Uhura tapped the commands into the console. "Come
on, honey." she urged it. "This is supposed to
*work*!"
"Ma'am, we've checked all the doors in this section.
All the same." Lieutenant (j-g) Eclson jogged across
the room, her phaser still in her hand.
'All locked? *Every* door?" Uhura asked.
"All of them, ma'am. We can work the over-rides, but
it'll take some time."
"Start with the main offices, first. We need to get
in there anyway. Damn it!"
"Still no signal, ma'am?"
"Dead as Admiral Nogura's sex life." Uhura said. "I
think that the hull here is somehow concentrating and
containing the signal interference. I'm going to try
to tap in to the main array dish from here on the
hard lines."
"We'll get on to the locks, ma'am."
"Very good." Uhura said, and then swore as a drop of
condensation splashed down from the ceiling and onto
the boards. "Life support must be malfunctioning.
You always get rain when the climate control starts
to go out. Still, it's no more that I'd expect after
this long without -"
She stopped. Eclson was staring at her, eyes wide.
"What?" Uhura asked. Another drop hit her in the
face and she wiped it away with the back of her hand.
"You never saw a wet lieutenant commander before?"
"Ma'am." Eclson said, voice shaking. "Ma'am."
Another drop. Uhura rubbed it impatiently, and saw
that Eclson's gaze was fixed on her hand. She looked
down.
The liquid on her fingertips was too thick, too
viscous, to be water. Even against her dark skin, it
gleamed with hints of red. Uhura raised her fingers
to her nose and sniffed.
The unmistakable metallic odour of blood.
Simultaneously, she and Eclson looked up.
It was the lieutenant who screamed. Later, Uhura was
almost completely certain of that.
Kirk tightened his grasp on his phaser, and then
forced himself to relax his fingers back to the
optimal hold taught in the Academy. He checked his
tricorder.
"I still can't pick them up, sir." Regna furled her
tentacles in frustration. "Not a flicker."
Kirk closed his lips on the obscenities that
threatened to escape. "Keep trying." he said. He
looked around. "Where're Clarkson and Grorania?"
Regna swivelled her eyesheafs. "They were - just
behind me sir."
"Damn." Kirk said. Those were the only the latest of
the disappearances. Nearly fifteen of his original
team of twenty had just slipped away, somehow, as
they progressed through the Starbase. Not a trace of
them could be found, not a single tricorder reading
could detect them or point the direction they had
gone. The first two to go, Lieutenant Larssen and
Yeoman Grindal, they had searched for, casting up and
down the corridors and trying doors.
All the corridors were empty.
All the doors were locked.
Kirk had been mentally composing a blistering report
on Larssen's unexpected, undeclared, unordered
departure when Lieutenant-Commander Turin had asked -
"Where's Drysden, sir?"
Drysden was nowhere to be found. Twenty minutes
later, neither was Turin. Kirk had stopped wondering
about Larssen's sudden irresponsibility and started
wondering if it would be best to fall back now, while
he still had one or two crew with him.
No. Whatever was happening, there was no sign of
violence. There was, as yet, no sign of anything, only empty
passages and locked doors and occasionally some small scrap of
rubbish or personal belonging that had been discarded - by
someone, for some reason, at some time.
"All right, let's go." Kirk said.
He tried a door out of habit, and when it was locked
started on.
"Sir! Captain! Sir!" Regna called.
Kirk turned back. The door he had just tried was no longer
locked. Indeed, it was opening. It was opening slowly,
more slowly than was usual, with a low hiss of air compressors
that sounded very loud in the vacant corridor. He had
plenty of time to stride back to it before it was more than half
open.
"Security ready." he said.
"Ready aye." came the response.
The door was opening, slowly. Just an ordinary door.
Kirk raised his phaser.
It was somebody's quarters. A long living space with
the barest minimum of furniture, just what you would
expect on a newly founded Starbase. Beyond it, a door
that must lead to the sleeping quarters. Through an
archway, Kirk could see what seemed to be a kitchen and
living area. He could dimly see a figure there, seated
at the table.
"With me." he said, and started forward.
He didn't need to take very many steps forward before
the kitchen came into clear view.
Kirk recognised the worn, middle-aged woman who had
stopped him in the corridor of the Enterprise and
thanked him for the food, for the consideration shown to
the passengers by the crew. She was seated at the
table, a plate and cutlery before her, a half-eaten meal
on the plate. In the middle of the table was the serving
platter she had dished her meal from. Her hands lay
quietly beside the knife and fork, her back was very
straight. It was exactly what Kirk would have thought
of, if he'd visualised her in her own quarters: neat,
tidy, proper table manners and proper table settings
despite the fact that she lived and ate alone, for
standards had to be maintained and manners maketh the
man. Yes, it was exactly as he would have expected.
Except for the lascivious look she gave him, licking her
lips and winking in a grotesque attempt at cottequish
seduction.
And, of course, the fact that her head was sitting on
the countertop two meters from her body.
That was enough to hold Kirk's attention for several
seconds. Then, when she improbably spoke, her voice so
proper and precise Kirk could not understand it in this
context. He stumbled forward a step, bringing up the
tricorder out of instinct. A medical impossibility, but
he had seen those before. A medical impossibility, but
if she was somehow alive he had to help her.
She spoke again, and he registered the words.
"Won't you take a seat, Captain?" she said. "There's
more than enough for two."
His gaze was irresistibly drawn to the table, to the
second place setting. To the dish of vegetables, the
carving knife, the gravy boat.
To the serving platter, and the roast upon it. The
roasted body of an infant, one leg already cut away.
The carving knife floated up off the table and spun
around.
"White meat or dark?"
Kirk turned and fled out into the outer room. The head
pursued him, bouncing up off the counter and careening
off the wall. He batted at it, then raised his phaser
and fired. Set to stun, the phaser had no effect, and
the head swooped down on him and snapped its teeth in
his face.
Reeling back and tripping over a chair, Kirk adjusted
his phaser to its highest setting and vaporised the
horrible thing. Beyond it, he could see the woman's
body getting jerkily to its feet.
Blundering backwards, Kirk fell against the closed door
and then through it as it opened automatically. He
caught himself against the wall, and turned to see the
bed was occupied by a naked young woman, her arms
outstretched to him, lips parted and eyes shining with
desire.
"Captain," she murmured throatily. "Oh, Captain. I've
been waiting, oh so long for you." She ran her hands
down her body and writhed languorously, spreading her
legs. "Please, Captain, please..."
The part of Kirk's brain that had taken refuge in noting
trivialities observed that the number of the knife hilts
protruding from her chest and belly was eleven.
"Oh, you don't know how much I've been longing for you,"
the woman said. "Please, Captain, oh please, oh
please..." As she moaned and arched her back with
pleasure, Kirk staggered away into the living space,
firing blindly at the headless body that loomed there
and then stumbling out to the corridor.
As the door hissed shut behind him he fell to his knees
and vomited. Wiping a shaking hand across his mouth, he
looked up.
He was alone.