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Captain’s log, stardate 7225.5. The Enterprise is in orbit around Craugis Two, a pre-Warp planet of minimal significance except that it is the only inhabited planet in a system of considerable strategic importance for its proximity to the Romulan neutral zone. Our mission, to visit the planet undetected and observe its people and culture.
Kirk stowed his communicator in a discreet pocket of his pants, ready to beam down. “The finishing touch,” he said, handing an attractive cloche hat to Uhura and a trilby to McCoy. He was wearing a Homburg himself.
“Will it be cold?” Uhura asked.
“No,” Kirk said, “but the Craugians have pointed ears.”
“Try not to look so pleased about it,” McCoy said to Spock, who was displaying every sign of glee that an emotionless Vulcan could: the corner of his mouth had twitched slightly.
Kirk hid a grin. “Starfleet has advised that Craugis Two is in most respects a peaceful Earth-like planet, at a similar level of development to Earth in the early 20th century.
“There’s one key difference that I’ve been advised to make you all aware of, and that’s the very large number of domesticated animals that the Craugians seem to keep. This has only been observed from a distance, but they seem to have a wide variety of animal species even living in their biggest cities, from small mammals to large predators. They do all seem to be tame and the Craugians don’t act as if they’re afraid of them. So, if you see something that looks like a tiger walking along the street, or anything along those lines, try to stay calm and pretend that it’s just a big dog.”
“What if it actually is a dangerous wild animal?” McCoy asked. “Then what will we do?”
“Then we’ll just have to hope we have a good doctor with us, won’t we?” Kirk said. “Come on, let’s hurry up and beam down. It should be just about lunchtime in the capital city.”
On materialising on the planet, Uhura had to agree with Starfleet’s assessment. The city looked like any modern capital in the early part of the twentieth century: a few skyscrapers mixed in with older buildings, tree-lined avenues, and streetcars going by crammed with people. It was a place of wide boulevards, of bright advertising hoardings hiding construction work, of people in elegant hats.
But she was grateful for Starfleet’s warning, too. Hylactor – the capital city – was teeming with animals, most of which looked like they had no place in an urban environment. There were large ruminants and flightless birds wandering around. They had materialised in a quiet alleyway, but at its entrance had been something that looked a lot like an alligator. And Uhura could have sworn she’d seen a wolf, or the Craugian equivalent, looking out from the window of the streetcar.
More remarkably, other than a few seagull-like birds, almost all of these animals did seem to be pets. None of them were on a leash, but they walked happily alongside their owners regardless. There weren’t even the kind of minor skirmishes or dominance displays that would have been the norm in any Earth dog park.
“Fascinating,” said Spock. “This planet must have a truly unique evolutionary history to have resulted in such a high rate of domestication.”
“Wonder if it extends to the people,” McCoy said. “Starfleet said it was peaceful – maybe that’s a genetic trait?”
“A society that has evolved for peace at the genetic level would be highly worthy of study,” Spock replied.
“Let’s get some lunch and see if we can get chatting to the locals,” Kirk said. “Uhura, how are you getting on with the language?”
Uhura had a universal translator from one of the shuttlecraft concealed in her handbag. As they approached a streetcar stop, she said, “Can we wait here for a moment, sir?”
The group slowed down, and she listened in to passers-by. As she did, a bird that looked a great deal like the variable sunbirds that she recognised from growing up in Kenya landed on her shoulder. She tried to shoo it away, but it just looked at her in confusion.
“They are always running late, I’m going to write to the council,” one woman was saying.
“And then when you get on, there’s no room,” her friend agreed. “Last week I had to sit next to someone whose daemon was a russet bear, I could barely fit. I still think those people should pay extra.”
“Quite right,” said a man, out of Uhura’s view.
Uhura gave Kirk a brisk nod, and they started walking again. More local animals had joined them and were walking in stride with them: a fluffy white dog, a light brown cat, and something that looked remarkably like a raccoon.
“It’s working,” Uhura said as they walked. “There was one word that wasn’t identified – daemon – but everything else was translated.”
“Demon?” said McCoy. “That sounds sinister.”
“It just sounds the same as our word,” Uhura clarified. “I think it might be something to do with their domesticated animals; the woman was referring to a russet bear.”
“That’s not all that reassuring,” McCoy said.
Kirk clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. If you get eaten by a bear, I’ll give you an extra day off.”
“Very considerate,” McCoy replied.
They found a small cafe with outdoor seating, and were shown to a table by a woman with something akin to a squirrel perched on her shoulder. It looked at them with what seemed almost like understanding as they ordered.
Uhura was gradually growing used to all the animals. They were undeniably friendly – especially the four that had joined them at some point on their walk to the cafe. The sunbird had settled repeatedly on Uhura’s shoulder despite all her efforts to shoo it away. The dog was more attracted to Kirk, who was petting it absentmindedly. The cat, or whatever it was, had curled up underneath Spock’s chair. And McCoy was being harangued by the raccoon, which hung on to his trouser leg despite all his attempts to dissuade it.
“These animals are remarkably friendly,” Spock said. He reached down to pet the cat, which arched its head against his fingers and purred.
“Too friendly,” said McCoy, who had just removed the raccoon from his leg again, only for it to climb up on the back of his chair.
“They’re astonishingly like Earth animals,” Kirk said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this lady here was a Pyrenean Mountain Dog.”
“I haven’t encountered the breed,” Spock said. “What are their characteristics?”
“They’re a guardian dog,” Kirk said. “They were bred originally to accompany flocks of sheep. They’re not like sheepdogs; the idea is that the dog would be a friend to the flock, and would see the sheep as its pack. Then, if predators came to attack the sheep, the dog would defend them.”
“I can see that this creature would be well-suited to the task,” Spock replied. “But is it so surprising that the animal species here would resemble Earth animals? After all, with the exception of their ears, the people closely resemble humans.”
“But right down to the breed of dog?” Kirk said.
Their conversation was interrupted when the waitress returned with their meals. They had all opted for vegetable soup as the safest menu choice on an unfamiliar planet. The squirrel ran down the waitress’s arm and perched on her wrist as she put the bowls on the table. But when Kirk reached out to touch it, she jerked her arm away angrily.
“I’m sorry,” Kirk said. “I thought he was friendly. I didn’t mean to offend.”
She gave him an odd look, and walked away, holding the squirrel closely to her.
“Maybe it is taboo to touch others’ pets,” Spock suggested.
“Would have thought you could hardly avoid it, there are so many of them,” McCoy said.
Uhura became uncomfortably aware of being watched. She glanced around, only to see people at the other tables staring at them. “Sir,” she said, “I think we’re attracting some attention.”
Kirk looked around, trying not to give the impression of nervousness. “I think you’re right, Lieutenant,” he said. “But why? We can’t have done anything that much out of the ordinary.”
“Maybe they have a prejudice against people who eat soup,” McCoy said. As he spoke, the raccoon clambered up onto his lap, and tried to reach for his spoon. This was too much for McCoy, who stood up rapidly, dumping the raccoon on the floor. He shooed it away with his hands, saying, “Get out of it! I’m not feeding you!”
At that point everything happened very quickly.
Uhura tried to piece together the order of events later on. One of the other customers at the cafe had grabbed McCoy – he’d fought her off, stepped on the raccoon’s tail – it shrieked in an almost human voice – the waitress, still with the squirrel on her shoulder, came running out – they’d been restrained by the other customers – had tried to start a conversation or free themselves to no avail – a car pulled up outside and men in white coats emerged – they had syringes – they ran over to the group from the Enterprise –
And then everything went black.
~
The men woke up in a padded cell. McCoy came around first, and dashed over to his colleagues, who were still unconscious, checking breathing and pulse rates; no harm seemed to have been done. Only then did he look around the cell.
“What the hell?!” he exclaimed.
The three animals – the raccoon, the dog and the cat – were right there in the cell with them, sitting neatly side-by-side, as if it were exactly where they all expected to be. The dog and cat were asleep; the raccoon, awake.
His hands went instinctively to his head – but the hat was still in place. Their secret was safe.
Spock came around next. “Where are we, doctor?” he asked.
“At a guess, I’d say this is some kind of primitive psychiatric institution,” McCoy said. “I don’t know where Uhura is, but maybe they don’t like to put men and women together in these things. They’re still happy for us to be in here with a bunch of mangy animals, though.”
The cat blinked, stretched sleepily, and then padded over to sit beside Spock, butting its head up against him.
“You may have reasonable objections to these animals, Dr McCoy,” Spock said, “but I do not think they could fairly be described as mangy. They seem to be in excellent health.”
“Well, yours isn’t quite so irritating as the one that’s decided she wants to be my friend,” McCoy grumbled. The raccoon had also ambled over, and was grasping at his clothes again.
“She?” Spock asked.
“You think I can’t tell the difference between a male and a female raccoon?” McCoy said. “She’s a she. They’re all female.”
“Interesting,” Spock said.
Kirk stirred, and the dog immediately went to him, and started licking his face. He awoke smiling, and the dog nudged him into a sitting position.
“We’re in a padded cell, and they’ve put the animals in with us,” McCoy said to bring him up to speed. “And I don’t want to make either of you nervous, but early 20th century psychiatry was primitive stuff. If this planet is at that level of development, we want to be careful that they don’t lobotomise us or something.”
“Though I resent the loss of our freedom,” Spock said, “we do appear to have been treated adequately. This cell is comfortable, and well-lit.”
“Bones has a point,” Kirk said. “It’s still a cell. We should try to get out of here.” He felt his pockets. They hadn’t changed his clothing, but his communicator, unsurprisingly, was gone.
“But how?” McCoy said. “Uhura had the universal translator, and we don’t know where she’s gone. If she’s not in range, we won’t be able to understand a word that anyone’s saying.”
“For now, let’s just try to stay calm, and work out what it was that led to this,” Kirk said. “They didn’t seem to like it when you pushed that raccoon away. They seem determined for us to make friends with these animals.”
“So I have to make friends with a raccoon,” McCoy said sceptically. “I sure hope Uhura’s getting on better than we are.”
~
Uhura woke up alone. She was in what she took to be a hospital room. It was clean and comfortable, but there was something institutional about it, with its brass bedstead and crisp white sheets. She was in the clothes she had arrived in and – thank goodness – the bag that contained the universal translator was at the side of the bed.
The sunbird was perched on the nightstand.
Sitting up, she stretched out her hand towards it, tremulously, and it hopped over to land on her finger. It seemed utterly unafraid of her. He, she thought, looking at the bird’s splendid turquoise and yellow plumage. There was something almost like intelligence in his beady black eye.
Uhura checked herself. She was a Communications Officer aboard the starship Enterprise. She should not be making assumptions about alien species on the basis of appearance.
The bird kept studying her. What if she was still making assumptions?
“Hello,” she said, feeling ridiculous. “Can you understand me?”
The bird fluttered his wings and hopped back and forth. He opened his beak, and a deep male voice that had no business at all coming from a seven-gram bird said, “Of course I can, Nyota.”
Uhura almost dropped him.
“Did you just speak?”
“I did.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Nuru,” the bird said.
“Like the Swahili word for light,” Uhura said.
If a bird could look amused, this one did. “Exactly like,” he said. “Your name means star, and my name means light.”
“What are you?” she asked. “Are you from this planet?”
Nuru ruffled his wings. “I am yours. I am of you.”
“What does that mean?”
“I think I am your daemon.” He made the word sound unfamiliar.
“My daemon,” Uhura repeated. “And are all the animals on Craugis Two like you?”
Nuru hopped back and forth again. “I don’t know. I haven’t been here long. It’s all new.”
“You’re new to Craugis Two?”
“I feel like I woke up from a very deep sleep when you arrived here.”
“Do you know where my friends are? Spock, and –”
“Dr McCoy, and Captain Kirk?” Nuru said. “No, I’ve no idea.”
“But you know their names,” Uhura said.
She was about to try to tease this out further when there came a knock at the door. A woman in a bright, starched nurse’s uniform came into the room, something akin to a sheep following just behind her.
Uhura and Nuru both turned to look at her, their heads moving in unison. The nurse gave a sigh of relief.
“I told them you didn’t have Daemon Estrangement Syndrome,” she said. “They were worried because of that gentleman you were with and how awful he was treating his daemon. But I said it was probably just a moment of mania, and you was probably there to set him right. And look! No problems between you and your daemon.”
“No problems at all,” Uhura said brightly, sensing a way out. “But I would like to be able to help my friends get back on the right path. Could I be allowed to go and see them?”
“It’s so rare,” the nurse said. “Daemon Estrangement Syndrome, I mean. They probably had no idea what to do with you. Good thing that it’s rare, mind you. Imagine it. Mistreating your own soul.”
“My soul?” Uhura said.
The nurse cleared her throat. “I suppose that’s not scientific now, is it. The doctors would probably say an external manifestation of the interior self, or something like it, but I think your soul is close enough.” She smiled. “Your daemon’s lovely. Always wanted a bird daemon, when I was growing up. Never thought I’d end up with a moufla, but myself and Callax, we’re suited to one another.”
“We are,” the sheep agreed. Uhura fought to keep the shock off her face. She ran one finger over the soft feathers of Nuru’s head, thinking, my soul.
“Well,” the nurse continued. “I’ll see if the doctor can see you. I’m sure they’ll see it was all a misunderstanding, that you wanted to take care of your friend.”
She left, pulling the door shut behind her. Uhura looked at Nuru again. “You’re my soul?” she said.
“It sounds ridiculous,” Nuru said, echoing her thoughts, “but it feels true, doesn’t it?”
It did. Deep down, looking at Nuru, Uhura found it easy to accept what the nurse had said.
“Why didn’t you speak earlier?” she asked.
“I couldn’t,” Nuru said. “Not until you’d acknowledged me as a person. Even now, I can feel your mind opening to me.”
Uhura could feel the same thing. When she touched Nuru now, it felt more and more like touching a part of herself.
She leaned back against the bed, closing her eyes. Her soul, manifested as a sunbird. It was too much to take in.
~
“Do you hear that?” McCoy said. “I think there’s someone outside.”
They all went silent. Even Spock’s cat, eerily, stopped purring. They listened as a voice drifted in through the small window set into the door in the padded wall.
“It frightens me,” a man’s voice said. “We’ve never had a case of Daemon Estrangement Syndrome here before, and now we have four? All at once?”
“Maybe it’s a misdiagnosis,” a woman’s voice replied.
“We have to hope so.”
“I can understand them,” Kirk murmured. “Uhura can’t be that far away.”
“Perhaps in a neighbouring cell,” Spock said.
“Or a different floor,” McCoy said.
Kirk nodded, dropping his voice low. “We need to get out of here and find her. Let’s see if we can get the guard to come in here.”
“If this is a genetically peaceful planet, then they may not expect violence,” Spock observed. “I hesitate to take advantage of such an admirable trait, but as you say, Captain, we must find Lieutenant Uhura.”
“Let me,” McCoy said. He stood up and tapped at the window. “My friend is having medical issues, we need help!”
Kirk rapidly arranged himself on the floor and did his best to look unwell.
The window slid open. “What kind of problem?”
“He’s very clammy, and he’s hyperventilating,” McCoy said. “I think he’s having a panic attack. It might be claustrophobia.”
Kirk gave McCoy a brief look of irritation, then set about panting. They heard the sound of bolts sliding back, and the guard opened the door.
Spock was there instantly. He reached out and delivered a Vulcan nerve pinch. The guard crumpled to the ground just as a human would have done – and strangely, so did the bird of prey that had been on his shoulder.
Getting to his feet, Kirk dragged both man and bird into the confines of the cell, while Spock held the door.
“Will he be out for long, do you think?” Kirk asked McCoy.
“No way to tell,” McCoy said. “Craugian physiology seems similar enough to human physiology, but who knows what’s going on under the skin. I say we lock him in here. This is a psychiatric facility, someone’s bound to come by soon enough.”
“Agreed,” Spock said. “From their previous behaviour, it does not appear that the animals will pose him or each other any danger.”
They bolted the door behind them, and headed out into a long corridor, the animals kicking up a fuss at their departure. McCoy had to nudge the raccoon out of the way of the door for fear of closing it on her fingers.
The hospital seemed to be designed around a central courtyard, with small rooms lining all four sides; possibly a conversion from something similar to an Earth monastery. The rooms they passed were mostly empty.
“No sign of Uhura,” McCoy said.
Spock came to a halt first. “Dr McCoy,” he said, “could you briefly examine me? I feel quite unwell.”
McCoy, alarmed, checked as much as he could in the absence of his medical tricorder. “I can’t see anything wrong. Keep walking, see if you feel better.”
But only a few metres further down the corridor, Kirk stopped too. “I’m not feeling great either.”
McCoy took a deep breath. “No, nor am I.”
“It is illogical,” Spock said, “but I feel strangely drawn to go back to the animals we left in that cell.”
Kirk staggered a few paces further on, then turned around. “It’s no good,” he said. “I can’t continue.”
“What happens if you return this way?” Spock asked.
McCoy walked in his direction, more steadily by each step. By the time he had gone ten metres or so nearer to the cell, he seemed almost fully restored.
“That settles it,” Kirk said. “Let’s go back to the cell and get the animals, before the guard wakes up.”
They dashed back to the cell, as silently as they could. The guard was still out cold, and so was the bird beside him. When they opened the door, the animals raced towards them, the raccoon climbing McCoy’s body like a tree.
“Steady on there, fella,” McCoy said, scooping it up in his arm. “You really are friendly, huh?”
“Only as friendly as you are,” the raccoon said in a raspy female voice.
Kirk looked from McCoy to the raccoon and back again.
“Did that raccoon just speak?” he asked.
The guard on the floor began to stir.
“Never mind the talking raccoon,” McCoy said, “we have to get out of here and find Uhura before the guard wakes up enough to raise the alarm. We can’t risk using that Vulcan trick on him again, not when we don’t know how his body responds.”
“Agreed,” Spock said, “but how do we find Lieutenant Uhura?”
Kirk thought for a moment. “Spock – you speak the Vulcan language. I did a term of it at the Academy, but that’s all. I don’t speak it well. Uhura has the universal translator. We know we can’t be far from where she is while that’s operational.”
“So if we stop being able to understand Spock –” McCoy said.
“Then we’ll know we’ve gone the wrong way,” Kirk replied. “Come on, let’s try the other direction. Spock, start speaking in Vulcan – say anything you like!”
Spock nodded as they set off, and began to recite. “Constructionism combines the epistemological thesis about what can be known with a meta-philosophical view on the nature of philosophical questions…”
“What is that?” McCoy asked.
“The First Doctrines of Logic,” Spock said. “It is a text that most Vulcans memorise while at school.”
“Speak Vulcan,” McCoy said as they walked, still clutching the raccoon. Spock’s cat and Kirk’s dog ran along beside them. “Not Federation Standard.”
“I am speaking Vulcan,” Spock said. “You are merely able to understand me due to our proximity to the mesukh sasayek.”
“Wrong way!” McCoy said. “Turn around. Spock, keep going.”
“ Svi’ nenem-tor olozhika, the methods of reasoning and the procedure for finding evidence are investigated.”
“Getting warmer,” Kirk said.
“A deductive argument is one that aims to show its conclusion must be yeht.”
“Uhura must be nearby,” Kirk said. “Maybe on a different floor.”
“Spunau bolayalar t'Wehku bolayalar t'Zamu il t'Veh.”
“You’ve switched to the Teachings of Surak, Mr Spock?” Kirk asked as they ascended the stairs. “Don’t look at me like that, I remember one or two things from the Academy.
Spock raised an eyebrow, but continued. “Nam-tor wak vah yut s'vesht na'fa'wak heh backwards. There is no other wisdom and no other hope for us but that we grow wise.”
“There she is!” McCoy called out. “Uhura!”
~
She saw the men approach and – thank goodness – they had their daemons with them. McCoy was even holding the raccoon like it was a teddy bear.
“These are my friends,” she said to the nurse. “As you can see, they have their daemons with them. I’m sure now the mania has passed, they’ll treat them quite normally.” She gently petted Nuru’s head in the hope that they would get the idea.
Kirk did, at least, his hand going immediately to the soft fur of his dog daemon. “We’re all back to normal now,” he said. “Thank you for all your help.”
Spock’s cat daemon jumped up into his arms. The nurse was visibly relieved.
“They do seem normal,” her moufla said.
Uhura caught her breath. But whatever her colleagues had worked out about their daemons, they knew enough not to seem surprised by a talking animal.
“You’ll all need to sign out,” the nurse said. “We do take Daemon Estrangement Syndrome very seriously.”
“As you should, nurse,” McCoy said. “It was a frightening experience for all of us. But I am a qualified doctor myself, and I’m confident we won’t see any relapse of symptoms. Where should we go for discharge?”
Uhura was tense throughout the whole process of leaving the hospital, but in the end, the desire of the Craugians to treat the frightening occurrence of Daemon Estrangement Syndrome as resolved won through. They had caused a great deal of panic with their apparent disregard for their daemons; everyone was so pleased to see their apparent recovery that not too many questions were asked. Even their communicators and tricorders were given back to them without too much fuss.
The hospital, when they emerged, was in a wide open parkland. They took themselves away to a quiet spot where they wouldn’t be overheard.
“Now, Lieutenant Uhura,” Kirk said. “You seem to have a better idea than the rest of us what’s going on here – can you explain?”
“I can try, sir –” Uhura began, but before she could get much further, she was interrupted by McCoy, who had been scanning his daemon with his medical tricorder.
“Jim, look at this,” he said. “I can’t make any sense of these readings. According to this, this animal here – well, she’s me. Damn thing must be malfunctioning.”
“I can explain that,” Uhura said. “But perhaps the better person to do that would be Nuru, here.”
“Who is Nuru?” Spock asked.
“I am,” Nuru said, hopping back and forth on Uhura’s shoulder. “I am Nyota’s daemon, and we think I may have been with her all her life, though I only became visible on Craugis Two…”
They sat there as Nuru explained everything that he and Uhura had learned about daemons in their short time on the planet. “They seem to reflect something of our characters or personalities,” Uhura put in.
McCoy and his raccoon daemon exchanged glances, their expressions uncannily similar.
“And they all talk?” Kirk said. “My dog here would talk?”
“They seem to need us to speak to them first,” Uhura said. “To acknowledge them as something other than normal animals. You have to open your mind to them.”
Kirk turned carefully towards the dog. “Hello,” he said.
“Hello, Jim,” the daemon replied.
Kirk’s face was a picture of amazement. Uhura felt like she should turn away, as if witnessing something intimate – and even more so when Spock addressed his cat daemon in turn.
They all spent some time in that hospital park, getting to know their daemons, experiencing what it was to have a conversation with their innermost selves. It was only when it started to go dark, and Scotty’s voice crackled through the communicator to ask if all was well that they realised they had long outstayed the brief visit to the planet that they had originally planned.
“I find myself quite unwilling to leave T’Plaith behind, Captain,” Spock said, stroking the cat.
“I will always be with you,” T’Plaith said. “I am a part of you.”
Kirk nodded. “They’ll all be here if we come back,” he said. “My recommendation to Starfleet will be to investigate this planet further.”
“The daemon phenomenon is a fascinating one,” Spock said, “and worthy of further study.”
They made their goodbyes to their daemons. As the transporter beam appeared around her, Uhura closed her eyes, unable to tolerate the idea of seeing Nuru disappear.
By rights their shifts had ended. All the same, they gravitated to the bridge, to watch Craugis Two disappear from sight on the viewscreen.
As it shrunk to the size of a marble, then disappeared in the inky blackness of space, Kirk turned to Spock, attempting a smile.
“I can’t help but notice that your soul, Mr Spock, your daemon, was a cat – an Earth creature. Perhaps, deep down, you’re more human than you like to admit.”
Spock quirked an eyebrow. “On the contrary, Captain, I have never denied my human ancestry. It is a curiosity that my daemon should be an Earth animal. However, it is illogical to assume that the Craugians are wholly correct in their identification of the daemon with the soul. There could be any number of explanations for the existence of the daemon without resorting to such fanciful and unscientific notions.”
“That’s you told, Jim,” McCoy said, laughing. Even Spock seemed more amused than offended by the conversation. As he went back to his station, Uhura couldn’t help but feel that there was something catlike in him, all logic aside.
And for a moment she thought she saw Nuru, perched on the communications console, fluttering his wings. But when she blinked, he was gone.