by L. A. Graf
"Oh, no, Chief, we've got normal night and day." Howard, Chekov noticed, took the opportunity to spit his raw fish into a napkin under the pretense of talking more clearly. "It says here"he fished out the reader again, waving it in one hand"that Nordstral doesn't have an axial tilt. That means no seasons, and no arctic night."
"Just one big, long ice age," Publicker added. He was still close to the door, his own reader now open, and no sign of Uhura's fish sample about him. Chekov wondered if he'd actually eaten it, or if he'd managed to otherwise dispose of it without Uhura seeing. He had to give both men points for being sneaky, that was for certain. "The Kitka are apparently the only sentient species known to have developed in an environment like this. It says here their biology is so tied to Nordstral's unique ecology, they can't even go off-planet for more than a few hours at a time. Nobody's sure why yet."
"Now you see why I keep them around," Chekov told Uhura as he recalculated the number of lanterns and replaced their mass with thermal units. "They're a font of random information."
Howard quirked a little smile, stuffing his wadded-up napkin in the disposal chute. "It's the random part that makes it easy."
"Is that why you're keeping these boys up late with you?" Uhura leaned to one side and helped herself to another piece of fish. "To be random fonts?"
"No." He still had nearly five kilos of allotmenttoo much for additional food, too little for another thermal. "They stay because they love me." He ordered an emergency medikit for each of the security officers, two more insulation suit repair sets, and one solar-powered winchjust in case.
"The chief has us doing research." Howard displayed the reader screen for Uhura, holding it so she could read the title beneath the shimmering Nordstral Pharmaceuticals logo: NORDSTRAL: A PLANETARY STUDY. "We usually do this, just to make sure everybody knows at least a little about what we're going into." He shrugged and lowered the reader, thumbing through the screens. "It ends up that we all remember different things, which means the group of us together usually remembers just about everything. That works pretty well."
Uhura crossed the office to inspect the screen more closely over Howard's right arm. "Can't you just take the readers with you? That's what I'm doing with most of my native liaison tapesthere's no way I'm going to remember it all."
"It's not worth it," Publicker explained with a shrug. "You need the knowledge most when you're in the middle of a crisis, and then it's kind of hard to stop and take time to look things up."
"True."
Drumming his fingers on the terminal, Chekov let Uhura force another serving of uncooked seafood on his ensigns while he called up stat files on the security landing force. He'd requisitioned insulation suits and body slips for five immediately after hearing from Kirkthe computer verified only three suits and four slips. He could match up his and Publicker's, but the last suit wasn't anywhere near big enough for Howard, and the size listed for his third security ensign, Tenzing, came as close as it could to fitting her without actually matching.
Catching Uhura's attention, he pointed her toward the listing. "Is this your suit size?"
She pushed the food tray aside and perched on the edge of his desk, twisting a little to look at the screen. "Oh." Her voice sounded distinctly disappointed. "Do we have to use the insulation suits?"
Chekov twisted a look back at her, a little surprised by her reaction. "If you don't want to freeze to death we have to."
"I mean can't we use parkas?" She rushed ahead over his impatient sigh. "Arctic peoples have worn parkas for centuries."
"Insulation suits are lighter than parkas," Chekov pointed out. "More flexible, more efficient. Why would you want to wear a six-kilogram bundle of synthetic fur when you have the option of something more comfortable?"
The intercom in the front office shrilled, and Uhura jumped with a startled gasp. By the time Chekov had waved Publicker out to take the message, she'd slid off the desk to clean up her half-eaten dinner offering, blushing lightly.
"Besides," he went on, "parkas are too massive. We don't have room for them."
"That's all right. I was just curious." She smiled her stunning smile and nodded toward the screen. "Yes, I'm a size five."
That meant Tenzing and Howard still needed full suits. Publicker turtled his head around the doorway while Chekov was typing in the new requisitions. "Lieutenant Chekov? That was Commander Scott, sir. He'd like to see you in engineering about the phaser modifications, if you have time."
He didn't, but he needed the phasers too badly to refuse. His mind darting ahead to the next few hours' work, Chekov committed his lists and powered down the terminal.
"Phaser modifications?" Uhura asked as Chekov got to his feet and kicked his chair beneath the desk.
He slipped past her, wishing she'd thought to bring some more conventional fare for dinner, his stomach now twinging with remembered hunger. Maybe he could grab something portable on his way to engineering. "Nordstral's strong magnetic field could interfere with our power supplies and incapacitate our phasers." He handed the disk with both requisitions to Howard and nodded him out the door. "Get these from the quartermaster. Burglarize supply, if you have to, but don't come back without them."
"Yes, sir."
He continued his explanation to Uhura as Howard ducked out the office door. "Mr. Scott is trying to find a way to make our phasers at least minimally operable." Retrieving his duty jacket from the back of his chair, he shook his head and shouldered into it. "It's not proving easy."
Uhura stacked the last of the napkins atop her tray, apparently not caring that the ice would ruin them. "Can't you just go without them?"
Chekov paused in latching closed his uniform. With all the things he could possibly say to placate her, he decided on a simple "No."
Uhura stopped her own cleaning to stare up at him in surprise. "Chekov, we're talking about a primitive village, the closest thing Nordstral has left to an aboriginal tribe. We don't need phasers to feel safe among them. What is it you expect them to do?"
"We're talking," he answered very carefully, "about a tribe who may very well be responsible for the disappearance of an entire team of researchers."
"You don't know that."
He fought hard against an impulse to stubbornly cross his arms. "Uhura, they were probably the last to see those scientists alivethe shuttle landed within walking distance of one of their villages. In any murder investigation, that has to make them the first suspects."
She let her food tray clap to the desktop with a ring of tinny thunder. "We don't know that anyone has been murdered."
"But we do know that one of Nordstral's two shuttles detonated while making a planetary survey. We know that in their last communication the survivors from that shuttle said that they'd arranged to meet a Kitka hunting party within the hour. We know that every last one of the survivors is now missing, and the Kitka are denying any knowledge of the accident. If nothing else, we know that communications with the Enterprise will be severely limitedthat communications between landing parties will be impossible altogether. With the magnetic storms making it impossible to use our transporter, that means I can't even expect a quick pull-out if things turn ugly. No." He strode past her for the door, all his tiredness, frustration, and worry twisting together to feed a headache he'd been hoping not to have to nurse. "I will not go into a situation like that with absolutely nothing to use as protection."
"Pavel "
He stopped, poised in the open doorway. The silent industry with which Publicker sat at his table, reading, assured Chekov the ensign had heard everything just fine, and was officially prepared to claim otherwise.
"You really don't like this," Uhura said gently from behind him, "do you?"
Chekov tightened one hand on the edge of the door. "I don't like retrieving dead bodies, no."
She stepped up beside him, close enough that she could tip her head and see his face while still talking softly enough to not be overhead. "We may not even find an
ything, you know." Her hand on his arm urged him to turn and face her. He acquiesced after only a little pulling, stepping around to let the door hiss shut behind him as she slid her hand down to slip it into his. "Not even why that shuttle went down, much less the crash site itself."
He nodded unhappily. "I know." Not that the prospect of never locating a crash site or bodies made him feel any better about the assignment; there could be few things worse than leaving a family without even anything to bury.
He shifted his gaze back to her face, not wanting to leave her on such a harsh note after she'd gone to the effort to look in on him. "You know I hope that nothing happens while we're planetside," he said, wanting her to believe that, and understand it as well. "I hope the phasers never matter. But I have to be so careful."
"Of course you do." She smiled gently and patted him on the cheek. "That's your job." Then, leaning around him, she keyed open the door and let go of his hand. "Go talk about your phasers. I promise to stay out of your hair until tomorrow."
He smiled down at her wryly. "And then you'll be in my hair for the entire mission. I know you." Her laughter relieved at least one small knot of worry; he couldn't stand the thought of her thinking badly of him, even if only for the duration of one mission. "Thank you for coming by tonight. I do appreciate the food."
"Even though you didn't eat it."
"Even though I didn't eat it," he acknowledged, nodding despite his embarrassment. "I promisewhen we get back, I'll treat you to dinner." He hooked a thumb at the abandoned tray. "I'll even make sure they cook the food."
Laughing, Uhura planted both hands on his chest and shoved him out the door. "All right, Lieutenant. It's a date."
McCoy stared out the narrow shuttle window beside his chair and made no attempt to hide his disgust. Beyond the thick, protective material, Nordstral's icy landscape stretched to the horizon.
It set his teeth on edge. Even after decades aboard a starship, McCoy was still too much a southerner to have much of a liking for snow or cold. His blood had thinned in the lizard-baking heat of New Orleans and the gentle, balmy breezes of Georgia's sunny peach orchards, and never thickened again, no matter how many different climates he'd experienced as a member of the Enterprise crew.
He recalled a handful of vacations spent at the home of an uncle who'd braved the cooler climes of the North American continent. As a child, Leonard enjoyed the novelty of cold days, fire-warmed nights, and being tucked under so many thick blankets he could barely move. He remembered the snow being soft and delicate on his upturned face, feather-light against kicking boots bent on creating their own blizzard, bright white against the tumbling gray sky.
The memory bore no resemblance to the sculpted landscape before him. Here the snow was harsh, packed hard by the searing cold, and molded into fantastic shapes by a slicing wind that could cleave flesh from bone and freeze blood in its heated passage. The snow and ice didn't even look white here; more a pale blue shading to indigo in the deepest, most secret hollows, which McCoy had absolutely no desire to explore.
His crewmates weren't as jaundiced, and expressed their delight when the Nordstral Pharmaceuticals shuttle cleared enough outer atmosphere for them to see properly. The sun glared off a sheet of trackless white and would have blinded the pilot but for the polarized screen.
"Oh, it's beautiful!" Uhura drew their attention from the interior of the cramped shuttle and the monotony of one another's faces to the wasted landscape visible below them. The passengers, Kirk included, jockeyed for position around the windows for a first look at the planet's surface, excited as always by someplace new and different. McCoy took one look and pointedly returned to his seat. He found no beauty in Nordstral's skeletal starkness. The windcarved designs and unending white seemed sinister to him, like a large beast playing dead.
While the shuttle pilot traded information with ground-crew radio, repeating waves of wailing static rendered their conversation almost unintelligible to McCoy's ears. "Does the radio do that often?" the doctor asked one of the Nordstral techs working near him.
The younger man shrugged and glanced toward the cockpit. "Most of the time, at least. Annoying, huh?"
McCoy grunted. "Only if you have to use your communicator."
Kirk's deep voice captured McCoy's attention, and he turned back to the others just to give himself something to do. Kirk, just like McCoy, looked like a bulky burgundy snowman in his fleet-issue parka and heavy boots, especially compared to the sleek, dark lines of the security crew in their insulation suits. Chekov reminded him of a compact, slender, watchful predator. Shoulder to shoulder with his security force, the dour young Russian did more than just admire the scenery as his serious eyes skated the territory below the lowering shuttle. Howard looked even taller in the ebony clothing, one foot tapping frenetically as a giveaway to his excitement or nervousness. And there were also obvious delights in watching Uhura in her close-fitting insulation suit.
McCoy's cheeks reddened and he looked away, feigning interest in whatever it was the pilot was up to, not that anyone was watching him to notice his discomfort. If Uhura knew what he was thinking, she'd read him the riot act, and rightly so. A long time ago, the doctor had learned great respect for this lovely woman who was as delicate as ten-penny nails and as defenseless as a cornered tiger.
To clear his thoughts, McCoy glanced over the remaining members of the landing party and suppressed a grin. Tenzing looked as comfortable and calm as her Sherpa ancestors. Publicker, with insulation suit goggles pushed up onto his forehead, looked like a tadpole. Steno had been so rude before takeoff, McCoy didn't even glance in the direction of him and his men.
"Take your seats, please." The shuttle pilot's voice sounded tinny over the small, recessed wall speakers. As smoothly as oil over water, the joking crew became Chekov's well-disciplined security force. Without comment, they returned to their seats and began a final check on their insulation suits. The Russian lieutenant spoke briefly with each of his officers before taking a place beside Uhura.
Kirk jostled McCoy's leg with his knee. "You're awfully quiet, Doctor."
"Nothing much to say, I guess," he replied, and tried a smile that felt like a rictus. He turned away, pretending interest in the sweeping passage of snowfield beneath their rushing shuttle, and felt Jim's eyes on him.
The shuttle landed smoothly, and McCoy and Kirk disembarked. Kirk hunched into the coat collar as frigid wind tugged his hair, dusting it with fine snow crystals. McCoy cursed and pulled the hood up to shield his face.
"Lieutenant Chekov " Kirk steadied himself with a hand on the frame of the open hatchway as a gust of wind threatened to knock him off his feet. Loose snow skirled around them like a tangible fog, and briefly obliterated the long, oblong, Quonset-type building nearby. "Good luck to you and your crew." He nodded, briefly touching each of them with his eyes and the reassurance of his smile in a way that made them all sit a little straighter. "I have every confidence you'll find the missing research team."
"We'll do our best, Captain."
"Lieutenant Commander Uhura, keep me posted on your progress." Kirk patted the communicator at his hip.
Uhura nodded. "Mr. Scott modified the communicators, sir, but he wasn't completely certain how they'd operate under the magnetic fluctuations of the planet. He may be able to reach you via the Enterprise, but I'm not sure we can make contact between landing parties."
"Noted."
The shuttle pilot grinned at them over her shoulder. "If that engineer of yours does make 'em work during the storms, Nordstral Pharmaceuticals may just buy him off you."
Kirk smiled in return. "He's not for sale."
"Jim." McCoy nudged him with one arm rammed stiff into a pocket to keep his fingers from freezing. "You're leaving the refrigerator door open."
"Right. Good luck, everyone." McCoy and Kirk stepped back with a final wave. The shuttle hatch slid closed on their good-byes and secured with a reassuring thump. The pilot waved them back out of rang
e, watching until they were within the security of the Quonset vestibule, then lifted off and headed north.
McCoy had never known a wind to feel so cold.
Chapter Three
THE BRIGHT STREAK of the Nordstral Pharmaceuticals shuttle burned across the horizon and left its roar hanging in the clouds behind it. The slate-gray sky rumbled with echoes for a while, then faded down to a silence that seemed too deep to be real. Uhura lifted a hand to the ear mike embedded in the hood of her insulation suit, wondering if the superinsulating plasfoam was muffling its sound pickup. A quick adjustment shot the volume upward until she could hear frost crackling in the air, but otherwise the ice sheet stayed dead silent.
A footstep crunched snow behind her, painfully loud. Uhura hurriedly dialed her mike volume down again, then turned to find a night-black figure with huge opalescent eyes staring down at her.
"I don't see any natives," Chekov said, his voice sober, slightly muffled by the insulation suit's breath filter. The reflective goggles protecting his eyes also hid any trace of expression, but Uhura knew the security chief well enough to read the tense set of his shoulders under the sleek-fitting suit. "The company official said that some natives would meet us here."
"Maybe we're not at the right place." Uhura glanced at the area around them. It was mostly flat, with occasional spoon-shaped mounds of dirtier ice strung across it in parallel lines. To her untrained eye, the mound on which the company shuttle had dropped them looked no different than any other. "Why don't you ask Mr. Steno?"
Chekov made an irritated noise. "I would, but as far as I can tell, he's busy unpacking his lunch."
"What?" Uhura turned to see a cluster of men in ice-green insulation suits huddled over an untidy pile of gear, muttering as they rummaged through it. Their iridescent Nordstral Pharmaceuticals insignia glistened like fallen shreds of aurora on their shoulders as they moved from one open pack to another. Beyond them, the three black-clad security guards from the Enterprise stood quiet and watchful, their own gear neatly loaded onto a gravsled. "What on earth are they doing?"
