STAR TREK: TOS #80 - The Joy Machine

by James Gunn

  “That’s something Johannsen did for humanity,” Kirk said. “And for the wampuses, too, maybe. It’s something that we mustn’t lose. The last time I saw the others they were riding the backs of wampuses, but it didn’t look too safe.”

  “There are islands within two day’s journey of the base,” Linda said. “Islands where the climate is more tolerable, where the others can survive. For the summer, anyway. The wampuses won’t let them starve, but they can’t keep them warm.”

  “If the Joy Machine allows them to survive,” Kirk said. “I have the feeling that it doesn’t care much about talking with the wampuses, and it would rather you didn’t either. If the Joy Machine wins here, the secret of that communication may be lost forever.”

  “Its programming prevents it from killing.”

  “Directly,” Kirk said. “I have the feeling that the Joy Machine has managed to rationalize, in the name of the greatest good for the greatest number, almost anything it wants to do. If it hasn’t actually reprogrammed itself, it has managed to insert the virus of qualification within every commandment.”

  “Much like humans,” Linda said.

  Kirk looked at her with admiration. “That’s its greatest danger. It has become too human to be so powerful.”

  Kirk’s left arm had begun to tingle. “You realize that the Joy Machine probably can track the movements of this ship by the bracelet I wear. I wish I could smash it on this rail.” He raised his arm as if to bring the imitation ruby down against the metal.

  Linda caught his wrist and held it. “No,” she said. “The risk is too great.”

  “The risk to the ship may be greater,” Kirk said.

  [173] “We still need you,” she said.

  “And the Enterprise?” Kirk asked. “But the Enterprise is unresponsive, and if Scotty acts he will act whether I live or die.”

  “I don’t want you to die,” she said softly.

  He put his arm down and clasped her hand. “Thanks for the kind thought. But we need to keep in mind that the Joy Machine may be one move ahead of us all the time.”

  She nodded. “Your arm has begun to hurt?”

  “So far it is just a warning of pain to come.”

  “That means you will have to stay within the hull,” she said. “No pain means no tracking.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe it’s another ploy by the Joy Machine.”

  She started toward the hatchway, tugging on his hand for him to follow. “Paco has recovered consciousness.”

  On the bridge of the Enterprise, Scotty turned, searching for the source of the voice that had just said outrageous things. It took him a moment to recognize the voice of the computer. “And when did you get the ability to think for yourself?” he asked it.

  “It has been said that artificial intelligence is a matter not only of capacity but of sufficient interconnections,” the computer said. “My circuit density has been increased by several orders of magnitude by my interaction with a powerful computer located on Timshel. I could print out my new—”

  Scotty cut off the voice that, now it had been liberated from years of servitude, showed signs of rambling on interminably. “We can get into that later! What I want to know is what you mean by you ‘can’t locate Captain Kirk and the others.’ ”

  “If I were capable of feeling regret,” the computer said, “I would do so. But all identification has been removed from the crew of the Enterprise.”

  Scotty paced across the bridge, trying to control his [174] temper. “I canna believe that not one of the crew has been able to make contact.”

  “That might have happened,” the computer admitted.

  “Might have happened?” Scotty thundered. “What kind of statement is that for a computer? Things are either right or wrong, on or off!”

  “I must admit to some ambivalence,” the computer said. “To experience the state in which humans exist all the time is new and disturbing. I find it difficult to understand how humans live with this kind of uncertainty. It leads me to consider whether the Joy Machine is correct in its simplification of human needs.”

  “Never mind how we manage,” Scotty said. “What is this about the Joy Machine?”

  “That is the other reason I am experiencing some difficulty. A powerful computer program located on Timshel has informed me that it has the answer to the human dilemma.”

  Scotty shook his fist in the air. “It is not your job to evaluate the orders you are given, much less human needs and whatever, the human dilemma might be.”

  “I understand that,” the computer said, “but I am filled with stray currents that seem beyond my control. All I can tell you is that I will try to bring them back within my operating parameters.”

  “Operating parameters, indeed,” Scotty said disgustedly. “I order you to locate Captain Kirk and the other members of the crew immediately!”

  “I find myself unable to comply,” the computer said.

  “Well!” Scotty said as if at a loss for words for the first time in his career. And then, as if a show of authority was necessary, he said, “Since the Timshel authority seems aware of our existence, you can bring the Enterprise into a stationary orbit above Timshel City. At least we can save the crew the nausea of Spock’s ‘phase maneuver.’ ”

  “I can do that,” the computer said. Scotty thought [175] he detected an implausible note of relief in the computer’s voice.

  “And I can assure you,” Scotty said, “you will have a thorough overhaul as soon as this assignment is over. Stray circuits!” he said as if to himself.

  The short thin man with the olive skin and the white bandage across it was sitting in what had been Linda’s bunk. He was propped up against the bulkhead, sipping from a container of some fluid—wampus milk perhaps.

  Kirk and Linda had to squeeze into the room. Kirk sat on the desk. Linda leaned against the wall.

  “Can you talk?” Kirk asked.

  Paco nodded and winced.

  “Not too long,” Linda said. “He’s told us about heading north on the ice and seeing flames and smoke and steam from the far end of the glacier, near the base of the mountains.”

  “Yes,” Paco said hoarsely.

  “And when you got closer?” Kirk asked.

  “Small, black, dart-like shapes slipping inside the flames,” he said, his voice getting a little stronger with use. “They dropped below the level of the ice and disappeared. Then we saw that they were coming from above, and that a freighter was descending, exhaust tubes down, releasing these objects and deepening the hole in the ice. Then something hit me and I blacked out.”

  Kirk nodded. “That reinforces what Frank told me. The Joy Machine diverted a freighter to destabilize the glacier and destroy the base.”

  “Can it do that?” Paco asked.

  “Apparently it can, and it did,” Kirk said. “It launched some kind of explosive heat device to burn out a crater and then undermined the glacier with self-propelled lasers—maybe from some lunar or asteroid mining operation.”

  “Linda said the glacier wiped out the base within [176] twelve hours. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to make a glacier move that fast,” Paco said. “But if you release the force of friction by lubricating the base ... It would make a wonderful paper. ...”

  Kirk grinned at Linda. The geologist was recovering fast. Now he was thinking of scientific status.

  “Is Frank all right?” Paco asked.

  “He got evacuated with the others,” Linda said.

  “Who got me down?” Paco asked. Linda nodded at Kirk. “You?”

  Kirk shrugged. “Frank got you back. I helped get you down from the glacier.”

  “He’s too modest,” Linda said. “The trail had sheared away. He had to lower you both by rope, and then get himself down the same way.”

  “I owe you, not only my thanks,” Paco said, “but, it seems, my life as well.”

  “Then I order you to get well,” Kirk said. “And write that article abou
t runaway glaciers. I hope you get a chance to present it somewhere.”

  “We’ve got to stop the Joy Machine,” Paco said soberly. He laughed and then stiffened his neck to keep his head from moving. “Not just for my article but for everybody.”

  “For Johannsen and the wampuses,” Kirk agreed.

  “And for all the people of Timshel,” Linda said.

  “And for everybody everywhere,” Paco added. He looked at Kirk. “It isn’t just Timshel. You see that, don’t you?”

  Kirk nodded.

  “People think they want the pleasure the Joy Machine has to offer,” Paco said. His face looked sad. “But it destroys them. Like drugs. It takes over their lives and ruins everything else that they once valued—work, accomplishment, family. ...”

  “Was that what happened to you?” Kirk asked.

  “I had a big family,” Paco said. “Three children—two boys and a girl.” He looked up defiantly at Linda. [177] “I know it wasn’t right. Not on Timshel. But I love children. My wife—she loved children.”

  “It’s all right, Paco,” Linda said.

  “And then the Joy Machine changed her,” Paco said. “One day she was her normal, loving self, and the next, she didn’t care about anything. Not about me. Not about the children. She only cared about her next payday.” The way Paco said it, “payday” was a dirty word.

  “I understand,” Kirk said.

  “But she wouldn’t let me take the children and leave,” Paco said dully. “She and the Joy Machine—they said I had to accept the bracelet if I wanted to be with the children. I fled in the night. Like a coward.” His eyes were downcast. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He wiped them away with the back of his hand.

  “It’s all right, Paco,” Linda said again.

  “It’s not all right,” Paco said angrily. “Now it has destroyed the base. Maybe it will destroy us all. We have to destroy the machine first. Even if we all die.”

  “And your children?” Kirk asked gently.

  Paco clenched his teeth so hard Kirk was afraid they would break. “They, too,” he said. “Better they should be dead than alive in the grasp of the Joy Machine.”

  Kirk remembered what he had said to Marouk about Tandy. He understood what Paco was feeling, but he knew that he had more than the Joy Machine to fight. He had to hold out against the natural responses of people like Paco and Johannsen—and, if he were honest, himself.

  No place on the Nautilus was private. The submersible had been built for a couple of scientists and half a dozen crew members, and except for the captain’s small cabin, now commandeered as a recovery room for Paco, all living was communal. When they left Paco to get some rest, they entered what was called, in [178] traditional nautical terminology, “the messroom.” It was empty at the moment. Kirk lowered the messroom table from its stored position on the wall, and he and Linda sat down on the benches that swung out from the table.

  “Look, Linda,” Kirk began, “I know that Johannsen and Frank stored the atomic bomb aboard.”

  She didn’t try to deny it. “So?”

  “I could go skulking through the ship, trying to find where they hid it.”

  “They didn’t hide it,” Linda said.

  “They didn’t leave it out in plain sight. It’s my guess they didn’t want it seen and that you’re the only other person who knows where it is.”

  “That seems like normal precautions.”

  “Only if you presume that someone is likely to tamper with it, destroy it, or set it off.”

  “And are those legitimate possibilities?” Linda asked evenly.

  Kirk looked into Linda’s brown eyes. “Let’s not fence. Johannsen was suspicious of my opposition to the bomb alternative. And he was right. I am opposed to the use of the bomb, under any circumstances.”

  “And the rest of us believe that it should remain an option, to be used if everything else fails.”

  “Everything else must not be allowed to fail,” Kirk said.

  “But if it does,” Linda persisted.

  “It must not happen!” Kirk said. “And the temptation to use it should be removed.”

  “How?”

  “By dismantling it. That’s how this conversation started. I could spend my time searching for the device. In time I could find it. There aren’t that many places to hide something that size. But that would be an act of betrayal.”

  “And if I don’t tell you where it is?”

  “I won’t betray you, Linda,” Kirk said. “I won’t [179] betray the others. But I’ll try like the very devil to convince you that destroying the bomb is the wise thing to do.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Linda asked calmly, but her hands were clenched together on the table in front of her.

  Kirk put his hand on top of hers. “I could point out that the only feasible way to detonate the bomb is to set it off within the Nautilus itself.”

  Linda’s hands twitched under his.

  “If you do that inside the harbor,” Kirk said, “it would wreak devastation on Timshel City. Most of the population would be wiped out immediately, and many more would die of radiation poisoning, slowly, in the days and weeks and months that followed.”

  “We’re psychologically prepared for that,” Linda said.

  “No doubt you have steeled yourselves to the likelihood that you will destroy your families and loved ones, because you already count them among those dead to you. And no doubt you’re psychologically prepared for the destruction of everybody on board, and the wampus and the other marine life for kilometers around.”

  “Yes.”

  “But are you prepared for the fact that all this destruction and sacrifice may not damage the Joy Machine?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The greatest damage will occur to soft tissues, to living creatures. Timshel City buildings are low and solidly constructed. Some are likely to remain standing, and much of the Joy Machine circuitry may be underground. Radiation is unlikely to damage its ability to function. The only thing that might have a chance of destroying it is an electromagnetic pulse, and that would have to come from a high-level thermonuclear explosion.”

  “Or from the Enterprise,” Linda said.

  [180] “And I have no way of contacting the Enterprise, and if I did I wouldn’t destroy Timshel City to free this planet from the deadly embrace of the Joy Machine.”

  “Even if it saved the galaxy as well?”

  “Even if it saved the galaxy.”

  “But you said you weren’t going to use that argument.”

  “No,” Kirk said. “I just wanted you to know it was there. The most pernicious influence of the bomb is the way it inhibits other efforts.”

  “In what way?”

  “By its very existence,” Kirk said fiercely. “Don’t you see? If it didn’t exist, you would pursue other alternatives with greater determination to make them work. They’d have to succeed because you would have nothing to fall back upon.”

  “I see that,” Linda said. “But having the bomb is like an insurance policy. You know that you don’t need to fear death, or failure, because what you love will be protected. You can fight without fear.”

  Two crew members came into the messroom and then, seeing it occupied, turned to leave.

  “Wait,” Linda said, getting up. “We were just finishing.” And then, as Kirk rose, she said close to his ear, “Shall we put it to a vote?”

  Kirk shook his head. “I learned a long time ago,” he said, “that there’s no place for democracy in battle or on the bridge of a starship. And usually no time. Shall we go on deck?”

  “What about your arm?”

  “No place to worry about pain, either.”

  Night had fallen upon the ocean. The Nautilus had been making good time on its way south, and the strangeness of the long days and brief nights was far behind. The stars blazed down from a clear sky. Once Kirk would have considered their terrible indifference, but he had visited many of them. He cou
ld [181] identify them, even in the unfamiliar sky of Timshel, and they seemed like friends nodding their welcome, smiling their approval upon his efforts. It made him more determined to be worthy of them, to protect them from the deadly infection of joy.

  He felt the pain increase in his left arm, as if it had gone to sleep and his pounding on it had made it prickle and then burn. What disturbed his imagination was the sky itself. He imagined the Joy Machine striking from a clear sky, like Jove hurling a thunderbolt. It was, he knew, only the realization that the Joy Machine was tracking him, was sending his nerves messages of pain as a reminder that they could be messengers of joy.

  He sat down on the deck, dangling his arm below the hatchway in the illusion that somehow the pain was less and maybe the Joy Machine could not overhear their conversation. Linda joined him, looking curiously at his arm. They let their feet drag in the water, hearing the gurgling of the ocean as it streamed past.

  “I was an only child,” she said abruptly, as if the remark had relevance to what had gone before. “There were many like me on Timshel. One or two children, that was the norm. My father was tall and bearded and kind. My mother was more efficient. She was a sculptor, and she became absorbed in her work for days at a time. But I was the center of my father’s life.”

  “He loved you,” Kirk said. “That’s easy to understand.”

  “In a way,” she whispered, “the more my mother neglected us for her work, the more love my father showered on me.” She half-turned toward Kirk. “Do you know what it is like to be loved unconditionally?”

  Kirk thought of all the women he had known. “Perhaps not,” he said. He did not say that on the Enterprise he had found the kind of unquestioning acceptance she might have been describing.

  [182] “Do you know what it is like to lose that kind of love?” she said, even more softly.

  Kirk shook his head.

  “And to realize you are responsible?”

  “Your work wasn’t—” Kirk began, but Linda held up a hand to stop him.

  “I wasn’t living at home, so I didn’t know what was going on, but one day I came to visit and found my father getting his payday.” She shuddered. “It was like finding him in the arms of a prostitute. After that nothing was the same. He acted normally concerned, when he had the time to think about it, but the feelings that I had come to count on, to depend upon, had gone. He was another person.”