by James Blish
In the Briefing Room, Kelso was pointing to the fused tip in a starboard impulse pack. "It made no sense at all that he'd know about this," he said to Kirk. "But naturally I took a look at the packs anyway. And he's right! This point's burned out just as he described it!"
Each in turn, the Science Department heads examined the piece of metal on the Briefing Room table. Elizabeth opened the door. "Sorry I'm late, Captain. I became so interested in observing Gary—Commander Mitchell—that I . . ."
Spock said, "The subject under discussion is not Commander Mitchell, Doctor. We are concerned with what he is mutating into."
Her face tightened with anger. "I know Vulcans lack human feeling, but to talk like that about a man you've worked next to for years . . ."
"That's enough, Doctor!" Kirk said.
"No, it isn't!" she cried. "I understand you least of all! Gary's told me you've been friends ever since he joined the service! You even asked him to join your first command!"
Kirk kept his voice level. "It is my duty, Doctor, to note the reports, observations, even speculations on any subject which affects the safety of this ship." He nodded toward Spock. "And it is my Science Officer's duty to see that I'm provided with them. Go ahead, Mr. Spock."
Spock addressed Elizabeth. "Has he shown any evidence of unusual powers to you?"
She didn't mention the tricks he'd played with the body function panel. Instead, she chose to say, "He can control certain autonomic reflexes. He reads very fast; and retains more than most of us consider usual."
Kirk spoke sharply. "Repeat what you just told us, Mr. Scott."
"About an hour ago," Scott said, "the bridge controls started going crazy. Levers shifted all by themselves. Buttons were pressed without fingers to press them. Instrument readings wavered from safety points to danger ones."
"And on my monitor screen," Spock said, "I saw the Commander smile each time it happened. He treated the confusion he caused as though this ship and its crew were toys created for his amusement."
"Is that correct, Dr. Dehner?" Kirk queried. "Does he show abilities of that magnitude?"
"I've seen some such indications," she said.
Piper spoke up. "And you didn't think that worth the concern of the Captain?"
"No one's been hurt!" she protested. "Don't any of you understand? A mutated superior man could be a wonderful asset to the race—the forerunner of a new and better kind of human being!"
Kirk, looking at her exalted face, thought, Idealism gone rampant again! My God! He turned with relief to Sulu.
"If you want the mathematics on this, sir," Sulu said, "the Commander's ability is increasing geometrically. It's like owning a penny that doubles every day. In a month you'd be a millionaire."
Spock said, "In less time than that, Mitchell will attain powers we can neither understand nor cope with. What happens when we're not only useless to him—but actual annoyances?"
Elizabeth, about to speak, decided for silence. Kirk glanced around the table. "There'll be no discussion of this with the crew. Thank you. That's all."
The room emptied of everyone but Spock. Kirk turned to see his Science Officer inspecting him, creases of worry in his forehead. He spoke with careful deliberateness. "We will never reach an Earth base with Mitchell aboard, sir. You heard the mathematics of it. In a month he'll have as much in common with us as we'd have with a ship full of white mice."
His own anxiety oppressing him, Kirk snapped, "I need recommendations, Mr. Spock—not vague warnings."
"Recommendation number one. The planet, Delta Vega, is only a few light days away from here. It has a lithium cracking station. If we could adapt some of its power packs to our engines . . ."
"And if we can't, we'll be trapped in orbit there. We haven't the power to blast back out of it."
"It's the only possible way to get Mitchell off this ship, sir."
"If you mean strand him there, I won't do it. The station is fully automated. There's not a soul on the whole planet. Even ore ships call there only once every twenty years."
"Then you have only one other choice," Spock said. "Kill Mitchell while you can."
"Get out of here!" Kirk yelled.
Imperturbable, Spock repeated, "That's your only other choice. Assuming you take it while you still have time."
Kirk slammed his fist on the table. "Will you try for one moment to feel? We're talking about Gary Mitchell!"
"The Captain of the Valiant probably felt as you do, sir. But he waited too long to make his decision. I think we have both guessed that."
Kirk groped for a chair. Spock turned one around for him. He sank down in it, his face in his hands. After a moment, he removed them. Nodding to Spock, he said, "Set course for Delta Vega."
Mitchell's powers were indeed expanding. And he'd begun to exult in exerting them. Lying in his Sickbay bed, he suddenly decided to snap his fingers. The lights flicked off. He waved a hand—and the lights blazed back. He sat up on the bed's edge, eyeing other portions of his room. He pointed a finger at a table. It soared into the air, teetered insanely on one leg and dropped quietly back into place.
"I am thirsty!" he abruptly announced to nobody.
Across the room, a metal cup on the water dispenser slid under the spigot. Water flowed from it. The filled cup lifted, and floating through the air, settled into Mitchell's outstretched hand. He was sipping from it when Kirk, with Spock and Elizabeth, came in.
"I feel great," Mitchell told them. "So don't bother to inquire into my state of health. Sometimes I think there's nothing I can't do. And some people believe that makes a monster of me, don't they?"
"Are you reading all our thoughts, Gary?" Kirk asked.
"Just in flashes so far—mostly strong thoughts like fear. For instance, you, Jim. You're worried about the safety of this ship."
"What would you do in my place?"
"Just what Mr. Spock is thinking—kill me while you can." Lifting his hand, he pointed a finger at Kirk. A bolt of radiance shot from it—and stunned, Kirk toppled over. Spock leaped at Mitchell—but before he could touch him, he, too, had crashed to the floor.
Elizabeth seized Mitchell's arm. "Stop it, Gary!"
He looked down at Kirk who was struggling back to his feet. "Sure, I know a lot," he said. "I know you're orbiting Delta Vega, Jim. I can't let you maroon me there. I may not want to leave the ship, not yet. I may want another place. I'm not sure what kind of world I can use."
"Use?" Elizabeth said, shocked by the word's implications.
"Yes, beautiful Doctor. I don't get it all yet, but if I keep on growing, I'll be able to do things a god can do."
Spock sprang up. He struck Mitchell with a force that knocked him from the bed. He started to rise and Kirk landed a hard, fast blow on his jaw. His legs gave way. Groggy, he sprawled, supporting himself by his hands and knees. Breathing heavily, Kirk whirled to Elizabeth. "I want him unconscious for a while."
She took a hypogun from her medical case. Gas hissed as she touched Mitchell's shoulder with it. He subsided, spread-eagled, at their feet.
But another shot was required. This time Piper administered it in the Transporter Room where its technicians were preparing the beam-down to the surface of Delta Vega. But the torpor induced by the second shot lasted for less time than the unconsciousness caused by the first one. Mitchell came out of it to begin to struggle so fiercely that he pulled himself free of the combined hold of Kirk and Spock. "Fools!" he said thickly. "Soon I will squash you all like crawling insects!"
Piper moved quickly in for a third shot. Mitchell slumped again. Dragging at him, Kirk and Spock rushed him over to the Transporter platform. The other members of the landing party hastened to their positions on it. Mitchell was swaying back onto his feet when Kirk shouted, "Energize!"
They materialized before the lithium cracking plant.
From what could be seen of Delta Vega’s surface, it was a genuinely alien planet. Its soil was dust of a muddy blue color, and the vegetat
ion that sprouted from it was brassy, scaled and knobbed like crocodile skin. Black boulders, their fissures filled with the blue dust, abounded—the only familiar aspect of the landscape. In the distance, a mountain of the black rock shouldered up against the horizon. But Kirk's concerns were other than the weird phenomena of the uninhabited planet. The hypos had finally got to Mitchell. Spock and Communications Officer Alden were supporting him into the building's entrance.
"Can we make it, Lee?" Kirk asked Kelso.
"If we can bypass the fuel bins without blowing ourselves up, we can make it, Captain." Kelso was gazing up at the installation. It was enormous, stretching its huge towers, metallic vats, its strangely coiling ells of complex instrumentation in all directions. Elizabeth stooped to touch a scaly flowerlike growth. It was burning hot.
"And not a soul on this planet but us?" she said.
Kirk answered her briefly. "Just us, Doctor. Lee, let's find the control room of this place."
They couldn't miss it. Doorless, it faced them in the building's central hall. Except for its contour, its size, the steady drone of its automated mechanisms, it bore some resemblance to the Enterprise bridge. Its walls were ranked by the same type of instrument panels, the same arrangements of meters, switches and dials. Kelso and Communications Officer Alden went at once to work selecting panels for later beamup to the Enterprise Engineering section. A detail of other crewmen busied themselves with the thick electronic cables that would be needed to interlink the panels left to maintain the cracking plant's operation.
Kirk watched thoughtfully. "Those fuel bins, Lee. They could be detonated from here. A destruct switch?"
Kelso looked up, surprised. "I guess a destruct switch could be wired into this panel, sir."
"Do it," Kirk said.
Kelso stared at him. Then he nodded—and Spock spoke from the doorless entrance. "Mitchell's regained full consciousness, Captain. Perhaps you'd better come."
He had been confined in a maximum security room, one made escape proof not by bars and bolts but by the invisible fence of a force field. He was pacing the room like a caged tiger. Outside, Piper, Elizabeth beside him, held his hypogun at the ready. Near them, an Enterprise security guard, phaser in hand, kept his eyes on the furious tiger.
"I want only one medical officer here at any one time," Kirk said. "The other will monitor him on the dispensary screen."
"I'd like my turn now," Elizabeth said. "I want to try and talk to him "
Piper nodded, handing her the hypogun. As he left, Kirk, pressing a button, tested the force field. It crackled sharply. Mitchell stopped pacing. Eyeing Kirk across the barrier, he said, "My friend, James Kirk. Remember the rodent things on Dimorus, the poisoned darts they threw? I took one meant for you . . ."
"And almost died. I remember," Kirk said.
"Then why be afraid of me now, Jim?"
"Gary, you have called us insects to be squashed if we got in your way."
"I was drugged then!"
"And before that, you said you'd kill a mutant like yourself were you in my place."
"Kill me then! Spock is right! And you're a fool not to do it!"
Elizabeth cried, "Gary, you don't mean that!"
He spoke directly to her. "In time, beautiful Doctor, you will understand, in time. Humans cannot survive if a race of true Espers like me is born. That's what Spock knows—and what that fool there," he nodded toward Kirk, "is too sentimental to know." He moved toward the force field sealing off his security room. As he neared it, there was a screech of high voltage. A spray of sparks flew up, scattered and died.
Spock and the guard had drawn their phasers. But Mitchell continued to push against the force field. For a moment his whole body glowed red. But through the brightness Kirk saw that the old human blueness of his eyes had replaced the silver. Then the force field flung him away. He staggered backward and fell on the room's bunk. He sank down on it, his face in his hands, groaning.
Kirk said, "His eyes returned to normal."
"Fighting the force field drained his strength." Spock studied the swaying figure on the bunk. "He could be handled now, Captain."
"Handled," Mitchell said. He looked up. His eyes were shining with so bright a silver that the room seemed lit with silver. "I grow stronger with every passing second. I thought you knew that, Spock."
Kirk snapped his communicator open. "Put full energy on this force field, Lieutenant Kelso."
There was a louder hum as power poured into the force field. A visible radiance began to gather around it. Mitchell rose from the bunk. He rose from it to smile at Kirk from the other side of his barricade.
But if he remained Kirk's rankling thorn of anxiety, there was good news from the Enterprise. In its Engine Room a charred control panel had been successfully replaced by one beamed up from the cracking station. More new panels were required. So Kelso was still busy with the heavy cables he was using for the connecting link among the station's remaining panels.
Over his communicator, Scott said, "It fits like a glove, Captain. Did Mr. Spock get that phaser rifle we beamed down?"
At Kirk's surprised look, Spock moved the heavy weapon from the wall he'd laid it against. Kirk shook his head in a wordless sadness before he answered Scott. "Affirmative, Scotty. Landing party out."
"Mitchell tried to break through the force field again," Spock said tonelessly. "And his eyes changed faster. Nor did he show any signs of weakness this time."
"Dr. Dehner feels he isn't that dangerous," Kirk said. "What makes you right and a trained psychiatrist wrong?"
"Because she feels," Spock said. "Her feelings for Mitchell weaken the accuracy of her judgment. Mine tell me we'll be lucky if we can repair the ship and get away from him before he becomes very dangerous indeed."
"Captain!" Kelso called. Wearily Kirk crossed over to him. He looked at the sheathed switch Kelso had attached to a panel. It had been painted red. "Direct to the power bins," Kelso said. "From here a man could blow up the whole valley, Captain."
"Lee," Kirk said. "Lee, if Mitchell gets out—at your discretion, positioned here, you'll be the last chance. Lee, if he gets out—I want you to hit that switch."
The full meaning of Kirk's words struck Kelso dumb. If he hit the red switch, he'd go where the valley went. He looked at the switch and back into Kirk's eyes. After a moment, he managed a very sober, "Yes, sir."
In other circumstances, regeneration of the Enterprise engines would have been cause for rejoicing. The ship was ready for takeoff. The working detail of crewmen had been transported back up to it. But Mitchell's condition had worsened.
Now his skin tones had altered. What had once been ruddy flesh had a silvery cast, suggesting solid metal. He stood, arms folded across his chest, looking at them across the force field. If he noticed Spock's phaser rifle, he gave no sign of it.
"He's been like this for hours," Elizabeth said.
A silver man. "Have Dr. Piper meet us in the control room with Kelso," Kirk said. "We'll all beam up to the ship together."
"That's risky, sir," Spock said. "If we take our eyes off him . . ."
"Kelso will be on the destruct switch until the last minute." Kirk gestured to the silent figure behind the force field. "I think he knows that." Elizabeth said, "I'm staying with him." Kirk spoke flatly. "You'll leave with the ship, Doctor."
"I can't," she said. "I'm sorry." Kirk's communicator beeped. "Kirk here," he said. "The station seems to be running fine, sir," Kelso said. "Even without its quota of panels. The cables have done the job. Fission chamber three checks."
Behind him one of the cables stirred. It began to crawl toward him, snakelike. Slithering, silent, it lifted from the floor, twisting itself into loops. Abruptly, but still silently, a loop rose high into the air—and dropped over Kelso's head. A noose, flexible, inexorable, it tightened around his neck. Helplessly, Kelso tore at it, choking. Then he fell to the floor.
Mitchell smiled into Kirk's eyes. There was something ghastly in th
e movement of his silver lips. But Elizabeth saw only the smile.
"You see?" she cried to Kirk. "He's not evil!"
"You will leave with the ship, Doctor," Kirk repeated.
Mitchell spoke. "You should have killed me when you could, James. Compassion and command are an idiot's mixture."
Kirk grabbed Spock's phaser rifle. Mitchell's hand made a gesture that included them both. Flame blazed from it. As they collapsed, Mitchell walked to the force field. He brushed it as one brushes aside a flimsy curtain. A single spark flared briefly. He passed through the portal to stand face to face with Elizabeth. Taking her hand, he led her back into his room and over to a wall mirror. "Look at yourself, beautiful Doctor," he said.
She screamed. Then she flung her hands over her face to shut out the sight of her silver eyes.
Kirk wavered slowly back into consciousness. Pale, drained-looking, Piper was stooping over him. "Whatever it was, Captain, it affected me, too. Swallow this capsule." He paused. "Kelso's dead. Strangled. At least Spock is still alive."
"Dr. Dehner?" Kirk whispered.
"She's gone with Mitchell. That capsule will restore your strength in a minute or so. I must insert one in Spock's mouth. He's still unconscious and . . ."
"What direction did they take?" Kirk asked.
"Toward the rock mountain."
Kirk struggled to his knees. He reached for the phaser rifle he had dropped. As he checked it, he said, "As soon as Mr. Spock recovers, you will both immediately transport up to the Enterprise."
Piper looked up from his work of massaging the capsule down Spock's throat. "Captain, you're not—" he began.
"Where," Kirk continued inflexibly, "if you have not received a signal from me in twelve hours, you will proceed at maximum warp to the nearest Earth base. You will inform it that this entire planet is to be subjected to a lethal concentration of neutron radiation."
The capsule was working. He found he was able to stand. "No protest on this, Doctor Piper! It's an order!"
He slung the rifle over his shoulder and walked out of the cracking station.
