He moved forward, found himself pausing. He swallowed nervously. But contrary to what surely must be obvious, no one stared at him, no one showed that anything unusual was taking place. No one noticed his confusion.
They noticed the difference in his voice, however. And they all turned at the first words.
"Captain . . ." He hesitated. "Doctor, I believe I require medical attention." McCoy's eyes widened slightly. "I . . . wish to report a number of . . . of very strange . . . emotions."
"What?" The reaction burst simultaneously from Kirk and McCoy. M'ress and Arex just stared.
In the Shuttle Bay, Mudd had regained his feet and was now edging nervously along the wall behind the scout ship, moving toward a nearby complex of bay machinery. Every so often, the grim-faced Chapel would make jabbing motions at him with the phaser as she pursued. Or she would jerk down on it with a finger, just missing the trigger.
Each time she did so, Mudd—who was sweating heavily, and not from the exertion of walking—would give a little start and his high-powered smile would lose a little more voltage.
"Ah, you are implying, darlin', that the potion wasn't completely successful?" Chapel laughed harshly.
"That depends on the point of view, I suppose. Oh, it was beautiful, Harry. I made a thorough fool of myself. I'm sure you're sorry you missed it. But don't worry—what I'm going to do to you will be even funnier." Somehow, to Mudd, the promise seemed lacking in humor.
"But you know how cold Vulcans are," he reminded quickly. "Possibly," and he shook a finger at her as she jabbed with the phaser again, "the reaction is slightly delayed, the potion may need a few more minutes to take effect. After all, with such a reluctant subject as Spock . . ."
She shook her head sadly. "And I had such hopes. But you're the same foul-mouthed fraud you've always been, Harry. I don't know what came over me that would let me believe you, even for a moment. After all the people you've swindled—" Once again the muzzle of the phaser came up.
"Now, nobody's perfect," Mudd hurried to remind her. "And I fell in with bad companions at an early age. Leave us not act rashly, my dear. No need to do something now for which we'll be sorry later."
"Oh, don't worry, Harry. I won't be—I won't be." He started to tremble, and she clucked her tongue in disgust "Don't panic, you sniveling coward."
"I can't help it—that is a habit that seems to affect all us sniveling cowards."
"Harry, this phaser's only set on stun. And I think we've gone about far enough." They had backed right into the complex of machinery. There was an intercom screen nearby for the use of any technicians who might be working on the complex. It was time to end the game.
"Activate the intercom, Harry."
"Now wait a minute, luv," he cautioned brightly, a suggestive cloud appearing in his head. "I have a thought—"
He continued to move backward along the wall, ever deeper into the complex. There was a printed legend on the towering tank he was backing up to.
AIR REGENERATION AND DISTRIBUTION
He reached into his pocket, jerked his arm, and produced a ripping sound. Christine looked at him curiously. When he withdrew his hand, he held several fine large love crystals, taken from the lining of his pants.
"Try another. I promise you, they'll work. Spock will be so in love with you he'll—"
"Stop it!" she yelled angrily, waving the phaser.
As soon as the compact weapon was no longer pointed at him, Mudd jumped to one side and threw the crystals, whooping and diving at her. The awkwardly thrown handful soared high, to shatter well overhead near an open grid.
Taken by surprise by his war-yell and charge, Christine stumbled backward, firing awkwardly and bumping against the alarm button set under the intercom screen. The phaser blast missed; the wide beam streaking over the lunging trader's shoulder to scorch the metal tower behind him.
Somewhere a siren screamed.
Neither of them, of course, bothered to look upward—they were otherwise occupied—upward, to where the powdered crystal and evaporating liquid were sucked efficiently into the grid by hidden fans.
Harry Mudd was not a small man. He slammed into Chapel hard, his shoulder striking the arm with the phaser. The arm jerked up and back, the phaser discharged again, and the stun-beam caught her in the throat. She sagged instantly into his reluctant arms.
"By the sacred thumbs of Hnisto!" He shifted his feet, lifted her upright. "Sorry Christine, darlin'—but I'm afraid I'm going to need a hostage now. Why couldn't you have let me leave quietly, without going and alerting the whole ship?"
At the same time, he was looking around the bay, toward the scoutship again, considering furiously. With the alarm ringing, but not pinpointed, the brig would be one of the first places automatically checked. The scout looked fast, but without his five-minute lead it would never outrun or outmaneuver the Enterprise.
But there was a planet beneath them. Often, a finite world proved a better hiding place than infinite space. But not the scoutcraft, no . . . he headed toward the armored landing vehicle, settling the inert Christine over one shoulder. They'd have a hard time prying him out of that.
Spock's confession of deep troubles and subsequent expressions of shock and surprise were interrupted by the alarm. A multitude of questions forgotten, everyone rushed to emergency stations. M'ress cut off the squalling alarm. Arex checked the security panels and reported back.
"It's not a damage alarm, sir. No sign of hostile craft in the immediate vicinity—here it is. Internal security—shuttlecraft bay."
"Give us some visual, Mr. Arex," instructed Kirk calmly. The navigator activated a switch, and everyone looked to the left as a small viewscreen set over the library-science station lit up. It showed the shuttlecraft bay, the ships within, but no sign of anything worthy of an alarm.
"Pan it," Kirk said curtly. The camera began to move. "Hold it, Mr. Arex." Two figures had come into view, one apparently carrying the others unmoving form.
Everyone recognized Mudd's portly shape instantly, but the identity of his limp burden remained indistinct until the head lolled loosely backward.
"Mudd!" Spock shouted passionately. "And he has Christine. She's in danger . . . my belov—" His eyes suddenly widened in horror, and both eyebrows tried to crawl up his forehead and hide in his hair.
"Interesting . . . reactions . . ." he mumbled.
McCoy's jaw opened much wider than normal, but for a change, nothing came forth. Engineer Scott's hand slipped and nearly reversed the Enterprise's artificial gravity before he caught himself. M'ress murmured a meow of puzzlement, while Arex let out a long, low whistle.
"Close Shuttle Bay doors," Kirk finally managed to stammer, noticing that the giant panels in the bay were parting. Arex worked at his controls, turned back worriedly.
"Negative, Captain. Mudd has engaged the landing engines on the armored lander. Shuttle Bay doors will not close while a craft is exiting."
Of course they wouldn't. Spock's outburst and the subsequent shock had delayed his reactions a few seconds too long. The emergency override was designed to prevent the massive doors from accidentally closing on a departing ship once they were engaged.
"Mudd's decided he's got a better chance by going planetside, then," Kirk observed. "He can't make enough speed to lose us, so he's going to try and hide until we get bored and go away. Then he'll make for the nearest inhabited world . . . slowly, but he'll get there. And we can't wait here forever to find him."
"We can't wait at all," came the yell from the library computer station. "Not while he's got my Christine!
"We must go after them, Captain." Spock was haranguing Kirk. "I'll lead a landing party."
McCoy moved toward the library computer station, his gaze never leaving the science officer. "Spock, you're obviously not yourself—maybe a little rest."
"Captain," he said, with an uncharacteristically angry glance at McCoy, "I insist on going." His eyes went to the viewscreen, which showed only the va
gue, rust-red surface of the planet below.
"Christine . . . Christine Chapel. I can't stand the thought of any danger to her, to the woman I love."
If there had been surprise and shock on the bridge before, everyone now registered a state of total stupefaction. All attention focused on the commanding figure of Spock.
"Love?" a gawking Kirk managed to blurt
"Spock?" McCoy managed to get a great deal into the mere mention of the first officer's name.
Seemingly unaware of the astounded reactions he had provoked, the first officer of the Enterprise smiled, a distant dreamy smile that on anyone else would have seemed charming—but on him gave hints of the most nefarious possibilities.
"Yes, I want to protect her. I must hold her in my arms." A cloud seemed to fall across his face, and he halted in mid-sentence as if aghast at what he'd been saying. For a moment his expression tightened and he was the old Spock.
But only for a moment. Then he slumped into another smile. Kirk stared at him, worried.
"Ordinarily I wouldn't consider an immediate pursuit . . . not until our sensors have locked Mudd in. We might even be able to pull him back via transporter. But if you absolutely insist on going down there yourself . . ."
"I do."
"Then I'll transport down with you," Kirk finished, with a sigh.
"Excellent. We have no time to waste, Captain." He spun and moved for the elevator. Kirk left the command chair and started to follow, but McCoy intercepted him.
"Jim . . . do you think this is wise? In his present, unhealthy condition?"
"I wouldn't say it was so unhealthy, Bones. Unusual for Spock, certainly, but unhealthy . . .? I don't know."
"Well I do, Jim. It's a sign of abnormality—completely unnatural for him. Love among Vulcans is more, well, more constrained than this."
"All right," Kirk nodded in agreement. "I'll go along with that. You try and stop him."
McCoy started to reply, found he didn't have one. "I see what you mean."
"It's better we don't try to restrain him—and I'll be with him." He turned. "Mr. Scott, you're in command till I return."
"Aye, sir." The chief engineer moved to the command chair as Kirk and McCoy exited in pursuit of Spock.
Astonished silence lingered on the bridge following the departure of the three senior officers.
"Spock . . ." Scott finally muttered. "Spock . . . in love? What do you suppose could have caused a thing like that?"
"I can't begin to imagine," murmured M'ress. She was about to offer additional comment when something faint and aromatic crossed her nostrils. She sniffed. There was a faint hissing sound that accompanied the strange odor. No one else noticed it, none of them being as sensitive as M'ress. And even she failed to detect the slight vapor, nearly invisible, puffing from one of the air vents.
Now the smell was strong enough for Scott to notice, too. He took a deep, curious whiff . . . and let his face relax in a broad, easy smile. "In . . . love."
M'ress shook her head, the ruff on the back of her neck bristling slightly. Then she began to purr softly at nothing in particular. In fact, the attitude of everyone left on the bridge appeared to grow . . . contented.
Spock was waiting for them in the corridor. "Please, Captain. We cannot spare time for dawdling."
McCoy made a last plea. "I wish you'd let me run some tests on you first, Spock. You're not well."
"On the contrary, Doctor, I've never felt quite so alive in my life. Captain?" Kirk shrugged, and the two officers headed for the transporter room. McCoy had been intercepted by a yeoman from security and remained behind engaged in deep discussion with her.
Spock and Kirk entered the transporter room together. Chief Kyle glanced up easily at their arrival, did a double take at the wild look in Spock's eyes.
Kirk moved quickly to him. "Captain, I—" Kyle broke off, continuing to stare at the nervously pacing first officer. He whispered, "What's with Mr.—"
"No time for explanations now, Chief. I'll tell you later . . . I hope. Have you been tracking the lander that left just a few minutes ago?"
"Yes, sir. Standard emergency procedure, but . . .?"
"Where are they now?"
"Close to touch-down—right near the surface, I'd guess."
"Okay, put Mr. Spock and myself down next to it."
"As you wish, sir." Kyle quieted, engaged in keeping close track of the landing craft while Spock continued his pacing. If they could set down just as Mudd was making up his mind which way to jump . . .
Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Spock walked over to look across the transporter console at Kyle. "If he's harmed one hair on her beautiful, sensitive head—"
If the first officer's intention was to spur the transporter chief to further effort, it had the opposite effect. Kyle's hands fluttered weakly over the controls as he stared at the first with an expression of amazement.
"Mr. Spock, I . . ."
But Spock had whirled and stalked into the transporter alcove. He was waiting impatiently on one of the disks. It was several seconds before Kyle could recover from the brief, if devastating, verbal onslaught and resume tracking the landing craft. And he still had set-down coordinates to compute.
He wanted to question Kirk further, but was interrupted by the soft closing of portal as McCoy joined them.
"What is it, Bones?" the Captain asked.
"A search party found this in the shuttlecraft bay. One of the yeomen thought a chemical analysis might be in order, so she brought it to me. It wasn't necessary."
He held out his open hand. A familiar glittering shape rested there. Kirk took it, held it up to the overhead light and inspected it closely. As he was doing so, his gaze passed over to the waiting, impatient Spock.
"One of Harry Mudd's so-called love crystals, broken." And understanding suddenly dawned.
"Jim, one of the party also found traces of pulverized crystal near one of the recirculation grids. I'd guess from the amount of residue that one or more of these things was broken against it. Nothing's happened so far, but I'm going to have the purification system purged, anyway.
"Good idea, Bones. That should handle any latent effects."
"I hope so, Jim. I passed several of the crew in the corridors, and some of them are looking mighty strange."
"For Vulcan's sake," came Spock's pleading voice, "let us hurry, Captain."
"Easy, Spock," Kirk replied soothingly. "We can't go anywhere till we know where Mudd has set down." His stare lingered a moment on the troubled first officer before returning to McCoy.
"Check it out, Bones. And send me an immediate report if it looks like there might be trouble." McCoy nodded and left the room. Kirk moved to step into the transporter alcove, taking a disk next to Spock.
The same landing coordinates Kyle was computing were being studied on the bridge. Lt. M'ress had taken over Spock's library station, and Scott was standing next to her. She was staring into the hooded viewer.
"Sensors indicate Mudd has landed on the surface." She depressed a couple of levers in combination. "Confirming coordinates sent to transporter room."
Scott laughed quietly. "And the captain's in transports about it—together with our ever-lovin' Mr. Spock." He chuckled again. M'ress found herself laughing with him, an irregular mewing sound.
She stood up, turned away from the hooded viewer, and reached out with one paw. Tiny clipped claws sprouted silently. Hesitantly, then with more conviction, she ran the sharp hooks along his neck and shoulders.
"It's . . . funny. I hadn't rrealized it beforre, but you'rre funny. And verry attractive forr a human, Mr. Scott." He laughed again and smiled warmly back at her.
"Hey, easy, lass . . . that tickles."
She purred and moved a little closer . . .
VIII
It was day on the new world. Both suns were up, and the light beat at the sand like a hammer. A towering cliff of sheer, jet-black rock rose out of the dunes. It was perhaps twenty meters
high, slightly rounded and shining.
Twin shadows lanced out in different directions. Another weird double shadow formed, shifting and sharp against the ground, as the heavy landing craft made its gentle touch-down. It squatted silently in the dead air like a great ugly beetle.
All was still; nothing moved for several long minutes. Then a small dark cavity appeared in one side of the beetle and two tiny figures exited. They were immediately joined by four shadows.
"They'll find you soon enough, my little poppin," said Mudd. The temperature, thanks to the planet's distance from the twin suns, was not unbearable, and the atmosphere cut down enough on the radiation so that anyone caught unprotected in the sun would not find himself neatly toasted before lunch. But without shelter, a human would tan mighty fast on this world.
"You'll be quite safe," he insisted, "and by the time you are rescued I'll be long gone."
"Gone where," Chapel asked sardonically, looking around. "This planet's one big desert, deserted."
"There's always an opportunity for an ingenious man," he told her thoughtfully. "Better free on a desert than safe in a brig. Once, on Omega VII, I turned a handsome profit selling the natives their own oceans."
Nurse Chapel could not decide whether this typically outrageous claim was partly truthful or pure fabrication. Certainly it was no more absurd than her present situation.
"Well if you're thinking of selling any locals these deserts, you'd better abandon it, Harry. We've detected no traces of intelligent life here."
"Then you can relax, eh?" Mudd said expansively, "since that means there's no danger."
There was a concerned note in her voice. "I said no intelligent life. We did, I hear, find traces of nonsentient organic forms."
Mudd grunted. "It hardly looks like you'll be overwhelmed in the short time you'll be waiting for pickup, darlin'," He gestured around them and for the first time they both took a long look at their place of planetfall.
The landscape that greeted this survey had not been designed to please human desires. There were occasional clusters of towering black stone, some scrubby vegetation thrown in as an afterthought by an uncaring nature—and oceans, oceans of sand. Brown sand, reddish sand, yellow and black sand. There was nothing else.