“I’d learned that on this planet a man can become immortal…”
Stardate: 4231.2
In Gordon Eklund’s second Star Trek novel (after The Starless World), we are introduced to a world classified as NC513-11 (colloquially known as “Heartland”). A group of colonists land on the surface of the planet with plans to settle this lush world. However, something goes awry and the colonists promptly go stark raving mad. In response, Starfleet quarantines the planet, forbidding all other ships from approaching Heartland, abandoning the colonists to their fate with the mysterious and mercurial native race on the planet known as the “Danons.”
Some forty years later, Kirk and the crew enjoy some leisure time on Starbase 13 where many of them watch a magic show performed by a Dr. Faustus-esque magician dressed in horns and a tail. Suddenly, a beautiful woman screams out accusing the magician of kidnapping her father and then faints. Dr. McCoy tends to the woman and when she awakens, Kirk learns her name is Gilla Dupree. She practices Jainism (and thus believes in reincarnation among other things). She is a renowned senso-artist and composer, her compositions are a synthesis of symphonic music and holographic storytelling (“senso-drama”). Spock regards her work as among the finest human achievements, on par with Shakespeare and Tolstoy. Gilla explains she is the daughter of Jacob Kell, a notorious figure in Starfleet who is regarded as a traitor. According to rumor, he once was a Starfleet officer who fled the Federation to live among the Klingons.
However, Gilla has recently discovered that her father is currently living in isolation on Heartland with the proscribed alien species known as the “Danons.” She implores Kirk to take her to Heartland to retrieve her father so Kirk speaks with Commodore Schang about the situation. Somewhat amazingly, Commodore Schang allows Kirk to travel to Heartland but only if he also takes along the commodore’s inexperienced son, Albert.
The Enterprise heads to Heartland and on the journey Kirk and Gilla unsurprisingly begin to fall in love (though she faints again during a brief walk through the ship’s “herbarium” – a garden of “earthly –and alien—delights”). At any rate, upon arrival at Heartland a landing party is organized consisting of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Albert Schang (the commodore’s son), Gilla Dupree (Jacob Kell’s daughter), and a pair of redshirts named Mosley and Doyle. They quickly find a remote hermit named Reni Bates and his strange furry pet “piker” creature named “Lola.” Reni explains the situation on Heartland is deeply ominous but he soon abandons the landing party when they venture forth to the nearby Danon village where Jacob Kell is apparently being housed.
Here they find the Danons: humanoid demonic-satyr-looking alien creatures. They are hairless, naked, barely a meter tall, and have horns and a tail. They are among the oldest known intelligent races. “The creature was an exact replica of Earth’s most dreaded legendary being… The Danon was a devil” (69). Forty years ago, the Federation made an attempt to contact the Danons but the planet was quarantined (as described above) and now the species is nearing extinction, their population has declined to about a hundred. Much of tis is explained to the crew by a Danon named Dazi.
When Kirk and crew finally track down and confront Jacob Kell, he seems hostile and resistant to leaving the planet. He barely even registers his own daughter. Through the night, strange things happen to crew members. Crewman Doyle disappears with the Danons and returns in an apparently braindead state. Jacob Kell tells Kirk he believes he has now become immortal (here, he cites Nietzsche and mentions a vague “entity” that controls the planet).
“There’s always a choice, Kirk. It’s between life and death. Tell me: which would you prefer?” (103).
Later, Reni Bates re-emerges to explain that long ago the Danons were a dominant species in the galaxy and locked in a multi-thousand-year war against a sluglike species with tentacles called the Torgas. As a defensive measure, the Danons formed a collective consciousness of knowledge with a super computer called a “Great Machine.” Currently, the Great Machine sits in a hidden chamber underneath a large tower in the middle of the village. And now the Great Machine is refusing to allow the Enterprise to leave Heartland and its dying race of Danons: “What can be lonelier than a god no one worships?” (137).
Predictably, Kirk and crew devise a plan to destroy the Great Machine, but it backfires when the computer abandons the consciousness of Jacob Kell and swaps out for his daughter Gilla Dupree. During the whole confrontation, Spock melds with the Great Machine and Kirk bursts into the chamber hoping to rescue his new lover Gilla, but instead Kirk is surrounded by Danons as Gilla begs him to simply leave the planet. Gilla protects the crew with her newly-gained powers so they can flee while Kirk is rescued from the Danons by Schang, Sulu, and Mosley (and Reni is granted permission to escape the planet aboard the Enterprise).
Back aboard the Enterprise, Spock recovers from his painful meld with the Great Machine that went awry, and Kirk is somber over the loss of Gilla, but Dr. McCoy shares a secret with the captain. He tells Kirk that Gilla was actually diagnosed with a tumor that will likely kill her within the month. Hence why she urgently wanted to see her father one more time before death. In the end, she sacrificed herself for others by plugging herself into the Great Machine. Kirk recommends that Schang, Sulu, and Mosley be given Starfleet “citations” for their heroism and he offers Schang a position in security onboard the Enterprise (now that Doyle’s “disability”).
Final Thoughts:
I was fully prepared for Devil World to be a fairly forgettable silly TOS adventure to a remote planet ruled by a Satanic alien tyrant in one respect or another but admittedly I was slightly surprised by this one. I was actually drawn to its fairly simple story (at least in contrast to other Bantam era books, many of which run the gambit from somewhat mediocre to utterly atrocious). There are a few funny Scotty and Chekov moments, a throw-away reference to Jainism that doesn’t seem to go anywhere, a couple scenes of nudity (though nothing close to the early Trek “slash” fiction), and a fairly bland romance between Kirk and Gilla. Nevertheless, I liked this horror-themed story and the concept of the Danon alien race, a once proud species who are now tragically dying out.
Eklund, Gordon. Devil World. Bantom Spectra Books, New York, New York, Bantam reissue edition, November 1995 (originally published in 1979).