Star Trek 04

by James Blish

  He went over to the bed and lay down, ignoring her. It was not hard to sense her anxiety, however. Whatever her task was, she did not want to fail it.

  After a while she said, "Perhaps—if you asked me something I could answer . . ."

  He sat up. "How far can they control my mind?"

  "That's not a—that is—" she paused. "If I tell you—will you pick some dream you've had, let me live it with you?"

  Pike considered this. The information seemed worth the risk. He nodded.

  "They—they can't actually make you do anything you don't want to."

  "They have to try to trick me with their illusions?"

  "Yes. And they can punish when you're not cooperative. You'll find out about that."

  "They must have lived on the planet's surface once . . ."

  "Please," she interrupted. "If I say too much . . ."

  "Why did they move underground?" he pressed insistently.

  "War, thousands of centuries ago," she said hurriedly. "The ones left on the surface destroyed themselves and almost their whole world too. It's taken that long for the planet to heal itself."

  "And I suppose the ones who came underground found life too limited—so they concentrated on developing their mental power."

  She nodded. "But they've found it's a trap. Like a narcotic. When dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating, you even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit living and reliving other lives in the thought records. Or probe the minds of zoo specimens, descendants of life they brought back long ago from all over this part of the galaxy."

  Pike suddenly understood. "Which means they had to have more than one of each animal."

  "Yes," Vina said, clearly frightened now. "Please, you said if I answered your questions . . ."

  "But that was a bargain with something that didn't exist. You said you were an illusion, remember."

  "I'm a woman," she said, angry now. "As real and human as you are. We're—like Adam and Eve. If they can . . ."

  She broke off with a scream and dropped to the floor, writhing.

  "Please!" she wailed. "Don't punish me—I'm trying my best with him—no, please . . ."

  In the midst of her agony, she vanished. Pike looked up to see the creature called the Magistrate watching through the panel. Furiously, he turned his back—and noticed for the first time an almost invisible circular seam, about man-high, in the wall beside his bed. Was there a hidden panel there?

  A small clink of sound behind him made him turn again. A vial of blue liquid was sitting on the floor, just inside the transparency. The Magistrate continued to watch; his mental speech said, "The vial contains a nourishing protein complex."

  "Is the keeper actually communicating with one of his animals?"

  "If the form and color are not appealing, it can appear as any food you wish to visualize."

  "And if I prefer—" Pike began.

  "To starve? You overlook the unpleasant alternative of punishment."

  With the usual suddenness, Pike found himself writhing in bubbling, sulphurous brimstone in a dark place obscured by smoke. Flame licked at him from all sides. The instant agony was as real as the surprise, and a scream was wrenched from him.

  It lasted only a few seconds and then he was back in the cage, staggering.

  "From a fable you once heard in childhood," the Magistrate said. "You will now consume the nourishment."

  "Why not just put irresistable—hunger in my mind?" Pike said, still gasping with remembered pain. "You can't—do that. You do have limitations, don't you?"

  "If you continue to disobey, deeper in your mind there are things even more unpleasant."

  Shakily, Pike picked up the vial and swallowed its contents. Almost simultaneously he tossed the vial aside and threw himself at the transparency. It bounced him back, of course—but the Magistrate had also stepped back a pace.

  "That's very interesting," Pike said. "You were startled. Weren't you reading my mind then?"

  "Now, to the female. As you have conjectured, an Earth vessel did actually crash on our planet. But with only a single survivor."

  "Let's stay on the first subject. All I wanted for that moment was to get my hands around your neck. Do primitive emotions put up a block you can't read through?"

  "We repaired the survivor's injuries and found the species interesting. So it became necessary to attract a mate."

  "All right, we'll talk about the girl. You seem to be going out of your way to make her seem attractive, to make me feel protective."

  "This is necessary in order to perpetuate the species."

  "That could be done medically, artificially," Pike said. "No, it seems more important to you now that I accept her, begin to like her . . ."

  "We wish our specimens to be happy in their new life."

  "Assuming that's another lie, why would you want me attracted to her? So I'll feel love, a husband-wife relationship? That would be necessary only if you needed to build a family group, or even a whole human . . ."

  "With the female now properly conditioned, we will continue with . . ."

  "You mean properly punished!" Pike shouted. "I'm the one who's not cooperating. Why don't you punish me?"

  "First an emotion of protectiveness, now one of sympathy. Excellent." The Magistrate turned and walked away down the corridor. Frustrated again, Pike turned to study the mysterious seam.

  He found himself studying a tree instead. Around him, in full day, was richly planted park and forest land, with a city on the horizon. He recognized the place instantly.

  Immediately to his right was tethered a pair of handsome saddle horses. To the left, Vina, in casual Earth garb, was laying out a picnic lunch on the grass.

  Looking up at him, smiling, she said, "I left the thermos hooked to my saddle."

  Pike went to the horses and patted them. "Tango! You old quarter-gaited devil, you! Hello, Mary Lou! No, sorry, no sugar this time . . ."

  But patting his pockets automatically, he was astonished to find the usual two sugar cubes there. He fed them to the horses. The Talosians seemed to think of everything.

  He unhooked the thermos, carried it to the picnic and sat down, eyeing Vina curiously. She seemed nervous.

  "Is it good to be home?" she asked him.

  "I've been aching to be back here. They read our minds very well."

  "Please!" It was a cry of fear. Her face pleaded with him to keep silent.

  "Home, everything else I want," he said. "If I cooperate. Is that it?"

  "Have you forgotten my—headaches, darling? The doctor said when you talk strangely like this . . ."

  Her voice trailed off, shaken. Pike was beginning to feel trapped again.

  "Look, I'm sorry they punish you," he said. "But I can't let them hold that over our heads. They'll own us then."

  She continued to lay out the lunch, trying to ignore him. "My, it turned out to be a beautiful day, didn't it?"

  "Funny," he mused. "About twenty-four hours ago I was telling the ship's doctor how much I wanted—something not so far from what's being offered here. No responsibility, no frustrations or bruises . . . And now that I have it, I understand the doctor's answer. You either live life, bruises and all, or you turn your back on it and start dying. The Talosians went the second way."

  "I hope you're hungry," Vina said, with false brightness. "The white sandwiches are your mother's chicken-tuna recipe."

  He tried one. She was right. "Doc would be happy about part of this, at least. Said I needed a rest."

  "This is a lovely place to rest."

  "I spent my boyhood here. Doesn't compare with the gardens around the big cities, but I liked it better." He nodded toward the distant skyline. "That's Mojave. I was born there."

  Vina laughed. "Is that supposed to be news to your wife? See—you're home! You can even stay if you want. Wouldn't it be nice showing your children where you once played?"

 
"These—'headaches,'" Pike said. "They'll be hereditary. Would you wish them on a child—or a whole group' of children?"

  "That's foolish."

  "Is it? Look, first I'm made to protect you, then to feel sympathy for you—and now familiar surroundings, comfortable husband and wife feelings. They don't need all this just for passion. They're after respect, affection, mutual dependence.—and something else . . ."

  "They say, in the old days all this was a desert. Blowing sand, cactus . . ."

  "I can't help either of us if you won't give me a chance!" Pike said sharply. "You told me once that illusions have become like a narcotic to them. They've even forgotten how to repair the machines left by their ancestors. Is that why we're so important? To build a colony of slaves who can . . ."

  "Stop it, stop it! Don't you care what they do to me?"

  "There's no such thing as a perfect prison," Pike said. "There's always some way out. Back in my cage, it seemed for a couple of minutes our keeper couldn't read my thoughts. Do emotions like anger block off our thought from them?"

  "Don't you think," Vina said angrily, "that I've already tried things like that?"

  "There's some way to beat them. Answer me!"

  Her anger turned to tears. "Yes, they can't read—through primitive emotions. But you can't keep it up long enough. I've tried!" She began to sob. "They—keep at you and—at you, year after year—probing, looking for a weakness, and tricking—and punishing and—they've won. They own me. I know you hate me for it."

  Her fear, desperation, loneliness, everything that she had undergone were welling up in misery, deep and genuine. He put an arm around her. "I don't hate you. I can guess what it was like."

  "It's not enough! They want you to have feelings that would build a family, protect it, work for it. Don't you understand? They read my thoughts, my desires, my dreams of what would be a perfect man. That's why they picked you. I can't help but love you. And they expect you to feel the same way."

  Pike was shaken despite himself. The story was all too horribly likely. "If they can read my mind, they know I'm attracted to you. From the first day in the survivor's encampment. You were like a wild little animal."

  "Was that the reason? Because I was like a barbarian?"

  "Perhaps," Pike said, amused.

  "I'm beginning to see why none of this has really worked on you," Vina said, straightening. "You've been home. And fighting, like on Rigel, that's not new to you either. A person's strongest dreams are about things he can't do."

  "Maybe so. I'm no psychologist."

  "Yes," she said, smiling, almost to herself. "A ship's captain, always having to be so formal, so decent and honest and proper—he must wonder what it would be like to forget all that."

  The scene changed, with a burst of music and wild merriment. The transition caught him still seated. He was now on a pillowed floor at a low round table bearing a large bowl of fruit and goblets of wine. He seemed to be clad now in rich silk robes, almost like that of an Oriental potentate; near him sat a man whom he vaguely remembered as an Earth trader, similarly but less luxuriantly garbed, while on the other side was an officer in Starfleet uniform whom he did not recognize at all. All of them were being served by women whose garb and manner strongly suggested slavery, and whose skins were the same color as Spock's. The music was coming from a quartet seated near a fountain pool.

  Again he recognized the place; it was the courtyard of the Potentate of Orion. The officer leaned forward.

  "Say, Pike," he said. "You used to be Captain of the Enterprise, didn't you?"

  "Matter of fact, he was," said the trader.

  "Thought so. You stopped here now and then—to check things out, so to speak."

  "And then," the trader added, "sent Earth a blistering report on 'the Orion traders taking shocking advantage of the natives.' "

  Both men laughed. "Funny how they are on this planet," the officer said. "They actually like being taken advantage of."

  "And not just in profits, either."

  The officer looked around appraisingly. "Nice place you've got here, Mr. Pike."

  "It's a start," the trader said. Both laughed again. The officer patted the nearest slave girl on the rump.

  "Do any of you have a green one?" he asked. "They're dangerous, I hear. Razor-sharp claws, and they attract a man like a sensation of irresistible hunger."

  Up to now, the officer had simply repelled Pike, but that last phrase sounded familiar—and had been delivered with mysterious emphasis. The trader gave Pike a knowing look.

  "Now and then," he said, "comes a man who tames one."

  There was a change in the music; it became louder, took on a slow, throbbing rhythm. The slave girls turned hurriedly, as if suddenly anxious to escape. Looking toward the musicians, Pike saw another girl, nude, her skin green, and glistening as if it had been oiled, kneeling at the edge of the pool. Her fingertips were long, gleaming, razor-edged scimitars; her hair like the mane of a wild animal. She was staring straight at him.

  One of the slaves was slow. The green girl sprang up with a sound like a spitting cat, barring her escape. A man Pike had not seen before leapt forward to intervene, raising a whip.

  "Stop!" Pike shouted, breaking his paralysis. The green girl turned and looked at him again, and then he recognized her. It was Vina once more.

  She came forward to the center of the rectangle and posed for a moment. Then the music seemed to reach her, the slow surging beat forcing movement out of her as a reed flute takes possession of a cobra. She threw her head back, shrieked startlingly, and began to dance.

  "Where'd he find her?" said the officer's voice. Pike was unable to tear his eyes away from her.

  "He'd stumbled into a dark corridor," the trader's voice said, "and then he saw flickering light ahead. Almost like secret dreams a bored sea captain might have, wasn't it? There she was, holding a torch, glistening green . . ."

  "Strange looks she keeps giving you, Pike."

  "Almost as if she knows something about you."

  Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that the Talosians were baiting him through these two men; but he could not stop watching the dance.

  "Wouldn't you say that's worth a man's soul?" said the trader.

  "It makes you believe she could be anything," said the officer. "Suppose you had all of space to choose from, and this was only one small sample . . ."

  That was too much. Pike rose, growling. "Get out of my way, blast you!"

  He crossed the courtyard to a curtained doorway which he seemed to recall was an exit. Brushing the curtains aside, he found himself in a corridor. It was certainly dark, and grew darker as he strode angrily along it. In the distance was a flickering light, and then, there indeed was Vina, holding aloft a torch . . .

  The scene lightened and the torch vanished. Vina, her skin white, her body covered with the Talosian garment, continued to hold her empty hand aloft for a second. They were back in the cage.

  Vina's face contorted in fury. She ran to the transparency and pounded on it, shouting out into the corridor.

  "No! Let us finish! I could have . . ."

  "What's going on here?" another woman's voice' demanded. Both Pike and Vina whirled.

  There were two other women in the cage: Number One, and Yeoman Colt. After so many shocks, Pike could summon no further reaction to this one.

  "I might well ask you the same thing," he said numbly.

  "We tried to Transport down in here," Number One said. "There was a risk we'd materialize in solid rock, but we'd already tried blasting open the top of the lift, with no luck."

  "But there were six of us to start with," Yeoman Colt said. "I don't know why the others didn't make it."

  "It's not fair!" Vina said to Pike. "You don't need them."

  "They may be just what I need," Pike said drily, beginning to recover some of his wits. "Number One, Yeoman, hand me those phasers."

  They passed the weapons over. He examined them. What he fou
nd did not particularly surprise him. "Empty."

  "They were fully charged when we left," Number One said.

  "No doubt. But you'll find your communicators don't work either." A thought struck him. He looked quickly toward the almost circular panel he had found before. Then, suddenly, he hurled both phasers at it.

  "What good does that do?" Number One said coolly.

  "Don't talk to me. Don't say anything. I'm working up a hate—filling my mind with a picture of beating their huge, misshapen heads to a pulp. Thoughts so primitive they shut everything else out. I hate them—do you understand?"

  "How long can you block your thoughts?" Vina said. "A few minutes, an hour? How can that help you?"

  Pike concentrated, trying to pay no attention to her. She turned on the two other women.

  "He doesn't need you," she said, with jealous anger she did not have to force-feed. "He's already picked me."

  "Picked you for what?" Colt asked.

  Vina looked at her scornfully. "Now there's a great chance for intelligent offspring."

  " 'Offspring?' " Colt echoed. "As in 'children' "?

  "As in he's 'Adam,' " Number One said, indicating Pike. "Isn't that it?"

  "You're no better choice. They'd have better luck crossing him with a computer!"

  "Shall I compute your age?" Number One said. "You were listed on that expedition as an adult crewman. Now, adding eighteen years to that . . ."

  She broke off as Vina turned to the transparency. The Magistrate was back. The two crewwomen stared at him with interest.

  "It's not fair," Vina said. "I did everything you asked."

  The Magistrate ignored her. "Since you resist the present specimen," he said to Pike, "you now have a selection."

  Pike threw himself at the impervious figure. "I'll break out, get to you somehow!" he shouted. "Is your blood red like ours? I'm going to find out!"

  "Each of the two new specimens has qualities in her favor. The female you call 'Number One' has the superior mind and would produce highly intelligent offspring. Although she seems to lack emotion, this is largely a pretense. She often has fantasies involving you."

  Number One looked flustered for the first time in Pike's memory, but he turned this, too, into rage at the invasion of her privacy. "All I want is to get my hands on you! Can you read these thoughts? Images of hate, killing . . ."