Triangle

by Sondra Marshak

  "A man," she said, "is not a rat. Nor am I."

  For a moment his eyes approved her. "Agreed. Very well. We go together."

  She shook her head. "Even the disciplines of Vulcan are no protection here. As a male you are more vulnerable. As a male to whom I am drawn, you would make it impossible for me. They would use that against me in the first instant. The one thing you can do for me is to remain out here, as my life-line, so that I will know I must make it back out here to you. Nothing else would bring me out."

  "No one else?" Spock asked.

  She met his eyes. "Him. But they may use him against me in any case. In that event, you will be the only anchor—for both of us."

  He was silent for a very long space of heartbeats. She saw whole empires of Vulcan theory rise and fall behind his eyes, and then he rebuilt in an architecture which was purely his own. "If I were not a Vulcan," he said, "perhaps I would know how to tell you how much I need to be a Vulcan, now."

  She laughed silently. "Another non-Vulcan thing you've managed very well, Mr. Spock." She reached up and for one moment brushed her lips against his. "If I do not return in thirty minutes, Spock, find him and get out of the mountain. Do not look or wait for me. The inner chambers of the tree-caves may survive."

  "We will not go without you."

  Her eyes went hard. "You will, or you will reckon with me.

  I will have my own means."

  "Shall I live—knowing that you lied?"

  Yes, Mr. Spock, she said. But aloud she lied without reservation, even on the unspoken levels between them. "If I am not back, I will have failed, and I will be in no great danger. The Totality has use for me. Go."

  Then she turned and went, not giving him further chance to protest, or to detect a lie.

  Spock watched her move down the corridor, head high, and only the knowledge of the use they would make of him against her held him.

  Even of that he was not certain. There were the disciplines of Vulcan. He reached deep within himself in the manner of everything which he had been taught or had ever learned, summoning the strength of Vulcan against everything here which conspired to erode it. I am Vulcan. I control.

  He saw Sola shudder, as if buffeted by invisible forces. He moved forward until he felt the psionic field, like a palpable entity. He could touch it with his hands. He put his hands against it, into it, and let his mind reach out, cautiously.

  Entity, one entity. Yes. Millions in One. Now the One was aware of the tiny female one who came to challenge, and of the alien who reached out and sought to send her his strength.

  In a sudden wrench of perspective, Spock looked out from Sola's eyes, aware both of himself and of her inner battle. She moved by an effort of will. Tendrils of the Oneness reached out insidiously to penetrate her mind, to reach down into the nerve centers of her brain. No armoring would stand against them, and she had known that. Resistance delayed the full effect, but would not stop it.

  Spock sensed, abruptly, that the tendrils which reached for the direct pain centers were as she had described, but even more appalling than he had contemplated.

  But it was the tendrils which reached for the pleasure centers which were far more insidious even than he had conceived. They searched now for every exquisite center of being, every sensation, every enjoyment, every delight ever known or desired or beyond daring to desire. Then he saw that it was not even merely the physical which they reached for. Somewhere deep within was that most guarded center by which the Zaran female would bond in a Oneness beyond other species, and by which Sola, with her inheritance and her outworld training, would bond in a way known to no other Zaran female.

  Spock could sense that bonding center now, open and vulnerable, and stretched taut by a pull of two longings, for which it had never been designed. That divided heart was her weakness now, the weakness for which she had never trained, which she could never have expected. She had armored herself against every ordinary temptation, and her particular devil had found the one man, one temptation, against which she was not proof—and then by luck or oversight had found also the Vulcan who had never expected to be her second temptation.

  Spock moved instinctively to offer some protection for that vulnerability, throwing his own resistance against the tendril which reached down into her mind to search it out.

  The tendril paused—and then the great Oneness behind it sensed the Vulcan mind and split off an electrifying tendril to search it out. Suddenly, Spock sensed it reaching far down into his own mind, toward the Vulcan center which was also a bonding center, also open and vulnerable now.

  In a moment the electric connection would be made between them—under the control of the Totality.

  Spock flung himself bodily back out of the field. It was all he could do. He felt the connection snap at the last instant with a wrench which crumpled him to the floor and left him alone in his own body.

  He saw Sola, far down the corridor, sag to her knees. Then after a very long space, she lifted her head. She turned to look back at him, and he saw no reproach in her eyes, as if she knew he had had to test it. Now they both knew: he could not be with her in this.

  She made it to her feet and disappeared around the corner.

  Spock stood up more slowly. The wrench of contradiction was still pulling at him. He was forbidden to feel what he did, in fact, feel. And this time it could not be covered or denied or merely lived with, as he had done with other forbidden feelings, all those years.

  Nor could this feeling be permitted.

  He performed the discipline of control again, for all the good it did him. And this time he set himself to look for Kirk. Spock could not be with Sola, but he had tasted the power of what she went against. If it were used against Kirk, or if Kirk were used against her—there would be no hope, unless Spock could find him.

  Spock moved off down the corridor, setting himself into that state in which he moved almost beyond the direction of his own will, following some instinct by which he had once or twice been able to find what he needed to find.

  The search assumed that Kirk had not already been absorbed by—or given himself to—the Totality.

  It was an assumption not in evidence, Spock warned himself sternly. He knew only too well what bargain Kirk would have tried to make, for his ship and for the two lives he thought he would set free.

  Spock permitted himself to hope that the Human could feel the force of Vulcan anger from here. . . .

  Chapter 30

  Sola confronted the young Watcher at the door. "Take me to your Center," she said.

  The young man was golden and fair—and he was very young and very earnest. He roused from some inner control by the Totality to look at her for a moment with his own eyes. They were grave, blue-gray eyes which, in other circumstances, would have taken responsibility for his actions, and he attempted to do so even here.

  "I do not anticipate you here," he said. "What is your errand?"

  She smiled into the grave young eyes. "I will tell you, presently. What is your name?"

  The youngster looked as if he had forgotten how to hear that question. But her asking it reminded him of a time and life in which his name had been important. And he knew that her asking made it important again. The question acknowledged what she saw in him not as unit but as one special entity, one man.

  "Argunov," he said.

  Some warning clouded behind his eyes as if the Totality sensed that this unit was about to malfunction. He shook it off and looked into her eyes directly. "What is your name?" he managed.

  "Sola Thane," she said, and saw his eyes light for an instant.

  "Here?" he said.

  Then the pain struck him, driving him to the floor. It reached for her, too, but the searing tendrils were not fully set yet, and she was able to set her teeth and kneel down to hold his shoulders.

  After a time the worst of it left him, and he looked up into her eyes. "You moved against the pain," he said, astonished. "And—you held me."

&n
bsp; She stood up and gave him her hand, helping him to his feet. "And you," she said, "knew my name, even here. Come, Argunov."

  He debated it with himself. "I must know your purpose."

  "To prove that what it meant when I asked your name is real."

  "I have no power to help you," he said. "But it is considered my function to bring the unexpected to my Central. I will do so."

  She let her eyes acknowledge his meaning. "That is all I asked."

  He moved with her through the corridors, for that moment recovering the easy, confident stride of his young manhood. He was of Human descent, she saw, born on Zaran to its conquerors, but now himself finding the Totality an uneasy home.

  It was for the Argunovs that she had come back from Starfleet and the stars.

  Now she felt the solid core of the Totality's Focal Center focusing its resistance on her, until the psionic field was like a thick molasses, slowing their movement. The probing tendrils moved deeper into her mind, and she knew that she would no longer escape the worst which the pain—or pleasure—could do.

  Then the corridor opened out into a great lava vault, now honeycombed with machinery and the activity of controlled Workers servicing it.

  In the center of it all stood a Zaran woman. She was as tall as Sola, lithe and strong, but her hair was beginning to show the white-gold of age.

  Her green-gold eyes looked older than her hair.

  In the thick psionic field of the Focal Center, Sola could sense the tie which bound this woman here. Once she had resisted the Humans, then she had loved one—and come to believe in the Totality, in the Oneness. Perhaps she still believed in its goal. What she believed had become irrelevant. She was mate-bonded. Her mate was of the Totality, and he was in its power.

  "I bring the unknown," Argunov said to her.

  The older Zaran's eyes conceded nothing. "You have troubled yourself to learn the name of the unknown, Watcher," she said.

  Argunov met the eyes. "That is true. She has troubled herself to know mine."

  "That is not merely trouble, Watcher," the Zaran Center said. "It is a breach of One-spirit. Your service does not require the distinction of a name." She turned to Sola. "Your name is known to me, and it is the name of a traitor. You have brought other-worlders here, and your intent is to destroy the Totality which serves your people."

  "My intent, Z'Ehlah," Sola said, "is to free my people. If that be treason, you are welcome to make the most of it. I have come here to the Center of your power. Treason cannot live here. But I can."

  "So you also know my name, So'lathane. Then you know that I will oppose you. You can live here only as One."

  "I know that you defend your mate, Z'Ehlah. But you do it at the cost of the Argunovs, and now of the galaxy. You will take no more ships. And you will release the Enterprise. I also know defense of mate."

  "Of which mate?" Z'Ehlah asked. "You attempt to walk in two directions. It is the formula for a fall."

  "Then I will fall," Sola said. "But I will take all of this down with me." She gestured to the whole installation. Then she turned to Argunov. "Argunov, you knew my name before I came. You chafe at Totality. Why have you never moved against it?"

  Argunov stood straight. "I have believed, or tried to believe, that the Oneness was right, or was at least necessary. And in any moment when I could not believe it—I knew there was no possibility of resistance."

  She turned back to Z'Ehlah. "I will not ask you why. I know why. I will not ask you to stand aside. But I must go through you."

  Beyond Z'Ehlah was the control panel for the geo-thermal units. "Then that is what you will have to do," the Zaran woman said.

  Z'Ehlah set herself, physically and psionically. Sola could feel the force flowing through the Zaran woman, and now she could see the thin gold band of electrodes which was almost hidden by the other woman's white-gold mane. It must focus broadcast power to amplify the Zaran's bonding capacity to bring the hunting band together. Now it hunted ships—and souls. And it hunted the soul of So'lathane of Zaran.

  Sola felt Z'Ehlah reach out and gather up the force of countless minds, then direct it at her in one blow of crushing force.

  Sola stood under it, not as if it did not touch her, but as if it could not matter that it did. She had known it would come, the full trial against direct pain, and now it was here. . . .

  Kirk sank to his knees as if poleaxed, his body suddenly a mass of pain. It was all he could do not to scream. He was not certain that he would not—nor that he had not.

  Soljenov bent down and pulled him roughly to his feet. "Do you still wish to mate-bond with a Zaran?"

  Kirk did not answer. He knew now that it was Sola's pain he felt. She was dying—No, it was worse than that, for this mortal agony could be prolonged forever, and never broken. "Let her go!" he whispered harshly.

  Soljenov smiled bitterly. "She challenges the Totality. We are expected to see the error of our ways and desist. Not so, Captain. You will presently participate in a small experiment in incorruptibility of soul. If any."

  He caught Kirk's arm and propelled him through the corridors toward the interior of the crater.

  Spock sagged against the wall. The pain was an overload even for his Vulcan capacity to control. He tried to send his control to her, but he knew that nothing could reach her. This was her fight, alone.

  And somewhere ahead, clearly now, as if by a three-way circuit, he sensed Kirk, also caught in the transference of Sola's trial by fire.

  Spock moved ahead while he had the direction.

  Argunov stepped forward and held Sola as she sagged. He caught her against his body and held her as if he could absorb her pain into his own body.

  He could not, and the Center did not even divert force to send him his own punishment. It would come. He saw other Watchers, Workers, Joiners, turn to look at him as if he had taken leave of his senses—and at her as if she had never had any.

  They sensed in the thick psionic field the titanic effort to take over So'lathane's mind. Z'Ehlah would not yield, could not.

  Yet neither could Sola.

  Close as he was, Argunov sensed even the fine threads of contact which stretched to the two off-world men. For a moment he felt the stab of a fierce possessiveness, as if he would hold her even against that pull.

  But it was those threads which anchored her.

  'Yield,' Z'Ehlah demanded silently.

  No one spoke by voice or mind-speech under the punishment. One yielded by yielding. There was no alternative.

  Argunov felt Sola's head lift slowly from his shoulder.

  'No,' she said.

  Argunov sensed Z'Ehlah's shock. Resistance was not possible. And the force of the punishment was already at a level beyond increase. In a matter of seconds it would build to the point of irreversible shock and death …

  "Let her go," Kirk grated. "Take me."

  From somewhere he sensed a 'No!' in a mind-voice he knew. Spock! Then he was alive, near. Kirk tried to warn him off.

  'Soljenov!' the silent voice projected. 'A Vulcan to serve you would challenge you. Let them both go.'

  Soljenov laughed. "Such nobility."

  "She's dying," Kirk whispered. He himself was held up only by some stubborness—and Soljenov's hand.

  Soljenov shrugged. "That is not my plan."

  Kirk sensed an order go out—and suddenly his pain stopped, so abruptly that he sagged with relief.

  Chapter 31

  Sola straightened in the young man's arms. Argunov had held her, and now she felt punishment about to fall on him.

  "No," she said, almost without voice. "Whatever you do is to be done to me, alone."

  "It is not," Z'Ehlah said. "Your two are with you."

  Sola lifted her head. "I know it. Let the trial stop with me."

  Z'Ehlah shook her head. "That is not my choice, it is yours. And you have made it."

  "No," Sola said, "I have not chosen."

  Z'Ehlah looked at her almost with aston
ishment. "Is it possible you do not know? You are attempting to choose both."

  "That is biologically impossible," Sola said. "I am Zaran."

  "It is impossible, and it may take all three of you to destruction, but that is your attempt."

  Sola focused on being able to stand away from Argunov and move.

  "Thank you," she said to him, and for a moment focused on his face, perhaps as a reminder of other faces. Here was one which might have commanded a starship, one day, and never would, unless she could show him how to free himself now. She moved toward Z'Ehlah.

  Z'Ehlah moved back slightly, not yielding, merely giving ground. "You must know," she said, "that the direct pain is merely pain. Rebels have defied pain, even to the death, before. It is the pleasure which is unendurable, and unbeatable. It will make you want it beyond any other pleasure. You cannot get past it."

  Sola lifted her head. "I can. I—have known the real thing." She knew then that only the events of this day would let her say that, and that those memories alone would get her through this.

  For a moment Sola saw something in Z'Ehlah's eyes which might have been regret, remembrance. Was there a time when the reality of her mate had been beyond anything which the Totality could offer?

  Sola took a step forward and the Zaran Center gathered all the forces of the Focal Point for the last defense.

  Then the power burned through her mind in one searing sheet of flame, an ecstasy so intense that it resembled pain. Tendrils reached down deep, even into the bonding center. And against the false pleasure she could summon only the reality. Spock! she said to herself, and then for the first time permitted herself the name, Jim!

  But she seemed to have lost the thread of mental contact. She could summon only the memories. And even those seemed to fade against the overwhelming neurological assault of direct pleasure. She had only to allow it, and that peak state which an intelligent being is fortunate to reach for moments out of a lifetime could be hers whenever she summoned or earned it. She could understand the rat who kept pressing the pleasure lever.