One Small Step Read online

  Obediently, Losira walked over to the proper segment as it shimmered into view.

  Kirk grinned. With such an obliging and beguiling creature to work with, how could he fail?

  Dr. McCoy hurried back up the long corridor. It seemed steeper going up than it felt coming down. He returned to the stack of medical equipment set up in the first lab next to the entrance chamber. He was glad he finally had a proper work surface.

  The first thing he did was call Dr. M’Benga. There were lingering concerns about the Losira replica that had penetrated the Enterprise; what if she was a carrier of the deadly organism?

  McCoy activated the visual on the communicator unit. It made for easier consultation with his medical staff than an audio-only communicator. He couldn’t tell by Dr. M’Benga’s expression, but there was good news. “Dr. McCoy, all decks have been thoroughly scanned and no organism has been detected. No infections have been found among the crew.”

  “Well! That’s something, at any rate.” McCoy knew he sounded more gloomy than he felt. It would have been a disaster for the entire crew to be infected. At least he only had to deal with a limited number of people. Of course, it was his luck that the infected crew members were the top three officers on the ship!

  “Let’s run some new diagnostics,” McCoy ordered. “Take into account that the organism was originally created as part of a botany bio-engineering experiment.”

  “A plant hybrid?” M’Benga asked in surprise.

  “Something like that,” McCoy agreed.

  “That could certainly change some of our projections.” The unflappable doctor actually sounded eager.

  “That’s what I thought. I’ll get you more information soon.” I hope, McCoy added silently as he signed off.

  A plant parasite that appeared to be a virus inside its humanoid host . . . that was a new one for their database. McCoy couldn’t find anything remotely similar, but that wasn’t a surprise. Every solution they knew about had already been considered and rejected, so, of course, it had to be something new.

  McCoy didn’t have much more botany knowledge than he’d gained from a few old Academy classes. So he decided to consult with the senior botanist on board the Enterprise. Dr. Es was from the Sinoa system.

  It wasn’t until Dr. Es appeared on the small screen of the communications unit that McCoy remembered Sinoans had eyes that moved in different directions, capable of simultaneously viewing two angles at once. It was a bit disconcerting, because he had trouble keeping track of which eye was looking at him. He also didn’t know what to think of Dr. Es’s abrupt and critical comments.

  “I’ve officially requested that my team be notified when unknown organisms have been detected,” she informed him immediately. “I’ve requested it many times. But no one takes botanists seriously.”

  “Well, that’s all changed now,” McCoy assured her. “I’m serious about getting off this planet sometime in the foreseeable future.”

  “I see. Now that we’re suddenly so important, maybe I should requisition more lab space,” Dr. Es sniffed.

  For some reason — McCoy thought it might possibly be castaway syndrome — there was something arresting about her. She seemed born to take command. Her shock of white hair emphasized her wide-open, roving eyes. She was a very short, slight humanoid, perhaps half his size.

  “If you have a space problem, I’ll see what I can do,” McCoy replied gallantly.

  “Sure you will,” Es said flatly.

  McCoy soon realized that Dr. Es didn’t want any reassurance from him and he might as well keep his mouth shut when she made one of her acerbic comments. It was not a pleasant conversation, but the Sinoan was certainly an expert theoretical botanist. And in spite of her prickly manner, she seemed perfectly willing to assist him.

  McCoy didn’t remember Es speaking so sharply when she had her physical, not long after being transferred to the Enterprise. Then she had been polite, just like any other new officer. But interacting with her now, she was so abrasive that he could understand some of those wry comments he had overheard about her in the mess hall.

  So McCoy carefully briefed Dr. Es and continued a constant back-and-forth analysis with her as their diagnostic proceeded.

  He wasn’t sure how long it took. Periodically Reinhart would arrive in the doorway to check on McCoy, once bringing food that he mindlessly ate sitting in front of the communications unit. The security guard continued to look around uneasily, as if expecting a deadly Losira replica to appear any second. McCoy didn’t mind how jumpy Reinhart was. Better that than someone who was napping on the job. It allowed him to concentrate solely on his diagnostic of the organism.

  “That’s it!” Dr. Es finally announced. “It’s a plant virus. Instead of replicating itself locally within the glandular tissue, like normal fauna viruses, it sends out spores. That’s why the biofilter detected alien matter even though the virus itself was purged. The spores were still in the host’s tissues.”

  “But why didn’t the biofilter also eliminate the spores?” McCoy demanded.

  “They appear to be inert. There are the spores leaving the virus.” On the split-screen was an enlarged view of a living virus. Es highlighted a section of the virus wall that appeared to detach from the rest.

  On the other half of the screen, one of Es’s eyes focused on the readout and the other on McCoy. He tried to ignore her unwavering scrutiny as he concentrated on the image. Suddenly the part that had detached disintegrated.

  “It’s being broken up,” McCoy said. “M’Benga noted that yesterday. We thought it was normal chromosomal shed.”

  “Some of the spore species break down to microstrands of DNA in order to be transferred to a different location.”

  “Yes, plasmids they’re called, when its virus fragments.”

  “These fragments are reattached and activated by enzymes emitted by a female spore.” Es said it as if it was something everyone should know.

  “How are they carried?” McCoy pressed.

  “There’s lots of different ways. By air, by water —”

  “Or blood. This virus infects the host rapidly. It’s probably airborne, then it’s carried by our blood.”

  McCoy ran a diagnostic on their blood and got nothing but an alert for alien contamination and those mysterious subatomic anomalies. “Unknown” flashed repeatedly on his diagnostic unit. He had been looking at that word far too much during this mission.

  Undeterred, McCoy requested that the Enterprise send down a portable fission unit. When it arrived, he slipped the sample into it, intending to split the molecules from each other, then further, into their atomic units. He didn’t take his eyes off the fission unit until the readout appeared.

  “It’s in the gamma globulins!” McCoy exclaimed. “The DNA particles are intertwining with the DNA of the antibodies themselves. The plasmids have a different subatomic vibration.” He sent the data directly to Dr. Es’s console on the Enterprise.

  “Confirmed,” she agreed. “That’s why the human immune system can’t fight it. It would be fighting itself.”

  “The biofilter can detect the virus in our glandular tissue and eliminates it. But it can’t locate the plasmids until the spore fragments are activated and rejoined.”

  “It’s a good thing the bio-sensors could detect the subatomic anomalies in the plasmids, or you would have transported back onboard the ship,” Es commented.

  McCoy could imagine. No wonder it didn’t matter when the biofilter removed the virus itself. They were walking spore depositories, with the spore fragments uniting to constantly produce new viruses. Those new viruses would migrate to the host’s glandular tissue to grow or be expelled on their breath, to infect new hosts.

  “How could the Kalandans create something like this?” McCoy asked in despair. “Could it have been some kind of biological warfare?”

  Es shrugged and one eye lifted upward, as if she really didn’t care to question the erratic nature of humanoid behavior. The
other eye was moving as she read the data. “Hm. This is a real problem, isn’t it?”

  “That’s an understatement,” McCoy agreed. “The virus appears to be incubating now. What will it do?”

  “The virus is slow-growing, while reproduction occurs at an accelerated rate.” Es continued consulting her own diagnostic. “The waste plant products are toxic to animal tissues. They build up in the blood, especially interfering with antibody production. The blood is choked, eventually killing the host.”

  “If a secondary infection doesn’t finish us off first.”

  “By my estimate, it could take months for the waste to build up enough to kill a humanoid. Once it’s in your system, there’s no getting it out.”

  McCoy blinked at the harsh assessment. She had the worst bedside manner he had ever encountered. But that probably didn’t matter much when her patients were plants.

  The landing party would have to remain isolated, because with every breath they could infect other people. It appeared they were doomed to a long, slow death onboard an alien space station . . .

  “Now what?” Es asked expectantly. She looked like she hadn’t had such an exciting afternoon in quite some time.

  McCoy thought she’d be wearing a different expression if she were the one stuck on the planetoid. “Now I have to give the captain the bad news.”

  For once, both her eyes focused on him. McCoy was relieved. It felt like she had him outflanked no matter what he did, but suddenly there was sympathy in her voice. “The crew needs their captain back.”

  “Well, I’m not beaten yet,” McCoy assured her. Es nodded. Now that her eyes were still, he noticed they were remarkably dark and tear-drop shaped. Very striking, indeed. “I’ll run some more simulations and see what I can find,” Es assured him.

  Feeling a tiny bit better, McCoy signed off with Dr. Es. But as soon as her image faded, he was faced with the toughest duty he had ever had — giving the captain the bad news. He knew of nothing they could do to get them back to the Enterprise.

  Chapter Five

  THE PETRAW APPROACHED their target, the Starship Enterprise. Though the starship continued to defensively scan the sector, they had not yet detected the Petraw. The Petraw scout ship incorporated a parabolic mirror in their deflectors that, along with a course that placed a magnitude-four nebula between them, managed to elude the sensors of the Enterprise.

  Luz was working in one of the tech-labs when another in a series of intercepted messages was passed through the information feed by Tasm. This message had been sent to the starship from the officers trapped on the Kalandan station. It contained medical data she could feed into the diagnostic unit that was attempting to find a way to nullify the plant virus.

  Dutifully, Luz monitored the diagnostic unit while it went through its programmed sequence. Anyone could have done this monotonous work. Mostly she was irritated that she had been assigned to target the human doctor, Leonard McCoy. This message was from him again — an emotional, weary, impatient man. It would be simple to manipulate this target. She wanted a challenge.

  The one she was interested in was the Vulcan. It was not every day the Petraw encountered a new species. And his messages were subtle, without the extreme emotional reactions of the humans. But Tasm had ordered Kad to target the Vulcan. That made Kad second-in-command during the engagement.

  Tasm had assigned Marl to the officer currently in charge of the starship — Montgomery Scott, Chief Engineer. Marl did have an exceptional gift for diagnostic analysis. Luz might have chosen him over Kad for the chief engineer, if she had been in command. Eager, impatient Pir was assigned to the ship’s helmsman, Lt. Sulu, who was currently stranded on the station. That left Mlan, the third female in their pod, without a target. Tasm was holding her in reserve to target any other key individual they encountered during this engagement.

  Luz was glad that at least her pod had active command duties. In their last three engagements, her pod had served as support staff while the other pod took the lead. Now, one of the other pod members had been assigned as her assistant. He was practicing human medical terms under his breath while they ran the diagnostic. It was so predictable. He hadn’t been assigned his target yet, and he had already picked out his three primary characteristics intended to appeal to a human. One was, unfortunately, a tendency to hum a lilting tune under his breath.

  The other two tech-labs were fully staffed, and working on the problem of the plant virus. They would need a neutralizer for the virus in order to be convincing as Kalandans.

  That was the first major flaw in Tasm’s plan of engagement. What if they couldn’t find a neutralizer? They could be stuck lurking behind this nebula for mega-crons!

  The others didn’t seem to notice there was a problem. They blithely proceeded as if certain that a neutralizer would burst forth from mere good intentions. Meanwhile, Luz smoldered with resentment. She should be in command. At the very least, she should be analyzing the tapes of the Vulcan instead of Kad.

  “Why haven’t you transformed yet?”

  Luz looked up in surprise as Tasm walked into the compact tech-lab. “You said the neutralizer was top priority,” Luz protested.

  Tasm looked down her nose, a nice effect in her Kalandan guise. Her character was obviously a powerful woman not given to frivolity. “Your priority is to get into character.”

  Luz didn’t reply, acting as if she was busy peering into the diagnostic unit. But her character was being formed. She had analyzed Dr. McCoy with the help of the computer, and had discovered he was fairly typical among humans. To get close to him, she would have to do little more than politely ask about his wants and needs. None of her expertise would be required for this engagement.

  While she remained silent, Tasm shifted closer. “Transform into character now.”

  Luz stood up, restraining any show of annoyance. She didn’t look back at Tasm or her assistant as she left the tech-lab. She had done an exceptional job whenever she was leader. Much better than Tasm, that brain-dead automaton. Every one of her pod-mates lacked imagination — she was the only one who bothered to look beyond the walls of their own ship.

  Yet Luz didn’t protest because that wasn’t allowed. Actually, it wasn’t even considered by the others. And rather than pursue that unsettling thought, Luz slid into the surgical unit.

  It was a tight-fitting space, too close for comfort. Her head was gripped by the support, and she squeezed her eyes shut. The red flashing lasers made her wince. There was no pain, but she could feel the unpleasant sensation of flesh being shifted and molded. She hated the surgical unit.

  But it was interesting to see herself in different guises. When it was finally over, Luz examined her Kalandan female face in the reflective surface of the unit. It was a softened version of Tasm’s character, with wide-open innocent eyes and a small, full-lipped mouth instead of the usual narrow slit. Her light brown hair was far less dramatic than Tasm’s glossy black rolls.

  When Luz emerged, naked except for her face, Pir was just going past. His expression moved with exaggerated pleasure. “Looking good!” Then he finished off with a human imitation of a wink.

  Luz drew in her breath. “We’re supposed to be Kalandans, not humans.”

  “Our targets are humans,” Pir insisted, gesturing to himself. “What do you think? Not bad, huh?”

  Luz refused to respond to such weakness. A truly complex character took days of meditation to create and assume.

  But Pir wouldn’t leave her alone. He followed her down as she walked to the replicator stations to get her uniform. From behind her, he asked, “Did you see the database on Starfleet Academy? Maybe your target went there, too.”

  “I’ve accessed the computer,” Luz told him. “I have everything I need.”

  “Let me know if I can help.” Pir gave her an encouraging grin.

  Luz’s faint smile could hardly have satisfied him, but he did finally leave her alone to get her uniform, along with its built-in exaggerated
female features.

  Her pod-mates were so undistinguished it hurt. Serving with them doomed her career. If only they were smarter, more ambitious, just better somehow — like her, they might have been chosen to serve the matriarchs instead of being sent off as scouts. From that post, she was sure she could have been picked to receive the royal gel and join the birthing chamber. When they were very young and their pod had been assigned to clean the birthing cells, that had been Luz’s ambition.

  But none of her pod-mates felt the same way she did, longing for something they didn’t have. Soon she had stopped talking about her feelings. She knew they watched her all the time, noting how often she deviated from their path. It was frightening. They had lost no member of their pods yet, but Luz knew her pod-mates wouldn’t hesitate to put her away if they believed she was defective.

  So she had to hold on and not let them know exactly what she thought of them. Luz had lived this way for a long time now, and she could certainly keep it up. Only it got tiresome every now and again to feel how limited her existence really was.

  Scotty was not a happy man. The Enterprise remained on yellow alert, with warp engines off-line. Many key systems were disabled. It wouldn’t have been a problem if he didn’t also have to command the Enterprise. But with Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy stuck on the Kalandan station, that’s exactly what he had to do.

  Scotty had left Lt. Uhura in command of the bridge while he managed repairs to the warp engines and support systems in engineering that had been damaged by Kalandan sabotage. Uhura was keeping watch on the long-range sensors and communications to make sure no one got close to the Enterprise while she was disabled.

  Scott hadn’t seen the Kalandan lady who had killed his crewmates. It was his constant regret that he had arrived too late to help John Watkins. Engineer Watkins had been a fine lad, he would have gone far, if only . . .

  There would be a funeral service for Watkins soon. Since Scotty was in command of the ship, as well as Watkin’s superior officer, he was expected to say a few words.