When morning came, Saavik rose smoothly from her place in the corner of the stasis room. She had found a measure of serenity in her vigil, a counterweight to her grief. She bid a final farewell to her teacher, and to her student, and left the stasis room. She had many duties to take care of, duties to the ship, and to Mr. Spock.
The ship's company assembled, in full dress, at 0800 hours. Saavik took her place at the torpedo guidance console and programmed in the course she had selected.
Accompanied by Carol Marcus and David Marcus and Dr. McCoy, Admiral Kirk came in last.
Ths ship's veterans, the people who had known Mr. Spock best, stood together in a small group: Mr. Sulu, Commander Uhura, Dr. Chapel, Mr. Chekov, Mr. Scott. They all watched the admiral, who looked tired and drawn. He stood before the crew of the Enterprise, staring at the deck, not speaking.
He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and faced them.
"We have assembled here," he said, "in accordance with Starfleet traditions, to pay final respects to one of our own. To honor our dead …" He paused a long time. "… and to grieve for a beloved comrade who gave his life in place of ours. He did not think his sacrifice a vain or empty one, and we cannot question his choice, in these proceedings.
"He died in the shadow of a new world, a world he had hoped to see. He lived just long enough to know it had come into being."
Beside Admiral Kirk, Dr. McCoy tried to keep from breaking down, but failed. He stared straight ahead, with tears spilling down his cheeks.
"Of my friend," Admiral Kirk said, "I can only say that of all the souls I have encountered his was—" he looked from face to face around the company of old friends, new ones, strangers; he saw Dr. McCoy crying, "—the most human."
Admiral Kirk's voice faltered. He paused a moment, tried to continue, but could not go on. "Lieutenant Saavik," he said softly.
Saavik armed the torpedo guidance control with the course she had so carefully worked out, and moved forward.
"We embrace the memory of our brother, our teacher." Her words were inadequate, and she knew it. "With love, we commit his body to the depths of space."
Captain Sulu moved from the line. "Honors: hut."
The ship's company saluted. Mr. Scott began to play his strange musical instrument. It filled the chamber with a plaintive wail, a dirge that was all too appropriate.
The pallbearers lifted Spock's black coffin into the launching chamber. It hummed closed, and the arming lock snapped into place.
Saavik nodded an order to the torpedo officer. He fired the missile.
With a great roar of igniting propellant, the chamber reverberated. The bagpipes stopped. Silence, eerie and complete, settled over the room. The company watched the dark torpedo streak away against the silver-blue shimmer of the new world, until the coffin shrank and vanished.
Sulu waited; then said, "Return: hut."
Saavik and the rest returned to attention.
"Lieutenant," the admiral said.
"Yes, sir."
"The watch is yours," he said quietly. "Set a course for Alpha Ceti V to pick up Reliant's survivors."
"Aye, sir."
"I'll be in my quarters. But unless it's an emergency …"
"Understood, sir."
"Dismiss the company."
He started out of the room. He saw Carol, but he could not say to her what he wanted to—not here, not now; he saw David, watching him intently. The young man took a step toward him.
Jim Kirk turned on his heel and left.
Saavik dismissed the company. She gazed one last time at the new planet.
"Lieutenant—"
She turned. David Marcus had hung back from the others, waiting for her.
"Yes, Dr. Marcus?"
"Can we stop the formality? My name's David. Can I call you Saavik?"
"If you wish."
"I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry about Mr. Spock."
"I, too," she said.
"When we talked the other day—I could tell how much you cared about him. I'm sorry it sounded like I was insulting him. I didn't mean it that way. To him or to you."
"I know," she said. "I was very harsh to you, and I regret it. Starfleet has brought you only grief and tragedy. . . ."
David, too, glanced at the new planet, which his friends on Spacelab had helped to design.
"Yeah," he said softly. "I'll miss those folks, a lot. It was such a damned waste. . . ."
"They sacrificed themselves for your life, as Spock gave himself for us. When I took the Kobayashi Maru test—" She paused to see if David remembered the conversation, back on Regulus I. He nodded. "—Admiral Kirk told me that the way one faces death is at least as important as how one faces life."
David looked thoughtful, and glanced the way James Kirk had gone, but of course his father had long since departed.
"Do you believe, now, that he is your father?" Saavik asked.
He started. "No. Maybe. I don't know."
Saavik smiled. "We perhaps have something in common, David. Do you remember what you said to him?"
"When?"
"When you tried to kill him. You called him, if my memory serves me properly, a 'dumb bastard.'"
"I guess I did. So?"
"He is not—to my knowledge—a bastard. But I am. And if Admiral Kirk is your father, then I believe the terminology, in its traditional sense, fits you as well."
He stared at her for a moment, then laughed. "I'm beginning to think the 'dumb' part fits me even better."
He reached out quickly and touched her hand.
"I really want to talk to you some more," he said suddenly. "But there's something I have to do first."
"I must return to the bridge," Saavik said. "It is my watch."
"Later on—can I buy you a cup of coffee?"
"That would be difficult: one cannot buy anything on board the Enterprise."
"Sorry. That was kind of a joke."
"Oh," Saavik said, not understanding.
"I just meant, can we get together in a while? When you're free?"
"I would like that," Saavik said, rather surprised at her own reply and remembering what Mr. Spock had said about making her own choices.
"Great. See you soon."
He hurried down the corridor, and Saavik returned to the bridge.
The admiral closed the door of his cabin behind him and leaned against it, desperately grateful that the ceremony was over. He wondered what Spock would have thought of it all: the ritual, the speeches. . . . He would have said it was illogical, no doubt.
Jim Kirk unfastened his dress jacket, pulled it off, and pitched it angrily across the room. He dragged a bottle of brandy off the shelf and poured himself a shot. He glared at the amber liquor for a while, then shoved it away.
Too many ghosts hovered around him, and he did not want to draw them any closer by lowering his defenses with alcohol. He flung himself down on the couch. The blanket Carol had tucked around him the night before lay crumpled on the floor.
He smelled the pleasant, musty odor of old paper. He tried to ignore it, failed, and reached for the book Spock had given him. It was heavy and solid in his hands, the leather binding a little scuffed, the cut edges of the pages softly rough in his hands. Jim let it fall open. The print blurred.
He dug into his pockets for his glasses. When he finally found them, one of the lenses was shattered. Jim stared at the cracked, spidery pattern.
"Damn!" he said. "Damn—" He laid the book very carefully on the table; he laid the glasses, half-folded, on top of it.
He covered his eyes.
The door chimed. At first he did not move; then he sat up, rubbed his face with both hands, and cleared his throat.
"Yes," he said. "Come."
The door opened. David Marcus came in, and the door slid closed behind him. Jim stood up, but then he had nowhere to go.
"Look, I don't mean to intrude—" David said.
"Uh, no, that's all right, it's just that
I ought to be on the bridge."
David let him pass, but before Jim got to the door his son said, "Are you running away from me?"
Jim stopped and faced David again.
"Yes," he said. "I guess I am." He gestured for him to sit. David sat on the couch, and Jim sat in the chair angled toward it. They looked at each other uncomfortably for a while.
"Would you like a drink?" Jim asked.
David glanced at the abandoned snifter of brandy on the table; Jim realized how odd it must look.
"No," David said. "But thanks, anyway."
Jim tried to think of something to say to the stranger in his sitting room.
"I'm not exactly what you expected, am I?" David said.
"I didn't expect anything," Jim told him ruefully.
David's grin was crooked, a little embarrassed. "That makes two of us." His grin faded. "Are you okay?"
"What do you mean?"
"Lieutenant Saavik was right. . . . You've never faced death."
"Not like this," Jim admitted reluctantly. "I never faced it—I cheated it; I played a trick and felt proud of myself for it and got rewarded for my ingenuity." He rubbed his eyes with one hand. "I know nothing," he said.
"You told Saavik that how we face death is at least as important as how we face life."
Jim frowned. "How do you know that?"
"She told me."
"It was just words."
"Maybe you ought to listen to them."
"I'm trying, David."
"So am I. The people who died on Spacelab were friends of mine."
"I know," Jim said. "David, I'm truly sorry."
The uncomfortable silence crept over them again. David stood up.
"I want to apologize," he said. "I misjudged you. And yesterday, when you tried to thank me—" He shrugged, embarrassed. "I'm sorry."
"No," Jim said. "You were perfectly correct. Being proud of someone is like taking some of the credit for what they do or how they act. I have no right to take any of the credit for you."
He, too, stood up, as David appeared to be leaving.
"Then maybe I shouldn't—" David stopped. Then he said, very fast, "What I really came here to say is that I'm proud—proud to be your son."
Jim was too startled to reply. David shrugged and strode toward the door.
"David—"
The young man swung abruptly back. "What?" he said with a harsh note in his voice.
Jim grabbed him and hugged him hard. After a moment, David returned the embrace.
Epilogue
On the bridge of the Enterprise, Lieutenant Saavik checked their course and prepared for warp speed. The viewscreen showed the Genesis world slowly shrinking behind them. Dr. McCoy and Dr. Marcus, senior, watched it and spoke together in low tones. Saavik worked at concentrating hard enough not to notice what they were saying. They were discussing the admiral, and it was quite clearly intended to be a private conversation.
The bridge doors opened. Saavik, in the captain's chair, glanced around. She stood up.
"Admiral on the bridge!"
"At ease," Jim Kirk said quickly. David Marcus followed him out of the turbo-lift.
Dr. McCoy and Carol Marcus glanced at each other. McCoy raised one eyebrow, and Carol gave him a quick smile.
"Hello, Bones," Kirk said. "Hi, Carol. . . ." He took her hand and squeezed it gently.
"On course to Alpha Ceti, Admiral," Saavik said. "All is well."
"Good." He sat down. "Lieutenant, I believe you're acquainted with my … my son."
"Yes, sir." She caught David's gaze. He blushed a little; to Saavik's surprise, she did too.
"Would you show him around, please?"
"Certainly, sir." She ushered David to the upper level of the bridge. When they reached the science officer's station, she said to him, softly, straight-faced, "I see that you did, after all, turn out to be a bastard."
James Kirk heard her and stared at her, shocked.
"That is a … 'little joke,'" she said.
"A private one," David added. "And the operative word is 'dumb.'"
Saavik smiled; David laughed.
Jim Kirk smiled, too, if a bit quizzically.
McCoy leaned on the back of the captain's chair, gazing at the viewscreen.
"Will you look at that," he said. "It's incredible. Think they'll name it after you, Dr. Marcus?"
"Not if I can help it," she said. "We'll name it. For our friends."
Jim thought about the book Spock had given him. He was remembering a line at the end: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known." He could not quite imagine Spock's questing spirit finally at rest.
Carol put her hand on his. "Jim—?"
"I was just thinking of something. . . . Something Spock tried to tell me on my birthday."
"Jim, are you okay?" McCoy asked. "How do you feel?"
"I feel …" He thought for a moment. The grief would be with him a long time, but there were a lot of good memories, too. "I feel young, Doctor, believe it or not. Reborn. As young as Carol's new world."
He glanced back at Lieutenant Saavik and at David.
"Set our course for the second star to the right, Lieutenant. 'The second star to the right, and straight on till morning.'"
He was ready to explain that that, too, was a little joke, but she surprised him.
"Aye, sir." Saavik sounded not the least bit perplexed. She changed the viewscreen; it sparkled into an image of the dense starfield ahead. "Warp factor three, Helm Officer."
"Warp three, aye."
The Enterprise leaped toward the distant stars.
Look for STAR TREK fiction from Pocket Books
Star Trek®: The Original Series
Enterprise: The First Adventure • Vonda N. McIntyre
Final Frontier • Diane Carey
Strangers From the Sky • Margaret Wander Bonanno
Spock's World • Diane Duane
The Lost Years • J.M. Dillard
Probe • Margaret Wander Bonanno
Prime Directive • Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Best Destiny • Diane Carey
Shadows on the Sun • Michael Jan Friedman
Sarek • A.C. Crispin
Federation • Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Vulcan's Forge • Josepha Sherman & Susan Shwartz
Mission to Horatius • Mack Reynolds
Vulcan's Heart • Josepha Sherman & Susan Shwartz
Novelizations
Star Trek: The Motion Picture • Gene Roddenberry
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan • Vonda N. McIntyre
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock • Vonda N. McIntyre
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home • Vonda N. McIntyre
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier • J.M. Dillard
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country • J.M. Dillard
Star Trek Generations • J.M. Dillard
Starfleet Academy • Diane Carey
Star Trek books by William Shatner with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
The Ashes of Eden
The Return
Avenger
Star Trek: Odyssey (contains The Ashes of Eden, The Return, and Avenger)
Spectre
Dark Victory
Preserver
#1 • Star Trek: The Motion Picture • Gene Roddenberry
#2 • The Entropy Effect • Vonda N. McIntyre
#3 • The Klingon Gambit • Robert E. Vardeman
#4 • The Covenant of the Crown • Howard Weinstein
#5 • The Prometheus Design • Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath
#6 • The Abode of Life • Lee Correy
#7 • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan • Vonda N. McIntyre
#8 • Black Fire • Sonni Cooper
#9 • Triangle • Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath
#10 • Web of the Romulans • M.S. Murdock
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#11 • Yesterday's Son • A.C. Crispin
#12 • Mutiny on the Enterprise • Robert E. Vardeman
#13 • The Wounded Sky • Diane Duane
#14 • The Trellisane Confrontation • David Dvorkin
#15 • Corona • Greg Bear
#16 • The Final Reflection • John M. Ford
#17 • Star Trek III: The Search For Spock • Vonda N. McIntyre
#18 • My Enemy, My Ally • Diane Duane
#19 • The Tears of the Singers • Melinda Snodgrass
#20 • The Vulcan Academy Murders • Jean Lorrah
#21 • Uhura's Song • Janet Kagan
#22 • Shadow Lord • Laurence Yep
#23 • Ishmael • Barbara Hambly
#24 • Killing Time • Della Van Hise
#25 • Dwellers in the Crucible • Margaret Wander Bonanno
#26 • Pawns and Symbols • Majliss Larson
#27 • Mindshadow • J.M. Dillard
#28 • Crisis on Centaurus • Brad Ferguson
#29 • Dreadnought! • Diane Carey
#30 • Demons • J.M. Dillard
#31 • Battlestations! • Diane Carey
#32 • Chain of Attack • Gene DeWeese
#33 • Deep Domain • Howard Weinstein
#34 • Dreams of the Raven • Carmen Carter
#35 • The Romulan Way • Diane Duane & Peter Morwood
#36 • How Much For Just the Planet? • John M. Ford
#37 • Bloodthirst • J.M. Dillard
#38 • The IDIC Epidemic • Jean Lorrah
#39 • Time For Yesterday • A.C. Crispin
#40 • Timetrap • David Dvorkin
#41 • The Three-Minute Universe • Barbara Paul
#42 • Memory Prime • Gar and Judith Reeves-Stevens
#43 • The Final Nexus • Gene DeWeese
#44 • Vulcan's Glory • D.C. Fontana
#45 • Double, Double • Michael Jan Friedman
#46 • The Cry of the Onlies • Judy Klass
#47 • The Kobayashi Maru • Julia Ecklar
#48 • Rules of Engagement • Peter Morwood
#49 • The Pandora Principle • Carolyn Clowes
The Wrath of Khan Page 20