Authors: Alan Dean Foster
"If information is so scanty," an impatient McCoy muttered, "how do they expect to identify a jawanda? They're not even sure what it looks like." The Lactrans appeared for the first time to confer between themselves.
"They say this does not matter, Doctor," announced Spock languidly, with only a slight frown.
McCoy threw up his hands in a gesture of frustration. "Now how can anyone go hunting for something when they aren't sure of its appearance? Of all the—"
"The Lactrans go on to say, Doctor, that there is even a chance the jawanda looks like nothing."
"I've had it, Jim! Sounds to me like we're on a wild-goose chase—and we're not even sure what the wild goose looks like."
Kirk rose from his chair. "It looks like there's only one way we're going to find out, Bones, and that's to go to Boqu. The answer to the Lactrans' riddle is supposed to lie there. We'll find out the same time they do . . . if we get to the world all right."
"If there
is
a Boqu," grumbled McCoy, rising to join him in leaving the hold.
Silent, the adult Lactrans watched them go.
The following day Kirk entered the bridge determined to locate the world in question. It could be incredibly obscure, but there was still a good chance it circled a sun listed in the star catalog, even if it was itself as yet unsurveyed.
Already he knew it lay a respectable distance from the Federation periphery. A simple comparison of the coordinates with the many maps locked in his memory had told him that no explored systems were situated in their present path. Even so, the actual figures provided a greater surprise than he'd anticipated. Sitting in the command chair, he studied the printout on the main viewscreen.
"Deeper, Mr. Sulu," he said, and the helmsman replaced the chart with the star configuration lying behind it, and then replaced it again. And again. And yet again. Their present course showed as a glowing red line from one end of each three-dimensional chart to the next without intersecting a single system, without passing near even a postulated solar body.
Finally Kirk was prompted to ask, "Mr. Sulu, are you certain of those coordinates?"
The helmsman looked back over his shoulder and nodded readily. "Absolutely, sir. They appeared in my mind like fluorescent block letters, and remained there until I had them memorized in spite of myself." He shook his head admiringly. "Our visitors convey their information in a manner I envy."
"I see." Kirk studied the uninformative chart projection a moment longer. "Double-check it anyway, please." He turned toward the science station. "Mr. Spock?"
The first officer went into a momentary trance, regarding the gray mass nearby. Seconds later, Sulu also appeared to drift into a brief dreamlike state before looking back to Kirk.
"No question, sir . . . we're on the course they've indicated."
"Thank you, Mr. Sulu. That's all."
Leaning back, the captain considered their present path. A divergence of even a fraction of a degree in one of several directions would have led them to at least three systems, all unexplored but logged. Their actual course, however, was taking them out of the galaxy at approximately a right angle to the galactic ecliptic. No wonder the charts were rapidly growing devoid of stellar phenomena.
"Deeper, Mr. Sulu," he ordered again. The chart was replaced by another, almost blank, save for a few isolated, lonely suns and several drifting nebulae. Beyond was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
"Mr. Spock," he began, looking toward the science station and studiously ignoring the Lactran offspring, "have the Lactrans recheck their memories. Maybe there are several possible locations given in their old records for this planet."
Spock listened to something no one else could hear. Eventually he replied, "They have been monitoring your conversation through their offspring, Captain. They assure me that the coordinates transferred to Mr. Sulu are the only ones given by the ancients for the world known as Boqu."
"Are they aware," Kirk continued gently, "that if we continue on our present course, the first sun we encounter will be an unknown star in M33, the Triangulum Spiral, roughly two point three five
million
light-years away?" He added drily, "If this is the location of Boqu, we won't get there for quite a while."
"While regarding this as a doubtful possibility, Captain, they refuse to discount it," Spock replied. "They are considering it with some interest."
"Not as much as I am," Kirk responded rapidly. "Long before we could reach that system, everyone and everything on board, including the warp-drive engines, would be long dead—the Lactrans included."
"They are aware of this, Captain," Spock continued, listening hard. "They theorize that Boqu must lie somewhat nearer."
"Somewhat?" McCoy muttered nervously.
"There is something else, Captain," the first officer added. "They are wondering if the Boqus will still retain the knowledge and means necessary for capturing a jawanda. They also recall information indicating that the Boqus are a traditionally private folk, and wonder if they might not also have forgotten their former association with the Lactrans. If this is so, there is always the possibility of a hostile greeting."
"Charming," Kirk noted dully. "Any other small details like that last one that they might have neglected to tell us?"
"No, Captain," Spock insisted evenly. "Not at the moment."
Days lengthened into weeks, with no sign of a possible destination. The
Enterprise
was still running at warp-four, two factors below her maximum safe cruising speed. Instead of nearing some unexpected system on the fringe of the galaxy, they drew farther away from all signs of activity and motion. The last star marking the boundary of the home galaxy lay far astern. Kirk had watched it fade from the rear scanners, a dying beacon, and could not shrug off a sense of awesome isolation.
More days passed, and Kirk found himself brooding in the command chair for long hours, staring at the viewscreen. Long-range scanners focused rearward showed a falsely dense-seeming arc of brightness behind them: the spiral arm of the galaxy they were crawling away from. Somewhere back there lay the Federation, and life in all its swarming multitudes.
Ahead lay a darkness so vast and empty that he felt like a child tiptoeing into a colossal cavern—the incomprehensible abyss of intergalactic space.
And still the Lactrans insisted stonily that they were on course for Boqu. Kirk's sense of desperation reached the point at which he was considering forcing a confrontation with the starship's imperturbable passengers, even risking a takeover, when a cry came from the helm:
"Captain, I've got something on the fore sensors!"
"Position, Mr. Sulu?" Kirk inquired, trying to keep the excitement from his voice.
"Dead on course, sir." A pause; then the uncertain information, "It appears to be a star, sir, but not much of a star."
"Confirmed, Captain." Kirk's attention moved to the science station and to Spock, who was staring intently into his gooseneck viewer. "It is a star, with from six to eight companion planets and two belts of asteroidal debris. A KO dwarf, I think, and probably fairly old. Surface temperature low, even for a weak star of its type."
"Anything out here can be classed as a freak, Mr. Spock," Kirk commented interestedly. "Planets it may have, but I don't see how a habitable world could circle a sun that weak. It would have to lie awfully close in, and there would have to be a host of factors compensating for—" he broke off at a loud
humphing
sound from near the science station.
The young Lactran was giving every indication of heightened interest as its front end regarded the screen, which now showed a distant point of white-orange light. Obviously, it was communicating with its parents and with Spock.
"According to all indications," the first officer announced, "that is the Boquian system."
Kirk wanted to believe, but "I don't understand, Mr. Spock. A habitable world out here, circling a sun like this one, and completely isolated from the rest of the galaxy! It staggers the imagination. It's impossible." There was a buzz, and Spock paused long enough to acknowledge a report from belowdecks.
"Not according to the astronomy section, Captain. They cannot wait until we enter the system and they can begin close-in observation."
"You said there were six to eight planets, Mr. Spock," Kirk went on, wishing he could be as unrestrainedly happy as the astronomers. "Which one is Boqu?"
"The old records are barely adequate for identification, Captain. However, I am assured that we will know it when the adults, through the mind of their offspring, sight it."
"Very well. Mr. Sulu, begin survey with the outermost world and take us in one planet at a time."
"Aye, Captain," the helmsman acknowledged.
They moved into the system, passing and rejecting several large dead worlds. Planets five through three proved to be gas giants. The second out from the chill star looked no more promising.
"Boqu," Spock declared firmly, staring fascinatedly at the viewscreen.
"Are you sure, Spock?"
"The Lactrans are, Captain."
Kirk shrugged. "Place us in parking orbit, Mr. Sulu."
"Yes, Captain."
Boqu looked like yet another gas giant, but as they moved nearer the
Enterprise
's sensors began to produce some surprising information.
Boqu possessed certain similarities to Uranus and Jupiter, but it was not a Jovian-type planet. It did put out more radiation than it received from its cinder of a sun. A certain amount of this radiation was being trapped beneath a dense orange cloud layer, heavy with carbon dioxide.
The resultant greenhouse effect was as natural as it was unexpected, creating a surface warm enough to shelter life, though life that would have to be radically different from that on Earth or Vulcan. There was little water vapor and no evidence of free water on the surface.
Boqu was an enormous world, as large as Neptune, but a true planet and not simply a small inner core covered by a huge atmosphere. Yet its gravity was barely half again as Earth's, indicating an absence of heavy metals and a light core.
Still, it was not what Kirk would call a hospitable world. Life-support belts would provide them with warmth, a breathable atmosphere, and protection from strong radiation, but could do nothing to counter the stronger gravity. They would have to handle the strain of one and a half g's as best they were able.
He thought of the Lactrans. Undoubtedly they could tolerate the gravity, but they had evolved on a world similar to Earth. To travel comfortably on the surface of Boqu they would need life-support belts too. Constructing life-support belts for the Lactrans would fall to Mr. Scott's ever inventive staff, but the problem might prove troublesome even to those resourceful minds. Not all the Lactrans' mental prowess would prevail against a poisonous atmosphere. Therefore, the first explorations of Boqu's surface would fall to members of the
Enterprise
's crew—if there was any reason to explore that surface.
Several days of shifting orbit around the planet served only to justify Kirk's initial pessimism. With every scientific instrument on board trained on the surface, they were unable to discover any sign of life.
Kirk became convinced that if anything had ever inhabited this peculiar world, it had long since become extinct. Spock and the Lactrans were not so readily persuaded.
"There could be any number of reasons for our failure to detect life below, Captain," the first officer argued, following another day of fruitless searching. "For one thing, the enormous quantity and variety of radiation the planet is generating makes it extremely difficult for our sensors to separate signs of intelligent surface communication from natural emissions."
"If there
is
any intelligence down there," sniped McCoy.
Spock continued, ignoring the doctor. "Surface conditions on such a world might have forced the inhabitants into other methods of long-range communication."
"It's not only that," a troubled Kirk admitted. "We have instruments capable of piercing the cloud layer. They detect nothing we recognize as motile life on the surface."
"What we recognize as life forms a very narrow band in the spectrum of possibilities, Captain."
"A valid point, Spock, but that still leaves us with the problem of identifying
any
life form below." He gestured at the screen, where dense orange-and-pink clouds completely covered a surface many, many times greater in area than Earth's.
"Presumably we could detect life firsthand, but this world is gigantic. To drop below the atmosphere and explore visually from shuttles would take forever." He brooded silently a moment. "What about the Lactrans? Do they have any suggestions?"
"No, Captain," confessed the first officer. "They can add nothing . . . except to reaffirm that this system and this world fit all the ancient descriptions of Boqu. Though they are willing to grant, when I press them, the slim possibility that, for all their reputed knowledge and advanced technology, the Boqus may have become extinct."
"Advanced technology on a world devoid of heavy metals—that's something else I find difficult to swallow," Kirk murmured. "I admit the existence of this world because I'm looking at it, but that's all." His gaze turned to the quiet young Lactran. "Tell the youth to convey this to his parents: We'll circle and study for another of our weeks. If by that time we've turned up
no
evidence of intelligent life, they'll consent to return home." His eyes moved to the rim of the planet, to the total blackness of intergalactic space beyond. No friendly stars formed a perceivable backdrop for this world.
"It's cold out here."
A longer-than-usual wait ensued before the Lactrans replied. Clearly, the guests of the
Enterprise
were struggling through some hard debating among themselves.
"They are reluctant to return empty—a conceptualization I cannot translate, Captain—without a specimen. Yet they do not dispute the validity of your statements. They are agreed. We shall search the surface another week and then we may depart."