Star Trek - TOS - 05 by The Prometheus Design

Author:The Prometheus Design [Design, The Prometheus]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-08-07T14:09:28.501000+00:00

They gathered equipment and beamed down to the camouflaged opening of the force-shielded canyon that, according to the no-mouth, led to the only opening it knew to the Designer complex under the great mountain. Kirk closed his eyes and tried to recall the appropriate visual. He opened them and walked to the concealed opening, found it. Spock led the way through into a staggering interlocking series of canyons, the sheer mirrored cliffs a thousand feet high and looking the same in all directions. �I wish,� McCoy said plaintively, �that you hadn�t called it a maze.�

Spock moved off in silence, as if he barely tolerated Kirk�s presence, not speaking unless to give a curt order. Now and then McCoy attempted some normal grouse or grumble, trying to lighten the atmosphere. Once Kirk followed up with some normal rejoinder. It was met with such glacial silence by the two Vulcans, especially Spock, that Kirk subsided and for once was quiet and very thoughtful. There was no getting around the fact that he had really done it this time. With some attempt at fairness he tried to put himself in Captain Spock�s position. What if Kirk�s First Officer had gone against his direct and binding orders, barging in on his carefully laid plan�even if that plan included a high probability of his death, risking ship and mission in plain mutiny, and, after being placed under threat of full punishment, possibly making an attempt on his life? Possibly worse than that�pulling an unauthorized and dangerous breach of authority again in questioning the alien. If Spock had released him now for essential duty, the Vulcan was still making it plain that Kirk would yet have to answer to him. Chapter Sixteen Sunset painted the glittering thousand-foot crystal cliffs with flame. It would have been one of the most spectacular tourist attractions of the galaxy, hell on Helvan, mirroring itself in incandescent sheets of flame, skyscraper-high and reflecting each other like the endless corridors of a hall of mirrors. It was breathtaking, also blinding�and hotter than the hinges of Hades, as McCoy was heard to complain. It was also totally confusing. Kirk�s mental pictures made no sense in that flame-on-flame inferno. He believed he had picked the right central canyon when they started. He hoped they had not come to the first crucial turning. Beyond that he could not say. The bottom of the canyon was filled with shattered crystal, like a fall of diamonds, through which great black and silver trees grew. Now and then one grew on some ledge on a cliff face, looking like a Japanese painting done on a flaming mirror. Kirk and McCoy were laboring in the heat, the heavy gravity. The gravity difference had been merely a background nuisance�until they started to climb in it. Now it was a slow drain on the two Humans. For the Vulcans it was a refreshing gambol. Did Vulcans gambol? Actually they climbed with that ease by which they did not even notice the effort, now and then giving a hand or a boost to a Human.

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