He could feel a tingling in the air. It thrilled through him the way a vibration might make its way through a tuning fork.
“Mitchell!” he bellowed, his voice tearing through the howl of the wind.
[13] It was a challenge. But for now, it went unanswered.
Kirk turned to Dehner again. When he spoke to her, it was in a softer voice, a voice that pled for reason. “Elizabeth ...”
“What do you know about gods?” she demanded haughtily.
“Then let’s talk about humans,” he said, making use of the opening she had given him. “Let’s talk about our frailties. As powerful as he gets, he’ll still have all that inside him.”
Dehner looked away. “Go back!” she told him.
But the captain refused to be ignored. He grabbed her arm, eliciting a flash of anger from her.
“You were a psychiatrist once,” he reminded her. “You know the ugly, savage things we all keep buried, that none of us dares expose. But he’ll dare!”
Dehner didn’t say anything. But she was wavering, if only a little bit. Kirk was getting somewhere.
“Who’s to stop him?” he pressed. “He doesn’t need to care! Be a psychiatrist for one minute longer. What do you see happening to him? What’s your prognosis, Doctor?”
Suddenly, Dehner’s look turned introspective. “He’s coming,” she said softly, less a warning than an observation.
The captain raised his rifle and looked around, his nerves stretched taut. “Then watch him,” he instructed Dehner. “Hang on to being a human for one minute longer.”
He had barely gotten the words out before he heard Gary’s voice—not in his head, this time, but echoing mightily among the rocks: “I’m disappointed in you.”
[14] Did he mean he was disappointed in Kirk? Or in Dehner, the agent of his will? There wasn’t any time to ponder the question.
Because a moment later, Gary appeared on a rocky ledge just a few meters away. His temples were gray, but not with advanced age. If anything, he exuded even more vitality than when the captain had seen him last.
Kirk rolled, came up in a kneeling position and fired his phaser rifle. The ruby red beam speared Gary in the chest.
But far from destroying him, it splashed off him harmlessly. Expressionless, seemingly unperturbed, Gary gestured ... and the captain’s rifle flew out of his hands.
Gary looked at Kirk with those ice-cold orbs that had replaced his eyes. “I’m contemplating the death of an old friend,” he said. He glanced at a huge, misshapen boulder protruding from the cliff face in back of him. “He deserves a decent burial, at least.”
The captain didn’t have to think very hard to know which old friend his adversary was talking about.
Suddenly, Gary gestured and an open grave appeared in the sandy ground. He gestured again and a granite headstone materialized—with the name JAMES R. KIRK etched into it.
The captain got it. After all, Kirk’s middle name was Tiberius. The “R” was an old joke between them—one of many.
Before he could say anything, Gary gestured again, projecting invisible beams of force at the boulder overhead. It started to tug loose from its moorings, [15] dislodging dirt and debris. The rock teetered for a moment, as if it would fall—then hung there, defying the law of gravity.
“Stop it, Gary,” cried Dehner.
Gary heard, but he didn’t look at her. His strange, silver eyes were trained on the captain alone.
“Morals,” he said reasonably, “are for men, not gods.”
The captain got to his feet. “God,” he said, mockingly, speaking of Gary instead of to him. “He’s still driven by human frailty.” He turned to Dehner. “Do you like what you see?”
She frowned.
Obviously, Gary didn’t like being ignored. Again, he spoke in that expansive, echoing voice. “Time to pray, Captain. Praise me.”
With a beckoning gesture, he drew Kirk stumbling toward him.
“Pray to you?” said the captain. “Not to both of you?”
Gary turned his palms downward, and Kirk felt a force crush him to his knees. He grunted with the pain.
“Pray that you die easily,” said his former friend and colleague.
With another movement of his hands, he made the captain’s hands come up in front of him. Kirk tried to move them, to no avail.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could catch a glimpse of Dehner’s expression. She could see what was happening now—and the part of her that hadn’t yet become godlike was horrified.
[16] “There’ll only be one of you in the end,” the captain said.
Gary’s fingers closed into a fist—slamming the palms of Kirk’s hands together. Then he twisted his hand and Kirk’s palms pressed even harder—so hard he could feel the edges of his bones grinding together.
The captain spoke through clenched teeth, enduring Gary’s cruelty. “One ... jealous ... god,” he grated. “If all this makes a god ... or is it making you something else?”
His friend tilted his head, as if wondering how much pain Kirk could endure. “Your last chance, Kirk.”
The captain knew what Gary wanted—what he needed. Validation—the confidence that he was all he felt he was. And, in Gary’s mind, Kirk was the only one who could give him those things.
But the captain wouldn’t do that—not even if Gary ground his hands to bloody stumps. “Do you like what you see?” he gasped, gazing at his tormentor because he had to, because he was forced to—but really speaking to Dehner. “Absolute power,” he groaned, “corrupting absolutely.”
Gary had obviously had enough. He raised his chin, probably pondering in what manner he should snuff out Kirk’s life.
But before he could come to a decision, Dehner came to one instead. Raising her hands, she sent a stream of crackling, white energy at him, causing him to recoil and glow a livid shade of pink.
Then she did it again.
Gary shot her a look of surprise, which quickly [17] became anger—and sent the same kind of energy sizzling back at her. Dehner staggered under the brunt of it. He assaulted her a second time and a third, until her legs became weak and she sank to the ground.
But, to the captain’s surprise, Dehner wasn’t ready to admit defeat. She extended her hand again and fought back, sending another twisting shock through Gary’s body. As he withstood it, his expression changed from anger to hurt—encouraging Dehner to attack him again.
He reeled, then pierced her with a charge of his own. It dropped her to her belly, but still she wouldn’t give up. She seemed to sense that victory was in her grasp.
Her eyes narrowing, Dehner hurled the most violent surge of all at him. Gary fell against a rocky outcropping and slid to a sitting position. And as he sat there, a stricken, helpless look on his face, Dehner skewered him again and again with forks of deadly white energy.
Gradually, Gary changed. His temples lost their grayness. His expression became one of innocence, confusion. And the light in his eyes dimmed to nothing, leaving them very human and ordinary-looking.
Dehner’s eyes had dimmed, too. “Hurry,” she whispered, her strength clearly spent, her voice barely audible over the skirling of the wind. “You haven’t ... much time.”
Kirk took her advice to heart. Advancing on Gary, who was trying to pick himself up, the captain snapped his friend’s head back with a right to the jaw. Then [18] he doubled Gary over with a left to the midsection and dealt him a two-handed blow across the back of his neck.
The captain tried to forget that he was pummeling his best buddy. He tried to tell himself that he was erasing an aberration, that this thing in front of him was no longer Gary Mitchell and never would be again.
But it wasn’t easy. The face in front of him was his friend’s, seemingly free of the bizarre energies that had turned him into something deadly and unimaginably powerful. The eyes that looked back at him with hurt and resentment were Gary’s eyes, dark and undeniably human.
Somehow, Gary rolled to
his feet. But Kirk was relentless. He planted his fist in his friend’s belly, knocking the wind out of him. Then he chopped down on the bundle of nerves at the right of Gary’s neck. When his friend didn’t go down, the captain tried the same thing on the other side.
A normal man would have crumpled and blacked out. But mere seconds ago, Gary’s body had been the vessel for enormous power. Some of it seemed to have lingered, fortifying him with more endurance than he had a right to.
Desperate to keep his adversary off-balance, Kirk threw Gary over his hip in the direction of the yawning grave. Somehow, Gary managed to avoid falling into the hole. But in the process, he lost his footing, sprawled, and slammed into the rocky ledge beyond it.
[19] Diving across the grave, the captain leaped on Gary. But the man was far from vanquished. Scrambling to his feet, he knocked Kirk down with a shot to the jaw and staggered him again with a bludgeoning right.
Gary pulled his fist back for a third blow, but the captain blocked it. For a moment, the two of them grappled, each man seeking an advantage. Then Kirk saw an opening and capitalized on it, snapping his friend’s head back with a hard shot to the jaw.
As Gary fell on his back, the captain leaped astride him, pinning him to the ground. At the same time, he caught sight of a rock about twice the size of his head—big enough, certainly, to splinter a man’s skull.
Taking hold of it with both hands, Kirk lifted it as high over his head as he could. Then he looked into his friend’s eyes ... and paused.
“Gary,” he said, “forgive me.”
Then he brought the rock down, aiming for Gary’s head.
But before he could accomplish his objective, his friend’s hands shot out and stopped the rock from descending. The captain tried to force it downward, but he couldn’t budge the thing even an inch.
Gary’s strength was coming back—and quickly. Even as Kirk came to that horrific conclusion, he saw his friend’s eyes begin to glow again with that weird, silver light.
The captain’s heart sank. I waited too long, he thought. And now it’s too late—for everyone.
[20] After all, a being of Gary’s abilities wouldn’t allow himself to be marooned on Delta Vega. Not for long, anyway. He would find a way to escape the planet and return to Federation territory.
Before long, Gary would become ruler of all he surveyed—a despot who could annihilate any and all of his subjects with a wrinkling of his brow. Kirk bit his lip. Had any tyrant ever cared so little about life and death—or held its power so firmly in his hands?
Gary smiled up at him. It was a thin smile, devoid of humor or humanity. When he spoke, it was in a voice that seemed to be everywhere at once. “For a moment, James ... but your moment is fading.”
With frightening strength, he hurled both the captain and the boulder away from him. Kirk rolled as he hit the ground and got to his feet in the same motion. But if he’d expected a moment’s respite, a moment to think, he didn’t get it. Before he could take a breath, Gary was advancing on him.
The captain tried to gather his wits—to formulate a strategy. That’s what he had been trained to do since his first days at the Academy. But what strategy could one pursue against a being of such unthinkable power?
Trying to buy some time for himself, he retreated to the far side of the open grave. But Gary followed him, one step at a time, obviously feeling no sense of urgency. He didn’t even seem to notice Dehner as he walked by within inches of her.
Kirk moved away again and again, until he could feel the hard reality of the cliff face behind him. There was nowhere left to go, he realized. With his other [21] options closed, the captain did the only thing he could do.
He struck Gary across the face.
Kirk had hoped it would catch his nemesis off guard. It did no such thing. With a tightening of the muscles around his mouth, Gary grabbed his friend by the arm and sent him flying.
Then Gary picked up a boulder no twenty men could have lifted, and—turning toward the captain—prepared to hurl it at him.
Why not? Kirk thought, trying to gather his feet under him. It had a certain justice to it, didn’t it? He had attempted to crush Gary’s skull with a rock, so his friend was returning the favor.
Gritting his teeth, the captain launched himself across the space between them. It was a move born of desperation. He didn’t think he would actually accomplish anything with it.
But somehow, he managed to tackle Gary around the knees and make him stumble. And before he knew what had happened, they were tumbling into the open grave together, the boulder bounding harmlessly across the clearing.
Gary’s mouth twisted as they disentangled themselves. No doubt, he was annoyed at the indignity of what had happened. He glared at Kirk, brought his hand up to send another bolt of energy at him ...
But Kirk hadn’t come this far to fall victim to his friend now. Somehow, he found the strength to duck the bolt, then leap out of the grave.
As he did so, he caught sight of his phaser rifle. It was only a few meters away, at the bottom of a rocky [22] slope. Skittering down the incline, his heart banging frantically against his ribs, the captain grabbed for the barrel of the weapon.
Closed his fingers around it. Found the trigger.
And whirled.
At that moment, Gary was only beginning to climb out of the grave. His expression was nothing short of murderous—and to such a being, Kirk knew, there was hardly any difference between thought and deed.
But he had hit Gary with a phaser beam moments earlier, to no avail. What good would it do the captain to take another shot at him? He’d laugh it off and keep on coming.
Think, Kirk urged himself. Think as if your life depended on it.
Suddenly, he got an idea. Aiming his weapon at the irregularly shaped boulder that Gary had tampered with earlier, the captain pressed the rifle’s trigger. As the ruby red phaser beam struck the hunk of rock, it blasted away whatever force or debris still supported it.
The boulder crashed earthward along the cliff face, shaking the very ground on which Kirk was kneeling. Nor was the captain the only one who felt the tremor. Alarmed by it, or perhaps merely distracted, Gary lost his hold on the edges of the grave and fell back inside.
As Kirk looked on, spellbound, the headstone with his name on it fell inside, too. Then the boulder—the one that Gary himself had carved from the naked rock—came down on top of the grave with thunderous force, seeming to crush everything inside it.
A cloud of dust rose around the boulder, like the [23] final, dying exhalation of a primitive god. Warily, the captain stared at it, ready to fire again at the slightest sign of movement.
But there wasn’t any.
Panting, muscles aching from the intensity of his effort, the captain watched as the dust cloud was torn apart by the wind. He caressed the trigger of his rifle with his forefinger, half-expecting the boulder to explode in a million pieces and reveal Gary in his terrible glory.
But incredibly, miraculously, that didn’t happen either. Nothing seemed to move beneath the boulder. Nothing at all.
Kirk raised himself up a little, hardly able to believe the evidence of his eyes. Could Gary have been destroyed? Was it even possible?
Little by little, he convinced himself that it was. Gradually, tentatively, he came to the amazing conclusion that Gary Mitchell was as dead as the stones that rose around him.
Then it hit him. His friend, Gary ...
Gary was dead.
He had taken the life of a man he loved like a brother. He had killed a fellow officer who had saved his life over and over again, too many times for the captain to count.
But if that was so, the superhuman entity who had threatened the Federation had died as well. The civilized worlds Kirk had sworn to defend were safe again, never knowing how close they had come to becoming the playthings of a power-mad god.
Heaving a sigh, he made his way over to Dehner. [24] She was lying on her belly, still breathing, if only bar
ely. He lowered himself to the ground so he could look into her eyes.
They were a miraculous shade of blue. The captain wondered why he hadn’t noticed them before.
“I’m sorry,” said Dehner.
There was no need for that. She had more than made up for her error. But Kirk didn’t say that, because the woman didn’t look as if she had long to live, and she seemed to want to say more.
“You can’t know,” Dehner moaned softly, “what it’s like to ... be almost a ... god.” Then her head slumped and her eyes closed, and the captain knew that she was dead, too.
He touched her shoulder, overcome with gratitude for all she had done—not only for him, but for the entire galaxy. Unfortunately, there was no longer any way he could tell her about it.
Taking a deep breath, he let it out and realized how much he hurt. His cheek was bleeding, his tunic was torn, and he had broken something in his hand. Settling back against a rocky upthrust, he set his rifle down, took out his communicator and flipped it open.
“Enterprise from Captain Kirk. Come in,” he said, his voice as fatigued as the rest of him.
A moment later, he heard the welcome voice of his first officer. “This is the Enterprise,” Spock replied, just a hint of concern rippling the surface of his Vulcan calm. “Are you—?”
“I’ll live,” the captain told him.
“And Mitchell?” asked Spock.
[25] Kirk glanced at the boulder that Gary had pried from the cliff face. He still couldn’t believe what he had done ... still couldn’t believe the nightmare was over.
Or that another, more personal nightmare had begun.
“Gary Mitchell is dead,” he replied evenly, despite the feeling that something had lodged itself in his throat. “Dr. Dehner, too.” He paused. “She’d begun to change into a mutant herself.”
The Vulcan didn’t express grief or dismay. He simply asked, “Shall I see to it that you’re beamed up?”
The captain glanced at his friend’s grave. “Give me a couple of minutes,” he said.
“Aye, sir,” came the reply.
“Kirk out.”
STAR TREK: TOS #85 - My Brother's Keeper, Book One - Republic Page 2