At the foot of the mountains ran a long, clear lake, positioned like a mirror to best reflect the towering crags and pinnacles. It, at least, looked too perfect to be anything but the result of some other geologically inclined traveler's idealized dreamscape.
McCoy nodded to himself, completely satisfied. "Just as gorgeous as I remember it. Doesn't look like anything's changed, not a leaf, not a blade of grass."
They started walking toward the nearest little stream. It bubbled capriciously down a hillside that looked misty where there was no mist. That puzzled Sulu. He'd seen this slope before somewhere. But where?
In a painting, of course, and the image came to him abruptly. This hillside, those trees and rockfalls, the stream, had been designed once before, by a long-dead terran artist ... Masefield ... no, Maxfield Parrish.
Seeing it in all three dimensions was startling.
"This looks a lot like the same spot we set down at on our first visit," he ventured. Then the helmsman smiled, recalling a fantasy other than his own.
"Remember when we saw the white rabbit, Doctor?"
McCoy chuckled before replying. "It's not the sort of thing you forget. Sure I remember, Sulu. And all because I said this place made me feel like a character out of Alice in Wonderland."
Suddenly they were unexpectedly interrupted. It wasn't quite a human voice, but more like a caricature of one. A high piping wail that was half-child, half-senator.
"One side, one side!"
McCoy spun around and barely cleared the path in time as a meter-tall white rabbit clad in top hat and tails bounded past. The rabbit was holding onto his bobbing hat with one hand and clutching tightly to an oversized gold pocket watch with the other. His manner and tone were agitated, his bouncy stride hurried.
"I'm late, I'm late! Oh my fuzzy ears and whiskers, I'm very very late!"
Repetition of a previous incident or not, Sulu, McCoy, and Uhura stood gaping at the furry apparition as it shot past. The rabbit unexpectedly left the path and, with a hop of Olympian proportions, sailed into the thick shrubbery.
Moments later, naturally, a young girl emerged seemingly from nowhere on the path in front of them. She had long blond hair neatly combed to her waist, and she wore a light blue dress with matching white pinafore, knee-high socks, and shiny black buckled shoes.
By the time she had come close enough to tap Uhura on the shoulder, they'd all recovered from the initial surprise.
"I beg your pardon," the girl said politely in a thick British-terran accent, "but did you happen to see a large white rabbit come this way?"
Uhura pointed toward the concealing bushes. "He went that way, Alice."
"Thank you so much!" She performed a perfect little curtsey and hurried off down the path, disappearing into the same bushes as the rabbit. Sulu and McCoy exchanged charmed smiles.
"Just like you said, Doctor, nothing's changed."
Uhura smiled agreement, then shook her head in wonderment. "They're such perfect models, so exact - and they appear so quickly in response to your thoughts. It's hard to believe they're not real."
"Easy, Lieutenant," cautioned McCoy, but gently. "They're only highly sophisticated robots, whipped up by this world's central computer to make your dreams come true."
"I know," she responded. "I wish I could have a look at their insides. Imagine the technology required to direct and guide them, without any sign of receiving or transmitting apparatus. Nothing in the Federation comes close to it." She paused at a sudden thought, and Sulu and McCoy stopped to watch her.
"I wish," she began, spacing her words deliberately, "I could see their insides, especially the transmit-receive instrumentation." They waited, but the hidden ears of the planet chose not to give a response.
"I said," she repeated firmly, "I wish to see the insides of one of the automatons."
Sulu shook his head. "Forget it, Uhura. But it was a nice idea." She smiled ruefully back at him.
"I guess granting your heart's desire doesn't include giving away trade secrets. The planetary machinery will do just about anything, except explain itself. Oh well." She shrugged philosophically, then smiled.
"This won't do - acting disappointed. Got to think only happy thoughts."
"My prescription exactly," McCoy agreed. "Speaking of which..." He looked slightly embarrassed. "Part of the pleasure of being on this world is indulging in your most private fantasies, to the hilt. That requires a certain amount of, uh..."
"Privacy," supplied Sulu. "Just what I was going to say."
"And I," Uhura added, making it unanimous.
"Not that I'm not crazy about both of you," the good doctor retorted hastily, "but when I see you again I'd just as soon we were back on the ship."
***
The three starship officers split up amiably then, taking off in three different directions, searching out three different paths through the manicured lawns - each in search of a place where secret dreams could be enjoyed away from the rest of humanity.
Exotic blossoms bordered the bubbling rivulet, petals straining so hard to catch the sun that some bloomed even under the clear surface of the stream. They existed nowhere else in the universe, having been cultivated and grown first in the field of the mind.
A faint tinge of rose tinted the otherwise diamond-clear water, and thick clover sighed with the action of wind on a billion waiting-stems. The scene required only its creator for completeness.
Uhura furnished that seconds later as she topped the rise that concealed the perfect valley and then started down toward the stream.
She stared down, down, into the water. A wavering rippled reflection of self looked back at her. Reaching out, the reflection grasped the water-distorted mirror-image of a large black flower and plucked it free, setting it into the hair above one ear. Then it smiled up at Uhura.
Humming softly, she imitated the suggestive action of her reflection. Breaking off the self-same flower she set it neatly over the indicated ear. Still humming softly to herself, she started to stroll upstream.
***
Immense was the forest, with gnarled trees impossibly thick and tall. Like bark-backed skyscrapers they soared hundreds of meters into the sky. Their distant crests seemed to support the blue heavens on thick, brown branches.
Sulu rounded one colossal bole and leaned to study the moss growing on its side. Here the wood was the shade of obsidian, the iron-hard black fluted and ribboned with channels, the touch smooth as oiled ivory. Yet when he pressed in, the black bark gave way obediently.
Delicate dark vines encircled many of the towering trees. They dangled freely from the lowest branches. Each was composed of segments, like a chain. When a lithe breeze gusted, the links would bounce against one another, tinkling with a sound of small porcelain chimes. It was the only sound in the forest.
Light shafted down in yellow ranks between the trunks, and the effect was like walking through a cathedral. Transparent flowers grew here and there from high bushes. Whenever they caught the light they made presents of rainbows to the helmsman's delighted eyes. The rest of the undergrowth was riotous, wild, every bit as impressive in its own way as the massive trees.
Once, a tiny fuzzy plant pulled itself out of the ground and started to follow him, scurrying along in pursuit on tiny mobile roots. Sulu grinned at the memory that had produced it. Then he bent, lifted it easily in one hand. Tiny thorns pricked futilely at his palm. Bringing both hands together, he slowly ground the fuzzy into a handful of yellow powder.
One puff was sufficient to send the dust floating away. Sulu rubbed his hands together as he continued through the forest. A lilting tune came unbidden to his lips. His singing voice might not have been good, but it was enthusiastic, and the chiming vines seemed to join right in.
***
Thick twisted cypress alternated politely with slim, zebra-striped birch. Like the hair of a goddess, Spanish moss fell in emerald waves from the thicker trees, almost touching the ground. Somewhere an oriole chir
ped a greeting as McCoy turned a bend in the lane. He stopped to absorb the view.
Ahead, set on a low hill surrounded by well-tended green lawns and a newly painted white picket fence, was a magnificent cream-colored mansion. It was two-stories high and faced with smooth, pseudoclassical columns. Honeysuckle, wisteria, and magnolia bloomed in profusion around the front gate. The flowers tangled around the fence and climbed up the fronting columns, alternating with thick ivy and filling the air with scents of sugar and sweet wine. Somewhere, someone was plunking a banjo and singing.
McCoy sighed and stared longingly at the distant panorama, resolutely putting out of his mind the fact that the front was probably false, the ivy artificial, and the banjo-plucker a hidden recording.
"Lovely ... they just don't make 'em like that anymore." He started toward the mansion and was wondering who would greet him at the door, when a harsh female voice shattered the antebellum tranquility.
"Off with his head!"
McCoy spun around in surprise. What greeted him was no less unlikely but a good deal more startling than the plantation now behind him. A large crowd of oddly shaped humanoids returned his stare. Their gaze was openly hostile.
Each body was a perfect rectangle save only for five bulges - head, arms, and legs. Their torsos were tremendously broad, impossibly thin, and inscribed with archaic symbols: hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs.
The unmistakable leader of this angry horde was somewhat less broad and rather less narrow. She stepped out of their midst and jabbed an accusing finger at McCoy.
"There he is!" she shrieked. "Off with his head!"
Lowering their lances, the card-shaped humanoids charged forward on stumpy legs.
It was all a dazed McCoy could do to duck just as a lance tipped with a razor-edged heart sailed over his head, cutting a small sapling behind him neatly in half. It suddenly occurred to the Enterprise's chief physician that the intentions of this multiple fantasy were other than benign.
"Hey, what's going on here?" Something brushed his right arm and slammed into the large tree behind. This one was finished with a dark spade-shape, half of which was buried in the wood. McCoy glanced down at his side, saw that the spear had taken a neat slice out of his tunic. That did it. He had no intention of hanging around to argue with a belligerent dream, especially when it wasn't his. He turned and took off down the path on the dead run.
"Stop him!" yelled the Queen. The cards had already taken off in hot pursuit, and the pack of humanoids was close on McCoy's heels.
Occasionally a long lance arched through the air near him. Fortunately the aim of his pursuers was not good. Their short arms did not permit much in the way of long-range accuracy. McCoy had no intention of giving them a chance to sharpen their skills at close range. With his longer legs McCoy was able to maintain and even slightly lengthen his lead. But he was no athlete and he couldn't keep up this chase indefinitely, whereas the animated cards could probably run all day.
Fumbling at his belt he finally managed to pull the communicator free. It took him three frantic tries before the cover snapped back, but by then he was panting so hard that the words refused to form.
Finally, however, he managed to gasp between breaths, "Enterprise - emergency, emergency! Beam up, beam up!"
The filtered shouts sounded clearly over the speaker in the transporter room. Fortunately Scott was on station there, alert for just such a call. Not that the chief engineer had suddenly acquired the gift of precognition. It was standard procedure, ever since the amazing properties of the shore-leave world had become known, to have someone standing by at the transporter at all times. Some crewmembers got bored early and had to be beamed back before their rest time was expired.
But the real reason for the precaution was that one or two members of a ship's complement often could not handle the confrontation with their own fantasies. Though they were in no danger of physical harm, a real chance of serious mental damage existed unless they could be brought back aboard in time.
But this sounded like McCoy - one of the last people Scott expected to have to bring back early. He didn't sound bored, and if one person on the Enterprise was well qualified to handle his own fantasies, it was the ship's head medical officer.
Still, there was no arguing with that emergency call. McCoy had apparently not strayed far from the original set-down point - he had hardly had time - and Scott located him quickly. Then a hand was moving on one of the controlling levers.
McCoy, panting heavily, dodged around a thick oak. An improbable, scythe-headed lance shot through the space he had occupied a moment before. He looked over his shoulder. They had gotten behind him somehow, and now a handful of the cards were moving toward him.
Desperately McCoy searched for a way out, took a step sideways. If he could make the stream - there was always a chance the cards hadn't been programmed to swim. Then he started to scream.
A hurled lance was coming straight at his face.
It reached him.
II
Uhura blinked and stared at her own communicator as if it had suddenly started talking to her with a mind of its own. She had been preparing to call in and make certain all was well with Lt. M'ress in communications, when the sound of McCoy's emergency call had been relayed automatically to her over the open channel.
She paused by a small waterfall. What could there be on this paradise world to menace anyone? Despite the obvious urgency of McCoy's call, her attention stayed divided between the communicator and the liquid jewel set into the hillside.
"Uhura to transporter room, come in, please." M'ress could wait. First she ought to find out what was the trouble with McCoy.
In one instant the scene was normal, complete. Grass, her hand, the communicator, tiny flowers at her feet. Then a long metal shape inserted itself into her view. Taking the communicator effortlessly from her grasp, it closed pewter-toned digits. There was an ugly crackling sound, and the tough device was pulverized into tiny fragments of metal and mangled components.
She turned and gave a little gasp of surprise.
The hovercraft was not very big. Just about a meter high and long, it floated off the ground quite close to her. It sported six mechanical arms of varying length. Each was equipped with different nodes and knobs at its end. The function of five of them remained a mystery. The sixth had been used to crush the communicator.
Electronic lenses - light sensors or true artificial eyes, she couldn't tell which - ringed the efficient-looking machine. So far it hadn't threatened her, hadn't moved at all except to destroy the communicator.
She took a couple of uncertain steps away from it. The muted hum the automaton generated rose slightly in pitch, and it moved to follow her, a silent steel-eyed spider.
***
Kirk lolled in the command chair and glared at the main viewscreen. At the moment it displayed a vivid rectangular field of nothing. And he worried. Spock sat nearby, while Arex sat at the navigation console and tried to look busy. M'ress rested at the communications station and nervously ran her claws across the metal board in front of her.
Finally the elevator opened, and McCoy and Sulu hurried in. Kirk swiveled. He noticed the doctor's torn sleeve immediately. It was a neat cut, and you didn't have to be a botanist to see that it hadn't been produced by any interfering branch.
"What happened down there, Bones?"
McCoy was clearly bewildered and making no attempt to conceal the fact. "I can't understand it, Jim. Everything looked exactly the same as last time. It behaved exactly as last time. We even met Alice and the White Rabbit again.
"So we split up, each to his own fantasy-world. Everything proceeded beautifully - for Sulu and me, at least." That triggered another thought, and the doctor glanced around the bridge. "Say, where is Uhura, anyway?"
"Hasn't come back yet," supplied Kirk helpfully, "but we haven't received any emergency call from her, nor from any of the other shore parties. Lt. Sulu just happened to have come back on his ow
n, to drop off his specimens and get a bigger collecting pouch. Go on."
"Everything was happening just as I wished it would, when suddenly this army of animated playing cards appeared out of nowhere. Only they weren't playing." He fingered his torn sleeve.
"I nearly got aced, Jim." Nobody smiled.
"Animated cards?" The doctor nodded.
"Led by the Queen of Hearts herself."
"The Queen of Hearts and her army of cards are characters from Alice Through the Looking Glass, Captain," Spock informed him.
"I just remembered myself, Spock. I read the book as a child. But I wasn't aware that you were attracted to the literature of the fantastic. I thought general and hard science was more your style."
"Light reading is considered relaxing, as well as mentally healthful," the first officer replied. "My mother was particularly fond of Lewis Carroll's work." He looked thoughtful. "Considering the realities of life on Vulcan, it is not surprising that a good deal of her reading tended to the opposite extreme."
"I understand." Kirk turned back to confront McCoy. "Bones, you said you'd already entered your own fantasy of the moment. You weren't thinking about that book?"
"Absolutely not! As a matter of fact, I distinctly recall thinking how beautiful and peaceful and right everything was. And then before you know it, it's 'Off with his head!' My head." He added by way of rapid afterthought, "No comments from you, Spock."
Spock protested mildly. "I was not about to say anything, Doctor."
"Mr. Sulu," Kirk continued, shifting his attention to the helmsman, "did you experience anything out of the ordinary - that is, anything out of the ordinary you didn't wish for? Was there anything in your fantasy that either didn't belong there, or acted antagonistically?"
"No, sir. The contrary, if anything."
"Well then - " Kirk halted in midsentence as Scott's voice sounded over the open communicators.
"Transporter room to Captain Kirk." He thumbed the respond switch.
Star Trek Log Three Page 2
