McCoy, now unable even to voice his questions, gawked at the first officer. Spock turned casually to Kirk. "There is one more thing which worries me, Captain."
"What's that, Mr. Spock?"
"The negative universe of Arret was an illusion. The world of Gypsy was an illusion. Both were part of a test originated by the Wanderers. Yet we have only their word for their own existence . . . the word of illusion creators. What concerns me, Captain, is . . . might not the Wanderers be only part of some greater illusion, some greater test?
"For that matter, how much of our universe is real—and how much an illusion, created by forces unimaginable merely to test us?"
"Mr. Spock," murmured Uhura, "that almost sounds religious."
Spock started to reply, hesitated, and finally said, "It may be interpreted variously, Lieutenant Uhura, but recent experiences tend to make one pause before disregarding anything. What do you think, Captain?"
Kirk looked at the viewscreen, which showed the globe of Gypsy receding into a vast, star-speckled blackness. "I think, Mr. Spock, that we'd better make the best we can of this universe—it's the only illusion we've got, and it's not a bad one."
He leaned back in the command chair and prepared to record the final log entry to the strange episode, then paused, reflective.
Was all life lived only in an illusion, or was his reality someone else's fantasy? Finally, he shrugged and activated the log. The entry he was about to make, detailing the journey to Arret and the subsequent encounter with the Wanderers, would be real enough to him, would form a real record from which someone else would have to make the final judgments. He smiled.
Anyone who read those log entries couldn't possibly dismiss them as illusion . . .
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
THE COUNTER-CLOCK INCIDENT
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
Star Trek - Log 7 Page 19