Star Trek - Blish, James - 11

by 11(lit)

  "The sensors still read negative, sir."

  But the voice was still with them. "Please help us. We are in desperate need of a physician. My spouse is dying. Acknowledge... acknowledge... please..."

  "Mr. Spock, life forms or no life forms, that distress call sounds authentic." Kirk got up and strode to Uhura's station. "Lieutenant, acknowledge and report that we're beaming down at once. Notify Dr. McCoy to meet us in the Transporter Room."

  Medikit in hand, McCoy materialized with Kirk and Spock in front of a colonnaded promenade. At first glance, there seemed to be no one around. Then Kirk spotted movement at the rear of a marble column. A dwarf, clear-ly frightened and wearing a short Greek robe that left one misshapen shoulder bare, broke from behind the column and scuttled to them.

  "Are you from the spaceship Enterprise?"

  Kirk looked down at him for a moment before he spoke. "That's right."

  "No offense," the dwarf said hastily. He bowed low. "Alexander... at your service. I sing, I dance, I play all variety of games and I'm a good loser. A very good loser. And I try, I try very hard. Please bear that in mind."

  It was an extraordinary speech. The Enterprise men looked at each other, nonplussed, and the dwarf said, "Now, if you'll accompany me..."

  "Who inhabits this planet?" Kirk said.

  The little creature bowed again. "Platonians. You've never heard of us. Our home star is Sahndara. Millennia ago, just before it novaed, we got off. Our leader liked Pla-to's ideas-Plato-Platonians, see? In fact, Parmen, our present philosopher-king, calls us Plato's children. Some of us think we're more like stepchildren." He gave a nervous little laugh. "Now, please-they're waiting for you..."

  He wheeled around and hurried ahead of them like a mechanical doll set suddenly into motion.

  The Enterprise three hesitated. Then, curious but a little uneasy, they followed him.

  Whoever McCoy's prospective patient was, he had done very well for himself. The dwarf ushered them into a stately, atrium-like court pillared by marble. In the center of the place, a nymph of marble dripped water from an urn into a reflecting pool. There was a game board on the left, flanked by benches, the pieces it held geometrically shaped into balls, pyramids, cylinders and cubes. Two tall robed men stood near a couch where another one reclined, his legs covered. Kirk saw a spasm of pain convulse his face. It seemed to deeply concern the dark, beautiful woman who was stooping over him. She touched his bald head gently before she hurried forward to greet the newcomers.

  "Parmen and I welcome you to our Republic," she said. "I am Philana, his wife. Who among you is the physician?"

  So the Platonians' philosopher-king was the patient. The startled McCoy said, "I am. What is the problem?"

  She gestured to the couch. "You must do some-thing..."

  Following her, McCoy removed the covering from his patient's legs. An infection had swollen the left one almost to the knee. "What happened to that leg?" he said.

  With a sick man's irritation, Parmen snapped, "What do you suppose? I scratched it!"

  "I don't understand," McCoy said. "Why wasn't this attended to immediately?"

  "Sheer ignorance. Is there anything you can do?"

  The question put McCoy on guard. "We're certainly going to try. The infection is massive. Let me give you a shot to ease the pain."

  McCoy opened his medikit; but before he so much as touched his hypo, it rose from the kit and sailing through the air, hovered for a moment. Kirk and Spock were look-ing up at it in amazement when Parmen said, "Where?"

  McCoy came out of his shock. "Your arm," he said.

  The hypo alighted on Parmen's upper arm, delivered the shot and replaced itself in the medikit. The sick man noted McCoy's expression. "Sorry, didn't mean to take matters out of your hands," he said. "But I can't risk any further contamination."

  Watching, the dwarf touched Philana's white robe. "Mistress, they've come to help. They deserve better than to die."

  Alexander had spoken so softly that Kirk didn't hear the plea. But what he saw was enough. The little man's mouth was forced open. His fist clenched and was shoved into the open mouth. Then his teeth were snapped back to bite into his knuckles.

  "Alexander, you talk too much," Philana said.

  The fist was left in the mouth. Over it the dwarf's tor-mented eyes met Kirk's.

  "What is your prognosis, Doctor?"

  Parmen barely managed to utter the words. His breath was coming in heavy pants and he was perspiring profusely. But McCoy, scanning him with his tricorder, had not forgotten the hypo episode. "It will be better," he said, "if I handle my instruments myself without any help from you."

  His patient stifled a cry of agony. McCoy took anoth-er closer reading of his tricorder's dials. As Parmen moaned, turning on his side, Kirk approached the couch. "I don't understand how a simple scratch could get this se-rious," he said to McCoy.

  The Enterprise surgeon stepped to one side. "Neither do I. But it has. And how do I knock out an infection with a tricorder that has no information on Platonian bacteria? All I can do-and it's going to take time-is match his bugs with a known strain and hope."

  "Look at the game board," Kirk said.

  The dwarf's fist had been removed from his mouth. It had been removed so that he could play a game with one of the robed academician-guests. Kirk and McCoy saw Al-exander move a piece; but his opponent's piece made its countermove by itself.

  "Your pyramid is in jeopardy, Eraclitus," Alexander said.

  A cube rose into the air and descended into another position. "Aha! It isn't now!" Eraclitus laughed. "I won the game."

  Kirk went to Philana. "This psychokinetic power of yours is unique. How long have you possessed it?"

  "Two and a half millennia-ever since our arrival here on Platonius."

  Spock joined them. "How is the power transmitted?" he asked.

  "Brain waves," she told him.

  "Do these waves cease when you're asleep?"

  "No, not if they're embedded in the unconscious," she said.

  "How do dreams affect them?" Kirk said.

  Her anxious face moved in a coldly formal smile. "Our sleep is dreamless."

  McCoy, gathering chemicals from his kit, was mixing them in a vial. Delirium's symptoms were beginning to show in the twisting, fevered Parmen. Frustrated and dis-turbed, McCoy called to Philana. "Why don't you have doctors? Medicine?"

  "We've had no pressing need for the medical arts, Doctor. While still on Sahndara, we instituted a mass eugenics program. We're the result. Pared down to a popula-tion of thirty-eight, we're perfect for our Utopia. Overemo-tionality and concern with family have been eliminated. We're bred for contemplation, self-reliance and longevity." She paused. "How old would you say I am, gentlemen? Don't be afraid. I'm not vain."

  "Thirty-five," Spock said.

  "That old? I... I stopped aging at thirty. Anyway, you missed by two thousand years. I am two thousand, three hundred years old. We married very young, Parmen and I. I was only one seventeen, he was one twenty-eight. You see, we scarcely have to move any more, let alone work."

  Kirk nodded. "That's why you have no resistance."

  "True," she said. "A break in the skin or a cut can be fatal." She looked over at the couch. "We went for a stroll in the moonlight-something we seldom do-and my spouse fell..."

  Parmen gave a cry. She hurried away from them to watch McCoy. He was working fast, pulling his mixed chemicals into the hypo. Suddenly a marble bust of Socra-tes fell from its pedestal, and the game board, along with its geometric pieces, lifted up and went spinning through the room. McCoy was trying to shield the hypo and vial with his body when he was whirled about and sent careen-ing across the floor.

  Kirk ran to help him to his feet. Spock, rescuing the hypo and vial, said, "Captain, I believe we are experiencing the psychokinetic manifestations of Parmen's delirium."

  Kirk's communicator beeped. He flipped it open and Scott's voice said, "Captain, we're fighting a storm!, No disc
ernible cause-I've never seen anything like it! Ten-scale turbulence right now, sir!"

  As he spoke, the Enterprise gave a violent lurch. Scott turned to Sulu. "Emergency gyros and stabilizers at maximum!" To Kirk he said, "If it keeps up this way, we can't last, Captain!"

  "Engines at full speed, Mr. Scott. Get her out of orbit and into space!"

  "I've tried, sir. We're locked tight!"

  "Then there's nothing you can do but batten down and weather it!"

  "Right, sir..."

  Kirk replaced the communicator in his belt. "Parmen's mind is not only throwing the furniture around, it's tearing the Enterprise apart! Bones, knock him out-and fast!"

  McCoy drew the last of his chemical mixture into the hypo. He tried to hold his patient still long enough to administer it; but Parmen, staring at him wild-eyed, slammed him back against the wall. McCoy barely succeeded in hanging on to the hypo. Still in his delirium, the philoso-pher-king caught sight of Alexander. The dwarf was smashed against another marble wall.

  "Help! Save me!" he screamed.

  Unseen hands were pummeling the dwarf. They jerked him forward only to have him lashed again against the wall. He twisted, ran and was hurled once more against the wall. Kirk raced to him. Kirk seized him, shouting, "Stay behind me!"

  "It's no use. His mind will find me anyhow..." He whispered, "Don't save him! Please don't save him. Let him die. The others will all kill each other trying to become ruler..."

  A blow meant for Alexander grazed Kirk's cheek. "Bones, hurry up with that shot!"

  McCoy, crouching too low for Parmen to see him, grabbed his arm and got the hypo home against his shoulder. Alexander was screaming again. "Agh... I... I can't breathe! Choking... chok-"

  "Bones, shake Parmen! Break his concentration!"

  As McCoy obeyed, emptying the hypo, the invisible clutch released the dwarf's throat. A pedestal about to fall slowly righted itself. Kirk opened his communicator. Had quiet returned to the Enterprise?

  "It's all right, Captain," Scott said. "The turbulence has abated."

  "I think you'll find the orbit lock is broken as well, Assess damage, Mr. Scott, and repair what's necessary."

  "Aye, sir."

  Philana had seen that sleep had stilled the patient. Gracious now, she spoke to the visitors. "I don't know how I can ever thank you enough, not only for myself but for Platonius."

  Kirk was brief. "No thanks are necessary."

  "Alexander, show our guests to the South Wing."

  "No, thank you," Kirk said. "We must return to the Enterprise."

  McCoy spoke. "Jim, I think I should wait till the fe-ver breaks."

  Kirk hesitated. He'd had enough of Platonius and Platonians. On the other hand, McCoy was a doctor. To snatch him away from a patient for whom still more might need to be done was arbitrary action, whoever the patient was.

  "Then we'll stay," he said.

  The South Wing was a magnificent suite, hung with silk and decorated in the same classic Greek fashion as Parmen's atrium. Alexander scurried about, introducing them to dressing rooms and sleeping quarters. "You need anything, just say so," he told Kirk.

  Kirk smiled at him. "Thanks, Alexander."

  "Think nothing of it; you people saved my life." He swallowed nervously. "I... I think I ought to tell you..."

  "Tell us what?" Kirk said.

  The little man appeared to change his mind. He shook his head, a worried little smile on his mouth. "Just that I didn't know any people like you existed."

  Kirk peered through the door into an empty corridor. "Where is everyone?" he said.

  "In their chambers-meditating."

  Kirk turned. "Alexander, are there other Platonians like you?"

  The dwarf's face quivered. "What do you mean, 'like me'?"

  "Who don't have psychokinetic ability?" Kirk said quietly.

  "For a minute I thought you were talking about my... my size. They laugh at my size. But to answer your question, I'm the only one who doesn't have it. I was brought here as the court buffoon. That's why I'm everybody's slave."

  "How does one get this power?" Spock said.

  "As far as I know, it just comes to you after you're born. They say I'm a throwback and I am. But so are you!" Fear came into his eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean, anything. I shouldn't have said that."

  "Don't worry about it," Kirk said. "We're happy with-out the ability."

  Alexander studied Kirk's face. "You know, I think you are," he said slowly. He paused. "Where you come from, are there a lot of people without the power.. , and my size?"

  Kirk was beginning to like the little man. "Size, shape or color doesn't matter to us. And nobody has the power."

  Alexander stared. "Nobody!"

  Even as he stared, he was being pulled backward to-ward the door. He gave a miserable little laugh. "Somebody wants me," he told them. Then he was yanked out of the room.

  Kirk looked at Spock. The Vulcan shrugged. "It will be pleasant to leave," he said.

  Kirk began to pace. "That may not be easy. If Parmen should die..."

  "Even if he shouldn't..."Spock said.

  Kirk nodded. "This little Utopia of theirs is about the best-kept secret in the galaxy. Screening themselves from, our sensors, locking us in orbit-it all adds up to a pattern, Spock-and one I do not like..."

  McCoy, with his medical kit, came through the door. He closed it behind him.

  "Well?" Kirk said.

  "My concoction has actually worked. Fever's broken, and Lord, what recuperative powers! The infection's already begun to drain."

  "Dr. McCoy, you may cure the common cold yet!" Spock said.

  Kirk took out his communicator. "If we're going to make it out of here, this is the time." He flipped the dial "Kirk to Enterprise. Scott, come in, please..."

  "Scott here, sir."

  "Standby to beam us up."

  Scott spoke slowly. "I'm afraid I can't, Captain. All our instrumentations, even our phaser weapons, are frozen."

  "The turbulence hit you that hard?"

  "It's not the turbulence, sir. Damage to the ship is minimal."

  "Then what's caused it?"

  Scott's voice was despairing. "I wish I knew, sir. You tell me. I'm only reporting the facts."

  Kirk eyed the door. It was still closed. "Scotty, we're up against a society that has psychokinetic energy more powerful than our machines. Did you get out into space?"

  "No, Captain. The orbit lock is tighter than ever. And our subspace communication with Starfleet Command is completely severed."

  Kirk spoke softly. The contrast between his voice and the fury in his face was so marked that McCoy and Spock stared at him. "I'm going to take care of this. I'll get back to you, Scotty." He closed the communicator, replaced it in his belt; and opening the door, strode out into the corridor.

  He found Parmen sitting up on the couch. The philoso-pher-king's eyes were closed, not with weakness, but with the ravishment of aesthetic ecstasy. The deformed Alexan-der stood beside him, plucking a lyre as he chanted a song from an Aristophanes play...

  Great Pan

  Sounds his horn:

  Marking time

  To the rhyme

  With his hoof,

  With his hoof.

  Forward, forward in our plan

  We proceed as we began...

  The wretched dwarf croaked, imitating a chorus of frogs.

  He turned at the sound of Kirk's entrance. He seemed to shrink into a still smaller man at Kirk's approach to the couch.

  "Your Excellency!" Kirk said.

  Parmen opened his eyes, annoyed by interruption of his artistic trance. Then Plato's views on Republican behavior calmed him. "Parmen will do," he said. "Philoso-pher-kings have no need of titles."

  "I want to know why the Enterprise's weapons and in-strumentation are frozen-why the ship itself is locked in orbit!"

  "Captain, please. You're mistaken, I assure you..."

  The bland evasion enraged Kirk furth
er. "I just spoke to my Engineer aboard the Enterprise," he said. "We showed our good faith. Now you show yours. I want that ship released immediately."

  Alexander, in panic, was shaking his head at him, mouthing the words, "No-no..." Kirk saw why. Parmen was manifestly displeased. The cultivated benignity of his face had been displaced by a supercilious tightness. "The amenities, Captain," he said. "Allow me to remind you that I am the head of this Principality. Guests don't come barging in here, making demands and issuing or-ders!"