"Mr. Sulu . . ." he began, reaching an inevitable decision once all the relevant facts had been considered.
Sulu glanced back at him hopefully. "Yes, sir?" That was all he said. No suggestions were offered, no arguments presented. They weren't necessary. Spock could tell by the expressions on their faces how the two other officers felt. Not that they influenced his decision. His new orders were based solely, as always, on logic.
"Bring us about," he directed the helmsman, fulfilling the latter's hopes. "We will investigate the Beta Lyrae system and attempt to locate the source of the activity affecting our own stasis box."
Sulu couldn't repress a pleased smile. "Aye, aye, sir."
Coming around in a tight arc, the Copernicus slowed and plunged deep into the double-star system of Beta Lyrae.
Under Spock's direction, made after a careful study of the shifting stasis box aura, Sulu brought the little ship close in. The closeup view of the unusual binary was as awesome and beautiful as anything in the galaxy. Their viewport was filled with the nebulous yellow giant star, which was the most obvious feature of the system. It was somewhat flattened by the force of gravity and rotation. A line of fiery red hydrogen joined it to its smaller companion, a brilliant dwarf star that shone like a sapphire cabochon. A whirlpool of thin crimson like a streamer of fringed crepe spread out from the blue star in an expanding spiral. The hydrogen faded from pigeon-blood red to dull maroon to a smoky blackness. Even the blackness announced its presence by blotting out the stars lying behind it.
"It's a beautiful universe," Uhura murmured as she drank in the overpowering sight, "and a varied one."
"The beauty's in the variety," Sulu added, equally entranced.
Spock was talking less poetically into his recorder and did not comment so blatantly on Beta Lyrae's attraction, though he admired it as well. Besides its obvious chromatic effects, there was an inherent attractiveness in the order and balance of gravitational and other forces, in the precision of the system's mathematics. Nor was that view exclusively Vulcan. Many human scientists would have found the physical construction of the binary more impressive than its mere visual appearance.
At the moment he was explaining their course into his recorder. "Stasis boxes and their contents are the only remnant of a species powerful enough to have ruled, once, an entire section of our galaxy," he dictated. "Their effect on our sciences has been incalculable. In one box was found the flying belt which was the key to the artificial gravity field presently employed on starships.
"Hence my decision to forgo the briefings preparatory to the conference on Briamos in favor of pursuing a positive lead to another such box in the Beta Lyrae system." He clicked off, put the recorder aside. They were moving near to the object that the Copernicus's compact but efficient instrumentation had long since located.
It was a frozen, almost airless world, a dull white globe too far out to receive appreciable warmth from either of the twin suns. It was as ordinary and unimpressive as the binary was stupendous. In any case, they were not searching for life or a world to colonize but, instead, for another of the Slavers' valuable bequests, the box which was simultaneously inheritance and tombstone.
"Beginning final approach," Sulu announced mechanically, "preparatory to orbital insertion."
Soon they were circling the equator of the chill planet. Measurements indicated that in comparison to the surface rotating beneath them, Earth's most inhospitable tundra was a vision of Elysium and its South Pole a veritable paradise.
"Now, Mr. Sulu."
The helmsman didn't have to look behind him. He knew that the point of the teardrop aura must be stabbing straight down through the mess table.
"Commence landing approach," Spock continued formally. "Try to take us down in as tight a descending spiral as you can, Lieutenant."
"I'll do my best, sir," Sulu assured him, his attention riveted on his readouts and controls.
"That will minimize our searching," Spock informed them, "if we can keep the point of the aura perfectly perpendicular with the surface below us. The second stasis box should be directly under us when we land, or at the very least within walking distance." He moved to stand by the front port.
"If the box is out in the open, visual identification before we touch down is vital. We must take care in that event not to set down on top of the box. In addition to the inconvenience, the box mechanism might interpret our touchdown as an attempt at opening it improperly. We could conceivably find ourselves in the position of our boxed thief back on Gruyakin Six."
"Don't, worry, sir," Sulu replied tersely. "I have no intention of standing around for the next billion years, no matter how healthy or well-preserved a stasis field keeps me."
They dropped through the thin, almost nonexistent atmosphere. Sulu brought the shuttle to a smooth stop on a jumbled, frozen plain. Spock assured him they had not set down on the box itself. At the last moment the point of the teardrop had shifted slightly to port, indicating that they would land clear of it.
Faint wisps of as-yet-unidentified gases drifted overhead, the only indication that anything lay between the roof of the shuttlecraft and the killing emptiness of interstellar space.
Spock walked back to the stasis box as the helmsman cut the engines. He studied it intently. "What would you say, Lieutenant Uhura?"
She bent over, stared beneath the table where the point of the blue aura penetrated. "It's certainly not pointing straight down. I'd say it's inclined slightly in . . . that direction." She rose and pointed.
"I agree." Spock moved forward and stared hard out the port in the direction the aura point indicated. "Yet . . . I see no sign of another box, at least not nearby. It is there, however. This is not surprising, in view of the unevenness of the terrain. Life-support belts."
They moved to the single large storage locker, slipped the belts around their waists. Spock checked Uhura and Sulu's belt operation with a compact device taken from the locker. Then Sulu checked Spock and Uhura; and then it was Uhura's turn. Thus double-checked and assured that all systems were functioning properly, the three officers entered the Copernicus's airlock, each encased in a lime-yellow aura no denser than the mysterious blue one surrounding the stasis box they had taken with them.
Sulu and Uhura each had their phasers out and ready—a standard precaution. They had had little time for pre-inspection of this world and experience had shown that a planet which seemed devoid of life could often provide as many unpleasant surprises as a far more fertile and hospitable globe. Spock was carrying the stasis box, flanked on the right by Uhura and by Sulu on the left. The blue aura now pointed straight ahead. The lock cycled, and a brief puff of unreclaimed air escaped into the alienness beyond.
The three exited into a frozen hell. They saw no hint of any life, malignant or otherwise. Not a plant, not an insect, only an icy plain bordered by rippling, jagged hills and distant mountains of ice-bound stone that had likely never felt the weak warmth of the distant binary. It was difficult for any world orbiting a twin sun to support life, due to the often erratic nature of its planetary orbit. The frozen emptiness of Beta Lyrae I appeared to be no exception.
As they walked across the ice-covered ground the glow from the stasis box in Spock's arms intensified, turned almost azure. In contrast, the lime-yellow halos projected by their life-support belts remained constant. As always, Uhura reflected on how feebly inadequate these seemed, to be the only thing holding back the monstrous cold and airlessness pressing tight around them.
In many ways the stark, dead landscape they were crossing was more forbidding than empty space. The interstellar void was merely sterile, while the corpse of a world on which life could exist, given a few changes in atmosphere and location, was almost palpably threatening.
Uhura was not afraid to give voice to her feelings. Besides, it was reassuring to hear another voice in that desolation, even if Spock and Sulu were right next to her. "I never did like these barren little worlds. They always make me fe
el as if I'm walking on one huge grave."
"We're not tourists here, Lieutenant," Spock commented firmly. "Kindly keep your mind on the business at hand."
Uhura bristled at the harshness of the reprimand. However, Spock's intention had not been to reprimand her but only to take her mind off the depressing landscape surrounding them, which he succeeded efficiently in doing.
"Mr. Spock?" Sulu stepped lightly over a miniature crevasse. "If it takes one stasis box to find another stasis box, how did they find the very first one?"
"I would like to say that its presence was deduced, Lieutenant Sulu. I would like to relate that it was discovered after a great deal of study based on material carefully assimilated by a number of highly competent researchers utilizing the most modern technology. However," he continued drily, "that is not what happened.
"The first Slaver stasis box was discovered the same way as so many truly unique phenomena are—by accident." He turned slightly to his left, following the compass point of the blue aura toward a low rise topped with freshly cracked ice.
They mounted the rise. Spock halted, retraced his steps several meters, moved a little to his right. At that point the apex of the blue glow jabbed straight down. All that lay visible below their feet was hard-packed frozen gas and water vapor. Sulu pushed at the surface with a life-support, aura-shielded boot.
"The other box appears to be almost under us, or at least very close by," Spock announced. "If I recall correctly what is known about the inter-stasis box relationship, then judging from the hue and sharpness of the field this one is projecting," and he motioned with the stasis box in his hands, "I would guess that the other lies perhaps thirty meters below us. Considering," and he indicated the surrounding tortured topography, "the evidence of violent tectonic disturbances in this region, that is hardly surprising. We should be grateful the box is buried no deeper than it is."
Sulu was adjusting his phaser setting as he spoke. "In that case it shouldn't be too long before we can dig it out, especially if this is mostly ice beneath us." He finished setting the phaser, pointed it downward. "In this low pressure the ice should boil away as soon as our phasers melt it, and on this low a setting"—he indicated his own weapon—"we don't run any risk of damaging the box. We ought to be able to—"
He stumbled as the ground heaved. A violent explosion burst the surface behind them, sending ice fragments flying. Stunned, they turned as soon as they could recover their balance. Uhura remembered what Spock had said about severe earth disturbances in this region.
But the explosion had been too localized for a quake, too modest for a volcano, and it was immediately apparent that the cause was artificial in nature. A concealed tunnel or cave had appeared in the ice. A half-dozen space-suited figures flew toward them from the opening, propulsive backpacks powering them toward the three shocked officers.
Sulu caught a glimpse of who wore those suits and knew instantly he would have preferred a volcano.
Each suited figure was a little over two and a half meters long. Their pressure suits were armored to withstand both phaser charges and solid-core weaponry. The bubble helmets topping the suits were fully transparent. The suits themselves could have been designed to accommodate human beings, save for their unusual size and the long, twisting segmented sections which extended from the base of the spine. They indicated tailed creatures.
Only one known race fitted those particular proportions.
"Kzinti!" Uhura, crouching and raising her phaser simultaneously, let go a blast. The energy charge glanced harmlessly off the armored suit of the nearest alien.
Another of the Kzinti fired at Sulu. There was a flare of darker light against his life-support aura.
The aliens had surrounded them. One landed just behind the helmsman, tried to lock massive arms around him. Sulu slipped partially clear, wrestling desperately with his much larger opponent.
Behind the helmet a startlingly feline face stared angrily down at him. The alien tried to pin Sulu's arms while keeping a grip on its phaser, a standard-issue Federation weapon which looked grotesquely tiny in an armored, four-digited paw that could easily have enclosed both of Sulu's hands. Bright pink ears that resembled the amputated wings of some tiny flying creature fluttered on the alien's head as it battled in frustration to secure a binding grip on its smaller but agile opponent.
Despite Sulu's agility, this was a fight which could have only one outcome, since the three Federation officers were both outsized and outnumbered by their alien attackers.
Two other Kzinti landed behind Sulu, and he was unable to avoid them all. They soon had him pinned between them.
Just before one phaser blast partially penetrated her life-support aura and knocked her unconscious to the chill surface, Uhura was certain she glimpsed Spock standing calmly nearby, watching the fight. He still held the stasis box in both hands, instead of a working phaser.
As she fell, she saw him handing the invaluable stasis box to one of the huge Kzinti. Her mind refused to accept the evidence of her eyes. The impossible thought that Spock could be a coward or worse occurred to her as the alien environment her life-support aura held at bay seemed to close in tight around and blot all thinking and speculation from her mind.
Sulu had been phaser-stunned when he refused an order to stop struggling. Now the Kzinti muttered among themselves, their attention shifting constantly from the stasis box to the two crumpled humans. They kept a watchful eye or two on Spock. The Vulcan made no move to resist when one of them asked gruffly over his helmet frequency for the phaser the officer still wore at his waist. Spock handed it over as docilely as he had the stasis box.
Once their last possible opponent had been rendered helpless, the aliens relaxed a little. Spock took the opportunity to study the motionless forms of his companions. Both Sulu and Uhura seemed to be breathing regularly. Their lime-yellow auras remained intact and strong, indicating that the belt mechanisms hadn't been damaged. That meant they were in no immediate danger. Their life-support belts would sense the change in their metabolisms and adjust accordingly, just as they would if the two officers had fallen asleep instead of having been stunned into unconsciousness.
Spock's thoughts were mixed but steady as always when, by gesturing, the Kzinti indicated he should move toward the tunnel they had appeared from so unexpectedly. Other Kzinti hefted the unconscious forms of Uhura and Sulu, while one more picked up the coveted stasis box. There was a good deal of recognizable chortling over the prize, which indicated the presence of something far more elaborate than a casual trap.
A short march down a phaser-cut tunnel brought the party to an open airlock. One Kzinti gave Spock an ungentle shove into the open chamber. The first officer made no protest, offered not even a hint of displeasure at the rough treatment.
It took three cycles for every member of the group to be transferred into the fresh air of the Kzinti ship. The design of the lock and numerous other aspects of construction immediately indicated to Spock that they were boarding a vessel, and not a totally unfamiliar one at that. But then, most of Kzinti technology was derivative of Federation or Klingon engineering.
Further marching through the powerfully scented air brought the party to what appeared to be a crew ready room. In keeping with the requirements of Kzinti physiology, the room was huge by Federation standards. An oddly shaped table large enough for several Kzinti to sit comfortably around dominated the center of the room. Lockers and instrument panels lined one entire wall. Again, nothing was remarkable about the instrumentation. Much of it looked familiar, although altered in some cases to accommodate the size of the Kzinti hand.
Gently, almost reverently, a Kzinti put the stasis box onto the massive central table. The rest of the group gathered around and began an animated discussion of their booty.
Spock watched them silently, occasionally glancing sideways at Uhura and Sulu to make certain their condition didn't suddenly take a change for the worse. In his own mind he had already taken full re
sponsibility for the catastrophe. But that was unfair, as any outside observer would have insisted.
True, he had pointed out the unusual circumstance of another undiscovered stasis box lying within an oft-visited system like Beta Lyrae. He should have exercised greater caution in their search for the second box, should have seen the clues to the Kzinti presence even though they were concealed beyond the detecting ability of any mortal.
Kirk would have been the first to point out that Spock had no choice but to pursue the possible existence of the second box, and that he could not possibly have foreseen or guessed at the presence of the waiting Kzinti. But Spock was ever more critical of his actions than anyone else could be.
But an event detrimental to the interests of the Federation had occurred as a result of his decisions. He was guilty and condemned—unless the error could somehow, unlikely as that seemed, still be rectified before permanent damage was done. The Kzinti possessed the stasis box he and the others had traveled so fast and far to pick up. Its contents now became doubly important. Not only would they not be used to benefit the peoples of the Federation, but in the hands of the belligerent Kzinti they could be employed to bring only harm.
How much harm depended on the exact nature of those contents.
Spock was anxious to see inside. He had a perverse desire to know exactly how much damage his actions had caused the people of the Federation and the Federation itself.
A human experiencing the same thoughts might have screamed and damned himself, begging for his captors to shoot him in punishment for his mistake. Spock merely stood quietly. He faced the theft of the box as calmly as he had its acquisition. An observer would not be able to tell from his demeanor that the Kzinti had even arrived. Only his mind was operating much faster than before, and that was not visible.
Moans came from nearby. Sulu and Uhura were beginning to stir, recovering from the stun effects of the phasers. As soon as they were able to stand by themselves, a pair of Kzinti moved to assist them roughly in rising all the way. They escorted both groggy officers over to Spock and left them standing next to the first officer.