"No!" Kirk said, but McCoy wondered whether they all had not heard the sound of the handwriting on the wall. Was this Sola's form of the lie that she would be all right? Or had she seen, in fact, that McCoy's two friends were not to be hers? Not one of them, not either of them—and, God help them all, certainly not both of them.
"Sola," Kirk said, "you are not to go—'off into the night.' You, above all, have earned better than that."
Sola smiled. "I have had better than that, this day, from both of you. It will last me. It will have to." She turned to look for a moment at Spock. "There was one premise we did not check, Mr. Spock. And if I were of the Captain's species, and we were not on trial here, perhaps I would even check it. But in my species the answer is biological."
"What premise is that?" Spock asked.
For one moment Sola Thane's eyes lit with a kind of triumph. "The premise of monogamy, Mr. Spock."
McCoy saw Kirk and Spock trade a stunned look which he could not entirely read.
Then in the thickening silence Sola turned to Soljenov. "Now get them out of here."
Soljenov's eyes had hardened. "Those were not my terms," he said. "And that will not answer Gailbraith's question—will it, Gailbraith?"
"No," Gailbraith said. "It will not."
"What in God's name is your question?" McCoy exploded, hearing the sound of exasperation in his own voice—and the sound of terror. None of them had very long.
"I do not ask it in God's name, Doctor," Gailbraith said, "but in my own. My question has always been—oneness versus Oneness. If, as the Captain contends, there is a power of individual love which cannot be touched or equaled by Oneness—then I must at least maintain a separate Oneness and we must even learn to love. But if love does not have the power he claims for it, then we had better have Soljenov's single Totality—for nothing less will prevent chaos." He shook his head. "But mere offers to sacrifice are not sufficient. The question of love is not to be answered here."
"Yes, it is," Soljenov said flatly. He turned to Sola. "I will accept your counteroffer, on one condition. If that love which you profess is strong enough—and if it is really not between any two of you but among the three—if your oneness is stronger than my Oneness, there is one way to prove it. Bring both of them to you, alive, without bonding finally with either one. If you can do that, I will let them go, with their ship and their souls—and the stranger within their gates. Yes, even with your Argunovs—if they choose to go. You and I will then argue the adult."
Sola looked at the chasm yawning over the abyss. McCoy saw the slender conduit pipe by which the Vulcan might attempt a crossing to her, if there were no debilitating psionic field—and if Spock were half-ape, half-acrobat, and wholly mad. The finger- and toe-hold ledges which Kirk might attempt from his side looked even more dangerous. McCoy could sense the psionic field of the Totality, thick as glue, and moving now to focus on the two men on the ledges with—what was it? A kind of direct pleasure? He saw the effect strike the Vulcan, almost like pain—somehow McCoy could even sense the nature of the effect in the eddying fields of Oneness: a fiery tendril which probed at the brain centers of pleasure and then reached fiercely into the neurological centers reserved for lifelong bonds. Those bonding centers of course were strong in the Vulcan. But McCoy could also sense them surprisingly strong in Kirk. Time after time Kirk had lost someone, been held by duty to his starship, his friends, his choices in the stars. But for this love of the woman who matched him, matched them both, even the old antidote of ship and stars was not enough. Both men were open and vulnerable now, and McCoy felt Spock stiffen with resistance as the tendril probed down deeply into the brain centers which longed for pleasure and permanence. The Vulcan began to shake uncontrollably, teetering on the edge of his ledge.
Then Sola reached out to him with whatever it was she would have used for bonding. We are one, Spock.
But McCoy sensed that she did not cut off the thread of connection which also bound her to Kirk. Kirk also shook with the same effect. He sagged to his knees, but he spoke urgently to Spock, finding breath for it.
"Spock, go to her. Now. We are one. They won't break us, Spock. Not any of us. You will move, and I will. You were right. It is—we, three."
Somehow Spock lifted his head and looked across to Kirk.
"That's an order, Mr. Spock," Kirk whispered. "I'll need—your help."
Spock moved. McCoy hoped never to see a man move in that way again—and never to forget seeing this one move now. The Vulcan shook as with some aggravated neurological disorder, but he fixed his eyes on Sola and stepped out on the slender, slippery conduit. Spock moved as if summoning the power of mind over brain, bridging the neurological chaos within him by sheer will, like a cerebral-palsy victim learning to walk. But now he moved also by the pull of Sola's will, and perhaps even of Kirk's added to Spock's own.
McCoy was not altogether sure that Spock could have walked that wire by himself, on a good day. Although you never could tell what the Vulcan could do in a pinch, especially when the pinch was closing on Kirk, among others.
Now there was certainly no way, under the assault of the mind-probe, that Spock could walk that swaying, sagging pipe. But he was doing it. From somewhere a blond young man emerged on Sola's ledge and reached out to anchor her on the edge of the ledge while she reached out to Spock. Kirk looked as if he were fused into a three-way circuit. At best there was a gap between the end of the conduit and Sola which looked as if it needed a running jump.
Then as Spock almost reached the end, his foot slipped on the slippery conduit. He fell.
McCoy's eyes wanted to lock shut, but he saw—Spock plunged toward the lava. Then somehow the Vulcan's hand caught the conduit. The pipe bent down under his weight, then sprang back up. At the top of its spring, Spock swung himself up and flung himself toward Sola—then turned loose to hurtle across fifteen feet of empty space over the abyss.
Sola's hand caught Spock's by the fingertips. He was slipping, on his way again. Then somehow they held to each other, by sheer necessity, and Spock caught the edge of the ledge and pulled himself up and in.
McCoy breathed.
For a moment the two merely held to each other at the edge of the ledge. Then they pulled apart and turned to Kirk.
Kirk's ledge was already badly eroded, and he himself looked somewhere far beyond the end of his rope. McCoy didn't even want to think about the medical toll of this day on Kirk. He would have been going on plain, raw nerve for most of it. And there was no way he was now going to traverse a narrow finger- and toe-hold ledge, in heat which should have been enough to make a Vulcan drop, and against the terrible effect of the direct pleasure. McCoy could sense that effect's power even from the periphery of the effect, and he knew the old animal research. That unremitting, unendurable pleasure would have made an animal curl up and stay with the pleasure until it died.
McCoy saw the terrible fatigue in Kirk's eyes, and the knowledge that Spock was now safely out of danger. If Kirk let himself go, Sola and Spock would be together. The Totality would have no hold on them. And he might hope that eventually they would recover and go on.
"Jim!" McCoy called. "Don't believe it. They wouldn't make it. It is—three."
McCoy saw Kirk lift his head and look at him. Then Kirk crawled to the edge and somehow slid out onto the finger- and toe-holds.
It was a mistake. Sola's control had been strained to the snapping point in helping Spock. McCoy could sense that she had almost slipped into the irrevocable two-way bonding with Spock, excluding Kirk. McCoy didn't see how she could have helped it, but it was Kirk's death warrant. He would never make it without her help against the psionic field and the lure of direct pleasure. He remained lodged on the first finger-holds, swaying out over the fire.
"Sola," McCoy said, "Spock! You both have to fight it, reach him." They didn't seem able to pull out of the effect which drew them compellingly to each other. "It's unstable," McCoy said suddenly, in the tone of swearing.
"Inherently unstable, the three."
Slowly Sola turned to look at McCoy. Her tawny eyes were abstracted, as if some plan or desperation was forming in them. "No!" she countered, but her tone was desperate. She tried to reach her mind out toward Kirk and it remained with Spock.
McCoy cursed himself for a fool. How could she have been expected to know Spock as she had known him, body and stubborn Vulcan soul, and now to have brought him across that abyss—and not to cleave to him as one flesh, one soul? And how could Spock not reach back? And they twain shall be one flesh … Maybe it was always only two people who could hold each other as their highest value. And by the nature of reality if there were three, someone would always have to arrive at a point of choice, an irrevocable choice …
Spock moved suddenly, as if to break the hold of something which had captured him. Then he swung out on the toeholds toward Kirk.
Something seemed to snap then in Sola, and she tried to reach out mentally to Kirk—to both of them. Once again McCoy could sense effort to reestablish the three-way flow of force. Kirk shuddered and tried to inch along, like a palsy victim himself, with Spock working toward him from the other end.
But McCoy knew suddenly that he had been right. The three might conceivably get past this moment. But how would they get past the fact that there had been a life-or-death choice here, and there would be others? Somewhere there would be another choice which would have to be made finally, irrevocably and in an instant, with no chance to refuse choice.
And it might well be now—
McCoy felt a wrench of perspective and found himself being propelled down a hall by Gailbraith, who evidently wanted to reach the scene of the action himself—not by hologram.
McCoy sensed suddenly that Soljenov had had the same thought and was moving.
But McCoy had a terrible fear that by the time they got there, it would be over.
Chapter 32
Kirk clung to the fingerholds and could not move. For too many long seconds there he had been alone, and he had known why—and some impulse had flung him toward the Oneness. He would not burden what the other two had with his loneliness, or his mortality. Sola was reaching for him now. And Spock was coming for him. But it was too late.
Kirk found himself reaching out, not toward them, nor toward the Totality, but toward Gailbraith's Oneness. It had seemed almost a haven, once, a healing, a home. At least it was open to his choice, and not at anyone's expense …
'Come.'
It was Gailbraith's mind-voice, answering him.
'I will help you.'
He felt then Gailbraith's sustaining strength, fighting against the force of the Totality to protect him. Now he felt the straining of Titans against each other—over him.
And it was almost as if he felt the volcano give way further because of that. Perhaps it did. The psionic fields were powerful. They tried to rip him from the wall.
He felt Sola trying to sustain him, too. But there was some anger in him which would not answer her. He did not blame her. There was no one of her caliber who would not have had to do what she did, felt what she felt, for Spock. He had wanted that Spock, that Sola. But there was some part of Kirk which had wanted her, finally, to want only him. No. Perhaps it was more complicated than that. Perhaps he had even wanted the triangle to be—eternal.
But it was not to be.
Then suddenly she reached out to him so powerfully that he was forced to respond. She was there for him, as powerfully as she had been for Spock, lifting some weight off him. He reached and found that he could gain another handhold.
Abruptly he sensed an anger in her, too. 'I told you I could not answer for what I would feel for Spock, unchained.'
He managed to turn to look at Spock. The Vulcan was working toward him with infinite care—far more than he had taken in walking his own tightrope, The Vulcan's mind sent him strength—almost willed his fingers and toes into place for him.
But there was anger there, too. "I warned you against sacrifice," the Vulcan said through his teeth. "Especially this one."
Kirk did not argue, this time. Spock had made his ultimate argument on that subject, on the edge of the ledge. And then Kirk had gone ahead to defy Spock's ultimatum and had called forth Gailbraith. While Spock had come out here after him …
There could be some argument, Kirk decided, as to who should be mad at whom.
He could feel the pull of the Oneness now—Gailbraith was moving to reach him, reaching out ahead to guide, shelter.
There was a new universe to explore there, one he had neglected, even scorned. And it had its attractions.
He even knew that he could bridge the gap between Titans. Gailbraith would not join the Totality—certainly not without settling a few things with Soljenov. Soljenov would not have the three elements he needed for a galaxywide conquest. He would be forced to retrench, perhaps to argue it out with Gailbraith-Kirk if it took all millennium.
That might well be the only way to save the ship—and the galaxy—and it might be where his duty lay.
There was just one thing wrong with that, and it touched him now.
Sola and Spock reached out to him and the anger was gone, the urgency only that he live—and trust himself to their oneness, not to Oneness.
And on the toehold ledge he turned to see the Vulcan's hand stretched out to him, reaching to guide his hand to the next hold.
He reached out to the full stretch of his hand and long Vulcan fingers guided his to the next projection.
"Mr. Spock," he murmured, "you are a tower of strength and encouragement."
Chapter 33
McCoy, Gailbraith, and Dobius arrived on Sola's ledge only a moment after Soljenov, and in time to see Spock reach out to Kirk, and Kirk, after a long moment, reach back.
In the psionic field the completion of some circuit among the three was almost visible, even to McCoy. Kirk edged forward, half supported now by the Vulcan's steely hand. The toehold ledge narrowed and crumbled toward the nearer end, and Spock already seemed to be supported more by imagination than anything else.
Sola stepped out on a precarious foothold to reach out to them, but now Soljenov was moving toward her and it was plain enough that he had turned from the psionic level of the fight to some more primitive level of physical confrontation.
McCoy stepped in front of him.
Soljenov looked through McCoy as if he did not exist and seemed prepared to go straight through him—which was what, McCoy decided, he was going to have to do.
They were a foot from the edge of the ledge, and McCoy knew that he was no match for the man, let alone for the multicelled entity Soljenov actually was. Nevertheless, Soljenov would reach Sola and the other two over McCoy's body.
Then McCoy felt himself displaced, more or less gently, by a strength he could not begin to calculate.
He was set back against the comparative safety of the wall, and his place was taken by an Ambassador of the Federation.
For the first time Gailbraith's full power registered with McCoy, and he saw the meaning of the new species. Here was a power capable of confronting the Soljenov-Totality on its own terms, even here on its own ground.
Here was the confrontation of Titans Soljenov had predicted. And what if he was right? What if two or more such entities could not, for long, exist separately, and the only solution was merger to a single Oneness?
Was this the beginning of that war which would make Armageddon look like a Sunday-school picnic?
"My question has been answered," Gailbraith said.
Soljenov faced Gailbraith as if he would go through him, too. "There is no answer here," he said. "Merely a Captain who has chosen an old pattern over a new. Yet even he was tempted by Oneness. He called on you. My compliments. But you have not, even so, found the proper temptation."
Soljenov looked beyond Gailbraith to the three. "You contemplated going off into the Oneness alone, Captain. But in your secret heart you knew the real temptation was more than that. Sola w
as right. There is no solution by which the two of you can continue to love her, or she you, as singletons. There is a solution in Totality. Here there is room even for that love—without sacrifice. You believe you three have chosen the love and friendship which you feel for each other. You have chosen its destruction. Unless you all come to me now."
Kirk and Spock were inching along the semi-imaginary ledge, and there was no answer from them in words, but Sola spoke without turning. "We have chosen each other. The choice is not measured in the time we have or do not have. It is not measured at all. If we lived for a thousand years and never saw each other again, it would still have been our choice."
"That is how it will be," Soljenov said. "By our terms, if they live, you come with me."
Kirk turned sharply away from the wall. A projection crumbled under his foot and he sagged, caught only by Spock's strength. For some interval which McCoy counted in centuries they teetered above the sheer drop into the lava. Sola inched toward them along the toeholds.
McCoy saw Soljenov look at them as if he would set some last trial. He started to move toward them, and Gailbraith stopped him. They locked together, strength against strength, mind against mind, all of the power of their Many-in-One channeled to the single point of their straining bodies, the crackling contact of the two great psionic fields.
There was no room for a proper fight, but McCoy knew that he had never seen war fought in so small a space.
"They have done it," Gailbraith said through his teeth. "If individual love can survive the trials we set for it, and even the trials we did not expect, then it still has its place in the galaxy. And—we have ours. Perhaps even the butterfly can learn a lesson from the amoeba. I will not merge with you. There is friendship. Or war."
Soljenov did not answer, merely strained against him. Then McCoy saw Dobius moving in a peculiar, jerky fashion toward Sola, and he realized that the Tanian's divided brain had become the battlefield between Gailbraith and Soljenov.
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