groaned.

 

She stopped just inside the cave. The boy huddled

 

against the wall as if he could draw in its coolness and

 

take upon himself a stony calm. His muscles

 

strained so taut they quivered, though the earthquake

 

had faded. This paroxysm had nothing to do with the

 

convulsions of the dying world.

 

"Spock," she said softly.

 

Startled, he flung himself around to face her.

 

He had changed again. Before, she could see him

 

only as a Vulcan child. Now she could see in him

 

her teacher, her mentor Spock. He was younger than

 

when she first encountered him. But he was Spock.

 

The fever burned in his face and in his eyes. He

 

fought what he could not understand. He

 

struggled to gain some control over his body

 

and his world.

 

Saavik knew that he would fail.

 

"So it has come," she said to him in Vulcan.

 

She 224

 

The Search For Spock

 

moved closer to him, speaking quietly. "It is

 

called pon farr. ,,

 

He could not understand her words, but her tone calmed

 

him.

 

"Will you trust me, my mentor, my friend?" I know

 

it is no longer you, she thought, but I will help you if

 

I can, because of who you used to be.

 

The sound of his labored breathing filled the cave.

 

She knelt beside him. She was not certain that anything

 

she could do would ease his pain. They were not formally

 

pledged, psychically linked.

 

His body was so fevered she could feel the heat, so

 

fevered it must burn him. She touched his hand and felt

 

him flinch as a thread of connection formed between them. She

 

guided his right hand against hers, then put her left hand

 

to his temple. His unformed intelligence met her

 

trained mind, and she used the techniques he had

 

taught her it seemed so long ago, in another life

 

to soothe his fear and confusion. Saavik felt the

 

tangled tautness of his body begin

 

to relax.

 

Spock reached up and gently touched her

 

cheek. His fingers followed the upward stroke of

 

her eyebrow, then curved down to caress her

 

temple, as Saavik met the gaze of his

 

gold-flecked brown eyes.

 

The viewscreen wavered with the Enterprise's

 

change of state from warp speed to sub-light. The

 

new star and its single planet spun where only a

 

few days before the Mutara Nebula filled space

 

with dense dust-clouds. Despite everything, Jim

 

Kirk remained taken by the world's beauty.

 

"We are secured from warp speed," Sulu said.

 

"Now entering the Mutara sector. Genesis

 

approaching."

 

"What about Grissom, Mr. Chekov?" Kirk

 

asked.

 

"Still no response, sir."

 

Sulu increased the magnification of the viewscreen

 

 

STAR TREK ill

 

and put a bit of the ship's limited extra power

 

to the sensors, but he could find no trace of

 

Grissom, either.

 

"Bones," Kirk said tentatively,

 

"can you Eve me a quadrant bi-scan?"

 

He glanced back at McCoy. The doctor

 

hunched unmoving over Spock's station. After a

 

moment he spread his hands in frustration and defeat.

 

"I think you just exceeded my capability . . ."

 

"Never mind, Bones." Kirk gestured

 

to Chekov. "Mr. Chekov his

 

"Yes, Admiral." Chekov joined McCoy

 

and took over.

 

"Sorry," McCoy said shakily.

 

"Your time is coming, Doctor. Mr. Sulu,

 

proceed at full impulse power."

 

"Full impulse power," Sulu said.

 

"There is no sign of ship, Admiral,"

 

Chekov said. "Not Grissom, not . . . anything."

 

"Very well, Mr. Chekov. Continue scanning."

 

Kirk rose and joined McCoy.

 

"You all right?" he asked softly.

 

"I don't know, Jim," McCoy said.

 

"He's . . . gone, again. I can feel him, it's

 

almost as if I can talk to him. But then he slips

 

away. For longer and longer, and when he . . . comes

 

back . . . my sense of him is weaker."

 

Kirk frowned. McCoy had not added that he,

 

too, felt weaker, but he did not have to.

 

It was obvious to Kirk that the doctor's strength was

 

slowly draining away.

 

"Keep hold of him, Bones," he said.

 

"Keep hold of yourself. We're almost there."

 

Saavik smoothed Spock's tangled hair.

 

The fever had broken, the compulsion had left him.

 

He slept, and he 226

 

The Search For Spock

 

would live. She wondered if she had done him a

 

ldndness by saving his life. He was still completely

 

vulnerable to the convulsions of Genesis, which would continue

 

to torture him.

 

She sighed. She had done what she thought was right.

 

She was terribly worried about David. He should

 

have returned long ago. She drew out her

 

communicator and opened it, but on second thought put

 

it away. Spock would sleep for some time, so she could

 

safely leave him alone. It would be better for all

 

of them if Saavik sought David without using her

 

communicator and

 

advertising their presence. She rose and started for the

 

cave entrance.

 

She heard something footsteps. This cursed world

 

made sounds difficult to identify accurately, a

 

task she would have found ridiculously easy

 

anywhere else. Hoping it was David but believing it

 

was not, she pressed herself against the cave wall.

 

A great dark shape filled the entrance. The tall

 

and massive humanoid figure carried a sensor

 

that sought out his quarry.

 

A Klingon tilde

 

While he still stood blinking in the darkness,

 

Saavik launched herself at him. If she could

 

overcome him and escape into the woods with Spock

 

Roaring with fury, he spun, knocking her back

 

against the cave wall. His bones were so heavy and his

 

muscles so thick that she could barely get a grasp

 

on him, even on his wrist. He flung his arms

 

around her and began to squeeze, shouting angrily in a

 

dialect of Klingon that she did not understand. She

 

struggled, pressing her hands upward. Klingons had

 

different points of

 

vulnerability than humans, who were different again

 

from Vulcans and Romulans. She broke his

 

grasp 227

 

STAR TREK 111

 

for an instant and smashed her fists into the sides of

 

his jaw. He staggered backward, dazed by the

 

transmission of energy from the maxilla into the skull.

 

Saavik heard laughter.

 

Two of his comrades had followed him into the cave.

 

They stood beside Spock, who sat watching,

 

half-awake and confused. Both were armed; they held

 

their weapons aimed at Spock. They taunted her

 

again in a dialect she did not know, but the meaning was

 

clear Get him, little one, beat him if you can, and

 

we will laugh at him for the rest of the trip. Beat him

 

and lose anyway, because we hold your friend hostage.

 

She stepped back, spreading her hands in a

 

gesture of surrender.

 

Enraged by the others' mockery, her opponent

 

rushed at her with a raging curse. He struck her a

 

violent backhand blow that flung her against the cave

 

wall.

 

The impact knocked her breath from her. She

 

sagged against the stone, her knees collapsing. She

 

pressed herself against the cave wall, barely managing

 

to hold herself upright.

 

Her opponent snapped a harsh reply to his

 

laughing companions, dragged Saavik's wrists behind

 

her back, twisted her arms, and pushed her forward out

 

of the cave. The other two pulled Spock to his

 

feet and roughly hurried him outside.

 

Saavik stumbled down the rocky trail to the

 

promontory. Dawn lay scarlet over

 

Genesis, turning the trees a deep and

 

oppressive maroon. Overnight the thick gnarled

 

trunks had sprouted tens of thousands of spindly,

 

barbed branches that flailed at the people passing beneath

 

them. A thorn caught in Saavik's shirt and

 

tore it. Another tangled in her hair. She

 

tried to look back, to see if Spock were all

 

right. With only the 228

 

The Search For Spock

 

shroud to wrap around him, he was terribly

 

vulnerable. But her captor forced her faster down the

 

trail. The branches thrashed and clattered, as if

 

whipped by a violent wind.

 

But there was no wind.

 

Even the stones had changed. The sharp thrust of the

 

promontory was rounded, smoothed, and darkened with a

 

patina of age that implied a thousand years of

 

erosion. A Klingon officer stood upon it in an

 

attitude of possession, gazing out over the forest

 

below. A creature stood at his side.

 

His hunting party flung Saavik and Spock

 

roughly down behind him.

 

Saavik lay still, clenching her fingers in the dirt

 

and struggling to control her anger. If she surrendered

 

to the madness now, she could only bring death

 

to them all.

 

The commander turned slowly.

 

"So!" he said. He spoke in Standard, but his

 

faint accent did nothing to disguise his

 

impatience. "I have come a long way for the power of

 

Genesis. And what do I find?"

 

He gestured sharply as Saavik pushed herself

 

to her knees.

 

The rest of his landing party dragged David forward and

 

shoved him down. He sprawled on the stone beside

 

Saavik. She gasped at the dark bruises on his

 

face, the blood on his mouth, the scratches and

 

welts on his arms and hands. He looked ashamed.

 

She wanted to touch him, she wanted to protect him

 

from any more pain, but she knew if she betrayed any

 

concern for him their captors would use it against them.

 

"What do I find?" the commander said again. "Three

 

children! III'-BRED children, at that. It's only what

 

one might expect of humans, but you, and you was 229

 

STAR TREK 111

 

He glared at Saavik, then at Spock, and

 

then he laughed. "So much for Vulcan restraint,"

 

he said.

 

His creature echoed his laugh with a growling whine.

 

Saavik rose to her feet, very slowly,

 

her rage so great she trembled.

 

"My lord," she said. Her voice was so calm, so

 

cold, that it astonished her. "We are survivors

 

of a doomed expedition. This planet will destroy itself

 

in hours. The Genesis experiment is a

 

failure."

 

"A failure!" The commander laughed with every evidence

 

of sincere good humor. "The most powerful

 

destructive force ever created, and you call it a

 

failure ?" He took one step forward. Sauvik

 

had to raise her head to look at him. He was head

 

and shoulders taller than she. "What would you consider

 

a success, child?" He

 

chuckled. "You will tell me the secrets of

 

Genesis."

 

"I have no knowledge of them," Saavik said.

 

"Then I hope pain is something you enjoy," he

 

said.

 

Saavik was accustomed to being taken at her word, but

 

she knew she could not hope for that courtesy from the

 

enemy commander. Genesis had taken six primary

 

investigators plus a laboratory full of

 

support personnel eighteen months of solid work

 

and all their lifetimes of experience to create. Even

 

if Saavik had belonged to the team, she would

 

not be able to say, in a few simple words, how

 

to recreate their project.

 

The Klingon serjeant hurried forward with an open

 

communicator. The commander cut off his words.

 

"I ordered no interruptions!"

 

"Sir!" said a voice from the communicator.

 

"Federation starship approaching!"

 

Saavik and David caught each other's glance,

 

hardly daring to hope.

 

The commander glared a t them, as if they had called

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

the starship to them at this particular moment, simply

 

to frustrate him.

 

"Bring me up!" he said. And to his landing party,

 

"Guard them well."

 

He and his creature vanished in a dazzle of

 

light.

 

Kruge reformed on board his ship and strode to the

 

bridge. Torg saluted him and gestured to the

 

viewport.

 

"Battle alert!" Kruge said. As the bridge

 

erupted into activity around him, he folded his arms

 

across his chest and observed the

 

Constellation-class Federation starship that

 

sailed slowly toward him. He smiled.

 

It was his, as firmly in his possession as the

 

three child-hostages on the surface of Genesis.

 

Warrigul pressed up against his leg. Kruge

 

reached down and scratched his creature's head.

 

Warrigul hissed with pleasure.

 

The Enterprise's search for Grissom continued

 

fruitlessly. Kirk wondered if, somehow, it had

 

finished its work and headed back to Earth. Travelling

 

at warp speed, they might easily have missed it.

 

No doubt David was back home

 

already, having coffee with Saavik. Or laughing with

 

his mother about that lunatic James Kirk, rushing off

 

in a stolen ship on a selfimposed mission that no

 

one else could understand. Kirk pressed the heels of

 

his hands against his eyes.

 

"Sir was Chekov said.

 

"What is it, commander?"

 

"I'd swear something was there, sir. . ." Chekov

 

peered at his instruments, which had flickered with the

 

sensor-signature of a small vessel, but now

 

stubbornly continued to show absolutely nothing. "But

 

. . . I might have imagined it...."

 

"What did you see, Chekov?"

 

"For one instant . . . Scout class

 

vessel." 231

 

STAR TREK 111

 

"Could be Grissom, was Kirk said thoughtfully.

 

"Patch in the hailing frequency."

 

Chekov did so, and nodded to Kirk.

 

"Enterprise to Grissom," Kirk said. "Come

 

in, Grissom. Come in, please."

 

"Nothing on scanner, sir," Chekov said.

 

"Short range scan, Mr. Chekov. Give

 

it all the focus you've got. On screen, Mr.

 

Sulu."

 

Chekov focused the beam, and Sulu switched the

 

viewscreen, which showed nothing but empty space.

 

On the bridge of his fighter, Commander Kruge

 

listened to the Federation ship's unguarded

 

transmission

 

"I say again, Enterprise to Grissom.

 

Admiral Kirk calling Captain Esteban,

 

Lieutenant Saavik, Dr. Marcus. Come in,

 

Grissom!"

 

"Report status," Kruge said, keeping his

 

voice offhand, but secretly rejoicing. Kirk!

 

Admiral James T. Kirk, and the Enterprise!

 

If he returned home having vanquished the

 

legendary Federation hero, and bearing

 

Genesis as well to

 

"We are cloaked," said Torg. "Enemy

 

closing on impulse power, range five thousand."

 

"Good." Kruge stroked the smooth scales of

 

Warrigul's crest and murmured to his creature,

 

"This is the turn of luck I have been waiting

 

for...."

 

"Range three thousand," Maltz said.

 

"Steady. Continue on impulse power."

 

"Yes, sir!"

 

Kruge noted Torg's intensity, Maltz's

 

uneasiness.

 

"Range two thousand."

 

"Stand by, energy transfer to weapons. At my

 

command!"

 

"Within range, sir."

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

Kruge turned slightly. After a moment, his

 

new gunner raised his head and froze, noting

 

Kruge's attention.

 

"Sight on target, gunner," Kruge said.

 

"Disabling only. Understood?"

 

"Understood clearly, sir!"

 

"Range one thousand, closing."

 

"Wait," Kruge said, as the Enterprise

 

loomed larger in his viewport. "Wait...."

 

At the same time, Kirk studied the enhanced

 

image on the viewscreen of the Enterprise.

 

"There," he said. "That distortion. The

 

shimmering area."

 

"Yes, sir," Zulu said. "It's getting

 

larger as we close in his

 

was And it's dosing on us. Your opinion, Mr.

 

Sulu?"

 

"I think it's an energy form, sir."

 

"Yes. Enough energy to hide a ship, wouldn't you

 

say?"

 

"A cloaking device!"

 

"Red alert, Mr. Scott!" Kirk said.

 

"Aye, sir."

 

The Klingon vessel must have beamed someone on

 

board. Chekov would have had only a second or

 

two to catch a glimpse of the ship. If his attention

 

had wandered for a moment . . .

 

"Mr. Chekov," Kirk said, "good work."

 

"Thank you, Admiral."

 

The lights dimmed. The Klaxon alarms

 

sounded a bit redundant, Kirk thought, since

 

every living being on the ship was right here on the

 

bridge.

 

"Mr. Scott, all power to the weapons

 

system."

 

"Aye, sir."

 

McCoy stood up uneasily. "No

 

shields?"

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

"If my guess is right, they'll have to de-cloak

 

before they can fire."

 

"May all your guesses be right," McCoy

 

said.

 

Kirk tried not to think what the appearance of this

 

disguised ship, in place of Grissom, must mean.

 

"Mr. Scott two photon torpedoes at the

 

ready. Sight on the center of the mass."

 

"Aye, sir."

 

The Enterprise sailed closer and closer to an

 

indefinable spot in space, more perceptible as

 

different if one looked at it from the corner of the

 

eye. The ship was very nearly upon it whey

 

Sulu saw it first. "Klingon fighter, sir his

 

The Klingon craft appeared before them as a

 

spidery sketch, transparent against the stars, quickly

 

solidifying.

 

was Arming torpedoes!"

 

"Fire, Mr. Scott!"

 

The torpedoes streaked toward the Klingon ship.

 

It was as if their impact solidified the ship while

 

simultaneously blasting a section of it away. The

 

fighter tilted up and back with the

 

momentum of the attack. It began to tumble.

 

"Good shooting, Scotty," Kirk said.

 

"Aye. Those two hits should stop a horse,

 

let alone a bird. his

 

"Shields up, Mr. Chekov," Kirk said.

 

"Aye, sir." He accessed the automation center

 

and tried to call up the shields.

 

Nothing happened.

 

"Sir," he said in concern, "shields are

 

unrespon- sive."

 

Scott immediately turned to his controls, and

 

Kirk turned to Scott.

 

"Scatty ?"

 

With a subvocal curse, Scott bent closer

 

over his

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

console. "The automation system's overloaded.

 

I dinna expect ye to take us in!combat,

 

ye know!"

 

On the smoke-clouded bridge of his wounded ship,

 

Kruge stumbled over a dim shape and fell to his

 

knees. He touched the shape in the darkness

 

Warrigul.

 

His beast, which he had owned since he was a youth and

 

Warrigul only a larva, lay dying. Ignoring the

 

chaos of the damaged bridge, Kruge stroked the

 

spines of Warrigul's crest. His pet responded

 

with a weak, whimpering growl, convulsed once, and

 

relaxed into death.

 

Kruge rose slowly, his hands clenched at his

 

sides.

 

Torg's voice barely penetrated the white

 

waves of rage that pounded in his ears.

 

"Sir the cloaking device is destroyed!"

 

"Never mind!" Kruge shouted. There would be no more

 

hiding from this Federation butcher. "Emergency power to the

 

thrusters!"

 

"Yes, my lord."

 

The lights on the bridge further dimmed as the

 

thrusters drained the small ship's power, but the

 

tumbling slowed and ceased. The ship stabilised.

 

"Lateral thrust!"

 

Torg obeyed, bringing the ship around

 

to face the Enterprise again.

 

"Stand by, weapons!"

 

Jim Kirk watched the Klingon craft come round

 

to bear on his ship.

 

"The shields, Scotty!"

 

- "I canna do it!"

 

"Ready torpedoes was The order came too

 

late. The enemy ship fired at nearly

 

point-blank range. The Enterprise had neither time

 

nor room to maneuver. "Torpedoes coming in!"

 

Kirk cried, bracing himself.

 

The flare of the explosion sizzled through the sen235

 

STAR TREK 111

 

sore. The viewscreen flashed, then darkened. The

 

ship bucked violently. Kirk lost his hold and

 

fell. The illumination failed.

 

"Emergency power!"

 

The Enterprzse responded valiantly, but the

 

bridge lights returned at less than half

 

intensity. McCoy helped Kirk struggle up.

 

"I'm all right, Bones." He lunged back

 

to his place. "Prepare to return fire! Mr.

 

Scott transfer power to the phaser banks!"

 

"Oh, god, sir, I dinna think I can his

 

"What's wrong?"

 

"They've knocked out the damned automation cen-

 

ter!" He smashed his fist against the console. "I

 

ha' no control over anythin'!"

 

"Mr. Sulu!"

 

Sulu's gesture of complete helplessness, and

 

Chekov's agitated shake of the head, sent Kirk

 

sagging back into his chair.

 

"So . . ." he said softly. "We're a

 

sitting duck."

 

He watched the enemy fighter probe slowly

 

closer.

 

Kruge, in his turn, watched the silent, powerful

 

Federation ship drift before him.

 

- "Emergency power recharge," Borg said,

 

"forty

 

percent. . . fifty percent. My lord, we are

 

able to fire his

 

Kruge raised his hand, halting Torg's

 

preparations for another salvo.

 

"Why hasn't he finished us?" Kruge said.

 

He sus- pected Kirk wanted to humiliate him

 

first. "He outguns me ten to one, he has four

 

hundred in crew, to my handful. Yet he sits

 

there!"

 

"Perhaps he wishes to take you

 

prisoner."

 

Kruge scowled at Torg. ""He knows I

 

would die first."

 

"My lord," Maltz said, from the communications

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

board, "the enemy commander wishes a truce

 

to confer."

 

"A truce!" Kruge's training and better

 

judgment restrained his wish to fire, provoke a

 

response, and end the battle quickly and cleanly.

 

"Put him on screen," he said more calmly, then,

 

to Torg, "Study him well."

 

The transmission from the Enterprise, enhanced and

 

interpreted, formed Kirk's three-dimensional

 

image in the area in front of and slightly below

 

Kruge's command post.

 

"This is Admiral James T. Kirk, of the

 

U.s.s. Enterprise. his

 

"Yes," Kruge said, "the Genesis commander

 

himself."

 

"By violation of the treaty between the

 

Federation and the Klingon Empire, your

 

presence here is an act of war. You have two

 

minutes to surrender your crew and your

 

vessel, or we will destroy you."

 

Kruge delayed any reply to the arrogant

 

demand. Kirk was neither ignorant nor a fool.

 

He must know that officers of the Klingon Empire did

 

not surrender. And no one with a reputation like his could be

 

a fool. Was he trying to provoke another

 

attack, so he could ju stify destroying his enemy or

 

increase his valor in the defeat? Or was there something

 

more?

 

"He's hiding something," Kruge said. "We may

 

have dealt him a more serious blow than I thought."

 

Torg looked at him intently, trying to trace

 

his superior's thoughts. "How-can you tell that, my

 

lord?"

 

"I trust my instincts," Kruge said easily.

 

He toggled on the transmitter. "Admiral

 

Kirk, this is your oppo nent speaking. Do not

 

lecture me about treaty violations, Admiral.

 

The Federation, in creating an ultimate weapon,

 

has turned itself into a gang of interstellar

 

criminals. It is not I who will surrender. It is

 

you." He 237

 

STAR TREK 111

 

paused to let that sink in, then gambled all or

 

nothing. "On the planet below, I have taken

 

prisoner three members of the team that

 

developed your doomsday weapon. If you do not

 

surrender immediately, I will execute them. One at a

 

time. They are enemies of galactic peace."

 

Listening to the transmission with disbelief, Kirk

 

pushed himself angrily from his chair. "Who is this?

 

How dare you to was

 

"Who I am is not important, Admiral.

 

That I have them, is." He smiled, baring his teeth.

 

"I will let you speak to them."

 

On the surface of Genesis, far below, the landing

 

party listened via communicator to the battle and to the

 

interchange between Kirk and Kruge. Saavik

 

listened, too, buoyed by the appearance of the

 

Enterprise, disturbed by its failure to instantly

 

disable and capture the Klingon ship. A Klingon

 

fighter was no match for a vessel of the Constellation

 

class. Saavik could only conclude that Kirk had

 

come back to Genesis before his ship was fully

 

repaired. She glanced at Spock, who sat

 

wrapped in his black cloak and in exhaustion that was

 

nearly as palpable. The reports Grissom had

 

sent back must have brought James Kirk here. She

 

then glanced at James Kirk's son, and saw the

 

hope in David's bruised face. She

 

hoped, in her turn and for all three of them, that he

 

would not be disappointed.

 

The Klingon commander snapped an order. The

 

serjeant in charge of the landing party replied with a quick

 

assent and motioned to his

 

underlings. They dragged Saavik, David, and

 

Spock to their feet. Spock staggered. His face

 

showed hopeless pain. The planet's agony, which

 

came to him without warning and

 

frequently more and more frequently as the hours

 

passed tortured him brutally.

 

The serjeant thrust his communicator

 

into Sauvik's 238

 

The Search For Spock

 

face. His meaning was clear she must speak. She

 

tried to decide if it would be better to reassure

 

Admiral Kirk that his son and his friend were alive,

 

or if she should maintain her silence and by doing so

 

withhold the Klingons" proof that they had prisoners.

 

The serjeant said a single word and Saavik felt

 

her arms being wrenched upward behind her back. She

 

called on all her training. Though the leverage forced

 

her on tiptoe, she neither winced nor cried out.

 

She stared coldly at the serjeant.

 

He clenched the fingers of his free hand

 

into a fist. Saavik did not flinch from him. He

 

gazed at her steadily, then smiled very slightly and

 

made a silent motion toward David. The crew

 

member restraining him twisted his arms pitilessly.

 

David gasped. The serjeant prodded Saavik in

 

the ribs. He did not need to be able to speak Standard

 

to indicate that he would hurt either or both of her friends

 

until she did his bidding. She closed her eyes and

 

took a deep breath. She could not bear to bring them

 

any more pain.

 

"Admiral," she said, "this is Saavik."

 

"Saavik was Kirk hesitated. "Is . . .

 

David with you?"

 

"Yes. He is. As is . . . someone else.

 

A Vulcan scientist of your acquaintance."

 

"This Vulcan is he alive?"

 

"He is not himself," Saavik said. "But he

 

lives. He is subject to rapid aging, like this

 

unstable planet."

 

Before Kirk could answer, the serjeant turned

 

to David and thrust the communicator at him.

 

"Hello, sir. It's David."

 

"David was Kirk said. His relief caught in

 

his voice, then he recovered himself. "Sorry I'm

 

late," he said.

 

"It's okay. I should have known you'd come. But

 

Saavik's right this planet is unstable. It's going

 

to destroy itself in a matter of hours."

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

"David . . ." Kirk sounded shocked, and

 

genuinely sorrowful for his son's disappointment.

 

"What went wrong?"

 

"I went wrong," David said.

 

The silence stretched so long that Saavik wondered

 

if the communication had been severed.

 

"David," Kirk said, "I don't understand."

 

"I'm sorry, sir, it's too complicated

 

to explain right now. Just don't surrender. Genesis

 

doesn't work! I can't believe they'll kill us for

 

it his

 

The serjeant snatched the communicator from

 

David.

 

"David to was Kirk shouted. But when David

 

tried to reply, his captor wrenched him back so

 

hard he nearly fainted. Saavik took one

 

instinctive step toward him, but she, too, was

 

restrained, and for the moment she had no way to resist.

 

The serjeant permitted them to listen to the remainder

 

of Kruge's conversation with Admiral

 

Kirk.

 

"Your young friend is mistaken, Admiral,"

 

Kruge said. His voice tightened with the emotions of

 

anger and desire for revenge. "I meant what I

 

said. And now, to show my intentions are sincere . . .

 

I am going to kill one of my prisoners."

 

"Wait!" Kirk cried. "Give me a chance his

 

Saavik did not understand the order Kruge next

 

gave to his serjeant that is, she did not understand the

 

words themselves, which were of a dialect she did not know. But

 

the intent was terribly clear. The serjeant looked

 

at Spock, at David, at Saavik.

 

His gaze and Saavik's locked.

 

The serjeant had been vastly impressed by his

 

captain's offer of final honor to his gunner, and

 

vastly horrified by the gunner's inability to accept

 

the offer and carry out the deed. He recognised in

 

Saavik a prideful being. As Kruge had shown

 

magnanimity to

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

the gunner, the serjeant would show it to this young

 

halfbreed Vulcan. He would give her the chance

 

to maintain her honor at her death.

 

He drew his dagger. The toothed and

 

recurved edges flashed in the piercing light of the

 

sun. He raised it upbbhe offered it to her.

 

Saavik knew what he expected of her. She

 

understood why he was doing it, and she even understood that

 

it was meant as a courtesy.

 

But she had never taken any oath to follow his

 

rules.

 

She raised her hands, preparing to grasp the

 

ritual dagger. She could feel the attention of every

 

member of the landing party. They were so fascinated, so

 

impressed by their serjeant's tact and taste, that they

 

had nearly forgotten their other captives. Saavik

 

would take the knife then lay about her with it.

 

A"..."com" comthem, cry "Run!" to her friends tilde

 

His

 

wit to take the champ -"

 

at P."

 

Oyotuhuinderstand7 yOut can n ev tilde her

 

y of them understood her, they did n t b li

 

s Commander did

 

and ordered Saa ik felrteSD'NDIDTHE death

 

"David ,"

 

He reached up. His hand was touched her

 

cheek covered with blood. He

 

I love you," he said. "And I wish his

 

so weakk had to bend down to hear him; hi i

 

"I wish we could have seen Vance's dragons was

 

are no dragOns ,eaSaavik whispered'

 

""David love; the sThreie of the landing p

 

equals Uitggfocus orfrOI-MORE him.

 

 

tilde nt; (Ja backslash CICU Lll

 

tilde lil. tilde A tilde AA BAAS

 

AWAY Might escape, too, in-the confusion, but

 

that

 

Formatter was quite secondary to her responsibility

 

to David and to Spock.

 

She reached into herself to find the anger that had been

 

building up for so long, the berserk rage that would

 

give her a moment's invincibility. The fantasti-

 

cally recurved blade of the knife twisted in her

 

vision. Her attention focused to a point as coherent

 

and powerful as a laser. She touched the heft of the

 

knife.

 

"No!" David cried. He flung himself

 

forward, break- ing out of the inattentive hold, and

 

plunged between Saavik and the serjeant.

 

It took Saavik a fatal instant to understand

 

what had happened.

 

With a snarl of rage, the serjeant

 

plunged the dagger into David's chest.

 

"David, no 1"

 

David cried out and collapsed. Saavik went

 

down

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

with him, breaking his fall. She held him, trying

 

to stanch the blood that pulsed between her fingers. She could

 

not withdraw the knife, for it was designed to do far more

 

damage coming out than going in. David grasped

 

weakly at the hilt and Saavik pushed his hands

 

away.

 

"David, lie still his

 

If she could just have a moment to help him, a moment

 

to try to meld her consciousness with his, she could give

 

him some of her strength, some of her ability at

 

controlling the body. She knew she could keep him

 

alive.

 

"David, stop fighting me his

 

He was very weak. He stared upward. She did not

 

think he could see her. Her own vision blurred.

 

He rather' tilde d to speak. He failed. She

 

struggled to make contact his mind, to save him.

 

Ending party. "Don't

 

-" -- 'Vith

 

Chapter 1 1

 

Pale and tense, Jim Kirk pushed himself from the

 

command seat. His fingernails dug into the armrests and he

 

sought desperately for time. The channel from the

 

surface of Genesis spun

 

confused voices around him, but the Klingon commander

 

smiled coolly from the viewscreen, impervious and

 

confident.

 

"Commander!" Kirk shouted.

 

"My name," his opponent said, "is Kruge. I

 

think it w important, Admiral, that you know who

 

will defeat you. his

 

"At least one of those prisoners is an unarmed

 

civilian! The others are members of a scientific

 

expedition. Scientific, Kruge!"

 

"'Unarmed"?" Kruge chuckled. "Your unarmed

 

civilian and your scientific expedition stand upon the

 

surface of the most powerful weapon in the universe,

 

which they have created!"

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

madness took her. She flung herself backwards,

 

turning. She clamped her hands around the throat of the

 

nearest of her captors . He gagged and choked and

 

clawed at her hands. She

 

perceived the blows and shouts but they had no effect

 

on her. She perceived the limpid hum of a phaser and

 

felt the beam rake over her body. Her fingers

 

tightened. The phaser whined at a higher pitch.

 

Hands clawed at her, trying to break her grip,

 

failing.

 

The phaser howled yet a third time. The sound

 

penetrated Saavik's blue-white rage, searing

 

her mind from cerebrum to spinal cord.

 

She collapsed to the rocky ground and lost

 

consciousness.

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

"Kruge, don't do something you'll regret!"

 

"You do not understand, Admiral Kirk. Since you

 

doubt my sincerity, I must prove it to you. My

 

order will not be rescinded." He glanced aside and

 

snapped a question to someone out of Kirk's view.

 

Kirk heard the beginning of a reply.

 

A cry of agony and despair cut off the words.

 

"David!" Jim shouted. "Saavik!"

 

He could make out nothing but the sounds of struggle,

 

anger, and confusion. The transmission jumped and

 

buzzed Kirk recognised the

 

interference of a phaser beam, reacting with the

 

communicator. He was shaking with helplessness. The

 

uncertainty stretched on so long that he thought for an

 

instant of rushing to the

 

transporter room and beaming into . . .

 

into whatever was happening on the surface of

 

Genesis. But even in his desperation he knew that

 

he would be too late.

 

Commander Kruge watched, harsh satisfaction on

 

his face.

 

Finally the voice transmission from Genesis

 

cleared to silence.

 

"I believe I have a message for you,

 

Admiral," Kruge said, and spoke a command to his

 

landing party.

 

Again there was a delay. Jim could feel the sweat

 

trickling down his sides. A voice came from

 

Genesis, but it was one of impatient command in a

 

dialect of Kruge's people that Kirk had never even

 

heard before.

 

"Saavik . . . David . . ." Kirk said.

 

"Admiral . . ."

 

Even when Saavik was angry and Kirk had

 

seen her angry, though she might have denied it her

 

voice was level and cool. But now it trembled, and

 

it was full of grief.

 

"Admiral, David was Her voice caught.

 

"David is dead."

 

 

STAR- TREK 111

 

Kirk plunged forward as if he could strangle

 

Kruge over the distance and the vacuum that separated them

 

by using the sheer force fury gave his will.

 

"Kruge, you spineless coward! You've

 

killed my son!"

 

At first Kruge did not react, and then he

 

closed his eyes slowly and opened them again, in an

 

expression of triumph and satisfaction.

 

"I have two more prisoners, Admiral," he

 

said. "Do you wish to be the cause of their deaths,

 

too? I will arrange that their fate come to them . . .

 

somewhat more slowly." He let that sink in.

 

"Surrender your vessel!"

 

"All right, damn you!" Kirk cried. He

 

sagged back. "All right." He became aware of

 

McCoy, at his side. "Give me a minute,

 

to inform my crew."

 

Kruge shrugged, magnanimity in his gesture.

 

But his tone reeked of contempt. "I offer you two

 

minutes, Admiral Kirk," he said, enjoying the

 

irony of turning James Kirk's commands

 

back upon him. "For you, and your gallant crew."

 

His communication faded. Kirk sat staring at the

 

viewscreen as the image scattered and reformed

 

into space, stars, the great blue curve of Genesis

 

below, and the marauding Klingon

 

fighter.

 

"Jim," McCoy said. He took Kirk by the

 

shoulder and gripped it, shaking him gently, trying

 

to pull him back out of despair. "Jim!"

 

Kirk recoiled from his help. He stared at him

 

for a moment, hardly seeing him, hardly aware

 

anymore of the reason he had come to this godforsaken

 

spot in space. He knew that if he did

 

surrender, he would sacrifice the lives of all his

 

friends. And he realised, suddenly, that if he gave

 

Kruge the opportunity to tap into the Enterprise's

 

Genesis records, the information

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

would lead inevitably to Carol Marcus.

 

Krugemight be bold, but he was not a fool; he

 

could not threaten Carol directly. But Kirk would be

 

a fool to discount the Empire's network of spies,

 

assassins . . . and kidnappers.

 

"Mr. Sulu . . ." he said. "What

 

is the crew complement of Commander Kruge's ship?"

 

"It's about was Sulu had been thinking of a smart and

 

angry kid, a young man on the brink of realising

 

an enormous potential, his life drained out into the

 

world he had tried to make. Sulu forced his voice

 

to be steady; he forced his attention to the question he had

 

been asked. "A dozen, officers and crew."

 

"And some are on the planet...." Kirk said.

 

He faced his friends, who had risked so much

 

to accompany him. "I swear to you," he said,

 

"we're not finished yet."

 

"We never have been, Jim," McCoy said.

 

"Sulu, you and Bones to the transporter room.

 

Scott, Chekov, with me. We have a job to do."

 

He slapped the comm control. "Enterprise to

 

Commander, Klingon fighter. Stand by to board this ship

 

on my signal."

 

"No tricks, Kirk," Kruge replied.

 

"You have one minute."

 

"No tricks," Kirk said. "I'm . . .

 

Iooking forward to meeting you. Kirk out."

 

Kirk gathered with Chekov and Scott at the

 

science officer's station and opened a voice and

 

optical channel direct to the computer.

 

"Computer, this is Admiral James

 

T. Kirk. Request security access."

 

He experienced a moment of apprehension that

 

Starfleet might have blocked the deepest levels

 

of the computer. A bright light flashed in his eyes,

 

taking a pattern for a retina scan. No no one

 

in Starfleet had 247

 

STAR TREK 111

 

expected him to commit an act as outrageous and

 

absurd as stealing his own ship. Theddorder to him to sit

 

still and do nothing, though it would cost the life of

 

Leonard McCoy, was deemed to be sufficient

 

protection for the Enterprise. They had not bothered

 

to protect the ship in any more subtle way. If

 

they had, no doubt the ship's computer would have begun

 

shouting "Thief, thief!" the moment he stepped on

 

board.

 

"Identity confirmed," the computer said.

 

"Computer . . ." Kirk said. He took a

 

deep breath, and continued without pause. "Destruct

 

sequence one. Code one, one-A . . ."

 

As Kirk recited the complex code, he

 

ignored Scott's stunned glance. The only way

 

he was going to get through this was by keeping it at a distance,

 

by making the decision and carrying it out with no

 

secondguessing.

 

Kirk finished his part of the process and stood

 

aside.

 

Chekov stepped forward, his expressive face

 

somber. "Computer," he said slowly, "this is

 

Commander Pavel Andreievich Chekov, acting

 

science officer."

 

The computer scanned Chekov's dark eyes and

 

recognized him.

 

Was it Kirk's imagination, or did the

 

identification take longer for Chekov than it had

 

for Kirk? It must be his apprehension and his nerves and

 

his sense of the clock ticking away that last minute.

 

The computer was merely a machine, a machine with a

 

human voice and some

 

decision-making capabilities, but it was not de-

 

signed to be self-aware. It could not possess

 

intimations of mortality. It would not delay

 

identifying Chekov to give itself a few more moments of

 

existence, nor would the injuries begun by Kirk's

 

code slow it in any fashion perceptible to a

 

human being. The end would be quick and clean, a matter

 

of microseconds.

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

"Destruct sequence two, code one,

 

one-A, one-B . . ."

 

The computer was merely a machine; the ship was

 

merely a machine.

 

"Mr. Scott," Kirk said, his voice

 

absolutely level.

 

"Admiral was Scott said in protest.

 

"Mister Scott to was

 

Scott could stop the sequence. Kirk experienced

 

a mad moment when he hoped the engineer

 

would do just that.

 

Scott looked away, faced the computer's

 

optical scan, and identified himself. "Computer, this

 

is Commander Montgomery Scott, chief engineering

 

officer." The light flashed white, bringing the lines

 

of strain on his face into sharp relief.

 

"Identification verified."

 

"Destruct sequence three, code one-B,

 

two-B, three . . ."

 

"Destruct sequence completed and engaged.

 

Awaiting final code for one-minute countdown."

 

If the computer were merely a machine, if the ship

 

were merely a machine, how could Jim Kirk perceive

 

grief in its voice? It was just that, he knew his

 

perception, not objective reality. He and Spock

 

had had many arguments about the difference between the

 

two. They had come to no agreement, no conclusions.

 

The last word remained James Kirk's.

 

"Code zero," he said. "Zero, zero destruct

 

zero . . ."

 

This time there was no delay.

 

"One minute," the computer said. "Fifty-nine

 

seconds. Fifty-eight seconds.

 

Fifty-seven seconds . . ."

 

"Let's get the hell out of here," Jim Kirk

 

said angrily.

 

On the bridge of the fighter, Torg felt his

 

command

 

24g

 

STAR TREK 111

 

er's gaze raking him and the heavily armed boarding

 

party. Torg understood the compliment his commander offered

 

him by permitting him to lead the force. Maltz alone

 

would remain behind with Kruge. Admiring his commander's

 

restraint, Torg wondered if he himself, in

 

Kruge's position, would have the strength to let another

 

lead the assault. By forgoing that perquisite,

 

Kruge would gain the more important prize of seeing

 

Kirk brought to him, thoroughly beaten, a prisoner.

 

Torg felt some slight apprehension about the

 

size of his force relative to the crew of a

 

ship such as the Enterprise. He wondered if the

 

two remaining hostages would truly secure the

 

submissive behavior of the enemy. He knew that

 

if the positions were reversed, Kruge would

 

sacrifice two hostages without hesitation.

 

"They do outnumber us, my lord was Torg

 

thought to point out that even a few rebels among the

 

crew could make significant trouble.

 

His crest flaring, Kruge turned on him. "We

 

are Klingons! When you have taken the ship, when you

 

control it, I will transfer my flag to it and we will

 

take Genesis from their own memory banks!"

 

"Yes, my lord," Torg said. Kruge

 

delivered into his hand s the disposition of any

 

rebels. Torg would deliver the ship into the hands of

 

his commander.

 

"To the transport room," Kruge said. He

 

saluted Torg. "Success!"

 

The intense thrill of excitement nearly

 

overwhelmed the younger officer. No one had ever

 

spoken to him in such a high phase of the language

 

before.

 

"Success!" he replied. As he ordered his

 

team into formation and away he heard Kruge contact the

 

Federation admiral again. The conversation

 

followed him via the ship's speakers.

 

"Kirk, your time runs out. Report!"

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

"Kirk to Commander Kruge. We are energising

 

transporter beam . . ."

 

Torg arranged his party in a wedge, with himself at

 

the apex.

 

"Transporter, stand by," Kruge said.

 

"Ready, my lord." Torg grasped the stock of

 

an assault gun, a blaster, the weapon he

 

particularly favored over a phaser.

 

"dis . . Now."

 

The beam spun Torg into a whirlwind that swept

 

him away.

 

As his body reformed aboard the Enterprise, he

 

held his weapon at the ready. But no rebels

 

waited to resist him.

 

No one waited at all. Over the speakers, a

 

soft an-d rhythmic voice kept the ship's time.

 

An alien custom, no doubt, as inexplicable and

 

distracting as most alien customs.

 

"Forty-one seconds. Forty seconds . . ."

 

Torg descended from the transporter platform.

 

He was prepared for an attack, even more

 

than a surrender. He was not prepared for . . .

 

nothing.

 

He led his force from the transporter room and

 

toward the bridge. By the time he reached it, the eerie

 

silence beneath the computer voice had drawn his nerves

 

as taut as his grip on his blaster.

 

The bridge, too, lay empty and quiet.

 

"Twenty-two seconds. Twenty-one seconds

 

. . ."

 

Torg drew out his communicator.

 

"It's a trap," one of the team members said. The

 

fear in his voice infected every one of them.

 

Torg silenced him with a poisonous glance that

 

promised severe discipline when the time was right. He

 

opened a channel to his commander.

 

"My lord, the ship appears to be . . .

 

deserted."

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

"How can this be?" Kruge said. "They are

 

hiding!"

 

"Perhaps, sir. But the bridge appears to be run

 

by computer. It is the only thing speaking."

 

"What? Transmit!"

 

Torg aimed the directional

 

microphone at the computer speaker, which continued its

 

rhythmic chant. "Six seconds. Five

 

seconds . . ."

 

"Transport! Maltz, quickly, lock onto

 

them to was

 

The alarm in Kruge's voice terrified

 

Torg, but he had no time to react.

 

"Two seconds. One second."

 

The transport beam trembled at the edge of his

 

perceptions

 

"Zero," the computer said, very softly.

 

but it reached him too late.

 

Saavik lay on the cold, rocky hillside.

 

The effects of the stun beams were fading, yet she was

 

barely able to move. The madness had possessed her,

 

and now she must pay its price. Her rage had

 

drained her of strength. David's death had drained

 

her of will. His blood stained her hands.

 

She forced herself to rise. The young Vulcan watched

 

her, curious and impassive. His form was that of

 

Spock, but the Spock she had known had never been

 

indifferent to exhaustion or to grief. She stood

 

up. David's body was only a few paces

 

away.

 

The sergeant snapped an order at her.

 

She understood its sense, but chose to ignore it. The

 

crew member she had tried to throttle leaped forward

 

and struck her, knocking her down. Even the sound of

 

his laughter was not enough to anger her now.

 

She staggered back up. The guard flung her to the

 

ground again. Saavik lay still for a moment, digging her

 

fingers into the cold earth, feeling the faint vibrations

 

of the disintegrating world.

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

She pushed herself to her feet for a third time. The

 

guard clenched his fist. But before he could attack, the

 

serjeant grabbed his arm. The two glared at each

 

other. The serjeant won the contest. Neither moved as

 

Saavik took the few steps to David's body and

 

knelt beside him. She put her hand to his pallid

 

cheek.

 

When David was near, she had always been aware

 

of the easy and excitable glow of his mind. Now it had

 

completely dissolved. He was gone. All she could

 

ever do for him was watch his body through the night, as she

 

had watched Peter and as she had watched Spock.

 

On the Enterprise the ritual had been only that.

 

But on this world his body was vulnerable to predators,

 

indigenous or alien.

 

Saavik gazed into the twilight. If the

 

Enterprise were in standard orbit, she should be able

 

to locate it as a point of light in the sky. Working

 

out the equations in her head forced her to collect her

 

mind and concentrate her attention. When she was done

 

she felt unreasonably pleased with herself.

 

Am I becoming irrational? she wondered.

 

Under these conditions, feeling pleased at anything,

 

much less at the solution of such a simple

 

process, must surely be irrational.

 

She looked for the Enterprise in the spot she had

 

calculated it should be.

 

She found the moving point of light.

 

And then .

 

The transporter beam ripped James Kirk from

 

his ship and reformed him on the surface of Genesis.

 

One after the other, McCoy, Sulu, Chekov, and

 

Scott appeared around him, safe. They all

 

waited, phasers drawn, prepared for pursuit.

 

They had timed their escape closely. The enemy

 

boarding party could have perceived the last glint of their

 

transporter beam, could

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

have tracked them by the console settings, and

 

could have followed them. But they remained alone.

 

The air was cold and damp and heavy with

 

twilight. All around, a hundred paces in

 

all directions, iron-grey trees reached into the

 

a*, then twisted down, twining around each other like

 

gigantic vines. They formed a wide circle around

 

an area clear of trees but choked with tangled,

 

spiny bushes. He took a step toward the forest,

 

where he and his friends could find concealment, and where he would

 

not be able to see the sky. But the thorns ripped

 

into his clothing and hooked into his hands. The

 

scratches burned as if they had been touched with

 

acid. Jim stopped.

 

Unwillingly, he looked up.

 

Stars pricked the limpid royal blue with

 

points of light. This system contained only a single

 

planet and no moon. All its sky's stars should be

 

fixed, never changing their relationship to one another.

 

But one, shining the dull silver of reflected light,

 

moved gracefully across the starfield on its own

 

unique path.

 

Slowly and delicately it began to glow. Its

 

color changed from silver to gold. Then, with shocking

 

abruptness, it exploded to intense blue-white. The

 

point of motion expanded to a blazing, flaming

 

disk, a sphere, a new sun that blotted out the

 

stars.

 

Jim felt, or imagined, the radiation on his

 

face, a brief burst of heat and illumination as

 

matter and antimatter met and joined in mutual

 

annihilation.

 

The Enterprise arced brilliantly from its

 

orbit. For an instant it was a comet, but the gravity

 

of the new world caught it and held it and drew it in.

 

It would never again curve boldly close to the

 

incandescent surface of a sun, never again depart the

 

gentle harbor of Earth to sail into the unknown. The

 

gravity of Genesis turned the dying ship from a comet

 

to a falling star. It spun downward, trailing

 

sparks and cinders and glowing 254

 

The Search For Spock

 

debris. It touched the atmosphere, and it flared

 

more brightly.

 

Just as suddenly as it appeared, it vanished. One

 

moment the Enterprise was a glorious blaze, and the

 

next the sky rose black and empty.

 

It seemed impossible that the stars should remain in

 

their same pattern, for even fixed stars changed after

 

an eternity.

 

"My gods, Bones . . ." he

 

whispered. "What have I done?"

 

"What you had to do," McCoy said harshly, his

 

voice only partly his own. "What you've always

 

done turned death into a fighting chance to live."

 

He faced Jim squarely and grasped his upper

 

arms. "Do you hear me, Jim?"

 

Jim stared at him, still seeing a flash of the

 

afterimage of the new falling star, still feeling the death

 

of his ship like sunlight searing his face. He took

 

a deep breath. He nodded.

 

The tricorder Sulu carried had been reacting

 

to the new world since the moment they appeared, but Sulu

 

had barely heard it. Now it forced itself on his

 

attention.

 

"Sir, the planet's core readings are

 

extremely unstable, and they're changing rapidly

 

,"

 

Kirk wrenched his attention to the immediate threat.

 

"Any life signs?"

 

"Close." He scanned with the tricorder.

 

"There."

 

"Come on!"

 

Kirk strode through the clearing toward the distorted

 

trees. This time the thorns seemed to part for his

 

passing.

 

The holographic viewer, which had blazed with

 

light, hung dark and flat; the port looked out on

 

empty space.

 

Kruge slowly realized how many blank

 

seconds had 255

 

STAR TREK 111

 

passed during which he had failed to act, or even

 

to react. The great ship which he had held in thrall

 

had dissolved in his grasp.

 

Confused and uncertain, Maltz waited by the

 

transporter controls. He had directed the beam

 

to the landing party, touched them, held them then nothing

 

remained on which to lock.

 

Kruge was unable to believe what the alien

 

admiral must have done.

 

"My lord," Maltz said hesitantly, "what

 

are your orders?"

 

My orders? Kruge thought. Do I retain the

 

right to give orders? I underestimated him a human

 

being! He did the one thing I did not anticipate,

 

the one thing I discounted. The one thing I would have done in

 

his position.

 

"He destroyed himself," Kruge said aloud.

 

"Sir, may I ?"

 

If I had known one of the prisoners was

 

his son if I had interrogated them before sacrificing

 

one to Kruge flailed himself with his own

 

humiliation. Killing Kirk's son was stupid!

 

It made Kirk willing to die!

 

"We still have two prisoners, sir," Maltz said

 

with transparent concern, for he had received no real

 

response from his command er, no

 

acknowledgement of his presence or of their

 

predicament, since the enemy ship exploded and

 

died. "Perhaps their information"

 

Kruge turned on him angrily. "They are

 

useless! It was Kirk I needed, and I let him

 

slip away."

 

"But surely our mission has not failed!"

 

Maltz exclaimed. They had come seeking

 

Genesis; they retained two hostages who had some

 

knowledge of it, perhaps enough to reproduce it. By his cowardly

 

suicide, Kirk had abandoned them to their captors.

 

Surely Kruge would not let one setback

 

destroy him because of pride....

 

 

- The Search For Spock

 

"Our mission is over," Kruge said. "I have

 

failed. A human has been bolder and more

 

ruthless than I...." His eyes were

 

empty. "That . . . is the real dishonor."

 

and then, the point of light that was the Enterprise

 

flared into a nova and scattered itself across the sky.

 

Saavik gasped.

 

The ship vanished.

 

She felt the loss of other lives and dreams much

 

more sharply than she felt the certainty of her own

 

impending death. That did not seem to matter much

 

anymore. It would have very little effect on the

 

universe.

 

Spock cried out violently, foretelling an

 

inevitable quaking of the planet. The night rumbled;

 

the ground shook. In the distance, Genesis echoed

 

Spock's agony. Beyond the forest, a fault sundered

 

the plain, splitting it into halves, then ramming the

 

halves one against the other. One edge rose like an

 

ocean wave, overwhelming and crushing the other, which

 

subsided beneath it. The sheer faces of stone ground

 

against each other with the power to form mountains.

 

A wash of illumination flooded ground and sky.

 

A brilliant aurora echoed the earthquake

 

lights, and ozone sharpened the air.

 

The planet was dying, as the Enterprise had died,

 

as every person Saavik had ever cared about had died, as

 

she expected, soon, to die.

 

Her guards turned away to gaze into the

 

looming, sparkling curtains of the aurora. Even

 

above the rumblings of the quake, Saavik could hear the

 

electric sizzle of the auroral discharge. The

 

guards watched and marveled. The

 

undertones of their voices revealed fear.

 

Instead of fading, the quake intensified. The

 

massive trees rocked. The loud snap! of

 

breaking branches reverberated across the hillside.

 

The guards looked

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

around, seeking some place where they might be safe

 

and realising no such place existed on this world.

 

The ground heaved. It flung a massive tree

 

completely free, ripping it up by its roots and

 

propelling it onto the bare promontory. The

 

guards plunged out of its reach and stood huddled

 

together, terrified, stranded between the clutching, grasping

 

trees and the abyss.

 

The resonances of Genesis tortured Spock.

 

Saavik touched David's soft, curly hair one

 

last time. She could do nothing for him, not even guard

 

him till the dawn. This world would never see another

 

sunrise.

 

She rose and picked her way across the ragged,

 

trembling surface. Behind her the serjeant spoke

 

into his communicator, a note of panic in his

 

voice. Though Saavik could not understand the words, she

 

could well imagine what he was saying.

 

Only static replied. Perhaps, when the

 

Enterpnse destroyed itself, it had destroyed the

 

marauder as well. If that were true, then they were

 

marooned down here after all.

 

Spock lay prone, shuddering, clenching his long

 

fingers in the dirt. Saavik began to speak to him in

 

Vulcan. If she could calm him enough to approach

 

him, she might join with his mind and alleviate some of

 

his pain.

 

So intent was she that she did not even hear the guard

 

stride up behind her. He shoved her roughly aside.

 

She stumbled on the broken ground.

 

"No!" she cried as the guard reached down to jerk

 

Spock to his feet. "No, don't touch him!"

 

She was too late.

 

He reached down and grabbed Spock's arm.

 

Spock reacted to the touch as if it burned. He

 

leaped to his feet with a cry of pain and anger,

 

lifted the guard bodily, and flung him through the

 

air.

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

The guard smashed into a contorted tree with a wrenching

 

crunch of broken bone. His body slid limply

 

to the ground and did not move again.

 

As the serjeant drew his phaser, Saavik

 

struggled to her feet.

 

"Be easy," she said to Spock in Vulcan,

 

"be easy, I can help you."

 

Spock covered his face with his hands and cried out

 

to the darkness in a long, wavering ululation. He had

 

aged again, aged years, during the short time the guards

 

had kept them apart. Saavik touched him gently,

 

then enfolded him and held him. He was so intent on

 

his own inner

 

contortions that he did not even react.

 

The serjeant approached, his phaser held ready.

 

He was frightened to the brink of ridding himself of his

 

murderous prisoner, his commander's wishes and

 

ambitions be damned. Saavik glared at him over

 

her shoulder. He would not reach Spock without going through

 

her first.

 

A tetanic convulsion wracked Spock's

 

body, arching his spine and forcing from him a

 

shuddering, anguished scream.

 

In the dark forest on the side of the mountain, Jim

 

Kirk heard a shriek of agony. He redoubled his

 

pace. He plunged up the steep slope. The

 

faint trail wound between trees that would have done credit

 

to Hieronymus Bosch. The scarlet aurora threw

 

moving shadows across his path. Kirk struggled upward

 

between whipping

 

branches that moved far more violently than the

 

plunging of the earth could account for.

 

Sulu paced him, with Chekov close behind.

 

McCoy followed at a slightly greater distance.

 

Kirk gasped for breath. The heavily ionised air

 

burned in his throat.

 

 

STAR TREK 111

 

He burst out into a clearing. Saavik stood in

 

its center, supporting someone and a Klingon

 

serjeant threatened her with a phaser.

 

"Don't move!" Kirk cried.

 

The serjeant spun in astonishment, leading with his

 

phaser.

 

Kirk fired his own weapon. The beam flung the

 

serjeant backwards. He hit the ground and did not

 

move again.

 

Kirk ran past the serjeant without a

 

second glance. He slowed as he approached

 

Saavik, who turned toward him, cradling an

 

unconscious young man in her arms.

 

"Bones was Kirk said softly.

 

McCoy panted up beside him and gently took her

 

burden from her. When his hand brushed Saavik's arm,

 

she gasped and jerked away as if he had given her

 

an electrical shock. She took a step back,

 

staring at him. Kirk touched her elbow, startling her.

 

"Sir was she said. Her voice broke, and she

 

stag- gered. He caught her and drew her close.

 

"Easy, Saavik," he said. "Take it

 

easy. It's all right."

 

"I tried," she whispered. "I tried to take

 

care of your son . . ."

 

The auroras burned in the sky and lit the clearing

 

with a ghastly glow. Jim saw, beneath a twisting tree,

 

the body of his son.

 

He hugged Saavik one last time. She took a

 

long shuddering breath and straightened up, allowing him

 

to break the embrace.

 

He left her with McCoy and the others and slowly

 

crossed the clearing. His boots crunched on fallen

 

leaves.

 

Jim knelt beside David's body.

 

"My son...." A poem whispered to him from a

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

long-ago time. "'To thee no star be dark . . .

 

Both heaven and earth . . . friend thee forever . . .""

 

Fallen leaves drifted across David's body,

 

shrouding the young man in a tattered cloth that shone

 

scarlet and gold when the auroras flared, a cloth

 

of autumn leaves, from a world that had barely

 

experienced its spring.

 

 

Chapter 1 2

 

Jim closed his eyes tight, fighting back the

 

tears. He heard footsteps nearby. He opened

 

his eyes and raised his head. His vision blurred, then

 

cleared. Saavik stood before him.

 

"What happened?" he said.

 

"He . . . he gave his life to save us," she

 

said. She stopped, then shook her head and turned

 

away. She said, very softly, "That is all I

 

know."

 

"Jim!"

 

Kirk stood quickly, responding to McCoy's

 

con- cerned shout. He forced himself away from his

 

grief, away from the dead and toward the

 

living.

 

McCoy hunched over the body of the young person

 

whom Saavik had so fiercely protected. Kirk

 

knelt down beside them, and in the changing light he saw

 

He gasped. "Bones to was

 

"Bojemoi!" Chekov exclaimed.

 

 

The Search For Spock

 

In all the years from the time James Kirk met

 

Spock until the time of Spock's death, the

 

Vulcan had not much changed. He aged more slowly

 

than a human being. No one knew if he would age

 

as slowly as a Vulcan. Kirk had always been

 

aware that he would not live to see Spock old, and

 

he had not known him as a youth. The

 

Vulcan Iying unconscious before him was a youth

 

. . . but he was also, unmistakably, Spock.