Star Trek - Blish, James - 04

by 04(lit)

  On the surface, only the top of the lift shaft still stood; the top of the knoll had been blasted clean off. So the Talosians had prevented the rescue party from seeing that, too.

  Number One tried her communicator, but without ef-fect. Noting the Magistrate's forehead vein throbbing again, Pike raised his phaser and said in a voice of iron, "I want contact with my ship. Right now."

  "No," said the Magistrate. "You are now on the surface where we intended you to be in the end. With the female of your choice, you will soon begin carefully guided lives..."

  "Beginning with burying you."

  "I see you intend to kill. I shall not prevent you; others of us will replace me. To help you reclaim the planet, our zoological gardens will furnish a variety of plant life..."

  "Look," Pike said, "I'll make a deal with you. You and your life for the lives of these two Earthwomen."

  "Since our life span is many times yours, we have time to evolve a society trained as artisans, technicans..."

  "Do you understand what I'm saying? Give me proof our ship is all right, send these two back to it, and I'll stay here with Vina."

  He felt a tug at his belt, and out of the corner of his eye saw that Number One had pulled the spare phaser out of it. The rachet popped like firecrackers as she turned the gain control full around. The phaser began to hum, rising in both pitch and volume. The weapon was building up an overload-a force chamber explosion.

  "It's wrong," Number One said, "to create a whole race of humans to live as slaves. Do you concur, Captain?"

  After a moment of hesitation, Pike nodded.

  "Is this a deception?" asked the Magistrate. "Do you really intend to destroy yourselves? Yes, I see that you do."

  "Vina, you've got tune to get back underground. But hurry. And Talosian, to show just how primitive humans are, you can go with her."

  The Magistrate did not move, nor did Vina.

  "No," she said. "If you all think it's this important, then I can't leave either. I suppose if they still have one human, they might try again."

  "We had not believed this possible," the Magistrate said, his thoughts betraying what might have been a strange sadness. "The customs and history of your race show a unique hatred of captivity, even when pleasant and benevolent. But you prefer death. This makes you too violent and dangerous a species for our needs."

  "He means," Vina said, "they can't use you. You're free to go back to your ship."

  Number One turned the phaser off, and just in time, too. In the renewed silence, Pike said, "Vina, that's it. No apologies. You captured one of us, threatened us, tor-tured us..."

  "Your unsuitability has condemned the Talosian race to eventual death," the Magistrate said. "Is this not suffi-cient? No other specimens have shown your adaptability. You were our last hope."

  "Nonsense," Pike said, surprised. "Surely some form of trade, some mutual cooperation..."

  The Magistrate shook his head. "Your race would learn our power of illusion-and destroy itself. It is im-portant to our beliefs to prevent this."

  "Captain," Number One said, "we have Transporter control now."

  "Good. Let's go. Vina, you too."

  "I---" Vina said. "I can't go with you."

  Pike felt a flash of what might almost have been exas-peration. "Number One, Yeoman Colt, go aloft. I'll be with you when I've gotten to the bottom of this." As they hesitated, he added, "Orders."

  They shimmered and vanished. Pike swung on Vina. "Now..."

  He stopped, astounded and horrified. Vina was chang-ing. Her face was wrinkling. An ugly scar appeared. Her body was becoming cruelly deformed. Throughout, she looked back at Pike with bitter eyes. The change did not stop until she was old, shockingly twisted, downright ugly.

  "This is the female's true appearance," the Magistrate said.

  It couldn't be true. This was the youngster of the survivors' camp, the sturdy peasant, the wife on Earth, the green Orionese savage who had danced so...

  "This is the truth," Vina said, in an old woman's voice. She lifted her arms. "See me as I am. They found me in the wreckage, dying, nothing but a lump of flesh. They fixed me fine. Everything works. But-they had no guide for putting me back together.

  "Do you understand now? Do you see why I can't go with you?"

  She turned and stumbled toward the lift. Pike watched her go with horror and pity. Then he turned to the Magistrate, who said; "It was necessary to convince you that her desire to stay is an honest one."

  Pike looked at him with new eyes. "You have some sparks of decency in you after all. Will you give her back her illusion of beauty?"

  "We will. And more. See."

  At the shaft, the image of the lovely Vina was entering the lift-accompanied by himself. The two turned and waved. Then the lift carried them down into the bowels of Talos IV.

  "She has her illusion," the Magistrate said. Was he almost smiling? "And you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant."

  Spock, Number One, Jose, Colt and Boyce all crowded toward him as he stepped out of the Transporter Chamber.

  "What happened to Vina?" Colt demanded.

  "Isn't she-coming with us?" asked Number One.

  "No," Pike said shortly. "And I agree with her rea-sons. Now break it up here. What is this we're running, a cadet ship? Everybody on the bridge! Navigator, I want a course!"

  "Yessir!"

  They scattered like flushed partridges-all except Boyce, who said, "Hold on a minute, Captain."

  "What for? I feel fine."

  "That's the trouble. You look a hundred per cent better."

  "I am. Didn't you recommend rest and change? I've had both. I've even been-home. Now, let's get on with things."

  As the Enterprise moved away from Talos IV, routine re-established itself quickly, and the memory of all those illusions began to fade. They had not, after all, been real experiences-most of them. But Pike could not resist stealing a quick look from Number One to Colt, wonder-ing which of them, in other circumstances, he might have picked.

  When he found them both looking at him as if with the same speculation, he turned his eyes determinedly to the viewscreen and banished the thought.

  He had had plenty of practice at that, lately.

  AFTERWORD

  As the reader will now see, this story constituted the original pilot film for "Star Trek," and was shown as such at the 24th World Science Fiction Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, Septem-ber 1-5, 1966. Between the selling of the series and the actual television broadcast of "The Menagerie," the whole con-cept of the cast changed radically. Number One was moved one step down in the chain of command, becoming Uhura, while her ostensible lack of emotion and computer-like mind were transferred to Spock; Yeoman Colt became Yeoman Rand; Boyce became McCoy; Tyler became Sulu. The net effect was to make the new officers more interracial than before. The notion that the highly trained crew would ever be risked in ordinary hand-to-hand infantry combat was dropped.

  Most important, perhaps, was that in the pilot film, Pike had wound up with a potentially explosive situation with two of his crewwomen which would be too complex to maintain through a long-term series of episodes. He had to be replaced, and the whole story turned into relatively ancient history; and thus was born Captain Kirk, and the framing story I have left out. All these stages are visible in the scripts I had to work from, which are heavily revised in various handwritings (and in which Pike confusingly appears from time to time as "Cap-tain Spring" and "Captain Winter").

  The only alternative would have been to reshoot the original "Menagerie" with the new cast, which would have been not only expensive, but would have produced all kinds of un-wanted complexities in succeeding stories. Mr. Roddenberry obviously decided to let it stand as something that had hap-pened way-back-when, and frame it as such. I think this was wise and I have followed his lead in this adaptation.

  Ordinarily, writers should not inflict their technical problems on readers, who have every right to demand that such pro
b-lems be solved before the story is published. But I sometimes get letters from "Star Trek" fans who castigate me for chang-ing even one or two words in scripts they have memorized, or even have on tape. In this case, as in that of "The City on the Edge of Forever" (STAR TREK TWO), there were conflicts that couldn't be resolved by slavishly following the final text and ignoring how it had evolved. In both cases, I had to make my own judgment of what would best serve the authors' intents.

  -J. B.

  THE ENTERPRISE INCIDENT

  (D. C. Fontana)

  Operating under sealed orders, Kirk had found from long experience, almost always meant something messy. It became worse when the orders, once opened, de-manded that they be kept secret from his own officers during the initial phases. And it was worst of all when those initial phases looked outright irrational.

  Take the present situation. Here was the Enterprise, on the wrong side of the neutral zone, in Romulan space, surrounded by three Romulan cruisers which had simply popped out of nothingness, undetected by any sensor until far too late. Her presence there was a clear violation of a treaty; and since the Romulans were now using warships modeled on those of the Klingons, she was also heavily outgunned.

  Kirk had worked out no way of making so suicidal a move on his part explicable except that of becoming irritable and snappish, as though his judgment had been worn down by fatigue. It was a bad solution. His officers were the best in Starfleet; sooner or later they would pene-trate the deception, and conclude that whenever Kirk ap-peared to be worn down to the point of irrationality, he was operating under sealed orders.

  And when the day came when he actually was too tired to know what he was doing, they would obey him blindly anyhow-and scratch one starship.

  "Captain," Uhura said, her voice distant. "We are re-ceiving a Class Two signal from one of the Romulan vessels."

  "Put it on the main viewing screen, Lieutenant. Also, code a message to Starfleet Command, advising them of our situation and including all log entries to this point. Spock, your sensors read clear; what happened?"

  "Sir, I have no more than a hypothesis..."

  "Signal in," Uhura said. The main screen flickered briefly, then clarified to show a Romulan officer, with his own bridge behind him, carefully out of focus. He looked rather like Spock, and spoke like him, too.

  "You have been identified as the Starship Enterprise. Captain James T. Kirk last known to be in command."

  Kirk picked up a hand mike and thumbed its button. "Your information is correct. This is Captain Kirk."

  "I am Subcommander Tal of the Romulan Im-perial Fleet. Your ship is surrounded, Captain. You will surrender immediately-or we will destroy you."

  Kirk flicked the switch and turned his face away to-ward Spock. He rather doubted that the Romulan could lip-read a foreign language, but there was no point in giving him the chance.

  "Spock, come here. What do you make of this? They want something, or they would have destroyed us by now."

  "No doubt, Captain. That would be standard procedure for them."

  "It's my ship they want, I assume. And very badly."

  "Of course. It would be a great prize. An elementary deduction, Captain."

  "Skip the logic lessons." Kirk opened the mike again. "Save your threats, Subcommander," he said harshly. "If you attempt to board my ship, I'll blow her up. You gain nothing."

  Tal had apparently expected nothing else, but a slight frown cut across his forehead nonetheless. "May I ask, Captain, who is that beside you?"

  "My First Officer, Commander Spock. I'm surprised by your ignorance."

  "You mean to insult me, but there is nothing discred-itable in not knowing everything. Finding a Vulcan so highly placed in the Federation fleet does surprise me, I readily grant. However..."

  He was interrupted by a beeping noise and hit an invisible control plate. "Yes, Commander? Excuse me, Captain..."

  The screen dissolved into traveling moire patterns. Then Tal was back.

  "No one should decide quickly to die, Captain," he said. "We give you one of your hours. If you do not surrender your ship at the end of that time, your destruction is certain. We will be open to communication, should you wish it."

  "You understand Starfleet Command has been advised of our situation."

  "Of course," Tal said, somewhat condescendingly. "But a subspace message will take three weeks to reach Starfleet-and I think they would hesitate to send a squadron in after you, in any event. The decision is yours, Captain. One hour."

  His image winked out, and was replaced by stars.

  "Lt. Uhura," Kirk said, "order all senior officers to report to the Briefing Room on the double."

  "All right," Kirk said, surveying the group. Spock, Mc-Coy and Scott were present; Chekov and Sulu on the bridge with Uhura. "Spock, you had a theory on why your sensors didn't pick up the Romulan ships, until they were right on top of us."

  "I believe the Romulans have devised an improved cloaking system which renders our tracking sensors use-less. You will observe, Captain, that the three ships out-side are modeled after Klingon cruisers. Changing ship designs that drastically is expensive, and the Klingon cruiser has no important inherent advantages over the Romulan model of which we are aware-unless it is adaptable to some sort of novel screening device."

  "If so, the Romulans could attack into Federation terri-tory before we'd know they were there; before a planet or a vessel could begin to get its defenses up."

  "They caught us right enough," Scott said.

  "A brilliant observation, Mr. Scott," Kirk snapped. "Do you have any other helpful opinions?"

  Scott was momentarily nonplussed. Then he pumped his shoulders slightly in a shrug. "We've not got many choices..."

  "Three. We can fight-and be destroyed. Or we can destroy the Enterprise ourselves to keep her from the Romulans. Or-we can surrender." There was a stir among the other officers; Kirk had expected it, and over-rode it. "We might be able to find out how the Romulans' new cloaking device works. The Federation must have that information. Opinions?"

  "Odds are against our finding out anything," Scott said. "And if the Enterprise is taken by the Romulans, they'll know everything there is to know about a starship."

  "Spock?"

  "If we had not crossed the Neutral Zone on your order," Spock said coldly and evenly, "you would not now require our opinions to bolster a decision that should never have had to be made."

  The others stared at him, and then at Kirk. McCoy leaned forward. "Jim, you ordered us-? But you had no authority-"

  "Dismissed, Doctor!"

  "But Jim..."

  "Bridge to Captain," Uhura's voice broke in.

  "Kirk here."

  "The Romulan vessel is signaling again, sir."

  "Put it on our screen here, Lieutenant."

  The triangular Briefing Room viewscreen lit up to show the Vulcan-like features of Tal. He said without preamble, "My Commander wishes to speak with you, Captain Kirk."

  "Very well," Kirk said, slightly surprised. "Put him on."

  "The Commander wishes to see you and your First Officer aboard this vessel. It is felt that the matter requires-discussion. The Commander is a highly placed representative of the Romulan Star Empire."

  "Why should we walk right into your hands?"

  "Two of my officers will beam aboard your vessel as exchange hostages while you are here."

  "There's no guarantee they'll transport over here once we've entered your ship."

  A faint, cynical smile seemed to be threatening to break over Tal's face. "Granted we do not easily trust each other, Captain. But you are the ones who violated our territory. Should it not be we who distrust your motives? However, we will agree to a simultaneous exchange."

  Perfect-and yet at the same time, impossible to ex-plain to his worriedly watching officers. After appearing to consider, Kirk said, "Give us the transporter co-ordinates and synchronize."

  Tal nodded and his image faded.

&nbs
p; "I must insist on advising against this, Captain," pro-tested Scott. "The Romulans will try something tricky..."

  "We'll learn nothing by staying aboard the Enter-prise," Kirk said. "One final order. Engineer Scott, you are in charge. If we do not return, this ship must not be taken. If the Romulans attempt it, you will fight-and if necessary, destroy the Enterprise. Is that clear?"

  "Perfectly, Captain." In point of fact, Scott looked as though it was the first order he had understood in days. Well, with any luck, he'd understand all the rest later- if there was going to be any "later."