Star Trek 9 (Novel)
| Series | Star Trek |
| Published by | Bantam Books |
| Previous | Star Trek 8 (Blish08) |
| Next | Star Trek 10 (Blish10) |
| Written by | James Blish |
| Released | Aug 1973 |
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Six Thrilling Tales From the Award-Winning Television Series Created by Gene Roddenberry
Explore the outer reaches with the Enterprise and her crew as they exchange bodies with an alien intelligence; engage in deadly war games; pursue a vaporous creature to a desolate planet; and probe a fearsome zone of darkness that threatens to destroy them all.
Murderous Beauty
The three stranded Enterprise men were nearing the big, red rock. The rock of itself slid to one side. It revealed a door that suddenly telescoped and drew upward.
They cautiously moved through the doorway. It gave onto a large chamber. Across its entrance was a huge translucent cube. Pulsing in a thousand colors, lights flashed across its surfaces. They were studying the cube when the woman appeared. She moved toward them slowly.
"Tell us who you are for," Kirk said.
"I am for James Kirk," she said.
McCoy and Sulu drew together in front of him as he said, "But James Kirk is not for you."
"Let me touch you—I beg it," she said. "It is my existence."
"It is my death," Kirk replied.
Return to Tomorrow
Adapted from the episode Return to Tomorrow, written by John Kingsbridge.
Telepathic aliens take over Kirk and Spock's bodies
Answering a mysterious distress call from Arret—a planet thought long dead—Kirk, McCoy, and Dr. Ann Mulhall are transported underground to confront the last three survivors of that world's civilization. Sargon, Thalassa, and Henoch have preserved their conscious minds within spherical containers, and have remained in this state for centuries. They now wish to "borrow" the bodies of Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Mulhall so that they can construct android bodies to house their minds permanently. Sargon assures Kirk that his people will be safe, their minds encased for a short time within the same containers his people now occupy. McCoy is concerned about the high metabolic rate necessary for "possession." The real danger, however, is Henoch, who appropriates Spock's body without any intention of returning it. Henoch telepathically forces Nurse Chapel to poison Sargon (in Kirk's body) and then destroys the globe that houses Spock's mind. Fortunately, Spock's consciousness had already left the globe, hidden within the mind of Nurse Chapel. Henoch is tricked into leaving Spock's body, and is destroyed. Sargon and Thalassa vacate the bodies of Kirk and Dr. Mulhall voluntarily, announcing (after one last kiss) that they will be happy to roam throughout the universe together in their noncorporeal state.
Related Data
The Ultimate Computer
Adapted from the episode The Ultimate Computer. Story by Laurence M. Wolfe. Teleplay by D.C. Fontana.
The Enterprise is used to test the new M-5 computer.
Doctor Richard Daystrom, who developed the breakthrough duotronic computer technology nearly 25 years ago, fears he is now regarded as a prodigy who has lost his touch. Obsessed with proving himself, Daystrom uses his own brain patterns to program his new M-5 computer and convinces Star Fleet Command that it should test the machine by installing it on the Enterprise. Although Captain Kirk expresses reservations about the machine's presence, the first tests appear successful. When Commodore Robert Wesley leads a squad of starships in practice maneuvers against the M-5-run Enterprise, the computer takes complete control of the starship and responds as though the attack is real, resulting in the death of the entire Excalibur crew. Kirk, treating the M-5 like an errant child, forces the machine to realize it has committed murder. The machine sentences itself to death by lowering the Enterprise's shields — just as the rest of the wargames fleet moves in to attack. Scotty and Spock "pull the plug" on M-5, restoring the Enterprise to Captain Kirk's control. Kirk then plays dead — and Wesley calls off the fleet.
Related Data
That Which Survives
Adapted from the episode That WhichSurvives. Story by Michael Richards. Teleplay by John Meredyth Lucas.
A deadly computer image protects a long dead outpost.
Preparing to beam down to investigate puzzling geological conditions on an unexplored Class M planet, Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, Sulu, and geologist Lieutenant D'Amato see a woman, Losira, appear in the Enterprise transporter room. She touches Ensign Wyatt, killing him instantly, as the others are dematerializing, helpless to assist. When they materialize, they are unable to contact the Enterprise, which has been hurled almost a thousand light years away as a result of Losira's appearance.
Losira's image keeps materializing aboard the Enterprise and on the planet, killing someone each time. A young engineering officer is killed aboard the ship, and D'Amato is slain on the planet's surface. Sulu narrowly escapes death after Losira's image announces that she has come for him, and the landing party discovers that she can only kill the person she names. They stumble across an underground chamber, where they find that Losira is a holographic projection created by a computer left behind by the Kalandans, an extinct race that used the planet as a scientific outpost. Just as Kirk and the rest of the landing party are about to be killed by multiple versions of Losira, Spock beams down and destroys the ancient computer.
Related Data
Obsession
Adapted from the episode Obsession, written by Art Wallace.
Kirk is determined to hunt down a vampiric entity he failed to destroy in his past.
While Kirk was a young lieutenant serving on the U.S.S. Farragut, half the crew, including Captain Garrovick, were killed by a cloudlike creature Kirk felt he could have destroyed — had he not hesitated before firing. Eleven years later, Ensign Garrovick, the son of the late captain, is stationed on the Enterprise. On the surface of Argus X, a landing party, including the ensign, encounters the same gaseous creature. Several are killed but the cloudlike entity escapes and this time Kirk blames Garrovick, who also hesitated before firing. The creature leaves Argus X and Kirk chases it through space — when it suddenly turns to fight. It enters the Enterprise and begins to emerge from the ventilation duct in Garrovick's quarters. Spock is with the ensign, and the Vulcan is the first person encountered by the creature. Tasting Spock's copper-based blood, it flees back toward its native planet, Tycho IV. Kirk and Garrovick prepare a trap, baited with a large jar of Human blood attached to an antimatter bomb. The creature is destroyed, and both Kirk and young Garrovick, realizing phaser fire was inadequate to hurt the creature, are freed from their earlier guilt.
Related Data
The Return of the Archons
Adapted from the episode The Return of the Archons. Story by Gene Roddenberry. Teleplay by Boris Sobelman.
The Enterprise crew finds a world run by a computer named Landru.
The Enterprise visits planet Beta 3000 to learn the fate of the Archon, a Federation ship that visited the planet a century before. After beaming down to explore the planet, Sulu is hit by a strange ray. Transported back aboard the Enterprise, he is found to be under the influence of a controlling force. A landing party beams down and sees the planet's populace suddenly begin going mad, which lasts exactly twelve hours. Reger, a native whose daughter Tula was a participant in "the Red Hour," tells them that monklike Lawgivers roam the planet serving the ruling mystical figure, Landru. Outsiders—such as the crew of the Archon and Sulu—are "absorbed" and transformed into a part of "the body." Reger and Marplon, two members of the anti-Landru underground, prevent Kirk and Spock from being absorbed. Kirk then learns that Landru is a computer, programmed by a scientist and leader thousands of years before to protect his people. Kirk destroys the computer, freeing the people of Beta 3000 to rule themselves.
Related Data
The Immunity Syndrome
Adapted from the episode The Immunity Syndrome, written by Robert Sabaroff.
A giant space amoeba threatens the entire galaxy.
The Enterprise is en route to investigate the mysterious loss of contact with solar system Gamma 7A, when Spock suddenly receives a stunning psychic bolt. The U.S.S. Intrepid, a starship crewed entirely by Vulcans, has just been completely destroyed. In deep space, the Enterprise then encounters a huge living creature, a gigantic one-celled life form resembling nothing so much as a giant amoeba. The entity is cutting a destructive swath through the galaxy, and is responsible not only for the destruction of the Intrepid, but system Gamma 7A as well. Captain Kirk realizes that his starship may be the only means of stopping the creature before it can end all life in the galaxy — for it is about to reproduce. The Enterprise assumes the role of "antibody" and presses forward to attack. The crew feels the effects of invading the giant intruder as fatigue and depression, and Spock pilots a shuttlecraft into the "heart" of the creature to determine its weakest spot. Just before the creature can replicate, an antimatter charge is fired into the creature's nucleus, killing it. The Vulcan succeeds in returning to the Enterprise as his life-support systems are about to expire.
