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"Now, if you'll please lie down over there," requested Dr. Finn, indicating the nearby examination table. Griffin hopped up on the slightly tilted platform. With the air of one thoroughly enjoying a relaxed position, he stretched out and put both hands under his head.
Finn walked to a nearby cabinet and selected a compact general scanner.
"This won't hurt a bit, Griffin," he said easily as he moved to stand next to the table. "Just a few minutes and we'll all be through." He smiled and flicked a switch on the scanner. Staring at the top of Griffin's head, Finn moved the instrument down the man's body, holding it roughly ten centimeters above him.
After passing over his feet, Finn flicked the device off and checked the readouts. His smile faded away and was replaced by a slight frown of puzzlement.
Griffin noticed it, too. "What's the problem, Doctor? And don't tell me I'm pregnant!"
Finn managed a smile. "Scanner seems a little off. Just a second." He adjusted dials and rechecked the readouts. "Calibration must be off," he muttered to himself. He nudged the activation switch again and played the pickup over his upper torso, examining the results. His puzzlement deepened.
Mumbling with the air of someone who's just seen a ghost and prefers to pretend it wasn't there, he turned back to Griffin.
"All right, let's give it another try."
Once more the scanner was played down the survivor's prone form. Once more the resultant numbers on the tiny gauges brought deepening confusion.
"I don't get it. Some slight deviations here and there that I could understand. You've been isolated for five years. It's no surprise that your body might've picked up some funny radiation, or something. A couple of abnormal readings are to be expected. It's just that...." he looked down at Griffin with a worried stare. "I've never gotten any readings quite like these from a human before."
Griffin laughed easily, clearly amused by Finn's confusion. "Are you suggesting I'm not quite human, doctor? By the way, Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas to you, Griffin. No, of course not. Anyway, the differences are fractional." His smile returned. "Sometimes even the best medical instrumentation goes haywire. I don't get to overhaul it with major hospital facilities very often. So it must be the scanner.
"Sometimes the transporter can do odd things to a body, too, lingering effects that disappear as the internal structure readjusts. How are you feeling?"
Griffin spread his hands, and looked bemused. "Just great, Doc."
"Well, then..."
"I beg your pardon, Dr. Finn." The doctor turned. Nurse Thatcher had stepped into the examination room from the nearby reception area.
"What is it, Becky?"
"Doctor, the captain has been calling. He wants to know if the examination has been completed."
"Hmmmm. Yes, I suppose it has."
"And doctor, Lt. Chenowith is waiting to see Mr. Griffin---as soon as you've certified his medical status."
"Thanks, Becky." She smiled and left. Finn turned back to Griffin. "Well, I certainly don't want to keep you from your fiancée." He turned and yelled towards the open door. "Send her in, Becky."
He offered Griffin a final 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 kind 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 then.
"Peter...."
She held herself pretty well in check until she was almost to him. Then her reserve cracked and she threw herself into his arms. Caught off-balance, his arms went around her automatically as he stumbled.
His reaction was considerably less emotional. Calm, cool, and---something else. Something as yet undefinable.
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, Brenda." The sorrow in his voice seemed genuine. "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 confused uncertainty.
"What is it, Peter? What's the matter?" Griffin replied without hesitation.
"When I left on that final journey, Brenda, I fully intended 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 Ploor. I'm told I was lucky to have survived at all. The Ploorans managed to help me repair my ship. I left their world after four years of hard work, only to be crippled in space once again."
"But you've been rescued, you've survived," she almost snouted. "You're alive and we're together again! Nothing's changed." Peter looked away from her.
"Brenda, 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 Ploorans 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 Ploorans assigned one of their own people to look after me and nurse me back to health."
All this was very interesting---fascinating, even---but it did nothing to explain Griffin's original statement.
"You said you've changed, Peter. How? I don't see any visible change."
"It's not a visible kind of change, Brenda. It's a kind that....." He paused. Abruptly he seemed to give up any attempt at further explanation.
"It's over between us, Brenda. I can't say 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 I 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 a declaration as blunt and cold as the dark side of the moon.
She turned and ran from the room, leaving Griffin sitting alone on the cold examination table, staring after her.
Sawyer had performed the ceremonial gesture of drinking with the crew---sharing their spirits, as it were. 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, Akin, stood to one side, awaiting the captain's orders.
Nodding in satisfaction, he read back over the orders and handed it to her.
"See these are delivered to the proper stations and processed through, Yeoman." Akin saluted and left the bridge.
A slight wave of dizziness assailed Sawyer. He put a hand to his forehead. Possibly he'd overdone the annual Christmas camaraderie. He might be better off in the 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 and sober at all times---in public, anyway.
"Take the conn, Mr. Spock. I'll be in my cabin, completing the report on Griffin's rescue."
"Very good, Captain."
Sawyer rose and headed for the bridge elevator. Spock shifted from the library station and took over the command chair.
Sawyer 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. His 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 utterly impossible.
Five years completely out 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 adrift. The trouble was never with their bodies, but with their minds. Yet Griffin seemed as sane and composed when he'd stepped out of the transporter as if he'd been gone only a day or two.
Sawyer shook his head in admiration. It'd always been said the man was a remarkable person. Plenty of stories testified to the Blios incident being only one of many---and now Sawyer knew it from personal experience.
He was about to begin dictating when the door chime demanded his attention.
"Enter..."
The door slid back quietly, and Griffin walked in.
"Am I intruding, Captain?"
"No, please come in, Mr. Griffin. I was just about to complete the official report on your rescue." He grinned. "When Fleet makes the details available, the press will go crazy. You're liable to be faxed to death the moment you set foot on Space Federation soil."
"I expect as much." Griffin 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 propulsors still operate. Remarkable."
Sawyer turned away, hunting for the microtape analysis of Griffin'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 thoroughly and draw up a full report for you. It's here somewhere..."
Griffin crossed his arms over his chest. There was nothing particularly odd about the gesture.
The results were another story, though.
His outline seemed to flutter, blur, and then flow like a thin, phosphorescent clay. The flow slowed, and stopped.
Where Griffin had stood now rose a hideous, multicolored thing. It had twenty thick tentacles that met at the top and merged to form an oval bulge encircled with convex lenses. The lenses pulsed with a faint light.
One of the tentacles lifted from the floor. It touched Sawyer gently, almost caressingly, on the back of the neck. The captain's eyes closed. Other tentacles moved to catch the slumping form. The creature lifted the unconscious Sawyer and carried him effortlessly to the bed. Only a few seconds had passed from transformation to attack, and everything had been done in total silence.
Now the thing stepped back from the bed and crossed a pair of tentacles over its upper body---it had no recognizable chest. Again the blur, the watery flow. Once again the creature changed and began human.
It didn't become Peter Griffin.
But it was human, nonetheless, and immediately recognizable.
It was Captain Thomas T. Sawyer!
Nurse Thatcher entered the exam room from the lab area and moved to where Dr. Finn sat engrossed in a detailed inspection of a medical-engineering manual. She held the small hand scanner in one hand and several smaller supplementary instruments in the other. Finn glanced up from his reading.
"Well, Becky?"
"Doctor," she said firmly. "I can't find a single thing wrong with these instruments. They all check out perfectly, including the principal scanner. But the readings still come out slightly off, still show those funny variations on Griffin." She watched him expectantly.
"What about the other tests you ran on Griffin, after..." She hesitated. Two things faster than the speed of light---starships and gossip. Romantic gossip fastest of all.
Finn shrugged. Some things were impossible to keep secret. "After Brenda Chenowith left? Some of them were off, some weren't. The differences don't even have the virtue of consistency, Becky. 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 Griffin/Sawyer entered. Spock looked back at him and rose from the command chair. Griffin/Sawyer took the seat as the first officers returned to his station.
Ko-Ko glanced back at the command chair with interest. "Weren't you going to your cabin, sir?"
"I've already been there, Mr. Ko-Ko, but something came up before I could get started on the report. Something much more important. Lay on a direct course for S-tilla II." That prompted another look, this time of more than just casual interest.
"Through the Sebacean Demilitarized Zone, sir?"
"That was an order, Helmsman."
Ko-Ko looked unsure. "But sir, if we're challenged in there, the Sebaceans can confiscate the ship. The treaty states that..."
"I am fully conversant with the terms of the treaty, Mr. Ko-Ko," responded Griffin/Sawyer, "and I believe you heard my order."
"Aye aye, sir," the helmsman admitted reluctantly. He turned to the task of plotting the mandated course.
Spock, who had listened to this exchange with growing concern, finally felt obliged to say something cautionary. He wasn't normally in the habit of raising objections to any of Sawyer's decisions, no matter how strange they sounded at first, because they always seemed to have a way of turning out to be reasonable in the end.
But this one. Spock made a final check of his console. The readings confirmed his suspicions.
"Captain, extreme long-range sensors hint at something within the demilitarized zone that lies along our anticipated course. At this exaggerated distance, it is impossible to say what it is. It might be another interstellar merchant ship like Griffin's. Or it might not be a ship at all. Still, I do not feel it prudent to take the chance of trespassing unannounced in the demilitarized zone."
"Mr. Spock," replied Griffin/Sawyer. "I've spoken with Griffin about this at some length already. He has assured me that it is vital to get to S-tilla II in the shortest possible time. The survival of an entire planetary population may depend on it. Unfortunately, this necessitates our crossing through an arm of the demilitarized zone."
"An admirable mission," Spock agreed. "But if we endanger our ship, we will be of no use to the people on S-tilla II."
"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 I didn't feel it was safe to proceed. Griffin said his sensors detected no sign of Sebaceans when he was passing through the zone before his ship was disabled. I'm satisfied he was telling the truth. And his word is considered good, isn't it?"
Spock hesitated a split second. "That has been his reputation, Captain."
"Course laid in, sir," Ko-Ko noted.
"Execute," ordered Griffin/Sawyer. Ko-Ko leaned forward and adjusted the controls.
"Executing."
They felt no sense of motion change. Space was too vast for inbuilt human senses to detect a switch in direction at warp speeds. But the great starship gradually began to veer from the line it had been following and to turn in a broad curve that would take it into the demilitarized zone.
Ko-Ko needed only a few moments to double-check his readings.
"We're on course, sir."
"Very good, Mr. Ko-Ko. Notify me if anything strange should develop." He rose and moved toward the elevator. "I'm going back to my cabin. You have the conn again, Mr. Spock."
Spock eyed the captain closely as the latter exited the bridge.
Tim passed. Nothing happened to disturb the ship routine, which was perfectly O.K. with Spock. After some hard thinking, he finally thumbed the switch activating the ship's long and spoke softly into the pickup grid.
"Ship's log, stardate 6513.8, First Officer Balus Spock recording.
"The captain's recent course change has taken us deep into the Sebacean Demilitarized Zone. This change was initiated at the request of our new passenger, Peter Griffin. The information thus far provided by Griffin has proved accurate. We have detected no Sebacean ships or, for that matter, other vessels of any kind.
"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 still dizzy.
Sawyer winced and sat up suddenly in bed. Two 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. Uh-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.
Sawyer strode purposefully onto the bridge. Though he was feeling confused, there was no point in letting anyone else know it, just yet.
"I'll take the conn, Mr. Spock." Spock lifted an eyebrow slightly but moved away without comment. Ko-Ko also glanced back at him curiously.
Sawyer sat back in the seat, relaxed, and tried very hard to remember. Introspection produced nothing, but a casual glance forward turned up an interesting node of information indeed.
His gaze touched the big chronometer on the navigation console, the one that set ship time for the rest of the Esmeralda. It read 2516.
Nothing was world-smashing in that. However, he distinctly remembered the time on his wall chronometer when he was leaving his cabin. 2515, it said. And when he'd been searching his desk for a certain cassette before---before falling asleep---he'd happened to notice the time on the desk timepiece.
It had read 2511.
Not shockingly significant, maybe, but...
Spock, who'd been watching Sawyer indirectly ever since the other had returned to the bridge, noticed Sawyer's confusion.
"Is something wrong, Captain?"
"I'm not---I'm not sure, Bal."
"Do you feel all right, sir?" This coming from an alarmed Ko-Ko.
"Fine, Mr. Ko-Ko, just fine. Or am I?" He turned to Spock and 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 quickly---and so soundly---for just a few minutes.
"If I was as tired as all that, it seems I should 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 system of checks and balances in that regard. You required only the briefest of naps.
"In any case, nothing has changed since you left. We're still on course through the demilitarized zone to S-tilla II."
"But I don't remember going to...."
"Excuse me, Captain----'jump all over me?'"
"Said something along the lines of, 'there's as much chance of that as my falling with...'"
" 'hysterical laughter at a joke of mine,'" finished Spock.
"Yes
The three officers started a patient, methodical survey of the laboratory. There didn't seem to be a great deal that might hide some startling revelation. It didn't help that they had no idea what to look for, Sawyer included.
Desks, wall decorations, shelves full of vials and tubes and neatly racked instruments, the gleaming surgical cases, emergency power charges for use in case of shipboard power failure, the big portable sterilizer, three examination tables....
Even an examination table would be far more comfortable, Spock had said.
Sawyer smiled then. "All right, Griffin, you can come out now." Both Spock and Finn turned their attention to the captain, Spock interestedly, Finn incredulously.
Sawyer walked forward until he was standing directly before the examination table farthest to the left. He spoke not behind it nor under it but to it.
"I suggest you show yourself, Griffin, or whatever you are. The masquerade's over."
Making no sense of the scene and getting no elucidation from Sawyer, Finn slowly got to his feet and whispered to Spock.
"Did you say that I'm a man of curious habits, Bal? Tom's talking to a table!"
"I don't think so, Doctor." An idea was starting to solidify in the first officer's mind as he added certain known factors and proceeded toward a result. Sawyer had already gotten there.
The captain stepped back from the table and turned his attention to one of the nearby wall shelves. Sawyer spoke to the others as he studied the labels on the neat rows of crystal vials.
"There used to be only two examination tables in this room, as I recall, Huck." He focused his attention on the top row of containers. "Now there seem to be three."
Spock said nothing, but Finn suddenly found himself nodding in agreement. "I just realized that too, Tom. But even so, what..." Finn shut up. Whatever was happening here should come to a head pretty soon.
Sawyer 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, heat-formed artificial quartz alloyed with certain other metallic and ceramic components. It contained a small amount of thin purple fluid. When Finn saw which vial the captain had removed he started forward, then stopped.
Again, Sawyer directed his comments to the table. The flat, unmistakable inorganic surface gleamed brightly in the overhead lights, with small wheels and dials sparkling with polish. Finn 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. Sawyer tapped it with one finger, and there was a faint ping.
It sounded like an examination table.
By the Rings of Saturn, it was an examination table!
"This is a vial of stroetine acid," Sawyer informed the table solemnly. "It'll burn through just about anything but this holding crystal. If you've never seen it work, I'll be happy to demonstrate." He patted the table again. "On you!"
There was a reasonable pause. Then Sawyer raised the vial over the table and moved his thumb toward the cap release set into one side. The table shimmered suddenly, the kind 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 it was no longer an examination table. In its place stood a tall creature of thick, cabled limbs and shining eye lenses that stared back at them unwinkingly.
"Good God!" cried a gaping Finn. "What am I seeing, Bal? What is that thing?"
"A Plooran, 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 mass---and their practice of deceit as a way of life---places them very much off limits to others.
"Their unusual abilities could be of considerable value to the Space Federation or 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 double."
"Yes, Captain," Spock turned to leave. As he did so Finn moved to get out of his way. Those few steps were all that was needed to bring him within reach of the Plooran.
Powerful tentacles snapped out and enveloped the doctor in a constricting grasp.
Spock and Sawyer moved as one toward the Plooran. Unraveling the clutching limbs, the alien sent Finn spinning and stumbling into the other two officers. All three fell to the floor.
Moving with surprising agility for such an awkward-looking creature, the Plooran dashed past them. Spock managed to roll over in time to grab the fleeing alien. All he got was a handful of something that felt like snakeskin without the scales. He couldn't hold it. A second later it was out the doorway and long gone.
Sawyer was on his feet, racing for the exit. Spock made a move as if to follow, but instead changed direction and went directly to the wall communicator.
Spock to bridge---put me on address intercraft, Lieutenant." And then, seconds later, "All security teams intruder alert! All security teams, repeat, intruder alert..."
Sawyer was out in the hall. He looked to his right, then left, just in time to catch a final glimpse of the Plooran turning down an intersecting corridor. A security team raced around the far end of the hallway facing him a second later. Spock's voice sounded loud, replayed over every speaker in the starship.
"Intruder is a Plooran, capable of assuming any shape or form of the same approximate mass..."
ns 15.158.61.54da2
