by James Blish
"No. They are good."
"Then it must be ourselves—the way we live. Perhaps we have failed to improve as quickly as the Wise Ones wished."
Kirk could take no more. He found what he hoped were comforting words. "Your land is rich and your people are happy. The Wise Ones could not be displeased with you."
"But there is something," Goro insisted. "Tell us and we will change it."
"I—I can't tell you anything. Except that I have been peaceful and glad here."
Mercifully, Goro seemed satisfied. When he'd left, Kirk turned almost angrily to Miramanee. "Why are they so sure I can save them?"
"You came from the temple. And did you not return life to the dead child?"
He placed his tortured head in his hands. "I—need time," he said, "time to try and remember . . ."
She placed the buckskin garments on his knees. "Here is much time, my god. Much quietness and much time."
The simplicity with which she spoke was oil on his flayed soul. The strain in it relaxed. "Yes," he said. "Thank you, Miramanee."
The Enterprise and the asteroid were speeding on a parallel course. A terrible companion, it traveled with them, a voracious menace that devoured the whole area of the bridge's main viewing screen.
"Coordinates, Mr. Chekov?"
"Tau—eight point seven, sir. Beta—point zero four one."
"That's our target, Mr. Chekov—the asteroid's weakest point."
Chekov gave Spock a look of awed respect. "Yes, almost dead center, sir."
"Lock all phasers on that mark, Mr. Sulu. Maximum intensity, narrow beam. I want that fissure split wide open."
"You sound like a diamond-cutter, Spock," McCoy said.
"An astute analogy, Doctor."
"Phasers locked, sir," Sulu said.
"We will fire in sequence. And will continue firing as long as Mr. Scott can maintain power."
"Standing by, sir."
"Fire phasers!"
The ship trembled. "Phaser one firing!"
Sulu hit another button. "Phaser two fired!"
On the screen the rocky mass loomed larger than the ship. Fragments erupted from it as the phasers' blue beams struck it.
"Phaser three fired, sir! Phaser four!"
Another cloud of rock segments, sharp, huge were torn from the asteroid.
"All phasers fired, sir."
The stillness of Spock's face gave impressive poignancy to the tone of bitter disappointment in his voice. "Rig for simultaneous firing, Mr. Sulu."
In the engineering section, Scott muttered to an assistant, "That Vulcan won't be satisfied till all these panels are a lead puddle!" As he spoke there was a sharp metallic click—and one of his main relays began to smoke.
"Main relay's out again, Mr. Scott!" cried the assistant.
"Machines are smarter than people," his chief said. "At least they know enough to quit before they blow themselves up!"
"Commence simultaneous bombardment." As Spock's order was heard on the intercom, a white-hot flash leaped from the engine compartment. There was the roar of an explosion that hurled Scott back against the opposite bulkhead. Spread-eagled, clinging to it, he was close to tears as he watched the death of his friends—his engines. "My bairns," he said brokenly. "My poor bairns . . ."
"Kirok."
It was a soft whisper but it roused Kirk from his uneasy doze. Kneeling beside him, Miramanee said, "The ritual cloak is finished."
She was very close to him. Under his eyes the long black hair drooped. "If it pleases you, I will name the Joining Day."
"The Joining Day?"
"I am the daughter of chiefs," she said. "Tribal law gives me to our god."
Kirk looked at her, uncomprehending. She bowed her head. "If there is another in your heart, Kirok . . ."
"There is no one else, Miramanee. In my mind or in my heart."
She was still disturbed by what she feared was his lack of response. "A god's wish is above tribal law. If you do not wish—"
Kirk reached for her. "Miramanee, name the Joining Day."
The shining lashes lifted. "The sooner our happiness together begins, the longer it will last. I name—tomorrow."
The Past was a darkness, cold, impenetrable. If he was a prisoner of the Present, at least it offered this warmth, this glow in the black-lashed eyes. Kirk drew her fiercely to him. He bent his head to her mouth.
Spock had retreated to his quarters. McCoy, entering them without knocking, found him staring at his viewer. "I told you to rest, Spock! For the love of heaven, quit looking at that screen!"
The intercom spoke. Scott said furiously, "Our star drive is completely burned out! So don't ask for any more Warp Nine speed! The only thing you've left us, Spock, is impulse power!"
"Estimated repair time?" the Vulcan asked the intercom.
"Hanging here in space? Forever. The only way to fix my engines is to get to the nearest repair base!"
McCoy snapped off the intercom. He laid his hand on Spock's shoulder. "You took that calculated risk for us, for that planet—and for Jim. That you took it is important. That you lost it—well, losing it was in your calculation."
"I accept the full responsibility for the failure, Doctor."
"And my responsibility is the health of this crew. You are to stop driving yourself so hard."
Spock switched the intercom back on. "Resume heading 883 mark 41, Mr. Chekov."
"Why, that's back to the planet!" McCoy cried. "Without warp speed, getting to it will take months!"
"Exactly 59.223 days, Doctor. And the asteroid will be four hours behind us all the way."
"Then what's the use? Even if the Captain is still alive, we may not be able to save him! We may not be able to save anything—not even the ship!" McCoy hit the wall. "You haven't heard a word I have said!
All you've been doing is staring at that damn—" He strode over to the screen and struck the image of the obelisk that had appeared on it.
"Another calculated Vulcan risk, Doctor."
Miramanee was radiant in her bridal finery. She was surrounded by women who had crowded into the tribal lodge. As one placed a chaplet of flowers on the shining black hair, she said, "This Joining Day is the end of darkened skies."
Salish dropped the hide back over the lodge's entrance. On his moccasined feet, he walked swiftly toward the obelisk where the god-groom in festive dress was submitting his face to the paint Goro was applying to it from a gourd.
Goro handed the gourd to a young brave. "It is I who must tell the priestess you will follow," he said. "Wait here until I have walked the holy path to the tribal lodge."
When Goro had disappeared down the sun-dappled path, Kirk, smiling, stepped from the obelisk to make his way to the lodge and Miramanee. Salish, dropping from a pine bough above him, stood facing him, blocking the trail. His face was raw with hate.
"Get out of my way," Kirk said.
"Kirok, even though you are a god, I will not permit this joining." Salish pulled a flint knife. "Before I permit it, you must strike me dead."
"I don't wish to strike anybody dead," Kirk said. But Salish jumped him. Kirk sidestepped the lunge; and Salish, rushing him again, scraped the knife across his cheek.
"You bleed, Kirok! Gods do not bleed!" He drove at Kirk with the knife, murder in his eyes. They grappled; and Kirk wrenched the knife from his grasp. Salish flung himself to the ground. "Kill me, Kirok! Kill me now! And I will return from the dead to prove to the people you are no god!"
Kirk looked at the maddened face at his feet. Placing the knife in his belt, he stepped over the prone body and moved on down the path. This imposed god-role of his had its liabilities. On the other hand it had brought him Miramanee. At the thought of her he hastened his stride toward the lodge.
Two braves greeted him at its entrance. A magnificent feathered cloak was placed around his shoulders. Miramanee moved to him; and on instruction, he enfolded her in the cloak to signify the oneness of marriage. Goro struck a stone ch
ime with a mallet. There were shouts of delight from the people. Beads rattled in gourds, tom-toms beat louder and louder—and Miramanee, slipping from under the cloak, ran from the lodge. At the entrance, she paused to look back at him, her flower-crowned face bright with inviting laughter. This time Kirk didn't need instruction. He sped after her, the feathered cloak flying behind him.
She'd reached the pine woods when he caught her. She fell to the soft bed of scented needles and he flung himself down beside her.
He grew to love the pine woods. It was pure happiness to help Miramanee gather their fragrant boughs for the fire pit in their Medicine lodge. He loved Miramanee, too; but sometimes her black eyes saw too deeply.
They were lying, embraced, beside the fire pit when she lifted her head from his shoulder. "Each time you hold me is more joyous than it was on our Joining Day. But you—"
He kissed her eyelids. "It's the dreams," he said.
"I thought they had gone. I thought you no longer looked for the strange lodge in the sky."
He released her. "The dreams have returned. I see faces, too. Even in daylight, I see faces. They're dim—but I feel that I know them. I—I feel my place is where they are. Not here—not here. I have no right to all this happiness . . ."
She smiled down into his troubled face. "I have a gift for you." She reached her hand under the blanket they lay on and withdrew the papoose board she'd hidden under it. She knelt to lay it at his feet.
"I carry your child, my Kirok."
Kirk was swept by a sense of almost intolerable tenderness. The lines of anxiety in his face softened. He drew her head back to his shoulder.
Again without knocking, McCoy entered Spock's quarters.
"I thought I told you to report to Sickbay," he said belligerently.
Spock didn't so much as glance up from his small cabin computer. "There isn't time," he said. "I've got to decipher those obelisk symbols. I judge them to be a highly advanced form of coding."
"You've been trying to do that ever since we started back to the planet! That's fifty-eight days ago!"
Spock passed a hand over his tired eyes as though to wipe a mist away from them. He had grown gaunt from fatigue. "I'm aware of that, Doctor. I'm also aware that we'll have barely four hours to effect rescue when we reach the planet. I feel those symbols are the key."
"You won't decipher them by killing yourself!" McCoy adopted the equable tone of reason. "Spock, you've hardly eaten or slept for weeks now. If you don't let up on yourself, it is rational to expect collapse."
"I am not hungry, Doctor. And under stress we Vulcans can do without sleep for weeks."
McCoy aimed his medical tricorder at him. Peering at it, he said, "Well, I can tell you your Vulcan metabolism is so low it can hardly be measured. And as for the pressure of that green ice water in your veins you call blood—"
To straighten Spock had to support himself by clutching his console. "My physical condition is not important. That obelisk is."
"My diagnosis is exhaustion caused by overwork and guilt. Yes, guilt. You're blaming yourself for crippling the ship." McCoy shook Spock's shoulder. "Listen to me! You made a command decision. Jim would have made the same one. My prescription is rest. Do I have to call the Security Guards to enforce it?"
Spock shook his head. He moved unsteadily to his bunk and lay down. No sooner had McCoy, satisfied, closed the door behind him than he got up again—and returned to his viewer.
Kirk was trying to improve the lighting of his lodge by constructing a crude lamp. But Miramanee could not grasp the function of the wick.
"It will make night into day?" she said wonderingly. "And I can cook more and pre—pre . . ."
"Preserve food," Kirk said.
"For times of famine." They smiled at each other. "Ah," she said, "that is why you are making the lamp, Kirok. So I shall be forever cooking."
His laugh ended abruptly. Miramanee's face had gone tight with terror. A gust of wind pulled at the lodge's hide door. "There is nothing to fear," he said. "It is just wind."
"Miramanee is a stupid child," she said. "No, there is nothing to fear. You are here." But she had moved to the lodge door to look nervously up at the sky. She turned. "It is time to go to the temple, Kirok. The people will be there waiting for you."
"Why?"
"To save them," she said simply.
"Wind can't harm them." But the gravity in her face didn't lighten. "The wind is just the beginning," she said. "Soon the lake will go wild, the river will grow big. Then the sky will darken and the earth will shake. Only you can save us."
"I can't do anything about the wind and the sky."
She removed the lamp from his hand, seized his arm pleadingly to pull Mm toward the door. "Come, Kirok. You must come."
A sense of threat suddenly oppressed him. "Miramanee, wait—"
She pulled harder at him, her panic mounting. "We must go before it is too late! You must go inside the temple and make the blue flame shine!"
Kirk stared at her, helpless to reach her understanding. "I don't know how to get inside the temple!"
"You are a god!"
He grabbed her shoulders roughly. I am not a god. I am a man—just a man."
She shrank from him. "No! No! You are a god, Kirok!"
"Look at me," he said. "And listen. I am not a god. If you can only love a god, you cannot love me. I say it again—I am a man!"
She flung her arms about his neck, covering his face with frantic kisses. "It must be kept secret, then! If you are not a god, the people will kill you!"
A fiercer gust of wind shook the poles of the lodge. Miramanee screamed. "You must speak to the people—or they will say you are not a god. Come, Kirok, come!"
The tribe had gathered in the central lodge. Under the onslaught of the rising wind, shields, spears, knives had been torn from their places on the hide walls. Women were screaming, pulling at children, shoving them under heaps of skins. Salish fought his way through the maddened crowd to confront Kirk.
"Why are you not at the temple, Kirok? Soon the ground will begin to tremble!"
"We shall all go to the caves," Kirk said.
"The caves!" Salish shouted. "Is that the best a god can do for his people?"
Goro spoke. "When the ground trembles, even the caves are unsafe, Kirok. You must rouse the spirit of the temple—or we will all die!"
"What are you waiting for, god?" Salish said.
Kirk unclasped Miramanee's arms from his neck and placed her hand in Goro's. "Take care of her," he said. "I will go to the temple."
Outside, the gale tore his breath from his lungs. Somewhere to his left a pine tree crashed. Thunder rumbled along the horizon in a constant cannonade. And the sky was darkening. Boughs whipped across his face as he groped his half-blind way down the worn trail to the obelisk. The enigmatic tower told him nothing. Its inscrutable symbols held their secret as remorselessly as ever. Kirk beat at the hard metal with his fists, shouting, screaming at it, "I am Kirok! I have come! Open to me!"
The words were drowned by the screams of the ungearing wind.
McCoy stopped dead at the door of Spock's quarters.
Strains of unearthly music were coming from the cabin. Maybe I've broken," McCoy thought. "Maybe I've died, gone to heaven and am hearing the music of the spheres." It wasn't music of the spheres. It was music got from an oddly shaped Vulcan harp. Spock, huddled over his computer, was strumming it, his face tight with concentration.
"I prescribed sleep," McCoy said.
"Inaccurate, Doctor. You prescribed rest." The musician looked up from his instrument. "The obelisk symbols are not letters. They are musical notes."
"You mean a song?"
"In a way. Certain cultures, offshoots of our Vulcan one, use musical notes as words. The tones correspond roughly to an alphabet." He laid the harp aside. "The obelisk is a marker left by a super race on that planet. Apparently, they passed through the galaxy, rescuing primitive cultures threatened by extinction
—and 'seeded' them, so to speak, where they could live and grow."
"Well," said McCoy. "I must admit I've wondered why so many humanoids were scattered through this galaxy."
"So have I. I judge the Preservers account for a number of them."
"Then these 'Preservers' must have left that obelisk on the planet as an asteroid-deflector."
Spock nodded. "It's become defective."
"So we have to put it back in working order. Otherwise . . ."
"Precisely, Doctor."
The earth around the obelisk was shaking. Villagers, panicked to the point of madness, had fled to their temple in a last hope of salvation. Kirk, backed against it, wiped blood from his cheek where one of their stones had gashed it.
"False god, die!"
It was Salish. As though his cry of hate were the words they had been waiting to hear spoken, the crowd broke out into roars of accusation. Women screamed the enormity of their sense of betrayal. "Die, liar, die! Die as we all will die!" Men stooped for rocks. Goro shrieked, "Impostor! Liar!"
Miramanee flung herself before Kirk, her arms spread wide. "No! No! You are wrong! He can save us!"
Kirk pushed her away. "You cannot help me. Go back to them, Miramanee! Go back to them!" Salish burst from the crowd and seized her.
"Kirok! Kirok! I belong to you!" She wrenched free of Salish and flew back to Kirk.
"Then you die, too! With your false god!"
His rock struck her. She fell. There was a hail of stones; she elbowed up and crawled to Kirk. Before he could lift her to shield her with his body, Salish hurled another rock. It caught her in the abdomen.
"Miramanee . . ." Kirk was on his knees beside her. The crowd closed in for the kill when there came a shimmer of luminescence on the obelisk pediment. The Indians fell back, their stones still in their hands—and Spock and McCoy, in their Enterprise uniforms, materialized on each side of the kneeling Kirk.