Eight

“This is insane, Spock,” McCoy protested. “You’ve lost enough blood as it is.”

“I am open to alternatives, Doctor. Unless you care to trust our fates to sticks and stones . . .”

Spock handed back to McCoy a hypospray with which he had been fiddling. “I have modified this instrument to dispense an aerosolized quantity of my blood. Now all that remains is for you to load it.” He held out his arm. “Promptly, if you will.”

McCoy inspected the empty device, noting that Spock had adjusted the nozzle to emit a fine spray. The applicator mechanism held an empty vial, waiting to be filled. The vial had previously held the last of McCoy’s anti-infection treatments.

“I don’t know, Spock. This goes against everything I’ve ever—”

“We cannot waste time debating the matter, Doctor. The predator—or predators—could attack again at any moment.”

The party had paused on a small wooded island circled by shallow, winding waterways. The detour around the amphibians’ lagoon had taken even longer than McCoy had feared, so they all needed to take a breather. McCoy felt dead on his feet, and he doubted if Chekov and Darwa were much better, despite their relative youth. No food, no sleep, no water, and constant vigilance had worn them all down, and the oppressive fog kept them from ever truly relaxing. If anything, the eerie mist had gotten even thicker and more ubiquitous, slowing their progress and adding to the perpetual sense of dread. McCoy wanted to think that the fog was helping to hide them from the leeches, but he suspected that it was the other way around.

“Look, Spock,” McCoy continued to argue, “maybe, if you hadn’t already been wounded, this might be doable, but, as it is, you’re already paler than you ought to be. More white around the gills than green, if you know what I mean. And I can’t even administer fluids to counteract the additional blood loss.”

“The situation is less than ideal,” Spock agreed. “But desperate times, as they say, require desperate measures. And our present circumstances are undeniably desperate, by any definition of the word. You should know, as a doctor, that you must sometimes risk killing a patient to save them from certain doom.”

McCoy scowled, but he couldn’t dispute that comparison.

“If you say so,” he grumbled. “But I’m doing this under protest.”

“Duly noted, Doctor. Proceed.”

He pressed the device against Spock’s left shoulder. It hissed as it extracted a small quantity of blood through his skin and shirt. At approximately thirty cubic centimeters, McCoy judged he’d taken enough and began to withdraw the hypospray, but Spock clamped his hand around McCoy’s wrist, holding it in place. The Vulcan’s grip was cold and clammy but surprisingly strong, considering his debilitated state.

“All the way, Doctor, to maximum capacity.”

“All right, damn you.” He filled the hypospray until it couldn’t hold anymore, taking a full seventy ccs of Spock’s dwindling supply of blood. “There. Satisfied now?”

“That depends, Doctor, on how many other hyposprays survived the crash.”

McCoy was afraid to look. An earlier inspection had found only a handful of instruments, some of them possibly damaged beyond repair. His handheld vital-signs reader, for instance, was pretty much dead, while most of the “surviving” medication vials had cracked and leaked their contents over the inside of the kit. There were no functional protoplasers to speak of, even if he’d dared activate them in the fog. “Look, Spock, let’s not get carried away here—”

“Red alert!” Chekov shouted from nearby. He pointed up at the canopy of clotted branches and vines overhead. “I saw something move!”

McCoy was surprised that Chekov could make out anything in the fog, but he tensed in fear. The doctor’s parched mouth went dryer still and his heart skipped a beat. Goose bumps sprouted beneath his soggy sleeves.

No, he thought. Not again!

Any hope that Chekov’s eyes had tricked him, or that it had just been the wind or some harmless arboreal life-form, was dashed when, with a fearsome screech, a hungry leech pounced from above, barely missing Chekov, who dived out of the way just in time. The creature keened in disappointment as Chekov rolled away through the mud and ferns, putting more distance between himself and the monster. Its hideous head swung back and forth, as though torn between attacking Chekov and Darwa, who was standing on the opposite side of the leech. The latter ran forward, stabbing at the creature’s scaly hide with her spear, jabbing its point between the armored plates, but the crude weapon did not appear to strike any vital organs. Only a thin red ichor leaked from the wound.

Angered, the leech whipped around, yanking the spear from Darwa’s grip. She backed away, looking around frantically for another weapon, even as Chekov scrambled to his feet across from her. Immersed as the endangered pair were in the fog, their phasers might as well have been sticks and rocks too.

“Doctor!” Spock shouted. “The hypospray!”

“Right!”

Adrenaline spurring him to action, McCoy drew back his arm and lobbed the device at the unarmed lieutenant.

“Darwa! Catch!”

To his relief, she deftly snatched the flying hypo out of the air. Thinking fast, she aimed it at the charging leech and triggered the emitter. A chartreuse mist sprayed from the hypo, infusing the rank air with a distinctly coppery aroma. Despite the danger to Darwa and the rest of them, McCoy couldn’t help wincing at the sight of Spock’s precious lifeblood being dispensed so profusely.

But the effect was immediate—and unmistakable. The leech recoiled from the spray, wheeling about to go after Chekov instead. “Commander!” Darwa shouted, and she hurled the hypo over the monster to Chekov, who defended himself with a second burst of vaporized Vulcan blood. The leech shrieked in protest again, shaking its head violently in reaction, before its revulsion apparently overcame its appetite. Four powerful hind legs propelled it back up into the overhanging branches, abandoning its intended prey for once. Leaves rustled as the creature disappeared into fog and foliage.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” McCoy whispered. “It worked.”

He wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about that. The blood-based repellent had clearly saved Chekov or Darwa from becoming the leeches’ next victim, that was for certain; but this was hardly a viable long-term solution. Spock only had so much blood to spare.

He glanced over at his patient, who suddenly sat up straight and called out urgently: “Chekov! Behind you!”

A second leech (or maybe it was the same one?) bounded from the fog, coming at Chekov from the ground rather than the treetops this time, only to get a face full of green spray, thanks to Chekov’s quick reflexes. Spitting and hissing, the monster skidded to a halt before retreating back into the fog. Angry wails echoed through the surrounding brush, seemingly coming from all around the besieged landing party. McCoy wanted to think that it only sounded like multiple beasts, but he knew they couldn’t be so lucky. Those weren’t just echoes he was hearing.

“Yes,” Chekov said dourly. He kept the hypo raised and ready. “There is definitely more than one of them.”

“So it would seem.” Spock began to rise, only to totter unsteadily on his feet. He braced himself against his spear, using it to prop himself up. He looked faint, and there was an uncharacteristic quaver in his voice. “Let us hope that they do not routinely hunt in packs.”

“Easy there, Spock.” McCoy reached out to steady his friend. “You’re not exactly looking your best.”

“Neither are any of us, Doctor, but we all are still alive, despite the best efforts of the predators.” He rallied slightly, possibly out of sheer Vulcan stubbornness. “Our odds of survival have just increased significantly.”

McCoy had his doubts. “For Pete’s sake, man, you can barely stand up, let alone keep on trekking through this wet, hazy hellhole.”

“Merely a moment’s dizziness,” Spock insisted. “Do not concern yourself. Kindly refill Mister Chekov’s weapon . . . and procure as many other hyposprays as you can. As well as any empty ampules that can be used for refills.”

The order, and its dire implications, appalled McCoy. “But—”

“Do it, Doctor, while we still have a chance.”