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"The World Beneath the Waves"
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Cover Blurb:
The Enterprise is ordered to rendezvous at "space sector J-17, R-41"
in order to take on a new technical advisor, and a new assignment. The crew is
less than thrilled. "Haven't we got enough sci-techs of our own without
them sending us some white whiskered authority on cross-eyed butterflies?"
asks Scotty. The advisor turns out to be Barbara McCoy, Leonard McCoy's
daughter! (Last seen in issue #40) She tells Kirk that the Enterprise has been
assigned to study the planet Bwuja.
Later, McCoy and his daughter talk in her quarters. The Doctor is eager to get to know her better, but Barbara is bitter that her childhood had been so difficult. She blames her father for divorcing her mother. The two get into a bitter argument. Kirk breaks up the fight, saying "Life on a starship is confining enough without that heat! You'll handle this better, or I'll remove one of you!". The two agree to behave.
Kirk and Dr. McCoy put "menta-pix" sensors on their heads so
they can review the history tape of the planet Bwuja, given to them by Barbara
McCoy. The tape tells them that the population of Bwuja lives under the surface
of their ocean, which covers about one third of the planet. About 7,000 years
ago, the Bwujans were surface people. Their scientists had discovered that the
remains of a supernova were on a collision course with the planet, and they
concluded that the fire cloud would destroy all civilization on the surface. In
order to move beneath the oceans, their surgeons began testing ways to implant
artificial gills in the people. After two centuries, the operations were
successful! The people of the planet began constructing the underwater cities
they would soon occupy. "It must have been a greater task than the
building of the pyramids!", says the tape.
The crew is locked in a large stone cubicle, and a pump removes the ocean water from the cell. Spock hears tapping on one of the walls. They quickly use their phasers to cut a hole in the wall. They discover a group of Bwujans on the other side breathing air! The Bwujans explain that they are "remutations", or abnormal births, among the water breathers. The priests of their society have decreed that they must die at birth, but the King has secretly been banishing them to the "air cavern" instead, to live out their lives. The air breathers tell Kirk that many of their people have tried to escape by climbing up a rocky shaft that leads all the way to the surface. Most of these "climbers" turned back when they reached the cave of Agaaras, a vicious atomic mutant created by the catastrophe.
There, they find a young air-breathing Bwujan boy. "He was no climber, Captain!", says Barbara "Too young for that!". "Then how did he get here?", asks Kirk, "unless he was - born here!". The boy explains that his mother and father were both climbers, and leads the group to his tribe in a great cave. They are taken before "The Mighty Doro", chief of the air breathers. (Who is a child of three or four) Kirk tells the boy's father Tako of their adventure, and asks him why he has not sent an expedition back down the tunnel to bring up the rest of his people. Tako explains that if the King learned of their existence, he would send troops to the surface to kill them all. At that moment, Spock yells for help from outside the cave. Kirk rushes outside, and finds Spock being held at knife point by King Raan from the city below. (Who apparently has no trouble breathing air.) Raan tells Kirk that his priests had warned him that someday the air breathers might reach the surface of the planet. "I mean you no harm, but the King of the air people must die!", he says. Raan is brought to Doro, and discovers that he is only a boy.
 Email: cdanhauser@yahoo.com |
