The Fire and the Rose

by David R. George III

  “I think that because of your mixed parentage, I believed in the possibility that you would live more as a human than as a Vulcan,” Sarek said, admitting this to himself for the first time, the flurry of emotion within him perhaps allowing him to see now what he had not before. “I do not disapprove of humans,” he said, stating the obvious. “But I do think that Vulcan philosophy offers a better way. From a societal standpoint, we have done away with war and crime, and on a personal level, we achieve a peace of mind that humans seldom experience. I wanted that for you, my son.”

  “It is logical to have wanted the best for your child,” Spock said.

  “Of course,” Sarek said. “But logic alone does not validate the correctness of a viewpoint. Your mother trusted and accepted the choices you made in your life. I did not.”

  “My mother did not accept all of my choices,” Spock said.

  “She did,” Sarek said. “She simply worried when she thought you might have made the wrong choice.” He paused, trying to recall the point he had sought to make. “In any event, we have now changed places, you and I. In your youth, you struggled to live the Vulcan example I set for you. Now I hunger for the peace your Vulcan discipline brings you.”

  “Forgive me, Father,” Spock said, “but I do not understand why that should be. I understand the nature of the loss that you have suffered, but I do not believe that I am stronger in mind than you, or that my mental and emotional training could have been superior to yours.”

  Sarek raised an eyebrow. “You proceed from a misapprehension,” he said. “I have never undertaken the Kolinahr.”

  For a moment, Spock said nothing, clearly processing the information he had just learned. “I did not know that,” he said at last. “I simply assumed that you had.”

  “I know,” Sarek said. “But I did not find the need in my life. I controlled my emotions to a great extent, and I did train in the mental disciplines, but I did not wish to lose a portion of myself that did not threaten my existence.”

  “And yet, when I petitioned for my first Kolinahr, you did not stop me,” Spock said.

  “I did not think that I should,” Sarek said. “If after your years in Starfleet, living among predominantly emotive species, you returned to Vulcan to purge yourself of emotions, it was logical to assume that you needed to do that. My opinion was no doubt improperly influenced by my concern that life outside of Vulcan society had not been in your best interests—a concern I eventually came to realize was misplaced. If you recall, when you petitioned for your second Kolinahr, I did not support it.”

  “No,” Spock said, and then he lapsed into silence.

  Sarek allowed the quiet to surround them. He felt strangely more settled now after speaking with his son, although he did not quite know why that should be. For now, he decided not to seek the logic in it.

  After a few minutes, Sarek felt sufficiently rested and he stood up. The sky had begun to dim as dusk approached. “We should continue,” he said.

  “Are you sure that you will be all right?” Spock asked.

  “Yes,” Sarek replied. And for the first time since he had learned of Amanda’s death, he actually believed it.

  Spock deactivated the display in his lab and walked into his adjoining office. There, he prepared for his midday meditation by collecting several candles from a shelf and setting them on his desk. As he brought the incense diffuser over, though, a tone signaled an incoming transmission on his communications console. Spock sat down at his desk and turned to the monitor, working its controls to open the comm channel. The emblem of the Vulcan comnet appeared briefly, replaced a moment later by the image of Sarek.

  “Father,” Spock acknowledged. In the background, he saw the complicated arcing fountain that adorned the center of the great room of the house in which Sarek still lived. For a time, Spock knew, his father had considered relocating, but now, a year after Amanda’s death, he had apparently decided against that.

  “Spock,” Sarek said. “I regret disturbing you during your workday, but I had hoped that I would find you on your midday respite.”

  “As you have,” Spock said. “Your timing is most efficacious.”

  “I wished to let you know that I will be resuming my ambassadorial duties,” Sarek said. Since the shuttle crash, he had withdrawn from public life, initially for the dual purposes of grieving for Amanda and recovering the control of his emotions. After he had regained his mental composure, though, he had chosen to continue mourning.

  “Have you contacted the Bureau of Interplanetary Affairs?” Spock asked.

  “Actually, Director Forsen contacted me,” Sarek said. Forsen, Spock knew, had superceded Lanitow Irizal as the head of the BIA several years ago. “She asked if I would consider assisting a Federation subcouncil established to forecast short—and long-term effects of the Treaty of Algeron.” The historic document had been signed by the Federation, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Star Empire in the wake of the Tomed Incident.

  “I am sure that such an endeavor would benefit from your experience and expertise in such matters,” Spock said.

  “I concur,” Sarek said with no hint of ego. “That is why I have agreed to return to my position as Vulcan ambassador and provide the subcouncil the aide it needs. I leave for Earth in two days.”

  “Why so soon?” Spock asked.

  “The subcouncil has already been meeting for weeks,” Sarek said. “I would depart immediately, but I need some time to prepare for my journey and to ready the house to stand vacant while I am away.” The hesitation that followed lasted such a brief time that Spock doubted anybody but himself would have noted it. “Your mother used to take care of putting the house in order before our trips.” Spock thought he could detect a trace of sadness within Sarek, but he could not be certain. Either way, it seemed clear that Sarek truly had recaptured his ability to rule his feelings.

  “May I provide you with some assistance?” Spock asked.

  “No, my son,” Sarek said. “I appreciate your offer, but this is something I must do on my own.”

  “I understand,” Spock said.

  “Will you be available to dine with me this evening?” Sarek asked.

  “Yes.”

  “That is good,” Sarek said. “I will see you at dusk at my house then.”

  “Very well,” Spock said. The conversation at an end, he saw his father reach forward. An instant later, Sarek’s image disappeared, replaced by the Vulcan comnet logo. Spock reached forward himself and switched off the comm equipment.

  Turning back to his desk, he saw the candles and diffuser arranged there. He lighted them all, then concentrated on the center flame. He regulated his breathing, using the desert scent to attempt to empty his mind.

  Instead, he thought of Sarek. For half a season after Amanda’s death, Spock had lived with his father, doing whatever he could to assist him. But beyond the practical matters of everyday life, Sarek had accepted no help. At first, he had permitted himself to experience the despondence that his wife’s death had caused within him. Spock had suggested meditation and various mental exercises, and once even to meld with his father, but Sarek had declined all such recommendations.

  At some point, though, Sarek had begun taking solitary walks through the thoroughfares of Shi’Kahr. Not long afterward, he had begun to appear less unsettled. Eventually, he had resumed meditation, at which point Spock had noticed marked improvements in his manner, and a clearly renewed containment of and power over his emotions.

  In all, Spock had thought it a remarkable display of his father’s mental capacity—made all the more so by Sarek’s revelation that he had never undertaken the Kolinahr. But then, if he had gone through the Kolinahr, Spock thought, he never would have suffered the turmoil he had after Amanda’s death.

  Just as Spock had felt nothing. Just as he still felt nothing.

  He closed his eyes and again tried to blank his thoughts. Again, his efforts failed. He recalled his years in Starfleet, and specifi
cally that first period of time he’d served aboard the Enterprise. Back then, while maintaining his inner control, Spock had smiled in an effort to assimilate with his crewmates. It hadn’t succeeded. When the crew had learned of his artifice, many had come to distrust him, understandably unsure which of his reactions they could believe. Spock too had found himself uneasy emulating behavior not his own, and in some ways, attempting to be something—somebody—he was not.

  But even after Spock had worked to regain the confidence of his shipmates, it remained clear that he did not fit in with them. Although always treated with respect and even kindness, Spock existed as a population of one, separate from the rest of the crew. Over time, he’d thought that a friendship might develop with the ship’s human but stoic first officer, but despite her emotionless mien, she had shared virtually nothing in common with Spock.

  After Captain Pike had been promoted to Fleet Captain and off the Enterprise, Spock had considered resigning his commission and returning to Vulcan, thinking that perhaps his father had been correct in opposing his entry into Starfleet. But while Spock had not entirely found his place within the space service, neither had he ever been completely at home on the planet of his birth. He had therefore resolved to stay aboard the Enterprise.

  During the ship’s five-year mission under the command of Captain Kirk, Spock had finally become comfortable with himself. He had cultivated friendships, particularly with Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy. Only at the end of that time, when Jim’s apparent death had caused Spock to bear the weight of his betrayal of the captain—of his friend—had he finally opted to return to Vulcan for the Kolinahr. When he had gone back to Starfleet, though, back to the Enterprise and to his friends, he had recovered the one place where he had ever truly found refuge.

  Now, nineteen Standard years after his friend’s death, fifteen years after his successful completion of the Kolinahr, and a year after the shuttle accident that had claimed his mother’s life, he had found other refuges, spending his days in his office and lab at the Vulcan Science Academy, at his apartment here in T’Paal, and sometimes at his father’s house in Shi’Kahr. He did not feel regret for failing to even search for a way to keep Edith Keeler in Jim’s life, he did not feel sadness for the death of his friend, he did not feel grief for his father’s loss, he did not feel sorrow for the death of his mother.

  He felt nothing.

  But he wanted to.

  Spock opened his eyes. Before him, the candles still burned and a thin drift of smoke floated up from the diffuser. Out of habit, he peered at the center flame, looking to enter a meditative state.

  How can I want to feel? he asked himself. Is that not desire, something my Kolinahr prevents me from experiencing?

  It all seemed irrational. But Spock could not deny it. He wanted to mourn his mother. He wanted to mourn Jim. He even wanted the regrets he’d had because they’d been his own.

  Spock suddenly remembered something that the captain had once said, when Sybok had wanted to ease his pain, to begin to remove from him the negative emotions that had built up within him during his lifetime. The things we carry with us make us who we are, Jim had said. If we lose them, we lose ourselves.

  Had he been right? And had Spock lost himself by becoming more Vulcan, by embracing logic and stoicism too much? He recalled now that not only Amanda but Sarek had believed that he should not petition for the Kolinahr. His father had even claimed that Spock had already won the battle he had waged between his Vulcan and human aspects.

  Spock leaned forward and extinguished the candle flames with a breath, then capped the incense diffuser. Standing, he quickly moved from behind his desk and into his lab. He activated the computer terminal at the center of the room with a touch. “Computer,” he said.

  “Working,” came the response in a masculine voice.

  “Access Vulcan cultural database,” Spock ordered.

  A ticking sound provided an audible indication of the computer’s functioning while it processed his request. “Ready,” it said a few seconds later.

  “Are there any Vulcan rituals designed to reverse the effects of a successful Kolinahr?” Spock asked. He had never heard of such a thing, and he could not imagine the Vulcan masters conducting such a rite.

  More ticks. “Affirmative,” the computer said.

  “How many?”

  “One: the lot-san-kol.”

  “Is the lot-san-kol carried out or guided by the Vulcan masters or elders?” Spock asked.

  “Negative.”

  Spock went back into his office and retrieved his personal data slate. When he returned, he placed it atop the computer terminal’s transfer interface. “Computer,” Spock said, “download all information available on the lot-san-kol.”

  When the download had completed, Spock took the slate into his office and reviewed it. He understood the process of the lot-san-kol, but did not know if it would be possible to accomplish. But he knew he had to try.

  By the time he arrived at his father’s house for the evening meal, Spock had already resigned from the Vulcan Science Academy and booked passage to Earth.

  Twenty-Eight

  2312

  When McCoy heard the doorbell chime, he furrowed his brow. Having just finished up an intensive edit of his Comparative Alien Physiology text, and having the house to himself for the next few weeks, he hadn’t been expecting any visitors. On this fine Sunday afternoon in the middle of a beautifully mild Georgia summer, he had planned on doing nothing more than tending his zinnias and perhaps enjoying a mint julep out on the front porch come the evening.

  McCoy stuck his spading fork into the dirt, then pulled off his gardening gloves and rose from his knees. His joints felt a little creaky, but with all the work he’d been doing on the book, he hadn’t had much of a chance lately to get out and exercise. Now that he’d finally completed the last round of edits, he hoped to change that.

  He brushed the grass from the knees of his jeans, then climbed the back steps and opened the screen door. Inside, he headed through the kitchen and the hall to the foyer. As he swung the inner door aside, he spied the person standing out on the porch. McCoy stopped in his tracks, stunned. It took him a moment to recover. When finally he did, he stepped forward and opened the outer door.

  Spock stood there. He wore dark blue slacks and a gray shirt. Behind him, down the front walk and past the two pairs of white oak trees after which the nineteenth-century plantation house had been named, an airpod had set down at the end of the lane.

  “Doctor McCoy,” Spock said. In just the two words, McCoy heard the same icy, removed tone he’d heard when he’d last spoken with the Vulcan.

  “Hello, Spock,” he said. “I have to admit that I’m surprised to see you. It’s been, what, thirteen years?” McCoy recalled well their last meeting, when he had visited Vulcan to ask Spock in person to be the best man at his wedding. Not only had Spock coldly rejected his invitation, he’d also made it clear that his new level of emotional control did not allow room in his life for old friends.

  “Fourteen years, one month, eleven days,” Spock said. Though his voice retained its inflectionless monotone, McCoy grinned at the memory of Spock’s penchant for precision.

  “Just as exact and annoying as ever,” McCoy said, continuing to smile in order to demonstrate that he meant his comment in jest. “I suppose I should act the part of the southern gentleman and invite you in.” He moved aside and gestured for Spock to enter.

  “Thank you,” Spock said as he moved past. McCoy closed both doors of the foyer, then pointed to the left side of the hall.

  “Let’s go in here,” he said, parting the wooden doors and sliding them open. He led Spock into the room, which he had appointed in the detail of the house’s era. A large fireplace dominated the center of the wall opposite the doors. Before it, two burgundy davenports faced each other, both at right angles to the hearth. A low oaken table separated the two pieces. “Have a seat,” McCoy said, gesturing to the sitting area
as he walked over to the bar cabinet in the far corner.

  “Where is your wife?” Spock asked as he sat down.

  “Away on Memory Alpha for a month-long conference,” McCoy said. “Can I get you something to eat or to drink?”

  “No, thank you,” Spock said.

  “Well, based on whatever reason you’re here,” McCoy joked, “am I going to need a drink?”

  Spock peered over at him. “Possibly,” he said.

  The response gave McCoy pause. In just the few moments Spock had been here, he’d shown the same stern countenance, spoken in the same detached tone as when McCoy had last seen him. For that reason, Spock’s suggestion that McCoy might need a drink seemed less amusing and more ominous.

  Without pouring anything for himself, McCoy moved back to the middle of the room and sat down opposite Spock. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell me why you’ve come,” he said, “and then I’ll decide whether or not it warrants any alcohol.”

  “First,” Spock said, “I would like to apologize to you.”

  McCoy could not prevent himself from laughing. “I’m sorry, Spock,” he said. “When I visited you on Vulcan all those years ago, you made it clear that your attainment of Kolinahr would no longer allow us to be friends. It wasn’t just in what you said, but also in how you acted, how you spoke to me. Forgive me, but your demeanor doesn’t seem any different now.”

  “It is no different,” Spock said. “But that is why I have come.”

  “I don’t follow you,” McCoy said.

  “I will explain,” Spock said, “but I first want to apologize for hurting you when you asked me to stand with you during your wedding. My reaction was motivated only by logic, and not by the many years of our friendship.”

  “All right,” McCoy said, confused. Despite what Spock had said, he’d offered no explanation for his behavior that McCoy didn’t already know.

  “After I completed the Kolinahr,” Spock said, “I took a research position at the Vulcan Science Academy.”

  “Yes, I knew that,” McCoy said. “I’ve actually read about some of your work in the literature: converging temporal loops, chaos theory, the infinite worlds paradox.”