Chapter 11
McCoy left Chapel to watch Kirk and went to the bio-comps. Kirk was, technically, holding his own. But there was some look about him which McCoy did not like, as if he were the battlefield of some conflict of forces.
McCoy had tried to rouse him and could not.
McCoy wanted Spock-possibly the Vulcan should even try the mind-meld, although God knew what effect that would have now.
What worried McCoy was that the Vulcan wasn’t in Sickbay. As a rule you couldn’t move him out with a tractor beam-short of some life-or-death crisis.
And maybe that was what it was.
The bio-comps would have nothing on this for Vulcans which McCoy did not already know.
McCoy set a scan for all known medical, biological and related information on Zarans.
ZARAN NATIVE SPECIES. ORIGINAL CULTURE NOW OBSCURED BY TERRAN-HUMAN INFILTRATION AND CONQUEST FROM LONG-JUMP SHIP ESCAPING COLLAPSE OF OLD EARTH TOTALITARIAN EMPIRES.
NATIVE ZARAN CULTURE BELIEVED ONLY EXAMPLE OF HUNTING CULTURE RAISED TO HIGH LEVEL. EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS PLANET, UNSUITED TO AGRICULTURE BUT WITH PLENTIFUL GAME AND EXCEPTIONALLY HAZARDOUS PREDATORS, DEVELOPED A STRONG, HIGHLY ADAPTABLE SPECIES ATTUNED TO THE HUNT AS SCIENCE, ART, AND BASIS OF SOCIAL ORDER AND MATING CUSTOM.
AS IN SOME FELINES-E.G., ANDORIAN GRAYTH, TERRAN LIONS, ETC.- THE FEMALES ARE THE PRIMARY HUNTRESSES.
ZARAN FEMALES APPEAR TO HAVE CERTAIN EMPATHIC AND PSIONIC POWERS USED IN THE HUNT, IN HEALING, AND IN MATING. CERTAIN ZARAN FEMALES, WHEN BONDED TO A LIFE-MATE MALE, APPEAR CAPABLE OF JOINING A HUNTING BAND INTO ONE PSIONIC UNITY.
ONE HEREDITARY STRAIN OF SUCH FEMALES APPEARED TO BE DEVELOPING THE CAPACITY TO JOIN LARGER AND LARGER UNITS, FOR LONGER PERIODS. THE LAST OF THIS LINE, ZOLANTHA, FIRST WELCOMED, THEN LED THE RESISTANCE AGAINST THE HUMAN FORCE WHICH CALLED ITSELF THE TOTALITY. HER FATE REMAINS UNKNOWN. IT IS RUMORED THAT SHE HAD A FEMALE CHILD, PERHAPS BY A HUMAN FATHER. IT IS NOT KNOWN WHETHER SUCH A HYBRID WOULD BE VIABLE….
“Want to bet?” McCoy muttered. Before he could go on, there was a crash against his door, and he turned to see Mr. Dobius stagger through it.
The giant Tanian moved like a puppet controlled by two masters-lurching one way and then another. Finally he stopped, paralyzed-and dropped as if poleaxed.
McCoy was in time to catch the seven-foot Tanian as he collapsed. It was something of an embarrassment of riches. McCoy finally got him lowered into a chair and was able to swear quietly over a new wrench to his injured shoulder while he ran a scanner over the Tanian.
There was no apparent injury or sickness, but there was some peculiar mental pattern. The Tenian was something of an anomaly in any case. The bifurcated head actually housed what amounted to two brains, each of which could, at need, control the body.
McCoy played a hunch and put a brain scan on the analyzer. It showed an odd pattern in the right brain half, and something different but equally odd in the left. Then McCoy ran a test pattern he had taken himself on Gailbraith’s One.
McCoy swore then, less quietly.
The right brain pattern matched Gailbraith’s One.
“McCoy to Bridge,” he said into the intercom. “Mr. Spock to Sickbay.”
Uhura’s voice came back. “Mr. Spock hasn’t been to the Bridge since you returned from the planet, Doctor. May I help you?”
I doubt it, McCoy thought. I’m going to need a lot more help than that.
“No, thank you, Uhura,” he said. “I’ll find him.”
But it was some time before he could be sure that the Tanian was in no immediate danger-and that nothing could rouse him.
He called Dr. M’Benga and an orderly to take Dobius to a treatment room, and he headed for Spock’s quarters, feeling the urgency of needing to report this to the Vulcan.
But he had somehow sensed it would have been a worse mistake to have Uhura locate Spock at that moment…