The turbolift doors whispered open, and Devra Lang headed
confidently toward the Enterprise sickbay. She pretended to
ignore the grinning young crewmen who, having shared the lift
with her, had disembarked on the same deck and now walked slowly
several paces behind her with their heads bent together. She
didn't have to hear them to know what they were probably saying.

"I hear Dr. McCoy's pretty smitten with his new MD."

"Yeah, well you don't see lady ship's doctors all that often, do
you?

They turned into a different corridor, and Devra breathed an
invisible sigh of relief. She was used to the looks, the asides
and the quiet whispers. What amazed her at times was that in
this day and age, men could still be surprised (as well as
embarrassed) by the installment of a female doctor aboard ship.

She strode into the medical section's front office to find McCoy
at his desk, hip deep in reports and obviously hating it.

"You're late," he muttered without looking up.

"Sorry. Is there some crisis I should know about?"

The Enterprise's chief surgeon scowled at the piles of log tapes
surrounding him. "No, but the captain wants someone from medical
section there to meet the penal colony shuttle when it docks.
That's in ten minutes."

"I'm on my way. Uh... Am I allowed to know who it is we're
picking up?"

"Starfleet-ordered prisoner transfer to Starbase 20." McCoy's
stylus continued to move over the chart in front of him as he
spoke. "He's a Lyrellian accused of assassinating a Dorgon
Chancellor. The Federation wants full psych tests run on him
before the trial opens next week."

Devra wanted to ask why the penal colony's medical facilities
hadn't been adequate for that, but refrained. There was no
second-guessing a bureaucratic Federation decision.

She was on her way out the door when McCoy's voice stopped her.
"Oh and Devra..." he said.

"Yes?"

"Be careful." He was looking at her fully now for the first time.
"This character's supposed to be dangerous."

Devra smiled. "I never met a man I couldn't handle, Doctor."
"You never met this one. Just watch yourself, all right?"

"I'll do my best." Devra headed for the landing bay, uncertain
whether McCoy's concern had been professional, personal or both.
She was fond of the irrascible ship's surgeon; maybe even a
little more than fond. But his abrasive veneer was so difficult
to get past. It never seemed to disappear completely, even with
his closest friends. She wondered what unhappy events in his
past might have fostered it to begin with, and why he felt he
needed to so carefully maintain the facade.

Captain Kirk, Lt. Sulu and four security officers were gathered
outside the bay doors when she arrived. The overhead panels
indicated that the shuttle had already docked and the bay was now
pressurizing. She was just in time.

"Glad you could join us, Doctor," the captain said pleasantly,
though the intimation that she had nearly been late lingered
somewhere in the words.

"Thank you, sir. Will you want the medicals conducted
immediately, or after we're underway?"

Kirk turned to his helmsman. "Mr. Sulu, what's our ETA for
Starbase 20 at warp four?"

"Thirty-two hours, Captain."

"Then I'll want the tests run immediately, Doctor."

Kirk watched the pressurizing line crawl toward the green side of
the indicator. "And I've just received a report fron the
colony's chief psychologist that should interest you. I guess
you could call it a warning."

"Sir, I've already been told the man is considered dangerous.
What else is there to know?"

"The reason why." Kirk delayed opening the bay doors just yet,
even though the pressurization was now complete. "This man,
Avlon, is a member of a Lyrellian cult known as the Bachni. Ever
hear of it?"

"Mm. Supposedly extinct," Devra told him. "Aren't they supposed
to be psychic sorcerers, or something like that?"

"Starfleet believes this particular 'psychic sorceror' used
some sinister variant of a mind meld technique to murder the
Chancellor. So just as a precaution, Doctor, take them at their
word. Don't let him touch you."

Devra suppressed a shudder as the door hummed open and they
were met with the sleek configuration of the colony shuttle. Its
hatch had already opened, and a trio of armed guards had
disembarked. They were shortly followed by a fourth, whose drawn
phaser herded the handcuffed prisoner from the craft.

The man was not what Devra had expected. He could have been a
Federation ambassador, or a doctor... even a starship captain,
for all his demeanor betrayed his alleged nature. His dark eyes
sparkled with an unmistakable intellect; well-chisled features
offset a lithe, muscular form.

Devra never heard the official exchange of formalities between
respective security forces. Her gaze had locked with Avlon's,
and those eyes seemed at once to engulf her. The spell was only
broken when Captain Kirk's voice interceded.

"Doctor?"

Devra blinked. "Yes sir."

"Give us a preliminary medi-scanner reading?"

While Devra fumbled for the scanner clipped to her belt, Avlon
flashed Kirk a peculiar half-grin. "Trying to prove that I'm
living, Captain? Or perhaps, that I'm not some malevolent alien
entity disguised as a Lyrellian?"

Kirk ignored the remark, intent on Devra's whirring scanner.
"Well?" he asked, a bit impatiently.

Devra snapped the small device off. "All his readings are
normal," she reported.

The captain nodded. "Mr. Sulu," he said.

"Yes sir?"

"You'll take charge of the security detail. See that the
prisoner is delivered to medical section. And I want two
securities to remain in the sickbay throughout the examination
procedure."

Devra started to protest that, but Kirk raised a hand to
forestall her. "That's an order," he said firmly.

"Rogers, Guillardo, you two stay with them. And see the prisoner
safely to the brig afterward."

The securities chorused a "yes sir," and Kirk turned away to see
to the departure of the colony shuttle and her crew. Clearly
dismissed, the escort party surrounded Avlon and headed for
sickbay.

Devra walked a few feet to the left of him. Uncomfortably aware
that he seemed always to be watching her, even when his eyes were
elsewhere, she was also plagued with an uncanny feeling that
someone -- or something -- else was following them.

She spun to look back at the deserted corridor, stopping the
armed party in its tracks. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Sulu glanced nervously around them. "There's no one
else here."

"No one at all," Avlon added smugly. "Tell me, Doctor, are you
given to auditory hallucinations?"

Sulu glared at Avlon on Devra's behalf. "Shut up," he ordered.

Devra shrugged off the sensation and resolutely began walking
again. They crowded into the turbolift and were promptly
redeposited on the medical deck.

All the way to sickbay, Devra never lost the eerie feeling that
something else, something unseen, had been stalking their party.

Two of the security guards deparated, dismissed by Sulu, before
they entered McCoy's outer office. The chief surgeon, all the
same, greeted them with a jaundiced glance that clearly said the
remaining securities were unwelcome.

"This is a sickbay," he growled at Sulu. "Not a brig. We don't
need any armed nursemaids."

Sulu's grin said he was long-accustomed to the doctor's bite.
"You'll have to take that up with the captain," he said.

As the helmsman departed, McCoy called after him through the
closing door. "I'll do that!"

When the door had finished closing, he turned to Devra and said
instead, "Let's get started."

Avlon lifted his cuffed hands toward them. "Won't a physical
examination be a bit difficult with these on?"

Not a bit," McCoy shot back immediately. "We weren't planning to
examine your wrists. In here."

They trooped into the ward, past McCoy's glass wall cabinet with
its prized collection of Saurian Brandy bottles, and Devra moved
at once to prepare the psych-reading equipment for the battery of
tests. Rogers and Guillardo silently took up guard stance
against a nearby wall and watched, impassive but doubtless
prepared for any emergency.

McCoy guided an acquiescent Avlon onto the upright diagnostic
couch, which then tilted him backward. Devra had just made an
adjustment on the adjacent equipment when the "something" she had
sensed earlier returned, this time more strongly than before.
There was a sound: an odd sort of humming, faint, almost an echo.

"Dr. McCoy..."

Devra had started to ask if McCoy had noticed the odd noise, but
when she turned, it was to confront the bizarre sight of security
officers Rogers and Guillardo standing side by side against the
bulkhead, both sleeping soundly. She turned again, and saw that
McCoy had collapsed into a nearby chair and was also dozing
comfortably.

The humming grew louder. It filled Devra's ears and seemed to
crawl with clutching fingers into her mind.

_No,_ she heard Avelon's voice say, though he hadn't spoken.
_Not this one. We will need her._

Devra felt a hand on her shoulder. Slowly and firmly, it turned
her to face Avlon, whose dark eyes again burned into her,
shutting out all else, or trying to.

Devra dimly remembered Kirk's earlier warning. _A variant of mind
melding,_ he'd said. But more importantly, _don't let him touch
you._

The hand on her shoulder moved. Hands, she realized foggily. He
was still manacled: but two hands had caught her, turned her.

The fingers, deceptively gentle, touched her forehead and began
to delicately probe. Devra heard the same voice, non-verbally,
that she had heard a few moments ago. But now the words were
strange, alien.

_Bachni, jazhan,_ it intoned. _Isfeth kashnandi, Bachni
Asboreth..._

Terrified, but with the strength of resolve, Devra stumbled
backward and away from him. The link broken, both voice and
humming vanished. The look of surprise in his black eyes told
her he had not expected the reaction.

"Such strength of will," he said. "It seems the Terran axiom is
true after all. Appearances are indeed deceiving."

Devra glanced with concern at McCoy and the slumbering
securities. "What did you do to them?" she asked.

"Do? Why nothing. They're merely enjoying what you commonly
call 'pleasant dreams.'"

"But you didn't touch them. I saw..."

He smiled the way a lion might smile at a newfound herd of plump
zebra. "I didn't have to," he said. "My... accomplice,
Asboreth, has touched them for me. You heard him, sensed him, in
the corridor. Oh, you didn't imagine it. He was there. And
here."

Devra's furtive glance around the room still showed her nothing.
But Avlon's smile broadened at her effort.

"Here," he said. His chained hands rose, fingers creating a
flower shape. His lips moved, silently forming more alien words,
and Devra watched, captivated as an eerie blue light began to
glow within the bowl of his hands. It pulsated and hummed with
the same near-musical tones she'd heard before. There were words
within the intonations: the same whispered syllables that moved
on Avlon's lips. The blue glow spread itself to his handcuffs;
its murmuring increased as the metal bracelets grew white hot and
dissolved from his wrists without leaving any marks behind. The
glowing thing crawled up his arm then to settle, like some arcane
bird, on his shoulder.

"Now," he said. "The Bachni will express to this Federation the
true scope of our power." His black eyes focused on Devra again,
boring into her. "You will take us to the control room of this
vessel. To the bridge."

Devra tried to back away. "No."

Fire seared through her head, a merciless, blinding pain that
receded only when she cried out, begging for him to stop.

"You will take us," he said. "Now."

The light creature performed a hideous imitation of a chortle.
"lzzfethhh," it rasped, and the shape quivered on Avlon's
shoulder. Devra could see a figure now within the blue halo; a
small, web-fingered creature with reptillian eyes and perfect
rows of needle teeth. She had no time to inspect it further,
however. Her feet were unwillingly guiding her past McCoy's
unmoving form to the sickbay door. She was only marginally aware
of a sound from the chief surgeon's chair as they passed him;
when she turned it was to see McCoy on his feet, lunging toward
Avlon with outstretched arms.

Devra tried to shout, to warn McCoy away, but her voice caught in
her throat. She saw the light creature fly at McCoy, a flurry of
glowing rage. It struck at him, madly babbling its evil words.
McCoy cried out, fell.

Avlon smiled.

"Stop it!" Devra pleaded. "He did nothing to hurt you. Please,
stop it!"

Asboreth flew at McCoy again, dealing a blow that knocked him to
the deck.
"Incarceration has obviously dulled my senses," Avlon told her.
"He broke free only because I shifted concentration to your
punishment. He will not break free again."

"If you had this ability all along," Devra said as Asboreth
hovered over McCoy, "why didn't you use it to escape long ago?"

"I told you. The power of the Bachni must be demonstrated to
this Federation. The time was not right before. Now, with a
starship at our disposal, the time will be very right indeed.
Asboreth! Bezhengi!"

Devra needed no translation of the command. The light creature
descended on McCoy, cackling its hideous, whispered laugh, and
spread itself into a thin veil of searing blue light.

McCoy screamed.

"No!" Devra rushed at Avlon, only to find herself thrown back
against a bulkhead by the same agonizing pain that had assaulted
her earlier. It passed as quickly as before, but McCoy continued
to writhe on the floor, engulfed in blue fire.

Avlon went on smiling.

His head snapped up at the sound of the intercom whistle. From
the speaker, Spock's voice said crisply, "Bridge to medical
section. The Captain requests a report on the progress of your
psychological examinations... Dr. McCoy?"

Devra's eyes fell on the phaser secured to Security guard Rogers'
utility belt. She knew there would be no other opportunity. She
would have to act now, while the Lyrellian's attention was
distracted by the intercom.

"Dr. McCoy," Spock's voice repeated. "Please acknowledge."

Devra ran the few intervening steps, snatched the weapon up and
spun to fire it, never stopping to breathe or think. She had no
idea what setting it was on.

A crimson beam streaked toward Avlon and struck him full in the
chest. His agonized cry was twinned by Asboreth's -- and
McCoy's. As Avlon fell, the light creature changed its hue from
blue to violet, gathered itself into a raging swarm and flew at
Devra. Her hands went up in a useless defense. The phaser
clattered to her feet. Fire both searing and at the same time
incredibly cold began to consume her. The scream struggling to
escape threatened instead to choke her.

The creature's hoarse voice screamed in place of her own, and she
saw, as it saw, a thousand faces of the Bachni, reaching across a
galaxy for the soul of the dying one.

_The last,_ they wailed. _You are the last of us!_

The violet light engulfing her faded back to blue, the pain
decreasing. From the floor, Avlon's dark eyes seemed to smile at
her before the life crept out of them, and he lay staring emptily
at the ceiling.

Asboreth's blue glow flickered, trembled, and with a final,
anguished sob, dissipated altogether.

Devra dropped to the deck, fighting to catch her breath. She
heard the sickbay door come open, and anxious voices: Chekov's,
Chapel's, then Captain Kirk's.

Gentle hands grasped her shoulders, pulled her up.

"Doctor? Doctor, are you all right?"

Devra blinked, finally focusing on Christine Chapel's face.
Beyond her, Kirk was seeing to a recovering McCoy, Chekov to the
still-sleeping securities.

"Avlon..." Devra murmured.

"He can't hurt you," Chapel said. "The phaser was on welding
mode. Doesn't dematerialize, but kills just as efficiently."

Devra stared down at the motionless Avlon, a dark, ugly hole
burned neatly through the fabric of his tunic. Though a part of
her felt only relief, another portion had the very unprofessional
urge to cry.

McCoy's acid tones cut through her morbid reverie. "Damn it,
stop fussing over me. I'm all right!"

Rogers and Guillardo were reviving under Chekov's ministrations,
and were making similar protests.

The intercom whistled. Devra heard Kirk answer and begin giving
Spock a status report. In a moment, McCoy was beside her, a
medi-scanner whirring in his hand. Devra scarcely felt his
concerned touch. She fought back threatening tears born of both
relief and sorrow. Over Avlon's still form, she thought she saw
the faintest glimmer of a sinister blue glow.

McCoy's arm encircled her, led her away.

When she looked back, the glow was gone.
 

The End