flitter range, but it's the only viable alternative I can think of." He turned to his first officer. "How about you, Spock?"
After a moment, the Vulcan nodded. "It would seem to be he best strategy," he concluded.
"All right then," said Kirk. "We'll have the shuttlecraft down here within the hour. And of course, we'll continue to try the scanners. In the meantime, I suggest you keep up whatever precautions you've already taken." He smiled humorlessly. "Who knows? Maybe our friend will get careless."
The android flipped open his communicator.
"Scotty?"
"Right here, Captain."
"Two to beam up. In thirty seconds."
"Aye, sir."
Kirk closed his communicator, stood, and stepped back from the table. Spock, of course, did likewise.
The android surveyed the faces around the committee table. None of them seemed particularly grateful.
"Gentlemen," he said. Then, catching the eye of the dark woman for just a little longer than was necessary, "Ladies."
The transporter beam took them a couple of seconds later.
Chapter Sixteen
KIRK HAD BEEN AWAKE for some time before he realized the implications of that fact.
His first lucid thought was a chilling one: The Rythrian's found me. I'm back in his warehouse.
But no—he wasn't bound to the cot he was lying on. And while the room in which he found himself was plain enough, it was no warehouse.
Besides—the Rythrian wouldn't have brought me back. H
e would just have dumped me in that swamp and made an end of it.
He tried to get up, felt the pain of his wounds come awake with nauseating fury; stopped trying and lay back against his pillow.
There was a click and a sucking sound and a puff of smoke off to his right. Startled to find out he'd had company without knowing it, Kirk turned his head enough to see the man's face.
He had pale, pale hair, almost white, pulled tightly into a clasp at the back of his head. From there, it hung like a horse's tail.
His face was long and thin, sharp-featured, stubbly with a couple of days' growth. His skin was almost as pale as his hair. And he had a phaser on his belt.
"Feeling better?" asked the man, putting his little liquid-fuel lighter away. He drew a breath through his pipe, let the blue-gray smoke out his nostrils.
The captain grunted. "Feeling alive, anyway. Are you the one responsible for that?"
The man nodded almost indiscernibly. "I thought I heard someone cry out just beyond the main gate. So I went to investigate—and found you."
Then he had managed to get a yell out before he succumbed.
"I stepped on something," said Kirk.
"You certainly did," said the blond man. "We call it Malachi's Boot—after its first victim among the original colonists. It sends a paralyzing agent into the bloodstream. If I hadn't found you within a few minutes, administered the antidote … you just would have locked up inside. Heart, lungs, everything."
Kirk swallowed. "That's a new one on me. I'm grateful, Mister…?"
The man chuckled, sent smoke blossoming out the corner of his mouth. "Kaith," he answered. "Now, suppose you demonstrate some of that gratitude—and tell me why the Rythrian is so hot for your hide."
The captain met his gaze. "What makes you think he is?"
The blond man shrugged. "A couple of hours after I pulled you in off the road, a big fellow with a scar—one of the Rythrian's men—came looking for you. I said I hadn't seen any sign of you." He paused. "So?"
"He's mistaken me for someone who swindled him," explained Kirk. "After holding me for a while, trying to pry loose some information I didn't have, he decided to toss me in a bog. I escaped—and got as far as the place where you found me."
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