“When a monster kills several men at a mining colony, Kirk and Spock investigate. Spock learns the creature is intelligent, with a valid motive.”
I vaguely remember this as the one with some guys in an orange trash bag incinerating people with intense heat. We’ll see. I think the Horta is some kind of lava creature if I’m remembering right.
***
This episode opens with dramatic music and people in orange jumpsuits looking for a creature in some caves. One of them, Schmitter, gives us exposition about how phasers won’t work against the monster, which has already killed 50 people, abdthat the Enterprise is on its want and will be there in 4 hours. Then he wanders off alone and is killed. Vanderburg, the chief engineer, announces he’s just like the others, burned to a crisp.
***
Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to investigate. Turns out the miners opened a new level three months ago and something started dissolving their equipment and incinerating people. A witness, Appel, describes the monster as “big and shaggy,” which really doesn’t say much, and that he shot it with his phaser but nothing happened. Kirk says they’ll take care of the situation, and Appel taunts them as being pretty tough with their starship and phaser banks. Not sure why he was suddenly so aggressive but ok.
Meanwhile, Spock notices a purple sphere on Vanderburg’s desk and asks about it. Turns out it’s a silicon nodule, and there are millions of them in the mine. Vanderburg is grumpy that Spock is asking about the sphere.
McCoy returns and says Schmitter wasn’t burned by heat, but by chemicals.
Spock looks at charts of the mine and determines the creature must be able to move very rapidly.
Kirk says they don’t have time to search each tunnel, so they must force the creature to appear. Vanderburg warns that when that creature appears, people die.
Meanwhile, a guard outside the reactor room hears a strange noise. When he investigates, he’s attacked by the monster.
When Kirk, Spock, and Vanderburg investigate, they find circular holes burned through the walls, and the reactor’s main circulating pump is missing. Without the pump, the reactor will melt down, but without the reactor, they lose life support.
***
Kirk contacts Scotty to see if he can jerry rig something. He says he can, but it will only give them 48 hours at most. Kirk tells him to get on it while they look for the missing pump.
Spock determines that the creature must have known that the pump was critical to keeping the miners on the planet, and took it to make them leave. He speculates that the creature is a silicon-based life form, not carbon-based. McCoy declares that to be silly, but Kirk agrees that it’s possible.
They determine that the silicon creature wouldn’t be affected by type 1 phasers, but they have type 2 aboard the Enterprise, and Spock can modify them to be more effective against silicon. McCoy says a silicon life form is impossible, especially in an oxygen atmosphere. Spock suggests it may be able to survive temporarily in oxygen before returning to its natural habitat.
Kirk tells Spock to assemble a security team and modify their phasers. Spock, however, is staring at the silicon nodule. Kirk asks what he thinks it is, but Spock says he would prefer to give it more thought before speculating.
***
Scotty has put together a pump, and Kirk tells him to do whatever is necessary to keep it running. Meanwhile, the security team has arrived. Kirk tells them to start at the 23rd level, where the creature was first found, and fire on sight.
While the security team searches one tunnel, Kirk and Spock search another. Spock has adjusted his tricorder to find a silicon life form. He picks up the creature on his tricorder and they go to look for it. Unfortunately, they get there too late for a blond redshirt.
Spock discovers a tunnel created by the creature. Suddenly, the creature appears out of a different tunnel. They fire phasers, and the creature retreats.
They find a piece of the creature left behind. It appears to be made of fibrous asbestos. Commander Giotto, the security chief, asks if that means it’s unkillable, but Kirk says they either need more phasers, or to shoot it for longer.
Spock’s tricorder is only picking up one creature in 100 spherical miles. He determines that there’s no way one creature could have made so many tunnels, so either his tricorder is wrong, or it’s the last of its species. He say that killing it would be wrong, but he agrees they need to protect the miners.
Kirk and Spock address the security team. Spock says to surround and capture the creature, but Kirk says shoot to kill. After the team leaves, Kirk has a word with Spock about the creature. He says the creature must die, but Spock says he only wanted it captured if it was safe to do so. Kirk tells Spock to assist Scotty with the pump. Spock says Scotty doesn’t need his help. Kirk argues that it’s too dangerous for them both to look forward the creature, but Spock says the odds of them both being killed are 2000 to one. Knowing he has been out-logicked, he agrees to let Spock stay.
Just then Scotty contacts Kirk to say the makeshift pump has given up, and they have ten hours to find the original pump. Kirk has all but a few miners beam up to the Enterprise, and the remaining ones help with the search.
***
Kirk and Spock split up to cover more ground. Kirk finds an area with hundreds of silicon nodules. Spock tells him to be careful not to harm any of them. Suddenly, the creature causes a cave in, trapping Kirk. Spock is concerned, but the tunnels meet up again farther down, so Kirk is not concerned.
The creature burns through the cave wall in front of Kirk. It moves to attack, but recognizes the phaser, and Kirk is able to keep it away. In a reversal, Spock urges him to kill it, but Kirk says it isn’t threatening him, just waiting. Spock arrives but Kirk tells him to hold his fire.
Spock mind melds with the creature and determines it’s in pain. Then the creature burns the words “No kill I” into the rock. Spock says the creature is called a Horta, and it is sentient.
Kirk sends for McCoy to see what he can do for the Horta. Spock goes in for another mind meld, this time touching it.
McCoy begins treating the Horta, but not before telling Kirk he’s a doctor, not a bricklayer.
Through Spock, the Horta tells Kirk where the pump is. Also, it appears that the miners are inadvertently killing the Horta’s children, which is why it’s trying to get them to leave. Kirk enters the chamber and finds broken Horta eggshells. The miners have been breaking the Horta’s eggs.
Meanwhile, the mob of miners overpowers the security team and rubs into the chamber with the Horta. Spock explains to them that every 50,000 years, all the Hortas die except for one, and she takes care of the eggs. This time, however, the miners got in the way.
Kirk suggests they make an arrangement with the Horta, so that they leave her and her eggs alone, but use her tunneling ability to get to the minerals they need.
Meanwhile, McCoy has has the Enterprise beam down thermal concrete that they generally use to build shelters. This time, he used it as a bandage for the Horta, as it’s mostly silicon. Looks like the Horta should recover from her injury.
***
Back aboard the Enterprise, Vanderburg reports to Kirk that the Horta eggs are hatching, and the babies are making new tunnels. He says the Horta aren’t so bad once you get used to them. Once the channel is closed, Spock says the Horta said the same about humans - their appearance is disgusting but you get used to it. McCoy asked what she thought of Spock’s ears, and he said she found them to be the most attractive humanoid feature.
***
Definitely a better episode than the last, despite the awkward acting from the miners. There were literally no human (or humanoid) women in the entire episode, which is pretty freaking weird, though. But the ideas that a) the monster isn’t really a monster, and b) human just blunder through nature assuming everything is ours for the taking regardless of consequences, are good ones. It was a little simplistic to have the miners just go along with Kirk’s suggestion of teaming up with the Horta, but for the time, it made sense.
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