But what could they do? Helpless against laser rifles, they obediently entered the cavern. Rough walls, Spock noted, with a good deal of rock fracture. Unstable, indeed. And:
"Unstable," David agreed softly. "But what can we—aie!"
The ground shook, shook again, stilled. Spock steadied David, who had fallen against him, coughing, then pointed as inconspicuously as he could. "One more tremor," he whispered, "and that wall will be breached."
David nodded almost imperceptibly, understanding. Only one more tremor . . .
"C'mon, earthquake," he whispered, and Spock only just managed to keep his face properly stoic. The human was incorrigible.
Better that than hysterics.
The tremor came. Hidden by a torrent of falling rocks and a cloud of dust, Spock and David scrambled their frantic way through the newly opened rift in the wall and kept going out into the open and the maze of volcanic peaks, ducking behind boulders, dodging between clefts in the rocks, sure that laser rifles were going to fire, sure that they were going to be maimed or killed or—
No. Now that the ground had settled, Spock could see that the quake had caused enough damage to confuse even Sered. He dared to stop to catch his breath.
"By the time they realize we are missing," he told David, "assuming that they do realize it, we will be far from here."
"I . . . can't . . . " David gasped, white-faced. "I . . . I can't . . . breathe."
Of course, Spock realized after a startled moment. David was human, not Vulcan; the volcanic region of the Forge lay at a relatively high elevation, high enough that a human undergoing exertion would need help to breathe the thinner atmosphere. If they were ever to reach civilization, David was going to need tri-ox compound, yes, and desert gear better than the bedraggled finery he still wore. At least, Spock thought, sternly quelling his growing alarm, the boy seemed to be in excellent physical condition for one of his age and species. That would help for a time.
"Rest," Spock said. "Breathe as deeply, as rhythmically, as you can." His voice wasn't quite as properly steady as he would wish. "Then we shall find you some tri-ox compound."
David tensed. They both knew, without a word needing to be exchanged, that the only place for such a find would be the wrecked shuttlecraft. That David's mother might be one of its victims was something neither boy wanted to mention.
But where had the craft crashed? Searching his memory for clues, Spock knew that it would have to be fairly close; they had landed not too long after the crash. Ah yes, and the pilot of the doomed craft had mentioned a bearing . . . yes, 24.9 West. It would be impossible to pinpoint the exact location without instruments, but there was still a chance. Spock told David, "I believe I know approximately where we may locate the crash."
David, for all that he was still clearly suffering from the lack of oxygen, struggled to his feet with a melodramatic bow. "Lead on, my friend, lead on."
Spock forbore to add the obvious: that they must reach the site before le-matyas and other predators did.
The storm had left few traces behind, and the sun blazed in Vulcan's clear, bright desert sky. The two boys set out across a barren waste of gray flint and red rock and ancient black lava flows, moving carefully over the treacherous footing.
"Be wary," Spock said. "Now that the sun is warming the desert floor again, poisonous reptiles will be sunning themselves on the rocks."
"Just like Earth's deserts. Almost stepped on a sunbathing snake once. In the Negev. Don't know which of us was more scared."
The curtness made sense. David was clearly keeping his words to a minimum, saving breath. Used to desert terrain though he was, without that tri-ox compound he needed to rest more and more frequently, his face reddening, one hand pressed to his ribs. During one of the stops, he glanced about at the rugged wilderness and shook his head. "Can't imagine anyone living here."
"Other than the desert flora and fauna? No."
"Why not? Couldn't you guys put up force shields? Or maybe even domes?" At Spock's puzzled nod, David continued, "Then how come you have this blasted wasteland?"
"It is a part of the natural order," Spock retorted. "We prefer to keep some portions of our planet primal. It makes us careful."
"Careful. Right."
They set out once more, over terrain that grew more and more savage. Spires of twisted black volcanic rock rose on all sides, and the ground was so littered with sharp bits of flint that Spock and David needed to choose each step with care. It would be all too easy to cut a foot or break an ankle here.
"And such an injury," Spock warned, "would most surely prove fatal."
"If the air doesn't kill me first," David said tersely.
His breathing was growing more and more labored, and even his brave, cocky spirit was clearly failing. We must reach the wreck soon, Spock thought, or he will not survive. He surprised himself by adding, I would not wish such a brave, bold intelligence to be lost.
But then they came out of a maze of lava spikes and found themselves faced with a sharp, steep, rocky slope like the side of a small mountain. Spock scouted from left to right and back again, then returned to David's side with a sigh.
"There is no way around. We can only go up. But," Spock added, studying the slope above them, "I believe that we have all but found the crashed shuttlecraft. See, there and there, where the rocks have been scraped and burned. The craft must have come in over them. It must lie on the far side of the slope."
David made one gallant attempt to climb, then groaned, collapsing to a rock, head down. "Can't . . ."
Spock watched the human uneasily for a moment, not sure what to do, then decided, "Wait here. I shall go ahead. I will not be long."
"No. Wait." David struggled to his feet, face drawn.
"You must not—"
"I must. If the shuttlecraft's . . . just ahead . . . I want to be there, too."
Brave but foolhardy, Spock repeated to himself. But one could not help but admire the human's determination. With Spock's help, David struggled up the slope, gasping painfully for breath, staggering, falling, yet stubbornly refusing to give up. Those were not coughs, Spock realized. At least not all of them. Some were sobs.
But at last they crested the slope.
"There it is," David said grimly. "Down there. There's the shuttlecraft."
What had once been a sleek, modern craft was now nothing but a broken, twisted mass of metal and composite. No one, Spock thought, could have survived. Surely, David knew it, too. But all the human said was "Come on."
He staggered down the far side of the slope, falling more than walking, then collapsed at the bottom. Before Spock could help him, David struggled back to his feet, trying to run. But Spock, stronger than the exhausted human, caught his arm, forcing him to a more cautious pace.
"It will serve no logical purpose for you to kill yourself."
David said nothing. Doubtless, by this point speech was impossible. But he continued to plow doggedly forward until they both stood at the shuttlecraft's crumpled side.
It is illogical to be afraid, Spock scolded himself. He must not think of what lay within as once-living beings but merely as objects. He must ignore whatever he saw and concentrate only on finding the tri-ox compound and some protective gear for David.
But it took all his training in self-discipline to stay calmly analytical at the sight of the broken bodies flung like so many dolls within the shuttlecraft, limbs skewed at impossible angles, head twisted on broken necks. The reek of darkening red and green blood threatened his control and brought David, retching dryly, to his knees.
But the human refused to surrender. Rising white-faced and shaking, David searched body after body. All at once he raced from the wreck, collapsing into a gasping, sobbing heap. Had he found his mother's body? Spock ached to run after him, but forced himself to continue to hunt. He even managed not to hiss in fury when he found the communications gear shattered and the one whole laser rifle useless.
Wait, though. Ma
tters could have been far worse. Here was a good supply of the tri-ox compound, and there, spilling out of a ruptured storage compartment, was protective gear that might fit. He dragged it out of the craft, then hurried to David's side, only to stand in awkward uncertainty. Was this mourning, or merely exhaustion?
"Captain Rabin . . . ?" he asked hesitantly.
"She wasn't there!" David sobbed. "My mother wasn't there!"
"But that is good news!" Spock said in confusion. "She is surely still alive."
"Y-yes!"
Now truly bewildered, Spock asked, "Why, then, do you weep?"
"Oh God, Spock, don't you understand?" David wiped his eyes with a shaky hand, struggling to catch his breath. "I couldn't help it; I mean, I feel sorry for those poor people in there, but—but you don't understand, do you?"
"I . . . fear not." An unwanted image of Lady Amanda, broken and still in death like the bodies within the shuttle, thrust itself into his consciousness, and he just as brusquely thrust it away. Control, Spock, he told himself, echoing his father. Where is your control? "Doubtless, anoxia is adding to your fears." At least so he assumed. "Wait."
At David's nod, Spock carefully injected him with the triox compound. David took a wary breath, then another, relief plain on his face.
"Better. Much better. Thought I wasn't going to make it." He wiped his eyes again, and Spock frowned.
"It is illogical to weep if one is not mourning."
"I guess it's a human thing, Spock, a—a sign of human caring, and a . . . well, a release of stress. Humans don't consider it a weakness, either," he added almost defiantly. "In fact, I'm proud that I'm able to care so very much. You . . . still don't get it, do you? Ah well, never mind, never mind."
He was almost babbling with physical and emotional relief, so near to hysteria that it grated on Spock's Vulcan nerves.
"It would be illogical for me to worry about a human emotion," Spock pointed out, and was surprised to hear David laugh and agree, "I guess it would."
Illogical, indeed. But a very human thing. A fascinating new thing to ponder.
David wormed his way into the protective gear. "Not exactly the height of fashion, is it?" he asked, waving a toolong sleeve. "Boy, I'm glad none of the girls, human or Vulcan, can see me!"
Spock blinked. "Why should survival equipment need to be fashionable? And why should such a thing matter to anyone, girl or boy?"
"A joke," David said gently. "It was a joke." He shook his head. "We have a long way to go, don't we?"
"Toward understanding each other? Yes, I believe we do. But we also quite literally have a long way to go to reach civilization."
David stiffened. "We . . . ah . . . can make it, can't we?"
Spock hesitated. "I survived my kahs-wan trial," he said at last, "the ordeal that pits a Vulcan boy alone against the desert."
"But you didn't have to worry about having a human with you," David finished dryly, then shrugged. "Desert training in the Negev wasn't exactly a picnic, either. But I survived that." His sweep of a hand took in the vast expanse of wilderness before them. "Shall we?"
"Indeed."
Together, they set out into the desert.
TEN
Obsidian, Deep Desert
Day Unknown, First Week, Month of the Shining Chara,
Year 2296
Dr. Leonard McCoy was having a rotten day. Or night. Or whatever you wanted to call time on this benighted ball of black glass circling a star with the spectroscopic analysis of a serial killer. One moment, Captain Rabin's ten-ton Farsi security chief was manhandling him out of the shuttle teetering on a damn precipice and frog-marching him into a cave. His face still ached from being pelted by grit and black glass, which was bad; he hadn't been able to tend the others, which was worse; and not five minutes later, the fact that three men even stronger than Ensign Kavousi had jumped him meant that he was now a weapon in someone's hands. And that was worst of all.
He had fought, of course, but it had been three against one. His captors had taken communicator, phaser, tricorder, and medical kit from him. Someone, veiled against Obsidian's disastrous environment, had stomped his tricorder into uselessness—except as a lure for Spock and the others.
Then they had stashed him in one of the caves that seemed to honeycomb this range until the storm subsided. They'd stored him without food, water, or a clue about what was going on until, in the last howlings and lashings of the warning storm, he had been hauled outside, blindfolded, and spirited off in some rough, whining vehicle for far too long to wherever the hell they were now. Another damn cave.
At least, this time, they'd left him a tiny light, a primitive little candle flame, so he could see his prison. It wasn't encouraging. The rock faces weren't rough stone, they were obsidian (lava tubes? he wondered, and hoped that the volcano that had created them was at least dormant), and the volcanic stuff had been polished so he could see himself—sorry-looking imitation of an officer and a gentleman, son?— but not break off a chunk to use as a weapon.
Footsteps padded toward his cell. Can't say I think much of the hotel staff, McCoy groused, working himself up into a fine rage. If he could find a use for it to annoy his enemies, so much the better. If not, it relieved his spirits. Spock, he thought, Spock, dammit . . .
Tall figures swathed in desert robes and protective face veils circled McCoy. Their posture wasn't just military, he realized. It looked Vulcan.
Just when he thought things couldn't get much worse! Vulcans were the last people he could hope to manipulate. He rubbed his hand over his face, where a growing beard and tiny cuts itched abominably.
"Here. Eat."
The wrapped bar that the arrogant figure tossed in front of him bore the blocky glyphs that passed for lettering among Klingons. McCoy couldn't read them, but he knew the Klingons ate as much meat as they could as often as they could. As opposed to Vulcans, whose code of nonviolence—hah!—made them vegetarians. This unappetizing cube was sure to be mostly protein, possibly animal in origin. And "origin" really didn't bear thinking about.
He got the message with the meal: deliberate insult.
"Like my old grandma back in Tennessee said when she taught Sunday School, Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.' If that's what you're doing, son, you're doing a rotten job."
"Eat," McCoy's captor said again, unveiling. The doctor was gratified to see that what he had taken for an accent was, in fact, a split lip. And a dark-green bruise marred one of his captor's pointed ears.
"This . . . stuff is probably incompatible enough with human physiology that I'll get a terminal case of the runs, if not worse," McCoy told his jailer. "I'm hot. I'm tired. I'm dirty. I probably stink from here to high heavens—an offense to your fine sensibilities. And on top of everything else, you feed me stuff you wouldn't throw a stray sehlat."
No response. Maybe their Anglic wasn't good enough to understand his rant, and they'd swiped his tricorder. Rotten as his Vulcan was, he'd try to make them understand in that language.
He rasped his throat dry on it, and the tall figures looked at one another. One of them laughed, sharply and briefly.
Say what? McCoy asked himself. If you're laughing, mister, not only have you got a lousy sense of humor, but you're no Vulcan.
He suppressed a groan. If it looked like a Vulcan but laughed, it had to be a Romulan. He didn't need Vulcan logic to tell him that the presence of Romulans on Obsidian, bordering the Neutral Zone, was the worst possible news. If these Romulans felt secure enough to reveal themselves, that meant that unless McCoy was very, very lucky, he could forget about a comfy ride back to the base when they were done with him.
"We are now engaged in a great civil war . . . another one,"' McCoy muttered. "The perfect ending to a perfect day."
"This . . . weakling is the war criminal Makkhoi?" a Romulan behind him asked the one he was trying to face down. "I heard they called him Bones because of experiments he performed on prisoners' bone marro
w. . . ."
Now, just a damn minute! McCoy felt his blood pressure spike up. The name's McCoy, not Mengele!
"Quiet!" said their officer. Probably a centurion and young for the rank at that. "Those charges were never proved."
Well, what do you know? Out of the mouths of babes . . .
The centurion spoiled the good impression McCoy was getting of him by his next words. "He may be a notorious meddler and spy, but he was James Kirk's battle companion and as wily as the captain, respect to his shade. He was a great killer, but no torturer. Whatever else this Makkhoi is, he is loyal to his own. I would offer him honorable parole if that traitor did not forbid."
What traitor was that?
Centuries of inherited forlorn hopes had made McCoy good at grabbing any opportunity, however slight.
"You have my name, sir," he said, bowing in his best Southern Cavalier style to the centurion. "May I know yours?"
"Ruanek," the centurion told him. "Centurion of the Empire. Of House Minor Strevon."
McCoy cudgeled his brains for his last Intelligence briefing and came up with only a headache.
"In service to . . . ?" he probed.
Centurion Ruanek shook his head. "I was warned you would try to trick me. You have the courtesy of my name. Be content with that."
"Hard to be content where the room service is as bad as this, son," McCoy improvised.
"If you were my father, I would fall on my sword."
Aha! "If you were my son," McCoy retorted, "I would have exposed you at birth. Or I'd lock up all the sharp toys in the house till you learned some sense."
He saw reluctant humor glint in this Ruanek's eyes. Good. Maybe I can work on him. Time to change tactics. "Now that we've exchanged fire," McCoy continued, deliberately softening his tone, "how about some information? Like, where are you taking me and what's happened to my friends?"
"You will be told. If you will not eat, come now."
No one pulled a weapon on him, which McCoy supposed was some sort of social promotion, Romulan style. He left the revolting bar of goo sitting on the rock. Fasting in moderation was good for the system. With luck, no helpless creature would find it.
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