Star Trek - Log 8 by Alan Dean Foster Page A

gave in with a musical spannggg , and Scott's half-coherent explanation went no further.
    "Watch it!" he yelled, stumbling backward.
    The door slammed down against the deck. Scott thought of yelling for phasers to be set on stun, but changed his mind when he remembered through the confusion of the moment that security phasers were never preset to deliver a lethal charge.
    Nor was it necessary to give an order to fire. Faced with an eight-foot-long slug emerging from behind a crumpled door and a wildly gesturing officer, they decided unanimously to try nonverbal means of persuasion on the apparent cause of the trouble.
    Three phasers fired, three beams struck the Lactran. Its skin seemed to ripple slightly . . . and that was all. But the creature stopped, though both Scott and the security personnel had a feeling it wasn't because of the phaser attack.
    Scott began retreating down the corridor to organize a larger capture party, but immediately came to a jerking halt as though an invisible cable around his head had snapped taut. Both hands went to his suddenly throbbing skull, where tiny gnomes had set up a small warp-engine and were running it at overdrive.
    All three guards, being closer to the intense mental blast, had been knocked to the floor. Sliding along the deck like a heavy metal ingot on oil, the invader sprinted forward, swept up Scott with its tail, and raced down the corridor.
    Behind, the guards struggled to find their phasers, their composure, and the tops of their skulls . . .

V
    Far, far below, the situation was no less tense, if somewhat less hectic.
    "Captain, I believe that for the first time they are making an effort to transmit a comprehensible thought pattern toward us," Spock told them. "Our speculation as to the relationship between age and size appears to have been correct. They are worried about their child, the one caught in the transporter beam.
    "These, I gather, are the parents of the missing one. Despite the lack of external sexual characteristics, the standard male-female partnership is in existence here."
    "Never mind the biological details, Mr. Spock," a tense Kirk ordered, eyeing the two silent Lactrans warily. "While they're worried about their offspring, I'm more concerned about what it might do to the Enterprise . Even an adolescent probably possesses considerable mental as well as physical powers."
    "What in Carrel's scalpel went wrong, though?" a bemused McCoy wondered.
    "I'm not sure, Bones. Obviously Scotty received our call for help, a call that was sorely lacking in details. That thing snatched the communicator before I could give him any details. As soon as the alien took the communicator from me, well, it was still activated when it was grabbed away. Scotty centered on it, of course."
    Spock was swaying slightly, drifting deeper into trance. "They seem to think you made the child disappear," he murmured, "since you were the one who operated the device. Their reaction . . . their reaction . . ."
    "Go on, Spock."
    "They are surprised, and concerned. The concern is for their missing offspring. They are surprised because we had not been classed as either an intelligent or a dangerous species. And they are somewhat shocked to discover that we may be both."
    "We can't stand here," McCoy said nervously, "we've got to do something . . . or they will."
    Kirk tried to calm the jittery McCoy. In fact, everyone appeared increasingly nervous. That could only make the Lactrans worry more about their child.
    "Calm down . . . all of you. Let's not give our captors cause for concern. The best thing we can do is—"
    He doubled over and fell to the ground, twisting in pain—and this time he wasn't acting.
    "Jim!" McCoy was at his side, feeling helpless. "What is it?"
    "My head! Inside . . . my head." The words came out with an effort. "I think . . . the baby. What happened to the baby?"
    There was an odd, hollow tone in those last words, as if something unhuman was trying to operate a human voice