by 03(lit)
Scott ambled across the room to a bureau, on which he leaned like a man leaning on a bar, imaginary glass in hand, his hip thrust out. "How's this?"
"A prime target." Spock threw the dart, gently, under-hand. It lodged fair and square in Scott's left buttock. He said, "Oof," but held the pose. They watched him in-tently.
Nothing happened. After five long minutes, McCoy went over to him and withdrew the dart. "It penetrated the muscle," he said. "It should have worked by now. Feel anything, Scotty?"
"Nothing at all."
"No sweating? No dizziness? No palpitations?"
"I never felt better in my life."
McCoy's face fell. "I don't understand it," he said. "Full strength, that stuff should knock out a charging elephant."
"Fascinating," Spock said.
"Fascinating!" Kirk exploded. "Mr. Spock, don't you realize that this is our death warrant? There isn't time to devise anything else!"
"It is nevertheless fascinating," Spock said slowly. "First a violation of physics, then a violation of history- now a violation of human physiology. These three viola-tions cannot be coincidence. They must contain some common element-some degree of logical consistency."
"Well, let's see if we can think it through," Kirk said. "But there's one last chance. We may be able to violate history again. Ten minutes from now, it's all supposed to end at the OK Corral. Very well-we are not going to be there. We are going to sit right here. We are not going to move from this spot."
Spock nodded slowly, but he was frowning. The others braced themselves, as if daring anyone to move them.
Flip!
Sunlight blazed upon them from a low angle. They were in the OK Corral.
"Let's get out of here!" Kirk said. He vaulted over the fence, hearing the others thump to the ground after him, and dashed into an alley. At the other end, he paused to reconnoiter.
Ahead was the corral, with a wagon box and several horses tied in front of it. Kirk started, momentarily stunned.
"Must have gotten turned around," he said. "This way."
He led the way back up the alley. Its far end de-bouched onto the main street. They crossed quickly into another alley, jogging, watching the blank wooden build-ings that hemmed them in.
At the end of the alley was the OK Corral.
"They're breeding like pups," Scotty said.
"Down that way..."
But 'down that way' also ended at the OK Corral.
"They've got us," Kirk said stonily. "The Melkotians don't mean for us to miss this appointment. All right. Remember that these guns are heavier than phasers. Pull them straight up-and drag them down into line the minute you've fired off the first shot."
"Captain," Spock said, "that is suicide. We are none of us skilled in the use of these weapons. Nor can we avoid the OK Corral, that is quite clear. But-very quickly-let me ask you, what killed Ensign Chekov?"
"Mr. Spock, he was killed by a bullet."
"No, Captain. He was killed by his own mind. Listen to me, please; this is urgent. The failure of Dr. McCoy's drug was the clue. This place is unreal. It is a telepathic forgery by the Melkotians. Nothing that happens here is real. Nothing at all."
"Chekov is dead," McCoy said grimly.
"In this environment, yes. Elsewhere-we cannot know. We can judge reality only by the responses of our senses. Once we are convinced of the reality of a given situation, our minds abide by its rules: the guns are solid, the bullets are real, they can kill. But only because we believe it!"
"I see the Earps coming toward us," Kirk said. "And they look mighty convincing-and deadly. So do their guns. Do you think you can protect us just by disbelieving in them?"
"I can't protect anybody but myself, Captain; you must entertain your own disbelief-totally. One single doubt, and you will die."
The three Earps, side by side, black-clad and grim, walked slowly down the street, their faces expressionless. Pedestrians scurried away from them like startled quail.
"Mr. Spock," Kirk said, "we can't turn disbelief on, and off like clockwork. I know you can; but we're just human beings."
"The Vulcanian mind meld," Dr. McCoy said suddenly.
"Yes, Dr. McCoy. I could not have suggested it myself; I have cultural blocks against invading another man's mind. But if you will risk it..."
"I will."
McCoy hesitated. Then he stepped back until his back was against the wagon box. Spock came to him, closer and closer, his fingers spreading. Face to face, closer and closer.
"Your mind to my mind," Spock said softly. "Your thoughts to my thoughts. Listen to me, Bones. Be with me. Be one with me."
McCoy closed his eyes, and then slowly, opened them again.
The three Earps had been joined by Doc Holliday. He was holding a double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun under his frock coat. He fell in step with the brothers. Funereal in look and aspect, grim and unsmiling, rhythmic as a burial procession, they came down the street, real, the quintessence of death.
Spock's fingers moved to Kirk's face. "They are unreal -without body," he whispered. "Listen to me, Jim. Be with me. They are only illusion, shadows without sub-stance. They cannot affect you. My heart to your heart, I promise you."
The Earps and Holliday marched on across the length-ening shadows. The shotgun barrel swung periodically under Holliday's coattails. Their cheeks were hollow, their eyes dark as pitch. The street behind them was frozen, and the sky was darkening.
"Scotty," Spock said, his voice suddenly taking on a dark, Caledonian color, as deep as that of a prophet's. "Listen to me. Clouds these are without water, carried about by winds. They are trees whose fruit withereth, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of eternity, forever."
The spectral stalkers halted, perhaps ten paces away. Wyatt Earp said, "Draw."
Kirk looked at his people. Their expressions were glassy, faraway, strange, like lambs awaiting the slaughter. With a slight nod, he dropped his hand toward his gunbutt.
The Earps drew. It seemed as though twenty pistol shots rang out in as many seconds-two shotgun blasts- another pistol shot. The street fogged with the smoke and stench of black powder. Every single shot had come from the Earps' side.
"Thank you, Mr. Spock," Kirk said tranquilly, staring into the eyes of the astonished gunmen. "And now, gentle-men, if you please, let's finish this up-fast, hard and good."
The four from the Enterprise moved in on the Earps. The gunmen were accustomed to shoot-outs and to pistol-whipping and to barroom brawls; but against advanced space-age karate techniques and Spock's delicately precise knowledge of the human nervous system's multiple vul-nerabilities, they had no defense whatsoever. Within mo-ments, 'history' was a welter of unconcious black-clad bodies in the dust...
... And Tombstone, Arizona, wavered, pulsed, faded, and vanished into a foggy limbo.
In the fog, Kirk became aware that Chekov was stand-ing beside him. He had to swallow twice before he could manage to say, "Welcome back, Ensign."
He had no time to say more, for the transparent figure of the Melkot was forming against the eerie backdrop of the mists.
"Explain," the Melkot said.
"Glad to," Kirk said, in a voice far from friendly. "What would you like explained?"
"To you the bullets were unreal. To the players we put against you, the bullets were real, and would kill. But you did not kill them."
"We kill only in self-defense," Kirk said. "Once we saw that it was unnecessary to kill your players, we protected ourselves less wastefully, on all sides."
"Is this," the Melkot said, "the way of your kind?"
"By and large. We are not all alike. But in general, we prefer peace-and I speak not only for my species, but for a vast alliance of fellow creatures who subscribe to the same tenets. We were sent here to ask you to join it."
There was a long silence. And as they waited, the familiar fading effect began again-and then they were on the bridge of the Enterp
rise.
Uhura was at her post. She did not seem at all surprised to see them. In fact, her manner was so matter-of-fact as to suggest that they had never left at all.
Chekov began to react, but Kirk held up his hand in warning. Puzzled, Chekov said in a low voice, "Captain- what happened? Where have I been?"
"Where do you think?"
"Why-right here, it seems. But I remember a girl..."
"Nothing else?"
"No," Chekov said. "But she seemed so real..."
"Perhaps that explains why you're here. Nothing else was real to you."
Chekov looked more baffled than ever, but evidently decided to leave well enough alone.
"Captain," Lt. Uhura said, "I'm getting a transmission from the Melkot buoy."
"Cycle it for sixty seconds. Mr. Spock, has any time elapsed since the-uh-last time we all sat here?"
"The clock says not, Captain."
"I suspected not. Did it happen?"
"I cannot give a yes or no answer, Captain. It is a matter of interpretation."
"All right, Lt. Uhura. Let's hear what the Melkotian buoy has to say."
The buoy said: "Aliens! You have entered the space of the Melkot. We welcome you and promise peaceful contact."
"Very good. Lt. Uhura, ask them to specify a meeting place. Mr. Spock, a word with you in private, please."
Spock obediently drew to one side of the bridge with his Captain.
"Mr. Spock, once again we owe you our thanks for quick, thorough and logical thinking. But I will tell you something else. Privately, and for no other ears than yours, I think you are a sentimental bag of mush."
"Sir!"
"I heard what you said to me, and to the other men, when you were convincing us not to believe in the Melkotian illusions. Every word was based upon the most inti-mate understanding of each man involved-understanding -and honest love."
"Captain," Spock said, from behind his mask, "I did what was necessary."
"Of course you did. Very well, Mr. Spock-carry on."
But as Spock went stiffly back to his library-computer, the commandatorial eyes which followed him were not without a certain glitter of amusement.
THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE*
*Hugo Award nominee
(Norman Spinrad)
Shock after shock. First, the distress call from the Constel-lation, a starship of the same class as the Enterprise, and commanded by Brand Decker, one of Kirk's oldest class-mates; a call badly garbled, and cut off in the middle.
The call seemed to have come from the vicinity of M-370, a modest young star with a system of seven planets. But when the Enterprise arrived in the system, the Constellation was not there-and neither was the system.
The star had not gone nova; it was as placid as it had always been. But of the planets there was nothing left but asteroids, rubble and dust.
Lt. Uhura tried to project the line of the distress call. The line led through four more former solar systems-all now nothing but asteroids, rubble and dust... No, not quite: The two inner planets of the fifth system appeared to be still intact-and from somewhere near where the third planet should have been, they heard once more the weak beacon of the Constellation, no longer signaling distress, but black disaster.
The beacon was automatic; no voice came from her despite repeated calls. And when they found her, the viewscreen showed that two large, neat holes, neat as phaser cuts, had been drilled through her warp-drive pods.
Kirk called a yellow alert at once, though there was no sign of a third ship in the area, except for some radio interference which might easily be sunspots. Scott reported that all main and auxiliary power plants aboard the Con-stellation were dead, but that the batteries were operative at a low level. Her life support systems were operative, too, also at a very low level, except for the bridge area, which-as the viewscreen showed-was badly damaged and uninhabitable.
"We'll board," Kirk said. "The Constellation packed as much firepower as we do; I want to know what could cut a starship up like that. And there may be a few survivors. Bones, grab your kit. Scotty, select a damage control party and come with us. Mr. Spock, you'll stay here and maintain Yellow Alert."
"Acknowledge," Spock said.
Aboard the Constellation, the lights were weak and flickering, and wreckage littered the deck. The three crewmen of the damage control party found the radiation level normal, the air pressure eleven pounds per square inch, the communications system shorted out, the filtration system dead. The warp drive was a hopeless pile of junk. Surprisingly, the reactor was intact-it had simply been shut down-and the impulse drive was in fair shape.
But there were no survivors-and no bodies.
Kirk thought this over a moment, then called the Enter-prise. "Mr. Spock, this ship appears abandoned. Could the crew have beamed down to one of those two planets?"
"Improbable, Captain," Spock's voice replied. "The surface temperature on the inner planet is roughly that of molten lead, and the other has a poisonous, dense atmo-sphere resembling that of Venus."
"All right, we'll keep looking. Kirk out."
"The phaser banks are almost exhausted," Scott report-ed. "They didn't give her up without a battle."
"But where are they? I can't understand a man like Brand Decker abandoning his ship as long as his life support systems were operative."
"The computer system is still intact. If the screen on the engineers' bridge is still alive, we might get a playback of the Captain's log."
"Good idea. Let's go."
The screen on the engineers' bridge was in fact dead, but they forgot this almost the moment they noticed it; for seated before the console, staring at the useless instru-ments, was Commodore Brand Decker. His uniform was tattered, his hair mussed. "Commodore Decker!"
Decker looked up blankly. He seemed to have trouble focusing on Kirk. McCoy was quickly beside him. "Commodore-what happened to your ship?" "Ship?" Decker said. "Attacked... that thing... fourth planet breaking up..."
"Jim, he's in a state of shock," McCoy said. "No pres-sure on him now, please."
"Very well. Do what you can for him here. We've got to question him."
"He mentioned the fourth planet," Scott said. "There are only two left now."
"Yes. Pull the last microtapes from the sensor memory bank and beam them across to Spock. I want a full analysis of all reports of what happened when they went in on that planet."
"I've given this man a tranquilizer," McCoy said. "You can try a few questions now. But take it easy."
Kirk nodded. "Commodore, I'm Jim Kirk, in command of the Enterprise. Do you understand?"
"Enterprise?" Decker said. "We couldn't contact- couldn't run-had to do it-no choice at all..."
"No choice about what?"
"I had to beam them down. The only chance they had..."
"Do you mean your crew?"
Decker nodded. "I was-last aboard. It attacked again -knocked out the transporter. I was stranded aboard."
"But where was the crew?"
"The third planet."
"There is no third planet now."
"There was," Decker said. "There was. That thing... destroyed it... I heard them... four hundred of my men... calling for help... begging me... and I couldn't..." The Commodore's voice went slower and slower, as though he were an ancient clockwork mechanism run-ning down, and faded out entirely.
"Fantastic," Scott said, almost to himself. "What kind of a weapon could do that?"
"If you had seen it-you'd know," Decker said, rousing himself with obvious effort. "The whole thing is a weapon. It must be."
Kirk said, "What does it look like, Commodore?"
"A hundred times the size of a starship-a mile long, with a maw big enough to swallow a dozen ships. It destroys planets-cuts them to rubble."
"Why? Is it an alien ship-or is it alive?"
"Both-neither-I don't know."
"Where is this thing now?"
"I-don't know that either."
Kir
k lifted his communicator. "Mr. Spock, still no sign of any other vessel in the vicinity?"
"Well, yes and no, Captain," the First Officer replied. "The subspace radio interference is now so heavy as to cut us off from Starfleet Command; obviously it cannot be sunspots. But our sensors still show only the Constella-tion."
"How is the tape analysis going?"
"We're ready now, Captain. We find that the Constella-tion was attacked by what seems to be essentially a robot -an automated weapon of great size and power. Its ap-parent function is to smash planets to rubble, and then 'di-gest' the debris for fuel. It is, therefore, self-maintaining as long as there are planetary bodies to feed it."