Star Trek - Blish, James - 08 Page 9

  Kirk got up. "All right. Now that you've tested our integrity, suppose you demonstrate yours."

  "Gladly, Captain."

  "Begin by explaining what you've done to Scott and Sulu. How are you 'controlling' them?"

  "I cannot answer that question," Korob said. "But I have sent for someone who can."

  That someone entered, a tall, slim woman. Her black hair, parted in the center above her acquiline features, fell below her waist. Perhaps it was her high cheekbones that gave her green eyes an oblique look. On the breast of her red gown she wore a crystal pendant like the one they had seen on the cat.

  Korob said, "This is my colleague, Sylvia."

  As she approached Kirk, he became conscious of her remarkable grace. Bowing slightly, she said, "Captain Kirk, I understand you want to know what we did to your men. We probed their minds. For us it is a simple matter to probe the minds of creatures like yourself."

  "Hypnosis?" Spock asked.

  She ignored him to move to McCoy. As she did so, she said, "Our methods go a little deeper than hypno-sis." McCoy made no comment. Eyes held by the glow-ing pendant, he had gone suddenly rigid, unblinking. She smiled at him. "Let me tell you what you said of the man Jackson who was returned to your ship. You said, "There's no sign of any injury... no organic damage, internal or external. The man simply froze to death.'"

  "How do you know that?" Kirk was watching her closely.

  The green eyes turned to him. "You like to think of yourselves as complex creatures, Captain, but you are flawed. Your minds have many doors. Most of them are left unguarded. We enter your minds through those unguarded doors."

  "Telepathy?" Spock suggested.

  This time she answered him. "Not entirely. Telepa-thy does not include control. And I assure you, I am in full control of your friends."

  Abruptly, Kirk lost patience with the charming lady and her conversation. Moving swiftly, he shoved his heavy chair back into Scott. Scott stumbled, losing his guard stance behind the chair. He lost his phaser, too; Kirk grabbed it from him all in that same swift, unex-pected movement. Scott, recovering his balance, lunged. Kirk leveled the phaser at him. He backed up, and the phaser swung around to cover all of them- Sylvia, Korob, Sulu, Scott.

  "Don't move-any of you!" Kirk said.

  McCoy relaxed. His eyes blinked. Kirk motioned Scott and Sulu over to Korob, the phaser steady in his hand. "No more hocus-pocus!" he said. "Korob, I want our other weapons and our equipment. I want them now. I also want some answers-real ones."

  Sylvia said, "Put that weapon down, Captain."

  Kirk laughed. The green eyes didn't flash with anger. They merely regarded him appraisingly. Then, reaching a hand into a pocket slit in her gown, Sylvia withdrew from it what appeared to be a small silver toy. She left Kirk to go to Spock and McCoy.

  "Do you recognize this?" she asked them.

  "It looks like a miniature model of the Enterprise" McCoy said.

  "No. In a sense it is the Enterprise."

  Frowning, Spock said, "Where did you get it?"

  "From the minds of your two crew members. I absorbed then: knowledge of the ship."

  "With what purpose in your mind?" Spock asked.

  She moved to the table where the huge candelabra held its tall, lit candles. "In the mythology of your race," she said, "this is called 'sympathetic magic,' Cap-tain. One may call it what one chooses. It is an interest-ing tool."

  Kirk, still holding the phaser on Korob, spoke over his shoulder. "Lady," he said, "that won't do as a explanation."

  Spock's face had grown grave. He watched her in-tently as she stood at the table, the candlelight throwing come-and-go shadows across her face. "Jackson," she said, "you all wondered why he froze to death in a moderate climate. How is this explanation, Captain? I made an exact image of him. Then I froze the image. When I knew it was frozen, he died."

  "Rubbish!" Kirk said. "You can't think a man to death!"

  "Your communicator is in the pocket of Korob's robe, Captain. Please take it."

  He hesitated a moment before he obeyed. As he turned, he saw that she was holding the toy model of Enterprise about six inches above a candle flame. "Sig-nal your ship," she said.

  He clicked the communicator open. Uneasy in spite of himself, he realized that she had lowered the silver model closer to the candle flame.

  Korob said, "Sylvia-don't..."

  The model sank closer to the candle flame; and Kirk spoke hastily into the communicator. "Kirk to Enter-prise! Enterprise, come in, please. Kirk here. Come in...."

  "Captain, it's you!" It was Uhura's voice but there was desperation in it. "Where are you? We can't..."

  "Never mind us. What's happening up there?"

  "Something's-gone wrong with the temperature control. We-can't locate it. The heat has risen-sixty degrees in the past thirty seconds. The Enterprise is burning up, sir..."

  "Beef up the refrigerator units, Lieutenant!"

  The voice came more weakly now. "We did, sir- but they're-breaking down..."

  Kirk, visualizing his Starship, saw it streaking through space like a comet on fire. He imagined Uhura and Farrell, hanging onto their posts, gasping for air, their uniforms sweat-drenched. "The heat will go," he said. "I'll take care of it, Lieutenant."

  He snapped off the communicator, walked over to Korob and returned it to him. "All right," he told Sylvia. "You can stop it now." He handed the phaser, too, to Korob.

  She removed the little ship from the flame.

  "Now that you've seen our science," Korob said, "perhaps you'd better tell us something of yours."

  "I'd rather know more about yours," Kirk said. "First you call it magic. Now it's science. Which is it?"

  "What would you call it, Captain?"

  "Transmutation-telekinesis. You seem to have a strange ability, not just to change the molecular struc-ture of objects, but to move them from point to point by merely willing it. What could you want with our comparatively clumsy science?"

  "Ours requires machines, matter, energy, chemicals," Spock added. "Compared with your techniques, it is imperfect and cumbersome. Then why is it important to you?"

  "There are things you know that we do not. We can alter the molecular structure of matter. But you can release the energy within it."

  "Korob! You talk too much!" Sylvia snapped. Recovering herself, she went on, "Besides, you three are not so specialized as those two." She indicated the motionless figures of Scott and Sulu. "That one thinks only of machines. The other's mind is full of trivia, thoughts about his collections, the physical exertions he calls exercises. But in your minds is an accumulated knowledge of worlds, of this galaxy."

  "If so, in our minds is where the knowledge stays," Kirk said.

  "You have used Scott and Sulu as catspaws," McCoy said. "You used them to lure us down here. How did you know we'd come?"

  "They knew you'd come," Korob smiled.

  "Enough of this," Sylvia said impatiently. "You will tell us what we want to know, one way or another!"

  "It's a little late for threats," Kirk said. "I contacted my ship, remember? How long do you think it'll be before there's another landing party here?"

  "Quite some time," Korob said. He touched the tiny ship on the table with the crystal ball of his wand. The now familiar greenish light glowed over it. When it faded, the model was encased in a solid block of crys-tal. "An impenetrable force field now surrounds your ship, Captain. It will not hinder orbit. It does, however, make prisoners of everybody inside your ship."

  "I advise you to cooperate, Captain," Sylvia said. "Though it is simple to extract the information we want by forcible means, they are extremely painful. And they have a certain-draining effect." She waved a hand toward Scott and Sulu.

  "We have nothing to discuss," Kirk said.

  Korob turned to Scott and Sulu. "Take them back to their cell."

  "Wait." Sylvia's green eyes moved over them, cold, icily analytical. "The Doctor will stay."

 
; "Bones-" Kirk began.

  "Don't waste your sympathy, Captain. You will be next. It really makes little difference." She turned, speaking sharply to Scott and Sulu. "Take the others away."

  Korob handed Sulu the phaser. It thrust hard into Kirk's back as he and Spock were herded from the chamber.

  This time his shackles seemed tighter to Kirk. His eyes fixed anxiously on the dungeon door, he moved restlessly in the chains, feeling them grind into his flesh.

  "How long has it been?" he fretted.

  "Twenty-two minutes, seventeen seconds," Spock said.

  The question gnawing at Kirk burst out of him. "What are they doing to him?"

  "Perhaps," Spock said, "the real question is 'what are they?' They've admitted they are alien to this planet. And I find their total ignorance of our instrumentality and science most curious."

  Kirk gave him an interested glance. "They also refer to us as 'creatures,' as though our species were unfami-liar to them."

  Spock nodded. "The fact that everything around us seems solid and real may not be the fact. Sylvia and Korob look humanoid. But they fabricated that food and the gems. They may also have fabricated the way they appear to us. Suppose they are not biped hu-manoids? Suppose they've just drawn all this from the subconscious minds of Scott and Sulu?"

  Kirk frowned. "Scotty and Sulu are responsible men. They are not prone to superstition." He paused to digest Spock's speculations. "But Scott, it's true, does have a heritage that includes castles, dungeons and witches in its lore. And Sulu-Oriental folk tales also admit the influence of ghosts and spirits."

  "Children are still fond of ghost stories, Captain. Even I grew up with a knowledge of them, much to my father's dismay. Perhaps we are all subconsciously afraid of dark rooms, of spectral visions-and this is what these aliens are using to try and gain the information they want."

  "But they don't want just our science," Kirk remind-ed him. "What they're after is knowledge about our worlds-the galaxy itself." He was about to add "Why?" when the key scraped in the lock of the dun-geon's door.

  It opened. Sulu, phaser in hand, pushed McCoy through it. He didn't resist the shove. He just stood there, unblinking, his face emptied of all human ex-pression.

  "Ah, Bones, Bones-" Kirk groaned.

  But Sulu had bent over him and was unlocking his chains. Then McCoy shambled over to him. He jerked Kirk to his feet, and placing him carefully in line with Sum's pointed phaser, kicked him toward the open dun-geon door.

  Sylvia's method for making an obedient imbecile out of McCoy had disturbed Korob. As they awaited Kirk's arrival in the castle's great hall, he put his agitation into words.

  "There's no need to torture them!"

  "They resist," she said.

  "You tease them! You promise them toys and then watch them scream in pain when they reach out to touch them. It amuses you!"

  She shrugged. "And if it does, that does not concern you. I get the information I want for the Old Ones; and to get it is why we were sent here."

  "You must stop!" Korob cried. "At least, let the pain be brief!"

  "You cannot command me, Korob. We are equals."

  "But not the same," he said.

  "No. You are weak. I am strong. That is the reason I was chosen by the Old Ones to come with you. They suspect you of weakness. I am the one they-" She stopped at the appearance of Kirk between McCoy and Sulu.

  Her lips moved into a charming smile. In the voice of a hostess greeting a distinguished guest, she said, "Captain, how nice to see you. I'm so glad you have come." The welcoming smile still on her mouth, she turned to Korob. "Leave us-and take those two with you."

  Korob hesitated. Then, making Sylvia a formal bow, he picked up the Enterprise in its transparent casing- and left the chamber, followed by the listless Sulu and McCoy.

  Kirk and Sylvia eyed each other. For the first time he sensed tension in her, a certain wariness as though she knew she'd met her match in strength. The smile he gave her was just as charming as the one that still lingered on her face. "What now?" he said pleasantly. "Do you wave your magic wand and destroy my mind, too?"

  He didn't miss the involuntary start, she gave at mention of the wand. He also noted how her hand had lifted to touch the crystal pendant on her breast. "There's no real damage done to the mind, Captain-just a drain of knowledge and will."

  "You don't call that damage?"

  "Why should I when it isn't?" she responded easily.

  His eyes swept over her in the immemorial look of the sexually appraising male. "You must forgive me," he said. "I forget that you are not a woman. Perhaps not even human."

  "I don't know what you mean," she said.

  "All this-" he waved his hand around the room, "all this apparently drawn from our racial superstitions and fantasies. Illusion-the whole thing."

  She pointed to one of the wall torches. "Put your hand in that flame and you will be burned, Captain. However created, these things are quite real. I am real, too."

  "Why do you need us?" he said.

  She walked over to the table. When she turned to face him again, she said, "What does your science teach you about the nature of the universe?" ,

  He laughed. "There's nothing I enjoy so much as discussions on the nature of the universe. Particularly with charming ladies." He gave her a mocking little bow. "You didn't answer my question, you know. Why do you need us?"

  "I don't need the others. Nor do you."

  She spoke softly. Now she left the table to move closer to him. Human or not, she was graceful. "If we combined what you know and I know," she said, "there's no limit to the power we would possess."

  "And Korob?" he said.

  One thing she did know, he was thinking-how to exert sexual witchcraft. She'd laid her hand lightly, very lightly on his forearm. "Korob is a weak and foolish man," she said. "He can be disposed of. But I would find it difficult to dispose of-you."

  He smiled down into the green eyes. "Or to probe my mind?"

  "That would not be necessary if we mingled our knowledge," she said. "From me you could learn secrets you've never dreamed of. Anything you imag-ined could be yours..."

  The hand was slowly moving up his arm. "Your- arguments are quite persuasive," he said. "Suppose I decided to go along with you?"

  Her low murmur was a caress. "You would not regret your decision. Power, wealth, all the luxuries of your galaxy would be yours."

  "You're a very beautiful woman," he said-and meant it.

  "I can be many beautiful women," she said. The green eyes upturned to his were suddenly sapphire blue. The long black hair disappeared and became a shining tumble of blond curls. Even her red robe drained of its color to change into a creamy white that matched the flawless cream of her skin. Then the blond beauty was gone. Copper braids wreathed her head. The robe deepened to a rich bronze. She was an au-tumn beauty now, her cheeks flushed with the tone of autumn leaves.

  "Do you like me thus?" she asked. "Or do you prefer this?"

  She recovered her original appearance.

  "I prefer this," Kirk said-and took her in his arms. When she lifted her head from his kiss, she was staring at him with surprised delight. "That was very- enjoyable. What is it called? May I have another?"

  He kissed her again. Then he released her. "Your people will guarantee me that I won't be harmed?"

  "Yes, when they come. I have only to report to the Old Ones that you will cooperate with us."

  "And my friends will be restored to their former condition?"

  "Of course-if you wish it."

  She reached up her arms to his neck but he removed them.

  "What's wrong? What wrong have I done?"

  He stepped away from her. "When you took the form of a woman," he said, "you also assumed the female compulsion to talk too much. You've revealed too many secrets, Sylvia. What if your Old Ones find out you've been tricked by one of the creatures you plan to conquer?"

  "You tricked me? You do not like me?"
r />   "No," he said.

  "Then you just used me?"

  "Didn't you plan to use me?"

  Her green eyes blazed. She clapped her hands sharp-ly. Scott and McCoy, both armed with phasers, came through the tapestried archway.

  She pointed a shaking, sharp-nailed finger at Kirk. "Get him out of here! Take him back to his cell!"

  It was Korob who came to release him from his shackles.