Star Trek 09

by James Blish

  "Spock, Captain."

  "Scan us, Spock and lock onto us. It's going to be very close. Stand by." He looked back. The creature was almost on him, a thin tentacle of mist drifting toward his throat.

  "I—I can smell it, Captain. It's sickly . . . honey sweet."

  "Stand by, Enterprise," Kirk said. He saw that the creature, seeking blood in the anti-matter unit, was flowing over the metal sphere. Shouting into his communicator, he cried, "Now Energize! And detonate!"

  Their bodies went into shimmer, fading. Then the world of the creature blew up.

  In the Transporter Room of the Enterprise, Spock saw the forms of Kirk and Garrovick begin to take shape. They held it only for a fleeting second before they dissolved once more into shining fragments. Spock's steady hands worked at the controls, adjusting them. Scott, panic-stricken, flung himself at the Transporter console. McCoy yelled, "Don't just stand there! For God's sake, do something!"

  Chekov spoke over the intercom. "All decks, stand by. Shock waves!"

  The Transporter Room rocked crazily. Spock and Scott, flung to their knees, struggled desperately to stay with the console controls. Then they both looked over at the Transporter chamber. It was empty.

  Spock said, "Cross-circuit to B, Mr. Scott."

  McCoy uttered a literal howl. "What a crazy way to travel! Spilling a man's molecules all over the damned universe!

  Scott said, "Picking it up . . . I think we're picking them up."

  McCoy looked away from the empty Transporter chamber. When he found what it took to look back, two forms were again assuming shape and substance. Kirk and Garrovick stepped from the platform—whole, unharmed.

  Scott sank down over the console. "Captain," he said as though to himself. "Captain." He sighed. "Thank God."

  Spock was reproving. There was no deity involved, Mr. Scott. It was my cross-circuit to selector B that recovered them."

  McCoy eyed Spock with disgust. "Well, thank pitchforks and pointed ears, then! As long as they worked!"

  Kirk used his communicator. "Captain Kirk to bridge."

  "Chekov here, Captain."

  "Lay a course for the Yorktown rendezvous, Mr. Chekov. Maximum warp."

  "Aye, sir."

  Kirk smiled at Garrovick. "Come to my cabin when you've cleaned up, Ensign. I want to tell you about your father. Several stories I think you'll like to hear."

  Garrovick looked at him, adoration in his eyes.

  Thank you, sir. I will"

  THE RETURN OF THE ARCHONS

  (Boris Sobelman)

  * * *

  Once it had been a hundred years before—that time past when the Starship Archon had been lost to mysterious circumstances on the planet Beta 3000.

  Now it was time present; and the two crewmen from another Starship, the Enterprise, down on the same planet scouting for news of the Archon, seemed about to list themselves as "missing," too. They were running swiftly down a drab street of an apparently innocuous town of the apparently innocuous planet when one of them stumbled and fell. Sulu, his companion, paused, reaching down a muscular hand. "O'Neill, get up! We've got to keep going!"

  Nobody on the street turned to look at them. Nobody offered to help them. If ever there were passers-by, the inhabitants of Beta 3000 could qualify for the "I don't care" prize. Still prone on the street, Lieutenant O'Neill was panting. "It's no use, Mr. Sulu. They're everywhere! Look! There's one of them—there's one of the Lawgivers!" He gestured toward a hooded creature who was approaching, a staff in its hand. Then he pointed to a second figure, similarly hooded, robed and staved. "They're everywhere! We can't get away from them!"

  Sulu opened his communicator. "Scouting party to Enterprise! Captain, beam us up! Quick! Emergency!" He looked down at O'Neill. "Just hold on, Lieutenant. They'll beam us back to the ship any minute now—"

  But O'Neill had scrambled wildly to his feet. "Run, I tell you! We've got to get away! You know what they're capable of!"

  "O'Neill—"

  But the Lieutenant was racing down the street. Sulu, distracted, his eyes on the flying figure of O'Neill, was scarcely aware that the nearest hooded being had lightly touched him with its staff. He was conscious only of a sudden sense of peace, of the tension in him ebbing, giving way to an inflow of a beatific feeling of unmarred tranquillity. He was not permitted to enjoy it for long. The Enterprise's Transporter had fixed on him—and he was shimmering into dematerialization.

  But completing his transportation wasn't easily accomplished. On the Enterprise the Transporter's console lights flicked on, dimmed, flicked off, brightened again. Kirk, with Scott and young sociologist Lindstrom, watched them. When Sulu's figure finally collected form and substance, he was astonished to see it clad, not in its uniform, but in the shaggy homespun of the shapeless trousers and sweater that was the customary male apparel of Beta 3000's citizenry. He hurried forward. "Sulu, what's happened? Where's Lieutenant O'Neill?"

  Sulu's answer was dull as though something had thickened his tongue. "You . . . you are not of the Body."

  Kirk glanced at Scott. The engineer nodded. Speaking into his mike, he said, "Dr. McCoy . . . Transporter Room, please. And quickly."

  It was with most delicate care and deliberation that Sulu stepped from the Transporter platform. He looked at Lindstrom and his face was suddenly convulsed with fury. He lifted the bundled uniform he held under an arm—and lifting it up, he shook it furiously at Lindstrom. "You did it!" he shouted. "They knew we were Archons! These are the clothes Archons wear! Not these, not these—" he gestured to his own rough clothing. Then he hurled the uniform at Lindstrom.

  Kirk said, "Easy, Sulu. It's all right. Now tell me what happened down there."

  Sulu staggered. As Kirk extended a hand to steady him, McCoy hurried in, medical kit in hand. He halted to stare. "Jim! Where's O'Neill?"

  Kirk shook his head for answer; and Sulu, tensing as though to receive a message of immense significance, muttered "Landru . . . Landru . . ."

  The sheer meaninglessness of the mutter chilled Kirk. "Sulu, what happened down there? What did they do to you?"

  The answer came tonelessly. "They're wonderful," Sulu said. "The sweetest, friendliest people in the universe. They live in paradise, Captain."

  Nor in Sickbay could McCoy elicit anything from Sulu but the same words, the same phrases over and over. He talked gramophonically, like a record damned to endlessly repeat itself. It was this repetitiousness added to his inability to account either for his own condition or O'Neill's disappearance that decided Kirk to beam down to the planet with an additional search detail. When they materialized—Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Lindstrom, and two security crewmen—it was alongside a house, a brick house that bordered on an alley facing a wide street.

  "Materialization completed," Kirk said into his communicator. "Kirk out." As he snapped it shut, he saw that Lindstrom had already edged out into the street and was examining it, his young face alight with interest and curiosity. They followed him—and at once, among the passing people, Kirk noted two hooded beings, cowled and in monkish robes who carried long stafflike devices. What could be seen of their faces was stony, as though any expression might divulge some secret of incalculable value. Their eyes looked dead—filmed and unseeing. One of the people, a man, shambled toward them. His smile was as vacuous as it was amiable; but Kirk took care to return his nod.

  As he moved on, Spock said, "Odd."

  "Comment, Mr. Spock?"

  "That man's expression, Captain. Extremely similar to that of Mr. Sulu when we beamed him up from here. Dazed, a kind of mindlessness."

  "Let's find out if all the planet's inhabitants are like him," Kirk said. He walked boldly out into the street, followed by his group. Each of the passers-by they met greeted them with the same bland smile. Then a young, biggish man with an empty, ingenuous face stopped to speak to Kirk. "Evenin', friend. Mah name's Bilar. What's yourn?"

  "Kirk."

  He got the stupid smile. "You-all be strangers." />
  Kirk nodded and Bilar said, "Here for the festival, ayeh? Got a place to sleep it off yet?"

  "No. Not yet," Kirk said.

  "Go round to Reger's house. He's got rooms." The oafish face glanced down the street at the clock in the tower of what might have been the Town Hall. "But you'll have to hurry. It's almost the Red Hour."

  The shorter hand of the clock was close to the numeral six. "This festival," Kirk said, "it starts at six?"

  But Bilar's interest had been distracted by a pretty girl, dark and slim, who was hurrying toward them. He put out a hand to stop her. "Tula, these here folks be strangers come for the festival. Your daddy can put them up, can't he?"

  Tula, her dark eyes on Lindstrom's handsome blond-ness, smiled shyly. "You're from over the valley?" she asked.

  Lindstrom smiled back at her. "That's right. We just got in."

  "Don't see valley folks much. My father'll be glad to take you in. He don't care where folks come from."

  "He runs a rooming house?" Kirk said.

  She laughed. "That's a funny name for it. It's right over there." She pointed to a comfortable-looking, three-story structure down the street—and at the same moment the tower clock struck the first stroke of six. A scream, strident, sounding half-mad, broke from the respectable-faced matron near by. A man, a foot or so away from Kirk, suddenly lunged at him. Kirk elbowed the blow aside, hurling him back, and cried to his men, "Back to back!" They closed together in the defensive movement. Then pandemonium, apparently causeless, burst out around them. Men were grimly embattled, battering at each other with bare fists, stones, clubs. A fleeing woman, shrieking, was pursued across the street by a man, intent, silent, exultant. From somewhere came the crashing sounds of smashing windows. Then, to their horror, Tula, twisting and writhing, opened her mouth to a high ecstatic screaming. Bilar rushed at her, shouting, "Tula, Tula! Come!" He seized her wrist, and as Lindstrom leaped forward to grapple with him, stooped for a stone on the street He crashed it down on Lindstrom's shoulders, felling him. McCoy, hauling the sociologist back to bis feet, cried, "Jim, this is madness!"

  "Madness doesn't hit an entire community at once, Bones—" Kirk broke off, for rocks had begun to fall among them. One of their attackers, aiming a thick club at him, yelled "Festival! Festival! Festival!" Froth had gathered on the man's lips and Kirk said, "Let's go! That house—where the girl was taking us!—make for it!"

  Bunched together, they moved down the street; a young woman, beautiful, her dress torn, grabbed Kirk's arm, pulling at it to drag him off. He shook her loose and she ran off, shrieking with wild, maniacal laughter. More rocks struck them and Kirk, wiping a trickle of blood from a cut on his cheek, shouted, "Run!"

  The bedlam pursued them to the door of the house. Kirk hammered on it. And after a moment it was opened. Kirk slammed it closed behind them; one of the three elderly men who confronted him stared at him in astonishment. "Yes?"

  "Sorry to break in like this," Kirk said. "We didn't expect the kind of welcome we received."

  One of the other men spoke. "Welcome? You are strangers?"

  "Yes," Kirk said. "We're . . . from the valley."

  The third man said, "Come for the festival?"

  "That's right," Kirk told him.

  "Then how come you here?"

  Kirk addressed the first man who had greeted them. "Are you Reger?"

  "I am."

  "You have a daughter named Tula?"

  "Yes."

  Lindstrom burst into speech. "Well, you'd better do something about her! She's out there alone in that madness!"

  Reger averted his eyes. "It is the festival," he said. "The will of Landru . . ."

  The third man spoke again. "Reger, these are young men! They are not old enough to be excused!"

  "They are visitors from the valley, Hacom," Reger said.

  In the wrinkled sockets of Hacom's eyes shone a sudden, fanatic gleam. "Have they no Lawgivers in the valley? Why are they not with the festival?"

  Kirk interposing, said, "We heard you might have rooms for us, Reger."

  "There, Hacom, you see. They seek only a place to rest after the festival."

  "The Red Hour has just begun!" Hacom said.

  The tone was so hostile that Reger shrank. "Hacom, these be strangers. The valley has different ways."

  "Do you say that Landru is not everywhere?"

  The second man tried to assume the role of peacemaker. "No, of course Reger does not blaspheme. He simply said the valley had different ways."

  Reger had recovered himself. "These strangers have come to me for lodging. Shall I turn them away?" Then, speaking directly to Kirk, he said, "Come, please.,."

  "But Tula, the girl!" Lindstrom cried. "She's still out there!"

  Hacom eyed him with openly inimical suspicion. "She is in the festival, young sir. As you should be."

  Uneasy, Reger said, "Quickly, please. Come."

  Kirk, turning to follow, saw Hacom turn to the second man. "Tamar, the Lawgivers should know about this!"

  Tamar's reply was gently equivocal. "Surely, Hacom, they already know," he said. "Are they not infallible?"

  But Hacom was not to be appeased. "You mock them!" he cried. "You mock the Lawgivers! And these strangers are not of the Body!" He strode to the street door, flung it open—crying, "You will see!"—and disappeared.

  His departure did not dismay Kirk. They were on the right trail. Incoherent though they were, the references to "Landru," to membership in some vague corpus, corporation, brotherhood, or society they termed the "Body" matched the ravings of Sulu on his return to the Enterprise. He was content with the progress they'd made, though the room they were shown into was bare except for a dozen or so thin pallets scattered about its floor. From the open window came the screamings and bowlings of the riotous festival and its celebrations. Reger spoke tentatively to Kirk. "Sir, you can return here at the close of the festival. It will be quiet. You will have need of rest."

  "Reger," Kirk said, "we have no plans to attend the festival."

  The news shook his host. He went to the window and lifted it more widely open to the uproarious hullabaloo outside. "But the hour has struck!" he cried. "You can hear!"

  "What I'd like to hear is more about this—festival of yours," Kirk said. "And about Landru I'd like to hear."

  Reger cringed at the word "Landru". He slammed down the window. "Landru," he whispered. "You ask me . . . you are strange here . . . you scorn the festival. Are you—who are you?"

  "Who is Landru?" Kirk said.

  Reger stared, appalled, at him. Then, wheeling, he almost ran from the room. Lindstrom made a move to reopen the window and Kirk said, "Leave it shut, Mr. Lindstrom."

  "Captain, I'm a sociologist! Don't you realize what's happening out there?"

  "Our mission," Kirk said evenly, "is to find out what happened to the missing Starship Archon and to our own Lieutenant O'Neill. We are not here to become involved with—"

  Lindstrom interrupted excitedly. "But it's a bacchanal! And it occurred spontaneously to these people at one and the same time! I've got to know more about it—find out more!"

  Kirk's voice had hardened. "Mr. Lindstrom, you heard me! This is not an expedition to study the folkways of Beta 3000!"

  Spock broke in. "Captain, in view of what's happening outside, may I suggest a check on Mr. Sulu's condition? What were his reactions . . . if any—at the stroke of six o'clock?"

  Kirk nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Spock." He flipped open his communicator to say, "Kirk here. Lieutenant Uhura, report on Mr. Sulu."

  "I think he's all right now, sir. How did you know?"

  "Know what, Lieutenant?"

  "That he'd sort of run amuck. They're putting him under sedation, sir."

  "How long ago did he run amuck? Exactly?"

  "Six minutes, Captain."

  "Did he say anything?"

  "Nothing that made any sense, sir. He kept yelling about Landru, whatever that is. Is everything all right down ther
e, Captain?"

  "So far. Keep your channels open. Kirk out."

  "Landru," he said reflectively—and moved to the window. The street scene it showed was not reassuring. To the left two men flailed at each other with hatchet-shaped weapons. Another, chasing a shrieking, half-naked woman across the street, vanished, shouting, around a corner. Bodies were scattered, prone in the dust of the street. A short distance down it a building was aflame; among the people still milling about before Reger's house, riots erupted unchecked, then subsided only to break out again. A big bonfire blazed in the street's center.

  Kirk turned away to re-face his men. "My guess is we have until morning. Let's put the time to good use. Bones, we need atmospheric readings to determine if something in the air accounts for this. Lindstrom, correlate what you've seen with other sociological parallels, if any. Mr. Spock, you and I have some serious thinking to do. When we leave here in the morning, I want to have a plan of action."

  The night did not vouchsafe much sleep. But the twelve noisy hours that moved the tower clock's small hand to the morning's sixth hour finally passed; at the first stroke of its bell, absolute silence fell upon the town. In the room of pallet beds, all but Kirk had at last sunk into sleep. Stiff with the tension of his night-long vigil, he moved among them, waking them. Then he heard the house reverberate to the slam of the front door. It was with no sense of surprise that he also heard Tula's hysterical sobbing. Lindstrom was at the door before him. Kirk put a hand on his shoulder. "Take it easy, Mr. Lindstrom. If she's taking it hard, you'd better take it easy."

  They found Tamar with Reger. The father, his face agonized, held the bloody, bedraggled body of his daughter in his arms. She twisted away from him, resisting comfort.

  "It's all right now, child. For another year. It's over for another year."

  Kirk called, "Bones! You're needed. Get out here!"

  As McCoy removed his jet-syringe from his medical kit, Kirk saw the look of anxious inquiry on Reger's face. "It will calm her down," he said quietly. "Trust us, Reger."