The Patient Parasites

"The Patient Parasites" was the third short story collected in the TOS anthology The New Voyages 2 in 1978. Written by Russell Bates in script form, it was based on his first story submission for TAS.

Summary[]

A USS Enterprise landing party is held hostage by a robot probe.

Log entries[]

Captain's log, stardate 5459.4.: The fifth planet in an uncharted and uninhabited star system has produced a mystery. Our sensor scan detected an intense energy source moving rapidly over the surface. But all efforts to identify it have failed. First Officer Spock has ordered up a landing party to investigate.

Captain's log, stardate 5459.6.: Despite careful and exhaustive analysis, our challenges for Finder remain dangerously few. With most of our time gone, I have reluctantly ordered five planet-wrecker missiles placed on standby, with my First Officer's concurrence. But I refuse to accept Finder's invulnerability.

References[]

Races and cultures[]

Human • Tullvan • Vulcan

States and organizations[]

United Federation of Planets

Science and classification[]

carrier missile • command chair • communicator • computer • coordinates • cryomemory cube • Feinberger • force field • impulse • machine • medical tricorder • memory bank • phaser • photon torpedo • planet-wrecker missile • robot • tractor beam • transporter • tricorder • viewscreen • warp drive • warp power

Ranks and titles[]

captain • doctor • ensign • first officer • lieutenant • medical officer

Other references[]

alloy • atmosphere • auto destruct • beam • bird • bridge • bridge crew • briefing room • captain's log • cat • cosmos • desert • eclipse • electricity • extinction • fly • gravity • helm • hour • ion • jellyfish • kilometer • landing party • light • logic • orbit • rock • second • shore leave • snake • spider • star • suicide • technology • transporter room • universe • vegetation • water • year

Chronology[]

459: The Tullvan species died out. (Referenced)

Stardate 5459.4: A USS Enterprise landing party encounters an artificial construct that calls itself Finder on a remote planet. Finder wants warp technology for its creators, the Tullvans. (In-story)

Stardate 5459.6: James T. Kirk considers his options against Finder. The ship and crew prepare to free their associates. (In-story)

Stardate 5459.7: Kirk and crew launch an all-out offensive against Finder, but without much progress. Then Spock learns that Finder's masters might have been Tullvans, and that they are extinct. Finder, forced to face that it is an artifact serving no masters, is defeated by information and logic and releases Kirk's crew before destroying itself. (In-story)

Appendices[]

Related media[]

Intelligent probes were also encountered in TOS episode: "The Changeling" and TOS comic: "The Mindless Ones".

Background[]

At the end of the story, James T. Kirk quoted a 20th century children's rhyme to flummox Spock. (There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly article at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)
The author's original draft was rejected for production as a TAS episode partly for not taking advantage of the scope possible in animation. It also featured Dawson Walking Bear, but because script editor D.C. Fontana thought the character seemed interchangeable, Bates replaced him with Hikaru Sulu.

Connections[]

Star Trek: The Original Series collected short stories, novellas and short novels
The New Voyages	The New Voyages ("Ni Var" • "Intersection Point" • "The Enchanted Pool" • "Visit to a Weird Planet Revisited" • "The Face on the Barroom Floor" • "The Hunting" • "The Winged Dreamers" • "Mind-Sifter" • "Sonnet from the Vulcan: Omicron Ceti Three") • The New Voyages 2 ("Surprise!" • "Snake Pit!" • "The Patient Parasites" • "In the Maze" • "Cave-In" • "Marginal Existence" • "The Procrustean Petard" • "The Sleeping God" • "Elegy for Charlie" • "Soliloquy")
Star Trek II & III Short Stories	Star Trek II Short Stories ("The Blaze of Glory" • "Under Twin Moons" • "Wild Card" • "The Secret Empire" • "Intelligence Test" • "To Wherever") • Star Trek III Short Stories ("The Azphari Enigma" • "The Jungles of Memory" • "A Vulcan, A Klingon, and an Angel" • "World's End" • "As Old as Forever")
Strange New Worlds	I ("A Private Anecdote" • "The Lights in the Sky" • "The Last Tribble" • "Reflections") • II ("Triptych" • "The Quick and the Dead" • "The First Law of Metaphysics" • "The Hero of My Own Life" • "Doctors Three") • III ("If I Lose Thee..." • "The Aliens Are Coming!" • "Family Matters") • IV ("A Little More Action" • "Prodigal Father" • "Missed" • "Tears for Eternity" • "Countdown" • "First Star I See Tonight" • "Scotty's Song" • "The Name of the Cat") • V ("Disappearance on 21st Street" • "The Trouble with Borg Tribbles" • "Legal Action" • "Yeoman Figgs" • "The Shoulders of Giants") • VI ("Bum Radish: Five Spins on a Turquoise Reindeer" • "One Last Adventure" • "Whales Weep Not" • "A Piece of the Pie" • "Marking Time" • "Ancient History") • VII ("A Test of Character" • "Indomitable" • "Project Blue Book" • "The Trouble With Tribals" • "All Fall Down" • "A Sucker Born" • "Obligations Discharged") • 8 ("Shanghaied" • "Assignment: One" • "Demon" • "Don't Call Me Tiny") • 9 ("Gone Native" • "A Bad Day for Koloth" • "Book of Fulfillment" • "The Smallest Choices") • 10 ("The Smell of Dead Roses" • "The Doomsday Gambit" • "Empty") • 2016 ("Dilithium Is a Girl's Best Friend")
Constellations	"First, Do No Harm" • "The Landing Party" • "Official Record" • "Fracture" • "Chaotic Response" • "As Others See Us" • "See No Evil" • "The Leader" • "Ambition" • "Devices and Desires" • "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" • "Make-Believe"
Star Trek: Explorer	"All That Most Maddens and Torments" • "The Way to Exile" • "Cumulative Damage" • "Explorers of the Storm" • "The Guardian" • "The Trouble with Jones" • "Sundering" • "A Dish Served Cold" • "Forewarned and Three-Armed" • "Working Miracles"
Misc. short stories	"Though Hell Should Bar the Way" • "Conflicting Natures" • "The Avenger" • "Night Whispers" • "Just Another Little Training Cruise" • "Safe Harbors" • "Ill Winds" • "The Greater Good"
Misc. novellas & short novels	"The Business, As Usual, During Altercations" • "The Badlands, Part I" • "One Giant Leap" • "The First Artifact" • "The Sorrows of Empire" • "A Less Perfect Union" • "The Chimes at Midnight"

Timeline[]

published order
Previous story: Snake Pit!	The New Voyages 2	Next story: In the Maze
Previous story: How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth	Stories by: Russell Bates	Next story: last story
chronological order
Previous Adventure: The Slaver Weapon	Memory Beta Chronology	Next Adventure: Intersection Point
Previous Adventure: The Slaver Weapon	Pocket	Next Adventure: Intersection Point

Publication history[]

January 1978: First published by Bantam Books. (ISBN 0-553-11392-5)
February 2000: 13th printing by Bantam Spectra. (ISBN 0-553-27933-5)

Translations[]

1983: Japanese : 忍耐強い寄生者, translated by Hiroshi Saito. (Hayakawa Bunko)

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