by 02(lit)
Then three security men appeared, and in a few mo-ments Spock was held fast. "I have to take the ship down!" he panted. "I don't want to! Help me! Help me!"
Somehow McCoy was on the scene now, and elbowing his way through the crowd, he gave the first officer a shot. Spock collapsed at once.
"Get him back to sick bay," Kirk said, "and this time, strap him down."
The security men carried him out, with Kirk and McCoy following. It was a grim procession.
"Well, Menen warned me," Kirk said. "He told me that if Spock meant anything to me, I should kill him."
"Now there's a tomfool notion."
"Don't worry, Bones, the idea doesn't appeal to me ei-ther. But we've got to do something to help him."
"Well, I've at least gotten a start on it," McCoy said. "Come on in and I'll show you."
In McCoy's office, the surgeon showed Kirk a jar full of transparent liquid. In the fluid, a long, almost-transpar-ent tendril drifted and twisted.
"It's a piece of living tissue of some sort," McCoy said. "Call it a tentacle. I took it out of Spock's spinal column an hour ago."
"Is that what causes the pain?"
McCoy nodded. "His entire nervous system has been in-filtrated by this stuff. And far too thoroughly for conventional surgery to remove. I don't know how to get it out."
"Then if the old man is right," Kirk said, "this tissue is responsive to directives sent out by the other creatures."
"Or is it the creature?"
"Explain."
"By itself," McCoy said, "this stuff is just undifferenti-ated tissue. No organs. And I'd guess the same for the individual creatures we saw on the surface. They didn't look like things, but parts of things. Put them all together and-well, I'm sure they wouldn't spell 'Mother.' But that's about all I'm sure of."
"Do you know why it resists a phaser blast?"
"It's mostly energy itself-nonprotoplasmic. That's why it can fly too. A phaser blast affects it about like a stream from a fire hose would us: knocks it down, stuns it, but that's all. Now let's go look at Spock and I'll show you something else."
Spock was lying strapped down and under sedation, under the diagnostic panel.
"Watch the left indicator," McCoy said. "It's a dolori-meter-registers the level of pain. Right now it's preset at the maximum tolerance level. But if I open a channel to Spock..."
He moved a knob. At once, the indicator rose nearly to the top of the scale and froze there.
"That's what he's going through," McCoy said softly. "It's as though he were being consumed by fire, from the inside out. No wonder the poor devils go mad."
"And no wonder," Kirk said, "that they come to think killing each other is an act of mercy."
As he spoke, the indicator began to drop, very slowly. McCoy stared at it. "What the..."
Spock opened his eyes. "Hello, Doctor," he said weakly. "Hello, Captain."
"Mr. Spock! How do you feel?"
"Unwell. But these restraints will no longer be neces-sary. Nor will your sedations, Doctor. I will be able to re-turn to duty."
"That's impossible," McCoy said.
"Spock, we've just seen what that pain can do to you," Kirk added.
"I regret my behavior," Spock said. "The pain greatly slowed my thinking. I did not even remember that we cannot set the ship down, on any planet. But I can con-trol the pain now."
"How?" McCoy demanded.
"I am a Vulcan; we are trained to use our minds. Pain is only another kind of sensory input, which a trained mind ought to be able to handle."
"You're only half Vulcan," Kirk said. "What about the human half"?"
"It is an inconvenience, but it is manageable. The crea-ture-all of its thousands of parts-is pressing upon me even now. It wants this ship. But I can resist. It is not especially pleasant, but I assure you there will be no dan-ger if you release me."
"The strongest mind in the world has to relax after a while," McCoy said. "If I put you on mild sedation.. "
"No drugs, Doctor. My mind must be clear."
"Mr. Spock, I need you," Kirk said. "But I can't take any chances. You stay here. Sweat it out for a while. If you can maintain control, then come back. Until then, do what the doctor says. That's an order."
Spock nodded. Then his face twitched and the dolori-meter shot up again. Closing his eyes, Spock whispered: "The mind rules. There is no pain. There... is... no ,.. pain..."
On the bridge, Uhura had a call waiting from Starfleet.
"Enterprise standing by, Commodore Anhalt," Kirk said.
"We've studied your reports of the situation on Geneva, Captain," Anhalt said. "We agree that the creatures, whatever they are, pose a clear and immediate threat to the area. It is our conclusion that, left alone, they would spread rapidly throughout that quadrant and perhaps farther. Can you tell us anything of the nature of the creatures?"
"Not yet. We're preparing to capture a specimen for analysis."
"Fine. But you are not on a specimen-collecting expedition, Captain. Regardless of the nature of the creatures, they must be destroyed-whatever the cost."
"Commodore," Kirk said, "there are more than a mil-lion innocent people on that planet. I may not be able to destroy the creatures without..."
"We are aware of that, Captain," Anhalt said evenly. "Your orders stand. We will expect your progress reports. Starfleet out."
The image faded. Kirk turned away from the screen to discover his first officer standing behind him.
"Spock, I gave you a direct order to stay in bed!"
"Until I was satisfied that I could maintain control," Spock said. "I am satisfied. So is Dr. McCoy."
"You're certain?"
"Absolutely."
"All right, then put your mind to work on this: How do I capture one of those creatures? They don't respond to the transporter any better than they do to phaser fire -and I'm not about to beam a man down there. I'd just beam back another casualty."
"Not necessarily," Spock said. "If the man's nervous system were already inhabited, there would be little or nothing further the creatures could do to him."
Kirk stared at him. "I see what you're getting at," he said, "and I don't like it."
"Captain, in the same circumstances, I do not think you would hesitate for a moment. I simply claim the right to do as you would do, if our positions were re-versed. I am the logical man for the job."
After a long silence, Kirk said: "It is so ordered. Be careful, and stay in constant touch with us."
"Of course, Captain."
Spock came back with two specimens-one of the creatures and a raving man. "I thought we would need somebody else who was already infected too," he said. "After ail, the main problem is how to get the creature out of the body."
Aurelan reacted with shock and despair. "That is Kar-tan," she said. "We were to be married, before the creatures came."
She would not stay to watch McCoy testing, and Kirk could hardly blame her.
"It's the same picture, only more advanced," McCoy said. "In effect, he hardly has a nervous system of his own any more. The tissue has taken it over."
"It seems that at least we did find out what happened on Ingraham B and the other planets," Kirk said.
"No doubt about it. But what do we do?"
Spock came in, carrying the transparent case with the creature in it.
"Here it is," he said. "At first glance, a unicellular creature of sorts-but actually part of a creature. Its own level of activity is so low it doesn't even affect instru-ments. Its tremendous power is the result of participation in the whole. What it resembles more than anything else is a huge individual brain cell."
"How do you know?" McCoy said.
"You forget, Doctor, the creature has infiltrated my own system. I am in constant contact with it. I find it most annoying."
"I don't doubt that," Kirk said. "But how do we de-stroy it?"
"I think we have a clue. You will recall Noban, the Denevan who flew into his sun. Ju
st before his death, he cried out that he was free-that he had won. Apparently the proximity to the sun destroyed the creature control-ling him."
"We already know they don't like light," Kirk said slowly. "But how do we expose them to light of that intensity? And what good would it do anyhow? A million of the creatures are inside human bodies."
"One was inside Noban's," Spock pointed out. "Some-thing drove it out. But we need take no chances. The Enterprise has the capacity to turn Deneva into a miniature sun-a ball of nuclear energy. They would not survive that."
"Surely not," Kirk said thoughtfully.
"Now hold on," McCoy said. "Are you seriously con-sidering this? Destroying a million people whose only crime was being victimized by these filthy things?"
"Our mission," Spock said somberly, "is to destroy the aliens-at whatever cost."
"Not at that cost! Jim, this idea is insane."
"These creatures are trying to spread out in the gal-axy," Kirk said. "And the Denevans are already building ships for them. Aside from the fact that I have been given an order, we do not have much time."
"I have an alternative," Spock said.
"Great God, man," McCoy said, "spit it out!"
"Clearly any radiation intense enough to destroy the creatures would also destroy the people. But I think the hint we took from the fact that the creatures like shadows is a false lead. Light is a medium to them, like water is to a fish; they may simply prefer certain frequencies or lev-els, as some fish prefer saltwater to fresh. But consider this: If you have a free energy flow that for some reason you cannot conduct through a wire, a wave-guide or any-thing else of that sort, how do you direct it? Or, if you wish, disrupt it? The agency must be something that is both common and intense near a sun, yet completely harmless to human beings; remember, Noban's parasite was destroyed before he was."
"I'm no physicist," McCoy said. "Is there such an agen-cy, or are we just playing games?"
"Certainly there is," Kirk exclaimed. "Magnetism!"
"That is what I had in mind," Spock said. "Of course, we cannot generate a magnetic field as intense as a sun's, but it may not be necessary." He paused as Aurelan and Menen came in, explained his idea again quickly, and went on: "We have your son to thank for this, Menen. But what particularly interests me is that his parasite was not forced out gradually by the gradually increasing in-tensity of the general magnetic field. Instead, insofar as we can tell, it was wrenched out quite suddenly. This leads me to suspect that motion is the key-that what happened was that his ship passed through the rapidly whirling magnetic field of a sunspot. That is an effect we can duplicate. If I am right, it will pull the creature out like pulling a tooth."
"But probably a lot more painful," McCoy said. "Maybe even fatally so."
"It did not kill Menen's son. The heat did that. In any event, we have no course available but to try. Since I am already infected, the logical thing to do is to try it on me."
"And risk killing you?" Kirk said. "Things are bad enough already."
"Captain, the strain of maintaining my mental barriers is considerable. I do not know how long I can continue. When my guards go down-as inevitably they must-I will go insane. I would rather die by the hand of a friend. Furthermore, if I am insane, I am in a position to do the maximum possible amount of damage to the ship."
"Isn't there another question?" Aurelan said. "Mr. Spock is only half human. Even if the experiment is suc-cessful, it won't be conclusive."
"I have to work with what I have," McCoy said.
"You have Kartan," Aurelan said. "My fianc‚."
They all looked at her in silence. When McCoy spoke, his voice was very gentle. "The risk," he said, "is extreme-ly great."
"If you don't find a cure, he will die a raging maniac," she replied calmly. "Do you think I want that?"
McCoy glanced at Kirk, who nodded without hesita-tion.
"All right," McCoy said. "Thank you. I'll do my best."
It worked nicely. The creature emerged from all sides of Kartan's body at once, as though he were being enclosed in a balloon, and then was torn to shreds under the whirling electromagnets. He was still under sedation, but the dolorimeter promptly declined to normal level, and his face was peaceful for the first time since they had seen him.
"Congratulations, Mr. Spock," Kirk said. "And now I want you on that table, as fast as we can get Kartan moved out."
"No, sir."
"Why not? I should think you'd be eager to be rid of it! You volunteered before."
"True, Captain, but since then I have thought of some-thing else. Do you realize that this leaves us just as badly off as we were before?"
Kirk frowned. Given the question, there was no need to explain it. There was absolutely no possibility of envel-oping the whole of Deneva in such a field; Deneva's own natural field would fight it, and the Enterprise lacked the power to win such an invisible struggle. Nor was there anything like time to treat a million people individually.
McCoy obviously had also chased the chain of reason-ing to its conclusion. "We are going to have to destroy the planet anyhow," he said harshly.
Aurelan straightened beside the sleeping Kartan. "Cap-tain," she said. "They're my people. I grew up with them. I loved them. I've lost my brother. I don't want to lose anyone else. But I beg you, Captain, do what has to be done. Give the order."
"A million people..." Kirk said.
"Don't you understand?" Aurelan cried out. "There's no hope for them! Their brains are on fire! They want to die!"
Kirk stood as if frozen to the floor. "Brains on fire," he whispered. "Brains on fire. That's it. That's the answer!"
"Yes, Captain," Mr. Spock said. "That is my conclu-sion also."
"What is?" McCoy said. "You gentleman have lost me."
"It's like this," Kirk said rapidly. "Spock has already likened this-this composite organism to a gigantic brain. All the evidence we have points in the same direction. The individual cells are mindless, almost lifeless. It's pos-sible, indeed it seems likely, that there is a central concentration of them somewhere. If we could kill that off..."
"I don't see that that follows at all," McCoy said. "The aggregate of the scattered cells could well be all there is to the brain, since we know the cells can communicate with each other. Why is it likely that there should be a concentration, too?"
"Because of the behavior of the creatures," Spock said. "They multiply uncontrollably until they overflow a plan-et. Not leave it-overflow it. The original central con-centration is left behind. Ergo, it must still be there- wherever it is."
"And all we know about that is that it's somewhere in the Orion sector," Kirk said. "Mr. Spock, could the computer extrapolate the spread of these creatures back-ward, so to speak, and at least narrow down the possibil-ities to an area we'd have some hope of searching in time?"
"Of course," Spock said. "But you have something bet-ter, Captain."
"What's that?"
"You have me. That is why I do not want the treat-ment yet. I am infested; I am aware of the creature-not just the part of it that inhabits me, but the entire creature. As we approach the central concentration, I will know."
"Are you sure?"
For answer, Spock pointed. "It lies that way," he said. "I know that already, even though it must be fifty parsecs away."
"Posts!" Kirk shouted.
As they approached the critical Orion sector, it grad-ually became evident that not only was Spock aware of the nucleus of the creature-it was aware of him, and in some way realized that it must not allow this particular cell of itself to come closer. The pressure on Spock mounted unbearably. Though he still performed his duties, the sweat ran constantly down his face, which occasionally was twisted by a grimace that seemed to have no connection with anything he was doing or saying.
"Better let us extract that thing now," Kirk said. "We're zeroed in on the planet There's no sense in your suffering any further."
"Sir, I would prefer to bear it just a
little while longer. The final test of the theory is what happens to me-or does not happen-when that nucleus is destroyed. If the pain continues, we will know that we were wrong."
"Without prejudice to your own wishes or your will power, Mr. Spock, are you certain that there's no danger of your running amok again?"
"The danger exists," Spock said levelly. "However, I am fighting it. And I do not see how we can forfeit this test."
"I hate to say so," McCoy said, "but I think he's right, Jim."