Star Trek - Log 9

by Alan Dean Foster

  The lake itself was covered with brown scum and riotous blue growths, shading in color almost to black in places. Equally bloated vegetation thrived in the swampy region draining into the lake. A meandering stream entered the lake to the right of the rapidly solidifying figures, the water drifting with infinite slowness. Black and brown cypresslike trees, long creepers, and twisting vines occupied much of the open space between the larger boles. But despite the luxuriant growth, there was an absence of grass and ground cover, giving the jungle an underlying appearance of desolation.

  The few open, meadowed spaces were muddy and unwholesome-looking. In contrast to the somewhat ominous landscape, the cries of innumerable tiny climbers and other hidden creatures sounded merrily from within the thickly overgrown areas.

  The five cylinder-shapes became more distinct, added detail and resolution, and turned into the five explorers transported from the Enterprise. Something caused a split-second delay in the final transformation of each figure. Scott resolved first, stumbling slightly as he did so on the soft, sloping shoreline. Sulu appeared next to him, stumbling awkwardly enough to fall momentarily to his knees.

  bn Bem was next. The Pandronian actually materialized a full meter above the shore, which did not affect him as the slight difference had affected Scott and Sulu. His legs instinctively extended the additional meter to allow him a gentle setdown. Once established on the ground, those elastic limbs retracted to their normal length. No one saw the startling adaptation take place.

  Kirk and Spock completed the arrival of the landing party. They rematerialized at a similar distance above the water. Having neither extendable legs, nor wings, the two looked both confused and stunned as they dropped, making a pair of undignified splashes. Fortunately the water was only chest deep.

  As the only one of the arrivals with a sound footing on land, bn Bem rushed into the water to aid the struggling Kirk and Spock in regaining their footing. Kirk had already suspected their guest of having a many-layered personality, but a multilayered torso was something no one could have anticipated.

  The Pandronians were a very new race to Federation biologists. Consequently, neither the captain, nor the rapidly righting Spock—much less Sulu or Scott—took note that under the murky surface Commander bn Bem's lower half detached itself from his upper torso with all the ease and naturalness of a shuttle leaving the Enterprise's hanger.

  While the creature's upper half made arm motions to aid the floundering Kirk, the lower half swam busily around behind the captain and proceeded to remove his phaser and communicator. These devices were immediately and efficiently replaced with well-made copies. Then the substitution was carried out on Spock.

  Above, bn Bem—half of him, anyway—entended an arm as Kirk regained his balance. "Assistance is offered," he said, with barely concealed distaste.

  Kirk and his first officer exchanged glances, then Kirk looked back at their guest. "Thanks just the same, Commander. We'll manage."

  bn Bem imitated a human shrug, one of his newly acquired gestures. "As you choose." As he turned to leave the water, his lower half reattached itself to the upper. It was an intact and familiar Pandronian who emerged from the lake.

  Kirk and Spock struggled out of the plant-choked stagnant water, both completely unaware that anything untoward had taken place. If they had felt a slight twinge or two, they might have looked more closely at the slight bulges in the Pandronian's sample pouch, dangling loosely from one hip. The pouch looked full, which was odd if one considered they hadn't been here long enough to do much sampling.

  Kirk choked back the thousand or so suggestions that sprang immediately to the tip of his tongue and contented himself with saying, "In the future, Commander bn Bem, you will leave the operation of the transporter to Mr. Scott, Mr. Kyle, or one of the regular members of the transporter crew."

  "Is response to offer of aid," bn Bem murmured. "Typical." He seemed ready to add a few additional choice observations, but was interrupted himself for a change.

  "Captain!"

  Kirk looked at the anxious expression on his chief engineer's face. "What's the matter, Scotty?" He shook water from his arms and began stripping the clinging water plants from his tunic, hoping that soggy mess didn't contain anything likely to bite, cut, or otherwise make a nuisance of itself at some future date.

  "Maybe nothing, Captain," Scott replied, "but Lieutenant Uhura reports some very unusual activity in our general vicinity."

  Wonderful! They had barely touched down, and already they'd gotten drenched to the skin and were now confronted with something else unexpected. He took a couple of steps and hefted the open communicator.

  "What kind of activity, Lieutenant?"

  Uhura spoke from her position as commander-in-charge, leaning forward toward the con pickup. "Lieutenant Arex has been tracking what appears to be a mobile nonnetwork sensory stasis. It's still very small," she added after looking for confirmation to Arex seated at Navigation, "and it's several thousand kilometers west of your present position."

  Kirk frowned. "Say again, Lieutenant?"

  Uhura's voice was only slightly distorted, thanks to the ever efficient communicator. "It resembles a ship's sensor field, but there's nothing detectable like a scanning grid or other central point of reference."

  Kirk digested this information, his concern mitigated by the distance involved. "You said it was mobile, Lieutenant. How mobile?"

  "Lieutenant Arex speaking, sir," came the Edoan navigator's crisp tones. "Brownian movement only—no discernible direction and no hint of a guiding force."

  "Most odd," Spock commented from nearby. "The implication is that there is something else on this world beyond aborigines. One would have to suspect something intelligent, yet nothing of the kind was reported in the initial survey." He shook his head. "It hardly seems likely the probes would have missed something we have detected so soon after arrival."

  Kirk decided to ignore the implication, for the present. As long as whatever it was presented no immediate threat, they would concentrate on the task at hand. But he could no more stifle his curiosity than could Spock.

  "It might be a very low-lying atmospheric anomaly, Mr. Spock. We've encountered other climatic phenomena before which have superficially resembled the activities of something sentient. And keep in mind that a drone probe isn't the most exacting observer. Detailed examination of a world is our business."

  "None of which I had forgotten, Captain, and all of which I agree with."

  Kirk turned back to the communicator. "Keep monitoring, Lieutenant Uhura. As a precaution only, put the ship on yellow alert. We'll continue the survey and monitor-emplacement mission for now, but notify us immediately if there is any change in the situation. An increase in the intensity of the field, a change of speed or direction, and especially anything that might indicate the field is under the control of intelligence—anything which hints that this might be other than a natural phenomenon. Kirk out."

  He closed the communicator, breaking transmission, and handed it back to Scott, then indicated a path through the swampy meadows. "According to the computer plotting, the nearest life-form concentration—presumably the nearest native village—is this way. Let's get on with it."

  Footing near the lake ranged "from the oleaginous to the obfuscatory," as Spock pointed out. That remark prompted Scott to redefine it in less precise but more colorful terms.*

  *Transcriber's note: Ethnic highland terminology omitted here by curator's directive.

  The ground they encountered was messy, but not dangerous. There were no quicksands or sandpits. After some hard slogging, they found themselves moving through the forest and meadows with confidence, if not comfort.

  "The rain-forest ecology is particularly interesting here," Spock commented absorbedly. "Life on this planet appears to be geologically younger than one would expect, given the age of this star and—"

  A familiar voice interrupted, almost on cue. "Now urgent." bn Bem was studying his own tric
order. "Announce: This One is picking up readings which indicate a large group of intelligent-maybes life forms directly ahead."

  Kirk held up a hand and called for a halt. "All right. We must take care not to be seen. Part of the prime directive—Hey!"

  Commander bn Bem, ignoring all instructions and precautions, took off at high speed toward the hypothesized aborigines.

  "Commander bn Bem, come back!" Kirk shouted. He started off after the retreating figure. "Scotty, Sulu—stay here."

  "But, Captain—" Scott began.

  Kirk cut him off curtly. "Orders, Scotty. Stand by. Come on, Spock." They both broke into a run in pursuit of the galloping Pandronian.

  Their bulky guest appeared to be slowing as they crossed a swampy meadow. He vanished into a clump of tightly packed black trunks laced with interweaving vines.

  "He won't get far in there," Spock commented with satisfaction.

  Kirk's reply was tense. "I hope not—for his own sake, as well as ours."

  They headed for the dense thicket. Spock's estimate was reasonable as far as it went, but it did not go far enough to include a Pandronian.

  bn Bem came up against a veritable dead end, a place where the small trees grew so close together that no one his size could possibly squeeze through. So the commander split into three parts, each of which was small enough to ooze through any of several openings in the wall of wood. Once successfully past the barrier the tripartite alien promptly reassembled himself and continued blithely on his composite way.

  Unfortunately, neither Kirk nor Spock was capable of such bodily diffusion, nor was either aware that their recalcitrant guest was. They came to the same dead end, only in their case the description was fitting and final.

  "He's gone," Kirk exclaimed, spinning to search every crevice, each potential hiding place.

  But Spock continued to stare in disbelief straight ahead. "He could not have reversed his direction and slipped past us. To escape he had to go through here."

  "That's impossible, Spock," Kirk said confidently, turning. "There's no way—" He stopped, moved to a gap in the trees the size of his chest, and stared through. He got only a brief glimpse of a blue bipedal figure disappearing into the distance. But unless this world was inhabited by blue, two-legged aborigines, Kirk had a pretty good idea who it was.

  "There he is, all right." He frowned. "I don't know how he got through, but get through he did." Kirk took hold of the smallest trunk bordering the gap, got a good grip with both hands, braced himself, and gave a mighty heave. The tree moved about as much as one of the Enterprise's warp-drive engines would under similar circumstances.

  "Come on, Spock, we'll have to go around."

  They began to circle the dense grove of saplings and vines, well aware that bn Bem could be far ahead by the time they found a way. Something else was puzzling Kirk.

  "That Pandronian's actions just don't make sense. Never mind for the moment how he got through that tight space. Right now I'd like to know why he did it. No sense, none at all."

  "His actions might make sense to another Pandronian, Captain," the always pragmatic Spock suggested.

  "I suppose so," Kirk confessed. "I've got to admit that one thing I've never found it easy to understand are the motivations of another species."

  "Indeed?" exclaimed his first officer, with an inflection that indicated there was something more to his remark.

  They detoured until they reached a section of the closely bunched trees which was penetrable. The forest closed in around them, shutting out the meadow and nearly doing likewise to the sun. As it turned out, the intertwined trunks were a disguised blessing, for the surface here was too soft and deep to permit rapid walking. They made much better time through the branches.

  "I believe that is the direction, Captain," Spock said finally, when the trees showed signs of thinning. "Or possibly it was more to the left. Or perhaps—"

  "We've lost him," Kirk finished succinctly. He was studying the small open area ahead, equally uncertain which way to go, when he heard a low murmur off to their left.

  "That way—something over there."

  Some frenetic crawling and running brought them to a wide clearing. They were about to move out into the open by jumping a fallen log when each man's hand went to his companion's shoulder and the two dropped down behind it.

  They had seen the movement simultaneously.

  "It would appear to be a native food-gathering party," Spock ventured, peering at the still-distant, slow-moving forms.

  "Yes," agreed Kirk, "and part of the food they've gathered is Commander bn Bem."

  At this distance it was difficult to obtain an accurate picture of the aborigines, but they appeared to stand just under an impressive three meters in height. Their skin was bright red; the overall impression was of reptilian, dull-witted, and probably belligerent creatures.

  Commander bn Bem stood in their midst, looking decidedly unhappy. For the moment his usual haughtiness and air of self-satisfaction was completely absent

  Equally anxious minds studied the situation from more comfortable and more remote surroundings. Strange information was coming through on the Enterprise's instruments. "Lieutenant Uhura," Arex finally declared, "I'm picking up mounting activity on the surface. Initial indications point to an expansion of the still unidentified sensory anomaly."

  Uhura nodded, glanced backwards. "Lieutenant M'ress, contact the landing party."

  "Aye, aye, Lieutenant."

  Scott's gaze shifted from the placid surface of the vegatation-choked lake to his communicator as it buzzed urgently.

  "Scott here."

  "Mr. Scott, where's the captain?"

  "He's separated from us. Commander bn Bem ran off into the forest and—"

  "Ran off into the forest?" came Uhura's startled echo.

  "Yes. I know it's undiplomatic of me, but I say good riddance. However, the captain's not in a position to do so. He's responsible for that hairy—Anyway, he and Mr. Spock took off after our Pandronian charge. They're out in the brush somewhere. Sulu and I were ordered to remain here." He looked into the trees, staring in the direction the two senior officers had taken too many minutes ago.

  "That was a while ago, and it doesn't look very friendly down here." He chewed his lower lip. "Have you tried contacting them directly since they disappeared?"

  "Yes, we have. Neither the captain nor Mr. Spock acknowledges his communicator. Nor," Uhura added, "do they show up on the scanning grid. We can detect only one energy source, and it hasn't moved. That would be you and Sulu.

  "It's their absence on the grid that really worries me, Commander Scott. The silence almost screams that their communicator responders have been disconnected. Also, we're picking up increased sensory activity."

  "The large anomaly?"

  "Yes. Nothing threatening. At least, it's as unthreatening as something that big and inexplicable can be." Her voice turned firm. "You're certain Mr. Spock went with the captain?"

  "Aye, Lieutenant."

  Her voice faded slightly as she apparently addressed someone on the bridge. Scott heard the order faintly. "Lieutenant Arex, initiate a detailed sensor scan for the captain and Mr. Spock, using Commander Scott's communicator pack as a center point." She directed her words to the pickup again.

  "Landing party, prepare to beam up."

  "Lieutenant Uhura," Scott countered, "Sulu and I could track down the captain and Mr. Spock from here."

  "I'm sorry, Commander Scott," she replied. "You know standard procedure in a case like this—better than I do, I suspect. We've had no response from the missing men. We can't take additional chances without further information on their whereabouts and/or condition."

  "We are talking about the captain," Scott fumed.

  Uhura's voice rose, strained. "I know that, Commander." There was a pause, and when she spoke again her tone was quieter, though no less strained. "We have to follow orders, and regulations. An unresolved situation of this type on a new world,
involving an unknown race of still indeterminate potential—and then there's that anomaly. No . . . stand by to beam up, Mr. Scott."

  The chief engineer started to reply again. He outranked Uhura, but she was officially in charge as long as he remained on the surface. Besides, she made sense.

  "Standing by," he told her tightly. "And—my apologies, lassie. You're right, of course."

  If Uhura responded, he didn't hear it, because a faint fog was beginning to obscure vision and perception. The chief became a cluster of chromatically colored particle-wave energy, as did Sulu. The cluster faded, disappeared.

  Nothing moved on the shore of the halcyon lake save a few small beetlelike things and one curious quasi lizard, whose attention had been momentarily focused on the incomprehensible apparitions. They were gone now and the creature's blank gaze turned back to the beetles. They were much more interesting, and comprehensible.

  "We could rush them, Spock," Kirk surmised as he studied the size and number of aborigines surrounding the captive bn Bem, "but someone might get hurt. I'd rather it wasn't any of them, and I darn sure won't let it be one of us. Their weapons may be crude, but they're effective." He thought a moment. "Maybe we can do it the easy way, simply beam him and then ourselves out of here."

  "A facile solution, Captain," concurred Spock.

  Kirk brought out his communicator, flipped it open. "Kirk to Enterprise . . . Kirk to Enterprise."

  Silence. He looked down at the compact instrument, listened hard. Even the barely audible low hum which indicated proper activation was absent. Carefully Kirk closed the top, then opened it again. "Kirk to Enterprise."

  No hum, no reply—so he then began staring at the device. His particular personal communicator had been in his possession for some time. Only . . . this wasn't it.

  A glance over at Spock showed that his first officer was examining his own communicator.

  "This isn't my communicator, Spock. I know every scratch and smudge on it, and they're all missing from this one."