OUTSIDE THE CITADEL, the pearl-gray light of early morning cast faint shadows in the courtyard. But down where Rrelin Hhayd was imprisoned, there were no windows to tell him it was dawn. He lay on a slab-hard bunk, curled on his side. The bare bulb overhead flickered on, painting the tiny cell in harsh white light. At the sound of a key in the door, he shook himself awake and swung his feet to the floor, still wearing his combat fatigues as the door opened enough to allow Brigadier Vvox to enter.
Hooking her toe on the leg of a tripod stool, she slid it across the uneven stone floor with a grating sound. Then she sat. The cell door remained open, enough for Hhayd to see two armed guardsmen outside—troopers who used to jump to the cadence of his orders.
“So,” he said, “you’re my inquisitor. How ironic.”
Vvox shook her head scornfully. “I only have one burning question.” Her voice was flat. “How could you be so stupid?”
Hhayd chuckled. “Stupid? For taking a positive step toward what we both wanted?” His forced smile disappeared. “I did what had to be done.”
“First of all, it didn’t have to be done. Second, even if it did, this wasn’t the time. And finally, you failed.”
“At least I tried. Better than planning and planning and planning again, twisting with every breeze that blows, and waiting to navigate a course that never hits a wave or a storm. Well, there’s no such course, and the fool who thinks there is never leaves the harbor.”
“Very sure of yourself, Rrelin.”
“You know me—never look back. So, interrogate me.”
“I did. I found out nothing useful. I had you executed.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” She stood, kicked the stool against the wall, and left the cell. But the door didn’t clang shut. Instead, Vvox came back in with a powerful Grolian sidearm in her hand. She slipped a muffler over the muzzle, raised it, and fired. With a deadened thud, the projectile exploded in the center of Hhayd’s chest, throwing his body against the wall, draping him grotesquely off the end of the bunk, arms dangling and legs askew like a discarded rag doll.
“Screen on, please,” Kirk said. The wall-size viewer in the main briefing room glowed, and the room lights dimmed slightly. “Okay, Llissa. It’s all yours.”
Llissa Kkayn prowled around the table, where the admiral now sat with Scott, Sulu, McCoy, Maybri, and Greenberger. “Thanks, Jim. I wish I’d had more time to grab things or have them beamed up before Collegium was occupied, but these’ll have to do.” She thumbed a remote control in her hand, and the computer obliged by flashing a florid painting of a sea creature with some strikingly humanoid features, ornately rendered. “This is an illustration from an ancient religious text, dating back, oh, maybe eight hundred years. Not many books survive from before that era, so this is one of the earlier paintings with lots of detail.”
“Details of what, Llissa?” McCoy asked.
“Of a creature called a Wwafida. Akkallan legends devote a great deal of time to a civilization of humanlike beings that lived in the sea.”
Maybri’s ear tips twitched curiously. “A civilization? Not just creatures swimming around in the ocean?”
“That’s right. A civilization, with everything that implies—communication, culture, highly evolved social order. At least that’s what the legends say. We Akkallans believe life began in the sea here. Maybri was telling me that’s probably true on many if not most worlds that have advanced forms of life. And here, as you’ve seen, even modern life revolves around the sea. That’s no great surprise on a planet where we don’t have very much dry land. The Wwafida were supposed to be people who’d been born on land, and after they lived good lives, their reward was to turn into these sea creatures for the final stage of their lives and then die in peace in Mother Sea. The change was called senescence, or sanctification.”
“How far back do these legends go?” Kirk asked.
“Well, we have some forms of recorded history—carvings, engravings, stone tablets, cave paintings—dating back about ten thousand years. Before that, it was just oral history. For all of those ten thousand years, Akkallans have lived and died on land, as far as anybody can figure out, just like we do today.”
Greenberger raised her hand. “Did anybody ever investigate to see if these Wwafida ever actually existed?”
Llissa nodded. “Some people wondered. Some people did more than wonder. My father was one of them. He worked at Collegium when I was growing up, and he was something of a genius, spread over a whole batch of fields. He was a biologist, an archeologist, a paleontologist, and a historian. One of the things I remember most vividly about him was how he was always trying to make things fit together. To him, science was a puzzle with mismatched pieces. But he believed the pieces might match if you arranged them exactly right, or found some that were missing.”
McCoy sipped a cup of coffee and reached for a donut on a platter. “Where is your father?”
“I don’t know. He left Collegium after my mother died—I was a child—because he didn’t like the way things were done. He always was a bit of a maverick, didn’t get along too well with colleagues. We were never close anyway, so we didn’t keep in touch. But he was still working, on his own, trying to shove those puzzle pieces together. I heard about him from other people, read things he wrote—”
She stood in silence for a moment. “Anyway, he suddenly disappeared about five years ago.”
Kirk cocked his head. “Disappeared?”
“That’s the way it seemed. Nobody knew where he was. He stopped publishing.” She shrugged. “Some people said he drowned in a storm while he was out in a small boat by himself. But no wreckage or body was ever found. So, he might be dead, or he might be alive. Nobody knows. But before he dropped out of sight, I know he was working on trying to prove the Wwafida were real—and still existed.”
McCoy’s eyes narrowed reflectively. “That’s how all this started, isn’t it, all this questioning of the harvest treaty.”
“Yeah. He managed to discover a previously unknown underwater mountain range. He didn’t have the resources or equipment to really explore the way he wanted to. So he came to us at the Collegium and made peace with us long enough for a cooperative venture. That’s when we retrieved those fossil bones, the ones that looked an awful lot like the contemporary ones your Dr. McPhillips found.”
“Did you ever prove they were Wwafida fossils?” asked Maybri, hunched anxiously over the table.
Llissa shook her head. “Well, I shouldn’t say definitively no—my father thought they were. Our scientists didn’t agree. That led to a huge fight. He demanded the bones back, and we refused to let him have them. And that was the last time he ever spoke a civil word to anyone connected with Collegium.”
“I wish I could get those fossils into our lab,” McCoy said.
“So do I. But Hhayd’s Paladins probably tore Collegium apart, and if they found the fossils, I’m sure they’re ground to dust by now.”
Maybri bounced her balled fists on the table. “Then we’ll just have to find some more.”
“That,” said Kirk, “sounds like an excellent idea.”
Llissa’s squared shoulders relaxed for the first time since she’d started her presentation. “I was hoping someone would say that.” She grinned.
“What would our next step be?” Kirk asked. “Can you locate that mountain range?”
“I could if I had all our charts, but I don’t.”
“Charts,” Kirk mused. “Particular charts, or just complete charts of the planet’s underwater geography?”
“Any charts, as long as it’s all there.”
“Greenberger, that’s your next assignment,” Kirk ordered. “Work with cartography and geology to do a full scan of Akkalla.”
Llissa slumped into her seat, her face dour. “There’s a big problem, even after we locate the mountains.”
“What’s that?” Kirk asked.
“We have no way of getting down there. My research subs aren’t on the Enterprise. Do you have anything that can dive six thousand meters under an ocean and protect people from the pressure?”
Maybri spoke first. “We did—the Cousteau.”
“Scotty,” Kirk said, “you’ve looked over the damage reports on the Cousteau—”
“Aye, sir.”
“Do you have what it takes to fix her?”
The chief engineer stiffened as if insulted. “Capt’n, I’ve got what it takes t’fix anythin’.”
Kirk suppressed a smile. “We’re counting on you, Scotty. Let’s get to work. Proving these Wwafida are real may be the only way we’ll get Spock and Chekov—and the science team—back alive.”
Chekov stood on his toes to peek out through the peephole in their cell door. “They’re coming.”
He skipped back as the lock clicked and the door creaked open. Four burly guards stepped in, with chains and manacles obviously meant for Chekov and Spock.
“Akkallan jewelry,” Chekov muttered. With one guard pointing a weapon at them, Chekov and Spock submitted, and their legs and hands were soon in irons. A single sturdy chain linked them together as they were led from their cell, but the guards refused to tell them where they were going.
They negotiated several levels of descending steps, a walk made considerably more difficult by the leg shackles. Finally, they exited into open air and a damp drizzle as they stood on a shelf of rock cut out of the cliff wall. Spock guessed the Citadel to be directly above them at the top of the crag. The guards motioned them to continue down metal stairs hanging onto the sheer rock as it inclined steeply down to the bay. At the bottom, they reached a spindly pier where they were added to a score of milling prisoners, also bound in chains.
“I see they’re treating you like real Akkallans,” boomed a familiar voice.
Spock and Chekov turned to see the weathered-granite face of Zzev, the leader of the Cape Alliance band that had first welcomed them to the planet. He shuffled a little closer to them. “Didn’t expect to see you two again.”
Spock’s voice was neutral. “Our presence here should be ample proof of our contention that neither we nor the science outpost were working in concert with the government.”
Zzev’s head angled in a conciliatory gesture. “I guess we were wrong about you after all.”
“A little late for regrets,” Chekov hissed. “If you’d trusted us before, we could’ve worked together and wouldn’t be in these.” He shook the heavy metal cuffs on his wrists.
“What’s passed is past, Chekov. Knowing what I know now, maybe we’d have done it differently. With a little luck, maybe we’ll get a second chance.”
“Indeed?” Spock asked. “Should we be extricated from this, might we consider that a firm proposal?”
“Maybe. Why don’t we worry about it when it happens.”
“If it happens,” Chekov said glumly.
“We were not informed as to our destination,” Spock said.
“We’re being taken to an offshore prison,” Zzev said. “They need more room in the Citadel. I guess they’re planning plenty of arrests. Akkalla is now under third-stage martial law. You’re going to see people arrested for having the wrong color hair.”
A cutter with military markings glided up to the pier, and two helmeted guards secured its mooring lines to the pilings.
“Where is this prison?” asked Spock.
Zzev didn’t answer immediately. His attention was momentarily distracted by a pair of late-arriving guardsmen who trotted down to exchange places with two troopers about to board the cutter with the prisoners. The two who’d been replaced seemed not to mind missing this trip, and they climbed back up toward the Citadel, disappearing inside the mountain’s tunnels and passageways.
“Uh, on a very small, inhospitable island. So small, it doesn’t even have a name.”
“Who are the rest of these people?” Chekov asked as they were herded onto the boat rocking on gentle swells at dockside.
“Some are Cape Alliance, others just unlucky enough to be falsely accused.”
Five armed guards joined the two crewmen piloting the cutter, while the prisoners sat on short benches in a rear compartment arranged like a Roman slave-galley without the oars. The two newcomers to the guard detail circulated among the prisoners, locking chains to floor anchors and securing shackles. Up in the cockpit, the pilots belted themselves into their seats and called for the moorings to be detached. Deep inside the boat, engines hummed to life with a turbinelike whistle but produced no vibration at all.
“What motive power source does this vessel use?” said Spock.
Zzev shrugged. “Electromagnetic field produced by the craft exerts force against conductor molecules in the water. No moving parts. Very efficient.”
“Indeed.”
The cutter accelerated smoothly away from shore, navigating around shoals and passing through the strait between the two towering cliffs protecting Havensbay. Once clear of hazards, the pilots throttled up, and the craft surged ahead but lurched over each wave it was forced to traverse. That stumbling didn’t last long, as hydrofoils unfurled from housings on both sides of the hull. They lifted the boat above the whitecaps, and it skimmed toward open water.
The rhythmic splash of waves brushing beneath the boat, the hum of the field generators below deck, and the warmth of the cabin all conspired to make Chekov doze. As he flopped forward, a chain dug into his side and he jerked upright, reorienting himself. Unfortunately, he was still on a prison transport, and a glance around told him there was no land in sight. He wondered how far offshore this island was.
Next to Spock, Zzev leaned over and whispered out the side of his mouth. “Whatever happens, don’t interfere, and stay low.”
One of Zzev’s hands slipped out of an unlatched restraining cuff, and he slowly bent down to reach under a blanket beneath the bench. When he sat up, he cradled a palm-sized hand-weapon, then held it out of sight between his legs, pretending he was still firmly chained. Spock scanned the cabin and perceived that three other prisoners appeared to be free and armed. Had he not seen what Zzev did, he never would have noticed anything unusual. Apparently, the five guards hadn’t noticed either. They stood at their posts, three at the front of the cabin, two aft, watching but not seeing.
The guard in the right front corner made a half-turn toward his two troopmates, and he subtly pointed his weapon away from the prisoners. “Now!” he shouted, and he gunned down one of the other guards at point-blank range. All in a single instant, Zzev and the other three armed prisoners wheeled to target the unsuspecting guards and pilots. As Spock, Chekov, and some of the others still shackled dropped to the floor, a flurry of shots volleyed around the cabin for no more than five seconds. Then, as suddenly as the shooting started, it was over. Spock and Chekov sat up and took stock. One guard was wounded and out of commission, two other troopers and two bystanding prisoners lay dead, and the fifth guard and the pilots were under the gun and disarmed. The lightning-quick revolt was a success.
“How did you infiltrate one of your own agents into the Grolian Guard?” Chekov asked as Zzev unlocked their chains with a pick. All around them, prisoners and jailers traded places.
“Not everybody agrees with what the government’s been doing. We have a small fifth column, but it’s growing. And there was plenty of confusion at the Citadel this morning. I understand Commandant Hhayd tried to assassinate Ffaridor last night, and this morning he was executed by the brigadier herself.”
Chekov flexed his wrists. “What happens now?”
“Well, we’ve got some prisoners and a powerful new cutter for the Alliance.”
“I am still interested in pursuing our proposal to cooperate with each other. We have the resources of a starship to help you,” Spock said.
The Akkallan rebel pointed a thumb at the glowering sky. “But your starship’s up there. We need help down here.”
“We may be able to afford such assistance, once we ascertain together what it is you require.”
“Weapons. Top of the list.”
Spock shook his head. “We cannot get involved in the fighting.”
“Then what can you do?” His voice was bitter.
“We would like to help settle your disputes,” Spock said. “If you will allow us—”
“Zzev! Come up here—hurry!”
The shout came from one of the rebels in the cockpit, and Spock and Chekov followed Zzev as he stepped around the new prisoners huddled in irons in midcabin.
“What is it, Ppeder?”
Ppeder sat in the primary pilot’s seat, one hand lightly gripping the steering bar, the other resting on the throttle. He was a stocky man with a short muscular neck and a stubbly black beard. “Incoming message—listen—” He turned up the volume on the cutter’s radio.
“—sighted harvest fleet heading for your immediate vicinity. You are ordered to abort your transport mission and return to coastal waters until harvest area is declared clear. Do not engage—repeat—do not engage! Estimated harvest danger zone coordinates—seventy-five slash one-forty-nine. Acknowledge—”
“Do it,” Zzev ordered.
Ppeder touched the transmit toggle and spoke into the unit. “Acknowledged.”
“It’s a good thing we heard that,” Chekov said with a relieved grin. “We could’ve sailed right into the mouth of—”
“Full ahead,” Zzev said. “Intercept.”
Chekov stared at him. “Are you insane?”
Zzev shook his head. “No. Alliance members have sworn a pledge to do whatever we can to stop the harvests, even if it costs us our lives.”
“I can understand your devotion to principle,” Spock said, “but I submit that such devotion may be counterproductive. You are a leader in your movement. Your presence is necessary to—”
Zzev cut him off. “Nobody’s more important in the Alliance.”
“Theoretical egalitarianism is rarely logical when applied to practical situations. Should you die in this action, there would be no opportunity to make use of the capabilities of the Enterprise. I urge you to consider that.”
“This comes first, Spock. There’s no other way. It’s not our intention to commit suicide, believe me. We’ve developed techniques and strategies for this. We haven’t lost any lives yet, not at this.”
“There’s always a first time,” Chekov mumbled.
“We’re not going to be alone,” Ppeder said from the pilot’s seat. “We’ve got two boats headed for the zone. We’ve been in contact.”
Zzev pumped a clenched fist. “Good!”
Something raised the hackles on Chekov’s neck—a prickly rumbling suddenly surrounding the cutter, permeating the air itself, mixing with the salt spray swirling around the speeding craft. The vibration picked up in intensity.
“There—! Out there!” One of the rebels, a curly-haired woman, pointed skyward off the port bow. They all looked and they all saw it—the Chorymi harvest fleet, a lumbering mother ship with a half-dozen fighters flitting like gnats off its mighty flanks.
Off in the distance, the other two Alliance boats skipped across the waves toward the same imaginary point of intersection as the liberated military vessel. Although the harvest ship hadn’t even begun its final approach, the seas were already churning with high waves buffeting the cutter and breaking across the bow, spewing foam and spray through the cockpit windows.
Chekov eyed the Akkallan rebels. Suicidal or not, they were committed to this course. Shielding his face from glare, he looked up at the space fleet and his stomach heaved—it wasn’t seasickness, in spite of the roughening water. It was the sight of the mother ship tipping forward, its maw opening, beginning its inexorable descent to the ocean’s surface. “Nyeba shchaditye nashi byedni gluppi dushi,” he said prayerfully.
“What was that, Chekov?” Spock asked.
“Heaven have mercy on our poor stupid souls….”
Viewed from behind, the light spilling from the Enterprise’s open hangar bay glowed like a warm hearth in a frigid and endless night. In an auxiliary control room suspended high over the cavernous hangar deck, Engineer Scott nudged the tractor beam directional stick and eased the crippled marine shuttle Cousteau toward a comfortable and dry berth for repairs. Scott followed his progress on a pair of screens above the console, one displaying a greenline schematic while the other showed actual pictures from cameras mounted at the starship’s stern.
“Just a wee bit further,” he coaxed as the powerless little craft inched forward. With his free hand, he punched up a closer angle on the video image viewer, revealing more details of the damage. “Y’re bent and bruised and waterlogged, lassie, but we’ll have y’ goin’ again.”
Scott thumbed the intercom. “Engineer t’bridge.”
“Kirk here.”
“She’s aboard, sir.”
“Estimated repair time, Scotty?”
“Admiral, I haven’t even looked at ’er yet,” Scott protested in his best put-upon voice. “How would the end o’ the day be, sir?”
Kirk kept a straight face, but his eyes crinkled with amusement. “That would be fine. I’ll come down for an inspection as soon as I can. Don’t forget to take before and after pictures.”
Scott allowed himself a half-smile. “Aye, sir. Scott out.”
“Sir,” said Ensign Greenberger from the bridge science station, “I think you may want to see this.” Her fingers two-stepped across her keyboard, and the small viewscreen above the science console flickered as it sought to filter some heavy interference. “There!”
The signal cleared, presenting a distinct but distant image of a Chorymi harvest convoy over Akkallan seas, poised in descent formation.
“Where did they come from?”
“I was just checking the atmospheric probe to see if it was still working, and there they were.”
Kirk frowned. “Why didn’t they trip our deflectors, Mr. Sulu? Malfunction?”
Sulu ran a test from his own board. “Negative, sir—no malfunction. Judging by their location, I’d say they approached while we were one-eighty degrees away.”
“Used the planet as a shield,” Kirk mused.
“Good thing we kept the probe out there, sir,” Greenberger said.
“Give us a closer look, ensign.”
“Aye, sir.” She adjusted magnification on the mother ship just as its scoop-front was locking into open position. The diamond-shaped fighters flitted away, as if they feared being sucked into the mouth of the harvest vessel.
“Main viewer, ensign. And let’s see if there’re any Akkallan surface craft engaging the harvest fleet.”
As Greenberger switched the video feed to the central screen, members of the bridge crew couldn’t help splitting their attention between their own jobs and the images from the planet. The young science officer manipulated the probe’s cameras, revealing Kirk’s concern to be well founded—a trio of small Akkallan boats scudded across the waves, bent on converging in the heart of the harvest zone.
The convoy and the boats played out the same death-daring ballet as the starship crew had witnessed once before. As the giant vessel dipped down toward the swirling ocean, the escort fighters wheeled, banked, and dove, trying to scare off the interfering boats—to no avail. The fighters regrouped for a second pass—their last, judging by the leveling off of the mother ship at extremely low altitude. The waves were already forming into the heaving wall of water that would soon surge up toward the harvest vessel’s great mouth. This time, the fighters fired their cannons, spitting blue flame from ventral ports, carving an artful warning arc around the struggling boats. But the boats refused to yield. The fighters spiraled away, and the harvest ship lumbered forward. The boiling vortex of seawater rose into the air, and the three Akkallan surface craft heeled hard over and sped toward the center of the cyclone.
Kirk’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the arms of his seat. “Veer off,” he whispered, urging the boats to safety.
At what must have been the last possible instant, two of the boats did just that. But the third wouldn’t, or couldn’t. It gyrated wildly, bouncing completely out of the water like a stone skipping off the waves, then tumbled end over end. It began to break up, then stood on its bow as it was irretrievably caught in the frothing waterspout, finally splintering like a fragile toy. Some pieces spun away, hurled by centrifugal force, but the mechanized leviathan swallowed most of the debris.
The horrific scene stunned the Enterprise bridge crew into total silence, broken only by the pinging of automatic electronic gear and the chatter of status reports issuing from the rest of the starship, from personnel who hadn’t watched what they had.
Time itself seemed to stand still until the Chorymi harvest ship slowly closed its maw and rose into the funereal clouds hanging low in Akkalla’s sky, joining its escorts for the journey home. Down below, the remaining pair of boats circled gingerly back to the calming waters like stricken animals searching for a companion stolen from the herd. They nosed about in aimless patterns for a while, then limped away.
Kirk let out a long-held breath, and all around the subdued bridge, his crew returned to work, trying to shake off what they’d seen, moving as if still dazed. But Uhura sat up with a start and clutched her earpiece tightly in place.
“Admiral.” Her voice came out hoarse, unbelieving, and she had to clear her throat before she could continue. “Message from—from Mr. Spock!”
Kirk’s eyes opened wide, and he sucked in a sharp breath. “What?”
“Message from Mr. Spock,” the communications officer repeated, more smoothly this time. She extended one graceful finger and ceremoniously switched the signal to external bridge speakers. “On audio, sir. Go ahead, Mr. Spock.”
“Admiral, we are alive and undamaged.” The Vulcan sounded as impassive as ever.
Kirk laughed out his relief and gave the intercom button on his armrest a jaunty jab. “We’re mighty glad to hear that, Spock. But where the hell have you been for the past week? And where are you now?”
“A long and complicated tale which I look forward to relating from the comfort of the Enterprise.”
“The least you could’ve done was send us a postcard.”
“Pardon me, sir?”
“Never mind, Spock, never mind. Uhura, are we locked on to their signal?”
“Coordinates already transferred to the transporter room.”
“Admiral.” It was Chekov, sounding incredibly overjoyed. “Would you like us to bring you some fish?”
“Fish, lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir—we’re in the middle of the ocean.”
“No fish, Chekov. Are you ready to beam up?”
“We are, sir,” Spock answered. “But we are a party of three.”
“I suppose we’ll get the explanation once you’re aboard.”
Kirk switched to an intraship channel. “Transporter room, beam up three from Mr. Spock’s coordinates. When they’re aboard, tell them to report to sickbay.” He switched to another channel. “Kirk to sickbay—Bones, I’ve got some customers for you.”
“Who?”
“Spock and Chekov.”
“Hallelujah!”
“They’re beaming up now and heading directly for sickbay. Give ’em a thorough exam. And have Llissa meet us there—I want to get started debriefing them right away.”
“I’m already here, Jim,” Llissa’s voice replied. “That’s great news about your officers. How did you find them?”
“We didn’t—somehow, they found us. Anyway, we’ll get the whole story from Spock and Chekov. On my way. Kirk out.”
When he popped out near sickbay, he could hear shouting from McCoy’s office and wondered what the hell was going on. He could make out Llissa on one end of the battle, but who was she arguing with? The sickbay doors whooshed open, and he saw McCoy and Chapel standing with Spock and Chekov, both looking a bit tattered but otherwise healthy. They were all spectators as Llissa and an older man quarreled in voices rapidly reaching a crescendo. The man had the raw-boned stance of an outdoorsman, with close-cropped hair the color of burnished steel and a weathered face.
The bickering couldn’t have been going on for long—they just beamed up, for godsakes—but it was already way past the point of communicating, well along toward coming to blows. Kirk couldn’t make out more than an occasional word, so he waded in and physically shoved Llissa and the newcomer to opposite sides of the room.
“That’s enough!” he thundered, and found himself surrounded by sudden and profound silence.
McCoy leaned close to Spock. “I didn’t know he could yell that loud.”
“Quiet!” Kirk barked, making McCoy snap to mock-attention. “Spock, Chekov, good to have you back. Now who is this?” He stabbed a finger toward the stranger.
“He is one of the leaders of the Cape Alliance, Admiral,” said Spock. “We thought his presence might be useful in dealing with the problems on Akkalla.”
“Uh-huh. And does he have a name, Mr. Spock?”
“Yes, sir. Zzev—”
“Kkayn,” Llissa finished, standing with hostile arms folded across her chest.
The captain and the doctor did double-takes and wound up staring at Llissa. Spock and Chekov simply looked confused. “Wha—?” was all Kirk could manage to say.
“Zzev Kkayn,” Llissa replied in a brittle tone. “My father.”
CAPTAIN’S LOG—STARDATE 7828.8:
Lieutenant Chekov and First Officer Spock have been certified physically fit by Dr. McCoy and have returned to duty. By combining our information, we have a much more complete picture of the situation on Akkalla, though it remains to be seen whether that helps us ascertain the fates of Dr. McPhillips and her missing science team. Chief Engineer Scott continues repair work on the shuttle Cousteau, a vessel we’re going to need in perfect working order if we’re to explore the Akkallan ocean for evidence to support the existence of the legendary Wwafida. We now have aboard the Akkallan scientist who’s been the driving force behind efforts to prove these mysterious sea creatures are still alive. That means we have Zzev Kkayn’s knowledge and guidance. Unfortunately, we also find ourselves in the middle of a bitter and long-standing feud between Dr. Kkayn and his daughter Llissa.
Kirk hated to lecture anyone about anything, but on rare occasions he could be driven to it—a classic, finger-wagging, square-jawed, no-counterpoints-allowed lecture. This was one of those times. He sat Zzev and Llissa Kkayn down in none-too-soft sickbay lab chairs, right next to each other. He chased McCoy, Chapel, Spock, and Chekov out of the medical office and locked the door. He warned Uhura in the tersest of terms that she wasn’t to disturb him with any messages or calls from anyone until further notice, unless said messages dealt with the imminent end of the universe. In that unlikely circumstance, he would allow a note slipped under the door.
For a full half-hour, he remained closeted with the Kkayns, informing them of the rules of life on the starship Enterprise and making damn certain they understood what was at stake now. He honestly didn’t care what personal and familial animosities they’d nursed for the past thirty years. At this moment, they had a common cause. Distasteful as it might be, they were on the same team; and, frankly, they needed Kirk’s help to accomplish anything. They might have to compromise with each other, something they’d evidently never been able to do in the past.
“I’ve got no time or energy to run a family counseling service,” Kirk snapped. “We have a job to do. We all have something to gain by success. We all pull together, or I’ll beam you both down and let the Publican deal with you. Is all this crystal clear to both of you?”
Father and daughter reacted with silence and the same downcast eyes, looking more like a couple of chastened schoolchildren than two eminent scientists. Kirk noticed a fleeting family resemblance, and he almost laughed. Almost. He called security to escort Zzev and Llissa to their quarters—separate quarters, different decks in fact—and when they’d gone, he found Spock and McCoy waiting in the sickbay examining room.
“I’m impressed, Jim,” McCoy said with a grin. “You ever thought of being a psychologist or a hellfire an’ damnation preacher?”
Kirk felt drained. “How do you know what I said?”
“Cross-circuited the intercom and patched into my office. Heard every word.”
Kirk looked mildly annoyed. “I thought you were a doctor, not a communications engineer.”
“A man of many talents,” McCoy answered modestly.
“Spock—didn’t you stop him?”
“He couldn’t, Jim,” said McCoy. “I threatened to use my medical authority and prolong his next physical.”
The first thing Kirk noticed upon entering the briefing room was that the Doctors Kkayn had chosen seats at opposite ends of the table. Spock, McCoy, and Scott sat on one side, leaving a chair empty for Kirk. Maybri and Greenberger sat together across from the senior officers. The two youngsters had done such good jobs in Spock’s absence that Kirk decided to let them continue working on the Akkallan situation.
“Computer—”
“Working.”
“Display Akkallan topography charts.”
The main viewer on the wall lit up with a computer-generated relief map of the entire planet, including the floor of the seas. The underwater mountain range that Zzev had wanted to explore rose up like a sawtooth spine from the bottom of the Boreal Ocean up north. The mountains were a third of the way around the globe from the mainland continent, with only a few insignificant islands dotting the water’s surface anywhere nearby. Past the northernmost tip of the mountain chain were two groupings of larger islands, up near Akkalla’s arctic circle.
“How does our chart compare with what you mapped?” asked Kirk.
“Looks like home,” Llissa said. “Everything’s right where it should be.”
“And that’s where you found your fossils?”
“My fossils, Kirk,” Zzev said.
Kirk ignored the provocation. “All right—does it make sense to center the search in the same area?” Both Llissa and Zzev nodded. “Zzev, show us exactly where you were.” Kirk picked up a penlight laser, clicked it on, and aimed the red pinpoint beam at the viewscreen. Then he handed it to Kkayn, who zeroed in on a widening of the range, on the west face, a quarter of the way down from the north tip.
“Right there, Kirk.”
“Mr. Scott, are repairs on the Cousteau completed?”
“Aye, sir. M’crew is just completin’ tests on ’er now.”
“Computer,” Kirk said, “rotational view.”
The image on the viewer changed from sectional relief maps to a three-dimensional depiction of Akkalla spinning on its axis but stripped bare of its watery cloak. Kirk gazed at the screen as the simulated planet began at the mainland, then rotated from west to east. The western seaboard of the continent, with Havensbay and the capital of Tyvol, slid by, then out of sight. For a long time, a third of a revolution, there was nothing but the irregular pocks and rilles of the ocean basin. Finally, they reached the mountain range that was their target.
“Those mountains sure are a long way from land,” Kirk said softly.
“That’s one reason nobody knew they were there,” Zzev said. “Nobody had any real reason to look.”
Kirk folded his hands on the table. “Okay, if we find more fossils, where does that leave us?”
“With proof,” Zzev said, “that the Wwafida are real.”
“Were real,” McCoy pointed out.
“If we can match any new fossils to the contemporary bones McPhillips found,” Llissa said, “that’ll prove they’re still alive today—somewhere.”
Kirk shook his head. “We’ve got to have enough ammunition on our side to shoot down all doubts. We’re going to have to find a living specimen.”
Maybri’s ear tips twitched. “Matching the fossils and the recent bones has to come first, sir. If we can do that, we’ll know we’re actually looking for something that exists.”
“May exist,” McCoy said. “Those bones we’ve got date from ten years ago. If they really are from one of these Wwafida, how do we know it wasn’t the last of its kind?”
“Leonard McCoy, optimist,” Llissa said with a scowl.
“I’m just trying to keep things in scientific perspective here. The best hypothesis in the world isn’t worth beans without irrefutable, reproducible evidence.”
Llissa shrugged. “Leonard’s right. We’re getting all excited over possibilities. It’s a good thing you’re so logical, McCoy.”
Spock’s eyebrow rose sharply. He looked at Kirk. “Has Dr. McCoy undergone some sort of metamorphosis, Admiral?”
“Well,” Kirk shrugged. “You have been gone a whole week, Mr. Spock.”
“I should have doubted that an entire lifetime would be sufficient for a modification of such magnitude.”
McCoy fixed Spock with an unflinching look. “Somebody had to fill those Vulcan shoes while you were missing, Spock. Wasn’t too difficult, I might add.”
Kirk stifled a snicker. “Let’s go explore Dr. Kkayn’s mountains. Scotty, please prepare the shuttle for launching. Zzev, Llissa, and Spock will go with me.”
Maybri’s face darkened by several shades, betraying her disappointment. But before she could decide whether to protest, Spock spoke up.
“Admiral, Lieutenant Maybri is more familiar with Akkalla’s undersea topography than I. I suggest you take her instead. In order to be most effective, I believe I can use the time aboard to review events that transpired during my absence.”
Kirk frowned. “I haven’t piloted a marine shuttle before.”
“Mr. Chekov proved to be a skilled pilot.”
“All right, Spock. Recommendation accepted. Maybri, pack up whatever you think we’ll need.” Kirk switched on the intercom. “Mr. Chekov, report to the hangar deck in twenty minutes.”
Kirk, Greenberger, and Spock returned to the bridge.
“Mr. Sulu,” the admiral asked, “any sign of Chorymi ships since their last appearance?”
“Negative, sir. And they won’t sneak up on us again using the planet as a shield—we’ve had long-range sensors sweeping intrasystem space between Akkalla and Chorym.”
Spock clasped his hands behind his back. “Admiral, a few recommendations, based on assessments of Akkallan military technology. They have a moderately effective detection system for tracking air vehicles. Originally intended to help the Chorymi harvest convoys, it is now directed at repelling them. And as we have seen, they do have surface-to-air missiles with which to attack. You will be unescorted and will be at much greater risk than the Chorymi harvest craft was. Minimize your low-altitude flying.”
“We should use the shuttle submarine capacities?”
“Affirmative. We can attempt to cloak your approach to some degree by sweeping the area with our own sensors. It will confuse the Akkallan defense scanners. But it will also interfere with your sensors aboard the shuttle.”
“What about radio contact, Spock? Can they detect signals?”
The science officer nodded. “Yes. Contacts should be kept to a minimum, decreasing the chances that your presence will be noticed.”
“Very well. You have the conn, Mr. Spock.”
“Jim, in the event of severe interference with your mission—” Spock began.
“I see what you’re getting at. Use minimal force. I don’t want us killing any Akkallans. I trust you to come up with nonlethal alternatives. From our standpoint, I don’t want to lose the Cousteau again. She’s the most valuable tool we’ve got to find out what we need to know.” He stood. “Do what seems … logical.”
The turbolift doors hissed open and McCoy came onto the bridge.
“You’ll have McCoy to help,” Kirk said with a grin.
The Cousteau vibrated slightly as it sliced into Akkalla’s increasingly dense atmosphere. Friction heated the shuttle’s skin, and a pink glow curled up around the craft, fogging the viewscreen and windows with a fiery haze.
Kirk gave the sensors a cursory look, and ship’s functions registered normally. Chekov throttled back, and the shuttle jittered for a few seconds as it passed through the cloud cover. The viewers cleared, and though the sea was still another five kilometers beneath them, it loomed up quickly.
“All right, Mr. Chekov, how does this shuttle submerge?”
“Theoretically,” Chekov began.
“What do you mean, theoretically?”
“Well, we never got to do any actual diving, sir.”
“All right then,” Kirk said. “Theoretically.”
“It can dive straight into the ocean, or it can land first.”
“I’d prefer landing first.”
Chekov nodded. “Aye, sir.” He reduced the shuttle’s angle of descent and rate of speed, settling into a soft touchdown on top of a calm sea. Gentle swells rolled the craft from side to side.
The Russian flipped a trio of switches, inducing a hydraulic throb deep within the ship. Then they began to sink, with waves splashing over the windows and viewer.
Kirk swallowed, popping his ears to adjust to the increased pressure. He looked at the viewer as the last sliver of sky disappeared, and he felt a sudden hush envelop them. Since the craft was sealed against all outside environments, this new feeling was probably psychological, but that didn’t make it any less tangible. Kirk hadn’t been underwater like this in years, and the experience brought on a mixed batch of sensations: fear at being completely enfolded in an alien environment, surrounded by dangers unseen and unheard; isolation; and yet, at the same time, a security perhaps akin to floating in a womb, surrounded by wonders, being one with life never before encountered.
The melodic pinging of the shuttle’s sensors drew Kirk back from his reflections. “Course laid in, Mr. Chekov?”
“Aye, sir.”
“Ahead, full.”
Chekov eased the throttle up, and the shuttle responded with a smooth surge. Kirk felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find Maybri in the hatchway.
“Permission to open observation ports and start recording, sir?”
“Affirmative, lieutenant.” Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Keeping the peace back there?”
“So far, so good, sir.” She ducked under the cross-beam and returned to the rear cabin, finding a small control panel protected by a smoked-plexiglass screen. With a touch of a button, it slid up. She threw a set of toggles, and the port covers retracted, converting much of the side walls into clear windows. In addition, four video screens displayed images from dorsal and ventral cameras, so they could see what was going on above and below the shuttle. Maybri reacted with delight, scurrying from side to side and screen to screen, trying to see everything at once. The Akkallan ocean teemed with life darting between beams of light knifing down through the shallows, first racing toward this intruder in their world, then veering off an instant before collision.
A mist of microscopic creatures sifted through the light rays, drifting with the current’s eddies. Schools of thousands of streamlined fish moved as if linked together, following the clouds of tiny creatures that made up their food, light from above strobing off their sides as the mass undulated through their silent cosmos.
As the Cousteau descended, the watery world outside rapidly darkened. All around the craft’s hull, powerful beams turned the perpetual night of the deep into midday, and what they revealed in their blaze astonished the starship officers. If anything, there was more life in this darker, colder realm than in the shallows still served by the sun—
—ornate shells powered by water jets thrusting out a rear orifice, like living armored warships—
—gelatinous bags with propellerlike appendages at both ends, capable of spinning so fast they became blurs as the sack creatures sped after prey—
—fluttery tendrils attached to what looked like a hunk of drifting flotsam. When an unsuspecting fish nosed up to try to eat the plantlike tendrils, a jagged pincer flashed out, clamped onto the fish, and yanked it inside for digestion—
—bulbous fish with outsized tusks jutting from their lower jaws—
—a creature that looked like a comical pair of floating lips, decorated in brilliant multicolored stripes. When a gelatinous sack stopped spinning its propellers near the lips, they parted and spat an inky, viscous stream that surrounded the sack and paralyzed it. The lips sucked their victim inside—
—and a diaphanous net, shimmering like silver strands in the shuttle’s floodlights.
Chekov dropped the craft down, trying to go under the net. But it extended deeper and deeper; the lower the ship’s light beams went, the more of the endless net came into view.
“Is that net alive?” Kirk called to the scientists in the back.
“Yes, Jim,” Llissa said. “You don’t want to run into it if you can avoid it.”
“That may not be possible. It seems to go on forever. Is it dangerous?”
“It cranks out quite an electromagnetic charge. I don’t know what it might do to the ship if it traps us.”
“Chekov, deflectors?”
“They won’t work under water, Admiral.”
“Then keep diving. And stop forward motion. Don’t get any closer to it.”
“Forward motion is stopped, sir. It’s coming toward us.”
Llissa watched on one of the viewers. “It looks like it’s decided to see if we’re edible.”
“Not edible, exactly, but it might be able to hurt us.”
“Can we hurt it first?”
Before Kirk could get an answer, the net creature reached the shuttlecraft and folded around the nose cone, making little scraping sounds on the hull as thousands of suckers sealed onto the metal. Kirk looked out the side port and saw some of them pucker for a grip. A second later, main power sputtered and winked off, taking cabin lights, all major systems, and instruments with it. Batteries kicked in, powering up emergency life-support pumps and lights. A smattering of gauges glowed in the dim cockpit.
“Anybody have any ideas?” Kirk asked. “What if we channel some sort of charge through the hull?”
“Won’t work, Kirk,” Zzev replied. “It likes energy.”
“Then what doesn’t it like?”
“Shallower depths and lower pressures. You’ve got to get us closer to the surface.”
Kirk huddled with Chekov. “Can we do it?”
“We’ve got no power for the engines.”
“Batteries?”
“They’d be drained so much so fast, we might lose life support before we hit the surface. The only other choice is filling ballast tanks with oxygen. Once we do that, we’ll have no way of refilling them, so we’ll lose that option in case anything goes wrong later on.”
“Mr. Chekov, if we don’t get this net thing off us in a hurry, we won’t have any later on to worry about. Hit the ballast tanks.”
Chekov hunted for the valve controls, found them, and opened the tanks. The shuttle began to rise immediately, staggering like a punchy prizefighter. Kirk watched anxiously for signs of the suction cups letting go. With the Cousteau’s external lights off, they were engulfed in darkness again, limiting visibility to nothing. Those suckers on the windows were their only guide.
“We have risen five hundred meters, sir,” Chekov said, his face inches from the green digital depth meter. “Is it working?”
“Not yet. Zzev, are you sure—” One sucker popped off, then another. “It’s leaving!”
Suddenly the net creature released its grip all at once, as if being ripped away. Shuttle systems flickered back on, and Chekov monitored all the vital readouts. “Admiral, full power is restored.”
“Cut off the ballast tanks, Chekov,” Kirk said quickly. “Hold our position here.”
“Aye, sir.”
The ship groaned as it stopped its rapid ascent, and Kirk poked his head into the rear cabin. “Zzev, you sure were right about it not liking shallower depths. That thing took off in a hurry.”
“Uhh, Jim,” Llissa said, “it was pulled off.”
“By what? That net stretched forever. What could be big enough to—” Kirk’s voice trailed off as he became aware of something gigantic swimming past the side observation ports. The external lights were back on, and Kirk carefully approached the window, not certain he wanted to be introduced to any more Akkallan sea life. By the time he looked out, whatever he thought he’d glimpsed was gone. “Did I or did I not see something extremely large?”
“You bet you did,” said Maybri quietly. She turned to the Kkayns. “What was it?”
“A triteera,” Zzev said. “The way that ganiphage got yanked off, I’d say it was more than one.”
Kirk squinted. “What’s a triteera?”
Llissa pointed over his shoulder, out the opposite observation window. “That’s a triteera.”
Kirk whirled in time to see a mottled dark-gray mass filling the entire port as it passed no more than five meters from the shuttlecraft. “That thing must’ve been thirty meters long.”
“At least,” Llissa said. She joined Kirk at the port, and he got his first full view of the triteera as it turned gracefully away from them. Kirk saw it was shaped something like a terran whale in profile, but with a bony beak at its front end, four flippers protruding from its side, a jagged spine running the length of its back, and a towering, triple-fluked tail propelling it effortlessly with powerful swishes.
“Awesome animals, aren’t they?” said Llissa.
The one that brushed by the shuttle joined a herd containing more triteera than Kirk could count, extending out in their deep domain, well past the reach of the Cousteau’s illumination. “Are they dangerous?”
Llissa shook her head. “Just the opposite. They’re gentle giants. They go out of their way to avoid small boats, and there are stories of them saving people from drowning by pushing them to the surface. We don’t really know too much about them because they usually swim far offshore. But that rescue behavior in those stories coincides with what they do to aid babies or sick individuals in the herd.”
Maybri’s ear tips perked. “Why did they pull off the net thing?”
“The ganiphage,” Llissa prompted. “Triteera eat ganiphages. They love them, in fact. We probably would’ve gotten it off just by surfacing, but this was a lot faster. And we managed to save some of the ballast air supply in case we need it later.”
“Well,” Kirk said, “we owe one to the triteera.”
“We’ll probably see them again,” Zzev added. “It’s spring, and they’re heading north to their favorite feeding grounds. It’s where the equatorial currents meet arctic waters. The temperature difference churns up the best nutrients from the bottom, causes an incredible soup of microorganisms, and that in turn attracts all sorts of other creatures. To top it off, the water’s pretty shallow up there. There’s a plateau that rises close enough to the surface to get some sunlight. Makes it even more fertile. All the triteera have to do is swim with their beaks open, and they gorge themselves.”
One of the giant beasts swept by the shuttle as if on cue, and Kirk grinned. “Sounds like triteera paradise.”
Llissa frowned. “Except for one thing, Jim. They’ve got no real predators, so they just sort of lumber along in herds that stretch for kilometers. That makes them perfect targets.”
“I thought you said they had no natural predators,” Maybri interrupted.
“They didn’t—until the harvest ships came along. Triteera are their favorite catch. Once they start feeding, they don’t like to pay attention to anything but that. By the time they realize a harvest ship’s bearing down on them, it’s too late for a lot of them.”
“That’s right,” Zzev said. “Their only escape route is diving. But the harvest ships might take a couple of hundred in a single sweep. Lots of return for very little effort.”
“Does that mean we’re going to be in a target area, too?” Kirk asked with concern.
“Anywhere there’re triteera,” Zzev growled, “is a target area. But we’ll be safe as long as we stay deep.”
Kirk turned to the cockpit. “Any damage, lieutenant?”
“No, sir. All systems nominal. We’re ready to go.”
“Llissa, any suggestions for avoiding those ganiphage net things?” Kirk asked.
She nodded. “Dive deep right here. They tend to congregate at middle depths. Once we’re below that, we shouldn’t run into any more of them.”
“You heard her, Chekov. Take us ’way down.”
“Aye, sir.”
As they started descending, Kirk leaned against the viewing port and watched the triteera playing and nuzzling, and he recalled the fate of so many of Earth’s cetacean species, hunted to extinction in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. He hoped these Akkallan creatures would fare better. He and the others aboard the Cousteau already owed their lives to the giant animals. If he possibly could, Kirk was determined to return the favor.