by James Blish
"Working . . . In order of age: Leighton, T., deceased. Molson, E., deceased—"
"Wait a minute, I want survivors."
"These were survivors of the massacre," the computer said primly. "The deceased are all recent murder victims, all cases open. Instructions."
Kirk swallowed. "Continue."
"Kirk, J., Captain, S.S. Enterprise. Wiegand, R., deceased. Eames, S., deceased. Daiken, R. Communications, S.S. Enterprise—"
"What!"
"Daiken, R., Communications, Enterprise, five years old at time of Kodos incident."
"All right, cut," Kirk said. "Uhura, get me Mr. Spock . . . Mr. Spock, arrange for a pickup for the Karidian troupe, to be recorded in the log as stranded, for transfer to their destination; company to present special performance for officers and crew. Next destination to be Eta Benecia; give me arrival time as soon as it's processed."
"Aye, aye, sir. What about the synthetic food samples we were supposed to pick up from Dr. Leighton?"
"There aren't any, Mr. Spock," Kirk said shortly.
"That fact will have to be noted, too. Diverting a starship—"
"Is a serious business. Well, a black mark against Dr. Leighton isn't going to hurt him now. One more thing, Mr. Spock. I want the privacy of the Karidian company totally respected. They can have the freedom of the ship within the limits of regulations, but their quarters are off limits. Pass it on to all hands."
"Yes, sir." There was no emotion in Spock's voice; but then, there never was.
"Finally, Mr. Spock, reference Lt. Robert Daiken, in Communications. Please have him transferred to Engineering."
"Sir," Spock said, "he came up from Engineering."
"I'm aware of that. I'm sending him back. He needs more experience."
"Sir, may I suggest a further explanation? He's bound to consider this transfer a disciplinary action."
"I can't help that," Kirk said curtly. "Execute. And notify me when the Karidians come aboard."
He paused and looked up at the ceiling, at last unable to resist a rather grim smile. "I think," he said, "I shall be taking the young lady on a guided tour of the ship."
There was quite a long silence. Then Spock said neutrally:
"As you wish, sir."
At this hour, the engine room was empty, and silent except for the low throbbing of the great thrust units; the Enterprise was driving. Lenore looked around, and then smiled at Kirk.
"Did you order the soft lights especially for the occasion?" she said.
"I'd like to be able to say yes," Kirk said. "However, we try to duplicate conditions of night and day as much as possible. Human beings have a built-in diurnal rhythm; we try to adjust to it." He gestured at the hulking drivers. "You find this interesting?"
"Oh yes . . . All that power, and all under such complete control. Are you like that, Captain?"
"I hope I'm more of a man than a machine," he said.
"An intriguing combination of both. The power's at your command; but the decisions—"
"—come from a very human source."
"Are you sure?" she said. "Exceptional, yes; but human?"
Kirk said softly, "You can count on it."
There was a sound of footsteps behind them. Kirk turned reluctantly. It was Yeoman Rand, looking in this light peculiarly soft and blonde despite her uniform—and despite a rather severe expression. She held out an envelope.
"Excuse me, sir," she said. "Mr. Spock thought you ought to have this at once."
"Quite so. Thank you." Kirk pocketed the envelope. "That will be all."
"Very good, sir." The girl left without batting an eyelash. Lenore watched her go, seemingly somewhat amused.
"A lovely girl," she said.
"And very efficient."
"Now there's a subject, Captain. Tell me about the women in your world. Has the machine changed them? Made them, well, just people, instead of women?"
"Not at all," Kirk said. "On this ship they have the same duties and functions as the men. They compete equally, and get no special privileges. But they're still women."
"I can see that. Especially the one who just left. So pretty. I'm afraid she didn't like me."
"Nonsense," Kirk said, rather more bluffly than he had intended. "You're imagining things. Yeoman Rand is all business."
Lenore looked down. "You are human, after all. Captain of a starship, and yet you know so little about women. Still I can hardly blame her."
"Human nature hasn't changed," Kirk said. "Grown, perhaps, expanded . . . but not changed."
"That's a comfort. To know that people can still feel, build a private dream, fall in love . . . all that, and power too! Like Caesar—and Cleopatra."
She was moving steadily closer, by very small degrees. Kirk waited a moment, and then took her in his arms.
The kiss was warm and lingering. She was the first to draw out of it, looking up into his eyes, her expression half sultry, half mocking.
"I had to know," she whispered against the power hum. "I never kissed a Caesar before."
"A rehearsal, Miss Karidian?"
"A performance, Captain."
They kissed again, hard. Something crackled against Kirk's breast. After what seemed to be all too short awhile, he took her by the shoulders and pushed her gently away—not very far.
"Don't stop."
"I'm not stopping, Lenore. But I'd better see what it was that Spock thought was so important. He had orders not to know where I was."
"I see," she said, her voice taking on a slight edge. "Starship captains tell before they kiss. Well, go ahead and look at your note."
Kirk pulled out the envelope and ripped it open. The message was brief, pointed, very Spock-like. It said:
SHIP'S OFFICER DAIKEN POISONED, CONDITION SERIOUS. DR. McCOY ANALYZING FOR CAUSE AND ANTIDOTE, REQUESTS YOUR PRESENCE.
SPOCK
Lenore watched his face change. At last she said, "I see I've lost you. I hope not permanently."
"No, hardly permanently," Kirk said, trying to smile and failing. "But I should have looked at this sooner. Excuse me, please; and goodnight, Lady Macbeth,."
Spock and McCoy were in the sick bay when Kirk arrived. Daiken was on the table, leads running from his still, sweating form to the body function panel, which seemed to be quietly going crazy. Kirk flashed a glance over the panel, but it meant very little to him. He said: "Will he make it? What happened?"
"Somebody put tetralubisol in his milk," McCoy said. "A clumsy job; the stuff is poisonous, but almost insoluble, so it was easy to pump out. He's sick, but he has a good chance. More than I can say for you, Jim."
Kirk looked sharply at the surgeon, and then at Spock. They were both watching him like cats.
"Very well," he said. "I can see that I'm on the spot. Mr. Spock, why don't you begin the lecture?"
"Daiken was the next to last witness of the Kodos affair," Spock said evenly. "You are the last. Dr. McCoy and I checked the library, just as you did, and got the same information. We suppose you are courting Miss Karidian for more information—but the next attempt will be on you. Clearly, you and Daiken are the only survivors because you are both aboard the Enterprise; but if Dr. Leighton was right, you no longer have that immunity, and the attempt on Daiken tends to confirm that. In short, you're inviting death."
"I've done that before," Kirk said tiredly. "If Karidian is Kodos, I mean to nail him down, that's all. Administering justice is part of my job."
"Are you certain that's all?" McCoy said.
"No, Bones, I'm not at all certain. Remember that I was there on Tarsus—a midshipman, caught up in a revolution. I saw women and children forced into a chamber with no exit . . . and a half-mad self-appointed messiah named Kodos throw a switch. And then there wasn't anyone inside any more. Four thousand people, dead, vanished—and I had to stand by, just waiting for my own turn . . . I can't forget it, any more than Leighton could. I thought I had, but I was wrong."
"And what if you decide K
aridian is Kodos?" McCoy demanded. "What then? Do you carry his head" through the corridors in triumph? That won't bring back the dead."
"Of course it won't," Kirk said. "But they may rest easier."
"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," Spock said, almost in a whisper. Both men turned to look at him in astonishment
At last Kirk said, "That's true, Mr. Spock, whatever it may mean to an outworlder like you. Vengeance is not what I'm after. I am after justice—and prevention. Kodos killed four thousand; if he is still at large, he may massacre again. But consider this, too: Karidian is a human being, with rights like all of us. He deserves the same justice. If it's at all possible, he also deserves to be cleared."
"I don't know who's worse," McCoy said, looking from Spock to Kirk, "the human calculator or the captain-cum-mystic. Both of you go the hell away and leave me with my patient."
"Gladly," Kirk said. "I'm going to talk to Karidian, and never mind his rule against personal interviews. He can try to kill me if he likes, but he'll have to lay off my officers."
"In short," Spock said, "you do think Karidian is Kodos."
Kirk threw up his hands. "Of course I do, Mr. Spock," he said. "Would I be making such an idiot of myself if I didn't? But I am going to make sure. That's the only definition of justice that I know."
"I," Spock said, "would have called it logic."
Karidian and his daughter were not only awake when they answered Kirk's knock, but already half in costume for the next night's command performance which was part of the official excuse for their being on board the Enterprise at all. Karidian was wearing a dressing-gown which might have been the robe of Hamlet, the ghost, or the murderer king; whichever it was, he looked kingly, an impression which he promptly reinforced by crossing to a tall-backed chair and sitting down in it as if it were a throne. In his lap he held a much-worn prompter's copy of the play, with his name scrawled across it by a felt pen.
Lenore was easier to tape: she was the mad Ophelia . . . or else, simply a nineteen-year-old girl in a nightgown. Karidian waved her into the background. She withdrew, her expression guarded, but remained standing by the cabin door.
Karidian turned steady, luminous eyes on Kirk. He said, "What is it you want, Captain?"
"I want a straight answer to a straight question," Kirk said. "And I promise you this: You won't be harmed aboard this ship, and you'll be dealt with fairly when you leave it."
Karidian only nodded, as if he had expected nothing else. He was certainly intimidating. Finally Kirk said:
"I suspect you, Mr. Karidian. You know that. I believe the greatest performance of your life is the part you're acting out offstage."
Karidian smiled, a little sourly. "Each man in his time plays many parts."
"I'm concerned with only one. Tell me this: Are you Kodos the Executioner?"
Karidian looked toward his daughter, but he did not really seem to see her; his eyes were open, but shuttered, like a cat's.
"That was a long time ago," he said. "Back then I was a young character actor, touring the Earth colonies . . . As you see, I'm still doing it."
"That's not an answer," Kirk said.
"What did you expect? Were I Kodos, I would have the blood of thousands on my hands. Should I confess to a stranger, after twenty years of fleeing much more organized justice? Whatever Kodos was in those days, I have never heard it said that he was a fool."
"I have done you a favor," Kirk said. "And I have promised to treat you fairly. That's not an ordinary promise. I am the captain of this ship, and whatever justice there is aboard it is in my hands."
"I see you differently. You stand before me as the perfect symbol of our technological society: mechanized, electronicized, uniformed . . . and not precisely human. I hate machinery, Captain. It has done away with humanity—the striving of men to achieve greatness through their own resources. That's why I am a live actor, still, instead of a shadow on a three-V film."
"The lever is a tool," Kirk said. "We have new tools, but great men still strive, and don't feel outclassed. Wicked men use the tools to murder, like Kodos; but that doesn't make the tools wicked. Guns don't shoot people. Only men do."
"Kodos," Karidian said, "whoever he was, made decisions of life and death. Some had to die that others could live. That is the lot of kings, and the cross of kings. And probably of commanders, too—otherwise why should you be here now?"
"I don't remember ever having killed four thousand innocent people."
"I don't remember it either. But I do remember that another four thousand were saved because of it. Were I to direct a play about Kodos, that is the first thing I would bear in mind."
"It wasn't a play," Kirk said. "I was there. I saw it happen. And since then, all the surviving witnesses have been systematically murdered, except two . . . or possibly, three. One of my officers has been poisoned. I may be next. And here you are, a man of whom we have no record until some nine years ago—and positively identified, positively, no matter how mistakenly, by the late Dr. Leighton. Do you think I can ignore all that?"
"No, certainly not," Karidian said. "But that is your role. I have mine. I have played many." He looked down at his worn hands. "Sooner or later, the blood thins, the body ages, and finally one is grateful for a failing memory. I no longer treasure life—not even my own. Death for me will be a release from ritual. I am old and tired, and the past is blank."
"And that's your only answer?"
"I'm afraid so, Captain. Did you ever get everything you wanted? No, nobody does. And if you did, you might be sorry."
Kirk shrugged and turned away. He found Lenore staring at him, but there was nothing he could do for her, either. He went out.
She followed him. In the corridor on the other side of the door, she said in a cold whisper: "You are a machine. And with a big bloody stain of cruelty on your metal hide. You could have spared him."
"If he's Kodos," Kirk said, equally quietly, "then I've already shown him more mercy than he deserves. If he isn't, then we'll put you ashore at Eta Benecia, with no harm done."
"Who are you," Lenore said in a dangerous voice, "to say what harm is done?"
"Who do I have to be?"
She seemed to be about to answer; cold fire raged in her eyes. But at the. same moment, the door slid open behind her and Karidian stood there, no longer so tall or so impressive as he had been before. Tears began to run down over her cheeks; she reached for his shoulders, her head drooping.
"Father . . . father . . ."
"Never mind," Karidian said gently, regaining a little of his stature. "It's already all over. I am thy father's spirit, doomed for a certain time to walk the night—"
"Hush!"
Feeling like six different varieties of monster, Kirk left them alone together.
For the performance, the briefing room had been redressed into a small theater, and cameras were spotted here and there so that the play could be seen on intercom screens elsewhere in the ship for the part of the crew that had to remain on duty. The lights were already down. Kirk was late, as usual; he was just settling into his seat—as captain he was entitled to a front row chair and had had no hesitation about claiming it—when the curtains parted and Lenore came through them, in the flowing costume of Ophelia, white with make-up.
She said in a clear, almost gay voice: "Tonight the Karidian Players present Hamlet—another in a series of living plays in space—dedicated to the tradition of the classic theater, which we believe will never die. Hamlet is a violent play about a violent time, when life was cheap and ambition was God. It is also a timeless play, about personal guilt, doubt, indecision, and the thin line between Justice and Vengeance."
She vanished, leaving Kirk brooding. Nobody needed to be introduced to Hamlet; that speech had been aimed directly at him. He did not need the reminder, either, but he had got it nonetheless.
The curtains parted and the great, chilling opening began. Kirk lost most of it, since McCoy chose that moment to arrive an
d seat himself next to Kirk with a great bustle.
"Here we are, here we are," McCoy muttered. "In the long history of medicine no doctor has ever caught the curtain of a play."
"Shut up," Kirk said, sotto voce. "You had plenty of notice."
"Yes, but nobody told me I'd lose a patient at the last minute."
"Somebody dead?"
"No, no. Lieutenant Daiken absconded out of sick bay, that's all. I suppose he wanted to see the play too."
"It's being piped into sick bay!"
"I know that. Pipe down, will you? How can I hear if you keep mumbling?"
Swearing silently, Kirk got up and went out. Once he was in the corridor, he went to the nearest open line and ordered a search; but it turned out that McCoy already had one going.
Routine, Kirk decided, was not enough. Daiken's entire family had been destroyed on Tarsus . . . and somebody had tried to kill him. This was no time to take even the slightest chance; with the play going on, not only Karidian, but the whole ship was vulnerable to any access of passion . . . or vengeance.
"Red security alert," Kirk said. "Search every inch, including cargo."
Getting confirmation, he went back into the converted briefing room. He was still not satisfied, but there was nothing more he could do now.
His ears were struck by a drum beat. The stage was dim, lit only by a wash of red, and the characters playing Marcellus and Horatio were just going off. Evidently the play had already reached Act One, Scene 5. The figure of the ghost materialized in the red beam and raised its arm, beckoning to Hamlet, but Hamlet refused to follow. The ghost—Karidian—beckoned again, and the drum beat heightened in intensity.
Kirk could think of nothing but that Karidian was now an open target. He circled the rapt audience quickly and silently, making for the rear of the stage.
"Speak," Hamlet said. "I'll go no further."
"Mark me," said Karidian hollowly.
"I will."
"My hour is almost come, when I to sulphurous and tormenting flames must render up myself—"
There was Daiken, crouching in the wings. He was already leveling a phaser at Karidian.