Star Trek - Blish, James - 08 Page 6

  Kirk, unaware he had lost Spock, looked at the phaser he held at the ready. The sight of it repelled him. A suicide weapon was what it was. The life it would fell was part of his own. He replaced the phaser in his belt.

  And his Cain saw him do it. Crouched between two power generators, the double had heard his ap-proaching footsteps Its features tensed with its curious mixture of fear and ferocity. Its phaser aimed, it moved away from its shelter for a full confrontation.

  Kirk stopped dead. As he recognized his own face in the Other's face, a chill passed over him. This nameless Thing belonged to him more utterly than any name his parents had given him. The two Kirks stared at each other in a kind of trance. Then, as though he were drawn by a power as unknown as it was powerful, Kirk stepped toward his double. It raised its phaser.

  Kirk spoke. His voice sounded strange in his own ears. It was solemn with the prophetic tone of a mystic suddenly endowed with an incontrovertible truth. "You must not hurt me," he said. "You must not kill me. You can live only as long as I live."

  Uncertainty flickered over the double's face; and Kirk, in a kind of dream, knew he was seeing the reflection of his own new uncertainty.

  Then the hesitation faded. "I don't need you!" the double said. "I don't have to believe what you say. So I can kill you!"

  Its finger was on the kill trigger. Leaping, the mo-mentum of his leap lending force to his clenched fist, Spock lunged from behind the generator to land it, hammerlike, on the double's chin. It fell. Its phaser fired, the beam striking a machine unit behind Kirk. It flared into glow and collapsed.

  Spock looked down at the sprawled double. "I fear," he said, "that the ministrations of Dr. McCoy will be needed."

  The fear was well-founded. Consciousness was reluc-tant to return to the double. Each in his different way anxious, Kirk and Spock watched McCoy as he stooped over the still figure in its bed. McCoy worked silently. After a moment, Kirk went to the viewing screen. Turning it on to Engineering, he said, "What about those Transporter circuits, Scotty? They're all checked through now, aren't they?"

  "Yes, sir. And we thought we'd corrected the trou-ble. But now something else has gone wrong."

  "What?" Kirk demanded.

  "We don't know, sir. We're working on it. Is that all, Captain?"

  Once more Kirk was unable to rally either a yes or a no. There was an uncomfortable pause. Finally Scott said, "Then I'd better get back to work, sir."

  It would be darker on the planet. Kirk cried out, "Find out what's wrong, Scott! And fix it in God's name! Four human lives are depending on that Trans-porter!"

  Scott said stiffly, "We're doing our best, sir."

  Kirk leaned his forehead against the frame of the viewing screen. "I know, Scotty. You always do your best. Keep me posted, will you?"

  "Yes, sir." The voice had relaxed.

  Over at the bed, McCoy had completed his examina-tion. "How is-he?" Kirk asked.

  "Pulse and blood pressure high," McCoy said. He glanced at Spock. "Probably due to that sock on the chin."

  "It was necessary, Doctor."

  "This-creature will be recovering consciousness soon. As I have no idea at all about its mental state, I can't give it a tranquilizer. I think we'd better bind it."

  He looked at Kirk for authorization. Kirk was sud-denly oppressed by a sense of suffocation. The heavy tonnage of command responsibility seemed to be crush-ing him. He shook his head to try and clear it of the dizziness. "Yes," he said, "all right. I just wish someone would tell me what's the matter with me."

  "You are losing the power of decision, Captain," Spock said.

  "What?"

  McCoy was busy binding the double but not so busily that he couldn't direct a glare at Spock. But the Vulcan continued, cool and unruffled. "Judging from my obser-vations," he said, "you are rapidly losing your capacity for action. There's hesitation in time of crises--loss of perception. Captain, you refuse to defend yourself. You refused to demand adequate assistance when we went down to the Engineering level whereas you should have placed yourself in guarded isolation until the impostor was captured." He paused. "You have dismissed men for less hesitation, less passivity in the face of danger."

  "Make your point, Spock!" shouted McCoy.

  "Point?"

  "You have one, I presume," McCoy said.

  "I am analyzing, Doctor; not point-making."

  "It's the Captain's guts you're analyzing! Are you aware of that, Mr. Spock?"

  "Vituperation, Doctor?"

  Composed, unmoved, Spock went on. "The dichoto-mies inherent in the human mind are multiple," he said. "The problem of command, for instance, highly pertinent in this case. Command is a balance between positive and negative energies-an equilibrium of the forces generated by each of these energies. The proof?"

  He turned to Kirk. "Your negative energy was re-moved from you by that duplication process. Thus, the power of command has begun to fail you. Things re-maining as they are, how long can you continue to function as Captain of this ship? Finally unable to decide anything at all, will you..."

  McCoy broke in. "Jim, give him a command! Tell him to get lost!"

  "If I seem emotionally insensitive to the agony of your ordeal, Captain, please understand. It's the way I am."

  "That's for damned sure!" yelled McCoy.

  "Gentlemen," Kirk said. In the end, always in the end, one's pain remained a private matter. The scene, however dismal, was always enacted alone. He smiled wryly at them. "I may be losing my ability to command but it hasn't entirely disappeared. Until it does, you will both kindly knock it off."

  The intercom on McCoy's desk whirred. Kirk flicked it on. "Kirk here."

  "Engineering, sir. We've just located that new trouble with the Transporter. Its Ionizer Unit has been man-gled. Looks as if a phaser beam had hit it."

  The double's phaser beam had hit it, the double, that separated part of himself. If his crewmen died their lonely death on the subarctic planet beneath him, it would be he, Kirk, their trusted Captain who had killed them.

  He got up to walk to the door. "If I'm needed," he said, "I'll be in the Briefing Room."

  They had lit a fire down on the planet. Black night was spreading toward them from its horizon. And the stealthy fronds of frost were creeping over the rocks of the rock shelter where the abandoned crewmen huddled together for warmth. Sum, his lips cracked and sore, had to hold his hands over the fire before his fingers could manipulate his communicator. "Can you give us a status report, Enterprise? It's fallen to 90 degrees below zero down here."

  "This is the Captain, Mr. Sura. We have located the trouble. It shouldn't be much longer."

  "Think you could rig up a cord, sir, and lower us down a pot of coffee?"

  "I'll see what I can do about that," Kirk said.

  "Rice wine will do, sir, if you're short of coffee."

  "I'll check the commissariat for rice wine, Mr. Sulu." And once more it had to be "Kirk out."

  He watched his hand reach out to the intercom button. He was afraid to call Scott. He pressed the button. "That mangled unit, Scotty. Status report."

  "Nothing much of it left, sir."

  "How bad is it?"

  "We can't repair it in less than a week."

  A week. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. Death by cold was said to be preceded by sleep. Alone in the Briefing Room, Kirk realized that imagination had be-come his mortal enemy. It showed him the planet's surface under the deadly grip of its incredible cold, its night ominous with the coming sleep of death as the blood in his men's veins turned to ice. They'd be mov-ing slowly now if they could move at all...

  Reality endorsed imagination. Sulu was slowed to a crawl as he elbowed himself to the dying warmth to check his phaser. He fired it at another boulder. It burst into glow. The others inched toward it; and Sulu made his frost-blackened lips say, "That rice wine is taking too long. I'm giving Room Service another call."

  Nobody spoke as he opened his communicator. "En-terpri
se, this is Sulu."

  "Kirk here, Mr. Sulu."

  "Hot line direct to the Captain again. Are we that far gone, sir?"

  Kirk struck the Briefing Room table with his fist "Everybody but you's got the afternoon off. I'm watching the store. How is it down there?"

  "Lovely," Sulu said. "We're using our phasers to heat the rocks. One phaser's quit on us. Three are still operational. Any chance of getting us aboard before the skiiing season opens down here?"

  The ice-maybe it would be merciful, quick. Think. But he couldn't think. His thoughts like comets that would not be stayed flashed through his mind-and were gone...

  He felt no surprise to see Spock quietly lift the speaker he had dropped.

  "This is Spock, Mr. Sulu. You will hold out a little longer. Hold out. Survival procedures, Mr. Sulu."

  "As per your training program, Mr. Spock."

  "Yes, Mr. Sulu."

  Kirk reached for the speaker. "Sulu-just don't drift, don't lose-awareness. Sulu, beware of sleep..."

  As Spock said, "Spock out," Kirk felt an irresistible impulse to return to Sickbay. He wasn't entirely com-posed of that atavism that had destroyed the Ionizer Unit. He was Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, too-and he was going back to Sickbay. Courage was doing what you were afraid to do.

  The consciousness that had come back to the double was a thing of howling panic. It was thrusting madly against the net of cords that held it, the force of its screams swelling the veins of its neck. As he watched the writhing body on the bed, it seemed to Kirk that he could taste the acid of its frenzy in his mouth. How he knew what he knew he didn't know; but he knew that the double was feeling some ultimate terror it had met in the black labyrinth of its Cain fate.

  "It should be calming down," McCoy said, laying a hypodermic aside. "This tranquilizer should be working now." He threw a worried glance at the body function panel. All its readings showed a dangerous peak.

  The tormented body on the bed strained again at its bonds. A shudder shook it. Then, suddenly, it col-lapsed, its head lolling like a broken doll's.

  "What's happened?" Kirk cried. The readings on the body-function panel were rapidly falling.

  "The tranquilizer was a mistake," McCoy said. "Its system has rejected it."

  "He's not-dying?" Kirk said.

  McCoy spoke tonelessly. "Yes, it is."

  "No," Kirk whispered. "No." He reached for Mc-Coy's arm. "I can't survive without him and he can't survive without me."

  McCoy shook his head; and the double moaned. "Afraid, afraid," it said.

  Kirk went to it. "Help me," it wept. "I am afraid- so afraid."

  Kirk took its hand. McCoy started forward. "Jim, you'd better not..."

  Kirk stooped over the bed. "Don't be afraid. This is my hand. Feel it. Hold on to it. That's it. Hang on to my hand. I won't let you go."

  "Afraid," whimpered the double pitifully.

  Some strength rose up from unknown depths in Kirk. It was as though he had lived through just such a scene before. The words that came to him seemed familiar. "You must hold on to me because we've been pulled apart. Come back! No, you're letting go! Hold on to me. Tight! Tighter!"

  He lifted the sheet to wipe the sweat from its fore-head. "I'm pulling you back to me. We need each other! That's it. Tight! We have to hang on-together...."

  McCoy, at the body-function panel, looked around, astounded. But all Kirk saw were the tragic eyes fixed on his in abject dependence. "No fear," he said. "You can come back. You are not afraid. You are not afraid. Be back with me. Be back, be back, be back..."

  McCoy touched his shoulder. "Jim, it is back."

  Kirk stumbled over to McCoy's desk, slumping into its chair. "Now you can use some brandy," McCoy said.

  He gagged on the drink. Eyes shut, he said, "I must take him back-into myself. I don't want to, Bones-a brutish, mindless wolf in human shape. But I must. He is me, me!"

  "Jim, don't take this so hard," McCoy said. "We are all part wolf and part lamb. We need both parts. Com-passion is reconciliation between them. It is human to be both lamb and wolf."

  "Human?" Kirk asked bitterly.

  "Yes, human. Some of his wolfishness makes you the man you are. God forbid that I should ever agree with Spock-but he was right! Without the strength of the wolf in you, you could not command this ship! And without the lamb in you, your discipline would be harsh and cruel. Jim, you just used the lamb to give life back to that dying wolf..."

  The double was listening, concentrated.

  The intercom buzzed. Drained, Kirk said, "Kirk here."

  "Spock, sir. Will you come to the Transporter Room? We think we may have found an answer."

  "I'm on my way," Kirk said. He turned to McCoy. "Thanks, Bones. And keep your fingers crossed."

  "Tell Mr. Spock I'm shaking all my rattles to invoke good spirits."

  But as the door closed behind Kirk, there came a cry from the bed. "No!" The startled McCoy went to the bed. The double was sitting up. It said quietly, "No. Everything is under control right now."

  In the Transporter Room, Wilson was holding the mild doglike creature.

  "What's that answer you think you've found?" Kirk asked.

  "A way to make the Transporter safe, sir," Scott said. "We have attached some temporary bypass and leader circuits to compensate for the velocity variation. There shouldn't be more than a five-point difference in speed balance."

  "Our suggestion is that we send the two animals through the Transporter," Spock said.

  So that was the answer-hope that amendment in the Transporter would somehow rejoin the two halves of the animal as it had somehow cut them apart. It was hoped that his dying men could be beamed home to the Enterprise without risk of the fatal division. Hope. Well, without it, you couldn't live.

  "All right," Kirk said. "Go ahead."

  Spock took the hypodermic from the top of the Transporter console. He nodded at Scott. The Chief Engineer went to the specimen case and lifted its lid. "I'll grab it by the scruff of its neck and hold it as still as I can." He reached into the case. The snarling beast twisted and writhed against Scott's grip on its neck.

  "Don't hurt it!" Kirk cried.

  Injecting the shot, Spock said, "It's painless, Captain, quick. The animal will lose consciousness for only the few, necessary moments." The snarls subsided. Spock took the creature from Scott and carried it to the Transporter platform where Wilson was waiting with the other one. They laid them on the platform, side by side. Scott, at the console, said, "If this doesn't work-" He broke off at Spock's signal. He turned a dial. The platform flared into glow. The two animals vanished and the glow faded.

  "Energize to reverse," Spock said.

  Scott twisted a dial. The platform flared into light again. The two animals reappeared-and the light dimmed.

  Spock ran to the console. He made some adjustment of dials. "Again," he said to Scott. The process was repeated. The energizing dial was reversed. The plat-form broke into dazzle. As it shaped itself into sub-stance, McCoy came in.

  One animal lay on the platform.

  "It's dead," Kirk said.

  "Not so fast, Jim," McCoy said.

  Kirk waited while he checked the limp body for heartbeat. There was none. Into the silence Spock said, "The shock-the shock of reabsorption..."

  Kirk stumbled out of the Transporter Room.

  Later, in Sickbay, McCoy gave tentative support to Spock's diagnosis of the cause of the death. Straighten-ing up from the table that held the dead beast, he said, "Maybe it was the shock of reabsorption that killed it. But it would take a post mortem before we could even approach certainty."

  "Why shock?" Kirk asked.

  "We're only guessing, Jim."

  "Yes, I know. But you've both used the word shock."

  "The consequence of instinctive fear," Spock said. "The animal lacked the ability to understand the pro-cess of reabsorption. Its fear was so great it induced shock. Other conditions that cause shock are no
t appar-ent." He was carefully examining the creature. "You yourself can see, sir, that the body is quite undam-aged."

  Kirk was groping for some answer of his own. "He- in that bed in there-felt great fear." He turned to McCoy. "You saw him feel it. But he survived it. He survived it!"

  "Just by a hairsbreadth," McCoy reminded him. "I can hear it coming, Jim. You want to take this double of yours through the Transporter with you-you and it, with it. No, Jim, no!"