"Set it down, Chief."
"Aye, sir," Kyle replied. He activated the necessary instrumentation, pushed slowly up on a certain lever. The three men watched as the fairyland of towers and domes materialized on the deck. The city, complete to farmlands and forest belt, fitted neatly into the chamber.
If the city had appeared unusual on the surface, Kirk reflected, here on board it was thoroughly unreal. Unreally beautiful, too. No, he wasn't worried about the Terratins finding a useful niche in Federation society. Any people who could construct a habitation of pure loveliness under the incredible stresses imposed by the world below would contribute more than their share to any society they joined.
If anything, their participation in Federation affairs would be outsized.
He took a couple of steps closer, peering into the depths of the transported metropolis and wishing he could see and hear the inhabitants clearly. Spock again proved himself open to suspicion of mind-reading - or perhaps clairvoyance!
"I took the liberty of having this made up in bioengineering as soon as I divined your intentions toward the Terratins, Captain." Kirk turned and saw that Spock was bringing a large device out from behind the transporter console. It looked very much like a telescope pointing the wrong way. It was all of that - and a good deal more.
There seemed to be a great deal of activity around the open platform which girdled the tallest tower in the city. Kirk helped Spock aim the narrower end of the device toward it.
"Speak normally, Captain. The instrument will project and mollify your tones simultaneously." Kirk cleared his throat, adjusted the focus on the visual. One of the people on the platform looked familiar, though more composed than Kirk remembered him - which was understandable.
"Mandant?" The figure smiled, nodded. "We welcome your people on board the Enterprise."
The leader of the Terratin colony stared up at the monstrous machine. Behind him, his counselors and aides grew gradually less timid, moved out to stare up in their turn, look 'round in wonderment. To look at the Mandant, you would have thought he traveled with his city by starship at least once a year. A very cool individual, Kirk thought. He had no more worries about the Terratins' ability to handle themselves in Federation politics.
"Captain Kirk, we welcome your eye upon our city and hope you find it fair."
"I would tend to say stunning rather than fair, Mandant," Kirk responded honestly. "Right now it's about the most gorgeous thing on the Enterprise. Much as I hate to lose you, I'll have to admit my ship's not a sufficient setting for it."
"What do you have planned for us then, Captain?"
"There is a small world named Verdanis in a system ten days' cruising from here, Mandant. Verdanis is a lush world, much like Earth itself, but devoid of an animal life. It is also about the size of the solarian asteroid Ceres. Too small and too far away to support a normal colony, but I think more than sufficient for your people. Under Federation protection I think you will thrive and grow there - in a relative sense, of course."
The Mandant smiled back at him. "It sounds idyllic, Captain. I do not know how to begin to thank you."
"Thanks are not in order, Mandant. However, it may please you to know that while your adopted world will never support a large population, it looks to become a mining world of considerable importance for its dilithium deposits alone."
"The rescue of a portion of our population was all we could ever hope for, Captain Kirk. To be saved such, with our homes and city too, and then to be given a new, friendlier world, is beyond prayer."
Someone whispered in his ear - one of the aides - and the Mandant paused to listen to him. He turned and appeared to engage in conversation with several of the counselors.
When he turned back to Kirk, the counselors could be seen smiling in the background.
"I believe it is appropriate for me to make a very short speech, Captain." Kirk waited quietly. "People of the Enterprise," the Mandant intoned importantly, "we have no way we can possibly pay the debt we owe you. But this one little thing we can give, and upon this one thing we are all agreed." He gestured around, his arms taking in the city surrounding him. "We name you all honorary Terratins, now and for all time to come."
"A singular honor," observed Spock drily, "insofar as we came rather close to making it more than merely an honorary tide." Kirk looked away from the eye piece.
"Somewhere along the lines of one sixteenth of a centimeter close?"
"I would say about that, Captain." Kirk grinned back at him.
***
Maximum attention was paid to the Terratins as the ship moved towards Verdanis. Once Starfleet deciphered the first reports on the lost miniature colony, a flood of requests for information kept Uhura and M'ress bound to the communications console.
A missing link in Federation prehistory was filled in as the ship's historian took tape after tape from the city's miniscule library stacks. Ship geologists spent days in conference with their bug-sized brothers discussing living under constant quake conditions. And all the engineers marveled over the construction of the city itself, with particular marveling reserved for the remarkable Terratin city gimbal support system. Nothing like it existed anywhere in the Federation.
There was a brief ceremony of departure when the Enterprise went into orbit around Verdanis. The world was officially renamed Verdantin, good wishes were exchanged, formalities of possession signed, and then the city was transported down onto a broad plain filled with miniature streams and - to the Terratins - Sequoia-sized fungi.
"What do you think will become of them, Jim?" McCoy wondered. He was staring at the main viewscreen, which showed the city nestled in among the towering vegetation. A nearby pond formed a broad lake at the far end of the transplanted metropolis.
"Their location will be on public file with Starfleet Central, of course. Eventually it will become common knowledge throughout the Federation. But from what I've seen I don't think the Terratins will be satisfied with protectorate status for very long. They'll want full membership. That means trade, the exchange of ideas and material. With first settlement rights to their original home planet - and its mineral wealth - they'll wield considerable financial clout."
"That's fine for the immediate future, of course ... but what of the day after tomorrow?"
Kirk looked over from the command chair, considered. "One's tempted to say they'd be in trouble, Bones, but I think not. You should hear what the engineering people are saying about some of their quake-resistant machinery. It looks as if they're going to become a much sought-after group. Some of their techniques and references are badly dated, but skill and ability do not go out of fashion." He returned his attention to the screen.
"Why, I'd be willing to predict for openers that when population controls are released, Verdantin is going to become one of the biggest exporters of precision machinery in the Federation." He looked at his wrist and smiled.
"Do you know, Bones, that the Mandant and some of his counselors wear wrist chronometers every bit as accurate as the one I'm wearing? It takes a forty-five-hundred credit instrument under the control of a master timemaker nearly an hour to properly adjust the timing pin where it sets into the vibrating crystal. One of the Terratin engineers fixed it for me before the city was transported down ... in a couple of minutes.
"Do you know what precision, super-miniaturized tool he used, Bones?" He eyed the doctor challengingly. "A crowbar."
"I see what you're driving at," Bones confessed, suddenly excited. "In fact, I begin to see some possibilities myself. Damn! If I'd only spent some time with their best surgeons, instead of setting bones and treating burns...!" He was thinking furiously.
"I wonder, Jim ... do you suppose some of the Terratin doctors might consider a little experimental surgery ... wearing diving suits?"
Kirk didn't comment, but McCoy rambled on, his voice taking on a reverent tone.
"Wouldn't it be wonderful, Jim, if we could perform heart operations as an inside job...?"
r />
PART II
TIME TRAP
(Adapted from a script from Joyce Perry)
VII
Kirk tossed uneasily in his sleep. Strange, unknown energies were buffeting the Enterprise. No matter what maneuver, no matter what speed, no matter what attitude change he ordered, she seemed unable to break the grasp of the malignant invisibility.
Around them, space was solidifying, tangible tendrils and fingers and ropy tentacles materializing out of the black depths. All reaching out, out, for the ship.
An inky pseudopod looped itself tightly around an unsuspecting engineer. A long finger folded crookedly over the bridge itself, while somewhere in the distant well of infinity a mad voice giggled.
He ordered full phaser fire, but the beams simply assaulted space itself, the ravening fire passing harmlessly through semisolid members. The Enterprise rolled, pitched, shook, unable to loosen the slowly contracting grip of those gigantic digits.
Two of them entered the bridge, one from either wall. They started to move toward each other. Kirk, frozen in his command chair, was in the exact middle. Someone screamed. He tried to rise from the chair and discovered he couldn't.
The black thumbs moved nearer and nearer, closing off his view of the rest of the bridge, blotting out Spock and Uhura and Arex and Sulu and the main viewscreen and the phaser controls and the black cat slinking along the deck. Spock and the others had shown no sign, no awareness, of approaching oblivion.
Didn't they see? Couldn't they feel the massive claws flowing in upon them like black glaciers to crush and squeeze and pinch? He tried to call to Spock but seemed to have lost his voice along with his mobility.
All ignored him as he tried to shout; all went about their usual tasks as the life was taken from them. Only Bones turned, once. Incredibly, his gaze went right through Kirk as if he weren't there.
The black fingers tensed tighter. The harder he struggled, the more firmly rooted he was in the chair.
And all the while the ship continued to shake as dozens of other cyclopean tendrils and fingers pulled and wrenched at it. No one paid the least attention. Pressing hard now the fingers dug in. Now they were at his very shoulders, squeezing, pressing tighter and tighter. Compression started a ringing in his ears and he felt pressure on both sides of his head.
Ringing ... a mocking, insistent ringing that grew and grew as he tried to shut it out. Struggled to shut it out. Fought to shut it out
And failed.
He shot to a sitting position in bed, hands behind him, eyes wide and unwinking - instantly wide awake. Then he slumped ever so slightly and ran a hand across his forehead. He rubbed at both eyes, but the buzzing and ringing didn't go away. Instead, they were transformed into a steady, almost familiar hum. It pulled at his attention insistently.
Thought ... he turned, saw the winking red light set over his bunk. Pressed the acknowledge button. At the same time a strong tremor jolted the covers around him.
"Kirk here."
"I think you had better come forward, Captain. We have just impacted the perimeter of the Delta Triangle. As you can tell from the recent shake, things are beginning to happen already."
"All right, Mr. Spock." He paused while another, more violent vibration rattled his living quarters. "I'll be forward in five minutes."
He dressed rapidly. His mind raced as he hurried toward the bridge.
Following the establishment of the lost Terratin colony on the tiny world of Verdantin, the Enterprise had received orders to proceed to the Delta Triangle. The order had been transmitted and accepted with a quiet assurance at both ends of the transmission that neither broadcaster nor receiver felt.
There were too many unanswered questions about the Delta Triangle, none of them inspiring to a starship captain.
Kirk leaned against a corridor wall as yet another jolt shook the Enterprise. Noticing the uneasy, almost frightened look of two young yeomen who were walking the opposite way, he smiled confidently at them as he passed. Their incipient fears vanished, but not his own.
The Delta Triangle had a reputation that was well known. It was a vast, uninhabited, unexplored sector of the galaxy in the outer reaches of the Federation's influence. Its reputation stemmed from the number of disappearances occurring there of both manned and unmanned starships. Some dated from ancient times. Nor were they all Federation ships. Whatever was responsible for the multitude of disappearances made no distinctions as to race or region.
For awhile it had been enough simply to prohibit ships from entering the area. Nonetheless some persisted. Miners, traders, religious fanatics - the Delta Triangle was an irresistible magnet for them all.
Sometimes they came out, unharmed and having seen or found nothing. Often they disappeared, without a message, without a trace.
Now the expanding Federation found its frontiers pressing hard against the Delta Triangle. Should they avoid it and grow only in other directions? Or were there worlds within worth exploring... and exploiting?
Starfleet Command studied, thought, considered the problem. They decided the time had come to risk s full-scale exploration of the sector with a major research vessel. That meant a ship of the Enterprise's class.
That meant, specifically, the Enterprise.
The alarm lights were flashing to suitable aural accompaniment as he stalked onto the bridge. His first glance was for the helm navigation console, where Sulu and Arex were working frantically. Moving near, he peered over the Edoan's shoulder.
An area roughly triangular in shape was projected on the navigation grid. A tiny, regularly-flashing blip sat just inside the bottom edge of the triangle. Neither blip nor triangle were to scale, but it was enough to show how little of the mysterious region they had managed to penetrate.
And trouble already.
Kirk nodded to nobody in particular, turned and took up his position in the command chair. Sulu cut off the alarm lights and sound. Another jolt rocked the ship as the captain took his seat. The jolts were getting stronger. For a second he thought he was back prowling the unsteady surface of the Terratin world
It was time for facts.
"Situation, Mr. Spock?"
Spock spared him a brief glance before returning his attention to the library computer console. He looked more than usually preoccupied with his instruments.
"Indeterminate, Captain. Many of our sensors have become completely unreliable. Some continue to function, while others give readings which are patently impossible. And this wholesale disruption of detection sensors shows no internal pattern.
"The phenomenon commenced the moment we entered the Triangle sector. I do have one positive external reading, however. A solid object lies directly ahead though it barely registers on the long-range sensors."
Kirk considered this information thoughtfully. "And this object is the source of the instrumentation disruptions, Spock?"
Now the first officer did take the time to look away from his readouts. "That is the odd thing about it, Captain. This newly detected mass appears to have nothing whatsoever to do with the addled sensors. Interesting."
"Very," Kirk agreed. "Has visual identification been tried?"
"Not yet, sir," Sulu volunteered. "The object Mr. Spock refers to has just come within range of our maximum visual scan."
"Let's see if we can't pick it up, then, Lieutenant. Magnification ten on forward scanners."
"Magnification ten, sir," Sulu echoed, working the controls just to the right of the phasers.
Kirk's gaze shifted to the main viewscreen. It showed the speckled blackness of deep space just ahead. Another of the unexplained jolts rocked the ship. The static that momentarily appropriated the screen was of unique and unfamiliar nature.
It sputtered out, leaving a grainy, pebbled picture behind. Despite the lack of clarity, there was no difficulty in identifying the object picked up by Spock's operational detectors.
A Klingon battle cruiser.
It appeared to hang motionless agains
t the distant star-field, hovering against the emptiness like the great bird of prey it was vaguely patterned after, though Kirk knew it was anything but motionless. The scanners compensated for its actual speed.
It was a surprise to see an Imperial Klingon vessel here. The Klingons were not considered to be among the more adventurous races where abnormalities of time and space were concerned. The Delta Triangle was one of the last places Kirk would have expected to encounter them.
Somehow he had a feeling that their presence here was unrelated to neutral exploration.
"Klingon battle cruiser," he announced, his tone becoming brisk. "Deflector shields up, Mr. Sulu."
"All deflectors up, sir."
"Recognize her, Mr. Spock?"
Spock studied the screen. "No, Captain. Klolode-class ship, though." Kirk nodded.
"Equivalent to our own." He directed his next order backward. "Lieutenant Uhura, open a hailing frequency and..."
Further conversation was cut off as several pulses of lambent color suddenly erupted from the front of the Klingon ship. The scanners were momentarily blinded. A soft rumbling was heard, and the deck trembled slightly underfoot as the barrage of disruptor bolts impinged on the Enterprise’s deflector screens and were repulsed. A moment later the screen cleared, showed the image of the battle cruiser shrinking rapidly with distance.
"Mr. Sulu," Kirk began angrily, "will you...?"
"Following, sir," Sulu said tightly. The helmsman was obviously controlling his voice and emotions with difficulty. Kirk didn't have to ask why.
No doubt the Klingon commander had hoped to catch the Enterprise unprepared, her screens down, with that first attack. Seeing that it had failed, he was running now.
The Klingon's logic was not hard to follow. Were the Enterprise to disappear in the Delta Triangle, her demise would be recorded as just another in the age-old series of mysterious disappearances. Clever ... and thoroughly slimy.
"He's running in a high warp arc, Captain," Sulu reported, handling the pursuit course, "but we've got her. She won't get away."