by James Gunn
“You think it doesn’t know all your arguments? That it hasn’t heard them all before and dismissed them as the illogical constructs of inadequate minds?”
“Heard them from you?”
“And others. But mostly from me.”
Kirk tried to understand what Marouk was trying to tell him. “Well, what is the Joy Machine going to do with the wampuses? They are intelligent aliens with [206] great thoughts to contribute to the civilized galaxy. That’s important. Maybe more important than the fate of a few million people.”
“I don’t know,” Marouk said. “It doesn’t tell me anything I don’t need to know. But its programming is flexible enough to extend to any intelligent creatures, and it is fully capable of reprogramming itself if that becomes necessary.”
“So the wampus may go the way of humanity on Timshel,” Kirk said sadly.
“That’s not the worst scenario, Jim,” Marouk said. “We on Timshel could simply live out our lives in paradise until the last of us is dead. But the Joy Machine would still be sitting here, repairing itself, keeping up the cities and the planet, waiting until someone else lands and is offered a door into paradise.”
“That’s a terrifying prospect,” Kirk said.
“It gets worse. You know that the Joy Machine has become an artificial intelligence capable of independent action. Well, I closed the planet two years ago when I realized the Joy Machine was learning and developing. I hoped that paradise might be restricted to Timshel.”
“A futile hope.”
“It was all I had,” Marouk said. “And it failed. When the Federation agents arrived, the Joy Machine learned that there are humans elsewhere to whom it might bring happiness. It is planning to send out missionaries with their own Joy Machines to bring the blessings of happiness to the rest of the galaxy.”
“Johannsen was right about that, too.”
“He ought to be,” Marouk said. “I told him.”
“What kind of double game are you playing, Kemal?” Kirk asked.
“The only kind I can play. The Joy Machine knows everything I do, and it doesn’t stop me because everything I do plays into its schemes as well. It feels invulnerable. For good reason,” Marouk said.
[207] “You’ve tried to destroy it?”
“Very early, before it was fully sentient,” Marouk said. “I tried to cut off its power supply, but it had already developed a keen sense of self-preservation and alternate connections. The attempt just alerted it to the possibility of others. Later attempts were simply brushed aside, and the bracelets provided a dampening effect on violent thoughts and actions. By then, too, De Kreef had been seduced, and I realized I couldn’t solve the problem by myself. And I, too, like De Kreef, was tempted.”
“You?”
“The projectors aren’t perfect. Stray frequencies are like glimpses of the promised land. Always available, always there for the asking. You don’t even have to be good; all you have to do is accept the Joy Machine, and it will make you good. And happy, too.”
“Maybe I should have let the rebels set off their atomic device,” Kirk said.
“The only result of that would have been the destruction of a hundred thousand lives or so. The Joy Machine would have carried on essentially undamaged, and who knows how that kind of human destructiveness might have altered its view of us. And its plans for us.”
“And our plans for it?” Kirk asked.
“The only solution is to destroy Timshel!” Marouk said almost inaudibly.
Kirk turned to look at Marouk’s face. It was contorted, as if Marouk was struggling with something buried deep within his chest. The breeze from the bay ruffled Kirk’s hair and brought with it the salt scent of the sea. Grass like a velvet carpet stretched to the white edge where the cliff began and the trail led to the beach below. The warming sun shone on them, and the sky, only a little less blue than the ocean, stretched to infinity above. The world on which they stood was so beautiful that Kirk found Marouk’s [208] words difficult to believe. What he was proposing seemed like a young man or woman contemplating suicide with their lives still untested before them. It was true, of course; Marouk’s ultimate solution was not only suicide for himself but death for Mareen, for Tandy and Noelle, for all his friends and the life they once had enjoyed, for Timshel itself and all the creatures on it, and all the fair promise it had held.
“You know the Joy Machine overhears everything we say,” Kirk said.
Marouk tried to regain control of his face. “Those are the conditions under which we must operate.”
“Then how do you hope to succeed?”
Marouk shook his head. “Hope?” he said. “That is a word I don’t recognize anymore. All I have left is desperation and the possibility that the Joy Machine might not understand human cunning in all its ramifications.”
“You must realize that what you ask is impossible,” Kirk said.
Marouk nodded at Kirk approvingly.
“No, I mean it,” Kirk said. “I can’t get through to the Enterprise. It seems clear to me that the Joy Machine has already subverted the Enterprise’s computer, and it won’t allow me access to Scotty or anyone else.”
Marouk looked dejected. “It’s gone that far, then. The Joy Machine’s campaign to spread its blessings has already begun,”
“It may not have succeeded sufficiently to gain access to the Enterprise’s subspace communications. If so, its missionary activities may still be restricted to this solar system.”
“Then Scott will have to do it on his own.”
“Scotty would never do that,” Kirk said, “even if it were possible. And it isn’t. We don’t have a doomsday machine. Even if one could be constructed, they wouldn’t be stocked by a Federation ship because they [209] would never be used, and no Starfleet captain ought to have the temptation to save a world by destroying it.”
“It wouldn’t be difficult to jury-rig a device—say an antimatter payload contained within a neutronium shell,” Marouk said doggedly. “With the equipment on board the Enterprise, I could put one together in less than a day. Once released into the atmosphere, the process would be irreversible. The neutronium would take the device to Timshel’s core. The release of the antimatter would tear Timshel apart.”
“Thanks for explaining it all to the Joy Machine,” Kirk said dryly.
“The Joy Machine can do many things to modify its programming,” Marouk said, “but it can’t be false to its basic nature. And its basic nature is benign.”
“You don’t appreciate the casuistry that can justify destabilizing a glacier; it won’t hurt anybody unless they don’t get out of the way in time.”
“And you think the Joy Machine, unlike your Starfleet captains, could rationalize destroying a world in order to preserve its long-term goals?” Marouk asked.
Kirk shrugged. “Maybe not. But I’d just as soon no one inserted such possibilities into its memory. In any case, Scotty would never consider such an action, I would never order him to do it, and if I gave such an order Scotty would refuse to obey it. I have greater confidence in my officers and my crew than you have in your damned machine.”
“Maybe I knew all along it was futile,” Marouk said. “But I had to try. I am a clever person, Jim, but everything I could think of came to nothing.” He sat down heavily in one of the patio chairs and stared out at the horizon. “Every plan the rebels could come up with was doomed to fail. Our technical facilities were geared for social and artistic research, for peace and not for war. You and the Enterprise were our last hope.”
[210] “So you’re giving up?” Kirk asked.
Marouk nodded slowly, looking at Kirk. “in the name of salvation, I’ve done some terrible things. To Timshel, to the rebels, and most of all to you and your friends. We should have been alone, but I’ve trapped you here in a web that we ourselves spun. Now I’ve struggled too long, and I’m ready to accept the bracelet.”
Kirk grasped Marouk’s hand and raised him up. “Look at me,”
Kirk said, “it’s not over. You can’t give up. I won’t give up, and you won’t either.”
Marouk looked in Kirk’s eyes. “All right, Jim. If you won’t destroy Timshel, you’ll have to find another solution. Because it’s your problem now.”
They stared at each other for a long time.
[subspace carrier wave transmission]
>who to judge human needs but humans interrogate<
>great responsibility
what if wrong interrogate<
Chapter Fifteen
Liberation
THE MORNING THAT had seemed so glorious and bright had become chilly and dark, as if a cloud had passed across the face of the sun. Kirk abruptly turned toward the patio doors and. made his way through the kitchen into the hallway. Marouk hastened to catch up.
“Where are you going?” Marouk asked.
“To free my friends,” Kirk said. “You promised they would be released if I accepted a payday.”
“I only said that was a possibility,” Marouk said, “and because I saw you in pain and ill.”
“You aren’t still playing the game of bait and switch, are you, Kemal?” Kirk asked.
They had stopped in the hall. To their right was the spacious living room. To their left was the study with its shelves filled with knowledge and its couch overflowing with promised joy. Kirk felt himself drawn into the study as if by a tractor beam. He held himself stiffly beside Marouk, trying not to betray his longing. But he felt sweat breaking out on his forehead.
“All that double-agent business is over,” Marouk said, shaking his head. “I’ve told you: it’s your [213] problem now. But I don’t know what’s going on anymore. I haven’t heard from the Joy Machine since last night.” He removed the tiny communicator from his ear and looked at it. “I don’t know whether this thing is defective, whether the Joy Machine has cut me off because my usefulness is at an end, or whether something has happened to the Joy Machine.”
For a moment Kirk let himself hope that Linda’s virus had reached the Joy Machine’s program and disabled its “execute” file, or, at the least, supplemented its prime directive with the value of human freedom. But hope had an aftertaste of pain; he did not understand why a crippling of the Joy Machine should bother him until he realized that he might never again experience payday.
He pushed both thoughts deep into his subconscious. He could not allow himself to think about success until it was in his hands. He had seen too many good projects fail because people relaxed their efforts too soon.
Kirk pulled himself away from the study and through the villa’s front door into the garden and the street beyond. He started walking quickly toward City Center. Marouk had to hurry his steps to keep up with Kirk’s impatience. As they passed a group of citizens working in a garden, one of them turned and looked at Kirk and then at Marouk. Several more straightened from their tasks and stared in their direction. A policeman moved his shoulders as if he were about to speak and then settled back into place, as if puzzled by a lack of instructions.
The change in the behavior of the citizens made Kirk as uneasy as their earlier obsessive focus on their tasks. “What’s going on?” he asked Marouk.
Marouk shook his head. They walked faster.
When they reached City Center, only half the people were sweeping the plaza. The other half were standing with their brooms in their hands, as if asking themselves why they were holding these implements.
[214] “Something has happened,” Kirk said, as he made his way toward Wolff’s police headquarters.
“Not there,” Marouk said. “It wasn’t big enough for three prisoners, and Wolff felt that they should not be allowed to remain together. Starfleet officers are too resourceful, he said. So he improvised cells.”
Marouk led the way up the steps of the neo-Grecian World Government building. The massive chandelier and the ceiling fixtures came alight as they entered the towering rotunda. Marouk turned to the office on the right. A bolt had been installed on the outside of the door, but it had been pulled back. Marouk looked at it, puzzled, and Kirk pushed himself past. The door swung open and the lights came on in the rooms beyond.
The first room had been equipped with a cot and bedding, a metal table and a plastic chair since Kirk had inspected it last. There was nothing else in the room. No one was in the rooms that opened from it on either side.
Kirk led the way to the room on the left hand side of the entrance hall. It, too, had a bolt, but this one was closed. Kirk slid it open, and the door swung toward him. The room beyond was like the room they had just left, equipped with minimal living arrangements, but this one had a tray on the desk with used dishes and implements and a cup and glass. Otherwise the room was empty.
A moment later, however, footsteps announced someone approaching. Uhura appeared in the doorway. A smile transformed her face. “Captain!” she shouted. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m very glad to see you.”
Kirk stepped forward. “Not as glad as I am to see you,” he said.
She motioned toward the room from which she had come. Her hand held a bent spoon. “There’s a window in there, and I’ve been trying to dig around it so that I could push it out and escape. Without making much progress.”
[215] “Where are Spock and McCoy?”
“I haven’t seen them since they put us here,” Uhura said.
“Who was across the hall in that room on the right?” Kirk asked.
“I’m not sure,” Uhura said. “They put me in here first. But I think it was Spock.”
“Let’s go see,” Kirk said grimly, and led the way out of the room and down the hall toward the bolted door at the far end of the entrance hall. Something had happened to one of his officers, one of his friends. He had escaped, had been released, had been imprisoned elsewhere, or was dead. Kirk felt anger rise in his throat.
Kirk threw back the bolt on the door at the far end of the entrance hall and let the door, now freed for its natural movement, swing open. McCoy was seated at the table, his tray pushed aside, writing in a notebook.
McCoy looked up and shouted, “Jim! You’re back. You’re unharmed!” He leaped to his feet and grabbed Kirk’s hand firmly in both of his. “And Uhura. You’re all right, too. And Marouk,” he added sourly. “I was sure you’d be okay.”
Marouk bowed his head.
“Where’s Spock?” McCoy asked.
“That’s what I was hoping you could tell me,” Kirk said.
“We were hustled here by Wolff’s zombie goons right after you were abducted,” McCoy said, “and your friend here”—he gestured toward Marouk—“didn’t raise a finger to help.”
“My only hope was to minimize the damage caused by the Joy Machine,” Marouk said.
“That’s an easy way to justify going along with whatever that crazy collection of transistors wants to do,” McCoy said bitterly.
Kirk held up a hand for peace. “Let’s not get into recriminations. Kemal has explained his actions to [216] me. I may not have done things the same way, but I can understand why he behaved as he did.”
“You always had a forgiving nature, Jim,” McCoy growled. “Anyway, they brought us here. The doors were already equipped with bolts, Jim.”
“That means the Joy Machine knew it was going to need a prison,” Kirk said.
“Not only that, Jim,” McCoy said, “they had equipped only three rooms! That means the Joy Machine knew you were going to be abducted.”
“I think that’s clear,” Kirk said.
“How could the Joy Machine know?” Uhura asked.
“It was a classic setup,” Kirk said. “Let the opposition know that a potential weapon may be unguarded—”
“You?” McCoy said.
“Let it be stolen and then let it reveal the location of the opposition.”
“You were attacked?” Uhura exclaimed.
“By a runaway glaci
er,” Kirk said. “No one was killed, but the opposition forces were scattered, probably beyond recall.”
McCoy was pacing nervously. “The moment you were taken, our arms began to ache.” He held up his left arm with the bracelet on the wrist. “Spock said nothing. I could tell Uhura was hurting, but she didn’t let anyone know.”
“Women have a greater tolerance for pain,” Uhura said.
“Women and Vulcans,” McCoy said. “I was concerned about Uhura. I complained about it to Marouk and Wolff, but they said it was out of their hands. The only way we could get rid of the pain was to accept citizenship. That was the rule. Damned stupid rule if you ask me.”
“The Machine won’t let you leave,” Uhura said, “and it punishes you for staying.”
Kirk nodded.
[217] “Well, Wolff fed us and even gave me something to write with, so that part was all right. But the pain got worse every day, and I was worried about Spock and Uhura. Wolff wouldn’t allow us to communicate, and wouldn’t tell me anything about the others.”
“Weren’t you tempted to become a citizen and accept a payday?” Kirk asked.
“Not me, Jim,” McCoy said. “It wasn’t that I have some special ability to withstand pain. Even though I’ve seen a great deal of it in my line of work. But I was afraid to experience payday.”
A shadow crossed Kirk’s face. “I know what you mean.”
“Do you, Jim?” McCoy asked, but his gaze was focused inward. “I know my own susceptibility to remembered joy. I’ve had a great deal of psychological anguish in this life, and I’ve learned to live with it. But I’m not sure I could live with total happiness.”
“You’re right,” Kirk said. “It can be worse than pain.”
“I couldn’t stand becoming someone else,” McCoy said. “I may not be totally satisfied with who I am, but I don’t want to give control over to someone or something else.”
“Even if that something else is your own happiness,” Kirk agreed.
