Star Trek - Log 5 Page 16

  "Nor are they, by their own admission, omnipotent. We must rely on our own abilities, I think. Overmuch reliance on Vedalan intervention may have doomed our predecessors here." He nodded toward the horizon.

  "To steal something like the soul of Alar and then depend wholly on mechanicals to safeguard it strikes me as unworthy of any beings capable of devising such a theft in the first place. Also illogical. I suspect that before we regain possession of the soul, we may have to deal with those immoral beings personally."

  Kirk murmured agreement and turned to contemplate the terrain ahead. Spock had only recited the obvious, yet it seemed as if the pulverized stone that crunched steadily beneath the wheels of the cart now whispered imperceptible threats at every turn of an axle, and unknown forms of extinction paced them while staying just out of sight.

  In all this world, he sensed not a hint of welcome. He would be glad when they left it.

  Or if . . .

  X

  Eventually the slope leveled out and the mountains sank beneath the horizon behind. Gravel and rock gave way to a broad, flat, desertlike plain of sand and fine, soft stone. Only scattered monoliths of black basalt broke the gently rolling plateau, volcanic plugs—the mummified hearts of long-eroded fire-spitters. Fortunately the cloud-laden sky cut much of the daytime heat, or they would have been broiled quite thoroughly. In fact, a brisk breeze had sprung up and now blew coolingly in their faces.

  A short, violent chuff brought them to a halt. Sord snorted again and pointed ahead with a finger the size of a man's thigh.

  "Now what could that be?" Everyone stared into the distance.

  Moving in their direction was what looked like a solid curtain of dark gray. The breeze freshened and beat at them with increasing intensity. Kirk glanced questioningly at their furry driver.

  "Em, is there a top to this thing?"

  "I don't know," the little alien replied fearfully. He started hunting among as yet unused controls.

  "I think so . . . no, that's not it . . . nor that . . ." The gray wall had moved nearer and was now charging down upon them.

  "If there is, you'd better find it fast," Kirk warned. He yelled ahead. "I hope when you said you liked variety, you mean a broad definition of the word, Sord." The huge reptile did not reply. He was staring at the approaching wall.

  The deluge reached them moments later, a rain of seeming solid intensity. Kirk had experienced a downpour like this only once before, on a deceptive world in the Taurean system. He and Spock had heen in the jug there, too.

  Em-three-green finally unraveled the mystery sequence involved and got the translucent canopy up, just before they would have been washed away.

  Lara wrung water from her hair, smiled radiantly beneath the damp strands. "Real weather."

  "And a half," Kirk agreed readily, looking out through one of the clear ports. "You'd almost think—"

  Before he could finish the thought, the rain stopped—as abruptly as a curse, to be replaced by a blaze of sunlight. Clouds began to form immediately, but under the attack of the sudden inferno, broad shallow lakes disappeared before their eyes, hissing, all but boiling off the sand.

  Where vision had been obscured seconds earlier by a solid wall of water, now the landscape shivered and rippled under agonizing heat. Distortion waves added ridges and hills to the desert where none existed. And the distortions were suddenly multiplied as a faint quake shook the cart.

  "We'll all die here!" Em-three-green wailed as he put down the canopy. Every one of his many cilia were locked to a control or structural segment of the cart.

  "A statistical probability," was Spock's uninspiring comment. Lara eyed him disgustedly.

  "Don't you ever act on anything besides your precious statistics, Vulcan?"

  "Yes, but philosophy does not appear to be an adequate vehicle on which to base a course of action here," he replied unperturbed. "Nor do I find reliance on instinct satisfactory, as you seem to."

  "Oh well," she shrugged, "to each his own."

  Further discussion was interrupted by a shrill keening from above. A faint spot appeared, resolved into a slim, limber body centered between a pair of bat-wings—Tchar. Kirk wondered for a second how the birdman had survived the fury of the momentary monsoon, then realized he must have climbed above it.

  "I can see something far ahead," he shouted down to them, "it's . . ." and his last words faded into inaudibility as he banked and glided down to land atop the next rise.

  Em-three-green swung the cart neatly against the base of the low hill Tchar had perched on. It was a short climb for the rest of them.

  The object which had excited Tchar's concern was far enough away to be little more than a hazy outline. It was impressive nonetheless.

  A simple cube of some black material, the structure sat utterly alone at the bottom of the vast sink. A sense of its enormity penetrated all the way to the valley's rim—though Kirk couldn't be certain just how large it was. The object was still too far away to judge accurately.

  It also, he noted, lay exactly along the line Lara had indicated.

  Tchar was fluttering, hopping about on the sand nervously. "I sense it, I can feel it—the soul of Alar is down there!"

  A gigantic rumble shook the earth behind them, and the ground shivered in pain. Lara whirled, shouted something in shock that was drowned by Em-three-green's screams and Sord's locomotive whistle.

  With absolutely no warning, a fountain of black ash and smoke had exploded from the ground. Like a film running at thrice normal speed, the crevice widened, expanded: then a half-formed volcano erupted skyward. In seconds, it was a hundred meters high and growing with incredible speed.

  A crack appeared in the southwest cliff of the cinder cone. A stream, then a river of syrupy red-orange lava poured from the flank eruption. It rushed toward them like a wave of red-hot sand. The pressure below, Kirk knew, must have been enormous to produce such a voluminous flow in so short a time.

  They hardly had enough time to realize how precarious their present position was. They sat on a slight rise, but one that was still well below the level of the cinder cone. It would wash this tiny summit clean before the flow subsided.

  "It seems that everything happens with remarkable speed on this world," Spock observed. "We may expect volcanic action at any time."

  "I can see that, Mr. Spock. Question is, how do we go on remaining observers?"

  "The Vedala made you the nominal leader here, Kirk," Lara admonished him. "You think of a way out."

  "We have several minutes before the flow reaches us," Spock commented easily. "Plenty of time."

  Not enough, it seemed, for Em-three-green. Whether it was the molten death racing toward them or Spock's seeming indifference toward it no one knew, but the little alien let out a pitiful screech and dashed down the slope to cower between the huge wheels of the cart.

  Lara eyed Spock as if he were personally responsible for the approaching disaster, then she loped down to try and comfort Em. Sord huffed once, sat down on the sand and engaged in some steady nonverbalization of his own.

  "I must point out, Captain," Spock went on, "that the vehicle we have been provided with lacks sufficient speed to escape so rapid a flow." He peered into the distance. "I also estimate that the flow is too wide for us to outflank."

  "Not entirely true, Spock. We can still outrun it—if we let the engine draw maximum, unhindered power. I know this type. There's enough energy there to run circles around that flow."

  "One high speed might be possible," Spock conceded. "But the power leads must be rerun, certain safeguards removed, emergency insulation installed. The total readjustment is complex and time consuming."

  "Can't you handle it, Spock?" The first officer hesitated, finally shook his head.

  "I know what is involved, Captain, but I have not the skill to perform so complex and complete an operation in so short a—"

  "Excuse me for interrupting." They both turned, looked down to see the still shakin
g form of Em-three-green staring up at them. "I have some skill at digital manipulation. I can do it in time, I think, if," he gazed evenly at Spock, "you can direct me as fast as I can work, sir."

  "Still not enough time," Spock insisted.

  "We might be able to divert the lava flow temporarily, Spock," Kirk suggested. They had started down toward the cart. Em-three-green was already laying out the tools he would require. He glanced back over his shoulder. "Tchar, see if there's a suitable place."

  The Skorr shrilled acknowledgment and launched himself into the pumice-darkened sky.

  "Such a diversion would be at best of short duration, Captain, unless the flow of molten rock lessens significantly. It shows no sign of doing so."

  "You worry about reprograming the cart engine, Spock, and let me worry about the lava."

  They stared at each other a long moment, then Spock nodded. "Quickly then," he yelled to Em-three-green. Kirk noticed that he didn't bother to question the alien's abilities. Em-three-green had better be able to do what he claimed, and that was all there was to it.

  Spock had the protective panel over the engine housing off in seconds. A moment sufficed to satisfy him as to its contents.

  "This is Federation equipment," he told the tool-laden Em-three-green, "can you . . .?"

  "Anything anyone put together I can take apart," the little alien piped firmly. "We're wasting time."

  Spock simply nodded, began: "Terminal M-three red leads to diode channel twenty-seven, cross-connects to CCa-fourteen . . . taking care not to break the fluid-state sealed component Three-R . . ."

  Em-three-green's cilia were a blur. Spock experimentally stepped up the pace and the little alien kept pace easily, rearranging and realigning the critical instrumentation as fast as Spock could recite instructions.

  Spock was willing to concede as how they now had an outside chance at survival—but still outside!

  "Capain Kirk!" Kirk looked upward, away from the work in progress on the cart, to see Tchar hovering overhead.

  "There is a ravine," the flyer shouted, "sixty meters to your left." Kirk stared in the indicated direction and spotted the slight break in the ridge between them and the volcano, which roared on unabated.

  "I see it."

  "If it can be blocked," Tchar said, even as Kirk came to the same conclusion, "the lava will flow past and have to top the ridge to reach us. It will save some time."

  "Good enough." He turned. "Sord?"

  "I heard him," the organic mountain grumbled. Elephantine legs working smoothly, he lifted himself from the sand and lumbered off toward the ravine. Kirk and Lara followed as fast as they could, Lara politely slowing to keep pace with the slower Kirk.

  "Carefully, Em-three-green," Spock warned, perceiving what he thought to be a just-missed movement on the part of the alien that would have caused a fatal short. One improper connection, one mixing of supercooled fluids, one wrong touch of an instrument on a live component, and the cart could go up in pieces—along with its present pair of occupants.

  "I know, I know," Em-three-green muttered softly. "I'm trying to be as careful as possible at this speed. Please try not to make me nervous."

  Spock returned to the dull, steady drone of instructions. He forebore to mention that Em-three-green's impossibly rapid, seemingly haphazard style of making the most delicate adjustments was making him not a little uneasy himself.

  Sord was containing his impatience with difficulty by the time Lara and a wheezing, puffing Kirk finally arrived at the far end of the ravine.

  Lara didn't bother to rest; instead she scrambled spiderlike up a sheer cliff. She looked toward the volcano, then back down at them and made hurrying gestures.

  Kirk took out his phaser. Adjusting it for tight-beam, high-intensity work, he began slicing huge chunks of rock from the opposing cliff face. He was cutting at another piece before the first gigantic slab of sandstone crashed to the ground.

  Sord put his sternum against the boulder, slipped both hands around and under, and shoved. By the time Kirk had another block cut from the ravine wall, the huge reptile had the first one set in place.

  Cut and place, place and cut, while Lara shouted constantly at them to hurry.

  The mouth of the arroyo was finally sealed, faster than Kirk would have believed possible. He hadn't counted on Sord's incredible strength and endurance. They still had some time, so he busied himself cutting smaller fragments. Sord used them to chink small gaps in the main boulders.

  They stopped only when Lara's anxious cry of "Here it comes, get out!" reached them.

  As Kirk turned and ran, he could hear the nearing hiss from the lava as it sizzled over the sand. He glanced backward, like Lot's wife—and fell.

  A moment later the sand was rushing past beneath him. Sord had scooped him up and was carrying him easily in both hands. Behind them the hiss rose to a furious, tense, spitting sound. Sord reached the end of the ravine and felt confident enough to turn and stare.

  Jets of molten stone squirted between the uncaulked chinks in the makeshift dam. The topmost boulder seemed to quiver a little at the impact and slide backward slightly. But it didn't fall.

  Lara pulled up next to them, panting from the run. She looked from Kirk back to the dam.

  "Workin' real nice. For a minute there I wasn't sure it was goin' to hold. The flow's spreading sideways now, though. The lava in the cracks is cooling fast, cementing the whole job."

  "How soon before the flow reaches the ridge-top?" he asked.

  "Soon enough—but it doesn't matter. I've got our escape route."

  "It better be a direct one." He gestured back toward the dam. Sparks were already dancing above it. They had a few extra minutes at most before the lava reached it and flowed down toward them once more.

  A shout behind them. They turned in time to see the huge cart send up a shower of sand as Em-three-green swung it to a stop.

  "The drive has been reprogramed—expertly," Spock announced. "Quickly, Captain. I do not know how long it will last."

  They raced for the ladder as Tchar swooped low, spiraled overhead. Kirk hustled aboard, with Lara right behind. A rumbling query sounded behind him.

  "Captain, I'm afraid that while I'm near to being invulnerable, I am not immune to the effects of molten rock. I fear I must crowd you temporarily."

  "Get aboard, Sord," Kirk told him. "We'll manage." He and Lara moved to the front of the cart. Spock joined them there, leaving only Em-three-green near the back, at the drive controls.

  Moving as quickly as possible but with infinite care, the great reptile struggled onto the rear of the cart. Even so, he nearly overturned it in the process.

  "Careful, you monstrous scaly lump!" Em-three-green squeaked—out of fear, of course, not boldness.

  "Move this machine, insect-eater," Sord countered disdainfully.

  "Twenty-one degrees east," Lara ordered, pointing, "to take us out of the flow path. Then we can circle around and back toward the cube. I don't think—"

  A titanic explosion shook the ground, nearly knocking everyone to the deck. Kirk looked behind them, was startled to see that a secondary cone had joined the first and was pouring out lava at a rate equal to its neighbor. The flow had suddenly doubled.

  By tomorrow the abrupt action of wind, flood, and quake would probably have wiped out all signs of the entire eruption, he mused. They didn't have time to wait around and witness it. They didn't have even minutes.

  The new eruption sent a shower of glowing sparks raining down on them. The engine roared, coughed, roared, coughed.

  They weren't moving.

  "Something is wrong!" Em-three-green shrieked, nearly losing his voice from panic. Behind them, a red-orange wave from the second cone surged against the ridge-top—flowed over and downhill. The added influx of fresh material was too much for the hastily erected dam. It collapsed. A stream of lava, topped with broken black crust, raced out and headed toward them.

  "Quickly, quickly!" Tchar shouted
down at them. "What's wrong?"

  "I do not know." Em-three-green frantically studied gauge upon gauge, tried two dozen switches. "Something has caused the front shaft to lock. It must be—"

  Spock was already over the side and ducking underneath the cart, tools in hand. Kirk raced to the railing, leaned over. Spock was out of sight.

  "Spock?"

  "One moment, Captain." A hysterical pause, then, "I have it. Sand has entered the mechanism through a broken lubrication seal. I'm cleaning it out and taping it, but it will clog again."

  "Forget it, Spock, the power plant will have burned itself out by then." He looked to the ridge. The lava would reach them in three, maybe two minutes. "For Vulcan's sake, get back aboard!"

  "A second, Captain. There, completed." Spock came into view, his hands and face smeared with some blue-tinted grease. At the same time, the first volcano regurgitated a plug of plutonic phlegm. A storm of fiery sparks and small globs of lava hailed down on them.

  Kirk tried to cover up, as did everyone else. The bombardment passed quickly. He looked over the side again.

  "Spock—Spock!"

  The first officer was sprawled on the ground like a broken doll. One hand fluttered feebly at his head.

  Kirk didn't think. Both hands on the cart rail, he vaulted over the side and landed with a jar on the sand. He rolled Spock onto his back.

  "Leave," he muttered painfully, "all of you . . . go."

  "Not without you," Kirk objected.

  "Captain, I . . ."

  Kirk got a shoulder under an arm, lifted Spock to his feet. "No, Sord, stay aboard. It'll take too long for you to get back on." Kirk staggered toward the ladder.

  "Tell Captain . . ." Spock was mumbling, ". . . get others away."

  "We're all getting away," Kirk whispered. Another explosion sent fire down on them. The odor of sulfur had grown nauseating. This time, no one was hit except Sord, who simply brushed the sizzling embers off his hide. Lava bombs the size of the one that had struck Spock he didn't even feel.