by 05(lit)
He took the hand gently but awkwardly. "The years have seemed twice as long," he said.
She bowed her head, silently accepting the compli-ment. Then she looked up, as if searching his face for something more; but there was nothing but his usual calm. He released her hand slowly.
"Mr. Sandoval," Kirk said, "we do have a mission here. A number of examinations, tests..."
"By all means, please attend to them, Captain. I think you'll find our settlement interesting. Our philosophy is a simple one: that men should return to the less com-plicated life. We have very few mechanical things here- no vehicles, no weapons-" He smiled. "As I said, even the radio has never worked properly. We have harmony here-complete peace."
"We'll try not to disturb your work. Gentlemen, if you'll come outside now..."
On the porch, he flipped open his communicator. "Kirk to Enterprise."
"Enterprise. Lieutenant Uhura here."
"Lieutenant, we've found the colony apparently well and healthy. We're beginning an investigation. Relay that information to Starfleet, and then beam down to me all the information we have on this last Omicron expedition."
"Yes, sir. Enterprise out."
"Gentlemen, carry out your previous instructions. If you find anything out of the ordinary, report to me at once."
The party scattered.
Dimont was the first to find the next anomaly. He had been raised in the farm country of the Mojave, and was leading cows to pasture when he was six, up at dawn and then working all day in the fields. It was his opinion, expressed to Sulu, that "they could use a little of that spirit here."
But there was no place for it. There were no cows here; the one barn hadn't even been built for them, but only for storage. Nor were there any horses, pigs, even dogs. A broader check disclosed that the same was true of the whole planet: there was nothing on it but people and vegetation. The records showed that the expedition had carried some animals for breeding and food, but none seemed to have survived. Well, that was perhaps not an anomaly in the true sense, for they couldn't have survived. In theory, neither could the peo-ple.
But they had. "I've examined nine men so far," McCoy reported, "ages varying from twenty-three to fifty-nine. Every one of them is in perfect physical shape-textbook responses. If everybody was like them, I could throw away my shingle. But there's something even stranger."
"What is it?" Kirk asked.
"I've got Sandoval's medical record as of four years ago when he left Earth. There was scar tissue on his lungs from lobar penumonia suffered when he was a child. No major operations, but he did have an appendectomy. But when I examined the man not an hour ago, he was as perfect as the rest of them."
"Instrument malfunction?"
"No. I thought of that and tested it on myself. It accurately recorded my lack of tonsils and those two broken ribs I had once. But it didn't record any scar tissue on Sandoval's lungs-and it did record a healthy appendix where one was supposedly removed."
Fletcher's report also turned up an anomaly. "The soil here is rich, the rainfall moderate, the climate temperate the year round. You could grow anything here, and they've got a variety of crops in-grains, potatoes, beans. But for an agricultural colony they actually have very little acreage planted. There's enough to sustain the colony, but very little more. And another thing, they're not bothering to rotate crops in their fields-haven't for three years. That's poor practice for a group like this, even if the soil is good."
It was like a jigsaw puzzle all one color-a lot of pieces but no key to where they fitted.
Then came the order to evacuate, direct from Admiral Komack of Starfleet. Despite the apparent well-being of the colonists, they were to be moved immediately to Starbase 27, where arrangements were being made for complete examinations of all of them. Exposed Starship personnel were also to be held in quarantine until cleared at the Starbase. Apparently somebody up the line thought radiation disease was infectious. Well, with Berthold rays, anything seemed to be possible, as McCoy observed wrily.
"You'll have to inform your people of Starfleet's de-cision," Kirk told Sandoval. "Meanwhile we can begin to prepare accommodations for them aboard ship..."
"No," said Sandoval pleasantly.
"Mr. Sandoval, this is not an arbitrary decision on my part. It is a Starfleet order."
"This is completely unnecessary. We are in no danger here."
"We've explained the Berthold radiation and its ef-fect," McCoy said. "Can't you understand..."
"How can I make you understand, Doctor? Your own instruments tell you we are in excellent health, and our records show we have not had one death among us."
"What about the animals?" Kirk said.
"We are vegetarians."
"That doesn't answer my question. Why did all the animals die?"
"Captain, you stress unimportant things," Sandoval said, as calmly as before. "We will not leave. Your arguments have some validity, but they do not apply to us."
"Sandoval, I've been ordered to evacuate this colony, and that's exactly what I intend to do, with or without your help."
"And how will you do that?" Sandoval said, turning away. "With a butterfly net?"
It was Spock who was finally given the key. He was standing with Leila looking out over a small garden, checking his tricorder.
"Nothing," he said, "not even insects. Yet your plants grow, and you have survived exposure to Berthold radiation."
"It can be explained," Leila said.
"Please do."
"Later."
"I have never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer on any subject."
She put a hand on his arm. "And I never understood you, until now." She tapped his chest. "There was always a place in here where no one could come. There was only the face you allow people to see. Only one side you allow them to know."
"I would like to know how your people have managed to survive here."
"I missed you."
"You should be dead."
She took her hand from his arm and stepped back. "If I show you how we survived, will you try to understand how we feel about our life here? About each other?"
"Emotions are alien to me..."
"No. Someone else might believe that-your shipmates, your Captain. But not me. Come this way."
She led him to an open field, uncultivated, with pod plants growing amid grass and low brush. They rustled gently in a little breeze.
"This is the place," she said.
"It looks like any other such area. What is the nature of this thing, if you please?"
"The specific elements and properties are not im-portant. What is important is that it gives life-peace- love."
"What you describe was once called in the vernacular 'a happiness pill.' And you, as a scientist, should know that is impossible."
"No. And I was one of the first to find them."
"Them?"
"The spores." She pointed to the pod plants.
Spock bent to examine them. At the same moment, one of the pods flew apart, like a powdery dandelion broken by the wind. Spock dropped his tricorder to shield his face as the powder flew up about him. Then he screamed.
Leila, frightened, moved forward a step, reaching out a hand to him.
"I-can't," he moaned, almost inaudibly. "Please- don't-don't..."
"It shouldn't hurt, not like this! It didn't hurt us!"
"I'm not-like you."
Then, slowly, his face began to change, becoming less rigid, more at peace. Seeing the change, Leila reached up to touch his cheek with gentle fingers. He reached out to gather her into his arms, very gently, as though afraid this woman and this feeling were so fragile that he might break them.
After the lass, she sat down, and he lay down beside her, his head in her lap. "See the clouds," he said after a while. "That one looks like a dragon-you see the tail and the dorsal spines?"
"I have never seen a dragon."
"I have, on Berengaria VII. But I nev
er saw one in a cloud before." His communicator abruptly shrilled, but he ignored it. "Or rainbows. Do you know I can tell you exactly why one appears in the sky-but considering its beauty was always out of the question."
"Not here," Leila said. The communicator shrilled again, insistently. "Perhaps you should answer?"
"It will only be the Captain."
But finally he lifted the communicator and snapped up the screen. Kirk's anxious voice sounded instantly. "Mr. Spock!"
"What do you want?" Spock asked lazily.
"Spock, is that you?"
"Yes, Captain. What do you want?"
"Where are you?"
Spock considered the question calmly. "I don't believe I want to tell you."
"Spock, I don't know what you think you're doing, but this is an order. Report back to me at the settlement in ten minutes. We're evacuating the colony to Starbase 27..."
"No, I don't think so."
"You don't think so what?"
"I don't think so, sir."
"Spock, report to the settlement immediately. Acknowl-edge. Spock!"
The First Officer tossed the communicator away among the plants.
It seemed to be their fruiting time; they were bursting all over the area now. Fletcher was caught next, then Mc-Coy, then Sulu and Dimont-and finally Kirk himself.
But Kirk alone was unaffected. As peace and love and tranquillity settled around him like a soggy blanket, he was blazing. His temper was not improved by the dis-covery that McCoy was arranging for transportation to the ship not of colonists or their effects, but of pod plants. Evidently a couple of hundred were already aboard. Hotter than ever, Kirk ordered himself to be beamed aboard.
He found the bridge deserted except for Uhura, who was busy at her communications board. All other instru-ments were on automatic.
"Lieutenant, put me through to Admiral Komack at Starfleet."
As she turned from the board, Kirk was shocked to see that she, too, wore the same sweet, placid expression as the others. She said, "Oh-I'm afraid I can't do that, Captain."
"I don't suppose," Kirk said tightly, "it would do any good to say that was an order."
"I know it was, Captain. But all communications are out."
"All?" Kirk reached past her and began to flick switches on the board.
"All except for ship to surface; we'll need that for a while. I short-circuited all the rest." She patted his arm. "It's really for the best."
She arose, and strolled away from him to the elevator, which swallowed her up. Kirk tried her board again, but to no effect. He slammed his fist down in aggravation.
Then he noticed a light pulsing steadily on Spock's library-computer. Moving to that station, he pushed the related button.
"Transporter Room."
There was no answer, but clearly the room was in use. He made for it in a hurry.
He found a line of crew personnel in the corridor lead-ing to the Transporter Room. All waited patiently. Every so often the line moved forward a few steps.
"Report to your stations!"
The crewmen stared at him quietly, benevolently- almost pityingly.
"I'm sorry, sir," one of them said. "We're transporting down to join the colony."
"I said, get back to your stations."
"No, sir."
"Do you know what you're saying?"
"You've been down there," the crewman said earnestly. "You know how beautiful it is-how perfect. We're going."
"This is mutiny!"
"Yes, sir," the crewman said calmly. "It is."
Kirk went back to tie bridge and to the communica-tions board. As Uhura had said, ship to ground was still operative. He called McCoy, and was rather surprised to get an answer.
"Bones, the spores of your damnable plants have evi-dently been carried throughout the ship by the ventilation system. The crew is deserting to join the Omicron colony, and I can't stop them."
"Why, that's fine," McCoy said; his accent had moved considerably south of the Mason-Dixon line, almost to his Georgia boyhood. "Y'all come right down."
"Never mind that. At least you can give me some in-formation. I haven't been affected. Why not?"
"You always were a stubborn cuss, Jimmy. But you'll see the light."
Kirk fumed in silence for a moment. "Can't you tell me anything about the physical-psychological aspects of this thing?"
"I'm not concerned with any physical-psychological aspects, Jim boy. We're all perfectly healthy."
"I've been hearing that word a lot lately. Perfect Everything is perfect."
"Yup. That it is."
"I'll bet you've even grown your tonsils back."
"Uh-huh," McCoy said dreamily. "Jim, have you ever had a real, cold, Georgia-style mint julep?"
"Bones, Bones, I need your help. Can you run tests, blood samples, anything at all to give us some kind of lead on what these things are? How to counteract them?"
"Who wants to counteract Paradise, Jim?"
"Bones-" But the contact had been broken at the other end. Then he headed back for the Transporter Room. He was going to get some cooperation from his ship's surgeon if he had to take the madman by the ears.
He found Spock in Sandoval's office, both looking lan-guidly pleased with themselves.
"Where's McCoy?"
"He said he was going to create something called a mint julep," Spock said, then added helpfully, "That's a drink."
"Captain," Sandoval said. "Listen to me. Why don't you join us?"
"In your own private paradise?"
Sandoval nodded. "The spores have made it that. You see, Captain, we would have died three years ago. We didn't know what was happening then, but the Berthold rays you spoke of affected us within two or three weeks of our landing here. We were sick and dying when Leila found the plants."
"The spores themselves are alien, Captain," Spock added. "They weren't on the planet when the other two expeditions were attempted. That's why the colonists died."
"How do you know all this?"
"The spores-tell us. They aren't really spores, but a kind of group organism made up of billions of sub-microscopic cells. They act directly on the central ner-vous system."
"Where did they come from?"
"Impossible to tell. It was so long ago and so far away. Perhaps the planet does not even exist any longer. They drifted in space until finally drawn here by the Berthold radiation, on which they thrive. The plants are native, but they are only a repository for the spores until they find an animal host."
"What do they need us for?"
"Bodies. They do no harm. In return they give the host complete health and peace of mind..."
"Paradise, in short."
"Why not?" Spock said. "There is no want or need here. It's a true Eden. There is belonging-and love."
"No wants or needs? We weren't meant for that, any of us. A man stagnates and goes sour if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is."
"We have what we need," said Sandoval.
"Except a challenge! You haven't made an inch of progress here. You're not creating or learning, Sandoval. You're backsliding-rotting away in your paradise."
Spock shook his head sadly. "You don't understand. But you'll come around, sooner or later."
"Be damned to that. I'm going back to the ship."
He could not remember any time before when he had been so furious for so long a time.
The Enterprise was utterly deserted now. Without any-body aboard her, Kirk had a new and lonely realization of how big she was. And yet for all her immense resources, he was helpless. It was amazing how quickly all her entire complement had surrendered to the Lethe of the spores, leaving him and no one else raging futilely...
Raging?
Futilely?
Wait a minute.
There were pod plants all over the ship, so there was no problem about getting a sample. He took it down to McCoy's laboratory, located a slide, and then McCoy's microscope. A drop of water on t
he slide-right; now, mix some of the spores into the drop. Put the slide under the microscope. It had been decades since he had done any-thing like this, but he remembered from schooldays that one must run the objective lens down to the object, and then focus up, never down. Good; the spores came into register, tiny, and spined like pollen grains.