Star Trek - Log 10

by Alan Dean Foster

  "We'll try it as a last resort only then, Scotty," Kirk-sulu agreed.

  "I hope we dinna have to, Captain," the chief engineer told him. "You might all end up frozen in these bodies for the rest of your natural lives."

  Spock-uhura glanced down at himself, at the body of the communications chief. "The prospect of remaining forever locked in this form is indeed appalling, Mr. Scott."

  "I'm not thrilled about it either, Mr. Spock," Uhura-kirk told him firmly. "I'd like nothing better than to, to repossess my own body." Her hands gestured at herself. "The chemical balance of this male envelope initiates some of the most absurd reactions."

  "We'll all be glad when,"—he was careful not to say "if"—"we're back where we belong, Lieutenant," Kirk assured her soothingly. "Keep us posted on progress with the rectifier, Scotty. Oh, how's the stasis box coming along? We'll probably take it down with us tomorrow."

  Scott was glad of the chance to report some good news. "All ready for you, Captain. It's on the bridge. I couldn't put it in your cabin," he added a mite apologetically, "without forcin' the door seal, and I didn't want to do that."

  "It's just as well, Scotty. There's nothing to hide from the crew, and I don't think I can get into my own cabin myself now. The voice and retinal patterns that the door lock would recognize belong to that body," and he pointed at Uhura, "not to Mr. Sulu's, where I'm presently residing. If I need to get into my own cabin, Lieutenant Uhura's going to have to come along."

  The four officers took the turbolift to the bridge. Although everyone on board the Enterprise had by now been thoroughly apprised of the quadruple body switch—mind switch, rather—it still took personnel encountering it for the first time a few minutes to get used to addressing Captain Kirk as Uhura and Sulu as Captain Kirk, and so on.

  As Scott had promised, the stasis box was waiting for them. It rested on a small stand next to the left arm of the command chair. Kirk-sulu walked over to it, and was joined by Spock-uhura. "It certainly looks real enough, Captain," the first officer said.

  Kirk had to admit that it did. Using Spock's descriptions of the original box, the engineering department had inserted something into the box which produced an encapsulating blue aura. The top of the box had been resealed by some exotic weldfill technique, as much art as metallurgy, so that with his face only a centimeter away Kirk couldn't see where the box had been opened.

  Reaching out, he picked it up, his hands feeling a faint tingle from the false stasis field. "I'm convinced, Spock. But will it fool the Klingons?"

  "Even sensor equipment will produce information insisting that the aura," and Spock-uhura indicated the box, "is a genuine Slaver field. The Klingons will not be given an opportunity to inspect the box closely. Furthermore, Klingon has encountered only one stasis box in its entire history of stellar exploration, and that was several hundred years ago. They are not as familiar with the artifacts as we are and so are unlikely to know enough to expose the fraud."

  With that, the first officer resumed his position at the science station. The ensign he replaced couldn't help staring as he moved aside. He knew Spock was taking over, but all he could see was Uhura.

  This caused Kirk to look around the bridge. The captain was manning communications, and he, as Sulu, was seated in the command chair while Spock was serving as helmsman and Uhura was at the science station. That view of the bridge would be certain to set Kumara thinking. Instead, Kirk decided to give his Klingon counterpart something else to dwell on.

  "Lieutenant Uhura."

  "Yes, Captain," she replied in his own voice, from her position at communications.

  "If you pick up any transmissions from Kumara's ship, or from the surface, acknowledge them but do so mechanically. Under no circumstances provide visual communication. And if the Briamosites or Kumara desire to speak to me, Lieutenant, you'll have to answer."

  "I understand, sir," she replied. Kirk didn't think he could ever get used to conversing with himself.

  So far everyone had performed admirably under impossible circumstances. Uhura had played Kirk reasonably well. It said something for the camaraderie that normally existed on board that they could imitate each other so efficiently. Kirk had to stay alert constantly, though, to make certain those imitations never degenerated into caricature.

  They had succeeded in avoiding any serious psychological problems. Those might still lie ahead, he knew. Give the body's normal endocrine system long enough and it would begin to affect the minds housed in unfamiliar surroundings. The sooner the conference below could be concluded successfully, he knew, the better their chances would be. Meanwhile, they could only remain vigilant and hope Dr. McCoy's worries found no basis in fact.

  Spock was walking back to his own cabin, musing on the intriguing but distressing events that had left him imprisoned in this cumbersome, awkward form. Thus far he'd been able to repress anything seriously upsetting. He could imitate—as long as nothing terribly drastic was required—human reactions. But he was still very much himself.

  Before leaving for rest and recreation period, until they beamed-down tomorrow, all four of the officers had gone over their personal needs with that other mind inhabiting their natural bodies. All indication of amusement absent from her voice, Lieutenant Uhura had warned Spock above all not to forget taking the several monthly capsules her system required, which he would find in the dispensers in her cabin. Spock assured her he would not.

  It was difficult enough to face the possibility that he might have to live the remainder of his life in this human body. He was not about to risk getting it pregnant. Not that, he had hastened to assure her, his own mind could in its wildest moments conceive of permitting that to happen. But she made him promise to take the supplement capsules nonetheless. Spock could have quarreled with her on personal grounds. But since the communications chief regarded the subject so emotionally, he decided to humor her.

  He stopped. Someone was standing in his way. Spock moved to go around him. The man, a tall ensign from organic fabrication whom Spock didn't recognize, moved to block his intended path.

  "In a hurry?" the ensign, said, grinning in a moronic fashion not becoming to a member of Starfleet forces. He leaned on one hand against the corridor wall.

  "If you will kindly let me pass," Spock said with a touch of irritation.

  "Hey, now!" The man shifted to block Spock's new attempt to walk around him. "I know you're a superior officer and all, but I didn't think you'd already forget about . . ."

  It suddenly occurred to Spock that possibly all the crew, certainly not all those on long sleep cycles, had learned of the transformation of the four officers into different bodies. This ensign's familiar attitude toward a superior officer was decidedly unbecoming, but that was a matter between him and Lieutenant Uhura, a matter in which Spock had no particular desire to interfere.

  Fighting the peculiar hormone reaction all at once surging through the body he inhabited—a fight which required the most vigorous application of mental discipline—he tried to explain. "I am not Lieutenant Uhura, Ensign."

  The man stared at Uhura's face, heard Uhura's voice. His initial bravado turned to confusion, puzzlement. When he spoke he sounded a little hurt.

  "Now, what's this all about?" the ensign broke into a wide grin. "You didn't always used to stand on rank."

  Spock rushed on, hoping to spare this unfortunate individual any further embarrassment. "There was a transporter semifailure. It resulted in the transfer of the minds of your captain, your executive officer, and Lieutenants Sulu and Uhura into the wrong bodies upon reintegration. That is the present disturbing state of affairs. They will remain this way until Engineer Scott can trace and correct the trouble with the damaged transporter."

  "Oh, come on, Uhura! What are you feeding me? You're Uhura . . . Lieutenant," he added, a touch accusingly. "Tell me I don't know how to recognize—"

  "I happen to be Commander Spock," Uhura's voice informed the ensign frostily. "Presently I am inhabiti
ng Lieutenant Uhura's body. Lieutenant Uhura's mind is located in the body of Captain Kirk. If you will take the time to contact the bridge, or any of your fellow shipmates who doubtless heard the announcement while you did not, you will find that what I am telling you is the truth."

  The ensign's face ran through a remarkable gamut of expressions in a short time. "You're joking with me, aren't you? This is some kind of game you're playing." The man didn't sound as positive as before. "Look, if it was something I said—"

  "There's an intercom." Spock-uhura indicated the grid-and-panel set into the corridor wall. "Contact whomever you wish and check what I say."

  "All right. All right, I will," the ensign responded, with the air of one about to call a bluff. "We'll call this joke off fast." He thumbed the intercom.

  "Excuse me, is Yeoman Anderson there?" A pause, during which the ensign smiled faintly and Spock-uhura stood quietly waiting. "Yes, Anderson? This is Ensign Kearly. Hey, did something go wrong with one of the transporters recently? I heard this hysterical story that the captain, Mr. Spock and—"

  A strong female voice at the other end spoke from the grid. "Yes. Don't you know about it, Kearly? Damnedest thing . . . I guess you must have been deep in sleep cycle. Seems that in trying to beam down to Briamos there was some kind of problem with the transporter. Rumor up from Engineering says that it was caused by that pulsar wave we ran through a while ago." The ensign's face, as he listened to this, was drawn.

  "Anyway, it seems like everyone trying to beam down got all shifted around, wrong mind in the wrong body. It's hard to believe, I know, but I've personally—"

  "Never mind, Yeoman." Ensign Kearly sounded a bit shaky. "I just wanted to confirm it." He clicked off, turned to stare at Uhura's form. He looked, and sounded, as if he were confronting a ghost. "Then . . . you really are Commander Spock?"

  The first officer replied as gently as he could. Still, he was unable to keep all the irritation out of his voice. "Believe me, Ensign Kearly, this present situation is not more palatable to me than to you, or to anyone else—least of all Lieutenant Uhura."

  "Yes, ma'am—I mean, sir." The ensign executed a hurried, harried salute, excused himself, and moved rapidly away. Spock was allowed to continue on uninterrupted, with ample time to consider the peculiarities of human interrelationships.

  Spock's comment to the ensign about the unpalatability of the present arrangement was an understatement as far as Uhura was concerned. Presently, the communications chief was resting in her own cabin. A technician with special clearance had had to open it manually for her, since Kirk's face and hands wouldn't key the door seal any more than his tenor would substitute for her higher, more delicate voice.

  Although the captain's body she was imprisoned in was in excellent condition, compared to her own she found it awkward, clumsy, and oddly unmobile. Funny, she thought, leaning back on her bed, how one could grow so accustomed to something like a body. After all, what was it but an envelope of flesh to provide mobility for the mind?

  Experimenting in the privacy of her cabin, she tried to sing a favorite song, the one she had composed for her grandfather back on Earth. In place of her beautiful, throaty tones the room filled with an excruciatingly harsh, unmelodic gargling noise. It might have passed as a cry for help, but certainly not for music. She sat up in amazement that so grating a sound could issue from her throat.

  There were any number of other things about her present body that made her feel uncomfortable. The best thing she could do would be to ignore them and try to relax. She lay back down again. The sooner she had her own body back, the better. The thought of spending the rest of her life in this lumbering masculine shape appalled her at least as much as did the prospect of spending the rest of his life in her body did Mr. Spock.

  By the following morning, Engineer Scott could only report that the sensitive work on the damaged rectifier was proceeding as fast as he dared permit.

  Kirk-sulu carried the stasis box in a large, unadorned container as the four prepared to beam down for the second day of conference, and the first real negotiating session. To hide their deception, the container had been made large enough to hold both the box and the false field it was generating, since a true Slaver stasis field would have appeared outside the walls of a smaller container.

  A familiar but never comfortable instant of not-being, and the four officers found themselves in a modest but impressive domed chamber large enough to hold a hundred people easily. The floor was composed of slabs of irregularly cut stone resembling gold-veined marble. The entire wall on their left was made of long slim panes of some transparent glassy material. Kirk noted that it appeared to lighten and darken to match the changing sunlight pouring into the chamber. There were probably occasional clouds outside today, he thought.

  They walked toward the window-wall and he saw that the chamber and the building they were in were set on a hill overlooking a broad swatch of ocean and beach. Towering sandstone cliffs streaked with horizontal bands of brown, orange, and maroon lined an imposing headland in the distance. Small craft of unusual design and construction swarmed like insects within the quiet water of the bay.

  Kirk recalled what Colonel-Greeter Pliver had told them about this being a very popular resort area, within reach of the capital city. Trying to imagine himself one of the happy, thin aliens cavorting in sand and water below, he wondered how many of the local honeymooners—assuming Briamosites had honeymoons—partygoers, or ordinary vacationers realized that an interstellar conference was taking place only a couple of kilometers away from them. Or if they cared.

  Come to think of it, if a similar work-halting conference were being held on Earth, the average citizen would shrug and wonder if he might squeeze out another day of vacation without offending his boss. After all, the future of the universal civilization was a trifle compared to the travails and adventures of everyday life. Fortunately, Kirk knew, there were those who took the business of civilization somewhat more seriously. They became philosophers or artists.

  Or they joined Starfleet.

  A long U-shaped table was set up near the window-wall, just out of reach of the invading sunlight. The rest of the chamber was empty of furniture, giving it a spaciousness one usually felt in far larger halls. The two prongs of the U faced into the room while the curve backed against the window-wall.

  Leader Sarvus and Vice-Leader Chellea sat at the apex of the U-curve. They were flanked by Colonel-Greeter Pliver, who now rose as the Federation representatives approached, and several other undoubtedly important members of the Briamosite hierarchy whose faces were new to Kirk. One of them sat particularly stiffly. His clothing and manner marked him as a military man. Empty seats, four to a side, lined the outside of both horns of the table.

  "Greetings, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Lieutenants," said Pliver, walking around the table to shake hands human-fashion with each of them. He conducted them to their chairs on the near side of the U. The seats were a bit tight and narrow for the human pelvis, but the four officers managed—though Spock, in Uhura's body, had a difficult moment.

  Pliver glanced curiously at the large box Kirk was carrying. "What does the lieutenant carry, Captain?" he asked, talking to Kirk's body. "The artifact?"

  "Yes," replied Uhura-kirk. "We'll unveil it later." As Pliver seemed satisfied with that and didn't press for details, Uhura wisely kept quiet

  Kumara and his attending officers arrived a few moments later. They took the four seats on the horn of the table opposite their Federation counterparts.

  The Briamosites promptly opened the conference by reasserting their humanlike characteristics. Every official present, lips firm and ears wagging like flowers in a strong breeze, delivered a substantial speech, including Sarvus and Chellea. No one intended that his part in this important occasion should fail to be entered into Briamosite history. In addition to a sense of humor, it was clear the inhabitants of Briamos were developed politically. So Kirk, Kumara, and the other guests listened
while the officials of Briamos detailed variously the importance of the conference: what they hoped might be achieved by it, their desire to maintain friendly relations with both governments no matter which one they eventually entered into alliance with . . .

  The self-important speeches, Kirk knew, were a characteristic common to immature races. Even the member races of the Federation hadn't entirely outgrown the juvenile aspects of government.

  "I now declare open this conference," Sarvus declaimed at last. "We of Briamos look forward to hearing from each of you at length." Kirk tensed. The time had come for formal presentations, and serious business.

  It was the signal for the opposing executive officers, in this case Sulu in Spock's body, to rise in turn and deliver long prepared presentations. For Sulu-spock, the words had been constructed by the best Federation psychopoliticos at Starfleet Command and then relayed out to Starbase 25. Sulu-spock read the sentences mechanically, spelling out as clearly and persuasively as possible the advantages which would accrue to Briamos if they aligned themselves with the Federation.

  Kirk knew the speech would have been more impressive and had greater impact if it had been delivered half extemporaneously by Spock himself, since Spock had the words fully memorized. But that wasn't possible. Kirk noticed that Spock, in Uhura's body, was following Sulu's recitation closely.

  The Briamosites didn't appear offended by Sulu-spock's reading of the prepared statement. As Kirk had hoped, they seemed more interested in content than form. All Sulu had to do was maintain a posture of Vulcan detachment, keep his voice a monotone. That was easy enough. The only problem in rehearsing the speech back aboard ship had been to restrain Sulu during the more emotion-charged sections of the speech. After much practice he had been able to recite the words without overly emphasizing any of them. Just as he was doing now.

  If anything, it was even flatter in tone than Spock would have presented it. They had decided to err on the side of reality rather than risk having Sulu reveal anything by trying to drive a particular point home.