Kirk clicked off and stared at the fore viewscreen. The journey out from Kinshasa had been peaceful and uneventful. Now an Earth-type world with a normal scattering of clouds, seas, and brownish land masses filled the screen.
He wasn't surprised Starfleet Command had diverted the Enterprise from escort to survey duty. The discovery of a potentially colonizable unclaimed world took precedence over any but the direst emergency. It was interesting, pleasant duty. And if Vice-Admiral van Leeuwenhook had pulled a few strings to get the Enterprise the choice assignment, well, it was only a reward for a job well done.
It was imperative to make an official survey and lay claim to the world quickly - before the Klingons, say, or the Romulans discovered it. Inhabitable worlds were not all that common, and competition for expansion was fierce.
Furthermore, this globe seemed to be a real prize to the astronomers using the Moana predictor. Not only did preliminary orbital scans insist it was inhabitable, it checked out as downright lush - a garden world.
Everything seemed to point to a choice discovery, just waiting for her first load of Federation settlers - until Sulu's surface probes located the city.
"Inhabitants, Mr. Sulu?" That would be the end of any colonization.
Sulu's expression was uncertain. "No intelligent reading, sir. But it's hard to be sure. There's such an abundance of lower life - plants and small animals - registering that it will take time to sort out any intelligent forms. One thing's certain, if it's a major metropolis, it sure isn't overcrowded."
"I'd rather not wait for secondary analysis, Mr. Sulu." Kirk rose from the command chair. "Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy. You'll accompany Mr. Sulu and me on the landing party. Mr. Scott, you're in charge."
"Aye, sir."
Kirk headed for the door. "Scotty, buzz down to security and have them send along a couple of people to go down with us. This kind of life-form density implies the presence of predators as well as grazers."
"Yes, sir," Scott acknowledged as he slid into the command chair.
The party of six assembled in the transporter room with admirable speed.
"Put us down near the center of the city, Mr. Kyle," Kirk instructed the transporter chief. "If there are inhabitants I want to meet them right away. It's always best to size up the local populace before the high muckamucks come running with official greetings."
Kyle nodded. His hands moved on the controls.
***
The city was magnificent.
Wide green spaces alternated with soaring angular structures that looked more like idealized cathedrals than functional buildings. Spires and glasslike towers were laced together with a network of arching bridges and spunsugar roadways, many fading to near invisibility in the bright sunlight.
The metropolis was constructed along gigantic lines, everything built to proportions four times human scale. Yet it was a place of beauty and grace.
It was also dead.
No policeman panicked at their appearance. No busy citizen halted in his daily stroll to gawk at the alien magicians who had materialized beside him. No curious crowds gathered 'round, and no one notified the local president, chief, or leading hooligan.
Dead.
Weeds, vines, and something like a thick terrestrial seaweed had made the city their own now. Even the shiniest, newest-looking structure was clothed in a blanket of climbing greenery. Greenery, and less wholesome looking plant life.
They began walking toward what they estimated to be the center of the city. Sulu and Spock were busy making continual tricorder readings.
"Life readings are still confused, sir. I can't sort them out, yet."
"There is something else, Captain," added Spock. "I am getting a sensor reading on some form of generated power -" He looked around and after a moment's search, pointed ahead. "From that building."
"Let's check it out," said Kirk. He was at once pleased and disappointed. Pleased that there seemed to be no barriers to development of this world, and disappointed at the thought that the architects of this dream city no longer existed. They walked toward the structure in question.
Sulu paused a moment, trying to recalibrate his tricorder to screen out another identified low-life form. Then he frowned and glanced skyward.
The sun glare blocked out his view of ... what? He thought he'd heard a flapping sound, but they'd seen no animals on this world yet. When the dots cleared from his eyes he looked again. The only sky riders were clouds.
Hmph. He took a step after the others, glanced downward as he set his foot - and stopped. The tiny plant looked like a sporing dandelion. Moving his tricorder close he took a standard reading. Results were anything but. Unaware of the fuss it was causing, the fuzzy, delicate top of the plant quivered slightly in a gentle breeze.
"Well, now, what's this?"
The building the others were approaching appeared to be well maintained. Surprisingly well, Kirk thought. Perhaps the city wasn't as dead as it looked. Here was one structure that the mosslike growth and other climbing vegetation hadn't encroached. Its front walkway was clean, the window ports all intact and throwing back the morning sunlight.
"Captain, Captain!"
Kirk and the others whirled. Ush and Digard, the two security men, moved their hands toward their weapons.
"What is it, Mr. Sulu?"
"You're going to have to decide for yourself, sir." He had come up to them. Now he stopped and pointed to the ground near his feet. Everyone looked down.
There was nothing there except some smooth gravel set in a layer of earth - and a single fluffy, fuzzy little growth. Looked like a dandelion, Kirk mused.
"How long," he asked gently, "has it been since you've had a long leave of duty, Lieutenant? I thought Valeria was enough for anyone, but -"
"No, sir, really, look!"
The helmsman took a couple of steps to one side. There was a tiny popping sound like a foot pulling out of mud as the fuzzy raised itself off the ground. It scurried on miniature roots after Sulu. As soon as it reached his side - how it could tell where it was was another mystery - the root endings promptly made like a corkscrew and burrowed contentedly into the earth.
Kirk's stare was incredulous. If it wasn't so undeniably alien, the fuzzy would be downright funny.
"What is that thing?"
"It's an ambulatory plant. When it stops, it takes up new residence. The little fellers are all over the place." He moved back to his first position. The fuzzy popped, skittered after him, and repeated the rooting operation.
"I think it likes me."
Kirk shook his head. "We always encourage our officers to make friends with the natives."
"I always did think your personality was kind of wooden, Sulu," said McCoy idly.
"That's fighting dirty, old bean," the helmsman countered.
"It's a good thing they're not intelligent," Kirk observed.
"Captain," Spock broke in, looking up from his tricorder, "I dislike interrupting your amusing byplay, but that power reading now gives evidence of being an electronic probe of some sophistication. I believe we are being scanned."
Kirk's phaser came out, and the others reacted seconds later.
"Phasers on stun - stay alert. Mr. Sulu, Mr. Digard, stay here. Mr. Ush, come with me, please."
Kirk, McCoy, Spock, and the second security man moved toward the building. Sulu watched them go anxiously. But when time passed and nothing leaped out to blast the earth from under them, he quickly lost interest. He found his gaze dropping down to the friendly fuzzy.
Obeying an impulse, he knelt and picked it up.
"Ow!"
Well, what - Friendly, indeed! He dropped the plant quickly, shaking his finger to try and relieve the pain. He examined the injured digit with concern. The fuzzy, as if unaware that anything unusual had taken place, burrowed back into the soil.
Sulu mumbled to himself. "Must have been a thorn. Oh, well."
The entrance had no solid door. Instead, the opening doglegged to the l
eft and out of sight. Moving cautiously, they edged around the U-shaped portal. It opened without warning into a gigantic room.
No, the room wasn't gigantic in itself. It was just that it was built to the same four-times-human scale as the city. Like the building's exterior, the room was clean and orderly. Lights on panels and consoles flashed on and off. There was a constant hum from powerful, hidden machinery. It looked very much like a laboratory.
There was no longer a question about the city being dead. Everything about the room suggested constant, everyday use. Spock gestured toward a towering wall panel flecked with odd-shaped switches and knobs.
"The probe originates in this instrument wall," he informed them, checking his tricorder. "As does an incredibly powerful force-field shield. I cannot imagine the purpose of the wall instrumentation, but the presence of the force field indicates that someone does not want it tampered with."
There were several high shelves in the wall next to the panel. The lower ones held, among other things, a pile of alien yet still recognizable cassettes filled with scrolls of tape. One scroll cassette sat in a playback slot. Spock pulled it out and began examining it closely. Nothing appeared to object to this sudden manipulation of the cassette.
McCoy was busy with his medical tricorder. Suddenly he looked up in astonishment.
"Jim! I'm picking up a humanoid life-reading of incredible strength. It's as if it -"
"EEEYAAHHHH!"
The agonized scream came from outside the chamber. Readings, tapes, everything were forgotten as they raced for the street. Spock absently slipped the cassette into a pocket.
Sulu was stretched out on the ground. His arms and legs were splayed wide apart and rigid with unnatural stiffness. No one had to ask what was wrong with him. He was almost totally paralyzed. Only his eyes made frantic motions.
Ensign Digard stood alert and gripped his phaser tightly, hunting for some unseen enemy to use it on. McCoy swung his medical tricorder around on his shoulder and knelt beside the motionless helmsman.
"What happened?" he asked Digard.
"I don't know, Doctor!" The guard's voice was wild. "I didn't see a thing. I was standing here, watching the entrance you went into, when Mr. Sulu just - screamed, all of a sudden, and fell over."
McCoy studied the first readings on the tricorder. His words were curt, clipped.
"He's been poisoned. Some kind of nerve toxin. Composition unknown, naturally."
He nudged the tricorder aside and skillful hands worked at the small containers in his belt medikit. A narrow tube was produced. McCoy didn't even bother to roll up the helmsman's shirt sleeve, simply jammed the tube against his upper arm.
Pulling it away, McCoy proceeded to check a tiny gauge set into the side of the metal pencil. His frown deepened and he reset an all but invisible dial below the indicator. Again he pressed it to Sulu's arm, paused, and pulled it away. A second check of the gauge and McCoy seemed to slump slightly, shaking his head in frustration.
"Can you help him?" Kirk had to break the choking silence.
"I don't know, Jim, I don't know. Blast! I can't get a correlation with any known venom." He shrugged sadly. "Either they're too alien to affect your system and they don't bother you at all or else you run up against something like this." His head jerked towards Sulu.
"Antidotes are always found - after the first few autopsies."
Kirk tried to sound hopeful. "Maybe the ship's medical computer can...?"
"Forget with the medical computer!" McCoy snarled. "He's got two minutes to live, unless I can find an answer." He muttered angrily to himself.
"Anaphase ... synopmist ... dylovene ... maybe dylovene." The ineffectual tube was returned to his belt and a slightly larger instrument substituted. A quick adjustment of the hypo setting and then it was applied to Sulu's other arm.
There was a gentle hissing sound. McCoy pulled the hypo away and waited. After a few seconds he took another reading with the tricorder, concentrating on the newly treated region.
"No good, it's no good," he husked. "Soon the venom will reach his vital organs. Dylovene takes too much time to work ... assuming it would work -"
"Maybe a stronger dose," Kirk urged.
"That won't be necessary," came a soft, pleasant voice. A new voice was about the only thing that could have turned their attention from Sulu at that moment. They spun to face the direction the voice had come from - the entrance to the laboratorylike building.
Five beings stood there. Their only similarity to man or Vulcan was in the question of size. Beyond that superficiality, they were utterly alien.
Their heads - Kirk presumed those faintly oval shapes topping the rest of their bodies were heads - were partly covered with a fine furry bristle. Two waving eyestalks were the only visible projections. There was no hint of a mouth, ears, nose, or any other recognizable external sense organ.
The bodies themselves were composed of a tight bunching of slender, ropelike extensions, some of which seemed to hang loosely at their sides like a long fringe. Other extensions grouped tightly together near the bottom before spreading out into a haphazard assortment of bulbous protuberances. Kirk guessed that these served as motive limbs for the creatures. This was revealed as so when they started to approach the landing party.
Their color was an ocher-yellow-green - not especially healthy-looking, but for all Kirk knew, the local version of a good tan. Perhaps they regarded Kirk's own fleshy-pink as a sign that he was nearing the last stages of desiccation.
Despite the complete strangeness of their appearance, Kirk felt none of the revulsion toward them that some more humanoid aliens could produce. Maybe it was their apparent passivity. They showed no sign of caution or of the usual wary belligerence.
If anything, they seemed inherently peaceful.
They got another surprise when the leader of the group spoke. Not only were the words intelligible, they were downright smooth. The tone was quiet, reasoned. Resigned, Kirk thought idly, wondering at the ability of the human mind to make jokes in the most unfunny situations.
He noticed out of the corner of an eye that Spock was taking a discreet tricorder reading on their visitors. The first officer's diplomacy might be ineffectual. The aliens might be perceptive enough to tell what he was doing. On the other hand, they might ignore Spock if he walked three times 'round their leader, bumping him with the tricorder.
Still, as with any first contact, it didn't hurt to be as tactful as possible. There were other things on Kirk's mind at that moment, however, which made attention to protocol difficult. All he could blurt out was, "Who are you?"
The being leading the group - who was a little taller than his four companions - replied softly.
"I am called Agmar. I believe we can help."
Kirk nodded once and turned away from him - if it was a "him." He kept his voice low as he murmured to Spock.
"What are you getting on them? Who are we dealing with here, Spock?"
"A moment, please, Captain. Give me a little time. The information I have thus far obtained does not permit a reasonable answer yet." He made an adjustment to the tricorder.
Meanwhile the five aliens had moved to surround the unmoving Sulu. The leader, Agmar, bent over the unconscious helmsman - a smooth, supple movement, like a reed bending with the wind.
Jointless, that explained it. Agmar and his companions moved without the stiffness of human joints.
Hovering motionless over Sulu, the eyestalks studied the prone form for several seconds. Then one of the free-hanging limblike extensions moved out from Agmar's side to extend over the body. A drop of some viscous liquid was extruded from the green tip.
McCoy, who'd kept a watchful eye on the whole sequence, now felt obliged to step in.
"Just a minute. I can't let you ... whatever you are ... inject him with some -" he hesitated, momentarily flustered, "- alien tree sap!"
Agmar's reply took no notice of the implied insult. "To wait is to assure your friend's death.
" A single eyestalk swiveled independently, like a chameleon's, to stare at McCoy. "I must proceed."
"Bones -" Kirk put a restraining hand on the doctor's shoulder. "Let them help."
"All right, Jim. But I don't like the whole idea." He turned away and strolled over to where Spock was still working with his tricorder.
"An interesting discovery, Doctor. These beings are of botanical origin."
"Intelligent plants?"
"So it would seem."
The loose tentacle dipped lower. With a gentle touch, Agmar applied the drop of golden liquid to the side of Sulu's neck. Now both eyestalks turned to observe the watching humans.
"It is a powerful antidote, quickly absorbed. He should begin to respond momentarily."
"Of course," suggested McCoy, still a little miffed, "it's of a completely alien nature and may not have any effect on him at all."
"True, Doctor," Spock agreed, "yet the same could be said of the poison which has so obviously affected him. I see no reason why the antidote should be rejected."
"Thanks," was all Kirk could think of to say to the creature. It rose, repeating the same supple movement.
"Welcome to the planet Phylos."
They certainly seemed friendly enough. A fraternal greeting and a badly needed helping hand, all in the first moments of contact. Still, he wasn't quite ready to fall all over himself in an orgy of backslapping. He'd been on too many worlds where the obviously black had turned out at the last moment to be white, to the detriment of the unfortunate caught in the color change.
But until given a reason why, he would treat the Phylosians as friends.
"I'm Captain James Kirk. This is Mr. Spock, my first officer; Dr. McCoy ..." He went on to identify the rest of the landing party, including the motionless Sulu.
"You seem to have been expecting us, Agmar."
A tentacle (limb?) fluttered in the direction of the laboratory building.
"Our instruments have scanned and tracked you since your vessel first entered our space, Captain. We had reasons for not revealing ourselves immediately to you. But the injury to your companion compelled us to shed our hiding.