Chapter 6 - On Dead Man's Chest

Captain Kirk crawled up on the rough rock surface to get away from the cold waves. It wasn't much of an island, just a piece of old volcanic rock with large boulders on it, like the back of a whale balancing beach balls. He was not alone, there were two others in the biting wind with him. Kirk stroked his wet hair away from his forehead.

"What happened?"

"The planet farted so hard it blew a hole in the sea and we fell into it." Lily-Lee sat and hugged her knees.

"What? I never thought I'd say this, but Spock, could you explain that in more technical terms?"

"Certainly, captain. We ascertained earlier that there has been geodynamic activity in the mid-ocean rift of this planet, and such events have released large amounts of fossil gas. The Galileo happened to pass through just such an eruption, where the gas bubbles rose to the surface and, when displacing the water, also removed the semi-solid surface the shuttle was at the moment using to stabilise itself against."

"That's what I said. It's freezing here, especially with that wind. You're starting to look cold, Spock. How are you holding up?" When she said that, Kirk realised that he was stuck on a frigid lump of stone with waves splashing over it with one desert creature and one savannah creature. He was cold but he could manage, but could they? Spock was sitting down, looking pale and hardly moving, but Lily-Lee looked pink and toasty. Kirk came over and touched her head, it felt pleasantly warm against his cold hand. She looked up and saw his puzzled face.

"I'm burning fat for heat. My kind has brown adipose tissue that can do that. Unfortunately, it comes with a cost. To be precise, it comes with the cost of burning over 4000 calories per day, which I don't have."

"In that case you have exchanged death from hypothermia in 3.45 hours to death from starvation in 7 days and 5.4 hours, given a weight of 25kg. Perfectly logical." Spock's voice was strained. Kirk looked at him with concern.

"And what about yourself?"

"The risk of death from starvation is negligible. Death from hypothermia should occur in 17.2 hours assuming the present conditions are unaltered."

"So we'll alter the conditions!" But how? Stuck on this god-forsaken piece of rock in this weather. Kirk sat down next to the others and tried to think of something. However, his science staff was quicker thinkers than he.

"In that case, captain, you'd better sit a lot closer to Spock, to warm him a bit. You cover the back and I'll warm him from the front." There was nothing to say against that, so soon they were sitting like three lemurs on a branch.

"Thank you, captain, Lily-Lee. When my clothes are dry I should be able to manage on my own. The weather is slightly less adverse already."

"I'm getting hungry."

Lily-Lee's words reminded the captain of her problem. That seemed impossible to solve, would they have to see her starve to death? Spock and Lily-Lee were discussing the properties of the surrounding sea and for every sentence, Kirk could feel despair rising within him. This was hopeless. He leaned against Spock's back and held him tight. Maybe I could die like this. It's not so bad.

"The temperature of the sea water is exactly 8°C at the surface."

"Yeah, and there is even colder water welling up from the bottom layer on the lay side."

"Precisely. The colder water is coming from the area around the south pole of this planet."

"I'll bet it's full of dead plankton."

"Very likely, due to the shift in depth caused by the turbulence."

"Yeah. And then the stuff get rotten."

"The conclusion is obvious."

"Yep."

"There should be an abundance of nutritious organisms available."

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