Chapter 25

Kirk watched the Vulcan work, as he had on so many other missions, the intent face bent over the fine work…”I am attempting to construct a mnemonic circuit using stone knives and bear claws,” Spock had told Edith Keeler.

Now again there was the argument from the necessity of the galaxy. Kirk was perhaps more tired than he knew of the necessity of the galaxy. Today he had felt the pull of the bonding, strong and sweet, more than the flesh, and not forbidden to him this time by some gulf which could never be bridged. This woman belonged in his world and time, lived on his terms, played in his league as a Free Agent.

Their joining would make her give a hostage to fortune whom she could not lose, would doubtless put them both at the mercy of the Totality. It might well loose her powers in some way which would unleash Oneness on the galaxy. But at one moment Kirk had almost been prepared to risk that, and he sensed that her resistance on that count had also been stretched to the point of the unendurable. Even now he saw in her fire-lit face that the pull of the bonding was strong. She might have risked all the other hazards.

It had been a more personal consideration which had truly held them back until interruption saved them from having to admit that there was one unalterable objection. That objection had a name, and the name was Spock.

“Spock?” Kirk said.

The Vulcan looked up and met his eyes, and Kirk saw that the Vulcan had missed nothing in the tree-cave, Kirk’s tattered Sickbay jacket left behind, and Sola’s belt. The Vulcan’s eyes held no accusation, merely comprehension.

“The Totality,” Kirk said carefully, “has assumed that the necessary conclusion of matehunt could not be resisted or deferred, and that it must inevitably lead to bonding. That was a mistake.”

“Indeed?” Spock said, as if they were talking about a point of scientific curiosity.

“Indeed,” he said firmly. “Mistake number two. Soljenov assumed he could force her to choose. He could not. There were practical reasons why she would necessarily come after me, if she wanted to preserve us both.”

“That was,” Spock said, “a message which I attempted to convey.”

Sola lifted her head. “Your message came through, Spock. Very clearly. I could not have gone to you with his body.” She met the Vulcan’s eyes. “Nor he to you, with mine. That would have been his only choice.”

“So I surmised,” the Vulcan said.

“You surmised!” Kirk said, startled.

Spock shrugged fractionally. “One cannot stir such physiological and psionic processes to such a peak and offer no completion without grave, perhaps fatal, risk.” He turned to look at Sola. “Even now, if you have evaded the final necessity of bonding, I suspect you are at risk.”

“If I am, I must be,” she said. “I cannot choose. Today when I was called to hunt-I was called in two directions. I still am.”

Spock was silent for a long moment. Finally he nodded. “It is something I had wanted to know.”

So did I, Kirk thought, but he did not voice it. From somewhere the plan which had been coming to him in bits and pieces began to fit together. It would not have worked, not even for Spock, if she had felt no such call. And Kirk had thought once that afternoon that perhaps she had not.

At some primitive level he felt a sudden, blinding wish that she had not. Then he pulled himself back to what had to be his main focus.

“Spock, what I said today, to both of you, still goes.” He started to move out of the mouth of the cave. “I’ll take the first watch.”

Spock’s arm blocked the way. “I am neither fragile nor in need of assistance. Nor will you move beyond the portal.”

Kirk looked at him in some astonishment. He could not remember when, if ever, the Vulcan had spoken to him in that tone.

“Nor am I,” Sola said, and he perceived that he was in some difficulty with both of them.

“For the record,” he said rather flatly, “neither am I.” He gave a moment’s thought to trying to move beyond the Vulcan’s arm, thought better of it. “Mr. Spock,” he said in the command tone, “about that communicator…?”

Spock hefted it in his other hand. “It is in perfect order, Captain, and I suspect that it always was. If we cannot now reach the Enterprise, and I detect no blocking force-field, we must conclude that the Enterprise-or at least its communications network-is in enemy hands.”

Spock hit the control on the communicator at Kirk’s nod. “Spock to Enterprise. Come in please.”

There was no answer. Spock consulted a reading. “There is no force-field. The Enterprise does not answer-because it cannot.”

Kirk looked restlessly at the cave entrance. They had his ship! The heart of it, at least. And he was helpless here. These two would certainly not let him get away by himself, even if he were to convince himself that it was anything short of suicide to try that.

“How long to moonrise?” he asked Sola.

It was Spock who answered. “Approximately two-point-one-three hours.”

Sola moved toward the mouth of the cave. “I brought one force-field generator. If it works, no watch is needed.”

She set the control and in fact a force-field sprang up to flicker across the entrance, blocking any animal or humanoid danger. It was better than a thorn boma.

“All right,” Kirk said. “We’ll rest for two hours. It will pay in the long run.” He himself felt ready to drop. The other two did not seem much the worse for wear, but each of them had been very close to death this day. He suspected that Sola still was. And they would all probably be much closer to it still before the night was over.

“I see no alternative,” Kirk said, “to a direct assault on the crater. The Totality has some interest in us. Soljenov will quite possibly even let us in.”

In fact, Kirk was certain that it was he, chiefly, whom the force in the mountain wanted, and if he came close enough, he expected it to take him. Then he would make his bargain for a galaxy-and two souls…

Meanwhile the three of them had reached a peculiar resting-place here, and there was an odd kind of comfort in the presence of the other two, even for these brief hours. He settled down to try to rest.