STAR TREK (R)
WINDOWS ON A LOST WORLD

Chapter One

Captain's Log, Stardate 5419.4
The Enterprise is approaching the
Dulciphar star cluster, once the most densely
populated region in this sector of the galaxy.
Our mission routine archaeological inventory
of the ancient civilizations in the cluster. To that
end, ship's personnel has been supplemented
by a twenty-person team of researchers from the
University of Nexqualy on Perren IX,
led by Dr. Abdul Ramesh Kaul. Dr.
Kaul is the Federation's foremost authority on the
Meztorien culture, whose ruins are widely
scattered throughout this quadrant. It is a distinct
honor to be associated with such eminent scholars
as Dr. Kaul and his team.

"Why me?" Ensign Pavel Chekov
demanded, breaking his stride to lift his arms toward
the ceiling as if imploring some unseen deity
to answer his question. "Why do I have to be the person
who gets stuck with the Djelifan? To listen to her
talk, you would think that God Herself was from
Djelifa and that She used that planet as Her
base for creating the Universe."
Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu ducked his head
to hide a grin. "Do you have proof She didn't?"
Turning the last corner to the turbolift, he
glanced at Chekov from the corner of his eye. As
he expected, Chekov still hadn't gotten the
joke. While Chekov claimed half the
Federation's technology was invented in his native
Russia, the matriarchal Djelifans knew
that everything in the Universe came from their planet.
Whoever paired the visiting archaeologists with
"buddies" among the Enterprise's crew had
obviously been thinking of Chekov's Russian
provincialism when assigning him to work with the
Djelifan post-doctoral researcher,
Talika Nyar. As they reached the turbolift
Sulu gave an apologetic shrug. "Besides,
I didn't get teamed up with any prize.
Meredith is so shy she's hardly spoken three
words to me."
"At least she's attractive." Chekov
stepped into the turbolift. He glanced toward the
intercom receiver.

The orangish-yellow star grew larger and brighter
in the viewscreen, its attendant planets
gleaming like diamond chips in their sun's
reflected light. Captain James T.
Kirk studied the image, trying to guess what
discoveries they would make here. The familiar
rhythms of his ship flowed around him soothingly--
Uhura's voice directing intraship
messages, Chekov and Sulu adjusting the
ship's approach, Spock at his station
correlating the sensor readings as they came in.
He let his anticipation build until he had
to know what this solar system held for them.
"Report, Mr. Spock."
The Vulcan raised his head from his scanner
display and faced Kirk, his movements controlled
and economical. "We are approaching the
Careta system. The star is classified as
F9 and has been fading gradually for the last
500,000 years. It is orbited by ten
planets, most of them small, and has a broad
zone of widely scattered asteroids between the fifth
and sixth planets. The third and fourth planets
are currently in the habitable zone, although the
climates of both are marginal. At present,
neither shows long-range readings that would indicate the
presence of intelligent life."
"In other words, two possible choices for us
to explore." Kirk glanced at the viewscreen,
trying to guess which planet was the more likely
candidate before Spock launched into another round of
statistics.
"The possibility also exists that artifacts
remain in the asteroid belt." Spock's voice
held a note of reproof, as if chiding Kirk
for jumping to so hasty and unscientific a
conclusion. "The Meztoriens often established
orbiting habitats in remote sections of
systems that they did not otherwise occupy. A
detailed survey would be required to establish
whether such habitats were present in this system."
Knowing he would regret it, Kirk took the
bait. "How long would it take to perform such a
survey?"
"It will take 7.25 days to scan the asteroid
belt with sufficient resolution to insure that we have
not missed any potential Meztorien
artifacts." Spock paused, raising one
eyebrow. "We should, in any case, conduct such
a survey. If we confine ourselves
to investigating only the planets, we risk
overlooking significant discoveries. This
quadrant contains an anomalously high number
of "orphan" archaeological sites for which we
have no context. It is possible that the smaller
planetary bodies or the asteroid belt may
contain information that will allow us to determine
predecessor or successor cultures for some of
these isolated remains."
Kirk suppressed a groan. By now, he
thought, he should know when to keep his mouth shut.
"I'll make you a deal, Mr. Spock. You can
survey all the asteroids you like if we find
something on one of those planets to keep our
passengers busy in the meantime. They're getting
anxious to do some serious work."
"Agreed, Captain, although I recommend that
we conduct the asteroid survey regardless."
"We'll see, Spock. First, let's see
what's on the planets." And hope it's big
enough to keep the archaeologists busy for a while!
"Yes, Captain." Spock turned back
to his sensors. Kirk watched him for a moment,
then shifted his attention to the main viewscreen.
Third planet or fourth? Which would it be?

By late afternoon the verdict was in the fourth
planet. After listening to Spock's summary,
Kirk scheduled a briefing for the Enterprise's
researchers and the visiting archaeologists to plan
their investigation.
Kirk, Spock, and McCoy took seats
on one side of the table and waited for the
archaeologists to sort themselves into their places.
Each had brought a personal datapad and several
data tapes, as if unsure what information they
needed for the briefing.
"Forgive our disarray," Dr. Abdul
Ramesh Kaul said with an apologetic smile.
"We try always to be completely prepared."
Kaul was a short, wiry man with teak-colored
skin darkened by the recent weeks of fieldwork.
He was bald except for a narrow fringe of
silvery-gray hair, and he regarded everything with
an impish twinkle in his eye. His two chief
assistants for this system--selected by lot,
Kirk had been told, to rotate the work and the
experience among the team--could not have been chosen
to provide a greater contrast to each other or to their
leader.
One glance at Dr. Talika Nyar
identified her as a native of a high-gravity
planet. She was short and wide, with mousy brown
hair and a huge beak of a nose; her sturdy
bones and powerful muscles made Kirk feel
frail in comparison. Her planet, Djelifa,
had recently joined the Federation, and Talika's
assignment to this expedition was the first contact anyone
on the Enterprise had had with her people. So far
Kirk had heard mixed reviews about
Talika's interactions with his crew. Djelifa
was a strongly matriarchal society--the strongest
in the Federation, if the sociologists' reports
were true--and Talika was having trouble accepting the
equality that prevailed on the Enterprise. The
glare with which she answered Kirk's scrutiny did
not convince him of her willingness to cooperate with his
officers.
In contrast, Dr. Meredith Lassiter was
delicate and willowy, with luminous white-blond
hair and sea-green eyes. Her physique
suggested that she had been raised on the Moon or
a low-gravity orbital habitat, but she had not
volunteered any information about her background. The
few times Kirk had seen her with other people, she had
avoided all eye contact and had only spoken
when asked a direct question. Lassiter slid
into her seat and began fiddling with a data tape,
staring at it as if it would vanish if she looked
away. She seemed as out of place on the
archaeological team as the Djelifan.
When everyone was settled Spock called up his
scans of the planet. "Careta IV is a
class-M planet, with a gravity 0.85 of
Earth. The oxygen content of the atmosphere is below
optimum for humans, although it is well within the
range tolerated by Vulcans. The climate is
cool to cold at most sites, due to the cooling
of the star in this solar system. Preliminary scans
have identified a number of sites worthy of
exploration."
Kaul nodded at Lassiter, who looked up
from the data tape and stared at the wall behind
Spock. "We have run analyses on the five
largest sites to select our initial survey
target." Her voice was soft and whispery, like the
rustle of dry leaves in a forest. "Each site
has unique characteristics that should be explored, but
we feel that Site J3 is the best choice for
our first look at the Caretian
civilization."
Talika requested a closer view of the
site. The screen zoomed in on the area, a
rolling flood plain below columned cliffs carved
from dark, fissured rock. Low mounds marked the
ruins of several large structures. Shadowed
lines, enhanced by the ship's computer, formed a
broken grid across the site. "Sensors less
weathering, more shelter at Site J3 show.
Better preserved should artifacts from destruction
by natural causes be." Talika's voice was
low and gravelly, a match for half the baritones
in the ship's glee club. Although her command of
English was excellent, her sentences were heavily
influenced by the rhythms of her native
language. "Small burial of major
structures later abandonment than elsewhere
suggests."
Spock focused the screen on a large mound
near the cliffs. "This structure was one of the last
built on the planet, judging by the thickness of the
soil covering and the spectral analyses of the
quarries in the vicinity. From the readings it is
impossible to determine when these structures were
abandoned, but we estimate an age in excess of
100,000 years."
Kaul leaned forward, drumming his fingers against the
table. His skin was almost as dark as the pseudowood
fini sh. "A hundred thousand years is somewhat
younger than we would expect for Meztorien ruins
in this sector. By then the Meztoriens in the
nearby clusters had succumbed to the Darneel
invasion, and the surviving fragments of their empire
had fallen into a dark age from which they never emerged.
Construction on even such a modest scale as the
ruins we see here would have been beyond their
capabilities."
Kirk nodded to close down the scientific
speculations. Clearly they were not going to get any
answers without going down to the planet. "Mr.
Spock, what's your recommendation?"
Spock glanced at his display. "The extreme
antiquity of these ruins makes it virtually
impossible to date them from orbit. To obtain
precise information we will have to beam down to the
planet. I concur with the recommendation of Dr.
Kaul's team to study Site J3 first. In
addition to the scientific reasons they have already
cited, the location offers a sheltered area to set
up a base camp."
McCoy nodded. "The vegetation is sparse in
this area due to a combination of low rainfall and cool
temperatures. This minimizes the chances of
running into dangerous native life-forms. About
all we'll have to watch out for is this world's
equivalent of poisonous snakes or insects.
Beyond that, the biggest danger is going to be tripping
over ourselves and our equipment."
"Does anyone else have anything to add?"
Kirk checked the group's reactions. The
archaeologists appeared eager to get down to the
planet, and Kirk saw no reason to deny them
their wish. "Very well. We'll run detailed
sensor scans of the site while Dr. Kaul's
people work out their excavation plan. The survey team
will beam down at first light. Meeting dismissed."
Kirk made his escape before anyone dragged
him into the detailed planning. As the door whisked
shut behind him, he heard Spock launch into a
technical discussion of the types of sensor information
he could obtain for the archaeologists. Grinning
to himself, Kirk headed for the relative peace of the
bridge, where he could decide who from the
Enterprise was joining the landing party.

"It's not fair!" Chekov grumbled, staring at
his landing party assignment. He deactivated the
screen and turned away, Sulu falling in step
with him as they left his quarters and headed for the
recreation room. "Why do I have to accompany her
to the planet, just because I got assigned to show her
around the Enterprise?"
"Some people have all the luck." Sulu's
expression was bland, disguising his relief at
missing this particular planetside excursion.
Although he couldn't justify the feeling, he was
glad he had been assigned to supervise the
comprehensive sensor scans Spock had ordered
of the planet and the solar system. "Besides, weren't
you the one who was talking about specializing in the
sciences? Maybe even trying for Mr.
Spock's job when he gets promoted?"
"Me?" Chekov's voice cracked on the
rising note. "I have just decided to change my
specialization. To something safer, like security."
"Then you could beam down to Careta to help
muscle the equipment into place." Sulu
chuckled and waved to some friends who were hurrying
to catch the turbolift. "I don't think you're
going to win this one, Pavel. The gods
seem to want you on that landing party."
"While you get to stay on the ship, doing all
of Mr. Spock's sensor scans. This time I
envy you. Normally I would prefer being in the landing
party, but this time I do not." He gave Sulu a
rueful grin.
Sulu nodded, his expression gone sober. "I
know what you mean. I can't put my finger on it,
but I wish we'd given this planet a miss."
He clapped Chekov on the shoulder. "If it's
any consolation, I'll be riding herd on the
sensors the whole time. If you get into any
trouble, we'll beam you up in a flash."
"That is very reassuring." Chekov's tone said
differently. A lot could happen in the time it
took to realize someone was in danger. "I would
find it more reassuring if you would tell me what
trouble we should expect."
"Isn't that Mr. Spock's department?" The
recreation room door opened for them. They stepped
through and Uhura waved for them to join her. Sulu
acknowledged her signal, and went to get himself a
cup of tea. "I mean, knowing everything before we
need the information?"
"I suppose." Chekov looked glum. "But
this is one planet I think the Enterprise could
do without."

"Are you sure about this mission, Jim?"
McCoy asked, sliding lower in the chair in
Kirk's cabin. "Is it just me, or is there
something strange about this planet?"
Kirk fiddled with his coffee cup, lifting it,
then returning it to the table without tasting the tepid
beverage. He glanced toward Spock, who was
studying the edge of the table with a look of intense
concentration that triggered warning bells in Kirk's
head. "Would you be more specific, Bones?"
"Oh, that's right. You missed the discussions this
afternoon." McCoy knocked back the remains of his
coffee, grimacing at the taste. "I listened
to Dr. Kaul and his people, and the longer I listened, the
more nervous I got. There's something decidedly
odd about this planet, and no one quite knows what
to make of it."
"Spock? What's this about?"
Spock straightened, shifting his attention
to Kirk's face. "Some of the survey results
are inconsistent. For example, there are
distortions in the planet's magnetic
field near several of the major sites. Also, the
grid patterns associated with the buried cities
do not match anything left by the Meztorien
civilization, although Dr. Kaul has not
acknowledged this."
"That's understandable, Spock." Laughter pulled
up the corners of McCoy's mouth. "He's
spent the last fifty years studying the
Meztoriens. Do you really expect him to jump
with joy at the thought that these ruins might have been
built by someone else?"
"Continue, Spock. What else should I
know?" Kirk gulped the last mouthful of his
coffee. It tasted as terrible as he had feared.
"Our scans revealed several other
anomalies that I am unable to explain at this
time. The civilization on this planet appears to have
disintegrated rapidly and completely, with few or
no survivors. On the other hand, for their
apparent age the ruins are remarkably well
preserved and are surprisingly close to the
surface. One would expect considerably more
destruction after a hundred thousand years."
McCoy grimaced, as if the discrepancies
left an unpleasant taste in his mouth. "Or
new colonists to take over the abandoned real
estate. It isn't natural for a habitable
planet to be this deserted."
Spock nodded. "That was the other peculiarity that
everyone noticed. I have ordered a detailed
inventory of the planet's natural resources
to determine if a crucial deficiency
prevented another race from colonizing this
planet. It is unlikely that all those passing
through this sector missed the Careta system in the
course of their explorations."
"What you're saying is ..." Kirk paused,
fiddling with his empty cup. The facts kept
pointing to the same conclusion. "There is no
obvious reason to avoid this planet, yet
everyone who has come through here in the last hundred
thousand years seems to have done exactly that."
"We better watch our step down there,
Jim," McCoy said, finishing the thought for
Kirk. "Whatever scared everyone else off might
still be waiting for us."
"Warning noted, Bones. Do you have any
suggestions on finding out what this is before we beam
down?" Kirk paused for McCoy to answer, but
got only the silence he expected.
"In that case, gentlemen, we will have to be very
careful until we find out what surprises the
inhabitants of Careta IV left behind." He
couldn't quite keep the grin of pleasure off his
face. Archaeological missions were usually
dull and slow-paced, much too tame for his liking.
A mystery promised to liven this one up. The last
few weeks had been peaceful and relaxing, a
re/l change from their previous assignment, but
now Kirk was ready for some action. The grin
widened as he considered doing a little investigation of
his own. Yes, perhaps Careta IV wouldn't be so
boring after all.

Chapter Two

There was something about materializing on a new
planet, Kirk thought as the transporter beam
released him--a special zip in the air, a
distinctive shiver in the ground beneath his feet. He
had never been able to define, even to himself, why the
first few seconds on any planet seemed so
charged with hidden potential. It wasn't because he
was the first human to stand on a particular world, because
he had experienced the same feeling his first time on
such long-established human colonies as Deneb
II or Rigel IV. And it wasn't because a
planet deviated from the Earth--normal conditions
of the Enterprise. Any of the differences on
Careta IV could be programmed into the ship's
environmental controls. After running through all the
possible explanations yet again, Kirk was left
with the last and least satisfying answer--that the
brief, charged excitement just after he
materialized occurred because this was the first time that
he, James T. Kirk, had stepped onto this
particular world.
Kirk moved away from the beam-down point
to let the next group materialize. Spock
followed him, activating his tricorder to scan the
area for the fine details the ship's sensors could not
detect. The four security guards fanned out
to confirm the landing site for the Columbus, checking
the terrain and other site factors against the
Enterprise's sensor readings. Columbus
carried a cargo of excavating tools, power
packs, and other heavy equipment, and the
archaeologists wanted the shuttlecraft close
to their working site without having it on top of any
important artifacts.
Talika, Chekov, Kaul, and three
archaeological technicians mat erialized
next. The scientists unlimbered their
tricorders and began an in-depth site
survey. Chekov joined Kirk, watching the
archaeologists with a wary expression on his boyish
face. "What is our plan, Captain?"
"Right now we wait for the experts to tell us."
Kirk looked around. From the ground the site
appeared larger and more desolate than it had from the
crisp, impersonal reports of the ship's
sensors. Immense walls of fissured
basalt, fractured into columns, reached for the
sky like a staircase designed for giants. The
thousand-meter vertical sweep of the cliffs was
interrupted by irregularly spaced ledges covered
with shattered rock. More talus had collected below
the towering basalt walls, burying some of the ruins.
A fast-moving river, as wide as the two
kilometers of flood plain between it and the cliffs,
swept past. Its surface was ruffled
to white-rested waves by the stiff breeze blowing
up the canyon. A hundred-meter-long tree,
stripped of foliage, revolved lazily in the
current as it raced downstream. Closer to them,
sparse blades of dried grass and a few
sagebrush-like bushes rustled in the wind.
Spock rejoined Kirk and Chekov, studying
his tricorder with an air of intense concentration.
"This is most unusual. My tricorder readings
suggest that these ruins are almost twice as old as
we originally estimated."
Chekov whistled. "That would make them over two
hundred thousand years old." He shook his head
in disbelief.
"I take it that our friends will have some trouble dealing
with that age?" Kirk frowned, trying to remember the
history of this sector. He wasn't sure, but
he thought that the Meztorien civilization had
risen about 150,000 years ago. If
Spock's newest readings were correct, these
ruins were far too old to belong to any known
civilization. They might belong to one of the
"orphan" cultures that Spock had mentioned
earlier, but most of those ruins were even older than
two hundred thousand years.
"That is correct, Captain." Spock
adjusted his tricorder and scanned the area again.
"The earliest known Meztorien ruins are dated
at 172,500 years before present. It
is possible that these structures come from an earlier
period of the Meztorien civilization, but that would
require a drastic revision of our current
theories concerning their expansion into this part of the
galaxy."
"As I recall, the Meztorien expansion
is one of the better-documented events of that era."
Kirk scanned the desolate landscape around
them. It seemed an unlikely place to discover
anything that would destroy the Federation's
painstakingly reconstructed history of this
sector. "I should think that would be an enormous
obstacle to any major reinterpretations."
"R." Spock consulted his tricorder
screen. "However, we must consider that each new
piece of information we discover contains the
potential for rendering inoperative all our
previous assumptions about a given situation."
Chekov scuffed a rock toward the
archaeologists. "I predict that our "friends"
will be most unhappy when they discover that this planet
does not fit any of their grand theories."
Glancing toward Kaul's team, Kirk saw
that they were huddled in a group, arguing about something.
"It looks like you're right, Mr. Chekov. Shall
we see what they've found?" The breeze
shifted, blowing the sound of angry voices toward
them. The captain exhaled heavily. "Before they
kill each other."
By the time the three Enterprise officers reached
the archaeologists, the argument had escalated almost
to the point of blows. "It is quite impossible to have so
ancient a date for Meztorien ruins."
Kaul's voice was soft, but his tone was
implacable. "Your sensor readings must be in
error."
"I not mistake make!" Talika's voice
sounded like the growl of an approaching thunderstorm.
"Five times checked I readings to confirm.
Inferior Federation machine indefinite results
gives. Djelifan equipment would with one reading
clearer answers show. Ruins for Meztorien too
old are. Therefore from more ancient civilization must
be. Perhaps remnant of "orphan"
predecessor of Meztoriens is."
"There are no older civilizations than
Meztorien in this quadrant," said Kordes, a
post-doctoral researcher obviously trying
to gain points with Kaul. "In two hundred
years of intensive investigations, no one
has turned up the slightest evidence that anyone
was here before them. The so-called "orphan"
cultures are sensationalist media reports
created by publicity seekers who use improper
excavation techniques and careless data
analysis."
Spock stepped forward to interrupt the argument,
holding out his tricorder. "My tricorder also
reports extreme age for these ruins, Dr.
Kaul. It would appear that we are dealing with a find
of extreme importance. May I congratulate
you on your good fortune in discovering these ruins?"
Kaul turned toward Spock, blinking
rapidly. Kirk could almost hear the relays
snapping in Kaul's head as he tried to shift his
processing circuits. Who says Spock
doesn't understand human psychology? Kirk
thought, hiding a smile. "I beg your pardon,
Mr. Spock?" Kaul said, his face
reflecting the ongoing reorientation of his thoughts.
"I said you were fortunate to be the first human
to discover this site. Surely a previously
unknown civilization of such antiquity is a find
of tremendous importance. Such a discovery will
revolutionize our perception of the history of this
quadrant."
"That is true." Kaul's expression
settled into a mask that matched Spock's for
blandness. He focused his attention on Kirk with
such intensity that the captain knew what Kaul
wanted before he spoke. "To catalog a find of
such magnitude will require additional time and
manpower. I hope, Captain, that you will consider
the difficulty of this task and assign me the
resources necessary to conduct the research. If we
are dealing with a previously unknown race, we will
require several weeks to determine the nature
of their civilization and to recommend the follow-up
studies required to do this discovery justice."
"I understand, Dr. Kaul." Kirk finally
let his grin out. If Kaul realized how well
Spock had manipulated him, he showed no
signs of it. "I'll assign extra crewmen
to help with your preliminary investigations, of
course. To extend our stay here, I must consult
with Starfleet Command. However, if the results of
your preliminary survey support your findings so
far, there should be no difficulties."
"Very well, Captain Kirk. When can I
expect the additional men?"
"I'll have the duty officer request
volunteers with the appropriate experience. You
should have them by the time the shuttlecraft arrives with
your equipment."
"Thank you, Captain Kirk. That is quite
acceptable."
"I'm glad, Dr. Kaul. I'll make the
arrangements." Kirk turned away, feeling a
sudden need to put some space between himself and Kaul.
The last few minutes had made him wonder if
he really wanted anything to do with Careta IV
after all. Maybe they would have been better off if
they had not found the ruins. Inexplicably the
image of an ancient plague ship floated
into his mind, a galleon that drifted across the
ocean, majestic and serene, abandoned by all
except the rats.
Kirk pushed the image away, wondering what
had brought it into his mind so forcefully. Careta
IV must be getting to him. He looked around,
checking the desolate landscape for visible
threats, but saw only his own people. There was no
obvious explanation for his reaction. Wondering
what unconscious games his mind was playing,
Kirk reached for his communicator to ask for the
extra help that Kaul had requested.

Why do I have all the luck? Chekov
wondered as he followed Talika along the base
of the cliffs. He would have been perfectly
delighted to coordinate the Columbus's landing
and to set up their base of operations, making sure
the equipment was accessible and ready for use.
Instead, he had been assigned to help Talika
survey the ruins for the most promising sites at
which to begin their excavations. She skipped across the
hexagonal plates of loose rock as if they
were minor annoyances, little larger than pebbles.
Her life on a heavy-gravity world had given
her a massive strength in her lower body, and the
power of her muscles let her bound over
obstacles that Chekov had to strain to surmount.
"Why did not Kirk to me someone competent
assign?" Talika demanded as she paused yet
again to let Chekov clamber over a pile of
loose rock. "Why feeble male who barely on
two feet stays?"
"Just because you are used to twice this much grav-
y--" Chekov tested a large boulder for sta-
bility, felt it totter and then settle more
firmly into a cradle of smaller
stones. He eased himself onto the boulder while
he caught his breath, thinking perhaps Mr. Spock
could match Talika's physical prowess.
"Everybody on the Enterprise would have trouble
keeping up with the pace you are setting. What is the
hurry?"
"Hurry is assignment with distinction
to complete. Although how to work am I, with
flimsiest of Federation devices and only most
substandard assistance, know I not. On
Djelifa, such obstacles to accomplishment we
permit not."
Her words stung Chekov into replying before he
considered how many misinterpretations she could find for
his words. "This is not Djelifa! And we are not
obstructing your work!"
She looked him over with the impersonal
expression of a buyer in a meat market. "Then
what explanation give you for assigning assistant
--and male one, at that--so weak he barely his own
mass supports? How carry you samples or
move rocks?"
"Sorry I asked," Chekov muttered,
probing his right ankle. He had turned it on the
last stretch when a rock had rolled beneath his
boot, but he found no swelling or tenderness in the
joint . This time, at least, he had been lucky.
Still, he wasn't sure which rankled
more--Talika's condescension or his own inability
to measure up to her standards.
"That my meaning is! You Federation-tska all
weaklings are. You like little girls behave who have not
to ritual house gone for duties and
responsibilities of adults to learn." A
scowl twisted her face, deepening as she watched
Chekov check his ankle. "How like boy-child,
whimpering and crying because rocks in path are. Why not
back to ship go and let me without interference to work
finish?"
Because my orders require me to keep you
out of trouble, he thought. Chekov bit his
tongue to hold back the angry reply.
Talika's greater physical strength, combined with
her reluctance to pay any attention to him, made
it almost impossible for him to do his job. The worst
of it was that her impatience could easily send her
charging into danger. Whatever else she knew,
Chekov could see that she was ignorant of the basic
rules for surveying unexplored planets. "I
would be glad to let you do your job without
interference," he said when he had gotten a grip
on his temper. "However, I ask that you grant
me the same courtesy. I am to assist you with your
exploration and, specifically, to watch out for any
unanticipated dangers. We know nothing about this
planet. Therefore, the chances are very great that we will
not recognize something dangerous until it
attacks us."
Talika snorted, a sound that reminded
Chekov of the large draft horse he had seen in
the Moscow animal preserve when he was a child.
"What possible danger could there on deserted
planet be? Weaklings like Federation-tska might
for worry find reason, but as Djelifan, nothing
to fear have I."
"I suppose the mountain will ask if you are a
Djelifan before it falls on you?" Chekov
levered himself to his feet, moving cautiously
until he was sure the ankle would hold his
weight. "Or perhaps the snake will request an
introduction before it strikes?"
"I from non-Djelifans such cowardice
expect. However, to such whinings I will listen not."
Talika started off without waiting for Chekov,
moving at a rapid pace despite the
irregularly shaped blocks of rock beneath her
boots. Dislodged by her movements, several
fist-sized chunks bounced down the hill,
collecting others as they went. The slide gathered
volume and momentum, but fortunately the top of the
slope where Chekov was standing remained stable.
He watched the moving carpet of rock, his
fists clenched tight with nervousness until the
slide began to slow. How long, he wondered, will
Talika get away with such carelessness? When the
dust had settled and he judged it was safe, he
picked his way cautiously across the loose
rock. They had been moving along the cliffs for the
last hour, chasing ephemeral signs of the alien
ruins, and the talus piles had grown larger and more
unstable. Looking at the fissured wall,
Chekov wondered if the rubble was deeper here because
the rocks were naturally more broken or if someone
had blasted the cliffs to bury something. He
paused, trying to remember where Spock had
suggested possible tunnels in the cliffs. Could
something be here, its entrance covered by the rocks that
had fallen from above? He activated his
tricorder and began scanning.
The cliff was webbed with fissures and
cracks that ran in all directions through the rock.
At first, Chekov had trouble distinguishing the
dominant vertical fractures, which broke the
cliffs into columns all along the valley, and the
less prominent but no less pervasive
horizontal fracture set that separated the
vertical pillars into the plentiful hexagonal
plates. In this area the rocks were honeycombed with
randomly oriented cracks. Chekov scratched his
head, trying to remember his basic geology
courses. In rocks like these basalts the joints
were formed by the cooling and contraction of molten rock,
with one set of cracks more or less parallel to the
ground's surface and a second, vertical set
forming hexagons as the rock cooled. The
patterns in nature were never perfect, but neither were
they as chaotic as these readings. After a hundred
thousand years he could not prove that the rocks had
been blasted, but Chekov doubted that even Spock
would dispute the probabilities. Someone had
tried to bury this area so deeply that no one would
ever find it.
"Would you your boots quit dragging and over here
get?" Talika bellowed, her voice as loud as
though she were standing at his shoulder.
In spite of himself, Chekov jumped. Angry
at himself for letting her startle him, he snarled his
reply. "Why don't you be a little more polite?
At least ask why I've got my tricorder
out before you start yelling insults!"
She started back toward him, a puzzled frown
on her face. "For what reason should you your
tricorder have out? Our scans nothing here showed
to investigate. Why time waste?"
The shock almost made Chekov miss his
footing. Talika--curious? It was the first
emotion besides scorn that he had seen from her. He
gestured toward the cliffs beside him. "The rocks
are all shattered here, as if someone tried to blow
up this entire cliff. I would guess that whatever
they wanted to bury, we would be interested in finding
it. The question is, how big is this object, and how
well is it hidden?"
Talika surveyed the talus, worrying her
lower lip with her large, square teeth. He
watched her expression, hoping that he had finally
made a favorable impression on her. It would
make the rest of this assignment much more pleasant
if they could work together as a team. At last she
grunted and activated her own
tricorder.
With a sigh of relief Chekov resumed his
scanning. That she had accepted his idea gave him
hope that he could eventually break through her armor.
With that thought came the knowledge that he was not the only
person in the Federation who would have to deal with this
problem. Thousands, perhaps millions, of other men
were going to have to convince the Djelifan women that they
were as capable as the Djelifans. It wasn't
going to be easy, he concluded, but beginnings
seldom were. Still, it was encouraging to know that
Talika could unbend enough to listen to him. Maybe,
someday, he would forgive the person who had teamed
him up with her.
They worked their way back and forth across the hill
for the next half an hour with no results.
Talika was becoming restive and irritable,
muttering to herself in her own language, and Chekov
was beginning to doubt his hunch when his tricorder
gave him a flicker of an anomalous reading.
"I found something!" He pointed toward the spot
to give Talika the bearing.
She swung her tricorder around, sweeping the
general area. "Nothing!" she growled after the fifth
sweep. She fiddled with the controls, and her frown
deepened.
Chekov adjusted his tricorder, and to his
dismay, the anomaly disappeared. He shook the
device and still got nothing. Puzzled, he swept
the scanner across a wider area. Twice the
readings flickered, then smoothed to the expected
background values. "If I did not know
better, I would think that someone was jamming us," he
muttered. Hearing his words aloud, he felt an
idea explode in his mind. Maybe something was
aware of them. On occasion they had encountered alien
devices that still functioned after exceedingly long
periods of time. Given the age of the artifacts
they had already found on Careta IV, it was more
than reasonable to assume that any surviving
technology on Careta no longer functioned
perfectly. But where does that leave us? he
asked himself. Chekov gestured to Talika,
signaling for her to wait while he picked his way
across the talus to join her.
"If there is a device down there, it must still be
operating at a very low level. It seems able
to detect us when we make enough noise, but if it
does not know our location, it apparently cannot lock
on to the radiation from our tricorders."
He swiped a hand across his forehead, pushing his
hair back. "Do you have any suggestions for dealing
with such an object?"
"How know you this?" Her tone wavered between
curiosity and her previous contempt. "This
impossible is, unlike completely anything
known."
"I agree that it does not act like anything I
have seen before, but that does not make it impossible.
Perhaps we are seeing a defense mechanism
designed to protect whatever is here. If someone
wanted to hide an object or if they wanted
to protect it from destruction, they would not want it
to register on anyone's sensors." He pointed
his tricorder hopefully at the talus. As he
had expected, the readings remained unchanged.
"If someone had placed a jamming field
generator at the base of these cliffs, it would
prevent us from detecting anything beneath the rocks.
Or if someone was being very tricky, he might
want us to think that something was here so that we would not
look in another place for the thing that they really did
not want us to find." He shrugged, grimacing with
frustration. "I could design a device that did
any of these things, but that does not tell us which of these
situations we are dealing with here."
Talika nodded. "What is object? Where
is object? Does object in truth exist?"
Chekov nodded. "If we assume that it
does exist, we still have to answer the other two
questions."
"Job to find artifacts is. Therefore, as working
hypothesis, assumption that object exists is
made." Talika nibbled on her lip, her
eyes darting back and forth as she studied the loose
rocks below them. "If I down hill go, making
much noise, perhaps sensors think both away have
gone. You here wait, being very quiet, and when I
hand raise, both of us for object in area scan.
Do you other way to solve problem see?"
What were their options? Chekov fiddled with his
tricorder while he reviewed the facts. The
radiation put out by their tricorders was either too
weak or at the wrong frequency for the artifact
to detect it without other clues. However, voices
and movements on the rocks above it apparently were
enough to pinpoint their location and trigger the jamming. The
stronger signal of the Enterprise's sensors would
be easier for the ancient equipment to detect, and the
sensors would probably be jammed if he
had Sulu run a quick sweep around his
coordinates. Talika's plan had the best
chance of succeeding. "Let's do it," he said.
"Good luck!"
"And to you."
Chekov settled himself onto a boulder and
deactivated his tricorder. Nodding her
approval, Talika started down the slope,
picking an area covered with fist-sized rocks and
slithering down it as though she were skiing. Watching
her, Chekov was not at all sorry to have been cast
in the role of "weak male." That trick looked
like more of a challenge than he really wanted to try.
Talika reached the bottom of the slope,
surrounded by a moving, clattering, grinding mass of
small rocks. She stopped, letting the stones
flow around her until they buried her ankles.
The last rocks tumbled and clacked themselves into a
charged silence. One minute, two minutes,
three. Finally Talika pointed her tricorder
toward the talus slope and signaled for Chekov
to activate his.
He hit the switch and was rewarded immediately.
Low-level power readings were coming from beneath the pile of
shattered rock. The source was small, less
than three meters in any of its dimensions.
Struggling to control his excitement, Chekov
repeated his scan, both to confirm the existence of the
artifact and to check his bearings. Anything that
small, buried under so many tons of rock, would not
be easy to excavate, even with the best location they
could get.
Chekov eased himself to his feet and picked his
way along the hillside, his tricorder still aimed
toward the mysterious power source. After almost five
minutes of cautious movement, coupled with constant
readings, a rock slipped from beneath his foot. At
the first clatter from the bouncing stone, the power readings
terminated. "Damn!"
"Ah-ii-ya!" Talika's scream of
triumph ripped through the valley. "Alive it
is. After so much time, it still working is.
Ah-ii-ya!"
Only then did Chekov realize Talika's
strongest motivation. Given her culture's
overweening sense of their own superiority, it
rankled her to take second position to a man
on the archaeology team, even to someone with Dr.
Kaul's decades of experience. This discovery
would give her the status within the Federation
to dictate her own terms from now on. Shaking his
head at the scope of her ambition, he started for
their base camp to help bring back the necessary
equipment so they could excavate their find.

Chapter Three

Even running the excavators nonstop, it
took almost twelve hours to remove the rock that
had been blasted from the mountainside to bury the
artifact. Chekov alternated between impatience
to learn what he and Talika had discovered and an
equally strong desire to abandon the planet without
ever seeing what the excavators would uncover.
At first the work went quickly, with the excavator
technicians locking onto the large boulders and
transporting them beyond where Kaul's team planned
to work. Even so, with the large volume of rubble, the
operation required skill and precision to keep
additional debris from sliding down and burying the
site more deeply.
As the sun slid below the rim of the canyon and the
shadows deepened, Kirk ordered Sulu to beam
down half a dozen high-powered floodlights,
and the digging continued. The first landing party returned
to the Enterprise for the night, but they were replaced
by a second shift of technicians and
archaeologists. The majority of the work was still
concentrated at the primary site, where Kaul
believed they were most likely to find critical
information.
Chekov spent the evening regaling Sulu with his
morning's adventures, including comparing Careta
IV'S barren landscapes to the desolate sweep
of Russia's northern steppes. At first he was
relieved to be on the ship, warm and far from the
bleak, eerie planet. However, the longer he
thought about the artifact, the more curious he became.
What had they found? How could it possibly be
active after all these millennia? As often as he
pushed the thought away, it returned. He wanted
to be there when the excavators removed the last
debris from the object. Finally, he surrendered
and requested permission to return to the planet.
"Everyone else in the landing party has already
asked." Kirk's voice held an
unmistakable note of laughter when he came on
the intercom. "You're the last. Be ready to beam
down in fifteen minutes."

"Captain, message coming in from Starfleet."
Palmer, the communications officer for the evening
shift, turned away from her board to face the
captain. Her expression registered surprise,
as though the message was something completely
unexpected. "It's Admiral Komack,
sir."
"On screen, Lieutenant." Kirk
smoothed his face into a neutral expression,
wondering what the admiral had in store for the
Enterprise this time. With Komack it was never
safe to assume anything; one had to be prepared for
unpleasant surprises concealed by the admiral's
bland delivery.
Komack's tanned face, topped
by close-cropped white hair, filled the
viewscreen. His mouth twisted into a tight smile
as the communications link closed. "It seems
congratulations are in order, Captain Kirk.
Your passengers have unearthed a find of considerable
importance. The experts here are eagerly
awaiting your reports."
"Thank you, sir." Kirk straightened in his
chair, waiting for Komack to drop his bomb. With
an opening like that, Kirk could bet that he was being
softened up before Komack handed him an
unpleasant assignment.
"From the preliminary reports that you sent us,
we believe that this is the most significant find
in the last three decades. You have permission
to take as much time as you need to explore Careta
IV, and to use every available means to investigate
this civilization. Our experts are extremely
eager to know why we have found no evidence of these people
before. Please inform Dr. Kaul that I have
instructed you to allow him to call upon the complete
resources of the Enterprise to assist in his
investigations."
Kirk clenched his hand on the arm of his chair.
He should have known that Komack's orders would give
the archaeologists carte blanche concerning his ship
and crew. "I understand, Admiral. We will do our
best."
"Very good, Captain Kirk. Starfleet out."
On the last word Komack's image winked out.
"Kirk out," he muttered to the already blank
screen. Komack's order extended Kaul's
control over their mission, though the archaeologist
already had enough authority to make the Enterprise little
more than a glorified taxi for his team.
Shaking his head, Kirk signaled for the duty
officer to take over the conn. Whether he liked
the orders or not, it was time to beam down to the
planet and see what the excavators had
discovered.

By the time Chekov reached the transporter
room, most of the people had beamed down. Kirk,
McCoy, and two security guards entered the
room while Chekov was deciding whether he had
been made the victim of an elaborate
practical joke. Still, if someone was playing a
joke on him, it was the unknown aliens who had
lived on this planet so many millennia ago. It
was their buried artifact that exerted such a powerful
attraction that he was willing--indeed, eager--
to give up the warmth and companionship of the
Enterprise's recreation lounge to see the
excavators remove the last rubble from the
mysterious object.
Kirk grinned when he saw Chekov waiting
by the transporter. "Not quite your idea of the best
way to spend the evening, Mr. Chekov?" he
asked as he stepped onto the pad.
"No, sir. I'm not really sure why I
feel that I should beam back down." Chekov
took the station behind Kirk while the others moved
into position. The captain signaled for the
transporter chief to energize.
"Because we're all a bunch of damned
fools," McCoy said, resuming the conversation when
they materialized. He pulled his jacket
tighter to block out the sharp wind. A tiny speck
of a moon rode high overhead, emphasizing the
bleakness of the scene with its weak light. "At this
hour we should all be sitting in our quarters, with
our feet up, a good book on the screen, and a
little nip of something to warm the soul."
"I suppose there's something to that idea."
Kirk shot the doctor a speculative grin and
started across the empty ground that separated them from the
excavators. The work area was awash with a
brilliant flood of white, casting workers and
equipment into harsh relief against the surrounding
darkness. "But after a couple of nights doing that,
I'm ready for something else. What about you, Mr.
Chekov?"
After considering the best answer, Chekov gave
a diffident shrug. "I was thinking about doing what
Dr. McCoy suggested, but I was
curious. After all, it is not often that we can
discover a new piece of history."
McCoy chuckled. "Very diplomatic. It
might even save you from my worst on your next
physical."
They stepped into the circle of brightness cast by the
floodlights. Chekov examined the cliff
face, looking for the spot where he and Talika had
crossed the talus slope that morning. He
couldn't find it; the area had changed too much.
Where the artifact had been covered by a hundred
meters of broken rock, only a small mound
remained. The rest of the rubble had been moved by the
excavators, one boulder at a time, exposing the
sharp line of the cliffs.
Spock returned from talking to the
technicians. "Captain, the excavation is
proceeding according to schedule. We should reach the
artifact in approximately 1.35 hours if
the work continues as anticipated."
"Then can we go home after that, Spock?"
McCoy asked, his eyes dancing at the
prospect of baiting the Vulcan. "Some of us
can't stay awake all night like machines."
"Indeed, Doctor. It is fortunate that some
people are better equipped for unforeseen
circumstances." He turned to Kirk. "Since
most of the day shift has beamed down to observe,
I recommend that we take advantage of this
opportunity to scan the base of the cliffs for
further artifacts. The floodlights produce
sufficient illumination to allow several teams
to examine the rock surfaces. We should, in any
case, make a detailed scan of the nearby
area, since it appears that the cliffs were
demolished to produce the rubble that covered this
object."
Kirk tallied the number of people in the area.
If he had been operating the excavators, he
thought, having that many spectators would have made him
too nervous to do his job properly. Spock's
suggestion would clear the area until most of the
rubble was transported away from the site.
"Putting all the sightseers to work sounds like a good
idea to me, Spock. I'm sure the
technicians don't need the audience."
"I would like to have a closer look at those cliffs
anyway." Chekov activated his tricorder and
started toward the wall of rocks exposed by the
excavators. Dozens of meters of
rock had covered the area when he and Talika had
examined it that morning. Now it was stripped of
cover for the first time in millennia, its mysteries
waiting for him to unravel them. It was a heady
thought, to be walking somewhere that no living creature
had been for thousands upon thousands of years.
He programmed the tricorder to cycle through
all the sensor bands with each pass. As he
approached the cliffs, Chekov felt as though the
rocks were tilting over him, waiting to crash down
and bury him. He shuddered, feeling the weight
press against him, blotting out all light and air,
enclosing him in a suffocating blackness that went
on for all eternity.
Chekov pulled himself back to the present. His
tricorder gave no indication that the cliffs here were
any less stable than were those above the rest of the
site. He mustn't let his imagination run away
with him, regardless of the hour or the enigmas
surrounding the vanished civilization on this
planet. Forcing his attention back to his work, he
began the detailed scans that Spock had
requested.
The next half hour went quickly. Buoyed by the
hope that he would find more information about the as yet
unknown civilization that had occupied the planet,
Chekov scanned the cliff face and the surrounding
ground a meter at a time. The semicircle of
loose dirt and rubble that had been covered by the
deepest talus confirmed, to Chekov's mind, that
the rocks had been deliberately blasted loose
to cover something. Someone had not wanted this object
found, ever.
Before Chekov could work through the implications of that
thought, his communicator signaled him to return
to the excavation site. The artifact should be freed
from its rocky cocoon within the next fifteen
minutes, which barely gave the farthest people time to get
back.
By the time he reached the brightly lit area around the
site, Chekov could see that something had gone wrong
with the timetable. A substantial pile of rocks still
covered the presumed location of the object, and the
knot of people around the technicians moved with sharp,
jerky motions. Kirk's face looked grim and
tense in the harsh light, and a deep frown creased
McCoy's forehead.
Chekov slipped in beside McCoy. "What is
wrong, Doctor?" he asked in a low voice.
"They can't seem to find the dratted
object with the sensors," McCoy answered,
keeping his voice down. "One minute it was there,
the next gone." He shook his head. "It's got
to be operator error. Things don't just disappear
from sight."
"Normally that is correct, Doctor.
However, this object refuses to act in a
normal fashion." Remembering how the artifact
had pulled the same trick on him and Talika
that morning, he started forward to see if he could
help. As he did, the air shimmered, and
Scott materialized.
"I told you to take care of your equipment,
Terrensen," Scott said as he closed the distance
to the technicians. "You canna expect it to work
properly if you do not make the calibration runs
every hour."
"We did that, Mr. Scott," replied the
younger of the two technicians, a bean pole of a
man with a tousled shock of brown hair. "We
haven't been taking any shortcuts, I
promise you. We were picking up an anomalous
nothing in the middle of that pile of rubble, but the
readings disappeared from the scanners."
"Let me see what you've been doing, then."
Scott pushed between the technicians and bent over
the control panel, punching in the diagnostic
sequence. As he read the numbers, a frown
crept across his face. He entered more commands. After
a long pause, during which his scowl deepened, the
results from the second group of tests appeared
on the screen. "That's not possible," he said,
shaking his head. "The diagnostics program
reports that the anomaly never was there. Even when
I order the computer to correlate all sensor
readings for the last twelve hours, the programs
maintain that only a pile of rocks is there and that
that is all that ever was there. The diagnostics and the
scanners aren't agreeing on what they're
seeing."
Spock joined Scott, skimming the
diagnostic reports on the displays. "If we
believe the current readings, we have been pursuing
a mirage. However, up to five minutes ago
our analysis showed that an anomalous object,
possibly of considerable antiquity, was buried
beneath that pile of rubble."
Wondering if he could see any resemblance
between the present sensor readings and the ones from that
morning, Chekov stepped forward. "May
I examine the sensor logs from just before and just after the
readings changed? Dr. Talika and I had
similar difficulties this morning, but at the time
we thought they were caused by the rubble piled above the
artifact."
Terrensen hit the playback switch, and the
records scrolled down the screen in parallel
columns. With the advantage of a larger power
supply and stationary operation, the scanners on the
excavating equipment were far more sensitive than the
tricorders and could record a wider range of
readings simultaneously. It took Chekov a
few moments to sort through the data, but when he found
it, the anomaly--a thirty-cubic-meter space
for which the sensors reported no data--stood out
like a beacon. He paged backward through the readings
to confirm his suspicions. "Here, just before the
sensors begin reporting only more stones in this
place. There is a major spike in the lower
frequencies, almost like the power absorption curve
of a biaxial shield generator."
"Is that true, Spock?" Kirk asked as
he joined the group. "And what does it mean in
connection with all this?" He waved his arm
to encompass the cliffs as well as the heap of
rubble spotlighted by the circle of brilliant
light.
"The second occurrence of this pattern in the
readings greatly increases the probability that it
is not caused by random fluctuations in the energy
output levels of the device we are attempting
to locate." Spock examined the data. "Mr.
Chekov's inference that the effect is caused by a
biaxial shield generator may be correct.
However, if so, it is a device of completely
alien manufacture, a supposition supported
by the rest of our findings on this planet."
"But what's the purpose of the shield,
Spock? Why is it here?" Kirk gestured
sharply toward the displays as if expecting them
to show him the answers in block capitals.
"Unknown, Captain." Spock, too,
glanced toward the screen, as if to discover whether
Kirk had found something of importance. "Either
someone is taking great pains to conceal an artifact
from us, or they are trying to make us believe that
something is hidden in this area when, in fact, there is
nothing."
"And we have no way to tell which is the correct
answer." Kirk shivered and pulled his
jacket tighter around himself. The air
temperature had dropped several degrees in the
last half hour, and a sharp wind had come up. Before
long the cold would become decidedly
uncomfortable.
"Not without removing the rest of the rubble to see
what lies beneath it." Spock glanced again at the
screen, looking for clues to how the unknown aliens
had thought. Unfortunately, with so little to go on, the
facts could be interpreted to support many different
conclusions. "When we have finished the excavation,
logically we will either find an artifact, or we
will discover that someone created conditions that were intended
to convince us that an artifact was present. The
null sensor readings support either hypothesis."
Kirk nodded, even though Spock had told
him little that he didn't already know. With the sensors
reporting only rocks and more rocks, they would have
to operate the excavators blindly, increasing their
chances of accidentally damaging anything that was buried
beneath the pile of rubble. "What is your
recommendation, Mr. Scott? Can you adjust the
scanners on the excavating equipment?"
Scott shook his head. "There isn't a thing more
we can do, Captain. The equipment was designed
to compensate for most types of interference because many
of the civilizations in the Dalreth sector
routinely screened their important monuments with
shields or scramblers. If these sensors
canna do the job, nothing can."
Kirk weighed his options. Without the
excavators they would have to move the rest of the
rocks by hand, a slow and labor-intensive
process that no one would like. "Let's see if
we can finish clearing the area using visual
cross-checks, then."
The technicians started working again, referring
back to the earlier scans for reference to prevent
them from accidentally catching a piece of the artifact
with their transporter beams. After moving five
boulders in fifteen minutes, they gave up.
"I can't do it," said the older technician, a
short, wiry man nearing retirement age. "I
don't know which is rock and which is artifact, even
extrapolating from where we thought the earlier scans
told us the object should be. I'm just not sure
what's real and what isn't."
Terrensen nodded his agreement. "At this stage
we dare not make any mistakes--and suddenly
we're working blind. Even after looking at
twelve hours of anomalous sensor data,
there's too much guesswork in this one."
"Very well. You did your best." Kirk
turned to the crowd that had gathered expectantly
around the console. "You heard them, everybody.
We're reduced to old-fashioned methods to get
the job done."
With surprisingly few protests the
twenty-five crewmen fell to, lifting the
irregular blocks of basalt and shifting them a
dozen meters from the artifact. Once the rocks
were clear of the area where they thought the artifact was,
the technicians locked on to them and beamed them to the
pile of excavated rubble. In a surprisingly
short time, the broken rock had been cleared
away, revealing four huge basalt slabs standing
on their edges, capped by a fifth. The stone cube
was twice as tall as Kirk, and the edges of the
stones fit tightly together, as though they had been
ground to form a tight seal.
Kirk shook his head, marveling at the
perversity of the universe. Such huge sheets of
stone, balanced in such a position, could not be
natural, even though they also could not be the source
of the power readings Chekov had first noticed, nor
could they have caused the total absence of sensor
information they had been tracking earlier. Also,
unlike the boulders they had moved, the standing
rocks could not be shifted by a few crewmen.
"Spock, what do the sensors say now?"
"Absolutely nothing, Captain." Spock
adjusted a lever and repeated his readings. "The
scanners report that the object we are looking
at does not exist."

Chapter Four

For a few seconds thirty pairs of eyes
stared at Spock in utter disbelief. "What do
you mean, Spock?" Kirk asked when he found his
voice. The object had to exist. They could see
it, they could see the inky shadow it threw across the
uneven ground, and most of them had touched it as they
removed the boulders that had covered it.
Spock stepped to one side so Kirk could read
the displays. "I mean, Captain, that despite
the evidence of our senses, the object does not
register on any of our detectors. I would
surmise the presence of a class-B jamming
field of an unknown and extremely
sophisticated design, probably controlled
by a biaxial shield generator as Mr. Chekov
suggested. The logical corollary is that we will
be unable to detect any other protections the
artifact may possess."
"How likely do you-all expect that to be?"
McCoy strolled over to join Spock and
Kirk. Leaning against the console, he crossed his
arms over his chest. "This object is hundreds of
thousands of years old, but you're saying it's
protected by some of the latest and most
sophisticated technology known to our science."
"That is correct, Doctor. Many
civilizations have attained a high degree of
technical expertise. I see no reason for you
to doubt the authenticity of the artifact simply because
it does not conform to your preconceived notions of the
way things should be."
"Enough." Kirk gestured both men to silence.
"What I need are solid recommendations on
how we should proceed. Ideas, anyone?"
Kaul, who had been summoned from the primary
site, pushed his way through the crowd. "What's this
about an object that doesn't exist?" he asked,
breathless from his hurry. "If the object is that
well protected, its significance is
incalculable. This find merits our most careful
attention."
"See for yourself," Kirk said, pointing to the
readouts. "And while Dr. Kaul is checking
that, does anyone have any ideas on what to do
next?"
Scott glanced from the displays to the artifact,
as if to assure himself that the object really was there.
"A class-B jamming field renders most of
our tractor beams and antigravity lifters
inoperative. However, mechanical methods should
serve to open the structure."
"Then you believe something is hidden inside those
slabs?" Kirk asked the question mostly to hear their
reasoning. After the trouble someone had taken to conceal
the stone cube, something had to be inside it.
"It would be illogical to expend so much effort
to conceal an object unless it was extremely
dangerous." Spock studied the black cube, his
face taut with concentration. "However, at the
moment, we possess no information to indicate why
the object is dangerous."
Kirk felt the decision click into place.
Given the Enterprise's assignment and
Admiral Komack's restatement of their
orders, his next words were inevitable. "Nor will
we know anything until we open the cube. Taking
risks is our business, gentlemen. Let's
find out why someone worked so hard to hide that thing from
us. Mr. Scott, beam down the equipment you
need to open it."
"Aye, Captain." Scott stepped away from
the group, pulling out his communicator.
After several minutes of spirited discussion, a
pile of equipment and three more technicians
materialized a dozen meters from the artifact.
Scott hurried to the new arrivals, waving his
hands broadly to show where things should go. He
promptly drafted any spectators who got
too close, and before long a spidery construction of
poles and braces took shape over the black
stone cube.
Kaul scurried around the workers, poking his
tricorder against the artifact, demanding that they
hurry so he could proceed with examining what was
inside the cube. Talika followed behind him, her
bulk dwarfing Kaul's slight frame.
Occasionally, over Scott's shouted orders and the
clanks and bangs of the construction, Kirk made
out snatches of Talika's sharp-toned
monologue. She was arguing with Kaul over the
significance of the find and disputing his proposals
for studying the object.
"Some things never change, do they, Jim?"
Shaking his head, McCoy chuckled at the sight
of the massive Djelifan shadowing the slight
Indian.
"What's that, Bones?" Kirk, who had been
watching Scott oversee a tricky connection between
three crossbeams, turned his head to follow
McCoy's pointed look. The mismatch between the
two archaeologists could not have been more
incongruous.
"How these young upstarts always get so wrapped
up in their own ideas that they can't see beyond the ends
of their noses." He shot Kirk a sideways
look. "Although you have to admit that, in Dr.
Nyar's case, she has a decidedly longer
view than most."
In spite of himself Kirk smiled. Like the rest
of her physique, Talika's nose was not
small. "Now, Bones, you know the Djelifans
consider a long nose to be a sign of beauty."
"I suppose the next thing you're going
to tell me is that she's the pan-Djelifan
beauty queen or something." McCoy rolled his
eyes upward. "Her voice reminds me too
much of my ex-wife."
Kirk shrugged, unsure how seriously he should
take McCoy's words. "I can't help you with
that, I'm afraid, but I'm told that Dr.
Talika is a very attractive woman, according
to her people's standards." Pulling his jacket tighter
around himself to ward off the sharp breeze blowing down
the canyon, he started toward Scott. The night
air was dry, smelling of dust and of ozone from the
hot lights. "By the way, didn't you read the
briefing on Djelifan customs?"
"I skimmed through it, but there's a lot of
technical material there." McCoy fell
into step with Kirk, shaking his head in perplexity.
"I'm just an old country doctor, Jim. It
seemed to me that the person who wrote that briefing
went out of his way to use the most obscure jargon
he could possibly find."
Spock joined them, his long legs easily
matching Kirk's unhurried pace. The lower
oxygen content of Careta's atmosphere was slowing
the humans down, but the air and temperature
reminded Spock of a winter day in the
L-Langon Mountains. "What the captain
means is that you should have paid more attention to the section
on Djelifan naming customs. Each woman,
when she reaches her age of majority, earns the
right to her own unique personal name. Males and
female children who have not proven their worth to the
society are known by their clan name and group
designator."
McCoy shot Kirk an annoyed look.
He didn't think the captain had found any more
time than he had for unraveling the report, but
Kirk and Spock were acting as though everyone should have
gleaned the one important fact from the briefing.
"Does his lecture have a point, Jim? That
section was the worst part of the entire report."
"I'm afraid it does, Bones." Kirk
gave the doctor a rueful grin. The loose
rock crunched beneath his boots, the sound
surprisingly loud in a brief lull in the work
noises. "What he's trying to tell you is that
buried beneath the technical jargon was the crucial
fact that it is considered exceedingly rude
to address an adult Djelifan woman by her
last name."
"Oh." McCoy frowned, trying to remember
what he had deciphered from the report's
deliberately obtuse language. "How was I
supposed to know that's what it said?"
"I guess that's why we keep Mr. Spock
around to translate." Before the doctor could
reply, Kirk shifted his attention to the
construction. The framework over the artifact was
complete, and several crewmen were reinforcing the
joints while others hoisted into position the metal
plates that would form the work surface. "How long
before you're ready, Scotty?"
"How long?" Scott stepped back,
surveying the scaffold with a proprietary air.
"It shouldn't be more than five minutes before we
get everything locked down and the winches secured to the
decking. But if you wouldn't mind, Captain, I
would prefer to have everyone except the lads helping
me stand back a wee bit when we make our try
at the cube. Until we lift its top off,
we won't know why someone thought it was necessary to seal that
beastie up so tightly."
"Good thinking. We'll start clearing the area
now, so we won't have to waste time when you're
ready."
"Thank you, Captain. We'll give you enough
warning, in case everyone hasn't moved back."
He checked the workers who were wrestling the winches
into place. Two teams had their first units
securely fastened and were climbing down to get their
second, while a third team was hauling its
second winch up to platform level. The fourth
team had gotten a unit onto the decking but was
struggling to maneuver it into position.
After watching them briefly, Scott bounded up
the ladder. "Here, lads. Let me show you how
to handle these darlings."
With a grin of amusement, Kirk turned away.
"Come on, gentlemen. Let's get the
sightseers back to a safe distance."
Scott's five minutes stretched to fifteen,
but Kirk barely noticed. It took that much time
to convince everyone to retreat to a safe distance and
remain there. The archaeologists in particular were
hard to persuade. Kaul wanted to be near the
artifact when it was opened, fearing that the sensors
would still be jammed and that his skills as a trained
observer would be needed to record the details of the
scene as the huge basalt slabs were lifted from
their positions. Finally, to end the argument,
Kirk agreed to a compromise. Since they did
not know what a safe distance was, he allowed the
archaeologists to station themselves halfway between the
artifact and the designated perimeter. He
suspected that if the unknown aliens had intended
to leave a lethal trap around the artifact,
everyone would need to be much farther away. Kirk
frowned, wondering if he should order his people back
to the Enterprise.
Spock raised an eyebrow at Kirk's
expression. "Captain, you seem concerned about the
possibility of unanticipated defenses
associated with the artifact."
"The thought had crossed my mind, Spock."
Kirk glared at the artifact, willing it
to surrender its secrets. Scott and his crew were
anchoring the last cables with suction grapples, the
final step before lifting the upper slab of dense
black basalt. "If you have any thoughts on the
matter, I'd appreciate hearing them before
Mr. Scott lifts the top off that thing."
"My analysis of the defenses we have encountered
so far indicates that they are intended to disguise the
presence of the object and to render it difficult
to approach. I would conclude that this pattern will
continue and that nothing contained within the enclosure will
prove more than incidentally lethal."
""Incidentally lethal"?" McCoy asked.
"Is that something like "accidentally dead"?"
Kirk decided to interrupt before the doctor
launched into a full tirade. "You mean something like
being caught under one of those slabs when it falls?"
"That would be a prime example. The intent of the
aliens seems to be to render this artifact
inaccessible, not to deliberately injure anyone
who seeks to discover what is here."
Scott turned toward the captain and raised his
hand, signaling that the last cable was secure. "I
hope you're right, Spock. Here goes the test."
Kirk ordered Scott to activate the winches.
The motors hummed to life, first drawing in the
slack on the cables and then pulling against the weight
of the slab. At first nothing happened. Scott
increased the power to the winches, and still the slab
refused to move. The humming rose to a shrill
keening as the motors labored against the weight.
"That is most unusual." Spock moved to the
excavator's console and rerouted the power
supplies for the digging equipment and the
floodlights. "Any two of those winches
should have been sufficient to lift that mass. The
others were to insure control over the slab once it
was raised."
Kirk reached for his communicator. "Are you
sure those slabs weren't bonded together?"
"Visual inspection showed no signs of any
bonding compounds. Of course, we were unable
to obtain any meaningful results with our
tricorder scans." Spock flipped the last
relay, and the floodlights dimmed to half
intensity.
Kirk activated his communicator.
"Scotty, the power supply from this station is
available to you."
"Thank you, Captain," Scott's voice
replied from the communicator. He moved to his
controls and tied the extra energy into his power
grid. The shrill whine of the winches climbed in
volume and became harsher, the overlapping sounds
beginning to pulse in rising and falling beats.
Several people covered their ears to block out the
noise. A deep, irregular groaning joined the
din, its unevenness more disturbing than the steady
shriek of the motors.
Everyone held his breath, waiting. The winches
could not withstand much more stress, and Kirk was
surprised that Scott, usually so protective
of his equipment, had not shut down the motors
already. He grinned. Like everyone else, Scott
was determined to solve this mystery, even if it
meant spending the next three days reconditioning
the overtaxed equipment.
The groaning became louder, and Kirk realized
it was the sound of the basalt slab scraping against the
walls of the cube. With a loud crack and a final
shriek of protest, the near end of the slab pulled
free. The cube shuddered and came apart, the
vertical slabs tilting outward under the pull of the
guide cables attached to them. The slabs toppled
in slow motion, as though they were falling in
microgravity, but the shock waves rippled
outward from their impact. A cloud of dust
billowed up around the slabs, obscuring their first
sight of the artifact.
The whine from the winches dropped to a normal
pitch, although Kirk thought the sound was a little ragged.
Then from the work crew on the platform came the
sounds of retching and gagging. Before Kirk could
wonder what was happening, the dust cloud reached
them. A heavy, nauseating smell
permeated the air. Before he had consciously
identified the suldanic gas, Kirk was on the
ground, retching.
A communicator chirped nearby. "Spock
to Enterprise. Emergency beam-up. All
personnel on the planet. Repeat, emergency
beam-up. Now." The Vulcan's voice sounded
strained, as though he were barely controlling his own
response to the gas.
Mercifully, the technicians in the
transporter room worked quickly. They beat the
ship's record time for recovering that many people under
field conditions by a full minute. Even so,
Kirk thought as he left sickbay after receiving his
antidote and antinausea shots, there were going
to be a lot of people under the weather on the
Enterprise tomorrow. Someone had truly not wanted
that artifact to be discovered.

Chapter Five

He had been right about the "morning after," Kirk
thought grimly as he surveyed the group around the
briefing table. Even though he had been treated
promptly, the brief exposure to the suldanic
gas had left him with a headache of monumental
proportions and a stomach that felt as though he were
coming down with a case of the Bilindian flu.
Judging from McCoy's complexion, the doctor
felt as bad as he did, while Kaul and
Talika, who had been stationed closer to the
artifact, looked even worse. Chekov was
holding himself together mostly by youthful enthusiasm for the
mystery presented by the artifact, and Spock's
Vulcan control was standing him in good stead, but they
both were obviously fighting the aftereffects of the
gas. The only person in the room who looked
halfway human was Meredith Lassiter, who had
monitored the artifact from the safety of the
Enterprise, but even she had dark circles under
her eyes from working all night to process the
scanner data on the artifact.
"This, apparently, is what someone tried so
hard to keep us from discovering." Lassiter cued the
image onto their screens.
The object was about two meters high and four
meters long, but only ten centimeters thick.
The back side was a metallic blue-gray, with
no scratches or tarnish to mar the finish. The
other side reminded Kirk of a pair of
plate-glass windows enclosed in a flat
black frame. The illusion was enhanced by the
lifelike landscape on the left, showing a
rolling plain covered with knee-deep grass.
However, the right side of the object was blank. The
glassy sheen of the windowlike surface was the
only thing that differentiated it from its background.
"What is it?" Chekov asked, his expression
reflecting the bewilderment everyone felt. "Is that
what we almost got killed for?"
Lassiter nodded. "What it is, we're not
yet certain. However, it appears that the
safeguards connected to the stone cube were intended
to prevent us from gaining access to this object."
Spock put a list of numbers on the
screen. "This object is definitely the source
of the power readings first detected by Dr. Talika
and Ensign Chekov. We surmise that the barrier
surrounding it contained a dampening field. However,
in the time since the field was activated, it had
become defective. Stray energy fluctuations
escaped the containment field and permitted us
to detect the object. The shielding also produced
a jamming field that completely blocked our
sensors when it detected our scanning beams.
However, this function of the containment field operated
with much impaired efficiency. Our preliminary
analysis of the emissions from the artifact show that
its major mode of energy release is at a
subharmonic frequency that has been shown
to produce feelings of extreme uneasiness in
some humans. As a final note, the power
levels emitted by the object climbed steadily
for 7.3 hours after we removed the barrier and have
remained constant since then."
"Almost like it was charging up its energy cells for
something," Chekov murmured. "But what is it
waiting for?"
Kirk nodded. "That's a good question. Any
ideas, Mr. Spock?"
"None at present, Captain. Dr.
Lassiter and her team have accumulated an
impressive amount of data, but as yet we have
no clear idea of what the object is or what
its function might be."
Lassiter twisted her fingers through a lock of
her pale gold hair. "We don't even know
who left the object here. Nor who walled it
off like that. The stone slabs and the protection
fields are far younger than the artifact
they concealed. We surmise that the Meztoriens were
responsible for camouflaging the remains of a much
older civilization, although we do not yet have any
incontrovertible evidence for this conclusion."
"Recommendations?" Kirk looked toward
Kaul to see if he had any suggestions. His
face gone waxy, the senior archaeologist
swayed in his seat. His eyes fluttered closed,
and beads of sweat sprang out on his forehead.
McCoy shoved himself from his seat, his movements
less steady than Kirk would have liked, and
hurried to Kaul's side.
Spock hit the intercom switch. "Medical
emergency. Dr. M'Benga to the briefing
room."
McCoy checked Kaul's pulse and breathing.
"Secondary reaction to the suldanic gas," he
said. "We were hit by a particularly nasty
variant. If Dr. Kaul's reaction is
typical, I recommend that everyone report
to sickbay for another round of mylezan."
"I'll make that an order, Bones," Kirk
said. "When this briefing is over, everyone gets a
second round of shots. We don't need people
falling over at critical moments."
The door opened, and M'Benga entered,
followed by two orderlies and a stretcher. The
orderlies lifted Kaul's limp body onto
the stretcher and headed for sickbay, while
M'Benga stayed to hear McCoy's
diagnosis. "I will have the mylezan shots ready
by the time you're through with the briefing," he said, heading
for the door.
"Now, where were we?" Kirk asked as the door
closed behind M'Benga. He gave the group a
moment to settle down after the interruption.
Talika and Lassiter were engaged in a staring
contest to decide who would direct the
archaeological efforts in Kaul's absence.
Kirk shuddered, thinking he wouldn't want to get
between Talika and something she wanted as strongly as
she wanted to vindicate her theories about this
planet. Lassiter apparently reached the same
conclusion. She broke eye contact and stared down
at the table, her face screened by the silver-gilt
curtain of her hair.
"We must with greatest care artifact study."
Talika's voice was heavy and measured. "Because
of danger, I will explorations personally conduct,
using assistant for supplemental data
recording. Others will from safe distance investigations
observe."
At her announcement, Chekov's face went
white. For a moment Kirk thought he was suffering from
a reaction similar to Kaul's, but then he
stiffened his back as if accepting an impossible
assignment. Suppressing a grin, Kirk
asked, "Are you volunteering, Mr. Chekov?"
Chekov's mouth twitched as if he wanted
to refuse, but his sense of duty won out. "I would
be honored to assist Dr. Talika in
investigating the artifact."
"Thank you, Ensign. Your enthusiasm is
commendable." Kirk turned back to Talika.
"When do you propose to begin your work?"
"We will in half hour commence. Dr. Meredith
and I must sensors recalibrate for reporting
significant data now missed. If Mr.
Spock assists, we will much sooner finish.
However, time is to administer medication needed, for
those to harm on planet last night exposed."
She shrugged her massive shoulders. "On
Djelifa everything more efficiently handled is.
Since crew of Enterprise Djelifan is
not, schedule to innate weakness of humans must
concede."
Kirk bit his tongue to hold back an
angry reply. He seriously doubted that a team
of Djelifans could get things done any faster
than the crew of the Enterprise, but he knew
anyone who heard Talika's unfair comparison
would go out of his way to see how slowly he could do
what she asked.
Spock, guessing that Kirk was struggling
to avoid an undiplomatic response
to Talika's arrogance, answered her. "The
sensors have already been recalibrated, Dr.
Talika. The job was completed an hour ago, and
it remains only for you to specify which bands you wish
to analyze."
"Thank you, Mr. Spock." Kirk couldn't
quite keep the smug look off his face. "If no
one has anything else to add, this briefing is
dismissed. The landing party will beam down to the planet
in half an hour."

The morning light didn't improve the
planet at all, Chekov thought as he and
Talika started toward the artifact. His pounding
headache, a reminder of the suldanic gas
attack the previous evening, only made the
scene less appealing. The landing party had beamed
down next to the control console, hoping it was a
safe distance from which to detect any more surprises
either group of aliens might have concealed to discourage
people from investigating the artifact. Privately
Chekov wondered if any distance, even that of the
ship's standard orbit, would be enough if someone really
intended to prevent later explorers from gaining
access to the artifact. The closer they got to the
object, the less reassured he felt to have
Spock and his team of scientists watching their
efforts from the "safety" of the console. Either they were
too close and would be injured in the next
attack, or they were too far away to save
Chekov and Talika from a localized assault.
Talika seemed unaffected by any second
thoughts. After surveying the artifact and comparing her
visual results with the data on her tricorder
screen, she motioned to Chekov. "You to the right
circle, I to the left. We inward spiral
make, scanning object, until we at center
meet."
"Whatever you say." Chekov activated his
tricorder and started walking, splitting his
attention between Talika and the black object. The
artifact was still surrounded by the spiderwork of
Scott's scaffold; the fallen slabs of
basalt that had imprisoned it for so many
centuries had been pulled off to the sides. If
Talika truly wanted him to run his traverse
as a mirror image of hers, Chekov thought, she
should have given him more specific instructions. At
the very least, she could have told him how far apart
to space his circuits. However, precision before
the fact did not seem to be a Djelifan
characteristic. Talika, at any rate, preferred
lecturing after he did something wrong to explaining
what she wanted beforehand, even in response
to direct questions. Maybe she thinks I can read
her mind, he thought sourly. Certainly that would
explain why she consistently acted as though he were
deliberately misconstruing her requests.
For once Talika seemed in no hurry
to reach her destination. Chekov easily matched her
pace, timing his circuits to cross her path within
seconds of when she reached the overlap points.
His tricorder readings remained unremarkable,
showing only the steady power output from the artifact.
Nothing else registered--no hidden
devices beneath the rubble-strewn ground, no
scanners buried deep in the cliffs above them,
no clues about the origin or the function of the
object they were examining.
Four revolutions on their spiral path brought
them to the front of the object. The air near it
seemed cooler, almost as if the object contained a
low-level refrigeration field, and Chekov
shivered involuntarily at the sensation.
Refrigeration fields that produced such external
leakage had not been in use in the Federation in over
fifty years, and even then they had been
restricted to specialized functions such as
long-term storage of biological materials.
Either he was misinterpreting his sensations or something
else was happening here.
Chekov took three steps backward and
pivoted slowly, watching the temperature readings
on his tricorder. They climbed steadily until
his back was toward the artifact, then began falling
as he completed his rotation. Next to the artifact
the temperature was almost ten degrees lower than
it was on the flood plain upriver from his location.
Frowning with puzzlement, he extended his
tricorder toward Talika so she could read his
results.
She shrugged. "It in shadows freezes. So
what?"
He shook his head and scrolled through the
temperature scans. "You do not get so drastic
an effect just from the shadows. Something about the
artifact is creating this temperature
differential."
"Why should that to me important be?" She
turned her back on him, deliberately moving
toward the black object.
For a moment Chekov stared at her, wondering how
she could dismiss the anomaly so easily. To him the
temperature readings spoke of ancient
equipment of strange design and unknown
purposes still functioning after millennia, of
enigmatic aliens with incomprehensible motives
and mysterious purposes, and of unsuspected
dangers lurking at the edge of possibility.
Dismissing any clue to the puzzle seemed
criminally irresponsible, but Talika acted as
though she already knew all the answers. Somehow
Chekov didn't think being Djelifan, her
standard reason for ignoring suggestions, would convey
any immunity to the dangers of an
unexplored planet.
Rather the opposite, he thought sourly as he
stepped in front of the object and ran his
tricorder over the smooth, windowlike surface
that formed the object's right side. The device
reported only the object's presence, which was
less information than he would have gotten if he had
pointed the tricorder at a mirror. It should have
told him the composition of the artifact, located the
power generating equipment around the site, and given
him a dozen other useful facts. At the very least
he should have gotten readings characterizing the type and
strength of the shields that prevented him from obtaining
any other information.
Tentatively Chekov reached toward the
object. About a centimeter above the surface,
he felt a faint tingling in his fingertips. When
he pulled his hand away, the sensation stopped. He
tried again at a different spot and got the same
result. Slowly he moved his hand over the
artifact, tracing the field that clung like an
aura to its surface. The tingling stopped at the
edge of the glassy surface, and Chekov wondered
if the black frame was the source of the field or
if it inhibited the field from expanding further.
All the while he was tracing the extent of the
field, Chekov kept one eye on the
tricorder screen. To his surprise, the
readings remained absolutely unchanged. Most
force fields registered at least minor power
fluctuations when someone or something probed their
perimeters, no matter how slight the challenge.
Something was not right here. Finally, with no other tests
he could do, Chekov spread his fingers and pushed his
hand firmly into the force field.
The next thing he knew, he was lying on the
ground two meters from the object, gasping for
breath. His right arm was completely numb, and the
shoulder blade felt as though it had been
dislocated. Awkwardly he levered himself to a
sitting position, hampered by the useless right arm.
"What silly game this is?" Talika glared
down at him. "Sleeping on job?"
Chekov groaned and tried to stand. Not
surprisingly, his legs were too unsteady to lift
him, and he dropped back to the ground. "It threw
me away. When I tried to touch the object."
"Can you not believable excuse invent?" She
scowled, the expression twisting her face into a
grimace that reminded Chekov of the Hag
Mask from the Creation Play on Deveron 5.
"Djelifan assistant would not so stupid be."
Chekov felt his temper unravel. "You try
it! See if you have any better luck."
"Already have. Hand through surface of window
reaches." Her scowl darkened. "Stupid male!
Why think you that catching lies so hard would be?"
"Maybe it recognizes Djelifan
superiority," he snarled before he realized the
importance of her words. Talika had been
exploring the left side of the artifact, with its
beautifully detailed scene of some other place
or time. That side had allowed her hand
to penetrate the surface, while the blank side
he was examining had actively rejected his
attempts to reach below the field on its
surface. Clearly, although they had many features
in common, some basic differences distinguished the two
sides of the artifact. If Talika's hand could
reach into the window, could something else also pass through
it?
He levered himself to his feet, noticing with
relief that most of his shakiness had passed. For the
first few steps, the muscles in his legs twinged and
pulled, telling him how hard he had landed on the
rocks, but moving worked out the discomfort. Taking his
time, Chekov approached the artifact, studying it
with great care.
The object did not yield its secrets
to his scrutiny this time either. Whatever it was hiding,
it was doing a good job of it. Finally he stopped in
front of the windowlike panel, glancing between his
tricorder and the artifact. The tricorder
reported the same readings as it had earlier on the
blank right panel, and the scene in front of him
showed no signs of changing in response to his
examination.
He inspected the scene more closely, thinking
how much it looked like the Russian steppes. The
rolling surface of the land sloped away into the
distance, with knee-deep grass rippling in the
breeze, and the late afternoon sunlight laced long
shadows through the golds and dull greens of the
vegetation. The view was so realistic and so
lifelike that Chekov was certain he could step through
the window and walk across the open plain.
After several minutes of careful observation,
Chekov extended his hand toward the artifact. He
had hoped he could find the answers without risking
another attack from the object's
defenses, but the tricorder readings were still
suspiciously minimal. If he wanted to learn
anything, he would have to take another chance.
Slowly Chekov extended his hand toward the
artifact, anticipating the tingling resistance of the
force field. Instead, when his fingertips were about a
centimeter from the surface, a soothing warmth
began to envelop them. Without thinking he reached
forward, grateful for the heat to counteract the chill
of the air near the artifact. Before he realized how
far he had gone, his hand had disappeared up to the
wrist.
Shocked, Chekov tried to pull his hand out.
At first it felt like the arm was encased in a block
of plastiseal that prevented him from moving it. He
braced himself and pulled harder. Straining every
muscle in his body, he finally broke the hold
on his arm. Before he could catch himself, he stumbled
backwards and sprawled in an undignified heap
at Talika's feet.
"Stupid!" she said in a disgusted tone. "Said
I that you could it touch."
Mustering what dignity he had left, Chekov
clambered to his feet and looked for something to use
as a probe. Several lengths of cable left from
building the scaffold lay around the area.
Except for that, the ubiquitous rocks were the
only tools that came immediately to hand. Chekov
picked up a fist-sized chunk of rock and lobbed
it toward the artifact. It traced a lazy arc
into the air, intersecting the artifact's surface
while at the top of its trajectory.
Instead of passing through the window as he had
expected, the rock came whizzing back at
Chekov. He dropped to the ground, barely in time
to escape being hit. Talika wasn't so
lucky. Chekov heard a dull thud, followed
by a grunt of pain, as the rock hit her in the
shoulder. He braced himself, waiting for her to start
yelling at him for his carelessness, but to her credit
she did not.
Chekov scrambled to his feet and turned
to face her. Perhaps he could forestall her temper
tantrum. "I apologize for not anticipating
that reaction from the artifact, Dr. Talika. I
did not think I had thrown it so hard."
She frowned and ignored the apology. "You
did not. Artifact threw back rock."
"Very interesting." Chekov frowned, trying
to decipher the significance of her
observation. The artifact had liked his arm and had
tried to pull him into it, but it had actively
rejected the rock. Still frowning, he picked up
several small pebbles and one larger rock from the
ground.
Taking the rock in his left hand, he reached
toward the window. Again a sensation of warmth started in
his fingers and traveled up his arm. He tried
to release the rock inside the field, but his fingers
were immobilized. Quickly, before his arm could be
drawn further into the artifact, he jerked it
clear.
"It does not seem to have any absolute
prejudices against rocks," he said, staring at the
artifact in bewilderment. He had expected it
to push the rock away, repulsing his hand at the
same time.
Spock joined Chekov and Talika. "It would
appear that the device has a decided preference
for materials of organic origin. With Dr.
Talika's permission, I propose that we
conduct more extensive tests."
"What tests?" Talika pulled her attention
from the artifact to look up at Spock. "If
object organics wants, send organics.
Worthless male flunky Federation must have
to investigation do."
Chekov ground his teeth to suppress an
angry protest. There was no doubt in his mind that
Talika's preferred course of action would be
to send him into the artifact in hopes that he would
learn something useful.
Spock, however, ignored her remark. "I
would recommend a more conservative approach than
sending someone into the artifact. First, I propose
that we confirm our preliminary deduction that the
artifact can distinguish between organic and
nonorganic materials."
A stubborn expression settled on
Talika's face, twisting her mouth into an
unpleasant frown. "What proposals you have?"
"Our first priority should be to determine the
exact parameters of what the artifact will and will not
allow to penetrate its surface. At the same
time, we should take more extensive sensor readings
to determine what effects, if any, our
investigations are producing on the energy output
of the object or the scene projected onto its
surface. Only after we have analyzed the data
collected from these tests should we consider
allowing a person to investigate the artifact."
Talika raked a hand through her mousy brown
hair, the jerkiness of her movement betraying her
annoyance. "Proposal unnecessarily timid
is, but of Federation obstructionism typical. You
will faster work if we your suggestions follow rather
than proper Djelifan investigation run?"
Spock's face assumed its most bland
Vulcan mask. "Almost certainly, it will take
less time to do as I have suggested than it will take
to convince Captain Kirk to do it your way. The
probabilities suggest strongly that we will have
to send someone into the artifact at a future time.
However, the preliminary tests will enable us to equip
that person to obtain the maximum amount of data
with the least amount of risk."
"Very well." Talika's scowl gave the lie
to her words. "In interests of
Djelifan-Federation cooperation, things will we do
your way."
"Thank you, Dr. Talika." Spock
turned to Chekov. "I noticed that you had
collected a handful of rocks. When Dr.
Talika and I have removed ourselves from the
artif act's line of sight, will you toss the pebbles
at various parts of the object's surface?"
"Of course, Mr. Spock." It was
difficult to put any enthusiasm in his voice,
Chekov thought, but at least he kept most of his
irritation to himself. Junior officers expected
to draw the hazardous assignments, and this one
didn't seem overly dangerous. It wouldn't have
bothered him at all, except that Talika kept
treating him as incompetent because he was not
Djelifan and as expendable because he was male.
From her tone, you'd think that Djelifans
created the Universe and are subleasing it to the rest
of us so they don't have to run the whole show.
Shoving his rebellious thoughts aside, Chekov
stationed himself about five meters from the artifact
along its center line. He lowered himself to the ground
and piled his handful of pebbles where he could reach them.
Dozens of other suitable rocks lay within easy
reach. When Spock signaled that he and Talika
had reached a safe distance, Chekov picked up the
first stone and lobbed it toward the artifact.
Fifteen minutes and four dozen rocks
later, all they knew was that rocks rebounded from the
artifact with more kinetic energy than had been used
to throw them. The energy for the recoil had
to come from inside the object, but its shields were
impenetrable and interfered with all their instruments.
Frustrated, Chekov removed his uniform
tunic and wadded it into a ball. If the artifact
would only accept organic materials, perhaps they
could get some useful information when the carbon-based
polymer fabric penetrated the field.
Scrambling to his feet and moving closer,
Chekov tossed the shirt into the center of the
windowlike panel.
The shirt rebounded and unrolled, wrapping itself
around his face. Startled, Chekov stepped
backwards, tripped, and fell on his rear. As
soon as the fabric came free in his hand, he
relaxed. It was just his shirt. To make sure,
Chekov retrieved his tricorder and scanned the
shirt. As expected, it was no different from any
other garment synthesized by the Enterprise's
equipment. He was shrugging back into the shirt when
Spock and Talika rejoined him.
"It would seem that our hypothesis was in error."
Spock ran his tricorder over the artifact
yet again. In a human, the gesture would have
suggested deep frustration at the inability
to obtain results. "The artifact appears to know
when a higher life-form wishes to penetrate the
field."
"It allowed me to put a rock into the field as
long as I physically held it in my hand."
Chekov glared at the object, as if to demand the
code that would unlock its secrets. "Will it
allow anything to penetrate it, so long as it is
being held by a person?"
Spock picked up a five-meter length of
cable from the ground. "Please test your theory,
Mr. Chekov. This cable is sufficiently long
to permit us to see what will happen when the cable
reaches the other side of the artifact."
Chekov took the cable and gingerly poked the end
at the artifact. Despite Spock's apparent
confidence in his suggestion, he more than half
expected the object to throw the end of the cable back
at him. When nothing happened, Chekov pushed a
little harder. Ten centimeters of the cable disappeared
into the unwavering scene on the window.
"The sensors still detect no changes in the
artifact's status. The reverse side remains
unaffected by our activities," Spock
reported. "Continue with the experiment."
Twenty centimeters, thirty
centimeters, forty. Chekov felt a slight,
tingling warmth spread up the cable to his hands, so
weak that he might have been imagining it. He wiped
one hand, then the other, against his pants legs
to remove the nervous perspiration and continued to feed
more cable into the window.
One meter, one and a half. Chekov could no
longer ignore the heat traveling through the cable,
although the source of the energy did not register on
Mr. Spock's tricorder. Neither did the
free end of the cable appear in the scene they were
viewing. He released his hold for a moment to wipe
both hands. With a sizzle and a pop, the cable
dropped to the ground beside the artifact, its end
neatly sheared off. At the same time, the other end
of the cable dropped into the scene in the artifact.
Spock picked up the cut end of the cable. It
was fused to a mirror finish so perfect that
Chekov saw a tiny image of himself when Spock
turned the cable for him to examine. "How did the
object know I had released the cable?" he
asked, shaking his head in bewilderment. The thought of
such power was frightening, especially when no one knew
how to control it. He shuddered, wondering what would
happen if the artifact lost interest in a person
when he was partway through the window.
"I would surmise that we are being scanned,
although I am unable to detect any radiation leaking
from their sensors." Spock paused to consult his
tricorder. "I suggest that we attempt
to place a tricorder inside the field."
It took them fifteen minutes to secure the
tricorder to the end of a metal rod and to locate
a pair of gloves to protect Chekov's hands
from the heat generated by the artifact. Spock gave
the settings on the device one last check before
signaling for Chekov to proceed with the experiment.
Slowly he pushed the rod toward the artifact.
At first, nothing happened. It felt to Chekov as
if he were shoving against a solid wall. He
centered the tip of the rod against the window and pushed
harder. Again nothing happened.
Scowling with the effort, Chekov leaned against the
rod with all his weight. The tricorder broke
free of its fastenings and catapulted down the rod
toward Chekov. At the same time, the rod
penetrated the field with an abruptness that caught
him off guard. He staggered, trying to keep his
footing, and sprawled on the ground.
For a moment he lay still, catching his
breath. As he rolled to his feet, he heard the
sputter of the rod being cut into two pieces.
Spock reached past Chekov to retrieve the
tricorder. The silence stretched as he examined
its screen, one eyebrow raised. "This device
recorded no significant information during its
contact with the artifact. That result leads us to an
inescapable conclusion." He paused, waiting for
Chekov and Talika to catch up with his reasoning.
Chekov sighed, knowing what was coming next. "If
we cannot send through a tricorder rigged for remote
telemetry, we will have to have someone hold it in the
field. However, that person may have
difficulties maintaining his position, since the
artifact exerts a pull on anything within its
power."
Talika grunted. "Typical human
whimpering. You tricorder in field hold, I you
hold. Nothing on planet can Djelifan in
proper stance move."
"I hope the artifact knows that." Chekov
took the tricorder from Spock, checked the new
settings that the Vulcan had programmed into it, and
swung its strap around his neck for extra
security. Talika braced her feet and one
heavily muscled arm against the frame of the
artifact while wrapping the other arm around
Chekov's waist. He wasn't sure it was the
position he would have chosen, but it did feel
secure. It would take a great deal of force
to budge Talika.
Slowly Chekov extended the tricorder toward
the window. As it encountered the edge of the field, it
gave off a low whine, but its screen remained
blank. He extended his arm further, feeling the
tingling warmth travel up his arm. As the pull
increased, he had to fight to keep from jerking clear
of the field. To get the data they needed and
to discover what lay on the other side of the window,
he needed to get the tricorder as far into the
artifact as he could.
A centimeter at a time, Chekov's arm
disappeared into the window. He could still feel the arm,
could feel the weight of the tricorder in his hand, but
all he could see was the view of the rolling plain that
the alien device had shown them since they had first
released it from its protective walls. The
idea that his arm might end at the edge of the window was
extremely disconcerting.
The pull on his arm increased sharply as
his elbow disappeared into the window. Startled,
Chekov jerked back, and his boots missed their
footing on the loose gravel. Unbalanced, he
pitched toward the window, drawn in by the pressure
on his arm. Talika's hold slowed his movement,
but his momentum pushed her arm against the surface of the
window. The field caught her, too, and both of
them fell into the window.

Chapter Six

"Explanation, Spock?" Kirk's question was more
order than request. The five security men who
had beamed down with the captain fanned out, surrounding
the artifact and covering it with phaser rifles. The
whine of the transporter signaled the arrival of
six more guards, who promptly joined the cordon
around the artifact.
Spock's eyebrow rose. "Are the security
men necessary?"
"Two people disappeared." Kirk glared at the
object. The left window, which had swallowed
Chekov and Talika, was now as blank and
featureless as the right-hand window. "Can you explain
what happened? From the ship's scans, it looked
as if the artifact dragged them inside itself."
"That is essentially what occurred, Captain.
Ensign Chekov reported that the artifact
exerted pressure on his arm when he extended it
into the object. Apparently he stumbled and
inadvertently pushed Dr. Talika's arm
inffcontact with the protective field that overlays
the surface of the artifact. Before either of them could
recover, they were dragged inside."
"Why? For what purpose? Where are they now?
Are they still alive?" As the questions bubbled to the
surface of Kirk's mind, the featureless
panels of the object took on a dark and sinister
appearance. "There isn't enough room inside that thing
for it to be holding them captive."
"That is correct, Captain." Spock
glanced down at his tricorder, as if hoping he
could read Kirk's answers from its screen.
Apparently it told him nothing new, although he
scanned the object again before responding to the
captain's questions. "However, I have a theory. I
believe the artifact is a relay station for a
matter transmission device. The most
logical assumption would be that we are looking at
a portion of the aliens' planetwide
transportation network. If that is the case,
Ensign Chekov and Dr. Talika have been
transported to some other location on this planet.
All we need to do is locate them and beam them
back to the ship."
Kirk flipped open his communicator.
"Kirk to Enterprise. Uhura, have the ship's
sensors located either Ensign Chekov or Dr.
Talika yet?"
"Negative, Captain." Uhura clipped
her words short, betraying her frustration at having
no information to help them locate the missing people.
"We've detected no signs of them or of their
equipment. There's no change on any of our
scans of the planet, either."
"Thank you, Uhura. Kirk out." He
turned to Spock. "Do you have any other
suggestions, Mr. Spock?"
"Not at the present time." Spock studied his
tricorder screen with concentrated intensity.
"Unless they were transported to a location
directly within the Enterprise's line of sight,
it may take a little time for the ship's sensors
to find them. Although it is a reasonable hypothesis
that the scene we saw through the device is their
destination, particularly since the light spectrum
and the vegetation correspond to what we have observed
on this planet, other possibilities do exist.
At the moment we have insufficient data to construct
a valid model of how this device operates."
"And how soon do you expect to have sufficient
data?" Hearing the sharpness in his tone, Kirk
paused to rein in his impatience. It wasn't
Spock's fault that they knew so little about the
artifact. "What recommendations do you have for
"persuading" the object to give us some
answers?"
"At the moment I am uncertain of the best
method to employ, Captain. I am consid-
ering--" Spock broke off, his words interrupted
by a shout from one of the security guards.
On the left side of the object, bands of
color were flickering across the windowlike surface
in spectral sequence--shifting from violet through
red and back with an irregular, pulsating
rhythm. Kirk felt his stomach twisting to the
tempo of the erratic cycle, and he looked away
before the nausea built to uncontrollable
proportions.
When he glanced back, the window had
cleared and was again showing the rolling, grass-covered
plain. In the nearest foreground a length of cable,
a piece of metal rod, and several
familiar-looking objects were scattered across the
trampled grass. Kirk moved closer, even
though he was certain he would recognize
Enterprise equipment anywhere.
Chekov's tricorder and communicator lay
to the right of the scene, at the start of a wide swath of
flattened grass that traced a drunken course
down the hill and out of Kirk's line of sight.
Talika's communicator and the ceremonial
Djelifan dagger she kept holstered in her
boot lay several meters from Chekov's
equipment at the head of a second strip of
trampled vegetation. There was no sign of the
missing people.
"Fascinating."
Kirk jumped, startled to hear Spock's
voice at his elbow. He had been so absorbed
in studying the scene that he had not heard the
Vulcan come up beside him. "What is it,
Spock?"
"That path through the grass. It is far too
wide for Mr. Chekov to have made unless he
laid down and rolled."
"Hmm. I think you're right." Kirk examined
the track carefully. The abrupt zigzags in the
band of broken grass would be difficult for a
rolling human to produce. "I don't know why
he'd want to roll down that hill, but he'd find
it virtually impossible to follow that course.
He should have gone straight down the slope."
Spock nodded. "You are correct,
Captain. I submit that we are seeing evidence
that our people found traveling through the artifact to be a
disconcerting experience."
"Could you be more specific, Spock? We need
something more definite to go on if we're going to get
them back." Something about the scene in the window
nagged at Kirk. As they watched, the setting
sun spread a wash of crimson and orange across
the rolling hills and painted the shadows a deep,
velvety black.
Sunset! Kirk felt his thoughts snap
into focus. He reached for his communicator.
"Kirk to Enterprise."
"Uhura here," came the immediate response.
"Uhura, tell Mr. Sulu to search along
the sunset terminator. We believe
Ensign Chekov and Dr. Talika were
transported elsewhere and released by another
artifact onto the surface of the planet in an
area that is ..." He paused, glancing at
Spock for a better estimate of the time in the scene
they were seeing through the artifact.
"I estimate that the second artifact is
approximately thirty-five minutes on the
sunward side of the terminator. This assumes that
we are viewing a location in the middle
latitudes. I could give a more precise
estimate if the scene contained any information that would
allow me to estimate the distance and direction from the
equator."
Sulu's voice answered, "I got that,
Captain. I'm shifting orbit now to put us
directly over the sunset terminator."
"Very good. Keep me posted. Kirk out." He
snapped the communicator closed and returned it
to his belt. "Any other suggestions, Mr.
Spock?"
"I would like to record more data on the
artifact, using every tricorder available. I will
need approximately twenty minutes to adjust
them to scan slightly different but overlapping bands
and to station people all around the artifact. Logic
dictates that a shield generator of such
extreme antiquity should have developed leakage
somewhere in its operational range. However, the fact
that we have not detected it yet suggests that we must
look outside the frequencies we normally
search."
"Assuming the leakage is there," Kirk
muttered in disgust. Until now, the aliens'
technology had seemed so far in advance of the
Federation's that Kirk was starting to feel like a
preindustrial savage. Shaking himself to break the
mood, he nodded to Spock. "See what you can
do. It sounds like our best chance."
"Yes, Captain." Spock ordered one of the
security men to collect everyone who had
tricorders, both in their area and at the primary
excavation site. By the time Spock finished
adjusting the instruments, he had thirty
tricorders to station around the artifact.
"While each of you scans the artifact from your
designated position," he told the combined group
of crew and archaeologists, "I shall attempt
to cause the artifact to respond to my presence.
Given the results we have obtained so
far, analysis from the Enterprise's computers
may be required to obtain any meaningful
results. However, I cannot overemphasize the
importance of keeping your tricorders pointed at
the artifact, whatever happens."
"That was quite a warning." Kirk, watching the group
disperse to their assigned locations, kept his voice
low so no one would overhear him. "What do you
really expect will happen?"
Spock raised an eyebrow, as if to ask why
Kirk should be worried about such things.
"Logically, Captain, we must be prepared for every
possible outcome. However, the probabilities
distinctly favor an anticlimactic
resolution to our efforts."
"In other words, you don't really think it's
going to do anything."
"Correct, Captain." Spock checked
to see that everyone was in position. "However, I
intend to do my best to produce a response.
Therefore, my actions introduce an element of
uncertainty into my ability to predict the
outcome."
"Of course, Spock."
"I am glad that you appreciate the dangers
inherent in the undertaking." With his eyes on the
ground, Spock started toward the artifact,
pausing to pick up every fist-sized rock he saw.
When he realized what Spock was planning,
Kirk began collecting rocks, too. Before
long, they had assembled a sizable cache of
ammunition.
Spock stepped back from his rock pile and
studied it with a critical eye. Even the
smallest chunk massed several times more than the
pebbles Chekov had thrown at the artifact.
Among the miscellaneous supplies that had been
beamed down but not used for building the scaffolding
above the artifact were several half sheets of
decking material. Choosing one, Spock hauled
it back to his pile of rocks and crouched behind it,
using the metal plate as a shield.
Seeing what Spock intended, Kirk knelt
beside him. "If I hold it, that will leave you both
hands free. That should make things easier."
"I appreciate the help, but I would prefer
that you not expose yourself to needless risk, Captain.
It might be advisable for you to remove yourself to a
less dangerous location." Even as he said the
words, Spock shifted his position
to give Kirk more room behind the metal plate.
Grinning at how well the Vulcan knew him,
Kirk maneuvered himself into the crowded space.
"I may be mistaken about this, Spock, but I
suspect that this is one of the safer locations in the
area. So if you don't mind, I'll stick around
and try to keep you from getting hit when that thing
returns your presents with interest."
"I appreciate your concern, Captain."
Spock's tone was even more neutral than
usual, but he pulled several rocks behind the
shield. Weighing the first two in his hands, he
peeked around the metal plate, calculated the
distance, and hurled the rocks toward the artifact.
Moving swiftly, he grabbed two more rocks off
the pile, tossed them, and followed them with two more
before ducking behind the shield. The rocks hit the
upper edge of the window with sharp cracks that sounded like
the det onations of a string of firecrackers.
Moments later, the first rock crashed against the
metal plate with a bone-shaking reverberation. Before
Kirk could recover from that impact, the other five
rocks pounded against their shield.
"Fascinating," Spock murmured when the
metal had quit vibrating. "It returned all
of the rocks to their point of origin."
"So?" With his ears still ringing, Kirk failed
to grasp the significance of Spock's words. The
loud noise at such close proximity had
triggered the headache that had been threatening
to return all morning.
"A projectile thrown at a flat
surface should rebound at its angle of incidence,
reflected around a perpendicular line that
intersects the surface at the point of
impact." Spock pulled another handful of
rocks behind their shield. "The probability of
any one of the rocks returning to its point of
origin, much less all of them, is so slight
that--"
"I get the picture." Kirk shuddered. Between
the aftereffects of the suldanic gas and the onset
of the headache, he wanted Spock to finish his
experiment so they could return to the Enterprise.
"Just get on with your test."
"Yes, Captain." Spock pitched the next
group of rocks toward the artifact. They, too,
were returned, bouncing off the metal shield with more
force than the first batch.
Kirk gritted his teeth. The noise
was so loud that it felt as if each rock had hit
him directly on the head. "Quit dawdling,
Spock. If it's going to do that on all of them,
just get it over with so we can go back to the ship!"
"As you wish, Captain."
A grin flickered across Kirk's face as he
realized that Spock found the artifact's return
salvos as unpleasant as he did. In fact,
he thought as the next rocks crashed against the
metal, Spock with his Vulcan hearing
probably found the noise more intensely painful
than Kirk, with his pounding headache, did.
Spock reached for more rocks, and Kirk braced
himself. The artifact returned the missiles with still
greater force. Kirk stumbled backwards under the
assault. Groaning with the effort, he dug his
feet into the loose rock. Spock must know what
he was doing, he thought, and that left it to Kirk
to see that he got the data he needed to determine
what had happened to Chekov and Talika.
Four sets of rocks later, Kirk was less
sure that Spock had thought his plan out carefully.
The artifact returned each group of rocks with
increasingly greater force, and Kirk was staggering under
the pounding. The throbbing in his head expanded with each
trial, and his entire body ached with the effort of
keeping the metal sheet upright while the alien
device tried to flatten them with its return
fire. It was almost as though something inside the
artifact was becoming annoyed at their attempts
to investigate it.
"This is the last group," Spock said, his
voice harsh with strain. He sidearmed the rocks
toward the artifact in rapid succession and then
moved to help Kirk support their shield.
For an awful moment there was total silence, but
before Kirk could wonder what it meant, he had his
answer. All six rocks slammed
simultaneously into the decking with enough force to dent the
metal. Even their combined strength was inadequate,
and Kirk and Spock were thrown to the ground.
Dimly, through the thunder in his head, Kirk heard
someone shouting for emergency beam-up.

Kirk surveyed the subdued group of senior
officers around the briefing room table. From their
expressions, no one was eager to report the
results of the last four hours of work. All bad
news, then--or, at least, no unqualified good
news, he thought, although he knew that no
one would have held back something favorable just
to report it at the briefing. "Mr. Sulu,
what's the progress with the search for Mr. Chekov
and Dr. Talika?"
"So far, not much, Captain. We located their
equipment near another of the windowlike artifacts
at Site Nbled. Neither the communicators nor
the tricorder were functional, so we beamed them
back to the Enterprise for analysis." Sulu
frowned, not liking the idea that something could damage
the equipment. "Since then we've concentrated our
search near the second artifact, with no
success. They shouldn't have wandered far, but we
haven't detected any human or Djelifan
readings within fifty kilometers of Site Nbled.
The only life-forms in the area that are larger than
a rodent are two solitary crablike
animals, both about five kilometers from the
artifact and moving on different headings."
Lassiter looked up from her datapad,
frowning. "But our previous scans didn't
reveal any such indigenous life-forms," she said
in her soft, whispery voice. "How large are
these creatures?"
Sulu called up the sensor data. "One is
about seventy-five kilos and the other is closer
to a hundred, as best we can tell without closer
examination. Both seem to be traveling in random
patterns, with no discernible purpose to their
movements. Beyond that, we don't have sufficient
scanner resolution to give us detailed information.
We would have to send a reconnaissance probe down
to the area if we wanted to study them more
closely."
Kirk nodded his approval. "Do it. If our
previous surveys missed something as large as these
creatures, we need to know how and why."
"Right away, Captain." Sulu relayed the
order to the bridge.
"Also, can anyone explain why the second
artifact was not hidden in the same manner as the
first?" He glanced around the room, looking for
someone who wanted to answer the question. When no one
volunteered, he turned toward Spock.
"We have no explanations at this time,
Captain. However, the sensor readings from that
region of the planet altered when we released the
first artifact from its shielding." Spock called
up the data on the screen. "Some of the effects
are quite subtle, but as a working
hypothesis, we are assuming that the shielding around
the first object somehow inhibited the functioning of
other, similar objects elsewhere on the
planet."
"I see, Mr. Spock. What luck have you
had analyzing the data we collected down on the
planet?"
"Our results are, of course, preliminary,
Captain. However, I have located several
frequencies that show large fluctuations in the
energy output and through which it may be possible
to penetrate the artifact's shielding with our
sensors. I recommend that we position several
arrays of scanning equipment around the object before
we conduct more tests on the artifact."
Kirk nodded. "Tell Mr. Scott what you
need after this briefing. By the way, what tests do you
propose to conduct?"
"Logically, we should repeat the tests that Mr.
Chekov attempted after we get the more sensitive
scanner arrays into position." Spock glanced
at his screen. "However, the computer reports
only a 2.35 percent chance that we will obtain
any new information if we repeat the rock-throwing
experiment. Therefore, I recommend that we omit
that test and that I have the computer reprocess the
data we obtained this morning after we have analyzed
the later information for the appropriate correction
factors."
"I'm all in favor of that." Kirk rubbed a
hand against his temple, thinking how little he wanted
to repeat their earlier adventure and how
reluctant he would feel to order someone else
to submit to the same punishment. For that matter,
if the artifact's data processors decided
that the second set of tests were a continuation of what
he and Spock had done, it might start
escalating the force from where it had left off with them.
That could quickly become lethal for the people receiving the
artifact's return fire. He shook himself
to break that train of thought and turned to his chief
engineer. "Scotty, have you determined what's
wrong with the communicators and the tricorder we
recovered from the planet?"
"In a manner of speaking." Scott shrugged,
an eloquent summary of his frustration with the alien
technology. "The damage resembles that found in
objects sent through a transporter where the
reintegration beams are misaligned. Everything is
just a wee bit off, but I canna find
any definite pattern to the damage. My lads
are still working on it, trying to get a handle on that
alien contraption, but for the moment I canna tell
you more. It's unlike anything I've ever seen
before."
"Does this mean that you can't predict when--or
if--you'll be able to protect our equipment when it
passes through that object, Scotty?"
Scott's face went glum. "Aye,
Captain. That's what it means."
"Very well, gentlemen. Mr. Spock will
conduct his tests, and we'll hope they give us
some answers. However, regardless of the results,
if we have not located Ensign Chekov and Dr.
Talika by local dawn in the area where we think
they disappeared, I am leading a security team
through the artifact to find them."
Spock straightened in his chair, his back
rigid. "Captain, may I protest this
hazardous course of action? You must not
jeopardize yourself in this manner. I am the
logical choice to lead the security team, if
such an attempt becomes necessary."
"Objection noted." Kirk drew in a deep
breath. "However, I'm the person who will go. If
something goes wrong with our rescue attempt,
we'll need you here to figure things out."
"I see." Spock's flat tone said that he
disagreed with Kirk.
Kirk ducked his head to hide a brief grin.
Who said Vulcans had no emotions? Spock's
disapproval was so strong he could almost touch it.
He glanced toward the Vulcan. "With luck,
Mr. Spock, we'll find the missing people, and this
discussion will be academic. I'm not sending anyone
through that artifact simply for the sake of satisfying
our curiosity about its function. It's far too
dangerous."
Spock raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps the
danger to people entering the object is why the artifact
was buried in the first place, Captain."
"Aye," Scott murmured, half to himself.
"That would explain why it was so difficult
to locate."
Nodding, Kirk pushed himself to his feet.
"Regardless of why it was hidden, we have to get our
people back. Unless someone has something more to add, this
briefing is over."

Spock's science teams worked
feverishly to force answers from the artifact, but the
alien device remained an enigma. The sensor
arrays showed minuscule energy fluctuations at
certain frequencies when lengths of cable were pushed
through the window or when someone came inffcontact with the
protective force field. However, none of the
leaks in the shields around the artifact were
sufficient to give Spock precise information about
how the artifact functioned or what had happened
to Chekov and Talika. The Enterprise's
sensors continued to report the two alien
life-forms near the second artifact, and the
probes following the two creatures recorded
no significant information about them.
As dawn approached at the second site,
Spock drove his people harder to solve the mystery.
Kirk watched the frenzied activity with curious
detachment, waiting for Spock to concede that the
artifact had evaded analysis. He knew,
without being able to say why, that he would have to go through the
windowlike transporter to rescue the missing people.
Full daylight had spread itself across the rolling
hills in the "window" when Spock finally
admitted defeat. "Captain, I regret
to inform you that we have been unable to produce any
significant information about the object. However,
I strongly recommend that you postpone passing through
the device until we have breached its shields and
determined how it operates. The risk to your life
is too great when there are so many unknowns in the
equation."
"Risk is our business, Mr. Spock. You
know that as well as I." He turned toward the
mysterious object, studying its
uncommunicative exterior. "Besides, we owe
it to Mr. Chekov and Dr. Talika to do everything
in our power to rescue them. Since we aren't
getting any results from here, I'm going after
them."
"Yes, Captain." Spock gestured for
several of his scientists to join him. While he
briefed them on what to do when the captain and his men
entered the artifact, Kirk summoned his
volunteer security team.
Ten minutes later Kirk and the three guards
were standing in front of the artifact, ready to pass
through it. The Enterprise had stationed probes near
the second artifact to record what happened when
the men emerged from the "window" on that side, and
Spock had teams positioned around the first
artifact, ready to record every detail.
Kirk checked one last time to see if his men were
ready. As the last man nodded, he started forward.
"Let's get this show on the road."
Centimeters from the window, he slowly extended
his arm. A soothing, gentle warmth climbed
upward from his fingers, pulling him toward the
artifact. Before Kirk realized what was
happening, his arm was inside the window up to his
shoulder. Beside him the security guards also had their
arms inside the force field. The pull was
irresistible, and Kirk yielded to it.
The "window" engulfed the four men and went dark,
swallowing them without apparent effort. Spock
moved from group to group, checking their results, but
to no avail. Once again the sensors had not
detected any changes in the energy output of the
artifact. They had no clues as to what had
happened to Kirk and the security guards.





Chapter Seven

It had been a jagged transition, he thought,
struggling to get all eight appendages beneath his
carapace. The old relics in Maintenance were
putting less and less into keeping the equipment in
any better condition than their own decrepit and
fading carcasses. Soon the transit frames
would be as useless as the ancient matriarchs who
ran the ceremonies, protected by the residual
shreds of prestige they drew about their discolored
shells. With those antiquated and bloated relics
remaining in control of the Kh@fflict worlds, it was
little wonder that everything was falling down around them.
Something should be done, someone ought to do something, maybe
he would do something ... but later. There was something
important he must do first, if he could only
remember it through the tidal crash of the blood past
his tympana.
His senses reeled with the ebb and flow of
disorganized perceptions. The light was wrong,
too red and too weak, adding to his disorientation.
Where was he, then, if he had been sent so far from
home? Which cool, fading star was this the matriarchs
had exiled him to, what world gone sere and
lifeless beneath its dying sun?
He looked behind him, saw the transit frame
on the hill far above him with its pyar-runes
fading as the power drained back into the grid. The
patterns proclaimed the glories of the homeworld,
the center of Kh@fflict civilization. Such
praise was embedded only on the transit
frames of the homeworld. That meant he had been
sent to a region where no one usually went. The
penal zone at the southern pole, perhaps? Even that
did not explain the too-cold temperature or
the strangely reddened sun. Both were mysteries
he could not solve at present unless he assumed
the matriarchs had installed a new class of force
field around the penal zone. If that was indeed where
he was, he needed to put as much distance between himself
and the transit frame as he could.
He staggered forward, surprised at the
tremors that ran up his appendages. The
Kh@fflict form was perfectly designed, its
eight limbs providing the ideal combination of
strength and agility, balance and power. Every hatchling
in its first soft shell knew how to coordinate its
appendages for maximum speed or to gain the power
and leverage needed to destroy a rival. A
Kh@fflict who staggered was as alien as--as this
desolate landscape filled with the ocher whisper of the
grasses and the dry beige rattle of the
bitter-leaves that grew in the dark, secret
hollows of the land.
He strained to move one appendage, then
another, needing all his concentration to force his legs
to do what instinct should have directed them to do without
any intervention from his conscious mind. If the
matriarchs had sent him here for a reason beyond
malicious whim, he must escape the range of
their surveillance before they carried out the next
murky phase of their plan.
A broad swath of trampled grass led
downhill, away from the transit frame. In his
current abnormal condition, the thought of following
someone else's pre-broken trail was immensely
appealing. After he put some distance between himself and the
frame, he could prepare countermeasures for
whatever surprises they planned to spring on him.
With an effort he urged his leaden appendages
into motion and started down the hill.

He hadn't felt this bad, Kirk thought,
since that three-day shore leave on Argelius
early in his first deep-space tour of
duty. Kirk hadn't believed the old hands, had
thought they were pulling his leg when they cautioned him
against mixing Argelian ale with anything else.
From the smug "I-told-you-so" expression on the
Farragut's doctor's face when she had
given him the shot for his hangover, he realized that
he had fallen victim to a long-standing ship's
tradition--delivering an honest warning about the
deceptively mild ale in such apprehensive
tones that no junior officer would take the
advice seriously.
The ground lurched beneath him as his body struggled
across the irregular terrain. He tried to focus
his eyes on his surroundings, fighting against the growing
disorientation. The scene twisted and blurred,
shapes stretching and contorting into impossible
angles, colors pulsing between gloomy drabness
and hallucinatory brilliance. His perspective
was wrong, distorted, his eyes too close to the
ground and responding to his commands as though they were
no longer firmly anchored in his eye sockets.
Kirk thought that was impossible until he looked
down at his feet.
Instead of his familiar boots, a long,
pincerlike appendage stretched into his field of
view. Shock jolted through him, scrambling his
thoughts and locking his muscles. His legs froze
in midstride, but his momentum carried his body
forward, and he overbalanced. He flopped on his
belly, skidding on the dry grass. The land
dropped away beneath him, and he continued to slide
downhill, his body picking up speed as the
slope steepened. Dizziness and extreme
disorientation overwhelmed him, making it impossible
to interpret what he was seeing. Finally, in
self-defense, Kirk surrendered to the madness and
let his consciousness escape.

His carapace scraped against a rock and spun,
careening off at an angle from its previous
trajectory. Anger washed through him, anger and
shame at his clumsiness. No Kh@fflict past
his first molt ever tripped over his own claws.
With eight appendages one could always keep enough
pincers on the soil to avoid falling down
hills. What had the matriarchs done to him when
they forced him through the transit frame? What
damage had they done to his mind and his body that
he could no longer perform the most basic acts of
living? Perhaps this was his punishment--this
incapacity and lack of coordination. Perhaps he
did not need to worry about further punishment.
The spinning slowed his forward momentum, and
gradually friction brought him to a stop near the
bottom of the hill. A wide, greenish-gold
swath of flattened grass marked where he had
descended, a clear beacon to anyone who was
trailing him. If the matriarchs sent out a
squad of enforcers to see that the terms of his
punishment--whatever they were--were observed, the
young females would have no trouble locating him. As
long as he remained in this grass, he w ould find it
impossible to hide from pursuers. Somewhere there must
be a safer place for him to wait until he could
devise a way to turn the tables on the
matriarchs.
Cautiously he pulled each limb beneath his
carapace, flexing the joints and testing for
injuries as he did. A severed ligament could
explain his fall, but nothing seemed obviously
damaged. For all their apparent malice, the
matriarchs had not left him incapacitated beyond the
disorientation and the huge gaps in his memory. He
should know why he was here, but he didn't. Who he
was, his color-grade in his cohort, or even
which cohort claimed his participation were also
mysteries. Only an elementary outline of his
life remained, consisting mostly of facts known
to every Kh@fflict who survived past the larval
stage. The details, the colors and textures
of his individual life that would shape his passage
through the Final Transition, were missing as though they
had been buried under a thick dun coat of mud.
When he was sure his body was undamaged, he
levered himself off the ground. For a moment everything
wavered, flickered to blackness, and then resumed the
disquieting ruddy shades that distorted everything in this
strange place. He took one step and then
another, testing his coordination and balance to rule out
any unsuspected injuries. When he still could
find no apparent cause for his awkwardness, he
began moving faster, hoping to put some distance between
himself and whomever the matriarchs had sent to follow
him. Clearly, the best and most obvious
explanation for his disorientation was to make him
vulnerable.
Again a tremor of uneasiness rippled through his
neuroprocessors. If his punishment was to have
any meaning, he should know his crime and the rules
governing his sentence and probable
execution. Even with the entire Kh@fflict
totality watching the proceedings via the remote
viewers, the punishment would be worthless unless he
also knew what offense had earned him so dreadful
a penalty as isolation from all his kind and death in
a place whose naming-colors he would never learn.
He headed downhill, away from the transit
frame, although he knew that direction was the most
predictable. Still, the dark, rocky gullies
tucked between the beige and dusty green folds of the
land offered some slight hope for confusing his trail.
The grass there grew in irregular patches,
giving him the hope of choosing a route where he
did not flatten a wide swath behind himself and where his
claws did not leave sharp impressions on the
boulder-strewn surface. With luck his
executioners would be fooled by his apparent blunder
into the obvious. They would not expect it when he
doubled back onto the first strip of rocky ground
and circled around behind them.
The first two spots he investigated were
disappointing, with the grass coming in thick and tall within
easy view of the gully. The third rockslide
was more promising, although he had to watch his step
to avoid triggering a new slide, which would alert his
pursuers by the russet freshness of the disturbance.
In a way, he was relieved that the slope was so
unstable. If he succeeded in conquering it before
anyone located him, he stood a fair chance of
evading them. The difficulty of the ascent would
convince them that he had continued down the gully,
hoping to float himself to safety in the cloudy
waters of the river that must lie farther in that
direction. If the enforcers could be misled for only
half a day, he could hide himself so thoroughly that
no one would find his location unless they had watched
him through a viewer perched on his carapace. And that,
he knew, was unlikely; he could not feel the
telltale weight or the unbalanced pull when
he moved, either of which would have alerted him to an
object anchored to his carapace's crest.
The climb was slow and exhausting work, with the
difficulty compounded by the need for extreme
caution. Even so, he saw no signs of
pursuit as he mounted the pile of loose rubble.
At the top he paused, checking his back trail
for the bright flash of color that would signal the
enforcers' location. Nothing except the grass
moved anywhere in the bleak, empty land. He
wasn't sure whether the desolation was
reassuring or not, whether he should believe that his
tactics would deliver him from pursuit or if the
matriarchs had devised a more subtle trap for
him than he could imagine.
Either way, he could not stand on the top of the
hill, glowing his triumph like a beacon. His
radiant colors would certainly attract the
attention of any Kh@fflict within his line of
sight. He damped them down, coloring his
carapace to match the duns and beiges of the earth
and the dry grass. Starting off, he picked his way
through the sparse grass with exquisite care
to avoid calling attention to his passage.
Somewhere there must be a cave or a tunnel or a
cut bank where he could hide from aerial
surveillance. Once he found that place, he
could conceal himself and begin to make plans to overcome
the enforcers that would soon be following him. He could
not afford to let them find him; when they did, they
would dismember him a joint at a time, trying
to prolong his suffering as an object lesson
to any other Kh@fflict who had committed the same
offense. His only hope lay in avoiding
capture for a turn of the seasons, until the
matriarchs decided his isolation had become a
greater torture than the punishment to which he was
originally sentenced.

Kirk gradually became aware of the flow of the
grass and the chaotic patterns of loose rock
passing his line of vision. What, exactly, had
happened was still unclear, but this time he told himself
to take things slowly and to analyze all the
evidence before letting his grotesquely distorted
perceptions trigger another violent reaction.
He couldn't afford to act until he learned all
he could about his situation.
His body was climbing a talus slope,
carefully picking its way across the unstable
surface. Kirk knew he could not perform such a
complicated motor skill while on automatic
pilot, especially not in an alien body. That
meant that, as an initial postulate, he must
assume another consciousness was also occupying this
body. He could not detect any foreign presence
directing his thoughts, so he decided that the alien was
walled up behind its own mental barriers. That
made things easier, since it gave Kirk a
chance to observe the situation without worrying that his
host would be distracted from navigating the
treacherous slope, but it might create
difficulties later when he tried to make
contact with his host.
At first he concentrated on the visual information
flowing into the alien's brain. The colors seemed
oddly subdued and skewed toward the red end of the
spectrum. Most life-forms evolved visual
systems where the peak sensitivity of the visual
sensors corresponded to the median wavelength
of the incoming light from their planet's sun. That
meant one of two things Either his host had evolved
in a much different star system than this one, or his
race had died out before this sun had begun to dim.
Normally the second hypothesis would have been
extremely far-fetched, but given the antiquity
of Careta IV'S artifacts, Kirk decided
that a cooling sun might have caused the death of his
host's civilization. Massive climate
changes, with the attendant disruptions in food
supplies, had rung the death knell for many
civilizations. Certainly this barren and unforgiving
land seemed an unlikely place to support the
civilization that had created the artifacts and the
buried ruins they had found.
His next priority, he decided, was
to figure out what kind of creature his host was.
The obvious solution--to take control of the
body's functions and experiment until he had his
answers--was out of the question as long as his host
continued on his present course. It was almost as if
the creature expected pursuit, and Kirk
wondered if he should worry. Presumably,
none of the creature's people were left on Careta
IV, but the Enterprise's sensors had
suddenly reported two large life-forms after
Chekov and Talika had fallen through the window.
Even if, like Kirk, those life-forms were native
hosts that contained the consciousnesses of his missing people,
Kirk realized he had no way to determine what
directives had been programmed into the minds that
controlled the bodies. For all he knew, the
artifacts could have been designed for alien war
games, with the rules and allegiances programmed
into the bodies when they exited the objects.
With direct experimentation temporarily out of the
question, Kirk settled down to watch his surroundings.
From the way the scene changed from wide-
to narrow-angle views, he decided that his eyes
must be mounted on stalks, allowing them to rotate
freely. The narrow views gave
stereoscopic vision, much like what Kirk was used
to in human form. After he adjusted to the
unfamiliar sensation of seeing up to two hundred
and seventy degrees around himself, he began
to appreciate the benefits of the panoramic
views. The more directions a being could watch, the
less the chance that something could attack without warning.
After a time Kirk was able to interpret the
sensations from other parts of his new body. He had
eight limbs, each ending in a pincerlike claw
that could be closed tightly when walking or opened for
fighting or to manipulate tools. All the
appendages could perform most tasks, although Kirk
sensed that the creature preferred using certain
limbs for certain functions, much as Kirk
favored his right hand.
While he had been analyzing his host's
body, they had climbed off the talus pile
onto a long, sloping ridge that led back the
way they had come. The creature started climbing,
following the crest of the hill until he found
another talus pile. The rocks here were larger and
more solidly packed than the precarious slope
they had climbed earlier. However, when the
creature started picking its way downhill,
Kirk began wondering if this was any safer than
their previous adventure. The rocks didn't
look all that stable to him, and he wasn't sure
why they didn't head back for the artifact.
To his mind, but obviously not to his host's, the
best solution to their predicament was to return to the
object so Spock could reverse this unwelcome
fusion of human and alien.
The thought of Spock brought up another problem.
How was he going to communicate with the Vulcan?
Unless Spock knew he was trapped inside this
alien body, he would assume that Kirk had
vanished into limbo--or, worse, been killed
outright--when he stepped into the window. How did these
creatures communicate with each other? He had
sensed no effort on the part of his host to speak or
to make sounds of any kind. If he couldn't find
a way to control his host's body, he would be
unable to let anyone know what had happened to him.
The problem required thought, and since he dared so
little else while the creature was traversing the
talus, Kirk focused his mind on devising a
way to communicate with his crew.

At the bottom of the talus slope,
a wide, rocky channel meandered between the rolling
hills. He approached the shallow stream and
crouched to reach the muddy water, straining out the
gritty sediment with his drinking filters. His thirst
satisfied, he started upstream, hoping that any
enforcers who had followed him this far would look for
him in the predictable direction. He did not
think the unit pursuing him would be large enough that they
could divide their forces. At any rate, it was a
gamble he would have to take.
The sun was nearing the zenith when he spotted
what he had been looking for. The valley had
narrowed to a tight canyon between yellowish dun
walls, fissured and broken in many places.
To his right, almost hidden in the sooty shadows, a
narrow cleft opened in the rock face. He
moved toward it, carefully picking his way across the
rock-strewn stream bed to avoid leaving any
tracks.
The gap opened at carapace level and was
barely wide enough for him to squeeze through, which made
it all the better for his purpose. The enforcers
might check for him in such a place, on the
assumption that he would go to ground in the smallest
hole he could find. However, even if they thought this
was a likely spot, most females--even the
youngest ones--were larger than he was. In all
probability they would not be able to wedge themselves through
the fissure.
He pulled himself into the cleft one claw at a
time, taking care not to dislodge the loose rock
around the opening. It was hard work--far harder than
he thought it should be--and again he wondered what had
happened to his body during its passage through the
transit frame. Strength, coordination, and
memory had all been damaged by the transition,
and the cumulative effect was beginning to wear at
him. All the essential elements that defined him
as a Kh@fflict had been weakened or destroyed,
leaving him with an identity as shattered as the cliffs
that surrounded him.
That thought led to madness, he realized. With a
shudder he pushed it aside, to be considered after he
had protected himself from the inevitable pursuit.
For the moment he was busy enough just keeping his balance
on the treacherous footing. The narrow, twisting
stream course acted as a trap for the loose rock
that cascaded down from sheer walls above him. As
he moved, the rubble shifted and turned beneath his
pincers. Only his superior physique
made it possible for him to retain his balance on the
precarious surface. He rejoiced at the
difficulty his pursuers would have in following him;
the more massive females would find it almost
impossible to negotiate the treacherous footing
without having the rocks slide from beneath them.
The hiding place was so well concealed that he
almost missed it. Sometime in the distant past, a
large sheet of rock had fallen from one of the
walls and was now tilted across the cleft. Talus
had buried most of the slab, leaving only a very
small gap to serve as an entrance.
He poked around the area for several minutes,
trying to convince himself that no one was waiting to ambush
him when he finally dared to tackle the opening. At
last, knowing that he had nothing to gain by waiting, he
circled to the uphill side of the slab and began
to shift the rubble. In a surprisingly short time,
he cleared away enough rocks to squeeze himself
inside. He wriggled through the hole and into the
space beneath the yellowish-tan slab of rock.
There was barely enough room for his carapace to fit
inside, and he had to move more loose rock to get
all his appendages safely out of sight.
However, once he finished the work and his body was
safely hidden, he began to relax. The small
opening on the downstream side of his hideout gave
him a clear view of anyone approaching from that
direction. With surprise operating in his favor,
he would be able to take out the first enforcers and arm himself
with their weapons before they realized he was there. Even
without scouting farther up the cleft, he knew his
rear was protected. The matriarchs would not send enough
enforcers after him to allow them the luxury of a
multipronged attack. Secure in his choice
of a hiding place, he shifted the colors of his
carapace to match the shadows beneath the slab of
rock. As long as he was patient and maintained his
concealment, he would be the certain victor in the
upcoming fight.

When he realized that his host had gone to ground and
intended to remain where he was for some time, Kirk
began phase two of his plan to explore the
body he was trapped in. After passively
watching how they had negotiated the uneven ground,
he concluded that the creature's body greatly
resembled an Earth-normal crab enlarged
to human size. As best he could tell, the
creature had four pairs of legs, which
were coordinated by a complex series of rules
Kirk's host did not consciously remember when
he moved. Kirk, however, needed to learn those
rules so he could control the alien's body, should
he need to take over his host.
Don't force it, he told himself, although
everything in him screamed for immediate and decisive
action. As difficult as he found it, he needed
to take a lesson from Spock, to be patient and
work out his situation precisely before he tried to do
anything. This creature was so very alien it would not be
easy to establish contact with it. Besides, whoever
controlled this alien body would probably not be
eager to surrender its position to Kirk, and he
would need to exercise caution.
With that idea firmly in mind, Kirk
concentrated on the body in which he was imprisoned.
At first he had little luck. It was almost as if his
mind had been encased in an alien android with none
of the sensory inputs connected. That thought was
disheartening; if it were true, he had no way
to sense his environment or to control events. Still,
he couldn't be completely isolated, since he
could interpret what the alien was seeing. That might
mean that the artifact had only given him visual
input, but Kirk rejected that idea for the moment.
He stood a much better chance of learning something
if he assumed that his host's physiology and
anatomy were so alien that his human thought
processes were not recognizing the information
presented to him. That meant that the alien's mind
probably did not recognize his presence, either.
He observed the view down the narrow canyon
that was absorbing the alien's attention, noticing again
how red the light appeared. That perception, at
least, was not being reinterpreted for his benefit, and it
gave him a place to start. The tumbled boulders
and broken cliffs were monotonous and
claustrophobic, but the alien kept at least one
eye focused downstream at all times. That gave
Kirk an idea.
Focusing on a location about thirty meters
away and as far above the canyon floor, Kirk
imagined something creeping down the sheer rock face
and becoming visible at that spot. The alien
twitched his eyes upward, then jerked his view
downward to check the canyon floor. Kirk
concentrated harder on visualizing someone climbing
down the canyon wall. At first he got no
response, but then, ever so slowly, the
alien began scrutinizing the cliff from the base
upward, studying each fissure and jutting boulder
for hidden enemies.
Halfway through the search, Kirk sensed a
growing irritation, as though his host did not believe
anything could attack from that direction.
Deliberately Kirk shifted his attention
downstream, letting the alien check for the pursuers
he obviously expected. When they saw no one,
Kirk again focused on the canyon wall. This
time the alien's eyes shifted upward more quickly, and
Kirk worked to direct his attention to various
spots on the cliff face.
The rocks were varicolored reds and browns and
tans, with deep black shadows that could easily
hide a man in dark clothing. As they searched the
cliff, Kirk sensed a growing uneasiness in his
host, as though the aliens could also hide themselves from
sight like ninja. When he tried to focus on that
thought, the perception slipped away, leaving Kirk
with his own sense of disquiet. The multicolored
rock face disturbed his host greatly, and Kirk
realized that he would learn a lot about the alien if
he could solve this particular riddle. However, he
did not know how to get at that information, so he put
the problem aside.
With a measure of control established over his
host's eyes, Kirk tried to manipulate other
parts of the alien's body. Wedged into the tiny
space beneath the slab of rock, Kirk could not
afford any ener getic experiments, but he needed
to know how this strange, crablike body operated.
A human confined in such a restricted space would
have been screaming from muscle spasms and pinched
nerves long ago. Was the alien immune to such
things, or did its physiology provide a
filter that kept physical discomfort from interfering
with its cognitive processes? And how would he
be able to determine the answers to such questions?
Concentrating on a mental image of his hand,
Kirk visualized closing his thumb against his
forefinger and lifting his arm until the hand was in
front of his face. Nothing happened, or, if it
did, he could not detect it. Is this what it's
like to be paralyzed? he wondered. It was
disconcerting to give orders to his body and not
feel any movement or tactile sensation from his
extremities. It was even more disturbing to realize
that he was at his host's mercy until he learned
how to connect with the alien's nervous
system, how to decipher the creature's reactions
in a given situation, and how to control this strange,
crablike body.
It would have been no small order to accomplish
all that if he had known exactly how to do it.
Unfortunately, he had never heard of anything like
this happening before. That left him with no guidelines
and no suggested procedures for making a first
contact with a previously unknown race--from inside
one of their bodies.

Chapter Eight

"Spock to Enterprise." It took all of
his Vulcan control to keep his voice pitched
to an absolute, flat tone. Around him he
heard a ripple of dismay pass through the landing
party. He could almost hear what the humans were
thinking as clearly as if one of them had spoken the
words aloud--the captain had disappeared into the
artifact without anything registering on their
tricorders, and Spock was acting as if Kirk
had stepped out for a morning stroll. He debated
lecturing them on the futility of squandering energy
on emotional outbursts, but decided not to waste the
time. Finding Kirk was a higher priority than
educating humans on the virtues of controlling
their passions. "Enterprise, has Captain
Kirk come through the other side of the window yet?"
A long pause answered him. As the seconds
stretched, Spock calculated the odds that something
had gone wrong equipment failure,
unidentified ships dropping from warp just beyond the
Enterprise's orbit, the communications officer
being away from her post. He had almost convinced himself
that the problem was with his communicator when the device
crackled to life. "Enterprise. This is
Sulu, Mr. Spock."
"Report, Mr. Sulu. Have the captain and
his party come through the artifact yet?"
"We don't know, Mr. Spock." There was a
long, uncomfortable pause. "At the precise
moment when the captain entered the window, something
zapped the probes we had positioned around the
second artifact. Besides destroying all our
sensors in the immediate area, the energy beam--or
whatever it was--scrambled the ship's sensors, so
we haven't gotten any information about what's
happening in the immediate vicinity of that artifact."
"Are you taking sensor readings of the
area now, Mr. Sulu?"
"Negative, Mr. Spock." Sulu
exhaled sharply. "Or, to be more accurate, our
attempts to reestablish sensor contact have
produced no information. Our readings are so garbled
as to be worthless. We estimate the interference will
dissipate in approximately ten minutes,
sir. We are preparing a new set of probes
to send down to the planet at that time."
"Very well, Mr. Sulu." Destroying the
probes had not been a scenario they had considered.
Since they could not detect any radiation from
inside the artifact, it had seemed unlikely that
something inside the object would recognize their
probes. Since that assumption had been proven
false, Spock realized that many--perhaps most--of
their other inferences about the artifacts and their
creators might be wrong. At the very least he would
have to reanalyze their data until he found a
way to penetrate the artifact's shields. He
gestured for the men around him to give him their
tricorders. "Mr. Sulu," he said, "beam
me up immediately. Then commence transporting up the
landing party, except for a pair of security
guards, who will maintain a constant watch on this
artifact from a discreet distance."
"Aye, sir." Spock had barely enough time
to clip his communicator to his belt and pass the
tricorder straps over his shoulder before the
transporter beam took him.

Six hours later Spock was beginning to wonder
why he had assumed that he could solve this problem
quickly and easily. The readings from all the
tricorders and sensor arrays had been fed into the
computer, and he had analyzed the information so many
ways that even he was losing track of the
permutations. The results, though, were discouraging in
their extreme lack of usable insights. Every time
two groups of readings showed a correlation, the
next data set contradicted it.
What would Captain Kirk do now? Spock
wondered. Logic and scientific analysis were
producing no discernible results; it was time for one
of Kirk's leaps of intuition. The artifact
operated by some disturbingly illogical rules.
As if to underscore Spock's lack of
success, the bridge doors whisked open, and
McCoy strolled over to the science console.
"Well, Spock, how much longer are you
going to twiddle your thumbs before you bother to locate
Jim?"
Spock continued studying the data on the screen
in front of him. "I am not "twiddling my
thumbs," as you so picturesquely put it,
Doctor. However, this device appears to have been
designed by creatures nearly as irrational as
you."
"I beg your pardon?" McCoy straightened,
an expression of wounded dignity spreading across his
face. "Since when does not thinking like some
Vulcan machine make a creature irrational?
Just because you're temporarily in command gives you no
cause to insult those of us who don't follow your
rules. The poor defenseless beings who built that
artifact never did you any harm."
"I wonder at your definition of the word
"harm," Doctor." Spock lifted his head
from his viewer and fixed his most severe look on
McCoy. "I submit that creating a device that
causes any member of this crew to disappear
constitutes "harm" in the accepted meaning of the
word. It is also a fact that our analysis has
not revealed any rational pattern to the object's
operation. Therefore, describing its operating
principles as "irrational" also does not
constitute disparagement."
"I surrender, Spock." McCoy rolled
his eyes toward the ceiling, as if seeking divine
guidance for dealing with the Vulcan. "I don't
suppose it occurred to you that the aliens might have
designed their machinery to operate according to their idea
of "rational"? Unless, of course, you're going
to tell me that Vulcan principles of logic
are the universal standard throughout the galaxy, even
for a race who died out millennia before your
precious Surak was born."
"I had considered the idea, Doctor."
Spock gave the computer a new set of commands.
Indicators flashed red and amber in response
to his orders. "A race as ancient and alien as
this one probably did operate according to principles
that we do not understand, although current
anthropological research indicates that any
sufficiently advanced civilization will converge on
the Vulcan norm in matters of logic and
moral principles."
"Sorry I asked." McCoy started toward
the door, stopping at Uhura's station to talk with
her.
After watching McCoy long enough to make sure the
doctor was not coming back for another salvo,
Spock turned back to his computer. As much as
McCoy's irrational approach to life dismayed
Spock, at times the doctor identified the
essence of a situation. His questions had suggested that the
artifact's shields might randomly shift
frequencies. If properly done, the inevitable
gaps in the shields would vary over time, making it
nearly impossible to scan inside the artifacts
and discover anything about their design, construction, and
operation. While such protection methods were
completely logical, a society that used them
on their public transportation devices was not.
In fact, Spock found the idea of so paranoid
a society almost incomprehensible, even after his
long association with humans. He wondered if the
aliens were protecting themselves from outside invaders
or if their security precautions had been
directed against their own people.
The first ten formulas he tried failed to make
any sense of the data they had recorded on the
planet. As he studied the results, Spock
began playing with the concept, trying to decide how
he would create an absolutely invulnerable
security system. Clearly, he should use a
composite randomizing function, built from two or
more standard formulas, so that a first-level analysis
would not detect any pattern to the variations in
field strength.
As he considered how many combinations existed for
writing such a function, Spock realized the key
question was who the assumed enemy was. An internal
security system could be fairly simple; the
ruling class would reinforce its control over the
citizens by restricting education. However, if the
security measures were to protect against an
external threat, the security system would be
extremely complex so as to defeat the enemy's
best minds.
Which assumption was the most likely? Spock
stared at his screen, searching for the pattern that the
computer had missed. The problem, at its core,
was that they did not have sufficient--or anywhere near
sufficient--information on the people who had built these
artifacts. They were an unknown race, and their
civilization had disappeared so long ago that it no
longer figured even in the legends of the successor
cultures in this s ector. Given that, had they
encountered other civilizations? Or had
these people lived and died isolated from other
intelligent races, existing in the nebulous time
period between the Meztoriens and the still earlier
so-called orphan civilizations that some people
believed had once occupied this sector of the
galaxy?
The computer estimated that it would need seven
hours to search the archaeological data banks for
indirect references to such an ancient culture.
He ordered the computer to start the search, knowing it
would take too long to produce any useful
information. However, since they needed a fast
answer, Spock chose the simplest premise.
If the security measures had been directed
against the aliens' own people, the computer should be able
to solve the shield frequency equations far
sooner than it could locate possible references
to this culture.
Spock programmed the computer to look for the
simplest class of composite randomizing
functions and then deliberately turned toward the
main viewscreen. Built from the images from a
dozen probes, an aerial view of the rolling
hills around Site Nbled filled the screen.
Parts of the image were crisp and detailed, but other
portions of the scene were degraded to a vague
blur. Even after six hours they had not been able
to eliminate all the residual jamming fields.
"Status, Mr. Sulu."
Sulu swiveled his chair to face Spock.
"No change in the last hour. We think there are
six alien creatures near the artifact, but
half of them are within the areas of maximum sensor
distortion. There could be as many as eight creatures
or as few as one in the areas where we're not getting
good information. Another creature has gone to ground
in an area of extremely broken terrain, and
we're having trouble pinpointing its location."
Spock read the notations on the screen. The
possible life-form readings were scattered over an
area with a thirty-kilometer radius centered around
the second artifact. That there were probably six
aliens, and that their appearance coincided with the
disappearance of the people from the Enterprise, suggested the
two items were connected. However, the continued
interference with their sensors left him with little solid
information. The aliens could have been released from
internal stasis inside the artifact when the
humans entered the object, or they might
represent a bizarre transformation of the
missing people. With the poor sensor data they were
getting, he didn't have sufficient information
to decide what had happened. "What progress
is being made with the sensors, Mr. Sulu?"
The helmsman shook his head. "We can't
isolate the origin of the fields that are disrupting
the sensors. It's almost as though something down there
knows we're looking for it and is hiding to keep us
from finding it."
"Please start a new search for the source of the
disruption using that idea as your basis. Logic
dictates that we choose a more complex set of
assumptions once our initial premise has
proven inadequate." Spock examined the
viewscreen again, comparing the loci of disruption with
those he had noticed earlier. The most distorted
areas had moved--but was there a systematic
pattern? "Mr. Sulu, please analyze how
the sensor disruptions have migrated through time."
Sulu's eyes widened in surprise, then
narrowed. "Right away, Mr. Spock." Scowling
at his own slowness, he ordered the computer
to replay the images at a high speed and
reduced detail.
Three of the distorted patches had been moving
since they first appeared. Evidently something on the
planet was trying to keep their sensors from observing
the alien life-forms. If he could decipher the
design of the moving disruption fields, Spock
thought, he would have a major clue to how it was that this
ancient technology was more than a match for the best
the Federation could send against it.

The computer took two hours to determine the
equations for the shields that protected the
artifacts. As Spock studied the result,
making sure that this time they had gotten a real
answer to their question, he couldn't quite suppress a
flicker of satisfaction. The function was so
simple that it could only mean one thing--the
protection system had been designed strictly
as an internal security measure. Whatever the
race that had lived on this planet, it had been
alone.
He turned his attention to the sensor distortions
that had been giving Sulu so many problems. The first
two aliens had appeared without any disturbances,
but the Enterprise had not had probes stationed
nearby when Chekov and Talika vanished into the
artifact. When Kirk had led his
security team through the window, the area around Site
Nbled had been saturated with probes and remote
sensing equipment from the Enterprise. After the
artifact had destroyed their scanners, the jamming
fields appeared near the artifact, coincident
with the arrival of several more aliens. The disruption was
not total, and little effort seemed directed toward
hiding information they already knew, but the distortions had
prevented them from learning anything about the aliens.
Spock leaned back in his chair, his hands
steepled in front of him. It could hardly be an
accident that the Enterprise was missing six people and
that their best estimates showed six aliens on the
planet. The question was--had Kirk and the others
been transformed into these alien creatures, or had
the artifact exchanged them for captives it had
held in suspension for millennia? Spock
wasn't sure how to communicate with the aliens
once he met them, but clearly that was his next
step. It was impossible to collect any information
from the ship as long as the jamming fields remained
in operation. He turned toward the communications
station. "Lieutenant Uhura, notify Dr.
Kaul that we will be transporting down to site
Nbled at first light in that area. Please advise
him that among the personnel on the landing party I
wish to include his languages expert."
"Aye, sir."
Spock resumed his study of the site. Which of the
aliens should he contact? There were, of course,
no guarantees that his efforts would be successful.
However, it was the best option he could see on an
extremely short list of ideas. He would have
to search their sensor records carefully before
choosing which alien to approach.

Chapter Nine

Near sunset, Kirk's host drifted
to sleep, exhausted by the day's exertions. To his
surprise, even though he had been a passive
spectator on their strenuous trek, Kirk
felt the drowsiness overtaking him as well. His
last thought was that he must be more than a passenger
here. There must be a physiological link between the
alien's brain and his consciousness.
Later, although he was not sure how much time had
passed, he became aware of random images
drifting through his mind. Strange crablike beings
with translucent shells floated and
tumbled past the rock spire where he was sitting,
watching a string of tiny moonlets rise in the
east. At first he was content to observe the
creatures--they called themselves the Kh@fflict,
Kirk realized without knowing where he had gotten the
name--as they performed their aerial ballet for his
benefit. The intricate patterns of their
movements, carefully choreographed spirals and
starbursts and other shapes he couldn't name,
mesmerized him. He felt he could lose himself in
their strange dance for the rest of eternity.
It was only after many minutes, in dream time, that
he perceived that the inky black splotches on each
dancer's carapace were tiny antigravity units.
Once he spotted them, the devices stood out in
stark contrast to the rainbow hues of the Kh@fflict's
shells, and he wondered how he had missed them
before. Even in a dream, it was preposterous
to believe that a crab who weighed as much as a
full-grown human could fly on a world with nearly
Earth-normal gravity. These creatures must have
had a marvelous civilization, he thought, if they
could devote even a small portion of their
resources to such a beautiful art form.
As he watched the colors flicker over their
carapaces, he began to see patterns that
repeated themselves over and over. At first he thought the
color sequences were an embellishment on the
performance, with the changing hues complementing and enhancing
the beauty of the dance. However, the longer he
watched, the more he became convinced that the
Kh@fflict were singing. The color patterns and the
timing of the changes formed the basis of the
Kh@fflict language.
Suddenly Kirk felt himself floating upward,
his body drifting in lazy circles that brought him
closer and closer to the other Kh@fflict. Without a
conscious effort on his part, he slipped into the dance
as though he had been part of it all his life. In
the language of movement and color, the history
of his civilization unfolded around him--from the first
proto-Kh@fflict that emerged to conquer the land up
to the mighty builders who had ruled the known
universe.
The ancestral Kh@fflict had been
primitive creatures with few accomplishments and
fewer needs. From the simple spiral movements
and the neutral colors of the other dancers, Kirk
sensed the distaste that the Kh@fflict felt toward
their beginnings; these memories survived
in the Kh@fflict racial consciousness only because
Kh@fflict hatchlings passed through a similar
stage as they matured. As the history of the
Kh@fflict civilization unfolded, the dance
became more complicated, the dancers' colors
became brighter, and the tempo of the movements
increased, reflecting the development of a highly
complex and stratified society. To maintain the
unity of their civilization, caste rules,
language, and specialized motor skills were
permanently imprinted on the lower brains of the young
when they reached a certain size. For a brief
moment Kirk was hypnotized by the terror and awe
that each youth felt as his being was filled with the knowledge that
bound him to the totality of his people. Shaped by that
defining event, the unique elements of each
Kh@fflict personality emerged and were stored in the
higher brain.
The interwoven patterns of color and movement
carried Kirk into a universe where all things
flowed from the Kh@fflict totality. Stepping into the
artifact had transformed his body into that of a
Kh@fflict, the only intelligent race
imaginable to the device's programmers. At the
height of their civilization, the Kh@fflict had
lived on over a hundred worlds. Some planets
had been similar to the Kh@fflict homeworld, warm
and lush, filled with abundant food animals and
ripe for serving Kh@fflict needs. Other
planets had needed much work--exterminating
indigenous life-forms, reforming ecosystems, or
altering climates. The dance became a flashing,
swirling, twisting maelstrom recounting the
glorious conquests of the Kh@fflict people.
Sorting through the flood of information, Kirk
realized that he owed his survival as an
individual to the Kh@fflict's unique
bicameral brain. His human memories and knowledge were
stored, separate and isolated, in the higher
brain, while the lower brain contained the knowledge for
functioning in a Kh@fflict body and using
Kh@fflict technology. If he could access the
information in his lower brain, he might be able to use
the transit windows to return to his human form.
It was a hope, and Kirk grabbed for it with the
eagerness of a dying man reaching for a miracle
cure.
Under the force of his excitement, his dreamscape
fractured into a kaleidoscope of images that
whirled and gyrated around him. He
struggled to reassemble them into a coherent pattern,
but before he could gather the fragments together, he was
wrapped in a rising tide of mist and carried
away, smothered in soft gray wool.

In the morning everything seemed clearer, more
sharply defined. Kirk let his mind swim through the
remnants of his dreams, sifting and culling the
chaotic images for the truths beneath them. If he
could master the linkage between the Kh@fflict brains
and find a way to cross the mental barriers at
will, he could control his host body as he had in his
dream. Moreover, if his guess was correct,
his Kh@fflict persona was little more than a
housekeeping program for the creature's body.
Yesterday's journey proved that rudimentary
elements of personality and free will resided in the
lower brain, but most Kh@fflict believed those
functions belonged only to their higher brains. The
separation of instinct and intellect suggested that
Kirk's extended flight across Careta IV'S
grasslands was a response to something
preprogrammed into his host's lower brain.
That thought brought images of the Kh@fflict
justice system into Kirk's consciousness. For the
most serious crimes against the Kh@fflict
totality, offenders were transported to a deserted
location and hunted to death like animals by specially
trained squads of enforcers. Given the deep
understanding of crime and punishment imprinted on a
young Kh@fflict, Kirk decided it was almost
inevitable that his host would panic at its
unfamiliar surroundings. Deprived of direction
from the higher brain, the Kh@fflict mind had
followed instructions encoded into the memories of
its people two hundred thousand years ago.
With a start Kirk realized how many ways his
personality went against the Kh@fflict norm.
All Kh@fflict males were juveniles, and the
Kh@fflict matriarchs did not permit any
male who challenged their authority to survive.
The artifact would not contain an appropriate
template for a dominant male and had apparently
settled on the closest available model--a
convicted felon. It was an unsettling thought, but
it at least explained his circumstances.
His next step, Kirk decided, was to test his
new insights by convincing his host to return to the
transit frame. Although he still could not
recognize the signs of physical
discomfort in his new body, Kirk doubted that the
Kh@fflict had any greater tolerance for remaining
motionless for hours than humans did. That meant
his crablike body, which had been jammed into its
hiding place for almost eighteen hours, was long
overdue for some attention. He remembered seeing
a weak trickle of water in the creek bed they
had left to enter this narrow canyon. That would
solve the first of his worries, but he had no
idea what to do about food. Presumably his lower
brain knew what he should eat, but that didn't
mean he could find anything edible. His host's
reactions told Kirk that Careta IV had
changed so much that the computer that had created him no
longer carried information that fit the conditions on the
planet. From that alone Kirk knew the
Kh@fflict had died out a very long time ago.
Getting water would be the first test of whether he
could order the Kh@fflict body to do his bidding.
If survival skills had been programmed
into his lower brain, his host should have moved during the
night, letting the darkness protect him while he
got water, scouted for food, and made his
hideaway more secure. That the alien had not done
so told Kirk two things. First, his host was too
young to appreciate the benefits of surviving at
any cost and against all odds. Second, the
information preprogrammed into the Kh@fflict brains
did not include such basic tactical skills
as how to avoid surveillance and capture by one's
enemies.
As he thought about his body's needs, Kirk
became aware of a dry, chalky taste in his mouth.
A feeling of satisfaction swept through him. He
had been right, then, to assume that the Kh@fflict
lower brain mediated such activities without
intervention of the higher thought processes. His next
job was to take control from his host's instincts.
With the image of a refreshing drink of water
firmly in mind, Kirk tried to move from his
hiding hole. At first there was no response, and
he began to wonder if he could overrule the
deeply imprinted programming that constrained the
Kh@fflict lower brain. If a human had been
trapped so long, he would have raced for water at the
first opportunity. Kirk doubted that basic
physiology would ever change so much that a thirsty
creature would refuse a drink unless something was
suppressing its survival instincts.
On the other hand, perhaps he had been
here for so long that the body was unable to move.
Considering how much warmer Careta IV had been
when the Kh@fflict ruled the planet, perhaps his
host's physiology was unable to cope with the colder
temperatures. If that was the problem, if he had
been immobile for so long that his muscles had
locked in their present position from the cold, then
it would take extra work to escape from this rocky
trap.
Remembering what it felt like when his arm fell
asleep, Kirk shuddered at the idea of having
pins and needles in eight legs at the same time.
However, he could not let that keep him here until
his host's body died of starvation or dehydration.
Instead he returned to his experiment of the
previous afternoon, concentrating on bringing his pincers
together and slowly lifting an appendage to eye
level.
This time he got a response, although the faint
scritch of chitin-analog against rock as he
twitched one appendage was not what he had hoped
for. At that rate he would be there all day just trying
to unlock his joints and limber up his muscles.
He had envisioned a quick dash back to the
artifact, followed by five minutes to readjust
the equipment so that he would emerge from the window as
he had started--James T. Kirk, human.
Now, at the very least, his timetable would need serious
revisions.
Kirk threw himself into mastering his Kh@fflict
body, imposing his will on nerves and muscles
paralyzed by the long inactivity. Between fighting the
basic Kh@fflict physiology, which was so ill
adapted to Careta IV'S present climate,
and wrestling with his ignorance of how to control the
alien body, his progress was slow. It seemed
a hopeless task to break down the barriers between his
consciousness and the Kh@fflict mind that shared the body
with him. After fifteen minutes he could still move
only one set of pincers or bend one joint, and
he was beginning to fear he was trapped. He kept
trying, knowing it was the only way he could escape,
and finally his perseverance was rewarded. Extending one
of his legs beyond the edge of the rock slab, he
drew half a circle in the air, flexing and
bending every joint through its full range of motion.
Progress came more quickly after that.
Apparently his muscles needed to reach a
critical internal temperature before they would
work, one more proof that the Kh@fflict had
evolved in a much warmer climate. Once he
could move one appendage, he loosened the others
up quickly. With relief Kirk dragged his
Kh@fflict body from beneath the slab of rock and
struggled to stand. His legs felt wobbly and
uncertain, reminding him of a colt he had seen
on his grandmother's farm when he was a boy.
I wonder if this is what that horse felt
like? he thought as he took his first step. Only the
fact that he had moved just two of his eight legs
kept him from falling on his face. Why was he so
shaky? Hunger? Thirst? The aftereffects of the
long night? Whatever the cause, he couldn't
wait for someone to rescue him. Presumably
Spock would be looking for Kirk and the security
men who had been with him, but the Vulcan would not be
expecting to find his captain in Kirk's present
condition. The alien life-forms would attract
attention from the Enterprise's search teams, but the
crew wouldn't know who they were. They would
probably assume they were an indigenous
species not detected in their initial survey
of the planet. It was up to Kirk to locate the
search party and tell them what had happened.
He tried to walk again, going slowly and checking
his balance with every stride. Again, as with his initial
efforts to move, there seemed to be a critical
point that he had to reach. In this case, he
decided as he struggled over an unstable cone of
loose rock, the difficulty was establishing
control over the Kh@fflict body. Yesterday's
flight, directed by his lower brain, had
occurred without any input or intervention from his
conscious mind. Now, however, Kirk was trying
to command the alien body against its instincts, and that
required breaking through two sets of mental
barriers to establish links between the Kh@fflict's
upper and lower brains that had not been present before.
He was, in essence, training this body to do things
no Kh@fflict had ever dreamed of doing.
By the time he reached the mouth of the narrow canyon,
Kirk felt reasonably confident of his ability
to manage the Kh@fflict body. He was not up
to fighting off a pack of Careta's master
predators, whatever they had been, nor was he
sure he could negotiate the steeply broken
country that his host had clambered over yesterday.
However, if he stuck with cross-country hiking and
returned to the artifact as quickly as possible, he
knew he could manage.
The stream was muddy and unappealing, but Kirk
decided he didn't have much choice for available
drinking water. Before he could act on the thought, his
lower brain took over, bending his knees until
his jaws were resting below the water. The water was
tepid and bitter from dissolved minerals, but his
sediment filters removed most of the suspended
grit and clay. He allowed his body to drink
until it could hold no more water.
Next he needed to get back to the artifact.
Kirk looked around, assessing the canyon for
routes to the uplands above. In his human form he
might have been able to scale the steep, crumbling
rock faces, although any experienced climber
knew that it was foolhardy to risk your life on
such unreliable surfaces unless your
alternative was certain death. Trying it now, in
an alien body over which he held only tenuous
control, seemed uncomfortably close
to suicide.
Reluctantly he started downstream, away from
his goal. Somewhere the canyon walls would flatten
out, and he could climb up onto the surrounding
hills. As he searched for a way out of the canyon,
he could feel the tension building in his lower brain.
The Kh@fflict programming was still functioning, and
his lower brain believed the enforcers would spring up from
behind every boulder.
As he moved along, searching for a route out of the
canyon, Kirk considered what he had learned
about the Kh@fflict and their technology. He could
not risk any more of his crew on this planet, he
concluded. They had no way to recognize how
dangerous a Kh@fflict artifact might be
until someone fell victim to the alien
technology. As soon as he was changed back
into his human form, the Enterprise was leaving
Careta IV. It went against his usual desire
to learn everything possible despite the risks.
However, he felt a growing uneasiness about
remaining here, and although he could not put his reasoning
into words, he knew his conclusions were based on
information he had learned from his Kh@fflict host.
Kirk was still debating his decision to leave
Careta when he reached a break in the canyon
walls. A huge section of the cliff face had
slumped into the canyon, forming a hummocky mound
of rubble. Three smaller landslides disfigured
the scar left by the primary slump; one of them was
large enough to make a ramp that led almost to the
rim of the canyon. Kirk clambered up the
landslide, eager to escape to the freedom of the
hilltops. The climb was easy going until he
reached the canyon wall.
The Kh@fflict form had not been designed for
rock climbing, Kirk thought as he surveyed the
last ten meters of cliff that separated him from his
goal. The jointed and fissured rock offered
dozens of hand- and footholds. In his human form
he would have been over the top in less than a
minute, but he had no idea how to clench his
pincers inside a crack to anchor himself while
climbing that vertical rock face. The smooth,
inflexible shell covering his digits more than
offset any advantage he might have gained from the
extra limbs.
Still, there had to be a way to make the climb, and
Kirk settled down to find it. In over an hour
of walking, this was the first place where he had had the
slightest chance of escaping the canyon, and it
looked like it might be a lot longer before he found
another place. He had no idea how far his
host had come after descending into the canyon
yesterday, but Kirk's impression was that he had a
long way to go before he reached that spot. He could
easily waste a lot of precious time exploring
dead-end escape routes from this canyon.
Spurred on by that thought, Kirk picked the most
promising spot and wedged his pincer into a crack.

Chapter Ten

A sharp wind was blowing out of the east as the
Enterprise's landing party materialized on the
hill at Site Nbled. Spock moved away from
the beam-down point and began scanning the area. The
security men fanned out, searching for clues that the
remote sensors had missed. The hum of the
transporter signaled the arrival of the science
personnel from the Enterprise's crew and from
Kaul's archaeology team. The scientists
began examining the artifact and the area around it
immediately.
Signaling to a security guard to accompany
him, Spock started downhill along a band of
flattened grass. His night's work--analyzing the
sensor data to confirm the presence of six aliens
in the area--had turned up no definitive
information about the crablike creatures or where they
had come from. Even if he assumed that the
artifacts had transformed the missing people into the
image of their creators, he had found nothing
to tell him which of the creatures was Kirk. In the
end, Spock had decided to contact the
individual closest to the artifact to learn if
he could communicate with the aliens. After that he would
attempt to contact the being who was hiding in the
canyonlands to the northwest of the artifact in the
hope that it was Kirk. Although the justification for this
decision--that the captain would react differently
than the rest of the crew--was weak, he had not
found a better reason for choosing which alien
to contact.
He started off, swinging his tricorder in wide
sweeps to record his surroundings. One of the
aliens was over the first hill, moving in slow,
random zigzags that had kept it in the vicinity of the
artifact. Spock and the guard with him approached
the alien cautiously, giving it plenty of time
to see them coming. At first it gave no indication that
it saw them. Instead it continued to amble along as
though it were the only living thing on the planet.
"Fascinating," Spock murmured, watching
how the alien's eyes rotated on their stalks.
"It appears to be looking past us as though we are
not here."
"But it's looking straight at us," the guard
replied. "Each eye is sweeping out a
180-degree arc, with overlap in the center
to allow stereoscopic vision."
"That is correct." If his deductions about the
aliens were correct, the human inside this body
should be doing everything to attract his attention by now.
This apparent indifference was not natural.
"Ensign, cover me while I move in
closer."
"Yes, Mr. Spock."
The guard trained his phaser on the alien while
Spock moved beside it. Even this failed
to produce a response until he stepped
directly into the creature's path. Then,
inexplicably, it froze, its limbs locking
beneath it. Spock prodded its carapace and scanned
it with his tricorder, but the alien remained
motionless. Finally Spock reached for his
communicator. "Spock to Enterprise. Lock
on to the alien who is at these coordinates and
beam it aboard."
He stepped back from the alien, and the
transporter effect coalesced around
it, dissolving the creature into golden sparkles.
Spock waited for the ship to request additional
instructions, but his communicator remained silent.
A human would have been demanding answers, he
knew, using the comparison to keep his curiosity
at bay. Finally the instrument chirped to life.
"Mr. Spock, we had a wee problem with that
beastie you had us transport up. It went
berserk the moment the transporter released it, and
it cut up Mr. Kyle fair bad before we could
hit it with our phasers."
"I presume Dr. McCoy will be able to tend
to Mr. Kyle's injuries. What is the status
of the alien?"
"Aye, the doctor will be having no problem with a
few scrapes and gouges, Mr. Spock. But the
critter dinna take too kindly to our phasers.
It's dead, sir."
"Mr. Scott, your phasers should have been on
stun setting." The alien's death, and its reaction
to being transported, meant they would have to proceed with
even greater caution than he had originally
assumed. "We were hoping to study that alien alive
in order to learn how to communicate with it."
An exasperated sigh came through his
communicator. "The weapons were on stun
setting, Mr. Spock. Unfortunately, we
failed to "communicate" what that meant to our
"guest.""
"I see." Stun setting should not have been
lethal to any being the size of the one they had beamed
to the Enterprise. Why was the alien dead? He
had better hope that his original deduction--that this
alien was not the captain--was correct. By any
reasonable set of assumptions, the creature should
not be dead. "Have Dr. McCoy perform an
autopsy on the alien as soon as possible.
Perhaps he will find some clue that will tell us what
happened."
"Aye, sir. Enterprise out."
Spock returned his communicator to his
belt and started across the hillside to l ook for
clues. The grass whispered and rustled beneath his
boots. Although the vegetation ranged through the light
and medium tones of grayish-green, it seemed
dry and unhealthy, as though it found this cold and
empty planet as hostile as the Enterprise's
crew had.
Spock shook his head, wondering where that thought
had come from. True, the star in this solar
system had been fading for millennia; such things were
inevitable, and it was illogical to ascribe any
emotional value to the event. Besides, the death of a
star like the one in the Caretian system was a slow
process, and the native plants and animals had
had plenty of time to evolve with the changing
climate.
Halfway around the hill, the display on
Spock's tricorder began flashing random
patterns. He adjusted the controls, trying
to isolate the source of the disruption. Instead the
display flickered more violently. Spock moved
off the swath of flattened grass and continued
to scan the area. The disturbance built, spreading
until the air seemed to vibrate around him. A
sound like the buzzing of a swarm of angry hornets
enveloped him, starting softly and crescendoing to a
deafening tumult. He pressed his hands over his
ears to block out the noise, but it grew louder.
The air turned massive and viscous with the weight
of the sound, and Spock had to fight to drag the thick
air into his lungs. Each step required a
superhuman effort, as though his feet were encased in
lead. Then suddenly the world tilted, and the ground
rushed upward to meet his face.

Spock stirred and opened one eye
cautiously. McCoy's face swam
into focus, with color and detail spreading outward
from his nose to encompass the worried look in his
blue eyes and the concerned frown that wrinkled his
forehead. With an effort Spock forced his other
eyelid open. The soft humming and chirping of the
medical diagnostic equipment told him he was
in sickbay. He rolled onto his side and
tried to sit up.
McCoy pushed him back onto the bed. "Not
so fast, Spock. You fainted down there, and I'm
going to know why before I let you out of that bed."
This time, knowing the move McCoy would use
to restrain him, Spock ducked under the doctor's
arm and sat up. The room was quiet and normal,
with only the expected equipment noises in the
background. No intrusive buzzing threatened
to overwhelm him. Whatever had happened on the
planet had been deliberate, an attack
aimed at preventing him from investigating the
artifact and the mysterious aliens. "I presume
your instruments tell you that there is nothing wrong with
me."
"Yes, dammit! You fall on your face
down there, and this blasted equipment pretends that
everything is normal." McCoy directed a
poisonous glare at the diagnostics panel.
"As if anything is normal about your mixed-up
physiology."
"Your concern is noted, Doctor." Spock
pushed himself to his feet, checking for any
residual effects of the attack. He felt
somewhat light-headed, as though an intruder in the
back of his mind was waiting to attack again the moment
he returned to the planet. Closing his eyes,
he concentrated on the sensation, isolated it, and
built a wall around it. Next time he would not
underestimate the artifact's ability to bring
novel weapons to bear against the Enterprise's
crew. "However, there is no need for you to exert
yourself further on my behalf."
"Just what is that supposed to mean?" McCoy
scowled, annoyed that Spock's Vulcan
demeanor had never wavered. "I thought that you said that
Vulcans never faint."
For a moment Spock stared at the doctor, one
eyebrow raised. McCoy, who refused to learn
the operating instructions for the newest equipment
Starfleet issued him, could remember the most
trivial facts when they served to score him
points in an argument. When he saw that the
doctor was winding up for a scathing denunciation of
Vulcan inconsistencies and self-deception,
Spock replied, "You are correct,
Doctor. Vulcans never faint. Fainting is
a human response to strong emotional stimuli.
However, Vulcans can be rendered unconscious
by virulent disease organisms or by the exercise
of external agencies."
"Why, you pointy-eared--" McCoy stopped,
blinking rapidly. His forehead wrinkled with a
puzzled frown. "What did you say? What do you
call that total collapse you experienced down
on the planet?"
"I was rendered unconscious by the efforts of an
external agency." Spock started for the door,
knowing that McCoy would follow, if only
to satisfy his curiosity. The door whisked
open, and Spock started for the turbolift.
McCoy fell into step beside him. "Would you care
to translate that into plain English, Spock?"
The turbolift door opened, and Spock
stepped inside. "Bridge."
"Spock!" McCoy's tone was sharp with
exasperation. "As your doctor, I want an
explanation. Otherwise I'm declaring you unfit for
duty until you submit to a complete
physical."
Spock heaved a sigh. "Very well,
Doctor. Something attacked me. It started as a
faint buzzing noise, and the sound grew louder
until it was a tangible force beating against me."
"No one else reported any such
attacks." McCoy glared at the Vulcan,
daring him to stick to his story. "Why should you be the
only one affected?"
"That, Doctor, is a very good question." Spock
subjected McCoy to his most impassive
stare, noticing the doctor's astonishment at the
implied compliment. "I will entertain suggestions for
determining the solution to that problem, since it may
be a critical issue in discovering how the
artifact functions. Perhaps Vulcans are more
susceptible to its attacks than humans, or
other factors may be at work. To date we have
been unable to obtain any meaningful information on this
technology, nor have we ascertained anything of
importance about the beings who created it."
McCoy faced Spock, his expression
incredulous. "And you're asking my help in
solving this mystery?"
"At this point, Doctor, I would welcome
any assistance, no matter how unlikely the
source. We must learn what has happened to the
captain and effect a rescue. We are at a
singular disadvantage until we can discover how
to operate the alien devices. I presume your
autopsy results will give us some fascinating
data to work with."
"No doubt they will, Spock, when I've
gotten back the results of the lab tests."
McCoy bounced on his toes, his chin thrust out
at a truculent angle. "But as you well know,
these things take a certain amount of time, no
matter who needs the answers."
"I am all too aware of that, Doctor."
The turbolift door opened, sparing him the need
for further reply. Spock headed for the science
station. Behind him the turbolift doors whished shut
on McCoy's request to return to sickbay.
Sulu, in the command chair, started to rise, but
Spock signaled for him to remain seated. "As you
were, Mr. Sulu. Status
report."
"No change since you were beamed aboard, Mr.
Spock. Our security people have combed the area
looking for clues to what attacked you. Three people
reported momentary distortions in their tricorder
readings, but the effect didn't last long enough for us
to isolate it. Of the remaining aliens on the
planet, four are approximately where they have
been for the last twelve hours. The alien that was
hiding in the canyonlands is moving, but we don't
know why."
"Continue monitoring the aliens, Mr.
Sulu. I shall analyze the tricorder and sensor
readings to determine what I can about the force that
attacked me." He slid into his chair,
letting the familiar contours support his body.
The sensation was so familiar, so expected, that for a
moment he forgot the import of the last day's
events. Solving the alien technology was a
puzzle, an intellectual challenge of the type
at which he excelled.
When Spock began reviewing the scanner
data, the problem lost its abstract beauty and
became again a matter of personal urgency.
What had he been about to discover that had triggered the
attack against him? How had he been isolated and
rendered unconscious without the attack affecting the
security guard with him? And, last but not least,
what had happened to the captain? He knew the
answers had to be hidden in the mass of data they
had collected, but the noise-to-signal ratio
was so high that they had not been able to glean any
worthwhile clues from their sensor readings. What
new techniques could they use to see through the
distortions?

Three hours and countless dead ends later,
Spock wondered what they had missed. The
sensor logs contained more information than he needed,
but he could not reduce the data to anything useful.
Solving the randomizer function for the transportation
windows' shields should have let him penetrate the
secrets of the alien technology, but instead his
results were showing another layer of security
measures that surrounded the internal mechanisms
of the alien machinery. It was as if something was
predicting his next move and scrambling the data
to make his analysis worthless. Two days ago
he would have dismissed that idea as irrational.
However, after spending so many hours in
fruitless research, Spock began wondering if
the artifacts' defensive system changed its
tactics according to its predictions of how someone would
analyze the data. Such a system would require
a pulsed scrambler beam to keep jumbling the
data. The effort Spock had put into unraveling
this problem implied that the aliens had used
extremely sophisticated security measures.
He ordered the computer to analyze how such a
defensive system would operate.
"Mr. Spock, look at this!" Excitement
sharpened Sulu's tone. Faces turned toward the
main viewscreen, which showed the wavering shape of a
crablike creature attempting to scale the
ten-meter scarp at the top of a landslide.
Silence gripped the bridge, broken only by the
chirps and whispered reports of various
monitors.
The crablike body was not suited for climbing,
yet the creature chose its handholds with a caution
that spoke of much practice. Could it be Captain
Kirk? Spock thought, remembering how many times
the captain had asked him to go rock climbing.
Spock had always refused, citing the press of
work or professional commitments as reasons not
to go. In truth, he could see no value to the
sport. Humans had an inordinate need to pit
themselves against every hazard the universe offered them, and
they seemed to get a thrill out of the danger.
Spock found neither motivation compelling, nor could
he find much to interest him when he observed from a
safe distance. However, watching the crablike being
attempt to scale a cliff that it was in no way
equipped to climb convinced Spock that Kirk was
trapped inside the body of that alien.
"Mr. Sulu, I will need a squad of
security men in fifteen minutes. We are
beaming down to contact that alien at our earliest
opportunity." He started to turn away, then
realized he was overlooking the obvious--if he
wanted to contact the alien, the most important
member of his landing team was Dr. Kaul's
language expert. "Also give our regards
to Dr. Kaul and request the assistance of
Nadia Hernandez. If we are going to talk to that
alien, let us hope that she can translate what
it says for us."
"Yes, sir."

McCoy marched onto the bridge and
slapped a data tape onto Spock's
console. "Preliminary autopsy report, just in
case you're planning to rush back to that planet
any time soon."
"Thank you, Doctor." Spock dropped the
tape in a slot, hoping it would explain these
creatures for him. He could have skimmed through the
material faster on his own, but McCoy seemed
determined to add a verbal commentary.
"Visually they look like giant king crabs,
even though they're missing one set of legs.
Also, the external ornamentation is completely
different from anything that ever developed on Earth,
and the claw structures are a strange mixture
of delicate manipulator, walking surface,
and lethal weapon." McCoy's shrug was
eloquent with frustration. "For that matter, the
skeletal structures and the ligament attachments
in the limbs are unique to these creatures."
"I had noticed those particular differences,
Doctor. The skeletal bracing and the tendon
linkages give these creatures considerable striking
power in their limbs." Spock slowed that section
of the tape, confirming that the heavy exoskeleton
on the limbs, ornamented in places with
triangular spikes, had evolved as a fighting
weapon.
"And did you notice that feeding nozzle,
Spock? I don't think these boys had
particularly elegant table manners."
"You may be right, Doctor." The creature
had three triangular teeth that could have severed the
spinal cord of a small animal or broken the
carapace of an Earth-normal crab. However,
instead of grinding or shearing teeth to break up its
prey, the creature had a long, retractile
proboscis with a serrated edge for piercing its
victim's flesh.
"You could get a hell of a mosquito bite from
that creature." Shaking his head, McCoy left
Spock to examine the rest of the report.

By the time the landing party was assembled, the
crablike being had almost reached the top of the
cliff. Spock took one last look at the
viewscreen and ordered his team to beam down out of
sight near the top of the cliff. After their
results with the alien they had beamed aboard the
Enterprise, Spock was taking no chances.
Even if Kirk was inside the
creature's body, he would not expect a group
from the Enterprise to greet him as he crawled the
last centimeters over the lip of the canyon. It
would be far better to remain hidden until he was
clear of the unstable rim.
Spock and five security guards
materialized about thirty meters downslope from
where the alien would crest the cliff. The vegetation
was sparse and dry, mostly ragged clumps of
grass that rattled in the breeze. Even this
close to midday, the air was cold, and Spock
knew he would not be able to keep his people stationary for
long. The wind brought the chill factor down
to dangerous levels. Although their protective
clothing helped, the humans needed to move around
to generate enough body heat to prevent hypothermia.
The hum of the transporter told Spock that
Hernandez and five more security men had
materialized behind them. He signaled to them to fan
out and crouch behind any convenient tuft of grass.
Logic suggested that if Kirk controlled the
crablike being, he would head uphill, away from
their current position. However, Spock wanted
the landing party to be as inconspicuous as possible,
in case his assumptions were wrong.
Even after McCoy's autopsy report and
after studying the probe records for hours,
Spock found the first sight of the alien unsettling,
like a dull toothache that did not seem to belong
to any one tooth. Except for its size, the
alien resembled a king crab, with an outsized
body perched on top of long, stout, segmented
legs. The carapace was translucent but blotched
with purples and blues that shifted from moment
to moment. The eyes were similar to human eyes, with
central pupils surrounded by magenta irises,
but they were mounted on stalks that allowed them
to swivel independently. The terminal claws on
each leg were closed into footlike units for
walking, but the individual digits were capable of
surprisingly delicate manipulation. Spock
allowed himself a moment's admiration at the elegance
and efficiency of the anatomical design.
The creature pulled itself over the edge of the
cliff and staggered to its feet. For a moment it just
looked around, its color shifting to a deeper, more
uniform blue. It pivoted its body back and
forth, as if scouting out the terrain, but did not
notice the Enterprise's landing party. Its
examination finished, it turned away from the
humans and started uphill, moving at a
deliberate pace.
Spock extrapolated its heading. Unless he
completely misjudged the alien's intentions, it was
headed toward the artifact. He stood and followed
the alien, gauging his speed to allow himself
to overtake it slowly. The rest of the landing party
spread across the hillside and followed him at a
cautious distance. Spock was certain that the
creature's eight-legged locomotion could attain
far greater speeds than he was capable of reaching,
if the alien desired. However, if his deductions
were correct, Spock expected the alien to stop
when it realized it was being followed.
Five minutes later it was clear that he had
missed a critical factor in his analysis.
Although he had partially closed the gap, the alien
had increased its speed and showed no sign it had
noticed him. Behind him Spock heard several of the
security men struggling to breathe in the oxygen-poor
air. Spock could continue the chase for several
hours, although long exposure to the Earth-normal
environment on the Enterprise had lessened his
tolerance for such conditions. However, he did not
wish to confront the alien alone, without the support
of his security men. He hoped that their
tricorders would record vital information about the
meeting, but especially after the violent reaction
of the creature they had beamed aboard the
Enterprise, he wanted their phasers for
safety. The creature might decide he was a
gourmet meal.
Spock stopped to let the others join him.
While he waited he pulled out his
communicator. "Spock to Enterprise.
Twelve to beam up, with the first contingent returning
to the planet immediately. We wish to materialize
one hundred meters uphill of the alien in a
location where he cannot miss us."
"Aye, sir," came the reply. Spock
selected four guards and Hernandez to accompany
him. This had better work, he thought as the
transporter beam formed around him. Because if it
didn't, he did not know what his next course of
action would be.


Chapter Eleven

Kirk dragged his Kh@fflict body over the
top of the cliff. How he had made the last
meter and a half, he wasn't sure, but somehow the
tenuous claw holds had held his weight.
Twice he had been positive that the rock was
too weak, that it would crumble away from his outspread
pincers before he could anchor himself in a more stable
fissure. However, his luck had held, and he
pushed himself over the rim even as he heard the
rock fragments from his lowest claw hold
cascading downward and bouncing off the rubble at the
foot of the cliff.
He gave himself a moment to collect his wits
after the climb. The Kh@fflict lower brain, he
sensed, was almost incapacitated from terror at what
he had forced his body to do. When he had started the
climb, the concept of scaling a vertical rock
wall had been so alien to the Kh@fflict
mind-set that Kirk had negotiated the first meter
or so before his lower brain had realized what he was
doing. By then innate caution and the need for
survival had forced the lower brain to leave Kirk
in control, even though the Kh@fflict's inborn
instincts screamed against the unnatural act
Kirk was forcing his body to perform.
Dragging himself away from the treacherous rim,
Kirk stumbled to his feet. His legs were
dangerously unsteady, partly from the stress of the
climb, an activity for which the Kh@fflict form was
singularly unsuited, and partly from the
physiological response of forcing the
Kh@fflict lower brain inffconflict with its own
programming. The best thing for this internal warfare,
Kirk decided, was to keep his body moving,
to use the familiar patterns of walking and scouting
his surroundings to subdue the conflict between his human
memories and consciousness and his alien
physiology and instincts.
He checked the area for signs that the enforcers had
been there. Enforcers? After a moment's confusion,
Kirk realized the Kh@fflict had originated that
thought. His host was still convinced that his society's
equivalent of the Gestapo was after him. The slope
below him was dotted with scraggly clumps of grass
and misshapen, odd-colored boulders, but there was
nothing that could hide a Kh@fflict large
enough to hurt him. With a feeling of profound relief,
he turned uphill and set out at a measured
pace.
After a few minutes, as his host's brain
decided that no enforcers--or any other
Kh@fflict--were in the area, it began to relax
and to move his legs with greater coordination.
To Kirk's relief, he doubled his speed, although
he was heading uphill. The faster he could
travel, the sooner he would reach the artifact and
could return to his normal form.
When the bipedal creatures appeared
directly before him, the Kh@fflict brain seized
with terror. His limbs froze in midstride, and
momentum carried his body forward, pitching him
ignominiously to the ground at Spock's feet.
Mortified at this betrayal, Kirk struggled
to reassert control over his body. It was like trying
to unravel a pile of wet spaghetti. His
appendages had snarled together, and his attempts
to regain his feet produced random tremors that
did nothing to improve the situation.
"Fascinating," Spock said, studying his
tricorder readings with the familiar cocked
eyebrow. "This creature's physiology shows it
to be totally unrelated to any known species in
the galaxy."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Spock?"
Hernandez stepped forward with a second tricorder.
"Dr. McCoy's autopsy showed the
bioparameters were similar to the dominant forms in
the Selevai system."
"That's an interesting suggestion, Dr.
Hernandez." Spock changed his tricorder
settings. "We should consider the possibility that
these creatures evolved in that sector, although the
readings I am getting now clearly show this group
of life-forms to have developed along independent
lines for the last several hundred thousand years.
If our estimations of the age of these ruins are
correct, it is conceivable that they diverged far enough
in the past to account for the large genetic
discrepancies."
Hernandez nodded. "That would be consistent with our
other findings. It's also probable that the groups who
migrated from the home planet underwent genetic
manipulation to survive the natural dangers of
their new homes."
"I will analyze that hypothesis when we
return to the ship. For the moment we must
concern ourselves with why this creature is here now when
our earlier scans of the planet revealed no
large indigenous life-forms." Spock circled
around Kirk, his tricorder clicking and whirring.
Kirk struggled to regain his feet but discovered
that his Kh@fflict brain had retreated from the
reality facing it. His coordination, his motor
functions--in fact, every physical action that
might come under conscious direction from one of his
brains--had been completely shut off. Struggling
to remain calm, Kirk tried to tap into his
Kh@fflict awareness to discover the cause of this
sudden catatonia.
At first the random images and chaotic swirls
of color that surged through his mind reminded him of the
Kelv@as, the abstract art of Denaya 4. The
rigid and stylized patterns of the Kelv@as
required a detailed knowledge of Denaya's culture
and history in order to interpret the multiple
layers of symbols incorporated in each
design. And as if that wasn't enough, different
combinations of symbols or different colors used
together changed the meaning of the basic pattern. On
his first visit to the planet, Kirk had tried
to learn enough to avoid offending his hosts, but despite
his best efforts, he had never been able to remember
more than a few of the basic modulations.
Now, to his horror, he realized that the bright
abstract images filling his mind represented the
Kh@fflict language. Somehow, if he was
to interpret the store of information encoded in his
host's brain, he would have to learn the distinctions between
the varying shades and patterns. Humans
processed massive amounts of visual information
in their daily lives, but Kirk didn't think it
was an accident that their most basic communications
came through sound rather than from vision. Vision could be
fooled so many ways, by changing light intensity or
wavelength, that a language based on color and
shape seemed doomed from the start. Still, if his
impressions were correct, that was exactly what the
Kh@fflict had had.
He relaxed and let the patterns flow through his
mind, trying to follow the emotions that accompanied
them. At first fear and confusion excluded everything
else. The appearance of the Enterprise's landing
party had deeply disturbed the alien. As the thoughts
repeated themselves, Kirk deciphered the gist of how
the crablike aliens viewed the world.
The Kh@fflict had evolved many grand
cycles of eights ago, when Careta IV was a
far different world. They considered themselves the
pinnacle of life, the goal toward which the
universe had been striving since its hatching. As
they developed space flight and moved outward from
their homeworld, their discoveries confirmed their belief
in their superiority and uniqueness. Many planets
in the sector had evolved life, but nowhere did
the Kh@fflict recognize organisms with even
incipient intelligence. Any beings that interfered with
their expansion or contradicted their worldview were
thoroughly and ruthlessly exterminated. Kirk
tried to examine that last thought in more detail, but the
uncontrolled flood of Kh@fflict history from
his lower brain swept it aside. The further the
Kh@fflict explored, the more firmly they came
to believe in their natural right to dominate all
they encountered. That they were the only intelligent
race that had ever evolved--or that ever would
evolve--became the foundation of their collective
view of the universe.
Kirk allowed himself a moment's amusement as
he imagined what Spock's appearance would have
done to a Kh@fflict in its full minds. As it
was, his host had been thrown into panic by the
appearance of a lower life-form that controlled
technological devices. Worse, the design
of Spock's equipment implied a
non-Kh@fflict origin. Following that thought to its
logical conclusion forced Kirk's host into an
untenable position It must either reject what it
saw or deny the racial wisdom of its people.
Briefly Kirk felt sorry for the
Kh@fflict, even though the body he occupied was
an artificial construct produced by the aliens'
matter transport system. The artifact had
reproduced the instincts and the racial memories
of a genuine Kh@fflict so well that it was hard not
to think of his host as an authentic member of that
long-dead race. With a surge of horror, he
realized the implications of that thought.
The Kh@fflict mind-set was so fiercely
xenophobic that Kirk could barely comprehend the
intensity of its faith. Even the most unreasonable
beings the Federation had encountered conceded the
possibility of other intelligent races, although
a few granted outsiders no more credit than
humans awarded their dogs. To deny that other
intelligent beings could exist, even when staring one
in the face, went beyond the most outrageous
limits ever conjectured by anyone in the Federation.
If Kirk had needed proof, this one fact was
sufficient to tell him how isolated--and how
fanatically closed-minded--the Kh@fflict had
been.
That knowledge, however, did nothing to solve his current
problem. He had been trying to return to the
artifact to contact Spock, and miraculously,
Spock had found him. Unfortunately, his
Kh@fflict body, with its preprogrammed
assumptions of how the universe worked, was not
willing to let him communicate with the Vulcan.
How could he catch Spock's attention before he
decided that he had learned enough about the new
life-form confronting him? How had the Kh@fflict
communicated with each other? And how could he convince
the Kh@fflict lower brain that the Enterprise's
crew was his own kind and that he needed to talk to them?
Kirk felt inspiration strike. Fighting
to contain his growing sense of urgency, he
concentrated on the thought that Spock was one of his
own. Hot, angry zigzags of red and black--
powerful symbols of rejection and denial--surged
through his brain. The Kh@fflict lower brain would not
yield its prejudices so quickly.
"Fascinating!" Spock said, his eyebrow
rising higher. "The colors and patterns on the
carapace are changing with a rapidity that suggests this
is a normal function of these creatures.
However, there are only a limited number of
uses in nature for such ostentatious displays."
He ran his tricorder over Kirk's shell,
with the sensors only a few millimeters above the
surface.
Communication! Kirk thought with all the intensity
he could muster. With a mind meld Spock could read
his mind, but he would not necessarily be looking for
his captain inside the crablike alien. Also,
Kirk was not sure if the physiology of the
Kh@fflict brain permitted telepathic
transmission. It didn't seem like a safe
bet, and even if Spock had deduced what had
happened, the Vulcan would begin to doubt his
reasoning if he failed to make contact soon.
Kirk had to establish communications quickly.
He concentrated on talking to Spock and
explaining to him who and what the Kh@fflict were.
A soothing pattern of interwoven blues and
greens washed across his vision. The Kh@fflict word
for "communication"? Kirk wondered.
Even if it was and even if his carapace was
transmitting the same motif, he had no way
to translate that particular combination of shape and
color for Spock. He was only guessing at the
meanings himself, based on his dominant thoughts when
each shapestcolor cluster appeared in his mind.
With another Kh@fflict or another human in a
Kh@fflict body, he might be able
to communicate, but without a partner who shared his
understanding of the language, he could not hope
to exchange enough information to solve his problem.
Adapting the Kh@fflict language so he could
contact Spock was impossible. The Kh@fflict
system of projecting shapes and colors on their
translucent shells and the deep-seated imprinting
of their language on their lower brains defeated his
desire to write English letters on his shell for
Spock to read. He needed a different
approach.
Kirk took inventory of the Kh@fflict's
physical limitations. Surprised that he had not
noticed sooner, he realized that he had no
vocal apparatus and could not produce any sounds
whatsoever. The Kh@fflict had modified their
visual language of color and form by clicking
their claws in rigidly formalized patterns. It
wasn't much, but it was worth a try.
Kirk tried to lift his foreleg, but nothing
happened. A flare of brilliant white, as
hot as his anger when he realized the totality of
his failure, washed across Kirk's vision. The
instinctual programming of his body would not allow
him to do anything that ran counter to the Kh@fflict's
hard-wired directives. At the moment his body
was frozen by the catatonia that had seized the
Kh@fflict when the landing party first appeared, and his
host was trying very hard to reject Spock as a
hallucination. How could he make the alien's
instincts work for him rather than fighting every attempt
to contact his crew?
"Most creatures with such conspicuous displays
use them to enhance their desirability to potential
mates," Hernandez was saying. "The shifting
color patterns are usually a form of sexual
display, although I am at a loss to see how that
works for our current subject."
"An interesting hypothesis, Dr. Hernandez.
However, I would recommend that you speculate
less freely on matters of motivation until
we have determined the basic physiology
of these creatures." Spock ran his tricorder
over Kirk's head and throat, concentrating on the
areas where the vocal apparatus was found in most
creatures.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Spock?"
Hernandez was a small woman with an
aggressive, determined manner, but at the moment
a nervous frown wrinkled her forehead.
Spock looked up from his tricorder screen.
A sharp gust of wind ruffled his bangs before moving
on to other mischief. "I presume that your
tricorder reports no evidence of any vocal
apparatus capable of reproducing a spoken
language."
"Yes, but Dr. McCoy's autopsy
report implied that we were dealing with an
individual abnormality in the alien he
autopsied." After a moment's delay, the light
dawned for her. "You mean none of these creatures
has the capability of producing a spoken
language?"
"That covers the facts we have observed so far,
Doctor. Have you discovered any relevant
information that we have omitted from our analysis?"
Spock circled Kirk, studying the Kh@fflict
anatomy.
A sense of relief, which washed his mind with a
soft apricot haze, swept through Kirk.
Spock had deduced how the Kh@fflict
communications system worked. That meant he had
only to manipulate the alien's physiology
long enough to tell Spock what had happened to him.
With the colors and patterns being controlled by the
Kh@fflict lower brain, his prospects of
bypassing the programmed responses seemed
remote.
Suddenly he knew what to do. If his lower
brain projected designs on his carapace in
response to his thoughts, he could alternate between
two contrasting ideas to produce a message in
old-style Morse code. The question was, did
he remember the signals well enough to get
Spock's attention on the first try? If he
didn't, he wasn't sure he would have a
second chance. Unless he got past the
obstructions created by the Kh@fflict programming
soon, Spock would return to the artifact to work
on the puzzle from that end.
Kirk tried to remember the games he had
played with his brother when they were children. One
vacation at his grandparents' home in Vermont,
he, Sam, and the three McLaughlin boys from the
adjoining farm had spent an entire month
pretending they were Indians battling the invading
white settlers. Their long-range communications
system had been a set of talking drums they had
built from designs Tommy McLaughlin had
scrounged off the computer network. At the time none
of them had considered that their parents, whom they had
cast in the role of the invading British, were as
capable of translating their messages as they
were. Still, by the end of that summer, Kirk had been
proficient at using Morse code, and he
felt he should remember it, even if he had not
used it much in the intervening three decades.
The next question was what would catch Spock's
attention the fastest. The traditional SOS was a
simple, repetitious pattern that would give him
a chance to experiment with controlling the Kh@fflict
physiology. On the other hand, signaling his name
would tell Spock what had happened, but the longer
and less regular pattern to the letters spelling
"Kirk" increased the chance that he wouldn't be
understood. In addition, once he got Spock's
attention, he could repeat complex messages
until Spock understood them.
His decision made, Kirk concentrated on
"communication" until the interwoven blues and
greens swam across his vision. When the pattern was
established in his mind--and, he hoped, reflected
on his carapace--he summoned his anger and
frustration at being trapped inside the Kh@fflict
body. As soon as the white flare crossed his
vision, he released the anger and focused again on
communicating until the peaceful blues and greens
returned. Then he called on his anger again,
relaxed into thoughts of talking with his crew, and
finished the S with a final flare of anger.
The O was a little harder, requiring him to hold
onto his rage longer and to time the intervals so that his
dashes would be distinguished from the dots. After that
effort it was a relief to return to the
relatively simple task of putting out three
dots for the final S.
Halfway through the O, Spock paused in his
circuit around the crablike Kh@fflict body.
He stared at Kirk's upper back as though
trying to remember some long-forgotten fact, and his
expression didn't change while Kirk finished
the second S. Dismay washed through
Kirk as he realized that Spock had not
deciphered his message. Since he was sure that
the Vulcan remembered Morse code far
better than he did, Spock's reaction could
only mean that Kirk's attempts to produce
dots and dashes by changing the colors on his
carapace were not clear enough to be read.
Kirk started the message again, trying to make
the transitions in his thoughts as sharp and precise as
he could. It seemed to him that he was getting a
feel for how the Kh@fflict brains worked together, and
that the shifts between the two contrasting concepts were
cleaner and quicker, but Spock's expression
didn't change as Kirk finished his second
SOS. Discouraged, Kirk repeated the signal
again, hoping that Spock would figure out what he
meant and not reject the changing patterns as the
Kh@fflict equivalent of a facial tic.
"Dot-dot-dot," Spock murmured to himself
as Kirk began the third SOS.
"Dash-dash-dash. Dot-dot-dot. SOS."
He moved to the Kh@fflict's front. "Are you
human? Is that you, Captain Kirk?"
The apricot haze flooded across Kirk's
vision. Spock had figured out what had
happened! Dash-dot-dash-dash. Dot.
Dot-dot-dot, he signaled.
Dash-dot-dash-dash. Dot.
Dot-dot-dot. YES! YES! Now that
Spock knew what had happened, everything was going
to be all right.

Chapter Twelve

Spock flipped open his communicator.
"Spock to Enterprise. We have located the
captain."
"Sulu here," came the response. In the
background Spock heard subdued cheering as the
bridge crew reacted to his announcement.
"What's the captain's status? We're not
picking him up on our sensors."
"That is correct, Mr. Sulu. The
captain is being held prisoner inside one of the
alien creatures. At present our working
hypothesis is that, when our people passed through the
artifact, it gave them the bodies of its
creators. We are attempting to learn more but are
limited by the aliens' methods of communication."
"Do you know when you will be able to reverse
the process, Mr. Spock?" Tension raised
Sulu's voice half an octave, and the
complete silence in the background told Spock
that everyone on the bridge was waiting for the answer.
"Negative, Mr. Sulu. However, I
wish to communicate with the other aliens in order
to correlate their information with the captain's.
Please direct Security to locate the other
four creatures and guide them back to the
artifact. At present I suggest that this be
accomplished on foot, since these beings do not
respond well to our transporters. If those
four are our missing crewmen, they will understand what
is being said to them, although they lack the vocal
apparatus to answer."
"If they can't speak, Mr. Spock, how are
you talking with the captain? Could the security men
use your system with the other aliens?"
Spock mentally reviewed the personnel
files, but very few contained any mention of Morse
code. He and Kirk were able to communicate because
both of them had at one time memorized that
particular code. Unfortunately, he could not
expect the other victims to have the appropriate
information in their memories. "The aliens
communicate by changing the colors of their shells,
Mr. Sulu. The captain has discovered a way
to display messages using an old-style system
known as Morse code. Unless the other people
trapped in the alien bodies remember a
similar code and have the force of will to impose their
wishes on the alien physiology, I fear that
we must confine our c ommunications to yes-or-no
questions. At this time I see no way to bypass the
limitations of the system."
"I understand, Mr. Spock. I'll pass that
along to the security people and have them begin moving the
aliens back to the artifact."
"Very well, Mr. Sulu. Spock out." He
returned his attention to the captain. Kirk's
crablike body was sprawled on the ground, its
eight limbs jutting from beneath the carapace at
awkward angles. The captain had lost control
of his body at the first sight of the Enterprise's
landing party and had not moved since. Such a reaction
suggested that the alien body contained
preprogrammed responses that operated without
Kirk's direction and that might interfere with his
wishes. What information was stored in the alien's
brains, and how much of it could Kirk
access? Could they use that information to gain control
over the transporterlike artifacts and change
the Enterprise's crewmen back to their human
forms?
With so many unanswered questions, it was difficult
to know what to ask first. Waiting for Kirk's
responses in Morse code would make
exchanging information exceedingly slow, but the captain
was limited by the alien's physiology. Until
they could circumvent that difficulty, they would have
to work with it.
Resigning himself to taking whatever time he would
need to get his answers, Spock lowered himself to the
ground. Crossing his legs, he pointed his
tricorder at Kirk and began asking questions.

The setting sun had painted the landscape with the
colors of Vulcan's Flaming Desert and a
frigid wind was slicing across the hills when
Spock called a halt to the interview. For the
last half hour, Kirk's answers had been
slower and the distinctions between the dots and the dashes
increasingly blurred. Kirk's alien body was
tiring, and soon he would need to find food and
shelter for the night, but Spock had balanced that
against the need to learn all he could. The more he
knew about the aliens, the sooner he could control the
technology that had transformed Kirk into an
alien.
Finally, seeing how far Kirk had pushed his
body, Spock stood. "Captain, I shall
analyze this information and discuss it with our science
teams. By morning I hope that we shall have some
positive recommendations for solving this
dilemma."
GOOD, Kirk signaled back, his carapace
flickering between mixed blues and greens and an
apricot color that appeared several shades
darker in the ruddy light. One front claw
twitched briefly, reminding Spock of a
farewell wave. It was the first time that Kirk had
moved since the Enterprise's landing party had
materialized in front of him. Spock took the
motion as a favorable sign, hoping it meant the
alien programming was releasing its grip on
Kirk's motor functions.
Pulling out his communicator, Spock
signaled the ship. "Enterprise, beam up
remaining landing parties for the night. Inform all
scientists that we will hold a briefing
at 2100 to analyze our data and to formulate a
plan of action. Spock out."
He moved away from Kirk, and the security
guard with him took up a position at his side.
The transporter beam formed around them, dissolving the
crimson- and orange-painted landscape and
reforming the scene into the familiar hues of the
Enterprise's transporter room. Spock
headed for the bridge, aware of the questions in the eyes of
every person he met. Word of what had happened
to Kirk and the other missing people had spread among the
crew, and everyone was wondering if he had found an
answer to the problem. Involuntarily his hand
tightened around the strap of his tricorder. The
answers, if he had them, lay in the mass of
data he had obtained from his long interview with
Kirk.
The turbolift door whisked open, and he
stepped inside. "Bridge." Security had not
reported the results of moving the other aliens
back toward the artifact. That could mean one of
several things; knowing what had actually occurred would
enhance his analysis of the aliens' psychology and of
how their world view governed the design of their
technology.
Stepping onto the bridge, Spock saw that
most of the day crew was present, still briefing their
replacements and otherwise dawdling over the shift
change that should have taken place fifteen minutes
ago. "Status report, Mr. Sulu," he
ordered, circling to the science station.
"All operations normal, Mr. Spock."
Sulu's tone said differently. Spock
recognized the tension in his voice, which pointed out
how worried everyone was about Kirk and emphasized
how deeply loyal the crew was to the captain.
Worry was a human emotion, Spock reminded
himself, and it would not necessarily undermine the
crew's efficiency--as long as it didn't cloud
anyone's judgment. He would have to make sure that
the crew did not work beyond capacity before a
superhuman effort was required. If a crisis
developed, he would need everyone in top form.
"Have the security teams been able to move the
aliens back toward the artifact yet, Mr.
Sulu?" Spock slid into his chair and pulled
the data disks from his tricorder. Dropping them
into the playback slot, he turned to hear
Sulu's report.
"All teams reported failure in
moving the aliens, Mr. Spock." Sulu reached
across the board to call up the scanner logs.
"Two of the creatures became extremely
agitated and attacked our people. The largest alien
completely ignored all attempts to contact it,
as though the security men weren't even there. And the
other creature went catatonic, refusing
to move or acknowledge that anyone was in the area.
In fact, you appear to be the only person who
has had any luck in dealing with--well, with whoever
is down on the planet."
"I see." Spock shifted the visuals
to his display and ran through them, now in extreme
slow motion, now speeding the replay to nearly a
blur. He found no obvious flaws in the way
the guards had handled the aliens, but only the
captain showed any willingness to communicate with the
Enterprise's landing parties.
He could at least explain the catatonic
alien, if he had understood Kirk's
narrative. The creatures--the Kh@fflict, as
they called themselves--had evolved in such isolation that
they were absolute xenophobes to whom even the
possibility of finding other intelligent beings was
so alien and so inconceivable that thinking about the idea
sent their mental processes into hysterical
disorder.
The two Kh@fflict who attacked the
security men were harder to explain, but their actions
corresponded to the other half of the classic
fight-or-flight response pattern. The first
Kh@fflict had retreated from a situation it found
incomprehensible, but the second pair had tried
to destroy the Enterprise's security teams in
order to erase the unacceptable fact that other
intelligent beings might exist. He wondered
if that reaction reflected normal behavior for the
Kh@fflict, and that suggested another thought What
would have happened if the ancient Kh@fflict had
encountered other intelligent races? Could violent
encounters with the Kh@fflict explain the large
number of so-called "orphan" cultures whose
fragmentary remains were scattered around this
sector? After a moment he set the computer
to searching for data on the statistical distribution
of sentient races through time for this quadrant, with
particular emphasis on the areas where the
Kh@fflict might have traveled, and then returned
to the immediate problem.
The last Kh@fflict on the planet,
the one who had completely ignored the security
men, was the most puzzling. The ability to ignore
certain discordant elements in one's surroundings
was a trait shared by all intelligent races, but
a species' survival precluded as total a
denial as this creature displayed. Even with
Kirk's explanation of the Kh@fflict's
xenophobia, Spock had trouble interpreting the
largest Kh@fflict's actions. It was as though the
creature recognized the Enterprise's
security team and dismissed them as unimportant.
Spock replayed the tapes of that
Kh@fflict, noticing how it ignored the humans
and how oblivious it was to every attempt to attract
its attention. Suddenly, without being certain of every
step in his proof, Spock knew that the largest
Kh@fflict was Talika Nyar. The combination of
Kh@fflict xenophobia and Djelifan racial
self-centeredness led the creature that housed
Talika's consciousness to dismiss the humans as
irrelevant rather than attacking them or retreating
from them as the other Kh@fflict had done. It was as
though both halves of her mind agreed that the
humans were not intelligent. Apparently the
artifact had based its choice of Kh@fflict
host persona, at least to some extent, on the
personalities of the individuals who entered the
artifact. What that meant for their mission Spock
did not know, but he filed it away until he had
enough facts to evaluate the hypothesis properly.
With his analysis completed, Spock turned his
attention to the bridge crew. "Mr. Sulu, you
and the rest of the day shift may stand down now."
Sulu opened his mouth to protest but
reconsidered. While there was no absolute
prohibition against the day shift remaining on the
bridge to await further developments, the only
benefit--being where they could hear news first--was
psychological. "Yes, Mr. Spock." He
and Uhura led the rest of the day crew from the
bridge.
That settled, Spock turned back to his
console. The computer had finished its first
analysis of the data from his interview with Kirk,
and now he could examine the results. The bizarre
and mutable biological parameters required
careful examination.

Because of the late hour, there were only five people in
the briefing room. However, Spock had
authorized anyone with a science rating above Tech
One to monitor the discussion and, if they chose,
to relay comments and suggestions to him. Given the
complexity of the problem and the large gaps in their knowledge,
it was the only way short of holding the briefing
on the hangar deck to insure that everyone could
participate. In conducting the meeting this way,
Spock was following an old Vulcan
precept The time required to solve a problem
is inversely proportional to the amount of knowledge brought
to bear on the subject. The more scientists who
reviewed the data, the greater the chance that someone would
find the key to the puzzle.
Spock presided over the briefing from behind the
computer station. Kaul, still looking washed out and
shaky from his reaction to the suldanic gas, was
fiddling with a stylus as he paged through the summaries
on his data pad. Lassiter was at Kaul's
side, her face pinched with exhaustion and her skin
almost as pale as her white-blonde hair.
McCoy sat opposite the two
archaeologists, his mouth compressed into a stubborn
scowl and his eyes glittering with more indignation than
usual. The chief biologist, Lieutenant
Dara Niles, completed the group. Niles was a
quietly competent woman of medium stature with
close-cropped dark hair.
"I presume everyone has reviewed our
earlier findings," Spock said to open the briefing.
"Therefore, I will begin by summarizing my conversation with
Captain Kirk."
"Are you sure it was the captain?" McCoy's
drawl was as thick as his skepticism. "It's
an awfully big leap of faith for us to accept that
Jim has been turned into an overgrown
crustacean, even one as offbeat as the creature
I autopsied."
"I realize that, Doctor. However, I
conversed with the creature at some length and am convinced
that the captain's consciousness is housed within the
body of this alien." He punched the playback
button, and the record of his conversation with Kirk
scrolled across the screen. For those who were not
fluent in Morse code, the computer supplied
translations at the bottom of the screen.
"How was this accomplished?" Lassiter's
voice was barely above a whisper. "Does
Captain Kirk understand anything about the
technology that made this alteration?"
"The captain's impression is that the
windowlike artifacts are matterstenergy
transmission devices that function in a manner
analogous to our transporters. He believes
that the error detection protocols within the
artifact caused him to rematerialize as a
Kh@fflict because their system's program reads
absolutely that an intelligent being must be
Kh@fflict."
"Are you certain of this?" Niles asked. "How
do we know the device didn't transfer his
consciousness to an alien body?"
"That is a good question, Lieutenant." Spock
forwarded the log of his interview with Kirk to where they
had discussed that subject. He let Kirk's
statements play across the screen as he continued
talking. "First we have the basic Kh@fflict
assumption that all intelligent life must be
Kh@fflict. Given that, they would presume that
any intelligent creature using their
transportation system must be Kh@fflict.
Second, all matterstenergy transmission
devices require a source of matter
to reconstitute at the end of the transport path.
The simplest design for such a system--and
simplicity guides most engineering solutions--
is to convert the body of the transportee into energy,
transmit that energy using a zero-loss
protocol, and reconstitute the original body
at the receiving location. The captain's analysis,
based on knowledge contained in his Kh@fflict brain, is
that his body was altered during reintegration to that of a
Kh@fflict. This is supported by the fact that his
mass as a Kh@fflict is, within acceptable error
limits, identical to his mass when he entered
the artifact. In the morning we will measure the
mass of the other Kh@fflict to determine if this
applies to them as well."
"Don't you think this is a little farfetched,
Spock?" McCoy nibbled the end of his stylus.
"I mean, we come halfway across the galaxy,
discover a race of aliens that died out over a
hundred thousand years ago--and their transporters
don't work any better than ours. And how does
all this theory help us get the captain back?"
Spock straightened in his chair, his back going
as stiff as a bracing beam. "One cannot hope
to decipher the intricacies of a complex
technology without an understanding of the underlying
principles. Even you should appreciate that
fact, Doctor."
McCoy's expression hardened. "What I
appreciate, Mr. Spock, is that Captain
Kirk is missing and that you seem more interested in
theorizing about the technology of these creatures
than you are in retrieving the captain. Does
Scotty have anything to say about all this?"
"As a matter of fact, Doctor, we have
finally collected enough data to begin constructing
models of the artifacts' internal workings. Mr.
Scott is running computer simulations to reduce
the number of possible designs. Once we have
determined the most likely parameters, we will
attempt to reprogram the devices and
retrieve our people."
McCoy snorted his disbelief but said nothing
further. Instead Niles rapped her stylus on
the table for attention. She pointed to her screen,
where different colors of text highlighted several
messages. "My people have been analyzing the
Caretian ecosystem, particularly with regard
to the nutritional requirements of the Kh@fflict.
It is our conclusion that most, if not all, of the
plant and animal species that provided food
for the Kh@fflict have either become extinct or have
evolved, thanks to the fading sun, into something no
longer recognizable. Since the Kh@fflict
rely heavily on preprogrammed information, we
surmise that our people on the planet will face
starvation within a very short time, particularly since
we have no idea what these creatures ate."
Stunned silence, followed by an outburst of
overlapping questions and exclamations, followed
Lieutenant Niles's announcement. Spock
marveled at how so few humans could generate so
much noise. Pitching his voice to be heard above
the hubbub, he asked, "Do you have the data
to substantiate that, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, sir. The information is in master file
alpha-three-two-nine-chi-omega. It will be
accessible to everyone within ten minutes." Niles
tugged on a handful of her dark hair. "Given
what has been said about the Kh@fflict rejection
of outsiders, we may have difficulties
providing food to our people. Even after we figure
out what they ate, someone will have to devise a way
to get them to accept the food from us."
"Understood." Spock tagged her files for
further study. "Lieutenant Niles, please
work with Dr. McCoy to determine how we can
provide appropriate rations to our people.
If no one has any additional information, this
briefing is adjourned."
For once even McCoy was silent. Spock
stood, signaling the formal end to the meeting, and
headed for the door. Sifting through the files that the
biologists had compiled would make for another long
night. However, somewhere in the mass of data that the
Enterprise's scientists had collected,
Spock knew he would find the answers to getting
their people back. Like any problem in the sciences, it
was a matter of working long enough and hard enough to assemble
the information in the proper logical sequence.

Chapter Thirteen

Kirk watched Spock and the security guard
dissolve into sparkling motes of energy. A cold
breeze whistled across the hilltops, ruffling the
dry, flattened grass where Spock had sat for the
last several hours. The final rays of the setting
sun skimmed the hilltops, emphasizing the
immensity and the emptiness of the land around him. A land
that had once been populated by millions of
Kh@fflict who had looked like he did now and who
had thought and believed the same things as the being his
host was patterned after. It was a frightening and a
depressing thought to realize how totally the
Kh@fflict had vanished from the collective
memories and histories of this part of the galaxy.
Even after Spock disappeared, it took half
an hour for his host to recover from its catatonic
retreat. The last rose tints were fading from the
western sky when Kirk felt his Kh@fflict
lower brain convince itself that the humans were a
hallucination brought on by the bad transition through the
transit frame. With the internally imposed
restrictions on his movements gone, he needed
to find food and a place to spend the night. He
sensed that the Kh@fflict were normally less
active after dark, but he could still make out his
surroundings in shadings of lighter and darker grays
that resembled the patterns from a translation
algorithm for a night-vision scope.
Cautiously he sent a message to his
limbs, hoping they would respond after the long
hours of immobility on the chilly hilltop.
At first nothing happened, and he was afraid he
would be stuck where he was until the morning sun
warmed his body. He was almost ready to give up
when he felt one of his front pincers
flopping loosely in response to his
directive.
It wasn't much, but it gave him a place
to start. Kirk flexed the joint, working it until
the blood began flowing into the limb. Next he
concentrated on the other joints in that appendage,
twisting and bending them until they responded to his
commands. Soon he was able to work the adjoining
appendages, and finally all eight legs were under his
control.
Kirk heaved himself to his pincers, thinking how
tiresome it was to go through this warmup routine every time he
let his body remain motionless for more than a few
minutes. How had the Kh@fflict ever managed?
They must have evolved in a much warmer climate and,
during the time when they ruled Careta IV, the
planet must have had an unusually uniform
distribution of diurnal and seasonal
temperatures. Any creatures so thoroughly
incapacitated by cold would quickly be exterminated
by predators.
First he needed food, Kirk decided as he
started uphill. However, he had no idea what
the Kh@fflict ate, much less what food he
could find in this barren land. At the thought of eating,
he felt a hollowness in his interior. His host
should be hungry, he guessed, considering that it had
been a day and a half since Kirk had eaten.
He didn't know how that translated for a
Kh@fflict, but he had been making tremendous
physical and psychological demands on his
body since he had emerged from the artifact. If
his host did not need fuel to keep going, its
physiology was radically different from anything
known to Federation science.
He concentrated on the idea of eating a good
meal. Letting his imagination have free rein, he
conjured up his memories of the ten-course
Japanese banquet he had attended the last
time he had been called to Starfleet Command.
To his surprise, the image triggered no
response in his host's brain. That puzzled
Kirk; every civilized race he knew of placed
a high value on the rituals that accompanied
dining and food preparation. He doubted that the
Kh@fflict were so alien that what they ate was of no
importance. The other possible explanation of the
Kh@fflict's disinterest was that it found nothing
appetizing in the meal Kirk had remembered.
Recalling the quantity and the variety
of food served at that meal, Kirk could not
believe that there had been nothing on the menu that would
interest his host. Clear soup, sashimi, a dozen
kinds of sushi, tempura vegetables, chicken
teriyaki, steamed rice, sukiyaki with more kinds
of vegetables than Kirk had been able
to identify, shrimp custard, a fabulous
lemon-soy tofu salad--he let his mind
dwell on each dish, savoring the details of
aroma and texture and flavor.
Quickly, from the surge of revulsion that shook him
at the thought of eating plant matter, Kirk
realized that the Kh@fflict had not been
vegetarians or even omnivores. In fact,
the Kh@fflict's strongest criterion for
identifying inferior--and presumably
nonintelligent--species was that they consumed
plant materials as food. By that standard,
humans failed to meet the minimum Kh@fflict
requirement for sentience.
With that insight, Kirk concentrated on the
sashimi and the meat dishes. Even the latter, he
discovered as he went over them in his mind, had
contained more vegetables than meat, and the idea of
slicing and cooking the meat seemed alien to his
host. The sashimi--paper-thin slices of raw
fish--provoked a little more interest from the
Kh@fflict lower brain, but Kirk sensed that the
preparation method was almost as alien as the concept
of a food source obtained from the ocean. In their
prehistory the Kh@fflict must have evolved from
marine animals, but they had not looked to the sea for
food within the collective memory of their race.
Given his host's reactions, and the lack of them,
Kirk decided the Kh@fflict had eaten their
meat raw and with very little preparation. He found the
idea unappealing, but he realized that the
Kh@fflict lower brain would overrule his
squeamishness if suitable prey crossed his path.
But what would his host find suitable?
Still thinking about the problem, Kirk continued his
trek back toward the artifact. Once he got
the hang of coordinating eight legs, he found that
the Kh@fflict body could move rapidly, even
over rough terrain. He returned to his question about
suitable prey for a man-sized crab. With the
ability to summon brief bursts of speed, the
Kh@fflict would have been formidable predators.
Furthermore, with millennia to develop the
infrastructure of their civilization,
Kirk realized that they could have bred their food
sources to be docile and slow to alarm, much as
humans bred their cattle to be easily
managed.
A vision swam before his eyes. He saw this land
crossed with a network of closely slatted fences
enclosing lush pastures carpeted with a variety of
herbs and grasses. Each enclosure was stocked
with rabbitlike creatures that nibbled on the
succulent forage until they were plump and their
flesh was flavorful and juicy. A hungry
Kh@fflict walked out into the pasture and chose his
meal by the herbs he wanted to flavor the meat. As
one of the docile nanthken came within reach, it was
impaled on a pincer that flashed out and swept the
doomed creature into the air. The Kh@fflict
sheared through the animal's spinal cord with its
sharp, triangular teeth, shaped much like a shark's
teeth and equally useless for chewing flesh. Ducts
in the upper tooth injected the still-living prey with a
combination of fast-acting neurotoxins and digestive
enzymes. Within minutes the flesh began
to dissolve, and the Kh@fflict sucked up the
savory juices through its proboscis, much as
terrestrial spiders fed on their prey.
Feelings of intense pleasure accompanied the
Kh@fflict's memories of catching and feasting on
a squealing and twitching nanthken. Kirk was
glad that he was not in control of his body at that
moment, because he was revolted by the cruelty he
sensed in the Kh@fflict's thoughts. Eating
animal flesh was one thing; torturing the animal
before eating it was another. Kirk's sense of
civilized propriety and his human squeamishness
made starvation seem like an attractive option.
However, since he needed food to survive,
Kirk hoped that his Kh@fflict instincts would
operate without conscious direction if he found
appropriate prey. So far he had seen nothing
in this barren land that even approximated the
Kh@fflict's memories of its standard fare.
Until he did, he was worrying needlessly,
since he was much more likely to starve than
to reject a potential meal through squeamishness.
For now all he could do was keep moving and hope
to find something edible. The landscape around him faded
into weaker, less contrasting shades as the heat leaked
from the land and radiated out into space.

* * *
About midnight, Kirk's host began to stagger
with exhaustion, and it became a struggle to move
even one appendage at a time. Most of the heat was
gone, making it difficult to see where he was going
or to avoid the obstacles and pitfalls in his
path. Kirk looked around, trying to find somewhere
to spend the rest of the night. With the Kh@fflict lower
brain struggling to dominate his actions, he found it
interesting that he had to actively change a
directive that he had imposed on the
reluctant Kh@fflict instincts.
After half an hour of searching, Kirk
discovered a spring hidden in a small grotto
halfway down the hillside. Below the spring was a
brackish pool covered with a thick mat of
algae. Both his human and his Kh@fflict
programming agreed on how revolting the pond
was, but Kirk steeled himself to ingest as much of the
organic material as he could. The bulk of the
Enterprise's food was reconstituted from an
algal base, so he knew that the basic
nutrients his body needed should be present.
Beggars can't be choosers, he told himself
sternly as he sucked the algae through his
proboscis. Gourmet food it wasn't, but he
hadn't seen anything larger than an insect in the
last two days. Considering the energy he had
expended, Kirk knew his body needed food,
no matter how marginal or unpleasant the
source, if he was to continue to function.
When he could not hold any more algae and water,
he retreated into the grotto and settled himself into a
sheltered niche. The ship's sensors had
reported no dangerous predators on the
planet, but he sensed that the Kh@fflict slept
only when their backs and appendages were
protected. Such caution was fine with Kirk; the
confined space would conserve his body heat and make
it easier to start moving in the morning. He was
beginning to realize how important that was and
to appreciate how much conditions had changed on
Careta IV since the Kh@fflict civilization
had flourished there.

Morning brought, if not answers, then at least
the outline of a plan for moving closer to a
solution. Somewhere in the strange half-waking
state where his mind absorbed memories of the
Kh@fflict world and the Kh@fflict way of life,
Kirk realized how deeply
xenophobia was bred into the Kh@fflict. Spock
would never be able to contact the others who had passed
through the artifact unless he changed himself into a
Kh@fflict. Only Kirk's overriding need
to look after his crew and to prevent anyone else from
becoming a victim of the Kh@fflict technology
had enabled him to surmount his host's denial that other
intelligent races might exist. He doubted that
Chekov had the experience to defeat the Kh@fflict
psychology, and he was sure the security
guards' training wouldn't have prepared them to cope
with the schizophrenic responses of a Kh@fflict
body inhabited by a human mind. In all
probability the others had not been able to establish
any contact with their lower brains or exert any
control over their bodies. If that was the case,
they were completely at the mercy of whatever
programming the artifact had imprinted on their
lower brains.
The best thing he could do to further their mission,
Kirk concluded, was to locate the others, explain
what had happened, and get them to return to the
artifact. He didn't know what would happen after
that, but by then perhaps Spock would know how to change them
back to their human forms.
His decision made, Kirk set off to find the
other Kh@fflict. Locating them was easier than
he expected, once he got near the artifact.
The tall, dry grass yielded when someone
passed through it and, once flattened, did not
straighten again. The humans had combed the area
close to the artifact, crisscrossing it with more
trails than the best bloodhound could unravel.
However, once he circled farther away, six
wide swaths of broken stalks radiated away
from the transit fra me. After eliminating the one
he had made, Kirk chose a track at random
and set off.
The trail meandered across the hillside and
zigzagged into an adjoining valley, then wandered
along an almost-dry stream bed for several
kilometers. Judging by the spacing of the tracks,
the Kh@fflict lower brain had not felt an
urgent need to be anywhere. That confirmed Kirk's
guess that the human inside the body had not
established a connection with the Kh@fflict mind and
had either gone along for the ride or had retreated from
a reality he found too grotesque to believe.
Either way, Kirk covered in two hours the distance
the other Kh@fflict had traveled in
two days.
He approached carefully, his carapace
blinking a brightstdark pattern for attention long before
he thought the other was looking his way. As a
human, he would have scuffed the pebbles with his feet
to catch the other's attention, but when he tried that
he could barely hear the sounds he was making.
Considering how well he had heard Spock the
previous day, Kirk decided that the Kh@fflict
hearing was highly selective. He wondered if
that was because nothing in their environment had used those
frequencies or if there had been so much noise
in those ranges that selective deafness was a
survival trait.
Finally the other Kh@fflict noticed him and
stopped, its carapace flickering a question in muted
browns. @ghParent"...@ar
Kirk searched through his intuitive recollection
of Kh@fflict vocabulary. He could not
remember any concepts analogous to military
rank, but that didn't mean much. There were still
immense gaps in his knowledge of the Kh@fflict, although
practice was making it easier for him to tap into the
information stored in his lower brain. However, until
he discovered what the Kh@fflict pattern was that
meant "captain," the word "parent" was probably
as close as he could come to his true title.
He relaxed and let the Kh@fflict lower brain
translate his thoughts.
@ghallyes, son. I am here.@ar The message
was projected with an apricot overtone of
reassurance that, while not strictly necessary, seemed
to reach to the other person.
@ghWhy am I hungry, parent"...@ar the other
Kh@fflict asked, his question colored with the petulance
of a very young child.
@ghThere is food back the way you cameea@ar
Kirk told him. That wasn't exactly a
lie, but Kirk knew he was shading the truth more
than a little. After several hours to think about the question,
he was convinced that there was no longer anything on
Careta IV that a self-respecting
Kh@fflict would consider edible. Anything they ate,
short of skimming more algae from scummy ponds,
would have to come from the Enterprise. @ghally should
retrace your steps until you find x.@ar
@ghAnything you say, parent.@ar The Kh@fflict
turned around and started back, his movements
erratic from lack of food.
Kirk watched until the young
Kh@fflict disappeared over the crest of the first
hill, thinking that convincing him had been almost too
easy. This Kh@fflict had been pathetically
eager to take orders from him. His own Kh@fflict
lower brain had fought much harder to maintain control,
and Kirk wondered why the difference between the two
Kh@fflict minds should be so great. Was starvation the
sole reason, or was there some other, more
satisfactory explanation for the wildly
divergent behavior?
The only way to find out, he decided, was
to locate the rest of the altered humans. Two
individuals did not comprise a statistically
significant number; any conclusion drawn from
such a small sample had to be suspect. Even
with data from all the changed people, they could hardly
prove anything, but Kirk hoped they would not have
any more data points for this experiment. He started
off to find the next track, hoping it would be as
easy to convince the others to return to the artifact.
It took him almost an hour to find the next
track. When he found the broad swath of
flattened grass striking across the rolling hills
like a superhighway on Old Earth, Kirk
felt a stirring of excitement in his Kh@fflict
brain. What it meant he wasn't sure, but a
premonition tickled at the edges of his mind.
Something was different about this Kh@fflict, something that
aroused his host deeply. Perhaps, Kirk thought, he
should leave this track and its creator alone, at
least until he discovered why his host was so
interested in it.
He took a few steps past the trail,
intending to search for the next Kh@fflict, but his
body veered around and started to follow the strip of
flattened grass. Kirk tried to turn away,
but each time he did, the Kh@fflict lower brain
reasserted itself as soon as Kirk relaxed his
control. Finally curiosity overcame him, and he
yielded to the mysterious pull.
This Kh@fflict had wasted no time in its
travels and had covered a considerable distance.
Kirk's lower brain forced his body to move at a
vicious pace, as if trying to make up for lost
time. The longer he followed the trail, the more
agitated and aroused his host became. With his mind
no longer actively controlling his body, Kirk
tried to reason out the cause for his host's sudden
compulsion. Given the strength of his determination,
Kirk knew he was either dealing with an
intense personal delusion or an overwhelming
biological imperative. The difficulty, as
far as Kirk could see, was that he probably would
not learn which it was until too late to forestall
whatever the Kh@fflict brain was programmed to do.
After several hours of rapid travel, the
subject of his pursuit appeared on the
horizon. A jolt of electrifying excitement
shot through Kirk, and his Kh@fflict lower brain
forced his appendages to move even faster than before.
The Kh@fflict on the horizon was the most
powerful, most beautiful, most terrifying
creature he had seen in his life, and he could not
reach her soon enough.
With a dawning sense of horror, Kirk
realized what this entire chase had been leading up
to. His mind howled a protest and struggled
to assert itself, but the Kh@fflict biology was in
control. Like it or not, Kirk could only go along
for the ride.




Chapter Fourteen

Spock found the night of analyzing the
biological data on the Kh@fflict
pleasantly re/l after the day's turmoil.
However, the intellectual challenge of piecing
together the life cycle of a dead race did little
to solve his more immediate problem. The captain and five
other people had been transformed into creatures who had
died out millennia ago, and one of those people was already
dead. Worse, the creatures had left behind
only a few mysterious and dangerous artifacts
and no written records that the archaeologists had
been able to find.
Leaning back in his chair, Spock let his
eyes wander over the sensual contours of his
Vulcan harp, hanging in its usual place on
the wall of his cabin. The harp was an aid
to meditation; the orderly precision of the musical
scales directed his thoughts into crisp and
logical channels. His eyes still on the harp,
he steepled his hands and rested his chin on his
up-pointed index fingers.
With what they knew of the Kh@fflict
physiology and anatomy, a written
language using a conventional system of
inscribed characters was improbable. Much of the
Kh@fflict's knowledge was imprinted directly on their
brains, and such a procedure implied a
repository for the knowledge that was passed down.
Pretechnological Kh@fflict would have been
forced to transmit their heritage by mind-to-mind
contact using methods analogous to the Vulcan
mind meld, but Spock doubted that they had relied
on such techniques once they could manufacture
devices to perform the same functions. The clarity
and precision of the hard-wired information that Kirk had
accessed to answer Spock's questions implied an
artificial repository; transmission by mind
link was less faithful, with losses and shifts in
the data accompanying each transfer. The
Kh@fflict at the height of their civilization must
have used a more reliable system for disseminating the
information than their own inadequate minds.
The question was, where was this insight leading him? They
had found few Kh@fflict sites on the
planet, and none appeared more significant than
the one they had chosen for their initial examination.
If there were any major cities on the planet,
they were well hidden. When he considered what they
had found so far, Spock knew the Kh@fflict
must have made a much greater mark on Careta
IV. The sophisticated technology of the
transit frames implied a highly advanced
civilization. The ruins they had explored showed
no signs of outside destruction, but the shielding
around the first artifact implied that someone had
wanted very badly to keep it from ever being discovered.
The archaeologists were still working to prove that the
Meztoriens were responsible for hiding the
artifacts, but as far as Spock was concerned, who
was responsible was not as important as how or
why.
How would one camouflage an entire city?
Spock wondered. The method would have to function for
tens of thousands of years. Ruins springing out of
nowhere on a supposedly deserted planet would
attract more attention than if they had been left
to decay without the protective concealment. That
assumed the relics could decay, which was not yet
proven. The Kh@fflict objects that they had
found were surprisingly well preserved, considering
their great antiquity, and the power utilization
curves on the transportation windows suggested
they would be exceedingly difficult to destroy.
"Computer, display records of the
magnetic flux readings for the major land
masses, compression factor one hundred." If
other shielded Kh@fflict relics were hidden on
the planet, subtle variations in the screening
fields should mark the objects when one
specifically search ed the data for those effects.
"Working." The computer's response seemed
sluggish, as though the machine were reluctant
to carry out his orders. Spock's eyebrow lifted
slightly. Where did that irrational thought come
from? he wondered. Attributing emotions to a
machine suggested that he had been around human
illogic for too long, but the computer might still be
developing a subtle malfunction. He ordered
a full diagnostic of the system, then returned
to his current task.
The data scrolled across his screen. To have
escaped notice until now, any systematic
variations in the magnetic flux had to be
minuscule, little more than background noise. The
question was, if every Kh@fflict artifact was hidden
by highly sophisticated force screens, would the
Enterprise's sensors have detected the energy
leaking through those shields? Their data analysis
programs had not been written for such situations.
He had finished skimming their first eight hours
of data when his door buzzer sounded.
Involuntarily he glanced at his chronometer.
Only Kirk and McCoy presumed that he would
be awake so early, and even they would not show up
unannounced at his door at such an hour. A
crisis serious enough to need attention before the humans
had breakfast and their morning coffee meant the ship
was on Red Alert. Putting the computer on
standby, Spock cued the door release. "Come."
Meredith Lassiter stepped through the door,
pausing as it whisked shut behind her. Her face was
as pale as her hair, and she looked as though she
had not slept in the last two days. "I hope
I'm not intruding, Mr. Spock, but something has
happened that has a bearing on the mission. I
hesitate to report anything so subjective, but
I feel that my knowledge may affect the success of this
mission."
Spock gestured to the chair beside his work table,
consciously imitating the gesture he had often
seen Kirk use in similar situations. What
else would the captain do? he asked himself. His
ability to rescue Kirk and the others depended on
his skills for managing humans,
including the visiting scientists who were not bound
by Starfleet regulations to obey his orders.
"Please make your report, Dr. Lassiter.
I have often observed that humans have a remarkable
talent for reaching valid conclusions without considering
every link in the chain of their logic."
Lassiter gave him a weak smile. "I
guess that's one way of putting it. Another way
would be to tell you that I am a native of
Bendilon. Have you heard of that colony?"
"Affirmative." Bendilon, more often called
Space Haven or Dreamtime by humans, had
been settled in the early days of spaceflight.
The colonists had used such diverse models as
the Australian aborigines and the Amerind
peyote cult for their society, and no outsider
had ever figured out how it worked. People sent to study
the culture either vanished into the social fabric
of Bendilon, becoming more dedicated Bendiloni
than the natives, or they never saw any of
Bendilon's unique institutions. Bendilon was
a classic Academy case study in how
observers lost their objectivity when studying
alien cultures. Several theories of how the
Bendiloni subverted outsiders recurred in the
student analyses, but Spock had not seen any
solutions, either student or professional, that
completely explained this perplexing society.
"I presume that being from Bendilon has some
bearing on what you wish to tell me."
Lassiter nodded. "Our people place a high
value on subliminal perceptions, dream
messages, and certain forms of extrasensory
perception." She gave a diffident shrug.
"Among our people I'm considered something of a
cripple because I do not easily perceive the dream
plane or observe events that occur beyond what I
can see or hear. I can generally perceive only the very
strongest messages from the shadow world."
Spock nodded to encourage her. As with many
humans, when among strangers, Lassiter felt
she must establish her credentials before presenting
her data. Schooling himself to patience, he waited
for her to make her point.
"When we arrived here, I felt something stirring
in the dream plane. It was an incredibly
ancient and malignant force, possessed of an
indescribably cold and undying hatred. I
didn't want to believe in anything so terrible, so
inimical to intelligent life."
"I see." How did this relate to their
mission? Was she sensing the Kh@fflict racial
consciousness? "Dr. Lassiter, what can you tell
me about these mental emanations?"
She twisted her fingers through a lock of her
hair and brought it to her mouth, nibbling on the
frayed ends. "The hatred, mostly. I'm not
sure who or what this thing is, but it hates
everyone and everything."
"Can you sense its physical nature or
tell me to what species it belonged?" Spock
was not sure how the answers to such questions would help
him, even if Lassiter could isolate the
information. After so long Spock could not expect the
surviving remnants of the Kh@fflict
subconsciousness to be intact or fully sane.
"I'm not sure about any physical
parameters." She flicked her fingers free of
her hair and then recaptured the strand. Her
forehead wrinkling with a frown, she chewed on the
ends. "All I know for sure is that this entity
hates all intelligent creatures, probably
even its own kind."
"Fascinating. Can you sense anything more about it?"
That she had perceived what she had was remarkable,
Spock knew. Asking for more information was as
illogical as praying for a miracle to restore
Kirk and the others, but Spock would not reject
divine intervention if it got the desired
results.
Lassiter chewed harder on the ends of her
hair. "Its projections have been growing stronger
and stronger. The longer we are here, the more it hates
us."
"I see." Spock studied her face. If
he had learned to read humans at all, she was more
relaxed than he had seen her since the
archaeologists had come aboard the ship. "Can you
tell me anything else, Dr. Lassiter?"
She dropped her hand to her lap. "I don't
believe so, Mr. Spock. It's possible that
something may have escaped my analysis, but I
don't know what."
Spock stood. "In that case, Dr.
Lassiter, I will not keep you from your duties.
If you discover additional information, I would
appreciate hearing it. Anything we learn about the
previous inhabitants of this planet will be of
enormous value."
"I'll be glad to tell you anything
I learn." She stood and moved toward the door.
Just before she reached the sensor, she turned and gave
him a short, formal bow. "I thank you for your
courtesy in listening to my story."
Before Spock could answer, she stepped
backwards into the sensor's range and then slipped
through the door as it opened. He called up the
results of his computer analysis, but his mind
kept trying to fit this new information into the
increasingly bizarre problem.

The bridge crew was unusually quiet,
Spock thought as he glanced from his hooded viewer
to the main viewscreen. Careta IV'S largest
continent lay directly below them, its irregular
shape obscured by high wispy clouds and a dust
storm brewing on the western edge of the land mass.
He had been sifting through the reams of data the
Enterprise had collected on the planet for so
long that it seemed as though he knew Careta almost
as well as he knew Vulcan.
By midmorning he had isolated thirty sites
that might contain major Kh@fflict artifacts.
He chose the most likely anomalies and
ordered intensive scanner observations while
security teams prepared to examine the sites in
person.
He was switching back to check Kirk's
activities when the bridge door whisked open.
McCoy left the turbolift and strolled toward
Spock's station. "I thought you would be down on that
planet asking Jim what we can do to help him."
"I am helping him." Spock bent his head
over his viewer in an attempt to discourage
McCoy. "I am analyzing the device that
changed him into a Kh@fflict."
McCoy perched on the edge of the console, one
eyebrow lifted in imitation of Spock's
favorite gesture. "Wouldn't it be better if
you asked Jim about the technology? I mean, from
what you said at the briefing last night, Jim is
cohabiting that body with one of the alien
what-you-call-'ems."
"They call themselves the Kh@fflict, Doctor.
And while you are correct that the captain is sharing
a Kh@fflict body with the lower elements of a
Kh@fflict intellect, it appears that his host
has very little knowledge of the fields in which we most need
information. This fact is disquieting, since we cannot
acquire data about the Kh@fflict
sciences and technology except through the
"memories" of our crew who have been altered
into Kh@fflict."
"Well, now I've seen everything." McCoy
shook his head in disbelief. "You're telling me
you are waiting for someone else to tell you what
to do?"
Spock exhaled heavily. "That is
essentially correct, Doctor. Unless we can
find a storehouse of Kh@fflict written
records and can translate them, we must rely
on what our people report that they have learned from their
Kh@fflict memories."
"Which brings us back to my original question,
Spock. Why are you up here talking to that dratted
computer of yours instead of down there asking Jim
to use his special knowledge to unravel the secret of
those windows?" McCoy rested his thigh on the edge
of the console and let one foot swing free.
Realizing the doctor wasn't leaving soon,
Spock pushed the viewer aside. "I believe
I just explained that the captain has very little information
that will help us return our people to their natural
bodies. Should you not be determining the Kh@fflict
nutritional requirements so we can supply our
people with the appropriate foods?"
"I've already got a rough guess at that--as
near as I can, anyway, using the sketchy i nformation
you gave me." McCoy drummed his heel
erratically against the access panel, reminding
Spock of the pseudo-random pattern used by the
pythonlike Vulcan pandree to lure prey
into its sand traps. "I still want to know why you
aren't down there checking up on how Jim's
doing."
Resisting the urge to strike McCoy's leg
the way he would have attacked a genuine pandree,
Spock flipped a switch on his console.
Three views of the planet's surface sprang
to life on the screens above his station. "Doctor,
if you would turn around, you will see that I can
monitor the captain's activities quite well.
At the moment he is locating the other
Kh@fflict and directing them to return to the
artifact."
McCoy glanced at the screens but refused
to be budged. "I still don't see why you aren't
down there helping him out."
Struggling against an all-too-human reaction
to McCoy's perversity, Spock
activated a fourth screen. This one showed a
closer view of Kirk's host marching
resolutely through the dry grasses. "Given the
Kh@fflict's xenophobia, I scarcely think
that the captain needs--or even wants--our
assistance. My interpretation of what he has
told me suggests that he has a better chance of
accomplishing this task if he is not hindered by our
presence."
"Forgive an old country doctor his
foolishness, Spock, but why do we want all
those creatures herded into one spot?" McCoy's
Southern accent had thickened noticeably as he
assumed his "country doctor" role. "When we
want to, we can just transport them to where we
need them, can't we?"
Spock lifted an eyebrow. "Doctor,
don't you remember what happened when we tried
that before? The Kh@fflict believe, as an article
of faith bordering on fanaticism, that they are the
only intelligent beings in the universe. The
sight of us or of our technology drives them
into hysterics. Only the rarest individuals
retain sufficient mental flexibility to accept
our presence. Even the captain is barely able
to overcome the responses programmed into his
host's brain."
"You mean to tell me that Jim doesn't want
to talk to us?" McCoy's posture was too
relaxed for him to sincerely mean the antagonism
in his words. That suggested he was trying to generate a
friendly game of "Insults" to distract himself from his
own concerns; Spock concluded that the doctor's
research was not progressing as well as McCoy
would have liked. "Though I must admit, not talking
to you is probably a step in the right direction."
Deliberately Spock lowered his head to his
hooded viewer. "I am uncertain of the basis for
your analysis, Doctor, although I, too, must
confess to experiencing a touch of relief when I do
not have to encounter certain levels of human
irrationality. However, we were discussing the
Kh@fflict. Did you say you had determined their
nutritional requirements?"
"Of course not!" McCoy scowled. "I've
got a first approximation, for all the good it will do
us. When I told the computer to run the last set
of simulations and calculate the ideal
Kh@fflict field rations, it gave me a
readout that looked like whole blood. Some
of the element distributions were skewed, but in our
opinion, the Kh@fflict were carnivores who
guzzled their food in a liquid or
semiliquid form." A wicked grin crept over
McCoy's face. "I'd be happy to provide
you with more details on their table manners, if you
like."
"No, thank you." Spock swallowed, disliking
the idea of surviving by killing other creatures.
"At the moment I am more concerned about keeping the
five Kh@fflict down there together in one area.
When we discover how to reverse the transformation,
we will return everyone to proper form and leave this
system immediately."
"Well, it's about time!" McCoy shifted
position, and to Spock's relief, his heel no
longer rapped against the grille. "That's the first
intelligent thing anyone has said since we came
to this benighted planet."
Spock raised his eyebrow. "I doubt that it
is the first intelligent thing anyone has said, but
it is quite certain that we are not equipped
to explore this planet. It is illogical
to risk our people on a mission that requires greater
proficiency with alien technology than even the
crew of the Enterprise possesses."
McCoy's boots slammed onto the floor
with a resounding thump. Bouncing on his toes, he
leaned over Spock's station. "I thought that between the
two of you, you and Scotty could do everything."
Spock tilted his head to one side, studying the
doctor's face. To push so hard for no apparent
reason, McCoy had to have something on his mind. were
the results he had obtained on the Kh@fflict
that disturbing to humans, or was it his lack of
results that bothered him? "You are correct,
Doctor, when you say that Mr. Scott and I
are capable of solving most problems. However, there
are perhaps four people in the entire Federation who
possess the expertise needed to unravel this
technology. I would be honored to assist them in
their efforts, but I myself do not possess the full
range of skills needed here. Unless, of
course, your biological studies have revealed the
key to these creatures."
As Spock was talking, McCoy's
expression alternated between triumph at
Spock's admission that he did not know everything and
dismay that they might not be able to rescue Kirk.
However, when Spock suggested that his
biological studies might hold the necessary
clue, consternation chased all other emotions off the
doctor's face. "Are you out of your Vulcan
mind? You can't seriously mean that the answers to those
creatures' technology is hidden somewhere in their
physiology. You'd better get back down
there and have Jim talk some sense into that thick head
of yours."
"Doctor, I see no need for us to continue this
discussion. You have your methods, and I have mine. I
suggest that you pursue your research with a little more
alacrity." As he turned back toward his
viewer, a flicker of movement caught
Spock's attention. It was on the screen that showed
Kirk's activities.
Kirk was on his back, sliding down a long,
steep slope using his carapace as a toboggan,
his legs flailing the air in a vain attempt
to gain control of his movements. A plume of
beige dust rose behind him, spreading into a broad
rooster tail in the stiff wind. As they watched
he picked up speed, shooting over the dry
grass as though his shell were coated with
lubricant. "Oh, my God," McCoy
murmured, his imagination telling him how hard
Kirk was going to hit when he finally reached the
bottom of the slope.

Chapter Fifteen

Kirk felt the agitation mounting in his body as
he raced toward the Kh@fflict female, his
legs extending to their maximum to attain the greatest
speed possible. His host's reactions were so
intense, so insistent, that Kirk could follow the
Kh@fflict's thoughts with very little trouble. He was
pursuing the most seductive, the most
provocative, the most desirable female he
had seen in his short life. It would be a singular
honor to lose himself to so commanding a mate. Perhaps,
if he satisfied her sufficiently, he would be
granted the rare privilege of fathering her other
clutches and of being her acknowledged consort until
the Change took him.
The intensity of his host's desire triggered a
cascade of thoughts that flooded Kirk's mind with the
details of the Kh@fflict life cycle. With a
growing sense of horror, he monitored the
feelings, the needs, and the preprogrammed
responses of his host, trying to find where
he had misinterpreted the information. He had to have
made a mistake somewhere; no intelligent race
known to the Federation had such bizarre and
transmutable biology.
The Kh@fflict instincts forced his legs to move
faster, pushing his body to its limits. The cold,
dry air pulled every molecule of moisture from his
gill membranes and parched his air ducts all
the way to his lungs. Still his body tried for
greater speed, although the ground was rough and littered with
irregular chunks of rock. His guesses must
be true, Kirk realized. Nothing else could
explain the intensity of the Kh@fflict's drive
to reach the female ahead of him.
Shock surged through Kirk's mind, blotting out
the Kh@fflict instincts. His legs stiffened and
skittered off the loose rocks beneath his pincers.
He scrambled to regain his footing and
overbalanced, pitching on his side. Kirk
skidded, tried again to catch himself, and rolled off a
low bank. His momentum flipped him onto his
back, and he began to slide, picking up speed
as his smooth carapace skipped across the dry,
slick grass.

In scraps and snippets, images of the alien
landscape registered on Chekov's consciousness.
How he had gotten here, why he was here--or even
something as simple as how he was traveling across this
arid and unfamiliar landscape--seemed beyond his
comprehension. It was as if he had been drugged and
then turned loose to wander on an uncharted
planet.
When the other creature had approached, he
felt intensely relieved to know that he wasn't the
only person on this desolate world. He was even
more relieved to learn that food, shelter, and others
of his kind lay back across the hills in the
direction of the sunrise. Following the instructions
of his elder, he began retracing his footsteps.
Already he could feel the weakness in his body, the
deep shakiness that emphasized his need for food and
drink. And it would be nice to see others of his
kind, to converse with them and exchange images of
what they had seen and done in this wide and empty
land.
He did not think he had traveled far,
especially since the elder had reassured him that
the food pens were very close at claw. However,
time stretched, and he seemed no closer
to his destination, even though his limbs were shaking from
the effort of dragging his body across the rolling
hills. It must have been much longer since he had
hunted than he thought. Surely he must have had his
sunrise nanthken yesterday--or was it the day
before?
When he thought about it, he couldn't remember when
he had last eaten. He knew the answer should be
the first thing in his mind--the color of the nanthken's
fur, how much effort it had taken to capture it,
what rituals he had observed in conjunction with his
meal. If he could not remember that, he was losing
the colors and textures that defined his life and
gave it meaning. Suddenly he was no longer sure
of anything.
When the transit frame appeared on the
horizon, he almost turned around again. The elder
had said that food and others of his kind lay in this
direction, but even a fool knew that no sane
Kh@fflict put food pens near a transit
frame. in the dim past thieves from competing
cohorts had stepped through the frames, caught their
meals, and disappeared before anyone detected them.
In lean years such depredations forced the
sacrifice of the younger males in the cohort to feed
the matriarchs. Even in the present, more enlightened
era, the ancient customs held and the food pens were
several major eights of walking distance from the
frames.
Perhaps the elder had meant the food pens were beyond
the transit frame, he thought as he drew
closer to the black object. The elder's
directions had been vague and somewhat confusing,
especially in his present state of body. His
thought processes were always confused and muddled when
he went too long without eating.
At first he didn't even see the strange
creatures swarming around the transit frame. From
the barren and empty landscape, he had not
expected any life except a few scrawny
nanthken and the survivors of their exploration
team. The only possible reason for him to be in
such a desolate place was if he had been part
of an exploration team searching for new places
to settle. They must have seated the transit
frames before the disaster. He wasn't sure what
had gone wrong, but something had scattered their team
and destroyed their food supplies. The elder must
have tried to tell him, but both of them were too addled
after the accident.
His next look at the bizarre animals
stopped him in his tracks. Never within the lifetime
of his race had anyone reported life-forms as
deformed and appalling as these. They moved on two
feet, like the arboreal fruit-catchers in the
tropical jungles of the homeworld, but there the
resemblance ended. These animals were on bare
ground, scouting as though for prey. However, nothing
with so few appendages and with eyes pointed
strictly to its front could succeed as a
terrestrial predator in competition with the mighty
Kh@fflict.
He studied the beasts, wondering if they were the
food the elder had said was near the transit
frame. After a few moments he decided they were
not edible. If the elder had intended that, Chekov's
Kh@fflict mind decided, the elder's thoughts were
even more distorted than his own.
That left him with two choices. Their food
supply was either beyond the transit frame or it was
through it. Both alternatives meant that he had
to pass the strange, deformed animals. His body
rebelled at being near anything so repulsive, but
in the end hunger won out. He needed that food
quickly, before starvation further clouded his mind and
destroyed his reason.
Having reached that conclusion, he regained control
of his limbs. He started forward, picking up
speed as he did. Going through the transit frame
seemed the better choice. This was not the master
frame, so most of their supplies and equipment were
probably not in this area. Also, crossing through the
transit frame would put some distance between himself and
these bizarre animals and would give him time
to puzzle out their significance and the role they
fulfilled on this strange planet.
As he ran toward the frame, several of the
beasts made noises and moved toward him. At
each step their ungainly two-legged strides
made them look ready to fall on their faces.
How could anything designed along such irrational
lines survive? he wondered. Chekov moved
faster, his legs reaching for the distance-eating stride
used by messengers in the dim past. If these
animals were not food, he had no use for them.
He should get past them quickly so that he could find the
food pens and replenish his depleted energy
stores.
He was only a few lengths from the frame when
two of the creatures moved in front of
him. Chekov could not have stopped if he had wanted
to. He shifted his course slightly, aiming
straight for the largest animal. The soft, deformed
body went down under the impact, its alien flesh
deforming satisfactorily beneath his pincers. The
edge of his carapace brushed the other beast,
knocking it toward the transit frame. Chekov
charged through the portal without waiting to see what
happened behind him.

Once he quit worrying about his speed,
Kirk discovered that sliding downhill on his back
was not too bad. It reminded him of tobogganing
when he was a boy, but this time he did not have
to worry what would happen if he hit a bump.
His sled covered his body and would not go flying in one
direction while he went in another. His only
concern was injuring himself when he reached the bottom
of the slope.
Experimentally he flung out an appendage
to see what would happen. His body wobbled a little,
but his course seemed unaffected. He had started
downslope with his head uphill, so he could not see
what lay ahead of him, and the weight distribution in
the Kh@fflict body seemed to favor that
position. If he worked at it, he guessed he
could turn his carapace around, but he wasn't
sure that was a good idea. This way, even though he
could not see where he was going, he did not risk
putting out an eye if he crashed into something head
first. Until Spock changed him back to his
human form, he needed to keep all the
faculties of his Kh@fflict body in prime
working order. Also, he didn't know if any
injuries he sustained while in the Kh@fflict
form would be carried back across the transition. That
meant he didn't want to do something that would leave
him crippled when he returned to his human
form.
The slope flattened, and a flicker of relief
went through Kirk before he returned to worrying about
what lay ahead. If his luck held, friction
would slow him down before he collided with something;
any other outcome he would know about only when it was
too late to prevent. His descent began to slow,
and he reminded himself that the only way he could have
kept out of this situation was to have controlled his
reactions to the Kh@fflict sexual cycle. After
his human responses interfered with the
Kh@fflict's motor functions, he
had earned whatever he got.
He hit a patch of gravel and started to spin.
Once the rotation started, he couldn't stop it, and the
uneven forces on his carapace sent him spiraling
down the hill. As the scenery spun around him, he
told himself that the rotation would further decrease his
speed. The argument was firmly grounded in
physics, but Kirk didn't find the thought very
reassuring. Ahead of him was a dry stream bed
littered with boulders and cobbles. It took very little
imagination to know that he would be bounced around like a
starship in an ion storm when he hit those
rocks.
Kirk racked his brain for some way to stop
himself, but in his inverted position he had no means
for gaining leverage against the ground. The reduced
slope and the spinning were slowing him down, but he still
hit the stream bed with more speed than he liked. The
water-worn cobbles slipped beneath his carapace like
ball bearings. He skittered and bounced against the
boulders, and the clatter of the impacts echoed and
re-echoed in the confined space.
This is slowing my momentum, Kirk told
himself. Really. The physics books never
lie. Still, it was difficult to convince himself,
particularly when his random collisions increased the
illusion of speed. He began wishing for a larger
rock, one big enough to absorb his momentum when he
hit it head-on. A moment too late he
remembered the adage about being careful in your
choice of wishes.
A sharp spur of rock loomed ahead of him,
its jointed cliffs of dark basalt forcing the stream
into a sharp bend. With no control over his
movements, Kirk slammed into the wall of rock,
rebounded into the air, and flipped. He smashed
onto the rocky stream bed with one appendage
trapped underneath his body and two others twisted
into unnatural positions.
The brutal landing left him disoriented. At
first he couldn't remember where he was or how he
had gotten there. As his mental numbness
dissipated, he noticed aches and twinges everywhere
in his body. The Kh@fflict's heavy shell had
protected him from the worst of the beating, but several
of the impacts had caused internal bruising.
Kirk shuddered, realizing how sore he would be when
the injuries stiffened. Unlike a human, any
swelling would be confined by his carapace, and the
pressure on an enlarged joint could
become intensely painful.
It was, however, too late for him to worry
about avoiding the bruises and strains. His best
hope was to keep his muscles loose by continuing
to move and to hope that the cold air would keep down
any swelling. One at a time he tried moving his
appendages, flexing each joint to assess its
condition. To his relief, nothing seemed to be
broken, but several of his midlimb joints felt
like they would be stiff from swelling around stressed
connective tissues.
He levered himself to his pincers, testing each
joint and appendage as he stood. At first his
balance was unsteady, but after a few eights of
steps, the black rocks and the purplish sky
quit swinging around him. He staggered upstream
until he f ound a gentle slope leading out of the
stream bed.
The way was not difficult, but it took more out of
him than he had expected. His Kh@fflict
body was reaching the end of its reserves. He
needed to round up the other transformed humans
quickly and then find himself some food and a place
to rest.
An hour of climbing brought him back to where his
foolish mistake had sent him for the long slide.
He debated what to do next, but Kh@fflict
physiology decided matters for him. A gust
of breeze tickled his gills with a whiff of something
dark and mysterious. The Kh@fflict's instincts
took charge, and his body bolted in the direction
the female Kh@fflict had gone.

Chekov tumbled through the transit frame, his
entry speed disturbing his balance as he stumbled
through. The transition was rough, as though the maintenance
crews had not serviced the mechanism recently,
and it took a moment for him to regain control of his
limbs. He looked for the base camp and the food
pens that should have been waiting for him, but only a
desolate, rust-colored plain stretched as far
as the eye could see. Suddenly, as though someone had
raised the curtain of fog that shrouded his brains,
he knew where he was. Behind him, even before he
turned around, his mind showed him the canyon with the
narrow path cut into its wall. Halfway down,
secure from outside attack, lay the caves and the
city that controlled the world. Beyond, at the bottom
of the canyon, safe from all depredation, lay the
food pens with the fattest, tastiest
nanthken any Kh@fflict had ever slid its
proboscis into. Some disaster greater than he could
imagine must have occurred if his world had been
turned into this desolate wasteland.
He started to turn, pulled toward the vision of a
feast his mind was drawing for him. Distracted, he
didn't realize another Kh@fflict was coming through
the transit frame. He shouldn't have had
to worry; proper etiquette forbade following
at such a short interval, but apparently this
individual was trying to force a status battle.
If that was the case, Chekov would be glad
to oblige him.
The second Kh@fflict charged through the window
at full speed, crashing into Chekov's flank and
spinning him halfway around. Chekov staggered but
kept his limbs beneath him. He turned to face the
threat. The pincers flexed on his second set of
appendages, and glancing down, he saw that the
claws were tipped with sharp, thick spikes that would
pierce another Kh@fflict's shell when aimed with
sufficient force. His other pincers were also tipped
with spikes, but they were not as strong as the second
set.
His opponent attacked, his carapace flashing
a chaotic design of reds and blacks streaked with
every other color of the spectrum. Chekov read the
other's rage and disorientation, but most of the
patterns were chaotic, carrying no meaning. This one
was crazy, with an inborn insanity that must be
destroyed before he impregnated a female with his
defective genes or--worse--sired his
predestined quota of offspring and changed into one
of the females who ruled their world. Chekov's
duty was clear He must eliminate this one before his
defects spread through the sacred Kh@fflict
genome.
The other Kh@fflict swung a pincer at
Chekov's eyes, trying to sever the basal
attachments. It was so primitive and so
predictable a move that Chekov could barely
believe anyone, no matter how deranged, would
try such an opening attack. Chekov swung his
left second pincer in a sweeping circle,
aiming for the vulnerable spot near his opponent's
mouth, where the joint between the upper and lower plates
of the carapace was thinnest. His blow connected
solidly, and he felt the shell yield, but he
did not penetrate deep enough for a decisive blow.
The other charged past and turned, his
pincers skittering on the gravel.
Chekov pivoted to follow his opponent's
movements. The other was still flashing colors of
hate and turmoil, now tinged with something else. The
patterns changed too fast for Chekov to follow
them, and he was afraid to take the time to puzzle
them out. His opponent was strong, much stronger than
Chekov had expected, and he needed all the
skill he possessed to hold his own until he
found an opening.
The next three attacks were the same as the
first, down to the slices aimed at his eyes, and
Chekov began wondering why his opponent was being so
predictable. Even a deranged individual should
know to vary his technique, especially when it
hadn't worked the first time. To protect himself in
case his opponent was setting up a subtle
trap, Chekov varied his response, first
attacking the other's limb attachments, then trying
to flip the other Kh@fflict on its back. He
didn't believe either approach would succeed against
a heavier, stronger opponent, but it made his
actions harder to anticipate.
When his opponent started his run for his fifth
attack and Chekov realized it would be no
different than the previous four, he was ready.
As the other Kh@fflict approached, he pivoted
to the side, moving his body out of its expected
position. His opponent's stride faltered as he
tried to follow Chekov's movement. Chekov
rammed the spikes on both his second pincers
deep into the other's carapace. The chitin yielded
with an ugly, muted crack.
Momentum carried the other Kh@fflict forward,
tearing Chekov's pincers clear with a wet, ripping
sound. Bluish-purple fluid spilled from the
wound and splattered Chekov's pincers, the ground,
and the dying Kh@fflict. Instinct took over, and
Chekov mounted the corpse, his carapace flashing
an aroused and triumphant kaleidoscope of
purples and oranges. His proboscis
protruded from his jaws, its serrations erect and
gleaming wetly as he inserted it into the gaping wound
and gorged himself hungrily on the sweet, hot
blood.




Chapter Sixteen

They beamed the wounded security guard up and
rushed him to sickbay, bleeding from several deep
puncture wounds. The Kh@fflict's claws had
penetrated deeply in two spots, one on the
shoulder and the other on the leg, and sliced deep
gashes across both arms. Shaking his head at the
damage, McCoy refused to let Spock
interview the patient and took the guard
into surgery. Left with only the preliminary
reports, Spock returned to the bridge
to search for the guard who had followed the Kh@fflict
into the artifact.
The remotes near the sites he had
identified that morning showed nothing new in those
areas, and no one, human or Kh@fflict, had
recently passed nearby. That meant the
Kh@fflict and the security guard had
materialized somewhere else. At least Spock
hoped that they were somewhere else, although he would never
admit to such an irrational impulse as hope.
Diligent search techniques would find them much
sooner than all the hope in the universe.
It took him fifteen minutes to sort through the
Enterprise's orbital-altitude scanner
logs. The Kh@fflict had materialized
halfway around the world, in an area with no evidence
of any Kh@fflict transit frames or other
Kh@fflict ruins. By the time the Enterprise's
scanners zoomed in on the area, the two
Kh@fflict had fought, and the smaller Kh@fflict
was proclaiming his triumph upon the body of his
defeated foe.
Spock was sure the Kh@fflict's victory
rite, with its ritualistic cannibalism and
systematic disfiguring of the corpse, would fuel
many hours of debate, but for now they had a more
serious problem. Although both creatures looked
and acted as though they were aliens, human minds
were trapped in both bodies. The physical death
of a Kh@fflict body marked the death of its
human resident, whether either of the two beings was
aware of its own humanity or that of its
opponent. The ethical and moral implications
of the problem were staggering, even if no one considered
the legal ramifications.
"Killed in the line of duty," the log entry
would read, with nothing more explicit to tell what had
happened. Spock hoped that whoever was involved would
let it drop there. Delving deeper could
become exceedingly unpleasant, both for the
crewman trapped inside the surviving
Kh@fflict body and for the relatives of the man
killed in the fight.
The only benefit was that they had another
Kh@fflict body to examine. From their meager
scanner data, Spock thought the dead man was the
guard who had been pushed into the artifact, but the
information he had was not conclusive. When the victor
wandered off, Spock had the body transported
to the Enterprise and taken to sickbay for
examination. Since the man was dead, the least
Spock could do was wring the maximum amount of
information from his death. Perhaps his body would tell them
how to prevent similar insanity from destroying the
other altered humans on the planet.
"Spock, are you out of your Vulcan mind?"
McCoy's voice exploded from the intercom.
"You want me to autopsy another crab and
to determine who he was? As if he was carrying his
identification stapled onto his shell? I'm a
doctor, not a marine biologist. I haven't a
clue what to look for, Spock. Invertebrates
are not my specialty."
"I am aware of that, Doctor." Spock
heard McCoy draw in his breath to renew the
assault. Before he could speak, Spock continued.
"Seven people, including the captain, have been changed
into these creatures, and two of them are already dead.
We need all the information we can obtain about these
beings. In particular, we need positive
identification of this crewman to support our
conjectures concerning his identity. I can send you
help from the biology section. I am certain
Lieutenant Jylor or Ensign Bovray will
be delighted to assist you."
"I'm sure." McCoy's voice was heavy
with sarcasm. "Don't do me any favors,
Spock. McCoy out."
Don't do me any favors. The words
repeated themselves in Spock's min d, underlining their
difficulties on Careta IV. Although he
relished the intellectual challenge of learning
about new people and their worlds, Spock heartily wished
that they had never heard of Careta IV or of the
Kh@fflict.

After McCoy signed off, Spock went
back to searching for more Kh@fflict artifacts.
With the discovery of an operational
transport window that had not been found earlier, the
problem required more attention. He needed to know
what factors signaled the presence of
Kh@fflict ruins.
With the deadly turn their mission was taking,
Spock wanted every scrap of information as quickly as
he could get it. The Kh@fflict artifacts were
dangerous, and the least of their threat came from his
ignorance of their purpose and function. Without knowledge
he had little chance of reversing the transformation
process or of preventing the artifacts from
accidentally changing more people into aliens whose behavior
was as puzzling as their technology.
Half an hour later, a movement on the
monitor caught his eye. Most of the remotes
showed tranquil scenes of Kh@fflict wandering
across the dry, rolling hills near the second
artifact. Kirk was hurrying after the largest
Kh@fflict as if it was the most important thing
in his life. However, what had attracted
Spock's attention was a different scene, that of a
small Kh@fflict trying to descend a vertical
cliff.
Putting his data on hold, Spock
broadened the scan and identified the fighter who
had killed the Kh@fflict McCoy was
autopsying. Replaying the tape, Spock
watched the small alien circle around the
artifact and wander along the top of a deep
canyon. Its movements seemed intent and
purposeful, as though it was searching for something.
After ten minutes it apparently found its
objective. With cautious movements the
Kh@fflict picked its way over a pile of
rubble and crept across the treacherous surface of
an ancient landslide. On the far side of the
crumpled ground, a trail was carved into the
canyon wall. The small Kh@fflict started
down the trail, its movements jerky from
impatience and desperation.
Ordering the remote to show him the entire
canyon wall, Spock began examining the
two-kilometer-high rock face. From a distance
the sharp line incised into the wall proclaimed its
artificial origins. Up close there were gaps,
some of them impassable. In many places erosion
had tumbled great masses of rock and debris
across the trail, while in others the rocks had
been worn away from below.
The treacherous path and the small
Kh@fflict trying to negotiate it told
Spock that a major site must be concealed
nearby. He sent the remote closer to the
canyon wall, scanning the layers of blocky
red sandstone and fissured gray limestone. Most
of the way down, nearly hidden beneath a massive
landslide, Spock found the unmistakable signs
of long-deserted alien habitation.
A small hole was the only part of a broad,
arching ceremonial entrance that was unblocked
by fallen rubble. Once he knew what to look
for, Spock found remnants of the decorative
carvings that had surrounded the entryway. Some of the
vandalized scenes showed alien prisoners being
slaughtered on low, blocky altars, while
others showed graphic and violent depictions of
Kh@fflict in contorted positions. Spock
decided that he could safely postpone examining that
aspect of the Kh@fflict civilization. He
directed the remote to report what lay inside
the opening.
At first the readings were confused. One moment the
sensors reported a huge cavern, large enough
to hold the Enterprise with room to spare. The
next instant there was only solid rock from the
cliff face back as far as the sensors could
penetrate. Neither set of readings was logical,
which suggested a third possibility. Inside the
cliffs lay a major Kh@fflict site concealed
by a jamming field similar to the one that had hidden
the first artifact. The landslide had probably
been triggered to conceal the entrance.
Spock ordered a landing party to report to the
transporter room in fifteen minutes. If his
guess was correct, they might soon have the
information they needed.
* * *
The ledge was so narrow that the landing party had to beam
down two at a time. Spock and a security
guard were first, materializing a safe distance from the
rocks that buried the entrance. Spock tied a
rope around his waist and gave the end to the guard
to belay. If the caverns were booby-trapped in
addition to the camouflage that obscured them, he
wanted to give himself those extra seconds for the
Enterprise to beam him to safety. Being thrown
to his death by the security measures of a long-dead
alien race was not the way he would choose to end his
life.
As he started up the rock pile, he
heard the whine of the transporter effect as two more
guards materialized on the ledge. After that, if
his initial report was as expected, three
groups of scientists were waiting to beam down.
Spock edged his way across the rocks, testing
each step before trusting the rubble to stay in place.
Twice blocks of weathered sandstone crumbled beneath
his weight, and the fragments skittered down the
slope. However, despite its apparent
instability, the pile did not begin moving as he
had feared. He reached the opening and paused
to examine the bas-relief on the massive stone
lintel. Originally the figures had been
exquisitely defined, and the detailing on some of the
carvings still bore traces of bright pigment, but the
sculpture had been vandalized. The fragments
of the scene depicted a ritual sacrifice, but
the brutality of the remaining icons penetrated
even Spock's control. The eviscerated,
flayed, and dismembered bodies of half a dozen
non-Kh@fflict races--including two known
only from single, isolated occurrences--were
spread across stone altars, reminding Spock of the
Aztecs' brutal sacrifices of their
captives. He knelt to examine the entrance before
the guards realized how disgusting he found those
images.
At close range it was obvious that someone had
blasted the overhanging rock wall to bury the
caverns. The opening had once been completely
concealed, but the rubble had since fallen away
to expose the opening. His tricorder could not give
him a definite age for the carvings or for their
burial, although he estimated the site had been
built over 250,000 years ago. That age was
consistent with everything else they had found on
Careta IV.
Pulling out his torch, Spock worked his way
into the opening. Inside the rubble spread across the
floor of what had once been a large cavern.
Now fallen columns and slabs of rock
littered the floor and clogged the space.
Reflections off random bits of metal and
assorted junk told him the cavern was not
purely natural, as did the remnants of
carvings on several of the columns. A thick
layer of dust covered everything, as though nothing had
ventured inside in millennia. Conceivably, the
last people to enter the room were those who had blasted the
entrance shut.
Spock eased himself back out and stood, pulling
out his communicator. "Spock to Enterprise.
Commence beaming down the science teams. The presence
of a large cavern behind the rock slide is
confirmed. We will investigate this site
thoroughly. Inasmuch as this promises to be an
archaeological find of some significance,
please request Dr. Lassiter to join the landing
party, along with anyone Dr. Kaul wishes
to send down." He allowed himself a moment's
relief that Kaul was not yet sufficiently
recovered from his reaction to the suldanic gas to be
able to join the landing party. Until the senior
archaeologist accepted the importance of their
discoveries, Spock did not look forward to handling
the personality conflicts Kaul's disbelief
provoked.
"Acknowledged." Relays clicked on
Uhura's board as she passed on his orders.
"Is there anything else you need, Mr.
Spock?"
"Not at the moment, Lieutenant Uhura. I
will keep you informed if the situation changes.
Spock out." He replaced his communicator on
his belt and descended to greet the new arrivals.
By the time he reached the stable footing of the trail,
Lassiter and seven other science specialists
had materialized. Tallieur, the ship's
assistant historian, was huddled against the
cliff, casting apprehensive looks toward the
sheer drop a meter from his feet. On the
opposite end of the spectrum, a security
guard and the young man who had come with Lassiter were
leaning over the edge and discussing the best technique
for attempting an unaided descent.
"May I have your attention, please?" He
paused. "We have discovered a major Kh@fflict
center. Unfortunately, someone has vandalized the
site. Given that a later civilization,
probably the Meztoriens, has taken great
pains to conceal all signs of the Kh@fflict, we
should proceed under the assumption that there is something
even more dangerous about the Kh@fflict than what
we already know."
Tallieur cleared his throat. "Mr.
Spock, um, if the Kh@fflict civilization
or, um, its successors were so dangerous,
shouldn't we know about them, even if they died out so
long ago? Most races survive in, um, in
the legends of their successors."
"That's one of the questions we hope to answer,
Lieutenant. So far a computer search reveals
no references to the Kh@fflict, unless we
assume that the vast majority of the so-called
orphan cultures were destroyed by them. However,
we are continuing the search in hopes of turning up
definitive answers. Does anyone else have
questions they wish to raise at this time?" When no one
did, Spock hefted his torch and turned back
to the talus pile. "In that case, let us
proceed with our investigation."

Chapter Seventeen

The inside of the cavern was far brighter than
Spock had expected. He moved forward, and with every
ste p his boots raised clouds of powdery beige
dust that turned golden when they caught the slanted
rays of sunlight coming through the opening. Five
meters from the door, he stopped to examine his
surroundings. Details of partially destroyed
carvings stood out in sharp relief, as though lit
by direct sunlight, and the expected dust was
absent from the incised designs, which showed more scenes
of mass sacrifices and ritual murder. No
light source was visible in the cavern, and the center
of the room was heavily shadowed, but whatever system
the Kh@fflict had used to illuminate this area was
still working.
Silence, broken only by the whirs of half a
dozen tricorders, told him the rest of the party was
also looking around, trying to decide what to study
first. The chamber had once been as large as the
Enterprise's hangar deck, with elaborately
frescoed walls and ornately carved columns.
However, the blast that had piled tons of rock
over the entrance had disrupted the room's
buttressing and toppled many of the decorative
pillars. The facings had sloughed away from the
structural supports, forming piles of broken
rock and plaster at the base of the metal
columns. Fallen ceiling panels, smashed
into rubble or flung around like cards discarded by a
gigantic child, choked the area with debris. At the
northern end of the room, where the blast had been
strongest, all the supports had collapsed, and the
roof and outer wall had been reduced to fragments
little larger than Spock's fist.
"Comments, anyone?" Spock asked, wondering
how many anomalies he had missed. The
contrast between the areas of complete destruction and the
bits of still-operational Kh@fflict technology,
such as the lighting system, was striking.
"All or nothing," Lassiter murmured,
scanning the back wall with her tricorder. "Either
it's destroyed or it's untouched."
"Some of these carvings are almost three hundred
millennia old." Amtov Kordes,
Lassiter's assistant, was a chunky,
dark-skinned man with a thick Dindraed accent,
broad on the vowels and burred on the
consonants. "Yet their surfaces are as fresh
as if the work was finished yesterday."
"I don't understand the lighting technology at
all." A frown twisting her round face, the
Enterprise's alien technology expert,
Ensign Temren Knealayz, pointed her
tricorder overhead and scanned the ceiling a
third time. "I should detect something now that we're
past the jamming field."
Spock duplicated her tricorder scan.
His readings showed nothing but solid rock over their
heads. "Ensign, characterize the jamming field."
"The field is extremely directional and
strongly focused outward to screen this site.
I'm not familiar with jammer designs that serve
this specific function, but I'd certainly know more
if we could locate the projectors for the
field." She shook her head, sending a train of
ripples through her golden brown hair. "From this
side of the field, I've obtained a crude
frequency modulation profile. I wouldn't
call my data definitive, but the pattern
resembles some Meztorien field generators
I've examined in the past."
Lassiter referred to her tricorder. Keeping
her eyes on the screen, she said,
"Approximately half of all Meztorien
devices, normally those from the last millennia before
their disappearance, can be restored to working order.
However, no devices have continued to operate to the
present."
Kordes stepped forward, swinging his tricorder
in rhythm to his strides. "The devices
normally fail because they lack an appropriate
power source. It has long been theorized that the
Meztoriens were capable of creating a technology
that would survive through the millennia, if they'd
gained control of the required energy sources.
Dr. Kaul will be gratified to learn that
his hypotheses have at last been vindicated."
Lassiter's mouth tightened as though she had just
bitten into a sour stonefruit. "What we're
seeing here, Amtov, implies that the jamming
field generators were tied into an older
technology. It's hardly a vindication of
anyone's theories. At least, not until we've
traced everything to its source."
Interpreting human motivations was not his
specialty, Spock knew, but no one could
miss the hostility between Lassiter and Kordes.
Kordes was trying to undermine Lassiter's
authority, either with Kaul's blessing or because he
thought it was the fastest way to promote his own
career. To avoid an ugly confrontation, Spock
directed the discussion toward their immediate
objective. "Locating those devices is an
excellent suggestion, Dr. Lassiter. We will
begin detailed examinations of this cavern immediately.
All personnel should pay particular attention
to locating power conduits and possible exits
to adjacent sites."
Tallieur tilted his head to one side.
"Does that mean you think there's more here than just this
room, Mr. Spock?"
Spock considered the question. Was there more to the site
than this partially destroyed room? With great effort
the Kh@fflict had built the access trail down
the cliffs and decorated the entrance and the walls with
detailed carvings. When he added the fact that the
small Kh@fflict seemed very determined to get
here, everything pointed to the significance of their
find. "Indeed, Mr. Tallieur. The question is
whether our technology and our powers of observation
are equal to the task of penetrating the
protective measures that someone used to conceal this
place."
"Understood." Tallieur started to examine one
of the undamaged bas-reliefs, which showed several
Kh@fflict butchering a group of avianlike
humanoids. The others took their cue from
Tallieur and began working. With the confrontation
averted, Spock started on his chosen project,
examining the ceiling to determine how the illumination
reached the carvings on the walls and spread through the
enclosed cavern.

"I'm a doctor, not a marine invertebrate
biologist," McCoy muttered to himself for the tenth
time since the body of the dead Kh@fflict
had been delivered to his sickbay. He knew
the statement was illogical; the Kh@fflict had not
been sea-dwellers in more millennia than he
wanted to think about. However, because it let him hide
his uneasiness about this particular autopsy, the
irrationality was comforting. Although the Kh@fflict
body plan bore a striking resemblance
to terrestrial crabs, the physiology was
radically different. To make matters worse,
although the corpse was alien, he kept remembering
that it had once, however briefly, housed a
human consciousness.
"Christine, what did we get from that latest
chemistry panel?" he called, catching the flash
of her blond hair as she returned from the lab.
"It'll be another half hour." Chapel
ignored the impatience in his tone. Each lab
report suggested new tests, and McCoy had
spent the entire afternoon demanding the results as
soon as the samples were delivered to the
laboratory. That they both knew why he was so
impatient did nothing to lessen his testiness.
Comparing the test results of the two dead
Kh@fflict was finally giving them a handle on their
physiology, but the answers were still painfully slow
in coming.
"If we don't figure out what makes these
creatures tick pretty soon, they're all
going to starve. How will it look to Starfleet Command
if we let Jim and the others die for lack of
food?"
"You have a point, Doctor." Chapel turned
to her computer screen, where she was correlating the
corpses' physical parameters with the records
of the missing crewmen. "However, I believe we
have a little more leeway than you think."
"The problem, as I see it, is that they'll
start shrinking inside those shells, and their muscles
will start pulling away from their attachment points."
He switched the scanners to a different channel
and waited for the enzyme readouts to appear on his
diagnostic screen. "A man in a baggy pair
of pants is funny, but I don't think any of
these crabs are going to find anything amusing about
walking around in an oversized shell. In fact,
I think it might make them downright irritable."
"It may." Chapel entered the command for
"Repeat analysis" into the computer, and a moment
later the screen flashed, "Duplicate
analysis confirmed." She turned the
display toward McCoy. "Doctor, we have a
confirmed identification for the second dead man.
He's Ensign Bradford Nairobi, the guard
who was pushed into the artifact by the crab's charge."
McCoy grunted. "Nairobi? Pull up
his records and see if there's anything unique in
his profile. Anything we can use to help us
identify the rest of our people."
"Yes, Doctor." Chapel started back to the
lab, the tapping of her boot heels receding as
she left the room. McCoy glanced after her,
knowing that the lab technicians must be as tired of his
late-breaking flashes of inspiration as he was of
having a new idea spring up every time he was ready
to concede to the mysterious Kh@fflict. Still, his real
problem was that the people on the planet, however bizarre
their present form and physiology, were human, and
he had to keep them alive until Spock could
return them to their proper form.
He returned to his study of the Kh@fflict's
bicameral brain, trying to unravel the nerve
connections that led from each sub-brain. It was the
strangest way of controlling a body he had seen
since his school days, when his exobiology
class had constructed plausible brain
structures for the great brontosauroids of
Earth's far-distant past. Because of the vast length of
their spinal cords those immense beasts had needed
secondary neural nodes to control their motor
functions. Without the subsidiary hip nexi
to coordinate their reflex actions, they could not have
responded rapidly to emergency situations. The
Kh@fflict had evolved a similar arrangement
for subdividing their neurological func tions, but
without the justification of extreme size.
The dead bodies gave McCoy few clues
to how this arrangement functioned in life, although
Spock's interview with Kirk provided some
tantalizing hints. For Kirk's identity
to remain intact, it had to be housed in one section
of the brain, presumably the area that governed the
higher mental functions. Furthermore, that
sub-brain must function independently of the areas that
controlled the Kh@fflict instinctual behavior and
contained the preprogrammed learning.
McCoy knew his speculations would be
difficult to prove, but he couldn't be too far
off base. Unless Kirk's identity was
spatially isolated from the Kh@fflict functions,
the distinctions would break down, and the
Kirk/kh@fflict composite would become
dysfunctional. The evidence so far, supported
by Spock's interview with Kirk, was that the
dysfunctions they were seeing in the Kh@fflict were
caused by isolation of the two halves of the brain rather
than conflicting spatial mapping of separate and
incompatible identities.
That the Kh@fflict programming could--and perhaps in
most cases would--dominate the composite seemed
clear, given Kirk's reports on the strong
hard-wired component of their culture and
biology. When McCoy added in the disorientation
that the humans would feel on finding themselves in the
bodies of aliens they had not even known about three
days ago, he realized it was a miracle even
one person had been able to communicate with them. His
next job, after figuring out what the Kh@fflict
ate, was to reach the other human minds trapped
inside Kh@fflict bodies and reassure those people
that help was on the way.
Chapel returned from the lab, carrying the
summary tapes from the latest tests. "I think
we may have something here, Doctor. At least
Dennis thought there was enough to try constructing a usable
formula."
"Let's see." McCoy flipped on the
stasis field to preserve the corpse.
Technically, he shouldn't need to worry about
decomposition for several hours, but long
experience with starship medicine had taught him that
interruptions always appeared when you hadn't planned
for them. The stasis field would hold the corpse
if he did not get back to his autopsy
immediately, although standard procedure called for
cryostorage in addition to stasis. Certainly for
such a unique specimen, Starfleet Medical
Branch would want to examine the corpse, and
McCoy wanted to give them both Kh@fflict
bodies in prime condition.
McCoy dropped Chapel's tape into his
computer and began reading, pausing occasionally to refer
to his autopsy notes. The Kh@fflict had
three triangular teeth set in the front of a
tiny jaw. The arrangement of the teeth allowed the
Kh@fflict to puncture its prey or to shear through
soft tissue, but was ineffective for chewing food.
Without any grinding teeth and with most of the space
inside the mouth occupied by the proboscis when it was
retracted, the Kh@fflict had to have survived on
a liquid diet. The enzyme studies
and the structure of the siphonlike proboscis
suggested that they had injected their food with powerful
enzymes. When the food liquefied, they sucked
it into their gullets through the proboscis.
He shuddered, realizing what those digestive
enzymes would do to a human body. Luckily for
humans, Kh@fflict biochemistry was alien enough
that humans would not seem appetizing. In that the
crew was fortunate, McCoy decided, considering
the savagery portrayed in the last artifacts
Spock had found on the planet.
Shaking his head, McCoy went back to the
biochemical data on his screen. The
Kh@fflict were predators, he concluded,
functioning like certain terrestrial spiders. That
meant that their natural foods resembled blood
or pulverized meat. All he had to do was create
a nutritionally sound formula that appealed to the
Kh@fflict palate.
"We don't have to do much, do we?" Chapel
commented, her thoughts traveling on a course
parallel to his. "Just invent gourmet fare for a
race that died out a hundred millennia ago.
No problem."
McCoy chuckled. "I'll settle for something
they'll manage to choke down at this point.
Whether it's gourmet dining or pig swill, I
don't care, as long as it does the job."
"All things considered, even that's a tall
order, I'm afraid." She called up the
data on her console. "Why don't I figure
out how to feed it to them while you work on the formula?"
"Just what I was about to suggest." He gave her
the relevant section of his autopsy notes,
even though she knew Kh@fflict anatomy almost
as well as he did. "Let's see how quickly
we can get this done."
"Yes, Doctor." Her tone was grim, showing
she, too, knew they were struggling to prevent their people
from starving on a planet that could no longer
support the life-forms they had become.

Their break, when it came three hours later,
was so like a scene from one of Kirk's favorite
cheap entertainments that at first Spock could not
believe what was happening. Tallieur had been
scanning a section of the wall decorations
repeatedly in various spectral bands. Spock
was about to ask him why those carvings were so fascinating
when Tallieur pushed against the central
medallion in the design. Without warning a section
of the wall vanished, leaving a dark hole in its
place.
"What did you do?" demanded Kordes in a
tone that assumed he was in charge.
"Please report, Mr. Tallieur."
Spock stepped forward and blocked Kordes without
seeming to notice him. If he gave Kordes
the slightest opportunity, the archaeologist would
bully everyone around him into taking his orders. That
Spock could not permit if they were to accomplish their
goals. Kordes placed his career above all
else, but their mission was to rescue the captain and the
other people who had been changed into Kh@fflict.
Anything else was secondary.
Tallieur faced Spock, deliberately
ignoring Kordes. "These carvings resembled
similar work found on Belesov V. There the
purpose of the carvings was to conceal the hidden
passageways around the royal audience chambers.
I wondered if similar considerations influenced
these decorations, sir."
"So you tested your hypothesis. Did it occur
to you that it might be unwise to do so in a room
full of people?" Spock glanced at his tricorder,
which confirmed that the weak flickers he saw in his
peripheral vision were power surges in a force
field that filled the opening. They were safe as long
as the field remained in place.
"Yes, sir. It occurred to me. However, my
readings indicated that, if the opening existed, the
space could not be much larger than my tricorder."
Tallieur blushed a deep crimson. "In
future I'll remember that this technology is
too advanced for us to reject any possibility
simply because our instruments don't register its
effects."
"A wise rule." Spock studied the opening.
Experimentally he touched the surface. A tingling
warmth, similar to the one that surrounded the transit
frames, crawled up his arm. He reached in
farther, waiting for the overwhelming pull that characterized the
fields around the Kh@fflict transporters, but
it didn't come. Finally he withdrew his arm, nodding
to himself. "This field is different from the ones we have
previously encountered. Ensign Knealayz, do you
have a preliminary analysis?"
Knealayz gave him an apologetic grin.
"It doesn't match the parameters for any
class of field known to our science.
I've got some theories, sir, but I'll need
several hours of sensor readings before I can conduct
the analysis."
"We do not have the time to wait." Spock glanced
at his tricorder, but his readings made no more
sense than their earlier data. The long-dead
aliens had not wanted their relics to be found after
they had gone. "Mr. Tallieur, would you put
your tricorder through the field and see if it can
tell us anything?"
Tallieur slid his tricorder into the darkness.
Spock kept his instrument trained on the field,
and Knealayz and Lassiter scanned on a
broader focus around the opening. Unless they knew
where the mechanisms were housed, any tricorder
might record the information that would give them the key
to the Kh@fflict technology.
After several minutes Tallieur withdrew his
arm. His tricorder was still working, its sensors
whirring normally although it had just passed through a
Kh@fflict force field twice. Spock
nodded. "This field is definitely not the same
as the others. Did anyone observe something of
note?"
A chorus of negatives answered him.
Spock nodded again. Since their efforts to date
had produced so little data on the Kh@fflict
technology, it would have been surprising if they
had detected any changes this time. However, he
had needed to be sure before making the next test.
"Will someone volunteer to walk through the field?"
Tallieur's response was immediate. "I'll do
it, sir. I activated the field, so I should be
the person to risk its effects."
"Very well, Mr. Tallieur. You, Dr.
Lassiter, and I will examine your tricorder
readings for any pertinent information. Everyone else
may return to his or her previous
activities." He reached for Tallieur's
tricorder. Tallieur and Lassiter closed
on either side of him to read the data.
"I protest this procedure," Kordes
announced in a loud voice, planting himself in
front of Spock. "I should be the person
to explore this new discovery."
"Request denied." Spock didn't look
up from the tricorder. "If Mr. Tallieur's
test proves that passage through the field is
safe, we all will explore beyond this room.
Until then you may resume your
previous investigation."
"I refuse to accept your unlawful orders."
Before Spock could react, Kordes ran to the
opening and dived through. The force field flared bright
gold, then returned to black.
Lassiter replayed the data for Korde s's
disappearance on her tricorder. "It wasn't
pointed directly at the portal, but it was
running," she said in an apologetic tone. "And
here, when I turned to watch him, we can see through
the gap that opened for him. It looks like a
corridor or a long, narrow room."
"Mr. Tallieur's readings show the same
phenomenon. They also confirm that the atmosphere
on the other side is identical to that on this
side." Spock looked from the tricorder to the
opening. "I do not believe we will learn anything more
without sending someone through and trying to bring him back.
Are you ready, Mr. Tallieur?"
The historian squared his shoulders. "As ready
as I'm going to be, Mr. Spock." He took
his tricorder from Spock and switched it back to
"Record" mode. Crossing to the opening, he
took one last look around and then stepped through the
force field.
Once again the field flared to gold and then
faded to black. One second, two seconds,
three. The interval stretched to over a minute before
Tallieur, still in human form, stepped back through
the field. "There's an extensive system of
corridors and rooms behind this entryway, Mr.
Spock. I would guess this force field is here
merely to keep the uninitiated from entering the heart
of the complex."
"I hope you are correct, Mr.
Tallieur, because our answers are not in this
chamber." Spock called the ship, telling them
of the discovery and his decision to explore further
inside the mountain. He ordered Sulu to keep the
transporter room manned constantly, ready
to pull them out of trouble at a moment's notice.
With the formalities taken care of, Spock lined
up his team, and one by one they stepped through the
Kh@fflict force field and into the unknown.





Chapter Eighteen

The female had traveled farther than he
thought, given the immediacy of her scent, and
Kirk could feel the shaking in his legs by the time he
once again approached her position. Reason
told him to break off this pursuit and find food,
but reason didn't seem to be high on the list of
things that motivated his host. Once he sensed the
female in the area, the Kh@fflict's instincts
would not let go until he had mated with her. All
other considerations had been erased from his mind.
When the female came in sight, Kirk
realized his host had made a serious
miscalculation. She was on the next ridge.
A deep, narrow canyon divided them, the
vertical walls near the stream course making it
as impassable as Earth's Grand Canyon would be
to a human. His host could never make the crossing
on his own, and Kirk briefly entertained the
idea of aiding the Kh@fflict, if that was the only
way to ease the compulsion that drove his host. He
could see dozens of hand- and footholds in the
fissured rock below him, but he was reluctant
to try any more rock climbing in a Kh@fflict
body.
That left his host with only one option, if he
was determined to gain access to the female. He would
have to retrace his course until he found a
place where the canyon was passable. If Kirk
was lucky, he would travel far enough that the
Kh@fflict would lose scent of the female, and
Kirk could regain control of his body. Then he
would resume searching for the other missing people.
Logic told him the female must be Talika,
since she was the only woman who had been changed
to a Kh@fflict, and his mind shied away from the
diplomatic repercussions of the liaison his host
was contemplating. Kirk wondered what the
Kh@fflict equivalent of a cold shower was, but
the thought did not trigger any answering impressions
from his host. He would have to wait until events
returned control of his host's body to him.
The Kh@fflict started along the ridge, forcing
his legs to move as fast as they could. Kirk sensed
that the creature would have pushed the pace even more, but
his body was faltering. The long marches and the lack
of food had drained his energy reserves, and even
the bellyful of algal scum that Kirk had forced
down the previous night would not keep him going much
longer.
Even so, the mating drive overrode all other
concerns, and the Kh@fflict kept moving as fast as
he could. The female was back there, and she could not
wait; if he did not get there soon, some other
male might impregnate her. He could not let
that happen.
The sun dipped toward the horizon, and still his
host struggled to return to the female. After three
abortive attempts to cross the canyon, he
reached its upper end. Circling around the splayed
stream channels at the canyon's head,
Kirk's host reached the ridge where the female
had been. Kirk struggled to head back toward the
artifact, but the Kh@fflict's instincts were still in
control. His host poured on the speed, finding
reserves of energy Kirk did not know he had.
An hour before sunset he finally caught up
with the female. She was standing on the end of a headland
overlooking a small, muddy lake. Even through his
thick carapace, Kirk felt the icy bite of the
wind, and he shivered at the idea of spending a
night on this point, unprotected from the wind and the
falling temperatures. It had been many thousands
of years since this desolate land had supported
life as the Kh@fflict knew it.
At first the female seemed unaware of his
approach. She kept her back to him, and her
carapace remained a neutral beige.
Surely she should have recognized the arrival of so
strong and eager a partner by now. If she was
ignoring him, it meant either that someone had beaten him
to his goal or that something catastrophic was
preventing her from responding to the most basic
drive a Kh@fflict could know.
He moved closer, blinking a kaleidoscope
of eagerness and submission, alternating with boasts
of his skill and prowess. The latter, Kirk
realized, were empty images, formed out of his
host's biological imperative and not based on
actual experience. As alien as the Kh@fflict
were, some things transcended all barriers. Young
Kh@fflict males told the same exaggerated
stories about themselves as did young males from almost every
known race in the universe.
His host moved forward, clicking his pincers and
scuffing rocks to get the female's attention.
She turned finally, flashing orange bars of
irritation. @ghWhat do you want, boy"...@ar she
demanded. @ghBe gone and leave an Elder in
peaceff@ar
@ghOh, most high Elder, I crave the
honor of serving your needs in any manner that
pleases y.@ar Kirk's host moved forward, his
bold movements contradicting his groveling words.
Given the female's attitude, Kirk thought it
would be wise to leave immediately, but his host could not
read the rejection in her images. He moved
closer, rubbing his carapace against her side.
@ghBe goneff@ar she flashed again, her images more
forceful. @ghI have no need of soft-shelled
babies like yff@ar
"Oh, most high and powerful Elder, let me
prove my worth you." Kirk's host rubbed
harder against the female's side, trying
to impress her with his virility. The Kh@fflict
mind seemed unable to recognize that her refusal
was sincere and permanent. How could he regain
control of his body before the female retaliated
against the unwelcome advances?
Before he could try again to overcome the
Kh@fflict's instincts, the female responded.
Hooking her legs beneath his carapace, she shoved.
He flipped over and landed on his back, sliding
downhill. A warm glow surged through his host at
the thought that this was the greatest, most powerful female
that had ever existed. Oblivious to his admiration,
the female gave him another shove, and he
picked up speed.
Suddenly the ground dropped away from beneath him,
and Kirk was sailing through the air, a hundred
meters above the rusty surface of the lake.
Kirk remembered wondering about the Kh@fflict
equivalent of a cold shower. He had a horrible
feeling he was about to find out what it was.

It must be here somewhere, Chekov thought, scouting
across the surface of the landslide. He knew the
path to the hidden city lay on this cliff face,
concealed behind enough obstacles to keep individuals from
other cohorts from stumbling upon it accidentally. The
question was, had he missed it himself, given his dazed
and weakened condition? The battle had taken more from
him than he had thought, using energy reserves he
knew his body couldn't spare, although he had fought
a smart duel and had taken his fill of his
defeated enemy.
To top everything off, the area had changed since
he last saw it. The vegetation had withered and died,
the weather had turned cold, and the camouflage had
been redesigned. He was starting to feel
like an invader in his own cohort's stronghold
instead of the conquering hero returning against the odds from
a difficult mission. What had happened? Why
was his memory so misty about the significant
images that surrounded his life?
He moved farther, clambering on top of the
landslide in hopes of gaining a better view.
Nine times out of ten, his lower brain reminded him,
only a rock wall stood beyond the slumped
debris. This pile of rubble showed all the
earmarks of being just such a piece of camouflage,
its presence intended to fool invaders inffbelieving
that it concealed the trail. There might even be a
false path leading around the corner, tempting
intruders to follow it onto a blind shelf.
Still, his memory insisted that this was the trail to the
hidden city, so Chekov took the path when he
saw it. Maybe the invaders had been so numerous
that the Elders had concealed the main trail. He
could not believe they had destroyed it utterly,
especially when the Elder had not informed him of the
change. The trail was here, and he would find out
what had happened when he reached the city.
The danger must be severe if the Elder had
been unable to tell him when they met. Chekov was
sure that no one had bee n within seeing distance, which
meant that the Elders suspected the destruction of
his world and its life-forms was the work of one of the
technologically advanced cohorts. Less than
an eight of cohorts possessed scrying
devices capable of watching someone's conversations
without others being aware that their devices were nearby.
The longer he thought about his meeting with the Elder and
considered how little his world matched his memories, the
more Chekov realized the magnitude of the disaster that
had befallen him. He should have remained on the other
side of the transit frame, should have offered the
Elder whatever assistance he could.
Still, the Elder had sent him to find food, which
said that the Elder knew more than he did. The
Elder wanted him to fortify himself for a great
mission. He was being made ready to save his people.
As soon as that thought occurred to him, Chekov
knew it was right. The wasteland around him, the
drastic alterations that made his world almost incapable
of supporting life--everything pointed to the need for a
savior to redeem his people. He was the Chosen One,
the mighty warrior who would save his cohort from the
ruin visited upon it by their evil opponents. Now
that he knew the truth he could not fail in
the great assignment the Elder had given him.
The visions of his glorious mission carried
Chekov across the next three landslides and
inspired him to traverse the narrow gaps where rock
falls had removed the support for the trail,
leaving only open air and fissured rock to hold
his weight.
With each new obstacle Chekov felt his
confidence wavering, but he reminded himself that the
Elder was counting on him. He had to reach the hidden
city to see what his cohort needed from him. It was
his duty to accomplish the great deed that he had been
given.
Clambering over rock piles and inching his way
along fissures that were too narrow by half for him
was exhausting work. In addition, a cold wind
gusted down the canyon, kicking dust in his eyes
and threatening to slap him off the cliff. Chekov
knew he must believe in his mission. Surely the
Elder would not have asked the impossible from him.
Suddenly Chekov knew he had misunderstood
the Elder. The trail was so bad that the Elder could
not have meant for him to descend all the way to the
canyon floor. Reminding him of the nanthken
pens in the valley below was only the tool the
Elder had used to start him in the right direction.
There were other ways to reach the valley floor, and the
Elder must have intended for him to use the lift
tubes inside the city. Anyone with such a vital
mission would have all the resources of the cohort at
his disposal.
He paused, trying to get his bearings. The
upper entrance into the city had always been well
concealed. With the current modifications to the
camouflage, it would be hidden even better than
before. He hunkered down on the trail to minimize
his exposure to the wind. He had to be close, but
for several long eights he couldn't remember enough
landmarks to tell how far he needed to go. Hunger
was dulling his mental processes and slowing his
reactions to an unbearably sluggish pace. The
Elders would have to let him feed before he could do any
important work. He only hoped they had a
bunch of fresh nanthken waiting for him, their hind
legs lashed together in the traditional manner of
offerings given to his cohort's greatest heroes.
The late afternoon sun made it difficult for him
to see where he was. Unbidden, the memory
surfaced that his people only used this trail in the
early morning, when the cliff was in
shadows and the uneven light disguised their carapaces
as they worked their way down to the city. Still, he
didn't have much choice. Given the urgency of his
mission, he had to gamble. His uncertain
recollections told him the entrance was a few
eights of paces farther down the trail. With
nothing better to guide him, Chekov heaved himself
back onto his pincers and started down the trail.

Chapter Nineteen

The corridor was wide and its walls were a
mottled rusty beige, the variations caused
by color differences in the sandstone into which the complex
had been excavated. The low ceiling, which fit
Spock's predictions for Kh@fflict
architecture, was barely high enough for the humans
to stand erect. At intervals broad portals
pierced the walls, their doors deeply carved with
violent and brutal scenes similar to the ones that
had been vandalized in the outer cavern. Several
panels depicted mass sacrifices, and among
the victims Spock recognized several races
known only from isolated artifacts that had
survived their makers. The difference between this area
and the outer cavern was that no one had disturbed these
carvings since their creators had vanished many tens
of millennia ago.
In fact, despite the immense age of the
complex, everything was in pristine condition, and there was
little dust anywhere. Only a light powdering on the
floor carried the imprint of Kordes's
footprints. Whatever cleaned this part of the complex
was still functioning despite its age. Spock
lifted an eyebrow, thinking how many people in the
Federation would kill for the resale rights to a still-working
technology created by a people who had been dead so
long that even the legends of their existence had been
forgotten.
After everyone had come through the portal unharmed,
Spock started down the corridor, looking for
clues that would direct them to the control center for the
complex. He had no doubt that it existed; the care
with which the Kh@fflict had concealed this location pointed
strongly to its being the headquarters for all their
activities on Careta IV. Somewhere
nearby, Spock hoped, they would discover a
still-functioning library computer that contained the information
they needed. He would have to translate the data
into a usable form, but Spock was certain his
computer skills were more than equal to deciphering the
Kh@fflict's data storage systems. After that
it became a race to change their people from Kh@fflict
back to humans before more of them were killed.
They stopped to look behind some of the doors,
choosing at random which ones to investigate. All
opened into square rooms with very low ceilings. The
interior walls were plain and unadorned, although
occasional piles of fibrous debris suggested that
tapestries might once have covered the stone.
Most of the rooms contained objects made of
sandstone slabs, which resembled narrow, waist-high,
backless benches that could have supported a
Kh@fflict's body while letting its pincers
swing clear of the floor. In the center of about half
the rooms were larger objects that looked like desks
or tables made of blocks of gray limestone.
Nowhere did they learn who had used the rooms or
what function they had served, although Tallieur
suggested that they had been used for ritual penance
or indoctrination.
By the time they had gone a hundred meters,
Spock realized that distances inside the complex were
deceptive. The lighting was the same diffuse,
indirect illumination that had confused them in the outer
cavern. No apparent energy source provided the
light, and no one had determined how it reached its
targets. Patches of darkness spaced randomly
along the corridor suggested that the system was
failing, but that told Spock nothing, since he
had yet to figure out how it worked.
A hundred and fifty meters from the entrance,
they reached the first cross-corridor. It stretched
in both directions, appearing no different than the
corridor they were in. If they encountered many such
intersections, Spock realized the humans would have
trouble retracing their route. With his inborn sense
of direction, he did not anticipate trouble, but
the others were not so well-equipped.
The farther they moved away from the entrance, the more
frequently other corridors crossed theirs. As
he counted the number of intersections, Spock
felt increasingly certain that this was the master
complex. The landing party had started from the
ceremonial entrance, which was designed to awe and
intimidate anyone who came to the cavern. The
rooms near the entrance, which seemed so uniform and so
uninteresting, appeared to be meeting rooms for
individual interviews, training, or
indoctrination. If they had known where
to look, they might have discovered the Kh@fflict
equivalent of two-way mirrors concealed in the
walls overlooking the cavern. The Kh@fflict
priesthood had probably not stored much of
value in the rooms closest to their temple for
fear that the complex would be looted or, worse, that
someone would subvert their followers into rebelling
against their ruling class. In most highly
repressive societies, Spock thought, the
rulers displayed an extreme degree of
paranoia.
Such speculations did not help him locate the
main control center, however. Finding that depended
on choosing the right path through this maze of rooms and
corridors, and Spock's estimation of the size
of the complex increased with each step. Their
tricorders gave them no long-range information
on their surroundings, which suggested that the walls
incorporated shields that severely attenuated
their scanning beams. Even knowing their location, the
Enterprise's sensors had been unable
to distinguish the complex from the background noise. The
ship was keeping its fix on their position only
because of their communicators, and Scott refused
to beam additional personnel inside the complex.
However, he had locked onto Kordes's
communicator and beamed him back to the
Enterprise, fighting mad at having his
personal expedition canceled by Spock's orders.
Anybody they wanted to join them would have to beam
down outside the cavern.
For the first half hour, they moved inward, checking
rooms at random to see if they contained anything of
interest. The Kh@fflict did not seem like beings
whose rulers would be easily accessible, and once
they were away from the entrance, the choices became
less obvious. If their tricorders or the
ship's sensors had told them even roughly how
large the complex was, Spock could have estimated
where to look for their objective. As it was, they
were hunting blind.
"Damn! I'm just not getting anything!"
Knealayz pivoted, swinging her tricorder in a
full circle. "No shielding should be so good that
we can't find variations in the background
magnetic flux."
"Or something to indicate which end is up," added
Tallieur. He frowned, searching the walls as
if expecting a map to be engraved in the stones.
"It's not like everything is so deteriorated
that what we're looking for vanished a million
years ago. Most of this looks like it was abandoned
yesterday."
Lassiter nibbled on a lock of her pale
hair. "It's got to be so obvious that we're
missing it completely. This is the place; this is
their center. I sense that much, but I don't know
where to go from there." She blushed a deep crimson,
realizing how much she had revealed with those few
words, but no one challenged her.
"The only things we know about the Kh@fflict are
what Captain Kirk has told us and what we
see around us." Spock tried to see their
surroundings from a Kh@fflict perspective. This
corridor, like all the others, had been cut from
solid rock, and no effort had been made
to alter the natural colors or textures. In
the distance they had traveled, the rocks had gone from
the massive rusty sandstone near the entrance to a
finer-grained and lighter-colored sandstone to the buff
siltstone that surrounded them here. If the
Kh@fflict had left the rocks unmodified,
perhaps they had some significance. What was it?
"Mr. Spock, you said that their language was
based on color and gesture, didn't you?"
Tallieur was frowning at his tricorder. "And that
most of the information is carried in the colors and the
visual patterns?"
"That is correct." An image of the cliff
face flashed through Spock's mind. The rocks were
tilted at a thirty-degree angle so that a
rock layer that started at the canyon's rim would
eventually reach stream level. Also, since the
canyon cut across the rocks in an oblique
direction, the layers also sloped backward into the
hill. A tunnel driven straight into the cliff
would eventually intersect every different type of
rock found in the canyon. "Can we correlate
the types of rooms we've been in and their location
along this tunnel?"
Lassiter flipped through the records on her
tricorder. "We have sampled the rooms randomly
and have found three basic plans so far." Her
voice rose in surprise. "The room layouts
appear to be constant within each rock type.
However, given the percentage of the complex that
we've seen, we haven't come close to sampling
a statistically valid subset of the rooms
available."
"I am aware that we do not have
sufficient data to support a scientifically
defensible conclusion, Dr. Lassiter." Her
reluctance to speculate gave Spock new
insight into Kirk's often all-too-apparent
irritation with his own caution in similar
circumstances. He promised himself to reexamine
his own actions later, when he had time for such things.
At the moment, however, they needed a premise for
locating the center of this complex as quickly as
possible. "In the interests of shortening our
search, can we formulate a working hypothesis that we
can test with our explorations?"
Tallieur lifted three fingers. "The outer
rooms had benches of the same stone as the walls,
and some had desklike objects of gray
limestone. The rooms in the lighter-colored
sandstone had more desks, but these were made of the same
rock as the walls. And the last rooms we've
checked contained nothing at all."
"The only thing that stands out is those limestone
desks." Lassiter chewed harder on the ends of
her hair. "We were speculating that those rooms
might be audience chambers for the priests or
whatever high officials ran this place. Would the
limestone have special significance for them?"
"Do we have anything stronger to base a conclusion
on?" Tallieur asked. "I'd prefer something
more solid, but I'll gamble on just about anything."
Knealayz gave the corridor another sweep
with her tricorder. "Why not? We've traveled
far enough that I should be detecting differences in the
e-m flux, if nothing else. After all, we
can see that their equipment is still using power;
otherwise the lights would have gone out. So anything
is better than stumbling around waiting for a lucky
break."
"Very well." Spock had not expected them
to agree so quickly. "In that case, we shall
proceed down this corridor with all possible
speed until we encounter the limestone unit from which
the desklike objects were obtained. Meanwhile,
everyone is to consider the means by which the Kh@fflict
moved from level to level within this complex. What
we seek may be above or below us, and we must
discover a method for contending with that possibility."
To the chorus of acknowledgments, Spock started
down the corridor at the fastest speed he
considered the humans capable of maintaining. So
far, despite the low oxygen content of Careta's
atmosphere, the group was holding up
well. However, he dared not push them too far,
or they would not be fit to cope with the unexpected,
should it arise.

Two hours later Spock was beginning to question the
logic that had started this enforced march. They had
crossed two fault zones, each of which thrust the
lower section of rocks toward the surface and
placed them back in the rusty sandstone. By his
estimation they had covered almost fifteen
kilometers of corridor without getting any
closer to their goal. Spot checks of the rooms
along their route continued to support the correlation
between rock layer and the surrounding rock type but
gave them no new information to work with. The humans
had long since lost their enthusiasm.
Without a clear idea of what to do, he ordered
a stop in the next wide intersection. With the
additional open space afforded by the
cross-corridor, Scott beamed down ration
packs and freshly filled canteens for everyone.
The food and a few minutes of rest immediately
boosted the morale.
"I think Mr. Spock had it right before,"
Tallieur said around a mouthful of his ration bar.
"These people were so paranoid they wouldn't trust their own
mothers."
"Would you trust your mother if she let you put
something like that on your door?" Knealayz pointed
to a door opposite them, which showed another
graphic scene of ritual torture and
sacrifice. The victim spread over the altar
would have made a good illustration for a textbook on
Kh@fflict internal organs.
"Just so." Tallieur took a gulp of water
to wash down his food. "Anyway, we've walked
and walked and still haven't got anywhere. Just when we
think we're making progress, a fault shoves
the rocks around, and we start over at the beginning
of the section. I'll bet the geologists would
love it, but I'm tired of seeing the same
rocks over and over again."
"And I'm still not getting any flags on the
background energy flux." Knealayz shook her
tricorder in frustration. "Why aren't we
getting anything? There has to be some band that they
forgot to shield."
Lassiter pulled her legs against her chest and
rested her cheek on her knees. "It's more
likely that their shielding is where rather than
what. I mean ..." She paused, nibbling on
her hair. "We're out here, where anyone who
gets into the complex would be. If we're hostile
invaders, they don't want us to see anything, so
they shield against everything we might scan with."
Spock straightened, wondering how many times he
was going to confront the obvious before he finally
unraveled the mysteries of the Kh@fflict. "That
would be logical. It also means we must
penetrate beyond the first set of rooms along these
corridors."
Tallieur glanced pointedly at the red
sandstone walls. "My recommendation, for what
it's worth, is to backtrack to the last fault and
check everything in the immediate area. If there's any
validity to our assumption that function
correlates with color and rock type, we can
examine the most alternatives in the smallest
area."
"That does seem reasonable, Mr.
Tallieur. I suggest that everyone finish eating
quickly so that we may resume our investigation."
Groans and protests greeted his words, but within
five minutes they were marching back toward the last
fault zone. When they reached it and the group fanned
out to make a preliminary survey, Spock
examined the fault itself. Straddling the break, with
one foot on buff siltstone and one on rusty
sandstone, he noticed something he should have seen before.
The difference in the two rock types implied that
the rock layers had at one time moved several
kilometers relative to each other. However, the
floor of the corridor was as smooth as the day the
Kh@fflict had bored out the tunnel.
Geologically, such stability was not impossible,
but it was, to say the least, extremely
improbable. Somehow the Kh@fflict had
stabilized the fault zone for many kilometers in
all directions--and they had done it so well that the
result had survived their civilization by at least
a hundred and fifty millennia. From what they
had seen, Spock had concluded the galaxy was
better off for the extinction of the Kh@fflict, but they
were poorer not to know the secrets of their technology
and science.
Twenty minutes of scouting narrowed their
choices considerably. Most of the rooms were
identical to the ones they had been examining all
along, with the same types of furniture and only
one door leading to the corridor. These
chambers were discarded without furthe r study. Half a
dozen rooms, randomly placed along the
passageway, had a second door that led away
from the hallway. Spock chose teams
to investigate, but the results were disappointing.
Each chamber was connected to another much like itself, which
in turn was connected to another, similar room.
Eventually the last room in the chain opened onto
an adjacent corridor on the same level of the
complex. The exploration teams returned dusty,
thirsty, and more aggravated with the Kh@fflict than
ever. When the connections were drawn out on a map,
they resembled a drunkard's walk from one point
to another, but the conclusion was inescapable. Those
chambers led nowhere they wanted to go.
That left the last two rooms, which straddled the
fault plane. They had been avoiding them,
hoping that they would find their answer elsewhere. "It
would figure," Lassiter murmured, scanning the
doors while trying not to look at the carvings. In
these panels the Kh@fflict had depicted their
scenes of torture, sacrificial slaughter,
and ritual brutality with such precise and
graphic detail that no one was eager to explore
how these rooms reflected that aspect of
Kh@fflict society.
"I can't think of a more effective way of
discouraging people from opening this door." Tallieur
glanced at the images, then looked away, shaking
his head. "I thought the Aztecs were over the edge."
"The Aztecs were amateurs compared to these
characters." Knealayz swallowed. "Who wants
to bet the transporter controls are right under the
altar?"
Spock pushed at the door, and it swung open
soundlessly. The room was long and narrow, with the
fault line bisecting its entire length.
Ghostly light flickered in the corners, leaving
most of the room in deep shadow. The exception was
a pool of brightness that surrounded a block of
gray limestone. Splotches of purplish
black stained the altar's sides and spattered the
floor around it.
"Not possible," Knealayz muttered in dismay
as she glimpsed the blood-splattered altar.
"Not bloody possible. Besides, no stasis
field is that good." She began scanning the
closest wall, deliberately ignoring the
anomaly at the far end of the room.
Activating his tricorder, Spock
advanced toward the object. After so many
failures, the probabilities were against their
finding anything useful, but he had to try.
Halfway down the room, the readouts began
jumping too fast for him to follow. He switched
the display to half speed but continued to record on
all channels. Behind him he heard gasps of
surprise as the others repeated his discovery. It
was as though a barrier divided the room in half.
Once they crossed it, their instruments detected
all the information that had been screened from them before.
One by one the landing party reached the far end of the
room, circled the altar, and stopped with
tricorders pointed at the gray block of
limestone. "That is the source of the anomalies,"
Tallieur said, saying aloud what they already
knew. Given the Kh@fflict fondness for
repetition, rooms containing similar furnishings
and equipment probably straddled every fault in the
complex.
"Sorry I suggested it," Knealayz
muttered. "These people are too appalling
to contemplate."
Privately Spock agreed with her. Still, if
you didn't want unauthorized individuals
to use your intrabuilding transport system, the
best location for the control mechanism was the last
place any sane person wanted to go. The
Kh@fflict may have been brutal, disgusting, and
loathsome, but they had not been stupid. Unless he
completely missed his guess, no low-ranking
Kh@fflict would willingly enter a room such as this
unless he knew someone--or something--else would be
the sacrifice. Taking a deep breath, Spock
ordered, "Mr. Tallieur and Ensign
Nakamura, would you move the altar so we can see
what the controls look like?"
The two men crouched beside the block of gray
stone and put their shoulders against its splotched
surface. Their first shove had no effect.
Stepping back, they looked at each other and
shrugged. "It's a lot heavier than I thought,"
Tallieur said.
Nakamura nodded, and they braced themselves for a
second attempt. Sweat beaded on
Nakamura's forehead and trickled off
Tallieur's face. Finally, with a terrible
screech, the rock began to move. The next
instant, everything went black.

Chapter Twenty

Consciousness returned slowly. Spock
allowed his surroundings to seep into his awareness before
he opened his eyes, listening for the soft, uneven
breathing of his people almost lost in the emptiness
surrounding them. When he heard nothing besides the
sounds he expected from seven unconscious
humans, he cracked one eye to confirm his
impressions. The Enterprise's landing party
appeared to be the only living beings in the area.
Knowing he could not be sure while he was on the
floor, he rolled to his feet, reaching for his
phaser as he stood.
A quick circle revealed no immediate threats and
no other living beings. The transport system they
had triggered by moving the altar stone operated
differently from the Kh@fflict's main system.
Instead of transforming the humans, this
transporter had knocked them unconscious and
delivered them--where? The mechanism had been
preset to send them to this location, wherever that was.
Lowering his phaser, Spock began a second
turn, this one slow enough to take in the details.
They were in the center of a huge amphitheaterlike
room lit only by small, diffuse lights
hidden among the rafters of the high, vaulted
ceiling. Looking around, Spock had the distinct
feeling that the last occupants, when they left so
many millennia ago, had turned out the lights and
walked away as though they expected to return.
If he knew where the switch was, he could bring
the room back to life.
At one end of the oval-shaped arena floor, a
broad ramp led upward to an enclosed area.
Unlike the rest of the complex, the doors to that
room were plain and uncarved, as though the people
expected here didn't need to be intimidated.
The ruling class, if they fit the pattern found
in ninety-nine percent of such civilizations, had
reserved the vulgar intimidation for their followers.
That also meant the humans had finally gotten the good
fortune they needed. When they discovered where the
Kh@fflict had hidden their intrabuilding
transport system to prevent its use by outside
invaders or by the uninitiated, the system had sent
them to the control center for the entire complex.
Spock turned away from the mesmerizing bulk
of the enclosure. They needed to explore that
structure, but the rest of the area demanded
his attention first. The arena was encircled by wide
tiers that stepped upward into the shadows. Squares,
rectangles, and strangely shaped boxes
filled the space on each level, although there was
room to maneuver around most of the objects.
Spock's curiosity stirred at the thought of
exploring this room, but he had more important
business to settle first.
Knealayz stirred, and he went to her, checking
her pulse and respiration. Both were normal, and
before he finished, her eyelids fluttered open.
"It's all right," he told her. "Their
transport system worked better than we had
hoped."
She sat up, rubbing her neck. "I take it
that means I'm still alive, sir?"
"Affirmative." Spock inclined his head
toward the other members of the landing party, most of
whom were stirring. "Checking everyone is our first
priority."
"Yes, sir." She pushed herself to her feet,
moving unsteadily, and started toward one of the
security guards. Reassured that the others would
come out of the strange transport experience as
easily as he had, Spock started to help
Tallieur.
A scream ripped through the stillness. Lassiter
jerked upright, her hands shoved against her face and
her fingers digging into her temples. Knealayz,
who was closest, went to her and crouched at her
side. Sensing a presence nearby, Lassiter
swung wildly, catching Knealayz across the chest
and knocking her to the floor.
Spock grabbed the emergency medical kit.
Pulling out the hypo, he set it to deliver the
combination tranquilizer and psi-suppressant he
had insisted that McCoy include in their
supplies. He shoved the injector against
Lassiter's shoulder and triggered the spray.
The contact sent her inffconvulsions, her body
jerking and twitching like an epileptic's. Spock
grasped her shoulders and eased her to the floor.
A flood of emotions and information inundated him
when he touched her. Disoriented, he broke away
and stumbled clear of the group until his thoughts
settled.
They had indeed reached their goal, Lassiter's
involuntary outpouring had shown him, the control
center for all Kh@fflict activities on
Careta IV. In the dim past the
Kh@fflict High Elders had ruled from here with
an absolute life-and-death dominion over their
people that had never been matched, even by the most
brutal dictatorships of the previous
millennium. The equipment and information stored here
had programmed, directed, and controlled the
Kh@fflict people with a completeness made possible
only by the unique construction of the Kh@fflict
brain.
In the almost-forgotten past of the Kh@fflict, they
had passed information from generation to generation through a
complex coming-of-age rite that imprinted crucial
knowledge on the lower brains of the adolescent
Kh@fflict. Over time the ritual had become so
detailed and so elaborate that most of the
Kh@fflict culture was programmed into the young
when they were admitted into the adult world. From there it
had been a short step for someone to invent machines
to transcribe into the young absolutely faithful
copies of everything the rulers wanted them to know,
and for the rulers to entrench themselves throug h their control of
what they taught the young. Just when the culture had
descended into the ruthless savagery unequaled
by any known civilization, Spock could not tell from
the images he had received from Lassiter, but he
understood why someone had tried to erase all
signs that the Kh@fflict had ever existed. From the
earliest days of their space explorations, the
Kh@fflict had exterminated every alien race they
encountered, leaving themselves as the only intelligent
race within their sphere of occupation. Even now the
brutality of their civilization, coupled with their
indestructible and irresponsibly self-centered
technology, made the knowledge that they had existed a
threat to the galaxy. The idea of Kh@fflict
technology in the hands of a spacefaring Hitler
or a latter-day Kahless the Unforgettable was
horror enough to chill even Spock's blood.
He pulled himself back to the present. The
drugs had calmed Lassiter, and the other members
of the landing party were stirring, shaking their heads in
groggy confusion. Going to Lassiter, Spock
helped her to sit. "I apologize for the
inadvertent intrusion, but I detected most of the
images you were receiving. Is there anything else you can
tell me about this place, Dr. Lassiter?"
She shook her head, her face ghost-white.
Her expression showed more confusion than denial.
"I seemed to be reading the massed thoughts and
lives of billions upon billions of
Kh@fflict. Of every Kh@fflict who ever lived."
She shuddered. "How could such horrible people exist?"
"I do not know, Doctor." Spock stood,
bringing himself to eye level with the lowest tier of the
amphitheater. From Lassiter's images he
recognized bank upon tilted bank of machinery.
The controls, laid out on the sloping surfaces,
were designed to be manipulated by Kh@fflict
claws, and in many cases several limbs were needed
to reach all the appropriate contact points.
Worse, there was no writing to identify anything.
Instead the consoles were color-coded, and the only
readout devices were small screens that displayed
the colors of the spectrum on a two-minute
cycle.
An unaccustomed sensation of frustration gripped
Spock. If these machines contained the information that
would let him change their people back to human form,
only a Kh@fflict could decipher the data fast
enough to help them. Lassiter's reaction made him
wonder how this place would affect a Kh@fflict,
even one with a human consciousness in control, but he
saw no other way to unravel the mysteries of the
Kh@fflict technology soon enough to save their people.
Given sufficient time, Spock knew he could
crack the Kh@fflict language, but time was the
one thing he did not have.
He pulled out his communicator. "Spock
to Enterprise." When only static answered
him, he boosted the gain to maximum and tried again.
"Spock to Enterprise."
"Uhura here, Mr. Spock. Can you boost
your signal? We can barely read you." Her
voice, through the static, was almost inaudible.
"Negative, Lieutenant Uhura. I'm
already at maximum." He glanced around him,
calculating the interference generated by the
Kh@fflict equipment. "You'll have to compensate
on your end. Meanwhile, please have Mr.
Scott beam the captain to this location. We are
inside a large facility with enough open space
to give him considerable leeway on the
transporter coordinates."
The crackle of the interference filled the pause.
When Uhura returned, her voice was stronger,
but the transmission was still poor. "Mr. Scott
says he has grave doubts about transporting
anyone through the electromagnetic disturbances that
are localized around your coordinates. Can you
suggest any alternatives, Mr.
Spock?"
"Negative. We are in the Kh@fflict
control center, but we are not certain how we got
here. The captain's assistance is urgently
required to gain access to the Kh@fflict computers
and other devices located in this room." He
looked around again to see if anything could be operated
by humanoids, but the design was too alien. If
he had several months, the intellectual
challenge would be stimulating. Under the present
circumstances, his paramount concern was finding how
to change their people back to humanoid form. "Please
request Mr. Scott to take appropriate
care in enhancing the transporter signals, but
to get the captain here at once. Spock out."
Returning the communicator to his belt, he
started for the nearest bank of equipment. Although he
could not accomplish much without Kirk to interpret the
data screens, he wanted to examine the
devices. He had reached the narrow ramp leading
to the first tier of machinery when he heard a shout behind
him.
Coming from nowhere, a small Kh@fflict charged the
landing party. Its carapace flashed brilliant,
coruscating patterns that signaled complete
madness, even if Spock didn't understand the
Kh@fflict language. The creature's limbs
moved in rapid, staccato jerks, flipping its
lethal claws in deadly arcs with each stride.
The landing party scattered, giving the Kh@fflict
half a dozen separate, moving targets.
Spock fired his phaser, his shot catching the
Kh@fflict an instant before the security guards'
shots hit it. Under the combined force of four light
stun beams, the Kh@fflict collapsed. Its
momentum carried it forward, skating on its belly
like a flat stone skipped across a lake. It
grated to a stop where most of the Enterprise's
landing party had been sitting.
Spock approached the unconscious
Kh@fflict, giving himself room in case it woke
up. The security guards remained in defensive
position, their phasers trained on the
Kh@fflict. Circling the inert form, Spock
compared it with his recollections of Kirk's
Kh@fflict body. With the endless changes in
pattern and color that characterized the Kh@fflict,
Spock had to rely on more subtle clues
to identify the person before him. This Kh@fflict was
smaller than Kirk, and the longer
Spock looked, the more subtle variations he
noticed in the bumps and scallops that ornamented
the carapace.
Without accessing the ship's records, he could not
be certain that this was the same Kh@fflict that had
been on the canyon's rim earlier that afternoon, although
the odds favored that conclusion. He wondered if the
ship's sensors had recorded where this Kh@fflict
had penetrated the complex and if they could retrace
its path, should the landing party need an escape
route. After studying the Kh@fflict, he decided
the body probably housed Chekov's
consciousness. The security guards who had
accompanied Kirk through the artifact had all
outmassed the captain by fifteen or twenty
kilos, leaving Chekov the smallest person to be
transformed into a Kh@fflict.
By the time Spock finished his examination,
Chekov was still unconscious. He holstered his
phaser and gestured to a guard to join him. "While
he is unconscious, we will roll him on his
back to prevent him from attacking us again."
"Do ye ken that be enough, Mr. Spock?" the
guard asked. "That beastie were tryin' fair hard
to spread our innards across the floor."
"I will entertain suggestions, Mr. McGaren.
However, we are short of the necessary supplies
to execute any of the ideas that immediately present
themselves."
"Aye, sair. If that aren't the truth." His
face settling into grim lines, McGaren
clipped his phaser to his belt.
With Spock at the front and McGaren lifting
in the rear, they rolled Chekov onto his back.
Moving away, Spock studied the unconscious
Kh@fflict. Chekov might be able to rock himself
back onto his feet with a determined effort, but not
before someone in the landing party noticed. Given how
agitated his attack had been, Spock considered
it unlikely that Chekov could muster the necessary
concentration to flip his carapace, and the first attempt
would bring the landing party's phasers to bear on him.
For the moment this problem was solved.
"Do ye ken the captain will be as much gone when
he arrives, sair?" McGaren asked.
"Impossible to say." How would the Kh@fflict
lower brain that controlled Kirk's body react
to the Enterprise's transporter? The guard they
had beamed up to the Enterprise had gone berserk,
and they had no reason to believe Kirk
would arrive in any better condition than Chekov.
He would have to gamble that Kirk's lower brain would be
reassured when it found itself in Kh@fflict-built
surroundings. "Mr. McGaren, you and the other
security men place yourselves where you have a clear
view of the arena. We must be prepared for all
contingencies."
"Aye, sair."
The guards positioned themselves around the perimeter,
each with his back against the lower wall. The
scientists fanned out to examine the equipment,
although they could do very little without someone to read the
Kh@fflict language for them. As he climbed
up the ramp, Spock felt his sense of urgency
intensifying. If Chekov was an example of
what happened when humans were trapped too long
in a Kh@fflict body, they needed to rescue their
people fast.

Chapter Twenty-one

One moment Kirk was falling, tumbling pincers
over carapace toward the rusty surface of the
lake. The water approached with alarming speed, and
Kirk wondered how well his Kh@fflict body
would withstand the impact. It was an experiment he would
have gladly avoided.
Twenty meters above the lake, as he watched
the abridged version of his life superimpose itself
across the orange froth foaming off the choppy
waves, he felt the welcome tingle of the
transporter effect envelop his body. He
materialized briefly in the Enterprise's
transporter room. "Welcome aboard,
Captain," Scott said as his hands worked to lay in
a new set of coordinates. "Mr. Spock
is wanting to see you immediately on the planet's
surface."
Kirk felt the shock radiating from his lower
brain, but the transporter engaged be fore the
Kh@fflict mind could respond. When he
rematerialized, it was worse--far, far worse.
He was on the arena floor in the Holiest of
Holies, the place where a Kh@fflict male was
only allowed once in his short life. That he was
here for a second time, and that he was surrounded by these
inconceivable alien monsters, was more than he could
handle. Once again Kirk felt his Kh@fflict
brain close down all the voluntary functions
of his body. His legs locked, and he
flopped on his belly on the hard stone floor.
"Captain? Captain Kirk, can you hear
me?" Spock, approaching from beyond his line of
sight, crouched in front of him.
After what seemed like forever but was only a few
seconds, Kirk regained his ability
to communicate. The terror at finding himself in his
people's most sacred sanctuary had affected his host
even more deeply than the initial trauma of
confronting other life-forms who possessed the
minimal attributes of intelligent life. The
Kh@fflict lower brain was trying to retreat far enough
to avoid acknowledging these impossibilities.
YES, I HEAR YOU, Kirk finally managed
to signal. THANKS FOR THE RESCUE.
"That is good." Vulcan or not, Spock
sounded relieved. Kirk felt a moment of
sympathy for his first officer. If being a
Kh@fflict was hard on Kirk, Spock must be
finding it harder to be responsible for determining the
means of returning him and the other people to their human
forms. "Captain, we need your help to decipher
how these machines work. This is the central control
complex for the entire planet, but we cannot ascertain
how anything works. The data screens display
information in the Kh@fflict language, and we do not
have even the most rudimentary translations for the
colors and symbols."
NOR LIKELY YOU COULD GET THEM,
Kirk signaled after sorting through the chaotic
images that surged through his lower brain. THE
LANGUAGE IS VERY CONTEXT
SPECIFIC. MEANING CHANGES DEPENDING
ON WHAT COLORS OR PATTERNS
ARE JUXTAPOSED.
"Captain, we believe the answers to your
problem are contained in these machines." The dim
light in the room left Spock's face in
shadow and deepened the gaunt hollows of his
cheeks. "Can you translate for us so that I can
implement a solution?"
Can I do it? Kirk asked himself. The
Kh@fflict lower brain, terrified as it was to be
where no Kh@fflict of its age and gender was ever
supposed to be, would not make it easy. In
addition, Kirk did not think his host knew much of
scientific value. However, if Spock needed
a Kh@fflict to translate the data screens,
Kirk was the only one available. Why, he
couldn't say, but he knew that the other
transformed humans were getting even less
cooperation from their Kh@fflict hosts than he was from
his. It was as if they expected to banish the
Enterprise and her crew from their world by refusing
to acknowledge that they existed. Kirk, at least,
had forced a small measure of cooperation from his
host. While it wasn't much, it was more than
Spock had to work with now. He would give it a
try.
Kirk searched his host's brain, hoping to glean
information from the Kh@fflict's memories that would
help Spock. To his dismay, the mere idea of
telling these strange--animals--anything so
disturbed his host that Kirk feared he would drown in
the resulting maelstrom of horror and fear. For
several minutes, the Kh@fflict's reaction was so
overpowering that all Kirk could do was ride out the
flood of emotion, hoping that his host would exhaust
its ability to react so violently.
When Kirk again became aware of his
surroundings, Spock was reaching for his
communicator. The Kh@fflict's panic was
subsiding, but Kirk could not force the creature's
nervous system to transmit Spock's words.
While he could perceive some frequencies clearly,
the Kh@fflict's hearing membranes were
inadequate to distinguish the nuances of human
speech unless he could focus his full attention
on the sounds. With the Kh@fflict's present
mental distress, understanding Spock was an
impossible task.
A few minutes later, while Kirk was still
struggling to calm his host, the air before him
shimmered, and something coalesced from the transporter
effect. While Kirk was trying to figure out
what the odd purplish fluid in the
hundred-liter monopore pouch was, his host
leapt into action. Throwing itself on the pouch, the
Kh@fflict stabbed its proboscis into it and began
sucking greedily. From its reaction Kirk
realized that the odor of the pouch's contents had
triggered the Kh@fflict's feeding reflexes.
Mentally Kirk thanked McCoy for recreating a
Kh@fflict meal from the meager clues available.
As his host fed, Kirk felt a growing
calmness settle over the Kh@fflict. At first
he thought it was from gorging after so long a period of
starvation, but the Kh@fflict did not descend into the
torpor Kirk expected. Instead it was gripped
with an odd sense of serenity, as though
divorced from its surroundings. With a flash of
insight, Kirk realized that Spock had ordered
McCoy to drug the food. If they were lucky,
with his host in this euphoric daze, Kirk could
mine the Kh@fflict's brain for information and relay
it to Spock.
WHAT DID YOU DO? he asked, in
Morse code, checking to see if he was right.
"Diazilyrion." Spock studied him with an
air of satisfaction. "Your body should be quite
inebriated for several hours. There is no
danger, as long as you exercise caution while
attempting movements that require a high
degree of coordination."
I SUGGEST WE TAKE ADVANTAGE
OF THE SITUATION. Kirk swiveled his
eyestalks around to examine the room with more care
than his host had permitted until now. He could
feel the diazilyrion working its way deeper
into the Kh@fflict's physiology, erasing the
creature's inhibitions. It decided the humans
were creations of its imagination, strange
hallucinations sent to deliver a message that
only it could hear. With profound relief Kirk
felt the Kh@fflict descend into a state of
babbling lunacy in which all the information imprinted
on its brain became accessible in response to the
right questions.
His first look at the tiers of equipment was
disappointing. Bank upon bank of sloped teaching
machines reached from arena level to the back walls
of the cavern. Every young Kh@fflict was brought to the
Holiest of Holies after he survived his rite
of passage. An Elder tested each youngster and
assigned it its adult position in Kh@fflict
society, after which the youth was led to the
appropriate tier of machines. With elaborate
rituals each young Kh@fflict was strapped and
wired to a machine, and all the knowledge it would need for the
rest of its life was implanted into its lower
brain, much of it guarded by subconscious triggers
that would release the information when it was needed.
When the programming was complete, the young
Kh@fflict--who, at this stage of their lives, were
all male--were turned loose on the
planet's surface to fend for themselves until they
had sired their predetermined quota of offspring.
At that point the Kh@fflict surviving males
metamorphosed into young females.
After spawning several clutches of
eggs, the females gradually shifted their focus
from reproduction to scientific work or the outright
pursuit of power. Much of this was determined by how the
young Kh@fflict male had been programmed, but
individual aptitudes also influenced the
occupation of a Kh@fflict female. Kirk sensed
that this aspect of Kh@fflict society was a
deep mystery to his host, who had not traveled
far enough along the path to maturity to have accessed the
appropriate information from his ingrained lessons.
The flood of information slowed, giving Kirk time
to sort through it. While the Kh@fflict
biological cycle was the most bizarre he had
ever encountered, knowing its details did not tell
him how to change himself back to a human. The
answers must be in the computers that controlled the
teaching machines. That brought up the question of which computer
directed the other machines in this complex. He
felt as though he was in the antechamber with no
signs to tell him which doors led deeper into the
complex and which only led to the Kh@fflict
equivalent of the ladies' room.
Looking around again, Kirk felt drawn to the
featureless enclosure at the head of the arena. His
host had not been near that part of the amphitheater and,
when he thought about it, Kirk realized that no male
Kh@fflict had ever been closer to that enclosure
than the base of the ramp. The conviction erupted
full-strength in his mind--that was where they should look
for their answers. IT'S IN THAT PLACE,
SPOCK. I'M SURE WHAT WE NEED
IS THERE.
Spock lifted his eyebrow in surprise.
"We considered exploring that structure,
Captain, but our tricorders indicated that nothing
was inside it."
I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S IN THERE,
SPOCK. BUT THAT ENCLOSURE IS THE
ONLY UNIQUE THING IN THIS ROOM.
Kirk paused to collect his thoughts. Using the
cumbersome dots and dashes of the Morse code
to spell out every letter was draining him of energy at a
far greater rate than he would have imagined. He
wondered how much longer he would be able to force his
Kh@fflict body into the unnatural responses
that talking to Spock required.
Spock's forehead creased with the ghost of a frown.
"If you are certain that the enclosure is our
goal, may I recommend that you ingest more
nourishment before we explore that area?
We have discovered that not all Kh@fflict rooms
are as they appear to be."
This is news? Kirk thought, wondering if
anything on Careta IV was as it appeared.
Certainly everything that the Kh@fflict had touched
seemed bent against its normal grain. I AM
SURE, SPOCK, he signaled. THESE
STATIONS ARE DUMB TERMINALS. THEY
TRANSMIT INFORMATION FROM THE CENTRAL
COMPUTERS TO THE BRAINS OF THE YOUNG
KH@FFL ICT. THEY HAVE NO OTHER
PURPOSE.
"In that case, Captain, we will investigate
the enclosure when you are ready." He conferred with
Lassiter and the other scientists while Kirk
ate. Given the energy he was expending, he
figured his host would need to eat often;
furthermore, increasing the amount of diazilyrion
in his bloodstream would make it easier to get the
information he needed from his Kh@fflict lower brain.
Spock returned just as Kirk felt he could
not force down another drop of food. Staggering from
his full stomach and from how punchy the
diazilyrion was making his host, Kirk followed
Spock up the ramp. His tricorder held before
him like a shield against attack, Spock circled
around the structure. "The only openings are on this
side, Captain," he reported. "Is there
any difference between the doors?"
I could have told him the entrance was on this
side, Kirk thought as Spock made his
report. A detailed schematic of the
enclosure wall flooded his vision. Acting on
instinct, he moved between the doors and placed four
of his pincers on the precise spots that he saw
in his mind. The wall went transparent, and a
whirling vortex filled the space beyond. Knowing it
was the right thing to do, he stepped forward into the
maelstrom.

Kirk landed in darkness, his head still spinning
despite the solid stone beneath his pincers. His host
retreated again, frightened by where he was. Kirk
let the Kh@fflict mind escape into oblivion
while he sorted out what had happened.
Slowly the darkness receded. Bulky objects
coalesced from the shadows, taking on definition and
solidity as the light built in intensity. He was
sprawled on the floor between two tilted,
misshapen consoles that resembled the teaching
machines in the Holiest of Holies. However, the
complex control panels on these machines told
Kirk that they were the master units that directed
everything in the complex. Somewhere in this room they would
find what they had been searching for.
His next step, Kirk decided, was to find
Spock. He could not see the Vulcan anywhere
nearby, and the room shifted perspective around him
like an Escher drawing. Between the twisting
perspective and the massed banks of equipment,
Spock could be three meters away, and Kirk
might not see him. He tried to stand, pulling his
limbs beneath his carapace and forcing them to lift his
body off the sooty gray limestone. Even with his
bloodstream full of diazilyrion, his host was
on the verge of dissolving into gibbering terror. With
an unpleasant shock Kirk realized that only
the oldest and most powerful Kh@fflict females
were allowed in this room. That his host knew of its
existence and its functions meant that someday, with great
age, he would have become one of the Elders who
controlled Kh@fflict society. However, at his
present age and as a male, it was a capital
offense for him to be here.
This is an exception, Kirk told his
Kh@fflict alter ego. The Elders chose us
to solve the mystery of these aliens while they work
elsewhere on the problem. They don't want the
aliens to see them. We're the only ones who can
do this job.
To his surprise, the specious argument worked,
and his host calmed. He figured the Kh@fflict
would see through the reasoning eventually, but until then
it gave him control of his actions.
It took Kirk fifteen minutes to find
Spock. The Vulcan had materialized less
than a dozen meters away, but the shortest route
between them was as snarled a maze as Kirk had ever
seen. If the enigmatic floor plan and the
shifting perspective were designed to discourage
intruders, the Kh@fflict architect who had
designed the room knew exactly what she was
doing.
Spock had just managed to push himself to a sitting
position when Kirk found him, but even that movement
had left him swaying dizzily. He glanced at
Kirk when he came around the last corner but
quickly looked back to his knees. "Captain,
I regret to report that I am experiencing
extreme sensory distortion. I am
uncertain whether I shall be able to function in this
place."
WHAT'S WRONG? Kirk's gills
fluttered with agitation. They needed Spock's
scientific expertise to solve the riddles of the
Kh@fflict technology. His host did not
possess enough scientific knowledge to interpret the data.
"I think ..." Spock squeezed his eyes
closed. His face had turned the washed-out green
of grass grown indoors and with insufficient light.
"There seems to be a distortion field. It is
affecting my vision and balance--to the point that I
cannot--maintain my equilibrium."
Distortion field? As soon as Spock said
the words, Kirk knew exactly where to look for the
controls. Around the corner and three consoles from the
end was a small gray unit that managed the
security measures for the entire complex. Kirk
retraced his steps, climbed up the sloping
control panel, slid his pincers into the control
sockets, and squeezed the activation bars. The
screen cleared to a welcoming lavender, then
requested his input.
Amazed that it was so easy, Kirk asked how
to deactivate the security measures for the control
room. The computer showed him the command sequence on
its screen, and Kirk let his body act out the
complicated dance of pincer movements and color
displays. When he entered the last command, the screen
informed him, @ghSequence correct.
Protective field deactivated until
further command, Oh Bright One.@ar
Kirk withdrew his pincers from the sockets and
rejoined Spock. Already the Vulcan's skin had
returned to its normal sallow hue, and he was
examining his surroundings with interest.
"Thank you, Captain. I presume we have
reached our goal." He pushed himself to his feet,
still moving a little unsteadily. In most things
Spock's Vulcan physique was an
advantage that often left Kirk envying his first
officer's strength and endurance. However, the
Kh@fflict field had apparently disturbed the
powerful links between his mind and body, turning
Spock's strongest asset into a grave
liability.
YES, SPOCK. THIS IS THE CONTROL
CENTER.
"Which computer contains the information we need?"
Spock's gaze lingered on some sets of
controls and slipped quickly past others. His
expression told Kirk how daunting he found the
prospect of examining this massive array of
equipment. From his mounting sense of urgency,
Kirk realized that Spock was more concerned than he
had let on about how much time they had left
to solve this problem.
Kirk studied Spock's question, turning it around
to look at it from several angles. No matter
how he rephrased the words, his Kh@fflict lower
brain did not respond. TRY MORE
SPECIFIC QUESTIONS, SPOCK. I NEED A
CONCRETE TRIGGER.
Spock's eyebrow rose. "May I ask
what told you how to eliminate the Security
measures?"
WHEN YOU SAID THE WORDS "DISTORTION
FIELD," I KNEW WHICH CONSOLE WAS
THE CONTROL UNIT. THE COMPUTER GAVE
ME THE DIRECTIONS FOR DEACTIVATING
THE FIELD. At the time he had been so
concerned about Spock that he hadn't considered how
remarkable it was for his Kh@fflict lower brain to hand
him the key to the entire planet's security
system. In retrospect, it was frightening to think
what else might be buried in his head.
"Fascinating," Spock murmured. He was
quiet for several moments, as though analyzing
exactly what they needed. "Can you show me how the
transit frames work?"
At first Kirk felt no response. He
wondered if he had misinterpreted the
Kh@fflict's reactions, or if he had
misunderstood the Kh@fflict term for their
long-distance transportation devices.
By rephrasing the question several ways, each time adding
a slightly different twist and increasing the
urgency of the request, he finally got something from his
host. The transit frames were mere
technology, a subject fit for underlings and
technicians but too insignificant to interest a
future leader.
Annoyed, Kirk informed his lower brain that
aliens were secretly infiltrating their world by using
the transit frames and that he had been assigned
to prevent that from happening anymore. That
satisfied his host, but the information he provided was
vague and confused. I DON'T THINK HE
REALLY KNOWS, SPOCK, Kirk signaled.
I'VE GOT A ROUGH NOTION
WHERE TO START, BUT I FEAR WE'RE
GOING TO HAVE TO DO THIS BY TRIAL AND
ERROR.
They started off, searching the maze for the console that
matched Kirk's impressions. It took them
almost an hour to find it along the far wall.
Early in the search, Kirk had asked for
directions from the consoles he and Spock passed,
but he had been unable to access the information.
Finally, after having to retrace their steps three
times and begin afresh, they reached their objective.
Sandwiched between two environmental control units
and surrounded by the waste management computers for the
major Kh@fflict cities, it was the only
active unit in a battery of equipment as dead
as the people it had once served.
"Are those units permanently deactivated
or merely on standby?" Spock traced his finger
across the blank screen of a waste recycling
computer. Even after being abandoned for the millennia
since its creators died, this section of the complex
was immaculate, with no speck of dust to mar the
esthetics or the functionality of the control center.
When Spock asked the question, the answer floated
to the surface of Kirk's mind. DEAD. THE
LINKS BETWEEN THE CITIES THEY SERVED
AND THEIR COUPLINGS TO THE GEOTHERMAL
POWER GRID HAVE BEEN SEVERED. He
paused, feeling more information coalesce in his mind.
THEIR SUN ISN'T THE ONLY ENERGY
SOURCE THAT'S FAILING. THE KH@FFLICT
TAPPED THEIR PLANET'S GEOTHERMAL
RESOURCES HEAVILY TO COMPENSATE FOR
THE COOLING SUN. THAT LED TO THE
COLLAPSE OF THEIR CIVILIZATION AND
THE EXTINCTION OF THEIR RACE. THIS
EQUIPMENT STILL FUNCTIONS BECAUSE THE
UNITS NEED LITTLE POWER WHEN IN
STANDBY MODE.
They set to work exploring the control systems
for the transit frames. It was slow work, with
Spock sometimes redirecting his questions five or
six times before triggering any response from
Kirk's host. Even then the information was so vague
and confused that Kirk had to experiment for several
minutes with the console's controls before he could get
any data they could use.
When they stopped near midnight for Kirk
to eat, Spock said what was in both their minds.
"This is not working, Captain. Your host
does not possess the scientific programming
we require to solve this problem."
TRUE. It was a frustrating and depressing
thought. They were so close to the answers--he
literally had his pincers on them. However, at the
rate they were progressing, it could take days, or
even weeks, to locate what they needed. Kirk
did not think he could survive that long inside a
body that had to be drugged almost senseless so that he
could force his Kh@fflict alter ego to give him the
information he needed to free himself.
"There is only one solution." Spock reached
for his communicator. "I shall go through one of the
transit frames and then have the Enterprise
transport me back here. Logic dictates
that I will be given a Kh@fflict persona with
considerable technical expertise."
NO, SPOCK. IT'S TOO
DANGEROUS. I ABSOLUTELY FORBID YOU
TO TRY X. It was bad enough that they already had
five people to change back. Adding to the number only
increased their problem, and there was no guarantee
Spock's Kh@fflict body really would
possess the information they needed.
"Spock to Enterprise. One to beam up."
He sidestepped Kirk's attempt to knock the
communicator from his hand and moved behind him. Kirk,
his pincers slipping on the stone floor in his
haste, completed his turn as the transporter beam
took Spock.

Chapter Twenty-two

Spock materialized half an hour later
with a communications rig adapted for Kh@fflict
pincers strapped to his carapace. Kirk knew
immediately that Spock had drugged his Kh@fflict
body heavily with diazilyrion before letting
Scott transport him back into the control
center. Even so, the erratic flickers of color
on his carapace and the skittering twitch in his
movements told Kirk that Spock's host was
even less comfortable being here than Kirk's was.
Kirk suspected part of the uneasiness was caused
by the newness of the transformation, and that, after Spock
established his dominance over his host, much of the
discomfort would disappear. However, they did not have the
time to wait for Spock to pacify his Kh@fflict
lower brain.
Spock moved to the sloping console that
governed the transit frames and fitted his
pincers into the sockets. Within ten minutes he was
shifting levers and twisting controls with a facility that
made Kirk envious. After five hours he had
not attained that much rapport with the unit. Feeling
left out, he watched the patterns flicker across
the screen, almost too fast for him to translate.
Before long Spock had gotten so deep into the
programming for the system that Kirk could not understand
any of the images. With nothing more he could do,
Kirk settled down on his appendages and
drifted off to sleep.
A heavy thump close by aroused him from his nap.
With an effort Kirk twisted his eyestalks around
until he located the cause of the noise.
Spock was sprawled on the floor beside the
console, his carapace pulsing an unhealthy
grayish green. @ghWhat's wrong"...@ar Kirk
asked.
@ghI--don't know.@ar Spock's words were
distorted by random flickers of green. @ghI feel
--dizzy. Faint. As if I can't breathe.@ar
@ghally don't look very good.@ar In fact,
Kirk thought, he looked downright sick. The
green color nagged at Kirk's
subconscious. It was important, but he could not
bring the reason into focus. @ghAre you making any
progress with our main problem"...@ar
@ghI believe so, Elder. However, I have
reached a--restricted level--for which I do not have the
access code. I believe we will need to locate
a female Kh@fflict--what the system calls
a High Elder--to proceed further.@ar Spock
settled his limbs around his body as though preparing
to stay put for some time.
@ghLet me try x.@ar Kirk worked his way
around Spock and slipped his pincers into the control
sockets. It was easy to find where the system had
rejected Spock's commands, but Kirk had no
better luck in getting around the safeguards.
Finally he dropped his pincers in defeat and
turned back to Spock.
In the time Kirk had been working on the computer,
Spock's color had darkened to a brighter green,
almost the hue of Vulcan blood. That thought
crystallized into a certainty as Kirk realized
what the problem was. @ghSpock, did you run
any blood chemistry workups on the
Kh@fflict? Could the copper in your system be
making you sick"...@ar
@ghIt is--possible--Elder. There may not be
--enough iron in my system--for me to breathe
properly. The copper--in my blood--may be
poisoning--the Kh@fflict physiology. I
sense that I must--reverse the transformation--
soon. Or I shall die.@ar
@ghally won't die if I have anything to say about
x.@ar Kirk activated the communications unit and
tapped in his message. There was one Kh@fflict
female on the planet, and it was time she helped
them. Kirk wasn't sure how he would convince
her, should Talika decide that the humans were on
their own in this, but he had few options. Spock
needed her assistance immediately.
Talika materialized in a high fury,
ready to tear apart anyone who approached her.
Her reaction was coming straight from the Kh@fflict
section of her brain, and Kirk was intensely
grateful for the security team that Scott had sent
down to control her. A calculated burst from their
phasers immobilized her without rendering her
unconscious.
@ghally must help us, Oh Highest One. We
need access to the computer system so that we may
change ourselves back to our human form. Only you
can give us the access code we need.@ar Kirk
had to struggle to keep his colors and his posture
properly submissive, but remembering that
Spock's life was at stake made it much
easier.
Talika's carapace darkened to a contemptuous
fuchsia. @ghallyr blasphemy in invading this
place merits death. No male has ever stood
where you are and lived.@ar
@ghAnd I would like to be elsewhere, Most
Magnificent One. I need the access code
to remove my unwelcome presence.@ar Even
to himself, that argument sounded weak. What could he
suggest that would get to her? Kirk wondered. Her
rationale sounded purely Kh@fflict, but he
wondered how certain he could be of which persona was in
control. In some ways there was little to choose between the
self-centered Kh@fflict world view and the
Djelifan perspective, which was nearly as
restricted.
@ghWhy should I bother? I can rip you open with
my claws and let the cleaning robots carry off
the mess.@ar The fuchsia overtones gave her
statement a more sinister meaning, implying that the death
she intended for him would be both painful and
slow.
Kirk decided to try a different approach.
@ghally can kill me, Your Gloriousness. And the
other male with me will die soon. That will erase the
blasphemy you so detest, but it will also leave you with
only three subjects to rule.@ar A slight
flutter in her color told Kirk that his words were
reaching her, although she was struggling to deny the truth of
what he said. @ghAnd if you look behind you, you will
see four aliens from a race unknown to any true
Kh@fflict. I guarantee they will kill you if
you harm me.@ar
@ghBlasphemy! Heresy! Desecration! No
self-respecting female should be forced to hear such
vile insultsff@ar Talika's words came through
strong enough, but flickers of doubt punctuated
each phrase.
Sensing how close she was to the edge of her
reason, Kirk delivered the final blow. @ghally
are as alien in this place as I am! Look
into yourself, and you will know that you do not belong hereff@ar
@ghHeresy! Blasphemyff@ar she repeated,
her colors growing paler as Kirk's meaning
reached her. @ghally are still inferior! You must
acknowledge the natural order of lifeff@ar
He could not have explained why, but Kirk knew
those last words were from Talika, not from her
Kh@fflict host. He delivered his clinching
argument in gentle, supportive colors.
@ghIf you want to see your sisters again, Elder
Talika, you must give Spock the access code
so that he may free you from your present form.@ar
@ghallyes.@ar One of her pincers twitched.
@ghallyes. Tell them I need access to the
console.@ar
Kirk tapped a message into the communications
unit, telling the guards to let her move. By the
time he finished, Talika was able to drag herself to the
console that controlled the transit frames.
Pulling herself into position, she slid her pincers
into the sockets and shifted the levers in an
intricate pattern that Kirk would have thought was beyond
her in her present, half-stunned condition. When
she finished, she withdrew her pincers and wandered
away, her movements unsteady and wavering.
Worried, Kirk watched her leave but
realized that Spock needed his help more. His
gills were quivering erratically, their surfaces a
dry and unhealthy green. Spock struggled to get
to his feet after Talika left, but his
strength was almost gone. Two of the security guards
lifted him into position on the sloping console. With
slow, hesitant movements, he entered a long
string of commands into the system. Watching the screen,
Kirk kept wondering when the computer would reject
the overrides, which went so far against everything that had
been programmed into the system by its builders.
Even more, he feared that Talika had entered a
trap code that would send Spock's programming
back at them as a weapon.
Finally Spock wi thdrew his pincers from the
sockets. @ghI believe--I have--done--it. The
best--test--is that--I try x.@ar
Everything in Kirk cried out that it was too
risky for Spock to be the first one through the
reprogrammed transit frame. Talika's
code could still be false, and the trap would spring when
someone used the frame. However, Spock's
condition was critical, and it was much too likely
that he would die while they tried to check out the
system. @ghVery well, Spock. You test it, and
I will persuade the others to go through.@ar
He signaled the ship to transport him,
Spock, and the security guards to the nearest
transit frame. Although it took no longer than
usual to beam them there, it seemed like the longest
few seconds in Kirk's life. They
materialized on the rocky ground where Chekov
had fought his duel with the security guard. Spock
tried to stagger through the frame, but he was too weak
to stand, and his carapace was turning a ghastly,
mottled green.
Unslinging the communications set from across his
body, Kirk ordered the security team to carry
Spock to the frame and push him through. On the other
side, Kirk saw several security men
clustered around the first artifact. As Spock's
front pincers disappeared into the window's
surface, the scene wavered and broke up.
Kirk thought that he aged a lifetime before the scene
from the receiving end of the transit frame reappeared.
An emergency medical team led by Dr.
McCoy was clustered around Spock's inert but
fully restored body. From McCoy's
abrupt, impatient gestures, Kirk knew that
Spock was in bad shape. The question he needed
answered was whether the last passage through the
transit frame had caused further damage or
if Spock was suffering only from his inability
to function in a Kh@fflict body.
Hoping McCoy would have an answer for him
soon, Kirk turned his attention to getting the
others back through the transit frames. There would
be fewer difficulties, he knew, if the
Kh@fflict saw no signs of the Enterprise's
crew or their equipment. However, if there were
problems with the transformation process, he wanted
medical teams standing by to give immediate emergency
aid. Also, given how hard he had worked to get
everyone back to the second artifact before he
realized how traumatic they found the sight of their
former crewmates, Kirk feared that the security
guards would suspect a trap awaited them on the
other side of the frame.
The thought of entrapment twisted through his brain,
repeating itself in a dozen variations before Kirk
noticed the mental loop. Something was happening
to him, sending him off in a mental fugue that
threatened to become a paranoid's dreamland. With that
thought, the explanation unfolded itself. He had been
feeding his Kh@fflict body massive doses of
diazilyrion to suppress his host's reaction
to a situation the Kh@fflict's programming
considered impossible. His body was building up a
tolerance for the drug, and soon the Kh@fflict mind
would go insane rather than obey Kirk's orders.
He had to get the others to go through the transit
frames before that happened.
The place to start was with the two people here, he
decided. Hoping that both Chekov and Talika
had ingested enough diazilyrion-laced food
to tolerate the shock of the Enterprise's
transporters, Kirk ordered Scott to beam
them to him.
Chekov arrived first, his carapace glowing with
submissive golds and tans. @ghOh
Worshipful Elder, I am so grateful for the
mercy you show in freeing me from the Forbidden
Zone.@ar
@ghThere is no need for thanks, Little One.
Simply pass through the frame so you will be outside
the reach of the Evil Ones who sent you there.@ar
Kirk thought his speech was simple and his logic
compelling. If it's this easy, he thought,
they'll all be safely back on the
Enterprise in half an hour.
@ghallyr mercy in freeing me shows no bounds.@ar
Chekov showed no sign that he had read Kirk's
words. @ghI shall walk in your shadow forever.@ar
Kirk repeated his request for
Chekov to enter the transit frame, this time making
his patterns simpler and his colors purer. Still
Chekov did not see what Kirk was saying but
continued to stagger drunkenly along a path only
he could see, repeating his own message. After the
fifth try, Kirk acknowledged that Chekov was
too far gone in his fantasy world for him to reach.
He considered ordering the guards to shove Chekov
through the artifact but rejected the idea. Until
he knew what had happened to Spock, he would not
force anyone through the windows. Reluctantly he
let Chekov wander away and waited for Talika.
When she materialized Talika was further out
of touch with reality than Chekov. As far as
Kirk could tell, she was completely unaware of
her surroundings and his presence. Her carapace
kept repeating the same patterns, but Kirk could
only interpret about half of them. She was
haranguing someone about female superiority, but
Kirk could not tell whether her Kh@fflict or
her Djelifan persona was in control. Brushing
past Kirk as if he wasn't there, she drifted
off on a course parallel to Chekov's.
Fighting his frustration, Kirk ordered Scott
to beam him to the other artifact and to clear away the
signs of human occupation from around the transit
frame. He materialized within sight of the two
surviving guards. Immediately Kirk began flashing
them a message of the fabulous food source he
had discovered on the far side of the transit
frame. As he had guessed, his images
captured their attention, and they followed him
eagerly toward the artifact.
It was a longer hike than Kirk had thought, and
it took them almost an hour to reach the transit
frame. During the last half of the trip, he
sensed a growing instability in both his companions,
and he was beginning to wonder about his own capacity for
sane judgment. However, as the black
rectangle grew on the horizon, Kirk's
fears receded. These two, at least, would soon be
safely returned to their human forms.
A hundred meters from the frame, the smaller
guard flared to a bright crimson and jumped on his
companion. The larger guard reared in the air,
flipped his attacker, and bolted. His escape
took him away from the artifact at high speed,
and he was out of sight before Kirk could react.
The smaller Kh@fflict went inffconvulsions,
thrashing violently until he bounced
against a spur of rock and caromed toward the lip
of a nearby wadi. He tumbled over the edge and
landed on the rocks below with a sickening crack.
Kirk felt the tide of insanity rising
inside him, reaching for his mind with seductive,
consoling arms. It would be a relief to surrender,
to never make another life-and-death decision that
affected someone else. With the last vestiges of his
sanity, Kirk forced his limbs into motion and threw
himself through the transit frame.

Chapter Twenty-three

He awoke in a place of brightness and shiny
equipment where panels of blinking lights and
shifting patterns covered the walls and soft
mechanical voices murmured a ceaseless
lullaby. A woman's face, tired and
drawn, framed by golden hair, floated into his
line of vision. "Captain, how are you feeling?"
The words should have meant something, but they didn't.
What was it she wanted from him? A worried frown
creased her forehead when he didn't answer.
"Captain, are you all right? Can you hear me?"
Her voice was sharper, carrying a new sense of
urgency. She turned away from him, raising her
voice to be heard by someone farther away. Dr.
McCoy! The captain is awake, but he is not
responsive."
Still not sure what he was supposed to do, he
remained silent. Sooner or later someone would
tell him what was expected, and then he would do it.
When a man's face, older and more lined than the
woman's but equally haggard from lack of sleep,
floated into view, he was not surprised. The man
gave him an affectionate smile that lit his
rugged, kindly face. After a moment the worry
slipped back in place, making the doctor
seem more tired by contrast. McCoy
surreptitiously pointed a small device
toward his head. "Well, Jim, how are you
doing?"
Since they still had not told him how he was
supposed to answer those words, he again did nothing.
Openly now the doctor waved the device over his
body, paying special attention to his head and
one of his knees. When he tried to move that leg,
he discovered that the joint was painfully swollen.
The doctor made a second sweep over his
body, keeping his eyes on the wall
over his head. Curious, he tried to sit up so
he could see what was so interesting, but his body was
strapped to the bed with wide bands of material.
"Total amnesia." The doctor snapped his
hand closed around the device in his hand. "Complete
inhibition of the nerve impulses coming from every area that
affects memory recall. Christine, how long
do we have?"
"He's been here for fourteen hours,
Doctor," the woman answered. "Mr. Scott
has been calling every half hour to find out when he
can take over command."
"And there's no change in Spock's condition."
McCoy heaved a deep sigh. "I hate to do
it, but get the cortico-synaptic modulator.
We can't wait for him to come out of this on his own."
"Yes, Doctor." Her boot heels
rapped a staccato tattoo on the floor as she
disappeared from sight. When she returned, she was
carrying a small black object with a silver
grille on one end and several controls on its
largest flat surface.
McCoy took the object from her and did
something to one of the controls. At the same time, the
woman made some tapping noises on the console
beside his bed. They finished their work at the same time.
She looked at the doctor, frowning. "Current
research indicates that the best results are
obtained by starting at the threshold level and
gradually increasing the intens ity over a period of
hours, until the subject's memory is
restored."
"If we had a "period of hours," we
wouldn't be using this gadget at all. I prefer
to let nature take its course."
"Agreed, Doctor." She made a few more
tapping sounds. "The captain's brain scans are
on the screen, along with the cortico-synaptic
results for several test subjects with similar
brain-wave patterns."
"You've been busy, Christine." The
doctor's voice held a warm note of
approval. He left the bedside and went
to examine the data.
"I feared this approach would be necessary,
Doctor, after what you found on the first test
series." She shrugged. "Besides, I didn't have
anything better to do in between checking their readings last
night."
"Well, it's saving us some time now."
He adjusted the settings on the control panel.
"Four point three should be enough, but I'm going a
little higher. I'd rather not have to wait through the
neurological rebound to take a second shot
at it."
"Yes, Doctor." She stepped back.
"He's ready."
McCoy passed the black object across his
forehead and a blinding flare erupted in his brain.
Everything he had ever seen or tasted or touched or
smelled or felt seemed to be happening to him
again, all at the same time. It was too much. He
couldn't handle the flood of information that was clamoring
for recognition. Then, mercifully, everything went
black.

Kirk awoke with a splitting headache. The
bleeps and pings of the sickbay monitors only
intensified the pain. Since when does Bones
use one of his diagnostic beds for a simple
headache? he thought, trying to roll to his feet.
The restraining band across his chest held him to the bed.
"Bones, let me out of here!"
As if conjured up by his words, McCoy
appeared at his bedside. "How do you feel,
Jim?"
"My head hurts, but other than that I'm
fine. Let me out of here!" A terrible sense of
urgency gripped him, telling him that he was
desperately needed somewhere else.
"Not so fast." McCoy ran a scanner over
him and confirmed the report on the overhead
monitor. "What do you remember about the last
couple of days?"
"The last couple of days? Don't be
ridiculous! We've been ..." His voice
trailed off as he tried to remember what he had
been doing for the last two days. The Enterprise
had been hauling a bunch of archaeologists around
the sector, and they had discovered ... Slowly the
details of their investigations on Careta IV
drifted into focus an ancient and sinister
race, inexplicable artifacts that still operated after
two hundred thousand years, being transformed into one
of the aliens. "How's Spock?"
A pleased grin lit McCoy's face, but
he sobered immediately. "He hasn't regained
consciousness, Jim. I was afraid to do too much
for him until I knew what exactly had
happened. He wasn't in very good shape
when he came back."
"He wasn't in very good shape before he came
back. We guessed that Vulcans don't have the
right biochemistry to make good Kh@fflict." He
squinted his eyes against the light. "Can't you let
me up and give me something for this headache,
Bones?"
McCoy released the restraining straps and
reached for his hypo. Kirk pushed himself to a sitting
position, rubbing his forehead. The hypo hissed as
McCoy pressed it against his arm. "Your guess
about Spock is probably a good one. We'll
let him recover a little longer on his own, then.
You came through fairly well, except for your
memory. We had to use the cortico-synaptic
modulator to bring it back quicker."
"That explains the headache." Kirk eased
himself to his feet, testing his balance and checking for
minor injuries from his adventures as a
Kh@fflict. He found a few bruises and
strains, but nothing that wouldn't heal within a few
days. "What about the others?"
"You two are the only ones who've come back
so far. Scotty said you were trying to herd everyone
through those window things, but he guessed the others had
gone pretty far around the bend. Anyway, we were
waiting to hear from you or Spock before we tried
anything more."
"How long have I been out?" Vaguely he
remembered someone falling off a cliff and
cracking something. He didn't know how well the
Kh@fflict withstood that sort of injury, or even
how serious it had been, but he did know that the
guard should have been treated quickly.
"Sixteen hours, all told." McCoy
nibbled on his lip, reluctant to volunteer
anything, but continued when Kirk gave him an
angry frown. "For a while your readings were so
erratic that we were afraid to do anything. Christine
thought it might have to do with that drug that Spock was
feeding you, so the best thing we could do was let your
body flush it out on its own."
"I see." Kirk crossed to the intercom and
called the bridge. He began issuing orders
even before Scott could congratulate him on being
back on his feet. "Scotty, I need the four
strongest security men we have. Equip them with
phasers set to heavy stun and give us one of your
heavy-duty cargo nets. Have everyone meet me
in the transporter room in ten
minutes. Kirk out."
He turned back to McCoy. "Have your
emergency teams standing by, out of sight, to assist
our people when they come through. We'll find them and send
them through one at a time."
"Are you sure you feel up to going down there,
Captain?" McCoy's face was creased with
worry. "The sensors can find them without your
help, and I'm not sure you're fit for duty
yet."
"I'm all right, Bones. Besides, it's not the
general locations I'm worried about. It's what
they'll do to hide from people on the ground." Kirk
flashed him a smile and tapped his head. "At the
moment I'm the only person who knows anything about
the way a Kh@fflict thinks."
McCoy looked ready to push his objections
further, but instead he shrugged. "Good luck,
Jim. I think you're going to need it."
"I'm afraid you're right." Giving the
doctor a rueful grin, Kirk strode from
sickbay.

Dawn on Careta IV was even worse than
he remembered it. A cold, dry wind roared out
of the sunrise, threatening to sweep them from its path.
It smelled of dust and desolation, two things that
Kirk knew he would always associate with this
planet, and the rattle of the desiccated grasses
sounded like the death knell of some ancient and withered
being. Perhaps it was a fitting epitaph for the
Kh@fflict, he thought. Certainly his experiences
here left him glad that their legacy had been as
impermanent as the march of sand grains before the wind.
The galaxy was incalculably poorer for the loss
of the civilizations they had destroyed with their
genocidal xenophobia. If he had his way,
when the Enterprise left Careta IV, the
Federation would impose as absolute a ban on this
planet as they maintained on Talos IV.
The ship's sensors easily located both the
Kh@fflict who were near the third artifact, the
one that stood on the canyon above the underground
complex. Once she had been transported to the
surface, Talika had wandered off and was hiding in
a fold in the land. Chekov, however, presented a
more dangerous problem. He had again started down the
trail toward the subsurface city, and since they
had not discovered how he had entered the first time,
Kirk had no idea if he could get
inside again. The sensors showed that he was stationary
for the moment, but they had no way of telling how long
that would last.
Kirk and the security guards started down the
trail, picking their way cautiously over the
loose talus and unstable slump areas that all but
obliterated the trail in some places. That
Chekov had negotiated the treacherous path as a
deranged Kh@fflict not once, but twice, was a
tribute to the tenacity of living beings, whatever their
physical form or societal values. Kirk
found he was having enough trouble managing this trail in
his human form, and he could tell the security men,
with less hiking and rock-climbing experience than
he had, were having greater difficulties.
It took them over an hour to find Chekov.
When he had pushed his Kh@fflict body to its
limits, Chekov had pulled himself off the trail
and crawled uphill across a landslide. Near its
head a small ledge formed a den just big enough for his
body. The fist-sized chunks of rock that
littered the ground below the opening made a quiet
approach almost impossible and promised treacherous
footing when they tried to dislodge him from the hole.
After studying the hillside, Kirk heaved a
sigh of frustration. "There's only one thing we can
do. Stun him from a distance and then drag the body out
into the net. At least we'll be able to beam back
to the artifact instead of carrying him up the hill."
Stunning Chekov was easy, but extracting his
body from the tiny hole proved a bigger
challenge. He had chosen a hiding place that
fit him like a second shell. Finally, after an
hour of slipping on the unstable footing, struggling
to gain a position where they could exert leverage on
the inert Kh@fflict, and swearing at everything in
general, they got Chekov onto the net.
"Energize!" Kirk ordered, relieved to have
finally retrieved one person. They materialized
half a dozen meters from the artifact, carried
Chekov up to it, and shoved his inert body through the
window.
"One down, three to go," said Timmons, one
of the guards. His voice was tense. If Chekov
was any example, the rescue was going to take much
more time and effort than they had hoped.
They walked past Talika's hiding place
three times before Kirk spotted the deeper shadow
of a pothole beneath the low cutbank. They should have
located her sooner, but their tricorders
had started giving them spurious readings when they
entered the section of the canyon where she was hiding.
Probably a Kh@fflict graveyard, Kirk
thought, promising himself not to mention the location to the
arch aeologists. It might be the only
Kh@fflict site on the planet that it was safe
for them to explore, but he wasn't willing to take
the chance. He had experienced more than enough of the
Kh@fflict to last him several lifetimes.
Talika was already unconscious when they found
her. Even so, Kirk ordered the guards to stun
her in case she woke up when they moved her.
If their tricorders couldn't get a good fix on
her at close range, they didn't dare trust
that the ship's transporter would do any better.
Dragging her body out of the hole was hard,
dirty work even after they used their phasers to cut
a ramp. They had to crouch under the overhanging
bank, and even before he had squeezed behind her
to help push her out, Kirk's back was complaining.
With him shoving from behind and two of the guards pulling from
the front, it took them fifteen minutes to get
her up to the level of the creek bed.
Timmons wiped his forehead, leaving a grimy
streak across it. "You wouldn't think it would be so hard
to move her, would you? My warmup weights start
heavier than that."
The other guards nodded in agreement. Before they
could carry the discussion further, Kirk ordered
Scott to beam them to the artifact. With Talika
sent through and returned to her own form, Kirk and the
guards transported to the second artifact
to find the men who had gone through that window with Kirk.
The country around the second artifact
provided fewer good hiding places, but their search
went much like the hunt for Chekov and Talika. The
guard who had fallen into the wadi had managed
to drag himself several dozen meters before finding a
hole to crawl into. Knowing what to expect, they
were able to rescue these two victims more quickly than
they had retrieved either Chekov or Talika.
Then, tired, thirsty, and filthy, they beamed
back to the Enterprise. They were the last party of
humans to leave the planet.
"What's the prognosis, Bones?" Kirk
asked. The doctor was still in the transporter
room, examining the last unconscious guard.
McCoy straightened and signaled the
orderlies to carry the stretcher to sickbay. "The
prognosis, Captain, is that you need
a long shower, a hot dinner--and eighteen hours of
sleep."
"Bones, that's not what I meant!"
Exhaustion made his tone sharper than he
intended. "What about the people we just brought back from the
planet?"
With a shake of his head, McCoy relented.
"They should be fine after they take a few days
to recuperate. Even Jacobs, with the broken
leg, should be back in fighting form by this time next
week. But you won't be, unless you follow the
prescription I just handed you."
"Yes, Bones." Kirk packed as much
exasperation as he could into his voice, but he
knew McCoy was right. He had pushed himself
to his limit to rescue those people. Food and sleep
sounded exactly like what he needed. He left
orders that no one was to beam down to the planet for
any reason whatsoever and headed for his quarters
to follow his doctor's advice.




Chapter Twenty-four

Five days later everyone was recovered enough
to evaluate their experiences on Careta IV.
Surveying the subdued group around the briefing
table, Kirk decided they all needed a rest
leave after this assignment. Spock, his complexion
still a little greener than normal, sat in his usual
place at the library computer. For once
Chekov was not talking before the briefing started, and
McCoy seemed fascinated by his stylus.
Dr. Kaul was present, released from
McCoy's care after an experimental treatment
at last overcame his violent, recurring
reactions to the suldanic gas. Lassiter and
Talika flanked Kaul, and both women were as
silent as Chekov.
Is it only two weeks since we sat
here to decide the best way to explore this
planet? Kirk asked himself as he waited for
everyone to settle into the seats. It seemed more like
half a lifetime. "All right, everyone," he said
when he thought they were ready. "We're here to discuss
what should happen with this planet and the Kh@fflict
artifacts. The unofficial consensus is
to quarantine the planet. Does anyone
wish to contribute any thoughts on this issue?"
Spock straightened in his chair. "Captain,
I have been exploring options for severing the links
between the Kh@fflict devices and their power
sources. At present there does not seem to be
any possible way to do this short of destroying the
objects themselves. I am uncertain whether even a
direct hit with one of our photon torpedoes
would be effective in obliterating the transport
windows. The Kh@fflict designed their systems
to withstand all forms of tampering and, indeed, most forms
of mass destruction.
"It would appear that we are not the first people to make
this discovery. The jamming fields that surrounded many
of the Kh@fflict sites were the work of another
civilization, which explored this system after the
Kh@fflict became extinct." Spock inclined
his head toward Kaul to acknowledge the
archaeologist. "Our analysis suggests the
Meztoriens explored this system and discovered the
Kh@fflict artifacts. We theorize that they had
similar experiences to ours and that they also concluded
that the Kh@fflict artifacts were extremely
dangerous. We believe that their experiences so
frightened them that they attempted to conceal or render
inoperative all the Kh@fflict ruins on the
entire planet. The shielding mechanisms they
placed around the transit frame at Site
J3 functioned to inhibit much of the transport
system. Coupled with the jamming fields that they
installed at all the major localities, their
efforts effectively prevented anyone from learning
of the Kh@fflict's existence for over one hundred
thousand years. It is a remarkable tribute
to both civilizations that significant components
of their technology continued to operate up to the
present."
"I have been assisting Mr. Spock in his
investigations," Chekov added. "We have been
unable to discover a way to operate these devices
unless the operator is wearing a Kh@fflict
body. Since so much of their information was
programmed into their brains, the computer systems
assume that the operator knows this data. In some
cases, as Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk
discovered, specific information is programmed
only in the brains of certain individuals.
Without a Kh@fflict body containing that
programming, I doubt if we can ever determine
how the system should work."
Talika lifted a massive hand to request the
floor. "No one must ever again Kh@fflict be.
When Kh@fflict I was, believed I that of
universe sole ruler was I. God almost.
Humans less than animals were. Of value
none, since not even food were they. When again as
myself woke I, realized I that Djelifans
often others almost as badly treat. This to be wrong
know I now. If persons must to study
Kh@fflict evil become, then study
Kh@fflict they should not."
Lassiter nodded her agreement, one hand
twisted into her pale blond hair. "There is an
evil presence lingering around this people-planet. I've
sensed it ever since we arrived, although it took me
several days to rather-realize it. Mr. Spock found
tangible evidence of this evil in the one underground
city, in the carvings that decorated their temple.
The Kh@fflict gloried in every horrible activity
we've ever heard of. From the references Mr.
Spock has discovered in our computers and from the
evidence of their own carvings, it is can-clear that the
Kh@fflict exterminated every intelligent race
they ever encountered. We can not-now account for
seventy-three people-percent of the "orphan"
cultures in this sector by do-direct reference
to Kh@fflict carvings that show these people being killed.
The true horror of the Kh@fflict's genocidal
massacres is that they never can-considered that the
other races they encountered might be intelligent.
Their world view said that they were alone, and so all
life-forms they encountered were but-by definition
inferior.
"You have all seen the carvings they left behind, how
evil and brutal these people-people were. By the time
their civilization fell, their brutality permeated
everything they touched. I can't--really--explain
what I'm that-trying to say, but I'm sure that the
evil was people-programmed into their computers along with
all the other information that they stored there. And since
the only way we can learn their language and
study their knowledge is to become one of them, we
can-cannot escape their evil, even though we
tell ourselves we are searching only for the good."
"I protest." Kaul's face was rigid with
anger. "This is the discovery of a lifetime, and you people
want to bury it forever. Science deserves the chance
to explore what the Kh@fflict have to offer us."
Kirk looked around the room, seeing how
Kaul's words sparked an answering
fury in the others. He wants his name in the
history books, Kirk could almost hear them
thinking. He wants the glory that would come from
having made such a revolutionary discovery. He
shook his head to break that train of thought. Kaul's
objection, no matter what his motives, was
valid. "I agree in principle with Dr.
Kaul that every discovery should be explored to learn how
we might benefit from it. However, in this case,
I don't see any way we can study the
Kh@fflict civilization from the outside."
Spock looked up from his computer screen.
"Dr. Lassiter and I have given that question
considerable thought, Captain. We have regretfully
concluded that there is no possible way to gain
access to the Kh@fflict computers without a thorough
knowledge of the Kh@fflict language. And since the
only way for the language to be learned is for the
computers to imprint it on a juvenile
Kh@fflict brain"--he held out his hands,
palms upward--"either the students must become
Kh@fflict, or they cannot study the society ."
Kirk nodded. "When you add to that the fact that the
Kh@fflict brain is almost incapable of accepting
the concept of other intelligent beings, you have a
ready-made prescription for disaster. None of us
was able to maintain his own identity all the time, and
we have no reason to assume anyone else would have
an easier time. Trying to coexist in a
Kh@fflict body with a Kh@fflict lower brain
is not an experience I'd recommend to anyone."
"Aren't you forgetting something, Captain? You're
sounding awfully casual about this business of people
changing into alien bodies." McCoy tilted his
chin upward at the angle that said he was preparing for
an argument. "I've had the privilege of trying
to put the lot of you back together again after this-here little
adventure. Now, you and Spock came out of it
reasonably well, but everyone else has had more
than a few problems trying to get some mental
balance back. The problem is, I don't know
whether I should help everyone regain his or her
memories, especially considering what some of them
have gone through, or if I should bury them so deep that
they will never surface. So, Captain, I
don't think two out of eight is particularly good
odds, especially when another two out of that eight
didn't make it at all. If anyone else was
thinking about changing into Kh@fflict, I sure
wouldn't want to guess which people would come through
it in any better shape than anyone else.
It's much, much too risky an experiment to be
trying ever again! And that's my official medical
opinion."
Kirk looked around the room. Everyone but
Kaul was nodding in agreement with McCoy's
words. He made a mental note to have the doctor
keep close tabs on everyone who had been
transformed into a Kh@fflict, particularly
Chekov. However, unless Chekov's memories
of his actions while in alien form surfaced in
coherent form, Kirk thought it would do more harm than
good for anyone to discuss the matter further. "That's
it, then. Our official recommendation is
to quarantine Careta IV and permanently ban
all investigations of its surface."
"I protest!" Kaul jumped to his feet,
slapping both palms against the table. "I protest
most strongly at this refusal to examine a find
of such significance!"
Taking his time, Kirk unfolded himself from his
chair. Using his height to dominate the shorter
man, he pinned Kaul with a steely glare. "We
were down there on the planet, and you weren't. It is
the considered opinion of everyone who had firsthand
experience with the Kh@fflict--including your own
people--that we have had more contact with this civilization than
is good for anyone's mental stability. The
Kh@fflict and their technology are too
dangerous for us to meddle with, and we dare not let
one of their genocidal crusades loose in the
galaxy. Your objections will be noted in my
official report, Dr. Kaul, but the
quarantine recommendation stands. Briefing
dismissed."
Before Kaul could collect himself for further
argument, Kirk made good his escape. The
bridge seemed wonderfully clean and peaceful and
orderly after his experiences on the planet.
Settling himself into the familiar contours of his command
chair, Kirk gave the order they had all been
waiting to hear for the last five days. A subdued
cheer went around the bridge in answer to his command.
"Take us out of here, Mr. Sulu. Warp
factor two."