Star Trek 11

by James Blish

  There was comfort in Spock's quiet nod. No heroics, no weakening sympathy. Just the perception of a reality, a necessity clear to each of them. Spock, his friend.

  On a wall in Trelane's drawing room was the shadow of a gallows, dark, implicating. Kirk ignored it. For otherwise, the room was unchanged. Logs burned in the fireplace. The light of candles was refracted from the crystals of its chandelier. The mirror on the wall had been restored, its glass now protected by a heavy wire-mesh shield.

  A heavily portentous voice said, "The prisoner may approach the bench."

  It was Trelane. He had doffed his military glories for the graver garb of Law's upholders. He wore the white peri-wig of England's servants of jurisprudence, the black silk robes of a high court judge. He was writing something with a goose-quill pen on some parchment-looking document. The gallows noose—shadow or substance?—seemed to droop over Kirk.

  "Trelane . . .!" Kirk said.

  Nobody can be so solemn as an idiot. And Trelane, an essential idiot, was very solemn. Solemn and dangerous. In a voice that dripped with unction, he said, "Any attempt at demonstrations will weigh against you with the court. And this time my instrumentality is unbreakable, Captain Kirk."

  "My neck seems to be threatened by your court, Trelane. And your neck—is it so very safe?"

  A flicker of irritation passed over the heavy-jowled face.

  "The absurdity of inferior beings!" said Trelane. He picked up the parchment. "And now, Captain James Kirk, you stand accused of the high crimes of treason, of conspiracy, of attempt to foment insurrection." His periwig must have itched him for he pushed it up, giving himself the look of a slightly drunken, white-haired Silenus. "How do you plead?" he said.

  "I haven't come here to plead in your 'court,' Trelane.."

  The Squire of Gothos sat back, tapping his quill pen against his table. "I must warn you that anything you say has already been taken down in evidence against you."

  It was like Alice in Wonderland. It was like Looking-Glass Land, where what seems to be is not and what is not appears to be the fact. Reaching for sanity, Kirk said, "I came here for one purpose. I want my ship returned to me."

  "Irrelevant," Trelane said, giving his periwig an irritated push.

  "We made you angry by our will to survive. Is that it?" Kirk said.

  Trelane drew a tremulous finger across his upper lip. "Irrelevant," he said. "A comment entirely uncalled for."

  "Sure, that's it," Kirk retorted. "Then vent your anger on me alone! I was the one who led the others—and I was the one who shot out your mirror machine . . ."

  For the first time, rage seemed to overwhelm vanity in Trelane. His voice thickened. "And did you really think I wouldn't have more mediums of instrumentality at my command?"

  "I took that chance. And I'll accept the price of chancing wrong—"

  Trelane rose. "Then you do admit the charges. This court has no choice in fixing punishment. You will hang by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead. Have you any last request?"

  Kirk gave a great shout of laughter. "If you think I'm going to stick my head in that noose . . ."

  Trelane's hand moved—and Kirk found himself standing under the gallows, its noose, real, heavy, rough around his throat. Trelane, reaching for a black executioner's mask, regarded him plaintively. "This really is becoming tiresome. It's much too easy."

  Kirk freed himself from the noose. "Easy!" he yelled. "That's your whole problem, Trelane! Everything comes too easy to you! You don't ever have to think! So you lose opportunities. You're enjoying your sense of power right now—but the chance to experience something really unique? You're wasting it! Where's the sport in a simple hanging? In making a rope do your killing for you?"

  "Sport?" Trelane echoed. Suddenly his face cleared. He clapped his hands. "Oh, I am intrigued! Go on, Captain! What do you suggest?"

  "A personal conflict between us . . . with the stakes a human life—mine!"

  "What an inspired idea! We need something more fanciful—a truly royal hunt, maybe." He gestured toward the windows. "You go out and hide from me. In the forest . . . anywhere you like . . . and I will seek you out with—this!" He wrenched a sword from the scabbard in front of him, brandishing it ferociously. "How does that strike you, Captain? Truly sporting?"

  "Yes," Kirk said. "But you must make the game worth my while. While we play it, free my ship."

  Trelane sniffed. "Always back to your ship. Oh, very well. If it will lend spice to the pursuit . . ."

  Kirk broke into a run, making a dash for a window. He brought up in a copse of vividly green bushes. With desperate haste, he flipped open his communicator. "Enterprise! Enterprise, can you hear me? Get the ship away fast! Fast as you can! I'll try to gain you the time you need—"

  He stopped. Trelane had burst through the copse, slashing at leaves with his sword. "Ah, ha!" he screamed, "I see you!" But Kirk, diving, had rolled down the slant of a small knoll. Trelane's sword flashed over his head—and in his frantic scramble for the shelter of a heavy-trunked tree, he dropped his communicator.

  "You must try harder, Captain!" The sword-point pricked Kirk's arm. He rose from his crouch behind the tree to tear a branch away from it. It struck straight and true on Trelane's sword arm. The weapon flew out of his hand; and Kirk, grabbing it up, slashed at Trelane with all his two-handed strength.

  It cut right through him, leaving no sign of wound or of blood. Horrified, Kirk stared—but Trelane, still playing the role of gallant sportsman, merely said, "Touché, Captain. I confess you've scored first. But after all, I've never played this game before . . ."

  He vanished. Kirk, still shaking, ducked behind a screen of brush. Under it, he saw the gleaming metal of his dropped communicator. "Enterprise . . .!"

  "En garde!"

  Trelane had reappeared, sword lifted. Barely in time, Kirk broke for cover behind a hedge. Then, stooping, he burst out of its shelter to make for the door between the two stone griffins.

  "Tallyho!"

  The fatuous Squire of Gothos had spotted him. Kirk wheeled to his right—and a stone wall erected itself before him. He whirled to his left; and another blocked his way. Trapped, he backed up against the door of Trelane Hall; and its proprietor, triumph giving his face a look of gorged repletion, said, "Ah, Captain, you made a noble fight of it!" A dribble of saliva issued from the thick lips. "But you are beaten. Down, Captain. Down to me on your knees."

  Kirk spoke, the sword against his throat. "You have won nothing."

  "I have! I could run you through! I order you to your knees. I order it!" Trelane lunged with his sword; but Kirk, seizing it, tore it out of his hand; and in one snap over his knee, broke it. He tossed the pieces aside.

  "You broke it!" Trelane wailed. "You broke my sword! But I won't have it. I'll blast you out of existence with a wave of my hand!"

  Kirk struck him sharply across the face; and Trelane, shrieking, "I'll fix you for that!" squeezed the trigger of the phaser that had suddenly appeared in his hand. A murderously disintegrating ray darted from its muzzle—and at the same moment a woman's voice called "Trelane!"

  "No! No!" Trelane howled, running down the steps of his Hall's entrance. Two globes of light hung in the air at their foot. "No! Go away!" he yelled. "You said I could have this planet for my own!" The spheres of light, one slightly smaller than the other, sparkled with an iridescence of rainbow colors.

  Trelane was shouting at them. "You always stop me just when I'm having fun!"

  "If you cannot take proper care of your pets, you cannot have any pets," said the female voice.

  Trelane burst into tears. "But you saw! I was winning! I would have won. I would, I would, I would." But even as he wept, he was dwindling, a shape losing substance, collapsing in on itself. Then he was only an emptiness in the air.

  Kirk looked skyward as though seeking an explanation of the inexplicable. "Where are you?" he cried. "Who is Trelane and who are you?"

  "You must forgive our child," sa
id the woman's voice. "The fault is ours for overindulging him. He will be punished."

  A stern male voice spoke. "We would not have let him intercept you had we realized your vulnerability. Forgive us, Captain. We will maintain your life-support conditions while you return to your ship. Please accept our apologies."

  Kirk flung out his hands toward the two spheres. "Can't you tell me . . .?" Then, like Trelane, they were gone. After a long moment, he broke out his communicator. "Captain to Enterprise. Captain calling the Enterprise . . ."

  He shut his eyes at the sound—the familiar sound of Spock's voice. "Captain, we are receiving you—"

  Kirk gave a last look around him at Trelane's domain—its greenery, the two stone griffins, the appalling solitude of its loneliness in the midst of the Gothos hell. "Beam me up," he said. "Mr. Spock, we're free to leave here."

  It was a singularly thoughtful Kirk who gave the order for normal approach procedures to Colony Beta 6. He was glad when Spock left his station to come to the command chair. Somehow he'd known that Spock alone could reconcile him to the paradoxes of his recent encounter with the Squire of Gothos.

  "I am entering," Spock said, "our recent . . . uh . . . interesting experience into the library computer banks, Captain. But I am puzzled."

  "Puzzled—you, Mr. Spock?" For a moment the old quizzicalness played across Kirk's face. "I am surprised. I am amazed that you admit it. Explanation, please . . ."

  Spock said, "General, or Squire Trelane, Captain. How do we describe him? Pure mentality? A force of intellect? Embodied energy? Superbeing? He must be classified, sir."

  Kirk stared unseeingly at his board. "Of course, Mr. Spock. Certainly, he must be classified. Everything must be classified—or where would we be?"

  "But I am somewhat at a loss . . ." Spock said.

  "A god of war, Mr. Spock?"

  "I hardly think . . ."

  "Or . . . a small boy, Mr. Spock. And a very naughty one at that."

  "It will make a strange entry in the library banks, sir."

  "He was a very strange small boy. But on the other hand, he probably was doing things comparable, in their way, to the same mischievous pranks you played when you were a boy."

  "Mischievous pranks, Captain?"

  "Dipping little girls' curls in inkwells . . . stealing apples . . . tying cans on a dog's—" He broke off, sensing Spock's growing dismay. Where, in the universe, was another Spock to be found—the one you could trust to the end for reasons that had no relation to the ordinary human ones? Kirk grinned. "Excuse me, Mr. Spock. I should have known better. You were never a mischievous small boy."

  "As you say, Captain," Spock said.

  Back at his station, he cocked a puzzled eyebrow at Kirk. Kirk smiled at him. Spock, lifting the other eyebrow, returned to his computer. And the Enterprise, course set, oblivious of the manifold temptations of deep space, sped on to its assignation with Colony Beta 6.

  WINK OF AN EYE

  (Arthur Heinemann and Lee Cronin)

  * * *

  In the space fronting the handsome building of unidentified metal, a fountain flung its sparkle of spray into the air. Kirk, abstracted, watched Security Guard Compton taking samples of its water. Nearby, McCoy was scanning the plaza's periphery with his tricorder. Necessary but time-consuming occupations, Kirk thought. And useless. They had done nothing to locate the source of that distress call that had forced their beam-down to this unexplored planet calling itself Scalos.

  With abrupt impatience, he opened his communicator. "Kirk to Enterprise. Lieutenant Uhura, does the location of that distress signal exactly correspond to this area?"

  "Yes, sir. And I am receiving visual contact with the Scalosians. I can't see you on the viewing screen but I can see them."

  "Check coordinates, Lieutenant."

  "The coordinates correspond, sir."

  His impatience grew. "There are no Scalosians, Lieutenant. Apart from our landing party, there is nobody here."

  "Their distress call is very strong, sir. They are begging for immediate assistance."

  "Check circuits for malfunction. Captain out" He looked up to meet McCoy's nod. "There must be a malfunction, Jim. This is a barren world—hardly any vegetation; no apparent animal life."

  As though to contradict him, a shrill mosquito whine sounded near Kirk's head. He struck the invisible insect away. "But there's some kind of insect life," he said.

  "My tricorder doesn't register it."

  "My ears did," Kirk retorted. He dropped the subject for Spock, rounding a corner of the strangely-fluted metal building, was approaching them. "Anything, Mr. Spock?"

  "Evidently a civilization of high order, Captain, rating number seven on the Industrial Scale. Humanoid in appearance, according to paintings. An abundance of literature which I shall have translated and processed. Certain structures hold signs of recent occupancy. Other ones apparently long abandoned."

  "But no sign of present life," Kirk said.

  As he spoke, he noted that Compton, rinsing his hands in the fountain's jet, had lifted one to knock away some unseen annoyance at his ear. At the same moment, he again heard the mosquito whine. He had to make an effort to concentrate on what Spock was saying. ". . . indication of life forms of a highly unusual intermittent nature. They have neither discernible shape nor location. A most puzzling phenomenon, sir."

  "The Scalosians were here," Kirk said. "We saw them on the viewing screen, Mr. Spock. Lieutenant Uhura can still see them. She's still getting their distress call. What happened to them?"

  "At this moment I cannot answer that, Captain."

  "Mr. Spock, I want you to make a complete survey of this planet. You will use all the ship's instruments—"

  He broke off at McCoy's shout. "Jim! Compton's gone! Look over there! Compton's gone!"

  Emptiness was where the guard had been stooping at the fountain. McCoy was staring at its feathered plume of water dazedly. "Compton—gone," he said again.

  "Bones!" Kirk said. "Snap out of it! What happened?"

  McCoy's shocked eyes veered to his. "He . . . was stowing vials of that fountain's water in his shoulder bags. . when he vanished. I was looking straight at him—and then he wasn't there. He wasn't there, Jim. He . . . just wasn't there . . ."

  Had the Scalos distress signal been real? Maybe unreal like its inhabitants. Kirk, entering the Enterprise bridge, barked an inconsequential order to an unremembered crew member. As he sat down in his command chair, he said, "Lieutenant Uhura, start a replay of that distress call." Then he hit a switch. "Mr. Scott, are all Transporter controls still in functioning order?"

  "Aye, sir. Is Mr. Spock still down on the planet's surface?"

  "He's in Sickbay. Dr. McCoy is running a check on the landing party." His attention, used to dispersing itself to note any significant movement in the bridge, had registered Uhura's look as she struggled with her dials. "What is it, Lieutenant?"

  She was frowning. "Malfunction, sir." She touched a switch—and her frown deepened. "Now it's corrected itself."

  Sulu spoke. "Captain, there's some trouble on the hangar deck. Controls are frozen."

  "Have repair crews been assigned?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Kirk shot a look of inquiry at Uhura. She nodded. "The tape of the distress call is ready, sir."

  Spock had quietly returned to his station. Now he turned to look at the viewing screen. An upside-down image took shape on it. Then, righting itself, it showed a proud, strong male face. Its lips moved. "Those of us who are left have taken shelter in this area. We have no explanation for what has been happening to us. Our number is now five . . ."

  The face on the screen took on human height and breadth. The figure moved; and around it appeared the four other Scalosians, two of them women. One was surpassingly lovely. The whole impression created by the group was that of a cultured, singularly handsome people, peaceful in purpose. Their spokesman went on. "I am Rael. We were once a nation of nine hundred thousand, this city
alone holding—"

  "Freeze it," Kirk said.

  Uhura immobilized the tape and Spock, swinging around, said, "Perhaps this distress call was prerecorded—and what we received was a taped signal."

  "Mr. Spock, the fact remains that when we beamed down, we could not find these people. They were there—now they're not there. Nor is crewman Compton."

  "Some force or agent only partially discernible to our instruments may have been responsible, Captain."

  Kirk nodded. "Mr. Sulu, I want this ship on standby alert while we continue the investigation." But Sulu had turned an anxious face to him. "I have a reading, sir, that our deflectors are inoperative. They do not respond to controls."

  "Scotty, assist," Kirk said. He got up to go over to Spock's chair. "Mr. Spock, ever since we beamed back up from Scalos, we have suffered a series of malfunctions. I wish an investigation and an explanation. I want—"

  McCoy's voice interrupted. "McCoy to Captain Kirk. The Captain's presence for examination is requested."

  "Can't it wait, Bones?"

  "Your orders, Jim. You're the last one."

  "What do you read so far?"

  "Can we discuss it in Sickbay?"

  Moving to the elevator, Kirk said, "Mr. Spock, you have the con." But the elevator doors, instead of whooshing open at his approach, remained shut Kirk wheeled, shouting, "Is this another malfunction?"

  Spock jabbed hastily at buttons: and after a long moment, the doors opened slowly, grudgingly. Kirk was still fuming as he jerked off his shirt in Sickbay. "Bones! What did your examinations of the others turn up?"

  "All normal. Whatever caused Compton's disappearance didn't affect anyone else."

  "Has anyone experienced anything unusual since beaming back up?"

  "No mention of it. No, Jim."

  But Nurse Chapel looked up from the sheet she was draping over Kirk's midriff. "Yet something's going on, Captain. All the medical supply cabinets have been opened."