Spock arrived shortly thereafter, with nurse Christine Chapel. By now, Mudd was holding his lower back constantly, rocking in his seat and groaning theatrically.
"What's the trouble?" asked Chapel, eyeing the seated trader with distaste.
"Got hit in the back with a rock," Kirk informed her, before Mudd could detail his unending list of woes. "Nothing serious, I think."
"Nothing serious!" Mudd retorted in disbelief. "I've got a cracked vertebra, at the least."
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Harry, stop making such a fuss." Kirk shook his head. "The out-world free trader, the pioneer of the Federation, the advance guard of mankind." With representatives like Mudd, he couldn't help but wonder sometimes how humanity had gotten as far as it had.
Chapel, meanwhile, had lifted Mudd's tunic and was examining the broad back. There was a red bruise spreading on the lower portion, just above the belt-line.
She took out a small cylinder from the medikit satchel at her waist. It had a spray nozzle at one end and a simple trigger at the other. Setting it against the injured area, she depressed the activator.
There was a hiss, and a fine mist appeared around the nozzle as she moved the cylinder across the bruise. Judging by Mudd's exaggerated contortions, she might well have been using a sledge hammer.
"Minor bruise, Captain," she agreed, replacing the cylinder in her bag. "He'll live."
"Oh well, all news can't be good," Kirk mused dryly. Mudd shook his head in despair at this unfriendly observation and tucked his shirt back into his trousers.
"Tch, tch, Captain, such unwonted animosity from a man of your position."
"Believe me, Harry, I'm sorry you're here to hear it. If you hadn't forced yourself on us, I wouldn't be forcing my evaluations on you. How'd you get away, anyhow? I thought we'd left you on that robot world permanently."
A quivering finger shot skyward in a gesture of defiance. "Never underestimate the spirit of Harcourt Fenton Mudd! Those who make that fatal mistake soon learn to their detriment that all their -"
"Harry," Kirk interrupted patiently, "never mind the theatrics. How did you get away?"
Mudd's eyes sparkled. "Ah, the conception was true genius, Captain! An inspiration worthy of my unique talents in the field of sociological betterment.
"I introduced the concept of organized sports. It was glorious to behold - thousands of robot citizens participating, two teams locked in a hearty struggle for the honor of their home factories, their central computers. I then introduced the idea of formal betting, with all its subtle variations, and -"
"I can imagine the rest," said Kirk, wincing at the image Mudd's words conjured up. The trader looked apologetic.
"Sadly, I forgot a small matter - the fact that I was dealing with automatons and not humans. They did not appreciate my exquisite and delicate refinements to the age-old logic of organized gambling."
"You mean cheating," Spock suggested helpfully.
"So I was, uh, compelled at an awkward moment to borrow a vehicle -"
"Steal a spaceship," Spock added once again. Mudd glared at the Vulcan.
"- and take my leave, only to find eventual haven on Ilyria VI. A charming world, just recently granted full Federation status. An emerging culture eager for the blessings of Federation civilization. A people rich in those rare resources - friendship and innocence."
"Which you are an expert at mining - so you went and sold them the Starfleet Academy," Kirk finished. "Harry! That was a bit much, even for you."
"I was selling an idea," Mudd protested. "I offered no absolutes or promises."
"Not on paper or tape, anyway," Spock reminded him. "The ... transaction netted you enough credits to get you to Sirius IX, in your stolen ship."
"Borrowed," reminded Mudd helpfully. "Where I discovered a great boon to intelligent life. Something humanoids have been searching for for thousands and thousands of years - and probably most aliens have, too. A real, chemically sound, and never-failing love potion!"
"Which you sold to at least a thousand inhabitants of Sirius IX," Kirk concluded, "who immediately became never-failingly ill from using it."
"Unfortunately, Captain, the spacecraft I sto - ah, borrowed, was not equipped for much in the way of extensive chemical analysis. So I was, sadly, unable to ascertain in advance that the love potion and biochemistry of my customers were mutually incompatible. So I proceeded, as is my wont, to do the honest thing, I left in haste, but not without first leaving behind all the credits I had made, to be refunded to my enthusiastic but physiologically deficient customers."
"Read - a bank on Sirius impounded your funds before you could withdraw them," Spock commented.
Mudd's smile was showing wear around the edges. "Really, Mr. Spock, I must confess that sometimes I do find your attention to trivial minutiae exhausting."
"Let us hope that the Peaceforcer court shows more interest when considering the same facts." Mudd made a mumbling sound deep in his throat.
"And so you came here," Kirk went on, "hoping to have better luck swindling honest miners - again, without worrying about any possible side effects your potion might have on their body chemistries."
Mudd's chin went out as he struck a noble pose. "Well, I have a surprise for you, Captain Kirk. Because, for once in my life, I've stumbled on something profitable as well as hon ... sensible. The potion works."
"As it did on Sirius IX?"
Mudd shrugged. "An unfortunate, unforeseeable accident of nature. An exception to the rule, I assure you." He leaned forward. "No, I can do better than assure you - I can prove it. If you will only permit me to procure a few samples from my ship..." He started to rise.
Kirk shook his head slowly. "Sorry, Harry." Taking a couple of steps backward, until he was standing in the corridor with Spock and Chapel, Kirk moved his hand over a switch set in the wall to his right.
Hidden instruments flicked on, and a mild hum became audible. Instantly, a thin but impenetrable force field had been erected between Mudd and the three starship officers.
The field itself - what one could see of it - looked something like heat distortion on a paved road on a hot day. As viewed through the field, the outline of Harry Mudd appeared to shift and waver slightly.
"Mr. Spock, you'll please prepare an official arrest report as soon as is convenient, giving all details including the use of the prohibited Rigellian hypnoid. And be sure to mention that Mr. Mudd voluntarily surrendered himself." Within the cell, Mudd mumbled a sarcastic "Hah!"
"Of course, Captain," Spock responded.
Kirk nodded, satisfied that he had heard the last of Harry Mudd until they reached Sector headquarters on Darius.
All men, even starship captains, dream.
"I'll be on the bridge if you need me, Mr. Spock," he finished, moving toward the elevator. Spock turned to look at the woman next to him.
"Nurse Chapel, I shall require a thorough medical report on the prisoner, to append to the arrest tape, assuring that he was healthy and in good condition when apprehended, no mind-warping techniques were used ... the usual."
"What about my back?" complained Mudd. "Good condition, my -"
Spock barely glanced back at him. "Note that Mr. Mudd suffered minor injury to his lower dorsal area while in the process of turning himself in."
She smiled up at him. "I'll note that, too, Mr. Spock." Her smile grew wider, warmer ... wishful. "I heard how you and the Captain managed it. I think you deserve congratulations for trapping him as neatly as you did." She started to lean forward, pursing her lips.
Spock drew away quickly, frowned. "I must remind you, Nurse Chapel, that intergender oral contact is not popular among Vulcans."
She looked disappointed, and embarrassed. "I ... I apologize, Mr. Spo - Commander."
Spock was unruffled. "It is not necessary. I am aware - indeed, I am constantly reminded - that emotional impulses may overcome humans at any point." He shook his head sadly. "How unfortunate for you."
"You don'
t know the half of it, Mr. Spock," she murmured, but so softly that no one could hear.
Mudd didn't have to, however. An astute observer of other beings, the look in her eyes was sufficient for him. He leaned forward on the combination lounge-bed and twirled one end of his mustache, trying not to look interested.
Well, well ... the universe is a bottomless bag of surprises, he reflected. Most intriguing.
"As to our capture of Mr. Mudd, you exaggerate," Spock continued formally. "Kindly see to it that your medical summary is more precise." He nodded curtly and left the brig area.
Chapel's stare followed him until the elevator doors had closed him away. Mudd did not have to be a telepath to know that she was interested in more than merely making sure he didn't stumble on his way out.
Mudd edged closer to the force-field "bar." When his skin began to tingle he knew he was right up against it. As Chapel continued to gaze down the corridor after the departed Spock, Mudd spoke casually.
"You're absolutely right, you know. I've dealt with a great many humanoids in my time, and your Mr. Spock is certainly a very attractive intelligence."
Wham! Mudd could almost see the mental portcullis slam shut in her head. Her voice was instantly the model of precision and bureaucratic indifference.
"An exceptional officer, yes. We're fortunate to be able to serve under him."
"But a trifle lacking in the warmer emotions, yes?" He smiled broadly when she jerked around to look at him. When she didn't say anything, he continued.
"Now you, nurse," and he rubbed his sore back as he chatted, "have a wonderful gift for healing the wounded. A considerable ability ... a feminine, womanly touch.
"That's rare in the Federation today, and I don't mean just among Starfleet personnel. It's something I can appreciate. Most people, it seems, have grown so ... well mechanical. You know.
"Anyway, I do appreciate it. And I think it's that sort of quality that could, well ... what I'm trying to say is that I'd like to thank you." Balancing awkwardly on one foot, he commenced to reach down and remove his left boot. Chapel watched this operation uncertainly.
"Thank me ... with a boot?"
"No, no, my dear. With this." And while she stared he touched a hidden button at the back of the boot. A tiny spring sprang, and the heel clicked aside, revealing a small hollow compartment. It yielded an oblong, multicolored crystal that seemed to pulse with inner light - a neat cross between clear quartz and opal. A thick oily liquid rocked back and forth inside the transparent silicate.
Chapel found herself staring. "What is it?"
"My love potion." That brought her head up. "No, no," he said hastily. "It's not an illusion, not trickery, my dear Nurse Chapel. This is for real. Inside the crystal," and he tapped the specimen with a fingernail, "lies the power to create love ... in another."
Chapel took a wary step backward. "Oh no you don't, Harry Mudd. I've heard about your potions. I don't believe you." She spun on her heel and started to leave. Mudd reached out, hurried down the short length of the cell with both hands pressed against the force field.
"But if it did," he implored, his voice rising desperately, "think about it, darlin' - Mr. Spock, in love with you. Really in love with you."
***
Arex looked back from his position at the navigation console to catch first Spock's eye, then Kirk's. "Something rather interesting here, sir."
The Enterprise was proceeding at high speed toward distant Darius on a normal exploration course. Now Arex started to slow ... in case.
"Uncharted star system ahead."
"Put it on the screen, Mr. Arex." The latter flicked a switch. Instantly a tiny, far-off star system became visible on the main screen. An unspectacular blue-white sun boiled in its center.
"Increase magnification, Mr. Arex."
"Yes, sir." Arex did things with three controls at once. The picture leaped into clearer focus. Then he adjusted other dials, and the rest of the bridge saw the main object of interest - the blue-white's companion.
It was smaller, reddish-orange in color. Spock had been studying nonvisual information via the library computer's hooded viewer. Now he looked up and back at them.
"A standard binary system, Captain; but it appears to hold at least one Class-M planet. I think this is rare enough to warrant investigation." Kirk pondered a moment, then agreed.
"Yes, it is. All right, set us an orbit, Mr. Arex." The navigator began making requests of the incredibly complex piloting system. Kirk stared at the viewscreen as they began to edge into the double-star family.
The growing blue-white sun seemed to throb with light, pulse and sparkle, sparkle and flame and...
***
...Sparkle hypnotically as Mudd twirled the crystal, back and forth and around and back in his hands like a top on a string. Nurse Chapel stared at it, fascinated, entranced. She also held a hand phaser aimed squarely at Harry's midsection.
"If it did work," she said slowly, "which is quite absurd, would it...?"
"It's so simple, my dear. Nothing to it. Yes, it would."
"How does it work - theoretically, I mean."
"Nothing easier and less obvious," Mudd continued smoothly, still twirling, spinning, and shifting the crystal. "You merely crush the crystal and allow the liquid a second or two to sink into your skin. The hands are best. Then simply touch another person - the other person."
"And it creates love? Mudd, that's ridiculous."
"Isn't all love ridiculous?" he argued philosophically. "But you are wrong, darlin' - the crystals are infallible. One touch from a liquid-kissed hand evokes undying friendship among men, or women. But between members of the opposite sex, you get love. The real thing, guaranteed." He held the crystal closer to the force-field.
"Harry Mudd's love crystals could generate passion in a block of granite. Now your Mr. Spock - he's something of a block of granite, isn't he?" Mudd tossed the crystal from hand to hand.
"But naturally, you're skeptical." Taking a couple of steps back into the cell, he didn't miss how her gaze followed the crystal as it moved from palm to palm.
"Now you can appreciate a unique bit of chemistry like this, Christine. You're not only a beautiful woman, you're a scientist. Why, you're practically a physician yourself, in every way but on parchment. I urge you, take this love crystal as my gift of gratitude to you. For your medical ministrations and your comforting hands.
"I assure you, it can't harm you. Even Captain Kirk would tell you that. Why don't you ask him?"
"Ask...? No ... no, I don't think that's necessary. I mean, there's no need to bother the Captain with..." She stopped, flustered, and tried another tack. "It can't harm me? Then what about those people on Sirius IX?"
"Ah, you've heard of that," he commented disappointedly. "No matter. They only became slightly ill. There were no serious sicknesses. You can check that, too, if you wish. But human biochemistry should react to it most favorably. And Vulcan." He tried to appear disinterested.
"Look on it as an experiment." He extended the hand holding the crystal toward her, pulled it back when the force-field firmly rejected it, and chuckled good-naturedly.
"Sorry - forgot, for a minute."
"Not that I believe any of this rubbish," she muttered, but without meeting his eyes. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to analyze the effects."
"Of course not!" He grinned widely.
She hesitated a last minute, then hefted the phaser tightly and reached for the wall-field control. The force-field vanished. Mudd could tell it was gone because the outline of Chapel no longer rippled.
Smiling, he made a courtly bow, noticing as he did so that the hand holding the phaser never wavered. He extended the crystals, careful not to make any sudden movement.
She took it gingerly, handling it like a fusion bomb. Which, in a sense, it was. Keeping the phaser on Mudd, she held it up to the light. Inside, the liquid refracted light, sending it out in myriad flashes every time the crystal shifted...
VII
One new image after another flashed across the Enterprise's bridge viewscreen as her automatic cameras and recorders scanned the world below. Panoramas alternated with sequential closeups, building a composite picture of the surface.
Basically it was a dry world, a desert planet. Seemingly endless plains of fine sand, deep as oceans in spots, were interrupted only by occasional upthrusts of naked, worn, black rock that registered amazing hardness on the ship's sensors. It would have to be, to withstand the gargantuan dust storms that must everlastingly abrade the skin of the uninhabited globe. The ship's tracking computer finally settled on a medium telescopic view of an area somewhere beneath them.
Sunset there, second sunset, with the blue-white sun already down and the reddish binary turning the sand the color of dried blood. Long shadows turned the surface the color of coal behind the few protruding spires.
The Enterprise slid inside the orbit of the planet's single, insignificant moon as Kirk activated the log.
"Ship's Log, Stardate 5514.6.
"We have located and made preliminary scan of a hitherto unidentified binary system with one marginally habitable world. Preparations are now underway for first advanced survey. Second advanced survey with actual landing party will probably not be carried out this trip, unless some unexpected new factor dictates in its favor."
And from the look of that dead, motionless surface, Kirk expected nothing in the way of startling developments. He looked up from the log mike.
"Mr. Spock, have you got those preliminary statistics ready?"
"Here, Captain." Kirk joined his first officer at the library computer. A small screen was playing back the initial probe and sensor reports from their first, fast orbit around the planet's equator. All were neatly correlated and broken down to essential components.
The Enterprise's planetary detection equipment took a world apart, reduced it to a series of figures that were taken into the library computer. There the ship's brain sorted them out, packed them together, and generally translated them into terms a well-educated Starfleet officer could comprehend.