Star Trek 06 Read online

  "Well, we could switch over all but the life support circuits and boost the impulse power—black the ship out otherwise—"

  "Do it. Kirk out."

  McCoy reentered, frowning. "Incredible," he said. "I ran a complete check on the natives. There's a complete absence of harmful bacteria in their systems. No tissue degeneration, no calcification, no arteriosclerosis. In simple terms, they're not growing old. I can't begin to tell you how old any of them are. Twenty years—or twenty thousand."

  "Quite possible," Spock said. "It checks with my atmosphere analysis. The atmosphere completely screens out all dangerous radiation from their sun."

  "Add to that a simple diet," Kirk said, "perfectly controlled temperature . . . apparently no vices at all . . . no natural enemies . . . and no 'replacements' needed. Maybe it is Paradise, after all—for them."

  Outside, there was a curious vibrating sound, not loud, but penetrating, like the striking of an electronic gong. Kirk went out, beckoning to Spock.

  The People of Vaal were no longer lounging around. They were moving off toward the cliff, picking up rocks from the stockpiles as they left. Kirk and Spock followed.

  At the cliff, the people entered the mouth of Vaal with the rocks, and came out without them. The red eyes were flashing, brightly now.

  "Apparently our hypothesis is correct," Spock said. There is no living being in there. It is a machine, nothing more."

  "The field's down. The people are going in. Let's see what luck we have."

  Kirk took a step forward. There was an immediate rumble of thunder, to the considerable alarm of the People of Vaal. Kirk stepped back quickly. "That's not the way."

  "Evidently not. It is no ordinary machine, Captain. It has shown a capacity for independent action in its attacks upon us. It may well possess a more than rudimentary intelligence."

  "But it needs to eat. It can't have any great power reserves."

  "Indeed, Captain. But that does not seem to be of help. The ship now has only ten hours to break free."

  "What if Vaal's power weakens as it approaches feeding time? Mr. Spock, check with the ship; get an estimate of the total energy being expended against it. And measure it every hour."

  "With pleasure, Captain." Spock took his communicator out quickly. Deep in thought, Kirk went back to the hut, where he found all of the landing party outside.

  "What was it, Jim?"

  "Mess call, Bones."

  Spock came up behind him. "A perfect example of symbiosis. They provide for Vaal, and Vaal gives them everything they need."

  "Which may also answer why there are no children here," Kirk said. "There are exactly enough people to do what Vaal requires."

  "In my view," Spock said, "a splendid example of reciprocity."

  "It would take a mind like yours to make that land of statement," McCoy said.

  "Gentlemen, your arguments can wait until the ship is out of danger."

  "Jim," McCoy said, "you can't just blind yourself to what is happening here. These are humanoids—intelligent! They've got to advance—progress! Don't you understand what my readings indicate? There's been no change here in perhaps thousands of years! This isn't life, it's stagnation!"

  "You are becoming emotional, Doctor," Spock said. "This seems to be a perfectly practical society."

  "Practical? It's obscene! Humanoids living only so that they can service a hunk of tin!"

  "A remarkable hunk of tin, Bones," Kirk said. "And they seem healthy and happy."

  "That has nothing to do with it—"

  Kirk's communicator cut in. "Kirk here."

  "Scott, sir. We've got a reading on the power source as Spock asked. It is dropping a bit at a time—nominal, but a definite drain."

  Kirk grinned triumphantly at Spock. "Good. Keep monitoring. How are you doing with the circuit switchover?"

  "We're putting everything but the kitchen sink into the impulse drive, sir. It'll take another eight hours to complete the work."

  "That's cutting it fine, Scotty."

  "Aye, sir. But if we don't break out, I'd rather we didn't have to wait long for the end of it."

  Kirk took a deep breath. "Right. Carry on, Scotty. Kirk out."

  The hours wore away. A large assortment of fruit and vegetables was brought to the landing party by the People. Martha Landon was nervous and on the verge of tears; Kirk sent her out with Chekov for "a breath of air" and whatever reassurance Chekov could give her. Privately, Kirk hoped also that the People would spy on them; the sight of a little open necking might give them a few ideas disruptive to the absolute control Vaal had over them. Of course, that might provoke Vaal to retaliation—but what more could Vaal do than he was doing now?

  Spock seemed to read Kirk's intentions with no difficulty. "I am concerned, Captain," he said. "This may not be an ideal society, but it is a viable one. If we are forced to do what it seems we must, in my opinion, we will be in direct violation of the noninterference directive."

  "I'm not convinced that this is a viable society in the accepted sense of the word. Bones was right. These people aren't living, they're just existing. It's not a valid culture."

  "Starfleet Command may think otherwise."

  "That's a risk I'll have to take." He called the Enterprise. "How's it coming, Scotty?"

  "Almost ready, sir. We'll need a half hour yet."

  "You've only got forty-five minutes until you're pulled into the atmosphere."

  "I know, sir. As you said, it's cutting things a bit fine."

  "I think we're going to be able to help down here. I'll be back in touch shortly." Kirk cut off. "All hands. We're coming up on the next feeding time for Vaal. Before that happens I want all the Vaalians confined in one hut—the women too, no exceptions. When that gong sounds, round them all up."

  The gong in fact sounded only a few minutes later. By this time Chekov and McCoy, phasers drawn, had herded all the People together. They milled around inside the hut, appalled, some wailing and crying.

  "Vaal calls us!" Akuta cried out. His face contorted in agony, and he touched the electrodes behind his ears. "We must go to him! He hungers!" The bell rang again. "Please! Let us go to him! We must!"

  Kirk got out the communicator again. "Scotty, do you still have phaser power?"

  "Aye sir. But what—"

  "Lock all banks on the coordinates of the energy field you located down here. On my command, fire and maintain full phasers on those coordinates."

  "Aye, sir, but they won't penetrate the field."

  "If my guess is right, they won't have to. Stand by."

  The bell rang again, louder, longer, more insistently. After checking to see that Chekov and McCoy had the People under control, Kirk and Spock went to the edge of the village. Spock pointed his tricorder toward the cliff.

  "Interesting, Captain. The center of the emanations—Vaal—is somewhat weaker than the readings I've been getting. There are wide variations in energy transmission, as though it is drawing from other sources."

  "Tapping its energy cells?"

  "I would assume so."

  "Right. I think the ship's attempts to pull away must have weakened it considerably. It needs to be fed, but the reserve capacity could hold out for days."

  "If it has to reinforce its energy field to ward off a phaser attack, it will have to draw more heavily on its reserves."

  "My plan exactly, Mr. Spock . . . Kirk to Enterprise. Open fire as ordered and maintain."

  The phaser beams came down, in long sustained bursts. They were stopped short of the head of Vaal by the force field, but they continued to come down. Sparks flew at the point of contact. A hum rose from Vaal. loud and piercing.

  "Tremendous upsurge in generated power, sir. Obviously Vaal is trying to reinforce its energy field."

  "Good. Let's see how long it can do it!"

  The sky darkened. A strong wind began to blow. Strong flashes of lights lit up Vaal's maw, and some smoke began to appear. The hum was now intolerably loud, an
d the wind was howling. Lightning flashed overhead, followed by thunder. The din was terrific.

  Then, almost all at once, the storm clouds dissipated, the flashes inside Vaal's mouth stopped, and its eyes went out. The hum too was gone.

  "Kirk to Enterprise. Cease firing."

  "No power generation at all," Spock said. "Vaal is dead."

  "Mr. Scott, status report."

  "Tractor beam gone. Potency returning to antimatter banks. I'll put all engineering sections on repairing the circuits immediately. Well have the Transporter working in an hour."

  Kirk felt as though a great weight had slid off his shoulders. "You're rehired, Mr. Scott. When the Transporter's fixed, form an engineering detail with full analytical equipment and beam them down. I think they'll find some interesting things inside that cave. Kirk out . . . Bones, Chekov. Let them out."

  The People emerged, huddled, frightened, still sobbing. McCoy came over to Kirk and Spock.

  "Allow me to point out, Captain," Spock said, "that by destroying Vaal, you have also destroyed the People of Vaal."

  "Nonsense, Spock!" McCoy said. "It will be the making of these people. Make them stand on their own feet, do things for themselves. They have a right to live like men."

  "You mean they have a right to pain, worry, insecurity, tension . . . and eventually death and taxes."

  "That's all part of it. Yes! Those too!"

  "I hope you will be able to find a way to explain it to them." He nodded toward Akuta, who had moved out of the group toward them, tears streaming down his face.

  "Vaal is dead. You have killed him. We cannot live."

  "You'll live, Akuta," Kirk said gently. "I'll assign some of my people here to help you."

  The girl Sayana was crying quietly. One of the young men, standing by her, obviously wanted to comfort her, but did not know how to start. He made several ineffectual gestures; and then, as if by instinct, his arms went around her waist. She moved closer to him, and her head went onto his shoulder.

  "But," Akuta said, "it was Vaal who put the fruit on the trees, who caused the rain to fall. Vaal cared for us."

  "You'll find that putting fruit on the trees is a relatively simple matter. Our agronomist will help you with that. As for Vaal taking care of you, you'll have to learn to take care of yourselves. You might even like it.

  "Listen to me, all of you. From this day on, you will not depend on Vaal. You are your own masters. You will be able to think what you wish, say what you wish, do what you wish. You will learn many things that are strange, but they will be good. You will discover love; there will be children."

  "What are children?" Sayana said.

  As the young man's arm tightened around her waist, Kirk grinned. "You just go on the way you're going, and you'll find out."

  As Kirk, McCoy and Spock were going toward the bridge, McCoy said: "Spock has an interesting analogy, Captain."

  "Yes, Mr. Spock?"

  "I am not at all certain that we have done exactly the right thing on Gamma Trianguli VI, Captain."

  "We put those people back on a normal course of social evolution. I see nothing wrong with that. It's a good object lesson, Spock, in what can happen when your machines become too efficient, do too much of your work for you. Judging by their language, those people must have been among the very first interstellar colonists—good hardy stock. They tamed the planet, instituted weather control, and turned all jobs of that sort over to a master computer, powered by the plentiful local ore. I suppose the fatal mistake was in giving the computer the power to program itself—and the end product was Vaal . . . Bones said something about an analogy."

  "Perhaps you will recall the biblical story of Genesis, sir?"

  "I recall it very well, Spock."

  "We found a race of people living in Paradise, much as Adam and Eve did. They were obeying every word of Vaal. We taught them, in effect, to disobey that word. In a manner of speaking we have given Adam and Eve the apple . . . the awareness of good and evil, if you will . . . and because of this they have been driven out of Paradise."

  Kirk stopped and swung around on Spock suspiciously. "Mr. Spock, you seem to be casting me in the role of Satan. Do I look like Satan?"

  "No, sir. But—"

  "Is there anyone on this ship who looks even remotely like Satan?"

  McCoy was grinning broadly. "I am not aware," Spock said stiffly, "of anyone in that category, Captain."

  "No, Mr. Spock. I didn't think you would be."

  BY ANY OTHER NAME

  (D. C. Fontana and Jerome Bixby)

  * * *

  The landing party answering the distress call consisted of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, the security officer Lt. Shea, and Yeoman Leslie Thompson. At first there seemed to be no source at all on the planet for the call—no wrecked spaceship, no debris. Had the ship been destroyed in space and the survivors proceeded here in a shuttle?

  Then two people appeared from the nearby trees, a man and a woman, dressed in outfits rather like Merchant Marine jumpsuits. The woman was lovely, but it was the man who dominated their attention. He looked fortyish, with enormous power in his sturdy frame, great authority and competence in his bearing. Neither of the strangers seemed armed, but Kirk noticed that they wore small unobtrusive boxes on their belts. Their hands rested on the belts near the boxes in an attitude so casually assumed that it seemed to be only a part of their stance, but Kirk was wary.

  "I'm Captain James Kirk of the USS Enterprise. We came in answer to your distress call."

  "It was very kind of you to respond so quickly, Captain. But now you will surrender your ship to me."

  Kirk stared. "You have an odd sense of humor."

  The strangers touched buttons on the boxes. Instantly, Kirk found himself paralyzed—and so, evidently, was the rest of the "rescue" party.

  "I am Rojan, of Kelva," the strange man said. "I am your Commander, from this moment on. Efforts to resist us, or to escape, will be severely punished. Soon we, and you, will leave this galaxy forever. You humans must face the end of your existence as you have known it."

  The woman moved forward to relieve the people of the Enterprise of their phasers and communicators. Rojan went on: "You are paralyzed by a selective field that neutralizes impulses to the voluntary muscles. I will now release you all, Captain Kirk."

  He touched the belt device. Kirk tensed to jump him, then thought better of it. "A neural field?"

  "Radiated from a central projector, directed at whomever we wish."

  "What do you want?"

  "Your ship, Captain. We have monitored many. The Enterprise— a starship—is the best of its kind in your galaxy. It will serve us well in the long voyage that is to come."

  "Voyage to where?"

  "To your neighboring galaxy, in the constellation you call Andromeda."

  "Why"

  "The Andromeda galaxy is our home," Rojan said in a remote voice.

  "What brought you here?" Spock said.

  "Within ten millennia, high radiation levels will make life in our galaxy impossible; it is reaching the stage in its evolution which will make it what you call a quasar. The Kelvan Empire sent forth ships to explore other galaxies—to search for one which our race could conquer and colonize."

  "Sorry," Kirk said. "This galaxy is occupied."

  "Captain, you think you are unconquerable—your ship impregnable. While we have talked, three of my people have boarded it, and the capture has begun.", He took one of the confiscated communicators from the Kelvan woman and clicked it open. "Subcommander Hanar, report."

  "This ship is ours," a strange voice said from the communicator. "We control the bridge, engineering and life support."

  Rojan folded the communicator shut, and stowed it on his own belt.

  "What good is capturing my ship?" Kirk said. "Even at maximum warp, the Enterprise couldn't get to the Andromeda galaxy for thousands of years. It's two million light-years away!"

  "We will modify its engines to produce vel
ocities far beyond the reach of your science. The journey between galaxies will take less than three hundred of your years."

  "Fascinating,'' Spock said, "Intergalactic travel requiring 'only' three hundred years is a leap beyond anything man has yet accomplished."

  Yeoman Thompson asked the Kelvan woman: "Did you make a voyage of three hundred years?"

  "Our ships were of multigeneration design," the woman said. "I was born in the intergalactic void. I shall die there, during the return journey."

  "Our mission," Rojan added, "will be completed by a Captain who will be my descendant."

  "What happened to your ship?" Kirk said.

  "There is an energy barrier at the rim of your galaxy—"

  "I know. We've been there."

  "We broke through it with great difficulty. Our ship was destroyed. We barely escaped in a life craft. Our time here has been spent scanning your systems, studying you. And now we have the means to begin our journey again."

  "Why use our vessel?" Spock said. "Why not transmit a message back to your galaxy?"

  "No form of transmission can penetrate the barrier."

  "Rojan," Kirk said, "we could take your problem to our Federation. Research expeditions have catalogued hundreds of uninhabited planets in this galaxy. Surely some of them would be suitable for your colonization."

  "We do not colonize, Captain," Rojan said sharply. "We conquer. We rule. There is no other way for us."

  "In other words," McCoy said, 'this galaxy isn't big enough for both of us'?"

  "What will happen to the intelligent races here?" Kirk said.

  "They will not be mistreated. Merely subordinated." Rojan shrugged. "The fate of the inferior . . . in any galaxy. Ah, Hanar!"

  While he had been speaking, another Kelvan had popped into being beside him, a younger man, with a hard intelligent face. There was no shimmer or any other such effect comparable to the workings of the Transporter; he just appeared.

  "Tomar has examined the ship," Hanar said. "The modifications are under way."