Star Trek - Blish, James - 11

by 11(lit)

  "You want to kill me, Ruk? Or, as Doctor Korby calls it-turn me off?"

  "You cannot be programmed. You are inferior."

  "I want to live," Kirk said.

  "You are from the outside," Ruk said. "You make disorder here."

  "I'm not programmed. But I'll do anything, no matter how illogical to stay alive. Does that disturb you, Ruk?"

  "Our place was peaceful. There was no threat to ex-istence."

  "Is existence important to you, too?"

  "I am programmed to exist. Therefore, I exist."

  The massive face was contorted with unaccustomed thought. Kirk felt a stab of pity. He said, "Korby speaks of you as just a machine to be turned on or turned off. That is a good thing to be, is it, Ruk?"

  "You are evil. Until you came all was at peace here. That was good."

  "I came in peace," Kirk said. "The only difference between us is that I have emotion. I have unpredictability. And with each human, our evil unpredictability increases. How would you like to live with thousands of unpredictable humans around you, all of them evil like me?"

  Ruk was staring at him. "Yes, it was so... long ago. I had forgotten. The old ones here, the ones who made me, they were human... and evil. It is still in my memory banks... It became necessary to destroy them."

  He turned his vast bulk slowly at the sound of foot-steps. White-coated, self-assured, Korby was striding down the corridor.

  Ruk lumbered toward him. "You... you brought him among us," he said heavily.

  Startled, Korby looked from Kirk back to Ruk. "What?"

  Ruk continued to advance on him. "You brought the inferior ones here!" His voice rose. "We had cleansed ourselves of them! You brought them and their evil back!"

  "Ruk, I order you to stop! Go back! Stand away from me! You are programmed to-"

  It was Korby who retreated. As Ruk made a grab for him, he drew Kirk's phaser from the white coat's pocket. There was no hesitation. He fired it. Ruk was gone. Where he'd stood was a charred spot, a drift of metallic-smelling smoke.

  "You didn't have to destroy him," Kirk said into the tight silence.

  Korby leveled the phaser at him. "Move," he said. "Ahead of me..."

  A tense Christine stood at the door of the study, ap-parently awaiting the result of Korby's visit to Kirk's quar-ters. At the entrance, Kirk turned to face his captor. "You were once a man with respect for all living things. How is the change in you to be explained, Doctor? If I were to tell Earth that I am your prisoner, to tell them what you have become-"

  He made a grab for the phaser. But Korby used it to shove him into the study. Then the door, humming shut, caught his other hand between it and the jamb. Kirk, about to exploit his advantage, paused. Korby's wedged hand was being cruelly mashed. Yet his right hand still held the phas-er in an unwavering aim at Kirk. It seemed a remarkable fortitude. When he wrenched the smashed hand free, it struck Kirk as yet more remarkable.

  Then a slow horror chilled him. Christine, too, was staring at the injured hand. Instead of revealing torn and mangled flesh, the wound had exposed a fine mesh of tiny complex gears and pulsing wires. Some connection in the wires short-circuited. A wisp of smoke rose from it, leaving a smell of scorched metal.

  Korby saw Christine's face. "It's still me, Christine- your Roger... in this android form... You can't imagine why-how it was with me. I was frozen, dying, my legs were gone. I had only my brain between death and life..." He lifted the hand. "This can be repaired, more easi-ly than any surgeon could possibly repair it. I'm the same man that you knew and loved-a better one. There will never be any death for me... never..."

  She put her hands over her face to shut out the sight of the dangle of still-pulsing wires. Korby, turning to Kirk, cried, "Imagine it, Captain! A world with no corruption, no suffering, no death..."

  "Then why keep me alive, Doctor?" Kirk said. "I am mere flesh and blood. So I shall die. You've got yourself an immortal Kirk. Why don't you kill this mortal one-and get done with me?"

  "You know that answer," Korby said. "I am still the man you described-the one with respect for all living things. I am still that man."

  "You are not that man, Doctor," Kirk said. "Look at Christine... heartbroken, terrified. Where is your human response to her suffering?"

  As the question was taken in by his computer brain, Korby looked shaken. Its whirring circuits churned to no effective answer. So it dismissed the question. Recovering his composure, he went to a speaker built into a wall. "An-drea," he said, "come to the study."

  The door hummed open and Kirk laid his arm around Christine's shoulders.

  "Yes, Doctor," Andrea said.

  "Someone is coming down the corridor," Korby told her.

  "I will find Ruk," she said.

  "Ruk has been turned off. Get Brown's weapon! Fast! Deal with it. Protect!"

  She found Brown's old-style phaser in a desk drawer and hurried out of the study.

  In full uniform, Kirk's facsimile was sauntering along the corridor. Its appearance puzzled Andrea. It also interested her. She moved toward the android, lifting her face to it.

  "I will kiss you," she said.

  "No!" it said sharply.

  A look of anger flickered over her face.

  "Protect," she said. Then she pulled the trigger of the phaser rifle. She looked down at the black ash that was all that remained, sniffing curiously at the drift of smoke. "Protect," she said again-and returned to the study.

  Korby was shouting wildly. "I'm the same! A direct transfer-all of me! Wholly rational... human but with-out a flaw!"

  Smiling, innocent, Andrea said, "I just turned off Captain Kirk."

  "She's killed your perfect android," Kirk said. "Just as you killed Ruk. Is this your perfect world? Your flawless beings? Killing, killing, killing! Aren't you flawless beings doing exactly what you most hate in humans? Killing with no more feeling than you feel when you turn off a light?"

  This time the computer brain was unable to dismiss the question. Kirk extended his hand. "Give me that phaser, Doctor. If any of the human Korby remains in you, you must know that your only hope is to give me that gun."

  "No! You refuse to understand! I have constructed perfect beings... tested them..." Korby's face seemed to shrivel as his brain circuits told him he'd contradicted himself. His own illogic got through to them. "I-I have proven they are perfect... I... I have..."

  With a look of blank bafflement, he gave the phaser to Kirk. Pale as death, Christine sank down on a chair.

  "Give me your rifle, Andrea," Kirk said.

  "No," she said. She waved him back with the weapon. "No... protect..." She moved to Korby. "I am programmed to love you, protect you. To kiss you..." She lifted her face to his.

  Christine moaned faintly. Stunned, she watched Kor-by push Andrea away. "Don't touch me," he said. "You cannot love, you machine!" But Andrea still clung to him. The phaser she held came into position between them as Korby fought to free himself from her arms. "Pro-grammed," Andrea said. "To love you... to kiss you..."

  The rifle discharged. There was a flash of light. Then that, too, was gone. All that was left was the blur of smoke, the two piles of ash on the floor.

  Dry-eyed, stumbling, Christine moved to Kirk. She was shuddering uncontrollably. He held her, the heiress to a permanent legacy of disillusioned loneliness.

  As the last of the smoke dissolved, the study door was wrenched open. Spock and two security crewmen, phasers drawn, entered the study.

  "Captain..." Spock hesitated. "You're all right, sir? Nurse Chapel?"

  "All right, Mr. Spock," Kirk said.

  "Where is Dr. Korby?" Spock asked.

  Kirk took Christine's hand. "He was never here, Mr. Spock."

  He took it again when she approached his command chair in the bridge of the Enterprise.

  "Thank you for letting me make my decision, Cap-tain," she said. "I'm fairly certain I'm doing the right thing."

  "I am, too," he said. "Maybe you can get s
ome sleep now that your decision is made."

  Neither smiled. "I'll be seeing you around," she said.

  When she'd left the bridge, Spock said, "She's brave."

  "That's why we need her on the Enterprise, Mr. Spock." He looked at the viewing screen. "Helm, steady as she goes. Nurse Chapel has decided to remain with us." But Spock still stood at the command chair. "Something bothering you, Mr. Spock?"

  "Captain, I... must protest your using the term 'halfbreed' in reference to me."

  "I didn't use it, Mr. Spock. I directed it toward you as a-"

  "Even as an android, you might have thought of a better expression," Spock said.

  Kirk eyed him gravely. "I'll remember that, Mr. Spock, when I find myself in a similar position again."

  "Thank you, sir," Spock said.

  The Squire of Gothos

  (Paul Schneider)

  The planet had given no hint of its existence to the Enterprise. Uncharted, unsuspected, undetected, it finally confessed its presence to the Starship's sensors. At Spock's sudden announcement of their new reading, Kirk in some annoyance flipped a switch-and sure enough, out of what should have continued to be the empty, star-void quadrant of space they were traversing, a crescent-shaped body swam into abrupt, unusually brilliant, magnified focus on the bridge viewing screen.

  Kirk glared at it. It was an unwelcome distraction from his job-a mission to get needed supplies to Colony Beta 6; and get them there by an uninterrupted warp factor three speed across this apparent space desert, barren of stars. He spoke tersely. "Navigation report."

  Crewman De Salle looked up from his computations. "Iron-silicate substance, Captain, planet-sized magnitude One-E. We'll be passing close."

  The puzzled Spock had left his station to come and stand by the command chair. Eyes on the screen, he said, "It is incredible that this body has gone unrecorded on all our charts, sir."

  So, Kirk thought, imagination must bestir itself, stretching the credible to include the incredible. There was a certain dryness in his retort. "But there it is, Mr. Spock, incredible though it be." He swung around to face his bridge people. "We can't stop to investigate now. All sci-ence stations will gather data for computer banks. Lieuten-ant Uhura, report the discovery of this planet on subspace radio."

  She struggled to obey the order. Then she turned. "Strong interference on subspace, sir. The planet must be a natural radio source."

  "Then let's get out of its range," Kirk said. He twisted his chair around to the helm console. "Veer off forty degrees, Mr. Sulu."

  As Sulu reached for a control on his board, he disap-peared. One moment he was there, substantial, familiar, intently competent-and, the next, his chair was as empty as though vacancy had always been its appointed function. "Sulu!" Kirk shouted, leaping for the helm. Then he, too, was gone, vanished as utterly as Sulu. Navigator De Salle, taut-faced, sprang from his station. "They're gone, Mr. Spock! They're both gone!"

  Spock, at the abandoned command console, twisted a dial. Obediently, alarm sirens shrieked through the ship. It was the beginning of a general, deck-to-deck scrutiny of its every nook and cranny. As Spock dismissed the last discouraged search party, he turned to the big, blond meteo-rologist beside him. "They're either down on that planet- or nowhere." Overhearing, De Salle said tensely, "But there's still no sign of human life on the surface, sir. Of course the probe instruments may be malfunctioning."

  Spock eyed his board. "They are functioning normal-ly," he said. "Continue sensor sweeps. Lieutenant Uhura, have you covered all wave-bands?"

  "All of them, sir. No response."

  De Salle was on his feet. "With due respect, sir, I re-quest permission to transport down to the surface to carry the search on there!"

  McCoy had joined the group at the command chair. Now he grabbed Spock's arm. "I agree! What are we waiting for, Spock?"

  "The decision will be mine, Doctor. I hold the respon-sibility for your safety." Blandly ignoring McCoy's out raged glare, he addressed the big meteorologist. "Dr. Jae-ger, please describe your geophysical findings on the surface below."

  "No detectable soil or vegetation... extremely hot. The atmosphere is toxic, swept by tornadic storms... continuous volcanic activity... inimical to any life as we know it, without oxygen life support."

  "How would you estimate the survival time of two un-protected men down there?"

  "As long as it would take to draw one breath."

  Nobody spoke. Then Uhura broke the heavy stillness. "Mr. Spock! My viewing screen! Look!" All eyes on the bridge veered to her station. There on the screen, letters- letters formed in flowing, old-English script-had begun to appear. Gradually they extended themselves until the mes-sage they were intended to convey had completed itself. Astoundingly out oft tune with the somber mood of the bridge people, it was: "Greetings and felicitations."

  Spock read it aloud without inflection. "Greetings... and... felicitations. Send this, Lieutenant. U.S.S. Enterprise to signaler on planet surface. Identify yourself. We-" He broke off as more letters assembled themselves into words on the screen. After a moment, he read them aloud, too, slowly, unbelievingly. "Hip... hip... hur-rah," he said, "and I believe that last word is pronounced tallyho'?"

  "Some kind of joke, sir?" De Salle said.

  Spock glanced at him. "I shall entertain any theories, Mr. De Salle. Any at all..."

  McCoy spoke up. "One thing is certain. There is life on that planet!"

  "You would seem to be correct, Doctor," Spock said. He reached for the intercom; and had just ordered preparation of the Transporter Room when Scott, pushing his way toward him, reached him and said, "Request assign-meat to the search party, sir."

  Sometimes Spock's eyes seemed to be looking at one from a great distance. They had that faraway look in them now as he shook his head. "No, Mr. Scott. Neither you nor I can be spared here. Mr. De Salle, you will equip landing party with full armaments, with life support and communi-cation gear. Doctor Jaeger, your geophysical knowledge may be crucial. Doctor McCoy will accompany, too. If those peculiar signals come from Captain Kirk and Sulu, their rationality is in question."

  He waited to issue his final order until the landing group had taken position on the Transporter Platform's indentations. Then, handing De Salle a black box, he said, "Once on the surface, you will establish immediate contact with us-and by this laser beam, if necessary."

  Scott worked his switches. And the three figures be-gan their dissolution into shining fragments.

  They hadn't precisely formulated what they had ex-pected. A kind of murderous combine of earth tremors, buffetings by hurricane whirlwinds, the suffocating heat of a planet torn by cosmic forces at war below the fissured lava of its tormented surface, the coughing inhalation of lung-searing gases. But what they found differed from their vaguely shaped apprenhensions. It was a forest, cool, green, its leafy aisles tranquil, shadowy. Around the boles of its trees, flowering vines circled, scenting the fresh air with their blossoms' fragrance. Dumbfounded, McCoy watched a leaf flutter down from the bough over his head.

  His voice was thick through his life-support filter. "Jaeger, where are your storms?"

  Shaking his head, the meteorologist checked the in-strument he held. "An atmosphere, McCoy-exactly the same as our own!"

  Remembering, De Salle, removing his face mask, cried, "Ship communication and report!" But something was wrong with his communicator-a contagious wrong-ness that affected all their communicators. De Salle didn't give up. As he pointed the laser beam skyward, he said, "Keep trying... keep trying." Then he frowned. "Something's blocking this beacon. Got to find open ground..."

  Backing off, he rounded a clump of bush. And halt-ed, noting the reflection of flickering light on its dark leaves. Very slowly he turned. He was face to face with a stone griffin. Its wings were lifted high over the glaring fea-tures of its lion's visage. In one outstretched talon, it held a flaming torch.

  "Dr. McCoy! Dr. Jaeger! Over here!"

  There were two
griffins, both holding torches. It was McCoy who first spotted the dark, massive, iron-bound door flanked by its guardian beasts of heraldry. The door was ajar. De Salle, moving into the lead, unlimbered his phaser. Followed by the others, he pushed through the half-open entry. Except for the crackling of what looked like a big hearth fire, absolute stillness greeted them.

  "In the name of heaven... where are we?" McCoy muttered.

  Where they were was in a spacious Victorian drawing room, chandelier-lit. The wall over the burning logs of its fireplace held an arrangement of crossed swords, muskets, pistols and battle flags. Its other walls were hung with tapestries, with portraits of ancestors in armor, in the colorful uniforms of the Napoleonic wars. Near a gleaming mahog-any table, a sideboard glittered with gold dishes. A harpsi-chord stood under a curved, gilt-framed mirror. All was in order. Everything fitted into the picture of a benevolently self-indulgent Victorianism. Except for one thing. Certain niches pressed into the urbane walls revealed a peculiar taste in statuary. They held carved shapes of lizard-like creatures, tortured-looking dolphins, a pair of giant, huma-noid forms-and a tentacled spider-thing.