These babies, so young that the poison sacs at the base of jaws and claws had not had time to fill, would grow into predators such as had killed I-Chaya. His hand clenching around a rock, Spock bent over the nest.
But then he hesitated. Warily, hardly understanding the urge, he reached out to touch one small creature, hearing it hiss in childish defiance. Why, le-matya fur was soft, softer than he would have imagined! How tiny the babies were—and how foolishly, marvelously brave, all but helpless yet trying to defend themselves, raising plump little paws that were only a fraction of the size they would one day be. The needle-thin talons that tipped them were more of a promise than a menace. One baby opened its mouth and yowled, showing what would one day be formidable fangs but were now little more than milk teeth. How could he—
"Spock, look out!"
With a shriek, the outraged adult le-matya lunged toward its nest—her nest—to protect her young. Spock flung himself away from the nest, falling, rolling, scrambling into the cover of a projecting rock, staring at the sheer size of the predator. The ones around Shikahr were big, but this was a creature of the Womb of Fire, perhaps even a successful mutation. He swung up onto the rock, fighting for the advantage of height.
But the creature had clearly caught his scent—and the smell of fear. Once again, Spock was seven years old and paralyzed at the approach of a deadly enemy. Once again, his control slipped as the le-matya screamed, exposing discolored fangs that were lethal enough of themselves but that carried a deadly nerve poison.
David! The thought stabbed through his paralysis. If he moves, the le-matya will turn on him!
Spock's hand fell to a sharp rock. He was no longer a child; he had most of the strength that an adult Vulcan male was supposed to have, and if he hit the le-matya just right, he would crush its skull.
But if he killed the creature, what happened to the kits? Ridiculous, illogical, maybe even fatal to hesitate, and yet—
"Move it, Spock!"
Spock had an instant's confused thought that David's shouts put him at risk. Then a rock bounced off the lematya's head. The creature howled and whirled, just in time for another to hit it on a sensitive ear, drawing green blood. A third rock struck near its eye. The le-matya screamed with rage and charged. But David was nowhere in sight.
Oh, clever! Spock thought, and threw a stone at the lematya. The creature whirled, shrieking, and David launched a fusillade of tiny stones from his sling, peppering the lematya's tawny hide. As the predator spun and spun again, trying to find this enemy that could attack from all sides, Spock saw David gesture frantically, Let's get out of here!
Indeed!
He leaped from rock to rock, jumping down as David came running up, water bottles sloshing at his side. The two boys ran together until Spock brought them to a stop, listening.
"We are safe. She will have returned to her nest by now."
"Are you all right?" David was grabbing at him, wildly looking for wounds. "Did that thing claw you? And what in hell was it?"
The contact was not unpleasant, but it was a breach of control. As tactfully as he might, Spock freed himself. "That," he said, "was a le-matya."
"The top predator? Well, it looks like about the top of the food chain to me, and I bet it thinks so too. Still," the human added, "to be fair, if I had a litter to protect, I guess I'd be furious, too."
"All le-matyas are like that," Spock corrected. " Perpetually raging. Alone of Vulcan's predators, they kill more than they need."
David's eyes widened. "Then why didn't you kill it? Or the kits? Those cute little critters are only going to grow up into monsters like that thing."
"It is wrong to kill an entire litter of even these babies. And killing their mother would bring about their deaths as well."
"Well, yes, but . . . well . . ."
"Besides, this is her land, not ours; and she was merely defending her young."
"Well," David said again, "at least we got the water. Let's put some distance between us and Mrs. Le-matya."
He appointed himself—and his sling—as rear guard. Moving as quickly as they dared while keeping a watch for more le-matyas, they clambered up to the crest of the ridge. Spock pointed, not sure if he was satisfied with his navigational skills or—most illogical to feel this—alarmed at their accuracy.
"That," he said, "is the Womb of Fire."
Before them lay a twisted wilderness of black rock and gray cinder. Steam swirled up from fumaroles and pools of superheated water or boiling mud. Crusts of yellow sulfur and patches of blazingly green lichen were the only color in all that vast, tormented landscape, and the air shimmered with heat.
"Oh my God," David said with genuine reverence. "And we're going to cross that?"
"It can be done."
"You don't sound too sure about that."
"It can be done," Spock repeated. "We must merely be careful where we step."
"And breathe. Hey, no problem!"
"That, I assume, is sarcasm?"
"It most certainly is." David sank to his haunches with a sigh. "But we're on the right track, right? We're almost at Sered's hideout."
"We are."
"God. Never thought I'd be glad to see anything that looks like a burned-out hell," David said, then straightened, looking out over the waste. "Or maybe not burned-out at that. Still smoking down there somewhere. I just hope whatever's brewing doesn't boil up at us."
"It is illogical to worry about what cannot be helped."
"That's me, good old illogical human that I am." David produced a water bottle and held it out to Spock. "How long since you've had a drink?"
"Twenty-four point eight three six of your hours," Spock replied. He took the bottle and drank, then added, "You must surely know by now that it is a mistake to ask a Vulcan a 'rhetorical question.' "
"As long as you're alive to answer," David said. He looked out at the Womb of Fire. "That thing looks like it really is going to give birth."
"There," Spock said, suddenly realizing where he was and pointing. "We do not need to cross the entire Womb of Fire after all, merely one corner. That is what we seek, at the right edge of the Womb of Fire."
"That mountain? No . . . not a mountain. Bet it's what's left of a caldera all fallen in on itself."
"It is. And Sered's fortress lies within it. I recognize the rock formations."
David shuddered. "They're all in there. My mother, the students in the compound, half the diplomatic community resident on Vulcan. I . . . just hope they're all still alive."
A human, Spock suspected, would have put his hand on David's shoulder, trying to reassure him by touch. He raised a hand, let it fall. For a Vulcan, touch provided no reassurance; and the simple need for contact was a breach of control.
David opened his pouch, looking inside. "I've got three tri-ox shots left," he told Spock. "Maybe I should space them further apart?"
"On the contrary," Spock said, "I would suggest that you inject yourself all the more regularly because of the sulfur fumes we will encounter as we proceed. Anoxia leads to bad judgment."
"Do they have tri-ox?" David demanded. "Do you think that Sered even cares if their hearts or lungs give out?"
"They have us," Spock said. "Such as we are. And such plans as we can contrive."
David settled himself more comfortably, clearly battling with himself for calmness. "We need a communicator. Once we get one, we can signal my mother's ship, Shikahr, oh, anything . . ."
"Including search teams. The authorities have surely been conducting overflights."
"Oh, right. With all this desert to be searched, I don't think we can count on the cavalry to come riding to the rescue."
Spock looked at him blankly. Cavalry? Was that not an archaic form of—ah. Another of David's movie references. One he had made before, equally illogically. "Perhaps not," Spock agreed. "But one of them might be able to provide reinforcements."
"First, we need that communicator. But . . . Spock, who were those peo
ple with Sered? Not Vulcans, and yet . . . I heard Sered speak of 'sundered cousins.' "
Spock met David's eyes unflinchingly. He owed the human his life, but privacy guarded the story of the "sundered cousins," one of the most tragic chapters of the calamitous time just before Surak's teachings and the saving transformation of Vulcan society.
David was the first to glance away. "I get it. 'I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.' "
Spock stared at him in startled horror. "I would never—"
"No, no, it was just an idiom! You meant it's classified stuff, right? Well, then we can assume a news blackout on material going out of this system. Time enough to worry about that when we get back." He whistled softly. "What a mess security's going to be!"
"As you say, time enough to worry when we are back."
"Still," David mused, "it's obvious those guys are Vulcanoid, so we know that what affects Vulcans affects them. I wish they didn't have all the Vulcan strengths."
Spock shook his head. "They may not," he said softly. "I have not heard that they preserved all of our ancient arts. This much I may tell you: Of the kindred who left Vulcan, not one came from Mount Seleya. Not one was an Adept of Gol."
"And wouldn't Psyops love that information! Never mind, never mind. Spock, we've survived on a wing and a prayer this long—yeah, another movie quote—so here's my plan. We get down there as quickly and safely as we can, and we seize any opportunity we get, just like we did when we escaped. We're bound to find time to set up a rockfall or something, or signal someone."
"You make it sound very simple."
"Well, yes, but remember that we'll have help. I know that the Starfleet folks will be doing everything they can to escape."
"And if they are too ill for that?"
"Oh. Well. We'll just have to . . . well . . ."
"Create a distraction?"
"Yes!"
"One strong enough to confuse an entire troop of armed and well-trained warriors?"
"We'll think of something," David said with a bold sweep of an arm. "After all, it's up to us."
Granted, Spock thought, his experience with humans was limited. But from what he had seen so far, it seemed that when humans made such sweeping statements, they usually did "think of something." Yes, and David was living proof of human resourcefulness—and the sheer will to survive. It might be only logical to trust both one more time.
In any event, Spock thought, looking out on the deadly waste before them, there was hardly a choice. Human wit and Vulcan logic were just about all that they had.
Will it be enough?
As David would say,
he answered himself, it will. It has to be.
FOURTEEN
Obsidian, Deep Desert
Day 3, First Week, Month of the Shining Chara,
Year 2296
The good thing about a nightmare, McCoy thought, was that you got to wake up from it. Unfortunately, he was already wide awake and wished he weren't, so he could pinch himself, then go back to sleep.
Someone in the cave hurt. Someone was crying hopelessly, helplessly, and McCoy couldn't find him. Her. Whatever. He couldn't find his communicator either. Dammit, this "Master" and his pet fanatics had smashed his tricorder. They'd stolen his medical bag, and that traitor of a Vulcan—a paranoid schizophrenic, assuming McCoy could even apply that diagnosis to Vulcans—had offered it back to him as a bribe.
All he had to do was sell out his friends. Little thing like that, and he'd be allowed to treat the sick and dying here in what looked and smelled like one of those filthy hospital wards back in the Dark Ages on Earth before they learned about sanitation or anything else. Maybe if he threw his soul into the bargain, this pointy-eared false prophet would give him back his communicator, too.
What keeps you from trying, boy? he asked himself.
Simple. It was one thing to, well, bend the Prime Directive a bit. Hell, he and Jim had sprained it pretty severely a few times in the past! But if he betrayed folks no.v, he could very well be leading them right into a deadly trap. Even, Romulans and all that, a war.
His guts roiled. Ha, look, here came something edible at last, brought by a contemptuous-looking Romulan who all but hurled it at McCoy.
Lousy waiter, my friend. No tip for you.
The rations consisted of a watersack and some withered roots and the like, but at least it was food.
Yes, but there were others who needed it even more than he did. McCoy wisely took a good drink of the water—he wouldn't do anyone any good if he collapsed from dehydration—and munched on one of the roots—ditto for collapsing from starvation—then got to his feet.
"Here." With hand gestures, he urged the sick folks nearest him to take the rest of the rations, sharing the food and water out as far as he could.
A shadow loomed over him. McCoy, who'd been kneeling beside a moaning woman, trying to get her to drink, turned to find one of the Romulans standing over him: that young centurion, Ruanek, face carefully impassive, body language not quite threatening him.
Aside from his politics, he looks like a fairly decent fellow. And I already know he has a sense of humor. Too bad he has a madman as a commanding officer.
For a time, McCoy tried to ignore the centurion. But Ruanek was standing so close that at last the doctor turned and snapped, "Go right ahead and try."
The Master, madman or no, had to have taken him prisoner for a reason, which meant, logically enough, that he would want to keep the captive in relatively undamaged condition. The centurion hesitated a moment, then shrugged and turned away: if McCoy wanted to starve himself, the gesture clearly said, it was his own stupidity.
Water dripped down the black rock somewhere in the distance. The sound was driving McCoy almost as crazy as his helplessness to aid these people. Clouds of dust rose from one corner: some idiot smoothing away at the cave wall. Some of it already shone, reflecting the cave's interior, doubling the number of sick and dying. That was hardly an improvement. At least, air was circulating somehow, which meant there was probably a way out, if he could only find it. As a Starfleet officer, he had an obligation to keep trying to escape. But as a physician, his obligation lay here. And without a communicator, he might as well just walk into the desert till it swallowed him, and he wasn't about to do that.
One of the fools hammering away at the rock broke off a huge chunk that crashed down. The slick black stone shattered. So did McCoy's temper.
"You all stop that right now, y'hear!" he shouted. "Some of these people already have pneumonia. Do you want to make it worse?" Might even be a new disease. Desert silicosis, he could call it when he wrote it up—assuming he ever got out of here.
One of the natives looked up at him, shrugged, then struggled up. The man wasn't just emaciated, McCoy realized. That was cachexia, as if he'd been wasting away for months. It was a wonder the poor man could stand, much less begin to undress—not that he had much on as it was. He peeled off all but a single undergarment and started toward what looked like an exit; leastways, that's what it had to be if armed men—Romulans—stood guarding it. McCoy could pick out each bone and individual tumor on the dying man's dark-tanned body. The metastases going on inside were probably beyond even a Starfleet medical center's facilities to treat.
When he almost toppled over at the third step, someone who merely looked like he was at death's hallway, not death's door, rose, too, and went over to him. Wedging what looked like the walking skeleton's left shoulder blade under his arm, he kept him going. The Romulan stood aside, one hand moving in a warding-off gesture.
For a blessed moment, McCoy could smell the clean, hot fragrance of the desert. He even welcomed his brief glimpse of Loki's light, poisonous as it was.
"Where's he going?" McCoy demanded. The only answer he got was a shrug. The nomads understood as much of his language as he did of theirs: none at all. He pointed and got another shrug. That wasn't a lack of understanding, McCoy realized. That was resignation. No one in the ca
ve expected to see those two again, at least not in this life. What their Master told them about the next was another subject entirely. McCoy looked down at the pile of rags the man had left behind. Why, he'd even left his worn-out desert boots. Why'd he gone and done that?
The answer made him shiver. The dying man—and his companion—had up and gone out into the desert the way an old Eskimo used to go out onto an ice floe rather than squander his people's few precious resources on a useless mouth.
"Stop!" McCoy shouted and ran after the two men.
He decided almost immediately that he didn't like looking down into the business end of a laser rifle. Not. One. Bit.
He glared at the people carving away in the corner and shouted again. The pounding, grinding, and polishing stopped. After a while, it started up once more. If anything, the rock dust grew worse. Three or four people doubled over in paroxysms of coughing. One spat up blood. McCoy dodged his usual Romulan to try what sips of his own small water supply, shifts in position, a gentle voice—even speaking an unfamiliar language—might do to relieve the pain.
"It's contagious," he told the Romulan. "No cure. Especially not without my medical bag."
The Romulan grinned at him and walked away. He might know there wasn't even a myth that humans couldn't lie, but it seemed as if he didn't care.
Spock, McCoy called out silently. Spock, where are you? All those months he'd hosted Spock's katra had grown the bond between them. Even if he felt as dizzy as he had before the lexorin he'd taken to relieve the psychic burden had kicked in, he fought toward contact. He'd know, he reassured himself, if Spock were dead or dying. Dammit, if only he knew more, maybe he could use what remained of the link that had united them to contact Spock, and the hell with the damn communicator anyhow!
Stop cussing and calm down, he told himself. You'll only wear yourself out. In what felt like happier centuries ago, Spock would have steepled his hands and meditated while Jim paced and McCoy fumed. Then Jim would either have slugged or seduced someone and they'd get to break out and go back home.
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