by 09(lit)
Outside in the corridor, Spock paused. "What I don't understand is why you felt that the attacking ships would not fire once they saw the Enterprise apparent-ly dead and powerless. Logically, it's the sort of trap M-5 would have set for them."
"I wasn't sure," Kirk said. "Any other commander might simply have destroyed us without question to make sure it wasn't a trap. But I know Bob Wesley. I knew he wouldn't attack without making absolutely sure there was no other way. His logical' selection was compassion. It was humility, Mr. Spock."
The elevator began its move and McCoy said, They are qualities no machine ever had. Maybe they are the two things that keep men ahead of machines. Care to debate that, Spock?"
"No, Doctor. I merely maintain that machines are more efficient than human beings. Not better... they are not gods. Nor are human beings."
McCoy said, "I was merely making conversation, Spock."
The Vulcan straightened. "It would be most interest-ing to impress your engrams on a computer, Doctor. The resulting torrential flood of illogic would be most entertaining."
"Dear friends," Kirk said, "we all need a rest." He stepped out of the elevator. Reaching his command chair, he sank into it. "Mr. Sulu, take us back to the space station. Ahead, Warp 2."
THAT WHICH SURVIVES
(John Meredyth Lucas and D. C. Fontana)
The planet on the Enterprise screen was an enigma.
Though its age was comparatively young, its vegeta-tion was such as could only evolve on a much older world. Nor could its Earthlike atmosphere be recon-ciled with the few million years of the existence it had declared to the Starship's sensors. Kirk, over at Spock's station, frowned as he checked the readings. "If we're to give Federation an accurate report, this phenomenon bears investigation, Mr. Spock. Dr. Mc-Coy and I will beam down for a landing survey. We'll need Senior Geologist D'Amato." He was still frowning when he spoke to Uhura. Teed beamdown coordinates to the Transporter Ensign, Lieutenant." Crossing swiftly to the elevator, he turned his head. "Mr. Sulu, you'll accompany me." At the door, he paused. "Mr. Spock, you have the con."
The elevator door slid closed; and Spock, crossing to the command chair, hit the intercom. "Lieutenant Radha, report to the bridge immediately."
In the Transporter Room, McCoy and D'Amato were busy checking equipment. Nodding to McCoy, Kirk addressed the geologist. "Mr. D'Amato, this expedition should be a geologist's dream. The youth of this planet is not its sole recommendation to you. If Mr. Spock is correct, you'll have a report to startle the Fifth Inter-Stellar Geophysical Conference."
"Why, Jim? What is it?" McCoy said.
"Even Spock can't explain its anomalies."
They had taken their positions on the Transporter platform; and Kirk called "Energize!" to the Ensign at the console controls. The sparkle of dematerializa-tion began-and Kirk, amazed, saw a woman, a strange woman, suddenly appear in the space between the platform and the Ensign. She was dark, lovely, with a misty, dreamlike quality about her. He heard her cry out, "Wait! You must not go!" Then, just as he went into shimmer, she moved to the console, her arms outstretched. Before the Ensign could draw back, she touched him. He gasped, wrenched by convulsion -and slumped to the deck. Kirk disappeared, his eyes blank with horror.
It remained with him as they materialized on the planet. Who was she? How had she gained access to the Enterprise? Another enigma. He had no eyes for the blood-red flowers around him, bright against canary-yellow grass. For the rest the planet seemed to be a place of a red, igneous rock, tortured into loom-ing shapes. Far off, black eroded hills jutted up against the horizon. He flipped open his communicator.
"Kirk to Enterprise. Come in, Enterprise"
McCoy spoke, his voice shocked, "Jim, did you see what I saw?"
"Yes, I saw. That woman attacked Ensign Wyatt. Enterprise, come in."
The ground shuddered beneath their feet-and the entire planet seemed to go into paroxysm. Hundreds of miles above them, the Enterprise trembled like a toy in a giant's hand. There was a bright flash. It vanished.
The landing party sprawled on the ground as the planet's surface continued to pitch and buck. Then it was all over. Sulu, clambering to his feet, said, "What kind of earthquakes do they have in this place?"
Bruised, Kirk got up. "They can't have many like that without tearing the planet apart."
D'Amato spoke. "Captain, just before this tremor- if that's what it was-and it's certainly like no seismic disturbance I've ever seen-I got a tricorder reading of almost immeasurable power. It's gone now."
"Would seismic stress have accounted for it?"
Theoretically, no. The kind of seismic force we felt should have raised new mountains, leveled old ones."
Kirk stooped for his dropped communicator. "Let's see what sort of reading the ship got." He opened it. "Kirk to Enterprise." He waited. Then he tried again. "Kirk to Enterpriser There was another wait. "Enter-prise, come in! Do you read me, Enterprise?" He looked at the communicator. "The shock," he said, "may have damaged it."
Sulu had been working his tricorder. Now he looked up, his face stricken. "Captain, the Enterprise-it's gone!"
D'Amato was frantically working his controls. Kirk strode to Sulu, moving dials on his instrument. Awed, D'Amato looked at him. "It's true, Captain. There's nothing there."
"Nothing there? Gone? What the devil do you mean?" McCoy cried. "How could the Enterprise be gone?" He whirled to Kirk. "What does it mean, Jim?"
"It means," Kirk said slowly, "we're stranded."
Hundreds of miles above, the heaving Enterprise had steadied. On the bridge, people struggled up from the deck. Spock held the back of his cracked head and Uhura looked at him anxiously. "Mr. Spock, are you all right?"
"I believe no permanent damage is done, Lieuten-ant."
"What happened?"
"The occipital area of my head impacted with the arm of the chair."
"Sir, I meant what happened to us?"
"That we have yet to ascertain, Lieutenant." He was rubbing the side of his head when the Lieutenant, staring at the screen, cried, "Mr. Spock, the planet's gone!"
Scott leaped from his station. "But the Captain! And the others! They were on it!" He eyed the empty screen, his face set. "There's no trace of it at all!"
"Maybe the whole system went supernova," Radha said, her voice shaking. "Those power readings..."
"Please refrain from wild speculation," Spock said. "Mr. Scott, engine status reports. Lieutenant Uhura, check damage control. Lieutenant Radha, hold this position. Scan for debris from a possible explosion."
On the planet speculation was also running wild. Sulu, staring at his tricorder, said, "The Enterprise must have blown up."
"Mr. Sulu, shall we stop guessing and try to work out a pattern? I get no reading of high energy concentrations around the planet. If the Enterprise had blown up, there would be high residual radiation."
"Could the Enterprise have hit us, Jim? I mean," McCoy said, "hit the planet?"
Sulu said, "Once in Siberia there was a meteor so great it flattened whole forests and-"
"If I'd wanted a Russian-history lesson," Kirk snapped, "I'd have brought Mr. Chekov. We face the problem of survival, Mr. Sulu. Without the Enterprise, we've got to find food and water-and find it fast. I want a detailed analysis of this planet. And I want it now."
His men returned to work.
Up on the Enterprise, normal functioning had finally been restored. On the bridge, tension had begun to lessen when Uhura turned from her board. "Mr. Spock, Ensign Wyatt, the Transporter officer, is dead."
"Dead?" He punched the intercom button. "Spock to Sickbay."
"Sickbay, Dr. M'Benga, sir."
"Report on the death of the Transporter officer."
"We're not sure yet. Dr. Sanchez is conducting the autopsy now."
"Full report as soon as possible." Spock turned. "Mr. Scott, have the Transporter checked for possible malfunction."
"Aye, sir."
Radha b
roke in. "No debris of any kind, sir. I made two full scans. If the planet had broken up, we'd have some sign." She hesitated. "What bothers me is the stars, Mr. Spock."
He looked up from his console. "The stars?"
"Yes, sir. They're wrong."
"Wrong, Lieutenant?"
"Wrong, sir. Look."
The screen showed a distant pattern of normal star movement; but in the immediate foreground, there were no stars. Radha said, "Here's a replay of the star arrangement just before the explosion, sir." A full starfield appeared on the screen.
"It resembles a positional change," Spock said.
"It doesn't make any sense but I'd say that some-how-in a flash-we've been knocked a thousand light years away from where we were."
Spock went swiftly to his viewer. "Nine hundred and ninety point seven light years to be exact, Lieu-tenant."
"But that's not possible!" Scott cried. "Nothing could do that!"
"It is not logical to assume that the force of an explosion-even of a small star going supernova- could have hurled us a distance of one thousand light years."
Scott had joined him. "The point is, it shouldn't have hurled us anywhere. It should have immediately vaporized us."
"Correct, Mr. Scott. By any laws we know. There was no period of unconsciousness; and the ship's chronometers registered only a matter of seconds. We were displaced through space in some manner I am unable to fathom."
Scott beamed. "You're saying the planet didn't blow up! Then the Captain and the others-they're still alive!"
"Mr. Scott, please restrain your leaps of illogic. I have not said anything. I was merely speculating."
The intercom beeped. "Sickbay to Mr. Spock."
"Spock here."
"Dr. M'Benga, sir. You asked for the autopsy report. The cause of death seems to have been cellular disruption."
"Explain."
"It's as though each cell of the Ensign's body had been individually blasted from inside."
"Would any known disease organism do that?"
"Dr. Sanchez has ruled out that possibility."
"Someone," Spock said, "might have entered the Transporter Room after-or as-the Captain and his party left. Keep me advised, please. Spock out." He looked up at Scott. "Since the Enterprise still appears to be in good condition, I suggest we return to our starting point at top warp speed."
"Aye, sir-but even at that, it'll take a good while to get there."
"Then, Mr. Scott, we should start at once. Can you give me warp eight?"
"Aye, sir. And perhaps a bit more. I'll sit on those warp engines myself and nurse them."
"Such a position would not only be unfitting but al-so unavailing, Mr. Scott." He spoke to Radha. "Lieutenant, plot a course for-"
"Already plotted and laid in, sir."
"Good. Prepare to come to warp eight."
Kirk was frankly worried. "You're sure your report covers all vegetation, Mr. Sulu?"
"Yes, Captain. None of it is edible. It is poison to us."
It was the turn of McCoy's brow to furrow. "Jim, if it's true the ship has been destroyed, you know how long we can survive?"
"Yes." Kirk spoke to Sulu. There must be water to grow vegetation, however poisonous. A source of water would at least stretch our survival. Lieutenant D'Amato, is there any evidence of rainfall on this planet?"
"No, sir. I can find no evidence that it has ever experienced rainfall."
"And yet there is Earth-type vegetation here." He looked around him at the poppylike red flowers. "Lieutenant D'Amato, is it possible that there is underground water?"
"Yes, sir."
McCoy broke in. "Sulu has picked up an organism that is almost a virus-some sort of plant parasite. That's the closest to a mobile life form that's turned up."
Kirk nodded. "If this is to be our home as long as we last, we'd better find out as much about it as we can. D'Amato, see if you can find any sub-surface water. Sulu, run an atmospheric analysis."
As the two men moved off in opposite directions, Kirk turned to McCoy. "Bones, discover what you can about the vegetation and your parasites. How do they get their moisture? If you can find out how they survive, maybe we can. I'll see if I can locate some natural shelter for us."
"Are you sure we want to survive as a bunch of Robinson Crusoes? If we had some wood to make a fire and some animals to hunt, we could chew their bones sitting around our caveman fire and-"
"Bones, go catch us a parasite, will you?"
McCoy grinned; adjusting his medical tricorder, he knelt to study the yellow grass. Kirk got a fix on a landmark and made off around the angle of a cliff. It wasn't too distant from the large rock formation where Sulu was taking his readings. Setting the dials on his tricorder, he halted abruptly, staring at them. Puzzled, he examined them again-and grabbed for his com-municator.
"Sulu to Captain!"
"Kirk here."
"Sir, I was making a standard magnetic sweep. From zero I suddenly got a reading that was off the scale... then a reverse of polarity. Now again I get noth-ing."
"Have you checked your tricorder for damage? The shaking it took was pretty rough."
"I've checked it, Captain. I'll break it down again. But I've never seen anything like this reading. Like a door opened and then closed again."
Meanwhile, D'Amato had come upon a vein of the red igneous rock in the cliff face. Its elaborate convolutions seemed too complex to be natural. Intrigued, he aimed his tricorder at it. At once its dials spun wildly-and the ground under his feet quaked, pitch-ing him to his knees. As he scrambled up, there came a flash of blinding light. When it subsided, he saw the woman. She was dark and lovely; but the misty, dreamlike expression of her face was lost in the shadow of the cliff.
"Don't be afraid," she said.
"I'm not. Geological disturbances do not frighten me. They're my business. I came here to study them."
"I know. You are Lieutenant D'Amato, Senior Geol-ogist."
"How do you know that?"
"And from the Starship Enterprise."
"You've been talking to my friends?"
She had come slowly forward, her hand out-stretched. He stepped back and she said, "I am for you, D'Amato."
Recognition had suddenly flooded him. "You are the woman on the Enterprise," he said slowly.
"Not I. I am only for D'Amato."
In the full light her dark beauty shone with a luster of its own. It disconcerted him. "Lucky D'Amato," he said-and reached for his communicator. "First, let's all have a little conference about sharing your food and water."
She stepped closer to him. "Do not call the others... please..."
The voice was music. The grace of her movement held him as spellbound as her loveliness. The last thing he remembered was the look of ineffable sadness on her face as her delicate fingers moved up his arm...
"McCoy to Kirk!"
"Kirk here, Bones."
"Jim! I've just got a life form reading of tremendous intensity! It was suddenly just there!"
"What do you mean-just there?"
"That. All tricorder levels were normal when this surge of biological life suddenly registered! Wait a minute! No, it's gone..."
Kirk's jaw hardened. "As though a door had opened and closed again?"
"Yes."
"What direction?"
"Zero eight three."
"D'Amato's section!" Tensely, Kirk moved a dial on his communicator. "Kirk to D'Amato!" He paused, in-tent. "Come in, D'Amato!"
When he spoke again, his voice was toneless. "Bones, Sulu-D'Amato doesn't answer."
"On my way!" McCoy shouted. Kirk broke into a run along the cliff base. In the distance, he saw Mc-Coy and Sulu racing toward him. As they converged upon him, he halted abruptly, staring down into a crevice between the cliff and a huge red rock. "Bones -here!"
The body was wedged in the crevice. McCoy, tri-corder in hand, stooped over it. Then he looked up, his eyes appalled. "Jim, every cell in D'Amato's body has been-dis
rupted!"
Time limped by as they struggled to comprehend the horror's meaning. Finally, Kirk pulled his phaser. Very carefully he paced out the rectangular measure-ments of a grave. Then he fired the phaser. Six inches of soil vaporized, exposing a substratum of red rock. He fired the phaser again-but the rock resisted its beam. He aimed it once more at another spot; and once more its top soil disappeared but the rock be-neath it remained-untouched, unscarred. He spoke grimly. "Better than eight thousand degrees centi-grade. It just looks like igneous rock, but it's infinitely denser."
