“The renegades are the ones who live through deceit and concealment! Who spent centuries pretending to be indigenous telepaths, refusing to reveal the truth about what they were.”
“Who spent centuries condemning themselves to permanent dormancy, unable to pursue their own lives, rather than infringe upon the freedom of choice of the humanoids within whom they were compelled to hide for their own survival.”
“Why are you so convinced they’re telling you the truth? Aren’t you outraged by the violation they’ve inflicted on thousands of humans and Aenar?”
Spock frowned. “Again you contradict your own position. It is difficult to project a convincing stance of sympathy for the very individuals that you and your associates have hunted down and slaughtered with extreme brutality.”
T’Nalae looked away. “That was … I’ve explained that. They were too far gone. Whatever appearance they projected, there was nothing left of them to save. Only the predators that the demons within them had turned them into.”
After a moment’s thought, Spock nodded to the guard to lower the force field and stepped inside, in order to compel the former astrophysics specialist to look at him once more. “I find it regrettable, T’Nalae,” he said as the field snapped back into place behind him, “that you persist in failing to interrogate the obvious flaws in the rhetoric you parrot from your Spectre masters.
“You are aware that I have melded with Miranda Jones’s mind in the past, when she restored my sanity after my exposure to the sight of Ambassador Kollos. You are aware that such a healing meld is deep and strong, a complete fusion in which nothing can be concealed. And during that fusion, I sensed no deceit or corruption within Doctor Jones, no malevolent alien presence engaged in infiltration or slow conquest. There was anger in her, yes, but it came from her own experiences as a human with abilities and challenges that few around her could comprehend or assist her with.
“That, T’Nalae, was a state of being that I could easily relate to—and it is one that you should understand as well. You and I were both outcasts on Vulcan, scorned and devalued by the less wise and tolerant members of our own people—those who paid lip service to Surak’s teachings without truly understanding their intent. It filled us both with profound loneliness, a deep need to find some place where we would belong, where we could be true to ourselves without penalty.
“I found that here on the Enterprise. Doctor Jones found it with Kollos and the Medusans.” He tilted his head forward to peer more closely into T’Nalae’s eyes. “And I presume that you believe you have found it with the Naazh. That your desire for it was what the Lords played on in order to recruit you.”
Her expression grew sullen. “There is a certain satisfaction in being among people who will not shame you for saying what you honestly think. Who do not use tolerance as a bludgeon to punish unpopular beliefs.”
“No,” Spock replied dryly. “They simply use actual bludgeons to fracture the skulls of those they do not tolerate. Obviously that is far less cruel.”
She winced, which Spock took as a sign that there was still hope for her. But he would have to resolve this quickly, before the Naazh could complete the satellite array.
“You condemn the ‘renegades’ for their deception and concealment. But have you not needed to hide your true self the same way, for fear of the persecution you received on Vulcan when you openly expressed emotion? The dissidents are the same as you, T’Nalae. They were the victims, not the predators. They were hunted and executed merely for seeking contact with corporeal life, which the Spectre Lords found repugnant and a threat to their doctrines of purity. They hid within unknowing minds because it was the only way to conceal themselves from extermination.”
He stepped closer, sharpening his tone. “An extermination the Lords are now on the verge of achieving—thanks to you, T’Nalae. I know it must have been you who directed the Naazh here, that you must have retained a latent telepathic link through your own innate gifts once the Lord within you was expelled. Thousands of Aenar, New Humans, Medusans and their allies, and your fellow Naazh are about to be exterminated in one cataclysmic blow—and you will be the one responsible for every single death. Including the death of Admiral Kirk,” he finished, not without an audible tinge of anger.
T’Nalae shook her head fiercely. “I don’t believe you! My Lord could not have hidden all this from me!”
“You do not have to believe me,” he told her, softening his tone again. “If you are confident that truth cannot be concealed between joined minds, then allow me to meld with you—Vulcan to Vulcan, a complete union of minds, with no crystal filter between us.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You know I do still have a link to my Lord, even though it is not inside me. If you try anything, it will protect me.”
Spock did know that; indeed, he was counting on it. “Then let it make its case, as I shall make mine. And the choice will be yours.”
After another moment, she nodded. “Very well. I give you leave to meld with me.”
* * *
Spock had always had a natural talent for melding, able to initiate a mind link with minimal preparation, whereas the majority of Vulcans required lengthy meditation to prepare. This ability had benefitted the Enterprise crew on multiple occasions when time was of the essence.
But Spock had rarely found it so easy to achieve a meld as he did now with T’Nalae. It seemed that, in the wake of having her fusion with the Lord forcibly severed, her mind yearned for a connection to fill the void, leaving her unusually receptive. And yet, as their thoughts and emotions swiftly blended into one, Spock realized that T’Nalae’s own yearning for him as a mentor and guide was equally strong. He had not realized the degree to which she had idolized him as an exemplar of what she wished to become, a Vulcan who embraced and mastered her emotional side. She had been disillusioned to learn he still followed Surak in his own way, but her mind still craved the ideal mentor—and surrogate parental figure, perhaps—that she had mythologized him to be before they had met.
Spock found himself strongly reminded of Saavik, who would become his student at the Academy before much longer. When that time came, it would be incumbent upon him not to fail Saavik the way he believed he had failed T’Nalae. Thus, he felt a special obligation to redeem that failure and bring T’Nalae back to a beneficial path.
A surge of emotion—T’Nalae’s—nearly overcame him in response to the analogy. He had thought—she had thought—that Spock had rejected her. That he had misunderstood her like all the other logic-obsessed followers of Surak, closed his heart to the possibility of a connection. To find that he likened her to his own t’kam’la, a student as close as family—that he feared failing her, rather than merely failing to convince her—was overwhelming. That such compassion, such potent bonds, could exist in the same mind with Vulcan logic and discipline … it threw all of T’Nalae’s certainties into a whirl.
Without certainty, all that T’Nalae had left were questions—and questions opened the door to answers. New truths flooded into her mind—the memories of Spock, of Miranda Jones, of Kollos, and more. The proof of everything he had said about Jones’s nature, her profound loneliness and need for connection … and the part of herself that had always been there, dormant and passive, not a malicious puppeteer but merely a background hum—like the sound of the Enterprise’s engines, a constant presence conveying enormous power deep below, but so steady and unobtrusive that it went unnoticed until it ceased.
Yet there was more. Spock could not have perceived it during his meld with Jones; nor could she at the time, before she had been aware of the renegade Spectre within her. But T’Nalae knew the mind of her own Spectre, so she could parse the overtones in that subliminal hum—the self-imposed quiescence, the wariness of pursuit. The temptation to intervene when the host was frightened or in pain, and the anguish of having to do nothing instead.
The touch of that sorrow was enough to unleash a deeper sorrow, a profound guilt that threatened
to overwhelm both minds in the meld. It’s all true.
I was lied to
I’m a murderer
Aenar screaming, not fighting even as the blade swings
I was used
Logan’s blood, the betrayal in his eyes
I’m a monster!
A vortex of grief, fury, and self-hate drew their minds down. Spock reasserted his distinct will, drawing on his meditative disciplines to anchor him and reach out to T’Nalae. Do not succumb, T’Nalae. These emotions are true. They are of value. But only if you master them.
I cannot live with this pain!
The pain is a part of your life. A part of your being. As much as a limb or a sensory organ. It exists to support you, to be harnessed by you. The mind can govern it, direct it constructively. But first you must accept it. Both the strength of the emotion and the discipline of the intellect. Both are required to achieve completion and positive action.
How can my existence achieve anything positive? The lives I’ve ended, the people I’ve betrayed …
That is the past. It has already occurred. Its only existence now is as a source of wisdom and motivation. Learn from your pain, your guilt toward your past actions. Let it guide your choices in the future.
It took time to calm her and repeat the lesson enough for it to begin to sink in. Some part of Spock was aware that their time was almost up; Sulu was calling from the bridge and reporting that the satellite array was nearly complete and beginning to power up.
T’Nalae registered it at the same time he did. The other hunters … the admiral, everyone below … are they really going to kill them all?
Ask them, Spock told her. Use your residual link. Turn the tables on the Lords and make them tell you the truth.
I’m not strong enough.
Reach outward. Sense the strength of the psionic field in this universe. It will give you the power you need. I will support you.
He sensed her agreement, first tentative, then more resolute. Together, they reached out, tapping into the psionic field, feeling its power, then guiding it through her latent entanglement link with her expelled Lord. As T’Nalae pressed it for a deeper connection, one that would allow no deception, it began to resist.
But Spock was reaching out in another direction, taking advantage of his own residual entanglement with Kollos and Miranda to connect with their shared mind, and that of the Spectre who was part of Jones. Once they sensed what he intended, they lent their strength, and reached out to the wider Medusan and Spectre group consciousnesses. As one, they tapped into the pocket universe’s psionic field, using it to connect, to reach out for the Naazh. The Lords had prevented that contact before, but T’Nalae’s open link to her Lord gave them a back door they could exploit. As T’Nalae probed past her Lord’s defenses, demanding the truth, Spock felt the Naazh being joined into the communion as well.
Whatever truths T’Nalae unearthed, all the Naazh would know.
Ceto
Stewart Tsai reached out an orange-and-black glove and helped pull Girsu to his feet, using the armor’s strength to drag the Arbazan farmer out from under the massive tree that one of the enemy Augments had dropped on his legs. Girsu thanked him with a nod of his fearsome, spiked green helmet. Tsai wished he had possessed enough imagination to allow his Lord to draw such an effectively intimidating armor design from his mind, rather than the fairly basic armor he wore. He didn’t even particularly like orange.
After all, the armor the hunters wore served both to strengthen their resolve and to dishearten their foes. The rise of a new race of Augments had to be stopped at all costs, and an ordinary man from Earth, or a farmer from Terebellum, needed every available edge to stand against them. The faceless armor made it easy to divorce the violent acts his mission required from his own life and identity, his wife and daughter, his work as a prosthetic surgeon. It let him cease being Stewart Tsai and simply serve as the vessel for his Lord’s fury.
Without that ability to surrender his will, Tsai would never have had the courage to stand and fight here on Ceto, even with nearly the entire cadre of hunters by his side (while the remainder, according to his Lord, were picking off the New Human stragglers still en route and keeping the Medusan homeworld from interfering with the extermination). The battle had been fierce and more than a few of his fellow hunters had been lost or severely injured. Going up against the New Humans had been bad enough, but now they fought alongside formidable allies—Aenar, Medusans, even the renegade members of the Lords’ species who had created both breeds of telepathic Augments. Yet the Lords were committed to their responsibility to undo the damage created by others of their kind, and so they had stood their ground. Tsai admired them for that, and so he found the courage to stand and fight with the rest of the hunters. He trusted the Lords to keep him safe.
That trust carried him forward as the battle raged, as the hunters wore down the enemy’s defensive line and shot holes in the transmuted wall protecting their cave retreat. Tsai and the Lord guiding his body thrilled together at the prospect that they would soon break through and have their enemy at their mercy, conveniently bottled up for the slaughter.
Suddenly, new ideas and memories began flooding his mind, through what he thought of as the mental “channel” to his Lord. It was as if the Lord was opening up to him more fully than ever before, letting him share completely in its vast, alien thoughts, a nearly overwhelming experience. Yet at the same time, it was as if the Lord was fighting the revelation, unable to resist some outside compulsion to share it.
He and Girsu halted their charge up the slope. They turned to face each other, seeing nothing but their opaque visors, but their shock came through nonetheless.
Then, together, they and the rest of the hunters looked skyward.
There was no doubt. As soon as their attention turned toward orbit, they found themselves looking back down through the eyes of their fellow hunters in space, sensing their thoughts as they readied their orbital weapon array to devastate half of this land mass. Sensing their own shock at learning that nearly all of their fellow hunters were in the target zone.
“Could it be a mistake?” Girsu asked him. “Two divisions unaware of each other’s … plans?”
Tsai could sense his disbelief of his own words, so he said nothing. The Lords were telepathic; how could they not know?
“They’re just the backup plan,” Tsai said, trying to convince himself. “Must be.” He could feel in his Lord’s thoughts that the satellites had always been meant to be used—that the hunters had always been meant to be sacrificed along with their quarry once they were no longer needed. But he refused to believe it. The Augments were the real threat. The Lords had taken good care of him; they wouldn’t exploit humanoids in the same manner as the renegades they fought. Would they?
Of course they wouldn’t.
Or so he thought until the Lord vanished from his mind—and the armor dissipated from around his body. The abrupt separation was painful, nauseating. He looked at Girsu and saw his bare Arbazan face staring back in shock and abandonment; looked around more widely and saw all the hunters stripped of their armor and weapons, reeling from their severed connections. Reflexively, he reached out and tried to summon his dimension stone from its latent state in its spacetime pocket. But there was no response. The service had been discontinued.
But they could still sense the reason why. The satellites were about to fire.
Naazh attack vessel, Ceto orbit
Mahar Anaza did not like being toyed with.
His superiors in the Tal Shiar had merely humored him when he had tried to convince them that the looming extinction of the Aenar was a Federation lie, a cover for a clandestine program to breed the powerful telepaths as a fighting force. Their pretense of pacifism could not be real, he had insisted; no species would passively allow itself to go extinct, rather than fighting for survival with any means at its disposal. Anaza’s superiors had believed the Federation too feeble and timid to pursue such
a devious endeavor, but Anaza’s studies of the Federation had revealed the existence of an intelligence organization known as Section 31, specializing in extreme actions and officially disapproved activities. Indications were that the group had been dissolved nearly a decade before the Romulan Star Empire had ended its isolation and begun to clash directly with the Federation once again, but Anaza knew that nothing was as it seemed with such a group; more likely, it had merely gone underground, its extinction as much a ruse as that of the Aenar it cultivated.
His determination to prove his theory—his “obsession,” as his superiors would have it—had led to his dismissal as an intelligence analyst and his assignment to a remote military post, where he had spent years nursing a grudge against the Tal Shiar and the Continuing Committee, drowning himself in drink to avoid facing his inability to fight the threat posed by the Aenar, and by the human telepaths that had begun to emerge after the mysterious cosmic event known as the V’Ger incident.
When his Lord had sought him out, confirmed the truth of his worst fears, and offered him the power to personally destroy the enemy that only he had seen, it had literally saved Mahar Anaza’s life. He had been weeks away from seeking his escape through his ceremonial dagger rather than his liquor cabinet. But the power he had felt when he had accepted his dimension stone and let his Lord merge with his mind had been more intoxicating than all the ale on Romulus, and more productive as well. He had finally had the power to become a warrior, to terrorize and slay his enemies. His Lord had even allowed him to practice the use of his armor and weapons by killing the Tal Shiar assistant director who had cost him his career and his dignity. After all, she had been a threat to the safety of the Empire.
The ensuing battles had been glorious, a series of brutal strikes against the Federation’s secret weapons. Anaza had seen the Aenar as his primary enemy, but when his armor had first formed, its pattern drawn from his subconscious notions of what would most effectively intimidate his foes, he had found it to be colored primarily red, like the blood of humans and most other Federation species. He must have always expected that the greater battle would come to be against human telepathic adepts. The Lords had agreed, but had insisted on biding their time until Starfleet’s guard had fallen before striking at the New Human population.
The Higher Frontier Page 30