Second Nature by David Mack

Author:David Mack [Mack, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books/Star Trek
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

16

All was quiet on the bridge of the Sagittarius, and for that small mercy Clark Terrell was thankful; he and his crew had so far evaded detection by the Klingon starships in orbit. There was no telling how long their good fortune might last, so Terrell spent this rare break from his routine thinking. He contemplated responses in case they were found by the Klingons, while at the same time he was trying to imagine a way to warn his landing party of what was happening; neither avenue of reflection was yielding any helpful insights.

The door behind him sighed open, and he looked over his shoulder to see Doctor Babitz walk onto the bridge. Her eyes were fixed upon the data slate in her left hand, and she gnawed lightly on the tip of the stylus in her right hand as she approached Terrell’s command chair. As she drew near, Terrell was sure he heard the blond surgeon muttering to herself.

“Something on your mind, Doctor?”

Babitz stopped and did a startled double take at the captain. “Hm? Oh, the slate. Yes.” She tapped at it with the stylus, then turned it toward Terrell. “I’ve been reviewing the data the landing party sent up—the scans of the Tomol who are starting to experience the Change.”

Terrell waited a few seconds in vain for Babitz to elaborate, and then he realized she would need a measure of verbal coaxing. “And? What have you found?”

“Hm? Oh. Not as much as I’d have liked, to be honest. All of the Tomol exhibit unusually high degrees of cell mutation during their growth cycles.” She pointed out a line of figures on the slate. “I’ve never seen a species whose DNA has this kind of time bomb.”

“You say their cells are mutating? Could there be an environmental factor involved?”

“I don’t think so.” She switched to a different screen of data on the slate. “No unusual radiation on the planet’s surface. No known mutagens in the air, water, soil, flora, or fauna.” She gave the scan analysis another look. “I’d say this is a genetic predisposition. I just wish I could figure out what its trigger is. If it’s something simple, like a protein sequence, or a hormonal shift brought on by the end of adolescence, maybe we can develop a treatment of some kind.”

Her enthusiastic speculation attracted Sorak’s reproach. The old Vulcan stood and moved to join her and Terrell. “That would be inadvisable, Doctor. Deliberate interference in the natural evolution of the Tomol would be a blatant violation of the Prime Directive.”

“You can’t expect me to do nothing and condemn an entire species to die.”

Terrell cut in. “We might not have a choice, Doctor. Sorak’s right. If this is the Tomol’s natural state, we have no right to tamper with it, no matter how tragic that might seem.”

“Not even if they ask for our help?”

Sorak’s voice was as dry as his logic. “How can they? They have no understanding of genomic medicine. That ignorance renders them unable to make an informed request for aid.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.