THE SIX MEMBERS of the landing party paused in the vestibule outside the station bridge and glanced up either leg of the corridor. Most of them studiously ignored the half-open doors of the turbolift directly in front of them, but McCoy caught Hallie studying the doors and the wide emptiness of the dark shaft with an expression of deep sorrow in her eyes. It was hard to lose a friend, and harder still to lose them under tragic circumstances. It probably didn't help matters that she just couldn't understand where Markson's fears had come from.
"Ensign Leno," Spock said, interrupting McCoy's quiet observation of Hallie. "You said that there is another turboshaft farther along this corridor?" His hand gestured to the left. McCoy appreciated his friend's tact. Spock knew that none of them, especially Hallie, wanted to climb down the shaft they'd come up. They would prefer the risk of meeting the creature, or whatever it was, head-on rather than be faced with Dan Markson's remains lying at the bottom of the shaft.
Leno nodded. "That's correct, Mr. Spock. That's how that thing came at the chief and me, like a snake up a sewer pipe." She gestured. "This main branch of the corridor ends in a T. One leg circles back to the right to connect with the right-hand branch. The turboshaft is at the end of the other leg, at a dead end."
McCoy didn't particularly like that specific turn of phrase. "I suppose we have to climb a turboshaft again?" he asked unhappily, already knowing the answer.
Spock shifted the weight of the generator's carrying strap on his shoulder. Sheathed in the sleek dark suit, all he needed to complete the picture was a face mask and a pair of goggles, and he would have looked like a salamander. "Unfortunately, Dr. McCoy, if we wish to reach the lower levels and descend to engineering, that is precisely what we will have to do." His eyes flicked over them all. "However, we will not have to go down the turboshaft all the way to the bottom. Given that we dare not trust the mechanics of this station any further than we must, I propose for us to go down to the first level, which houses a stairway system. At that point, we will switch over and make the rest of our descent much more quickly and, I assume, safely."
"Well, I don't think any of us are outrageously keen on getting into a turboshaft again, Spock," McCoy said for the benefit of the others. "But I don't see as we have much choice." He nodded. "Sure, it sounds like a good idea." The others nodded their agreement of the plan as well, though Hallie had to be reminded to do it by a jab in the ribs from Leno.
"Then let us proceed." Spock led them down the hallway toward their objective. Almost by routine, they fell into their usual order, with Chekov pacing forward to precede Spock, and Leno bringing up the rear. Markson's absence was a notable vacancy at the Vulcan's side.
Walking in the e-suit felt markedly different than in the clothing McCoy was used to. The material flowed with the motion of his frame, never binding, never restricting. Unencumbered by his usual boots, his feet glided almost soundlessly over the decking, the slightly waffled sole of the suit foot feeling pleasantly pebbly against the bottom of his foot.
"Are you okay, Ensign?" McCoy asked Hallie quietly as they walked.
She jerked slightly, as though startled by the question or goaded out of some inner reverie. Her head bobbed once in an abrupt nod. "I'm fine, sir."
She didn't look fine to McCoy. Her face seemed even paler against the dark circle of the close-fitting cowl, and her wide eyes were cold. "Are you sure, Hallie?"
"Yes, "she said absently. Then she shook off whatever she was thinking and turned to the doctor. "I'm fine, sir," she repeated neutrally. "Thank you for asking."
"You're welcome," he replied, stunned by her chill response. The rest of the short walk was made in silence.
The doors to the other turboshaft were still open, leading into darkness. Leno took it upon herself to hang on the open doorway and brazenly stare the length of the shaft. "Nothing down there I can see," she reported, straightening. She patted the edge of the door frame, her eyes pensive. "I almost took a header down this shaft in the dark," she mused. "That critter owes me one."
"Two," Chekov said. When she looked at him curiously, he added, "For almost stopping your chief's heart in the process."
"Three," Hallie appended stonily, and nobody had to ask her what she meant.
McCoy stood back from the open doorway, not eager to get any closer to it than he had to until it was time to make the descent. The thought of going down there for the express purpose of encountering whatever it was they had previously confronted made nervous sweat break out on his palms and the small of his back. They had all been lucky last time. What if their luck didn't hold out this time around and the creature turned out to be more malevolent than it had first appeared?
"We'll descend as we ascended," Chekov said, drawing McCoy's attention away from the worthless introspection. "I'll go first, with Mr. Spock behind me. Next will come Ensign Hallie, then Dr. McCoy, then Ensign Leno. Keep your handlamps attached to your wrists, but pointed down. That way, you won't blind the person coming down behind you, but you'll light the way for yourself and the rest. Mr. Spock, how many levels do you anticipate we'll have to go before we reach a stairwell access?"
"Assuming this turboshaft is twin to the one we originally climbed, Lieutenant, we have twelve levels to descend before reaching a point where we may switch over to the stairway system."
"Okay," Chekov said to the group. "It was a long climb up, and it's going to feel just as long going down. If you get tired, speak up, and we'll take a breather. I don't want anyone getting fatigued. We don't want any more accidents. Any questions?" He nodded when there were none. "Let's go."
Swinging into the shaft this time was probably one of the hardest things Leonard McCoy had ever had to do in his entire life. What if that creature was waiting for them, waiting to suck away every ounce of warmth their bodies held, as he suspected it could? What if the turboshaft came by again and pulled them all to a quick death? What if—
Stop it, Leonard! he sternly ordered himself. You're doing just what Dan Markson did. And look where that got him.
In retrospect, moving up the ladder had been comparatively easy. Oh, his legs and arms had gotten tired, but at least he'd been able to look up and try to forget the vast drop below him. Now it was there, stretching beyond the bodies of his companions as far as the eye couldn't see, which made the whole thing just that much worse. Light pooled across the dark expanse of Hallie's suited head and shoulders from McCoy's handlamp, ran together with her own, and spilled downward over Spock to light Chekov. The Russian's light cleft the darkness only so far before being swallowed. McCoy centered his concentration on Hallie's slim, black-sheathed hands on the rung beneath his feet, and he tried not to step on her in his haste to finish this stint on the ladder and get back on solid ground.
They descended as they had climbed, in silence, the quiet broken only by their breathing. This time, McCoy couldn't hear their feet on the rungs, even taking into account the fact that his hearing was just slightly impaired by the thin material over his ears. He lost track of time with nothing to reference but the top of Hallie's head and the feel of Leno descending after him, so he was a little startled when Chekov called an unexpected halt shortly after they had taken a break.
"What's the matter?" he asked no one in particular.
Chekov swore softly in Russian before replying. "Our way is blocked."
"By?" Did he really want to know?
"A turbolift car."
Terrific. "What are we going to have to do, climb back up and cross over to the other turboshaft?"
"We could …" McCoy didn't like the sound in the Russian security chief's voice. It meant he was thinking.
"What is your recommendation, Lieutenant?" Spock asked, his spotlit head bent in Chekov's direction.
Chekov looked up and squinted in the bleaching glare of the Vulcan's handlamp. "Well, Mr. Spock, we could do as Dr. McCoy suggested, but that would cost time that we may not be able to afford if we want to avoid freezing to death."
If? McCoy wondered.
The trail of light from Chekov's handlamp flashed in a circle below them. Straining to one side, McCoy saw the top of the turbolift below them. The Russian's light was trained on one particular section. Suddenly the doctor knew what Chekov was going to suggest, and knew just as certainly that he was going to hate it.
"There's an access hatch in the top of the car, Mr.
Spock. I've been keeping track of our levels of descent and the reference marks on the inside of the shaft, probably put there for the maintenance crews. According to your count, we're coming up on the first level where we can access the stairs, and I'm fairly certain we're coming up on a deck access, as well. If this car is even slightly in line with the door, and the door is open, we should be able to crawl through the car and access the corridor."
Crawl was an appropriate word, because that was exactly what McCoy's skin was doing under the fine sheath of e-suit material. "You're not serious!"
"It would behoove us to try the Lieutenant's idea, Doctor," Spock said, looking up and squinting in the light from the lamps above him. "Otherwise, we will lose time that could be put to a better use. I cannot speak for the rest of you, but I am beginning to again feel the cold and fatigue associated with the onset of hypothermia."
"Are you all right, Spock?" McCoy asked worriedly. "Any dizziness? Do you want another shot?"
"I am experiencing no dizziness at this time, Doctor, and making the effort at this point to crawl over Ensign Hallie to give me another dosage would further waste what time we have. I recommend we attempt what Lieutenant Chekov has suggested."
"I'm all for it." Leno's voice reached them from above. "I'd like a break from this ladder. My hands are getting stiff."
Loss of manual dexterity … and even within the small protection of the e-suit. In his mind's eye, McCoy could see the medical reference manual and the page on hypothermia. He shook his head, torn. To go up and around the "safe" way (as much as anything was safe aboard this tin can), or cut corners and go down through a car that might suddenly decide to move and make lovely designs with their bodies on the ceiling of the shaft. What a choice.
"Let's do something." Hallie's voice goaded them.
"But what if the car starts to move?" McCoy felt he had to say it, had to put his fears into words.
Lit by his light, Hallie's shoulders moved in a smooth shrug. "You can't live forever, Dr. McCoy," she replied flatly.
"No? Watch me." He sighed and nodded. "Okay, Chekov. Let's give it a try."
"Right. Keep your lights trained on the car top. Don't any of you come down until I give the all-clear." His fierce gaze stabbed at them from below, squinting against the glare from their lights. "That's an order, even to the senior officers." He went down several rungs until he was just above the top of the car. Hanging on with one hand, Chekov stretched across the intervening space and put his foot on the turbolift, slowly easing his full weight onto it.
McCoy swallowed hard, suddenly realizing he'd forgotten to breathe. His eyes worriedly followed the security chief's careful, precise movements.
Chekov paused. There was no telling what went through his mind in the few seconds before he let go of the ladder altogether and stood alone on top of the turbolift. He waited a moment, arms out. When the car didn't move, he swiftly knelt, pried up the hatch in the roof, and bent to flash his handlamp around the interior of the car. The look he shot up at them was expectant. "Something is going our way, finally! The car stopped halfway through the level, but the corridor door is open. If we climb into the car, we can squeeze through the opening on the other side. Don't anyone come until I call the all-clear, then come only one at a time when you hear your name called. Move quickly. Don't hesitate. I'll be waiting for you on the other side."
Without waiting for any reply from the others, Chekov disappeared into the dark opening. McCoy half expected the car to pick that moment to plummet toward the shaft bottom, but it didn't. He heard movement inside, like a mouse trapped in a can, and the Russian swore virulently once or twice. Then they heard his voice. "I'm through! Mr. Spock, you're next."
The Vulcan moved without hesitation, following Chekov's lead into the turbolift car, lowering the generator and following after it. A few moments later, he spoke. "Ensign Hallie."
She moved with single-minded determination, and McCoy wondered again just what was going through the young security guard's mind. She disappeared into the opening with the ease of a newt sliding under a log. "Dr. McCoy, it's your turn."
Dammit. He didn't want to get in there, didn't want to trust his safety to the vagaries of a space station with a mind of its own. But he also didn't have any choice, if they hoped to reach engineering and find an answer to all their questions. Swallowing fear with a taste like bile, he climbed down the last few rungs and, praying fervently to anything who might be listening, stepped onto the top of the turbolift.
It didn't so much as quiver under his feet. He released the rungs with hands that shook and stood there a moment, feeling weak in the knees.
"Dr. McCoy? Are you coming?"
Spock's voice. "I'm on my way," the doctor assured them. "Don't rush me." He lowered himself into the car, hung by his fingers for a second or two, and let go. His feet struck the floor, and that was when he expected all hell to break loose. But it didn't. Three handlamps lit the interior, and he held up a hand to shield his eyes.
Chekov, Spock, and Hallie were on their knees, peering in at him from the top half of the open shaft doors. The men each reached an arm toward him. "Come on, Dr. McCoy," Chekov encouraged. "Grab on and we'll lift you free."
They didn't have to tell him twice. McCoy's hands grasped theirs readily and he half-walked up the inside wall, bending to slide the rest of the way on his stomach. He paused on the lip, half-in and half-out of the turbolift, like a fish beached on a sandbar, and a horrible thought abruptly badgered its way into his brain. What if this damned thing started moving right now?
His hands tightened around theirs even more strongly, and his feet scrabbled uselessly for purchase. "Get me out of here!" In two seconds, he was in the corridor and getting to his feet.
Nothing had ever felt so good as the solidity of the corridor floor beneath his hands and knees. At least that wasn't in any danger of going anywhere. "Come on, Leno!" the doctor called, listening to the pound of his heart against his ribs, and ignoring the slickness of his skin inside the e-suit. "Last one in is a rotten egg."
"It's about time." They heard the skitter of her feet along the steel rungs, the thump as she landed on the roof and slid through the hole. Their lamps lit her way as she quickly took in the situation and held up her hands. "Here I—"
The car moved suddenly, dropping. Leno cried out and the others snatched their hands back to safety. The turbolift didn't drop far, only several inches—McCoy breathed a sigh of release—but it effectively cut off Leno's escape route. There was no way she was going to squeeze through that tiny opening now.
She swore with the facility of a longshoreman, and Chekov didn't call her on it. Doubtless, he felt like doing a little swearing himself. McCoy certainly did.
This was too damned close to what he'd imagined. "Now what are we going to do?" Hallie asked.
"You're going to go on without me," Leno practically spat, surprising them all with her vehemence. "You're going to have to get to engineering and check out Mr. Spock's theories, if we hope to have even a chance of survival. You don't have the time to fool around here trying to get me out. Mr. Spock, was the chief right? Can you reach the stairs from this level?"
"I believe so, Ensign."
"Then go and do it."
"Spock—"
"Ensign Leno is absolutely correct, Doctor." Spock's eyes were trained on what little they could see of Leno through the small opening. "If the creature is, indeed, drawing off our body heat and affecting the power supply of this station and the Enterprise as I have surmised, we only have a limited amount of time left to us in which to take some kind of action, if we can. Ensign—"
"Save it for later, Mr. Spock," Leno said brusquely. "I'm not sunk yet. What level is engineering on? I'll meet you there."
The woman's bravery warmed McCoy to the bone. Even Spock looked impressed. "Engineering is located on the lowest level of the space station." He nodded gravely. "I look forward to seeing you there, Ensign."
"You're on. Now the rest of you get out of here and let me get to work."
They spared one last look at her defiant eyes, then moved off down the corridor with Spock in the lead.
"How is she going to get out of there, Chief?" Hallie asked, trotting along at McCoy's heels.
Chekov shook his head. "I don't think she is, Hallie." He murmured something in Russian, his voice awe-filled. "We'll come back for her when this is all over."
They raced along at Spock's heels, arms pumping in rhythm. The Vulcan held the generator against his chest so it wouldn't bounce against him and led the way toward the stairs.
Though McCoy had amazing faith in the Vulcan (not that he ever would have told him that), he was still surprised when Spock halted beside a door and opened it to reveal the stairway system stretching away below them. "Spock—" He panted, chest heaving. "You remembered this was here from the map you saw below?"
"Yes, Doctor."
McCoy shook his head, utterly amazed at the capacity of the Vulcan's memory. "When you die, I want that"—he pointed at Spock's head—"in ajar on my desk. I've never seen anything like it!" He panted and blinked up at the strange look the first officer was giving him. "It's a compliment, Spock!"
"I shall endeavor to remember that, Doctor." He stepped onto the landing.
McCoy swallowed hard as he followed the others into the stairwell and let the door close behind them. They shone their lights around the dark shaft, but there was nothing to be seen. If that thing had been there, waiting for them, McCoy wasn't certain what he would do, but he suspected it involved lots of yelling.
Spock glanced their way and started down the winding course of stairs. "Come along. I recommend we stay close together."
"You'll get no argument from me," McCoy vowed. Spock did not pause. Their feet whispered against the metal risers as they rapidly descended toward their goal. "That will be a pleasant change."
"Was that a Vulcan joke?" McCoy called, not expecting a response, and his expectations were not disappointed. He hurried along in the Vulcan's wake, the beam of his handlamp trained on the small of Spock's back.
They moved downward level by level, around and around, until McCoy lost all notion of where they might be in the vast station. Had he been alone, he would have been turned around on himself and irretrievably lost. "Spock," he finally asked when they passed yet another landing and its welcoming door. "Are you sure you really know where we're going?"
"It is not much farther," the Vulcan assured him without even a backward glance.
"That doesn't answer my question."
Several additional flights later, Chekov pulled up short, and a mild oath escaped his lips. "Is it my imagination, or is it getting warmer in here?"
Spock stopped on the stairs and turned around. "Your imagination is not playing tricks on you, Lieutenant. It is, indeed, markedly warmer here than on the previous levels."
"But, why? I didn't think there was enough power on this station to generate this much warmth."
"And if it's so warm in here," Hallie added, "why don't I feel any warmer?" She rubbed her arms briskly and hugged herself within the loose confines of the e-suit. In the light of her handlamp, her lips looked blue. McCoy's heart turned over in his chest.
Spock did not reply. He continued down the few remaining stairs to the next level and opened the door.
A blast of moist air assailed them, rushing into the stairway in a wave of warmth that McCoy felt against his face but which did not seem to reach through the e-suit. They hurried to follow Spock, catching the door before it could close on the Vulcan's retreating back.
It smells like a greenhouse in here, was McCoy's first thought.
They had come out onto a lattice-work of catwalks, suspended high over the station's central energy core. The walls trickled with moisture, tracking runnels down the smooth surface and dripping to puddles on the distant floor. The smell McCoy associated with rotten peaches was heavy in the air. There were other underlying odors, but nothing McCoy could put a name to.
Spock stood at the very edge of the catwalk, staring down into the room below. "I believe you will all want to see this." He motioned them forward to join him, already turning aside to take a long stairway to the floor of the room.
McCoy started after him and stopped dead in his tracks. Beside him, Chekov released a low sound. Hallie, wherever she was behind him, was silent. He stared over the slender banister at the room beyond. Eyes huge, brain daring itself to believe what he was seeing, he tried to take it in all at once and felt his mind begin to overload. Piece by piece, he sorted out images and scents, trying to build himself a cohesive, understandable explanation when the words really weren't available with which to do it.
Scents sorted themselves out first. Still the not-really peaches, plus something briny, salt-tinged, and sealike. Mustiness … wood … leaf mold … a smoky scent of undefinable odors McCoy couldn't even attempt to put a name to. There were others, but by then his eyes were full of all there was to see.
The round chamber below them was huge and vault-ceilinged, several times the size of the Enterprise's copious engine room. The floor was a confusing jumble of work stations, computer banks, conduits, and more things than McCoy, with his layman's knowledge, could put a name to. In the center of the room rose a towering vastness, stretching from floor to ceiling, which McCoy assumed was the central core for all the station's power. Only it wasn't just the central core anymore.
Surrounding the core from floor level to about halfway up, and spreading partway into the room, was a creature the likes of which McCoy had never seen, nor even contemplated. Its vast bulk filled half the central chamber but without a sense of immense weight. It was diaphanous, shimmering with colors and hues like the inside of an abalone shell caught by the sun and yet not anything like that at all. Tiny lights played along the gently expanding and contracting surface (or within the surface, it was hard to say). Ropes of color that might have been veins and arteries plied the body like colorful streamers around a maypole, shimmering as they twisted, giving off sparks of light. A faint sound filled the air, but when McCoy tried to listen more closely, it seemed to evaporate from his hearing.
It was, unequivocally, the most beautiful thing McCoy had ever seen in his life, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion.
"Evidently," Spock observed dispassionately, "power loss was not caused by a malfunction."
"I—" Chekov was at a loss for words. "What is it, Mr. Spock?"
"I do not know, Lieutenant. I shall, however, endeavor to find out."
McCoy caught at the first officer's arm as he turned away. "It's huge, Spock. How did it get in here?"
"I would speculate that the creature was not this large when it arrived and took up residence within the space station, perhaps entering through an exhaust duct. I believe it safe to conjecture that it was much smaller and grew as it ingested the energy output from the station."
"Kind of like a hermit crab taking on a new shell," McCoy said quietly.
"Much like that, Doctor, yes," Spock agreed.
"Except hermit crabs take on vacated shells," Chekov pointed out. "They don't go in and kill the current resident."
"Perhaps the creature did not see the Romulans as residents, Lieutenant," Spock pointed out. "Perhaps it did not see them as living entities at all, but merely as an energy resource."
"Then that is what killed them?" McCoy asked, waving a hand toward the gently billowing bulk of the creature. "They died of hypothermia in the warm confines of the station because that thing sucked them dry?"
"That is a not quite accurate description, Doctor, but it will suffice for now." The first officer turned and started down the stairs.
"Just where do you think you're going?" McCoy demanded, starting after him.
"Down to the main level, Doctor," Spock said without looking back. "Ensign Leno reported that, even with a weak charge, when she shot her phaser at the creature, it recoiled from her and Lieutenant Chekov. I would like to test a hypothesis."
"Which is?" McCoy heard the others descending behind him.
"That the combined efforts of our phasers might actually stun the creature into unconsciousness, breaking its drain on this station and the Enterprise long enough for us to effect a rescue and escape. At the very least, our phasers should suffice to upset or disturb the creature."
"If all we do is upset it, let's just hope it's not heavily into revenge," McCoy added darkly.