Free Star Trek: The Original Series - 147 - Devil’s Bargain by Tony Daniel

how unlikely this plan is, don’t you?”
    “I don’t have a lot of options at the moment, Bones.”
    “Well, I hope it works, because I’ve had a good look at the engineering these people have done to their genome while I was treating my patients today. They’ve made changes that are irreversible. I think most of them are as much as five to ten percent native, sharing this planet’s odd triple-helix gene structure. In comparison, humans and chimpanzees are ninety-eight percent similar. Let me tell you, there are many unknowns about that kind of genetic structure, but there is one known : That stuff is not very human, and neither are the structures it expresses. In fact, I don’t know what most of those genes do . I’m going to get a great paper out of mapping them after all this is over. But the one thing you cannot achieve with any current methodology is to deconstruct those genes in every cell and then remake a human out of the remains. These people are Vesbians now, and they’re going to remain Vesbians, for better or worse.”
    “Then it would seem that Spock’s idea is our only one.”
    “That doesn’t improve its chances,” McCoy mumbled.
    Kirk had to agree. But he had to admire his firstofficer. When backed into a corner, he had come up with a brilliant plan that just might succeed. Of course, its very success depended upon Spock and his mind melding ability.
    And the Horta.
    What were they like? Were they as crusty and acidic in personality as they were on the outside? Would they help?
    Kirk finally fell into an exhausted sleep, and his dreams were filled with Horta.
    He awoke the next morning to the urgent bleating of his communicator. He struggled up in bed and reached for the device, which lay on the nightstand nearby, and flipped it open. “Scotty, I was hoping to get a couple more hours sleep after the day we had yesterday.”
    “Sorry, sir,” came Scotty’s cheerful voice. He sounded as if he’d just awakened, eaten a large breakfast, and was eager to face a new day. It turned out that Scotty had spent much of the night scanning the planet surface.
    “After that second cache of bombs was discovered,” said the chief engineer , “I knew what to look for, Captain. They were pretty primitive devices—fertilizer bombs, if you can believe it—even though they packed quite a wallop.” Scotty chuckled. “But it makes sense if you’re short on bomb-making material and it makes sense if you want to hide them. The entire planet is an agricultural center, after all.”
    “Scotty, I haven’t had any coffee yet,” said Kirk. “Could you get to the point?”
    “Aye, Captain,” said Scotty. “Well, since we did have those unexploded bombs, we were able to analyze the exact chemical composition. I’ve been running scanner sweeps looking for those chemical signatures.”
    “And you found something?”
    “Captain,” said Scotty, concern seeping into his voice , “a whole lot of something. Bombs. Lots of them. And they’re all planted under the Council chamber in that complex you’re staying in.”
    Realization dawned on Kirk. “No doubt they’re set to go off this afternoon at the Council meeting.”
    “You’d be knowing that better than I, Captain,” replied Scotty. “We’ve got locks on the position of all of the planted bombs. We were able to analyze the triggering mechanism. They’ve learned from their mistakes. These babies are shielded from EMP. Just give the command, Captain, and I’ll beam them into space and blast them with the phasers just for good measure.”
    “Do it, Scotty. Get rid of them all. And continue those sensor scans.”
    “I’ll get on with it, then,” said Mister Scott. “And sorry about the rude wake-up call.”
    “Don’t worry about it,” Kirk said while locating a boot to pull on. “You saved a lot of lives. Kirk out.”
    This was going to be interesting information to take before the Council. Interesting