by 12(lit)
"It was so, you know, sort of-storybook, walking around this place." She sniffed, and went on rather shyly. "I was thinking, all a girl needs here is Don Juan. Just daydreaming. You know?" She looked at the officers hesitantly. "Like you might think of some girl you'd like to meet."
Kirk was not prepared to dwell on this. He looked around, missing something.
"Mr. Sulu was with you. Where is he?"
"Oh. He ran after... him. He-" But Sulu was no-where in sight.
"Stay with her, Doctor." Kirk took off at a run.
"Mr. Sulu!" he called. "Sulu! Where are you?" There was no reply. He brushed through the undergrowth and into a clearing; here was a miniature desert-garden, with cactus flowers blooming. Still calling, he began searching among the rocks.
There were footsteps on his right. "Sulu?"
It was not Sulu. The young girl smiled, real roses on her dress stirring in the breeze. She came toward Kirk with memory in her eyes.
"Ruth." The memory kindled in the Captain. "You! How-I don't understand-"
"Jim, darling. It is me. It's Ruth." He had clamped that particular wound closed, forever. Somehow in the pressure of final examinations and qualifications and his first cruise, he had lost her, and put away the regrets.
"You don't think I'm real." He had even forgotten the gentleness of her voice. It all came flooding back with pain and longing. "But I am, darling, I am."
James Kirk's Ruth could not possibly exist here and now. But as she put her soft arms around his neck, he did not doubt her reality. He could not help but re-turn her embrace.
He tried to resist; he took out his communicator. "Dr. McCoy, come in." But his eyes were fixed on Ruth. "McCoy, do you read me?"
She put the communicator to one side. "Think of nothing at all, darling, except our being together again." Her soft hair brushed his face.
"Ruth. How can it be you? You can't be here!"
She snuggled closer and looked up at him, her skin glowing in the sun. "It doesn't matter. Does it?"
Fifteen years ago. She still looked exactly the same, the fresh, young, gentle creature who had wept so bit-terly at their last goodbye. She said again, "It doesn't matter. None of that matters, Jimmy."
His communicator beeped, cutting through his daze.
"Kirk here."
McCoy wanted to know if he had found Sulu.
"What?" She still wore her hair in a coronet of braids.
"Did you find Mr. Sulu?"
"Oh-no," said Kirk absently. "But I'm sure he's all right." She was dreaming into his eyes. "I mean, why shouldn't he be?"
"Captain, are you all right?"
"Oh, yes, I'm fine." The communicator seemed to float away by itself to the rock beside him. It beeped again.
He sighed, and acknowledged. "Yes, Mr. Rodriguez."
"Captain, a while ago, I saw... well, birds. Whole flocks of them."
"Don't you like birds, Mr. Rodriguez?" She was holding his hand in their special clasp.
"I like them fine, sir. But all our surveys showed-"
Kirk hadn't noticed the bird song that was coming from the forest. It had seemed to belong there.
"Offhand, Mr. Rodriguez, I'd say our instruments must be defective." It didn't really seem to matter. "There are indeed life forms on this planet." She nestled against his shoulder.
Rodriguez was being stubborn. "Sir, our survey couldn't have been that wrong."
Ruth moved a little away from him and regarded him with longing.
"Rodriguez, have all search parties rendezvous at the glade. I want some answers to all this."
"Aye, aye, sir." He couldn't let it happen again, lose her again. Nor could he abandon his crew to whatever dangers this mysterious planet held. Yearn-ing and duty fought in his belly.
Ruth held out her hand to him and gave him a radiant smile. "You have to go."
"I don't want to." How he didn't want to!
This time, she did not weep. She bent toward him and said gently, "You'll see me again-if you want to." She kissed his cheek and backed away from him. He started after her.
"But I have to ask you- You haven't told me-"
"Do what you have to do. Then I'll be waiting, Jim." Would she? This time? He called her as she van-ished into the wood. The communicator beeped again.
"Captain Kirk here." His eyes were still fixed on the gap between the trees where she had disappeared.
Mr. Spock said, "Captain, I am getting strange readings from the planet's surface. There seems to be a power field of some kind down there now."
"Specify."
"A highly sophisticated type of energy, Captain, which seems to have begun operating since we took our original readings. It is draining our power aboard ship and increasingly affecting communications."
"Can you pinpoint the source?" Kirk's attention was now reluctantly engaged.
"It could be beneath the planet's surface, but I can-not locate it precisely. Its patterns would indicate some sort of industrial activity."
Industrial activity? Here among the woods and fields? "Keep me posted, Mr. Spock. We'll continue our investigations from down here."
Investigations were proceeding slowly. Dr. McCoy sat with Yeoman Barrows under the birch tree. She was still clutching her torn tunic to her shoulder.
"Feeling better?"
She smiled. "A little. But I wouldn't want to be alone here."
"Why not?" McCoy gave a long, contented sigh. "It's a beautiful place. A little strange, I admit, but-"
"That's just it. It's almost too beautiful. I was think-ing, before my tunic was even... torn, in a place like this, a girl should be dressed to match." Yeoman Barrows was showing an unsuspected streak of ro-manticism. "Let's see now... like a fairy-tale princess, with lots of floaty stuff and a tall pointed hat with a veil."
McCoy looked down at her kindly. Then he looked again. She was really a lovely young woman. Funny he had never noticed before. Of course, she had been a patient.
She was really very pretty.
"I see what you mean. But then you'd have whole armies of Don Juans to fight off." She chuckled. "And me too."
She glanced up from lowered eyelids. "Is that a promise, Doctor?"
They began walking around the lake. The twittering of birds rilled the air, and the greenness of leaves burnished with sunlight filled their eyes.
"Oh!" On a bush, a heap of fabric was carelessly flung. White silks fluttered. "Oh, Doctor, they're love-ly!" Yeoman Barrows picked up a stream of veiling.
"Yes, they are," agreed McCoy, looking at Yeoman Barrows's bright eyes.
She covered her face and peered at him over the veil. "Look at me!" She pirouetted lightly, and then promenaded, and spoke with mock seriousness. "A lady to be protected and fought for, a princess of the blood royal!"
What had taken him so long? "You are all of those things, and many more." He must have forgotten how to play, with all the heavy preoccupations of his work. Bless her, she had not. She was gay and vulnerable and lovely.
He took the costume from the shrub and pushed it into her arms. "They'd look even lovelier with you wearing them."
Her impish look changed suddenly to terror as she looked back at the bush. "Doctor, I'm afraid."
"Easy now," he said comfortingly as she buried her face in his shoulder. He could feel her trembling. He tried not to notice that her tunic had fallen from her shoulder. He felt a momentary stab of jealousy of that tedious "Don Juan" who had seen her first. "Look, I don't know what, or where or how, but the dress is here." He smiled down at her. "I'd like to see you in it."
She looked at the clothes doubtfully as she disen-gaged herself. She held the dress up in front of her; in spite of her qualms, she was obviously tempted. He nodded encouragement. She said, "All-all right!" and stepped around the bush. "But you stay right there- and don't peek!"
"My dear girl, I'm a doctor," said McCoy with dignity. "When I peek, it's in the line of duty."
Leonard McCoy, gentleman me
dic, found himself unable to avoid noticing the flinging of a tunic and the tantalizing motions that showed over the top of the shrubbery. His communicator sounded.
"Calling Dr. McCoy, come in please, Calling-"
He raised the instrument to his ear. "McCoy here." What a time for a call. And the voice was very faint. "I can't read you very well. Is that Rodriguez?"
"This is all the volume I get on this thing. Can't read you very well either. Captain's orders. Rendezvous at the glade where he first found you."
"Right. Rodriguez? What the devil's wrong with the communicators? Esteban? Esteban!"
McCoy shook the instrument as if it were an old-time thermometer, and then shook his head and shrugged. As he turned back for a last peek, he gasped.
Yeoman Barrows was gone. In her place stood a medieval vision, clad in a tall pointed hat and a pale green dress that clung to her body and spread in grace-ful folds below her hips. Her face was aglow, and she wore her veil like a bride.
Why the hell hadn't he noticed?
The Captain was consulting his Science Officer. He could barely hear.
"I want an explanation, Spock. First, there's Alice in Wonderland when there was supposedly no animal life. Then Sulu's gun, where there were no refined metals. Then the birds, and my-the two people I saw."
"Is there any chance these could be hallucinations, Captain?"
"One 'hallucination' flattened me with a clout on the jaw. The other-"
"That sounds like painful reality, Captain."
"And then there are the tracks..."
"There has to be a logical explanation. Captain, your signal is very weak. Can you turn up the gain?"
"I'm already on maximum."
There was a pause. "Captain, shall I beam down an armed party?"
Kirk thought not. "Our people here are armed with phasers. Besides, there's yet to be any real danger. It's just... Captain out." He stood for a moment, watch-ing the sudden flight of a flock of birds across the sky. He was still so very tired. If only this shore leave could be a shore leave instead of an enigma! Why were those birds in the air? Something must have startled them. Sulu! He was still unaccounted for. Kirk rubbed his eyes and started into the forest.
There was a faint scream, shouting and thuds. As he ran, Kirk called to McCoy. Sulu burst out of the wood at top speed.
"Take cover, Captain! There's a samurai after me!"
"A what?"
No one, nothing was following Sulu, who stopped and looked over his shoulder, panting. "A samurai. With a sword-you know, an ancient warrior. Captain, you've got to believe me!"
"I do," said Kirk. He couldn't doubt Sulu. "I've met some interesting personalities here myself. Have you seen the rest of the landing party?".
"Rodriguez called a few minutes ago. Just before I met the samurai. He said you were rendezvousing back at the glade."
They started moving toward the meeting point, Sulu glancing nervously behind him.
"I hope Rodriguez got through to everybody. Com-munications are almost out."
"That's not all," said Sulu. "I tried to take a shot at the samurai. My phaser's out." He shoved the use-less weapon back into his belt.
Kirk was still holding his own, drawn as he had heard the sounds of Sulu's encounter. He pointed it at the ground and fired. Nothing happened. He checked the settings and fired again. Slowly he replaced it in his belt.
"We had better get to the glade," he said grimly.
"Yes, sir. We- Look!"
The air was shimmering. A familiar shimmer, but erratic and uncertain. "Someone's beaming down from the ship."
Someone was certainly trying to, but there ap-peared to be some obstruction.
Willing the transporter to operate, as if that would do any good, Kirk waited. The shimmer faded, erupted, faded; with one last splash of sparkles, Spock materialized in front of them.
"Spock! My orders were no one was to leave the ship."
"It was necessary, Captain. I could not contact you by communicator, and the transporter is almost useless now. As I told you, there is an unusual power field down here. It seems to be soaking up all kinds of energy at the source. I calculated the rate at which it was growing, and reasoned that we might be able to transport one more person." Spock conveyed, with a lift of his eyebrow, that while white rabbits and such were beyond his comprehension, unexplained force fields were not to be tolerated. "We barely managed that."
Kirk had to approve this decision. "Good. I can use your help."
Sulu said anxiously, "We're stranded down here, Captain?"
"Until we find out what this is all about."
A tiger roared in the distance.
"That way!" said Kirk. "Spread out, find it." He tried not to think about the ineffective phasers.
At the glade, Tonia Barrows and McCoy looked for the others a bit reluctantly. "There's no one here."
"This is the rendezvous point," said McCoy. The girl wandered around the clearing. The doctor fol-lowed her slowly. "What was that? I thought-I swear I heard something."
"Don't talk like that!" In spite of the splendid cos-tume and the warm eyes of McCoy, she was still jumpy.
"A princess shouldn't be afraid, not with her brave knight to protect her." Tonia managed a small smile and moved nearer to the shelter of a sun-warmed oak.
"Aaah!" There was a wild flurry of black and white-she was struggling with someone. McCoy ran.
The plumed hat was jaunty; pointed beard, jeweled doublet, swirling cloak. McCoy sailed in, fists flying. The cowardly lecher couldn't fight. Don Juan slunk off.
McCoy held her for a moment as she pulled her gown back together and straightened the tall hat, feel-ing extremely chivalrous. He had battled for his lady, and he'd do it again.
Hoofbeats sounded in the distance. They whirled, and saw, across the meadow, a gigantic horse emerg-ing from the wood. The horse reared and wheeled as its rider perceived them.
McCoy's belief was strained almost to breaking point. The Black Knight lowered a wicked-looking lance and charged.
These fairy-tale characters were interrupting him too often. McCoy had had enough. He was going to deal with this apparition on the proper terms. A fig-ment of the imagination was not real, could do no harm. He was not going to react anymore to hallucina-tions. He stepped out, unarmed, and confronted the oncoming menace, concentrating on denying the evi-dence of his senses.
The great black animal pounded across the meadow, the lance couchant.
"Look out, Bones!" McCoy ignored Kirk's cry of warning. Steadily, stubbornly he marched directly to-ward the galloping rider.
Kirk's phaser failed. He scrambled the old-fashioned pistol that he had confiscated from Sulu from his belt, as the wicked lance took McCoy through the chest.
The horse reared as Tonia Barrows screamed, and the Black Knight bent to retrieve his weapon. Kirk fired rapidly, and the armored horseman crashed to the ground a few yards away. Tonia's shrieks rose shrilly amid the echoes.
She fell to her knees over the prostrate McCoy. "He's dead, he's dead. It's all my fault. It never would have happened... Ohhh!"
"No, Tonia-" said Kirk.
"But it was, it was. My fault. I am to blame!" She was screaming and weeping. "I've killed him, I've killed Leonard." Kirk took her arm, but she wrenched away from him and beat her fists on the ground.
"Yeoman," said Kirk in his sternest voice. "We're in trouble. I need every crewman alert and thinking."
The hysteria left her cries. "Yes, sir." Struggling for composure, she rose slowly to her feet.
Spock covered McCoy's body, hiding the gaping wound. Kirk turned away for a moment. He could not quite control his face. His friend was dead. Shore leave. And they were all looking to him for strength. He schooled his expression to a rocklike calm, and without looking back, strode purposefully toward Sulu. Sulu was crouching over the body of the Black Knight.
"Captain," he said worriedly, "I don't get this."
"Neither do I, Mr. Sulu
," said Kirk, staring down with hatred at the sable armor. "But before we leave this planet, I will"
"Then you'd better have a look at this, sir." Sulu opened the visor and revealed the face of McCoy's murderer.
"What the-?" Perfectly molded skin, straight nose, regular as a waxwork, the mask stared back at him.
"It's like a dummy, Captain. It couldn't be alive."
