Star Trek 03

by James Blish

  "Mr. Spock," Kirk said, "we can't turn disbelief on, and off like clockwork. I know you can; but we're just human beings."

  "The Vulcanian mind meld," Dr. McCoy said suddenly.

  "Yes, Dr. McCoy. I could not have suggested it myself; I have cultural blocks against invading another man's mind. But if you will risk it . . ."

  "I will."

  McCoy hesitated. Then he stepped back until his back was against the wagon box. Spock came to him, closer and closer, his fingers spreading. Face to face, closer and closer.

  "Your mind to my mind," Spock said softly. "Your thoughts to my thoughts. Listen to me, Bones. Be with me. Be one with me."

  McCoy closed his eyes, and then slowly, opened them again.

  The three Earps had been joined by Doc Holliday. He was holding a double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun under his frock coat. He fell in step with the brothers. Funereal in look and aspect, grim and unsmiling, rhythmic as a burial procession, they came down the street, real, the quintessence of death.

  Spock's fingers moved to Kirk's face. "They are unreal—without body," he whispered. "Listen to me, Jim. Be with me. They are only illusion, shadows without substance. They cannot affect you. My heart to your heart, I promise you."

  The Earps and Holliday marched on across the lengthening shadows. The shotgun barrel swung periodically under Holliday's coattails. Their cheeks were hollow, their eyes dark as pitch. The street behind them was frozen, and the sky was darkening.

  "Scotty," Spock said, his voice suddenly taking on a dark, Caledonian color, as deep as that of a prophet's. "Listen to me. Clouds these are without water, carried about by winds. They are trees whose fruit withereth, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of eternity, forever."

  The spectral stalkers halted, perhaps ten paces away. Wyatt Earp said, "Draw."

  Kirk looked at his people. Their expressions were glassy, faraway, strange, like lambs awaiting the slaughter. With a slight nod, he dropped his hand toward his gunbutt.

  The Earps drew. It seemed as though twenty pistol shots rang out in as many seconds—two shotgun blasts—another pistol shot. The street fogged with the smoke and stench of black powder. Every single shot had come from the Earps' side.

  "Thank you, Mr. Spock," Kirk said tranquilly, staring into the eyes of the astonished gunmen. "And now, gentlemen, if you please, let's finish this up—fast, hard and good."

  The four from the Enterprise moved in on the Earps. The gunmen were accustomed to shoot-outs and to pistol-whipping and to barroom brawls; but against advanced space-age karate techniques and Spock's delicately precise knowledge of the human nervous system's multiple vulnerabilities, they had no defense whatsoever. Within moments, 'history' was a welter of unconcious black-clad bodies in the dust . . .

  . . . And Tombstone, Arizona, wavered, pulsed, faded, and vanished into a foggy limbo.

  In the fog, Kirk became aware that Chekov was standing beside him. He had to swallow twice before he could manage to say, "Welcome back, Ensign."

  He had no time to say more, for the transparent figure of the Melkot was forming against the eerie backdrop of the mists.

  "Explain," the Melkot said.

  "Glad to," Kirk said, in a voice far from friendly. "What would you like explained?"

  "To you the bullets were unreal. To the players we put against you, the bullets were real, and would kill. But you did not kill them."

  "We kill only in self-defense," Kirk said. "Once we saw that it was unnecessary to kill your players, we protected ourselves less wastefully, on all sides."

  "Is this," the Melkot said, "the way of your kind?"

  "By and large. We are not all alike. But in general, we prefer peace—and I speak not only for my species, but for a vast alliance of fellow creatures who subscribe to the same tenets. We were sent here to ask you to join it."

  There was a long silence. And as they waited, the familiar fading effect began again—and then they were on the bridge of the Enterprise.

  Uhura was at her post. She did not seem at all surprised to see them. In fact, her manner was so matter-of-fact as to suggest that they had never left at all.

  Chekov began to react, but Kirk held up his hand in warning. Puzzled, Chekov said in a low voice, "Captain—what happened? Where have I been?"

  "Where do you think?"

  "Why—right here, it seems. But I remember a girl . . ."

  "Nothing else?"

  "No," Chekov said. "But she seemed so real . . ."

  "Perhaps that explains why you're here. Nothing else was real to you."

  Chekov looked more baffled than ever, but evidently decided to leave well enough alone.

  "Captain," Lt. Uhura said, "I'm getting a transmission from the Melkot buoy."

  "Cycle it for sixty seconds. Mr. Spock, has any time elapsed since the—uh—last time we all sat here?"

  "The clock says not, Captain."

  "I suspected not. Did it happen?"

  "I cannot give a yes or no answer, Captain. It is a matter of interpretation."

  "All right, Lt. Uhura. Let's hear what the Melkotian buoy has to say."

  The buoy said: "Aliens! You have entered the space of the Melkot. We welcome you and promise peaceful contact."

  "Very good. Lt. Uhura, ask them to specify a meeting place. Mr. Spock, a word with you in private, please."

  Spock obediently drew to one side of the bridge with his Captain.

  "Mr. Spock, once again we owe you our thanks for quick, thorough and logical thinking. But I will tell you something else. Privately, and for no other ears than yours, I think you are a sentimental bag of mush."

  "Sir!"

  "I heard what you said to me, and to the other men, when you were convincing us not to believe in the Melkotian illusions. Every word was based upon the most intimate understanding of each man involved—understanding—and honest love."

  "Captain," Spock said, from behind his mask, "I did what was necessary."

  "Of course you did. Very well, Mr. Spock—carry on."

  But as Spock went stiffly back to his library-computer, the commandatorial eyes which followed him were not without a certain glitter of amusement.

  THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE*

  (Norman Spinrad)

  *Hugo Award nominee

  * * *

  Shock after shock. First, the distress call from the Constellation, a starship of the same class as the Enterprise, and commanded by Brand Decker, one of Kirk's oldest classmates; a call badly garbled, and cut off in the middle.

  The call seemed to have come from the vicinity of M-370, a modest young star with a system of seven planets. But when the Enterprise arrived in the system, the Constellation was not there—and neither was the system.

  The star had not gone nova; it was as placid as it had always been. But of the planets there was nothing left but asteroids, rubble and dust.

  Lt. Uhura tried to project the line of the distress call. The line led through four more former solar systems—all now nothing but asteroids, rubble and dust . . . No, not quite: The two inner planets of the fifth system appeared to be still intact—and from somewhere near where the third planet should have been, they heard once more the weak beacon of the Constellation, no longer signaling distress, but black disaster.

  The beacon was automatic; no voice came from her despite repeated calls. And when they found her, the viewscreen showed that two large, neat holes, neat as phaser cuts, had been drilled through her warp-drive pods.

  Kirk called a yellow alert at once, though there was no sign of a third ship in the area, except for some radio interference which might easily be sunspots. Scott reported that all main and auxiliary power plants aboard the Constellation were dead, but that the batteries were operative at a low level. Her life support systems were operative, too, also at a very low level, except for the bridge area, which—as the viewscreen showed—was badly damaged and uninhabitable.

  "We'll board," Kirk s
aid. "The Constellation packed as much firepower as we do; I want to know what could cut a starship up like that. And there may be a few survivors. Bones, grab your kit. Scotty, select a damage control party and come with us. Mr. Spock, you'll stay here and maintain Yellow Alert."

  "Acknowledge," Spock said.

  Aboard the Constellation, the lights were weak and flickering, and wreckage littered the deck. The three crewmen of the damage control party found the radiation level normal, the air pressure eleven pounds per square inch, the communications system shorted out, the filtration system dead. The warp drive was a hopeless pile of junk. Surprisingly, the reactor was intact—it had simply been shut down—and the impulse drive was in fair shape.

  But there were no survivors—and no bodies.

  Kirk thought this over a moment, then called the Enterprise. "Mr. Spock, this ship appears abandoned. Could the crew have beamed down to one of those two planets?"

  "Improbable, Captain," Spock's voice replied. "The surface temperature on the inner planet is roughly that of molten lead, and the other has a poisonous, dense atmosphere resembling that of Venus."

  "All right, we'll keep looking. Kirk out."

  "The phaser banks are almost exhausted," Scott reported. "They didn't give her up without a battle."

  "But where are they? I can't understand a man like Brand Decker abandoning his ship as long as his life support systems were operative."

  "The computer system is still intact. If the screen on the engineers' bridge is still alive, we might get a playback of the Captain's log."

  "Good idea. Let's go."

  The screen on the engineers' bridge was in fact dead, but they forgot this almost the moment they noticed it; for seated before the console, staring at the useless instruments, was Commodore Brand Decker. His uniform was tattered, his hair mussed. "Commodore Decker!"

  Decker looked up blankly. He seemed to have trouble focusing on Kirk. McCoy was quickly beside him. "Commodore—what happened to your ship?"

  "Ship?" Decker said. "Attacked . . . that thing . . . fourth planet breaking up . . ."

  "Jim, he's in a state of shock," McCoy said. "No pressure on him now, please."

  "Very well. Do what you can for him here. We've got to question him."

  "He mentioned the fourth planet," Scott said. "There are only two left now."

  "Yes. Pull the last microtapes from the sensor memory bank and beam them across to Spock. I want a full analysis of all reports of what happened when they went in on that planet."

  "I've given this man a tranquilizer," McCoy said. "You can try a few questions now. But take it easy."

  Kirk nodded. "Commodore, I'm Jim Kirk, in command of the Enterprise. Do you understand?"

  "Enterprise?" Decker said. "We couldn't contact—couldn't run—had to do it—no choice at all . . ."

  "No choice about what?"

  "I had to beam them down. The only chance they had. . ."

  "Do you mean your crew?"

  Decker nodded. "I was—last aboard. It attacked again—knocked out the transporter. I was stranded aboard."

  "But where was the crew?"

  "The third planet."

  "There is no third planet now."

  "There was," Decker said. "There was. That thing . . . destroyed it . . . I heard them . . . four hundred of my men . . . calling for help . . . begging me . . . and I couldn't . . ." The Commodore's voice went slower and slower, as though he were an ancient clockwork mechanism running down, and faded out entirely.

  "Fantastic," Scott said, almost to himself. "What kind of a weapon could do that?"

  "If you had seen it—you'd know," Decker said, rousing himself with obvious effort. "The whole thing is a weapon. It must be."

  Kirk said, "What does it look like, Commodore?"

  "A hundred times the size of a starship—a mile long, with a maw big enough to swallow a dozen ships. It destroys planets—cuts them to rubble."

  "Why? Is it an alien ship—or is it alive?"

  "Both—neither—I don't know."

  "Where is this thing now?"

  "I—don't know that either."

  Kirk lifted his communicator. "Mr. Spock, still no sign of any other vessel in the vicinity?"

  "Well, yes and no, Captain," the First Officer replied. "The subspace radio interference is now so heavy as to cut us off from Starfleet Command; obviously it cannot be sunspots. But our sensors still show only the Constellation."

  "How is the tape analysis going?"

  "We're ready now, Captain. We find that the Constellation was attacked by what seems to be essentially a robot—an automated weapon of great size and power. Its apparent function is to smash planets to rubble, and then 'digest' the debris for fuel. It is, therefore, self-maintaining as long as there are planetary bodies to feed it."

  "Origin?"

  "Mr. Sulu has computed the path of the machine, using the destroyed solar systems detected by ourselves and the Constellation as a base course. We find the path leads out of the galaxy at a sharp angle. Projected in the opposite direction, and assuming that the machine does not alter its course, it will go through the most densely populated section of our galaxy."

  "Thank you, Mr. Spock. Maintain Yellow Alert and stand by. Commodore Decker, you've had a rough time. I think it would be best if you and Dr. McCoy beam back to my ship for a physical examination."

  "Very well," Decker said. "But you heard your First Officer, Captain. That thing is heading for the heart of our galaxy—thousands of populated planets! What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going to think," Kirk said. "Mr. Spock, have the Transporter Room beam Dr. McCoy and Commodore Decker aboard immediately."

  A moment later, the two men shimmered out of existence, leaving no one but Kirk and Scott on the dead engineers' bridge.

  "They're aboard, Captain," Spock's voice said from the communicator. And then, without any transition at all, "Red alert! Red Alert! Mr. Sulu, out of the plane of the ecliptic at sixty degrees north! Warp One!"

  "Mr. Spock!" Kirk shouted, although of course Spock could have heard him equally well if he had whispered. "Why the alert? Why are you running? I'm blind here."

  "Commodore Decker's planet-killer, Captain. It just popped out of subspace. Metallic body, a large funnel-mouth, at least a mile long. It is pursuing us, but we seem to be able to maintain our distance at Warp One. No, it's gaining on us. Sensors indicate some kind of total conversion drive. No evidence of life aboard. Which is not surprising, since isotope dating indicates that it is at least three billion years old."

  "Three billion!" Kirk said. "Mr. Spock, since it's a robot, what are our chances of deactivating it?"

  "I would say none, Captain. I doubt that we would be able to maneuver close enough without drawing a direct attack upon ourselves. We could of course beam men aboard in spacesuits, but since the thing is obviously designed to be a doomsday machine, its control mechanisms would be inaccessible on principle."

  "A doomsday machine, sir?" Scott said.

  "A calculated bluff, Scotty. A weapon so powerful that it will destroy both sides in a war if it's used. Evidently some race in another galaxy built one—this one—and its bluff was called. The machine is now all that's left of the race—and it's evidently programmed to keep on destroying planets as long as it's functioning."

  "Well, whatever happens, we can't let it go beyond us to the next solar system. We have to stop it here. You'd better . . ."

  He was interrupted by the filtered sound of a concussion.

  "Mr. Spock!" a distant voice called. It sounded like Uhura. "We've taken a hit! The transporter's out!"

  "Emergency power on screens. Maximum evasive action! Phaser banks . . ."

  And then the communicator went dead.

  "Spock! Come in! Spock!" It was useless. "Scotty—we're stuck here. Deaf and blind."

  "Worse than that, Captain. We're paralyzed, too. The warp drive is just so much wreckage."

  "We can't just sit here while that
thing attacks our ship. Forget the warp drive and get me some impulse power—half-power, quarter-power, anything I can maneuver with, even if you have to get out and push."

  "But we'd never be able to outrun . . ."

  "We're going to fight the thing, not outrun it," Kirk said grimly. "If we can get this hulk going, we may be able to distract the robot, and give the Enterprise a better chance to strike at it. Get cracking, Scotty. I'm going to see what I can do with this viewscreen. We can't move until I can see where we're going."

  Seated in the Captain's chair, Spock evaluated the damage. Warp and impulse drives were still operative. As he checked, Commodore Decker and McCoy watched him tensely.

  "Communications?"

  "Under repair, Mr. Spock," Uhura said.

  "Transporter?"

  Sulu said, "Also under repair."

  "Hmm," Spock said. "Random factors seem to have operated in our favor."

  "In plain, non-Vulcan English," McCoy said, "we've been lucky."

  "Isn't that what I said, Doctor?" Spock said blandly.

  "The machine's veering off," Sulu reported. "It's back on its old course. Next in line is the Rigel system."

  "No doubt programmed to ignore anything as small as a ship beyond a certain radius," Spock said. "Mr. Sulu, circle back so we can pick up the Captain while we effect repairs. We may have to take the Constellation in tow . . ."

  "You can't let that thing reach Rigel!" Decker broke in. "Millions of innocent people . . ."

  "I am aware of the population of the Rigel colonies, Commodore, but we are only one ship. Our deflector generators are strained. Our radio is useless as long as we are in the vicinity of the robot. Logic dictates that our primary duty is to survive to warn Starfleet Command."

  "Our primary duty is to maintain the life and safety of Federation planets! Helmsman, belay that last order! Track and close on that machine!"

  Sulu looked questioningly at Spock. It was a difficult problem. Kirk had left Spock in command, but Decker was the senior officer aboard. Spock said evenly, "Carry out my last order, Mr. Sulu."