The Face of the Unknown

by Christopher L. Bennett

  Lieutenant Nored surveyed the boundaries of the safe area they traversed. “I trust the barriers keeping them out of this section are reliable.”

  “Mostly,” the Betelgeusian captain said with an amused chirp. “Well, it wouldn’t be very interesting if there were no risk.”

  “Wonderful,” the lieutenant said sourly, her slim fingers resting atop her phaser.

  “Give them a break, Anne,” Sulu said. “It’s not easy being pack hunters in spaceships. Normally the young males in a pack species wander off when they’re old enough—try to found their own packs, or at least earn a position of status in another.”

  “It is the same for us,” Administrator Hirr’uth affirmed. “Our youths must leave their argosies and prove themselves worthy in another, and the competition is intense. We are a prominent argosy, and so we have many young males vying for acceptance. It is part of the reason we are in this system.”

  She went on to explain. This was a young, lifeless system packed with nearly a dozen small, rocky ­planets and large planetoids in tight orbits. Over geologic time, many of them would have near misses that could fling them out of the system, while others would collide ­directly. By remarkable good fortune, two of the planets were within weeks of a head-on collision. Starfleet had sent the Enterprise here to plant sensor probes to monitor the event. The Betelgeusians had somewhat different interests in the impending collision. For one, if the collision were forceful enough to shatter the planets, it could expose vast quantities of valuable minerals that the argosy could mine for future trade. But there was a good chance that the collision would be slow enough for the planets to coalesce into a single body of sufficient mass to become the core of a hot Jovian over the next few hundred millennia. The inhabitants of the Shining Talon Argosy had wagered heavily with one another over the outcome, and they were awaiting this impending astrophysical cataclysm as eagerly as many of the Enterprise’s personnel anticipated the Federation Cup each year.

  Indeed, some of the younger male Betelgeusians, eager to prove themselves worthy and advance within the argosy’s pecking order, had even camped out on the surfaces of the doomed planets, engaged in what humans would call a “game of chicken” to see who would be the first to break down and head for the escape shuttles. “Not to worry,” said Hirr’uth. “We have ships in orbit, maintaining a constant transporter lock on both groups in case their pride overrides their sense.”

  “There has to be a safer way to earn status!” insisted a disbelieving McCoy.

  “There are many, Doctor,” Keer’iuv replied. “But so many have already been tried, and thus they have ceased to be impressive. Our young seek new ways to prove themselves that none have attempted before.”

  The warship captain spoke with enthusiasm, but the administrator’s expression suggested that she was less sanguine about the practice. “This often goads our young to recklessness,” she added, “and it is a challenge to our mature members to keep our young from killing themselves before they win their place.”

  “Have you considered enlisting them in Starfleet?” Sulu asked. “I can’t think of a better challenge. And it’s a great way to achieve noteworthy things.”

  McCoy looked skeptical. “Don’t you think they’d be a little . . . undisciplined for Starfleet?”

  “No more so than an Andorian, say.”

  “Indeed,” Spock put in, “most Vulcans would consider humans highly undisciplined. Yet Starfleet is effective at moderating your excesses—most of the time.” McCoy glowered back.

  “It is an interesting proposal,” Hirr’uth said. “Our youth have, on occasion, signed on to alien ships to earn achievements when there were no openings in our own argosies. But it did not occur to us that Starfleet would be open to us.”

  “We try to be open to everyone,” Kirk said. “I’d be happy to work with you to present a proposal to Starfleet Command for an exchange program.”

  Keer’iuv examined Spock. “Is this why you are in Starfleet, Mister Spock? In order to win status and approval among your Vulcan kin?”

  Spock was struck by the irony of his innocent question. “Indeed not. My choice to join Starfleet was made in spite of the preferences of my family and community. My people are more . . . inflexible . . . than yours. Yet I have gained considerably from my time in Starfleet.”

  “Yes, I see! Unable to win the status you desire among your own people, you instead pursue it within your adopted fleet. That is a wise choice under the circumstances. And it has brought you within just one tier of commanding your own starship! Yes, there is much to consider in this proposal.”

  Spock declined to correct Keer’iuv’s misapprehension about his career goals. He did not wish to put a damper on Captain Kirk’s efforts to promote cultural exchange and cooperation with the Betelgeusians, since stronger ties would surely diminish the risk of future conflicts. Moreover, the concerns that Keer’iuv had inadvertently raised in Spock were matters for private contemplation.

  Starfleet was, after all, a hierarchical organization. While humans today were not quite as obsessed with status and advancement as their forebears, or as the Betelgeusians, it was still largely expected that a Starfleet officer would either continue to advance in rank or retire to create an opening for others. In particular, an executive officer with a record as notable as Spock’s (for false modesty would be illogical) could surely expect to be offered a starship command before long. He had already heard intimations that such offers would be made to him upon the conclusion of his current tour aboard the Enterprise.

  But Spock had never desired command, and recent experience had only reinforced this position. More than once in the past year, he had found himself in command of the Enterprise on occasions when Captain Kirk was missing or presumed dead. Those had been tense ­occasions during which it had proven difficult for Spock to win the acceptance and allegiance of the mostly human crew, given his inability to employ the engaged, ­empathetic command style used by Kirk. It had been clear that the crew had not wished him to be in command any more than he had. Spock doubted he would function any more effectively as the commander of another Starfleet vessel. There were ships with mostly nonhuman crews, of course, but most of the Federation’s primary spacefaring peoples were just as emotionally volatile as humans, if not more so. (He briefly contemplated what it might be like to be assigned a vessel with a primarily Tellarite crew. It would be like attempting to command an entire ship of Leonard McCoys.)

  If further advancement in rank was not an option, then, it might be that Spock had reached a dead end in his Starfleet career. Continued service might not be the optimal path for him.

  Yet returning home to Vulcan did not strike him as a feasible option either. As Spock had explained to Keer’iuv, his choice to join Starfleet had not benefitted his standing among his people. His own father had all but disowned him for his choice, and though they had achieved a degree of rapprochement within the past two years, Sarek’s disapproval of Starfleet remained. Moreover, his childhood fiancée, T’Pring, had been unwilling to be the wife of a Starfleet officer and had gone to rather extreme lengths to sever their engagement. As a result, Spock had little in the way of ties or prospects back home.

  The place where Spock was most content was the one he currently occupied as James Kirk’s science officer and friend. But as the Enterprise moved deeper into the fourth year of its planned five-year tour, Spock was becoming aware of the inevitable impermanence of that position . . . and the lack of a clear path to follow beyond it. The uncertainty was troubling.

  Spock set these thoughts aside as the group arrived at the preserve’s well-appointed and frequently busy medical facility, where the mysterious raiders’ bodies were under examination. “The attackers took hold of the preserve with tractor beams,” Keer’iuv narrated once they were inside. “They seemed too small to have much power, but they had no trouble holding on to a far bigger ship.”
/>   “Impressive,” Spock observed. “The engines necessary to drive a vessel of this size through warp would need to be quite large and powerful.”

  “Indeed they are,” Hirr’uth insisted. “Yet we could not break free of their grip, not before they battered down our shields and beamed their raiding parties aboard.” The administrator gave an angry chirp. “We would have been happy to share our game with them, hunt together as siblings, had they requested like civilized people. But it seems they came instead to hunt us.”

  “Are you quite sure of that?” Doctor McCoy asked carefully. “Is it possible they came to, I don’t know, challenge you for control of your hunting territory?”

  “Doctor, my people know competition when we see it. They showed interest in hunting only the top predator in this environment: ourselves. They attacked my people quite pointedly. With the points of their teeth, in fact, and with bare hands, as well as with a variety of melee ­weapons—swords, knives, even clubs.”

  “Knives and clubs?” McCoy asked in disbelief. “When they have tractor beams and transporters?”

  Nored nudged Sulu with her elbow. “Sounds like you and they have a lot in common,” she whispered, making Sulu chuckle. She had only been aboard a few months, but the helmsman’s interest in ancient weapons was well known, and the incident in which he had rampaged through the corridors under the influence of a psychotropic compound, believing himself to be the Comte d’Artagnan as interpreted in the fiction of Alexandre Dumas, père, remained a popular gossip topic among the crew to this day.

  “A few carried sidearms, but most preferred a more primal attack,” Hirr’uth went on. “Their savagery was almost primitive. And yet, though they fought with great strength, speed, and viciousness, they were . . . clumsy.”

  “Clumsy?” Kirk asked.

  “Unaccustomed to the rotational gravity, perhaps?” Spock asked. On a rotating habitat of this size, the Coriolis effect could disrupt one’s equilibrium until one grew accustomed to it.

  “I refer more to their fighting technique,” Hirr’uth clarified. “They seemed . . . inexperienced. For all that they clearly craved battle, they were not seasoned warriors.” She tilted her head as far as her elaborate headdress would allow. “Perhaps they were juveniles, sent out to prove themselves and earn their place as adults, like our own young males.”

  Keer’iuv gave a slight crow. “If so, they proved unworthy. We slew two and drove the rest into retreat. By that time, my escort ships had closed in. We destroyed one of the enemy craft and harried the others away.”

  “What made you think the attackers were with the Federation?” Kirk asked.

  “We retrieved computer components from the wreckage. Little data survived, but we were able to extract enough to translate the word Federation in a document.”

  “Well, that’s hardly enough to go on!” McCoy countered. “Maybe it was their orders to attack us next, did you think of that?”

  “Bones,” Kirk said, silencing the irascible physician. “We’ll see for ourselves in a moment.”

  “Indeed,” Spock said. “But has it occurred to you that there is something familiar in the Betelgeusians’ account?”

  “I was thinking the same thing, Mister Spock,” Sulu put in.

  “Based on what?” Nored asked. “Remember, I’m still new.”

  “I’m not really sure,” Sulu admitted. “Something about the tractor beams . . . but we’ve been caught in a number of powerful tractor beams.”

  Hirr’uth and Keer’iuv led them into the autopsy chamber of the complex, an advanced, sterile, and mercifully small facility, suggesting they did not need to use it too often. On a pair of slabs before them, two tall, massive humanoid bodies lay covered in sheets. The heads seemed unusually large and bulbous. At Hirr’uth’s nod, the coroner pulled back the sheets, revealing the creature’s faces.

  Kirk, Sulu, and McCoy stared at the aliens’ features in stunned recognition. Spock raised both eyebrows and uttered “Fascinating,” which amounted to the same thing. “This would explain the familiarity—but it raises a much greater mystery of its own.”

  The aliens before them were large, cadaverous humanoids, hairless and bulbous-headed with sallow greenish skin. Their gaunt, skull-like faces bore beetle brows, hawk noses, and staring, catlike eyes with deep bags beneath them. They were virtually an exact match for a face that Spock and the other veteran officers had all seen before—though it was a face that made no sense in this context.

  Sulu was the first to put a name to it. “Balok!”

  “Who?” Nored asked.

  “That’s impossible,” Kirk said. “This wasn’t Balok. It wasn’t even alive.”

  Hirr’uth looked between them. “Then you have met these creatures before?”

  “Not exactly,” Kirk said. “Several years ago, we met a people calling themselves the First Federation. Their representative, Balok, made us think that . . . this . . . was what he looked like. But it wasn’t real. It was just a robotic puppet, a . . . a scarecrow meant to frighten us. All part of a test of our good intentions.”

  “These are no puppets, Captain Kirk,” the administrator replied gravely. “We have tasted their blood. They have hearts, brains, organs that our doctors have scanned and examined. Do you say that we have been attacked by some alien myth come to life?”

  Kirk held Hirr’uth’s fierce but bewildered eyes. “I don’t know what these beings are, Administrator. But I promise you: We will find out.”

  One

  Captain’s Log, Stardate 5361.7.

  Two days have now passed since our discovery of the Betelgeusians’ mysterious attackers and their apparent connection to the reclusive civilization calling itself the First Federation. In the interim, we have received reports of similar attacks on a Saurian transport and an Arcturian trading post, both of which were able to repel the assaults—though not without casualties in the latter case. Whoever these beings are, they seem to be targeting races capable of putting up a fight . . . and their own skill seems to be improving. As they draw nearer to Federation space, a confrontation with Starfleet increasingly appears inevitable.

  The First Federation clearly has knowledge of these beings, but our attempts to contact Lieutenant David Bailey, our unofficial ambassador to the First Federation, have proven unsuccessful. The Enterprise is proceeding toward the First Federation border in hopes of establishing direct contact with their representatives. In the meantime, the office of the Federation diplomatic commissioner has requested a full briefing on the matter.

  The briefing was at 1900 hours, late by the Enterprise’s clocks, but that allowed Kirk to assemble all the senior officers who had been present for the first encounter with Balok: himself, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Uhura, and Sulu. They met in the largest briefing room, the one with a wall screen in addition to the smaller three-sided viewer in the table, so that Commissioner Gopal could see them all at once. Damayanti Gopal was a strong-featured woman in her mid-forties, only recently promoted to diplomatic commissioner after spending two years as assistant commissioner. Kirk had briefly known her predecessor in that post, Nancy Hedford, and had found her to be a rather prickly and un­diplomatic individual, at least on the surface. So far, Gopal did not seem much different, making Kirk wonder what standards the previous commissioner had employed to select his deputies.

  “I have, of course, read all the reports on the Enterprise’s initial contact with Commander Balok and the Fesarius,” Gopal said on the viewscreen. “What concerns me is the lack of follow-up. Your Lieutenant Bailey has had three years to learn more about the First Federation, but he hasn’t found the location of their homeworld or even their true name for themselves. We’re forced to call them Fesarians for lack of anything better!”

  “You must understand, Commissioner,” Spock replied, “that Commander Balok’s people have good reason to be cautious. They are a neotenous species,
retaining the size and appearance of small humanoid children well into adulthood. Many hostile cultures would be quick to take advantage of such physically fragile beings.”

  “Their reactions go beyond caution, Commander Spock. They embrace deception and concealment and use highly aggressive measures to defend their territory. The buoy you first encountered provided no warning, merely clung to you and bathed your ship in lethal radiation until you were forced to destroy it.”

  “But we were able to destroy it,” Spock pointed out. “With their technology, they could easily have shielded it against our phasers. The buoy was part of a test to assess our—”

  “Your peaceful intentions, yes.” Gopal turned to Kirk. “I do wonder, Captain, why you thought the best way to demonstrate those was to push forward into the territory they obviously wished to fence off. You must have known that would provoke a further response.”

  “I was counting on it, Commissioner,” the captain ­replied. “We were peaceful, but we didn’t yet know whether they were. Given the level of technology on display, I decided it was imperative that we learn more about what we were facing.” He gave a small smile. “Consider it a chess move. You have to advance your pieces onto the board to get your opponent to reveal their strategy.”

  “And yet we still have more questions than answers. With the power of their technology, their effortless ability to shut down a starship’s power and rifle through its memory banks, why do they feel the need for all this protective camouflage? A giant starship with only one person aboard. A threatening face and voice that turn out to be mere ­puppetry. This is a systematic pattern of deceit, and you had no guarantee the tricks would end once Commander Balok allowed you to board his ship and see his true face. And yet you had no problem assigning your most in­experienced bridge officer as the Federation’s ‘ambassador’ to these people.”

  “Lieutenant Bailey was an eager volunteer. I felt it would give him valuable seasoning.”