Star Trek Log Four

  "NBC's new animated Star Trek is ... fascinating fare, written, produced and executed with all the imaginative skill, the intellectual flare and the literary level that made Gene Roddenberry's famous old science-fiction epic the most avidly followed program in TV history..."

  - Cecil Smith

  The Los Angeles Times

  FAN MAIL FOR ALAN DEAN FOSTER:

  "Your Star Trek Log One was a real thrill! I enjoyed reading your stories almost as much as I enjoyed watching the actual animated adventures. I am anxiously awaiting Log Two."

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  ALSO BY ALAN DEAN FOSTER

  ON THE BALLANTINE BOOKS LIST:

  The Tar-Aiym Krang

  Bloodhype

  Icerigger

  Luana

  Dark Star

  and

  Star Trek Log One

  Star Trek Log Two

  Star Trek Log Three

  available at your local bookstore

  STAR TREK

  LOG FOUR

  Alan Dean Foster

  Based on the Popular Animated Series Created by

  Gene Roddenberry

  BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK

  For Joann ... of course

  Copyright © 1975 by Paramount Pictures Corporation

  All rights reserved under International and

  Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  SBN 345-24435-4-125

  First Printing: March, 1975

  Cover art supplied by Filmation Associates

  Printed in the United States of America

  BALLANTINE BOOKS

  A Division of Random House, Inc.

  201 East 50th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  Simultaneously published by

  Ballantine Books, Ltd., Toronto, Canada

  CONTENTS

  PART I

  The Terratin Incident

  PART II

  Time Trap

  PART III

  More Tribbles, More Troubles

  STAR TREK LOG FOUR

  Log of the Starship Enterprise

  Stardates 5525.3 - 5526.2 Inclusive

  James T. Kirk, Capt., USSC, FS, ret.

  Commanding

  transcribed by

  Alan Dean Foster

  At the Galactic Historical Archives

  on S. Monicus I

  stardated 6111.3

  For the Curator: JLR

  PART I

  THE

  TERRATIN INCIDENT

  (Adapted from a script by Paul Schneider)

  I

  The view Kirk was studying at the moment differed little from the one normally projected on the main screen up on the Enterprise's bridge. Except the brilliant specks immersed in the sea of shifting black were a uniform white instead of the variegated spectrum of a normal universe. True, the floating motes did vary in brightness and intensity, as did the pale swirls of chalcedony-colored nebulae that formed a backdrop for the white spheres. But it remained a universe singularly devoid of color.

  Kirk made a movement with his right hand and a cascade of new stars permeated the void. Contemplating the result, he smiled.

  Perhaps the theologians were right after all and there was some idle omnipotent force Out There that treated the real universe with the same studied indifference he was now lavishing on this private one. He moved his hand holding the instrument once more, and the tiny circular cosmos became a maelstrom of white particles and cream-colored cloud-shapes.

  "Come on, Arex, play something for us."

  Kirk recognized the voice of Sub-lieutenant M'turr and glanced up from his dreams.

  M'turr stood off in the far corner of the Officers' Lounge. She and several of the other younger officers had cornered Arex and were gently pleading with him.

  The Edoan navigator, like most of his kind, preferred his own company to that of others. This was the outgrowth of a natural shyness and strong sense of modesty, not of any feeling of awkwardness around other beings.

  Ordinarily, the crew respected Arex's desire to keep to himself. Kirk wondered what would have prompted them to intrude on the navigator in an off-duty moment of privacy. Curiosity astir, he moved closer to the group; and when one of the belligerent officers moved aside, the reason for the sudden assault on the Edoan's privacy became obvious.

  Arex had his sessica with him, and the rest of the crew around him were exhorting him to play. They were not being especially courteous, but Kirk found it hard to be angry.

  Arex usually played in the isolation of his cabin. The fact that he had brought his sessica out with him was a hint that he was half-willing to offer one of his infrequent concerts. His sense of humility, however, required that he be suitably harangued until he couldn't escape without playing.

  Arex owned several of the slim, flutelike instruments, keeping each one in its own special case. Certain sessicas were used for different songs, others only on special occasions or days of the week.

  Sipping his coffee, Kirk studied the one the Edoan was half-consciously fingering now. It was made of some light, ivory-colored wood that shone like fine Meerschaum. Delicately inscribed designs flowed like crevices in the bark of a tree along the instrument's sides and baffles - Edoan trees and mammals and flowers - the work of some master craftsman.

  "Do play us something," Ensign Yang implored.

  "Anything at all - even improvisation," another urged.

  "Really, my friends, I...," Arex started to protest, but his companions didn't give him time to finish.

  "We've got you trapped, Lieutenant," an ensign wearing the insignia of the Quartermaster Department insisted with mock warning, "and we're not letting you go until we hear at least a one-movement Edoan cycle." The threat was echoed enthusiastically by the rest.

  "Well..." Arex spotted Kirk hovering in the background and appealed to him. "Captain Kirk, can you not explain to my friends that I have to be in a certain outgoing frame of mind in order to be able to play for others?"

  "I would, Lieutenant," Kirk said slowly, "except I'd like to listen myself." He thought a moment, then suggested, "Why not tell them the story about the Edoan contortionist who operated on Earth for nine months as an incredibly successful pickpocket until the police discovered he had a third arm?"

  Arex hesitated, but once Kirk had mentioned the subject, there was no way the others were going to let the navigator go without hearing the story. So he told it, letting the absurd, amusing tale unravel in his lilting, sing-song tones. Then he seemed as embarrassed as pleased by the resultant laughter.

  His nervousness abated - besides, he had run out of excuses - he shifted the sessica in his hands and moistened the curved mouthpiece. Residual chuckles faded into respectful silence, and a respectful hush absorbed the assembly. The Edoan blew a couple of experimental notes, adjusted several openings in the body of the instrument, then paused. He appeared to be looking at something in the distance. Even his voice changed, growing slightly rougher, charged with something out of his past.

  "This song," he told them, "is in the form of an ode, in tripartite mode, and is called 'The Farmer and the Road.'"

  A recording enthusiast in the group, who seemed to know several Edoan folk ballads, murmured appreciatively.

  Arex set the mouthpiece firmly to lips and his boney, rather homely face assumed an expression at once sad and noble. He played.

  Despite the inescapable alienness of the song, there was no atonality or sharpness a
bout it. What stood out immediately was an ineffable sense of longing coupled with some mild, admonishing irony. The sessica produced long, deep tones of winsome mournfulness, rather like those of an oboe, but having much greater range in the upper registers.

  Arex played easily, almost indifferently. At times he seemed to be falling asleep, then he would suddenly waken in a burst of rapid, calling notes. The delicate fingers shifted in triple patterns that grew ever more complex as he piled variation on variation on top of the basic melodic line.

  Like the others, Kirk stood entranced and just listened.

  Arex played for many minutes. When the last bit of honeyed sound slipped from the multiple mouths of the sessica, no one broke the mood with rude applause. But there were satisfied smiles all around.

  "You liked it, then?" the Edoan asked hesitantly, when no one spoke. Ann Sepopoa of Engineering nodded softly, once, for all the listeners and asked, "More?" Arex made a gesture of agreement, obviously pleased. Another moment of thought, then: "'The Song of the Orchard-Master and the Twelve Polor Trees,' to be sung to children as they rest on their knees, provided they each see fit to ask, please?"

  Supple fingers commenced rapid tattoo on the wood and Arex's head began to weave from side to side on his thin neck. The new tune was the emotional opposite of the one that had gone before. Lively, catching, expressing an interspecies joy which soon had the little group clapping in time, awkwardly at first but with increasing confidence in the peculiar skipping rhythm.

  Kirk put cup to lips and became aware that he had ignored his coffee completely during the previous playing. It was cold now. Well, no problem. Coffee was an especially efficient recycler. He moved off and poured it into the proper disposal, drew a fresh cup nearby. Adding more cream and sugar, he stirred idly, listening to the music.

  "Plays grandly, doesn't he, sir?" Kirk looked around.

  "Hello, Scotty. Yes."

  "Interestin' fellow, our Arex," Scott went on. "I'd like to know more about him, Cap'n, but ... well, you know. It's not that he's standoffish, but he dinna have the sort of personality that encourages intimate questions."

  "You know how shy the Edoans are, Scotty."

  "Aye, Cap'n." He nodded in the direction of the concert. "It's just that to me, Arex seems more so than most. I'll give him this, though - passive he may be, but he's the best damn navigator in the fleet."

  "Not everyone's naturally as nos ... curious as you, Scotty."

  They moved to a table. Scott drew a drink of his own, Darjeeling tea, with a touch of nutmeg. He also picked up a hot muffin with loganberry jam before sitting down next to Kirk.

  "You wouldn't be implyin' that Arex is normal and that I'm hyper, Cap'n?"

  "We all know how ridiculous an assumption that would be, Mr. Scott."

  "Aye," Scott nodded vigorously, "and if sometimes I do seem to...." He noticed Kirk's slight smile, responded with one of his own. "All right, so I'm not as restrained as Arex but then, who is, Cap'n? Except Spock, of course."

  ***

  Kirk nodded agreement, but found himself drifting away from the conversation. Back to the music. The wild piping had turned positively rambunctious. He considered the generally held opinions the crew had regarding Arex. Shy. Introverted. Quiet. Restrained and relaxed and inoffensive. Scott and the rest of them would have been interested to know that Arex had not won his commission as Lieutenant by passing a number of exams, but in the field - during a skirmish with the ever-present Klingons testing the Federation borders. When all the officers aboard a small Federation cruiser were killed, Ensign Arex took command. Retreat, concealment, and then a re-engagement with the much larger, far more powerful Klingon ship. The Klingon ship was damaged and taken as a prize - charged with violating neutral space.

  Arex was entitled to wear three separate decorations for bravery, under his Starfleet citation for conspicuous valor. Kirk had seen the medals once. Arex kept them in a plain bag at the bottom of his personal-effects drawer in his cabin. He kept them at all only because he was required to wear such things to formal Starfleet functions, events that he shunned with dedication. Had Kirk told anyone else on board about the medals, the navigator would have been embarrassed beyond recovery.

  So though Kirk thought it was unnecessary modesty on Arex's part, he kept the secret and told no one, not even Scott.

  Everyone had to admit that it was this unassuming posture which enabled the Edoans to coexist alongside belligerent races like the Klingons and Romulans and Kzinti while remaining in loose alliance with the Federation. The isolation of their home world also helped. Edos was located in the Triangulum Cluster at the very edge of the spiral arm and was a jumping-off point for scientific expeditions studying the great energy barrier at the galaxy's rim. The planet was not in the path of expansion of any of the would-be galactic empires.

  A very long-lived people, the Edoans were able to adopt a relaxed outlook on life. Their civilization revolved around home and family rather than around intersystem politics. Natural neutrals, their loose alliance with the Federation was a matter of convenience only.

  One of Kirk's fondest wishes was some day to meet Arex's parents. He always wondered if the remarkable things rumored about them were true....

  A harsh buzz, doubly so in contrast to the sweetness of the sessica's song, broke his thoughts. One of the lounge speakers blared.

  "Commander Scott, please contact Engineering. Commander Scott, please contact Engineering."

  "Now what?" the chief engineer rumbled. He took a quick bite out of the half-devoured muffin, washed it down with a hurried draught of tea. A quick touch of a button in the table and a small intraship communicator appeared in front of him. He pressed for Engineering, was rewarded with picture and sound.

  "What is it, Gabler?"

  The voice of the second engineer reported back from distant regions of the ship.

  "Commander? It's those extra radiation shields again. They're still not responding properly to external adjustment."

  "Are they goin' over into the danger zone?" Scott asked.

  "No, sir, but there's some peculiar fluctuations I don't recognize. They may be harmless enough, but I wanted to know if you want us to try and set something else up to compensate."

  Scott took a deep breath.

  "All right, Mr. Gabler. You did the right thing in tellin' me. I'm comin' down." He flipped off the communicator, and the little screen submerged once more.

  "Excuse me, Cap'n, but we've been takin' all kinds of strange stuff from outside lately, and some of it's gettin' through the ship's shields. I've had secondary shields rigged to protect the anti-matter nacelle, just in case, but they seem to be givin' us trouble, too."

  "Sensible," Kirk concurred. "In the region of particulate debris from an unmeasured nova you can't tell what sort of radiations you're likely to run through. Better not take any chances with engine shielding."

  "Aye, Cap'n." Scott downed the rest of the muffin in one gulp, following it with a sip of tea. He dumped cup and plate into the table disposal.

  "Besides," he muttered around the mouthful, "we're gettin' close in now."

  "All right, Scotty." Kirk rose. "I'm going, too." He glanced back over a shoulder. "Anyway the concert seems to be coming to a close. I recognize that crescendo. Arex is winding himself up for a finish." The two men started for the elevators together - Kirk to go to the bridge, Scott back to Engineering.

  "It's been a fairly standard scientific run so far," he continued. "I don't expect we'll run into any difficulties, Scotty."

  The chief engineer looked hopeful. "And so far I tend to agree with you, Cap'n, except I seem to have heard that sentiment expressed on too many occasions before...."

  The door to the bridge slid open, and Kirk stepped into a realm of constant but controlled activity. As long as he had been Captain of the Enterprise, as long as he would be, he would never fail to feel that slight tingle of excitement as he stepped into the control center of the great starship -
into the control center of one of the most elaborate and powerful constructs ever built - and realized once more that its simplest movements had to be duly authorized by him, by James T. Kirk.

  Little Jimmy Kirk, whose secondary-school physics instructor had assured him he would never get past second year University, let alone into Starfleet Academy. He smiled and wondered, as he took his seat in the command chair, what had ever happened to that counselor.

  If the bureaucracy ran true to form, he reflected, the man was now probably a top economic advisor in the High Counsel. Kirk's musings took on more immediacy as he shifted thoughts to consider the brief discussion with engineer Scott.

  He heard a brief hum behind him, and seconds later Arex strolled past to take up his position at the navigation console - minus sessica. The bridge of the Enterprise was now at full strength. Overstrength, he reflected, when Dr. McCoy suddenly appeared beside him. The good doctor held a portable life-systems pickup aimed at him.

  "I wish you wouldn't stick that thing in my face all the time, Bones." McCoy assumed a put-upon expression.

  "Just the usual health checks, Jim. Considering our position, I think it's a good idea. Why does this bother you? We're taking more radiation from outside than the 'Lizer puts out."

  "I know that, Bones, but the damn thing still makes me nervous."

  McCoy chuckled, carefully passing the detector over Kirk's form.

  "Why Jim, you sound like the natives who refuse to have their pictures taken because they think the camera's going to capture their souls."

  "Don't lecture me when I'm being obtusely dogmatic, Bones." Kirk managed a grin. "I'm really worrying about the chat I just had with Scotty. We have been picking up some heavy, unusual radiation recently and he's concerned about its affecting the engines in some impossibly unpredictable way."