Star Trek - Log 9

by Alan Dean Foster

  "Yes—what is your name and rank? This is Captain Kor, that's who, you lower-grade moron! And stop trembling—it garbles your words. Now, think carefully, if you are capable of such: Who had access to the secure chamber where the alien Tam Paupa thing was being kept? Only him? You are certain? Very well . . . No, you are not to be disciplined. Return to your activity previous. It matters nothing now."

  He clicked off, stared blankly at the floor.

  "Well?" Kirk prompted, unable to keep silent. Kor did not look up immediately.

  "I had wondered why eb Riss had not come along to enjoy this victory," the Klingon murmured with barely controlled fury. "It is now clear he was planning one of his own."

  "Such loyalty does a Klingon inspire among its minions," McCoy whispered, soft enough so that Kor didn't hear. In any case, the captain had other matters on his mind as he activated the intercom once again.

  "Stables? Yes, I suspected. Who could have guessed? Prepare the others for emergency run. Yes, immediately." A quick flip transferred him to a different department. "Security Central—this is Captain Kor. I want a full squad of our Pandronian allies and an Imperial platoon at the stables—yes, fully armed. I don't care what Headquarters will say if we have to use energy weapons—the Tam Paupa's been stolen. Yes, by Lud eb Riss, our"—he paused, then concluded, his voice dripping venom—"most trusted contact in the Pandronian government." He flipped off the intercom, faced a curious but not displeased triumvirate of Federation officers.

  "The traitor has taken a coryat, which is capable of negotiating the swamps. There is only one way he could run, and that is through the pathway cleared by our experimental creatures. But we will catch him and I will bring him back with me—alive, to know the exquisite refinements of Klingon justice."

  Still under guard, they were led from the empty room. In passing, Kor gave an order to one of the chamber guards. "Get onto the intercom. I want all the captured Pandronians brought to the front entryway, even if interrogation has begun. I have no time to go to them in the holding pens."

  "It shall be done, Honored One," the guard responded.

  Moments later they were back at the entrance to the headquarters building, where they were soon joined by a troop of tired, worried-looking Pandronian soldiers led by Ari bn Bem. Pandronian rebels kept them packed tightly together.

  Kor went straight to bn Bem. "I must know what Lud eb Riss is likely to do; therefore I must know what sort of person you consider him to be."

  The commander looked uncertain, but replied offhandedly, "He is a traitor to his race; what more is there to know of him?"

  "He has restolen the Tam Paupa," Kor explained, "and is even now riding for Tendrazin. What is he likely to do there?"

  At this information a strange sort of verbal bubbling poured in increasing waves from bn Bem's mouth. Since the common soldiers could not understand Klingon, he translated Kor's announcement for them. Immediately they began to mimic his bubbling noises, some bubbling so hard they could barely keep their feet. Their heads and middle sections shifted on their bodies as if they were coming apart. Kirk recognized it from previous experience with bn Bem as the Pandronian equivalent of laughter.

  Captain Kor was not amused. He drew a small sidearm from his waist. It was clearly not Pandronian in origin and differed also from the hand weapons held by the Pandronian rebels. It very much looked like a poorly disguised, standard-naval-issue Imperial energy weapon.

  Kor pointed it at bn Bem's head. "I will burn you integral by integral where you stand if such a disrespectful outburst occurs again. Tell that to your subordinates."

  bn Bem dutifully translated and the laughter died down. Despite the threat, the commander couldn't prevent himself from declaring, with some satisfaction, "So have the traitors betrayed been. Is for justice too perverted, but is pleasing still."

  "You should choose your coconspirators with greater care, Captain," Spock suggested, noticing the Klingon's finger tightening on the trigger of his weapon. Kor, properly distracted, stared back at Spock. "We are now presented with an additional question of interest: To be precise, who here was using whom?"

  "Shut up, you," Kor ordered him warningly. Forgetting that he was about to kill bn Bem, he directed another question at the Pandronian. "What can we expect eb Riss to try to do with the Tam Paupa?"

  "To return it was clearly never of his intention," bn Bem surmised. "By now should high council be incapable of acting with a Tam Paupa-less premier, eb Riss intelligent is always, but now appears That One more intelligent than any believed. Also cunning, also calculating.

  "This One would guess Tendrazin That One will enter surreptitiously. Will move freely, as is his rank, in government central. With aid of Tam Paupa, eb Riss will have own abilities enhanced. This One believes he could himself have anointed premier."

  "The shortsighted imbecile," Kor rumbled. "Doesn't he realize we can have him removed the same way we removed the Tam Paupa from that doddering old fool who is the present head of government?"

  "That may not be as easy as it was the first time," Spock felt compelled to point out, moved by the logic of it. "The present premier and his supporters had no idea there were Klingons scheming on his world, whereas eb Riss knows precisely where you're located and what you're up to. He used you all along."

  "To make himself supreme ruler of Pandro," Kirk continued when Spock had finished. "If his plan succeeds and he makes himself premier, and if this brain-boosting Tam Paupa is all its cracked up to be, then I don't see how you can give him much trouble. This rebellion you're supporting will fail and you'll have to renegotiate your position on Pandro—this time bidding against the Federation. I know eb Riss's type—hell be interested in joining up with the side that offers him the most, not the one that promises the best for Pandro."

  "There'll be no such trouble if we catch him first," Kor reminded them sharply. His weapon came around to point at Kirk. "In any event, you three will not be around to witness the eventual outcome. I see no reason for putting off your demise any longer.

  "You will be fed to one of the experiments. I could burn you here, but I dislike waste and inefficiency. Your partially consumed bodies will be rescued and at least one communicator activated. We will lower our screens long enough for your ship to locate your communicator signal and beam up your remains. They will accept the evidence of the marks on your corpses, and there will be none to dispute this." He gestured meaningfully with the weapon. "Outside, please."

  Devoid of expression, the three men and the Pandronians were marched toward the exit. The guards at the wide doorway moved aside smartly and the transparent panels slid apart to let them pass.

  Kirk had barely taken a step outside when a tremendous explosion slammed him hard to the ground. As he was trying to recover from the initial shock of the concussion, a second explosion occurred. Glass and metal fragments whistled over his head, followed instantly by a series of nonstop, slightly smaller eruptions.

  "Spock, Bones—run for the rafts!"

  They were on their feet then, nearly falling several times as continuous blasts shook the earth all around them, though the actual explosions came from behind. Kirk looked around, almost falling again, and saw bn Bem and the rest of the Pandronian soldiers following. In the confusion which had thrown everyone to the ground the well-trained Pandronian troops had reacted more professionally than the Klingon-led rebels. They had overpowered their guards at the cost of several casualties.

  Now only Captain Kor and two Klingon guards remained outside, for the initial explosion had collapsed the entryway into the main building. Seeing that he was outmanned and now outgunned, Kor had time to visit a look of helpless rage on Kirk. It turned to panic when another eruption ripped the air behind them.

  "The power station!" Kirk could hear him yell desperately. "Get to the backups quickly or everything is lost!"

  An ear-splitting moaning sounded from behind and to the right as they ran. Kirk saw that a second abomination had come up
alongside the first. Even as he watched, both horrors suddenly slipped five meters closer to the Klingon installation.

  "What the hell's going on?!" McCoy shouted. His answer came from the scurrying blue bi-ped now running on his left.

  "Told all This One that Lud eb Riss's cunning was great," bn Bem told him breathlessly as they raced into the jungle again. "Expected the traitor some pursuit from Klingons. Would guess he left charges to create confusion and panic among them."

  "I heard Kor yell something about a power station," Kirk told the others, gasping for breath as they hurried along. The rafts should be close now.

  "That would cause panic indeed, Captain," Spock concurred with enviable ease as he strode along nearby. "It means that the double-force barrier the Klingons have erected will come down, and that the central frequency-modulator installation will also be inoperative. It follows that the results of the Klingon biological experiments will soon be free of all restraints."

  "Talk about Frankenstein unbound," McCoy panted.

  "Frankenstein unbound? What is that?" Commander bn Bem wanted to know.

  "I'll explain later," McCoy replied, "but basically it's a Terran catch phrase meaning you'd better run like mad!"

  Trees rose all around them now. Kirk stole a last glimpse backward. Energy bolts were beginning to rise from the smoking rubble that had been the Klingon station. Kirk couldn't see what they were firing at.

  But he had a brief sight of one target as they reached the rafts. It raised three legs and four tentacles, each as big around as a shuttlecraft, and brought them down on the exterior of the main building they had been so briefly imprisoned in.

  It was not an educated assault, but it was effective. The structure simply disappeared beneath thousands of kilograms of sheer mass. Screams began to sound above the noise of battle.

  Every so often a Klingon energy beam would strike one of the several colossuses now assaulting the installation and burn a hole in it. A section or two of the creature would fall away, blackened and burning, without slowing its former body in the least.

  "The Klingons are becoming victims of their own experiment," he noted aloud. "Poetic Justice."

  "The justice will be more than poetic, Captain," Spock reminded him, "if eb Riss also had the foresight to destroy our rafts as he retreated."

  But when they broke through the last thick brush above the narrow beach and tumbled gratefully to the water's edge, the two unsightly craft were exactly where they had been left, grounded on the gentle slope. To Kirk they were as beautiful as a Federation destroyer.

  "It may be, Captain, that eb Riss was unable to move the heavy craft by himself, or he may not have wished to delay himself by doing so," Spock theorized, even as he was lending his own muscle to that of four Pandronians as they fought to slide one raft into the swamp sludge.

  "Or he could have expected us to be trapped in the explosions," McCoy countered. "Captain Kor couldn't have chosen a better time to feed us to his pets."

  Both rafts slid buoyantly into the murk. No group of professional oarsmen could have moved those two clumsy constructions faster through the water than did the three men and squadron of bedraggled Pandronian troops.

  "Look!" McCoy shouted, pointing behind them. They had already put some distance between themselves and the island.

  Kirk turned, saw an enormous elephantine neck stretched perhaps a hundred and fifty meters into the sky. It towered far above the tallest of the island trees.

  Six mouths formed the terminus, each filled with teeth the size of concrete pillars. Two of the jaws were crunching sections of metal wall, while another was devouring a thick cylindrical shape, munching on the hard formed metal as though it were a cracker.

  An eye-searing flash ensued, followed by a rolling explosion. The momentary flare lit the swamp around them and threw everyone on the rafts into eerie shadow.

  "That was a fuel tank, chemical type," Kirk finally declared assuredly as he looked back.

  The huge waving neck was swaying wildly about. All six mouths and the gargoylish head they had been mounted in were gone, as was about twenty meters of upper neck. But the blackened, charred stump continued to flail about without ceasing.

  "The danger now imminent is," bn Bem brooded as he regarded the now distant horror. "All will proceed to act as would any meat-eater. All must now obtain own enormous masses of food to survive.

  "Varboxites will flee in all directions from them," the commander explained. "Creatures' senses will direct massive forms to largest mass in region which flees not."

  "What would that be?" Spock asked, already more than suspecting the answer, bn Bem gazed at each of them in turn before replying.

  "In Tendrazin city, is naturally."

  "I wonder if eb Riss foresaw that also," Kirk muttered. "Can they get through the swamp?"

  "Are you kidding, Jim?" McCoy looked back toward the island, which was now long since out of sight. "It would take nothing short of a thermonuclear demolition charge or a ship's phaser banks to slow any one of those babies."

  "Mr. Spock?" Kirk inquired. Spock already had his communicator out, but shook his head after several tries.

  "The interference shield generated by the Klingons has vanished, Captain, but there is still no indication we are being received by the Enterprise."

  That meant that the damage inflicted by the Pandronian boarders still hadn't been repaired, Kirk reflected. They were on their own, then.

  "Is hard to believe eb Riss would plan so well and not see results of destroying Klingon aliens' control machines," bn Bem was musing. "Must That One have some plan for turning creatures from Tendrazin."

  "You still don't seem to grasp the magnitude of what eb Riss has done, Commander," Kirk advised him. "Turning on his own people, then turning on those who helped him—I wouldn't put it past him to sit idly by while the Klingons' monsters ravage the whole city. Then he could make himself surpreme ruler of Pandro without worry of any interference whatsoever—not with the seat of government obliterated."

  "This One cannot believe such crime even of such as eb Riss," a horrified bn Bem replied. And then he appeared to wilt slightly. "Still, has he participated in theft of Tam Paupa twice. Loyalty must remain only to self. Can This One sorrowfully put nothing past him. It may be that eb Riss is madder even than the rebels he once helped."

  A shout sounded from the other raft, bn Bem looked attentive as he exchanged words with a particularly bedraggled Pandronian soldier. Then Kirk recognized the other speaker. It was the head tracker, the Pandronian who had led them to the edge of the swamp.

  At the moment, he was gesturing at a passing tree. "Broken small branches and missing leaves," bn Bem informed the curious men. "All signs of a coryat taking sustenance while on the run.

  "Could be another creature have been made, but tracker thinks sure a coryat. Is good sign that eb Riss traveling same direction."

  "Any chance of our overtaking him?" Kirk asked.

  bn Bem looked sad. "Coryat built for speed, can outrun zintar. And travels much faster than raft."

  There was one more surprise waiting for them when the rafts grounded on the mainland the following day. The zintars were arranged in a circle, their three handlers camped behind the protective bulks and armed with dart sidearms.

  bn Bem conversed with their own handler, ab Af, and learned that eb Riss had indeed been by this way. He had tried to surprise the group, but the handlers detected him too soon and he passed them by, presumably on his way to Tendrazin.

  "eb Riss decided not to challenge three handlers and trained zintars," bn Bem concluded.

  "Why should he risk himself?" McCoy declared. "He got what he really wanted—the Tam Paupa. The Klingons won't give him any trouble; they'll be lucky if any of them get off that island alive. And he knows no one can beat him to the capital."

  "Can but try," bn Bem countered grimly. "We ride, gentlemen."

  The situation was explained to the zintar handlers as the great tame a
nimals were being mounted. Soon they were traveling at a startling pace back toward Tendrazin.

  Somewhere within that huge old city, man and Pandronian alike knew, Pandro's greatest traitor in its civilized history had by now secreted himself.

  X

  Halfway back to the city Kirk nearly fell from his saddle in his haste to acknowledge the suddenly beeping communicator at his waist. The steady jounce of a zintar at the gallop nearly caused him to drop it under thundering feet—but he held on.

  "Mine is also signaling, Captain," Spock reported.

  "And mine, Jim!" added an excited McCoy.

  Kirk took a deep breath, flipped the cover back, and spoke hesitantly into the pickup. "This is the captain speaking."

  "Lieutenant Uhura still acting in command, sir. Mr. Scott remains partially incapacitated by the Pandronian low-grade stun beam. The effects have almost worn off, though. Nurse Chapel is confident there will be no permanent aftereffects."

  "And the Pandronian boarders?" Kirk wondered.

  "They succeeded in completely disabling our communications, Captain," she informed them as Kirk ducked a low-hanging vine. "Somehow they knew exactly where to go and how to get there. I don't understand. I thought the Pandronians weren't that advanced."

  "They've had plenty of the wrong kind of help, Lieutenant," Kirk told her. "There are Klingons operating on Pandro—or, there were."

  "Klingons!" A moment's silence, then, "But I thought the Pandronians hadn't decided—"

  "They haven't, Lieutenant. This installation was present without either the approval or knowledge of the duly constituted Pandronian government. I'll explain later. For now, suffice to say that the Klingons had some typical Klingon ideas about exploiting the peculiar Pandronian ecology for their own uses. But we don't have to worry about them any more," he finished grimly. "Though you might keep a sharp watch for Klingon warships. Their base here had to be supplied periodically from outside.