Shocked silence - eventually punctuated by a series of basso whoops from the bulky Sord. Lara the huntress smiled.
Kirk started to smile, too, until he noticed that not only wasn't Spock amused, he appeared unusually grim. He considered. The Vedala had made no move to counter what sounded on the surface like an outrageous claim - therefore, perhaps it might not be quite so outrageous.
After all, what did they know about the Skorr, whose numerous worlds lay dozens of parsecs from the nearest Federation planet?
"It is a very real danger," Spock murmured. "Extrapolating from the most recently obtained figures, the existing Skorr population could breed an army of two hundred billion within a few years, with weapons technology to match. In the Skorr, fertility is tied to the aggressive instinct. The more anger generated, the more the population swells.
"According to the information supplied by Tchar and the Vedala, the Skorr now have the incentive to breed exponentially."
"But to fight the entire Galaxy - surely they couldn't win," the incredulous Lara objected.
"No, but what has that to do with it?" Tchar countered sadly. "You still fail to comprehend the mental state into which my people have been driven. Death now means nothing. Revenge, assuaging their anger - that has become all.
"No, my people could not win such a war, but what would that mean to the millions who would die, Skorr and non-Skorr? Fortunately, there are those among us who can still control their anger enough to realize what a jihad would mean to the Galaxy. But they can restrain the fury only so long, before they too are drowned in it and carried along by the madness.
"We must recover the soul before these final bastions of reason crumble!"
Kirk turned to the silent Vedala. "And there's no hint of who stole the soul?"
"None," the Vedala replied.
"It is hard to understand," Tchar told them. "What other race stands to profit from such a cataclysm? Yet to provoke such seems the only possible motive for the theft. Unless, of course, it was carried out by the mad."
"Insanity," the Vedala observed, "is possessed of and by its own motivations. The keys to unraveling such convoluted reasoning are merely less obvious. We have not been able to discover them."
The Vedala made its equivalent of a shrug.
"Someone, somewhere, may be furious beyond reason - at what, no one knows. Or the theft may be part of a grandiose suicide wish. None of this concerns us in the least. What does concern us very much is that such a war may hinder the free movement of the Vedala through space. Hence, we are involved."
"The Vedala," Kirk shot back, "are known to possess certain technological abilities beyond the combined talents of our Federation and other governments. Why don't you -"
The Vedala held up a restraining hand. "We prefer not to interfere directly. Also, there are indications that, were we to do so, whoever has stolen the soul would take steps to destroy it. We can direct, however, and suggest."
"All right," Kirk agreed. "If you can't take part openly, and you've no idea who engineered the theft, do you have any hints to the present location of the soul?"
Turning, the Vedala struck at empty air. At least, it looked empty. Whether the gesture somehow activated some invisible switch, Kirk couldn't tell. The Vedala were known to encourage confusion in others. It was a matter of protective coloration: what cannot be comprehended is difficult to coerce.
Whatever the method, the gesture resulted in the appearance of a large holographic projection. It drifted in mid-air in the center of the semicircle, just behind the Vedala. And as they watched, it moved and changed.
A star in space was all that was shown, at first. Then the star grew nearer, larger. Three planets were shown circling round it. Again they were drawn into the projection, which drew near to the middle world.
"The mad world," the Vedala announced, for the first time something like fear appearing amid that invulnerable calm. "See how it all writhes?"
Now they were plunging headlong toward the surface, now wheeling up to run parallel to it in a long, steady scan. A scan that revealed roiling, heaving plateaus; violently unstable crust; volcanos erupting, to be promptly enclouded by multiple cyclones; mountains upthrusting. Vortices of strange glowing gases suddenly appeared in a seemingly normal atmosphere, only to dissipate in minutes. Hail was supplanted by a rain of fiery ash.
"The recording you are seeing," the Vedala said quietly, "is being rebroadcast at normal speed."
Kirk whistled, leaned over to whisper to Spock. "And I thought the Terratin world was bad!"
Spock nodded agreement. "There are indications that the planet in question may be somewhat unsuitable for habitation."
Kirk muffled a reply as the Vedala spoke again.
"Seismically unstable, with radical seismic activity and unpredictable tremors. A most inimical climate. Severe tidal disturbances caused by the unceasing action of five moons possessed of the most perverse orbits - the list is endless, beings. The globe is a compendium of catastrophes. The temperature varies from twenty degrees Kelvin to two oh four above."
The Vedala made another gesture, causing the projection to shrink in size without disappearing completely. Kirk looked around the semicircle, saw with relief that here was something everyone present could agree on. All showed attitudes of respect.
"Somewhere on that world," the Vedala went on, "the soul of Alar is hidden." Again that odd hesitation, that hint of a crack in the pose of racial perfection.
"Three expeditions have so far attempted to locate and recover it. Three expeditions have so far disappeared. More care than before has gone into choosing the members of the fourth - yourselves.
"If you consent to participate. We will force no one."
The alternative, of course - Kirk smiled to himself. That threat was enough to persuade any rational being to want to help.
"Naturally, Mr. Spock and I will go," he said.
The Vedala looked gratified, offered no thanks, then looked around at the others. Sord grunted as though it made no difference to him one way or the other. Em-three-green might have declined, but was too thoroughly terrified to do more than shiver violently on his grassy knoll.
Lara acknowledged with a sharp whistle, while Tchar's participation was apparently taken for granted.
"Seems we're agreed," Kirk observed.
"Then it is done," said the Vedala simply.
What happened then was in retrospect sufficiently impressive to outweight any suspicion of obfuscatory technique. The Vedala began to glow, expanding, changing to a collage of misty particles.
At the same time the holograph enlarged. It swallowed the Vedala-mist, but didn't stop there. They were submerged in it. It flooded out the view of the garden around them. The sound of the littie stream became a roar.
An unseen, unfelt torrent he could only hear washed over him and he felt himself falling, falling. Like being in a transporter operating somehow at a fifth normal speed - that was it.
Vision returned to him the same way, slowly, things coming into focus with painful patience. Globs of light and color gradually took on form and shape around him.
Minutes, and the globs had turned into rugged mountains, rain, vast glaciers filling narrow gorges, glowering storm clouds. The dull drone in his ears split into winds buffeting his body, the patter of raindrops on naked stone, and the violent hissing of volcanic ash and lava meeting an advancing river of ice. Kirk was stunned to see that the glacier advanced fast enough that the movement could actually be seen.
He turned slowly.
They had been set down on a broad, flat rock of immense size, utterly devoid of any growth whatsoever. Mountains towered on three sides. Bracing himself, Kirk leaned into the wind. Presumably this was the stablest place the Vedala could find to set them down at. Until he saw the cart, he wondered if the Vedala expected them to find and recover the soul with bare hands and intuition.
The crude-looking wheeled vehicle seemed hardly to represent the zenith of Ved
alan technology. But closer study revealed it was designed with typical Vedala cunning. Most of its capabilities were concealed behind the awkward-looking exterior.
To fool any potential attackers, undoubtedly.
Kirk recognized the basic design of the compact drive system. It would drive the cart up anything other than a vertical face. The suspension system was of matching sophistication. Kirk hoped the on-board equipment had been prepared with equal thoughtfulness.
A shrill cry came down to him from above. Leaning back, he saw that Tchar was now in his element - whirling, diving, coming down finally to hover just above them.
"I cannot feel the soul!" he screamed angrily. "It is nowhere near. We have been tricked!"
"I think not," Spock disagreed, raising his voice only enough to rise above the smothering susurration of the wind. "Consider that the surface of this planet is in constant flux. The Vedala warned us of this. I would guess they have provided us with some means of determining the proper direction."
Kirk had already mounted the cart and was examining the protected instruments. There were plenty, and it took him time to sort out the various controls. They had been designed for use by creatures with all kinds of different manipulative members. But the drive controls were not what finally drew a smile from him, but rather the very instrumentation Spock had suggested they would find.
Kirk became aware of motion beside him, saw that Em-three-green stood there, staring under his arm. Finding himself detected, the little alien hastily moved away on the pretext of studying other controls. Apparently he found any close scrutiny threatening.
Kirk moved to the railing, saw that Sord and Lara had joined the argument.
"All right, save your breath, friends. There's directional equipment on board and it's already tuned. Guess what it's been tuned to?"
"Refined indurite," Spock said without hesitation.
"Exactly."
"Then why not tell us that before, instead of riskin' anything like dissension?" Lara wondered.
"The Vedala," Kirk explained, "probably don't want to take any chance on our starting out overconfident. Putting us down here mentally naked was putting us down alert."
"Small worry of overconfidence," Em-three-green grumbled from behind him. "I can operate this machine, Captain Kirk."
"That's all right, Em," Kirk told him. "I'll manage it."
"No, let me, Captain," the little safecracker protested, with a rare show of determination. "I will feel useful, we will get where we are going faster, and," he added sofdy, "it will help keep my mind off this spine-lined burrow of a world."
Kirk nodded, watched as Em-three-green clambered into the control seat and touched controls with deft assurance. Instantly, a smooth rumble sounded beneath them, rose to a roar of power before settling down to a steady hum.
Spock climbed aboard, moved to examine the directional instrumentation. Kirk bent to give Lara a hand up. Grinning, she made a startling leap, grabbed the railing with both hands and pulled herself up.
That left only Sord. Kirk eyed him uncertainly and was rewarded by a bellowing laugh.
"There's room for you in the back, Sord."
"No," he boomed, "you little ones ride if you wish." The shovel-like head moved like a crane to take in the landscape. "I like this place - it's got variety. And I would crowd you."
Kirk studied the glacier, fascinated. Now it appeared to be retreating visibly.
"Captain," Spock called.
Kirk walked over, his attention going immediately to the small glowing screen the first officer was working with. A grid lay over the lit rectangle, beneath which a web of flexible lines weaved and pulsed. Abruptly they shrunk to a single, pulsing dot.
"It would seem our direction is clearly indicated," Spock observed.
Even as he spoke, the carefully aligned grid suddenly shifted, the dot expanding into a loose maze of questing lines racing crazily across the screen. A red glow began to suffuse the clear plexalloy.
"The position is shifting," Spock commented, "I think..."
Em-three-green leaned over from the pilot's chair. When he got a look at the screen, his already wide eyes bulged enormously.
"Shifting - the control elements are unphasing!" As the solid lines of the grid began to break up, Em screamed and jumped out of the chair to dive behind the metallic bulk of the engine.
A whistling sound began, rose rapidly in volume. Small whisps of smoke appeared from behind the screen's upper corners. The whistle began to pulse alarmingly.
Spock glanced at Kirk, whereupon both men dropped to the deck. Thus they were missed by the flying shards of acrylic and metal which screamed by overhead as the screen blew up.
Getting to their feet slowly, they grimly eyed the smoking, sparking ruin that had been their one hope for tracking down the soul. "What did the Vedala call it?" Kirk muttered tightly. "The mad planet?" He gestured disgustedly at the ruined instrumentation.
"How do you explain that, Spock?"
"A confluence of unbenign electronic forces," the first officer responded slowly.
"In other words, you don't know?"
"Precisely," Spock confessed.
"Doesn't matter."
Kirk turned, stared at Lara. She grinned.
"I know the way," she said. "I got a good look at that thing before it went mockers." She turned, cocked her head slightly without losing the grin and nodded in a direction slightly to the southwest. Her voice was matter-of-fact, confident. "That way."
A querulous inquiry drifted down from above: "Are you certain, human?" questioned a hovering Tchar.
"For sureness, birdman," Lara threw back. "I can't be fooled about directions and I can't get lost. That's why I'm here." She pointed again, downslope and out of the mountains. "It's that way, or I'll eat my kill-boots."
"The Vedala would not have chosen Lara had her abilities been less than perfect," Spock commented.
"So then," Kirk observed, "we know which way we're supposed to go - but we're meant to travel on the ground. An overview could be very helpful." He glanced upward significantly.
Tchar's wings spread wide and he beat downward to gain altitude. "I will scout ahead," he replied simply. Beginning a wide circle that brought him into the up-drafts sweeping up the granite flanks close by, he soared effortlessly higher.
Spock studied his progress for a long moment, then looked idly over at Kirk. "I will acquaint myself with our supplies." He moved toward the rear of the cart and the metal cabinets bolted to the deck there.
Lara watched him go, moved a step nearer Kirk. "Vulcans," she muttered. "Never liked 'em much myself. Cold-blooded critters, every one of 'em. Not an ounce of real feelin' in the whole pack."
"I wouldn't be quite so harsh," Kirk objected. "Especially on Mr. Spock. He's something of a unique personality."
"But not human, like you and me," she said huskily, eyeing him boldly.
Kirk said nothing, stared back in disapproval. She wasn't intimidated.
"Look, maybe you got different customs where you come from, Captain. My world, there's a lot of women, not so many men. When we find a man attractive, we say so." If anything, her gaze grew even less inhibited. "I'm sayin' so. How do you find me?"
"Fascinating and not a little overwhelming," he replied, responding to the frontal assault with complete honesty. "The only problem is, we're not here on a pleasure trip."
"All the more reason to take whatever pleasure there might be in it." She laughed, brushed teasingly close and walked to stand at the front of the cart.
Kirk studied her progress, the supple form and smooth stride. A host of alternating images melted together in his mind to form a single, highly confusing whole.
The muted hum rose in volume as Em-three-green got the cart moving. It lurched down the gentle slope in the direction Lara had indicated. Sord loped along just ahead, his movements cumbersome, awkward - irresistible.
"I've checked out the supplies, Captain."
"Hmmm - wha
t?" Kirk mumbled absently.
"The supplies, Captain, I have completed an inventory," Spock repeated, slightly more forcefully. Kirk finally turned his attention to his first officer. Spock made a show of clearing his throat, continued.
"As expected, the life-support material is more than adequate. There are specific provisions for Sord, Tchar, and Em-three-green. And - there are weapons."
"Against what would we need weapons?" Kirk mused. "I thought the only hostility we were expected to encounter arose out of the planet itself? There's not supposed to be any native life here - unless the Vedala plan another surprise for us."
"I would not rule out anything at this stage, Captain. Judging from the Vedala's outspoken aversion to this world, it would not surprise me to discover that their preliminary survey of it was less than all-inclusive. We have the evidence of three previously unsuccessful expeditions to back this." He scanned the overcast, threatening landscape pessimistically.
"Nor are they, by their own admission, omnipotent. We must rely on our own abilities, I think. Overmuch reliance on Vedalan intervention may have doomed our predecessors here." He nodded toward the horizon.
"To steal something like the soul of Alar and then depend wholly on mechanicals to safeguard it strikes me as unworthy of any beings capable of devising such a theft in the first place. Also illogical. I suspect that before we regain possession of the soul, we may have to deal with those immoral beings personally."
Kirk murmured agreement and turned to contemplate the terrain ahead. Spock had only recited the obvious, yet it seemed as if the pulverized stone that crunched steadily beneath the wheels of the cart now whispered imperceptible threats at every turn of an axle, and unknown forms of extinction paced them while staying just out of sight.
In all this world, he sensed not a hint of welcome. He would be glad when they left it. Or if...
X
Eventually the slope leveled out and the mountains sank beneath the horizon behind. Gravel and rock gave way to a broad, flat, desertlike plain of sand and fine, soft stone. Only scattered monoliths of black basalt broke the gently rolling plateau, volcanic plugs - the mummified hearts of long-eroded fire-spitters. Fortunately the cloud-laden sky cut much of the daytime heat, or they would have been broiled quite thoroughly. In fact, a brisk breeze had sprung up and now blew coolingly in their faces.
Star Trek - [TOS - Animated Novelization 05] - Star Trek Log Five Page 15