Vulcan's Forge

by Josepha Sherman

  "We are behind no city walls now," Spock cut in. "And time cannot be wasted in niceties."

  The Elder gave him a slight nod of respect, then flung up an arm in signal and urged her chuchaki into a dead run for the wall of mountains. The others followed, no one making a sound now save for the pounding of galloping hoofs against sand, while all around them the air flared and burned. At last the nomads swirled to a stop in the partial shade of an overhanging ledge, and the Elder told Spock quickly:

  "The Sunstorm Truce is the oldest law of the desert. Even warring clans will put aside their hatreds when the sun rages, and shelter together against our common enemy. No one may refuse a stranger shelter, not even," she added in distaste, "the Faithful. Come, follow."

  She slipped as lightly to the ground as a much younger woman, and Spock and Rabin followed her to a deep cleft in the rock wall. Spock, glancing up, noted a petroglyph carved deep into the rock over it: another sun spiral, inlaid with some garish, blood-red stone, with an equally garish yellow warding-off sign below it. This spot was clearly meant to be easily found.

  In the fissure below the petroglyph, protected from the elements, hung a great stone bell. Clever, Spock thought in sudden comprehension. This was evidently part of the safety system set up by the nomads to gain them admittance to shelters across the desert; there must be similar bells hidden all across the clan territories. And presumably the placement of all the bells took advantage of acoustics so that they could be easily heard by those already in the shelters.

  At the Elder's glance, Spock took up the bronze mallet by the bell's side and struck the stone bell. It rang out with a deep, hollow boom, echoing across the rocks with exactly the extraordinary strength he had expected.

  The Elder nodded approval. "Well struck. Continue, if you would. Yes, good. There can be no mistaking the sound. Now we need only wait for the door to open."

  McCoy swayed on his feet, almost falling, then caught himself, somehow managing to keep his balance. Couldn't fall, couldn't stop talking. How long had he been spouting this gibberish? Seemed like forever. Couldn't be more than a day. Could it?

  God, right now he would kill for a nice, cool drink. He'd even settle for a less than nice hard stone floor on which he could lie down and stretch out and—no, mustn't think of rest or, heaven help him, sleep. Mustn't let his mind wander. If the good ole boys back in the good ole U.S. of A. could keep a filibuster going for days, well then, so could he, and . . . and . . . only trouble was, he was running out of horses or ideas for horses. Got to keep going, though. Make 'em up as he went along. Romulans or that madman in white—none of 'em would know the difference anyhow.

  "And . . . and his great-grandfather was Equipoise." God, now I'm quoting Broadway, Guys and Dolls or whatever. Gotta keep going, though, even though my throat's starting to hurt and I'm getting . . . oh Lord, a pun . . . I'm getting a little hoarse. "And I say unto you, oh my brethren, that Equipoise, he begat him a whole string of mighty horses, and they went on to fame and glory, and of them folks said such wonderstruck things as—what the hell was that?"

  A great hollow booming sounded and resounded throughout the cavern, followed by shouts of alarm from all the Faithful. "What is it?" McCoy asked, daringly snatching at Ruanek's arm as the Romulan hurried by. Ruanek only pulled his arm free with a snarl, rushing off without a word. Left forgotten where he stood, McCoy asked plaintively, "Will someone please tell me what's going on?"

  But no one answered him.

  Ruanek let out his breath in a hiss. That had been a near thing, an almost-disaster. When Makkhoi had seized him, the centurion had very nearly reacted with a warrior's reflexes, weapon in hand. Only by the sternest self-control had he kept from drawing and firing. He would not have wanted to be the cause of that brave man's death.

  Besides, Ruanek wasn't so certain himself why the Faithful were suddenly swarming about like some hysterical swarm of tatri with an overturned nest. What was this they were shouting, this "Sunstorm Truce"?

  Suddenly the Master was among them, white robes swirling, the Faithful recoiling from his furious presence. "What are you doing?" he raged at them. "Do not open those doors!"

  "We must!" Their voices were frantic. "It is the Sunstorm Truce! Someone outside has invoked it, and we must, we must respond!"

  Whatever that truce was—something, clearly, to be invoked due to the wild solar activity he'd been told was going on outside—it was obviously of the greatest religious importance to the savages. Surely, their pleading faces were insisting, their Master, their leader, their messiah, surely he would understand this most basic and vital of truces.

  This isn't the time to argue with them, you Vulcan madman! No matter who's out there, it can't be that large a troop. We can deal with them. But if you don't yield here and now, we're going to have a riot on our hands!

  The Master would not heed. With a brusque wave of his hand, he ordered the Romulans forward, Ruanek among them, to bar the way. The Faithful recoiled in shock at the line of cold-faced warriors confronting them.

  As though, Ruanek thought with bitter humor, they can hardly believe that we, their "heavenly messengers," could ever be so cruel.

  For a moment, he dared believe that the shock would be enough, that the Faithful would sink back into submissiveness.

  No. As another hollow boom resounded through the cavern, they surged forward again, and every Romulan hastily drew a weapon.

  But the Faithful stopped just short of attack, pleading, "You must understand, you who come from higher realms. Stand aside, we beg you, stand aside!"

  "Hold your fire," Ruanek commanded his warriors. To the Faithful he said, almost gently, "I am not your Master. I, like you, must obey his will. Have you not served him well? Are you not still loyal to him? Is your faith, then, so weak?" Ha, some of them were wavering. "Go back," Ruanek urged. "We will not harm you."

  It might have worked. But at just that crucial point, that Vulcan maniac shouted, "There is no such thing as Sunstorm Truce! I so declare it!"

  And with terrible timing, that cursed hollow boom sounded again. "There is Sunstorm Truce!" the Faithful cried. "The doors must be opened, shelter must be granted! This is our oldest law!"

  Someone snorted in contempt: Kharik, a sideways glance told Ruanek. Kharik looked at him fully, saying without words, scorn in his eyes, Well? Give the command! Open fire!

  But there were children in the mob, women with babies in their arms, and not a weapon among them.

  I am a warrior, not a butcher! There is no honor in cutting down children!

  "Laws change," Kharik snapped, as much at Ruanek as at the mob, and fired. A child fell, screaming.

  And the mob charged.

  "Why will they not let us in?" the Elder said as though speaking about stubborn children. "They can't have failed to hear the summons. And they can not have strayed that far from the truth."

  Her tone said, I will not permit it!

  "They cannot," Spock agreed, listening intently. "I hear sounds of fighting from within." He exchanged quick glances with Rabin: Not the Federation.

  Who, then? The Romulans? Or were the Faithful suddenly and unpredictably breaking faith?

  "What," Rabin asked succinctly, "has McCoy done?"

  "I doubt that even the doctor—"

  But Spock broke off sharply as one great door creaked open ever so slightly, metal groaning as though those trying to open it were fighting with those trying to keep it shut. He caught a quick glimpse of chaos within, of Romulans backed into a corner firing at wave after wave of the Faithful, and heard quick, fiery shouts of "Sunstorm Truce" and " Betrayal!"

  Perilous to enter just now. But at the same time, they could hardly stay out here during the solar flare. Besides, there could hardly be any better distraction than a rebellion! Given the circumstances, it was illogical to hesitate.

  There was a plan, Spock realized, risky but possible. Rabin would try it, and Rabin would get himself killed, so Spock slipped inside befo
re the human could move. Taking a deep breath, he let his voice ring out with all his strength, cold, logical, precise:

  "Are these your gods?"

  Everyone froze, whirling to him in astonishment. Spock took a sure, deliberate step forward in the sudden tense silence, another, following up his momentary advantage with, "What gods would betray their own sacred laws?"

  The Faithful drew back as he approached, letting him pass, staring at him in open awe. The Romulans followed him with hands on guns, but made no move to fire, either waiting for orders or simply curious to see what he would do next.

  Beyond the mass of people, a tall, white-robed figure stood waiting, head shrouded by the hood of his cloak.

  The one who names himself the Master, Spock thought. Logically, it can only be he. And who else but someone with so melodramatic a title would stand with such melodrama in such flamboyantly impractical garb?

  Leaving the last of the crowd behind, Spock stepped out into the open, pushing back the hood of his desert robes. He saw the Master tense.

  "No," the figure breathed. "Ah, no. The past, not the here-and-now. No."

  With a sweep of a long-fingered hand, the figure brusquely bared his own head.

  Spock stiffened, staring. He should not have been astonished; there was no logical reason for this reaction; they never had found clear proof of that one's death. And yet, illogical or not, he could do nothing just yet but stare at the sight of this aristocratic face. Older, yes, thinner, perhaps, fierce with an aesthetic fervor that was clearly madness, and yet undeniably:

  "Sered!"

  Sered, too, was staring in wide-eyed incredulity, as though seeing the boy Spock had been, seeing the adult he now was, trying desperately to reconcile the two. "You are Spock!"

  It was almost, Spock thought, an accusation. "Yes," he said. "I am."

  TWENTY-THREE

  Vulcan, Sarek's Estate

  Day 21, Tenth Week of Tasmeen,

  Year 2247

  The sealed door of Lady Amanda's wet-planet conservatory clicked open as she stood pruning her peace roses. Miniature pastel sunsets of rose and yellow brushed her hands as she straightened. Only Spock ventured to interrupt her here, because only Spock believed her when she told him his presence was never an interruption. She had been expecting it. And, since he couldn't yet see her face, Amanda allowed herself a smile of pure joy: Her son was alive. Her son was unhurt.

  Her son was changed.

  How could he not be changed, poor boy?

  After his airlift from the Womb of Fire, a debriefing that would have been arduous for an adult, and his release from the Healers' care, Spock's control had been painstaking. His ordeal in the desert seemed to have honed him to a new edge of power and resolve.

  Sarek was pleased at Spock's increased self-mastery. That has to count for something.

  But she was Spock's mother: if anyone could perceive in that rigidly still face that he had come to some sort of important conclusion, it was she. "Out with it, Spock."

  At least he did her the credit of not asking, How did you know? "Mother, I have come to a decision." A human youth might have stammered or blurted out the rest; Spock's words were measured. "I have spoken with Captain Rabin. Her son, David, with whom I traveled, will be entering Starfleet Academy. She thinks that I would be a suitable candidate for entrance."

  Very carefully, Amanda laid aside her pruning shears and looked away from the inappropriate loveliness of her peace roses.

  What hasn't he told us? What did happen out there?

  Whatever, it had clearly been so traumatic that it was going to change Spock's whole future.

  "I take it you concur with Captain Rabin."

  A nod.

  Amanda hastily began adjusting her jacket, an excuse to turn her head away so that her son wouldn't see any unseemly emotion. Sarek would be desolate, and she would miss her son—oh God, would she miss him! But Spock—Spock would be going home! He would see the town in which she had grown up, the cities in which she had studied, the seas and mountains at which she had marveled and that, loving Sarek, she had forsaken to follow him to this forge of a desert planet where the word "love" might be felt, but never, never spoken.

  And Spock? What was he thinking? Surely he had never been more thoroughly Vulcan than now, when he was turning his back on all that Vulcan stood for.

  All that Vulcan said it stood for. There was a difference.

  "You could simply have left," she ventured, trying to break through the shield of control he was raising against her.

  Spock raised an eyebrow. "Captain Rabin told me her nomination was contingent on my telling you. And my father."

  Not securing their consent nor even their acknowledgment. Just, simply, their awareness that their son has made his choice.

  "Captain Rabin's ship leaves Vulcan in seven days," Spock continued. "I wish to . . ."

  He hesitated, and Amanda finished silently for him, Tie everything up in one neat package? Oh Spock. Her heart sank. All Sarek's hopes . . .

  But then Amanda reminded herself sharply that Sarek might hope all he wished—even though her husband would reject the concepts of "hope" and "wish"—but she had a son to protect.

  "You mean to tell your father tonight?"

  Spock nodded. "I plan to notify the Science Academy tonight that I must decline their offer of admission. It is proper for my father to know before I do so."

  Besides, Amanda thought, the Academy would probably call Sarek the minute Spock finished his notification. "Sarek, do you know what that son of yours has done?" As if he were unfit to decide for himself. A pity I can't be a fly on the wall at that conversation. Even if, as everyone's told me over and over, Vulcan doesn't have flies on walls!

  "I am glad that you are telling us, not just . . ." She dashed a grimy hand across her eyes, angry that tears had suddenly welled up. "Not just running off to join the army."

  He blinked. "That is an idiom with which I am unfamiliar."

  "Then learn it quickly, because you're going to hear lots of unfamiliar idioms at the Academy. 'Running off to join the army* used to happen on Earth. Boys who were wild or who . . ." What? Didn't get enough approval? Love? Their father's respect? ". . . who weren't content with their lot would run away and join the military. But my own son, brought up to nonviolence, learning weapons . . ."

  Something flickered deep within Spock's eyes. "Mastery of violence is mastery of one's self. Surak teaches us that."

  "Oh Spock," Amanda sighed, "you know I can't trade chapter and verse about Surak with you. Just tell me: What brought this on?"

  "David Rabin told me how Starfleet prizes the individual—"

  "And just because David—"

  No. Spock had led his agemates before T'Pau and TLar. It was not merely illogical to accuse him of following, conforming; it was inaccurate. Her son was a born leader.

  Was that satisfaction in her son's eyes that she'd broken off? Relief? "All my life," he said softly, "I have been under observation. Some have waited for me to fail, and some have wanted it. Others have stood by, ready to excuse me, while still others have just . . . observed. I look no different from the males of my age set. But whenever my control faltered, I was punished more stringently. This is not resentment, Mother," he added quickly, "it is observation. What is more . . ." His voice grew rough, but only for an instant. "I punished myself."

  "Spock."

  "Look at Sered. If people had watched him as carefully, perhaps, as I have always been observed ... no. Let that go. Mother . . . do you think I can succeed?"

  Oh my son, you are still a boy after all! "I think there is nothing that you cannot do. Except escape the dictates of your own conscience. What does it tell you?"

  "You yourself told me that I am a bridge between two worlds. It is logical that I experience both, not attempt to deny half my heritage. Starfleet allows me to do so, not as an ambassador's unworthy son, but as myself."

  He bowed and left. Amanda seized her pruning
shears and attacked her roses through a blur of tears.

  Tonight, Amanda thought, as the family sat together after dinner, her translations seemed lamentably flat. At least working on them spared her having to meet her husband's eyes. Through their bond, she sensed what passed for contentment in a Vulcan: a satisfactory dinner; the company of his family; a wife intent on work that had won her respect on her adopted world; a son who had survived an ordeal with courage and honor; the prospects of an evening's work and an interval of meditation before he retired.

  Spock laid aside his holographic sketchcube.

  "I must speak," he said.

  Sarek raised his head, looking at his son with a surprisingly benign gaze. Amanda felt her heart contract.

  "Acting unilaterally is disrespectful," Spock continued, "and I mean no disrespect. But. . . I am about to transmit my resignation to the appointment granted me by the Vulcan Science Academy."

  "Indeed?" Sarek's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "I presume you have alternative plans. Is it too much to ask you to share them?"

  Spock swallowed. "Captain Rabin said she would appoint me to Starfleet, but that I must first tell my parents."

  Sarek flicked Amanda a you-knew-this! glance. A hint of his surprise and pain echoed through the bond they shared. "The Federation knows my opinions of its military. I appear to have valued Captain Rabin's judgment too highly. You will, of course, tell the captain that I do not give my consent."

  Spock never flinched. "In all respect, sir, I do not require your consent. I was told that I must, however, acquaint you with my plans before I enter this next phase of my life." He paused, for the first time showing a trace of uncertainty, then added, "I would welcome your acknowledgment and approval."

  Look at him, Amanda thought in anguish. Standing there like a soldier at military attention, waiting for the world to end.

  It ended in ice.

  "Never that," Sarek said. "The idea of my son, handling weapons, learning the madness of the ways of violence, is totally unacceptable. You are ill-prepared to deal with such things."