"You're right, I don't like it," Kirk said. "What is the other answer?"
Gailbraith turned to look at Sola. "The Zaran female is amplifying the effect of the Totality, and to some extent even of my Oneness. The more she remains in your presence, Captain, the more she is drawn toward bonding and the more dangerous she becomes to all of you. You must choose between her and your ship."
"I like that still less," Kirk said. "Find a third choice."
Gailbraith shrugged. "Accept the trial which the Totality sets as a challenge."
"What trial?" McCoy interjected.
Gailbraith turned to indicate Sola. "In this rather interesting package, we have all of Zaran. She is the heart of Zaran resistance, and it would be her power which would give the Totality a psionic weapon to start a chain reaction of Oneness. As she goes, so goes her planet—and quite possibly the galaxy. Has it not occurred to any of you that we are all very conveniently met here?"
"It has occurred to me that you arranged it," Kirk said. "You knew she would be here. And you brought me."
"That is true, as far as it goes," Gailbraith said. "Did it occur to you to wonder why?"
"To bring out my latent bonding-powers," Sola said. "It has been tried before, but not effectually. Ambassador, was it you who chose to send Captain Kirk and the Enterprise?"
"Yes," Gailbraith said. "With some knowledge of the Totality's purpose."
"The Ambassador is astute," Sola said. "And he is right. We have been overreached, and I must leave the ship. I will take the scoutship." She turned to go.
"No," Kirk said flatly, and Spock did not move aside from blocking her path to the turbolift.
"It may be rather late even for that," Gailbraith added. "I would expect that at any moment we may hear from the Totality with the terms of the challenge."
"What else do they want from her?" McCoy grumbled. Gailbraith turned the steel-gray eyes on him and McCoy felt the sheer power of the man.
"She is their key to bringing Oneness to the galaxy in my lifetime, Doctor," Gailbraith said.
"And you want to bring Oneness in your lifetime," Kirk said to Gailbraith.
"Yes, Captain."
"But at what cost?" Kirk protested. "If your goal is right, can it not win without force?"
Gailbraith shrugged. "That has been my belief. But to win without force may take a thousand years—or a million. Captain, if I could offer you, say, peace in your lifetime and forever, but at a cost—would you not be tempted?"
"I might be, Ambassador," Kirk said, "but I have learned that some costs cannot be paid. The use of force destroys any benefit which can come from it."
"I wish I were quite so certain, or so innocent."
Kirk looked at him thoughtfully. "Is that the question you came here to answer, Gailbraith? You also are not here by accident. Is it that the Totality needs something from you? Or do you need something from the Totality?"
"How perceptive, Captain. Both."
"And you both need something from me—from us!" Kirk divined.
Gailbraith nodded. "It is a triangle, Captain, a fateful triangle met here to decide the fate of the galaxy for a million years. We who have chosen Oneness cannot alone bring it to the galaxy in my lifetime. For that we would require the methods of the Totality. The Totality also requires our help—or our neutrality at least. Collectively those of us who have formed diverse kinds of Oneness by choice might stand against the Totality. We would be a plurality of Onenesses, against the single engulfing Totality. The conflict might last for millennia. And while it lasted you singletons would also find room to exist as amoebas. But if I become convinced that the Totality's solution can work, and I decide to bring my kind to join it—we may spare the galaxy a million years of conflict and agony."
Kirk shook his head. "You would extinguish greatness—and love. There is no room for diversity in Oneness, no spark which jumps across a gulf of difference to create … ecstasy."
"That, Captain," Gailbraith said, "may be the third point of the triangle—and the essence of the trial: love versus Oneness. Sola's people have the capacity for Oneness—if any species does. You, your friends, your ship, are the distilled essence of the opposition. The test case is, perhaps, of the power of love."
"It has won before," Kirk said.
"And lost," Gailbraith answered, "many times. I believe you will lose, Captain, for you are torn in two directions. The impossibility of your situation will, finally, bring you to me."
"Gailbraith," Kirk said, "you have promised to help me save my ship—at least until the final decision. I will hold you to that. And I charge you to make your decision carefully. For if you join the Totality, there is no turning back and no alternative. But if you resist and offer individuals the chance to choose your Oneness, or some other, or none, then you preserve your freedom—and ours. Now—how can I contact the Totality?"
"I expect that the Totality will contact you," Gailbraith said in a tone of warning.
Chapter 17
As if on cue the turbolift doors opened on the heels of Gailbraith's words, and Kirk looked up to find an alien presence on his Bridge.
The lone man who stood there might have commanded a galaxy—and it was quite possible now that he would.
He had been designed for command by some genius genetic sculptor of long ago who had managed to be both selective and lucky. The tall, massive, broad-shouldered body was a portrait in power. The coppery, gold-flecked eyes were hypnotic. The man's face and body were the essence of maleness, of maleness raised to the point of superdominance, as if that sculptor had carved a face and a stance to represent the essence of the conqueror—or of the unconquerable.
The man looked as if he had been cast in bronze, with gold highlights in the eyes and a copper-bronze mass of untamed hair.
There was some disturbing familiarity about the man's face, as if Kirk should have recognized it for more reasons than he did. The face itself was seldom photographed. But Kirk knew it to be the face of a man who had once been presumed dead for more than two hundred years. The man was legend. And he was the enemy.
"Soljenov of the Totality, I presume," Kirk said.
The big man bowed fractionally. He looked not much older than Kirk, but even counting only time outside the long-sleep of the long-jump ship, he was decades older. The youthfulness must be the gift of an undying vitality, and of the combined life-force of the Totality. Kirk had felt the power of such force through Gailbraith, and he did not want to have to fight it in this man.
"Captain Kirk," Soljenov said in a voice which was deep and resonant with authority—a single voice which spoke for many.
"You have come aboard my ship without notice or permission," Kirk said. "State your purpose."
Soljenov nodded. "You note that I have been able to do so without alerting any of your alarm systems. Those who should have responded to warning lights have not. Those who could have responded were prevented from seeing them. For many purposes, Captain, I control your ship now."
"No one controls my ship but me," Kirk said. "At need she will be destroyed."
"Even that may already be beyond your power, Captain. But if it were not, would you prefer to destroy your crew, rather than have them live happily in the new world of Totality? Are you so prejudiced—when your primary mission is to seek out the new? Or do you perhaps fondly hope that you could transport your crew to the planet below—and that they, or you, could survive there? I assure you, it is not an alternative."
"There is always an alternative to surrender," Kirk said. "And history has shown that surrender or appeasement of any totality is not an alternative to destruction—merely a preliminary."
"My predecessors were crude, Captain. I am not. I knew centuries ago that what they proclaimed as oneness was not factually a Oneness at all, but the worst of all possible systems for brutalizing the many for the benefit of the few. I swore to find the reality of Oneness, and with their psychic research which I was able to expand, I found the begi
nnings. It took the destruction of my immediate world to drive me out to the stars, where I would find the second interlocking piece of the puzzle. Zaran."
"Is there a third piece?" Kirk asked.
Soljenov laughed. "How perceptive of you, Captain. The third piece is itself an interlocking of the forces met here today. The Ambassador is quite right. I have called you to a challenge."
"And if I do not accept?"
"I'm afraid I said nothing about offering you a choice."
Kirk pressed the intercom button. "Security to Bridge." He had not much faith now in the useful arrival of Security, but he saw Spock move in behind the Master of the Totality.
"What is the nature of the challenge?" Kirk asked, stalling.
"But you are not to know that, in detail, either." Soljenov smiled. "I am afraid I am not nearly so civilized as your personal Devil." He bowed faintly to Gailbraith. "However, you may assume that it is a trial of the central issue—of the question of Oneness, as such. Sola's species, and her line of female inheritance, have a remarkable capacity for Oneness. She has undiscovered powers which I know can unite a world, finally even a galaxy …"
"One moment," Sola cut in, stepping to confront Soljenov. "I will not be a party to this. There is no one here for whom I will accept the mating challenge. Nor will I, under any circumstance, serve the Totality. Go now with those who will serve you willingly, and let my people go."
"My dear," Soljenov said, "I have so arranged things that you also will have no choice."
"I will never bond," she said. "I will not undertake mate-hunt. I will not deliver my people, nor the galaxy, into your power."
Soljenov merely smiled. "The art of arranging the inevitable merely requires a knowledge of the unendurable. You will hunt your mate in the ancient way. And when your powers are roused, you will serve."
Soljenov bowed fractionally, touched a medallion he wore on a chain, and disappeared from the Bridge in a variation of a transporter shimmer.
"What did you mean, 'mate-hunt'?" Kirk asked quickly.
Sola turned to face him. "It is the custom which provokes the hormonal and psionic responses which lead to lifebonding. The male who believes that a female has begun to desire him for bonding takes himself—or is taken by someone who has a stake in the bonding—such as those who wish to bond a recalcitrant pride-queen—into the most dangerous area of the jungle. If the female is sufficiently called, she hunts him there. It is a life-or-death choice. The hunt raises the intensity of the psionic attraction to the point needed for bonding. The two become one, not in Gailbraith's way or the Totality's, but in love. The longer the male remains free, the stronger the ultimate bond. But the female seeks to find him quickly, for it is the only solitary hunt which is permitted—and required. It is dangerous for both, and he is prey also to other predators."
"And there is no one here for whom you would accept mate-hunt?" Kirk asked.
She said nothing—perhaps because it was plain enough that Soljenov heard anything they said, through some means—perhaps some member of the Bridge crew who was already part of the Totality. Kirt tried to read her eyes.
Her tawny eyes were the last thing he saw on the Bridge. He sensed the aura of an alien transporter effect beginning—and in a moment it had taken him.
Suddenly Kirk was picking himself up off the floor of a jungle clearing and he heard the sounds of the ominous biological overload which was the planet below. Then he knew that Soljenov's trap had closed.
He was alone, unarmed, still in the light slacks, slippers, and Sickbay robe in which he had gone to meet Gailbraith. He did not have a communicator, and in that thick biological soup a single Human life-form reading would be impossible for the ship to trace.
He was quite alone and lost on one of the most dangerous planets in the galaxy. Sola and Spock would have to look for him there—although that was now the last thing she should do. He did not believe that she would turn her back on him—although he would have ordered it if he could.
But even if Sola broke her vow and came to hunt him, there was no way that she, or Spock, could find where to begin.
He heard the coughing of a large cat-type predator, close, and he moved off quietly in the other direction.
Doubtless in the direction of more werewolves …
Chapter 18
McCoy swore.
He seemed to be the only one who had breath for it. Spock, after an instant of staring at the empty command seat, seized on the controls of the science station with the excessively quiet deliberation which McCoy had learned to read too well. "Full sensor scan," Spock ordered.
Sola turned without a word to the turbolift doors. Spock stood up and caught her wrist, stopping her. "Where would you look?" he asked.
"I am a Huntress of Zaran."
"A trail must have a beginning," Spock said. "It may be hours, if ever, before I can pinpoint a single Human life-form reading."
Sola looked directly into his eyes. "If the bonding has begun, there will be a tenuous thread of directional awareness."
"You said there was no one here for whom you would accept mate-hunt," Spock said.
She lifted her head, "I lied, Mr. Spock. Twice."
"Very well," Spock said. "I will go with you."
She shook her head. "Not possible. It would disturb the mechanism by which I must find him, alone."
"He is my Captain, and my responsibility."
"No, Spock. This time he is mine. Let me go before he dies there."
Spock released her wrist. "Take this," he said, giving her his communicator and his phaser. "Will you use the transporter?"
"No. I'll cruise in the scout to pick up a trace. There is an area in the equatorial zone near where I landed before which is the center of gigantism—the most dangerous area."
"I know it," Spock said.
She turned to the turbolift.
But it was at that moment that Spock disappeared in the same alien transporter shimmer.
At that point even McCoy couldn't raise an oath. And he suddenly realized that the Vulcan had left himself unarmed and without communicator.
"Now which one are you going to go after?" McCoy asked Sola. If the Totality heard him or Uhura looked at him with a wild surmise, he did not care. It would be plain enough in a moment why both men had been taken.
"Apparently, Doctor, that is what the Totality wishes to learn," Gailbraith said.
"They will not learn that from my action, gentlemen," Sola said. "There is only one option."
But she did not name it, and she turned through the turbolift doors without another word. McCoy considered trying to stop her, decided against it. Not only was it likely to be futile, but the Totality could always take her anyway.
Sulu was already on the Helm intercom. "Chief Engineer Scott to Bridge, urgent," he said. "Mr. Scott, the Captain and Mr. Spock have vanished. You are in command."
And under his breath McCoy heard the Oriental Helmsman mutter, "I hope!"
McCoy was left looking at Gailbraith. "You could find him," McCoy said. "The Captain, at least. You had some link with him."
Gailbraith shrugged. "No one asked me."
"I'm asking," McCoy said.
"What are you offering?"
McCoy stood up straight and locked eyes with the Ambassador. "What have I got that you want?"
Gailbraith smiled. "Perhaps the usual terms, Doctor. Your soul …?"
McCoy jerked his head toward the turbolift doors. "Come with me."
Chapter 19
Sola set the scoutship down in the clearing where they had made their stand against the wolflings. She had no clear certainty that she could pick up a trail from there, but the tenuous sense of directional awareness which she felt at some subliminal level suggested that her quarry had been set down somewhere in that vicinity. One quarry, at least. She was not certain now which one.
The clearing was deserted. She stripped down to jungle hunt gear. In the hunt the skin became sensor and warning syst
em, sometimes the channel of the directional sense. It must be bared to the last reasonable inch. Nor could she afford to use the sophisticated Federation protective devices which the scoutship carried. On second thought, she put one in a light pouch slung on her low belt. She took her recharged wrist coil, Spock's communicator and phaser, and a large and very forthright knife. There were times when nothing else would do.
She opened the doors of the scout, ran a few feet, leaped up to a low-hanging branch, and swung up into the lower terrace of tree-paths.
There was a sudden rush from the clearing's edge, and the pack of animals which must have been lying up, hoping for the return of their prey, snapped at the space she had just left.
She was pleased to see them. At least they had not picked up the track of her own quarry.
She quested for the direction now, moving through the lower terrace in a widening search-spiral. The interlocking life-tree branches were wide and easy at that level. She ran, jumped, swung by old reflex, without necessity of thought. This was virtually a sister-planet of Zaran, its evolution strikingly parallel, its hazards largely known to her—although she was aware that to push that assumption too far courted disaster. There would be differences, and they could be deadly.
Meanwhile, she could cover ground through the trees at least two or three times as fast as a man on the ground who had to cope with underbrush and all predators. Here only the great cats and one or two other rather unpleasant adversaries could come.
She hoped that Kirk would have had sense enough to follow her example and take to the trees. An active man could move here, if not with her skill, at least with somewhat better odds of survival than on the ground.
She performed the mental disciplines of the hunt, the focusing of all senses, physical and psionic. And at the end she permitted herself to acknowledge that this was matehunt. The commitment, once made, was irrevocable. It could end only with mating—or her death. But there was no choice. The directional signal would not work for anything less—might not work even so, given the briefness of contact and the division of heart she had permitted.
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