"Okay, the feelings are mutual," McCoy commented without rancor. Changing the subject abruptly, he asked Kirk, "What about those on board, Jim?"
"Scotty's patient, Bones, when he has to be. Left to his own feelings, he'd probably have beamed down yesterday to see what happened. But he's under orders. He'll exhaust every ounce of patience, try everything to regain contact with us without taking offensive action. But eventually, he's going to get worried enough to take action.
"As I said before, the Enterprise might not come out on top in a fight with our silent hosts. No, Scotty will hold off. He'll need some proof we're in danger before sending down an armed force—and we're probably safer here than on board the ship, thanks to the concern of the Lactrans."
"We have to do something, then," McCoy exploded, "besides rest on our fundaments and juggle the odds of a Federation-Lactran battle . . . with us in the middle."
"I have a suggestion, Captain, when the doctor is finished."
McCoy threw Spock a sour look and mumbled, "I'm finished, Spock, what's your grand solution?"
"Not solution . . . suggestion," Spock corrected efficiently, completely missing McCoy's sarcasm. "Evidently they can pick up our thought patterns if we all concentrate on the same thing. If they care to go to the trouble."
"This is the main problem. Believing that we are animals, it is therefore not worth their effort to descend to our level. Who cares what the vermin think?"
"Yes, yes," Kirk agreed rapidly, "we've already proven that by getting them to give us the medical kit. Where do we go from here?"
"I see no reason not to try an idea that has worked once a second time." The others eyed Spock expectantly. "One of us must pretend to be seriously ill. Even more important, the rest of us must believe in the falsified illness, so that our true intentions are masked from the Lactrans. The lie must be close to the truth, for us to have a chance. Our captors are perceptive and react quickly. We have to concentrate strongly on the thought that a communicator is vital to the patient's recovery.
"Naturally, we need not specify in our minds exactly why a communicator is required, but it is a thought all of us should be able to hold to." He paused, then went on easily, "Surely a return to the Enterprise would be one method of seeing to the health of an ill individual."
"Sounds possible, Spock," Kirk finally concurred. "Let's try it. And, visual stimulus being an aid to concentration, let's move back behind the house so that we can look at the communicators while we're concentrating on one."
There were far fewer Lactrans clustered at the rear of the cottage than they had encountered out front. That was only natural, Spock pointed out, since the best view in any zoo was in front of the cage. Possibly their novelty was wearing off, because no rush of Lactrans appeared to gaze at them from the new vantage point.
Only a small number were clustered by the display table. As they neared the field wall, Kirk saw that one of the smaller aliens was busily engaged in examining the equipment laid out on the table. The larger ones rested nearby, apparently deep in telepathic conversation.
"Okay, who's our candidate for convincing convulsions?" McCoy wondered aloud.
"I'll do it," Kirk said immediately. "I'm sick of this place and sick of our situation, so I won't have to exaggerate too much. The rest of you concentrate like hell on the nearest communicator."
"Maybe we'll get lucky," Markel observed, his attention focused on the display table. "That's a little one pretty much alone with the instruments. If Mr. Spock's right, it could be a youngster."
"Spock wasn't sure, Commander," Kirk reminded him. "It might merely be a small adult. Or maybe the adults are the smaller of the species." Markel looked disappointed.
"Try to think about Captain Kirk's visible manifestations of illness," Spock advised the others, "instead of considering his actual condition. We must strive to project an aura of intense worry and concern, to the exclusion of all other thoughts."
"And remember, we have to be quick," Kirk admonished. "As soon as I get my hands on a communicator, I'll try to get enough information through to whoever answers so that they'll know we require an immediate beam-aboard." He settled himself close to the field wall.
"Ready now . . ."
Kirk became a dervish, spinning, whirling, hopping about, clutching at his head, and finally bending over with both hands pressed to his stomach. He rolled on the ground, bugging his eyes and choking, generally presenting the appearance of a being whose health was somewhat less than ideal.
The others moved to form a half circle around him, leaving the section between Kirk and the force field unblocked. They stared down at the body in spasms, their faces reflecting the agony they forced themselves to feel.
The effect upon the small Lactran studying their equipment was immediate. It turned its front end toward the enclosure and gave that eerie impression of ogling without optics. Moments came and went, while Kirk struggled to maintain the illusion of impending death and Spock wondered if they were wasting their time.
The versatile tail drifted over the exhibit table, finally settling on some of the survey team's emergency medical supplies. Turning sideways, the Lactran extended its tail and deposited the sealed containers inside the field, close to Kirk's thrashing legs.
"It has the idea," Spock murmured, his eyes never straying from Kirk's writhing form. "We must concentrate harder on the necessary remedy. The communicator . . . it is the only thing that will save the captain. The only thing . . . he'll die horribly without it, remember. That's all you can think about, the captain dying . . . unless . . . he gets . . . the communicator . . ."
Several minutes of truly inspired gesticulating on Kirk's part coupled with his companions' shunning of the proffered medical supplies, prompted the Lactran to reach farther into the field cage to nudge the containers closer to the pitiful, suffering specimen.
When this further offering was also ignored, the slug turned back to the exhibits. This time it picked up one of the communicators, the compact device looking even tinier in the grip of that massive gray limb.
But the ruse was only partly successful. Either the Lactran suspected the depth of their need for this particular instrument, or else it was unsure of itself, but, whatever the reason, it decided to keep a close eye on its utilization. So instead of handing over the communicator, it entered the enclosure with it.
Like an elastic crane the tail swooped around and down, to offer the instrument to Kirk. Apparently the Lactrans held to the "heal thyself" principle. Well, Kirk was more than willing to abide by it. He raised a quivering, feeble hand and grasped it, bringing the instrument down toward his mouth. As soon as he had it opened and activated, he underwent a remarkable transition. In fact, his symptoms of advanced disease vanished as though they had never existed.
"Enterprise, Enterprise, this is the captain. Beam us aboard immediately, all of—"
The communicator was torn from his grip before he could finish. Had he not let go, the Lactran would have taken his arm along with the instrument.
Whether it was the physical or mental commotion, or both, something finally caused the two large Lactrans standing nearest the exhibit table to cease their inaudible conversation and whirl. They started toward the force field.
A familiar flickering in the air had commenced behind the force wall, a colorful shimmering that Kirk gaped at in horror. The transporter effect was not engulfing himself, Spock, or any of the other anxious captives.
The smaller Lactran brightened once and was gone.
Scott fought the transporter controls, having reacted instantly to Kirk's shipwide call. He had focused on the area surrounding the exact position of the communicator, as pinpointed by the Enterprise's communications computer.
Readouts indicated he had locked onto a substantial mass—presumably the captain and the rest of the landing party, including any survivors from the Ariel.
He stared expectantly at the alcove, where something was beginning to take shape.
> "Captain," he began, "for a minute we thought sure . . ." He stared, swallowed. "What in cosmos . . .?"
Instead of the captain, Mr. Spock, or anyone else, a two-and-a-half-meter-long monstrosity was coalescing in the chamber. It looked like a cross between a cucumber and a squid, combining the least desirable features of both.
Its front end—or was it the back?—moped around rapidly, until it was pointed at Scott. The engineer's hackles rose as he felt as if something unclean were picking at his mind. At the same time the long tail whipped around, secondary limbs contracting.
Scott ducked down behind the console. The tentacle probed. As it did so the Enterprise's chief engineer made like a foot soldier and scuttled fast for the door.
A first palm thrust sent the metal partition sliding shut behind him. A second activated the wall intercom.
"Scott here . . . Security, full team to the Main Transporter Room, on the double! We've—" Metal groaned behind him.
The door had begun to buckle inward. It was still bending when three security guards skidded around the corridor corner, phasers held at the ready.
"I beamed up something out of a bad hangover," Scott yelled at them. "The captain sent an emergency message, and instead of him we got—"
The door gave in with a musical spannggg, and Scott's half-coherent explanation went no further.
"Watch it!" he yelled, stumbling backward.
The door slammed down against the deck. Scott thought of yelling for phasers to be set on stun, but changed his mind when he remembered through the confusion of the moment that security phasers were never preset to deliver a lethal charge.
Nor was it necessary to give an order to fire. Faced with an eight-foot-long slug emerging from behind a crumpled door and a wildly gesturing officer, they decided unanimously to try nonverbal means of persuasion on the apparent cause of the trouble.
Three phasers fired, three beams struck the Lactran. Its skin seemed to ripple slightly . . . and that was all. But the creature stopped, though both Scott and the security personnel had a feeling it wasn't because of the phaser attack.
Scott began retreating down the corridor to organize a larger capture party, but immediately came to a jerking halt as though an invisible cable around his head had snapped taut. Both hands went to his suddenly throbbing skull, where tiny gnomes had set up a small warp-engine and were running it at overdrive.
All three guards, being closer to the intense mental blast, had been knocked to the floor. Sliding along the deck like a heavy metal ingot on oil, the invader sprinted forward, swept up Scott with its tail, and raced down the corridor.
Behind, the guards struggled to find their phasers, their composure, and the tops of their skulls . . .
V
Far, far below, the situation was no less tense, if somewhat less hectic.
"Captain, I believe that for the first time they are making an effort to transmit a comprehensible thought pattern toward us," Spock told them. "Our speculation as to the relationship between age and size appears to have been correct. They are worried about their child, the one caught in the transporter beam.
"These, I gather, are the parents of the missing one. Despite the lack of external sexual characteristics, the standard male-female partnership is in existence here."
"Never mind the biological details, Mr. Spock," a tense Kirk ordered, eyeing the two silent Lactrans warily. "While they're worried about their offspring, I'm more concerned about what it might do to the Enterprise. Even an adolescent probably possesses considerable mental as well as physical powers."
"What in Carrel's scalpel went wrong, though?" a bemused McCoy wondered.
"I'm not sure, Bones. Obviously Scotty received our call for help, a call that was sorely lacking in details. That thing snatched the communicator before I could give him any details. As soon as the alien took the communicator from me, well, it was still activated when it was grabbed away. Scotty centered on it, of course."
Spock was swaying slightly, drifting deeper into trance. "They seem to think you made the child disappear," he murmured, "since you were the one who operated the device. Their reaction . . . their reaction . . ."
"Go on, Spock."
"They are surprised, and concerned. The concern is for their missing offspring. They are surprised because we had not been classed as either an intelligent or a dangerous species. And they are somewhat shocked to discover that we may be both."
"We can't stand here," McCoy said nervously, "we've got to do something . . . or they will."
Kirk tried to calm the jittery McCoy. In fact, everyone appeared increasingly nervous. That could only make the Lactrans worry more about their child.
"Calm down . . . all of you. Let's not give our captors cause for concern. The best thing we can do is—"
He doubled over and fell to the ground, twisting in pain—and this time he wasn't acting.
"Jim!" McCoy was at his side, feeling helpless. "What is it?"
"My head! Inside . . . my head." The words came out with an effort. "I think . . . the baby. What happened to the baby?"
There was an odd, hollow tone in those last words, as if something unhuman was trying to operate a human voice mechanism.
"Fight it, Captain," Spock urged, "fight it as hard as you can. Don't try to listen, don't try to let them use you." He turned to McCoy.
"They think so fast, their patterns of cogitation are so complicated, that their own thoughts are too complex for a human brain to assimilate." He watched as Kirk rolled to his knees, tried to keep his balance, and failed.
"If he gives up, even for a moment," Spock explained with deathly precision, "he may go mad. The Lactran thought processes will overload his neural capacity."
M'ress uttered a sound halfway between a screech and a feline yowl as the Lactran, still holding Scott firmly in its grasp, charged out of the turbolift onto the bridge. Arex rose from his position at the navigation console, but despite the shock and consternation, no one moved to abandon his post, no one ran for an exit.
And that was the last thing Scott wanted, since the presence of others seemed to make his captor nervous. The chief engineer had been treated to one of the slug-thing's mental assaults and had no desire to endure another.
"Everyone clear out," he ordered, seeing that no one was going to budge without being told to do so. "Don't antagonize it."
"Antagonize what?" M'ress asked quietly, bearing Scott's admonition in mind. "What is that thing?"
"I don't know . . . yet. But it hasn't injured anyone badly . . . yet. And I have the impression it doesn't want to. It could have sent pieces of me all over the ship by now but hasn't taken that option." The Lactran headed toward the center of the bridge. As it began to move, the bridge personnel started to edge around toward the turbolift doors.
"All rright, what do you want us to do, sirr?" M'ress queried, standing by the open doors.
"Just leave quietly, lassie. Report to Lieutenant Seelens, tell her to set up security teams on all transporters. I don't expect any more visitors, but I want to be ready to greet them in case I'm wrong."
"Yes, sirr," she acknowledged. "But what arre you going to do, sirr?"
Scott let out a resigned sigh. "What do you think, Lieutenant? Whatever it wants me to."
M'ress filed into the lift behind Arex, turned, and started to say something. The closing doors cut her off soundlessly.
He was alone on the bridge with the alien invader.
The front end of the creature waved back and forth, like an elephant sensing the air. It slid forward and placed Scott in the command chair—gently and right-side up, the chief noted with thanks—and then turned its featureless front to stare at him.
"Now look," Scott began, "supposin' you and I talk this over?"
No response from the slug.
"You can talk, can't you?"
Silence, and that continuing eyeless gaze.
"If you can't talk, how do you communicate?" He tried Federation sign
language. "Well, what can you do?"
The creature turned and began examining the control consoles nearby, beginning with navigation and working its way around to Spock's library-computer station. The tail end touched several switches, and the multiple screens at the station lit and began pouring forth a torrent of information. Scott couldn't even identify the sections the creature was studying, much less follow its progress.
"Listen, you've got to be careful here," he explained patiently. "This is the control room of a—hey!"
The tail had reached out and lifted him again, then replaced him in the chair. If this was the alien's method of indicating one should be silent, it failed to impress Scott. The chief was growing increasingly nervous as the alien continued to touch this or that control.
"Now, look," he began as the Lactran switched off the library and moved around to face the helm and navigation consoles, "just keep your grubby little whatever-it-is off things you don't under . . . no, don't touch that!"
Too late. The multitipped tail was moving across the consoles with blurring speed, far too fast for Scott to follow. It touched switches, pushed buttons and levers, activated telltales, and checked readouts, while its front end slowly weaved back and forth from one console to the other.
"Listen," Scott howled desperately, "if you keep that up, you'll send us runnin' off to the back of wherever!"
His attention was diverted by the already altered picture on the main viewscreen. It was anything but reassuring. It showed a rapidly shrinking green and white globe, Lactra VII, become a pinhead circle instead of a screen-filling orb.
Seconds later the warp-drive was engaged. An enraged, horrified Scott could only stare and hurl Highland imprecations at the gray hippo before him. His horror sprang from the knowledge that any idiot could activate the Enterprise's warp-drive engines; but the matter of navigation, of determining where those engines were taking the ship, was a chore for experience and expertise.