He backed away, disengaging his hands and hers. “Then listen. If you do not go, I will not move from this spot. If you carry me, you will never get me away. I guarantee I will fight you and slow you and try to break free, until we go for Spock—or Omne finds us. And when he does, I will renew my offer, for Kirk. You will never have me. But if you should, by some thousandth chance, get me away, you will still never have me if Spock dies. Unless you care to keep me as a captive.”
“I would,” she heard herself saying, and saw it jolt him. She lifted her chin. “I will. I am. Impasse, Captain.” She threw back her shoulders in the stance of the Fleet Commander. Two can play at that game.”
His eyes suddenly believed her, and they were very close to tears, burning with rage and sheer frustration, one breath away from drowning in grief. “It is no game to me, and I am not playing.
“I know,” she said. “Nor I.”
He stood silent and she saw him struggling for thought against the impulse to take her by the throat. “Very well,” he said in the voice of the Starship Captain. “What I said goes. But I don’t play alpha games with lives, or—fight in a burning house. Someone must always command. Command, Commander. Find something useful to do, for both of us.”
She found herself breaking into a smile. “You’ll do, James,” she said, nodding. “I wonder if Jim could do as well? Let’s go.”
He did not even say, “Where?” He followed her through the door.
Kirk thrashed in nightmare, knew it was nightmare, would not permit himself to dream it.
He twisted and rolled up, clawing his way to his knees, two nightmares mingling. Omne—No, that was the old nightmare. Reach for the new one, the quiet, bitter one. The one with the knowledge that Spock was dying at Omne’s hands-Kirk snapped his eyes open with a convulsion of his whole body.
He was in the study. No, some other room. Darker. There was some flicker of light. The surface under him was a broad leather bench.
The second nightmare—where had it come from? It seemed to be with him still, and he couldn’t shake it. He pried himself up and leaned his hands on his thighs. A natural enough fear, he supposed. Spock and Omne. Yet Spock could not be in here. But it had seemed so vivid, not a fear but a fact. Leaden, in the pit of his stomach. Burning in his scalded thighs and raw hands. What?
He snatched his hands up to examine them, put them down to touch the insides of his thighs, the aching ankle-No. That was not the pain of his own body. There was no pain in his own body. Well, damn little, considering. And yet the pain was there. And the grief in his mind. How-Did it matter?
Spock—
He dragged himself off the bench, fighting unutterable weariness but calling on some last reserve. Get moving. Find out. He saw that the flicker of light was from a Dank of monitor screens. Good.
He tottered a little but did not sag—until his eyes froze on the two figures in black, locked in primordial combat Omne and—dear God—Spock.
CHAPTER XVII
Spock kept moving.
They were both barely moving now, but he must not be caught by the bull rush or the bear hug. His broken ribs would not take it. Nor would the battered muscles, torn tendons, screaming nerves, gashed flesh. The Vulcan capacity against pain had long since been used and exceeded. He moved on nerve.
Omne’s arms reached for him with the slowness of his own deadly weariness and pain. The black silk hung in rags and the bared arms, shoulders, stomach, were green with Spock’s blood and blue-green with his own.
Omne was not merely a Vulcanoid, Spock thought again, slashing up at the reaching arms and throwing the giant off balance. He was of a related species, possibly. But he was in a class by himself. Spock knew that he had never met such a fighter in his life.
Omne swung back and Spock ducked, came up with his hands locked together and slashed at the bloody, heathen-idol face with great double-handed cleaver strokes.
He had to finish him.
Omne reeled, backpedaled, turned, and fled, staggering, lurching around the end of another lab bench.
Spock followed grimly, knowing that the giant had been looking for the fallen gun for some time. The search for the gun was a measure of the fact that Omne had never met such a man as the Vulcan, either, but Spock took small satisfaction in that.
He launched himself in a flat dive as he saw that this time the gun was there and Omne was going for it.
They fell and rolled, short of the gun. But Spock knew that this was final. He could not withstand the brute strength more than seconds.
And this time the knowledge drove his hands unerringly and unstoppably to the nerve pinch centers in both massive shoulders. He knew already that the centers were incredibly resistant, the nerves shielded by corded muscles like cabled steel. But the nerves were not invulnerable, and Spock’s hands were dura-steel forged in fire of purpose.
The giant’s arms locked around Spock’s broken ribs. Green haze blurred Spock’s vision and blood pounded in his temples. But his hands were inexorable.
He saw white agony in the black eyes, and saw consciousness fading in them. He saw astonishment and black rebellion in the eyes which had never been defeated. Fear. But no surrender.
Creeping paralysis loosened the great muscles. The arms fell away and the corded abdomen went soft under Spock’s. And still the black eyes did not yield the last shred of consciousness.
And—they must not, Spock realized suddenly. He needed the man’s consciousness—as guide, as map to the labyrinth of mind, else Spock could grope forever in the darkness of inert memories for the one memory he needed.
Worse, he wanted the man to know what was happening, wanted him to feel the violation of his mind. And there was another memory which Spock wanted to rip out by the roots.
It was a thing no Vulcan could do, violating the deepest prohibition of a telepathic race—the forcing of a mind…
Spock loosened his hands. There was a time for breaking rules.
The black eyes cleared a little in the astonishment of a new terror, as if Omne could read an intention worse than murder in Spock’s face.
Spock locked his left hand again into the nerve center and unlocked his right to reach for the mind-hold on the battered face.
“What—” the puffed lips said almost silently, then more strongly, “—what are you going to do?”
Spock cracked blood loose from his own lips and knew that he had bared his teeth. “I am going to take him from you,” he said, “all of him and both of him—the memory of him. I will find the memory and know it, all of it, and then I will take it away, bit by bit, and you will feel it going and know that it will be as if he had never been for you—never been seen, known, hurt-“
Omne’s breath caught “That is—worse than what I did.”
“Yes,” Spock said. “Would you care to beg?”
The lips twisted in a terrible grin. “Would it do me any good?”
No,” Spock answered, and he was certainly not smiling. “Would it have for him?”
Omne’s laugh rumbled faintly in his throat “No,” he said, and the black eyes were unrepentant and unyielding, setting themselves to fight on the level of mind.
Spock went for the link, thrusting in with one single, tearing, unstoppable stroke and for one single objective: the one memory he had to know first before anything might stop him.
He found it by the very force of Omne’s resistance, and then it was etched in Spock’s brain: the route to Kirk, to Jim. And—the way out.
So much for business. Now for—Spock turned to reach for the other memory. And he met the shocking vitality of the dark mind, now past the first shock and mobilized against him.
It was another fight such as there had never been, and another one Spock would win because he had to.
He tore along the memory as on a trail of fire, letting it burn into his brain too fast for full comprehension. But it would be there later, and would never be erased. He let the great, dark mind batter at his own with
savage, flailing blows, trying to reduce him to quivering pain with the sheer power of its black essence.
He knew that he would feel the pain, even absorb the essence, and not be reduced.
“Say good-by to it,” he snarled aloud.
The black eyes locked with his in ultimate resistance.
And the great muscles heaved in convulsion. Pain hit Spock from directions he could not name—in body, in mind—but he held on.
The giant’s great legs bucked and heaved his bulk backward, dragging Spock along.
Omne’s hand reached the gun, and Spock’s hands abandoned all else to lock on the thick wrist.
“Die, Vulcan,” the black fury breathed.
The gun barrel shuddered by millimeters toward Spock’s head, and he forced it away with all his strength, began to force it down towards Omne’s head.
“You die, he said triumphantly and realized that he meant it. A thousand years of peace were cool in his mind, but the blood of millennia, of eons, pounded hot in his veins. And even the thousand years agreed: this one deserved it, for a crime worse than murder, for the hell he would unleash, for the lack of honor which made no peace possible. But it was simpler than that. For Jim. For James. Spock forced the gun down further. He had the vital knowledge. Let the man lose the memory in death. There was no other choice now, and he wanted none.
Take no chances.
He saw the real fear of death in Omne’s eyes, now, and felt it in his mind. It was not a fear at the level of sanity. It stretched to the blackest deep levels of the great mind and the vast ego, the ultimate “I” which would not yield to dissolution.
Yes, that would be the worst fate for this one. Yes.
Spock jerked as if he had been hit and stopped the straining of his fingers for the trigger.
What if this one died-but the I did not dissolve? What if it disappeared into the hidden machinery of some hidden lab to rise from the ashes?
Spock called some last reserve of strength to hold against the gun with one hand and free the other to go for the neck pinch again.
“No,” he said aloud and in the black mind. ” There will be no death to free you. Say good-bye.’”
Spock forced his mind to the root of the memory, began to pull—And the nerve hold was true. All of the giant’s last strength was in the gun arm and was not enough to force it back to Spock. The paralysis was creeping over Omne.
Fear hit him—and the sudden knowledge that it was possible to fear worse than death. Then, slowly, the gambler’s grin formed on the savage lips. “I—raise. Good-bye, Mr. Spock.”
The man who hated death suddenly let the arm yield, let the Vulcan muscles force the gun down and up under Omne’s jaw. Spock tried to recover to pull it away, but couldn’t. ” ‘Or—au revoir,’” the black mind said in the link.
Omne pulled the trigger.
Spock threw his mind back, fighting not to get caught in the death—true death, black and reaching. He felt the astonishment and rebellion of the great black mind, even in its choice…
Blackness reached for Spock, found him. He was not sure that he had lived through it…
CHAPTER XVIII
Kirk snapped himself out of it, berating himself for standing and watching, knowing that he could not have torn his eyes away.
But, damn it, he was letting himself get used to the idea that he was a prisoner, locked in, lost, unable to act.
To hell with that. He probably was locked in, but maybe not. And—not permanently. There was a way out of any box. This seemed to be only a monitor center. But there had to be a control center somewhere. A way out. Something he could use to get to Spock.
Just blunder his way out, maybe. He had seen how Omne released the baffle walls that blocked the passages of the inner labyrinth,
No. He had already seen that there were several exits. Which way?
His hands flew over the monitor controls, punching up new views. He wished that he had Spock’s gift for reading alien machines. Or for calculating angles, correlating information. The Vulcan could probably back-figure from the multiple view angles to determine exactly where everybody and everything was—and draw a map.
Well, it was all done with the subconscious mind.
Kirk tried to relax and let his operate.
He punched up several angles of the big lab where Spock had fought Omne—where both lay still as death. Don’t think about that. He scanned the outer corridors. He found a place with three panels ripped off, one showing an entrance to the inner labyrinth. The screens offered miscellaneous angles of assorted inner labyrinth passages, branches, baffle walls.
And in a tiny corridor near one half-torn-down baffle wall, Kirk saw the Commander—and the other Kirk.
She was bending over the other Kirk, and he was half-sagging against the wall, his eyes withdrawn.
“James!” she said, shaking his shoulders gently.
The other—James, Kirk adopted immediately—tried to focus on the Commander. “It’s Spock—” he said weakly. “Alive, I think, but so badly hurt. He couldn’t keep me out at the last.”
The Commander’s hands were gentle on James’s face, but her voice asked for a report. “And Omne?”
“Dead.” James reported. “Killed himself.”
She set her jaw. “Therefore—alive.”
James’s eyes widened. “Again—My God.” He shook his head. “We have to go back, get to Spock.”
“No. We have to get to Kirk. We don’t know how long it will take Omne to live again. Spock’s strength will serve him.”
James swallowed. “Let me go to Spock.”
She shook her head. “You’re my guide to Jim. Are you still picking him up?”
“I—don’t know. Can’t feel anything but—Spock.”
“Try.” She took his shoulders again. “That’s an order, James. Let’s go.”
James pried himself off the wall and turned with her. She ripped at the baffle wall.
Kirk shook himself. Damn.
On reflection, damn, and other words for when there were no words. And to hell with standing here.
He turned toward a door almost at random.
Let the subconscious do its stuff. Or whatever he had felt from James, whatever James felt from Spock. Whatever. Plain dumb luck. Whatever. Move.
As a matter of fact he did have some feeling that he could walk unerringly to Spock, like a somnambulist.
He tried not to think about the feeling or touch it. Let him walk in his sleep, but let him walk.
He pressed the catches to release the baffle walls and just moved.
Omne alive. Dear God, the “automatic machinery.” But what a chance for Omne to take. Omne of all men.
And where was he—and how long would it take?
Would the next baffle wall reveal him standing, big as life, laughing?
Not yet, Kirk told himself firmly. Not yet
He found himself in the study.
Good. The subconscious had its points. He scooped up the spray can from the couch.
He started to go through the door Omne had carried him through. Presumably he would find the Commander and James somewhere if they were on the right route.
Something seemed to draw him toward another door. He hesitated. It was only the vaguest of hunches. Probably a better chance with the passage he half-knew, and with the Commander.
But he turned to follow the hunch. He had bet on less before, and this one was calling him to Spock.
He passed an open closet and had some thought of clothes. But to hell with that, too. Later for that. He plunged in and broke into a lope.
Baffle walls and branches here, too, but he chose without hesitation, found the hidden studs to release the blocking panels. Still, he would have played hell even getting out without whatever was guiding him. Or without the secret of the control studs. Omne must have supposed that he wasn’t in any condition to have noticed that.
Kirk came to a place where the maze widened into an alcove; then he
burst through into the big lab, spotted the two still figures near the end of one aisle, and broke into a run.
He dropped down beside Spock, meaning to feel for a pulse, finding himself just kneeling to take the limp shoulders in his hands, press his face and ear against the back. Yes, the Vulcan heart was still beating, lower down, wrong place-Hell, right place! Lovely, ridiculously fast beat.
“Spock!
He rolled the Vulcan off Omne’s body and into his own arms. Careful of broken bones, he told himself; but he wanted to carry the Vulcan away from the smell and sight of death, the blasted skull, the blood. And guards might be searching for the source of the shot.
Kirk rose carefully to his feet, cradling the living weight, heavier than a Human would have been, but seeming light to him now.
He found a low bench in the alcove inside the labyrinth entrance, nudged the panel closed with his shoulder, and decided against trying for the study. He knelt and settled his burden gently, extracting the spray can from the hand cradling the shoulders.
He started on the face. The soft spray seemed to foam up, absorbing blood, clearing it chemically, smoothing down to a skinlike film. But he had to ease cuts and splits together, almost remolding the face to its familiar shape.
That done, he could think about the body.
Internal injuries he could do nothing about. Spock’s Vulcan healing would have to take care of that, until and unless they could get him to Sickbay. Kirk didn’t know whether to hope that the Vulcan healing trance would set in fully, healing quickly, but keeping the Vulcan catatonic, requiring slaps to bring him out of it. They needed to move, if Spock could. But Kirk knew how the sickbay in the can eased pain as if it soaked in along the nerves. That, at least, he could do.
Spock’s shirt was in shreds. Kirk tore it off, worked over the chest, felt broken ribs. Damn. If they hadn’t punctured lungs, or worse… Kirk didn’t try to turn or lift him to work on the back, but filled his hands with spray foam and slipped them under to spread it. Then the arms and the battered hands.
The jeans were heavier, and they and the gunbelt might have protected the lower body a little. He unfastened both, thinking how Spock would raise an eyebrow—or possibly hell.
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