THE JOURNAL OF BAVMET, TELLARA BY GRACE

Thank Creation's Will for Anfo. The Andorian is the only truly civilized one here. If I insult him, he reaches for his confiscated dagger, and expects that I will show him the same respect. Not these 'wisdom-seeking beings', or Humans, as they call themselves. They--'try and figure out' a response. What eternal dithering. The Vulcans should have held them in check, til the new species made up its mind. But then, Vulcans--well, you know.    The poor translator. She tries so hard to explain it all. To little avail. Isn't it enough that The Will gave her such a hairless face with only two minor protrusions? It almost makes me long for Anfo's odd cousin--at least she has something one could grab onto in a fight. And just how do they walk around on those flattened hooves? They lack even the smallest arched curve. Vulcans had their feet flattened by hot sands. What did these Humans do to themselves? Some, I'm told, don't even have hair. The very concept denies me the comfortable digestion of my late meal every day.

Yet, one who argues a lost point loses a part of his soul, and so I must give this new species their due. A whole ship, taken out, when we thought them the taunting enemy that strikes only. Then--they actually drove off that same enemy. They have left our space, and if the pattern keeps, may not be seen for tens of light-cycles. Now the Humans and The Vulcans want to talk. Perhaps we can all do the same to those who strike to expand and those who strike for gain. While those who strike to expand actually have more hair than us, they are beasts, devouring captives as they roar. The Humans have also shown us that those who strike to expand are not from the K'lr'th system, as first we believed, but from the system the Tellara call Kaa and the Andoria call Z'nte.

Their long-range sensors are remarkable, but it all ties into a pattern. Their ability to see what is close is as poor as their ability to truly argue or fight properly. We orbit above a planet, five explorers sent down to look at what it may have to offer. Yet that is no longer a concern. On the Bridge-Station, my voder is slow to process exact words as they are heard. But tones are as evocative in this species as in any other.

*Captain Archer--the others are mutating!*

No, they are not. Though faint, surface signs show only Humans. But that is what the man below sees, and what one sees is reality.

*Captain, the creature is like a Hydra. I've taken off one of its arms, but it just regenerated!*

Translator Park knows the woman who has said this. But her Captain does not. No hierarchy, here. I would have sent down members of my command crew, not far-down underlings whose names Archer must needs be reminded of.

*Captain, Henrietta's become a cannibal beast! She's taken off one of my arms!*

Why, then, does he maintain this disheartening, demoralizing feed? Straining the voder's capabilities and two sets of patience, I bypass Translator Park and ask the man Trip--at least that seems to be his name--or title?

"Well, Jonathan just feels that people shouldn't die alone."

Idiocy. Most people die alone. The gasses now scanned inside the caves will kill them as surely as the winds outside will pummel them. This is assured. Why hear of what is known?

*Lovecraft was right! Earth is a tiny island, in a sea of darkness. Go back! Settle in and learn to live together in agrarian peace. I think--I think he got my eye. Captain, Jinsen is a traitor. He said he's working for those swarthy alien people that look like us. Either that or he's with the circus. Its kind of hard to tell.*

His laughter makes me cringe as his moaning never could. They all alternate between laughter and tears, before and after telling tales of lost body parts. Yet still Archer will not turn the feed off. Is he mad, too? Does he posess the sick soul of the old dictators, who killed the clans off, but never to their faces. My voder barely tells me of speculated solutions that are not solutions at all.

"A more limited mountain buster?"

"Where do you aim it?"

"Cut a hole in the mountain's face? Get fresh air in there?"

"The winds are flesh-rippers. And the plant-spores the gases are coming from on are saturating that area at three times interior concentration. It defies what we know."

After a long interval of silence, one more option is mentioned.

"The Matter-Disrupter?"

Though the Captain himself raised this, it is not even responded to. The night was long, and the explorers' transmitters worked far better than their besotted brains.

Exhausted, I wait in the shuttlepod observation area as 'trans-haz-mat' suited crew returned with the grisly remains of those who went below. On Earth, I am reliably told, five anxious people will be given the mixed news that the coveted postings they so narrowly missed on the first round will now be given them. And they will be told why. Captain Archer is here, too. I understand now, I think. They are his charges. From the moment they boarded until the moment they are given back to their clans, his bond with them is sacred.

"You Captain. Did Creation's Will these souls dictate should fall away?"

The voder is clumsy, as ever. But the Human is not long in responding.

*Creation's Will, You Tellara, is to we seekers of wisdom as a thing indiscernible, in the hearing of invocations and the yielding-----*

In a rage, he throws the voder against the wall, as though disgusted with it and every other limitation he possesses. He impresses me with this, and with respecting me enough to engage me in his own odd tongue, hoping that I have learned enough of it.

"He hears our prayers, Bavmet. But sometimes the answer is no."