by James Blish
"Not when one of my men is dead and two others have been turned into mindless . . ."
"Not mindless, Captain Kirk. The live ones are merely—controlled."
Spock and McCoy had made startled movements at the man's use of Kirk's name. They were noted. "Yes, we know you, all of you. Don't we, my precious?" He lowered a hand to stroke the cat.
"Who are you?" Kirk demanded. "Why did you bring us here?"
The bearded mouth smiled. "My name is Korob. As for bringing you here, you insisted upon coming. You were warned away from here."
"For what reason?" Kirk waved a hand that embraced all the mystic trappings of the room and the man. "What is all this—farce about?"
"Farce? I assure you, it is not that, Captain."
Spock spoke. "Clearly, you are unfamiliar with your planet, Korob."
The piercing eyes searched the Vulcan's face. "What did you say?"
"No life exists on your planet," Spock said. "Mapping expeditions have charted this solar system. Their scientific surveys prove that no life forms have ever lived where you appear to live."
The cat stirred, mewing. Lids lowered over the piercing eyes. "That we are not native to this planet is of no importance," Korob said softly.
"It's important to the Federation," Kirk said. "What are you doing here?"
"All in good time, Captain." The cat mewed again, and Korob bent his head as though listening to a secret message. When he raised it, he said, "You must forgive me. I have been an inattentive host. You will join me in something with which to refresh yourselves." Followed by the cat, he rose to lead the way toward the empty table.
"That cat—" McCoy said quietly.
"Yes," Spock said. "It reminds me of certain ancient Earth legends concerning wizards and their 'familiars'—demons in animal form sent by Satan to serve the wizards."
"Superstition," Kirk said.
"I did not create the legends, Captain. I merely repeat them."
Korob turned. "You are the different one, Mr. Spock. There are no colors in your patterns of logic. You think only in terms of black and white. You see all this around you. Yet you do not believe in it."
"He doesn't know about trick or treat," McCoy said.
Korob smiled faintly. "I see." He waved toward the empty table. "But, gentlemen, please join me at dinner."
Nobody moved. Scott and Sulu made a menacing move, Scott lifting the phaser. Korob held up his hand. They both backed up to stand stock-still again. "I had hoped you would be more flexible," Korob said, "but—" He raised his wand.
The green glow grew into a dazzle, dazzling as the crystal ball on the wand's end. The room and all its objects spun in it like dust motes. It blinded Kirk. When he could see again, he, Spock and McCoy were seated at the table. A boar's head gaped in front of him. There was a platter of stuffed peacock. In the tables center a giant beef roast, browned to succulence, was surrounded by silver bowls of fruit, great plates of creamy cheeses. Massive candelabra refracted light on crystal wine decanters and golden goblets. As a display of medieval food and sumptuous service, it was a feast to be seen only by tourists who had booked passage in a Time Machine.
"How in the name of—" McCoy began.
"Not a trick, Doctor," Korob said. "A treat this time. Believe that."
"What do you want from us, Korob?" Kirk asked.
"For the moment, merely that you eat and enjoy yourselves. Please try the wine, Doctor. You will find it excellent."
"No, thank you," McCoy said.
Mewing, the cat suddenly leaped to an empty seat at the table, light glinting from the crystal pendant hung around its neck. Despite his refusal of wine, McCoy's hand reached for the decanter in front of him. He made a visible effort to pull it back—and failed. Kirk made a move toward him only to be slammed back in his chair by Scott.
"Bones . . ."
"He can't obey you, Captain," Korob said. "He will not be harmed."
Will paralyzed, McCoy poured wine from the decanter into his goblet. The cat, its crystal pendant shining against its black fur, watched steadily as he raised the goblet to his lips. He touched it with them—and the wine burst into vivid red flames.
Clearly alarmed, Korob raised his wand. The flames subsided, and McCoy dashed the goblet to the floor. It vanished, leaving a smell of smoke in the air.
The cat hissed.
Furious, Kirk said, "If you've amused yourself sufficiently, Korob . . ."
But Korob's eyes were on the cat. "That was not my wish," he said. "I—perhaps I can make proper amends."
The black wand pointed to the table's empty plates. They filled with gems, pricelessly exotic jewels come together in their multicolored glitter from the multiworlds of the galaxy—the ruby reds of what were not rubies, the sapphire blues of what were not sapphires but the alien treasures of an unearthly star system.
"They look genuine," McCoy said.
"They are, I assure you," Korob said. "That is a masgar, Doctor—a lorinium—a pavonite. There is a fortune for each of you in the richest gems of the galaxy if you will leave here without further query."
"We are not ready to leave here," Kirk said quietly.
"Captain, you are a stubborn and unreasonable man. However, you have passed the tests."
"Tests?" McCoy queried.
Korob nodded. "You proved your loyalty by coming here to rescue your comrades in spite of warnings to stay away. Your courage was also tested. I learned you couldn't be frightened. Now I've learned that you can't be bribed. I congratulate you."
The cat mewed. Korob patted it. "Quite right," he said. "Go at once." The animal jumped from the chair and was gone through the tapestried archway at the other end of the chamber.
Kirk got up. "All right. Now that you've tested our integrity, suppose you demonstrate yours."
"Gladly, Captain."
"Begin by explaining what you've done to Scott and Sulu. How are you 'controlling' them?"
"I cannot answer that question," Korob said. "But I have sent for someone who can."
That someone entered, a tall, slim woman. Her black hair, parted in the center above her aquiline features, fell below her waist. Perhaps it was her high cheekbones that gave her green eyes an oblique look. On the breast of her red gown she wore a crystal pendant like the one they had seen on the cat.
Korob said, "This is my colleague, Sylvia."
As she approached Kirk, he became conscious of her remarkable grace. Bowing slightly, she said, "Captain Kirk, I understand you want to know what we did to your men. We probed their minds. For us it is a simple matter to probe the minds of creatures like yourself."
"Hypnosis?" Spock asked.
She ignored him to move to McCoy. As she did so, she said, "Our methods go a little deeper than hypnosis." McCoy made no comment. Eyes held by the glowing pendant, he had gone suddenly rigid, unblinking. She smiled at him. "Let me tell you what you said of the man Jackson who was returned to your ship. You said, "There's no sign of any injury . . . no organic damage, internal or external. The man simply froze to death.'"
"How do you know that?" Kirk was watching her closely.
The green eyes turned to him. "You like to think of yourselves as complex creatures, Captain, but you are flawed. Your minds have many doors. Most of them are left unguarded. We enter your minds through those unguarded doors."
"Telepathy?" Spock suggested.
This time she answered him. "Not entirely. Telepathy does not include control. And I assure you, I am in full control of your friends."
Abruptly, Kirk lost patience with the charming lady and her conversation. Moving swiftly, he shoved his heavy chair back into Scott. Scott stumbled, losing his guard stance behind the chair. He lost his phaser, too; Kirk grabbed it from him all in that same swift, unexpected movement. Scott, recovering his balance, lunged. Kirk leveled the phaser at him. He backed up, and the phaser swung around to cover all of them—Sylvia, Korob, Sulu, Scott.
"Don't move—any of you!" Kirk said.
>
McCoy relaxed. His eyes blinked. Kirk motioned Scott and Sulu over to Korob, the phaser steady in his hand. "No more hocus-pocus!" he said. "Korob, I want our other weapons and our equipment. I want them now. I also want some answers—real ones."
Sylvia said, "Put that weapon down, Captain."
Kirk laughed. The green eyes didn't flash with anger. They merely regarded him appraisingly. Then, reaching a hand into a pocket slit in her gown, Sylvia withdrew from it what appeared to be a small silver toy. She left Kirk to go to Spock and McCoy.
"Do you recognize this?" she asked them.
"It looks like a miniature model of the Enterprise" McCoy said.
"No. In a sense it is the Enterprise."
Frowning, Spock said, "Where did you get it?"
"From the minds of your two crew members. I absorbed then: knowledge of the ship."
"With what purpose in your mind?" Spock asked.
She moved to the table where the huge candelabra held its tall, lit candles. "In the mythology of your race," she said, "this is called 'sympathetic magic,' Captain. One may call it what one chooses. It is an interesting tool."
Kirk, still holding the phaser on Korob, spoke over his shoulder. "Lady," he said, "that won't do as an explanation."
Spock's face had grown grave. He watched her intently as she stood at the table, the candlelight throwing come-and-go shadows across her face. "Jackson," she said, "you all wondered why he froze to death in a moderate climate. How is this explanation, Captain? I made an exact image of him. Then I froze the image. When I knew it was frozen, he died."
"Rubbish!" Kirk said. "You can't think a man to death!"
"Your communicator is in the pocket of Korob's robe, Captain. Please take it."
He hesitated a moment before he obeyed. As he turned, he saw that she was holding the toy model of Enterprise about six inches above a candle flame. "Signal your ship," she said.
He clicked the communicator open. Uneasy in spite of himself, he realized that she had lowered the silver model closer to the candle flame.
Korob said, "Sylvia—don't . . ."
The model sank closer to the candle flame; and Kirk spoke hastily into the communicator. "Kirk to Enterprise! Enterprise, come in, please. Kirk here. Come in . . ."
"Captain, it's you!" It was Uhura's voice but there was desperation in it. "Where are you? We can't. . ."
"Never mind us. What's happening up there?"
"Something's—gone wrong with the temperature control. We—can't locate it. The heat has risen—sixty degrees in the past thirty seconds. The Enterprise is burning up, sir . . ."
"Beef up the refrigerator units, Lieutenant!"
The voice came more weakly now. "We did, sir—but they're—breaking down . . ."
Kirk, visualizing his Starship, saw it streaking through space like a comet on fire. He imagined Uhura and Farrell, hanging onto their posts, gasping for air, their uniforms sweat drenched. "The heat will go," he said. "I'll take care of it, Lieutenant."
He snapped off the communicator, walked over to Korob and returned it to him. "All right," he told Sylvia. "You can stop it now." He handed the phaser, too, to Korob.
She removed the little ship from the flame.
"Now that you've seen our science," Korob said, "perhaps you'd better tell us something of yours."
"I'd rather know more about yours," Kirk said. "First you call it magic. Now it's science. Which is it?"
"What would you call it, Captain?"
"Transmutation—telekinesis. You seem to have a strange ability, not just to change the molecular structure of objects, but to move them from point to point by merely willing it. What could you want with our comparatively clumsy science?"
"Ours requires machines, matter, energy, chemicals," Spock added. "Compared with your techniques, it is imperfect and cumbersome. Then why is it important to you?"
"There are things you know that we do not. We can alter the molecular structure of matter. But you can release the energy within it."
"Korob! You talk too much!" Sylvia snapped. Recovering herself, she went on, "Besides, you three are not so specialized as those two." She indicated the motionless figures of Scott and Sulu. "That one thinks only of machines. The other's mind is full of trivia, thoughts about his collections, the physical exertions he calls exercises. But in your minds is an accumulated knowledge of worlds, of this galaxy."
"If so, in our minds is where the knowledge stays," Kirk said.
"You have used Scott and Sulu as catspaws," McCoy said. "You used them to lure us down here. How did you know we'd come?"
"They knew you'd come," Korob smiled.
"Enough of this," Sylvia said impatiently. "You will tell us what we want to know, one way or another!"
"It's a little late for threats," Kirk said. "I contacted my ship, remember? How long do you think it'll be before there's another landing party here?"
"Quite some time," Korob said. He touched the tiny ship on the table with the crystal ball of his wand. The now familiar greenish light glowed over it. When it faded, the model was encased in a solid block of crystal. "An impenetrable force field now surrounds your ship, Captain. It will not hinder orbit. It does, however, make prisoners of everybody inside your ship."
"I advise you to cooperate, Captain," Sylvia said. "Though it is simple to extract the information we want by forcible means, they are extremely painful. And they have a certain—draining effect." She waved a hand toward Scott and Sulu.
"We have nothing to discuss," Kirk said.
Korob turned to Scott and Sulu. "Take them back to their cell."
"Wait." Sylvia's green eyes moved over them, cold, icily analytical. "The Doctor will stay."
"Bones—" Kirk began.
"Don't waste your sympathy, Captain. You will be next. It really makes little difference." She turned, speaking sharply to Scott and Sulu. "Take the others away."
Korob handed Sulu the phaser. It thrust hard into Kirk's back as he and Spock were herded from the chamber.
This time his shackles seemed tighter to Kirk. His eyes fixed anxiously on the dungeon door, he moved restlessly in the chains, feeling them grind into his flesh.
"How long has it been?" he fretted.
"Twenty-two minutes, seventeen seconds," Spock said.
The question gnawing at Kirk burst out of him. "What are they doing to him?"
"Perhaps," Spock said, "the real question is 'what are they?' They've admitted they are alien to this planet. And I find their total ignorance of our instrumentality and science most curious."
Kirk gave him an interested glance. "They also refer to us as 'creatures,' as though our species were unfamiliar to them."
Spock nodded. "The fact that everything around us seems solid and real may not be the fact. Sylvia and Korob look humanoid. But they fabricated that food and the gems. They may also have fabricated the way they appear to us. Suppose they are not biped humanoids? Suppose they've just drawn all this from the subconscious minds of Scott and Sulu?"
Kirk frowned. "Scotty and Sulu are responsible men. They are not prone to superstition." He paused to digest Spock's speculations. "But Scott, it's true, does have a heritage that includes castles, dungeons and witches in its lore. And Sulu—Oriental folk tales also admit the influence of ghosts and spirits."
"Children are still fond of ghost stories, Captain. Even I grew up with a knowledge of them, much to my father's dismay. Perhaps we are all subconsciously afraid of dark rooms, of spectral visions—and this is what these aliens are using to try and gain the information they want."
"But they don't want just our science," Kirk reminded him. "What they're after is knowledge about our worlds—the galaxy itself." He was about to add "Why?" when the key scraped in the lock of the dungeon's door.
It opened. Sulu, phaser in hand, pushed McCoy through it. He didn't resist the shove. He just stood there, unblinking, his face emptied of all human expression.
"Ah, Bones, Bones—" Kirk g
roaned.
But Sulu had bent over him and was unlocking his chains. Then McCoy shambled over to him. He jerked Kirk to his feet, and placing him carefully in line with Sum's pointed phaser, kicked him toward the open dungeon door.
Sylvia's method for making an obedient imbecile out of McCoy had disturbed Korob. As they awaited Kirk's arrival in the castle's great hall, he put his agitation into words.
"There's no need to torture them!"
"They resist," she said.
"You tease them! You promise them toys and then watch them scream in pain when they reach out to touch them. It amuses you!"
She shrugged. "And if it does, that does not concern you. I get the information I want for the Old Ones; and to get it is why we were sent here."
"You must stop!" Korob cried. "At least, let the pain be brief!"
"You cannot command me, Korob. We are equals."
"But not the same," he said.
"No. You are weak. I am strong. That is the reason I was chosen by the Old Ones to come with you. They suspect you of weakness. I am the one they—" She stopped at the appearance of Kirk between McCoy and Sulu.
Her lips moved into a charming smile. In the voice of a hostess greeting a distinguished guest, she said, "Captain, how nice to see you. I'm so glad you have come." The welcoming smile still on her mouth, she turned to Korob. "Leave us—and take those two with you."
Korob hesitated. Then, making Sylvia a formal bow, he picked up the Enterprise in its transparent casing—and left the chamber, followed by the listless Sulu and McCoy.
Kirk and Sylvia eyed each other. For the first time he sensed tension in her, a certain wariness as though she knew she'd met her match in strength. The smile he gave her was just as charming as the one that still lingered on her face. "What now?" he said pleasantly. "Do you wave your magic wand and destroy my mind, too?"
He didn't miss the involuntary start, she gave at mention of the wand. He also noted how her hand had lifted to touch the crystal pendant on her breast. "There's no real damage done to the mind, Captain, just a drain of knowledge and will."
"You don't call that damage?"