by L. A. Graf
The native looked up at her again, face and gender hidden behind a plain bone face mask. Still, uncertainty was easy to read in the tilt of the native's head. This time the warble was longer, and deliberately slow.
"Kraken hunter under ice," said the translator. "Kraken eyes like your eyes."
"My eyes?" Uhura repeated, puzzled. The little Kitka couldn't possibly see her eyes through the reflective goggles over them. Then she laughed, realizing that the native couldn't know there were eyes under that bright shine. "Those aren't my eyes," she said, and pulled off the goggles.
A startled wailing sound was her reward. Uhura squinted against the bite of frigid air, wondering if she'd managed to frighten the little native even more with the sight of her dark skin. The Kitka answered her by pouncing forward and patting at her arm excitedly. "Kraken eyes gone," said the translator, after sorting through the native's rapid whistling squeaks. "Kraken eyes gone!"
"Yes." Uhura glanced over at Tenzing, unsure whether the security guard's less complex translator could handle the Kitka's sudden rush of speech. "The goggles seem to remind the natives of something scary, Tenzing. Would you mind taking yours off, too?"
"Not at all, sir." Tenzing lifted her goggles, revealing Asiatic eyes and pale brown skin. She looked curious. "Is it this kraken-thing, sir?"
"Apparently." Uhura looked back at the small native standing next to them in time to see the bone face mask fall from a young girl's eager face. Her eyes were dark blue and thickly lashed above oddly flattened cheekbones. The coppery tone of her skin deepened to amber around her lips and eyes, paling upward into a mane of shining silver hair. "Is this better?"
"Better," the young Kitka said, and touched her mittened fingers to her lips in a gesture of what looked like thanks. Then she reached up to pat curiously at the reflective plastic of Uhura's goggles. She seemed to have no shyness now that recognizable eyes could be seen. "Kraken eyes not real?"
Uhura smiled back at her, delighted. "The kraken eyes are a mask, just like your mask." She reached out to touch the thin bone plate now dangling around the girl's strong throat. "They keep the wind out of my face."
Amber lips parted in a snow-bright smile. "Mask for going outside," she agreed. "Not wear mask inside."
"No." Uhura glanced around as they turned a corner and emerged into a junction of several tunnels. The roof was higher here, allowing Steno and his men to move around a little more freely. They promptly began unboxing their communications console. Uhura frowned and moved over to watch them, her little native friend skipping beside her.
"Mr. Steno, is this where you usually set up your equipment?" she asked quietly. The two Nordstral guards emptied the last of the insulated boxes and left, presumably to bring in the rest of their gear. Most of the accompanying natives went with them, except for two of Alion's harpoon-bearing hunters and Uhura's small friend, who still hovered by her arm. Tenzing was making brief forays into the darkness of the surrounding tunnels, taking some kind of measurements with her tricorder.
The planetary officer grunted. "It's the only place in this damned snake nest where I can sit without hitting my head on the roof. What's wrong with that?"
Uhura glanced at the dark mouths of tunnels gaping in silent emptiness around them. "It doesn't seem very well protected," she said at last, feeling as if some of Chekov's suspicions had rubbed off on her. "For the equipment," she added hurriedly, as Steno glared down at her. "Won't there be a lot of natives coming back and forth through here?"
"No, of course not." He snorted and bent to plug his amplifier units into the main receiver. "Alion will tell the other natives to leave us alone."
Uhura bent to help him run the cable to his transmitting disk, her slender fingers untangling the cold wire faster than his bulky gloves could manage. She got an ungracious grunt in response. "Is Alion the Kitka's leader?"
"He must bethey all seem to dislike him enough." Steno slid a packing case over to make a seat in front of the console, then dropped onto it and began to warm up the central processor without even bothering to consult her. Uhura felt her lips tighten involuntarily. She was the communications specialist here, not this glorified corporate policeman! Now she knew how Chekov must have felt when Steno ignored his security precautions.
"Personally, I'm not sure the Kitka really have leaders," Steno continued absently, watching the monitor spit out its start-up codes. "That's one of the reasons they're so damned hard to cut a deal with. You talk to one group and think you've got everything straight, then some other group comes in and gets hysterical because you're walking around on their sacred icebergs."
Uhura stifled an urge to reach out and slap off Steno's translator, which was still emitting its unsteady equivalent of native speech. She glanced down at the Kitka girl and saw that she looked puzzled but not particularly offended. With luck, Steno's rudeness was being lost in translation.
"Then what is Alion?" she inquired, keeping her voice soft with an effort.
"Some kind of religious guru, I think. Like a witch doctor or a shaman. Maybe he hears their confessions and makes them do penance, I don't know." Steno scowled as the communications console buzzed and flickered an error message at him. "Damn those idiots! They forgot to put the signal equalizer in. I'd better go make sure they don't leave it sitting out on the sled."
Uhura stepped back as he surged angrily out of his chair, making the little Kitka skitter out of his way. The planetary officer scowled when he saw her. "Don't let her touch anything!" he snapped at Uhura as she started to speak. "And don't you touch anything, either. This isn't Starfleet equipment."
Uhura frowned but stayed silent until he left, the Kitka hunters trailing after him like quiet drifts of snow. She glanced down at the young native girl, who was watching her with wide eyes, then up at Tenzing, who had come back into the main room in time to hear the last exchange. "If I'm not allowed to touch anything," Uhura said, thoughtfully tapping on a small box hidden in the clutter of unwrapped insulation, "I suppose that means I can't install this while he's gone." She saw Tenzing's puzzled look and added, "It's his signal equalizer."
Tenzing's eyes crinkled into slits a moment before her gruff laughter filled the frigid air. Uhura burst into laughter with her, letting out her frustration with the shared joke.
The Kitka girl made a quick hooting noise that sounded remarkably like laughter, too, and she tugged at Uhura's hand. "Time for dinner now."
"Is it?" It certainly was for her, Uhura thought. It had been a long time since she'd eaten on the ship. She wondered if Chekov would remember to eat something, with no one but his well-trained guards around to remind him.
The native girl tugged at her again, harder. "Time for dinner," she insisted. "Kraken Eyes come home with Nhym."
Uhura glanced up at Tenzing with a smile. "I seem to have a dinner invitation. Are you in the mood for raw fish?"
"Uh, no, sir. But I've got the lieutenant's orders." Tenzing slung her tricorder over her shoulder. "Good thing I remembered to bring ration packs."
McCoy canted his head back to look at Nuie, torn between wanting an explanation and the desire to watch the magnificent creature suspended in the murky depths ahead of them. "I beg your pardon?"
Mandeville laughed. "Gentlemen, meet the planet's largest predator. When Nordstral Pharmaceuticals first came here, the initial survey crews saw these creatures and wanted to learn what they could about them, so they asked the Kitka. The natives told them how their heroes dream of coming back to life as pieces of 'god,' and how the planet punishes wrong-doers by sending them this visitor in the night. The closest the translators could come for a human word was 'kraken.'" Her mouth twitched. "I guess it's as good a word as any."
McCoy slid into a vacant seat at the console and intently watched the creature as it circled. It was impossible to divine its true color under the harsh glare of the floodlights. It might have been gray or brown or the same green as the water. The color was milky pale over the length of its body, u
nmarked by variation except around the head. The skin didn't appear leathery, but rather like that which whales were supposed to have had. The animal was huge, nearly the size of the harvester, as far as he could tell at this distance and with the weird properties of water coming into play. Its head was small, suspended on a long, graceful neck. Large, iridescent eyes sat close together on the front of the head, above two slitted nostrils and in front of what appeared to be gill-like membranes of brilliant white that resembled stiff, water-buoyed feathers. The four limbs were short and broad, but tipped with claws. The tail was short, broad, flat, and set perpendicular to the body's general orientation.
"It's amazing," Kirk murmured, and McCoy became aware once again of his surroundings. "What does it eat?"
"Kitka," someone replied, and the crew laughed.
Nuie shook his head as though with long tolerance. "They like to make jokes about it, Captain Kirk, but you don't see anyone going for a swim, now, do you?" He glanced around the bridge, and the crew shifted and looked aside, embarrassed. "The kraken feed on the same sea creatures as the Kitka. It may be the largest predator on Nordstral, but the Kitka are the strongest." He said it with great pride.
"I've got another blip, Captain!" The radar tech's excited yelp captured everyone's attention. "Looks like the show is on!"
"The show?" Kirk queried over the rising murmur of the crew's voices.
"Mating fight," Mandeville replied, excitement coloring her tone.
"Mating fight?" McCoy asked, unsure he'd heard her correctly.
She nodded and took the seat beside him, motioning for Kirk to take another. "Quick biology lesson. Kraken are water breathers. They can also breathe air for short periods of time, usually when they're busy munching Kitka. They bear their young underwater, and the young are independent from birth. In fact, they have a set period of timesomething between six and twelve hours, as we've judged itto get the hell away from Mommy or be eaten."
A sound was building outside the ship. McCoy felt it first like a pressure deep within his ears. It grew, becoming fully audible, like the roar of an approaching comber. Something huge and pale flashed by above the ship, arrowing straight for the kraken, which had stopped its haphazard circling and turned to face the newcomer.
"Kraken spend the majority of their lives asexual, androgenous," Mandeville continued. "Until mating rapture strikes. Then they meet in pairs and battle to the death."
"Doesn't that kind of forestall any type of mating?" Kirk asked, eyes intently following the converging pair.
"The victor becomes female, Captain, and steals what she needs." Mandeville leaned forward. "Here they go."
The roar of the meeting leviathans was enough to make McCoy cover his ears. Double-hinged jaws gaped wide, whipping about on lean necks like lethal snakes, seeking a stranglehold or a major vein. Dimly, he heard Mandeville call for a full stop at a safe distance.
The water roiled where the two giants collided, obscuring the view. Clawed appendages raked unprotected sides and underbellies. The kraken twined their necks, lurching from side to side in an effort to snap vertebrae. One pulled back in an effort to improve its hold, and the other slashed forward, using its opponent's weight against it. They collided hard, rolling in the swell, and were suddenly obscured by a brilliant blooming, like an underwater flower. Bright arterial blood swirled in the saltwater as the victor sliced her enemy from neck base to tail and dragged forth a large, yellow sack. She rent the sack and gobbled the contents greedily, then caught the dead kraken in her claws before it drifted away on the tide, and began to feed.
Mandeville's hand clapping down to dim the floods startled McCoy, but it was the strident whistle over the ship's communication board that made him jump. The communications tech listened for a moment, then turned to the group of officers with confusion on his round Kitka features. "Captain Kirk, I'm receiving a transmission from the Enterprise. It's secured on a Priority One channel, sir, and flagged emergency."
Kirk exchanged looks with McCoy. "Put it through," he ordered, striding toward the comm station.
"Captain, this is Spock."
McCoy moved up quietly behind Kirk, not liking this particular lack of expression in the Vulcan's voice.
"Spock," Kirk said in acknowledgment, "fancy hearing from you. What's the matter?" So he hadn't missed the stillness in Spock's voice, either.
"Captain, I am afraid I have grave news." Spock paused, and McCoy glanced over at Kirk in time to see the captain steel himself. "We have just been informed by orbital station Curie that the Nordstral shuttle bearing the remainder of the Enterprise landing party exploded while in transit."
Kirk's jaw hardened, his eyes very bright. "Exploded." It wasn't even a question. "You're certain?"
"Indeed. At this time, we do not know if it was on its way to the northern rendezvous point or returning. It is unknown if there are survivors."
McCoy didn't realize he'd sat until he felt the chair's hard seat under him. His entire body felt numb, the way a foot does if you sit on it too long. It seemed a long while before his eyes sought Kirk.
The captain stood with his arms held rigid at his sides. The muscles of his shoulders and back stood out in relief under the close fit of his white shirt, knotting and relaxing like a fist. "Have you attempted to raise Chekov or Uhura?"
"I have. No contact has been made."
"But the planet's magnetic interference is devilish, sir," Scott's voice interjected, strained and emotional against Spock's stoic report. "Being unable to reach them might not mean a thing."
"I know that, Scotty." Kirk's voice sounded husky.
"Thank you." He took a deep breath then, shoulders pulling back in a stance McCoy knew all too well. "Spock, I want Scotty to start the necessary modifications to one of the Enterprise's shuttles. I want a team at the crash site as soon as possible."
"May I remind the captain that Lieutenant Commander Uhura already headed such a rescue team for another shuttle's crew?"
"I hear you, Spock. But I won't just leave them." He pursed his lips in fierce thought. "Two shuttles in such short order We can't rule out internal sabotage. I want the next shuttle to come from our fleet so we can guarantee its integrity. Besides " A tiny, sad smile flashed across his face. "Nordstral Pharmaceuticals doesn't have Mr. Scott."
"Thank you, sir." Scott's broad accent came over the comm. "I'll do my best."
"You always do, Scotty. Keep me posted on when that shuttle's ready. And I want updates on any information you get."
"I shall do so. Spock out."
McCoy watched Kirk close his eyes, hands wound into fists of frustration. He thought the captain would say something, or the Soroya's crew would do something to shatter the illusion and make it all not so real. Instead, the silence on the tiny bridge only grew, until it finally made a sound all its own.
Chapter Six
NHYM'S HOME proved to be nothing more than a deep alcove hollowed along one tunnel wall, curtained with the leather skins of sea mammals and lit with several oil-pot lamps. The spicy smell of kraken oil filled the enclosed space, masking over the muskier scent of unwashed Kitka. Uhura took a step inside the curtained area, Tenzing following cautiously at her heels, then stopped to blink sudden moisture from her eyes. The faint trapped warmth of the oil fires had melted the frost off her eyebrows and lashes.
Nhym threw back her fur hood and shook water off her hair, the thick silver strands falling into place as neatly as a seal's pelt when she was done. The three Kitka inside the alcove greeted her with a chorus of rising trills, although their voices sounded thin and whispery compared to Nhym's. "Granddaughter," provided the translator for two of them, and "Great-granddaughter" for the last, a tiny huddled figure in smoke-dark furs.
"Grandmother, Grandfather, Great-grandmother!" Nhym skipped around a long, carved-bone table to pat affectionately at each of them. "Guests come for dinner! People from above the aurora who wear kraken eyes for masks!"
The two Kitka kneeling behin
d the table looked up at Uhura and Tenzing, surprise turning to delight in their pale blue eyes. Their response was so fast and excited that Uhura's translator couldn't catch it, but the slower whistle from the huddled older woman came through clearly. "Alion's guests?"
The distaste in the old woman's voice was obvious, and Nhym gave Uhura an uncertain look. "We prefer to be the guests of all the Kitka," the communications officer said in reply, hoping the translator had some way of expressing that. It seemed to work well enough. The oldest Kitka made a fluting sound of satisfaction and rose from her huddle of furs. She moved strongly despite the age that yellowed her face and made her eyes bone-white.
"Welcome, Hunters of Stars. I am Ghyl of Chinit Clan."
"I am Uhura of the starship Enterprise." Uhura tried to keep her introduction in the same format. She took a chance and touched her gloved fingers to her lips. "I thank you for sharing your dinner."
"It is our honor," said the old Kitka, her amber lips lifting in a smile that looked a lot like Nhym's. "Please sit at our table. You came with Nordstral's Steno?"
"Yes." Uhura settled herself on the thick leathery skin that covered the floor, folding her legs gracefully beneath her. Tenzing squatted silently beside her, tricorder discreetly scanning the alcove to record the Kitka in it. "We came to look for people from one of our ships. They are lost somewhere on the ice north of here."
Ghyl's answer was a falling wail that sounded grim. "Not good," said the translator after a pause. "The ice sheet hurts too much to hunt on it now."
Uhura wasn't sure how to answer that. Fortunately, Nhym interrupted, pushing a carved bone platter across the table to her. "Special dinner for guests," she said, looking anxious. "Kraken Eyes eat?"
"Um " Uhura looked down at the seaweed-wrapped bundles. Instead of the gleaming raw fish she'd seen them chopping before, these contained translucent blobs of something that glistened like wet gelatin. "What is this?"
