The comm screen crackled ominously.
"Message incoming, Captain," Spock
reported unnecessarily. The import of the
message did not disturb him as much as the
fact that: "They are three minutes, fourteen
seconds late."
Nyere opened his mouth to say something he didn't
know what but Jim Kirk had turned from the helm
to cut him off.
"Don't mind him, Captain; he does that all
the time."
"Understood, Captain," Nyere said
conspiratorially. "Transfer to my screen,
please, Mr. Spock."
Only the brief flick of his tongue over parched
lips 375
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
indicated Nyere's nervousness as he prepared
to lay his personal future on the line for the sake
of a larger one.
"'The whole world is watching,"" he murmured
softly.
It got Kirk's attention. "That's from something,
isn't it?"
"Ancient history," was all Jason would say
as the bland face of Norfolk Command appeared on his
screen.
"Prepare to receive your final orders per disposition
of your detainees, Captain."
"Command, stand by, please." Unseen, Nyere
motioned to Spock, then leaned into the screen. "Command,
we have reason to believe we are under frequency
tampering. Repeat: someone is tapping us,
Commodore . . ."
Slowly, methodically, Spock began to
manipulate a series of dials in the order
Nyere had shown him. The commodore's face began
to jiggle and blur on the screen.
"We have been under siege by the media since 0830
hours," Nyere continued. "Suggest they may be
responsible . . ."
Spock manipulated more dials. The commodore
was fairly dancing on the screen now, as well as
fluttering in and out. Onscreen at Norfolk Command
HQ, Jason Nyere was doing the same thing.
"dis . . also a storm front moving in,
contributing to his
"Say again, Captain. was The commodore seemed
to be having difficulty with his voice. Spock's
fingers continued to work their magic. "Not you clearly.
Repeat his
"Sorry, Command, unable to comply," Jason
Nyere said in all innocence, and Jim Kirk
wondered silently if all ships'
captains were blessed with glibness. "Message is
breaking up. Repeat his
At the unseen downsweep of Nyere's hand,
Spock broke the connection. T'Lera watching,
might have had 376
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
second thoughts about a future that taught a
Vulcan such duplicity.
"Bridge to engine room!" Nyere opened the
intership, nodded to Kirk and Mitchell. "Open her
up!"
The diving klaxon whooped in time with Jim
Kirk's heart as the great ship surged under him,
never as smoothly as Enterpnse, but with a kindred
pent-up majesty. The ice surrounding them groaned
in protest, as probably did whoever at Byrd
could see through the blizzard, as the great ship shrugged
them both off simultaneously and lowered away,
sounding the depths like some massive version of the
creature it was named for.
Jason stepped down from the center seat.
"Commander?" he addressed T'Lera formally. "While
I ride herd on the sonar, would you care to take the
con?"
T'Lera's eyebrows expressed what
she could not. "I would be honored, Captain."
Even at this depth, they had to watch out for ice.
"Just treat "em like asteroids, kid,"
Mitchell advised Kirk, plotting a course
around yet another ominous chunk.
"Give me phaser power and I will!" Kirk
retorted, though he was having the time of his life.
Once past the ice and the three-mile limit, they
made top speed.
"Captain," Spock announced when they dared
break radio silence, "I have reached the mobile
transmitter at the coordinates Mr. Mitchell
has provided."
"Parneb," Jim Kirk explained from the
command chair; it was his turn to play captain.
"Gary said to expect a one-word message. Either
we're all clear to come ashore where he is, or
we'll have to await a new rendezvous."
Spock listened. "The answer is in the
affirmative, Captain."
Jim Kirk stopped holding his breath. "Good.
Cam 377
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
lain Nyere, how much of a safety margin would you
say we had?"
"Figure it took them an hour or two
to guess we'd bollaxed our own communications,"
Jason said. "By now they know we've cut and run,
but they have no idea where. They'll have deployed
whatever they can spare, but they'll be bumping heads in
the dark if they're not careful. As long as we stay
under, we're maybe an hour ahead of them."
Jim Kirk relaxed in the center seat; it was about
what he'd calculated himself.
Bridge personnel had altered somewhat.
Sorahl had replaced Mitchell at navigation;
beside him, T'Lera had the helm. Spock, of
course, remained at communications. The sight of
three Vulcans running the ship had given
Melody Sawyer a turn.
"What the hell, Captain sub?" she greeted
Nyere after her nap. She'd been updated on the
situation, not that she believed any of it. She
gave the new communications officer a good hard
look. "Mr. Spock, is it?"
"Affirmative,?"' he said, returning the look
in kind.
Melody sighed. "Well, there goes the
neighbor- hood!"
"Consider the future, Sorahl-kam,"
his mother said so softly human ears could not hear, her
eyes upon the hybrid Spock and his human
companions.
The young Vulcan had been doing precisely that.
"Are we instrumental in this, Mother? Is it because of
us?"
"In spite of us, my son . . ."
"Captain sub, are you mad at me?"
"Why? Just because you shot up the chandeliers and damn
near busted all my ribs? Why, Melody, think
nothing of it . . ."
"Earth will never know!" Jim Kirk mused aloud.
"They'll never know what they had in their hands.
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
What they came so close to missing, what they
almost destroyed!"
"Indeed, Captain. But in the fullness of time .
. ."
"When they've learned," Jim Kirk said.
"Matured, as I had to. Spock, I his
"Captain, centuries of peace preceded
Vulcan's sending T'Lera to Earth. Humans had
less time in which to mature. Yet, on the whole,
each of us has done remarkably well
together."
The farewells were necessarily brief.
""Sail forth, steer for the deep waters only .
. ."" Jason Nyere rumbled, unsuccessfully
banking down his too-human emotions.
""For we are bound
where mariner has not yet dared
to go. . ."" T'Lera added. Earth's poetry had
been among her many studies.
""And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.""
Jason kissed her hand. "I'm going to miss you,
lady."
"Live long and prosper, Jason Nyere,"
T'Lera replied. "I will hold you in my thoughts."
Only she would know for how long.
Yoshi and Sorahl had no words. A simple
handshake joined them for the last time.
"So long, Junior," Melody Sawyer
blustered. God, but her daughter would hate her for
letting this one get away! "Tell your mom I
tell her I'm sorry. Tell her maybe I'll
mellow out in about twenty years."
"I shall tell her," Sorahl promised, his
velvet-dark eyes betraying some appreciation of
Terran humor. "Though I do not believe it."
"Good-bye, Lieutenant Kije!"
Tatya whispered through her tears.
Once upon a time, vast pods of dolphins had
frolicked along these shores. Indigenous
fishermen had noted their migrations and
prepared their nets, know
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
ing the fish would come in ahead of them, herded closer
to the shore by the playful predators. Man and
dolphin had worked in harmony for
generations, sharing the largess.
Now the dolphins were gone, the fishermen turned
to other trades, and this particular stretch of beach lay
dormant in the moonlit night. The conning tower
of a great ship breached the surface some kilometers
offshore, looking lost and alone, as if seeking its
brethren who were no more.
Beside the tower bobbed the small skiff that had in
Jason Nyere's capable hands first brought two
exiled Vulcans to his ship. A different
captain, the one named Kirk, held the tiller now
as three Vulcans left Delphinus for their
journeys home.
"Beautiful night," Gary Mitchell said
quietly, scanning the beachfront. "Wish
there was a little less moon, though. I read some kind
of vehicle up the beach a-ways."
"Just one?" Kirk asked. Mitchell nodded.
"We're almost in the clear, then."
Elizabeth Dehner was the last to leave the great
ship. She had seen to the "reeducating" of each of the
four to be left behind. The experience had drained her.
She looked pale, drawn, desperately tired.
"Are you all right?" Jim Kirk asked as
Spock helped her into the small boat.
"No, I'm not," she said frankly, pale
hair falling over her paler face as she stumbled and
Spock caught her, seated her in the last available
space beside him in the bow. "I'd like to rest now."
The night was chill. There were blankets in the
emergency kit. Spock wrapped one around
Dehner's shoulders. Half drugged with weariness,
she leaned against him and tumbled into sleep. Spock
held her, perhaps only to steady her in the bobbing
boat. She woke when they touched
ashore.
"I'm sorry!" she murmured, coming to herself with
- STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
her head against Spock's chest, knowing how
Vulcans, and he especially, were disquieted
by human touch.
Silently Spock helped her out of the boat.
Sorahl stepped agilely over the gunwale and
knelt at the tide line, scooping up two handfuls
of sand one sea-wet, the other dry. His face wore
wonderment beneath an alien moon.
"It is this moment, Mother," he said.
T'Lera knew what he meant. They had at
last set foot on Earth.
Chapter Eleven
A FAMILIAR ROBED figure stepped out of the
overland vehicle parked where moonlit beach met
shadowed rain forest.
"All are here and all is well!" Parneb
rejoiced as the little entourage straggled up the beach. "I
have prepared for all contingencies. The
vehicle is she not a beauty?. will seat you all
quite comfortably. I have provided suitable disguises for
our guests turbans and djellabas for the
gentEemen, a lobe and veil for the lady. Ah, if
only you had not been born Vulcans, you could have
been Egyptians! Oh, and, Captain Kirk,"
he called to the last member up the beach,
busy set- ting the homing device that would drift the
little skiff out to sea and then scuttle her. "I have a
small surprise. his
Kirk, made melancholy at the thought of
sacrificing any ship, no matter how small,
to any cause, no matter how large, turned in the
direction of the overlander as the "small surprise"
uncoiled himself from the driver's side, grinning like a
mischievous small boy.
"Lee?" Jim Kirk couldn't believe it. He
cleared his throat. "Mr. Kelso, where the devil
have you his
"I got sidetracked for a while," K*lso
admitted.
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
"Little difference of opinion with the authorities about
borrowing computer time. They tried to keep me
overnight but, a little improv here, a door jimmied
there I've been around."
"I'll just bet he has!" Mitchell remarked.
"Bet you he's been Iying around in the sun while the
rest of us have been where the shooting was. Time we got
you to do an honest day's work, Lee."
"On the contrary," Parneb pattered
away as they settled themselves into the overlander for the long
drive to the Western Desert. "Lee has been a
very sorcerer! Wait until he tells you what he
has accomplished! Captain Kirk, if you could
see your way clear to spare him, what magic I
could work with such an apprentice...."
There were indeed two sleeper ships suspended in
horizontal berths in the man-made cavern beneath the
desert. Beside them, an empty gantry had
evidently once held a third.
"Burn marks on the floor," Jim Kirk
observed, his voice bouncing off the walls. "Then
they can be launched from here, if we're lucky. Go
over the two remaining ones carefully," he
instructed his augmented crew. "We'll use the one
that needs the least refurbishing and strip the other for
parts. Let's see how much we can boost these old
nuclear engines. I wish Mr. Scott was with us!"
"We'll cope, Jim," Mitchell assured
him, tossing a spanner up to Sorahl on the
exterior catwalk, boosting Kelso into a crawl
space bristling with wires and old-style
transistor units.
Spock and T'Lera had already brought up the
onboard computer and had their heads together
conferring over exterior hull readouts. Kirk
rolled up his sleeves and was soon sneezing in the
fifty-year-old dust of the reactor room.
* * *
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
"So you've been censoring the people's right to know, have you,
Lee?"
"Well, I wouldn't go that far, Mitch. A little
judi
cious cut-and-paste here, an occasional bit of
editing there his
"A little tinfoil here, a couple of tapeworms
there his
Jim Kirk cleared his throat impatiently.
The three of them were wedged cheek-to-jowl inside an
environmental control conduit; he could live with a little
less hot air.
"Mr. Mitchell, get your elbow out of my
ribs!" he grunted. "Would one of you mind telling
me what you're talking about?"
"You mean Lee hasn't told you what happened
after he skipped on the CommPolice?" Mitchell
backed out of the conduit to get a spare part for the
humidity sensor, called over his shoulder. "Tell
him, Lee!"
"Well?" Kirk asked tightly. Kelso's
elbow was in his ribs now.
Kelso managed to look sheepish even from this
angle. "Well, Ji tilde ap I, um well,
I guess you had to be there. Had to hear the hysteria
every time you turned on the vidscreen. You guys were
protected from a lot of that. But I couldn't sit there
and do nothing, let it get all blown out of
proportion."
"I can appreciate that," Kirk conceded, sliding
further up the conduit to adjust an oxygen converter
valve. "So what did you do?"
"Well, I was afraid someone would get hurt
or killed," Kelso went on. "Panic in the
streets, riots, mass hysteria. So I his
"You what?" Kirk growled. "Come on, Lee,
spit it out!"
"I got into the Globalationews computers and
planted some virus programs," Kelso said all
in a rush. "Tapeworms to eat up the
inflammatory news stories, new programs
to replace them with "unconfirmed and con
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
flicting reports." Left them tied
up in knots!" he finished, beaming, pleased with
himself.
Kirk collapsed against the wall of the conduit.
"Lee, you amaze me!"
"I know," Kelso said modestly, not for the first
time.
"Maybe I should leave you behind with Parneb,"
Kirk threatened, easing himself out the way Gary had
gone. "You still haven't told me how you got away
from the CommPolice."
"Maybe that one should wait," Kelso said
uneasily. "Remind me to tell you later."
But he never did.
"Logically," Spock explained to Kirk and
T'Lera, "Planetary defense systems will be
directed outward, in search of incoming hostile
vessels. The last Earth system directed against the
planet itself, and in essence against its own citizens,
Strangers from the Sky Page 43