Burning Dreams

by Margaret Wander Bonanno

  Epilogue

  2320

  The first two times Spock had watched Talos IV loom on the forward screen, it had had a wounded look—huddled, gloomy, shrouded in the sickly yellow-gray pall of nuclear winter. But the planet he saw on his viewscreen now was welcoming, veiled in normal cloud cover, a pretty blue world of oceans and landmasses glimpsed coquettishly through wisps of clean white cloud.

  Were he in any doubt about his navigational skills, he might wonder if he had gone off course and made orbit around a different planet entirely. But, being Spock, he was certain of his coordinates. Yet this would appear to be a planet much altered in the fifty-four years, two months, and sixteen days since he had last been here.

  Nevertheless, not trusting mere visual observation, Spock scanned the planet’s atmosphere, and one eyebrow quirked involuntarily. The greater part of the radiation seemed to have dissipated, at least in the region he scanned. This could not be a natural occurrence. Given their prolonged half-lives, the radioactive isotopes ought to have registered in the ionosphere for at least another millennium. Skeptical, Spock altered course to do a sweep of the entire planet.

  “You will find approximately the same intensity of background radiation elsewhere as you have here,” the Magistrate said equitably, appearing in the copilot’s chair, unchanged as always, delicate hands clasped demurely in hir silver-clad lap, eyes clear, smile faint but not a little smug. “In fact, I would venture to guess that even factoring in normal solar radiation, concentrations on our world are less than the ambient radiation extant in the atmosphere of Earth. But feel free to conduct your scans to satisfy your curiosity. Now that you are here, there is no urgency.”

  Spock glanced in the Magistrate’s direction, though he knew hir “presence” was an illusion. For that matter, the absence of radiation could as equally be illusion. Away from the Talos star group, his instruments might tell him something quite other than they did now.

  No urgency. Pike was dead, then. Spock had risked his life merely in order to escort his former captain’s remains back to Earth.

  “Do not be so quick to judge,” the Magistrate intruded into his thoughts. “If I give you my word that your instrument readings are accurate, will you continue to scan our world until your curiosity is satisfied?”

  “Is that what you wish?” Spock asked.

  “It will help explain things later,” the Magistrate replied cryptically.

  Spock reduced speed, angled the shuttle’s nose downward, and began a glide through the cloud cover into the troposphere.

  At the Magistrate’s instruction, he made three low orbits in all, one at the equator and two at an inclination of sixty degrees either side of the equator. With considerable field of view overlap, he succeeded in scanning the entire planet in a very short time. What he saw intrigued him. The atmosphere was indeed virtually free of all but natural ambient radiation. Even the hydrocarbon ratio was lower than that of a combustion-engine free Earth. In fact, the atmosphere of Talos IV was almost as pristine as it might have been in a preindustrial era.

  Flyover revealed the familiar broken mountain ranges, like jagged teeth, which seemed to dominate the planet, the scattered rock plains evidencing ancient volcanic activity, where the force of volcanic upthrust had hurled chunks of lava hundreds of miles in all directions. But where he expected to find what Enterprise had encountered the first two times—the ruins of cities destroyed in the war—Spock found a very different topography indeed.

  Only one continent had ever been populated before the war which nearly destroyed the Talosian race. Contemplating it down the decades, Spock had always wondered why the opposing factions hadn’t simply moved outward and settled somewhere else. With their minds so interconnected, he supposed, even distance wouldn’t have assuaged the differences between them. Only near-annihilation, it seemed, had done so.

  It was spring on that main continent now and, if Spock were to judge from what he saw below him, the dawn of a new era. The ravages of the long-ago nuclear holocaust which had almost annihilated all life on the planet were nearly invisible under an ongoing process of terraforming.

  Flora and fauna of all descriptions, some from the ships the Talosians had lured into their space long before human arrival, others native to their world, their genetic codes preserved for thousands of years, flourished across the land and in the skies and seas. At one point a telltale warned Spock of the proximity of a flock of birds the size of geese off the shuttle’s starboard nacelle. Oceans so clear he could see where the continental shelf dropped off into the depths sported schools of fish so numerous they seemed to move as a single kilometers-long entity. Herds of antlered herbivores, startled by the shadow as the shuttle passed above them, began to run at first but, after scattering a short distance, soon settled back to grazing.

  Most of the long-destroyed cities had been leveled, the land reclaimed and sculpted into parkland, agricultural tracts, forests, open fields. Some very few had been rebuilt and, from the look of things, quite recently, for construction was still going on.

  At the Magistrate’s nod, Spock brought the shuttle in closer to the largest of these cities, skimming over the tops of skyscrapers as ornate as cathedrals, and extensive multistoried housing complexes with terraces and flower boxes spilling an effusion of colors. Spidery bridges spanned gleaming rivers flowing between mossy banks, and connected some of the higher mountain peaks one to the other, incorporating them into the city plan.

  Silver-clad figures could be seen traversing broad pedestrian walkways in the centers of the bridges, even as all-but-silent transit pods housed in transparent tunnels shot by at speeds so quick they were almost a blur. Elevators flowed effortlessly up and down the sides of buildings; automated multilevel pedestrian walkways passed through open plazas as well as streets like narrow, deeply shaded canyons between the taller buildings.

  Much of what Spock saw was distinctly Talosian, in ways he was unable to quantify, yet the rest looked strangely familiar, as if it had been transplanted from Earth during the rebuilding after World War III, and he recognized an homage to the technology the Talosians had downloaded from Enterprise’s memory banks the first time. He did not know enough about Earth architecture to also recognize in some of these structures the signature style of the late Willa McKinnies.

  Everywhere silver-robed Talosians, still as seemingly frail as ever, yet possessed of a new vitality, moved about purposefully under the open sky. No longer needing to live underground, they were as if reborn. There were so many of them! Spock extrapolated from the number he could see in a single plaza below him to the size of the city as a whole and calculated at least a million. And were those children? Yes, Talosian children, from infants carried in slings to spindly adolescents whose oversized crania looked disproportionately larger set upon their gangly frames, moved with the adults or gathered in small groups of their peers. Spock thought he saw one group playing a sort of elaborate game of tag in one narrow lane. Were they the first children born since the war? He would ask this later, and more.

  He didn’t realize he was smiling, at least inasmuch as Vulcans smile, mostly with their eyes. (Though in more recent years, Spock had occasionally allowed the smile to venture as far as the corners of his mouth.) For a fleeting moment he recalled his first visit to Talos IV, and how very callow he had been then, smiling broadly as he and Pike discovered the secret of the blue-leaved plants whose vibrating leaves had filled the air with singing. What he saw now was even more pleasing, if inexplicable, unless it was illusion.

  “Not illusion. Quite real,” the Magistrate answered his unspoken thought. “All this was made possible by Christopher Pike. Did you truly think such a dynamic man would so easily succumb to the lure of dream?

  “When I asked you to bring him to us so many years ago, I said he had infected us with his…enthusiasm, his strength of will,” the Magistrate went on, gesturing to Spock to bring the shuttle down in one of the plazas, which had been cleared of pedestrians,
who stood around the perimeter craning up at the shuttle, anticipating its arrival.

  “Intellectually, he reminded us of what we once had been, and could be again. But there was more. The interaction of his mind with ours had physiological effects as well.”

  The shuttle was designed to hover and descend vertically in tight spaces, and Spock guided it down slowly so that the thrusters kicked up minimal turbulence and did not disturb the gathering watchers. As the shuttle descended, he caught sight of several large animated murals displayed on the walls of the buildings surrounding the plaza. Each depicted what could only be described as a movie exploring some aspect of Christopher Pike’s or Vina’s life.

  From ground level, as he stepped out of the shuttle, Spock became aware that nearly every building in the city hosted one of these living murals. The ones he could see in the distance featured what he took to be epic stories from Talosian history, and scenes from other worlds the Talosians had visited thousands of centuries ago. But all of the screens facing this particular plaza seemed to be devoted to Pike and Vina.

  “We never abandoned dream,” the Magistrate explained, emerging from the crowd. The illusory Magistrate who had accompanied Spock in the shuttle had, of course, vanished. “We simply brought it out of the tunnels into the light. Pike’s consciousness affected our proprioception, our way of seeing and interacting with each other and the world around us. He became part of us, and we a part of him. A favorite game among our children is ‘Pike Against the Kaylar.’ Some of us are not entirely certain we approve. Nevertheless…”

  The Magistrate’s eloquent gesture encompassed the city around them, the alterations to the planet beyond.

  “He gave us the energy, the impetus. He taught us how to speed the removal of the radiation from our atmosphere. His fascination with terraforming, his mother’s skills as an architect, his leadership, have restored us. His love for Vina inspired us, and encouraged her to use her skills as well. We have with her assistance found and extensively catalogued rich veins of mineral ore with which to trade with other worlds. The synergy between Talosian intellect and human ingenuity has rebuilt our world.”

  S/he gestured for Spock to follow hir into one of the buildings surrounding the plaza; from the grandiosity of its facade, Spock assumed it was some governmental edifice. Inside, beyond a whimsically Art Deco foyer, he found himself walking beside the Magistrate along a series of high-ceilinged corridors and into a lift which brought them first down and then sideways, opening out into an archive whose computers issued a busy subliminal hum suggesting considerable activity. On free-form screens set into walls carved out of natural rock, familiar to Spock from the record tapes transmitted during his court-martial half a century earlier, thus suggesting they had been here for the millennia the Talosians remained underground, he saw verification that the whole of Talos IV was alive with reconstruction and renewal.

  The Magistrate allowed Spock a moment to absorb all that he saw around him.

  “Inspired by the hope of once again living on the surface of our world, we were able to throw off our addiction to dream, setting aside only certain times when we permit ourselves to live inside our minds,” s/he explained. “Most of our time has been devoted to channeling our energies, under Pike’s guidance, into the here and now. In effect, he has done more for us than we could ever have done for him.”

  Later Spock would take the time to view as many of the Pike stories as he could. He would find not only Pike’s past as he knew it, but a detailed history of everything Pike and Vina had done in more than half a century on Talos IV. For now…

  “Then…Christopher Pike is dead?”

  “In the most obvious respect, yes,” the Magistrate replied. “His body has ceased to function. Vina faded from us first, and he followed soon after. And yet…” Hir gesture encompassed the archives, the city above them, the planet beyond. “He is here.”

  When they emerged from the underground chamber, the watchers who had been waiting silently around the edges of the plaza drew closer, gathering around them. At the forefront, Spock recognized the other three Talosians who had been present from the beginning. He felt the collective warmth of all their minds touching upon his, not intruding, but communicating. One of the overhead screens, which had been busy with images but silent until now, suddenly began to speak. The face and voice, however much larger than life, were those of Christopher Pike.

  Illusion, of course. Gone was the scarring and the paralysis, and the gray in his hair was not the shock-white of violent physical trauma, but the natural progression of a man of one hundred human years. The face was sculpted by years, but no less handsome. The steady voice, the lopsided grin, the intense blue eyes accented by the serious dark brows, were unchanged.

  “If you’re watching this, Mr. Spock, it means I’ve come and gone. You and I never talked about belief systems, so I won’t bore you with mine now. What I know about you is that you’d be willing to risk your neck a second time to fetch me home as readily as you did the first time to bring me here.”

  The image of Pike hesitated, as if searching for just the right words.

  “By now Talos has been my home longer than Earth, so I guess that means I belong to both worlds. So, yes, I did drag you halfway across the galaxy to bring some of my ashes back to Earth. But I also wanted Earth and the rest of the Federation to see Talos through your eyes and, instead of locking you up this time, maybe give you credit, Mr. Ambassador, for adding a new member to the Federation.

  “Oh, I know, I know, it’s not that easy. Regulations, red tape—I don’t suppose those things have magically disappeared since I left Earth. But the Talosians and I have been watching your career from a distance, and we agreed you’d be the logical person to plead our case.”

  The lopsided grin widened. The man’s natural charisma shone through the screen. Even a Talosian illusion couldn’t have manufactured that.

  “But I know you, Science Officer. You’re going to want to look around, examine everything, draw your own conclusions. Just putting in my two cents. The final decision’s up to you. Go well. Pike out.”

  The Talosians remained silent, their expressions expectant. Spock considered what he knew. The Federation incorporated many planets whose inhabitants possessed psionic gifts. Perhaps none were quite as adept as the Talosians at the power of illusion, and yet—

  The Talosians had nurtured and safeguarded Vina and Christopher Pike for the greater part of their lives, and been repaid in the rebirth of their world. The two species had come to understand and trust each other profoundly. Surely any Talosian would respect the boundaries nontelepaths required and keep them sacrosanct. It was a good place from which to begin.

  Applying for admission to the Federation was tedious and time consuming, and there was no guarantee that the request would be fulfilled. But Spock could at least be instrumental in establishing a rapprochement between Talos IV and the Federation Council once he returned to Earth.

  At least this time, he thought wryly, he might be spared the ordeal of a court-martial.

  Sulu and Excelsior would be waiting at the rendezvous point to retrieve him in a few days, sufficient time for Spock to see and learn more, though he had already made his decision. He would do what was logical to fulfill Christopher Pike’s dream.

  Afterword

  Christopher Pike, by the very paucity of information we have about him, invites our curiosity. Protagonist of a story deemed “too cerebral” by some long-forgotten studio heads, Pike haunts us down the generations, not only for the terrible thing that happens to him, but because Jeffrey Hunter, the actor who portrayed him, died tragically and too young.

  We would wish for a better outcome for them both, and so we extrapolate from the little we know about either man and try to imagine great things, outcomes that are better in our minds than in reality. In that way, we are not unlike Christopher Pike ourselves. Dreams are important.

  I have tried to pay homage, at least in passing, to others
who have featured Pike in their work:

  * Michael Jan Friedman who, in Legacy, offers Pike a beach to walk on.

  * S. D. Perry, whose story “Sins of the Mother” in The Lives of Dax, shows us Pike at his most sensitive and intuitive.

  * Peter David, who in The Rift shows us Pike the leader, not averse to making decisions that involve risk.

  * Jerry Oltion, who proves in Where Sea Meets Sky that Pike can hold his liquor and tell tales as tall as any sailor’s.

  * D. C. Fontana, because Vulcan’s Glory captures the desert vagabond in Christopher Pike’s heart, straight out of Jeffrey Hunter’s swashbuckling cinematic past.

  I have not included the young adult novels or the comic books that feature Pike (beyond the use of Chief Engineer Moves-with-Burning-Grace from the Star Trek: The Early Voyages comic). Incorporating every plotline where the character appears was not possible, and I hope no one feels slighted. To me, Star Trek has always been akin to Arthurian legend—there are many voices, many dimensions, but it is essentially always the same tale.

  About the Author

  MARGARET WANDER BONANNO sold her first novel in 1978, at a time when “serious women’s fiction” was not an oxymoron. Characterized by one reviewer as “the new Mary Gordon,” she followed this first mainstream novel with two more, before the Recession of ’82 changed the face of U.S. publishing forever and she, along with several hundred other midlist writers, found herself needing to rethink her career.

  A Star Trek fan “from the time of the beginning,” Margaret recalibrated her style and wrote first one, then a second Trek novel entirely on spec. That second manuscript became Dwellers in the Crucible, which was followed by Strangers from the Sky.

  Following a bit of strangeness which resulted in 93 percent of Probe’s being written by someone else, Margaret segued into straight s/f with two trilogies, The Others and Preternatural and, with Nichelle Nichols, co-authored Saturn’s Child.