One Small Step

by Susan Wright

  THE ROCK SLAB SHIFTED.

  Kirk peeled himself off the slab, pulling Reinhart with him. Then the doorway slid up, revealing the passageway into the station.

  Kirk straightened his uniform. “An effective system, I’m sure Mr. Spock would say.”

  “Yes, sir,” Reinhart said, in obvious relief.

  As they reentered the main chamber, Spock glanced down. “Any trouble, Captain?”

  “None, Mr. Spock.”

  Reinhart took a deep breath. Whatever he had been about to say was lost in his shout: “Watch out! She’s back!”

  The humming came from the wall behind Kirk, where Losira appeared.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

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  ISBN: 0-7434-1859-X

  First Pocket Books printing August 2001

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  Prologue

  COMMANDER LOSIRA DISAPPEARED. Her body compressed into a thick line before vanishing in a flash of light.

  Captain James T. Kirk was touched by the expression of profound sorrow on her face. Despite the lack of life-form readings, he was certain this woman was not an android.

  His last question had been “Are you lonely?” For certainly her attitude supported her claim that the others on this station were “no more.” But she hadn’t answered him.

  “She must be somewhere!” Lt. Sulu exclaimed.

  McCoy was busy with his tricorder. “She’s not registering.”

  “Then there’s another power surge.” Captain Kirk examined the readings on the tricorder Sulu had given him. “Off the scale, like a door closing. It must be near here.”

  Kirk and his landing party had been stranded for one day on this strange planetoid, and they were being forced to defend their lives. Losira was capable of killing with a single touch, yet she appeared to loathe doing it.

  Though Kirk had appealed to Losira, questioning her desire to kill when she knew it was wrong, she had continued to try to touch him. The fact that she was beautiful, with a haunting pain in her eyes, made it even worse.

  The lovely killer had already murdered Senior Geologist D’Amato, a member of the landing party. D’Amato had been a gifted scientist and a fine officer. Kirk felt his loss as only a commander could.

  Kirk was also concerned about Ensign Wyatt, who had been manning the transporter as the landing party beamed down to the planetoid. Losira had somehow bypassed security on the Enterprise and had appeared in the transporter room just as the landing party dematerialized. There was no telling what she had done to Wyatt or the rest of his crew. Losira had significantly damaged Mr. Sulu’s shoulder with only a glancing brush of her fingertips.

  Everything would be different if only the Enterprise — his ship! — had not disappeared. There was nothing: no radiation, no wreckage near the rogue planetoid. His ship was simply gone.

  Kirk refused to believe that the Enterprise had been destroyed during that first enormous power surge that had shaken the planetoid. He would not fear the worst.

  The key to their survival was Losira. What kind of alien was she? At the very least, someone to be treated with extreme caution.

  That didn’t stop Kirk from tracking the source of the magnetic sweep they had detected. The high-pitched whine of the tricorder was the only sound as he followed the residual energy readings, circling several large rock outcroppings to trace the path of the energy waves.

  He didn’t have to order Dr. McCoy and Lieutenant Sulu to follow. Sulu was still suffering from the wound Losira had inflicted on him, but except for a slight breathlessness, he was doing a good job of hiding the pain from his superior officers.

  As they followed the search pattern, McCoy asked, “Is the power level still holding, Jim?”

  “Right off the scale.” Kirk glanced up as he stepped around a clump of yellow and blue grass sprinkled with tiny red flowers. “It’s remained at a peak ever since Losira disappeared.”

  Kirk kept walking, noting that the proximity locator was approaching 0 degrees. Yet this area looked no different from the rest of the rock-strewn land they had already passed. Many of the outcroppings appeared to have been deliberately tortured into looming shapes. In the distance, cutting off the horizon, were spiky, black hills.

  The landing party had recently discovered that the topsoil was only a thin layer, covering a red-colored shell of diburnium-osmium alloy. Kirk thought the manufactured planetoid was singularly ugly, except for the sparkling minerals in the greenish-gray rocks that cast off silver, gold, and blue flickers whenever he moved.

  The sky was a permanent, threatening purplish-pink, completely unlike its appearance from space. The view from onboard his ship had been of a typical class-M atmosphere, with a white cloud-filled sky over blue water. They still had not determined what created the surface light, since the planetoid was not in orbit around any sun. They had found no trac. . .e of water on the surface.

  The lack of a sun made the spindly blue and yellow blades of grass all the more perplexing. Most of the vegetation seemed dry. Kirk was not surprised that the plants were poisonous to humans, even the bright red flowers, which were the most compelling foliage he had seen here.

  Concentrating on the tricorder, Kirk approached the massive gray butte that towered above them. It looked like solid rock, nothing unusual about it.

  “The entrance is . . .” Kirk turned nearly in a circle until the indicator was on zero. “Here!”

  The entire rock slab shifted, making Kirk look up. A thick ledge slid aside, belying its bulk, and revealed a red door in the rock behind. This door slid up to reveal a narrow passageway, lit by a faint, green glow.

  Kirk half-expected Losira to appear in the doorway, but nothing happened. They stood in silence for a moment, peering inside.

  “You think we’re being invited in?” McCoy drawled.

  “It certainly looks like it,” Kirk agreed. “And the invitation doesn’t exactly relax me.”

  Sulu finally spoke up. “I’d rather be on the Enterprise, sir.”

  “I agree.”

  “We’ve been led here,” McCoy said. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. But whatever civilization exists on this planet is in there.” Kirk pointed toward the open doorway. “And without the Enterprise, gentlemen, the only source of food and water is also in there. Let’s go.”

  Taking the lead, Kirk went through the doorway. The narrow rough-walled passageway slanted steeply downward, then curved in a U-shape, taking them back in the direction they had come, descending even lower.

  Finally they stepped into a large, ovoid chamber. The walls were smoothed to a polished shine, supported by discrete alloy beams every few meters. The lights tinted everything as pink as the sky outside, including the ceiling, which had b
een left rough-hewn bluish rock.

  A large white cube had been set into the center of the ceiling, directly above their heads. The cube pulsed in a mesmerizing flow of colors. It reflected an iridescent light against the walls of the chamber and across the faces of Dr. McCoy and Mr. Sulu.

  Kirk took one step forward, aiming the tricorder at the cube. His first thought was that the cube housed the computer that operated this place.

  Suddenly, a black, vertical line appeared underneath the cube. The line expanded sideways to reveal Losira. Her glossy, dark hair was rolled away from her face and gathered in the back to fall down to her shoulders. Her eyes and dark brows slanted upward at the outer corners, highlighted by green and pink streaks on her eyelids. Her uniform was unusual — a purple two-piece, edged with silver braid. The cap sleeves and collar were attached to a narrow bodice. The pants had a square flap covering her bare stomach, suspended by nothing that Kirk could see.

  Losira’s anguished expression did not match her determined step forward. One hand raised.

  “Who have you come for?” Kirk demanded.

  This time, she didn’t reply. Perhaps she had learned better from their last encounter, when the landing party had successfully kept her from touching him. Now her eyes shifted to look at each of them as her steps quickened. She spread both hands wide, preparing to touch any one of them.

  The Enterprise officers backed away slightly.

  “Form a circle,” Kirk ordered.

  Losira halted, momentarily confused as the three men surrounded her. Slowly they circled her, staying just out of reach, taunting her to see which one she would choose.

  Kirk knew they had her now. “You see, you’d better tell us.” He shifted to her right as McCoy took his place. “Tell us . . . who have you come for?”

  McCoy was too close, and though Losira could have touched him, she didn’t. Instead, she seemed to always keep an eye on Kirk.

  “You’re a very determined woman. For me?”

  “I am for James T. Kirk,” she agreed sadly.

  “Gentlemen!” Kirk called out. “I’ll need your help.”

  McCoy and Sulu leaped together in front of the captain, blocking Losira.

  “Please . . . I must touch you. I beg it,” she pleaded, one hand held out toward him despite the intervening men. “It is my existence.”

  “We have seen the results of your touch.” Kirk held his place behind McCoy and Sulu.

  “But you are my match, James Kirk.” Her insistence was almost painful. “I must touch you. Then I will live as one, even to the structure of your cells and the arrangement of chromosomes. I need you.”

  “That is how you kill,” Kirk insisted. She stepped forward, as if to push her way through McCoy and Sulu. “You will never reach me.”

  Even as he spoke, a second woman appeared. She was identical to Losira. She silently moved toward them.

  “Watch out!” Kirk exclaimed.

  The second Losira said, “I am for McCoy.” Her pose was identical to the first Losira.

  Kirk moved to block the doctor from her. “That computer! It must be programming these replicas.”

  “The women match our chromosome patterns after they touch us,” McCoy agreed.

  Sulu quickly added, “It’s a very painful affair, I can tell you!”

  Suddenly, a third Losira appeared. They looked identical, from their clothing to their exquisite, tormented faces.

  “I am for Sulu,” the third Losira replica announced.

  “Shift positions!” Kirk ordered.

  They moved quickly, so they each faced a Losira replica that wasn’t meant for them. Kirk glanced from his men to the replicas, instantly rejecting impossible defenses. They were defenseless in this echoing chamber, empty except for the computer cube overhead.

  “Captain, we can no longer protect each other!” Sulu cried out.

  Silently, the three identical replicas approached, their hands outstretched and their faces resolute. They moved in, closer and closer, as the three Enterprise men drew together.

  Behind the replicas, the air began to shimmer. Kirk felt the familiar distortion of a transporter beam at close range.

  Mr. Spock and an Enterprise security guard materialized behind the Losira replicas. They were both armed with phasers.

  Spock and the security guard looked first at the threatening women, but Kirk yelled, “Spock! That cubed computer — destroy it!”

  The blue beam from the security guard’s phaser hit the pulsing cube, causing vivid red sparks. Kirk finally noticed a subliminal sound when it began to falter as the iridescent colors slowed and began to move sluggishly. The cube dimmed and actually seemed to grow smaller as the light ceased to blaze through the chamber.

  The three replicas disappeared.

  McCoy gasped in relief, supporting Mr. Sulu, who staggered slightly.

  Kirk turned to Spock, his first thought for the Enterprise. His ship must be safe, or Spock wouldn’t be here.

  “Mr. Spock!” Kirk shook his head, almost laughing in relief at such a close call. “I certainly am glad to see you. I thought you and the Enterprise had been destroyed.”

  His Vulcan first officer appeared exactly the same as when Kirk had left him in charge of the bridge yesterday. “I had the same misgivings about you, Captain. We returned and picked up your life-form readings only a moment ago.”

  Kirk asked, “Returned from where?”

  Spock stepped closer to the computer cube, looking up at it in admiration. Kirk wasn’t surprised, joining him underneath to be sure it wasn’t still a threat. The colors were hardly moving anymore, barely showing life. Otherwise, the exterior shell appeared unharmed.

  “From where this brain had the power to send the Enterprise . . . nine-hundred-and-ninety point seven light-years across the galaxy. What a remarkable culture this is.”

  “Was, Mr. Spock. Its defenses were run by computer.”

  Spock nodded. “I surmised that, Captain. Its moves were immensely logical.” Spock glanced around the polished chamber. “But what people created this? Are there any representatives here?”

  “There were replicas of one of them.” Kirk thought of Losira and her distress over her need to kill them. “But the power to re-create them has been destroyed.”

  “That is a loss, Captain,” Spock said flatly.

  “Well, you wouldn’t have thought so, Mr. Spock, if you had been among us.”

  A low humming distracted the captain. Turning, he saw a distortion on the blank wall of the chamber behind them.

  Losira’s image gradually formed. It was different from the replicas, reflected flat on the wall, and showed her only from the knees up. Her lips opened briefly in a slight smile.

  “My fellow Kalandans, welcome. A disease has destroyed us. Beware of it. After your long journey, I’m sorry to give you only a recorded welcome. But we who have guarded the station for you will be dead by the time you take possession of this planet.”

  Her voice faltered for a moment, then resumed.

  “I am the last of our advance force left alive. Too late, our physicians discovered the cause of this sickness that killed us. In creating this planet, we have accidentally created a deadly organism. I have awaited the regular supply ship from our home star with medical assistance, but . . . I doubt now they will arrive in time. I shall set the station’s controls on automatic. The computer will selectively defend against all life-forms except our own. My fellow Kalandans — I, Losira, wish you well.”

  Her image remained on the wall, but her eyes closed as if to indicate that she was through fighting to keep them open.

  McCoy looked glum. “The previous ships probably spread the disease right through their people. The supply ship she was waiting for never came. All these thousands of years, she’s been waiting to greet people who were . . . dead.”

  Spock’s eyes returned to the still computer cube. “To do the job of defense, the computer projected a replica of the only image available —
Losira’s.”

  Kirk’s eyes remained on the impassive image of Losira, who continued to stand with her eyes closed. “The computer was too perfect. It projected so much of Losira’s personality into the replica that it felt regret — guilt — at killing. That bought us the time we needed to destroy it.” He paused, looking at Losira. “She must have been a remarkable woman.”

  “And beautiful!” McCoy exclaimed.

  Spock briefly shook his head. “Beauty is transitory, Doctor. However she was, evidently, highly intelligent.”

  The image of Losira on the wall disappeared, leaving them alone in the echoing chamber. No Kalandans would ever walk here again. Kirk felt strangely let down.

  The captain flipped open his communicator. “Kirk to Enterprise. Five of us to beam up.” He waited for confirmation. “I don’t agree with you, Mr. Spock.”

  “Indeed, Captain?”

  Kirk remembered Losira’s voice, melodic and soothing. And her lovely face, flinching in horror at the idea of killing him. It was heartrending to think of Losira waiting in vain for the return of her people, and salvation.

  There was too much to say. All he could manage was, “Beauty . . . survives.”

  Spock stared at him for a moment. There was a small, sad smile on Kirk’s lips. He knew he could never explain it to his first officer.

  Chapter One

  DR. McCOY JOINED the captain and Spock to prepare for transport. The transporter wasn’t one of his favorite pieces of technology, but this time he was almost eager to be split into a billion bits. Anything to get off this blighted dustball and back to civilization.

  He had been forced to sleep in the dirt last night, but at least he had been on top of it rather than under a tomb of rocks, like Senior Geologist D’Amato. Their rescue had been close — none of the landing party had had a sip of water for nearly twenty-four hours. He, for one, was ready for a hot meal and a long sonic shower.

  Sulu also took his position in the proscribed circle for transport. He was holding his arm again, in pain from the injured shoulder. Dehydration had aggravated the wound.