In the Star Trek pilot episode The Cage, Captain Christopher Pike has escaped his cell. With the Talosian leader as his hostage, he returns to the surface, accompanied by Number One, his yeoman, and Vena. Yet, even with a phaser pointed at his head, the alien refuses to back down. Pike must remain on Talos 4 as mate to Vena and to bring life to this dead world. So Pike offers him a deal: assure me that the Enterprise is all right, send these two women back...and I’ll stay with Vena.
Of the three women (all of whom have strong feelings for him), Number One knows Pike best. She cannot allow him to make this sacrifice. Pike’s calling is to be a starship commander, not a farmer. And there is a moral principle at stake too. So, to win Pike’s freedom, she sets her phaser on overload. “It’s wrong to create a whole race to live as slaves,” she announces.
Her declaration is straight-forward. Her action shakes the Talosian leader’s confidence (which is more than Pike has previously accomplished). But is she leaving a deeper truth unsaid? If Number One shared her fellow bridge officer’s fear of what the aliens were doing to Pike, she never voiced it. She didn’t complain when Pike excluded her from his landing party. She didn’t rebuke Dr. Phil for saying “I told you so” when her attempt to blast away the rocky knoll housing the Talosians’ underground elevator appeared to fail. In all the time she has served with Pike, she’s never revealed to Pike how she feels for him. So one may wonder: Is she saying everything she could say, or only what she needs to say to achieve the result she desires?
When the Talosians whisked her and the yeoman into Pike’s cell, she learned the explanation for his capture. Of all the Enterprise crew, she realizes how unlikely this scenario is. The Vena on the survey ship that crashed here eighteen years ago was an adult. While Number One never reveals how old Vena would be now, she would certainly be older than the young, vibrant woman she appears to be. Could the real Vena give birth to a child, let alone raise a brood of “intelligent offspring?” Would she possess the vitality and energy necessary to help her husband run a successful farm, manage a household, and raise her children to adulthood?
While the Talosians built an underground biosphere, the current generation--so addicted to vicariously living-out the dreams of their captives--lack the knowledge and skills to repair the machines created by their ancestors. They may be adept at deception, but do they know how to extend the years of fertility in their sole human specimen? Number One’s discretion and valorous act preserves Pike’s dignity, while shielding him from how he ignored such obvious clues. In so doing, she allows him to believe that he acted appropriately on Talos 4, and thus return to the Enterprise with confidence in himself.
It can tear at your heart to see your friend going through a difficult situation. Oh, for the discretion of Number One, to know just what to what to say, and no more.
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