AS THE COUSTEAU sailed through silent depths, Kirk marveled at how much the ocean floor resembled the land, with mountains and valleys, troughs and channels, craters, and featureless plains of mud and silt. Many of the mountain summits wore a coat of white powder, almost like snow, consisting of skeletons of tiny organisms from above, drifting down once they died. Other mountains in Zzev’s range were steep-sided cones, never subject to erosion by frost or the cutting force of patient rivers. Some stretches of the flat sea floor were humped with huge dunes, shifting like desert dunes on dry land as strong currents scoured the bottom like gales.
And even at these great depths, there was life—less numerous, less colorful, but even stranger than the forms they’d seen at midlevels. Many were bioluminescent, their bodies producing the only light in this realm of perpetual darkness. Still other creatures lived not only without light but without sight as well, using tentacles, oscillating cilia, and other organs to sense their environment.
They were eight kilometers below sea level, where the crushing pressure came close to testing the structural limits of the Cousteau. Zzev crouched in the cockpit hatch, silently watching the viewers, the ports, and the navigational chart projected on a computer grid. In the short time he’d known Zzev Kkayn, Kirk had learned that this Akkallan wouldn’t hesitate to speak up if he thought something was wrong—another characteristic father shared with daughter, although neither would admit it. The fact that Zzev was quiet as Chekov piloted the ship was taken as an indication that they were on the correct bearing.
But to Kirk, all the exotic scenery had taken on a disconcerting sameness. “Zzev, are you sure you’ll be able to find the caves?”
“We’ll find them. And I’ll finally get to see what’s inside.”
“You mean you never went in?”
“Our exploration was cut short last time.” He flashed a brief glare at Llissa, who was too busy huddling with Maybri over a computer terminal to notice.
“Then where did you find the fossils?”
“On a higher plateau. And I think we’re coming up on the spot.”
They watched the sidescan sensors, probing the range’s craggy flanks. The computer instantaneously digested the scanners’ data and drew a three-dimensional depiction. At every point where the sensors detected an opening in the rock facade, they fired a measuring beam to chart the depth of the fissure. Then the screen displayed a three-hundred-sixty-degree cross-sectional image of the inside of the opening, spinning it around to show off all angles. So far, nothing qualified as a cave.
Not far ahead, the floodlights played across a flat outcropping beetling out from the slope.
“Slow down,” Zzev ordered. He tilted the forelights down to reveal the squared contours of a mesa dropping off toward the ocean floor. Then he cross-referenced with the navigational chart. “This is it,” he said with certainty.
“Where’s this cave of yours?” Kirk asked.
“A little farther ahead. Go slow, Chekov. And deeper.”
The Russian nudged the shuttlecraft forward at a crawl, and Zzev and Kirk stared at the sensor readout, which continued to show only the smooth slope. Then the image changed. The computer raced to analyze anomalous data and flashed the rotating view of the interior of an opening big enough to be a cave.
“That’s it!” Zzev crowed.
Kirk rested a hand on Chekov’s shoulder. “Let’s take a closer look.”
With a nod, Chekov steered the shuttle to starboard, examining the mountain’s dark face with roving beams. Zzev and Kirk watched expectantly through the front ports.
“Not so fast,” Zzev reprimanded. “Let me do it.” He edged Chekov off the illumination remote and guided the beams with a deliberate hand. Finally, he found what he sought—a distinct entrance to a cleft in the stone side of the mountain.
“This vessel won’t fit through that opening.”
“Maybri tells me you’ve got two diving suits aboard that can withstand the pressures at this depth. I’m volunteering to go.”
“I’m not accepting volunteers. We’ll move a safe distance away from the mountains and send a remote probe in to take a look around. Maybri.”
“Aye, sir,” she said, turning right to the computer to call up the probe-control program.
Zzev looked displeased as he retreated to the rear cabin to watch Maybri at work. With arms crossed, Llissa gave her father a sidelong stare.
“Don’t give Jim a hard time,” she scolded. “You’re finally getting to do what you’ve wanted for years.”
“I’d like a little more cooperation.”
“You’re getting more cooperation than you deserve. And you’d better remember, this isn’t being done for you. It’s being done for the whole planet.”
The ship vibrated as the probe popped out of a storage compartment in the shuttle’s belly and floated free. One video screen at Maybri’s console showed the view from the probe’s camera, while the other showed the probe itself, a fat torpedo with three jointed arms tipped with four-fingered grippers. Zzev hovered over Maybri’s shoulder, feigning casual disinterest.
“Uh, what can that thing do?”
Maybri smirked. “Anything we can. Probe’s on its way, Admiral.” The hand-held remote device had a simple joystick for all directional control, with side levers to manipulate the arms and claws.
Up front, Chekov maneuvered the Cousteau to its position of safety. Kirk bent low and left the cockpit to see how Maybri was doing. Onscreen, they watched the probe’s-eye view as it approached the rift opening, powerful broad-beam lights shining in all directions from its stubby hull. Maybri deftly guided it through the opening and zoomed the lens to the widest possible angle. After advancing through the narrow passageway, the probe revealed an interior that abruptly broadened to form a wide but low burrow cutting into the heart of the mountain, its walls a jumble of curves and angles hinting at the violent natural forces that shaped it. The probe nosed into corners and niches, beams invading places that had never known light before.
Maybri spotted several stalks rooted in the sand, swaying with the flow of the water. Stopping the probe, she used the camera lens for a closer look and found each stalk had a mouth and a writhing bouquet of feelers around its head. “Are those animals?”
“Mm-hmm,” said Zzev. “Canth eels.”
“They live in caves?”
“Yeah. They filter microorganisms that float in on the current.”
“Not a very interesting existence,” Maybri sniffed. “Just sitting there.”
“They display a more active behavior pattern, given the right stimulus,” Zzev said.
The lieutenant edged the probe forward. Without warning, the canth eels erupted out of the sand, turning from swaying stalks into long snakes, thrashing like whips as they flung themselves at the mechanical intruder. The startling attack lasted less than a minute, and when they were satisfied that the probe was neither edible nor dangerous, they daintily reinserted their bodies into the sand and resumed their passive wobbling, leaving Maybri in open-mouthed amazement.
“I told you they could be more active,” Zzev said with an impish smile. “They bury ninety percent of their length in the sand for camouflage. When they sense something bigger than micro-life, something that they either want to eat or that poses a threat, they do what we just saw.”
“How dangerous are they?” Kirk asked.
Llissa considered. “Well, they’ve got tiny razor-sharp teeth, and they’re constrictors, too.”
“Are they aggressive?”
“If you steer clear of them, they won’t come out chasing you,” Zzev said.
“Admiral,” Maybri said, her voice rising, “I think we’ve found something.”
Everyone turned to a screen displaying the probe’s view, watching with anticipation as the remote arm and hand carefully picked through silt on the cave floor, stirring up a veil of particles that obscured the picture. Maybri operated by feel, clamped onto a firm object, and backed the probe away from the murky cloud. Once in clearer water, she directed the sensitive claw to hold up its prize, a fossilized bone.
Zzev Kkayn clapped his hands in triumph. “I knew we’d find bones here.”
“Bone,” Kirk corrected, emphasizing the singular.
“No, sir,” Maybri said. “Bones.” The probe’s second claw held two more bones, and all three were different sizes.
At Kirk’s order, she told the little robot to stow the fossils and return to the Cousteau. Once aboard, they brought the bones up to the main deck for a closer look and decided they would need the facilities on the Enterprise to date and analyze them. Kirk opted for returning to space right away.
“There’s a treasure trove in there,” Zzev argued. “We’re already here. It’s stupid to turn back now.”
“Calling the mission commander stupid isn’t the best way to get what you want,” Kirk said dryly.
“Admiral,” Maybri said softly, “I think Dr. Kkayn is right.”
Kirk’s brow wrinkled. “Go on, lieutenant.”
“The probe is a useful tool, sir, but it’s no replacement for human hands and eyes and brains. If I don’t have the camera and lights pointed just right, we could be missing the find of a lifetime. I’m volunteering to go in myself, if you’ll let me. With two people, I think we’ll be able to explore that cave twice as fast and be done with it, whatever we find.”
Kirk pursed his lips. “You’ve made some good points, lieutenant. All right, two people will go into the cave—”
“That’s more like it,” Zzev growled.
“—and you’re not one of them,” Kirk continued, ignoring the outrage on Zzev’s face. “I don’t trust your judgment, Dr. Kkayn. Thorough exploration is important, but so is caution, and I don’t think that word’s in your vocabulary. Llissa, you and I will go in, if you want to.”
“I’ll go. A long time ago, my father called me a hothouse flower, devoted to books and theories,” Llissa said. She cocked her head at Zzev. “This seems like a good time for a little hands-on experience.”
Down in the cramped air-lock, Kirk and Llissa prepared for their excursion, climbing into contoured, hard-shell diving suits with flexible joints and clear helmets that allowed an unobstructed view. Each suit had a small power and propulsion unit fastened to the back and lights attached to both arms, as well as an omnidirectional beacon on top of the helmet.
“The suit’s so light, Jim. How does it work?”
“It’s what we call a gill suit. It filters breathable oxygen right out of the water. Same principle on a larger scale provides the air for this shuttle when it’s underwater. As for the specifics—” He shrugged, then indicated a stem coming up from inside the suit and curving across his chin. “This is your communications pickup. It’s voice-actuated. Just press this”—he flipped a rocker switch on his suit’s left forearm—“and it’s on.” He handed her a helmet and made sure she locked it properly on her neck ring. Then he put his own helmet on, activated both their communicators, and checked the pressure-seal safety light. “How do you feel?”
“Claustrophobic, but reasonably comfortable.”
“Then let’s go exploring. Mr. Chekov?”
“Aye, sir,” came the reply in his earpiece. They both heard it on the open-channel system.
“We’re leaving the ship now.” He hefted a flexible-mesh carrier containing some long-handled tools for poking, digging, and sifting. Llissa toted an empty one for carrying back whatever they might find.
“Good luck, Admiral. We’ll be monitoring you. The homing beam is locked onto your suits in case of bad visibility.”
Kirk waddled down the short ladder from the dressing shelf and stepped off into the water in the lower part of the air-lock. Climbing carefully, Llissa plunged in next to him. He pressed the release, and the external hatch slid open, allowing them to float out into the sea, where he hooked them together with a variable-length safety tether.
They swam purposefully toward the mountainside. Once they’d left the bubble of artificial brightness around the Cousteau, Kirk slowed and craned his neck to behold the darkness stretching in all directions like a permanently starless night. His eyes adjusted, and he could make out the peak above them, looming up beyond his vision. Knowing that the mountain’s base was at least a kilometer beneath their position and that its pinnacle was kilometers over their heads—with kilometers more to the surface—made Kirk feel astoundingly insignificant.
“What is it, Jim?”
“Just waxing philosophical. Let’s go.” They moved ahead with powerful jets from the air-thrusters on their backs. Kirk did a forward flip, just for the hell of it.
“Pretty fancy. And here I was just worrying you were having second thoughts.”
He grinned. “I was, for a second. I’d forgotten the feeling of freedom you get when you just float.”
“Is this what it’s like being in space?”
“Almost. In fact, before we had orbital stations for training old-time astronauts, they used to simulate weightlessness in water tanks. I’ve spent most of my adult life in spaceships, but I’m almost always in the ship, not actually out in space, floating free. That’s why I’m enjoying this.”
Their helmets lit up the face of the mountainside with a ghostly glow, and they found themselves facing the cave entrance. Shutting down their air-jets, Kirk swam in first, with Llissa following closely enough to touch his flipper tips. Ghostly shadows flickered and danced as the beams from the divers’ arm lights moved with their strokes. Llissa tugged on the tether, guiding him away from the bobbing heads of the canth eels and toward the side where Maybri’s probe uncovered the first three bones. She took one of the long sand probes and gently poked the sediment on the floor, taking care not to stir up too much and cut their visibility. Almost immediately, she turned up several more bones.
“Jim, I hate to say this, but my father might be right about this place.”
She continued picking up large bones while Kirk took a sieve and strained for smaller fossils. Their combined effort had the collection bag filling up rapidly, and Llissa drifted off to the end of the safety cord. “Jim, look!”
Using the tether as a guide, he found her under a sharp overhang, wedged into a space barely big enough for her to search without getting stuck. “What’ve you got?”
When she backed out of the crawlspace, she whirled quickly, hands thrusting toward him with a large round object clutched in her fingers. Before his brain could even pin a label to the thing, Kirk’s reflexes made him start. Backlit by her sleeve lights, an intact skull grinned spectrally at him.
Llissa gave him a matching smile from within her helmet. “Sure do scare easily, Admiral Kirk.”
He repressed a shudder. “This place is getting spookier by the second. And I can’t help but feel we’re grave-robbing.”
“It’s for a good cause.” She placed the skull securely in the carrier. “Let’s see what’s back here—” With a graceful somersault, she swam toward recesses of the cavern the robot probe hadn’t reached. Kirk hurried to keep her in sight as the passage grew increasingly twisty and tapered to the point where they could scarcely fit single file.
His shoulders were broader than hers, and he kept scraping the rocks. Though he knew the gill suit was sturdily armored, it was a sound that made him nervous nonetheless. Llissa darted around another bend.
“Oh, my seas, look at this,” she whispered, her voice breathless with excitement.
Arms straight out because of the close confines, Kirk relied on a few extra-strong kicks to reach Llissa quickly, and he understood her thrill. The tiny corridor opened suddenly into a magnificent domed grotto. At the center was a structure that seemed to be some sort of altar, made of stones fit together like bricks, stones that had to be both hand-hewn and intentionally arranged. Hands fluttering, Kirk turned several times to take in the whole chamber. Around the outside wall were a dozen nooks. He went to one while Llissa swam to another. Before him, on shelves cut right into the rock, were casks that seemed to be made out of bones as big around as his biceps. Each was about as high as his forearm, and rows of symbols were etched around the outside of every cask. They were all sealed.
“Llissa, I found … containers of some sort.”
“And I found more bones, but these are whole skeletons, and they—well, you’ve gotta see for yourself.”
Putting the cask back on its ledge, Kirk swung around and found Llissa in an adjacent nook. There he saw five complete skeletons laid out on slabs in ritual fashion, with hammered metal jewelry clinging around their neck vertebrae. Momentarily stunned into silence, it took him an extra effort to find his voice. “Chekov, send the probe in here.”
“Is something wrong, Admiral?” Maybri’s voice broke in.
“On the contrary, lieutenant. I think we have your find of a lifetime here.”
As commanding officer, Kirk had long ago made intellectual peace with the concept of delegation of responsibilities. On a vessel the size of a starship, he obviously couldn’t do everything himself. He couldn’t even oversee everything personally. He had the best crew a commander could want—talented, bright, eager—and senior officers who’d earned his trust over ten years of service together. But there were times he still wanted to be everywhere at once, doing most things himself or at least looking over the shoulders of the people to whom he’d been forced to leave certain tasks.
This was one of those times. But as he reclined on his bunk, he was proud of the restraint he’d shown on the hangar deck. From the instant the seashuttle touched down, he’d wanted to stay with those bones, casks and assorted samples every step of the way. Instead, he let McCoy and Spock cart the artifacts off to the medical and science labs, and he went to his cabin to clean up and rest up.
Now, two hours later, he was clean—but he wasn’t resting. He was thinking, wondering what repercussions were about to spring from the load of bones and rocks and tricorder data being scrutinized without him.
“I know you’re gonna want to sneak in,” McCoy had warned, “and ask all sorts of incisive questions, thinking you see something we’re overlooking, but I know everything, Jim. And anything I don’t know, Spock knows. So stay out, don’t bug us, and we’ll call you when we’re damn good and ready.”
The bedside intercom whistled, and he stabbed the button. “Kirk here.” He rolled to a sitting position and saw McCoy’s poker face on the screen. “Ah, Bones. Am I permitted to leave my quarters yet?” he asked dryly.
McCoy scratched his neck. “Speaking of bones, Jim, these had quite a story to tell. I don’t mind tellin’ you we’re actually getting somewhere.”
“On my way.”
He met Llissa and her father at the door of McCoy’s office, and they entered together, finding the doctor at his desk, feet up, chair tilted comfortably back. Spock leaned on the edge of a cabinet, arms folded, his face as composed as ever—except for a definite cerebral fervor twinkling in those usually inscrutable eyes. Those who didn’t know Spock well wouldn’t have even noticed. Kirk noticed. He spread his hands in anxious invitation. “Well?”
McCoy tipped forward and ambled toward the lab next door. “Right this way, folks.”
He led the group to a shallow trough atop one of the examining tables, where a complete skeleton was laid out.
“It certainly looks humanoid,” Kirk said.
“Mm-hmmm.” McCoy puckered his mouth non-committally. “Any other observations, Dr. Kirk—?”
“Sorry,” Kirk surrendered. “Your patient, doctor.”
“Thanks. You’re right, it is definitely humanoid. In fact, a lot like this humanoid,” McCoy said with a wave at Llissa, “but with some very interesting variations on standard Akkallan structure and musculature.”
“Such as?”
“Such as lengthening of the femur late in life.”
“Like a growth spurt in an adult?” Kirk interrupted.
“Right.”
“Is that normal?”
McCoy deferred to Llissa, who shook her head. “Not for Akkallans it isn’t.”
“That’s what I figured,” McCoy said. He fingered the brown thighbone on the lab table. “But for this particular Akkallan—if that’s what he was—it happened.” He circled the skeleton. “Other niceties include evidence of webbing between fingers and toes, something Llissa seems to be missing, and changes in the size and shape of muscles.”
“What else?”
“Well, judging from analysis of the bones themselves, this individual went through some sort of major physiological upheaval late in life.”
Zzev’s brows shot up. “The senescence!”
“Maybe, but we can’t prove it, not from bones alone.”
Kirk began to pace. “So what, if anything, can we prove? Is this the skeleton of an Akkallan?”
“There’re a lot of similarities between this fella and a modern-day Akkallan, and there’re also a lot of differences. These bones might very well’ve belonged to a creature that lived in the ocean. And wherever he lived, he’s seven thousand years old.”
Kirk’s eyes opened wide. “And do these bones match the ten-year-old ones we found in McPhillips’s lab?”
“I knew that’d be your next question, Jim. The answer is yes. Is this one of those mythological Wwafida? Beats the hell outta me. But if it is, then those new bones are from a Wwafida that died a decade ago.”
“I knew it!” said Zzev. “I knew they still existed.”
McCoy waggled a finger. “Now, we don’t know that for sure. And we won’t unless we find one that’s alive.”
“What do you think the chances are they’re still out there, Spock?”
“Impossible to be specific, Admiral. There are any number of scenarios to support either possibility. Based solely on the meager information now in our possession, we have no way of extrapolating the condition of the population of these creatures over the past seven thousand years. Were their numbers increasing, decreasing, or remaining steady? Without additional facts, no logical conclusion is reachable.”
Zzev turned surly. “Oh, c’mon, Spock. What’s the likelihood that McPhillips just happened to find the bones of the last Wwafida to die?”
“Unknown. But in every case of extinction, one individual of a species was indeed the last of its kind, and the more recently that final specimen has expired, the greater the odds it may be found, before natural forces have had a chance to conceal or destroy it.”
“And even if those new bones aren’t from the last one,” McCoy added, “if the population was down to almost nothing by then, it could be all the way to zero by now.”
Kirk didn’t really want to waste any more time arguing about a moot point. “Spock, what about the other artifacts we brought back?”
“A fascinating collection. We opened one of the casks. It contained a scroll, the substance of which was resistant to the deleterious effects of extended submersion in salt water.” He rolled a small, clear tank over to the group. The scroll lay on the bottom, flattening out in the center but still partially curled toward the ends. “We have duplicated the chemical composition of Akkallan seawater to avoid any detrimental effects of a sudden change in environment. As you can see, it is in remarkably good condition, considering its age.”
“How old is it?” Kirk asked.
“The same as the fossils—on the order of seven thousand years. We are still analyzing composition of the ink. The beings who manufactured it developed an ingenious compound that could withstand both the ravages of time and seawater.”
Zzev and Llissa both hunched over the tank, studying the neatly scribed symbols, a precise fusion of blocky angles and compact loops. “It looks like Maic,” Llissa mumbled absently.
“What’s Maic?” Kirk asked.
“The first real language on Akkalla. I can’t read it myself. One of the Guides on my Council is the expert.” She straightened; her expression turned melancholy. “Was the expert—are they still alive?”
Kirk tried to be reassuring. “We’ve got no reason to think they’re not. Could your expert translate this?”
“Probably. Let’s hope she’ll have a chance to try.”
“What about the geological samples, Spock?”
“The mountains themselves are one billion years old, formed by normal geological processes. The rock samples from inside the cave indicate that the cave has been under the ocean for ten thousand years.”
“Then this skeleton has to be from a sea-dwelling creature,” said Kirk. “Land-dwellers obviously couldn’t live in caves submerged for three thousand years. Isn’t that logical?”
“It would appear to be, Admiral—barring totally unpredictable circumstances such as land-dwellers interring their dead in sea caves.”
“Then what we’ve got,” Kirk said, “is a ton of circumstantial evidence that Wwafida were real creatures in the past, evidently were intelligent and had a true culture, and they really did live in the ocean. We have a lot less evidence that the senescence actually took place, changing land-dwellers into sea creatures, right, Bones?”
“I’d say that’s a fair statement, Jim. Medically speaking, I can’t verify this senescence phase just by examining the remains of one individual.”
Kirk started pacing again. “Okay, where does this leave us? We could go to your government with what we’ve got—”
Llissa shook her head. “Not enough, Jim.”
“I agree, Kirk,” said Zzev.
“We could go right to the Federation—”
“Without conclusive proof,” Spock said, “I do not think the Federation would be able to act decisively. Politicians and diplomats are not noted for their bold actions.”
Zzev chortled at the Vulcan’s sarcasm. “I knew I liked you, Spock.”
“All right,” Kirk said. “Then we’ve got to find ourselves a living Wwafida.”
McCoy crossed his arms. “Fine,” he challenged, “but there’s an awful lot of ocean down there. Now, if nobody’s seen a live Wwafida in longer than anybody can remember, what makes you think we’ll suddenly turn one up? I’d rather look for a needle in a haystack. At least the haystack’s finite and the needle doesn’t swim.”
“Good point.” Kirk’s mouth tightened into a grim line. “If anybody’s got any ideas, now’s the time to speak up.”
“I’ve got one,” Zzev said in a subdued tone. “Can you have your computer cough up a map of Akkalla?”
“Sure.” Kirk stepped over to the terminal on McCoy’s lab desk. “Computer—”
“Working—”
“Display surface map of Akkalla.”
With a flurry of blinking memory lights, the map appeared on the small screen. Zzev ran his fingertip on a line from the mainland’s western seaboard to the underwater mountains they’d just visited, then northwest to some islands nearly on the other side of the world from the continent and at a latitude just below Akkalla’s arctic zone.
Llissa narrowed her eyes dubiously. “There what?”
“After we scrapped the cooperative project, I went off on my own again.”
“Is that when you stopped publishing and started cutting your ties with everyone you ever knew?”
“I didn’t have any choice.”
Llissa shook her head. “A lot of your former close friends were sure you were dead. So was I.”
“Did you care?”
She chewed on the question for an extra moment. “At that point,” she bristled, “no, I didn’t.”
“At that point, Kirk, I was obsessed with these islands,” Zzev said, jabbing at the viewscreen. “I had a theory, and I started to check it out. I tried to grab a few allies, but my colleagues”—he spat the word bitterly—“didn’t want anything to do with this theory. According to every record I could find, nobody’d ever gone to these islands. They were so isolated, they didn’t even have names. So I asked the government for permission to explore them.”
“You didn’t get it,” Kirk concluded.
“I didn’t get it. They told me these islands had been visited by the government a hundred years or so ago. In the days before we started getting Chorymi rhipileum, they were doing all sorts of experiments, trying to come up with ways of producing clean energy that also happened to be readily available and cheap.”
“Every industrialized planet goes through that,” Kirk sympathized.
“So they told me these islands were used for testing, and they wound up lethally contaminated by chemicals and radiation. That’s why they were off limits to everyone.”
“I never heard about this,” Llissa said.
Zzev shook his head. “Nobody did. I figured I had enough enemies at Collegium.”
“Whose fault is that?” Llissa snapped.
Her father ignored the dig. “I wanted inarguable facts on my side before I made anything public. So I kept pressing, trying every back-door route I could think of for getting more information about those islands.”
“What did you think you would find there?” Spock asked.
“I didn’t really have any idea. But they were old and isolated. And they seemed like a good place to look for evidence of something that’d disappeared from the rest of the world, if it ever existed at all.”
“Reasonable course of action,” Spock approved.
Zzev snorted a short laugh. “I even tried sneaking up there for a look. I got caught, and that was about when the Cape Alliance got started. I’d done enough talking and writing about the possible existence of the Wwafida—even if Llissa didn’t let me have my fossils—and people started to listen. Some of ’em were scientists, some were just people who didn’t believe everything the government said.”
“We didn’t believe everything they said,” Llissa protested. “But we thought there were better ways of changing things.”
“Well, now you know there weren’t,” Zzev said, his voice suddenly weary, looking deeply into his daughter’s eyes.
She returned the searching gaze. “I don’t know if I can agree with that.”
“Anyway, Kirk, once the Alliance started, I wasn’t exactly in position to keep up the research and exploration. We just wanted to survive and keep up the fight. All we had some days was the hope that, sooner or later, more Akkallans would join us.”
“Well,” said Kirk, “you’ve got your allies now. What makes you so sure there’s something being kept secret at these islands?”
“If you’re looking for an orderly procession of facts, I can’t give it to you. What I’ve got is a feeling, based not only on the government telling me I couldn’t visit the islands, but the way they told me. I’m sure they’re hiding something, as sure as I’ve ever been about anything.”
Llissa cleared her throat nervously. “Jim, my father and I obviously don’t see eye to eye about most things. But even his worst critics’ll admit he’s got a knack for making intuitive decisions based on evidence about as tangible as mist.”
The grizzled scientist stared at his daughter, surprised at her testimonial.
“If he thinks those islands might hold the key,” she continued, “I wouldn’t bet against it.”
“All right,” Kirk said. “But before we go take a look, I’d like to see Akkalla’s government records on the islands, whatever they’ve got on those alleged energy tests and the contamination they left behind.”
McCoy scowled. “Do you expect ’em to give us free access to top-secret files out of the goodness of their hearts? Does anybody even know where to find this stuff?”
“I do,” Llissa volunteered. “There’s a new archive complex they just built a couple of years ago, all the latest computer equipment. But security is so tight, it’s impossible to break in, especially under current circumstances.”
“It may be impossible to break in,” Kirk said, smiling, “but not to beam in.”
It was the middle of planet night when Spock and Llissa materialized in a deserted office at the Akkallan government archives. According to Llissa there was some nocturnal activity there, so it wouldn’t attract undue attention to have a computer terminal in use at that hour. And all archive terminals had full access to the entire file memory, so they’d be able to do their snooping without ever leaving the office into which they’d transported.
“Which file next?” Llissa glanced up at Spock as he stood over her shoulder.
“I am most curious about the actual energy tests.”
“Okay, energy tests it is.” Llissa entered the proper code number, and the screen blanked out, flashing an advisory: OBSOLETE FILE SUPERSEDED BY ENTRIES 3-Z-403 AND 5-D-624. REPEAT REQUEST IF ORIGINAL FILE STILL WANTED FOR REVIEW.
Spock’s eyebrow arched. “Obsolete?”
“I guess the data in the original entry’s been split up and re-sorted under other headings. The original report dates back a century. Don’t bureaucrats protect their jobs by shuffling the same information over and over?”
“That has often been my observation as well.”
“Let’s try again.” She retyped her request, and the advisory was quickly replaced with the old file.
Spock recorded it, and when the map appeared, his eyes narrowed. “There is a discrepancy.”
“Where?”
Before he could answer, the Vulcan suddenly stiffened, head cocked like an alert spaniel. “We must leave at once.”
“Why?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“I do.” Spock already had his communicator out and tricorder in hand. “Spock to Enterprise—two to beam up—energize immediately.”
Llissa shut down the computer terminal, and out of the corner of her eye she spotted a shaft of light intruding into the dim office as an unseen hand opened the door from outside—
“There.” Spock stopped the tricorder playback at the map of the seven islands contained in the file of quarantined territory. “Note that all seven are included in the sequestered zone.”
The image hung on one screen above the science console while Spock called up the second Akkallan file on an adjacent screen. When the second map came up, he froze that one, too.
Elbows braced on the back of the science officer’s chair, Kirk glanced from one display to the other. Both showed a string of seven bits of land in a vast ocean, with the largest island at the north tip, slightly apart from the others in its chain, shaped like a bloated kidney. Five more, little bigger than cays, stretched in a fairly straight line down to the seventh at the southern tip, which was vaguely fish-shaped. “They look the same.
“The depictions are in fact identical. The discrepancy comes in the appended data.” On each viewscreen, he punched up the pertinent details. “The modern quarantine file lists all seven islands as having been used in the energy tests and thus contaminated. But the original energy-test file indicates that tests took place only on the southernmost island, with dangerous pollutants spreading only to the five small islands closest to it—not to the large island farthest to the north.”
Zzev swore under his breath. “I’ll bet when they did those tests a hundred years ago, they found something on that northern island that they didn’t want anybody else to ever know about.”
Kirk maintained some doubt. “Is it possible that seventh island was found to be contaminated later on and properly added to the quarantine list?”
Spock swiveled his chair to face the group gathered around the science station. “The prevailing winds and currents in Akkalla’s arctic and subarctic regions are northerly.”
“Which would tend to sweep any pollutants to the south rather than the north. But there’s a hole in your logic, Spock. You said the tests took place on the southernmost piece of land in the chain, but those five little islands just to the north of it got polluted anyway. Explanation?”
“There is no flaw in my logic,” Spock said. “You interrupted before I completed my statement.”
“Oh.” Kirk looked chagrined. “I should’ve known.”
“As I was about to say, there is a local current that circulates among those six islands in closest proximity. The island at the north tip is separated from the others by some eighty kilometers, enough to render it unaffected by that internal current. Before we began reviewing the data from the Akkallan archives, I had our sensors scan the islands in question. The six originally condemned as dangerous still show a residual level of radiation and chemical contamination. The northern island came up negative.”
“What about life-form readings?” Kirk asked.
“The island where the testing actually took place is barren of animal life, though some plant life has returned. The five connecting islands have a normal complement of both plant and animal forms.”
Zzev leaned close over the bridge railing. “And the northern island?”
“Life flourishes there, including, I believe, humanoid life.”
“Are you convinced yet, Kirk?” Zzev growled.
“I’m convinced we should take a look at that island, but I’m not convinced what we’ll find there.”
“You will be.”
The landing party convened in the transporter room—Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Maybri, Zzev, and Llissa. Everyone was issued a white hooded parka from ship’s stores, and the starship officers all carried phaser pistols and tricorders.
“So we’re off on our mermaid hunt,” McCoy said as they received equipment and coats from the supply officer.
Spock raised a disdainful eyebrow. “Mermaids, doctor?”
“Mythical creatures that were half-woman and half-fish.”
“I am familiar with the term. I am also constrained to point out that inappropriate romanticism is hardly a constructive addition to our search for useful data.”
“How the hell would a Vulcan know when romanticism is appropriate?” McCoy shot back.
“One does not have to be something in order to be knowledgeable about it.”
“Gentlemen,” Kirk said as he mounted the steps to the transporter platform, “I hate to interrupt, but we do have business on Akkalla.”
Llissa stepped up to the pod next to him. “Are they always like this?”
“Frequently,” Kirk answered. He nodded to the transporter chief. “Energize.”
They materialized on a frigid fringe of beach at the bottom of a fjord. Kirk took a step, and his boots crunched into a mosaic of ice, gravel, and sand. Shading his eyes against midday glare, he surveyed their surroundings. The water in the fjord was no more than thirty meters across and partially frozen, with chunks of ice bobbing unevenly as the tide rippled beneath them.
At first glance, this great cleft in the island seemed to have been cut by a single stroke of some colossal ax, so clean were the edges of its top rim and sheer marbled walls. But a closer look revealed snow-filled hollows in the shadows of craggy rocks and icicles clinging to outcroppings where trickles of water had melted under the sun’s occasional appearances.
“You’ve got the map, Spock,” Kirk said. “Any easy way of getting up there?”
McCoy stared at him. “You mean we’ve got to scale these cliffs?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Wouldn’t it have made more sense to beam down up there instead of down here?”
Spock looked up from his tricorder’s tiny screen. “It was necessary to transport to a point that would be secluded.”
“Mission accomplished,” McCoy grumbled. “What do we do now—flap our wings and fly up?”
“You may make the attempt, Dr. McCoy,” Spock said, “while the rest of us climb that trail.” He pointed to a rough-hewn path, hidden by shade deeper inside the fjord.
Kirk led the way, wondering if the trail was natural, chiseled from the rocky face of the cliff by local inhabitants, or some of both. It wasn’t an easy climb. The landing party moved slowly, picking over rugged hand-and toe-holds, gloves and boots slipping on hidden patches of ice and treacherously unsteady stones.
McCoy was the last to clamber over the top, with a helping wrist grip from Kirk. As the surgeon caught his breath, he realized what the others were already gaping at, and he gave a low whistle. “This must be what they meant by a cold day in hell.”
The landscape spread before them fit McCoy’s description—a broad plain of ice and snow mingled with bubbling pools of viscous muck. Sulfurous vapors vented from craters and cracks in ground that was alternately moss-fuzzed bog, hardscrabble lava, and knee-deep snow. Looming over this jumbled terrain was a steep-shouldered volcano with its summit swaddled in a cloak of fog.
“Fascinating geology,” Spock murmured as he swept his tricorder across the land.
“Just tell me that volcano’s resting comfortably,” McCoy said.
“Spock,” Kirk said, “how far to that village?”
“I would hesitate to use the word village, Admiral. All our scanners indicated was a concentration of life forms that may be humanoid. And it is point seven-nine kilometers east.”
Kirk determined their direction, and they began the hike, headed for round-topped hills that resembled the interlaced knuckles of folded hands.
Along the route, it became apparent that this island was home to a healthy abundance of life forms. Coarse green bushes and moss grew on patches of ground warmed by subterranean heat sources, and small white fur balls scurried to and from the bushes when the landing party passed by, unsure of whether to stay and eat the greenery or dive back into burrows under the snow. On the hillsides, slender trees grew straight and tall, with stubby branches, a generous coat of short, stiff fronds, and bulbous seed pouches hanging down. Llissa called them rikkekka trees, common even in the colder sections of the northern mainland, primitive but stalwart and perfectly adapted to their harsh environment. The rikkekka fronds were a waxy black-green, the better to absorb and retain a maximum amount of warmth from Akkalla’s sun.
At the crest of the next hill, Kirk signaled a halt to reconnoiter the valley spreading below, with quite a bit of land free of snow and a flock of large, woolly animals engaged in lazy grazing.
“What are those things?” asked McCoy. “They look like a cross between hippos and sheep.”
“What they are,” Zzev said, his voice fired with anticipation, “are musk vinx.”
“But musk vinx are extinct,” Llissa said pedantically.
“On the continent they are, but those look just like old cave paintings.”
The animals were stocky and barrel-shaped with stout kegs for legs. They were covered with thick white fleece, except for their bare hindquarters (which Zzev explained helped them lose excess body heat). The vinx had domed heads with tiny buds for ears; large, soulful eyes; and long snouts that ended in a single short horn. A few minutes of observation made it obvious the nose horn was used as a digging extension, perfect for gouging through snow and ice and frozen tundra to get at plants, roots, and small creatures believing themselves safe in tunnels and holes. Clawed hooves made them sure-footed in slippery terrain. Like the rikkekkas, musk vinx seemed well suited for their harsh island home.
“The ones with the antlers,” McCoy said, looking at herd members with short, three-pronged growths on their heads, “those are the males?”
Llissa chuckled. “Matter of fact, those are the females. It’s not uncommon with Akkallan animal species for the females to be bigger and more aggressive. They pick the males they want, and they dominate the group. The males function pretty much as stud stock and babysitters.”
Maybri pointed out at some movement on the snowy fringe of the valley. “What’re those?”
Zzev aimed his Enterprise mag viewer and saw a pack of four smaller animals with muscular haunches, thin waists, and massive shoulders and chests. They had coats of gray-white fur, with puffy ruffs around their necks. Their heads were dominated by ears that unfurled like fans, saber-tooth fangs in both upper and lower jaws, and broad flaring noses developed for detecting the faintest of scents. They skulked about the edges of the vinx herd, bodies flattened, noses twitching as they sought to single out a target that might be too young, too old, or too sick to flee or fight.
“Corotans,” Zzev finally said in a hushed tone. “They’re also extinct on the mainland. They’re predators, probably the only thing on this island that’s dangerous to the vinx.”
He watched as a pair of females swung ponderously to face the corotan pack, snorting and lowering their antlered heads in a warning stance. Two of the corotans darted forward, as if to bracket the larger beasts, but when the vinx females turned rump to rump to protect in all directions, the corotans halted abruptly and slunk back to the waiting pair. Then all four of them wheeled and trotted away. The hunt would have to wait for another time, and for female musk vinx that were less vigilant.
“This is fabulous, Kirk,” Zzev cackled. “There’s no telling what we’ll find here.”
“I think,” Kirk said, peering through his viewer toward the east, “we’ve found our village, and I think the term definitely fits. Take a look.”
What they saw through their mag viewers was a sprawling cluster of fifty or so tents made of animal hides, with humanoid residents moving around them. Zzev could barely contain his excitement.
“We’ve discovered a completely unknown population of people. This is incredible!” he bubbled as they observed from behind a stand of rikkekka trees on a knoll.
“Before we go down there,” Kirk said, “let’s get a few things straight. We don’t know anything about these inhabitants or how they’ll react to strangers. We don’t even know if they’ve ever seen outsiders. We don’t know how primitive they are, and we don’t know how hostile they might be. Obviously, they outnumber us. I don’t want anybody hurt—us or them. We’ll go in, but we stay together. Set phasers on stun. Keep ’em in your pockets, but keep your hands on them, just in case. If they turn out to be hostile, we withdraw. Understood?” He looked straight at Zzev, who met his glare briefly before nodding. “Okay, let’s go.”
The landing party made its way down the last hillside and headed directly for the heart of the village, taking an open approach to preempt any fears that might be roused by the appearance of sneaking into the settlement. As they passed one of the structures at the edge of the village, Spock stopped to look at it. From a distance, all the dwellings had looked like standard, inverted-vee tents made of animal hides. Closer examination revealed this one and others to be tent-shaped but constructed of logs laid over a frame, with hides and blankets pegged to the slanted roof surfaces as insulation. They varied in size, but all were high enough to permit the tall natives to stand straight inside.
“Fascinating,” Spock said. “This shows a high degree of ingenuity and skill.”
They heard sounds of wood being chopped and scraped coming from the other side of the lodge, and they peeked carefully around the corner. A trio of natives smiled back at them, quite unconcerned at the sight of strangers. The natives were blond, fair-skinned males, young and tall, dressed in coats and leggings made of hides, fur, and heavy cloth, probably woven from vinx fleece. Their outfits were decorated with brightly colored designs, both stitched on and dyed. They worked with axes, knives, and other tools made of stone and bone. Two of them were busily hollowing out a log split lengthwise in half. The third native, considerably smaller and younger than the others, seemed to be an apprentice, alternately watching and helping by scooping up wood chips and adding them to a large pile and by fetching different tools as needed. Other hollowed half-logs, already finished, were piled in neat stacks to one side of the outdoor work area, with raw logs in another pile and odd-sized chunks of wood in a rail-and-rope bin behind the three young carpenters.
One of them bent low and whispered in the apprentice’s ear, and he skipped over to the group of strangers, his face beaming and friendly. He chattered off a fast sentence and waited for a reply. Zzev and Llissa conferred quickly, then turned to Kirk.
“The language is a blend of old Akkallan and more modern,” Llissa said, “dating from about a hundred years ago.”
“Can you understand it?”
Kirk’s jaw tightened. “That’s not enough. Spock, tie in the universal translator.”
The science officer pulled a small cylindrical device out of his shoulder bag and twisted a control ring to activate it. A set of lights blinked in sequence. “Llissa, engage the boy in conversation in his language as best you can.”
She nodded gamely and turned back to the young native, speaking in a halting way that made his face crinkle in amusement. When he answered, he spoke more slowly and distinctly, as if conversing with a dim-witted child. Llissa knew it and couldn’t help feeling embarrassed. As they chatted, Spock watched the translator’s indicator lights, then touched a switch and held it up between Llissa and the boy. As they continued talking, the device’s circuits instantaneously translated his words into Standard and hers into native island Akkallan.
When the boy realized what was happening, he stared wide-eyed at the silvery cylinder in Spock’s hand. “Is amazing!” he said. “Can understand!”
The Vulcan shrugged. “The syntax is less than perfect, but we should have no difficulty with essential communication.”
As Spock’s words were also translated into old Akkallan, the boy giggled in delight.
“We’ve come from very far away,” Kirk said to the boy. “We would like to visit with someone in charge of your village. Can you take us?”
The boy nodded eagerly, then looked chagrined as he turned back to his elders. “Is all right to show them?”
The chief carpenter nodded. “Go, Seif. But long do not take—for work you are needed.”
Kirk whispered to Spock, “Will the syntax improve?”
“The more accumulated data, the more accurate the translation.”
They followed the woodworking apprentice through the bustling heart of the settlement, taking them past residents engaged in a variety of jobs and commerce:
—a butcher carving a musk vinx carcass while helpers cooked some chunks, cured others, and packed some raw slabs in wooden chests filled with ice blocks—
—a blade-maker using specialized tools to chip ax and knife blades out of stones—
—weavers spinning wisps of vinx fleece into long strands of yarn, making cloth, and stitching garments together—
—and females cooking and tending to family dwellings, some of them even repairing roofs.
The village was laid out in two concentric circles, with newer structures evidently added outside the inner ring. The original circle was tightly packed, but the secondary one still had gaps in many places. As the boy took them toward a larger dwelling at the top of the inside ring, Kirk pointed out the chimneys rising out of every tent and lodge.
“They’re made out of those hollow half-logs we saw at the woodworker’s. It looks like they bind the hollow halves together to form tubes.”
Spock pointed to other half-logs used as pipes and aqueducts. “Creative use of naturally occurring materials, Admiral—indicates a high level of preindustrial development.”
When they reached the dominant lodge, Seif picked up a stick hanging on a leather thong from the door frame. “This where the Avi lives,” he said via the translator. “That is our chief.” He rapped the stick twice across one of the door posts, and the heavy woven doorflap opened. A woman of imposing bearing and height stepped out and straightened, standing a head taller than the men from the Enterprise.
“Sure do grow ’em big up here,” McCoy murmured to the captain.
Kirk was a little surprised to find that the Avi didn’t look much older than the young men running the woodworking hut. She looked down at Seif and rattled off a complex-sounding question. In midsentence, she became aware of the shiny cylinder in the hands of the stranger with the pointed ears.
She extended a hesitant finger toward the translator, and Spock looked quickly to Kirk, who nodded his approval.
“It’s okay, Spock. Let her touch it.”
The translator repeated Kirk’s words in old Akkallan, and the Avi smiled in wonderment. “Is there a small magician inside the silver log?”
Kirk returned the smile. “No, it’s just one of our tools. It lets us talk to people we’d like to meet and learn from, even if we don’t know their language.”
“That is a very useful tool,” the Avi said. “But I think you are telling me a tiny lie and there is a tiny magician inside the log.” Her eyes twinkled as she said it. “So, you have come to learn from us?”
“Yes, we have. I’m Admiral Kirk.”
“I am Keema, Avi of the Galeaya, the People. Welcome to Suberein.”
“Thank you, Keema. Suberein is the name of this island?”
“Yes, Admiral. Is admiral your name or your title?”
“That’s my title. It’s similar to Avi. It means I’m the leader of my people.”
“Fine. Then if we are to learn from each other, we should be ffriends. And friends should use names, not titles. So I shall call you Kirk Where are you from, the big land on the other side of the world?”
Kirk glanced at Zzev and Llissa. “You know about the, uh, the big land?”
“Yes. Many cycles ago, before I was alive, visitors came here from the big land. The storytellers have tales about it. Would you like to hear them?”
“Yes, we would.”
“Then you are from the big land?”
“Well, some of us are, and some of us are from much farther away.”
Keema narrowed her eyes. “How much farther away? Is there another big land? The visitors who came before didn’t have such tiny logs with magicians inside.”
“Yes, there’s another big land,” Kirk said. “That’s where the rest of us are from. Those visitors who came here, did they leave anyone behind to learn more about Suberein?”
“No. They just came for a little while, then left. It seems it is not as cold as this on the big land,” she chuckled. “What would you like to learn from us?”
“Everything about your people and how you live. Would you mind if we walked around your village and just observed?”
“If that is what you wish, Kirk.” She grinned broadly. “We Galeaya are very friendly, although sometimes we do not know when to stop talking. If that happens, just say ‘Enough!’ and walk away. This is a good way for you to meet us and see how we live. Then if you have more questions, come back and I will answer.”
“Thank you, Keema.”
Keema bowed her head and ducked back inside her lodge.
Seif, the woodworking apprentice, fidgeted by the door. “I must go back to work now.”
“You go right ahead,” Kirk said. “We don’t want you to get into trouble. Thank you for helping us.”
Seif grinned. “I had fun talking to the magician in the shiny log.” He waved, turned, and trotted across the open center of the village.
“It’s like we’ve gone back in time eleven thousand years to the Culian Ice Age,” Zzev said. “This must be what life was like when glaciers covered half the mainland.”
“The question is, have these people been living like this for the past eleven thousand years?” McCoy wondered. “And if they have, how come nobody knew they were here?”
“Evidently,” Kirk said, “somebody did know they were here—if those tales of visitors from the ‘big land’ are true and not some tall tales made up by their storytellers. Those visitors sound like agents of the Akkallan government at the time of the energy tests.”
Zzev loosened the parka fastening below his chin. “What’re you getting at, Kirk? That the government stumbled on these people by accident a hundred years ago?”
“Yes. And when they did, they discovered something they decided had to be kept secret from the rest of the planet. Isn’t that your thesis?”
“Sure it is. I just didn’t expect to hear it from you.”
McCoy made a sour face. “I don’t know, Jim. Maybe they just had no reason for coming back. I mean, this isn’t exactly a vacation wonderland.”
“But there is no logic in subsequent government actions, doctor,” Spock noted. “Not returning here and blocking anyone else from coming are two entirely different matters.”
“Let’s split into two teams, walk around, learn what we can. Maybe some more facts will help us unravel this mystery. Let’s draw a line—Spock, you, Maybri, and Llissa take that half of the circle. Zzev, McCoy, and I can take this side.”
“Jim,” Llissa said, “I can handle the language enough to keep us out of trouble. Why don’t you take the, uh, the shiny log with the magician inside?”
The Galeaya, all pink-cheeked and blond, were nothing short of completely hospitable, pleased to tell the strangers whatever they wanted to know, to demonstrate their skills and crafts, and to invite them into their shops and homes. Village society seemed completely self-contained, and everyone contributed something to the welfare of the community. There were no freeloaders here.
They saw a school, a large tent with a dozen youngsters gathered inside as a young woman taught them, reading from books made of animal skins, writing by scratching charred wood chunks on boards cut from rikkekka trees, and basic arithmetic. They saw vinx tenders, who cared for the all-important herd of a thousand placid beasts, whose responsibilities included chasing off hungry corotan packs, tackling and shaving the vinx come springtime, draining the musk sacs under the animals’ hind legs to obtain a valuable liquid used as food seasoning and perfume (McCoy took a single whiff and pronounced it vile), and milking the females which weren’t raising sucklings.
They saw hunters, who culled the corotan packs to provide extra meat and skins and trapped smaller creatures living in the trees and fields, and fishers, who rowed out to sea in longboats made of rikkekka frames and stretched skins to catch whatever came up in their nets, and to hunt triteera when the huge creatures swam north to feed in springtime.
And perhaps the most unusual indigenous profession belonged to the diggers, who knew how to find natural hot-spots underground. They would tunnel down and tap the subsurface heat, then pipe it up to warm tents and lodges. They also built ovens for cooking by carving out a hole, lining it with flat stones, then capping it tightly with a perfectly shaped slab to contain the heat inside. Spock measured the temperature at two hundred degrees Celsius at the bottom of one oven shaft, cooling as his probe came closer to ground level. The variation in heat allowed cooking of different foods at different levels in the shaft.
The exploratory hour passed quickly, and the two teams met near Avi Keema’s log dwelling and compared notes, providing ample testimony of the vitality and inventiveness of this small community. But Spock came to a darker conclusion.
“Though their culture is a model of efficient and creative use of social and physical resources, the population may be too small to sustain itself.”
Kirk looked at him. “What’re you saying, that they’re dying out?”
Spock’s eyes betrayed a tinge of regret. “They may indeed be headed toward extinction, Admiral. One concern is the danger of inbreeding. With a population of somewhat less than one thousand individuals, the gene pool is obviously limited.”
“Bones, what about that? Is Spock right?”
“He could be, Jim. But as far as I could see, they don’t show any of the dangerous effects of inbreeding—no high incidence of genetic diseases or anything like that. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a healthier bunch of people, anywhere, anytime. But I did notice some other strange things. For instance, no old people. Nobody much older than Keema.”
“Is it possible they have a shorter life span?” Kirk asked.
“Sure, anything’s possible, but they’re so healthy, I’ve got no idea what they die from. And we didn’t see any burial grounds. Assuming they haven’t discovered the fountain of youth here, when they do die, what do they do with their dearly departed?”
“Did anybody see any evidence of outside visitors being here?” Llissa asked.
No one had—no tools or materials more modern than the ice-age artifacts the natives had evidently been making themselves by the same methods for thousands of years.
“Well,” Kirk said, “the government obviously didn’t come here to help, then.”
“The opposite may be true,” said Spock. “If these primitive people harbor some important secret, the government may have isolated them in the hope they would in fact die out, taking their secret with them.”
“And I’d wager,” Zzev said, “that secret has something to do with Wwafida. I think it’s time we asked some direct questions, Kirk.”
“I concur,” said Spock.
Reaching for the knocking stick, Kirk tapped on Keema’s doorpost. The blond woman drew the flap aside and came outside, stooping to fit through the door. “You have questions now, Kirk?”
“Yes, we do, if you don’t mind.”
“You have come to learn, so I’m happy to be able to teach. What would you like to know?”
“Well, we didn’t see any old people in your village.”
Keema looked perplexed. “Old? I am old.”
“Compared to children, maybe. But nobody is much older than you. What happens when Galeaya get old? Do they die?”
“Everything living dies.”
“Well,” McCoy said, “what do you do with people, with their remains, after they die?”
“There are no remains, as you call them, not unless someone dies in a fall or is attacked by a corotan.”
McCoy shook his head as if to clear it of confusion. “But you said everything living dies—and remains are left behind …” His voice trailed off as an idea lit his eyes. “Unless your people go someplace special to die away from the village. Is that what happens?”
“In a way, that is right. When we reach sens, we return to Mother Sea and become wafta. When Mother Sea is ready, she takes wafta back where all life comes from at the beginning.”
“Sens is senescence,” Zzev blurted, “and wafta is Wwafida! They go through it all here on this island. That has to be the secret the government didn’t want anyone to know!”
“Spock,” Kirk said, “could the translator be misinterpreting other words to sound like senescence and Wwafida?”
“Unlikely. They are specific nouns, and their contextual usage matches that of the modern words. It is more likely that the words as Keema pronounces them are simply local corruptions of original forms.”
“Jim,” McCoy said, “we’ve gotta see one—”
Kirk held his hands near his chin, fingers interlaced, mouth set in a pensive line. “Keema, could you show us a Wwafida?”
The Avi shook her head. “They are all far out in Mother Sea.”
“Do they ever come ashore?” Zzev asked.
“No. Once they change, their lives are not with us, except for encounters at sea. They may bless our fishers and cast spells to lure food into our nets.”
“What happens when someone goes through sens?” asked McCoy.
Keema thought for a moment. “The body alters. The sens-one spends long hours at the shore and in the sea. Then, one day the sens-one is wafta and does not come back. It is a quiet thing—we make no ceremony.”
“How long does it take?”
“Six tidal cycles.”
“Akkallan months, Admiral,” Spock said.
“This is it, Kirk,” Zzev insisted. “This is all the evidence we could’ve prayed for.”
“Not all, Dr. Kkayn,” Spock said. “Without a living Wwafida, or a Galeayan in the process of senescence, the evidence is purely anecdotal.”
“And that’s not enough to get your government to stop the crackdown on your scientists,” Kirk said.
“Have you forgotten you’re a scientist?” Llissa goaded her father. “This time, there’s no one else to fill in the holes in one of your brilliantly intuitive theories, nobody else to do the work you’re too damn impatient to do yourself.”
“Impatient?” Zzev flared. “Who did all the work that pointed us in this direction, and where do you—”
“That wasn’t work,” she cut in, “it was scratching an itch. If you were about to ask where I thought we’d be without you, well, I don’t know. But where would you be without them?” she said, circling a hand toward the starship officers. “We’re a team, and we’re here because of a once-in-a-lifetime confluence of people and events. We’re the ones who can take advantage of that and do this thing right—or we can do it wrong and lose not only the chance, but maybe the whole planet, too!”
Kirk picked that moment to break into the private bout. “Whatever we’ve discovered here, we’ve got to be able to convince the rest of Akkalla and maybe the Federation, too. Keema, are any of your people going through senescence now?”
“No, Kirk. I am sorry. It is a thing that just happens when it happens. We have no way of knowing when. Is this the thing you came to learn about, the most important thing?”
“Yes … yes, it is.”
“We can help you learn more. We have the storytellers and the paintings in the caves.”
“Admiral,” Spock said, “the cave paintings could provide a useful reference point in two ways. First, a visual record, independent of previously known depictions, and additional chronological data for comparison purposes.”
“Agreed. Keema, can you show us the cave paintings?”
“Yes. Come with me.”
The caves were a half-kilometer from the village, down by the ocean shore along a desolate stretch of gray sand scoured eternally by the strong hand of nature, by force of wind and waves. Back in the village, Kirk found he’d forgotten how cold the island climate was, countered as it was by the industrious warmth of the Galeaya going about their lives. But here on the beach, with only the rolling, rhythmic thunder of the surf and the stinging whip of the wind, he felt chilled to the bone.
Keema led them over stones rounded and smoothed by the seething sea through millennia of high tides, to the head-high overhang that sheltered the cave’s entrance. She was the only one who had to duck to enter, and once inside she lit a torch that flickered brightly and filled the cave with a dancing radiance. The flame revealed a vaulted ceiling rising up to create an almost perfect natural dome. And the slanted cave walls, from floor to ceiling, were covered with primitive but elaborate tableaux of islanders’ encounters with the wonders of their beloved Mother Sea—fishers in longboats spreading nets and hurling spears, majestic triteera with their distinctive triple-fluked tails, and, more than any other thing, Wwafida—swimming, leaping over crested waves, haloed by heavenly light, gathered in a group beneath a crag lined with people, and all essentially similar to the Wwafida that appeared in Akkallan books, art, and religion much later in the planet’s history.
As most of the group moved through the cave, inspecting the paintings in the sort of hush usually reserved for holy shrines, Spock scanned the walls with his tricorder.
“Admiral—” His voice echoed, jarring the silence.
“Found something?”
Kirk came over to him, and the Vulcan checked his tricorder. “Readings indicate these paintings were done approximately ten thousand years ago. This adds to the likelihood that the Wwafida myth is no myth at all, but firmly based in ancient reality.”
“Sure was real to the people who did these pictures. Look at the detail.”
“Yes, and the colors are surprisingly vibrant considering the age of the pigments.”
The two Starfleet officers stood before one panoramic painting that included triteera, Wwafida, and an ancient longboat, taking it all in like admiring gallery patrons. The artist had used the textures and contours of the rock to give the mural a three-dimensional essence, and Kirk could almost feel himself a part of it.
“You have found my favorite,” Keema said through the translator as she and the others joined Kirk and Spock. “I discovered this cave when I was a child—even though the elders warned me to stay away from here. They said it was too dangerous.”
Maybri’s ear tips twitched with interest. “What made you disobey?”
Keema smiled at the memory. “I always liked adventures, going where no one went before me. I reasoned that younglings had been told forever to stay away from these caves—and continued to stay away when they were grown. Which meant this place was untouched. I had all manner of dreams about what I might find.”
“How did this measure up to your dreams?” asked Maybri.
“It exceeded my dreams many times over.” The Galeayan leader chuckled. “Strange how I grew up defying authority, only to become the top authority.”
“Do your own children abide by authority?” said Maybri. “Or are they like you?”
“Oh, I have no younglings of my own. Once appointed to become the Avi, a Galeayan must devote all energy to governing the village. To have your own children would distract.” Keema sighed. “At times, now and again, I wonder which would have been more satisfying.”
“Well, thank you for showing us your cave, Keema,” Kirk said. “We’re glad you didn’t obey your elders when you were small. But we’d better be getting back to our ship. You’ve given us a lot to think about.”
She led them out onto the windswept beach, and they saw a fishing boat jumping the ebbing waves as it was rowed to shore by eight powerful Galeaya. Even before it was securely beached, two of the fishers leaped out and splashed through the breakers toward their leader, both shouting at the same time and bedeviling the universal translator. By the time they reached Keema, one was out of breath and couldn’t talk, and the landing party listened closely to the second fisher’s gibbering.
“Avi, Avi—we could not help what happened—just hauling in the net—saw it—tried to cut it loose—too late—already dead!”
Keema clamped her hands on the young fisher’s shoulders and steadied him. “Be calm, Frae. Tell me slowly. What was already dead?”
“The wafta,” Frae gasped as he whirled and jabbed a frantic finger toward the longboat, where the other fishers were lifting something with a net wrapped around it.
“Admiral,” Spock murmured, “the fisherman seems to be terror-stricken. It could be that inadvertent interference with a Wwafida violates one of their taboos. I suggest we tread extremely carefully, or we could find Keema’s hospitality withdrawn.”
Zzev poked Kirk’s shoulder. “We’ve got to get a look at it.”
Kirk spun on him. “Didn’t you just hear what Mr. Spock said? We’ll examine it if the Galeaya let us, and this very moment isn’t the time to ask.” Following at a respectful distance, he led the landing party toward the surf as Keema went to meet the fishermen carrying the limp form in their net like pallbearers.
With infinite care, they laid the body down on the sand and unrolled the net. Kirk edged forward, tugging Zzev’s parka to keep him from lurching ahead. Keema’s gentle hand peeled back the last sheet of netting as if it were a funeral shroud, revealing a creature that looked exactly like the Wwafida painted on the cavern wall.
“Jim,” McCoy said quietly, “I feel like all those old-time crazies who spent their lives hunting unicorns and dinosaurs in the Amazon.”
“Your analogy is askew, doctor,” Spock said. “Those creatures never proved anything other than mythological. A more apt comparison would be with the plesiosaurs eventually found in lakes in the Scottish province of old Britain, if I recall correctly, rather unimaginatively dubbed the Loch Ness Monsters.”
“Keema,” Kirk began slowly, “we could learn a great deal if you would let us examine the Wwafida—but only if it’s permitted by your laws and religion.”
She gestured at the corpse. “This is a very bad omen. This wafta was on its way to return to Mother Sea forever, and these fishers have prevented that. If we don’t make this right and help the wafta go where destiny has sent it, Mother Sea will punish us.”
“How?” Zzev wanted to know.
Kirk wished he had a muzzle to slap over Zzev’s mouth.
“Bad waves, no fish to catch, taking fishers to their deaths before they can become wafta—”
Kirk shouldered in front of Zzev. “We don’t want to interfere with your customs. But it would only take our doctor a few minutes to examine the Wwafida.”
“He would not harm it, Kirk?”
“No. He doesn’t even have to touch it.”
“We have to send these fishers right back out to Mother Sea from here—there can be no delay.”
“There won’t be any delay,” Kirk assured her. “He can look at the Wwafida right where it is now. But if you decide it’s not allowed, we’ll accept that.”
Keema took a deep breath. “The laws are not exact. You can have your few minutes, Kirk.”