TOS - Vulcan's Forge (c) by Star Trek

Author:Star Trek [Star Trek]
Language: deu
Format: epub
Tags: \Star Trek
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2011-01-02T07:59:06.069000+00:00

FIFTEEN

Vulcan, The Womb of Fire

Day 6, Eighth Week of Tasmeen,

Year 2247

David, a half-unwrapped ration bar in one hand, glanced uneasily around the Womb of Fire. Spock and he had taken temporary sanctuary in one of the few spots that did not seem actively dangerous, although that meant that they were still surrounded by waves of heat and pools of bubbling water.

"Are you sure this place isn't radioactive?" he asked yet again. "It really does look like someone nuked it—maybe not long enough ago."

"The temperature here is not abnormal for Vulcan," Spock assured him patiently, "and we have had no nuclear wars nor major nuclear accidents. This is nothing more than a typically volcanic terrain."

"Typical in hell, maybe," David muttered.

Ignoring what was clearly an emotional reference to human religion, Spock scanned the crazed, cinder-covered ground, plotting their next move. As with the rest of the Womb of Fire, nothing grew here but the bright green hallucinogenic lichen and the bright yellow crusts of sulfur, garish against the black rock and gray cinders. Tiny plumes of steam puffed steadily up from the maze of fumaroles, warning of the even greater heat not far below the surface.

Without warning, those plumes wavered and the earth began to shake. A rumbling growl filled the air.

"Volcano!" David yelped, and fumbled the ration bar, which went flying.

"Geyser!" Spock snapped. "Get down!"

Not ten meters from them, an immense geyser spurted out of the blasted land, spraying them with hot, salty water. Spock dropped instantly, covering his hands and face. His desert gear should protect the rest of him from the live steam.

Nothing, however, could protect the ration bar, which sailed right into a shallow, steaming pool. David, peeking out from behind interlaced hands, muttered something in a language that Spock was certain was not Terran standard.

"There goes dinner, such as it was. Spock, if I poisoned your well, I'm sorry."

The geyser slowly subsided. Spock uncurled and peered warily over the edge of the pool. "It is not too deep. We can still retrieve the bar."

"And save the local ecology. Do you still have that collapsing rod?"

Spock passed it over. David extended the rod, then bound it to a pair of pincers also salvaged from the wrecked shuttle's emergency gear and dunked his makeshift device into the water, fishing about till he had hooked the ration bar and pulled it out.

"Would you look at this? The thing hasn't even started to dissolve!" David snorted. "Not that I'm surprised. I wonder if parboiling improves the taste." He waved the bar about to cool it, then saluted Spock with it. "What I do for science." Biting into the bar, he grimaced.

"Does that taste 'just like chicken,' too?" Spock asked without any inflection at all.

"Ha. And ha again. And they say Vulcans have no sense of humor. And no, to satisfy your curiosity, nothing helps this stuff."

David resolutely gnawed his way through the rest of his unpalatable meal. "I don't have to remind you this is almost the last of our rations.

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