  STAR TREK
  LOG 2
  BY
  ALAN DEAN FOSTER
  STAR TREK The shOW that would
  not die
  Back in 1966 Gene Roddenberry convinced
NBC-TV to give sophisticated science fiction a
try, and Star Trek was launched. Getting the show
on the air was a triumph in itself; keeping it on the
air was something else again. Toward the end of the second
season there were rumors of impending cancellation
  Viewers passionately devoted to the series
deluged the network with letters of protest Loyal
fans picketed NBC'S offices both in
California and New York. The Save
Star Trek Campaign one of the most phenomenal
expressions of viewer interest in the history of
tv-worked. So Star Trek was back on the air for a
third season. Alas, however, many factors combined
to lower the program's ratings, giving the network the
ammunition it needed to cancel the series.
  But still the fans wanted more...
  Books about Star Trek were published, each one
selling hundreds of thousands of copies to the
faithful. Star Trek conventions all over the country
attracted thousands of fans.
  And now we have the exciting animated Star Trek.
All the original actors (at least their voices)
are back aboard the starship Enterpri tilde e,
assuring success.
  Ballantine proudly launches the STAR
TREK LOG series, publishing all the excit-
ing new stories in paperback for the first time.
  STAR TREK LIVES!
  LOG TWO Alan Dean foster Based on the
Popular Animated Series
  Created by
  ONE RODDENBERRY
  BALLANTINE BOOKS @u NEW YORK
Copyright Qc 1974 by Paramount
Pictures Corporation
  All rights reserved under International and
Pan-American Copy- right Conventions.
Published in the United States by Ballantine
Books, a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York, and simultaneously in Canada
by Ballantine Books of Canada, Ltd.,
Toronto, Canada.
  Ubrary of Congress Catalog Card Number:

  ISBN 0-345-25043-5-150
  Manufactured In the United States of
America
  First Edition: September 1974 EighLh
Printing: September 1976
  Cover art supplied by Fi1niation
Associates For Mom and Dad, Without whose
sincere cooperation, This author wouidn't have been
possible CONTENTS
  PART I
  Tbe Survivor
  PART II
  The Lorelei Signal 67
  PART III
  The Inlini'te Vulcan @u127
  Log of the Starship Enterprise Stardates
5402.7-eejccoma Inclusive James T.
Kirk, Capt., USSC, FS, ret.
  Commanding
  comtranscribed by
  @uAlan Dean Foster
  At the Galactic Historical Archives
  on S. Monicus
  stardated 6110.5
  For the Curator: JLETTER
  THE SURVIVOR
  Adapted from a scrbbpt by James Schermerl
Space is not silent. If one has the ears-the
appropriate methods to listen with the seeming
emptiness and black desolation is transformed into a
raucous chorus of bleeps, pops, whistles, and
hums. The steady modulated whines of patient
quasars, the discordant sale of black holes,
and the sten- torian drone of unseen pulsars all
contribute their voices to a heavenly choir of
awesome complexity and rhythm. From white dwarf to red
giant, every sun exhibits its own distinctive,
individual sizzle-plop in the same way that
aniinais give off special odors, or flowers
display color. At tbis particular
moment, in this typically insignificant corner of the
universe, an exceptionally unusual sound was being
generated. It came from a minute, irregularly
shaped and rapidly moving object of considerably
less than solar mass. And yet the sounds it was
producing were at once less powerful and more
distinctive than those given off by any sun, or
pulsar, or radio nebula. Anyone passing near
this object would have needed very, very sensitive instruments
indeed to pick up the sound at alLike But if one had
the proper detection equip- ment and an enormous
quantity of amplification at imme- diate
disposal, one might just be able to hear: "Deck the
halls with boughs of holly, fa-lalala-lala- --
----- "Tis the season to be jolly, fa...!"
But by then, of course, the Enterprise would have shot far
out of detector range. Once a year the tree was
carefully unwrapped and lifted from its special
cold-storage compartment in the bottom of 3 4
STAR TREK LOO TwO the starship's
cold-storage roam.then, amid much gaiety and
boozing, it was set up in the main crew lounge and
decorated with everything from genuine gingerbread cook-
ies tO holographic angels.
  It was a real evergreen, too----as fine
and upstanding a tannenbaum as any celebrant could
wish for. No one mind- ed that it had sprung from the
soil of a world unknown to Man when words were first spoken
on his mood A group of engineers and technicians
had organized an unprofessional but enthusiastic
barbershop quartet near the base of the glowing tree.
They were caroling away lust- ily to the accompaniment
of a small electric piano. Lt Uhura leaned
against the fake fireplace set up nearby. She was
tsing to a tall young ensign from quar- termaster
section. Every so often she'd emphasize some point
or other by jabbing him in the chest with a finger- one of those
not wrapped around a glass.
  For his part" the ensign was still unsure about plus
iow to react On the one hand, the sudden unexpected
situation involving the most desirable lieutenant on
the ship was de- veloping promisingly. On the other,
he couldu't forget that she was his superior officer.
Given the current lack of equilibrium the
senior lieutenant was displaying, he'd have to be
careful things didn't turn awkward.
  "Lischen... listen, EnsignBut..... 1 tell
you there's nothing like working in communications! Communication
is the most important' most necessariest section
on this ship. Why, without communication we ...
we couldn't talk to each other!" She seemed
overwhelined at this sud- den insight
  "I ask you ... where'd the Enterpii tilde e
be without com- munications? Where!"
  "I couldn't agree with you more, Lieutenant,"
agreed Burns, cautiously slipping an agreeing
arm around her shoulders. "Of course, we should bear in
mind that there are all kinds of communication... here,
let me get you a refill. I have some interesting
theories of my own which I'm sure would benefit
greatly from the comments and suggestions of a senior officer
like yourself. "If you could spare a minute ... I've
drawn up some interesting schematics that..."
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 5 On the far
side of the lounge, Engineer Scott had cor-
raIled Spock at an unoccupied table. The
surface between them was swamped with seemingly numberless
sheets of paper filled with hurriedly roughed-out
engineering di- agrams.
  "Now you see here, Spock," Scott was saying
intensely, tracing a rather wobbly line on one sheet
with his dralting pen, "this is-was He paused and stared
disapprovingly at the Enterprise's first officer.
  "oChild, smile, Spock,,, why don't you?
"Tis the season to be jolly,
fa-lalala...
  Spock's reaction was similar to the one he'd
already used several times that day, in response to the
sudden ex- plosion of illogical activity. To him
this season" seemed a cyclical madness that,
fortunately, had to be horne only once a year.
  But, by Vulcan's long deserts, it was hard on
him. "I am sorry, Mr. Scott First of all,
I do not "fa-lala," as you wefl know. Also,
even if this were my holiday and not yours, Ido not think
I could bring myself to perform even the slightest of the many
unreasonable activities that seem to be the normal
method of celebration.
  "For one thing, Vulcans do not voluntarily
pollute their bloodstream with odd combinations of ethyl
alcohol mol- ecules." That seemed to outrage the
chief and he drew back in stunned disbelief.
  "Pollute? Mr. Flock, do I understand you
to be sayin" ... his Are you callin...' his Do you
mean to say that you regard this outstandin' eggnog as a
pollutant?" "I belleve that is what I just
said, Mr. Scott. Really, if you cannot see----"
  "No. No, that's all right, Block, I see.
I see, all right" He shoved his chin out and managed
to look like a Scot- tish martyour. He
started gathering up armfuls of drawings. They
overflowed his arms and fell to the floor. When he
bent over to retrieve those that had fallen, he lost
another set.
  "If that's the way you feel about it," he continued,
picking up one and dropping three, "I'll just have
to find someone else to share this with. Someone who can
apprc-
  ciate my design. Someone who'll be llappy
to share the in- come.
  Apparently deciding he'd reached the point of
dimin- ishing returns as far as dropped papers were
concerned, he turned and staggered off in the direction
of a knot of nearby subengmeers, dripping
diagrams all the way. The subengineers saw him
coming, but couldn't get out of the way fast enough.
  Spock watched him go. A hand touched his shoulder,
and he turned "round, looking up at the new
arrival. "Hello, Captain." Spock's first
worry-that he might find the Enterprise's commanding
officer in a state similar to that of its chief
engineer-was unfounded. On the con- trary,
Kirk's face was noticeably devoid of
seasonal spirit His current expression was a mid of
curiosity and pub zIement.
  "Something is happening?"
  Kirk nodded. "It's probably nothing
Importtmt, Mr. Spock. As you know, meteor
activity has been unusually heavy in this sector
for two days now. This morning, Sulu thought he'd
detected a blip in the normal shower-pattern that
shouldn't have been there. I checked his readings and the
computer seems to confirm them. There's something moving in
the shower that's acting very unmeteorlike. "Still'
ft may be nothing more than a somewhat differ- ent
hunk of cosmic flotsam-but it's drifting in a
course almost parallel to ours. Since it's not out of
our way, I told Sulu to veer toward it."
  "Any idea what it might be, Captain?"
  Kirk looked skeptical. "Sulu thinks it
might be a ship." "You have of course considered our
position?" Kirk nodded. "I know we're on the
edge of the Romu- Ian Neutral Zone, Mr.
Spock. If it is a ship, there's the chance it
might be Romula tilde Regardless-was He
glanced around the lounge, in which the noise level had
risen several unsteady decibels in the last few
minutes, "if you can spare a moment away from the
local hilarity, I'd ap- preciate your
presence on the bridge."
  "I assure you, Captain, I can spare a great
deal more than a moment"
  STAR TREK too TWO 7 Spock continued
his thoughts as they started moviug toward the
bridge-elevator.
  "In fact, sometimes, Captain," and he looked
back to where Ensign Burns was now chasing Uhura
around the tree, "I often wonder how you humans ever
managed to discover fire." Kirk hit the
elevator switch, and they en- tered the lift
  "Sometimes, Mr. Spock, we aren't quite sure
ourselves."
  He nudged the lever that sent them rising toward the
bridge.
  Spock said nothing for a while as the lights
indicating other decks flashed past. But Kirk
knew his first officer well enough to tell that something was
digging at him. "What is it' Spock?"
  "An absurdity, Captain. It is merely that
Engineer Scott was forcing me to look at plans for.
. ." He paused awkwardly in inidsentence, something
he rarely did. "Captain, do you think there wouid
be much of a mar- ket on human-,popuiated worlds
for a four less-than iirneusional Christmas
tree?
  "A what? Mr. Spock, have you been...?"
  "Captain, I do not object to the diverse
ingredients in- eluded in the liquid solution known
as ....... though I find many of them frivolous rather
than nutritional. But please rest assured the
beverage itself has no attraction for me.
  "Besides, I believe I may be allergic
to nutmeg."
  Kirk lost the answer to Spock's original question
in the atmosphere of this rarified possibility.
  Mr. Suiu was the only officer at station on the
bridge. On special occasions Kirk sometimes
allowed the Enter- prise to cruise free, operating
on the reasonable theory that no one had yet found a
way to get a computer drunk. Suiu would have his own
chance at losing control of him- self when the starship
changed over to the next shift. For now, the
heimsman's full attention was focused on his fore
scanners.
  "We're eoniing up on the obieet now,
Captain."
  "How's shower activity, Mr. Sulu?" Kirk
slipped easily into the command cltair and Spock
moved to the library computer station
  "Heavy, sir, but not abnormal. fur
shields and deflec- tors are handling it easily."
Concern was in his voice. "But from what I can read, that
ship out there hasn't done nearly as well."
  "It is a ship, then?"
  "Yes, sir. was He made a delicate
adjustment to a control. "Should have it on the screen
any second now.", The main viewscreen
blurred, then cleared. Meteors that occasionally shot
across the field of vision moved too fast to be seen,
but the tiny craft centered in the viewfind- er stood
out sharply in amplified starlight. Its design was
compact and very expensive. Only the very rich could
afford to put warp-drive engines in small ships.
That maxim held true for governments as well as
individuals.
  Right now, however, the ship looked more like a prime
candidate for the scrapyard. The rear section had been
twisted and bent in places by some violent,
overwhelming force. The engines weren't twisted or
bent because they weren't there anymore. The whole power
plant was niiss- ing, torn from the stern of the
battered craft. Numerous gaping holes showed in the
mid- tilde d fore- sections as well. It was a
choice hunk of junIL "Take us in closer,
Mr. Sulu."
  "Aye, sir. was Matching velocity and direction
with care, the helms- man edged the Enterprise
close to the small vessel. It was a feat made
possible only with the aid of the starship's navigational
computer. No human could handle so many complex
calculations alone.
  "It's not a Romulan, anyway," Kirk
muftered. He was mildly relieved.
Realistically, aiding a distressed craft could in no
way be interpreted as warlike. Not by humans or
Vulcans, anyway. But the Romulans were not always
realistic. They had some peculiar ideas as to what
consti- tuted an aggressive act. At least
Kirk would be spared that worry. Instead he could
concentrate his thoughts on the plight of the survivors,
ff any.
  He didn't have to consult the computer records
to see that the tiny craft was of Federation design and
make. "Close scan, Mr. Sulu."
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 9 Sulu touched
a switch. Immediately the rear sectIon of the injured
ship seemed to jump out at them. Moving slowly
forward along the pitted fuselage, the telescopic
scanner fmally stopped on a set of identification
numbers. Set just behind the living area, the
giowing numbers were barely intefflgible. A
near-miss by a small chunk of iron- nickel had
almost obliterated them.
  "I have it" Captain," noted Spock. That was
the signal for Suiu to move the scanner further
along the side Of the craft.
  "I am now checking the number against Federation
rec- ords." There was a short pause and then
Spock added idly, "I might also say,
Captain, that unless you are wrong and it is possible
to induce a state of incbriation into com- puters, our
sensors claim that at least one occupant of that ship
is still alive."
  Kirk's surprise was genuine. He hadn't
really expected that a ship this badly huiled,
drifting alone in a littie-vis- ited sector of
space, might still be able to sustain life. Still, they
didn't know how long the vessel had been
driftingjhelplessly or when its power plant had
been de- stroyed. Its life-support systems
could have been success- fully sealed off from the rest
of the damage and might have continued to function on stored
emergency power, but- The state of the ship indicated
otherwise. Yet life-sensors rarely made
mistakes.
  Possibly someone else was due for a merry
Christmas. "Mr. Suiu. Since Lt. Uhura
is -- . -- uh, otherwise en- gaged, I'd like
you to try contacting that ship."
  "Trying, sir," replied the helmsman, as he
rerouted ba- sic communications through his own board.
There was a pause of several minutes, alter which
Suiu looked back and shook his head slowly.
  "Nothing, sir. Not even a carrier wave. And
no SOS."
  Kirk tried to sound philosophical. "I
guess it's too much to expect any of their
communications equipment to have survived intact. Not
after the beating she's taken. Your occupant may still be
alive, Mr. Spock, but I wouldn't bet that he
or she is in very good condition." He nudged a
switch on his armrest.
  "Sick Bay-Dr. McCoy, please.
Captain calling." All that came back over the
intercom was a muffled and sus- piciously feminine
giggie. "Bones, are you there?" An uni-
dentifiable fumbling sound followed.
  "Here, Jim. What's up?" Kirk
suppressed an urge tO echo McCoy's query
and follow up his own curiosity. In- stead
he managed to concentrate on the problem at hand.
"Bones, we've run across a small Federation
ship. It's a derelict, been through the mill, but according
to our sen- sors at least one survivor is on
board. We can't be sure yet. I'm going to have them
beamed aboaread,, and you'd better be standing by in the
transporter room. "Okay, Jim." The giggle
sounded again, and McCoy switched off-rather hurriedly,
Kirk thought. He sighed, turned to Spock.
  "Anything on the ship itself, yet?"
  "Not yet, Captain. But we should have some informa-
tion soon. I have already established that it is not a
gov- ermnent vessel. Private listings of
interstellar ships require rather more time to check
thorougheaealy. I will join you and Dr. McCoy in the
transporter room.
  "All right, Spock."
  McCoy was already waiting when Kirk arrived in the
transporter chamber. The doctor was engaged in
amiable conversation with Transporter Chief Kyle.
Chatting ceased abruptly when Kirk entered and he
had the impression their discussion had been on matters
other than the dere- lict ship. McCoy struggled
to put up a concerned fronLike "Do we know anything
about her yet, Jim?" "Only that she is
Federation, that she's probably prig vately owned,
that in all likelihood she contains no more than one
survivor, and fix your shirt."
  McCoy looked down at himself and fumbled quickly
with his clothing. Kirk nodded to the transporter
chief. "All right, Mr. Kyle," he ordered
dryly. "The doctor is ready. Bring "em
aboard."
  "Yes, sir."
  A familiar musical whine started to rise in the
room. Spock walked in and moved to stand between Kirk
and McCoy as the transporter effect began
to build STAR ThBK too TWO II
"ReadIngs indicate only one person aboard,
Captain," informed Kyle. Kirk acknowledged.
  "Thank you, Chief." He glanced at his first
officer. "Have you identffled her, Mr. Spock?"
  "Yes, Captain," Spock replied
quietly, keeping his eyes fixed on the reception
alcove. Was there a hint of sup- pressed
excitement in Spock's voice?
  "You may find it difficult to believe-as
difficult as I find ft-but the vessel is
registered to tilde arter Winston. 1
crosschecked, triple-checked. There is
no mistake."
  "The Carter Winston?"
  Spock nodded once.
  "That's impossible, Spock!" objected
McCoy. He had recogiiized the name instantly,
too. So had Kyle, but the transporter chief was
too busy to give vent to his disbelief. Everyone
knew what Carter Winston had beef "Carter
Winston's been missing and presumed dead for over
five years."
  "It tilde possible, Doctor," mused
Spock unemotionally, "that he is no longer
missing." Kirk gestured towards the alcove where the
outline of a figure was building. "We'Us know in a
minute, gentlemen."
  The outline began to fill in, become solid.
Gradually certain characteristics established themselves. The
figre was bipedaI, human, male. Effect
solidffled and the glow- ing mist became man. At the
same time, Kyle deftly dropped the single
remaining control lever all the way down and snapped
off power.
  No one spoke.
  A simple coverail suit of rich brown wood
colors clothed the man. Its top was
inlaid with accenting gold thread. The garment was a
mixture of the restrained and expensive. A
lime-gold aura still surrounded him, the product
of the life-support belt encircling his waist. The
new arrival looked them over briefly, then
stepped off the plafform and switched off his belt. The
aura van- ished. It was obvious that as a doctor,
McCoy's presence was superfluous. The
survivor looked none the worse for wear after what
must have been, at its rnildest, a devastat- ing
ordeal.
  Physically he seemed untouched, not so much as a
  scratch marring his attractive, famous
features. Although now in his late thirties, his long
absence had apparently not affected his athlete's
body. Mter half a decade of non- existence
he showed no signs of deprivation. He smiled
slightly-his famous smile.
  "Incredible!" McCoy finally managed to stutter,
break- ing the silence. "It is him!"
  "Carter Winston," Kirk murmured, in tones
usually re- served for addressing Starfleet
admirals. It was appropri- ate. "The man
standing so composedly before them was a legend. Dead
legends are not supposed to come back
to life. "The men grouped in the transporter room
could be permitted a little awe.
  Winston bestowed a curious, bemused glance on
each of them in turn. A second later he showed that
there was nothing the matter with his vocal cords, either.
"It seems you gentlemen know me." Kirk stepped
for- ward and shook his hand.
  "There are few in the Federation who wouldn tilde t
recog- nize you, sir. Even after ail this time.
It's good to know you're no longer a piece of
history.
  "Pm Captain James Kirk, commanding this
vessel. It's an honor to have you aboard the
Enterprise." He gestured in turn to each of the
others.
  "My first officer, Mr. Spock. Dr.
McCoy, senior medi- cal officer-was MeCoy
stepped forward and shook hands exuberantly.
  "I'm especially honored to meet you, Mr.
W'mston. I expect your being alive means more
to me than to the oth- ers. You see," he hesitated
slightly, "my daughter was going to school on
Cerberus ten years ago, when the crop failure
occurred."
  "Ah, yes," Winston murmured,
"Cerberus."
  McCoy looked over at Kirk, then back at
W'mstoii. "It was estimated that fifty to sixty
percent of the popu- lation would have starved if Winston,
here, hadn't used his-well, you remember the
stories.
  "Bureaucracy in the Cerberus Crisis moved
at two speedsdead slow and slower than dead. But
Winston spent his personal fortune to bring in enough
food and goods to carry the Cerberus ll
inhabitants through the
  danger period until those idiots," and he
spoke the word with as much bitterness as Kirk had ever
heard from him, "at Adiinistration got themselves
straightened out."
  Kirk recalled the incident faintly and was
impressed with the memory. He wasn't as
intimately acquainted with the Cerberus incident as
McCoy, but he remembered some of the resulting
tremors. There had been a real shakeup in certain
sections of Starfleet Command. One of those rare
instances where ministers and executives in high
positions actually lost their jobs.
  "One of the many stories I've heard about you,
Mr. Wmston. It's a great pleasure for
all of us to see you alive and well."
  "Thank you, gentieme tilde was tilde inston
smiled again, the same infectious grin that had more than
once graced broadcast screens from the Far Arm
to Earth itself-and had helped to build one of the greatest
if most unstable fortunes tilde f all time.
  "I'd like to say it's a pleasure to be on the
Enterpnse, but frankly, after what I've been through
these last five years, i"...tilde be a pleasure
to be on board a pressurized bathtub."
  The four humans shared a convivial laugh.
Spock wafted and watched impatiently. There were a
couple of things he badly wanted to say, and he had
held his peace while jovial greetings had been
exchanged.
  "There is one person aboard who will be especially
glad to learn that you are aIiv tilde Ueutenant
Anne Nored of our Security Section."
  Winston kept his composure, but not enough to hide the
shock he obviously felt
  "My flancie! Anne's aboard this ship?"
  "Yes, doesn't it please you?"
  MoCoy broke in before an astonished tilde
mston had a chance to reply. "How did you know that,
Mr. Spock?" "As soon as it was
determined that the craft We located was registered
to Mr. Winston, I began processing in- formation
on him on the chance that he was the lone sur- vivor.
The information concerning his engagement to Lieutenant
Nored was in the capsule summary the c0m-
  puter produced. It is a surprise to me
too, doctor." He turned back to Winston.
  "We will notify her as soon as we have verified
and processed your credentials, sir. If you have your
identity tapes with you...?"
  "Spock!" McCoy looked angry. "Of all
the cold- blooded, inhospitable and inhuman
requests I've ever heard-was
  "I believe the regulations are quite clear on the
inatter, Doctor," replied a composed Spock.
"An immediate iden- tity check and full medical
exaniination are standard pro- cedure in situations such
as this. Despite the unusual nature of the
rescue, I find no reason for deviating from
procedure."
  McCoy clearly felt otherwise and seemed
prepared to say so. But Kirk, after a questioning glance
at Spock, moved qulckly to ease the awkward
moment.
  "Spock's right, Bones. Be sensible."
  McCoy hesitated and still looked upset, but said
noth- ing.
  "And I understand, of course," smiled Winston.
"My credentials, Captain." He reached into a
sult pocket and withdrew a small microtape
cassette. Kirk gave it a curi- ous,
cursory glance. Tape models had changed
slightiy in five years. If nothing else, the
cassette W'mston held out to him was genuine as
to age.
  "We'll get through the formalities as rapidly as
possible, Mr. Winston. Bones, why don't you
take our guest down to Sick Bay and run him through
a standard medical check."
  McCoy nodded, smiled at Winston. "I was
going to suggest a twelve-course meal first, but it would
be a good idea to make sure your insides are in
shape to appreciate it. I'll make it fast,
Mr. Winston."
  The two men left the chamber, chafting
excitedly. McCoy was doing most of the talking as the
elevator doors slid together in front of them, but
that didn't sur- prise Kirk. After all, a
man can miss a lot of news in five years.
  "Five years! It's still hard to believe,
Speck."
  "I know, Captain." The two officers turned
into the
  small briefing room. It was the nearest place
to the trans- porter chamber that had the proper
computer-access mod- ale.
  "Nonetheless, he produced his identity tapes
immedi- ately. His actions so far have been
perfectly normal. Oh, maybe he's a bit
composed for someone who's been out of touch with
civilization for five years, but "It is a part of his
character. Yes, Captain, eveeaearythiing seems
to indicate that he is, indeed, Carter Winston.
"We know in a minute." Kirk took a seat at
the briefing table and activated a small switch
set into the compact console in front of him.
  "Ship's log, please." There was a short
pause, then a soft beep indicating that the computer
had recognized his voice and would now deign
to record. Kirk spoke into the small grid set
into the tabletop.
  "Captain's log, supplemental. "The Enterp
tilde tilde tilde has re5- cued tilde a
living legend-the foremost interstellar trader of our
time, Carter Winston. Who, as I
recall, has acquired a dozen fortunes, only
to use his great wealth again and again to aid Federation
colonies in times of need or disas- ter.
  "Altogether a remarkable man and one who many peo-
pie, myself included, are glad to discover is still
alive. We are m the process of carying out standard
postrescue identification procedures." He hit
another switch, then slipped the microtape
cassette into a slot that had suddenly appeared in the
desk.
  "Library computer-process identification
tapes on male human known as Carter Winston.
Verification of identity requested." A
three-sided viewscreen popped out of the desk top.
It immediately displayed a set of finger- prints in
triplicate. "These were followed in rapid
succes- sion by a series of retinal patterns,
oscffl9scope readings, and other information.
  "Working," informed the slightly feminine machine
voice. There was a muted hum.
  "Identification positive," it finally
declaimed. Kirk gave an inward sigh. Of
course, it was Carter Winston! The need for
Spock's logical mind to cross t's and dot
i's had made him overcautious.
  The computer continued. "Identification conrmation
follows: fingerprints positive, voiceprints
positive, retinal rellef positive. All
registration and documentation in or der."
  "Original visual display, please." The
abstracts disap- peared to be replaced by a
hologram of tilde inston. Except for a few
touches Kirk quickly ascribed to normal aging, ft
differed in no way from the man they had beamed aboard.
An extra line here, a slight sofning of flesh
there. Both men studied the "gram for another
minute. Then Kirk hit the switch, and the
tripartite screen sank back into the table.
  He leaned back in the chair and gazed across the
table at his flrst officer. "Well, everything checks
out. So we have a distinguished passenger for a while. I
expect he won't exactly be a dull guest
tilde ught to have one or two stories to tell."
  "It would seem so, Captain. 1 am much
relieved." -- "You worry too much, Spock.
And now, ff you'll ex- cuse me-was Kirk moved
briskly out of the chair. "It's tiine for me to go and
pollute myself with exotic combina- tions of
protein solids and ethanol molecules."
  "Et tu, Captain? You were listening."
  Kirk obbiiy grinned as they exited the briefing
roof
  II
  "If you'll just lie down over there," requested
McCoy, indicating the nearby examination table.
tilde mston hopped up on the slightly fflted
platform. With the air of one thor- oughly enjoying a
relaxed position, he stretched out and put both hands
under his head.
  McCoy walked to a nearby cabinet and
selected a com- pact general scanner.
  "This won't hurt a bit, tilde mston," he
said easily as he
  moved to stand next to the table. "Just a few minutes
and we'll be all through." He smiled, fficked a
switch on the scanner. Starting at the top of
Winston's head, McCoy moved the instrument down
the man's body, holding it roughly ten centimeters
above him.
  After passing over his feet, McCoy fiicked the
device off and checked the readouts. His smile
slipped away and was replaced by a slight frown of
puzzlement. Winston noticed it, too. "Is there
some problem, Doe- tor? Don't teli me-I'm
pregnant!"
  McCoy managed a smile. "Scanner seems
a little off. Just a second." He adjusted dials,
rechecked the readouts. "Calibration must be off,"
he muttered to himself. He nudged the activation
switch again and played the pickup over his own upper
torso, examined the results. His puz- zlement
deepened.
  Mumbling with the air of someone who's just seen a ghost
and prefers to pretend it wasn't really there, he
turned back to Winston.
  "Let's try ft again."
  Once-more the scanner was played down the
survivor's prone form. Once more the resultant
numbers on the tiny gauges brought deepening
confusion.
  "Odd. Some slight deviations here and there I could
un- derstand. You've been isolated for five years.
It's no sur- prise that your body might have
picked up some funny ra- diation, or something. A
couple of abnormal readings are to be expected.
It's just that .. ." he looked down at Win- ston
with a worried stare, "I've never gotteea"n any
readings quite like these from a human being before. Winston
laughed easily, cleariy amused by McCoy's
confusion. "Are you suggesting I'm not quite
human, doc- tor? By the way, Merry
Christmas."
  "Merry Christmas to you, Winston. No, of
course not. Anyway, the differences are all
fractional." His smile re- turned. "Sometimes
even the best medical instrumentation goes haywire.
I don't get to overhaul it with major hospi-
tal facilities very often. Must be the scanner."
  "Occasionally the transporter can do peculiar things
to a body, too, leaving lingering effects that disappear
as the internal structure readjusts. How are you
feeling?"
  wmston spread his hands, looked bemused. "Just
great, Doc."
  "Well, then-was
  "I beg your pardon, Dr. McCoy." The
doctor turned. Nurse Chapel had stepped into the
examination room from the nearby reception area
  "What is it, Christine?"
  "Doctor, the captain has been eaUn tilde
He wants to know if the examination has
beer,,-piete tilde was "Ummm, yes, I
suppose it has.
  "And doctor, Lt Nored is waIting to see
Mr. W'm- stor-as soon as you've
certified his medical status."
  "Thanks, Christine." She smiled and left
McCoy turned back to Winston. "Well, 1
certainly don't want to keep you from your flank."
He turned and yelled towards the open door.
"Send her in, Christine."
  He offered Winston a last smile, one he also
shared with the woman who passed him in the doorway.
She was dressed in the red uniform of a senior
security officer. Not stunning" no, but she was
damned attractive in an unassuming sort of
way. As befitted a security officer, she was in
excellent physical shape, which was more than could be
said for her state of mind just thee "Carter-was
  She held herself pretty well in check until
she was al- most to him. Then her reserve cracked
and she threw her- self into his arms. Caught
off-balance, his arms went around her automatically as
he stunibleand
  His own reaction was considerably less emotionaLike
Calm, cool, and-something else. Something as yet
unde- finable.
  She was alternately sobbing and talking a blue
streak. He let her ramble on for several minutes
before moving his hands up to her shoulders and pushing
her gently away-gently, but firmly.
  "I'm sorry, Anne." The s5rrow in his
voice seemed gen- uine. "I never thought we would
meet again."
  She studied his face. As she did so, her
expression changed from one of relief and pleasure
to one of con- fused uncertainty.
  "What is it, Carter? What's the matter?"
Winston re- plied without hesitation.
  "When I left on that final journey, Anne,
I fully in- tended it to be my last. One
supreme foray into unknown regions to bring my
finances back to where they'd been before. After that, I would
return and marry you. But my ship was disabled, and I
crashed on the planet Vendor. I'm told I was
lucky to have survived at all. The Vendori- ans
managed to help me repair my ship. I left
their world after four years of hard work, only to be
disabled in space once again."
  "But you've been rescued, you've survived," she
almost shouted. "You're alive and we're together again!
Nothing's cha tilde tilde nged." Winston
looked away from her.
  Anne, I've changed. First there was the
surgery-a lot of surgery. Skin
grafts, bone regeneration, replacement of damaged
organs with artificial ones, blood replacement.
The yendorians are excellent surgeons." He
smiled slightly at some distant memory. "They
said I was more banged-up than the ship.
  "After they put me back together again, the
Vendorians assigned one of their own people to look after
me and nurse TfiCan back to health."
  All this was very interesting-fascinating, even-but it
did nothing to explain Winston's original
statement. "But you said you've changed, Carter. How?
I don't see any change."
  "It's not a visible kind of change, Anne.
It's a kind that-was He paused. Abruptly he
seemed to give up any attempt at further
explanation.
  "It's over between us, Anne. I can't really
explain why, or how, but it's over. I didn't
expect to have to go through this. All I can say now that
it's happened is that 1 can't marry you, ever." He
continued to watch her quietly. Her mouth moved but
no sounds came out. Everything had happened so
suddenly and seemingly so well. Even his first bits
of explanation appeared to leave room for hope. Then
he had abruptly grown firm and
inflexible, hitting her with tilde declaration as
blunt and cold as the dark side of the m0o tilde
  She turned and ran from the room, leaving W'mston
sit- ting alone on the cold examination table, staring
after her.
  Kirk had performed the ceremonial gesture of
drinking with the crew-sharing their spirits, so to speak. But
he'd returned to the bridge soon enough. Now he
was back in the command chair, using a light-writer
to mark orders on a glass plate lined with metal.
A young yeoman, Ayers, stood to one side,
awaiting the captain's bidding. Nodding in
satisfaction, he read back over the orders,
signed the plate and handed it to her.
  "See these are delivered to the proper stations and
pro- cessed through, Yeom tilde was Ayers
saluted and left the bridge.
  A slight wave of dizziness assailed Kirk.
He put a hand to his forehead. Possibly he'd
overdone the annual Christ- mas camaraderie.
He might be better off in his cabin for a while. It
was one thing for the general crew to wander around mildly
dazed during the holidays, but the captain was
expected to remain cold sober at all time tilde
in-publlc, anyway.
  "Take the conn, Mr. Spock. Pll be in
my cabiii, com- pleting the report on
Winston's rescue."
  "Very good, Captain."
  Kirk rose and headed for the bridge-elevator.
Spock shlfted from the library station and took over the
com- mand chair.
  Kirk thought about the report as he made his way
from the second elevator to his private quarters.
He was still thinking about it after he'd kicked off his
shoes and sat down at his desk. Hiss finger
activated the recorder, but for long moments he just
sat and considered, unable to find anything to say. It was
all so incredible, so utteriy im possible.
  Five years completely dut of touch with
civilization! And who knew how much of that had been
spent drifting free in space, without another
human being for company. Oh, there were records of people
surviving even longer periods of time adrift. The
trouble was never with their bodies, but with their minds.
Yet tilde mston seemed as sane
  and composed when he'd stepped out of the transporter
as if he'd been gone only a day or two.
  Kirk shook his head in admiration. It had always
been said the man was a remarkable person.
Plenty of stories testified to it-the Cerberus
incident being only one of many-and now Kirk knew it
from personal experience. He was about to start dictating
when the door chime demanded his attention.
  "Come-was
  The door slid back silently, and Winston
walked hLike "I hope I'm not intruding,
Captain?"
  "No, please come in, Mr. tilde mston. I
was just about to finish off the official report on your
rescue." He grinned. "When Starfieet makes
the details available, the news peo- pie will go
crazy. You're liable to be faxed to death the moment you
set foot on Federation soil."
  "I expect as much." Winston smiled back.
"I've been down to inspect my ship. Your people were
kind enough to stow it in the shuttle bay. You know, the
steering pro- pulsors -- stffl operate.
Remarkable."
  Kirk turned away, hunting for the microtape
analysis of tilde mston's ship. "Yes, it's
an understatement to say the ship suffered severe
damage. It'll never travel at warp- speed
again, but some of the systems still function and are
salvageable. And there are all your
expensive fittings to consider."
  "Anyway, I've had my chief engineer
examine it thor- oughly aeationead draw up a
full report for tilde 0'Like It's here some-
where-
  Winston crossed his arms over his chest. There was
nothing particularly unusual in the gesture. The
results were otherwise.
  His outline seemed to flutter, to blur, and then
to flow like a thin, phosphorescent clay. The flow
slowed, stopped. Where Winston had stood now rose
a hideous, multicol- ored something. It had seven
thick tentacles which met at the top and merged to form
an oval bulge encircled with convex lenses. The
lenses pulsed with faint light One of the tentacles
lifted from the floor. It touched Kirk gently,
almost tilde aressingly, on the back of the neck. The
captain's eyes closed. Other tentacles moved
to catch
  the slumping form. The creature lifted the
unconscious Kirk and carried him effortlessly to the
bed. Only a few seconds had passed from
transformation to attack, and cv- erything had been done
in complete silence. Now the thing stepped back from the
bed and crosseg a pair of tentacles over
its upper body-it had no recogniza- ble chest.
Again the blur, the watery flow. Once more the
creature changed and became human
  It didn't become Carter Winston
  But it was human, nonetheless, and immediately recog-
nizable.
  It wad Captam iarnes T. Kirk.
  Nurse Chapel entered the examination room from the
laboratory area and moved to where Dr. McCoy
sat en- grossed in detailed inspection of a
medical tilde ngineering manual. She held the
small hand scanner in one hand and several smaller
supplementary instruments in the other. McCoy
glanced up from his reading.
  "Well, Clriistine?"
  "Doctor," she said firmly, "I can't find a
single thing wrong with these instruments. They all check
out per- fectly, including the principal scanner.
But the readings still come out slightly off' still show those
funny variations on Winston." She watched him
expectantly.
  "What about the other tests you ran on tilde
inston, af- ter-was She hesitated. Two things
travel faster than the speed of light-starships and
gossip. Romantic gossip fast- est of
all.
  McCoy shrugged. Some things were impossible
to keep secret. "Mter Anne Nored left?
Some of them were off, some weren't. The differences
don't even have the virrue of consistency, Christine.
As it stands, these results make no sense at
all. It's got to be our mistake." He stood.
"Come on. We'll evaluate those readings again, and
this time we're going to find the answer."
  The elevator doors opened onto the bridge,
and Win- ston/kirk entered. Speck looked back
at him and rose from the command chair. Winston/kirk
took the seat as the first officer returned to his
OW-NOT station
  Sulu glanced back at the command chair with interest
"Weren't you going to your cabin, sir?"
  "I've already been there, Mr. Sulu, but something
came up before 1 could get started on the report.
Something much more important Lay on a direct
course for Rator llI." "That prompted another
look, this time of more than just casual interest
  "Through the Roniulan Neutral ,Zoeane,
sir?" "That was an order, Helmsman.
  Sulu looked uncertain. "But sir, if we're
challenged In there, the Romulans can
confiscate the ship. The treaty states that-was
  "I am fully eonversant with the terms of the
treaty, Mr. Sulu," res tilde tilde onded
tilde mston/kirk, "and 1 believe you heard my
order.
  "Aye aye, sir," the helmsman admitted
reluctantly. He turned to the task of plotting
the requested course. Spock' who had listened to this
exchange with growing eoneeni; finally felt obliged
to at least say something cau- tionary. He wasn't
normally in the habit of raising objec- tions
to any of Kirk's decisions, no matter how
strange they sounded at first' because they always seemed to have
a way o tilde turiiing out to be reasonable in the
end. But this one. Spock made a-last cheek of his
console. The readings confirmed his suspicions.
  "Captain, extreme long-range sensors hint
at something. within the neutral zone that lies along our
anticipated course. At this exaggerated dlsance it
is impossible to de- termine what it is. It might
be another interstellar mer- chant ship like
W'mst0n's. It might also be a Romulan
ves- sel. Or it might not be a ship at all.
Still I do not feel ft prudent to take the chance of
trespassing unannounced in the neutral
zone."
  "Mr. Spock," replied winston/kirk,
"I've spoken with tilde mston about this at some
length already. He has assured me that it is
absolutely vital to get to Rator m in the
shortest possible time. "The svival of an entire
planetary population may depend on it
Unfortunately, this necessi- tates our crossing
through an arm of the neutral zone."
  "An admirable mission, Captain," Spock
agreeggL "But
  if we endanger our ship, we will be of no use
to the people on Rator llLike"
  "We won't be of any use to them if we don't
get there in time, either, Mr. Spock. I wouldn't have
ordered it if 1 didn't feel it was safe
to proceed. tilde inston said his sensors detected
no sign of Romulans when he was passing through the
zone, before his ship was disabled. Pm satis- fied he
was telling the tnith. And his word is considered good,
isn't ft?"
  Spock hesitated a split second "That has
been his repu- tation, Captain."
  "Course lald in, sir," Sulu noted.
  "Execute," ordered Winston/kirk.
Sulu leaned forward and adjusted controls.
  "Proceeding."
  They felt no sense of motion-change. Space
was too vast for inbuilt human senses to detect a
switch in direc- tion at warp-speeds. But the
great starship gradually be- gan to veer from the line
ft had been following and to turn in a broad curve
that would take it into the neutral-one. Sulu needed
only a few moments to douMe-check his readings,.
  "We re on course, sir."
  "Very good, Mr. Sulu. Notify me if
anything unusual should develop." He rose and
moved towards the elevator. "I'm going back
to my cab- You have the conn again, Mr. Spock."
  Spock eyed the captain closely as the latter
exited the bridge.
  Time passed. Nothing happened to disturb ship
routine, which was perfectly all right with Spoc tilde
After some hard thinking' he finally thumbed the switch
activating the ship's log and spoke softly into the
pickup grid. "Ship's log, stardate
5402.7. First Officer Spock re- cording.
  "The captain's recent course change has
taken us deep into the Romulan Neutral Zone.
This change was appar- ently initiated on the
request of our new passenger, Carter Winston.
Information so far provided by Winston has proved
accurate. We have detected no Romulan ships
or, for that matter, other vessels of any kinggL
  "Nevertheless, I have ordered all sensOrs kept
On long- range scan and a close watch on any
object engendering suspicion at the limits of
scanner range. I have also..."
  Dizzy, he was stfli dizzy.
  Kirk winced and sat up suddenly in bed T
tilde tilde o things struck him right away. First
of all, he hadn't had that much tO drink. And
eggnog had never, never had that kind of effect on
him. He'd imbibed a lot of liquids quite a
sight stronger than the holiday punch, which was pablum
by comparison. None of them had ever hit him like this! And
besides that-
  He glanced over at the chronometer set into the
wall above his bed. Uj tilde uh, something was wrong
with that, too. What had happened?
  Think back Sometimes it was better to voice
confusing thoughts in the presence of others He couldn't
figure out What had happened to him. Maybe someone
else could. Kirk itrode purposefully onto the
bridge. Though he was feeling terribly
confused, there was no point in letting anyone else
know it, just yet
  "I'll take the con, Mr. Spock."
Spock lifted an eye- brow slightly but moved
away without comment Sulu also glanced hack at him
curiously.
  Kirk sat back in the seat, relaxed, and tried
very hard to remember. Introspecion produced
nothing, but a casual glance forward tnrned up an
interesting node of in- formation indeed.
  His gaze touched on the big chronometer on the
navi- gation console, the one that set ship-time for the
rest of the Enterprise. It read 1405.
  There was nothing world smashing in that However, he
distincLI-YOU remembered the time on his wall
chronometer as he was leaving his cabin. 1404, it
saiggL And when he'd been searching his desk for a
certain cassette before-be- fore fagg'hng
asleep-he'd happened to notice the time on the
desk timepiece.
  It had read 1400.
  Not shockingly significant, perhaps, but-
Spock, who'd been watching Kirk indirectly
ever since
  the other had returned to the bridge,
noticed Kirk's confu- sion.
  "Is something wrong, Captain?"
  "Pm not. . . I'm not sure, Spock."
  "DO you feel all right, sir?" "This from an
alarrned Sulu. "Fine, Mr. Sulu, just fine.
But am 1?" He turned to Spock, mumbled half
to himself, "I'd gone back to my quarters to dictate
the rest of the rescue report ... I remember that
much. And I seem ... to have fallen asleep. But the
odd thing is, Mr. Spock' I can't recall
moving from my desk to the bed And I can't ever
remember falling asleep so qulckIy-and so
soundly-for just a few minutes.
  "If 1 was as tired as all that, it seems I
ought to have slept an hour or so."
  "Possibly you needed the rest more than you think,
Captain," suggested Spock, having no conclusions
yet to jump to. "The body has its own system of
check tilde tilde tilde nd bal- ances in that
regard. You obviously required only the
briefest of naps."
  "In any case, nothing has changed since you
left. We're still on course through the neutral zone
to Rator Ill."
  "But I don't remember going to-was
Kirk stopped, looked at Spock in sudden
amazement as liis last words penetrate*L "The
Romulan Neutral Zone?"
  "It is the only neutral zone we were near,
Captain," the flrst officer replied with gentle
irony.
  "I gave no authorization to enter it, Mr.
Spock. Did you order a course change?"
  "No, sir," Spock replied, now equally
confused. "You did."
  "Ridiculous!" Kirk's mind was spinning. first
a highly unnatural nap, and now Spock seemed
to have gone crazy. Or maybe he was stffl asleep
and this was all a bad dream.
  If seax was long past time for him to wake up.
"No one in Starfleet would issue such an order
unless ft was a matter of life and death, dock."
  "I believe that was the rationale you employed,
Cap- taiiLike" He turned and moved a toggle
switch on the instru-
  ment panel above his head. There was a-small
screen set into the panel. Both he and Kirk stared
at it The screen canie to llfe, and the scene that had
taken place on the bridge only moments before was
repeated. "Weren't you going to your cabin,
sir?" intoned a re- corded Sulu as Kirk
watched incredulously.
  "rve already been there, Mr. sUlu ... set a
direct course for Rator more."
  "Through the Romulan Neutral ,Zoeane,
sir?" "hffiat was an order, Helmsman.
  Kirk turned away from the damning screen.
He'd had enough. More than enough. "That will do,
Spock." Speck obligingly shut off the
recording and gwiveled to face his captaiiLike
  Kirk leaned back in the chair, very thoughtfuLike A
nuni- ber of explanations suggested themseives. As
he examined each one and moved on to the next, they
grew progres- sively optrageous and less and
less realistic. One thing he did know, though.
Until this was all worked-out and a reasonable explanation
did suggest it- self, he had to get off the
bridge.
  "Mr. tilde Sulu, locate Mr. Scott
and have hiin report to the bridge io take command,
please." He rose and headed towards the exit.
Speck moved to accompany him. "Also, Mr.
Sulu," he said back over his shoulder, "plot a
course to take the EnterpTL-SE out of the neutral
zone at war tilde tilde six. Lt.
M'ress, put the ship on yellow alert."
  "Cerrtainly, Captain," acknowledged the concerned
lieutenant
  "Yellow alert, sir?" wondered Speck as the
doors joined behind thee
  "I think it's necessary, Speck, until I can
get a handle on this situation. I don't feel in
a position to take any chances ... with whatever's
going on here. Surely by now you've noticed that both
my actions andeam tilde orders of the past hour have
been, well, contradictory.
  "I confess that something of the sort had occurred
to me, CaptaiiLike But the reasons why-was
  "Mr. Speck," Kirk's voice was grim,
"1 don't remember glving those orders to enter the
neutral zone. 1 left the
  bridge, went to my cabin, fell asleep for a
few moments, and returned to the bridge. That's
all."
  As usual, Speck's logic took precedence
over tact, though Kirk didn't notice. He
wanted answers, not sympa- thy. Too many vital
things were at stake.
  "Perhaps it would be a good idea to have Dr. McCoy
examine you, Captain?"
  "I agree absolutely. If I've become
subject to mental blackouts, let alone
physical ones, during which I give dangerous
orders, then I've become a danger to the ship. I
can't begin to imagine what's happened to me, but I
can't take chances with a possibility like that."
  He hit a switch, and the elevator lights
shifted from vertical to horizontal. They were now
moving down the length of the Enterprise.
  It still didn't add up.
  The instruments themselves continued to check out, ef-
ficiency bordered on a hundred percent, and yet
they per- sisted in coughing up the same ridiculous
readings. McCoy muttered to himself, bent for the
umpteenth time to try to correlate the numbers on the
scanner with those in a printed table of fine print
glowing on a small readout screen.
  The door chimed and he didn't look back. The
figure of Carter Winston walked into the examination
room. It watched patiently as McCoy continued
matching figures that didn't match the way they were
supposed to. Eventu- ally McCoy glanced
irritably to see who had entered. When he
recognized Winston, he smiled a qulck
greeting before returning to his work.
  "Hello, Winston," he sald while running a
new set of figures across the screen. "Stffl
trying to figure this out. Sometimes 1 wonder if I
shouldn't have taken more In- strumentation in med school."
  So intent was McCoy on his study that he failed
to no- tice the transformation behind him-a transformation
that would have confused his instruments a good deal more. He
didn't see Winston place his arms over his chest,
didn't see him dissolve like instant pudding and
become a
  strange alien apparition, one that glided across the
smooth floor on thick appendages with the grace
of a ballerina. "Winston, I've been over your
tests two dozen times, and I don't think-was A
tentacle rose, touched the back of McCoy's
neck. The doctor slumped in his seat The alien
thlng caught him easily and carried him into the
adjoining laboratory. As it placed the doctor
on the floor, the sound of the examination-room door
could be heard operating.
  Anne Nored peered into the deserted room.
"Th. McCoy?" She took a step inside and the
door automati- cally closed behind her. "Dr.
McCby?"
  In the lab, the creature made motions with
its tentacles. Seconds later a duplicate
Dr. McCoy was standing over the limp form of the
original. Anne Nored walked over
to McCoy's workbench. She idly examined the
scanner and the other devices McCoy had been
poring over without touching any of them. There was a
slight shuffling sound and she jerked to her right
  "Dr. McCoy, you startled me.
  tilde mandton/mcCoy stepped out of the lab,
making sure the do less-than tilde r closed
behind him. "Nothing startles you, Anne, you're a
security officer, and one of the best Can I help
you?"
  "Oh' all right, so I was role playing." She
smiled, but it faded qulckly to an expression of
awkwardness. "I thought this might be easy, doctor,
but it's not I don't know lf you.... I just thought
... well, I have to talk to somebody. And the other
gals," she smiled a little again, "have a tendency to be
less than serious about such things. I'd like to laugh
at it, too, but I can't It hurts too much. So
I thought maybe you . . .
  Winston/mcCoy seemed to hesitate, then
gestured to a chair. Anne sat down gratefully.
When she didn't seem able to continue,
tilde rnston/mcCoy spoke.
  "Let me guess. It's about you and Carter
tilde mston." He paused for a moment, added,
"He told me a little about it when I was examining
him."
  "How much is "a little," doctor?" Again
Winston/me- Coy appeared to pause.
  "Enough."
  "Doctor, what am I going to d"...tilde tilde
she finally blurted desperately. "I know you're not
a psychiatrist, and I don't think I need that.
Pm not mentally unbalanced. 1 don't think, but 1
still love him." The corners of her mouth twisted
upwards a little.
  "Come to think of it, love is classified by some as
a state of temporary mental unbalance, isn't
it?" "Only by poets, writers of romantic
fiction, and the French," Winston/mcCoy replied.
He turned and focused his attention on the blank
wall opposite.
  "I'm sure he'd like to feel the same way about
you, Anne. He also told me something of the times you
two had together, of the experiences you shared. Not a great
deal, but I think I can understand the depth of feeling you
had for each other.
  "But it all may be impossible to recapture,
Anne. Five years can be forever to someone. People
change. People in love more frequently than most. And
one thing I can tell you with assurance-Carter
Winston's been through changes no other human being
ever experienced." His voice dropped and he
murmured, "Yes, people change."
  "Well, I haven't!" she finally shouted.
"What am-I sup- posed to do? What can I do?"
  "If he asked you to forget him," said
Winston/mcCoy, "I think you should try to do just that.
Or would you pre- fer that he lie to you, tell you what
you want to hear, in- tentionally deceive you. Do you want
him to do that?" "Oh, no. He's the gentiest, most
thoughtfftl man I've ever known. Ever will know. And I
don't think he could carry it off very well. Lying's
not in his nature."
  "Well, then, you see?" Winston/mcCoy
insisted. "If he doesn't want you any longer,
for whatever reasons, and he's asked you to forget him,
then all I can do is suggest that you take that as an
honest concern for you and do it."
  "You have no knowledge of what he's been through, of what-was
and Winston/mcCoy half smiled,-"unusual
changes may have taken place in the years
he's been gone. As a physician I can
oeanleaity advise you ... and also as a friend. Forget
Winston.
  "Forget Carter-was The words came without any
force,
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 31 any conviction
behind them. She seemed ready to argue further, but the
door chIme tilde Kirk and Spock entered. It
was hard enough to articulate such intimate feelings in
front of the ship's doctor. It would be impossible
in front of the ship's captain and first officer.
  So instead of continuing, she stood. "Thank you"
Doe- tor McCoy. 1 consider your advice."
  "Do that, .... . Lieutenant Nored."
  Kirk studied the security officer as she left,
then turned to Winston/mcCoy. The doctor
smiled pleasantly. "What can I do for you'
Jim?"
  "Bones, I need a complete medical
examination."
  "On Carter tilde mston? But I've already-was
Kirk waved him off Impatiently.
  "No, no. For myself. Something's just happened that-was
He stopped. The figure of W'mston/mcCoy
had abruptly turned away from him and was now
engaged in studying a microtape index ffle mounted
on the far wall. "I'm afraid 1 have to make it
later in the day, Cap- tain. I have too many tests
to process right now."
  Kirk had too many thoughts whirling through his head
to react to that, but Spock looked puzzled. Being the
fa- vorite target of McCoy's brash wit'
maybe he was more sensitive to the doctor's
moodsor changes in personallty. "Carter
W'mston's, for example?" Spock inquired.
Win- ston/mcCoy half-turned, but didn't
look at them. "No, that one's done, completed.
No trouble at all, Mr. Spock. Standard tests
run, checked out completely nor- mal."
  "Are you sure there's no possibfflty you made
an er- ror?" persisted Spock.
  Now it was Kirk's turn to look questioningly at his
first officer instead of vice versa. It wasn't like
Spoek to ques- tion another officer's
work-especially McCoy's. But it would be like
McCoy-aimost required of him-to re- spond
with some especially devastating remark. Instead, the
doctor only chuckled. "Well, there's always that
chance. I'll go ov tilde them again, if you like."
  "No, that won't be necessary, Bones.
I'll drop by later
  for that examination, when you're not so busy. Let's
go, Spoc tilde was Kirk turned and started for the
door. When it was seuurely shut behind them and they were
out in the empty reception rnom' both men stopped and
exchanged uncertain looks.
  "Captain, did you notice Dr. McCoy's
reaction when I asked him if there was a
possibility he might have made an error In
Carter tilde mston's tests?"
  Kirk nodded
  "Yes. He didn't jump all over,, you when
you questioned his accuracy. That isn't normal.
  "Excuse me, Captaln-"jump all over
mer"
  "Sald something along the lines of, "there's as much
chanceofthatasmyfallingdownwith...""
  ""hysterical laughter at a joke of mine,""
finished Spoc tilde
  "Yes, that's it. What's even less normal
is that he agreed with you. He conceded the chance, and that's
not like Bones at all. ff there's anything he's
supremely confi- dent about, it's his own competence as
a physician. Come to think of it" it was also not like
him to put off-my re- quest for a
physical."
  "I quite agree, Captain. Which means-was
  "I don't know what it means," Kirk
muttered, "except that maybe there are two officers
on this ship who need medical checks. Come on!"
  They burst into the Sick-Bay examination chamber
and were dumbfounded at what they saw. Or rather, at
what they didn't see.
  The room was empty.
  Neither officer feeling partictaffarly bright at that
mo- ment, they moved to make a thorough search of the
room. "There is only one entrance to these inner
medical rooms," mused Spock thoughtfully. "For
security reasons, and for quarantine purposes.
There are not a great many places a man could hide."
  "No," agreed Kirk, "and I think-was
  "Ohhhh
  Kirk and Spock were at the entrance to the nearby
lab in seconds. Both men were wary, expecting-they
weren't sure what-to come charging pell-mell out at
them. But
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 33 the door
slid back normally at Kirk's touch and nothing
barred their entrance.
  McCoy was sitting up in the middie of the
floor, rub- bing the side of his head. He looked
very much as if he'd just absorbed a substantial
dose of something a good deal stronger than eggnog,
  "Bones?"
  McCoy didn't react at first. Then he
looked up at them, still dazed.
  "Must have ... must have fallen asleep ... somehow,
I guess. A little nab"
  "A little nap," echocd Kirk, reflecting on
the similarity of a recent experience. "I think I
have an idea what you mean, Bones."
  "Doctor, you are a man of curious habits,"
observed Spock, "but 1 have never known you to nap on
the labo- ratory floor. Elementary logic
dictates that even an exami- nation table would be far
more comfortable, as well as-was He paused in midsentence
at Kirk's raised hand. The cap- tain was-staring
intently around the inner laboratory. Ever since
they'd entered he had not felt quite right about something. And
not because of what they half ex- pected to find-without
knowing what it was. No, it was a feeling he still
couldn't pin down. Spock would say it was
illogical, but damn it, he felt something waeaeaness
wrong! "Something is not right with this room.
  McCoy made a rapid examination of his
laboratory. His gaze returned eventually
to Kirk's uncertain face. "Everything looks
okay to me, Jim."
  "No," Kirk objected hurriedly. "Take
a moment and think about it, Bones." Before McCoy
could comment, the captam moved quickly to shut the door
behind them. "Both of you, study the room. There's
definitely some- thing different from the last time I was
in here. I can't put my finger on it yet, but-was
  The three officers started a patient,
methodical survey of the laboratory. There
didn't seem to be a great deal that might conceal some
startling revelation. It didn't help that they had no
idea what to look for, Kirk included. Desks,
wall decorations, shelves full of vials and
tubes and neatly racked instruments, the gleaming
surgical
  cases, emergency power chargers for use in case
of ship- board power fallure, the big portable
sterilizer, three ex- amination tables ...
  Even art exambiutton table would be far more comfort-
able, Spock had saiggL
  Kirk smiled then. "All right, tilde mston,
you can come out now." Both Spock and McCoy
turned their attention to the ca-ii, Spock
interestedly, McCoy incredulously. Kirk
walked forward until he was standing directly in
front of the examination table fardiest to the left He
spoke nOt behind it nor under it' but to it "I
suggest you show yourself, tilde mston, or whatever you
are. The masquerade's over."
  Making no sense Of the scene and getting no
elucidation from Kirk, McCby slowly got to his
fect and whispered to Spock tilde
  "Did you say that J'm a man of curious
habits, Spock? Jim's talking to a table!"
  "I don't think so, Doctor." An idea was
beginccaing to solidiffity in the first officer's mind as
he added certain known factors and proceeded toward
a result Evidently Kirk had already gotten
there.
  The captain stepped back from the table and turned his
attention to one of the nearby wall shelves. Kirk
spoke to the others as he studied the labels on the
neat rows of crystalvials.
  "There used to be only two examination tables in this
room' as I recall, Bones." He focused his
attention on the top row of containers. "Now there
seem to be three."
  Spock said nothing, but McCoy suddenly
found himself nodding in agreement "I just realized that
too, Trm. But even so, what-was McCoy shut
up. Whatever was happen- ing here ought to come to a head
pretty soon Kirk finally selected one of the
smaller vials from the shelf. He walked back
to stand next to the table. The vial in his hand was made of
thick, heat4ormed artificial qiiartz alloyed
with certain other metafflc and ceramic components. It
contained a small amount of thin purple fluid.
When McCoy saw which vial the captain had
removed he started forward, then stopped.
  Again, Kirk directed his comments to the table. The
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 35 flat,
unmistakably inorganic surface gleamed
brightly in the overhead lights, small wheels and
dials sparkling with polish. McCoy studied it
till his eyes hurt, looking for some hidden sign
he might have missed that would reveal the table's
mysterious secrets to him.
  It looked like an examination table. Kirk tapped
it with one finger, and there was a faint ping.
  It sounded like an examination table.
  By Andromeda, it was an examination table! "This is
a vial of orientine acid," Kirk informed the ta-
ble solemnly. "It will burn through just about
anything but this holding crystal. ll you've never seen
it work, I'll be heaaeappy to demonstrate." He
patted the table again. "On you.
  There was a reasonable pause. Then Kirk raised
the vial over the table and moved his thumb toward the
cap release set into one side. The table shimmered
suddenly, the sort of eye-tricking flutter of things
seen out of one's corner of vision that aren't there
anymore when you turn to look at them. The table
rippled dreamily and changed form.
  A moment later ft was no longer an examination
table. In its place stood a tall creature of
thick, cabled limbs and andhining eye lenses that stared
back at them unwinkmgly. "I saw that," said a
gaping McCoy," but I don't believe it."
  "A Vendorian, Doctor," Spock informed
him. "Their planet is quarantined, and few people ever
see them. Their ability to rearrange their molecular
structure at will to resemble anything of the same
approximate massand their practice of deceit as
a way of Iif tilde piaces them very much
off-limits to others."
  "Their unusual abilities could be of considerable
value to the Federation, or to others. But as desirable
as their physical attributes might be,
psychologically they are still unfit for participation in
a community of worlds. "Mr. Spock' get a
security team down here on the dou- ble."
  "Yes, Captain." Spock turned to leave.
As he did so McCoy moved to get out of his way.
Those few steps were
  all that was necessary to bring him within reach of the
Vendorian.
  Powerful tentacles snapped out and enveloped the
doe- tor In a constricting grasp.
  "Jim!"
  Kirk and Spock moved as one toward the
Vendorian. Unraveling the clutching limbs, the
alien sent McCoy spinning and stumbling into the other
two officers. All three fell to the floor.
  Moving with surprising agility for such an
awkardbledook- ing creature, the Vendorian
dashed past them. Spock managed tO roll over
In time to make a grab at the fleeing alien. All
he got was a handful of something that felt like snakeskin
without the scales. He couldn't hold it A sec-
ond later it was out the doorway and long gone.
Kirk was on his feet, racing for the exit Spock
made a move as if tO follow, instead changed
direction and went directly to the wall
communicator.
  "Spock to bridge-put me on the ship's
intercoin, Lieu- tenant" And then, seconds
later, "All security teams, In- truder
alert! All security teams, repeat, Intruder
alert Kirk was out In the hall. He looked to his
right, then left' just In time to cateh a last
glimpse of the Vendorian turning down an
Intersecting corridor. A security team raced
around the far end of the hallway facing him a see-
ond later. Spock's voice sounded loud,
replayed over ev- ery speaker in the starship.
  "Intruder is a Vendorian, capable of
assuniing any shape or form of the same
approximate mass...
  III
  A Jefffrles tube loomed nearby. The
Vendorian, using its ability to look in all
directions at once, satisfied itself that no
pursuer was In sight Then it clambered Into the
tube.
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 37 Moving like a
big orange spider, it made its way up the
channeled interior. Footsteps sounded below-far
away now, muffled with increasing distance-as
Kirk and the security team raced through the corridor
below. Near the top, the alien paused and crossed
upper tenta- cles. Once more it shifted to the shape
of Carter Winston. A few more centimeters, a
careful look both ways, and then he scrambled out
of the tube onto a new deck, setting the tube
cover back into place.
  There were drawbacks as well as advantages
to as- suming human shape. For one thing, he could no
longer see in all directions. So he didn't
see Anne Nored until he rounded a corner and
nearly ran her down. She staggered and,
reflexively, it seemed, he caught her to keep
her from fal1in tilde
  But this time, instead of moving into his arms, she
pushed away and brought up her security phaser. It
cen- tered squarely on his chest.
  Affectihg an air of mild surprise he
looked first at the phaser, then up at her.
  "Anne, what are you doing?"
  "My job," she replied tightly. "It isn't
hard to guess who the intruder is. You're the only
stranger aboard, Car- ter. Or whatever you are.
A ... a Vendorian." Running footsteps
sounded from somewhere behind them. She stared at him,
then threw a quick, nervous look over her shoulder.
  It was only an instant, but Carter W'mston's
reflexes were faster than human. He knocked the
phaser from her hand. It sklttered across the deck
to bounce off the far wall. She ran to recover it.
At the same time Kirk and a small group of
security personnel rounded a far curve. Anne
picked up the phaser, turned and dropped to one
knee, holding the phaser in both hands and balancing
an elbow on her thigh. It was easy to take aim
at the distant figure. She had a clear shot
  But she didn't fire. Instead, she slowly
lowered the phaser to her side.
  The security team pounded past in pursuit.
Kirk slowed and stopped beside her.
  "Lieutenant Nored, you could have stopped him...
it. Why didn't you fire?"
  She spoke slowly as she got to her feet, without
looking at him. "I couldn't I know some explanation
is necessary, Captain, but-was She couldn't think of
anything to say that would make her sound less of an
idiot
  "I knew he had to be the intruder, but ... I
couldn't bring myself to fire!" Her voice was
trembling. "He's an alien,
Lieutenant-not Carter W'inston. A
Vendorian. A shape-changing ,ceaompiex of
orange tentacles toppod by an inhuman brain.
  "My mind tells me that, Captain, but there are
other parts of me that don't convince so easily."
There, she was right. She still sounded like an idiot
  "Lieutenant," and Kirk's voice was
surprisingly devoid of reproach, "the man you
loved no longer exists. Carter Winston is dead.
He's probably been dead for years."
  "I realize that, Captain. But I just-was She
turned away. Words had become thorougl tilde
y Inadequate. "Reason and love don't work
well together.
  "When you're a commander you can be profound,
Lieutenant For now-was He didn't get the chance
to fin- ish. Spock arrived, panting slightly.
  "Security teani tilde reeaport no sign
of the alien on this deck any longer, CaptaiiLike
  "How do they know, Mr. Spock?" Kirk sighed
"I was afrald of this. Once out of sight, he can
turn Into anyone or anything on board this ship. I
wonder why he chose to rebledorm as Carter
WI-NSTON, instead of as Dr. McCoy or
myself?"
  "I cannot gness, Captain. I can only surmise
that this constant shape changing is not as easy for him as
it ap- pears to be to us. He really requires a
form capable of mobillty now-an examination table or
section of wall will no longer do, for example.
Perhaps changing Into a familiar shape is simpler and
less tiiing. He is obviously well acquainted
with the shape of Carter tilde mston."
  "As a matter of fact," Kirk began, then
paused, grin- ning sardonically. Spock watched
him patiently. "You can at least share the idea with
me, Captain, if not the actual humor."
  STAR TREK tOG TWO 39 "Oh,
nothing, Spock. For a minute it occurred to me ...
I thought-was and he grinned wider, "I thought that you
might be the Vendorian now." Spock did not
smile, which was hardly a surprise.
  "What makes you think I'm not' Captain?"
Both eye- brows moved ceilingward. Kirk
stopped chuckling, gave Spock a uncertain glance
before grinning again. "The Vendorian can change his
shape, but not certain other things. I think I'll
take a chance on your being you' Spock."
  "That is most considerate of you, Captaln. We
find our- selves in complete agreement on
who I am. The question remains," and he paused for
effect, "are you who you claim to be?"
  "I was with Lieutenant Nored while the alien was
still present," Kirk claimed indignantly.
"It's a definite prob- lem, all right. If
we're not careful he have us shooting at each other.
But given time, we'll find him. It's only one
problembb@u'
  Somewhere in space exists a foriii tilde ess,
malignant entity who listens to the words of starship
captains merely for the chance of playing their plans
faise. Said entity must have been listening to Kirk,
for, as if on cue, the red-alert signal now
commenced its visual and aural clamoring. A
blinker just above them flashed insistently for attention
Various crew members began to appear, running
towards their battle stations. As any well-drilled
crew should, they ignored their two senior officers in
single- minded pursuit of current
objectives-namely, getting to where they belonged as
fast as was humanly or inhuman1y possible.
  "Now what?" Kir"...ness question was in-ore resigned
than hopeful. He moved to the flashing wall
communications hooknp.
  "Hello, bridge? This is the captain
speaking. Scotty? What's happening up there?
What's the Vendorian up to now?"
  "It's not the Vendorian, Captain," the chief
engineer re- plled. "I wish ft were. A pair
of Romulan battle cruisers, sir, and if
they're nof on an intercept course we're about
  STAR TREK LOG tilde TW0 to witness
the biggest cosmic coincidence since that double star In
M-31 went nova together."
  "Also' right, Scotty, keep a lid on things.
We be right up."
  "What was that you just sald about dealing with only one
problem, Captain?"
  "Spock, if I didn't know that you weren't
prone to ma- licious sarcasm, I'd. . . ahhh,
never mind."
  By the time they'd regained the bridge and Kirk had
re- sumed his seat In the commander's chair and Spock
his own at the library computer, the two Romulans
were close enough for visual contact via the
telescopic eyes of the main viewscreen.
  If there were any chance they might have been Feder-
ation ships, that hope was soon lald to rest at the
sight of their distinctive silhouettes. In design
and basic construc- tion they were snnilar to the
battle cruisers of the Klingon Empire.
Insignia and certain minor but unmistakable dif-
ferences branded them as Romuian.
  Kirk's first thought was to get something down on rec-
ord. Not only In case hostilities ensued, but
also because such Information would be needed for any legal
actiong that might arise out of this encounter. So he
quickly ac- tivated the log.
  He was about to begin the entry when a sudden thought
struck him. No, not yet. It was too early
to plan for pessimistic eventualities. He
flicked off the official log, switched on the
general recorder instead.
  "Mr. Scott, any chance of us outrunning them?"
"Not now, sir," worried Scott, shaking his head
once. "They were right oneamenteaop of us, Captain,
before our sensors even picked "em up.
  "It was as if they were walting for us, Captain,"
Sulu added.
  "Ummmm." Now he directed his voice and
attention tO the pick-up grid. "Due
to interference by the Vendorian recently discovered on
board in the guise of Carter Win- ston, the
Enterprise has been detected by ships of the Rom-
ulan Empire while violating the
Romulan Neutral Zone. By the terms of our
treaty, the units of the Romulan fleet have- a
legal right to seize the Enterprise. To complicate
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 41 mafters, we
have as yet been unable to apprehend the Vendorian
responsible for this situatlo tilde his
  Given the laws against harming intefflgent
neutrals Kirk naturally didn't add his
attendant though tilde namely, that if and when they
did find the troublemaking shape- changer, he'd
take great pleasure in tying its seven body
tentacles in knots and then opening them a..... with a
meat cleaver.
  But right now he had a more difficult situation
to focus his attention 01Like
  "We're being scanned, Captain," came
Uhura's voice. "And I'm picking up a
communications beam. They're at- tempting to contact
us." She hesitated. "Shall I throw up an
interference screen, sir?" Kirk thought quickly.
"No point in trying to stall them, Lieutenant
I've got a hunch this particular bunch won't
stalLike" He smiled grimly. "Let's hear what
they've got to say. If there's visual with it'
put it on the screen. I'd like to see who
Pm dealing tilde ith... and if my face does
them any good, they're welcome to it"
  Visual there was.
  When his reptilian image finally cleared on the
main viewscreen the relaxed attitude of the
Romulau com- mander only coniirmed the
suspicions taking root in Kirk's mind.
  "You appear to have a propensity for trespassing in
the neutral zone, Captain Kirk I've been
told ft has happened once or twice before."
  My, but wasn't he a smug one, Kirk thought
What Kirk sald was different, however, smoothly
conciliatory. That was the best attitude Kirk could
fake; he couldn't quite bring himself to be deferential
toward this oily char- acter.
  "It was not deliberate, I assure you."
  The Romuian commander's reply was dry. "It
never is. But the terms of the treaty are clear. They
make no provi- sions for good intentions. I'd like
to induige in the senti- ment your people are so fond of and
ignore the treaty this time, but, of course, any
attempt to contravene ,theaence atti- cles, even for
frsi tilde p's sake, couid mean war.
"Surrender your ship, CaptaiiLike You will be well
  treated. We will release you and y5ur
crew at the nearest -- Federation outpost bordering the
neutral zone."
  Kirk thought furiously, considering. "I have your
per- sonal word of honor on that, Commander?...,,
"Larus-Commander Larus. I swear by my family
tilde d my command, Captain. You and your
personnel need have no worries." He tried hard
not to gloat. "I have no personal quarrel with you.
I must take your ship only to comply with the terms of the
treaty between our two gov- ernments. I take no
personal pleasure In this distasteful deed
whatsoever."
  I'll just bct you don't, you grinning reptilian
so and so, Kirk silently cursed His return
smile, however, was equally pleasant
  "I'd like a few minutes to Inform my crew.
There will be certain preparations requlre tilde his
  "Of course, Captain Kirk. I understand
perfectly. The shock, and all. Take all the time
you need-up to flve minutes your ship-time, no more."
Abruptly, the screen blanked.
  "Transnilssion ended, Captain," Uhura
informed him, "But they're still scanning us."
  "Fine. Let "em scan us till their scanning
computers get an electronic
migraIne." Kirk turned and activated a
switeh on the right armrest. Spock left his station
and moved to stand next to the captain.
  "Kirk to security. What's the status on the
search for the Vendorian?"
  "Nored here, sir." The voice of the lieutenant
was calm and professional now, no sign of
emotional upset. God "No progress yet
We have all decks under constant pa- trol. No
one has seen it, but-was
  "How do you know, Lieutenant?" snapped a
frtistrated Kirk. "Anyone might have walked right
past the Ven- dorian a dozen times without seeing it"
  "I don't think so, Captain." Nored's
response was flrm' confident. "Our patrols have
their phasers set on low- power stun. I've given
orders that they're to randomly beam everything they
pass-walls, ceilings, fixtures without design
or selcctivity. We'll end up with a lot of
  STAR ThEK LOG TWO 43 scorched
paint, but I think the Vendorian will think twice
before he considers staying in one disguise very long."
  "And the patrols are traveling in tight groups,
guarding one another. So I don't think there's much
chance of him turning into one of our own people. At
least the alien will be too busy changing shapes
to cause any more trouble."
  Kirk found himself in agreement with Nored's
precau- tions. It ought to flush the alien out in the
open. "Carry on, Lieutenant" He broke the
connection and nodded toward the viewscrcen where the
Romulan ships were dis- played agai1Like
  "As Scotty points out, Mr. Spock, this
meeting is hardly a coincidence. The Romuians
were expecting us from the first. The wreck of tilde
mston's ship--comI wonder what did happen to hin
tilde was used to slip a saboteur and spy on
board. And what better spy than a shape-changing
Ven- dorian who can become at will any of the
spied-upon? "When I went to my cabin he put me
out long enough to take my shape. Then he came to the
bridge and or- dered the course change. By the time
I recovered, well," he shrugged, "it was too
late to swing free of the zone. A neat trap."
  "It would seem so, CaptaiiLike Yet one thing
continues to puzzle me."
  "Spock?"
  "How is it that the Romulans are able
to prrsuade a Vendorian to work for them? I cannot
think of a logical reason why one of the
shape-changers should. I cannot imagine what inducement
the Romulaus could offer."
  "We consider the question of motivation later, Mr.
Speck. Right now we've got a starship to save."
He looked to the helm. "Open a hailing
frequency, Lt M'ress. Ubura, you keep
listening for more of the same from our friends out there. And keep
monitoring their scans."
  The feline navigation officer moved to obey, her
tail fficklng in nervous response. "I have
contact, Captain," she purred. "Hailing
frrequency was harrdly ne tilde cessarry.
They've been walting forr us to rrespond, it
seems. Once again the view of the paired Romuian
cruisers was replaced by a portrait of their commander.
He was
  making a strong attempt, Kirk noted,
to suppress his nor- mal arrogance.
  "Your time is up, Captain. I assume you are
now prepared to turn your ship over to me."
  "Wrong assumption, Commander."
  "Captain," protested the Romulan
indignantly, "you are outnumbered, outgunned, and
legally in the wrong. I ad- mire your courage, but
permit me to say that you err In your
tactical evaluation of the present situation."
  "I have no choice, Commander," Kirk shot
back. "If I were an innocent violator of
neutral space that would lead to some discussion, yes.
But the treaty also states that de- ception of any
kind-false beacons, signals, anything- used
to lure a vessel into the neutral zone are a
provoca- tion by the luring side and not by the
intruder. It is you who are In violation of the
treaty, not I."
  "Lured, CaptaIn?" protested the Romulan
with admi- rable outrage. "How could we possibly
lure a starfleet ves- sel so deeply into the
neutral zone?"
  "Through the use of a spy masquerading as a dead
hu- man named Carter Winston."
  The Romulan commander paused to perform his race's
equivalent of a sad shake of the head. "A
shape-changing spy? Come now, Captain," he
pleaded. "Your courage, it seems, is exceeded
only by your imagination. Both are misdirected."
  "You used a Vendorian," Kirk continued
easily, "which, I might add, is also in violation
of a number of treaties, not to mention a violation of the
galactic quaran- tine of Vendoria
itself."
  Either the Romulan commander decided to abandon his
bluff, or else all this forced camaraderie was
getting on his nerves. His natural brusqueness
abruptly came to the fore. "Your five minutes are
long since up, Capta tilde Thther surrender
your ship or prepare to fight"
  "I wnl not surrender my ship," Kirk
replied, spacing the words deliberately.
  So they were going to fight, mused Chief
J3ngineer Scott.
  He had left the bridge after the red-alert
signal and
  STAR ThEK LOG TWO 45 gone to his
battle station back in engineering. Well, they'd had
trouble with the Romulans before and had come out okay.
Even though they were outuumbered this time, he wasn't
especially worried. Why, they'd give--- He
paused at the top of the spiral ladder. Just In
front of him' away from the ladder exit, a
crewman was work- bIg in front of an open
paneLike The pane' shouldn't have been opeiLike And no
one' but no one, should have been working at those relays
without Scott's personal perniis- si01Like
  "Hey! What d'you think you're doin'?"
The crewman teredqkly.
  "Why, nothing, Chief." He walked over to the
ladder exit and helped Scott up the last step.
"Only this."
  He touched Scott'So shoulder with a hand Moving
rap- idly, he managed to catch the slumping form
of the chief engineer before it could slide back down the
ladder. Pull- bIg him gently out of the spiral
he laid the limp body out on the tilde
ecLT-HE crewman rose, again studying the open
paneLike -
  Someone else might come and he was in a hurry.
Might as well revert to self. The extra limbs
would make the job go faster: He crossed his arms,
and blurred Using only a pair of tentacles for
support' the Ven- dorian used the other five
to tear at the thick cables run- ning behind the open
panel.
  The first red llght appeared on Snlu's console.
"Captain," he shouted aand he worked frantically
at the controls beneath the warning flash, "our
deflector shields are coming down!"
  Kirk cursed silently, pressed a switch on
the chair. "Kirk to engineering. Bridge to engineering!
Scotty, what's happening back there? Our
shields are fading!" In the main engineering room a
tall subengiueer rushed to the chattering intercom and
ackggiowledged the call breathlessly.
  tilde ... here, sir."
  "Not very well you don't Who Is this?" Kirk
de- mande'Like "Who's talldng?"
  "Second Engineer Gabler, sir @u cape"
Kirk
  glanced back at Spock. This was no time for
disciplinary action. "Get those shields up again,
Gabler-now!" "I can't sir!" yelled the other
helplessly. "Well then, rouse Mr. Scott from
his nap and have hini do it!" Now the response from the
other end was one of complete confusion.
  "I was just going,, to ask to speak to him, sir.
Isn't he up forward with you?
  "No, he is not up forward with me, Mister. You
know the chief's battle station is back there."
  "Yes, sir. But he isn't anywhere around,
sir."
  4'Well, then-to " Kirk paused and counted to
,six, spoke more quietly. "All right, Mr.
Gabler. It is vital that we have our shields back
as soon as possible. Do the best you can."
  "Aye, sir." Gabler switched off,
looked around at the small cluster of engineers and
technicians who'd gathered around the intercom station.
  "Don't just stand there gaping like idiots! The
deflector shields have dropped. Check your
telltales, trace the leads, find the trouble
spot!"
  Immediately the group hurried to their positions.
Gab- ler ran to his, too, but his mind wasn't
on the technical problem at hand.
  What had happened to the chief?
  Meanwhile a telltale of a different kind was
flashing on Sulu's console. "Shuttie-bay
doors are functioning, sir. The Vendorian must be
trying to escape."
  "We still have some control over this ship," Kirk
mut- tered through cienched teeth. "Shut those doors,
and lock all entrances to the shuttle bay."
  Sulu tried one switch, frowned
  "No response, his
  "Emergency override, Mr. Sulu," came
Spock's quiet voice. "Mechanism
voluntary jam to prevent air loss." He
glanced at Kirk as Suiu hurried to obey.
"We will not be able to operate the shuttle doors
unffl the stripped relays and gears are
replaced, Captain."
  Kirk hardly heard him. The same idea had
occurred to him seconds after Spock had given the
order.
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 47 "Doors
closing, sir!" reported Suiu excitedly. That
was the signal for Kirk to jump from his chair. "One
problem down. Spock, take command. Talk to the
Romulans. Stall them. Tell them anything.
Tell them we're going to agree, but that I'm
desperately thinking of a way to save face-their
commander should understand that.
  "Uhura, send a security team to the shuttle
deck, but don't open the doors yet. We've
got the Vendorian trapped, that's enough for now. fll
be back in engineering. I've got to find out what the
devil's happening back there."
  As he hurried rapidly toward the heart of the
starship, Kirk pondered their chances. The shields
hadn't fallen all the way, but the Enterprise's
defenses had bean bad'v weakened. Even with all
shields up and operating at full strength, the
Enterprise versus two Romuian battle
cruisers wasn't exactly a mop-up dperation
  Now, width their shield strength down at
least tlity per- cent, well-
  At least, he mused with savage satisfaction,
they'd pre- vented the escape of the Vendorian
spy. Speck's query came back to him. He,
too, wondered how the Romulans had managed
to convince the shape-hanger to do the dirty work for them.
From what little he knew of Ven- dorian
civilization, the alliance made no sense. After
what seemed like hours, he finally reached the main
engineering bay. In response to his questions, a har-
ried technician directed him up to another deck.
A short climb and he emerged in the middle of
another, larger group of milfing crew members.
One directed him for- ward. He found Gabler and
Scott bunched over an open panel.
  "What happened, Scotty?"
  "Hello, sir. I'm sure I don't know.
I came up here to batti tilde check the backup
deflector-shield relays." His voice took
on a tone of puzzled outrage. "And here was this
common tech, calm as you please, taking the connections
to pieces!"
  "Now, the sight of me in such a situation ought to have
frozen the good man solid to the deck-workln' unau-
  thorized with such equipment. Instead, he just
smiled con- fident as you please and came over
to help me on deck That's all I remember."
  "He couldn't have been at it long, sir," put in
Gablcr. "We found the chief right after I talked
to you."
  "He was at it long enough," growled Scofty. The
chief's attitude did not inspire feelings of
confidence In Kirk. "How long will it take to fix,
Seaeacotty?" "At least two hours, Capt
tilde
  Two hours!
  "Well, get on it. That's all." Kirk
turned and left. He knew better than to make
melodramatic pronouncements. If Scott said
it would take two hours, it would do no good for Kirk
to say, "Do it In one!" The chief engineer's time
estimates were as reliable as his work. Two hours
then, working at top speed, and he'd have his shields
back. But could they possibly stall the Romulans
for tw6 hours, when the Romulan commander had
given-him five minutes, and those reluctantly?
They might not have two seconds left.
  They had one bargaining chip left, lust one--comand
that Was the Enterprise herself.
  Already the Romuian commander had admitted
that his duly interest was In the starshi tilde intact and
in working order. If the Romuian's sensors were
worth a handful of component's, they'd know by now that the
Enterprise's shields had been severely weakened
Kirk didn't think they'd hold off forcing a
decision In order to give their Vendorian a chance
to escape. If he got away, all well and
good... a bonus. If not, he had served his
purpose. However, they would hesitate before
destroying the prize they'd worked so hard to snare.
How long the vision of the Enterprise as a captured
ship would keep the Ro- muian commander's natural
beiligerence in check Kirk didn't know, and that was
the crucial factor. A destroyed Enterprise
would be a small blow to Fed- eration strength compared
to a fully operational captured one-but a blow
nonetheless.
  Kirk had no choice. He'd have to take the chance
the Romulans wanted the starship badly enough to hold
off
  STAR TREK LOO TWO 49 firing on
her. Nerves and not phasers would decide the outcome
of this confrontation.
  He smiled and felt a little better.
  There were worse things to bet on than the
avarice of a Romulan....
  Iv
  A single shuttle crart was lined up fac+ the
Enter- prise's bay doors. Those doors wouldn't
open now until a number of highly trained people had
replaced certain stripped bearings and other
deliberately rnined parts. Three tilde ecurity
guards had actually made it into the bay before the order
to lock all doorways had taken effect. One of
tiiem was lying slumped across the open portway
leading into the shuttle. Another lay crumpled at the
foot of the ramp leading up into ft.
  The third stood quietly facing the other
occupant of the soundiess chamber.
  Anne Nored kept her pbaser pointed at him.
The hand holding ft didn't waver, didn't shake.
Neither did her voice.
  "You're not getting past me this time. I've
learned my lesson."
  The form of Carter Winston nodded slowly.
"Yes, he said you were like this. Efficient,
professional, as well as affectionate and
beautiful. You're quite everything he said you were,
Anne." The muzzle of the powerful phaser didn't
dip a centimeter.
  There was suspicion in jier gaze, hesitancy
in her voice-but she had to ask.
  "Carter ... what did he say? How ... how
do you know him so well?"
  The Winston/vendorian spoke. Despite the
fact that instinct told her she should regard its every word
as a
  clever lie, there was something in Winston's voice that
... no, darn it, not Winston's! Oniy a sly
mimicry, an uncanny imltatio tilde
  Reproduction or not, something In the voice sounded
almost honest
  "He said many things. Some were feelings, deep
feel- ings he could not always fully express Or
adequately con vey. Emotions that, while I
understood the words and the flat meanings of them, dearly
held a good deal more than I could comprehend.
Language can sometimes be infuriat- ingly
uncommunicatlve, can tease and confuse instead Of
enlighteiLike
  "I tried hard to understand these feelings. So many of the
ideas and concepts that he tried to convey to me were new,
alien, strang tilde but always intriguing. The less
I un- derstood, the more I wanted to know." tilde
Jiiston shook his heandL
  "My people have their faults, but they are compounded by this
peculiar ability of ours to mimic others, to change
our shape. Something so natural to us seems so
frighten- ingly strange to other Intelligent beings.
I understand that lower ereatures on many worids can
perform similar feats. But when the ability is
coupled with Intelligence, other races grow nervous.
  "Sometimes," he continued bitterly, "we-was His
voice shffd back to a more gentle tone. "But Carter
tilde mston truly loved yoiLike"
  The phaser shifted ever so slightly, but still
remained fixed on the figure in front of her.
Blazes, where were the backup security personnel?
  She had no way of knowing that Kirk had ordered the
shuttle bay sealed off from the rest of the ship. Where was
the captain, or Mr. Spock? Someone to glve
orders, to take this responsibfflty off her hands.
  She ought to have said nothing to the creature, ought to have
kept her mouth shut, and at least beamed it slightly
in one leg to restrict its movement
  Instead, she asked softly, "How did he
die?" "tilde mston's ship did indeed encounter
severe meteor ac- tivity In open space. But
the damage it sustained was not from the swarm Captain
Kirk found me drifting iiLike The
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 51 deflector
shields of his small ship were too weak to protect
him from the violent assault of that original storm.
"The shields held only long enough for him to locate
a possible landing site and refuge. The only
one-Vendoria. Winston knew that world was under
edict, forbidden to travelers, but he had no choice
in the maffer. It was a miracle he managed to land his
vessel at all. Neither he nor his ship, however,
survived the landing intact. His in- juries were
severe." Winston shuffled his feet. "As is our
custom, upon conclusion of primary surgery he was
left in the care of a single one of us." He looked
straight at her. "Me. He lived on for almost
four of your years before the damage to his system
exceeded the repair capabilities of our medical
science.,,
  "We became very close in those four years." There
was a pause while the two looked at each other-one
perhaps a little too human, the other a great deal less
so. Orwashe?
  "You're so i tilde iuch like him-his voice,
his little gestnres tilde his mannerisms. Even the
inflections in certain words."
  "You must understand, Anne, that my people enjoy
our talent for nnmicry. It is pleasure to us. But
because of it we are cut off from the rest of the civilized
galaxy. There- fore anything new to imitate is
regarded as a great nov- elty. To a large extent
it becomes the exclusive property of its
discoverer. So it was with myself and Carter Winston. "I
often went about in his shape, this shape. For longer and
longer periods of time. A most remarkable form.
Wearing it gave me the greatest pleasure, because ft
fit so Well not only physically but mentally.
  "And I think Winston himself enjoyed seeing me in
his own image. While my own form was not repulsive
to him-as an interstellar trader he had no
primitive shape prejudice-I think the chance
to see and to speak with ... tilde distilde ... made
ft easier for him in his last days."
  tilde mston smiled.
  "It was not as though he died with only an alien
mon- ster at his side."
  "And he did say that he loved me?"
  "Yes. Often. And that brings up another
problem." He hesitated. "You see, 1 feel
I absorbed a great many of the
  attitudes and emotions he felt The longer I
was with him, the more strongly ingrained these
attitudes became. I do not know how it is with
humans, but a Vendorian cannot remain in close
association, let alone In the same shape, of
another being without beconling In a sense a part of
hid" "There were times, after our association had grown
close, that when tilde mston grew hungry, I was
hungry. ll he felt tired and exhausted, I
grew tired and exhausted. It became deeper than
that ll he felt pain then I, In his fOrm, was
hurt We would cornrniserate together on his sad
situation I would cheer him and he would attempt
to raise my spirits."
  "Our unity grew even to the point where when he would
feel homesick, I could feel a deep longing for a
world I had never seen, would never set foot on.
And," his voice dropped lower, "his love for you was
very, very strong. I could not help but be affected by such a
strong emotion." He looked up at her again.
  "Because I was there when he died, Anne, it did not
end."
  Unwiilingly, she found herself shaking. Shand let
the phaser drop low, lower. He could have made a
move toward her at any time now, but he didn't
An thoughts of aggression had vanished from her minggL
A suspicious moisture began to form at the
corners of her eyes. She raised a free hand,
tried to brush it away. It wasn't pos- sible.
Tears started to trickle down her cheeks in most
un- military fashion
  Both hands came up, but this time it was to reach out
to him, instinctively.
  "Carter-was
  He moved close. One hand touched the fingers
gripping the phaser. She didn't resist. His hands
moved high, held her firmly by the shoulders
andea"...ushed gently away. "You must not weep for me.
  "Carter, I-was
  "Anne, this is what I am."
  He stepped back and crossed both arms over his
chest Carter Winston disappeared.
  In his place rose a tall, seven-tentacled
entity, a night- mare shape of thick orange
cables and a bulbous, bejew-
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 53 eled head.
It spoke, and the voice was the voice of Carter
Winston-but now sounding oddly distant, echoing. It
came from a voicebox no longer human.
  "How could you love... this?"
  Her hands dropped from her mouth, to which they'd jerked
with the first gasp of surprise. Like most
humans, she'd never seen a Vendorian. The form
was as inhuman and thoroughly allen as the wildest
dreams of drug-in- duced narcosis.
  But the first shock passed. The ereature crossed
tenta- cles and once again shifted into the familiar
figure of Car- ter Winston. There was sympathy in
its once-again human voice and ... something eise?
  "You see why I told you it would be best to forget
me," the alien sald, unaware of the change in
pronoun. "But unfortunately, J can't," came
the voice of Captain Kirk. Both flgnres
turned to face a side entrance. Kirk had arrived
moments ahead of the requested security teaizLike He
held a phaser on tilde mstoiLike
  He never had a chance to use it, because the shock
wave from the first bolt fired by the Romulan phaser
banks threw them all to the floor of the hanger.
Dazed, Kirk rolled over, tried to force himself
to his feet and fo- cus the phaser at the same
time. His vision cleared rapidly and he glanced around
the shuttle bay, looking frantically in all
dtrections.
  As expected, the alien was gone again.
  He noticed Anne Nored. She had one hand
on her fore- head and was having difficulty
getting to her feet Kirk helped her up.
  "Carter ... Carter..."
  "The Vendorian is gone, Lieutenant
Nored," bald Kirk tightly. "I've got
to get back to the bridge. Wili you be all right?"
  "Yes, just a bump. I've got to get back
to security." She took a step and almost fell
over.
  Kirk half carried, half guided her to the
exit. The secur- ity team met them there.
  "Ensign Tuan reporting, Captain." The
excited junior officer was trying to look at
Kirk respectfully and over his
  shoulder into the cavernous shufflandbay at the same
time. "Where's the alien, sir?"
  "The alien is gone again, Mr. Than. And stop
waving that phaser around before you hurt yourself." The
ensign looked properly abashed and hurried
to holster the weapon. Kirk sighetLike
  "Post a gnard here. The outer doors are
jammed, but the alien might try to burn an exit
for the shuttle. Mert the armory and engineering. And
security centraLike They'll have to start the search over
again, but maybe we can keep the thing confined to this deck,
this time."
  "Yes, sir."
  "Lieutenant Nored, somehow I think security
can man- age without you." She didn't look up at
hinLike "You come to the bridge with me. There's a chance
you mIght be use- ful there."
  He felt like adding a few other choice comments.
She'd had the alien trapped again and once more it
ha-escaped. While he found himself sympathizing with
her state of mind, he couldn't condone her actions.
Mr. Spock would be even less understandIng.
Meanwhile, it would be better for her on the bridge,
away from the actual searcJL It was a better
alternative than the brig.
  Besides, it would be hard to claim she had let the thing
get away voluntarily. The Romuians had
contributed to that
  Yes, what about the Romulans?
  Spock was waiting with a report He started
talking be- fore Kirk had resumed his seat Anne
Nored wandered around the bridge, looking lost She was
still numbed, and not entirely from being thrown to the deck
  "Direct hit, Captain," Spock Informed
him calmly. "There is some damage to the secondary
propulsive sys- tems. Their commander has
apparently weighed his choices and has
concluded we've had enough time to make up our minds.
He's ready to fight."
  "I only felt one shock wave, Mr.
Spock. No subsequent attacks?"
  "No, Captain. Only the singie phaser
strike."
  "Then he's hoping to force our hand, one way or the
other, but he still wants the ship. There's nothing in the
  STAR TREK LOG TW0 55 damaged
section but automatic machinery. He's trying
to avoid casualties at this point, trying to disable us
without giving a reason for an all-out battle."
  He looked back to Lt. M'ress, at the
communications console now, as she broke in on his
summary. "The Rromulan commanderr is signaling,
sirr. Shall I put him on the scrreen?"
  "I'd rather you put him... go ahead,
Lieutenant."
  A moment later the face of the Romulan leader
had once more taken the place of his ships oft the main
viewscreen.
  The Romulans would make terrible poker
players, Kirk reflected. Their expressions were
even broader and less in- hibited than those of
humans. Their ambassadors and consuls
must have a terrible time practicing the wiles of
diplomacy.
  For example, the commander now undoubtedly thought he
was maintaining the Romuian equivalent of a straight
face, but-his expectant smile reached from ear
to ear. "Captain Kirk," he began, and there was
unconcealed anticipation in his voice, too. I
wonder what he's up to now, Kirk mused. He
didn't relish the pickle they'd gotten themselves
into.
  "All our main batteries are tralned on your
ship. I have observed a ... ah, singular lack of
defensive effort on your part. To resist at this
point would be not only useless but criminally wasteful
of life.
  "If you have no regard for yourself or your ship, think
of your crew. Our recent attack was intentionally
directed at urtihabited areas of your ship. I
cannot guarantee the selectivity of gunners in the
future." He managed to look apologetic as
he leaned forward slightly.
  "Bill you now surrender your vessel? As you
know, my people are not in the habit of giving second
chances."
  That was the Romulan's way of telling
him that, yes, he wanted the Enterprise and no, he
didn't want it enough to give him any more time.
Kirk's thoughts raced. He might be able to figure
a way out of this, if the back of his mind wasn't
busy worrying about what the Ven- dorian was up
to. And he could cope with the Vendorian
  if it wasn't for the Romulans. But-the two of
them to- gether!
  It didn't matter. He didn't have any more
time, any- way.
  Without full deflectors, he thought angrily,
we're just a clay pigeon for them. Kirk had never
seen a clay pigeon in his life and probably
wouldn't have recognized one if it had fallen into his
lunch. But archalc metaphors had a way of
sticking around in the terran language.
"Practicality does suggest capitulation at this
point, Captain," observed Spock. "I, too,
see no solution to our present dilenun tilde
There are other starships, there is no other seif."
  Of course, there are other ships, Kirk thought But
how much chance would he have of getting another command after
giving up the Enterprise without firing a shot? And
what chance did his crew have? Could he guarantee their
safety once the Enterprise was in
Romulan hands? Sulu had been morosely
monitoring inship as- well as exterior sensors,
checking his gauges and dials. bow he interrupted
Spock's advice excitedly ... Interrupted
Kirk's depression. Interrupted all action on
the bridge. "Captain, I don't understand @u. but
the deflector shields are coming up again!"
  In two steps Kirk was at his shoulder, staring
down at the Indicators in disbelief. "It's
only one shield-was "Yes, sir, but it's our
prime defensive screen, and it's between us and the
Romulans. Look," he poInted to one energy
gauge, "it's operating at full strength" Kirk
rushed back to his chair. A wise man does not
question the sudden appearance of a cache of spears when the
barbarians are at his gate. He throws them. dime
to question their origin when pulling them out of his attack-
ers.
  They had to act immediately, before some idffence techni-
cian on one of the battle cruisers noticed the
resurgence of strength In the Enterprise's
defensive flelds. "Mr. Sulu, aim for the
propulsion units on the lead Romulan vessel.
Phasers and photon torpedoes in combIna-
tion." Sulu's hands played the controls
like an orgy "Phasers and torpedoes ready,
sir."
  STAR TREK toGo TW0 57 "We've
got to get one with this first burst, Mr. Sulu."
  "Will do, Captain."
  "Fire!"
  "Firing, sir."
  "Evasive action. Mr. Sulu, keep that good
screen be- tween us and the Romulans."
  The Romulan commander had long since vanished from
the screen. M'ress had automatically
substituted the sensor view of the two battle
cruisers. It was too bad, in a way. Kirk would
have given a lot to see the commanded s face right now.
  He could see the phaser beams striking at the rear
of the nearest ship.
  "They're pursuing, sir," reported Sulu
evenly. "Both of them."
  Kirk only nodded. They'd probably
expected him to try and run, but not to fight.
  There was a sudden bright flash at the stern of the fir
bement ship. The Romulan's screens had handled the
Enterprise's heavy phasers, but one, possibly
two, of the powerful pho- ton torpedoes had
slipped through their screens. The wounded
vessel seemed to hesitate, then vanished
instantly from the-screen-not destroyed, but slowed.
  "Second vessel firing Captain," said
Spock. Kirk tensed.
  "Phasers and-was Before he could finish, the bride
rocked to a strong shock wave as the Enterprise
took the force of the attack from the remaining pursuer.
This was no disabling strike, but one designed to tear the
starship apart.
  The amazingly resurgent deflector shield
held. Artificial gravity stabilized and the
regnlar ship's lights remained on.
  "MI-NOR damage to E and H decks,"
reported Spock moments later. "Casualties
on E deck, minor hulling and air loss in four
comparrrnent5. Automatic sealant is hand dling
the damage."
  "Lock on second target," Kirk ordered
calmly. He no- ticed M'ress looking at him
with admiration. She didn't sweat, but she was panting
heavily-nervous, Kirk knew. Obviously she
didn't know that starship captains only
  sweated on the inside of their skins.-That's why they
were -- so irritable all the time.
  "Locking on second vessel,
Captain," came Sulu's re- ply. A
second later, "locked on' sir.
  "Phasers and torpedoes, Mr. Sulu. Stagger
the torps, try to run them at the same spot."
Maybe they could overload the Romulan's shields
at one point. Discouraging her ought to be as
effective as destroying her. "Firing, Captain."
  There were brilliant flashes on the screen from the
vi- cinity of the Romulan ship as her screens
reeled under the dual assault. Sulu's eyes
remained glued to his Indicators, his voice a
battle monotone.
  "Phasers... direct hit, sir." There was a
flash so bright it blanked out the screen for a moment.
"Two photon tor- pedo hits."
  But the Romulan, now warned, had brought his
shields up to maximum power and had taken the blindi
tilde tilde g ener- gies without damage.
Kirk heard Spock's report and tried not
to look disappointed. If the Romulan computers
got a torpedo In behind their one good deflector
shield. "Prepare to fire agaeaeain, Mr.
Sulu."
  "Standing by, sir.
  The third attack wasn't necessary. One
second the Romulan ship was hard In pursuit,
the next it was fading rapidly from sensor range as
her commander broke off the engagement and headed back
Into the depths of the neutral zone.
  "Losing contact, sir," reported Sulu.
"She's arcing."
  Kirk's voice was full of relief and
satisfaction. "Going back to help her disabled
companion. Good. A fight to the end wouldn't do either
side any good."
  "Maybe the pounding we gave the first one," Sulu
be- gan, but Kirk was shaking his head.
  "I don't think so, Mr. Sulu. The
Romulans exhibit a number of reprehensible
characteristics, but cowardice isn't one of them. No,
they were expecting our defenses to collapse. That's
why they didn't attack right away. When our
shields suddenly went back up-
  "Their whole plan from the moment of interception was
predicated on a number of things happening. When their
  STAR TREE LOG TWO 59 carefully
lald schedule started to go awry, they decided
to call it off. The Romulans like their ambushes
neaily planned in advance. They don't like
surprises. "Speaking of surprises,
Mr. Spock, exactly how badly did we
damage that other Romulan? Check your record-
ers, please." Spock trrned back to the library
computer console, activated the request
  "I hope ft wasn't too bad," Kirk
added. "Severe damage or loss of life might
force the Romulan High Command inffcontinuing a fight
they've 10st interest i1Like They've got a
lot of pride." Speck's answer relieved
Kirk's concern on that score.
  "First vessel's main power supply was knocked
out' Captain. Injuries to personnel should be
minimal. She should be able to run on secondary
drive, but slowly. With the ald of the other ship the
Romulans should be able t tilde repaletter her
well enough to reach their nearest naval station."
  Kirk grunted in satisfaction. He swung
to look at the elevator as engineer Scott
appeared, approaching him. "Good work, Mr.
Scott That deflector shield went up just in
time."
  Scott's reaction was not what Kirk expected.
Instead of a smile of pleasure at the compliment, the
chief engineer looked confused, startled
  "But, sir, the shield connections
haven't all been re- paired yet. I came
forward to see if I could be of help up here. My
technicians are still carrying out the final repairs.
They'll need over an hour yet, just like I sald."
  Spock left his library station and walked over
to join the conversation.
  "Interesting."
  "But, confound it, Scotty, the shields went up!
At least, the main one did. If you haven't
finished repairs, then what-was He paused- A
sudden gleam of comprehension dawned.
  "Of course! tilde mston, or rather, the
Vendoria tilde was "It is not outside the realm
of possibffity, Captain," agreed Spock.
"If he could rearrange his own internal structure
to become an examination table, one must as- sume that
he could also rearrange himself to become---"
  "A deflector shield?" Despite the
evidence that seemed to point to the Vendorian, Kirk
was doubtful. "And take the uncontrolled energy of a
battle cruiser's full assault phasers?"
He shook his head. He wanted to believe such a
thing was possible, but-
  "Vendorians are marvelous mimics, Mr.
Spock, but su- per-beIngs they're not.
No living organismeaeacd spread its substance that
thin and take that kind of-
  "He did not become the deflector shield,
Captain," Spock corrected. "There are many
instruments tilde omplex controls, switching
elements and other electronic com- ponents-in a
medical cxamination table. I cannot con- ceive of a
single creature becoming a deflector shield,
ei- ther, but a series of broken cables,
force-links, and other damaged connections? Do not
forget, the Vendorian had an excellent look at
the very linkages he broke."
  Scott had been listening to all this and had achieved
nothing except some practice in feeling twitchy.
Now his curiosity turned to frustration.
  "Will someone please tell me what's been goin'
on?" he pleaded, thoroughly confused.
  Before either officer could reply, the doors to the
eleva- tor dilated again. They all glanced
automatically In that direction.
  The orange shape that half-stood,
half-floated in the portal was by now familiar
to Kirk and Spock, but the nightmarish image was
semething new to Scott and the other bridge
personnel. M'ress hissed softly.
"What manner of beastie is that?" gulped Scott.
"That is your deflector shield, Mr. Scott,"
said Spock. "My defle-was Scott's look
showed he wasn't sure which was more alien-the thing in the
doorway or the ship's first officer. He looked
back at the Vendorian. "That is essentially
true," the Vendorian commented in the voice of
Carter Winston. It sidled toward them. "I did
what I could." Despite its multiple lenses,
it turned and seemed to face Kirk, a human
gesture.
  "I assume the danger to your ship is over,
Captain?" "It is. Unless the Romulans have some
other surprises."
  "I do not believe that they do," the Vendorian
replied.
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 61 "I am
glad. rm sorry that I endangered,, your ship and
your people. Such was not my intention.
  Now maybe Kirk could get the answer to a question that
had been bothering him ever since they found out that the
strange spy was a Vendorian.
  "Why did you do it? What possible reward could the
Romuians have offered you?"
  "To understand that, Captaln, it is necessary
to tell you a little about myself. The remainder can be
supplied by Lieutenant Nored." Kirk glanced
over at the lieutenant, who was watching the
Vendoriau ciosely.
  "My ... attachment... to the human Carter
Winston provoked much comment among my people,
Captain. I have always felt and acted somewhat
differently from the Vendonan norm. Mental
deviates are not treated with compassion on
Vendoria.
  "As Carter tilde mston continued to live and I
continued to spend more and more time attending him, my
aberra- tion became much commented upon. But there was a
lock, a bond between us that transcended mere shape and
species. I felt I somehow had more in common with the
injured human than with other Vendorians.
  "Thee began to shun me. I became an outcast
among my own kind, Captain. But this I did not
mind ... as long as Winston lived. But when he
died, my people con- tinued to look upon me with distaste,
to avoid my com- pany and presence. I grew
by turns lonely, then bitter, and then desperately
lonely once agam.
  "Though time passed, my situation did not change.
I was still treated as a pariah. When a
Romulan ship visited the town on whose outsktrts
I lived as a recluse" He paused. "They have
been visiting Vendoria quite regu- larly, by the
way, for the past several of your years, a1- ways
hoping to ally themselves with my people. But we would have none of
them."
  "Interesting," commented Spock. "tilde must
make a note of that. I know my father, as well as a
number of other ambassadors, will be interested in such
information. I ex- pect they will have a few words
to exchange with their Romulan counterpart." He moved
away, back to the ll-
  brary station, to dictate a report andf the
Romulan's viola- tion of the Vendorian
quarantine.
  "You were saying," prodded Kirk, "that,, your people would
have nothing to do with the Romulans. "And why should they? The
Romulans had nothing to offer them. But I," and the
faint light of the eye lenses seemed to glow a little more
intensely, "I was another -- story. My people had
rejected me. I was a useless outcast."
  "The Romulans had nothing to offer meexcept a
life, Captain. A chance to perform functions of
value. We may seem at times a frivolous and
idle race, but it is literally a matter
of life and death for a Vendorian to be occupied in a
useful function, to be doing someth+ of value.
"Vendoria no longer offered me this; indeed, by their
lack of companionship my people effectively forbade
it to me. So in desperation I agreed to do what the
Romulans requested of me. You must understand,
Captain, that function among us, to be considered
worthwhile,- must be of value not only to the doer, but
also to someone tilde se."
  From the first, Kirk's feelings toward this alien
intruder had been somewhat less than fraternal.
But as Winston's "voice" spun a tale of a
tortured past, he found himself coming to regard the
Vendorian less and less as a beiliger ent
invader and more as an individual, a victim of
circum- stances beyond his control-a prisoner condemned
by his own compassion.
  "What finally changed your mind about the Romu-
lan tilde and us?"
  "It seems, Captain, that I have become more
Carter Winston than I knew. Perhaps my friends and
associates on Vendoria sensed it even better
than I. My refusal to recognize this change in
myself no doubt drove them even farther from me.
  "1 had to fight myself to comply with the
Romulans when they first revealed to me their plan
to take your ship. But finally I realized that if they
could not capture the ship, they were willing to destroy it
and all of you on board. That's when I felt the
sorrow that I know Carter Winston would have felt.
  "He loved life and other lives so much,
Captain Kirk.
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 63 Because of him
I could not allow the Romulans to harm Anne, or
any of you.
  "So as you and Mr. Spock have surmised, I
changed myself yet again. I became the very linkages in
the deflec- tor system that 1 had broken. It was
... very difficult. The most difficult change I
have ever had to make. The internal arrangements
especially had to be so precise, so delicately
aligned. I had to structure myself to permit cur-
rent to pass through my body." He seemed to sway
back and forth on those thick tentacles.
  "But I could not allow you to come to physical harm
through my actions. Through the actions of ... of Carter
Winston."
  Kirk nodded slowly. "I think I understand. At
least, I think I understand as well as it's possible
for a non-Ven- dorian to."
  "I cannot go back to the Romulans now," echoed the
hollow voice. "I have menaced your ship and its people,
and I cannot go back to Vendoria. What will happen
to me now?"
  This was ridiculous! The creature swaying slowly
in front of Kirk had nearly caused the
destruction of the En- terprise. Kirk had no
business, no business at all, feeling sorry for
it.
  However...
  "You'll have to stand some sort of trial first, I
suppose," Kirk guessed. Abrupfly he found
himself work- ing very hard and not too successfully
to suppress a smile. "To my knowledge, no Vendorian
has ever been tried in a Federation court before. I
expect they'll have to make some rather novel
arrangements to prevent you from be- coming, say, the
judge or the jury computer. "But you did save the
Enterprise from the Romulans. You've done both
good and evil to us in a very short space of time,
Vendorian."
  "Carter Winston will serve as well as any name,
Cap- thin. He has not had need of it for many
months, now. And somehow the name feels ... right."
  "Okay, Winston. It will be up to the
court to decide wbether or not saving us from the very
difficulty you plunged us into in the first place
obviates your initial bel-
  ligerence." He touched the back of his neck,
remembering. "Personally, I don't intend
to press charges. And I don't think anyone else
will, either. It's the gentiest assault I've ever
been subjected to."
  "Thank you, Captain."
  "Unffl we can put you planetside, I think
it would be best for the mental stability oeaf my
crew if you remained in the guise of Carter
Winston."
  "I understand, James Kirk." Tentacles
lifted and crossed. Lt M'ress hadn't witnessed
the transformation yet, and she hissed soffly. Once
more the orange ceph- alopod was gone, Carter
tilde mston stood in its place. "I'm also
afrald," Kirk continued, trying to put-some bite
into his voice, "that I'il have to ask you to remam
un- der guard. I'm beginning to trust you, I think,
but-was "That's all right, Captain," sneeed
Winston. "You feel better knowing I'm under
observation, at le tilde t tilde until we
are back In Federation-controlled
territory. Knowing that the pair of pants you put on
in the morning really are a pair of pants."
  "You've appropriated tilde mston's sense of
humor, too, I see." Kirk's smile grew.
"I think you're going to be all disght... Carter.
1 buzz security. One guard ought to be enough."
He edged a hand toward the call button.
"Captain, could you possibly assign me that
duty?" Kirk had completely forgotten about Anne
Nored. He glanced over at her. This doing so he
completely missed the expression of surprise that
had come over Carter tilde m- ston's face.
  "But-was Winston stuttered, "you have seen me. You
know what I am."
  "I've been a starship officer for some years now,
Car- ter," she whispered. "You see, I've
changed a little, too. Since we've been apart
I've seen a lot of strange things pinwheeling about
this universe, even a few that might shock you. In the
final analysis form doesn't seem nearly as
important as certain other things."
  "As Carter Winston tilde ven as a part of
him-I think there's a better life for you than the
Romulans or anyone else can offer. Oh,
damn!" She actually stamped her foot
  STAR TREK L0Go TWO 65 "I
don't know how to say ft tilde an we at least
talk about that?" Her eyes were imploring.
  "I don't ... know." Kirk saw that Winston
was totally confused. This was the last thing he'd ever
anticipated. Helplessly he looked to Kirk,
who nodded at Anne. "You have the guard detail,
Lieutenant."
  She smiled. "Thank you, sir." She gazed
back at Carter Winston with a look of ... Kirk
shook his head. Anne Nored was right. The universe
was indeed full of beauti- ful, strange, and
unexpected surprises.
  They headed for the elevator.
  As it happened, McCoy was on his way up in the
same cab. He moved to one side and watched as
allen and Anne got in. The door closed behind
them.
  The doctor stood pondering for a moment. Then he
crossed to where the Enterprise's three other senlor
officers were clustered in animated conversation
  "You caught him."
  "Acute observation, doctor."
  McCoy's mouth twisted. "Ho-ho-ho and a
Merry Christmas to you, too, Spock."
He looked over at Kirk. "I'm glad to see
him under guard, Jim. If he'd turned into a
second Spock, it would have been too much to take."
  How prophetic are the idle jests of man!
There would come a time when McCoy would have occasion, if
not the desire, to recall that phrase.
  But for now it only provoked an innocent
chuckle from Kirk and Scott.
  "Perhaps so, doctor," the first officer of the
Enterprise agreed. "But then, two doctor
McCoys might just bring the level of medical
efficiency on this ship up to accepta- ble
minimums."
  "Careful, Doctor McCoy," warned a
grinning Scotty as McCoy, topped again, did a
slow burn. "I'm not sure life-support can
keep things livable with all the heat you're puttin"
out."
  "Heat? I'll give you heat... to was McCoy
began.
  THE
  LORELEI SICNAL
  (adapted from a script by Margaret Armen)

  They eventually dropped Carter Winston
off-ship in the system of Valeria. It was the nearest
worid to their exit from the neutral zone that was capable
of dealing with the peculiar case of Carter Winston.
  Not surprisingly, Anne Nored asked to be
transferred to the security detail that would keep an
eye--comseveral eyeson the prisoner both prior
to and after the trial. Not surprisingly, Kirk
granted her request. He'd aiready come to the
conciusion that if Carter Winston/whatever was
absolved of wrongdoing in diverting the Enterprise
into the neutral zone-liiirk had told the
Vendorian to plead compulsion-the presence of Anne
Nored would be the best thing for him.
  It would probably also he the best thing for Anne
Nored.
  He was mildly concerned that the Romulans might
still try to make hay of the Enterprise's incursion
into the neu- tral zone, exhibiting their own damaged
ship as evidence of the brutal Federation's unrelenting
bellicosity. As it developed, a number of things
conspired to pre- vent this.
  For one, there was the fact that the Enterprise had
en- countered not one but two battle-ready, fully
prepared cruisers. They'd badly damaged one and
put the other to flight, though the Romulans
would doubtlessly insist that the second had broken off
the engagement only to go to the assistance of its injured
comrade.
  Far more influential was Spock's official
report, with corroboration by Winston, of continued
Romulan visita- tion to the mutually q tilde
tilde arantined worid of Vendoria. Politi-

  clans handled this awkward situation in the usual
way. A number of high-ranking officials
quiefly got together, shared a few drinks and dirty
jokes, and decided to let the whole matter drop.
  Meanwhile the Enterprise lay over in
Valerian orbit to take on supplies for the first
part of the new year and to make a few much-needed
repairs. McCoy, for example, had a chance to go
over his medical instrumentation with the testing facilities
of a major ground-based hospital. And Scotty
had help in repairing the deflector-shield links
that Winston had thoroughly disrupted.
  Despite her extensive facilities there were still
a number of minor components the Enterprise
required which the orbiting supply station couldn't
provide. But nothing the ship couldn't do without
  To obtain them Kirk would have had
to travel a fair number of parsecs to the major
naval base at Darius W. Instead, he chose
to spend the rest of the holiday season orbiting
somnolent, re/l Valeria.
  While Valeria was still something of an outpost world,
its larger cities offered sufficienflj
sophisticated fleshpots to satisfy the more
cosmopolitan tastes of certain of the
Enterprise's crew. And her rural attractions
sufficed to as- suage the nerves of the iess
adventurous
  In sum, it was an ideal stopover worid.
  Kirk spent a week fishing at a
magnificiently clear, un- polluted mountain
lake-relaxing, hiking, and letting his beard grow.
At the end of seven days he found the open spaces
oddly confining, the theoretic'l va/s of the mountain
valley closing In until the surrounding peaks in-
duced a sensation bordering on the claustrophobic.
A sure sign vacation time was up.
  He returned to the Enterprise. Two days
later the last member of the crew had been rounded up,
brought back on board, and either treated for
accumulated cuts and bruises, formally bailed out,
or sobered up. While in space his crew
formed a perfectly integrated, smoothiy functioning
machine. But they were a reservoir of human emotions
and resentments. Every so often these needed to be drained
to keep his personnel healthy. De-
  STAR TREK L0Go TW0 71 pending on
your point of view, Valeria was the lucky or
unlucky world that served as the requi tilde fte
sponge. Once back In free space, Kirk
set the Enterprise on a course that would bring it
"round in a wide swing to pass close by Rifton,
one of the Federation's seven principle Starfleet
bases.
  Kirk blinked, rolled over, and looked at the
clock over his bed: 1730 hours. As good a time as
any to make the necessary log entry acknowledging the formal
orders they'd picked up from Starfleet branch head
tilde arters. This a sense, the log entry would be
only a duplicate of the same orders, but
apparently some anal conment somewhere decreed it necessary.
He sighed. Formal proced tilde e, red tape,
bureaucracy-as Einstein had daim tilde d, one
could circle the universe and arrive back at the
starting point, which always seemed to be a forty-page
report in tripli- cate.
  He thi1mbed the switch activating the
pickup In his desk, set the dial for
cross-room reception.
  "Stardate 5483.7. The Enterprise has been
ordered to provide standard escort for a small convoy
of ore carriers heading toward Carson's World."
H didn't add that he thought it an inexcusable
waste of starship time, not to mention a colossal
bore. The sentiment wouldn't be appre- ciated.
  If he'd known the alternative future he
might have thought it otherwise.
  "Sald ore carriers are to pick up and then
transport to Bethuiia m four million
metric tons of heavy chrominm and other duralloy
ores." He paused thoughtfully to con- sider his
next words, began again.
  "This shipment of alloy ores is necessary to the de-
velopment of the burgeoning metals industry on
Bethulia Ill, and to the planned construction next
fiscal Starfleet year of two and possibly
three new dee tilde space starships. In view
of the Federation-Klingon Treaty of 5260 limiting
offensive weaponry in this quadrant of space, it
ap- pears-was He frowned before really not+ the
source of the annoyance.
  The small viewscre tilde n set
on his desk was blinidng
  steadily, a demanding yellow glow. Someone had a
mes- sage for him that couldn't walt. Irritably
he shut off the log and swung his legs out of bed.
It had better be impor- tant!
  The viewer beeped as he approached the desk,
and a green light winked on on the lower left side
of the screen. Lt. Uhura was warning him that ready
or not, the call was on its way In.
  He sat down in front of the screen and
activated the knob that would tell Uhura he was
Indeed present, alive, and well.
  "Kirk here. What is it, Lieutenant?"
  "Deep-space call from Starfleet Science
Center, sir," Uhura's voice explained.
  "But we've already received our-was He stopped.
Some- one on Rifton badiy wanted to get in
touch with the En- terprise, badly enough to requisition
power to boost a transmission signal across the
rapidly widening distance between them. It occurred to him
that anyone Who had the authority to do so might be rather
an important per- sOn-and In a hurry.
  He blinked theeaeasleep from his eyes. "Put it
through, Lieutenant Uhura.
  The blurred image that started to form was
confused with the distance and the weakness of the signal, but un-
der Uhura's skillful hands the outside static was
rapidly cleared. The picture that finally formed on
the screen was that of Vice Admiral for Science
Julianna van Leeuwen- hook. It was still
Spotty and streaked with interference, but Kirk knew
Uhura was working miracles just to hold it
  "Captain James Kirk here." The vice
admiral smiled slowly, her long gray hair
falling in waves to her shoul- ders. "How are thIngs
at andience Center, Admiral? Sorry I
mIssed you."
  She shrugged, a slight gesture that might have
confessed boredom, might mean something else
entirely. "So am I, CaptaIn. It would have
saved me the trouble of this call. But I didn't know
until after you'd left contact range that the
Enterprise was In the area. No need to apol-
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 73 ogize for
skipping a social call. Dee tilde space
transmission is expensive, but...
  "To answer your question, things are the same as usuaLike
Instead of making our work easier, every problem we
solve turns up a dozen new ones. Every discovery
opens a hundred new avenues of
Inquiry. While my staff and budget increase
arithmetically, the number of projects we are
supposed to fulfill-all of them marked top
priority, of cours tilde grows geometrically.
  "Why, if my people and resources were to quadruple
tomorrow, James, in two weeks we'd be hopelessly
be- hInd." She smiled.
  "Meaning you're not now?" Kirk countered. "Most
cert tilde ly we are, Captain. The only
difference is, while it's still a hopeless mess, it's
an organized hopeless mess." The smile
shrank, to be replaced with a nonon- sense frown.
"That organization just turned up an interest- ing
discovery. That's what I want to talk to you about. But
firsteatilde what is your present position and distance
from Rifton?"
  "Just a second, Admiral." He thumbed the
intership comm unit. "Mr. Spock, our present
position please?" There was a short pause, then the
information came back to him.
  "Nine-six-five-five right declension to the
galactic plane, a hundred fifty degrees
north."
  "Thank you, Spock." He repeated the
figures for the vice admiral. She nodded
and didn't bother to check it on any device.
Juiianna van Leeuwenhook could do astroga-
tion in her head.
  "You've made good time. The ore convoy you're
es- corting-that was your new assignment, wasn't
it?" "Yes, Admiral," he admitted, steeling
himself. The change in tense hadn't gone unnoticed.
  "Well, they seem fairly well along their
way. You've had no trouble thus far, have you?"
  "No, Admiral."
  She seemed pleased. "Good. Then I would think
they could make it the rest of the way on their own."
  "Their captains won't think so."
  "They'll have to think so. I'll get in touch with the
  commander of the Dervish outpost tilde He can spare
a small ship for the final escort run. He have
to. The captains of the ore carriers can travel on
their own for a while. "Oh, I know their cargo will be
too valuable to consign to a small frigate or some
such. But by the time they've finished onbledoading at
Carson's Worid I'll have another starship there
to meet them." She shifted in her seat, and the incredible
communications system instantly transmit- ted the
squeak of chair on floor across the light-years.
"You might even be able to get back to meet
them yourself, Captain."
  "Get back from where, Adniiral?" Obviously
their soft, if dull assignment was making off at
maximum warp-speed for unexplored regions.
  "I'd like the Enterprise to make a little detour."
She tried to make it sound unimportant,
trivial. That really raised the hackles on
Kirk's neck.
  "It's nothing, really. Shouldn't take you more than
a day or two to investigate. TheeaeaEnterprise is
the closest ship to the... urn, affected area.
  Kirk sighed. At least it didn't sound like
another catas- trophe. He stili had vivid
memories of the Mantffles Inci- dent.
  "Yes, Admiral." He hit another switch.
"Recording new orders." She leaned forward in her
chair. "You are familiar with the section of peripheral
space that is now on-let's see-your port
plane? Sector 4423- also known as the Cicada
Sector?"
  "Cicada?" Kirk's brows drew together as he
considered the strange word. Oh, yes, the cicada was
a terran insect that spent many years underground
to eventually emerge for but a few days of activity in
the sunlight before re- turning to the soil
to develop and change.
  The name seemed frivolous, too. But was it?
Seems he recalled something about a mysterious,
llttle-visited section of Federation-bordered
space where starships vanished without a trace, not
even leaving behind their log-tor- pedoes. These
unexplained disappearances were infre- quent.
  All of a sudden, escort duty was beginning
to look downright attractive.
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 75 "Cicada,
that's it, Captain. I'm sure your science officer
can supply you with additional information and fill In any
details you might require. But briefly, the
situation In the s tilde called Cicada
Sector is this: The sector was first reached-but never
more than partially explored tilde ver a hundred and
fitty terran years ago. Claims to the
territory have been in dispute for at least that long, but
there ap- pears to be little of value in the sector
tilde ertainiy nothing worth fighting over has been
discovered yet "Recent joint discussions with
representatives of the Romulan and KI-INGON
Empires reveal that a starship of theirs or of the
Federation has disappeared In that sector precisely
every twenty-seven point three-four
star-years since its initial mapping." She stared
into the screen. "Does that suggest anything interesting
to you, Cap- tain?"
  Kirk was taken aback. The question was
rhetorical. Losing a starship from the fleets of
three principalities In a single spatial
sector to a sum total of six In a hundred
fitty years was unusual, but not startling.
  But some eager beaver in Science Center had re-
searched the disappearances and found an uncanny
reguiarity tilde to them. At the very least the inferences
one could draw were ominous. Natural disasters rarely
oper- ated on so strict a timetable.
  "You see what I'm driving at, Captain," the
vice admi- ral continued. "It would he only a
slight shift from your current course and you would be able
to check out the af- fected area. Nothing
elaborate. Make a casual sweep of a couple
of days through the sector, with your sensors wide open.
  "Record anything out of the stellar ordinary. You can
be in the sector in twenty hours."
  Not much use in hesitating. "We be happy to do
so, Admiral." He paused to scratch a
persistent itch behind one ear. All of a sudden, something
didn't smell right- something that bothered him
and he couldn't pin-ohhhh, yeahhhh!!!!
  He stared into the screen. "Uh, Admiral, how
long ago was the last disappearance of a ship in the
sector In ques- tion?"
  "Very perspicacious of you, James," she
replied easily. She made motions of consulting
an off-screen chart. "Ummm, yes . . . it
was, I believe, exactly 27.344 star- years
ago." Kirk nodded.
  "I guessed, Admiral. Your reputation
doesn't include deep-space calls to order
casual sweeps for anything."
  "I had intended to tell you eventually anyway,
Cab taIn," she replied-a mite hufflly,
Kirk thought. "In any case, to observe the
formalities, you may regard this as an official
order from Starfleet Central. More than those of us
-- at Science Center are interested in these
disappearances." "I have priority override so far as
the Carson's World- Bethulia HI expedition is
concerned. If the ore carrier captams try to make
things difficult for you, refer them to me." She
smiled wolfishly. "1 see to it tha backslash
,they get satis- faction. They won't miss you
for a few days. Kirk didn't add that if
the schedule of unexplained dis- appearances in the
Cicada Sector held true, they knight be
missed for more than a few days. But he
didn't-say that. It could be interpreted in some
quarters as Insubordina- tion.
  Besides, he was getting interested.
  "Very well, Admiral. We'll do our best
to find your in- terstellar boojum." Van
Leeuwenhook relaxed. "I know you will, James.
Discovery to you!" The picture of the vice admiral
began to fade, dissolve in a shower of confused
electrical particles. Uhura's voice sounded
over the grid.
  "Transmission ended, sir. And just In time,
we're neariy out of range."
  "Thank you, Lieutenant." He snapped off the
viewer and sat thinking. Not that he was superstitious
or anything. These disappearances could be due
to natural coincidence. Sure they could, Kirk
old chap. Once every twenty or thirty years. But
every 27.344 star-years exactly? He was tempted
to beam directly to Starfleet Science
Headquarters on Vuican and talk to Admiral
Weems him- self, but he dismissed the idea as
soon as it occurred. Even a Starfleet
captain had better be very sure of hirnself and his
reasons before trying to go around a vice admi- ral
tilde ven if only for ciarification of detail.
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 77 Besides, if
something was in the unknown sector that could take
Romuian and K1ingon ships as well as those
belonging to the Federation, there might be valuable mffl-
tary Information to gain. The fewer Interceptable
deep- space calis made on the matter, the
better. He worked the communicator again.
  "Mr. ....... Mr. Sul....?"
  Both responded. "Spock, I'll be needing a
lot of digging from you In a littie while. Mr.
Suiu, we have a new mis- sion and a new
course. Take us to the spatial border of the port
sector known as the Cicada region. "What do you
mean you never heard of it? Tch-tch, rm disappointed
In you, Mr. Sulu. I thought everyone had heard
of the Cicada Sector. Better stay up on your
manuals. Mr. Spock will supply you with
navigational supplements for cruising within the area.
The only charts will be about a hundred-fifty years
old, Spock. Kirk out." Now all he had to do
was think out a way to tell the sklppers of the ore
carriers that their escort was going to take a
hike.
  vI
  Actually it took nearly twenty-five hours for
them to penetrate the edge of the mystery sector. No
giant galactic monster waited there to devour the
ship whole. There were no signs of incomprehensible
interstellar weapons manned by unknown races, no
all-destroying automatic fortresses ready
to blast them from known space. There were stars in the
sector, of course. According to tbe old schematics
some of them had planets. But they were few and far between.
They'd been cruising inside the sector for half a
day now, and nothing vaguely like a threat had
materialized
  "It certainly seems peaceful enough,
Captain."
  Kirk nodded, tried to relax in the command chair.
He' couldn't, of course. It hadn't been
designed to put its oc- cupant to sleep, but rather
to keep him alert. "How soon will we enter the so
tilde alled disappearance zone, Mr. Spock?"
  "According to calculations, Captain, we have some
thirty seconds to go."
  Kirk steepled his fingers on his lap and stared at
the maIn viewscreen. Only interstellar
space, spotted with the pinpoints of stars near and
distant, stared back. A black ocean, concealing its
threats with a sheen of dark beauty. "All we know,"
he muttered to himself, "is that ships have vanished In this
sector every twenty-seven star-years. A long time
for a pattern to hold." He glanced at the helm
tilde hronomcter. The twenty remarning seconds
were up.
  "Lieutenant Uhura, place the ship on
yellow alert."
  "Something happening, sir?"
  "No, purely precautionary, Lieutenant."
  Uhura felt relieved. Not that she expected
any trouble, but the regularity of ship disappearances
In this area made her more than a little nervous. It
didn't seem to bother the captam, though.
  Kirk observed the cool demeanor of his
communica- tions officer and reflected how
fortunate it was that his crew, at least, was not at all
worried about this assign- ment.
  "Aye, sir, yellow alert." Uhura
swiveled lightly in her chair, manipulated
controls. Throughout the bulk of the starship, proper
lights changed color, necessary noises yowled
warnings.
  If there was a lurking, malevolent entity out there
somewhere capable of reacting to this gently defiant
ges- ture, it did not do so. Spock checked out the
gratifyingly fast compliance of all decks with the
order. "All stations now operating in yellow alert
status, Cab tain." Minutes passed. Still
nothing. Kirk began to relax a little. He'd
tightened up In spite of himself, but now that they were
several minutes into the Interference zone and nothing had
appeared to volatize the deck beneath him, he felt
assured in eas+ his vigilance.
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 79 Nervousness
never failed to surprise him. Hadn't he been through
all this before? He sighed-tenseness was an occupational
disease.
  No one noticed Uhura look up sharply from
her con- sole. There was a faint, distant sound in
her earphones and, no doubt about it' the strange
sound had begun the instant they'd crossed Into the
sensitive sector. But it had been so faint at
first that she hadn't been sure. It was growing
rapidly louder, however. And there was no mistaking it
for a natural output of any kind. "Captain,
I'm now picking up some kind of subspace radio
signal."
  Kirk accepted this news calmly, almost
expectantly. So there was something here. But a radio
signal was hardly cause for alarm.
  "Put it on the ship's speakers, Lieutenant.
Mr. Sulu, any chance this wavelength might
interfere with naviga- tion?"
  "It doesn't seem so, sir. It's not anywhere
near helm- length waves."
  Uhura tilde adjusted her controls. For a
moment there was nothing. Then a familiar, wavering tone
swelled from the wall speakers and filled the bridge.
  It was sensuous, haunting and unmistakably
melodic. A deep pulsing beat underlay the
melody, a beat that might have been drawn straight
from ancient terran drums. The wordless song itsell
sounded vaguely like guitars and flutes.
  It was lovely.
  It was rhapsodic.
  It was thoroughly captivating.
  At least one member of the bridge complement, how-
ever, wore an expression of something other than
rapture. it was only a source of puzzlement
to Uhura. "It's much more like pure music than an
Intelligible message, Captain." It grew
louder, and she dropped the volume
to compensate for the Increased power of the sig- nal.
  "Beautiful," Kirk murmured. "Might as
well let every- one enjoy it, Uhura. Pipe it
through the ship."
  "Yes, sir." She didn't notice that the men
on the bridge
  had entered into a state of musical appreciation
bordering on Nirvana They stopped just short of
actually swaying In time to the alien rhythm. Even
Spock had to force him- self to concentrate on his
computer readouts instead of on the music.
  Helmsman Arex stared at distant stars, his
three feet tapp+ a gentle rhythm in
counterpoint to the music pouring over the speakers.
  For long moments after the first faInt pipIngs sounded
over the speakers there was nothing, nothing but the steady
sylphlike strains from the Instruments of urknown
players. Then Spock looked up from his viewer,
surprisei "Captain, we're being probed."
  Kirk spoke slowly, with seeming difficulty.
"From where... can you trace it?"
  "A moment, CaptaIn." Requests were put to the
com- puter. "The signal is apparently
originating in a star sys- tem some fifteen-no,
twenty-light-years distant" "Any info
on it?" Again the library went to work. A
holographed starchart replaced the speckled
black- ness of interstellar space on the
viewscreen. Only two planetary systems were
shown on the old chart. One glowed with a faint red
aura of its own.
  "The Taurean system," Spock Informed him.
"A small G-type star at the extreme edge of
this sector. It is the only star for many parsecs
thought to possibly hold inhab- itable planets.
No surface survey was ever performed."
  The Information succeeded In drawing Kirk's
attention from the music.
  "That's a mighty powerful signal to reach here from that
distance," opined Scott. He looked over from the
bridge engineering station as the music's tempo
seemed to increase slightly... abruptly...
insistently. "Strange, Captain, I'm sure
I'm ascribin' to it some- thing that isn't really
there-but it seems to be caiiin' us." "It is odd,"
Kirk murmured. "Yes, I get the same
feel- ing myself, Scotty."
  Final confirmation of the signal's attractive
power came from the least likely source.
  "It does seem to have attributes not
unlike a
  STAR ThEK LOG TWO 81
sumnionseatilde Spock concluded. Only
Uhura was unaffected. She studied the men on the
bridge, thoroughly puzzled. "I don't see
any semblance to a summons, Captain."
  Kirk looked back and replied, rather curtly,
she thought. "Noted, Lieutenant. Lieutenant
Arex, set our course for the Taurean system.
Warp-factor seven."
  Uhura tried to persuade herself that nothing was wrong
with any of this. Certainly the alien music was
interesting, distinctive-an appealing little tune. But a
summons? A distant call to some as yet undefined
action? Uh-uh. She continued to monitor her
communications console, but most of her aftention was
diverted to monitoring the actions of her fellow
officers. All of them-Kirk, Scott, Sulu,
even Arex, even Spock-wore dreamy, faraway
looks. She'd seen similar expressions on the
faces of music lovers before. But other forces were at
work here, demand- ing more than mere appreciation from their
listeners. Or was something the matter with her?
  It was-as if she were the oniy one who was
tone-deaf at a Mozart-concert.
  No, surely, there was nothing wrong with either her
hearing or her sense of musical propriety. But
she had to have a second opinion. Pressing a call
switch she ad- dressed the broadcast mike
softly, whispering. Not long after her call, the
elevator doors divided and head nurse
Christine Chapel entered the bridge. She took a
fast survey of the room before moving quickly to stand next
to Uhura.
  "You wanted me, Lieutenant?" she asked
quietly, put- ting a hand on Uhura's shouider.
The communications of- ficer had admonished her
to speak softly when she arrived on the bridg tilde
not that anyone else seemed to have no- ticed her
arrival. "Are you feeling all right?" "I am,"
Uhura replied quietly. She nodded toward the
center of the bridge. "But I want you to observe the
men here."
  "I do that anyway." Uhura didn't smile
back. "What am I supposed to be looking for?"
  "Just look, see if you draw any conclusions."
  Puzzled, Chapel shrugged slightly and turned
to comply with the request. She studied her superior
officers.
  Funny, no one was talltrng to anyone
else. The usual idle chatter that filled the
bridge was absent. There was only the strange
music that had begun humming from the intraship
communicators a little while ago. In fact, every-
one present except Uhura seemed transfixed
by an unseen hand.
  Kirk and Sulu had risen from their seats. They were
star+ dreamily, distantly, into empty air. Yet
their eyes were open and they smiled raptly. Chapel
concluded that the music supplied more than aural
stimulation. "Beautiful images," murmured
Sulu, confirining her guess.
  What images?
  Uhura and Chapel saw nothing. The communications
officer looked up at her.
  "It started the moment we picked up that signaLike
And it's gotten progressively worse.
Look." She pointed towards the library computer
station. "It's eveii affected Spock."
  Unlike Sulu and Kirk, Spock remained
seated at his sta- tion. But he, too, was staring
trancelike Into nothingness. Nothingness only to Uhura
and Chapel.
  "Fascinating," Spock whispered. "Like a
Vulcan mar- riage drum." The
shinnnering phantom dancing before his eyes began
to take on stronger outlines, to solidify in space
as his imagination lent it form and reality. She had shining
black hair which fell In silken cascades to her
feet, pointed ears, and upswept eyebrows.
Jeweled leotards ciung to her body like a
sparkling second skin. Strands of gems were entwined
in that ebony mane, spit- ting out tiny fragments of
rainbow as the light changed. Now she languorously
slid behind a small triangular drum. Her hands,
delicate and pale, opened like white flowers. She
started to play an unheard rhythm on its taut
surface. No, nOt unheard! There it was now,
he could hear itclear and vibrant as she.
  She started to sway alluringly, moving lazily from
side to side as she played. Yes, he could hear
it, jungle drums accented by picked guitars and
delicate Vulcan tassans. But the sound was coming
from the intercom, not from the drum, wasn't it? He
blinked and spoke thickly. Words
  STAR TREK LOG TWO came slow and
hard, as if he were trying to speak through buttermilk.
  "I am experiencing audio-visual suggestion,
Captain."
  "So am I, Spock." Kirk's tone
and attitude had become something less than
authoritative.
  She was beautiful. Her golden hair was piled
high in metallic ramparts, shading a perfect
forehead. A gentle breeze nudged the flowing
peignoir close to her body, where it clung with
maddening intent to high curves and angles.
  She leaned toward him, eyes of deep blue
staring, warm, Inviting. The petals of the crimson
flower that lay cupped in her hands opened to him. They
were shaped to form a stylized heart.
  Kirk shook himself.
  "Dimensional visions, too." He frowned.
"Any idea what's causing them, Spock?"
  The science officer's eventual reply seemed
to come from parsecs away. He was still staring, still
absorbed In the tugging alien marriage music.
  "logically, we must assume they are a
by-product of the scanning probe." All this would have
seemed totally crazy to tilde Uhura-if it
weren't that everyone was treating it so seriously. But she
couldn't keep silent any longer. "Sir, what
visions? We don't see anything." She indi-
cated Nurse Chapel, who nodded agreement.
  Somehow Kirk found the reserves to turn
from his danc- ing mirage and look back at them.
"Nurse Chapel, you're sure you don't see
anything, either?"
  "No, sir. Not a thing. What is it you all
see?" Kirk ig- nored her question, turned his gaze
to touch In turn on Sulu, Soott, Arex, and
Mister Spock. All continued to stare into space,
eyes blank and expressions slightly fool- ish.
The image of his voluptuous blonde persisted, and
Kirk had difficulty focusing on Uhura.
  "Tell me, Lieutenant," he murmured
curiously, "have I been looking as silly as that?"
  Uhura hesitated, then spoke firmly. This was
no time for diplomacy. "Every bit as vacuous,
sir.
  "Umnnn." Kirk cbnsidered. It was growing
hard to
  concentrate. No matter how he seemed to shift
and turn, the blonde stayed In his vision.
  "Nurse, take a medical reading.
Lieutenant Uhura, call Dr. McCoy to the
bridge."
  Chapel moved away from the communications area and
swung her medical tricorder off her shoulder.
Since it was precalibrated for humans,
she passed over Lt. Arex for the moment and began with a
snilrking Suiu. No telling what he saw, and
she wasn't sure she cared to know. Meanwhile,
Uhura was busy at her console. "Sick bay
... Dr. McCoy, please report to the bridge
... Dr. McCoy, please report to the
bridge." She paused while Kirk walted
unconcernedly, watching her. Giving him a puzzled
look, she tried again.
  "Dr. McCoy, report to the bridge8ick
Bay, acknowl- edge!" Nothing. She looked first
at Kirk, then at Chapel, and shook her head.
"No response."
  "Keep trying, Lieutenant," Kirk ordered
drealnily. At the moment he didn't seem to care
whether McCoy an- swered or not.
  "Yes, sir."
  In the reception office of the Enterprise's
central Sick Bay, the communicator call
light winked on and off with mechanical patience,
while Uhura's voice continued to sound from the
attendant speaker. "Dr. McCoy... report
to the bridge... Dr. McCoy..."
  Dr. McCoy was sifting at his desk. Leaning
back in his chair, he had his feet
comfortably propped up on same and his arms folded
behind his head. At the moment he was staring upwards, but
his eyes pald no more attention to the ceiling than they
did to the communicator call light A beatific
grin dominated his expression.
  Dimly, a part of hiin was aware of the blinking
green light and Uhura's distant, urgent voice.
He ignored both with perfect equanimity. His
mind was busy with more important things.
  "Magnolias In blossom," he sighed.
"Magnnicent ... such symmetry of form...
beautiful..."
  Uhura gave up trying to contact McCoy.
She had a sus- picion why he wasn't
answering. If she was right, nothing
  STAR TREK L0Go TW0 85 short of
general alarm would provoke the slightest re-
sponse from the good doctor.
  For a moment she considered giving the alarni on her
own, but she wasn't quite ready to assume the
authority. While unmistakably affected by the
strange music, Kirk, Spock, and the other
officers stffl seemed in control of their actions. She
checked her exterior monitors. The readings they
provided were not the ones she hoped to see.
"The probe is getting stronger, Captain." Hands
adlust- ed amplffiers. Also, the rhythmic pulsing
had grown more insistent, the melodic convolutions more
involved and complex.
  "Mr. Spock," Kirk ordered,
"reevaluate your scanner readings," Spock's
reply was sleepy, but quick. "I have been doing just that,
Captain, though this sig- nal makes normal work
difficult. Readings are still incon- clusive. That
it appeals directiy to the subconscious desfre
is self-evident. But how it relates to the music
is as yet un- determined.
  "It is odd that only the men appear to be
affected by the probe's hallucinatory
capabilities. May I suggest that perhaps :. ."
His voice trailed off as he stared at the main
viewscreen. Kirk was already looking that way. The
faint outline of a worid began to grow visible. It
increased rapidly in size on the screen. Because of
some peculiarity in the ionosphere, the atmosphere
had a faint golden hue. As it expanded further, the
musical probe grew correspondingly louder-and
louder-until it seemed to wash the entire bridge
In waves of pure emo- tion.
  The constant driving rhythm defied all
Uhura's efforts to keep it at a manageable
level. It seemed to emanate now, not from her
speakers, but from the walls them- selves.
  There was a blinding flash of light and the bridge was
suddenly bathed in a. deep pink glow. At the
same tiine the music rose to a deafening crescendo
which momentar- ily paralyzed everyone. The startling
fusion of brilliant color and sound vanished
simultaneously.
  As the last tints oLpink faded from outraged
retinas, the probe officially stopped. After the long
bolero, the re-
  sultant silence was shocking. Kirk, Spock,
and the other men continued to stare hypnotically at the
screen and the small, brass-hued planet floating
there.
  "Cut speed, Mr. Sulu, and set us an
orbit" Suiu's reply was casual. "Aye,
sir." Kirk rose from his chair and yawned.
  "Mr. Spock, we will take a party and beam
down to ex- plore the surface. Inform
Transporter Chief Kyle of the approximate
nexus of the probe-signal generator. We'll
try and set down there. Life-support belts,
Mr. Spock?" "It doesn't seem
necessary, Captain," Spock replied af ter
checking his scanners. "Everything appears conducive
to humanoid life. It doesn't really matter."
  Uhura nearly fell out of her seat at that. She
could see that Spock's highly uncharacteristic
casualness over such a vital question had shocked
Nurse Chapel, too. No one else seemed
to think it worthy of comment.
  "Scotty, you're in charge till we return."
  "Hmmm? Oh, okey-doke, Captain."
Scott was staring cheerfully at the viewscreen, but
Uhura had a hunch the fatuous grin on his face
was directed at another sight Kirk and Spock
left via the elevator. Momeiits later, they
ambled casually into the transporter room. McCoy
was already there, and the single security man Kirk had
re- quested, Ensign Carver, arrived shortly
after. "Engineer Kyle ... Engineer Kyle!"
Kirk said, more in- sistently when the transporter
chief failed to respond. "What?" Kyle raised
his head from cupped hands and smiled over at them.
"Oh, it's you, Captain. How's things?"
  "Pretty good, Chief, pretty good." He
moved up into the transporter alcove. "Spock
call you before we left the bridge? You can
handle those coordinates?" Kyle nodded, grinned
at Spock as though the science officer was a long-
lost brother.
  The other officers joined Kirk In the
transporter. Every- one was smiling happily at one
another, or at noth+ in particular, or at some
private thought After several min- utes of this, a
touch of reality intruded on Kirk's dream- ing.
  "I don't want to put you out, Engineer,"
Kirk mur-
  STAR TREK LOG TW0 87 mured
easily, "but if you've got a spare moment, could you
beam us down?"
  "Sure, Cap'. Anything for you.
  Fortunately, Kyle had performed this operation
several thousand times before. He could have done it in his
sleepand that's just about what he was doing. His mind was not
on his job, but he manipulated the transporter
controls solely on instinct.
  Hopefully, he wouldn't rematerialize
Kirk, Spock, and the others a hundred meters
above their touchdown point. Oh the bridge, Scott
moved slowly to the command chair and flopped into it with
littie grace. His brows drew together. For the
briefest of moments he frowned, as if
something, something, wasn't quite what it ought to be. Then his
previous contentment returned, and a satisfied
smile spread across his face. Almost Indifferentiy,
he thumbed the log activator.
  "Ship's log. . . stardate 5483.8. Chief
Engineer Scott in command." For some reason that
struck him as particu- larly humorous. He
giggled. Uhura's jaw dropped in dis- belief.
  "We are continuing to hold standard orbit around a
planet in the Taurean system." The world in question
drifted on the screen in front of him, holding his
gaze. This sight was continually interrupted by other
phantoms which flashed across his field of vision somewhere
between his nose and the viewer. They tickled his
consciousness like bubbles before vanishing, leaving only a
thin pleasant memory behind.
  Once it was an astonishing orchidlike flower,
whose center was a face of delicate elfin beauty.
Another time, he saw thousands of gold coins,
clinking, tinkling, and bounc+ metallically off one
another, blowing along a sandy beach like leaves in a
high wind. A third time a carved crystal goblet
spewed out an endless waterfall of brilliantly
faceted gemstones. Now and then, the facets re-
vealed faces that had nothing to do with Internal
mineral structure.
  He continued the entry happily, almost singing the
words.
  "Probes and sensors utilized subsequent to the
depar-
  ture of the landing n tilde arty indicate there was
once a vast civilization here." The back of his
mind wondered if it mightn't be a good idea
to report this to Kirk and Spock, down on the
surface. Oh well, they should find evidence of
same soon enough. Besides, what difference did it
make? What difference did anything make?
  A lithe female form seemed to rise from the contours
of a mountain range now visible on the surface below.
Ah, lovely, lovely!
  "However, life readings of any kind were sparse and
concentrated. Captain Kirk has beamed down with
others to investigate. Oh, fantastic!" His
voice dropped to a whisper even the sensitive log
mike couldn't pick up. There were two poeple on
the bridge who saw no or- chid faces, heard
no wind-scattered lucre, no cascade of
jewels. And it worried them.
  They were busy at the library computer, intent and
agi- tated. Uhura had been feeding the
Enterprise's brain a steady stream of questions. Now
she studied the flow of words and figures that formed the
reply. Each new answer deepened her frown,
increased her apprehension. "These readings just don't
match up with Spock's offi- cial report," she
snapped. "So far I count three sensor readings that
are off-two of them dealing with wave- lengths of that
probe. That's not like Spock."
  She was damning herself now for not sounding the gen- eral
alarm when she'd had the chance. It wouidn't do much
good now. She glanced around at the rest of the bridge.
  Sulu was sleeping, head down, on the navigation
con sole. Lt. Arex occasionally patted all
three hands together in the manner of a little boy, and
Scott tilde Chief Engineer Scott-was
ignoring the still-recording log and conducting a silent
orchestra of his own. If she'd seen the instruments
involved, even Uhura might have blushed. She used
a re- mote to switch off the log.
  No, their reaction to a general alarm would be some-
what less than devastating.
  She turned back to the computer. There had to be an
explanation buried somewhere in the sensor readings. There
had to be.
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 89 The
teinple reminded Kirk of a well-insulated Par-
thenon as viewed through a fun-house mirror.
Basic ar- chitectural lines were there, but they
conformed to no known earthly pattern. He couldn't even
tell whether the marblelike facing, brilliant white
with pink veins and black striations for contrast, was stone
or metal. The top of the structure seemed to melt
into a pink fog that swirled gently in the light air.
  A moment before, several small mist-shrouded forms
had coalesced in front of the structure to leave
Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Carver standing just at
its base. It seemed they'd forgotten their
life-support belts. Tch! It could have been
fatal, but Spock's easygoing assump tion as
to the planet's congeniality turned out to be cor-
rect. By now any outsider would be justified in question-
ing their sanity, but none of the men affected seemed
to find the oversight worth mentioning.
  Spoek had remembered to bring his tricorder,
however. The security guard had one, too, and
McCoy had a medi- cal "corder in addition
to his standard emergency kit. Their gaze never
strayed from the temple. They stared in admiration at the
arching columns of polished stonest metal, at the
delicate, gravity-defying arches.
"Fantastic architecture," Kirk murmured.
"Only an in- credibly advanced race could have
built this place." He didn't seem to find it
particularly significant that the tem- pIe might
be made of stone Instead of duralloy or some
equally technologically advanced structural
material. His opinion of the astonishingly advanced
civilization of this world was echoed by the other members of the
land- ing party. Carver turned to Kirk and gestured
at his own tricorder. He appeared to be having some
trouble speak- ing. What was wrong with the enlisted
ranks these days? "You want the routIne post-landing
checks made, sir?" "Oh, I don't think that's
necessary, Carver," Kirk re- plied easily. "Why
go to all that trouble? There aren't any threats here."
His assurance bothered no one. "Spock can handle
any required scans."
  Fortunately, the science officer's judgment was
less af- fected than the captaIn's. He was
already taking readings.
  That didn't keep him from staring at the temple,
nor did it make his voice less distant and
dreamy.
  "There's something compelling about it, Captain."
  "Yes." There was no music now, no
all-absorbing rhythm pounding in their ears, but
Spock was right Something was pulling at them!
  Kirk took a half-step backwards and
frowned. Spock continued to work with his tricorder and
abruptly he also seemed to realize something had
taken an unpleasant grip on them.
  "Captain, the urgency of the attraction suggests
that more than mere visual compulsion is at work here.
I ad- vise remaining at a distance until I can
deterrrine the depth and significance of this influence.
Life forms are in- dicated tilde ncentrated
at some point within this struc- ture."
  Kirk's trancelike expression intensified, and the
momen- tary feeling of unease vanished. He
seemed to hesitate, looking around for-something. But when
his gage finally returned to the temple, it stayed ther
tilde fixed. -- "There's no apparent danger,
Spock. A belligerent life form would already have
sallied out to attack us. Let's go." He moved
quickly now, even eagerly, towards the temple
steps.
  McCoy and Carver needed no urging and followed
close on his heeis. Spock followed more warily.
It was all very logical, of course. That wasn't the
trou- ble. The trouble was that his logic was
leading him down possible lines he didn't care for.
But something at work here had a way of muffiing the
normal lines of reason. Spock almost seemed to have
cause and effect tied to- gether, and then everything
would sort of blur in his mind.
  Huge, intricately carved doors were recessed
into the front of the temple. As soon as the men from the
Enter- prise had approached to within a few steps,
the doors be- gan to swing silently Inward. That in
itself should have been cause for greater caution. But Kirk
led them inside as though they'd been expected for a
long, long time. They walked down a high, narrow
hall which gradually opened Into a huge audience
chamber. Huge, hammock-
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 91 like settees
filled with silken cushions and high, cube- shaped
tables of red-gold were set on both sides of the
chamber. Various ornaments and utensils carved from
sIn- gle gems studded the tables and walls.
  Always they moved toward a high, cushioned dais
at the far end of the chamber. The allens were there,
waiting for them.
  Resting on the dais itself or standing In a
semicircle around it were a cluster of the most
breathtakingly beauti- ful women any of
them had ever seen or imagined. They wore long,
togalike costumes which tantilized more than
concealed. A few lounged on thick cushions
covered with fur.
  Like everything else on this world, their skins seemed
tinged with a combination of gold and pink. All the colors
of the rainbow gleamed in their flowing waist-length hair.
Their eyes were a deep, drowning violet.
  All stood about two and a half meters tall.
When they eventually moved it was slowly, and with great
care and with deliberate patience. The reactions of the
landing party were similar.
  "Radiant ... like goddesses ... such eyes!"
came the varied whispered comments. Even Spock was
over- whelmed. He did, however, retain enough
presence of mind to borrow McCoy's medical
tricorder. The good doctor didn't seem to need
it.
  A quick scan brought some interesting Information. "The
form-as is obvious-is humanoid," he mur-
mured. "But there are a number of internal differences
of indeterminate significance. Endocrinology
especially ap- pears to operate at variance with the
humanoid norm. Also, their bodies appear
to function at a surprisingly high
electrical level.
  "According to the tricorder the range of
psychokinestat- ics tilde utside influences
havin an actual effect on bodily function-is
abnormally high.
  "Prettiest body functions I ever saw,"
McCoy mum- bled, utterly enthralled.
  For their part' the reactions of the women as they rose
and slowly surrounded the men were equally ecstatLc.
"They are here ... such wondrous ones ... they
honor
  us with their presence.. ." and similar phrases not
calcu- lated to lower the ego of any masculine
listener. It all puzzled Spock, briefly,
only because their reac- tions were exactiy what one
might dream for. It was ideal-too ideal. Too
perfect. That didn't keep him from abandoning himself
to it completely.
  The crewmen had to lean backward to maintain eye
contact as the tallest of the women stepped forward and
extended her hand to each of them in turn. Her voice
rang like prayer bells sounding through Lhasa.
  "I am Theeia," and the very name seemed to hint of
warmth and love, "the head female. Welcome,
James Kirk, Dr. McCoy, Mr.
Spock, Ensign Carver. Welcome, honored
ones."
  "Welcome, honored ones!" came the heavenly
chorus from the assembled women.
  Kirk mumbled some suitably mushy reply, the
senti- ment, if not the actual words, echoed by his
compan- ions-including Spock. It was fortunate
no recorder was on to set down their words for
posterity. Their Infantile responses would never
come back to haunt them. They didn't sound
infantile at the time, however. They sounded
delightfully appropriate.
  "How do you know our names?"
  "The Oyya revealed you to us," TheeIa
explained. She turned to face a shockingly blue
curtain shot through with silver wire. Instead of touching
a switch or giving a signal, she hummed a
single soft, distinctive note. The curtain re-
sponded by sliding silently aside.
  Jutting out from the wall behind the curtain was a large
transparent cube. In its center floated a
perfect three tilde di- mensional model-no, not
model, a picture, image, what- ever label
one could thInk off the Enterprise. More perfect than
any hologram, it was so real it seemed the
ship itself had been reduced in size and set into the
cube. The land+ party moved closer, eyeing the
device with real interest. comAs an example of
alien engineering it was in- trigu+, but not quite
spectacular. Although there were aspects of it which were
unfamiliar-no Federation instru- ment could produce
quite so realistic a depiction, for ex-
  ample-the technology required to produce it was
not beyond comprehension.
  But those few aspects bothered Spock. That, and the
sophistication of such a machine in comparison with its
basically barbaric surroundings. They did not add
up. "Tonal control," he murmured sleepily.
"Ouite impres- sive." Theeia moved close and
put a hand on his shoulder, looking down at him.
  "The Oyya will reveal the answer tO whatever is
asked of it, Mr. Spock."
  Spock was skeptical, but before he could ask questions
TheeIa moved away from him to stand next to Kirk.
"We are grateful yon heard the signal,
Captain, and re- sponded."
  Signal ... there was something about a signal.
Some- thing was hammering insistently at the back of his
skull, screaming for attention. He shunted it
angrily aside. Cddal... they were here in
the first place because of why were they here?
  "Thai signal-it was a distress call?" Kirk
asked. Theeia's smile faded. For a second a
terrible sadness seemed to come over her. Then she
quickly forced cheer- fuliness tilde ack into her
voice.
  "I will Explain its meaning later, Captain.
For now, we have prepared a feast to celebrate your
coming-and your safearrival."
  Kirk would have pursued the matter further. He
wanted tit seemed he ought to-but somehow, in the
face of Theeia's radiant smile and the proximity
of her body, the questions lost their initial urgency.
  Several women guided each man to one of the
swaying, overstuffed hammocks, helped him gently
Into it Others brought elaborate golden trays
piled high with exotlcally colored fruits, and
white-gold chalices filled with cool
bubblingdriri
  Two or three women clustered around each man.
They began to eat and drink. Especially choice
tidbits were cho- sen for the visitors from the mountain of
food One swrthy giantess rose and took
several round gold fruits from a crystal bowl.
"My name is Darah, honored
  ones," she whispered sensuously. Slid moved
to the center of the chamber.
  There she began juggling the fruits while
simultane- ously starting a wild, barely
controlled dance. Performed by anyone else the combination
would have seemed ludi- crous. But Darah's
movements turned it into an Incredibly alluring
ballet.
  Kirk and his companions watched. Theeia had
knelt at his feet and was stroking his bare legs above
the boottops. From unseen instruments, heady music
throbbed. If pos- sible, the women now seemed more
beautiful, more exotic, more alive than ever. Very much
more alive. "Captain's log," Kirk sighed
heavily, not caring whether or not a tricorder was
running to pick it up, "stardate 5483.9. The
beauty of this place is unequalled. It's the
answer to all a man's secret desires,
private fantasies, dreams. Exquisite In
every way." He paused drowsily and managed to get
the chalice to his lips for another sip of the
champagnelike liquid.
  "We're here to investigate ... here
to investigate." He almost frowned. A last warning
tried to sound, faded qui- etly
,beaehind a wall of suffocating pink flesh.
"To Investiga
  smiiiie tilde .th tilde l tilde made
a deft move with her hips, and he "The women
themselves radiate delight." He watched as Darah
continued her juggling dance, moving quickly, easily,
back and forth across the chamber floor. McCoy
fervently seconded Kirk's unrecorded
sentiments. "Truly, Theeia, you are the most
beautiful women in the galaxy. But where are your
men?"
  "They have their own temple, their own compound," the
giantess informed him. "We find it better this
way. We are thus free to pursue our own
pleasures and fulfill our own needs without
harrassment from the other."
  "I'll drink to that," McCoy bubbled.
  Darah, her filmy toga flying in loose
folds from her magnfflcent fo tilde tilde spun
across the floor toward them. Sud- denly, she
called out laughingly.
  "Mr. Speck!" She tossed one of the golden
fruits toward him.
  "I'll drink to that," echoed McCoy.
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 95
Spock rose automatically to catch, reeled
dizzily and nearly fell over. Theeia and several
of the other women caught him before he struck the
floor.
  Kirk was halfway out of his hammock and starting
toward Spock, his increasing lethargy finally
interrupted by his friend's plight. He got only a
few steps before he found himself swaying unsteadily.
It finally penetrated the ros tilde couldored haze
that had enshrouded him that something was wrong here.
  McCoy and Carver were also on their feet, but
barely. Neither was In any condition to help anyone but
himself. Other women rushed to their assistance.
  "Take them to the slumber chambers," Theeia
directed. "They are tired and heavy with food and
drink. They must rest."
  There was no malice in her voice, nothing
threatening, only honest concern for their well-being. It
didn't make sense that they'd been drugged,
tricked. And the glantess's reactio tilde was
hardly one of triumph.
  With a pair of women supporting each of them, the
men of the Enterprise were led, staggering, toward a side
corridor; McCoy managed to gasp something
Inteiligible, but his words were badly
slurred.
  "Prob ... probably that nectar, or whatever
it was they gave us to drink. It's as potent as
Saurian brandy."
  "I'll drink to that," Inmicked Carver
sarcastically. Of the four, he was the last one who should
have succumbed to the lure of alien liquor. Some
security man! He was blarnnng himself needlessly.
They'd all been fooled. McCoy looked as if
he wanted to say more, but couldn't. Now he was almost
wholly under the effects of the powerful drink.
  None of them could see very well either. None of them
looked back. And so none of them saw Theeia staring
af- ter them, sadiy. Tears were beginning to trail
from the corners of her wide violet eyes.
  ViI
  They slept for a long time in the slumber chamber.
It was dimly lit, but filled with luxious
furnishings and or- namentation. Kirk lay asleep
on an enormous cushioned couch veiled with
iridescent black curtains that shut him off from the
rest of the room.
  A gold headband wfth a large blue gem set
In its center encircled his head. The gem did not
sparkle In the dim light. His sleep had
been deep, dreamles tilde but now he found himself
stirring and trying to sit up. The result of these
efforts was a wave of dizziness that sent him falling
back onto the cushions. A hand moved shakily
to his head, touched, examined. He felt the head-
band. Experimentally he grabbed it as best he could and
tugged. The pull failed to dislodge it It was
tight-too tight.
  Both hands now. There didn't seem to be any
kind of clasp or lateh. Maybe he could force it
apart along some hidden seam. Useless, it was locked
firmly in place. This time when he tried to sit up
he managed it, though it cost him another attack of
dizizziness. He felt vaguely nauseated.
Once more he worked feebly at the headband. That's
when he heard the voice. It was urgent and anx-
ious.
  ....... Jim...
  Funny, that sounded like McCoy. But there was a
sub- tie difference. Even when drunk the
doctor's voice had never been that-well, that
shaky.
  A hand divided the smooth spun curtains.
McCoy stood framed In the opening, swaying
unsteadily. A head- band identical
to Kirk's own was wrapped tighfly around his forehead.
Kirk's eyes wideneand His jaw droppeand
McCoy's hair was much thinner-and gray+! He
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 97 stood now with a
noticeable stoop and his face, his face was lined like that
of a man of sixty. But an even greater shock was in
store.
  Spock joined them a moment later. He still stood
up- right, but there was a definite flutter in his hands.
His hair was also tinged with gray. While he
definitely looked older, he wasn't In the
state of advanced desiccation that had afflicted
McCoy. Vulcans generally had a longer life-
span than humans. Therefore the peculiar aging
disease had affected Spock less than McCoy.
  In the background, Kirk could see a greatly
matured Carver. For the first time, he wished he'd
brought a young- er security guard with them. Even so,
Carver was young- er than any of them, so it appeared the
aging effect wasn't proportional. Carver had
aged faster than any of them. It was almost as if
he'd had more to give. Kirk rose and eyed them In
turn, stili stunnandL "Bones... Spock...
what's happened to you?" "Not just to us, Jim," said
McCoy quietly in that old man's
voice. "You too."
  Kirk swayed. McCoy's statement
penetrated-not with- out resjstance. His hand came up
to touch his own face. His handdry, wrinkled. Drier,
less supple skin on his cheeks, loose folds
of flesh around his neck, under his eyes-lines that
didn't belong there. That hadn't been there, hours
ago.
  He couldn't see the streak of white that ran through his
hair, but McCoy told him about it.
  "You look about fifty, Jim. I'd guess
Spock's artfflcially advanced age at about the
same, though he's got more years to play with than
us."
  "We've got to get out of here," Kirk stuttered
desper- ately. He'd once seen a man who'd
lost his suit on Dryad, the hothouse world in the
Demeter system. The man had made it to a
survival base. When the rescue team finally
reached him, they found only a very large man-shaped
fungus spotted with short, sprouting, brown
tendrils. McCoy's seamed face was every bit as
shocking. He started to run for the remembered exit and
pulled up, grabbing at his left leg. It seemed
that in the past few hours he'd not only
acquired wrinkled hands and face and
  a streak of white in his hair, but also a mild
case of bursi- tis.
  He felt unbelievably helpless.
  Uhura and tilde Chapel stared down at the
readout screen of the maIn medical computer In
Sick Bay. They mentally tried to urge the machine
to greater speed. As if in re- sponse to their
unvoiced pleas, a microtape cassette
promptly popped out of the response slot.
  Chapel picked it up and both women moved to the
desk playback table. She Inserted the small
plastic rectan- gle, hit the necessary switch. She
spoke to Uhura as the machine automatically
rewound the unplayed tape. "The results of every
scan, every probe made by the fe- male science
teams. If there's an answer it be on this."
  The accompany+ screen winked on and there was a
tiny hum as the computer voice activated.
  "Computer evaluating." The two officers took
a deep breath. "Summation of recent medical and
astrophysical scans, with analysis, as per
request Head Nurse C. Chapel."
  Faint sounds of mechanical life followed.
Each second took an hour. Then the
voice finally came again, indiffer- ent as it was
authoritative.
  "Probe is directed at ship from indicated
planet, as nil- tially surmised. Probe
wavelengths are severely enervating to humanoid
males. Prolonged exposure to probe's effects
over a long period of time, or if signal is
intensffied ac- cording to figures shown on chart,
can cause increasing weakness and accelerated aging to the
point of death."
  Chapel made a slight strangled noise and
Uhura looked stunned.
  "At least we've some idea now what we're
dealing with," the communications officer sald grimly.
She direct- ed her next words to the computer
pickup. "How do we counter this effect?"
  "Countering methodology not available. No
projected medical antidote to hypothesized
effects. Initiate search?" "Initiat tilde and
keep advised," ordered Uhura sharply. She
moved to the wall communicator as Chapel ran through
the figures once again.
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 99
"Lieutenant Uhura to Security Officer
Davidson." A middle-aged,
efficient-looking woman appeared on the tIny
intraship screen
  "Davidson here. What's going on
Lieutenant? The men in my section have been..."
  ..... acting like lotus tilde aters ever since
we entered orbit, I know. I'll explaln
later, Davidson. Right now I want an
all4emale security team in the main
transporter room as of five minutes ago.
All4emale security teams are to be mo-
bilized at every entrance to the transporter deck and in
the shuttie bay. Anyon tilde particularIy
any male-who at- tempts to transport down to the
surface is to be placed in protective
custody. I don't think any of them will become
violent-we've no indications of that so far. But
instruct your personnel to be prepared."
  "Yes, Lieutenant, but-was
  4'allyou and Lieutenant M'ress win be in command
of the ship until I return. I'm taking down a
security detail my- self."
  "As you say, Lieutenant." Davidson
looked doubtful, but salwted briskly. Uhura
cut the transmission and turned to Chapt tilde
ei; she found the head nurse staring at her
with wide eyes.
  "What are you planning, Uhura?" The latter was
al- ready heading for the elevator.
  "I'm taking command of this ship!"
  Kirk, Speck, McCoy, and Carver stood in
the audience chamber facing the imposing dais. Theeia
sat there, watching them. Darah and the other women
relaxed nearby, also watching. The men swayed
weakly, the blue gems set In their headbands now
glowing brightly. Only Spock and Carver were a step
above total col- lapse. Kirk and McCoy were
in bad shape.
  "We must return," the Enterprise's first
officer mur- mured tiredly, "to our duties on
board our ship." Next to him, Kirk frowned
uncertainly. He was clearly straining
to remember... to remember... what?
  Duties-that was it, duties. He looked up at
the staring women. "Duties... shave.. ." He
stumbled again as the jewel pulsed brightly and had
to grab at Speck's arm for
  support. That arm was not what it should have been and as
a result, both men nearly fell.
  TheeIa spoke. She seemed genuinely sorry,
no longer adequate consolation to Kirk and
his men. "You cannot leave, Mr. Spock," she said
slowly, "for you are needed here. As the low waves of the
Lura-mag work on your crew, they will come to feel as
you do. They are also needed, and they too will join us
here."
  Kirk drew himself up, finding a last reserve of
strength somewhere. "We must go." Turning toward the
door he staggered off. McCoy tried to follow and
nearly collapsed. Agaln, it was Spock who
steadied him.
  "com"Obstruct them!" TheeIa shouted.
  The other women moved rapidly to form a barrier
be- tween Kirk and the other officers, blocking their
path to the main exit. Shaking with stabbing, suddenly
increased weakness the men hesitated. They had nothing
to fight with, their weapons having been taken from the
tilde tilde m while they slept.
  "Together!" Kirk gasped. Somehow they managed
to rush the women. But the giantesses grabbed their
arms and pushed and dragged them back easily. Their
weakness seemed to Increase sharply at the physical
contact, and they grabbed at their headbands. One by one
they slumped helplessly to the floor. On each
man's forehead the blue gem shone with appalling
intensity. On the bridge of the
Enterprise, Engineer Scott lounged dreamily in
the command chair. His eyes were focused on the viewing
screen and the dreamworld that seemed to be depicted therein.
A constant flow of sensuous, beckoning images
drifted back and forth In front of him. The
Scottish beret he now wore was tilted at a
rakish angle. He was singing an old Gaelic
love ballad. Nor- mally, Sulu would have found the
rendition distasteful and Arex would have been indifferent.
But both seemed to find Scott's performance the
greatest musical experience since Gabriel.
  Uhrua and Chapel entered from the elevator. The
lieu- tenant's gaze was drawn immediately
to Scott. The ballad approached its end as the
two officers approached. She'd been dreading this
moment. How would Scott
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 101 react?
Regardless of any objections, he had to be
removed from command-by force, if necessary. In his present
condition there was no telling what he might order.
She hoped Chapel wouldn't be forced to use the hypo
secreted in her belt. There was no hesitation in her
voice, however. "Mr. Scott, as senior
lieutenant I'm taking responsibility for the
safety of this ship."
  Scott turned at these astonishing words and stared
up at her. There was an awkward silence. Uhura
fidgeted in- wardly. Was the strange probe
capable of Inducing emo- tions other than
pleasure?
  Apparently not. Scott merely smiled
absently up at her. "That's very thoughtful of you,
iuv." He swiveied in his chair and returned his
gaze to the viewscreen. Uhura should have been
relieved. Instead, she felt only disgust. "Not as
hard as I expected it might be. Damn. what-
ever it is, it's reaily got its hooks into them."
She reached around the humming engineer and switched on the
log "corder. Scott made no move to interfere
--comn that he was in any shape to offer resistance.
  "Ship's log, supplemental. Lieutenant
Uhura recording. "Due to Chief Engineer
Scott's euphoric state of mind, which tilde
eciudes effective direction, I am assuming
com- mand of the Enterprise in the absence of senior
officers Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. I
accept full responsibility for my actions.
  "A detailed account of the events leading up to and
die- tating this action will be entered later." Off went
the re- corder and she added to Chapel, "I
hope. Christine, until further notice you wffl
serve as chief medical officer."
  "Yes, Lieutenant."
  In a small chamber somewhere within the main temple,
Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Carver lay
stretched out on a huge slumber platform. It was
neither as spacious nor as lavishly furnished as their
former "slumber chamber." All four were groggy from
sleep.
  They were apparently alone in the tiny, dark room.
There was little light, but it wasn't dark enough to prevent
each man from seeing that his companions had aged even
further in the last hour.
  McCoy's hair was now almost pure white,
while
  Spock's eyebrows were salted with gray. There were
deeper lines in Kirk's face, heavy pouches under
his eyes. He rolled over on his side and studied
the room. "They've gone."
  "Yes," agreed Spock. Experimentally, he
stood, testing his aged muscles. Kirk and Carver
imitated him. Spock walked over and gestured at
McCoy's waist.
  "Your mediklt, Doctor. Does it contain
anything that might help us?"
  McCoy glanced down at the belt in
surprise. Sure enough, his compact medikit was still
strapped in place and seemed to be intact.
  "I wonder why they took everything else and let
me keep this?"
  "Perhaps because it cannot be used either as a weapon or for
communication, Doctor."
  "How would they know that?"
  "If their question to the device they call the Oyya was
phrased so as to only Indicate those instruments, then
the machine would, as is the nature of machines, not
volun- teer aditional information. We are lucky."
  "I have seen no evidence of practical medicine
here," the science officer contInued. "This entire
community of women is a most pecullar mixture
of the ancient and ul- tramodern. No doubt they
assume your kit contains oniy food supplements
or hygienic materials."
  "They'll be hygienic, all right!" McCoy
fumbled at his waist and pulled out a short, thick
cylinder with tiny stud- ded dials running down one
side. "Cortropine. It ought to help. It's a
powerful stimulant-but it make its demands later.
Not the safest stuff In the world to use."
  "There may not be a later if we don't
use it, Bones."
  Kirk slid off the platform. "I'll take the
first shot."
  McCoy administered a dose to the captain's
upper arm. Kirk rubbed at his tingiing bicep and
began to examine their prison in detail. McCoy
continued handing out doses of the fast-working drug
to Spock and then Carver. Kirk found the door,
tried it. Not surprisingly, it didn't budge.
A close examination of its edges revealed that it was
designed to open outward.
  "Locked," he offered unnecessarily.
McCoy placed the
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 103 cylinder
against his left arm and gave himself the final jolt.
He started to replace the cylinder in the open
medical pouch, but Spock stopped him. The science
officer began examining the kit's contents with
Interest. "What's this, Doctor?" He lifted a
thin piece of hinged metal from a plastic tube.
  "Portable surgical probe, Spock. The
tip's full of impul- sors and fragment
manipulators."
  "Good enough." Spock opened the instrument to its
full length and moved to the door. Kirk
stepped aside. In re- sponse to the captain's
unvoiced question, Spock gestured at the door with the
probe. "This appears to be a magnetic seal.
If so, the slight output of the doctor's probe
may be sufficient to disrupt the locking field."
  He selected a narrow tip and inserted its slim
prong into the nearly flush join of door and wall.
Moving it up from the floor slowly, it rose until
clicking agalnst some- thing set at eye level.
Spock lifted an eyebrow In satisfac-
tion. He activated the tiny power supply.
  Nothing happened.
  Manipulating it carefully, occasionally
activating an- other setting, he turned and poked
the lmpulsor prong back and forth against the lock.
  There was no snap, no sound at all. The door
panel moved away quietly, just far enough to let them
squeeze out of the room. Spock gave the probe
back to McCoy who carefully refolded it and
replaced it in its receptacle in the medikit.
They might have occasion to use it again. Spock led the
way with Kirk and the others close be- hind. A
surprisingiy short walk down the narrow corridor
and they came to a thin curtain backed with brilliant
light Kirk edged ahead of Spock and
glanced carefully around one edge of the thin fabric.
They were back at the audience chamber. The enormous
room was deserted. Putting finger to lips he led them
forward, heading as guicklv as he could for the main
entrance. The main en- trnnce? Kirk had a
disquieting thought.
  The doors had appeared to be automatic when they
first j tilde tered. If they weren't, the four men
would have had a terrible time trying to move them manually,
even at full strength. He needn't have worried.
  When they were less than two meters from the towering
stonestmetal, the thick doors began to swing aside.
Ouietly they moved down the outer steps.
  TheeIa chose that moment to enter the audience cham-
ber from a side corridor. She spotted them just as
the doors began to close behind the fugitives.
  "Assistance, assistance!"
  Already the four old men were in the garden that sur-
rounded the temple. It was delicate, tasteful,
maintalned like a fine ciock. However now the
polished t1:ees, the neatly pruned bushes,
all looked threatening and ahen. Shortly they found
themselves breathing with increasing difficulty. The
cortropine was beginning to wear off even sooner than
Kirk had hoped.
  "It's our aged bodies, Jim," gasped
McCoy. "The drug is less effectlve because it
has so much less to work with." They were losing strength
rapidly. Already Spock had to assist McCoy.
Kirk found himself searching desperately for a cave,
an easily cllmbable tree, any place that could
serve as a temporary refuge. But the only
asylum in sight was a huge urn magnificently
inlaid with ceramic mosaic. He gagged, cleared his
throat. "The big urn, it's the only place!"
Then he turned to McCoy.
  "Bones, another dose of the drug." McCoy
shook a withered hand.
  "Another shot in our present condition would be
fatal, Jim. Even if I had it."
  They hurried to the base of the urn. The curving
upper edge seemed to tower over their heads, the smooth
convex sides an insurmountable barner.
  "I think I can make it," was all Spock said.
He backed off a few steps, took a short
run, leaped, and managed to catch one of the big
projecting handles near the top. He struggled and
succeeded In pulling himself up to a sitting position
on the outthrust handle.
  A quick glance showed that the interior of the
urn was spacious, relatively clean-and empty.
It was covered with a heavy metal grid, but they should be
able to move that. He locked his legs tightly around
the handle and reached down.
  With the others helping from below he was able to get
  STAR TREK tOG TWO 105 McCoy
alongside. They had to hurry. Already the women were
racing Into the first trees, splitting up to cover the
many paths.
  Theeia noticed a tiny flash of red that was part of
no plant. She moved closer and saw it was a
piece of torn fabric. Reaching down, she picked
it free. No question, it was from one of the alien male's
uniforms.
  Turning, she cupped her hands and-yelled. "Over
here, this way!" Without wait+ to see if her
comrades had heard, she started up the path that curved
"round the bush. Long strides ate distance quickly-and
time. Once, she glanced at the sky. It was growing
dark. A typically sudden Taurean storm was coming.
The rain could ald the escape of the men. She would have
to hurry. Carver was lowered carefully into the urn.
McCoy was let down next. Ouickly Kirk
helped lower Spock into the waiting hands of McCoy
and the security guard. Then only Kirk was
left on top. He unhitched his legs from around the
bracing handle and started forward, grab- bing for the lip
of the rim-he grabbed and missed. His fingers slipped
on the slick surface. For a horrible moment he
found iiimself sliding helplessly down the smooth
por- celain.
  Only a last, desperate grab enabled him
to cluteh the projecting handle. A supreme
physical effort brought him back onto the top of the
urn.
  "Captain, are you all right?" came Carver's
concerned voice. Kirk couldn't spare the wind for a
reply. He felt at least a thousand years old.
  He made another, more careful approach to the
open- ing. This time both hands got a firm grip
on the rim. Pull- ing painfully and scrambling with
his knees, he tried to pull hirnself up and
over.
  A sound came to his ears-the sound of running
feet, getting closer. That was sufficient to spark a
redoubled ef- fort. A final, agonizing pull which
ciosed the heavy grid over the openin tilde and he
fell headfirst into the urn. Spock and Carver barely
retained enough strength to keep him from smashing Into the
unyielding bottom. Darah and two
other-women came Into the small glade, searching every
direction. There was no sunlight left
  in the gathering darkness to throw an accusing glare off
the polished ceramic. The three separated and moved
off In different directions.
  Feeling more alone than he'd felt in his life,
Kirk stood inside the urn and listened to voices and
footsteps moving back and forth outside the urn.
  "They're not here, Theela," one voice
exclaimed. The leader's reply came quickly.
  "Come, they might have tried to return to the spot
where they arrived!" Footfalls and voices faded
Into dis- tance.
  Inside the urn the officers exchanged relieved
glances. That was when Kirk, the temporary respite
restoring a bit of his normal alertness, noticed
something: "Our headbands, look at them!" Sure
enough, the once brilliant blue gems set In the
hellish headbands were now only dull, faceted
rocks. They no longer fluoresced with some alien
Internal heat. The men inspected ofie another
carefully. Not one of the headbands showed -- a hint of
light
  Spock had puzzled over the phenomenon of the
glowing gems since he had first become
aware of them. He'd formed a theory, and the present
absence of light seemed to confin it
  "I've noticed that the glow diminishes when the
women are not present. I believe," he continued,
his voice but not his words emotionless, "that they are
polarieed conductors of soii tilde tilde
sort' which transfer our vital energy to their
bodies.
  "Life-force feeders?" queried a doubtfui
McCoy. "Among some primitive parasitic
species it's been noted, yes, but here . . . ?"
He looked faintly sick. Spock nodded. "That
is the explanation I can think of which ties our
advanced-no, enforced-aging to these devices." He
tapped his own headband.
  "You may also recall, Doctor, that when we first
en- countered them, these women appeared slow-moving and
listless. But as our own strength has failed, they have
be- come far more energetic and vital."
  "More alive," murmured McCoy. "Yes, I
see it now. Stupid of me not to see it before. How
stupid!"
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 107 "Do not
blame yourself, Doctor. You are in a far more weakened
condition than I. Your powers of observation
have decreased commen"...urate with your physical
decline."
  Kirk looked thoughtful. "If they find us,
Spock, how much longer would we have?"
  "It is impossible to tell for certain without a
tricorder or medical computer to confirm,
Captain, but we seem to be aging roughly ten years
per day. More in the presence of the women. This is, of
course, only a guess."
  No one said anything. No one needed to. Not after
McCoy voiced the feelings of all of them In a
single, taut sentence.
  "Ten years per-in four days we'll all be
dead!" "Dead," Kirk nodded angrily, "and
useless to them. Not that they'll care. TheeIa said the
other men of the En- lerprise wonld join us. They
be lured, drawn down here by the probe and the pull of
their own imaginations. "We've got to contact the ship
somehow. We must comget to a communicator." Kirk
put a hand against the hard concave walls and made a
testing leap for the rim. He came closand, but the
effort exhausted him so much that he nearly
collapsed. Obviously no one was going to make it
out of their hiding place without the help of the others.
"I've retained more strength than any of
you," said Spock, stating the obvious. Carver might
have disputed him, but chose not to. "My internal
system is different, Captain, my life cycle
longer. It would be wiser if I go alone to the
temple to try and find the communicators and contact
the ship."
  Kirk found himself reluctantly agreeing. "One
man would stand a better chance of slipping past them
than four. Stffl-was
  "It is the only logical thing to do, Captain."
  Kirk hesitated, searching for a better way.
There was no route around the obvious, however.
  It took the combined remaining strength of Carver and
Kirk to lift Spock unffl he could grip the
outer rim and push aside the grid. McCoy was
too weak to offer other than moral support.
Somehow Spock maintained his grasp, pulled himself
up (pushing the grid back In place
  50 that the others would escape tilde detection)
and over the top.
  Panting heavily, Spock rested there and
surveyed the giade. No one was in sight, for which he
was thankful- though he wouldn't have objected, say,
to the sudden ap- pearance of a heavily armed Vulcan
peaceforcer car. It took more of his fading
reserves to lower himseff safely and carefully to the
ground. No logic in escaping their refuge only
to break a leg in climbing down. Moving as
rapidly as he dared and trying to keep under cover
all the way, he headed for the temple. Once a
pair of giantesses crossed close in front of
him and he was forced to crouch under a bush whose waxy red
blossoms he admired more for their concealing size than
for their color.
  At least the Taureans didn't appear to have an
extraor- dinary sense of smell.
  Once again it occurred to him that they seemed In no
way up to creating the incredibly advanced sensory
equip- ment which had been used on the men of the
tilde Enterpnse. There was only one explanation:
forgotten knowledge was at work on this world.
  Spock made it to the temple without further
incident. Fortunately the doors were still open.
Obviously this was the last place they expected the
refugees to return to. The urge to dash inside
was overpowering, but he paused long enough to peer
cautiously around one huge marblellke pil- lar.
Nothing moved in the vast audience hall. The
corridors branching off from the main chamber also
seemed to be deserted. All the women were
outside, hunting them. Hunting him.
  A search of the first, luxurious slumber chamber
pro- duced nothing, not a single piece of their
missing equip- ment. A thorough inspection of the
central dais from which TheeIa had greeted them
proved equally fruitless. There were plenty of
Interesting devices around, but none of starfleet
issue.
  He was getting desperate when he passed the
blue cur- tain concealing the Oyya.
  If the machine possessed some kInd of interual
alarm
  STAR TREK LOG TW0 109 system
to warn of unauthorized users, he'd give himself
away. But they had to have a communicator!
  He thought, then hummed what he hoped was the right
note. The curtain didn't move. He didn't
think it would shift aside manually. It was made of
metal, not fabric, and looked heavy. He tried
again, still with no effect. But the third whistle seemed
to catch the pitch of Theeia's voice precisely.
Somewhere an ancient piece of machinery agreed. The
azure screen slid aside, revealing a now
transparent, empty cube. The Oyya.
  He hesitated. Would it respond
to his voice? But Theeia had spoken to it In
terrangio and as much as offered them a chance to try it.
  Answer any question, would it?
  "The equipment belonging to the men of the Enter-
prise," he asked fitily, "where is it?"
  There was no blur of shifting mists in the cube,
no in- comprehensible alien visual static. One
moment the cube was as transparent as a block of
lucite, the next it showed a thre tilde
dimensionai miniature of a familiar object-the
dais at thefar end of the audience chamber. With one
difference. There was a panel set into the left side
of the platform's base, and it was open in the mInia-
ture. Spock wouldn't have known how to replace the
cur- tain even if he'd wanted to. Anyway,
he didn't have time. He rushed to the dais.
  A minute of frantic exploration around the
paneled area revealed a large button set into the
metal. He pressed it and the panel cover slid
obediently aside, revealing the priceless treasure
within.
  Tricorders, phasers, rechargers-all their
missing equl tilde ment was there. He fumbled first
for a communicator, frowning when a first grab missed
badly. His vision was becoming weaker.
  A second try, and the compact instrument was
firrrLI-YOU in hand. He flipped it open.
  "Spock to Enterprise." At that moment he
felt rather than saw the crystal in his headband begin
to brighten There was some residual heat put out by it after
all. As the glow intensified h tilde swayed,
suddenly dizzy. Was he
  too weak even to talk anymore? Had he even
uttered the call?
  Uhura's voice echoed back from the orbiting
heaven of the starship.
  "Enterprise ... Lieutenant Uhura here!
Spock, is that you? Spock!" He glanced toward
the front of the cham- ber. There were footsteps.
  Several glantesses were just coming through the doors.
Apparently they'd failed to locate Kirk,
McCoy, and Car- ver and were returning to ask aid
of the Oyya. They saw Spock. One shouted and they
began to run forwarand He tried to shake hiii tilde
elf and spoke rapidly Into the commu- nicator.
  "Request rescue party-all female,
emphasize, all fe- male!" "Repeat," he
added desperately, summoning his remaining strength.
The room was starting to spin. "All female pa....
a...."
  His knees buckled like soft cheese and he
slumped tO -- the stone floor. The women
encircled him.
  VIII
  Uhura was shouting into the communications grid.
"Spock ... Spock... acknowledge! We read
you, Mr. Spock, come in!" Dead sound hummed
back through the grid. She stepped back, her niind
whirling. "Nothing. No, not quite nothIng." She
activated another switch and spoke again.
  "Security Officer Davidson."
  "Davidson speaking," came the prompt
reply. "Uhura here, Davidson. I want
four of your best women in the transporter room
double-quick. Use the ones afready there if you think they
can handle it. Fully armed. Laser cannon, if
they can manage it."
  "Yes m'am!" Davidson responded
enthusiastically.
  STAR TREK LOG TW0 111 uhura
left a bemused Scott-he was humming and bawling
something in Welsh now-and headed for the eie- tilde
ator. Chapel went with her, aiming for a different
level. Moments later she reached the transporter
room. Subcngineer Lewis-Chief
Transporter Engineer Kyle being as
Incapacitated as any other man on board-was
In charge.
  Chapel arrived shortly thereafter equipped with
full medikit and tricorder. The four security
girls were equipped with somewhat less benign
instruments. No can- non, but Uhura didn't
complain. The four were loaded with enough hardware to make
themselves sufficiently im- polite.
  "Transport stations, people. Let's go." She was
the first one into the alcove.
  Subengineer Lewis outdid herself. They
materialized in- side the temple, at the far end
of the audience chamber. There was barely time to orient
themselves. Theeia and the other women were waiting at the other
end. The sumptuous settings of the temple interior
and occa- sional strahge alien artifacts
didn't bother them. They'd all (especially
Uhura) been on far more alien worlds, in far more
upsetting surroundings. Starfleet security
personnel were tralned to fight by battling their way
through robotic recreations of their own worst
nightmares
  What did surprise them was the size of TheeIa
and the others. Women they'd expected, but not
giants. Uhura's right hand strayed toward her
hip. One burst from the heavy duty phaser strapped
there would cut the biggest of them down to size.
  The giantesses were gathered around a large
transparent cube set into one wall. Apparently
the Enterprise security team had arrived just in time
to upset some sort of cer tilde mony connected with the
cube. Certainly the giant women must have been
surprised at the sudden appearance of the landing party, but
they covered themselves well. "Greetings," said the
largest of them finally, stepping forward. "I am
Theeia, head female of this compound."
  If this gesture was supposed to be conciliatory,
it failed. Nor was it Intimidating. tilde
tilde Uhura took a step toward the big- ger
woman.
  "Lieutenant Uhura of the starship Enterprise,
head fe- male of this bunch of party crashers.
We're here to locate Captain James Kirk and
three other fellow crewmen. I have reason
to believe they've been treated with something less than
total hospitality by you and your friends."
  TheeIa seemed ready with an answer, but seemed
to de- cide that Uhura wasn't about to be bluffed
or stalled. "Re- turn to your ship," she
sald coldly. "You are not wanted here."
  "Not until we find Captain Kirk and our
friends."
  TheeIa motioned to the other women and they started ad-
vancmg on the little knot of terran females.
"Phasers on stun!" Uhura shouted. "Fire!"
To their credit, none of the women halted their charge.
Their courage didn't do them any good. One by one,
the stopped-down phaser beams hit them and they
dropped to the floor. One got close enough to grab
Chapel in a not-so- delicate hand and lift her off
the floor before a guard's phaser brought the huge
attacker down. Chapel-was more stunned than
hurt.
  They left the giantesses like that, their nervous
systems temporarily sbort tilde rcuited.
Uhura moved toward TheeIa, prodded her flrmly
In the side with a foot. She klcked a littie
harder.
  Satisfied that the other wasn't faking, and a
littffence upset at herself for the pleasure she was
deriving from booting the unconscious woman, she
stepped back. Big they might be, but they
possessed no supernormal resistive powers.
She gave orders to the waiting group.
"Search this pffac tilde parties of two.
Christine, you come with me." The security teams
immediately split up, taking three corridors
atatime.
  In a tiny side chamber, Spock lay in
darkness on a thin bench of uuresilient stone. His
hidden face was drawn, the lines in it deeper now.
But his eyes were open and his breath was constant, if
unsteady.
  Voices, were those voices? It took a
tremendous effort just to raise his head from the stone.
Then... "No sign of them anywhere. Keep
looking."
  That was definitely Uhura! And Nurse
Chapel was there, too.
  STAR TREK L0Go TWG 113 He
tried to yell, failed. His body had grown too
weak. That left him with one last possibility.
Lift+ his head higher, his eyes narrowed with effort
as he stared toward the door.
  Uhura and Chapel found themselves moving down a
high, featureless corridor when Chapel suddenly
paused. She looked like someone had just hit her with a
sockful of wet sand. There was a voice, Spock's
voice! But it was in her mind.
  nurse chapel... ....... chapel...?"
  "What is it, Christine?" asked Uhura.
Chapel looked bewildered.
  "I thought... I heard Spock's voice. But
I guess-was ..... CHRISTINE..."
  There was no mistaking that mental shout! She found
her eyes turning frantically to a seemingiy blank
section of wall. "It is Spock! But how? Of
course, Vulcan mind pro- jection. It has
to be!"
  She moved to stand close to a section of the wall.
A quick inspection revealed no hint of latch,
knob, dial, or even a seam. She started running
her fingers carefully along the dark metal.
  "There must be a hidden catch here, somewhere ... there
must be!" Uhura joined her in the hunt.
Rapidly the two women went over the smooth
surface. No, not com- pletely smooth ...
  It was Chapel who found the slight depression just
above her head and pressed Inward with her thumb. There
was a slight click and a tall, narrow panel
pivoted on its axis. They entered a dark room of
indeterminate size. The only light came from the
hallway they'd just left. But there was enough illumInation
to show them the long table. Spock lifted his
head once again and tried to speak. As he did so, the
light from the corridor struck his face.
  Chapel swayed. "Mr. Spock . . . to was
Uhura wanted to scream, but that would have been out of character
for an acting commander. Still, the calculated
suppositions of the medical computer hadn't prepared
her for anything like this.
  All she could do was ask Inanely, "What
happened?"
  Spock strained to reply but couldn't. He'd been
thor- oughly dralned. He leaned back and closed
his eyes, pass+ slowly from consciousness.
Involuntary Vulcan nerves had had enough. This
body needed rest. The effort required to generate the
successful mind contact with Chapel had exhausted
him.
  Uhura and Chapel could only exchange
expressions of horror.
  The urn stood silent in the darkening garden,
unno- ticed, uninspected. A strong breeze was
now nudging branches and flowers with ungentie force.
It seemed to lull for a minute, then return
suddenly as real wind, a lashing, tearing gale which
bent all but the thickest trees. Sculptured
lightning etched copper trails in the gray
sky, while alien thunder rolled and echoed back from
dis- tant unseen hills. Rain began to fall,
slowly at first, fat drops spotting the ground in
hesitant, exploring patterns. Seconds later
the storm turned into a raging downpour that would have shamed
any tropical rainforest on Earth. Now the reason
for the slight downward slant of the gar- den and temple
grounds became obvious. Streams, rivers of
runoff vanished down camouflaged, neatly screened
holes and into a complex drainage system.
  The wind leveled off and blew steadily from the
north, but the rain increased, became a torrent, a
cataract, falling in solid waves from the clouds.
It was a typical Taurean storm, but it would have
appalled any terran weatherman. Kirk,
McCoy, and Carver had been lying weakly in the
bottom of the urn. Now they found themselves forced to stand as
the downpour drenched them unmercifully. The slick
sides of the urn provided capricious support.
Each drop seemed to raise the water level In the
urn by millimeters. It rose with shocking, alarming
speed. And the storm showed no signs of abating.
  "We've got to get out of this," Kirk mumbled.
The sound of his aged voice barely rose over the
splash of a- cumulating water. Slowly,
painfully, Carver struggled to lift Kirk toward the
lid of the urn. But their faded strength proved
unequal to the task. And the slippery con-
  STAR TREK L0Go TW0 tilde ex
walls were unclimbable. They tried again and agaiiLike
Again and again Kirk slipped back.
  There was nothing but to keep trying, to no avail.
Ordi- nnriiy, their situation wouldn't have been so
desperate. Even if they couldn't reach the top all
they had to do was tread water until the rising level
carried them up. But in their severely weakened
condition, such a constant effort might be beyond them.
  Even if they did somehow manage to stay afloat
all that time In the cramped quarters, it was doubtful
any of them would have the strength to slide aside the
heavy metal grid covering the top. They might
hold onto the grid, press their faces partway
through to keep breathing but eventually their grip would
weaken, slip, and one by one they'd sink quietly beneath
the surface.
  Chapel transported back to the ship with Spock
and im- mediately moved the first officer down
to Sick Bay. Chapel hoped that just getting him off
the planet might to "eip. Initial sensor
readings seemed to confirm her hopes, m
part. His strength was coming back, but it was still the strength
of an old man. His eyes remained closed.
Chapel had been fooling with the headband endrcling the first
officer's forehead for what seemed like hours.
Eventually she'd given up hope of finding a
catch. Praying there was nothing automatic In it that
would explode on release, she went to work with a
surgical laser. The carefully controlled light
removed it neatly. Settm tilde g the metal
circiet aside she prepared a premeasured
miec- tion. The aged body didn't reject the
strong medication. She'd been very careful gauging the
amount of stimulant No one on the ship was used
to programming dosages for an old person.
  Removing the spray hypo from Spock's arm, she
set it aside and sat back to watch him. After a
few ntinutes the eyelids fluttered, opened.
  "Mr. Spock ...?" His head turned. He'd
grown no younger, no more supple, but at least he could
talk now. "Instruct female engineer," he
coughed, waited till the fit had passed and began
agaIn, more confidently. "In- struct female
engineer to divert ship's energy to block
  probe. Use electromagnetic
deflectors. Computer will cali- brate
probe frequency... block..."
  Chapel shook her head slowly. "We tried that,
Mr. Spock. It didn't work."
  Spock shook his head violently, found the effort
neariy blacked him out.
  "Don't use normal deflector energies."
His voice was growing stronger as the drug raced through his
system. "Divert all ship's power into shield.
Everything but mini- mum life-support." His eyes
closed but he forced them back open and extended a
shaky, withered hand. "Hurry, Christine." She
nodded obediently and turned toward the intercom.
  "Get me engineer Sco-was She stopped in
midphrase. Chief Engineer Scott was in no
condition to program a coffee pot, much less handle
complete realignment of the Enterprise's
generators. "Get me SubengIneer Hondo
McDuff."
  She nodded with satisfaction. McDuff would
handle the complete readjustment of forces with eas
tilde if In her ea- gerness to satisfy everyone
she didn't blow up the ship first.
  The women regained consciousness slowly. There was
no moaning, no groans at the tingling aftereffects
of the phasers.
  Theeia, the strongest of the group, was already on her
feet. Her Initial antagonism had gone. She
showed no de- sire to challenge even a tickling
phaser effect again. Instead, she retreated against the
central dais and watched Uhura.
  The object of her attention waited until enough of the
other giantesses had recovered to make the
demonstration worthwhile. She reset her phaser
while searching around the room, settled on a
good-sized, cube-shaped table, and fired.
  The blinding phaser beam struck it with
impressive force and the solid construct of stone and
metal fused into a tiny lump of glowing slag. There
was a concerted gasp of horror from Theeia and the other
women. Uhura's voice had taken on a new
Intensity, too.
  STAR TREK LOG TW0 117 "Release
Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, and Ensign
Carver immediately, or we'll melt your temple down
into a pink puddle!" She raised the phaser
slightly. "But first, maybe we'll start on
you-piece by piece."
  Theeia didn't reply ... just stood and looked
defiant Trying to exhibit a casuainess she
didn't feel, Uhura shrugged and raised
her phaser the rest of the way, point- ing it at a
nearby, beautifully worked stone column. Theeia
wavered, and a restraining hand gestured hurriedly.
"Walt! No more destruction. I do not know where your
people are-was Uhura's finger tightened on the trigger, and
TheeIa's tone grew frantic.
  "It's true! They escaped, but wait and I shall
find them for you. I was about to do so when you appeared."
  She left the dais and once again approached the
transparent shape of the Oyya. The note was hummed
and the machine activated.
  "I will Jind your men for you. But first learn of us
and the reasons for our actions."
  "I could care l tilde was Uhura began, but
TheeIa was al- ready speaking to the cube.
  "The past-reveal it."
  Uhura tried to appear unimpressed as a
lifelike minia- ture of a handsome man appeared in
the cube. The detail was unbelievable. The man's
hair was short, green, and done up in ringlets.
Standing beside him a second later was an equally
attractive woman, also with hair of green. "This
is the race from whom we are descended," Theeia
informed Uhura. "They came to this world which you call
Taurus when their home world began to die."
She gestured around at the silent hall.
  "They built this temple and all surrounding it-the
au- tomatic food machinery, the gardens, the
underground re- cycling systems ... everything." The
image In the cube blurred, then slowly cleared
again to revel the man stand- ing alone.
  He was changed, shrunken now, old and
white-haired and hunchbacked. TheeIa's voice was
sad. "They did not know that radiations on this world
drain the life-energy from a body.
  "But the women developed a glandular secretion which
  partly enabled them to withstand these debilitating
effects. it also gave them the ability
to manipulate, through spe- cial devices and a
certain local mineral, the now weakened male-to
draw life-energy from them to replace what the
radiations stole.
  "So in learning how to resist this planet's
life-hunger, they acquired that same need. In
drawing on the life force of the men, they caused them
to age and die. We are the daughters of those first
women. They built the Lura- mag, which draws
new men to us, the Oyya, and they de- signed the
focusing headbands."
  As TheeIa continued with her tragic
history, rain con- tinued to falLike Most
particularly it continued to fall into a certain large
lump of pottery, in which Kirk and the others splashed
weakly, half floating now, their toes bouncing off
the bottom. Uhura, as she listened to TheeIa, had
no way of knowing how close Kirk, McCoy, and
Carver were to drowning.
  "To maintain our long life," TheeIa was saying,
"we must revive ourselves this way every twenty-seven
years of your time."
  Darah broke in unhappily, "We are
eternal prisoners of this need, which we did not ask
for. We age very slowly. Our damning immortality
has also cost us the ability to bear children. The necessary
organs are still there, but they do not function. A
by-product of our increased life." Uhura
didn't have to ask how they knew this. "Why don't you
just live out your normal life spans?" asked one
of the security guards.
  "We have no weapons here, no way to destroy the
Lura-mag. And when the men eventually arrive," she
hes- itated, "we are afraid. We have no wish
to be murdered as monsters. We have always feared this would
happen were we to confess what we have done."
  "So we follow the plan, and the cycle
continues."
  Uhura muttered to herself. These poor creatures
had never known any civilIzation but their own
pitifully con- fined fragment of history. They'd
never known any other way to react, never thought
to take the chance of asking for help.
  Sympathy later, she reminded herself. They were
wast-
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 119 ingrim
tilde comtiinewhichmightbepreeionstoan tilde
Kirk, McCoy, and Carver. How precious, she
didn't yet know. -- "That's all very interesting,"
she replied honestly. "Now, what about Captain
Kirk and his companions? If your fancy crystal
ball can locate them, why haven't you done it
already?"
  "We were about to," Theeia reminded, "but you
came." She turned to face the cube.
  "The men of the Enter tilde e who remain on our
world ... reveal them."
  An image began to form, sereened by plants and
vines. "The garden outside the temple," Theeia
informed them. The image blurred again, solldffied.
Then it was as if they were peering at some impossible
kind of moving cutaway drawing.
  They were looking inside the in Kirk, Mc:-YOU,
and Carver were bobbing inside, pawing at the water which
washed over and around them. Kirk and Carver had un-
steady grips on the grid covering the urn. Kirk
had a grip on McCoy, and his fingers slipped.
McCoy slid below the surface as the captain
made frantic flailing motions at the water,
struggling to reach hinLike
  "They're drowrdng!" Uhura exclaimed. She
turned to face Theeia and her hand tightened on the
trigger of the phaser. "Where are they? Take us there
now, or-was "The ceremonial urn in the far g
tilde adel" the giantess shout
  Drfving, unrelenting rain aoaked everything,
obscuring their sight for all but a few meters in
any directlo tilde The light was dim"
except when an occasional streak of light- ning
shouldered its way between the clouds and threw trees and
thick creepers into sharp relieLike
  Uhura and the security party followed Theeia through
the nightmarish storm, phasers drawn. Uhura
kept hers focused squarely on the center of the
giantess's back and stayed close on the big
woman's heels.
  Back in the temple she'd seemed
docile enough, but Uhura was taking no chances on
her disappearing sud- denly in the darkness. Let her
try sometifin tilde Without any warning from TheeIa
they burst into the open glade. The urn looked
innocuous enough, standing
  STAR TREK LOG TWO flrmly in the high
wind. No sign that there were three men floating
inside, their lives ebbing away with each passing
minute.
  "Phasers on third setting!" Uhura yelled
over the drum- ming raiiLike "Aim for the base!"
She was firing her own weapon as soon as she'd
given the order.
  The concerted low-powered energy from the flve phasers
struck the base of the ceramic container. Four broad
cracks appeared instantly. Water gushed out of the
urn as if from four spigots. The sudden release of
internal pressure was too muc1Like Cracks
multiplied, and the urn split apart.
  Kirk, McCoy, and Carver were washed out like wet
logs, tumbling and falling over pieces of broken
pottery down the slanted muddy ground. Uhura and the
other women from the Enterprise had shut off their
phasers and were rushing toward them even before the flow-of
water had subsided.
  Uhura's face twisted in pain when she saw
Kirk He'd aged even more than Mr. Spock.
And MeCoy- -- "My God-was she muttered,
ffipping her communicator open. "Uhura
to Enterprise. Subengineer Lewis, transport-
er room." The voice of the technician acting for
Chief Kyle shot down through the gray clouds.
  "Lewis here, Lieutenant."
  "Four to beam up, Lewis-and gently' Lewis,
gently. We've got some. .. sick people down here."
  "Yes, Lieutenant, I've seen Mr.
Spoc tilde his
  Uhura ffipped the communicator closed.
j*Tnsign Ta- daki, you're in charge. I'm
going up with the captain and Dr. McCoy. Vierne,
yeatilde u'll come with me. I'li send you back
down for Carver.
  "Excuse me, m'am," interrupted Tadaki,
"but what about her-and the others?" She gestured at the
silently watching Theeia,
  "If they don't give you any trouble, leave them
alone. But if they go near anything more modern than a
spoon, or get belligerent-shoot them."
  The medtables were waiting in the transporter roof
Nurse Chapel was somewhat prepared for the
experience of seeing Kirk and McCoy, but her
assistants were not
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 121 Nor was
Scott, who was assisting Lewis in the
transport- ing.
  "Mr. Spock's screen is working," he said in
answer to Uhura's unvoiced question. "The rest of the
men are recovered, except for some splittin'
headacheand Most of w would rather not discuss the whole
matter, Lieutenant Uhura."
  "Don't blame y6urself, Mr.
Scott," she replied. Iou were acting under an
irresistible outside compulsion."
  "I still feel a bft of an idiot," the chief
engineer gnufriend bled.
  "Far be ft for me to deny you the pleasure of
feeling like one," Uhura admitted. Scott
grinneggL
  Chapel was admonishing her stunned assistantLike
"You've seen old men before," she said with an assur-
ance she didn't feel, "get moving."
  Drugs and injections restored some strength to the
four aged men, but they remained as old as before.
Chapel ran test after test on them, took reading
after reading. It was a toss-up as to which
result was less depressing than the oth- ers.
  "No results, Captain," she finally had
to admit "The aging pr tilde (ce55 seems
to be the real thing, speeded up. I see no way
to reverse it I...'.. I've tried everything I can
think of. Perhaps Dr. McCoy-?" Her tone was
hopeful. McCoy's wasn't. "I can't imagine
anything you haven't already tried, Chapel." Dismayed
silence filled the exami- nation room.
  "I'm not ready for retirement," Kirk mumbled
No one laughed.
  Spock, who'd lain deep in thought ever since the
first injections had refreshed his mind, broke i
tilde "Perhaps the transporter is the key."
  "Key to what?" snapped McCoy testily.
  *"Our restoration. The transporter computer
automati- cally records the molecular
structure of everyone and ev- erything it handles.
Humanoid patterns are permanentiy recorded and
shifted to a special section of the library. It's
parts of the ship's security systems.
  "Think, gentiemeii; the records of our
original forms
  were re-recorded when we beamed down to the
planet."
  Kirk's face showed hope.
  "You think, Spock' that if we are transported
back to the surfaoe and then immediately brought back under
the patterns recorded previously, our former
bodies would be restored?"
  "Possibly, Captain. It has never been
tried before. The- oretically, a man could be
retransported back into his child's body, if the
pattern were available The danger- mental as well
as physical-has precluded experimenta- tion in
this areLike There would not be a second chance."
  "I'm not crazy about our chances right now," Kirk
re- plied. "If you think there's any chance at
all, Spock-was "There is a chance, Capt tilde
his
  Kirk leaned back on the table and spoke
to Uhura. "In- form Engineer Scott of our
plans and tell him we'll be back in
transporting as fast as," he grinned, "our wheels
willcarryus."
  "Idon't think much of this idea, sir," Scott
said when the details had been explained to hiiLike
  "Look at me, Mr. Scott," Kirk
ordered. "Every other attempt to restore our
original bodies has failed This may be
our only chance. You're absolved of all
responsibffity for tilde I"...ness my decision-mine
and Mr. Spock's and Car- ver's and Bones's.
We've got to try ft!"
  "All right, sir, I'll do my best"
  "You'll have to, Scotty."
  With the aid of Chapel's assistants the four men
were helped into the transporter alcove. McCoy was
unable to stand and had to sit on the transporter disks
"Go ahead, Mr. ScotLike"
  Scott resisted the urge to draw a deep
breath, drew the levers down. The man glittered,
faded and were gone. There was a beep from the
transporter console less than a minute later.
  "Weddare on the surface, Mr. Scott",
came Spock's voice. "Reprogram the computer
as indicated according to the previously recorded
patterns."
  Scott delicately shifted four new settings
into the trans- porter controLike The settings were
crucial and required matching the new patterns to the
old with no room, abso-
  STAR TREK LOG TWO 123 lutely no
room, for error. He checked it once, could have
checked it a dozen times more without being
completely satisfied.
  "All right, Mr. Spock. Here goes." He
began adjusting the proper dials and switches, his
eyes giued to one small unassuming gauge set in
the console under his right arm. "I heard them say this
has never been done before, Mr. Scott," Chapel
whispered. "What happens if it doesn't work, if
things don't match up right?"
  "If they're a llttie bit off, lass, just the
tiniest bit-hen the atomic structure of Captain
Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and
Carver will break up, dispers tilde scatter to ev-
ery corner of the universe. And not all the king's
horses nor all the king's men will ever put the
captain together again."
  There was an end to talking as Scott, using more care
than he ever had in a transport operation, slowly
brought the necessary levers upward. The familiar hum of
pattern integrati6n increased. Transporter
Chief Kyle had arrived and now food to Scott's
left, double-checking readouts. "So far so good,
Chief"
  Four outlines began to shimmer into view,
coalesee. "Fasy, easy.. .", Scott
murmured to himself. The outiines steadied,
started to take on color--comand suddenly began
to oscfflate violentiy.
  "Scott, we're losing them!" yelled Uhura
helplessly. Scott didn't reply, his hands working
faster on the con- trois. The four outiines
seemed to separate into sixteen tiny sections,
flutter still more wildly, and then reform into four shapes
again.
  The osciliation slowed, stopped. Now the humming
steadied, and the four outlines began to fill in once
more. "Coming up on zero mark," noted Kyle, on1
tilde a slight tremor in his voice hinting at
tenseness. ....... one ... mark!" Scott
slammed four levers down so hard it ap- peared
sure he'd shove them right through the console and into the
floor.
  Kirk blinked and iooked around- Uhura smiled
in re- lief.
  "You're more handsome than ever, all of you." They were
themselves agam tilde .
  Well, not quite.
  "That's very nice of you, Lieutenant," McCoy
replied, "but why is everyone staring at us?"
  "Yes, Scotty, aren't you going to beam us down?
It's time we figured out what that probe-was
He looked around and a puzzled expression came
over his face. "Say, that's odd, Mr. Spock,
have you noticed? The music has stopped."
  "Indeed it has, Captain. Most peculiar."
  Uhura felt like the girl who'd just stepped through the
looking glass. "what's going on here? Aren't you
glad to be back in your own bodies again?"
  Kirk looked at her strangely. "Back? I
don't remember having left mine anyplace, do
you, Bones?" McCoy shrugged, looked innocent.
  "I think I know what's happened," mused a
thoughtful Scott.
  "Well, I wish you'd tell me," pleaded a
badly confused Uhur tilde
  Scott turned to her. "It's simple, lass.
The captain, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and
Mr. Carver are once again as they were before they first
beamed down to the planet That not only includes their
youthful looks, it includes their original brain
patterns, which include memories. They've lost
some time-and experiences."
  "What's all this, Mr. Scott?" queried
liiirk, stepping off the platform. "Why the
delay?"
  "It's kind of complicated, Captain,"
began Scott. "We have some tapes from Spock's
tricorder, plus those from Dr. McCoy'seaeaand
Ensign Tadaki's, which ought to clear things up...
  It took only a few hours for the four
repatterned offi- cers to relive the experiences of the
past day. It was dif- ficult to get used to, but
the tapes didn't lie. McCoy didn't stay for
all of them. He had a number of questions of his own
to put to the medical computer. Bventuaily he handed
Kirk the results of his work. "Aren't you going
to handle it, Captain?" asked Uhura. "No,
Lieutenant. Besides, I think it might mean more coming
from you. I don't have any particular desire to go
  STILL-HRather ThEK LOG TWO 125 back
down to this particular world. Not if what happened to me
on those tapes really happeeaeaned. It was like watching
yourself acting out a bad dream.
  Uhura nodded sympathetically. "I understand,
Cap- tain." She turned and headed for the
transporter room. TheeIa, Darah, and the other
glantesses were overjoyed when Uhura announced the
results of Dr. McCoy's re- search. Not that
they were in any position to reject the of- fer, she
thought sardoulcally, but she had to admit that they accepted
it with what seemed like honest relief.
Theela led her to a large concealed room behind the
temple dais. It was dominated by a seated console
and an incredibly complex arrangement of cables,
glowing globes, and objects of unknown purpose.
The entire apparatus pulsed with internal radiance
and hinted of concealed power.
  "The Lura-mag," explained Theeia
solemnly. "tilde blessing and our curse."
Uhura drew her phaser and set it on high. But
before she could begin the work a huge palln came down
gentiy on her forea tilde She glanced up at
Theeia.
  "No, let me. It is my place."
  Uhura hesitated, but the look in the
giantess's eye seemed real, even anxious.
She harided over the phaser. Theeia could only fit
a fingernail over the trigger, but she managed the tiny
weapon wefl enough. In a few mo- ments the
Lura-mag had been reduced to a quletiy hissing
mound of molten plastic and metal. TheeIa turned
and quietly handed the phaser back to the watching
Uhur tilde "Teli Captain Kirk we have
kept our part of the agree- ment."
  Uhura nodded approvingly. In spite of herself,
she was beghming to feel sorry for these poor,
bloated creatures. "There are major medical
facilities on Kinshasa. We'll take you
there." She noticed that the other women had appeared in
the doorway and were watching expectantiy. "How
soon will we become as other humanoid women?"
asked TheeIa.
  "Dr. McCoy says it should only take a
few iiionths. The same modified estrogren that
increases your llfespans abnormally is also
responsible for your exceptional size, it
  seems. Certain operations are possible... bone
reduction, for example, to partially correct this.
You'll still be unusu- ally tall, but the differences
will be more manageable."
  A new life-a normal life-perhaps love."
She smiled down at Uhura, who didn't know
whether to cry or throw up. "There are many different
kinds of immortality."
  That expression, at least, Uhura could
empathize witIL
  As expected, McCoy's declaration that the
Taurean women would be able to lead a normal life
was somewhat optimistic. The arrival of the dozen
spectacular beauties on Kinshasa created something
of a sensation. Their re- eeption at the
Federation Fleet Hospital was rather differ- ent from that
normally reserved for sick aliens. The doctors
professed they were only interested in studying the
endocrine irregularity that seemed to prolong
life-but Kirk suspected that more than scientfflc
curiosity motivated the male portion of the staff.
  In any case, it looked like the Taureans were
comgoing to have few troubles gaining acceptance m the
Federation. They might be regarded as a challenge, it
seemed, but not a threat.
  THE
  INFINITE VULCAN
  (adapted from a script by Walter Koenig)
  IX
  "Captain's log, stardate 5503.1.
Escort of the Carson's World/bcthulia ore
shipment having been assigned to other vesseis, the
Enterprise has been ordered to survey a new
planet recentiy discovered at the
Federation-Galactic fringe."
  Kirk clicked off and stared at the fore
viewscreen. The journey out from Kinshasa had been
peaceful and uneventful. Now an Earth-type
worid with a normal scat- tering ot clouds, seas,
and brownish land masses filled the screen.
  He wasn't surprised Starfleet Command had
diverted the Enterprise from escort to survey
duty. The discovery of a potentially colonizable
unclalmed worid took prec- edence over any but
the direst emergency. It was inter- esting, pleasant
duty. And if Vice-Admiral van Leeuwen-
hook had pulied a few strings to get the
Enterprise the choice assignruent, well, it was
only a reward for a job well done.
  It was imperative to make an official survey
and lay claim to the world quickly-before the KI-INGONS,
say, or the Romulans discovered it. Inhabitable
worlds were not all that common, and competition for expansion
was fierce.
  Furthermore, this globe seemed to be a real
prize to the astronomers using the Moana
predictor. Not only did pre- liniinary
orbital scans insist it was inhabitable, it checked
out as downright lush-a garden wori tilde
  Everything seemed to point to a choice discovery, just
waiting for her first load of Federation
settiers-until Sulu's surface probes
located the city.
  "Inhabitants, Mr. Sulu?" That would be the
end of any colonization.
  Sulu's expression was uneertain. "No
intefflgent read- ing, sir. But it's hard to be
sure. There'g such an abun- dance of lower
life-plants and small animals-registering that ft
will take time to sort out any interngent forms. One
thing's certain, if it's a major metropolis,
ft sure isn't over- crowded."
  "I'd rather not wait for sec6ndary analysis,
Mr. Sulu."
  Kirk rose from the command chair. "Mr. Spock,
Dr. McCoy. You'll accompany Mr. Suiu
and me on the land- ing party. Mr. Scott, you're
in charge."
  "Aye, sir."
  Kirk headed for the door. "Scotty, buzz
d5wn to secieatilde rity and have them send along a
couple of people to gO down with us. This kind of iif
tilde orm density implies the presence of
predators as well as grazers.
  "Yes, sir," Scott acknowledged as he slid
intO 4ie com- mand chair. The party of six
assembled in the transporter room with admirable
speed.
  "Put us down near the center of the city, Mr.
Kyle," Kirk instructed the
transporter chief. "If there are inhabi- tants
I want to meet them right away. It's always best
tO size up the local populace before the high
muckamucka come ruzng with official greetings."
  Kyle nodded. His hands moved on the confrois
tilde
  The city was magnitlcent
  Wide green spaces alteena tilde ted
witHave soaring angular structures that looked more like
idealized cathedrals than functional buildingand
Spires and glasslike towers were laced together with a
network of arching bridges and spunsugar roadways,
many fading to near invisibility in the bright sunlight
  The metropolis was constructed along glgantic
lines, ev- erything built to proportions four times
human scale. Yet it was a place of beauty and
grace.
  It was also dead.
  NO policeman panicked at their appearance.
No busy citizen halted in his daily stroll
to gawk at the alien magi-
  STAR ThEK LOG TWO 131 clans who
bad materialieed beside hiin. No curious crowds
gathered "round, and no one notified the local
president, chief, or leading hoolig
tilde
  Dead.
  Weeds, vtnes, and something like a thick
terresterial seaweed had made the city their own now.
Even the shin- iest, newest-looking structure was
clothed in a blanket of climbing greenery.
Greenery, and less wholesome looking plant life.
  They began walking toward what they estimated tO
be the center of the city. Sulu and Spock were busy
making continual tricorder readings.
  "Life readings are still confused, sir. I can't
sort them out, yet."
  "There is something else, Captain," added
Spock. "1am getting a sensor reading on some
form of generated power-was He looked around and after a
moment's search, pointed ahead. "From that building."
  "Let's check it out," said Kirk. He was at
once pleased and disappointed. Pleased that there seemed
to be no bar- riers to development of this worid, and
disappointed at the thought that the architects of this dream
city no longer ex- isted. They walked toward the
structure in question Sulu paused a moment, trying
to recalibrate his tricord- er to screen out another
identified low-life form. Then he frowned and
glanced skyward
  The sun glare blocked out his view of what? He
thought he'd heard a flapping sound, but they'd seen
no animals on this worid yet. When the dots
cleared from his eyes he looked again. The only sky
riders were ciouds. Hmph. He took a step after
the others, glanced down- ward as he set his foot-and
stopped. The tiny plant looked like a sporing
dandelion. Moving his tricorder close he took
a standard reading. Results were anything but. Unaware
of the fuss it was causing, the fuzzy, deli- cate
top of the plant qulvered slightly in a gentle
breeze. "Well, now, what's this?"
  The building the others were approaching appeared to be
well maintained. Surprisingly well, Kirk
thought. Per- haps the city wasn't as dead as it
looked. Here was one structure that the mosslike
growth and other climbing veg-
  etation hadn't encroached tilde Its front
walkway was clean, the window ports all intact and
throwing back the morfriend ingsunlight
  "Captain, Captain!"
  Kirk and the others whirled. Ush and Thgard, the
too security men, moved their hands toward their
weapons. "What is it, Mr. Sulu?"
  "You're going to have to decide for yourself,
sir." He had come up tO them. Now he stopped
and pointed to the ground near his feet Everyone looked
doe
  There was nothing there except some smooth gravel
set in a layer of earth-and a single fluffy, fuzzy
little growtIL Looked like a dandelion, Kirk
museggL
  "How long," he asked gently, "has it been
since you've had a long leave of duty,
Lieutenant? I thought Valeria was enough for anyone,
but-was
  "No, sir, really, look!"
  The helmsman took a couple of steps to one
side. There was a tiny popping sound like a foot
pulling out of mud as the fu tilde tilde raised
itself off the ground. It scurried on minia- ture
roots after Sulu. As soon as it reached his
side-how it could tell where it was was another mystery-the
root endings promptly made like a corkscrew and
burrowed contentedly into the earth.
  Kirk's stare was incredulous. If it wasn't so
undenlably alien, the fuzzy would be downright
funny.
  "What is that thing?"
  "It's an ambulatory plant When it
stops, it takes up new residence. The little
fellers are all over the place." He moved
back to his first position. The fuzzy popped,
skit- tered after him, and reeapeeaated the rooting
operation "I think it likes me.
  Kirk shook his head. "We alwaeaeays
encourage our officers to make friends with the natives.
  "I always did think your personality was kind of
wooden, Sulu," said McCoy idly.
  "miat's fighting dirty, old bean," the
heimsman coun- tered.
  "It's a good thing they're not intelligent,"
Kirk oh- served
  "captain," Spock broke in, looking up from
his tricord-
  er, "tilde dislike interrupting your amusing
byplay, but that power reading now gives evidence of
being an electronic probe of some sophistication
I believe we are being scanned"
  Kirk's phaser came out, and the others reacted
seconds later.
  "Phasers On stun-stay alert. Mr.
Suleaeau, Mr. Digard, stay here. Mr. Ush,
come with me, please.
  Kirk, McCoy, Spock, and the
second security inan moved toward the building.
Sulu watehed them go anx- iously. But when time
passed and nothing leaped out to blast the earth from under them,
he quickly lost interest He found his gaze dropping
down to the friendly fuzzy. Obeying an impuise, he
knelt and picked it up. "Ow!"
  Well, what-Friendly, indeed! He dropped the
plant quickly, shaking his finger to try and relieve the
pain. He examined the injured digit with concern. The
fuzzy, as if unaware that anything unusual had
taken place, burrowed back into the soil.
  Sulu mumbled to himself. "Must have been a thou Oh,
wells"
  The entrance had no solid door. Instead, the
opening doglegged to the left and out of sight Moving
cautiously, they edged around the U-shaped portal.
It opened without warning into a gigantic room.
  No, the room wasn't glgantic in itself. It was
just that it was built to the same four-times-human
scale as the city. Like the building's exterior, the
room was clean and or- derly. Lights on panels
and consoles flashed on and ofLike There was a constant
hum from powerful, hidden ma- chinery. It looked very
much like a laboratory. There was no longer a question about
the city being dead. Everything about the room
suggested constant, ev- eryday use. Speck
gestured toward a towering wall panel flecked with
odd-shaped switches and knobs. "The probe
originates in this instrument wall," he in- formed
them, checking his tricorder. "As does an incredi-
bly powerful force-field shield. I cannot imagine
the pur- pose of the wall instrumentation, but the presence
of the
  force field indicates that someone does not want
ft tam- pered with."
  There were several high shelves in the wall next
to the panel. The lower ones held, among other things,
a pile of alien yet stffl recognizable
cassettes filled with scrolls of tape. One
scroll cassette sat in a playback slot.
Spock puiled ft out and began examining it
closely. Nothing ap- peared to object to this sudden
manipulation of the cas- sctte.
  McCoy was busy with his inedical tricorder.
Suddenly he looked up in astonlshment
  "Jim! I'm picking up a humanoid
life-reading of incred- ible strength. It's as ff
ft-was
  "EEEYAAHJAH!"
  The agonized scream came from outside
the chamber. Readings, tapes, everyhing were forgotten as
they raced for the street Spock absentiy slipped the
cassette into a pocket
  Sulu was stretched out on the ground. His arms and
legs were splayed wide apart and rigid with
unnatural stiffness. NO one had to ask what was
wrong with him. He was almost totally paralyzed.
Only his eyes made frantic motions.
  Ensign Digard stood alert and gripped his
phaser tightly, hunting for some unseen enemy to use
it one McCoy swung his medical tricorder around
on his shoul- der and knelt beside the motionless helmsma
tilde "What happened?" he asked Digar tilde
  "I don't know, Doctor!" The guard's
voice was wild. "I didn't see a thing. I was
standing here, watching the en- trance you went into, when
Mr. Sulu just-screamed, all of a sudden, and fell
over."
  McCoy studied the first readings on the
tricorder. HI'S words were curt, clipped.
  "He's been poisoned. Some Innd of nerve
toxiiLike Com- position unknown, naturally."
  He nudged the tricorder aside and skillful
hands worked at the small containers in his belt
medikit. A nar- row tube was produced.
McCoy didn't even bother to roll up the
helmsman's shirt sleeve, simply jammed the
tube against his upper arnLike
  Pulling it away, McCoy proceeded to check a
tiny gauge set into the side of the metal pencil.
His frown deepened and he reset an all but
invisible dial below the indicator. Again he pressed
it to Sulu's arm, paused, and pulled It away.
A second check of the gauge and McCoy seemed
to slump slightly, shaking his head in frustration.
"Can you help him?" Kirk had to break the choking
silence.
  "I don't know, Jim, I don't know.
Blast! I can't get a correlation with any known
venom." He shrugged sadly. "Either they're too
alien to affect your system and they don't bother you
at all, or else you run up against something like this."
His head jerked towards Sulu. "Antidotes are
always found-after the first few autop- sies."
  Kirk tried to sound hopeful. "Maybe the
ship's medical computer can. . . ?"
  "Forget with the medical computer!" McCoy
snarled- "He's got two minutes to live, unless
I can find an an- swer." He muttered angrily
to himself.
  "Anaphase... synopmist... dylovene ...
maybe dy- lovene." The ineffectual tube was
returned to his belt and a slightly larger instrument
substituted. A quick adjust- ment of the hypo
setting and then It was applied to Sulu's other arm.
  There was a gentle hissing sound. McCoy pulled
the hypo away and waited. Atter a few seconds
he took an- other reading with the tricorder,
concentrating on the newly treated region.
  "No good, it's no good," he husked. "Soon
the venom will reach his vital organs. Dylovene
takes too much time to work... assuming it would work-was
  "Maybe a stronger dose," Kirk urged.
  "That won't be necessary," came a soft, pleasant
voice. A new voice was about the only thing that could
have turned their attention from Sulu at that moment They
spun to face the direction the voice had come from-the
entrance to the lahoratorylike building.
  Five beings stood there. Their only similarity
to man or Vuican was in the question of size. Beyond that
superfi- ciality, they were utterly aiieiLike
  Their heads-Kirk presumed those faintly oval
shapes tilde tcpping the rest of their bodies were
heads-were partly j covered with a fine furry
bristle. Two waving eyestalks -- were the
only visible projections. There was no hint of a --
mouth, ears, nose, or any other recognizable
external sense organ
  The bodies themselves were composed of a tight bunching of
slender, ropelike extensions, some of which seemed
to hang loosely at their sides like a long fringe.
Other extensions grouped tightly together near the
bottom before spreading out into a haphazard assortment
of bul- bous protuberances. Kirk guessed that these
served as mo- tive limbs for the creatures. This was
revealed as so when they started to approach the landing
party. Their color was an oclIer-yellow tilde
gree tilde not especially healthybledooking, but for
all Kirk knew, the local version of a good tan.
Perhaps they regarded Kirk's own fleshy- pink as a
sign that he was nearing the last stages of desiccation.
  Despite the complete strangeness of their
appearance, Kirk felt none of the revulsion toward
them that some more humanoid aliens could produce.
Maybe it-was their apparent passivity. They showed
no sign of caution or of the usual wary
belligerence.
  If anything, they seemed inherently peaceful.
They got another surprise when the leader of the group
spoke. Not only were the words inteffigl,
they were downright smoo tilde The tone was quiet,
reasoned. Resined, Kirk thought idly, wondering
at the ability of the human mind to make jokes in the
most untuuny situationand He noticed out of the
corner of an eye that Spock was taking a discreet
tricorder reading on their visitors. The first
officer's diplomacy might be ineffecal. The
aliens might be perceptive enough to tell what he was
doing. On the other hand, they might ignore Spock
if he walked three times "round their leader,
bumping hiin with the tri- corder.
  Stffl, as with any first contact, it didn't hurt
to be as tactful as possible. There were other things on
Kirk's mind at that moment, however, which made
attention to proto- col difficult Ali he could
blurt out was, "Who are you?"
  The being leading the groupwho was a little taller than his
four companlons-repiied softly.
  "I am called Agmar. I believe we can
help. Kirk nodded once and turned away from
him-if ft was a "him." He kept his voice low as
he murmured to Spock. "What are you getting on
them? Who are we dealing with here, Spock?"
  "A moment, please, Captain. Give me a
little time. The information I have thus far
obtained does not permit a reasonable answer yet"
He made an adjustment to the tricorder.
  Meanwhile the five aliens had moved to surround
the unmoving Sui'Like The leader, Agmar, bent over
the uncon- scious heimsmafriend--a smooth,
supple movement, like a reed bending with the wind.
  Jointiess, that explained it. Agmar and his
companions moved without the stiffness of human joints.
Hovering motionless over Sulu, the eyestalks
studied the prone form for several seconds. Then one
of the free- hanging limblike extensions moved out from
Agmar's side to exten less-than from over the
body. A drop of some viscous liquid was
extruded from the green tip.
  McCoy, who'd kept a watchful eye on the
whole se- quence, now felt obliged to step in.
  "Just a minute. I can't let you ... whatever you
a.... inject him with some-was he hesitated,
momentarily flus- tered, "comalien tree sap!"
  Agmar's reply took no notice of the implied
insult. Wro wait is to assure your friend's
death." A single eyestalk swiveled
independently, like a chamelcon's, to stare at
McCoy. "I must proceed."
  "Bones-was Kirk put a restraining hand
on the docto"...ness shoulder. "Let them help."
  "All right, Jim. But I don't like the whole
idea." He turned away and strolled over to where
Spock was still working with his tricorder.
  "An interesting discovery, Doctor. These beings
are of botanical origin."
  "Intelligent plants?"
  "So it would seem."
  The loose tentacle-dipped lower. With a gentle
touch,
  STAR TREK LOG TWO Aamar applied the
drop of golden liquid to the side of Sulu's
neck. Now both eyestalks turned to observe the
watching humans.
  "It is a powerful antidote, qeabbuickiy
absorbed. He should begin to respond momentarily.
  "Of course," suggested McCoy, stffl a little
miffed' "it's of a completely alien nature and may
not have any effect on him at all."
  "True, Doctor," Spock agreed, "yet the
same could be said of the poison which has so obviously
affected hinI. I see no reason why the
antidote should be rejected."
  "Thanks," was all Kirk Could think of to say
to the creature. It rose, repeating the
same supple movement "Welcome to the planet
Phylos."
  They certainly seemed friendly enough. A
fraternal greeting and a badly needed helping hand,
all in the first moments of contact. Still, he wasn't
quite ready to fall all over himself in an orgy of
backslapping. He'd been on too many worlds where the
obviously black had turned out at the last moment
to be white, to the detriment of the un- fortunate
caught in the color change.
  But until given a reason why, he would treat-the
Phy- Iosians as friends.
  "I'm Captain James Kirk- This is Mr.
Spock, my first officer; Dr. M.ddy..." He
went on to identify the rest of the landing party, including
the motionless Sulk "You seem to have been expecting
us, Agmar."
  A tentacle (linib?) fluttered in the direction
of the labo- ratory building.
  "Our instruments have scanned and tracked you since
your vessel first entered our space, Captain. We
had rea- sons for not revealing ourselves immediately to you.
But the injury tO your contpanion compelled us to shed
our hiding.
  "We are a peaceful people, and we have a
fear of aliens." The Phylosian spokesman
seemed to hesitate. "We have had unfortunate
meetings with such in the past" Kirk nodded understandingly,
glanced over at Spoc tilde Role reversal was
always difficult. They were the aliens, not the
Phylosians.
  There was a movement on the ground, and he found
  his attention drawn back to Sulu. The
helmsman was still prone, but no longer motionless. He
was starting to squirm like a man waking from a long
sleep. "What happened to him, anyway?" His touch
of profes- sional jealousy now long forgotten, a
curious McCoy spoke while kneeling near
Sulu and running his medical tricorder over the
helmsman's chest. Scientfflc interest had taken
over.
  "He was bitten by the Retlaw plant It is
deadly only If the wound is left unattended."
  "Mobile plants seem to be the rule onthis
world, ratlier than animals," Kirk observed,
hoping he wasn't treading on somcone's
religlon. But Agmar took no offense. "That is
so."
  "Your medication worked quickly."
  Agmar didn't shrug-he couldn't,
tilde avlng no shoul- ders-but Kirk felt he
could sense the equivalent "A minor achievement."
  "Minand achievement!" blurted MeCoy, looking
up in disbelief-from his tricorder readings. "I never
saw an anti- toxin work so fast I don't know
anything about your other sdences, but if this is a
"minor' sample of your med- ical
capabilities, I'd like to chat with some of your doe-
tors."
  "Doctors?" "Physicians-healers."
  "Ah," Agmar exclalineggL "Yes,
Doctor McCoy. I un- derstand now. But you must
realize that healing is not a specialized function
among my people."
  "Not special-was McCoy looked incredulous.
"You mean you're all doctors?"
  "Not in the way you inean, D6ctor McCoy.
But each has the ability to ... to repair a
number of damaged bodily functions. We will
talk of this more, later, if you wish."
  "I wish' I wish!" McCoy looked rather like the
little boy about to he let loose in the candy store. A
low moan from Sulu precluded further conversation.
  The heimsman's eyes were open, and he appeared
to be making motions of getting up.
MeCoy made another pass
  with the trlcorder. Then he looked up and nodd
tilde Amazement still tinged his words.
  "Something's destroying the poison left in his
blood- sfream, all right. Body functions are
running up to nor- mal. And I mean running."
He glanced at the Phylosian leader.
  "Look, Agmar. Agreed, if the poison
affects humans, a local antidote
conceivably might. Clearlyeaeadoes, in fact But
how could you be so sure it would work?
  "We could not be sure," the Phylosian replied
soffly. "But there have been humanoid aliens on
Phylos before. Besides, it was the Only chance left for
your friend."
  "Humanoid aliens who spoke our
language?" asked Spock.
  "Ah, you are curious as to our method of
translation and communication. The voder, a
mechanical translator."
  He reached into the folds of his central body
area. For a fleeting mOment Kirk expected him
to remove a mbuth. Instead, Aamar produced a
small, round, flat disk of inetal. When he
"spoke," his voice came from the center of the
disk. "Our natural organs of verbal
communication are qufte small. They require a
great deal of artificial amplification to be
effective any distance. The voder is completely
self-contained and most efficient for this purpose."
  "Most," agreed Spock, hoping for a chance
to take one of the unbelievably compact mstruments
apart Such charming exchanges of mutual admiration were
fine, Kirk reflected, but right now other things
concerned him more.
  "I like puzzles, Agmar, but I also like
answers. We were pretty convinced when we first set
down in your city that there was no one here. Then we find
you-or rather, you find us. Yet I find it hard
to believe that the few of you are the sole inhabitants
of this metropolis. We're not exactly standing in the
middle of a local desert Where are the rest of your
people?"
  "Your curiosity does your profession credit,
Captain Kirk, and it shall be satisfied. Come with us
and we wffl show you"
  Kirk looked down at Sulu. With McCoy's
help, lie was struggling to his feet.
  "How do you feel, Mr. Sulu."
  The heimsman blinked. tilde ....
I'm all right now, ....... I think. One moment
I was sucking my finger and the next-wham!" His voice
was that of a man wak- ing from a dream and finding it
reallty. "I felt like an incendiary grenadeeahad
gone off inside me."
  "Can you walk?
  "yes. I'm okay, sir." Sulu straightened
himself. "An right' thee" Kirk turned back tO
Agmar. "Let's
  comThe Phylosian turned-perliaps pivoted would
be more accurate-and ambled off in the direction of the
building next to the laboratory. His companIons,
none of whom had yet ventured a word, turned with
hiiiLike Kirk and the other bipeds folloeawed.
  "You sure you re all right, Sulu?" pressed
McCoy. "Fme, Docor." The navigation
officer even managed a slight smile. "Hard
to believe now that there was ever anytii tilde g
tilde vrong with me."
  McCoy shook his head and muttered to himself.
"Re- inarkable... crazy and remarkable..."
  "Yes," added Spock soffly. "How fortunate
for us that Agmar and his fellows were So close by."
  "You said it!" agreed McCoy fereeetiy.
Something scratched at his mind' and he gave
Spock an uncertain glance. But the science officer
gave no sign that his words meant anything but what they
sai'Like He speeded up to come alongside liiletter
tilde
  They entered the building, tiirning first through another
of the unbarred but mazelike entrances. Inside they
f6und themselves in a hall of titanic
proportions stretching end- lessly into the distance. The
metal walls rose to form a domed ceiling high
overhead. A skylight runing the whole length of the
enormous corridor was set into the curving roof.
  Agmar stopped. Kirk slowly turned a full
circle before returning his attention to the alien.
  "Well, where are your people, Agmar?"
  Instead of answering, Agmar went to a panel set
in one
  wall and depressed several hidden switches.
There was tile slightest hissing sound. One
security guard reached instinc- tively for his phaser
and looked properly abashed when no threat
materialized.
  A tall, high door slid aside in the nearest
sectffon of wall. Row upOn row of glasslike
cases, looking hke so many rectangular
diamonds, filled the revealed section.
No one noticed Sulu put a hand to his head, and
he covered the gesture of weakness quickly. McCoy
and Spock moved down the ranked glass caskets
while Kirk followed curiously. Agmar and his
four companions re- mained in place, watching.
Presumably this necrophII-IC display held
no surprises for them.
  The leader of the aliens gestured with a limb. There was
a hint of sadness in his voice.
  "Our people, Captaih Kirk"
  Each individual sarcophogus was nearly ten
meters high. A single gigantic body filled every
crystal coffin. And each Of the immobile fOrms
was covered from head to root with a covering of thick green
bristle. They had no recognizable heads, not even
of- the kind Agmar and his friends had. Instead, at the
top end of each shape was a mass that looked something
like an arti- choke. But under the bristle, Kirk and the
other crewmen could see that the actual bodies were
composed of the same furry ropellke extensions, also
bunching up tightly near the base and spreading out
into footlike protrusions. In this respect they were
identical to Agmar. And there were other resemblances
between the living Phylcsians and these embalined
giants.
  It was an impressive and rather chilling sight
Eventually Speck looked up from his tricorder.
"Nerve tissue mass is exceptionally high.
Readings indicate these beings- utilized almost
seventy percent of their brain ca- pacity-a very high
ratio."
  Kirk turned and looked back at Agmar.
"Your early ancestors."
  "No," replied the Phylosian, "only the
generation be- fore us." He bowed slightly.
  "Then what happened?" Kirk prodded. "I never
heard
  of such enormous physiological changes taking
place in such a short span of time."
  Agmar's voice was matter-of-fact
  "A human came to Phylos."

  Kirk hesitated. It was too late to back out
of the ques- tion now. "You mean a humanoid?"
  The eyestalks were angled directiy at him.
"tilde o, a hu- man-like you, Captain. You
remarked on the reaction of humans to the poisons and
antidotes of our world. Such things can operate both
ways, Captain James Kirk "The human, quite
unintentionally, brought sickness and death with
him-mostly death. But instead of run- ning away, of
taking ffight and leaving us, he remained and worked
to try and save us from the very disease he had carried."
  McCoy gestured with his medical "corder. "It
adds up, Jim." He nodded at the silent
sarcophogi. "The bodies all show evidence of
gram-positive bacteria. It's carried
by humanoids without ill eflect, but preliminary
readings taken when we first landed indicate that
Staphylococcus strains aren't native to this world.
It must have been like the worst plague imaginable."
  "We had no way of knowing what was destroying us,"
confirmed Agmar. "That, I think, was the most
horrible thing of all to our forebears."
  "Was," McCoy echoed. "You were alive then?"
"Very young we were and barely formed, but yes, we
remember that time."
  "Then how?.. ." Kirk paused. There was a new
sound in the room. He thought he'd heard it before,
somewhere. Something like wings flapping.
  There was a louder sound, and he looked upwards.
A
  STAR TREK too TWO rush Of air
slammed at his face tilde d he ducked instinc-
tively. He gOt the impression of
something streaking past just in front Of his nose.
  The creature didn't fly away. It reinained
hovering overhead, circling in the still air Of the
corridor. The in- truder "was a good twelve
feet long. It's segmented body was hinged in the
middle and the upper half would swing awkwardly from
side to side.
  DespIte the flapping sound' the beast had no
wings. In place of them, a pair of thick coils
protruded from the body. The creature dlpped
slightly and the coils confract- ed, kicking the
floating monster powerflly upwards once more. It
repeated this maneuver regularly.
  The constant contractions prOduced the flapping
sounds. Those coils looked taut as steel and
reminded Kirk of something much less benign than a
bird's wings. "Plant life, Captain,"
Spock informed him. "If there are animals here they
are surely scarce. These creatures ap- pear
both primitive and aggressive."
  Abruptly, the whooshing sound was repeated as the thing
dove again at Kirk. He took a couple of
halting steps to one side and dodged just in thne. Out
came his phaser, down went the triggereaand...
  Nothing happened
  He tried again. Nothing. The phaser wasn't
putting out enough heat to warm a piece of old toast
  "Your phasers!" Spock, Suln, McCoy,
and the two se- curity men tried their own weapons.
  "They won't work on any setting, sir!" said
Sulu ner- vously.
  "To insure the preservation of the forebears there is a
weapons deactivator in effect here," Agmar
told thc tilde "Your destructive devices will
nOt word"
  McCoy yelled a warrinand "It seems to be after
you, Jim!"
  "Weapons deactivator," Kirk murmured,
keeping a careful eye on the darting movements of the,
well, swooper was an apt terIn. "Then this should
work." He pulled out his communicator. "Kirk
to Enterpr tilde every... Kirk to..."
  It might as well have been an invitation Suddenly
the
  hall was filled with the big creatures. They
didn't appear out of the walis, but they seemed to.
  Half a dozen of them immediately ensnarled Kirk,
be- fore he could complete the call. He struggled,
and the communicator bounced to the floor.
  "Captain!" Sulu shouted. The others
moved toward him and drew their own attackers.
  Spock was enveloped quickly. Something fell from his
pocket-the tape cassette he'd picked up
earlier. No one saw it fall comcertamiy not
Digard and Ush, who were busy with attackers of their
own.
  Meanwhile Kirk was flghtmg back with plenty of
vim, and absolutely no effect Something knocked
his legs out from under him and he found himself pinned to the
floor like a trapped butterfly. He struck out
with a hand, con- tacted nothing The darn things were quick as
well as strong.
  It was over as soon as it had begun. Kirk,
Sulu, and the others lay motionless on the ground,
held tightly in the grasp of dozens of swoopers.
  Sulu, who appeared to have recovered from one
attack just in time to succumb to another, looked over
at Kirk. "What to you think they have in mind for us,
sir?" Kirk didn't answer his helmsman.
Instead, his attention was riveted on action overhead.
  "Something tells me we've just been the prize
suckers for a diversionary assault Look!" Other
eyes went up- ward, to see Spock, totally
enmeshed in swooper coils, being flown "round the
bend near the building's entrance. Another
shape intruded on Kirk's vision and stared down at
him quietly. If anything, Agmar's attitude
was apologetic.
  "I am sorry for this deception, Captain
Kirk. But there was no other way."
  It was Kirk's task to remain patient and
understanding of alien mores. Right now, however, he'd have
taken con- siderable pleasure in soaking Agmar and
his fellows in oil and vinegar and tossing them to death.
  He wrenched with all his strength at the bar on his
right arm, but the swooper coil encircling his upper
torso was as unyielding as an anaconda.
  "What are you babbling about, Agmar? What are those
things going to do with Spock?"
  "He has been chosen to serve a great cause,"
the Phy- losian intoned reverentiy. "The Master
has walted many years, searched many visitors,
studied many nearby wOrlds in hopes of finding a
specimen like Spock. It is good." Agmar raised
a loose fold of himself skyward. The swoopers
Immediately released Kirk and his corn- panlons
tilde reluctantiy, it seemed-and took off at
top speed down the big hall, melting away
into hidden cor- ridors and side paneis like a
cioud of bats In a cathedral. "And
now," continued Agmar, "all the worlds of the galaxy will
share in total peace and harmony!" There was, of
course, a tIme and a place for anything ...
mcluding a little educative violence. At the moment
Kirk felt like sharing peace and harmony about as much as
he did partying with the Phylosians.
  He cliiinbed slowly to his feet and approached
Agmar with just such unharmonizing thoughts in mind. The
eyestalks would be a good place to begin, he
decided. "So hely me, Agmar, If you don't
tell me where Spock is, I'll...
  He broke off as an enormous shadow spread
across the room. It wasn't a Swooper. Kirk
looked up. The sight was at once more familiar and
more alien than any they had yet encountered on this
greenhouse world.
  Standing in the doorway was a human male. He was
perfectiy normal in every way save one; he stood
just un- der twenty-four feet
  He wasn't smiling.
  There was a movement immediately in front of the land- ing
party, and Kirk lowered his gaze. Agmar and his four
associates had fallen to their kncesor
knee-substi- tutes-before the giant It was the most
humanlike gesture they'd yet made.
The implications of the movement were appalling
  McCoy had the presence of mind to activate the
medi- cal tricorder at the giant's entrance.
  4'Praise to the Master!" the five
Phylosians chorused du- tifully. "All
praise and adoration to the Restorer, the Mas- ter,
our Saviour!"
  "Another plant?" Kirk asked quietly. This
one would be hard to swallow.
  But McCoy's "corder insisted that in this case,
at least, appearances were not deceiving.
  "No, it's definitely human, Jim. That
explains that first unusual reading I picked up."
Further explanation was soon provided by the giant
himself.
  "TAM D tilde STAVOS KENICLIUS
com5," the giant boomed. He wore only a
short pair of pants and several instruments. A
cane or walking stick the size of a small pine was
dasped,, in his right hand. "WELCOME
TO PHYLOS, CAPTAIN KIRK. "No
thanks, Kenlclius. Yours is the second
welcome we've received here and I'm getting sick
of them. I don't want any more of this worid's
heilos."
  "nO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU Do WANT,
CAPTAIN KI-RR?" "You bet I do. Where's
Mr. Spock?"
  "THAT Is NO LONGER ANY CONCERN Op
YOURS, CAP- TAIN." The giant took two
strides toward them. "HE IS MrNE,
NOW. MORE IMPORTANTLY, THE ESSENCE OF
HEM IS MINE. LHA-VEvery WAITED FOR
MR. SPOCK A LONGTIME... TOO LONG
TO CONSIDER GIVING HEM UP."
  "RETURN TO YOUR SAP."
  He bent and picked up the commumcatdr. It
looked like a toy in his massive palm. He
tossed it contemptu- ously to Kirk, who caught it
automatically. "HERE Is YOUR COMMUNICATIONS
DEVICE. GO BACK TO YOUR SHIP."
  "Not without my first officer." The two men glared
at each other.
  If Spock had been present he'd
undoubtedly have ad- vised against a confrontation between
Kirk and a man four times his size and more so in
weight.
  Kirk might have thought of it himself, except that he
was subject to human traits which did not trouble
Mr. Spock. Right now, for example,
he was too mad to con- sider the situation
dispassionately.
  "TAM SORRY, CAPTAIN. YOU WILL
LEAVE NOW OR 5Up- FER THE
CONSEQUENCES." He made a gesture with one hand.
  A flock-no, a crop-of swoopers came
darting into the chamber again. Pausing overhead like a
swarm of orgaiiic
  helicopters, they circied back andggforth over the
knot of watching humans. Their hinged bodies jerked
in the mid- die, twitching nervously from side
to side. Dropping his gaze, McCoy happened
to notice the tiny tape cartridge Spock had
dropped earlier. He bent and picked ft up,
slipping it without undue motion into a pocket His
caution was unnecessary. Both Kenlclius and the
Phylosians had their attention focused wholly on
Kirk. The object Of their study stood funung
silcntiy. He was frustrated, angry, and
alInost mad enough to take on the huge Kenlclius
despite their difference in size. But he'd aiready
had one very enlightening experience with swoopers and their
abffities while they were operating under external
restraint He had no fflusions about the outcome if
Kenlclius let them run loose.
  For now, then, they had only one choice. He
flipped open the communicator and raised it slowiy
to his lips. There was always the chance that efther
Keniclius or the Phylosians were thought
sensitives. No, if that-were the case they should have
fallen dead from reading his thoughts several mmutes
ago.
  "Kirk to Enterpnse," he repeateggL
"Chief Kyle? Beam us up."
  Kyle was si tilde contilde tling when they
materialized normally in the transporter room.
His smile turned tO a worried frown It
deepened as the little party exited the aIcove. He
made a frantic grab for certain controls.
  Kirk took a moment to reassure hid
"Tasy, Chief, you haven't lost Mr.
Spock."
  "Well, then," the transporter chief replied,
searching the room, "where is he?"
  "Out of reach of your transporter, I'm
afraid. For the mOment. But you might keep hunting
for him. Try the transporter on his pattern every now
and then in the area of our touchdown point There's always
the chance some- thing down there will get lazy, or move
him, and you'll suddenly be able to bring him
aboarLike"
  "The power drain, sir," began Kyle, but
Kirk cut him off.
  "We have plenty Of power, Mr. Kyle," he
said as he
  headed for the elevator, "but a distinct shortage of
Mr. Spock. Try at five minute
intervals."
  "Aye, Sir," Kyle agreed uncertainly.
His acknowledg- ment barely beat the closing doors.
  Kirk held a small, quick conference to explain the
situ- atIon to those principal officers who'd
remained on board. It was a solemn group of men
and women who stared ex- pectantiy back at him
when he'd concluded.
  "Uhura, you'll have to take over the library
computer station in Mr. Spock's absence.
Lieutenant M'ress wffl manage communications
for you."
  "Yes, sir."
  "I want you to use the library to dig for two
things, Lieutenant" He ticked them off on his
fingers. "One, any record extant of a form of
plant life of extraordinary intel- ligence and a
technology so advanced they don't bother
to boast of it by visiting inhabited worlds."
  "And two-I want you to check into the one hope we
haveinallthis."
  "Hopeeatilde Jim?" McCoy looked
puzzled. Kirk only smiled back confidently.
  "A giant who is fool enough or megalomaniac
enough to tell us who he is." He looked back at
Uhura. "A human named Kem.diusStavos
Keniclius. Said in- dividual may or may not
be entltied to the label of doc- tor." Uhura
nodded and moved rapidly to the library sta- tion.
Seconds later its console was a Christmas tree
of blinking lights.
  "Sulu, you and Arex get to work with the ship's main
sensors. See ll you can locate Spock or
Keniclius. And Sulu, see if you can program
some sensors to differenti- ate the Phylosians from
the lesser plant life. They're prob- ably the
only other intelligent life forms on the
planet." Both helmsmen moved to their stations and
began to work swiftly.
  That left only McCoy.
  "Sorry I can't help, Jim."
  "You can, Bones." Kirk slumped in the command
chair. "While Uhura, Sulu, and
Arex are running checks, you can get yourself down
to Sick Bay and find me a non- narcotic,
nonenervating tranquilizer. If I don't
relax soon
  I'm going to start breaking things. And I haven't
got time for a trip to the therapy chamber." McCoy
grinneggL "I'll see what I can find,
Jim."
  He wasn't gone lone And by the time the mild
relaxer comhad taken effect, Kirk was able to speak
with more pa- tience and listen with a llffle of the same.
Inside, though, he was stffl seething.
  "Anything at all, Mr. Sulu?" The
heIirtnnan shook his head.
  "We haven't been able to pick up anything like a
hu- inanoid life-reading, sir. And i"...ness not because
they're at- tempting to decoy or divert our
probes--there's no evi- dence of any surface
interference. Spock and Kenlcllus must be somewhere our
sensor scans can't penetrate."
  "Outstanding news," Kirk gruinble tilde "What
about the Phylosians?"
  "It was hard to calibrate for an intelligent
plant foTomorrow' sir. We're registering thousands of
botanlcal readings in the city, including the
swoopers, which have a definite pat- tern. But no
sign of anything higher. Nothing that might be Agniar
or his friends." Kirk frowned, thinking. "Agmar said
something about a weapons deactivator in operation in
at least one of their buildings... but nothing about its
range or limitations. Let's find out Mr.
Sulu, lock ship's phasers on that Ia tilde
boratory building we flrst entereggL Wide
area stun setting
  Sulu manipulated conftols. "Ready, sir."
  "Just a minute." Kirk turned to face Uhur
tilde "Lieu- tenant, how are you coming on information
about Kenl- cllus?"
  "There's nothing enrrent, Captain." She looked
disap- pointed "I think I may be getting something from
the bi- ography section of the recent history
bank, but it'll take a moment or two, yet"
  "Ail right, Lieutenant Keep at it
  "Tire phasers, Mr. Sulk" Sulu hit
the proper switch "Tiring, sir."
  A beam of pure energy erupted from the bowfront
of the Enterprise. Instantly it disrupted orderly
molecules, surprised combinations of oxygen,
nltrogen, carbon, and a
  host of others as it speared down through the
atmosphere of Phylos.
  Nothing could stand before that paralyzing beam, pow- ered
by the space-warping engines of the great starship. Nothing
solid-
  Sulu was staring into a gooseneck viewer. Now
he turned to look back at Kirk.
  "No effect, Captain. Nothing at all.
Phaser stun was neutralized at .. ." He
paused and checked another gauge set into the console
near the viewer, "A distance of ap- proximately
one thousand meters above the target area Should I try
a stronger setting?"
  "No." Kirk druii tilde ed his fingers on
an arm of the coiii- mand chair, tilde d thought
  "I suspect it either wouldn't have any effect at
all, Mr. Sulu, or else it would break through and
destroy anything it touched-Mr. Spock, too. That
means that either way our weapons are effectively
useless. All right. We'll have to go back down there
and rescue Mr. Spock without them."
  "The old oriental martial arts are kind of a
hobby with me, Captain," said Sulu. He smiled
faintly. "But I don't think hands and feet will work
too well agasnst those swoopers."
  What, exactly, is a flash of
genius?
  Mental stimulation. A concatenation of cerebral
eross- currents. The fusion of one partiele of
cause with another of effect which-once in a while, just
once in a while--- produces a molecule of
solution.
  But all McCoy said was, "I think there might
be some- thing we can use that'd be more effective,
Sulu." A crooked smile crossed his face.
"I'm just not sure which section-was
  "If you've got any suggestions at all,
Bones-was By way of reply, McCoy leaned
close and whispered in Kirk's ear. The
Captain's expression grew by turns amused,
disbeliev- ing, and finally determined.
  "Where'd you get an idea like that, Bones?"
McCoy looked grimly pleased. "From Agmar."
  "I don't know-was Kirk mused. "I see what
you mean about "which section."" Turning suddenly he
hit an armrest switch, spoke into the broadcast
grid.
  "Kirk to engineering. Scotty?" The chief
engineer's fit tered voice replied from the other end
of the starship. "Here, sir."
  "Scotty, I've got a priority
proiect for you Who's your weapon's specialist?"
  "That'd be Lieutenant Chatusram, sir.",
  "Get him. I've got some special
equlpmcnt I want you to make u tilde and I
want it yesterday."
  The special equipment was basically very simple.
McCoy had no trouble conveying what was needed over
the. intercom. Nor, according to Chatusram, would it be
difficult to make.
  "I don't think web have any problems with the
actual construction, Captain," explained the
weaponsmith, "though some of the nonsoiid components
may take some time to compose. The ingredients are
simple, but the com- bination required is not. Still,
I'm sure my staff and I can manage it."
  "Good for you, "Ram," said Kirk. "Mr.
Scott, see that the lieutenant gets all the
help he needs."
  "Aye, Captain."
  "How soon, Lieutenant?" Chatusram's
reply Was cau- tious, but confident.
  "I believe if the basic mechanical
components are in stock, within the hour, Captain."
  "That'll have to dO. Hop to it, gentlemen. Kirk
out" He ended the discussion.
  It was Uhura's turn to speak. She's been
waiting impa- tiently throughout the cross-ship
conversation and now she broke in before anyone else could
demand Kirk's atten- tion.
  "I have the requested information on the man
identified as Stavos Keniclius, sir. I'll
put theaence statistics and what visuals there are on
the main screen.
  "Thank you, Uhura." Kirk turned back
to McCoy. "Bones, you really think this gadget of
yours will work? It seems almost too simple."
  "I can think of several reasons why it should,
Jim. That's one of them. Another is what Agmar
said that gave me the idea in the first place. The
clincher is that, way back when, my great-granddaddy
had the finest gar-
  den in metropolitan North-South America"
Kirk nodded and looked to the viewscreen.
  The screen lit, and the feminine computer voice of the
Enterprise sounded over the speaker.
  "Working."
  "Here it comes, sir," said Uhura. Almost before
she fin- ished, a portrait had appeared on the
screen. There were some slight differences-the figure in
the portrait was slightly older, for
example-but Kirk, McCoy, and Sulu
recognized Keniclius's features immediately. More
revealing was the accompanying statistical chart,
especially those figures which declared that the man shown was
a normal human of ahout the same height and
weight as Kirk.
  Whlle they studied the printout, the computer voice
supplied additional information.
  "Drawn from recent-near-recent Earth history
file, cate- gory scientists, male, subheading
iconoclasts... Keniclius, Stavos. Terran
physiologist-physicist period Eugenics
Wars. Specialist in eugenics and
manipulative endocrinol- ogy. Noted for plan
to clone perfect humanoid prototype as founder of
idealized "master race' to act as galactic
peacekeepers. Concept evaluated by ruling
government of time and formally rejected as, quote,
"too antihumanistic." "Experiments persisted
despite governmental decree. Upon discovery of
continuance of illegal research, Keni- clius
banned from terran community. Voluntarily accept-
ed total exile and vanished into an uncharted
region of space. Cursory search
initiateggL No body found, no
official death certfflcate issued-was
  The computer droned on, pouring out additional in-
formation. Most of it was trivial, peripheral and, more
im- portantly, downright unhelpful. There was
nothing that might be employed as a psychological
weapon against the giant below.
  But they'd pegged Kenielius, all right
  "No further data," the computer concluded.
Voice and visual display disappeared together. Then
McCoy spoke. "Wasn't there an old story
about a modern Diogenes roammg the galaxy in
search of someone special?" "Someone special,"
Kirk muttered. He looked up. "A
  perfect someone. Someone special to begin the ideal
race, yes, I've heard that story too, Bones,
as a child."
  "That's just it, Jim. This can't be the Keniclius.
He'd have to be over two hundred and fifty years
old!" "The original Kenlclius, yes," Kirk
noted. "Keep in mind what the library just tOld
us. What was he banned for?"
  Understanding lit McCoy's eyes. "I remember
now. He said he was Keniclius 5. My God,
he's gone and cloned himsei!, to carry on his
search! And his clones have i tilde cloned
themselves, right on down the line." He shook his head,
an expression of mixed distaste and admiration. "At
least we're not dealing with a complete megalo-
maniac," Kirk added. "If we were, he'd
long ago have de- cided that he was the "perfect
specimen" all along. Then we'd be faced with an
army of giants instead of just one." "I'll grant
that in his favor," admitted McC9y reluc-
tantly, "but by the same token, Jim, he's,, not
going to be aneasymanto talk out ofhis dreams...
  xI
  Forty-two point one five minutes later
(ship-time), Kirk, McCoy, Sulu, and Chief
Engineer Scott assembled in the main transporter
room. Scott carried three small traveling
bags in his arms. He handed them out to his fellow
offi- cers while Kirk tried to regard the upcoming
attempt with a detached air.
  "It's seems incredible that a man could take a
few cells from his body and successfully
reproduce himself time af- ter time. Yet that
seems to be the kind of disturbed genius we're
dealing with in Dr. Keniclius and his oversized suc-
cessors."
  At the moment, however, Sulu had other
things on his mind than the astonishing
feats-biological or other-
  wise-of their giant antagonlst. Most of his
worries con- cerned the untested quantity resting
in the leather carry- bag. He hefted it and tapped
the contents. It responded with a faint metallic
ring.
  "I just hope these things work, that's all."
  "Oh, they'll work all right, Lieutenant,"
Scott assured him. "The equipment's simple
enough tilde foolproof, in fact Chatusram and
I saw to that But I admit I've got my own
doubts about the stuff they contain. I've heard of some
mighty strange ways to fight aliens, but-was
  "These are mighty strange aliens we're
fighting, Scotty." Kirk moved into the
transporter alcove. "As soon as Dr.
McCoy, Mr. Sulu, and I have beamed down,"
he told the chief engineer, "I want you to leave
orbit and-was "Leave orbit, sir?"
  Kirk nodded. "If they think we've gone, I
have a hunch they'll stop scanning the area around their
still-functioning structures. On any other world in a
similar situation it would be standard precautionary
procedure to keep scan- ners 0This-
But the Phylosians do whatever Keniclius tells
them to do, and this mutant is so confident of his own
power-he's been a virtual god for so long-he
won't think any mere humans llke us will dare
defy him. "He's been out of touch with humanity
too long to be anything but contemptuous of it Not that
I can blame him, considering what some of us were llke
during the Eu- genics Wars. Give us thirty
minutes on the surface, Scotty, and then
circle back."
  "All right," the chief engineer reluctantly
agreed. "But if I may be permitted an
opinion, sir... I dinna like it." "Neither do
I." Kirk made sure he was well inside the
perimeter of the transporter disk. "But without
phasers or any other modern weapon, we'll need
all the surprise we can muster. If the ship
seems to leave, we might get it."
  McCoy and Suiu joined him in the chamber. He
turned to look at the waiting chief Kyle.
  "Energize."
  The three men became three drifting masses of
lambent color. Then they were gone.
  Scott stared into the empty chamber for a moment,
be- came aware that Kyle was watching him.
  "Well, what are you starin' at, Kyle?"
  "Nothing, Chief. I-was
  "See that you don't do it again."
  "Yes, sir."
  Scott stalked off toward the elevator doors.
He'd have to officially assume command now-and it would be
he who would have to issue the unpopular retreat
order. Life was dreadfully unfair sometimes!
  Three glitterfng cylinders resumed human
shape on a street of the Phylosian
metropolis. Sulu was checking his tricorder as
soon as they'd fully rematerialized. He kept
the mysterious leather bag tucked tightly under one
arm. "No indication of a scan, sir," he said
finally. "I don't think they know we're here.
Unless-was
  "No," Kirk sighed gratefully. "That kind of
subtlety is beyond Keniclius. If he knew we
were back he'd show up roaring biblical
pronouncements, or send a crop of those toothy
ffiers. Let's get a move on."
  Kirk took two steps and started to turn the
corner around the thin tower they'd set down next to
... and al- most walked straight into a ffight of the
just-mentioned swoopers.
  Flattening themselves against the curving wall in the
convenient shadow of the glass edifice, they barely
breathed as the swarm of powerful carnivores sailed
past. "I'm not sure I can take too much of this,"
McCoy fig nally gasped. "Watch those
predictions, Jim. Why'd you take me anyway,
instead of Arex or a couple of security
personnel?"
  "You ought to know better than that, Bones. We
don't know what kind of shape we'll find Spock
in."
  "If we find him," murmured McCoy.
  "Let's not even think about that, hmm?"
  Sulu looked up from his tricorder and tried
to inject a more hopeful note. "I wouldn't worry
too much about those swoopers, Doctor. They seem
to be almost mindless. They attack primarily as a
reflex action."
  "Out of sight, out of mind, is that it?" McCoy
grunteLike The helmsman nodded.
  "The way is clear now, Captain."
  They turned the corner without being challenged.
Mov- ing at a smooth trot, they headed for the
laboratory build- ing.
  Once, a tiny dandelionlike plant
tried to follow Sulu. It took Kirk and
McCoy several minutes to catch up with the sprinting
lieutenant. Other than the single fuuzy, they
encoutered nothing ambulatory.
  They'd materialized in a different section of the
city than the first time. If only they'd landed here
initially, events might have taken a different
course. But that was wishful thinking. They turned
another corner. Came up short.
  "I don't believe it," Sulu murmured.
  "Incredible," was the only word Kirk could think of.
McCoy just stared.
  They were standing close by the entrance to a colossal,
hangarlike building. The structure was easily a
couple of kilometers long. Inside, ranged
neatiy in double rows, were hundreds of translucent,
milky, teardrop shapes, each dozens of yards
high.
  In the immediate foreground were the five Phylosians.
Each rose on a small, automatic lifting
plafform. They were working at the teardrop shapes,
cleaning them, scrap- ing and pulling a thick mossy
growth from their sided "What else could they be but
ships, Jim?" Kirk agreed. "Looks like
they're getting ready to go on a trip,
too. But where? To what purpose?"
  "By the number of ships here I'd say a mass
nu tilde gration is being planned-or invasion."
  "Agmar insisted they were a peaceful people," Sulu
put
  "Oh, sure!" spat McCoy sarcastically.
"We've had am- ple evidence of that, haven't
we? "Peaceful' has almost as many definitions as
love, Mr. Sulu."
  "Is that a cllnical opinion, Doctor?"
  "Ease off, you two," warned Kirk. "We'll
probably have a definition supplied, soon enough."
He looked thoughtful. "But you've got a point,
Bones. These ships, this city-I'm not saying the
motives and abilities of a vegetable civilization
would be so different from ours, but
  let's nOt lump tO ,aeany condusions. This
is the first dne we've encountered.
  "And the last, I hope," the doctor muttered.
He added, half to himself, "I always did hate
vegetables as a kid. Now I know I had a good
reason."
  "And that's about enough hilarity, Bones. If Spock
were here he wouldn't be laughing."
  "Sorry, Jim." McCoy turned
serious once again. "I'd al- most forgotten why
we're here." He nodded in the direc- tion of the
gigantic hangar. "Those ships look like they've
never left the ground. Probably they were all set
to leave, when Keniclius the first arrived and his new
diseases swept the planet."
  Kirk nodded, glanced at Sulu. "Any
indication of Kenl- clius's or Mr. Spock's
whereabouts?"
  Sulu checked the tricorder, looked
disappointed. "They're not around here, sir.
Certainiy not in the hangar. I read only the
Phylosians."
  "Umm. Well, followers can be led. Maybe
we can be as persuasive as Keniclius."
  Moving from wall to wall and taking care t6 conceal
themselves well, they gradually made their way to the en-
trance of the enormous structure.
  It appeared that each Phylosian was taking care
of one ship by himself. That was fine with Kirk. It would
make the momentary disappearance of one of their number
less obvious to the others.
  Agmar was working close by. At the moment he was
fiationing the tank of his lifter with some sort of cleaning
fluid from huge canisters stacked neatly
against the near wall. Taking up positions behind these,
the three men waited for the leader of the Phylosians
to return. Two others came and fllled their tanks
before McCoy whispered tensely, "Here he comes!"
  "Do we want the ffitter he's riding?" asked
Sulu hur- riedly. Kirk shook his head.
  "Might take too long to figure the controls.
I'd rather stay on the ground anyway. It might be
subject to outside orders. I don't want
someone yanking my feet out from un- der me a
couple.of hundred meters up in the air."
  Agmar brought the little vehicle down smoothly to the
  canisters. His back was to them. They tackled him
with- out any trouble.
  Sulu and Kirk were momentarily repulsed at
handling a creature who felt like a clump of sticky
straw. They al- most lost control of the struggling
alien.
  Fortunately, McCoy was used to handling things that
would turn many men squeamish. He wasn't at all
both- ered by the unconventional feel of the
Phylosian. He hung on tightiy until
Kirk and Sulu had recovered from the initial shock
of contact.
  They had no difficulty dragging him
back behind the high containers. Kirk's only worry
had been the chance that the repair flitter might be
fitted with some kind of au- tomatic alarm that would
relay back to Kenlelius. But there was no sign that
anything of the sort existed. A mo- ment's
consideration and he realized there was no need to be
concerned.
  The llttie repair vehicle had shown a
tendency to take off again But once they'd removed
its sole passenger, it stopped and now floated
patientiy in place. "Agmar," began Kirk
quietly, "we don't want to hurt you. You
claim you're a peaceful people. Well, we're an
easygom tilde race, too, we humans. But
we must have Spock back. if this means using crude
physical force against you, then rest assured we'll
do so."
  Agmar was not impressed. Nor was he arrogant.
More than anything else his attitude smacked of
resigned indif- ference. If he was startled to see
the humans again, he didn't show it.
  "I do not think that is possible," he said blandly.
"The Vulcan-human blend of wisdom, sense of
order, durabil- ity, reason, and strength is the
finest the Master has ever found. We are
pleased Spock will carry on our work."
  "Patrick O'Morion!" Sulu gasped. The
whole situation had been turned upside down and a
new llght now gleamed on its backside.
  "Carry on your work?" was all Kirk could
stutter. "We are the last of a dying race on a
dying world, Cap- tain," intoned Agmar. A limb
that remained unpinned gestured towards the ships.
  "Once, we had a great mission. Then the disease
de-
  stroyed nearly all of us. We five are the
frail remnant of that race, the inheritors of that
purpose.
  "And we are sterile. We cannot put ",ut
spores. When we go, there wili be no more of our
kind.
  "ThIs great plan, this mission of yours," probed
McCoy. "What happens to ft if something happens
to Spock--comor to the Master?"
  It was Agmar's turn to be put off-stride and
confused. He recovered quickly, utilizing the
response that all "mas- ters" engender in their
subjects.
  "There will always be a Master. But come, you are
worried about your friend, and that is needless, I
assure you. I will show you that he,, is safe and in
good condition Better than you can guess.
  He wriggled out of their relaxing grasp and shuffled
into the hangar. Kirk and the others hesitated, then
fol- lowed.
  "Just like that, Captain?" asked Sulu. Kirk was
think- ing furiously, trymg to stay one mental
step ahead of Ag- mar. Yet, who could tell how
the Phylosians saw things? "Yes, just like that,
Mr. Sulu. All the same, keep that bag
handy." By way of emphasis he hefted his own.
"No tricks now, Agmar." The Phylosian
didn't reply. He leaned forward and pressed a
button on the console of the flifter. Rapidly, the
other four joined them. They dismounted from theletter own
repair craft. Then the five moved together to stop
before what looked like a solid, blank wall. "The
way is through here, gentiemen," sald Agmar. He
moved forward. In doing so, Kirk noticed that he
stepped on a circular section of floor that was
slightiy different in color from the rest. Immediately,
the wall slid aside to re- veal a huge
metallic iris behind it
  Aamar moved again and stepped on a second
odd-hued round area. Now the iris
dilated. An enormous tunnel appeared, a
gaping wound in the earth. Its floor was smooth and
sloped gently downward, under the city. Kirk could
lust make out another iris far away down the
tunnel. A second later it, too, opened. Beyond
was only endless blackness.
  Agmar and his fellows started into the tunneLike
Kirk did
  not folloWill immediately. Nor did McCoy or
Sulu. That bottomless hole looked awfully
dark.
  Agmar turned. "We sprang from the soil,
Captain," he said reassuringly. "These tunnels
are part of our ancient home." He drew a flat
disk from his middle. It was some- what larger than a
voder. He did something to one side of the disk, and it
suddenly put out a brilliant beam of light. "This
will serve to show our way." He turncd and stnrted
down the tunnel.
  Kirk wasn't keen on following, but they
didn't have much choice. Beating up an already willing
Agmar was a poor alternative to what appeared
to be acquiesence. "Once more into the breech,"
muttered McCoy. There was more than one tunnel,
they soon saw. More than two, than
three. Mter a short walk they'd already passed
dozens of intersecting corridors, a veritable
laby- rinth of passageways cutting through the earth
beneath the city.
  Sulu was busy with his tricorder.
  "No wonder we couldn't detect Spock or
Keniclius with shipboard scanners, Captain.
Our sensor beams couldn't penetrate i1ere."
  "Absurd," McCoy objected, observing their
surround- ings. "It must have been interference of some
kind. These walls don't look thick enough."
  "Perhaps not, Doctor," admitted Sulu. "But
according to tricorder analysis they're composed of
artificial elements some six hundred times denser
than lead, in addition to a surface force field."
He shook his head wonderingly. "I can only
guess at the kind of foundation they must sit on."
  "On the other hand-was continued McCoy as though
he'd never doubted the walls' shielding ability.
They hadn't been walking much longer before some- thing
else caught Kirk's attention He whispered
to McCoy.
  "Do you hear something?"
  "What, Jim?"
  "I'm not sure." Kirk's brow
furrowed in concentration. "Not much further now,
Captain," came Agmar's voice from just ahead.
  "There it is again!" Kirk gave a sudden start and
stopped, his voice rising. "A flapping sound. . .
."
  That was the signal for light to leave the tunnel, and
il- comtilde lumination of another sort to set in.
They found them- I selves standing helplessly in
blackness as black as the I deepest sleep.
  They'd been tricked again.
  He shouted, "Use your belt lights!"
  "They don't Operate," replied Sulu
nervously. "I've al- ready tried."
  "Agmar!" Kirk yelled angrily. "Agmar!
.
  Agmar didn't answer.
  Now McCoy and Sulu also recognized the
uneven, beating sounds of the approaching Swoopers.
In the con- fined darkness of the tunnel it sounded like a
growing storm. Most men are willing to face a
certain amount of danger in normal circumstances.
  But in the dark!
  The hardest thing was to resist the urge to go charging off
into nothingness, to run blindly away from the threat- ening
noise. They might crash into a wall or,
worse, there might be vertical shafts in the
underground maze as well as horizontal.
  They hadn't seen any pits on the way in,
however. At worst it would be a quick death, a clean
death. With Kirk, to think was to act.
  "Run! We've got to find some light. We
Can't do any- thing unless we can see what we're
fighting. Keep your hands out and feel for the walls.
And keep talking tilde tay together!" Kirk moved
away, starting in the direction he thought they'd been
going.
  "This way!" Then he broke into a run.
McCoy and Sulu were close by. They didn't have
to kcep talking to stay aware of each other's
position-footsteps and increas- ingly heavy breathing
solved that.
  The same sounds might also reveal their location
to any pursuers, but Kirk suspected that whatever was
chasing them could find them easily enough in the dark
anyway. "Don't stop!" His voice echoed like
thunder down the tunneLike "DON'T STOP...
Don't Stop... don't stop. ...
  STAR TREK LOG TWO
  All of a sudden it sounded like they were leaving the alien
cacophony further behind.
  "We're gaining on them," he panted.
  "Jim, up ahead!" Kirk squinted at
McCoy's shout. Sure enough, there did seem
to be a pinpoint of light off in the distance.
  "l see it ... I see it ... keep going!"
There couldn't be light where there was no light-that was one
kind of mirage man hadn't encountered yet.
  Sulu had slipped slightly behind.
Unconsciously, they'd changed into the most
practical order for running- McCoy barely in
the lead, with Kirk in the middle and Sulu, the youngest
and freshest runner, bringing up the rear.
  The change from the blackness of the tunnel to the light
of the room was overpowering. It was like waking up in the
glare of a flashlight. They were momentarily blinded and
stumbled to a halt.
  The underground chamber they'd emerged into was roughly
cjrcular in shape and the by-now expected four times
human size. Two other entrances gaped in the
walls, leading off to unknown regions. Controis and
flashing panels lined the walis.
  A long table sat in the center of the room,
surrounded by an attached series of
fragile-looking, semitransparent crystalline
globes. These formed a sparkling corona
for the platform. All were connected to each other and to the
del- icate instrumentation built into the table. On the
table lay Mr. Spock.
  McCoy hesitated just long enough to unhitch his
medi- cal tricorder before sprinting forward. Kirk
and Sulu fol- lowed.
  McCoy took a hurried preliminary reading from
the motionless form. He checked the results, reset
frantically and made another, slower pass. His
eyes were wild when he finally looked over at
Kirk and Sulu.
  "Something's affecting his brain. All other
bodily func- tions are normal, but he's
dying."
  "IT IS T00 LATE, CAPTMN
KIRK!"
  They whirled as that rolling voice exploded off
surround-
  ing walls. Kenlclius 5 towered over them,
staring down at the tiny intruders from one of the other
entrances. "IN A LITTLE WHILE YOUR FRIEND
WILL BE ....... IN A WAY. 3UT
AS KENICLIUS I LIVES ON IN EACH
OF HIS CLONES, SO WILL MR. SPOCK.
BEHOLD, GENTLEMEN, ThBut DAWNING
OF A NEWE.... THE SALVATION OF A
GALAXY ... SPOCK 2!"
  He made a grandiose gesture toward the third
portaLike Again Kirk, McCoy, and Sulu
turned.
  Another huge figure had appeared there. It had
a famil- iar detached look, sharply peaked ears,
oddly arched eye- brows. It was Mr. Spock,
four times over.
  His expression was not unfrly. But neither did the
giant show signs of recognition at the appearance
of his shipmates, nothing to give the three officers a
surge of hope.
  They had only the singie moment to register shock
be- fore the sounds of their tunnel pursuers grew
suddenly very loud.
  "Get ready!" Kirk ordered.
  Now the contents of the mysterious leather sacks were
revealed as the three men drew out ffltering masks and
slipped them over their heads. Kirk tugged the
protective bag off his own device.
  It was a slim cylinder with one slightffity flared
end. Several small nozzles protruded from that
end, while the opposite sported a handhold and
control knob. McCoy began fitting the
fourth mask over the supine face of Sp tilde
oc tilde k I.
  WEAPONS DEACTIVATORS ARE IN
OPERATION HERE, %00,, CAPTAIN KIRK.
A LAST CHANCE-RETURN TO YOUR SHIP.
That's when the tunnel exploded in a landscaper's
nightmare. There were swoopers, too, scattered
among a crawling, hopping, rolling collar of
leafy, screaming monstrosfties, offshoots of a
plant kingdom gone mad. Kirk, Sulu, and
McCoy depressed the single control set in the
base of their cylinders. Suddenly the room was en-
veloped in a thick chemical mist.
  At flrst the gray fog hugged the floor. As it
began to rise a strange expression came over the
face of Keniclius 5. He started to cough roughly
and retreated from the
  rapidly dimming room. No one noticed as
Spock 2 did Ukewise.
  Not only could Sulu not see Captain Kirk
or Dr. McCoy in the drifting miasma, he
couldn't see the cellu- lose abominations that were
attacking them, either. But he could sure hear them.
At which point the steady hiss that had been issuing from
his cylindrical sprayer fizzled out. He
yelled into the mist. "The sprayer's empty, Cap-
tain!"
  "Mine too, Jim!" came the familiar voice
of McCoy. Sulu moved toward it, clinging
tightly to the empty sprayer. They might be
reduced to fighting with clubs af- ter all.
  He bumped into something solid and almost
screamcggL It was only McCoy.
  "Wait a minute," came another voice,
Kirk's. "Listen."
  No one said a word. Sure enough, the plant
noises had stopped. Not died out slowly, or
faded, just ... stopped. McCoy tried to make out
shapes in the thick haze sur- rounding them.
  "Maybe they're waiting for this to clear. This far
under- ground, there has to be some kind of automatic
air-circu- lation system to blow out accumulating
impurities."
  Sure enough the mist started to clear, thinning even as
he spoke. Soon Kirk could see the two of them.
They moved to stand back to back in expectation of a
renewed attack. Kirk removed his mask and
sniffed.
  "It's okay now."
  McCoy and Sulu removed theirs. The
cleaning process accelerated and the mist broke up
rapidly. In seconds it was completely gone.
  So were most of the plants.
  Those that remained behind weren't going to attack
anyone ever again. They lay on the floor, limbs
twisted grotesquely, shriveled like dead clumps
of hedge. "Well, how about that," McCoy mused,
studying the copse-laden battlefield.
"Great-grandpappy's weed spray still works."
  "I'll witness thatea"tilde aid a relieved
Kirk, "so long as those that got away don't come
back."
  "I don't think they'll be in a hurry to do so,
Captain," observed Sulu.
  "Even so, we've got to get Spock out of here
before Keniclius returns. Scott should have the ship
back in orbit now." He took out his
communlcator, activated it. "There's a chance this
shield is directiona!. We might be able to beam
out, even if nobody can beam in. Kirk
to Enterprise... Kirk to Enterprise... ." There
was no an- swering beep. He paused, tried again.
No luck. 4'Must be these blasted walls. Kirk
to Enterprise. McCoy had been examining Spock
ever since it ap- peared they were safe from
counterattack. Now he looked up and shook his head
slowly, sadly.
  "It's no use, Jim. He's fading too
fast. He be dead in- side a quarter hour."
He hesitated. "He no longer thinks. His mind
is gone. But it's not the normal blankness of
predeath. This machine," and he indicated the instru-
mentAaden table, "seems to be draining him somehow."
  "MORE THAN JUST DRAIN, GENTLEMEN." They
tilde turnecLike Keniclius was no plant.
He'd returned.
  "HIS MEMORIES HA-VEvery BEEN
TRANSFERRED . . . RELO- CATED INTO THE
MECHANISM ITSELF AND THEN TRAN5-
PERRED AGAIN." He moved towards them.
  "ICAN DUPLICATE EXACT
PHYSIOLOGICAL STRUCT-HRES. 1 CANNOT
DUPLICATE ThAT WHICH IS LEARNED. I
CAN REPR0DUCE THAT SECTION OF THE
MIND WHICH HOLDS ThOUGHTS, BUT I CANNOT
REPRODUCE THINKING. 1 CAN MAKE AGMN
THE AREA THAT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR
MEMORY, BUT I CANNOT CREATE
MEMORIES.
  "JUST AS MY PREDECESSOR
TRANSFERRED HIS MEMORIES AND ThOUGHTS
TO ME THROUGH A SIMILAR MACHINE, SO
HAVE I DONE WITH MR. SPOCK AND HIS
DUPLICATE."
  "You talk about your eloning as though you were creating
life!" screamed a frustrated Kirk. "But you have
to murder to do it!"
  Unexpectedly, that appeared to affect the giant.
He halted in his approach, something within him
seemingly in conflict with itself. Kirk noticed the
hesitation. While it seemed incredible that this monster
might have some dis- torted sense of morality, he
had to grab at any chance. Together the three of them
got hold of Speck's limp
  form and lifted it off the table. They started carrying
him toward the third entrance.
  They didn't get very far.
  The second colossal figure had appeared and
was block- ing their retreat. Nor did the giant
Spock appear inclined to move out of their way.
  There was no hesitation in Kirk's voice now.
"Out of my way, mister!" he yelled at the
giant. "That's an order." The huge head inclined
slowly to stare blank- faced at them, but the giant
showed no sign of inovm tilde McCoy
had his medical scanner out and working. "I don't
think he understands, Jim. His mind is still trying
to assimilate all the fresh knowledge that's bcen poured
into it."
  That first order had come automatically. But now
Kirk found himself uncertain how to proceed.
  How much Mr. Spock was there in the giant towering
silently over them-and how much Keniclius?
  XII
  On board the orbiting Enterprise the frustration,
if not the danger, was just as intense. Wishing he had the
full resources of a planet-based communications
station, Scott struggled to keep his voice calm as
Uhura's repeated at- tempts to contact the landing
party met with repeated nonsuccess. He had no
way of knowing, of course, that Kirk, Sulu, and
Dr. McCoy were no longer on the surface of
Phylos, but under it.
  "Keep trying' Lieutenant We've got
to make contact width the captain."
  "What do you think I've been trying to do for the past
fifteen minutes, sir?" She shook her head and
giared. "It's no use. I've tried every shi
tilde t tilde ground frequency I can
  think of. No response. I can't even
determine if their com- municators are still
operational."
  "Something down there ... either the communicators have
been destroyed,eaeaor there's something awfully thick
betweenwcen us and them.
  Scott had one card left.
  "All right, Mr. Arex?" The navigation officer
turned back to lobk at the chief engineer. "I
want every ohm of power on this ship, except for the
life-support systematiza- tion, put behind a
tight-beam communications probe. We must try
to break through whatever's blocking our corn-
munications!"
  "That's fine for a simple contact, Mr.
Scott," concurred Uhura. "But to maintain
communication on such a power load could be disastrous.
We risk total drain of our dilith- ium
crystais. Could burn out every reserve on the ship."
  "Don't I know it, lass." Of all the people on
the Enter- prise to recommend such a command, he
reflected ironi- cally, the last one ought to be her
chief engineer. -- "But we've left orbit as the
captain requested and re- turned. I don't know
what the situation is down below, but we should have heard from
them by now. And I can't or- der any action
untll I know what the situatioll is. We must
make contact"
  Kirk slumped to the floor, sat with his head bent
be- tween his knces. The giant didn't
respond to a reflex corn- mand. Now Kirk had
time to think, and he found himself at a complete loss.
The life of his first officer-and friend-was slipping
away with every tick of the chronom- eter, and he seemed
helpless to prevent it. Helpless. However,
circumstances often take a hand where indi- vidual
decisions fail. There was a deep rumbling
sounggL The giant Spock was clearing his throat.
  Kirk's head came up. His thoughts shifted from
distant regions of remorse to the present Maybe
there was a chance.
  McCoy was already taking another reading on the
colossus.
  "He's coming out of it' JinLike Becoming conscious
and aware."
  Kirk scrambled to his fcet and took a step
toward the giant. He stopped.
  What should he say? What could he say? Was there
re- ally anything of the Spock he'd known in
.5... Frank- enstein? Anything beyond surface
features and superficial similarities?
For that matter, how much of the original idealistic
doctor remained in a Kcniclius five times
re- moved from the first?
  Think, man, think! Say something, an......
He heard his voice talking. "Spock, what is
the logle bf Iefting a man die for the sake of
creating his duplicate? Explain it to me, sir,
explain it to me!"
  The giant raised an eyebrow, thinking, but did
not responggL
  "Power sources are channeled, Mr. Scott,"
Uhura in- formed him. "I hope you know what
you're doing, sir."
  "So do I, lass, so do I. Let's find out"
Uhura turned back to her console. Her hand moved
toward a certain lit- tIe-used switch, the
switch that was used only for expen- sive tight-beam
communications. She'd used it before, but never with this kind
of power behind it
  Would the components involved be able to handle the strain
of routing the full power of the E tilde erprise?
She fer- vently hoped so.
  If not, there was a fair chance the console would ex-
plode in her face. ...
  4'Jim, we've got to do something!"
McCoy pleaded, tak- ing another reading on the
original Spock.
  "I'm trying to, really!" He eyed Spock
2. The real Spock had never been impressed
by physical violence. This lumbering double would be even
less so. Their only chance lay in reasoned argument
  "Look," he said desperately, "Vulcans do
not condone the meaningless death of any being. Spock's
death tilde meanmgiess, if its only purpose
is to create a giant dupli- cate of himself.
It's been proven time and again that no duplicate can
possibly be as efficient as an original."
  "IT IS N0That JUST-A DUPLICATE!"
objected an angry Kenicllus. ""AS GOOD
AS AN oRIGINAL', INDEED! HE WILL
2
  FAR BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL-THE
BEGINNING OF A MASTER RACE!" Kirk's
ready reply was interrupted by a startlingly loud
beep. He looked dazedly at his communicator as
if it might suddenly jump off his belt and bite
him. Then he uncllpped it and fumbled with the
activator. A better idea stopped him.
  He tossed the unopened communicator to Spock
2. The giant caught it easily in one
enormous paim. If the dupli- cate's mind was
not fully operational yet, Kirk reflected, then
all was lost. No amount of argument would serve. At
least its reflexes looked sound.
  "That's our ship calling, Spock. You're her
first officer. You answer her." The beep came again.
  Raising his hand, the giant appeared to study the
tiny instrument. It made no move to open it and
acknowledge the now constant beeping.
  "Spock's slipping, Jim," whispered
McCoy tensely. "There isn't much time kft"
  "I'm sure we're getting through," Uhura
insisted, the strain in her voice reflecting the one
warping the-commu- nications equipment. "But they're
not replying."
  "Keep trying," ordered Scott. Uhura
kept an eye on an overhead indicator.
"We're nearing the overffoad,, point on the
dilithium now, Mr. Scott Our reserves ...
"Keep . . . trying."
  Suddenly the giant's eyes seemed to clear, his
expres- @usion tO brighten. With the ease of one
who's performed the same task a thousand times, yet
aiso compensating for the increased size of his fingers,
Spock 2 ffipped open the commumcator.
  "COMMANDER... COMMANDER SPOCK HERE."
  A chance, at least they had a chance, Kirk thought
ex- citedly!
  Uhura's relieved tone sounded over the
communicator. "Thank heavens! Mr. Spock,
tell the captain I've located additional information
on Keniclius."
  "Let's hear it, Lieutenant!" Kirk
shouted, hoping his
  voice would carry far enough for the communicator mike
to pick up.
  Apparently it did. Uhura continued.
  "I bad the library research all known writings
by Keni- clius. Most of them border on the
incoherent, but two themes stand out, especially in his
last essays. "One is his fanaticism. The other
is some idea he had about using his projected master
race as a peacekeeping force for the entire galaxy.
That's why he needed a perfect specimen for his
cloning experiments."
  There was more, but a glance at the overhead indicator
ruled out any further contact. Another second and the
needle would dip into the red zone. She hurried.
"Signing off, power drain threshold!" She
snapped off the signal and slammed down
several switches with the other hand. Her sigh of
relief whooshed out only after the needle had dropped
out of the yellow and back into the green section of the
gauge. Then she grinned up at Scott "That is
what I call close, Mr. Scott."
  "At least we know they're alive, and apparentiy
okay," agreed Scott, in blissful ignorance.
"Let's hope it was m- formation they could use."
  "Information, yeah," mused Uhura. One arm was still
trembling. She leaned on it to hide the quiver.
"Did I ever tell you the one about the one-legged
jockey, Mr. Scott-?"
  "Peacekeeping," echoed Kirk bitteriy.
"Peacekeeping!" He shook his head and faced
Keniclius. "All this has been a waste,
Doctor Keniclius. There's no need for any
peace- keeping master race. There's been,, peace
in the Federa- tion now for well over fifty
years.
  "THAT'S A LIE!" the giant shouted, his
voice washing over them. "WHAT AB0UT
THE EUGENICS WARS? THE GALACTIC
WARS? WHAT OF THE DEPREDA tilde
ON'S OF THE R0MULANS, THE
KLIN(3ONS, AND oTHERS?
N0That TO MENTI0 tilde THE ENDLESS,
oHave, THE ENDLESS SQUABBLES AMBLEJNG
THE 50-CALLED "ALLIED' RACES OF
THE FEDERATI0ATION ITSELF? "AN ORGANI
tilde ATI0ATION 0From SP0CK
DUPLICATES IS NECESSARY TO FORCE THEM
TO LIVE IN HARMONY-F0Rather THEIR OWN
GOOD."
  Sulu muttered, "Peace through coerdon.
Humanity has
  finally grown out of that immature philosophy,
Keniclius." "You're the fifth Keniclius,"
reminded Kirk. "What makes you so sure the things
you see as truth aren't just old news bulletins
hundreds of years out of date? Your predecessors
have probably been out of touch with man- kind's
sociological advances for at least that long."
  "That is not possible. The Master always speaks the
truth," came a new voice. A new, old
voice. They turned to face the first entrance, the
tunnel of horrors they'd escaped from so
recently.
  Agmar and his four aides stood there, watching.
"I can't understand why you've come to think of Keni-
clius as a "master,"" began
McCoy. "Sure, he saved you from dying-all
five of you. But why should you agree with his plan for a
superrace? Of what possible Interest could a race
of giant Spocks have for you?" "Our fleet of
ships, which you saw," Agmar replied, "was to be
launched for the same purpose the Master in- tends.
You see, there existed between our pcople and him a
fortuitous coincidence of purpose. Disease struck
us before we could carry out oyour Own plan to Impose
peace on a galaxy that knew none."
  "We already have peace in our Federation," snapped
Kirk, "and it wasn't imposed-it was achieved from
within. A real peace!" He paused.
  "You have no need of Spock now. Reverse the
effects of that machine and let us take him back with
us."
  "No!" thundered Keniclius wildly. "THE
MOLD MUST BE BROKEN." The giant's
voice wavered considerably; Kirk's revelations
had thrust uncertainty into two hundred fifty
years of single-mindedness that had known only ah-
solute confidence.
  But it wasn't enough. The giant couldn't reverse
in a moment the accumulated efforts of those two and
half centunes.
  McCoy was leaning over Spock 1.
  "JI-MORE, he's aImost gone." Kirk thought
rapidly. McCoy could do nothing. And Keniclius
wouldn't. And he-he felt utterly impotent.
  In fact, there was only one other being present who
  might be able to save Spock now. He turned
to the other giant, who'd remained impassive throughout
everything. "If you have Spock's mind, you must know the
Vulcan syi tilde tilde bol called
IDIC."
  INFINITE DI-VERSITY IN INFINITE
CoMBINATI-OATION," the great form recited.
  "Comprising the elements that make up truth and
beauty," finished Kirk. "Tell me, could an
army of giant Spocks impose Phylosian
philosophy on any other crea- tures, in knowing
defiance of the IDIC concept?" There was a long
pause as Spock 2 considered this question. Kirk
held his breath.
  Finally, "I D0 N0That B tilde
LIEVES0.... Kirk spun on the other
giant.
  "I thought so! Reverse the machine,
Keniclius!" "No!" yelled Agmar. It was the
first violent exclamation the Phylosian
had made. "Our dream must not be allowed to die!"
He suddenly rushed at Kirk. His companions
fol- lowed, trying to keep the humans from putting
Spock 1 back on the machine.
  Sulu let out a vibrant battle cry,
intercepted Agmar and flipped him neatly over a
shoulder. The Phylosians were at a tremendous
disadvantage in a fight with anyone who knew judo
... they had too many limbs that could be onveriently
grabbed.
  But in the ensuing melee, while the three humans
bat- teed the Phylosians, Kenicllus rushed the
machine. The resolution of the minions had decided the
confused mas- ter. He lifted a long bar of
metal. It didn't really matter that none of the
humans could reach him, they couldn't have stopped him
anyhow.
  The heavy bar smashed through one of the crystal
globes encircling the table. There was a crackling
electri- cal discharge and the giant retreated.
Several other globes exploded in a shower of
glass slivers and agonized internal components.
  No one was hurt, but the damage was done. The
lights on the sides of the machine went out-went out in
the panels lining the walls. And the slight
hum which had is- sued from inside the table faded
into nothingness. Kirk, who'd been fwictioning near his
mental limit ever
  since they'd first entered the chamber and seen the dying
Spock, lost all control. Despite the difference
in their sizes and without really knowing what he intended,
he charged Keniclius.
  "Murderer! You've kllled Spock!"
  He never reached the giant. A leg as big around
as a small tree stepped between him and Keniclius.
He was forced to stop and look up into the face of
Spock 2. "TO PERSIST IN THIS
BEHAVIOR, CAPTMN, IS TO NEGATE
THE ELOQUENCE OF YOUR PREVIOUS
ARGUMENT. MAY I SUGGEST A MORE
CONSTRUCTIVE COURSE 0From AC tilde
ON?" He walked around Kirk who, thoroughly
puzzled, watched him advance on Sulu and
McCoy. The two offi- cers eased Spock 1
to the ground and backed away slowly. Bending, the
giant Vulcan lifted Spock 1 in a single
hand. Thumb and forefinger touched the smaller man's
forehead. Closing his own eyes the giant began a
familiar chant.
  "MY MIND TO YOUR .... . MY
THOUGHTS-TO YOUR TH0UGHTS...."
  "Vulcan mind touch!" exclaimed Sulu in
worider. The chamber had become a tableau of wax
fignres.. No one moved, everyone stared at the
two Spocks. Even Keni- clius, whose inaction
showed he'd never anticipated any- thing like this.
  Gradually the giant's voice faded. Spock
1 fluttered an eyelid. It rose. There was the
sound of a throat being cleared... softer, this time.
  The larger Vulcan lowered the smaller model to the
ground, facing Kirk.
  "I ant pIeasantiy surprised at your
capacity for deduc- tive reasoning, Captain,"
said Spock like. "When you are not being bellicose,
there appears to be no end to your arsenal of forensic
talents."
  Kirk, however, heard little if any of this. He'd
lost con- trol of himself again-motivated by a somewhat
different reason, this time.
  "Spock! You old!..."
  "You NEEDN'T WORRY, CAPTAIN KIRK,
ABOUT THE THREAT OF A MASTER RACE,"
rumbled Spock 2. All turned to look at
hiin. "ThERE WILL BE NO GALACTIC
MILITIA. NO
  OTHER SPOCKS. THE THINGS THAT COMBINE
TO MAKE SP-OCK A CANDIDATE FoRather
SUCH A TASK ALSO W0ULD NOT
COUNTENANCE X.
  "BUT WHAT OF MY WORK?" queried the
desperate Kenl- clius. "IF ALL ThAT
i'vEvery FOUGHT FOR IS ALREADY A:-OMore-
PLISIIEDTHE TIMES THAT I LI-VED
TO END ARE ALREADY ENDED-WHAT IS
TO BECOME OF ME? THERE APPEARS
TO BE NO REASON WHY I SHOULD
CONTINUE TO E..T...."
  "On the contrary, Dr. Kenlclius," objected
Spock 1, "I sea every reason why you should remain
active. Stay on Phylos with my surrogate.
The concerted effort of two scientists, each with his own
particular abilities and talents to enhance the
other's, might yet achieve a rebirth of Phy-
losian civilization . . . and enable them
to contribute peacefully to the Federation."
  "MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY, MR.
SPOCK," agreed Spock 2.
  "So one might assume, Mr. Spock,"
agreed Sp tilde tilde ck 1. The first
officer's successful recovery had people
backslash 1shed all primitive
revenge-thoughts from Kirk's mind. "How does that
sound to you, Dr. Kenlelius? To bring life is
even more important than bringing peace. If a way
can be found to revitalize their race, the
Phylosians have much to contribute to galactic
culture."
  "I... I WOULD BE HONORED. IF I
WOULD BE ALLOWED ... YES, YOU ARE
RIGHT, CAPTAIN KIRK. THE METH0DS
OF THE FEDERATION HA-VEvery INDEED CHANGED
FR0More WHAT I AND MY BROTHERS
tilde tilde tilde ...."
  "Truly, such a thing had not been thought of."
Agmar looked excited and interested now. "Such a
sudden change in ....... it wili be
difficult...."
  "You'll manage," said Kirk, too
diplomatic tO point out that they had no choice.
He'd meant what he said. The Phylosians had
some sterling qualities-once this master race
business had been drummed out of them. He addressed
the waiting Kenlclius again.
  "I'll report your new work here to the Federation
Science center. Not only do I think
they'll understand, they'll probably want to send out
several crews to assist you."
  And tO make sure you don't get the urge
to make any more glant clones of anything, he added
silently. Kenlclius solemnly shook hands with
each of them in turn. Then Agmar and his companions
escorted Kirk, McCoy, Sulu, and Spock
back to the surface. When the men of the Ernerprne
left, the two giant scientists were already discussing
plans for curing the Phy- losians' sterility and
expanding their knowledge of Phy- losian culture.
  Beaming up was uneventful, and there were the expect-
ed stolid greetings from Uhura tilde Kyle,
Arex, and the rest of the officers--comeveryone carefully
concealing his or her true emotions.
  They entered the bridge where Scott-relieved, as
usual-formally returned command to Kirk.
  "Where to, Captain?" asked Sulu, back in
his comfort- able seat at the navigation console.
  "Set a general course for the Omicron
region, Mr. Sulk I think everyone deserves
an extended R and R, this time. I knowIdo!"
  "Yes, sir!" Sulu responded gleefully.
  "It's a good thing we were able to stop Keniclius,"
in- toned McCoy, blatantiy
emphasizing the "we." "Imagine ... a whole
shipload... ntaybe a whole city ... full of
giant Spocks!"
  He put on an expression of exaggerated
horror while Spock looked over distastefuily
from his position at the ll- brary control and tried
to ignore McCoy.
  "What a teffii tilde g thought! . -- ." the
good doctor con- tinued, unstoppable. "Giant
Spocks rulng all over the place! Spocks
towering over helpless villages, rLmning amuck
through peaceful farmland... turning!...", "It might
be easier to stand thin you, Doctor," inter- rupted
Sulu inscrutably.
  "What?" McCoy responded with outraged
innocence. "I'm no giant"
  Kirk thought he saw an unholy gleam in
Sulu's eye. "No," the heimsman admitted,
"the trouble is you never stop cloning around."
  McCoy chased hi1n all the way back
to engineering.
  ABOUT-OUT THE AUTH-ORather
  Alan Dean Foster was born in New York
City in 1946; he currently resides in Los
Angeles, where he teaches "comCinema"
at Los Angeles City College. Upon
graduating from UCLA in 1969 with a B.a. in
Political Science and an M.f.a. in
Cinema, he briefly worked in public rela-
tions. About that time, Foster began selling short
stories to such magazines as Anaiog, Galaxy,
I!, Adam, and Altred Hitchcock. His first
science-fiction novel, The Tar-Aiym Krmg, was
published by Ballantine in 1972. He quickly
followed that success with Bloodhype and, most
recently, Icerigger-all three novels set against
the same fantastic background. Foster has also
adapted the jungle movie Lu- ana into a
popular novel for Ballantine. He is now hard
at work on Star Trek Log Nine, continuing the
adventures of the U.s.s. Enterprise and its
crew.
  o STAR-TREK LOG ONE 25042 1.50
o STAR TREK LOG TWO 25043 1.50
o STAR TREK LOG THREE 25044 1.50
o STAR TREK LOG FOUR 25045 1.50
o STAR TREK LOG FIVE 25046 1.50
o STAR TREK LOG SIX 24655 1.50
o STAR TREK LOG SEVEN 2 tilde
4s9 tilde tilde 5 tilde 1
tilde cons%0 o STAR TREK LOG
EIGHT 24691 1.95 o THE MAKING OF
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1.95 OTHE WORLD OF STAR TREK 24938
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  tilde ThRather TREK STAR FLEET
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Pleaseellow 4 weeks for delivery. L tilde
comtilde t@.tilde comtilde - LACC"...6
  that evolution has cursed
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  OF THE APES tilde 1: 25122 1.50
visions From Nowhere
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  Two astronauts land on the Earth of the
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  o RETURN TO THE PLANET
  OF THE APES 2: 25167 1.50
Escape From Terror Lagoon by William Arrow
Astronauts Hudson and Allen, on a search for
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RETURN TO THE PLANET OF THE APES
3: 25211 1.50 Man, The Hunted
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-- STARMAN JONES, RobertA. Heinlein
24354 1.50 -- UNDER PRESSURE,
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Addresscomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomcomco
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  L$12-76 A A
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  I a g tilde CHILD-ILDHOOD'S END
24344 1- I I The classic novel that has
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tees. "Ia Chlldhood's End, Arthur C.
Clarke loins ... the very I a small group of
writers who have used scIence fiction as a vehicle
1a of philosophIc ideas."-The New York
Times I I tilde tilde THL-IGHT 25193
i tilde . : : A vIvid and realistic novel
of the future where the discovery of a a essential
metals on the Moon brings the threat of a
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  war. I I tilde tilde PED tilde ON
TO EARTH 24849 1.50 : A marvelous
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2001: A : Spaceodyssey. I tilde
tilde RELUDE TO SPACE tilde 113 i
tilde : I Mankind stands on the threshold of the
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space- :
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tilde tilde CHILD FOR TOMORROW 25037 i tilde
tilde tilde A dozen Clarke storIes from
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wtENDIIZVOUS WITH RAMA 25 tilde tilde
1.95 I Wi"...ner of the Hugo, Nebula and
John W. Campbell Awards. i I
"Story-telling of the highest order... perpetual
surprIse... : breathIesssuspens tilde comThe
New York Times I : TALES FROM THIS-LI
WHITE HART 24165 1-0 a Asparkilng
collection of fIfteen hilarIous tales-
Including "Mov- a
  : Ing Splritst" "The Reluctant
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tilde rmlnlrude Inch." I i BaUanti
tilde MaIlSales a
  I .: i'ept'z2O1L5OthStn tilde
t I New You New York 10022 I
  : Please send me the books l have checked
above. l am enclosing : I .... (please add
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