STAR TREK: Strange New Worlds I

by Dean Wesley Smith (Editor)

  “Raining?” I repeated. Now, that was very interesting. One little cloud sitting up ahead, pouring its little gray heart out over an area about the size of one city block. And, come to think of it, now that I got a closer look at it, the area was a city block, an old, circa mid-twentieth-century Earth-style concrete city block.

  Now, there was only one person I knew of whose dream-come-true consisted of getting miserably sopping wet in the dirty urban streets of wherever the hell that damn movie was supposed to take place, and I was more than mildly interested in seeing just what she’d cooked up to entertain herself down here.

  I turned to the Scarecrow. “Would you mind if I went on by myself?”

  He smiled at me with infinite fondness and understanding in his sad eyes, and I felt a pang of irrational guilt at the imminent prospect of abandoning him. You can’t abandon a figment of the imagination, can you?

  “It’s all right,” he assured me. “I’ll be around.” He winked at me. “If you want me, just whistle.”

  “Wrong movie,” I murmured vaguely, watching him stumble off cheerfully toward a nearby field.

  The street before me was night-dark, a most interesting contrast to the sunny day surrounding the city block on all sides. I stood at the very edge of an invisible boundary, [413] feeling the sun on my back while inhaling the damp, cool richness of the tableau before me. As my eyes became accustomed to the shift in lighting, I found that the setting was exactly what I’d expected. Black asphalt gleaming under archaic streetlamps, pocked here and there with viscous-looking puddles that rippled under the continuous patter of rain. And, of course, the inevitable figure on the lamppost, authentically bedecked in wide-legged trousers, soggy trench coat and snap-brimmed hat—except this time, it was an unmistakably feminine figure.

  It was Minnie Moskowitz, all right, cloaked by the shower, thick and fluid, a living sheet of energy, a companion to loneliness, a partner to dance with. Minnie danced with Gene Kelly’s feet. I was positive that every terpsichorean movement she was performing had been originally choreographed by old Gene for that movie she’d shown me. Even though I’d only seen it once, I knew. I knew that she had every damn step memorized. I knew that she had practiced for ages.

  I watched her, and I found that I was beginning to feel monumentally depressed. It wasn’t quite fair, I thought enviously. Who gave her all the kitsch and the energy and the inspiration and left me with the drips and drabs of reality? Why wasn’t I a doer and a dancer, instead of a passive observer? Oh, woe is the lot of the lowly shrink, who participates in life by sitting back and watching other people perform, who looks at raindrops but never plays with them.

  I watched her, up and down the curb, in and out of the huge puddles, swinging the big black umbrella around in a wide arch. She was perfect, perfect, perfect. She was “Singin’ in the Rain”; she was Gene Kelly’s feet. And I was [414] plain old Minnie Moskowitz, entranced, yearning to capture the essence before me. It was the damndest case of patient-therapist transference I’d ever encountered, and I was hating/loving every moment of it.

  Then, as if awaiting his cue, out came the policeman (recognizable by the traditional accoutrements). He appeared from out of nowhere, swaddled in his slicker, officiously staring at the loony dancer in the rain.

  End of the number, thought I, watching Minnie freeze in her tracks, just as Gene had frozen in his tracks. But the expression on her face wasn’t quite right; it didn’t match that of the original loony. And she didn’t blithely close her umbrella, hand it to a grateful mundane passerby (which would have been me, I suppose), and trot unconcernedly into the humid horizon.

  It wasn’t quite right. Minnie/Gene slowly turned to face the copper and she/he said, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Abruptly the rain ceased. It didn’t taper to a drizzle. It just ... stopped. Totally.

  The copper said, “I’ve come home. There’s no place like home, y’know.” And he pushed back his rain hood and ...

  ... he ... she ... had the same face as Minnie’s.

  Minnie stared at Minnie and I stared at Minnie, and the backdrop, the rainy city street, the whole movie set, unobtrusively receded into the surrounding foliage. Minnie removed her raincoat and tossed it to the ground and the sun came out from behind that cloud which was no longer there and all the fantasy was gone. Except that Minnie was still standing there staring at Minnie, and I was still standing there staring at Minnie ... and Minnie.

  [415] The Minnie I’d been watching dance was extremely perturbed. “But you can’t. You can’t just ...”

  “Can’t what?” interrupted the other. “Can’t come home? Not even for a five-hundred-parsec tune-up?”

  “You can’t just pop up like this. It’s barely been a year. We had an understanding. You’re not supposed to be here yet.”

  “Oh, don’t get your raindrops in an uproar. The ship came here so I came here. I didn’t have much of a choice.”

  “What if somebody sees us together? It could blow everything. If I’d known you were coming, I’d have gone underground.”

  “So what did you expect—a postcard? Besides, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  I had the peculiar feeling that I was invisible. Here I was, standing right out in the open, not ten feet away from the two of them, sunshine on my shoulders, a piece of straw or two in my hair, a clearly tangible entity, being totally ignored. It couldn’t be that my blue uniform blended so perfectly into the sky that I was camouflaged, could it? Or that they both assumed that I was a figment of their imagination?

  I decided to clear up any confusion about the matter by traversing the ten feet that separated the Minnies and me.

  “Uh,” I said, solid intelligence resounding in that monosyllable. I had, at that moment, realized that I couldn’t just introduce my presence by bursting forth with, “Hi there—what a marvelous job of cellular casting one of you is—by the way, what the hell is going on?” and I was searching fruitlessly for something more meaningful to say. As Gene Kelly-Minnie turned around to stare at me, I noted that her expression was one of alarm. The other Minnie, however, [416] didn’t seem terribly surprised to see me, and she greeted me with a friendly smile. “Hiya, Doc. Fancy meeting you here.”

  “Who is she?” Minnie (Gene) asked her look-alike.

  “This is the Doc. She’s one of the ship’s shrinks. She’s very understanding.”

  “Part of my job,” I mumbled humbly.

  “Yeah?” said Minnie (Gene). She chuckled nervously. “I suppose you feel entitled to an explanation about this.”

  “That’d be nice,” I said. “I’m not about to force you into it, though.”

  The Minnie who knew me commented, “You might as well explain it. You’ll probably have to to someone sooner or later. Besides, the Doc is a professional confidant.”

  Minnie (Gene)—whom I’d decided to think of as Minnie-1—eyed me suspiciously, then shrugged. “Okay, Doc. You’re so professionally understanding, let’s see if you can understand this. I’m Minnie Moskowitz.” She paused to jerk a thumb at her twin. “She’s not.”

  “I think I’ve got that much,” I replied. “It follows, uh, that it’s been ‘not you’ on the ship for the last ... well, since I’ve been there.”

  “And I suppose you’d like to hear about ‘why’?” Minnie-1 said.

  Before I could reply, Minnie ... 2 said, “She knows already. She’s probably already diagnosed all your neuroses. After all, I was programmed with them. She’s got them all on tape.”

  “Actually,” I said, “I’m more interested in ‘how.’ How did you manage the substitution? The caretaker of this place, from what I was led to believe, would never have allowed anything like this to happen. Would he?”

  [417] “Caretaker’s dead,” Minnie-1 commented matter-of-factly. “Big Computer’s in charge now. Don’t you read the R and R updates?”

  “After the Caretaker died, the Computer went through this weird phase where it decided that it res
ented its role here,” explained Minnie-2. “It got kind of hostile to visitors, and Captain Kirk was unlucky enough to be one of those visitors right around that time. Guess that was before your time on the ship.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “He and Spock talked to it,” said Minnie-2. “Convinced it that it was more blessed to be benevolent and subservient than to hijack starships. It wanted to learn about other worlds and other life-forms, but Kirk got it to go back to its creator’s original program for gaining that information.”

  “By playing genie-in-the-lamp to whatever life-form traipses through here and picking up the knowledge subliminally,” I said.

  “That, and through the more direct method of communication that Kirk and Spock inadvertently set a precedent for: actually speaking to the Computer,” 2 said. “The Big C got a real charge out of that.”

  “So when I came down for shore leave, with all my melancholy thoughts about my lot in life in Starfleet, I found out that the Computer didn’t consider itself quite as bound by ethics as the Caretaker was, particularly not Federation ethics,” continued Minnie-1. “It made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  “With my help,” interrupted Minnie-2 with a small bow. “I acted as liaison and brought her down to see the Boss.” [418] She smiled at the reminiscence. “You should have seen her—she was so scared! I was a dragon that day.”

  “So Minnie talked to the Computer, and the Computer offered to let her stay and be Gene Kelly all the time,” I realized. “But somebody had to go back to the ship after shore leave ended—”

  “That would be me,” said 2.

  “So you were programmed to look just like her and act just like her.”

  “And feel just like her,” 2 added. “And get crazy cravings just like her. And be bored out of my mind in Starfleet just like her. I was beginning to need a shrink myself!”

  “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it,” the original remarked dryly.

  “I didn’t take it,” the other replied. “I was sent on it. I’m just a trans-droid. I don’t get any choice as to what I’m cast as today or tomorrow. Or where I go.”

  “You sound a bit discontent with your lot,” I noted.

  “Mine is not to reason why,” she replied, “nor to feel content or discontent. My function is to live out real people’s fantasies for them. I’ve lived through a lot of them.”

  “But you seem to have a continuous flow of consciousness. What do you do between fantasies?” I inquired curiously.

  “She’s just a pile of cellular components,” said Minnie-1. “You should see the factory down there. Remarkable.”

  “There’s only a certain amount of resource material for the trans-droids, though,” said the pile of components, “so we all get recycled. And there’s a certain amount of memory retention from creation to creation, depending on how strong the emotional factor involved in the fantasy was.”

  [419] I suspected there was a certain amount of emotional retention from creation to creation, as well as intellectual. While I had no doubts that the real Minnie Moskowitz wanted to control Gene Kelly’s feet and distill the essence of kitsch from the universe, I had a hunch that it was this pile of cellular components that wanted to get out of its body and make trees dance. They probably had more in common than they thought.

  “And what happens now?” I asked. “Whose shore leave is over in a couple of days?”

  “The arrangement was that we’d switch back when the Enterprise returned for another R and R, presumably in about a year,” Minnie-2 explained. “By then Yeoman Moskowitz would have been able to tell Big C everything it could possibly want to know, and I’d return filled with all sorts of new trivia to relate and amuse. Which I have.”

  “But it hasn’t been a year,” Yeoman Moskowitz said petulantly. “I’m not ready to go back.”

  “You’d never be ready to go back if you didn’t have to,” the trans-droid commented.

  “Maybe I don’t have to,” Minnie replied.

  “Of course you do,” said Minnie-2. “There’d be an investigation if no Minnie Moskowitz went back to the ship. And C is very economically inclined. Recyclable cellular components are more valuable to it than some freeloading flesh-and-blood creature who needs to be fed and clothed and entertained to boot.”

  “I don’t think C minds that. In fact, I think it’s actually come to enjoy the pleasure of my company.”

  Minnie-2 laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. C doesn’t enjoy anything. It’s a computer.”

  [420] “You haven’t seen C lately. It’s developed quite a sense of humor.”

  The trans-droid wasn’t swallowing a word of it. “That complex has less potential for developing a sense of humor than a Vulcan proctologist.”

  “But you have a sense of humor,” I pointed out.

  “That’s because she does.” She pointed at Minnie-1. “C programmed me to be as much like her as possible. But nobody has programmed C.”

  The sky was such a brilliant azure, so crystal clear and empty of contaminating clouds, that the large raindrops that suddenly fell upon Minnie-2’s head seemed to materialize from out of thin air. Perhaps they were just collected droplets shaken loose by the wind from the undersides of overhanging leaves. Perhaps, although I was under the same tree, and so was Minnie-1, and the wind was practically nonexistent at the moment. Anyway, the trans-droid was the only one of us who got doused.

  “Nobody?” Minnie Moskowitz smiled sweetly at her double.

  The Scarecrow and I sat back to back under the stars, listening to the summer breeze slowly moving the branches of the trees. The ah- was cool and dry, and visually enhanced by intermittent golden flashes from fireflies. In short, it was a lovely night. I was finding that it was quite easy to get hooked on the feel of the wind in my hair. Minnie had been right; it was absolutely nothing like standing in the wind tunnel at the Academy. There was nothing in my antiseptic backlog of experiences to match the scent and the texture of this zephyr. I didn’t particularly relish the idea of leaving [421] this place, so I could begin to appreciate both the Minnies’ points of view.

  Speaking of whom, the Minnies had gone off together, presumably to discuss their fate with the Wizard—Big Computer, that is. No one had consulted me as to my opinion about the situation. I wasn’t invisible; I simply didn’t matter. Although I hadn’t voiced the sentiment that no matter what the outcome I would not report it to Starfleet, this fact was apparently understood. I would go back to the Enterprise in a few days with a Minnie Moskowitz and no one would know that anything had ever been amiss, hopefully. I felt no sense of guilt about my complicity in this plan. My loyalty was to my patient, not my employer. That’s not exactly the Starfleet way, of course, but in the past few days I’d come a long way from thinking of myself as one hundred percent Starfleet.

  I turned as I caught a glimpse of a moonlit Minnie Moskowitz approaching us from behind some trees. “Greetings,” I greeted pleasantly.

  She sat down next to us without returning the salutation. “C says I have to go back to the ship. Tomorrow.”

  I was not sure which Minnie was speaking to me. I asked, “How do you feel about that?”

  Minnie shrugged. “Well, that’s the way it goes.”

  Very stoic. “Listen, it won’t be that bad,” I tried to assuage whoever this was.

  “Oh, I know that,” Minnie said. “I’m sure I can cope with the day-to-day reality, and being the same humdrum thing for the rest of my existence.”

  “I quite understand how you feel,” said the Scarecrow. “I often feel that way myself, hanging all alone out there in the [422] cornfield with those wretched crows. I’m not exactly happy but I manage to cope and—”

  “I think she’s employing sarcasm,” I told the Scarecrow.

  “Oh,” he replied, pondering.

  “No, I’m not,” said Minnie. “I really don’t mind. I can be as mundane as they come. It doesn’t bother me anymore.”

 
; “Oh?” I said, pondering that one myself. Was this over-compensation in the wake of depression?

  The Scarecrow had his own theory. “I think she’s gotten a new brain. You’d be surprised what an improved outlook on life a new brain provides.”

  “Well, professionally speaking, I’d have to agree, but I don’t think she’s gotten a new brain.” I stared at her. “Have you?”

  Minnie smiled. “Of course not. I have a whole new essence. I’m no longer dysfunctional in the universe of humankind.”

  “Very impressive,” commented the Scarecrow dryly. “But can you quote the Pythagorean theorem?”

  “What are you talking about?” I pressed her. “Which Minnie are you, anyway?”

  “Does it matter? One of us had to be sentenced to a lifetime of nonsoaring. It was only logical that C would choose me.”

  “You really don’t mind?”

  “I really don’t.”

  “But what about dancing?”

  “I’ve got two left feet anyway.”

  “What about rainbows?” asked the straw man.

  “And singin’ in the rain?” I added.

  “The stuff of dreams. Pure kitsch. Unnecessary to a [423] yeoman third class. I’ve enjoyed my shore leave, but now I’m looking forward to getting back to work.”

  There were only two possibilities, as I saw it. Either C’s decision to send her back had snapped something in the real Minnie Moskowitz’s head, or the Scarecrow was right: She’d gotten a new brain. A reprogramming from the Computer, that is. Which would mean this was Minnie-2.

  “I can hardly wait,” she went on cheerfully. “There’s just hundreds of tapes waiting up there for me to re-edit. It’s so nice to feel wanted.”

  “Uh, right,” I said uneasily. “Listen, why don’t you just relax for now and have some dinner. The Scarecrow has another picnic basket around somewhere.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I couldn’t possibly eat a thing.”

  “Not even a Saltine cracker?” asked the Scarecrow.

  “Not even that. I’m much too excited. Do you know that before I left, my superior suggested that I might be taking on even more duties when I return? I might even get to program our section’s coffee breaks. Wouldn’t that be something?”