Star Trek 05 Read online

  The Enterprise blazes new star trails to danger as Kirk, Spock and the rest encounter—* an asylum planet where the mad rule * a universe with a total population of one * race warfare to the death—whiteblack against blackwhite * paradise—with a most unusual serpent * the ultimate in women's lib * an almost eternal triangle * a gang of galactic drop-outs—and other startling problems and perils.

  BASED ON THE EXCITING

  NEW NBC-TV SERIES CREATED

  BY GENE RODENBERRY

  A NATIONAL GENERAL COMPANY

  STAR TREK 5

  A Bantam Book / published Febuary 1972

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1972 by Bantam Books, Inc.

  Copyright © 1972 by Paramount Pictues Corporation.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,

  by mimeograph or any other means,

  without permission in writing.

  Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

  ISBN-13: 978-0553143836

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, Inc., a subsidiary of Grosset & Dunlap, Inc. Its trade-mark, consisting of the words "Bantam Books" and the portrayal of a bantam, is registered in the United States Patent Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, Inc., 271 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  CONTENTS

  * * *

  PREFACE:

  WHOM GODS DESTROY

  THE THOLIAN WEB

  LET THAT BE YOUR LAST BATTLEFIELD

  THIS SIDE OF PARADISE

  TURNABOUT INTRUDER

  REQUIEM FOR METHUSELAH

  THE WAY TO EDEN

  PREFACE:

  * * *

  After the announcement in Star Trek 4 that I would be doing more of these books a year, a number of fans wrote to suggest scripts to be included—for which, again, many thanks—and in some cases to ask for a schedule of when the books would appear.

  That's a question I just can't answer. I write full time for my living, and that of assorted relatives and cats, and right at this moment I have ten books in my job jar, counting this one. They all have deadlines attached, two of which I've already missed, thanks to social engagements and all the other small-shot calls of everyday life. I tend to work on two or three books concurrently, but I can't finish more than one at a time, and even after thirty years in this business, I find I can't predict how long any given book will take.

  All that I can say for sure is that I have contracted to do four Star Trek books in the coming year, and that I'll deliver them—but exactly when each successive one will show up is something which is pretty much in the lap of the gods. I have all the scripts here, and I'll write the books, but I'll have to leave it up to you to do the watching for them.

  Also, may I remind you once more that the volume of mail I get about these books is completely unprecedented in my experience, and far more than I can cope with. I read all the letters with attention and am happy to have them; but were I to try to answer them, I'd never get any books written at all. Please don't stop writing, but please also accept my apologies for not responding. As Hippocrates said about medicine: "Art is long, and time is fleeting."

  JAMES BLISH

  Treetops

  Woodlands Road

  Harpsden (Henley)

  Oxon., England

  WHOM GODS DESTROY

  (Lee Erwin and Jerry Sohl)

  * * *

  Dr. Donald Cory seemed almost effusively glad to see Captain Kirk and Spock, not very much to Kirk's surprise. There was ordinary reason enough: Kirk and Governor Cory were old friends, and in addition, Kirk's official reason for the visit was to ferry him a revolutionary new drug which might release him from his bondage. And what bondage! It would take the most dedicated of men to confine himself behind a force field, beneath the poisonous atmosphere of Ebla II, in order to tend the fourteen remaining incurably insane patients in the Galaxy.

  "Fifteen, now," Cory said. He was a cheerful-looking man despite his duties, round-faced and white-haired. "You'll remember him, Jim: Garth of Izar."

  "Of course I remember him," Kirk said, shocked. "He was one of the most brilliant cadets ever to attend the Academy. The last I heard, he was a Starship Fleet Captain—and there were no bets against his becoming an admiral, either. What happened?"

  "Something utterly bizarre. He was horribly maimed in an accident off Antos IV. The people there are master surgeons, as you've probably heard. They virtually rebuilt and restored him—and in gratitude, he offered to lead them in an attempt to conquer the Galaxy. They refused, and he then tried to destroy the entire planet with all its inhabitants. One of his officers queried the order with Starfleet Command and, naturally, he wound up here."

  "How is he responding?" Spock asked.

  "Nobody here responds to anything we try," Cory said. "That in fact is the ultimate reason why they're here at all. Perhaps your new drug will help, but frankly, I'm pessimistic; I can't afford not to be."

  That's understandable," Kirk said. "I'd like to see Garth, Donald. Is that possible?"

  "Of course. The security section is this way."

  The security cells offered evidence, were any needed, that rare though insanity now was, it was no respecter of races. Most of the inmates behind the individual force fields were humanoid, but among them was a blue Andorian and a pig-faced Tellarite. Perhaps the most pathetic was a young girl, scantily dressed and quite beautiful; her greenish skin suggested that someone of Vulcan-Romulan stock had been among her ancestors, though probably a long time back, for she showed none of the otter physical characteristics of those peoples.

  As the group passed her, she called out urgently, "Captain! Starship Captain! You're making a mistake! Please—get me out of here and let me tell you what has happened!"

  "Poor child," Cory said. "Paranoia with delusions of reference—closer to a classic pattern than anybody else we have here, but all the same we can't break through it. Captain Kirk is pressed for time at the moment, Marta.

  The girl ignored him. "There's nothing wrong with me. Can't you see just by looking at me? Can't you tell just by listening to me? Why won't you let me explain?"

  "A rational enough question, that last," Spock observed.

  "I am rational!"

  Kirk stopped and turned toward her. "What is it you want to say to me?"

  The girl shrank away from the invisible barrier and pointed. "I can't tell you, not in front of him."

  "You're afraid to talk because of Governor Cory?"

  Her expression became sly, her tone confidential. "He isn't really Governor Cory at all, you know."

  Kirk looked at Cory, who spread his hands helplessly. "I don't mean to sound callous," he said, "but I hear it every day. Everyone is plotting against her, and naturally I'm the chief villain. Garth's cell is around the corner. He's been unusually disturbed and we've had to impose additional restraints."

  He waved them forward. As Kirk turned the corner, he was stunned to discover what Cory had meant by "restraints." The man in the cell was shackled spread-eagled against the wall, his chin sunk upon his chest, a vision straight out of a medieval torture chamber. With a muffled exclamation, Kirk stepped forward. Surely no modern rehabilitation program could necessitate . . .

  At the sound, the prisoner looked up. He was disheveled, haggard and wild-eyed, but there could be no doubt about his identity.

  He was Governor Cory.

  Kirk spun. The other Cory was not there. Standing at the bend of the corridor was a tall, hawk-nosed man with deep-set, glowing eyes, with a phaser trained on the two Enterprise officers. Behind him crowded most of the supposedly restrained inmates Kirk had previously seen, also armed.


  "Garth!"

  "No other," the tall man said pleasantly. "You said you wanted to see me, Captain. Well, here I am. But I suggest you step into the cell first. The screen's down—that's why we had the Governor shackled. Tlollu, put the Vulcan in the biggest empty cell. Captain, drop your weapons on the floor and join your old friend."

  Kirk had no choice. As he entered, a faint hum behind him told him that the force field had gone up. He crossed quickly to Cory and tried to release him, but the shackles turned out to be servo-driven; the control was obviously outside somewhere. Cory said hoarsely, "Sorry he tricked you, Jim."

  "Don't worry, well think of something."

  "Our esteemed Governor," Garth's voice said, "reacts to pain quite stoically, doesn't he?"

  Kirk turned. The green-skinned girl was also free, and clinging to Garth, who was fondling her absently.

  "Garth, you've got me. What's the point in making Cory suffer like this . . ."

  "You will address me by my proper title, Kirk!"

  "Sorry. I should have said Captain Garth."

  "Starship Fleet Captain is merely one of my minor titles," Garth said with haughty impatience. "I am Lord Garth of Izar—and future Emperor of the Galaxy."

  Oho, this was going to be very tricky; Garth had described his own madness all too accurately. "My apologies, Lord Garth."

  "We forgive you. Of course, you think I'm a madman, don't you, and are humoring me. But if so, why am I out here while you two are in there?" Garth roared with laughter at his own joke. Kirk, finding the girl, Marta, watching him intently, forced a smile. She whispered in Garth's ear. "Later, perhaps. Marta seems quite taken with you, Captain. Fortunately for you, I have no weaknesses, not even jealousy."

  "I tried to warn you, Captain," Marta said. "Remember?"

  "She did, you know," Garth said affably. "But of course I had so arranged matters that you would not listen. Our Marta is indeed a little unstable."

  "What," Kirk said, "do you expect to accomplish with a staff of fourteen mad creatures?"

  "Now you try reason. That is better. The Izarians, Captain, are inherently a master race. Much more so than the Romulans and the Klingons, as their failures have shown. When I return triumphantly from exile, my people will rally to my cause."

  "Then you have nothing to fear from Governor Cory. Why don't you release him?"

  "I fear no one; the point is well taken. You see, we can also be magnanimous." He touched a device at his belt. Behind Kirk, Cory's shackles sprang open with a clang; Kirk only just managed to catch the tortured Governor before he fell to the floor.

  "Thank you, Lord Garth," Kirk said. "What have you done with the medicine I brought?"

  "That poison? I destroyed it, of course. Enough of this chatter; it is time I took command of the ship you brought me. You will help me, of course."

  "Why should I?"

  "Because I need the ship," Garth said, with surprised patience. "My crew mutinied. So did my Fleet Captains. The first use I will make of the Enterprise is to hunt them down and punish them for that."

  "My crew won't obey any such lunatic orders," Kirk said, abandoning with disgust any attempt to be reasonable with the poor, dangerous creature. "You're stuck, Garth. Give it up."

  "Your crew will obey you, Captain. And you forget how easily I convinced you that I was your old friend Governor Donald Cory. It's a helpful technique, as you will observe. Watch."

  Garth's features, even his very skin, seemed to crawl. When the horrifying metamorphosis was over—and it took only a few seconds—the man inside the false Cory's clothes was no longer Garth, but a mirror-Kirk.

  The duplicate grinned, gave a mock salute, and strode off. Marta remained for a moment, giving Kirk a look of peculiar intensity. Then she too left, murmuring something under her breath.

  "I—was praying you wouldn't get here at all," Cory said. "A starship is all he needs—and now he's got one."

  "Not quite. And even if he does gain command of the Enterprise, one of my officers is bound to appeal his first crazy order to Starfleet Command, just as his own officers did."

  "Jim, are you sure of that?"

  Kirk realized that he was not at all sure of it. In the past, acting under sealed orders had forced him to give what seemed to be irrational orders often enough so that, tit for tat, his crew assumed any irrationality on his part was bound to be explained eventually. He had, in fact, long been afraid that that would be the outcome.

  "No—I'm far from sure. But one starship is not a fleet; even if my officers obey him implicitly, there's a limit to the harm he can do."

  "Those limits are pretty wide," Cory said. "He says he has devised a simple, compact method for making even stable suns go nova. I think it quite likely that he has. Can you imagine what a blackmail weapon that would be? And if the Izarians do rally to him—which wouldn't surprise me either, they've always been rather edgy and recalcitrant members of the Federation—then he has his fleet, too. It won't do to underestimate him, Jim."

  "I don't. He was a genius, that I remember very well What a waste!"

  Cory did not answer.

  "How does he manage that shape-changing trick?"

  "The people of Antos taught him the technique of cellular metamorphosis and rearrangement, so he could help them restore the destroyed parts of his body. It's not uncommon in nature; on Earth, even lowly animals like crabs and starfish have it. But Garth is a long way from being a lower animal. He can mimic any form he wishes to now. He used it to kill off my entire medical staff—and to trap me. And laughed. I can still hear that laugh. And to think I hoped to rehabilitate him!"

  'There's still a chance. Even masquerading as me, Garth can't get aboard the Enterprise without a password—we made that standard procedure after some nasty encounters with hypnosis and other forms of deception."

  "Where does that leave us, Jim? He's got us."

  "Why," Kirk said slowly, "he will have to ask us for help. And when that time comes, he'll get it—and it will be, with any luck at all, not the help he thinks he wants, but the help he needs."

  "If you can do that," Cory said, "you're a better doctor than I am."

  "I'm not a doctor at all," Kirk said. "But if I can get him into McCoy's hands . . ."

  "McCoy? If you mean Leonard McCoy, he's probably Chief Medical Director of Starfleet Command by now. Hopeless."

  "No, Donald. Garth is not an admiral, and McCoy is not warming any bench on Earth, either. He's in orbit right above our heads. He's the Medical Officer of the Enterprise."

  Cory was properly staggered, but he recovered quickly. "Then," he said, "all we have to do is get Garth onto the Enterprise—which is exactly what he wants. I can't say that you fill me with optimism, Jim."

  Garth appeared outside the cell the next day, all smiles and solicitude. "I hope you haven't been too uncomfortable, Captain?"

  "I've been in worse places."

  "Still, I'm afraid I've been somewhat remiss in my duties as your host. In my persona as Cory, I invited you down to my planet for dinner—you and Mr. Spock. The invitation still stands."

  "Where is Mr. Spock?"

  In answer, Garth beckoned, and Spock was brought around the corner, surrounded by an armed guard of madmen. Among them was Marta, smiling, a phaser leveled at Spock's head.

  "Nice to see you, Mr. Spock."

  "Thank you, Captain."

  Kirk turned back to Garth. "Isn't Governor Cory dining with us?"

  "Governor Cory is undergoing an involuntary fast, necessitated by his resisting me. You will find, however, that for those who cooperate we set a handsome table."

  Kirk was about to refuse when Cory said, "You can't help me by going hungry, Jim. Go along with them."

  "Good advice, Governor," Garth said, beaming. "Well, Captain?"

  "You're very persuasive."

  Garth laughed and led the way.

  The staff refectory of the Elba II station had evidently been once as drably utilitarian as such places alway
s tend to be, but now it looked like the scene of a Roman banquet. Garth waved Kirk and Spock to places between himself and Marta. They sat down wordlessly, aware of the vigilant presence at their backs of the Tellarite and the Andorian. Kirk became aware, as well, that Marta was virtually fawning on him.

  Garth glared at her. "Hands off, slut."

  This only seemed to please the girl. "You're jealous, after all!" she said.

  "Nonsense. I'm above that sort of thing. The Captain is annoyed by your attentions. That's all."

  The girl looked sweetly at Kirk. "Am I annoying you, darling?"

  This looked like a good opportunity to provoke a little dissension in the ranks of the mad. "Not really," Kirk said.

  "You see? He's fascinated by me and it bothers you. Admit it."

  "He said nothing of the sort," Garth retorted. "Your antics will lead to nothing but your being beaten to death."

  "No, they won't. You wouldn't. I'm the most beautiful woman on this planet."

  "Necessarily, since you're the only one," Garth said.

  The girl preened herself. "I'm the most beautiful woman in the Galaxy. And I'm intelligent, too, and I write poetry and I paint marvelous pictures and I'm a wonderful dancer."

  "Lies, all lies! Let me hear one poem you've written."

  "If you like," Marta said calmly. She got up and moved to the front of the table, striking an absurdly theatrical pose. At the same time, Spock leaned slightly closer to Kirk.

  "Captain," he said almost inaudibly, through motionless lips, "if you could create a diversion, I might find my way to the control room to release the force field."

  Kirk nodded. The notion was a good one; all they would need would be a few seconds if Scotty had a security detail alerted—as he probably did have if Garth had already tried to pass himself off as Kirk without the password.

  Garth was glaring at Marta, who, however, was looking only at Kirk. She began: