by Lee Correy
"Negative. I anticipate acquiring said data within an hour after achieving standard orbit."
"And what are all those numbers supposed to indicate?" McCoy wanted to know. "Spock, you're certainly capable of presenting an outstanding snow-job—"
"I beg your pardon?"
Kirk glanced at his ship's doctor, well aware of the rivalry between the highly logical and scientific First Officer and the pragmatic, emotional, and also scientific Medical Officer. "Snow doesn't exist on Vulcan," Kirk gently told the doctor. "Actually, the numbers are telling me a great deal, Bones, just as your biosensor numbers reveal the condition of your patient to you in Sick Bay. For example, take the diameter and the surface gravity. The combination of the two tells me that it's a rocky planet, definitely Type M, and the gravity's strong enough to hold atmospheric gases such as oxygen and nitrogen. Its distance from the star and the eccentricity of its orbit tell me that it's probably warm enough for our use. There're polar caps, oceans, and clouds. All of these data combine to tell me that liquid water and atmospheric water vapor exist. The axial tilt—about half that of Earth—also tells me that it doesn't have pronounced seasons, so the polar caps probably don't change size. This also means reasonably mild planetary weather. Do you agree with my speculation, Mister Spock?"
Spock thought a moment. "Your conclusions may be a bit hasty, Captain. In general, I'd agree with you. It appears to be a warm, comfortable planet with abundant water, which probably means luxurious plant growth … which in turn means some sort of animal-like life to provide a balanced ecology. Because of the large extent of the oceans which serve as a heat sink, I'd suspect that the general planetary climate is very steady, with no violent weather patterns. However—"
"However," Kirk broke in, "every time we come upon a new planet, we find out how little we really know about planetology."
"Quite true, Captain. There's a disturbing factor that I haven't mentioned."
"And that is?"
"This is a Class G3 star, Captain, which is very much like Sol. However, it appears to possess the characteristics of an irregular variable star."
"You mean it's likely to blow up on us?" McCoy wanted to know.
"No, Doctor," Spock said with great patience. "It means the stellar constant—its output of radiant energy and stellar particles from its thermonuclear processes—is slightly unstable. It varies to an as-yet-unknown degree. I'm not certain at this time whether this star will increase or decrease its output, and I'm unaware of the triggers that cause the change."
"In other words, Bones," Kirk remarked, "this star has the hiccups."
"Well, it certainly couldn't be too unstable too often," McCoy pointed out, indicating the greens and browns of the continents as they appeared on the screen. "It'd burn or freeze everything right off the surface of that place."
"I suspect our landing parties are going to find some rather unusual flora and fauna that have adapted to these stellar changes," Spock pointed out.
Kirk nodded. "I agree. We've certainly made an outstanding discovery here … an isolated planet orbiting an irregular variable star in the interarm void. It'll undoubtedly provide the Federation with a good new facility on a trade route that'll eventually develop through the void to the Sagittarius Arm. While Scotty and his engineering gang work on the warp drive, we'll occupy our time with the most complete survey we can make of this place."
"There's another disturbing factor, Captain," Spock remarked.
"Well?"
"The transporter radiation."
Uhura piped in at this point. "The closer we get to the planet, the stronger the transporter radiation becomes. It's almost as though there's a planet-wide network of transporters working almost constantly down there. There's no interruption of the signals. There's none of the phase and scan buildup we'd expect from the irregular transporter use here on the Enterprise. It almost reminds me of the nearly constant transporter activity around San Francisco and Star Fleet Headquarters on Earth."
Kirk thought about this for a moment, watching the image of the planet continue to grow on the screen as the Enterprise approached it. "Any signs of intelligent life, Spock?"
"Affirmative, sir: the transporter radiation."
"How about cities?"
"We're still too far out, Captain."
"Any communications activity in the electromagnetic or subspace spectra?"
"Negative, Captain," Uhura reported. "I've been sweep-scanning from ten kiloHertz to a hundred gigaHertz in the electromagnetic spectrum and keeping very close watch on the subspace spectrum. There's nothing, sir. No radiation at all. Just background noise from the star itself. If there's intelligent life down there using transporters, the absence of communication radiation is very unusual."
"Spock, do sensor scans detect any vehicles moving in the planet's atmosphere, or space vehicles operating beyond the atmosphere?"
"Negative, Captain."
"Why," Kirk thought aloud, "is there apparently intelligent life down there advanced enough to have transporter-type technology, but no communications activity and no space travel? What sort of a life form are we going to encounter that could develop on an extremely isolated planet around an irregular variable star located several hundred parsecs from any other star?"
"As I believe the doctor mentioned earlier," Spock observed, "the universe is usually stranger than we can imagine."
"And the crew of the Enterprise should've learned that by now, shouldn't we?" Kirk replied, standing up and looking over Sulu's shoulder. "Mister Sulu, please put our defensive screens up in case whoever's on that planet does indeed have some sort of space defense system and decides to take a potshot at us as an unannounced and unwelcomed intruder into their isolation. I'll not risk the ship in that regard. And put your phaser crews on standby alert. Assume standard orbit and secure underway operations. When we get a better picture of what's going on down there, we'll organize a landing party to beam down. In the meantime, Mister Spock, continue your planetary survey activity. We're going to need all the data we can get before we can beam down. There're a lot of questions that I'd like to have answered before we go down there because, above all, we have to keep General Order Number One clearly in mind if we're dealing with an intelligent species that's been this isolated. . . ."
Captain's Log: Stardate 5067.7
The Enterprise has been in standard orbit around this planet for four watches. Sensor probes indicate the presence of a wide variety of life forms, but there's no visible transportation activity on the planetary surface below. There're no ships plying the oceans, no aircraft in the atmosphere, and no space-travel activity. Yet we see evidence of farms, villages, and even some cities—although I'd hesitate to call them "cities" as we know them. And there's no communications activity in the electromagnetic or subspace spectra. Something lives on this planet, some species that's advanced enough to develop transporter technology and the energy sources required to power such a system. We haven't spotted the energy sources yet, either, although they might be passive solar types.
Both Lieutenant Commander Scott and Commander Spock believe that any culture possessing transporter technology would be able to assist us in the repair of the warp drive unit. If not, there're obviously mineral resources that Scott could use for raw materials to complete his repairs because he reports that the warp drive unit can't be repaired without fabricating new components … and we don't have them aboard. Therefore, we're going to have to utilize the resources of this planet in one manner or another.
However—and I specifically want to go on record in this regard—I'm faced with a dilemma. If there's intelligent life on this planet—as there indeed seems to be, although they're ignoring us in orbit—how are we going to make contact with them and permit Scott to repair our ship without violating the Prime Directive?
On the other hand, we may find a sufficiently advanced culture here that we'll have to establish preliminary diplomatic relations between the Federation and their politic
al organizations.
This dilemma isn't firm. Spock's acquired enough data on the planet at this point to permit us to take an initial landing party down to its surface.
Therefore, I'm beaming down with the initial landing party on the next orbit. This is the only way we can get the answers that we must have.
The landing party convened in the transporter room. Kirk glanced at each of them—Scotty, Bones McCoy, and Yeoman Janice Rand. All had beamed down to alien and possibly dangerous planets before. They were professionals, and they knew what they were doing. Kirk had left Spock with the conn, and he could therefore dismiss the welfare of the Enterprise from his mind and concentrate on the job that had to be done: facing the unknown.
Lieutenant Kyle at the transporter controls was apprehensive. Sweat stood out on his forehead as he manipulated the controls. "Captain, I'm having a lot of trouble selecting a suitable rematerialization point for your party down there. The transporter traffic is terrific on the surface."
Scotty stepped over to assist him. "Lad, find a hole, lock on it, and beam us when you get phase lock," he told the young officer. "Since there's absolutely no communicator traffic down there, you should be able to lock on any of our communicators at any time to beam us back up. Keep your data channel to Lieutenant Uhura open."
"Do you see any problem with beaming us back up if necessary, Scotty?" Kirk wanted to know.
The engineer rejoined the landing party. "Negative, Captain. I've trained these people well; they'll be able to cut through to us all right."
"Very well." Kirk looked around at his party. "Let's go."
They took their places on the transporter platform. "Energize," Kirk snapped.
Kyle hesitated, worked some controls.
"Well, mister?" Kirk asked the transporter officer.
"Looking for a suitable break in the traffic down there to get you through, sir. There it is! Energizing."
The landing party materialized in a beautiful gardenlike glade with a small pond fed by gurgling water from a brook. Trees arched overhead into a blue and cloudless sky. There were artifacts tastefully placed here and there—benches, seats, tables, and what appeared to be statuary.
Kirk found himself not three meters from a beautiful humanoid woman nearly a head taller than he. She was dressed in a loose-fitting short white tunic belted at her thin waist. Hung over her shoulder on a baldric was a hand weapon that looked like a pistol. Although she was tall and slender almost to the point of being somewhat gangly, the alien woman was otherwise totally humanoid except for her golden bronze skin color.
She looked stunned as Kirk and the landing party materialized in front of her.
"Captain, look out!" Janice Rand cried.
And the landing party discovered that they had a welcoming committee of two others, apparently young males with similar dress and appearance to the woman.
Except that they were positioned on both sides of the landing party with hand weapons drawn and pointed at each other … and the landing party.
"Cover!" Kirk yelled quite unnecessarily, because the other three members of the landing party had already reacted according to their training. Along with Kirk, they dropped and rolled, bringing out hand phasers as they did so.
Two nearly simultaneous explosions from the humanoids' handguns shook the glade. There was the solid sound of a projectile hitting one of the trees, followed by the whistling of another projectile ricocheting off some surface to warble off into the distance.
White smoke having the smell of rotten eggs, the characteristic odor of exploded black gunpowder, filled the air. By the time it cleared sufficiently, Kirk and his landing party were on their feet again, phasers out, and crouched in a position ready for action—all except McCoy, who had his tricorder out rather than his hand phaser.
There came a shout in an alien language from the woman, who withdrew her hand weapon very slowly, grasped what appeared to be the metal barrel, and proffered the complex breech and grip end toward Kirk.
The two young men followed suit, except that they merely dropped their weapons to the grass and extended their hands before them, palms upward and touching at the edges.
The actions of the three humanoid aliens were obviously ones of surrender and submission.
One of the young men said something in an unknown language.
"Translators," Kirk ordered, clipping his Universal Translator to the front of his tunic. "Bones, they look humanoid. How about it?"
"No question about it," McCoy replied, studying the tricorder display. "But the preliminary scan doesn't match with any of the other known galactic humanoid species. First guess is that they're as similar to humans as Romulans are to Vulcans."
Kirk reached forward and carefully took the hand weapon offered to him by the humanoid woman while Scotty stooped down to retrieve one of the discharged weapons. Kirk had no time to do more than glance at the weapon he held, but his Academy training and familiarity with hand weapons, both ancient and modern, told him a great deal from that quick glance.
The weapon was a pistol with a short, unrifled barrel having a bore approximately fifteen millimeters in diameter. It was fired by a percussion hammer, and Kirk could see no means for semiautomatic operation. It was single-shot and breech-loading.
The really strange thing about it was its total lack of any sighting mechanisms—no front blade or pin sight, and no rear notch or peep sights. There was no way to accurately aim the weapon.
"Well, Proctors, aren't you going to take us?" one of the young men said, his words being rendered understandable by Kirk's Translator.
"Orun, I told you the Proctors had discovered our link with the Technic," the young woman snapped. "But, no, you and Othol had to get into an affair of honor instead!"
"Othol implied I'd broken faith with the Technic," one of the young men replied angrily. Surprisingly, he was even taller than the woman or the other young man, and he wore a bright green cloth headband rather than the yellow one of the other male to hold back his long black hair. "I had no recourse under the Code but to seek satisfaction … which has been carried out."
"Yes, but the cost!" the young woman said. "The Proctors have taken us."
"Hold on," Kirk broke in. "We're not 'Proctors.' We're visitors."
The shorter of the two men, the one called Othol, looked very suspicious at this remark. "Visitors? From where? You don't look like us. You don't dress like others we know. And your equipment is different. You must therefore be a specially bred unit of Proctors." He offered his hands, palms up and wrists together. "So, go ahead and take us, Proctors."
"We are not Proctors," Kirk repeated. "We're visitors."
"How can that be possible?" Othol asked.
The young woman broke in at this point. "Othol, they may be right. Do you hear his strange words coming from his mouth, then familiar words coming out of the device on his tunic? Do you see the equipment the woman and the other man have, some sort of unknown sensing device, probing us?"
"But where else could they come from?" Othol wanted to know. "This is the Abode of Life in the Universe. There is no other place, Delin."
"What's the name of this world?" Kirk suddenly asked.
"Mercan," was the sound that came from Delin, the woman.
"The Abode of Life," were the words that came from Kirk's Translator.
"Jim," McCoy put in, "it makes sense. They have no moon, no other planets, only their star, and they can't see any other stars here, even on the darkest night. The concept of the inhabited galaxy isn't part of their thinking. When Spock analyzes this language, I'll bet he finds there're no words for 'star' or 'star flight' or 'astronomy.' And if you haven't got words for it, you don't think about it."
Naturally, McCoy's Translator stuttered and voiced the Federation words relating to astronomy as he spoke them; even the simple Translator had already determined through its programming that these concepts didn't exist in the structure of this new language.
Orun, the t
all one, had been listening and now spoke up. "Delin may be right, Othol. Their speaking devices are something I've never seen before, and I'm aware of all of the advanced work of the Technic. And the device has just spoken our words mixed with words that have no meaning. These people can't be from the Abode of Life."
"Not from Mercan? Don't tell me that you believe that new hypothesis of Partan's that Mercan came from the Ribbon of Night and that we didn't originate here?" Othol fired back.
But Delin obviously didn't want to get into a discussion at the moment. She appeared to be worried about something. "You're not Proctors?"
"We're not Proctors," Kirk repeated. "I'm Jim Kirk. This is Janice Rand." The word "yeoman" wouldn't translate. "This is medical expert Doctor McCoy. And this is my Technic, Montgomery Scott. We're visitors. We do indeed come from the Ribbon of Night. We need assistance from your Technic. In return for your assistance, we may be able to offer you valuable information for your Technic." Kirk didn't yet fully understand the social organization they'd stepped into, but he was reasonably certain that the "Technic" was the organization of scientists and engineers, the ones who'd developed and built the transporter system in use on Mercan. These tall, ectomorphic humanoids were a golden find, and it was highly probable that they were not so primitive that they couldn't be brought into the Federation. Their lack of cosmological concepts bothered him, however, because such a thing could serve as a major stumbling block to acceptance by the Federation. In addition, it might mean that Kirk would be violating General Order Number One, the Prime Directive.
In fact, he was well aware that he may have already done so.
"If you're not Proctors," Delin told him, "then you're in great danger from the Guardians. You must come with us at once. We were expecting Proctors and would have left here if Othol and Orun had not been required by the Code to seek redress because of an impolite remark. Come!"
There was the unmistakable ringing song of transporter materialization that suddenly filled the air of the glade.
"Too late!" Othol yelled, grabbing Delin's handgun from Kirk and diving for cover behind a statuelike object.
