The stone skull was heavy .. . too heavy for one man. McCoy was still struggling with it when Walking Bear and Scott got the second head moving.
Again the tongue of light leaped upward to strike at the pyramid's apex. Now they could hear the crackling sound as it intensified with the addition of this second, source of power, see the color of the strange energy deepen.
It remained for Kirk to give McCoy a hand in turning the next head. That finished, they climbed down and headed for the remaining sculpture. All four men met at the last tower, the one they had originally encountered.
For the fourth time the procedure was performed, sending a beam of intense light upward. The top of the pyramid, as Scott and Walking Bear descended, was now completely engulfed by the sphere of pure energy roiling angrily above it.
Abruptly the crackling hiss gave way to a thunderous rumbling, utterly unlike the sound which had accompanied the raising of the city. It dropped in volume, deepened until it seemed as if the very fabric of existence was being punctured by that glittering ball.
Streaks of pure light occasionally shot lightninglike through the multihued nimbus as it continued to grow and expand.
Below, the four officers had to shield their eyes as the glow from the top of the pyramid intensified to where it was greater than the sun.
"The whole thing," Kirk yelled as a breeze sprang up strongly around them, whipping at uniforms and hair, "is some kind of energy amplification device based on solar power—Kukulkan's special signal!"
The tenor of the rumbling changed to a steady drone as the energy ball began a steady pulsing. That's when the voices returned. Many voices joined as one. But this time the stentorian susurration sounded even above the pulsating signal, reverberated until the multiple distortions were sloughed off like dead thoughts.
Gradually, the many whispers solidified until what they heard was, for the first time, unmistakably the voice of a single being.
"After scores of centuries," the voice boomed, "my design has been fulfilled. Behold me, then, as I am!"
The energy globe vanished in an air-splitting explosion. McCoy and Scott were both thrown to the ground. Kirk managed to grab the tower for support, while Walking Bear somehow succeeded in maintaining his balance.
The last flicker of energy was gone, dissipated in the magnificence of its own disruption by a force still greater. In its place was a hovering, fluttering form that was at once terrifying and beautiful. It was garbed in a cloak of glowing light. Huge membranous wings beat the air as it drifted above the pyramid. Multicolored, scaled torso coiling and recoiling reflexively, neck plumage shifting through a rainbow of brilliance, the massive shape stared down at them. Dragon tongue darted in and out of fanged maw, while dragon eyes glared past flaring nostrils.
"Behold Kukulkan," the apparition rumbled, still enveloped by now dimmed light from the four energy beams. Kirk listened and studied, trying to read the motivation masked by those crimson eyes.
"Where are your weapons of destruction?" came the next query. "Use them on me if you dare!"
"Very impressive, if a bit theatrical," McCoy commented phlegmatically. He'd discovered long ago that no matter how powerful or malign an adversary, if one regarded it merely as an anatomical problem to be mentally dissected, the commoner fears could be conveniently laid aside.
His mind was also occupied with hunting for the reasons behind this unnecessarily overwhelming display.
It was Kirk who answered, however. "We have no weapons with us . . . as you undoubtedly know. If we did, we'd use them only with reason. We haven't been given such a reason yet."
The monster threshed air, wings beating angrily. The energy cloak which clung to him ran through the visible spectrum.
"Reasons? Reasons . . . Where is your hate, then? Is that not reason enough? You hate me, do you not? Why then do you not speak to me of your hate?"
Kirk didn't know how to feel. Threatened? No—he was only puzzled. Despite its amply demonstrated power, there was a pathos about this creature he couldn't quite isolate. But that didn't permit him to lower his guard for a second.
"We don't hate you. You fired your weapons at my ship. We fired back."
The energy belt turned deep, furious purple and he added hurriedly. "We acted in self-defense—if you understand the term."
"I am your master!" the serpent roared. "I may do with you as I will, when I wish."
Madder and madder, Kirk mused, his thoughts awhirl. Obviously this entire display was concocted to intimidate them. But this would-be god had aimed at humans of a bygone age, men of less experienced times and readier belief in the supernatural. His words only made those standing below him angry.
"You think we belong to you?" McCoy exclaimed. "We're not part of the furniture of your cold gray house, Kukulkan."
"Aye, and don't plan to be," Scott added.
Kirk spoke quietly, firmly. "Bones, Scotty—don't antagonize it."
"Antagonize it?" Scott argued. "Captain, it's not exactly in a friendly frame of mind right now."
"It is as I thought," the serpent muttered, "you have forgotten me and strayed from the path I set for you."
Kirk spread his arms. The gesture was a plea for information, not mercy. "You say we've forgotten you. How then can you expect us to worship you properly, if we don't remember you and know nothing of the path of which you speak? Are we expected to suffer for the transgressions of ancestors dead these many generations?"
To his relief, this was so reasonable sounding that it appeared to have a mollifying effect on the snake-god. It settled to the top of the pyramid.
"There is some truth in your words. You do not know me. Therefore it is my task to teach you."
That worried Kirk some. He had no idea what was meant by teaching here. One thing he was certain of: judging from what they knew of this alien's character so far instruction might not be too pleasant.
As they watched, the atmosphere turned turquoise—the same blue haze that had lifted them from the Enterprise. It enveloped everything around them—pyramid, tower, city and jungle.
When the blue fog cleared, and their vision with it, they found themselves standing in a large, high-ceilinged room. The city was gone. The room seemed to stretch off to infinity, optical illusion though Kirk knew it must be. Kukulkan's science was unpredictable, but he didn't think it extended to creating infinite space aboard a ship of finite dimensions.
Everything was rounded and curved, smooth here as the city had been sharp-angled. The room itself was well-lit and shaded a deep, rich purple.
Levels and platforms hung scattered throughout the room without any visible support. Set on and around them were dozens of transparent cubicles . . . round, square, oddly shaped. More of the same glasslike cages rested on the floor of the chamber.
The whole arrangement was curiously . . . curiously—Kirk struggled for the right word—sterilized. Yes, hard and sterile.
No bars or force barriers of recognizable type were evident. Some of the containers held plants, others animals. Many of both were unknown to the widely traveled senior officers. Each cage had a pair of thick cables running from it. The cables disappeared into floor or ceiling.
Other wild vegetation grew out in the open, uncaged. Kukulkan was nowhere to be seen.
"Just once," McCoy grumbled, "I wish he'd let us use the stairs."
Kirk examined the incredible collection. "Everything in here is designed to be looked at. I think the idea is that we do some looking."
He selected one path at random among the cubicles and they started down.
"What the devil is this place?" Scott wondered.
"Looks like some kind of zoo," a dubious McCoy commented.
He walked over to one of the glassy cages and tentatively felt of the surface. His hand drew back in surprise. Despite the glassy sheen, the wall had a greasy feel.
This particular cage housed a creature that resembled a hallucinatory vision of a giant platypus. It surged and heaved
about within, obviously oblivious to their presence and as near as they could tell, perfectly happy.
"There're a lot of species here I don't recognize, Jim," McCoy told him.
"Me too, Bones. Species—I don't even recognize some of the environments. Look at that one."
The cage he indicated was filled with a red gas holding pink spongy globules in suspension. Within this atmosphere swam—or flew—a spotted yellow disk encircled with cilia. It looked blankly toward them with four eyes sporting double pupils.
Abruptly (but not unexpectedly) they were joined by another observer. Kukulkan hovered slightly above them and to one side. None of the men moved closer.
But when the serpent spoke the cordiality in its voice was in startling contrast to the violence it had displayed on their confrontation at the pyramid.
"Please feel free to examine any of my specimens."
Specimens? What did this awesome assemblage of life portend? Another mystery they would have to pry out of Kukulkan.
Scott, however, had long since put aside diplomacy in favor of honesty. He shook his head sadly as he surveyed the endless rows of cubicles. "I could never be proud of putting wee beasties in cages. We've long since abandoned such barbarism on Earth."
Kirk glared at his chief engineer, but Kukulkan took no offense.
"All these here lead a peaceful, healthy life. One that is safe and contented."
McCoy had strolled over to a nearby cage. Now he indicated its occupant—a furry, multilegged ball. It was plucking tiny grapelike fruit from a small bush.
"Contented? Cramped in these little cages?"
"Ah, but what you cannot see," the drifting alien explained, "is that each creature is mentally in its own natural environment. The fields of the mind are infinite," he concluded profoundly, as McCoy bent to examine the cables leading out of the cage. They ran from the floor into an uninformative, featureless black box attached to the cubicle base.
"They eat, breathe and exist," Kukulkan continued, "in worlds dreamed up by my machines. Worlds that only they can see. Nor do they see you. Nothing is permitted to disturb their satisfying, endless vistas. Each lives its own ideal dream. They do not know they are in cages."
"A cage is a cage no matter how padded the bars," Scott whispered.
Kukulkan's hearing was far from godlike, the chief engineer had long since decided. Nor could he read minds. Otherwise he would have dealt with Scott back at the pyramid.
"Then the city whose puzzle we solved," Walking Bear exclaimed in a sudden burst of realization, "wasn't really there!"
"It was 'there'," Kukulkan informed them, "because I wished it so, for you, and me.
"Each of my specimens has a world of its own far greater than the puny city I created for you."
"I'd hardly call your city our natural environment," Kirk pointed out.
Huge wings struck at the air. "It was meant to be! That beautiful city and all else I taught to your ancestors were intended to be yours. But they became evil and forgetful and imposed their own teachings above mine until the greater was forgotten!"
There was nothing more to be gained by tact, Kirk decided. It was time to try directness. "We don't like being referred to as property," he said.
He was about fed up with this deranged mechanical wizard. To many primitive terran cultures he might well have seemed a god, but a god he was not.
"No one being," Kirk continued, "not even you, has the right to interfere with the natural development of other civilizations. This is a rule we have established for ourselves."
Huge linear muscles contracted; tightened. Wings beat furiously at cages and plants as the serpent flew into a frenzy, eyes bulging, mouth agape. They backed away from such naked rage.
"Do not speak to me of development and interference! Do not speak to me of what is right! I have been ever alone. Destruction descended on my kind before your race had discovered fire . . . nay, before it learned to lift itself from the mud and walk upright. Is there 'right' in such endless solitude?"
He gestured at several nearby cages. One contained a creature much like an undernourished seal, the other a quivering mass of green and black protoplasm. Between lay xenariums filled with exotic flora.
"Creatures like these have been my only companions for many millennia. I have seen minds like yours on many worlds . . . savage, warlike, filled with self-hate and destructive intelligence. You end by destroying yourselves and everything around you, by reducing whole planets to lifeless cinders. After endless encounters with such sickening civilizations I decided to"—the word came out savagely—"interfere! As a hopeful experiment I visited your Earth, among other worlds, and tried to teach peaceful ways to the now vanished cultures of many races.
"Then I left, intending when summoned to return to give you the additional knowledge which would enable you to join me as true equals. But you never sent for me. None did, to whom I gave the knowledge of the city. Finally I sent a probe to find out what had happened. What did it tell me, what did it discover? Warriors!" He spun rapidly in tight circles.
"Still warriors, ever warriors—the same as always. The same as I've seen on half a hundred worlds, only this time more terribly equipped than ever, with yet greater instruments of destruction. You've surpassed the stage of quarreling among yourselves and have carried annihilation to the stars. You will end by destroying the universe!"
"Saints preserve us," murmured a flabbergasted Scott, "a paranoid god."
"But we work only to create peace," Walking Bear objected.
The serpent glared down at them, his shadow darkening the room, wings fluttering in agitation. "Nothing you have done so far makes me believe that is so. I—I have done better."
Again the broad, sweeping gesture, this time taking in the entire horizonless chamber: cages full of snaillike plants, plantlike snails, a cubicle lined with tiny colored balls, animals that resembled rocks, plants that resembled buildings, plant-animals like nothing on Earth.
"My creatures here have little intelligence, yet even the most violent among them exist peacefully in the worlds that I have to give."
Wings moved, and he backed around a corner. They followed cautiously to where an unusually large cage floated in midair. It held an enormous feline creature that was all teeth, fangs, and rasplike hair. Despite this fearsome array of inborn weaponry it was reposing quietly on a bed of grass, half-asleep. Even at rest, though, this carnivore generated a sense of menace greater than any dozen terran tigers on the hunt.
"Though one of the fiercest and most unmanageable monsters living in your region of space, this creature too lives in peace and contentment in the private paradise which I create for it out of its own dreams."
"Good Minerva," McCoy suddenly blurted, staring at the cage and taking a step backwards, "it's a Capalent power-cat. No one's ever been able to keep one alive in captivity."
"I'm not familiar with the species, Bones," Kirk said, eyeing the cage respectfully. "Why haven't they?"
"They despise captivity, have to be killed before they can do any major damage," McCoy explained. "Try to confine them and they fly into a blind rage. That rage is coupled to generating cells that make a big electric eel's kick look like a communicator battery next to a warp-drive. One can put out enough juice to turn alloy-netting into a tin puddle, or kill a couple of dozen overenthusiastic hunters."
He looked up at Kukulkan. "I've never heard of one living in captivity for more than a couple of days. How did you manage to capture it in the first place?"
"This one was an infant, when encountered," the serpent told them, "and therefore more easily manipulated. As you were when first I visited Earth. You were destructive children who needed to be led."
"But if children are made totally dependent on their teachers," Kirk put in quickly, "they'll never be anything but children."
Alien wings ripped at the air. "Enough! This is useless. Despite what I've told you, despite what you've seen, you persist in clinging to your disobedient w
ays." He swooped down to hover threateningly close.
"My dream is ending," he howled, "and all of you are to blame! No time," he continued with an ominous air of finality, "is ever given to those who must decide."
"Scatter!" Kirk yelled, reading Kukulkan's intentions in his tone. As the serpent dove at them the four officers did just that. The demigod hesitated, displaying something considerably short of omnipotence, trying to decide which of several ways to pursue first.
The question of the alien's omnipotence was one which had been burning in another mind for some time now. When the solution finally presented itself to Spock it gave support to the theory that what is most obvious is most often overlooked.
"Of course," he finally murmured softly. The elasticity of the force-field should not be able to respond to assault from more than a single source. If it could absorb and redistribute phaser beams, it shouldn't be possible for it to simultaneously cope with opposing pressure from another source.
As always, he triple-checked his supposition with actual math. The equations and conclusions which appeared on the library-computer screen confirmed his hopes.
He was speaking as he crossed to the empty command chair. "All hands to battle stations . . . red alert is no longer on stand-by." Uhura complied and the fully activated triple shift readied for immediate action—all four hundred twenty-six of them.
"Full impulse power, Helmsman," he ordered in crisp tones as he settled himself in the chair. "Tractor beam on full power, warp-engines on stand-by."
A steady hum built on the Bridge as the closer impulse engine warmed.
"Tractor beam activated, sir," came the report from the engineering station.
"Very well. Set for maximum pull in precise opposition to our present heading."
"Aye, aye," came a ready but slightly confused voice.
"Mr. Arex, you are directed to compensate for catapult effect. When we break free of the confining force-field we will be thrown approximately five point seven light-years in a fraction of a second."
"Understood," the experienced navigator replied. Moments later he reported, "Catapult compensation factors laid in, sir. Gravity recoil compensation also checked."