by James Blish
"Why should I when it isn't?" she responded easily.
His eyes swept over her in the immemorial look of the sexually appraising male. "You must forgive me," he said. "I forget that you are not a woman. Perhaps not even human."
"I don't know what you mean," she said.
"All this—" he waved his hand around the room, "all this apparently drawn from our racial superstitions and fantasies. Illusion—the whole thing."
She pointed to one of the wall torches. "Put your hand in that flame and you will be burned, Captain. However created, these things are quite real. I am real, too."
"Why do you need us?" he said.
She walked over to the table. When she turned to face him again, she said, "What does your science teach you about the nature of the universe?" ,
He laughed. "There's nothing I enjoy so much as discussions on the nature of the universe. Particularly with charming ladies." He gave her a mocking little bow. "You didn't answer my question, you know. Why do you need us?"
"I don't need the others. Nor do you."
She spoke softly. Now she left the table to move closer to him. Human or not, she was graceful. "If we combined what you know and I know," she said, "there's no limit to the power we would possess."
"And Korob?" he said.
One thing she did know, he was thinking—how to exert sexual witchcraft. She'd laid her hand lightly, very lightly on his forearm. "Korob is a weak and foolish man," she said. "He can be disposed of. But I would find it difficult to dispose of—you."
He smiled down into the green eyes. "Or to probe my mind?"
"That would not be necessary if we mingled our knowledge," she said. "From me you could learn secrets you've never dreamed of. Anything you imagined could be yours . . ."
The hand was slowly moving up his arm. "Your—arguments are quite persuasive," he said. "Suppose I decided to go along with you?"
Her low murmur was a caress. "You would not regret your decision. Power, wealth, all the luxuries of your galaxy would be yours."
"You're a very beautiful woman," he said—and meant it.
"I can be many beautiful women," she said. The green eyes upturned to his were suddenly sapphire blue. The long black hair disappeared and became a shining tumble of blond curls. Even her red robe drained of its color to change into a creamy white that matched the flawless cream of her skin. Then the blond beauty was gone. Copper braids wreathed her head. The robe deepened to a rich bronze. She was an autumn beauty now, her cheeks flushed with the tone of autumn leaves.
"Do you like me thus?" she asked. "Or do you prefer this?"
She recovered her original appearance.
"I prefer this," Kirk said—and took her in his arms. When she lifted her head from his kiss, she was staring at him with surprised delight. "That was very—enjoyable. What is it called? May I have another?"
He kissed her again. Then he released her. "Your people will guarantee me that I won't be harmed?"
"Yes, when they come. I have only to report to the Old Ones that you will cooperate with us."
"And my friends will be restored to their former condition?"
"Of course—if you wish it."
She reached up her arms to his neck but he removed them.
"What's wrong? What wrong have I done?"
He stepped away from her. "When you took the form of a woman," he said, "you also assumed the female compulsion to talk too much. You've revealed too many secrets, Sylvia. What if your Old Ones find out you've been tricked by one of the creatures you plan to conquer?"
"You tricked me? You do not like me?"
"No," he said.
"Then you just used me?"
"Didn't you plan to use me?"
Her green eyes blazed. She clapped her hands sharply. Scott and McCoy, both armed with phasers, came through the tapestried archway.
She pointed a shaking, sharp-nailed finger at Kirk. "Get him out of here! Take him back to his cell!"
It was Korob who came to release him from his shackles.
But in spite of the phaser in his hand, he seemed hurried, anxious. Kirk and Spock watched him in tense silence as he unlocked their chains. To their astonishment, they were no sooner freed than he handed Kirk the phaser and pulled the communicator from his robe's pocket.
He spoke in a whisper. "I have broken the crystal that imprisoned the model of your ship, Captain. It was time. Your people had found a way to break out of the force field. It is difficult to control so many things. You must go now before she discovers the weapon is missing."
"We can't leave without our men," Kirk said.
Korob made an impatient gesture. "They are not your men any longer. They belong to Sylvia. I can no longer control them—or her."
He glanced fearfully at the dungeon door. "There was no need for any of this. We could have entered your galaxy in peace. But Sylvia is not content with conquest. She is close to the Old Ones and she wants to destroy."
"You came in a ship?" Spock asked.
Korob shook his head. "We used a power pack." He motioned to the door. "There's no time to explain now. We must go. She plans to kill us all."
Kirk and Spock had started to follow him to the door when Korob suddenly turned, stopping them with a warning gesture. They both heard it at the same time—the sound of a deep, resonant purr. Then through the open door of the cell they saw the shadow; the creeping shadow of a great cat silhouetted against the farther wall of the corridor.
"Keep back," Korob muttered.
He drew his wand from his robe. Holding it poised, he slid into the corridor toward the cat's shadow. But already it had begun to grow in size and was looming black, gigantic against the corridor wall. And the purr had changed. Ferocity had entered into its deep growl. Snarling, the cat now towered over a Korob whose face had convulsed with terror. He lifted his wand, shouting, "No, no—get back! No!"
The shadow lifted a monstrous paw. Korob screamed, crumpled, the wand falling from his hand. Kirk and Spock ran to reach him. There was an animal roar of rage as the huge paw lifted again. Kirk had barely time to seize the wand before Spock grabbed him—and slammed the dungeon door closed behind them.
A latch on its outside clanked into its slot. They were locked into the cell again.
Its door shook as some immense body pushed against it. Maddened roars rebounded in echoes from the corridor as the unseen monster cat hurled itself against the door again. Spock shouted, "It won't hold long against such pressure, sir!"
"Move back," Kirk said. He aimed the phaser at the door and fired. There was no effect. "It's out of energy," he said, examining the weapon. "She must have drained it. We could have jumped Scott or Sulu any time—and we never knew it." He glanced around the cell. "There's no way out of here."
"Only one," Spock said. "The way we got in." Another thud shook the door. Kirk said, "This wall's too smooth to climb."
Spock had his eyes on the trapdoor above his head. "If you were to boost me up, sir, I could pull you up from there."
"It's a good eight feet. Think you can make it?"
"Ready when you are, Captain." Kirk nodded, laid the wand on the floor, and bending his back, braced himself on spread legs as Spock climbed up on his shoulders. The Vulcan got his grip on the trapdoor opening. He hauled himself up through it, and Kirk, retrieving the wand, reached for the hand Spock extended down to him. As he found his own grip on the opening, the cell door crashed down. The cat's head, lips drawn back over its teeth, filled the empty space. It opened its jaws in a scream of rage.
Breathless, Kirk said, "That's what I call a close thing. Where are McCoy and the others?"
"Maybe we should return with weapons and another landing party, Captain."
"I'm not leaving them here," Kirk said. He moved on, and was leading the way along the dimly lit passage when Spock paused. "I don't think this is the way we came, Captain."
"Maybe, maybe not," Kirk said. "It's like a maze in here. Look, there's a turn ahead there. A
nd we did come around a turn . . ."
Perhaps it was a sound, not a sixth sense that warned him. He whirled just in time to avoid a blow by the mace McCoy held in both hands. As it struck the wall with a shattering clang, Scott darted from the shadowy angle of the corridor to lift a mace above Spock's head. Spock ducked its swoop and closed with Scott, applying his Vulcan neck pinch. It felled Scott who dropped his weapon. Spock simultaneously shouted, "Behind you, sir!"
Kirk had just toppled McCoy with a punch to the jaw. Now he wheeled, to be smashed against the wall by Sulu's booted foot. He grabbed it and brought Sulu crashing down on top of him, knocked out.
He looked up at Spock. "You were right. We did take the wrong turn—but at least we found them."
"I'd hardly call it that, Captain. But now that we do have them all together . . ."
The snarling roar sounded very close. The shadow of the immense cat grew blacker and blacker on the corridor wall. Its claws were extending from one enormous paw.
Kirk lifted the wand. "This," he said, "is your 'power pack,' isn't it, Sylvia?"
The cat's shadow vanished. Sylvia, dark hatred, red robed, stood against the wall.
Kirk fingered the wand. "This crystal—and the one you wear—both serve as the source of your power, don't they?"
"The source? No, Captain, the mind is the wellspring of our power. My crystal is merely an amplifier. The wand controls much more."
"With such power at your command, what did you want of us?" Spock asked her.
"I have wanted nothing of you, Mr. Spock. Your mind is a deep well of facts. It is the people of Earth I wanted. Their minds are the deep wells of dreams—the material we need to create our realities."
"You consume the minds of others," Kirk said. "What happens to them when you've used their minds to increase your power?"
"Why do you care?" she countered. "With that wand you hold in your hand, you could reach out and shatter the stars if you knew how to use it." Her voice softened. "I offered once to share power with you. I offer again."
"No," Kirk said. "I don't know what you are. All I know is that you are not a woman. You are a destroyer."
"That's enough," she said. A phaser appeared in her hand. She aimed it at Kirk. "Give me the wand."
She extended her free hand, palm upward. "The wand—give it to me."
Kirk shrugged in surrender and held out the wand. She reached for it—and he dashed it to the stone floor. Sylvia screamed. Its crystal shattered. A blinding red light lit the corridor with the crimson of blood. It changed into the yellow dazzle of the sun. Then it was white like the light of a dead moon. When it faded, Kirk was standing on a rocky knoll. All around him was the bleak and barren surface of Pyris VII just as he'd first seen it. Only the fog was missing.
Dazed, McCoy said, "What happened, Jim?"
"That will take some explaining, Bones," Kirk told him.
Scott, recovered, said to Sulu, "Everything's vanished."
"Not quite everything," volunteered Spock.
On a rock ledge before them lay two tiny creatures, boneless, mere blobs of jelly, their bodies veined like those of jellyfish. One moved feebly. The other wavered up into the air, squeaking in a thin wail.
"Meet Korob and Sylvia in their true shape," Kirk said. "Their human shapes, like the castle and everything else, were illusion. Only the wand's crystal ball gave them an appearance of reality."
Spock's impassive face had a rare look of fascinated curiosity.
"A life form totally alien to our galaxy. If only we could study and preserve them."
The squeaking little creature was waving its transparent filaments over the now unmoving body of its companion. Soon, collapsing in on itself, it sank down beside it, its pitiful wail growing fainter.
"It's too late," McCoy said. "They're gone."
He sighed. "Illusion and reality. Sometimes I wonder if we humans will ever learn the difference."
WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE
(Samuel A. Peeples)
* * *
Star date 1312.5 was a memorable one for the U.S.S. Enterprise. It marked the day of its first venture beyond the frontier of Earth's galaxy. The screen in its Briefing Room was already showing a strange vista—thinning stars etched against a coming night of depthless darkness broken only by the milky spots of phosphorescence which defined the existence of further galaxies millions of light years distant.
Kirk and Spock, a chessboard between them, looked away from the board to fix their eyes on the screen's center. It held, invisibly, an object detected by the Enterprise sensors; an object that was impossibly emitting the call letters of a starship known to be missing for two centuries.
Spock said, "Your move, Captain."
"We should be intercepting that thing now," Kirk said, frowning. "The bridge said they'd call . . ."
". . . any minute now." Spock finished the sentence for him. "I'll have you checkmated in your next move, sir."
"Have I ever mentioned that you play irritating chess, Mr. Spock?"
"Irritating? Ah yes, one of your Earth's emotions, I believe."
But Kirk had seen an opening for his bishop. Pouncing on the piece, he moved it. Spock's eyebrows went up.
"Certain that you don't know what irritation is?" Kirk asked.
Spock glowered at the board. "The fact that one of my ancestors was a human female is one, sir, I cannot . . ."
"Terrible, having bad blood like that," Kirk said sympathetically. "In addition to being checkmated, it could be called intolerable."
But the voice of Lieutenant Lee Kelso was speaking from the intercom. "Bridge to Briefing Room. Object now within tractor beam range, Captain."
"No visual contact yet, Lieutenant?"
"No, sir. Can't be a vessel. Reads only about one meter in diameter. Small enough to bring it aboard—if you want to risk it."
Kirk decided to risk it. It was a curious encounter on the edge of illimitable space. Curious—and just possibly informative. "The Transporter Room. Let's go, Mr. Spock," he said.
Scott was waiting for them at the console. "Materializer ready, sir, when you are."
"Bring it aboard," Kirk said.
The familiar hum came. And, with it, the platform's familiar shimmer, finally solidifying into the spherical shape of an old-style starship's recorder. Squatting on tripod legs, it stood about three feet in height, its metal surface seared, pockmarked. But it still identified itself by letters that read "U.S.S. Valiant'; and in smaller ones beneath them, "Galactic Survey Cruiser."
Kirk said, "That old-time variety of recorder could be ejected when something threatened its ship."
"In this case more probably destroyed its ship, sir," Spock said. "Look how it's burnt and pitted."
Kirk was approaching the platform when Scott said sharply, "Take care, sir! That thing's radioactive!"
Kirk stopped. "The Q signal, Mr. Scott."
Scott hit a button on his console. It beeped shrilly. As a pulsating glow enveloped the recorder, its antennae moved out and clicked into position.
"It's transmitting," Scott said.
"Interesting," said Spock. "I have a recorder monitoring . . ."
He was interrupted by Kelso's voice from the intercom. "All decks, six minutes to galaxy edge."
The galaxy's edge—where, as far as anyone knew, no man had ever gone before. Of course, there was no neat boundary to the edge of the galaxy; it just gradually thinned out. But in six minutes, the last of its stars and systems would be behind them.
"Yellow alert," Kirk said.
"Captain's orders—yellow alert, all decks," Kelso relayed it.
A moment later, an elevator slid open to emit Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell, now senior helmsman since Sulu had become ship's physicist. The promotion had won widespread approval—unnecessary, of course, but helpful; Mitchell was a popular officer. But during a yellow alert his normal chore was monitoring the artificial gravity system as well as the helm.
"Everyt
hing's in order, Jim," he said with a grin, as if reading Kirk's mind. "Kelso's voice sounded so nervous, I figured you'd left the bridge. Finish the game, Spock?"
"The Captain plays most illogically," the Science Officer complained. "I expected him to move his castle."
Kirk laughed, making a throat cutting gesture for Mitchell's benefit. It was clear that the two were old, warm friends. In the bridge all three hurried to their positions. "Relieving you, Mr. Alden," Mitchell told the junior helmsman.
"Screen on," Kirk said. "Lieutenant Kelso, how far now to the galaxy edge?"
"Four minutes to our jumping-off point, sir."
"Alert off, Lieutenant Kelso." He turned to Mitchell. "Neutralize warp, Commander. Hold this position."
As the heavy throb of the ship's powerful engines eased, the bridge elevator opened. First to step out of it was Dr. Elizabeth Dehner, tall, slim, in her mid-twenties, a potentially beautiful woman if she had cared to be one, which she didn't. Other professional personnel followed her—senior physician, Dr. Piper, physicist Sulu, Engineering Chief Scott. Turning to Mitchell, Kirk said, "Address intercraft."
"Intercraft open, sir."
Kirk seized his speaker. "This is the Captain speaking. The object we encountered is a ship's disaster recorder, apparently ejected from the U.S.S. Valiant almost two hundred years ago. Mr. Spock is now exploring its memory banks. We hope to learn how the Valiant got this far, whether it probed out of the galaxy and what destroyed the vessel. As soon as we have those answers, we'll begin our own probe. All decks stand by." He paused a moment. "All department heads, check in, as per rota."
"Astro Sciences standing by, Captain," Sulu said.
"Engineering divisions ready as always," Scott's voice said cheerfully. Nothing, not even the awesome void now before them, could check his Gaelic self-assurance for long.
"Life Sciences ready, sir," Dr. Piper's voice reported. He was temporary—McCoy was on a special study leave—and rather an elderly man for Starfleet service, but he seemed to be a competent enough physician. "Request permission to bring to the bridge my special assistant, Dr. Dehner."
