Sawyer hesitated. It was too late to back out of the question now. "Don't you mean a humanoid?"653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ103zuXwvps
The eyestalks were angled directly at him. "No, a human--like you, Captain. You remarked on the reaction of humans to the poisons and antidotes of our planet. Such things can work both ways, Captain Thomas Sawyer.
"The human, quite unintentionally, brought sickness and death with him---mostly death. But rather than running away, of taking flight and leaving us, he remained and worked to try and save us from the very disease he had brought."
Finn gestured with his medical tricorder. "It adss up, Tom." He nodded at the silent sarcophagi. "The bodies all show evidence of gram-positive bacteria. It's carried by humanoids without ill effect, but preliminary readings taken when we first landed indicate that Staphylococcus strains aren't native to this planet. It must've been like the worst plague imaginable."
"We had no way of knowing what was killing us," confirmed Plendor. "That, I think was the most horrible thing of all to our forefathers."
"Was," Finn echoed. "You were alive then?"
"Very young we were and barely formed, but yes, we remember that time."
"Then how....?" Sawyer 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 rush of air slammed at his face and he ducked instinctively. He got the impression of something streaking past just in front of his nose.
The creature didn't fly away. It stayed hovering overhead, circling in the still air of the corridor. The intruder was a good 12 feet long. Its segmented boy was hinged in the middle and the upper half would swing awkwardly to and fro.
Despite the flapping sound, the beast had no wings. In place of them, a pair of thick coils protruded from the body. The creature dipped slightly and the coils contracted, kicking the floating monster powerfully upwards once again. It repeated this maneuver regularly.
The constant contractions produced the flapping sounds. Those coils looked taut as steel and reminded Sawyer 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 seem both primitive and aggressive."
Abruptly the whooshing sound was repeated as the thing dove at Sawyer again. He took two halting steps to one side and dodged just in time. Out came his phaser, down went the trigger and...
Nothing happened!
He tried again. Nothing. The phaser wasn't putting out enough heat to warm a piece of stale toast.
"Your phasers!" Spock, Ko-Ko, Finn, and the two guards tried their own weapons.
"They won't work on any setting, sir!" said Ko-Ko nervously.
"To insure the preservation of the forebears there is a weapons deactivator in effect here," Plendor told them. "Your killing devices will not work."
Finn yelled a warning. "It seems to be after you, Tom!"
"Weapons deactivator," Sawyer muttered, keeping a watchful eye on the darting movements of the, well, swooper was an apt term. "Then this should work." He pulled out his communicator. "Sawyer to Esmeralda....Sawyer 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 walls, but they seemed to.
Six of them immediately ensnarled Sawyer before he could finish the call. He struggled, and the communicator bounced to the floor.
"Captain!" Ko-Ko shouted. The others moved toward him and drew their own assailants.
Spock was enveloped quickly. Something fell from his pocket---the tape cassette he'd picked up earlier. No one saw it fall--certainly not Shostem and Vosk, who were busy with attackers of their own.
Meanwhile Sawyer was fighting back with plenty of vim but 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, contacted nothing. The damn things were fast as well as strong.
It was over as soon as it had begun. Ko-Ko, Sawyer, and the others lay motionless on the ground, held tightly in the grasp of dozens of swoopers.
Ko-Ko, who seemed to have recovered from one attack just in time to succumb to another, looked over at Sawyer.
"What do you think they've got in mind for us, sir?" Sawyer 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 upward, to see Spock, totally enmeshed in swooper coils, being flown 'round the bend near the building's entrance.
Another shape intruded on Sawyer's vision and stared down at him quietly. If anything, Plendor's attitude was apologetic.
"I apologize for this deception, Captain Sawyer. But there was no other way."
It was Sawyer's job to remain patient and understanding of alien mores. Right now, however, he'd have taken considerable pleasure in soaking Plendor and his comrades 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, Plendor? What are those things going to do with Spock?"
"He has been chosen to serve a great cause," the Kithran intoned reverently. "The Master has waited many years, searched many visitors, studied many nearby planets in hopes of finding a specimen like Spock. It is good." Plendor raised a loose fold of himself skyward.
The swoopers immediately released Sawyer and his companions---reluctantly, it seemed---and took off at top speed down the big hall, melting away into hidden corridors and side panels like a cloud of bats in a cathedral.
"And now," continued Plendor, "all the planets of the galaxy will share in absolute peace and harmony!"
There was, of course, a time and place for anything---including a little educative violence. At the moment Sawyer felt like sharing peace and harmony about as much as he did partying with the Kithrans.
He climbed slowly to his feet and approached Plendor with just such unharmonizing thoughts in mind. The eyestalks would be a good place to start, he decided.
"So help me, Plendor, if you don't tell me where Balus Spock is, I'll....."
He broke off as an enormous shadow spread across the room. It wasn't a swooper. Sawyer looked up. The sight was at once more familiar and more alien than any they had yet encountered on this greenhouse planet.
Standing in the doorway was a human male. He was perfectly normal in all ways except one: he stood just under twenty-four feet.
He wasn't smiling.
There was movement immediately in front of the landing party, and Sawyer lowered his gaze. Plendor and his four associates had fallen to their knees---or knee-substitutes-- before the giant. It was the most humanlike gesture they'd yet made. The implications of the movement were appalling.
Finn had the presence of mind to activate the medical tricorder at the giant's entrance.
"Hail our Master!" the five Krithans chorused dutifully. "All praise and adoration to the Restorer, the Master, our Savior!"
"Don't tell me he's a plant, too," Sawyer said. He knew, of course, that the answer, whatever it would be, wouldn't be easy to swallow.
But Finn's tricorder insisted that, in this case, at least, appearances were not deceiving.
"No, it's definitely human, Tom. That explains the first odd reading I picked up." Further explanation was soon provided by the giant himself.
"I AM DR. LANDAN CURTIX #5, 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 clasped in his right hand. "WELCOME TO KITHRA, CAPTAIN SAWYER."
"No thanks, Curtix. Yours is the second welcome we've received here and I'm getting sick of them. I don't want any more of this planet's hellos."
"THEN WHAT DO YOU WANT, CAPTAIN SAWYER?"
"I want to know where you've taken Mr. Spock, obviously."
"THAT IS NO CONCERN OF YOURS, CAPTAIN." The giant took two strides toward them. "HE IS MINE, NOW. MORE IMPORTANTLY, THE ESSENCE OF HIM IS MINE. I HAVE WAITED FOR MR. SPOCK A LONG TIME....TOO LONG TO CONSIDER GIVING HIM UP.
"RETURN TO YOUR SHIP."
He bent and picked up the communicator. It looked like a toy in his massive palm. He tossed it contemptuously to Sawyer, 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 no doubt have advised against a confrontation between Sawyer and a man four times his size and more so in weight.
Sawyer might have thought of that himself, were it not for the fact that he was subject to human traits which Spock was not. Right now, for example, he was too mad to consider the situation impartially.
"YOU DARE SPEAK TO ME THUS?! LEAVE NOW OR SUFFER 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 organic helicopters, they circled to and fro over the knot of watching humans. Their hinged bodies jerked in the middle, twitching nervously from side to side.
Dropping his gaze, Finn happened to notice the little tape cartridge Spock had dropped earlier. He bent and picked it up, slipping it without undue motion into a pocket. His caution wasn't necessary. Both Curtix and the Kithrans had their attention focused entirely on Sawyer.
The object of their study stood silently fuming. He was frustrated, angry, and almost mad enough to take on the huge Curtix despite their difference in size.
But he'd already had one very enlightening experience with swoopers and their abilities while they were operating under external restraint. He had no illusions about the outcome if Curtix let them run loose.
For now, then, they had only one choice. He flipped open the communicator and raised it slowly to his lips. There was always the chance that either Curtix or the Krithans were thought sensitives. No, if that were so, they would have fallen dead from reading his thoughts several minutes ago.
"Sawyer to Esmeralda," he repeated. "Chief Santos? Beam us up."653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP4q4dRMlc8
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Santos was smiling when they materialized normally in the transporter room. His smile turned to a worried frown. It deepened as the little party exited the alcove. He made a frantic grab for certain controls.
Sawyer took a moment to reassure him. "Easy, 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 a chance something down there will get lazy, or move him, and you'll suddenly be able to bring him aboard."
"The power drain, sir," began Santos, but Sawyer cut him off.
"We've got plenty of power, Mr. Santos," he said as he headed for the turbo-lift, "but a distinct shortage of Mr. Spock. Try at five minute intervals."
"Aye, sir," Santos agreed uncertainly. His acknowledgment barely beat the closing doors.
Sawyer held a small, quick conference to explain the situation to those principal officers who'd stayed on board. It was a solemn group of men and women who stared expectantly back at him when he'd concluded.
"Neytiri, you'll have to take over the library computer station in Mr. Spock's absence. Lieutenant M'Rott will 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 intelligence 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've got in all this."
"What hope, Tom?" Finn looked puzzled. Sawyer only smiled back confidently.
"A giant who's foolish enough or megalomaniac enough to tell us who he is." He looked back at Neytiri.
A human named Curtix--Landan Curtix. Said individual may or may not be entitled to the label of doctor." Neytiri nodded and moved rapidly to the library station. Seconds later its console was a Christmas tree of blinking lights.
"Ko-Ko, you and Zaith get to work with the ship's main sensors. See if you can locat Spock or Curtix. And Ko-Ko, see if you can program some sensors to differentiate the Krithans from the lesser plant life. They're probably the only other intelligent life forms on the planet." Both helmsmen moved to their stations and began to work swiftly.
That left only Finn.
"Sorry I can't help, Tom."
"But you can, Huck." Sawyer slumped in the command chair. "While Neytiri, Ko-Ko, and Zaith are running checks, you can get yourself down to Life Station and find me a nonnarcotic, nonenervating tranquizer. If I don't relax soon I'm going to start breaking things. And I haven't got time for a trip to the psychotherapy chamber." Finn grinned.
"I'll see what I can dig up, Tom."
He wasn't gone long. And by the time the mild relaxer had taken effect, Sawyer was able to speak wiht more patience and listen with a little of the same. Inside, though, he was still seething.
"Anything at all, Mr. Ko-Ko?" The helmsman shook his head.
"We haven't been able to pick up anything like a humanoid life-wave, sir. And it's not because they're attempting to decoy or divert our probes---there's no evidence of any surface interference. Spock and Curtix must be somewhere our sensors can't penetrate."
"Outstanding news," Sawyer grumbled. "What about the Kithrans?"
"It was hard to calibrate for an intelligent plant form, sir. We're registering thousands of botanical readings in the city, including the swoopers, which have a definite pattern. But no sign of anything higher. Nothing that might be Plendor or his comrades."
Sawyer frowned, thinking. "Plendor 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. Ko-Ko, lock ship's phasers on that laboratory building we first entered. Wide area stun setting."
Ko-Ko manipulated controls. "Ready, sir."
"Just a minute." Sawyer turned to face Neytiri. "Lieutenant, how are you coming on information about Curtix?"
"There's nothing current, Captain." She looked disappointed. "I think I may be getting something from the biography section of the recent history bank, but it'll take a moment or two, yet."
"All right, Lieutenant. Keep at it. Fire phasers, Mr. Ko-Ko."
Ko-Ko hit the proper switch.
"Firing, sir."
A beam of pure energy erupted from the bowfront of the Esmeralda. Instantly it disrupted orderly molecules, surprised combinations of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and a plethora of others as it speared down through the atmosphere of Kithra.
Nothing could stand before that paralyzing beam, powered by the space-warping engines of the great starship. Nothing solid...
Ko-Ko was staring into a gooseneck viewer. Now he turned to look back at Sawyer.
"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 approximately 1,000 meters above the target area. Should I try a stronger setting?"
"No." Sawyer drummed his fingers on an arm of the command chair, and thought.
"I suspect it either wouldn't have any effect at all, Mr. Ko-Ko, or else it would break through and destroy anything it touched--Mr. Spock included. 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 a kind of hobby with me, Captain," said Ko-Ko. He smiled faintly. "But I don't think hands and feet will work too well against those swoopers."
What, exactly, is a flash of genius?
Mental stimulation. A concatenation of cerebral crosscurrents. The fusion of one particle of cause with another of effect which---once in a while, just once in a while- produces a molecule of solution.
But all Finn said was, "I think there might be something we can use that'd be more effective, Ko-Ko." A crooked smile crossed his face. "I'm just not sure which section..."
"If you've got any suggestions at all, Huck - " By way of reply, Finn leaned close and whispered in Sawyer's ear. The Captain's expression grew by turns amused, disbelieving, and finally determined.
"Where'd you get an idea like that, Huck?"
Finn looked grimly pleased. "From Plendor."
"I don't know..." Sawyer mused. "I see what you mean about 'which section.'" Turning suddenly he hit an armrest switch, spoke into the broadcast grid.
"Sawyer to engineering. Tony?" The chief engineer's filtered voice replied from the other end of t he starship.
"Speaking, sir."
"Tony, I've got a priority project for you. Who's your weapons specialist?"
"That would be Lieutenant Berry, sir."
"Get him. I've got some special equipment I want you to make up---and I want it yesterday."
The special equipment was really very simple. Finn had no trouble conveying what was needed over the intercom. Nor, according to Berry, would it be hard to make.
"I don't think we'll have any problems with the actual construction, Captain," explained the weaponsmith, "although some of the nonsolid components might take some time to manufacture. The ingredients are simple, but the combination needed isn't. Still, I'm sure my staff and I can manage it."
"Good for you, Berry," said Sawyer. "Mr. Gordon, see that the lieutenant gets all the help he needs."
"Aye, Captain."
"How soon, Lieutenant?"
Berry's reply was cautious, but confident.
"I believe, if the parts we need are in stock, within one our, Captain."
"That'll have to do. Hop to it, gentlemen. Sawyer out." He ended the discussion.
It was Neytiri's turn to speak. She'd been waiting impatiently throughout the intercraft conversation and now she broke in before anybody else could demand Sawyer's attention.
"I have the requested information on the man identified as Landan Curtix, sir. I'll put the statistics and what visuals there are on the main screen."
"Thank you, Neytiri." Sawyer turned back to Finn. "Huck, you really think this gadget of yours will work? It seems almost too primitive."653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ5HdbAYipj
"I can think of several reasons why it should, Tom. That's one of them. Another is what Plendor said that gave me the idea to start with. The clincher is that, way back when, my great-granddaddy had the finest garden is metropolitan North-South America." Sawyer nodded and looked to the viewscreen.
The screen lit, and the feminine computer voice of the Esmeralda sounded over the speaker.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡo67ne9fhMy
"Working."
"Here it comes, sir," said Neytiri. Almost before she finished, a portrait had appeared on the screen.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJJI4XPvK7J
There were some slight differences---the figure in the portrait was slightly older, for instance---but Sawyer, Finn, and Ko-Ko recognized Curtix's features immediately.
More revealing was the accompanying statistical chart, especially those figures which declared that the man shown was a normal human of about the same height and weight as Sawyer.
While they studied the printout, the computer voice supplied additional information.
"Drawn from recent-near-recent Earth history file, category scientists, male, subheading iconoclasts----Curtix, Landan. Terran physiologist-physicist period Eugenics Wars. Specialist in eugenics and manipulative endocrinology. 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, 'to antihumanistic.'653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGhyMeRcbKC
"Experiments persisted despite governmental decree. Upon discovery of continuance of illegal research, Curtix banned from Terran community. Voluntarily accepted total exile and vanished into an uncharted region of space. Cursory search initiated. No body found, no official death certificate issued..."653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCRk0Vhwrfa
The computer droned on, pouring out additional information. Most of it was trivial, peripheral, and, more importantly, downright useless. There was nothing that might be employed as a psychological weapon against the giant below.
But they'd pegged Curtix, all right.
"No further data," the computer concluded. Voice and visual display vanished together. Then Finn spoke.
"Wasn't there an old story about a modern Diogenes roaming the galaxy in search of someone special?"653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuksPEa75e8
"Someone special," Sawyer muttered. He looked up. "A perfect someone. Someone special to begin the ideal race, yes. I've heard that story too, Huck, as a child."
"That's just it, Tom. This can't be the Curtix. He'd have to be over 250 years old!"653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPsjP3yapoH
"The original Curtix, yes," Sawyer noted. "Keep in mind what the library just told us. What was he banned for?"653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzSzXK4lX3S
Understanding lit Finn's eyes. "I remember now. He said was Curtix 5. My God, he's gone and cloned himself, to carry on his search! And his clones have re-cloned themselves, right on down the line." He shook his head, an expression of mixed distaste and admiration.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXErBGHY7RY
"At least we're not dealing with a complete megalomaniac," Sawyer added. "If we were, he'd long ago have decided that he was the 'perfect specimen' all along. Then we'd be faced with an army of giants instead of just one."653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8vI4hFZ2Zi
"I'll grant that in his favor," admitted Finn reluctantly, "but by the same token, Tom, he's not going to be an easy man to talk out of his dreams....."
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