“Do you believe in the Angel of Death?”
Stardate: 6914.6
It’s been ten days since a survey mission returned from Delta Gamma Four (located at the edge of space between the Federation and the Klingon Empire). The Enterprise was investigating the planet as a potential place for a new colony settlement. However, Delta Gamma Four had a mysterious plant that infected the landing party with dangerous spores (the crew dubs the blue flowers ”Oz Poppies”). Three redshirts are killed as a result (Security Officer Jamison, Security Officer Matthews, and Medical Technician 2nd Miriam Raymond) and six others survive albeit in a long-term coma (Kirk, Spock, Jeff Carter, Dr. M’Benga, Security Officer Bobby Robinson, and Grace Temple). As the novel begins, Scotty is in the captain’s chair and Dr. McCoy remains deeply concerned for the welfare of Captain Kirk.
Suddenly, the coma-ridden crewmen all awaken from their coma but some are still affected by the spores. Kirk is plagued with vivid dreams (he feels as if something is not right within himself and he suffers headaches). But for some reason this isn’t enough to put Kirk under serious medical observation. And with fears of a potential Klingon presence nearby, the Enterprise departs Delta Gamma Four and is then rerouted to Starbase Seven (“a cross between an Oriental bazaar and a zoo run amok”) for a monumentally important diplomatic mission: the Romulans are in discussions of a détente with the Federation. Is it a trap? Can they be trusted? There is a considerable amount of debate aboard the Enterprise.
From here, Death’s Angel gives a nod to the classic TOS episode “Journey to Babel” as the Enterprise transports a large group of exotic alien ambassadors to Détente Station One where negotiations are set to take place. Some of the rowdy group if ambassadors include: a three-meter-long bright yellow lobster (Ambassador Telson of the planet Manteiga, also known as an intelligent grandmaster chess player), a gigantic gray cat (Ambassador Neko from Gyuunyuu, who is rumored to be a hostile fanatic), and Ambassador Karhu from Hunaja, as well as Ambassador Naja of Dalzell and Ambassador Rozar of Hemiptera. There is also Ambassador Sirenia of the planet Cetacea (a seemingly nude aqua-marine colored creature covered in body jewelry), Marmeluke of Antares, Ambassador Damu of Chiroptera (a vampiric alien), a long slimy creature called Agnatha who lives in a tank (the Ambassador of Jezero), a creature called “Si-s-s-s-s (click)” (the Ambassador of Gavilan), and many others like a tall slender alien with bat wings named Ambassador Spiracles, a large crocodile, insect, and even an armadillo (unfortunately, there are no familiar species like the Andorians or Tellarites). Oh and also Ambassador Sarek returns as the leader of the diplomatic mission!
As debate over the détente explodes on the Enterprise, a dark plot starts to unfold. Suddenly the novel Death’s Angel turns into a whodunnit murder mystery as several ambassadors who are opposed to the Romulan détente suddenly wind up dead. Ambassador Agnatha’s plastiseal tank is sabotaged; then Ambassador Neko is killed in hideous fashion; and his death is followed by the murders of Ambassadors Naja and Rovar. Rumors start to surface of a mysterious killer being called The Angel of Death who is loose on the Enterprise as fear spreads. What could The Angel of Death be? Is it a crew member? Could it be Captain Kirk in one of his spore-induced dreamlike states? Or Spock (who recently had sex with a young lieutenant while in a dreamlike state)? Or maybe there is a Romulan stowaway on the ship?
To further investigate the situation, a Starfleet bureaucrat named Colonel Elizabeth Schaeffer is dispatched to the Enterprise from the special security division (SSD) – a division which is something akin to our current conception of Section 31. Of course, Elizabeth is beautiful, intelligent, and powerful. She quickly takes control of events on the Enterprise. And on a personal note, we learn that she is trapped in a loveless wishy-washy ten-year marriage to fellow SSD official, Colonel Alexis Schaeffer. She despises her husband but still remains by his side for some inexplicable reason (apparently their marriage contract needs to be renewed every year?) At any rate, throughout her time on the Enterprise, Elizabeth experiences some odd sexualized interactions with the likes of Spock and McCoy (she and Spock form a strange mental bond and she discusses sleeping in the nude with McCoy among other things), but nobody develops a greater erotic bond with her than Captain Kirk. He invites her to a romantic dinner with her, propositions her (after already having propositioned Ambassador Sirenia, only to learn she is incapable of having sex with a human), and later he even proposes to Elizabeth! This is all completely ludicrous but this is the Bantam era of Trek literature, after all.
After beginning wiyh a fairly compelling premise, Death’s Angel really falls apart when it descends into forced romantic subplots and outrageous explanations. For example, McCoy diagnoses the oz poppy spore infection with rats and telepathic abilities and Spock and Kirk’s high esper ratings, and so on. it gets a bit confusing, but essentially some members of the landing party are not dreaming the way Kirk and Spock are. Meanwhile, the issue of the Romulan détente and The Angel of Death still remain pressing. In one testy debate, McCoy speaks out against the Romulan détente, thus rendering him a target for The Angel of Death. Elizabeth then sets up a ploy in McCoy’s room, sleeping in his quarters with him and surveilling the whole room, until The Angel of Death finally arrives in the middle of the night and Elizabeth learns his true identity. “A figure was forming at the foot of McCoy’s bed, a figure clad in flowing white robes and carrying a gold-bladed sickle in one hand, and in the other a golden hourglass filled with silver hand” (199). The Angel of Death turns out to be none other than Dr. M’Benga who has been placed under a strange telekinetic force while in a kind of dreamy fugue state and astral projection (apparently a result of his spore infection). But suddenly a flash of light occurs and a mysterious parental being instructs the force that is occupying M’Benga to stop before he kills McCoy (this reminded me a bit of Trelane’s “parents” in “The Squire of Gothos”) but it later turns out to be simply Kirk and Spock tapping into their own spore projection capabilities… somehow.
In the end, we learn that the spores likely never should have been killed in the first place… which is never fully explained… and Dr. M’Benga is sent away for medical observation, likely to be taken to Vulcan for treatment. And the Enterprise finally arrives at Détente Station One for negotiations with the Romulans (which are sadly never resolved in the book) where Kirk and Elizabeth confess their love for one another, though Elizabeth says she is still beholden to her husband (despite being in love with Kirk). She has promised to spend a couple more months in her ambiguous marriage before likely not renewing her marriage contract to Alexis again… and here the novel ends as Elizabeth beams down to Détente Station One.
Final Thoughts:
I was really drawn to the first half or so of Death’s Angel, but eventually it went completely off the rails. Death’s Angel is a step down from Kathleen Sky’s previous Star Trek novel Vulcan! in my opinion, but then again all of these early Bantam era Star Trek novels are just a complete mess. The veterinarian Dr. Ruth Rigel returns in Death’s Angel along with the pet mongcat “fuzzybutt” (both of whom first appeared in Kathleen Sky’s Vulcan!) as does the ethically controversial “Sigmund” psychological test (which was also first introduced in Vulcan!). The creation of the special security division (SSD) was unique and prescient (considering the more-current development of Section 31). Kathleen Sky so thoroughly imagined the division, that she even included a brief Appendix at the end of the book detailing the SSD uniform colors (she credits Alice E. LaVelle and David Gerrold with assistance). All of this is interesting enough, but Death’s Angel is still overall a weak Trek novel in my opinion. I might have felt a stronger connection to the story if there had been at least a consistent tone between the various subplots: the spore infection, the murder mystery, the romance subplot, and the incomplete diplomatic mission. Death’s Angel is another unfortunate swing and a miss in my view but at least I can say I have finally rounded out the novels in the early Bantam “Star Trek Adventures” series.
Sky, Kathleen. Death’s Angel. Bantam Books, New York, New York, 1981 (republished in 1985). Dedicated to “Ruth Rigel, Fuzzybutt, and all the creatures great and small we know and love in veterinary medicine.” With special acknowledgement given to super-fan Bjo Trimble for helping to create the Star Trek Concordance.
Note: Jeff Ayers offers a nice quotation from Kathleen in his magnificent book Voyages of Imagination. Also I learned that Kathleen Sky played an uncredited crew member aboard the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.