Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: Short Stories Read online

  Kirk clambered up next to him and looked into a valley. It was a long trough, with a purple river winding through, and what appeared to be farmlands on both sides. There were a number of buildings here and there, bell-shaped or like the minarets of Arabia. The greatest concentration was at one end of the valley, not far from them.

  The minarets were cream and rose and tan in color, with needlelike tops, often ornamented with golden balls, crimson tetrahedons, and sapphire cones. The streets were curving, made of smooth gray stone, and edged with low plants in green and blue, some of which bore flowers of intense yellow.

  “Are they human?” McCoy asked, squinting.

  “Look for yourself,” Kirk said, handing McCoy the enlarging scanner.

  McCoy saw tall, graceful figures with bronzed skin, wearing simple, graceful robes. Some had jewelry, but most did not. Their heads were either shaven, or little hair grew, except for long plumes of black tendrils, coming from the crown of the skull.

  “It … it looks Utopian,” McCoy said.

  Kirk nodded. “I agree. Which is exactly why I’m going to be very, very careful.”

  “Jim,” McCoy said, “they might be timid creatures. First contact and all. Why don’t we figure out some way to break it easy to them that people from—”

  There was a scream, and the two men whirled to see a lean brown animal with long talons rip at the back of a screaming security man. There was a lancing blast from the phaser of a nearby crewman, and the creature tumbled to the ground.

  McCoy beat Kirk to the wounded guard. The doctor’s Feinberger swept over him, its lights twinkling. “Jim, we’ve got to get him up to the ship at once!”

  Kirk dug out his communicator and flipped it open. “Enterprise, this is Kirk. Prepare to beam up an injured man. Alert medical. On these coordinates—”

  “Stop.”

  They turned, and phasers were in the hands of all as they looked at the figure on the rise of rock. Kirk immediately thought of the newcomer as a she, although he had no idea why. Perhaps it was the grace, or … something.

  “Jim!” McCoy snapped. “Order him up.”

  “Stop,” the voice said, and Kirk realized it came not from the tall, thin figure but from the computer link, which was analyzing her words.

  “This man needs attention!” McCoy snapped.

  “I will heal.”

  Disregarding the weapons of the security team, the white-clad intruder walked down to the injured man. McCoy started to protest, and the native looked at him. There was a moment of silence as the Terran doctor looked into the large, dark, shining eyes of the newcomer. Then, without a word, he stepped back, and the female knelt by the side of the blood-spattered and torn body.

  Her hands went out, and when she touched the injured man her breath sucked in in a loud hiss, as though she had touched fire. Her whole body went stiff, as though electricity was coursing through the slender limbs. The injured man stirred and moaned, his mouth sagging open in a soundless cry.

  McCoy gasped as he looked at the ragged tears inflicted upon the back of the dying man. Where talons had ripped through muscle, the flesh was closing, healing even as he watched. The hiss of pained breathing was the only sound for a long moment, until one of the security men uttered an ancient Andorian oath of amazement.

  “He’s … he’s closed up!”

  “Look at that,” another said. “It’s … it’s a miracle!”

  “How do you do that?” McCoy asked as the female lifted her hands from the torso of the man. Her liquid dark eyes seemed vacant, but the man before her breathed easily, as though sleeping, with only pink, fading scars where moments before there had been the ugly, raw, red gashes of ripped flesh.

  “How do you do that?” McCoy demanded, touching the female. At once he drew back his hand, yelping in surprise. He held his hand as though it had been burnt, and demanded yet again, “You’ve got to tell me: how do you do that?”

  The female sighed and slowly, gracefully, sank to the earth and seemed to sleep. McCoy blinked at her. He flipped out his communicator. “Transporter room, beam in on these coordinates. Take up the casualty. I want a complete test, and I mean from molecular tissue to brain scan! Sims, Finkelstein, go with him.”

  McCoy turned to Kirk. “Jim, I’ve got to find out what went on here!”

  “Bones—”

  “Jim, please. Give me time. This is fantastic, what she did!”

  “All right, Doctor McCoy, you have twenty-four hours. By then Scotty will have done the repairs.” His eyes narrowed on the agitated medical officer. “What about the injured on the ship?”

  McCoy grabbed at Kirk’s sleeve. “Jim, if I can find out how she does this; if—Jim, this could be a breakthrough like no other! No technology! A doctor could heal anywhere, anytime! Maybe we can learn to heal ourselves! Give me the time, Jim!”

  “Twenty-four hours. One Earth day.”

  McCoy nodded his thanks and turned quickly to the supine female. Gingerly, he touched her skin, but this time there was no sharp, tingling discharge. McCoy moved his glittering Feinberger over the length of her body, watching the readouts closely.

  “She’s better now. Resting, I think.” He stood and looked at the city. “Is she a special person, or can they all do it? Jim, we’ve got to go into that city.”

  “I already intended to, Doctor.” Kirk ordered the transporter room to beam down a life-support stretcher with two more medics.

  In a few minutes the once-wounded man had been sent up, a medical team had the slender alien onto the life-support stretcher, and they were all going down the slope toward the city in the valley.

  • • •

  As they drew closer, they were seen, and several of the natives ran into the minarets. But most stopped and looked, surprised but seemingly unafraid. Kirk held up his hands in what he hoped was a sign of peace; at least, it was a widespread signal of peace through many races.

  They walked along the dirt paths and onto the paved streets. The native on the stretcher stirred and sat up. McCoy ordered a halt and helped the slender person to her feet.

  “I am Leonard McCoy. I am a doctor … a healer. We are all from Earth. We are members of a federation of planets. Who are you? What do you call your world?”

  The limpid eyes went to the speaker of the computer link, then to McCoy’s mouth, and she tilted her head for a moment, studying him, before she spoke.

  “I am Saffar, Number One Medical Person of Azphar.” A graceful six-fingered hand indicated the rounded buildings of the small city.

  McCoy grinned broadly. “You did something miraculous back there. That boy was all but dead! You saved his life!”

  Saffar tilted her head again. “I did only my duty.”

  “And that’s what I want to find out about,” McCoy said quickly. “How do you do it? Is it telepathy? Some kind of body chemistry? Sympathetic medicine? What?”

  A slight frown appeared on Saffar’s smoothly featured face. “I do not understand. I do as we all do and have always done. It is painful, but necessary.”

  “You can all do it, then?” McCoy inquired with a desperate eagerness.

  Again, the frown. “All? No. That would be illogical.”

  There was a pained expression on Kirk’s face as he turned abruptly away. Logic and illogic, the poles of Spock’s philosophy. Kirk watched the others like Saffar as the interrogation continued. The natives were shy, but not afraid, and in ones and twos they came out of the buildings to look at the strangers from the stars.

  “Only some of you have this power, then?” McCoy asked.

  “Some, yes. We all have power, as you call it. Why does your device speak our language and you do not?”

  “It’s an automatic translator. A simple technology. Tell me more of the powers of your people.”

  Saffar made a gesture to indicate those of her race around them. “Sasquin has the power to talk to the plants, to guide their growth and productivity. Almost everyone in his family has had it.
It is what they do. His sister, Samari, however, does not. She is more like the Samoon family, who guide the creatures of the air.”

  “Is this telepathy?”

  “I do not understand. We think of what we want. Sometimes it is not difficult and sometimes it is. Sometimes the changes are slow, and take generations. The great kamali trees, for example. Twice each day, all the members of the Surathemos family think of greater harvests from greater trees, and the trees listen, but they change very slowly, for they are as old as our culture.”

  “But that healing,” McCoy said quickly. “You did it in moments. The flesh healed, right before our eyes!”

  Again the frown. “Yes, naturally. It took longer because the structure of the flesh was different. I had to ask it how it was and it told me and I gave it the power to reform itself, to be a truly functioning part of the whole.”

  McCoy stared at her. “Just like that?”

  Saffar tilted her head again, her smooth features unreadable. “Naturally. How else would you do it? Do you do it without the pain?”

  McCoy stared at her a moment, then turned to Kirk. “Admiral, I formally request leave of absence to stay here and—”

  “No, Bones,” Kirk said, turning around. “You’ll go back with us and finish the mission. I need you. Afterwards, afterwards if you can persuade Starfleet, you can come back.”

  “Jim …” But Kirk’s expression and McCoy’s years of experience with his captain told him it was no use. “All right. I have twenty-four hours.”

  McCoy asked to be taken to the home of Saffar, and a delegation of natives approached Kirk. The admiral ordered another computer link beamed down; the twinkling appearance of the device caused consternation among them, then curiosity.

  McCoy took one link and went off, while Kirk kept himself busy with finding out about the planet. They called it Azphari, or Earth. This did not startle or surprise Kirk. As humans explored the universe they found that most races who developed on a planet called it the Land, the Great Earth, the Place, or some similar basic word. All races evolved thinking theirs was the only world, the only self-awareness.

  There were few of them. Their birthrate was low, but they lived a long time, surprisingly sturdy against a gravity that was a third heavier than Kirk’s Earth. He discovered that there were families who “talked” to insects, to the larger animals, and to the drab but necessary fungi that was the ingredient of decomposition.

  The lovely minarets, he found out, were the products of the Saam, a family of Azphari who talked to an almost microscopic corallike organism, directing them to crawl into the assigned places, link with those around them, and die there.

  Kirk was taken to the largest minaret, where he saw beautiful and complex geometric designs edging the doorways as though carved, and, inside, intricate sculptures by the leading artists of the Saam family over the centuries.

  Kirk met Sumarador, the elderly queen of Azphari, and found her eager to learn of the races beyond the lights in the sky. But Kirk’s mind kept wandering. How were the repairs going? Were the injured cared for? And—always—the ache of loss for a companion.

  After a time, Kirk excused himself and flipped open his communicator to call Scotty.

  “It’s coming, Admiral, but it’s not easy. We discovered the F-21 circuit was about to blow. The matter-antimatter pod control was on the edge of fusing as well, sir. We would have had an explosion you could have seen on Pluto if we had tried to stop in Earth orbit.”

  “All right, Scotty, keep at it. Bridge!”

  “Aye, Captain,” Chekov responded.

  “Chekov, give me hourly reports on the ship status. I … I think I’ll stay here for a while.”

  “Aye aye, Captain.”

  Here, Kirk thought. A new world. Not the familiar environment of the bridge, where a slight turning of the head would show me that Spock was not at his station. Or never would be.

  “Kirk out.”

  • • •

  “It’s time, Bones.”

  “Jim, there’s so much to learn!”

  “Doctor McCoy, Scotty says that we’ll be ready to go in two hours. I want everyone on board and—”

  Beep.

  Kirk pulled out his communicator and flipped it open. “Kirk here.”

  “Captain,” Chekov said, “Commander Scott reports that he’s found a lot of metal fatigue in the port support main stem. It’ll be another twenty hours while he shores it up.”

  Kirk looked annoyed and irritated. “Very well. Kirk out.” He looked at McCoy. “You have another twenty hours, Doctor.”

  “I’ll take what I can get. Jim, you just won’t believe what they can do! Alter a fetus in the womb—better genetic manipulation than we can, and look at them! They look like they are barely out of the hunter-and-gatherer stage of civilization.”

  “Yes, Doctor, but my ship needs healing, too.” Kirk turned and stalked away, down the paved street to the edge of the small city.

  He stood and looked at the fields. The whole place was beginning to bore him. The Azphari seemed a simple race; they had art and music, but the level of complexity and sophistication was low. They could manipulate single-cell organisms to create homes, but they were basically all alike, with only minor variations. They all looked alike, as well, especially to an outsider. Their clothes were almost identical. They had simple mathematics and virtually no technology. They had no real natural enemies and were not warlike. They seemed like simple, good folk, but not very interesting people, and Kirk was keyed to a higher form of challenge. He was getting restless.

  He walked back into the city, nodding pleasantly at the passing Azphari. The security men were sitting in the shade of a minaret, and he motioned them to stay sitting as he passed. He found McCoy in Saffar’s domed home and motioned him outside.

  “Jim, she was just telling me how they can get plants to produce certain vaccines that—”

  “Bones, can they change metal?”

  “I don’t know, Jim. This is a very low-metal planet, you know. You’ll have noticed they have almost nothing in the way of knives or tools that isn’t made of wood. Why?”

  “Bones, you’re learning from them, right?”

  “My lord, yes.” McCoy beamed widely. “I don’t know how they do it yet, but I’m finding out the range is immense!”

  “Are they learning from you?” Kirk demanded.

  “Well, I suppose so. Saffar—and the others, too, because she brought in all her family of healers—seems fascinated by physical technology. I will describe something, an operation or technique, and I’ll use the computer link to show samples, and then I ask how they would do it.”

  “So you are learning from each other?”

  “Yes, I suppose you could say that, but they’re learning standard medical practice and I’m learning about something new and wonderful!”

  “And they know you have a deadline?”

  “I guess I mentioned it, yes.”

  “Doctor, is it possible they might have…” Kirk hesitated. The idea sounded so bizarre. But bizarreness was in the belief of the beholder. He had seen too many strange sights and had felt the effects of too many “impossible” situations to completely deny any possibility. “Is it possible they might have somehow caused the metal fatigue in the port support?”

  McCoy shook his head vigorously. “No, impossible. As you know, I took Saffar and two of the others up to the ship. We were aboard three hours and they were with me the entire time. We didn’t go near the support. I showed them the sick bay and demonstrated how the data bank worked, but they couldn’t have done anything.”

  “How close to they have to be? Do they have to touch the object?”

  “Oh, no. Close, perhaps; I’m not sure. The builders just sit out in the front, as it were, while those corallike creatures are building a dome. It’s some form of telepathy, I know, but I haven’t found out what. That’s why I took them up to the Enterprise, really. To see if the sensors could read them.” He shru
gged. “The results were inconclusive.”

  Kirk nodded. “All right. But remember, you only have five hours.”

  McCoy nodded and trotted back to Saffar and the others, and went into an immediate huddle.

  Beep.

  “Kirk here!”

  “Admiral, there’s something funny going on here,” Scott said. “I can’t explain it. I inspected those structural beams myself, on the first inspection. I don’t think I could have missed it.”

  “Missed what, Scotty?”

  “The fractures. They are all through the main support, higher up than the first. But I could swear nothing was there before!”

  “What kind of damage?”

  “Molecular misalignment. I know it’s beryllinium, but any metal can fatigue, sir, given the right circumstances. Like a few moments of a microphaser set on disruption.”

  “Sabotage?” Kirk asked harshly.

  “No, Admiral, I don’t think so. Who would be so insane? It’s either … well, it’s natural flaws resulting from severe stresses … or … or, a disrupting beam of some sort.”

  “So it could be sabotage?”

  There was a short silence. “I dinna like to think that, sir, but … it could be.”

  “When did you notice these fractures?”

  “About two hours ago, Admiral. But when I looked at them when we first started orbiting this—what do you call it?”

  “Azphari.”

  “Azphari; well, they weren’t there then.”

  “Scotty, put on more security. Keep everyone away that isn’t supposed to be there. Go to Stage Two alert.”

  “Aye, Admiral, but there’s one other thing.”

  “Say it, Scotty!”

  “It’s Doctor McCoy, sir.”

  “What about McCoy?”

  “Well, sir, he…”

  “Scotty!”

  “Aye, sir. Doctor McCoy and that bunch of aliens he was showing around; they were around here about the time these new flaws started.”

  “Bones told me he was nowhere near there.”

  “Well, Admiral, Ensigns Strother-Vien and Ogawa, they swear it.”

  Kirk’s face was carefully neutral. “All right, Mister Scott, I’ll look into it. Kirk out.”