STAR TREK Ill

 

lions of surface travel. He found it

 

incredibly frustratin g to be forced actually

 

to traverse the distance from one point to another, rather than

 

to have a convenient transporter beam at his beck and

 

call.

 

Finally all the distance had been covered, all the

 

permissions had been granted, all the forms had been

 

signed and sealed and retina-printed, and he and Sarek

 

entered a viewing cubicle that would display data from the

 

Enterprise's flight recorder.

 

Ordinarily the recorder would lie essentially

 

suppressed, quiescently tracking only the

 

routine mechanical functions of the ship. An alert

 

increased its powers of observation and set it to making a

 

permanent record of the ship's crucial areas. The

 

engine room monitor had watched Khan's

 

attack and Spock's last moments of life.

 

Jim Kirk had already relived Spock's death

 

once today, in an all too realistic fashion.

 

He wondered, as he keyed into the player the star

 

date he wished to observe, why he had fought so hard

 

to be permitted to see it again. He could leave Sarek

 

alone with it and let the Vulcan make of it what he

 

would. But in the end Kirk could not abandon his

 

responsibilities to Spock or if his

 

suspicions proved true to McCoy.

 

"Engine room, flight recorder, visual," the

 

computer voice announced. "Star date 8128

 

point seven eight." It froze at the decimal

 

he had chosen. "Point seven eight . .

 

. point seven eight . . .".

 

On the screen, Spock lay dying against the

 

glass of the radiation enclosure, frozen in time.

 

"Back!" Kirk snapped. "Point seven

 

seven."

 

The random access search skipped to the last words

 

between James Kirk and Spock.

 

"Back! Point six seven."

 

"Flight recorder, visual. Star date

 

8128 point six

 

 

The Sparch For Spock

 

seven, point six seven was The tape had reached

 

the point before Kirk left the bridge, before Spock

 

entered the radiation chamber, a time when the Enterprise

 

was still in imminent danger of being caught up in Khan

 

Singh's detonation of the Genesis device. Spock

 

was poised in

 

freeze-frame at the radiation chamber control

 

console.

 

"G. his

 

Spock's image flowed into life. McCoy

 

entered the picture, intercepting Spock before he

 

reached the chamber. They argued in eerie silence.

 

Spock guided McCoy's attention

 

toward Mr. Scott, who lay halfconscious on

 

the floor. As soon as McCoy turned his back,

 

Spock felled him with a nerve pinch.

 

And then . . . Spock knelt down and pressed

 

his hand to Dr. McCoy's temple. Spock's

 

lips formed the silent word

 

"Remember."

 

"Hold," Kirk said. The image froze.

 

"Augment and repeat." The scene scrolled

 

smoothly back. The central image expanded.

 

"Audio," Kirk said.

 

Spock guided McCoy's attention toward

 

Mr. Scott, who lay half-conscious on the

 

floor. As soon as McCoy turned his back,

 

Spock felled him with a nerve pinch.

 

Spock knelt down and pressed his hand to Dr.

 

McCoy's temple.

 

"Remember!" Spock said.

 

"Freeze!" Kirk said. He struggled against

 

hope and excitement to retain his composure.

 

"Bones'. . ." Kirk said softly. All the

 

doctor's tortured behavior, his confusion

 

"One alive, one not," Sarek said. "Yet both

 

in pain."

 

"One going mad from pain!" Kirk said.

 

"Why why did Spock leave the wrong

 

instructions?"

 

"Do you recall the precise words, Kirk?"

 

Sarek 151

 

STAR TREK Ill

 

cocked his eyebrow at Kirk and saw that he did

 

not. He repeated a phrase from Spock's will as he

 

had plucked it from Kirk's mind. ""Failing a

 

subsequent revision of this document, my remains

 

are not to be returned to Vulcan ?"' He paused.

 

"Spock did not . . . did not believe that his

 

unusual heritage would permit the transfer of his

 

katra. He did leave the possibility open."

 

"But he never made a revision. He left

 

only his

 

was The good Dr. McCoy," Sarek said. "Who,

 

if the process had worked properly, would have known

 

what to do. Perhaps Spock was correct. Perhaps he was

 

unable to transfer . . ."

 

"He transferred something! And it's driving

 

McCoy insane!"

 

"Had Dr. McCoy ever experienced the

 

mind-meld before?"

 

"A couple of times, in emergencies."

 

"How did he react?"

 

"He didn't like it. To put it mildly."

 

Sarek raised his eyebrow again but forbore to remark

 

upon the comment. "Did he become

 

physically ill, afterwards?"

 

"I don't know. He wouldn't necessarily have

 

said so if he did."

 

"He is undergoing an allergic reaction."

 

I"What"...'9

 

"It is unusual, but not unprecedented.

 

McCoy's mind is rejecting what Spock gave

 

to him."

 

Kirk fought an impulse to laugh. He lost.

 

"You find this amusing?" Sarek said stiffly.

 

"No yes, I'm sorry, Sarek, I can't

 

help it. McCoy would find it hilarious, if he

 

were in any shape to appreciate it. Come to think of

 

it, Spock would, too."

 

"I find that highly unlikely," Sarek said.

 

"Since the result is that McCoy was unable

 

to assimilate the new

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

information even so far as to rescind the provision of

 

Spock's will that may now destroy both of them."

 

He shook his head. "It would have been

 

better if Spock had been near another Vulcan

 

when he died. He did not prepare well, Kirk.

 

He left too many factors open to chance his

 

"This is hardly the time to criticise Spock!"

 

Kirk said angrily. "Or to deplore

 

Murphy's Law, for that matter."

 

"What is "Murphy's Law"?"

 

""Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.""

 

"How apropos."

 

"What do we do to make things right?"

 

"It may already be too late."

 

"Sarek to was

 

Sarek gazed at the frozen screen in silence.

 

"The fact that Dr. McCoy retains even a

 

semblance of sanity gives me some cause for

 

hope. You are fortunate that you failed in your plan

 

to burn my son like a barbarian chieftain. Had it

 

succeeded, McCoy would surely be lost to us by now.

 

The mind and the body are not a duality, they are parts

 

of a whole. If one is destroyed, the other must

 

disintegrate. If they are separated . . . the

 

greater the distance, the greater the strain, until it

 

becomes intolerable."

 

"The strain on McCoy, you mean."

 

"Precisely."

 

"What must I do?"

 

"You must recover Spock's body from the

 

Genesis world," Sarek said. "You must bring it, and

 

Dr. McCoy, to Mount Seleya, on Vulcan.

 

Only there is the passage possible. Only there can

 

both find peace."

 

"What you ask," Kirk said, "is difficult."

 

"You will find a way, Kirk. If you honor them

 

both, you must."

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

Kirk glanced again at the frozen image of his

 

two closest friends.

 

"I will," he said. "I swear it."

 

Even before Jim Kirk and Sarek had left the

 

records storage center, the questions the ambassador

 

had left unanswered began to trouble Jim.

 

"Sarek," he said, "if I succeed in what you

 

ask . . . will Spock know? I mean will he be

 

aware of himself? Will he retain his individuality?"

 

"He will not be as you knew him," Sarek said.

 

"I understand that!" Kirk said The lessons of the

 

mind-meld remained fresh in his consciousness. "That

 

wasn't my question."

 

"Your question is one that cannot be answered in a

 

few simple words, Kirk. There is no time his

 

"I'll take the time!"

 

Sarek regarded him coolly. "Will you take ten

 

years of your life? First you must learn to speak

 

Vulcan, and then you must dedicate yourself to study. In

 

ten years you might approach the simplest questions of this

 

philosophy . . . and the question you have asked is far from

 

the simplest."

 

"Ambassador, with all due respect that

 

explanation is getting pretty stale! "I cannot

 

answer your question because humans are too immature

 

to understand. Humans are too uncivilised ?"'

 

"I said nothing against humans. Do you forget that

 

Spock's mother is human? She has studied the

 

disci- pline of ancient thought these many years. She

 

has earned a place among the adepts and the teachers.

 

Granted, she is extraordinary. But even you

 

might reach a moderate level of comprehension his

 

"I get the picture," Kirk said,

 

irritated. "It still comes down to, "None of your

 

business." Is that what

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

cocked his eyebrow- at Kirk and saw that he

 

did not. He

 

repeated a phrase from Spock's will as he had

 

plucked

 

it from Kirk's mind. ""Failing a subsequent

 

revision of

 

this document, my remains are not to be returned

 

to

 

Vulcan ?"' He paused. "Spock did not .

 

. . did not believe that his unusual heritage would

 

permit the transfer of his katra. He did leave

 

the possibility open."

 

"But he never made a revision. He left

 

only his

 

was The good Dr. McCoy," Sarek said. "Who,

 

if the

 

process had worked properly, would have known what

 

to do. Perhaps Spock was correct. Perhaps he was

 

unable to transfer . . ."

 

. "He transferred something! And it's driving

 

McCoy

 

insane!"

 

"Had Dr. McCoy ever experienced the

 

mind-meld

 

before?"

 

"A couple of times, in emergencies."

 

"How did he react?"

 

"He didn't like it. To put it mildly."

 

The Search For Spock

 

I'm supposed to say to Harry Morrow, when I

 

ask him to bend regulations into the fourth

 

dimension?"

 

"You must say what you think best," Sarek said,

 

without irony.

 

Hikaru Sulu leaned forward in his leather

 

armchair. "Admiral, I his

 

"No!" Kirk said sharply. "Don't answer

 

me now. I want you to think it over first."

 

The image of James Kirk faded abruptly

 

from the "phone screen.

 

On the surface, what Kirk had asked Sulu

 

to do was not very difficult. A volunteer mission, a

 

few days out, a few days back. But if worse

 

came to worst, the consequences could be grave. Kirk

 

had not softpedaled the most severe of the

 

possibilities.

 

Kirk's intensity troubled Hikaru. It was

 

Kirk who had first commented on the crew's obsession

 

with the death of Spock, and now he himself seemed

 

obsessed and driven. What he hoped to accomplish

 

was not entirely clear to Hikaru who had the definite

 

impress sion that Kirk was not clear on

 

the details, either.

 

But it was certain that Kirk felt responsible for

 

Spock's death, and that h e could not accept it.

 

Hikaru believed Kirk had taken on this mission

 

to expiate the guilt he felt, and he understood

 

Kirk well enough to know that he would never be free of the

 

guilt, or of his grief, until he completed what

 

he had sworn to do.

 

Cold-rain skittered against the window. Hikaru

 

sat in the dark for an hour, thrashing questions around in his

 

mmd.

 

He admitted to himself that he feared for James

 

Kirk's sanity.

 

The house was very quiet. He shared it with four other

 

people, but tonight he was the only one home.

 

i, 155

 

STAR TREK 111

 

He was, in fact, the lone member of the

 

household on Earth. Only rarely was everyone

 

home at the same time, but even more rarely was everyone

 

else gone.

 

I shouldn't be home, either, he thought. Dammit!

 

He got up and went out the back door into the

 

garden. Without his noticing, the rain had stopped and the

 

sky had cleared. The full moon was risen

 

halfway to its zenith. The wet lawn felt cold

 

against his bare feet and the air was

 

ozone-washed. In the near distance, the sea rushed

 

against the shore and away.

 

His mind chased itself around in circles. He needed

 

to think about something else for a while, or better yet

 

to think of nothing at all. He began to move in a

 

ho routine, bo-no-ikAyo, though his ho, his

 

wooden staff, was back in the house along with his gi,

 

and the black belt and hakama he had only

 

recently earned when he passed his shodan test.

 

Tsuki, deflect, tsuki yokomen, yokomen

 

Over the years he had studied a number of

 

martial arts. He was an excellent fencer, and he

 

had progressed to the first of the several degrees of

 

brown belts in judo. But his interest in judo had

 

always had more to do with the fact that he was learning it from

 

Mandala Flynn (he believed she had the same

 

feeling about fencing, which he had taught her).

 

Aikido was different. It was a martial art

 

dedicated to non-violence, to demonstrating to one's

 

opponent the futility of violence. He had been

 

comtraining for some years now. The thrill of being

 

promoted to shodan, of putting on for the first time the

 

black belt and the hakama, the long wide

 

pleated black trousers, was just as intense as what he

 

had felt when he received the orders giving him command of

 

Excelsior.

 

Yokomen, kokushibo, sweep, reverse,

 

thrust, dogiri

 

Usually he could lose himself in the motions, but

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

tonight the question he had been asked and the decision he had

 

still to make remained uppermost in his mind, spoiling the

 

flow and the peace of the routine.

 

James Kirk planned to return to Genesis,

 

whether he got help and the Enterprise from

 

Starfleet, or merely a blind eye turned when he

 

departed.

 

If he were denied permission, or expressly

 

forbidden to go .

 

Suluthought of his magnificent new ship, up in

 

spacedock, waiting for him, nearly ready to fly.

 

That was where he should be, not down here Earthbound,

 

waiting for debriefings, waiting to testify, waiting

 

to find out from Starfleet whether he had kept his nose

 

clean enough to rate being given back his command.

 

They had no right to take it from me in the first

 

place, he thought. But they did, and they

 

made very dear the conditions under which I might hope

 

to regain it.

 

Yokomen, tsuki, yokomen, sweep and turn

 

He lost the rhythm and the pattern. He stopped.

 

He . blotted the sweat from his forehead, from the sides

 

of his face.

 

He weighed Excelsior against what James

 

Kirk had asked of him. He weighed his ambitions

 

against his allegiance; he weighed the future and the

 

past.

 

He made a decision, without regret and without

 

reservation.

 

He swirled back into the routine, moving lightly

 

over the springy wet grass while the last fall

 

roses perfumed the air. The pattern of his motions

 

was smooth and pure, the way he hoped and tried to form

 

his life.

 

Saavik ran through the steamy, humid glade,

 

pushing aside rain-laden fronds that doused her with

 

cascades of sun-warmed water. She followed the

 

sound of the cry, pierced to her center by its despair.

 

The tricorder in her 157

 

STAR TREK Ill

 

hand beeped and clicked with life-sign readings, but

 

she hardly glanced at it. Its data were

 

superfluous.

 

She burst from the forest. It ended so abruptly that

 

she stopped. David hurried up behind her, breathing

 

hard.

 

"Not so fast," he said between gasps. "We don't

 

know what that scream was." He bent over to catch his

 

breath. "It might be a predator it might be one of

 

Vance's dragons."

 

Saavik wondered who had designed this section

 

of the landscape. Enormous cactuslike trees

 

stretched bulbous fingers to the sky. On the rocky

 

surface, Bray, leathery succulents spread their

 

thick leaves like wounded wings, soaking up the sun.

 

The ground quivered gently beneath Saavik's

 

feet. It was like a caress but the illusion shattered

 

when the pain-filled cry came again. Whatever made

 

that sound experienced no

 

pleasure from the trembling land.

 

Saavik strode forward, the gravel of the desert

 

crunching beneath her boots and sliding beneath her heels.

 

The rounded, waterworn stones made the surface

 

treacherous and slippery and difficult to negotiate.

 

"Was this a 'll joke"?" she said to David.

 

"What?"

 

"Waterworn stones, in a desert that

 

has never seen water? False history, false

 

geology."

 

"We wanted to make it seem real," David

 

said. "Layered. Not as if everything were brand new."

 

"In that, you certainly succeeded." The cacti

 

might each have been a thousand years old. The

 

succulents might have been left over from an earlier

 

age, living fossils of the beginnings of evolution.

 

She continued deeper into the forest of cacti. The

 

dryness was a relief after the oppressive humidity

 

of the glade, but what glimpses she could get between the

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

gnarled and looming trunks hinted at another

 

abrupt change of climate.

 

A hundred meters farther on, the ground was

 

covered with snow.

 

The rumble of a temblor surrounded her. She

 

tensed and the cry came yet again. She had been

 

expecting it

 

We hear the cry whenever the ground quakes, she

 

thought. As if there were some direct connection.... But

 

she amended her hasty

 

deduction. She did not have enough data to draw a

 

significant conclusion, and besides, the

 

creature, the being, might simply be frightened by the

 

earthquakes.

 

"Grissom to ground party. What's going on down

 

these?"

 

Saavik stopped and flipped open her

 

communicator.

 

"Saavik here, Captain. We have strong life

 

sign readings, bearing zero-one-five. We are

 

proceeding to investigate."

 

"All right; Saavik, I concur.... But be

 

advised that we are tracking a severe and

 

unnatural age curve for the planet. The

 

harmonic motion of the core is increasing in

 

amplitude at a rate that is making me very

 

nervous."

 

Saavik covered the microphone of the

 

communicator. David was staring in the direction

 

of the snow, apparently ignoring her conversation with

 

Captain Esteban.

 

"Do you have an explanation?"

 

"Later," he said with an intensity that belied his

 

outward indifference to Esteban's information. He

 

gestured impatiently. "Let's go!" Without

 

waiting, he started toward the snow-covered bluffs beyond

 

the desert, moving away from her in more

 

important ways than simple distance.

 

 

STAR TREK Ill

 

Saavik uncovered the communicator pickup.

 

"Grissom, your message acknowledged. Will

 

advise. Saavik out."

 

She snapped shut the communicator and

 

followed David across the desert. He had already

 

passed beyond the limits of the twisted cactus trees.

 

A breeze ruffled his curly golden hair. With every

 

step he took the wind grew stronger. By the time

 

Saavik reached the edge of the forest, the wind had begun

 

to swirl flakes of dry snow against David's

 

feet. He was only about fifty meters ahead of

 

her. She stepped out of the shelter of the cacti, into the

 

whine of the wind. The temperature dropped

 

precipitously, perhaps thirty degrees in as many

 

paces. The wind howled past them.

 

David reached the first patch of solid snow,

 

stopped, and gazed down at something. Saavik joined

 

him. A trail of small, blurry footprints

 

led from the edge of the snow and up the

 

white-blanketed slope. The wind had obscured

 

their outlines. A sudden flurry of snow threatened

 

to bury them entirely.

 

The sky held no clouds. The snow was not

 

falling; it was, rather, being carried by the wind from some

 

other source. The icy, stinging flakes cut the

 

visibility to almost nothing.

 

Saavik sat on her heels and looked

 

closely at the vanishing footprints. She shook

 

her head and rose to her feet.

 

"Those are not, I think, the tracks of

 

Sauriforrn Madisonii," she said. Neither, though,

 

were they the tracks she had hoped to find.

 

In the Starfleet officers' lounge, Jim

 

Kirk feigned calm as he waited for Harry

 

Morrow's reply. Morrow stared silently out into the

 

night, his reflection black on black against the

 

wide expanse of the window that stretched seamlessly from

 

one side of the lounge to the

 

 

11 e Search For Spock

 

other. The Starfleet commander's expression

 

remained unreadable. Kirk forced himself not to clench his

 

fists.

 

"No," Morrow said finally. "Absolutely not,

 

Jim. It's out of the question."

 

All the repressed tension fueledKirk's words.

 

"Harry Harry, I'm off the record

 

now. I'm not speaking as a member of your staff.

 

I'm talking about thirty years of service. I have

 

to do this, Harry. It has to do with my honor my

 

life. Everything I put any value on."

 

He cut off his plea when a steward-stopped at

 

his elbow with a tray, removed empty glasses,

 

replaced them with full ones. Jim held himself

 

silent. After an interminable time, the steward left.

 

"Harry his

 

"Jim," Morrow said carefully, "you are my

 

best officer, and if I had a best friend, you'd be that,

 

too. But I am Commander, Starfleet, so I

 

don't break rules."

 

"Don't q uote rules, Harry! We're

 

talking about loyalty! And sacrifice! One man

 

who died for us, another at risk of dee tilde

 

permanent emotional damage tilde his

 

"Now, wait a minute!" Morrow said. "This

 

business about Spock and McCoy and mind-melds and

 

honestly, I have never understood Vulcan

 

mysticism. Nor do I understand what you hope

 

to accomplish I'm sorry! I don't want you

 

to make a fool of yourself. Understand?"

 

"Harry, you don't have to believe. I'm not even

 

sure I believe. But if there's even a

 

chance that Spock has an . . . an eternal soul

 

then that is my responsibility."

 

"Yours!"

 

"As surely as if it were my own." He leaned

 

forward. "Harry, give me back the Enterprise!

 

With Scotty's help his

 

" 161

 

STAR TREK lll

 

"No, Jim! The Enterprise would never stand the

 

pounding."

 

Kirk realized that Morrow had not understood a word

 

he had said all evening. Harry did not believe him

 

and did not trust him. Worse, he would not permit

 

him to draw on a thirty years" friendship to help

 

him complete a task that bound him as strongly as any

 

Stardeet mission he had ever undertaken.

 

"You've changed, Harry," he said with anger and

 

contempt. "You used to be willing to take some

 

risks."

 

"I used to have different responsibilities than

 

I have now," Harry said sadly. "Jim, I'm not

 

completely unsympathetic to your request, believe

 

me. I'll contact Esteban. If anything comes of

 

. . . what Grissom has found on Genesis,

 

I will of course order them to bring it

 

back."

 

"How long ?"

 

"At least six weeks."

 

"Impossible. Harry, Leonard McCoy is

 

being driven mad! He wasn't properly prepared

 

for what happened to him, he wasn't trained in six

 

weeks the damage could be fatal!"

 

"You're not dictating any terms here!

 

Grissom's mission is vital we have to have the data

 

on Genesis before we can make a decision about it!

 

And you want me to order them to turn around and come

 

straight back so you can save a dead man's soul?

 

Can't you see how that would sound? No. I'm

 

sorry."

 

"I repeat give me back my ship."

 

"I'm sorry, Jim. I can't let you have the

 

Enterprise. his

 

"Then I'll find a shi tilde I'll hire a

 

ship!"

 

"Out of the question!" Morrow said again. "You can hire

 

one but you won't get it anywhere near Genesis. The

 

whole Mutara sector is under quarantine. No

 

one goes there until the science team gets back,

 

and probably not even then. Council's orders."

 

. 162

 

The Search For Spock

 

"Then let me speak to the Council!" Jim's

 

voice rose, so absorbed was he in the urgency of

 

his quest. "Harry, please! I can make them

 

understand!"

 

He realised that every person in the lounge was either

 

staring at him or making a noticeable effort to avoid

 

doing so. He drew back, forcing his temper back

 

under control.

 

"No, you understand," Morrow said. "You simply have

 

no conception of the political realities of this

 

situation. Tensions are strung so tight you could play

 

them like a piano! The Council has its hands full

 

trying to deal with delegations from both the Romulan and the

 

Klingon Empires. My gods, Jim, can you

 

imagine the repercussions if you go in there and

 

announce your personal views on friendship and

 

metaphysics?" He shook his head slowly,

 

stroked the condensation in stripes down the side of his

 

glass with his forefinger, and clenched his fist. "Jim to

 

Your life and your career stand for rationality, not

 

intellectual chaos. Keep up this emotional

 

behavior, and you'll Ipse everything. You'll

 

destroy yourself!"

 

As one friend accused him of abandoning

 

lifelong rationality because of a duty to another friend who

 

had continually perceived him as totally illogical,

 

Jim Kirk felt an almost hysterical urge

 

to laugh.

 

"Do you hear me, Jim?"

 

Jim stared at him for a long time, searching for some

 

way to respond to having been so

 

irrevocably refused. He sagged back in his

 

chair.

 

"Yes, I hear you," he said. He truly was not

 

sure if he had heard everything Harry Morrow had

 

said to him, but it did not matter. He sighed. "I .

 

. . just had to try."

 

"Of course," Morrow said. "I understand."

 

Jim said nothing, certainly not, No, you don't,

 

you don't at all.

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

"Now take my suggestion, Jim," Morrow said

 

kindly. "Enjoy your leave and let all this tension

 

blow away."

 

"You're right," Rirk said with reluctance. He

 

picked up his glass and raised it to Morrow.

 

"Thanks for the drink."

 

"Any time."

 

Jim set it back down without tasting it, rose,

 

and walked from the lounge, eyes front. He was very

 

much aware of Morrow, watching him with

 

concern, very much aware of all the other senior

 

Starfleet officers, deliberately avoiding him.

 

This was the world in which he had lived for thirty years,

 

the world in which he always before felt comfortable and welcome.

 

The palpable chill said The pressure finally got

 

to him, Jim Kirk finally cracked.

 

The rumorswd fly across Starfleet at

 

transwarp speed, grow, and take on a life of

 

their own.

 

He left the lounge, stepping out into the terminal

 

of the spaceport. Restrained conversation and low lights

 

gave way to brilliant illumination and the hubbub of

 

crowds. He felt more out of place here than he ever

 

had on any alien world. He wondered if there was

 

any place left for him at all.

 

He looked around, feeling conspicuous in his

 

Starfleet uniform. Finally he found Sulu and

 

Chekov. They were a hundred meters across the

 

terminal, wearing civilian clothes and sitting together

 

on a circular bench, people-watching. Chekov wore a

 

jumpsuit of relatively severe tailoring,

 

while Sulu wore jeans and sandals and an

 

embroidered white Filipino festival shirt.

 

Sulu saw Kirk first and nudged Chekov. They

 

waited for him with elaborate casualness. Kirk

 

glanced around carefully, looking for other Starfleet

 

personnel. He wished he had asked the two younger

 

officers to wait for him somewhere more private. The way

 

things

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

stood, the less they were seen with him the better.

 

He needed their help, but with any luck he might be

 

able to get them out of all this relatively unscathed.

 

He saw no one else he recognised, he

 

joined Sulu and Chekov.

 

"The word, sir?" Sulu said.

 

"His word is no," Kirk said, gesturing with a

 

jerk of his head back toward the senior officers'

 

lounge. "But my word . . . is given."

 

"Count on our help, sir."

 

"I'll need it, Hikaru." He had nearly

 

slipped, nearly said, "Thank you, Captain." But

 

he had heard about Sulu's removal as captain of

 

Excelsior. The young officer still retained the

 

rank, of course, but without a ship it meant nothing.

 

Kirk felt responsible for the change in

 

Sulu's orders. He did not want to hurt him

 

any more.

 

"Shall I alert Dr. McCoy, sir?" Chekov

 

asked.

 

"Yes. He has . . . a long journey

 

ahead."

 

Leonard McCoy strode down the crowded

 

street. His body felt like someone else's. He

 

could smell the pungent scent of eight different

 

volatile recreational drugs. He was familiar

 

with them all, of course he was, after all, a

 

doctor. But he should not be able to sort them out so

 

efficiently from the surrounding smells of the dirty

 

street, the fog, the rain, incense and warm oil from

 

one establishment, raw meat from another. He could

 

hear more clearly than usual. He listened to five

 

simultaneous conversations, one in Standard, two in more

 

traditional Earth languages, and two no, that was

 

a single conversation being carried out in two different

 

dialects of the same offworld tongue.

 

He arrived at the meeting place. He paused

 

before its brightly lit come-hither sign. He could

 

feel the colors of the neon script illuminating his

 

face with another dozen

 

165

 

STAR TREK In

 

different languages, evenly divided between Earth

 

and other worlds. He rubbed the scratchy stubble on his

 

jaw. There was something else he was supposed to be

 

doing, something Jim had told him to do. Oh. Right.

 

Jim had told him to shave and put on more beard

 

repressor. Was this as important? He

 

remembered what it was he was doing. It definitely

 

was more important than shaving.

 

But is it the right thing? he wondered. There's still time

 

to turn back, go to the nearest hospital, confess

 

to being stark raving mad, and make them lock me up

 

before I get violent.

 

He reached into his pocket, but it was empty.

 

He had forgotten his tranquilizers. He shrugged.

 

They had not been doing him much good anyway.

 

He plunged into the tavern.

 

The noise, the smoke, the appalling scent of

 

sizzling meat assaulted him. He staggered and only

 

managed to keep from falling by grabbing onto the nearest

 

person. She turned, ready to fight, then looked

 

at him more closely and laughed.

 

"Honey, you look like you're having a tough time of

 

it," she said. She supported him easily. She was

 

half a head taller than he. Her

 

heavy, curly black hair spread around her head

 

and down her back. She wore the black leather

 

pants and jacket favored by independent couriers,

 

with the jacket fastened only at the bottom and nothing

 

beneath it. The skin of her throat and the inner curves of

 

her breasts looked like warm sable. She was black on

 

black on black, except her eyes, which were a

 

piercing pale blue. He stared up at her and fell

 

in love with her instantly. Only that saved him from

 

abandoning his appointment and asking her for the help he

 

needed. He did not want to drag anyone he loved

 

into the trouble he was heading for.

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

"I'm . . . I'm all right," he said. He

 

drew himself up straighter. He still had some dignity.

 

She kept a steadying hand on his elbow.

 

"Sure?"

 

"Yes," he said. "Yes, thank you."

 

"Okay." She let him go.

 

Somehow he kept his feet and continued

 

farther into the bar. A tiny plane whizzed past his

 

face. Startled, he stepped back and nearly

 

fell. A second plane whined past, its

 

propellers blurred, minuscule guns

 

blazing with a s harp snapping sound like a fire of

 

pitch-pine.

 

The planes were holograms. Nearby, two

 

youths lay in game couches, their eyes closed and

 

their hands on antiqued controls. Behind their eyelids

 

they were experiencing the dogfight of the two early

 

twentieth century biplanes. McCoy watched the

 

three-dimensional images zoom high over the heads

 

of the bar patrons. Each aircraft was the size of

 

his hand, and exquisitely detailed. Suddenly they

 

dove straight toward him. The Spad 7 vanished

 

into his shirt front, the Albatros D-III

 

dose behind. He hardly had time to flinch. He

 

looked over his shoulder to watch them soar into the

 

heights again, unscathed by their passage through his

 

strange and alien body. The fleeing Spad

 

suddenly executed an elegant loop-the-loop,

 

came up behind the Albatros, and quite abruptly shot

 

it out of the sky. The A1batros screamed into a

 

dive, emitted holographic flame and clouds of

 

holographic smoke and disappeared a

 

handsbreadth from the floor. The Spad zoomed

 

victoriously toward the ceiling and faded away.

 

"Gotcha!" cried one of the youths.

 

"Okay, okay want to make it three

 

out of five?"

 

"That is a wager."

 

They were dressed alike McCoy wondered if that

 

was some new style he had been too out of touch

 

to notice and they looked so alike that it was

 

impossible

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

to tell if they were two of one gender, two of the

 

other, or one of each. He supposed they knew.

 

That was, after all, the thing that mattered.

 

McCoy pushed on ahead. The illumination was very

 

dim, but he could see quite clearly, in an odd and

 

glowing way that he had never experienced before.

 

Nevertheless he could not find the person he was looking

 

for. Instead he found a small unoccupied booth in

 

the corner of the room and settled down to wait.

 

Beneath the din of the tavern he heard footsteps

 

quickly approaching. He glanced up.

 

"Long time, Doc," Kendra said.

 

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah . . ." He would have

 

liked to talk over old times with her. "Anyone . .

 

. been looking for me?"

 

"I have," she said. "But what's the use?" She

 

smiled. "Well. What'll it be?"

 

"Altair water." He drew himself up grandly.

 

was "Specially carbonated from underground

 

fissures.""

 

Kendra snorted at his recitation of the

 

advertisement.

 

"Not your usual poison."

 

"To expect one to order poison in a bar is not

 

logical," he said, and then he realized though it

 

surprised him to hear a tavern employee

 

admitting it that of course she meant alcohol, which was

 

indeed a poison despite its wide use as a

 

recreational drug.

 

Then he wondered what in heaven's name he was

 

talking about. He simply did not want a drink,

 

that was all. He had not had a drink since since before

 

Spock died, as it happened. This is it, he thought.

 

Sheer lunacy. I'm talking to myself. I always

 

talk to myself, though, he thought, it helps me think.

 

Have since I was only a tad. Doesn't mean a

 

thing. As Freud said, Sometimes a cigar is only

 

a cigar. He noticed Kendra

 

168 to --.

 

The Search For Spock

 

watching him curiously. "Excuse me," he

 

said. "I'm on medication."

 

"Got it." She went away to get his water. As

 

her footsteps receded among the hubbub, another

 

set approached.

 

The alien slid into the booth beside him. "Hello!

 

Welcome to your planet."

 

"I think that's my line, stranger," McCoy

 

said.

 

"Oh, forgive. I here am new. But you are

 

known, being McCoy from EnterprZse."

 

"You have me at a disadvantage, sir. You are

 

?"

 

"I name not important. You seek I.

 

Message re- ceived. Available ship stands

 

by."

 

"Good. How soon and how much?"

 

"How soon is now. How much . . . is where."

 

"Where . . . ?"

 

"Is yes. Where?"

 

"Somewhere in the Mutara Sector."

 

"Oh. Mutara restricted. Take permits

 

many... money more."

 

"There aren't going to be any damn permits!"

 

McCoy shouted. "How can you get a permit to do a

 

damn illegal thing?" He glanced around

 

hurriedly to see if anyone had

 

noticed his outburst, then continued in a softer, more

 

conspiratorial tone. "Look, price you name,

 

money I got."

 

"You name place, I name money. Otherwise,

 

bargain no." tilde

 

"All right, dammit! It's Genesis. The name

 

of the place we're going to is Genesis."

 

"Genesis!" The being recoiled.

 

"Genesis, yes! How can you be deaf," he

 

muttered, "with ears like that?" I used to say the same

 

thing to Spock, McCoy thought.

 

"Genesis allowed is not. Is planet

 

forbidden."

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

"Now listen to me, my backwards friend!" He

 

lurched forward and grabbed the alien's collar.

 

"Genesis may be "planet forbidden," but I'm

 

damn well his

 

A hand closed around his arm. McCoy tried

 

to pull away, but the grip tightened painfully. He

 

looked up. The civilian, an ordinary man, so

 

ordinary he should have looked out of place here, but did

 

not, smiled at him pleasantly. When he leaned

 

forward he loomed, and McCoy realised

 

how big he was.

 

"Sir, I'm sorry, but your voice is

 

carrying," he said. "I don't think you want to be

 

discussing this subject in public. his

 

"I'll discuss what I like, and who the hell are

 

you?"

 

The alien tried to pluck McCoy's hands from his

 

collar. McCoy considered going for his throat, but

 

instead clenched his hands harder around the fabric. The

 

civilian tightened his grip again.

 

"Could I offer you a ride home, Dr.

 

McCoy?"

 

What shreds of control McCoy had regained

 

disintegrated.

 

"Where's the logic in offering me a ride home,

 

you idiot! If I wanted a ride home, would I

 

be trying to charter a space flight?" He scowled,

 

beginning to perceive the civilian as an obstacle to his

 

quest. "How the hell do you know who I am?"

 

The plain young man lowered his voice.

 

"Federation security, sir."

 

McCoy realized just how serious an obstacle the

 

young man was. He lurched away, loosing his

 

grasp on the alien and trying to break the security

 

man's grip. He crashed into Kendra,

 

bringing his Altair water, which tumbled off her-tray

 

and splashed over the alien's face and shoulders. The

 

alien leaped to his feet, brushing at the drops and

 

stains. Kendra, surprised by the fray, fell

 

backwards against the next table, sending icy drinks

 

into customers' laps.

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

"You you horrible doctor!" the alien cried, still

 

brushing at the water.

 

"Come in here and punch people, will you?" yelled a

 

customer as bits of crushed ice slid down the

 

front of his sheer trousers. "Whyn't you go across the

 

street where you belong?" He punched the alien, who

 

rolled with the blow, let himself fall over a chair that

 

tripped up the ice-drenched patron, chose the

 

better part of valor, and left his commission behind him.

 

McCoy bowed to the wisdom of his former and all

 

too brief colleague and headed for the door.

 

Unfortunately the Federation man still had hold of his

 

arm. He brought McCoy up short. McCoy

 

swung around, panicked, and grabbed the man at the

 

vulnerable point between neck and shoulder. He

 

squeezed with all his strength and turned to flee without

 

even waiting to see what happened.

 

Nothing had happened at all.

 

The Federation man, his grip unbroken,

 

dragged McCoy to a halt. He looked into the

 

doctor's eyes. "You're going to get a nice,

 

long rest, doctor," he said gently. "Please

 

come along."

 

McCoy had a choice walk or be carried.

 

He walked.

 

 

Chapter 8

 

Saavik followed the blurry, half-obscured

 

tracks across the snow. The wind blew ice

 

crystals against her face, whipping them across her

 

cheeks and freezing them to her eyelashes. She

 

squinted to try to see into the blizzard. Movement

 

caught her eye, and she headed toward it. The snow

 

made ghosts all around her. She would have believed she

 

were seeing phantoms if David's tricorder had

 

not continued to bleat rhythmically.

 

She trudged through the snow, cold and

 

unhappy, trying to ignore both sensations. But

 

she discovered that once she had released her

 

self-discipline, even for only a few days, she

 

could not easily regain the complete Vulcan control

 

she had worked so hard to learn.

 

With the discovery of the creatures around Spock's

 

coffin, her hopes had crashed; a few moments

 

later, when she saw that the coffin was intact,

 

unsealed, and

 

 

Tl Search For Spock

 

empty, her hopes had risen just as abruptly.

 

This emotionalism was dangerous; in addition, it was

 

illogical, for even when she dropped her mental

 

shields completely, she could find no sense of

 

Spock anywhere.

 

She knew she had erred. Whatever happened,

 

whatever she and David found, she must

 

re-establish dominance over her feelings and

 

aspire to eradicating them.

 

Now she understood why Vulcans denied

 

themselves any indulgence in passion. It was

 

to protect themselves from pain.

 

Saavik shivered and pressed forward against the howling

 

wind and the snow.

 

The ground rose beneath her. She was climbing the

 

flank of a glacier. In only a few

 

kilometers' distance it had changed from a thin

 

blanket of snow to a sheet of ice many meters

 

thick.

 

The frequency of the tricorder's output

 

increased until it was nearly a continuous shriek,

 

even louder than the wind. Saavik stopped and

 

motioned for David to turn the thing off.

 

Beneath the ragged whine of the wind, the skittering of snow

 

across the ground, the creaking of the ice beneath her feet,

 

Saavik heard a weak and frightened whimper. She

 

walked toward it. Her boots crunched through the

 

frozen crust. The snow reached halfway to her

 

knees. The uneven footprints before her trailed

 

atop the surface. She wondered if she were

 

following some small and vicious predator that a

 

member of the Genesis team had made up as "a little

 

joke," a little joke that now perhaps was injured and

 

desperate. Saavik was growing impatient with the

 

collective humor of the group. Her phaser made

 

a

 

comforting weight in her hand.

 

A great mass of stone, one moment concealed by the

 

snow, the next a wall of tumbled grey blocks

 

before her, thrust abruptly from the surface of the

 

glacier. The 173

 

STAR TREK In

 

ice had crumpled and cracked all around it,

 

piling up in great heaps to either side.

 

Saavik saw the child.

 

He crouched in the meager shelter of a rock

 

overhang, naked, shuddering uncontrollably with the

 

cold. He saw her and tried to scrabble deeper

 

into the cleft, clumsy on his injured leg.

 

David saw the boy and gasped.

 

"Your comrades appear to have added a

 

humanoid species to the Genesis matrix,

 

Saavik said. She crushed out the spark of fury that

 

rose in her against such presumption. She could not

 

afford to lose her temper, not here, not now.

 

"We didn't," David said. "I'm sure

 

nobody did. We discussed it, because we realised it

 

was possible. But nobody did it. Nobody even

 

argued for it it was obvious to all of us that it would be

 

completely unethical to include an artificial

 

intelligence in the first experiment. Besides, nobody

 

could have put such a complex program into the matrix

 

without everybody else noticing."

 

"David, the evidence is before your eyes." She

 

holstered her phaser, opened the side pocket of her

 

coat, and drew out Spock's burial robe. She

 

stepped toward the child, carrying the heavy cloth in one

 

hand, her other hand empty and

 

outstretched.

 

"No," David said. "The evidence is behind us,

 

in Spock's empty coffin."

 

She looked at him sharply, unwilling to let

 

herself begin to hope again.

 

The little boy huddled against cold stone, too tired

 

to flee any farther. The wind whipped his scraggly

 

black hair around his face and shoulders. The cold

 

had given his skin a peculiar pallid tint.

 

Saavik sat on her heels beside him and touched his

 

shoulder gently. He 174

 

, The Search For Spock

 

flinched violently and stared at her, wide-eyed.

 

She brushed her fingertips across his cheek. He

 

continued to watch her, motionless, as she pushed back his

 

hair, revealing his ears.

 

He was a Vulcan.

 

Saavik stared at him with wonder. She did not

 

know what this could mean. Now was no time for analysis.

 

The cold and the wind were too

 

powerful. Whoever or whatever the boy was, she had

 

to get him off the glacier.

 

She hoped she had shown him she meant him no

 

harm. Moving slowly and carefully, she brought the

 

black cloth forward, opened it slowly so he could

 

see what she was doing, and wrapped it around

 

his shoulders. He touched it with wonder, then hugged it

 

tight.

 

"I am Saavik," Saavik said in Vulcan.

 

"Can you speak?"

 

He cocked his head at her, but did not reply.

 

She felt no resonances from him, no mental

 

emanations, no hint of Spock's powerful

 

intelligence. He was, rather, an innocent, a

 

blank.

 

"It was the Genesis wave," David said. "It

 

must have been. His cells could have been regenerated.

 

Reformed . . ."

 

Still moving carefully so as not to alarm the child,

 

Saavik drew out her communicator. David's

 

theory was the most outrageous she could

 

imagine . . . and the simplest.

 

"Saavik to Gr tilde ssom. Captain

 

Esteban, come in please."

 

"Esteban here, Saavik. Go ahead."

 

"We have found the source of the life signs. It

 

is a Vulcan child, the equivalent of eight or ten

 

Earth years of age."

 

There was a very long pause before Esteban replied.

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

"A child' That's . . . extraordinary. How

 

did he get there?"

 

"It is Dr. Marcus' opinion that this is that the

 

Genesis effect has in some way

 

regenerated tilde aptain Spock."

 

Back on board the Grissom, J.t.

 

Esteban clamped his jaw tight shut to keep it from

 

dropping. He glanced over at his science officer,

 

who stopped staring at the speaker from which Saavik's

 

announcement had come and met

 

Esteban's gaze with an expression of complete,

 

bewildered, speechless perplexity.

 

"Ah, Saavik," Esteban said, slowly,

 

carefully, trying to figure out how to reply without

 

saying that he thought she and David Marcus had gone

 

stark staring bankers. "That's . . . ah . . .

 

extraordinary. What would you, ah, like to do next?"

 

"Request permission to beam aboard

 

immediately."

 

He wanted to stall them for a bit. It was possible

 

that some glitch in the Genesis programs had

 

produced powerful hallucinogens, or even that one of

 

its denizens could take on the form of someone the

 

observer would most desire to see. He could not take

 

the chance of beaming such a thing on board. Of

 

course there was always the possibility that what

 

Saavik was describing was exactly what was

 

happening....

 

"Saavik . . . do Dr. Marcus' instruments

 

show any chance of, er, radioactive contamination?"

 

After a short pause, Saavik replied,

 

"None that he can detect, sir."

 

"Well. All the same, I'm going to advise

 

Starfleet and get instructions."

 

"I am sure Starfleet would approve, sir,"

 

Saavik said.

 

"Nevertheless . . . Iet's do it by the book. Stand

 

by on this channel." He nodded to his

 

communications officer. "G."

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

"Starfleet command, this is USS Grissom on

 

subspace coded channel ninety-eight point

 

eight. Come in, please."

 

The comm officer flinched as a high whine came through

 

the earpiece.

 

"Sir," the comm officer said to Esteban, "some-

 

thing's jamming our transmission. An energy

 

surge."

 

"What's the location?"

 

"Astern, sir. Aft quarter."

 

"On screen."

 

The viewscreen flickered from a forward view to the

 

aft pickup. The starfield lay empty behind them,

 

empty except for an odd interference pattern in

 

one corner. Esteban frowned,

 

wondering if the maintenance of the pickup had been

 

let go.

 

The interference pattern suddenly coalesced and

 

solidified.

 

Out of nothing, a ship appeared.

 

Down on the surface of Genesis, Saavik and

 

David waited impatiently for a response from

 

Esteban. To Saavik's embarrassment, she was

 

beginning to shiver from the cold. The child had stopped

 

watching them. He hunched shivering in the black

 

cloth, his eyelids drooping.

 

"Don't sleep," Saavik said, shaking him

 

gently. He did not respond.

 

"Just like good old J.t. to leave us here freezing

 

our butts off while he puts in a call

 

to Starlleet," David said. "Let's get off this

 

glacier, anyway."

 

Saavik nodded. Between them, they got the child to his

 

feet. His injured leg collapsed beneath

 

him. They would have to carry him, then call Grissom

 

back when they got to a more hospitable spot.

 

As she was about to put her communicator away, it

 

shrieked and squealed.

 

 

STAR TREK In

 

"Oh, my god!" It was Esteban's voice.

 

"Red alert! Raise the shields!"

 

"Captain," Saavik said, "what is it?"

 

"We're under attack! Stand by for

 

evasive stand by for ,,

 

The cracked voice dissolved in a rattle of

 

static.

 

"Captain! Captain Esteban, come in

 

please!"

 

Deep space replied to her with silence.

 

On the bridge of the Klingon fighter,

 

Commander Kruge watched the Federation

 

science ship open out like a flower with a center of

 

flame. The wreckage exploded and expanded beyond the

 

limits of his own ship's port. Kruge's anger

 

was only a little less explosive.

 

He swung around toward his gunner.

 

"I told you," he said dangerously, in the lowest

 

of the low dialects, "engine section

 

only!"

 

"A fortunate mistake," the gunner said. His

 

crest flared up in excitement until he realised

 

how Kruge had spoken to him. "Sir . . . ?"

 

"I wanted prisoners," Kruge said, layering

 

all the strata of his words with contempt. At his

 

side, Warrigul growled.

 

The gunner's crest flattened against his skull.

 

Kruge gestured to Maltz.

 

"Offer him a chance to regain his honor," Kruge

 

said.

 

Maltz stopped before the gunner's station and drew his

 

ceremonial blade.

 

The gunner cringed. "Sir, please, no it was an

 

error!"

 

Maltz willed the gunner to get hold of himself and

 

bow to the inevitable with grace. Maltz offered him his

 

own honor blade. Every member of the crew watched,

 

mesmerised.

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

Instead of accepting it and doing the proper thing, the

 

gunner lurched backward from his station.

 

"Sir, no!" he cried. He stumbled toward

 

Kruge, his hands outstretched in

 

supplication. "Mercy, sir his

 

Kruge drew his phaser and fired. The gunner

 

disintegrated in a flare of energy.

 

"Animal," Kruge muttered. Warrigul

 

snorted in agreement and rubbed up against his leg.

 

Maltz sheathed his blade, glad that its edge had

 

not been sullied with the b100d of a coward.

 

"Sir," Torg said, "may I suggest his

 

Kruge whirled around to confront him. The commander still

 

gripped the handle of his phaser, his frustration

 

undiminished.

 

"Say the wrong thing, Torg, and I will kill you,

 

too!"

 

"I only mean to say, my lord, that if it is

 

prisoners you want, we interrupted a

 

transmission from the planet's surface. I have

 

traced it." He gestured to the screen. "These life

 

signs may be the very scientists you seek."

 

Kruge strode to his side, glared at the

 

screen, and analysed the readings. One was clearly

 

human, the other two less distinctive. Vulcan,

 

perhaps, or Romulan. Human was to be expected;

 

humans were the troublemakers of the galaxy, as far as

 

Kruge was concerned. It annoyed him thoroughly that the

 

Romulans might be involved in this. No

 

doubt they had abandoned their commitments to the Klingon

 

Empire and rushed straight to conclude an alliance

 

with the Federation, in return for a share in Genesis.

 

And he, Kruge, was about to catch them at the

 

treachery.

 

"Very good," he said to Torg, who stood even

 

straighter with the pleasure of his commander's approval.

 

"Very good."

 

* * *

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

The Vulcan boy huddled against Saavik's

 

side, unable to understand the events taking place

 

overhead, unable even to understand that events were taking

 

place overhead, but upset and frightened by David and

 

Saavik's reaction.

 

"Grissom, this is Saavik, come in please his

 

The emergency channel replied with static.

 

Suddenly Saavik sna pped the communicator

 

closed. Her transmission would clearly and

 

easily mark their position.

 

"Saavik, my gods, what happened to them?"

 

"It would seem that Grissom was destroyed by an

 

enemy attack," she said.

 

Saavik thought with regret of Frederic,

 

the Glaeziver, whose counsel she had grown to value

 

in the short time she had known him. He had understood

 

what Genesis might mean for him and his kind; and now

 

he was gone.

 

"Destroyed . . . ?" Stunned, David

 

looked up, as if he might see the remains of the

 

ship drifting dead in the new sky.

 

Saavik put away her communicator. It was

 

useless now. She picked up the Vulcan child and

 

started across the ice. She was very worried about the boy.

 

He was so cold he had ceased even to shiver.

 

The ground quaked gently beneath her feet. Some

 

distance away, ice shuddered, squealed, and ruptured.

 

The child cried out weakly and began to tremble again. His

 

pain did not ease until the temblor faded.

 

Saavik reached the place where, half an hour

 

earlier, the snowfield had ended. Now it stretched

 

onward and she could not see its edge. She hitched the

 

child higher against her shoulder and ploughed on.

 

David caught up to her.

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

"Saavik that means we're stranded down here!"

 

"Logic indicates that is the case," she said.

 

The glacier seemed never-ending. It must be

 

flowing at an incredible rate.

 

"How can you be logical at a time like this? We have

 

to get the hell off this planet!"

 

"We must get out of the snow, first," she said. "I

 

think it likely that we would freeze before we would

 

starve, on this world."

 

"We have to get off Genesis!" David said again.

 

"That will be difficult," Saavik said. It took

 

considerable effort to make any headway through the deep,

 

soft snow. She trudged on.

 

"Why don't you just call for help!"

 

She looked at him. His demand was most

 

curious, the result, no doubt, of panic.

 

He knew her communicator was nothing but a local

 

transceiver. Grissom had been the only

 

Federation ship within its range. Whatever destroyed

 

it was the only ship she would reach if she called again.

 

David's reaction disturbed her greatly. He was

 

more frightened of remaining on the world he had created than

 

he was of transmitting a mayday that would be picked

 

up by enemies. He was more distressed by having to remain

 

in a paradise he had helped design than he was

 

by the

 

destruction of an entire ship and its crew.

 

tilde

 

"I have already made one transmission too many,"

 

she said.

 

David's shocked expression revealed his

 

comprehension. He did not ask her to call for help

 

again.

 

The snow ended as abruptly as it had begun. The

 

edge of the ice moved perceptibly, creeping and

 

grinding its way across the desert floor. Saavik

 

stepped out of cold and into abrupt, welcome heat.

 

She carried the

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

child across a hundred meters of the water-worn

 

stones, to a place where he would be safe for at least

 

a few minutes. The snow on her hair and the ice

 

on her eyelashes melted quickly. Cold drops

 

slid down her face. She lowered-the child to the ground,

 

brushed away the dissolving snow with half-numbed

 

hands, and helped him to lie in a warm and sunny

 

spot.

 

David sank down nearby, drew his knees

 

to his chest, and laid his face against his folded arms.

 

Saavik sat on her heels beside him.

 

"David," she said gently.

 

He said nothing.

 

"David, it is time for truth between us." She put

 

her hands on his shoulders in what she hoped might be

 

a comforting gesture. But what did she know of comfort?

 

She was neither Vulcan, never needing comfort, never able

 

to give it, nor was she Romulan, able to give

 

full rein to her passions. "This planet is neither

 

what you intended nor what you hoped for, is it?"

 

David let his hands fall. "Not exactly,"

 

he said.

 

"Is it what you feared?"

 

"I didn't think this would happen to was

 

"But you have not been surprised by anything we have

 

discovered, no matter how bizarre."

 

"There was one set of equations, I wasn't quite

 

certain about them . . ."

 

"You were overruled by the other members of the Genesis

 

team?"

 

"I. . . I didn't want to make a big thing

 

of them. . ."

 

"Surely you pointed them out?"

 

"Why should I?" he snapped, on the defence.

 

"I'm a mere biochemist, as my young genius

 

physicist colleagues kept trying not to remind

 

me. If Madison and 182

 

The Search For Spock

 

March didn't think their creation was going to dissolve

 

back into protomatter his

 

"Protomatter!" Saavik exclaimed.

 

"David, you are saying the entire system is

 

unstable tilde and dangerously unpredictable! As

 

an ethical

 

scientist his

 

"It shouldn't have happened! It hasn't, yet,

 

maybe it won't. Maybe it wasn't a mistake

 

at all his

 

"And perhaps the ground tremors are in our minds,

 

and the harmonic vibrations we detected from Grissom

 

were instrument malfunction..." She shook her head.

 

"Oh, David."

 

"I just figured, if it worked out for fusion, it would

 

work out for us."

 

"What are you talking about?"

 

"The first time anybody started a fusion reaction the

 

first time on Earth, I mean. It was a bomb, of

 

course his

 

"Naturally," Saavik said.

 

"They didn't know for sure if they'd set off a

 

chain reaction of all.the hydrogen in the

 

atmosphere. But they took the chance. They did it

 

anyway."

 

"Indeed."

 

"Well, at least there's precedent."

 

"I am glad to see you are able to maintain your

 

sense of humor," Saavik said.

 

"Dammit, Saavik, if those equations weren't

 

right, the whole project collapsed permanently!

 

All I had was a suspicion, and it was a

 

suspicion about a probab tilde lity function

 

at that! There was only a one in a million chance that

 

the worst would happen even if the worst could happen.

 

Besides, if we'd tested Genesis the way we

 

intended to, instead of having it blown up by your

 

admiral's his

 

"Your father's his

 

was friend Mister Khan, there wouldn't have been

 

anybody on the planet to be in danger!"

 

 

STAR TREK In

 

"You did not tell your collaborators,"

 

Saavik said. "Even after detonation, you did not

 

tell Carol 9'

 

"If I had, it wouldn't be just us stuck here! Mother

 

would never have gone back to Earth, not if she'd known.

 

She'd have taken the whole responsibility on herself

 

. . . when it was mine to accept."

 

"Just like your father . . ." Saavik said sadly.

 

"You changed the rules." She knew now that

 

Genesis would never benefit anyone. It would never

 

create new resources, it would never provide a

 

new home for Frederic's people, it would only, ever,

 

cause grief and anguish and disaster.

 

"If I hadn't, it might have been years or

 

never!"

 

All Saavik could think was that if Genesis had

 

been delayed or abandoned, none of the recent events

 

would have happened. Reliant would never have visited the

 

world on which Khan Singh and his people were marooned. Khan

 

would never have obtained a starship. He would never have led

 

his people on his mission of vengeance. The scientists on

 

Spacelab would not have been murdered. The

 

Enterprise and its crew of children never would have been

 

attacked. Peter Preston would still be alive.

 

Genesis would not have existed to be used as a weapon,

 

and Mr. Spock would not have had to sacrifice his

 

existence to save his ship and his crewmates.

 

Spock would not have died.

 

Nor would he have been resurrected. The child

 

possessed the substance of her teacher, but he lacked

 

his mind, his experience, his individuality.

 

Saavik rose to her feet and stood

 

looking down at David. A dangerous fury

 

began to form.

 

"And how many have paid the price for your impatience?"

 

Saavik said. "How many have died? How much damage

 

have you caused and what is yet to come"...'9

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

He raised his head. His belligerence dissolved in

 

grief and anguish, but Saavik was still too close

 

to the madness to forgive him. She fled from him, her

 

fists clenched so hard that her nails cut into her

 

palms. When she had run a hundred paces she

 

stopped.

 

Saavik cried out to the dying world, a long, hoarse

 

shriek of rage and pain.

 

For a jail cell, it was not half bad.

 

Leonard McCoy lay on the bunk with his arm

 

flung across his eyes.

 

The bunk was no wider than his shoulders, the

 

floor was badly worn, grey, spongy linoleum,

 

and he could not turn out the lights, but, still, it was not

 

too bad. For a jail cell.

 

McCoy felt quite calm and rational and single-

 

minded, despite having been forbidden any

 

tranquilizers. After he had prowled the

 

cell, pacing back and forth and inspecting every crack and

 

corner of it, after he had come to the conclusion that he could

 

not escape (that was the one other thing wrong with it, of

 

course he could not pass through the open doorway; the

 

force field threw him back into the room at every

 

try, more forcefully and more painfully each time. But,

 

then, it was a jail cell), the compulsion to return

 

to the Mutara Sector and Genesis had vanished as

 

suddenly and completely as it had appeared.

 

He wondered about that. It seemed Uke a

 

terribly logical reaction to have....

 

McCoy dozed off.

 

"You got a visitor, Doc."

 

McCoy started out of troubled sleep, wondering

 

where he was and how he had gotten there, and then

 

remembering. Not a dream, after all. Too bad.

 

"Make it quick, Admiral," the guard said.

 

"They're moving him to the Federation funny farm."

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

McCoy peered sideways from beneath his arm and saw

 

the guard and Jim Kirk standing outlined by the force

 

field. Jim shook his head sadly.

 

"Yes, my poor friend," he said. "I hear

 

he's fruity as a nutcake."

 

Oh, you do, do you? McCoy thought. A "funny