by James Blish
McCoy ran to the platform. Kirk stood on it, alone.
"Jim—Jim?" McCoy cried.
"Hello, Bones," Kirk said. He walked off the empty platform and over to the console. "Mr. Spock," he said, "let's get those men of ours up and aboard."
Spock swallowed. "Yes, Captain. At once, sir."
It wasn't done at once. It was twenty minutes before the Transporter platform surrendered its burden of the four bodies to the eager hands awaiting them.
McCoy rose from his last examination. "They'll make it, Jim. Those rocks they heated saved their lives. They're all suffering from severe frostbite—but I think they'll make it."
The pallor of Kirk's face suddenly struck him. "How do you feel, Jim?"
There was a new sadness in Kirk's smile. "What's that old expression? 'Sadder but wiser.' I feel sadder, Bones, but much less wise."
"Join the human race, Jim," McCoy said.
There was a sense of quiet thanksgiving as Kirk entered the bridge. His first move was over to Spock at the computer station. "You know, of course," he said, "I could never have made it without you."
"Thank you, Captain. What do you plan to tell the crew?"
"The truth, Mr. Spock—that the impostor was put back where he belongs."
Janice Rand approached him. "I just wanted to say, Captain, how—glad I am that . . ."
"Thank you, Yeoman." Kirk returned to his command chair. The girl watched him go. Spock watched the girl.
"That impostor," he said, "had some very interesting qualities. And he certainly resembled the Captain. You agree, I'm sure, Yeoman Rand."
She had flushed scarlet. But she met his quizzical eyes with courage. "Yes, Mr. Spock. The impostor had some exceedingly interesting qualities."
CATSPAW
(Robert Bloch)
* * *
The persistent static crackling from Lieutenant Uhura's communications panel was just the minor worry presented by the planet Pyris VII. A dark and forbidding star it had shown itself to be ever since the Enterprise had entered its orbit—a chunk of black granite hurled into space to no ostensible purpose, lightless, lifeless except for members of the Starship's landing party beamed down to it for routine investigation and check-in reports. That was the big worry—the absence of any check-in reports. Yet Scott, Sulu and crewman Jackson were all aware of standard landing-group procedure. They knew it required an hourly check-in from any team assigned to explore an unknown planet.
Uhura looked up at Kirk. "Still no response, sir."
"Keep it open."
He frowned at another burst of static from the communications panel. "I don't like this. Nothing since the first check-in. Scott and Sulu should have contacted us half an hour ago."
Spock said, "Perhaps they have nothing to report. Though Pyris VII is a Class M planet capable of sustaining humanoid life, our own people are the only evidence of it our sensors have been able to pick up."
"Nevertheless, Scott and Sulu are obliged to check in, regardless of whether they have anything official to report. Why don't they answer?"
Uhura adjusted a control. A look of relief came into her face. "Contact established, Captain."
Kirk seized the audio. Jackson's voice said, "Jackson to Enterprise."
"Kirk here."
"One to beam up, sir."
"One? Jackson, where are Scott and Sulu?"
"I'm ready to beam up, sir."
"Jackson! Where are—" A roar of static overwhelmed his words. Uhura tried to control it; and failed. "I'm sorry, sir. I can't clear it."
"All right," said Kirk. "Notify Transporter Room to prepare to beam up one member of the landing party. Have Dr. McCoy report to me in Transporter Room on the double."
"Yes, sir."
It was the measure of their anxiety that Kirk and Spock both ran for the elevator. They opened the door of the Transporter Room to the steady, throbbing hum of thrown switches.
"Ready, sir," the technician said.
"Energize!" The humming rose to a keening pitch and McCoy hurried in with his medikit.
"What's on, Jim?"
"Trouble."
The Transporter platform glowed into dazzle. Then its sparkle gathered into the full figure of crewman Jackson. He stood, stiff and unmoving, his face wiped clean of all expression, his eyes unseeing, fixed in a glassy stare. The hum of materialization faded. Kirk strode to the platform. "Jackson! What happened? Where are the others?"
The mouth moved as though preparing to speak. But Jackson didn't speak. The mouth twisted into a grimace—and Jackson, pitching forward, toppled to the floor.
Kneeling beside him, McCoy looked up at Kirk. He shook his head. "The man's dead, Jim."
Kirk stared down at the body. Its glassy eyes were still fixed on nothing. Then, horribly, the jaw dropped and the mouth opened. Out of it spoke a voice, deep, harsh, guttural. "Captain Kirk, you hear me. There is a curse on your ship. Leave this star. It is death that waits for you here . . ."
There was a moment of appalled stillness. Jackson's dead mouth still yawned open. But his lips had not moved.
At his desk in Sickbay, McCoy leaned his head on his hand. He didn't look up as Kirk opened the door. Shoulders sagged, he pushed wearily at a heap of tape cartridges in front of him.
"Well?" Kirk said.
McCoy lifted a handful of the cartridges. Then he dropped them. "These are the reports of every test I've run. There's no sign of any injury, none. No organic damage, internal or external."
Kirk was silent for a stretched moment. Scott and Sulu—they were still down there on the planet that had returned a dead man to the Enterprise; a dead man whose mouth had been used by that awful voice. "Then why is Jackson dead, Bones?"
"He froze to death," McCoy said.
Spock had quietly joined them. "That doesn't seem reasonable, Doctor," he said. "The climate of Pyris VII approximates that of Earth's central Western hemisphere during the summer solstice."
McCoy said irritably, "I know that, Spock. But reasonable or unreasonable, Jackson froze to death. He was literally dead on his feet when he materialized in the Transporter Room."
"He was about to speak," Kirk said.
"He was dead, I tell you!" McCoy shouted.
"Someone spoke." Kirk slowly shook his head. "There seems to be a good deal more to that planet than our sensors have been able to detect! With Scott and Sulu virtually marooned down there . . ."
He was interrupted by the buzzing intercom on McCoy's desk. He hit the switch. "Kirk here."
Uhura, her voice urgent, said, "Sir, we've lost all traces of Mr. Scott and Mr. Sulu. The sensors no longer register any indication of life on the planet's surface. That's Mr. Farrell's last report."
"Well," said Kirk, "that tears it." He paused. "Thank you, Lieutenant. Have Mr. Farrell maintain sensor scan." He snapped off the intercom. "Spock, Bones, get your gear together for a landing party. We're beaming down to find them."
Fog was what they found. Clammy swirls of it drifted around them as they materialized on a twilight world of rock, barren, desolate. From the craggy knoll they stood on, no green was visible—just a gray vista of mist that moved sluggishly, only to reveal more mist, more rock, black fields, black hills of rock.
"Odd," Kirk said. "Our probe data didn't indicate fog."
"Odd, indeed," Spock agreed. "No bodies of water. No cloud formations. No variations in surface temperature. Under such conditions, fog is impossible." He had unslung his tricorder and was taking readings.
"It was impossible for Jackson to freeze to death in this climate," McCoy said. "Yet that's what happened. By the way, just where are we?"
"According to Transporter Room coordinates, this is the exact spot from which Jackson was beamed up to the ship," Spock said. "Readings, Mr. Spock?"
"No indication of—wait! I'm picking up a life forms reading at 14 degrees mark 7—distance 137.16 meters." He looked up from the tricorder. "Multiple readings, Captain!"
Astonished, Kirk snapp
ed on his communicator. "Kirk to Enterprise"
Static distorted Uhura's voice. "Enterprise, Captain."
"How do the ship's sensors read now, Lieutenant?"
"All we're getting are physical impulses from you, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy, sir. There's nothing else alive down there."
The static almost obliterated her last words. "I can hardly hear you, Lieutenant," Kirk said. "Can you hear me?"
His communicator cracked with a crash of static. Disgusted, Kirk snapped it off and was returning it to his belt when McCoy said, "The fog's getting thicker. Maybe it accounts for the interference."
It was getting thicker. Fog rolled around them so dense now that they could scarcely see each other. "There has to be some explanation for the disparity in the readings," Kirk said. "Ours are the only life forms picked up by the ship's sensors but Spock's tricorder registers multiple forms. Do your readings still hold, Mr. Spock?"
"No change, sir."
"Phasers on the ready," Kirk said.
Then they all heard it—a high-pitched wailing. Faint at first, it grew in volume to a mournful shrieking. "They must have heard us," McCoy whispered.
"Quiet, Bones!"
McCoy gripped Kirk's arm as he pointed with the other hand. Ahead of them the coiling fog had begun to glow with a greenish, sickly luminescence. Then it gathered, shaping itself into three cloudy faces, vaguely featured, indistinct, wrinkled by a hundred years. Elf locks of wispy white hair hung about them, their sex as blurred as their features. One of the faces spoke.
"Captain Kirk . . ."
Its long-drawn-out whine had the same creepy cadence as the wailing.
Kirk stepped forward. "Who are you?"
"Go baaack—" wailed the toothless mouth.
The mist was sending the bodiless faces in and out of focus.
"Winds shall rise," one of them whimpered
"And fogs descend . . ."
"Death is here . . ."
On a cackle of rheumy laughter, the faces suddenly came apart. Then they dissolved into mist.
Quiet; unmoved, Spock said, "Illusion, Captain." He lowered his tricorder. "They contained neither physical substance nor energy. It may have been a projection of some sort."
"Shakespeare wrote of a blasted heath," Kirk said. "And of warning witches. But why should these have appeared to us? None of us care to become the King of Scotland. Spock, did the life form readings change during that little encounter?"
"They remained the same, Captain."
Kirk nodded. "That may be part of our answer."
They moved on—and an abrupt gust of wind whistled past them. It grew stronger. It should have tattered the fog into shreds. It didn't. The stuff became clammier, more blinding. The wind now rose to a gale force that compelled them to turn their backs to it, clinging to each other for support. "Hang on!" Kirk shouted. As though the words were some form of exorcism, the wind was gone as suddenly as it had come.
Panting, McCoy said, "That was one very realistic illusion." He drew a deep lungful of breath. Then, incredulously, he whispered, "Jim—ahead of us—there . . ."
It looked like the keep of a medieval castle. It reared itself up before them, huge, battlemented, its masonry of massive stones hoary with age. Its great oaken door, beamed and ironbound, was slightly ajar. On one of the worn steps that led up to it crouched a sleek black cat. A glittering gold chain was hung around its neck. As they approached it, they saw that a translucent crystal pendant was attached to the chain. The pose of the cat suggested it was waiting for something. Mice, perhaps.
Spock said, "This is the source of the life forms reading, Captain. They are inside somewhere."
Kirk tried to use his communicator again, only to be defeated by an explosion of static. Once more he hung it back on his belt.
"Is this how we lost contact with the first landing party?" McCoy wondered.
"What about that, Spock?" Kirk put it to him. "Does this apparent castle have anything to do with the static?"
The Vulcan consulted his tricorder. "I would say not, sir. There's no evidence of anything that would directly cause the interference. Both the castle and the cat are equally real."
"Or unreal," Kirk said. "Some illusions can manifest themselves in solid substance. Why didn't our sensors pick up this castle? And why didn't they register the life forms inside it?" He looked up, frowning, at a turreted wall. "It could be exerting a force field that has cut off our sensor scan."
"Then it would also affect Spock's tricorder, wouldn't it?" McCoy asked.
"Would it? I'm beginning to wonder—" It was as Kirk spoke the last words that the cat mewed, rose gracefully and disappeared through the partly open door. Lost, it seemed, in some private speculation, he watched it go. Then pulling himself out of it briskly, "Well," he said, "if Scott and Sulu are anywhere around, this is the most likely place. Come on."
Phasers in hand, they pushed the door open. A squeaking shrilled over their heads—and a cloud of bats swooped through the door, chittering, their leathery wings almost brushing their faces.
Ducking, McCoy cried, "What the devil was that?"
"Desmodus rufus," Spock said. "Vampire bats."
"That's an Earth species," Kirk said. The cat, moving restlessly before them, mewed again as it turned into the darkness beyond the doorway. He looked after it, the look of private thoughtfulness back on his face. "And so is the cat an Earth species. The plot thickens. Castles, black cats, vampire bats and witches. If we weren't missing two live officers and a dead crewman, I'd say someone was putting on an elaborate Halloween trick or treat."
"Trick or treat, Captain?"
"An old Earth custom, Mr. Spock. Explanation later."
The castle walls appeared to be hewn from solid rock. The cat padded silently ahead of Kirk as he and the others groped along the chilly corridor. It was dim, its uncertain light provided by occasional torches whose flames flared and ebbed above their iron sconces, cobwebbed and rusty.
"Dust. Cobwebs. Halloween is right," McCoy said.
The cat slipped around a corner into a darker corner. As they followed, the floor gave way beneath them, and they were plunged into blackness.
Kirk was the first to recover his senses. Someone with a bizarre sense of humor had arranged to place a spiked Iron Maiden right before him. The skull of the human skeleton inside it grinned at him. He refused to be horrified. What concerned him was the discovery that he was shackled to the dungeon's wall. So were Spock and McCoy. Then he realized that all their equipment—phasers, communicators, tricorders—had been removed.
"Mr. Spock . . ."
The Vulcan stirred in his fetters. "I am undamaged, Captain."
"Is Bones all right?"
McCoy spoke for himself. "Nothing broken—just a lot of bruises. What was that you said about trick or treat, Jim?"
"Curses, dungeons, Iron Maidens, skeletons. The point is, these are all Earth manifestations. Why?"
"The tricorder registered this castle as real, Jim." McCoy rattled his chains. "And these are no illusion. This place could be an Earth parallel."
"But it would be a parallel only of Earth superstition, Doctor," Spock said. "Something that exists only in the minds of men."
"Exactly," Kirk said. "It's as though—" He broke off. Muffled footsteps had sounded from the corridor outside. A key scraped in the dungeon's lock; to Kirk's astounded relief, its heavy door was swung open by Scott and Sulu.
"Scotty! Sulu! You're safe!"
There was no sign of responsive joy on either of their faces. Silent, stone-faced, Scott pulled a phaser from his belt—and leveled it at them.
"Scotty," Kirk said, "put that phaser down!"
Unmoving, unblinking, Scott maintained the phaser at aim.
"Scott!" Kirk shouted.
"Jim, I think they've been drugged. Look at their eyes—no nictation. They don't blink at all."
"Neither did Jackson," Spock said.
"These two are alive! Scotty, Sulu—do yo
u know who I am?"
Sulu nodded.
"What's happened to you?" Kirk demanded.
For answer, Sulu shuffled past him to lean over McCoy. While Scott covered the Enterprise physician with the phaser, Sulu selected a key from a bunch he was carrying on a ring, and inserted it in the bolt's lock that bound the chains to McCoy's arms. Watching, Kirk said, "They're just taking off the chains, Bones. They're not going to let us go. Are you?"
Silence. In absolute silence, their manacles were unlocked. At the dungeon door, Sulu motioned them into the corridor. Gauging Scott's distance behind him, Kirk whirled around to throw a punch at his jaw. The butt of the phaser caught him in the temple. As he stumbled to his knees, Spock jumped Scott and McCoy made a leap for the unarmed Sulu. But even as they touched them, their faces were lit by the sickly greenish light—and they dissolved into it.
"Stop!"
It was the voice that had spoken through the dead mouth of Jackson.
They stopped. The green glow seemed to have dissolved the corridor and the dungeon, too. All that was familiar was the strangeness of Scott and Sulu. They had reappeared, as unblinking, as blank-faced as before. Everything else was new.
And old. The large chamber to which they'd somehow been transported was heavy with medieval magnificence. Dark tapestries covered its walls. The flare of its sconced torches shone on the bare surface of a huge table, flanked by high-backed chairs. But Kirk's eyes had fixed on a man. He sat on an ornately carved chair, set on a dais that was canopied by a domelike structure. He was bearded, and the long robe he wore glittered with the gold-embroidered symbols of the Zodiac. The black wand he held was topped by a dazzling crystal ball. The cat was stretched out at his feet.
Kirk strode up to the chair. "Whoever you are, you've proved your skill at creating illusions. Now what I want to know is what you have done to my men."
The man leaned forward. "Your race owns a ridiculous predilection for resistance. You question everything. Is it not sufficient for you to accept what is?"
