Read Online Star Trek - Log 8 by Alan Dean Foster - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alan Dean Foster
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team.
"So near and yet so far," he murmured sadly.
Behind him, McCoy was heading for the house. "Have to see to my patient," he muttered in satisfaction. Doctor, patient, and medical supplies—the tripartite components of his Aesculapian universe were once more complete.
Kirk watched them walk toward the house. He bestowed a final, concentrated thought on the retreating Lactran, pleading desperately for a simple, harmless toy—his communicator.
The Lactran ignored him completely.
IV
Meanwhile others were striving to pierce the isolation which had swallowed up the captain, first officer, and chief physician of the Enterprise .
"Are you raising anything yet?" an anxious Scott inquired of Lieutenant M'ress. He stood near the communications console and stared at the squiggles and lines which appeared on various readouts, in the hope that one of them might spell out an answer in plain English.
No explanation was forthcoming from those dispassionate, uncaring instruments, plain or otherwise.
"Not a thing, sirr," M'ress replied. She had answered the same query from Scott with the same information every five minutes since she had taken over for Lieutenant Uhura.
Scott responded with the same order. "Keep at it. They're down there somewhere."
Furiously, he turned over the same old possibilities in his mind. It was highly unlikely that all three officers had experienced a simultaneous breakdown of their communicators, regardless of what might have happened to those carried down by the survey crew.
That left three possibilities.
One, they were unable to use their communicators, for what reason Scott couldn't imagine. Two, their communicators had been rendered inoperative by outside forces. Three . . .
He refused to consider Three. As long as he denied the possibility, it could never come about.
Scottish reasoning can be notoriously perverse, and this was one instance in which Scott utilized its roundabout methodology to the fullest. Spock could say that Scott thought in pretzels all he wanted to . . . as long as the absurd first officer was all right.
As long, the Enterprise 's chief engineer thought furiously, as he was all right . . .
The little knot of humans left McCoy to his doctoring, aware that their presence could only hinder his ministrations. Lieutenant Bryce lingered the longest, but eventually she, too, left the couch and its tired occupant to join the others in gazing out the front window.
Both guards stood, or sat, where one had been moments before. They regarded the inhabitants of the house with identical but featureless stares. The inhabitants stared back with somewhat more animation.
"Let's sum things up, Commander," Kirk started firmly. "Based on everything that's happened to you since you've been trapped on this world, what's your evaluation of the situation?"
Markel considered for a moment and ticked off his observations on the fingers of one hand. "The Lactrans treat us quite well. They want us alive and healthy and are willing to go to some inconvenience to insure that we remain so . . . though they do make occasional mistakes—underestimating the severity of Lieutenant Randolph's condition, for example. Most importantly, they want to keep us right where we are."
"A natural reaction for the curators of a zoo," Spock observed drily.
"We've managed to keep from going crazy," continued Markel, "only just. Part of the time we make studious analyses of our guards, trying to discern differences between them . . . with little result. The rest of the time we occupy by plotting absurd escape schemes and executing them, and by making observations of this world not connected with our captors. For example, we've worked out a calendar according to the movements of the Lactran sun and moon. It's a close duplicate of our own, which helps us a little. Oh, and every nine days we draw quite a crowd."
"Undoubtedly the local equivalent of a periodic rest time," commented Spock.
Markel was silent for a while
"So near and yet so far," he murmured sadly.
Behind him, McCoy was heading for the house. "Have to see to my patient," he muttered in satisfaction. Doctor, patient, and medical supplies—the tripartite components of his Aesculapian universe were once more complete.
Kirk watched them walk toward the house. He bestowed a final, concentrated thought on the retreating Lactran, pleading desperately for a simple, harmless toy—his communicator.
The Lactran ignored him completely.
IV
Meanwhile others were striving to pierce the isolation which had swallowed up the captain, first officer, and chief physician of the Enterprise .
"Are you raising anything yet?" an anxious Scott inquired of Lieutenant M'ress. He stood near the communications console and stared at the squiggles and lines which appeared on various readouts, in the hope that one of them might spell out an answer in plain English.
No explanation was forthcoming from those dispassionate, uncaring instruments, plain or otherwise.
"Not a thing, sirr," M'ress replied. She had answered the same query from Scott with the same information every five minutes since she had taken over for Lieutenant Uhura.
Scott responded with the same order. "Keep at it. They're down there somewhere."
Furiously, he turned over the same old possibilities in his mind. It was highly unlikely that all three officers had experienced a simultaneous breakdown of their communicators, regardless of what might have happened to those carried down by the survey crew.
That left three possibilities.
One, they were unable to use their communicators, for what reason Scott couldn't imagine. Two, their communicators had been rendered inoperative by outside forces. Three . . .
He refused to consider Three. As long as he denied the possibility, it could never come about.
Scottish reasoning can be notoriously perverse, and this was one instance in which Scott utilized its roundabout methodology to the fullest. Spock could say that Scott thought in pretzels all he wanted to . . . as long as the absurd first officer was all right.
As long, the Enterprise 's chief engineer thought furiously, as he was all right . . .
The little knot of humans left McCoy to his doctoring, aware that their presence could only hinder his ministrations. Lieutenant Bryce lingered the longest, but eventually she, too, left the couch and its tired occupant to join the others in gazing out the front window.
Both guards stood, or sat, where one had been moments before. They regarded the inhabitants of the house with identical but featureless stares. The inhabitants stared back with somewhat more animation.
"Let's sum things up, Commander," Kirk started firmly. "Based on everything that's happened to you since you've been trapped on this world, what's your evaluation of the situation?"
Markel considered for a moment and ticked off his observations on the fingers of one hand. "The Lactrans treat us quite well. They want us alive and healthy and are willing to go to some inconvenience to insure that we remain so . . . though they do make occasional mistakes—underestimating the severity of Lieutenant Randolph's condition, for example. Most importantly, they want to keep us right where we are."
"A natural reaction for the curators of a zoo," Spock observed drily.
"We've managed to keep from going crazy," continued Markel, "only just. Part of the time we make studious analyses of our guards, trying to discern differences between them . . . with little result. The rest of the time we occupy by plotting absurd escape schemes and executing them, and by making observations of this world not connected with our captors. For example, we've worked out a calendar according to the movements of the Lactran sun and moon. It's a close duplicate of our own, which helps us a little. Oh, and every nine days we draw quite a crowd."
"Undoubtedly the local equivalent of a periodic rest time," commented Spock.
Markel was silent for a while
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