Star Trek - Log 3

by Alan Dean Foster

  They continued to circle just above the entrance for long minutes, nightmare-brown butterflies, perhaps hoping one of the men would be foolish enough to come outside for a better look around. But the men of the Enterprise could keep an eye on them quite well from inside the protective mouth of the cave.

  Occasionally one of the creatures would dive up to the mouth of the cleft and try to peck inside with its long, snake-like neck, its wings pounding furiously to keep it airborne. But the cave apparently went deep into the mountain, and Kirk and the others were able to stay well out of reach.

  Either they decided they could not reach the men inside the cleft or else they were told—or perhaps mechanical frustration set in—because they finally turned and flew off down the gorge until they vanished from sight.

  McCoy waited several minutes after the last of the flying monsters had disappeared, then he started to take a few steps toward the cave entrance. Spock's restraining hand stopped him.

  "I believe it would be wise if we did not abandon the safety of this refuge just yet, Doctor. The creatures appear to have left, but it may only be a ruse to draw us out. Remember that while they seem quite primitive, the guiding intelligence behind them is that of a planet-wide computer, not the brain of a long-extinct terran reptile."

  "Thanks, Spock," McCoy countered sardonically. "I'd completely forgotten that."

  But he didn't go outside.

  Kirk, however, had moved to the rim of the entrance. He stared at the clear sky, being careful not to stick his neck out where some hidden set of claws might be able to cut it off.

  "This is not at all funny, gentlemen. Our amusement park seems no longer content merely to amuse. I get the distinct feeling that this world is playing cat and mouse with us." His brow furrowed and there was honest puzzlement in his tone.

  "But for what reason? And if it wants us dead, why use this awkward, indirect method of getting at us?"

  "Not being used to perpetrating acts of violence on living beings, Captain," Spock mused reflectively, "I can only hypothesize that it is using the only violence-dealing apparatus it knows—the creations that have sprung from other's fantasies. Since it is programmed only to recreate peaceful dreams, the pterodactyls were no doubt drawn from the honest thoughts of someone deeply interested in Earth's paleontology. So it is fortunately handicapped in its choices. If—"

  He was cut off by a terrifying yowl. All four men looked to the cave entrance, where Kirk had stumbled back.

  The enormous cat-thing that glowered in at them resembled an ordinary house cat, with one slight exception—it was only slightly smaller than an elephant. Kirk at once wished he had used a less graphic analogy to describe their present situation.

  Whatever the monster had in mind, having it's fur ruffled or its ear scratched didn't seem to be it. The cat meowed menacingly.

  But once again the narrow slit of the cave entrance succeeded in frustrating any assault. Fortunately, the planetary computer hadn't yet thought of—Kirk hurriedly squelched that dangerous thought by concentrating on running over in his mind a series of aleph numbers. They had enough trouble trying to cope with the threats the machine was producing on its own without helping it by imagining new ones.

  "We know one thing," he went on, surveying their refuge, "this cave is a natural, fixed formation. Otherwise the computer would have reduced it to an oven, or something equally unpleasant." He held his breath for a second, but no flood of unbearable heat poured from the walls in defiance of his supposition.

  McCoy was straining forward for the best possible safe view of the feline apparition guarding the exit "Incredible, absolutely amazing."

  "It is quite real, Doctor," said Spock, adding rapidly, "I suggest that an additional retreat would be in order."

  McCoy blinked, then jumped backward just before a gigantic paw slammed down on the spot where he had been standing, its gleaming claws fully extended. The paw was pulled back just as fast.

  "Fortunately," Spock observed calmly, "the animal's reactions are slowed in proportion to its mass. Thus I was able to observe the ripple of shoulder and upper arm muscles prior to its attack and to warn you, Doctor."

  McCoy was panting uneasily at his narrow escape, eyeing the four deep gouges in the rock floor of the cavern.

  "I don't care how you found out. Thanks, Spock."

  The Enterprise's first officer gave a barely perceptible nod, went on, "I think it behooves us," he informed them, verbalizing Kirk's recent thoughts, "to remember that whatever we think of may be used by this world against us. We must monitor our thoughts at all times, so as to give our enemy no useful information."

  "Spock," Kirk commented thoughtfully, "no one here dreamed about pterodactyls, remember? There's more at work here than our imaginations."

  "As I have stated, Captain," the science officer replied, "the computer undoubtedly stores every record of all fantasies and wishes it fulfills—without question there are many thousands of such. Yet it is rather clumsy in employing them in a belligerent fashion. Witness the futility of our present attacker in reaching us."

  He gestured toward the cave entrance and the oversized tabby, which was pawing without result at the solid rock.

  "An ordinary terran housepet has been greatly enlarged to serve the machine's present demands. There is no telling what we might encounter next."

  "Maybe even a—" McCoy fought furiously with himself to stifle the sudden thought, drowned it out by concentrating on a childhood nonsense rhyme. He brightened. Now there was a thought! Perhaps by producing enough mental static by thinking only incoherent thoughts, they could give the planetary computer an electronic headache.

  Baleful eyes like growing haystacks burned in at them as the cat ceased it's useless scratching and settled down by the cave entrance to wait . . .

  As reduced on the viewscreen, the situation possessed strong overtones of the comic; and Uhura would have laughed but for the very real threat the cat presented. She divided her attention between the screen and the rest of the gleaming, impersonal panel.

  "Please, call off that beast. Why are you doing this?"

  The machine hummed softly, impersonal and distant. "Explanations in depth will have to wait. I have other work to concentrate on now."

  "Any luck with that communications tight-beam?" Scott leaned over the communication's station on the bridge and studied M'ress's progress.

  "Not yet, sir," she replied, "but we . . ."

  Something wrenched violently at her and sent Scott stumbling and spinning back toward the command chair.

  The Enterprise had suddenly thrown itself into warp-six, and the shock sent a thrill of vibration through the floor. The unexpected leap threw Arex hard against his console and tumbled M'ress from her chair. She sprawled on the deck, landing with a faint, unfeminine curse.

  "Mr. Arex!" Scott shouted, clutching tightly to the arms of the chair, "what are you doin'?" The first engineer glanced at the main viewscreen, which showed the disk of the shoreleave world shrinking rapidly from sight.

  "We're leaving orbit!"

  Arex was too busy to reply. A considerable G-force was jamming him hard against the console. Apparently the artificial gravity compensators weren't working properly either. Two of his arms fought to move him to his left and slightly up, while the third labored against the pressure to reach a certain small switch.

  Long, delicate fingers strained for the small lever set over an identifying plate which declared, NAVIGATION MANUAL OVERRIDE. Multiple digits spread, flicked. There was a flat whining sound. The picture in the viewscreen spun crazily and swelled like a nervous blowfish. A few moments later the Enterprise was comfortably back in orbit.

  M'ress had already pulled herself to her feet and was back in her seat, rearranging clothes and composure. Arex, meanwhile, hadn't paused to catch his breath. He was already running some fast checks on the helm-navigation controls, his face wreathed in its habitual mask of mild amusement.

  "Explanation, Mr. Arex?
" Scott breathed heavily.

  Arex checked a few more gauges, then gave his own equivalent of a shrug. "None, sir. She pulled out of orbit at high speed and when I hit the override, came back by herself."

  Scott's reply was quick. "Lieutenant M'ress, I want a complete printout of the guidance computer's last orders. Everything from fuel input to recalibrated destination, if any."

  "Yes, sir." She moved quickly to Spook's empty station, manipulated controls. There was a nervous pause, broken finally by a perfunctory buzz as the slot over the computer punchout ejected a flat microtape cassette. She slipped it into the playback and studied the information revealed by the hooded viewer.

  "Sir, this is very strange." Arex rose from his navigation station and put his eyes to the hood. He studied it for a minute, then looked back at Scott.

  "A whole new series of short-burst maneuvers has—had been programmed in, Commander." Arex smiled faintly. "The only reason they aren't being carried out right now is that I've manually locked the engine controls." He switched places with the first engineer.

  Scott spent a little more time studying the figures in the viewer before looking up.

  "Arex, check those maneuvers again." He pulled back while the navigation officer did so. "See the pattern? Standard maneuverability thrusts, full systems evaluation, short-term control fail safes—" The two humanoids stared at each other, different minds hurrying to the same frightening conclusions.

  At first this world had done little more than act antagonistically toward several of the crewmembers on its surface. This was followed by the jamming of ship-to-surface communications and a deliberate obstruction of subsequent rescue attempts.

  And now something far more ominous.

  "I canna avoid the suspicion, Mr. Arex, that somethin' down there is tryin' to get the feel of how to control the Enterprise" He turned away, hands knotting nervously behind his back. What had to be said came with considerable effort.

  "Arex, you know what standard starfleet directives are in a situation like this."

  "Yes, sir." Arex quoted, "When an alien force, organism, or people of demonstrated unfriendly intentions and unknown capabilities attempts to take control of a major Federation starship, prevention of such takeover assumes precedence over all else—including the well-being of any Federation citizen or group thereof."

  Scott found himself nodding as he matched Arex's words in his own mind. He stared at the empty navigation console.

  "That is so much bureaucratese for saying that if we can't figure out a way to make contact with the captain, Spock, and the others, or they with us, we may have to leave them down there till we can come back with reinforcements."

  "Surely we can't just abandon them, sir?" M'ress hissed.

  "That's a word I'd prefer not to use, lass." Scott turned and stared hard at her. "But what do you think the captain would do were he here and we three down below?"

  She looked downcast. "Yes, of course, Commander. You're right."

  The four men rested disconsolately, quietly in the cave. They had been resting for a long time. Spock had moved slightly deeper into the gray depths, while Sulu was posted as close to the entrance as they dared go. He was flicking pebbles at the opposite wall of the cavern. They bounced off the stone with tiny clicks. Dwarf echoes coughed mockingly back at him.

  Kirk had borrowed Spock's tricorder. For lack of anything else to do. "Captain's Log, supplemental," he instructed the pickup mike. "We are out of communication with the ship. In addition, all our efforts so far to locate Lieutenant Uhura have been . . . insufficient. This once friendly world, for reasons still unknown, has turned implacably hostile toward visitors.

  "We would all like to know what has turned its former ambience to anger . . . more than anger. But for the moment, our thoughts are concerned foremost with the well-being of our first communication's officer." Kirk paused, searching for something additional that would be informative about Uhura without sounding unprofessionally maudlin.

  Sulu had walked cautiously to the entrance and was now standing just outside, framed in sunlight. He turned, shouted back to the rest of them.

  "Sir, I think the giant cat's gone."

  Kirk wanted to add something to the log, but it would have to wait. If their latest mechanical tormentor had indeed given up its vigil, they would do well to make their way out of this dead-end while the planet gave them a chance. Why it should he couldn't imagine. That didn't make any sense. But then, neither did anything else that had happened in the last half day. One lapse in logic, it seemed, led easily into another.

  Well, that was fine—they would take benign unreason along with the inimical.

  He headed toward the exit, switching off the tricorder. McCoy and Spock were right behind.

  But at the entrance, Spock put a restraining hand on his shoulder. "Before we embark on a hasty departure, Captain, permit me to suggest that we may find some of the answers we are after without leaving the safety of this cave. It has occurred to me that if we are to find Lieutenant Uhura we must try something other than wishful searching on foot."

  "That's ridiculous, Spock," claimed McCoy. "How are we going to learn anything by staying here?" His grin twisted. "We haven't learned a whole lot since we've been in here."

  "On the contrary, Doctor, I think we have learned several items of note. The computer is not omnipotent. It has limitations, and it's desires can be frustrated. It cannot produce whatever it requires—for substance it must rely on the imaginings of others. As to what we may discover without leaving this refuge, I was merely waiting for a lapse in our siege, as now seems to have happened.

  "Since we cannot go to the computer, perhaps we may persuade a portion of it to come to us. It is you, Doctor, who will have to determine the feasibility of such a course."

  "Me? What are you talking about?" McCoy looked understandably puzzled.

  "Explain, Spock," ordered the Captain.

  "You will remember that during the Enterprise's last visit here, Dr. McCoy was mortally wounded in a fall on this planet's surface. Since the planet's control and central directive source is underground, it seems only logical that Dr. McCoy was somehow transported there and treated for his injuries. At the time we were too busy with other activities to pursue the mechanics of the situation further. But now—"

  "I see what you mean, Spock," Kirk said abruptly. He turned to the Enterprise's still bewildered physician. "Bones, can you remember anything that might help us? Any details, however slight?"

  "The whole episode was pretty hazy, Jim. I . . . I never really figured out what did happen. I was just happy to be back in one piece."

  "Spock, if your theory is correct," Kirk suggested, "we should be able to get this planet to open itself up again, by using a body as bait."

  "That is essentially what I had in mind, Captain."

  Sulu looked excited. "That's right. The Keeper said no one could come to harm here. We've been threatened, but no one's actually been hurt—no one we know of, that is."

  "That's a nice, optimistic thought, Sulu," Kirk mused sardonically, "especially when I think of Uhura. Keep thinking along those lines. Maybe the computer will pick them up. But you're partly right . . . this world was programmed to provide for anyone who might be hurt accidentally.

  "The question is . . . is such a body-repair machinery fully independent? I'd tend to think so, gentlemen. It would have to be, in the event of major malfunction of the central computer. If so, all first-aid facilities would continue to care for visitors. That is, unless the computer has since gone to the trouble of turning off the medical facilities."

  "Why should it?" argued McCoy hopefully. "Especially if there's been no one around to activate the automatic doctors since the computer went berserk."

  Kirk looked thoughtful. "It might even be programmed to give aid to incidental victims whether it wants to or not. If such facilities are truly independent, the central computer might not even be aware of some of them. Another safety factor." />
  "Yes, but you're forgetting one thing, Jim," McCoy added, suddenly uncertain. "The automatic sensors can undoubtedly detect the difference between real and feigned damage."

  "Certainly, Captain," Spock put in, "which is why I said the doctor would determine the ultimate feasibility of this plan." He faced McCoy. "Is there not something in one of your little black pouches, Dr. McCoy, that can simulate some illness? Something that can temporarily incapacitate a selected victim?"

  McCoy considered for a moment, then nodded. "Something like corpelomine might do the trick. With no disease to attack, it'll cause brief unconsciousness and a temporary skin discoloration. The results should look pretty bad, but they won't be."

  Kirk stuck out both arms. "Let's have it then, Bones. Which one do you want?"

  That was Spock's cue. He stepped between them. "I submit, Captain, that I am the more qualified subject."

  "How's that?"

  "My knowledge of computer systems, for one thing."

  "And his tough Vulcan hide for another," McCoy chipped in.

  "Thank you, Doctor." He eyed Kirk expectantly. "Well, Captain?"

  Assailed by arguments from both sides, Kirk dropped his arms and stepped back reluctantly. "Both your points seem well taken, for a change. Go ahead, Bones."

  Spock held out his right arm. "I believe you will find ten ccs adequate, Doctor."

  "I'm perfectly aware of the dosage required," McCoy growled, but gently. He took a small tube from his belt, held it up to the light, then plunged the tip into a fat little sack at his belt. A second later he adjusted a tiny dial at the top, then pressed it against the outstretched arm.

  "This causes no discomfort—unfortunately. You've got about twenty seconds before it takes effect. Altogether you should be out in less than five minutes." Spock nodded, rolled down his sleeve and moved quickly toward the rocks outside the cave entrance. The other three crewmen slipped into the shadows.

  Walking along the path at the bottom of the narrow canyon, Spock got about fifteen meters away from the cave before he put his hand to his head. Swaying, he managed to stagger another couple of steps before slumping slowly to the ground. He was unmistakably unconscious.