Star Trek 04

by James Blish

  "The other new arrival has considered you unreachable, but is now realizing that this has changed. The factors in her favor are youth and strength, plus an unusually strong female emotion which . . ."

  "You'll find my thoughts more interesting! Primitive thoughts you can't understand; emotions so ugly you can't . . ."

  The pain hit him then and he went down, writhing. The images involved this time were from the torture chambers of the Inquisition. Over them, dimly, floated the Magistrate's thought, as though directed at someone else.

  "Wrong thinking is punishable; right thinking will be as quickly rewarded. You will find it an effective combination."

  The illusion vanished and Pike rolled weakly to a sitting position. He found the Magistrate gone, and the two crewwomen bending over him.

  "No—don't—help me. Just leave me alone. Got to concentrate on hate. They can't read through it."

  The hours wore on and eventually the lights went down. It seemed obvious that the Talosians intended to keep all three women penned with him. Trying to keep the hate alive became increasingly more difficult; he slammed his fist against the enclosure wall again and again, hoping the pain would help.

  The women conversed in low tones for a while, and then, one by one, fell asleep, Vina on the bed, the other two on the floor leaning against it. Pike squatted against the wall nearby, no thoughts in his mind now but roaring fatigue and the effort to fight it.

  Then he sensed, rather than heard movement at his side. The wall panel had opened, and a Talosian arm was reaching in for the discarded phasers. He exploded into action, grabbing the arm and heaving.

  The Magistrate was almost catapulted into the room by the force of that yank. Instantly, Pike's hands were around his throat.

  "Don't hurt him!" Vina cried from the bed. "They don't mean to be evil . . ."

  "I've had some samples of how 'good' they are . . ."

  The Talosian vanished and Pike found himself holding the neck of the snarling anthropoid-spider creature he had first seen in a cell across from his. Its fangs snapped at his face. Colt shrieked.

  Pike grimly tightened his grip. "I'm still holding your neck! Stop this illusion or I'll snap it!" The spider-thing changed back into the Magistrate again. "That's better. Try one more illusion—try anything at all—I'll take one quick twist. Understand?"

  He loosened his hands slightly, allowing the Magistrate to gasp for breath. The forehead vein throbbed. "Your ship. Release me or we destroy it."

  "He's not bluffing," Vina said. "With illusions they can make your crew work the wrong controls, push any button it takes to destroy the ship."

  "I'll gamble he's too intelligent to kill for no reason at all. On the other hand, I've got a reason. Number One, take a good grip on his throat for me. And at the slightest excuse . . ."

  "I understand, Captain," Number One said grimly.

  Freed, Pike picked up the phasers. Putting one into his belt, he adjusted the other, leveled it at the transparency, and pulled the trigger. As he expected, it didn't fire. He turned back to the Magistrate and pressed the weapon against his head.

  "I'm betting," he said almost conversationally, "that you've created an illusion that this phaser is empty. That you don't know enough about your own machines, let alone ours, to dare to tamper with them. And that this one just blasted a hole in that wall which you're keeping us from seeing. Shall I test my theory on your head?"

  The Magistrate closed his eyes resignedly. At once, there was a huge, jagged hole in the front of the cage.

  "Q.E.D. Number One, you can let go of him now. If he acts up, I can shoot him, and he knows it. Everybody out. We're leaving!"

  On the surface, only the top of the lift shaft still stood; the top of the knoll had been blasted clean off. So the Talosians had prevented the rescue party from seeing that, too.

  Number One tried her communicator, but without effect. Noting the Magistrate's forehead vein throbbing again, Pike raised his phaser and said in a voice of iron, "I want contact with my ship. Right now."

  "No," said the Magistrate. "You are now on the surface where we intended you to be in the end. With the female of your choice, you will soon begin carefully guided lives . . ."

  "Beginning with burying you."

  "I see you intend to kill. I shall not prevent you; others of us will replace me. To help you reclaim the planet, our zoological gardens will furnish a variety of plant life . . ."

  "Look," Pike said, "I'll make a deal with you. You and your life for the lives of these two Earthwomen."

  "Since our life span is many times yours, we have time to evolve a society trained as artisans, technicans . . ."

  "Do you understand what I'm saying? Give me proof our ship is all right, send these two back to it, and I'll stay here with Vina."

  He felt a tug at his belt, and out of the corner of his eye saw that Number One had pulled the spare phaser out of it. The rachet popped like firecrackers as she turned the gain control full around. The phaser began to hum, rising in both pitch and volume. The weapon was building up an overload—a force chamber explosion.

  "It's wrong," Number One said, "to create a whole race of humans to live as slaves. Do you concur, Captain?"

  After a moment of hesitation, Pike nodded.

  "Is this a deception?" asked the Magistrate. "Do you really intend to destroy yourselves? Yes, I see that you do."

  "Vina, you've got time to get back underground. But hurry. And Talosian, to show just how primitive humans are, you can go with her."

  The Magistrate did not move, nor did Vina.

  "No," she said. "If you all think it's this important, then I can't leave either. I suppose if they still have one human, they might try again."

  "We had not believed this possible," the Magistrate said, his thoughts betraying what might have been a strange sadness. "The customs and history of your race show a unique hatred of captivity, even when pleasant and benevolent. But you prefer death. This makes you too violent and dangerous a species for our needs."

  "He means," Vina said, "they can't use you. You're free to go back to your ship."

  Number One turned the phaser off, and just in time, too. In the renewed silence, Pike said, "Vina, that's it. No apologies. You captured one of us, threatened us, tortured us . . ."

  "Your unsuitability has condemned the Talosian race to eventual death," the Magistrate said. "Is this not sufficient? No other specimens have shown your adaptability. You were our last hope."

  "Nonsense," Pike said, surprised. "Surely some form of trade, some mutual cooperation . . ."

  The Magistrate shook his head. "Your race would learn our power of illusion—and destroy itself. It is important to our beliefs to prevent this."

  "Captain," Number One said, "we have Transporter control now."

  "Good. Let's go. Vina, you too."

  "I—" Vina said. "I can't go with you."

  Pike felt a flash of what might almost have been exasperation. "Number One, Yeoman Colt, go aloft. I'll be with you when I've gotten to the bottom of this." As they hesitated, he added, "Orders."

  They shimmered and vanished. Pike swung on Vina. "Now . . ."

  He stopped, astounded and horrified. Vina was changing. Her face was wrinkling. An ugly scar appeared. Her body was becoming cruelly deformed. Throughout, she looked back at Pike with bitter eyes. The change did not stop until she was old, shockingly twisted, downright ugly.

  "This is the female's true appearance," the Magistrate said.

  It couldn't be true. This was the youngster of the survivors' camp, the sturdy peasant, the wife on Earth, the green Orionese savage who had danced so . . .

  "This is the truth," Vina said, in an old woman's voice. She lifted her arms. "See me as I am. They found me in the wreckage, dying, nothing but a lump of flesh. They fixed me fine. Everything works. But—they had no guide for putting me back together.

  "Do you understand now? Do you see why I can't go with you?"

  She turned an
d stumbled toward the lift. Pike watched her go with horror and pity. Then he turned to the Magistrate, who said; "It was necessary to convince you that her desire to stay is an honest one."

  Pike looked at him with new eyes. "You have some sparks of decency in you after all. Will you give her back her illusion of beauty?"

  "We will. And more. See."

  At the shaft, the image of the lovely Vina was entering the lift—accompanied by himself. The two turned and waved. Then the lift carried them down into the bowels of Talos IV.

  "She has her illusion," the Magistrate said. Was he almost smiling? "And you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant."

  Spock, Number One, Jose, Colt and Boyce all crowded toward him as he stepped out of the Transporter Chamber.

  "What happened to Vina?" Colt demanded.

  "Isn't she—coming with us?" asked Number One.

  "No," Pike said shortly. "And I agree with her reasons. Now break it up here. What is this we're running, a cadet ship? Everybody on the bridge! Navigator, I want a course!"

  "Yessir!"

  They scattered like flushed partridges—all except Boyce, who said, "Hold on a minute, Captain."

  "What for? I feel fine."

  "That's the trouble. You look a hundred per cent better."

  "I am. Didn't you recommend rest and change? I've had both. I've even been—home. Now, let's get on with things."

  As the Enterprise moved away from Talos IV, routine re-established itself quickly, and the memory of all those illusions began to fade. They had not, after all, been real experiences—most of them. But Pike could not resist stealing a quick look from Number One to Colt, wondering which of them, in other circumstances, he might have picked.

  When he found them both looking at him as if with the same speculation, he turned his eyes determinedly to the viewscreen and banished the thought.

  He had had plenty of practice at that, lately.

  AFTERWORD

  * * *

  As the reader will now see, this story constituted the original pilot film for "Star Trek," and was shown as such at the 24th World Science Fiction Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, September 1—5, 1966. Between the selling of the series and the actual television broadcast of "The Menagerie," the whole concept of the cast changed radically. Number One was moved one step down in the chain of command, becoming Uhura, while her ostensible lack of emotion and computer-like mind were transferred to Spock; Yeoman Colt became Yeoman Rand; Boyce became McCoy; Tyler became Sulu. The net effect was to make the new officers more interracial than before. The notion that the highly trained crew would ever be risked in ordinary hand-to-hand infantry combat was dropped.

  Most important, perhaps, was that in the pilot film, Pike had wound up with a potentially explosive situation with two of his crewwomen which would be too complex to maintain through a long-term series of episodes. He had to be replaced, and the whole story turned into relatively ancient history; and thus was born Captain Kirk, and the framing story I have left out. All these stages are visible in the scripts I had to work from, which are heavily revised in various handwritings (and in which Pike confusingly appears from time to time as "Captain Spring" and "Captain Winter").

  The only alternative would have been to reshoot the original "Menagerie" with the new cast, which would have been not only expensive, but would have produced all kinds of unwanted complexities in succeeding stories. Mr. Roddenberry obviously decided to let it stand as something that had happened way-back-when, and frame it as such. I think this was wise and I have followed his lead in this adaptation.

  Ordinarily, writers should not inflict their technical problems on readers, who have every right to demand that such problems be solved before the story is published. But I sometimes get letters from "Star Trek" fans who castigate me for changing even one or two words in scripts they have memorized, or even have on tape. In this case, as in that of "The City on the Edge of Forever" (STAR TREK TWO), there were conflicts that couldn't be resolved by slavishly following the final text and ignoring how it had evolved. In both cases, I had to make my own judgment of what would best serve the authors' intents.

  —J. B.

  THE ENTERPRISE INCIDENT

  (D. C. Fontana)

  * * *

  Operating under sealed orders, Kirk had found from long experience, almost always meant something messy. It became worse when the orders, once opened, demanded that they be kept secret from his own officers during the initial phases. And it was worst of all when those initial phases looked outright irrational.

  Take the present situation. Here was the Enterprise, on the wrong side of the neutral zone, in Romulan space, surrounded by three Romulan cruisers which had simply popped out of nothingness, undetected by any sensor until far too late. Her presence there was a clear violation of a treaty; and since the Romulans were now using warships modeled on those of the Klingons, she was also heavily outgunned.

  Kirk had worked out no way of making so suicidal a move on his part explicable except that of becoming irritable and snappish, as though his judgment had been worn down by fatigue. It was a bad solution. His officers were the best in Starfleet; sooner or later they would penetrate the deception, and conclude that whenever Kirk appeared to be worn down to the point of irrationality, he was operating under sealed orders.

  And when the day came when he actually was too tired to know what he was doing, they would obey him blindly anyhow—and scratch one starship.

  "Captain," Uhura said, her voice distant. "We are receiving a Class Two signal from one of the Romulan vessels."

  "Put it on the main viewing screen, Lieutenant. Also, code a message to Starfleet Command, advising them of our situation and including all log entries to this point. Spock, your sensors read clear; what happened?"

  "Sir, I have no more than a hypothesis . . ."

  "Signal in," Uhura said. The main screen flickered briefly, then clarified to show a Romulan officer, with his own bridge behind him, carefully out of focus. He looked rather like Spock, and spoke like him, too.

  "You have been identified as the Starship Enterprise. Captain James T. Kirk last known to be in command."

  Kirk picked up a hand mike and thumbed its button. "Your information is correct. This is Captain Kirk."

  "I am Subcommander Tal of the Romulan Imperial Fleet. Your ship is surrounded, Captain. You will surrender immediately—or we will destroy you."

  Kirk flicked the switch and turned his face away toward Spock. He rather doubted that the Romulan could lip-read a foreign language, but there was no point in giving him the chance.

  "Spock, come here. What do you make of this? They want something, or they would have destroyed us by now."

  "No doubt, Captain. That would be standard procedure for them."

  "It's my ship they want, I assume. And very badly."

  "Of course. It would be a great prize. An elementary deduction, Captain."

  "Skip the logic lessons." Kirk opened the mike again. "Save your threats, Subcommander," he said harshly. "If you attempt to board my ship, I'll blow her up. You gain nothing."

  Tal had apparently expected nothing else, but a slight frown cut across his forehead nonetheless. "May I ask, Captain, who is that beside you?"

  "My First Officer, Commander Spock. I'm surprised by your ignorance."

  "You mean to insult me, but there is nothing discreditable in not knowing everything. Finding a Vulcan so highly placed in the Federation fleet does surprise me, I readily grant. However . . ."

  He was interrupted by a beeping noise and hit an invisible control plate. "Yes, Commander? Excuse me, Captain . . ."

  The screen dissolved into traveling moire patterns. Then Tal was back.

  "No one should decide quickly to die, Captain," he said. "We give you one of your hours. If you do not surrender your ship at the end of that time, your destruction is certain. We will be open to communication, should you wish it."

  "You understand Starfleet Command has
been advised of our situation."

  "Of course," Tal said, somewhat condescendingly. "But a subspace message will take three weeks to reach Starfleet—and I think they would hesitate to send a squadron in after you, in any event. The decision is yours, Captain. One hour."

  His image winked out, and was replaced by stars.

  "Lt. Uhura," Kirk said, "order all senior officers to report to the Briefing Room on the double."

  "All right," Kirk said, surveying the group. Spock, McCoy and Scott were present; Chekov and Sulu on the bridge with Uhura. "Spock, you had a theory on why your sensors didn't pick up the Romulan ships, until they were right on top of us."

  "I believe the Romulans have devised an improved cloaking system which renders our tracking sensors useless. You will observe, Captain, that the three ships outside are modeled after Klingon cruisers. Changing ship designs that drastically is expensive, and the Klingon cruiser has no important inherent advantages over the Romulan model of which we are aware—unless it is adaptable to some sort of novel screening device."

  "If so, the Romulans could attack into Federation territory before we'd know they were there; before a planet or a vessel could begin to get its defenses up."

  "They caught us right enough," Scott said.

  "A brilliant observation, Mr. Scott," Kirk snapped. "Do you have any other helpful opinions?"

  Scott was momentarily nonplussed. Then he pumped his shoulders slightly in a shrug. "We've not got many choices . . ."

  "Three. We can fight—and be destroyed. Or we can destroy the Enterprise ourselves to keep her from the Romulans. Or—we can surrender." There was a stir among the other officers; Kirk had expected it, and overrode it. "We might be able to find out how the Romulans' new cloaking device works. The Federation must have that information. Opinions?"

  "Odds are against our finding out anything," Scott said. "And if the Enterprise is taken by the Romulans, they'll know everything there is to know about a starship."