The Abode of Life

by Lee Correy

  Orun smiled, which involved drawing his lips back to expose his white teeth. A Mercan's smile was humanoid, but it was a gross exaggeration of the wide variations of a smile developed on Earth. "We won't have to get to the Technic, James Kirk. They'll come to us. I don't know how, but they will. Delin and Othol were not taken by the Proctors … and I'm certain they returned to the Technic with news of your arrival. I fully expect that we'll be rescued right out from under the noses of the Guardians and the Proctorate, because the Technic has a few tricks of their own."

  Kirk knew then that his worst fears were being realized. He was being drawn inexorably into the social fabric of this strange, isolated world, whether he wanted to or not. The accidental visit of the Enterprise to this lost planet couldn't help but disrupt the social order here, especially when that social order was plunging toward a major change created by the confrontation of two groups in what was a universal syndrome of societal growth: change versus the status quo.

  The Mercans on the Abode of Life were maturing out of a social adolescence into an era of logic and reason, following the paths well-documented by other civilizations on other worlds.

  Kirk happened to have stumbled into the situation at the most critical moment in time.

  And he didn't quite know how he was going to handle it.

  Chapter Six

  "Mister Spock, what did you think of that last tricorder transmission for the library computer?" Kirk asked his First Officer over the communicator.

  "It was quite adequate, Captain. No data dropouts, and the transmission quality was …"

  Kirk sighed and often wished that his. First Officer were not so highly logical that every statement was taken in its literal meaning. "Mister Spock, I was inquiring about your reaction to its contents. . . ."

  "My apologies, sir. Federation language is often imprecise and nonlogical. To answer your question, Captain, I suspect that we have indeed found a lost planet," Spock's voice came back. "Everything points to the strong possibility that Mercaniad and its planet were thrust into the interarm void by the same sort of gravitational anomaly that caused our problems with the Enterprise. I also suspect that the gravitational strain placed upon Mercaniad by the transition was the cause of its current instability as an irregular variable."

  "In short, it shook up that star a bit, too."

  "Quite correct, sir."

  "Any comments on the humanoid inhabitants?"

  "That's Doctor McCoy's department, Captain. But it's no surprise to find a remnant of the general humanoid life form here—if this star system did come from the Orion Arm, as we suspect—since this life form seems to have been seeded rather randomly throughout this sector of the Galaxy. I would indeed like to beam down and compare it to the culture of Vulcan. . . ."

  "In due time, Spock. Our appearance alone has been enough to shake up the Mercans. They're having enough trouble adjusting to us, so I don't want you to beam down just yet. I'm sure you understand …" Kirk didn't go any further along that line of thought. He wasn't afraid of insulting Spock by reference to the Vulcan's highly different appearance. Kirk was instead counting on the possibility of using Spock at a later point if it really became necessary to convince the Guardians of the ubiquitous nature of life in the Galaxy. . . .

  But he was getting tired of waiting. Several days passed during which nothing happened. Pallar didn't reappear, and they didn't see Lenos again. The quarters afforded them were comfortable and pleasant, although the landing party from the Enterprise had some difficulty really becoming comfortable in quarters designed for humanoids more than two meters tall with very long legs.

  They were well-fed, although the food was different from that on the Enterprise. And it was for this reason that Kirk had brought Doctor McCoy along. The party's intestinal flora was incompatible with the Mercan food, a situation that was commonplace in interstellar exploration and even in intersteller commerce. Bones McCoy was completely prepared to handle this contingency. The landing party found themselves incapacitated by Proxmire's Syndrome for only a few hours.

  They were free to wander at will around the city and island of Celerbitan, which was just about the only entertainment available to them. Orun had shown them the Mercan equivalent of books—small cubes like Orun's map of Mercan that unfolded into sequential sheets of paperlike substance with printing on the sheets in the as-yet-undeciphered Mercan written symbols that looked so much like Arabic script on Earth.

  Scotty asked for—and got—Mercan scientific and technical books, then discovered to his disgust that he couldn't read them, much less even understand the drawings, symbols, and schematics which followed a totally different set of conventionalized standards than he was familiar with.

  "It's gibberish," the engineer complained. "I never thought I'd come up against a technology I couldn't understand. But I canna even get started with Mercan technology."

  "What seems to be the big problem, Scotty?" Kirk wanted to know.

  "There is no time base. . . ."

  "What?"

  "Our basic measurements are distance, mass, and time. The Mercans have no concept of time. They use force, mass, and distance with their 'time' unit derived from the work equation … which makes it all very messy to handle."

  "Somewhat like the number system in the Russian and French languages on Earth," Kirk observed.

  "Eh?"

  "Counting in either of those Earth languages is complicated," Kirk pointed out. "But it certainly didn't keep scientists who used those languages from coming up with some outstanding work in mathematics, science, and technology. Obviously the Mercans have overcome what appears to be a serious mental problem to us."

  "That they have … but their transporter technology may turn out to be neglected technology, Captain."

  "Oh? What do you mean by that?"

  Scotty thought a moment before he tried to explain. "Well, you know the engineer's outlook on any system: If it's working, let it alone! The traveler system's been working for them in a perfectly satisfactory manner insofar as they're concerned, so they're following the same approach. Why should they try to improve it? It's working. Therefore, their technology in that field has degenerated to the level needed only to repair and maintain the system … which is always a considerably lower-level technology than that required to design and build it in the first place."

  "Well, do you think the Technic might have some additional information that the Guardians don't have?"

  "Undoubtedly … but we've yet to get to know the Technic and their level of technical sophistication, Captain. In the meantime, I've got to try to decipher this mess of pottage. . . ."

  Kirk shook his head. "Transmit your data up to Spock. He's got the library computer to work with. It shouldn't take him very long to come up with a conversion program."

  The four of them, escorted by Orun, walked about the "City" of Celerbitan. There were no transportation vehicles on the streets, and Kirk finally got used to the almost continual ringing of transporter activity as people and goods appeared and disappeared around them. How did they know where to transport to?

  That question was answered when Orun's cubical topological map of the Abode turned out to be the Transporter Directory. Orun had only to indicate on the map with his finger the place where he wished to go, and the basic coordinates were displayed, the map folded and unfolded to depict the intended destination in even greater detail on a smaller scale, and the coordinates more refined by continued passes through the Directory.

  It was obvious that the Mercans possessed the electronics capability to build sophisticated picocomputers … because that's exactly what the Traveler Directory turned out to be.

  However, Orun couldn't use the traveler because his control unit had been taken from him.

  And this really locked them up in the City of Celerbitan and confined them to the island itself, which was several dozen kilometers in extent in all directions. They were imprisoned as securely as if there had been bars on the wind
ows of their quarters.

  No wonder Pallar wasn't concerned over the possibility that they'd get away.

  Celerbitan wasn't the Earth equivalent of a medieval city. It was so spread out that it resembled no city Kirk had ever seen. There were no real streets. With the traveler, nobody needed streets. The best term that Kirk could find to describe Celerbitan was "a randomized collection of structures used by people."

  It rained every night, but the days remained sunny and warm. It was a typical bland maritime climate with even temperatures and a lack of harsh temperature extremes. Scotty found it unexciting. McCoy said it reminded him of a series of nice summer days on the Georgia coast.

  Celerbitan revealed that the Mercan civilization was extremely advanced and at least the equivalent of that of Earth, Vulcan, Ahzdar, or Heimal. The Mercans were in control of most of the forces of nature on their planet, and they were using natural resources and energy for their social needs. They possessed all four of the Kahn Criteria: the extractive industries, the manufacturing industries, the service industries, and the quarternary activities "done for their own sake."

  To some extent, the delay of several days that permitted Kirk to look into the culture of Mercan lifted a great weight from his mind.

  If the Mercans could psychologically accept the fact that they were not the sole abode of life in the universe without causing the entire fabric of their civilization to come apart, Kirk felt certain that Mercan would become part of the Federation in an expeditious manner.

  The big question was: Would the Guardians accept the real truth and adjust or adapt to it? And how about the Proctors?

  McCoy was also busy. His medical tricorder was almost constantly in use. He complained to Kirk, "With all this data, I really need to have my Sick Bay lab to work with. The raw data is fascinating, but I need my more sophisticated facilities on the ship."

  "Why, Bones," Kirk kidded him, "I always thought that you were the practical-country-doctor type who really didn't need all that fancy technology to make a diagnosis."

  "When working with humans, that's the case, Jim. But I can't even do a blood-chemistry work-up without the lab. And that's an absolute necessity when dealing with an alien life form. Look." He held up a small vial full of reddish-tan fluid. "I got Orun to permit me to take a blood sample. Here it is: Mercan blood! I need to get back to my lab with it … and soon, in case some of these blood components and groups begin to break down."

  "Bones, I can't let you transport back to the ship," Kirk told him. "Pallar would want to know where you went … and I don't know if he has the ability to throw some sort of a shield around us to prevent us from being transported out of here in a hurry if we had to later on—"

  "Captain," Scotty interrupted the discussion, "there's nothing to prevent us from transporting that blood sample back up to the ship. We just take it some place in the City other than our quarters, hide it, have the transporter crew lock on the coordinates when we hide it, and then let them transport it back up to the ship after we've gotten back to our quarters."

  "Good idea, Scotty. Pallar maybe monitoring transporter activity around our quarters or around us when we're scouting through the city … but if Orun's right, he can't monitor all the transporter activity all over this planet." He turned back to McCoy. "If we get Orun's blood sample up there, can Doctor M'Benga and Nurse Chapel handle it?"

  "Why, sure. M'Benga's a good biochemist, and Nurse Chapel certainly knows that lab inside and out," McCoy replied with a grin.

  "Let's go," Kirk snapped.

  They found a quiet part of Celerbitan with an open, grassy field. Kirk and McCoy stepped out into the field, and Kirk called on his communicator, "Enterprise, this is Kirk. Uhura, get Spock on."

  "Right away, sir."

  "Spock here, Captain."

  "Lock the transporter on the coordinates of this transmission. You will be beaming up a small vial of Mercan blood for lab analysis by M'Benga and Nurse Chapel. We'll leave the vial in this spot once you've locked the transporter on it. But don't transport it for thirty minutes, to give us time to get back to our quarters. Is that clear, Mister Spock?"

  "Quite clear, Captain. The transporter room reports it has locked onto your coordinates."

  Thirty minutes later, back in their quarters near the Guardian Villa, Kirk heard his communicator bleep. "Kirk here," he snapped into it.

  "Captain, this is Spock. The transfer of the blood sample is complete."

  "Any problem, Spock?"

  "None, sir, except the usual trouble trying to work through the incredible amount of transporter activity on the planet."

  "Well, they use their travelers to go everywhere here," Kirk pointed out. "We can only hope that the Guardians weren't monitoring anything being beamed from that park clearing. Have Doctor M'Benga get to work on that blood sample as quickly as possible and get the data to Doctor McCoy when he's finished."

  On one trip through Celerbitan, Orun was insistent that the four from the Enterprise obtain sidearms. "You're openly unarmed," the Mercan pointed out. "Do you know what that means?"

  "Orun, I told you we're armed," Kirk reminded him. "But what does it mean to go about unarmed here?"

  "It means that you think so little of life that you're unwilling to protect even your own. It means that you cannot be offered ordinary courtesies because you're obviously unwilling to back up your own actions with your life if necessary."

  There seemed to be a basic paradox, a touch of illogic, or a contradiction in Orun's statement, but Kirk was not about to argue it. He knew that one does not question another's cultural beliefs of that sort. He could and would question the Mercan belief that they were the sole abode of life in the universe because he felt that he could substantiate his argument.

  Questioning or arguing the gun-toting convention was another matter.

  "Only children less than responsible-old can go about unarmed without being considered as outcasts," Orun went on. "The only reason why you haven't been accosted and made to yield is that I'm with you and that you look and dress differently. This has confused people. But I can't guarantee that it will continue to do so, because we're certain to meet someone who'll discount your appearance and the fact that I, an armed citizen, have stooped so low as to accompany you. . . ."

  "We'll arm ourselves," Kirk told him without hesitation. "But how do we do it? What do we trade for the firearms?" The Mercans must have some concept of money because of their planet-wide commerce. Kirk hadn't seen it. And he didn't have any of it.

  Orun answered his question by taking them to a firearms shop. The Mercan selected four of the best weapons, complete with metal-cased cartridge ammunition and baldrics. Orun simply signed the chit.

  "Who's paying for these?" Kirk still wanted to know.

  "The Guardians," Orun told him with a smile. "The bankers will simply deduct the amount from the Guardians' accounts and add the amount to the accounts of the shopkeeper."

  "Don't you exchange symbols of value?"

  "Why? The bankers keep the score."

  "But suppose the Guardians won't permit the transfer of money for this?"

  "Then they'll take it out of my account, and the bankers know my account identification from my traveler control … which is in the hands of the Guardians right now."

  The Mercans thus revealed to Kirk another aspect of their culture that would ease their way into membership in the Federation. The Mercans not only had the concept of money, but of credit or money that exists in the future. Furthermore, they had computers capable of keeping track, and therefore needed no "hard money" such as gold. Some computer technology would, of course, be a technical fallout of the traveler system … or a precedent of it.

  Although McCoy normally carried a hand phaser on a landing party such as this, the doctor objected to wearing the firearm. "Jim, I'm a healer, not a killer. I'm probably going to end up taking some of these steel projectiles out of one of you before all this is over, anyway, and I don't think a medical m
an should go around with a deadly weapon in view."

  "Were any of your ancestors medical men, Bones?" Kirk asked.

  "Of course. Even back before the American Civil War, a lot of the Georgia McCoys were doctors. My family has a proud history of healers in our family tree, suh."

  "Then I would suspect," Kirk went on gently, "that many of your honored ancestors not only carried swords in antebellum days, but also carried pistols when that was part of the accouterments of a Southern gentleman. . . . Bones, you can keep it unloaded if you want, but you should wear it, because I don't want you to be treated as an untouchable in this civilization. When in Rome …"

  McCoy sighed in resignation and slung the baldric over his shoulder. "I know. When in Rome, the thing to do is to shoot Roman candles. . . ."

  Janice Rand offered no objection to carrying the heavy weapon. She'd seen what Kirk had seen, and she knew the meaning of the weapon in this culture. "I may never shoot it, Captain. I prefer to use my hand phaser if it becomes necessary to protect myself."

  Kirk knew she would, and that she wouldn't hesitate to use either the Mercan sidearm or her hand phaser if it became necessary. Having had Yeoman Janice Rand along on several landing parties on some very nasty planets, Kirk knew she was perfectly capable of shooting first—and very accurately—and questioning later if the occasion should require.

  As Kirk had noticed shortly after beaming down and getting his first look at a Mercan "social-purpose weapon," it was fairly crude by the standards of gunpowder firearms. It had a barrel of good steel about thirty centimeters long with a bore of about fifteen centimeters. The barrel was smooth-bored, not rifled. The bullet was short for its caliber, made of steel, and round-nosed—not a very accurate projectile for use in an unrifled firearm, because it would have a tendency to tumble in flight at any range beyond a few dozen meters. The cartridge case was steel, untapered, and had what appeared to be a center-fired primer. The propellant was plain, well-made black powder of a grade Scotty called "FFFFg." The weapon was single-shot, with a simple push-turn-lock bolt. It was not well-balanced in Kirk's hand. Furthermore, there were no sights on it.