Stardate 2261.074
Kirk led the way back to the building with Spock bringing up the rear and keeping an eye on McCoy who, in Spock's opinion, was acting peculiar. His attention was quickly drawn back to Kirk as the Captain began cursing.
"Gone. Both of them. When we find them, it will be time for Professor Crater to learn the difference between an order and a suggestion."
Pulling out his communicator, Kirk's voice was even and cold as he contacted his first man.
"Sturgeon - report."
There was no response, which did nothing to cool Kirk's temper.
"Spock, put a tracer on Sturgeon's communicator."
Pulling forward his tricorder, Spock rapidly input the settings and checked the readings.
"Sturgeon's communicator is 74.83 meters in that direction."
"Lead the way, Spock."
Even with being cautious in their approach, it didn't take the trio long to cover that distance. To Kirk's surprise, they found not only Sturgeon, but Professor Crater as well. Sturgeon's face was turned toward them and displayed the same circling markings that Darnell had. Crater was doing something to the body, but quite frankly, Kirk didn't care what he was doing. As Crater turned toward the approaching officers, Kirk didn't wait for any explanation. The stun dropped the man at Sturgeon's side.
Unnoticed by Kirk or Spock, McCoy had turned his head as if hearing something and moved off in a different direction. He was already out of sight when Kirk grabbed Crater by his shirt and began to question him.
If there had been anyone near McCoy to ask him what he was doing, he wouldn't have had a sensible answer for them other than to say that he had felt drawn suddenly as if hearing a shout. What he really didn't expect was to come around a rock formation and see Nancy with her hands pressed against Green's face which was contorted in agony.
His immediate response was to grab Nancy to pull her away from Green, but Nancy didn't even bother to look to see who was trying to interfere. Taking one hand away from Green's face, she struck out and easily knocked McCoy away from her. Caught off-guard by her strength, McCoy's head collided with one of the rocks. He fell to the ground, stunned and barely conscious.
Returning her hand to Green's face, Nancy's expression became one of ecstasy as Green shuddered and died. Wetting her lips, she glanced toward the sky. Somewhere up above them were more of these humans than she'd ever dreamed of. All she had to do was figure a way up there. Smiling, she pulled out the communicator she had taken from Darnell's body as her appearance shifted to that of Green.
"Green to Transporter room. One to beam up."
At the controls to the transporter, Kyle immediately contacted the Bridge.
"Mister Scott, Crewman Green is requesting to beam aboard."
Scott almost told Kyle to go ahead and quit bothering him, but he stopped himself and had Chekov do a quick frequency check. The results had him getting back with Kyle immediately.
"Do not beam him aboard. Tell him that we're in the middle of a diagnostic and will beam him up in about fifteen minutes or so when they're finished."
"Aye, Mister Scott."
That done, Scott contacted the Captain.
Kirk was disgusted and shoved Crater away. Still addled by the stun blast, the man wasn't making any sense as he spoke seemingly without rhyme or reason about his wife and buffalo and preservation. From where he had be listening, Spock remained quiet though he noted to himself, as Kirk had before, that Crater always referred to his wife in the past tense.
Before either man could do or say more, Kirk's communicator chirped.
"Scott here, Captain. We just received a request to be beamed aboard from Green. Mister Kyle dinnae feel right about it and contacted me. Chekov checked the transmissions log and the call came from the communicator assigned to Darnell - same as the request to beam down salt came from."
It was at this point that Spock noted that McCoy was missing and he quickly entered the information needed to track the doctor's location by his communicator while continuing to listen to the conversation between Scott and Kirk.
"You didn't beam him aboard, did you?"
"No, sir. I told Mister Kyle to tell Green that we were in the middle of a diagnostic and would beam him aboard once we were done."
"Good. Give me the coordinates."
Spock was looking at his screen as Scott read off the location of Darnell's communicator.
"Captain, those coordinates are within less than a meter of Doctor McCoy's current location."
Scowl fully in place, Kirk indicated Crater.
"Bring him, Spock. I don't know exactly how he's involved in all of this, but I plan to find out."
The fake Green frowned at the delay and finally turned to take a good look at who she had knocked away earlier. Seeing McCoy, she bit one knuckle while thinking, then moved to Green's body, intending to drag it out of sight. That was interrupted by the sound of Kirk and Spock approaching with Crater.
Frustrated, Green's features shifted back to Nancy's as McCoy began to get unsteadily back to his feet. When McCoy looked up, their eyes met and he suddenly found himself unable to move and he knew now why there hadn't been any signs of struggle with Darnell. A shudder ran through him as whatever it was spoke in Nancy's voice.
"It's a shame. I liked your thoughts better than Bob's. So much stronger. So much deeper. But they wouldn't take Green back to the ship. I bet they'll take you though."
That was the scene that Kirk and Spock came upon. To Spock, McCoy seemed strangely still with his eyes fixated on a woman he assumed to be Mrs. Crater. Kirk's focus was on Nancy as she was walking toward McCoy with her hands extended. Thinking she was going to cling to the doctor as she had when Darnell had been found, Kirk's irritation mixed with his jealousy as he growled and shot her.
Her reaction to the shot was not what Kirk had expected. Instead of dropping as Professor Crater had, she looked at him - and before his eyes, changed to McCoy.
"Jim . . . don't."
A rapid adjustment moving his phaser to the strongest setting and firing a second time was Kirk's only response. McCoy dropped to his knees like a puppet whose strings had been cut as Kirk stared at the now still body before them. Spock released his hold on Crater's arm, cautiously moved forward and took a reading to verify that it was dead.
The readings confirmed it was no longer alive. so Spock moved to examine it closer. Leathery greenish-grey skin covered with greyish-white fur. Discs not unlike the suction cups found on octopus tentacles lined the underside of long fingers and the sizes of those discs corresponded to the marks that had been found on their dead crewmen. Little doubt this was the creature that had killed their crewmen.
As Spock looked up from the creature to where McCoy was still kneeling, the sight of blood coming from the doctor's hairline down onto his forehead was his first indication that McCoy hadn't been simply stunned by the appearance of the creature.
"Captain, it appears the doctor was attacked as well."
That snapped Kirk out of staring at the beast and he joined Spock at McCoy's side. Picking up McCoy's tricorder, Spock used it to verify his suspicions that McCoy was suffering from a concussion. The cut and lump from where his head had connected with the rock would require tending, but weren't life threatening.
McCoy's voice was barely over a whisper.
"You saw through them."
Not about to correct McCoy's assumption at the moment, Kirk settled down next to him and looked over McCoy's wound himself.
"What happened, Bones?"
"I heard something - or I thought I did. I thought she was in trouble, but when I got her, she . . . her hands were on Green's face and he was in pain. I reached out to touch her shoulder and she swatted me away. So strong - stronger than Spock maybe. When I looked again, she changed. Became Green and contacted the ship."
Kirk noticed that McCoy couldn't bring himself to say Nancy. It was also easy to tell McCoy was still having problems processing everything with his throbbing head, but Kirk pressed a bit more.
"Why didn't you say anything when we came?"
"Couldn't. Don't know exactly what she . .. it did, but I couldn't move. I watched it coming toward me and I couldn't do a thing."
Kirk looked up to Spock, then over to where Professor Crater was. Spock nodded and silently left to watch their prisoner. Once alone, Kirk pulled McCoy closer to him.
"Easy, Bones. You were right. I didn't put the pieces together fast enough, but between you and Darnell, I should have figured it out quicker."
Seeing the puzzled look forming on McCoy's face, Kirk elaborated on what he'd said.
"Looking back, it seems obvious. When I looked at Nancy Crater, I didn't see an attractive woman, but you saw the same woman you'd seen ten years ago. Sure, that could have been written off by you seeing her through rose-colored glasses, but that wouldn't have explained Darnell's reaction. Remember?"
Lifting a hand to his aching head, McCoy thought back.
"He asked if she had worked at the Lagoon Lounge on Risa. I remember when you took me there once. All the workers there wore next to nothing."
Understanding seemed to break on McCoy like a wave.
"It said it liked my thoughts. We all saw a different woman. It didn't change shape, it changed how we saw it."
The coloration shift on McCoy was one Kirk knew all too well and he quickly shifted to support the doctor while his body purged everything in his stomach. Once McCoy was finished, Kirk began speaking.
"And that was exactly what you suggested to me that we were looking for. A creature that could trick the mind and was intelligent. You weren't the one thinking with the wrong head, Bones. That was me."
"It was about to kill me when you showed up, you know. It wanted on the Enterprise. Hell, it was practically drooling over the thought of how many people were up there."
Spock was there again without warning, offering over a blanket. Crater was nowhere to be seen, but Kirk trusted his First had made sure the man wouldn't escape. He made Immediate use of the blanket, wrapping it around McCoy who was shivering in spite of the warmth of the rocks they were next to - a sign of shock. All things considered, Kirk figured if anyone was entitled to a case of shock, it was McCoy.
"Rest for a little while, Bones. The thing is dead. We tend to cleaning this mess up later."
