Instead of fading, the quake intensified. The massive trees rocked. The loud snap! of breaking branches reverberated across the hillside. The guards looked around, seeking some place where they might be safe and realizing no such place existed on this world.
The ground heaved. It flung a massive tree completely free, ripping it up by its roots and propelling it onto the bare promontory. The guards plunged out of its reach and stood huddled together, terrified, stranded between the clutching, grasping trees and the abyss.
The resonances of Genesis tortured Spock. Saavik touched David’s soft, curly hair one last time. She could do nothing for him, not even guard him till the dawn. This world would never see another sunrise.
She rose and picked her way across the ragged, trembling surface. Behind her the sergeant spoke into his communicator, a note of panic in his voice. Though Saavik could not understand the words, she could well imagine what he was saying.
Only static replied. Perhaps, when the Enterprise destroyed itself, it had destroyed the marauder as well. If that was true, then they were marooned down here after all.
Spock lay prone, shuddering, clenching his long fingers in the dirt. Saavik began to speak to him in Vulcan. If she could calm him enough to approach him, she might join with his mind and alleviate some of his pain.
So intent was she that she did not even hear the guard stride up behind her. He shoved her roughly aside. She stumbled on the broken ground.
“No!” she cried as the guard reached down to jerk Spock to his feet. “No, don’t touch him!”
She was too late.
He reached down and grabbed Spock’s arm. Spock reacted to the touch as if it burned. He leaped to his feet with a cry of pain and anger, lifted the guard bodily, and flung him through the air.
The guard smashed into a contorted tree with a wrenching crunch of broken bone. His body slid limply to the ground and did not move again.
As the sergeant drew his phaser, Saavik struggled to her feet.
“Be easy,” she said to Spock in Vulcan, “be easy, I can help you.”
Spock covered his face with his hands and cried out to the darkness in a long, wavering ululation. He had aged again, aged years, during the short time the guards had kept them apart. Saavik touched him gently, then enfolded him and held him. He was so intent on his own inner contortions that he did not even react.
The sergeant approached, his phaser held ready. He was frightened to the brink of ridding himself of his murderous prisoner, his commander’s wishes and ambitions be damned. Saavik glared at him over her shoulder. He would not reach Spock without going through her first.
A tetanic convulsion wracked Spock’s body, arching his spine and forcing from him a shuddering, anguished scream.
In the dark forest on the side of the mountain, Jim Kirk heard a shriek of agony. He redoubled his pace. He plunged up the steep slope. The faint trail wound between trees that would have done credit to Hieronymus Bosch. The scarlet aurora threw moving shadows across his path. Kirk struggled upward between whipping branches that moved far more violently than the plunging of the earth could account for.
Sulu paced him, with Chekov close behind. McCoy followed at a slightly greater distance. Kirk gasped for breath. The heavily ionized air burned in his throat.
He burst out into a clearing. Saavik stood in its center, supporting—someone—and a Klingon sergeant threatened her with a phaser.
“Don’t move!” Kirk cried.
The sergeant spun in astonishment, leading with his phaser. Kirk fired his own weapon. The beam flung the sergeant backwards. He hit the ground and did not move again.
Kirk ran past the sergeant without a second glance. He slowed as he approached Saavik, who turned toward him, cradling an unconscious young man in her arms.
“Bones—” Kirk said softly.
McCoy panted up beside him and gently took her burden from her. When his hand brushed Saavik’s arm, she gasped and jerked away as if he had given her an electrical shock. She took a step back, staring at him. Kirk touched her elbow, startling her.
“Sir—” she said. Her voice broke, and she staggered. He caught her and drew her close.
“Easy, Saavik,” he said. “Take it easy. It’s all right.”
“I tried,” she whispered. “I tried to take care of your son…”
The auroras burned in the sky and lit the clearing with a ghastly glow. Jim saw, beneath a twisting tree, the body of his son.
He hugged Saavik one last time. She took a long shuddering breath and straightened up, allowing him to break the embrace.
He left her with McCoy and the others and slowly crossed the clearing. His boots crunched on fallen leaves.
Jim knelt beside David’s body.
“My son….” A poem whispered to him from a long-ago time. “ ‘To thee nostar be dark…Both heaven and earth…friend thee forever…’ ”
Fallen leaves drifted across David’s body, shrouding the young man in a tattered cloth that shone scarlet and gold when the auroras flared, a cloth of autumn leaves, from a world that had barely experienced its spring.
Twelve
Jim closed his eyes tight, fighting back the tears. He heard footsteps nearby. He opened his eyes and raised his head. His vision blurred, then cleared. Saavik stood before him.
“What happened?” he said.
“He…he gave his life to save us,” she said. She stopped, then shook her head and turned away. She said, very softly, “That is all I know.”
“Jim!”
Kirk stood quickly, responding to McCoy’s concerned shout. He forced himself away from his grief, away from the dead and toward the living.
McCoy hunched over the body of the young person whom Saavik had so fiercely protected. Kirk knelt down beside them, and in the changing light he saw—
He gasped. “Bones—!”
“Bozhemoi!” Chekov exclaimed.
In all the years from the time James Kirk met Spock until the time of Spock’s death, the Vulcan had not much changed. He aged more slowly than a human being. No one knew if he would age as slowly as a Vulcan. Kirk had always been aware that he would not live to see Spock old, and he had not known him as a youth. The Vulcan lying unconscious before him was a youth…but he was also, unmistakably, Spock.
Spock. Alive.
Kirk wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry, he wanted instant certain answers to all the questions tumbling over each other in his mind. My gods, he thought, Spock—alive!
And then he had to wonder, What does this mean for McCoy?
“Bones—?” he said again.
“All his metabolic functions are highly accelerated,” McCoy said. He made his diagnosis calmly, despite its implications. “In lay terms—his body is aging. Fast.”
“And—his mind?”
McCoy glanced at his tricorder again and shook his head. “The readings of a newborn, or at best an infant of a few months—his mind’s a void, almost a tabula rasa.” He glanced up. “It would seem, Admiral,” he said drily, “that I have all his marbles.”
“Is there anything we can do?”
McCoy shrugged. Kirk glanced at Saavik.
“Only one thing, sir,” she said. “We must get him off this planet. He is…bound to it in some way. He is aging, as is this world.”
The young man moaned. The ground shuddered as violently as he did. Saavik knelt beside him.
“And if he stays here?”
Saavik looked up.
“He will die.”
Kirk withdrew as a blaze of lightning flooded the clearing. He had to do something…and only one possibility remained.
He opened his communicator.
“Commander Kruge,” he said. “This is Admiral James T. Kirk. I am…alive and well on the surface of Genesis.” He paused. He received no reply except crackling electrical interference. “I know this will come as a pleasant surprise for you,” he said, “but, you see, my ship was the victim of…an unfortunate accident. I’m sor
ry about your crew, old boy. But c’est la vie, as we say back on Earth.”
His answer was another convulsion of the ground, another crash of static, another blinding burst of light from the cloudless sky.
“Well?” Kirk said angrily. “I’m waiting for you—what’s your answer?” He forced himself to relax his grip on his communicator, to be patient, to wait and think. “I have what you want,” he said desperately. “I have the secret of Genesis! But you’ll have to bring us up there to get it. Do you hear me?”
Static drowned out any possibility of an answer. The sky and the earth rumbled, the young Vulcan moaned, the trees groaned and cracked, and in the background the aurora rustled, soft and eerie. A tremendous crash of lightning and thunder obliterated sight and sound. His shoulders slumping, Jim Kirk folded his communicator and stowed it carefully away. He blinked a few times, trying to drive away the afterimages that made his eyes water. He turned back to the remnants of his crew, whom he had led to their doom.
He joined them, but he did not know what to say to them. Spock lay sprawled on the ground, his arm flung across his face. The others were gathered around him, astonished to find him alive. Kirk sat on his heels beside them, not knowing what to say. “Thank you” and “I’m sorry” seemed terribly inadequate.
“Drop all weapons!”
Startled, Kirk spun toward the voice.
The sky was a luminous backdrop, a curtain of wavering auroral light pierced intermittently by stars. Against it stood a huge shadow. It loomed above them on the pinnacle of stone.
Kirk rose carefully, drawing his phaser and dropping it, then spreading his empty hands. Sulu, Chekov, and McCoy followed suit, but Saavik remained kneeling beside Spock.
The looming figure came a few steps toward them. The phaser glinted in his hand. The hair of his crest rose.
“Over there,” said Commander Kruge. “All but Kirk.” He gestured to a trampled spot on the hillside.
Kirk made a slight gesture of his head. McCoy, Sulu, and Chekov reluctantly obeyed. Saavik remained where she was, next to Spock. Kirk heard the Klingon commander draw in a long, angry breath.
“Go on, Lieutenant,” Kirk said softly. He feared that she would argue, but finally she stood and joined the others.
Commander Kruge spun open his communicator. “Maltz,” he said, “the prisoners are at our first beam coordinates. Stand by.”
Kirk took one step toward Kruge, who reacted by raising the phaser.
At least I have his full attention, Kirk thought.
“You should take the Vulcan, too,” he said easily.
“No.”
“But, why?”
“Because,” Kruge said, “you wish it.” Keeping his gaze on Kirk, he picked up the phasers and flung them, one by one, over the promontory and down the side of the mountain. Then he spoke into the communicator in his own language. Kirk did not understand the words, but it must have been the order to transport. The energy flux pulsed around Kirk’s friends.
“No—!” Saavik cried, but the beam attenuated her voice. She vanished with the others.
Only a few hundred meters away, the whole hillside suddenly split open with a great roar of tortured rock. Scarlet light and intense heat fanned out of the fissure. The glowing magma thrust upward through the breach in the planet’s crust. The waterfall that tumbled down the hillside flowed into the crack and over the molten rock, exploding into superheated steam.
Kruge strode closer to Kirk.
“Genesis!” He shouted over the cacophony of the dying planet. “I want it!”
“Beam the Vulcan up,” Kirk said. “Then we talk.”
“Give me what I want—and I’ll consider it.”
“You fool!” Kirk cried. “Look around you! This planet is destroying itself!”
Kruge smiled.
“Yes,” he said. “Exhilarating, isn’t it?”
Kirk stared at him, speechless, then recovered himself.
“If we don’t help each other, we’ll all die here!”
“Perfect!” Kruge said triumphantly. “That’s the way it shall be!” He loomed over Kirk, smiling his wolfish smile. “Give me Genesis!” he said. Each word struck like a blow.
As if in reply, Genesis heaved and pitched beneath him. The outcropping on which he stood shattered and flung him forward. He lost his balance and fell. His phaser skittered across the stone, sliding down the hillside to the edge of the earth fault.
As Kruge struggled up, Kirk plunged forward and tackled him. Kirk’s breath rushed out as if he had run into a solid wall. Kruge roared with anger and caught him in the side with his fist. He fell hard but managed to roll to his feet. Kruge ran toward his phaser. Kirk sprinted toward him and tackled him at the knees. They both went down. Half-stunned, staggering, Kruge rose. But Kirk managed to get up first. He pressed his advantage, hitting with short, sharp jabs that did little real damage but kept his opponent off-balance and flailing. He ducked beneath Kruge’s long, powerful arms and hit him again. Kirk’s knuckles were raw. Each blow shot pain up his hands.
The livid glow of magma haloed the Klingon commander. He swung and missed. His momentum pitched him around. Kirk sprang at him and hit him one more time with his battered hands.
Kruge fell.
He tumbled over the edge of a bit of broken ground.
Kirk looked over the precipice. Kruge stood on a second cliff, just above the rumbling magma. Steam and smoke roiled around him.
Looking up at Kirk, he laughed.
Infuriated, Kirk sprang down on him. The heat slapped him. He struggled with Kruge. The size and relative youth of the Klingon commander began to overwhelm him. Kruge broke Kirk’s hold and slammed him in the chest with both hands. The impact flung Kirk violently back against the cliff’s rock wall. Dazed, Kirk slid toward the ground. He barely managed to prevent himself from falling. He was soaked with sweat. He struggled up. Kruge regarded him from the edge of the pit. The scarlet darkness silhouetted the Klingon commander, who waited, hands on hips, for Kirk to regain enough of his strength to be a fitting opponent.
The magma surged from below, scraping against the side of the cliff. Rocks fell, clattering hollowly. Great hexagonal columns of basalt split away from the cliff and collapsed like the trunks of ancient trees. The column on which Kruge stood fractured and began to sink. The magma swallowed its base.
The whole column began to topple. Kruge balanced upon it, the heat rising around him in waves. To Kirk it looked as if the commander were enjoying his peril, testing his nerve.
“Jump, damn you!” Kirk cried.
And still Kruge delayed. The column of stone continued to tilt, to sink.
Kruge leaped. But he had waited an instant beyond the last moment. He fell short. He slammed up against the fragmenting columns, gripping the edge, his feet dangling into the glowing pit.
Kirk sprinted to the edge of the cliff and knelt, peering down at Kruge, who looked up at him with his teeth slightly bared in an expression that was more a mocking smile than a threat.
“Now,” Kirk said, “you’ll give me what I want—”
Kruge lurched upward, trying to get his arm over the edge of the cliff, trying to gain leverage. Kirk let him flail at the heated stone.
“You’re going to get us off this planet!” Kirk said.
Kruge snarled something. Whatever it was, it was not agreement. He slipped precariously down.
“Don’t be a fool!” Kirk cried. “Give me your hand—and live!”
The commander lunged toward Kirk. Kirk jerked back. Kruge’s fingers grazed his throat, then slipped away. He started to fall, but with a supernatural effort he vaulted upward again and grabbed Kirk’s leg.
Kruge abandoned his hold on the cliff and clenched both hands like claws around Kirk’s ankle.
Jim Kirk felt himself sliding along the rough surface of the cliff, off-balance, only a handsbreadth from the edge. He struggled back, digging his fingers between the hexagonal patterns where the basalt continued
to fragment. His fingernails ripped, and he left streaks of blood on the dark stone as he slipped farther and farther over the edge. The fierce heat of the magma gusted up around him.
He heard Kruge laughing again, laughing with contempt and victory, laughing at the death of Kirk’s son, at Kirk’s determination to save his friends, at Kirk’s defeat, and at Kirk himself.
“Damn you!” Kirk cried in a rage. “I have had—enough—of you!” He kicked out angrily, and again, desperately.
Kruge’s grip loosened, faltered, and broke.
Kirk scrambled back onto the cliff.
Kruge tumbled down, with nothing to break his fall but the glowing magma.
The basalt columns shuddered and split away from each other, tumbling one after the other into the pit. The cliff was disintegrating beneath Jim’s feet. He raced for the higher cliff, leaped, caught its edge, and dragged himself up its face. He lay panting on solid ground, exhausted. He had no choice but to get up and keep going, for the solid ground was no longer solid. Other cracks opened, engulfing twisted, warty trees that exploded into flame and smoke, swallowing the hillside’s streams, gushing superheated steam. Jim struggled to his feet. Spock sprawled, unconscious, near a blood-red glowing fissure.
The hot white spark of the Genesis sun burst above the horizon, piercing the darkness and the steam and the smoke. Long shadows sprang into existence. They moved and wavered like wraiths with the convulsions of the ground.
Kirk knelt beside Spock and gently turned him over.
He cursed softly.
This was Spock, Spock as he had known him. In only a few minutes he had traveled from youth to maturity. In a few more minutes he would progress to age, thence to…death. He moaned, as the pain of the world to which he was chained penetrated even his exhaustion and deep unconsciousness. The sound lanced through Jim Kirk.
The sun was rising so fast he could feel its progress. The rays grew hotter as their angle changed, and the shadows shortened. The planet’s rotation was increasing as the world tore itself apart.
Jim looked up at the sky. Even the stars had faded in the dawn. It was too bright even to search for the reflected light of the single ship that remained in orbit around Genesis—if it had not already fled the unstable star system.
Duty, Honor, Redemption Page 44
