Star Trek 05

by James Blish

  "All except for ship to surface; we'll need that for a while. I short-circuited all the rest." She patted his arm. "It's really for the best."

  She arose, and strolled away from him to the elevator, which swallowed her up. Kirk tried her board again, but to no effect. He slammed his fist down in aggravation.

  Then he noticed a light pulsing steadily on Spock's library-computer. Moving to that station, he pushed the related button.

  "Transporter Room."

  There was no answer, but clearly the room was in use. He made for it in a hurry.

  He found a line of crew personnel in the corridor leading to the Transporter Room. All waited patiently. Every so often the line moved forward a few steps.

  "Report to your stations!"

  The crewmen stared at him quietly, benevolently—almost pityingly.

  "I'm sorry, sir," one of them said. "We're transporting down to join the colony."

  "I said, get back to your stations."

  "No, sir."

  "Do you know what you're saying?"

  "You've been down there," the crewman said earnestly. "You know how beautiful it is—how perfect. We're going."

  "This is mutiny!"

  "Yes, sir," the crewman said calmly. "It is."

  Kirk went back to tie bridge and to the communications board. As Uhura had said, ship to ground was still operative. He called McCoy, and was rather surprised to get an answer.

  "Bones, the spores of your damnable plants have evidently been carried throughout the ship by the ventilation system. The crew is deserting to join the Omicron colony, and I can't stop them."

  "Why, that's fine," McCoy said; his accent had moved considerably south of the Mason-Dixon line, almost to his Georgia boyhood. "Y'all come right down."

  "Never mind that. At least you can give me some information. I haven't been affected. Why not?"

  "You always were a stubborn cuss, Jimmy. But you'll see the light."

  Kirk fumed in silence for a moment. "Can't you tell me anything about the physical-psychological aspects of this thing?"

  "I'm not concerned with any physical-psychological aspects, Jim boy. We're all perfectly healthy."

  "I've been hearing that word a lot lately. Perfect Everything is perfect."

  "Yup. That it is."

  "I'll bet you've even grown your tonsils back."

  "Uh-huh," McCoy said dreamily. "Jim, have you ever had a real, cold, Georgia-style mint julep?"

  "Bones, Bones, I need your help. Can you run tests, blood samples, anything at all to give us some kind of lead on what these things are? How to counteract them?"

  "Who wants to counteract Paradise, Jim?"

  "Bones—" But the contact had been broken at the other end. Then he headed back for the Transporter Room. He was going to get some cooperation from his ship's surgeon if he had to take the madman by the ears.

  He found Spock in Sandoval's office, both looking languidly pleased with themselves.

  "Where's McCoy?"

  "He said he was going to create something called a mint julep," Spock said, then added helpfully, "That's a drink."

  "Captain," Sandoval said. "Listen to me. Why don't you join us?"

  "In your own private paradise?"

  Sandoval nodded. "The spores have made it that. You see, Captain, we would have died three years ago. We didn't know what was happening then, but the Berthold rays you spoke of affected us within two or three weeks of our landing here. We were sick and dying when Leila found the plants."

  "The spores themselves are alien, Captain," Spock added. "They weren't on the planet when the other two expeditions were attempted. That's why the colonists died."

  "How do you know all this?"

  "The spores—tell us. They aren't really spores, but a kind of group organism made up of billions of sub-microscopic cells. They act directly on the central nervous system."

  "Where did they come from?"

  "Impossible to tell. It was so long ago and so far away. Perhaps the planet does not even exist any longer. They drifted in space until finally drawn here by the Berthold radiation, on which they thrive. The plants are native, but they are only a repository for the spores until they find an animal host."

  "What do they need us for?"

  "Bodies. They do no harm. In return they give the host complete health and peace of mind . . ."

  "Paradise, in short."

  "Why not?" Spock said. "There is no want or need here. It's a true Eden. There is belonging—and love."

  "No wants or needs? We weren't meant for that, any of us. A man stagnates and goes sour if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is."

  "We have what we need," said Sandoval.

  "Except a challenge! You haven't made an inch of progress here. You're not creating or learning, Sandoval. You're backsliding—rotting away in your paradise."

  Spock shook his head sadly. "You don't understand. But you'll come around, sooner or later."

  "Be damned to that. I'm going back to the ship."

  He could not remember any time before when he had been so furious for so long a time.

  The Enterprise was utterly deserted now. Without anybody aboard her, Kirk had a new and lonely realization of how big she was. And yet for all her immense resources, he was helpless. It was amazing how quickly all her entire complement had surrendered to the Lethe of the spores, leaving him and no one else raging futilely . . .

  Raging?

  Futilely?

  Wait a minute.

  There were pod plants all over the ship, so there was no problem about getting a sample. He took it down to McCoy's laboratory, located a slide, and then McCoy's microscope. A drop of water on the slide—right; now, mix some of the spores into the drop. Put the slide under the microscope. It had been decades since he had done anything like this, but he remembered from schooldays that one must run the objective lens down to the object, and then focus up, never down. Good; the spores came into register, tiny, and spined like pollen grains.

  Getting up again, he went through McCoy's hypospray rack until he found one of a dozen all labeled adrenaline. He sprayed the slide, and then looked again.

  There was nothing there. The spores were adrenalin-soluble. He had found the answer. It was almost incredibly dangerous, but there was no other way. He went back to the bridge and called Spock. If Spock didn't answer . . .

  "Spock here. What is it now?"

  "I've joined you," Kirk said quietly. "I understand now, Spock."

  "That's wonderful, Captain. When will you beam down?"

  "I've been packing some things, and I realized there's equipment aboard we should have down at the settlement. You know we can't come back aboard once the last of us has left."

  "Do you want a party beamed up?"

  "No, I think you and I can handle it. Why don't I beam you up now?"

  "All right. Ready in ten minutes."

  Kirk was waiting in the Transporter Room, necessarily, when the First Officer materialized, and was holding a metal bar in both hands, like a quarter-staff. Spock took a step toward him, smiling a greeting. Kirk did not smile back.

  "Now," he said harshly, "you mutinous, disloyal, computerized half-breed—we'll see about you deserting my ship!"

  Spock stared. He seemed mildly surprised, but unflustered. "Your use of the term half-breed is perfectly applicable, Captain, but 'computerized' is inaccurate. A machine can be computerized, but not a man."

  "What makes you think you're a man? You're an overgrown jackrabbit. You're an elf with an overactive thyroid."

  "Captain, I don't understand . . ."

  "Of course you don't! You don't have brains enough to understand! All you've got is printed circuits!"

  "Captain, if you'll . . ."

  "But what can you expect from a freak whose father was a computer and whose mother was an encyclopedia!"

  "My mother," Spock said, his expression not quite so bland now, "was a teacher, my father an ambassador."

/>   "He was a freak like his son! Ambassador from a planet of freaks! The Vulcan never lived who had an ounce of integrity!"

  "Captain—please—don't . . ."

  "You're a traitor from a race of traitors! Disloyal to the core! Rotten—like all the rest of your subhuman race! And you've got the gall to make love to that girl! A human girl!"

  "No more," Spock said stonily.

  "I haven't even got started! Does she know what she's getting, Spock? A carcass full of memory banks that ought to be squatting on a mushroom instead of passing himself off as a man. You belong in a circus, Spock, not a starship! Right next to the dog-faced boy!"

  With this, Kirk stepped forward and slapped the livid Spock twice, hard. With a roar, Spock swung out at him. Kirk leaped back out of his way, raising the bar of metal between his hands to parry the blow.

  It was not much of a fight. Kirk was solely concerned with getting and keeping out of the way, while Spock was striking out with killing force, and with all the science of his once-warrior race. There could be only one ending. Kirk was deprived of the metal bar at the third onslaught, and finally took a backhand which knocked him to the floor against the far wall. Spock, his face contorted, snatched up a stool and lifted it over his head.

  Kirk looked up at him and grinned ruefully. "All right, Mr. Spock. Had enough?"

  Spock stared down at him, looking confused. Finally he lowered the chair.

  "I never realized what it took to get under that thick hide of yours. Anyhow, I don't know what you're mad about. It isn't every First Officer who gets to belt his Captain—several times." He felt his jaw tenderly.

  "You—you deliberately did that to me."

  "Yes. The spores, Mr. Spock. Tell me about the spores."

  Spock seemed to reach inside himself. "They're—gone. I don't belong any more."

  "That was my intention. You said they were benevolent and peaceful. Violent emotions overwhelm and destroy them. I had to get you angry enough to shake off their influence. That's the answer, Spock."

  "That may be correct, Captain, but we could hardly initiate a brawl with over five hundred crewmen and colonists. It is not logical."

  Kirk grinned. "I was thinking of something you told me once about certain subsonic frequencies affecting the emotions."

  "Yes, Captain. A certain low organ tone induces a feeling of awe. There is another frequency that affects the digestion."

  "None of those will do. I want one that irritates people—something that we could hook into the communications station and broadcast over the communicators."

  "That would of course also have to involve a bypass signal." Spock thought a moment "It can be done."

  "Then let's get to work."

  "Captain—striking a fellow officer is a court-martial offense."

  "If we're both in the brig, who's going to build the subsonic transmitter?"

  "That's quite logical, Captain. To work, then."

  The signal generated by the modified Feinbergers and rebroadcast from the bypassed communicators went unheard in the settlement, but it was felt almost at once, almost as though the victims had had itching powder put under their skins. Within a few minutes, everyone's nerves were exacerbated; within a few more, fights were breaking out all over the colony. The fights did not last long; as the spores dissolved in the wash of adrenalin in the bloodstream, the tumult died back to an almost aghast silence. Not long after that, contrite calls began to come in aboard the Enterprise.

  The rest was anticlimax. The crew came back, the colonists and their effects were loaded aboard, the plants were cleaned out of the ship except for one specimen that went to Lieutenant Fletcher's laboratory. Finally, Omicron Ceti III was dwindling rapidly on the main viewing screen, watched by Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

  "That's the second time," McCoy said, nodding toward the screen, "that Man has been thrown out of Paradise."

  "No—this time we walked away on our own. Maybe we don't belong in Paradise, Bones," Kirk said thoughtfully. "Maybe we're meant to fight our way through. Struggle. Claw our way up, fighting every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of lutes, Bones—we must march to the sound of drums."

  "Poetry, Captain," Spock said. "Nonregulation."

  "We haven't heard much from you about the Omicron Ceti III experience, Mr. Spock."

  "I have little to say about it, Captain," Spock said, slowly and quietly, "except that—for the first time in my life—I was happy."

  Both the others turned and looked at him; but there was nothing to be seen now but the Mr. Spock they had long known, controlled, efficient, and emotionless.

  TURNABOUT INTRUDER

  (Gene Roddenberry and Arthur H. Singer)

  * * *

  The Enterprise had been proceeding to a carefully timed rendezvous when she received a distress call from a group of archaeologists who had been exploring the ruins on Camus Two. Their situation was apparently desperate, and Kirk interrupted the mission to beam down to their assistance, together with Spock and McCoy.

  In the group's headquarters they found two of the survivors, one of whom Kirk knew: Dr. Janice Lester, the leader of the expedition. She was lying on a cot, semiconscious. Her companion, Dr. Howard Coleman, looked healthy enough but rather insecure.

  "What's wrong with her?" Kirk asked.

  "Radiation sickness," said Coleman.

  "I'd like to put the ship's complete medical facilities to work to save her. Can we get her aboard the Enterprise?'

  "Exposing her to the shock of Transportation would be very dangerous. The radiation affects the nervous system."

  McCoy looked up from his examination of the woman. "I can find no detectable signs of conventional radiation injury, Dr. Coleman," he said.

  "Dr. Lester was farthest from the source. Fortunately for me, I was here at headquarters."

  "Then the symptoms may not have completely developed."

  "What happened to those who were closest to the point of exposure?" Kirk asked.

  "They became delirious from the multiplying internal lesions and ran off mad with pain. They are probably dead."

  "What form of radiation was it?" McCoy asked.

  "Nothing I have ever encountered."

  Janice Lester stirred and moaned, and her eyes fluttered open. Kirk came to her side and took her hand, smiling.

  "You are to be absolutely quiet. Those are the doctor's orders, Janice, not mine."

  Spock had been scanning with his tricorder. "Captain, I am picking up very faint life readings seven hundred meters from here. Help will have to be immediate."

  Kirk turned to McCoy, who said, "There is nothing more to be done for her, Captain. Your presence should help quiet her."

  As McCoy and Spock went out, Janice released Kirk's hand, and she said with great effort, "I hoped I would never see you again."

  "I don't blame you."

  Her eyes closed. "Why don't you kill me? It would be easy for you now. No one would know."

  "I never wanted to hurt you," Kirk said, startled.

  "You did."

  "Only so I could survive as myself."

  "I died. When you left me, I died."

  "You still exaggerate," Kirk said, trying for the light touch. "I have heard reports of your work."

  "Digging in the ruins of dead civilizations."

  "You lead in your field."

  She opened her eyes and stared directly into his. "The year we were together at Starfleet is the only time in my life I was alive."

  "I didn't stop you from going on with space work."

  "I had to! Where would it lead? Your world of Star-ship captains doesn't admit women."

  "You've always blamed me for that," Kirk said.

  "You accepted it."

  "I couldn't have changed it," he pointed out.

  "You believed they were right. I know you did."

  "And you hated me for it. How you hated. Every minute we were together became an agony."

  "It isn't fair . .
."

  "No, it isn't. And I was the one you punished and tortured because of it."

  "I loved you," she said. "We could have roamed among the stars."

  "We would have killed each other."

  "It might have been better."

  "Why do you say that?" he demanded. "You're still young."

  "A woman should not be alone."

  "Don't you see now, we shouldn't be together? We never should have—I'm sorry. Forgive me. You must be quiet now."

  "Yes." Her eyes closed and her head sank back on the cot.

  "Janice—please let me help you this time."

  In a deadly quiet voice, she said, "You are helping me, James."

  He looked at her sadly for a moment and then turned away. The rest of the room, he noticed for the first time, was a litter of objects the group had collected from the ruins. The largest piece seemed to be an inscribed slab of metal, big enough to have been part of a wall. Kirk crossed to it. On its sides, he now saw, were what seemed to be control elements; some land of machine, then. He wondered what sort of people had used it, and for what.

  "A very remarkable object," Janice's voice said behind him.

  "Really? What is it for, do you know?"

  "Mentally superior people who were dying would exchange bodies with the physically strong. Immortality could be had by those who deserved it."

  "And who chose the deserving?"

  "In this case," she said, "I do."

  The wall flared brilliantly in Kirk's face, and he felt a fearful internal wrench, as though something were trying to turn him inside out. When he could see again . . .

  . . . he was looking at himself, through the eyes of Janice Lester.

  Kirk/J left the wall, and coming over to the cot, found a scarf, which he began to fold. Then he bent and pressed it over the woman's mouth and nose.

  "You had your chance, Captain Kirk. You could have smothered the life in me and they would have said Dr. Janice Lester died of radiation sickness acquired in the line of duty. Why didn't you? You've always wanted to!"

  Janice/K's head moved feebly in denial. The scarf pressed down harder.

  "You had the strength to carry it out. But you were afraid, always afraid. Now Janice Lester will take Cap-tain Kirk's place. I already possess your physical strength. But this Captain Kirk is not afraid to kill." Kirk/J was almost crooning now, a song of self-hatred. "Now you know the indignity of being a woman. But you will not suffer long. For you the agony will soon pass—as it did for me."