STAR TREK: TOS #80 - The Joy Machine

by James Gunn

  “If everything else fails, that is logical,” Spock said. “But everything else has not failed.”

  “What hasn’t been tried?” McCoy asked.

  “The Joy Machine can render itself immune to [230] almost everything,” Spock said, “but it cannot develop an immunity to the very process by which it operates.”

  “And that is—?” McCoy said.

  “Logic.”

  “And you hope to match your logic against the Joy Machine’s ability to twist everything to serve its prime directive?” McCoy asked incredulously.

  “Wait a minute,” Kirk said. “I think Spock is right. Kemal says that he tried every argument to persuade the Joy Machine to modify its behavior. But maybe Kemal didn’t hit upon the right logic—the virus we were talking about earlier. Or maybe it didn’t listen because he was part of the process, part of itself, so to speak, and it could ignore him.”

  “While I was free I spent my time researching the situation,” Spock said. “I could present some cogent arguments.”

  “I’ve also been doing some thinking about the Joy Machine and what it has been doing here on Timshel,” Uhura said. “And I would like to have a chance to convince the Joy Machine that it is doing great harm.”

  “As a matter of fact, when you liberated me I was listing the reasons why the Joy Machine’s procedures can only lead to disaster for humanity,” McCoy said. “I’d like nothing better than a chance to put them in front of that damned, omnipotent gadget.”

  “Then all we need is a way to make it listen,” Kirk said.

  Spock stepped past Kirk and placed his hand on the flank of the machine that had become an enigma. “It is still warm,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that it might not have transferred its consciousness anywhere else, even on the other side of the world. But it is unlikely to have left Timshel City. The time lapse might create serious inefficiencies.”

  “Let’s go find out,” Kirk said grimly.

  [231] He led the way down the stairs, taking them two and three at a time.

  Kirk emerged from the front entrance of the World Government building to find a scene of confusion. A ragtag band of attackers, armed with shovels and hoes, was struggling through a mass of disorganized citizens toward a line of uniformed police officers standing at the foot of the World Government Center steps. The officers were unarmed except for their sleep-inducers, which would not work well in a crowd, but they were organized and looked capable of taking care of themselves.

  Spock emerged behind Kirk, and then McCoy, Uhura, and Marouk. “Shouldn’t we help the attackers?” McCoy asked. “Maybe we could create a diversion in the rear.”

  “That would be unwise,” Spock said.

  “Why so?” McCoy demanded.

  “Even if we succeeded,” Kirk said, “it would only gain the attackers access to a building that we already know has been deserted by the Joy Machine.”

  “The defenders don’t seem to know that,” McCoy said.

  “Another indication that the Joy Machine is no longer in control,” Uhura said. “It is not issuing instructions.”

  “And my communications link is still silent,” Marouk said.

  “And if we should fail in our effort to create a diversion,” Spock said, “we would find our freedom of action seriously limited.”

  “Then what are we going to do?” McCoy asked. “Just watch?”

  The tide of battle seemed to move with the attackers for the moment, as they pushed and shoved their way through a group of citizens holding their brooms ineffectually in front of them. But the displaced [232] citizens simply closed in behind, hitting the attackers with their broom handles, doing little damage but achieving an element of distraction. Meanwhile other citizens insinuated themselves in front and began to push the attackers back by their sheer numbers.

  “Linda!” Kirk shouted.

  Below them an officer turned his head and stared balefully up the stairs at them. It was Stallone Wolff. Kirk shook his head and stared again across the plaza where he had seen the slender form of Linda Jimenez splitting off a band of attackers to lead them around the plaza toward the back of the building. Perhaps the place had a back entrance that he knew nothing about.

  Kirk was reminded of a flock of sheep rounded up by shepherd dogs to fend off attacking wolves, little knowing that the wolves were there to save them from themselves and the dogs were there to preserve them for shearing by their masters. Most of humanity are sheep, he told himself, not understanding what is good for them, seeking only the comfort of the flock and their shared illusions of peace and fellowship, happy if they were warm and fed. But, he reminded himself, in every one of them was the capacity to be a person and not a member of a flock, and that capacity was fulfilled in the most surprising circumstances.

  Unexpectedly, the line of officers straightened, and Wolff motioned to a group of them to detach themselves to head off Linda’s small band. Slowly the disorganized citizens began to shape themselves into more coherent bands.

  Kirk said, “The Joy Machine is awake.”

  “That’s right,” Marouk said. “The communicator has not yet issued any instructions to me, but it is no longer dead. I can feel the difference.”

  “The situation has changed,” Spock said. “The Joy Machine is likely to take some more drastic action.”

  “Look,” McCoy said, pointing toward a group of citizens at the edge of the plaza, “there’s Dannie!”

  [233] Kirk looked. It was, indeed, Dannie, looking disheveled from the struggle but still as beautiful as ever.

  “And there’s De Kreef!” Marouk said, pointing in the other direction.

  For the first time Kirk saw De Kreef as he might have been before he surrendered to payday and focused-task hypnosis: dynamic, bigger than life, commanding a group of citizens to circle a band of attackers. From the west, down the avenue that Kirk and Marouk had come an hour before, another band of attackers appeared. It was led by a tall man with a beard, like an ancient berserker.

  “Johannsen!” Kirk said. He started down the stairs.

  “Jim, where are you going?” McCoy shouted after him.

  “I’ve got to rescue Linda,” Kirk shouted back over his shoulder. “Before Wolff captures her.”

  A moment later Kirk realized that Marouk was beside him. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “You’re going to need help,” Marouk said. “I’ve remained uncommitted too long.”

  Kirk clasped Marouk’s arm in a gesture of renewed friendship and turned to plunge into the fray.

  Kirk ran through the gap in the line of police that Wolff and his group had vacated. He pushed his way through a mob of citizens. When resistance began to stiffen, he threw a man to the side and then pulled a woman away on the other. With the first action, Kirk’s arm had begun to tingle; with the second, it began to ache. In a moment, however, he found himself trapped inside a group of braceleted citizens pressed tightly around him by the pressure from behind. Marouk was saying something behind him. Magically, the citizens separated, leaving a lane open in front.

  Kirk looked back at Marouk. “Payday,” Marouk was saying. “Payday.”

  [234] The citizens moved back uncertainly, torn between what they perceived to be their duty to resist violence and the threat to their paydays from the man they identified as the Paymaster. Kirk plunged ahead, aiming for the spot where he had last seen Linda’s group, with Wolff and his fellow officers in pursuit.

  When he had cleared the plaza, he halted at the far corner of the World Government building and looked down the ten-meter-wide avenue between it and the museum next door. He saw a uniform disappear around the far corner and ran to that spot. When he arrived, however, no one was in sight.

  Marouk pulled up beside him, panting.

  “Where’d they go?” Kirk asked.

  Marouk pointed to a double-sized doorway at ground level, almost hidden behind some colorful Timshel shrubbery. As Kirk raced toward it, he could see that one
of the two doors was ajar.

  “Freight,” Marouk said breathlessly. “Deliveries. One of the few doors ever locked.”

  “Linda must have kept an admittance card,” Kirk said, as he pulled the door toward him. “Or duplicated it.”

  The basement room beyond was dark, but Kirk could hear running footsteps growing fainter. “Light?” he asked Marouk. Marouk shook his head helplessly.

  Kirk pushed open the other door and with the aid of the sunlight reflected from outside made his way rapidly in the direction he had heard the footsteps. As the light diminished, he slowed and began feeling his way. Marouk moved past him and proceeded more confidently until he ran into a piece of machinery or equipment and hobbled until he could walk again. He stopped at the foot of stairs leading upward.

  Kirk leaped up the stairs until he arrived at a closed metal door. He yanked at it, but it was locked. He looked at Marouk. “What now?” he asked.

  Marouk reached past Kirk to place his hand against [235] a metal plate beside the door. The door opened. “Still some attributes of office,” he said apologetically.

  They emerged into the entrance hall of the World Government building, with its towering murals and majestic chandelier, but the floor was as empty as they had left it. Kirk motioned toward the front doors and the steps beyond where Spock, McCoy, and Uhura stood, their backs toward the door. “We could have saved ourselves some time,” he said.

  He sprinted toward the stairs leading to the upper floors. When the door opened in front of him, he could still hear steps thundering far above. He dashed up the stairs, knowing now where Linda and the others were headed.

  When he arrived in the attic room he found Linda and three of the Nautilus crew standing silently in the center of the room, and Wolff and four of his officers surrounding the others. Marouk pulled up beside him, joining his rapid breathing to Kirk’s own.

  The gray shape of the computer that Kirk had once addressed as the Joy Machine had not changed. It was as useless as any hulk.

  “What’s happened?” Linda said, her voice agonized with disappointment.

  “What’s going on?” Wolff said.

  “Linda,” Kirk said. “You could have trusted me.”

  Wolff turned toward Kirk. “At last, Kirk. I’m placing you all under arrest.”

  “I trusted you, Jim,” Linda said. “I just—I knew you’d be sick, and I didn’t know what the payday would do to you. I had to take advantage of the possibility that the virus might work, even if only temporarily.”

  “As it did,” Kirk said.

  “What’s happened to the Machine?” Wolff asked. “I’m getting instructions, but not from here.”

  “It has moved its locus elsewhere,” Marouk said.

  “Where?” Wolff asked. “I’m still getting instructions for your arrest.”

  [236] “Remember that you were once a Federation agent,” Kirk said, “and don’t make us fight it out here. There are five of us and only four of you. We have no objection to being taken to the Joy Machine. In fact, that is what we would like to do. I suggest that we all descend to the front entrance where we can figure out how to do that.”

  Wolff hesitated, as if estimating the odds, and then slowly nodded.

  Kirk led the way until they reached the front steps. Wolff and his officers pushed past Spock, McCoy, and Uhura. “Here!” he called to the officers below. They started up the stairs while McCoy and Uhura turned to grapple with Wolff. Linda’s three crew members headed down to hold off the other officers. But the odds were too great.

  “Stop!” Kirk said. Spock, McCoy, and Uhura turned toward him in surprise. “Into the building!” Kirk commanded, holding open the door. Linda and Marouk retreated as if taken over by Kirk’s starship captain’s authority. “Do as he says,” Spock said to McCoy and Uhura, as he and Kirk pushed them all inside and then McCoy and Uhura grabbed Kirk and pulled him after them.

  The air in the plaza took on color. It seemed to glow with an inner light. The glow was rosy like the world seen through colored glasses. The people who had been struggling in the plaza stopped in whatever position they found themselves, attackers and defenders, the officers running up the stairs, the crew members running down, and those who stood at the top. They stiffened and closed their eyes in ecstasy before they slumped, bonelessly, to the pavement.

  [subspace carrier wave transmission]

 

  >happiness = not all<

 

  >not all<

  Chapter Seventeen

  Cathedral of Joy

  McCOY AND UHURA pressed Kirk against the wall to the right of the door as if protecting him from whatever lurked in the plaza. Spock was in front of the door, his arms folded across his chest, his gaze focused at something on the other side of the plaza. Linda was on the left, leaning against the wall, her face in her hands. Slowly she slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor. Marouk, who had been the last to enter, looked like someone who had just experienced a revelation.

  “You can let me go,” Kirk said. But his voice was shaky.

  “It’s a good thing I had you to worry about,” McCoy said. “Even in here I could feel the impact of that thing.”

  “Like Christmas and Kwanzaa and Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July and the start of summer vacation all rolled into one,” Uhura said. Perspiration was beading on her upper lip.

  McCoy looked out at the plaza covered with bodies [239] like a bloodless battlefield. “Joy to the world,” he said.

  “Now I know what I’ve been rejecting,” Marouk said, “and it makes me wonder what I’ve been opposing all these months. If a mere reflection of payday feels like that, what must the real thing be like? I’ve warned people about it. I warned you about it. But I couldn’t know how overwhelming the experience was.”

  Kirk took a deep breath. “You don’t want to know,” he said, and let the breath out slowly. “It eats away the soul.”

  “The soul is an unnecessary postulate,” Spock said. “The Joy Machine’s payday is aimed at the more primitive levels of emotional response rather than those later to develop in the evolutionary process.”

  “Which may be,” Linda said from the floor, “why it is so difficult to resist. Like food to the starving, sleep to the sleepless, warmth to the freezing, relief from pain for those in agony.” Her voice came hollowly from behind her hands, as if she could not bear to look at them. “I should not have been so angry with my father.”

  “Anger, pity, sorrow, regret ...” Spock said. “These are emotions that prevent humans from behaving rationally. And it is imperative that we behave rationally if we hope to survive this crisis.”

  McCoy looked at Spock scornfully but released his hold on Kirk. “Are you all right, Jim?”

  Kirk nodded. “I didn’t intend for you to take that business about tying me to the mast quite so literally.” When McCoy and Uhura looked apologetic, Kirk added quickly, “But I don’t know what I would have done if I had been free.”

  “You’d have been okay,” Uhura said.

  “I’m not so sure,” Kirk said. “I might have dashed out into the plaza. No one knows whether they can resist the lure of payday.” He turned to the door. [240] “Everybody in the open seems to have experienced a payday. And its aftermath, a deep sleep.”

  “Fortunately,” Spock said, “we were protected from the sleep-inducer.”

  “It’s what I warned you about,” Marouk said. “A wide-beam projector. The Joy Machine kept asking me if it were possible, but I was never told it had been completed.”

  “You may have warned us, but not about this,” Spock said.

  “What do you mean?” Marouk asked.

  They were all still shaken by the experience, even Spock.

  “We were sheltered by the building,” Kirk said. “At least we felt only the scatter effects, such as you described from your own experience of payday for others. If we had been farther inside the building,
we might have felt little or nothing.”

  “Which means,” McCoy said, “that the idea of a projector capable of affecting a starship is pure fantasy.”

  “As we knew from the beginning,” Spock said.

  “If you knew that,” McCoy said, “you kept it to yourself.”

  Marouk spread his hands apologetically. “My only hope was to get the four of you to find a solution before it was too late.”

  “The ultimate solution?” Uhura asked.

  “If that was necessary. Clearly the dissidents were not going to be a factor.”

  “We had a chance,” Linda said, looking up finally. “The virus worked, and if it had only disabled the Machine a little longer—”

  “The Joy Machine was ahead of you all the way,” Kirk said. “I’m not sure it was disabled at all. Maybe it was simply pretending in order to lure the only forces outside its control into an attack that would neutralize any threat they might have represented.”

  [241] “It couldn’t have known,” Linda said stubbornly.

  “It seems to know a great deal about human nature,” Spock said, “and it is able to predict behavior with remarkable accuracy.”

  “In any case,” Kirk said, “the Joy Machine has perfected a projector capable of covering a large area and the flexibility to use it for crowd control. That is a significant departure from its mandate to deliver individual pleasure.”

  “How long will the people out there be unconscious?” McCoy asked.

  Marouk shrugged. “Ordinarily eight hours, but this is not an ordinary payday experience. It might be hours; it might be minutes.”

  “If we are going to confront the Joy Machine, it would make sense to act before Wolff’s police officers and the citizens awake,” Spock said. “If we only knew where the Joy Machine had transferred its consciousness.”

  “That’s no problem,” Kirk said. “The projection came from that building over there.” He pointed across the plaza toward a small building situated by itself and surrounded by a well-kept green lawn.