by James Blish
He spoke again.
"Although we expected strength and competitive spirit, Captain Kirk, we are greatly pleased."
Kirk was silent, too angry to trust himself to speak. Kloog was dragging a squirming Chekov toward them, followed by Lars who clutched a struggling, kicking Uhura over his big shoulder. Thrust into positions near Kirk, their two captors divested them of phasers, tricorders and communicators.
Kirk spoke to his people. "Either of you hurt?"
The shaken Uhura shook her head. "I—I don't think so, sir." But the wildly furious Chekov yelled, "No, nobody's hurt—yet, Captain!"
"Admirable, Chekov," observed the black-robed man. "Admirable! You also, Uhura. I can see you will all prove invaluable here."
Once more Chekov yelled. "Who is he, sir?"
"I am Galt," he was told. "I am the Master Thrall of the planet Triskelion. I have been sent to welcome you."
A highly undesirable welcome. Even as Galt was speaking, Kirk felt unseen hands at his neck as they fitted one of the jeweled collars around it. He pushed at them, but they were intangible; nor would any exertion budge the lock. He accepted the inevitable, trying to relax until he saw that the same invisible fingers had attached the collar to a chain they affixed to the rock wall. To his right, and visibly, Shahna, Lars and Tamoon were busy shackling his crewmates to chained collars.
"Now," Galt said, "you are prepared for your training."
For the first time Kirk addressed him. "How do you know our names?"
"The Providers were expecting you, Captain. They arranged your . . . transfer here."
So it had not been a Transporter malfunction that had sent them tumbling onto the wrong planet. Their arrival was the consequence of interference, an interference as powerful as it was inexplicable.
He waited a moment before he said, "These Providers of yours. Are they—?"
Gait's interruption was sharp. "Correction, Captain! The Providers are not ours. We are theirs."
A slave state.
"And what do the Providers want with us?"
"You are to be trained, of course. What other use is there for Thralls?"
"Thralls? I think there's been a mistake. We're officers of a United Space Ship bound on Federation business."
"There's been no mistake. Your old titles mean nothing here. You are Thralls now. And to be taken to the training enclosure. Come, places have already been prepared for you."
"We will do nothing until we get a satisfactory explanation of this outrage. Who are you? What is this place? And what do you think you're going to do with us?"
"I have told you. This place is the planet Triskelion. You will be trained and spend the rest of your lives here. Don't trouble yourself with thoughts of escape. It is impossible. No Thrall leaves Triskelion. Lars, unchain them from the rock."
As the heavy links were removed, Galt added, "Now you are able to accompany me to your quarters." He hesitated. Then, persuasively, he said, "Captain, no harm is intended you."
Kirk looked at the four subservient Thralls as they marshaled Chekov and Uhura before them. Then, shrugging, he followed their Master's lead.
McCoy, on the Enterprise bridge, had joined Spock at his scanner, noting that an Ensign Jana Haines had been assigned to the absent Chekov's console, another junior officer at Uhura's position. Scott, emerging from the elevator, stalked over to the two at the scanner.
"Mr. Spock, I've checked the Transporter from one end to the other. Every circuit is perfect. Whatever that power surge was, it didn't come from the Transporter or any other system on this ship!"
"I'm beginning to believe that, Mr. Scott. I have conducted two sweeps of the planet's surface. There is no sign of life."
McCoy reddened. "Well, what the devil's happened then? Does that mean that their atoms are still floating around out there?"
"No, Doctor. Even that would show up on the sensors."
"Then where are they?" Scott shouted.
Mild as ever, Spock said, "The only answers are negative, Mr. Scott. No magnetic storms, no ionic interference and, as you say, no breakdown in your equipment."
It was McCoy's turn to shout. "A negative attitude isn't much good to us, Spock! We just can't leave them out there—" He broke off to add a desperate "—wherever they are."
"We shall continue sensor scans, Doctor. At the moment, that is all we can do except hope for a rational explanation."
"Hope!" McCoy jeered. "I thought that was a strictly human failing. Vulcans don't indulge it!"
"Prolonged exposure to the failing results in a certain amount of contamination, Doctor." And turning away, Spock resumed operation of his scanner.
A corridor giving on to a row of box stalls was the destination of the Enterprise captives. Box stalls, their doors centrally cut, the upper half barred, the lower one locked. Herded down the corridor, they were halted before three stalls, staring in unbelief at the nameplates fastened to the doors. They read: Kirk, Chekov, Uhura.
Kirk had been up against such assured, though alien, intelligence on his mission "to go where no man had gone before." For a long moment, he was astounded by this Triskelion variety. Then, once again, he shrugged. Now there could be no answer to the arrogant certainty of the beings Galt called "The Providers." But tomorrow was another day. And Spock on the Enterprise would be overworking his own not inconsiderable intelligence to apply his equally efficient equipment to discovery of the answer.
Beside him, Galt said, "These are your quarters. Open, Shahna."
Obediently, she removed a small disk from her harness, placing it on the three locks of the cells. While she was working on the third, Kirk shot Chekov a quick, significant look to which his navigator nodded.
The three doors open, Galt said, "Enter."
Kirk and Chekov took two apparently compliant steps only to whirl, whirl and lunge at their nearest jailer. Kirk struck Kloog in the midriff with all the power of his powerful shoulders, knocking Neanderthal Man to his knees. Then, in his command voice, he shouted, "Lieutenant Uhura!"
She gathered herself, and, shoving Tamoon who was flanking her, sent the fanged one spinning against Lars. Then running to Kirk, he, she and Chekov raced down the corridor to the still open entrance.
Lacking eyes in the back of their heads, they couldn't see Galt close his, his face deeply concentrated. But they could feel the results. Suddenly, the jewels in their slave collars went into a sickening, greenish glow. The race ended as the collars tightened, their faces contorted in agony as the anguished choking continued, driving them to their knees, hands futilely clutching at the strangling collars. They sank down, unaware that Galt was watching them with clinical detachment. Unaware of anything but pain, they failed to see that Galt had once more shut his cold eyes in concentration.
As Kirk collapsed on his back, the veins of his neck protruding, the jewel on his collar winked out. But it had done its work. Eons seemed to pass before his tortured throat could swallow and breath returned to his lungs. Then yet more eons crept by before he could get to his knees and, using his weakened arms, thrust himself up to his feet. Chekov and Uhura, watching him, used his method to recover theirs.
"That was foolish, Captain," said Galt. "I warned you that escape is impossible. The collars of obedience have proved that to you."
He nodded toward Kirk's cell. Kirk, hesitating, recognized the futility of defiance and entered it. As his friends followed his example, the cell doors were slammed shut.
It was bad news from Spock. Straightening from his scanner, he said, "They are not within the confines of this solar system, Doctor."
"It's been nearly an hour. Can people live that long as disassembled atoms in a Transporter beam?"
"I've never heard of a study being done. But it would be a fascinating research."
"Fascinating! Those are our friends out there! If they're still alive, that is."
"Precisely."
"The odds aren't good, Spock."
"No. I should say they are
—"
"Don't quote odds. And don't give me anymore of your dispassionate logic. Just find them. Keep looking."'
"I would welcome a suggestion—even an emotional one—as to where to look."
"The first time you've ever asked me for anything, and it has to be an occasion like this!"
Chekov, supporting himself against the bars of his cell, spoke to Kirk in the next one. "Captain, the Enterprise—they’ll be trying to find us, won't they?"
Uhura, her voice hopeless, answered him. "They'll be trying. But where do they look? We're here and we don't know where it is."
"This system's star is a trinary," Kirk said. "And that limits it a bit. However, we're a long way from the Enterprise—if we're even in the same dimension."
Before the others could reply, Lars came down the corridor to stop before Uhura's door. "I am your Drill Thrall," he announced. "You may call me Lars."
As he spoke, Kirk saw him insert a rod into the catching hole in her cage.
"What do you want with her?" he said.
"That is not your concern. Your Drill Thrall will attend you presently." Then through the opened door, he pushed a covered receptacle at her. "Here is nourishment. Consume it quickly. The time is limited."
Uhura, at the look in his eyes, drew back. "What—what do you want?"
He was eyeing her brunette beauty with increasing appreciation. "I have been selected for you."
Then walking into her sparsely furnished cubicle, he closed its door. But though the uneasy Uhura backed away from him, he maintained his confident, slow approach to her, a suggestive grin exposing his strong, white teeth. When he reached out a huge hand to caress her neck, she kicked him, but he seized the leg and, pushing her down to the cell floor, muttered, "Stop it. I told you, you are mine."
She bit his lip.
At the sounds from her stall, Kirk and Chekov peered anxiously through their bars, Kirk calling, “Uhura! Uhura, can you hear me?" But the noise of struggle went on. "Lieutenant Uhura! Answer me!"
The only answer was the sound of a blow. Alarmed, frustrated, Kirk shouted again, his face pressed against his bars. Then his own cell door opened to Shahna outside it, unarmed now and carrying another covered container of food.
Kirk grabbed it, threw it to the floor, glaring at the girl.
"What's happening to Lieutenant Uhura?" he yelled.
She made no reply, and in the silence came a final resounding crash from Uhura's stall. Desperate, Kirk called again. "Uhura! Are you all right?"
Lars provided the reassurance. Backing out of the stall and wiping blood from his bitten lip, he staggered as he protested plaintively, "It is not allowed to refuse selection. It is not allowed."
He moved away down the corridor, confused by such unexpected resistance; and Uhura, breathless, disheveled, spoke from her cell door.
"Yes, sir," she said. "I'm fine. He's big—but he's stupid."
Chekov, embarrassed by his concern for her, whispered, "Lieutenant, what happened?"
Uhura's hearing was as keen as her physical fitness. Shooting him an irritated look, she said, "Nothing! You're stupid too!"
Half-smiling, Kirk turned to see Shahna stooping, her russet hair a tumble of curls on her lovely head, busily restoring the scattered dishes of his food container to their places in it. Then setting it on a cubed stand, she said, "Come. It is the Nourishment Interval."
On the Enterprise bridge, Ensign Haines had left Chekov's position for Spock's computer console. She studied it intently before straightening to address Spock in the command chair.
"Sir, I get a fluctuating energy reading from this hydrogen cloud."
With Scott and McCoy, he went to her to replace her at the scanner.
"It's faint, sir," she said, "but it consistently reads in excess of predictable energy levels." Spock adjusted several dials before he spoke. "There seems to be an ionization trail. Most interesting." And rapidly punched another computer key.
"What would account for that?" McCoy asked.
"The very question I have just fed into the computer, Doctor." And after a moment, added, "The answer is, nothing is known to us to account for it."
Scott rose to the defense of his Transporter. "It lacks both the power and the range to be responsible for it."
"Plot a follow course, Ensign Haines," Spock ordered.
"Aye, sir." And returning to her navigation console, swung switches before she said, "Course plotted, Mr. Spock. 310 Mark 241."
"Now lay in the course, Ensign Haines."
McCoy's voice rose in anger. "You're going to leave here without them and go off on some wild-goose chase halfway across the galaxy just because you found a discrepancy in a hydrogen cloud? Spock, where's your head? They've been gone for more than two hours!"
Spock, eyes on his scanner, said, "I am pursuing the Captain, Lieutenant Uhura and Ensign Chekov, Doctor, not an aquatic fowl. This is the only lead we have had."
"Course laid in, Mr. Spock," Ensign Haines reported.
"Initiate," he told her. "Warp Factor Two."
All eyes, including his, swerved to the main viewing screen.
Chekov was having his troubles too. He had backed nervously toward a bench in his stall as the fanged Tamoon opened its door, carrying his covered container of food. For to his horror, he had read covetous admiration in the slanting yellow eyes of the leopard-haired woman.
Stammering, he managed to ask, "You—you have been selected for me?"
She uttered a sad little whine. "No. I am only your Drill Thrall. I have brought you nourishment." And placing the container on the bench near him, made an obvious attempt to sound seductive. "It is a nice name—Chee-koo."
"Chekov," he said.
Though the fangs prohibited clear enunciation, she tried, speaking slowly and carefully. "Chee-koof." And beaming happily at him, said, "It is a very nice name—so nice you may call me Tamoon."
Chekov ran a cold hand down his face. "Pleased—pleased to know you . . . uh . . . miss."
"You are a fine specimen. I like you better than the others."
Chekov had amply demonstrated his courage in confrontation with galactic foes, but the clumsy coquetry of this alien female terrified him. When she said, "I will instruct you well so my Provider will take you," he backed still farther away. "That's very nice of you, miss, but-"
He had reached the bench. It hit the back of his knees so that he sat down on it abruptly only to be followed by Tamoon who dropped down beside him, the fanged mouth opened in a coy smile.
"If my Provider is pleased, we may even be selected for each other."
A slight groan escaped him, and Tamoon, her hoarse voice sympathetic, said, "You are hungry, Chee-koof." And uncovering his dishes, added, "Eat, Chee-koof."
"Chekov," he said. "No, thank you, I am not hungry."
But Kirk was. As he wolfed the contents of his metal bowls, Shahna watched him approvingly. Finishing, he gave a satisfied sigh.
"Didn't realize I was so hungry. Whatever you call that, it was good."
"It is nourishment," she said. "We call it that." And gathering up the emptied bowls, replaced them neatly in their container, Kirk studying her contemplatively, very much aware of her slim beauty.
"Nourishment," he repeated. "Very practical. And what do you call this collar?"
The sapphire eyes stared at him. "It is the sign of our Provider. By the color of the jewels, it can be known who holds us. When you are vended, you will also have a colored jewel."
"Vended? You mean sold? Bought?"
Puzzled, she said, "When you are developed. The Provider who offers the most quatloos puts his color on us."
Kirk nodded. "My race has another name for that—the word 'slavery.' "
Clearly the information meant nothing to her. As she covered the food container, he said, "The collar of obedience. Is Galt the only one who can operate it?"
"It is only to warn and punish."
"How does he make it work?"
She stared again. "It is not permitted to talk of that."
He pointed to the container she held. "Are you—will you bring me all my nourishment?"
"Of course. I am your Drill Thrall. I will train you well."
"I'm sure of that." And rising from his bench, he said, "I must say I've never seen a top sergeant who looked like you."
"I don't understand. What does that mean?"
Leaning back against the wall, he said, "It means that you're a very beautiful woman."
She rose from her stoop, shaking her head in bewilderment. "What is beautiful?"
"Hasn't anyone ever told you that before?"
"No. What is it?"
"It's hard to explain . . . a lot of things . . . it's—" Then lifting the shining metal cover from the container in her hands, he got up, and holding it close to her face, said, "Look into this. What you see is beautiful."
But her mirrored reflection seemed to merely increase her bafflement; and as her discomfort was genuine, Kirk, changing the subject, asked, "Where were you born, Shahna?"
"Born? I have been here always."
"Where are your parents? Your father and mother. Where are they?"
"She who bore me was killed in a free-style match."
"Free style!"
"Do not be anxious. You will learn all these things."
"And the others, Lars and the one who is Chekov's Drill Thrall, they weren't born here. Where did they come from?"
"It is not permitted—" and breaking off at the sudden shrill of a bell, immediately recovered her self-possession, all business again. "The exercise interval," she told him. And turning to a small cabinetlike projection in a corner, pressed a button on its door. A well-disguised panel slid aside; reaching past it, she removed a harness from it similar to the one she wore.