STAR TREK: The Original Series - Garth of Izar

by Pamela Sargent

  “Nobody move!” a familiar voice called out from the trees. “We have weapons aimed at you from all sides!”

  Kirk jumped to his feet and looked around, but the [93] darkness beneath the trees surrounding the clearing seemed impenetrable. Several people outside the shelters grabbed spears and were about to hurl them toward the trees when other spears flew into the clearing. Two men dodged the lances as they stabbed into the ground; a woman quickly shimmered into a catlike form and slipped under a bush.

  Kirk’s vision of battling shape-changers was beginning to come to life.

  “I warn you!” the voice from the woods shouted again. “Do not resist us!”

  More spears flew out from the trees. A few people were fighting at the end of the clearing near the line of elleis; Kirk watched as they flowed into taller forms, shorter and more muscular forms, any shape that might give them a momentary advantage in the fight. One man threw another to the ground and pinned him, only to see his opponent slip out from under him in the shape of a long, impossibly thin biped. A woman stabbed at a man with a long knife; he feinted, blocked the blow with his own knife, then suddenly shrank into a short squat form before becoming himself again. They could not keep this up indefinitely; the morphing would drain them of too much energy, so much that the injured might lack the power later to heal themselves from their wounds.

  Kirk was reaching for his hidden phaser when Empynes cried out, “Stop! Stop this fighting! Have we come to this?”

  [94] “Stop!” Heje-Illuss added. “I order all my people to lay down their arms. We cannot win this battle,”

  Spock was on his feet next to Heje-Illuss; McCoy and Wodehouse stood in front of Empynes and Gyneeses, to shield them from the fray. Several fighters suddenly dissolved into the hooded Antosians Kirk had seen earlier. Heje-Illuss’s followers threw down their weapons and waited as other Antosians came out of the woods to pick up the spears, swords, and knives.

  Perhaps he would not have to use his phaser after all, Kirk thought; these people were obviously not used to fighting or prolonged battles.

  Garth still sat by the fire, as if unaware of everything around him.

  A tall dark shadow moved out of the trees, crossed the clearing, and came into the light of the fire, and Kirk saw the mad Lord Garth smiling at him as he had done before, in the asylum on Elba II.

  “Welcome, Captain Kirk!” The voice had the same commanding tone Kirk knew so well from his earlier encounter with the madman. “And Commander Spock, and of course the good Dr. McCoy! How good it is to see you again!” Garth bowed gracefully in the direction of Yeoman Wodehouse. “And I see that you’ve brought along your beautiful aide” as well.”

  Kirk glanced at the other figure of Garth sitting by the fire, and saw him dissolve into the form of a fair-haired and muscular young male. The young [95] Antosian looked up at Kirk with fear in his eyes, and Kirk understood why this Captain Garth had seemed so listless, so lacking in energy and charisma.

  Kirk turned back to the remaining Garth and knew then that he was not speaking to his hero, to the rational captain who had traveled with him to this planet, but to the insane Lord Garth who had somehow reasserted himself in Garth’s body.

  Chapter Six

  GARTH’S ANTOSIANS quickly secured the camp. They rounded up the small group in the camp, tied their wrists and ankles, then sat everyone down in the space between the fire and the shelters. At Garth’s orders, the communicators and tricorders Heje-Illuss’s people had confiscated earlier were seized. Antosians wearing black coats like Garth’s stood over Heje-Illuss’s followers with swords and spears.

  Kirk and his landing party were herded unbound toward the fire, then told to sit down. Garth beckoned to the Antosian who had impersonated him. The young man got up and hurried toward the black-coated men who were guarding the camp’s elleis.

  “Garth,” Kirk began.

  “Lord Garth!”

  “What’s this all about ... Lord Garth?” Kirk asked.

  [97] “Don’t you know, Captain Kirk? Can you not guess? You have eyes, ears, presumably a brain—but you do not see!”

  “Please explain it to me, Lord Garth.” Kirk tried to keep a tone of sarcasm out of his voice.

  “We’re back to the beginning of the game we played some time back. Soon, when you fail to communicate with the Enterprise, we will all be beamed aboard. That was a great mistake on your part, Kirk. This time, the Enterprise will be mine, with an army of shape-changers to command. After we seize the nearest starbase, I will begin the construction of starships, using designs undreamed of by the Federation! What do you think I have been doing all this time? I have been planning and plotting and thinking!”

  “Without a doubt.” Kirk stared into the fire. He had accepted that Garth had recovered from his illness, that Donald Cory had not been mistaken in discharging him from his asylum, that the medical records were accurate, that the Garth who had traveled with him on the Enterprise was sane. But José Mendez had been prescient in allowing for a relapse, in planning that Garth be watched.

  Kirk now saw that he might have made a mistake in letting Garth beam down to Antos IV ahead of the landing party; it was clear now that Garth’s talk of Antosian sensibilities and the need for proper diplomatic arrangements with the First Minister had been part of a ruse. At some point Garth had been able to [98] slip away from Pynesses and replace himself with an Antosian confederate, without Kirk ever suspecting that the image on his viewscreen and the voice on his comm during their brief conferences were not those of his fellow captain. Garth had just confessed that he had been laying his plans for some time before returning here.

  No, Kirk thought to himself, he had not made a mistake in dealing with Garth at face value. Better to have drawn him out into the open, to have him reveal himself. He had allowed for that in his own plans.

  “Bring that man here!” Garth shouted. Two of his followers pulled Heje-Illuss to his feet and dragged him by the arms toward the fire. Hobbled by the rope around his ankles, Heje-Illuss stumbled forward, but managed to stay on his feet. “I have a question for you.”

  “Ask it, then,” Heje-Illuss said.

  “Did you search Kirk and his people before bringing them into your camp?”

  “Of course we did,” Heje-Illuss replied. “Do you think I’m a fool?”

  Garth raised an arm, as if about to strike the gray-haired Antosian, then let his arm fall. “And how was this search conducted?”

  “They took off their coats, we searched them, and we took away the devices they carried.”

  Garth’s eyes narrowed, and then he pointed at Kirk. “Take off your boots, all of you. Now!”

  Kirk knew that it was pointless to resist; their [99] captors would only remove his footwear by force. The boots of Spock, McCoy, and Wodehouse were quickly searched and handed back to them. Kirk took off his own, revealing the small holster tied above his ankle.

  “Aha! I was right!” Garth smiled as he took the hand phaser out of the holster. “I thought you might try something like this, smuggling a weapon down here.” He gave Kirk a mischievous look, then said, “Surely you understand that I can’t let you keep this phaser.”

  Kirk sighed as he pulled on his boots, regretting bringing the hand phaser.

  Heje-Illuss was led back to sit with the group of bound Antosians. Garth slipped the hand phaser under his belt, approached the fire with three of his comrades, then took out a communicator. As Kirk watched, Garth suddenly morphed into Captain James T. Kirk. His associates quickly shifted into the forms of the other three members of Kirk’s team, all of them now wearing Starfleet uniforms and long brown coats.

  “Now do you see?” Garth said with Kirk’s voice. “Your ship will be mine, Captain Kirk.” Kirk-Garth beckoned to others of his accomplices. “Take the captain and these other ineffectual wretches over there. They can watch as we’re beamed up to the Enterprise. Once the ship is secured, I shall bring the rest of you aboard.”

  A spe
ar point prodded Kirk in the back. With Spock, McCoy, and Wodehouse, he was herded to the [100] edge of the clearing, near the elleis. He looked back and caught a glimpse of his own eyes. They were bright with firelight.

  Kirk watched from the edge of the clearing as the doubles of his landing party stood together, waiting. Since Kirk had not checked in with Scotty for some time now, Garth would be expecting Scotty to beam up his team of impostors. The pseudo-Spock wore an appropriately impassive expression, Lesley Wodehouse’s twin had the yeoman’s reddish hair and round pretty face, and the false McCoy looked ready to mutter a mild but crotchety complaint about the increasingly cool night air.

  They would pass initial inspection. But that was the least of it, Kirk thought. What Garth seemed to be counting on was that the transporter would focus on the communicators and tricorders now held by his team. But that seemed too slim a hope, all by itself, to rely on, he realized. There had to be something more.

  “He’s gone mad again,” Yeoman Wodehouse whispered.

  “You may be right,” McCoy said in a low voice.

  “Quiet!” Garth cried out with Kirk’s voice.

  They waited in silence. Scotty would have been beaming the landing party up to the Enterprise by now, but for Kirk’s earlier coded warning to the engineer to stand by.

  Spock’s double frowned, looking annoyed; he fidgeted and tapped one booted foot impatiently.

  [101] “Lord Garth,” Lesley Wodehouse’s twin began in a voice slightly lower than the yeoman’s, “I thought you said that—”

  “Quiet, you cow!” The female Antosian shrank back. Kirk-Garth glared at Kirk. “We’ll wait a few moments more.”

  They continued to wait. The clearing was silent except for a few coughs from the bound Antosian captives and occasional soft mewing sounds from the elleis. Kirk-Garth muttered something under his breath, then strode over to Kirk.

  “What is wrong, Captain Kirk?” Garth spoke in the soft voice that had often been the mad Lord Garth’s prelude to a screaming fit. “What can possibly be the matter with Lieutenant Commander Scott?”

  Kirk did not answer.

  “You changed the plan!” Kirk-Garth shrieked. “Back there!” He shook his fist, then spun around and walked toward the captive Antosians. “Heje-Illuss! Did you let that creature communicate with his ship?”

  The gray-haired rebel leader did not reply.

  “Answer me! Or one of your friends here will pay the price for your silence!”

  Heje-Illuss pointed his chin at Garth. “I allowed the captain to tell his ship that he and his comrades were in no danger.”

  “Idiots! I am surrounded by imbeciles!” Kirk-Garth stomped back to Kirk, then halted, as if considering another tactic. Kirk stared into his own face. The match was uncanny, unsettling, bringing back [102] the sense of unreasoning menace he had felt on Elba II, when he had first encountered the hero of his Starfleet cadet days only to see the great man degraded by mental illness.

  The twin figure of Kirk suddenly reverted to Garth, and Kirk knew that the man was trying to conserve his energy.

  Kirk said, “You’re trying to recreate our confrontation on Elba II, when you failed to seize the Enterprise. But I’ve played this game before, Garth.”

  “Lord Garth!”

  “And so has Scotty.”

  “Let me guess.” Garth rubbed his chin. “You’ve changed the plan somehow,” he said softly. “Of course you did, when Heje-Illuss allowed you to talk to him. How clever you are, Captain Kirk. You reversed it on your way here.”

  “I thought it wise to do so,” Kirk said. “Surely you didn’t think that simple possession of our gear would be enough to fool Scotty.” He was bluffing, but his bluff might fool an unreasoning madman.

  Garth grimaced, looking thoughtful and perfectly sane for a moment, then sighed. “Then I’ll just have to play this hand out my way. You don’t know how needlessly difficult you’ve made this.” He smiled mirthlessly. “But then, how could you know?”

  Garth again cloaked himself with Kirk’s appearance and took out his communicator again. “Kirk to Enterprise.”

  “Scott here, Captain.”

  [103] “Scotty, beam up the landing party.”

  “On your signal, Captain.”

  Kirk-Garth scowled at the communicator, then reverted to Garth’s form. “Doing your job, I see,” he said in his own voice.

  “Aye, Captain Garth,” Scotty said.

  “Lord Garth to you!”

  There was a long silence. Kirk wondered if the frustrated Garth would now turn his anger against his captives.

  “So that’s how it is,” Scotty’s voice continued. “We’ve been through this before. I’m sorry it turned out this way, but I had my suspicions. So did many of us.”

  Garth looked thoughtful for a moment, then motioned to two of his men. “Seize the Vulcan.” Garth bared his teeth. “That fellow there with the pointed ears.” Two burly, black-coated Antosians hastened toward Kirk and his comrades, grabbed Spock by the arms and propelled him toward the fire. Garth studied the phaser in his hand, then slowly raised the weapon until it was aimed at Spock’s chest.

  “Beam us up, Mr. Scott,” Garth said, “or we start by killing Spock.”

  The Vulcan lifted a brow. “Captain Garth—”

  “Lord Garth!”

  “As you wish,” Spock said calmly. “Surely you know that a starship officer cannot be compelled to action by such threats.”

  “You should know that better than anyone, [104] Captain Garth,” Scotty’s voice said from the communicator. “You canna make me beam you aboard by threatening Mr. Spock.”

  Garth laughed like a mad god. “Of course I can, Mr. Scott! I know full well the strong bonds that exist among you, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and even the good doctor!” The madman circled behind Spock and struck him on the side of the head. Kirk tensed, but Spock stayed on his feet, seemingly uninjured by the blow.

  “I say again,” Garth continued, “that this phaser is no longer on stun—it’s set to kill. Beam us aboard, Mr. Scott, or your precious first officer will be disintegrated into nonexistence! You do know I have a phaser, don’t you?”

  “Aye,” Scotty said. “I’m scanning it.”

  Sorry, Scotty, Kirk thought.

  “Now!” Garth cried.

  “I have my orders,” Scotty said.

  Kirk thought: Don’t get into a debate with him, Scotty. Anything might trigger another of Garth’s irrational outbursts. He glanced at Wodehouse’s staring hazel eyes and McCoy’s rigid face, wishing even more fervently that he had not brought the hand phaser with him. Garth motioned with the weapon, and for a moment Kirk thought he saw a shadow of reluctance cross Garth’s face, but that had to be a trick of the firelight.

  “Let him go,” Garth said to the Antosians holding Spock. They released him; Garth kept his phaser [105] trained on the Vulcan. “You have only a moment, Mr. Scott. It’s now or never. Beam us aboard, or Spock dies, and after him the pretty yeoman and the good doctor. And your captain can watch them die.” He laughed again. “Shall I sing you the old so—”

  Kirk did not hear the last word as the transporter seized him with what seemed a swift force greater than the usual scan cycle.

  Scotty was pointing a phaser pistol at him. Kirk looked around and saw that the other transporter receiver plates were empty, then turned to face Scotty again. Next to the chief engineer were Ensign Chekov and a security detail of seven crew members, all armed with phaser pistols. Lieutenant Kyle was on duty at the transporter console, with Ensign Grinzo next to him at the controls.

  “Good going, Scotty,” Kirk said, “but what about—”

  “Don’t move.” Scotty did not lower his phaser. “I picked you up blindly, along with Dr. McCoy, Mr. Spock, and Yeoman Wodehouse—and of course His Lordship. I’m fairly sure you’re the captain, but I followed good old police procedure—when in doubt, arrest the lot, everyone in the area, and take them down to the station.”


  “You must know it’s me,” Kirk said.

  “The sensor scan shows you are, and we were scanning you continuously for as long as possible after you gave me the Aberdeen signal, but appearances can be deceiving, especially on a planet of shape-changers.”

  [106] “Where are the others?” Kirk asked.

  “In transporter stasis. We’re holding them there—I couldna take any chances, Captain. I’ll have to bring them in one by one. If they’re shape-changers, they shouldna be able to hold their forms during the cycle.”

  “You can’t be sure of that,” Kirk said.

  “As I said, I canna take any chances, and I shan’t.” Scott turned and nodded at Kyle and Grinzo. Spock shimmered into existence on the plate next to Kirk’s.

  “Spock, is it you?” Kirk asked, doubting for a moment.

  “I assure you that I am indeed Spock,” the Vulcan replied in his familiar neutral tone.

  Kirk took a deep breath, knowing it would not be so easy. The Antosian impersonating Spock had looked exactly like him. “I see Garth didn’t have time to carry out his threat to execute you,” he said despite his doubts.

  “No,” Spock said. “This is a curious fact, but I did observe that his phaser was set on stun only. I was apparently never in any danger.”

  “He was bluffing?” Kirk said.

  “That would appear to be the case, Captain.”

  “Or else he was too irrational to notice that he hadn’t set it properly,” Kirk said.

  “Possibly. But when Captain Garth struck me, his blow did not carry much force.” Spock moved off his plate and took a step toward the edge of the platform.

  [107] “Stay where you are, Mr. Spock,” Scotty said. “I still don’t know it’s you.”

  “I see.” Spock stepped back onto his plate. “A wise precaution, Mr. Scott.”

  “And there are only two ways you can prove that we are ourselves,” Kirk said. “The slow way and the quick way.”