“Look at the viewscreen. One of my junior officers just died on that planet. Death, Lorelei, is final. He died violently when I might have prevented it. Let me blast open the thorn walls and get my crew and the diplomatic mission out. They can beam back if they reach their communicators.”
“He died because he took violent action. The deadliness of his action turned against him. No, James, I cannot allow you to use the phasers against a helpless civilization.”
“Lorelei, this is mutiny.”
“The crew is, by your laws, in mutiny. I am not. Peace must prevail, even if it means breaking laws. There is a higher calling, and that is preservation of life. Life must take precedence over any mere man-made law.”
Kirk felt the web of her words spinning about him, beguiling, warping his views. Peace was the only way. He had been wrong to order the phaser crews to action. She walked toward him, and for the first time he caught a hint of perfume from her, a fragrance that sent his head spinning. Kirk braced himself against the computer console, trying to piece together all that had happened.
Peace. War. Not war. It all jumbled together.
“I’m not a violent person,” he screamed, the contradiction obvious to all on the bridge. “You’re making me do this.”
“You want to be peaceful, James. You can be. Put down [112] the phaser. Working together in harmony will get us the shielding material. Peace is always the answer, not aggressive behavior.”
The words hummed with vibrant power. He felt himself beginning to believe. No, more than that. He began to believe. Heart and soul convinced of Lorelei’s claims, he started to believe. Until he wrenched his head to one side and saw the lifeless form of the crewman dangling from the thorn corral, the once-red blood beginning to turn black and coagulate on the thorny tip.
“NO!” he roared. The surge of anger and adrenaline pushed aside the insidious effect of Lorelei’s words. “Uhura, Chekov, Sulu, listen to me. We’ve got to save them—save ourselves!”
“Captain, she is right,” spoke Uhura, her voice soft and caressing. “There are more important pursuits than aggression.” Her eyes focused at some point nearer infinity than the bridge of the Enterprise as she added, “Did you know my name means peace?”
Kirk spun and slammed his hand down. Pain lanced up into his elbow. The shock jarred his shoulder and kept away Lorelei’s new onslaught of enticing words. He bolted for the turboelevator.
“James, don’t. There is nowhere to run. All aboard the Enterprise now agree with me.”
“I should never have let you debate Zarv. Giving you direct contact with all the crew was a mistake.”
“It was not a mistake, James. It allowed me to touch everyone—enough. Peaceful existence is never a mistake. Don’t fight it so. Please,” she implored. “Please.”
The door hissed shut. Kirk punched the controls for the engineering deck. The Enterprise lay more dead than living in orbit. What life remained in her steel hull came from [113] Scotty’s deft fingers, the way he coaxed just a bit more power from the impulse engines, the methods he used to extort energy from dying warp engines.
The warning lights had been turned off. Scotty had finally contained the radiation leakage that had made the engineering deck into a deathtrap. Kirk rushed to the door leading into the engine room and stared inside. Scotty, Chief McConel and many of the others on the engineering staff stood about, doing nothing.
“Scotty, not you, too?” he said in dismay. “I can’t do it without you. I can’t.”
“Sair, ’tis nae right what you’re doin’. Listen to the wee lass.”
Fight went out of James Kirk. He had never expected Scotty to desert him. The most loyal members of his crew turned on him and listened to Lorelei’s honeyed words. He had failed to deliver Zarv and his peace mission to Ammdon. He had allowed his ship to become almost totally disabled. His friends and members of the crew were imprisoned and dying on the planet below. And now his remaining crew had turned on him, mutinying even as Spock had hinted they might.
He slumped as Scotty came to stand beside him. “Captain, you’re lookin’ tired. We can handle it all. We can do what is necessary.”
Something snapped inside him. “No! This is my ship. I will not give up command. Not to you, not to Lorelei, not to anyone. It’s my responsibility, and I will not relinquish it without a fight!”
He shoved Scotty away and turned for the door. A security team blocked his path, Lorelei in front of them.
“James,” she said. “Your violence is inbred to an unimaginable degree. You are upsetting the others around you [114] and causing them to doubt the nonviolence I have taught them.”
“You’ve brainwashed them. I don’t know how, but you’ve turned them against me, against the Federation. They have mutinied.”
“They’ve become more in tune with the universe around them. Rather than fighting, they merge and become unified. There is no conflict when you are part of a greater whole. There cannot be.”
Kirk whipped up his phaser, but he was too late. The last he heard was Lorelei’s sad words, “You’re only stunned. Even this violence pains me, but it is necessary to prevent further violence.”
The tingling phaser stun beam seized control of his nerves. He twitched once, then crumpled to the deck, unconscious.
From the distance came the whistle of wind through trees. A dripping noise triggered old and almost forgotten memories in Jim Kirk’s mind: rain falling from leaves. He felt as if his body had rejected him; the pain lashed at his senses and forced reality upon him. He groaned and rolled over. Sunlight, warm and comforting, bathed his face. Blinking at the unexpected light, he shielded his eyes with an uplifted hand, then struggled to sit upright. Beneath him freshly fallen leaves crushed moistly and fragrantly, and the neatly cropped turf he had seen from the bridge of the Enterprise flowed like a liquid beneath his palms.
Kirk looked around. He had been transported to the surface of the planet.
“My communicator!” he cried, grabbing for the spot on his belt where it normally hung. It had vanished. “Lorelei exiled me to the planet.” Panic rose and fell quickly as he realized how much worse his position might have been. [115] Lorelei might have imprisoned him aboard ship. Escaping from a detention cell was virtually impossible. This way, free on the planet, he had a chance.
“First find Spock and McCoy, then back to the Enterprise and my command,” he vowed aloud. He rose and stood quietly, looking through the copse toward the grassy plain where the others had beamed down. Kirk hesitated and listened when rustling among the fallen leaves warned him of approaching life.
Small animals, barely larger than Terran house cats, scavenged among the leaves, rooting down and finding grubs and other insects, devouring them, then trotting on to a new location. Curious, Kirk followed and watched. Even though numerous grubs existed in each spot the animals pawed, they ate only a few before moving on. Most animals would feast until nothing remained before seeking out a new food source.
The silence began to wear on his nerves. No mating cries sounded, no hunting snarls or vigorous arguments. None of the creatures he spied had ears or, apparently, vocal cords. And none paid him the least attention. Frowning, he ventured out of the forest, then stopped. Something bothered him more than the quiet. Kirk stared into the woods, and it finally came to him.
“There’s no undergrowth. No shrubs littering the forest floor. It’s as neat there as if a gardener cleared it periodically.” Nowhere he looked was there a plant or shrub out of place. And each growth was perfectly formed, no trace of blight or disease. “It’s like a garden,” he muttered as he walked on.
A group of humanoids came toward him. He debated facing them now or running for cover, such as it was in the denuded forest. Kirk finally decided that they’d spotted him [116] and no amount of flight would prevail. He waited anxiously. And they walked past him, not even casting him a sidelong glance.
“Wait!” he called out, puzzled by this lack of reaction on
their parts. “Stop!” They walked on, never breaking stride. All marched in perfect unison. Kirk chastised himself for not remembering that they had no hearing organs. All the shouting in the world would produce no effect. He began searching for Lorritson’s discarded tricorder. He soon found it and switched off the transmission back to the Enterprise. He had no intention of letting Lorelei see what he planned.
Sitting cross-legged on the turf, he began studying the tricorder readings, trying to piece together a picture of this peculiar planet. Repeatedly he had seen the humanoids ignore strange things happening about them, only to react strongly when contact was attempted. Spock’s mind-fusion attempt had set off one humanoid. Mek Jokkor had been sinking roots into the ground when the snakes attacked; the natives had joined in swiftly and in perfect unison.
“Perfect unison,” he muttered, the phrase turning over and over. He began punching various possibilities into the tricorder, then checking the results as the tiny machine processed and reported findings.
“Perfect harmony,” he finally said. Kirk began digging until he found rootlike tendrils a few centimeters under the surface. The tricorder purred as he ran it the length of the uncovered growths. He jumped to his feet when a small animal with a nose shaped like a spade sauntered toward him. The creature burrowed its nose into the soil and began covering the tendrils. When it had finished its task, it left as quietly as it had arrived. In a few seconds, the grass liquidly flowed back over the naked soil. No evidence of disruption remained.
“The planet is self-repairing. Everything works together. [117] Disturb one part, and the rest comes to its aid. That’s why the scavengers in the forest didn’t eat all the grubs. The grubs serve a purpose; but do some sacrifice themselves so that the scavengers can eat? Who decides what’s in balance?” He clicked off the tricorder, wishing Spock were with him. Spock and Bones were the experts for an ecological puzzle like this. They’d know the answers he only fumbled at.
Kirk started for the city, careful to avoid stepping on anything that wiggled or moved. The grass was safe; its role in life was to be walked on. But the spaceman was careful not to disturb any other living being. Finding Spock became more and more important if he wanted to regain control of the Enterprise—and to simply survive on this planet.
Chapter Eight
Captain’s Log, Stardate 4905.8
Marooned on the planet, I have few choices left to me. The crew of the Enterprise has mutinied, falling prey to the alien Lorelei’s words of pacifism. I must reach Spock and the others, rescue them and, using this small group, regain control of my starship. The outlook for this is not good.
Jim Kirk walked as if eggshells paved the black ribbon of road leading into the city. He worried that he might disturb the careful balance he had witnessed at work out in the forest. Treading softly, avoiding the humanoid natives, not attempting contact of any sort, he made his way into the city, tricorder working the while. The readings it gave [119] caused him to gasp in wonderment at the marvelous biology of this planet. Not only were the obvious humanoid natives ambulant and alive, so were the buildings. He hesitantly placed his hand next to a wall seemingly constructed of brick. A warm, pulsating surface greeted his touch. The planar wall buckled slightly, retreating just enough to let him know the entire building was a living, breathing entity.
He pulled back, gazing up at the top of the biologically active four-story building. Humanoids entered and left, treating this edifice as would any dweller on any other planet where it would have been built from steel and granite.
“Imagine that. They grow their buildings. Animal? Vegetable?” The tricorder did not give him the answer to the question. All he received was a strong reading indicating life. The delicate analysis of the information had to be left to those more expert.
He went back to the middle of the street and walked directly through the center of the city. On both sides towered the living buildings. Once he saw one of the buildings under “construction.” Humanoids and tiny black, darting creatures similar to Altairian spider birds coaxed the building into soaring, into growing straight and true. The bird creatures laid out cobweb lines from the base to the top that the building followed with uncanny ease. Kirk watched as the building visibly grew. At first the growth amounted to only centimeters per minute, but it quickly became meters, huge lurches thrusting the structure toward the cerulean sky. The humanoid natives were neither slaves nor bosses. They labored equally with the bird creatures and, inside the sprouting building, worms gnawing through the pulpy interior to form perfectly shaped hallways and rooms.
“A symbiosis. All working together, all needing the others to survive. The perfect communism. One part relies on [120] all others, all knowing what to do and to what extent. Fascinating.” Kirk stopped and thought about what he had said. He had to laugh. “I’m beginning to sound like Spock. But it is fascinating.”
Sure that the tricorder scanned and recorded the entire building process, he moved on, following a strength signal on the device indicating the direction of the imprisoned humans from the Enterprise.
The roadway soon turned rough underfoot. Huge black chunks of living pavement thrust up to trip him. He danced back, frowning at the ground. The paving sank back into a quiescent state. Not ten meters away rose a fence of thorns.
“Spock,” he shouted. “Are you there?”
“There is no other place we can be, Captain,” came the Vulcan’s measured tones. “I assume you remain free. It surprises me you did not attempt to rescue us using the transporter.”
“The range-finder unit was destroyed by a power surge during switching.”
“And we do not have our communicators to provide accurate location data otherwise. It is as I surmised.”
“Jim, can you get me out of this place? I can’t stand much more of Spock. He’s acting too damn superior.” McCoy’s voice came, peevish but not frightened.
“I wish I could. There’s been some trouble aboard the ship.”
A long pause from the other side of the thorn wall. McCoy said in a choked voice, “Mutiny?”
“Yes.” Kirk didn’t try to hide the bitterness in his voice. “None of the officers supported me. All supported Lorelei. Even Scotty and Uhura and Chekov and Sulu. All of them turned pacifist when I tried to use phasers to get you out of that corral.”
[121] “Spock thought it would happen. Damn, he was right again!”
“How can I get you out?” asked Kirk.
“We can discuss getting back aboard the Enterprise afterward. I can’t get closer than ten meters without the pavement starting to rise up and trip me.”
“Dr. McCoy has advanced the only possible mode of escape, Captain,” said Spock. “Do you have his medical kit with you?”
“No. If you don’t have it, it must be with the communicators. The natives piled them together at the edge of town. All I’ve got with me is the tricorder Lorritson dropped.” Kirk hesitated, then asked, “How are the diplomats?”
“Mek Jokkor is dead.”
Kirk shivered, in spite of the warm breeze blowing through the city. “I watched as he attempted to put down roots and somehow angered the symbiosis.”
“That is not quite accurate, Captain. A symbiosis is a composite of many smaller individual entities necessarily living together. I think this planet is more, that this entire planet is one giant, living, connected organism.”
“You mean the parts don’t even have to communicate? At least as one organism does with another?”
“That is the only possible explanation, Captain. Telepathy is not encompassing enough to direct the life form that constitutes this entire planet. Mek Jokkor must have been seen by the life form as an intruder little different from a cancer. Humanoids removed him ... permanently. They gave no more thought to their actions than T-cells do in your bloodstream.”
“Zarv? Lorritson?”
“They are withdrawn into a shell over the death. I believe they discuss possible ventures for diplomatic co
ntact, but none of their schemes sounds feasible.”
[122] “What are you going to do with McCoy’s medkit?”
“It contains anesthetic, Jim,” came Bones’s words through the thick veil of thorns. “I’ve examined the corral, and it’s got a single root. A shot of metamorphine into the taproot will put it out of commission. While it’s ‘unconscious,’ for want of a better term, we can push through the wall and escape. When it recovers—or if the rest of the planet senses it’s gone to sleep—all hell will be out for lunch.”
“It’s a long shot,” admitted Spock, “but it is the only logical course open to us.”
“I’ll get the medkit. Don’t go away.”
“Captain Kirk, your attempts at humor leave much to be desired.”
The trip to the town’s perimeter and back with the medkit took longer than Kirk had anticipated. He stuffed all the communicators into the kit, as well as Spock’s tricorder and other instruments carried by the security force. He lightly touched one of the phasers, then secured it at his belt. Nothing had shown him that the weapon would be effective planetside. Sudden cessation from any portion of the single-entity organism only attracted attention, something he didn’t want. There wasn’t enough energy in a hand phaser to stun an entire planet. There might not be enough energy in the ship’s main phaser bank for that, even if they had full power from the warp engines.
He approached the corral from a different direction. Turf, rather than the black paving, slipped under the thorn wall. As a result he got closer to the pen before the turf began to rebel and hold him at bay.
“I’ve got the medkit. Should I throw the bag over the wall?”
“Do so carefully. Do not touch the thorns. They are most responsive to touch.”
STAR TREK: TOS #12 - Mutiny on the Enterprise Page 10
