Star Trek - Blish, James - 01 Read online

  "That won't do," Ellis said, grinning. "You need a lot more falls, Charlie."

  Charlie whirled toward him. In a low, intense voice, he said: "Don't laugh at me."

  "Cool off, Charlie," Ellis said, chuckling openly now. "Half the trick is in not losing your temper."

  "Don't laugh at me!" Charlie said. Ellis spread out his hands, but his grin did not quite go away.

  Exactly one second later, there was a pop like the breaking of the world's largest light bulb. Ellis vanished.

  Kirk stared stupefied at the spot where Ellis had been. Charlie, too, stood frozen for a moment. Then he began to move tentatively toward the door.

  "Hold it," Kirk said. Charlie stopped, but he did not turn to face Kirk.

  "He shouldn't have laughed at me," Charlie said. "That's not nice, to laugh at somebody. I was trying."

  "Not very hard. Never mind that. What happened? What did you do to my officer?"

  "He's gone," Charlie said sullenly.

  "That's no answer."

  "He's gone," Charlie said. "That's all I know. I didn't want to do it. He made me. He laughed at me."

  And suppose Janice has to slap him? And... there was the explosion of the Antares... Kirk stepped quickly to the nearest wall intercom and flicked it on. Charlie turned at last to watch him. "Captain Kirk in the gym," Kirk said. "Two men from security here, on the double."

  "What are you going to do with me?" Charlie said.

  "I'm sending you to your quarters. And I want you to stay there."

  "I won't let them touch me," Charlie said in a low voice. "I'll make them go away too."

  "They won't hurt you."

  Charlie did not answer, but he had the look of a caged animal just before it turns at last upon its trainer. The door opened and two security guards came in, phaser pistols holstered. They stopped and looked to Kirk.

  "Go with them, Charlie. We'll talk about this later, when we've both cooled off. You owe me a long explana-tion." Kirk jerked his head toward Charlie. The guards stepped to him and took him by the arms.

  Or, tried to. Actually, Kirk was sure that they never touched him. One of them simply staggered back, but the other was thrown violently against the wall, as though he had been caught in a sudden hurricane. He managed to hold his footing, however, and clawed for his sidearm.

  "No!" Kirk shouted.

  But the order was way too late. By the time the guard had his hand levelled at the boy, he no longer had a weapon to hold. It had vanished, just like Sam Ellis. Charlie stared at Kirk, his eyes narrowed and chal-lenging.

  "Charlie," Kirk said, "you're showing off. Go to your quarters."

  "No."

  "Go with the guards, or I'll pick you up and carry you there myself." He began to walk steadily forward. "That's your only choice, Charlie. Either do as I tell you, or send me away to wherever you sent the phaser, and Sam Ellis."

  "Oh, all right," Charlie said, wilting. Kirk drew a deep breath. "But tell them to keep their hands to themselves."

  "They won't hurt you. Not if you do as I say."

  Kirk called a general council on the bridge at once, but Charlie moved faster: by the time Kirk's officers were all present, there wasn't a phaser to be found any-where aboard ship. Charlie had made them all "go away." Kirk explained what had happened, briefly and grimly.

  "Given this development," McCoy said, "it's clear Charlie wouldn't have needed any help from any putative Thasians. He could have magicked up all his needs by himself."

  "Not necessarily," Spock said. "All we know is that he can make things vanish-not make them appear. I admit that that alone would have been a big help to him."

  "What are the chances," Kirk said, "that he's a Tha-sian himself? Or at least, something really unprecedented in the way of an alien?"

  "The chance is there," McCoy said, "but I'd be in-clined to rule it out. Remember I checked him over. He's ostensibly human, down to his last blood type. Of course, I could have missed something, but he was hooked to the body-function panel, too; the machine would have rung sixteen different kinds of alarms at the slightest discrepancy."

  "Well, he's inhumanly powerful, in any event," Spock said. "The probability is that he was responsible for the destruction of the Antares, too. Over an enormous distance-well beyond phaser range."

  "Great," McCoy said. "Under the circumstances, how can we hope to keep him caged up?"

  "It goes further than that, Bones," Kirk said. "We can't take him to Colony Five, either. Can you imagine what he'd do in an open, normal environment-in an undisciplined environment?"

  Clearly, McCoy hadn't. Kirk got up and began to pace.

  "Charlie is an adolescent boy-probably human, but totally inexperienced with other human beings. He's short-tempered because he wants so much and it can't come fast enough for him. He's full of adolescent aches. He wants to be one of us, to be loved, to be useful. But... I remember when I was seventeen that I wished for the ability to remove the things and people that annoyed me, neatly and without fuss. It's a power fantasy most boys of that age have. Charlie doesn't have to wish. He can do it.

  "In other words, in order to stay in existence, gentle-men, we'll have to make damn sure we don't annoy him. Otherwise-pop!"

  "Annoyance is relative, Captain," Spock said. "It's all going to depend on how Charlie is feeling minute by minute. And because of his background, or lack of it, we have no ways to guess what little thing might annoy him next, no matter how carefully we try. He's the gal-axy's most destructive weapon, and he's on a hair trigger."

  "No," Kirk said. "He's not a weapon. He has a weapon. That's a difference we can use. Essentially, he's a child, a child in a man's body, trying to be a whole man. His trouble isn't malice. It's innocence."

  "And here he is," McCoy said with false heartiness. Kirk swung his chair around to see Charlie approaching from the elevator, smiling cheerfully.

  "Hi," said the galaxy's most destructive weapon.

  "I thought I confined you to your quarters, Charlie."

  "You did," Charlie said, the grin fading. "But I got tired of waiting around down there."

  "Oh, all right. You're here. Maybe you can answer a few questions for us. Were you responsible for what hap-pened to the Antares?'

  "Why?"

  "Because I want to know. Answer me, Charlie."

  Breaths were held while Charlie thought it over. Fi-nally, he said: "Yes. There was "a warped baffle plate on the shielding of their Nerst generator. I made it go away. It would have given sooner or later anyhow."

  "You could have told them that."

  "What for?" Charlie said reasonably. "They weren't nice to me. They didn't like me. You saw them when they brought me aboard. They wanted to get rid of me. They don't any more."

  "And what about us?" Kirk said.

  "Oh, I need you. I have to get to Colony Five. But if you're not nice to me, I'll think of something else." The boy turned abruptly and left, for no visible reason.

  McCoy wiped sweat off his forehead. "What a chance you took."

  "We can't be walking on eggs every second," Kirk said. "If every act, every question might irritate him, we might as well pretend that none of them will. Other-wise we'll be utterly paralyzed."

  "Captain," Spock said slowly, "do you suppose a force field might hold him? He's too smart to allow himself to be lured into a detention cell, but we just might rig up a field at his cabin door. All the lab circuitry runs through the main corridor on deck five, and we could use that. It's a long chance, but-"

  "How long would the work take?" Kirk said.

  "At a guess, seventy-two hours."

  "It's going to be a long seventy-two hours, Mr. Spock. Get on it." Spock nodded and went out.

  "Lieutenant Uhura, raise Colony Five for me. I want to speak directly to the Governor. Lieutenant Sulu, lay me a course away from Colony Five-not irrevocably, but enough to buy me some time. Bones-"

  He was interrupted by the sound of a fat spark, and a choked scream of pain fr
om Uhura. Her hands were in her lap, writhing together uncontrollably. McCoy leapt to her side, tried to press the clenched fingers apart.

  "It's... all right," she said. "I think. Just a shock. But there's no reason for the board to be charged like that-"

  "Probably a very good reason," Kirk said grimly. "Don't touch it until further orders. How does it look, Bones?"

  "Superficial burns," McCoy said. "But who knows what it'll be next time?"

  "I can tell you that," Sulu said. "I can't feed new co-ordinates into this panel. It operates, but it rejects the course change. We're locked on Colony Five."

  "I'm in a hurry," Charlie's voice said. He was coming out of the elevator again, but he paused as he saw the naked fury on Kirk's face.

  "I'm getting tired of this," Kirk said. "What about the transmitter?"

  "You don't need all that subspace chatter," Charlie said, a little defensively. "If there's any trouble, I can take care of it myself. I'm learning fast."

  "I don't want your help," Kirk said. "Charlie, for the moment there's nothing I can do to prevent your interference. But I'll tell you this: you're quite right, I don't like you. I don't like you at all. Now beat it."

  "I'll go," Charlie said, quite coolly. "I don't mind if you don't like me now. You will pretty soon. I'm going to make you."

  As he left, McCoy began to swear in a low whisper.

  "Belay that, Bones, it won't help. Lieutenant Uhura, is it just outside communications that are shorted, or is the intercom out too?"

  "Intercom looks good, Captain."

  "All right, get me Yeoman Rand... Janice, I have a nasty one for you-maybe the nastiest you've ever been asked to do. I want you to lure Charlie into his cabin.... That's right. We'll be watching-but bear in mind that if you make him mad, there won't be much we can do to protect you. You can opt out if you want; it probably won't work anyhow."

  "If it doesn't," Yeoman Rand's voice said, "it won't be because I didn't try it."

  They watched, Spock's hand hovering over the key that would activate the force field. At first, Janice was alone in Charlie's cabin, and the wait seemed very long. Finally, however, the door slid aside, and Charlie came into the field of the hidden camera, his expression a mix-ture of hope and suspicion.

  "It was nice of you to come here," he said. "But I don't trust people any more. They're all so complicated, and full of hate."

  "No, they're not," Janice said. "You just don't make enough allowance for how they feel. You have to give them time."

  "Then... you do like me?"

  "Yes, I like you. Enough to try to straighten you out, anyhow. Otherwise I wouldn't have asked to come here."

  "That was very nice," Charlie said. "I can be nice, too. Look. I have something for you."

  From behind his back, where it had already been visible to the camera, he produced the single pink rose-bud he had been carrying and held it out. There had been no roses aboard ship, either; judging by that and the perfume, he could indeed make things appear as well as disappear. The omens did not look good.

  "Pink is your favorite color, isn't it?" Charlie was saying. "The books say all girls like pink. Blue is for boys."

  "It was... a nice thought, Charlie. But this isn't really the time for courting. I really need to talk to you."

  "But you asked to come to my room. The books all say that means something important." He reached out, trying to touch her face. She moved instinctively away, trying to circle for the door, which was now on remote control, the switch for it under Spock's other hand; but she could not see where she was backing and was stopped by a chair.

  "No. I said I only wanted to talk and that's what I meant."

  "But I only wanted to be nice to you."

  She got free of the chair somehow and resumed sidling. "That's a switch on Charlie's Law," she said.

  "What do you mean? What's that?"

  "Charlie's Law says everybody better be nice to Charlie, or else."

  "That's not true!" Charlie said raggedly.

  "Isn't it? Where's Sam Ellis, then?"

  "I don't know where he is. He's just gone. Janice, I only want to be nice. They won't let me. None of you will. I can give you anything you want. Just tell me."

  "All right," Janice said. "Then I think you had better let me go. That's what I want now."

  "But you said..." The boy swallowed and tried again. "Janice, I... love you."

  "No you don't. You don't know what the word means."

  "Then show me," he said, reaching for her.

  Her back was to the door now, and Spock hit the switch. The boy's eyes widened as the door slid back, and then Janice was through it. He charged after her, and the other key closed.

  The force field flared, and Charlie was flung back into the room. He stood there for a moment like a sta-bled stallion, nostrils flared, breathing heavily. Then he said:

  "All right. All right, then."

  He walked slowly forward. Kirk swung the camera to follow him. This time he went through the force field as though it did not exist. He advanced again on Janice.

  "Why did you do that?" he said. "You won't even let me try. None of you. All right. From now on I'm not trying. I won't keep any of you but the ones I need. I don't need you."

  There came the implosion sound again. Janice was gone. Around Kirk, the universe turned a dull, aching gray.

  "Charlie," he said hoarsely. The intercom carried his voice to Charlie's cabin. He looked blindly toward the source.

  "You too, Captain," he said. "What you did wasn't nice either. I'll keep you a while. The Enterprise isn't quite like the Antares. Running the Antares was easy.

  But if you try to hurt me again, I'll make a lot of other people go away... I'm coming up to the bridge now."

  "I can't stop you," Kirk said.

  "I know you can't. Being a man isn't so much. I'm not a man and I can do anything. You can't. Maybe I'm the man and you're not."

  Kirk cut out the circuit and looked at Spock. After a while the First Officer said:

  "That was the last word, if ever I heard it."

  "It's as close as I care to come to it, that's for sure. Did that field react at all, the second time?"

  "No. He went through it as easily as a ray of light. Easier-I could have stopped a light ray if I'd known the frequency. There seems to be very little he can't do."

  "Except run the ship-and get to Colony Five by him-self."

  "Small consolation."

  They broke off as Charlie entered. He was walking very tall. Without a word to anyone, he went to the helmsman's chair and waved to Sulu to get out of it. After a brief glance at Kirk, Sulu got up obediently, and Charlie sat down and began to play with the controls. The ship lurched, very slightly, and he snatched his hands back.

  "Show me what to do," he told Sulu.

  "That would take thirty years of training."

  "Don't argue with me. Just show me."

  "Go ahead, show him," Kirk said. "Maybe he'll blow us up. Better than letting him loose on Colony Five-"

  "Captain Kirk," Lieutenant Uhura broke in. "I'm get-ting something from outside; subspace channel F. Ship to ship, I think. But it's all on instruments; I can't hear it."

  "There's nothing there," Charlie said, his voice rough. "Just leave it alone."

  "Captain?"

  "I am the captain," Charlie said. Yet somehow, Kirk had the sudden conviction that he was frightened. And somehow, equally inexplicably, he knew that the Enter-prise had to get that call.

  "Charlie," he said, "are you creating that message- or are you blocking one that's coming in?"

  "It's my game, Mr. Kirk," Charlie said. "You have to find out. Like you said-that's how the game is played." He pushed himself out of the chair and said to Sulu, "You can have it now. I've locked on course for Colony Five again."

  He could have done nothing of the sort in that brief period; not, at least, with his few brief stabs at the controls. Probably, his original lock still held unchanged. But ei
ther way, it was bad enough; Colony Five was now only twelve hours away.

  But Charlie's hands were trembling visibly. Kirk said:

  "All right, Charlie, that's the game-and the game is over. I don't think you can handle any more. I think you're at your limit and you can't take on one more thing. But you're going to have to. Me."

  "I could have sent you away before," Charlie said. "Don't make me do it now."