Duty, Honor, Redemption

by Novelization by Vonda N. McIntyre

  Jim envied Scotty, sprawled against a stone pillar, gently snoring. Chekov sat with his knees pulled to his chest, his arms folded, his head down. Uhura lay on the stone with her cheek pillowed on her hand, as lithe as a cat, and, Jim thought, as alert, even in sleep. Saavik waited for the dawn, her legs crossed beneath her, her hands palm down and relaxed, her eyes open and unblinking. Sulu knelt motionless on the stone, sitting seiza with his eyes half closed.

  Kirk strode from one pillar to the next and back again, trying to fight off the bone-deep chill. At night, what little moisture was in the Vulcan air condensed out as frost. Kirk’s lungs ached and his throat was dry and raspy.

  He made himself sit down; he pretended to rest. The stars in Vulcan’s empty sky were marvelously bright and clear. The dawn-wind began to blow, cold and harsh, whipping up dust-devils from the desiccated land.

  Within the space of a few breaths the stars faded and vanished, and the sky changed from black to a brilliant royal purple. The dawn-wind died abruptly. The scarlet disk of Epsilon Eridani burst above the horizon, casting impenetrable shadows through the temple and searing the desert as it had at every dawn for countless millennia.

  A gong rang.

  Kirk leaped to his feet.

  T’Lar appeared first. She lay supine in a sedan chair carried by the dignitaries who had waited silently all night long. Kirk took a step toward her, but she neither stirred nor opened her eyes. The power she wielded had drained and exhausted her, leaving her wan and frail. The Vulcans bearing her toward the dawn passed Kirk without acknowledging his presence.

  McCoy stepped wearily into the sunlight that pierced the shadows, behind the altar. Though Sarek supported him, the doctor was moving under his own power. The members of the priesthood, tall and serene in their long hooded cloaks, followed behind. The Vulcans remained completely impassive, showing neither exultation nor despair.

  For gods’ sakes, Jim cried in his mind, what happened? What happened?

  At the end of the procession, a single figure, robed in stark white, moved past the altar. The hood was so deep, the robe so brilliantly white, that the thick scarlet light of dawn obscured the being’s features rather than illuminating them.

  Nearby, Saavik drew a quick breath—of recognition? Of distress? Jim Kirk could not tell.

  He became aware of his shipmates, if that term had any meaning for them anymore. They clustered close around him, Sulu and Uhura on his right, Chekov and Scott on his left, the engineer stiff and sore and sleepy. Saavik stood a little apart from the rest.

  As the procession crossed the platform, Sarek broke off from the group and brought McCoy to join his friends. Sulu moved forward to help support him.

  “Leonard—” Jim said.

  “It’s all right….” McCoy said. Weariness faded his voice to a whisper. “I’m all right, Jim.”

  Sulu drew McCoy’s arm across his shoulders and supported most of his weight. McCoy managed a smile, a grip of his hand on Sulu’s upper arm, as he accepted the aid gratefully.

  The white-robed figure at the end of the procession walked past without a glance or hesitation. Jim still could not see beneath the hood, but he knew the stride, the carriage. Saavik started toward the figure, but Jim grabbed her arm. He could not stop her if she chose to break free, but she halted at his touch.

  “What about…Spock?” Jim said to Sarek.

  “I am not sure,” Sarek said. “Only time will answer.” He turned his head toward the robed figure, then back to Jim.

  “Kirk. I thank you.” Sarek’s voice, if not his words, admitted that the night’s work might have failed. “What you have done is—”

  “What I have done, I had to do,” Kirk said harshly. He thought he saw a flicker of sympathy, even of pity, in Sarek’s eyes. He did not want pity.

  “But at what cost? Your ship.” The lines around his eyes deepened. “Your son….”

  Jim felt that if he acknowledged what Sarek was trying to say to him, his whole being would shatter with grief.

  “If I hadn’t tried, the cost would have been my soul.”

  Sarek nodded, accepting Jim’s unwillingness to speak any further or any deeper. He turned and walked silently away. Vulcan’s star hung just above the horizon, an enormous scarlet disk, silhouetting first the procession, then a tall and solitary figure. The wind whined mournfully and fluttered the edge of the white robe.

  Jim shaded his eyes with his hands, squinting into the dawn for one last glimpse of his old friend.

  Live long, he thought. Live long and prosper.

  And the figure slowly turned.

  One of the members of the procession heard or sensed his motion and reached back, but Sarek stayed her hand. The sun shone incandescently through the fabric of the white hood, from behind, casting the face into deep shadow.

  He hesitated, then walked slowly toward Jim Kirk and his friends.

  He stopped, reached up, drew the hood back from his face, and let it fall to his shoulders.

  The pain had left Spock’s face, the pain, and the horrible emptiness. His deep gaze questioned Jim gently and wordlessly. An intent intelligence, impatient with uncertainty, lit his eyes.

  He glanced from Jim to each of his other shipmates in turn: Sulu, Uhura, McCoy, Chekov, Scott; and finally Saavik. It seemed to Jim that he reached the brink of recognition with each of them, but could not quite cross the boundary.

  Spock returned his gaze to Jim Kirk. The hot wind of Vulcan wailed over the desert with a keening cry.

  “I know you…” His voice rasped across the words. “Do I not?”

  “Yes,” Kirk said. “And I, you.”

  “My father says you have been my friend. You came back for me.”

  “You would have done the same for me,” Kirk said, willing Spock to remember something from before, something that had happened before they brought him home.

  “Why would you do this?” Spock asked.

  “Because—” Kirk fumbled for words that would form even a tenuous connection between past and present. “Because the needs of the one outweighed the needs of the many.”

  Spock stared down at him, still without real recognition. He turned away again and took a few uncertain steps toward his father, toward the other Vulcans. Kirk reached out, but he knew he had been right when earlier he prevented Saavik from stopping him. They might provide a key, but none could force Spock to remember.

  What could I have said? he wondered. What was the right thing?

  He let his hands fall.

  A few paces away, Spock paused. He looked up into the deep sky.

  “I have been…” he said.

  At his strained and tortured voice, Jim moved instinctively toward him.

  “…and always shall be…your friend….”

  “Yes,” Jim whispered. “Yes, Spock.”

  Spock half turned. “The ship,” he said. “Out of danger…?”

  “You saved the ship, Spock. You saved us all! Don’t you remember?”

  Spock said nothing for a moment. He cocked his head, as if listening to some faraway inner voice. He arched his eyebrow and slowly faced Jim Kirk.

  “Jim,” he said softly. “Your name is Jim.”

  “Yes!” Jim’s voice broke, and he caught his breath.

  Spock nodded once, briefly, as if acknowledging to himself that he had found the proper path. He glanced at McCoy, and then at the others.

  Suddenly all his old shipmates clustered around him, laughing and crying at the same time. None of them knew for certain an instant of what the future would bring, but each knew that for now, for this moment, everything was all right.

  The Voyage Home

  Home is the place where, when you have to go there,

  They have to take you in

  Prologue

  The traveler sang.

  Amid its complexities and its delicate, immensely long memories, it sang. In the complete cold of deep space, the song began at one extremity, spun in circles of superconduc
ting power and speed, and evolved. It culminated in the traveler’s heart, after a time counted not in micromeasures, but on the galactic scale of the formation of planets.

  The traveler sent each finished song into the vacuum. In return it received new songs from other beings. Thus it wove a network of communication across the galaxy. Oblivious to the distances, it connected many species of sentient creatures one with the other.

  From time to time it discovered a newly evolved intelligence to add to its delicate fabric. On those rare occasions, it rejoiced.

  On much rarer occasions, it grieved.

  The traveler followed a long curve, spiraling inward from the perimeter of the galaxy to the center, then spiraling outward again. It traveled through eons, embroidering its course with the music of intelligences.

  The touch of the songs gave it a joy that held its single vulnerability. It was immune to the radiation of exploding stars. It could protect itself against any damage by mere matter. But if any of its threads of communication parted, grief and agony possessed it.

  When the song of one of its entities changed from delight and discovery to distress and confusion, pain and fear, the traveler listened, it decided, and it gathered up the tremendous energy it needed to change its course.

  Singing reassurance, the traveler turned toward the other side of the galaxy, toward a small blue planet circling an ordinary yellow sun.

  Admiral James T. Kirk paced back and forth in a vaulted stone chamber, ignoring the spectacular, sere view spanning one entire wall. Vulcan’s red sun blazed outside, but the retreat of the students—adepts of the discipline of ancient thought—remained cool, shielded by the mountain from which it was carved.

  “Relax, Jim,” Leonard McCoy said. “You won’t get to see T’Lar any faster by running in place. You’re making me tired.”

  “I don’t care if I see T’Lar or not,” Jim said. “But they’ve had Spock practically incommunicado for three days. I want to be sure he’s all right before we leave.”

  “Whether he is or not, there isn’t much you can do about it now.” The doctor managed a wan smile. “Or me, either, I suppose.”

  “No,” Jim said gently. “You did your part. You saved his life.” Jim worried about McCoy almost as much as he worried about Spock. The doctor’s exhaustion troubled him. Even a quick flash of McCoy’s usual wit, a snap of irony, would ease Jim’s concern.

  “Are we leaving?” McCoy asked. “You’ve had word from Starfleet?”

  “No. But we’ve got to return to Earth. At least, I do. I have to answer for my actions. For disobeying orders. For losing the Enterprise.”

  “You won’t be alone,” McCoy said.

  “I don’t want anybody to try to be a hero for my sake!” Jim said. “I bear the responsibility—”

  “Who’s talking about taking responsibility?” McCoy said. “I’m talking about getting off Vulcan. Jim, this damned gravity is squashing me. If I have to live in it much longer, I’ll turn into a puddle of protoplasm.”

  Jim laughed. “That’s more like it, Bones.”

  “Kirk. McCoy.”

  A young Vulcan stood in the doorway.

  Jim stopped laughing. “Yes? Do you have news of Spock?”

  “I am T’Mei. I will take you to T’Lar.”

  She turned, her long dark robe brushing softly against the stone floor. She wore the deep blue of a student of the discipline. Only once, many years ago, had Jim met any other Vulcan as fair as she, with blond hair and blue eyes and a golden-green cast to the skin.

  “I’ll just wait here and you can tell me all about T’Lar afterward,” McCoy said.

  T’Mei glanced back. “McCoy, it is you, not Kirk, that I am requested to guide.”

  “What does she want?”

  “I am her student, not her interpreter.”

  “Come on, Bones,” Jim said. “I’m sure T’Lar will satisfy your curiosity.”

  “I’ve had about as much curiosity as I can take right now, thanks just the same.” But he pushed himself from his chair. Grumbling under his breath, he followed T’Mei down the long corridor. Jim accompanied them.

  The Vulcan student ushered them to a chamber, then silently departed. Jim and McCoy entered the presence of the discipline’s high adept.

  Though T’Lar had divested herself of the ceremonial garments of the rite of fal-tor-pan, neither the effect of her personality nor her power depended on the trappings of her rank. Even in a plain green robe, her white hair arranged severely, the elderly Vulcan emanated dignity and authority.

  “We have examined Spock,” she said without preliminaries. She spoke to McCoy. “The transfer of his katra, his spirit, is complete.”

  “Then he’s all right,” Jim said. “He’s well again, he can—”

  When she glanced at him, he fell silent. She returned her attention to McCoy.

  “But you, McCoy, were not properly prepared to accept the transfer. I have determined that he retains certain elements of your psyche, and certain elements of his personality and his mind remain in your keeping—”

  “What!” McCoy exclaimed.

  “I will continue to facilitate the transfer between you, until it is complete.” She rose. “Please come with me.”

  Beside Jim, McCoy stiffened.

  “What are you saying?” Jim said. “That Bones has to go through fal-tor-pan again? How much do you think he can take?”

  “This has nothing to do with you, Kirk,” T’Lar said.

  “Anything concerning my officers has something to do with me!”

  “Why must you humans involve yourselves in matters you cannot affect?” T’Lar said. “I will create a simple mind-meld. In time, the process will permit Spock and McCoy to separate themselves.”

  “In time?” McCoy said. “How long is ‘in time’?”

  “We cannot know,” T’Lar said. “The refusion of the katra with the physical body has not been attempted within historical memory, and even in legend the transfer proceeded from Vulcan to Vulcan.”

  “What if I prefer not to undergo another mind-meld?”

  “You will cripple Spock.”

  “What about McCoy?” Jim said.

  “I think it likely that the force of Spock’s psychological energy will once again possess McCoy, as it did when he held Spock’s katra.”

  McCoy grimaced. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”

  “No,” T’Lar said. “You do not.” She gestured toward a curtained entrance. “The facilitation room. Come.”

  McCoy hesitated. Jim moved to his side.

  “Kirk,” T’Lar said, “you must stay behind.”

  “But—”

  “You cannot help. You can only hinder.”

  “What’s to prevent me from following?”

  “Your concern for the well-being of Spock and McCoy.”

  “It’s all right, Jim,” McCoy said. T’Lar led him into the facilitation room. They disappeared into the darkness beyond the curtain. Nothing but a drape of heavy fabric held him back.

  Jim paced the anteroom, fuming.

  McCoy followed T’Lar into the facilitation room. Spock waited, his expression dispassionate. He wore a long white Vulcan robe, so different from the uniform in which McCoy was used to seeing him. Otherwise he looked the same, black hair immaculately combed, short bangs cut straight across his forehead. His deep-set brown eyes revealed nothing.

  “Spock?”

  McCoy had known the Vulcan, who was also half-human, for a long time. But Spock neither spoke to him nor acknowledged his existence. He did not even quirk one upswept eyebrow. His human side seemed more deeply suppressed than it had for many years.

  T’Lar beckoned to McCoy. Neither power nor accomplishment had endowed her with patience. Spock lay down on a long slab of granite. Its crystalline matrix sparkled in the dim light. McCoy paused beside an identical slab, glaring at it with antipathy.

  “Haven’t you people ever heard of featherbeds?” he said.

  Neit
her T’Lar nor Spock responded. McCoy hitched himself onto his slab and lay on the hard stone.

  T’Lar placed one hand at McCoy’s temple and the other at Spock’s. An intense connection entwined all three people. McCoy flinched and closed his eyes.

  “Separate yourselves,” T’Lar whispered hoarsely, “one from the other. Become whole again…”

  Jim waited impatiently. He was used to being in control. He was used to acting. He was not used to cooling his heels and having his questions put off.

  Intellectually he understood what T’Lar had told him. He, and they, and most of all Spock and McCoy, were involved in a unique occurrence. Only in legend had a dying Vulcan given up his katra, his spirit, yet lived to reclaim it. Spock’s death and regeneration in the Genesis wave gave the Vulcans a challenge they had not faced within their history.

  Both McCoy, who unknowingly accepted Spock’s katra, and Spock, who must reintegrate his memories and his personality with his physical self, had been in extreme danger.

  “Admiral Kirk?”

  Jim started, rising to his feet.

  “Admiral Cartwright!”

  The new Commander of Starfleet entered the anteroom. Cartwright offered his hand. Jim shook it warily.

  “What are you doing on Vulcan?” Jim said.

  “I came to talk to you, of course. I want to know what happened straight from you, not from reports or gossip or even from Harry Morrow. You left him one hell of a mess to end his tenure.”

  “And to begin yours.”

  “It comes with the job. But I’ve got to know what happened, and you’re going to have to tell the story to the Federation Council.”

  “I know.”

  “How soon can you leave Vulcan?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  “I don’t mean this as a polite request. You’ve already disobeyed enough orders to hold you for the rest of your career.”

  “I didn’t have any choice. I asked for Harry Morrow’s help and he refused it. Sarek’s request—”

  “Sarek should have made his request through regular channels.”