The Price of the Phoenix sttos(n-4

by Sondra Marshak

  “You never—begged,” Omne said.

  Didn’t I? Somehow he still stopped the words in his throat. It could not be for this man to know. It could not be for Kirk to ask this man for confirmation, for—comfort.

  “No,” Omne said, answering the unspoken question, giving the confirmation, perhaps even the comfort.

  But wasn’t it begging? Kirk thought. The crying and the words which had screamed in his mind, even if he had somehow stopped them at his throat. Hadn’t he cried because he could not speak, would not—and wasn’t that a kind of begging, too?

  No. He answered himself this time. No, it was not the same.

  But the knowledge did not seem to help. Something had still broken, and he was not sure what. But—there was also something which had not.

  Hold to that.

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t beg. Does it matter?”

  Omne nodded. “I never wanted to break you.”

  Kirk laughed harshly, finding breath for it somewhere. “You did your damndest!”

  “Certainly. How else would I know that I never can?” He smiled. “Or you—that you never will?”

  “You said—any man can be broken.”

  Omne shook his head. “I said—any man can cry. Until he does, he doesn’t know whether that will break him.”

  “And if it doesn’t.” Kirk said bitterly, “then—you try again?”

  Another shake of the massive head. “I will not have to try again. And—will never want to.”

  Kirk frowned. “Never want to break me to play beta to your alpha?”

  Omne’s smile held a hint of the wolf, but the eyes were grave, almost gentle. “Ah, but don’t you know? That was what you did lose tonight when you decided to live. But it wasn’t—breaking. You know what kind of victory it was.”

  Omne smiled at him as if he had invented him, and said, “That is why a thousand years will not be long enough.”

  Kirk felt his breath catch sharply. The black eyes glowed as if with banked flames.

  The big man turned abruptly and took something from a drawer, a long, slender silver tube. Kirk thought finally that it might be some odd kind of spray can.

  Omne came back to the couch.

  “Turn over,” he ordered.

  Kirk tried not to flinch away, tried not to ask. But he did ask. “What—what are you—?”

  “I am going to fix your back.”

  “What—?” Kirk found himself laughing on the edge of hysteria, the tears threatening to come again. “While your Wild West plays shoot-‘em-up over our heads? While your ally and your—replica—get hunted through the corridors? While the delegates wait and Spock waits, somewhere. And you are going to fix my back?”

  “Among other things,” Omne said. “Turn over.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “As you please, Captain. I can begin on the front”

  “I don’t want it. Go tend to your knitting.”

  “If I do, it will be tended much more effectively. I will get the Commander. And my replica. The Wild West will, too. But it may take longer. That would give them some sporting chance. Spock will have a little longer to stall before his performance. They can all wait, while I restore the original.”

  “You’d need a sickbay—not a spray can,” Kirk said bitterly, and knew that it was concession.

  Omne sat down on the edge of the couch. “I have a sickbay—in the can,” he said. His hands ripped free the last fragments which held Kirk’s shirt, not asking permission. “A growth-forcer,” he continued dispassionately in the tone of a scientific dissertation. “Local metabolic accelerator. Antiseptic. Anesthetic, with deep-pain extensors. Cleansing. His hands unfastened the belt which still held what was left of the tough Star Fleet uniform. Kirk started to protest, realized that it was no use. “In a few seconds, you will be free of pain. There are no broken bones or grave internal injuries. I was careful. In a few more minutes there will be delicate new flesh and skin, swelling will go down, bruises clear, cuts and contusions begin to mend. In a few hours—you will be good as new.”

  He finished with the clothes, boots and all, almost in the manner of a doctor. Kirk set his teeth and tried to take it as medical, wishing devoutly for Bones McCoy, then retracting the wish. Better Bones didn’t have to deal with this.

  Omne picked up the spray can again. “This place is, among otter things, probably the finest research laboratory in the galaxy. You would be surprised to learn how many first-rate scientists from how many planets find refuge here. They are on holiday today in honor of the conference. Some of them are delegates.”

  Kirk was surprised, and let it register a little. He had seen the place only as a great, empty setting for Omne’s evil.

  “You would be shocked to learn how many new products we market through how many channels.” Omne hefted the can. “It pays the rent. This one happens to be one of mine. My—public—lab is not far from here. The private one—” he shrugged and smiled. “Lie down.”

  Kirk caught his lip between his teeth. It was not that he wanted to obey, he told himself. It was only that his arm really wouldn’t hold him any longer. It was for the Commander, for—the other. Even for Spock. Buy time. That was it.

  But he knew that he believed Omne even in his boast about his power for good. He knew why the man needed to make that boast now in the face of the evidence of his power for evil and to the man who had felt all his power.

  Kirk knew. He knew this man very well.

  With sudden, numbing force it came home to Kirk what had broken, and why he had cried.

  He had been hurt before, terrified before. He had been terrified by experts. Tortured. Faced with more than he could take. It had never broken him.

  The physical pain was as bad as any he had ever taken, but it was not worse.

  But this time he had met his match.

  His breath caught and he made himself say it. No. It was worse than that. Omne had said it, and it was true.

  This man had played with him, overreaching him in every direction—mind, body, will. So easily. Lazily. Beyond possibility of resistance.

  And Kirk had almost felt some ancient jungle law telling him that this man was his natural master, this man had, even, the right.

  It was what Omne had wanted him to feel and why the giant had done it.

  He could see it now in the black eyes, see them reading him, too, and knowing that he felt it.

  “No, he said aloud. “I do not live in the jungle. No man is my master.”

  “I am, Omne said. “By the most ancient law of all, I am. That was what you could not take.”

  “I—took it,” Kirk said with bleak pride.

  Omne nodded. “And you did not surrender. But the jungle in you did. You feel it now. You want to obey. You will always want to, and always want to fight. But you know me. You know me as master. Sometime in a thousand years you will find that compliance has become obedience—and that you never knew the moment when it happened.” He smiled. “Perhaps this moment.”

  “No,” Kirk whispered, but he saw the thousand years in Omne’s eyes.

  “No?” Omne said softly. “But you will comply now. You will tell yourself that it is for others, but it will be for yourself. Or you will find the honesty to know it. Lie down now. You do not have to look at me.”

  Omne’s hand caught the back of Kirk’s neck, lightly, but turning his face down. And it was too much. The quivering arm would not hold. Perhaps—something else would not hold.

  Kirk let his shoulders down, let himself bury his face. Yes, just let it happen. God, he was so tired.

  He lifted his head and turned his face to one side against the knotted neck muscles and Omne’s light touch to look up and meet the eyes. It was all he could do, but it was enough.

  “Not just yet,” he whispered. “See you in hell first.”

  Omne smiled with that look of having invented him. “That’s my original,” he said. “I could not have chosen better.”

  Kir
k felt the odd jolt of pride again, but set himself against it. He would not let that matter, either. No, it would matter, but it would not stop him. He would set hate against it and control and cool logic.

  It would be a long thousand years.

  Omne released his neck and took up the spray can.

  The spray drifted down onto Kirk’s back, a coolness of flowing mist and drifting foam, cooling flame. Then Omne’s hands were busy through the coolness, easing cuts together where flesh had split over bone, smoothing the foam to where it was most needed.

  Kirk set his teeth against the touch, and against fighting it.

  But he felt pain die slowly down the length of his body, finally even in deep bruises and final knotted lumps of resistance. The relief was almost an agony in itself, and he felt himself clutching for the last of the pain like an anchor. He was beginning to—drift. The shock he had held at bay was catching up with him. The last of the sobs were dying down to the tiny jerks of a cried-out child sinking into sleep. The Starship Captain’s eyes were dry now, but he was crying himself to sleep. At least Spock did not know. The Vulcan would never know…

  Kirk flickered his eyes open for a second to look at Omne. The big man’s rough-carved face was almost gentle. So many facets to the man. So many faces. No one would ever find this place, and in a thousand years Kirk would not know all the faces. But he would remember always the face of the wolf…

  CHAPTER XIV

  The Commander was not accustomed to feeling helpless.

  Her Kirk pressed the stained white velvet, the bloodstained hands, his face, against the blank wall “I—can’t—” he murmured, “I’m losing—I’ve lost—the signal.”

  His shoulders shuddered under Spock’s hands, and the Vulcan’s stoned-carved face set harder, but his voice was gentle, saying, “It’s all right. It will be better for you now. For him.”

  The shaking figure pried itself away from the wall, twisted; the raw hands seized Spocks arms. “Better! The—pain—the feeling—gone. I’ve lost him. Don’t you understand? We can’t get to him, even now. And now Omne could take him anywhere.”

  “I know,” Spock said very quietly, looking down into the tormented eyes as if to give support.

  They were locked away from her in some world she could not reach, had been, since Spock had led her to the one he called James. She could not quite bring herself to adopt the name. How, really, had they exchanged it? And what had it meant to them? Spock had not spoken it but once, minutes ago, when they found—the other—trying to get through a blank wall. There was evidently some kind of link still persisting. She did not think, somehow, that she liked that, although it had undoubtedly saved such sanity as remained to any of them by leading Spock to him. She did not fully understand it, did not understand at all the mechanism by which they both seemed to be feeling what Kirk felt. Spock controlled it better, but she could see it in his rock-steady face, too. Yet the—connection—did not seem to be through Spock.

  They had checked the adjoining rooms, her Kirk persistently indicating that he—felt—Kirk in a direction where it did not seem that he could be, and which Spock could evidently not sense. They had tried to check for secret panels, secret passageways, with the helpless feeling that a secret hidden by Omne could elude them for hours.

  They had ducked guards.

  And finally her Kirk had fetched up against the blank wall again, going rigid, then whispering, “Some land of—medical—attention,” but not relaxing. And Spock had supported the rigid shoulders, also looking like grim death.

  Now he said, “James…”

  But her Kirk’s chin line was already firming, the eyes steadying as if to return support, the hands squeezing and releasing the Vulcan’s arms. “Thank you, Spock. Of course, we just have to get to him.” He turned to the wall appraisingly. “We know the direction right now. Omne presumably will be getting reorganized in a moment—move him—rally the troops, whatever. Perhaps a time for direct action. Do you think that a couple of Vulcanoids could start taking that paneling apart?” He flashed a look at the Commander, including her in.

  She stepped forward, casting a pointed look at his raw hands, scalded on an ordinary slide-pole. “So long as the Humanoid doesn’t try to.”

  Spock touched the Human’s shoulder aside with the delicacy of moving a child, and slammed his fist through the wall.

  He stood frozen for a moment looking as if he had been needing to do that for a long time. Then he put his forearm in through the cleanly fractured hole in the heavy composition paneling, hauled back on it, and pulled it free with a sound of fasteners snapping like the rattle of ancient weapons.

  But there was only solid stone a few inches behind it. She started on the edge of the next sheet with not much less delicacy.

  “That will do, Omne said, and they looked up to see him with a sudden arm around James Kirk’s neck and a gun leveled at them past his waist.

  He nodded pleasantly. It is as simple as that,” he said. “And it is just as well that I took a look at the monitor screens. Good afternoon, Mr. Spock. I observe the meaning of your word.”

  Spock freed his hand from the paneling and let it fall against the wall. There could be no question of trying to draw. “I have observed the meaning of yours.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Omne said, I gave you no word not to do anything which I have done—not even about ‘damaged merchandise.’ You made assumptions.” He shrugged. “But then, I never claimed to be a man of honor.

  “I—owe—no—honor—to—” Spock’s voice caught further and then he spat it out with naked loathing, “—to what you are.”

  Omne raised an eyebrow. “Behold Vulcan control.” He eased his forearm hold on James Kirk’s throat a little, and slipped the arm down across the front of his shoulders. “However, I cannot say that I blame you. Interesting problem, Spock, which of us would have broken a word first, and to whom—and for whom. Did you have any intention of keeping yours to me—for this one?”

  James Kirk’s eyes suppressed any flicker of motion.

  ‘I will keep it now, for both of them,” Spock said.

  Omne shook his head. “That was not the question, Mr. Spock—nor the bargain. The galactic script for—one copy. Would you have made good on that—and will you?”

  Spock met James Kirk’s eyes. “My intention was to play out the script.”

  Omne must have felt a faint movement which the Commander’s eyes could not detect. He looked down at the man he held. “That pleases you?”

  “Spock plays them as he sees them,” James Kirk said, his words for Omne, his eyes only for Spock. “He has never played me false.”

  “He has had precious little time,” Omne said rather harshly. “You have no ‘never’ with him.”

  James Kirk straightened the tightly held shoulders further. “I have all that it is possible for me to have.”

  “Then let us find out what that is,” Omne said grimly. He started to draw the Human closer against him and back down the hall toward an open door which led into a big lab. Omne wanted to be out of the way of stray guards, she thought, and followed helplessly, as did the Vulcan, while Omne continued with complete control. “The bets are still down, Spock. Mine stands. I will ignore the fact that the three of you have caused me certain inconveniences and doubtless damaged some guards. It is what they get paid for. You and the Commander may take this one, as agreed. The Commander can stay with him and supervise the—alterations—while you give your performance. In an hour I will beam the three of you to her ship—if you have any intention of honor.”

  “My intention,” Spock said carefully, watching for any chance and seeing none, “was based on the slim chance that you would honor your word, and the greater chance that you would break it at some point, releasing me from mine. The damage done by a speech can be repaired. A life is irreplaceable—even now.”

  Omne chuckled, shepherding them into an open space in the big lab. “You do feel that about this one-even now? Bu
t that is the complete success of my process. The copy is so perfect that he is irreplaceable to you—even though I could make another. And do you speak of honoring your word, Spock? For him?”

  ‘In fact, one owes no honor to force,” Spock said. “You forfeited all rights in this matter from the beginning. But it is impossible for men to deal with each other, even under duress, especially under duress, if there is no word. Speech becomes noise. Yours is. Yours was always a crooked game, and now you have broken letter and spirit of any agreement—and every law of decency. All bets are off.”

  “Irrelevant, Mr. Spock, whether true or not. No bets are off. The question is, Do you want this one?”

  “Both of them,” Spock said.

  “That you cannot have,” Omne answered. “Apart from anything else, can you conceive of turning up with both of them—in the Romulan Empire?”

  “I will undertake to solve that problem,” the Commander said flatly.

  Omne raised an eyebrow to her. “My dear, do you not think that that might be an embarrassment of riches, even for you?”

  “I’ll manage,” she said.

  Omne laughed. “Perhaps you could, at that. However—” He looked back to Spock. “The Commander can verify part of this. The—damages—to the—other merchandise—have been repaired. There is no pain now and no threat to his fife, now or ever. He has accommodated to his situation. He is hostage for your dubious word for the next two hundred years. He chooses to live even in those circumstances. He is quite beyond your reach or finding, beyond anyone’s but mine. Wherever you thought he was a moment ago, he is not now. However you found him here, you seem to have lost him now. Were you to kill me now where I stand, you would never reach the surface, and no one would ever reach him. There is food, water, air. He might last a hundred years. Alone.”

  “What of your boast that death would not inconvenience you?’ the Commander said, filling it in for Spock. “The automatic machinery—set for you—and him?”

  Spock did not look surprised.

  Omne shrugged. “I might have lied. I am not a man of honor. If I didn’t, then my death here or elsewhere, now or later, would only start the game again. If I did or didn’t, you would never know it. Unless I so chose. My estate here is set up in trust in capable hands. It will run for a thousand years, perhaps forever, if I die or disappear.” He raised the gun to his temple. “It may be that I could go now by still another exit, to join Kirk—or leave him alone. Would you care to chance it?”