by James Blish
"Calling Dr. McCoy, come in please, Calling—"
He raised the instrument to his ear. "McCoy here." What a time for a call. And the voice was very faint. "I can't read you very well. Is that Rodriguez?"
"This is all the volume I get on this thing. Can't read you very well either. Captain's orders. Rendezvous at the glade where he first found you."
"Right. Rodriguez? What the devil's wrong with the communicators? Esteban? Esteban!"
McCoy shook the instrument as if it were an old-time thermometer, and then shook his head and shrugged. As he turned back for a last peek, he gasped.
Yeoman Barrows was gone. In her place stood a medieval vision, clad in a tall pointed hat and a pale green dress that clung to her body and spread in graceful folds below her hips. Her face was aglow, and she wore her veil like a bride.
Why the hell hadn't he noticed?
The Captain was consulting his Science Officer. He could barely hear.
"I want an explanation, Spock. First, there's Alice in Wonderland when there was supposedly no animal life. Then Sulu's gun, where there were no refined metals. Then the birds, and my—the two people I saw."
"Is there any chance these could be hallucinations, Captain?"
"One 'hallucination' flattened me with a clout on the jaw. The other—"
"That sounds like painful reality, Captain."
"And then there are the tracks . . ."
"There has to be a logical explanation. Captain, your signal is very weak. Can you turn up the gain?"
"I'm already on maximum."
There was a pause. "Captain, shall I beam down an armed party?"
Kirk thought not. "Our people here are armed with phasers. Besides, there's yet to be any real danger. It's just . . . Captain out." He stood for a moment, watching the sudden flight of a flock of birds across the sky. He was still so very tired. If only this shore leave could be a shore leave instead of an enigma! Why were those birds in the air? Something must have startled them. Sulu! He was still unaccounted for. Kirk rubbed his eyes and started into the forest.
There was a faint scream, shouting and thuds. As he ran, Kirk called to McCoy. Sulu burst out of the wood at top speed.
"Take cover, Captain! There's a samurai after me!"
"A what?"
No one, nothing was following Sulu, who stopped and looked over his shoulder, panting. "A samurai. With a sword—you know, an ancient warrior. Captain, you've got to believe me!"
"I do," said Kirk. He couldn't doubt Sulu. "I've met some interesting personalities here myself. Have you seen the rest of the landing party?".
"Rodriguez called a few minutes ago. Just before I met the samurai. He said you were rendezvousing back at the glade."
They started moving toward the meeting point, Sulu glancing nervously behind him.
"I hope Rodriguez got through to everybody. Communications are almost out."
"That's not all," said Sulu. "I tried to take a shot at the samurai. My phaser's out." He shoved the useless weapon back into his belt.
Kirk was still holding his own, drawn as he had heard the sounds of Sulu's encounter. He pointed it at the ground and fired. Nothing happened. He checked the settings and fired again. Slowly he replaced it in his belt.
"We had better get to the glade," he said grimly.
"Yes, sir. We—Look!"
The air was shimmering. A familiar shimmer, but erratic and uncertain. "Someone's beaming down from the ship."
Someone was certainly trying to, but there appeared to be some obstruction.
Willing the transporter to operate, as if that would do any good, Kirk waited. The shimmer faded, erupted, faded; with one last splash of sparkles, Spock materialized in front of them.
"Spock! My orders were no one was to leave the ship."
"It was necessary, Captain. I could not contact you by communicator, and the transporter is almost useless now. As I told you, there is an unusual power field down here. It seems to be soaking up all kinds of energy at the source. I calculated the rate at which it was growing, and reasoned that we might be able to transport one more person." Spock conveyed, with a lift of his eyebrow, that while white rabbits and such were beyond his comprehension, unexplained force fields were not to be tolerated. "We barely managed that."
Kirk had to approve this decision. "Good. I can use your help."
Sulu said anxiously, "We're stranded down here, Captain?"
"Until we find out what this is all about."
A tiger roared in the distance.
"That way!" said Kirk. "Spread out, find it." He tried not to think about the ineffective phasers.
At the glade, Tonia Barrows and McCoy looked for the others a bit reluctantly. "There's no one here."
"This is the rendezvous point," said McCoy. The girl wandered around the clearing. The doctor followed her slowly. "What was that? I thought—I swear I heard something."
"Don't talk like that!" In spite of the splendid costume and the warm eyes of McCoy, she was still jumpy.
"A princess shouldn't be afraid, not with her brave knight to protect her." Tonia managed a small smile and moved nearer to the shelter of a sun-warmed oak.
"Aaah!" There was a wild flurry of black and white—she was struggling with someone. McCoy ran.
The plumed hat was jaunty; pointed beard, jeweled doublet, swirling cloak. McCoy sailed in, fists flying. The cowardly lecher couldn't fight. Don Juan slunk off.
McCoy held her for a moment as she pulled her gown back together and straightened the tall hat, feeling extremely chivalrous. He had battled for his lady, and he'd do it again.
Hoof beats sounded in the distance. They whirled, and saw, across the meadow, a gigantic horse emerging from the wood. The horse reared and wheeled as its rider perceived them.
McCoy's belief was strained almost to breaking point. The Black Knight lowered a wicked-looking lance and charged.
These fairy-tale characters were interrupting him too often. McCoy had had enough. He was going to deal with this apparition on the proper terms. A figment of the imagination was not real, could do no harm. He was not going to react anymore to hallucinations. He stepped out, unarmed, and confronted the oncoming menace, concentrating on denying the evidence of his senses.
The great black animal pounded across the meadow, the lance couchant.
"Look out, Bones!" McCoy ignored Kirk's cry of warning. Steadily, stubbornly he marched directly toward the galloping rider.
Kirk's phaser failed. He scrambled the old-fashioned pistol that he had confiscated from Sulu from his belt, as the wicked lance took McCoy through the chest.
The horse reared as Tonia Barrows screamed, and the Black Knight bent to retrieve his weapon. Kirk fired rapidly, and the armored horseman crashed to the ground a few yards away. Tonia's shrieks rose shrilly amid the echoes.
She fell to her knees over the prostrate McCoy. "He's dead, he's dead. It's all my fault. It never would have happened . . . Ohhh!"
"No, Tonia—" said Kirk.
"But it was, it was. My fault. I am to blame!" She was screaming and weeping. "I've killed him, I've killed Leonard." Kirk took her arm, but she wrenched away from him and beat her fists on the ground.
"Yeoman," said Kirk in his sternest voice. "We're in trouble. I need every crewman alert and thinking."
The hysteria left her cries. "Yes, sir." Struggling for composure, she rose slowly to her feet.
Spock covered McCoy's body, hiding the gaping wound. Kirk turned away for a moment. He could not quite control his face. His friend was dead. Shore leave. And they were all looking to him for strength. He schooled his expression to a rocklike calm, and without looking back, strode purposefully toward Sulu. Sulu was crouching over the body of the Black Knight.
"Captain," he said worriedly, "I don't get this."
"Neither do I, Mr. Sulu," said Kirk, staring down with hatred at the sable armor. "But before we leave this planet, I will"
"Then you'd better have a look a
t this, sir." Sulu opened the visor and revealed the face of McCoy's murderer.
"What the—?" Perfectly molded skin, straight nose, regular as a waxwork, the mask stared back at him.
"It's like a dummy, Captain. It couldn't be alive."
"Tricorder?"
"Barely operating, sir."
"Spock!" Kirk handed the instrument to the First Officer. "What do you make of this?"
Spock took readings with some difficulty. "This is not human skin tissue, sir. More resembles the cellular casting we use for wound repairs. Much finer, of course."
"Mr. Spock!" Kirk stood up. "I want an exact judgment."
"Definitely a mechanical contrivance. Its tissues resemble the basic cell structure of the plants here—the trees, even the grass—"
Kirk peered at the face again. "Are you suggesting that this is a plant, Spock?"
Spock indicated extreme puzzlement by a slight frown. "I'm saying all these things are multicellular castings. The plants, the people, the animals—they're all being manufactured."
"By who? and why?" said Kirk blankly. "And why these particular things?"
Spock shook his head. "All we know for sure is that they act exactly like the real thing. Just as pleasant—or just as deadly."
Esteban Rodriguez had not yet had a chance to report his encounter with the Bengal tiger, which had leaped from the rocks and snarled at him. He had managed to get away, and was telling Yeoman Angela Teller about that and other things as they headed for the glade.
There was a buzzing sound. They looked around, and finally up. Overhead, a Sopwith Camel banked and dipped.
"What is that?"
"Of all the crazy things. Remember what I was telling you a little while ago about the early wars in the air, and the funny little vehicles they used?" Angela nodded, looking up at the sky. "Well, that's one of them."
The plane veered back and looped over their heads. Angela eyed it dubiously. "Can it hurt us?"
"Not unless it makes a strafing run." Rodriguez was rather pleased. No one could have asked for a better opportunity to show off his special knowledge. He had never expected to see one of those planes actually flying!
"A what?" She was impressed, he could tell.
"The way they used to attack people on the ground," he said offhandedly.
The biplane's engines roared as it banked and started toward them. It dived. The rat-tat-tat of vintage gunnery tore the air to shreds.
"Santa Maria!" Rodriguez dragged the girl toward the shelter of the nearby rocks. As the plane zoomed away, she dropped.
"Angela!" He lifted her. Her head lolled unnaturally limp, and her weight was dead in his arms.
Kirk and Spock were staring at the distant aircraft when Sulu called them.
The bodies of McCoy and the Black Knight had vanished.
"Look," said Sulu. "They've been dragged away."
They were stranded in a nightmare. "Mr. Spock!" said Kirk desperately.
The Vulcan was uncomfortable. "At this point, Captain, my analysis may not sound very scientific."
"McCoy's death is a scientific fact." The one undeniable reality.
"There is one faint possibility. Very unlikely, but nevertheless—Captain, what were your thoughts just before you encountered the people you met here?"
Kirk tried to remember. "I was thinking about . . . the Academy."
"Hey, Jim baby!"
There he was again. Finnegan. Lolling against a tree across the glade.
"I see you had to bring up reinforcements," he sneered. "Well, I'm still waiting for you, Jim boy!"
Maybe. "Finnegan! What's been happening to my people?"
The cadet, characteristically unhelpful, snickered and ducked back among the trees. His mocking laughter floated back to Kirk, who gritted his teeth.
"Take Mr. Sulu. Find McCoy's body. This man's my problem." He started across the glade.
"Captain—" Spock began.
"That's an order, Mr. Spock!" Kirk plunged into the trees in Finnegan's wake.
The laughter penetrated the forest. Kirk stalked after it. But it came from the left, and then the right, and straight ahead.
"This way, Jim boy, that's the boy."
He rounded a clump of trees and came on a bare rocky hill. No grass grew here; it was wild and deserted-except for the derisive voice.
"Old legs givin' out, Jimmy boy? Ha-ha-heeheehee!"
The voice came from behind him. He whirled, and it came again from above.
"Just like it used to be, Jim boy, remember? You never could find your head with both hands."
Kirk clenched his fists. He was going to get even with Finnegan if it was the last thing he did.
On a spur to his right, Finnegan called, "Over here, Jimmy boy!"
"Finnegan! I want some answers!"
"Coming up! Ha-ha-hee!" Kirk pursued the elusive voice until he was seething with fury; at last Finnegan stayed long enough on a rock above him for Kirk to start climbing.
With practiced ease, Finnegan met him in a violent bulldogging roll. They fell together to the flat ground and Kirk was briefly aware of a profound satisfaction—at last it had come to a clinch. Finnegan had never lost a fight; you could feel that in his confidence and skill, and Kirk took the impact of blow after blow without being able to land a really good punch. And he was winded from the chase.
Finnegan stood up and looked down at him. "Get up, get up. Always fight fair, don't you, you officer-and-gentleman, you? You stupid underclassman, I've got the edge." His brogue-tinged voice rang out in triumphant glee. "I'm still twenty years old-look at you! You're an old man!"
Kirk rolled to his feet and swung. Finnegan ducked, slipped and landed hard. Kirk allowed himself a moment to savor this victory.
"Uh-uh," grunted the prostrate cadet. "Jim! I can't move my legs. Ohhh. Me back, it's broken. You've broken me back . . . Ohhhh!"
Officer and Gentleman. Kirk knelt and carefully straightened his victim's leg. He palpated muscle. Finnegan groaned and shook his head dizzily. Kirk moved closer and probed cautiously. "Can you feel that?"
And he fell flat as Finnegan's clasped hands landed on the nape of his neck in a mighty double chop. Finnegan leaped to his feet, laughing.
" 'Can you feel that?' " he mocked. "Sleep sweet, Jimmy boy. Sleep as long as you like. Sleep forever, Jimmy boy, forever and ever . . ."
Kirk was not in a position to appreciate this ironic lullaby. Watery images vaguely swam before his eyes, his nose hurt, and the back of his head was resting on a sharp pebble.
Finnegan loomed above him against the sky, hands resting on his hips, shaking his head sadly.
"Won't you ever learn, Jim boy? You never could take me!"
Kirk painfully propped himself up on one elbow and spat blood. He wheezed, "Finnegan. One thing."
Magnanimous, Finnegan said, "Sure, name it."
"Answers!"
He should have known better. "Earn 'em!"
As he started groggily to his feet, Finnegan floored him again.
He lay there for one minute. This had gone too far. Fair or foul, the swaggering hooligan was going to get it. He rolled over, and, summoning all his unarmed-combat training, got on his feet in the same motion. Finnegan gestured, come on, come on, from his defensive crouch. ". . . wipe that grin off his face," Kirk thought, as he lunged. He landed a crunching blow and Finnegan reeled, recovered and came back.
It seemed hours of bruising impacts on rib, jaw, arms. It was harder and harder to lift the hand and push it through the air, which had become harder and harder to breathe. Finally, Kirk pounded his last remaining strength into Finnegan's midriff, and the man dropped and lay still. Kirk fell back against the rock and tried to breathe. He had thought he was exhausted before. And he didn't dare close his eyes to blink away the running sweat, lest Finnegan be playing possum again. And he just could not lift his arms.
Finnegan came to, slowly. "Not bad," he said grudgingly.
"Yeah."
"
Kinda . . .ow! Makes up for things, huh, Jim?"
Kirk licked blood off his lip. "A lot of things." Even if he had a black eye. "Now, what has been happening to my people?"
With a touch of his old arrogance, Finnegan smirked. "I never answer questions from Plebes."
"I'm not a plebe. This is today, fifteen years later. What are you doing here?"
There was a pause as they looked at each other.
"Being exactly what you expect me to be, Jim boy!" cried Finnegan as he threw a handful of dirt in Kirk's eyes and scrambled to his feet. Kirk lost his balance but landed with one fist heavy in Finnegan's solar plexus. Finnegan closed with him.
Swaying like a couple of drunks with tiredness, neither would give in. But Finnegan wasn't laughing anymore. He'd started dodging Kirk's blows. Kirk thought, he's twenty years old, and he's winded—more winded than the old man! He evaded a wide swing and grabbed a handful of Finnegan's tunic, driving his fist right into the bully's battered face with a final, explosive grunt.
And that was definitely that. Finnegan was out for the count. And Kirk, breathless, bruised and bleeding, felt like crowing. After all these years . . .
As he felt a grin painfully stretching his cut lip, Spock said, "Did you enjoy it, Captain?"
"Yes," panted Kirk, gloating. "I did enjoy it. For almost half my lifetime, the one thing I wanted was to beat the tar out of Finnegan."
Spock raised his right eyebrow. "This supports a theory I have been formulating . . ."
"We're all meeting people and things we happen to be thinking about at the moment."
Spock nodded. "Somehow our thoughts are read, then that object is quickly manufactured and provided."
"H'm. So it gets dangerous if we happen to be thinking about—" Kirk stopped hastily.
"We must control our thoughts carefully." Spock, of course, would not find this difficult.
Kirk tried not to think about—no! or . . . not that, either!
"The power field we detected is undoubtedly underground, fabricating these things. Passages lead up to the surface. As, for example, when Rodriguez thought of a tiger—" Even Spock was not infallible, it seemed. There was a snarling roar, and the magnificent head of a Bengal tiger peered at them over the rocks. It padded over the ridge and down out of sight among the shrubs—toward them.