Chapter 24: Magic

THE SMALL THEATER on the recreation deck was nearly full. Buffy and Dawn sat next to Jim in the seats that had been reserved for them. Dawn could sense how exposed Jim felt being in the front row, she laid a comforting hand on his arm and he nodded his appreciation of the gesture.

Commander Spock entered the auditorium. He took the seat beside Jim opposite Dawn and Buffy. He sat straight and stiff, his hands resting on his thighs, his expression one of studied neutrality. Jim glanced at him quizzically.

"Commander Spock."

"Captain."

"I didn't know Vulcans went in for frivolous entertainments."

Spock arched his eyebrow. "I was under the impression, captain," he said, "that you had issued an order to attend."

"If such an order had been issued," Dawn said. "It would have come from me, instead of the captain. But I never issued such an order and neither has the captain. Which means you do not have to stay."

"I will remain. I am most curious about Ms. Lukarian's profession. Perhaps I misjudged her character. I wish to observe her performance. Though I would prefer to have been assigned a seat in the back. That way, I could observe both the performers and the audience."

"Why don't you relax, Mr. Spock?" Jim said. "You can observe the audience at the second show."

If Spock realized Jim had made a joke, he gave no sign of it. "An excellent suggestion," he said. "Humans have so many quaint and contradictory beliefs. It is interesting to observe them under unusual conditions. Are you aware, captain, that branches of the Flat Earth Society have sprung up on several worlds colonized by human beings?"

"As someone familiar with history," Dawn said. "I did not know anyone still belonged to the Flat Earth Society. If I may inquire though how does that equate a vaudeville show with believing that the earth is flat."

"Not the show itself—the magic. Magic has been used to defraud, to engender a belief in the supernatural—"

Buffy and Dawn began laughing as Spock looked at them with a raised eyebrow.

"Maybe we should give Spock access to our records," Buffy suggested. "After all, all of the bridge crew of the NX-01 were eventually let in on the secret."

"Well he does know that you and I are older than he knew," Dawn said. "So, he could be considered cleared to an extent." The house lights flickered. "Maybe later."

The house lights flickered again. The audience settled.

A blue spotlight flashed on center stage.

Lukarian gazed out, silent, aloof, somber. She wore a silver suit glittering with multicolored highlights.

"Does she have Willow's magic?" Buffy whispered to Dawn. She could have sworn that Lukarian hadn't been there moments before, that she had simply appeared—as if by magic.

"Yes," Dawn whispered back. "She told me in confidence that it was a secret kept from even us. It has been handed down from mother to daughter she had since Willow."

"Honorable members of the crew of the starship Enterprise." Onstage Lukarian's voice took on a low and powerful timbre. "Welcome to the first interstellar performance of the Warp-Speed Classic Vaudeville Show. I am Amelinda, and I am a magician. I will show you illusion—or I will show you a deeper reality. Only you can judge which it is."

She plucked a glittering object from the air. The audience murmured in surprise. The transparent blue disk caught the light, concentrated it, and flung it out again.

"The people of Tau Ceti II possess great mineralogical expertise. They crystallize their currency from pure sapphire," Lukarian said. "Jewels have transfixed the imagination of sentient beings since before history—but some would say that jewels have powers of their own, powers that transcend even the imagination."

She held up the sapphire coin, grasped it with her other hand—and it disappeared.

"My daddy used to tell me, a fool and her money are soon parted," Lukarian said. "But you know how aggravating children can be. I always replied—" She reached up and plucked another coin from nothingness.

Everyone with the exception of Buffy, Dawn and Spock applauded. The three of them leaned forward, intent on the stage from differing reasons. Spock became aware of Jim's scrutiny, his forehead smoothed and his expression regained its impassivity.

Buffy and Dawn continued their scrutiny looking for what was real magic and what was illusion.

The applause stopped. The audience waited expectantly.

"It is, of course," Spock said in a normal tone of voice, "the same coin."

"Maybe, maybe not," Buffy said.

Lukarian hesitated briefly. "It came in handy, my 'magic money,' as my daddy used to call it," she said, "when I was little. There was a bully in school who stole money from anyone smaller than him. Whenever he tried to steal mine, I made it disappear."

She reached for the second coin; like the first, it vanished from her hand.

"The coin is still in her hand," Spock said.

"Commander Spock!" Jim whispered.

"Yes, captain? No evidence of phaser or transporter dematerialization. Therefore, the coin must still be in her hand. Unless," Spock said in a thoughtful tone, "it was a holographic illusion."

"Shut up, commander. That's a direct—"

"House lights," Lukarian said. She moved to the edge of the stage, glaring down. Her heavy iridescent hair gleamed, shoulder length around her face, falling below her hips in back.

"House lights!" she said again. The power of her voice came from her alone, without the aid of amplifiers.

The house lights brightened.

"Commander Spock," Lukarian said, with perfect composure, "would you care to repeat your comment so the rest of the audience can hear you?"

"I said that the coin was a holographic illusion, or that it was still in your hand," Spock said.

"A holographic illusion? That would be cheating." She held out her open hand. "And the coin is not in my hand."

"Your other hand," Spock said.

"The coin isn't in my hand—or in my hand." Lukarian extended her other hand, open and empty.

Spock raised one eyebrow.

"We're lucky—aren't we?" Amelinda said. "If my birthplace were Tau Ceti II, and I were one of its octomanual inhabitants: 'It is not in my hand, or in my hand, or in my hand ...' Why, we'd be here all night."

The audience laughed with her.

She offered her empty hand to Mr. Spock.

"I usually ask for a volunteer later on, but since you're so eager, Commander Spock, you can help me now."

Spock rose from his seat, and sprang onto the stage.

Lukarian regarded Spock with a smile, accepting him as a worthy opponent. "You claim that I have only one coin."

"I said you plucked the same coin from the air both times," Spock said.

"I don't blame you for thinking that. Air is so barren. I wonder what we might find in more fertile fields? Hold out your hands."

Spock complied. Reaching up to his left ear, Lukarian plucked out a coin and dropped it, glittering, into Spock's outstretched hands.

Dawn could feel that the audience, including Jim, was enjoying the performance. She focused her empathy on Lukarian and Spock. Spock's emotions were in check. But Lukarian's hinted that she had been using magic and not illusion for the coin trick.

Lukarian plucked a coin from Spock's right ear. One after another, she pulled coins from Spock's ears and dropped the sapphire disks into his hands till there was no question of their being holographic projections. Each crystal hit the next, ringing with high, piercing notes. Spock watched, nonplussed.

"So much more to work with than air," Lukarian said. Then she blushed. "Sorry," she said, the only break in her stage presence. "Cheap joke."

Spock tried to hold all the coins, but one slipped from the double handful. It spun on the stage and rolled into the shadows. Ignoring it, Lukarian scooped coins from Spock's hands and pitched them into the audience till Spock stood empty-handed once more.

"Now they've disappeared for good," Lukarian said, "and even I can't make them return."

The audience erupted into applause. Lukarian bowed low. Her hair fell forward, nearly touching the floor. When she stood again she flung it back, like a dark, iridescent cape.

Spock started toward his seat.

Lukarian stopped him with her voice. "Not so fast," she said. "I have more work for my volunteer."

Tzesnashstennaj and another felinoid pushed a great box onto the stage. Clear glass molded in an openwork filigree pattern formed all four sides. The assistants spun the box and stopped it at stage center.

Lukarian opened it and rapped her wand against its solid inside. "An empty box." She waved the wand beneath it. "It stands high above the floor, it has no hidden escapes, no electronics. Mr. Scott!" She made a sweeping gesture.

The spotlights flashed onto a circular mesh plate, which had till now hung unseen in the shadows over the stage.

"If you would be so kind as to explain this device."

"Aye," Scott said. "'Tis a transporter-beam shield. No transporter can operate near that little device."

"And it is fully functional?"

"I installed it myself," Scott said.

"Thank you. Dr. McCoy!"

McCoy joined Scott onstage.

"Do you have your tricorder, Dr. McCoy?"

"I do."

"Check the magic box—for electronics, for anything suspicious."

"My pleasure." McCoy fiddled with the tricorder, causing it to emit beeps and whines. "Nothing," he said. "It's a perfectly ordinary box."

"Do you think so? Please set your tricorder to signal the use of a transporter beam, and place the instrument in front of the box."

McCoy did as she asked, then stepped back beside Scott.

Spock looked as if he wished he were somewhere else.

"And now, Mr. Spock, if you would enter the box—"

"Why would I wish to do this?"

"Because—" By her second word, Amelinda had smoothed the edge from her voice. "Because, as before, I have nothing up my sleeves."

She pushed her sleeves to her elbows. The muscles of her forearms were clear and well defined. She turned her hands over to show that they were empty. She reached toward Spock, offering to escort him. Again, he pretended not to notice her hand, but he did climb inside the box. He wore an expression of bemusement.

Lukarian closed the box. Spock stood within transparent latticework walls. The lights shifted and changed, reflecting from the glass, obscuring all but the vague outline of Spock's body. "Now I'll secure him."

Tzesnashstennaj loped forward with a carrier full of swords.

Lukarian chose one, placed its tip against the floor, and leaned on it till it bent like a fencing foil. She released the tension and it sprang straight.

She thrust it through an opening in the filigree.

The audience gasped.

"Silence, please," Lukarian said. "You mustn't disturb my concentration. It could be ... dangerous."

At the level of Spock's chest the sword's point protruded from the far side of the box. The changing lights sparked on the sharp metal. Lukarian chose a second sword and slid it through the lattice.

Dawn watched as she felt something stir within her. Something she had not felt in two hundred years, the Key.

Soon a dozen swords penetrated the box and the science officer's shadowy shape.

"By normal means, no person, nothing, could escape. Some would say no one could survive."

The assistants spun the box a third time. The changing lights washed over their fur and over the glass, dappling them like light on water.

"Stop!"

Lukarian withdrew the swords from the box and flung them clattering onto the stage. She reached for the latch, hesitating, letting the tension build. She flung open the door. In the same instant, the lights steadied. A figure stood inside the box. She took his hand.

Leonard McCoy stepped from the magic box and into a moment of stunned silence. Jim glanced to the side of the stage, where Scott still stood watching. He never noticed how or when McCoy had moved. Cheers and applause crashed over the stage like a wave. Lukarian and McCoy both bowed.

The lights faded, and they were gone.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Stephen met Spock on his emergence from the "magic" box.

"Vulcans are a tactless bunch at best, but you're in a class by yourself," Stephen said.

"As usual, your meaning eludes me," Spock said.

"Stay here till Lindy comes and gets you."

"I would prefer to return to the audience."

"You already almost spoiled one of Lindy's tricks! You stay here. Don't worry, you won't have to put up with my presence. You'll miss my act—but I'm sure that won't bother you." Stephen hurried out, leaving Spock alone.

Spock inspected his surroundings. The secret exit from the "magic" box led into a briefing room adjacent to the theater.

All manner of unusual equipment filled the room: exotic costumes, hand-built machines, musical instruments, boxes of makeup, masks, harness.

He believed his original observations and comments still to be accurate: Lukarian had plucked the same coin out of the air twice, and the coin had been in one hand while she induced the audience to look at the other. But what she did with it when he challenged her, Spock could not determine. Nor did he understand the mechanism by which she had produced a double handful of sapphire disks—whether from his ears or from thin air did not matter. Spock felt considerable respect for her and her technique.

The door slid open. Lukarian strode in and stopped five paces from him, her hands on her hips. "What do you mean by heckling my performance?" Her voice was taut with the anger she had repressed onstage.

"Heckling?" Spock said. "I merely pointed out—"

"Merely? Merely! Why didn't you get up and explain everything I did? Then everybody could say, 'Oh, but that's so easy—anybody can do that.' But everybody can't do that—not unless they're willing to spend a couple of hours every day of their lives practicing it! Mr. Spock, how could you do that to me? I thought you liked me."

"I do not like anyone," Spock said. "It is not in my nature to like, or to dislike. It was not my intention to disparage your accomplishments."

"You could have fooled me!"

"Far from disparaging your abilities, I cannot explain all of your illusions. But you implied that the coin had disappeared by supernatural means, and I felt it my duty to point out that no such thing happened."

"Supernatural means—!" She looked at him with disbelief.

"Enough, Ame."

Lukarian and Spock turned and saw Dawn standing at the door. "Mister Spock, you will find you now have access to mine and Buffy's full Starfleet files. I recommend you read them, now. That's an order," Dawn said.

Spock looked at Dawn and then nodded. "Yes, Counselor." He turned and left without another word.

Dawn spun on Lukarian fuming. "You didn't think I couldn't tell what magic you were using? No witch is even supposed to be strong enough to actually use it."

"I'm more than just a witch, Dawn," Lukarian said. "I, like my mother and her mother before me, am part Key as will be my daughter and her daughter. After Fate came and told you that you would live for a thousand years. Great Grandma Willow decided to protect the Key that it should be split in two. If you had still been mortal this precaution would never have been needed as Great Grandma Willow believed the Key would have been destroyed with your death. So Great Grandma Willow using her magic split the Key in two. You are the door; my family is the key. Both of us are needed, now, for the Key to work."

"That's why Buffy and I were never told that your family possessed magic," Dawn said. "If we didn't know..."

"Then you wouldn't know who the other half was," Lukarian said. "And the Key would never be used to open the door. I only tap into it for that one trick. The coin trick was done with Great Grandma Willow's magic. But to make the vanishing box trick work in the world of transporters, I had to find a new way."

Dawn sighed. "It's too dangerous, Ame," she said. "You can't use it anymore. If someone found out, it could be disastrous. Especially if they figure out that I still have the other half. Promise me."

Lukarian looked at Dawn for a long moment and then sighed. "I promise."