But Mr. Cockspur never appeared. The curtain opened. Instead of the actor, a pastel cloud of fluffy poodles bounded onto the stage and scampered in a circle. Newland Rift followed, imposing in a white hakama and layers of white silk kimono. The puppies sat up in a line across the stage, their paws tucked beneath their chins, their little pink tongues lolling, their little white teeth gleaming. Jim wished he had sat farther back.
[219] To his utter astonishment, Rift’s act was every bit as entertaining as Lindy claimed. The puppies were as different onstage as Rift had assured him. They jumped through hoops, they barked in chorus and in harmony, they leaped over and under each other, they formed a six-layer pyramid, balancing delicately and precariously on each other’s backs. At the end, even Jim found himself applauding. Rift swept across the stage, followed by the puppies in perfect single file.
The performers came onstage to take their curtain calls.
Commander Spock stood among them. He had changed into a brown and gold velvet tunic, and he took his bows like a trouper.
All Roswind’s friends had gone to the vaudeville show, but Roswind had to wait for tomorrow’s performance because she had not been able to get a seat for either of tonight’s shows. It was all the fault of her new roommate; if Roswind had not had to take her shower in the locker room, she would have had plenty of time this morning to reserve herself a place in the theater.
Roswind returned to her cabin. Her new green roommate showed no sign of coming out of the shower. Roswind got angry, and then became concerned. Lieutenant Uhura had warned her not to scare the being into hibernation, so what had she done first thing? She stepped on her. Then she yelled at her. Roswind tried to convince herself that she could claim not to have bothered the strange being, but the marks of her toes remained.
The being’s superior was bound to call soon to ask why she had not reported for duty. Perhaps by then the bruise would have healed.
Commander Spock wore his brown velvet shirt to the second show, too. Onstage, he stepped inside the filigree glass box. Amelinda told the audience what she wanted them to see her do. The glass muffled her voice. He heard a metallic scrape as she drew a sword. She had borrowed Mr. Sulu’s antique saber, which was unmistakably real.
Spock prepared to disappear.
The box lurched into another spin, throwing him against [220] its side. A sharp pain pierced him, as if something had gone wrong with the illusion, as if one of Amelinda’s magic swords has penetrated his body. Spock fell—
In the audience, Jim felt the shudder of the Enterprise. He leaped from his seat as the emergency alarms sounded and raced toward the bridge.
He slid into his seat. Sulu, incongruous in velvet doublet and silk tights, followed close behind and took his place at the helm. Stars spiraled across the viewscreen as the Enterprise tumbled.
“Something ripped us out of warp-speed!” Commander Cheung said. “We’re back in normal space.”
Scott’s voice crackled through the chaos of the intraship channels. “Warp drive’s out, captain. What hit us?”
“Trying to steady our course, sir!” Sulu said. “I can only get about half power from the impulse engines!”
—and after a moment of silent blankness, Spock found himself on his hands and knees in the briefing room.
“Mr. Spock!” Amelinda knelt beside him.
“That was not, I trust ...” He had to stop to take a breath. “Not one of your more successful illusions.”
The alarms pulsed. Down the corridor, Mr. Rift’s puppies barked hysterically, and Rift’s deep voice rumbled soothingly. Spock stumbled to his feet and put one hand on the wall to steady himself. He still felt dizzy, but he had not been wounded by the magic swords.
“I don’t know what happened,” Lindy said. “It felt like somebody picked up the whole ship and threw us into a hole. I was afraid you were trapped in the apparatus—”
“I am quite all right.”
Lindy accompanied him into the corridor.
“Can you get where you’re going by yourself?”
“Certainly,” he said.
“I have to be sure everybody’s okay.”
“Do not be concerned about me.” He entered the lift.
She nodded quickly and hurried away.
“Bridge,” Spock said. The lift squealed. The acceleration, normally so smooth as to be nearly imperceptible, thrust the cage into quivering motion. Spock staggered but kept his feet.
Spock reached the bridge while the alarms were still [221] shrilling. He sorted information out of the reports streaming from the intercom channels. He went to his station. The gravity field fluctuated. Pathological phenomena gripped the Enterprise.
The ship had fallen out of warp-speed. He usually perceived the change as a perturbation in gravity and in the quality of light. This time it must have happened as he tumbled through the escape from Amelinda’s illusion. What malevolent violence could tear a starship from warp space and drag it back into the Einsteinian universe?
Captain Kirk peered eagerly at the viewscreen.
“Jim, you want to steady us down a little?” Dr. McCoy’s slow drawl came over the intercom. “Or I’ll have space sickness to deal with, as well as abrasions and contusions.”
“No gravity-wave sources in this sector, captain,” Uhura said.
“Mr. Scott!” Jim said. “I need steady power!”
“I’m doin’ my best.”
A powerful signal appeared. “Captain,” Spock said. “Anomaly, dead ahead.”
The Enterprise’s bucking and shuddering ceased abruptly. An eerie peace possessed the ship.
Jim unclenched his fingers from the arms of his seat. “Thank you, Mr. Spock. Maximum magnification, Mr. Sulu.”
Spock tried to match his readings to a planetary or stellar or interstellar or quasi-stellar object. He failed.
“Maximum magnification.”
An enormous curved surface filled the viewscreen, hurtling closer. Jim pulled back in surprise.
“Shields on full!” Jim said.
“It is several hundred thousand kilometers distant, captain,” Spock said.
“Lower magnification, Mr. Sulu. Drop shields.”
“My god,” McCoy said. “What is it?”
Jim had not even heard McCoy arrive. “Bones—any injuries?”
“Nothing serious, physically. A lot of concern about what happened.” McCoy waited. No one made any attempt to explain. “What did happen?”
“When we figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.”
[222] “Reducing magnification, sir,” Sulu said.
As Sulu decreased the magnification, the iridescent curved surface resolved itself into a sphere, a mammoth pearl. It receded farther and became one pearl among many. A webbing of silvery strands connected the spheres together, forming a cluster. The magnification decreased again. The construct shimmered, as if soap bubbles had collected to create a surface. Most of the bubbles were spherical, but some extended long translucent projections, like the spines on the shells of diatoms.
Jim watched in amazed excitement. The image on the viewscreen gave him a weird feeling. Though the magnification was decreasing, the object continued to fill the screen from edge to edge. As a result, it appeared not to diminish in size, but to expand as if it had no limits.
Its enormity became clear, then startling, then frightening.
Sensors and instruments forgotten, everyone on the bridge stared in awe at the immense structure.
Finally its limits came into view. Extraordinarily beautiful, it shone with its own light. A luminescent skeleton supported the soap-bubble skin. Patches and sparks and streams of light followed its branches and formed a webbed translucent pool above its center. At this magnification, the soap-bubble surface became a smooth and translucent pearl-gray skin stretched between the glowing ribs.
“It looks ...” McCoy said slowly. “It looks alive.”
“Anybody recognize it?” Jim said, and immediately regr
etted the levity. This was hardly a time for jokes, especially obvious ones; besides, the only laughter was a nervous titter from an ensign behind him.
“It does not belong to any member of the Federation,” Spock said.
“Thank you, Mr. Spock,” Jim said. He clenched the muscles of his jaw. The last thing he needed was to start giggling like a nervous ensign.
“Its diameter is ... nearly seven thousand kilometers,” Mr. Spock said.
“That’s half the size of earth!” Uhura said.
“Half the diameter,” Spock said calmly. “In terms of mass, of course, it would be much less.”
[223] “Captain,” Sulu said, “that structure isn’t on any charts. Also, the sensors were on long-range scan. They detected nothing. It wasn’t there a few minutes ago. It wasn’t anywhere within range a few minutes ago.”
“What are you saying, Mr. Sulu? That it moved here under its own power?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jim gazed at the structure. No energy source of the Federation’s technology could power a thing that size into warp space. If the Klingon Empire had discovered how to do it, would they keep it a secret? Maybe they would. But Jim thought they would announce it. Loudly.
“Mr. Sulu is correct, captain,” Spock said. “The sensors detected nothing—no approach of an unknown craft, no planetary body in our path—until after the gravitational perturbations that altered our course.”
“What did it do, Spock?” McCoy asked. “Appear out of thin air?”
“Certainly not, doctor. There is no air.”
“I was using,” McCoy said, “an idiomatic expression.”
Spock raised an eyebrow at the word “idiomatic.”
“A metaphor,” McCoy said. “It doesn’t really mean what it says.”
As Jim was about to interrupt, to try to keep McCoy from digging himself in any deeper, Lieutenant Uhura caught her breath.
“Captain, listen—”
A cascade of high-pitched song and low wails, thunderous rumblings and electric spatters of noise filled the air, calling and pausing and answering. Jim had never heard anything like it. The eerie scale, the alien combination of sounds, thrilled and disturbed him.
“I’ve never heard singing like it,” she said. “And it has no words I recognize. The universal translator thinks it’s random noise. The safeguards are routing the transmissions into storage—the translator can’t find a way to work with them. It’s ambient transmissions, sir—radio frequency energy, over a broad spectrum. It isn’t—it doesn’t seem to be—broadcasting a message toward the Enterprise.”
“Then we’d better introduce ourselves.”
[224] “Wait a minute, Jim,” McCoy said. “They aren’t even aware that we’re here—are you sure you want to tell them? Or it? We don’t know who they are, what their intentions are—”
“Before you decide to fear them, Dr. McCoy,” Spock said, “you might wait for evidence that ‘they’ exist. To gather such evidence, we must attempt communication.”
“What kind of evidence do you need, Mr. Spock? What does that thing look like to you? A little lost planetoid? The product of erosion? I know! The effects of magnetism on interstellar dust!”
“It is not impossible to imagine a natural process whereby such a structure might be created. It would be rather unstable, of course—”
“ ‘Not impossible’—only for a Vulcan! That thing was obviously created by a culture to which we might be nothing more than monkeys—or cockroaches!”
“Whatever their intentions,” Spock said, “we must demonstrate our goodwill.”
Bones has a point, Jim thought. The inhabitants of the construct—if they existed—might not have noticed the Enterprise. He could still turn, run, hide out, and repair warp drives and subspace communications. Then he could contact Starfleet, announce the possible discovery of an unknown sentient species ...
... And have Starfleet send another ship, with a more “experienced” captain, to take over his job.
“Hailing frequencies, lieutenant,” Jim said.
“Hailing frequencies open, sir.”
The alien cacophony faded to a background whisper. Jim hesitated. He had gone too far to stop. But he had no idea what to say. He had read all the accounts of interspecies contacts, he had studied the ones that had gone right and he had committed to memory the ones that had gone wrong. But no thread linked the successful ones, just as no thread linked the disasters.
“This is James T. Kirk, captain of the starship Enterprise. I represent the United Federation of Planets, an interstellar alliance dedicated to peace, to knowledge, to friendship between all sentient beings. Greetings, and welcome. Please reply, if you receive my transmission.”
[225] The background noise ceased.
Uhura scanned through frequencies that a moment before had hummed with energy. “Quiet on all channels, sir.”
“The silence would seem to be some evidence of intelligent intervention,” Spock said.
“Jim, at least raise the shields again!” McCoy said.
Jim chuckled.
“Dr. McCoy,” Spock said, “an entity with the power to move that construct would make short work of our shields. Raising them might be regarded as provocative.”
“Hailing frequencies, captain.”
“This is James T. Kirk, of the starship Enterprise, on a mission of peace. Please respond.”
The speakers remained silent.
“Nothing, sir,” Uhura said. “Complete silence.”
“Go to visual,” Jim said. “Simplest protocol. Black and white bit map, one bit per pixel. Give them the horizontal and vertical primes so they’ll have a chance of deciphering the transmission before next Tuesday.”
“Aye, sir. You’re on visual ... now.”
“Everybody look peaceful,” Jim said. Trying to appear relaxed, he gazed into the sensor. He rested his hands on his knees, palms up and open. The other people on the bridge faced the sensor and opened their hands. Aware of the irony of proving his peaceful intentions by opening his hands to beings who perhaps did not even have hands, Jim thought, You do what you can with what you’ve got.
“Sir, I’m getting a transmission!”
This was it; this was a first contact.
“Let’s see it.” Jim tried to keep his voice as matter-of-fact as Commander Spock’s, but he failed. His pulse raced. He took a deep breath.
Picture elements formed lines; lines built up to form a two-dimensional surface.
Jim whistled softly.
“My mother’s magnolias,” McCoy whispered.
A being gazed at Jim from the slightly blurred image on the viewscreen.
He had no way to estimate its size, but it possessed a humanoid shape of delicate proportions.
Its face was less humanoid, though it had two eyes, a [226] mouth, a nose. At least Jim assumed the organs to be analogous. The being’s jaw and nose projected forward, and its huge, luminous eyes glowed in its dark face. A structure like a mustache surrounded the nostrils and bracketed the mouth, but it was neither hair nor a longer outgrowth of the being’s short, sleek pelt. The structure was flesh, dark-pigmented and glistening. The being extended its tongue and delicately brushed the tip across the structure. What color it was he could not tell, for the transmission, like the one he had sent, arrived in black and white.
Outwardly calm, Jim struggled to maintain inner control. What he wanted to do was leap up and shout with glee.
“I am James Kirk,” he said, articulating each word with care. Translators functioned better for careful speakers than for mumblers. Perhaps, even though the Enterprise could not yet translate the new beings’ language, the beings could translate Standard. “Welcome to the United Federation of Planets.”
He spread his hands, offering them palms up to the being who gazed at him in silence.
The being did the same.
Then it sang.
The melody soared and dipped in unfamiliar intervals, reaching abo
ve Jim’s range of hearing, gliding below. The voice created several tones at once and sang in chords.
“Remarkable,” Spock said.
Jim had an idea. “Lieutenant Uhura ... Would you consent to sing it something?”
Mesmerized by the voice, she did not react at first. Then she rose and began to sing.
Jim recognized the melody, though he could not understand the words. In the lullaby Jim heard peace and beauty, endless rivers and ageless mountains. Uhura painted a picture with her voice. With difficulty Jim turned away from her and observed the being on the viewscreen.
The image had begun to take on color and detail. The being had turned a dark red, the land behind it gray-green. It stood some distance in front of a high wall built of great pearly spheres.
It’s inside, Jim thought. I’m seeing the shell from inside the ... spacecraft? Starship? The alien world?
[227] Uhura let the final note fade to silence.
“Thank you, lieutenant,” Jim said, wanting to say more, wanting to say, That was extraordinarily beautiful.
The being’s large, pointed ears rose from the sides of its head. The bristly tufts at their tips stiffened.
“A cousin of yours, Mr. Spock?” McCoy said softly.
“This is hardly the time for your feeble attempts at levity,” Spock said, his voice as cold as liquid nitrogen.
For once Jim agreed with Commander Spock. “This is not a good time for the two of you to argue,” he said.
The being raised and spread its hands.
A new image radiated onto the viewscreen, taking it over with intense colors and sharp detail.
Dark lines, center-streaked with light, formed the shape of the alien construct, spreading, curving up, curving in like some ghostly, skeletal ceramic pot. A tiny spot of light, a glass miniature of the Enterprise, hovered in the foreground. It moved toward the structure, sailing over it, into it, and among the glowing lines. It vanished.
“Can you give me a similar schematic, Mr. Spock?”
“Certainly, captain.”
“Lieutenant Uhura, transmit this to our friends.”
A rectangle in the corner of the viewscreen cleared. An image of the alien structure appeared, made tiny by perspective; in the foreground, the Enterprise hovered. The computer sketched the outlines, which remained as the rest faded.
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