It didn't know how long it had been here. It had a distant, vague remembrance of being not here, of coming alive lost in coldness, weakened and crazed by its craving, then traversing the galaxy, through silence and stars for time unknown before being drawn to this place. A place that was also achingly cold above, yet not far below was tunneled through with vast, countless chambers filled with glowing magma and delicious heat. It slipped into a fracture in the earth, and that heat was enough to satiate it, for a while; it gorged on it then dozed, lurking in the crevices and reservoirs, occasionally sending out tendrils of itself to explore, searching always for new cavities of the energy that sustained it.

When the heat began to ebb, it awoke in fits, vibrating with hunger and the fierce, mindless need of it. It drifted, sluggish, through its system of underground pools of heat and shafts, until it found the source and the cause of its fading food supply, an enormous, volatile pool of magma. After slinking through a series of narrowing pipes, as invisible as the river of heated air it drifted upon, it was disgorged into a kind of place that was altogether new to it. It sensed that it was above its habitat now, on the surface of the planet. The heat from its home was spewing out all around it, wasted, lost and unconsumed.

But it was there that it also discovered an entirely different kind of energy, tiny pockets of energy that were much more potent, and that seemed to exist in endless quantities, in constant motion on the surface. With some experimentation and practice, it found it could slip into these discrete, glowing entities, and by doing so, drain the energy and transfer it to itself. It decided that this was a far more pleasurable experience than suckling at the viscous fluid emanating from the rock of this planet.

Only by chance, it learned that if it pushed itself into an entity in a certain way, it could catalyze the conversion of its energy enough to cause it to also destroy other nearby entities for its consumption. This chain reaction was more efficient, but as it became more skillful, eventually its gluttony begat recklessness, and it inadvertently touched off an energy event that in short order snuffed out every one of them on the planet. Upon consuming such a large meal at once, it was too dazed and engorged to ponder the consequences of this accident as it slithered back to its caverns.

There it slept, but after an unknown passage of time, when it detected the presence of new entities near the great opening that spewed ash and fire into the air, it roused itself and bellowed at its hunger. It moved upward, then merged with the lava that poured down so it could observe them, unseen and unseeable. These were different, and intriguing. With its first taste it found that that they were even more combustible than the previous entities, and they were soon harvested. Another group appeared, and it consumed them as well after noting with interest that increased energy eruptions from the ground amplified the intensity of their energy.

When yet another group descended upon the flank of the dome it considered its lair, it decided to delay its feeding, and instead lurked along behind the entities as they returned, to its surprise, the same inside place from which it had first emerged ages ago. It did not know how long it would be before it would be able to hunt again, so it toyed with these, sliding itself in and out of them, sipping at them, pushing at them again and again in the way that made them flare up and burn brightly until it withdrew, sated for a time. This time, it discovered that for some of them, its prodding produced greater spikes in energy if done when the dark sky was ribboned with energy it could not reach. Then it tired of these as they began to dim, and it finished them off.

To its delight and wonder, no sooner than it had sucked out the last whisp from them than more came along, and this time—now adept at regulating its feeding cycle—it was ready to amuse itself. These entities were full of bright, clean, vibrant energy; yet like all the others, they had shadows that flickered dark and volatile, that it knew could be exploited for energy gains. It had already consumed the one that it identified as the most easily ignited, then encountered unexpected resistance in others. But it had all of the time in the universe, and had developed the ability to lie in wait and observe. After a while, it sent out tiny coils, probing at the three closest to it with a barely-restrained shiver of desire.

Kirk had never been an enthusiastic student of art. He was a natural when it came to graffiti, but that was the extent of his hands-on experience with media and substrate, if spray paint and the underside of the Old Man's Creek bridge counted.

Nevertheless, he was driven by a relentless need to learn and understand the universe around him, and that by default included the visual arts. Years go, McCoy had asked him about this need, and he'd shot back that if the doctor was a whiz kid genius, he'd understand. He knew, but hadn't yet got around to contemplating, that the doctor's sour expression was trying to tell him that there was something more complicated behind his near-compulsion.

So he could expound at length on Paleolithic versus Holocene cave paintings, the differences between Etruscan and early Greek sculpture, the evolution of Chinese ink painting, and the historical implications of the Neo-Vulcan period in Earth's late twenty-first century. He could recite the thirty-seven dynasties of Gorn heraldic crests and provide an example of most of them. He could date the era of an Andorian chest and identify the three subtypes of Antican war masks.

He could not, however, dredge up one iota of interest in those topics beyond the satisfaction reaped from knowing that he knew more about them than anyone else in his circle.

This reflection and the resulting insight was prodding uncomfortably at the edge of his awareness when he passed the last of the statuary and moved into a smaller gallery. When he stopped and held his torch up to the first wall mural he encountered, then the second and the third, he began to suspect that this art and his understanding of it was going to be very different than any he had previously encountered.

"This doesn't make sense," McCoy muttered. His tricorder beeped at him from where it lay on the floor, next to Rand's shoulder, as he ran his scanner over her. She had drifted into unconsciousness for no discernible reason. He reached over without looking, muted the alarms and peered at the imaging of her wound. "Not perfect, but good enough for now with what we have, and there's no internal bleeding. It's like something's draining her...Uhura, will you—"

"No."

He looked up and blinked at her.

It was a little confusing at first, but after examining three of the murals, Jim realized that they were, from his perspective, in reverse order. He figured that if this civilization possessed the same linear concept of time as most humanoids, then the first in the series must be at the opposite end of the gallery.

So he skipped, for now, the intervening ten paintings and strode toward the other end, torch guiding his path, and started over at the beginning. And as he reflected upon the first, taking in the technique, the subject, the composition, he came to the bleak realization that all of his book learning about symbolism, intention, context, bias—all of the points upon which he could prattle on about at great length if called upon—was irrelevant here. It was plain to him that these works were meant to be a literal illustration of events that the creator knew may not be easily transmitted via other means. That they had known if someone else came along after their terror was over, pictures might be the most effective way to tell their story and to warn off others. This gallery was at once a history of their lived experience and a cautionary tale. He now saw the things that he and his crew had experienced since their arrival through a new lens.

"Fuck," he muttered, and swung his torch around, then ran as quickly as his feet would take him.

McCoy had come to expect exceptional equanimity from Uhura. After all, it was a defining characteristic of a comms officer, even written into the soft skills job expectations, though it was of course done up in the typically turgid bureaucratic language of Starfleet personnel. Ability to prioritize multiple competing requests from various command levels, maintain composure in stressful or life-threatening situations, delegate tasks to junior officers as necessary, adapt communication style and manner as needed and appropriate, etc. etc.

He had watched her develop all of that, and much more, since their first meeting. Looking back, it was ridiculous that Kirk had introduced the two of them upon exiting that shuttle ride from the Riverside Shipyard as if she and Jim were already life-long bosom buddies, but they had connected right then and there in the Academy shuttle bay, shouting hellos over the noisy blowback of cooling engines. It was only ever platonic; she had even then been somehow, inexplicably, ensnared by Spock's cool distance; and he, having just escaped the Fulton County Courthouse with not much more than the clothes on his back, had no interest in romantic entanglements, so it was a friendship of no pressure and no expectations. At first, he was charmed by the agility of her mind, and she was intrigued by his veneer of studied cynicism, but their affection and mutual respect had deepened over the years into a fondness that went far beyond the professional.

He almost didn't recognize her now, as she stood there in the shadows, hands on her hips, her expression cold.

"No," she spat out. "You've been ordering me around since we got here, like I'm one of your fawning peons in sick bay, and I've had enough."

He could handle hostility, hatred, indifference, pity, disgust, and almost any other emotion that had been hurled at him over the years. But what he felt radiating from Uhura was contempt, the one emotion that had loomed large and on display for all in that courtroom years ago, and that could still flood him with self-loathing. He dropped his scanner and pushed up to stand and face her. This close, she had to crane her neck to meet his eyes.

"You think you're too good for this? Did you forget that I know where you're from? And what you've done?" The words came out of his mouth unintended, and he watched in disbelief as his hands pushed her backwards. She stumbled and caught her footing, but he was larger and far stronger and suddenly she was backed up against the wall, pinned by his hands on her shoulders and a knee between her legs. He was panting, sweat collecting at the nape of his neck, and even while a distant voice in the back of his head was shrieking at him to stop, he felt a jolt like electricity slam into him and cut off all but the blaring, throbbing need to crush and consume.

"I outrank you, remember?" he growled. "I can order you to scuttle around doing whatever I want." He saw with horror that one of his hands had drifted from her shoulder of its own volition and was closing around her long, slender neck.

She gasped and tried to pull away when his fingers slid up to her jawline and tightened there, then she stilled and gave him a defiant glare that was mixed with something he had never seen and never wanted to see from her. "What do you want me to do?" she hissed. "Or do you want to do something to me?"

He watched her color darken as his fingers found her carotid arteries and squeezed. One part of his brain observed that evolution had left the human body with far too many fragilities, while another part filled his vision with the blinding, pulsing need that had taken control of him. His face was inches from hers, and he shuddered in despair as he inhaled the fear that oozed from her pores.

"Do it. Do it," she begged, trembling under him. "Do it. You know I want it." Her breath took on a wheezing sound and her eyes filled with tears that would not fall. She grabbed his other hand and clenched it against her stomach, her nails biting into his palm, and pulled him against her. His thumb slid up and the black spots in her vision cleared, but at the look in his eyes—eyes that were dark and foreign—her tears finally coursed down her cheeks and she heard herself choke out a final word.

"Please."

The pounding of boots on stone slabs was at first only a distant distraction from the events unfolding between them, then the noise became unavoidable. When it stopped abruptly, there was a split second of shocked silence, then a shout.

"Bones!"

Something tore away in his head with a rage and agony that left him sucking at air, and then he saw his hand around her neck and her hand around his, and he splayed his fingers out, shaking her off, and backed away. His vision tunneled and he felt himself crumpling down, and was grateful that there was a wall close by to lean into when his arms went windmilling out.

"Uhura, are you all right?" He heard that as from far away, his ears still ringing, muffled, but he recognized Jim's voice.

Then hands gripped his arms. "I guess it liked the first bite of you so much that it came back for seconds."

He was still trying to puzzle through that when the hands yanked upwards and he found himself standing, unsteady, but upright again. He put out a hand, groping for the support of the wall, then dared to look and saw Jim in front of him, eyes anxious, darting from him and Uhura. She was several steps to his right, but seemed a universe away, her arms crossed around her, bent over and making a desperate whimpering sound that made his heart hurt and his toes curl up in his boots.

Kirk swallowed and closed his eyes for a minute, then looked at McCoy with a gaze the doctor could not ignore. "Okay. Okay. We're okay."

Are we? McCoy wondered, but the captain continued, resolute.

"You need to come with me and see something." He tugged at McCoy's arm. "Both of you."

The doctor took a step forward automatically, then was struck with a memory of duty. "I can't leave her," he said, gesturing toward Rand. "She's...something's wrong. And Chekov, he could wake up any minute."

"If you don't see this, it won't matter, Bones. Come on, showing you will be faster than trying to explain. Bring a lantern."

McCoy wasn't in the mood for an art exhibit, but when he switched the lantern on and lit up the gallery like daytime, he could understand the captain's urgency. He had to step back to take in the scale of the series of more than a dozen murals, stretching from floor to nearly the ceiling. He was no critic, but could recognize that the artist had brought a strong aesthetic sense and careful technique even to these minimalist works.

Starting at the beginning, the first few depicted what he assumed were glimpses of an ordinary day in the life of the previous inhabitants of this planet: building, playing, working, learning. The figures in the paintings had a benevolence about them, a dreamy contentment.

Then came a focus on the volcanic regions of the planet and a nearly blueprint-like map of some sort of mechanical system. The next painting seemed to portray the emergence of an indistinct fog emerging from that system.

"That looks like the underground generator complex," Uhura said, her voice hoarse.

The remaining paintings traced out a progression of events, from a gradual madness overtaking their populace; then outbreaks of violence in many forms, from rioting to murder; and finally a planet-wide war with weapons of mass destruction. It was clear that the paintings had been completed in haste; particularly near the end, the artist had dispensed with any unnecessary or ornamental elements. The final piece was unfinished, a container of paint tipped over underneath, its contents long dried in a small puddle.

"Do you see it?" Kirk asked, his hushed voice echoing in the chamber.

McCoy stepped closer to the third painting. "They tapped into something when they built their geothermal systems? Or awakened it?"

"I think it's a record of what happened, but also a warning for anyone else who might end up here," Kirk said. "I think T'Mar figured it out and tried to stop it by shutting down the generator because she knew the volcanoes were the source, and she switched off the comms thinking that if they couldn't call for help, maybe no one would come here, and the violence would end."

"The failing neutralizers made us more vulnerable. And of course Starfleet would investigate. She wasn't thinking clearly."

"Obviously. What could do something like this? Is it sentient?"

"How could it be, if it's non-corporeal?" Uhura said, her voice stronger now. "We haven't seen anything or picked up anything on our instruments, so it must be invisible or nearly so, like that." She pointed at the gaseous cloud-like shape in the generator painting.

"But it's not entirely invisible, is it? I can't be the only one who's been seeing things out of the corner of my eye this whole time?" McCoy asked, eyebrows raised, and there was a moment of awkward silence that told him all he needed to know.

Jim cleared his throat. "Whatever it is, it hasn't gone away. Not as long as it has something to infiltrate."

"A creature without form, that feeds on horror and fear, and that must assume a physical shape to kill. How do we beat something we can't see?"

"We don't have to beat it, Bones, we just have to outlast it. Isn't it odd, though, that none of us have felt...you know...especially murderous for a little while?"

They looked around at each other, McCoy and Uhura glancing away quickly. The captain's lips thinned and he glanced toward the entrance to the gallery. "Let's get back to the others. We should be able to contact the ship in a few hours. We just have to watch out for each other."

McCoy saw his chance and seized at the possibility. "I've got some stuff that would tranquilize an active volcano, Jim. I could knock all of us out, or at least make us very happy until Spock comes looking for us. I suspect the creature wouldn't be able to cause any harm if we can't feel anger or fear."

Kirk was quiet, and the doctor thought he might be considering it, then the captain stopped and spun around to face them. "Lights out!" he whispered. He and Uhura extinguished their lantern and torch. They stood silently in the dark, halfway across the statuary garden, waiting for an indication of whatever had caused Kirk to halt. McCoy could hear the faintest rasp of Uhura's breath and caught himself from reaching out to touch her.

Then they heard what had caught the edge of Kirk's hearing. A distant scraping sound, followed by a louder, prolonged squeal of metal against stone. It was a sound they had all heard just the previous day, though it seemed now to be eons ago. It was the smaller, rusty-hinged door at the main entrance of the structure. There was a muffled exchange between at least two different voices, but it was not the familiar intonation and flow of Standard or any other language typically spoken on a Federation starship. Above the occasional guttural utterance came a sibilance that caused Uhura to lean toward Kirk.

"Orions," she murmured into the air between them. He reached behind himself, groping into the darkness until he touched McCoy's shoulder and found Uhura's wrist.

"Stay here," he whispered, and gripped his hands around them tightly in warning. He felt for his phaser and drew it, flicking the safety off, then crept toward the archway that separated the great statues from the center atrium, where he could still hear the voices. As he approached, their tone became increasingly strident, if he could assume that human vocal characteristics also applied to Orions. He reached the edge of the archway and leaned into a shadowy alcove to peered out.

Closer to him was an Orion male, bald, his skin a sickly green glow in the torch that was strapped to his upper arm. He was flanked by a female who held a hand weapon trained on another female they were slowly circling, who was snarling and brandishing a wicked looking blade as they drove her toward the empty fountain. The male drew a disruptor from inside his tunic and shouted in rage when it failed to fire. Panting, sweat streaming down his face, he dropped the disruptor and reached for a long object strapped at his hip, what appeared to be an ice axe, and Kirk screwed his eyes shut as he swung it at the opposing female with a roar. When the shrieks faded and he dared opened his eyes again, he tried not to look at the remains splattered along the floor. Before he could process what was happening, the second female let out a screech of rage and drew from her hip a whip on the male.

He tensed when he heard something behind him and turned, phaser raised, then realized it was McCoy, holding Rand in his arms.

"We could hear it, too," he breathed. "Thought we should strike while the iron is hot—if we can sneak past them and get outside, we may be able to hide until the ship is back in range."

Kirk nodded, then realized the doctor could not see him. "Right. I'll get Chekov. We'll have to come back for Galliulin."

When Kirk returned, Chekov still lolling unconscious in his arms, the female was backing the male up against the staircase, growling and snapping the whip at him. They crept into the atrium, hugging the wall, but the male caught sight of them as he reached the head of the stairs and he shouted in their direction. The female jerked her head around and bared her teeth at them, then her eyes widened in surprise as the male reached down and twisted her neck with a snap that echoed across the atrium. From the top of the staircase, he stared first at her body, then at their small group, as they inched their way to the door. His gaze followed them but he made no move to attack. McCoy wondered briefly if the Orions had succumbed so quickly to the effects of the creature due to their pheromones. Confusion and fear flickered across the alien's face, and he looked down at the blood splattered across his tunic with horror. The doctor hesitated just before Uhura reached out toward the door.

"Jim—"

"Bones, I know, but—"

A howl from above cut the captain off and they turned as one to watch as the Orion's body slammed into the stone floor with a sickening thud.

McCoy sighed and muttered a curse under his breath, and nodded at Kirk. "All right, then, let's go." He snagged a coat from the entryway hooks where the scientists had hung theirs, and Uhura grabbed as many as she could carry on the way out.

The aurora had retreated into a few feeble, flickering fingers stretching up from the horizon. Stars glittered and blinked in the inky sky. The crunch of their boots into the icy crust and their breath, harsh in the brutal cold, were the only sounds.

"We need to put these on," McCoy jerked his head to indicate the coats in Uhura's arms, "then find a hollow or somewhere out of the wind as much as possible." His jaw was already clenched against the chattering that threatened. The captain didn't respond, his eyes narrowed into the distance. "Jim, did you hear me?"

"Or," Kirk said slowly, "we could abscond with an Orion shuttlecraft."

"What?" McCoy squinted against the darkness in the direction Kirk was looking. "Are you hallucinating again, Jim? Didn't they beam down here?"

Uhura laughed softly, ignoring McCoy. "Yes, I see it, too, Captain. First thing that's gone right down here."

McCoy still couldn't make out what they were talking about, but he trudged along in their wake, and as they drew closer to the far end of the pathway cut into the ice that led to the building's entrance, an object gradually resolved into a vaguely shuttle-shaped shape. Its dull gray hull gleamed in the starlight, and a dim yellowish light glowed from within. McCoy thought it was quite possibly the most lovely shuttlecraft he had ever seen.

"Think you can fly that thing?"

Kirk looked over his shoulder, the old familiar cocky look in his eyes, but Uhura spoke up first.

"Why would they leave the lights on?" she whispered, suddenly wary, as she shrugged her arms into a coat that was far too large for her.

Realization dawned in the captain's eyes, but before he could respond, a fourth Orion, another male, appeared from the aft of the shuttlecraft. He trudged through the snow in large, flat boots, eyes downcast and muttering indistinctly to himself. Kirk spied what appeared to be a phaser rifle slung across his back. He looked down at Chekov in his arms, and Rand in McCoy's, and realized they were the proverbial fish in a barrel. He motioned them backwards into the shadows. He drew his phaser and saw with dismay that the power indicator was blinking, indicating that it was out of power.

"If we're lucky," he murmured, "his phaser's drained just like ours."

McCoy gave him an almost-feral grin, just visible in the murky, pre-dawn light that tinged the far horizon just a shade lighter of purple. "Distract him," he said, and knelt to carefully place Rand on the snow. He covered her with the coat he carried, hoping that the adrenaline he expected to shortly begin coursing through him would make him oblivious to the cold.

Kirk stared at him. He was unaccustomed to the doctor volunteering for potentially hazardous duty.

"Do it!" McCoy hissed.

The captain placed Chekov on the ground and the young man moaned, his eyelids fluttering. They froze as Kirk peered around the bank of snow, then breathed out in relief when he gave an all clear signal—the Orion was still oblivious to their presence. He gestured at Uhura to join him, and she stepped past McCoy without a glance.

"Hey! You!" Her voice rang out in the blanketed stillness. The doctor slid into the darkness in the opposite direction, disappearing behind the shuttle as the Orion's head jerked up in surprise. Uhura strode toward the craft, Kirk close behind, and smiled at the frozen shock on the Orion's face. He reached for the phaser rifle strapped across his back and fumbled with the cord that held it in place, giving Kirk the split second he needed to land a palm heel strike on the man's nose. It was a glancing blow, just enough to stun him until McCoy could do whatever it was he planned to do. The Orion roared, more insulted than injured, and Kirk was about to open his mouth to call out for McCoy when the doctor appeared behind the alien and jammed a hypo into his neck with a force that made Kirk wince. He slumped against the shuttle and slid down, his coat sliding up behind him as his eyes fluttered shut.

"Never carry your weapon on your back," Kirk said, looking down at him. "That's a rookie mistake." The Orion snarled, but it was weak, and his hand slid down to rest at his side and twitched there.

"I'm glad I had Tova pack extras," McCoy said to no one in particular, then leaned against the hull of the shuttle, his knees suddenly weak from exhaustion and a myriad other things that would need working through. "Can we get the hell out of here now, Captain?"