"Yes, sir." She didn't notice that the men on the bridge had entered into a state of musical appreciation bordering on Nirvana. They stopped just short of actually swaying in time to the alien rhythm. Even Spock had to force himself to concentrate on his computer readouts instead of on the music.
Helmsman Arex stared at distant stars, his three feet tapping a gentle rhythm in counterpoint to the music pouring over the speakers.
For long moments after the first faint pipings sounded over the speakers there was nothing, nothing but the steady sylphlike strains from the instruments of unknown players. Then Spock looked up from his viewer, surprised.
"Captain, we're being probed."
Kirk spoke slowly, with seeming difficulty. "From where ... can you trace it?"
"A moment, Captain." Requests were put to the computer. "The signal is apparently originating in a star system some fifteen - no, twenty - light-years distant."
"Any info on it?" Again the library went to work.
A holographed star-chart replaced the speckled blackness of interstellar space on the viewscreen. Only two planetary systems were shown on the old chart One glowed with a faint red aura of its own.
"The Taurean system," Spock informed him. "A small G-type star at the extreme edge of this sector. It is the only star for many parsecs thought to possibly hold inhabitable planets. No surface survey was ever performed." The information succeeded in drawing Kirk's attention from the music.
"That's a mighty powerful signal to reach here from that distance," opined Scott. He looked over from the bridge engineering station as the music's tempo seemed to increase slightly .... abruptly ... insistently.
"Strange, Captain, I'm sure I'm ascribin' to it something that isn't really there - but it seems to be callin' us."
"It is odd," Kirk murmured. "Yes, I get the same feeling myself, Scotty."
Final confirmation of the signal's attractive power came from the least likely source.
"It does seem to have attributes not unlike a summons," Spock concluded. Only Uhura was unaffected. She studied the men on the bridge, thoroughly puzzled.
"I don't see any semblance to a summons, Captain." Kirk looked back and replied, rather curtly, she thought.
"Noted, Lieutenant. Lieutenant Arex, set our course for the Taurean system. Warp-factor seven."
Uhura tried to persuade herself that nothing was wrong with any of this. Certainly the alien music was interesting, distinctive - an appealing little tune. But a summons? A distant call to some as yet undefined action? Uh-uh.
She continued to monitor her communications console, but most of her attention was diverted to monitoring the actions of her fellow officers. All of them - Kirk, Scott, Sulu, even Arex, even Spock - wore dreamy, faraway looks. She'd seen similar expressions on the faces of music lovers before. But other forces were at work here, demanding more than mere appreciation from their listeners.
Or was something the matter with her?
It was as if she were the only one who was tone-deaf at a Mozart concert.
No, surely, there was nothing wrong with either her hearing or her sense of musical propriety. But she had to have a second opinion. Pressing a call switch she addressed the broadcast mike softly, whispering.
Not long after her call, the elevator doors divided and head nurse Christine Chapel entered the bridge. She took a fast survey of the room before moving quickly to stand next to Uhura.
"You wanted me, Lieutenant?" she asked quietly, putting a hand on Uhura's shoulder. The communications officer had admonished her to speak softly when she arrived on the bridge - not that anyone else seemed to have noticed her arrival. "Are you feeling all right?"
"I am," Uhura replied quietly. She nodded toward the center of the bridge. "But I want you to observe the men here."
"I do that anyway." Uhura didn't smile back. "What am I supposed to be looking for?"
"Just look, see if you draw any conclusions."
Puzzled, Chapel shrugged slightly and turned to comply with the request. She studied her superior officers.
Funny, no one was talking to anyone else. The usual idle chatter that filled the bridge was absent. There was only the strange music that had begun humming from the intraship communicators a little while ago. In fact, everyone present except Uhura seemed transfixed by an unseen hand.
Kirk and Sulu had risen from their seats. They were staring dreamily, distantly, into empty air. Yet their eyes were open and they smiled raptly. Chapel concluded that the music supplied more than aural stimulation.
"Beautiful images," murmured Sulu, confirming her guess.
What images?
Uhura and Chapel saw nothing. The communications officer looked up at her.
"It started the moment we picked up that signal. And it's gotten progressively worse. Look." She pointed towards the library computer station. "It's even affected Spock."
Unlike Sulu and Kirk, Spock remained seated at his station. But he, too, was staring trancelike into nothingness.
Nothingness only to Uhura and Chapel.
"Fascinating," Spock whispered. "Like a Vulcan marriage drum." The shimmering phantom dancing before his eyes began to take on stronger outlines, to solidify in space as his imagination lent it form and reality.
She had shining black hair which fell in silken cascades to her feet, pointed ears, and upswept eyebrows. Jeweled leotards clung to her body like a sparkling second skin. Strands of gems were entwined in that ebony mane, spitting out tiny fragments of rainbow as the light changed.
Now she languorously slid behind a small triangular drum. Her hands, delicate and pale, opened like white flowers. She started to play an unheard rhythm on its taut surface. No, not unheard! There it was now, he could hear it - clear and vibrant as she.
She started to sway alluringly, moving lazily from side to side as she played. Yes, he could hear it, jungle drums accented by picked guitars and delicate Vulcan tassans. But the sound was coming from the intercom, not from the drum, wasn't it? He blinked and spoke thickly. Words came slow and hard, as if he were trying to speak through buttermilk.
"I am experiencing audio-visual suggestion, Captain."
"So am I, Spock." Kirk's tone and attitude had become something less than authoritative.
She was beautiful. Her golden hair was piled high in metallic ramparts, shading a perfect forehead. A gentle breeze nudged the flowing peignoir close to her body, where it clung with maddening intent to high curves and angles.
She leaned toward him, eyes of deep blue staring, warm, inviting. The petals of the crimson flower that lay cupped in her hands opened to him. They were shaped to form a stylized heart.
Kirk shook himself.
"Dimensional visions, too." He frowned. "Any idea what's causing them, Spock?"
The science officer's eventual reply seemed to come from parsecs away. He was still staring, still absorbed in the tugging alien marriage music.
"Logically, we must assume they are a by-product of the scanning probe." All this would have seemed totally crazy to Uhura - if it weren't that everyone was treating it so seriously. But she couldn't keep silent any longer.
"Sir, what visions? We don't see anything." She indicated Nurse Chapel, who nodded agreement.
Somehow Kirk found the reserves to turn from his dancing mirage and look back at them. "Nurse Chapel, you're sure you don't see anything, either?"
"No, sir. Not a thing. What is it you all see?" Kirk ignored her question, turned his gaze to touch in turn on Sulu, Scott, Arex, and Mister Spock. All continued to stare into space, eyes blank and expressions slightly foolish. The image of his voluptuous blonde persisted, and Kirk had difficulty focusing on Uhura.
"Tell me, Lieutenant," he murmured curiously, "have I been looking as silly as that?"
Uhura hesitated, then spoke firmly. This was no time for diplomacy. "Every bit as vacuous, sir."
"Ummm." Kirk considered. It was growing hard to concentrate. No matter how he seemed to shift and tu
rn, the blonde stayed in his vision.
"Nurse, take a medical reading. Lieutenant Uhura, call Dr. McCoy to the bridge."
Chapel moved away from the communications area and swung her medical tricorder off her shoulder. Since it was precalibrated for humans, she passed over Lt. Arex for the moment and began with a smirking Sulu. No telling what he saw, and she wasn't sure she cared to know.
Meanwhile, Uhura was busy at her console.
"Sick bay ... Dr. McCoy, please report to the bridge ... Dr. McCoy, please report to the bridge." She paused while Kirk waited unconcernedly, watching her. Giving him a puzzled look, she tried again.
"Dr. McCoy, report to the bridge - Sick Bay, acknowledge!" Nothing. She looked first at Kirk, then at Chapel, and shook her head. "No response."
"Keep trying, Lieutenant," Kirk ordered dreamily. At the moment he didn't seem to care whether McCoy answered or not.
"Yes, sir."
In the reception office of the Enterprise's central Sick Bay, the communicator call light winked on and off with mechanical patience, while Uhura's voice continued to sound from the attendant speaker. "Dr. McCoy ... report to the bridge ... Dr. McCoy..."
Dr. McCoy was sitting at his desk. Leaning back in his chair, he had his feet comfortably propped up on same and his arms folded behind his head. At the moment he was staring upwards, but his eyes paid no more attention to the ceiling than they did to the communicator call light. A beatific grin dominated his expression.
Dimly, a part of him was aware of the blinking green light and Uhura's distant, urgent voice. He ignored both with perfect equanimity. His mind was busy with more important things.
"Magnolias in blossom," he sighed. "Magnificent ... such symmetry of form ... beautiful..."
Uhura gave up trying to contact McCoy. She had a suspicion why he wasn't answering. If she was right, nothing short of general alarm would provoke the slightest response from the good doctor.
For a moment she considered giving the alarm on her own, but she wasn't quite ready to assume the authority. While unmistakably affected by the strange music, Kirk, Spock, and the other officers still seemed in control of their actions. She checked her exterior monitors. The readings they provided were not the ones she hoped to see.
"The probe is getting stronger, Captain." Hands adjusted amplifiers. Also, the rhythmic pulsing had grown more insistent, the melodic convolutions more involved and complex.
"Mr. Spock," Kirk ordered, "reevaluate your scanner readings," Spock's reply was sleepy, but quick.
"I have been doing just that, Captain, though this signal makes normal work difficult. Readings are still inconclusive. That it appeals directly to the subconscious desire is self-evident. But how it relates to the music is as yet undetermined.
"It is odd that only the men appear to be affected by the probe's hallucinatory capabilities. May I suggest that perhaps ..." His voice trailed off as he stared at the main viewscreen. Kirk was already looking that way.
The faint outline of a world began to grow visible. It increased rapidly in size on the screen. Because of some peculiarity in the ionosphere, the atmosphere had a faint golden hue. As it expanded further, the musical probe grew correspondingly louder - and louder - until it seemed to wash the entire bridge in waves of pure emotion.
The constant driving rhythm defied all Uhura's efforts to keep it at a manageable level. It seemed to emanate now, not from her speakers, but from the walls themselves.
There was a blinding flash of light and the bridge was suddenly bathed in a deep pink glow. At the same time the music rose to a deafening crescendo which momentarily paralyzed everyone. The startling fusion of brilliant color and sound vanished simultaneously.
As the last tints of pink faded from outraged retinas, the probe officially stopped. After the long bolero, the resultant silence was shocking. Kirk, Spock, and the other men continued to stare hypnotically at the screen and the small, brass-hued planet floating there.
"Cut speed, Mr. Sulu, and set us an orbit."
Sulu's reply was casual. "Aye, sir." Kirk rose from his chair and yawned.
"Mr. Spock, we will take a party and beam down to explore the surface. Inform Transporter Chief Kyle of the approximate nexus of the probe-signal generator. We'll try and set down there. Life-support belts, Mr. Spock?"
"It doesn't seem necessary, Captain," Spock replied after checking his scanners. "Everything appears conducive to humanoid life. It doesn't really matter."
Uhura nearly fell out of her seat at that. She could see that Spock's highly uncharacteristic casualness over such a vital question had shocked Nurse Chapel, too. No one else seemed to think it worthy of comment.
"Scotty, you're in charge till we return."
"Hmmm? Oh, okey-doke, Captain." Scott was staring cheerfully at the viewscreen, but Uhura had a hunch the fatuous grin on his face was directed at another sight.
Kirk and Spock left via the elevator. Moments later, they ambled casually into the transporter room. McCoy was already there, and the single security man Kirk had requested, Ensign Carver, arrived shortly after.
"Engineer Kyle ... Engineer Kyle!" Kirk said, more insistently when the transporter chief failed to respond.
"What?" Kyle raised his head from cupped hands and smiled over at them. "Oh, it's you, Captain. How's things?"
"Pretty good, Chief, pretty good." He moved up into the transporter alcove. "Spock call you before we left the bridge? You can handle those coordinates?" Kyle nodded, grinned at Spock as though the science officer was a long-lost brother.
The other officers joined Kirk in the transporter. Everyone was smiling happily at one another, or at nothing in particular, or at some private thought. After several minutes of this, a touch of reality intruded on Kirk's dreaming.
"I don't want to put you out, Engineer," Kirk murmured easily, "but if you've got a spare moment, could you beam us down?"
"Sure, Cap'. Anything for you."
Fortunately, Kyle had performed this operation several thousand times before. He could have done it in his sleep - and that's just about what he was doing. His mind was not on his job, but he manipulated the transporter controls solely on instinct.
Hopefully, he wouldn't rematerialize Kirk. Spock, and the others a hundred meters above their touchdown point.
On the bridge, Scott moved slowly to the command chair and flopped into it with little grace. His brows drew together. For the briefest of moments he frowned, as if something, something, wasn't quite what it ought to be. Then his previous contentment returned, and a satisfied smile spread across his face. Almost indifferently, he thumbed the log activator.
"Ship's log ... stardate 5483.8. Chief Engineer Scott in command." For some reason that struck him as particularly humorous. He giggled. Uhura's jaw dropped in disbelief.
"We are continuing to hold standard orbit around a planet in the Taurean system." The world in question drifted on the screen in front of him, holding his gaze. This sight was continually interrupted by other phantoms which flashed across his field of vision somewhere between his nose and the viewer. They tickled his consciousness like bubbles before vanishing, leaving only a thin pleasant memory behind.
Once it was an astonishing orchidlike flower, whose center was a face of delicate elfin beauty. Another time, he saw thousands of gold coins, clinking, tinkling, and bouncing metallically off one another, blowing along a sandy beach like leaves in a high wind. A third time a carved crystal goblet spewed out an endless waterfall of brilliantly faceted gemstones. Now and then, the facets revealed faces that had nothing to do with internal mineral structure.
He continued the entry happily, almost singing the words.
"Probes and sensors utilized subsequent to the departure of the landing party indicate there was once a vast civilization here." The back of his mind wondered if it mightn't be a good idea to report this to Kirk and Spock, down on the surface. Oh well, they should find evidence of same soon enough. Besides, what difference did it make? W
hat difference did anything make?
A lithe female form seemed to rise from the contours of a mountain range now visible on the surface below. Ah, lovely, lovely!
"However, life readings of any kind were sparse and concentrated. Captain Kirk has beamed down with others to investigate. Oh, fantastic!" His voice dropped to a whisper even the sensitive log mike couldn't pick up.
There were two people on the bridge who saw no orchid faces, heard no wind-scattered lucre, no cascade of jewels. And it worried them.
They were busy at the library computer, intent and agitated. Uhura had been feeding the Enterprise's brain a steady stream of questions. Now she studied the flow of words and figures that formed the reply. Each new answer deepened her frown, increased her apprehension.
"These readings just don't match up with Spock's official report," she snapped. "So far I count three sensor readings that are off - two of them dealing with wavelengths of that probe. That's not like Spock."
She was damning herself now for not sounding the general alarm when she'd had the chance. It wouldn't do much good now. She glanced around at the rest of the bridge.
Sulu was sleeping, head down, on the navigation console. Lt. Arex occasionally patted all three hands together in the manner of a little boy, and Scott - Chief Engineer Scott - was ignoring the still-recording log and conducting a silent orchestra of his own. If she'd seen the instruments involved, even Uhura might have blushed. She used a remote to switch off the log.
No, their reaction to a general alarm would be somewhat less than devastating.
She turned back to the computer. There had to be an explanation buried somewhere in the sensor readings.
There had to be.
***
The temple reminded Kirk of a well-insulated Parthenon as viewed through a fun-house mirror. Basic architectural lines were there, but they conformed to no known earthly pattern. He couldn't even tell whether the marblelike facing, brilliant white with pink veins and black striations for contrast, was stone or metal. The top of the structure seemed to melt into a pink fog that swirled gently in the light air.