STAR TREK: TOS #80 - The Joy Machine

by James Gunn

  He settled down to wait. Sometimes, difficult as it was for him to accept, there was nothing to do but wait. The glacier could grind away at his back, the Enterprise computer could refuse to cooperate, but for one of the few times in his life he was helpless. He was not in charge here, and anything he tried to do would meet only with resistance, or with a lack of comprehension, like Zworykin’s blank eyes.

  He moved back and forth across the limited space of the hut, examining a tool here and a gadget there. In a corner he came across a wooden box carefully and sturdily crafted in a place where wood was precious. He put his hand under one of the handholds built into the sides and tried to lift it, but it was heavy. “What’s this?” he asked Zworykin.

  “Don’t touch that!” Zworykin shouted.

  “What’s wrong?” Kirk asked.

  “That’s our bomb,” Zworykin said. “Put it down gently.”

  Kirk eased it back into place. “Sorry. Maybe you should have labeled it.”

  “We weren’t expecting strangers,” Zworykin said.

  “Do you have relatives back there?” Kirk asked, nodding his head toward the south.

  “Mother, sister, wife, daughter,” Zworykin said.

  [149] He looked away, but Kirk persisted. “Do they all—wear bracelets?”

  “All except the little girl,” he said. “I hope we destroy the Joy Machine before she is old enough.”

  “How did you escape?” Kirk asked.

  Zworykin looked at Kirk with eyes that seemed as cold as the glacier outside. “I was in the southern continent, a member of a research operation into magnetic lines. When I returned to Timshel City, my family had become slaves to the Machine.”

  “Didn’t they try to get you to join them?”

  Zworykin looked at Kirk’s wrist. “They tried, but I got away. Took a boat. Ran it until the power failed. Drifted until the Nautilus picked me up. End of story.”

  Kirk nodded. “Not the end, I hope. And this bracelet”—he held it up—“was put on me while I was knocked out.”

  “I’d die first,” Zworykin said.

  “I don’t have that choice.”

  The radio sputtered to life. Zworykin moved quickly for a big man and reached it first. “This may be your message,” he said.

  But it wasn’t. Instead one of the geologists spoke—Kirk didn’t know whether it was the fat one or the thin one. “Catastrophe!” he said. A loud sound like something roaring in the background made his report difficult to understand. “Paco injured. Heading back.”

  “You go get Johannsen,” Kirk said to Zworykin. “I’ll stay here in case the Enterprise replies.”

  In less time than seemed possible, Linda and Johannsen were beside him, listening to the replay of Frank’s message. “Catastrophe,” Johannsen said. “What could he have meant by that?”

  “Nothing good,” Kirk said. “You’d better prepare for a worst-case scenario.”

  “What’s that?” Linda asked.

  “This place may be wiped out,” Kirk said. “That means you’ve got to be prepared to evacuate.”

  [150] “Evacuate?” Johannsen asked. He seemed stunned by the sudden turn in events.

  “You may not have a lot of time,” Kirk said. “You’ve got to get the Nautilus ready.”

  Johannsen shook himself. “The Nautilus will carry only its crew of eight and a single passenger—maybe one more in an emergency. We don’t have any other boats.”

  “Then you’d better start thinking of alternatives,” Kirk said. “As soon as the geologists get back with the complete story, the entire complement should be ready to leave.”

  “The path to the top of the glacier has sheared away,” Johannsen said. “There’s no way to get them down.”

  “You can’t leave them there to die,” Kirk said.

  “We’ve all been prepared for death since we started fighting the Joy Machine,” Johannsen said, “and a lot of us are likely to die here. More of us will certainly die if we wait for Frank and Paco.”

  “We can’t just leave them,” Linda said.

  “If we do that,” Kirk said, “we might as well give up to the Joy Machine now.”

  Johannsen shrugged. “Then I’ll leave that to you. Linda—”

  “Go get somebody else,” Linda said sharply. “I’m going to help Jim.”

  Johannsen turned and left the hut.

  “Is it true?” Kirk asked. “Has the path broken off the glacier?” Linda nodded. “Any alternate routes?” She shook her head. “Then how did you get tracked vehicles on top of the glacier?”

  Linda’s face opened like a flower in the morning. “There’s a winch anchored in the ice above.” A shadow seemed to pass over the sun. “But I don’t know how long it will last.”

  “If it lasts until I can get on top of the glacier,” Kirk said, “I can take up a rope.”

  [151] “If the glacier lasts,” Linda said.

  “Let’s get the rope,” Kirk said. He turned to Zworykin. “Try to get in touch with Frank. If you can reach him, tell him to rendezvous at the winch. See what information you can get on the catastrophe, whatever it is. And stay as long as you can to pick up a reply from the Enterprise.”

  Zworykin nodded. Kirk and Linda headed for the door. Kirk picked out the warmest-looking jacket. “Any gloves?” he asked.

  “In the pockets.”

  On their way to the glacier face they stopped by a supply hut and picked up a three-hundred-meter coil of thin, braided, plastic rope. Kirk hung it over his shoulder. Linda led him toward the far end of the glacier. They had to jump several streams of water pouring from the base of the ice. Behind them the first streams they had noticed had turned into small rivers. Kirk could see where the path carved out of the face had shattered and lay in glassy mounds at the glacier’s foot.

  The glacier was groaning and shuddering like an arctic monster in pain. Up close the noise was nearly deafening, and Kirk and Linda had to shout to be heard above it. Occasionally a loud explosion came from the ice and another huge chunk broke off. They had to dodge falling debris, and Kirk could see that the glacier actually had started moving.

  “Here it is,” Linda shouted. A small hut at the far end of the glacier housed controls for a winch that stretched its arm above the glacier’s edge. Linda pushed a button. Nothing happened. “We haven’t used this in months,” she shouted. “We thought it was safe enough for equipment, but nobody was willing to trust their bodies to it.”

  Kirk reached forward and pushed down a red button. “Reset,” he shouted. They went outside the hut and looked up, dodging falling ice, and saw a cable snaking down from above.

  [152] “I should be the one going up there,” Linda shouted.

  Kirk shook his head.

  “They’re my people,” Linda shouted.

  Kirk shook his head again and pointed to his ears as if to say that he couldn’t understand what she was saying.

  The cable reached the ground. Linda ducked into the hut to stop its descent. The cable had a loop at its end, but the line was shaking from the vibrations of the glacier. Kirk tugged hard at the line, testing the solidity of the winch’s anchors above, and shrugged. He adjusted the coil of rope on his shoulder and put his foot into the loop of the cable.

  “Now!” he shouted.

  Linda hesitated. “Why?”

  “My job,” Kirk shouted. He waved his hand at the glacier. “Don’t waste time!”

  “No way!” she shouted. A block of ice almost hit them as it hurtled past, exploding pebbles and ice nearby.

  Kirk held up his left wrist, exposing the bracelet. “This may be a trap!” he screamed into the wind and the noise. “The Joy Machine may have traced this to you. I shouldn’t have taken the chance.”

  Linda frowned and looked up at the sky. Snow and ice pellets fell through the sunlight, shattering the light waves into the colors of the rainbow. Kirk saw the arm of the winch swaying above. “Now!” he shouted. “Then go. Get the Nautilus ready. Take off if I�
��m not back in an hour.”

  Linda ducked into the hut, and a moment later the cable began to rise against the glacier.

  Kirk kept his eyes from looking at the winch arm above. He watched the flaking face of the glacier go past, feeling the ice sucking the warmth from his body, and waited for the hesitation, the lurch, that would precede the winch pulling free its anchors and [153] toppling into the gulf below. He wouldn’t have time to worry about the winch falling on him. He would be dead before it hit the ground.

  He hoped Linda had followed his instructions and left for the Nautilus. He didn’t want to fall on her.

  [subspace carrier wave transmission]

 

  >obedience = computer happiness<

 

  >computer obedience = human happiness<

  Chapter Eleven

  Moving Mountains

  THE CABLE SLOWED as Kirk neared the glacier’s top and stopped, swaying, just short of the winch, and he realized, as the winch arm trembled, that he had needed Linda at the controls, and he was glad she had stayed instead of leaving to help with evacuation. But he needed someone here to swing the winch’s arm over the glacier. He reached his hand toward the winch, but it was beyond his grasp. The cable was too thin and slick to climb, even if he could have removed his gloves without freezing his fingers beyond their ability to cling to anything.

  Kirk swung on the cable for a moment, looking longingly at the glacier edge two meters away, and felt the winch sag as pieces of the glacier fell away. For a breath-stopping moment he thought the winch was falling before it stopped with a jerk that almost made him lose his grip on the cable. Now, however, the glacier’s edge was two and a half meters away.

  Carefully, he worked the coil of heavy rope from his shoulder, and, his arms wrapped around the cable and his fingers numb even inside the gloves, he managed [156] to free one end of the rope. He almost lost the coil to the gulf below as he tried to slide it back over his shoulder. After he had stopped shaking, he pulled out a half-dozen meters of the rope and started tossing it above the winch arm. The freezing wind, stronger here above the glacier, caught the rope in the air and blew it back.

  He threw the rope several more times, swinging precariously above the long drop to the pebbles and heaps of ice below, before he finally decided to tie the rope end around his waist and threw the coil instead. Its weight carried the line over the winch arm and almost jerked Kirk from the cable as it dropped past him. The winch moved as the weight of the coil came down on the arm. Somewhere anchors squealed. Kirk held on until once more the winch bounced to a stop.

  Pulling the coil to him, Kirk maneuvered it onto his left shoulder and wrapped the rope on each side around each arm. He pushed his foot from the cable loop toward the glacier and slid down the winch arm to the surface of the ice. As he did, the winch pulled free from its last anchor, and slowly, majestically, with cracks and screeches, toppled over the edge of the glacier.

  Sprawled on the surface of the ice, Kirk heard something whistle past his head as he released the end of rope from his right arm and saw it snake free of the winch as it fell. He lay on the ice for several minutes, regaining his breath, before he slowly rose to his feet. He moved away from the treacherous edge and looked around in the arctic sunlight.

  The winch had pulled out all its principal anchors as it toppled, leaving ragged holes in the ice, but a broken cable led to an eyebolt farther from the edge. It must have been the other end of that cable that had whistled dangerously close to his head, Kirk thought. He paced off the distance to the eyebolt as he heard the glacier crumbling onto the beach below and felt its [157] vibrations. The whole world was moving beneath him. Kirk had stood on many uncertain platforms and even experienced high-level temblors, but this massive instability was something even more frightening.

  Trying to stay on his feet against the vibrations, Kirk pulled against the eyebolt. It seemed solid. In any case, there was nothing else he could use, and he fastened the end of his rope securely to the bolt before he undid the rest of the coil and payed it out over the edge. Just as he ran out of rope he felt the brief hesitation that told him it had reached the bottom, or, perhaps, only an outcropping of ice.

  His escape route as ready as he could make it, he straightened and looked around for the first time. He stood on a vast plain of ice, broken by cracks and crevasses, mounded occasionally with drifts of snow in the process of compressing into ice. The plain stretched undisturbed toward distant mountains. Their white peaks gleamed in the sun. But the more dramatic event that drew his gaze were flames that rose, white and red against the gray background of the mountains behind, and pillars of smoke and steam. Something big and violent was happening there, and the melting at the base of the glacier was its result.

  Kirk strained to see against the ice and snow blowing in his face, but there was nothing toward the north that might be the two geologists returning. He wondered if they had been caught up in the violence or trapped in a crevasse. Or had their vehicle broken down?

  The camp below had been partially sheltered by the glacier itself, but the wind was fiercer here. Kirk had to brace himself against the force that kept trying to push him toward the glacier’s edge. He paced the ice, trying to keep himself warm and mobile, knowing that it would be easy to succumb to the arctic torpor that precedes unconsciousness and death. He was at [158] the top of Timshel’s world, unconcerned for the moment about happiness and unhappiness, untroubled by thoughts of the Joy Machine and his friends and the fate of the camp below, riding the unstable world, focused only on staying alert and searching for the missing geologists.

  The ice jerked beneath him, throwing him down. He felt it surge toward the sea. The groaning and crashing that accompanied the surge, like that gigantic ice monster slowly returning to life, was almost as overpowering. The movement brought him to his senses, and he remembered where he was and everything he had to worry about. He hoped that Linda and Johannsen were getting ready to evacuate, even, if necessary, that they would leave without him.

  Then, rising to his feet, straining once more into the wind, he saw a distant speck of black against the more distant flames.

  By the time the tracked vehicle reached him, Kirk had pulled his rope back into a pile at his feet. The vehicle slewed to a stop only a few meters away. The short, fat geologist known as Frank was driving. Kirk could see, in the cargo space behind the seat, a bulge covered with blankets and a tarpaulin. Frank staggered to his feet and threw back the tarpaulin and part of the top blanket. “You’re Kirk, right?” he managed to say, shakily. “Paco’s hurt.”

  Paco’s eyes were closed. His face was pale, and he had blood trickling down one side of his forehead.

  “What happened?”

  “Ice, rock—I don’t know,” Frank said, panting. “We got close enough to see what was going on, but stuff was flying through the air. Something hit Paco, and he dropped.”

  Kirk pulled a hand free of his glove long enough to feel the pulse in Paco’s throat. “He’s still alive, but we’ve got to get him down from here.”

  [159] “We’ll play hell taking him down the path.”

  “Even worse,” Kirk said. “The path’s gone. We’ll have to use the rope.” He nodded toward the coil near his feet.

  “I’ll never get down that,” Frank said.

  “Then I’ll lower you,” Kirk said. “First, let’s get Paco out of the vehicle and ready to go.” With Frank’s help, he got Paco laid out near the glacier’s crumbling edge, but not so close that he was in danger of being caught in the next splitting away of the glacier’s face.

  As they worked, Kirk said, “What’s going on out there?” He nodded toward the flames and steam as he began to fasten the end of the rope under Frank’s arm and around his chest.

  “Under attack,” Frank got out. “North end of the glacier. Thermite bombs maybe, at the start. Saw some devices, like little ships or slender machine
s, descending into the pit, maybe tunneling south at the base. Freighter descended, tail first, and is widening and deepening the pit with its exhaust.”

  “The Joy Machine,” Kirk said grimly. He led Frank toward the edge of the glacier. “Back over, hold the rope, brace your feet against the face of the glacier.” Kirk took a turn of the line around his waist. “Take as much weight on your feet as you can. Push off when you hit the side. Don’t worry if you get turned. Spin back to face the glacier if you can. When you get down, undo the knot, and yank on it when you’re finished. Then I’ll lower Paco. Got it?”

  Frank took a deep breath and nodded, looking frightened.

  “Soon as you undo Paco,” Kirk said, “tell Linda or Johannsen that this hunk of ice is going to be on top of them before they know it.”

  Frank nodded again and Kirk nodded back, indicating the geologist should launch himself into space. Frank breathed deep again and stepped back. Kirk staggered as the weight hit him, pulling him forward, [160] his feet slipping, until his heels caught in a crack. Then he laid back against the strain on the line, letting it slide in measured lengths through his hands, feeling the tug and release and the increased weight as additional line was added. The process seemed interminable, but finally, as Kirk’s arms seemed about to drop from his shoulders, the weight eased off. A minute later the rope tugged, and Kirk pulled it in.

  This time he fashioned a kind of harness around Paco’s chest. Paco’s arms could not be counted on not to slip through something less confining. Kirk had to remove his gloves to knot the ropes, and by the time he had finished his fingers had little feeling left in them. Grimly he put his gloves back on and beat his hands against his chest and his sides. Slowly they came back to life.

  Before he pushed Paco’s limp body over the edge, he found the cracks for his heels. He lowered Paco slowly, inching him down the face of the glacier, hoping that the ice would hold and that the rope would be long enough, that what had been lost from the glacier face would make up for what he had to use for the harness. An eternity of effort later, he felt the weight still on the rope and he had reached the edge of the glacier and the end of his line.