Authors: Alan Dean Foster
"Then that leaves one thing," Kirk said determinedly, "that we haven't tried." After double-checking to insure that the gravity specifics of his life-support system were engaged, he walked forward, put both hands against the dark skin—and shoved hard.
The jawanda's body parted like a torn sheet, and Kirk's hands went right through.
Rather than expressing satisfaction, he sounded abashed. "We overlooked the obvious in favor of the technical. A common mistake of mechanically minded civilizations." Using his hands, he widened the gap. The substance resisted steadily, but continued to give way under the captain's firm pressure.
"Follow me." Stepping carefully through the hole, he walked out onto the surface of the jawanda.
They emerged facing rearward. Instead of the sloping back of the
Enterprise
's primary hull, flanked by the two torpedo shapes of the warp-drive propulsion units, they saw only a black formlessness. It turned the streamlined cruiser into a dark nebula of constantly shifting outline.
A long tail like the back of a black comet stretched into the distance aft, glowing now and then with vibrant sparks and the random chromatic streaks of internal lightning.
"Wonder what we look like from a distance," McCoy murmured aloud, at once amazed and appalled by the sight.
"The cape of some fantastic giant," Kirk hypothesized, "or the image of legended Azathoth . . . We've become a child's dream, Bones."
"Or its nightmare," McCoy countered.
"It is conceivable," Spock ventured, refusing to be drawn into such useless, illogical speculation, "that by utilizing the manual labor of the entire ship's complement we could physically remove the creature from the hull. However, this would prove futile in the end, since there is no way to prevent it from reestablishing itself once all hands have returned inside."
"I dislike the thought of totally abandoning the ship to automatics, even for a few minutes," Kirk added as they made their way across the black substance. It rippled eerily underfoot wherever an aura-clad boot touched down, like concentric circles fleeing a stone flung into a pond.
Kirk put a foot down with experimental firmness, then raised it quickly. Gently the material reformed itself over the exposed circlet of metal, apparently undamaged. Leaning over, he peered intently at the dark flesh, but could detect nothing resembling a seam or repaired wound.
"Remarkably efficient in all ways," Spock declared, also studying the area where Kirk's foot had pressed down.
"Yes. It seems to—" He broke off, staring rearward.
"What is it, Jim?" a worried McCoy inquired.
"Is it my imagination, Bones, or is the jawanda starting to move?"
McCoy looked around, and even as he watched the activity Kirk thought he had sensed increased visibility. "No, I see it too, Jim."
At the edges the colossal mass seemed to be rippling and fluttering with great violence. A moment later their life-support belts reacted to similar action underfoot, keeping the men firmly attached to the immediate surface beneath them as it too began to move up and down in increasingly higher arcs.
"Captain, I think it best that we reenter the ship, at least until this sudden activity subsides."
"You won't get any argument from me, Spock," admitted Kirk readily. He was already moving as fast as possible back toward the open hatchway. Despite the knowledge that the life-support systems would hold them tight to the jawanda, he had to fight down an urge to drop flat and hug the surface.
"Why do you think it's reacting like this, Spock?"
"There may be any number of reasons, Captain," the first officer responded, a smooth thrust of body-substance sending him arching meters above Kirk and McCoy. Then Spock had dropped into a low pit and they were looking down at him.
"Possibly it is irritated by our presence, though I think that unlikely. It may be seeking to realign itself to further maximize its energy gathering potential. Or . . ." He paused. "It is possible that, with the ship's warp-drive units deactivated, the reason for its enveloping the
Enterprise
—to be wrapped tightly about a source of intense and now vanished radiation—has disappeared. It may be preparing to leave."
"Then I suggest we hurry," advised McCoy, exercising a bit of understatement himself as he increased his pace.
After another couple of minutes had passed, Kirk slowed his progress across the rolling surface. Frowning, he muttered, "We should have reached the hatchway by now." Turning in a slow circle, he examined the living terrain behind them. All was shifting, hilly blackness. No comforting light showed through.
"As a matter of fact, how are we going to relocate it? The jawanda is so dense now that the light from the lock can't penetrate it."
There was silence, each man wrapped in his own thoughts. Then McCoy said hesitantly, pointing, "I think it was over that way, Jim."
Slowly they retraced what they hoped had been their original steps—slowly so that they wouldn't overrun the lock entrance, and also because the jawanda was now heaving up and down in twenty-meter-high ripples. Only plenty of experience working in low-g environments kept them from becoming violently ill.
After five minutes McCoy had to admit that his guess had been wrong. Kirk and Spock were equally disoriented.
"It is imperative that we do not continue to search blindly about, Captain," Spock declared, his even, controlled tones a great comfort in the fleshy chaos heaving around them. "I believe we must risk the utilization of transporter energy to have ourselves beamed back into the ship. So long as the jawanda remains attached to the hull, we will never locate the open lock."
"I agree," McCoy added quickly, the distant glow of the Milky Way galaxy bobbing drunkenly behind them. "Even though the creature hasn't threatened us, I don't like the idea of being stuck out here as our life-support charges run down."
"We don't know for certain that the jawanda is harmless, Doctor," Spock observed coolly, not enhancing McCoy's current state of mind.
Kirk nodded his assent to Spock, who removed his communicator from his waist and flipped it open. His words carried to his two companions as he addressed the open speaker grid.
"Spock to Main Transporter Room, Spock to Main Transporter Room." There was a silent pause. The first officer looked across at Kirk. "Acknowledge, Transporter Room." Still no reply. "Nothing, Captain—not even normal background noise."
"Maybe your communicator is malfunctioning, Spock," Kirk suggested. Reaching down, he opened his own instrument. "This is the captain speaking. Transporter Room . . . bridge . . . anyone receiving, please acknowledge." Only the emptiness of space sounded from the tiny grid.
"I should have guessed," Spock broke in, in his own quiet way furious with himself. "Naturally the energy-screening abilities of the jawanda blocks out the weak waves produced by our communicators. There is only—"
Despite superhuman balance, he lurched forward as the surface moved beneath them. Kirk nearly fell backward, and McCoy tumbled flat.
The jawanda, its primary source of radiation now completely cut off, was once again feeling the need to spread its energy-gathering bulk as wide as possible to gather the stray radiation drifting across the intergalactic gulf. The violent contraction which had thrown everyone off balance was caused by the creature's beginning to separate from the
Enterprise
.
Kirk fought to keep from screaming in panic as the star-field wheeled crazily around them. The energy-eater finally straightened out, having unwound itself from the hull.
Looking back, Kirk saw the
Enterprise
behind them. It was shrinking at a terrifying pace at the tail end of a vast dark carpet.
Ahead of them lay nothing but black infinity . . .
Kirk rolled over and managed to sit up. "Communicators, Spock. There's nothing to screen them out now." But his first officer was already reaching for the compact instrument, flipping the top open.
"Spock to
Enterprise
, Spock to
Enterprise
. . . Come in,
Enterprise
."
A faint voice barely recognizable as that of the ship's helmsman issued from the speaker, weak with increasing distance and distorted by the crackle of radiant discharge from the jawanda beneath them.
"Mr. Spock . . . what's happened? Our scanners are operating again. The jawanda has broken free and—"
"Transport us back aboard, Mr. Sulu," Spock interrupted urgently. "Immediately."
"What's that, Mr. Spock? I can't . . ." There was a burst of static. ". . . quite hear you." Dimly they heard, "Sensors seem to indicate you are no longer on the ship's hull. What—"
"Activate engines!" Spock ordered crisply. "Follow the jawanda and overtake. We are stranded on the jawanda, repeat,
on the jawanda.
It is moving out of visual range. We are—"
"Never mind, Spock," McCoy advised, an odd tinge in his voice, "they can't hear us any more."
But Spock persisted, his voice never breaking as he continued broadcasting. Rapidly the
Enterprise
became a shapeless dot, then a star . . . and soon was lost to sight as the jawanda sped away at a rate no living creature should have been able to attain.
Three men more isolated than any in the universe sat themselves with unnatural calm on the thin surface of their unbelievable steed and took stock of their situation.
It was not promising.
"We are fairly sure the
Enterprise
is faster than the jawanda," Spock noted, "but it must get underway rapidly in order to be able to track us." Glancing to the side, he saw the vast circle of the home galaxy dominating the darkness like a gigantic pinwheel.
"Even if they temporarily lose contact with us," McCoy pointed out, with more confidence than he felt, "they ought to be able to pick up the energy field surrounding the creature. We located it in empty space once before, by the sound it emits. No reason why Sulu and Uhura shouldn't be able to do it again." He essayed a timorous smile.
"All very true, Doctor," an almost but not quite shaky Vulcan voice agreed, "unless the ship's instrumentation locks onto
another
of the creatures. If that happens and the ship follows a different jawanda for even a short while, we could be carried far beyond easy sensor range."
"Thanks, Spock," McCoy muttered morosely. "I can always depend on you to cheer me up." Absently he ran a hand over the smooth obsidian film beneath them. Glowing phosphorescence trailed his hand, like the night wake produced by a boat traveling one of Earth's oceans. "I've been marooned on several worlds and a few moons before, but never on a living creature."
"We've discovered a flying carpet that would astound humanity's ancient story-tellers," Kirk mused. "I wonder where it's carrying us."
It was amazing, he reflected, how rapidly he had adjusted to the possibility they might never be found. At least they would die in space, and quickly, when the energy powering their life-support belts gave out or was drained away by the jawanda. His gaze moved again to the lambent spiral of the Milky Way. A more fitting subject for the final sight of a starship captain could not be imagined . . .
As had so often been the case in times past, Captain Kirk's resignation proved premature. Spock had been standing rigid for long moments, almost at attention. When he spoke again, his voice was relaxed.
"There is no need for concern any longer, Captain. The
Enterprise
is tracking us."
McCoy scrambled to his feet, and together he and Kirk stared rearward—or at least in the direction Spock was facing; it was impossible to determine true direction. Kirk strained, could see nothing but distant star clusters and nebulae, not even a moving point which might turn out to be the ship.
"How can you tell, Spock? I can't make out a thing."
"I am in communication with one on board. The connection at this distance is tenuous, but with no other intelligent minds around us—"
"The Lactrans!" McCoy exclaimed.
"Yes, the Lactrans," Spock confirmed. "While they have been unable to assist in the capture of the jawanda, it seems that their presence has produced an unexpected but welcome benefit. The young one is in communication with its parents, who relay instructions through it to Mr. Sulu and Mr. Arex."
Shortly thereafter the most beautiful sight in the universe hove into view: the
Enterprise
. It grew to the size of a small flower and finally loomed huge behind them.
Or perhaps now it was before them, since they seemed to be rushing toward it. Kirk studied the ship as the first fold of jawanda reached outward. Spock's comment mirrored his own thoughts.
"The creature is once more rushing at the
Enterprise
, sensing the nearness of renewed radiation from her engines."
Behind them, a towering black wave was curling overhead, arcing downward like an onyx tsunami. It blotted out the bright glow of the home galaxy, surged ahead and downward. All three men had to fight down an unusual tendency to claustrophobia as the black curtain descended on them. No crushing weight shoved them flat as they hurried toward the nearing hull. The blackness settled with feathery lightness. Each time a new fold of jawanda curled over them, they pushed upward with stiff arms and forced a temporary gap in the creature's body, emerging into the starlight again and again.
Finally the jawanda stopped wrapping itself about the ship. They found themselves standing once more on a black-coated hull, unable to recognize a single feature through the amorphous structure of the creature.
"We're right back where we started," McCoy observed, sighing heavily. "I can't say I'm disappointed."
"On the contrary, Doctor, we are not back where we started," objected Spock. "I am still in contact with the Lactrans." Turning slowly, he faced toward the front of the ship and pointed. "That way."
Following the first officer's lead, they walked over to an area which looked no different from any other, or from the one they'd just left. Spock gestured slightly ahead and down. "We're here, Captain."