was, a bright blip appeared in the exact center of a circled location.
“They check, sir,” Scott said. “That readout shows that Dawson is at the inn, and that’s where he’s supposed to be.”
Kirk took a long moment before replying. When he did, he spoke carefully. “Since the locator is working properly, Spock is either dead, unconscious, or he’s tampered with the communicator’s locator circuit. Considering the tinkering that was done up here, it seems likely he’s modified his communicator. But… why?”
“Now, Captain,” Scott said. “We’re not sure he altered the board. And what’s mair, it’s humanly impossible for a communicator to be tampered with, with what Mr. Spock has available to him down there.”
“He could have done it up here,” McCoy said.
“But, Doctor, a man’s communicator is his only link with the ship when he’s planet-side. It’d be crazy to disable the locator circuit.”
“Spock isn’t human,” Kirk observed dryly. “He can do almost anything he wants to and, in this case, it seems as though he doesn’t want us to find him.” He turned to McCoy. “Bones, why? That’s your department. Do you have any idea why Spock wouldn’t want his location known?”
“It might 4iave something to do with his not beaming up with the rest last night,” McCoy answered. “And then again, it might not. I should give up trying to figure out what makes Spock tick, I’ve tried long enough. He’s always taken care to keep the human side he inherited from his mother suppressed. It’s true that he always acts logically, but it’s usually such an alien logic that much of the time I don’t understand why he does what he does— unless he cares to explain, that is. When he does, his actions always make perfect sense. When he doesn’t, the man’s an enigma. Maybe that’s what makes him so attractive to women. They find him ‘fascinating,’ ” McCoy finished.
“Could his implant have anything to do with this?”
McCoy shook his head. “I don’t see how. When Spock came to sickbay to get his implant, Ensign George and I checked the profiles carefully and picked the one with the lowest emotional quotient. Even though he knew some of his dop’s emotion would come through the link, Spock said it was no problem.”
“Couldn’t you have altered the device to screen out all emotional input?” Kirk asked.
“Sure,” McCoy replied, “but then we would have defeated one of the most important purposes for using it, perfect mimicry of native behavior. Vulcans always react logically to events. With humans and Kyrosians, there’s an inevitable emotional component. Eliminate that, and you’ll start to call attention to yourself as someone odd and different—which is the last thing we want to happen to a survey party member who’s trying to pass as a native!”
McCoy went on, “Speck’s dop is a very proper, very respectable, and very unemotional merchant who owns a small pottery shop. There’s absolutely nothing in his profile to explain Spock’s present behavior. I picked it myself and Sara fed it in.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to assume that we have a normal Spock who has some good reason for getting himself lost,” Kirk said. “But when he returns, he’d better have a very logical explanation for his behavior. We can’t wait around here indefinitely. At the rate that radiation is peaking, I’ve got to get the Enterprise out of here before too long. I won’t endanger this ship because of some private whim of my first officer.”
Kirk paced the floor of the transporter room. “He knows something has happened to make us send out an emergency recall.” He paused suddenly. “Or does he? Bones, what if the tingler doesn’t work on a Vulcan? If he never received our message, he’d have no way of knowing that he’d have to cut short whatever he’s up to. He’d never disobey a direct order, no matter how important his project was.”
“It’s as you said before, Jim,” McCoy said grimly. “If he’s dead… but if he’s alive, he got the signal. There may be a lot of anatomical differences between humans and Vulcans—Spock’s heart being where his liver ought to be, among others—but a nerve is a nerve to both of us.”
“He could be a prisoner…” Scott said.
“We’ve got to know for sure,” Kirk said. “Scotty, is there anyway you could lock onto Spock’s tricorder? He took it with him.”
“Negative, sir,” replied the engineering officer. “A tricorder is too well shielded. There’s nae enou’ energy leakage to get a fix.”
“There has to be a way…” Kirk muttered, clenching his fists and resuming his anxious pacing of the transporter room.
As if on cue, the communicator on the transporter console bleeped, signaling a call from the survey party. Scott reached toward the board, but Kirk, who was a bit closer, jabbed down a finger.
“Kirk here. Any word of Spock?”
“Yes, sir.” Dawson’s voice sounded strained. “I think you’d better beam us up at once.”
“Is he with you?”
“No, sir, he—”
“Then do you know where he is?” Kirk interrupted.
“No, sir, but he sent a message. It’s addressed to you, Captain.”
“Well, he’s alive anyway. Bring ‘em up, Scotty.”
The engineer stepped to the board and placed his thick fingers on the phase controls. Moving them gently, he pushed them along the runner slots. A deep hum of power filled the transporter room, and, after a few seconds, as the hum built up, the shimmering effect of the transporter’s carrier wave appeared over five of the six circular plates on the stage. Five figures in Kyrosian dress stepped down. One of them approached Kirk and handed him a scroll tied with a brightly colored ribbon,
“Mr. Spock’s message, sir. An old beggar woman brought it to me at the inn.”
Kirk glanced at the parchment-like scroll. It was from Spock all right. Kirk’s name was written on the outside in lettering so precise that it could have been printed by a computer.
As Kirk untied the ribbon and opened the scroll, Scott watched as Dawson removed his garishly marked, close-fitting hood, displaying his newly-shaven head.
“What were you doing down there, Lieutenant? Playing trick or treat?”
Dawson grinned and rubbed his head. “My dop is a hillman, Commander. At least he was before he got kicked out of his clan for propositioning one of the chiefs wives. Andros is full of hillmen who have had their hoods lifted.”
“Who what?” Scott asked.
“Had their hoods lifted. Exposing the face is as taboo among the hill tribes as exposing the breasts once was back on Earth a few hundred years ago. On Kyros, once your face has been seen by an enemy, you’re wide open to any spell he wants to send your way. The worst punishment a clan can inflict on an erring member, aside from killing him, is to strip off his hood in public. Once his features are known, he usually would opt for immediate, permanent, self-imposed exile. Or commit suicide. Most of them get to Andros and live together in a slum, since no hill tribe will take a reject from another…”
Kirk’s voice suddenly halted further conversation. His face a frozen mask, he spoke in unnaturally calm, precise tones.
“Mr. Scott, please call the warp drive engine room and have your people check the status of the trilithium modulator crystals in the field damper circuits. Have them check stores to see if the replacements are there.”
“Now why would you be wanting the trilithium modules checked at a time like this?”
“Please carry out my orders, Mr. Scott,” Kirk said. Although he gave no hint of his inner turmoil, there was a quality to his voice that made Scott jump.
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Jim, what the hell’s wrong?” McCoy asked. Kirk ignored him, staring at the scroll held in his hands.
Scott went to the communicator and began to snap orders to the duty officers in the warp drive engineering room. When they replied, their voices were high and excited. Scott turned to his captain, his broad face ashen.
“They’re gone! The replacements, too! Our warp drive is disabled!”
“Then Spock wasn’t bluffing,” Kirk said in a low voice. His steady eyes looked first at his engineering officer and then at the ship’s surgeon.
“Gentlemen,” he continued in the same slow, measured tones, “I regret to inform you that the Enterprise and her crew are at the mercy of a madman. Mr. Spock has gone insane.”
His face expressionless, he began to read aloud from the parchment-like scroll while his officers stared at him
