Star Trek 7 by James Blish

Author:James Blish [Blish, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780553138733
Publisher: Bantam Books
Published: 1972-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE DEADLY YEARS

(David P. Harmon)

There was no sign of Robert Johnson when the party from the Enterprise materialized on Gamma Hydra IV. In fact, there was no sign of anybody, and their arrival site, which otherwise resembled a Kansas field in mid-August, was eerily silent.

There were the overbright sun, the varied greens of leaves and grasses, even the shimmer of heat waves over the adjacent meadow. But all sounds of life were missing —insect, animal, human. All that suggested that it was the specified headquarters of the Johnson expedition was a scattering of pre-fab buildings.

Spock, Kirk noted, was looking troubled too. McCoy said, “Perhaps they weren’t expecting us.”

Spock shook his head. “Our arrival was scheduled well in advance, Doctor. An annual check of every scientific expedition is routine.”

“Besides, I had sub-space contact with the leader of this expedition, a Robert Johnson, not an hour ago,” Kirk said.

“Did he report anything wrong, Jim?”

“No … and yet there was something wrong. I can’t quite nail it down, but his conversation was disjointed, somehow, as though he were having trouble sticking to the subject, or was worried about something.” Kirk pointed at the nearest building. “Mr. Chekov, check that place. Mr. Spock and I will check that one. McCoy, Scotty, Lieutenant Galway, look around, see if you can find anyone.”

The group broke up. Arlene Galway was looking a little scared, Kirk thought. Well, this was only her first extra-solar planet; she’d toughen in due course. And the circumstances were a little odd.

Kirk and Spock were about to enter “their” building when a scream rent the air. Whirling, Kirk saw Chekov bursting out into the open, looking about wildly.

“Captain! Captain!” Chekov’s voice had gone up a full octave. Kirk loped forward and grabbed him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Captain! In there!”

“Control yourself, Ensign! What is it?”

“A man, sir! In there!” Cheokov seemed a little calmer. “A dead man.”

“All right, we’ll check it. But why the panic? You’ve seen dead men before.”

“I know,” Chekov said, a little ashamedly. “But this one’s, uh, peculiar, and frankly, sir, it startled me.”

” ‘Scared’ might be the better word. All right, Bones, Spock, let’s take a look.” Kirk drew his phaser.

The interior of the building was quite dark—not black, but Kirk, coming in from the bright sunlight, had trouble getting used to it. At first, the building seemed quite empty; then he saw some sort of low structure near its end. He approached cautiously.

Then he abruptly understood what had panicked the unprepared Chekov. The object was a crudely constructed wooden coffin, for which two sawhorses served as a catafalque.

The body it held might have been Methuselah’s. Deep wrinkles made its facial features also indecipherable. The open mouth was toothless, its near-white gums shriveled, its eyes sunk in caverns, flattened under their lids of flabby skin. The body seemed to be mere bones, barely held together by a brown-spotted integument of tissue-paper thinness. Clawed hands were crossed on its collapsed chest.

Chekov’s voice said through the dimness, “I bumped into it walking backward, sir, and I—”

“I quite understand, Ensign.

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