Duty, Honor, Redemption

by Novelization by Vonda N. McIntyre

  “…and that’s what makes it so hard,” Dannan said.

  Her uncle put his arm over the boy’s shoulders. “Come along, Cadet. ’Tis time to go home.” He sent one quick glare at Dannan. “Tell thy mother farewell, I canna wait any longer for her to come out.”

  He and Grenni left the house. A moment later Dannan heard the electric sparkle of a transporter beam. The window next to the front door glowed briefly, and then turned dark again.

  Jim Kirk stared out the window of his apartment at the night and at the bridges on the bay, lines of light leading out of and into an infinity of fog. Reflections overlaid the distant city. Jim turned to them and raised his glass.

  “To absent friends,” he said.

  Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu raised their glasses in response. They all drank.

  “Admiral, is it certain?” Hikaru said. “What’s going to happen to the Enterprise—?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s to be decommissioned.”

  “Will we get another ship?” Pavel said.

  We? Jim thought. Is there a “we” anymore? The ship to be dismantled, the crew dispersed, McCoy in shock and doped to the gills, and…Spock dead.

  “I can’t get an answer,” he said. “Starfleet is up to its brass in galactic conference. No one has time for those who only stand…and wait.”

  “How is Doctor McCoy, sir?” Uhura said.

  “That’s the ‘good’ news,” Jim said dryly. “He’s home in bed, full of tranquilizers. He promised me he’d stay there. They say it’s exhaustion.” He sighed. “We’ll see.”

  His doorbell chimed.

  “Ah,” Jim said. “It must be Mister Scott, fresh from the world of transwarp drive. Come!”

  The door responded to his voice and whirred open.

  Expecting Scott, Jim started at the sight of a much taller figure standing cloaked and hooded in a Vulcan robe, half hidden by the shadows in his foyer. Jim felt panic brush against him, bringing the fear of madness. He thought for an instant that, like Leonard McCoy, he was beginning to perceive the ghost of Spock in every patch of darkness, in dreams and wakefulness alike.

  The figure reached up and drew back its hood.

  “Sarek!” Jim exclaimed.

  Ambassador Sarek strode into the light. He looked as he did the first time Jim had met him, well over a decade before. He had not aged in that time. He would by now, Jim reflected, be nearly one hundred twenty years old. He looked like a vigorous man of middle age, which, of course, was precisely what he was. But a Vulcan of middle age, not a human being. He had many years left to look forward to, just as Spock, his son, should have had over a century.

  “Ambassador,” Jim said, feeling flustered, “I—I had no idea you were on Earth…” His words trailed off. Sarek said nothing. “You know my officers, I believe,” Kirk said.

  Sarek showed no inclination to acknowledge the others. He moved to the window and stared out, his back to the room.

  “I will speak with you alone, Kirk,” he said.

  Kirk turned toward his friends. They regarded him with questioning expressions, each clearly uneasy about leaving him alone in Sarek’s intimidating presence.

  “Uhura, Pavel, Hikaru—perhaps we’d better get together again another evening.” Kirk put into his tone a confidence of which he was far from certain. With a gesture he silenced Pavel’s hotheaded objection before it started; he shook Hikaru’s hand, appreciating his equanimity, and he returned Uhura’s embrace as he showed his three compatriots to the door.

  “We’re here,” she said, “when you need us.”

  “I know,” he said. “And I’m grateful.”

  He let them out, watched the door close behind them, and turned back to Sarek with considerable apprehension.

  Sarek remained at the window, silhouetted black against black. Kirk approached him. He stopped a pace behind him, and the silence stretched on.

  “How…is Amanda, sir?” Kirk asked.

  “She is a human being, Kirk. Consequently, she is in mourning for our son. She is on Vulcan.”

  “Sarek, I’m bound here to testify, or I would have come to Vulcan, to express my deepest sympathies. To her, and to you—”

  Sarek cut off Kirk’s explanation and his sympathy with a peremptory gesture. “Spare me your platitudes, Kirk. I have been to your government. I have seen the Genesis information, and your own report.”

  “Then you know how bravely your son met his death.”

  “ ‘Met his death’?” Sarek faced Kirk, and the cold expressionlessness of his eyes was more powerful than any grief or fury. “How could you, who claim to be his friend, assume that? Why did you not bring him back to Vulcan?”

  “Because he asked me not to!” Kirk said, rising to the provocation.

  “He asked you not to? I find that unlikely in the extreme.”

  Sarek stopped just short of calling Kirk a liar, which did not serve to improve the admiral’s temper.

  “His will states quite clearly that he did not wish to be returned to Vulcan, should he die in the service of Starfleet. You can view it—I’ll even give you his serial number.”

  “I am aware of his serial number,” Sarek said with contempt. “I am also aware that Starfleet regulations specifically require that any Vulcan’s body be returned to the homeworld. Surely this would override the dictates of a will.”

  “The trivial personal wishes of an individual?” Kirk did not give Sarek a chance to reply to his barb. “I’ll tell you why I followed Spock’s request rather than the rules of Starfleet,” he said bitterly. “It’s because in all the years I knew Spock, never once did you or any Vulcan treat him with the respect and the regard that he deserved. You never even treated him with the simple courtesy one sentient being owes another. He spent his life living up to Vulcan ideals—and he came a whole hell of a lot closer to succeeding than a lot of Vulcans I’ve met. But he made one choice of his own—Starfleet instead of the Vulcan Academy—and you cut him off!”

  He stopped to catch his breath.

  “My son and I resolved our disagreement on that subject many years ago, Kirk,” Sarek said mildly.

  Kirk ignored the overture. “For nearly twenty years I watched him endure the slights and the subtle bigotry of Vulcans! When he died, I was damned if I would take him back to Vulcan and give him over to you so you could put him in the ground and wash your hands of him! He deserved a hero’s burial and that’s what I gave him—the fires of space!” He stopped, his anger burned to ashes, yet he thought, And I can think of a few dogs I would have liked to put at his feet.

  Sarek behaved as if Kirk’s outburst had never occurred, as if he believed that by refusing to acknowledge it, he caused it not to exist.

  “Why did you leave him behind? Spock trusted you. You denied him his future.”

  Jim felt entirely off balance and defensive. He had no idea what Sarek was talking about. If Kirk had hoped to accomplish anything by exposing to Sarek the anger he had built up over the years, he had failed, miserably, spectacularly, completely.

  “I—I saw no future!”

  “You missed the point, then and now. Only his body was in death, Kirk. And you were the last one to be with him.”

  “Yes, I was…” My gods, Jim thought, is Sarek trying to tell me that if I had behaved differently—Spock might still be alive?

  “Then you must have known that you should have come with him back to Vulcan.”

  “But—why?”

  “Because he asked you to! He entrusted you with…with his very essence, with everything that was not of his body. He asked you to bring him to us, and to bring that which he gave you, his katra, his living spirit.”

  Sarek spoke with intensity and urgency that served merely to disguise, not to hide, his deep pain and his loss. Jim had received the response he intended to provoke. He wished he had been gentler.

  “Sir,” he said quietly, “your son meant more to me than you can know. I’d have given my life if it would have saved his
. You must believe me when I tell you he made no request of me.” If there was a chance for him to live, Kirk cried out in his mind, why didn’t Spock ask me for help?

  “He would not have spoken of it openly.”

  “Then, how—”

  Sarek cut him off. “Kirk, I must have your thoughts.”

  Jim frowned.

  “May I join your mind, Kirk?”

  Jim hesitated, for the Vulcan mind-meld was not the most pleasant of experiences. The human perception was trivial, Vulcans claimed, compared to the discomfort Vulcans underwent in order to mingle their refined psyches with the disorganized thought processes of human beings. It was clear, however, that Sarek needed information that Jim did not possess in his own conscious mind. Acceding to the mind-meld was the one thing Jim could do, perhaps the only thing, that might give Sarek some peace.

  “Of course,” he said.

  Sarek approached him and placed his hands on Jim’s face, the long forefingers probing at his temples. His gaze never met Kirk’s. He seemed to be looking straight through him. Kirk closed his eyes, but Sarek’s image remained.

  The sensation was as if Sarek’s slender, powerful hands reached straight into his brain.

  Kirk traveled back through time. The recent message from Grissom brought a strong resonance of hope from Sarek: My son’s body may yet exist—perhaps there is still time! Time to save him for the Hall of Ancient Thought….

  And James Kirk understood that even if Sarek found what he sought, Spock was lost to the world he had lived in. Only a few individuals, trained for years in Vulcan philosophic discipline, could communicate with the presences that existed in the Hall of Ancient Thought. If Sarek found what he was looking for, he would give Spock a chance at immortality…but not another chance at life.

  Sarek’s powerful mind forced Jim farther back in time. Jim’s memories of Spock’s death, which had barely begun to ease, returned with the cruel clarity of dream.

  “He spoke of your friendship.”

  Jim could not tell if Sarek uttered words or communicated through the mental link. Likewise he could not be sure if he himself replied aloud, or in silence.

  “Yes…”

  “He asked you not to grieve…”

  “Yes…”

  “The needs of the many outweigh…”

  “…the needs of the few—”

  “Or the one.”

  The image of Sarek faded from Jim’s mind. Spock appeared, horribly burned and dying.

  “Spock…” Jim said.

  “I have been…and always shall be…your friend,” Spock said. “Live long…and prosper.”

  “No!” Jim shouted, as if by force of will he could twist the dictates of the universe and mortality to his wishes.

  The illusion drained away like a spent wave, leaving Jim soaked and shaken. He experienced one last, hopeless thought from Sarek: What I thought destroyed, my son’s body, is found; but his soul is irrevocably lost.

  He broke the contact between them.

  Jim’s knees buckled. Sarek caught and supported him. Jim pressed the heels of his hands against his closed eyes, trying to drive back the sharpened memories.

  “Forgive me,” Sarek said. “It is not here. I assumed he had melded his mind with yours. It is the Vulcan way, when the body’s end is near.”

  “But he couldn’t touch me! We were separated!”

  “Yes,” Sarek said. “I see, and I understand.” He turned away, weariness—even age—apparent in the set of his shoulders. “Everything that he was, everything that he knew, is lost. I must return to Vulcan, empty-handed. I will join Amanda. We will mourn our son. We will mourn for the loss of his life, we will mourn for the loss of his soul.” Without a word of farewell, he started toward the door.

  “Wait!” Kirk cried. “Please…wait.” Like a man trying to scale a crumbling cliff he clutched at fragile branches, and they pulled loose from the rock.

  “Sarek, surely he would have found a way! If there was so much at stake, Spock would have found a way!”

  Sarek strode toward the door and Kirk feared he would sweep out of the room without a backward glance, hinting at possibilities, abandoning them.

  Sarek slowed, hesitated, turned. “What are you saying, Kirk?”

  “What if he melded his mind with someone else?”

  Seven

  The flight recorder from the Enterprise lay under seal and under guard. Even Admiral James T. Kirk had to do some fast talking and some throwing around of his authority to see it, much less to bring in an outside observer. Though Sarek knew all there was for any diplomat to know about Genesis and about the last voyage of the Enterprise, whoever had cleared him for those reports had not thought to include the flight recorder. This caused what seemed to Kirk like an endless delay. However esteemed Sarek might be within the Federation, he was not a member of Starfleet. Then, when the ambassador finally received special clearance to view the data, Kirk was absolutely refused permission to transmit the recording anywhere outside the records storage center. He and Sarek had to go to it.

  Kirk arrived at the center chafing under the limitations of surface travel. He found it incredibly frustrating to be forced actually to traverse the distance from one point to another, rather than to have a convenient transporter beam at his beck and call.

  Finally all the distance had been covered, all the permissions had been granted, all the forms had been signed and sealed and retina-printed, and he and Sarek entered a viewing cubicle that would display data from the Enterprise’s flight recorder.

  Ordinarily the recorder would lie essentially suppressed, quiescently tracking only the routine mechanical functions of the ship. An alert increased its powers of observation and set it to making a permanent record of the ship’s crucial areas. The engine room monitor had watched Khan’s attack and Spock’s last moments of life.

  Jim Kirk had already relived Spock’s death once today, in an all too realistic fashion. He wondered, as he keyed into the player the star date he wished to observe, why he had fought so hard to be permitted to see it again. He could leave Sarek alone with it and let the Vulcan make of it what he would. But in the end Kirk could not abandon his responsibilities to Spock or—if his suspicions proved true—to McCoy.

  “Engine room, flight recorder, visual,” the computer voice announced. “Star date 8128 point seven eight.” It froze at the decimal he had chosen. “Point seven eight…point seven eight…”

  On the screen, Spock lay dying against the glass of the radiation enclosure, frozen in time.

  “Back!” Kirk snapped. “Point seven seven.”

  The random access search skipped to the last words between James Kirk and Spock.

  “Back! Point six seven.”

  “Flight recorder, visual. Star date 8128 point six seven, point six seven—” The tape had reached the point before Kirk left the bridge, before Spock entered the radiation chamber, a time when the Enterprise was still in imminent danger of being caught up in Khan Singh’s detonation of the Genesis device. Spock was poised in freeze-frame at the radiation chamber control console.

  “Go.”

  Spock’s image flowed into life. McCoy entered the picture, intercepting Spock before he reached the chamber. They argued in eerie silence. Spock guided McCoy’s attention toward Mister Scott, who lay half-conscious on the floor. As soon as McCoy turned his back, Spock felled him with a nerve pinch.

  And then…Spock knelt down and pressed his hand to Doctor McCoy’s temple. Spock’s lips formed the silent word:

  “Remember.”

  “Hold,” Kirk said. The image froze. “Augment and repeat.” The scene scrolled smoothly back. The central image expanded. “Audio,” Kirk said.

  Spock guided McCoy’s attention toward Mister Scott, who lay half-conscious on the floor. As soon as McCoy turned his back, Spock felled him with a nerve pinch.

  Spock knelt down and pressed his hand to Doctor McCoy’s temple.

  “Remember!” Spock said.<
br />
  “Freeze!” Kirk said. He struggled against hope and excitement to retain his composure. “Bones…” Kirk said softly. All the doctor’s tortured behavior, his confusion—

  “One alive, one not,” Sarek said. “Yet both in pain.”

  “One going mad from pain,” Kirk said. “Why—why did Spock leave the wrong instructions?”

  “Do you recall the precise words, Kirk?” Sarek cocked his eyebrow at Kirk and saw that he did not. He repeated a phrase from Spock’s will as he had plucked it from Kirk’s mind. “ ‘Failing a subsequent revision of this document, my remains are not to be returned to Vulcan—’ ” He paused. “Spock did not…did not believe that his unusual heritage would permit the transfer of his katra. He did leave the possibility open.”

  “But he never made a revision. He left only—”

  “—The good Doctor McCoy,” Sarek said. “Who, if the process had worked properly, would have known what to do. Perhaps Spock was correct. Perhaps he was unable to transfer…”

  “He transferred something! And it’s driving McCoy insane!”

  “Had Doctor McCoy ever experienced the mind-meld before?”

  “A couple of times, in emergencies.”

  “How did he react?”

  “He didn’t like it. To put it mildly.”

  Sarek raised his eyebrow again but forbore to remark upon the comment. “Did he become physically ill, afterwards?”

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t necessarily have said so if he did.”

  “He is undergoing an allergic reaction.”

  “What?”

  “It is unusual, but not unprecedented. McCoy’s mind is rejecting what Spock gave to him.”

  Kirk fought an impulse to laugh. He lost.

  “You find this amusing?” Sarek said stiffly.

  “No—yes, I’m sorry, Sarek, I can’t help it. McCoy would find it hilarious, if he were in any shape to appreciate it. Come to think of it, Spock would, too.”

  “I find that highly unlikely,” Sarek said. “Since the result is that McCoy was unable to assimilate the new information even so far as to rescind the provision of Spock’s will that may now destroy both of them.” He shook his head. “It would have been better if Spock had been near another Vulcan when he died. He did not prepare well, Kirk. He left too many factors open to chance—”