The Fire and the Rose

by David R. George III

  Kirk shifted the bags in his arms and heard the hard ring of one vacuum tube against another. He knew that he needed to hurry back to the apartment so that he and Spock could then get back to the mission to help serve lunch. Edith Keeler had provided for the two of them during the first few days that they’d been here, and had found them higher-paying jobs for the past few days. Today, they’d worked early morning at the mission, and they would be returning at midday and in the late afternoon to assist with those meals. In the hours when they didn’t work or sleep, Spock concentrated on the mnemonic memory circuit and Kirk did whatever he could think of to search for McCoy. So far, he’d been to the library to read through the local newspapers for any reference to the doctor, and he’d also checked at numerous hospitals to see if McCoy had been admitted as a patient.

  When Kirk reached the apartment, he rushed up the front steps. In the vestibule, he hastily maneuvered himself close to the mailboxes so that he could open the one for the apartment where he and Spock now lived. He didn’t expect to find anything, but he saw no reason not to verify that. The box was empty.

  Seeing the number 33 on one of the mailboxes, Kirk thought of Edith Keeler. As he continued through the vestibule and up the staircase, he realized that they really hadn’t spoken with each other all that much, other than when she had led him and Spock to this apartment building. He had listened to her often, though, paying attention to what she said to the men having a meal at the mission. He’d also heard her talking on an individual basis to some of those who’d gone there seeking help. Always, she put forth the positive—and, as it turned out, realistic—vision she held of humanity’s future, applying it where she could to the lives of the despairing men who seemed to need hope even more than they needed a meal.

  At the same time, Kirk had also witnessed a different example of Edith Keeler’s strength. Twice, he had seen her turn out men who had apparently returned intoxicated to the mission for the third or fourth time. One in particular had stumbled in reeking of alcohol and slurring his words. When Keeler had asked him to leave, he had become belligerent, but she had shown no fear and no hesitancy. Kirk had moved to step in himself, emerging from the mission’s small kitchen prepared to intercede, but by the time he had, Keeler had already walked the man all the way to the front door, through which she had then unceremoniously sent him. It had been just another detail that had added to Kirk’s respect for her. He admired the difficult but important work she did, and he even thought that in a different time, in a different place…

  As Kirk arrived at the top of the steps, he stopped himself. That way, he knew, lay madness. Still, he could not deny that in Edith Keeler he perceived a soul kindred to his own, in a way he never before had. And seeing what she envisioned for humanity’s future from her vantage in these dark days of the twentieth century, between two devastating world wars, Kirk wondered, if Keeler could be shown the attainment of all the hopes she fostered for humanity, what then would she envision? If somebody saw their dreams achieved, they didn’t stop dreaming. Kirk wished that he could see what her next dream would be.

  Shaking off his own daydream, he crossed the hall to the apartment door. He took the handles of one of the sacks in one hand, then reached to turn the doorknob. When he entered, he immediately saw that Spock had made progress on the memory circuit. In addition to the collection of components he’d already assembled onto one board, which now sat on the table, a second set had now been cobbled together, mounted onto an upside-down drawer set atop the room’s shorter dresser. Twists of wires connected one to the other, as well as to the light fixture on the wall and to the tricorder.

  Kirk crossed the room to the short dresser, examining Spock’s handiwork. The amalgam of parts emitted a high-pitched sound as it functioned, and an electric arc climbed repeatedly and noisily upward between two rods arrayed in a V formation. As Kirk set the two paper sacks he carried down on the near bed, he heard Spock switch off the equipment, which immediately quieted.

  “Captain,” he said from where he sat at the table, laboring over the tricorder with a knife they had taken from the mission, “I must have some platinum. A small block will be sufficient, five or six pounds. By passing certain circuits through there to be used as a duo-dynetic field core—”

  “Uh, Mister Spock,” Kirk said, “I’ve brought you some assorted vegetables, bologna and a hard roll for myself, and I’ve spent the other nine-tenths of our combined salaries for the last three days on filling this order for you.” He picked up the sack of components he’d just purchased and placed it on the tabletop. Spock stood and reached inside, pulling out a pair of vacuum tubes. “Mister Spock, this bag does not contain platinum, silver, or gold, nor is it likely to in the near future.”

  Spock set the tubes down. “Captain,” he said, “you’re asking me to work with equipment which is hardly very far ahead of stone knives and bearskins.”

  “McCoy’ll be along in a few days,” Kirk said. “Perhaps sooner. There’s no guarantee that these currents in time will bring us together. This has to work.”

  “Captain…” Spock said. Kirk walked back over to the bed and began unpacking the food from the other sack. “Captain, in three weeks, at this rate, possibly a month, I might reach the first mnemonic memory circuits.”

  A knock at the door interrupted Spock.

  “Your cap,” Kirk said as he put the food back in the sack and moved toward the door. Spock reached to pluck his wool hat from the table and ducked into the corner to pull it on over his ears. As Kirk reached the door, it opened, and Edith Keeler took a step inside. Kirk put his arm up to the door and attempted to block her view of Spock’s electrical apparatus.

  “If you can leave right away,” she said, obviously excited, “I can get you five hours’ work at twenty-two cents an hour.” She hesitated then, a puzzled look appearing on her face. Behind him, Kirk heard the whine and crackle of the new setup, which Spock must have accidentally activated when getting his cap. “What… what on Earth is that?” Keeler asked.

  Kirk searched for a response, but before he found one, Spock answered from directly behind him. “I am endeavoring, ma’am,” he said, “to construct a mnemonic memory circuit using stone knives and bearskins.”

  To Kirk’s relief, Keeler simply shrugged. He glanced over at Spock, then raised a hand and gestured toward the hall. Keeler offered him a smile and stepped out of the room. Kirk waited for Spock to gather his coat, and then the two of them followed Keeler out.

  Spock waited with the captain until the hour before the evening meal would be served, when Keeler typically went into her office at the back of the mission. As they cleaned the main room, Rik—the silver-haired, mustachioed former vagabond who often helped out in the kitchen—set up to cook. When Rik himself went into the back to let Keeler know that he’d finished his preparations, Spock and Kirk moved quickly.

  The captain moved to guard the door that led to the back hallway, to which Keeler’s office, two storage closets, and the stairs to the basement all connected. Spock hastened over to the trunk sitting against the far wall of the main room, where he and Kirk had earlier seen a pair of watchmakers stow their tools. Keeler apparently allowed the two men to use the place as a makeshift workshop. In the three weeks he and the captain had been in the past, Spock had never seen them there, but this afternoon, he had immediately taken note of the tools they employed for the detailed work they performed on clocks and watches.

  Now, Spock bent and rotated the numbered dial of the combination lock securing the trunk. With his superior hearing, he quickly disengaged the mechanism. He opened the trunk and saw the pouch in which the watchmaker had stored his tools. Spock picked it up and stuffed it into the folds of his coat, which he had brought over with him. He then closed the trunk and relocked it.

  Rik returned to the kitchen a few moments later, as Spock and the captain wiped down all of the tables. They knew they would not be able to keep the tools, since Keeler would doubtless realize who had st
olen them. Rather, Spock would use them overnight, then return them to their place in the truck in the morning, before the watchmakers would have a chance to find them missing.

  When Spock and the captain had completed cleaning, they went down to the basement to stoke the furnace. Before they started, Spock pulled the pouch from within his coat. As he examined the tools, Kirk came over to peer at them as well. “How much do you think these will help?” he asked.

  “They should allow me to work considerably faster,” Spock said. Although they had purchased a couple of tools, he and the captain had spent most of their money on the electrical components required for the mnemonic memory circuit. “Using these,” Spock said, “should allow me to pare days, perhaps even as much as a week, off the time it will take me to construct the circuit.” After accepting that they would be unable to secure a block of platinum, Spock had estimated three and a half to four and a half weeks would be required for his efforts.

  “Excellent,” Kirk said quietly. Spock sensed the captain’s tension. They had already been in the past longer than they had anticipated, with no indication of McCoy’s presence here and no notion of whether they had already failed to prevent the doctor from altering the timeline.

  Spock replaced the tools in the pouch, wrapped them again in his coat, and set it all down on an old table in the middle of the basement. He then moved to the furnace, where he picked up a shovel and began stoking coal. He worked quietly, the captain keeping his own counsel.

  Then he heard the door to the stairway open above, and heavy footfalls pounded down the steps. Spock stopped shoveling coal and turned to face the stairs, as did the captain. They both watched as Keeler descended halfway down the lower flight, the hard set of her features readily conveying her anger.

  “That toolbox was locked with a combination lock,” she said, “and you opened it like a real pro.” Spock found it interesting that she gazed pointedly at him, not even addressing the captain. When he did not respond, she walked down the rest of the steps and directly over to face him. “Why did you do it?” she asked.

  “I needed the fine tools for my radio work,” he told her. “They’d have been returned in the morning.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Keeler said, “I can’t—”

  “If Mister Spock says that he needs the tools and that they’d be returned in the morning,” the captain said, “you can bet your reputation on that, Miss Keeler.” Kirk smiled at her, and even Spock could see in it the affection he felt for her.

  “On one condition,” Keeler said, and then she stepped over to stand before the captain. “Walk me home?” The invitation surprised Spock, since Keeler normally stayed at the mission during meals. “I still have a few questions I’d like to ask about you two,” she told the captain. Kirk raised both his eyebrows, as though proclaiming his innocence. “Oh, and don’t give me that ‘questions about little old us’ look. You know as well as I do how out of place you two are around here.”

  “Interesting,” Spock said, impressed by Keeler’s acuity. “Where would you estimate we belong, Miss Keeler?”

  “You, at his side,” she said, “as if you’ve always been there and always will.” Then she looked toward the captain. “And you,” she said, “you belong… in another place. I don’t know where or how. I’ll figure it out eventually.” She now returned his gaze with equal affection.

  Spock lifted the shovel again. “I’ll finish with the furnace.”

  “’Captain,’” Keeler said, as though completing Spock’s sentence. She looked again to Kirk. “Even when he doesn’t say it, he does.” Once more, Spock took note of Keeler’s perspicacity. He hadn’t realized that he’d ever addressed the captain by his title anywhere that she could hear. Clearly, though, not only must he have done so, he must have done so on more than one occasion.

  Keeler headed back up the stairs. When the captain started after her, Spock turned, bent down, and scooped a pile of coal from the floor and into the furnace. As he heard the sound of Kirk’s boots on the stairs, he glanced over at him and watched him go. He had begun to grow concerned for the captain—not just as his commanding officer, but as his friend.

  Although it still troubled Spock that he and the captain might themselves inadvertently change history, he had come to believe that, while they should still try not to be involved in any major event—however “major” might be defined—they simply could not control the uncounted ways in which their mere presence in the past changed it: the carbon dioxide they exhaled into the atmosphere; the air currents they altered with their movements; the people they met. He had concluded that they needed time to be even more like a river than they already hoped. Not only did they require that the same currents that had swept them to this point in the past would also bring McCoy here, but that, also like a river, time would not be affected by minor changes. A stone tossed into a river modified the movement of water around it, but downstream, the flow of the river remained virtually unchanged.

  What troubled Spock now, though, did so on a personal basis. If the captain grew very close to Keeler, and they were then successful in restoring the timeline, he would have to face losing her. The Guardian had told them that if they could stop McCoy from altering history, they would be returned to their present. Clearly, Keeler would not be coming back with them.

  Spock considered speaking with the captain about the situation, but felt uncomfortable about doing so. Instead, he would just have to hope that Jim’s logic would overcome his romantic nature.

  Fourteen

  2293

  Broken only by candlelight, the darkness within the Akrelt Refuge provided a haven from the blaze of the Vulcan sun. The stone blocks that formed the walls of the venerable structure, built out of the base of a canyon wall, still retained the cool of the morning. The underground spring that ran through the caves to which the sanctuary connected left a patina of dampness on surfaces throughout the complex.

  T’Vora stood in an inner corner of the Refuge’s main room, beneath its vaulted ceiling. Stationary atop a small landing crafted as a place for solitary meditation, she did not peer inward, but nevertheless found peace in the simplicity of her stillness. About her, in recesses carved into the walls at eye level, flames wavered at the tips of tall, tapering candles, casting her shadow darting about the floor.

  In the near silence, T’Vora waited. Only the rhythms of her own breathing and the flutter of the fire about the wicks reached her ears. The time drew close, and she opened herself to the moment soon to come, listening for the sounds that would signal the arrival of the next aspirant.

  In due course, she heard footfalls from outside, the harsh snap of heels against the steps leading up to the entry passage. She gazed toward the front of the room, where daylight crept in through an open archway. The silhouette of a man appeared there, his garments hanging long and loose about him. He took only a few steps into the room before halting.

  “I am Spock,” the man said, and then he identified his father and forefather: “Child of Sarek, child of Skon.” He made no apparent effort to visually survey his surroundings. Of course, it would require at least a few seconds before his pupils dilated in response to the decreased light within the Refuge. “I have come at the appointed time to meet with an elder.” He spoke his words in his native tongue, but with the slight accent common to Vulcans who most often spoke Federation Standard.

  T’Vora waited a moment, already testing, already probing. She sensed an uneasiness about Spock-

  No, she corrected herself as she opened her mind. More than mere uneasiness. Almost… desperation. But in the next instant, it had gone.

  T’Vora descended the steps of the platform to the floor and walked with a slow, measured gait to the center of the room. She stopped an equal distance from Spock, who stood before her, and from the reliquary, which stretched along the rear wall beneath a large bas-relief sculpture of T’Klass. “I am T’Vora,” she said. “Elder and master.” She knew the purpose of Spock’s visit—h
e had requested it a month ago, when he had first returned to Vulcan—but she asked anyway, following the prescribed ritual. “For what purpose do you come to Akrelt?”

  “I come to petition for my admission into the Kolinahr,” Spock said.

  “Step forward with me, Spock,” T’Vora said. She turned as he came abreast of her, and together they walked toward the rear of the main room. They climbed the dozen wide steps to a long altar of polished white stone, above which the graven image of T’Klass protruded from the wall. On either side of the figure, lighted torches illuminated the area.

  T’Vora paced around the altar, upon which lay a collection of ancient artifacts, including items such as a katric arc, an IDIC pendant fashioned from dark rock, and a hand-wrought Kolinahr symbol. From the folds of her robe, she pulled a thin wooden rod, which she dipped into the flame of one of the torches. She then faced Spock across the altar’s narrow dimension and lighted a cylindrical candle in its center. After quenching the rod and setting it down, she regarded the aspirant. “Beneath the visage of T’Klass, one of the first Kolinahr masters, in the presence of these relics that recall the shared past of all Vulcans, in this place raised by our forebears in antiquity,” she said, “make your petition, Spock.”

  He peered upward at the monument to T’Klass, and then over the length of the altar, before finally looking back at T’Vora. “On the sands of our world, our ancestors cast out their animal passions,” Spock recited, “saving our race by the attainment of Kolinahr. It is that which I seek. I make my petition to you, T’Vora, asking you to guide me in my quest.”