Doctor's Orders

  BY
  DIANE DUANE
  POCKET BOOKS New York London
Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and
  incidents are either the product 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
BOOK
  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon and
Schuster Inc.. 1230
  Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY

  Copyright (C 1990 by Paramount Pictures.
All Rights Reserved.
  STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of
  Paramount Pictures.
  This book is published by Pocket Books, a
division of Simon and
  Schuster Inc., under exclusive license from:
Paramount Picture.
  All rights reserved, including the right
to reproduce: this book or
  portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information
address
  Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the
Americas, New York, NY 10020
  ISBN: 0-671-66189-2
  First Pocket Books printing June 1990
  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
  POCKET and colophon are registered
trademarks of Simon and Schuster
  Inc.
  Printed in the U.s.a. For Laura, Nita,
Tom, the good Dr. Spencer,
  and the many other friends who worked (or work) in and
around Payne
  Whitney Psychiatric Clinic in New
York City:
  with happy memories of the Sixth Floor and the
Pros from Dover.
  And for them all, this variation on a theme:
  "Why would anyone want to rule the world? They'd just
have to
  do the time sheets." "In the ancient names of
Apollo the
  Physician, and Aesculapius, and by Health and
Allheal his daughters,
  I swear this oath-though chiefly by the One above
Them, Whose Name we
  do not know. I swear to wield my art in such
ways, and only in such
  ways, as serve to preserve sentient life in its
myriad forms, or to
  allow such life to depart in dignity. I shall turn
aside from every
  act, or inaction, which would allow any being's life
to depart
  untimely. Into whatever place I go for the healing of the
sick, I shall
  hold such things as I see there to be as
secret as the holy
  Mysteries. I swear to perform no procedure in
which I am unqualified.
  Nor shall I use my position as a tool in the
seduction of any being.
  I will teach this, my art, without fee or stipulation,
to other
  disciples bound to it by oath, should they desire
to learn it; and I
  shall hold the ones who taught me the art as close
as family, and
  help them in their need should they require it. I
ask the Power Which
  hears oaths to hear me swear this one. As long as
I keep it, may I
  stand rightfully in the respect of my fellow beings:
but should I break
  it, may the reverse be my lot."
  comHippocratic Oath, revised ed.
  "I wish that blasphemy, ignorance and tyranny
were ceased among
  physicians, that they might be happy and I
joyful."
  comationicholas Culpeper
  (specialist in alternative medicine,
fl.
  1608)
  "Do YOU REMEMBER," said Leonard
McCoy, "when I stole your cadaver?"
  The tall gray-haired man lying in the other
lounger laughed.
  "Disaster," he said, "alas! Murder most foul,
alarums and
  excursions, theft, buggery, barratry,
incomplete perfusion!"
  McCoy suspected that Dieter was trying to say
that, at the time, he had
  gone into shock. It was always a matter of
guesswork, figuring out
  what he meant. Dieter Clissman's grasp
of English had never been
  less than perfect, but sometimes he seemed
to want to make you
  wonder about that a little. McCoy leaned forward a
little to signal
  to one of the waiters looking out toward the hotel
terrace. "Here,
  never mind," he said, "you've gone right through that. You
and your
  milk drinks. Let me get you
another." The waiter glanced at McCoy,
  nodded, and went off. McCoy leaned back in his
lounger and looked
  out through the railings of the terrace at the landscape.
The old
  hotel sat on the highest shoulder of the little
  plateau that held the town of Wengen against the
Jungfrau, "the
  Maiden," queen-mountain of all the Bernese
Alps. The sky was that
  perfect light clear blue of late Alpine
summer, the color of the very
  end of July, just before the fall first begins to assert
itself. Down
  below, among the dark green scattered pines, under the
brown peaked
  roofs, lights were beginning to show in windows, as the
day drew on
  toward sunset and the houses farthest west in town
fell under the
  upward-leaping shadow of Schilthorn across the
valley. A pair of
  lights down toward the Lauterbrunnen valley
spoke of a train coming
  up the old cog railway, loaded with
tourists and the day's commuters
  from Interlaken, Thun, and Bern. Nothing else
moved down there in the
  streets of the town but people walking, and electric or
horse-drawn carts; bigger ground vehicles and
fliers came no farther up the mountain than
  Lauterbrunnen, a restriction that McCoy found
hard to fault when the result was such perfect
quiet, broken only by the bells on the horses"
harness, and on the tuned bells of goats and cows on
the green alp higher up the
  mountainside. High above everything, the razory
peak of the Maiden was half- hidden in veils of
wispy cloud, but that was the best possible news to
  McCoy. Cloud at the end of the day in Wengen
meant incredible sunsets. They were one reason why
McCoy was here. The other reason was to see
Dieter.
  It had been a long time since they were at medical
school together. After graduation, they had gone their
separate ways. Now Dieter ran the Xeno
  department at the University of Bern and was
practically a legend among the xenomedics of the
Federation; and McCoy . . . Heaven only knows
what I am, he thought. 2
  "When does it start?" he said to Dieter:.
  "In about an hour, I should think," Dieter said,
looking down toward the valley. After a long, long
drink, he added, "And whatever did make you
  steal my cadaver?"
  McCoy laughed softly at that, and took another
drink of his mint julep. "If I hadn't, someone
else would have," he said. "I thought it would be better
if a friend did it."
  "Mmmmm," Dieter said. "We did have a few
rogues among us, did we not."
  McCoy nodded. There had been people studying
xenomedicine in the same class as the two of them who
turned out not to have been particularly well fitted for
it. Well, he thought, better they should find out in
training, rather than in practicing on a patient. But
some of them had been less than kind to the hard-working,
hard-studying man who got better grades than
any of them, and made them look less than competent
in the labs and on the wards. A lot of them had
tried to make Dieter's life less pleasant
than it might have been. That had annoyed McCoy.
It annoyed him now, even though it was all a long
time ago. But some memories would not lie down and be
still.
  "Rogues, yes," he said. "Well, they're
all in other jobs, I hope and
  trust."
  "What I don't understand is what made you put
the cadaver in the Dean's
  office," Dieter said, leaning back to gaze at
where the clouds around
  Schilthorn and Morgenburghorn and Niesen to the
west were already beginning to crimson.
  "Seemed like a good idea at the time," McCoy
said, looking, around him as the terrace slowly began
to fill
  up with tourists, people with stillshooters and cameras.
Most of them had
  sweaters on-a good idea; it was cooling down, and
McCoy wished he had
  brought his own jacket. "It also seemed to me,"
he said, "that the Dean
  would be forced by such a gesture to take a more
personal interest in what was going on in our
classes. That seemed like a good thing."
  "But you were flunking anatomy," Dieter said.
  McCoy blushed. That was one memory he had
never quite been able to come to terms with. "Such only brought
more attention to bear on you," Dieter said,
ignoring the blushes. "Not a good thing."
  "It's all relative," McCoy muttered.
"And it all turned out all right in the end." Indeed
it had, though it had meant the Dean of Medicine
tutoring him within an inch ofhis life for the next
three months. He had passed
  anatomy with a more than respectable grade, and the
Dean had shook him by the hand and told him that she never
wanted to see him again. "Getting a little thick up
here, isn't it?" McCoy said, looking around him
at all the tourists, who were beginning to gather
expectantly at the railings.
  "I decline to be distracted," Dieter said.
"You went to great trouble for my sake. I have never
forgotten it."
  "Yes, well. What about that time-was McCoy
stopped himself, then. What's
  wrong with just letting a thank-you in? he thought.
"Never mind," he said after a second or so. "I
was glad to help."
  "I was glad to be helped. Which is one reason
I wanted to see you before you went off again. Your last
couple of letters-there was a lot of
  complaining about Starfleet bureaucracy."
  McCoy chuckled. "You recruiting,
Dieter?"
  "Don't joke. You haven't my budget cuts
to deal with. I just wanted to know that you are all right."
  McCoy sighed, looked out at the darkening
valley. "Well, good usually
  manages to triumph over bureaucracy, at
least lately. But good has to be very, very careful. It
can tire you out."
  Dieter said nothing to that, just took another drink.
"This mission that means you can't stay to dinner," he
said, "will it take you away for long this time? I'd like
you to come lecture, if you can spare the energy when you have
some more leave. Your last few articles left the
other department heads hot for your blood. That
Gastroenteriditis denebiis one in
  particular. Old Kreuznauer threatened to feed you
that article with-. out a GI tube."
  McCoy chuckled. "I don't know," he said,
gazing out at the sunset. It was becoming
magnificent; the late afternoon had become almost a
recipe for
  splendor-high clouds in an otherwise clear
sky, the reflected crimson light of a sun already
gone down now lingering on the highest snow-covered
peaks so that they blazed pink-orange against the
deepening blue, as if lit from within by fire. "It's
officially a post-survey survey. The First
Contact people have been down to the planet in question and counted
the species. Apparently they already have some knowledge of
space travel. The survey has done the initial
language analyses and so forth. Now we have to go in
and do the fine calibrations for the Universal
Translator . . . and evaluate them to see if
they're Federation material. And if they want
to be." He
  shrugged. "It's work we've done before. I'll be
busy . . . there's a lot of xenopsych involved,
as you might 6
  expect. Other than that-biological survey of
flora and fauna, especially the
germs-anatomical and medical analysis of the
species involved-was
  "Wait a moment. Species plural?"
Dieter said, sounding surprised. "More
  than one?"
  McCoy nodded. "It's unusual," he said.
"They're not planted, either-not put there by some other
spacefaring species earlier on in history.
Three
  species on the one planet, all true
convergent evolution. Starfleet is hot to find out
what's going on . . . seeing that no such planet
has ever been found before. Enterprise was headed somewhere
else first, but this mission has pushed that other one
farther down the list. So-off we go tonight, and not next
week as I thought. Otherwise, I would come
lecture for you,
  happily. There's no telling how many years
it'll be this time. You know how it is."
  Dieter made a little sound like a sigh. "Here we
are in the prime of our careers," it said, "and we have
no more time to ourselves than we did as first-year
students. Something's gone wrong somewhere."
  McCoy studied his drink. "At least we're not
bored."
  "We weren't then, either," Dieter said. He
paused, and added, "You know, I think they may be
starting early. Let's look."
  McCoy got up and followed his friend to the end of the
railing, where there was still a little room left. They
looked out, down past the town, down the valley.
There were sparks of light showing: not electric
lights, this time, but fires, burning on the nearby
heights and hills. One after another, they started
to blaze up. Down in the valley, near
Lauterbrunnen and 6
  Murren and right down to Interlaken and Spiez by the
lake: on the heights on the far side of Lake
Thun and Lake Brienz, on the Brienzer and
Sigriswiler Rothorns, and eastward to the
Schrattenflue they shone, so that the fires
  doubled themselves in the still waters of the lakes; and right
down into the lowlands, atop the hill-heights of
Rammisgummen and Napf. And one tiniest
  light, farthest away, due north by Lake
Luzern: not a bonfire, but a
  laserbeam starting upward straight as a spear from the
peak of Mount
  Pilatus, and vanishing into the night.
  "They just can't wait till midnight anymore,"
Dieter said. "The impatience of the young. But
anyway, you understand why I wanted you to see this. This
year in particular."
  McCoy nodded. All around them, on every
mountaintop, new fires were being kindled. One was
lit down in the main square in Wengen; in
response to it, another laserbeam lanced out upward
from the meteorological research
  facility on the peak of the Jungfrau, pure
white, casting a light like
  bright moonlight on everything around. The sound of
singing began to drift up-at first a few voices
together, then more and more of them, thin but
  clear, singing a simple tune in a major key,
something that might have been mistaken for a music-box
tune. But the translator handled the words without
hesitation, even though they were in the oldest Swiss
language, Rumansch, and made it plain that this was
not a song for music-boxes. "Freedom or
  death, that is our will; no foreign rule, for good or
ill; Free folk are we, in a free land-was
  "Almost a thousand years since they spoke those words
first," Dieter said, "in the middle of the night, 7
  in the Riitli meadow up north by Luzern.
Thirteen stubborn people, annoyed with the local
representative of a foreign empire."
  McCoy nodded again. That pact, the Perpetual
Alliance, had been the seed of the formation of
Switzerland: the declaration that the Swiss belonged
to themselves, and each other, not to whatever empire felt like
conquering
  them. And the Swiss Articles of Confederation had
been one of several
  useful models for the Articles of Federation of the
United Federation of Planets-a loose
association of fiercely independent parties bound
to help one another in distress, to protect the group
against threat or
  interference from outside, and otherwise to leave each
other pretty much alone. It was all history, and
well enough known. But a little thread of suspicion
woke up in McCoy and wouldn't go away. "How
much of it really
  happened?" he said. "All the William Tell
stuff?"
  Dieter chuckled. "Willem Tell certainly
lived," he said, "but he didn't
  kill the tyrant with his bare hands, or shoot any
apples off his son's
  head. He was a stubborn man with a talent for
withholding his taxes in
  protest, and getting his neighbors to do the same.
Among many other things. And as for the Rutli meadow,
it's there, all right, but who knows what
  happened nearly a thousand years ago, in the dark?
All we have is the
  signed Pact in the Bundesbriefarchiv in
Schwyz. And its results."
  Some of the people up on the terrace were singing, now, in
German or French or Italian; the words
all came out the same in McCoy's
translator, though it often had trouble with the
Rumansch, and kept trying to treat it as if it were a
sort of worn-down Italian with 8
  pig-German mixed in. "Our homes, our
lives, no one's but ours: our earth,
  our blood, no foreign power's-was
  The song chorused up to its end. Applause and
cheering broke out as more fires flared up on the
heights. Glasses were raised, drained, but not
  smashed-this was Switzerland, after all; smashed
glasses were untidy-and people went in search of
refills. In McCoy's back pocket, the
communicator cheeped.
  He sighed, yanked down suddenly from the odd
elation that had been building in him. "At least I
got to see this," he said to Dieter, and pulled the
  communicator out. "McCoy," he said to it.
  "Doctor, was Spock's voice said to him, "The
Captain has asked me to say to you, All aboard
that's coming aboard. ?"'
  "Tell him I appreciate the extra time,
Spock," McCoy said. "Tell Uhura I'm
ready."
  "Noted." There was a brief pause.
"7t is a most notable sight, Doctor. And a
bit of a curiosity. his
  "Oh? Why's that?"
  "1 had not thought of you as much of a historian. his
  McCoy chuckled a bit. "It's personal
history, more than anything else. And besides," he
said, "those who ignore the mistakes of the past
usually wind up treating the resultant bullet
holes in the future. Just consider this as
prophylaxis. McCoy out."
  He could hear Spock's puzzlement as he
closed the frequency down, and he approved of it.
"A longer stay next time, old friend," he said
to Dieter. Dieter raised his glass. "Grusse
Gott, was he said.
  "Mud in your eye too," said McCoy. He
drained his 9
  julep, putting it down just before the transporter
effect started to take
  him. "And ciao. his
  James T. Kirk leaned back in the helm and
appeared to take no particular notice of the
predeparture checks going on around him. That
appearance was one he had cultivated for a long, long
time. It didn't do for a Captain, in terms
of the everyday running of a ship, to let his crew think
he was
  watching them too closely. Such scrutiny only
made them nervous, or gave them ideas about their
Captain's opinion of their competence. No, it was
better to lean back, enjoy the view, and let them
get their jobs done.
  At the same time, Kirk knew every move of the
predeparture ritual, for
  every station of the Bridge. He paid scrupulous
(though low-key) attention to it, for the same reason that
old-time parachutists used to pack their own chutes,
having first signed the silk. With the back half of his
  attention he listened to the checks on the warp and
impulse engines, and the OK'S from the various
departments around the ship, and assured himself that everything
was proceeding correctly. But in the meantime, the
front half of his attention was busy with a
philosophical problem.
  Am I lonely? he wondered..
  He had had a birthday not too long ago, and some
of his congratulatory mail had just caught up with
him. One card that had come from an old friend on Earth
had made some mildly humorous remark about
wondering when he was
  going to settle down with someone. Kirk's first
reaction, after chuckling at the question, had been to think that
he already was settled down with someone: with the
Enterprise. But a 10
  moment later, some annoyed part of his brain had very
clearly said to him. How long are you going to keep
feeding yourself that answer? You made it up a long time
ago. Is it still valid? Was it ever valid? And how
come it's
  been so long since you even gave it any thought?
  Because it was true then, and it still is, he had
answered the mouthy part of his brain. But the derisive
silence that was the only reply had brought him up
short. Slowly, over years, Kirk had learned
to pay attention to the things his brain said to him without
warning; accurate or not, they tended to be worth
considering. So he was considering the question, regardless of the
fact that it made his brain hurt.
  This is all McCoy's fault somehow, he
thought, a bit sourly. I never used to be this
introspective. He's been contaminating me.
  "Sickbay," he heard Lieutenant Uhura
say behind him, as she went down the checklist.
  "Sickbay ready, was he heard Lia Burke
say: she was acting as McCoy's head
nurse while Christine Chapel was out doing her
doctorate practicals.
  "Doctor McCoy's on his way in from the
Transporter room."
  "Ask him to come up to the Bridge when he has a
moment," Kirk said
  suddenly, deciding in momentary wickedness that if
he had to be
  philosophically uncomfortable, he was going
to spread some of the
  discomfort back to the source.
  "Certainly, Captain. Anything in particular?"
  "I'll discuss it with him when he gets here," he
said. Let him sweat, he thought with mild amusement.
"Ah, Mr. Chekov. Thank you."
  He reached down and took the datapadd Chekov
was offering him; he looked it over, saw nothing on the

  day's schedule that he hadn't been expecting,
signed the padd, and gave it back to Chekov.
"Your briefing today, I see," he said.
  "At 1900 hours," Chekov said, "yes,
sir."
  "Done all your homework?"
  "I should think so, Keptin," Chekov said
mildly. "It is a Russian
  inwention. Like many other things."
  Kirk smiled. "Carry on, Ensign," he
said.
  "Sir," said Chekov, and went back to his
post.
  Spock stepped down beside the helm from where he had
been going through his own checklists. "We are ready
to leave, Captain," he said. "All personnel
are accounted for, and all departments report ready."
  "Fine," Kirk said. "The usual notifications
to orbital departure control, then. Mr. Sulu,"
he said, glancing at the helm console, "take us out
at
  your discretion."
  "Yes, sir," Sulu said, and started the
departure procedures.
  Kirk stretched a bit in the helm. "A quiet
time out this time, I hope," he said to Spock. "A
little pure science will do us all good."
  Spock looked speculative. "It would be
dangerous to attempt to predict
  events in advance without sufficient data," he
said, "but one may certainly wish for ample time in which
to do one's research."
  Kirk looked sidewise at Spock. "Is
there something you know that you're not telling me?" he said.
"Some. reason to suspect that things won't be
quiet?" "Indeed not," Spock said, with a slightly
scandalized expression. "I would inform you immediately of
any such. Preliminary data about this mission are
all negative as regards any significant
problems."
  "A hunch, then?" Kirk said. His teasing mood
was refusing to confine itself to McCoy.
  "Really, sir," Spock said, "it is most
undesirable technique to hypothesize without data-was
  "Of course," Kirk said. "Never mind."
  The Bridge doors hissed. "Can't leave for a
moment," McCoy said. "Place
  goes to pot the minute I turn my back on
it. Evening, Spock."
  "Morning, actually," Spock said. "It is
point three six-was
  "Spare me the decimal places," McCoy
said, leaning up against the center seat. He was carrying
a datapadd, and looking cross. "Jim, have you
seen these?"
  Kirk took the padd and scanned it. It was a
list of crewmen who had been seen in
Sickbay over the past week, while the
Enterprise had been on
  layover. "Yes. So?"
  "These numbers are twice what they should be.
Maybe three times. Look at this. There were five
people down with colds-was
  "It's not their fault that you haven't found out how
to cure the common
  cold yet," Kirk said.
  McCoy scowled at him. "You know perfectly
well that diet and exercise and a generally healthy
immune system are the only things that're going
to stop minor upper respiratory infections. These
people go on shore leave, and all their health training
goes out the window."
  "Oh, come on, Bones," Kirk said. "One of the
reasons for shore leave is to cut loose a little."
  "Indeed," Spock said, "just last week you were
lecturing us on the
  beneficial effects of shore leave in 13
  minimizing the effects of long-term stress." He
paused for a beat, then
  added, "In those species that experience stress,
of course."
  McCoy merely snorted at Spock in
genial disgust, and said to Kirk, "The
  numbers are much higher than they ought to be."
  Kirk sighed and stretched a bit in the helm.
"Yes, well. We can't have
  everybody on the ship in perfect health, can we?"
  "Yes, we can!" McCoy said, with surprising
force. "That's what I'm aiming for. Nothing less."
  "But if that happened, you'd be out of work."
  "Jim, every doctor and nurse from here to the Rim
lives in hope that one day we'll wake up and find
that everybody in the Universe is perfectly
  healthy and in possession of a signed certificate
from God saying that
  they're going to die peacefully in their sleep.
Then we can all retire and go fishing."
  "You don't like fishing. You said it was barbaric the
last time I took you. You made me throw back a
ten-pound trout."
  McCoy scowled at Kirk. "Now you know what
I mean, dammit. We all want some other job.
Any other job. In any case, it's not likely
to happen this
  week."
  "Not any other job, surely," Kirk said,
feeling the teasing mood get
  stronger.
  "Not his, anyway," McCoy said, glancing
at Spock. "Give me an ulcer for
  sure."
  "Not mine, then?!"
  "Don't tempt me," McCoy said. "Your
chair's a lot
  more comfortable than the one in my office. I think it
  was designed by Torquemada. Anyway, look,
Jim,"
  McCoy said, "these figures need to be handled
at the
  next department heads" meeting. They're too
high
  right across the board; they were too high for the last two
missions. Heads need to take a little more
responsibility for helping their people follow
  their regimens, especially as regards shift
scheduling and making sure
  people don't run themselves into the ground out of sheer
enthusiasm. I can't be everywhere."
  "No?" Spock said, lifting one eyebrow.
  "No," McCoy said. "Doctors couldn't be
everywhere, so the Lord invented
  Vulcans. I thought you knew."
  Kirk smiled a bit. "Anyway," McCoy
said, "we'll go into this in more detail at the heads'
meeting. Jim, I need your backing on this."
  "You've got it, of course. Anything else?"
  McCoy looked meaningfully at Kirk's
middle. "I'll be wanting to see you
  sometime tomorrow," he said.
  "Just me? Not Spock?"
  "Spock is logical," McCoy said with
entirely too much relish, "and takes good care of
himself. Besides, he's not due for his
  hundred-thousand-kilometer oil change yet.
0800 tomorrow, Jim. Be there."
  McCoy headed for the Bridge doors. "Good
to see you too, Bones," Kirk
  called after him. "I had a nice leave, thank
you for asking!"
  "Mnnnhhhhnnn," McCoy said, and the Bridge
doors shut on him.
  Kirk and Spock looked at one another.
"He's in a prime mood," Kirk said. "I
guess he wasn't done with his leave yet."
  "It is frequently difficult to tell what is
occupying the Doctor," Spock said, "or perhaps
"preoccupying him' would be a more accurate
assessment. I suspect the medical model of
behavior is at fault; it seems to require its
adherents to keep their true concerns to 15
  themselves. But I daresay the Doctor will let us
know in good time."
  Kirk nodded, watching Earth slip hurriedly
away behind them as Sulu took them up out of the plane
of the ecliptic and out of the system. "You're
  probably right," he said. "Now what about those
mass conversion ratios you wanted to discuss with me? .
. ."
  "The planet's name," Mr. Chekov said, "is
1212 Muscae IV: the fourth body out from
1212 Mus, an orange type-F8 star with no
spectrographic or
  historical anomalies worth mentioning. The star
was initially cataloged by the Skalnate Pleso
stellar survey on Earth, the edition dated epoch
1950, and the Bayer number and classification then
assigned have been retained under the new IAU
survey. Galactic coordinates and the nearest
  Cepheid-wariable tag beacons are in the
ephemerides listed to your
  screens."
  Kirk leaned back in his seat at the head
of the table in Main Briefing,
  noticing that the list of coordinates was about half
again as long as it would have been if Spock had been
doing the briefing; evidently Chekov was taking no
chances, for Spock was down at the other end of the table,
his cool regard resting on the screen with the calm
interest of a teacher
  waiting to see how a star pupil performed.
  "The planet," said Mr. Chekov, "was
surveyed in
  the first Southern Galactic Boundary Survey.
  Initial readouts from the non-landing survey
indicated
  a planet in the broad M-type
classification, that
  is to say, metallic core, largely
silicon-bearing crust
  with significant carbon deposits: the
atmosphere
  middle-reducing, with oxygen at no more than 20
  percent, nitrogen no more than 70 percent, and
noble gases within Federation medical tolerances for
carbon-based life."
  He touched a control on the data panel in
front of him. The image showing in the
screens changed to show a green-blue planet of a very
Earthlike
  kind, the picture taken from about three hundred
thousand kilometers out. Soft white brushstrokes of
cloud stroked across its surface; the continents were
separated by wide seas, and were mostly islands not much
bigger than, say, Australia, to judge by the
scale of miles down in the corner of the image. The
polar caps were tiny scraps of ice, hardly there
at all.
  "As you can see," Chekov said, "the planet is
presently interglaciated;
  overall planetary average temperature is
sixteen degrees Celsius. Weather patterns
are generally unremarkable except for their mildness;
no wind
  during the survey period of twenty-nine days
exceeded force four, even in the polar areas."
  "What's the mean daytime temperature in the
temperate zones?" Scotty said from down the table.
  "Twenty-one C in the winter," Chekov said,
"Twenty-three C in the summer."
  "Ahh," Scotty said, "just like Aberdeen."
  Several people around the table laughed.
  "That's as it may be, Scotty,"
Kirk said. "Mr. Chekov, this planet sounds like
a nice place for a holiday."
  "It might be, sir, if people weren't living there.
But more of that
  shortly. If you'll look at the next
image-was and it changed in the screens, to a
small-scale tactical layout showing the
relative position of Federa- tion
space-"you'll see that the system is in so-called
"debatable' space, to which neither Federation 17
  nor any other aligned group has laid any
serious territorial or "buffer'
  claim. Neither Klingon nor Romulan interests
have ventured much in this
  direction, probably for economic reasons; this
part of space is fairly
  star-poor, it being in a gap between the Sagittarius
and Perseus arms of the Galaxy, and systems with
sufficiently exploitable resources, like asteroid
belts, are few and far between."
  Kirk nodded. "A long way to come for just a
holiday planet," he said.
  Chekov nodded. "In any case, the warious
indigenous species would
  complicate a holiday," he said. The
image changed again, to show a diagram with three
line-drawn figures, compared for size: one like a
collapsed
  sack, one vaguely treelike, and one that was
merely a squarish dotted
  outline somewhat taller than the human figure that
stood nearby for
  comparison.
  "There are three intelligent species native
to the planet," Chekov said. Some glances were
exchanged around the table, from those who had as yet
  heard nothing of this. "This is extremely
unusual, as some of you have
  guessed. So far this is the only planet found
by any Federation survey that has so many species
living together that were not brought there by some
  other species, like the Preservers. The First
Survey team confirms that
  they are genuine products of evolution on the
planet; the DNA'-ANALOG
  samples taken early on give a better than
six-sigma probability to the
  thesis. One of our mission objectives will be
to get absolute confirmation of the evolutionary
situation, which is certainly historic in
space
  exploration so far, and which will certainly be
actively questioned by the scientific community when we
bring our data home."
  "We have our honor to defend, hm?" McCoy
said from down the table.
  "The truth is worth defending, Doctor,"
Spock said calmly. "As long as it is the truth.
It is our business to find out.
  "The three species show an unusual' spread
of morphotypes," Chekov said, very calmly
continuing and paying no particular attention to the
backchat. Kirk smiled a little to himself. "The first
one to be contacted-was
  The image on the screens changed again. It now
showed something that looked surprisingly like a plastic
bag full of some clear liquid; but the surface
of the bag shimmered with iridescent color, like glass
left for years in the sun. "This species,"
Chekov said, "identifies itself as one of a people called
the Ornae-the singular and adjective form appears
to be Ornaet. They are one of the first true
theriomorphs known to Federation science, even more so
than creatures like the Alariins or the amphibian
gelformes of
  Sirius B III. There are apparently about
five million of them on the
  planet, which they describe as a normal and stable
population. The
  creatures' interior, according to the survey team, is
pure undifferentiated protoplasm: the outer
membrane seems to be a standard semipermeable, such
as is possessed by simple one-celled animals like
the amoebae. However, the outer skin or pellicle
is highly radiation-resistant, and its relative
  permeability seems to be consciously
controllable. It is also completely malleable; the
Ornae seem able to take any shape they choose,
for limited periods, and they use their own bodies as
tools."
  "They're not shapechangers, though," Scotty
said.
  "No; their appearance remains the same,
regardless
  of the shape they take," Chekov said. "They seem
able to absorb energy
  directly from their surroundings, in any form
awailable." He began to grin a bit. One of the
younger Ornae took one of the survey team's
phasers and
  ate it. The team member got the phaser back
physically undamaged, but
  completely drained of charge."
  Scotty put his eyebrows up at that.
  "The survey team found the Ornae friendly and
communicative, if a bit
  obscure," Chekov said. "They weren't sure
whether to attribute the
  obscurity to difficulties with the uncalibrated
universal translator, or species-specific
difficulties. We're expected to find out which."
  McCoy looked interested. "What were they
obscure about?"
  "The survey team reported most of their
difficulties with terms having to do with
physicality," Chekov said. "Body shape and so
forth. It was thought that polymorphs might have
difficulty understanding why an alien didn't
  change shape as often as they did themselves."
  "Makes sense," McCoy said. "Probably
the language is at least as flexible: a
psychology like that would find it normal for everything
to change con- stantly, including symbology. I
think we'll be able to find a way to handle it."
  "The second species-was The image
changed again. This time Kirk found himself looking at
something that resembled a small forest-except that he
couldn't get rid of the idea that it was looking at him.
"This is a Lahit-was
  "Singular?" Uhura said in surprise.
  "One entity," Chekov said, "yes. These people
  obviously bear some physical similarity
to dendroids like the Lusitanii, but there the likeness
ends. The Lusis are individuals; the Lahit
are more like a hive, economy than anything else.
They are vegetable in, habit, and move slowly
over the face of the planet in large colonies, some
of which
  willingly inhabit the parklands in the Ornaet
cities. In many cases, the
  Ornae seem to create those parklands
specifically for them. There are about twenty million
Lahit on the planet, which is described as an
under-usual
  population due to some disaster in the recent past, the
nature of which the survey team was unable to establish.
Each Lahit entity is connected to its own
subgroups and to its immediate supergroup by a dendritic
system that
  usually resides under the soil, and moves
through it with great rapidity, in the same sort of way
used by the sporulating tubules of brachiophytic
fungi like the fairy-ring mushrooms. The network of
dendrites functions as a
  nervous system, though the survey team remarks
on the apparent slowness of transmission along the
network. Asking a Lahit a question can mean waiting a
few days for the answer."
  "I talk to the trees," Uhura sang softly
under her breath, "but they don't listen to me . . ."
  A little chuckle went around the table. "Apparently
that was pretty much what the survey reported,"
Chekov said. "Very few of the Lahit would even
acknowledge their presence, much less have any kind of
conversation with them. But the Ornae seemed to think that the
Lahit were somehow more
  important to the planet than they themselves were.
It's another of the
  puzzles left us to solve."
  The image on the screen changed again. "The third
species-"said Chekov.
  Kirk squinted at his screen. The image there was
a vague one-a large,
  oblong, palely colored shape, seen as if through
a fog. "Bad weather that day, Mr.
Chekov?" he said.
  "No, Keptin. The image was made in full
daylight under clear conditions. That is an beAt."
  "Say again?" Uhura said to Chekov.
  Chekov shook his head. "That's the approved
pronunciation of the species' name for themselves-as close
as the survey's linguist could get to it,
  anyway. The IPA orthography is in the
full report-maybe you can make better sense of
it than I have. Anyway, the beAt are the
planet's third species. We have no count of their
total numbers, and this is the best image the
survey could come up with."
  "Some kind of gaseous entity?" Scotty said.
  "No, sir. They simply seem not to be there
sometimes; their physicality is selectively
variable. The survey reported that members of the
beAt with whom they were having conversations would fade in and
out without warning, and without any seeming correlation to the
subject being discussed. Images of them seem not
to come out, no matter how clearly the entity in question is
manifesting."
  Chekov sounded a bit embarrassed by what he was
having to report. "The
  survey team," he said, "reports that the
beAt received them with great
  courtesy and were willing to converse with them at great
lengthmuch greater than the other two species.
However, those conversations were all rather problematic . .
. since it seems from the transcripts in the
report that the beAt did not believe in the survey
party."
  There were some bemused glances exchanged around the table
at that one.
  them?" McCoy said. "Like not believing in Santa
Claus? Sounds absurd."
  Chekov shrugged. "The transcripts repeat that
basic thread several times," he said. "One member
of the survey party asked the beAt in question whether it
doubted the evidence of its senses, and its reply, as
closely as the
  translator could render it, was that "it always
distrusted perception, and if its senses gave it
unacceptable data, it exchanged them for new
ones."" McCoy sat back in his chair with his
arms folded and a look of great
  interest spreading over his face. Aha, Kirk
thought, pleased, that's got him. There was nothing better
calculated to catch Bones's fancy than a
  bizarre new psychology, and this
certainly sounded like one.
  "No more information was obtainable about the beAt,"
Chekov said. "Again, the survey party found them
sociable and voluble, but also found great
  difficulty in understanding what they meant. The
report suggests that a
  more advanced or complex translator algorithm
may be necessary."
  Uhura nodded and began making notes on her
datapadd.
  "That concludes the survey's report,
Keptin," Chekov said.
  "Thank you, Mr. Chekov." Kirk looked
around the table.
  "This mission leaves us with some interesting work to do,"
Kirk said.
  "We're well away from the conflicts of more
populated areas of the Galaxy, so we should have
leisure to concentrate on our work. Starfleet's
orders to me indicate that we may stay in the area as
long as we require to do a more thorough
surveysubject to recall, of course." All
around the table, eyes 23
  rolled. The Enterprise had a way of being
dragged out of the most
  interesting assignments to save someone's bacon
halfway across the Milky
  Way. Everyone was used to it by now, but no one
liked ir,
  "All the same," Kirk said, "I think they
may let us be on this one. My
  orders make it plain that the Enterprise was
assigned to this mission
  because of the considerable scientific expertise aboard
her. Half of our brief is straight scientific
investigation; the Federation scientific
  community desperately wants all possible
information on this world's
  evolution, on as many of its species as we can
catalog, both sentient and nonsentient, and as many
informed theories as we can come up with on how this world
got this way . . . and why only this world, among the
tens of thousands of inhabited planets we know.
What we discover here, what these species can tell
us about themselves, will profoundly affect all the
  biological sciences. So all the departments of
Science aboard ship are
  going to be stretched to their utmost." McCoy
stirred a little in his seat. "I want to remind you
all not to let your people overextend themselves,"
Kirk said. "Tired researchers miss clues that
may be right under their
  noses, and may prove to be vital. I'll be
vetting all lab schedules and
  landing party assignments daily, once we
arrive. Please consult Dr. McCoy with any
questions you may have."
  Heads nodded all around. "The other half of our
mission," Kirk said, "is diplomatic. Or at
least we hope it will be. The survey merely
identified its members as explorers; they were able
to get very little actual
  information about how the planet is administered, how the
three species
  interact with one another, and so forth. Our business
is to find out-to
  sense of their cultural structures and
government, if they have one-and to make formal contact with
all three species on the Federation's behalf.
We
  must discover whether they want to be affiliated with
us, some or all of
  them, and to what degree. Also, we must discover
whether it's even
  appropriate to ask them. There is some
emphasis in my orders," Kirk said,
  looking a little grim, "to try to make sure that it
is. Considering the
  political implications of this kind of
evolutionary situation-whatever they are-the
diplomatic people are apparently edgy to have this world in
our camp rather than in some other, and have put some
pressure on us to that end.
  Nonetheless, I intend to see to it that this secondary
survey is carried out with the utmost probity. What
matters is that these species be offered a
  well-informed choice, and left free to make it.
I expect all departments to act accordingly."
  He paused for a breath or two to think. "One of
Science's main tasks will be the correct
calibration of the Universal Translator for this
planet.
  Obviously the initial survey team couldn't do
more than a quick and dirty calibration, with the time they had
to work in. A great deal rests on
  making sure we have good translation: otherwise much
of the "hearsay" data we collect will be
corrupt. And everything in the later stages,
especially the diplomacy, will rest on the
correctness and completeness of
  translation, for all three species; we, as
well as they, must have the
  correct data with which to make our choices." He
looked at Uhura and Spock. "I expect all
the other departments of Science to defer to Linguistics
for use of computer time and other necessities.
Note it, everyone."
  "Noted," several voices murmured.
  "With any kind of luck," Kirk said, relaxing
a little, "at least two out of the three species will
elect to be associated with us, in some way or
  other, and give us the leisure to know that some other
ship can come back and fill in what we miss. But
we can't count on it, and the sheer
  uniqueness of this planet demands that we treat this
survey as a
  once-and-never-again opportunity. Starfleet has
kindly used this short
  layover to install an extra eighty terabytes
of storage in the Library
  computers. I want to come home with that memory
full, ladies and gentlemen. Be advised. In the
worst case, at least we'll have enough raw data to have
made the trip worthwhile . . . and found out that little
bit more about the Universe that we didn't
know. At best, one or more of these species will join
us, and after completing the agreement between the Federation and the
people of 1212 Muscae, the rest of the mission will
degenerate into
  rubber-chicken banquets. Or rubber-whatever they
use on 1212 instead of
  chicken."
  Another chuckle went around. "Any questions?"
Kirk said.
  "How soon do we get there?" Uhura said.
  "Three days. Three days, Scotty?"
  "At warp six, aye. Unless you want more.."
  "What, and deprive the departments of time to get
ready? Seems unwise.
  Three days let it be. Anyone else?"
  No one spoke.
  "That's the story, ladies and gentlemen," Kirk
said. "Dismissed for now. There's an informal
reception at 2100 hours, for those of you who have time
to attend."
  They all rose, all but McCoy. Kirk
kept his seat too, 26
  waited until the room cleared and the doors had
hissed shut for the last
  time. "Problems, Bones?" he said.
"Was that enough backing?"
  "More than enough." McCoy stretched a bit.
"Thanks, Jim."
  "Something else, then?"
  McCoy smiled a bit. "They handed you the
hottest potato they could find, didn't they?"
  Kirk shrugged. "It's not Starfleet's style
to hand you easy jobs once they find you can handle the
tough ones," he said.
  "I bet I know what your orders looked like,
though," McCoy said. "The only commander with
sufficient diplomatic and exploratory
experience for the
  job. Incredible importance to the Galaxy.
Severe consequences for the
  Federation if anyone else should acquire influence
in this sensitive part of space-was
  Not for the first time, Kirk found himself wondering if the
command ciphers controlling access to his personal
terminal were as secret as he liked to think they were.
"Listen, Bones, they're not-was
  "Yes, they are."
  "Are what?" Kirk said. McCoy's
favorite mindreading game always annoyed
  him.
  "Entitled to depend on you to pull their bacon out
of the fire every time it falls in," McCoy said.
comannoying, especially when he does know what I'm
thinking, dammit, Kirk thought. "Jim, want some
advice?"
  "Is this a free sample, or will you bill me
later?"
  McCoy snorted. "Jim, listen to me. Just
try to relax and enjoy yourself."
  Somehow that wasn't the advice he had been
expecting. "Oh really?" he said, a little weakly.
  "Yes. Because for a good while, if I read this
mission correctly, you won't have any decisions
to make; you won't have enough data to make them. Sit
back and let your people do their jobs." There was a
wicked twinkle in
  McCoy's eyes. "We're going to have the worst
work to do on this mission, anyway. Make a change
for you."
  Kirk laughed softly. "You're always telling me
how to do my job . . . now you're telling me how
to not do it, too?"
  "May be the last chance I get for a while,"
McCoy said. "Psychology and
  Xenopsych are going to be real busy this
mission, from the look of things. Working on the people on
1212 . . . and on our own people, who may have
  their own problems interacting with them. Culture
shock works both ways . . . and always worst the first
time."
  "I thought you were a surgeon, not a shrink,"
Kirk said, teasing.
  The Doctor looked ironic for the moment.
"Probably in a couple of weeks, I'll wish
that were true," he said. "Hell, since when did a
ship's doctor get to wear just one hat? If our people
get busy enough, I may find myself staining
microscope slides. It's happened before."
  "Not this time, I hope," Kirk said. "Don't
you overtire yourself. I might have to relieve you of
duty."
  "Threats, idle threats," McCoy said,
grinning a bit as he got up. "Are you coming down
to the rec room later?"
  "If I have time," Kirk said, getting up too.
"Paperwork."
  McCoy rolled his eyes. "What about that
administration-free starship they promised us about
  ten years ago?" he said. "The one where we all
have secretaries from
  telepathic species, who know what we need
done without asking us, and do
  it?"
  "They got it worked out, finally," Kirk said.
"Then they stuck it in Earth orbit and called it
Starfleet Command."
  Laughing, they went out together.
  "I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS," McCoy said, first
under his breath, then more
  loudly, for the benefit of his staff "I can't
believe this! Lia!"
  "Mmm hmm," Lia said from the next room of
Sickbay, without much enthusiasm. Possibly this was
understandable, since she had been responding to
  expostulations of this sort for two days now.
  "What are you going to do about this damn report from
Bio?"
  "I'm going to let it sit there until," there was a
brief pause as if
  options were being considered, "someone else does
something about it. I'm busy with Uhura's thing at the
moment."
  McCoy put his head in his hands and groaned.
"Can't you get Lieutenant
  Kerasus or somebody in Linguistics
to handle that?"
  "Not when Linguistics has sent the translator
algorithm to us for a psych assessment."
  "Damn," McCoy said, and sat down at his
desk, again. This did nothing to improve matters,
since it 30
  merely called to his attention the pile of
tapes, datapadds, cassettes,
  floppies, and other debris all over the top of
his normally tidy desk.
  He groaned softly and leaned back in his chair.
The preliminary work for the mission was spread among
departments all over the ship, but one way or
another, they all seemed to wind up on his desk for
approval or adjustment. The microorganism
cataloging and the antibioticstantigenic survey:
well,
  those would naturally come under Medicine. But spending
hour after hour
  looking at pictures of slides of germs, and
wondering which might be
  biologically active, and which you should have the Lab people
culture, was no fun: any more than thinking that should you
miss some unprepossessing organism because of a
flaw in your thinking, or the way you felt that
  afternoon, the humanities might be cheated of a
pandemic cure for cancer. Or the common cold,
McCoy thought sourly. And no matter what he
did, people were going to have to run all over that planet
picking up samples of dirt, and the lab people were going
to have to be told which to culture out for likely
organisms; and McCoy knew that they were going
to rediscover
  penicillin at least three hundred times on this
trip.
  Then there was the flora and fauna survey. You would
think that would come under pure Science, the Biology
department. But no, all the flora on 1212
Muscae, from the simplest to the most complex, were
apparently a little on the hyperactive side-walking
trees, for pity's sake, whose good idea was that?-so
all the plants wound up in Xenobiology, and hence
in Medicine. A surgeon 1 may be, McCoy
thought, but a tree surgeon?
  And then the linguistics work; no translator
program could begin to work without some knowledge of the psychology
of the species in question-not
  that the survey team had done more than give the
slightest inkling of what any one of the three
species in question liked to think about, or the
way they did it. Who picked that survey team,
anyway? Some damn civil servant with thinking like a
New York sidewalk, all concrete and no
abstracts.
  About as much depth to the interviews as a frog
pond in August, no
  invitation to introspection or analysis, nothing!
"How do you get around?"' "What do you eat?"'
Dammit, no species lives by bread alone-
  And that was just the beginning. Atmospheric surveys,
taxonomy, etiology of local diseases, once
they managed to talk enough to the local species to
  find out what their diseases were-once they figured
out how to talk to the species-if the species even
wanted to-
  McCoy rubbed his head. "Nurse," he said, not
for an audience this time, "my brain hurts."
  "It'll have to come out," Lia said from the doorway.
She was standing there with her hands full of tape
cassettes: a slender little curly-haired woman,
her normal cheerful look very much muted at the
moment. It looked rather as if it had worn off:
  "Take it," McCoy said. "Lobotomy sounds
like just about what I need."
  "We're having a special," Lia
said. "Prefrontal with a ten percent discount on a
vasectomy."
  "You just shut your mouth," McCoy said,
straightening up a bit. "Uppity
  nurses anyway. Pretty soon you'll start
thinking you run this place."
  Lia merely smiled. "You asked about the crew
  health summary," she said. "It's done. Do you
want to read it?"
  "Should I? Will it tell me anything I want
to know? Or don't know already?" No.
  "Then sign the damn thing and send it to the
Captain. Let him read about what the crew brought
home from leave." He snorted. "Athlete's
foot! Only place you should be able to catch that these
days is in a museum."
  Lia looked resigned. "Are you happy with what
you've got for Linguistics?" McCoy said after a
moment.
  Lia nodded. "It should do for the time being. We need
to get someone
  skilled in interviewing techniques down there in a
hurry, with the first party, if possible. The present
Translator algorithms are pretty shaky
  without more verbs and without the causal
relationships tables filled in. If these species
believe in causal relationships, and I'm beginning
to have my doubts, especially in the beAt's case.."
  She made a sort of click before the vowel sound.
McCoy cocked an ear. "Is that how you
pronounce it?"
  "Don't ask me," Lia said. "That's how most
of the survey people pronounced it most of the time. But that's
hardly a guarantee of anything. I want to hear
one of those creatures say it." She paused and
added, "If hearing's even involved. Some of those
audio records are pretty strange.
Staticky:" McCoy nodded and sighed. "I'll have
a listen later . . . things are a bit busy now.
Anything else I need to know?"
  "Lieutenant Silver's in for his physical,"
she said. McCoy raised his
  eyebrows. "That bone still behaving itself?"
  "Good knit," Lia said, "no sign of
metastasization or edema."
  "Keep an eye on it. His marrow's gone
funny on us once before."
  "Want me to do a broad-spectrum
histological on it.
  McCoy nodded. "Go on," he said,
"let me get back to this. Spock's going to be
jumping down my neck for this damn taxonomy
proposal in a matter of min- utes."
  Lia went off about her business. McCoy sighed
and turned to his own data terminal again.
"Restart," he said. "Display previous listing."
  The screen came up with a long list of Greekish
and Latinate names, and the desk comm whistled
stridently, both at the same moment. "Damn,"
McCoy said, and hit the button. "McCoy!"
  "Spock here, Doctor- his
  "Of course you're there," McCoy said, with
exaggerated politeness that at the moment he
definitely didn't feel. Where else would you be?
I'm not done yet; you can have it in an hour."
  There was a longish silence on the other end.
"Doctor, Spock said, "7 was not inquiring about
the taxonomic parameters list. his
  "That's a relief."
  My interest was in your assessment of the survey's
fungal data in the
  preliminary microbiological catalog."
  "Spock, my boy," McCoy said, "between you and
me, I don't think those
  toadstool if one jumped up on them and
gave them warts. There's one spot
  here"-for a moment he riffled through the cassettes on
his desk, then gave it up-"never mind the reference,
but there's at least one mycete listed as four
discrete species, and another three of what look
like different species to me seem to have been mistaken
for different sporulating forms of the same one. Heaven
knows how many times this kind of thing happened in the one
  prelim catalognot to mention all the others. And
since the divergent-
  evolution problem makes it crucial to tell the
difference between mutative and allomorphic forms on
this particular planet, I think we may have to
  reassess almost everything the survey team gave
us. But certainly this
  report is best suited to somebody's compost
heap."
  There was another brief silence. McCoy braced
himself. Then Spock said,
  "Doctor, we are in perfect agreement. Am
I to understand that you are
  finding your department somewhat overloaded at the
moment?"'-
  McCoy let a breath out. "Spock, that would be
a correct understanding. To
  say the least."
  "In examining the assignment rosters, was Spock
said, "it would seem possible to reassign some
Science personnel to Medicine, once we have made
  planetfall and had time to do some initial
assessment. Perhaps, two or
  three days after arrival. his
  Now is when I need them, McCoy thought. But
Science needs them too, and
  needs them now; the study and classification plans
they're making now will determine what they do for the next
several weeks .... "That would be very nice of you,
Spock," he said,,
  "very nice indeed."
  There was another of those brief silences. "7t
would only be logical,
  Doctor. Nice is- His
  "Oh, for gosh sakes, shut up and go count
electrons or something," McCoy said, though he was
smiling a little. "That'll do just fine, Spock.
  Anything else?"
  "No. Spock out. his
  McCoy shook his head and picked up the offending
report, tossing its
  cassette off his desk into the antique
"wastepaper basket" his daughter had sent him.
He stared at it for a moment.
  "Doctor," Lia called from the next room,
"do you want to come have a look at this histo?"
  Not really, he thought. "Coming," he said, and went
to check the bone
  marrow test.
  The planet was even prettier than its images
had made it look. They came out of warp on the far
side of its system, so that its tiny far-off disc
shone like an evening star in the slightly brassy light
of its primary.
  Kirk sat there and watched idly as Sulu worked
the ship in close, slipping past several of the
system's inner planets that were in fortunate
  conjunction. This approach wasn't absolutely
necessary, but Kirk admired the fact that Sulu had
done it, and wondered whether he was thinking
  strictly of the scenic value of such an
approach, or the scientific
  opportunities . . . for Spock was even now
getting spectroanalysis on each of the inner worlds
as they passed. Knowing Sulu, Kirk thought, he
probably did it for both reasons.
  Two of the three inner planets were rocky
and barren; the third had an
  atmosphere, but it was one of the Venusian type,
full of reducing gases at high pressure.
Spock dropped a radar-mapping buoy into the
nitric-acid soup of its atmosphere in passing,
and
  then turned his attention to the fourth planet out, their
object.
  "Flyspeck," Sulu said, under his breath, and
chuckled.
  "Pardon, Mr. Sulu?" said Kirk.
  Sulu laughed. "It's a nickname, Captain,"
he said. "A lot of the Science people are using it. Because
the system is so small."
  Kirk chuckled too. Musca, the star's
constellation of record, was Latin for fly; the name was
one of the original ones given the constellations as seen
from Earth by the old astronomer Bayer. The tradition
of Latin naming had been continued when the explorers
had hit the Southern Hemisphere, but when they ran
out of animals and insects, some of the later names had
been
  comical. "Just as well we're in this part of the
sky," Kirk said. "It's
  harder making puns out of words that mean things
like airpump: his
  "Yes indeed," Sulu said.
"Planetosynchronous altitude, Captain. Shall
I
  hold here, or take her in on standard orbit?"
  "Mr. Spock?" Kirk said. "Anything you need
from this orbit?"
  "No, sir." The Vulcan stood up and looked
calmly at the screen.
  "Standard then, Mr. Sulu."
  "Aye aye."
  They slipped in close to the planet, began
to circle it. The seas were
  about twice as blue as the images had made them
seem; the clouds in the
  high atmosphere caught the slightly golden
color of the planet's star,
  looking less like clouds than swirls of Jersey
cream. The continents, as they passed over them,
looked almost impossibly verdant.
  "A lot of nitrogen in that atmosphere?"
Kirk said. "Or C02?"
  Spock shook his head. "No more than usual.
The visual effect is not due to diffraction. I
would speculate that the forms of chlorophyll
or phyllanalog here are more intensely colored
than those on the usual M-type planet.
  There are probably cellular or chemical
differences that will be quite
  fascinating, once we have time to look into them."
  Chekov, next to Sulu at the helm, was
monitoring preliminary mapping at his console..
"No signs of cities," he said, sounding
slightly puzzled. "No
  energy output. Some geothermal-was
  "The cities were quite small," Kirk said, "according
to the report, and the lifeform calibration that the survey
gave us was very tentative-I seem to remember the
report stating that calibrations they made one day
sometimes didn't work the next."
  "Correct," Spock said. "There may have been
a problem with their
  instrumentation; we shall have to look into that. Our own
equipment is
  functioning properly, of course."
  "Of course," Kirk said. Beneath them another
continent gave way to another sea, impossibly
blue; then they slipped around through the planet's
termi- nator into its night side. A little moon
looked down greenish silver on the clouds
there. Its light was the only thing on the night side
that shone. Kirk nodded to himself. Another day, another
world; but the same old
  excitement was there again, new again, as it always was .
. . thank Heaven. "All right, Mr. Sulu,"
he said, "give Mr. Chekov a mapping orbit
until he and Mr. Spock are satisfied with the
  results. Then standard equatorial. Mr.
Spock," he said, "have you got your First Contact
party picked out?"
  "Yes, Captain." Spock stepped down by the
center seat, handed Kirk a padd. Kirk scanned
down the list. "Hm. Kerasus for Linguistics,
good; Morrison and Fahy from Science; Chekov for
Exo-was He nodded at Spock. "That's fine.
Pinpoint one of the Ornaet settlements the survey
mentions-they seem the most approachable of the three
species at the moment-and have the landing party go say
hello."
  "The settlement has already been chosen," Spock
said. "I will meet them in the Transporter room."
  Kirk nodded, waved Spock away. "We'll
be watching," he said. "Good luck."
  Spock nodded gravely, and headed out. Kirk
rubbed his hands on his pants a bit.
Starfleet had been getting quite outspoken these days
about Captains going down with first landing parties, even
when there had been a prelim survey through the
neighborhood in the recent past. His orders had
been
  explicit: his value to this mission was primarily
in terms of data
  synthesis-seeing what happened, trying to make
sense of it-and in his
  diplomatic capacity. No one else aboard
ship but the commander was
  empowered to work out the Inclusion Agreement with one
or more of the
  indigenous species. He was to sit tight until
it was plain that things were safe, and then to confine his
visits downplanet to those necessary for
  diplomacy's sake.
  At least, as far as the Fleet people could tell.
Kirk smiled a little.
  There was always room to cheat a little.
  The Bridge doors hissed open again.
"Pretty place," 39
  McCoy's voice said, a moment later, over
Kirk's shoulder:.
  Kirk looked over at him in mild
surprise. "Thought you were going down with the landing party,"
he said. "I would have thought you wouldn't want Spock
to mess it up-."
  McCoy chuckled. "Not very likely," he said,
and rubbed his eyes for a
  moment. "Nope, got too much work on my
plate at the moment. I'll go down in a day or
two:"
  Kirk frowned a little. "How much sleep did you
get last night?"
  McCoy's eyes opened wide. "Now don't you
take that tone with me, Jim. I bet I got more
than you did."
  Kirk smiled slightly and nodded. "Probably
you did," he said. It had always been a problem for
him-not a serious one, of course-that excitement at the
prospect of seeing a new world tended to keep him
up later than usual, the night just before. All the
same- "You've been working too hard," he said.
"Not yet, I haven't been," McCoy said.
"In about two days, I will have,
  though. Then you can yell at me; and I'll envy you
your nice easy job
  here."
  Kirk choked genteelly. "Easy-,
  McCoy laughed at that, too, then. "Well,
everything's relative, I guess."
  The communicator whistled. "Transporter
room, "it said, "Lieut. Renner
  here. Landing party reports ready to beam down,
Captain. his
  "Beam them down, Lieutenant," Kirk said.
  The Bridge screen came on just then and showed them
the images being
  transmitted by Ensign Morrison's
tricorder: Lieutenant Renner behind the 40
  Transporter console, making a few last
adjustments, then slipping the levers upward; a storm
of glitter as the effect blanked out the room; and then
the glitter fading.
  Through it the screen showed them all what seemed to be
a clearing in a
  forest. Bright yellowish sunlight came lancing
down among the wide branches to lie in bright pools
on a ground surface that alternated between what
  looked like scuffed heaps of leaf mold and other
material greener than the greenest grass Kirk
had ever seen. The trees were all impossibly
green,
  even to the trunks, which were quite smooth, like some
kinds of birch. One after another, the landing party
stepped into sight and looked around.
  Spock produced his tricorder and began to scan
in the traditional manner. The others moved around
slowly, touching a branch here, a plant there. The
woods were very quiet, except for a soft scratching
sound in the distance that might have been the stridulation of
some insect-but Kirk immediately put that thought away;
on a new planet, there was no predicting anything
at all without data, and your suppositions could kill
you without warning.
  "Readings," Spock said softly to Chekov and
Kerasus, who had their
  tricorders out as well.
  "Life signs, sir," Chekov said. "I
think. Two one four mark six. Not much movement."
  Spock studied his tricorder. "Ms.
Kerasus," he said.
  The tall, cool-looking young woman nodded. "I
concur. The readings are very mixed-animal and
vegetable. But they would be."
  "Correct. Landing party, let us work toward that
bearing. There appears to be a rough path here."
  "Looks like a deer trail," Morrison said
to those
  watching on the Bridge. "Occasional broken
branches comab waist height. A fair amount of
traffic, I'd say:".
  They worked through the woods. Kirk sat back and
watched as the green-gold lighting changed almost
completely to gold. The landing party came out into a
clearing and paused there for a moment, looking around:
  What the-Kirk thought, for in the middle of the clearing
stood what seemed to be a large amorphous lump
of crystal about the size of a shuttlecraft.
Until it moved.
  The lump of crystal came apart into about fifty
pieces, which began to roll and hop toward the landing
party with the most peculiarly fluid kind of
  motion that Kirk had seen in a long time. There were
a few gasps around the Bridge, but Kirk
ignored them, wondering for a moment about what the
  creatures were using for musculature, since they
were supposed to be
  nothing but protoplasm. They certainly weren't
having any trouble moving, though this particular brand of
locomotion looked mostly as if thick
  plastic bags were pouring themselves along the ground, and
occasionally
  doing a forward roll to make a little better
speed.
  "No phasers," Spock said softly to the landing
party. They nodded.
  The tumbling, pouring shapes slowed down as they
came close to the landing party, surrounding them.
Spock looked down at them with his usual calmnone
of them came much above his knee-and waited to see what
would happen.
  Slowly a circle formed around the landing party, and the
creatures settled where they were, shifting or
wiggling slightly. 42
  Morrison turned slowly to show the circle of
creatures, like so many lumps of iridescent
glass, but quivering and alive, and thinking who knew
what.
  "Good morning," Spock said. Kirk took a
second to flash a grin at Bones; sometimes
Spock's formality could tempt you to laugh. "Are you
members of the species called the Ornae?"
  There was another tremor of movement through the layered
circles of
  creatures, and then a sound: something scratchy, not
quite the "insect"
  sound that Kirk had heard before. The Bridge's
Translator circuitry
  immediately cut in and rendered the sound as oddly
high-pitched laughter. One of the creatures in the
front circle shook itself all over and, still shaking,
moved very, very slowly toward Spock. He didn't
move a muscle. The creature put out a long
slender pseudopod, gleaming in the sunshine like
suddenly blown glass, and poked Spock's boot
with it. Then it made the
  scratchy sound again, more laughter, and said a word:
  "Gotcha!"
  It jumped back to its place. All the other
creatures began to echo the
  scratch-laughter. Spock looked around him with
mild bemusement. "Captain," he said, "I
suspect we have found a kindergarten at recess,
or something similar."
  Kirk laughed. "Whatever," he said, "they're
certainly Ornae."
  "That they are." Spock bent down a bit to the
Ornaet who had gotcha'd him and said, "We are
visitors here. Do you suppose you might take us
to see the same people who greeted the last visitors
who looked like us?"
  There was more scratchy laughter at this, and some
  of the Ornae began to shuffle out of the way
of the landing party, opening a path for them toward one side
of the clearing. "Thank you," Spock said
  gravely, and headed in that direction. The
Ornaet who had spoken to him went hopping and
rolling alongside him, bumping him occasionally to show
him the right less-than way to go.
  They watched the Ornae lead the landing party into the
woods again, onto another path, a wider one this
time, with more broken greenery at the
  sides, seeming to indicate a heavier traffic
load. The landing party was led through several more clearings,
though none of them had Ornae in them; then they burst
out into one last clearing, the biggest they had seen so
far. And this one had structures in it, the size of
small houses; more
  iridescent glass built into surprisingly
graceful structures-curving towers and spires,
glass-webbed domes, open-roofed mazes of
uncertain purpose.
  More of the Ornae moved in and out of the buildings as
they approached.
  McCoy let out a soft breath. "The report
didn't say anything about
  buildings like that," he said.
  "Indeed not, Doctor," Spock said.
"I suspect the half was not told us . . . as I
mentioned to you."
  Kirk made a mental note to compose a sharp
memo to Starfleet about the
  report from the original survey team. The last
three days of reports from the Enterprise's various
departments had been making it plain that the
  survey report had been about as incomplete and
error-ridden as one might imagine. What are they
sending these people for if not to make our job a little
easier? Heaven knows what dangers they missed on
this planet that we might have to deal with before we leave .
. .
  "Holy smoke," McCoy said suddenly,
"look at
  that. his
  Kirk did . . . and understood the exclamation.
One of the buildings had
  quietly begun to come apart; its tallest spire,
some fifty feet above the ground level, was slipping
down around the remaining structure of the spire as
slowly and gracefully as a drop of glycerine . .
. but a drop containing about twenty gallons.
  "They build their buildings out of themselves,"
McCoy said, delighted,
  almost reverent. "Jim, this is incredible. Is it a
permanent job? Do they take turns?"
  "Ssh," Kirk said, watching the single Ornaet
slip down the structure built of its presently
less mobile fellows. It came to rest in front
of the
  landing party, at Spock's feet, and looked up
at him. Visibly looked up at him, by putting
up two eyestalks out of what had been a blank
smooth curve of body.
  "Greet," it said.
  Spock's eyebrow went right up.
  "Greetings to you as well," he said, giving the
creature just a fraction of an inch's worth of bow.
"I am Commander Spock of the Federation starship
USS Enterprise. his
  "Federation," the creature said, and the translator
gave the word a
  slightly meditative tone: "mmf."
  Spock looked over at Lt. Janice
Kerasus, whose big dark eyes were
  thoughtful. As head of Linguistics, she was perhaps
best equipped of anyone on board to understand the
vagaries of the Universal Translator. But this
situation, with the calibration only half done,
and apparently incorrectly done as well, was
likely to be twitchy for days, perhaps months.
Heaven
  knew what they were saying to these creatures; Heaven

  knew (until they heard a great deal more of it)
what the creatures were
  saying to them. And the whole mission rode on that
point.
  "Our landing party," Spock said calmly: he
wasn't sweating. "Lieutenant
  Kerasus, Ensign Morrison, Ensign
Chekov."
  "Mmf," said the Ornaet. "Greet, greet,
greet. Federation?"
  "Yes," Spock said, as the others nodded or
rumbled or spoke their own
  greetings: "We are all with the same
organization. Our commanding officer has sent us
to make initial contact with you. We should like to visit
your planet for a while, and participate in discussions
with you, if you have no objections."
  The Ornaet stretched its eyestalks a little
farther up toward Spock; there was something quizzical
about the expression . . . and Kirk warned
himself again against anthropomorphization. "Only
objections beAt," it said.
  Kirk raised his eyebrows. This was news to him.
McCoy glanced at him, and the quizzical
expression on the Doctor's face was not in any
danger of
  misinterpretation. "Uh oh," he said.
  "Let's not panic just yet," Kirk murmured.
"A bit early for that."
  "Welcome," the Ornaet said then. "Stay,
talk, be here, yes." It let its
  eyes plop back into its main body, rather as if
holding them up so high for so long had been a strain.
  "We thank you," Spock said, with a nod of
acknowledgment. "We would also like to examine you and your
people, to see how you are like us, and how different. The
examinations are noninvasive. May we do this?"
  The Ornaet goggled up at Spock again, though
without putting the eyestalks up quite so far this time.
"Examine," it said thoughtfully. "Yes. Examine
you?"
  Spock glanced at Kerasus as if to ask
silently whether she understood the creature's
syntax in the same way as he did. She nodded.
"Yes," Spock said, "most certainly.
Gentlemen?" he said, to Chekov and Morrison.
  "Of course, sir," Morrison said, and
"Certainly," said Chekov.
  Next to Kirk, McCoy twitched slightly.
"Like to know what they're going to be examined with first,"
he said softly, for Kirk alone to hear. "Don't
  know how noninvasive their techniques are."
  "Spock will keep an eye on things," Kirk
said. "So will we. And it's a fair request.."
  McCoy sighed and nodded. "Uhura," he said,
"make sure their tricorder
  readouts go straight to Sickbay. I want
to get a running start."
  "No problem, Doctor."
  "Can't imagine how they even move," McCoy
said softly. "The report said
  that was undifferentiated protoplasm. Doesn't
have anything like enough ATP or analog for motility on
this scale-was"
  "The report said a lot of things," Kirk said,
"and I'm going to have a word with Starfleet about that.
Never mind it now."
  He was more interested in what was going on on the
screen; understandable, as the landing party was led into that
astonishing structure. The building was not
terribly big inside, by human standards; it was perhaps
the size of the briefing room, with a rather low ceiling. But
the relative transparency of the walls kept the
effect inside light and airy, as if one were inside

  room built of glass blocks. The only
difference, of course, was that there were no blocks, but the
rounded shapes of Ornae, each stretched or
  compressed to fit the particular spot it occupied,
a sort of bas-relief
  mural of flowing rounded shapes. And all the
shapes were looking at the
  landing party, with eyes either hidden inside their bulk,
or projecting. It would be enough to give a person of
nervous disposition a serious case of
  the jitters.
  Spock, of course, was not even slightly concerned
with nerves. He sat down in the middle of the room's
floor, unslung his tricorder, and started
  making fine adjustments in it, while still talking
calmly to the Ornaet who had led him in. The other
members of the landing party strolled around,
  struck up their own conversation, and examined their
surroundings. It began to be difficult to follow
what was going on with the party as a whole,
  since only Morrison's tricorder was
transmitting, and he was concentrating on examining the
structure of the walls at the moment. The Bridge
screen became dominated by the image of several
pairs (or triplets) of shiny black Ornaet
eyes staring at the tricorder, or poking it gently
with pseudopodia. Kirk sat back and rubbed his
eyes a bit. "This is going to be fascinating," he
said, "to coin a phrase."
  McCoy sighed. "You said a mouthful. I'd
better get down there and make sure they're getting
the data I need. What those critters are using for
energy transport, I can't imagine . . ."
  "Let me know when you find out," Kirk said.
"I've got to sit tight for a good while yet,
otherwise certain people at Fleet will have my britches
for breakfast." 48
  "Poor Jim," McCoy said. "The burdens of
duty. Having to sit in a nice soft chair and
watch the rest of us run around and bust our-was
  "Don't you get started," Kirk said.
"Life's hard enough. Get your body down there, and
have fun."
  "Fun!" Bones snorted, and headed out of the
Bridge.
  Kirk sat back, and slowly, slowly, began
to smile.
  The medical side of the situation was turning into a
circus, that was all it was. People just could not function
without close supervision anymore. McCoy
didn't know what they were teaching them in school these
days.
  "Come on, Mr. Chekov," he said to the air in
his office, as he started
  flinging together a rock-bottom kit of the things he
would need downplanet. "Let Lieutenant
Kerasus handle the verb problem for the time being.
We've got other fish to fry. I'm going to be
down there in ten minutes, and if you haven't got
waiting there for me a group serology analysis, a
tegument series with scrapes, a neural series with
pertinent EEG, and a
  percussion-and-auscultation set-was
  "No problem, Doctor, was Chekov said
cheerfully.
  McCoy snorted genially. "See to it. I'll
be there in ten minutes. McCoy
  out."
  From the next room, Lia called, "Do you want
me to come down and give you a hand?"
  "No, thanks," McCoy said, picking up an
inverpalliator, considering it, and then tossing it
back in its drawer and pulling out a miniature
polarioph- thalmoscope instead. "The Captain
hasn't authorized 49
  any other people downplanet but department heads
until the Translator is
  better calibrated. Doesn't want
to multiply the possible errors."
  "Sounds like your advice," Lia said, peering around
the corner of the door. "It was."
  "Just another excuse to overwork yourself, I see,"
she said.
  "No, indeed," McCoy said, closing his little
black bag, then opening it
  again and tossing in a radiolaparoscope, and a
tongue depressor. "You get your work done here, and
make sure all this data is safe."
  Lia sighed. It was plain she had heard this sort
of thing often enough
  before, and had learned there was no use in trying
to argue with it. "Have a nice time, then," she said.
  McCoy grunted, picked up his little black
bag and headed for the
  Transporter room.
  He found Spock still sitting on the floor of
what seemed to be the Ornae's main building in this
clearing. Scan had since found many more of the
  clearings, with similar structures; but there were
apparently also
  structures here and there that were made of local
wood and stone. One of the other species? McCoy
thought. Or not? Why would sentient trees need
  houses? And the third species is supposed to be
nonphysical. Well, one
  thing at a time-
  "Ah, Doctor," Spock said, glancing up from
his tricorder. "I wondered
  whether you would find time to join us."
  "Didn't have much choice," McCoy said,
"data is coming in at such a
  miserable damn trickle-was
  Spock gave him a look more of pity than
anything
  else-if a Vulcan would in fact admit
to pity. McCoy suspected that Spock
  might, as long as he was involved. "You mean
medical information," Spock
  said. "We have been giving more attention to linguistics
at the moment, I
  fear-was
  "I'll just bet you have. How's it going,
Lieutenant?" McCoy said over his shoulder.
  Janice Kerasus glanced up from her own
tricorder, which the Ornaet she was talking to was
examining with interest. "I need more verbs," she said,
  sounding a bit desperate.
  "So do we all, my dear," McCoy said, "so
do we all." He strolled over
  toward Chekov, pausing a moment next
to Morrison. "How're we doing?"
  "I'm being examined, this lad says," said
Morrison, from where he sat
  crosslegged on the floor. Sitting, if that was the
word, across from him, was an Ornaet that seemed to be
rolled right up into a ball, with no eyes or other
features showing. "7 can't feel anything."
  "Don't complain," McCoy said. "At least,
don't phrase it like that. You
  don't know what they use to test lack of sensation
here. Might be a bit
  solider than a reflex hammer. Well, Mr.
Chekov?"
  "Here's what you wanted, sir," he said:
  "Mmf," McCoy said, as he squatted
down beside Chekov and began running down the list of
readouts. The results of the group serology tests
he had asked Chekov for were confusing, to say the least.
The creatures barely had a
  circulatory system per se, so there was no
telling exactly how much of the fluid running around in
it was perfusion material, and how much was just
temporarily fluid, having been solid
"muscle" material a little while
  before. McCoy had seen a few protoplasmic
creatures in his time, but few 51
  quite so undifferentiated as this. Usually by the time a
being got to this size, it had managed to develop at
least a little multicellular structure. The
situation was puzzling, but it was probably also grounds
to write
  another paper. Poor Dieter, McCoy thought,
smiling slightly, he thought they got upset about that
last paper! These people are going to set the xeno
  crowd on their ear. "Hmm," he said again,
scrolling past the obscure
  serology results and looking at the tegument
test and scrape instead.
  "Hmm," the creature said to him, quite plainly.
McCoy glanced at Chekov, then at the
Ornaet. "Sorry about that, son," he said,
"I've been ignoring you. McCoy's my name;
I'm a doctor."
  The Ornaet said something scratchy, which the
translator rendered as, "What son?"
  "Doctor," Kerasus called from across the room,
"for pity's sake, key your translator to overlink
to mine, will you? I can use the extra vocabulary."
  "Right." He made an adjustment to his
tricorder and then turned back to the Ornaet.
"Son is a term of affection," he said. "You know,
when you like
  somebody?"
  There was a pause, and the Ornaet said, "Like?" It
bumped McCoy's leg from one side, like a friendly
cat.
  "That's right. Or like this. May I touch you?" he
said, catching himself before actually doing it.
  "Touch, yes."
  He very much wanted to, having seen the first part of the
tegument report. McCoy patted the Ornaet's
hide in a friendly fashion. "There," he said,
  "that's one of the ways we show we're friendly to each
other."
  "Friendly, yes!" said the Ornaet
cheerfully. It put
  out a blunt rounded pseudopod and patted
McCoy back.
  He chuckled a bit and stroked that beautiful
iridescent hide. Hide was a misnomer, of
course, since the scrapes reported that the
creature's
  tegument wasn't any more multicellular than the
rest of it. It was one
  thick piece of selectively permeable
membrane, no different than what
  separated one blood cell, or skin, or
muscle cell in a human, from another. It was just
about five thousand times thicker. Now how did this
evolve? he thought. How is this tissue kept
correctly perfused, not to mention fed? No
vascular structure. Then again, if you posit
permeable-membrane behavior, any spot in it
has access to enough fluid-after all, it's all just
sloshing around in there. But at the same time it
doesn't make sense-
  "Do you have a name?" McCoy said, turning a bit
to tell Chekov's tricorder to scroll down to the
next set of readings.
  "Name?"
  "You know: what others call you." He stopped
to look at the neural series. It made even
less sense than the tegument test. "The way they
call me
  McCoy."
  The Ornaet made another scratchy noise,
once that didn't translate. Oh boy,
McCoy thought, since that noise could mean either that the
creature's name had no equivalent in any
language known to the Translator, or that it had
misunderstood his question and said something else that the
Translator
  wasn't able to handle. "Hmm," McCoy said.
"Would you mind repeating that?" The Ornaet produced
the scratchy noise again, exactly the same as before.
"Well then," McCoy said, "you won't mind if
I call you Hhch, bearing in
  that that's the best I can do with that noise you just made,
and I have no idea what my pronunciation's like, and
I don't know how well you're able to understand me, or
whether that's even your name to begin with. Pleased to
  meet you, anyway."
  The Ornaet bumped him again, perhaps by way of
acknowledgment. "What do you call this part of you,
Hhch?" McCoy said, patting the
creature's hide once more.
  The Ornaet made another sound. "Skin, would that
be?" McCoy said, pulling up a bit of skin from
his own forearm to illustrate.
  "Yes, skin," said Hhch.
  "There's one for you, Kerasus," he said, and went
back to looking at the readouts. "Now then, let's
see what the rest of your insides are like. Good
God, son, a potato has more of an EEG than
you do. But you obviously think and move, and you're a
carbonbased life form. What are you using instead of
bioelectricity? Unless you're all chemical
neurotransport, like a Denebian? That wouldn't
make any sense, not with your physical structure.
Such as it is."
  "I have structure," said the Ornaet, rather
suddenly. McCoy looked at it, wondering
exactly what it meant.
  "You have indeed, Hhch, my lad. But not like anything
I've seen in this
  month of Sundays. Here, Chekov," McCoy
said, feeling around behind him, "do me a favor and do a
chemical study. That looks like a
neurotransmitter site to me, you see that
microstructure there?-no, on the next
screen-right comput the molecular analysis module
on that and see 54
  if there are any compounds at the end of that
structure that look willing to unravel. Or
unwilling," he added, bemused. "Anything goes in
this lad's
  insides, it looks like. Heavens, what a
report I'm going to write . . ."
  "Doctor," Spock said from across the room, where
he was still talking to the Ornaet who had first greeted
them, "to write a successful report, one must first
understand what one is writing about-at least well enough to
  form theories that have a chance of standing up."
  "You just be quiet now, Spock," McCoy said,
feeling cheerful for the first time since the mission had
started. "By the time it comes time to start
  writing, you can bet I'll have a few theories."
I dearly hope, he thought. Spock raised an
eyebrow and said no more to McCoy, but went back
to his
  conversation with the Ornaet. McCoy smiled and
turned back to his work.
  "Now then," he said to Hhch, "let's see what
kind of nerves you've got . . . ."
  "Where's Dr. McCoy?" Kirk said,
looking up and down the table in the
  briefing room with some surprise.
  It was late evening, ship's time. The landing party
had returned some hours before, and another one had been
sent down to do surveys on the local flora and
other nightside activities. All the members
of the original party were around the table now, with their
department heads, all but McCoy.
  "Lieutenant Burke," Kirk said, "where is
he?"
  She looked flustered. "Captain, the last I
heard from him, about an hour ago, he was still down on
the
  planet's surface. He knew when the meeting
was, and told me he'd be here for it. I assumed
he was going to meet me here."
  Kirk sighed. This was something he'd had to deal with
before, in McCoy; he might complain about overwork for
his department, or other departments
  aboard ship, but he didn't even think about how
he drove himself. Kirk
  touched the communications switch on the table and said,
"Bridge?
  Lieutenant Brandt."
  "Sir," the evening communications officer's
voice came back.
  "Find Dr. McCoy. We're waiting on him
down here."
  "Yes, sir. his
  Kirk sat back. "We can at least do some of the
preliminaries. Spock? The diplomatic
situation, as it stands."
  Spock folded his hands. "Sir, as we knew,
serious efforts must wait until the Translator
is better calibrated. But we are certainly
better off
  tonight than we were with the information from the survey
report, and our data is of a much finer degree of
accuracy." Kirk smiled; there was Spock making
his position clear. No one aboard more thoroughly
loathed inaccurate data.
  "I spent most of my time downplanet
attempting to
  refine our knowledge of the Ornae's concept of them
  selves and their relationship with the other sentient
  species on the planet," Spock said, "with
special
  attention to anything we might be able to discover
  about their organizational and political
structures.
  There is a great deal more to discover-waiting again,
  as I said, on the improvement of the Translator
  algorithms-but briefly, I believe we can
rely on the following information. First of all, the
Ornae seem to perceive almost everything as fluid:
  relationships, language, as was mentioned before, and
structures both
  physical and nonphysical. They are quite
surprised by our rigidity, and it was my sense that they
find us not necessarily unacceptable, but certainly
rather abnormal. However, they have what for us would be an
unusually
  accepting nature, for beings that have never until
recently seen another
  sentient species-possibly again a function of
their own fluidity and the way it affects their thinking.
They do not mind us being as rigid as we are, but they do
look narrowly at us, expecting us at any moment
to give up our
  present physical forms for something different."
  "I hate to disappoint them," Kirk said.
"They're going to have to deal with it. Does it seem like
a problem to you?"
  "It does not," said Spock. "There will be
problems enough elsewhere, I
  should think. After some discussion, it became plain that
these beings have no organizational structure anything like
ours. No one rules the planet: decision making
is strictly a personal matter, which is
probably wise,
  since anyone may change shapes or plans at
any given moment. There are
  periods of cooperation, as we saw in the buildings
down on the
  planet-structures for which I have as yet been
unable to discover a
  purpose. These creatures seem to have no need for
shelter in the classic sense. Their environment is
generally unable to harm them, and they seem to need no
protection from it. But at any rate, each
individual decides
  whether to be part of a community or not; they have little
influence over
  one another, and none over the other species, whom
they describe with words for which we have as yet no
referents."
  "Does the tone seem friendly?" Uhura said from
down the table.
  "Difficult to tell," Spock said. "We have not
yet enough vocabulary
  information to do the autoemote calibration on the
translator. It may be some days yet. These people
are not purposely obfuscatory, but their
  mindset is very different indeed from the hominid, and
common ground will take a while to establish."
  Uhura nodded.
  "The Ornae," Spock said, "seem to have no
concept of work or the need for it. They survive
apparently by direct energy acquisition from the
  surrounding environment, though we are as yet
uncertain as to the mechanism by which they achieve this.
They do not eat, drink or excrete; they need no
shelter, as I have said; besides accidental trauma,
there really appears to be nothing on the planet that can
affect them adversely. They have no
  physical needs as we normally consider them.
They seem to have a rich
  social life, but as to what does occupy their
days, we have little sense as yet. They are not idle,
by any means. But most of the concerns that we find
important, I suspect will seem useless or
foolish to them. This will of
  course affect the diplomatic outcome
somewhat."
  Somewhat, Kirk thought ruefully. What
incentives to community do you ofer a species that
doesn't need anything, and doesn't understand why you
do? "I should take it from here, I think," Uhura
said. Spock nodded at her to let her know he was
finished for the moment. "Captain, their language, as
much of it as we've got so far, makes it plain that
the Ornae 58
  would be a wonderful addition to the Federation-if we
could just persuade
  them to join. These people have a higher verb density in their
spoken
  language than any species in the Galaxy.
Given differences in sentence
  structure, the relative density is something like
ten verbs to every two
  nouns. Their pronouns are all verbs-which I
suppose shouldn't surprise us, when you consider that
these people make tools and buildings out of
  themselves. They cannot imagine not acting on their
environment. Which begs the question, how do they act on
it?-since they don't need to eat, drink, or work.
Or apparently to sleep, either."
  Burke looked thoughtful. "That rich social
life, maybe. They act on each other."
  "So it seems. That building behavior
we saw today may be some indication of it. Or they
act on the other species."
  Lt. Kerasus nodded. "When we started getting
onto the interspecific
  topics," she said, "we got a whole flood of
new verbs, more than we could handle-was
  "You asked for more verbs," said McCoy as he
came in, "you got them. Better watch what you
ask for. Sorry for being late, everyone."
  "Sit down, Bones," Kirk said. "We're not
that far along." He looks awful, Kirk thought.
McCoy looked drawn-the look that Kirk had
learned to
  recognize as the dehydration of someone who hadn't
stopped for food or
  drink for some hours.
  Kerasus smiled a bit ruefully at
McCoy. "You're right about that, anyway," she said.
"The interspecific verbs were of great complexity and
  length-verbal action piled on action, so that a
whole sentence's worth of activity takes place
in one concept."
  "Lieutenant," Kirk said, "how close are
we to a
  level of translation that we can trust enough
to start making some advances on the diplomatic
side?"
  Kerasus and Uhura looked at one another, then
in unison shook their heads. "I'd be lying if I
gave you any concrete time or date," Uhura
said. "Sir, we need a great deal more vocabulary
before we'll be ready to talk about anything more advanced
than the weather."
  "Well," Kirk said, "we can't rush this, so do
what needs doing, in your own time. Doctor," he
said, "doubtless you were deep in data gathering, and
  must have something fascinating to tell us."
  "Well," McCoy said, glancing at the
datapadd he had brought in with him, and then pushing it
away as if annoyed with it, "fascinating it is, but
not necessarily illuminating. The Ornae have one
of the most mutable
  physiologies I've ever seen or heard of.
I carried out four examinations on the same beingeach
about three hours after the exam before it-and major
  portions of its interior physiology changed between
each examination and the one before. Energy transport
mechanisms, plasma flow, neural currents, you
name it. I was trying to discover whether this is a
voluntary or
  involuntary change, but the good creature seems
not to know the difference, or believe in it. Whether this
is a translator problem or not, I don't
  know." He glanced at Uhura and Kerasus.
  They both shook their heads again. "Doctor,"
Kerasus said, "we've been
  chasing that question in circles too. The Ornaet
idea of causality is
  peculiar enough to begin with. They seem to think they are
the cause of
  everything that happens to them. Even things that they
didn't know about, and couldn't have. Like the arrival of the
original survey party . . . and our 60
  own." She chuckled. "They were surprised to see
us, but they told us they
  had made us come. Or something to that effect: without more
vocabulary and more feeling for the verb structure, it's
still hard to tell whether that's what they actually mean,
or whether we've just misplaced a
subjectstobject
  pair."
  McCoy nodded. "I was afraid of that. Well,
all I can say is that if any of the other species
on this planet share this mutability, we're going
to have a nightmare in front of us in terms of
understanding their physical setup. I desperately
hope there's a pattern to the physiological
changes I've been seeing, but it's going to take
some days of monitoring to tell whether
  that's the case. We are going to need a lot of
physical exams done each
  day, since one horrible thought that's occurred to me
is that each
  individual Ornaet may have its own pattern of
change, or kinds of changes."
  Kirk nodded. "Noted. Spock? What about the
other species?"
  "We asked the Ornae if they would arrange
meetings with some
  representatives of the Lahit and beAt,"
Spock said. "They agreed, as far as I can tell;
at least, the individual with whom I spoke said it
could be
  done, and would be. But there seemed an atmosphere
of reticence about the other species, the beAt in
particular. I have no idea why, and asking the wrong
question at this point in an attempt to get to the bottom
of the
  issue could do more harm than good."
  "All right," Kirk said. "We'll
take it as it comes. But it's going to be interesting
negotiating a document of association with these people, if
  they're all as disorganized-was He caught himself.
"Excuse me, that term's a bit judgmental. If
they're as nonorganizationally oriented as the Ornae
  seem to be."
  "It may be impossible," Spock said, "at
least, impossible to make an
  agreement for the whole planet. No one species
may contract for the
  others."
  Starfleet had made it very plain in Kirk's
orders that they wanted all the species represented
in an agreement, and would consider a one- or
  two-species agreement a very poor second
indeed. Kirk sighed. Sometimes
  politics gives me a pain, he thought.
We'll do our best for them. Anything else, they'll
just have to deal with it.
  "I understand that, Mr. Spock," Kirk said.
"When did the Ornae think the Lahit and the beAt
would be by"...[*thorn]
  "Their time words are rather peculiar," Spock said,
"but I gather they
  thought something could be arranged for tomorrow or the
next day."
  "Very well, then. We'll shine up the company
silver. Ladies and gentlemen, anything else that
needs to be covered here, for the department heads? The
Sciences briefing will be tomorrow morning."
  Heads shook up and down the table.
  "Dismissed, then. Doctor-was
  The room cleared out slowly. McCoy stretched
in his chair, and as the door closed, said, "Do I have
to stay after school for being late?"
  "I thought you were the one carrying on at me about
overwork," Kirk said. McCoy looked guilty,
but only for a moment. "Jim, you've got to bear in
  mind, this situation is like nothing we've ever seen
before-was
  "Like most of the other situations we see," said
Kirk. "You just calm down a bit and let your
staff take some of the weight. The situation seems
  stable
  enough; larger landing parties can go down tomorrow, and more of
them."
  McCoy nodded and yawned, then looked annoyed
at himself. "Sorry-it's blood sugar. I missed
a meal."
  Kirk wagged a finger at Bones as he
got up. "Shame, shame. Physician, feed
thyself. Better still, come on down to the rec room with
me. I missed
  dinner too."
  McCoy said, "How are you supposed to stay
healthy if you keep skipping
  meals-was
  Kirk told McCoy that he was a pain, and in
nonclinical detail began
  describing where it was as they went out together.
  MCCOY STOOD THERE in the very early morning
sunlight, the next day, shaking his head. "Old Will
Shakespeare would love this," he said softly.
  Next to him, big blond Don Hetsko, one
of Sickbay's other nurses, looked up from his
tricorder bemused. "How so?"
  "Look," McCoy said. "Birnam Wood is
coming to Dunsinane."
  They were standing in the clearing, surrounded by Ornae
again, and by other Enterprise crewmen. Until now,
the main sounds to be heard had been morning noises
of the local forest-the soft, repetitive piping of a
large local
  winged insect that looked surprisingly like a winged
iguana-and the
  cheerful scratchy voices of the Ornae themselves,
overlaid with the
  conversation of the various Sciences people talking to them.
But now there was another sound, growing louder: a swishing
noise, like branches rustling rhythmically. And so
they were. A party of Lahit were moving slowly into the
clearing.
  None of them was less than six feet tall, and
most of them more like ten. They had definite trunks,
and branches, and their general shape was tall and
pointed, like a pine tree's. At least this bunch
is, McCoy thought, for the survey's pictures had
made it plain that there were quite a few forms of the
Lahitit wasn't clear how many. The "leaves"
on the creatures"
  branches were soft and feathery that in shape resembled
pine needles, but were longer and finer, and moved in the
slightest touch of wind. The trunks were a bright
green, like the more stationary trees of the forest; the
  leaves were darker, a slightly blue-green
"spruce" color. Hidden among the leaves were
small bright round shapes, like berries. At first,
McCoy
  thought that was what they were. Then he realized that they
were eyes, and that some of them were looking at
him.
  He commanded the small hairs on the back of his
neck to go down. Next to him, sounding very impressed,
Hetsko said softly, "Goodness. The Day the
Christmas Trees Struck Back."
  "Don't give them ideas, son," McCoy
said, watching the Lahit method of
  locomotion with interest. Walking trees they might
be-or rather, it might be; this could be just one creature,
though there seemed to be about
  fifteen main trunks involved, and they seemed
to be moving independently. At any rate, their
roots never came very far out of the ground. That made
sense, if their roots did indeed function like the
roots of more
  conventional plants; no point in suddenly cutting
off your source of
  nutrients every time you moved. The mechanism of
perfusion in this species was probably going to be
even more interesting than in the Ornae.
  Stop saying "their", McCoy told himself
silently. Don't superimpose your own
prejudgments on the situation. The reality is going
to be weird enough. He said to Hetsko, "Better
store that last group of readings; we're
going to have a whole "nother batch to deal with shortly.
Uplink the new Ornaet stuff to the ship; I'm
going to have to go up there and have another run at the
Translator algorithm later."
  "Right," said Hetsko, and went off to do it, leaving
McCoy to watch Kerasus ambling over to talk to the
Lahit. She looked slightly uneasy, and
McCoy could understand why. She had just gotten to the
point where she was
  beginning to feel mildly confident in translating
elementary Ornaet
  correctly . . . and now she was going straight
back to kindergarten, having to start from scratch with
another species, and make who knows what
  mistakes.
  He ambled over too, thinking that he might as
well get some initial
  physiological readings that he could trust, without
having to wonder later whether whichever crewman had
taken them had been holding the scanner by the correct
end. McCoy glanced at her as he unlimbered his
little personal scanner, and said, "Courage. There's
only one more new species after this."
  "We hope," she said softly. "Good morning,"
she said to the Lahit.
  The Lahit rustled, a sound that McCoy's
Translator rendered as white noise. "As a
preliminary to courtesies," Kerasus said, "how
many of you isstare
  there?"
  The trees seemed to bend together for a moment, then
sway upright again. "We are one," said the Lahit.
  That's a big help, McCoy thought
sardonically. Yet 66
  another species that was confused about plurals.
  Heaven knows how many of us it thinks there are. Oh
well . . . it takes all kinds to make up a
universe . . .
  "Thank you," Kerasus said. "While we're
talking, would you mind if one of our physical
specialists examines you? He needn't touch you
if you don't want him to."
  There was more rustling. "Him?" the Lahit said.
  And gender confusion too, McCoy thought. Nothing
about this mission is
  going to be easy, is it?
  "Uh, I'll explain in a while," Kerasus
said.
  The Lahit rustled together again. "Yes," it said
finally, "examine."
  "Thank you," McCoy said, and turned his
scanner on, walking slowly around the Lahit.
Absently he looked over the torn ground in its
wake. Various
  squiggly life was moving in it. Or were those in
fact independent life
  forms? Was it possible those were actually just more
roots, newly detached by the act of "walking"?
Did the creature possibly propagate itself this
way? "Lieutenant Siegler," he said, glancing
up and beckoning a Medicine crewman from across the
clearing, "I can't look at these just now. Get some
readings, will you? I want to know if they're
independent of our friend
  here."
  Lt. Joe Siegler hurried over, making some
adjustments to his tricorder, and McCoy went
back to what he was doing. The mediscanner was sopping
up raw data as fast as it could, and McCoy could
only abstract a little of it
  while the thing was in rapid-gather mode. Very low
systemic pressures, he thought; might as well be
trees, that way. Maybe the standard
exovegetative model will be more useful than we
originally thought. Hmm-interesting echo reading
there-a structure 67
  something like a heart, but stretched right up and down
  the inside of each "trunk"-cylindrical,
gravity-run
  mostly, like a human venous system more than any
  thing else-pockets and traps in the "veins, was the
actual movement of the creature pushes the f uid
back up into
  the circ system, the way walking does with
humans.
  Funny, 1 would have expected something more strictly
  capillary-the parallel with xylem and phloem in
trees
  back on Earth is close enough, there are those
two sets
  of "muscular" layers inside the trunk with the
fibers
  running in opposite directions-
  His communicator bleeped. McCoy swore.
The Lahit and Kerasus both looked at him, the
Lahit with considerably more eyes and less
expression.
  "Sorry," he said, "got carried away." He
took out his communicator.
  "McCoy."
  "Doctor, was Spock's voice said, "the
Captain has asked me to find out
  whether your interim physio report on the
Ornae is ready. StarJleet is
  apparently becoming impatient. his
  McCoy thought of several things he could say, but
there was no point in it, because Spock was out of visual
range, and he wouldn't have the pleasure of watching him
resist changing expression. "I'm about to do the final
polish on it," he said. "Can it wait half an
hour?"
  "7n my estimation, no. his
  "Dammit," McCoy said, "they're five
hours away by subspace radio, it's got to be the
middle of the night at Starfleet Command; don't those
people ever sleep? It's bad for them. Never mind,
Spock, I'll be up in a few minutes. I
didn't want to go away without a bit of Lahit
data, that's all."
  "They have arrived?"
  "Big as life and twice as natural. You ought
to get down here yourself.
  Then again," McCoy said, "maybe you'd better
not just yet. I don't know if I'd want to tell
one of these creatures that I was a
vegetarian."
  "Regrettably, was Spock said, "7 too
am in the throes of report compilation, and must defer
the opportunity for some time yet. I shall tell the
Captain you will be here soon. his
  "You do that. Have the Transporter room give me
a beam-up in forty seconds, will you?"
  "Affirmative. his
  "Ou."
  He put the communicator away and finished his
walk around the Lahit.
  Kerasus was still talking to it, asking question after
simple question,
  listening to the answer, and then coming up with another question,
in a
  clear, patient voice. She was one of those people with a
very mobile face that revealed every passing thought as it
went by; and from the way her
  eyebrows were jumping around and her mouth was quirking,
it was plain she wasn't entirely pleased with the
results she was getting. Fortunately the Lahit
was in no condition to read her expressions . . . at
least McCoy
  sincerely hoped not.
  "How are the verbs coming?" he said, as he
packed up the mediscanner.
  She threw him a look of extreme desperation.
"Haven't hit one yet," she
  said.
  "Keep at it."
  A few seconds later the world shimmered out, and
McCoy found himself in the Transporter room.
  He hurried to Sickbay, which was slightly
crazed when he arrived there.
  Several people were in having routine examinations, and one
of the previous day's 69
  landing party was being seen for some scratches on his
arms. McCoy stopped next to Morrison and had
a look at them. The scratches were puffy and
  inflamed;
  one set on the forearm was even slightly edematous
and showed some small
  vesicles, blisters filling with clear fluid.
"When did these start to bother you?" McCoy said.
  "Last night, pretty late. I'm not even
sure how I got them; I didn't bump
into anything that I can remember."
  "Hmm. Do you have problems with cortisone? No,
of course you don't. Lia, give him some
CorTop cream and a prospray of the
euthystol. That should
  clear this up. If you don't see any
improvement by this evening, stop in again and we'll try
something more aggressive."
  "He's had the euthystol," Lia said, coming up from
behind McCoy and handing Morrison an applicator
tube. "You think we sit around here waiting for you
to diagnose things? That report is in your office,
on your terminal-better hustle."
  "Nobody needs me," McCoy muttered,
"everybody rides me, I think I'll go eat
worms." He headed into his office and sat down
at his desk, staring at the terminal. "Scroll,"
he said to it, sighing.
  It showed him a report that was essentially a
written version of the
  previous night's debriefing on the Omae. In
a couple of places he stopped the machine and added
a bit of data, or clarified a statement that could have
been misunderstood by the more inflexible minds at
Starfleet. In
  McCoy's opinion there were far too many of
them-armchair officers who had forgotten how to really
understand the sciences-but he couldn't do much
  about that at the moment.
  It took him about twenty minutes to get the
report into shape, and finally he told the machine
to send it along to Spock's station on the Bridge.
He was just reaching out for the button when the communicator
went off:
  "McCoy here."
  "Doctor, I really must ask you- His
  "No, you mustn't, because it just went to your machine."
  There was a moment's pause. "So it has. My
apologies, Doctor. his
  "No problem, Spock. If you need me for
anything, I'll be back down on the planet. It
was just getting interesting."
  "7 dare say it was. Spock out. his
  Now, was that the slightest little bit of annoyance
there? McCoy thought, as he headed out of his office,
through Sickbay again, and out. Just
  outside the door, he turned and poked his head
back in. "Lia, did you get that last set of
readings on the Lahit?"
  [*reg] ,
  No.
  "Damn, did the uplink go on the fritz?
Wait a moment." He pulled out the mediscanner and
pushed it into one of the reader bed's ports,
activating it. The scanner poured its data into the
bed's memory. Lia looked up from noting something in
Morrison's records and gazed with interest at the
  picture the screen above the bed drew of the
Lahit's internal structure. "Just echosound, that
reading?" she said.
  "Yup. Interesting, eh?"
  "Good thing I've got a green thumb," Lia
said, clearing her padd off: "By the way, the
Captain was down here earlier. He wanted to see you
after you finished that report."
  "Did he sound urgent?"
  "Not particularly."
  "Good-then it can wait another hour or so. I've
got to get back down there and talk to the trees."
  When he reappeared in the clearing, it looked as
if Birnam Wood really had come to Dunsinane.
There was a whole group of Lahit there now-or perhaps
a whole grove of them would be a better word, or
orchard-and the Sciences
  people were all talking to them as fast as they could, running
scanners
  over them and waving tricorders. McCoy smiled
a bit at the sight.
  Something bumped into him about knee level.
He glanced down and saw that it was an Ornaet.
"Good morning," he said.
  "Good morning to you too," the Ornaet said quite
clearly; or at least that was what the Translator
made of it. McCoy raised his eyebrows.
Kerasus and Uhura must have been up all night
doing algorithm work.
  "Is there something I can do for you?" McCoy said,
going down on one knee. He hated talking down
to people, and with the Ornaet it was difficult to avoid it.
  "Will you examine?" it said.
  "Ah," said McCoy. This then was the gentleman
he had been working on
  yesterday. Or lady, he added, if gender is
even an issue with these people. Something we'd better
find out pretty quick. "Gladly," he said, and
pulled out his mediscanner, touching its controls first
to make sure that this set of readings would add itself to the
set already stored aboard ship.
  Sometime in the next hour the scanner would call the
ship's library
  computers and dump its newly acquired data,
emptying its temporary memory to make room for
  more information. "How have you been feeling since
yesterday?"
  The Ornaet was quiet for a moment. McCoy
began to sweat a bit as he ran the mediscanner
over it. No matter how good the Translator
got, it wouldn't
  stop you from asking questions that had no cultural
referents, or were
  somehow insulting. But the Ornaet shook itself a
bit and said, "You inquire of method? Or
condition?"
  Thank heaven, McCoy thought, they've got the
first-stage idiom sorter
  installed. At least these critters won't have to be
relentlessly literal . . . and neither will we.
"Condition," he said.
  "No complaints," said the Ornaet.
  McCoy chuckled a bit at that. "You're about the
only one I've seen today who seems willing to say
that," he said. "Except maybe for them." He
nodded at the Lahit, waving a hand at them for good
measure in case the Ornaet
  might not know how to read the head gesture.
  The Ornaet put up eyestalks for a moment and
gazed at the Lahit. "They
  don't complain either," it said after a moment.
  Now this was interesting. "How can you tell?"
McCoy said. "Oh, and leave those eyestalks out
for a moment, would you? I want to look at them."
  The Ornaet kept looking. "Just know," it said.
"Feeling."
  "Hmm," McCoy said. There was no direct
way to test esper ratings in a new species,
except to have a known psi-talented crew member do
an assessment; and the only one he would really trust
to do that was Spock. But Spock had his hands full,
and besides, McCoy hated to ask him to do psi
evaluations on 73
  other entities. From what he understood of the
Vulcans' code of mental
  privacy, asking something of this sort was like asking a
doctor to test for diabetes mellitus the
old-fashioned way. Not very pleasant at all, either
  sensually or esthetically. Better to wait for more
vocabulary, and then run a rhine series.
  "I take it that you and the Lahit see one another
pretty frequently," McCoy said. "I mean,
you socialize." This is amazing, he thought. The
optical
  tissue is actually multicellular. That's
recognizable retinal tissue,
  there, with rods and cones. And a compound
lens, very sophisticated. But it all goes away
at w"...Would you mind terribly making one of those eyes
go away? Can you do just one? Not too quickly,
please."
  "Of course," the Ornaet said, and slowly the
lefthand eyestalk was subsumed back into the
Ornaet's main body mass. "Yes, we
socialize."
  "What about?" McCoy said. "If I may
ask. What kinds of things do you do
  together?" Damn, look at that. The cells just
melted away. Not all at once, either, but one at
a time. I wonder, if we found the right words; could
we teach these creatures to synthesize new organs
for themselves? Would they want to, though? Or need to?
He shook his head and put the mediscanner
  away.
  "We talk," said the Ornaet.
  "Can you tell me what about?" said McCoy,
sitting down next to the Omaet. And then added,
"I'm sorry. I was calling you Hhch yesterday.
Was that
  really your name? Or was I mispronouncing it?"
  The creature made that scratchy noise again that the
translator clearly
  rendered as laughter. "You mispronounced," it
said, "but no harm. You have words slowly, yes?"
  "Yes, indeed," McCoy said, and laughed a
bit himself. "We'll get more as we go along."
  "My name is Hhhcccccchhhhh," said the
Ornaet, and then he and McCoy both laughed
together, because it was clear the words weren't there yet.
  "Maybe tomorrow," McCoy said. "But what do you
and the other species talk about?"
  There was a pause. Then, "Life," said the
Ornaet.
  McCoy nodded. "This means yes," he said.
"Well, so do we, my friend. The details will come out
with time."
  "What do you talk about?" said the Ornaet.
  McCoy stretched, thinking. "Work," he said,
"play, relationships . . . the things that happen in the
world . . . things that we can do something
  about, and things that we can't."
  The Ornaet was quiet for a moment. "Yes," it
said. "What is work?"
  Oh brother, McCoy thought. "Work," he said,
"is when one must do things one doesn't always feel like
doing, because they need to be done, for some
  reason. If you're lucky, you like doing
work most of the time. Not
  everyone's that lucky."
  Another long silence. "Yes," it said. "I
know. Some of us work."
  "Really?" McCoy said, surprised. "Doing
what?"
  The Translator emitted several short blasts
of static.
  "Oh well," McCoy said, "never mind.
We'll have more words in a while."
  "No," said the Ornaet. "I can show you."
  "Really?" McCoy was on his feet in a moment.
"Where?"
  "Come," said the Ornaet.
  They went off through the clearing, the Ornaet
  leading the way, McCoy following, trying not
to trip over other Ornae-they did seem to be
everywhere this morning-and zigzagging around more copses of
Lahit. There were more and more of them, too, rustling and
hissing, and
  looking at the Enterprise people with all their eyes.
  The Ornaet led him out of the clearing, into the forest
again, by one of the many paths. This was a broadish path that
seemed to have seen a lot of use recently, to judge
by the broken branches on either side of it.
Also, there seemed to have been something rather larger than the
Ornae using it. "Tell me something," McCoy
said as they went along. "Do you have animals around
here?"
  "Animals?"
  "Other creatures able to move about, like you. But not
talkers, not
  intelligent."
  "Oh yes," the Ornaet said. "But we keep
them away."
  "How?"
  There was another static attack. "Never mind,"
McCoy said again. "I'm much more interested in work at
the moment."
  "Here," said the Ornaet.
  They came out into another clearing. This one was wider
than the one where most of the Enterprise people were. There
were none of the wonderful self- built buildings as in
the other clearing. But there was a large stone, set right
in the middle of everything: a tall, oblong stone,
brownish colored, roughly cylindrical, well
set into the ground.
  McCoy walked up to it with interest, then looked
around the clearing, and finally at the Ornaet. "Where
is the work, then?" he said.
  "Here," said the Ornaet.
  "You mean someone set this stone up, as work?
Hmm." He turned to look at it. There were
certainly marks on it that could be construed as
tool-marks. Chipped stone? he thought. Metal,
perhaps?-Or maybe-what need does a
  species have of tools, when it can make tools out
of itself?
  "No, no," the Ornaet said. And it laughed at
him, so that McCoy looked at it in astonishment and
confusion. "This is work." It paused a moment, then
said, "This is working. his
  "It is?" McCoy said, looking up at the
stone, very bemused. Some kind of machine, inside the
stone? Wouldn't be the first time we've found something like
that-
  And then the stone moved.
  Not much. McCoy backed away in the time it
moved about a foot, leaning
  toward him. But somehow it had not moved. There was no
change in the earth at its foot: no crumbling, no
change in the grasslike plants that grew
  there. The rock was suddenly simply a little closer
to him than it had
  been.
  "Wait, wait," said the Omaet, clearly
pleased with itself. "Not,
  it-indefinite-pronoun is working.
Itpersonal-noun is working."
  McCoy's breath caught somewhere south of his
breastbone.
  "And I can't pronounce your name either," he said
to the beAt. "Not even the name of your species."
  There was a long silence. The beAt looked at
him. How McCoy knew it was
  looking at him, he couldn't say. But he knew
it was; and he was too
  surprised, and-to his own bemusement-awestruck,
to do anything but stand there.
  The creature was not fully physical. On these
grounds at least, the initial survey report had
been correct. It was not a question of the creature being
somehow vague, or misty-looking. It was not. It was
as solid as any Swiss mountain seen from its lower
slopes against clear sky . . . and there was an
equivalent feeling of weight to it, solidity,
thereness. But at the same time, you had the feeling that that
thereness might suddenly stop-a feeling you did not get
with any mountain. McCoy knew that no matter how
many times he might say to the Jungfrau,
in the old words, "Be thou removed," it would stay
right where it was. But looking at the beAt, one was
left with the
  impression that it might remove itself without warning,
and take a great deal with it if it wanted to.
  "At any rate," McCoy finally managed
to say, "good morning."
  "Good morning to you, Doctor," the beAt said.
No hesitation, no difficulties with the syntax;
though the voice itself, even translated, tended
to drive thoughts about syntax away. It was a voice
with overtones of earthquake
  about it, of avalanche-of great force, controlled, but
force that could be suddenly unleashed to some huge effect.
  McCoy took a deep breath or so to help him
manage himself. Then he said, "Sir or madam or
other, do you understand the meaning of the concept
  doctor?"
  "It is not a concept we use ourselves," the beAt
said, "but I believe we
  understand the general sense."
  No syntax problems at all. Oh dear.
Kerasus is going to have a fit. In
  fact, I d have one myself, right now, if there was
time. "Then may I
  examine you as I have done with my friend here?" 78
  "You may."
  Nothing else: just the sound of the wind in the trees.
McCoy cleared his throat, pulled out the
mediscanner, and did a hasty recalibration on
it-he wanted all its available bandwidth working for this
scan. He keyed it on and began walking around the
beAt. "Would you mind if I touched you?" he
  said.
  "Feel free."
  Idiomatic, too. Good Lord on a bicycle.
He paused halfway through his
  circuit to put a hand on the stone. It was warm.
The mediscanner was
  ingesting data much too fast for him to be able
to tell anything from the sound of it; he was thrown back
on his physical senses, which told him
  nothing except that the creature's outer surface
looked very like an
  igneous stone, granite or something similar.
He wondered idly if there was any radioactivity
that would indicate genuine igneous formation, and
  resolved to check later. "May I ask you a
question, please?" he said.
  "Ask." The rumble sounded good-natured
enough.
  "How many of you are there on this planet?"
  "All of us." Was there an edge of humor there?
Was he being joked with?
  McCoy cleared his throat again.
  "Ah, yes. Do you have a problem with our number
system?"
  "We understand it well enough, I think. Our
numbers in manifestation vary between nine hundred
thousand and one million."
  Vary why, and how?-but it would have to wait. "My friend
here, whose name I can't pronounce," McCoy said,
"said to me while we were coming here that you were doing work."
He finished his circuit. "May I ask what you
were
  doing?"
  His communicator went off.
  He didn't swear this time; it seemed as
inappropriate, somehow, as swearing at the
Jungfrau would have been. "Excuse me, please,"
he said, and pulled it out. "McCoy here-was
  "Bones, was Kirk's voice said, "what do I
have to do to get a word with you these days?"
  "Jim," McCoy said, as politely as he
could, "I promise you on my Oath that
I'll be up there in a minute. I just need to-was
  "Sixty seconds, was Kirk said, "and I'm
counting. his
  "But-was
  "Your Oath, you said. his
  "McCoy out," he said. He looked longingly
at the mediscanner and shut it down. "Sir or
madam or other-was
  "As I understand the term," said the long slow rumble
through his
  Translator, "I think "sir' would do.
  "Thank you. I have to go. I'll be back as soon
as I can. Will you still be here?"
  There was no answer for a second or so. Finally the
beAt said, "That is a philosophical question of some
complexity-was
  The golden shimmer took McCoy away. This
time he did curse, as soon as he couldn't see the
beAt anymore.
  "Though perhaps," it added then, was "madam' would have
been correct as
  well."
  McCoy burst into the Bridge so torn between
delight and wild annoyance that he didn't know which
to let go with first. For the first moments, at
least, the 80
  need to choose was aborted. Kirk was sitting there
in the center seat,
  facing the elevator doors.
  "You made it," he said, "just."
  "Jim," McCoy said, "we've got a
breakthrough on our hands here. It's the beAt."
  "Are you catching cold?" Kirk said, looking
suddenly concerned.
  "No, I am not catching cold! Jim, I think
we're concentrating on the wrong species here. I
was just talking to one of the beAt, and-was He paused for a
moment and looked around the Bridge. It was
surprisingly empty for the time of day: the only ones
there besides Kirk were a Communications officer and someone
from Navigation, sitting in Sulu's spot. "Where
is everybody?"
  "Down on the planet, most of them, or
coordinating data. Or off shift. Sulu had just
done two back to back, and I remember what
I'm told about shift relief."
  "Oh. Well, good. Jim, the beAt translation
algorithm seems to be OK, they have idiom and
everything, and this one said to me that it was-was
  "Doctor, was Kirk said, "you have been
overworking yourself just a bit. I
  think it's time you got some rest. But not even your
own staff seems able to get you to slow down. Nurse
Burke has been complaining to me."
  I'll kill her, McCoy thought.
  "You say a word to her and I'll dock your pay,"
Kirk said, wagging a finger at him. "I want you
to sit down here and write me a decent report, not
like that whitewash you did for Starfleet a little earlier
today. They may be suckered in by all your long words,

  you can't hand me that stuff and expect to get away
with it. I want an
  analysis of what's going on down there."
  "But I can't do that without more data-was
  "Give me what you've got, and make sense of
it. If you just sit still and think for a while, you're bound
to come up with something that will do me some good. And you stay out
of Sickbay to do it, too. You go down there, you'll
just start treating someone for something. Sickbay is off
limits to you except for legitimate medical
emergencies, until further notice. That's a
direct order. Understood?"
  McCoy glowered. It was best to humor Jim when
he got in these moods. They passed quickly
enough. "Understood," he said.
  "Good. And just to keep you out of trouble-was He got
up from the center seat and stretched. "Here. Sit
down."
  McCoy stared at him.
  "Come on," Kirk said. "Have a seat. It's
nice and comfortable; you can sit here and dictate your
report. But anyway, I'm leaving you the conn."
  McCoy was outraged. "You can't do that," he said.
"7 can't do that!"
  "Of course I can," Kirk said, "and of course you
can. You've had line
  officer's training. Not the full Command course,
naturally, but enough to know what to say at the right times.
Not that you'll need to. And I can
  leave anybody with the conn that I please, most
especially a department
  head and a fellow officer. There's no need to be in
the direct chain of
  command at all-that's a common misconception. I
could leave an Ensign
  Third-class with the conn if I 82
  liked, and the situation seemed to call for it.
Well, at the moment, it
  seems to call for Captain's
discretion."
  "Uh-was
  "So sit down," Kirk said.
  "Uh, Jim-was
  "I am leaving the Bridge, Bones. Then I
am going to get something to eat. And then I am going
to go down to the planet and have a chat with Spock, who
is also overworking, and who I've also got to yell
at; and then I'm
  going to meet some of these people we're supposed to be
talking to. I've stood it up here about as long as
I can. And you, Doctor, are going to sit in this comfy
chair, and have a nice relaxing time, and coordinate
data, which you are better equipped to do at the moment
than I am, and then
  you're going to call me on the planet's
surface and give me sage advice. You got
that?"
  McCoy nodded.
  "Then get down here."
  Slowly, McCoy walked down to the center seat,
and very slowly, very
  gingerly, lowered himself into it. It was indeed very
comfortable.
  "You have the conn," Kirk said. "I'll
be back at the end of the shift. Have fun."
  "Mmf," McCoy said as Kirk walked away,
and the Bridge doors closed on him. Leonard
McCoy sat in the command seat of the Starship
Enterprise and
  thought, I'm going to get him for this.
  Kirk had a sandwich and a cup of coffee,
grudging
  the time for anything more complicated. He then took
  himself straight off to the Transporter room, and
  down to the clearing on the surface of Flyspeck.
The sweet taste of the
  fresh air made the hair stand right up on his
neck, as usual. It was one of the small, secret
delights that he had never really managed to tell
anyone about-the scent of a new world's air, for the first
time, with its
  particular compendium of strange new aromas. This
one smelled as if there
  had been rain recently; and there was an odd edge
of spice to the air too, as if the growing things here were
mostly aromatics.
  He glanced around him at the business of the
clearing-all the Ornae and
  Lahit rolling or trundling or wading
around through the ground-and at his crew, doing their jobs,
talking, examining, collecting data. Spock must
be around here somewhere, he thought, and looked around for him,
but couldn't see him anywhere.
  "Morning, Captain," someone said behind him; he
turned and saw that it was Don Hetsko, one of
McCoy's people. "Looking for anyone in particular?"
  "Oh, Spock, if you've seen him."
  "Not for a while. The Doctor went off that way just
a few minutes ago,
  though," Don said, pointing toward one of the paths that
led out of the
  clearing. "You ought to be able to catch him."
  "Thank you, Mr. Hetsko," Kirk said, and
went off that way, smiling
  slightly.
  His businesslike stride slowed to a stroll as he
got into the forest
  proper. The quality of the light here was unusual,
somehow: more intense than he had been expecting. It
was as if some photographer had purposely lit the
place to look both warm and coolly enticing; a
curious effect,
  caused by the brassy gold of 84
  the planet's sun, probably, and the
extreme greenness, almost
  blue-greenness, of its plants' dominant
chlorophyll. The science of the
  situation aside, it was a very pleasant effect,
re/l, and he was in no
  mood to get out of it in a hurry.
  The path gave onto another clearing, bigger than
the first one. Kirk paused on the fringes of it,
looking at the great stone shape in the middle. He
remembered the pictures of the beAt from the briefing;
he remembered McCoy's insistence that the beAt were
the people he wanted to talk to. But at the same time
an odd reluctance came over him, almost a shyness.
There was a sense of remoteness about this creature,
somehow, a feeling that it knew things that might make it
wiser not to disturb it . . .
  Odd feelings, and baseless, of course. Kirk
shook off the slight case of nerves and stepped out
into the bright sunshine of the clearing.
  The beAt @ddaw him coming, Kirk knew, though it
had no eyes that showed, and seemingly no other sense
organs. I wonder if Bones managed to get a
scan on it, he thought. Have to ask him about that later.
Some feet away from it, Kirk slowed down, and
stopped.
  "I beg your pardon," he said.
  There was a long silence before the beAt said to him,
"I am not aware of
  your having done anything that requires pardon."
  The voice was astonishing: it rumbled like a
landslide. But there was
  nothing threatening about it. Rather, its tone of voice was
so grave, and at the same time so humorous, even
through the Translator, that Kirk
  smiled. "That's good," he said. "The phrase is
an idiom of my culture,
  interrupts another. I didn't want to take the
chance that I might have been interrupting you in the middle
of something important."
  "You have not interrupted me, Captain," said the
beAt.
  "I'm glad." He paused and said, "You must have
been the one with whom the Doctor was talking."
  "We did speak," said the beAt.
  Kirk hesitated. "I hope you'll excuse
my ignorance," he said, "but I have no name to call
you by. Not even a gender designation, if you use
such
  things."
  "The Doctor would have called me
Sir," said the beAt.
  Kirk nodded. "If I may, then. Did the
Doctor speak much to you of why we are here?"
  "He began to," said the beAt, "and I said to him
that the matter was one of some philosophical
complexity. He then disappeared."
  "He went back to our ship," Kirk said. "The
vessel in which we travel, and by which we came here."
  "Enterprise, was the beAt said.
  "That's right."
  "I see it," said the beAt. "All silver, but
it shines gold where the
  sunlight touches it. And it has lights of its
own, for the dark."
  "Yes," Kirk said, while thinking with some
excite
  ment, These creatures must have a sensorium that
  we've never seen the like of. I know the sound of a
direct
  perception when I hear one. Anything that can see a
  starship, somehow, from the surface of a planet-what
  else can it see? "Sir," he said, "did he
speak to you at
  all of why we came?"
  "No," said the beAt. "No more than
did the first party who arrived here,
  though they asked us many a question. They were cautious.
But we knew well from the sight of them that they did not
come of this world, and had
  traveled from some other."
  Kirk shook his head, thinking, There has to be a
better way to get these initial surveys done.
Dammit, these are intelligent species we're
dealing with, not idiots. They figure out what's going
on quickly enough. How does it make us look?
  He glanced up. The beAt had not moved, but the
sensation that it was looking closely at him grew quite
strong-in fact Kirk was finding it a little
  difficult to breathe normally, with the closeness of that
regard acting
  almost like a physical pressure on him. There was
nothing angry or
  threatening about it. It was merely a level of
interest so intense that it was actually affecting his
body.
  "Sir," he said, "that ship up there, and the people who
are here with your people and the Ornae and the Lahit, are under
my command. We have all come here to see how much we can
discover about your people, and how much we can tell you about us.
Once that is done, we have some questions we would
like to ask all three species as a whole-if that is
even possible. That is one of the things we need
to discover."
  "Many questions," said the beAt. "And what questions do we
get to ask?"
  "Any you like," said Kirk, just a bit nervously.
  "So we shall," said the beAt, and fell silent.
  Kirk stood in that silence and felt the hairs
rising on the back of his
  neck again, but this time for no reason that had anything
to do with the sweetness of the 87
  morning air. That intense interest was bent on him,
and on his ship, and all his people. He could feel it on
his skin, like sunlight, but it was not a
  warming or calming feeling at all.
  "When will we start?" he said at last, when the
silence became too much for him.
  "We have started," said the beAt.
  McCoy sat in the center seat and yawned.
  He was tired, and annoyed, but at the same time
he felt a certain smug
  satisfaction. Kirk had counted on his being
terrified by this experience. Unfortunately he had not
reckoned with McCoy's great talent for learning
to cope at high speed. It was probably
the first important thing a doctor or nurse
learned-how to turn the sudden surprising or annoying
situation into a commonplace.
  He had been playing with the buttons on the center
seat's arms. There was quite an assortment of links
into the library computer, so that even
  without a Science officer at his or her station, you
could display all
  kinds of information on the main Bridge screen, and
even do things like
  voicewrite reports. McCoy had finished the
report that Kirk had asked him for, and then had gone
back to playing with the machinery, pulling various information
up out of the library computer and annotating his report
with it.
  The Bridge intercom whistled, and McCoy
glanced over to the communications officer on post,
Lieutenant DeLeon, to say that he would take it
himself. He pushed the appropriate button on the
seat console and said, "Bridge.
  McCoy."
  "Heaven help us, Doctor, what're ye doing
up there?"
  "Blame the Captain, Scotty," McCoy
said. "He stuck me with the conn two and a
half hours ago."
  Scotty chuckled a little at that. "Well, it'll
do you no harm, I suppose. Himself is
downplanet, I take it. his
  "You take it right. Anything I can help you with?"
  "Not a thing. He had asked me to do a reset on
the warp engines, and I have the figures for him on how
long it would take and how much antimatter we would
need. It can wait till he gets back up. his
  "Why did he want a reset?"
  "bebledh, I talked him into it. It's a matter
of maximizing our fuel
  consumption, is all. He was looking to save some
power by resetting the
  fusion timing. I found a better way, but I
shan't trouble you with the
  details. his
  "Thanks, don't," McCoy said. "I'll
let him know you've got the figures for him."
  "Right you are, was Scotty said. "Engineering out.
his
  McCoy pushed the button with satisfaction, and
sat back in the center seat. "DeLeon," he
said, "would you get me the landing party? I want to see
what they're up to down there."
  "Yes, sir," said DeLeon. A moment later
the screen was showing the main
  clearing down on Flyspeck and crewpeople
all over the place, busily doing their work.
  McCoy saw Spock, and Lia, and various
other people he knew; but there was no sign of Kirk.
  "Off gallivanting again," he said. "Pinpoint the
Captain, would you,
  Lieutenant?"
  "Sure, Doctor." DeLeon touched a few
controls, then peered at his board. It was a curious
look.
  "What's the matter? Did he turn his
communicator off? Just like him," McCoy said,
grumbling.
  "No, Doctor," said DeLeon. "I can't
find him."
  McCoy got up and stepped up to the Communica-
  tions station, looked at the scanner screen, and
frowned. No trace of the
  Captain was showing at all. Even if Jim had
dropped his communicator, the
  scanners would still clearly indicate where it had
fallen.
  But there was no trace of it at all.
  McCoy swallowed hard and called Spock.
  WHEN SPOCK ARRIVED on the Bridge,
McCoy was so utterly glad to see him that he was
tempted to jump up and hug him. Instead, he just
said, "Spock, your damn scanner's gone on the
fritz again."
  Spock favored him with an expression that was
skeptical at best. "Doctor," he said very
gently, as if to a brain-damage case, "that
hardly seems
  likely. Nonetheless, I will run some checks."
  The Vulcan went over to the Science console and
began touching controls
  with the swift certainty of someone who barely even
needs to look at them. "I take it matters are
sufficiently under control in Sickbay as to not
  require your presence there," he said.
  McCoy humphed. "Fat chance, Spock.
Kirk handed me the conn and told me to stay out of
Sickbay except for medical emergencies."
  That made Spock blink. He looked up from his
console-though he did not stop keying in instructions-and
said, "Forgive me, but I should not 91
  want to misunderstand you. You say the Captain left
you in command?"
  "His idea of a little joke. Ask DeLeon,
he was here."
  "It will be on the Bridge procedural recording
as well," Spock said, and turned his attention
back to his work again. McCoy turned away and
watched the front screen for a moment. There was a little
forest of Lahit in that clearing now, and about two
hundred of the Ornae seemed to have gotten
  together to build a much larger structure than had
been there the day
  before-more ornate, with plenty more room inside. They
were considerate
  hosts, if nothing else about them was very clear as
yet.
  McCoy turned back to Spock to see the
Science Officer staring at his
  console with a concerned expression. "Doctor," he
said, "we have a
  problem."
  He had known that, but hearing Spock admit to it
somehow made it much
  worse. McCoy sat down in the center seat, more
by reflex at this point than by preference, and said,
"He is missing."
  "The instruments are working correctly,"
Spock said. "The Captain's
  communicator is not on the planet. According to the
instruments."
  "Never mind the communicator, Spock, where is
he??"
  "Doctor," Spock said, stepping down to the
center seat, "calm yourself.
  There are ways to explain why we might not be able
to find the Captain."
  "Such as?"
  Spock raised an eyebrow. "The Captain
may be in an area having a high
  concentration of some other rare earth element, so that the
communicator's signal is washed out in the
background radiation-was
  "And did you locate any such?"
  "Well," Spock said, reluctant, "I must
admit-was
  "So? What else then?"
  Spock looked at him with as close to a helpless
expression as McCoy had
  seen on him for a long time. "Nothing," he said.
  "Well, the hell with this, was McCoy said.
"I'm going where I can be of some use . . . down
there, to help look for Kirk. You mind the
store."
  He was halfway to the Bridge doors when
Spock said, "Doctor . . . I am
  afraid you don't understand the situation."
  McCoy stopped and looked at Spock in
surprise. "What part of it?"
  "Your part, at least," he said. "Doctor, you
are in command. You cannot
  leave the ship under these circumstances."
  "Dammit, yes I can! I'm turning command over
to you! Where it ought to be, by the way. You're the one who
went all the way through Command School, and you're the
second most senior officer aboard ship. You sit
in the damn
  chair."
  "Doctor," Spock said quietly, "as the
Captain might put it, it would not matter if I were
Commanding Admiral of Starfleet and had a note from
God. I could not accept command from you under these
circumstances. Nor could anyone else. Fleet
regulations are most specific in this regard. An
officer placed in nominal command of a vessel must
retain command until relieved by the commander of
official record. The Captain is not around
to relieve you. Anyone who exercised command
in your place would be liable to
  court-martial-and would not have a leg to stand on, as it
were, in court. And any effort by you to leave your
post-in this case, the Enterprise 93
  would also be a court-martial offense . . .
especially in these
  circumstances, when the Captain is missing. An
emergency, to say the least."
  McCoy sank down onto the Science station
chair and stared at Spock in
  dismay.
  "You are "stuck," Doctor," Spock said.
"I am very sorry." And he sounded it.
  McCoy looked over at Spock. He took
a deep breath or two, thinking, Calm yourself,
boy. You're going to need your wits about you today.
"All right," he said. "You'd better go down there and
get a search started. Find out who saw him last .
. . take it from there."
  Spock nodded and headed for the Bridge doors
himself.
  "And by the way," McCoy added, "can I at least
have a restroom break?"
  Spock nodded. "Give the conn to Lieutenant
DeLeon," he said, "but don't be away
too long. Though," he added, from just inside the
turbolift, "I
  believe the Captain would say, "You should have gone
before we left.""
  "Why, you-was
  The lift doors closed.
  McCoy looked at DeLeon and said, "Take
it, son. I'll be back in a few
  minutes."
  "Yes, sir."
  "And see if you can get Uhura away from her
business downstairs. I need
  some advice."
  "Right, Doctor."
  When he came back to the Bridge, she was there
waiting for him.
  "Lieutenant," McCoy said to the young Comm
officer, "go take a break or
  something. When does your shift end?"
  "In about an hour, Doctor," said DeLeon.
  Lord, where has the day gone? Time goes fast when
you're having fun. He
  glanced at Uhura; she nodded, and McCoy
said, "Never mind coming back, son. You go on
ahead."
  "Thanks, Doctor," he said, and headed out.
  When the lift doors shut, Uhura said softly,
"I hear we have a little
  problem."
  "You bet your sweet-well, never mind. Yes,
we do. Do many of the crewpeople down there know?"
  "All of them do, now. Search parties are working
their way through the
  area." She looked worried. "But the trail
may be getting a bit cold at this point.
Nobody's seen the Captain since this morning, and
only very briefly then."
  "Where was he going?"
  "Off through the woods, on one of those paths. That
big one that seems to get a lot of use."
  A sudden suspicion flowered in McCoy. The
one that led to the clearing
  where the ,At was-"Has anyone seen any beAt
around there?" he said.
  "No," said Uhura, sounding faintly
surprised. "Doctor, I think it's more of a
glottal stop, that noise."
  "Never mind the pronunciation. Anyway, I
want to hear one of them say it. Uhura, I saw
one this morning. I was talking to it when Jim
made me come up here. I think he may have met it
too."
  "You were talking to it?" she said in surprise. "But
we have hardly any of the algorithms for their
language yet. The survey party could hardly get
anything out of them. Was it fairly easy to understand?"
  "As easy as you are. I was surprised."
  Uhura looked very concerned. "Doctor," she
said,
  "this is very odd. It can't be happening this way . .
. unless that species knows a lot more about us than we
think it does."
  McCoy thought of that slow, silent regard bent
on him, the feeling of
  concealed, controlled power, and shivered a little. "I
wouldn't put that past them. Uhura, we've got
to find at least one of them and see what it knows."
  "It would help if we had some scan information,"
she said, sounding
  dubious. "On the outside, they just
  seem to look like big rocks. There are a lot of
rocks on this planet."
  "Not that many rocks that move, was McCoy said.
"And only about a million of them, according to the beAt
I was talking to this morning. Never mind that;
I've got a scan. Here." He reached down for his
instrument pouch, which had come straight up to the Bridge
with him, and handed Uhura his mediscanner. "Good,"
she said, and went over to her station, popping the scanner
into one of its input ports. She touched a button
on her board, then squinted for a moment at the readout
screen. "Uh-uh," she said. "It's dumped its
  memory."
  McCoy muttered. "Yes, it would have. Check the
library computer; the file should be in there."
  Uhura nodded, touched a few more controls, and
waited. "Here we are," she said, gazing at the
screen; then started to shake her head.
  McCoy's stomach began to tie itself into a little
knot. "What's the
  matter?"
  "I've got your uplink here," she said, "but
there's trouble in the visual component. What's this?"
  She touched another control and brought what she was
seeing up onto the
  main screen. In the back-
  ground of the shot, McCoy could see the other side
of the big clearing, the view changing as he carried the
mediscanner around something in the center of the shot. What
the something was, though, there was no telling.
All the screen showed was a silvery vagueness,
foggy, an oblong shape with no
  detail.
  "Damn, was McCoy said.
  "Your scan information is gone too, I'm
afraid," Uhura said. "Not wiped; the scan bands
are just blank, as if your scanner didn't
record."
  "This isn't my day for machinery, I can see that,"
McCoy said.
  "Not the machinery's fault," Uhura said
promptly. She had been doing
  something else with her console. "I get faint
scan artifact in some of the bands from the background
life forms-too faint to be of any use for data
collection, naturally. But your scanner was picking
up some of the fluid movement in the plant life in the
background, for example."
  "Yes, it does that . . . but usually the life
form it's being directed at simply drowns out the
background readings, by proximity. Now what does
this mean?"
  Uhura shook her head and took the scanner out
of the reading port, handing it back to McCoy. "Your
guess is as good as mine," she said.
"Probably
  better, since you saw the beAt, and I
didn't." She looked very curious.
  "What did it sound like?"
  "Trouble," McCoy said, only half listening.
"Like something you wouldn't want angry at you." His
stomach went cold at that thought; he had to con-
sciously push the fear away. "Never mind.
Maybe," he said, thoughtful, "it didn't want
to be scanned?"
  He looked at Uhura. She tilted her head
to one side, eyes narrowed.
  "Possible," she said. "Species that are 97
  good at handling energy flows can do that sometimes.
Take our scans of the Organians, for example,
before they revealed themselves. We thought we were dealing with
hominids . . . and they manipulated our instrument
readings to make it look that way. We never thought
to question what was going on. These people-was She looked at the
screen. "That," she said, "is energy management of
great virtuosity, if your theory's correct. A
creature that could do that could do all kinds of other
things."
  "But it didn't try to trick us, as far as we
know," McCoy said, trying very hard to keep
strictly to the facts. "It just concealed its own
readings. Why would it want to do that, I wonder?"
  "Privacy taboos?" Uhura said.
  McCoy sighed. "Until we talk to more of them,
we'll never find out. And
  they don't seem to be quite as forthcoming as the other
species."
  Uhura laughed at that, a short sound, and
slightly sarcastic. "Don't bet on the others
being any more "forthcoming," Doctor. I spent
all morning
  discussing the nature of reality with some of the
Ornae. They don't really believe in us."
  McCoy blinked. "This theme keeps coming up,"
he said. was "Don't believe in us" how? Are
we against their religion? Or is there something they
don't approve of?"
  "Not that, exactly," said Uhura, sitting back
and sighing. "They just don't think we're real. Or
no, that's not exactly it. They know we're here. But
they don't think we're human."
  "What? Two arms, two legs, one head, what
else should "human' be? More or less."
  "Not that way. They don't think we're people. It's
98
  not prejudicial on their part. They like us well
enough; they like talking to us. But they don't think we
matter, particularly. The things we find
  important seem laughable to them. And why not?"
Uhura said. "In their
  worldview-theirs and the Lahit's both, they seem
to share this-the basic
  survival needs, air, water, food, are all
there for the taking-or don't even need to be taken, in
the Ornae's case. You just live. They simply
start at a higher rung of the self-actualization
ladder than we do. They have all
  those basic physical needs met already, and
don't have to deal with them
  consciously. Their concerns are all social. They
may be the most social
  species the Federation will ever have encountered, in
fact."
  "Be a nice change from some people we've run
into over the years," McCoy muttered.
  "Well, yes. They understand the idea of a Federa-
  tion, too-more or less. They just don't understand
  our reasons for having one. They might join us just
to chat. But they would never think of joining us because we had
something they wanted. As far as I can tell,
we have nothing they would want or need-except perhaps
ourselves, to talk to. The language of any
association agreement would have to be
  changed to reflect that, and I'll be telling the
Captain so-was
  "When we find him."
  "Yes," Uhura said, and concern showed in her
face. "I must admit, I'm
  worried."
  "You think you're worried," McCoy said.
"Well, never mind that at the
  moment. I suppose Starfleet is going to want
to hear from us sooner or
  later and find out how we're getting on." He
groaned. "This is one
  conversation I'm going to love having."
  "It won't be a conversation," Uhura said, "not
at
  five hours' subspace radio distance, it
won't. You put together a report and get it ready
for me-our next scheduled transmission should go out in
about an hour and a half, and you don't want them
getting any ideas that you're
  having trouble with things by being late with the news."
  "I am having trouble with things,
dammit!" McCoy said. "I'd be delighted if
they'd relieve me. Here, quick," he said, "get
me a padd. I'll certify
  myself unfit to command. Stress, that's a good
excuse. Then they'll put
  Spock in this miserable chair instead of me-was
  "Doctor," Uhura said, her voice full of
pity, "don't you just wish. But
  there's no way they'll do it. Relief of command
by "remote control' is very rarely done,
specifically because it very rarely works out. On this ship
in particular. The time or two that Fleet has done
something so dumb, they've regretted it. And think how
it would look on your service record."
  "Mmf," said McCoy unhappily. "Hadn't
thought of that."
  "Think of it," Uhura said. "Poor Doctor.
You've got the tiger by the tail this time."
  He nodded. "Nothing to do but hang on, I
guess."
  "You do that. We'll all help you."
  "Find me the captain," he said. "That would
help."
  Uhura nodded and turned back to her station.
  McCoy sat there drumming his fingers on
the arm of the seat. He shifted
  uneasily. The cushions were feeling a lot
less comfortable than they had earlier.
  Spock came back from the planet surface some
three hours later, looking, to McCoy's
practiced eye, 100
  very drawn-not physically tired, but showing the
effects of not having
  produced any results whatever.
  "We're going to have to have a department heads' meeting
in a while, I
  guess," McCoy said to Spock, "and record
it and send it along to
  Starfleet."
  "I would not do that," Spock said, sitting down at
his station and dropping a couple of tricorder tapes
into one of its reader ports. "Call the
  meeting, certainly. We must intensify our search
for the Captain. But
  Starfleet does not require the details of our
decisionmaking process.
  Also," and there was a slight glint of humor in his
eye as he glanced over his shoulder at McCoy,
"there is no point in giving the, ah, bureaucratic
elements at Starfleet any more insight
than necessary into how we arrive at our decisions."
  "How I arrive at my command decisions, you
mean," McCoy said.
  Spock nodded. "The bureaucratic mind," he
said, "will always find some way to meddle if at all
possible. If faced with a decision-making process
that they find too . . . original . . ."
  "Too intelligent, you mean. Or too
consultative."
  "Precisely. Under such circumstances, you could
find yourself issued orders which you would be required
to carry out, but which would be most . . .
  distasteful."
  "You mean stupid."
  "I believe I said that," Spock said. "Though
perhaps not in so many words."
  "Spock," McCoy said, in a moment's
gratitude, "when this is all over, I'm going
to cancel your next physical."
  The look Spock gave him had more than a
trace of mischief about it.
  "Dereliction of duty, Doctor?" he 101
  asked. "I could never allow you to behave in such a
manner. I will take my physical in good part."
  "And find some other way to ride me about
this for the rest of my life," McCoy said.
  Spock didn't quite smile as he turned away.
  "All right," McCoy said. He looked over his
shoulder. "Uhura, call the
  department heads . . . tell them we should meet in
the briefing room in an hour. Special attention
to Linguistics and Biology; I want everything
we've got on all the species so far. I also
want a report to the minute on when the Captain
disappeared. Starfleet is going to want at least a
few concrete facts."
  "Yes, sir," Uhura said, and started calling
around to the various
  departments of the ship.
  McCoy looked over at Spock. "I take
it," he said, "that no one has seen
  anything of the beAt today."
  Spock shook his head. "Uhura was kind enough
to give me your mediscanner's readout file for
signal analysis," he said. "I must admit that
at first I thought you might have mishandled the device
somehow. But two thoughts
  suggested otherwise: the fact that you are most
intimately familiar with the equipment after years of
using and even improving on it; and the
  certainty that even you could not misuse an instrument
so selectively and skillfully."
  McCoy sat still for a moment doing mental sums in
his head and trying to work out whether that sentence, taken as
a whole, came out to a compliment. He decided it
didn't, and decided to ignore it. "Thank you,"
he said. "Were you able to tell anything useful from the
scan?"
  "Something not useful," Spock said, "but certainly
odd. Your scanner picked up some incidental

  radiation in the neighborhood, for which it was not
specifically calibrated, but which it recorded
nonetheless."
  "Radiation? Anything dangerous?" McCoy said,
alarmed.
  Spock shook his head. "Merely odd. There was
an over-threshold amount of high-energy particle
decay: some Cerenkov radiation, and Z-particle
  remnants. Most peculiar."
  "But Cerenkov radiation is associated with
black holes," McCoy said. "There aren't any
of those here."
  "Indeed not. Cerenkov radiation, however, is also
associated with the
  sudden deceleration of a superrelativistic body
in atmosphere."
  "Someone traveling faster than light, and slowing
down-was
  "Or some thing. Mere subatomic particles can be
responsible. The number
  your scanner recorded was very small, too small
to indicate a spacecraft or anything of the kind."
  "But still above the threshold amount," McCoy said.
  "Yes."
  He shook his head. "What about the
Z-particles?"
  "Again," Spock said, "I am at a loss
to understand their presence.
  Naturally occurring Z-collisions and decay
are rare enough that it has
  always taken great amounts of sensitive equipment
to detect them. But here they do not seem to be rare.
Or did not while you were scanning. My own
  scans, conducted over the past hours with much more
sensitive equipment, showed no such collisions
taking place."
  "Then it's something associated specifically with the
beAt," McCoy said.
  Spock nodded. "I feel that is a
safe assumption. But
  what it can mean, I have no idea. It is a pity
the rest of your scan was not more revealing, but it was most
skillfully interfered with.-
  64 You think it did that on purpose?"
McCoy said.
  Spock frowned a bit. "We have no direct
evidence of that," he said, "but on the other hand, if the
beAt in question had not wanted its internal workings to be
known or theorized about, it could hardly have managed it
better.
  Statistically, I would find this data at least
suspicious."
  McCoy sighed. "All right," he said. "I'm
going to go take a break. Have
  everybody get their notes together, and I'll see
you in an hour."
  He went down to his quarters. The sound of the
door closing behind him
  filled him with a wild sense of relief, which he
knew was completely
  spurious. In an hour he would have to go out and sit
at the head of the
  table in the briefing room and pretend to run things.
  He sat down in his favorite chair,
probably the oddest thing in his
  quarters, certainly the most expensive. It was
an antique, and he had given up most of his
personal-possessions space allowance for it. It was
a
  genuine Shaker rush-back rocking chair, circa
1980; not the most venerable of its kind-the really old
ones were all in museums-but good enough. It was good for
back problems, and the rocking was soothing.
  I need some soothing now, he thought, as he sat
down. The motion was
  physically comforting. His mind, of course, was
running around in little circles, screaming and biting itself
in the small of the back, 104
  but then that was understandable-and the more clinical parts of his
mind
  weren't troubled by the fact. If he kept rocking
long enough, the body would affect the mind eventually.
It had no choice.
  "Take about a year at this rate, though," he
muttered. He ran a quick check on himself. Palms
clammy, pulse elevated, some fine muscle
tremor, general malaise. Stomach spasm.
Physician, feed thyself, he remembered Kirk
saying. When did I eat last? Was it
really this morning? Not like me to miss meals. My
blood sugar must be down in my socks somewhere. He
reached out, tapped the intercom button, and said,
"Commissary."
  "David here."
  "McCoy. Can you have somebody send me up a
sandwich and a coffee? I'm in my quarters."
  "He leaned back again and sighed, glancing around.
The room seemed smaller than usual. Was this the
way Kirk felt when he took a break during a
  crisis? As if the whole world's trouble was
pressing on the outside door, and would come rushing
over him the minute he opened it again? He could
  understand why sometimes he had to tell Kirk to take
a sleeping tablet.
  Sleep wouldn't come anywhere near him until all
this was resolved.
  Yes, it will, said one of the clinical parts of his
brain.
  A mind that isn't rested is useless. Lowering your
own
  efficiency won't get Kirk back. If you have
to sleep, you
  take the damn pill, or get Lia to hit you
on the head
  with a hammer, or whatever. You don't get
to indulge
  yourself in staying awake and feeling miserable. . .
  not this time.
  He sighed. All the times he had given Kirk
his
  advice, and had been so sure he was right, while
Kirk sat in that center
  seat and joked with him, and sometimes took the
advice, and sometimes
  ignored it .... Often McCoy had been sure
that things would have worked out better, more elegantly, more
simply, if Kirk had done what he told him.
They had worked out anyhow, as a rule, and McCoy
had shrugged and tended his own business in Sickbay,
and made that part of things work.
  But now there was more business to tend to than just
Sickbay, and it was all his responsibility. And
no matter who gave him advice, and no matter
how good it was, the responsibility for the choices
he made would lie with him.
  And if he had a good idea, and acted on it, and
it didn't work, that would be his responsibility too.
  He found himself wondering how Kirk had ever been
able to accept his advice with such good humor,
when he did accept it.
  He found himself wondering whether any of his advice
had ever been good at all, all those times he had
hung over the back of the center seat and made
off-the-cuff suggestions.
  Well, he thought, at least some things are going right
around here. I've gotten all introspective again.
First time I've had the leisure for it in hours. Not
that being introspective was bad for a doctor at
all, especially when he had the kind of
psychiatric responsibilities that McCoy
had, with the whole gestalt of a starship more or less in
his professional hands. But overdoing it could be a
mistake, and sometimes McCoy veered that way. It
was a tendency he had learned to watch out for.
  Someone touched his door signal. He got up and
answered it. There was no one there but a tray, hovering
on its automatic transport pad. McCoy
  chuckled a little: apparently Meg had gotten
Scotty to teach her transport pads a new
trick or two.
  He picked the tray up, and the pad silently
zipped off down the corridor and around the corner, out
of sight. "Just as well," he muttered, taking the
tray inside. "I was out of change for a
tip."
  The sandwich vanished in short order, followed by the
coffee. McCoy began to feel better almost
instantly. Blood sugar, he thought. I've got
to eat bigger breakfasts if I'm going to be stuck
in this job for long. Tea and toast doesn't make
it.
  His intercom whistled then. "McCoy," he said,
finishing the last of the
  coffee.
  "Doctor, "Spock said, "five minutes to the
meeting. his
  "What? Never. I just got here," he muttered.
"Oh, hell, I guess time does fly when you're
having fun. I'll be right down, Spock."
  "Acknowledged. his
  McCoy took just long enough to change into a fresh
uniform tunic-no time for even a sonic shower, it
would have to wait-and headed out.
  "All right," he said, looking around the concerned
faces at the table in Main Briefing. "One at a
time, from best to worst. Engineering."
  "No problems, nothing to report," Scotty
said.
  "Bless you. Keep it that way.
Communications."
  "Same as Mr. Scott," Uhura said, "with the
exception of our inability to find the Captain by the
usual means."
  "We'll get back to that. Recreation."
  Harb Tanzer, the big silver-haired rec
room chief, said, "No operational problems.
Crewmen coming in on their off-shift time are a bit
nervous about the Captain's disappearance, but it isn't
a serious situation as yet."
  "Mmf. How are they viewing the present, uh,
command?"
  Harb smiled a bit. "With some amusement," he
said, "but positively. You've bandaged up too many
of them for them to doubt your general expertise, and they
know you're getting good help."
  McCoy allowed himself a breath or so of
laughter. "All right. Science."
  "We have a huge body of data to add to what we
gathered yesterday," Spock said, "especially as
regards plant life and subsoil flora and
fauna. It may interest you to know-it will certainly
interest Starfleet-that this planet is one of the most
promising sources of medicinal substances that we have
ever found."
  "That's wonderful," McCoy said, meaning it, "but
it also means that
  Starfleet is going to put that much more pressure
on us for a three-species agreement. My delight
knows no bounds.-What else?"
  "There is also much more information about the
physiologies of the Ornae and Lahit. We are
coming to some conclusions that may shortly lead to
  theories that will explain how such very different
species evolved here. On that count, at least, our
present information agrees with that of the
  original survey."
  "You mean, they were actually right about something." There
was muted
  McCoy smiled sardonically. "Noted. What
have you been finding? Any fossil
  records?"
  "Surprisingly, yes. One of the landing-party
teams, from Geology, has been concentrating on some
submerged strata off the northern coast of the
  continent where most of our research is taking
place. There is a
  possibility, bizarre as it sounds, that the
Lahit and the Ornae have a
  common ancestor-species."
  McCoy shook his head. "That would be an
eyeopener. Anyway, I take it that this information
has all been packed up for the next transmission
to
  Starfleet."
  "It has."
  "Good. Security."
  Ingrit Tomson, the tall, blond security
chief, said, "Nothing to report
  shipside, sir. On the planet, we have search
groups combing the entire area where our contacts with the
Ornae and Lahit have been concentrated, and
  then spiraling outward. Nothing has been found as
yet, though we've covered some fifty square
kilometers. There is no sign whatsoever of the
Captain, but there have also been no overt signs of
foul play."
  "There is also something rather peculiar," Spock
  said. "Doctor, after you furnished me with the
coordi
  nates to which you beamed down, I was able to get a
  temperature scan of the area-even when some hours
  have passed, there are infrared heat-traces of the
  passage of the human body." Spock reached out

  touched the data terminal in front of him. A
sec
  ond later, everyone's terminal was showing a
picture
  of the clearing, seen from above, its colors process
  ed by the computer to indicate areas of latent heat.
  There was a wavering line that came from one side of the
clearing, circled around one spot, and then vanished.
  "That's what Jim did?" McCoy said.
  "No, Doctor. That is what you did. This is
the Captain's trace." He pointed to another fat
smudgy line, off to one side of the clearing, that entered
it at the same point . . . and faded out.
  Glances were exchanged around the table. "Somebody
else's transporter
  beam?" McCoy said.
  "Unlikely, Doctor. That too leaves some
slight thermal trace, and some
  characteristic background radiation. This fade-out is
atypical, and does not resemble a beam-up."
  "Great," McCoy said. "Something grabbed him and
spirited him away.
  Something subtle enough for us to need methods like this
to find out about it." He sighed. "Any theories?"
  "None as yet," Spock said.
  "All right. Defense?"
  "Nothing to report," Chekov said. "All
ship's defense systems at normal and on
standby."
  "Good. Medicine?"
  Lia, sitting down toward the end of the table, said,
"Business as usual, Doctor. Routine small
interventions. It looks as if Morrison's
problem was some kind of allergy, by the way. No one
else has reported a similar
  problem, and his skin irritation is almost gone."
  "That's good. Communications-was
  "Linguistics and I have been working closely
together," Uhura said, "trying to improve the level
of translation a little faster than would be the norm.

  Unfortunately, we're having some
difficulties-not with vocabulary so much, at this
point, but with conceptualization and very different
mindmaps. I
  have a recording I'd like you all to see."
  She touched a control on her own terminal. Their
screens came alive to show her sitting on the
ground, chatting amiably with an Ornaet, while
Kerasus sat next to her taking notes.
  "I have a question to ask you," said Uhura in the
recording.
  "All right," the Ornaet said.
  "One of our people is missing down here," she said.
"Do you understand
  missing?"
  "Not to be found," said the Ornaet. "Why did
he do it?
  "He didn't do it himself," said Uhura.
"Someone else did it."
  "That's ridiculous," said the Ornaet.
  "How so?"
  "No one does things, except by themselves. He must
have wanted to go away, if he went somewhere."
  On the tape, Uhura thought about that for a moment,
then said, "Where do you think he might have gone?"
  "I don't know. Why would he want to go away
at all?"
  "That's what we're trying to find out. Have any of
your own people gone
  missing this way?"
  "Oh, lots. But they were all right here."
  "Here, close by? Or here, on the planet?"
  "Yes."
  Another long pause. The Ornaet;
sitting next to her, turned slightly in the
sunlight, and its iridescence 111
  flashed bright. "Why are you asking these questions?"
  the Ornaet said. tilde " "We're worried
about our friend."
  "Why? He's all right."
  "How do you know that?"
  "Nothing ever happens to anyone here. The beAt
  "'ibbity make sure of
  that." In the recording, Uhura raised her
eyebrows. "Yes," Hisby 'tilde n, she said,
"let's talk about that. Where are the beAt
  today?"
  r "They're here," said the Ornaet. "What?
Here with us, right now?" "Yes." "I can't see
them," said Uhura.
  "Neither can I," said the Omaet, "but they're
[*thorngg'tilde u tilde here."
  "Do you think they know where our friend is?"
?"'bbI;" "Probably," said the Ornaet.
"They know most ,", things."
  "Could you ask them?" i tilde be "When they get
here," the Ornaet said, "yes." tilde tilde was
"But you said they were here."
  ?"'" "They are, was said the Ornaet,
sounding faintly cross.
  "Is there a reason you can't ask them now?"
"'1 tilde ,, "Yes," said the Ornaet.
  A long pause. "What is it?" Uhura said.
  "Because [static]," said the recording. ",caret
be,; One or two people around the table groaned.
  McCoy resisted the temptation. They had a real
  problem here; one of those alien-point-of-view
differ- I[*thorn] ences that might take
months to understand and resolve. Somehow he doubted
Starfleet was going to
  give him months.
  "All right," said Uhura in the recording,
"we'll come back to that. When you can ask them, will you?"
  "All right." There was another pause. "It
doesn't matter, you know," said the Ornaet. "Your
friend is all right."
  "But how do you know that?" Kerasus put in from the
side.
  The Ornaet put up its eyestalks at her.
"Nothing happens here," it said. "And your friend must have
wanted to go."
  At the table, Uhura reached out and froze the
frame. "That went on for
  about an hour," she said; "I've just shown
you the highlights. We talked with various other of the
Ornae and a few of the Lahitour work with their
language is coming along very satisfactorily,
though we'd still like to
  know how the two species can speak completely
different languages and
  understand one another without benefit of translation.
There's no
  telepathic component-we think. At any rate,
everyone we talked to was
  certain that the Captain must have wanted to vanish, that
he was just fine, and that the beAt probably knew
something about it, and would tell us
  everything we wanted to know when they arrived.
Despite the fact that they were already here." She
sighed. "Several of them insisted that the Captain was in
fact there now, and that we were making a big fuss over
nothing."
  "What are the odds of that?" McCoy said.
"Spock?"
  "Doctor, we are moving among many unknowns
here." Spock laced his fingers together and gazed at
McCoy over them. "I have no way to give you odds
on such an improbability. We must obviously
continue 113
  searching in the orthodox fashion, but we must also
take great care with our other data gathering so as not
to miss some small piece of information that might make
all these seeming contradictions plain. Most
urgently, the
  linguistic work must continue to go ahead at its best
speed."
  "We concur," Uhura said. "We're keeping
our people on it."
  "I just want to remind you all of that line that the first
landing party heard yesterday," McCoy said, "something
to the effect that the only ones around Flyspeck who
had objections to things were the beAt. We have yet
to find out what that means. Uhura, I'd like you and
Lt. Kerasus to follow
  that up. And we have some other mysteries to solve; for
example, the beAt I spoke to this morning claimed
that there were nearly a million of them.
  Where are they all? How come the initial survey
had no problem finding them comlots of them? What's
making them fight so shy of us? We need answers about
this stuff."
  Heads nodded all around the table as people took
notes. "And there are
  other problems," McCoy said. "As
soon as they get this news, Starfleet is going
to get antsy, and want to know what we're doing about
getting the
  Captain back-knowing them."
  "We have no diplomatic recourses," said
Spock, "since as yet there is no diplomatic
agreement. Starfleet will doubtless suggest some kind
of display of force."
  "They can just go to bed early on that one," McCoy
snapped. "These people barely understand the concept of death
or injury, as far as I can figure it out. I
don't want to be the one to teach them what it means.
Neither would Jim, if he were here in my place.
I'll 114
  refuse such an order if they give it. Or
find some way to weasel out of it."
  Spock's expression was calm, but there was warning
hidden in it. "If we are successful in finding the
Captain," he said, "Starfleet may well
forgive you that . . . eventually. If not . . . your
career in Starfleet may be
  short."
  "That's as may be," McCoy said. "I have
oaths to follow, the same as they do. The discipline
of the service be damned." He paused, and
then said, "We have stopped recording this briefing,
haven't we?"
  "No one will hear," Spock said, "what was
certainly a casual remark made after the meeting
proper." He looked at Uhura.
  "Of course not," she said to Spock. "I'll just
look around and see if I
  can't find my sewing scissors."
  McCoy chuckled. "All right. Anyone have
anything to add?"
  No One said a word. "Good enough," McCoy
said. "Let's all get back to what we were doing.
Keep calm, keep your people calm, and be nice and
slow and methodical-was
  That was when the red-alert siren went off. McCoy
leaped straight up out of his seat. He had never been
good with sudden loud noises. "Holy Christmas,
what's that??"
  "Red alert, red alert, this is no drill, this
is no drill, his
  said the voice of the automated alert. And right afterward
came the voice of the junior Communications officer,
Mr. Brandt. "Proximity alarms activated, was
he said calmly, "vessel dropping out of warp and
incoming to orbit. Early ID indicates
Klingon battle cruiser- his
  People scrambled out of the room at speed. McCoy
  stood there with his mouth open for a bare second, then
said, "Hell." He ran out into the corridor,
turned down toward Sickbay-
  And stopped. And cursed. And turned, and ran after
Spock, toward the
  turbolift, and the Bridge.
  HE COULD HEAR the bedlam of the Bridge before
the turbolift doors even opened for him. Alarms
were whooping, people were running in all directions, but what
astounded McCoy most was the sheer noise of it all.
Red alerts in Sickbay were a much quieter
business;
  they had to be, or they might wake the patients.
This noise would wake the dead, he thought in mild
amazement.
  The doors opened for him, and McCoy stepped out.
All over the Bridge, heads turned; eyes
looked at him speculatively. He could
practically feel the thoughts. How is he, is he,
going to be able to manage this, what df he can't . .
. his
  But this at least was a position he had been in before;
on a
  planet's surface, or in some operating room,
where the staff had looked over at him, wondering, Can
he save this one, or will we have another wrap job in
a few minutes? . . . He had usually
  managed to surprise them all. He would do it
again.
  He hoped.
  He stepped down without hesitation, as he had seen
Jim do so many times, sat himself in the center seat, and
said, "What's the situation?"
  "Shields are up," Spock said, coming down to stand
beside him, "and weapons systems are ready."
  "All right, then. Do we have an ID on this
clown?"
  "Yes, Doctor-ah, sir," Sulu said.
"Positive identification as KL 818,
  Imperial Klingon Vessel Ekkava. his
  "No one we know personally, then," McCoy
said.
  "No," Spock said. "The vessel has
assumed a standard orbit around the
  planet, slightly above ours, and is pacing us
some two thousand kilometers behind. Just outside firing
range," he added.
  "Mmm hmm. So the gesture is
overtly . . . noncommittal. So far."
McCoy
  looked at the screen, which showed the faint white
blip well back behind them. "No communications as
yet?"
  "Nothing yet, Doctor," Uhura said.
"They're probably busy scanning."
  "Confirmed," Spock said, glancing over at his
station.
  "All right. Why wait to be. friendly? Uhura,
hail them. The usual
  niceties."
  She nodded, and did it. McCoy looked up at
Spock and said, "I remember Jim mentioning a
rumor that he'd heard, something about an increased
incidence of Klingon "moles" inside
Starfleet. You think there's anything to that?" Spock
looked abstracted for a moment. "Difficult to say.
Certainly one can understand the reasoning behind it. But it
strikes me as information that both sides would desire
to keep hidden. At least, accurate versions of the
information."
  "Mmm hmm. Spock, we're a long way from
anywhere out here. Funny that they should just come coasting
into the system like this, a couple of days after
we do."
  was "Funny' is not the word I would have chosen,"
Spock said. "But it
  certainly does strain the limits of
probability somewhat."
  The Bridge fell quiet, waiting. McCoy
wiped his hands on his trousers. Here we go, he
thought. I just wish I had some better idea of what
to do.
  Nothing to do but wing it, I guess . . . . Then
Uhura said, "Coming on
  screen, Doctor. Ready for visual?"
  The question almost made him laugh. He had never
really had to worry about how he looked at work before.
"Ready," he said.
  The screen shimmered, and the starfield it had been
showing gave way to the bridge of a Klingon ship,
all dim red lighting and cramped,
  crowded-together consoles. In the center of the screen,
a Klingon glared at them: a man with a rather noble
face, McCoy thought, with excellent bone
structure. Pity he has to ruin the effect
by glowering like that. Then
  again, Iguess it's an occupational hazard for
Klingons in command posi-
  tions. Look tough or get shot-
  hishis am Commander Kaiev, was the Klingon said.
"Is your vessel's identification correct?"
  McCoy leaned back in the center seat and was
visibly amused. Among the
  Klingons, as on Earth, there was no surer way
to discommode a very serious person than to refuse
to take the individual seriously. "Well now,"
he
  said, "and why wouldn't it be? We're not in the
habit of running around
  playing Galactic Twenty Questions."
  "Then you are the Starship Enterprise?" 119
  "Yes," he said to the Klingon, and nodded, "we
are. Who wants to know?"
  Commander Kaiev stared into the screen, and at
McCoy, with an expression that McCoy thought was
supposed to be fierce eagerness. "7 have long
waited my chance to meet the famous Kirk," he
said.
  Not another one, McCoy thought. How the hell
does Jim stand it? "Sorry," he said, lacing his
hands behind his head and leaning back. "You just missed
him."
  "Missed him?" the Klingon said, looking
for a moment slightly bemused. "We did not fire.
his
  There was a suppressed snicker somewhere on the
Bridge. McCoy shot a
  warning glance around, then said, "Uh, excuse me,
Commander. Syntactical difficulty. I mean,
he's not here."
  The Klingon looked actively disappointed.
"Commander Leonard McCoy, at your service,"
he said, before the Klingon could pick up the conversational
  ball. "Now, Commander, would you mind telling me a
little something about what you're doing in this part of space?
Not exactly a crowded
  neighborhood, as a rule."
  "Ah, was Commander Kaiev said. "We have
beenexploring this part of space for some weeks now- his
  Lie, McCoy thought. He knew that much
Klingon body language, even when the man was
sitting still, and trying to keep his face still as well.
  "comand when by chance we detected your ship here, so
far away from
  Federation frequented space--
  Lie, McCoy thought. And, Ambulance-chaser!
They just want to see what we're up to, and see
if they can't find a way to get a bit of the
action if it's anything good. He kept smiling.
  "comwe thought we would stop and investigate. his
  Now, McCoy thought, he waits to see if
I'll tell him to get out of here. "Well, you're
more than welcome here, Commander," he said. "Four
planets, no waiting. Make yourself right at
home."
  Commander Kaiev actually blinked. McCoy had
a hard time keeping his face straight, but managed it
somehow. Now he lets us know that he would have anyway,
he thought.
  "So we have done, was said Kaiev, with a sort of
air of jovial threat that McCoy had to admire.
"We shall send down landing parties to investigate the
planet. his
  "Well, go ahead," McCoy said. "But I should
warn you, things are pretty
  weird down there. We've lost some people in odd
ways. Trees eating them, mostly."
  The Bridge crew all looked at McCoy in
fascination. He ignored them. "But don't mind
that," McCoy said jovially. "You go ahead down
there, have a
  good time. Our people will show you around, if you like."
  An expression of suspicion did not
so much creep across Kaiev's face as run across
it, shouting and waving placards saying I don't
believe you, you're up to something! McCoy was
delighted, and kept his own face straight. "No,
thank you, MakKhoi, was Kaiev said. "We will
manage our own investigation of this planet. Shall we
speak further of this?"
  Or in other words, "Wanna fight?"' "No,
heavens, why should we?" McCoy said, waving a hand
languidly. "You go right on ahead. But listen,"
he added,
  "you watch out for those trees, now. And the rocks. was
He leaned forward a little as he said the word, and waggled
his eyebrows at the Klingon.
  "MakKhoi, was said Kaiev, looking slightly

  discommoded by McCoy's strange expressions,
"7 must ask you. What has
  happened to Kirk?"
  McCoy paused for a moment, then sighed heavily
and leaned back in the
  center seat again, looking down. "I killed him,"
he said. "In a duel. Very sad."
  And he looked up then, and gave Kaiev a long
cool look from under his
  brows. "I do so hate killing my friends," he
said.
  Kaiev looked at him for a long moment. He
opened his mouth, but before he could say anything,
McCoy sighed again and said, quite cheerfully, "At
any rate, Commander, if we can help you with any little
thing, don't hesitate to call. Enterprise out."
And he glanced over at Uhura, who killed the
  circuit. The screen went back to showing
starfield again.
  There was a rather stunned silence on the Bridge.
Then the laughter broke out. McCoy let it go on
for a few moments, then said, "All right,
  everybody, hush up now!"
  They got quiet. "That should give us a few
minutes to breathe," he said, "since they'll now think
the Enterprise is being commanded by a raving
  loon. Perhaps even a homicidal raving loon,
which would be even better."
  "I think you are wise," Spock said, "not to let
them know that the Captain is missing. They would
certainly perceive that as a weakness, perhaps a
  fatal one, on our part."
  "Spock," McCoy said, smiling a bit, "I
may be just an old country doctor, but I
know enough not to tell my patients that I don't know how
to cure
  them. Why, half of them cure themselves just because they
think I'm doing it. Saves me no end of trouble,
and it's cheaper than placebos."
  "In any case," Spock said, "there is nothing
we can do about their presence here. Under the Organian
Peace Treaty, they are entitled to explore
planets that they find us exploring, even the
populated ones. Of course, the
  "exploitation" part of the agreement does not
apply here."
  "And a good thing. I'd hate to see this planet
Klingon-dominated. The Ornae are too
good-natured, and the Lahit are just too strange; I
have a feeling neither species would long survive a
Klingon settlement."
  Spock nodded. "However that may be," he said,
"we now have a more
  interesting problem: how to conduct our searches for the
Captain without letting the Klingons know."
  McCoy nodded. "Our own efforts can be disguised
as land surveys and so
  forth," he said. "But I worry that the Ornae
might tell them. Or the Lahit. They
wouldn't understand the need not to, I think."
  "I don't think they would either, Doctor,"
Uhura said. "The whole concept of fiction and
falsehood seems to have passed them by."
  "Sad that they'll miss fiction," McCoy said,
"but as for the rest of it, they may be into a good thing.
Never mind. We have a little protection in that the
Klingons won't have much in the way of translator
algorithms."
  "Doctor," Sulu said suddenly, "if you're
right in your suspicion about
  moles in Startleet, the reason the Klingons are
here might well be that the whole initial survey
report was leaked."
  That was a bad thought. McCoy mulled it over for a
moment, then said, "That may be. We've had the
whole linguistics resource team of this ship working on
those languages for two days now, and we're just

  beginning to make progress. It's going to take
them a while to catch up. By then, we may have found the
captain."
  "And if not?" Spock said. "What then? Or
what if they come to us and ask us in a friendly fashion
for our algorithms? You have set the tone for
this encounter, Doctor, and have practically invited them
to do so."
  McCoy had been thinking about that. Now he grinned
evilly. "Simple," he
  said. "Media mismatch. Our software won't
talk to their hardware."
  "But it will," Spock said.
  "No, it won't, was McCoy said. "Think about
it. When's the last time the
  Klingons had access to our data transfer
methods? Goodness, Spock, anything could have been
invented since then."
  Spock got a glint in his eye that McCoy had
seen before, and always
  enjoyed. "I take your point, Doctor," he
said. "But that aside, we must get back to business.
We have our own work to do, not least of which is finding the
Captain."
  "Right. Spock, you coordinate the landing parties,
and Uhura, make sure
  everybody gets the word about what's going on.
Utmost courtesy to our
  guests, give them anything they want-except
data-within reason. The old
  Galactic Unity game."
  "Yes, Doctor," Uhura said.
  "I would have thought," Spock said, "that you approved
of Galactic Unity, Doctor."
  "I do," McCoy said, "with those who mean it the
same way I do. The Klingons just have a little convincing
to do, as far as I'm concerned." He sat back and
smiled.
  Spock nodded and went about his business. McCoy
stood up. "Keep an eye on our friends here," he
said to Sulu. "If they do anything sudden, call
me. I've got to catch forty winks. Uhura,"
he said, "if the landing parties
  that are staying down tonight find anything, call me right
away. Or if
  anything else happens that you or your relief
judge to need my attention."
  "Yes, sir."
  He headed for the turbolift, waited for the doors
to close.
  When they did, he collapsed against the back
wall and shut his eyes, and tried very hard not to moan
out loud.
  "Deck five," he finally said, when he could
trust himself not to say
  something that would confuse the lift's audio
sensors. It began to move. He was shaking all
over. Like a mouse at a cat show, he thought. I
hope I get used to this fast, because Lord, I'm not
used to it now, and if I
  misstep because of nerves, a lot of people could die.
  He fell into the deep-breathing exercise routine
that did him the most good for an attack of nerves.
I need a good long spell of anti-stress
exercises tonight, he thought, and then maybe I should
get Lia to come hit me on the head with that hammer.
Lord, Klingons, whose good idea was that? Not funny,
God!
  The Deity declined to respond, possibly being
on a
  break. The deep breathing began to work; the trem
  bling started to ease off. I may need something
else to
  eat, McCoy thought, as the lift slid to a
stop. I only
  had the one sandwich, after all. I wonder if
Jim
  sometimes eats to distract himself from the stress?
  It was an interesting thought, one that McCoy had
  had before, and usually discarded. He was now less
willing to discard it.
  Jim may need better stress management. I
should have noticed that before, if that's the case. Getting
sloppy, Leonard my boy . . .
  His room door opened before him, and closed behind
him. He sat down in his rocking chair with a feeling
of vast relief. Unfortunately, behind the
  relief was a formless terror that insisted on
reminding him that there was no way to tell how long the
relief would last. He sat there and finished his
breathing exercises, and then thought about ordering something
else to eat. No, he thought then. Stress
reduction first. If I try eating anything with my
stomach in its present state, it's going to be sent
back with
  extreme prejudice.
  He composed himself, made sure his breathing was
settled, closed his eyes, and set about imagining the
private place where he did his mindwork.
  About five seconds later he fell asleep.
  "Here," he was saying to Dieter, "I've
spilled your drink; let me get you another," when
the soprano shriek of the Jungfrau cogwheel
train's horn
  abruptly turned into the intercom's whistle.
McCoy's eyes flew open. He sat
up straight in the chair from his original slumped
position, and grimaced at the feel of his back-no
matter how orthopedically sound straightback
  rocking chairs are, they aren't made for sleeping
in. McCoy reached out and hit the intercom
button.
  "McCoy."
  "Bridge, Doctor. It's Ensign Vehau,
on Communications. We've got something in from
Starfleet for you. his
  He groaned. "At this hour? Tell them to take
two aspirin and call me in the morning."
  Vehau laughed softly. "7 wish I could.
Unfortunately, 126
  you're going to have to come up here and sign for the miserable
thing, and right away, too."
  McCoy sighed. "On my way," he said.
  He made his way up to the Bridge through the
subdued lighting of night
  shift. The ship worked better when it had a "real"
night and day; and in consideration of the crewmen who were
diurnal, the night shift was largely run by people who
had minimal difficulty with being awake at night,
  especially members of naturally nocturnal
species-a surprising 30 percent or so
of hominids.
  Vehau was one of these. The Delasi were quite
humanoid, and gave no other indication of their
nocturnal status than particularly large,
sensitive, and (mcCoy thought) beautiful-looking
dark eyes. When McCoy came into the Bridge,
he found Vehau looking with mild annoyance at her
station. "Here, Doctor," she said. "It's already
queried me twice."
  "Where do I look?" he said.
  "Here, this scanner, sir."
  McCoy bent over it and kept his eyes wide,
waiting for the ruby flash of the retinal-scan laser.
It came, and immediately the console began to
  chatter softly to itself. "There you go," Vehau said,
and touched a stud. "Do you want to take it in your
cabin, or would you rather have vision and sound here?"
  McCoy sighed and sat himself down in the center
seat. "I'll take it here, I suppose," he
said. "Nobody here but us chickens, anyway.
Who's on call for Weapons and Navigation, by the
way?"
  "Navigation is shut down for the moment," she
  said. "The ship's orbit is on automaintenance
. . .
  might as well be: she doesn't need anyone
here to
  handle a standard orbit. Sulu volunteered
to take an
  extra shift on Weapons. He's on his
break; he'll be back up in a while. Just us
chickens, as you say." She wrinkled her nose a
bit. "What is a chicken?" "An Earth beast
famous for crossing roads," McCoy said. "All
right, Vehau. Let it rip."
  The screen showed the usual Starfleet
time-anddate-stamp trailer. Then
  McCoy found himself looking at a man sitting
at a desk. "Oh hell," he said, for the man was
Admiral Delacroix, a name that he had heard
Jim mutter
  about more than once. "Superannuated," Jim had
said, and there was truth in it; Delacroix looked as
if he had been around since the Ice Age-the
earlier one. He was white-haired and tall, with
chiseled features, and the kind of stance and bearing that
says a person prides himself on being better, or
at least older, than you are.
  "Delacroix," he said. He sat there with his
hands folded on the desk,
  looking like a man who was about to give some
schoolboy a serious scolding. "To Leonard
McCoy, presently in command, USS
Enterprise. Commander McCoy, we are in
receipt of your report and find it a rather disturbing
collection of documents.
  "First of all, our concerns regarding the divergent
evolution of the
  planet's three species are not being dealt with in
the approved manner.
  Much pertinent data is missing regarding the third
species, the beAt." He didn't pronounce it
any better than anyone else, McCoy thought;
there was that small consolation. "We expect better
performance in data gathering
  from a starship of Enterprise's reputation. We
assume the fall-off in
  efficiency is due to the missing status of
Captain Kirk, which we will deal with in a moment.
At any rate, we expect the information shortfall
to be 128
  dealt with immediately. Please take the necessary steps."
  "Oh, sure," McCoy said bitterly. "What
am I supposed to do? You can't find a species that
doesn't want to be found, dammit
all-was
  But the recording was continuing. "Second.
Surveys concerning
  planet-exploitable resources are not proceeding
at the speed we would wish. No informed decisions can
be made regarding diplomacy without full data on
planetary resources. Your crew rosters as
submitted show too much
  concentration on sciences and linguistics at this
point. Please reassign personnel from
linguistics work to planet survey and report
soonest on
  mineral and other resources."
  McCoy sat there tight-lipped. He's saying
that all of a sudden they don't want to talk to these people
until they find out whether they've got
  anything worth having! Dammit, that wasn't our
original brief from
  Starfeet! Who put this turkey on the job all
of a sudden? Where the hell are Llewellyn and Tai
Hao, who backed this mission in the first place, on
scientific grounds?
  "Third. We regard with grave concern the
disappearance of Captain Kirk.
  From your report we must assume that the
Captain was not in breach of his orders when he
transported down to the planet, since at that point
the
  situation seemed to be stable." McCoy frowned;
the man sounded as if he
  were faintly disappointed by this fact. "It becomes
apparent that there has been some deterioration in your
exploratory group's relations with one or more of the
indigenous species, possibly the beAt. This
breakdown is almost certainly due to inadequate
data gathering regarding this species, and you are
required to rectify 129
  this situation immediately. We note your attempts
to " locate the Captain. We confirm your
brief to take all
  appropriate action to recover the Captain,
including
  the military option if you find it prudent or
necessary.
  We will expect a report with your next
transmission as
  to what steps are being taken and what results are
  forthcoming. If no results are forthcoming within one
  standard day, orders will be issued regarding possible
  action to be taken against the planet.
Until then,
  matters are left to your discretion, within our guide
  lines."
  Delacroix stopped and cleared his throat a
bit, as if I he were about to say something distasteful.
"Last:
  regarding your present position in command.
Despite
  the fact that your service record indicates no
previous
  experience with starship command, other aspects of
  your record indicate that this is a duty you should be
  adequately equipped to undertake; and Captain
Kirk
  is an officer of sufficient skill to have had some
good
  reason, under the circumstances, to leave you in ?"'
command. We are reluctant to countermand Captain
  Kirk's orders in his absence and relieve you of
duty.
  F We expect that your conduct will justify this
judgment. However, in light of the past day's
occurrences, there will of course need to be some kind of
  inquiry into the management of this mission on your
return to Earth. You are advised to bear this
in mind.
  "Reply is required within one hour of receipt
of this message, already
  verified to us. Starfleet out."
  "And what about the goddam Klingons??!" McCoy
shouted at the screen. It
  ignored him, going blank and showing him the serene
face of Flyspeck
  turning beneath the ship as she orbited.
  Vehau said, "Shall I save you a copy of the
message, Doctor?"
  McCoy was very tempted to make several creative
suggestions as to what
  Vehau might do with the report; one of them,
involving the report,
  Delacroix, a can of surgical lubricant,
and a protoplaser, struck him as particularly
attractive, but he pushed the thought aside as
unworthy of
  him. "Yes, please. I'll want Spock
to see it in the morning. Meanwhile,
  would you record a reply for me?"
  "Do you want to make it now?"
  "Certainly. Just voice. I don't want that
old prune seeing me without a
  shave and my boots polished; he'd probably
order me tied to a gun carriage and left out in the
rain, if I know his type."
  He sat thinking for a moment. Maybe 1 should
call Spock and ask his advice, he thought.
He's probably not sleeping anyway. But after a
long moment, he pushed that idea away. Hell no
. . . I've got to do my best to manage this myself.
Even if it drives me crazy, and scares me
to death. Have to wonder, though. Who else at
Starfleet is going to see this report when 1 send
it back?
  And who leaked the first one? . . .
  He thought for a moment about who might hear what, and
what might be done with the information. Then, "Ready?"
he said to Vehau.
  "Go, Doctor."
  "From Leonard McCoy, commanding USS
Enterprise, was he said. "Your message received and
understood. Will comply in all parts." But not the way you
  think, you old fool. "Search for Captain
Kirk continues. Other conditions continue normal."
He paused 131
  for a moment, then added, "Klingon situation stable.
McCoy out."
  Vehau chuckled softly as she completed the
reply. "Anything else, Doctor?" "Nope.
Send it. That should give them something to think about,"
McCoy
  said. I dearly hope. "And now I'm going to go
back to my downy couch. You have a good shift, dear,
and don't call me for anything less imperative
  than an invasion."
  "Will do, Doctor."
  "Bureaucrats," McCoy muttered softly, and
staggered off to bed.
  In the morning he was in the center seat bright and
early, having managed to work in a little stress
reduction before breakfast, and was feeling
  rather more alert and ready for things. Also, he had had
some time to
  think. "Spock," he said, when he had settled
in and Spock had given him the morning report, "have
you seen the wonderful message from Starfleet that we
had last night?"
  "Doctor," said Spock, "you exercise your
usual talent for choosing unique and perhaps
unexpected words to describe a situation."
  "Yes, indeed, you saw it too. Spock, I
think we should do everything they suggest."
  Spock looked at him in mild astonishment.
  "Yes, indeed," McCoy said. "I want you
to make some reassignments from
  linguistics to survey. Take, oh, Nuara and
Meier-Wes, not Wilma-and give them one of the
shuttlecraft for the next day or so. I want a
mineral
  survey. Particular concentration on iron ore
deposits, the usual."
  "Doctor," Spock said, "we have already done that
  scan from the ship. It came up broadly
negative, as you know. The planet is very
metal-poor, and rare earths are in a much
lower-than-usual
  concentration. Nor are there any deposits of
dilithium or other useful
  energy-managing elements."
  "Yes, you're absolutely right. Well,
evidently Starfleet wants more
  information, and they want some people reassigned to that
duty, so let's give them what they want. Full
shuttlecraft survey, with sensors on
  high-density."
  "That will result in a massive data load,"
Spock said, "on the order of-was "It's
Starfleet's nickel," McCoy said. "Let them
worry about it. And won't someone there be pleased when
they see so much detailed data? They'll be hours
going through it. Days, if we're lucky."
  "Analysis will of course show them that there is
nothing here worth
  pursuing as far as minerals are concerned."
  "And that'll be exactly right. Though I have a
feeling there are some
  people at Starfleet who may not want to believe that.
Not people working just for Starfleet, you understand."
  Spock turned an expression on McCoy that
was covertly approving. "Your
  orders will be carried out," he said. "Meanwhile,
as regards the personnel reassignments-I think the
Admiral will have had rather more people in
  mind."
  "He didn't say," McCoy said
regretfully. "Can't go second-guessing the man
if he won't make himself clear."
  That covert approval got more overt.
"Doctor," Spock said, "while I
  understand your intent, there are some at Starfleet who
could construe it as insubordination. 133
  That would give them an excuse
to relieve you, and whatever the results as regards
finding the Captain, the damage to your career could be
extreme."
  "At the moment," he said, "I'll take my
chances. But thanks for your
  concern, Spock."
  Spock nodded and went to his station, preparatory
to going back down to the planet. McCoy sat in his
chair and gazed at the screen, looking at the tiny
dot of the Klingon vessel tailing them, far back,
at a respectful distance. "No news from them, I
take it."
  "No. They have been busy on the planet all
night, doing mineral surveys and so forth, if I am
correctly reading our recordings of their
activities. The action seems to have stopped for the
moment."
  "It's their night, perhaps?"
  "Difficult to tell. Power levels on their
ship have riot changed much since they arrived."
  "Hmm. Rude to make noise and wake the
neighbors. I'll say hello to them
  later. Meanwhile, have you got any ideas about
Jim?"
  Spock came down from his station and stood
by McCoy, gazing at the screen. "Doctor," he
said slowly, "I have tried every kind of analysis of the
  presently available data that I can think of. The
Captain does not seem to be on the planet at the
moment. Certainly he was there. Less certainly,"
Spock said, "there is no evidence of him leaving
it."
  "Huh? You saw that disappearance trace."
  "Yes. Doctor, think for a moment. Even if a
trans
  porter of some kind unknown to us had taken hold of
  the captain and pulled him off the surface of the
  planet, it could not have done so undetected. The
  universe does not work that way. There would have
  been energy residue of at least one of several
hundred kinds-some indication of the source of the
instrumentality that removed the Captain, leading off-
planet. I have spent the night in careful
analysis of all the ship's sensor data for the past
two days. No indication of any such outside
interference occurs; all background radiation is
exactly as it should be. Faced with this data-or
lack of data that would disprove it-I am forced
to conclude that
  Captain Kirk is still on the
planet."
  McCoy raised his eyebrows, then lowered them.
"The Ornae and the Lahit have been saying that the
Captain's right there, and he's fine."
  "So they have. At first I did not consider it
evidence to be taken at all seriously, not with the
Translator algorithms still so uncertain. But their
certainty is increasing hour by hour, as Uhura and
Kerasus do their work, and the translation of that piece of
information does not change."
  "And," McCoy said, "there's that odd radiation you
picked up. The Cerenkov radiation, and those
Z-particle decays."
  "Yes. I cannot understand what they mean as yet, but
I am still working on our scan data. There have been more
occurrences of the radiation over the past day, but not
associated with any consistent event or set of
events
  that I can correlate."
  McCoy looked thoughtful. Now how do I
phrase this so as not to bother him? "Spock," he
said, lowering his voice, "you occasionally have a knack
for, uh, feeling what's going on with Jim, at a
distance. You haven't had any "bad feelings," have
you?"
  Spock was silent for a moment. Uh-oh,
McCoy thought. But then Spock said, very quietly,
"Doctor, I 135
  have not. I can frequently "hear," from humans,
what is best expressed as a sort of mental
white noise. I cannot detect the Captain's. But
there is no sense of his ideation having stopped; it
simply feels as if it is
  elsewhere." He looked at McCoy a bit
quizzically. "Not evidence admissible in court,
certainly. But in its way, reassuring."
  "Well, let me know if you find out anything
interesting, or anything you think I can help with.
Highenergy physics is way over my head, but
I'm good at some other things."
  Spock raised an eyebrow. "I had occasionally
noticed," he said, and went back to his station.
  McCoy sat back and gazed at the screen.
"I wish I could get down there," he said softly.
"Oh, well."
  They were coming out from over the night side of
Flyspeck. The terminator fell away beneath them in
a sudden sunrise; or a backward
sunset-McCoy
  wasn't sure whether they were orbiting the
same way the planet rotated. I should start paying
attention to that kind of thing, he thought. Not that I really
want to...
  "Hmm," said Chekov from the helm. "Some
activity over there, Doctor."
  "Who? The Klingons?"
  "Affirmative. Transporters running."
Chekov watched his scanners for a
  moment, then said, "They're beaming down a party
near where three of our groups are working, near the First
Clearing."
  "Uhura, give our people a shout and let them know that
company's coming," McCoy said. "It's morning where
our group is, isn't it?"
  "Yes, Doctor," Spock said. "About three
hours after local sunrise."
  McCoy nodded. "Chekov," he said, "you just
scan that new landing party and see if they're carrying
anything antisocial-looking."
  Chekov peered at his screens for a moment.
"Nothing, Doctor," he said.
  "Standard sidearms, and some light digging
equipment-core samplers and so forth."
  "Such as you might use when looking for minerals?"
McCoy said idly.
  "That's right," Chekov said. "A small ground
wehicle, too. Not armed."
  "Hmm," said McCoy. "Well, I wish them
luck. At least they'll be getting
  some fresh air and exercise."
  Chekov chuckled. "Setting off away from our
landing party, Doctor. At a
  pretty good rate, too."
  "Message from the landing party, Doctor,"
Uhura said. "They say the
  Klingons passed through their camp like-was She
chuckled. "They passed
  through very fast, heading for the hills to the north."
  McCoy nodded and sat back. "Keep our people
posted on that party's
  movements," he said.
  Uhura nodded. "Will do, Doctor."
  It got quiet. People moved around the Bridge,
all doing their business;
  everybody but McCoy, who sat in the middle of
things and began to feel the boredom nibbling at the
edges of his mind. There's nothing for me to do
  here, he thought, except wait. I hate
waiting. Maybe I could just go down to Sickbay and
do a couple of routine exams . . .
No, Jim ordered me not to . . . and I
accepted the order. Dammit. I should have just defied
him right there and let him throw me in the brig. It's
quiet down in the brig.
  Insulting people from Starfleet don't send you rude
messages in the middle of the night when you're in the
brig . . .
  Uhura's station made a querulous little queeping
noise. McCoy glanced over at her as she
fitted her transdator to her ear. Her eyes
widened. McCoy
  didn't like the way they widened at all.
  "The Klingon vessel is hailing us,
Doctor," she said. "It's Commander
  Kaiev."
  Uh-oh. "Put him on," he said.
  The screen changed to show Kaiev's face. It was
not a happy face, not at all. The Klingon
seemed to be torn between rage and a cold sweat, and
McCoy didn't like the look of either. Hmm.
Atypical petechiae on the face and
  brow ridges. Now what was that syndrome
again-"Good morning, Commander," McCoy said, to put
his oar in first. "Or good evening, whichever it is.
To what do I owe-was
  " MakKhoi, you are responsible for this!"
Kaiev shouted. " My people were engaged in a peaceful
exploration of the planet and you disintegrated them! This
act of hostility will not go unpunished!"
  McCoy stared at him. "Pardon?" he said.
"We've just been sitting here. We saw your party go
down there, all right, but we-was
  "7t is useless to try to deceive me! They
vanished from our scans without trace, in a matter
of a second or so! What other explanation could there
possibly be"....f"
  Uh, McCoy thought, and looked over at
Spock. Spock raised one eyebrow, and shook his
head.
  McCoy turned back to the screen and looked
carefully at the man.
  "Commander," he said, "you want to calm yourself a
bit. Klingon blood
  pressure's high enough; you keep on like this and
you're going to blow a fuse. And you just getting over that
bout of arthasomiasis and all. Sure way to bring
on a liver
  spasm."
  Kaiev's mouth fell open for a fraction of a
second.
  "You-How do you know I have had arthasomiasis?"
His expression suddenly grew crafty. "Your
intelligence network is as far-flung as I have
heard, then.
  Which of my crew is your spy"...I will kill them
all until I find the
  traitor!!" He half rose from his chair, then
sat down suddenly, with a look of surprise and pain
on his face.
  What are they doing, sending people like this out into space?
McCoy
  thought, disapproving. Their stress screening
program must not be worth
  much. "See now," he said, "what did I tell
you? You go have a word with
  your medic and tell him or her to raise your
regulation dosage of Tacrin. It's not high enough
yet." He waited until the Klingon's color
improved a little and the secondary muscle tics
associated with the spasm began to
  taper off.
  And then his temper flared. "And as for your landing
party, son," and he began to rise out of his seat as
he got louder, "let me tell you that if I felt
like killing them, I'd just haul off and do it,
and I wouldn't bother lying to you about it afterward, so don't
flatter yourself!" He sat down again, ignoring the
shocked looks from all around the Bridge. McCoy
had
  always been a good shouter, and he had had a good shout
coming for about two days now. It was a pleasure to be
able to use one appropriately.
  The Klingon looked at him with a mixture of
somewhat abated fury and half-concealed admiration.
  He opened his mouth. "Now you just get hold of
  yourself," McCoy said immediately, "so we can talk
  like reasonable beings here, and if you use that tone
  with me again, my boy, I'll open your ship up like
a
  sardine tin, and later on I'll fish your
corpse out of
  space and thaw it out and stitch it back together the
old-fashioned way,
  with a needle and thread, and then I'll use your
guts for garters. Now go
  see your medic, and then get yourself back here and
we'll talk. Ou."
  He jerked a thumb at Uhura in the gesture that
he had seen Kirk use so many times before. She
killed the connection, and McCoy sat
back in the center seat and began to sweat.
  "Doctor," Spock said into the silence, "I
think I know what has happened to the Klingon landing
party$1,
  "So do I, Spock," McCoy said, and got
up so that he could go spend a few moments in the
turbolift before Kaiev called back. "So do
L"
  "ALL RIGHT," KIRK SAID. "What can I
tell you about us?"
  The beAt stood silently for a long while,
considering that. Kirk was in no hurry. He sat
down in the warm sunshine and said, "I'll wait this
way, if you don't mind."
  "Of course not," said the beAt.
  Kirk sat crosslegged on the short, fine
turf, looking down at it, touching it. The stuff was
less like grass than clover; its small round
leaves, fat with moisture like some Earth succulents,
were springy and tough. The
  leaves were the same brilliant blue-green as
most other kinds of plant life on Flyspeck.
That faint spicy scent that Kirk had noticed
earlier rose from it when Kirk pressed it with his hand.
He breathed the smell in gratefully.
Much as he loved the Enterprise, and for all the
efficiency of its
  air-scrubbers and ionizers, the ship's air never
quite had this smell of atmosphere scrubbed only
by sunlight and wind.
  "Can you show me where you come from?" said the beAt.
  Kirk put aside the seeming oddness of the question.
He was aware that,
  though Linguistics might have managed to iron out his
Translator's problems with the language proper,
there would still be conceptual problems that
  would be weeks in the ironing, and many questions about things
that the beAt would take for granted, but humans would
find strange. Their sensorium in particular, which
seemed adequate for identifying the Enterprise from
the surface of the planet, in daylight, and perceiving
details about her, was phenomenal; Kirk would have a
few questions of his own to ask about that. In any case,
McCoy had been certain that this species was somehow
the key to this planet, and Bones's hunches were never
barren; they always paid
  off, though sometimes not in the way you expected.
Kirk was determined to spend as much time as he could with
this creature, and to make it "quality time." Sooner
or later somebody from the ship would call
him, and he would have to go back and lever poor Bones out
of the center seat and get back to work. But for the time being,
he was going to relax and enjoy himself.
  He squinted up at the sky, looking for the
planet's moon to give him some orientation; but it
had set. He had paid insufficient attention to the
  coordinate system his people had set up. He
knew that the planet's north pole pointed more or
less toward the Galactic ecliptic, but that was little
help as far as this question went. "I would need to wait for
nightfall," he said. "Aboard my ship, I could
identify it for you fairly quickly. Out this way, I
would need to see a star I recognize, and I can't
do that in
  daylight."
  The beAt didn't move or speak, but there was a
feeling as of it nodding, in confirmation of something it had
expected. "What is your home system like?"
Kirk chuckled a little. "Very small," he said.
"Very, very small." In his mind's eye he could see
the splendor of Earth at night, all the lights
  shining on the night side, the golden glitter of the
cities alive with
  billions of people, the glint of moonlight or
sunlight on orbital
  facilities and satellites as they swung by,
the cold clear brilliance of the cities on the
Moon. Many an Enterprise passenger had seen the
huge
  shining orbital facilities of Starfleet that
serviced the ship when she
  came home; everything was sleek, huge, modern,
impressive, and quite a few of Kirk's various
passengers had fallen silent, or grown voluble,
over the achievement of human beings, alone and
jointly with their alien companions of the other
humanities. For a lot of them, Earth was the bit
of the Solar System that mattered; all the other
planets were just colonies. But for
  Kirk, the home system was more than its
hearth-planet. He had come coasting in from far
intergalactic space enough times to be more impressed and
moved by crossing what he privately called "the
doormat"-the radiopause, the
  place far out beyond Pluto's orbit where the
Sun's gravity and wind could first be felt on the
Enterprise's hull. That was where the Solar System
  began for him, out there in the dark. It was a long
ride in on impulse
  engines, and gave you time to look around and
think. What stuck with him were the long cold silences
of the outer fringes, the vast emptiness; the little yellow
G-type star, a yellow dwarf really, nothing
particularly spe- cial, just a pinprick of light
for the longest time; and at the end of the ride, the
pretty, tiny world, dwarfed and 143
  insignificant against the robust ruthlessness of the
gas giants of the outer reaches-a delicate thing,
an accident, a miracle almost thrown away a time
or two.
  He tried to tell the beAt about that. He wasn't
sure how much of it got
  across, less due to problems with the Translator
than with his own
  difficulty expressing himself. But the beAt
listened patiently, and said at last, "You seem
fond of the place."
  "Well, it is my home," Kirk said. "Or,
to be honest, it was. The Enterprise is my home
these days. I may visit Earth for longer or
shorter periods, but I always want to be back
aboard."
  He smiled to himself, amused that he should be discussing
with an alien
  what he had been mulling over on the
Bridge days ago. Not settled down with her after
all, he thought; settled down in her. Very different.
And that answer will do for the moment.
  "You've come a long way to see us," said the
beAt.
  "We were sent," Kirk said, "yes."
  "And you came willingly?"
  "Always. Well," Kirk said, reconsidering,
"almost always. There are
  occasionally missions we don't care to undertake, but
do, to keep the
  peace. There are other species who take a
less, uh, easygoing approach to life in the
Universe than we do. Not that we're always
perfect, either."
  This is a dangerous line to be walking for a man
who's trying to get the species of this world into the
Federation, Kirk thought. But he had a
  feeling that the comforting vagueness of diplomatic
jargon would not suit this situation. The beAt might
seem wise, and somehow dangerous, but there was a sense
of innocence about it that he had no wish to abuse. It
was one of the things about an alien race that he had always

  most treasured-its own way of being-and
damned if he was going to take the
aggressive-colonizer mode and try to force another
being into the mold of
  his own expectations. That was not why he and the ship had
come.
  "Let me ask you something, sir, if I may,"
Kirk said. "You are the only one of your people that
we've seen so far. There have been plenty of Ornae
and Lahit, but only one beAt. Do you speak to me
as representative for your
  people?"
  There was a silence. Kirk could physically feel
the beAt looking at the
  question. "I think you could say," it said finally, "that
I am the only one of us you need to see. One is
adequate to speak for all. We are very
  like-minded."
  Kirk was quiet for a moment. There had been
planets where he had been
  handed similar lines, and the reality had turned out
to be laughably
  different. But here he knew the truth on sight.
This, then, was the chief beAt, or what would pass for
it.
  "Very well," he said. "What about the
other species? Do they have anyone who speaks for
them?"
  "Not of their own species," said the beAt. "They
feel no need. In matters where their welfare is
concerned, we speak for them."
  The rumble of the beAt's voice acquired, for the first
time, a slightly
  threatening note. Or, not specifically threatening,
but there was an
  implication within it that anything that would adversely
affect the other two species would have it to answer
to, and the answering would not be
  pleasant.
  Kirk said, "Good enough. That's what I was trying
to find out."
  "Why?"
  Kirk stretched his legs out. "You will have gathered,
I think, that we
  didn't come here simply because we felt like it."
  "Correct," said the beAt.
  "Well then. We are the representatives of a
large number of species who
  associate with one another for the sake of mutual
benefit in trade and
  exploration. And," Kirk added,
"to tell the truth, for company. Life in a
universe with other species is much more interesting than
in a universe
  where there are no others."
  "That is certainly one way to put it," the beAt
said. Once again Kirk got that feeling of
pressure, as if the creature were considering him so
  closely that the whole weight of its thought was bent
on him, and the
  weight was as tangible as its stone. He sat still,
and bore up under it the best he could.
  It eased off after a few moments. "Are there many
of you?" it said.
  "Many billions," Kirk said, "scattered across
thousands of worlds. Not all of us travel the worlds,
by any means. But many do."
  "And you "trade,"" the beAt said.
  Kirk nodded. "We have many different kinds of
needs. Some of our worlds are rich in things that other
species need, or desire-goods, or knowledge. We
find ways to fulfill one another's needs, so that
all have what they
  require for their lives to be worthwhile." At
least, he thought, that's the way it's supposed to work.
  "And do all these species never do one
another harm?"
  Kirk sweated, and said, "Yes, I'm afraid
sometimes they do. We have a long way to go yet before we
can walk through the Universe merely smelling the --

  flowers. Some of us step on them. Sometimes
accidentally, sometimes on
  purpose."
  There was a silence. "Show me a flower," said the
beAt.
  Kirk looked up at it, bemused, then said,
"Certainly." He got up, looked around the
clearing. It was not all the fine turf he had been
examining
  earlier; there was some low shrubby growth dotted about
it here and there, and bright spots of color showed among
the branches. "Shall I bring one
  over for you?" he said to the beAt.
  "No need," said the creature. "Show me one."
  Kirk got up and started walking over to the
shrubbery. That was when he got another surprise,
because the beAt went with him. It didn't move. But
at the same time, it was next to him with every step he
took, without disturbing a single leaf of that springy
bluegreen ground cover, or so much as a
crumb of dirt. It was a very impressive trick,
and Kirk wondered how in the world it did it.
  Then again, they said the comAt's physicality was
"occasional." Is it
  voluntary, I wonder? Do they turn it on and
off" at will? And how does it affect their
metabolism? He smiled to himself again. Now 1
understand why it made Bones so crazy when I called
him back up to the ship. I've got to find a way
to make it up to him later.
  "Here," he said, pausing and kneeling down. The
bright bits of red in the bushes turned out to be
berries; but the turf had more than one kind of
  plant in it, and Kirk reached down to touch a
small broadleaved plant, like a miniature
primrose, with delicate white orchid-like
petals. "That's what we would normally call a
flower. I'm not sure it's strictly analogous

  to flowers on Earth; you'd have to check with my
Biology people."
  The beAt leaned over him-rather, it didn't move,
but its shadow fell over him and the flower both.
"Yes," it said then. "I understand the idiom, I
think. To interfere with natural processes
already in place."
  "Yes," Kirk said.
  The beAt straightened-or rather, its shadow shortened,
and it was suddenly standing straight in the ground again. "I
thank you," it said. "Now let me show you something."
  And immediately, night fell.
  It was a night full of fire, and screaming. The
screams were like nothing that Kirk had ever heard before, but
it took only a moment for him to
  recognize the scratchy noises of Ornae,
suddenly pitched terribly high, and the rustlings of
Lahit whipped to a terrible speed. Phaser and
disruptor bolts were lancing down through the utter
darkness, kindling fires where they struck. There was the
occasional crash of explosive in the middle
  distance. Kirk held still, because he couldn't see
to run. Somehow he knew that the beAt was still beside him,
with terrible emotions rumbling in it, but leashed for the
moment.
  A phaser bolt hit nearby. Lahit
screamed; a grove of them went struggling away through
the darkness, their branches flailing in agony, all
afire.
  Another bolt illuminated the Ornaet
structure it destroyed; iridescent
  flesh exploded, protoplasm melted and hissed
into steam. The air reeked of burning resin and alien
flesh. After a few seconds, the attack stopped.
But silence did not fall; the screams of the Lahit
lasted a long time. From the Ornae there was no sound
at all anymore.
  Something passed overhead, silhouetted silveredged
by the light of the one small moon-a blunt, sleek
shape, that went over with a roar of ion-drivers and was
lost against the moonhaze at the horizon.
  Kirk cursed, and found that he was standing in daylight
again, the beAt
  beside him, looking down at a flower.
  He looked around at the bright sunlight, breathing
hard with shock. Beside him the beAt stood silent and
stolid, as if it had been rooted in that spot since
the morning of the world; and it cast no shadow.
  "Do you know that vessel?" said the beAt.
  "From what I saw of it," Kirk said, "it
looked like an Orion pirate lander. The mothership
would have been up in orbit somewhere."
  "Yes," said the beAt.
  Kirk shook his head. "How did you do that?" he
said.
  For the first time, he got an impression from
the beAt that felt like
  uncertainty. It was very strange, from something that
until now had seemed solider than some mountains
Kirk had climbed. "I shall have difficulty
  telling you," it said. "Tell me; where will you be
tomorrow?"
  Kirk shrugged. "Back aboard my ship, I
suppose. I may be able to get down here again if
I can finish my other work." He looked around at the
sunny woods and said, "I'd like that, if I could.
This is a nice place."
  "Yes," said the beAt. But there was something faintly
troubled about its
  voice. "Can you not make a picture for me of
where you will be tomorrow, as you have been doing of where you were at
other times?"
  "A picture-?" Oh Lord, Kirk thought, the
creature's a concept telepath.
  It's been in my head all this 149
  time, seeing every image that's occurred to me. Heaven
only knows what I've shown it! This thing could
destroy us with a thought if it wanted to-
  Then he shook his head. He could hear McCoy
saying very annoyed, Why does it always have to be a
thing? The creature shows no sign of
destroying anything . . . and it's had enough destruction
visited on it. "Sir," he said, "I
  can't do what you're asking me. You're asking me
to predict the future.
  Visualize it, yes, I can do that. I can
approximate future events in my
  mind. But not one of all our peoples can truly
tell, reliably, as an act of will, what will
happen tomorrow. Or five minutes from now."
  The beAt was quiet for a moment. "This will be our
difficulty," it said,
  more to itself, Kirk thought, than to him. "Captain,
I must try to make you understand us a little now."
  "Be my guest," Kirk said.
  "So we shall be. I think that you perceive-the past-and
now-but not the
  future. Am I right?"
  Kirk sat down in the grass again-gratefully,
for he was feeling slightly weak-kneed after that sudden
episode in the dark-and said, "You mean you can perceive the
future."
  "Exist in it. Yes. To a limited degree."
  "Holy cow," Kirk said softly.
  "Pardon?" said the beAt.
  Kirk laughed. "Sorry, the image
must have looked strange. And what about the past?"
  "You saw for yourself," said the beAt.
  "So I did." Kirk shook his head again. "This
ought to be impossible," he said, bemused. "Spock
will have a field day with you. The future shouldn't be
accessible, 150
  by any rules we know. Even the Guardian of
Forever can't get at it."
  The beAt paused a moment, perhaps looking at the
image in Kirk's mind. "That instrumentality is
operating on different principles," it said. "It
is only capable of managing one time-branch at a
time; its programming forbids
  more, if I read correctly the way it
described itself to you. We are living in a way the
Guardian is not. All time-branches are
accessible, though the past ones are simpler
to access."
  "Oh jeez, time," Kirk said, for in the midst of
all the excitement he had forgotten to check in with the
ship. "Sir, would you pardon me for a
  moment? I won't go anywhere. I just need to talk
to my people."
  "Of course, Captain."
  He pulled out his communicator and
flipped it open. "Kirk to Enterprise. was
"Enterprise," Uhura's cheerful voice said.
"How
  are you doing down there, Captain?"
  "No problems. How's the ship?"
  "No problems up here either, sir. his
  "Fine. Kirk out."
  He put the communicator away, and leaned back
a little to gaze up again at the beAt. "Now then . .
. where were we?" Kirk rubbed his head for a moment.
"You were telling me that you people can visit the future."
  "We live in it," said the beAt. "To a limited
extent, as I said. Also the past and the present, as you
perceive them."
  "We were actually there, just then, weren't we? That was
the last time the Orion pirates attacked your
planet."
  "How often has this been happening?"
  "At irregular intervals for some six rounds of
our sun, now."
  "That's more or less eight of our years. Sir-was
Kirk paused a moment. "I
  really do wish you had a name," he said. "I may
not use it much, but it
  would help to have something to think of you by."
  The beAt looked at him, and suddenly had a
shadow again, which fell over
  Kirk. "We have little use for them," it said. "The
others, the Ornae and the Lahit, sometimes call me
by words that mean the one who manages things, having
understood them."
  "Chief," Kirk said. No, too
nonspecific. "Boss." No, too informal.
"Hmmm . . . Master." As in teacher, or
skilled proponent of some art. That sounded more like it.
  "Master," said the beAt, "says it well."
  "Fine. So these people have been raiding you for eight
years now-was Kirk
  tried to fit that together with reports he had heard
concerning their
  depredations in other parts of space. "They've come
a long way from their usual hunting grounds if
they're all the way out here. Then again," he
  said, "it's possibly our more widespread
presence, and the Klingons', that has driven them away
from the more populated parts of the Galaxy." He
  thought for a moment. "What are they after? Can you
tell?"
  "Every time they come here, they dig," said the Master.
It sounded rather bemused by that. "What for, I
could not say."
  "It's not minable minerals," Kirk said. "Your
world
  is poor in those. Then again, McCoy was getting
  rather excited about the dirt earlier. And Spock
  mentioned that the plant life here seemed rich in
  medical alkaloids." That rang an
unfortunate bell. "It could be drugs," Kirk
said. "There are substances on some worlds that are
innocent enough in their own environment, but when used on
an alien species, are psychoactives of
  greatly varying strengths. Such things bring huge
prices . . . and those who obtain and sell them
don't hesitate to kill." He shook his head.
"But it's just a guess."
  "What I do not understand," said the Master, "is why
these Orion beings
  feel it necessary to kill our people as they have been doing.
Surely they could take what they desire and depart
unharmed. There are many parts of this world with the same
plants, the same earth, but where none of us
  lives."
  "Sir, sometimes people like that just like killing. It's a
game to them. Or else they see it as fumigation .
. . cleaning an inconvenient infestation off
a world so they can more easily exploit it." Kirk's
mouth set in a
  straight hard line. "The Orion pirates have
done that often enough before. Early on in their history, they
sometimes destroyed whole inhabited planets
simply because they weren't economically viable . . .
then used the
  fragments to build Dyson spheres and
populate the increased areas with
  slave labor. In a way, they did us a
favor . . . their behavior so
  disgusted a lot of worlds that the profit motive went
out of style. There are a few holdouts, here and there.
But the pirates . . . I think they just like to kill."
  The Master rumbled, a low slow sound that would have
made Kirk very nervous if he had thought it was being
directed at him. "I would tend to agree with you," it
said.
  Kirk stood up and started to pace slowly back
and forth among the flowers. "But you've told me that you

  can exist in other times. That's a tremendous
advantage, or it should be. If you can exist in the
future, why can't you perceive the pirates coming, and
act to keep your people away from them? Or find
some way to stop them?"
  Kirk got a sense of profound regret from the
Master. "Don't you think we would if we could?" it
said. "We can exist in the future, but we cannot act
on it or in it without withdrawing our presence from
present and past. We would have to live permanently in
the future, our own future, so that we might warn
ourselves in the present of any danger. To do so would be
to
  give up life in the present, forever."
  Kirk thought about that for a moment. "I guess living
in the future
  wouldn't be any more healthy than living in the past,"
he said. "You're
  right. There must be some other way."
  "It is hard for us," the Master said. "We are
prepared to do that if we
  must. We are, in our way, the guardians of the
Ornae and Lahit. They share our perception of
time, but not the wider view; they can live in past and
present and future, but in only one at a time . .
. not all at once. They are innocents, with their own
concerns-mostly one another, discovering
  their differences and likenesses. There are many."
  "There certainly are," Kirk said.
"That's partly what brought us here-we know of no other
place where three species so different all
evolved
  together."
  The Master seemed gently amused by that. "Yes,"
it said, "we enjoy it-this discovering how different others
can be, while still being alike at root. Life is
a joy because of it."
  "I think I understand you," Kirk said. "Though
it's possible I'm deluding myself." He shook his
head. 154
  "Your ability to coexist among times alone is
going to raise a lot of
  questions. Especially since you seem able to extend the
effects to others. You may find yourselves having a lot
of visitors . . . not just Orion
  pirates." He clasped his hands behind him as he
paced. "There must be some way to put a stop to that,
though."
  "We should be glad to hear of it," said the Master.
  McCoy sat in the center seat, holding onto his
temper with both hands.
  "Kaiev," he said, "I'll tell you again. I
have better things to do with my time than go killing your
crewpeople. I don't care how they go
running all over the planet with their little toy diggers
and I don't know what all. If they've vanished,
that doesn't surprise me. I told you that
strange things were happening down there, but you wouldn't
listen to me-oh no. We've had people vanish too, and
we don't know where they are."
  "How many?" Kaiev demanded. "When?"
  "Classified information," McCoy said. "You should
know better than to ask. And I don't care if it
means taking our statement on trust. You'll just
  have to deal with it. If you don't believe me, and you
want to make
  something of it, you just go right ahead."
  McCoy looked at Sulu and Chekov
meaningfully, and threw a glance over at Scotty.
He could see that the screens were already up, and Sulu
brought up the little firing sight on his console.
Kaiev could see all this, and was having a hard time
keeping his face still.
  "Now son," McCoy said, "I'm an
easygoing man, but you have an attitude
  problem. If you force me to, I'll be glad
to adjust it for you,
  permanently. Make up your mind."
  He was very glad Kaiev couldn't see
how his hands were sweating.
  It was very quiet over on the Klingon bridge.
"About what?" Kaiev finally said.
  McCoy smiled. "About whether you're going
to cooperate with us. We'll send down some extra
search parties and help you look for your people. We have this
place a lot more completely mapped than you can have just
yet; that may be an advantage. Also, we'll do
some analysis on their sensor traces and see if
we can't find out where they went. We haven't had much
luck with finding our own missing yet, but we'll share
what we've discovered with
  you. Spock," McCoy said, looking over his
shoulder, "make up a data packet about that odd
radiation and see to it that the Science Officer over there
gets it, will you? Thanks."
  He turned to the screen again and smiled. "Anything
else you need, Kaiev?" The Klingon commander
looked at McCoy with an expression that was
difficult to decipher completely, but there was a lot
of perplexity in it. "Before, was he said, "you mentioned
that some of your people had been-eaten by trees- His
  McCoy raised an eyebrow. "Tell your people
to leave their chain saws home, Kaiev," he said.
"McCoy out."
  Uhura ended the transmission. Spock came
down to stand by McCoy, and
  favored him with a look of mild annoyance.
"Doctor," he said, "have you any idea of the
weapons ability of a Klingon battle cruiser?"
  "Enough to know that he can't take us one to one,"
McCoy said, "not with our screens up and with our fingers
on the button. Which is where we will stay, 156
  until this situation has become calmer. It may
take a while. Yellow alert
  until I say otherwise."
  "Noted, Doctor." But Spock had not finished
being admonitory yet. "I must ask, however, why
you are being so provocative."
  "I'm being nothing of the sort," McCoy said.
"Spock, it's pure Klingon
  psychology, or as close to it as an Earthman
is going to get at the moment. Snarl first, and louder,
and never let up. Out-aggress the aggressor, and he
falls over and shows you his throat. It works for
wolves. And there are aspects of Klingon
behavior that suggest that "pack' psychology is
most
  effective with them."
  Spock still looked dubious. "You were
showing dangerous signs of enjoyment, Doctor," he
said. "Would you care to comment on the chance that you are
  taking out your own anger at this situation on the
Klingons?"
  McCoy laughed. "Why, of course I am,
Spock. That's one of the things
  emotion is best for: to use as a tool,
consciously, to achieve a goal.
  One's own emotions, of course. In your case,
I speak theoretically." He
  smiled; Spock looked at the ceiling.
McCoy was satisfied by this result. It would be a
poor day for him, even under these horrendous
circumstances, if he couldn't manage to tease
Spock a little.
  "Meantime," he said, "I have to start putting together
some more
  information for Starfleet; they're going to be wanting
my log extracts,
  damn them. Have you found out anything else about that
radiation?"
  "There continue to be minor incidences here and there on
the planet
  surface," Spock said, "but again, none of them
seems attributable to any specific
event 157
  that I can identify. I shall continue working on the
problem. But you should know," he said, "that I have had a
look at the heat and radiation scans for the area in which
the Klingons disappeared, and the traces are identical
in nature to the remnants left by the Captain.
Whatever the instrumentality is that is operating here, it
is the same in both cases."
  "Wonderful," McCoy said. "So something now
has both Kirk and a batch of
  Klingons in the same playpen. I needed something
like this to put my mind at ease."
  "There is of course no evidence that any such thing
has happened-was
  "Spock," McCoy said, "I will bet you a
nickel."
  Spock raised his eyebrows. "Do you mean
to indicate an actual coin?"
  "Just so happens that in my quarters, carefully
secreted from prying eyes, I have a genuine
buffalohead nickel, dated 1938 old date.
I bet you that nickel that the Captain and the Klingons
are going to wind up in the same place. And,"
McCoy said, "T bet you that Jim is going
to run rings around them."
  "If I lose this bet," Spock said, "I will
be unable to redeem the amount in question. I am afraid
I do not have any nickels."
  "That'll do," McCoy said. "Here, give me that
padd. I've got to think of something that'll sound good
enough to keep Starfleet off my neck for the next few
hours."
  "Are you expecting something to happen in that time?"
Spock said.
  "Spock, with my luck, something will. You just
watch."
  Katur was a young officer, but experienced in many
landings in her time. She prided herself on her ability
to cope with the unexpected. She had seen many things that
had been the deaths of those less prepared than she,
those less ready to react in a second, to kill
quickly and without undue
  consideration of the consequences. Too much thinking,
Katur felt, was bad for the pulse rate.
Reaction, reflex, swift and merciless, that was the
  secret of survival . . . and advancement in
rank.
  But she had not been prepared for anything like
  this.
  The briefing with Commander Kaiev had been
brief and simple. "The place is full of
aliens," he had said. "There are indications that some of
them may be dangerous. Use due care, but do not
hesitate to make examples of them if you find it
necessary. Our intelligence indicates that this planet
is most likely a rich source of tabekh. You
are to search out the necessary raw
  materials, and once identified, bring as much
back to the ship as possible. At all costs, stay
away from the Federation personnel. We do not desire
  them to have any idea what we are after in this area,
lest they attempt to co-opt the resource.
Understood?"
  Katur had understood all too well. There would
be precious little glory on this landing. My mother did
not raise me to dig in the dirt like a menial, she
had thought, as she went to the Transporter room with the
others. But one must suffer in silence sometimes to gain
greater goals.
  Katur frequently thought like that, in axioms and
wise sayings. It was a bad habit she had
acquired from her brother, who had died suddenly in
  some world south of the Galactic Rift, when a
creature with too many teeth and no appreciation of
wise sayings had leapt on him from a tree
and bitten his head off. Katur had never cared much for
her brother, so she had been
  little moved by this, except to take the occurrence as
an omen that wisdom was best left to others, and that
thinking too hard tended to distract one from what was going
on in the immediate vicinity. The wise sayings continued
to rattle about in her head, but she kept them to herself,
and did her best to ignore them.
  Now she sat in the back of the all-terrain
vehicle and muttered to herself over Kesaio's
driving, which was certainly suitable for a muck-cart, but
nothing much better than that. The transporter had
put them down
  practically in the middle of the Federation camp, and
they had had to
  endure a great deal of staring and interest as they
made their way out of the clearing. That was another
problem-the lack of proper roads. The
  Commander had forbidden them a
  flyer, apparently thinking that the Federation commander, not
the famous
  smooth-talking Kirk but some other officer, was
too easily antagonized, and might misconstrue
the flyer as being rather too handy should they decide
to attack the Federation landing parties.
  That statement alone had made Katur's liver
twist in her. She despised
  Kaiev, even when he was being prudent; perhaps more
than usual, then, for he so rarely seemed
to exercise good judgment at other times. He was
  capable enough of being reckless when the foe was small and
helpless, which annoyed Katur. No honor in such
pretenses; enslave them and be done with it. But this
sudden careful courtesy being 160
  exhibited by Kaiev in the face of
Enterprise's puny guns annoyed Katur
  considerably. It was a great pity that the ship had
been prepared for them. All it would have taken was a
moment's surprise to add glory to all their
  names. Glory, and an early end to this tour of
duty in the middle of nowhere at all.
  Instead, they were forced to act meekly, and drive out
through the
  Federation people. And even worse, through the aliens.
"I would shoot them all," Katur muttered to herself.
"Look at these disgusting things."
  "I am trying not to," said Helef, who was
sitting beside her and glowering. And it was understandable, for they
were revolting. Half of them were like fat bags of
sickly colored jelly; the other half were
dumb plants, except they had little cold eyes that
made it plain they were watching you, and thinking no one
knew what.
  "I will take an axe to one of them yet,"
Katur said under her breath. "Why is it that everywhere
we go, we keep finding these things? Does the idiot
Universe have nothing better to do than to keep creating
more and more
  life? And most of it not worth conquering." She
shuddered. "All simple
  life, no sophistication about it, no elegance,
no grand passions. The
  Universe is hopelessly pedestrian,
Helef."
  Helef shrugged and looked away. He was no
philosopher at the best of times. Kesaio took
them out of the clearing along a narrow, bumpy path.
Tree
  branches whipped at their faces; they ducked, and
Kesaio and Tak in the
  front seat all swore. Katur longed to see
the day over with. Digging tabekh like any servant,
she thought. Someone ought to call challenge on Kaiev
for this, and cut his liver out. Except we need the
stuff, I suppose. It had 161
  indeed been three weeks now since any of them
had had tabekh, and there had already been several
murders aboard ship as one crewmember or another
ran
  out and killed another for his or her supply.
To happen on a planet that was a source was incredible
luck, and had to be exploited. But Katur was
  intensely annoyed at having been sent to do the
exploiting.
  They came out into another clearing and went roaring
across it. And then something happened. Katur was not
sure of the details even later, when she had time
to think about matters, but it seemed as if suddenly there
was a stone in the middle of the clearing, where previously
there had been none. She had little more time to consider the
problem, as she was pitched out of the vehicle over the
windshield.
  She was well-taught enough to hit the ground rolling,
and a moment later she was on her feet, sidearm out,
looking for the others. They were all
  lying about in various states of disrepair.
Kesaio was sitting up groaning, with the blood coming
down from a good long scrape on his head. Katur
went and helped him up roughly by one arm. "A pity
you weren't killed," she
  said, "but that's all right; the Commander will do that for you
when he
  sees what you've done to the vehicle."
  Kesaio wasn't up to much but groaning yet.
Katur went over to Helef,
  pausing along the way to kick at one of the
pulse-diggers, which had come down and broken rather neatly
in two pieces. "Fine," she said. "We're going
to have to do all this by hand now." She helped Helef
up; he was stunned, that was all. "Tak?" she said.
  "I'm all right," he said. "Katur, did you
see that? The stone got in front of us."
  She stared at him. "You're addled. Here, pick
up your gun."
  He picked up his sidearm, but at the same time
he was looking suspiciously at the rock.
"Katur, I mean it. It was somewhere else first, and
it moved."
  "Nothing moved," she said scornfully. "Don't
be a fool. How should a rock move? Do you see
any marks in the grass, anything of the kind?"
  "No, but-was
  "Idiot," she said, and stalked away. Another
disappointment. She usually rather liked Tak, but if
he was going to start hallucinating on her,
there was no point in him.
  Katur stared at the vehicle. A ruin. How
quickly everything could go to
  pieces in the world. She had gone out with hopes of a
commendation for a task well done; now there would be
discipline for all of them. And still no tabekh.
  The windshield of the vehicle was quite shattered.
Katur looked at it,
  rubbing her slightly sore neck, and wondered how
she had managed to go
  flying over it and not hit the rock.
  Unless the rock had moved-
  No, ridiculous. She went over to the other
digger and picked it up. It was still in one piece, but
whether it would function was another question.
  "Come on, the lot of you," she said. "At least
we still have one of these
  left. We'll get the damn tabekh anyway,
more than enough for everybody."
  "What about the vehicle?"
  "We'll tell the Commander that one of the wretched
tree-things got in front of it," Katur said.
"Rocks we can't explain except by people's
clumsiness."
  She glowered at Kesaio. "But we can
catch one of the trees 163
  and make it look as if the alien got clumsy.
Nothing easier. Here, take
  this," she said, and handed the surviving pulse-digger
to Helef.
  He took it with ill grace, but he had no
choice; she was most senior.
  "Here," she said, "give me your scanner." He
handed that over reluctantly as well. He had
spent time making special alterations in it, and
disliked having his settings fiddled with. She knew it,
and delighted in
  discomfiting him. Katur changed the
reading-slides until they suited her, then did an
allaround scan.
  "There," she said. "There's a positive trace.
Northnorthwest, no more than four thousand paces
away. We can make it in an hour or so, I should
think. Come on, let's get this over with."
  They set off north-northwest, up toward the
bluegreen hills. A long soft afternoon, blue with
haze and the planet's idiosyncratic
chlorophyll, was settling over everything. Katur,
uncaring, was blind to it.
  Another thing she also did not see, that she
might have cared rather more about, was the rock, which was following
them.
  KIRK WAS SITTING in the shadow of the Master
of the beAt, thinking hard.
  Afternoon was setting in; the light was changing from the
odd coolstwarm
  mixture of the morning to earlier day to something almost
wholly warm,
  though blues and greens were still predominant. The
brassy light of
  Flyspeck's sun was shading down to old gold
through the still air. In the
  trees leading up to the hills northward, birds
were beginning to sing, or
  something that would have passed for birds. The song was
muted, abstract,
  and slightly melancholy. It reminded Kirk of
nightingale bats, or chickadees in winter, and it
suited his mood, and the feeling of the place,
exactly.
  The Master had not spoken for some time. Kirk
leaned back against its
  bulk-it had told him it didn't mind-and
waited. One feeling he had been
  getting steadily, ever since he had
beamed down, was that there was no
  point in rushing this process. This was exactly
what the Enterprise had
  come for-the diplomacy, taking place in a rather
different manner than 165
  he had originally imagined, but taking place
nonetheless, and requiring the same care and attention as
if the usual forms were being observed. Pity more
diplomacy can't take place like this, though, Kirk
thought. Sitting out in the fresh air and the sunshine is
a lot more pleasant than being stuck in
  stuffy meeting rooms and bureaucratic
cocktail parties.
  He kept finding himself looking around, though, as if
to reassure himself that the day would not suddenly give
way again to a night full of bombs and phasers.
There was no question in his mind that he had been there,
  physically. It begged an interesting question: could the
beAt affect others' physicality, as well as their
own? It seemed likely. But he would need
  Spock later to help him work on answers to that
question, and many others. There was no doubt that the Federation
would be very, very keen to get
  Flyspeck in.
  He could not allow that to concern him, however.
His business was to
  discover whether membership in the Federation would be as
good for the
  beAt-and the Ornae and the Lahit-as it would be from the
Federation's point of view. If it wasn't, he was
going to tell the Federation to go take a
  flying leap. Theoretically, if that was his decision,
they would support him.
  Theoretically.
  He sighed and thought again of that horrible night full
of carnage. "I
  think I can understand," he said after a while, "why
you're in the mood to be a little cautious of aliens."
  There was a silence. Then the Master said, "Can you?
Can you indeed?"
  Its tone of voice was curious, and made him
wonder if he had been missing something. Kirk said,
"You're 166
  implying that there may be reasons for your caution that
I don't understand as yet. Nothing is more likely.
But I don't know what questions to ask as
  yet, sir, to get the right answers."
  "Nor do I," said the Master. "I suppose
we'll just have to play Galactic Twenty Questions
until we both discover what we need
to know."
  Kirk chuckled. As they had been talking, the
beAt's idiom was becoming more and more fluent, even
witty. Kirk supposed it was picking this up from his
mind somehow, catching snatches of other people's conversation
as he
  remembered them in the course of his own talking and
thinking. "That's as good a name for this as any," he said.
  He stretched. "It's a pleasure to have the time
to ask the questions
  today," he said. "I feel a lot less
pressured than usual." He cocked an eye up
at the beAt. "That wouldn't be your doing, would it?"
  The beAt hesitated-Kirk was growing able to hear
its hesitations now-and
  said, "I couldn't answer that until I was certain
I knew what you meant by doing. I would have to tell you
everything I do, I suppose."
  Kirk was amused. "And what do you do?"
  "Watch the world, mostly."
  "No different from most of us. Except we have to do
things about what we see happening. Not always the right
things, I'm afraid."
  The beAt made a long slow rumble that Kirk was
coming to recognize as
  agreement. "You do a lot of doing, was it said.
  "Yes."
  "It must be strange," said the Master, "to spend so
much of your time in the present."
  Kirk laughed outright at that. "We're kind of
stuck with it. The future is a closed book . .
. the past is frozen. The present is all we've
got to
  work with."
  "Very strange," said the Master. "Time as you conceive
it is a little
  place, it seems. A box. You sit in the
present moment, with everything
  outside the box inaccessible to you."
  "We get out," Kirk said slowly. "But only
occasionally. Dreams . . .
  there's no time there. A hundred things happen in
an eyeblink."
  "Yes," the Master said, "that is the way it is."
  "There was a saying on Earth, among some of the early
philosophers, that time was Nature's way of
keeping everything from happening at once."
  The Master rumbled with amusement again. "What a
quiet context you must
  exist in," it said. "A simple
place."
  "Simple!"
  "But do you see," said the Master, "what our
  caution is founded in? Here our people have this
  perception of time as a whole thing, unbreakable; a
  field that we live in, and move through at will;
sky,
  sun, trees, wind. Now comes a species that
tells us that
  all other species, nearly, live in boxes,
and let in the
  sun only a blink at a time, glance at a star
only once in
  a while. Should that not seem unutterably strange
to
  us? Frightening? And should we not fear that the
  species we live with, and care for-the Ornae and the
  Lahit-might somehow catch this view from contact
  with these other beings, be contaminated by it? Might
  we not fear that our friends, who see the world mostly
  as we do, might themselves crawl into the boxes, and
  come to ration their perception of the world to the
  occasional breath of air, a glimpse of
sunlight through
  the cracks?" It sounded grave. "I
think that would be a mistake in our
  caretakership."
  "You would be right there," Kirk said. "But you have no
guarantee it would happen. You might as easily
become enriched as impoverished. Think of the other
side of the question. People from a hundred worlds coming here-as
  many new, strange ways of thinking as you can
imagine; more than that. For strangeness doesn't always
have to be terrible. We got over that fear,
  though it took us a long time. Some of the most
different of us are the
  best friends. Maybe there's something to what people say
where I come from, that opposites attract, that people as
unlike as they can be have nothing to argue about, and get
along the best of all, much better than people who are more
alike."
  "Like your friends the Klingons."
  Kirk laughed. "We may be a little too alike
for our own good. We were both bred from predator
species. Are there any predator species on this
planet?" he said, for he could feel the Master's
momentary confusion. "Creatures
  that live off other creatures, by actual ingestion
of their tissue, or by taking something belonging to the other
creatures from them?"
  The beAt shuddered. Kirk did too, in
sympathy; perhaps the Master was
  leaking emotion a little, for its wave of shock and
revulsion went straight through him. What was the image
in my mind? he wondered, for he had never even
noticed. Lions on the veldt? Or something
worse?
  "We have nothing of the kind here," said the Master, and
there was an
  undertone of unhappiness in its voice, "though I
have heard of the concept. This, then, would also go far
to explain the behavior of your 169
  Orion pirates, if they are descended from
predators too."
  "Hominid stock," Kirk said. "I'm afraid
so. Most hominids had
  ancestor-creatures that hunted and killed
to live. The habit is in our
  genes. It's hard to break. Some of us choose
to break it. Some delight in the killing, and see no
problem in that. We try not to judge them by our
standards." Kirk sighed. "We have trouble enough living
by our own."
  "You can see," said the Master, "the difficulty
I would have in justifying contact with such kinds
of creatures."
  "Justifying to whom?" said Kirk.
  There was another of those long pauses. "I will have
difficulty explaining that," it said, though there was an
undertone to its rumbling that sounded almost cheerful.
  Kirk shook his head. "Never mind, then. It can
wait till later. I'm more concerned about the
pirates. They're bound to come back again. They'll
keep coming back until they've drained your planet
of whatever resource they
  started coming here for. And they'll kill more of your people,
and the
  Ornae and Lahit, in the process."
  "Oh, they haven't killed any of my people. We
are hard to kill," said the Master.
  "I just bet!" Kirk said. You could drop a
planetcracker bomb on a creature that could put
its physicality in abeyance; and when it came
back, not a vein of its stone would be out of place.
"But the others . . . yes. I would prevent that, if
it could be prevented."
  Kirk weighed his next words for a few seconds.
"This might be one advantage that being in the 170
  Federation could offer you," he said. "One of the things
we cooperate in is protection. If it
became known that your world was affiliated with our
  Federation, odds are that the pirates would avoid you.
We have had run-ins with them before." Kirk smiled,
and the smile was grim. "Generally not to
  their advantage."
  "You were telling me," said the Master, "that you thought
perhaps the
  reason they were coming here was because they had been driven
out of other spaces comby you and the Klingons. Should you
come here, then perhaps they would be driven farther out-to some
other world even less able to defend itself. Some world that
your people would see no advantage in defending. For
clearly you see advantage in us."
  "I can't deny that," Kirk said.
  "I would find it hard," said the Master, "to take
on my conscience the
  burden of deaths on another world. This one is
problem enough."
  Kirk had to see the logic in that. So much for the
diplomatic initiative, he thought unhappily.
I have a feeling these people are going to say no to us at the
end of the day. Regardless, something has to be done
to help
  them.
  "This predation," the Master said, thoughtful,
"seems unusually widespread. One wonders if
something could be done about it."
  Kirk smiled slowly. "I'm sitting here trying
to think of ways to help your people," he said, "and you're
trying to think of ways to help mine."
  "Well, who wouldn't?"
  "The Klingons, for one."
  "Yes," the Master said, still thoughtful. "But that's
their problem. They cannot help their genes any more 171
  than you can. One must transcend such things, not try
to deal with them by simple removal. Removal never
turns out to be permanent, or effective."
  "So we found out, sometime back in our history,"
Kirk said. "Mastery is
  better than change, as a rule. And usually more
satisfying."
  "Yes, was said the beAt, and the earth round about shook
with its agreement. .kirk steadied himself until the
bouncing stopped. I
  have the feeling I've just missed something
significant, he thought. I wish I knew what
it was. "In any case," Kirk said, "the
Klingons don't seem
  particularly interested in transcending their heredity.
They appear to be
  very fond of it." He shrugged. "Their choice."
  "Yes."
  "At any rate, I thank you for trying to think of
ways to help us. But I
  think that we would probably not benefit unless we
implemented the help
  ourselves."
  "I was going to say something similar to you," said the
Master, and Kirk could feel it smiling, though there was
not the slightest change in the
  contours or terrible weight of that great tall stone.
"And you see, if we had to depend on others for our
protection, our-sufficiency-would be
  impaired. Never again would we, or the other
species, be quite whole. It might be better to die,
than to lose that wholeness. It is all we have,
  really."
  "Live free, or die," Kirk murmured.
  "Yes," said the Master of the beAt. "That is the
choice to be made, I
  think."
  "And you will be making it," said Kirk.
  "Oh, I have made it, eventually," the Master
said. "I just don't know what it is yet."
  Kirk sighed. Every now and then the
Master's
  tenses became confused, but it had something to do with the
beAt's odd
  perception of time, rather than a glitch in the
Translator. "Well, let me
  know when you find out," he said.
  "You will be the first to know," said the beAt. "And
possibly the last. Tell me something, if you would."
  "Certainly," Kirk said, thoroughly confused.
  "The other ship-tell me about that."
  "Oh, our initial survey vessel," Kirk
said. "They were under orders not to reveal where they came
from or what they were doing here. I have regrets about that,
in retrospect," he said. "It seems a childish
way to treat
  another intelligent species. Unfortunately,
I don't make the policies; my job is
to carry them out."
  "Not that ship," the beAt said. "The other ship in
orbit, the one with the name Ekkava on its hull.
There are not as many people aboard it as there are aboard your
vessel, but the ship seems to be carrying many more of the
energy-directing devices than yours does."
  Kirk broke right out in a cold sweat.
BonesYA-ND my ship, with a green
  officer in the helm, one that no one else will be able
to relieve because of my orders. "Ekkava-that sounds
uncomfortably like a Klingon ship," he said.
"Sir, I need to contact my ship." He pulled
out his communicator and flipped it open. "Kirk
to Enterprise. his
  The result was a horrendous electronic
squeal that he had heard before, and it raised the hair
on the back of his neck-not with delight, either.
  "Jammed," he muttered. "What the devil are
they up to?"
  "They appear to simply be orbiting at the
moment," said the Master. "I can tell you this in
certainty: your ship is in no danger from the
Klingons."
  "If you don't mind," said Kirk, "I'd rather be
the judge of that."
  "A moment only. We have been discussing the
Klingons mostly in the
  abstract," said the Master. "Do you consider them as
bad as Orion pirates?" Kirk had to think about
that for a moment. "There are more of them," he
  said, "and they're less cautious, and more violent,
in more straightforward ways. Usually they're better
armed. But they're usually more predictable.
We know each other moderately well," Kirk
said.
  "So it seems. Well, they are here, and I
suppose they must be entertained as well." The
Master sounded to Kirk more like a host who's worried
about the hors d'oeuvres running out than a
creature with what might be the
  beginning of an invasion force sitting on its
doorstep. "What would you
  recommend we do?" Kirk frowned furiously
at the nonfunctional communicator, and put it
away. "Probably," he said, "get ready for a
fight."
  Captain's Log, Supplemental. Commander
Leonard McCoy recording in the
  absence of Captain James T. Kirk:
  (oh Lord, Jim, where the hell are you?)
  Conditions remain largely unchanged since our
last log entry. We are
  keeping a channel open to the Klingon vessel
to keep them reassured that we harbor no ill Will
against them, and continue to check in with them
  regularly regarding their missing crewmen. No
sign has been found of their people as yet, or of
Captain Kirk, though our searches have
extended to include three of the other continents and the
Waters off the continent on which most of our researches
have been done. Mr. Spock continues to
  investigate odd radiation readings and other
slightly unnatural phenomena that he feels may
shed some light on the method used to remove the
Captain. The Ornae and Lahit on the planet
  continue to insist that the Captain is present and
unhurt, though they are unable to prove this, or
to tell us how they know.
  Meanwhile, datagathering continues on the
planet, though many personnel have been diverted
to searching for the Captain. We have rediscovered
  penicillin eighteen times, streptomycin and
hemomycetin three times, and have isolated several very
promising antifungal and antibacterial agents.
The planet also seems to harbor some plant life
that occurs on planets a good ways away, such as
snortweed, which as far as we knew only grew on
Delta Orionis Eight. Other specimens have
also been found and identified, leading some members of
Botany to suggest that the Preservers may indeed have
been out this way, but may have transplanted
vegetative plant species rather than the usual
intelligent animal-descended ones, and
may have used the planet as a greenhouse rather than a
zoo breeding program. The
  interest of this planet continues to increase. My
only wish is that the Captain were experiencing it from
up here, rather than wherever he is.
  McCoy handed the recorder to Uhura. "Did that
sound all right?" he said. "You're getting the hang
of it," she said. "Thanks, Doctor. This will go out
with the next transmission in a little while."
  "Good." He frowned a little. "Aren't we due for
another love letter from Starfleet pretty soon?"
  "Yes."
  "Oh, wonderful." He was feeling the dread in the
pit of his stomach, a
  feeling he hadn't experienced since he was in
grammar school, sitting and waiting for what he
knew would be a failing report card to be put
into his hands to take home.
  "Don't panic yet," Uhura said. "They'll
have your last reply at this point, but it's going
to take five hours for them to get this one and figure
out what you've 175
  been doing with what they told you. Maybe something will
happen between now and then."
  "Maybe," he said, not wanting to rain
on Uhura's parade. But he had a
  feeling that if anything was going to happen, it was on
that little spark of light that was trailing them two
hundred klicks back in orbit. It made his
back itch. Several times now he had considered
telling Sulu to slow
  their orbit so that the Klingons would slip in front
of them. But he had restrained himself. The Enterprise
could fire just as well backward as
  forward, and as for the Klingons, any sudden move on
Enterprise's part
  might make them nervous. No use doing anything
that might alter the
  delicate balance that presently prevailed.
  "Spock," he said, looking over his shoulder,
"anything new?"
  Spock was bent over his station's viewer, intent.
He straightened up slowly and said, "I am . . .
uncertain, Doctor."
  "How uncertain?"
  Spock came down to stand beside the center seat.
"Doctor," he said, "you said that high-energy
physics was a little "over your head." How far
over?" McCoy shrugged. "I understand the basics;
you have to, to understand most of the diagnostic
imaging systems we use in Sickbay. I can fix
our little cyclotron when it breaks down, but that's about
the size of it."
  Spock nodded thoughtfully. "I have been doing some
time-lapse scanning of the planet surface," he
said, "concentrating on the area where the Captain went
missing. I keep locating Z-particle decay
of a certain kind, the kind associated with tachyon
incursion in atmosphere."
  That surprised McCoy a bit. Tachyons were
the
  heralds of particles that had been traveling at more
than the speed of
  light, and had slowed down and so become perceptible
in the "real"
  timeframe; their high red shift always gave them
away. "That's curious," he said. "What do you
make of it?"
  "I have no theories as yet," Spock said. "But
we have come across these
  particular kinds of decay before."
  "Where?"
  "On the planet of the Guardian of Forever."
  McCoy raised his eyebrows. "The characteristic
decay patterns are all
  there," Spock said. "Typically they were found when
the Guardian had just been active in engineering a
timeshift."
  "You think there's another Guardian down there?"
He swallowed. No question but that the Klingons would be
interested in that. "Is it buried somewhere? Is that why
our friends down there were out with their digging gear? Maybe
we were wrong in thinking they were hunting mineral
resources."
  "Insufficient data," Spock said. "All I
have been able to determine is that the radiation decay is
the same. I must say that I doubt the Klingons have
had time to come to my conclusions."
  That struck McCoy as small consolation, at the
moment. "Has something
  grabbed Kirk and thrown him into some other timeline?"
he said. "Is that why the Ornae keep insisting
he's there . . . but can't produce him?"
  "I cannot say. But I will continue my
investigations."
  McCoy brooded a moment, then said, "Have our people
down there been asking the Ornae if they know where the
Klingons are?"
  "Yes, but the answers have not been conclusive.
They are still trying to get replies that make
sense."
  Spock turned away. "Still no sign of the
beAt?" McCoy said.
  "None, Doctor." And Spock went back
to his station.
  McCoy sat back, watching the screen, which at
the moment was showing the main clearing down on the
planet. In the background of the picture Lt.
  Kerasus was sitting with an Ornaet half in her
lap, talking a mile a minute to her tricorder,
and herself now using the scratchy noises the Ornae
used. Lia was off at one side, peering among the
branches of a grove of Lahit, using an
ophthalmoscope on their holly-berry eyes. The
eyes were following her as she moved around, and goggling
at her. He smiled a bit through his annoyance and
concern.
  TheeaAt are at the heart of this, somehow, he thought.
If Jim hadn't called me up just then, I would have
found out something about what's going on
  here . . . I know it. Maybe I would have been the
one to disappear, but who cares about that? I d have found
out.
  1 hope.
  Uhura glanced over at him.
"Doctor," she said, "we've got a
transmission coming in. I'm afraid it's
Starfleet."
  McCoy moaned. "I guess there's no use in
trying to avoid it. Let me have it live."
  Uhura smiled demurely and said, "Yes,
sir." She touched a button.
  The pleasant scene on the screen went away and
was replaced by, oh Lord, Delacroix. And
puns aside, he looked cross. He was sitting
in exactly the same position as he had been for the
previous message. 178
  Does the man ever get out of that chair, I
wonder? But this time his face
  looked as if he had been sucking Demons.
McCoy tried to be inconspicuous
  about gripping the arms of the center seat.
  " Starfleet Command, Delacroix, was he said.
"To
  Leonard McCoy, commanding Enterprise. Command
  er, we confirm receipt of your last set of log
extracts and
  data. As of this stardate, you are re-was
  The picture broke up in a howl of noise and a
blizzard of static. Very
  slowly, McCoy turned around and smiled at
Uhura.
  "Nice job," he said. "Oh, Uhura, that was
nice."
  "I didn't do it, Doctor," she said. "Much
as any of us might dislike the contents of the message,
I can't interfere with reception. Ethics."
  McCoy sighed. "Yes, well then . . . what
did?"
  And the horrible suspicion hit him. "Or who?"
  "Checking," Uhura said. She turned her
attention to her board for a moment, touched a couple of
controls, and said, "I thought so. It's a jamming
  signal, Doctor."
  "Klingon?" he said.
  She nodded.
  "Never thought I'd be thanking them for some tilde
thing, but by Heaven, if I see Kaiev, I'll
buy him a jelly pastry," McCoy said.
  Spock looked over at McCoy with a bemused
expression. "I am uncertain why you're
celebrating, Doctor," he said. "From the
syntactical construction we heard, the
probability is high that the Admiral was about
to relieve you."
  McCoy stopped right where he was. He had been
so delighted not to have to take a scolding from
Delacroix that that hadn't occurred to him. His 179
  mouth dropped open, and he said, "Damn.
Damn, damn, damn!
  Then he stopped. "Wait a second," he said
to Spock, and advanced on him
  with glee. "If you're so sure that that's what he
said, then you have to relieve me!"
  "Doctor, I only said the probability was
high. One officer cannot relieve another on a
probability. The order must be heard. We did not
hear him
  finish."
  McCoy's scowl came back. "I'll kill
him," he said, turning to Uhura.
  "Uhura, get Kaiev on the horn. I'm
going to give him such an ache in that bumpy head of
his-to "
  "I take it the jelly pastry is off, then,"
Uhura said softly, and reached out to her console. Before
she could touch it, it beeped at her.
  "Put it on screen," McCoy said angrily,
and swung to face it. It lit up
  with Kaiev's face a moment later.
  "Commander," McCoy said to him, "do you know that it's
not polite to
  interfere with people's communications with home?"
  Kaiev looked both annoyed and upset, and for a
moment McCoy found himself wondering whether he was
running up to another liver relapse; he was pale.
Kaiev said, "Commander, I have just received a number of
orders from our High Command-was
  Oh boy, McCoy thought. It never occurred
to me that he would have his own bureaucracy breathing down
his neck. I should have thought of that long
  ago. I am really not cut out for this job-
  "We have decided that you and the indigenous peoples of
this planet have
  conspired in the kidnapping of our personnel. We
are also convinced that
  your stories of missing personnel are a blind
to allow you to 180
  stay in the area for reasons of your own, probably
  treacherous. Therefore, if our crewpeople are not
re
  turned to us within one of your standard days, was Kaiev
said, "7 am ordered to destroy your ship. Reinforce
  ments are being diverted to this area. If you
attempt to leave without returning our people,
we will hunt you
  down wherever you run, and blow you out of space. We
  have jammed your communications to prevent your
  calling for help. Since we are a peace-loving
species,
  and wish to give you a chance to rethink the conse
  quences of your aggression against us, for the present
  we will take no action against your landing parties on
  the planet, and will allow you to recover them. But
any
  Federation personnel found on the planet after the
  one-standard-day time limit will be considered a casu
  alty of the security action that will be mounted
to recover our own people. You may also wish to warn the
  planet's inhabitants that should they repent their
collu
  sion with you, and assist in the return of
  our personnel
  to us, we will spare them. Otherwise we will kill
one
  thousand of them for every one of our missing people,
  and will continue to do so every standard hour until our
  people are returned. Long live the Empire. was
And the
  screen went black before McCoy could
get in a single
  word.
  McCoy sat down and swiveled around to face
Uhura. "Are we jammed as he
  says?"
  "Yes, Doctor, we are. Subspace is
full of artificially generated black
  noise. Not a thing we can do about it without leaving the
area. At the
  strength they're using, not even a signal buoy
would do us any good within the time limit."
  "Wonderful." A moment later he said, "Wait
a minute! They can't do this. The Organians-was
  Spock shook his head. "Doctor, test cases
of whether or not the Organians will or will not
intervene, this far away from their home space, are very
thin on the ground. I should not care to rely on their
intervention. Would you?"
  "Mmf," McCoy said. "Yes. Well, I
suppose the Universe helps those who help
themselves, eh, Spock?"
  "The body of statistical data does indicate
something of the sort."
  McCoy folded his hands and thought. "Look,
Spock," he said after a little, "will it help
you if we take some of the people who're doing general
survey work and get them looking for more of those
tachyon-Z particles?"
  "I doubt it," Spock said, "but the decision is
yours."
  McCoy could hear Spock's private thought:
if it made McCoy feel better, it would do no
harm. "No," he said, "let them keep doing what
they're doing, then. Uhura, put together a buoy
anyway, and get it ready to take last
  batches of information that the landing parties will be bringing
up
  tomorrow at this time. The DNA'-ANALOG analyses
will be done by then, and that information in particular mustn't be
lost, if this whole mission isn't to be wasted."
  "Yes, Doctor," Uhura said.
  McCoy sighed. "Spock," he said,
"opinions?"
  "I should say that we are in a difficult
position," said Spock.
  "Thank you ever so much. Analysis."
  Spock looked thoughtful. "Kaiev's ship by itself
is not capable of taking on the Enterprise
successfully," he said. "But three or more ships
would be; and three 182
  is the usual number of ships sent along on an
intervention of this kind.
  With four-to-one odds against us, our ability
to leave the encounter without serious damage becomes
seriously impaired."
  "Spock," McCoy said gently, "your bedside
manner is flawless. You mean,
  we're all going to be blown to hell."
  Spock hesitated, then nodded.
  "Right. And if we run, they'll run after us . .
. with the same odds."
  "They would. Tactically, our advantage
increases slightly if we remain in orbit.
Space battles in the close neighborhood of a
planet are a complex business, but the
opportunities for mistakes involving the
planet's gravity increase exponentially, and that
is to our advantage."
  "If an experienced officer is directing the
fight," McCoy said softly.
  Spock simply looked at him.
  "Right," McCoy said. "Well, we can't do
anything else at the moment, so
  we'll sit tight, and prepare ourselves the best we
can. If any suggestions occur to you, let
me know. Uhura, make sure a complete
recording of that last little lovenote goes in the
buoy. Spock, department heads" meeting
  this evening. We'll want to make sure everybody
is as ready as they can be for this gymkhana."
  "Acknowledged."
  McCoy got up. "I'm going to go off and have my
lunch," he said. "Call me if anything interesting
develops."
  "Yes, sir," Uhura said.
  McCoy got into the turbolift; the doors
shut, and he waited for his shaking fit to start. It
declined. "Oh 183
  hell," he said. "Don't tell me I'm
getting used to this now. his
  As far as he was concerned, this was a bad, bad
sign.
  Katur tossed the digger to the ground and said words that
would probably have astonished her mother. "We must have
come half a kalikam," she said, "and there's nothing
to be found. What do they mean, sending us on a mad
chase like this?"
  The sentiments were treacherous, but none of the other
members of the party seemed inclined to disagree with her.
She sat down on a big rock and looked
around her. This was a wretched planet. Ugly
colors, hot dry atmosphere, dim little sun-a
waste of time. And they were stuck down here, and the ship
hadn't answered their last call. Katur supposed
there was something wrong with the ship's transmitter again.
It wouldn't be the first time, or the last.
  "Never mind that," she said to Tak, who was slogging
on up the hill as if he still meant to obey orders.
"Come back down, Tak. There's no point."
  "I think I see something up here," he said. "It
looks like the right color of leaves."
  "Oh, go ahead," she said. "Let us know if
it's tabekh after all." I hope it's not, you
miserable little sycophant...
  "I wonder why all these rocks look so much
alike," Helef said. He was
  leaning against one, mopping at his face. Helef was
soaked with sweat;
  typical of him, Katur thought. He had not been
in shape since he was first assigned to the ship, knowing
that no one cared about his physical
  condition as long as he completed his duties and did
not bother the ship's physician by becoming ill.
Helef was soft. But this had its advantages
  as well. One who knew his weakness could
exploit it when necessary.
  "What about the rocks?" Katur said, looking
back down the valley, the way they had come.
  "They all look alike. See this one-was He
squinted up at the one he was
  leaning against. "It looks almost exactly like the one
that Kesaio hit."
  She glanced at it and away . . . then looked
back. Odd, but it did bear a resemblance to that
other standing stone. And there was another one farther up the
hill that looked similar-several of them, in fact.
  "Someone else must have lived here once," she said.
"None of those jellybag things, or the trees, could
put up anything like that. They haven't enough technology
to crack nuts."
  "Foul things," Helef muttered.
  She nodded, wondering why the Federation people were so
eager to bother
  with aliens at all. She had heard a theory that the
Feds had such an
  inferiority complex that they had to consort with
animals to make
  themselves feel like real people. That made a kind of
sense. All she knew for sure was that she would rather
die than so lower herself.
  Tak was running down the slope, waving his arms and
shouting something.
  Katur looked up in surprise.
  "It's tabekh, it's tabekh! Not where I thought
it was; farther up. There's not much of it, just a little
  patch-was
  Well, that's something. We won't be whipped when
we get back for completely failing in what we were
sent to do. But I for one will be sure that Kesaio
has to account for the vehicle. Katur sighed, picked
up the digger, and
  began to walk up toward Tak.
  Then she turned around, blinking. For a moment
  she had been sure something had moved behind her. There
was nothing, though. She turned again . . . and found
another rock in front of her.
  comexcept it was gone-
  Katur blinked several times., hard. Her eyes
were all right. True, it had been a while since she
had eaten, but she was hardly faint with hunger just
yet.
  Afterimage, she thought. She had been staring at
Helef's miserable rock, and had seen an
afterimage of it when she turned. After all, the
shape had been exactly the same.
  Tak came down to her. "Definitely tabekh,
was he said. "There are some of the tree-things up there, but
we can get rid of them. Come on!"
  "Helef, Kesaio," she called, and led the
way up the slope, with Tak
  scrambling after her, hurting to keep up, and
panting. Truly he was in
  terrible shape.
  Though it was astonishing, Katur thought, how steep
some of these slopes could turn out to be; much steeper
than they looked. She didn't mind, of course.
The stoniness of them was a bit of a problem, though. And
each time they turned a curve in the gully they were
following, there were more of the tall stones to be seen. There
must have been a civilization of some
  other kind here at one point. Probably, she
thought, these jellybags and the trees are their
degenerate pets. Probably a mercy to put the
things out of their misery.
  "Here," Tak said at last, leading them over the
brow disofa little wooded ridge. On the other side was
a sort of dell, surrounded by the ubiquitous blue
green trees; and in the middle of the dell, among the
scrub and turf that floored it, were the unmistakable
leaves of iabekh. It was of course the
roots they wanted, and
  Katur wearily unhooked the digger from its strap
and started to set it up on its legs. "All right,"
she said to the others. "Let's take this. Don't
miss the taproot. It will be somewhere near the center,
and if we can keep it
  alive, the Hydroponics crew can clone enough of the
young plants so that
  none of us will run out for the rest of the tour. Come on,
then. We don't
  want to be all day about this."
  It was then that they heard the odd rustling noises,
and something
  stranger, a tearing sound that Katur could not
identify. She whipped around to see a whole little
herd of the tree-things coming at them, all their
  nasty little eyes glinting, all their branches
waving about. The trees were hissing, the kind of noise
you hear from trees in stormy weather, just
  before the storm breaks. And they were actually wading
through the ground, their roots breaking it, tearing it. In
a moment they would be into the
  patch of tabekh, and tearing that up-and there would go
any hope of cloning it.
  Katur pulled out her sidearm and
shouted, "Stop!" and fired into the ground in front of the
aliens. They paid no mind, but kept moving.
  "Very well then," she said, and fired into the
branches.
  Or should have. Something struck her hand from one side,
hard, and sent her sidearm flying. She must have
tottered off balance, because immediately
  thereafter she stumbled into one of the large rocks,
hitting it hard with the length of her body, right up from
leg to side to cheek and temple.
  Stunned, she caromed back, rubbing at her eyes
to try to clear her vision. But that wasn't there before-she
thought.
  "Drop those," she heard a voice say in
Federation
  talk. She scrubbed at her eyes again, opened
them, and managed to see
  something through the tears of pain-a hominid figure,
an Earth-human, in
  Starfleet uniform, standing with drawn phaser. Behind
him was a very large rock, the one that Katur had
rammed into; the one that occupied a spot that had been
empty air a second before.
  ""Back off," the man said. Katur looked and
saw with disgust that Tak and Kesaio and
Helef had already dropped their sidearms. Helef
was shaking his hand as if to get rid of the violent
pins-and-needles of a stun-level
  graze.
  The man was looking them over with an expression
somewhere between
  amusement and annoyance. Katur flushed with
anger, but that was all she
  could do; her own sidearm was somehow or other
halfburied underneath the foot of the tall stone.
  "You are interfering with a mission team of the Klingon
Empire, Earther," she said angrily. "The
penalty for such interference is death."
  "Yes," the man said, grinning amiably at her,
"I just bet it is. Whom have I the pleasure of
interfering with?"
  "I am First Specialist Katur of the
Imperial Vessel Ekkava, was she said,
  furious at being mocked.
  "That's nice. I'm Captain James T.
Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, and you were in the act
of attacking a harmless indigenous and intelligent
  inhabitant of this planet without provocation and in
a breach of the
  Organian Treaty." He made a
disparaging tsk-tsk noise at them. "Shame on
you," he added.
  Katur's mind whirled. James Kirkally "You
lie," she cried. "All know that Kirk was killed
in a duel, and another took his place and commands his
ship."
  The man's face started out blank . . . then an
odd smile began very, very slowly to spread across it.
"Ah," he said. "And by any chance . . . would the
new commander's name be McCoy?"
  Katur's face gave everything away, against her
desire.
  The man nodded slowly, then turned and looked up
at the rock, as if sharing a joke with it. "Well,"
he said, "as usual, the reports of my death have
been greatly exaggerated."
  The confusion in Katur's mind quieted to one
thought. If this was Kirk,
  then someone must get word to the Commander . . . and
quickly. Things
  aboard the Enterprise were not as they had seemed.
  The look in the man's eyes hardened suddenly.
"Yes indeed," he said. "So for the meantime, my
dear, you just sit down right where you are, you and all your
friends. I want a moment to think."
  Katur sat down, thinking too.
  Captain's log, Supplemental. Leonard
McCoy recording in the absence of James
Kirk:
  It is now twenty hours since the issuance of
Commander Kaiev's ultimatum to us, with four hours
remaining. We have scant hope of finding the
Captain within that time. Mr. Spock continues his
researches, but has so far found nothing that would enable
him to find the Captain, much less retrieve him.
It can, however, be said that there is no sign yet of the
other Klingon
  vessels we have been expecting. Mr. Sulu's
best estimate of their arrival was within eighteen hours
of the ultimatum-such ultimata are rarely issued
without the issuers being fairly certain of the
reinforcements turning up early, and thus putting added
pressure on the ultimatees, or perhaps even
catching them incompletely prepared for battle, and
forcing an engagement before they're ready, which usually
concludes in the ultimatees becoming plasma
shortly thereafter. This is a conclusion that we are eager
to avoid, so I have had the ship on red alert for some
time previous to the
  eighteen-hour point. This makes certain
unavoidable changes in the ship's shift
structure, and adversely affects the number of people
we have
  gathering
  data-but I also have a responsibility to see that
those
  people and those data get home safely.
  A buoy has been prepared to take all the
data we have so
  far gathered out of the system. It will make its way
eventually
  back to Federation space if we are lost. A
copy of all log
  entries since the Klingon jamming began will also be
sent
  out. If there is time to manage it, a second
buoy will go out
  with the same information. A duplicate never hurts.
  ,IT WAS LATE. McCoy was sitting up in
the center seat, gazing at the
  sedately turning shape of Flyspeck underneath
them. As he watched, it passed out of its day side,
into night, and the light of its one little moon
  glinted silvery-blue on the wide empty
spaces of the planet's largest ocean. I
never did get to go down by the water, McCoy thought.
Usually that's such a priority for me. Joanna
got me hooked on the water, all those times ago
when we used to go out to Montauk Point and try
to see across to England. He found himself smiling a bit
as he looked around the night Bridge crew. A
long time ago, he thought.
  "Ensign Devlin," he said, "you lived on the
East Coast once. Ever go out to Montauk
Point?"
  "Oh, yes, sir," she said, looking up from the
Engineering console. "My
  sister and I used to go out there And watch for sharks.
Sharks were a hobby of hers."
  "You see any?"
  "Yes, we did! One was the biggest one we ever
saw. It was a real Great
  White, the Point biologist said. At least
eighty feet long, but I think it was more like a
conhundred."
  McCoy visualized that. "That could have eaten a
  shuttlecraft," he said. "Or at least it
could've taken a good bite out of
  it."
  Devlin nodded and stretched her legs out
in front of her. After a moment, she said,
"Nervous, sir?"
  McCoy was aware of other eyes on him, around the
Bridge, not obtrusive, but interested. Lawson
and Tee Thov sitting at the helm, minding
Weapons and Navigation, didn't quite turn around, but
he could see from the muscle tone of their backs that they
were listening. Parker and North, at Science and
Communications, glanced at one another. McCoy
laughed, just a bare breath of laughter. "Well,"
he said, "I'm half ready to bite my nails
down to the elbows. But there's no point in it, and I
might want my elbows for
  something later."
  "No sign of them yet," Tee Thov said,
looking over his shoulder at McCoy. "None
yet," McCoy said, "but they're not scheduled
onstage just yet anyway. Doesn't matter.
We'll be ready."
  He leaned back and tried to look as confident as
he wanted them to feel. Usually, there was no problem
with this . . . when he was in Sickbay. His bedside
manner had always been the envy of his classmates.
It was a simple thing, really, once he discovered
it: never lie to your patients, but find the
best truth to tell them that you can, and keep reminding
them that the Universe does strange things, and that
health can overcome the worst
  diseases if given half a chance and a little faith.
  Faith was always the problem. People were so used
to certainties, most of their lives-death, taxes,
pain comt the occasional need to believe in
  something without evidence tended to be beyond them. It was the
ones who could have faith, and not care whether anyone thought
they were stupid, who always got 192
  better the fastest, and survived what were usually the
most fatal maladies. Bodies were, after all,
just educated meat-and not that educated. Before the certainty
that lived at the heart of faith, very few bodies had
any defense. The question was: Was his faith about the
Enterprise's continued survival going to be strong
enough? Or was it caught at the stage where you
  insisted, "I believe, I believe!" and you
didn't, and the Universe wasn't fooled?
  He snorted at himself a little, then. There were,
after all, other wills, other faiths, involved. It
was entirely likely that theirs would carry his, this time
out-t the crew of the Enterprise, so used to not dying in
  horrible situations, would go on as always, and he would
survive with them. Then again, there was always a
first time . . .
  "Doctor," Devlin said, "are you okay?"
  He laughed softly. "Fine. I just wish the
Captain would walk in here. You know the trouble with this
chair?"
  "Wish I did," Devlin said with undisguised
envy.
  "You're nuts," McCoy said. "Well, each
to his own insanity. This thing has no back
support to speak of." He got up and pointed at
the very
  insufficient lower back padding. "Now just look
at that. Any one of you
  "has a better chair. But if you have to sit in this
thing for more than an hour, it makes you want to get
up and pace around. Now I know why Jim was always
all over the Bridge half the time. The damn
chair was driving him crazy."
  There were chuckles here and there from the Bridge
crew. "If some one of you wanted to make me really

  comfortable," McCoy said, "you'd go get me a
nice pillow."
  "Does it have to be an embroidered one?" said
Parker in his dry
  Earth-British Voice.
  McCoy snickered. "No, one of the
fat-substitute pillows from Sickbay would do all
right." He reached down to the arm of the center seat,
punched the button. "Sickbay."
  "Sickbay, Aiello, was said the cheerful
voice. Pat Aiello was the night
  nurse, a big cheerful dark-haired woman with a
round happy face. "What do you want this time of
night? Why aren't you in bed?"
  "Pat," McCoy said, "have you got a spare
weightdist pillow down there?"
  "A few of them."
  Have someone send me up one when you have a chance. This
center seat was designed by Torquemada."
  "Will do. Must be nice for some people, was Pat said in
an offended tone,
  "sitting on their bottoms all day, while honest
crewmen work their fingers to the bone- his
  McCoy had to laugh. "Spare me the
philosophy and
  send up the pillow."
  A couple of minutes later, the turbolift
doors hissed open. Spock was
  standing in the turbolift. He had the air
of a man who had been in an
  extreme hurry, but who had been stopped in
midrush and given something he didn't understand. He was
holding a small flat cushion. "Doctor," he
said, "I think possibly this is meant for you."
  "Thanks." McCoy got up and went to take it
from him.
  "Your night nurse," Spock said, moving quickly
to
  his station, "is a woman of few words, but forceful
ones."
  "Have you got something?" McCoy said.
  "That we shall see," Spock said. "Certainly I
have something to show you."
  Parker had slid hurriedly out of the way as
Spock sat down. "Doctor," Spock said,
touching the console here and there to bring up some data from the
computer in his quarters, "you will remember we were
talking about those radiation decays that were more typical
of tachyon artifact than anything else?"
  "That's right." McCoy looked over Spock's
shoulder.
  "Searching along those lines, I have found a great
deal more artifact of the same kind," Spock said.
"Again, it seems not to attach itself to any
specific thing going on on the planet below. But if
one plots all
  incidences of such decays against time and location-was
  'He paused for a moment, waiting for the computer
to finish a calculation. At the screen above his station
it brought up a schematic of the smaller clearing, as
seen from above, where McCoy had earlier seen the
beAt. "Now watch, Doctor," he said. "By good
chance we have earlier scans of that
  area, before you or the Captain entered it.
Fortunately we were on the
  correct side of the planet for enough scan time.
Look."
  A faint fog of light became visible in the
clearing, strengthening to
  patches that became thick, vague lines. "Those
look like deer trails,"
  McCoy said.
  "They are areas of probability," Spock said,
"where such particle decays as I have been
investigating are most likely to occur. Now look
at the same area after the Captain vanishes."
  Suddenly there were more sets of tracks-smaller
ones, that intersected with the larger set. McCoy
began to smile slowly. "Jim," he said.
  "The data is not absolutely conclusive,"
Spock said. "But see here. We are now looking
at time-lapse readings. The Klingon landing party-was
  Their traces were suddenly added to the already existing
tracks of tachyon artifact. Those traces began
at the point where they had disappeared, and then went off
northward, toward the hills. Shortly thereafter, the
previous traces seemed to follow them away and out
of the scanned area.
  "All right," McCoy said, still smiling. "There
they are, then. What now?" Spock straightened and
looked dissatisfied. "Doctor, it is not quite so
  simple. Their traces are obviously there in
"real time"-but they are not. These particles are
decaying in a way that indicates a fairly
substantial timeslip, but whether into the past or
future, I cannot tell. And even if I could, I
am still without an inkling of how to come at the Captain.
It is certainly something of a relief to discover that he
is apparently alive-or was. However-was
  "Something of a relief? Why, you greenblooded-was
  "Doctor, please. Your blood pressure."
  "Mmf . . . never mind that now. Spock, wait
a minute. You said the past or the future. No one
can travel to the future!-I thought."
  Spock looked more dissatisfied than ever. "You
are correct . . . at least, according to present received
opinion. Unfortunately, the particle decays have
a characteristic that sheds some doubt on the question. 196
  A significant percentage of them show a
quality that has some relation to
  the "red shift' that happens in light when it is
slowed up in the
  interstellar medium; though this quality is actually
associated with the
  "up' and "down' characteristics of so-called
"plain vanilla' quarks. It
  illustrates entry into the present timestream from a
"faster' one-that is to say, the time that has not
occurred yet. The compression factor-was
  McCoy's head began to hurt. "Spock,
time's awastin' here, no matter what else it may
be doing. Let's cut to the chase. We know where
Jim is . . . more or less. We know when he is
. . . more or less."
  "If he were more than a week in the past, or the
future," said Spock, "I would be very
surprised."
  "Great." McCoy smiled, but it was not a cheerful
expression. "So if we had been here a
week early-or if we hung around for a week
more-Jim would turn up.gg*thorn]
  "So I believe."
  "Well, then, all we have to do is survive the
next week. And then after all the dust settles,
if he doesn't turn up in the future-the
present
  future-oh, you know what I mean-then we use the
"slingshot' technique to go back in time a week
or so and pick Jim up.eagreater-than
  "Time travel is not to be taken lightly,
Doctor," Spock said. "You should not assume that-was
  "Spock," McCoy said, "you worry too much.
Look, I'll bet you a nickel that the.bbAt will be
with him . . . and I'm going to ask it some questions."
  "I daresay the Klingons will want to as well,"
Spock said, "should they
  still be here."
  McCoy sighed and made his way down to the center
  seat. "A little less than two hours now," he
said. "Keep working on it,
  Spock. Unless you feel you're needed
elsewhere."
  "I will do so," Spock said.
  The first hour, the next half hour, went
by too quickly. Nothing happened. McCoy thought he
would get more and more nervous as the time went by, but
bizarrely, he found himself getting calmer and
calmer. That was assisted, he thought, by the fact that the
three or four Klingon vessels they were expecting
had not yet arrived.
  At about minus half an hour, Sulu and
Chekov took the helm, and Uhura took the
communications board. Spock had been working
quietly at the Science
  station for a long time, saying nothing to anyone.
McCoy busied himself
  chatting with his returning officers, keeping calm,
keeping them calm. It was one of the things he best
knew how to do. Just because he might be dead in half
an hour was no reason to stop doing it now.
  "Minus fifteen minutes," Sulu said.
  "Scanning?" said McCoy.
  "Nothing in range," Chekov said. "And nothing out
of range, either, as far as I can tell."
  "It might be a trick," McCoy said.
"Keep alert." But his brain was
  simmering with surmises.
  "Negative scan," Sulu confirmed. "No
sign of anything in subspace at this
point, at least not in the neighborhood. Our
range is limited on subspace scan."
  "All right," McCoy said. He sighed.
"Ladies and gentlemen and others, I
  would prefer nothing untoward to happen in the next
fifteen minutes. But if it 198
  comes to that, I intend to fight this ship the best it can
be fought with
  our resources."-with an untried innocent in the
helm, and its Captain
  missing! "And if I have anything to say about it, they
won't get to paint
  our silhouette on their sides."
  "We're with you, Doctor," Sulu said. There was
a murmur of agreement around the Bridge.
  "Good enough," McCoy said. "Then let's take
the adventure that comes to us. Uhura? All
secure?"
  She nodded. "The last landing parties are aboard."
  "All right. Is Ekkava moving, Mr.
Chekov?"
  "Not an inch, sir," Chekov said. "Maintaining
standard orbit."
  McCoy's smile got grim. "Playing it
coy, are they? Fascinating."
  Spock quirked an eyebrow, but said nothing.
  They waited. Five minutes passed. People
whistled softly, twitched, fiddled with controls.
McCoy held himself still, very still, at the center of it
all.
  "Two minutes," said Sulu, almost cheerfully.
  "Noted," McCoy said.
  And a minute went by, and took a year.
  "One minute."
  McCoy nodded, and concentrated on
breathingslowly. In, and out. In, and
  out.
  "Zero time," Sulu said then.
  And nothing happened.
  Nothing.
  More nothing.
  "Status of the Klingons," McCoy said.
  Sulu looked down his scanner and shook his head.
"No change, Doctor.
  Weapons are powered up, but not activating."
  "Shields?"
  "His shields are up," Chekov said, "not that that
would help him should we fire. I would approximate
five seconds of resistance at full barrage."
  McCoy sat still. "Wait," he said.
  For two, three more minutes, five, ten more
minutes, they waited. The
  Bridge got very quiet, but the tenor of the quiet
had changed. At the end of ten minutes, McCoy
began to smile. "All right," he said.
  "Either *com *Uobbtilde l- something's-happened
-- w Liiaeaii @avaiiy, or vur
  friend here has been bluffing from a busted flush.
  Either way, I've goddam well had enough of it.
Mr.
  Sulu, tip us over nice and easy. Bring all
forward
  batteries to bear, and reduce orbital speed.
A nice easy
  drift. I think you know what I have in mind."
  "Aye aye, sir," Sulu said, his voice
full of relish.
  McCoy did not need the screen to show him what was
happening. He could see it as if from the Klingons'
viewpoint. A challenged enemy waits the time of
battle. Waits past it, waiting for the challenger
to make good his boast. The challenger, out of countenance,
looks at his enemy. Sees the
  silver-white shape, all this while facing away
from him, now tilting slowly forward in its
orbit, the great forward disc pitching downward, the
  nacelles tipping up; watches the pitch
continue, a leisurely, massive,
  graceful pinwheeling on the central lateral
axis; sees that disc, upside down now, come
swinging up into line, revealing the opening throats of the
great main phaser batteries, and the yawning photon
torpedo ports. Then
  just as slowly, the ship begins to turn on its
longitudinal axis, righting herself, and at the same time
drops off orbital speed. Your speed is not
changed yet, and so in your forward screens this silvery
monster swells, grows huge, overshadows
you-coasts to a delicate halt,
  relative to your speed, and hangs there, looming,
staring down your throat, orbiting backward, not even
concerned about the virtuosity this requires of the helm
officer. And what further virtuosities will the
weapons officer
  show you shortly, out of the open jaws of death? . .
.
  "Shall I open a channel, Doctor?" Uhura
said softly.
  He opened his eyes. "Not yet," he said.
"Let them think. Sulu, Chekov, arm
us. Full spread on photon torpedoes,
maximum-damage harmonization on all phaser
banks. Take your time, be deliberate about it. I
want their scan
  officer to see. Arm everything we've got, every last
firecracker."
  "Yes, sir."
  He was aware of Spock's eyes on him from behind.
"Psychological warfare, Doctor?" the
Vulcan said softly.
  "I know, Spock. Violence is violence. But
this will be a hell of a lot less violent than what
they were planning to do to us. his
  He waited for a minute or so more, just to be sure.
"Uhura," he said at
  last, "open a channel, if you would. Hail
them."
  "Yes, sir."
  Silence for a moment. Everyone watched the screen.
"Incoming message,
  Doctor," Uhura said.
  "Put it on screen."
  The screen shimmered, showed them the bridge of
Ekkava, and Commander Kaiev sitting there,
visibly sweating and pale. "Well,
Commander," McCoy said. "Commander MakKhoi, was
said Kaiev, and stopped. He was trying to keep his
face passive, and it wasn't working.
  For the moment, McCoy refused to react to this.
"Commander," he said, in a slow drawl, "I thought
I told you to go get your Tacrin dosage
regulated. What's the matter with you? Don't you
realize what's going to happen if you have to have that liver
regenerated? You'll be on your back for weeks."
  "I will be dead, was Kaiev said, looking
slightly surprised. "7 cannot afford the
procedure."
  "Can't afford-to " McCoy was outraged, but he
put that aside too, after a
  moment of wrestling with the emotion. "We'll discuss
this later. Always
  assuming we jointly decide there is to be a
later."
  Kaiev held very still.
  "You have made certain threats against us," McCoy
said, "which I assure you I do not take lightly.
Especially since we are innocent of your
  accusations. But part of the equation is missing.
Someone at your High
  Command have a change of heart?"
  Kaiev said nothing. McCoy leaned back in the
center seat. "I know well
  enough what one of your people would do to us, were the positions
  reversed," he said. "And I have to admit, I'm
strongly tempted to knock you around a little to teach you the
error of your ways."
  "We will fight to the last-was
  "Yes, of course you will, what a waste of time,"
  McCoy said, waving a hand in disgust. "Sorry,
Kaiev. I don't mean to impugn your worldview.
But you know perfectly well that this ship can walk all
over yours with cleats."
  Kaiev looked bemused for a second. "Pardon?
This
  is some new kind of weapon?"
  McCoy's mouth quirked up at one side.
"Never mind that. We can destroy you in what-about ten
  minutes, Sulu? Five? Thank you. About
five minutes, Commander. If that long. My people are
a little annoyed over your attitude."
  Perhaps what Kaiev saw on the screen confirmed
this. McCoy didn't look
  around to see. At any rate, the man looked
righteously nervous . . . as he had a right to.
"Commander," Kaiev said, "you know I cannot
ask you for
  terms. You know that. his
  "Of course I know that. Believe it or not,"
McCoy said, "I approve. Never you mind why
at the moment. Commander, we have other fish to fry at the
  moment. But first, I want to hear you say that your
planned attack is
  called off."
  Kaiev looked even more uncomfortable. "Commander,
my orders-was
  "You have some latitude," McCoy said. "You have
enough of it so that you don't have to commit suicide . . .
just that much. Believe me, Commander, you'd better use
it. I am in no mood for this at the moment. You
make a
  move I don't like the look of, and I'll take
your ship to pieces and sell it as souvenirs . . .
because there won't be enough left to sell for
  scrap." He smiled a bit. "And besides, even
if you promise not to attack us now, you don't have
to make any promises about later. I know
Klingons
  better than to expect that. A truce, until the
situation changes."
  Kaiev thought about it. McCoy smiled.
Klingons were not really
  treacherous-that was a judgmental concept born of the
human mindset.
  However, they were vigorously opportunist. They
would promise you anything, and keep the promise
until the situation changed in their favor. Then all
promises and bets were off. McCoy didn't mind
that; at least he knew what was going to happen, and
until it did, there 203
  would be that much time when he wouldn't have to worry. The
time might make a difference.
  "Well?" he said. "Come on, Kaiev, don't
sit there dithering. We have things to discuss. Do we have
a truce? Or do I blow you up now, collect the
  souvenir material, and go back to looking for our
missing people?"
  "Very well, "Kaiev said. "I promise. I
have not much choice, for you have us at a disadvantage. was
He frowned. '7 still cannot understand why you
  people are always behaving this way. I would have destroyed
you. his
  McCoy shrugged. "Let's just say we're
crippled by our own worldview," he said, "and go on from
there. Kaiev, I think we may know whereyour people
are."
  At that, the man's eyes positively lit up
with relief. Interesting, he
  thought. A relative in the landingparty? A
closefriend? "Where?" Kaiev
  said.
  "This is going to sound strange-was
  "Commander," Sulu said. Strange not to be called
Doctor, McCoy thought,
  glancing at him. "Sir, ripples in
subspace. Getting stronger. I think we're about
to have company."
  "Noted. Get ready. Kaiev, we think
they've been shunted a short distance away in time,
no more than seven to ten standard days in one direction
or another. I told you it was going to sound
strange," he added, as the
  FJ-INGON'S face went from eagerness, through
bewilderment, toward anger.
  "Just deal with it. Do what you can with the data, because
things are about to change. But they were on the planet-or
they will be shortly. We need
  to-was
  "Incursion," Sulu said. "Splitting the
screen. Three
  vessels, out of warp, incoming. Two
light-minutes out. Decelerating, ETA to orbit
two point nine minutes."
  "Kaiev," McCoy said, "we need to survive
this. Keep your wits about you, because if we don't
live through this encounter, you have no hope of
  getting your people back. Believe me."
  Kaiev looked stricken. "Believe me,"
McCoy said again. "The odds of your duplicating our
data and results are very, very slim. I have no ill
will against you, and I want my people back as much as you
want yours. Don't
  blow both our chances."
  "Positive, ID'S," Chekov said.
"Klingon vessels Sakkhur, Irik, and
Kalash. All fully armed, all weapons
systems ready."
  McCoy nodded, glanced around the various stations.
"Noted. Ladies and
  gentlemen, stand ready." Dear God, I wish
1 were in Sickbay, where I
  belong! But he had to smile. And may this not be the
last time I think
  that, either . . .
  The screen showed the three Klingon vessels
sweeping in toward Flyspeck, braking
down from lightspeed They were all sister-ships
to Ekkava-no big- ger, but four of them together would be
able to do what one alone hadn't a prayer of pulling
off. McCoy shifted a bit in the center seat.
  "Uhura," he said, "a moment of quiet, if you
would." She nodded and
  silenced the connection, while leaving the visual
signal alone. "Spock, how long do you reckon
we could hold out against a concerted attack by these
four?"
  Spock thought about that. "Some minutes. Less,
if we were unlucky, or were maneuvered into an
unfavorable position."
  I don't want to break orbit. But there seems
no reaeason not to do it. It's not as if Jim is
down there physically . . . He sighed. There were
other considerations than just Jim. There were the Ornae
and the .lahit to think about: innocents-at least
relativelyand undefended against any attempts the
Klingons might make to attempt to "frighten" them
into giving their
  crewpeople back. "Let's not be, then," he
said. "We need to stay close and protect this
planet as best we can. Sound on again, Uhura.
Kaiev," he said, "this conis it, then."
He held the other's eyes for a moment. "Take
care of your liver."
  Kaiev looked down and said nothing.
  "Commander," Uhura said, "hails coming in from the
other three ships. They require us to surrender."
  "Later, Commander," McCoy said. "Uhura,
kill it." Kaiev's face faded from the screen,
to be replaced by the images of the incoming ships. "And
as for those others, tell them "nuts."" As the
Bridge crew looked at him in a
  mixture of astonishment and approval, he said,
"Well, it's traditional,
  isn't it?"
  ""disDoctor," Spock said, "I had not thought
to find you so expert in
  militaria."
  McCoy looked over his shoulder at the
Vulcan, who had come down to the
  center seat to stand beside him. "You know how it is,
Spock," he said.
  "Those who don't know the mistakes of the past
won't be able to enjoy it when they make them again in the
future."
  Spock raised both eyebrows, then glanced up
at the
  screen.
  The Klingon ships had come to rest in a standard
surround formation around the Enterprise, a diamond
shape-Ekkava in front making the fourth corner."
  "Uhura, any answer from them?"
  "Nothing yet, Doctor. They must be running
semantic analysis."
  "What? Hasn't anybody ever told them
"nuts" before?" McCoy was amazed.
  "Perhaps," Spock said, "everyone else was thinking
that it had been used before."
  "Thanks so much, Spock. Go sharpen your wits
or something."
  "Messages passing back and forth between the
Ekkava and the other vessels, Commander," Uhura
said. "Can't get the content for you just now, though.
They're using a new scramble."
  "Oh well."
  "No, it's all right," Uhura said. "Give
me fifteen minutes or so."
  "You think you can crack it?"
  Uhura smiled. "Let's see," she said.
  There was quiet for a few minutes. Then Uhura
said, "Message coming in for us from Irik,
Doctor."
  "Let's have it."
  The screen resolved into the image of the bridge of
another Klingon battle cruiser, but this time the
forward position was occupied by a young
  woman-very intense, andwitha fierce expression and very
striking
  reddish-gold hair, which McCoy had never heard
of on a Mingon before. Not dye, surely. Maybe
just a genetic hiccup?
  "You are Commander McCoy?" she demanded, in a
voice that sounded not at all like a fierce officer's.
It was one of those tiny, soft voices that make the
owner sound about thirty years younger than she really
is.
  "Ma'am," McCoy said, bowing slightly from the
waist where he sat. "You have the advantage of me."
  "Indeed. But we will come to that shortly. I am
Com-
  mander Aklein, senior commander in charge of this task
force. his
  "Pleased."
  "7 rather doubt that. was She peered at him
suspiciously. "I must say it is hard to believe
that you have killed the mighty Kirk in a duel. You do
not look like the dueling type. his
  McCoy just smiled. "There are arts of killing that
require more than mere muscles," he said.
"Cunning will do nearly as well . . . or the
knife in the back, in the dark."
  He didn't dare move to look around at his people's
faces. Aklein frowned a bit. "That sounds like a
page from our book, Commander, was she said.
  "Perhaps we have a few more likenesses than we have
thought. his
  McCoy shrugged. "Commander, forgive me, but you
haven't come all this way to do a sociology study.
What are your people thinking of doing?"
  Aklein settled a bit in her own chair.
"Sir, "she said,
  "the kidnapping of our personnel on the planet
is a hos
  tile action that cannot be permitted, whoever
perpetrated it-was McCoy rolled his eyes.
"There's no evidence of kidnapping, Commander. Not of
our people, or of yours. Planetary scans show
perfectly clearly that
  none of our people was anywhere near yours when yours went
missing. There was no Transporter usage at that
time, as our records and yours will
  confirm-was
  "We know all that. That leaves us with the conclusion that
one of the alien species here is responsible. Though
our suspicion is that you somehow put them up to it-was
  McCoy began to laugh. "Commander," he said,
"I
  will be delighted to furnish you with records of our
dealings with the
  people down there over the past few days. Putting them
up to anything,
  including giving straight answers to straight questions,
seems to be damn
  near impossible."
  Aklein looked a little put out by that. " No
matter. We will conduct our own search of the planet
surface, to confirm Ekkava's findings, and then
begin punitive operations against the natives until
they- His
  "I will not permit that," McCoy said.
  "You will be hard put to stop us, was Aklein said,
smiling a bit.
  McCoy did not smile. "Think again, Commander.
This is Enterprise. She is more than one man,
though that one man might have made her famous-or,
among you, infamous. She is four hundred
thirtyeight people-to whom you're an
  interesting enough problem . . . but one that we're long
used to solving."
  "You do not frighten me, Commander. his
  "Good," McCoy said. "Fear is much overrated
as a deterrent. Death works
  much better."
  She blinked. "Commander," Sulu said softly, "more
subspace ripples. Two
  more vessels incoming."
  "Really?" McCoy said. He glanced up at the
screen. "I thought you said you were in command of this task
force, Commander. Can it be that someone at home was
second-guessing you?" And a happy thought occurred
to him,
  impossible though it was, and he went on, "Or
can it be that our
  reinforcements have arrived?"
  Her eyes widened; she glanced down at her own
command console, then up
  again. "But Kaiev- his
  "I'm from the South, ma'am," McCoy said, "and
  even down there, where we're friendly people, we don't
tell even our friends everything. Much less so for people
we're less friendly with."
  "Not two vessels, Commander," Sulu
said suddenly.
  "More?"
  "No. One."
  "One?" McCoy got up to peer over Sulu's
shoulder at the scanner. "Good
  Lord, what is that? Am I reading it right? It
looks huge!"
  "It is huge, Commander," Spock said, coming down
from the Science station to look over Sulu's shoulder as
well. "I too thought it was two vessels at first.
But it is a single trace. Incoming at warp 6,
decelerating, about to go sublight."
  "How about it, Commander?" McCoy said to Aklein.
"A bit of a surprise?
  That's nothing of yours that I know of. I wonder whose
it is?"
  "Back to Alert status, was Aklein said
hurriedly to one of the officers
  behind her.
  "Aklein, you've hurt my feelings," McCoy
said. "You mean you came ofAlert at the sight of us?
We're going to have to discuss this later. Are we all
set?" McCoy said to Spock.
  "We are ready," Spock said.
  "Gone sublight now," Sulu said,
alarm in his voice. "Massive vessel,
  Commander. Braking down hard from point nine nine.
Point eight nine, seven nine, seven, five
nine-was
  Spock had hurried back up to his station.
"Unknown type," he said after a moment. "Greatly
overengined for its size."
  "Extremely well-armed," Chekov said,
glancing at the weapons console.
  "Twenty phaser banks, all on 210
  charge, all arming. Photon torpedoes,
tractors, flashplasma generators-what do you
make of that?" he said to Sulu.
  Sulu looked too. "Phased-packet
particle-beam accelerator," he said.
  "Leaking leptons." He shook his head and
looked at McCoy. "Very nasty," he said.
"It's a screen-ripper. Fortunately, they can't
fire while they're
  using it."
  "What's the ID on that thing?" McCoy
demanded.
  "No ID, Commander," Spock said. "But
configuration matches some
  intelligence I have seen recently."
  "Who the hell is it?!"
  "A high probability that this is an Orion
pirate vessel," Spock said.
  The weapons console began to make an unnerving
beeping noise, which McCoy had not heard before, and
fervently wished he wasn't hearing now. "Sulu,"
he said, "would you mind-was
  "Aye, sir," Sulu said. He killed the
audio alarm. "disIt's got a firing lock on us,
whatever it is."
  "Lock right back at it," McCoy said.
"Prepare to fire if it fires. Get us a
visual, for pity's sake! Damned if I'm going
to shoot at something I
  can't see. Scotty, what about the shields?"
  Scotty looked nervous. "That particle-beam
accelerator, that's a nasty
  little weapon they've got there, Doc-Commander.
Starfleet's engineering
  department is still working on countermeasures."
  "Oh, come on, Scotty, don't tell me you
haven't invented something
  already!"
  "Well, to tell you the truth, the problem has
been preyin" on my mind a
  bit-was
  "Let it prey. What can we do in the meantime?"
  "Not yet,": McCoy said. His Oath
to preserve life, even pirates" lives, was
ringing in his mind-but it was arguing with his oaths as a
Starfleet
  officer, to protect and preserve the ship, and the
argument was loud. "Wait for it. Spock, visual
yet?"
  "Now," Spock said, and the screen split to show the
image of the thing that was coming at them. The ship was
massive-more like four times the
  Enterprise's size. "That's a whole city there,
isn't it, Spock," McCoy
  said, as the great sleek oblong bulk, studded and
lined with ports and
  drop-tubes and weapons apertures, came
coasting along toward them. "They live in that-must be a
couple thousand of them-and go from world to world, robbing what
they like."
  "That is the supposition," Spock said.
"However, we have little data. They tend to attempt
to destroy any ship they meet that is not already in
  association with them."
  "Good luck to them," McCoy said. He
looked over at the image of Commander Aklein.
"Well, ma'am?" he said. "What now?"
  "I must confer, was she said hurriedly, and shut the
connection down from her end.
  "Hurry up about it," McCoy said, as the ship
shuddered a bit. "Ranging
  shot, that was?"
  "Yes. Phaser beams."
  "They're too far away to hit us," McCoy
said, very hopeful.
  "No, they're not," Sulu said. "Those beams have
been dilithium-augmented."
  "Isn't that a little expensive?" McCoy said,
sitting down again, rather
  hurriedly, as the ship shuddered once more.
  "Not if you're an Orion pirate," Uhura
said. "One 212
  of the few things we know about their language is that the
word we use for "stealing," they translate as
"getting paid.""
  "Shields holding," Scotty said. "But they
won't for long if they open up with that particle-beam
shredder."
  "flail them, Uhura."
  "I've been trying. No response
to hails."
  "Dammit," McCoy said, feeling his options
going away one by one. "What do they want?"
  "Probably to scare away the poachers," Sulu
said. "Someone horning in on what they see as their
territory. They wouldn't just come in here firing unless
they'd been here before and didn't want anyone else
around."
  "I must agree with Mr. Sulu that that hypothesis
seems likely," Spock said. "Wonderful,"
McCoy said, and gripped the arms of the center seat.
"Prepare to fire."
  "Ready," Sulu and Chekov said.
  McCoy waited. One breath.
  One more.
  One more. The ship swelled in their screens.
  One more-
  comand everything went white-
  "WELL," KIRK SAID, "aren't we all
snug."
  He was looking around at the rather disgusted Klingons.
They were
  avoiding looking at him, now that he had relieved
them of all their
  weapons and communicators, and they were
sitting about on the ground of
  the glade having a truly massive sulk. He
didn't mind; it was preferable to having them trying
energetically to jump him.
  He turned to the Master of the beAt. "Sir," he
said, "I must get in touch with my ship. The presence
of these people means that they're very likely in some kind of
difficulty."
  "You hear the way your device is behaving,
however," said the Master. "I fear I can do nothing
about that."
  "Yes, but I had an idea-was
  One of the Klingons, the young woman, looked at
Kirk with undisguised
  disgust. "How can you pretend to understand that gibberish?"
she said.
  "You are either mad or perverted."
  "Sorry, First Specialist," Kirk said.
"You don't know me well enough to
  accuse me of either." Still, he thought, if they really
can't understand what's being said, the situation is that much
to my advantage. Of course, it might be a
trick, too, to get me to feel free to discuss
things with
  the ,At . . .
  "What sort of idea?" said the Master.
  "A little while ago, we were discussing your ability
to . . . inhabit . . . other parts of the
time-space continuum."
  "So we were."
  "My communicator is presently jammed. But
would there be anything to
  prevent you from moving to an, uh, different location
in time-space-and
  informing one of my people of what's going on? Or will be
going on?"
  "Unfortunately," said the Master, "yes. We
learned a long time ago not to tamper with the fabric of
things in that way. It invariably produces more trouble
than it solves."
  Kirk sighed. "Well, I had to ask. Sir,
forgive me, but my place is with
  my people at a time like this. I have to find a way to get
to them."
  "I am sorry for your discomfort," said the Master.
"Correct me if I
  misunderstand your technology, but if your
communications are not
  functioning, most likely your Transporter will not
be either, since the
  carrier signals are interrelated."
  "That's true," Kirk said, not surprised that the
beAt knew it; he had been thinking about it earlier.
"Well, at any rate, I should get back to my
  people down in the clearing; and I'll take this lot
down with me and keep them out of your hair."
  "What will be done with them?" said the Master.
  "Oh, we'll send them home to their ship, no
problem with that. Their
  Commander will probably be annoyed with me, but not as
annoyed as I'm
  going to be with him or her for sneaking up on us without
so much as a
  hello-how-are-you. I want to find out how they
did that." Kirk was
  feeling a little grim; it was not like the Enterprise
crew to let a ship come into system without letting him
know about it. If this was McCoy's
  doing somehow, that might put a slightly different
complexion on it. But not much. He could just hear
Bones saying, "I didn't see any point in
  worrying you, there was nothing you could do about it, and they
seemed
  harmless-was
  No, he thought, no use trying to judge
the situation without really
  knowing what's going on. It's just as possible that our
friends here
  found some clever new way to sneak up on us. A
new cloaking device,
  perhaps?
  But what do they want here, anyway?
  "You," Kirk said, glaring meaningfully at the young
woman. "First
  Specialist Katur?" She tilted her head
sideways for "yes." "What the
  devil were you people ,doing here?" He looked around at
the digging
  devices, and the path that the Lahit had been making
toward the plant
  growth in the center. Even now the Lahit stood
around the glade, making
  vaguely upset hissing noises.
  Katur glared at him. "I shall not tell you."
  "Oh yes you shall," he said, advancing on her
slowly, "or you'll find out the truth of all those
horror
  stories you've heard about me." He reached down
to
  pick up one of the Klingon sidearms,
on which the
  Master of the beAt was more or less standing. "May
I
  borrow this?" he said. "Thank ,y. Nasty thing,"
  Kirk said. "No stun setting. But then you people have
always been of a
  rather terminal turn of mind."
  Katur stared at him. "Let's have it," he said,
letting his anger show in his voice. "What is that
stuff?"
  "Tabekh, was Katur said hurriedly.
  "What's that?" She hesitated. "I mean, what
do you do with it?"
  "Don't tell him," said one of the others.
"They'll take it for
  themselves."
  "What's it for?" Kirk demanded, taking another
step forward.
  Katur gulped. "It's the raw material for
making
  tabekhte. his
  "And what does that do?" He had a horrible
thought. "Is it a drug?"
  She glowered scorn at him. "Idiot! We
put it on our food," Katur said.
  Kirk stared at her. "Just the plant?"
  "No. We make a condiment out of it."
  He was interested in spite of himself. Heaven help
us, this is the raw
  ingredient for Klingon Worcestershire sauce,
Kirk thought. And then he
  thought of Spock's occasional complaints about the
freshness of the
  vegetables from Hydroponics, and McCoy going
on about tasteless
  dehydrated reconstituted meat, and Scotty
muttering about the lack of
  neeps and tatties-1 really have to find out what
"neeps" arefor Burns
  Day. He smiled a bit. "First Specialist,
grousing about the food aboard a ship is one of the
universal rights of crewpeople everywhere, and if
  someone's declared it treacherous, then almost everybody
I know is a
  traitor. But you really can't do without this stuff?"
  They glared at him and said nothing.
  "Then you'll have to come to some kind of agreement with the people
who
  live here as regards whether you may have it or not,"
Kirk said. "And I
  wonder what else you might be here for . . ."
No one said anything.
  "Well, I suppose that's something I need
to ask your Commander, not you."
  Kirk tossed the Klingon sidearm back to the
ground, and took a moment to admire the way the
Master of the beAt managed to stand on it again without
moving from its original spot. Or at least that was the
way it seemed.
  "Sir, I should take these people back down to my people
at the clearing. They'll hold them until
communications are restored and we can find out
  what's going on up there."
  "As you like," said the Master of the beAt. "Also, if
they wish some of
  the plant, they may take it. The Lahit
grant them leave."
  Kirk glanced over at the nervously jiggling
Lahit. "Do they have a use
  for it?" Kirk said.
  "They talk to it," said the Master.
  Kirk nodded. "Get to it, then," he said to the
Klingons. They hurriedly
  began picking leaves from the plant.
  "And you, sir," Kirk said, "I look
forward to talking to you again
  tomorrow, if I may. I think we still have some things
to discuss."
  "Probably not," said the Master of the beAt, but
its voice sounded
  pleased. Kirk raised his eyebrows. "But in
any case, meet we shall. At
  your convenience, Captain. I think you are
probably rather busier than I am."
  "Tomorrow morning, then," said Kirk.
  "Very well so," said the Master.
  "All right, that looks like as much as you can carry,"
Kirk said to the
  Klingons, drawing his phaser. "Ahead of me,
please. A little farther
  ahead than that." They filed out of the glade ahead
of him. "Good
  afternoon to you, sir," Kirk said to the Master. "And a
very nice
  afternoon it's been. Things seem very quiet hereabouts .
. . very
  relaxing."
  "I am glad you found it so. A good day to you,
Captain."
  Kirk nodded amiably to the pillar of
stone-if that was what it was; he
  would be very interested in Bones's tricorder
readings-and followed his
  little party out of the glade, over the ridge and back
down the hillside.
  "DamnAf"...McCoy shouted. "Are we dead?"
  "No," Spock said, "but it is uncertain how
long that condition will
  obtain."
  McCoy gulped. The ship was still shuddering from that
last bolt, whatever it was. "Scotty,
report!"
  "Shields holding," he said. "J. Doctor,
I advise you to move."
  "Too damn right! Mr. Sulu, take your best
evasive action. Get us out of
  here. Uhura, give me the Klingon vessels,
all of them. Broadcast it."
  "You're on, Doctor."
  "Ladies and gentlemen of the Klingon Empire,"
he said, "This is Commander Leonard McCoy of the
Enterprise. You will pardon me for breaking forma-
  tion, but the vessel incoming doesn't seem
to be interested in the
  formalities. After we've dealt with the
visitor in whatever way seems
  returning to orbit, and we'll handle any other
matters then. Meanwhile, I
  suggest you watch your rear ends. McCoy out."
  "Done, Doctor. Acknowledgments from the
Klingons."
  "They'd better do better than acknowledge,"
McCoy muttered, watching the planet dwindle
away behind them. Back soon, Jim, he thought. I
hope! "Is the Orion following?"
  "Affirmative," Spock said.
  "Dammit," McCoy said. "The price of
fame. If I commanded this ship on a
  regular basis, I'd paint her numbers over.
Uhura," he added, "what are
  the Orions using for scan?"
  "Difficult to say, Doctor. Standard scan,
the last I heard. Mr. Spock?"
  "Standard scanners are usual, as I understand it.
They are not too
  different from ours."
  "Good. Can we block them? Or hide them?"
  "To some extent, at deep-space distances."
  "Good. Sulu, get us well out of orbit. Then
turn back in-a nice, long,
  tight hyperbola. Chekov, plot it so that we can
slingshot around the
  planet and go out again afterward, without any additional
power. Spock,
  once the orbit is set, just before we turn, I
want everything we can shut down, shut down. No
emissions that we can help."
  Spock blinked. "Doctor," he said, "this is
a familiar-sounding strategy . . . and an
effective one. If I did not know better, I
would think you had been reading Jellicoe. Or
possibly Smith."
  McCoy smiled a little sheepishly. "Jim would
keep giving me these books
  on strategy and telling me I 220
  should read them," he said. "Never saw the point,
at the time. But he may
  have had something. I started getting caught up with my
reading last
  night."
  "Doctor, one Klingon vessel is leaving
orbit," Chekov said. "It's Kaiev."
  McCoy blinked at that. "Wonder what he's
up to."
  "Doctor," Sulu said, peering down his
scanner, "he is firing at the
  pirate vessel from behind. Full spread of
photon torpedoes.-Ineffective," he added a
second later. "All clean misses."
  "What's he at?" McCoy said softly. "He
could cut and run."
  "Hail from Ekkava, Doctor," Uhura said.
"Not live. A squirt."
  "Show me."
  Abruptly they were looking at Ekkava's
bridge again, and Kaiev. He was
  still sweating. McCoy began to wonder whether the
man's medication was
  ever going to take . . . or whether the sweat had
to do with something
  else. "Enterprise," he said, "you have dealt
bravely with me. I would do the same with you, before we
all die. was He paused a moment, then said,
  "And I have had my Tacrin dosage increased.
Ekkava out. his
  McCoy smiled, the only thing he had really
felt like smiling about for
  some time now. "Keep an eye on him, Sulu,"
he said.
  "He's still firing, Doctor. Another
spread of torpedoes.-One hit this
  time. But ineffective. The ship is too well
shielded."
  "It's reactive shielding," Chekov said.
"Some of the newer Klingon
  vessels have it . . . not these, I don't think.
The shield's forcefield
  is much more highly charged than the usual weapons
shield; it doesn't
  absorb the force of the photon torpedo, it
bounces it back. Very nasty,
  especially if you're following too closely."
  "Noted," McCoy said. "Funny, though. The
Klingons are usually hot for any new weapon that
comes down the pike."
  "Not these, Doctor," Spock said.
"Reactive shielding, and the
  particle-beam weapon they're carrying, require
massive power supplies . . . much more than a
conship the size of the Klingons', or even the size of
  ours, can supply. There are probably not more than
several hundred people on board the Orion vessel,
despite its size; most of that space is given
over to engine and weapons installations." He folded
his arms and looked thoughtful. "This is a
scenario that is sometimes played out in
  simulation at Starfleet . . . but more as an
exercise in creative evasive action than anything
else."
  "Mr. Sulu is pretty creative,"
McCoy said, cracking his knuckles, and
  then chiding himself. It was a bad habit he had when
he was nervous.
  "What's Kaiev doing?"
  "Still firing," Chekov said. "The pirate
vessel is ignoring him."
  "He's either trying to distract it," McCoy said,
"or-was He shrugged.
  "Maybe, as he says, he's just being brave.
I wish he'd get out of there."
  "Two of the other Klingon vessels are breaking
orbit, Doctor," said
  Spock. "On tactical."
  The computer supplied the front screen with a
tactical view, looking down on Flyspeck's
part of space from above its north pole. Enterprise
was al- most off the bottom of the screen, the
tag-numbers in X and Z axes
  changing rapidly. Behind her, the pirate 222
  vessel was swinging out to the left, ascending
out of the plane of the
  solar system after her. Close behind it, Ekkava
was still firing. Closest
  to the planet, the Klingon vessels were swinging out of
orbit, rightward
  and behind the planet.
  "Now where are they going," McCoy wondered, "and
what are they going to
  do?"
  Spock said, "I can give you visual display
if you prefer, Doctor."
  "No, keep it like this," McCoy said
hurriedly. When he saw ships, he saw people, and
lives, and his Oath started having noisy arguments with
other obligations in his head. But when he saw a
clean, neat, computer picture like this, it reminded
him more of readouts in Sickbay than anything
  else-diagrams, complex perhaps, but tidy and
manageable. And tactics he
  understood. 4Do chess, and Go, and gwy.bwyll,
those he had been playing
  for a long time.
  And there were other sources of good ideas as well.
  "These people," he said, looking at the spark of light
that represented
  the pirates, "they're not much on subtlety, are
they? Come in shooting,
  that seems to be the favorite tactic."
  "I would agree with you," Spock said, coming down from
his station to
  stand beside the center seat for a moment. "Historically,
they have
  preferred to overweapon themselves, and simply
bludgeon any resistance
  into ineffectiveness. Surprise and treachery have
always been favorite
  weapons."
  McCoy nodded. "Good."
  "Good?" Uhura said, slightly bemused.
  "Yes. Uhura, did you manage to do anything with
that Klingon code?"
  "What? Oh, certainly. I cracked that a
while ago."
  "The new one?"
  "I had a few minutes."
  "Wonderful! Send this to Ekkava: "Going
to play hide and seek. Note
  orbit.""
  Spock looked concerned. "Doctor . . . is
this wise?"
  "I think so. Do it, Uhura. Code it and
squirt it."
  She worked at her console for a moment. "Done."
  "May I inquire what strategy you are
considering, Doctor?" said Spock.
  McCoy leaned back. "Are you familiar with
twentieth-century warfare? The idea was to run
silently."
  "The strategy has some virtues," Spock
said. "But bear in mind that some aspects of our
presence, such as residual radiation and heat, cannot be
  blocked or otherwise concealed."
  "I know that. But Spock, isn't it true that this
close to the system's
  star, space is still too "hot" for us to be
easily seen by just heat
  radiation?"
  "That is true," Spock said, "but the closer we
come to the system's
  heliopause, the less protection we will have from that
sort of
  detection."
  "I know," McCoy said. "I don't plan to go
out that far. Though I hope our friend thinks I will.
How's the orbit coming, Chekov?"
  "Plotted, Doctor," Chekov said, and touched
a button. It appeared on the tactical display:
a very tight hyperbola indeed, almost the shape of a
  comet itself, or of an old-fashioned hairpin.
One leg of it was a tangent to the circle of the
orbit Enterprise had been describing around
  Flyspeck. The other leg missed the planet
by some fifty thousand miles,
  in toward it again in the slingshot curve McCoy
had asked for.
  One part of the hairpin, near the turn at its
top, was marked off in red against the white of the rest of the
hyperbola. "We must use the engines there, was
Chekov said, "to acquire that orbit, Doctor."
  "Understood. Lay it in and execute it."
  "Done, Doctor."
  "Once we execute, shut everything down that can be
shut down. Scotty,"
  McCoy said, "that means the warp engines, too.
If I remember what Jim
  used to say about scan, that's the major thing they'll
be tracking us
  by."
  "Aye," Scotty said, very unhappily.
  "You don't need to shut down cold,"
McCoy said. "Hot restart would take
  you-how long?"
  "In this fuel configuration, six minutes."
  "All right."
  "Message from Kaiev, Doctor," Uhura
said. "He says, "Acknowledged. Note
  ephemerides. Change to opposite.""
  11 That's his orbit," Chekov said, his fingers
dancing across his
  console. "I think he means he'll be ipverting
his own parabola. Tricky.
  He must be planning to use thrusters-was
  There was quiet for a moment; then Chekov put
Ekkava's orbit up on the
  screen. It neatly swung out rightward from his
present visible course
  away from the planet, and then back toward it again,
slingshoting around as McCoy's did, but from another
angle and from higher up. The two orbits came quite
close near the planet, then diverged.
  "All right," McCoy said softly. Any ship
that chased
  one of them, without knowing where the other was, would
eventually find
  one or the other of them behind it,
unsuspected. "Not much of an
  advantage," McCoy said, "but the best I can
manage for the moment. We
  can't outgun this guy. And we can't outrun him.
We can't do much of
  anything until we see what kind of scan he's
got."
  "We will be vulnerable while the impulse engines
are running," Spock
  said.
  "I know that. Can't be helped. How are those people's
computers, Spock?" Spock looked thoughtful.
"There are rumors that they have been buying
  them secondhand from the Romulans. That would be both
fortunate and
  unfortunate. If the computers are an old
model, so much the better. But
  the Romulans make very good computers, ones that are
not only flexible,
  but easily upgraded. Are you concerned about their
ability to process
  their scan data quickly?"
  "Yes."
  "I would say they are not as fast as, say, the
Klingons," Spock said
  judiciously, "but there are always unpredictable
factors in any such
  assessment. As you say, Doctor, subtlety
is not usually their style. Most people who deal with
Orion pirates are destroyed, or run away
to keep
  from being destroyed. They will not be used to a
protracted engagement . . . certainly not with a
combined Starfleet-Klingon force. We might last quite
a long time."
  McCoy didn't care a great deal for the way
Spock had phrased that, but he could understand why he
had. "All right. Kill everything nonessential,
  from the shields out. I don't like losing shields,
but they stand 226
  out like a lightbulb in the dark, and if they can't
see us, they can't
  shoot at us. At least not very successfully.
Douse the lights, shut down
  the warp engines, you all know what to do. Get on
with it."
  Everyone at the various Bridge stations got on
with it. The lighting
  faded to evening mode. "Uhura," McCoy said,
"let the whole ship hear me, will you?"
  She nodded.
  "This is Dr. McCoy," he said, and for the first time
in all this
  silliness, his voice cracked. "Ahem.
Sorry. Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to be
very small and quiet for a while, in hopes that the
extremely large vessel presently hunting us will
lose us long enough for us to do
  something useful that will get it to stop. You don't have
to be quiet-was
  he glanced at Spock for confirmation; Spock
nodded-"but positive thinking is always a help.
Meanwhile, please avoid using any equipment that
you
  can possibly do without, remembering that our shields
are down, and we
  will leak electrons quite nicely, and visibly,
if we're not careful.
  There will be a short run of impulse engines in
about-was he glanced at
  Chekov-"twenty minutes. After that we will be
coasting back in toward
  Flyspeck, and considering our other options for
getting this nasty
  situation handled. Everyone keep your
calm, and think good thoughts.
  McCoy out."
  He sat back in the center seat and waited.
Spock said, "Doctor, this may not work out . . .
you are aware of that?"
  "I thought I could depend on you to point that out,"
McCoy said. "Spock, you just trust me this once.
Besides," he added, "can you think of
  anything more likely to keep us alive at this
point?"
  Spock hesitated a moment. "I would not want
to give you false hopes," he said, "but . . .
no. The strategy has much to commend it."
  "Good enough, then. The worst that can happen," he
said, leaning back in the center seat, "is that we'll
all be horribly blown up, and Jim will
  still be alive on the planet surface . . . so
this situation," he dropped his voice a bit,
"won't be a total loss. Very unfortunate . .
. yes. But the Orions won't have killed all of
us."
  Spock nodded; a thoughtful look. He went
slowly up to his station.
  McCoy sat there thinking, And now comes the worst
  part; the waiting. How does Jim stand
it? just sitting
  here-when he wants to be out kicking someone's
tail,
  or just wants to get out entirely, not fight at
all? for
  there are enough times that he'd rather not. It was a
  state of mind that, at the moment, he found
curiously
  difficult to sympathize with. McCoy himself, at
the
  moment, desperately wanted to see the pirate
ship
  blown out of space, just to reduce the tension a little.
  But the lives . . .
  "How many people," he said to Spock, "did you say
were on that ship?"
  "It is difficult to estimate," Spock said,
"but I would estimate
  somewhere on the close order of seven hundred."
  "Thank you, Mr. Spock," McCoy said,
sitting back again, saying nothing.
  He had seen about seven hundred people die in the first
year of medical
  school, what with one thing and another. Everything you
could think
  of-infectious, traumatic, chronic, every kind of
syndrome, pathology, and disorder. Memory
dulled how many of them had died of something he 228
  had done to them, or not done. Not too many, he
always hoped. That was all anyone could do, in that
situation. Hope.
  It was good practice for this.
  "Eighteen minutes to impulse engines," Sulu
said.
  "How extended a visual can you give us at this
range?" McCoy said.
  "Not very," said Sulu. "With all the power shut
down, we can't exactly
  probe the area the way we'd like to; it would give
us away. You'll have
  to make do with augmented tactical, Doctor."
  "Good enough." It would have to be.
  He watched the tactical, and tried to maintain the
calm. It took such a
  long time. One got used to the Enterprise going
where she wanted to in a crack of thunder and a cloud of
dust, as it were. This creeping through
  the dark was agonizing. But it'll save Jim . .
. and the rest of us. I
  hope.
  "Sulu," McCoy said, "did you get a
decent visual of that pirate ship?"
  "I was wondering when you were going to ask," said
Sulu, and worked over his console for a moment. "Here."
  Tactical split off to one side; the other
side of the screen became
  occupied by the huge thing that had come blasting out of
nowhere at them. In the relatively bright light near
Flyspeck, all its superstructures and
external additions stood out very clearly. "What's
that?" McCoy said,
  pointing to one feature. "Looks like a
greenhouse."
  "I think it's probably a targeting bubble,"
Sulu said. "External shielded sensor arrays and
so forth."
  "Thing looks like it was built out of bits and
  pieces," McCoy said. He was used to the
tidiness and grace of the
  Enterprise's design; this thing looked clumsy
and ineffective beside her.
  But that was a dangerous fallacy.
  "Probably it was," Sulu said idly, leaning
back and stretching while he
  kept one eye on the course. "They would
have bought the pieces here and
  there-and then when they've got everything together, they have it
all
  shipped out to some backwater shipyard down in the
bottom of the Sag Arm, or maybe tucked away
in the Coalsack-we hear rumors about places like
  that. Put it all together out in open space. A
lot of people die-more die when the building is finished,
to make sure no one spreads the word
  around about what that particular ship has, who bought
it, what they
  paid, what it's armed with . . ." Sulu looked
disgusted.
  McCoy said, "Funny . . . I thought you were
interested in the
  swashbuckling life. Piracy on the high seas
and other delights."
  Sulu chuckled. "Aye, wi" a wanion! A
sword, and the wind in your
  hair-fight a ship gun to gun and sword
to sword, take her doubloons and
  bury them on some pretty Caribbean island . .
." He looked thoughtful.
  "Even now, they haven't found the wreck of the
Maria Rea, or the Estevan . . . was
He smiled. "But that was a different time. A ship
or two here or there, a little redistribution of the
wealth, on that scale they didn't
  do much harm. But this kind of thing, where if a
planet's not profitable enough, you destroy it-was He
shook his head. "Not for me, Doctor."
  "I didn't think so." McCoy looked
thoughtful, then said, "What's a
  wanion?"
  "I think it's a curse," Sulu said, not sounding
very
  certain. "Or a little fish that runs when the
moon's full."
  "I had to ask. And how is our own private
wanion at the moment?"
  "Following on impulse," Chekov said.
"Accelerating to full power."
  "My, he does mean business, doesn't he,"
McCoy murmured. Generally
  speaking, a good starship captain tried to avoid
near-relativistic
  velocities; they tended to do odd things to one's
engines . . . and crew. But this pursuer obviously
thought that the prize was worth a little wear and tear.
"How is our own velocity?"
  "Eighty percent of that, at the moment.
Borderline. Running without
  shields, it's not too healthy . . . but the
computers are all right for
  the moment, not showing any timing problems. Mr.
Spock?"
  At his station, Spock nodded. "For the time being, at
least. But if we
  increase velocity much without any protection, the
computers will
  eventually begin to suffer. I should not like to take her
much above
  three-quarter impulse."
  "All right," McCoy said. "Shout out if you come
across anything else I
  should know about."
  "Of course."
  That was the best part of it, McCoy thought. No one
minded his being in
  command-there was no competitiveness, no strain; they
all wanted him to
  succeed. But then, they all had the same thought; he
needed to hang on
  until Jim could get back in the center seat.
They wanted Kirk there as
  much as McCoy did-if that was possible. Fond
as he was of the crew, as
  well as he knew their loyalty, McCoy had
his doubts.
  "The Orion vessel continues accelerating,"
Sulu said. "Gaining on us
  slightly. Ten minutes to impulse."
  "How likely is he to see our engine trace?"
McCoy said.
  Spock shook his head. "That will depend on the
direction his main scan
  installation is looking at at the beginning of that
period. There is a
  fair chance, if we accelerate slowly enough, that
he may miss the ioniza- tion trace for some
seconds, perhaps a minute or so. If that is the
case, then he will have that much less data from which
to predict what course
  we are intending to make."
  "The less he sees of us, the better," Chekov
said. "We just have to hope he's looking farther out than
where we really are."
  "Too much luck required in this operation,"
McCoy grumbled. "Not the best odds for a
firsttimer."
  "On the contrary, Doctor," Spock said,
looking up from his work, "a
  first-time commander actually has a much better chance of
survival in a
  situation of this sort than a seasoned one. The
new commander does not
  know which mistakes to make-and so his antagonist
has more difficulty
  judging those mistakes, and the reasons for them. His
tactical choices
  are likely to be most unpredictable, and when they
succeed, most
  effective. And there is also a slight, strictly
statistical advantage, in that he has not been in
a battle recently, and the laws of averages
  combine with chaos theory to-was
  "comgive me a headache, mostly," McCoy
said. "Thank you, Mr. Spock . . .
  Chekov, what are the other Klingons doing?"
  "They're all in long cometary orbits, like ours,
but plotted in a way to let them either exit the system
quickly or cut in warp drive and fall
  back in quickly," said Chekov. "All very
cautious. I think they know the Orions have us
outgunned, but they want to see whether we have
some trick up our sleeve about which they ought to inform the
Empire."
  "Once again our reputation goes before us,"
McCoy said softly. "I'm not
  sure I like this fame business. It doesn't
make for a very quiet life."
  At that the ship shuddered-a very sharp, very noticeable
shake, unlike
  the usual rather softened one. But they had no
shields-so every jostle
  was going to feel three times as acute as usual.
McCoy said, "Another
  ranging shot?"
  "I think so, Doctor," Sulu said. "They're
not sure where we are, so
  they're trying the occasional shot in the dark. But
I saw where that bolt was aimed. They have our position
pretty wrong."
  "Thank heaven for small miracles. And when we
turn, it should get
  wronger, right?"
  "That's right."
  "I'll drink to that," McCoy said, "later."
  He sighed and thought about Kaiev, somewhere out there in
the dark, with his liver syndrome and his
nervous looks. You could never tell who was
  going to come in handy in a pinch. There is someone
I'll look forward to buying a drink when all this is
over, he thought, if the fates are kind, and we have a
few minutes to rub together after these problems are all
  solved.
  If we survive-
  On the screen, he watched the point creep
closer where they would go
  back on impulse. No more than a 233
  few minutes now. McCoy stared at the little
point of light that
  represented the Orion ship, and wondered, What
makes them do it? Do they
  feel that this is just a job, something they have to do? Do
any of them
  ever think about the people they kill and enslave, the
planets they've
  terrorized over the years? Some of them must.
Certainly some of them on
  that ship have, over time, regretted things they've
done. Some of them
  surely want out.
  And they're likely to get out, too, because we're
going to have to kill
  them-or try to. They won't let us go; we're
too rich a prize, and we're
  threatening their livelihood. No way to talk your
way out of this one,
  Leonard my boy. Out here, the only recourse
is good astrogation, and the good cold dark to hide in .
. .
  "Two minutes," Sulu said. "Doctor,
they're continuing on their earlier
  course. If they keep going that way, when we
turn, we'll definitely lose them. They're far
enough away from us to miss an impulse burn if
they're looking the wrong way."
  "Hold that thought," McCoy said.
  Another minute slipped by slowly, slowly.
McCoy watched the diagram,
  considering his options. What was he going to do if that
monster didn't
  turn? "We must be more maneuverable than that thing
on impulse," he said. "I would think so,"
Spock said from his station. "It is well enough
  provided with impulse engines, but at the same
time there is so much raw mass to move that it is
perilously close to its point of diminishing
  returns."
  McCoy nodded. "Under the circumstances, it
sounds like a mistake to let
  it scare us into warp."
  "Unquestionably. That ship is certainly better
  armed than we are. It would have a considerable
advantage in warp; I would certainly resist the
temptation." Spock sounded unusually vehement.
  "Spock, if our advantage rests with
impulse, then that's where we stay.
  You don't have to convince me." But the problem was that
they couldn't
  stay in impulse forever. There was going to have to be a
resolution to
  this problem . . . and McCoy couldn't see where it
was.
  "Thirty seconds," Sulu said. McCoy
watched the screen, watched the little white dot that was
Enterprise inch toward the marked part of the
  parabola. "Check course."
  "Confirmed," Chekov said, and read out a string of
numbers. Sulu nodded. "I check you," he said.
"Doctor? Last chance to countermand."
  "Go," McCoy said.
  The impulse engines came on, all at once,
as they
  tended to-no slow build of sound vibrating in the
  ship's bones, but a whoomf f of loud power.
McCoy sat
  upright in the helm, astonished. "Are those engines
all
  right?" he said.
  "It's that everything was shut down," Sulu said over
the noise . . .
  which truly wasn't so loud, once you had heard it
for a second. "It
  sounds louder by comparison."
  "Does it ever," McCoy said. The "burn"
went on. Normally the impulse
  engines' functioning was almost unnoticeable. But now
McCoy wanted to
  call Engineering and find out whether there wasn't some
way they could
  make the things run more quietly. It was absurd;
there was no way the
  pirates could hear them in space. But all the
same, McCoy twitched.
  The noise went on and on. It seemed to have gone
  on forever-certainly long enough for anyone not
completely blind to not
  miss seeing their ion trace-
  The noise stopped. He breathed out in relief.
"Well?" he said to Sulu and
  Chekov.
  Chekov was looking at his computer readout; Sulu
didn't wait-he was busy studying their orbit, and the
Orions. The pirate seemed to be heading
  farther and farther away from them-
  "That's a good burn," Sulu said. "We have our
tight hyperbola, as planned, and the slingshot will work.
And our friend doesn't seem to have seen us-was I hope
Kaiev did. "Well done, gentlemen," he said.
"Report on the
  Klingons."
  "Kaiev has dropped off scan, Doctor,"
said Spock. "I would project him to be about here."
On the forward screen, a small red pinpoint of
light
  marked his spot, still swinging away from the planet, and
into the orbit that would eventually intersect with theirs.
"He will also be about to
  make an impulse burn, and so has taken the
same precautions not to be
  seen as we have." Spock looked satisfied.
"I would not care to speculate on whether this is a
tactic he was already considering, or whether
he
  borrowed it from you. But it was a wise choice, I
think."
  McCoy thought for a moment. "Now, then. Uhura,
have we got another of
  those data buoys left over?"
  She looked unhappy. "We have one, Doctor,
but I haven't had time to load it as yet."
  "That's all right. I don't want you to load it.
Except maybe with a
  little garbage. Look-was He got up and went up
to the screen, looking
  closely at the spot where the Enterprise's
orbit would more or less
  intersect with Ekkava's. "What I was thinking
of," he said, 236
  "was putting a buoy right about here-was He pointed
to a spot a bit closer
  to the planet than the intersection point. "comand
having it start
  broadcasting just before we get to that spot. Make it
look like a data
  fault. Or no. Better-was He grinned.
"Read our ID, and a distress call, into it.
Make it sound like us. his
  Uhura smiled too, a wicked look. "I could
fake an answer, too, if you
  like," she said. "Starfieet saying that the task force
was going to be a little late, and we should hold on-or
I can imply that in the leaked
  message."
  "Do that. I think it's a little smoother."
  Spock was looking at the screen with interest. "You
are thinking," he
  said, "of trying to lure the pirate between us and
Ekkava. his
  "That's right. Suggestions?"
  Spock considered for a moment, then said, "I would
suggest this spot
  instead-"and he indicated a point slightly
closer to the intersecting
  orbits. "Postulating worst case, which is always
wise in situations of
  this sort, one would desire to keep the maximum
distance between your
  vessels and the pirate as small as possible.
Your superior
  maneuverability-and here the Klingons also will do
well-will enable you
  to react much more quickly to the bigger
vessel's moves, and it in turn
  will have difficulty reacting quickly to you, because of your
proximity."
  "There has to be a catch."
  "Naturally there are drawbacks as well. If
the Orion vessel sees you, and fires at you, the
odds of it missing are very low indeed. But I judge
  that danger to be roughly offset by our
advantage."
  McCoy smiled ironically. "Roughly?"
  "Doctor, as you yourself know from your experience at
chess, tactical
  situations of this sort are rarely expressible in
percentile terms, or in terms of statistical
averages. There are too many variables, including
  the onset of sudden unexpected insight, and the
intervention of variables not taken into account." Spock
looked as if he considered such
  intervention a breach of good taste. "But the balance
of effects in the
  present situation is simply the best we can
hope for. Your plan regarding the buoy is well
reasoned. The Orions will certainly feel sure that
the
  ship is doing exactly what it is doing
now-running "silent and deep'-and will eagerly
attack the spot where the sudden leakage of signal
reveals
  it to be. That is, if all goes well. The question
then becomes, what to
  do next."
  "Too right," McCoy muttered. His mind's
eye was full of the image of
  Ekkava firing at the rear of the Orion
vessel, and the pirate paying no
  more attention than if the Klingon ship were a fly.
"I'm just hoping two of us will be enough."
  "I have been screening the scan of the Orion
vessel for possible
  vulnerable areas," Spock said. "That is
probably our best line of
  investigation. It is not logical to attempt
to make such a large ship
  completely "bulletproof'; there will always be some
areas that are
  considered less of a priority for protection, or
too well protected by
  other "active' defenses to need any. Mr.
Sulu, I would welcome your input in this regard,
and Mr. Chekov's."
  "Certainly, Mr. Spock. Put it down on
my screen, and we'll have a look."
  The three of them got busy. McCoy watched the
little white dot on the
  screen curve around and around the tightest part of its
orbit, the
  hairpin. The Orion vessel was continuing away
from the planet, its own
  orbit curving a little away from theirs, and upward,
out of the plane of the system. You just do that, McCoy
thought. You just head right on out
  of the system, and good riddance. But it was not very
likely, and he knew it.
  Two of us may not be enough, either . . .
  "Uhura," he said, "how long will it take to get
that buoy ready?"
  "Not very long," she said. "I'm working on the
programming now."
  "Good," McCoy said, and yawned.
  Uhura looked at him with a quirky expression.
"Doctor, when did you last eat?"
  "Huh?"
  "I thought so," she said. "Shouldn't you go off and
get something?"
  "What?" he said, shocked. "In the
middle of a battle?"
  "Doctor, nothing is going to happen for at least
the next ten minutes or so. Go get yourself a
sandwich or something."
  "I could have it brought up here," he said, starting
to sit down in the
  center seat again.
  "Doctor," Spock said, from where he had come
to look over Sulu's
  shoulder, "if you are going to command, you must learn
to delegate. You
  have not had a rest break for some time. And this is not a
warp-speed
  battle, where conditions can change in a matter of
seconds. You have a
  short time to refresh yourself, and 239
  I strongly suggest you do so. I will call you if
anything requires your
  attention, or your presence here."
  "Well, if you're sure-was
  Spock looked at him with that particular
expression that always reminded McCoy of a kindly
teacher gently instructing an acephalic. "I'm
going,
  I'm going," McCoy said finally, and
headed for the turbolift.
  HE WENT TO SICKBAY, finally having been
given an excuse. As he walked down the
familiar hallway, a feeling of great relief
washed over him, as if
  once he stepped through that door, everything would be
all right. He knew
  it was an illusion. But it was a pleasant one.
  When he walked through the door, the place was in
chaos-the kind of chaos he knew how to deal with. The
diagnostic beds were full of people having routine
physicals done, and there were four or five people
sitting around in the front room waiting to be
seennothing serious. Lia herself was
  putting a pressure splint on Ensign
Blundell's leg, and lecturing him
  about high-impact zero-gee sports. McCoy
breathed the air of his favorite place with relief,
and strolled on through.
  There was general delight at seeing him, though
Lia looked up, half
  teasing, and said, "What are you doing here?"
  He glared at her and said, "Can't check out my
own department? I've come to investigate the shoddy
way you're running this place. Wasting a
  perfectly good splint on him. Mark, how many
times have we told you about the way you throw yourself around the
squash court?"
  "She won't use the quick-fixer on me," Mark
Blundell complained.
  "And why should she, when you ignore everything we
tell you? No, you just sit and suffer a bit, my
lad. Besides, Taka over there needs the
  protoplaser more than you do, and anyway, you've
had that bone
  regenerated four times this year already. You're over
your
  threshold-don't want the cells forgetting how
to heal themselves. You
  just sit out the next four weeks, and think about the
error of your
  ways."
  "It's torture, that's what it is. I'm
complaining to Starfleet."
  "You do and I'll put you on bread and water. And
vitamins," McCoy added
  as he headed through into his office.
  Quiet fell momentarily as the door closed.
He went to his desk, opened
  the locked drawer, and rummaged around for a
moment until he came to the large lump that lived
at the back of it. It had been too long. He
  withdrew the object in question, looked lovingly at the
white wrapper
  with its elegant black copperplate printing, and
undid it.
  "You shouldn't eat that," Lia said. "You know it's
bad for your skin."
  "Next you'll be telling me it'll give me
heart disease," he said
  scornfully. "Sit down and be quiet, or I
won't give you any."
  He sat munching the chocolate, a present from
  Dieter the last time he had visited-a giant
bar of best bittersweet,
  glossy as a thoroughbred's coat, and a lot
tastier. "Here," he said,
  breaking off a square and handing it to Lia.
"Don't say I never gave you
  anything."
  "Now how could I, after that last cold?"
  "Don't tell anyone about that," he said.
"You'll ruin my rep."
  She smiled at him. "How're you doing up there?"
  "Lia, it's sheer hell. But worse.
In Hell you can complain that you were framed. I got
myself into this. Teasing Jim all those times."
  She shook her head. "I'll bet he'll be
kicking himself when he finds out what's happened."
  McCoy nodded, had one more bite of the
chocolate, then started to put it away. "Want one
more piece?" he said.
  "Not me. Somebody out there will smell it on my
breath and start
  demanding it too."
  McCoy chuckled. "Right. I'd better get out
of here. I'm not even really
  supposed to be here. I promised Jim."
  "I won't tell on you," she said. "By the way,
those bone marrow results
  are in for you."
  "Later," McCoy said, heading out. He looked
at the faces of his patients as he went out-all
calm, all pleased to see him-and said to the group at
large, "All of you get better and get the hell out
of here!"
  Laughter followed him out into the hall and back up
toward the turbolift. That feeling of impending
doom, held away for such a little time, came
  crashing in on him again.
  The hell with that, he thought, and pushed it back
by force. He had been doing too little mood control
on 243
  himself lately, letting himself react to things as they
happened, instead
  of creatively altering his mood to use a situation
to the best advantage.
  I am the master ofalll survey, he told himself
sternly as he got into the
  lift. I am the master of my fate; 1 am the
captain of my soul!
  Now do the Orions know that?
  He laughed softly as the lift got going. The
doubts were completely
  understandable (said one of his psychiatric departments,
in the back of
  his head). Suddenly stuck with a strange new
job, the fine points of
  which he knew only by hearsay-if at all-and with the
lives of others
  dependent on him, he was bound to feel out of his
depth, out of control, incompetent. But at the same
time, he had the advantage of having
  listened often to one of the most successful
practitioners of the
  starship commander's craft, as over a drink or a
dinner he had analyzed
  his own performancewhat had worked, and what hadn't, and
why. McCoy was a good listener, and had internalized
a lot of what Jim had discussed,
  without even really thinking about it at the time. And they
had played
  chess-which was better than even Jim's endgame
analyses, for it had given McCoy firsthand
evidence and experience of the ways and means of a master
of the unpredictable in strategy and tactics.
McCoy held chess high as a powerful
diagnostic tool, and in this case it was going to be more
useful even than that. It might save all their
lives.
  If I can keep my wits about me. I am the
captain of my soul.
  Unfortunately I'm also the commander of this goddam
ship. A little more
  dangerous, and affecting a lot more people . . .
  So stay calm, and let's jump in there and do our
best.
  The Bridge doors opened for him. No one even
looked up. They were all
  watching their screens and monitoring the
ship's status, and that of the other vessels in the area.
  McCoy went and sat down. On the front
screen, the Enterprise was well
  along the second leg of her parabola. The
telltale for the pirate vessel was missing, though.
"Where've they gone?" McCoy said.
  "Uncertain," Spock said. McCoy's stomach
began to twist again. "I believe they may have
instituted electronic countermeasures."
  "What? A cloak?"
  "Possibily."
  "Oh, wonderful. Just what we needed. Where would
they have gotten it?"
  "Possibly they bought it secondhand from the
Romulans," Sulu said.
  "They've been dumping some of their older
technology. But if it is the
  old cloak, that's all right. We know the
manifestation signature for
  that, and as soon as our scanners come back up
to power, we can find it
  without any trouble."
  "Back up to power?"
  "We have suffered a slight fault, Doctor,"
Spock said, tapping busily at his
console. "One of our particle scanners has
burned out. A group from
  Engineering is replacing it at the moment, but the work
will take at
  least a half-hour, and we are going to have to proceed
cautiously when
  the new one is in place. We cannot run the
usual full-power test
  sequences while we are trying to conceal our
presence."
  McCoy sighed. "How far along are they?"
  "About half done," Scotty said. "I would go
down
  there mysel', but there's no point; it's nae a
creative job, just a
  straight replacement. I couldna do it any
faster."
  His Glaswegian is showing, McCoy thought. It
was never the best of signs. The Aberdeen accent of
Scotty's upbringing was what one usually heard
  from day to day, but at times of stress it got more
pronounced, and began to shade into the rougher, more
glottal sounds of Glasgow and its
  spacedocks.
  "Right you are, then," he said to Scotty,
and looked around to Uhura.
  "How's our buoy doing?"
  "Almost ready," she said. "Do you want to talk
to Mr. Spock about the
  course?"
  McCoy shook his head. "Spock, I defer
to your better judgment."
  The expression Spock turned on him was
bantering. "Possibly a historic
  decision," he said. "Certainly a first."
  McCoy grinned. "Don't expect me
to return the favor at your next
  physical. You go ahead, give Uhura what
she needs. I want to get that
  thing out there. We can alter the course after it's
gone, can't we?"
  "I would prefer not to," Spoek said. "The
transmission would probably be noticed, and could very
well betray the fact that we are using a decoy."
  "All right . . . we'll burn that bridge when
we come to it. Sulu, where
  are all our friends?"
  "The three extra Klingon ships are still well out
of range rightward on
  the screen," Sulu said, "orbitward.
Ekkava is running quiet; we think
  she's about there-"and he indicated a point in
Ekkava's hyperbola that
  was a little farther along than the Enterprise was.
"We should be making our closest rendezvous in about
twenty more minutes."
  McCoy rubbed his sweating hands together. "All
right. Let's get that buoy out there. Uhura?"
  "Ready."
  "Launch it."
  "Affirmative."
  There was of course no sound or feeling of
recoil, but a moment later
  there was another trace on the screen, a little green
dot making its way hurriedly toward the point on
which Enterprise and Ekkava were slowly
  converging.
  "I'm going to let it get about thirty thousand
miles from the spot where we're meeting," Uhura
said, "before I start it hollering. That should be plenty of
time for the Orion vessel to hear it and respond;
they'll turn and make best speed-was
  She glanced over at Spock. "Probably about
ninety thousand kilometers per hour, at this point.
They will have to drop some speed while
maneuvering. It will take them, I estimate, six
point four minutes to successfully
  change course, and another eight minutes to reach
that spot."
  "And blow the buoy up," McCoy said, "thinking
they're aiming at us."
  "Oh, close-range scan will tell them that it's
not us. But they will fire anyway, to silence the buoy.
Also, not seeing us, they may assume that we too are
cloaked, and somewhere in the area. They may or may not
know
  about the cloaking countermeasures we have devised, but
whether they do
  or not, some bracketing fire in the area is
desirable. If they are
  cloaked, or using other countermeasures, they will have
to drop them
  while they fire. And while they are occupied with
that-was
  "We do a little firing of our own." McCoy got
up
  and went over to look at what Spock was up to.
"How's that scan analysis
  going?"
  "It proceeds." Not as quickly as you'd
like, though, McCoy thought; he
  knew that phrasing. He looked at Spock's
screen, which was showing a view of the pirate vessel.
"Ugly big thing," McCoy murmured. "Looks
like a
  brick covered with frozen spaghetti. Look at
all those ducts and
  conduits."
  "I would surmise that esthetics are not a major
concern for Orion
  pirates," Spock said. He had the display
rotate, then said, "Observe,
  Doctor. This surface-the narrower face of the
oblong-appears to be not so heavily armored as some
of the others, to judge by spectrography. That
  may possibly be a design flaw. It will be
difficult to tell until the
  vessel begins firing."
  "I can't tell you how happy that makes me,"
McCoy said. "I too am less
  than impressed with this situation," Spock said,
"but there seems little point in complaining just now. From
present evidence, that side of the
  vessel is our best chance. There are also doors
on that side to the
  shuttle bays-their ships, like Enterprise, never
land; they rely on large cargo shuttles for most of
their acquisitions. Any one of those doors is a
potential target; it must be fairly thin and light,
or it would be
  impossible to move. But on the other hand, the
ship's armorers will have known that perfectly well, and
screen intensity over those spots will
  likely be higher than elsewhere. We will have to test
our theories on the fly, I fear."
  McCoy sighed. "The story of our lives.
Well, let's get ready. Sulu?"
  "Buoy is on track," he said. "No
transmissions as yet, but it should be
  screen, indicating its little green light, farther
along than it had been. "The other Klingon
vessels are beginning to turn."
  That surprised him a bit. "Are they able to tell
what's going on, do you think?"
  Sulu shrugged. "No way of knowing. Ekkava
hasn't broken silence. They may have looked at
Kaiev's ephemerides and figured it out. But
they're not
  showing any willingness to get too close. The
turn is very gradual-they
  obviously want to remain uninvolved
observers."
  "They haven't hailed Ekkava, have they?"
McCoy said to Uhura.
  "No hails at all, Doctor. It's dead
quiet out there."
  "Let's find another way to phrase that,"
McCoy said.
  For a little while more, there was nothing to do but wait.
  Then, "Fifteen minutes to close approach
to Ekkava, Doctor," Spock
  announced.
  McCoy rubbed his hands. It really was astonishing
how sweaty they got. I could be a rich man if I
worked out an anti-palm-sweat preparation to
  sell to starship captains. Hmm, aluminum
hydroxide . . . no, too
  harsh-maybe restructuring the sweat glands; you could
take a protoplaser and-No, then you'd only have
to do it once, what's the point in that? How about-
  "Buoy's coming into position, Doctor," Uhura
said. "About twenty minutes
  of optimum transmission-position time, starting
now."
  "Twist its tail," McCoy said.
  Uhura touched a toggle. The Bridge filled
with the soft chatter of the
  data transmission that the buoy was 249
  sending out. "An old code," Uhura said.
"They'll have no trouble reading
  it."
  "Good."
  And they waited.
  "Ten minutes to Ekkava, Doctor."
  "Thank you."
  There was no use doing breathing exercises
anymore. All McCoy could do
  was sit there and sweat.
  "Seven minutes, Doctor. There's
Ekkava-positive trace, direct scan at
  reduced power." The telltale on the screen that
had represented Ekkava
  realigned itself ever so slightly, drawing closer
and closer to the one
  that showed Enterprise's position.
  "Noted."
  It was amazing how much you could sweat in a matter of
two or three
  minutes. McCoy thought about writing a paper on
dehydration in personnel on battle
stations.
  "Five minutes. Doctor, Ekkava is showing
faint traces of arming her
  weapons. The pirate has turned and is making
good speed. Six minutes to
  the buoy."
  "All weapons at standby, then. Don't arm
yet. Scotty, stand by restart
  procedure. We may need it." McCoy
gulped.
  Dehydration, yes, it was fascinating how your mouth
dried out and how
  your life started to pass before your eyes. No need
to jump off a cliff
  at all. The regrets came marching up on you,
each one demanding why you
  hadn't tasted that meal, watched that sunset, told
that friend what was
  on your mind-
  WHAM!! The whole ship wobbled as if some
giant hand had grabbed it and
  rattled it to see if there was anything inside.
"Pirates firing on the
  Sulu said. "Making better time now. One
minute out."
  "Have they hit it?"
  "No!" Uhura said.
  "Good! Shut it up. Send to Ekkava:
"Now!" Just that. Sulu, tactical!"
  The screen shimmered and changed views. There was a
large oblong block in the middle of it, like a big
ugly brick covered with frozen spaghetti. It
blazed with a bright red halo, the computer representation
of its
  screens. Phaser fire lanced out from it, off at
one side, missing
  Enterprise, which was orbitward of the pirate.
Ekkava was closer to the
  pirate, and fired at it, another full load of
photon torpedoes. Where do they get all those
things? McCoy thought. Now I know why those ship have
such small crews. The whole ship's as full of
torpedoes as a chicken is
  with eggs-
  The Orion ship could not turn very quickly,
certainly not quickly enough to immediately deal with the Klingons.
Ekkava hurried off to one side,
  firing. The pirate began to decelerate, but it was
going to take time.
  Slowly it turned, very slowly
indeed-bringing that weak face toward
  Enterprise. "This is time for your best shot,
Chekov, Sulu," said McCoy. "Spock,
give them the coordinates-was
  The tactical display narrowed in on the pirate.
Circled crossbars
  centered on the vulnerable spots. "Everything at
once, and we might
  overload their shields," McCoy said.
"Might. Save us a little something
  in case we need it, gentlemen. Fire at will!"
  They did. The pirate's screens lit up like the
sun where they were hit,
  overloading-but not for long. Slowly they backed
down into red light
  again.
  Chekov wasn't done. He hit his console, and a
spread of photon torpedoes leaped out.
  From the other side, Ekkava was firing as well.
Torpedoes as well as
  phasers struck the screens in all the vulnerable
spots at the same time. The screens flared and went
down.
  "Got him!" Sulu said, more in a whisper.
  "Have we?" said Chekov. The pirate was
turning more sharply, wallowing,
  but making better speed. Behind it, the Klingon
vessel was falling away, not accelerating, not firing.
Slowly the huge oblong shape turned toward them,
chasing them on the hyperbolic course that was to slingshot
them
  around the planet.
  "Fire again, at will," McCoy said.
  "Photon torpedoes recharging," Chekov said.
"Phasers only."
  He fired. The beams hit that massive shape-
  comand it absorbed them.
  "My God," McCoy whispered, horrified.
He had miscalculated. "We're
  history." And the despair that he had been holding
off came crashing down on him. No way to live,
no way to save the ship and its people even
  though he himself should die-
  The pirate bore down on them as they fired,
uselessly, hopelessly-
  And everything simply stopped. No light, no
sound, nothing; everything
  went out.
  Death- McCoy thought, despairing, before he went
out too.
  Kirk came down to the clearing with his Klingons
marching before him, all ferociously angry but unable
to do anything while he was holding the
  weapon. As they got close to the clearing, he was
surprised to see 252
  through the blue-green trees that there were something like
another ten
  Klingons there, of all ranks and types, standing
around as if they were
  waiting for something. Some of them were talking with
members of an
  Enterprise landing party. Kirk saw Lt.
Janice Kerasus off at one side
  chatting with one of them, apparently a commander, in
fluent and rapid
  Klingonese.
  "Go on then, all of you," he said to his little
crowd. "Katur, help your friend here back up to your
ship."
  The young Klingons noticed their commander's eyes on
them, and vanished
  with some haste in the bright hum of the Klingon
transporter beam. Kirk
  walked over to the man, who watched him come with
something like pleasure in his face, and stepped
away from Kerasus to greet him. Kirk kept his
  thoughts out of his face for the moment.
  "Captain Kirk," said the Klingon, and actually
sketched a little bow.
  "Commander-was
  "Kaiev, of Ekkava. At your service."
  We'll see about that, Kirk thought. "Commander, would
you tell me why
  you've been jamming communications?"
  Kaiev twitched a bit. Aha, Kirk thought.
"That was very unfortunate,"
  Kaiev said. "We had a communications fault in
one of our main boards-it
  shorted out in a test loop, and became stuck in
jamming mode. Our comms
  were down too. But the problem's been handled now;
communications are
  clear again."
  "You'll excuse me if I check my
equipment-was comand your word! Kirk pulled
  his communicator out, flipped it open.
"Enterprise," it said, in Uhura's voice.
  "Kirk here. Just checking, Lieutenant." 253
  "Yes, sir. Do you need anything down there?"
  "No. I've had a very pleasant afternoon
out, and tell Dr. McCoy I'll be
  beaming up shortly."
  There was the briefest of pauses, then Uhura's
voice came again, sounding faintly puzzled.
"Aye, Sir." Kirk frowned. Now what was that
all about?
  Had McCoy-
  "Captain," Kaiev asked, "is there a
problem?"
  "No," Kirk said quickly, "no problem. That's
all, Lieutenant Uhura. Kirk out."
  He put the communicator away and nodded
to Kaiev. "So much for that,
  then. Commander, may I ask what your business is
here?"
  "None now," Kaiev said. His face had a
relaxed look that was puzzling
  Kirk considerably. A thought occurred-that the man
seemed to have no
  defenses up at all. Kirk had never met a
Klingon before who wasn't on the defensive, and the
experience wasintriguing-to say the least. "We were
on survey," said the Klingon, "but there is nothing
here of particular
  interest to us. Except," and he actually
laughed, "some of the plant
  life."
  "Yes," Kirk said, and at that he had to smile
a little. "I understand you had a bit of a shortage.
If we can be of any help as regards the cloning,
please let us know."
  "No need," said Kaiev. "But I thank you.
Captain, not to be abrupt, but I have business
elsewhere, and some disciplinary matters to attend to.
We
  will be leaving orbit directly."
  "Very well," Kirk said. "A good journey to you,
Commander."
  "And to you, Captain."
  The Klingon took out his communicator.
  "Commander," Kirk said, feeling slightly
confused, "comh we met
  somewhere before?"
  "Oh, no," Kaiev said. "But MakKhoi
has told me all about you."
  The Klingon transporter effect took
Kaiev, but not before he raised a
  hand in farewell. Kirk half-raised his own,
totally confused; then let it fall as the man
vanished.
  Bones, he thought, what have you been up to? I
intend to find out.
  Ensign Brandt came along at this point, from the
far clearing. "Captain," he said, "one of the beAt
is over in the next glade. He says he'd like
to speak to you before you leave, if that's possible."
  "Certainly," Kirk said. He strode off through
the soft grasslike plants
  of the clearing, looking up at the impressive
building that about two
  hundred of the Ornae were busy building with themselves.
It was a
  fantastic structure that looked half like an
old Russian cathedral, with spires and onion
domes, and half like a pillared stoa in the tradition
of the Parthenonwith some Danish modern mixed in. It
was certainly bigger
  than anything else he'd seen them build yet.
There was a sort of
  triumphal arch off at one side of it. He
walked through this, and was
  rewarded by several of the Ornae goggling their eyes
down at him and
  making their soft scratchy laughter.
  Kirk smiled too and headed into the next
clearing. This had definitely
  been one of the more pleasant afternoons he'd had in a
long time, if you discounted the momentary annoyance of
having to deal with the overzealous Klingon landing party. The
woods closed around him, cool and pleasant,
  with the long low golden light of the afternoon sun passing
down through the branches in broad beams, gilding the
leaves and even the floating
  time on the path, looking at the shapes of the
leaves, the way the light
  fell. Heaven only knew when he would have time for
this again. And on the
  other side of the little patch of woods, there was the
second clearing;
  and in it stood the Master of the beAt.
  Kirk walked over to the Master and greeted it
amiably. "Sir, did you
  forget something?"
  "Never yet, I fear," it said; but its voice
didn't sound particularly
  fearful. "Captain, there are decisions to be
made."
  "So there are," he said. "I hadn't thought to hear
any from you so soon."
  "Nor had I thought to be ready to make
them. But we must talk; and there is a thing I must
say to you first."
  "Is this going to take a while? I'll sit,"
Kirk said.
  "D. Captain, I have practiced a deception
on you."
  "You have?"
  "Yes. And the consequences could be dire. You will
probably be angry with me, and I will understand that. But
it was utterly necessary."
  Kirk couldn't imagine what it was talking about.
Was this going to be
  another of those weird alienviewpoint things? "Go
ahead, sir. I may be
  angry, but I will try to be fair."
  "So I see." There was a long pause, and
Kirk became aware of that very
  long, slow rumbling, all around him, as if the
earth were feeling the
  beAt's concern and trembling a bit with it.
"Captain, when first we met, I desired to talk
to you without interference."
  "And so you did. I thought."
  "Your Translator-was The beAt sounded a bit
perplexed. "The word talk, I
  fear, says little of what I truly wanted to do.
We are a deep-seeing
  species, Captain."
  He thought he understood that. The Translator was
doing its best to
  render some compound word, but what the beAt meant was that
it was a
  concept telepath. "Sir, I have understood that for
some time. I'm not
  troubled by it."
  "That's well. What may trouble you, however, is
how long you've been
  here."
  Kirk looked around him, confused again. He was
beginning to get used to
  the state. "It's only been a couple of-was
  "Days," said the Master.
  And immediately, without knowing how, Kirk knew it to be
true. All
  afternoon he had been seeing things in more than the usual
detail,
  feeling every passing second go by with much more than the
usual acuity. The air had been like wine every
minute, the light as rich as something
  in an old Dutch painting, every texture
and sensation sharper than usual. He had assumed that
it was just the effect of the leisure, of getting
  away for a few minutes. But now he knew the
feeling of time being
  tampered with; it was impossible to mistake for
anything else, now that
  he knew what it felt like. "You're saying," he
said, "that though I've
  experienced only a few hours away from my
ship, my crew has experienced
  two days-was
  "A little less."
  "My ship tilde f
  He forced himself to calm down, for the effect was still
working, and his fear was much sharper than 257
  usual. "The time has not been concurrent," the
Master said. "I dislocated
  you slightly from your proper time-stream, into future
time. A week,
  perhaps. I shall restore you immediately when we have finished
talking
  here."
  Kirk swallowed. "Sir," he said, "you're
right. I am angry. But I want to hear what your
reasons are for this."
  "We needed to talk, as you know," said the Master
of the beAt. "You are
  not the only one who has been deep-seeing,
deep-feeling, this past while. I have as well. I
had decisions to make-about you, and your people. I
  needed time in which to make them correctly-extra
time. And to some
  extent, being able to exist briefly in the future,
as I told you, I saw
  that this was the only way it was to be managed. For the
Klingons were
  coming, and others with them, on their trail; and after that,
all chances would be lost."
  "Others-?"
  "The Orion pirates."
  Kirk's stomach curled up into a little ball and
tied itself in a knot.
  "I fear for your folk too," said the Master.
"But my first fear is for my own people, whom I see
suffering from that attack, and others. The help
  you hold out to us is very tempting. But I must
balance it against the
  dangers of dealing with aliens. The pirates have not
dealt very kindly
  with us. You came with fair words, but I
had to be sure there was more
  beneath the words that was fair. I am certain of that now.
Our three
  kinds will join your Federation, and learn to share what
we have, and
  what we are. We will never be quite the same again; but
I think that
  change must happen, and I think it will be worth
it."
  Kirk nodded, keeping himself calm by sheer force.
"That said," he said,
  "and I thank you for it-what's to be done about my
ship?"
  "I think you should return to it," said the Master.
"They are in the
  midst of a battle, and it goes hard with them."
  "Bones is in a battle-his! He- They-How
am I going to get up there?!" Kirk cried,
jumping up. "They'll have their shields up, they can't
use the
  Transporter-was
  "This way," said the Master.
  And everything stopped-
  comand started again. He was on the Bridge, and red
  h alert sirens were going off, and all
Hell was breaking loose-
  He felt, as he had felt it once or twice
before, an actual flush like
  fire in his lower back, as a blast of adrenaline
cut loose. "Tactical,"
  he shouted, and all over the Bridge heads
snapped around in astonishment and terror. McCoy
alone didn't turn; he had his eyes on the
screen, and
  said, "About time you got here, goddam it! Sulu,
fire again-was
  "Yes! And shields," Kirk said hurriedly,
his eyes fixed on the tactical
  display, "and Sulu, cut hard right now!
Chekov, give me weapons status
  readout-was
  It came up on the screen. What a farrago!
Ships everywhere, one of the
  big pirate vessels, mother of the shuttlecraft
he had seen in the step
  back in time with the beAt-and four Klingon
vessels, attacking it as well- "We got some
help," Bones said. "Kaiev there started it-in
Ekkava-and the others pitched in 259
  after a while. I think they just couldn't
resist a good fight."
  Kirk nodded and stared at the screen. The pirate
vessel was running on
  impulse, as everyone else was. Prudent. But
this was no time for
  prudence. "I recognize this endgame," he said
to McCoy. "Jellicoe, huh?
  Not sure it's working this time. Sulu, the hell with
this, warp 4 and out of the system when ready."
  "Restart is still in process, Captain,"
Scotty said from his station.
  "Four more minutes."
  "Best evasive then, Mr. Sulu." Kirk
looked at McCoy. "You were running
  quiet, I take it. Uhura, give me a
padd and put the logs since I left on it."
He looked at the screen. "One Klingon vessel
I could understand. But four?"
  "The first one misplaced a landing party," McCoy
said. "The same way we
  did you. Where the hell were you?"
  "On the planet," Kirk said. "With your friend the
beAt.
  [*macr]
  McCoy blinked. "That's what the
Ornae and Lahit kept saying."
  "They have some connection with the beAt. They seem to know
what they're
  doing. It's doing," Kirk corrected himself, as
he took the padd Uhura
  gave him. "I only saw the one. Sulu, swing
out a bit wider. I want some
  more room."
  "Anyway, we couldn't find you," McCoy said.
"You were gone from scan, and your communicator was
missing."
  "The beAt do something with time," Kirk said,
scanning down the padd.
  details later. Meanwhile, I understand the
Master's reasons for doing it," he said, and he
looked over his shoulder, "but it has created some
  problems for us all, and I am going to require
some assistance by way of
  apology."
  "The Master?" McCoy said, and looked where
Kirk was looking. And froze,
  as did everyone else who looked that way; because there
appeared to be a large, rough, brownish stone
monolith standing near the turbolift doors. It was
unquestionably too large to stand there-the ceiling
was too low
  for its height. But the stone appeared to be sticking
through the
  ceiling, without doing it any harm.
  McCoy got up out of the center seat, which Kirk
promptly sat down in, and said, "Sir-was
  "Doctor," it said. "Your pardon that I had the
Captain call you away. But it was he that I had
to speak to, urgently; and time was short."
  "You had the Captain-was
  "The Master is a talented being," Kirk said
absently, still going through the contents of the padd. "This
transmission from Starfleet, for example. This
sudden loss of signal. Sir, there were times in the
past when I
  would have very much liked to have had you around. Oh,
well.-Sulu?"
  "Gaining a little distance, Captain. The Klingons
are making it difficult for the Orions. Its
shields are back up, and they can't affect them much,
but they're a lot faster than it is, and they're
concentrating on its
  weak spots."
  "Good. Keep running for a few minutes; buy
me some room. I need to think a bit."
  The ship shudded slightly. "Photon
torpedoes,"
  Spock said, coming down for a moment to stand beside the
center seat.
  "Captain, may I say that it is good to see you
back?"
  "Amen to that," McCoy said, from the other side of the
seat.
  "Spock, I can tell you it's good from my side
too. But it'll be better as soon as we can do
something about this pirate." Kirk looked at the
  screen, and saw less of it than of some night
down on Flyspeck, a night
  full of fire, and the screams of Ornae and
burning Lahit. "Scotty, what
  about our restart?"
  "Two minutes yet, Captain."
  Kirk put the padd aside and drummed his fingers
on the arms of the seat. "Bones," he said, "you
don't have to stay. I've kept you away from
  Sickbay long enough."
  "Uh-uh, Jim. I started this, and I'll see
it finished."
  "One way or another, you will. Anyway-you did
a good job. That bit with
  Delacroix was pricelesscdn't have done better
myself."
  He looked with some admiration at the shape of the
pirate behind them.
  "Some ship," Kirk said. "Starfleet really ought
to look into who's
  selling them so much of our off-the-shelf
technology. Not all the stuff
  welded onto that hull is Romulan."
  "I was looking particularly at the sensor array
near the close end,"
  Spock said. "It appears to be Starfleet
issue, with some modifications."
  "So it does." Kirk frowned and considered that.
"Hmm. Bones, are any of
  the Klingons cooperating with us directly?"
  "Ekkava is. The others were just sent in by their
High Command to try to intervene when that landing 262
  party of Ekkava's went missing, and we wouldn't
tell them where we
  kidnapped them to."
  Kirk snorted. "Typical. Uhura, ask
Commander Kaiev to break off his
  attack and come up here to join us. Warn him that
we're about to go into warp. That thing will
certainly chase us-which is what I intend. We'll
be looping around to come back through the system; I'm
going to lead him
  through the other Klingons." He got up and leaned
over Chekov's seat,
  programming in a course. "Read that from your
console. See this point
  here? That's where we'll pop out of warp. Reaction
time being what it is, the pirate will drop out a few
seconds later, but we'll have flipped end for end and
started dumping sublight velocity. We'll wind
up behind him. Have the rest of them be there and ready
to fire when that thing drops
  out. We'll collapse its shields-then finish this
business. Uhura, see
  that they have Spock's list of vulnerable spots.
Do all that now."
  "Yes sir."
  "Then in a moment we'll see about that sensor
array." McCoy was staring
  at Kirk. "You know Kaiev?" he said.
  "We've met," Kirk said. And there are some
interesting implications in
  that-but never mind that just now. Kirk looked
thoughtfully at the other side of the screen,
now split and showing both the image of the pursuing
pirate and the tactical display. "What's that little
green trace there?" "The communications buoy."
  Kirk looked surprised for a moment. "Ah!
Fake signal?"
  "That's right," McCoy said.
  Kirk smiled at him. "You were really getting
into this, weren't you?"
  "Not much choice," McCoy grumbled.
  Kirk looked embarrassed. "No, I guess
there wasn't. Still-was A bit of
  mischief came into his eyes. "Never turn
down a learning experience, eh, Bones?"
  "Jim, you can take your learning experience and-was
  "Tell me later. Uhura? Are the other ships
ready?"
  "All set, Captain."
  Kirk looked at McCoy with momentary interest.
"Bones, would you mind
  telling me how you got all these people fighting beside us,
instead of
  with us? Just curious. Starfleet will probably be
interested."
  McCoy looked a bit sheepish. "I can't
take credit for the other three. As for
Ekkava, I just shouted at him. Called him
names."
  "Hmm," Kirk said, thinking how many times he had
wanted to do just that. Still, he had borne a fair
amount of McCoy's name-calling in his own
  time, and it occurred to him that even a Klingon might
be impressed by
  some of it. "Seems to have worked."
  Again he bent over the helm console and touched a
control here, another
  there. Sulu watched with increasing interest. "There,"
Kirk said. "Just
  hold that instruction in abeyance; we may get a
chance to use it.
  Scotty?"
  "She's ready, Captain."
  "Good. Mr. Sulu, warp four, now. Keep
an eye on the Z axis change. I want to go
straight up like a turbolift on the fly."
  "Yes, sir!"
  She went. "Back to visual," Kirk said. The
screen was empty for a
  moment-then filled again with the 264
  image of the Orion ship, a fair ways back
at the moment, doing perhaps
  warp two.
  "Won't take them long to catch up. Let them
think we're making a run for it," Kirk said.
  For about ten seconds, the situation did not
change. Then slowly the
  pirate vessel began to creep closer.
"Scotty," Kirk said, "you're using
  that new fuel configuration, are you?"
  "For the moment." Scotty turned away from his
station, looking a bit
  concerned. "There are problems with it; I wouldn't
use it for very long, no more than an hour or so. After
this we'll need to look for something
  else that will produce the same result. But at
the moment, we're running at about 110 percent of
normal engine efficiency. I can get you up to
  warp eight . . . for very brief periods."
  "Noted. We may need that eight, though, so if
you have to do anything
  special to the engines to get them ready, do it now.
I intend to find out what our friend there has in the way
of engines."
  Scotty sighed and muttered something, and turned
back to his console to
  begin making adjustments. Kirk smiled.
Scotty always complained when you asked his machinery
to stretch itself out; but then again, he complained when you
didn't-so there was nothing to be done but to put up with the
  occasional mutter. "By the way, Bones," he
said, "your Klingon landing
  party that went missing-you know what they were after?"
  "I'm more interested in knowing whether they're back
safe," Bones said.
  "They are-I think. At least, I saw them go.
Anyway, guess what they were after."
  McCoy looked at him and shook his head. "Not
a clue."
  "The vegetable form of the anchovy."
  "What?"
  Kirk told him about the tabekh sauce. Bones
nodded at that and said,
  "Yes, I've heard of it. I don't think
you'd want to try it, though."
  "Why not?"
  "One of the other ingredients is arsenic."
  Kirk blinked.
  "Apparently they like the bitter taste," Bones
said. "Also, the arsenides are pretty important
in their diet. Klingons can get into horrible
  arsenide deficiencies if they're not
careful, especially in stressful
  situations-was
  "Bones, Kirk said, "thank you. Sulu, how's
our friend doing?"
  "Accelerating to warp four. No one else is in
warp at the moment."
  "Good. Warp five, Mr. Sulu. Accelerate
as they do."
  "Yes, sir."
  Slowly they watched the Orions begin to catch up
with them. "Not bad for off-the-shelf stuff," Kirk
said thoughtfully, "but I still want to find
  out where they're getting it. We're not supposed
to be selling material
  to anyone who will pass it on to the Orions-but then,
I guess forging and falsifying end-use
certificates is an old, old game."
  "Warp six now, Captain."
  "Noted. They are coming right along, aren't they?"
He sat there and
  watched them, thinking. Some part of his mind noted how
good he felt. It was always better to have space
battles in the morning, if you had to
  have them at all. But no-this was almost evening,
wasn't it?-for him, at least. Odd that his
body felt as fresh and his mind as lively as if it
  glanced at the beAt. He was going to have a lot of
questions to ask, later
  . . .
  "They're matching our warp six, Captain."
  "Good. A nice, slow acceleration now, Mr.
Sulu. Keep it regular. And mind the course.
Turning too soon will throw the timing off."
  "I've got an eye on it, sir."
  They all watched the screen. The pirate
vessel was creeping closer, all
  the time-and suddenly it was quite a bit closer, a
swift rush forward,
  continuing. "Quick, Sulu, warp seven!"
  "Done, sir-was
  Enterprise surged ahead too. Hang on,
Kirk thought. Speed is what we need at the
moment. Not for much longer. But show him your heels for
just a
  little while-
  "Warp seven," Sulu said. "More, sir?" For the
pirate was still gaining.
  "Must be doing nine at least, was Kirk thought.
"Start the turn-we don't
  want to get too far out of the system. Go
to warp eight."
  "Ah me," Scotty said from his station.
  "Not for long, Scotty, I promise," Kirk
said. "Only a few moments. Then
  we'll drop out of warp and let things cool down.
Though not for him." He looked grimly at the
Orion ship.
  Behind them, the pirate crept closer still. "He's
doing eight-point-five, Captain," Sulu said.
  "Go to nine-point-five, One minute. Then
decelerate to warp four, hard,
  and drop out of warpspace. We need to match our
old intrinsic velocity.
  Uhura, intership."
  She nodded. "All hands, this is the Captain."
Was that a slight sigh of
  relief going through the Bridge 267
  crew? Or just McCoy? Kirk said, "We're
about to undertake high-speed
  braking maneuvers while in warp. You know that this will
sometimes cause
  the artificial gravity system to fluctuate.
If you're holding a cup of
  coffee, drink it. Maneuvers should take no more
than one minute. We'll let you know when
we're done. Kirk out."
  He sat back in the center seat and watched the
pirate draw closer and
  closer. You do that, he thought. Right up our tail,
the closer the
  better. The vector-inflight maneuver he was
trying now had first been
  invented by vectored-thrust aircraft pilots in
one of the old Earth wars; it was so effective, and
along with others of their inventions had made
  them so deadly, that pilots on the other side often
insisted that they
  had been shot down by viffers even when someone flying
some other plane
  had done the deed.
  We'll see if it still works-Kirk thought. So far
it looked good. Maybe
  the pirate had never heard of viffing, for he was
cheerfully running
  right up Enterprise's tail. "We should expect
some fire shortly," Kirk
  said.
  As if on cue, the white fire lanced out from the
pirate. Sulu evaded
  before Kirk could say a word. Not much of
an evasion, but at this speed, not much was needed; even
the slightest drift to port or starboard could change
your position by thousands of miles. The first shot was a
clean
  miss; but the pirate kept firing, and the problem for
Sulu was that he
  had a specific course to maintain, and couldn't
deviate from it too much, lest they come out in the wrong
place, far from their friends in
  realspace.
  The pirate fired again, and again, and Sulu ducked
and dodged, and Kirk
  clenched his hands on the arms 268
  of the center seat and tried not to show his nerves. One
good shot at this velocity, and they would be so dead that
they wouldn't know anything about it until God tapped
them on the shoulder and asked them for
  identification. Behind him, Scotty was muttering
unhappily at his station. "How about it, Mr.
Scott?" he said.
  "I'm keepin" things on an even keel for the
moment," Scotty said, "but I canna say how
long it'll last. She's not meant for this, not really-was
  "Noted. Keep that keel even for just a few
seconds more. I've heard about the
screen-shredders those things come equipped with, and I
don't want
  one used on us-the feedback alone would tear the
ship apart at these
  velocities. Sulu-was
  "Close to dropout point, Captain. It's in
the helm."
  "Keep an eye on it, and count it down."
  "Fourteen," Chekov said, while the pirate
got closer behind them, and
  more phaser beams lanced out. One was a graze, and
Enterprise shuddered
  sidewise like a horse stung by a wasp.
"Sulu-was Kirk said.
  "Just lucky, Captain-was
  "Them and us both!"
  "comeleven, ten, nine-was
  "Intership, Uhura. All hands, warp
deceleration in eight seconds-brace
  yourselves! Out-"
  "comsix, five, four-was
  The ship shuddered again, harder this time. "Lost
number six screen,"
  Spock said. "Covering with five and seven-was
  "comtwo, one-was
  Kirk's stomach flipped as the artificial
gravity, true to form, went on
  the fritz. Even Scotty had never been able to do
anything about that. At deceleration from 269
  such high speeds, the shields' priorities
changed to favor maintaining the ship's structural
integrity, and the gravity suffered as a result. The
  gravity came in again, went out again. People grabbed
hold of their
  stations and hung on. McCoy, next to him,
looked a bit strained; it was an expression Kirk
had seen before, on people trying to keep their cardiac
  sphincters in line. His own was giving him a little
trouble, but he had no time for it now. The screen showed
the pirate vessel plunging past them at warp nine
while they dug their heels into the fabric of space
and slowed,
  slowed. The warp engines howled. Even Scotty
couldn't make them like doing this-
  "Warp eight, seven, five-four!"
  "Now!" Kirk said. Sulu took control away
from the helm and did the
  dropout himself, just to be sure. The whole ship
rattled and boomed
  around them as she dropped out of warp, still
decelerating. "Tactical-was
  The screen showed four small red lights clustered
together, ahead of
  them-seeming to rush closer, though it was Enterprise
doing the rushing. "One," Kirk counted softly,
"two, three-was
  Ahead of them, the pirate dropped
into realspace, and went plunging
  straight into the center of the waiting group of
Klingons. "Mr. Sulu,"
  Kirk said, "fire at will. Mr. Chekov,
activate that intervention I put
  into the console."
  Phaser beams hit the pirate vessel from five
different directions. Its
  screens went down. "Close visual," Kirk
said, hanging onto his seat as
  hard as he could. If the timing on this went wrong,
the thing would
  merely drop back into warp, then come around for
another pass-
  The pirate filled the whole screen. Its
screens flickered 270
  up for a moment, then went down again. Klingon
phaser beams hit it hard
  from four sides, and Enterprise's from the fifth.
And something else hit
  it: a small shape that came streaking in out of
nowhere, a little lump of
  metal no more than a ton or so in mass-but
accelerated to almost half
  light-speed. The communications buoy struck the
pirate amidships. No armor could have done anything
to stop it, at such a velocity. It burrowed into
  the side of the pirate, and a great plume of fire
and silvery atmosphere,
  freezing as it came in contact with space,
billowed out of the side of the vessel.
  "That sensor array, there," Kirk said, pointing.
"Burn it out."
  Without even bothering to wait for a lock from the
targeting computer,
  Sulu took aim and fired. The glassy
installation at the end of the pirate exploded in a
cloud of plasma.
  "Good enough," Kirk said. "Let him
decelerate."
  "Klingons are following him, Captain,"
Chekov said.
  Kirk let out a long breath. Doubtless
they had old scores to settle; the Orion
pirates had preyed on their planets for as long as
they could get
  away with it. Perhaps they thought that letting this one get
away would
  be a mark of weakness on their part, an invitation to more
destruction.
  He looked over his shoulder at Uhura. "Send
to Kaiev and the other
  commanders that this strategy was ours, and we require
the right of
  disposal," Kirk said.
  Uhura nodded. After a moment, she said, "They
accept that, Captain. But
  Kaiev wants to talk to Commander McCoy."
  Kirk turned to McCoy and smiled. "You want
to take the call here, Bones? Or in Sickbay?"
  "Sickbay, please," McCoy said. "But,
Uhura, tell him I'm busy at the
  moment. I'll call him back later."
  "Shall I follow, Captain?" Sulu said.
  "No. Decelerate and stop."
  Sulu said, "Yes, sir," in a slightly
mystified voice. They all sat and
  watched the screen, watched the pirate
slow, watched it begin to tumble. "Major
explosive decompression aboard the pirate,
Captain," Chekov said. "Weapons and engine
systems are down."
  "Not as down as they will be," Kirk said, a touch
grimly. On the screen, they saw the Klingons
move in on the pirate, anchor to it with tractors,
and begin to slow it to a stop.
  Kirk watched and waited. When the Orion ship
had come to a stop, some
  hundred thousand kilometers away, he turned
around in his seat to glance at the massive block of
stone seemingly sitting in front of the turbolift
doors.
  "Now, sir," he said.
  And nothing changed except the screen-which suddenly
showed them within
  five kilometers of the pirate and the Klingons
tethering it.
  Every head in the Bridge turned to look at the
beAt, then at the Captain. Kirk smiled very
slightly. I don't know if the pirates could see
that,
  but let the Klingons chew on it and wonder how we
did it. I think things will be quieter on the
borders of Federation and Klingon space for a
  while.
  He looked at the pirate vessel for a moment,
then said, "Mr. Sulu, are
  the phasers ready?"
  "Yes, Captain," he said, very quietly.

  "Jim-was
  He knew what McCoy was about to say before he
even said it. "Bones," he
  said, "they're killers, many times over. They've
murdered on this planet, and on ones that we
protect, and on ones the Klingons do. I'm not
sure
  they would understand a slap on the wrist at this point.
These people are a hundred times more alien to me than the
Ornae or the Lahit, or anyone
  else I know."
  McCoy just looked at him, and let out a breath.
"Your conn, Captain," he said.
  Kirk looked at the ship to pick the best and
quickest spot.
  Hominid stock, his memory said to him, unusually
clearly. Most hominids
  had ancestor-creatures that hunted and
killed to live. The habit is in
  our genes. It's hard to break.
  He sat quite still.
  But with these? They need killing, if anyone ever
did! That too vivid
  night of fire was with him again, the screams and the
burning. They're
  terrorists, pure and simple. They've earned
their deaths.
  "Sulu-was he said.
  "Sir."
  Kirk took a long breath, and then let it out.
"Burn all their engines out but one, the least powerful.
No point in letting them all die of old age before
they get back to the Coalsack with the news. And
fuse all their
  weapons ports. Uhura, are their comms working?"
  "I'm hearing some feeble intership," she said.
  "Can you put a transmission into that?"
  "Certainly."
  "Starting now, then. Orion vessel, this is the
USS Enterprise. We thank
  you for a pleasant chase, but as 273
  you see from our last maneuver, we no longer need
such chases. In cases of less
importance, we now have the ability to move our
vessels-and parts of
  them, including the weapon we used on your
ship-without recourse to normal impulse or warp
engines. The new instant-relocation devices will
shortly
  be installed on all Federation vessels. We are
allowing your ship to
  return to your home port so that you may carry this
news to your people.
  Meanwhile, we strongly advise that you stay out of
our spaces-including
  this area, which is now under protection of the Federation,
by treaty
  newly agreed with its three species." Heads
turned in the Bridge at that,
  but Kirk ignored them for the moment. "You may now
leave. Enterprise out."
  There was a small patter of applause on the
Bridge. Sulu didn't join it; he was finishing
the last of a number of delicate and skilled phaser
  blasts that destroyed exactly what they were intended
to, nothing else.
  "Query coming in from the Klingon task-force commander,
sir," Uhura said. "They say they're
disappointed in you."
  Kirk smiled at that. "Tell them "Sorry,
I'm only human,"" he said. "And
  they should leave the pirate alone on his way
home-unless they want us to pop out of nowhere on them.
his
  She nodded and turned to her station. Kirk looked
around the Bridge. "Any damage from all that shaking
around?" he said.
  "No, sir," Scotty said. "All's well."
He patted his station. "We build
  these lassies to last. his
  Kirk looked at the beAt. "Sir," he said,
"my thanks."
  "And shall I see you tomorrow morning?" it said.
  "Count on it."
  "So I shall." And it was simply gone.
  "I'd like to go with you," McCoy said.
  "Sure, Bones. No problem. But don't you have
a call to make?"
  "As a matter of fact-was McCoy headed for the
turbolift doors.
  "Oh. And by the way, Bones?"
  "Mmm?"
  "You're relieved."
  "Damn straight I am," he said, and the doors
closed on him.
  "What the hell are you all doing in here?"
McCoy shouted happily as he
  bounced into Sickbay. "I told you all to get
better and go away!
  Morrison, are you back again? We're feeding you
too well."
  "Doctor," Lia said, "I have these reports for
you to sign-was
  "Oh, lovely, bring them here-to " He grabbed the
padd out of her hand,
  brought up the form screens, and signed each one,
lovingly, artistically, with great relish. She took
the padd from him, when he was done, and said
suspiciously, "Are you all right? I can read your
signature."
  "What's the matter with you? I love forms. And
if you want me to write a prescription, that'll be
legible too," he said happily, heading into his
office. "I have to make a call. Anybody
wants me, I'll be right here."
  For a minute or two he did nothing but sit and
look at his office walls. They had no screens
on them but the one that displayed pictures of
  people's insides, and there were no guns at all. No
weapons, no shields, and only his own dear stupid
computer terminal.
  Bliss.
  He reached out to his comm. "Bridge," he said.
"Uhura, get me Commander
  Kaiev, if you would."
  "No problem, Doctor. Visual?"
  "Please."
  After a moment, the screen lit up with Kaiev's
face. The Klingon looked
  rather surprised-no shame to him. "MakKhoi, was
he said. "7 had hoped you
  would speak with me before you left. his
  "I don't think we're leaving right away," he
said. "There's time for
  that. But, Kaiev, I wanted to apologize for
lying to you."
  "About killing your Captain?" The Klingon
laughed at him. "It was a good lie! A pity it
wasn't true, though. But don't feel bad. Some
day you will command a ship of your own. And you will do
well!"
  "Oh no I won't!" McCoy said.
"Kaiev, I'm a medic. I have no
interest in
  command."
  Kaiev stared at him.
  McCoy shrugged. "It's the truth," he said.
"Sorry if you're
  disappointed."
  Kaiev said, "7f all medics are as
skilled in command as you, I must
  remember to kill mine. his
  "Might want to do that anyway," McCoy said,
a bit drily. "After the way
  he hasn't been taking care of you. No, I
didn't mean that. But it might
  do a little good if you threatened him some. He's not
watching out for
  your health . . . possibly on purpose. And
heaven knows what he's doing
  to your people."
  Kaiev nodded thoughtfully. "Perhaps. But
MakKhoi-one question?"
  "Ask."
  Kaiev looked around, as if checking to see if
anyone was watching him.
  "With this new weapon, surely you 276
  need not have feared even four more ships. You
could have destroyed them
  all. his
  McCoy just smiled.
  "But you talked with us, as if you were the weaker. It
  makes no sense. his
  "Neither did not blowing you up when I could have,"
McCoy said. "Just
  part of being human . . . this week, anyway. You
didn't always do the
  sensible thing either, Kaiev. Maybe people like you and I
are the wave of the future. Our peoples may work
together yet.
  Kaiev looked at him thoughtfully.
  Then, "Impossible, was he said with cheerful
scorn.
  "Well, at any rate," McCoy said, "perhaps
you'll let me give you a
  physical before you go, so you have a proper baseline
to compare your own medic's results against. As a
gesture of respect . . . from one commander
to another."
  Kaiev nodded. "7 shall make time. was And the
screen went blank.
  McCoy sat back in his chair and smiled.
  Captain's log, Supplemental.
James T. Kirk commandingag:
  The situation aboard Enterprise has quieted
somewhat in the past day.
  Personnel who had been assigned on priority
to Linguistics duty-or,
  alternately, to looking for mehave returned to the
business of scientific research into the extremely
strange evolutionary patterns and history of
1212 Muscae IV. Mr. Spock estimates
that we might need to be here for as long as a month
to complete a most basic survey, and give the people
at
  Starfleet Sciences enough information to start asking the
correct
  questions about this planet. Myself, I can't say
I'll mind sitting still for a while.
  I have been holding discussions with the Master of the
beAt concerning the exact wording and workings of the treaty
to be signed by us and the three species of
Flyspeck. The Master has no problem with that being
the name
  that goes on the treaty; since all three
species have different names for the world, it will probably
simplify matters. The Master does not wish
  the Federation to have a permanent base
actually on the planet-he says
  that that would be "a breach of his jurisdiction," a
phrase that I hope
  to have explained to me eventually.
  The three Klingon ships that arrived to assist
Ekkava during
  my-absence-have since left. Ekkava remains,
at the request of the Master. Generally speaking, our
relations with the Klingons here have been
  unusually warm and friendly, so much so that I sometimes
feel tempted to pinch myself. Whether this can be
ascribed to the effect of fighting on
  the same side as the Klingons, or to some other
force, I can't say.
  Certainly the planet surface of Flyspeck
is an unusually serene place,
  and both Klingons and Enterprise crew find it
re/l. Leave parties have been down for some time now,
there being no rush, and no reason for quite a lot of the
crew not to have a holiday.
  The attached communications from Starffeet make it
plain that there was
  some kind of organizational reshuffling going on at
Starfleet, which
  resulted in Delacroix being put on
our case. At any rate, the gentleman
  was thrown into handling our situation without the proper
briefing. He
  has since been removed from it, and McCoy's
record remains unsmirched,
  except for the time he stole the cadaver.
  The Doctor himself seems to have survived a most
difficult and painful
  experience, with difficulty but with gallantry.
Recommending him for a
  decoration seems like the thing to do, though my
suspicion is that
  Starfleet will refuse to give It on the grounds
that so doing would
  encourage others to try to maneuver themselves
into similar situations.
  But decoration or not, McCoy acquitted himself
splendidly. I can't say I would willingly put
him in the same situation again. But it is definitely
heartening to know that the Doctor's common sense
follows him in the
  Bridge as well as in Sickbay.
  I will be continuing to visit the planet, firming up
the groundwork on
  which our future dealings with the Ornae, the
Lahit, and the beAt will be conducted. There are a lot
of questions to be asked, and the Master has
  been endlessly helpful, especially with problems of
linguistics and
  idiom, always a stumbling block. At least we
have answers for some of the questions we came with. But some of the
answers are obscure, and are
  going to require long and careful study to be
eventually understood . . . if ever they are at all.
  "WHAT KIND OF BUG IS THAT?"
McCoy said, pointing upward.
  "Doctor," Spock said patiently, "your
inaccuracies are showing. A "bug"
  is specifically a member of the order-was
  "I don't mean bug bug, I mean that bug,"
McCoy said. The bright-colored
  creature that he was pointing at came to rest on a
branch far above their heads, and looked at them with little
bright eyes like sparks of flame.
  "It has no name, I fear," said the Master of the
beAt. "It flies; it's
  bright; it seeks certain kinds of trees
to pollinate. That's all I can
  tell you of it."
  It was a very early morning, no more than
an hour or two after sunup. The light came
lancing sidewise through the branches of the forest as
McCoy
  and Kirk and Spock walked together along a forest
path, and the Master
  went with them in its silent way.
  "You are great namers, you people," said the Master.
"Soon everything
  here will have a name, if you have your way."
  "And will we? Have our way, I mean?" McCoy
said.
  "Oh, not in any way that matters," said the
Master. "No creature needs to keep your naming,
if it doesn't care for it. Their true natures
are known to them; that's sufficient."
  They went on a little way in silence. Kirk was
deep in enjoyment of the
  morning, untroubled by the Master's obscurities.
"Gorgeous," he said, as they came out into another
clearing, this one surrounded with trees from which cascaded
great fragrant veils of flowers, all
transparent as water, and dusted here and there with golden
pollen.
  "They are fair," said the Master, with great
satisfac-
  tion. "Most things are, this morning. And your ship
was the morning star,
  the first one we have had. A pity it will be to lose
it."
  "Others will be back," McCoy said.
  "But none of them is ever again the first; was said the
  Master. "No matter; memory remains blue.
And at
  least you will be here for another week."
  "Yes, we will," Kirk said, "but I don't
remember telling you so. Did
  someone else mention it?"
  "No indeed," said the Master, "but you must stay here
at least a week."
  "I must?"
  It paused-or rather, simply stopped keeping up with
them. "Surely you
  must," it said. "Or rather, your ship must. For it was
about a week ahead in your time that I took you.
Having checked your time measurements, I
  can say that for certain now."
  Kirk thought for a moment, then said, "Of course.
The Enterprise still
  has to answer my communications from the planet
surface. That must be why Uhura sounded so
puzzled."
  "Yes," said the Master. "And the young Klingons that
I brought into that time, to see how you would react to your
great enemies when alone, must
  be sent back to their ship then. The commander of
Ekkava will be here for at least that long. But I
daresay they will desire to be out of the area shortly
thereafter."
  "Is that a guess?" McCoy said. "Or are you
going to find some clever way to manage it?"
  "There's no difference between the two," said the
Master, sounding
  faintly bemused.
  They walked on through the clearing, breathing the scent
of flowers clear as water. "One thing, sir," said
Kirk. "When we spoke-will speak-later
  and you made your choices. Will make. Damn these
tenses!" McCoy laughed.
  The Master itself made that low rumbling that Kirk
had quickly come to
  recognize as laughter, for the Master laughed
often.
  "You had been to, or seen, or somehow
experienced, this future. You had
  to have already known that I had been able to keep
the ship from being
  destroyed in the battle with the Orion pirates."
  "But I did not-and you had not, not yet. And had I
known and shared it,
  that very knowledge could have made you careless, or rather it could have
taken the edge from the fear that is your weapon when you
defend your
  ship. Even had I known, I would not have dared
tell you."
  "But you had to know! You were in the future!"
  "That's so. But neither of us yet knew what the
present would do, you
  see. The present is everything comm important
than the past by far, and the ground and nursery of the
future-even when you are in the future. The present
is dangerous, almost too dangerous to tamper with."
  "Yet we inhabit it," Spock said.
  "Yes," said the Master. "This is a source of
wonder to me. But how other worlds are run must remain
a mystery to me in some ways. In any case,
  Captain, I told you no more than you needed to do
your work . . . and no less than would enable you
to manage it."
  They paused near the other side of the clearing, where
a path ran farther into the woods. "Sir,"
McCoy said, "are you glad we came?"
  "Glad? That would be hard to say. You have had a child,
Doctor. When she first began to set out into the world on
her own, how did you feel?"
  "Nervous," McCoy said. "Afraid for all the
things
  that could go wrong. Yet at the same time-was He
fumbled for words. "It was
  what I had been working for," he said. "To see her
her own woman, grown,
  and happy, and doing well. To see her taking her
own chances, and becoming things I would never have
suspected-was
  "Exactly so," the Master said. "Just these past
few days, the changes
  have been great. Already the Ornae speak to me in
words I never heard
  them use. Your language is enriching theirs. I
think some of them may go out into space someday, with your
people. And the Lahit are becoming more talkative, more
open. There is no telling where it will all lead.
Changes . . ."
  "Sir," Kirk said, "I doubt that there will be many
of our people coming
  here at all. Only a few
scientists, linguists, and so forth. We would not want
to ruin such a perfect place-so simple and
peaceful-was
  There was a brief silence. "And paradisaical?"
the Master said. "And have a few paradises been
spoiled and ruined in your people's time? I see
  there have. Your concern does you credit. But you need
not be
  overconcerned for the simple pastoral creatures
of the Galaxy's edge,
  Captain," said the Master, and there was a slight
edge to the amusement
  in its voice. "News does travel, by ways
that might surprise you. And
  your guilts aside, paradises are hardly in
short supply.but no matter for that. It is noble
of you to worry that your own culture, your many ways
  of being, might drown ours out. Indeed, that was my
concern at first. But I have since laid it by. If
I have done so, you may well put your own
  mind at rest. In my estimation, you are not strong
enough to do anything but enrich us . . . and it is my only
business to know our three peoples here. Later, much
later, in some thousands of 283
  years, you may come up with something that might
actually change one or
  two of our own ideas. But not just yet."
  Kirk said nothing-feeling, as if it still hung over
him, the shadow of
  immense age and power that had lowered over him in the
field. Our
  intentions are good, he thought. That's worth something.
But what makes
  us think we understand everything that's going on around us?
In fact,
  it's the not understanding that brings us out here again and again.
  Mystery is much more interesting than knowledge . . .
  They walked on, into the woods. "I have no
doubts about the process of
  our meeting and our negotiations, Captain," said
the Master, as it
  followed them without moving. "There were many subtle
ways you might have tried to affect my decision. But
you used none of them; and you intended to use none of them,
as I know. And in our own histories, which include
  the future, your coming had been predicted . . .
yours, or that of
  someone like you. The time had come for growth. So . . .
we grow. But
  never think that is your doing," the Master
added, sounding amused. "The history being written here
is ours. And as for who is doing the writing-was It
trailed off in something that sounded suspiciously like a
chuckle.
  "Sir," Kirk said, "whatever we do, we will
keep our interference here at a minimum, and we will be
as careful as we can with your people."
  "What of your own people?" Spock said. "The other
beAt seem rather
  reclusive."
  Kirk got the distinct feeling that the Master was
smiling at them. "So
  they have been, in their time," he said. "Mr.
Spock, I am the only one of my kind here at

  the moment. There are many others, but this is not their
place."
  Kirk raised his eyebrows. All their scans
of the Master had come up
  blank; and they couldn't get a physical
sample of its manifestation-you
  might as well try to get a cell sample from the
skin of the Enterprise.
  The Ornae and the Lahit might have the same
basic genetic makeup, but
  there was no evidence that the Master had anything to do with
them at
  all-another place where the initial survey had
gone wrong. The Master was a cipher. "To be the
only one of your kind here-was he said. "Do you find
  it lonely?"
  The Master laughed. "With a whole planet to watch
over, and two whole
  species? Hardly. And now another species,
for whom the responsibility
  does not obtain. There are good times coming!"
  "The responsibility?" Spock said.
  "To guard, to protect." The Master paused on
the brink of another
  clearing. "There are marvels happening elsewhere, that
is clear. To have some of them come here will be a great
pleasure."
  "Sir," McCoy said, "have you considered space
travel yourself'?"
  It was silent for a moment as they looked out across the
open space, full of long, waving blue-green
grass, waist-high and jeweled with dew, so
  that the whole field glittered with every breath of wind.
"Who doesn't
  think occasionally," it said, "of leaving his
post, and doing something
  else, some other job, better? But sooner or
later, if duty matters, it
  keeps you where your given word put you. No,
Doctor, this is my charge.
  Here I stay. But perhaps," and the Captain got the
impression that it was looking specifically 285
  at Dr. McCoy, "you, who know my charge, and
your people, will come back
  this way some time."
  Kirk thought he heard something like wi/lness in its
tone. He would
  have liked to tell it yes. But telling this creature
the truth had become a habit. "We're not our own
men, sir," he said. "We would like to come
  back when we're done here. Perhaps we will. But it
depends on the Powers That Be, and on what they
decide."
  "So it does," said the Master. "But I'm used
to that." Its voice was
  cheerful.
  On they went, through the grass, getting wet to the
waist, and not
  caring. The Master disturbed never a blade of the
stuff, and dislodged
  never a drop of dew. "Nice trick, that,"
McCoy said, just a little put
  out what with one thing and another. He had never been
a morning person
  at the best of times, and this was a bit early for him.
  "You will manage it some day," said the Master. "I
shouldn't worry."
  "Not unless I lose a lot of weight, I
won't," McCoy said.
  They came to another patch of woodland, with an
odd sort of luminescence showing through it. "This way,"
said the Master, and led them down one
  more path. This one was narrower than most; soft
fernleaved trees and
  bushes brushed at them as they passed through the
blue-green twilight.
  The trees were thick enough to make a roof here, and the
only light came from ahead.
  "This is something I wanted you to see," said the
Master; and they came
  out of the woodland, suddenly and finally, onto the
beach. The soft
  of the early sun, caught in the orange haze,
spilled over the blue water
  and caught in the combers as they tumbled
onto the peach-colored sand.
  McCoy smiled. "Thank you," he said.
  "I thought perhaps you might like it," said the Master.
"Just one of many boundaries. I thank you for crossing
mine, and defending it."
  "Sir," Kirk said, "you're welcome. And I
thank you for your hospitality
  to us."
  "Oh, as for that," said the Master, "one has to be
courteous, after all. You never know whom you might
find yourself entertaining-was
  It laughed, and vanished.
  "Mysterious creature," Kirk said after a while
spent looking at that
  remarkable sunrise. "I'll be sorry
to leave."
  Spock looked out at the golden morning for a
decent interval. "Well,
  Captain," he said finally, "I think
Lieutenant Uhura will be wanting me
  to come look at her translator algorithm.
We finally have the Lahit
  pronouns and verbs sorted out."
  "Go on ahead, Spock," Kirk said, and the
Vulcan turned and was off back
  into the woods, heading about his business.
  "No use trying to keep him when he has things
to do," McCoy said, looking out over that morning
sea.
  "Nope," Kirk said.
  He walked off to one side, where a big boulder
sat half-buried in the
  sand. "Excuse me," Kirk said to it, brushed it
off, and sat down.
  McCoy ambled over, bending down once to pick
up a shell from the sand and turn it over in his fingers.
"Playing it safe, are you?" he said.
  "Bones, I'm no geologist. All the rocks
here look alike to me, and I'd prefer not to sit
down on one that might speak to me. At least, I
won't do it without introducing
  myself." "Strange place, this," McCoy said,
sitting down in the
  sand beside him. "I don't know," Kirk said.
"Odd, yes. But not as
  strange as some we've been to. The things that have
happened-now,
  those have been strange." "You're telling me. You
going to hide off
  in the bushes somewhere and watch yourself appear
in a few days?"
  He made a face. "Probably not. Being in
one place in one time is
  enough for me. The Master can do things his own way."
"Never
  did find out how to pronounce his name," McCoy
said. "You were a
  little busy," Kirk said. "Bones-I have to say
I'm sorry. If I'd
  known anything like that was going to happen-was "Oh,
Jim, never
  mind. How could you know? Forces were being
manipulated in ways we
  couldn't understand. Considering the whys of it all, I
can't say I
  mind. If the price of bringing this planet into the
Federation was
  me being terrified out of my mind and dead tired for
two days, I think
  that's pretty cheap. Don't you?" "Well-was
"And don't
  forget the learning experience." Jim chuckled.
"No," McCoy
  said, "seriously. I always knew that ship was yours;
but the
  knowledge was abstract. It's concrete now. And it was
easy to criticize
  from behind 288
  the seat. But I've been in it now. When nothing's
happening, it's
  lovely. The rest of the time-I'll keep the job
I know." Kirk
  nodded. "All the same," McCoy said, "one of
these days I'm going to
  have an excuse to make you scrub for an operation.
Then we'll see
  who's got the flexibility on this ship." "No,
thanks!"
  They sat in companionable silence for a while.
Kirk looked out at the
  morning, and sighed. "I'm going to hate leaving this
place. There's
  something veryrelaxed about it." "Serene," McCoy
said.
  "Enchanted, almost." "Protected," Kirk said.
"Yes." "That's
  the Master, I think," McCoy said, and he
looked thoughtful. "Long
  may he wave." "Others of his kind, he said .
. ." Kirk took a deep
  breath of that morning air. "I wonder where they
are?" McCoy
  shook his head. "All over, if my
suspicions are right."
  "Suspicions?" "Oh, not really. Just a
funny thought, a joke. I was
  thinking of a particular quote, back there,"
McCoy said, "and he
  picked it out of my mind and agreed with it, and thought
it was
  funny. Something about being careful about being kind to
  strangers-because many thereby have entertained angels
unawares."
  Kirk smiled, and nodded. "Who knows what people
all those years
  ago might have thought they were experiencing," McCoy
said, "when
  sometimes they brushed up against wise -- 289
  creatures of great age, and great
power-nonphysical creatures, good
  beings-who sometimes passed through Earth in their
travels, touched a
  life or three, passed on? And there are
legends of creatures like
  that all over the Galaxy, in all
different kinds of forms. They get
  called by all kinds of different names. On Earth
alone there are a
  hundred names for creatures who act and talk like
the Master of the
  beAt, if they don't look exactly like him.
And there are all those
  legends of "live' standing stones, too, that walk
and talk every now
  and then. Anyway, if this is something that some one of
my distant
  ancestors occasionally mistook for an angel,
I must say I understand
  their confusion. And it has a sense of humor,
too. What more could
  you ask?" Kirk tilted his head to one side.
"An interesting theory.
  Another species like the Preservers, perhaps? But
traveling the
  worlds in various shapes, and devoting themselves to caring
for
  whole planets, whole ecologies? It's not
such a strange idea. You
  could make a case that the Organians have been
doing something
  similar." He grinned, rather wickedly. "And what
if they weren't
  aliens? What if these creatures really were
angels?" "Then I'd be
  especially glad about the sense of humor,"
McCoy said, "because
  dealing with us and our like, they'd need it." Kirk
laughed and got
  up. "Come on, Commander," he said. "Enough
theories. According to
  regulations, I have to debrief you on your period
of command. Now,
  about forgetting to put your shields up in the middle
of combat-was
  "Aren't you due for a physical?" "Oh no,"
Kirk said.

  ORDERS
  "Oh yes-to " They headed back through the trees,
into the
  bluegreen twilight. Behind them, over the sea, the
Enterprise rose
  and passed over, a morning star again. And if somewhere
a stone
  smiled at it, no one noticed.