The Amazing Stories

by M. Shayne Bell

  This book consists of works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  Copyright © 2002 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

  This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., under exclusive license from Paramount Pictures.

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  ISBN: 0-7434-4916-9

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  Last Words

  By A. C. Crispin

  Amanda's garden was still beautiful.

  He stood there staring at it, surprised to discover that it was still maintained. As far as he knew, Spock had not lived in the house for some time. But the garden had been cared for . . . the spiky black blossoms were properly trimmed, the scarlet wax-leafed bushes pruned, the green waterstone paths raked, the rock arrangements stacked precisely. . . .

  He wandered down the paths, hands tucked into the sleeves of his long desert robe, his nostrils taking in the exotic scents of desert plants from a dozen worlds.

  Leaving Amanda's garden, he began walking toward distant Vulcan's Forge, pleased by his effortless strides. Information filled his mind, neatly cataloged, and his conclusions were, once again—it had been so long!—faultlessly logical.

  The desert surrounded him now as he walked tirelessly, his strong young body obeying his every wish. Youth is wasted on the young . . . he thought, remembering an ancient human saying. Well, for once humans were completely correct.

  His mind was so clear, his thinking so precise. Emotion was, once more, suppressed. How agreeable to be able to think clearly, to be free of the constant, degrading assault of emotion!

  For a moment it occurred to him to wonder where he was going, and why, but he resolutely suppressed that question. It was enough to be clearheaded and strong of body once more. It was enough to be traveling, going. . . .

  Going where?

  Once again, he repressed that question, repressed it sternly. Where is not important. What is important is that I have regained my logic, my control. What is important is that I feel young again . . . strong again. . . .

  He looked up at the reddish sky, and beheld with wonder a wind-rider gliding along the thermals. Such a fragile, nearly translucent creature—how could it survive Vulcan's hot winds?

  But survive it did . . . and he was fortunate indeed to see it. He had been alive a very long time indeed, and had only seen a handful of wind-riders in all that time. . . .

  Alive . . . was he alive?

  Such a question was not logical, and he repressed it, also. Enough to walk, to be clear of mind, controlled, strong and alert. Enough to—

  “Captain. Captain Picard. Wake up.”

  His surroundings shimmered, faded. No! He was on Vulcan, he was in control, he was walking, going— “Captain Picard. You directed that you wished to be awakened at oh-seven-hundred hours. Wake up, please.”

  The sleeper's eyes opened. Vulcan vanished. He blinked, dazed and confused. His surroundings were . . . unfamiliar. Softly gleaming walls; clean-lined, functional furnishings. Not Vulcan in style. Human. He recognized them. He had, after all, had two human wives.

  Amanda? he thought, but then he remembered. Amanda was dead. Had been dead. Perrin. Perrin was his wife.

  “Perrin?” he whispered.

  His voice was completely unfamiliar. He blinked and sat up. What is happening? Apprehension stirred, but he repressed it sternly, as was proper.

  Rising, he strode over to the washstand. The mirror above it reflected an image. A human male, middle-aged, bald, with handsome, aristocratic features. He recognized that face.

  Jean-Luc Picard.

  He blinked, and the image blinked back. Suddenly the world shifted, tilted, and the last of the dream images fled. He gasped, swayed, and instinctively grabbed the washstand to steady himself. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the room steadied. Reality rushed back.

  Captain Jean-Luc Picard stared at himself in the mirror. In my dream, I was Sarek. Young again, in control again, strong and logical. . . . Slowly, Picard ran water into the basin, then splashed it onto his face. The cool liquid felt refreshing against his skin. Reaching for a towel, he wiped his face.

  I haven't dreamed that I was Sarek for months. Why now? It's so ironic that I should dream of our mind-meld now, because Sarek is, after all, dead. He died four days ago, at home on Vulcan. His memorial service is scheduled for tomorrow. . . .

  Picard walked over to a chair, lowered himself into it. His previous dreams about Sarek had been fuzzy, distorted, shadows left over from the mind-meld they had shared. Nothing akin to what he'd just experienced. That had been so clear, so real! He'd awakened actually believing himself to be Sarek. But the Vulcan Ambassador was dead. Bendii Syndrome had killed him, after a lingering last illness that had left Sarek stripped of all emotional control. A cruel disease, Bendii Syndrome. Picard couldn't imagine a worse fate for a Vulcan than losing all emotional control, having his feelings bared for anyone to witness.

  Why now? Picard thought. Then the events of yesterday came rushing back, and he knew.

  Yesterday, Picard had left Ambassador Spock behind on Romulus to continue his efforts to reunite the Romulan and Vulcan peoples. After Spock had told Picard of his decision to remain on Romulus, Picard had bade the Vulcan a reluctant farewell.

  But, as a last gesture of goodwill, the captain had invited Spock to mind-meld with him. Spock and Sarek, the Vulcan had admitted, had never chosen to meld, so Picard made the offer so Spock could experience Sarek's mind through him.

  As Spock had sensed Sarek's consciousness from the captain's mind, his Vulcan control had visibly faltered, and it was obvious Spock was finally allowing himself to grieve over the loss of his father.

  Picard had been glad to be able to give the Vulcan that last chance at contact with Sarek. . . .

  The mind-meld with Ambassador Spock, Picard realized. It must have awakened the part of me that was linked to Sarek during our meld. That explains that vivid dream. . . .

  Picard glanced over at his replicator. “Tea, Earl Grey, hot,” he said. His voice was steady. It was only a dream, after all.

  The captain sipped his tea while he dressed, and his mind drifted back to the last few minutes he had spent with Spock the day before. As they walked along the ancient Romulan passage from the meeting place, Spock had glanced over at Picard and said, “Thank you for bringing me the news of my father's death, Picard. I have thought about him a great deal over the past few days.”

  “As have I,” Picard had responded. “If we can return to Federation space in time, I intend to request that the Enterprise be sent to Vulcan. I would like to attend Sarek's memorial service.”

  “Yes,” Spock replied. “It would be only proper to have the flagship of the Federation in attendance. And her captain, of course.”

  Sarek's memorial service . . . thought the captain. I must contact the admiral.

  After checking on the bridge and going through th
e usual morning status reports, Picard retired to his ready room and activated the communications relay.

  Only a minute later, the captain found himself looking at the image of Admiral Brackett, the Starfleet officer who had sent him to find Ambassador Spock on Romulus and determine whether the Vulcan had—as Starfleet feared—defected.

  Brackett blinked at the captain of the Enterprise in surprise. “Captain! This is pleasant, if unexpected. Do you have something to add to your report?”

  Picard shook his head, feeling bemused, but then found himself speaking in his usual precise, assured tones. “Admiral, Ambassador Sarek's memorial service is tomorrow. I request that the Enterprise be permitted to represent Starfleet there.”

  Brackett hesitated, then said, “I have assigned the Potemkin, Captain.”

  Picard's lips tightened. “But, Admiral, if I may—”

  Her rounded features beneath her short hair softened as the admiral interrupted. “Jean-Luc, I know you and Ambassador Sarek were . . . close. If you wish to attend, I will authorize the Enterprise to serve as a second honor guard vessel. Goodness knows, a man of Sarek's stature deserves to have the flagship of the fleet in attendance. Can you make it there in time? It will be tight.”

  Picard nodded, and a tremendous feeling of relief swept through him. He would be there, as he must be. He would be able to say a final farewell to the Vulcan he had shared minds with. Admiral Brackett was correct—he and Sarek had been as close as it was possible for two sentient beings to be. They had, for the duration of the Legaran negotiations, become one mind, one consciousness.

  “The Enterprise will be there, Admiral,” Picard said. “And I thank you.”

  She nodded. “Pity Ambassador Spock won't be in attendance. It's traditional, I understand, for the family members of the deceased to make a brief statement.” Brackett regarded Picard across the parsecs. “I read your report, Captain. Talk about what you call ‘cowboy diplomacy’! Tell me . . . do you think Spock has a snowball's chance in hell of fostering reunification between the Romulans and the Vulcans?”

  Picard shook his head. “I don't know, Admiral. I do know that he is determined to try, and that there is no one better suited to the task.”

  She nodded. “Again, Captain, I commend you and your crew for the excellent work on uncovering that Romulan plot. If it hadn't been for the Enterprise, Vulcan might actually have been in danger of finding itself occupied by a Romulan invasion force.”

  “I believe that Sela and the Proconsul gravely underestimated the spirit of the Vulcan people, Admiral,” Picard said. “Being a pacifist is by no means the same thing as being weak. If that Romulan force had actually landed on Vulcan, they would have been dealt with . . . logically and efficiently.”

  Brackett smiled, her small eyes dancing. “I think you're right, Jean-Luc.”

  After Picard broke the connection, he walked onto the bridge, to find Commander Data at the helm. “Mr. Data, set course for Vulcan,” he said.

  Data's fingers were a blur over the navigational controls. “Course laid in, Captain.”

  “Ahead warp factor seven, Mr. Data. Engage.”

  The Enterprise quivered fractionally; then the star-blurs surrounding them narrowed and elongated even more as the great starship flung herself into high warp.

  * * *

  As the merciless Vulcan sun hovered above the distant, rugged horizon, Captain Picard, Lieutenant Commander La Forge, and Commander Data materialized not far from the ancient steps that zigzagged up the peak known as Mount Seleya.

  Midway up the mountain stood the temple and amphitheater where Sarek's memorial service would be held. Memorials were traditionally held at sunset, but a few early arrivals were already there, long Vulcan robes brushing the ground, their sandaled feet flashing from beneath their folds as they began the ascent.

  Picard took a deep breath of the thin air, feeling the heat strike him like a blow. Even with forty Eridani no longer directly overhead, it was like standing before a roaring bonfire. The heat enveloped him like a lover, clinging to every centimeter of skin, and the thin air didn't help. Picard was grateful for the dose of tri-ox Beverly Crusher had administered to the two humans before permitting them to beam down.

  The captain stood there, gazing around him, feeling an odd sense of having come home.

  But he had only been on Vulcan a few times in his life, most recently just a week ago, when he had gone to visit Sarek during his last days. Picard had beamed down to the front steps of Sarek's home in ShiKahr, and gotten only a brief glimpse of the ambassador's home as Perrin had guided him to Sarek's stark, unadorned bedroom. It had distressed the captain greatly to see the ambassador reduced to a shivering, babbling shell of the man Picard had admired for years—admired even before he'd ever met him.

  Moved by an impulse he didn't stop to analyze, Picard turned away from the steps, and stared down at the plains below. There, in the middle of the flat land, lay the city of ShiKahr.

  As Picard stood there, looking down on ShiKahr, memories not his own assailed him. He realized that he knew ShiKahr, knew it as well as he knew the family vineyards back on Earth in the French province of Lombardy. He could have been set down anywhere in the city below and unerringly made his way around, finding shops, public gathering places, the homes of Sarek's friends and colleagues. The captain of the Enterprise realized that he could have walked unerringly from one end of the city to the other.

  A benefit of sharing Sarek's mind last year. . . .

  But that was a year ago, Picard thought. Why am I experiencing these memories now?

  It wasn't just memories of places; there were memories of people he'd never known, too. When he'd first regarded Ambassador Spock's saturnine features a few days ago on Romulus, Picard had experienced a flicker of recognition and joy at seeing his best friend once more. There was just one catch—at the time when they met on Romulus, Picard barely knew Ambassador Spock, except by reputation. He had met him only once, decades before, when he'd attended Spock's bonding ceremony—as someone had explained it, “more than a betrothal, but somewhat less than a formal marriage, Lieutenant.”

  So why that instant of joyful recognition? That spark of emotion one feels for one's closest friend?

  It had taken Picard some time to sort out, but finally he'd been able to identify those emotions. Apparently Sarek had also mind-melded with another captain of the Enterprise, some time before Captain James T. Kirk's tragic death back in 2293. Kirk had died a hero while saving the Enterprise-B from some kind of strange space anomaly. He was one of Starfleet and the Federation's greatest heroes. And he and Spock had been best friends.

  Picard wondered why he wasn't experiencing anger at Sarek for leaving him with these grafted-on memories. After the Borg “possession” of his body and mind had transformed him into Locutus, he'd been so filled with rage, hatred, and anger that it had sickened him, and he'd considered leaving Starfleet. It had taken him a visit to Earth and Labarre, plus many sessions with Counselor Troi, before he'd been able to sleep without terrifying nightmares.

  But the meld with Sarek, while it had left him with memories not his own, just wasn't the same. Even now, after experiencing the occasionally unsettling and inconvenient flashes from that other mind, Picard was still glad that he'd chosen to meld with Sarek.

  Picard slowly turned away from his home (His home? No! Sarek's home! Spock's home! Not his!) and let himself take in the stark, terrifying beauty of the landscape before him.

  Jagged stone thrust upward like spears. The lowering sun turned the naked rockfaces the color of human blood. Two peaks challenged the sky—Mount Seleya was the taller of the two by far; a narrow stone bridge connected it to the slender spire that was Mount Trenaya. Even though Picard didn't speak Vulcan, he discovered that he knew the meanings of those names. “Seleya” meant “sacred mountain” and “Trenaya” meant “infant mountain.”

  Since time out of mind, Mount Seleya had housed the adepts of the Vulcan mental disci
plines. Much of the mountain was honeycombed with chambers, corridors, and shrines cut from the living rock. It was here, in the Hall of Ancient Thought, that the katras of those who had passed on paused and took their final, incorporeal, leave-taking before departing for What Lay Ahead.

  When a Vulcan lay dying, he or she would be brought here, and the adepts would help ease the transition of the katra from the body to the Hall of Ancient Thought.

  Except in Spock's case, Picard thought. It was one of the strangest chapters in Ambassador Spock's extraordinary record that his empty but still-breathing shell had once been brought here by Captain Kirk and his friends, and his mind and spirit had been re-fused in an ancient ritual known as fal-tor-pan.

  “Wow,” Geordi La Forge said. “This is my first time on Vulcan, Captain.” He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his uniform. “Even hotter than I expected, but it's worth it. What an incredible view I'm seeing! The different heat signatures make everything shimmer in bands of color.”

  The chief engineer turned his VISORed head, studying the ever-increasing tide of people who were passing through the security checkpoint, then heading for the steps. “That's going to be quite a hike, Captain, especially in this thin air,” he added. “Too bad we have to walk up. If I'd known it was this steep, I'd have had O'Brien beam us to the summit.”

  Picard shook his head. “No,” he said, and his voice was harsh, unfamiliar to his own ears. “It is traditional to walk.”

  “Indeed,” Data said, “the ascension of Mount Seleya is analogous, in Vulcan spiritual tradition, to the journey made by the soul in many human cultures. The physical ascent is supposed to cleanse the body and spirit of worldly ties, much as the crossing of the River Jordan, the Styx, the sword-bridge to Raganarok, the—”

  Picard turned to regard his android officer, his “now is not the time for a lecture” look in place. Data broke off and subsided.

  “Time for us to start,” Picard said. “Starfleet has cautioned me that the Vulcans have refused to have heavy security, only this one checkpoint to verify that all attending are unarmed. So we must all remain alert for any problems. Sarek's memorial service has brought some of the highest officials in the Federation here to pay their last respects. Even the President of the Federation is scheduled to attend. She will be accompanied by security, but many other dignitaries—especially Vulcan ones— will not.”