by 05(lit)
Getting up again, he went through McCoy's hypospray rack until he found one of a dozen all labeled adrenaline. He sprayed the slide, and then looked again.
There was nothing there. The spores were adrenalin-soluble. He had found the answer. It was almost incredibly dangerous, but there was no other way. He went back to the bridge and called Spock. If Spock didn't answer...
"Spock here. What is it now?"
"I've joined you," Kirk said quietly. "I understand now, Spock."
"That's wonderful, Captain. When will you beam down?"
"I've been packing some things, and I realized there's equipment aboard we should have down at the settle-ment. You know we can't come back aboard once the last of us has left."
"Do you want a party beamed up?"
"No, I think you and I can handle it. Why don't I beam you up now?"
"All right. Ready in ten minutes."
Kirk was waiting in the Transporter Room, necessarily, when the First Officer materialized, and was holding a metal bar in both hands, like a quarter-staff. Spock took a step toward him, smiling a greeting. Kirk did not smile back.
"Now," he said harshly, "you mutinous, disloyal, com-puterized half-breed-we'll see about you deserting my ship!"
Spock stared. He seemed mildly surprised, but unflustered. "Your use of the term half-breed is perfectly applicable, Captain, but 'computerized' is inaccurate. A machine can be computerized, but not a man."
"What makes you think you're a man? You're an over-grown jackrabbit. You're an elf with an overactive thyroid."
"Captain, I don't understand..."
"Of course you don't! You don't have brains enough to understand! All you've got is printed circuits!"
"Captain, if you'll..."
"But what can you expect from a freak whose father was a computer and whose mother was an encyclopedia!"
"My mother," Spock said, his expression not quite so bland now, "was a teacher, my father an ambassador."
"He was a freak like his son! Ambassador from a planet of freaks! The Vulcan never lived who had an ounce of integrity!"
"Captain-please-don't..."
"You're a traitor from a race of traitors! Disloyal to the core! Rotten-like all the rest of your subhuman race! And you've got the gall to make love to that girl! A human girl!"
"No more," Spock said stonily.
"I haven't even got started! Does she know what she's getting, Spock? A carcass full of memory banks that ought to be squatting on a mushroom instead of passing himself off as a man. You belong in a circus, Spock, not a starship! Right next to the dog-faced boy!"
With this, Kirk stepped forward and slapped the livid Spock twice, hard. With a roar, Spock swung out at him. Kirk leaped back out of his way, raising the bar of metal between his hands to parry the blow.
It was not much of a fight. Kirk was solely concerned with getting and keeping out of the way, while Spock was striking out with killing force, and with all the science of his once-warrior race. There could be only one ending. Kirk was deprived of the metal bar at the third onslaught, and finally took a backhand which knocked him to the floor against the far wall. Spock, his face contorted, snatched up a stool and lifted it over his head.
Kirk looked up at him and grinned ruefully. "All right, Mr. Spock. Had enough?"
Spock stared down at him, looking confused. Finally he lowered the chair.
"I never realized what it took to get under that thick hide of yours. Anyhow, I don't know what you're mad about. It isn't every First Officer who gets to belt his Captain-several times." He felt his jaw tenderly.
"You-you deliberately did that to me."
"Yes. The spores, Mr. Spock. Tell me about the spores."
Spock seemed to reach inside himself. "They're- gone. I don't belong any more."
"That was my intention. You said they were benevolent and peaceful. Violent emotions overwhelm and destroy them. I had to get you angry enough to shake off their influence. That's the answer, Spock."
"That may be correct, Captain, but we could hardly initiate a brawl with over five hundred crewmen and colonists. It is not logical."
Kirk grinned. "I was thinking of something you told me once about certain subsonic frequencies affecting the emotions."
"Yes, Captain. A certain low organ tone induces a feeling of awe. There is another frequency that affects the digestion."
"None of those will do. I want one that irritates people-something that we could hook into the communi-cations station and broadcast over the communicators."
"That would of course also have to involve a bypass signal." Spock thought a moment "It can be done."
"Then let's get to work."
"Captain-striking a fellow officer is a court-martial of-fense."
"If we're both in the brig, who's going to build the subsonic transmitter?"
"That's quite logical, Captain. To work, then."
The signal generated by the modified Feinbergers and rebroadcast from the bypassed communicators went unheard in the settlement, but it was felt almost at once, almost as though the victims had had itching powder put under their skins. Within a few minutes, everyone's nerves were exacerbated; within a few more, fights were breaking out all over the colony. The fights did not last long; as the spores dissolved in the wash of adrenalin in the bloodstream, the tumult died back to an almost aghast silence. Not long after that, contrite calls began to come in aboard the Enterprise.
The rest was anticlimax. The crew came back, the colonists and their effects were loaded aboard, the plants were cleaned out of the ship except for one specimen that went to Lieutenant Fletcher's laboratory. Finally, Omi-cron Ceti III was dwindling rapidly on the main viewing screen, watched by Kirk, Spock and McCoy.
"That's the second time," McCoy said, nodding toward the screen, "that Man has been thrown out of Paradise."
"No-this time we walked away on our own. Maybe we don't belong in Paradise, Bones," Kirk said thought-fully. "Maybe we're meant to fight our way through. Struggle. Claw our way up, fighting every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of lutes, Bones- we must march to the sound of drums."
"Poetry, Captain," Spock said. "Nonregulation."
"We haven't heard much from you about the Omicron Ceti III experience, Mr. Spock."
"I have little to say about it, Captain," Spock said, slowly and quietly, "except that-for the first time in my life-I was happy."
Both the others turned and looked at him; but there was nothing to be seen now but the Mr. Spock they had long known, controlled, efficient, and emotionless.
TURNABOUT INTRUDER
(Gene Roddenberry and Arthur H. Singer)
The Enterprise had been proceeding to a carefully timed rendezvous when she received a distress call from a group of archaeologists who had been exploring the ruins on Camus Two. Their situation was apparently des-perate, and Kirk interrupted the mission to beam down to their assistance, together with Spock and McCoy.
In the group's headquarters they found two of the sur-vivors, one of whom Kirk knew: Dr. Janice Lester, the leader of the expedition. She was lying on a cot, semi-conscious. Her companion, Dr. Howard Coleman, looked healthy enough but rather insecure.
"What's wrong with her?" Kirk asked.
"Radiation sickness," said Coleman.
"I'd like to put the ship's complete medical facilities to work to save her. Can we get her aboard the Enterprise?'
"Exposing her to the shock of Transportation would be very dangerous. The radiation affects the nervous system."
McCoy looked up from his examination of the woman. "I can find no detectable signs of conventional radiation injury, Dr. Coleman," he said.
"Dr. Lester was farthest from the source. Fortunately for me, I was here at headquarters."
"Then the symptoms may not have completely developed."
"What happened to those who were closest to the point of exposure?" Kirk asked.
"They became delirious from the multiplying inter
nal lesions and ran off mad with pain. They are probably dead."
"What form of radiation was it?" McCoy asked.
"Nothing I have ever encountered."
Janice Lester stirred and moaned, and her eyes flut-tered open. Kirk came to her side and took her hand, smiling.
"You are to be absolutely quiet. Those are the doctor's orders, Janice, not mine."
Spock had been scanning with his tricorder. "Captain, I am picking up very faint life readings seven hundred meters from here. Help will have to be immediate."
Kirk turned to McCoy, who said, "There is nothing more to be done for her, Captain. Your presence should help quiet her."
As McCoy and Spock went out, Janice released Kirk's hand, and she said with great effort, "I hoped I would never see you again."
"I don't blame you."
Her eyes closed. "Why don't you kill me? It would be easy for you now. No one would know."
"I never wanted to hurt you," Kirk said, startled.
"You did."
"Only so I could survive as myself."
"I died. When you left me, I died."
"You still exaggerate," Kirk said, trying for the light touch. "I have heard reports of your work."
"Digging in the ruins of dead civilizations."
"You lead in your field."
She opened her eyes and stared directly into his. "The year we were together at Starfleet is the only time in my life I was alive."
"I didn't stop you from going on with space work."
"I had to! Where would it lead? Your world of Star-ship captains doesn't admit women."
"You've always blamed me for that," Kirk said.
"You accepted it."
"I couldn't have changed it," he pointed out.
"You believed they were right. I know you did."
"And you hated me for it. How you hated. Every minute we were together became an agony."
"It isn't fair..."
"No, it isn't. And I was the one you punished and tortured because of it."
"I loved you," she said. "We could have roamed among the stars."
"We would have killed each other."
"It might have been better."
"Why do you say that?" he demanded. "You're still young."
"A woman should not be alone."
"Don't you see now, we shouldn't be together? We never should have-I'm sorry. Forgive me. You must be quiet now."
"Yes." Her eyes closed and her head sank back on the cot.
"Janice-please let me help you this time."
In a deadly quiet voice, she said, "You are helping me, James."
He looked at her sadly for a moment and then turned away. The rest of the room, he noticed for the first time, was a litter of objects the group had collected from the ruins. The largest piece seemed to be an inscribed slab of metal, big enough to have been part of a wall. Kirk crossed to it. On its sides, he now saw, were what seemed to be control elements; some land of machine, then. He wondered what sort of people had used it, and for what.
"A very remarkable object," Janice's voice said behind him.
"Really? What is it for, do you know?"
"Mentally superior people who were dying would ex-change bodies with the physically strong. Immortality could be had by those who deserved it."
"And who chose the deserving?"
"In this case," she said, "I do."
The wall flared brilliantly in Kirk's face, and he felt a fearful internal wrench, as though something were trying to turn him inside out. When he could see again...
... he was looking at himself, through the eyes of Janice Lester.
Kirk/J left the wall, and coming over to the cot, found a scarf, which he began to fold. Then he bent and pressed it over the woman's mouth and nose.
"You had your chance, Captain Kirk. You could have smothered the life in me and they would have said Dr. Janice Lester died of radiation sickness acquired in the line of duty. Why didn't you? You've always wanted to!"
Janice/K's head moved feebly in denial. The scarf pressed down harder.
"You had the strength to carry it out. But you were afraid, always afraid. Now Janice Lester will take Cap-tain Kirk's place. I already possess your physical strength. But this Captain Kirk is not afraid to kill." Kirk/J was almost crooning now, a song of self-hatred. "Now you know the indignity of being a woman. But you will not suffer long. For you the agony will soon pass-as it did for me."
The woman's hand tried to pull his away.
"Quiet. Believe me, it is better to be dead than to live alone in the body of a woman."
The struggling ceased, but Kirk/J did not release his hand until he heard footsteps outside. Then he replaced the scarf and went back to examining the wall. The search party entered only a moment later, looking grim.
"Your report, Dr. McCoy."
"We were too late. There was no way to help them."
"Was it radiation as reported?"
McCoy nodded. "I believe it was celebium. Dr. Coleman does not agree. It's essential to be specific."
"Why? Radioactivity is radioactivity, whatever the source."
"Yes, but in this case there was chemical poisoning in-volved as well, All the heavy elements are chemically virulent."
"Evidently," Spock added, "the field team broke through a newly exposed crust to a hidden cache of the radioactive element, whatever it was. The damage was instantaneous. They could not get away."
"That," Kirk/J said angrily, "will reflect on Dr. Lester's reputation for thorough preparedness."
"I don't think Dr. Lester can be blamed," McCoy said. "It was a most unfortunate accident, Captain."
"It was careless field work. Dr. Lester will be held re-sponsible-unfair as it may be."
Dr. Coleman looked somewhat fearfully at Kirk/J and went quickly to Janice, bending to examine her. "Dr. McCoy!"
McCoy was there in an instant, tricorder out. "Jim, did you notice any unusual symptoms while we were gone?"
"Nothing at all. She has remained unconscious all the time."
"Dr. Lester is near death," Coleman said.
"Perhaps the shock of knowing what happened to her staff is part of the problem."
"I'm sure it is."
"Beaming her up to the Enterprise," McCoy said, "would be less harmful than waiting."
Kirk/J looked questioningly at Coleman, who now seemed frightened. "I don't know," the man said.
"Then well go."
At Kirk/J's orders, two medical aides were ready with a stretcher when the party materialized in the Transporter Room. Coleman accompanied the patient to sick-ay.
"Mr. Spock, take the ship out of orbit and resume des-ignated course. Dr. McCoy, a word with you, please. You and Dr. Coleman disagree in your diagnosis. Please try to come to an agreement as fast as possible. The matter is especially disturbing-for personal reasons."
"I didn't realize you knew her so well," McCoy said.
"It has been a long time since I saw her. I walked out when it became serious."
"You must have been very young at the time."
"Youth doesn't excuse everything. It's a very unhappy memory."
"Everything possible will be done, Jim."
"Good. Thank you-Bones."
Kirk/J went to the bridge. Uhura, Chekov and Scott were all at their posts, as was Sulu. Spock was intent over his console. Kirk/J looked searchingly at the new faces, and Uhura and Sulu smiled back.
He came slowly to the Captain's position and touched the chair lightly, testing its maneuverability, almost as if with awe. Then he sat down in it and looked up at the viewing screen.
"Course, Mr. Chekov?"
"One twenty-seven, Mark eight."
"Mr. Sulu, set speed at Warp Factor Two."
"Warp Factor Two, sir."
"Mr. Spock, would you come here a moment, please? Thank you. We have a problem with our patient. The two doctors disagree on their diagnosis."
"That is hardly unusual in the medical fraternit
y, sir."
"Too bad it doesn't help cure their patients," Kirk/J said with an edgy smile.
"I think you can rely on Dr. McCoy's advice."