Star Trek - Log 9

by Alan Dean Foster

  "A fool's plan," snorted the transmogrified eb Riss. "Can never work. Only This One can save you all. Must make your decision now."

  "Just a minute!" Kirk shouted as several council members seemed about to speak. "You don't have to make your final decision yet. eb Riss is a traitor of hardly believable proportions."

  "So say you," injected a solemn Dav pn Hon.

  "But what if we're telling the truth?" Kirk argued anxiously. "Give our idea a chance. If we fail, and eb Riss is truly as omnipotent now as he'd like you to believe, then he can still save you."

  Trapped by his own vanity, eb Riss was forced not to refute Kirk's appraisal of his self-proclaimed abilities.

  "Dr. McCoy, Mr. Spock, and I think we can force these monsters to turn on themselves," Kirk went on determinedly. "If we fail in this, you can always turn to whatever miracle eb Riss has planned. But you must give us this chance! Afterwards, when the threat to Tendrazin has been eliminated, you can consider the question of who should be your next premier without having to do so under pressure. Isn't that worth striving for?"

  Rumbles of uncertainty from the assembled councillors, ending in grudging assent.

  "And as long as we're on the subject of saving Tendrazin," Kirk shot across at eb Riss, "I'd like to know just what your plan for saving the city is, anyway."

  eb Riss sat up straight in his seat and folded his arms. On his head the Tam Paupa, a metallic green circle surrounded by decorative projections and sparkling cabochons, shone bright in the light from overhead.

  "Surely, Kirk Captain, you cannot think This One will reveal idea for use until is confirmed as premier? This One will wait as need be until high council comes to realization of truth."

  "Yeah," snapped McCoy, "even if that turns out to be too late to save Tendrazin."

  eb Riss made a Pandronian shrug. "Has This One presented offer to council."

  "Look," McCoy muttered, "why doesn't someone just walk up to him and yank that holy crown whatsis off his rotten head?"

  "Is against all Pandronian law and histories," Dav pn Hon informed them. "Would any to take Tam Paupa from who is wearing it, That One would be as guilty as whoever first stole it."

  "And never mind that the one who stole it is now wearing it," a frustrated Kirk muttered. "Try to get around that one." He glared at eb Riss. "Your treachery is worse than a Klingon's, eb Riss. I believe you'd sacrifice the entire capital city to further your own personal ambition. Human history has had its share of types like you."

  "This One not threatened by alien comparisons," eb Riss declared with dignity. "This One has passed point where personal wishes matter. Must do what must do, and means this insisting on my terms. Tendrazin not in This One's hands now." He eyed Kirk challengingly. "In your hands, Kirk Captain."

  "Have we no choice," another councillor lamented. He faced Kirk. "If you fail, Kirk Captain, we must turn to eb Riss, traitor though maybe he be, in hope of salvation. This is our way."

  "I understand, sir," Kirk replied soberly. He activated his communicator. "Kirk to Enterprise . . . Transporter Room."

  "Transporter Room on standby—Ensign M'degu on station, sir."

  "We're ready to beam aboard, Ensign. We—" He paused as a hand came down on his shoulder.

  bn Bem looked hard at him. "This One would go with you, Kirk Captain." The commander was fighting to control his emotions. "To be of assistance to McCoy Doctor." He indicated his own waist band and its pouches. "Have in sidearm and weapon case several doses of dissolution drug. Will need to duplicate." He looked to his left.

  "Is sufficient, McCoy Doctor?" he inquired, flipping open the case to show the half dozen darts within.

  McCoy glanced at them, nodded. "Is sufficient, bn Bem Commander." He smiled broadly. Like Kirk's and Spock's, McCoy's opinion of the commander had come a long way since the latter had first set foot on the Enterprise.

  "Besides," bn Bem added, glaring back across the table, "if remain here knowing what This One knows, may do something fatal to self and other party. Would be dangerous to leave This One behind. Might violently disassemble eb Riss, even though fight could end with Tam Paupa damaged."

  "I see your point," Kirk said knowingly. His voice was directed to the communicator again. "Ensign, there will be four in the beam-up party. Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, myself, and Commander bn Bem. We're localized," he added as all four moved close together, "so don't worry about catching someone else. The transporter is holding the commander's pattern."

  "I have it, sir," the transporter operator reported. "Stand by."

  As the high council watched silently, the four figures were engulfed in a storm of dissolution no Pandronian life form could match. Then they were gone, leaving the councillors to stare at one another—and with mixed emotions at the calm, assured form of the mentally inspired Lud eb Riss.

  Once back on board ship, McCoy wasted no time, but set to work immediately with several of the ship's chemists and Spock's assistance to synthesize the dissolution drug contained in bn Bem's dart-syringes. As expected—and hoped—the drug turned out to be a comparatively simple organic construction, which the Enterprise's organic fabricator had no trouble reproducing.

  With production underway, Kirk was able to devote some time to considering the Klingon threat. Actually, it was a threat only on the basis of past incidents, for the cruiser sat close by its companion cargo vessel and offered no contact. That was fine with Kirk. Now if the Klingons would only cooperate by staying put and letting their minds puzzle over what had happened to their secret ground installation, he might just have enough time to work everything out.

  It was while he was dividing his thoughts between the enemy cruiser on the main viewscreen and the timetable Spock had worked out for the approach of the creatures to Tendrazin that bn Bem approached him, leaning over the command chair with an apologetic expression on his blue face. "Your pardon for disturbing thoughts, Kirk Captain."

  "That's all right, Commander. I wasn't having any brainstorms anyway. What can I do for you?"

  bn Bem, for the first time since Kirk had known him, seemed to be having difficulty finding the right words. Finally, he murmured, "Is Pandronian problem but seems insoluble by methods Pandronian."

  "If you're still worried about what we'll do if the drugs fail to act as planned—" Kirk started to say, but the commander waved him off.

  "Is not that. If McCoy Doctor can produce enough dissolution drug and if your plan succeeds, will still remain matter of traitor eb Riss having possession of Tam Paupa. He will not give it up voluntarily."

  Kirk didn't understand. "But once we've disposed of the threat to Tendrazin created by the Klingons' experiments, then can't the council deal with eb Riss without fear?"

  "You still not comprehend fully importance of Tam Paupa, Kirk Captain," bn Bem tried to explain. "Remind you that no Pandronian can take Tam Paupa by force from whoever wears it. Also, consider that Pandronian who wears Tam Paupa is best suited for making decisions on all Pandro."

  "Are you saying," Kirk muttered in disbelief, "that in spite of what we've told them about what eb Riss has done, the high council could still possibly confirm him as premier?"

  "This One really knows not," bn Bem confessed worriedly. "Never in memory has such a series of circumstances followed. So high councillors face unique situation.

  "Is merely advising you that your help may further be required before certainty of planet Pandro's alliance with your Federation is. As you said, eb Riss if he survives will for himself strongest bargain drive."

  "I guess we've been underestimating the spiritual importance of this Tam Paupa all along," Kirk mused, "while concerning ourselves only with its biological effects."

  "There may be a way, Captain, to part the Tam Paupa from eb Riss." Kirk looked across to where Spock was regarding bn Bem thoughtfully.

  "According to the commander," Kirk reminded his science officer, "Pandronian law forbids the removal by force of the Tam Paupa from whoever wears it."
/>   "Is so," confirmed a forlorn bn Bem. "Removal and exchange must be voluntary."

  "I realize that, Commander," Spock replied. "It is merely an idea I have, not a concrete proposal. Give it a little more time."

  XI

  Four days later McCoy and his research team had not only cracked the organic code of the Pandronian dissolution drug and successfully reproduced it, but they were now drawing it from the ship's organic fabricator in hundred-liter batches.

  Each fresh tank of the drug, after being tested for dissolution toxicity, was beamed down to the surface of Pandro. There, under the disdainfully aloof gaze of eb Riss, Commander bn Bem was overseeing the distribution of the liquid. Tendrazin's government armories were turning out hypodermic darts at a furious rate. After being suitably charged with drug from the Enterprise, these thousands upon thousands of loaded syringes were placed in the concealed fasirs and other dart-firing weapons that had been placed on both sides of the approach to the city.

  Facing the distant varbox and much closer forest, a broad cultivated plain and cleared area separated the former from the outer, ancient city wall. On either side of the plain facing the approach path to the city, the Pandronians had labored mightily to create two earthen dikes nearly twenty meters high. These formed a wide V-shape leading to the city gates, the point of the V actually being somewhere inside the city.

  Everyone was preparing for the coming attack on the assumption that no quantity of the drug could cause the creatures to turn back. Naturally, the modest walls of the city would never stop a charge from even the smallest of the Klingons' experiments. But they would serve to channel the oncoming behemoths a little faster into smaller and smaller quarters. They were also excellent sites on which to mount the Pandronian dart-throwers.

  When word was passed to the Enterprise via the communicator given to bn Bem that the onrushing monstrosities were about to break clear of the forest, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beamed down to join the city's defenders.

  Sensing the nearness of a really substantial quantity of raw protein, the creatures had apparently increased their speed. Kirk had hoped they would have several more days to produce even more of the dissolution drug, but the increased speed wasn't the real reason for the upsetting of the defenders' timetable.

  "We have had scouts out monitoring the approach the past three days, Kirk Captain," bn Bem told them as they walked toward an unknown destination. "It appears the creatures do not sleep. Yet all integrals do sleep."

  "I believe I can see how that is managed," Spock essayed. "The beasts are so enormous that while a portion of the integrals comprising each one engages in rest, there are enough remaining which perform similar functions to keep the body going at all times."

  They had entered a semimodern Pandronian building near the outskirts of the city and been whisked by elevator to the top.

  "Should from here have good view, Kirk Captain," bn Bem assured them as they walked out onto the roof of the structure. The commander's assessment turned out to be accurate.

  From a position forty meters above the ground and close to the city wall, Kirk could see all the way to the distant forest. Tendrazin lay spread out behind and on both sides, a modern capital city which had retained the charm of its ancestry. One of the attractive, well-kept relics was the old city wall, which was presently lined with dart-armed Pandronian soldiers who would form the last line of defense against the onslaught of an ecology gone mad. Beyond them, only cultivated fields of stabilized associative plants moved in the slight, warm breeze of morning.

  Farther off lay the cleared area that separated Tendrazin from the forest proper. Stretching off to either side were the two low earthen walls which the Pandronians had so painfully erected, working in round-the-clock shifts.

  "What if the creatures, dumb as they are, choose to turn?" Kirk wondered at a sudden thought. "Suppose they decide to attack the gunners mounted on the walls instead of continuing on toward the city?"

  "If Captain Kor's description of their appetites was accurate, Jim, I don't think that's likely." McCoy seemed confident. "They haven't the brains, I don't think, to guess where the irritation will be coming from, and the few soldiers on the ramparts don't represent a thousandth of the potential meal in Tendrazin. No, they'll keep advancing on the city, all right."

  "Has already small-scale evacuation been started," one of the assembled councillors told Kirk. "From far side of Tendrazin. Is younglings and elderly only, as precaution. Always precaution. Should your idea not work and that of the wearer of Tam Paupa," and he indicated eb Riss, who was staring interestedly across the plain, toward the forest, "not work, hope we to still save most of population, even if city destroyed is."

  "I hope that's what it remains," Kirk told him, "just a precaution."

  "A rider comes!" someone called out. Everyone rushed to the edge of the bordered roof. A single coryat was rushing toward the city from the forest fringe, both legs of the tall running animal swallowing up the intervening distance with long, loping strides. A moment later the rider himself, panting for breath but otherwise composed, had joined them on the rooftop.

  "Are near to emerging from forest," he gasped. "Have all impossible ones increased their speed as they near the city."

  "They detect food in ample amounts," McCoy commented, finding the prospect of anyone here ending up in some Klingon experiment's belly discouraging.

  "Is noted," Dav pn Hon told the rider. "Have you and all riders done well." The rider, dismissed, took his leave, pn Hon turned to face Kirk.

  "Are all gunners ready. Have been given your instructions to fire on nearest creatures and continue fire as long as are able, Kirk Captain. Should last long, thanks to ample supplies of drug produced by McCoy Doctor."

  "Not me," objected an embarrassed McCoy. "I had plenty of help in analyzing the drug, and the ship's organic fabrication engineers did the real work."

  "Even now is too late, yet still you to these aliens listen," came a stinging accusal from eb Riss. "For chance last to save Tendrazin, throw outworlders and bn Bem into prison and to me alone listen."

  As the point of no return approached, several of the councillors appeared to waver slightly. They looked to pn Hon as their spokesman. He turned to face bn Bem, said quietly, "What you say first will we try, as have promised."

  eb Riss snorted and turned away from them all. If he held any concern for his own hide he didn't show it. Or, Kirk mused, he might have been trembling inside, only to be calmed by the soothing actions of the Tam Paupa.

  "Here they come," McCoy announced.

  Trees were smashed aside, large bushes and ferns crushed to pulp under their weight, as out of the forest barrier came a collection of six to twelve of the most bizarre living creatures anywhere in the galaxy. Hopping, stumbling, rolling, they lumbered forward, differing from one another only in size and shape.

  All were undisciplined assemblages of the most impossible arrangements of teeth, nostrils, eyes, legs, and other body parts. Kirk had to correct his initial appraisal: They differed from one another in one more respect, besides size and shape.

  There was the question of which was most hideous.

  The largest of them was hunched forward slightly to right of center. It was so enormous Kirk couldn't see it all, at least not well enough to estimate its true dimensions. One of the councillors, in spite of having been told what to expect, cried aloud. Another found the sight so repulsive he covered his eyes and turned away.

  bn Bem was peering into a pair of Pandronian magnifiers. Moving them from left to right, he was surveying the fasir positions.

  "Our gunners firing steady now are," he informed them. "As yet no change visible on creatures' progress, Kirk Captain."

  "Give the drug and the gunners time," McCoy urged. "Its going to take every drop of dissolution drug to have any kind of effect on those leviathans."

  Confirming the doctor's words, the monstrosities continued their advance on the city. They were into the cropland now, and t
he councillor representing Tendrazin and its surrounding lands moaned steadily at the destruction.

  Flopping and crawling, somehow moving their stupendous bulks over the ground, they ignored the steady hail of dart-syringes as they progressed. Behind them lay long dark streaks—gouges in the land dug by sheer mass.

  At this range the rain of darts formed two clouds of silvery mist on the flanks of the advance. "Still no observable effect," bn Bem reported. Then a hint of excitement entered his voice. "No, wait. On the right is something happening."

  Kirk had noted it, too, without the need of magnifiers. So had Spock and McCoy.

  It was a little thing, an almost imperceptible shift in one creature's actions—but at least it was a beginning. The monster on the far left, nearest the embankment and guns on that side, had appeared to flinch, its whole hundred-meter-high body arcing to the inside.

  Moving inward, it scraped hard against the abomination next to it. Several jaws and grasping limbs on each creature snapped and dug at each other, but the two creatures continued to move forward, though now jammed tight together.

  "It's working!" McCoy exclaimed. "The one on the inside was forced inward by the darts, Jim. The drug cost it too much of itself." And he pointed to the affected sections of the creature, which lay like large limp rags in a retreating line back toward the forest.

  "It's working," Kirk agreed tightly, "so far."

  "There—on the side other!" one of the councillors shouted. Everyone's gaze swerved to the other side of the broad open plain. Sure enough, the beast nearest the irritating weapons there had swung inward, shoving the next creature in to one side, where it pushed up against still another monster.

  Sounds of rising fury began to become audible from the approaching armada of integrals, but they continued to come on.

  "They're still not fighting, Jim," McCoy complained. "They're jammed almost on top of one another, but they're not fighting among themselves."

  "It still has time to work, Bones," Kirk responded. "It has to work."

  Pandronian soldiers at the forest end of the dirt ramparts who had now been passed by the marching monstrosities were struggling to move their mobile weapons down the line. As a result, the barrage of darts grew more intense the closer the creatures came to the city. By now they were near enough so that the men and the Pandronians on the rooftop could discern individual features on each animal.