by James Blish
"I have four hundred and thirty people on my ship up there," Kirk said, "and they—"
"They are mine," said Apollo. "To cherish or destroy. At my will."
Carolyn suddenly broke in. "But why? What you've said makes no sense."
The dark eyes veered from Kirk's to linger on the cloud of copper-glorious hair. "What is your name?"
"Lieutenant Palamas."
"I mean your name."
She glanced at Kirk as though for help. "Carolyn."
"Yes." Apollo leaned forward on the throne. "When she gave you beauty, Aphrodite was feeling unusually generous. I have a thousand tales to tell you. We shall speak together, you and I, of valor and of love."
"Let her alone!" Scott cried.
"You protest?" Apollo was amused. "You risk much, mortal."
Scott whipped out his phaser. "And so do you!"
With a lithe movement, Apollo was on his feet. He extended a finger at the phaser. A blue-hot flame leaped from it—and Scott yelled in pain. He dropped the weapon, recoiling.
Kirk bent to pick it up, but Chekov had already retrieved it The phaser was a lump of melted metal. Chekov handed it to Kirk. It was still hot to the touch.
"Quite impressive." The respect in Kirk's voice was genuine. "Did you generate that force internally?"
"Captain!" shouted Chekov. "The phasers—all of them!"
Kirk withdrew his from his belt. It had been fused into the same mass of useless metal.
"None of your toys will function."
Apollo dismissed the subject of the ruined phasers by stepping from his white throne. He strode over to Carolyn to search the slate-gray eyes with his. "Yes," he said, "the Cyprian was unusually generous to you. But the bow arm should be bare . . ."
He touched her uniform. Its stuff thinned into soft golden folds. They lengthened to her feet. She was gowned in a robe of flowing archaic Greek design that left one white shoulder naked. Golden sandals had replaced her shoes. Wonderingly, she whispered, "It—it is beautiful."
"You are beautiful," he said. "Come."
"She's not going with you!" Scott shouted. He took an angry step toward them—and was slammed against a marble bench. McCoy ran to him.
"That mortal must learn the discipline of my temple," Apollo said. "So must you all." He had Carolyn's hand in his. "But you—you come with me."
Kirk made a move and the girl shook her head. "It's all right, Captain."
The sunlight smile was for her. "Good," Apollo said. "Without fear. You are fit." A radiance suddenly enveloped them. Their figures were absorbed by it. They disappeared.
McCoy called to Kirk. "Scotty's stunned. He'll come around. But the girl, Jim—I'm not sure at all it was wise to let her go off like that. Whatever this Apollo is, we'd better be careful in dealing with him."
"He'd have been hard to stop," Kirk said. "Scotty tried."
"It's his moods that worry me. You've seen how capricious he is. Benevolent one moment, angry the next. If she says one displeasing thing to him, he could kill her."
"Yes, he could." Kirk turned to Chekov. "Mr. Chekov, continue your investigations. You all right, Scotty?"
Leaning against McCoy's shoulder, the engineer shook his head dazedly. "I don't know. I'm tingling all over . . . a kind of inside burning. Did he take her with him?"
"So it would seem, Scotty."
"Captain, we've got to stop him! He wants her! The way he looks at her—"
"Mr. Scott, the Lieutenant volunteered to go with him, hopefully to find out more about him. I understand your concern—but she's doing her job. It's time you started doing yours. We've got to locate the source of his power. You have a tricorder. Use it. One thing more. I want no more unauthorized action taken against him. I don't want you killed. That's an order."
Sullenly Scott stumbled away after Chekov and McCoy said, "Scotty doesn't believe in gods, Jim."
"Apollo could have been one though—once."
"Is that your theory?"
"Bones, suppose a highly sophisticated group of humans achieved space travel five thousand years ago. Suppose they landed on Earth near the area around the Aegean Sea. To the simple shepherds and tribesmen of primitive Greece wouldn't they have seemed to be gods? Especially if they were able to alter their shapes at will and command great energy?"
McCoy stared. Then he nodded soberly. "Like humans, occasionally benevolent, occasionally vindictive. Maybe you've got something. But I certainly wish that love-goddess girl were safely back on the Enterprise."
Under the golden sandals of the love-goddess girl, the grass of the olive-groved glade was soft. "A simple humanoid" was how Dr. McCoy had defined the man who strolled beside her. Birds threaded the air she breathed with melody. Her hand felt very small in his. He lifted it to his lips—and they were as warm as human lips. Above the bird song, she could hear the plashing of a waterfall. Vaguely Carolyn Palamas thought, "I am both afraid and not afraid. How is it possible to feel two such different feelings at once?"
"I have known other women," he said. "Mortals . . . Daphne, Cassandra. None were so lovely as you. You fear me?"
"I—don't know. It isn't every day a girl is flattered by—"
"A god? I do not flatter."
She reached for another subject. "How do you know so much of Earth?"
"How do you remember your home? Earth was so dear to us, it remains forever a shrine. There were laughter, brave and goodly company—love."
"You are alone, so alone," she said. "The others—where are they? Hera, Hermes, your sister Artemis?"
"They returned to the stars on the wings of the wind," he said.
"You mean they died?"
"No. We gods are immortal. It was the Earth that died. Your fathers turned away from us until we were only memories. A god cannot survive as a memory. We need awe, worship. We need love."
"You really consider yourself to be a god?"
He laughed. "It's a habit one gets into. But in a real sense we were gods. The power of life and death was ours. When men turned from us, we could have struck down from Olympus and destroyed them. But we had no wish to destroy. So we came back to the stars again."
A note of infinite sadness entered his voice. "But those we had to leave behind, those who had loved us were gone. Here was an empty place without worship, without love. We waited, all of us, through the endless centuries."
"But you said the others didn't die."
"Hera went first. She stood before the temple and spread herself upon the wind in a way we have . . . thinner and thinner until only the wind remained. Even for gods there is a point of no return." He paused. Then he turned her around to face him.
"Now you have come," he said.
A breeze stirred the grass at her feet. The urgency in his eyes was familiar to the traffic-stopper. But in his it seemed uniquely moving. Abruptly she had a sense of imminent glory or catastrophe.
"I knew you would come to the stars one day. Of all the gods, I knew. I am the one who waited. I have waited for you to come and sit by my side in the temple. Why have you been so long? It has been . . . so lonely."
She didn't speak. "Zeus," he said, "took Latona, my mother. She was a mortal like you. He took her to care for, to guard, to love—thus . . ."
His arms were around her. She whispered, "No—no, please, not now. I—I feel you are most kind and your—your loneliness is a pain in my heart. But I don't know. I——"
"I have waited five thousand years."
He kissed her. She pulled back; and he released her at once. "I will leave you for a little to compose yourself. The temple is not far." He stooped to brush the burnished hair with his lips before turning to stride up the swell of the glade. She watched him go. A sob broke from her; and she covered her face with her hands. Glory—or catastrophe. Who could know which lay in wait? The bird song had sunk into silence and shadows were lengthening through the leaves of the olive trees. She waited another moment before she climbed the gladed upswell that led back to
the temple.
The Enterprise party was quartering the area before it with tricorders. As she emerged from the trees, Chekov was calling to Kirk. "There's a repeated occurrence of registrations, Captain. A regularly pulsating pattern of radiated energy."
She was glad Scott's attention was fixed on the ground. "I can detect the energy pattern, too, Captain. But I can't focus on it."
"Apollo seems able to focus on it, Mr. Scott. He taps that power. How?"
"The electric eel can generate and control energy without harm to itself," Chekov said. "And the dry-worm of Antos—"
"Not the whole encyclopedia, please," McCoy begged.
"The Captain asked for complete information," Chekov said stiffly.
"Jim, Spock is contaminating this boy."
"Mr. Chekov, what you're suggesting is that Apollo taps a flow of energy he discharges through his own body," Kirk said.
"That would seem to be most likely, sir."
"But we don't know where the energy comes from! That's what we've got to find out if we're to cut off its source!"
"Number one on our 'things to do'," murmured McCoy.
"Is that all you can offer, Bones?"
"Yes, except for this finding. Your Apollo's got an extra organ in his gorgeous chest. I can't even make a guess at its function."
"An extra organ. Bones, is there any chance—"
"Captain!" Scott shouted.
Apollo had assumed shape and substance on the temple steps. Kirk walked up to him. "Where is Lieutenant Palamas?"
"She is well."
"That's not good enough—"
"She is no longer your concern, Captain Kirk."
"You blood-thirsty heathen, what have you done with her?" Scott cried.
Kirk's stern "No!" came too late. Scott, snatching up a stone, charged Apollo, headlong. The finger extended—and the blue-hot streak lashed from it. Heels over head, Scott was whirled through the air. He fell with a crash; and the rock in his hand rolled down the knoll.
"Well?" Kirk said.
McCoy was kneeling beside Scott's crumpled body. "Not so well, Jim. He's in deep shock."
Kirk glanced at Scott's white face. Blood was seeping from a gash near his mouth. He stood immobile for a long moment, half-seeing the injection McCoy was preparing. Then he whirled to stride up to the temple steps. "All right, Mr, Last of the Gods. You wanted worshippers? You've got enemies. From now on—"
The finger pointed directly at him. The blue-hot flash struck him directly in the chest. It didn't fade. It didn't waver. Kirk choked, hands groping at his heart. He spun around—and fell flat on his face into unconsciousness.
McCoy, instantly beside him, lifted an eyelid. "Two patients," he muttered to nobody. "Two damn fools."
From behind the tree whose trunk had sheltered her from Scott's notice, Carolyn burst out of the dismay that had benumbed her. She flew to the temple steps, crying wildly, "What have you done to them? What have you done?"
"They—needed discipline." Apollo spoke wearily.
She turned her back on him to run to the two stricken crew members. Kirk was climbing slowly to his feet, McCoy's arm about his shoulders. She knelt beside Scott to wipe the blood from his chin with her robe. He opened his eyes at her touch and smiled faintly at her. "What happened?" he said.
"You let your enthusiasm get the better of your pragmatism," McCoy told him dryly.
"I—I was going to separate his head from his ruddy neck," Scott said.
"And you disobeyed an order not to do it! When we get back to the ship, you'll report for a hearing, Mr. Scott!"
"She's—worth it, Captain."
"You're an officer of the Starfleet! Start acting like one! Besides, you stiff-necked thistlehead, you could have got yourself killed!"
Carolyn leaped to her feet, eyes blazing. "Apollo would not kill!"
Kirk stared at her. "Women.'" he thought. "They'll believe anything's true if they want to believe it is true." He said icily, "Lieutenant, he very nearly has killed—and several times."
"He could—but he didn't! Captain, you've got to see! He doesn't want to hurt anyone. He's just—terribly lonely. Please try to understand. He's the god of light, of music. He wouldn't hurt us!"
Kirk gripped her shoulders. "What happened when he took you away?"
"We—just talked."
"What about?"
"Captain, I—"
Kirk's voice was hard as the temple's stone. "Answer me, Lieutenant. What he said may help us."
Her eyes sought the ground. "He—said there was a point of no return . . . even for gods. Of course he's not a god—but he is not inhuman!"
"He's not human, either," Scott said grimly.
"No!" she cried. "He is something greater than human, nobler!"
"Lieutenant, there are four hundred and thirty people on our ship and we're all in trouble."
"Oh, I know it, Captain! Don't you think I know it? I just don't know what—" She burst into tears.
"Go easy on her, Jim."
"Why? So she can play around with an exciting new romance?"
"A god is making love to her. That's strong stuff, Jim."
Kirk shook his head in irritation. "How do you feel, Scotty?"
"I can't move my left arm."
"You won't for a while. There's some neural damage to the arm, Jim. I could repair it if I had the facilities."
"One more reason why we have to get out of here." Kirk walked over to a log, kicked it aside and turned to beckon to McCoy. "Bones, listen. I've been trying to remember my Greek mythology. After expending energy its gods needed rest just as humans do. At any rate, I intend to assume they did."
"You think this Apollo is off somewhere recharging his batteries?"
"That's not so far-fetched. He's disappeared again, hasn't he? Why shouldn't he be resting after the show he put on? Remember he's maintaining a force field on the ship while he drains off energy down here. Point? If we can overwork him, wear him out, that just might do it,"
"The trouble with overworking him is that it could get us all killed."
"Not if we can provoke him into striking one of us again. The energy drainage could make him vulnerable to being jumped by the rest of us."
"I still think we might all get killed."
"Bones, you're a pessimist. It's our only out. When he comes back, we'll try it. Cue Chekov in on the plan. Scotty's useless arm counts him out of any scramble. By the way, let's get him into the shade of the temple. It's hot in the sun."
But Carolyn Palamas had already assisted Scott into the temple's coolness. She was easing him down on a bench. Kirk, following them, heard her say, "I am so sorry, Scotty."
"I'm not blaming you," Scott said heavily, his eyes on her face. He shoved himself up with his right arm. "Carolyn, you must not let yourself fall in love with him!"
"Do you think I want to?"
Kirk had had enough. He interrupted them. "You are the one to answer that question, Lieutenant. What is it exactly you do want? If you've pulled yourself together, I'd be glad to hear."
"Jim, he's recharged his batteries."
McCoy's warning was very quiet. Kirk spun around.
Strong, glowing, glorious with health, Apollo was reclining against the side of his marble throne, chin on fist, the dark eyes on all of them, watchful.
"Come here," he said.
Kirk, McCoy and Chekov obeyed. "You are trying to escape me. It is useless. I know everything you mortals do."
"You know nothing about us mortals," Kirk said. "The mortals you know were our remote ancestors. It was they who trembled before your tricks. They do not frighten us and neither do you." He spoke with deliberate insolence. "We've come a long way in five thousand years."
"I could sweep you out of existence with a wave of my hand." The radiant smile flashed. "Then I could bring you back. I can give life and I can take it away. What else does mankind demand of its gods?"
"We find one sufficient," Kirk said.
; Apollo sighed, bored. "No more debate, mortal. I offer you eternal joy according to the ancient way. I ask little in return. But what I ask for I shall have."
He leaned forward. "Approach me."
They didn't move. Instead, they turned their backs on him and strolled toward the temple entrance.
"I said approach me!"
"No." Kirk flung the word over his shoulder.
"You will gather laurel leaves! You will light the ancient fires! You will slay a deer—and make your sacrifice to me!"
Kirk roared with laughter. "Gather laurel leaves? Listen to him!"
"It's warm enough without lighting fires!" shouted McCoy.
Chekov chuckled. "Maybe we should dance around a Maypole."
Apollo rose. "You shall reap the reward of this arrogance."
"Spread out. Get ready," Kirk said quietly. Then he turned, shouting, "We are tired of you and your phony fireworks!"
"You have earned this—"
Apollo had lifted an arm when Carolyn's "No!" came in a scream. "No, please, no! A father does not destroy his children! You are gentle! You love them! How can they worship you if you hurt them? Mortals make mistakes. You know us!"
"Shsssh," Kirk hissed. She didn't so much as glance at him. She was on her knees now before the throne. "Please—you know so much of love. Don't hurt them!"
The raised arm lowered. Apollo stepped from the dais and bent to lift her in his arms. Then he placed her on his throne. His hand on her neck, he turned to face them.
"She is my love of ten thousand years," he said. "In her name I shall be lenient with you. Bring the rest of your people down to me. They will need homes. Tell your artisans to bring axes."
Kirk's voice was acid with disappointment. "And you'll supply the sheep we herd and the pipes we'll play."
Apollo took Carolyn in his arms. The sunny radiance gathered around them. They dissolved into it—and were gone.
"Captain, we must do something!"
Kirk strode over to Scott's bench. "We were doing something until that girl of yours interfered with it! All right, she stopped him this time! How long do you think her influence will last?"
It was a question Carolyn was asking herself.
Gods were notoriously unfaithful lovers. Now the summer grass in the olive-groved glade was still green beneath her sandals. But autumn and winter? They would come in their seasons. Summer would pass . . . and when it went, she would know. Catastrophe—or glory. Now there was no knowing, no knowing of anything but the warmth of his arm around her shoulder.