The Voices

[Mr. Atoz]

THE VOICES >>>

"Medical Officer's log: Stardate 52240.5: Federation Undersecretary Langmuir's size thirteen and a half feet had barely materialized on the Odysseus' transporter pad when the emergency call came in from a mining survey on Theta Circini V. But Langmuir had to be at the trade conference on Ekos in 48 hours, and since Undersecretaries think that the entire galaxy literally revolves around them, he begrudged even a short delay. So I grabbed my toothbrush and a biocomp, bid everyone a fond adieu, and beamed down."

Ben Pierce frowned at the readings on his tricorder, then set the instrument down on the palm leaf floor. From his squatting position, he reached over to peek under the flaccid eyelid of the sweating patient lying on the cot. "Yep, it's Sukaro's disease all right," he said finally. "Good catch, Nurse Zelinski."

The young civilian woman sitting on her haunches beside him in the crude hut drew back a strand of hair from her face and flushed as if she weren't used to praise. "Thank you, doctor. I just happened to see a case when I was interning at the Galen Institute."

"Ah, the good old alma mater," said Pierce with a grin, checking his tricorder again. "Is old Blood-and-Guts McBride still the chief of staff?"

"He was three years ago," she said, smiling. "Although he spoke of retiring."

"Funny thing, he spoke of retiring when I interned under him too. I'm not saying I had anything to do with it, mind you, but there was an incident involving twenty thousand red rubber balls that somehow ended up in his locker."

"As fascinating as all this is," the patient snapped, stirring weakly on his cot, "can we get back to my situation?"

"Of course, Mr. Ridley," said Pierce, folding his hands in his best "doctor" pose. "What would you like to know about your situation?"

"I want..." the patient began, then closed his eyes wearily and took a deep breath. "I don't want to know anything. Just give me a shot so I can get back to work."

"It's not that easy, Mr. Ridley," said Pierce, taking his hypospray out of his medikit and giving him an injection. "You have Sukaro's disease. Probably picked it up at your last port of call, Kylarus III. I can make you more comfortable, but Sukaro's has a nasty habit of mimicking the DNA pattern of the host's own immune system. That can make treatment very tricky. It may take a couple of days." He leaned forward to take a blood sample for the biocomputer, speaking to the nurse. "Are you certain no one else is showing symptoms?"

Zelinski nodded. "Apart from Mr. Ridley, there's just me and Wilson, doctor. We were dropped off by runabout. It's supposed to return for us in two weeks."

"You guys are stranded here until then?" said Pierce incredulously. "I know the Odysseus will be back for me in about four or five days, but I already miss it."

"We've been here a week already. It's not so bad once you get used to it. Like camping out."

"Trouble is, I'm not a good camper." Just as Pierce stood up, a birdlike native entered through the lop-sided doorway of the hut. It was about five feet tall, covered with very fine, yellowish-green feathers, its two long legs carrying it with a graceful kind of strut. An enormous gourd was suspended around its neck by a fiber rope. As it stood up to full height, it trilled out a melodic string of chirps and clicks, then stopped abruptly when it saw Pierce.

Zelinski hurried forward to help the avian to set down the gourd before she dropped it. "Yes, Mr. Ridley is feeling much better," she said, the UT in her ear simultaneously translating her words into a series of cheeps. "A magician has come from our home island to cure him. This is Dr. Pierce. Doctor, this is Wona. Her family lives down near the river. They were kind enough to let us use this hut."

The alien was obviously deeply impressed by Pierce's blue and black Starfleet uniform, so much more colorful than the drab khaki suits worn by the civilian mining survey. Her big, intelligent eyes looked him over carefully, blinking rapidly. Then she folded her legs under her and covered her face with her slender, long-fingered hands, speaking again in her musical dialect. "She says the nest welcomes you, great one," Zelinski translated for Pierce's benefit.

"Thank you very much, Wona," said Pierce, taking her hands and moving them from her face. "But this isn't necessary. I put on my pants one leg at a time, just like everyone else. At least I have ever since the operation."

The avian looked up, blinking and thingying her head to one side as Zelinski translated this for her. Her beak opened and gave a series of short squawks which gratified Pierce no end. Then, bowing again, Wona backed out the door and departed.

"You guys have heard of the Prime Directive, haven't you?" said Pierce, as he set up the program on the biocomp. By which he meant that, under the terms of Starfleet's Non-interference policy, the native culture should not have been openly contacted or told about the existence of the Federation.

"Maybe I'd better let Wilson answer that one," said Zelinski.

[Mr. Atoz]

"It's an Article 76 exception," said geologist Abel Wilson, later that afternoon as they sat around an outdoor fire pit for their evening meal. The hut was situated on a hill surrounded on three sides by jungle and looking out at the ocean, glittering peacefully underneath a pale gibbous moon. "The sentient lifeforms of this planet total less than a quarter million, scattered over about a thousand islands of various sizes. A stranded commercial vessel came ashore once looking for iridium and inadvertently made contact. We just say we're from another island. As long as the natives don't actually see us use our advanced technology, it's okay. At least, that's what the company lawyers tell me."

"My Captain certainly wouldn't agree with that," said Pierce, taking a swallow of his drink as he wondered how civilians could get away with things a Starfleet officer would be hung out to dry for. "He thinks any contact at all is dangerous."

"I think your Captain's right," said Zelinski, picking at her dinner with her fork..

"Look, we're not going to be here that long!" said Wilson, turning on the nurse. "Anyway, we're helping them. You were afraid the river water was contaminated, so you told them we could only use it if it was boiled first, right? They think it's a religious ritual, but I've noticed they're doing it with their own water, too. They're healthier because of us."

"But we're also reinforcing their belief in magic. Is that a good thing?"

"I don't see what harm it does, either."

"Wait a minute," said Pierce. "You have them fetching water for you?"

"We trade for it," said Wilson impatiently. "A portable replicator uses up more power to make organic material. It's just as easy for us to make synthetic rope, leather and shells for the villagers, and in exchange they bring us water, vegetables, sometimes meat and fish. Plus, it keeps us on good terms with them."

"Shells?"

"Special kinds of shells," explained Zelinski. "They call them Koorin. Only found on the north shore of the island. They use them as a kind of currency. But they're still basically calcium carbonate. We scanned one into the replicator, and we could turn them out by the cartload if we had to."

"Look, they never see the replicator," said Wilson, exasperated by what he saw as Pierce's criticism. "For all they know, we could be getting this stuff the ordinary way."

"But you're not," Pierce argued. "That's the point. You could destabilize their monetary system for one thing."

"We thought of that doctor," said Zelinski. "We're careful not to make too many."

"I'm sure you are," said Pierce. "But it's still basically dishonest."

"I don't see what difference it makes," said Wilson. "And it's well within the legal guidelines I was given."

***

Pierce didn't see Wona again for four days. He woke up that morning tired and grouchy because he still wasn't accustomed to the thin little sleeping cot. Zelinski gave him the usual breakfast of toasted bread, fish and fruit juice. Apparently coffee wasn't programmed into their replicator. When she went inside the hut to try and get Ridley to eat something, Wona came strutting into the campsite and, flashing the crest of feathers on top of her head, greeted him with a twittering speech in which the phonetic combination "Dock Tor Peers" were plainly discernible.

"Just a second," he said, fumbling with the spare Universal Translator which Zelinski had given him. "Good day, Wona. Your... er... feathers are looking particularly stunning today."

The birdlike girl was wearing a leather pouch hanging at her waist. She reached into it and withdrew a shell, which she offered to him with a trilling serenade of clicks. The UT offered the translation, "You must help Wona, Great One."

It was a beautiful object -- a cone-shaped spiral about five inches long, mostly ivory white with red stripes. Pierce turned it over in his hand absently. "I'll do anything I can, Wona. What's the trouble? Is someone sick? Hurt?"

"Wona needs Koorin, Great One. To wed with beloved Mansowbi."

For just a fraction of a second, Pierce thought of the replicator, and Zelinski's boast of turning them out by the cart load, but he thrust the thought aside. "I'm sorry, but I'm tapped out," he said, handing the shell back. "I... uh, I lost all my Koorin in a wild, high stakes poker game just before I came here. Sorry."

The alien twittered nervously. "The trade boat from Mansowbi's people comes soon. Wona must have five Koorin. Will you come with me to the shore of Koorin? With your mighty healing powers, surely you are not afraid."

Pierce vaguely remembered what Zelinski had told him, that the natives got the Koorin shells from the north shore of the island. "Well, is it very far?"

"No further than Teechabi flies from morn to high tide."

Teechabi was what the natives called their sun. If Pierce understood her correctly, they could be there and back by mid-afternoon, certainly before nightfall. Then it occurred to him that for the shells to be valuable, getting to them must be a problem. "Is the jungle dangerous?" he asked suspiciously. "Treacherous mountain paths? Quicksand? Ravenous beasts? Things like that?"

"No, Great One."

"Please stop calling me that, Wona," said Pierce, beginning to have second thoughts. After all, there was still Ridley to look after...

"There are only the Voices."

Pierce had just decided to make some excuse not to go with her after all. "Did you say voices?"

The girl flicked her head in a sideways nod making her crest dance. "Wona has never been. Many say there are Voices, but no one is there. Many say the Voices are spirits of Evil Ones from the Cave of Night. Most fear to go there, but Wona knows that Dock Tor Peers does not fear."

"No, of course not." Disembodied voices? Obviously some natural phenomenon that the natives had built up a superstition around. But then again...

"Koorin are only found after Teechona's belly is full with her young. That is now, Dock Tar Peers. There will be Koorin now."

Teechona – that was what they called their moon. Pierce held up his hand. "Wait here for me, Wona. I'll be right back."

***

Inside the hut, Ridley was responding well to treatment. His RBC was up, but he still had a slight fever from secondary infections. He was sitting up in his cot and eating, which was a good sign. While Pierce was checking his vital signs, he mentioned what Wona had just told him. "Just a native superstition," said Ridley dismissively. "We sent the sensor drone over there once, but other than a slight magnetic anomaly, there was nothing of interest."

"What kind of anomaly?"

"This isn't a science expedition, Dr. Pierce," Ridley grunted. "We're looking for topaline. Anything else doesn't interest us."

"Why do you think they're afraid of the place then?"

"How should I know?" said Ridley, handing the remains of his breakfast back to Zelinski. "I'm not an anthropologist. Probably some kind of folk taboo that nobody even remembers the reason for. They hear the wind or the surf or something and imagine that they're voices."

"How about this?" said Pierce. "What if the voices are tied to a natural occurrence, like the full moon? That's why you missed them, because you sent your drone at the wrong time."

"Why would they be tied to the full moon?"

"I don't know," said the doctor with a shrug. "Maybe they like green cheese. That's why I'd like to go out there."

"You're wasting your time," said Ridley, turning over in his cot. "But since I'm getting better, I suppose it's your time to waste."

[Mr. Atoz]

***

The path, marked by poles with distinctive markings, followed the bank of the sluggish little river for the most part. After an hour or so, Pierce's entire body felt hot and slippery, soaked with perspiration from the exertion of fighting his way through the huge palm fronds, dripping with moisture. "I feel like I'm in a sauna," he said, pausing to rest. "All that's missing is the steam." Panting from the effort of breathing the humid air, he opened the sleeves and front of his uniform to let the fabric air out a little. At this point, the pathway struck off at an angle and began to meander uphill.

The ground beneath their feet became steadily more rocky. All at once, Pierce was aware of an eerie murmuring sound. It wasn't particularly loud, but it was unexpected enough to make them both freeze. Wona stopped, her crest flashing as she turned her head to the left and right, her eyes blinking rapidly in agitation. Pierce reached for her talon-like hand, and together they steadied one another's nerves.

As they continued to climb, the sound momentarily grew almost to a shriek, then tapered off to a mutter, rising and falling in bursts. Pierce and Wona came out of the jungle and found themselves on a stony limestone ridge overlooking the ocean, with the fresh breeze from the sea rippling their clothing. Directly in front of them was a bare promontory, eroded by wind and rain into a craggy series of tunnels and arches which the wind was blowing through. "There are your voices," said Pierce, grinning with relief.

Wona thingyed her head as the breeze died away and with it the murmuring sound. A second later, she had forgotten all about it as something else came to her attention. "Koorin!" she cried, tugging at his sleeve and pointing down the far side of the ridge to the stretch of white sandy beach.

Together they hurried down the steep hillside, following the path through a short stretch of sweltering jungle, sheltered from the wind by a spur of the mountain they had just descended. As Wona scurried onto the beach to look for shells, Pierce hung back at the edge of the jungle long enough to flick open his medical tricorder and take a reading. But apart from the usual background of plants and insects, no life signs registered.

The beach was littered with shells, most of them broken and unusable, but to Wona's delight, they managed to gather up nine that were still intact and carefully stow them in a woven bag she had brought along. Only then did she hunt for some fruit which she knew was edible. As the two of them sat on the beach eating, watching the waves lap peacefully against the shore, Pierce thought that it had been a big to-do about nothing. The sun had moved far enough that he was shaded under the canopy. He leaned against the bole of a palm-like tree and found himself nodding sleepily.

"Well, I hate to say it," he said, shaking himself awake a good hour later, "but the afternoon's getting on. We'd better start back home." Refreshed by the nap, he hauled himself lazily to his feet, then had to stand there and wait while Wona roused herself. Pierce started trudging back through the jungle, but just as he neared the slope of the limestone ridge, someone unexpectedly pushed him in the back!

He nearly fell down, but caught himself. He turned around, thinking Wona was playing a trick on him, but she was actually a yard or two ahead of him. Then an angry, high-pitched voice shouted something which Pierce couldn't understand. He was pushed again, on the side this time, then on the back. Suddenly he was surrounded by a whirlwind of voices, inarticulately scolding and haranguing. The actual words were completely incomprehensible, at least to Pierce.

"Hoon! Adjah!"'

"Meen-embro-oy attack! Meen-assemblo!"

"An feesh oloy!"

It didn't sound remotely like the musical language which Wona spoke, but Pierce didn't get the chance to ask her, since the avian girl was already scrambling up the slope to the ridge, apparently ignored by his invisible attackers. If he had a chance to think, Pierce would have realized that the Universal Translator needed time to sort out this completely new language, but the inundation of voices was intimidating and overwhelming in its violence. All he could do was cover his ears and look for some means of escape. He tried to follow Wona, but got turned around and ended up running the other way, missing the path and plunging into the trackless jungle.

Something struck him on the side of the head, not a push this time but a solid blow, hard enough to draw blood. Pierce stumbled, crashed through a line of sawtooth bushes which cut his arms and ripped at his uniform, and fell down a half-covered sinkhole opening onto a pile of jagged rocks. He just had time to realize that they were volcanic rocks and not limestone before he passed out.

[Mr. Atoz]

Zelinski paced restlessly back and forth, darting glances at the orange sun, low on the horizon. Behind her, Ridley appeared in the doorway of the hut, holding himself erect by the frame. "He's not back yet?"

She shook her head. "I'm worried, Mr. Ridley. He won't answer his comm badge either."

"Let me see," said Wilson, pulling out his e-phone. He tried the general communications frequency, and when he didn't get an answer, he set it to searching. "I'm getting a carrier, so it's working. He's just not answering it."

"Maybe he dropped it," said Zelinski. "He could be lost out there in the jungle."

"Wona is with him, isn't she?" said Ridley. "Well then, there's really nothing to worry about. We haven't seen any dangerous animals on this island, no poisonous serpents or anything. There's no use in us getting lost looking for him. If he hasn't found his way back by morning, we'll send out the sensor probe."

***

It was full dark when Pierce woke up, but he could see by the bright moonlight falling down the cave entrance. When he tried to sit up, he realized that his hands were tied in front of him with thin strips of some kind of flexible but incredibly tough material. His feet were also tied. He managed to push himself into an upright position, and in process found out that his tricorder, his medikit, and his comm badge had all been taken – he hadn't brought a phaser with him -- but not, oddly enough, his UT. So, whoever was holding him captive recognized technological artifacts. That was interesting.

"Hello?" he called, his voice echoing slightly. "Anybody home?" The cave he had fallen into was evidently an ancient lava tube, less than twenty feet in diameter and extending in both directions. To his surprise, two invisible figures darted out of the shadows, suddenly becoming translucent and ghostlike as the moonlight struck them. Their movements were quick and hyperactive, and they spoke in the same tense, angry voices he had heard before, but this time the UT was able to decipher their language.

"It is a Hoon-oid, half-civilized," said one. "Look at its clothing. Some kind of uniform!"

"But it has technology," said the other, holding up Pierce's tricorder as Exhibit A. "It must know something. Where did it come from?"

It was very strange the way these beings were only visible by moonlight, and that not entirely distinctly. From what Pierce could see, they had tube-shaped bodies, standing upright on two forked legs. They had two eyes set on opposite sides of a head which was little more than a knob on top of a mobile, stalk-like neck. The mouth was a drooping snout. Their arms were broad but flat, like oars. "Hello," he said, "my name is Ben Pierce. Do you gentlemen have names?"

"Shockingly stupid," said the first. "Clearly it can't help us any more than the primitive bird people could!"

"At least its translation device appears to work," said the other. "It would so tedious to probe into its mind."

"Excuse me," said Pierce, "but the least you could do is talk directly to me."

They stared at Pierce as if he were a zoo animal which had performed a not too interesting trick. But at that moment, a third came flitting out of the dark tunnel. "You must forgive my colleagues," it said. "We have been stranded here a long time, and they are impatient. My nominative designation is Ibliss Five."

Pierce nodded a greeting. "I'm kind of guessing you guys aren't from around here."

"We are from Fhimox," whined the first.

"In the Void of Kakolesk," insisted the second.

"Is that another planet?" asked Pierce politely. The two beings each gave a snort of frustration and melted back into the darkness of the cave.

"Not a planet in the way you mean the term," said Ibliss. "Our elemental phase transition is on a slightly higher vibrational plane than yours."

Pierce thought about this statement for a moment. "Your molecules move faster than ours do. That's why it's so difficult to see you."

"Low level photons do cause a phase excitation," the alien admitted grudgingly, "so that we can be seen by reflected light. But that bright thing in your sky is intensely painful."

"We call it a sun," Pierce said apologetically. He held up his bound wrists. "Look, there's no need to keep me--"

"Nine hundred and thirty six sleep cycles we have been stranded here," continued the voice, paying no attention. "Since our capsule lost power. We had begun to give up all hope of restoring contact with our home."

"Nine hundred...?" Pierce began. "You mean days? Wait a second. Wona said the voices have been here for generations, as long as anybody can remember!"

There was a trace of condescension in Ibliss' voice. "To creatures as transitory as yourselves, what can you expect? You only remain active for about sixteen hours at a time and then lie dormant for eight! With a metabolic cycle like that, how can you possibly get anything done? Is it any wonder my colleagues refuse to believe that beings such as yourselves can even be intelligent?"

Pierce felt a little bewildered. "Whereas...?" he prompted.

"Whereas our race remains active for 152 hours before requiring rest. A much superior arrangement." He added quickly, "It is not your fault for being inferior, of course."

"Of course," said Pierce.

Ibliss looked up through the sinkhole at the moon overhead. "After struggling unsuccessfully to communicate with the primitive bird people, we returned to a dormant state, only reviving periodically to feed on those tasty mollusks which washed up on the beach..."

"The natives call them Koorin," interjected Pierce.

"At any rate," Ibliss continued, "now that we finally have contact with a relatively advanced culture, all that is behind us. What kind of power generation capability do you have?"

"The survey team has a cold fusion generator to run its replicator," said Pierce without thinking. "But the starship I serve on will be back in a couple of days. If you'll just wait until--"

"We expect to be in full possession of this planet by then," said Ibliss dismissively, as the other two aliens flitted excitedly back from out of the dark tunnel. "They have a primitive hydrogen cycle converter," he said to them. "With suitable modifications, we can use it to re-charge our invasion capsule! Let there be no further delay!" Taking no further notice of Pierce, the three of them swarmed up the sinkhole and vanished into the jungle.

***

Zelinski awoke when the perimeter alarm went off. It was a precaution that Ridley had insisted upon from the beginning, even though they had yet to meet a dangerous animal on this planet. The insistent buzzing of the alarm was not loud, but annoying enough to make sleep impossible. She lurched out of her cot and stumbled out the door, colliding with Wilson, who was looking around the campsite holding a boot in his hand as if it were an oversized phaser pistol.

"What?" was all she could think of to say.

"Who?" he replied.

The three aliens zipped rapidly across the clearing, their forms shimmering and ghostlike in the moonlight. Wilson and Zelinski, still almost half asleep, hadn't begun to decide if they were real or not before they were attacked. A sparkling energy halo seemed to engulf Wilson, and he dropped to the ground, writhing silently in torment. Zelinski found herself grabbed by two pairs of largely invisible hands, holding her captive.

"Eedak! Hoon!" a voice yapped at her harshly, seemingly right in her ear.

"Jabo!" shouted another voice, as the spectral figures dragged her back towards the hut. Ridley appeared in the doorway, firing his type I phaser. The beam sliced harmlessly past the aliens, who parted in front of it, evading it easily. Zelinski felt the hands on her melt away as the two holding her prisoner converged on the new threat.

"Mister Ridley, look out!" she shouted, but the aliens were already on him. Several hard blows struck, pummeling him into unconsciousness.

"Sembol! Arrat!" a third voice screamed, and a moment later the aliens were back, hauling her inside.

***

The filaments binding Pierce were a continuous strand; he couldn't see any indication that they were tied or fastened in any way. Worming his way painfully across the floor of the cave, he found a protruding edge of jagged igneous rock and began to saw away at the bindings. After ten minutes, he wasn't sure if he was making any impression at all. If he could only find his medikit, that would be something. There was a small laser scalpel in there that might do the trick. But finding it in this dark cave would be...

"Dock Tor Peers?"

Pierce looked up and saw a shadow leaning over the edge of the sinkhole. "Wona? Is that you?"

"Yes, Great One. Are... are the Spirits there?"

"No, they've gone. Listen sweetheart, can you come down here and help me out?"

It seemed like ten minutes before there was any reply. "Wona... will try." Then there was a scrambling sound as the bird girl climbed down the side of the sinkhole. Pierce remembered Zelinski telling him that the native people had very poor night vision, and for that reason never left the village after the sun went down. Wona must be terrified in the jungle so far from home. He wondered at the courage it must be taking her to climb down into a dark cave like this.

But soon she was beside him, trilling softly to herself, a sound the UT didn't bother offering to translate. She had a knife made from some kind of bone, but it made no impression at all on the filaments. "Feel around for my medi-- er, for my medicine pouch," said Pierce. "There's something in there I can use."

Wona didn't find the medikit, but she did find his tricorder, which didn't help them at all in this situation. But she did manage to turn up two sharp, heavy rocks, which she used to worry through the bindings on Pierce's ankles. The moment he could walk, they climbed back out of the sinkhole, to the relatively more pleasant darkness of the jungle.

***

It took twice as long in the dark, but armed with his tricorder, Pierce was able to find the path by its infrared signature. There was a moment of delay when he missed a turn and nearly fell into the river, but the two of them made it back to the survey camp fairly quickly. What they found was Ridley inside the inviting light of a ring of portable lanterns, standing guard over the unconscious Wilson, and looking ready to shoot at anything that moved.

"They took Zelinski with them," he said, as Pierce knelt to examine the geologist with his tricorder. "And they've got the generator and the replicator, too. What kind of creatures are they?"

"All I know is they're bad news," the doctor replied, scanning Wilson with his hand-held feinberger. "He's suffered a lot of cell damage, internal hemorrhage, vascular strain."

Ridley looked grim. "I think they shot him with some kind of beam. Will he make it?"

"I don't know," said Pierce. "I'll need to get him to better facilities than this..." He broke off as he noticed Wona, squatting a little bit behind him, looking frightened and lost. She needed something to do. "Wona? Can you look around the camp here and find me a two long poles and a couple of blankets? Thank you, sweetheart. Ridley, I'll need Zelinski's emergency medical bag."

As Pierce worked, Ridley and Wona together gathered up the items he requested. With the poles and blankets, they fashioned a make-shift litter to carry Wilson inside the hut and settle him into the cot. "That's about the best I can do under these conditions," the doctor said finally, adjusting the fluids cuff and setting up the patient monitor. "I don't want to risk a stimulant. Make sure you keep him warm, though."

Ridley, standing in the doorway of the hut, turned. "Zelinski's my responsibility, doctor."

"But you're still too weak from your illness," said Pierce, catching him as he swayed against the door frame. "I'm the logical one to go. They said they don't like the sun. Is there a big cave you know of?"

Ridley went to the desk and found the data padd he used to store the survey reports. "The island is a long-extinct volcano. The survey drone spotted quite a few lava tubes and chambers. There's one close to the surface near that ridge. Come to think of it, that's about where the magnetic anomaly was, too."

"I think that's our target then. Wish me luck." With one last check on Wilson, he took off at a jog alongside the river, this time with a pair of infrared goggles to enable him to follow the marked path. He was a bit surprised, a couple of minutes later, to hear someone running behind him. He stopped.

"Can Wona help, Great One?"

"Do you have any weapons on you?"

She thingyed her head. "What is weapons, Great One?"

He sighed. "I can use all the help I can get."

[Mr. Atoz]

The cave was basically shaped like a semi-circular concert hall, with ceilings twenty to thirty meters high. A tube-like tunnel thirty feet in diameter opened to the sky where Zelinski could see a faint light from the stars and the moon. If bats had evolved on this planet, the chamber would have been full of them, but as it was there was the distinct musty smell. She could hear the occasional rustling sound from the shadows high up near the ceiling.

Zelinski was bound, wrists and ankles, and positioned on a flat slab of granite near where the aliens were working. For all their strangeness, they still evidently needed light to see. There was an odd, polyhedral shape floating a foot or two in the air, slowly rotating while it emitted a pale blue light. The aliens, visible in the eerie glow, had been tinkering with the generator and the replicator for what seemed like hours, muttering in their incomprehensible tongue.

"It will all be over very soon," said Ibliss, haltingly translating his speech into Federation Standard for her benefit. "Your primitive hydrogen cycle generator has been correctly modified. Thousands of our kin lie distended to quantum fractions in the void, waiting for the capsule to open the doorway for them."

Zelinski struggled with the filaments binding her. "What do you need me for?"

"For the complex protein molecules in your body," Ibliss replied in a matter of fact tone. "When our people arrive, they will be ravenous! And do not expect anyone to aid you. If your people were using a tricorder to locate us, our sensors would detect it well in advance. There is no rescue." He turned impatiently back to the others, now fiddling with a box which appeared to be connected with floating, rotating polyhedron, leaving the generator unguarded.

Just as well, Zelinski thought. Wilson was hurt, Ridley was too ill, and Pierce was lost. Anyway, the doctor had never struck her as the hero type...

Six feet to her right, next to the generator, a stone slid off a ledge, clattering to the floor of the cave. There was a hollow scuffing sound, followed by muttering in... in English! "Doctor?" Zelinski whispered. "Is that you?"

Another clatter among the rocks. "It sure isn't Twinkle toes," Pierce whispered irritably in reply. "I think I busted my shin. I'm a doctor, not a mountain goat."

The first question she wanted to ask was how he had found her, but a second question overtook it on the way to her vocal cords. "How come I can't see you?"

Something rippled through the air in front of her face, and Zelinski could see that it was Pierce's hand, waving back and forth. "It's just optical fatigue," said Pierce's voice quietly. "I think the blue light from that thing is slightly out of phase." Now that he was closer, she could see him easily as he bent over her, worrying at her bindings with the ultrasonic bone knife from her emergency surgery kit. The filaments parted, and she lost no time starting to climb.

"I'm so glad you could join us, doctor," said Ibliss, darting over to cut off their escape so quickly, he seemed to appear from nowhere. "Two victims would be preferable to one, certainly."

"But I make a terrible victim," said Pierce. "Ask anybody. I don't cooperate, for one thing."

"You lack of cooperation will not be a problem," said Ibliss, as the other two aliens raced over to help.

"I'm afraid it will. NOW, WONA!"

On cue, a small, smooth stone came arcing down and struck Ibliss right on the snout. Blinking rapidly, he looked up towards the opening, just as a flurry of similar missiles thudded one after another against the roof of the cave, echoing dully in the big chamber. The next moment, a horde of scaly flying lizards, dislodged from their roost up there in the shadows, plummeted straight down in a confused cloud of flapping, leathery wings. On average, they were about the size of Leghorn roosters, with a wingspread of some four feet. The two Humans used the distraction to keep climbing. To add to the discord, a thin, whining sound suddenly erupted from the fusion generator.

"What's that?" gasped Zelinski. "It sounds like--"

"Stand not on the order of your going," interrupted Pierce, pushing her ahead of him. "Just go!"

The slope up towards the opening was a fairly steep one, but the wall was jagged enough to give them plenty of hand and foot holds. After the first few yards, it flattened out considerably, so that Zelinski and Pierce were almost running on all fours. Behind them, Ibliss and his two companions were fighting with the flying lizards, batting them away with their weapons. But as they recovered from the surprise of being so rudely awakened, the reptiles themselves were beginning to flock towards the opening, skimming just over Zelinski's and Pierce's heads on their way outside. And all the time, Pierce was counting under his breath.

They were just getting to the opening as he got to sixty. "Down!" he yelled, pushing the nurse behind a boulder barely in time as an explosion rocked the floor.

"Was that a phaser overload?" asked Zelinski, as the dust settled and a tardy few of the flying lizards flapped past to join their flock in the jungle night.

Pierce nodded. "Ridley showed me how to rig it up. I couldn't be sure if the aliens would know what the sound meant or not, but I didn't have a lot of options. When they saw us running, I hope they ran, too."

Zelinski could only think that they had meant to eat her. "Personally, I'm not sure I care."

"I told Wona to run," said Pierce fretfully, "right after she stirred up the cavern birds. I hope she's all right."

"Dock Tor Peers?" said that familiar chirping voice, as Wona peered timidly around the edge of the cave opening. "Is all right?"

"Yes, we are. Thanks to you."

***
"Medical Officer's log: Stardate 52253.6: The Odysseus has arrived, a little behind schedule, but just in time to save Wilson from having to undergo emergency field surgery. The first thing I did on making contact was have him beamed straight up to Sickbay."

As the doors to the ICU slid open, Ridley and Zelinsky jumped to their feet. Pierce, wearing a green operating smock, walked into the waiting room and motioned to them. "You can see him now, one at a time. He's going to need some rest, but he'll okay."

"Thank you, Dr. Pierce," said Ridley, clasping his hand. "For everything."

Pierce waved aside his thanks and watched him hurry into the ICU. He stood alone with Zelinski for a moment. "Well, what are you going to do now?" he said, tucking his hands into the pockets of his smock.

The woman shrugged. "We have a survey to finish."

"Ah, speaking of that," said the doctor, "we can loan you a replicator and a generator. We might even have a geologist or two you can borrow for a few days. I'd have to speak to the Captain about that, but he owes me a favor."

"I don't know what Mr. Ridley will say to that, but I'd appreciate it." She turned to stroll a few paces down the Sickbay corridor with a satisfied sigh at the cool, dry air after nearly two weeks roughing it. "It's so nice to be in a controlled environment again. I've never been on a starship before."

"Yeah, it's easy to take it for granted," Pierce mused, walking beside her. "I wish there was something we could do to thank Wona for her help. All her shells were broken when those aliens attacked us."

Zelinski grinned. "Like a cartload of Koorin?" Then she shook her head, answering her own question. "Artificial shells just wouldn't be enough, for what she did for us. I think I'll help her find the real thing."

Down the corridor, the ICU doors slid open, and there was Ridley beckoning to her. Zelinski started to turn back in that direction. "Doctor, my tour with the mining company is finished in six months. Is there any chance of enlisting in Starfleet?"

"I'll put in a good word for you."

THE END >>>