Star Trek - Log 8 Read Online Free
Author: Alan Dean Foster
moment, and found, to his surprise, that he didn't have to search his memory for very long. The familiarity of the monster had bothered him all along, but it took Spock's query to crystallize it.
"Of course . . . I've seen soloids of something just like it on Canopus Three. That's impossible, though. Canopus is many too many parsecs from here." He squinted into the unyielding sunlight.
"True, this desert is very similar to those found on Canopus Three." His voice faded. "Very similar. In fact, those isolated growths, the color of the petrographic outcrops—they're all remarkably alike."
"Are you suggesting, Captain, that a similar environment presupposes identical evolution?"
"My shoes," McCoy broke in, with undisguised distaste, "are full of sand."
Spock's concentration was broken. "Doctor, your lack of scientific interest is a constant astonishment to me."
"I'll be glad to discuss that with you, Spock, the next time you drop into Sick Bay for some medication, or a checkup."
"No need to become belligerent, Doctor. That was merely a simple observation."
"Spock, your simple observations," McCoy rasped as they trudged toward the top of the next dune, "tend to get on my . . ."
He stopped in mid-sentence, mid-thought, to gape at the scene before them. And he was not alone. Spock and Kirk had also come to a momentary mental halt.
Spread out at the base of the dune was a wall of green so lush and colorful in comparison to the dull plain they had just crossed that it was almost painful to look at.
Clusters of thorn-laden trees and broad, thick bushes interwove with taller emergents and exotically contoured growths drooping with strange fruits. Practically at their feet a stream emerged, vanishing in a sharp curve back into the thriving jungle.
There were distant hints of moss and fern forest, of swamp and tropical lowland. They could almost feel the humidity, smell the rankness of rotting vegetation.
For all that, it looked a lot friendlier than the country they had just traversed. "Food and water—anyone would have a better chance of surviving in there than on that frying pan we just crossed" was McCoy's opinion.
Spock wasn't as sure. Turning slowly, he studied the terrain behind them. His gaze lifted to the far dune. Beyond it, he knew, lay a violently active thermal region bordering a vast, steaming lake.
Again he directed his attention to the riotous landscape before them, listened thoughtfully to the soft susurration of small living things picking their cautious way through the undergrowth.
"Does it not strike you as peculiar, Captain, that two—possibly three—radically different ecologies exist literally side by side? Steaming, unstable shoreline, backed by a thin line of desert, and now another extreme change of climate and living things."
"I've seen stranger sights in my travels, Mr. Spock. What are you driving at?"
"Nothing yet, Captain. Simply another observation." His voice trailed off as he glared at the rain forest beneath the dune, taking this perversion of natural law as a personal affront.
Kirk flipped open his communicator again. "I don't plan to do much walking through that —not without extra equipment." He directed his words to the tiny pickup.
"Landing party to Enterprise ." There was a brief pause, rife with static and interference. But the special tight-beam broadcast Scott employed penetrated the mysterious distortion layer in the atmosphere. Kirk heard the chief engineer's reply clearly.
" Enterprise , Scott here."
"Any new information, Scotty? We're a little puzzled by what we've found down here."
"We've got plenty of confusing readings here, too, Captain," Scott confessed. "There appears to be a large concentration of life forms slightly less than a hundred kilometers north-northeast of your present position. How large we can't tell—this blasted distortion effect jumbles every sensor reading we get. I'm informed that it could be a city . . . or just a central gathering place
"Of course . . . I've seen soloids of something just like it on Canopus Three. That's impossible, though. Canopus is many too many parsecs from here." He squinted into the unyielding sunlight.
"True, this desert is very similar to those found on Canopus Three." His voice faded. "Very similar. In fact, those isolated growths, the color of the petrographic outcrops—they're all remarkably alike."
"Are you suggesting, Captain, that a similar environment presupposes identical evolution?"
"My shoes," McCoy broke in, with undisguised distaste, "are full of sand."
Spock's concentration was broken. "Doctor, your lack of scientific interest is a constant astonishment to me."
"I'll be glad to discuss that with you, Spock, the next time you drop into Sick Bay for some medication, or a checkup."
"No need to become belligerent, Doctor. That was merely a simple observation."
"Spock, your simple observations," McCoy rasped as they trudged toward the top of the next dune, "tend to get on my . . ."
He stopped in mid-sentence, mid-thought, to gape at the scene before them. And he was not alone. Spock and Kirk had also come to a momentary mental halt.
Spread out at the base of the dune was a wall of green so lush and colorful in comparison to the dull plain they had just crossed that it was almost painful to look at.
Clusters of thorn-laden trees and broad, thick bushes interwove with taller emergents and exotically contoured growths drooping with strange fruits. Practically at their feet a stream emerged, vanishing in a sharp curve back into the thriving jungle.
There were distant hints of moss and fern forest, of swamp and tropical lowland. They could almost feel the humidity, smell the rankness of rotting vegetation.
For all that, it looked a lot friendlier than the country they had just traversed. "Food and water—anyone would have a better chance of surviving in there than on that frying pan we just crossed" was McCoy's opinion.
Spock wasn't as sure. Turning slowly, he studied the terrain behind them. His gaze lifted to the far dune. Beyond it, he knew, lay a violently active thermal region bordering a vast, steaming lake.
Again he directed his attention to the riotous landscape before them, listened thoughtfully to the soft susurration of small living things picking their cautious way through the undergrowth.
"Does it not strike you as peculiar, Captain, that two—possibly three—radically different ecologies exist literally side by side? Steaming, unstable shoreline, backed by a thin line of desert, and now another extreme change of climate and living things."
"I've seen stranger sights in my travels, Mr. Spock. What are you driving at?"
"Nothing yet, Captain. Simply another observation." His voice trailed off as he glared at the rain forest beneath the dune, taking this perversion of natural law as a personal affront.
Kirk flipped open his communicator again. "I don't plan to do much walking through that —not without extra equipment." He directed his words to the tiny pickup.
"Landing party to Enterprise ." There was a brief pause, rife with static and interference. But the special tight-beam broadcast Scott employed penetrated the mysterious distortion layer in the atmosphere. Kirk heard the chief engineer's reply clearly.
" Enterprise , Scott here."
"Any new information, Scotty? We're a little puzzled by what we've found down here."
"We've got plenty of confusing readings here, too, Captain," Scott confessed. "There appears to be a large concentration of life forms slightly less than a hundred kilometers north-northeast of your present position. How large we can't tell—this blasted distortion effect jumbles every sensor reading we get. I'm informed that it could be a city . . . or just a central gathering place
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