Name: Demons
Author: JM Dillard
Publication Date: 7/1986
Publisher: Pocket Books (Star Trek #30)
Page Number: 251
Historian’s Note: Some time after the events of the
book Mindshadow
Cast of Characters: Captain James T. Kirk Commander Spock Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA
“Bones” Lieutenant Commander
Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”
Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu
Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
Dr. Joseph M'Benga Lieutenant Ingrit Tomson Lieutenant Stryker Lieutenant (junior grade) Mohamed
al-Baslama Nurse Christine
Chapel Ensign Pavel Chekov Ensign Anitra Lanter Ensign Lisa Nguyen Ensign Sanghoon Cho Ambassador Sarek Amanda Grayson T'Ylle T'Sai Silek Soltar Starnn
Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, USS
Surak (Registration unknown)
Planets: Vulcan and Beekman's Planet
My Spoiler filled summary and review: The story
begins with a murder. A Vulcan scientist,
named T’Ylle, is on an assignment to Beekman’s Planet researching the end of an
ancient civilization that appears to have torn itself apart in madness. The madness isn’t in the past however as her
own research team comes down with it resulting in them murdering each other
including her.
Sarek has a reunion with his brother, a researcher named Silek. They haven’t seen each other in decades as Silek has been on an archaeological mission that has taken him away from Vulcan. They have returned and Sarek is sorry to learn that his brother has recently been made a widower. Silek reports that his father-in-law and mentor has been acting strangely even beyond the actions of a grieving father. Sarek gets to meet this Vulcan named Starnn. Upon meeting Sarek, Starnn gives him a gift one of the relics taken from the expedition. Sarek refuses as it should be in a museum, but the two other Vulcans insist that he take it as they have so many of them. It is reasoned that as an ambassador, Sarek can show the object to foreign dignitaries. With that Sarek accepts the gift.
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| Sarek and Amanda |
Sarek brings his brother home for a
reunion with Amanda. Silek has never met
Spock but is amazed to learn that he is in Starfleet. Amanda and Silek get caught up with
information about each other’s family.
On the Enterprise Lt. Tomson informs her second-in-command of his promotion, while a new young ensign in the Science department, who already has her PhD, defeats Mr. Spock in a chess match. McCoy is quite taken with the beautiful young woman. Her name is Anitra Lanter, and she can be a bit of a troublemaker. As Captain Kirk finds out when she places a microphone in his shower and broadcasts his shower singing across the whole ship.
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| After being embarrassed in the shower |
While this comic relief is going on
the story also takes a serious turn as the officer who was happy to receive his
promotion is found to have been murdered and not just killed but tortured to
death. As the crew of the Enterprise
is dealing with this, on Vulcan Silek is concerned about his brother. Sarek’s behavior is changing and the younger
Vulcan feels that what happened with his expedition is happening here.
Mr. Spock discovers that it was Ensign Lanter’s responsibility for the prank played on Kirk and forces her to confess. Kirk gives her a non-judicial punishment where she must tune up the ship’s engines. This is a task that to the unexperienced would take a number of days and she had to do it on her own time. The Captain is somewhat amused when she inquiries about going on shore leave after she is done. The Ensign, however, is really good at tuning up the engines and even Scotty is impressed with the results and hopes to have help out again someday. As a result, she manages not to miss a bit of shore leave, to Kirk’s annoyance.
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| Lanter being a pain in Kirk's side |
Kirk
was sensitive at first to the idea of shore leave on Vulcan but so far
everything seems okay. Both Spock and
McCoy seem to spend a lot of time with Ensign Lanter. Later, Spock decides to check in on his
parents. At his childhood home Spock
finds his uncle’s dead body, and he has been brutally murdered. He locates his mother only to discover she is
in a state hysteria. she tells Spock that something has taken control of his father
and that before he died Silek wrote a letter to warn her.
Spock mother is taking back to the ship. It turns out their enemy is the closest thing to a demon in real life—hence the title of the book. They are energy creatures that exit their containment boxes—the artifacts—by physical contact with a host. Once they enter the body, they take control of the person’s mind and have access to all their memories and knowledge. On top of that these aliens augment their host bodies strength and can make the body bend and twist in unnatural ways adding to the visual horror. These aliens also are extreme sadists who enjoy torturing their victims to death. This is the reason for the murders.
To make matters worse there is not one alien intelligence controlling their hosts but multiple, and this allows them to spread from host to host like a virus. The only thing an infected individual needs to do to spread these tiny entities is make eye contact with an unaffected person. In time this becomes widespread on Vulcan leading to multiple murders in places unaccustomed to any. An officer on the Enterprise named Striker infects many crew members including Scotty who go on to infect many more.
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| Crew falling under mind control |
It is at this point we learn the
truth about our new Ensign. Lanter is a
human being with a mutation that gives her telepathic powers. In other words, she has the power to read
minds sometimes even if she doesn’t want to.
She had been assigned to the Enterprise by Starfleet Command so
Mr. Spock could help her control her powers.
This is why Spock has been spending so much time with her also
intelligence became aware of possibility of the alien threat and realized her
abilities would be an asset to fighting this threat.
With most of the ship under control
of these demon aliens, Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Lanter lock themselves in
auxiliary control. They realize they
must stop the Enterprise from traveling and infecting more planets and
starships. They plan to inflict some
crippling damage to the ship that will take even the infected Scotty sometime
to repair. Then they will escape by shuttle to head to Vulcan and use the
research labs at the Science Academy to help find a way to destroy the “demons’
hold” on much of the population. The
whole plan starts to sour as Kirk is infected and appears to destroy the
shuttle with the young Ensign on it to the horror of Dr. McCoy. Infected Kirk gloats about the tortures he
plans to put McCoy through. It appears
that Spock and McCoy are doomed but Lanter, who faked her death, gets them out
of there. All three escaped to Vulcan
even though Spock really didn’t want to bring McCoy along.
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| Locked in Auxiliary Control |
They land on Vulcan but not wanting
to encounter anyone they decide to land in the desert and get head to the city
on foot. McCoy is injured and they stop
at a Vulcan settlement run by Vulcans undergoing the practice of Kolinahr. As a monastery they do not get many visitors,
so they have been immune to the problem on most of Vulcan. Spock alerts them to what is going on and
asks them to take on no new students.
Spock and Lanter head out to try to solve the problem, and Spock orders
McCoy to stay behind. McCoy ignores the
order and leaves and nearly gets killed again.
Kolinahr Monastery
Back on the Enterprise,
infected Kirk has been captured by Uhura and is then locked up alone. This isolation cures Kirk of his
infection. Unfortunately, he soon loses
Uhura to infected Sulu. Kirk is able to
lock up Tomson, and she gets better and the two of them capture the infected
Sulu and Uhura.
On Vulcan, McCoy thinks he may have
come up with a treatment that they could use on the infected. Spock thinks his father would be a good
guinea pig. He goes to capture him but
is severally injured in a battle with his infected father. Lanter goes after Spock, but she gets
infected as well. The infected Sarek and
Lanter capture McCoy, and they have him treat Spock’s injuries, all the while
telling him of the tortures that they are going to put him and Spock though. However, McCoy gets the jump on them when he
knocks them both out with a phaser.
It turns out the creatures thrive
on spreading and feeding on the suffering of others, if an infected person is
insolation for too long the entities will die.
The only exception to this is when they are in a type of suspended
animation in their designer containers that we saw in the beginning of the
story. McCoy mixes an anaesthetizing gas that will keep people out long enough
for the evil creatures in them to die. This
works for both Sarek and Lanter.
The Enterprise enters
orbit. Kirk and some recovered crew
members have gained control of the ship just as its engines were restored. They take some fire from the Surak but
manage to evade them. Kirk gets in
contact with Spock and McCoy and some explanations are given both ways. Kirk volunteers the Enterprise to test
McCoy’s gas, they transport containers of it up and put it to work. The Enterprise
is normal in a few days. They then place it in the Vulcan atmosphere and peace
is restored. The remaining relicts that
were untouched are placed under heavy guard.
As the crew of the Enterprise
and the population of Vulcan are recovering from what has happened, young
Ensign Lanter decides Starfleet is not for her. She has gotten what she needs to control her
abilities from Mr. Spock and she feels that she is too much of a free spirit to
stay in the rigid Starfleet hierarchy.
Lanter says her good-byes to Dr. McCoy and plants one more microphone in
Kirk’s shower on the way out.
Additional thoughts: This was a great Star Trek
adventure. Star Trek doesn’t often do horror well just look at “Catspaw”
and “Wolf in the Fold.” This story is
extremely exciting you don’t know what is going to happen next. At any point any character can become
infected, and you see no way out for the heroes. I will add that the resolution of the story
seemed to come easy. That I think was
necessary in terms of the story’s structure.
The demonic entities moved so fast that they would have overtaken the entire
side of the galaxy in short time, therefore the resolution also must be able to
move with great speed.
I really enjoyed meeting Spock’s
uncle Silek. I was sad to see him die
and I wish we could have seen more of him.
It was interesting in the beginning to see Sarek interacting with his
brother as a peer as opposed to most of the time, he is presented as a sage
giving advice. In the book Silek is said
to have a strong resemblance to Spock. I
can relate to that as I look more like my father’s youngest brother than I do
him. My favorite part is when we learn
that Silek in choosing not to go into the family business of the diplomatic
corps, his father stopped speaking with him and Sarek had to defy his father in
order to maintain a relationship with his brother. Since he has been on his science mission for
over thirty years, he missed Spock’s birth and upbringing. When he hears that Spock is a Starfleet
officer, he lets Amanda know how impressed he is that his brother didn’t follow
their father’s example and shun him.
Amanda doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he did. Maybe Silek would still be impressed that
Sarek at least got over it and returned normal relations. We will never know.
In the book, “The Vulcan Academy Murders,” it mentioned that murder was unheard of in a thousand years on
Vulcan. I titled that review “Murder Where There Should Be None.” This story
puts that earlier one to shame for there wasn’t just a plan few murders but
wholesale slaughter of thousands. Enough to try even cold Vulcan logic.
I really didn’t like Lt. Tomson
confrontation with Lt. Stryker. Where
she tells him that he killed her would-be-boyfriend Lt. Mohamed al-Baslama. I really prefer Spock’s attitude when someone
pointed out that his father killed his uncle he strongly responded with “My
father has killed no one.” No one can be blamed for what these things did, and
Tomson should be ashamed of herself.
Ensign Lanter has been referenced
by others as being a clear example of a “Mary Sue.” I disagree with that. While
she certainly starts out that way I think it’s an intentional red herring. Sues usually have a couple of traits that she
is missing. For one, Sues’ abilities are
typically unexplained, however we do get an explanation: her telepathic
powers. It’s easy to repair engines when
you can pull the information straight out of Scotty’s brain. Also, she doesn’t die. That is something that a Mary Sue is bound to
do.
When Spock and his company find themselves with the practitioners of Kloniare it makes me wonder if this is where Spock gets the idea to attempt it himself in “The Motion Picture.” When McCoy is attacked by the le-matya, Spock makes reference to the loss of I-Chaya in the episode “Yesteryear.”
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| tragic encounter for young Spock |
Lastly, why can’t the young Ensign
Lanter leave poor Captain Kirk alone. Do
we really want to hear his shower singing all over the ship. Does she really like Rocketman that much?
Should it be canon: I have no problem with this story
being part of the official Star Trek canon as it does not conflict with
anything and it’s a great story
Cover Art: The cover has Ensign Latner in civilian
dress holding one of the containers that held these Demon entities. One her
right is Dr. McCoy and on her left if Mr. Spock. The cover is a lie, however, as both Spock
and McCoy are dressed in their Starfleet monster maroon movie uniforms. The story actually takes place in the last
year of the five-year mission.
Final Grade: Final Grade 5 of 5
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