Star Trek - Blish, James - 12 Read online

  "Tricorder?"

  "Barely operating, sir."

  "Spock!" Kirk handed the instrument to the First Officer. "What do you make of this?"

  Spock took readings with some difficulty. "This is not human skin tissue, sir. More resembles the cellular casting we use for wound repairs. Much finer, of course."

  "Mr. Spock!" Kirk stood up. "I want an exact judgment."

  "Definitely a mechanical contrivance. Its tissues re-semble the basic cell structure of the plants here- the trees, even the grass-"

  Kirk peered at the face again. "Are you suggesting that this is a plant, Spock?"

  Spock indicated extreme puzzlement by a slight frown. "I'm saying all these things are multicellular castings. The plants, the people, the animals-they're all being manufactured."

  "By who? and why?" said Kirk blankly. "And why these particular things?"

  Spock shook his head. "All we know for sure is that they act exactly like the real thing. Just as pleasant -or just as deadly."

  Esteban Rodriguez had not yet had a chance to re-port his encounter with the Bengal tiger, which had leaped from the rocks and snarled at him. He had managed to get away, and was telling Yeoman Angela Teller about that and other things as they headed for the glade.

  There was a buzzing sound. They looked around, and finally up. Overhead, a Sopwith Camel banked and dipped.

  "What is that?"

  "Of all the crazy things. Remember what I was telling you a little while ago about the early wars in the air, and the funny little vehicles they used?" Angela nodded, looking up at the sky. "Well, that's one of them."

  The plane veered back and looped over their heads. Angela eyed it dubiously. "Can it hurt us?"

  "Not unless it makes a strafing run." Rodriguez was rather pleased. No one could have asked for a better opportunity to show off his special knowledge. He had never expected to see one of those planes actually flying!

  "A what?" She was impressed, he could tell.

  "The way they used to attack people on the ground," he said offhandedly.

  The biplane's engines roared as it banked and started toward them. It dived. The rat-tat-tat of vintage gunnery tore the air to shreds.

  "Santa Maria!" Rodriguez dragged the girl toward the shelter of the nearby rocks. As the plane zoomed away, she dropped.

  "Angela!" He lifted her. Her head lolled unnaturally limp, and her weight was dead in his arms.

  Kirk and Spock were staring at the distant aircraft when Sulu called them.

  The bodies of McCoy and the Black Knight had vanished.

  "Look," said Sulu. "They've been dragged away."

  They were stranded in a nightmare. "Mr. Spock!" said Kirk desperately.

  The Vulcan was uncomfortable. "At this point, Cap-tain, my analysis may not sound very scientific."

  "McCoy's death is a scientific fact." The one un-deniable reality.

  "There is one faint possibility. Very unlikely, but nevertheless- Captain, what were your thoughts just before you encountered the people you met here?"

  Kirk tried to remember. "I was thinking about... the Academy."

  "Hey, Jim baby!"

  There he was again. Finnegan. Lolling against a tree across the glade.

  "I see you had to bring up reinforcements," he sneered. "Well, I'm still waiting for you, Jim boy!"

  Maybe. "Finnegan! What's been happening to my people?"

  The cadet, characteristically unhelpful, snickered and ducked back among the trees. His mocking laugh-ter floated back to Kirk, who gritted his teeth.

  "Take Mr. Sulu. Find McCoy's body. This man's my problem." He started across the glade.

  "Captain-" Spock began.

  "That's an order, Mr. Spock!" Kirk plunged into the trees in Finnegan's wake.

  The laughter penetrated the forest. Kirk stalked af-ter it. But it came from the left, and then the right, and straight ahead.

  "This way, Jim boy, that's the boy."

  He rounded a clump of trees and came on a bare rocky hill. No grass grew here; it was wild and de-serted-except for the derisive voice.

  "Old legs givin' out, Jimmy boy? Ha-ha-heeheehee!"

  The voice came from behind him. He whirled, and it came again from above.

  "Just like it used to be, Jim boy, remember? You never could find your head with both hands."

  Kirk clenched his fists. He was going to get even with Finnegan if it was the last thing he did.

  On a spur to his right, Finnegan called, "Over here, Jimmy boy!"

  "Finnegan! I want some answers!"

  "Coming up! Ha-ha-hee!" Kirk pursued the elusive voice until he was seething with fury; at last Finnegan stayed long enough on a rock above him for Kirk to start climbing.

  With practiced ease, Finnegan met him in a violent bulldogging roll. They fell together to the flat ground and Kirk was briefly aware of a profound satisfaction -at last it had come to a clinch. Finnegan had never lost a fight; you could feel that in his confidence and skill, and Kirk took the impact of blow after blow without being able to land a really good punch. And he was winded from the chase.

  Finnegan stood up and looked down at him. "Get up, get up. Always fight fair, don't you, you officer-and-gentleman, you? You stupid underclassman, I've got the edge." His brogue-tinged voice rang out in triumphant glee. "I'm still twenty years old-look at you! You're an old man!"

  Kirk rolled to his feet and swung. Finnegan ducked, slipped and landed hard. Kirk allowed himself a moment to savor this victory.

  "Uh-uh," grunted the prostrate cadet. "Jim! I can't move my legs. Ohhh. Me back, it's broken. You've broken me back... Ohhhh!"

  Officer and Gentleman. Kirk knelt and carefully straightened his victim's leg. He palpated muscle. Finnegan groaned and shook his head dizzily. Kirk moved closer and probed cautiously. "Can you feel that?"

  And he fell flat as Finnegan's clasped hands landed on the nape of his neck in a mighty double chop. Finnegan leaped to his feet, laughing.

  " 'Can you feel that?' " he mocked. "Sleep sweet, Jimmy boy. Sleep as long as you like. Sleep forever, Jimmy boy, forever and ever..."

  Kirk was not in a position to appreciate this ironic lullaby. Watery images vaguely swam before his eyes, his nose hurt, and the back of his head was resting on a sharp pebble.

  Finnegan loomed above him against the sky, hands resting on his hips, shaking his head sadly.

  "Won't you ever learn, Jim boy? You never could take me!"

  Kirk painfully propped himself up on one elbow and spat blood. He wheezed, "Finnegan. One thing."

  Magnanimous, Finnegan said, "Sure, name it."

  "Answers!"

  He should have known better. "Earn 'em!"

  As he started groggily to his feet, Finnegan floored him again.

  He lay there for one minute. This had gone too far. Fair or foul, the swaggering hooligan was going to get it. He rolled over, and, summoning all his unarmed-combat training, got on his feet in the same motion. Finnegan gestured, come on, come on, from his defensive crouch. "... wipe that grin off his face," Kirk thought, as he lunged. He landed a crunching blow and Finnegan reeled, recovered and came back.

  It seemed hours of bruising impacts on rib, jaw, arms. It was harder and harder to lift the hand and push it through the air, which had become harder and harder to breathe. Finally, Kirk pounded his last remaining strength into Finnegan's midriff, and the man dropped and lay still. Kirk fell back against the rock and tried to breathe. He had thought he was ex-hausted before. And he didn't dare close his eyes to blink away the running sweat, lest Finnegan be playing possum again. And he just could not lift his arms.

  Finnegan came to, slowly. "Not bad," he said grudg-ingly.

  "Yeah."

  "Kinda... ow! Makes up for things, huh, Jim?"

  Kirk licked blood off his lip. "A lot of things." Even if he had a black eye. "Now, what has been happening to my people?"

  With a touch of his old arrogance, Finnegan smirked. "I never answer questions
from Plebes."

  "I'm not a plebe. This is today, fifteen years later. What are you doing here?"

  There was a pause as they looked at each other.

  "Being exactly what you expect me to be, Jim boy!" cried Finnegan as he threw a handful of dirt in Kirk's eyes and scrambled to his feet. Kirk lost his balance but landed with one fist heavy in Finnegan's solar plexus. Finnegan closed with him.

  Swaying like a couple of drunks with tiredness, neither would give in. But Finnegan wasn't laughing anymore. He'd started dodging Kirk's blows. Kirk thought, he's twenty years old, and he's winded-more winded than the old man! He evaded a wide swing and grabbed a handful of Finnegan's tunic, driving his fist right into the bully's battered face with a final, ex-plosive grunt.

  And that was definitely that. Finnegan was out for the count. And Kirk, breathless, bruised and bleeding, felt like crowing. After all these years...

  As he felt a grin painfully stretching his cut lip, Spock said, "Did you enjoy it, Captain?"

  "Yes," panted Kirk, gloating. "I did enjoy it. For almost half my lifetime, the one thing I wanted was to beat the tar out of Finnegan."

  Spock raised his right eyebrow. "This supports a theory I have been formulating..."

  "We're all meeting people and things we happen to be thinking about at the moment."

  Spock nodded. "Somehow our thoughts are read, then that object is quickly manufactured and pro-vided."

  "H'm. So it gets dangerous if we happen to be think-ing about-" Kirk stopped hastily.

  "We must control our thoughts carefully." Spock, of course, would not find this difficult.

  Kirk tried not to think about-no! or... not that, either!

  "The power field we detected is undoubtedly un-derground, fabricating these things. Passages lead up to the surface. As, for example, when Rodriguez thought of a tiger-" Even Spock was not infallible, it seemed. There was a snarling roar, and the magnificent head of a Bengal tiger peered at them over the rocks. It padded over the ridge and down out of sight among the shrubs-toward them.

  Without moving, Kirk eyed the bushes. "We've got to get back to the others and warn them."

  Spock, immobile, murmured, "Yes."

  "We have to get out of here."

  "Immediately, Captain."

  They looked at each other sidewise. "You go first, Spock. I'll try and distract him."

  "I can't let you do that, sir. I'll distract him." The tiger waited patiently for them to make the first move. It waited, crouching, then settled down. It be-gan to lick its paws.

  "We could try moving very slowly."

  With extreme caution, Kirk extended a foot. The tiger watched interestedly. He leaned weight on the foot and achieved a step. Spock glided beside him as they edged around the rock. They ran like hell.

  Behind them, the tiger turned itself off.

  Rodriguez fell out of the shrubbery in their path. "Angela! The plane-" On cue, the Sopwith Camel ap-peared overhead in mid-dive. Kirk threw himself and his men to the ground as 50-caliber machine-gun bul-lets plowed the path at their side.

  "Don't think about it!" said Kirk. "To the glade, fast!"

  "Hai!" The Japanese warrior in his heavy complex armor flailed at them with a sharp sword. "Ahh-HOU!" But he was hampered by bis carapace, and they dodged him easily.

  As they reached the glade, Yeoman Barrows seemed to be in difficulties again. Sulu was wrestling with the bearded amorist in the black cloak as she clutched her tattered tunic in front of her; apparently she had been changing out of her princess's dress when ac-costed.

  But Don Juan melted away as Kirk and Spock pelted up to them.

  "Sulu, Rodriguez, Barrows-front and center!" snapped Kirk.

  "Sir-"

  "Don't ask any questions. This is an order!" They moved in to face him, Tonia squirming into her uni-form.

  "Now brace. Everyone, eyes front. Don't talk. Don't breathe. Don't think. You're at attention and concen-trating on that and only that. Concentrate!"

  The three crewmen obediently struggled not to think.

  Spock gestured, and Kirk turned to see a new ap-parition. A kindly old gentleman in dignified robes smiled at him.

  "Who are you?" From whose errant thoughts had this one appeared?

  "I am the Caretaker of this planet, Captain Kirk."

  "You know me?"

  "But of course." He nodded toward the bewildered crewmen. "And Lieutenant Rodriguez, Lieutenant Sulu, Yeoman Barrows-and Mr. Spock."

  The dangers in this place had not, so far, appeared in sheep's clothing. They had been all obvious threats. Perhaps...

  "I stopped by to check our power supplies, and have only just realized that we had guests who did not understand all this. These experiences were in-tended to amuse you."

  Kirk was taken aback. "Amuse us! Is that your word for all we've been through?"

  The man laughed easily. "Oh, none of this is per-manent." He waved at the surrounding glade, the forest, the meadows. "Here you have merely to imagine your fondest wishes-old ones you wish to relive, new ones, battle, fear, love, triumph. Anything which pleases you can be made to happen here."

  "The term," said Spock, out of the encyclopedia he housed in his brain, "is 'amusement park.' "

  "But of course." The Caretaker sounded as though this were perfectly obvious.

  "An old Earth term for a place where people could go to see and do all kinds of exciting and fantastic things."

  "This planet was constructed for our race of people, Captain. We come here, and play."

  Sulu was puzzled. "Play? As advanced as you are, and you still play?"

  The Caretaker looked at him pityingly. Kirk waved Sulu to silence. "Play, Mr. Sulu. The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play."

  The robed figure beamed approvingly. "Exactly, Captain. You are most perceptive.

  "I regret that your equipment was inadvertently af-fected. The system needed slight adjustment-it was pulling energy from the nearest available source. I think you will find that all is now in order."

  But it hadn't been all play. The fight with Finnegan had been extremely satisfying; the tiger had, after all, harmed no one; and Tonia's virtue was still intact. But...

  "None of this explains the death of my ship's sur-geon," said Kirk. The "amusement park" of an ad-vanced race had turned killer for the younger people. The Caretaker's face was gentle and his words reas-suring, but perhaps the toys of his race were too dangerous.

  "Possibly because I haven't died, Jim," said McCoy's voice behind him. Yeoman Barrows turned pale, and then radiant with joy.

  McCoy sauntered into the clearing, in the pink of health, with a young lady clad in a few feathers cling-ing to each of his arms.

  "I was taken below the surface," he explained, glancing at his chest, "for some rather-remarkable -repairs. It's amazing! There's a factory complex down there like nothing I've ever seen. They can build anything-immediately!"

  Tonia had run to him, and was gazing into his face as if she could not believe her eyes. She touched his chest, last seen torn and bleeding. She became conscious of an obstruction and belatedly realized that McCoy was not alone.

  She found her tongue. "And how do you explain them?"

  "Er-" McCoy glanced fondly at the two voluptu-ous, bare, willing beauties on his arms. "Well, I was thinking about a little cabaret I know on Rigel II. There were these two girls in the chorus line that I- well-" his assurance faltered. "Er-here they are."

  Tonia looked. He said, "Well, after all, I am on shore leave."

  "So am I," said Tonia ominously.

  "Er-" McCoy would just have to spread himself around. "So you are."

  Yeoman Barrows waited.

  Resigning himself to the not-unattractive inevitable, McCoy released the charmers. "Well, girls, I'm sure you can turn something up."

  The girls smiled a cheerful farewell to the doctor and moved. To Sulu's evident delight, the redhead chose to nestle up to him. Spock, howev
er, did not appear gratified at the armful of blonde that approached him. He dodged politely, but to no avail. She insinuated herself somehow and stood alarmingly close.

  Rodriguez said, very quietly, "And-Angela?"

  "Esteban!" she said, hurrying out of the shrubbery. "I've been looking all over for you!" He took her hand and stared, unbelievingly.