The lean Vulcan rose from the protruding slab and walked out the door, past the towering hulk of his captor. In the corridor were two other of the creatures. Each had a harness of metal links from which hung a squarish weapon of some kind and a short sword. They flanked Spock and started off down the passage.
It was a maze through which they passed, a series of rusting rooms without much ornamentation or comfort. Spock saw improvised beds and fires tended by ancient bent figures, older duplicates of his captors. He saw no children or any less than full-grown Alphas, as he had named them.
At times their trail led through rents in walls, blackened holes blasted through in some ancient time. They skirted a great dark well so vast he could not see the other side. Here and there on the walls or ceilings were dim lights, just enough to navigate by.
It was a dreary, dead place, unexciting, without, Spock thought, the austere grandness of Vulcan habitations. It was a worn-out world, with a weary, worn-out population, gray and shabby.
Then they came upon a great hatch upon which was crudely welded a kind of shield. There were symbols on the shield: concentric circles, a bar with a disk at one end, and what Spock took to be a four-winged bird.
The concentric circles seemed to Spock to be a representation of the multi-layer structure which covered the unnamed planet, but the other symbols’ meanings he could not interpret.
The hatch was guarded by two of the gray-green Alphas, each with a rod of metal sharpened at one end. They tugged on the hatch manually, and it creaked open enough for Spock’s guards to squeeze through.
At once Spock was assaulted by a great variety of sensual stimulants: Warm, moist air rather than the cold, dry, tasteless air outside; bright light, tending toward the red end of the scale; the sound of stringed instruments playing atonal music; and smells unlike any he had experienced.
What he saw was a vast, low-ceilinged chamber populated with circular gazebos, round, shiny, metal balls the size of a room, disks set a foot or so off the floor, which was carpeted with groupings of round, shiny, wet-looking rugs. And in and about these objects were about a dozen creatures of a totally different genetic heritage from the gray-green hulks who had brought Spock there.
They were vaguely reptilian about the face, but their bodies were almost catlike, sleek and supple. They had tails with tufts of hair at the end, and the hair was treated differently by each of the creatures: braided, fluffed into fuzzy balls, oiled and shaped into glistening spirals, and so on.
All the creatures wore jewelry: silvery bands carved and jeweled, necklaces of polished metal shapes, earrings of braided wires, belts of linked metal shapes, needles of golden metal glued in sprays around the eyes.
And all eyes were unblinkingly upon Spock. Two Alphas pushed Spock forward toward one of the new aliens, which Spock was already calling Betas in his mind. The nomenclature was simple, usable until real names were discovered.
This Beta was lying on a pallet of ornamented pillows, and as Spock approached, he or she—the Vulcan could not tell which—picked up a bar with a sphere on top, which started to glow the moment it was touched.
Spock was stopped by an Alpha on each side, and the leader on the round pallet said something to the Vulcan in a hissing voice. When Spock did not reply, the Beta made a gesture and the two Alphas knocked Spock to the floor.
The Vulcan science officer lay still for a moment, feigning unconsciousness, and tried to sort out the impressions. A deserted metal world. Two very different races, with the physically stronger the slaves or servants of the other. A few overlords living in luxury upon the labor of the subjected. A dead-end, depleted, autocratic society. And where is Jim Kirk?
The Alphas yanked Spock to his feet and the Beta leader spoke again. But this time Spock responded. “I am Spock, Science Officer of the United Federation of Planets ship Enterprise. We have come in peace and—”
The Beta leader raised this sphere-on-a—rod and pointed it at Spock and everything went black. Click. No flash, no sound, no fading of powers, just blackness. No sensation at all.
Fascinating, Spock thought. Instantaneous neurological disconnection. Yet I can still think. Only the input of my senses has malfunctioned. Very little sense of time. I am thinking, and even thinking requires time, therefore time is passing. I cannot he dead; this is not death.
Spock waited a moment, searching his mind for the slightest sign of sensory input, and found none. Very well. I will attempt an analysis of the biological functioning of the Betas from information available to me. After that, if the malfunctioning has not ceased, I shall run the Paradoxes of Nome-kre-all.
Actually, Spock thought, this is a most unusual circumstance, one to explore. An electronically induced state of nothingness, a powered meditation.
Having determined there was nothing he could do to change his state of being, Spock decided to employ it.
• • •
Kirk held up his hand. Ahead of him the security man serving as scout had given him a warning sign, then motioned them closer.
Around the angle of a corridor Kirk saw a lumbering creature, gray-green and hulking. The alien went into a room, and from it Kirk saw a flickering fire. They crept closer, and Kirk could see a bent figure sitting by a fire with the other figure standing nearby. The fire itself was of interest: raggedly torn sheets of some carpetlike material glowing fitfully but not actually in flames.
Kirk motioned them back. As they started to retreat for a conference, one of the security men scuffed his boot on some of the grit on the floor.
With a roar the gray-green giant rushed out, a terrifying figure three meters tall. Three stun beams hit him at once, and the hulk fell across Pat Bradley with a crash.
Immediately Tom Collins rushed into the fire-lit room and hit the old creature with a stunbeam. He carefully laid the bent figure out flat, then returned to help Bradley to his feet.
“Captain, look,” one of the security men said. There was a well-defined path through the grit and rubble, out of the room through a hole smashed in the wall. On the edge of the ragged tear in the metal was caught Spock’s tricorder.
“This way!” Kirk said at once. “Tom, tell the follow-up teams where we’re going.”
“Yes, sir,” the security lieutenant said, Writing across the metal wall with the marking beam.
• • •
From blackness to full sensory awareness in an instant. Sight, sound, smell, everything returned at once. It was like a blow to Spock’s mind, but he immediately attempted to re-orient himself.
He was lying on the round carpets before the Beta leader’s platform. Seconds or hours? Spock wondered. He saw the reptilian head of the leader pull back and the mouth hiss open. Astonishment, Spock noted. Perhaps other life forms recovering from sensory deprivation are disoriented, perhaps even mad. Shall I attempt to feign insanity? Negative. Without a speech common to us both the creature could not distinguish madness from coherent communication. Body language perhaps.
Spock rose unassisted and stood with an impassive expression, dignified and aloof. The reptilian creatures looked at each other, their tongues twitchy and their hooded eyes watching him. Tails swung back and forth angrily.
The leader gestured, and a graceful Beta rose from the nestlike confines of one of the spherical structures and brought a silvery cage to the leader. He pointed, and the Beta took the cage to Spock. He could see within a small birdlike creature. When it fluttered its wings to maintain its balance on the perch, he could see there were four wings.
The Beta opened the cage door, and at once the bird attacked, its beak striking Spock’s cheek and biting. There was a stinging sensation and Spock staggered, a dizziness momentarily unbalancing him. Then he was all right and the bird was lying on the floor, its wings beating frantically, then abruptly stopping.
All the reptilian-headed creatures shrank back. My body chemistry killed the bird, Spock thought. Unfortunate creature, I apologize, but I cannot change my structure any more
than you could overcome your genetic heritage and training.
Spock was the attention of all eyes. He saw the short swords in the hands of the Alphas. They began to close warily in on him.
• • •
Tom Collins flashed his light into the void of the great chamber and could barely make out the dark tiers opposite. “This must have been some place when it was working,” he said. “The accomplishment here was tremendous.”
McCoy snorted. “A monument to bureaucracy. I’ve always heard that bureaucrats tend to expand their little fiefdoms into kingdoms, but to cover an entire world! That’s ridiculous!”
“I wonder what happened to the empire that this might have governed?” Bradley said.
“Maybe there wasn’t any,” Kirk said as they moved into a dark passage. “Maybe the snake of government just swallowed its tail.”
“The governing of the people became the entire-society?” asked McCoy.
“Perhaps. There’s no sign of alien cultures here. No artifacts, museums, starships. Nothing to indicate outlying colonies. It’s monolithic. The end product of bureaucracy.”
“But why kidnap Mister Spock?” Bradley asked.
Kirk shrugged. “Trophy. Hostage. Mister Spock was the one different from the rest of us, so perhaps scientific curiosity. Those great creatures back there … apparently little more than semi-intelligent animals. I would have approached them differently, but—or it—gave us no choice.”
“Sir,” asked Bradley, “shouldn’t we wait for the combat teams? I mean, those critters are big!”
“There may not be time. Spock might be in danger.”
• • •
As the huge Alphas lumbered toward him, Spock acted. With blinding speed he jumped at the nearest of the gray-green creatures and kicked at his sword arm, sending the weapon spinning away toward a pavilion full of startled Betas.
Spinning, Spock spun on his feet, and his strong kick sent the startled Alpha tumbling backward. Out of the corner of his eye Spock saw the Beta leader lifting the rod-and-sphere. Spock leapt, rolled, and came up with a booted heel striking at the weapon, knocking it from the grasp of the Beta, who cowered back.
Spock rolled over and snatched up the rod and pointed it at the advanced Alphas, who instantly stopped. Spock felt no trigger, and a quick glance told him there was none on the half-meter rod. But they don’t know I can’t operate it, he thought, keeping it aimed at them.
“Now, gentlemen and ladies,” Spock said, “shall we all just sit down.” He gestured with the rod, and after several repeats they all got the idea and even the hulking Alphas sat on the floor.
“We shall now begin to communicate,” the Vulcan said.
• • •
“Hurry,” Kirk whispered. The corridors had become cleaner and they had passed more rooms showing signs of habitation. But no more of the big gray-green creatures.
Then they saw the great hatch. The two guards fell with a clatter as they were hit with stunning beams from the phasers. There was, to Kirk’s mind, no time for niceties, not when Spock might be in danger.
They pulled open the hatch carefully. The warm and scented air struck them at once. Phasers in hand, the humans moved slowly and cautiously through the hatch opening.
“Greetings, Captain,” Spock said.
“Spock, what in the name of sanity are you doing?” McCoy demanded.
Kirk smiled. “Yes, Mister Spock, just what are you up to?” Kirk looked around the huge room, at the gazebos and pavilions, at the platforms and exotic luxury—and at the two alien races seated in arcing rows before Spock.
“Endeavoring to conduct a class in interspecies communication, Captain. It would have helped had we thought to beam down a universal translator, but I am making do.”
“Indeed you are,” McCoy said wryly.
A platform had been upended and used as a blackboard, with figures drawn to indicate Alphas, Betas, and human/Vulcans, each with a symbol in Universal English. The phrases “world-state,” “federation of planets,” and “democratic government” had been written out.
“Sir, does this violate the Prime Directive?” asked Collins.
The rule of noninterference, General Order Number One, was a wise rule, allowing each culture to develop on its own, thus ensuring variety, strength, and versatility to the intelligent races. But there were many exceptions. One was when the vital interests of the Federation were threatened, but it also allowed for careful and judicious use of action to restore a balance. The natives of this nameless world were merely having the social structure of the civilized planets explained to them, and communication was to be established.
“No, Lieutenant, I don’t believe it does. Go back the way we came, stop the combat teams, and get a universal translator beamed down here. And ask for a volunteer to stay here awhile to indoctrinate these people on the Federation.”
Collins nodded and left at a trot. “Mister Spock, excuse me,” Kirk said.
“Captain?”
“Spock, you were kidnapped and now we find you the mentor to two races. Would you care to explain?” The eyes of both Alphas and Betas turned curiously toward the captain, then back to Spock.
“Captain, I have been able to determine the past history of both these races to a certain extent. The larger of the two races are called Folonix; the smaller, the Granotoulomines. They are the indigenous races of this system, evolving on two planets. The Granotoulomines were apparently great organizers, but the Folonix were not. Gradually the one took over both planets. The planet and moons of the Folonix were used as raw material to create this structure, and the Folonix became a subject race without a home. They never developed stardrive, and this civilization fed on itself.”
“Every civilization based on slavery has fallen, sooner or later,” Kirk said.
“The added weight gradually deflected this world from its customary orbit, causing great damage, and death. The social structure was so rigid that once the systems started to break down, it went very quickly. Disease appeared, and these are the survivors.”
“Decadent survivors,” Bradley said.
“Not quite, Mister Bradley,” Spock said.
“Explain,” Kirk requested.
“They accepted the situation. Too few in number to rebuild their shattered inner empire, they accepted things as they are.”
“Their fate,” McCoy said.
“In a way,” Spock replied. “They are natural bureaucrats. To them, ‘fate’ is the naturally achieved goal of completion. To them life had an order, a progression.”
“But they had a slave race,” protested Pat Bradley.
“The Folonix evolved on a planet farther from the sun, I would guess, and the colder, outer passages were more comfortable than the overheated quarters of the Granotoulomines. They each provided services to the other.”
McCoy said, “Together they were waiting for the end.”
“Again, not quite correct, Doctor McCoy. They awaited the completion of the cycle, the process of order. They have accepted our entrance into their lives as the transition to another level of progress. They are amazingly good students, eager to learn, adaptive and orderly.”
McCoy groaned. “And bureaucratic.”
“Perhaps, Doctor, but logical, too, if not imaginative. Any effort of importance requires discipline and order. They have it, both of them.”
Bradley spoke up. “Mister Spock, they are so…” He could not seem to find the words, but his tone told Spock much.
“Mister Bradley, to them we are ugly. You see, on one hand, a reptilianlike appearance, and in human cultures the reptile has always been a phobia. You see in the Folonix great hulking beasts out of some children’s horror story, ogres in dark metal caves. But to both these races we are hairy, fragile, puny creatures with an incomprehensible desire to wear clothing in a stable environment.”
Bradley appeared-chastened, and Captain Kirk prepared everyone to return to the surface to be beamed aboard.
&nbs
p; “Sir?” Bradley said. “May I volunteer to stay?” Kirk looked at him a moment.
“Certainly, Mister Bradley. We’ll have supplies beamed down at once. Anything else you’d like?”
“Uh, could you fix it with Commander Scott? He, uh, he likes to keep his engine room crew together.”
Kirk smiled. “I’ll talk to Scotty. We’ll pick you up in about two weeks, Standard Time.” Kirk’s expression softened still more. “At least we’ll see if you’re ready to come back aboard.”
“Yes, sir, thank you, sir.”
• • •
Trudging back up to a level where the transporter beam could get them, Kirk asked Spock a question. “What made you think the Folonix and the Granotoulomines were ready for a teacher?”
“Logic, Captain. They were highly xenophobic. They attempted to control or kill me at first sight. Yet they didn’t. I was taken as a specimen, and they did not kill me when I was totally helpless. Therefore, curiosity was a stronger element than xenophobia. Their fear of anything strange was less than their desire to learn.” Spock shrugged. “I merely accelerated that desire by obtaining the upper hand and changing the conditions of the relationship.”
“You know, Spock, when you explain something it always sounds so logical.”
“Does that surprise you?” Spock said, looking at his captain with raised brows.
“No, not after all these years, but what does surprise me—still—is that in the midst of combat, in the middle of a physical or psychic or even telepathic struggle, you can manage to think so logically.”
Spock’s eyebrows ascended higher. “Really, Captain, you should understand that logic is logic whether it is swift or slow. Given all the facts, certain conclusions are inevitable.”
“When do we ever get all the facts, my friend?”
“Sadly true, Captain. Logic states that experience proves that we seldom if ever are in possession of all the facts. Therefore, it is logical to postulate theoretical conclusions based on insufficient evidence.”
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: Short Stories Page 8
