by James Gunn
“There was an old terrestrial saying that went like this,” Spock said. “ ‘If you can’t beat them, join them.’ It seems we cannot beat them.”
“I’ll be damned if I’ll join them,” McCoy growled.
“If we cannot fight them openly, we must combat them from within. To do that, we must join them—or appear to do so.”
“You can’t fight pure beneficence,” Marouk said. “The last opposition on Timshel faded months ago.”
“What if we simply refuse to join your paradise?” Kirk asked Marouk. “If we do not return, the Enterprise will interdict this world. If somehow you manage to destroy the Enterprise, the Federation will send a fleet of ships to force your surrender.”
“I don’t think so, Jim,” Marouk said confidently. “You see, the Joy Machine has perfected a giant payday projector that can envelope a ship the size of the Enterprise. If you refuse to cooperate, the projector will begin bombarding the Enterprise with its waves of ecstasy. And when it stops ...”
“Yes,” Kirk prompted.
“When it stops,” Spock said, “the crew will either destroy the ship in anger at having the ultimate pleasure removed from them, or crew members will beam themselves down to desert in a body.”
“Exactly,” Marouk said. “And if the Federation sends more ships, they will receive the same warm greeting: Welcome to paradise. From which no person willingly returns. So, you see, you are lost, or have [92] won, depending on your viewpoint, but there is no reason to sacrifice the Enterprise and its crew, or the ships that will follow.”
“So what do you want us to do?” Kirk asked.
“You must think of some plausible reason to send the Enterprise away, convinced that the situation here is under control, or beyond redemption, and in such a way that the Federation will accept it. I leave that to your ingenuity.”
“And that is why you needed all four of us,” Spock said.
“I knew that none of you would accept an outcome that left Jim on this planet, his mission incomplete. But together you may be able to come up with a solution that will prevent all-out conflict. A conflict that the Federation cannot win but that would delay the completion of the Joy Machine’s plans to bring happiness to everyone.”
“And what is to keep Scotty from beaming us all back to the Enterprise?” Kirk asked.
“That might be unwise in light of the new additions to your adornment,” Marouk said, nodding at Kirk’s bracelet, “but all items of identification have been stripped from you, and the Enterprise would have difficulty with your location.”
Kirk looked at the three members of his team in turn. He found nothing on their faces that he could interpret as anything but frustration, if not surrender. “It seems you leave us no choice,” he said.
At that moment all the lamps and ceiling fixtures in the Marouk villa went dark. A moment later the dull whump of a distant explosion reached their ears. The only light came from the afternoon sun shining through the patio doors that opened onto the random-stone deck outside.
“It seems, Marouk,” Spock said quietly, “that you were mistaken about the existence of opposition.”
[subspace carrier wave transmission]
>interrogate<
greatest human good = happiness>
>happiness interrogate<
Chapter Seven
Kidnapped
BEFORE MAROUK COULD RESPOND to Spock’s comment about opposition, the doors that opened on the stone deck burst in. Marouk and the Enterprise officers turned to see intruders fan into the room. There were three of them, men dressed in black and wearing black knitted caps. In their hands were objects that might be weapons. Behind them, dressed like the others but more slender and with empty hands, was a woman with short, cropped blond hair showing below her cap.
“Resistance would be foolish,” the woman said. “I’m sure you’re all rational people. We mean you no harm.”
“Linda!” Marouk exclaimed.
“You know this woman?” Kirk asked in astonishment.
“It’s a small world,” Marouk said. “Literally.” And then to the woman he said, “I thought you were dead.”
“That is what you and your damned machine were intended to think,” Linda said. She was not beautiful by any ordinary standards, but her high cheekbones, [95] the alertness of her gaze, and the determination expressed in the set of her jaw gave her an appearance of inner strength that was more impressive than mere good looks.
“You’re not being a good host,” McCoy said to Marouk. “Introduce us to your new guests.”
“This is Linda Jimenez,” Marouk said. “Formerly a student of Emanuel De Kreef. I don’t know her friends.”
“Just call them freedom fighters,” Linda said.
“And these are—” Marouk began.
“They’re from the Enterprise,” Linda said. “Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and—” She looked at Uhura.
“Uhura,” the communications officer supplied.
“Welcome to liberated Timshel,” Linda said.
“Perhaps you don’t intend to harm anyone here, but you haven’t done our power plant any good,” Marouk said. “And, in the process, possibly injured or killed people.”
“The power plant is too sophisticated for your joyheads,” Linda said. “It’s all under the control of the Joy Machine. Anyway, we just blew up the power grid between the power plant and town. Since everything is done by hand now, the power loss won’t affect anything but a few assembly lines.”
“And the Joy Machine itself,” Spock said.
“You’re Spock, right?” Linda said. “I wish we could take you with us, but we don’t have room. And we don’t have much time, either. The Joy Machine built itself a reserve power supply long ago, and it will bypass the grid in a few more minutes. By then we must be gone.”
“This residence is immune from the surveillance of the Joy Machine,” Marouk said.
“That’s what that damned machine would like you to believe,” Linda said.
“What about the payday couch Dannie used?” Kirk asked.
[96] “That’s only there for the use of guests,” Marouk said, “so they won’t be reluctant to visit.”
Linda sent a quick, suspicious glance at Marouk. “Where payday is available, the Joy Machine follows.”
“Not necessarily—” Marouk began.
“It doesn’t matter what you think,” Linda said sharply. “The reality may be something else, and we can’t afford to take the chance.”
“What I can’t understand,” Marouk said, “is why the wampus didn’t warn us of your approach.”
Linda grinned. “That was us.”
“You were the wampus?” Marouk asked.
“A good imitation,” Linda said.
“The second thing I can’t understand,” Marouk said, “is what you hope to gain by all this.”
“That,” Linda said, “is what you and the Joy Machine will have to figure out. But I will allow you to delay us no longer in hopes that the Joy Machine will restore its control before we depart. You—” She pointed at Kirk. “—will come with us.”
Kirk pointed at his chest with his left hand. “Me?”
Linda looked at the bracelet. “We may have come a little late,” she said.
“We have been inducted,” Spock said, “but not initiated.”
“Well, it can’t be helped,” Linda said. “Yes, you, James Kirk. You will come with us.”
Kirk shrugged and moved toward her.
“This is a mistake,” Marouk said. “The Joy Machine cannot tolerate violence.”
“And we,” Linda said, turning at the doorway onto the patio, “cannot tolerate the Joy Machine.”
Kirk gave a meaningful glance at the others, as if to tell them to work on their mutual problem while he was gone, and followed Linda through the doorway and into the late-afternoon glow of an alien sun.
[97] They mo
ved down a steep path to the beach below, Linda leading, Kirk following, and the three gunmen last, one of them watching the rear. Pulled up to the beach, guarded by another man in black, was a soft-walled boat, little more than a raft with sides. Linda motioned Kirk into the boat and seated herself beside him. The other four pushed the boat free and then scrambled aboard before two of them picked up paddles to turn the boat and head it toward the open ocean. The other two kept their weapons on Kirk.
“That’s unnecessary,” Linda said, motioning for them to put the weapons away. “From what I’ve heard of James Kirk, he’s on our side.”
“It depends,” Kirk said, “on whether you’re on my side.”
Linda laughed. It was a strong laugh, and Kirk liked it. He liked Linda, for that matter, but he wasn’t going to trust her with his life, much less the future of all Timshel and maybe worlds beyond. Likable people had led the world into terrible disasters before. “And whose side is that?” she asked.
“The Federation,” Kirk said. “Not Timshel. Not Earth. Not some local tribe. The Federation as a whole.”
“I wish it were that easy,” Linda said. “Perhaps you make these judgments all the time, but in the real world decisions about what is good and bad for humanity are not so clear-cut.”
“At least we agree that the pursuit of happiness,” Kirk said, “is better than having it handed to you.”
“Maybe better even than reaching it,” Linda said.
Kirk’s glance at her face expressed agreement with her argument and admiration for her appearance and character.
One of the paddlers stopped and pointed at something behind them. Kirk and Linda turned to look over their shoulders. Behind them, on the cliff above the beach, in the twilight as the sun sank below the [98] sea, the windows, of Marouk’s villa had been lighted from within.
“Sooner than I thought,” Linda said, shaking her head.
“Ugh-h!” Kirk grunted and shook his left forearm. “That hurts!”
Linda looked at him sharply. “It’s started already?”
“The Joy Machine?” Kirk asked, grimacing.
“Trying to control you. Can you hold out?”
“Depends. On how long—it lasts—and how bad—it gets,” Kirk said in brief bursts between the pain that began at his wrist and radiated up his arm and into his head. “I may—have to—bash this thing—with something.” He waved the bracelet in the air above his head. The pain eased for a moment. “I hope we aren’t going to paddle this thing to the other side of the ocean.” Then he grunted again as the pain returned, worse than before.
Linda gave him a look of sympathy. “I wish we could do something. I don’t know what would happen if you smashed it, but I wouldn’t try it except as a last resort. If you can hold out, for a few more minutes—Wait, here we are.”
A gray hump broke the water in front of them. Rivulets streamed from its top as it rose higher and then settled, rocking in the ocean swell.
“This is—a wampus?” Kirk asked.
“This is a vehicle built to look like a wampus,” Linda said. “And to sound like a wampus, too.”
A hatchway opened in the gray hump, and one of the guards sprang out beside the hatchway to hold the plastic boat while the other climbed over the edge and down the ladder that led from the hatchway into the bowels of the beast. Kirk followed, and then Linda. Kirk looked up as the last black-clad form slid down the last few rungs. Above, the hatchway began to close, and Kirk, a feeling of uncertainty sweeping through his body as the pain in his arm diminished, saw the evening sky narrow and disappear with a clang.
[99] Kirk shook his arm again and looked around. He was standing in a small, metal room lined with gauges and instruments. It was far smaller than the bridge of the Enterprise, though it served the same purpose. A man had been waiting at the foot of the ladder to help them down, and the six additions were pressed against each other by the tiny quarters. Now that the pain was gone, Kirk could enjoy the touch of Linda’s body against his. It was nothing like Dannie’s; it was slender, almost boyish and strong, but there was a promise to it of deep-banked passion that in the right circumstances might be even more exciting than something more traditionally inviting.
But he could see now why there had been no room for the others.
Four of the men disappeared through bulkhead doors on either side. “Take it down, quick,” Linda said. “Maybe I’m imagining it, but I was beginning to feel—joyful.”
“The reward of a successful operation,” Kirk said, as the man who had been waiting for them moved a lever, and the ship began to throb with power. The other two men stood before other gauges and levers as if ready to act in emergency.
“That may be true,” Linda said. “But we can’t risk it.” She turned toward Kirk with something like dismay on her face. “What kind of a world is it when you can’t tell the difference between satisfaction at a job well done and feelings imposed upon you by some damned machine?”
The ship had begun to move. The rocking motion eased. “I hope my friends aren’t going through this,” he said, holding up his left arm.
Linda shook her head as if to say that there was no telling what evil the Joy Machine was capable of.
“Our ancestors lived that way for millennia,” Kirk said. “Accepting joy as a supernatural gift, not something earned.”
“We left all that behind when we went into space,” [100] Linda said. “Now we have to fight our way free of it again.”
Kirk held up his left arm. “Why did it stop hurting?” he asked.
“We’re traveling submerged. We believe that the hull of the ship, as well as the water, acts as a natural barrier to the Joy Machine’s signals,” Linda said.
“Don’t count on it,” Kirk said grimly. “Sound waves propagate through water even better than through air, though at a different rate, and can even be transmitted through metal. There’s no reason the Joy Machine can’t expand its influence to include the oceans. It may not have known it was necessary—until now.”
Linda looked at him as if weighing his judgment and then slowly nodded. “We knew time was in the Joy Machine’s favor,” she said. “That’s why we had to move before we were ready.”
“To kidnap me?” Kirk asked.
Linda nodded. “We were ready to throw everything into an effort to sabotage the Joy Machine or, if we were lucky, destroy it. But the possibility of getting the help of a Federation starship made the risk worth taking.”
“What makes you think the Enterprise could help you?”
“Clearly the Enterprise has the power.”
“But our power is limited by orders and regulation.”
“Unless,” Linda said, “we can persuade you that the danger is so great and so urgent that you must act despite your orders and regulations.”
“That might be difficult.”
“Or unless we can convince you that the Federation itself is in danger.”
Kirk looked at this slender young woman with confidence in her convictions far beyond her years, and wondered where this journey would take him.
* * *
[101] Marouk’s living room seemed bigger and emptier once Kirk and his abductors had left. In the gathering shadows cast by the sun that had almost set in the direction Kirk had been taken, McCoy looked at Spock and Uhura and then at Marouk.
“Aren’t you going to go after him?” Marouk asked.
“I don’t think so,” McCoy said.
“That would be unwise,” Spock said.
“I don’t know what you two are talking about,” Uhura complained.
“It seems clear,” McCoy said, “that his abductors mean Jim no harm. Instead, this may represent an opportunity to join forces with the opposition.”
“And clearly,” Spock said, “this complicated situation needs an opportunity to clarify itself before rational action can be taken. There is more going on here,” he added darkly, “than is readily apparent.”
Marouk shook his head. �
�Don’t raise any false hopes for yourself. You’ll need to be realistic about what’s going on here to have any chance for success, and when I said that the last opposition had faded months ago, I meant that the last meaningful opposition had faded. Linda’s group is far away and so tiny and helpless as to be insignificant.”
The sun had set, and the room had grown so dark that the sudden illumination of the overhead lights and lamps hit McCoy like a blow. He blinked and looked at the others. “Apparently,” he observed dryly, “the Joy Machine has recovered.” He turned to Marouk. “We must ask, sir, what your intentions are for us. Will we be allowed to go about our business unimpeded?”
“And just what is your business now?” Marouk asked.
“To neutralize you as a source of double-dealing influence in this world,” Uhura said.
McCoy raised his hand. “We have not yet achieved a full understanding of Marouk’s part in all this, and I have a feeling that we won’t get that now. But even if [102] we had the power, I think we should let Marouk move freely until we know more than we know now.”
“Like a pawn,” Spock agreed, “that may become a queen if it reaches the king’s row.”
Marouk laughed. “More than a pawn, I hope, and less than a queen I am certain.”
“Maybe a combination of bishop and knight,” Spock suggested.
“In any case,” McCoy said, “our intention is to find out as much as we can about how the Joy Machine functions.”
“And the Joy Machine’s intention is to bring happiness to everyone,” Marouk said. “And that includes you.”
“Never!” Uhura said.
“Never!” McCoy echoed.
“It depends,” Spock said.
“Spock!” McCoy said.
“Clearly, the best way to learn how the Joy Machine functions is to experience what it has to offer,” Spock said.
“You’ve seen what it can do to others,” McCoy said, “and you still want to let it loose in your head?”
“It seems that I have more confidence in my head than you in yours,” Spock said.
