Pike rocked once in his flight couch.548Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡotUHPOFkGQ
McCoy scratched his chin.
Kirk sat staring ahead, at nothing.
"Who's hungry?" inquired Pike.
"Not me," said McCoy.
"If anyone is," continued Pike, "even though we are millions of miles from Earth, I'd be glad to send out for a pizza."
Silence again filled the fake Command Module.
Then the hatch opened and a crew-cut, dark-suited young man peered in. "Colonel Kirk, would your crew like something to eat?"
Kirk didn't reply.
Finally, McCoy said, "No, thanks."
"Colonel," persisted the crew-cut young man, "Dr. Roddenberry wanted to know if you were all comfortable, if your rooms were suitable. I informed him you didn't seem to want to much use your rooms, that you haven't left this simulator much." He coughed carefully into his hand. "He feels you'd all be a lot more comfortable if you slept in your rooms.
Silence.
"Colonel Kirk," the young man said, "how do you feel about that?"
"We'd rather stay here, thank you," said Kirk, not looking at him.
"Well, if there's nothing I can do for you....excuse me." He backed out and shut the hatch.
"Did you guys see that?" said Pike. "He opened a hatch from the outside, way out here in the middle of outer space."
"We are not alone," said McCoy.
"You mean there's intelligent life out here in space?"
"Life? Yeah? Intelligent? Well...."
"I'm not going to do it," said Kirk suddenly.
"Not going to do what?"
"Tomorrow. I'm not going to sit here and talk to my wife and tell her how damned fine everything is going," Kirk amplified. "I can't."
"I think you'd better," said McCoy.
"I have two little kids, with big bright eyes. I used to tell them their dad was going to make them proud of him, as proud as he was of them," said Kirk, staring straight ahead. "Now I'm supposed to go home and kiss them and look in their eyes. Go home and pretend we really went to another planet. Shit, I don't know how I can ever lie like that to them."
"It's not going to be easy, Jim," said Pike.
"We've been sitting around here for three months with our fingers up our asses," said Kirk. "Well, I ain't going to do it no more."
"Okay, okay," said McCoy, holding up one hand. "Suppose we blow the whistle on this whole scam. We go on nationwide TV tomorrow and tell the truth. What have we accomplished?"
"We'll screw up a lot of people's dinners," suggested Pike.
"We've screwed ourselves already."
"Yeah, but what do we accomplish by screwing everybody else?" asked McCoy.
"Now you're starting to sound like Roddenberry," Kirk told him.
"Thanks for the compliment, buddy."
"You were sounding a little bit like him yourself, Jim," said Pike. "Dragging in your bright-eyed kids, and all. I was waiting for you to pull out your tiny violin. Shit, man, we went along with this nutty thing because of you. Now you say you've changed your mind and got religion. If you pull the plug on this, then we are for sure going to be the first ones to go down the drain. No, worse. Our families are going to go first. Man, they'll kill them."
"We're dealing with bastards who put bombs on airplanes," said McCoy. "I don't want that happening to my wife. I told a lot of lies so far; a few more ain't gonna matter."
"Okay, okay," said Kirk. "I know, I know."
In a soundproof booth in a far corner of the soundstage, the young man in the dark suit sat, his eyes on an overhead speaker.
"The thing is," came Kirk's voice, "I just don't think I can do it tomorrow."
"Wait a minute," Pike said. "Suddenly I get the feeling you're on a different side that ours."
"No, that's not what I'm getting at. I'm trying to say that I may have reached---I don't know, a point where I can't do this anymore."548Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlfHusr1NVe
"We have to do this," insisted McCoy. "Roddenberry's a psycho, and he's probably the sanest one of the bunch that's behind this. We've got families out there, and we're in way too deep to pull out now."548Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmYoRBw5TiR
The crew-cut young man reached for the phone and quickly dialed a number.
"But you spend your whole life trying to do something," Kirk was saying. "And what does it come to? This! What a bunch of bullshit!"548Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5eYEJUeIi7
"Right, it's bullshit," said Pike. "But, Jim, it's our bullshit. We made it, we have to wallow in it. And I really think we have to say in it all the way."548Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAdNf3UKvSK
"I can't!"548Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6If2xZiuwl
"Dr. Roddenberry, please," the young man said into the phone. "Dr. Roddenberry? I think we may have a problem with Kirk, come tomorrow."
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