By the Book (11 page)

"Amazing," Edwards said, staring out the window. "Look at that doorway. It has to be fifty paces across."

Cutler nodded. "I've seen similar structures in certain spider nests."

"Oh, that's comforting," Edwards said.

Mayweather read no life signs. That wasn't unexpected. These creatures were water-based life-forms. T'Pol had hypothesized that they only used the villages at certain times. Apparently this wasn't one of those times.

"All right," Mayweather said, glancing back at Cutler. "No life signs. Where do you want me to set this down?"

Cutler was nominally in charge of this mission, something Mayweather found amusing. She usually didn't run missions, but she was the exobiologist and they were trying to find out more about the aliens, so she got to choose things like landing sites. It just felt as if the tables were turned somewhat-he was asking her what she planned to do next.

"Let's land near the big building just ahead." Cutler was already gathering her sample pack and her scanner. "I should be able to get some pretty decent samples there."

"We could open the door as well," Edwards said. "Maybe take a quick running look inside."

"Make it real quick," Mayweather said. "The captain gave us permission for a touch-and-go. If I'm on the ground for longer than a minute, we're all in trouble."

"We'll be here for fifty seconds tops even if we open a door." Cutler gave Edwards a significant look. Edwards grinned.

"Fifty seconds tops," he said. "I promise."

They'd better do that. Mayweather wasn't going to screw up this away mission. As they went lower, he punched on the cameras outside the shuttlepod.

"Visuals on," he said to the Enterprise bridge crew.

"We have it nice and clear, Ensign." Captain Archer's voice sounded strong.

"Coming in," Mayweather said.

He maneuvered the shuttlepod next to the building, hovered for a moment, then touched down. As he did so, he used a lever to pop the door. Immediately a fishy smell filled the shuttlepod. He could see the building's wall, so close that he would have skimmed it if he had landed any closer.

"Go!" he shouted.

Cutler climbed out, moving as fast as she could. Edwards was right behind her. Mayweather sat, keeping the shuttlepod ready for a quick takeoff. This entire mission worried him. And T'Pol's objections to it didn't help. She had insisted it was critical they not be seen, and if any of the aliens came up out of the water, the shuttlepod was to leave at once.

Mayweather could hear the ocean lapping against the shore, a curiously familiar sound on an alien world. He hadn't expected it, any more than he'd expected to smell salty air beneath that fishy odor that had first crept into the shuttlepod.

He watched through the windows as Cutler headed to the side of the large open doorway, her scanner in her hand. Edwards ran toward the door, recording everything as he went.

Mayweather could hear Edwards as if the man were inside the shuttlepod.

"The main pathways are slick with mud," Edwards said, suddenly slowing as he neared the entrance. "They curve, then head toward the ocean."

Cutler was using a small tool to chip at the side of the building. Her hands were shaking. Mayweather glanced at the readout. "Come on," he whispered. "Get moving."

"Got it." Cutler put a small piece of the building material in her sack.

"Thirty seconds," Mayweather said. He couldn't help himself. The longer they were on this rock, the more nervous he became.

"Wow, you ought to see the inside of this," Edwards said. "Beautiful."

"Get the picture and head back," Mayweather ordered. "Now!"

"On my way," Edwards said, but he sounded reluctant. This was, after all, the first time he'd ever set foot on an alien planet. Mayweather knew the excitement. He was also keenly aware of the danger.

Cutler was heading back to the shuttle at full run. Edwards gave the building one last glimpse, then turned, his feet slipping on the mud.

At that moment Mayweather saw the first alien coming up out of the water, not more than a hundred paces away on the beach. The alien was huge, looking like a large black rock as it broke the surface.

"You have company," Mayweather said.

The first alien scrambled up the narrow beach. It had eight legs. Water glistened off its hard back. Mayweather couldn't make out a face, and that creeped him more than anything.

"Get out of there, people." Captain Archer's voice broke in over the shuttlepod's com system.

Cutler didn't need to be told twice. She hit the shuttlepod steps and almost dove inside.

Three more aliens came out of the water, and scrambled up the beach.

Edwards lost his footing, caught himself with a hand against the mud, and then got to his feet. He was still thirty paces away. The alien was closing fast.

"Come on," Mayweather muttered.

The alien stopped for a brief moment in front of the shuttlepod. Mayweather would have guessed that the thing was trying to figure out what the pod was, but he'd been warned against giving aliens human traits.

Not being able to see the thing's face made this even harder.

Edwards was running now. In a few seconds, he'd reach the ship.

Suddenly he screamed and spun around, grabbing at his head as if something were poking at him.

"Edwards is under attack," Mayweather said. "Alien is closing. He will not be able to make it in time."

"Mayweather, get out of there now," Captain Archer ordered.

"I'm not leaving Edwards," Mayweather shouted, yanking out his pistol. He was going to go down there and grab Edwards. Maybe if he was lucky, he'd get Edwards before those creatures got their hairy legs on him.

Cutler had her pistol out as well. She was still standing in the door, getting ready to fire. But she didn't seem clear about what she was firing at. So far, nothing was touching Edwards.

Edwards was spinning in a circle, grabbing at his head. One of the aliens was coming fast, far faster than Edwards could have run, even if he was trying.

"You're leaving now, Ensign," Archer shouted through the com. "That's an order. We're transporting Edwards out."

Mayweather cursed. He hated leaving a man behind and he'd seen what the transporter could do. Novakovich was lucky to be alive, in Mayweather's opinion. But he wasn't going to get close to that stupid beam. It was scarier to him than the aliens approaching Edwards.

"Get away from the door," he said to Cutler, then hit the lift controls.

Cutler grabbed one of the seats. She was screaming something at him, something about Edwards, but he didn't hear it. He got the shuttlepod off the ground without skimming the side of the building. He went over the approaching aliens. They looked even uglier from above.

Dammit, he hated leaving Edwards there.

Alarms warned Mayweather that the door was still open, but he didn't care. He'd put a few klicks between him and those creatures; then he would slow enough to get the hatch closed.

Wind whipped at him as the shuttlepod moved inland, away from the alien village, skimming over the trees and rocks.

Cutler pulled herself into the seat beside him. Her normally neat hair was plastered against her face. She was sweating and pale.

"Edwards was beamed out," she said. She must have seen it. Mayweather missed that part, and he was heartily glad.

"But," Cutler said, "I think they got an alien with him."

Mayweather thought about the transporter alcove. Edwards would arrive in that tiny space with a huge creature beside him. Or around him. No one would be expecting it, and they would all dive for cover.

What would the thing do when it realized it was on the Enterprise? What could those things do? He hadn't seen a face or claws. But they had been able to build those incredible structures, so somehow these aliens used tools.

He shuddered. "I'm glad I'm not up there at the moment. I wouldn't want to be the first one to come face-to-face with that giant spider-thing in a small hallway."

"Let's hope there's a ship left up there when we get back," Cutler said. She didn't seem to be kidding. But then, he'd already been introduced to her imagination, filled with Martian flying lizards, collapsing bridges, and ruined cities. Of course she would think the worst.

The shuttlepod whipped slightly with the wind. Cutler pulled strands of hair out of her face. "Would you mind slowing down a little?"

He glared at her.

"I want to close the hatch," she said. "It's windy in here."

Windy. The wind wasn't bothering her and he knew it. The close brush with death was. Death or whatever was going to happen when those huge aliens reached the shuttlepod.

Whatever might have been happening to Edwards.

Mayweather put those thoughts out of his mind. He slowed the shuttlepod, made it hover, and watched as Cutler pulled the hatch closed. She settled in beside him. The interior of the shuttle felt almost normal now.

Almost. He'd never flown it with a complement this small.

"Let's get the hell out of here," he said, and blasted the shuttlepod for orbit.

The moment Captain Archer gave the order for the emergency beam-out, Lieutenant Reed and two of his crew fell into position beside the transporter pad. They had drilled for this-an emergency beam-out triggered by an alien attack-but they'd never experienced it.

He'd been warned that anything could come through that transporter-and he'd seen what "anything" meant when Novakovich came through weeks ago, twigs and debris fused with his body.

But the transporter technology had other inaccuracies as well, and one of the reasons Reed drilled his team for just this moment was something he really didn't want to contemplate.

What if the beam caught the aliens, but not the crewman? What if Edwards was still down there, suffering whatever it was that he'd been suffering when Archer ordered the beam-out?

There was no way to tell. Archer had ordered the shuttlepod to leave.

Reed held his phase pistol tightly, preparing to use it as the beam particles materialized on the pad. Lots of dark matter. Lots of unrecognizable body parts. Hairy black legs that had inverted joints. A black carapace and a human arm.

Reed froze, not wanting to see what was coming next. Man fused with alien, both dead. Everyone knew that was a possibility. No one wanted to deal with it. Not even his team, who shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

The beam-in seemed to take forever, even though Reed knew it only took a few seconds. And as it completed, Reed realized that the tangle of arms and black alien legs hadn't happened because the two beings had fused together, but because they had been beamed up side by side, so close that they seemed tangled.

His relief vanished almost as quickly as it appeared. The alien was huge, spiderlike, and strong. Edwards wasn't small and the creature was at least twice his size. On that small pad, it was hard to tell where one stopped and the other started.

The transport finished, the beam of light faded, and for a moment, everything seemed frozen in time.

Then Edwards screamed, the most skin-crawling scream of fear and pain Reed had ever heard.

The alien moved all of its eight legs at the same time, whipping them up and around, knocking into Edwards and the walls.

Reed and his two men fired.

The shots, set to stun, hit and knocked out both Edwards and the creature. They both slumped to the small transporter pad, tangled together.

Reed moved over and tapped the communications link on the wall. "Reed to Dr. Phlox. I have a medical emergency. I'm bringing in Crewman Edwards and an alien captive."

"One of the creatures from the southern continent?" Phlox sounded as if he were rubbing his hands together in delight-certainly not the reaction Reed was having. The transport area smelled strongly of dead fish, and the stench was making Reed's eyes water.

"Yes, it is," Reed said, "and I do believe it's quite dangerous."

"Believe?" Phlox asked.

"It's unconscious at the moment-or it seems to be." Reed motioned for his men to get Edwards out of there. They seemed reluctant to approach the alien. He found that indicative of the alien's repulsive looks. Reed had chosen his security team for their fortitude as well as their fighting abilities.

"Well, I'll see what I can do with it," Phlox said. "Bring it all in."

"Edwards is coming first."

"Of course," Phlox said, as if they'd already discussed that. And then the com made a slight thunk as he let it go.

Reed let his side go as well, and went to help his men. The stench was so strong here it was palpable. The air was thick with it, making it hard to breathe.

Reed's men were having trouble moving the creature's hairy legs to get at Edwards. Reed reached in, grabbed Edwards' boots, and nearly recoiled as one of the alien legs brushed against his hand.

The hair was slimy.

A shudder of disgust ran through Reed, but he said nothing. He helped his men free Edwards, then put his hands on his hips. Somehow he had to get that alien to sickbay.

And he knew that it wasn't going to be a task that he would enjoy.

Captain's log.

Vulcan Subcommander T'Pol has been critical of my allowing a shuttlepod to land and collect information on the ground in one of the southern continent's alien villages. She was firmly against it to begin with, and now that there has been a problem with Crewman Edwards and an accidental abduction of one of the aliens, she is being very cold and silent. And that's saying something for a Vulcan.

I have to admit, she might have been right in this case, as she was with the Fazi. It might have been more prudent to wait and study the aliens from orbit. I am assuming that at some point in the future of Earth's exploration of space, there will be guidelines and regulations about how to make this contact.

Clearly the Vulcans have such rules. I've spent years rebelling against them, but now, in this situation, their rules are starting to make some sense. However, until this is all settled, I will not tell T'Pol I am starting to see the value in going slower with first-contact situations.