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“Are any of these the source of the energy reading?” asked M’Benga.

Scotty checked his tricorder readings. “No,” he said. “It’s farther up. We have to find that energy reading—this can wait.”

They stepped into another tunnel, which rapidly changed from a gentle slope to a tight spiral. Scotty led the way, noticing that the intensity of the reading was growing. “We’re getting close!” he called behind him.

Scotty’s ears strained to hear a reply, but what he heard was more whispering, louder and clearer than before.

“I’m coming!” The doctor’s shout obliterated the whispers.

But they had definitely been real. They were too distinct to be the products of an overactive imagination. The engineer paused his clambering to get out his communicator. “Scott to Spock.”

“Spock here.”“

Commander, we’re getting close. And I keep hearing something—whispering or the like.”

“I have locked onto your current position, Mister Scott. We will join you shortly. Spock out.”

Scotty resumed climbing. They could be only a couple more minutes away at most.

“What are you doing?” asked M’Benga. “We should wait.”

“I want to see what’s up there,” replied Scott. The first working technology on a new planet! Maintaining his engines was Scotty’s passion, but getting to examine an ingenious contraption created by another culture was a close second.

“Mister Scott, I can hear it now. The whispering.”

Scotty listened for a moment. The sounds were more distinct, but they didn’t resemble words. The engineer had heard enough alien languages not to let that fool him. “Keep your phaser ready.” Difficult while climbing. He wasn’t getting nabbed by whatever was up there.

Scotty moved quickly up the last several meters of the spiral. He emerged into a large spherical chamber whose walls were covered screens displaying alien glyphs. A compact bronze-colored gizmo, roughly spherical, stood in the center of the room.

The whispering was everywhere.

Scotty cast around for its source. And there it was—a hole in the metal paneling, near floor level. He drew closer and saw that the noise was coming from damaged wiring inside the hole, which sparked and flashed. That was the source of the sound, not a group of aliens.

Scotty had holstered his phaser and was scanning the alien apparatus by the time M’Benga caught up. “What is it?” the doctor asked.

“Power generator,” Scotty replied. “Not a fusion one, like on the satellite, but a matter/antimatter reactor.”

“A warp engine?” asked M’Benga.

“Aye, but a very small one,” said Scotty. This was the first indication that the inhabitants of Mu Arigulon were a warp society.

“What’s it for?” asked M’Benga.

“That question,” Spock said from the chamber’s entrance, “has a surprising answer.”

Scotty turned to see Kologwe and Jaeger follow Spock into the chamber. “Sir?”

Spock ran his own tricorder over the generator. “Our explorations initially took us downward, where we discovered a massive underground power conduit. This structure is designed to generate power, but all of it is carried somewhere else, seemingly far away.”

“Where?” asked M’Benga.

“That is what I am attempting to ascertain, Doctor,” Spock said. “I see little need for the entire landing party to stand here while Mister Scott and I do technical work. Please join Lieutenants Kologwe and Jaeger in exploring the tower.”

M’Benga nodded and left with the other officers, while Spock resumed scrutinizing the generator.

“Annoyed, Mister Spock?” Scotty asked.

Spock glanced up from his work, but only for a moment. “That would be an emotional reaction, Mister Scott. I merely desired a less cluttered working environment.”

Scott smiled to himself—he knew annoyance when he saw it. He held up his tricorder, letting it take in the images on the wall. The universal translator could tell they related to energy levels and power distribution. But it still couldn’t parse the information; it needed more for a baseline.

The engineer dropped to the floor to