on Vulcan! We're home! We're on
Earth!"
McCoy's e mpty stare continued. Kirk loosed
his hold on the doctor's arm.
"Remember!" McCoy said.
In Spock's unmistakable voice.
"Rememberff99
Kirk knelt on the cold deck, frozen with
shock.
"Admiral," Uhura said through the intercom,
"docking is completed. StarfleetCommander Morrow
is on his way for inspection."
McCoy shuddered, tried to rise, and fainted.
Kirk caught him before he hit the floor.
"Uhura! Get the medics down here!
Get them now!"
He held McCoy, feeling the doctor's
pulse race frantically, thready and weak.
"Bones, it's all right," he said. "It will be
all right."
But he wondered, Will it? What in heaven's name
is happening to us all?
The skeleton crew of the Enterprise assembled
in the docking chamber in preparation for Starfleet
Commander Morrow's review.
"Tetch-hut!"
The boatswain's pipe wailed eerily, the
doors slid open, and "fleet Commander Morrow
stepped on board, his aide close behind.
"Welcome aboard, Admiral."
Morrow grasped Kirk's shoulders.
"Welcome home, Jim," he said. He tightened
his hands. "Well done."
He embraced Kirk. The sincere affection between
them was of long standing. Morrow had been Kirk's first
commanding officer. He had sponsored him for his
The Search For Spock
captaincy, and again for his promotion to the general
staff.
"Thank you, sir," Kirk said, as Morrow
stepped back. To break the tension he said wryly,
"I take it this is not a formal inspection?"
A ripple of half-repressed laughter spread
through the small group.
"No. At ease, everyone." Morrow glanced
around. "Where's Dr. McCoy?"
Kirk hesitated. "Indisposed, sir."
"Ah," Morrow said, "too bad." Taking the
hint, he dropped the subject. "Well. You have
all done remarkable service under the most . . .
difficult . . . of conditions. You'll be receiving
Starfleet's highest commendations. And more
important extended shore leave."
The youngsters, particularly, reacted with pleased
surprise and anticipation.
"That is shore leave for everyone but you, Mr.
Scott. We need your wisdom on the new
Excelsior. Report there tomorrow as Captain of
Engineering."
"Tomorrow isna possible, Admiral," Scott
said, "And forbye, with all appreciation, sir, I'd
prefer to oversee the refitting of the Enterprise.
If it's all the same to ye, I'll come back
here."
"I don't think that's wise, Mr. Scott."
"But, sir, no one knows this ship like I do. The
refit will take a practiced hand. There's much to do
was He glanced at Kirk. "It could be months."
"That's one of the problems, Mr. Scott."
"Well, I might be able to do i" for ye a little
quicker his
"You simply don't know what you're asking."
"Then perhaps the admiral would be so kind as
to enlighten me."
STAR TREK ill
"I can cut you new orders to stay and oversee the
Enterprise was he said.
"I'd thank ye for that."
was but the orders would have to be for you to oversee the
ship's dismantling."
Jim Kirk felt the blood drain from his face.
He could hear exclamations of shock from the crew around
him.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Scott," Morrow said.
"There isn't going to be a refit."
"But ye canna do that!"
"Admiral, I don't understand," Kirk said.
"The Enterprise his
"Is twenty years old. Its day is over,
Jim." His sorrow was sincere, but he made no
pretence that the order was anything but final. "The ship
is obsolete. We kept it on as a training
vessel, mainly because you insisted. But after this last
trip . . . well, it's clear just by looking at the
ship that it's seen its last encounter."
"Ye've no e'en done an inspection!" Scott
cried. "Ye canna just look at a ship and condemn
it to the scrap heap! All ye need do is gi' me
the materiel I requisitioned his
"Your requisitions have been through a
thorough analysis. We gave the ship every point
we could I made sure of that. But it simply
isn't cost-effective to bring it back
to optimum."
""Cost-effective"!" Scott muttered
angrily. ""Opti- mum"! What d'ye his
"Scatty," Kirk said gently.
Scott opened his mouth, saw the look on
Kirk's face, closed his mouth, and resentfully
subsided.
"Scotty, go on over to Excelsior for the time
being his
"Nay!" Scott said. "Do ye no'
understand? It isna possible!"
"Indeed?" The frost in Morrow's single word low
The Search For Spock
ered the temperature ten degrees. He was not
used to having his orders questioned, much less directly
refused.
"My nephew Peter is still on board the
Enterprise," Scott said. "His body is.
I must take him home, to my sister. To his
grave."
The admiral relented. "I see. Of course,
you must go to Earth. But Mr. Scott, the
preliminary test of the engines is urgent. You're the
best man for the job. In a day or so his
"I canna promise. I willua. Some things
there be that are more important than starships, and one of
them is family, one of them is ties of blood."
He hurried from the docking bay.
Kirk turned to Morrow.
"Admiral, I requested I'd hoped to take
the Enterprise back to Genesis."
"Genesis!" Morrow exclaimed. "Whatever
for?"
"Why a natural desire to help
finish the work we began. Dr. Marcus is
certainly ghing to want to return his
"It's out of the question. No one else is going
to Genesis."
"May I ask why?"
Morrow sighed. "Jim . . . in your absence,
Genesis has become a galactic controversy.
Until the Federation Council makes policy, you
are all under orders not to discuss Genesis. Consider
it a quarantined planet . . . and a forbidden
subject."
Morrow's expression forbade argument in general,
and argument before the assembled ship's crew in
particular.
"Dismissed," Kirk said.
Sulu broke off from the rest of the crew of the
Enterprise before they reached the transporter room.
STAR TREK ill
He had no reason to return to Earth immediately, and
no desire whatever for shore leave. All he
wanted was to get back to Excelsior. He had
gone on the Enterpnse training cruise as a
favor, out of courtesy to James Kirk. He should
have been back on board his own ship days
ago.
""Captain Sulu," Morrow said.
Sulu turned back. "Yes, sir?"
"Where are you going?"
"To Excelswr, sir. I'm several days late
as it is."
"Would you come with us, instead, for the time being?"
Sulu hesitated, but Morrow had given him,
however subtly, a direct order if he had ever
heard one.
"If you please," Morrow said.
"Yes, sir." Sulu followed, trying to ward
off a deep feeling of apprehension.
Morrow did not speak to him again until they had
beamed back to Starfleet headquarters on Earth.
The Starfleet Commander bid good-bye to Kirk and the
others. Sulu waited for an
explanation. When everyone else had gone,
Morrow motioned to Sulu to accompany him. They
went into his office, and he closed the door.
"Please sit down, Captain," he said.
Sulu complied.
"I appreciate your patience," Morrow said.
"I have a delicate situation here that I hope you can
help me out with."
Sulu resisted the obvious invitation to offer to do
anything he could.
"How much do you know about Genesis?"
Morrow asked.
"I know who developed it, I know what it
does. I've seen it work." He knew a few of
its technical details, for though he had not seen
Carol Marcus' fabled
The Search For Spock
proposal tape, he hardly needed to. The
ship's grapevine had described it quite thoroughly.
"Do you know what its effect back here has
been?"
"No, sire'
"The uproar has been . . . well . . .
considerable. There's going to be a Federation inquiry,
and a summit meeting. I'm afraid I'm going to have
to ask everyone who was on board the Enterprise during
this recent . . . incident . . . to keep themselves
available to offer testimony. This will pose no
difficulties for the others. But in your case . . ."
Sulu saw where this was all heading. He rose in
protest.
"Please sit down, Captain,"
Morrow said.
"May I assume that the Admiral has already
rewritten my orders?" Sulu said stiffly. He
remained standing.
"Yes. I'm sorry."
"Permanently?"
"I sincerely hope not, Captain. In a few
months, when this has all blown over . . ."
Sulu held back his protest. He knew that it
would do no good, and furthermore that he could only
humiliate himself by making it.
"So many factors are involved," Morrow said.
"The ramifications of the Genesis incident
complicate matters beyond any of our
expectations. But above that, our investment in
Excelsior precludes our keeping it in its berth
indefinitely. The shakedown cruise must occur as
scheduled. Captain Styles will take over for you
while you're otherwise occupied."
"I see," Sulu said. Anger made his words
tight and hard, but he did not raise his voice.
He also did not say, What about afterwards? Do you
really expect me to believe that afterwards, after Styles
has had a chance to 117
STAR TREK In
command that ship, that he'll turn Excelsior over
to me without a protest?
All this was equally obvious to Morrow, who at
least had the good grace to look embarrassed.
"Captain, after all the turmoil has died down,
I promise you Starfleet will make this up to you.
Even if things don't turn out quite as we expect,
you'll find your cooperation well rewarded."
No ship existed, no ship was even planned, that
came close to Excelsior. Sulu feared that
once he lost it, he lost it forever. Being told that
something could make up for that was so
outrageous, so absurd, that Sulu nearly burst
out laughing.
"I will find that reward quite fascinating
to contemplate," Sulu said bitterly. "If the
Admiral will pardon me, I have absolutely
nothing to do."
Morrow frowned at him, not knowing how to interpret
what Sulu said.
Without waiting to be dismissed, Sulu turned and
strode from the lavishly appointed office.
Dan nan Stuart awakened at sunrise, in her
mother's house. The young starfleet pilot could smell
the newcut hay from the field beyond the horse
pasture. The bird that had been singing all night,
confused by the huge full moon, twittered
into silence. Dannan flung off the bedclothes and
wrapped herself in her silken. It clasped itself around
her.
The floor creaked beneath her bare feet. She
leaned on the sill of the small window and looked out
across the valley. The wall of the house was half a
meter thick, for Dannan's mother's house was five
hundred years old and more. Its massive walls
insulated the interior against the occasional summer heat
of northern Scotland, and against the continual damp
cold of winter. Today would be a perfect day, cool
and sharp, the sun 118
The Search For Spock
bright. A better day for saying hello than saying
good-bye.
The valley glowed with dawn. Dew lay thick
on every surface. Dannan could see a darker path
through the silvered grass, where her little brother's old
pony had made its way to the creek to drink.
Dannan remembered coming home
from school on vacation and looking out on mornings just
like this, to see young Peter riding Star bareback and
bridleless at a gallop across the field.
She remembered all the times she had been mean and
impatient, when the prospect of taking care of a
pesky child had been too much to bear. Often she had
been too busy to pay him much heed. She had been
so eager to go off drinking and carousing with her friends that she
had pushed Peter aside. All he had ever
wanted, since he was old enough to understand what Dannan
planned for her life, all he had ever wanted from
her was to hear her tell her stories.
Poor kid, she thought, poor brother. We did
have some fun, in the last few years, but I regret
all the times I closed you out and went my own way.
I hope you found it in your heart to forgive me.
She whistled from the window. A few minutes later
Star trotted slowly over the crest of the hill. He
was old and stiff, and he had been retired since
Peter went away to school. The bay pony's
black muzzle was speckled with white.
Dannan climbed down the steep, twisty stairs
to the main floor of the house, grabbed a carrot and a
piece of bread from the kitchen, and ran through the back
yard to the pasture fence. The dew was cold on her
feet, but the water beaded up on the silken. The
motion of her running spun the droplets sparkling
into the sunlight.
Star whickered at her and reached his head over the
fence for the treats she brought. He nipped up the
bread with his soft, mobile lips and crunched the
carrot
STAR TREK In
in two bites. Dannan rubbed his cheek, then
traced the unusual five-pointed marking of white
on his forehead.
When Peter came home and whistled, Star whinnied
like a colt and galloped to him, age and arthritis
forgotten.
"Poor old boy," Dannan said. "You're
lucky, you never have to understand he isn't coming back.
Maybe you'll even forget him."
She gave the pony one last pat and trudged
back across the wet grass. The house peered at her
from beneath eyebrows of thick willow thatch, where the edge
of the roof had been trimmed in graceful curves
to leave the upstairs windows open to the light.
In the kitchen she made a pot of coffee and put
the morning's bread in to bake, though she did not
feel very hungry. She had not, since hearing the
news of Peter's death on board the Enterpnse.
The kitchen led into her mother's studio.
Dannan could smell the heavy odor of wet clay
and the sharper electric tang of ozone from the kiln.
Dannan rubbed her fingers around the fluid shape of the
mug from which she drank her coffee. Her mother sent her
sculptures and commissions into the city to be fired in
her co-operative's radioactive kiln. The
radiation interacted with the glazes she used, producing
an unusual depth and patina. But the things she
threw for use around the house, she fired in the
traditional way in her studio.
She had spent all day, and most of the night, in the
studio. Dannan had left her alone. It was her
mother's way, in bad times, to close herself off with her
work. Dannan would have liked to talk about what had
happened and about Peter, but she knew her mother would not
be able to do that for some while yet.
Dannan heard a brief, shivery sound from the
street outside, a sound she knew well but
seldom heard in her
The Search For Spock
mother's house. Dannan preferred travelinghere
by more ordinary means, by train or ground car. The time
gave her a chance to make the
transition from high tech to countryside.
Beaming in, besides being too expensive to use very often
for personal business, was terribly abrupt.
But the sound of a transporter beam was
unrnistakable. The loud knock at the front door
confirmed her assumption.
She hurried into the hallway and opened the door just
as her uncle, Montgomery Scott of
Starfieet, raised his hand to rap insistently again.
"Hush, uncle," she said. "Mother's asleep
don't you know what time it is?"
"Nay," Uncle Montgomery said. "I dinna
think to look."
"It's just past dawn." Even thirty years on
a starship should not have taken his ability to glance at the
height of the sun and realize it was early; but, then,
even thirty years on a starship had not changed his
indifference to the subtler niceties of social
interaction.
Montgomery stood on the doorstep just off the
deserted cobbled street. One of the things Dannan
loved about this house was that its front door led
directly into the village and its back into the
countryside. She had grown up here, she was used
to it, but friends she had brought home from school for a
visit, when she was in the Academy, never
failed to find it surprising.
"Well?" said Uncle Montgomery. "Are ye
going to let me in or are ye going to stand in the street
all day in thy skiwies?"
"Don't insult my clothing," Dannan said.
"It's sensitive to discourtesy."
"I knew I should ha' beamed straight in," he
muttered.
STAR TREK lll
Dannan stood aside to let him pass. Even
Uncle Montgomery had better manners than
to beam directly into a private home, whether it
belonged to his sister or not.
He tramped to the kitchen and looked at the
coffeepot with distaste.
"Is there no tea?"
"You know where it is as well as I do," Dannan
said. She sat down and hooked her bare feet over
a rung of the chair.
"I'm in no mood for shine impertinence, young
lady," he said.
"We're not on Starfleet ground now," she said.
She resisted pointing out that even when they were on
Starfleet ground, she was only one grade
in rank beneath him and thus rated being treated as a
colleague rather than as a subordinate. "We're
both guests in mother's house, and I think we should
call a truce."
He shrugged and sat down without getting himself any
tea. He fidgeted in silence for some minutes.
"When is the funeral?" he finally asked.
"Ten o'clock," Dannan said.
He lapsed again into silence. Dannan could not think
of any subject to bring up that would not cause one or
the other or both of them pain. They had never got
along very well. He had opposed her joining
Starfleet, saying she was too spoiled and
undisciplined ever to succeed. When she did succeed,
he never acknowledged it. He never said a word
to indicate that he had been wrong. Dannan
assumed he was still waiting for her to fail.
The message system chimed softly and the reception
light turned on. Grateful for the diversion,
Dannan rose to check it.
The message was addressed to her. This surprised
The Search For Spock
her. No one but Hunter, her commanding of ricer,
knew where she had gone. She turned it
on.
Dannan immediately recognised the image that formed
before her. Peter had described
Lieutenant Saavik in his letters more than once.
She was just as beautiful as he had said. She had great
presence; she gave the impression of strength,
intelligence, and depth. Dannan began to understand why
Peter had spent so much time talking about her when he
wrote.
"Please forgive me for intruding upon your
privacy," the young Vulcan said. "My name is
Saavik. I cannot convey my message in person,
as I am unable to accompany the Enterprise
to Earth. I knew your brother, Peter Preston.
He spoke of you often, with admiration and with love.
He was my student in mathematics. He was quick and
diligent and he found great satisfaction in the
beauty of the subject." The image of Saavik
hesitated. "Though I was the teacher, he taught me
many things. The most important lesson was that of
friendship, which I had never experienced before I met your
brother. I may discover other friends, but I will cherish
the memory of Peter always. I would not have been able
to speak of these feelings had I never met him; that is
one of the things he taught me. He was a
sweet child, a wholly admirable person, and he
saved many lives with his sacrifice. This is perhaps as
little comfort to you as tilde it is to me, but it is
true." Saavik paused, collecting herself,
Dannan thought, fighting to keep her emotions hidden,
as her culture demanded. "I hope that someday we
may meet, and speak of him to each other.
Farewell."
The image on the tape faded out. Dannan
removed the message disk and slid it inside her
silken, which obediently formed a pocket for it.
Dannan returned to the kitchen. 123
STAR TREK Ill
"What was that?"
"Just a message," Dannan said, trying to keep
her voice steady. "Uncle, what happened?" When
she asked the question, her voice did break.
"I canna tell ye," he said. ""Tis all
top secret."
"But everybody already knows about Genesis,"
Dannan said. "Trust Starfleet to put something
everybody already knows under seal! But I don't care
about that. I just want to know what happened to Peter!"
"I'll not have you maligning Starfleet his
"What was he doing on the Enterprise,
anyway? Why was he under your command?"
"Because ye wouldna take him under yours!"
"I'm his sister! It wasn't proper for either one
of us to train him!"
"Proper! Who says it isna proper? I'll
not be accused of favoritism by an impudent his
"Favoritism!" She laughed angrily.
"I'll bet you demanded three times as much from Peter
as you did from anyone else! Favoritism! Others
might accuse you of that, but your family knows
better!"
"'Tis for the family that I arranged to teach him!
I didna want him to be ill-taught his
"Is that why you won't tell me what happened?
Did you push him beyond his abilities? Did you put
him where he shouldn't have been?"
"None o" the bairns should ha' been where they
were," he said so sadly that Dannan felt a
twinge of pity through her grief. "They were all pushed
beyond their abilities."
"By Admiral James Kirk," Dannan said
bitterly, softly. "Admiral Kirk, who his
"I willna tolerate slander!"
"I'm not saying anything everybody else hasn't
been saying for days," Dannan said. "The
last two times he
The Search For Spock
got his hands on the Enterprise, the captains
died. First Decker, now Spock. If I had
command of a ship I wouldn't let him within a light-year
of it!"
"Ye dinna know anything about the situations! And
ye'll never get wi'in a light-year of command if
any friend o' the admiral hears ye speaking like that!"
"Or if you have anything to say about it?"
was "Twillna take a report from me for thy
superiors to see ye are too hot-headed for command."
What happened to the truce? Dannan thought.
Did I start this? I didn't intend to, if I
did.
"All I wanted to know was what really
happened to my brother," she said.
Uncle Montgomery stood up, stalked out into the
yard, and would not speak to her again.
Later that morning, Dannan endured the
memorial for Peter. She barely listened to it.
Today was the first time in years that she had been in a
church. She sat next to her mother, holding her hand.
The pastor described Peter as an
obedient and dutiful little boy a boring creature, not
very similar to what he had been as a child, and nothing at
all like the sharp and independent young man he had been
well on his way to
becoming. Dannan wanted to jump up and push the
clergyman aside and read everyone her last letter from
Peter, written just before he died, received after she
knew he had been killed. She smiled, thinking of the
practical joke he had played on Admiral
Kirk. That took nerve, it did, to face down a
general of ficer.
The last line in his letter was, "Lieutenant
Saavik says we are friends. I'm glad. I
think you would like her, Love, Peter."
She thought he was right. She hoped she had a chance
to meet Saavik someday, face to face.
STAR TREK 111
The eulogy ended. Everyone rose and filed out to the
churchyard. The raw pit of Peter's grave gaped
open in the hard, cold autumn ground. A few
dead leaves scattered past, rustling against
Dannan's boots. They came from the oak grove
that encircled the top of the low hill behind the church. The
grove was sacred, or haunted, or
cursed, depending on whom one asked about it.
Dannan remembered winter nights long ago in
front of the fireplace, and summer nights around a
campfire, telling deliciously scary stories
about the creatures and spirits who lived among and within the
trees.
In the oak grove, a dark shape moved.
Dannan started.
It was nothing. Just the wind, shaking a young tree (but
there were no young trees in the grove, only ancient
ones that did not quiver in the wind), or a
dust-devil (but weather like today's never produced
dust-devils). Who would hide up in the grove?
Who would come to a funeral and fear to attend it? Who
would prefer the solitary
strangeness of the grove to the company of friends?
At the side of the grave, Dannan's mother bent
down, picked up a handful of the cold, stony earth,
and scattered it gently onto the coffin of her youngest
child. Dannan followed, but she clenched her hand around
the dirt until the sharp stones cut into her hand. She
flung it violently into the grave. The rocks
clattered hollowly on the polished wood. The other
mourners looked up, startled by her lack of
propriety.
She did not give a good god's damn for
propriety. She wanted to bring her brother
back, or she wanted to take revenge on the
renegade who had killed him, or she wanted
to punch out her uncle's lights. These were all things
she could not do.
The Search For Spock
Tears flowing freely, Uncle Montgomery
scooped up a handful of dirt and dropped it
into Peter's grave. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
. . ."
.
"To fully understand the events on which I report,"
James T. Kirk said, "it is necessary to review the
theoretical data on the Genesis device."
Kruge leaned back in the command chair, contentedly
rubbing Warrigul's ears as he contemplated his
prize. The image of Admiral James Kirk
dissolved into the simulated
demonstration of the Genesis device.
The translator changed the words from the standard
language of the Federation of Planets into Kruge's
dialect of the high tongue of the Klingon Empire.
"Genesis is a procedure by which the
molecular structure of matter is broken down,
not into subatomic parts as in nuclear fission, or
even into elementary particles, but into sub-elementary
particle-waves."
The torpedo arced through space and landed on the
surface of a barren world. The rocky surface
exploded into inferno. The planet quivered, then, just
perceptibly, it expanded. For an instant it glowed
as intensely as a star. The fire died, leaving the
dead stone transformed into water and air and fertile
soil.
Kruge casually transferred his attention to his
officers, Maltz and Torg. A few minutes
before, alone in his cabin, he had watched the recording
that Valkris sacrificed her life to acquire.
Now, playing it again for his two subordinates, he
was more interested in observing their reaction to the
presentation.
"The results are completely under our control.
In this simulation, a barren rock becomes a world with
water, atmosphere, and a functioning ecosystem
capable of sustaining most known forms of carbon-based
life."
Torg watched intently, all his attention on the
screen.
STAR TREK 111
The young officer was in a state of high
excitement, indifferent to any potential danger.
Maltz gazed at the screen with wonder and
admiration.
The human narrating the tape thanked her
listeners. Kruge smiled to himself at that, wondering
what she would say to this audience. He made the tape
pause.
"So!" he said. He looked at Torg.
"Speak!"
"Great power!" Torg said eagerly. "To control,
to dominate, to destroy." He scowled. "If it
works."
Kruge made no response. He scratched
Warrigul beneath the scaly jaw. The creature
pressed up against his leg, whining, sensing the tension and
excitement.
Kruge turned his ominous gaze on Maltz.
"Speak!"
"Impressive," Maltz said thoughtfully. "They
can make planets. Possibilities are endless.
Colonies, resources his
"Yes," Kruge said gently. He
noticed with satisfaction Maltz's chagrin at his
tone, and his surprise. "New cities, homes in
the country, your mate at your side, children playing at
your feet . . ." As Kruge's voice grew more
and more
sarcastic, Maltz's expression changed from one
of satisfaction to one of apprehension. "dis . . And
overhead, fluttering in the breeze the flag of the
Federation of Planets!" He fairly growled the
last few words, and Warrigul snarled in support.
"Oh, charming!" Kruge said. He sneered at
Maltz. "Sta- tion!"
"Yes, my lord," Maltz said quickly, knowing
better than to try to defend himself when he had so
completely lost his ground. He hurried to his post
and made himself very inconspicuous.
Kruge regarded Torg. "It works. Oh,
yes, it works." He touched the controls of the player
to let the tape continue.
"It was this premature detonation of the Genesis
The Search For Spock
device that resulted in the creation of the Genesis
planet." On the screen, a constellation-class
Federation starship fled the expanding wave that
turned the dust and gases of a nebula into a mass of
energy and sub-elementary particles, thence into a blue
new world.
Kruge turned off the machine, removed the
information insert, and slipped it beneath his belt.
"Tell this to no one," he said to Torg. He
glanced significantly across the control room at
Maltz.
"Understood, my lord."
"We are going to this planet," Kruge said.
"Even as our emissaries negotiate for peace with the
Federation, we will act for the preservation of our people. We
will seize the secret of this
weapon the secret of ultimate power!"
Torg nodded, nearly overwhelmed by the
magnitude of what he had seen. "Success,"
he whispered. "Success, my lord."
"Station!"
"Yes, my lord!"
Torg returned to his position. At
Kruge's side, Warrigul whined and slavered,
reacting to the emotions of its master. Kruge
dropped to one knee to soothe the creature.
"My lord," said the helm officer, speaking
carefully in the tongue of subordinates.
"We are approaching Federation territory."
"Steady on course," Kruge snapped, easing
his impatient first stratum with a second stratum of
approval. "Engage cloaking device."
"Cloaking device engaged."
From within the ship, it was a most odd and satisfying
sensation. The ship and all its contents and all its
occupants became slightly transparent.
Voices grew hollow, like echoes.
Warrigul howled in protest. Lower
subordinates
STAR TREK In
shuddered at the keening cry, knowing that the doaking
device put the creature's temper on a thin
edge. It had a similar effect on people. Once in
a while it would, without warning, drive someone mad.
But this time everyone survived the transition sane.
Kruge smiled and
stroked tilde his beast, satisfied in the knowledge that
outside the cloaking field, his ship was completely
invisible.
Chapter 6
Saavik stepped onto the transporter
platfomm beside David.
"Transporter room," Captain Esteban said
through the intercom. "Stand by to energise."
"Transporter room standing by."
"Energize. his
The beam caught Saavik up and dissolved her.
A moment later it reassembled her, atom by atom,
on the surface of the world David had helped
to create.
From her point of view, the world solidified around
her. She had no real sensation of being tom asunder and
put back together. Throughout the entire process she
could feel sensations from her body, feel the weight
of the backpack on her shoulders, hear and see and
think.
The Genesis world lay wreathed in silver haze.
Great primordial fern-trees reached into the air
then drooped down again with the weight of their own leaves.
The
STAR TREK Ill
fronds had captured miniature pools of
glittering rainwater.
David appeared beside her and looked around with
wonder.
"It really is something, isn't it?" he said.
"It is indeed," Saavik said. She took her
tricorder from her belt and turned it on. David
did likewise. The bio readings were what she had
expected, similar to the long-range scans. The
animate life signals matched nothing she had ever
seen before, but they definitely existed.
David set off through the forest as Saavik
switched the emphasis on her tricorder and
scanned again. She raised one eyebrow in
astonishment.
"This is most odd, David," she said.
He glanced impatiently back.
She frowned and took out her communicator.
"Saavik to Grissom."
"Grissom here."
"Request computer study of soil samples for
geological aging."
"I'll handle that later," David said.
Saavik wondered why his voice was so sharp and
tense. She, too, was anxious to proceed, but not to the
point of recklessness.
"My readings indicate great instability."
"We're not here to investigate geological
aging, we're here to find life forms!" He
scanned around with his tricorder. The signals
changed and strengthened. "Come on!" He hurried off
between the trees.
Saavik felt an intense uneasiness, but she
followed David.
"Grissom to landing party." Even through the
communicator, Saavik could hear the worry in
Captain Esteban's voice. "We show you
approaching indications of radioactivity. Do you
concur?"
The Search For Spock
"Affirmative, Captain. But our readings are
well below the danger level."
"Very well. Exercise caution, Lieutenant.
This landing is 'captain's discretion." I'm the one
who's out on a limb here."
Saavik stood in the midst of a profoundly
unknown world and replied, straight-faced, "I will
try to remember that, Captain."
She strode after David, who had hurried
several hundred meters ahead of her. He paused
to take readings, and she caught up to him. Her
tricorder showed strange and fluctuating
life-signs. She flipped the setting
quickly from bio to geo and tilde got the same
disturbing readings of
instability. At the very least this area would be prone
to severe earthquakes.
Reluctantly Saavik changed the sensor again.
The metallic mass she had detected from on
board Grissom lay very near. She glanced in the
direction of the reading. Before her the trees thinned out
into a blaze of sun. The air was very warm and very
humid. Saavik could not see beyond the sun's
dazzle in the steamy haze.
She walked toward the source of the readings. Before
her, just out of sight, lay a casket that held the
body of her teacher. She did not need to see it to be
certain he was dead. Because now, she was certain. Her
speculations in response to the life-sign readings-
had been fantasies, dreams, wishes. She felt
nothing of the neural touch that had disturbed her so
deeply back on the
Enterprise. If Spock were nearby, if by some
incredible action of the Genesis wave, or some
unsuspected ability of the Vulcan-human
cross, he had returned, Saavik would perceive
him. Of that she felt quite sure.
David pushed his way through the thick
fronds of the fern-trees and into the glade beyond. The
sunlight burst upon him and he stood still, blinking.
SlAR TREK ill
Saavik moved more slowly out of the green shade,
giving her eyes the few seconds they needed
to adapt.
"It is Spock's tube!" David said. He
squinted at it, trying to screen out the light.
"David . . ." She pointed to the base of the
tube.
A mass of pale, moist worms writhed and
wriggled in the shadow of the casket. A few fell from
the cluster into the sunlight and frantically burrowed
into the dark loam.
His eyes now accustomed to the brightness, David
saw what she was pointing at. He took one step
toward the slimy creatures and stopped. A muscle
along the side of his jaw tightened, and he swallowed
hard.
- "Well," he said bitterly. "There's our
life-form read
ing. It must have been microbes, caught on the
surface
of the tube. We shot them here from the
Enterprise. was His voice was tinged with irony and
disappointment. "They were fruitful, and multiplied."
He looked around the otherwise peaceful glade.
"Probably con- taminated the whole planet."
Saavik could think of several other explanations
for the presence of the worms, but as the casket appeared
still to be sealed, she hoped David's explanation was
correct.
"But how could they have changed so quickly . . . his
Did you program accelerated evolution
into-Genesis?" Perhaps the creatures were far more
complicated than they appeared at first glance. She
focussed her tricorder on them, but could not
reproduce the reading that had brought her here;
David approached the torpedo tube. His
tricorder bleated and clicked, registering the
increased radiation flux and confirming the torpedo
tube as the source. Nevertheless, the level was well
below the danger point.
David grimaced, then forged ahead, kicking his
way
The Search For Spock
through the worms. Saavik followed until she
realized what he intended to do. She
stopped, unwilling to see again the-terrible burns on
Spock's sculpted face, preferring not to consider
the effects of climate.
She started despite herself when David slowly
raised the lid of the bier. He stared down into the
casket.
"Saavik . . ."
Pushing a path through the worms with her boots,
Saavik Joined him.
"dis . . He's gone," David said. He reached
into the empty coffin and drew out the black shroud.
"What is it?" he asked.
She took the silvery, silky piece of heavy
black fabric from his hands.
"It is Spock's burial robe," she said,
her voice even, but her thoughts in disarray.
Saavik heard a low, threatening rumble. The
ground shook gently beneath her feet. Merely a
temblor, not a true quake, but a precursor
to and a promise of events more violent.
As the quivering of the earth faded away, a frightened
cry echoed through the forest. A mammal? A
predatory bird? A creature unique to this world?
David spun toward the sound, that lonely shriek of
pain, then, when the echoes had faded and the
cry came no more, he looked back at Saavik.
She felt sure he was thinking, as was she No
highly evolved microbe screamed that scream.
Dannan fidgeted on the sofa in the living
room. It was early evening, and beginning to grow dark
outside. The day seemed to have stretched on forever.
- Uncle Montgomery sat on the other side
of the room, in silence and in shadows.
Dannan's mother had vanished back into her
studio. Everyone in the family knew better than
to disturb her 135
STAR TREK 111
when the door was closed. That was one of the things
Peter's father had never been able to get through his head;
it was the final bit of selfishness Dannan's mother
could not tolerate. Dannan returned from school
once to find, rather to her relief, that the elder
Preston had packed up his things and departed,
muttering about eccentric artists and heading for he said a
Federation colony, on the first available ship.
Dannan had smiled to hear that, for if he thought an
artist who did not like to be interrupted when she was working
was eccentric, wait until he met the people who
shipped out to colonies. He had not been a bad
person, just a self-involved one who should
perhaps never have tried to join a family. Dannan
wondered if anyone knew where he was, to let him
know about Peter.
Dannan rose, crossed the living room, and
took in one stride the three steps up to the foyer.
She slipped into her boots and went out the front
door, into the village. She made her way down the
steep cobbled street to the river's edge, thence through the
town and back to the churchyard, the cemetery, and the old
oak grove.
The evening was extraordinary. In the west, the sun
lined the horizon from below in a thick ochre gold.
The color shaded upward into a soft, intense, and
glowing mauve. Dannan could not describe the sky
in terms of clear spectral colors, only in
mixes and delicate hues. What color did one
name the region where the sky shaded from predominantly
gold to predominantly violet? She could not
answer. In the east, the enormous blood-red
harvest moon began to glide above the horizon. The
just-set sun and the just-risen full moon combined
to create a lavender twilight.
Tonight was the autumn equinox. Dannan spent
most of her life on starships, where every day was the
same 136
The Search For Spock
length and one counted one's time by the
artificial measurement of star dates. When she
came home, to a place where seasons still mattered and
time was more subjective, she experienced the days and
nights and dawns and evenings, the colors and sounds and
scents, as a brand new discovery.
Twilight remained when she reached the
graveyard, though the livid gold horizon had
faded and the sky had changed from lavender to deep
blue. Stars glinted here and there, bright and steady in the
cold, still air. They were never as clear as they were in
space. She was glad Peter had at least had a
chance to see them from above the atmosphere.
Dannan sat on her heels by Peter's
grave. Beneath the flowers that lay thick and fragrant
upon it, the raw earth smelled of rocks and ripped
turf. She could make out his name, and the summation of the
short years of his life, carved into grey granite.
He lay among ten previous generations of his
family, the first of his generation to die. Because of the
family's tradition of taking the name of one's parent
of the same gender, her brother was the only Preston
among many Scotts, more Stuarts, a scatter of
MacLaughlins, and one Ishimoto, a
great-uncle Dannan remembered with great
fondness.
She wished she had some memento of space to leave
on Peter's grave, some alien bloom to put down
to remind everyone that he had dreamed of and sought after and
loved the stars.
As the moon rose higher, Dannan saw a hard
glint among the flowers littering Peter's grave.
She reached between the soft petals and picked up the
bit of gold. It was a medal, the star of valor, with
ruby. She wondered for an instant if it were
Peter's, if her mother or her uncle had put it
here, but in the same instant she recognised it as the
wrong form for a posthumous
STAR TREK lll
medal. It was not engraved with name or place, so it
had not yet been formally presented. It had to belong
to one of Peter's classmates.
A sound broke the silence that lay easily over
the graveyard.
At first Dannan identified the noise as a
dog, a lost puppy. She stood up and waited
to hear it again.
It came from the oak grove.
Dannan strode toward the trees. Fallen
leaves crunched beneath her boots. All the scary
childhood stories about ghosts and changelings passed
through her mind, though she knew the sound came from someone
who was merely flesh and blood.
Besides, she thought, I'm a Starfleet officer,
remember? With citations for bravery of my own.
Big deal.
She heard the sound again a sob.
"Come on out," she said.
The usual silence of the grove was one of calm.
This was the breathless quiet of concealment and
apprehension.
"Come on," Dannan said. "It's cold out
here."
The young man scuffed out of the trees, the red coat
of his uniform black in the moonlight. He stopped
before her, hanging his head.
"Who are you?"
"One of Peter's shipmates."
He was several years older than Peter; he must
have been a third or fourth year student, while
Peter was only first.
"Is this your medal?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
He still did not look up.
"I thought Peter deserved it more than I did."
The Search For Spock
"Because he's dead and you're alive?" Dannan was
about to tell him how brutally often the difference came
down to nothing but chance.
"No!" he said before she could continue. "No!"
He hung his head lower, if that were possible. His
voice was muffled and reluctant. "Because he stayed
. . . and I ran."
Dannan stepped toward him with a flare of shock and
surprise and anger. She wanted, quite simply,
to kill him. She was perfectly capable of doing it with
her bare hands.
But then the boy did-raise his head, as if baring
his throat to accept her revenge. He made no
move to defend himself. The utter defeat was all that
saved him.
She understood why he had lurked in the grove
during the funeral, and why he had not shown himself. She
did not understand why he was still here.
"Get out of here," she said. "Why don't you just go
home?"
His shoulders slumped. "I can't," he said.
"I'm AWOL, for one thing . . . and I used up
all my money getting here. I don't know how
to get back."
"That shows great foresight," Dannan said. "Is
that what they teach you at the Academy these days?"
She sighed. "You'd better come with me."
Dannan took Grenni back to her mother's
house, wondering what the devil to do with him.
Uncle Montgomery had not moved from his place
in the corner when Dannan returned, and the door to the
pottery studio still was closed.
"I believe you know this gentleman," Dannan
said sarcastically to her uncle as Grenni followed
her into the living room. "He came . . . for
Peter's funeral."
Uncle Montgomery greeted Grenni with every
indication of pleasure and gratitude for his presence.
STAR TREK 111
""Tis good o" ye to come pay thy respects
to our bairn his
"Stop it!" Grenni cried. "Why do you keep
being so nice to me? You know where my station
was you must know Pres is dead because of
me!"
Scott stared at him.
"You know he was the only one in our section who
held his post! I was cadet commander, I should have
ordered him out of danger!"
"He'd no' ha' gone," Scott said.
"Then neither should I. his
"Perhaps not," Scott said. "Then we would have two
funerals to attend today, instead o' one." He rose
and approached the boy, took him by the shoulders, and
looked him in the eye. "Dinna get me wrong,
boy. Ye did a cowardly thing. Now ye must
decide if ye are fit for the career ye've chosen.
If this is thy character his
"It isn't!" Grenni said. "I don't know
what happened I don't understand why it happened. I
never did anything like that before in my life!"
Montgomery Scott nodded. "Ye hadna been
properly prepared for what we faced. "Tis at
least as much my fault."
"Are you saying you forgive me?"
"Aye."
Grenni looked at Dannan. "Do you forgive
me too, Commander?"
"Not bloody likely," Dannan said.
Her uncle and the cadet both looked at her,
shocked.
"Dannan was her uncle said, raising his voice
in protest.
"But I'm sorry!" Grenni cried. "I
didn't mean it! If I could make it up his
"Make it up? Make up for the death of my
brother?" Her voice was cold with contempt. "I
don't think so."
The Search For Spock
"I know there's nothing I can do, that's what makes
it so awful his
"Ye dinna want to be vengeful, Dannan,"
her uncle said.
"No," she said, surprised to find that vengeance was
not what she wanted. "You're right, uncle. But so
are you, cadet. There's nothing you can do...."
Uncle Montgomery stood up angrily.
"Ye
always were a cold-hearted little his
"dis . . and that's what makes it so hard,"
Dannan said.
Her uncle put his arm over the boy's shoulders.
"Come along, cadet. 'Tis time to go
home." He sent one quick glare at Dannan.
"Tell thy mother farewell, I canna wait any
longer for her to come out."
He and Grenni left the house. A moment later
Dannan heard the electric sparkle of a
transporter beam. The window next to the front
door glowed briefly, and then turned dark again.
Jim Kirk stared out the window of his
apartment at the night and at the bridges on the
bay, lines of light leading out of and into an infinity of
fog. Reflections overlaid the distant city.
Jim turned to them and raised his glass.
"To absent friends," he said.
Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu raised their
glasses in response. They all drank.
"Admiral, is it certain?" Hikaru said.
"What's going to happen to the Enterprise 7"
"Yes," he said. "It's to be decommissioned."
"Will we get another ship?" Pavel said.
We? Jim thought. Is there a "we" anymore?
The ship to be dismantled" the crew dispersed,
McCoy in shock and doped to the gills, and . . .
Spock dead.
STAR TREK lll
"I can't get an answer," he said.
"Starfleet is up to its brass in galactic
conference. No one has time for those who only stand . .
. and wait."
"How is Dr. McCoy, sir?" Uhura said.
"That's the "good" news," Jim said dryly.
"He's home in bed, full of tranquilizers.
He promised me he'd stay there. They say it's
exhaustion." He sighed. "We'll see."
His doorbell chimed.
"Ah," Jim said. "It must be Mr. Scott,
fresh from the world of kanswarp drive. Come!"
The door responded to his voice and whirred
open.
Expecting Scott, Jim started at the sight
of a much taller figure standing cloaked and hooded in
a Vulcan robe, half hidden by the shadows in his
foyer. Jim felt panic brush against him, bringing
the fear of madness. He thought for an instant that, like
Leonard McCoy, he was beginning to perceive the ghost
of Spock in every patch of darkness, in dreams and
wakefulness alike.
The figure reached up and drew back its hood.
"Sarek!" Jim exclaimed.
Ambassador Sarek strode into the
light. He looked as he did the first time Jim had
met him, well over a decade before. He had not
aged in that time. He would by now, Jim reflected, be
nearly one hundred twenty years old. He
looked like a vigorous man of middle age, which, of
course, was precisely what he was. But a
Vulcan of middle age, not a human being. He
had many years left to look forward to, just as
Spock, his son, should have had over a century.
"Ambassador," Jim said, feeling flustered,
"I I had no idea you were on Earth . . ." His
words trailed off. Sarek said nothing. "You know my
officers, I believe," Kirk said.
Sarek showed no inclination to acknowledge the
The Search For Spock
others. He moved to the window and stared out, his back
to the room.
"I will speak with you alone, Kirk," he said.
Kirk turned toward his friends. They regarded him
with questioning expressions, each clearly uneasy about
leaving him alone in Sarek's intimidating presence.
"Uhura, Pavel, Hikaru perhaps we'd better
get together again another evening." Kirk put into his
tone a confidence of which he was far from certain.
With a gesture he silenced Pavel's hotheaded
objec tion before it started; he shook Hikaru's hand,
appreciating his equanimity, and he returned
Uhura's embrace as he showed his three
compatriots to the door.
"We're here," she said, "when you need us."
"I know," he said. "And I'm grateful."
He let them out, watched the door close behind
them, and turned back to Sarek with considerable
apprehension.
Sarek remained at the window, silhouetted
black against black. Kirk approached him. He
stopped a pace behind him, and the silence stretched on.
"How . . . is Amanda, sir?" Kirk asked.
- "She is a human being, Kirk.
Consequently, she is in mourning for our son. She
is on Vulcan."
"Sarek, I'm bound here to testify, or I would
have come to Vulcan, to express my deepest
sympathies. To her, and to you his
Sarek cut off Kirk's explanation and his
sympathy with a peremptory gesture. "Spare me
your platitudes, Kirk. I have been to your
government. I have seen the Genesis information, and your
own report."
"Then you know how bravely your son met his
death."
""Met his death"?" Sarek faced Kirk, and the
cold expressionlessness of his eyes was more powerful than
STAR TREK 111
any gAefor fury. "How could you, who claim
to be his fAend, assume that? Why did you not bang
him back to Vulcan?"
"Because he asked me not to!" Kirk said, rising
to the provocation.
"He asked you not to? I find that unlikely in
the extreme."
Sarek stopped just short of calling Kirk a
liar, which did not serve to improve the admiral's
temper.
, "His will states quite clearly that he did not
wish to be resumed to Vulcan, should he die in the
service of Starfleet. You can view it I'll even
give you his sepal number."
"I am aware of his sepal number," Sarek said
with contempt. "I am also aware that Starfleet
regulations specifically require that any
Vulcan's body be resumed to the home world.
Surely this would override the dictates
of a will."
"The trivial personal wishes of an
individual?" Kirk did not give Sarek a chance
to reply to his barb. "I'll tell you why I
followed Spock's request rather than the rules of
Starfleet," he said bitterly. "It's because in all
the years I knew Spock, never once did you or
any Vulcan treat him with the respect and the regard
that he deserved. You never even treated him with the
simple courtesy one sentient being owes another.
He spent his life living up to Vulcan ideals and
he came a whole hell of a lot closer to succeeding
than a lot of Vulcans I've met. But he
made one choice of his own Starfleet instead of the
Vulcan
Academy and you cut him off!"
He stopped to catch his breath.
"My son and I resolved our disagreement on that
subject many years ago, Kirk," Sarek said
mildly.
Kirk ignored the overture. "For nearly
twenty years I watched him endure the slights and the
subtle bigotry 144
The Search For Spock
of Vulcans! When he died, I was
damned if I would take him back to Vulcan and
give him over to you so you could put him in the ground and
wash your hands of him! He deserved a hero's
burial and that's what I gave him the fires of
space!" He stopped, his anger burned to ashes,
yet he thought, And I can think of a few dogs I
would have liked to put at his feet.
Sarek behaved as if Kirk's outburst had never
occurred, as if he believed that by refusing
to acknowledge it, he caused it not to exist.
"Why did you leave him behind? Spock trusted you.
You denied him his future."
Jim felt entirely off balance and defensive.
He had no idea what Sarek was talking about. If
Kirk had hoped to accomplish anything by exposing
to Sarek the anger he had built up over the years,
he had failed, miserably, spectacularly,
completely.
"I I saw no future!"
"You missed the point, then and now. Only his
body was in death, Kirk. And you were the last one to be
with him."
"Yes, I was. . ." My gods, Jim
thought, is Sarek trying to tell me that if I had
behaved
differently Spock might still be alive?
"Then you must have known that you should have come with him back
to Vulcan."
"But why?"
"Because he asked you to! He entrusted you with . .
. with his very essence, with everything that was not of his body.
He asked you to bring him to us, and to bring that which he
gave you, his katra, his living spirit."
Sarek spoke with intensity and urgency that served
merely to disguise, not to hide, his deep pain and his
loss. Jim had received the response he intended
to provoke. He wished he had been gentler.
STAR TREK 111
"Sir," he said quietly, "your son meant more
to me than you can know. I'd have given my life if it
would have saved his. You must believe me when I
tell you he made no request of me." If there was
a chance for him to live, Kirk cried out in his mind,
why didn't Spock ask me for help?
"He would not have spoken of it openly."
"Then, how his
Sarek cut him off. "Kirk, I must have your
thoughts."
Jim frowned.
"May I join your mind, Kirk?"
Jim hesitated, for the Vulcan mind-meld was not
the most pleasant of experiences. The human
perception was trivial, Vulcans claimed, compared
to the discomfort Vulcans underwent in order to mingle their
refined psyches with the disorganised thought processes
of human beings. It was clear, however, that Sarek
needed information that Jim did not possess in his own
conscious mind. Acceding to the mind-meld was the one thing
Jim could do, perhaps the only thing, that might give
Sarek some peace.
"Of course," he said.
Sarek approached him and placed his hands on
Jim's face, the long forefingers probing at his
temples. His gaze never met Kirk's. He
seemed to be looking straight through him. Kirk
closed his eyes, but Sarek's image remained.
The sensation was as if Sarek's slender, powerful
hands reached straight into his brain.
Kirk travelled back through time. The recent
message from Grissom brought a strong resonance of
hope from Sarek My son's body may yet
exist perhaps there is still time! Time to save him for the
Hall of Ancient Thought....
And James Kirk understood that even if
Sarek found
The Search For Spock
what he sought, Spock was lost to the world he had
lived in. Only a few individuals, trained for
years in Vulcan philosophic discipline, could
communicate with the presences that existed in the Hall of
Ancient Thought. If Sarek found what he was
looking for, he would give Spock a chance at
immortality . . . but not another chance at life.
Sarek's powerful mind forced Jim farther back in
time. Jim's memories of Spock's death, which had
barely begun to ease, returned with the cruel clarity
of dream.
"He spoke of your friendship."
Jim could not tell if Sarek uttered words or
communicated through the mental link. Likewise he
could not be sure if he himself replied aloud, or in
silence.
"Yes . . ."
"He asked you not to grieve . . ."
"Yes . . ."
"The needs of the many outweigh . . ."
"dis . . the needs of the few his
"Or the one."
The image of Sarek faded from Jim's mind.
Spock appeared, horribly burned and dying.
"Spock . . ." Jim said.
"I have been . . . and always shall be . . . your
friend," Spock said. "Live long . . . and
prosper."
"No!" Jim shouted, as if by force of will he could
twist the dictates of the universe and mortality
to his wishes.
The illusion drained away like a spent wave,
leaving Jim soaked and shaken. He experienced one
last, hopeless thought from Sarek What I thought
destroyed, my son's body, is found; but his soul
is irrevocably lost.
He broke the contact between them.
Jim's knees buckled. Sarek caught and
supported 147
STAR TREK Ill
him. Jim pressed the heels of his hands against his
closed eyes, trying to drive back the sharpened
memones.
"Forgive me," Sarek said. "It is not here. I
assumed he had melded his mind with yours. It is the
Vulcan way, when the body's end is near."
"But he couldn't touch me! We were
separated!"
"Yes," Sarek said. "I see, and I understand."
He turned away, weariness even age apparent in
the set of his shoulders. "Everything that he was,
everything that he knew, is lost. I must return
to Vulcan, emptyhanded. I will join Amanda. We
will mourn our son. We will mourn for the loss of his
life, we will mourn for the loss of his soul."
Without a word of farewell, he started toward the
door. tilde
"Wait!" Kirk cried. "Please . . .
wait." Like a man trying to scale a crumbling
cliff he clutched at fragile branches, and they
pulled loose from the rock. "Sarek, surely he
would have found a way! If there were so much at stake,
Spock would have found a way!"
Sarek strode toward the door and Kirk feared
he would sweep out of the room without a
backward glance, hinting at possibilities,
abandoning them.
Sarek slowed, hesitated, turned. "What are
you saying, Kirk?"
"What if he melded his mind with someone else?"
Chapter 7
The flight recorder from the Enterprise lay under
seal and under guard. Even Admiral James T.
Kirk had to do some fast talking and some throwing of his
authority to see it, much less to bring in an outside
observer. Though Sarek knew all there was for any
diplomat to know about Genesis and about the last
voyage of the
Enterprise, whoever had cleared him for those
reports had not thought to include the flight
recorder. This caused what seemed to Kirk like an
endless delay. However esteemed Sarek might be with
in the Federation, he was not a member of Starfleet.
Then, when the ambassador finally received special
clearance to view the data, Kirk was absolutely
refused permission to transmit the recording anywhere
outside the records storage center. He and
Sarek had to go to it.
Kirk arrived at the center chafing under the limita