T’Vora regarded him without speaking for several moments, and then she paced around the altar and over to where he stood. When he turned to face her, she said, “Your thoughts, Spock. Give them to me.”
Spock lowered himself to his knees, then peered upward. T’Vora reached forward with one hand, the wide arm of her robe falling open as she did so. Her fingers found his face, their tips cool as they settled along his cheek and up to his forehead. “My mind to your mind,” she intoned, “my thoughts to your thoughts.” Spock felt the tap of another presence in his head and made an effort not to resist it. The threads of T’Vora’s psyche floated about his own, insubstantial, nonthreatening.
And then they pushed forward, penetrating into him. He could sense the power of her mind, the sharp-edged focus, the perfect control, the Vulcan purity of it. T’Vora’s thoughts invaded his, and he knew that he must not think of it as an assault. Still, reflex protected his consciousness, instincts of self-preservation steeled his defenses against the incursion into his thoughts.
With an effort, Spock willed his mental barriers to lower. He struggled, but then succeeded in allowing her the access she needed to measure his abilities. With even more difficulty, he laid his emotions bare. The love he felt for his parents. His friendship for McCoy and Scott, Sulu and Uhura and Chekov. His affection for Alexandra. The sense of loss that had plagued him since Jim’s death, and the intense remorse that accompanied it.
T’Vora would see all of it. Spock knew that she had perceived his emotions before now, not only from speaking with him and observing him, but as a consequence of her sympathetic talents. Now, though, she would experience everything he felt in a raw, firsthand way. It shamed him to have his privacy breached so, but of course shame contradicted logic. He let the embarrassment go, and with it flowed a torrent of feelings, and with those, a slew of visual impressions. The glowing, organic form of the Guardian of Forever. The soft, milky features of Edith Keeler. A Klingon face, unshaven, angry: Korax. The bridge of the Enterprise , a charred ruin, Jim and the crew within surely dead. An Andorian Starfleet officer named Thelin. I-Chaya dying in the desert. The great forms of humpback whales floating in a tank. The vortex of images swirled through his mind, and with them the emotions they engendered: wonder, suspicion, pain, remorse.
What did I do? he could not prevent himself from thinking.
T’Vora severed the meld, leaving Spock alone but still vulnerable. He worked as quickly as he could to stem the flood that the connection with the master had unleashed. He had no sense of how long T’Vora had maintained their link. It could have been a second or a minute or an hour.
“You control much,” she said.
“I—” Spock began, but he had difficulty forming words. Finally, he managed to say, “Yes.” In the cool of the Akrelt Refuge, he became aware of the track of a tear drying on his cheek.
“Spock,” T’Vora said, “I ask you to consider this. The Kolinahr is not universally positive even among full-blooded Vulcans. You have endured the training and discipline once before, and so you may think you know what to expect. But this time will be different from that one, because I will be your guide here in the Akrelt Refuge, and I am different from T’sai, and this place is different than the Riakin Sanctuary. But it will primarily be different because you are different. Years have passed, and you have experienced a great deal… things that no other Vulcans have during that period. You have had your katra separated from your body and then re-fused to it. Yours was the first fal-tor-pan even attempted since ages past. I cannot tell you how this will impact the Kolinahr.”
Spock had already considered this, had even tried to research it. Nowhere in the literature about either the Kolinahr or the fal-tor-pan had he found mention of an interaction between the two. As T’Vora had said, it would introduce an element of the unknown if he continued along this path. But he had not come this far by being wary of the unknown.
“I choose the Kolinahr,” Spock said. The effects of the meld fading, his mind felt sharp. The path ahead seemed clear, the path behind littered with obstacles. He could only move forward. “I am ready.”
“Let us trust that you are,” T’Vora said. “Rise.” After Spock stood up, the master instructed him to take the cylindrical candle at the center of the altar. As he did so, its flame wavered but did not go out. “Come with me,” T’Vora said.
Spock followed as T’Vora paced around the altar to face toward the wall beneath the figure of T’Klass. “Step through,” she said, pointing forward, though Spock could only see the dark stone blocks of the wall. Still, he did not hesitate. Logic dictated that the Kolinahr master must be obeyed; if Spock could not trust T’Vora, then he should not have accepted her as his guide.
He stepped toward the seemingly solid wall. A holographic projection, his scientific mind postulated, but the light of the candle reflected off the damp surface of the stone blocks. A test then? Spock wondered, thinking that perhaps T’Vora at the outset wanted to be sure that he would follow her directives.
But at the last instant before Spock would have struck the wall, a narrow entryway appeared. He hadn’t seen or heard the blocks move, and yet he could not deny the opening before him. As instructed, he stepped through it.
On the other side, barely visible in the faint glow of the candle he held, a corridor stretched into the distance. He heard T’Vora’s footsteps as she entered behind him. “Continue,” she said, and Spock started forward again.
The narrow passage seemed devoid of ornamentation of any kind, though in the darkness, he could not be sure. After perhaps thirty paces, a gust of warm air struck him, and then a shadow along the left-hand wall revealed itself to be a large wooden door. T’Vora said nothing, and so Spock did not stop.
After another thirty paces, he felt a second rush of warm air, and then he spied a second door. This time, T’Vora told him to stop and enter. He did, the texture of the wood dry and rough against his hand as he pushed it open. It swung inward silently, revealing a dimly lighted cell perhaps three meters long and two wide. Spock gazed upward to the high ceiling to see several square holes through which daylight entered. That surprised him, as the Akrelt Refuge had been built out of the side of a deep canyon, with only the front of the structure protruding from solid rock. For there to be shafts reaching down here from so far above seemed unlikely.
Spock peered around the rest of the cell. To his left, the outline of a Vulcan IDIC symbol had been etched into the wall, filling it. Bedding lay on the floor below it. To his right, a series of different-sized niches had been carved out of the stone and filled with ceremonial statues. An open doorway also appeared to lead to a primitive refresher. Finally, in the far wall, another monument to T’Klass had been sculpted. Below it hung an unlighted torch. T’Vora told him to set it aflame, and using the candle, he did.
“Spock, child of Sarek, child of Skon,” she said then, “your petition for the Kolinahr is accepted.”
“I am honored,” Spock said, facing her across the length of the cell.
“Beginning tomorrow,” she said, “you will live here until either you succeed or you fail in your quest. It will commence tomorrow at dawn. You may bring what you wear and a single change of clothing. All else will be provided for you.”
“I understand,” Spock said.
“Then for now, go,” T’Vora said.
Spock followed her as she made her way back through the corridor and out to the altar. There, he set the candle back down. After he took his leave of the master, he headed across the main room of the Refuge and out into the canyon. He would spend the night at the room he had taken in Gol, then return here at sunrise. He would begin again the quest at which he had failed so long ago. This time, he would achieve Kolinahr.
He would be truly Vulcan.
He would be human no more.
Seventeen
1930
Kirk walked through the darkness with Edith, hand-in-hand, after serving the late meal at the mission. Four
days ago, Spock had informed him of an unthinkable possibility, and he had realized that while he would have to keep Edith under observation, he would also need to keep his emotional distance from her, for his own sake. He knew that, but so far, he’d been completely incapable of doing so.
“Edith?” Kirk asked. The day had been unseasonably temperate, and even after night had fallen, the air hadn’t cooled much.
“Yes, Jim?” Edith said, the sound of her speaking his name like music to him.
“Tell me, why do you do what you do?” he asked. “At the mission, I mean.” He appreciated what she had done for him and Spock, and also what she did for all those others in need.
“Because it’s necessary,” she said. “Because sometimes people need a helping hand.”
“But why do you feel you have to provide that helping hand?” Kirk asked.
“Doesn’t everybody feel that?” Edith said. “I’m not claiming that everybody does something about it, but don’t people generally want to help their neighbors?”
“In a perfect world,” Kirk said.
“No,” Edith said. “In a perfect world, people wouldn’t just want to help their fellow man, they’d actually do it. But that day will come.”
“Why do you think so?” Kirk said, genuinely curious as to the source of her insight.
“Because we’re all connected,” she said. “We all live and die together.”
“’Any man’s death diminishes me,’” Kirk quoted, “’because I am involved in mankind.’”
“Yes!” Edith said excitedly. “John Donne. ‘Meditation Seventeen.’ I love that piece. That’s one of my favorites.”
Kirk smiled. He should have known she’d have an appreciation for Donne. “Do you know this?” he asked her. “’All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by’?”
“No, I don’t,” Edith said, “but I like it.”
“It’s called ‘Sea-Fever,’ by John Masefield,” Kirk told her, and then recited the first stanza.
“I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.“
“That’s lovely,” Edith said. They had reached their apartment building, and they started up the steps. At the front door, Kirk noticed that the light in the arch had been replaced. Inside, Edith pulled off her hat, then began to take off her cloak. He helped her with it. As she draped it over her arm, she asked, “Do you sail, Jim?”
“I like to travel,” he said.
“I haven’t traveled much,” she said as she checked her mailbox. “I mean, I came over here from England, but that’s about it. One day I’d like to see the world, though.”
“Why don’t you?” Kirk asked. Together, they walked into the front hall and began up the stairs.
“The mission,” she said. “I’m needed here.”
“Is that it?” Kirk asked.
“Well, what’s the use of seeing new places,” Edith said, “if you don’t have someone to share them with?”
“It can be rewarding on your own too, but… I know what you mean,” Kirk said. They reached the top of the stairs and walked along the second floor to the next flight up. As they ascended, Kirk asked, “If you did travel, where would you want to go?”
“I’d want to see every place,” Edith said. “Greece, Russia, the Orient, Australia… the moon.”
“The moon?” Kirk said. “You really believe mankind will leave Earth, don’t you? That’s amazing.” He couldn’t help laughing, both delighted and astonished by Edith’s vision.
“Why?” she asked as they reached the third floor. “What is so funny about man reaching for the moon?”
“How do you know?” he asked her.
“I just know, that’s all,” she insisted. “I feel it. And more: I think that one day, they’re going to take all the money that they spend now on war and death—”
“And make them spend it on life,” Kirk finished.
“Yes,” Edith said with a smile. She walked the rest of the way down the hall to her apartment. Kirk followed and they stood together by the door. “You see the same things that I do. We speak the same language.”
“The very same,” Kirk said. He knew that he should leave, that he should go back down the stairs to the apartment he shared with Spock. He knew that, but he leaned forward and kissed Edith anyway. Her arms came up around his neck, her cloak and purse flopping against his back. His hands went to her waist and pulled her close. They kissed each other deeply, passionately. He smelled the delicate scent of her flesh, heard the rush of her breathing.
When they parted, Edith reached into her purse for the key to her apartment. She unlocked the door, then pushed it open and stepped inside. When she looked back at him, he said, “Good night, Edith.”
She said, “Come in?”
He gazed at her for a long time, knowing again what he should do, what he must do. But he still walked forward and into her arms, pushing the door closed behind him. They moved into each other’s arms and kissed again.
It took a long time for them to get to the bed, and an even longer time to leave it.
Midnight had passed two hours ago, and still the captain had not returned to the apartment. Spock had heard his voice outside in the hall earlier, as well as that of Keeler. He’d heard their footfalls as they’d climbed the stairs to this floor, and then again as they’d mounted to the next. Spock recalled the decision he and the captain had made to keep Keeler under surveillance as much as possible, but he also knew that all this time the captain spent with her had as much to do with his feelings for her.
As Spock labored over the repairs to the mnemonic memory circuit, moving around the room the various components, his concern for the captain grew. Whether or not Edith Keeler died, Spock felt confident now that he and the captain would be able to stop McCoy. And when they did, they would return to the twenty-third century—which meant, regardless of Keeler’s fate, Jim would lose this woman that he so obviously loved.
Well versed in the classics, Spock knew the quote by Alfred, Lord Tennyson: “’Tis better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all.” Perhaps the captain had considered this, and had made the conscious decision to enjoy whatever time he could with Keeler. Perhaps he believed that he would gain more from what would necessarily be a brief relationship than he would lose.
Spock reached to the tall dresser, to where he had added more equipment to the circuit. He had averaged eight hours of work each of the past four nights not only repairing the damage done, but augmenting his design with a layer of relays and buffers that should guard against overloads. He had confirmed that a significant portion of data from one of the timelines had been lost the other night as a result of feedback. He would make sure that did not happen again.
Taking an input power line from the equipment he’d placed atop the tall dresser, Spock strung a wire across the top of the doorway and over to the light fixture on the wall. He screwed an adapter into the empty socket, then plugged the cord into it. Returning to the tricorder on the nightstand at the center of the room, he activated that new portion of the circuit, testing its power consumption and stability. He heard a familiar buzz and whine, but nothing that indicated a threat to the new components.
Spock chose one of McKenna’s tools and began adjusting the tricorder, tuning the added connection. As he did, he heard footsteps approaching out in the hall, and a moment later the door opened. The captain entered and closed the door.
Without even offering a greeting, he asked, “How long before we get a full answer?”
“I’ll need at least two more days before I dare make another attempt,” Spock said as he continued to adjust the tricorder.
“McCoy could’ve been in the city a week now for all we know,” the captain said, clearly agitated. S
pock thought that the pressure not only of righting the timeline, but of losing Edith Keeler one way or another, had begun taking its toll on him. For his own part, Spock also remained aware that the doctor might already have arrived in the past. “And whatever he does that affects her and changes history could happen tonight or tomorrow morning.”
“Captain,” Spock said, sitting back in his chair and momentarily halting his work on the tricorder, “our last bit of information was obtained at the expense of thirty hours’ work in fused and burned circuits.” It had taken him that long to replace the destroyed components.
“I must know whether she lives or dies, Spock,” the captain said. “I must know what to do.”
“Though we may not know precisely what action to take,” Spock said, “we do have a general idea. We must stop McCoy from altering the timeline. To that end, we must find him, and when we do, isolate him from his surroundings, and most especially from Edith Keeler.”
“Will that be enough, Spock?” the captain asked.
Spock put down the tool with which he’d been working and stood up. “Whatever McCoy did to change history,” he reasoned, “he likely did not do so as a result of his absence somewhere. He was, after all, not present in the original timeline. It is therefore logical to conclude that if we can remove him as much as possible from interacting with the people and objects of this period, we will stand a good chance of preventing the damage he caused.”
The captain nodded his head slowly. He appeared fatigued, but also strained. Spock could see the impact of his conflicting emotions. “Here, Captain,” he said, moving around the nightstand upon which the tricorder sat. “Let me move everything off this bed so that you can get some rest.”
Kirk waved off the suggestion. “That’s all right, Spock,” he said. “I don’t think I can sleep right now. I was just going to take a walk, try to clear my head.”
The Fire and the Rose Page 20