Chain of Attack by Gene DeWeese Page A

more contorted with each second, his entire body stiffening as every muscle tensed. There was, however, none of the convulsive jerking that the first alien had exhibited.
    Suddenly, as if some mental switch had finally been turned off, the grinding stopped, and the alien seemed to collapse, every muscle going limp.
    Then, slowly, the eyes still closed, one arm moved, coming to an abrupt stop as it pressed against the cushioned restraining strap. Then the other arm moved similarly, and finally the legs, but the motions remained slow and fluid and deliberate. Even so, after a few seconds it became apparent from the faint creaking sounds made by the straps that he was exerting a startling amount of pressure.
    "What about the light level, Bones?" Kirk asked, frowning abruptly as he turned to McCoy. "We should have thought of it before, but their large pupils and extreme paleness probably mean they're accustomed to lower levels of light than we are."
    "You don't worry about lighting when you're trying to keep your patient from exploding in your face!" McCoy flared, but a moment later he subsided.
    "You're right, Jim," he said, a touch of apology in his voice. "Nurse Chapel, bring it down fifty percent. And we should probably lower the temperature, too. Remember that their body temperature is almost eight degrees below ours."
    "Good idea," Kirk said. "Tell environment to lower the temperature—how much, Bones? Eight degrees?"
    McCoy shook his head. "Five or six is enough for a start."
    With the light level reduced, Chapel spoke into the nurse's station intercom, passing on the instructions.
    The temperature dropped, though not as quickly as the light level had. Dr. Crandall, who was wearing a short-sleeved blue tunic, folded his arms, chafing his hands along his upper arms.
    Finally, the alien's limbs relaxed once again, his arms falling back against the surface of the table. For more than a minute, then, the only motion was that of his chest as it moved in a rapid, shallow breathing pattern.
    Then, at last, the eyes opened, but just a slit. The motion would have been missed entirely had everyone not been watching so closely. Underneath the lids, the eyes moved surreptitiously from side to side. Other than that, the alien was now totally motionless.
    "The implant, Dr. Rajanih," Kirk prompted.
    Rajanih, who had been watching the alien raptly, cast a quick, apologetic glance toward Kirk as he raised the small transparent container that held the device. Shaking it gently, he moved closer to the alien and held it directly in front of his slitted eyes.
    For another long moment, the alien was totally motionless, including his eyes. Even his breathing once again halted, and his heartbeat, after a momentary spurt, slowed as well.
    McCoy, startled by the suddenly reduced heart rate, started to approach the alien but stopped after only a couple of steps. "If we missed something else," he said, shaking his head, "some kind of organic backup system that allows him to simply stop his heart, it's too late to do anything about it now."
    "I would say he simply has excellent mental discipline," Rajanih said. "Many races have similar abilities."
    Spock nodded his agreement. "If he is determined to die and is able to induce death through mental control of normally automatic functions such as heartbeat, there is little we can do."
    "Except keep him unconscious while we try to figure out what we can do," Kirk said, nodding to the security team. "Be ready if I give the word."
    But even as Kirk spoke, the heart rate leveled off. A moment later, the alien's eyes opened, not as widely as those of the first alien, but in what looked like a partial squint, as if the light were still slightly too bright for comfort. They were fastened on the implant in Rajanih's hand, and as the alien looked at it, his almost nonexistent lips parted slightly, and his jaw and cheek moved in a very humanlike pattern that indicated he was probing the formerly deadly tooth