The Other Man Trap
by Slasherfem

Feedback: vulcanbychoice at yahoo dot com
Pairing: K/S
Warnings: NC-17 (for graphic violence, grisly death scenes and attempted rape scene)
Summary: An ENTERPRISE landing party beams down to a planet to find a Federation archaeological team missing. When Captain Kirk finds the shape-shifting creature responsible, it takes him prisoner, disguises itself as him, then beams back on board with the others and goes on a killing spree.
Disclaimer: Star Trek and all its characters are not my property; therefore I can make no profit from them. This story is not the property of Paramount Studios, Viacom, et al, so they can make no profit from me. That makes us even.
Note: This story was originally written back in 1993, when I was just getting into computers, before digital recording and photography became popular; hence the references to tape recordings and camera film. I'm sure that those of you who are also Baby Boomers with fond memories of the original series will take these anachronisms in stride. As for you youngsters, please remember that this was considered cutting edge technology back in the 60's! Dedicated to Kathleen Resch, editor of T'HY'LA, for whom this story was originally intended (I'm sorry, Kathy, but better late than never, eh?), as well as the late, great Gene Roddenberry, who started the whole thing. (Check out Mriana's Gene Roddenberry Memorial Screensaver on ASCEML!) This is also my response to two challenges; Kira's Ruby Anniversary Issue challenge (I inserted the number 40 as well as mentioning a ruby!) and Stephen's "The Other" challenge, where you had to take any Star Trek episode and insert the words "The Other" to create an alternate episode or ending. Talk about multi-tasking!

ONE

When an ENTERPRISE landing party of nine beamed down to Planet M226, to the campsite where the Federation archaeological team was last reported to have been, they found nothing but a bunch of deserted tents near a cluster of ancient stone huts. It was a cloudy, grey, chilly morning, with no sound or sign of life, human or otherwise. The wind blew mournfully through the ragged tents, still filled with the archaeologists personal effects and the few relics of the vanished civilization they had managed to dig up, before inexplicably disappearing from the face of this planet themselves.

"Fan out, everyone," Captain Kirk ordered. "Let's try to find someone who can tell us what happened here."

"This place looks long deserted, Jim," Doctor McCoy commented. "I doubt if we'll find anybody."

"Let's give it a try anyway, Bones. Nobody's heard from these people since they stopped communicating with Starbase 15 about a month ago."

"Approximately 32.5 days ago, Captain," Spock said as he adjusted his tricorder, moving it slowly back and forth as he held it out in front of him on its long, suedo-leather shoulder strap. "That was when the last radio transmission was received from Professor Jackson, the head of the expedition. He sounded as if he was in the grip of extreme emotional disturbance."

"You mean scared as hell, Spock." McCoy couldn't get the memory of Jackson's last transmission out of his head, the quavering, tearful plea for help that sounded like a man nearly out of his mind with fear. Professor Andrew Jackson, age 40, was known as a level-headed type, the kind of man who didn't scare easily. But in the recording, he sounded damn near hysterical. The communications officer at Starbase 15 had to spend several minutes calming him down before he could speak coherently. Just as Professor Jackson was about to describe the nature of the emergency, he started screaming, "It's here! It's here! It's found me!" Then there was the sound of a phaser being fired, followed by an animalistic growl, and then silence as the transmission was abruptly terminated.

That recorded cry of distress had been haunting Kirk's dreams too. It brought back the memory of his sister-in-law Aurelan on Deneva, screaming for help as the parasitic alien creatures attacked her and her family, Kirk's older brother Sam and their young son Peter. When Kirk and the rest of the landing party found them, she was screaming, "They're here! They're here!" in the same hysterical tone of voice Professor Jackson had used when he screamed, "It's here! It's here!" Whatever "it" was, it had to be some form of alien life form hostile to humans, and as deadly as the parasitic invaders on Deneva.

"I want every inch of this camp searched, ladies and gentlemen," Kirk now told the landing party. "Leave no stone unturned. We're not leaving until we find out what happened to Professor Jackson and his party."

The rest of the landing party fanned out as per the captain's orders, keeping together in parties of two. Security and Medical personnel searched the ragged tents for survivors, while the captain and his first officer, followed closely by Doctor McCoy, headed for the ruins the archaeologists had been exploring. The remains of a campfire and a partly eaten meal were found inside a roofless stone hut, a portion of the original thatched roof lying in a corner.

"Those look like modern field rations," said Kirk, stooping down to examine the debris left by the diners.

"Indeed, they are," said Spock. "That is definitely a biodegradable container of prebaked, enriched corn muffins. That dried-out substance in the cook pot is either soup or stew, and that is a thermal coffee carafe."

"Sure could use a cup of coffee myself right now," McCoy grumbled, shivering as a cold wind blew through the derelict ruin. "It's chilly down here."

"Maybe the coffee in the carafe is still hot," Kirk joked. "The manufacturers of this brand swear it's supposed to keep hot beverages hot indefinitely." Picking up the dusty black thermal carafe, he poured some of the contents out and was rewarded with a little trickle of cold black coffee, thick as ink. "Sorry, Bones. Looks like you're out of luck."

"From the consistency of the coffee, Captain, I'd say this food is over a month old," Spock commented.

McCoy was sniffing like a bloodhound as he looked around. "They must have had some fresh meat they were getting ready to cook too. Because I smell something rotten."

"Undoubtedly the carcass of some unfortunate small native animal being used as food," said Spock disapprovingly.

"Don't start with the vegetarian guilt trip, Spock. Most humans prefer a little fresh meat with their meals."

"When will you humans learn that it is not necessary to take life in order to sustain your life? One can live quite well on a meatless diet."

"Gentlemen, let's save the meat versus vegetable debate for later," Kirk told them firmly. "Right now I'm more interested in where that rotten smell is coming from."

"Just follow your nose, Jim," McCoy told him. "Mine tells me it's coming from over there." He pointed at the corner where the remains of the thatched roof had been neatly laid.

Kirk went over to the pile of thatch, a section of long, dried grasses about six feet long by four feet wide, bleached white from long exposure to the elements. Taking hold of a corner, he tugged at it, but it proved heavier than it looked. "Spock, give me a hand with this, will you?" he asked.

Spock went around to the other end and took hold of it. Between them, they managed to lift the section of roofing up high enough to reveal what lay beneath it; the decaying remains of a human body, wearing a ragged garment stained with dried blood.

"Oh my God!" McCoy fell on his knees before the pitiful corpse and ran his medical tricorder over it, holding his breath against the stench of death.

"Is it one of ours, Bones?" Kirk demanded.

"I'm afraid so, Jim. According to these readings, it's a human male in his late twenties, dead for over a month. There were several graduate students in that age range with Professor Jackson's expedition. As for the cause of death--" McCoy studied the corpse a little closer and remarked, "He appears to have been partially eaten."

"Now you know how I feel about eating animal flesh, Doctor," Spock told him grimly. "It is an act fit only for other animals, not for intelligent higher beings like us."

"Yes, it had to be some kind of animal who did this," McCoy agreed. "The question is, what kind of animal?"

"And how many more of them are out there?" Kirk wanted to know.

"Captain! Captain Kirk!" One of the security men came running into the hut, breathless and pale with shock. "We found some human remains, sir! We think they may be the scientists'!"

"We're way ahead of you, Ensign," Kirk told him, nodding at the corpse beneath the section of thatch he and Spock were still holding up.

"My God, not another one?" The younger man gawked at the corpse. "We've found four of them so far, sir. Some of them were hidden in places you wouldn't dream of looking."

"It sounds as if our killer possesses human intelligence," Kirk said. "Enough to hide the evidence of his violent acts."

"You think one of the team's members could have done this?" McCoy demanded.

"Not necessarily, Doctor," Spock said. "Some predatory animals have a habit of hiding portions of their kill for later consumption."

"It would have to be a very cunning animal, Spock," Kirk told him, "and a very strong one, to be able to hide this poor devil under here. It took both of us to lift it." He ordered the security man to have all the corpses that been found put into body bags and transported up to the ENTERPRISE for autopsy. Then he, Spock and McCoy left the hut to do some further exploring.

At first it didn't matter; animal flesh had been enough to satisfy the creatures for a while. But soon all the larger animal species on the planet began to die off too. Then the starving creatures were forced to feed upon each other. Parents ate their stillborn and deformed young, siblings devoured their weaker siblings, and mates fed upon mates whenever one became ill or badly injured, in a cannibalistic feeding frenzy that illustrated Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest.

One day the largest and strongest one of their kind, disgusted by the way its species had degenerated into mere eating machines, dug itself down into the cool darkness beneath what had been the humanoids' common burial ground and went into the long sleep, intending to hibernate until it had used up all its body fat and hunger awoke it. It hoped that by that time, some of the animals it fed on would have had time to reproduce themselves in sufficient numbers. It also hoped that the others of its kind would have learned to live in peace together, without turning on one another for food.

But when it woke up from its long sleep and emerged from its muddy burrow, it found no trace of its own kind. All the others were gone, dead of starvation or devoured by other members of their dying race. At first the sole survivor had been in despair, mourning the loss of its family and friends, as well as its preferred prey. Animal flesh was once again plentiful, but hunting them just wasn't the same as hunting the silly, gullible primitives that had once been so common upon this world. There was no challenge to hunting an animal, no chance to gain its confidence, to lead it on, gain its trust and make it love you before you killed it, rejoicing in your cleverness and in its suffering as it realized how it had been tricked. Humans would consider such hunting cruel, the way a cat is called cruel for playing with its prey before devouring it. But the creature's ways were not human ways. It didn't need just meat, it also needed the emotional satisfaction of experiencing its prey's emotions, feeling its feelings, before it fed.

For the creature was telepathic, as the salt vampire had been, and lived vicariously upon the stolen memories of its prey, as well as on the shared memories of its own kind. Now that it no longer had family members or friends to commune with, its only recourse was to seek out the company of the new prey it discovered upon emerging from its lair, Professor Jackson and his little company of scientists, who were busy trying to find out why the primitive humanoid race that had once thrived here had died out so mysteriously.

The creature stretched itself sinuously and yawned as it awoke, revealing many small, needle-sharp teeth in the rounded jaws of its smooth, purple-skinned face. It was reptilian and basically resembled a large salamander, but it had the powerful jaws of a Komodo Dragon, and well-developed hindquarters that enabled it to stand upright and walk like a man, with a short, thick tail to give it balance. It lay there in the darkness at first, puzzled as to why it had awoken so early. Its biological clock told it that it was not yet dark outside. It preferred to hunt by night, when its favorite prey was more apt to be tired and off guard, when memories filled their minds and made them more vulnerable to the creature's natural talent. Then it heard the sound of human voices and smiled, licking its lips with a forked tongue. So it hadn't finished all the humans the day it killed the leader, the one called Jackson. More of them had come. More warm-blooded, intelligent creatures to fill its empty heart with their memories, and its empty belly with their flesh.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy found the remains of Professor Jackson right outside the entrance of the huge burial mound. The killer hadn't bothered to conceal its kill, the way it had all the other bodies; Jackson's mangled corpse lay right by the entrance, near the subspace radio he had been using to talk to Starbase 15, skeletal hands still clawing at the ground beneath him in the agony of his death throes. His face was still intact, but all the soft parts of his body had been eaten, from his throat to his genitals, as well as all the internal organs.

"Why didn't the killer hide this body too?" Kirk wondered aloud.

"Perhaps because there was no one left alive to find it," Spock suggested.

McCoy duly recorded the condition of the body on his tricorder. "Poor devil, just like all the others. Dead about a month, torn to pieces as if by a hungry animal. But what kind of animal?"

"That is what we must attempt to find out, Doctor," Spock told him.

"It could have gone to ground in here," Kirk said, looking at the cavernous place where the primitives had buried their dead. "Sure looks like a cave. And most carnivorous animals prefer to hide in caves."

"That is correct, Captain. May I suggest we exercise the utmost caution while exploring this place?"

"You read my mind, Spock. I was just about to make the same suggestion." Kirk smiled at his alien friend. "We should mind meld more often. Then I wouldn't have to waste time telling you my orders, you could just read my thoughts."

"I would not dream of invading your privacy that way, Captain," Spock assured him politely. "That is a privilege reserved for bondmates."

"Well, since I can't read minds, would you mind telling me what you want us to do, Jim?" McCoy asked.

"Why, Bones, haven't you been paying attention?" Kirk reproached him playfully. "I want us all to exercise the utmost caution while exploring this place. If you see some large, hungry-looking animal coming toward you, shoot first and ask questions later."

"Are you assuming that the creature is capable of speech, sir?" asked Spock.

"No, Spock, that's just an expression." Kirk smiled again. He kept forgetting how literal Vulcans were at interpreting Terran figures of speech. "It simply means you should take defensive action before attempting to acquire information."

"Oh, I see. Then as I prefer to study living organisms, I shall try to stun the creature if I should see it first, so that I can acquire information about it more easily afterwards."

"That scientific mind of yours is going to get you killed one of these days, Spock," McCoy commented as he set his phaser on heavy stun.

"There is no need to kill unnecessarily, Doctor. Even if one's own life is imperiled, one should always try to avoid violence toward other beings."

"Spoken like a true pacifist vegetarian," McCoy sighed. "Come on, let's go, I wanna kick some butt for all those dead people out there."

"Walk this way, gentlemen." Captain Kirk, with phaser drawn, led the way into the underground burial chamber with McCoy and Spock flanking him on either side.

How well it remembered the memories that had passed through its mind during Jackson's final moments, when his whole life had literally flashed before his eyes as he lay dying slowly, paralyzed by the creature's venom, but still able to feel pain as he was eaten alive. How it had cherished Jackson's memories, relished his suffering, adored him for giving it all these wonderful memories from his own well-lived life to savor as it lay digesting his flesh, reliving them over and over again as if they were its own memories.

Out of all the humans it had preyed on last month, it had loved Jackson best. It had saved him for last because he was so beautiful, mentally as well as physically. It had even had sex with him a few times, while in the form of a pretty young graduate student who had a crush on him. She had been the first to die, coming to the creature willingly while it wore Jackson's form, thrilled to find her idol actually returned her affection. The creature had her too before killing her, enjoying its first sexual experience in nearly half a century as much as it enjoyed her sweet flesh. After burying her remains beneath her tent, it had kept on using her form to prey upon the other humans, so that no one would suspect there was an intruder in their midst, picking them off one by one until only Jackson was left.

What a pity Jackson had found out what it was at the end; his death could have been so beautiful, so much more pleasurable for them both, if it had been able to mate with him one more time, killing him as he lay sated in his ersatz lover's arms, just as it killed the young woman who loved him. If only it hadn't approached Jackson from behind while he was shaving...

The creature froze as it heard one of the men say, "Spock, you go that way. Bones, you go that way. I'll go right up the middle and we'll see if these three passages converge at the rear of the tunnel."

"Be careful, Jim," what sounded like the oldest of the three men said. "You never know what you'll find living in these creepy caves. It might be another Horta."

"The Horta proved to be an intelligent and peaceful creature, Doctor," said a third voice, "killing only to defend its young. Let us hope this creature we are hunting is the same sort."

"I doubt it, Spock. Remember it wiped out the whole archeological team to feed itself."

"Don't either of you hesitate to shoot first if you find it," said the first voice. "Let's go."

The creature retreated backwards until it reached an area in the narrow passageway that was wide enough to turn around in. It scurried back to its resting place to prepare a welcome for the approaching human. First it had to get out its horde of gems. Humans so loved these brightly colored stones, especially the ones that were set in gold ready to adorn their bodies. It had a big collection of all sorts of gems, set and unset, stolen from the bodies of the ancient dead who were buried here wearing their best clothes and finest jewelry.

"Damn!" Kirk muttered as he struggled to get through the doorway. "These people were either very skinny or had narrower shoulders than me!" He chuckled as he pictured himself and his slightly taller first officer both trying to get through the narrow doorway at once. "Good thing I didn't bring Spock along," he commented. "This is no place for a Laurel and Hardy routine, both of us getting stuck in the door." His voice echoed strangely in the dark underground cavern. It emphasized his solitude, reminding him just how alone he was, far from friends and safety. "I better shut up, before whatever's in here jumps out at me," he murmured softly to avoid the echo effect. "Maybe it'll think I'm crazy for talking to myself."

With one final tug, he pulled himself through the narrow doorway, nearly falling on his face upon the dirt floor. He shone the tiny flashlight around the room and saw a memorial stone set into the rear wall, with the names of the deceased, along with their birth dates and death dates, written in the alien script of the long extinct people Jackson had been studying. Seeing how long the inscription was, Kirk wondered if more than one person was buried in here. A family vault, perhaps? His flash revealed several small, blue metal coffins lying against the walls, three on the left, three on the right, one at either side of the entrance. As he walked toward the memorial stone, he saw beneath it what appeared to be a small altar carved from stone. Upon it were two vessels shaped like champagne flutes, made of a yellow metal that gleamed like gold in the light of Kirk's pocket flash. Between the two vessels was a big, round bowl made of the same metal, filled to the brim with beautiful, colored gems that gleamed brightly in the flashlight. Kirk caught his breath, staring at awe at the riches he had discovered.

Feeling like a kid who has found buried treasure, Kirk knelt before the tiny altar to admire his find. "This is beautiful!" he exclaimed, hearing his voice echo again. "There must be a king's ransom here! Enough to pay for a dozen funerals, and still have enough left over for a hell of a wake!" He picked up a ruby-red gem at the top of the pile and held it up to the light.

While he was admiring it, the lid of the first blue metal coffin against the wall to his left slowly began to lift. The original occupant of this coffin was now just a pile of bones buried beneath it. The one who inhabited it now was very much alive, and eager to make Kirk's acquaintance before it killed him. It had oiled the hinges of the coffin with oil from the archeological team's own supplies, to prevent them from squeaking and alerting its prey. Kirk wasn't the first one to be caught this way, and it hoped he wouldn't be the last.

Kirk never heard the creature sneaking up behind him before it seized him, pinning his arms at his sides. Before he could struggle, it bit him on the neck, right above the carotid artery. It wasn't a killing bite, it was merely injecting him with venom from its retractable fangs. It held him firmly, almost lovingly, while the venom took effect, enjoying the feel of Kirk's firm, muscular body in its arms, and the warmth of his body heat against its cooler skin. Kirk felt himself becoming numb all over. He tried to yell, but his vocal cords were paralyzed too. Pretty soon he couldn't move any part of his body but his eyelids.

The creature lowered him gently to the dirt floor and knelt beside him, gently caressing his face. Even in the dark (his little pocket flash had broken when it fell from his hand) Kirk could make out a horrible reptilian face with smooth, dark skin that gleamed wetly, and a full-lipped mouth with many small, sharp teeth gleaming between the parted lips as it looked into his face with large, dark, soulful round eyes.

*What is your name?* Kirk heard a voice say inside his head, a surprisingly gentle voice that could have been male or female, but could only be coming from the creature kneeling beside him. It kept stroking his face like a lover with clawed hands that felt damp and cold. Kirk's revulsion kept him from answering, causing the creature to regard him even more soulfully as it sensed his feelings toward it. *Do not fear me, beautiful stranger. I shall not hurt you, for now. I only want to know who you are. Tell me your name, please,* it coaxed him.

*James T. Kirk, captain of the U.S.S. ENTERPRISE*, Kirk told it mentally.

*James T. Kirk.* The creature savored the sound of his name inside its head. Kirk could feel its enjoyment. *You are beautiful, James. More beautiful than Andrew Jackson was. I shall cherish your death as much as I cherished his.* It leaned down and kissed him on the lips, sweetly and tenderly as a young lover with his first love. Seeing that nightmare face so close to his made Kirk want to scream. Feeling it kiss him with its cold lips made him want to vomit. But he couldn't do either one. His voice struggled trapped inside his throat like a bird in a net, while his stomach roiled, but could not eject its contents because of his paralyzed throat muscles. He could still shut his eyelids, and he did so gladly, letting out a low moan of disgust as he shut out the sight of the thing kissing him. It didn't seem to be offended by his feelings toward it. He could feel it stroking his hair, gently scratching his scalp with its claws as it did so.

*Do not be afraid of me, dear James. I can make your death so beautiful, filled with joy and love. It need not be an ugly thing, full of pain and fear. You can die of pleasure as easily as you die of fear. But you are too young to die of fear yet, my beautiful one. Only old ones die of fear. Their weak old hearts always give out at the sight of me, before I can comfort them with illusion.* Kirk heard the creature sigh aloud in a melancholy way, before it resumed speaking to him mentally.

*Let me comfort you before you die, James. Share your thoughts with me. You are so beautiful and strong, you must have loved many women during your short, sweet life. Show them to me. Give me your memories so I will know the kind of woman you like. I will become that kind of woman for you. Your death will be so much sweeter if we share pleasure together. And after we have shared our pleasure, I shall devour you with much relish. You will die happy, James, and I will share your happiness before and after your death. Oh, James, I will love you so much...* Once more the amorous monster leaned down and kissed him. Kirk shuddered inside and wished he was dead already so he wouldn't have to feel those cold lips, that cold, slimy skin, those clawed hands caressing him.

*Get away from me!* he thought angrily. *Leave me alone, you ugly thing!*

*Do not anger me, James.* Now the creature's voice was not so gentle; its soulful eyes began to glow a baleful red as its awful face hovered over his in the dark. *I have the power to give you a pleasant death or a miserable one. You can die in screaming agony, like Jackson and so many others who angered me. Or you can die moaning in pleasure, calling the name of the one you love as you lie in her arms. I can be that one for you, James. Or I can simply rip you to pieces and enjoy your suffering, as I swallow chunks of your flesh while you are still screaming. That is how Jackson died.*

Kirk's mind was filled with a horrible vision of Jackson lying beneath this nightmarish creature, his arms pinned to his sides by its superior strength while he struggled beneath it, screaming in pain-filled agony as it ate its way through his chest until it reached his heart, which it ripped right out of his chest with one clawed hand. The vision faded and Kirk found himself looking up at the nightmarish face again, its soulful eyes regarding him with love once more.

*Don't make me do that to you, James. You deserve a better death than Jackson's. I loved him best of all the others I had, because he felt so intensely. Even in his agony, he gave me the most exquisite memories to cheer me in my dark moments. If he hadn't angered me with his rejection, we could have shared ecstasy instead of agony. Now give your memories to me, James. Let me share your loves with you, so that I may make your death an easy one.*

*You go to hell!* Kirk told the creature. *You leech, you parasite, you damned vampire, feeding on your victims' memories as well as their blood! Have you no life of your own, that you must live others' lives through them? Damned filthy, unnatural thing!*

This time the creature regarded him more with sorrow than with anger. *What you call unnatural is quite natural to me. This is the only life I know. My people were peaceful dreamers before we developed a taste for humanoid flesh. Our psychic abilities enabled us to share one another's thoughts, feel each other's feelings, so much so that we had no need for a spoken language. Nor did we need to disguise ourselves, pretend to be what we were not. But when we stalk our prey, we use their memories to cast a spell of illusion upon ourselves. Then we appear as they do. We can be all things to all people; friend, lover, mother, wife, child. It is a natural talent for us, like singing is for birds. Would you call a bird unnatural for singing?* The creature caressed his face compassionately.

*I know you are frightened. It is not easy to face one's own death. Let the knowledge that you are sustaining the last member of a dead race comfort you. I am the last of my kind, James. After me, there will be no more. Don't grudge me my attempts to try to live as long as I can.* Its soulful eyes looked ready to weep. Kirk thought of crocodiles and the popular belief that they shed phony tears in order to lure sympathetic creatures close enough to devour them.

*I am not feigning grief to gain your sympathy,* the creature assured him, its mind voice huffy with indignation. *I am truly sorry you must die so that I may live. Now let me have your memories so that I can make your death easier.*

*No, no...* Kirk resisted as much as he could, tried to keep his memories to himself. But he felt the creature penetrating his mind slowly, inexorably, until it reached the very heart of his being. It touched his soul and fondled it like a molester fondling a child. Kirk knew deep within himself that the soul should not be handled this way, that it was the ultimate invasion of privacy for this beast, this thing, to enter his mind and make his thoughts its own, as it intended to make his body its own by devouring him. This was mental rape, a violation of his inner self, worse than any mere physical assault. For a violated body can heal, but how does one heal a violated mind? He would have preferred to be physically raped and endure the pain of the assault rather than be forced to submit to this ultimate violation. He wept silently as his violated mind gave up all its secrets, everything he ever did and saw going into the creature's mind.

The creature was pleased and astounded to see the wide variety of women Kirk had known and loved in his lifetime. It saw that he was a natural leader, as Jackson had been, a starship captain gifted with good looks and intelligence from birth, as well as bravery, compassion, sensitivity, and a natural sympathy for the underdog. All these qualities, enhanced by his officer's training, made him highly desirable to women. And men, too. There had been an episode in his youth, a one-time only homoerotic interlude with his friend Gary Mitchell at Starfleet Academy after both had been drinking, and a schoolboy passion for his first commanding officer Captain Garrovick, never consummated, but still cherished after all these years. Buried deep beneath all these memories of the people he loved was the image of the one he secretly cherished above all others, the one person who was as close to him as his late brother Sam had been, the only one who had ever shared his thoughts as completely as this monster was now doing, but who never entered his mind without permission, and always conducted himself gently while he was in there. *Is this the one you love best?* The creature examined the images of Spock in Kirk's mind, studied the Vulcan's face and form, listened to his deep, mellow voice, and admired his cool, logical mind as he dealt with all manner of sticky situations in an unhurried, calm manner, not allowing mere emotion to overrule his judgment of what was best. It saw how he cared for Kirk, looked after him during dangerous missions and supported his command decisions when they were less than popular with the crew or with Starfleet Command. *But he is not human.*

*Neither are you!* Kirk retorted. *But of all the aliens I've ever encountered since I went into space, he's the most human of them all.*

*Then I shall cherish him for your sake, as well as his own.* The creature savored the mental feel of Spock's friendship and regard for the human captain as he saw him sitting across from Kirk with a 3D chessboard between them, trading philosophical comments with him as he pondered his next move. *Yes, I shall cherish this one's death as much as I will your own, my dear, sweet James.*

*Leave him alone!* Kirk shouted mentally. *Don't you dare touch him!*

Before the creature could reply, they both heard Spock's voice coming from outside the burial chamber, at the other end of the long passageway. "Captain! Captain Kirk, where are you?"

*Spock! Oh, no!* Kirk groaned inside his tortured mind, willing his friend to go away. At the sound of Spock's voice, the creature raised itself from Kirk's paralyzed body and rose to its hind legs.

*I will meet this friend of yours and let him know you are all right. Once I have gained his confidence, I will share myself with him, as you long to do in the hidden depths of your mind. And after we have shared love, I will devour him and make him a part of me for all time.* The creature described its plans for Spock in loving detail, the better to feel Kirk's anguish at his helplessness to prevent it. *Then I shall return and share love with you as well, in his form. It will be a beautiful death, James. As you expire in the arms of the one you love, think kindly of me for showing you this mercy.*

Kirk's rage was so intense, it made the creature smile. It cherished every obscenity Kirk called it, savored every mind picture of what the human would like to do to it if he weren't paralyzed, enjoyed the feelings of helplessness that swept over Kirk like a tidal wave as he tried to move his body. *Poor James. Do not worry, I shall cherish your friend as much as you do until his final moments.* Shutting its eyes, the creature concentrated, keeping the image of Kirk in its mind as it began to shift shape, using its psychic powers to create the illusion of Captain James T. Kirk. Its form began to shimmer before Kirk's eyes, as if he were seeing it through the waves of heat rising from a fire. The next thing he knew, he was looking up at himself. A second Captain Kirk stood looking down at the first one, a perfect replica, right down to the dirt stains on the shoulders of his gold uniform shirt.

"Jim! Jim, where are you?" Doctor McCoy's worried voice came from the opposite end of the passageway. "Spock, have you seen him?"

"I was just looking for him. Jim! Where are you?" The Vulcan's voice was starting to sound worried too.

Smiling down at the original Kirk, the second one turned and walked through the doorway to meet his concerned friends. All the real Kirk could do was lie there helplessly, a tear falling from one eye.

"Did you find any evidence of a living creature, Captain?" Spock asked him on his left.

"No, I just dropped and broke my pocket flash tripping over one of those damned miniature blue coffins." The creature brushed imaginary dirt from the front of its shirt, knowing neither of the others would notice the shirt was relatively unstained in front in their excitement at seeing him safe. "Guess there's nobody here but us chickens," it added with a smile.

"I also failed to find any tangible evidence of a living presence here. Perhaps the doctor was more fortunate."

"Sorry, Spock, I struck out too. Guess whatever that thing was cleared out of here after it killed Jackson."

"It could still be around in the general area outside these caves. Do you wish to explore them further, sir?" Spock asked the captain.

"No, let's get out of here. This place is starting to give me the creeps." Kirk led the way out, followed by his loyal friends and fellow officers, neither of whom realized they were only seeing a psychic illusion of their captain.

TWO

When they beamed back aboard the ENTERPRISE, the chief surgeon went straight to sickbay to supervise the autopsies on the corpses they had found. The captain and the first officer headed for the bridge, only to be intercepted by a member of Spock's Science staff along the way.

"Mister Spock, we found something down there that should be of interest to you, sir," an earnest young woman in a short blue uniform dress told them outside the turbolift, handing Spock a compslate with a report from his chief lab assistant, Lieutenant Marrakesh.

"Thank you, Ensign Moreno." Spock took the compslate and scanned the report rapidly. In the brief time it took him to read the page, the false Kirk caught the young woman's eye and smiled at her, causing her to blush and lower her eyes. She was small and dark, with full, red lips, big, brown eyes, and long, black braids twisted into a coil above each ear and held securely in place with pins. She looked very prim and proper, not a hair out of place. But the creature who had stolen Kirk's form could sense hidden depths of passion in her, feel the attraction she felt for her captain, the pleasure she got from the look and the smile he gave her, and her shame at feeling this way. Scanning her mind very lightly, it learned she had been brought up by very strict, religious parents, who taught her to respect authority. Kirk's own stolen memory told the creature that it was the captain's policy never to get intimately involved with anyone on board his ship. All the crew knew and respected this, but it didn't stop many of them from fantasizing about him. This young woman was one of them. Her admiration for the handsome starship captain, her desire for love, and the shame it caused her, stirred the creature's longing and aroused its hunger. By the time Spock looked up from the compslate, it had already made up its mind that she would be its first victim.

"It seems I shall be unable to accompany you to the bridge, sir," Spock told the captain. "This matter requires my immediate attention."

"No problem, Spock. Go to the lab and set it straight, like you always do. I have complete faith in you." The false Kirk smiled at him, cherishing the warm feelings of friendship it sensed that its words and expression aroused in Spock behind the Vulcan's cool exterior. *I shall look forward to loving you, my beautiful alien. But first I must whet my appetite with this tasty little morsel.* "I think I'll get a bite to eat first," it added casually. "I'll see you later, Spock. Ensign." It nodded to the young woman in polite dismissal before it walked away, ostensibly to the Officer's Mess.

Ensign Moreno looked longingly after the captain for a few moments before realizing that Spock was addressing her. One of his slanted eyebrows was raised in mild reproach. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir!" Moreno blushed. "My mind must have wandered for a moment."

"Obviously." Spock's voice was very dry. "Will your cerebral wanderings prevent you from accompanying me to the main Science Lab?"

"Uh, sir, I officially went off duty three minutes ago. Lieutenant Marrakesh only gave me the message for you because I was already on my way out."

"Then I shall not detain you. Carry on, Ensign."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Moreno stood aside and watched the tall first officer walking down the corridor. Heaving a sigh, she went in the opposite direction. *As usual, not a word of thanks for the time I took to deliver his message,* she thought resentfully. *Mister Spock may be an officer and a gentleman, but he has all the warmth of an android. I wish Captain Kirk was the Science Officer instead. I'll bet he knows how to show appreciation to a hard-working girl who goes out of her way to bring him a message on her off-duty time.* She headed for her quarters daydreaming about Captain Kirk and how much pleasanter life would be if he were in charge of the Science Department.

She never saw the false Kirk lurking in the recessed doorway of a dimly-lit, little-used service entrance as she went by, nor did she hear its footsteps as the creature fell in behind her, stalking her all the way to her quarters.

Spock pressed the "rewind" button one more time and listened to Professor Jackson saying in a hoarse, frightened whisper: "It's coming for me now. It's been stalking me since I woke up this morning and found I was the only one left alive in camp. Lisette Daniels and Victor Monroe were murdered in their beds, Bob Potter was killed in the new excavation, and my assistant never came back after he left the tent last night. Now it's after me. I know what it is now. I saw the thing--God help me, I saw it the way it really is--" A garbled section followed.

Spock partly rewound the tape and fiddled with the buttons on the pocket-sized tricorder, augmenting the sound quality, pumping up the volume as much as his sensitive hearing could stand, his stern features set in a frown of concentration. He finally managed to make out Jackson's fearful voice beneath the tape hiss and wowing. "--the way it really is. It's horrible! Dear God, this thing is not human, but it can--" Another inaudible section; it sounded like "fake uniform at mill."

*That can't be correct.* Spock fiddled with the buttons some more. The garbled section still refused to make sense. Spock kept rewinding it and playing it over and over until the tape was in danger of breaking. He still couldn't make sense out of the garbled phrase, "fake uniform at mill."

*Perhaps if I ran it through the computer on the semantics mode...* Spock pressed the "rewind" button and set his computer to record while the miniature tape cassette returned to its beginning. When his monitor screen flashed "Ready to record", he plugged an adapter into the tricorder's earphone opening and pressed the other end into the computer's audio receiver.

While the small personal tricorder was silently feeding its audio diary into Spock's computer, the false Kirk entered the lab. All the other scientists were busy cataloging the various archaeological finds left behind by the murdered expedition. Some of them glanced up at the captain, greeted him with a cheery, "Good day, sir!" and went back to work. The captain smiled and nodded at each person who greeted him, but did not pause. He made his way to the rear, where Spock's work area was separated from the rest of the lab by a room divider.

The captain paused at the entrance to Spock's office, feasting his eyes on the Vulcan scientist whose dark head was bent over his computer, so intent on his work he didn't even notice his captain. The creature that looked like Kirk entered Spock's cubicle on silent feet, walked right up to him and stood behind his chair. It inhaled the aroma of his warm flesh and found it quite pleasant; Spock's vegetarian diet and the milder salts in his copper-based blood gave him a naturally sweet body odor, less acrid than a human's iron-based blood polluted with residues of decaying animal protein. The creature's mouth watered as it imagined how sweet his flesh would taste. As it rested its hands on the back of Spock's chair, it suddenly noticed a red bloodstain on the back of its left hand. *I was too hasty in my feeding; I must be more careful.* Lifting its hand to its mouth, it licked the bloodstain away with the tip of its tongue. When the back of its hand was clean, it dropped it onto Spock's shoulder.

Spock, startled by the unexpected touch, turned his head quickly to see who was behind him. "Oh, it is you, Jim," he said, relieved that it was not a stranger touching him.

"Did I scare you?" The captain smiled playfully. "I'm sorry, I just wanted to see what progress you were making."

"Not much," Spock admitted, gesturing to the tiny tricorder still plugged into his computer. "This audio journal of Professor Jackson's has been badly damaged. So much so that it is difficult to make out what is on the tape."

"But not impossible?" the captain asked.

"No, not impossible. But it may take some time before I am able to reconstruct the original recording." Spock looked up at him solemnly with a glint of humor in the depths of his dark eyes. "I know you are accustomed to seeing me work virtual miracles, but in this case, I must quote one of your Terran saints: 'The difficult is easy, the impossible takes a little longer.'"

"Take your time, Spock. I have every confidence in you," the captain assured him, resting both hands on Spock's shoulders and squeezing gently. "You've never let me down before. I know you won't do it this time." "I shall try not to disappoint you, Jim." Spock felt his cheeks begin to flush olive green with embarrassed pleasure at Kirk's praise, as well as his touch, and turned back to his monitor so that Kirk wouldn't see. He began rapidly pushing buttons in response to the data inquiries that were appearing on the screen, concentrating on his work so that he wouldn't feel so self-conscious about Kirk touching him. Kirk remained standing behind his chair with his hands on Spock's shoulders, pretending to read the screen over the Vulcan's dark head while he massaged his shoulders.

Spock began to feel very uncomfortable. Why was the captain continuing to make physical contact with him? It wasn't like his human friend to be so demonstrative in public. He was usually quite considerate of Spock's Vulcan modesty, his reluctance to be touched, even by close friends, for a prolonged period. True, they were in his own private work area, but any one of his colleagues or technicians could walk in at any minute and see the captain practically "breathing down his neck", as McCoy would say, while kneading his shoulder muscles in an increasingly intimate fashion.

"Take it easy, Spock. Relax, you're so tense." Spock could hear the smile in the human's voice as he rubbed the sturdy, blue-clad shoulders. "You shouldn't work so hard, it's bad for your health. Why don't you put this project aside for a while and come join me for a drink?"

Spock was astounded to hear his captain suggesting that he postpone an important assignment in the middle of the day for the purpose of imbibing alcoholic beverages. "Isn't it rather early for that, Jim?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the screen. "I'm sure you would much rather I get this out of the way first, so that we may be able to find out sooner what killed those people down there."

"Come on, Spock, there's nothing so urgent it can't wait until later. You and I hardly spend enough time together as it is." Kirk was rubbing the back of Spock's neck now. "I seldom get the chance to show you how much I appreciate you and everything you do for me. Why don't you come to my cabin now? You could join me for lunch. I'm sure you haven't eaten yet."

"Haven't you, Jim?" Spock turned his head again to regard him quizzically. "I thought you were going to the Officer's Mess when we parted company over an hour ago."

"What? Oh, yeah, I was, but I got sidetracked. You know how it is. When you're the captain, everybody wants a piece of your time." Kirk's laughter sounded forced. His affectionate grip on Spock's neck and shoulders loosened as he backed away. Spock was relieved to feel him breaking contact, though he couldn't say why.

Just then the hailing signal came over the communication terminal at Spock's left and Lieutenant Uhura's face appeared on the screen. "Bridge to Mister Spock!" she said. "I'm trying to locate the captain, sir. Is he with you?"

"Yes, Lieutenant, the captain is right here." Spock started to adjust the terminal so that the screen was facing Kirk, but the captain stopped him.

"That won't be necessary, Spock. I'm sure the lieutenant knows what I look like," Kirk said in a low voice, with a smile that looked as forced as his laughter had sounded. Speaking aloud in his familiar command voice he said, "This is the captain. What is it, Uhura?"

"Sir, security reports that a crewmember has been found murdered on Deck 5, in the non-commissioned officers' section. The area has been sealed off and they're awaiting your arrival."

"Tell them I'll be right there. Kirk out." The captain looked shaken as he backed out of Spock's cubicle. "I'm sorry, Spock, but duty calls."

"Indeed it does." Spock rose from his chair. "I shall accompany you, since that area is located so close by."

"No, Spock, stay here! If there's a murderer on board, I don't want to give him a chance to catch both of us together."

"The two of us stand a better chance of survival than one traveling unaccompanied. Besides, I am stronger than you, and quite capable of defending you as well as any of the security guards."

"What?" the captain said indignantly, before adding a moment later, "Oh, of course you are!" He laughed. "Sorry, Spock, I completely forgot how strong Vulcans are. And here I was trying to protect you! Of course you can come with me. I'll be a lot safer with you by my side."

"Thank you, Jim." As Spock followed him out of the cubicle, he kept wondering why Jim Kirk, of all people, would forget how strong Vulcans were. He'd had a first-hand demonstration of Spock's strength only a year ago, when they were forced to fight at what should have been Spock's wedding. And what about the time he'd deliberately provoked Spock into a fight to reverse the effect of those spores he'd been exposed to on Omicron Ceti III?

"Report, Lieutenant," Kirk told the security guard crisply as he came up to her. "What seems to have happened here?"

"Ensign Martinez is still too upset to give us a clear account, sir," the big, blonde woman responded sympathetically as she held the weeping Martinez. "I'm sure we'll get a statement as soon as Doctor McCoy gets here and gives her something to calm her down."

"Very well, look after her while we check this out. Let me know the minute the doctor gets here. Come on, Spock." Kirk led Spock into the room past the security guards.

The first thing they noticed upon entering was the smell of blood. Two grim-faced security men were photographing the scene and bagging evidence, while a third emerged from the bathroom wiping his mouth with a hankie, looking very pale and sick. The corpse lying on the bed in the far left corner was the reason why. Ensign Moreno lay with her head on the pillow, her long, black hair flowing over it, freed from its restrictive braids. Even in death she looked lovely; her full lips were still red and slightly swollen, her face was flushed with a rosy glow beneath its thin layer of makeup, and her wide open eyes still seemed to sparkle with life as she gazed sightlessly up at the ceiling.

But her face was the only thing left that was lovely. The bed beneath her was soaked with blood; she had been butchered from the neck down. Her throat had been torn out, both breasts were gone, and so were her heart, lungs, liver, and other internal organs. Her ribcage, stripped of all flesh, lay exposed, white and gleaming. Her legs and arms were untouched; her pretty little manicured hands dangled lifelessly from either side of the narrow bed, drying blood running in red streams down her arms, a few stray drops still dripping on the floor from her fingertips.

Spock didn't blame the young security guard for vomiting. He himself had to close his eyes, after forcing himself to look at the corpse long enough to identify it as Ensign Moreno. "You okay, Spock?" he heard the captain say softly.

"Yes, Captain." Spock's voice remained calm. Keeping his eyes closed, he swallowed hard enough to keep from vomiting and breathed deeply as he composed himself, gathering every shred of logic he had to keep from reacting as emotionally as a human. When he opened his eyes again, he was able to look at the corpse objectively, as if it were a specimen in anatomy class to be dissected. Chief of Security DeSalle was comforting young Ensign Garrovick, who still smelled faintly of vomit as he stood shamefaced before the captain and his immediate superior.

"Don't worry, kid, your stomach will get stronger with experience," DeSalle assured Garrovick. "You'll see a lot worse when you've been in the fleet as long as I have. Even the captain's seen a lot worse. Haven't you, sir?"

"Sure I have," said Kirk. "Don't sweat it, Garrovick, you're not the first one who's ever lost his lunch after seeing a dead body for the first time."

"Sir, I have seen dead bodies before," Garrovick protested faintly. "But this is the first time I've ever seen one as--as messy as this."

"Not that messy. There should be a lot more blood." DeSalle studied the corpse with professional detachment. "Notice how there's hardly any blood on the floor. None spattered on the walls either, even though the bed's pushed right into a corner. And her bones are so white, they shine. It's as if they've been licked clean."

"Perhaps the bed has absorbed most of the blood," Spock suggested, relieved to hear how steady his voice sounded as he studied the remains with the same emotional detachment as DeSalle.

"I don't think so, sir. When someone's been eviscerated like this, there should be blood sprayed all over the place. Most of it is concentrated beneath the body, but there should be a lot more. And look at those wounds." DeSalle pointed to the skin remaining on Moreno's upper thighs, on her shoulders, and just beneath her chin. "She wasn't cut open, she was ripped apart by sharp teeth. All the soft parts of her body are gone, along with her internal organs. We didn't find any of them in here, so the murderer had to have taken them with him."

"Are you suggesting, Mister DeSalle, that this unfortunate young woman was murdered for the purpose of obtaining her internal organs?"

"Not only her organs, Mister Spock, but her flesh and blood as well. I think we have a real psycho on our hands, sir," DeSalle told Kirk gravely.

"It certainly appears that way," Kirk agreed, studying the nearly bloodless body on the bed with the same emotional detachment as DeSalle and Spock. Something about his attitude struck Spock as wrong.

*Why isn't he more upset? Captain Kirk always takes the death of any crewmember very hard.* Spock knew how sensitive his friend was, how seriously he took his responsibility as a starship captain to protect his ship and crew. Yet here he was, looking at the dead body of what had been a pretty young woman as if it meant no more to him than a dead animal. But even dead animals had the power to move Jim Kirk to tears at times; he'd grown up on a farm and had kept pet calves and pigs, some of which had to be butchered for food when they were grown, a common human practice which Spock found deplorable, but understandable in a race that ate animal flesh. But Jim had never participated in the butchering, nor had he ever eaten any of the meat from an animal he had raised. Why, then, wasn't he more upset at the sight of this pitiful corpse that had nearly made Spock himself lose control of his emotions?

Spock studied his captain while he was giving DeSalle orders on how to deal with the murder. "Mister DeSalle, try to find out if there are any witnesses who saw her coming in here with somebody. The killer had to be someone she knew and trusted. Her clothes weren't ripped off--" Kirk pointed to a short, blue uniform dress and a pair of pantyhose laid neatly across a chair, along with a pair of tall, black women's boots, standard Starfleet issue, propped up against one of the chair's legs. A matching set of blue bikini underwear and bra, along with a short, white terrycloth robe, lay near the bed; unlike the outer clothing, they all appeared to have been hastily removed and discarded. "So obviously she was well acquainted with whoever it was."

"Unless she was raped, sir," DeSalle theorized. "She could have been getting ready to take a shower when her date arrived, saw her in her underwear and just took it for granted that she wanted it."

"That is vile, Mister DeSalle," Spock commented, radiating disgust from every fiber of his being, though his voice and facial expression remained calm. "What sort of man would force himself on a woman who trusted him?"

"You'd be surprised, Mister Spock. Or maybe not. You've lived long enough among us humans to know the evil that men do. Especially to women." For the first time that evening, DeSalle regarded the mutilated corpse with pity.

"If that was the case, then why was he not content with raping her? Why mutilate her as well?"

"Like DeSalle said before, Spock, we've got a psycho on our hands." The captain looked grim. "And I want him found. Make inquiries, DeSalle. Find out who she was dating and if they were supposed to meet tonight. Hopefully it was only one man. If she was seeing more than one, you'll have your work cut out for you finding a suspect."

"We'll find him, sir," DeSalle told him, looking just as grim as Kirk. "Do I have your permission to go through the crew's psych profiles and pick out anybody with a history of violence against women?"

"Yes, tell Doctor McCoy I authorized you to do so. This is an emergency. All the women on this ship are in danger from this disturbed individual, and I want him found, as soon as possible." Kirk turned on his heel and left the cabin, followed closely by Spock, leaving DeSalle and his men to their grim task.

They found Doctor McCoy outside, speaking soothingly to Ensign Martinez as she leaned against the security guard, sobbing quietly. McCoy still held his hypospray in one hand, indicating that he had just injected Martinez with something to calm her down. "Are you feeling any better, Miss Martinez?" Kirk asked her solicitously. "Do you feel up to answering some questions now?"

"Go easy on her, Jim," McCoy cautioned him. "She's had quite a shock."

"Yes, I'm sure she has," Kirk replied without looking at the doctor. "Do you want to talk now, Miss? I'd really appreciate it if you could tell me about this terrible matter while the details are still fresh in your mind." His manner was almost flirtatious as he coaxed the frightened ensign to confide in him.

"Yes, sir, I'll tell you." Ensign Lydia Martinez wiped her tear-swollen and reddened eyes with a fresh disposable hankie the big, blond security guard had just handed her from a much depleted pack. "If I could just sit down..."

"Of course, of course! Is there anywhere we can talk in private?" Kirk asked the security guard.

"Conference Room 14 is just down the hall, sir," the woman said, pointing past him.

"Thank you. Would you please accompany us, Lieutenant--?"

"Campbell, sir."

"Yes, thank you, Lieutenant Campbell. I think Ensign Martinez still needs somebody to lean on while she composes herself, don't you?" Kirk's smile won the woman over. She agreed to accompany them, despite her misgivings at leaving her post without DeSalle's permission. After all, it was the captain's request that she be present while he questioned the witness. Between her and Kirk, they managed to get the still shaken Martinez down the hall to the conference room, followed by Spock and McCoy.

When they got there, Kirk showed Martinez to the nearest seat and sat down opposite her. Campbell and McCoy stood behind Martinez' chair, Campbell keeping her hands on the younger woman's shoulders in a reassuring manner. Spock stood beside the captain's chair, watching him question Martinez with a growing sense of misgiving, a feeling that something just wasn't quite right about him.

"About what time did you get back to your cabin, Miss Martinez? Try to remember," Kirk coaxed her softly.

"I-I got back after lunch, sir, between 1300 and 1315 hours. Marta--Ensign Moreno was usually in our cabin by then. She always got off at 1230 hours." Martinez dabbed at her eyes as tears started flowing again. She was small and dark, like Moreno, but with short, curly black hair and blue eyes, all traces of mascara washed away by her tears. "She usually took a shower before going to lunch. She was on the evening to afternoon shift, so lunch was more like breakfast to her. When I got back, I expected her to be in the shower. But when I came in, I smelled the blood. And then I s-s-saw the body--" Martinez wept as she covered her face with her hands. Campbell petted her and murmured soothingly, while McCoy reached for another ampule of sedative to put in his hypospray. Campbell shook her head at him as Martinez got a hold of herself once more, sitting up straight and wiping her eyes with the sodden paper hankie.

"What did you do when you saw the body? Did you touch anything?" Kirk asked anxiously.

"No, sir, I just screamed and ran out of there as fast as I could. I-I ran out into the corridor, right into the opposite wall. I clung to that wall like a fly on flypaper, screaming and crying. Some people came running and one of them asked me what was wrong. All I could say was, 'She's dead! She's dead!' Someone called Security and-and that's all I remember, until the doctor came and gave me a shot."

"Did Ensign Moreno have a date with someone for lunch? Do you know if she's got a steady boyfriend?"

"She-she used to date Ensign Hector Gonzalez in Engineering, but they broke up last month. Now she's seeing Ensign Michael Parminter in Botany. They-they usually met for lunch or dinner."

"How did Gonzales take the breakup? Was it his idea or hers?"

"Oh, hers, sir. Hector was so jealous, he was always asking her where she went and who she was with when they weren't together. He even tried to make me spy on her, tell him if she was seeing anybody else. At last Marta couldn't take any more. She had to break up with him because he was too possessive. He just wouldn't leave her alone."

The captain nodded sympathetically as he patted Martinez' hand, where it lay in her lap. "So you think Hector might have done this to your friend?"

"Captain," Spock interrupted, "a jealous temperament does not necessarily indicate a violent nature."

"I'm trying to find a suspect, Spock," Kirk said to him sharply. "And so far this Gonzalez seems to be the most likely one."

"Makes sense to me," McCoy commented. "Jilted lovers have been known to commit murder to keep from losing the object of their affections. Sounds to me like a classic case of 'If I can't have you, nobody can'."

"An extreme way to keep from losing the object of one's affections, Doctor," said Spock. "But then, you humans are known for going to extremes emotionally." "Many crimes of passion are committed by people who repress their emotions too, Spock."

"Not on my world, Doctor."

"Will you two shut up!" Kirk snapped at them unexpectedly. "I'm trying to find a murderer here! You guys aren't helping with your constant bickering!"

"Sorry, Jim," McCoy muttered, looking askance at him. "I should think you'd be used to me and Spock going at it by now."

"It doesn't mean I have to like it! Now keep quiet, both of you!" Kirk looked from one to the other as if threatening to strangle them both, before resuming his questioning of Martinez.

Spock thought that Kirk's show of temper seemed out of proportion to the offense. *McCoy is right; surely he should be accustomed to our frequent disagreements by now.* He also didn't care for the way the captain kept insisting on Ensign Gonzalez as the only possible suspect. Even now he was pressing Martinez to tell him more about Gonzalez' jealousy toward the deceased. Spock wondered why he didn't ask any questions about Ensign Parminter, the other man in her life.

"Did Gonzalez ever threaten Marino or her new boyfriend? Did he try to get her back after the breakup, by any means possible?"

"Yes, sir, he had us both scared," Martinez admitted. "He kept hanging around outside our cabin whenever he was off duty, waiting for Marta to show up. When she did, he'd make a scene if she didn't talk to him. Once he even chased her down the corridor, yelling at her to come back to him. And when he saw her with Michael--Ensign Parminter--he went nuts. They got into a fight and had to be separated. You can ask Lieutenant Sulu, he was one of the guys who separated them."

"When and where did this fight take place?"

"Last week, in the hydrogarden in Botany, during the first half of evening shift. Marta came back barely an hour after she left with Michael, crying because Hector had hurt him."

"How badly was he hurt? Did he go to Sickbay?" Kirk seemed to be very concerned for the welfare of Ensign Parminter. Only Spock's sensitive ears caught the eager note in his voice as he leaned toward Martinez, urging her to tell him more. That and the hungry look in the captain's eyes told Spock that he wasn't asking out of concern, but from a desire to hear all the gory details, a craving for secondhand sensation by hearing violent acts described. As Spock studied the captain's face more closely, he saw beneath the expression of sympathy a look of well-pleased satisfaction, as if something dark and terrible inside him enjoyed hearing about these terrible things.

*That is absurd! Jim Kirk is not a violent man! He would never derive sadistic enjoyment from hearing about someone else's suffering.* But the longer he studied the captain, the more convinced he became that Kirk was, indeed, enjoying himself listening to Martinez describe her roommate's rocky romance and terrible death. Spock felt sickened to his soul. This was not the Jim Kirk he knew, a man so filled with compassion he wouldn't even kick a fallen enemy after overcoming him.

"No, Michael wasn't hurt badly enough to go to Sickbay. Marta said that was the only reason Sulu didn't report Hector for striking a fellow officer. She said Sulu gave him a break this time, but he told him if he ever did it again, he'd have him arrested and court-martialed. Since then, Hector's been avoiding Michael and Marta. But Marta said he still followed her with his eyes whenever they passed in the corridors. And I heard he's been going around saying that he was going to get her back, no matter what."

Kirk nodded. "That's all I need to know. Thank you, Miss Martinez, you've been very helpful." He rose, indicating that the interview was ended. "Lieutenant Campbell, please accompany the ensign back to her quarters so she can get some rest."

"Oh, no! Not there!" Martinez began to cry again.

"Captain, I don't think that Security is finished in her quarters yet," Campbell told him.

"What?" Kirk stared blankly at her for a moment, before remembering. "Oh, of course! I'm so sorry, Miss Martinez, I completely forgot your friend's body might still be there. What's left of it, anyway," he added, sotto voce to Spock, with an unpleasant gleam in his eye. "Let the lieutenant accompany you to a friend's cabin so you can lie down for a while."

"Thank you, sir." Still sniffling, Martinez left on Campbell's strong arm, with Doctor McCoy urging her to take the rest of the day off to recover from the shock.

As soon as the women were gone, McCoy reproached his captain for his insensitivity. "For Pete's sake, Jim, how could you forget something like that? A dead, mutilated body is hard to miss, especially inside a standard NCO's starship cabin."

"Don't start on me, Bones! I've had a hard day!" Kirk snapped at his old friend in such a hostile way, McCoy was taken aback. "In case you don't remember, I saw the body too! My stomach may never be the same! Just because I didn't throw up at the sight like Garrovick doesn't mean it didn't affect me! I just wasn't thinking, okay? I already apologized to the girl, so let's drop it!"

"Okay, okay! Don't get your knickers in a twist, Jim-boy. It's just not like you to be so inconsiderate to ladies."

Spock said nothing, he just studied his captain's stance while he confronted McCoy. Kirk seemed to be in a defensive posture, head down, fists clenched, slightly crouched, almost as if he were getting ready to spring at McCoy. And do what? Attack him? He even seemed to be baring his teeth at the doctor in a snarl.

*Jim, what is happening to you? Why are you behaving so aggressively? Not only here, but in the lab as well...* Spock was reluctant to admit it to himself, but his pragmatically logical Vulcan nature wouldn't allow him to deny it. Kirk had been "coming on" to him in the lab, in a sexually aggressive way. And that wasn't like him at all. Neither was pumping that unfortunate young woman for all the unpleasant details about her late friend's personal life.

"Well, gentlemen, are we just going to stand around here all day?" Kirk asked them sarcastically. "I'm sure we all have duties to attend to."

"Right, Jim. I'll be in Sickbay performing the autopsy." McCoy turned to go.

"Allow me to accompany you, Doctor." Spock was right behind him as he headed for the door of the conference room. "I would like to examine the body a little closer, to see if I can determine what method was used to eviscerate it." That wasn't quite true; while he was genuinely curious about how Moreno was killed, he also wanted an excuse not to be alone with Kirk. The brief glimpse he had gotten of Kirk's darker side made him afraid of the captain, afraid that he might reveal something even worse once he was alone with Spock. The Vulcan was well aware of Kirk's strong sex drive and his frequent indulgence of it with various females during the course of their five-year mission. But until Kirk started coming on to him in the lab, he had never dared to think that he might be attracted to other males as well. Because if he was, then even he wasn't safe from Kirk's desire. And Kirk had always been the one person in the universe that he felt safe with. Until today.

The captain silently watched his first officer following the ship's chief medical officer out of the room. His hazel eyes turned red as they gleamed hungrily, while he licked his lips and thought, *Soon, Spock. Soon we shall be alone together. Then you will be mine.* His smile exposed teeth that were longer and sharper than humans were supposed to have.

Ensign Michael Parminter's body was found later that afternoon, hidden inside a long hydroponic planter in the Botany section, mutilated the same way Moreno's body had been, with the same kind of expression on his face, almost a serene look. Several witnesses stated that they had seen Ensign Hector Gonzalez earlier, heading toward Botany with a tool kit in one hand. Naturally it was assumed that he was on his way to repair something. But the chief engineer checked his records and found that there was no repair scheduled for Botany that day. Gonzalez, a short, dark-skinned, muscular Latino with a sullen expression, swore he had never left his workbench in Maintenance that day. Everybody else in his department had been in and out all day, so none of them could say for sure if he'd been at his station during his entire shift. But the electronic inventory list proved that a tool kit had been signed out earlier that day. DeSalle found the tool kit hidden in Gonzalez's workbench, along with a blood-stained pair of red overalls, the kind worn by all the ENTERPRISE'S maintenance personnel. Gonzalez was promptly arrested on suspicion of murder, warned of his rights and escorted to the brig, protesting wildly that he was innocent.

While DeSalle was questioning Gonzalez, two security men were sent to his cabin to search for more evidence. They found the body of Ensign Martinez stuffed in the closet. Unlike the first two victims, her body was relatively intact; only her throat had been torn out. Her expression was different from the other victims' too; while they looked peaceful, almost ecstatic, her face was frozen into a silent scream of terror, eyes wide open, mouth agape. Fragments of skin were found under her fingernails, indicating she had fought for her life fiercely.

Analysis of the blood-stained overalls found in Gonzalez' workbench revealed that the bloodstains matched both Parminter's and Martinez' blood type. Not only that, but he had several small scratches on one cheek; long, parallel slashes, like the kind left by a woman's fingernails. When confronted with this evidence, Gonzalez burst into wild weeping and swore he was innocent. "Somebody's trying to frame me, sir!" he told DeSalle tearfully. "I didn't kill Marta! I didn't kill Parminter! And I sure as hell didn't kill Lydia!"

"Then how did you get those scratches on your face?" DeSalle demanded.

"From the stereovid tube I was fixing, sir! When I stuck my head inside it to check out the burnt components, some of the color rods scratched me."

"Oh, come on, Gonzalez! You were made at Moreno for breaking up with you, and you were jealous enough of Parminter to beat him up before witnesses. So why shouldn't you kill the other girl for telling us how jealous you were of your ex, how you followed her around and harassed her, threatened her new lover, even tried to get her roommate to spy on her for you."

"But I didn't kill her, sir! I loved Marta too much, I could never hurt her! Even when she tore my heart out last month, telling me it was all over and she didn't want to see me anymore, I felt like killing her, but I couldn't. I could never hurt Marta. When I saw her with the other guy, that honkie Parminter with the blond hair and the snotty Boston accent, I wanted to kill him. But Mister Sulu and the Russian guy broke it up before I could even give him a bloody nose. The only reason Mister Sulu didn't report me is because I didn't hurt him as badly as I wanted to. After that, I stayed away from them."

"But you kept giving her the hairy eyeball every time she walked by, and telling everybody you were going to get her back, no matter what," DeSalle reminded him. "How did it happen, Gonzalez? Did you go to her cabin this afternoon and find her there alone, with no roommate to stop you from doing whatever you wanted? Were you only going to rape her, to pay her back for leaving you? Or were you planning to rape and kill her since the day she broke up with you?" DeSalle kept prodding Gonzalez with questions, flanked by two of his men, while Kirk watched from a corner of the cell, arms folded across his chest, a pleased smile lurking on his lips.

Spock observed the interrogation from outside the cell, his dark eyes flickering from Kirk to the unhappy Gonzalez, who kept denying everything and swearing in Spanish and in English and by every saint in the Catholic calendar that he was innocent. Spock felt sick inside as he realized the captain was receiving just as much enjoyment from Gonzalez' suffering as he had from Martinez' grief. Though he was doing his best to hide it, Kirk's enjoyment of Gonzalez' dilemma was so obvious to his alert first officer that Spock wondered why no one else could see it.

*Because all their attention is focused on Gonzalez, the prime suspect*, Spock answered himself. *And it pleases the captain that they should go on believing he is the only suspect. But why? What does Jim have to gain from proving Gonzalez is guilty?* The only possible answer made him close his eyes in anguish. *Could Jim have done it? All three murders? He has been acting strangely since our return from the planet's surface. Did something happen down there to make him a murderer, something that reversed his personality and made him as cruel as he was formerly kind?*

Remembering how he and McCoy had lost Kirk in the labyrinthine tunnels of the ancient burial mound, Spock wondered if during their brief interval apart his captain had stumbled upon some alien artifact that would account for his complete personality reversal. Some machine or drug buried with its creator? He had emerged empty-handed from the tomb he was exploring, so it had to be something that changed him internally, while leaving no outward mark.

Spock's eyes opened wide as he suddenly remembered something else. Kirk had indeed come empty-handed from the tomb, saying he had broken his pocket flash. But when they left, he had led the way out as if he knew it by heart, well enough not to need a light. *I must speak to him alone and find out what he discovered in that tomb. That is the only way I can be sure he is not legally responsible for these murders.* Spock nodded to himself as he made this decision, while continuing to eye Kirk in the corner of the brig. Everybody else was looking at Gonzalez, seeing only the tearful denials of an accused murderer, not the sadistic satisfaction their captain was getting from his anguish.

"Commander Spock! Commander Spock!" Lieutenant Marrakesh called to him in his high, piping voice while waving his four upper tentacles at him. "Something terrible has happened, sir! Please come at once!"

Spock followed the frantic Sulamid to the back of the lab, where he found what appeared to be the entire Science Department gathered outside his private cubicle. After making his way through the crowd (which parted like the Red Sea to let him through once they recognized him), he found a group of computer technicians picking up the pieces of his computer. It looked as if someone had taken an ax to it; pieces of glass from the shattered monitor glittered on the seat of the chair, while wisps of smoke still drifted up from the shorted wires, left exposed by whatever had torn the plastic body of the terminal to pieces. "What happened here?" Spock demanded.

"I don't know, sir! Somebody must have sneaked in while we were all at lunch and sabotaged your computer! I'm so sorry, sir! So sorry!" Marrakesh was wringing his upper tentacles in anguish as he begged the Vulcan's forgiveness, all four eyestalks watering as his color went from lilac to deep purple. Sulamids were so sensitive, they always overreacted to any serious situation, invariably blaming themselves if there was nobody else to take the blame.

"I hope you didn't have anything important stored on the main drive, sir," one of the techies told Spock as he studied the smoking ruins of the machine. "Whatever was on there has been completely wiped out."

"Fortunately, all of my vital research material has been saved on disk." Spock maintained his outward composure even as he wondered who would be mad enough to destroy such an expensive piece of equipment as a computer and for what purpose. His eyes swept the debris-cluttered desktop, looking for clues. Nothing had been added, but something was missing. "Did you or any of your people happen to remove a small personal tricorder from my desk?" Spock asked the techie.

"No, sir. We didn't see any other piece of equipment on your desk, except for your busted computer. Maybe it fell under the desk." The techie crawled beneath it and felt around, but found nothing. "Sorry, sir," he said as he crawled back out. "No tricorder under here. Maybe somebody borrowed it before the computer was trashed."

"Or stole it after destroying the computer." Spock didn't raise his voice, but the look in his eyes said he was mad as hell. The techie unconsciously backed away from him, grateful that Vulcans were too logical to kill the bearer of bad news, while wondering why Mister Spock seemed more concerned over the loss of a mere tricorder than the wanton destruction of a more costly computer. "Since my computer is beyond repair, please clean up this mess and requisition me a new one. Have you notified Security?"

"Yes, sir. They'll be here soon to dust for fingerprints. Till then, we can't remove anything."

"Very well. I'll be in my quarters." Spock left the lab, not mentioning that he intended to search the backup files in his personal computer to see what had been lost from the main drive in his lab computer. As a security precaution, he had created a link between the computer in the Science lab and the one in his quarters that automatically saved anything he had been working on in the lab that day and forwarded it to his personal computer. If whoever had destroyed his lab computer was hoping to obliterate something he had been working on today, that person was going to be very disappointed. And very sorry.

*Vulcans are supposed to be above revenge, but I am looking forward to savoring the sweet taste of it. As our captain seems to be savoring the suffering of his crew.* Reminded of his original destination, Spock decided to postpone his confrontation with the captain until he had gone over the backup files and resumed his trek toward his own cabin.

*This means the killer was not human. So it couldn't have been Gonzalez.* McCoy was glad for Gonzalez' sake; the boy had appeared to be genuinely heartbroken over Moreno's death, and shocked at the other two murders. *Now what do I do? Should I tell the captain? Nope, first I better examine the personnel roster and see how many ENTERPRISE crewmembers are reptilian hominids. Once I've isolated who this purple skin belongs to, I'll be able to identify the murderer.* Turning away from his microscope, McCoy tapped his request into the Medical Department computer. It didn't take long to isolate the names of non-human crewmembers that were of reptilian descent. There weren't that many; four turtle people, two minidragons, one snake woman and a chameleon person of undetermined gender. None of them had purple skin.

*If it's not one of our people, then there must be an intruder on board. Probably the same one who killed all those archaeologists.* McCoy mentally compared the twelve mangled bodies of the Jackson expedition with those of the ENTERPRISE crew found murdered today. The similarities were unmistakable. *How did it get on board? More importantly, how do we find it before it kills again?* He decided to confer with the ship's science officer before he approached the captain with his news. The way Jim had been snapping at him lately, he didn't think he'd welcome any more bad news.

After hiding the incriminating evidence in Gonzalez' cabin, it went to find Martinez as Parminter. It had been easy to lure her to Gonzalez' cabin on the pretext of looking for something there that would help incriminate him as the murderer. While pretending to search the bathroom, it had turned back into Gonzalez and changed into the bloody overalls. Then it had come out of the bathroom and grabbed her.

"You little squealer!" it had yelled at her. "You told the captain about me and Marta! Now I'm gonna have to take care of you like I did Parminter!" She had died slowly, begging for her life as long as she had breath, then clawing feebly at her attacker's face while she was being strangled. Her fear and suffering had been so wonderful, so intense. What a pity there hadn't been enough time to rape her as well. After she was dead, it had torn out her throat and had itself a little snack, getting more blood on the messy overall, before stuffing her in the closet and returning to Engineering to plant the incriminating evidence in Gonzalez' workbench while he was in the bathroom.

The same hungry smile it had worn earlier in the conference room came to the creature's lips as it stood outside the first officer's cabin, fingering the letters on the gold door panel that spelled out Spock's name. *Now you shall be mine, my beautiful alien. The damage I did to your machine in the Science lab should prevent you from making any sense out of that ruined tape in Jackson's smaller machine, which I have already disposed of. How fortunate that there were no cameras in the lab, otherwise my efforts would have been in vain.* Unaware that its efforts had been in vain due to Spock's precautions, it entered the first officer's cabin, still confident that its secret was safe.

Before he could hear any more, a hand fell on his shoulder from behind. Startled, Spock turned his head to find Kirk standing behind him. "Still working, huh?" The captain smiled at him. "Don't you ever rest, Spock?"

"Your ship's science department would not be operating at its peak efficiency if I did," Spock told him.

"Well, I'm ordering you to take a break now. Come away from that silly machine and let's have a drink together." Kirk was exerting all his considerable charm to get his first officer to relax.

"Jim, I believe I'm on the verge of a breakthrough concerning the mystery of what killed the Jackson expedition."

"Come on, Spock, can't that wait until later? You work too hard. You should relax more." As he spoke, he began rubbing Spock's shoulders suggestively, just the way he did in the lab.

Spock began to feel uncomfortable again. "Jim, please don't do that," he requested, gently but firmly.

"Why not? We're friends, aren't we?" The captain sounded hurt. "Don't you trust me enough to let me touch you? Even after three years?"

"Yes, I do, but you appear to be abusing that trust," Spock told him rather brusquely. He swiveled his chair to one side so that he could face the captain. Removing the earpiece, he looked up at him severely and confronted Kirk with what had been bothering him. "You have been acting strangely ever since we beamed back up from the planet's surface. Your insistence upon touching me despite the discomfort you know it causes me, your lack of consideration for that poor traumatized young woman who discovered her roommate's body, even the way you reprimanded me and McCoy for one of our ubiquitous disagreements, makes me believe you have been personally affected by the events down on M226. Perhaps more than you realize."

"You're right, I have. I'm sorry, Spock." Kirk stood before him with downcast eyes, looking ashamed. "I shouldn't have presumed upon our friendship. It's just that seeing all those dead bodies down there, and now finding my people being killed up here, made me realize how precious life is. And how easily it can end. I started thinking of all the times I nearly lost you, and how close we've become as a result. I didn't mean to offend you with the touching, I just--I just didn't know any other way to show you that I care about you. Deeply. As more than a friend." He glanced shyly up at him through the unruly lock of hair that always fell over his face when he looked down, making him look boyishly young and innocent. "Do you understand, Spock?" he asked softly.

"I think I do, Jim," Spock replied slowly. He stood up, regarding his closest friend in the galaxy with his usual impassivity, while inside his mind was in turmoil. *How could this happen? How can he be in love with me? I thought I was safe with him, that the desire I've felt for him for so long could remain safely sublimated, unaroused, unacted on. As long as he cared only for women, I could go on living and working on the same ship with him, secure in the knowledge that nothing would ever happen to compromise my position as his best friend. But now it seems that he cares for me too. What should I do?*

"Spock?" Kirk was looking at him so forlornly, it made his heart ache. "Spock, please don't reject me. I'm telling you that I love you. I know I'm the wrong race and the wrong sex, but I do love you."

"Please say no more, Jim." Spock stood with his hands clasped behind his back, regarding him with the cold, disapproving stare of a typical Vulcan who finds himself on the receiving end of an unwanted display of emotion. He spoke coldly too, forcing himself to be cruel to the one he loved best in order to save them both. "I know you believe yourself to be in love with me. But may I point out that in the past, you have also believed yourself to be in love with countless others before me, the majority of them female. This tendency of yours to fall in love at the drop of the proverbial hat leads me to believe that your current feelings for me are merely an indication of your desire for novelty in your sex life. In short, you wish to sample me as you would a new vintage, for the sake of variety. I have no wish to be tasted and set aside when my flavor palls. Therefore I must insist that you speak no more of this to me."

"But Spock--" Kirk's wide eyes began to fill up with tears. "Spock, I do love you. I swear it's the truth. I'm not trying to play games with you, I love you, I really d--"

"Kroykah!" Spock said harshly in his own language. "I beg you, say no more! You will hate yourself later for saying such things, and hate me for hearing them. Do not embarrass yourself or me any longer with this appalling display of emotion."

"What is so appalling about emotion?" Kirk appealed to him with outstretched hands. "I know you have feelings for me, Spock. You've shown them time and time again, whenever I was in danger. Is it so terrible for you to hear me say I love you? Is it so terrible for you to admit that you love me too?"

Spock swallowed hard as he fought to keep his composure. His control was starting to slip. "You are my friend, and I--I cherish you, as a brother in arms, a fellow warrior who has fought bravely and nobly alongside of me."

"You once called me 't'hy'la'," Kirk reminded him sadly, "on my birthday, when you were the last one to leave my cabin, and drank a toast to me before you left."

"Yes," Spock admitted, averting his eyes so he wouldn't see the hurt in Jim's eyes.

"You told me that it meant 'friend who is like sibling'. But when I looked it up, it had two meanings. 'Friend who is like sibling' and 'friend who is more than sibling'. Which meaning did you have in mind, Spock?"

Spock felt his face flush as he remembered how he felt that night, not wanting to leave his beloved friend, wishing he could stay with him all night, wondering how Jim would respond if he asked to stay and sleep in the same bed with him. When he toasted Jim with the ancient Vulcan word, he was thinking only of the first meaning, the traditional one, a close friend for whom one feels a brotherly affection. Or was he?

Kirk smiled when he saw Spock's face turn green, knowing he had gotten to him. "I'm right, aren't I? You do care about me?"

"I have always cared about you," Spock admitted. "But that does not mean we are obliged to have a physical relationship. As long as we serve in Starfleet, it behooves us both not to compromise our honor by becoming intimately involved with each other."

"Spock, I don't consider it a dishonor to love and be loved by you." Kirk moved closer to him, reaching out to take him in his arms. Spock retreated backwards, still determined to do the right thing as an officer and a gentleman, as well as Jim Kirk's best friend, who did not want to take advantage of the human's feelings for him.

"Jim, please don't." Spock managed to keep the note of fear out of his voice as Kirk kept coming toward him with his arms held out. He kept backing away until he felt himself come up against the privacy screen that separated his sleeping area from the rest of the dim, redly-lit cabin. He felt a strong desire to duck behind the screen, which he instantly dismissed as cowardly. No problem was ever solved by hiding from it; it must be faced head on and dealt with in a logical manner. But when his beloved friend--his t'hy'la--laid his hands on his shoulders and pressed himself against the length of his body, looking up at him with such love and longing in his handsome face, Spock found it very hard to think logically.

"Jim, please let go," Spock pleaded with him.

"Why? Am I hurting you?" Kirk's expressive eyes told him he would never do such a thing, not intentionally.

"No, but--" Spock squirmed a little as his hastily erected psychic shields were bombarded by a strong wave of emotion. Love and desire, two of the strongest human emotions that had ever troubled him since he left Vulcan to learn more of his mother's people, were starting to weaken his shields. Already he could feel himself responding physically to the erotic stimulus, the nearness of Jim, the feel of his warm body against his own, his strong hands grasping his shoulders, the faint, musky smell of his arousal. Desperately he pushed Jim away. "I cannot bear this," he told him, his deep voice hoarse with anguish. "You are filling me with your emotions, making me feel things I haven't allowed myself to feel for years. If you persist in touching me, I shall no longer be able to control myself."

"Then don't!" Kirk's own voice sounded as if his heart were breaking. "Let yourself go, Spock! You don't need to control yourself with me. I love you and I want to lose control as badly as you do. It's part of being in love, losing control and doing whatever your heart tells you. Please let me stay, Spock. Let me show my love for you, and you can show your love for me. Don't push me away again. Please?" His eyes were full of tears as he pleaded with Spock.

"Jim, if you really love me, please go away." Spock could hardly get the words out. He wanted so much for Jim to stay, even though he knew it was wrong. "Don't compromise yourself and me by insisting on a physical demonstration of affection. Please go away, Jim. For your own sake, if not mine."

"I can't go away, Spock. I love you too much." Kirk put his arms around him and held him tight, resting his sandy blond head on Spock's left shoulder. "If you really want me to go, you'll have to throw me out, 'cause I'm not going." He sounded close to tears as he buried his face in Spock's shoulder, pressing even closer to him.

Spock groaned as he steeled himself to throw his beloved friend out of his cabin. But when his arms enfolded him, it was to pull him close. "T'hy'la," he heard himself saying.

Jim gave a muffled sob of gratitude as he clung to him. They held each other so tight, Spock began to fear he might break fragile human bones. He loosened his grip, but kept one arm wrapped around Jim's waist while rubbing his back with the other hand. Caressing him like this helped to convey some of the tenderness he felt. It also made Jim purr like a cat as he snuggled close, kissing the side of Spock's neck, working his way up to the earlobe, which he first licked, then sucked, pulling groans of pleasure from Spock. When Jim pulled his dark head down to kiss him, Spock didn't resist.

The kiss lasted a long time. But the longer it lasted, the more Spock began to feel that something was wrong. Jim's mouth didn't feel quite right beneath his; he got the impression that the lips were fuller and the teeth behind them more prominent than they appeared when Jim smiled. And when he tried to initiate a mind meld by caressing Jim's cheek, the human seemed to flinch from his touch for a moment. As he gently pressed his fingertips against the beloved cheek, he sensed a recent injury beneath the surface of the skin. But there was no outward sign of injury on Jim's face, no bruises, cuts, or scratches.

*Scratches?* Something stirred at the back of Spock's mind, even as he tried to touch minds with the one he loved. When he did make mental contact, he got an impression of blankness. There were no mental images, only a feeling of intense passion, overlying a strong feeling of hunger. Spock was bewildered. How could Jim be feeling passion and hunger at the same time? And why couldn't he see himself in Jim's mind? He seemed to be only savoring the sensation of their lovemaking, without anticipating the consummation. He had hoped to be able to see what Jim wanted and needed from him, so he would know whether or not to take the lead in their lovemaking. But if all Jim wanted was to kiss...

Spock came up for air, breaking contact with Jim's mind at the same time. He continued to hold him close while he caught his breath, wondering if Jim had somehow learned to shield his thoughts. *Perhaps he gained the knowledge from my mind during a past meld. But why would he keep his thoughts shielded during an intimate moment like this?* Surely Jim knew enough about Vulcans by now to know that they required a mental link to their lovers as well as a physical one. There would be no reason for him to keep his thoughts shielded during lovemaking. Unless he was trying to hide something. But what?

Jim nestled in his strong arms and started nibbling on the side of his neck again. Spock rubbed his back affectionately, using both hands this time. While he was caressing his t'hy'la, he caught a glimpse of their reflections in a mirror hanging on the opposite wall. What he saw in the mirror made him stop and stand there staring, his eyes wide with shock. In the shiny reflective surface, he did not see himself holding his beloved Jim in his arms. He saw himself holding a purple-skinned, reptilian creature, which appeared to be nibbling on his neck hungrily.

"Spock?" He heard Jim's voice in his ear as the gentle nibbling stopped. "Spock, what's wrong?" It was undeniably Jim's voice. When he looked down, it was Jim's face he saw. But when he looked in the mirror again, he saw only the creature.

*How can this be? It defies all logic!* his mind screamed. But some ancient instinct older than logic warned him: *Never mind logic. Trust your eyes. This is not Jim you are holding, but an imposter. The creature must be psychic, able to project a mental image of Jim good enough to fool the eyes of whoever knows him. But if it is only a mental image, it cannot fool the mirror. Or a camera's lens.*

He now understood why, when Uhura's summons came over the communications console in the lab, the captain had stopped him from turning the monitor around so that Uhura could see him. He was also now able to guess what the fragment of damaged tape he had been listening to said: "Take human form at will". That was how this creature managed to slay the entire Jackson expedition, and how it planned to slaughter the entire crew of the ENTERPRISE. All this rushed through his mind at light speed while he continued to hold the creature in his arms. He could sense its growing puzzlement as to why Spock had stopped caressing it, and his first thought was to thrust the creature as far away from him as possible. But the sight of its powerful back and shoulder muscles in the mirror warned him that it just might take a good portion of his skin along with it.

*Play for time,* his instinct whispered. *Don't get the creature angry or it may attack. Put it off with soft words and promises, just as you would the real Jim, so you can find out what happened to him.*

"Spock, why don't you kiss me again?" The longing in that well-known, well-loved voice made Spock's knees weak. Only the image in the mirror kept reminding him that this was not the real Jim Kirk in his arms. Its head now rested on his chest, so he couldn't see the baleful red light shining in its eyes as it sensed the disturbance in the Vulcan's mind.

*Does he know? Or does he only suspect?* the creature wondered. *If he knows I'm not the real James Kirk, I'll have to kill him now. And I so wanted to make love to him first!* It spoke to him in honeyed tones as it tried to coax him into more lovemaking. "Kiss me again, Spock, please. Hold me close and kiss me."

In his arms, Spock saw Jim Kirk lift his face up for another kiss and felt him grasp his shoulders tenderly. In the mirror, he saw the creature lifting its horrid, purple-skinned face toward his face and saw it digging its claws into his shoulders. He managed not to shudder as he quickly reinforced his mental shields to prevent the creature from reading his thoughts. "Not now, Jim," he said aloud, keeping his voice soft, with just the right note of regret. "This is not the right time. We are both still on duty. If you are missing too long from the bridge, someone is sure to come looking for you. Come back in an hour, when our shift ends. I will be waiting for you here."

"Do you mean it?" the creature who looked like Kirk whispered, its eyes aglow with happiness. "Oh, Spock, do you really mean it?"

"Yes," Spock assured him. "Come back to me in an hour, Jim. Then we can be together until dawn, with no danger of being interrupted." He made himself take the creature in his arms and hug it tenderly, keeping his eyes closed so he wouldn't see the horrible truth in the mirror. "I long for you as you long for me," he whispered. "Just give me time to finish my duty shift and you will see how much I long for you."

"Oh, Spock..." The sound of Jim's voice, full of love and desire, nearly broke Spock's heart, knowing it wasn't really Jim speaking. His anger at the creature's deception made him unconsciously tighten his arms around it, longing to break its back for deceiving him, tempting him with the illusion of the one he loved finally returning his love. The creature merely gasped with joy at what it took to be Spock's ardor and tightened its own arms around him. "Spock, do we really have to wait an hour?" It tried to kiss him again.

Spock managed to evade the kiss, feeling nauseated at the thought of letting this thing touch its lips to his again, while assuring it that the wait was necessary. "Just one hour, my love. One hour and I will be yours."

"Yes, you will be mine. All mine." An unmistakable note of greed crept into the creature's voice as it held him tight. Spock saw its true image in the mirror holding onto his image and felt trapped.

*If I don't succeed in finding Jim during that hour, then I will be trapped! Oh, Jim, Jim, where are you? What could this creature have done to you?* He longed to take the creature by the throat and force the truth out of it.

Just then, the door buzzer sounded. Spock used it as an excuse to push the creature away. "Come in!" he called, hastily smoothing his uniform. The false Kirk followed his example, hiding its resentment at the unexpected visitor.

The door swished aside and McCoy entered. "Spock, can I talk to you for a minute?" He saw the captain and stopped dead in his tracks. "Oh, hello Jim," he said awkwardly. "Wasn't expecting to find you here."

"It's okay, Bones. I was just leaving." The captain smiled at them both as he left, but his gaze lingered longest on Spock, who ducked his head to hide the blush that came to his cheeks.

As soon as the door slid shut behind the captain, McCoy gave a sigh of relief. "Well, at least he's in a good mood. The way he's been snarling at us lately, you'd think he was gonna eat us alive." Spock shuddered. "Hey, what's the matter, Spock?" McCoy looked him over carefully. "You look kinda green. Has Jim been chewing you out again?"

Spock took a deep breath and said, "Doctor, what would you say if I told you that was not the captain who just left?"

"Well, who else could it be? Great Caesar's ghost?"

"Believe me, Doctor, that was not Captain Kirk." Spock proceeded to tell him everything that had transpired in the cabin prior to his entrance. When he was finished, McCoy's face was a mask of horror.

"Spock," he said hoarsely, "are you absolutely sure of what you saw in the mirror?"

"Doctor, there is nothing wrong with my eyesight and I have not imbibed any alcoholic beverages. Therefore, what I saw in the mirror must be true."

"Dear God! Then that thing must be what's killing the crew!" He told Spock about his discovery, the purple reptilian skin cells in the scrapings taken from under Martinez' fingernails. "What are we gonna do, Spock?"

"I know what I must do, Doctor. I must beam down to the planet and try to locate the captain. You had better stay up here and stall the creature if I am delayed getting back. Once I've found the real Jim Kirk, we can immobilize the imposter."

"And just how do you intend to do that?" McCoy demanded. "And what in tarnation makes you think poor Jim's still gonna be alive? You saw what that thing did to our people, and to Jackson and his people!"

"I must find Jim, or what remains of him." Spock's face of stone helped him to hide the fear he felt that his beloved friend might be dead. "Only his actual presence on board this ship will prove that creature is an imposter. I suggest you return to Sickbay and prepare a hypospray with the strongest sedative you have, then come to the transporter room and wait for me to beam back up with the captain. If he is still alive, he may be in need of medical attention. If he is not, I will still need your help smuggling him on board without the creature finding out."

"Okay, mister, you got it. Let's go!"

THREE

Once Spock was on the planet's surface, he headed straight for the ancient burial mound. It was the last place where he, the captain, and McCoy had been before beaming up this afternoon, so logically it should be the first place he looked for the captain. He had brought a more powerful light this time, but the planet's moon was bright enough to see by, so he hurried through the deserted campsite to the burial mound, hoping to find his friend still alive.

*And to think I feared that it was some alien drug or device which had changed Jim! Spock thought as he jogged along. *When it wasn't Jim at all, but a shape-shifting creature that looked like him. The creature must be an extremely powerful telepath, to be able to see my feelings for Jim and use them against me, saying the things that I long to hear Jim say, doing what I would like Jim to do. How could I have been so blind? What made me think that Jim would ever return my feelings, say and do those things in reality? The creature was only exploiting my hidden weakness, those damnable emotions I've tried so hard to eradicate since learning how much pain they could give me...*

Spock kept kicking himself mentally all the way to the burial mound, ashamed of losing control long enough to let the creature get its paws on him. He blushed with shame at the memory of their lovemaking, brief though it was, and the hope it had aroused that he and Jim could actually have a life together. False hope, as false as the idea that Jim could actually love him. They were friends, nothing more. He must keep it that way if he wanted to go on living and working with him on the same starship. He was sure that if Jim ever found out how he really felt about him, he would turn away in disgust.

As he entered the mound, he thought: *If I can only find him alive, I promise myself I will work harder at controlling my emotions. I will strive to keep to logic's stern rule and forget I ever felt anything at all.*

The body of Professor Jackson was gone, removed to the ENTERPRISE's Sickbay morgue along with all the other bodies found here. But somewhere inside this cold hill of mud and stone lay the body of Jim Kirk, alive or dead. Whether alive or dead, he must find him and bring him back. Because out of all the humans he had ever met since he joined Starfleet, Jim Kirk was the only one he cared enough to hurt about. Shining his powerful flashlight ahead of him, Spock retraced the route his captain had taken when the three of them had split up to go exploring down here.

"Jim! Jim!" he kept calling every few steps. "Jim, can you hear me? It's Spock!" He shone the light into several crevices that looked big enough for a man of Jim's size to go through. But none of them led anywhere; they were just shallow holes dug into the dirt walls, each one containing a cache of humanoid bones, an intact skeleton that looked as if it had been shoved inside while the body was still fresh. Most of the skeletons were ancient, calcified remains of the planet's original humanoid population, but some were more recent, still wearing the blood-stained rags of the clothing they had been killed in.

*No doubt some more members of the Jackson expedition whom we overlooked in our search,* Spock thought grimly. *This explains those mysterious disappearances Professor Jackson referred to on his tape.* He braced himself for the sight of a corpse wearing the bloodied rags of a gold Starfleet uniform shirt, hoping all the while that he wouldn't find it.

Eventually he came to the doorway of the tomb he and McCoy had seen the false Kirk coming out of. "Jim?" he called hopefully. "Jim, are you in there?" He waited, holding his breath and tuning out the sound of his own heartbeat so that his sensitive ears could pick up the slightest sound from within.

He imagined all his trusting friends--gentle Uhura, brave, young Chekov, the gallant Sulu, stalwart Scotty, and the crusty, temperamental, but lovable old sawbones McCoy--being led one by one into the captain's cabin, or into their own cabins, or some remote part of the ship where only service droids ever went. There they would die horribly, ravished in body and mind, each one believing that it was their captain, their friend Jim Kirk, doing this to them. Worst of all these scenarios was the one where the creature, wearing his form, came up to Spock, the dearest friend of all, and invited him to the captain's cabin for a friendly game of chess. The creature knew how dear Spock was to him, so it was sure to make him suffer the longest and the hardest. Then it would come back here and put an end to his sufferings, this mental anguish of imagining it had doomed him to after rendering him helpless to do anything but imagine. He didn't want to imagine what kind of torment it had planned for him, but with nothing else to do but think, all sorts of horrible ideas kept going through his mind.

When he got too tired to cry, he slept. In his sleep, he kept on seeing his friends dying in various horrible ways, each one crying out to the false captain for mercy. Only Spock was able to die knowing that it was not his captain doing this to him. Spock would manage to mind meld with the creature somehow, and when he did, he would see that it was not Jim Kirk. Somehow, someway, Spock would unmask the thing before his own death. If only Spock didn't have to die too. If only he could live so that he'd know how much his captain really cared about him...

He kept waking up from these dreams with fresh tears in his eyes, still hearing his friends' voices, their cries of anguish, their screams of pain, ringing in his ears. The most persistent voice was Spock's, calling to him for help as the thing wrapped its claws around his neck and slowly choked him. When he woke up from his latest dream, he actually did hear Spock's voice calling to him from outside the tomb.

*Spock? Is it really him?* A wild hope that Spock had somehow discovered the creature's true identity and come looking for him came into his heart. *Oh God, let it be Spock! Please, please, let it be him!* He tried to call out, but the creature's venom was still strong enough to keep his vocal cords paralyzed. He could feel the damp, muddy ground underneath him, the gritty texture of the dirt beneath his fingertips, feel the cold stiffening his joints, but he still couldn't move a muscle or make a sound. Or could he? Taking a deep breath, he tried to scream as loud as he could. But all that came out was a gasping sound as his breath whistled uselessly through a larynx that couldn't articulate words, just as if he had laryngitis.

Standing outside the tomb, his pointed ears focused on the interior of the opening before him, Spock heard the faint whistling gasp that was Kirk's attempt to scream. *Could it be?* he wondered. "Jim? Is that you?" he called into the darkness.

*Yes!* Kirk tried to scream, forcing air through his larynx as hard as he could, getting nothing but a weak whistling sound for his pains.

Spock entered the tomb, his shoulders getting stuck in the narrow doorway for a few moments before he pried himself loose. He shone the light across the floor and saw a recumbent form lying in front of the little stone altar at the rear of the tomb. "Jim!" he cried as he rushed toward him. Then he was kneeling beside his friend, shining the light all over him as he examined him for injuries. "Jim, are you all right?" There was no mistaking the joyous note in his voice, the warm glow of affection in his eyes, the tender way his fingers stroked as they examined him. "Please tell me you are all right, Jim."

Kirk longed to tell him anything, but the venom in his body had only weakened enough to let him move his lips without sound. Tears came to his eyes as he tried to force words from his throat, but all that emerged were the same pitiful whimpers and moans he'd been uttering for the last ten hours whenever he woke up weeping from one of his nightmares. Resting the light atop a nearby coffin, Spock used it to study his friend's face. He saw relief in the tear-filled eyes, as well as frustration, as the captain continued to move his lips without producing any intelligible sound.

"Why don't you speak, Jim?" Spock leaned over him, regarding him anxiously. "Can you say anything? Anything at all?"

Kirk swallowed and tried again, but still couldn't say a word. He wanted to scream in frustration, beg Spock to get him out of here, warn him what kind of beast was loose on board the ENTERPRISE, but the creature's venom was still too effective.

"Do you have a head or neck injury?" Spock gently took the captain's head in his hands and lifted it carefully, feeling the back of his head for any swelling or bleeding. He ran his fingers through Kirk's hair looking for lumps, bumps, or cuts, but found none. The captain's neck did not appear to be broken, either. Why, then, was he unable to move? As he examined him, he noticed how Kirk's eyes never left his face. He seemed to be trying to speak with his eyes, pleading with Spock to do something.

"What is it, Jim? What have I overlooked?" He looked right into the hazel eyes, keeping a firm but gentle hold on the sandy blond head between his strong hands as he tried to communicate with the mind within. "Concentrate, Jim. Concentrate on just one word, then try to say it aloud."

Kirk thought of how the creature had bitten him, then concentrated until he was able to say "Neck," in a weak whisper that only Spock's sensitive ears could have heard without having to put his ear right to Kirk's lips.

"Your neck?" Spock asked, and was rewarded by a blink of the captain's eyes. "But I have already examined it. It does not appear broken."

Kirk's face became red with the effort as he tried to speak again. This time he was able to whisper the word "Bite."

"You have a bite on your neck?" Spock earned himself another blink and an attempt at a smile. "Since I have already examined your neck for internal injury, logically I should examine it from the outside as well." So he felt along the captain's neck until he located the bite marks on the left side, right over the carotid artery. Kirk made a soft hissing sound as Spock's fingertips brushed over the tiny wounds, drawing his attention to them.

Spock examined the bite marks in the flashlight's beam, frowning as he measured the probable depth of the wound and the length of the fangs that had inflicted it. He remembered the strange feeling he'd had while kissing the false Kirk, the impression that the lips beneath his were fuller than they appeared, the teeth behind them more prominent. Remembering the reptilian aspect of the creature's true appearance in the mirror, he shuddered inwardly as he imagined how its face looked. "Jim," he said solemnly, looking into the voiceless captain's troubled eyes, "there is a creature on board the ENTERPRISE that is able to take human form at will. I believe it is the same one responsible for the deaths of the entire Jackson expedition. It has also taken the lives of three crewmembers, and would have taken mine as well, if not for the fortuitous placement of a mirror in my quarters. Apparently the creature's shape-changing talent works only upon the humanoid mind and optic nerve. I was able to see its true appearance in the mirror when it unknowingly stood in front of it. Is this purple-skinned reptilian the same creature that bit you?"

Kirk was able to breathe out, "Uh-huh." His eyes told Spock how grateful he was.

"Since you are unable to move or speak so long after the attack, it is obvious that the creature's bite was venomous, and that you are still suffering from its effects. It is also obvious that we shall not know the whole story until I have mind melded with you. Only then will I know the full story of what happened here earlier today. Do I have your permission to proceed?" Spock asked him gently.

Kirk made the affirmative sound again, looking at him so gratefully that Spock was moved. Shifting to a more comfortable position, he gathered Kirk's head into the crook of his left arm and cradled it comfortingly as he pressed the fingers of his right hand against the human's left cheek. "Your mind to my mind," he murmured soothingly as he began the preliminary chant. "And my mind to yours. Let our minds be as one, our thoughts the same..."

For the second time that day, Kirk felt an alien presence entering his mind. But this one he welcomed. It was one thing to have your mind penetrated by a stranger intent on mental rape, but quite another when it was a friend, a well-loved, gentle friend who only wanted to help you by sharing thoughts. Closing his eyes, he relaxed as he surrendered himself to the familiar sensation of their two minds becoming one...

FOUR

In the ENTERPRISE's transporter room, Doctor McCoy stood behind the console, nervously glancing over his shoulder at the door from time to time. Beside him Lieutenant Kyle, the transportation officer, kept his eyes glued to the console for Mister Spock's retrieval signal. He still didn't understand why Mister Spock insisted upon beaming down to the planet at this time of night, nor why he had ordered him not to let anybody but the chief medical officer know of his departure or his return. But orders were orders, and Kyle had served on the ENTERPRISE long enough to know that there was always a method to Mister Spock's seeming madness.

"Come on, Spock, come on!" McCoy muttered, glancing at his wrist chronometer for the umpteenth time, then at the door into the ship's corridor. "The hour's almost up!"

"Sir, why is it so important that Mister Spock return in exactly an hour?" Kyle asked curiously.

"Because if he doesn't, all hell's gonna break loose!" McCoy snapped. "That's all you need to know, mister!"

A chastised Kyle remained silent as he fiddled with the transporter's controls, making sure the calibration was set and the beam ready to lock on to Spock's exact location. McCoy kept rubbing his hypospray in its suedo-leather container on the belt of his blue medical tunic, like a nervous gunslinger rubbing his six-shooter through the holster. He was hoping the sedative he'd loaded it with was strong enough to take down the creature Spock had described. If not, Spock was going to have to be mighty quick with his hands. Provided the skin of such a creature's scaly neck was thin enough for a Vulcan nerve pinch to be effective. And what was he going to say to the thing if Spock didn't get back in time and it came looking for him? Remembering the gruesome remains of the murdered crewmembers, McCoy fervently prayed that Spock would get back in time, preferably with Jim. Otherwise old Leonard H. McCoy was liable to end up as that thing's next meal.

A yellow light began blinking on the console. Kyle was on top of it immediately. "Lieutenant Kyle here, sir!" he said into the speaker. "Are you ready to beam up?"

"Yes, Mister Kyle," Spock's voice replied. "Two to beam up."

"Two, sir?" Kyle asked, not sure he had heard right.

"You heard correctly, Mister Kyle. Energize."

The handsome blond Aussie shrugged, then activated the controls. The familiar high-pitched whine filled the room as the silver disks on the red platform began to glow. Moments later a couple of glittering shapes appeared, gradually materializing into a kneeling Spock with a very grubby and unconscious Captain Kirk cradled protectively in his arms.

"Hooray! You found him!" McCoy ran to them while Kyle stood gaping.

"Sir, what was Captain Kirk doing down on the planet?" Kyle asked Spock in bewilderment. "I thought he was on the bridge!"

"That is an imposter on the bridge, Mister Kyle," Spock informed him grimly. "This is the real Captain Kirk. And he needs immediate medical attention. Doctor, if you please?"

"Help me get him to Sickbay!" McCoy bent down and grabbed Kirk's legs. He and Spock lifted him between them and carried him towards the door. As it swished open, McCoy told the lieutenant, "Kyle, look outside and see if the coast is clear."

Kyle poked his head out an