This time the serpent spoke with true somberness. "It seems I have already done what I can, and things cannot be as I wished them. Therefore . . . I will let you go your own way, as you wish." The power-cat had ceased licking itself and now lay down peacefully between them.
"We would still have you as a friend and equal, Kukulkan," Kirk offered.
"No . . . no." The wings beat slowly. "That cannot be, now, for me. As you cannot be servants, and children, so can I be no less than the master. It is sad, but it is truth.
"Go now . . ."
Kirk studied the viewscreen. Kukulkan's ship still hovered there, but its awesome energy cloak was gone. The need for deception had passed.
McCoy stood nearby while Spock was watching the screen from his position at the library-computer station.
"An interesting experience," the first officer observed.
"Interesting," McCoy mumbled, in a tone that indicated he would have used other adjectives to describe what they had just been through.
"Our visitor turned out to be the actual Mayan god," Spock concluded.
"And the Toltecs' Quetzalcoatl," Walking Bear reminded, "and the original Chinese dragon, and all the rest."
"But not quite a god," Kirk corrected them. "Just an old, lonely being who wanted to help others—an ego-maniacal hermit who'd chose isolation before confessing to his mortality."
McCoy grinned and crossed his arms, rather like a gunfighter preparing for a standoff—only the doctor was readying a verbal salvo.
"Spock," he began innocently, "I don't suppose Vulcans have legends like those?"
The first officer regarded him evenly, raised one eyebrow. "Not legends, Doctor. Vulcan was visited by alien beings in its past. They, however, left us much wiser."
McCoy was preparing a reply when Arex, who had insisted on remaining on duty until the incident was finally resolved, broke in with a report.
"The other vessel is getting under way, sir, heading directly outward along the transmission heading."
"Away from Earth, away from the Federation," Kirk confirmed, watching as Kukulkan's ship began to shrink on the screen. "It's sad. Think what we could do with the knowledge on that ship, held in that mind." He shook his head.
"Unfortunately, the price was just too high."
"I think I know how he felt, Jim," McCoy commented, turning suddenly serious. Spock also turned to look at him. "There's a line from Shakespeare . . ."
"I remember it, too, Bones." Kirk's voice recited, " 'How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child'."
"Indeed, Captain," Spock agreed, filling that terse comment with more meaning than most people could put in several paragraphs.
Kirk sighed, looked back at the screen. It was empty again, empty save for that endless panoply of marching suns. They glowed mockingly back at him, each holding secrets they stubbornly guarded with distance and time.
"Lay in a course for Starbase 21, Mr. Arex. All ahead warp-three . . ."
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
PART I: ALBATROSS
I
II
III
IV
PART II: THE PRACTICAL JOKER
V
VI
VII
VIII
PART III: HOW SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH
IX
X
XI
Star Trek - Log 6 Page 20
