SEARCH FOR SPOCK

BY

VONDA MCINTYRE

Paramount Pictures Presents a Harve

Bennett Production

STAR TREKS iii THE SEARCH FOR

SPOCK Starring WILLIAM SHATNER DEFOREST

KELLEY Co-Starring

JAMES DOOHAN GEORGE TAKEI

WALTER KOENIG NICHELLE NICHOLS

MERRITT BUTRICK CHRISTOPHER LLOYD

Executive Consultant GENE RODDENBERRY

Music by JAMES HORNER

, Executive Producer GARY

NARDINO

Visual Effects by INDUSTRIAL LIGHT and

MAGIC

Based on STAR TREK Created by GENE

RODDENBERRY Written and Produced by HARVE

BENN-THAT I I Directed by LEONARD NIMOY

Read the novel from POCKET BOOKS DOLBY

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tilde betilde THE BERRY 5PO[N

Chapter 1

Spock was dead.

The company of the Enterprtse gathered together on the

recreation deck to remember their friend.

Dr. Leonard McCoy, ship's surgeon,

moved half a pace into the circle. As he raised

his glass in a final toast, he glanced at each of

his compatriots in turn.

Admiral James Kirk and Dr. Carol

Marcus stood on either side of Carol's grown

son, David Marcus. David was Jim's son,

as well, unknown until now, but now acknowledged.

Commander Uhura, Chief Engineer Montgomery

Scott, Commander Pavel Chekov, and Hikaru

Sulu, recently promoted to captain, had

clustered together along one arc of the circle. Every

member of the ship's company showed the strain of the harrowing

past few days, except Lieutenant Saavik.

Her Vulcan training required her to be

imperturbable, and so she appeared. If her

Romulan upbringing gave her the capacity to feel

STAR TREK 111

grief or loss or anger at the death of

Spock, her teacher, McCoy could see no shadow

of the emotions.

McCoy had known the rest of the ship's company, the

trainees, only a short time, not even long enough

to learn their names. He knew for sure only that they

were terribly young.

"To Spock," McCoy said. "He gave his

life for ours."

"To Spock," they replied in unison, except

for Jim, who brought his attention back to the ship from

some other time, some other place, a thousand

light-years distant.

A moment after the others had spoken, he said,

"To Spock."

Everyone else drank. McCoy put his glass

to his lips. The pungent odor of Kentucky

bourbon rose around his face. He grimaced. The

liquor was raw and new, straight out of the ship's

synthesiser. He had nothing better. The Enterpr

tilde se's mission had been an emergency, an

unexpected voyage into tragedy, and Leonard

McCoy had come most poorly prepared.

He lowered the drink without tasting it.

"To Peter," Montgomery Scott said.

His young nephew, Cadet Peter Preston, had

also died in the battle that took Spock's life.

Scott made as if to say more, could not get out the

words, and instead drained his glass in one gulp.

Again, McCoy could not bring himself to choke down any

liquor.

When all the glasses had been refilled,

David Marcus stepped forward.

"To our friends on Spacelab," he said.

McCoy pretended to drink. He felt as if the

alcohol fumes alone were making him drunk.

When no one else came forwardto propose a

toast, the quiet circle dissolved into small

groups. Almost everyone had begun to feel the effects

of the liquor, but the drinking was a futile effort

to numb their grief.

The Search For Spock

Whose stupid idea was it to have a wake, anyway?

McCoy wondered. Who thought this

would help? And then he remembered, Oh, right, it

was me and Scott.

He orbited the serving table. It gleamed with an

array of bottles. He picked one up, paying little

attention to what it was, and filled another

glass. McCoy and Scott had spent all day

preparing for the wake. The synthesiser had tried

to keep up with their programming, but it was badly

overloaded. Ethyl alcohol was a simple enough

chemical, but the congeners any decent liquor

required were foreign to the ship's data banks.

Everything smelled the same strong and rough.

Montgomery Scott beetled toward McCoy,

stopped, and gazed blankly at the table full of

half-emptied bottles. McCoy picked one at

random and handed it to the ships chief engineer.

"That's scotch," he said. "Or anyway,

close enough."

Scott's eyes were glazed with exhaustion and

grief.

"I recall a time, when the lad was nobbut a

bairn, that he. . ." Scott stopped, unable

to continue the story. "I recall a time when Mr.

Spock..." He stopped again and drank straight from

the bottle, choking on the first gulp, but swallowing and

swallowing again. Obsession and compulsion drove him.

He and McCoy had

planned the wake and insisted on holding it, though

it was foreign to the traditions of most of the people on board

and quite alien to the traditions of one of its

subjects.

"This isna helping, doctor," Scotty said.

"I canna bear it any longer."

McCoy climbed onto a chair. Looking

down, he hesitated. The deck lay

ridiculously far away and at a strange angle,

as if the artificial gravity had gone on the

blink. McCoy steadied himself and stepped up on the

table, placing his feet carefully between bottles bright

STAR TREK 111

with amber. Then he remembered an alien liquor

called "amber" by Earth people. He had not ordered it from

the synthesiser because it required the inclusion of an

alien insect to bring out its fullest flavor, like

wormwood in absinthe. McCoy felt vaguely

sick.

His foot brushed one of the bottles quite gently,

he thought and the bottle crashed onto its side. It

spun around and its contents gurgled out, spilling across

the table, splashing on the floor. McCoy ignored

it.

"This is a wake, not a funeral!" he said, then

stopped, confused. Somehow that sounded wrong. He

started again. "We're here to celebrate the lives of

our friends not to mourn their deaths!" Everyone was

looking at him. That bothered him until he thought,

Why did you get up on the table, if you didn't

want everyone to look at you?

"Grief," McCoy said slowly, "is not

logical."

"Bones," Jim Kirk said from below and slightly

behind him, "come down from there."

Even in his odd mental state, McCoy could

hear the edge in Kirk's voice. I backslash

venty years of friendship, and Kirk was still perfectly

capable of pulling rank. McCoy turned and

staggered. Jim grabbed his forearm and tightened his grip

more than necessary.

"Whatever possessed you to say such a thing?"

Kirk said angrily. Even the anger was

insufficient to hide the pain.

"Don't know what you mean," McCoy said.

Permitting Admiral Kirk to help him, he

stepped down from the table with careful dignity.

David Marcus had inherited his mother's tolerance

for alcohol. He had drunk several shots of some

concoction as powerful and as tasteless as everclear.

Despite a certain remoteness to his perceptions,

he felt

The Search For Spock

desperately sober. His hands remained

rock-steady, and his step was sure.

McCoy and Scott had insisted, cajoled,

ordered, and bullied until nearly the whole ship's

company congregated in the recreation hall for this

ridiculous wake. Alone or in pairs, people stood

scattered throughout the enormous chamber. Across the

room, Dr. McCoy and Admiral Kirk

exchanged words. Kirk looked both angry and

concerned. McCoy adopted a belligerent air.

They're both completely pickled, David

thought. Fixed like microscope slides. James

T. Kirk, hero of the galaxy, is drunk. My

illegitimate father is drunk.

David had not yet quite come to terms with the recent

revelation of his parentage.

"Dr. Marcus his

David started. He had been so deep in thought that

he had-not noticed Captain Sulu's approach.

"It'd probably be easier if everybody just

called me David," he said.

"David, then," Sulu said. "I understand that I

owe you some thanks."

David looked at him blankly.

"For saving my life?" Sulu said, with a

bit of a smile.

David blushed. He automatically glanced at

Sulu's hands, which had been badly seared by the

electrical shock from which David had revived him.

The artificial skin covering the burns glistened

slightly.

Sulu turned his hands palm-up. "This comes off

in a couple of days there won't even be any

scars."

"I almost killed you," David said.

'iWhat?"

"It's true I did resuscitation o n you.

It's also true that I did it wrong. I'd never

done it before. I'm not a medical doctor, I'm

only a biochemist."

"Nevertheless, I'm alive because of what you did.

STAR TREK 111

Whether you erred or not, you kept me from death or

brain damage."

"I still screwed up." Like I may have screwed

up everything I've done for the last two years,

David thought.

"It might not matter to you," Sulu said. "But it

makes some difference to me." He turned

away.

David blushed again, realising how churlish and

self-cantered he had sounded. "Captain . . .

uh . . ." He had no idea how to apologise.

Sulu stopped and faced David again.

"David," he said, carefully and kindly, "I

want to give you some advice. When we get back

to Earth, you and your mother are going to be the center of some

very concentrated attention. Some of it will be critical,

some of it will be flattering. At first you'll think the

abuse is the hardest thing to take. But after a while,

you'll see that handling compliments gracefully is an

order of magnitude more difficult." He paused.

David looked at the floor, then raised his

head and met Sulu's gaze.

"But I need to learn to do it?" David asked.

"Yes," Sulu said. "You do."

"I'm sorry," David said. "I really am

glad you're okay. I didn't mean to sound

indifferent. After they took you to sick bay I

realised I'd done the procedure wrong. I

didn't know if you'd make it."

"Dr. Chapel assures me that I'll make

it."

David noticed that Sulu avoided

mentioning McCoy, but thought better of saying so. He

had stuck his foot in his mouth far enough for one day.

"I'm glad I could do something," David said.

Sulu nodded and walked away. David had not

noticed if Sulu drank during the toasts, but the

young captain appeared to be completely sober.

The Search For Spock

He might be the only sober person on the ship

right now, David thought.

But then David saw Lieutenant Saavik,

all alone, watching the party without expression. He

watched her, in turn, for several minutes. Back

on Regulus I, she had told him that Spock was

the most important influence in her life. He had

rescued her from the short, brutal life that a

halfbreedchild on an abandoned Romulan

colony world could look forward to. Spock had

overseen her education. He had nominated her to a

place in the Starfleet Academy. He was,

David sup- posed, the nearest thing she had to a

family. That was a delicate subject. She

seldom discussed how the cross that produced her must

have come about.

David walked up quietly behind her.

"Hello, David," she said, without

turning, as he opened his mouth to speak.

"Hi," he said, trying to pretend she had not

startled him with her preternatural senses. "Can I

get you a drink?"

"No. I never drink alcohol."

"Why not?"

"It has an unfortunate effect on me."

"But that's the whole point. It would help you

loosen up. It would help you forget."

"Forget what?"

"Grief. Sadness. Mr. Spock's death."

"I am a Vulcan. I experience neither grief

nor sadness."

"You're not all Vulcan."

She ignored the comment. "In order to forget Mr.

Spock's death, David, I would have to forget Mr.

Spock. That, I cannot do. I do not wish to.

Memories of him are all around me. At times it

is as if he was She stopped. "I will not forget

him," she said.

STAR TREK 111

"I didn't mean you should try. I just meant that a

drink might make you feel better."

"As I explained, its effects on me

are not salutary."

"What happens?"

"You do not want to know."

"Sure I do. I'm a scientist, remember?

Always on the lookout for something to investigate."

She looked him in the eye and said,

straight-faced, "It causes me to regress.

It permits the Romulan elements of my character to

predominate."

David grinned. "Oh, yeah? Sounds interesting

to me."

"You would not like it."

"Never know until you try."

"Have you ever met a Romulan?"

"Nope."

"You are," she said drily, "quite fortunate."

Carol Marcus felt very much alone at Mr.

Spock's wake. She sat on the arm of a couch,

concealed by the subdued light and shadows of a corner of the

room. She felt grateful for the translucent

wall that alcohol put between her and the other people, between her

and her own emotions. She knew that the purpose of a

wake was to release emotions, but she held her

grief in tight check. If she loosed it, she was

afraid she would go mad.

The pitiful gathering insulted the memory of her

friends more than exalting it. Perhaps Mr. Scott and

Dr. McCoy believed it adequate for Captain

Spock and Mr. Scott's young nephew. But the

mourning of a few veteran Starfleet members and a

surreptitiously drunken class of cadets,

barely more than children, gave Carol no comfort for the

loss of her friends on the Spacelab team. She

kept expecting to hear Del March's

The Search For Spock

cheerful profanity, or Zinaida

Chitirih-Ra-Payjh's soft and musical

laugh. She expected Jedda Adzhin-Dall

to stride past, cloaked in the glow of a Deltan's

unavoidable sexual attraction. And she expected

at every moment to hear Vance

Madison's low, beautiful voice, or to glance

across the room and meet his gaze, or to reach out and

touch his gentle hand.

None of those things would ever happen again. Her

collaborators, her friends, were dead, murdered in

vengeance for someone else's error.

Jim Kirk managed to get McCoy down from the

table and away from the center of attention before the

doctor had made too much of a fuss, and, Kirk

hoped, without making a fool of either of them.

"I think you've drunk too much, Bones," he

said.

"Me?" McCoy said. "I haven't had nearly

enough."

Kirk tried to restrain his anger at McCoy's

juvenile behavior. "Why don't you get some

sleep? You'll feel better in the moming."

"I'll feel awful in the morning, Jim-boy.

And the morning after that, and his

"You'll feel worse if you have to deal with a

hangover and the results of a big mouth."

McCoy frowned at him blearily, obviously

not understanding. Kirk felt a twinge of unease.

McCoy generally made sense, even when he had had

a few too many. In fact, his usual reaction

to tipsiness was to become more direct and pithier.

Kirk glanced around, seeking Chris Chapel. He

hoped that between them they might get McCoy either

sobered up or asleep. Chapel was nowhere to be

seen. He could hardly blame her for avoiding the

wake. He wished he were somewhere else himself. He

had come only because McCoy insisted. Jim

supposed Chris had decided that the hard time

STAR TREK In

McCoy and Scotty would give her for absenting

herself would be less unpleasant than attending. Jim

suspected she was right.

"Come on, Bones," he said. Back in sick

bay, the doctor might be persuaded to prescribe

himself a hangover remedy and go to bed.

"Not going anywhere," McCoy said. He

shrugged his arm from Kirk's grasp. "Going over

there." He walked slowly and carefully to an

armchair and settled into it as if he planned

to remain till dawn. Getting him to his cabin now

would create a major scene. On the other hand,

McCoy no longer looked in the mood to make

proclamations. Jim sighed and left him where he

was.

Jim wandered over to Carol. She was alone,

surrounded by shadows. They had barely had time to talk

since meeting again. Jim was not

altogether sure she wanted to talk to him. He did

want to talk to her, though, about her life since they

last had seen each other, twenty years ago. But

mostly he wanted to talk to her about David. Jim

was getting used to the idea of having a grown

son. He was beginning to like the idea of coming to know the young

man.

"Hi, Carol," he said.

"Jim."

Her voice was calm and controlled. He

remembered that she had always been able to drink

everybody under the table and never even show it.

"I was thinking about Spacelab," she said. "And the

people I left behind. Especially his

"You did fantastic work there, you and David."

"It wasn't just us, it was the whole team. I never

worked with such an incredible group before. We got

intoxicated on each other's ideas. I could guide

it, but Vance was the catalyst. He was extraordinary

his

"Spock spoke highly of them all," Jim

said. It

The Search For Spock

surprised him, to be able to say his friend's name so

easily.

"dance was the only one who could keep his partner from

going off the deep end. He had a sort of inner

stillness and calm that his

"They were the ones who designed computer

games on the side? A couple of the cadets were

talking about them."

"dis . . that affected us all."

"David and our Lieutenant Saavik seem

to be hitting it off pretty well," Jim said.

David and Saavik stood together on the other side

of the recreation hall, talking quietly.

"I suppose so," Carol said without expression.

"She has a lot of promise Spock had great

confidence in her."

"Yes."

"I'm sorry I had to meet David and you and

I had to meet again in such unhappy

circumstances," he said.

The look in her eyes was cold and bitter and

full of pain.

"That's one way to put it," she said.

"Carol his

"I'm going to bed," she said abruptly. She

stood up and strode out of the recreation room.

Jim followed her. "I'll walk you to your

cabin," he said. He took her silence for

acquiescence.

With some curiosity, Saavik watched Admiral

Kirk and Dr. Marcus leave together. Of

course she knew that they had been intimate many

years before. She wondered if they intended to resume

their relationship. She had observed the customs of

younger humans, students, while she was in the

Academy, however, and

STAR TREK 111

she now noted the absence of any indication of strong

attraction between Marcus and Kirk. Perhaps older

humans observed different customs, or perhaps these

two individuals were simply shy. Mr. Spock

had told her that she must learn to understand human beings.

As a project for her continuing education in their

comprehension, she resolved to study the admiral and the

doctor closely and see what transpired.

After Dr. Marcus and the admiral left the

recreation hall, Saavik returned her attention

to the gathering as a whole. She wondered if there were

something in particular she was supposed to do. Keeping

her own customs after the deaths of Mr. Spock and

Peter Preston, she had watched over their bodies

the night before Mr. Spock's funeral. Only

yesterday morning she stood with the rest of the ship's

company and sent his coffin accelerating toward the

Genesis planet. She wished she could have

sent young Peter's body into space, too. He had

loved the stars, and Saavik believed it would have

pleased him to become star-stuff. But his body was the

responsibility of Chief Engineer Scott,

who had decreed he must be taken back to Earth and

buried in the family plot.

Everyone assumed Captain Spock's casket

would burn up in the outer atmosphere of the Genesis

world. So Admiral Kirk had intended. But

Saavik had disobeyed his order. Instead, she

programmed a course that intersected the last fading

resonance of the Genesis effect. When the coffin

encountered the edge of the wave, matter had exploded

into energy. Within the wave, the energy that had been

Spock's body coalesced into sub-quarkian

particles, thence, in almost unmea- surable fractions

of a second, to normal atomic matter. He was

now a part of that distant world. He was gone. She would

never see him again.

The Search For Spock

She wondered how long she would be affected by the

persistent, illogical certainty that he remained

nearby.

"David," she said suddenly, "what is

the purpose of this gathering?"

David hesitated, wondering if he understood it

well enough to explain it to anyone else. "It's a

tradition," he said. "It's like Dr. McCoy said

a while ago, it's to celebrate the lives of people

who have died."

"Would it not make more sense to celebrate while a

person is still living?"

"How would you know when to have the

celebration?"

"You would have it whenever you liked. Then no death would

be necessary. The person being celebrated could attend the

party, and no one would have to feel sad."

David wondered if she were pulling his leg. He

decided that was an unworthy suspicion. Besides,

he could see her point.

"The thing is," he said, "the funeral yesterday,

and the wake today . . . they aren't really for the people who

died."

"I do not understand."

"They're for the people who are left behind. People humans,

I mean need to express their feelings. Otherwise

we bottle them up inside and they make us sick."

This sounded like the purest hocus-pocus

to Saavik, who had spent half her life

learning to control her emotions.

"You mean," she said" "this procedure is meant

to make people feel better?"

"That's right."

STAR TREK 111

"Then why does everyone look so unhappy?"

David could not help it. He laughed.

The door to Carol's cabin sensed her and slid

open. She stopped. Jim stopped. Carol said

nothing. Jim tried to decide on exactly the right

words.

"Carom"

"Good night, Jim."

"But his

"Leave me alone!" she said. The evenness of her

voice dissolved in anger.

"I thought . . ."

"What? That you could come along after twenty years and

pick up again right where you left off?"

"I was thinking more in terms of "we.""

"Oh, that's cute there never was any

"we!"""

"There's David."

"Do you think you're so great in bed that no

woman would ever want another man after you? Do you

think I've spent all these years just waiting for you

to come back?"

"NO, of course not. But was He stopped. That

she might be involved with someone else simply had not

occurred to him, and he was embarrassed to admit it.

"Of course I didn't mean that," he said. "But

we were good together, once, and we're both alone his

"Alone!" Her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

"Carol, I don't understand."

"dance Madison and I were lovers!"

"I didn't realise," he said lamely.

"You would have, if you'd listened. I've been trying

to talk about him. I just wanted to talk about him

to somebody. Even to you. I want people to remember what

he was like. He

deserves to be remembered. I dream about

him I dream about the way he died his

The Search For Spock

Jim took a step backward, retreating from the

fury and accusation in her voice. His old enemy,

Khan Singh, had murdered all the members of the

Genesis team except Carol and David. The people

he captured refused to give him the information

he demanded, so he killed them. He opened a vein

in Madison's throat and let him slowly bleed

to death.

Carol flung herself into her cabin. The door

slid shut behind her, cutting Jim Kirk off, all

alone, in the passageway outside.

David finally stopped laughing. He wiped his

eyes. Saavik hoped he would explain to her what

he found so funny.

She watched him intently. He looked up. Their

gazes met.

He glanced quickly away, then back again.

David's eyes were a clear, intense blue.

She reached toward him, realised what she was doing,

and froze. David touched her before she could draw

away.

"What is it?" he said. He wrapped his fingers

around her hand in an easy grip.

He could not hold her hand without her

acquiescence, for she could crush his bones with a

single clenching of her fist. This she had no intention of

doing.

"For many years," Saavik said, "I have tried

to be Vulcan."

"I know."

David was one of the few people with whom she had ever

discussed her background. Though she had learned

to control her strongest emotions most of the time, she

never pretended to herself that they were nonexistent.

"But I am not all Vulcan, and I will never

be," she

STAR TREK 111

said, "any more than Mr. Spock. He said to me

. . ." She paused, uncertain how David would

react. "He said I was unique, and that I must

find my own path."

"Good advice for anybody," David said.

Saavik drew her hand from David's grasp and

picked up his drink. She barely tasted it. The

raw, unaged alcohol slid fiery across her

tongue, and the potent fumes seemed to go straight

to her brain. She put down the glass. David

watched her curiously.

"David," she said hesitantly, "I am under

the im- pression that you have positive feelings toward

me. Is that true?"

"It's very true," he said.

"Will you help me find my path?"

"If I can."

"Will you come to my cabin with me?"

"Yes," he said. "I will."

"Now?"

In reply, he put his hand in hers again, and they

walked together from the recreation hall.

Jim Kirk strode down the corridor,

upset, angry, embarrassed.

He nearly ran into his son and Lieutenant

Saavik.

"Oh Hi, kids." He collected himself

quickly. Long years of experience had made him an

expert at hiding distress from subordinates.

"Uh . . . hi," David said. Saavik said

nothing; she simply gazed at him with her cool

imperturbability.

"Got to be too much for you in there?" Kirk said,

nodding toward the rec hall behind them. "I never should have

let McCoy and Scott have their way about it."

They looked at him without replying. After a long

hesitation, Saavik finally spoke.

The Search For Spock

"Indeed," she said, -- "it is not a ceremony

Captain Spock would have approved. It is neither

logical nor rational."

Kirk flinched at the echoes of Spock's

voice in Saavik's words. He had known Spock

longer than she had, but she had spent more time working with the

Vulcan in the past few years, when Kirk was tied

to a desk by an unbreakable chain of paperwork.

"Perhaps you're right," he said. "But funerals and

wakes aren't for the person who is dead, they're for the

people left behind."

"It is interesting," Saavik said, "that David

said precisely the same thing. I fail, however,

to grasp this explanation."

"It isn't easily explained," Kirk said.

"And I can understand why you wouldn't think of Spock in

relation to a gathering where everybody was doing their best

to get drunk. I was going to go to the observation deck,

instead. Have either of you been up there? David,

surely you haven't had a chance to see it. Would you like

to come along?"

"I am familiar with the observation deck,"

Saavik said.

"I'd sure like to see it," David said, "any

other time. But Lieutenant Saavik wanted

to check some readings on the bridge."

Kirk glanced from David, to Saavik, and

back. Saavik started to say something, but

stopped. A blush colored David's

transparently fair

complexion. Kirk realised that he had put his

foot in his mouth for the second time in ten minutes.

He, too, began to blush.

"I see," he said. "Important work. Carry

on, then." He turned and strode quickly away.

Saavik watched him until he had passed out of

sight around a corner.

STAR TREK lll

"Nothing needs to be checked on the bridge,

David," she said.

"I had to say something," David said. "I

didn't want to discuss our personal affairs with

him. It isn't any of his business."

"But why did he not remind you that the computer would

announce any change in the ship's status?"

"I don't know," David said, though he knew

perfectly well.

"He has not commanded a starship in a long time,"

she said. "Perhaps he forgot."

"That must be it."

They continued down the corridor to Saavik's

cabin. Inside, David blinked, waiting

for his eyes to accustom themselves to the low light. The

room held no decorations, only the severe

furnishings standard issue in Starfleet, but the warm

and very dry air carried a hot, resiny scent, like the

sunbaked pitch of pine trees at high noon in

summer.

Saavik stopped with her back to David.

"Saavik," David said, "I just want you to know

maybe we don't need to worry, but where I was

raised it's good manners to tell you I passed all

my exams in biocontrol. his

"I, too," she said softly. "I always regarded

learning to regulate the reproductive ability

merely as an interesting exercise. Until now . .

."

Her voice trailed off.

David realised that she was trembling. He put

his hands gently on her shoulders.

"I have traveled far, and I have seen much,"

Saavik said. "I have studied.... But study and

action are very different."

"I know," David said. "It's all right, it will

be all right."

Saavik reached up, and her hair fell free

around her

The Search For Spock

shoulders. It was thick and soft and dark, and it

smelled of evergreens.

Jim Kirk did go to the observation deck. He

opened the portals and spent a long time staring at the

stars. After a while, the romantic in his soul

overcame the admiral in his mind. The pain and

grief surrounding Spock's death eased, the

embarrassing encounter with David and Saavik began

to seem humorous, and even his

misunderstanding of Carol's wishes became less

lacerating in his memory. The whole galaxy lay

around hirn.

He fancied he could still see the star of the Genesis

world, far behind, a hot white star red-shifted toward

yellow as the Enterprise raced away, an

unimposing young star made fuzzy by the planetary

nebula that surrounded it, by the remnants of the

Mutara Nebula. The matter in the nebula had

been blasted apart by the Genesis wave, blasted beyond

atoms, beyond subatomic particles, beyond quarks,

down to the sub- elementary particles that Vance

Madison and his partner Del March had whimsically

named

"sparks" and "boojums."

Khan Singh had set off the Genesis wave in

an attempt to destroy Jim Kirk, an

attempt that had very nearly succeeded. Thus he set

in

motion what? Even Carol could not say. The

resonances in the wave were designed to work upon a very

different environment. No one could know what had come

into existence on the

Genesis world without going back and exploring it.

Jim Kirk had many reasons for wanting to see that

done and, what was more, for wanting to do it himself.

First he had to return to Earth. To accomplish that,

he needed a crew that in the morning would be able to think

of something other than their hangovers. Realiz

lg

STAR TREK 111

ing that he had been up here all alone for nearly

an hour, he decided it was about time to go back to the

recreation deck and shut things down.

He closed the portals against the stars.

David dozed in the intoxicating warmth of

Saavik's body. Vulcans and, David

supposed, Romulans, too had a body

temperature several degrees above that of

human beings.

"Lying next to you is like Iying in the shade on a

hot summer's day," Saavik said.

David chuckled sleepily. "You must be

psychic."

"Only slightly," she said. "Vulcans and

Romulans both have the ability in some measure.

My talent for it is quite limited. But why do you say

so now?"

"I was just thinking that Iying next to you is like being in

the sun on the first warm day of spring."

She turned suddenly toward him and hugged him

close. Her hair fell across his shoulders. He

put his arms around her and held her. She had been

raised first among Romulans who rejected her,

then in the Vulcan tradition which denied any need for

closeness or passion. He wondered if anyone had

ever held her before.

She drew back and lay beside him, barely touching

him, as if ashamed of her instant's impulse.

David was not so ready to ignore the intimacy.

He traced the smooth, strong line of

Saavik's collarbone with the tip of one finger. He

had never been with anyone like her in his life. He

caressed the hollow of her throat and cupped

his hand around the point of her left shoulder. He had

felt the scar on her smooth skin earlier, but just then

the time had been wrong for questions. Now, though, he

touched the scar in the dark and found it to be a complex,

regular pattern.

"How'd you get that?" he asked.

She said nothing for so long that David wondered if

The Search For Spock

his bad habit of asking questions off the top of his

head had got him into trouble again.

"Sorry," he said. "Idle curiosity it's

none of my business."

"It is a Romulan family mark," Saavik

said.

"A family mark!" She had told him that she

did not know the identity of either of her parents, that she

did not even know which parent was Vulcan and which

Romulan. "Does that mean you could find your

family?"

"David," she said, and he thought he could detect

a hint of dry humor in her voice, "why would I

want to find my Romulan family?"

Since the likelihood was that a Romulan had

borne or sired her in order

to demonstrate complete power over a Vulcan

prisoner, David could see her point.

"I never heard of family marks," he said.

"That is not surprising. Information about them may

only be passed on orally. It is a capital

crime in the Romulan empire to make permanent

records of them. his

"Why don't you have the mark removed?

Doesn't it remind you of unpleasant times?"

"I do not wish to forget those times," Saavik said,

"any more than I wish to forget Mr. Spock.

All those memories are important to me. Besides,

it may have its use, someday."

"How?"

"Should I have the misfortune to encounter my

Romulan parent, it is absolute proof of our

relationship."

"But if you don't want to know your Romulan

parent . . ."

"The family mark permits me to demand

certain rights," Saavik said. "It would be

considered very bad manners to refuse a family

member's challenge to a death-duel."

STAR TREK 111

"A duel!"

"Yes. How else avenge myself? How else

avenge my Vulcan parent, who surely died with

my birth?"

David lay back on the narrow bunk, stunned

by Saavik's matter-of-fact discussion of deep,

implacable hatred.

"I never thought of Vulcans as demanding an eye

for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

"But I am not as Vulcans never cease to remind

me a proper Vulcan."

"Wouldn't it be easier, wouldn't it be safer, to I

don't know, sue the Romulans for

reparations?"

"Spoken like a truly civilised human,"

Saavik said. "But if I am only half a

Vulcan, I am in no part human. Mr.

Spock was right I must follow my own path."

David moved his hand from her shoulder. The intensity

of her feelings surprised him, though it should not, not

any more, not after tonight.

"Don't worry, David," Saavik said, in

response to his unease. "I am hardly going

to defect to the Romulan empire in order to find a

creature I have no real wish to meet. The

chance of my ever meeting my Romulan parent is

vanishingly small."

"I guess," David said. The Federation had,

at best, fragile diplomatic relations with the

Romulans. It was a connection like a fuse,

continually threatening to burst into flame and ignite a more

serious conflagration.

Saavik guided his hand back to her shoulder.

"It feels good when you touch it," she said. "The

coolness of your hand is soothing."

"Were you born with it? Or is it a tattoo?"

"Neither. It is a brand."

"A brand!"

"They apply it soon after one is out of the womb."

"Gods, what a thing to do to a little baby. Good thing

you can't remember it."

The Search For Spock

"What makes you think I cannot remember it?"

Horrified, David said, "You mean you can?"

"Of course. The white glow is the first beautiful

thing I ever encountered, and its touch was the first pain. Do

you not remember your own birth?"

"No, not at all. I don't have any reliable

memories before I was two or three. Most

people don't."

"But most people do, David," Saavik said. "At

least, in my experience. Perhaps you mean most humans

do not?"

"Yeah," David said. "Sorry. Bad

habit."

"No offence taken. I am always glad to learn

something new about a fellow intelligent species.

The last few hours have been very rewarding. I have

learned a great deal."

David did not know quite how to take that, so he

replied with an inarticulate "Hmm?"

"Yes," Saavik said. "I feel that my

experiments have been most instructive."

"Is that all I am to you?" David said. "An

experiment?" He suddenly felt very hurt and

disappointed, and he realised that his attraction toward

Saavik was a great deal more than

physical, something much deeper and much

stronger.

"That is one of the things you are to me," she said in an

even tone. "'And not the least. But not the most, either.

You have helped me learn that I have capabilities

I believed I did not possess."

"Like the capacity to love?"

"I . . . I am unprepared to make that

claim. I do not even comprehend the concept."

David laughed softly. "Neither does anybody

else."

"Indeed? My research is unfinished I thought

I simply had not encountered a satisfactory

definition."

"It isn't something you can quantify."

"Someone should conduct experiments."

STAR TREK 111

"Experiments!" David said, slightly shocked.

"Certainly. Perhaps we might collaborate on

a paper.

"Saavik his

"I have heard a speculation. I am curious

to know whether it is true, or merely

apocryphal."

"All right," David said, beyond surprise.

"What speculation is that?"

Saavik turned toward him, propped herself

tilde up on one elbow, and let her hair spill

over his shoulder and across his chest.

"It is," she said, "that Romulans are

insatiable. Would you care to test this

hypothesis?"

David laughed. He reached up and touched her

face in the dark. He traced the lines of her

lips, and found that she was smiling. She had just

discovered another capability that few people would

suspect her of possess- ing. She had a

terrific sense of humor.

"Why don't we do that?" David sai d.

- Jim Kirk strode into the recreation hall.

The wake had deteriorated even further.

Cadets stood alone or in small groups, sinking

into silent depression. Scott clutched a drink and

talked continuously and intensely to a single captive

trainee. McCoy lay sprawled in his chair. As

a catharsis, this gathering was a wretched failure.

It succeeded only in intensifying everyone's feelings

of pain and loss and guilt. Kirk stopped by a

small group of cadets.

"I think it's about time to pack it in for the night,"

he said. "You're all dismissed."

"Yessir," one of the cadets said. Her

relieved smile, quick, and quickly hidden, was the first

smile Kirk had seen all day.

The cadets, just waiting for an excuse to escape

The Search For Spock

sepulchral atmosphere, all accepted his order

without objection or argument. The trainees still sober

enough to be ambulatory helped their friends who had

overin- dulged. Within a few minutes, the only

cadet left was the one listening to Mr. Scott's

tirade. Kirk joined them. The cadet looked

pale and drawn.

"Scatty was Kirk said, when Scott paused for

breath.

"Aye, Captain, life doesna make sense

sometimes, I was just sayin" to Grenni here, "tie the

good ones go before their time his

"Mr. Scott his

was there's no denyin" it. The boy had guts.

He had potential his

"Commander Scott!"

"Aye, sir? What's wrong, Admiral? Why

are ye soundin' so perturbed?"

Kirk sighed. "Perturbed, Mr. Scott?

Whatever makes you think I'm perturbed? You're

dismissed,

cadet." still

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." The

cadet's voice shook. still He fled.

"Mr. Scott, we'll reach Regulus tomorrow, and

I need a coherent crew. Go to bed."

"But my poor bairn I wished to have all o' us

sing a song for him. Do ye know "Danny Boy,"

Captain?"

"That's an order, Mr. Scott."

"Aye, sir." Scott commenced to sing. ""O

Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling

?"'

"Mister Scott!"

Scott stopped singing and gazed at him blearily,

blinking and confused, as Kirk's tone finally got through

to him.

""Sing "Danny Boy"" is not an order.

"Go to bed" is an order."

"Oh. Begging your pardon, sir. Aye, sir."

STAR TREK 111

Scott glanced around him, as if searching for some-

thing. Suddenly he looked very tired and old. He

trudged away.

McCoy was the last member of the wake remaining.

Jim sat on his heels beside McCoy's chair.

The doctor snored softly.

"Bones," Jim said, shaking him softly.

"Bones, wake up."

McCoy flinched, muttered something incomprehen-

sible, and lapsed back into snoring.

"Come on, old friend." Jim dragged McCoy's

arm across his shoulder and hoisted him to his feet.

McCoy sagged against him and muttered a few more

words. Jim froze.

"What?"',

McCoy straightened up, swaying, and looked

Kirk directly in the eye.

"Using a metabolic poison as a recreational

drug is totally illogical."

McCoy collapsed.

..

Chapter 2

Dr. Christine Chapel watched herself function

efficiently. She felt very much like two different people,

one performing as she should, the other separated from the world

by shock. She felt numb and clumsy. That she could

function at all astonished her. Yet she did

what needed to be done, caring for the crew members,

mostly young cadets, who had been injured during

Khan

Singh's attacks; dispensing hangover remedies

to those who had neglected to take a preventive after

Mr. Spock's wake; and looking in

occasionally on Leonard McCoy. She was

extremely concerned about him.

She paused in the doorway of the cubicle in which

she and Admiral Kirk had put him the night before.

She left the lights on very low. She suspected that

when Leonard woke, his headache would be a credit

to its species.

He moaned and muttered something. Chris

moved

STAR TREK 111

farther into the small room, squinting to see better

in the dim light. Leonard tossed on the bunk, his

face shining with sweat. His tunic was soaked. Chris

felt his forehead. His temperature was elevated, not

yet dangerously so, but certainly enough to make him

uncomfortable.

"Leonard," she said softly.

He sat bolt upright, staring straight ahead.

Slowly he turned to look at her. He moved in

a way she had never seen him move before, but in a

way that was eerily familiar.

"Vulcans," he said, in a voice much lower

than his own, "do not love."

Chris took an involuntary step backward.

"How dare you say that to me?" she said, in a

quiet, angry voice. The pain pierced through the

numbness to her enclosed, repressed grief and

spread like fire through her. She turned, hiding her

face in her hands. She could not break down now. The

ship had to have a doctor, and McCoy was in no

shape to take over.

The obsession she had had with Spock for so long still

embarrassed her, though it had burned out years before.

She had forced herself beyond it by sheer determination and by the

power of the knowledge that what she desired from him, he simply

could not give. His inability to respond to her had

nothing to do with Christine Chapel. He had never had

the choice between "interested" and "uninterested." All his

training and experience required him to be disinterested,

and so he had behaved.

Once Chris accepted that, she began to

appreciate his unique integrity. It took a

long time for her to get over her youthful fantasies,

but once she did, her fondness for Spock

strengthened. Losing a friend, she had discovered in the

past few days, was much worse 28

The Search For Spock

than losing a remotely potential and

unrequiting lover. Accepting Spock's death, she

thought, would be an even longer and more difficult task

than persuading herself not that he never would love her, but

that he never could.

She took her hands from her face and

straightened up, under control again. This was a bad

time to cry. Leonard McCoy's sense of humor

was quirky, but not cruel. For him to say what he

had said to her meant either that something was seriously wrong

or the simplest, if least flattering, possibility

that he was still intoxicated.

Saavik woke suddenly and sat up, startled.

Mr. Spock was speaking to her. His deep voice still

echoed in her cabin. Saavik was not prepared

to answer hm.she was dazzled by strange dreams and

fantasies.

"But I am not a Vulcan," she said. "You said

to me his

She stopped. He was not here he had never been

here. Spock was gone.

Spock's voice had sounded so real . . . but

what she thought was reality was a cruel dream, and what

for a moment had seemed impossible

fantasy was real.

David lay sleeping beside her, cool and fair.

She touched his shoulder lightly. He stirred gently

but did not wake. Saavik wondered if she could be

going mad with grief, or with guilt. She did not

feel mad.

But Spock's voice had seemed so real . . .

Delicately, Farrendahl nibbled at the

fur-covered web of skin at the base of the first and

second fingers of her right paw. A bad habit,

she knew it, one-she had picked up from a human

shipmate who bit his nails. A human's nails

were such flimsy things that it hardly 29

STAR TREK 111

mattered whether they were damaged or properly

sharp, but Farrendahl would never sink so low as to bite

her claws. They were far too useful.

At times like these, though, she needed a nervous

habit to fall back on. Her primate-type

crewmates either objected to or thought amusing the more

obvious forms of grooming. Never mind that she found

them soothing. Farrendahl did not like to be laughed

at. Primates, humanoids as they preferred

to call themselves in Standard, could be astonishingly

repellent when they laughed.

Farrendahl sat on her haunches in the

navigator's hammock, chewing on her paw and

blinking at the unfamiliar stars. Having passed out

of Federation space and into the grey area between set

borders some hours before, the ship now fell under the

protection of no one. It had become potential

prey to all. This, Farrendahl disliked intensely.

A signal came through her console. She blinked

at it, too, then in response to the new order

changed the course of the ship for the third time in a single

circadian. The resulting course, if left

unchanged, would bring the ship face to face with the

Klingons. This, Farrendahl disliked even more.

No wonder their mysterious passenger was unwilling

to name a destination. No wonder the ship's grapevine

sprouted rumors of an enormous payment to the

captain. Great wonder, though, if the captain

passed on part of his largesse in the crew's

bonuses without a confrontation.

"I dislike the scent of this," Farrendahl said.

She growled softly in irritation. "It smelled

bad when we began, and its odor has become

progressively more putrid."

Her compatriot bared his teeth in that offensive

30

The Search For Spock

primate way, and an intermittent choking noise

came from his throat. In short, he laughed.

"Since when do cats learn anything useful from their

sense of smell?" he said.

Compatriot to A high-class word to apply

to any member of this ship's crew of ill-mannered,

poorly reared mercenaries.

"Since when," Farrendahl said to Tran, "have I

been a cat?" Instead of baring her teeth, which another

member of her own species would have recognised as a

threat, she placed her paw on the scarred control

panel. She stretched out her fingers so her paw

became a hand, then slowly extended her claws. The

sharp tips scratched the panel with a gradual,

hair-raising shriek.

"A cat?" Tran exclaimed. "Did I

call you a cat? Who in their right mind would call you

a cat?"

"I saw a cat once," Farrendahl said

matter-of-factly. "It was digging through a garbage

heap in a back alley on Amenhotep IX. I

disliked it. Please explain the similarities between

it and me."

"Don't push it , Farrendahl."

"But I desire to be enlightened."

"All right. Both of you were in the back alley,

weren't you?"

Farrendahl leapt, knocking Tran to the deck.

The artificial gravity, set for economy's

sake at an annoyingly low intensity, turned her

attack and Tran's fall into a most

unsatisfactory series of slow bounces. But they

ended up as Farrendahl planned, with the human on the

floor and her claws and teeth at his throat. This was

a main reason she never bit her claws.

"And was there not an ugly monkey-looking

creature in that same back alley, only insensible

from noxious recreational drugs?"

"Probably there was," Tran said, laughing

again. 31

STAR TREK 111

Farrendahl bristled her whiskers out,

acknowledging Tran's good-humored surrender.

She was about to release him when the captain walked in

on them. He stopped, folded his arms across his chest,

and glared at the crew members.

"If you two haven't any work, I can find

some," he said. "We don't have time for your continual

horsing around."

Farrendahl growled softly and rose, extending

her hand to Tran to help him rise. He leaped

to his feet like a gymnast in the low gravity.

"A cat, a monkey, now a horse,"

Farrendahl said in a low voice. "Perhaps our

mysterious mission is to transport a menagerie."

Tran chuckled and returned to his place at the

control console.

"I heard that," the captain said. "Ten

demerits."

"You're in a charming mood today, Captain,"

Farrendahl said. She ignored the threat of

demerits. She had already earned so many that ten more

scarcely counted. Demerits were a source of great

hilarity among the crew, ever since the time they

precipitated a minor mutiny. One

planetfall, on a more or less civilised world and

after a long, boring journey, the captain forbade

Farrendahl, Tran, and several others to leave the

ship. Too many demerits, he said. Farrendahl

said nothing. She simply ignored him, and she and the

others went out anyway.

He could have left while they were rousting around. He

could have locked them off the ship and hired another

crew. But he stayed where he was, leaving the

ship open to them when they returned. Apparently he

preferred his tried and semi-competent, if

insolent, people to a new bunch that he would have to have

trained.

The Search For Spock

He continued to assign demerits, but that was the

only time he ever referred to them, and he never again

tried to use them for anything.

The captain ignored Farrendahl's smart

remark and paused at the control console.

Farrendahl despised him on every possible level.

He

possessed power and the title of captain not because he

deserved them or had earned them but simply because he

owned the ship. He knew little about running it and less

about the comput- ers that formed its guts.

"Perhaps you are concerned that we will discover what you are

being paid for this trip," Farrendahl said, putting him

on notice that they all did know and that they all

expected their cut.

He glared at her as she slipped smoothly into the

navigator's hammock. He kept his silence.

He was a bully, but he was also a coward, and he

avoided any serious confrontation with

Farrendahl.

"When do we find out where we are really

going?"

"When you need to know," he said.

"Waste of fuel," Farrendahl said just loudly enough

for him to hear. It amused her that he would worry the

comment around in his mind, trying to find a way to conserve

the fuel wasted by their roundabout route. If he had ever

learned to pilot his ship himself, he would not have to depend

on Farrendahl. She supposed she should be

grateful for his lack of application.

The contempt in which she held him was

diluted by her awareness of her own failings and

limitations. She had been disappointed when, after the

"mutiny," the captain capitulated to his

impertinent crew. But she might have found another

berth whatever else she was, she was an able

navigator, and nabled tilde and then a shipmaster

turned up who was willing to waive small matters

like papers and background. She could have

STAR TREK 111

found another place, but she did not. Inertia

kept her in the same, riskless position. Beneath her

contempt for the captain lurked a certain

contempt for herself. Perhaps they deserved each other.

The captain remained by the console, his attitude

that of one studying the readings, his eyes with the blank

stare of someone who had no idea what he was looking

at.

"We're on course," Farrendahl said, "as

long as you don't have any more changes in mind.

Unless you do, I am going to sleep."

Lacking any reply, she slid from the hammock

and padded away toward her cabin.

David stepped out of the turbo-lift, onto the

bridge. Saavik, already on duty, glanced over

her shoulder at him. A look passed between them that they

innocently assumed no one else noticed or

understood. Saavik returned her attention to her work

as if it were easy for her. David wrestled himself

back to this morning and away from last night.

It must be nice, David thought, to have the ability

to control your feelings so completely. Being able

to focus one's attention on a single subject

gave remarkable results.

"Good morning, David," James Kirk said.

"Uh, hi." David could not bring himself to call

Kirk "father." More than twenty years lay between them,

years during which they could have known each other.

David wondered what he would be like if he had known

James Kirk as his father when it might have made a

difference. He had found some reason to respect the

Starfleet officer. Affection would take longer.

Kirk responded to David's unease. "How

would you feel about calling me 'Jim"?" 34

The Search For Spock

"Okay, I guess."

Kirk paused for a moment, then turned away again.

David realised had hurt the admiral's feelings

with his lukewarm response.

"This is going to take some getting used to," he

said.

"Yes," Kirk said. "For me, too. We need

to talk about it. In private." coma

David took the hint and kept the personal

matters to himself, saving them for someplace other than the

bridge of the Enterprise.

"There it is," Kirk said.

In the viewscreen, Regulus I hung dark and

mysterious before them. The barren worldlet had always given

David an eerie feeling. It had never evolved

life. It had never had a chance of evolving life.

It had no water and no air and too little gravity

to hold either one. But Genesis had changed

all that. The planetoid's interior had been

turned into an entire, new, inside-out world, one with

an ecosystem designed from scratch by Carol

Marcus' team. It was like a Jules Verne novel

brought to reality, and David was proud of his part in

creating it. The memory of the short time he had spent

beneath the surface of the world remained as a warm glow of

pride and power. He wanted to go back inside and

explore. No experiment ever turned out

precisely as one planned. David wanted

to discover the

unexpected results. They were always the most

interesting.

Spacelab drifted in its orbit, a shadowed

silver flash against the limb of the planetoid. The

Starfleet science ship Grissom lay in a

matching orbit, waiting for the Enterprise. The ship

and the laboratory satellite gradually entered the

shadow of their primary, vanishing into the featureless

darkness. David shivered. He had lived and worked

on the research station for two years. He had called

it home. Now it felt alien and threatening. If

STAR TREK 111

hauntings were possible, it must be haunted.

On Spacelab, no one was left alive. The

bodies of the people Khan Singh had murdered lay

waiting to be returned to Earth and to their graves.

As the transporter beam faded from the newly

materialised form of Captain J.t. Esteban,

James Kirk waited to greet him. Esteban

stepped down. They shook hands.

"Welcome aboard, J.t.," Kirk said.

"It's been a while."

"It has that," Esteban said. "An eventful

while, too. You folks have things in quite a tizzy,

back home."

Kirk led Esteban to the nearest turbo-lift.

"I don't believe I follow you," he said.

"Will Dr. Marcus-be available, Jim?"

J.t. said. "I need to talk to the both of you."

They stepped into the lift. "Officer's lounge,"

Jim said, and felt the faint acceleration as the lift

whisked them toward their destination. "I'll have Dr.

Marcus paged." Kirk contacted Uhura.

"Uhura, Kirk here. Would you ask Dr.

Marcus to meet Captain Esteban and me in the

officer's lounge?"

"Certainly, Admiral."

"Thanks. Kirk out. was He turned off

the

intercom. He could sense the tension in the captain

of the Grissom. "What's going on, J.t.?"

"I just think it would save time to talk to you both at

once." Esteban was deliberately

misunderstanding the question, and Jim did not push it. They

tried to make small talk, but it was strained.

"The galaxy ships are already paying off,"

Esteban said. "Have you heard?"

"We've been out of touch," Jim said drily.

"Of course. But a subspace transmission just

came 36

The Search For Spock

through it made all the news services.

Magellan is in Andromeda. It just completed the first

close-range observation of a supernova."

"That's very impressive," Jim said. And for all

his offhandedness, he was impressed. Andromeda!

Another galaxy, millions and millions of

light-years away. A different ship, with a

different crew and a different commander, had reached it

first. He made a mental note to tell Mr.

Sulu the news of Magellan, for Sulu and the

galaxy ship's captain, Mandala Flynn, had

been the closest of friends for a long time.

They reached the officer's lounge and went inside.

Carol had not yet arrived.

"Jim?"

"Eh?" Kirk realized J.t. had spoken

to him, but had no idea what he had said. "I'm

sorry, what did you say?"

"I said Magel lan is a bit of a

technological trick. It's too small to do

anything but quick and dirty scouting missions. And if

they encounter hostiles, what can they do but turn tail

and run?"

"No doubt you're right," Jim said. He tried

to imagine something that might cause Mandala Flynn

to turn tail and run. He failed.

"No, it's Excelsior that's the wave of the

future," J.t. said.

The door to the lounge slid open to admit Carol

Marcus, accompanied by David. Carol nodded

to Jim coolly; if she was not still angry at him,

at best she was not yet willing to forget about last

night's conversation.

"Carol," Jim said, "this is J.t.

Esteban, commanding the Grissom. J.t., Dr.

Carol Marcus, and her son . . ." Jim

paused, thinking he really should say, "Our

son," but deciding not to because it would take so long

to explain. "Her son, Dr. David Marcus."

STAR TREK 111

"Two for the price of one," David said.

Jim chuckled and Carol smiled. Missing the

joke, J.t. rubbed his jaw and frowned.

"This is sensitive information," he said. "I

only expected Dr. Marcus, senior." -

David's smile vanished. "I can take a

hint," he said. He headed toward the door, the

irritation in his voice mirrored in his

stiff-shouldered walk.

"David was Jim said, but David kept

walking.

"David, wait," Carol said.

David hesitated, then glanced back.

"David is a full member of the Genesis

team, Captain Esteban," Carol said. "He and

I are the only surviving principal

investigators. Anything you have to say about Genesis,

you must say to him as well as to me."

"The first thing I have to say is I wish you'd

called it something else," Esteban said.

"I don't understand what you mean."

"It's too late now, but it wasn't the wisest

move you could have made, in terms of p.r. Never mind

that, for the moment. Dr. Marcus was He

addressed David this ffme. "I apologise for

my bad manners. Please come sit down with the rest

of us. We have a great deal to talk over."

They sat around one of the small tables next to the

star portals, and Esteban described the

circumstances they would return to on Earth.

"The news of the Genesis effect created . . .

shall we say, a sensation," J.t. said

uncomfortably.

In all the years Jim had known J.t.

Esteban, he had never seen him lose his

composure. Anything and everything, no matter how

strange, no matter the stress, he had always taken

easily, even phlegmatically, in his stride.

Jim had read the reports of some of his missions.

Esteban had come up against extraordinarily

The Search For Spock

challenging events, and he had prevailed. To see

him so agitated about Genesis disturbed Jim more

than anything the younger Starfleet officer could tell

him.

"Of course it did," David said. "That's

sort of the point, isn't it? We've made

possible the elimination of poverty. We've made the

reasons for war completely untenable his

"You've created a device that could destroy the

galaxy. That's what our adversaries perceive, not

universal peace and plenty. They have demanded

multilateral parity his

"You mean they want Genesis, too," Carol

said.

"Precisely."

"Why don't you give it to them?" David said.

"DavidI"...Jim said, shocked. "We didn't

just go through the last few days so we could turn

Genesis over to an enemy power. Your friends didn't

die resisting Khan so you could hand over the discovery

to the next person who demanded it."

"That was different," David said. "Khan wanted

it for revenge. Revenge against you."

Jim scowled, but did not reply to the jab.

"I'm not talking about giving it to every crazy who

comes along," David said. "I'm talking about

making Genesis openly available for transforming

lifeless worlds."

"That is absolutely outside the.realm

of possibility," J.t. said.

"But that's what we made it for!"

"My dear boy," J.t. said.

Jim winced, seeing David bristle.

"My dear boy," J.t. said, "we can't give

it to anyone else. That would be too dangerous."

"The Federation is the only organisation with the

wisdom to decide on its use?" Carol said

dryly.

"I'm glad you understand Starfleet's the

Federa39

STAR TREK 111

tion's position, Dr. Marcus," J.t.

said, missing the irony the same way he always

missed jokes.

"Oh, I understand it, all right," Carol said.

"That doesn't mean that I accept it."

"I knew it!" David shouted. "You just can't

keep your hands off any discovery, can you? You have

to grab it and hoard it and twist it until you can

figure out a way to use it for destruction!"

"David, relax," Jim said.

"We would hardly have to do much figuring, now, would

we?" Esteban said. "The evidence for the

destructive power of Genesis is its first

deployment. It completely recreated the substance

of the Mutara Nebula, a volume of space some

hundred astronomical units in radius. It

destroyed Reliant and all the people on board. It

nearly destroyed the Enterprise, and it did cause

the death of his

"Indirectly," Jim Kirk snapped. "We

were involved in hostilities his

"Because of Genesis!"

"Not entirely," Jim said. David was right

Khan Singh had intended to use Genesis to wreak

revenge upon James Kirk. But he had stumbled

upon the project by chance, then turned it to his

purposes. He had succeeded better than he could

have known.

"You're hardly being fair, Captain," Carol

said. "The Genesis device was obviously never

meant in any form to go off inside a ship. That

partic- ular device was never intended to go off within a

nebula."

"But that's precisely my point, doctor! After

all that's happened, how can you argue that the device

cannot be an instrument of terrorism?"

"But if everybody has it there isn't any need

for terrorism!" David said.

Carol was touched by David's naivete, Jim was

The Search For Spock

surprised by it, and J.t. thought he was being

deliberately, perhaps even maliciously, dense.

"Your discovery may eliminate poverty. But

it'll hardly change the natures of sentient beings.

It won't eliminate greed or lust for power or

simple error, and it most certainly won't

eliminate ideology. The drive to convert people's

minds and hearts has caused more grief, more suffering,

more loss of life than any desire for property,

riches, or even the necessities of

survival.""

"Very eloquent, Captain," David said

sarcastically. "I take it you mean our

ideology requires us to pervert Genesis into a

weapon before anybody else gets a chance to?"

"It's hardly productive to ascribe

malicious motives to everybody who disagrees with

you, David," Jim said sharply.

"What has to be done with Genesis isn't up

to me to say," J.t. said. "Or to any of us."

"You're entitled to your opinion," (carol said.

David jumped to his feet. "I always

said the military'd try to take Genesis away from

us! I suppose if I try to call the Federation

Science Network in on this, you'll throw me in the

brigl"

"Sit down and shut up, David," Jim said.

"If any- body gets thrown in the brig on this

ship, it'll be by me. And you're making it mighty

tempting to send you to bed without your supper."

David glared at him with a sudden flare of

resentment that surprised Jim completely.

"Try it and see how far you get!" David

glared at Kirk, then at Esteban. "I don't

see any point in continuing this discussion." He

stalked away.

"Come back here, David," Jim said.

"Do you think you can make me? You and who else?"

He strode from the lounge.

STAR TREK 111

Jim started to rise.

Carol put one hand on his arm.

"Let him go, Jim. He'll be all right when

he cools down. was She smiled. "That's another

way he's like you. his

"I was never that hot-headed!"

Carol looked at him askance. Jim

reluctantly sat down again.

He realised that J.t. was watching them with both

curiosity and confusion. He deserved at least some

explanation.

"David is my son, as well as Carol's,"

he said.

"Oh," J.t. said. "Er. . . I didn't

realize you had any children."

Neither did I, Jim thought, but what he said out

loud was, "Just the one."

"How did we get off on this track,

anyway?" J.t. said. "What I asked you here

to tell you is that Grissom has been ordered to the

Mutara sector to make a complete survey of the

Genesis world. We can hardly discuss it, with our

allies or with our adversaries, unless we know more

about the effect and its consequences. Dr. Marcus,

I've been directed to transfer you to my ship. his

"What?" Carol said.

"Obviously, we need you to supervise the

observations his

"Forget it," Carol said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"What the hell do you think I am?

"Transfer" me? Like a crate of supplies?

Do you think I'm a robot?"

"I'm sorry, Doctor. I don't follow you

at all."

"Six people died on Spacelab. I was

responsible for them and they were my friends! I owe them.

At the very least I owe them the courtesy of telling

their families what happened!"

"Their families know of the tragedy . . ."

The Search For Spock

"What did you do send telegrams? My

gods!"

"I feel sure things were handled with more . . . more

delicacy than you suspect."

"I don't care," Carol said. "I'm not going

back to Genesis, not now. I won't discuss it

any further."

"But his

"The subject is closed."

She stood abruptly and strode from the lounge,

leaving Jim and J.t. together in awkward silence.

"Well," J.t. said finally, "I didn't

handle either one of them very well, did I? Maybe

if I ask her again a little later ?"

"I wouldn't advise it," Jim said.

Valkris knelt on the floor of her cabin,

meditating. The low gravity of the mercenary's ship

made the discipline very difficult. Remaining in one

position for a great length of time required no strength

of will, where gravity put little stress on the body.

Meditation was one of the few ways she had of passing

the time during the miserable boredom of space

travel when one was merely a passenger, a lone

passenger at that. She had been more accustomed to flying

her own ship, before her family fell upon hard times.

This mission would rebuild her family's fortune

and its honor. She resisted unseemly pride it

was merely her duty to repair the damage done

to all their reputations by the actions of her older

brother. Kiosan had never forgiven their family for

choosing Valkris, rather than him, to lead them.

In his despair and envy he set out to prove how

spectacularly correct the family had been

to overlook him. He reneged on all the vows he

had made when he came of age. He put aside

his veil and showed his face to the world. He addicted

himself to pleasure, and he showed no desire to change.

Valkris offered him the

43

STAR TREK 111

opportunity to return to the family three times,

and even a fourth, though the fourth offer strained her

sense of aesthetics. Not only did he refuse

he dared her to break her own word and join him.

Valkris had disowned her brother with a regret so

intense that to this moment she felt the pain. But

Kiosan's actions had sent their family's

reputation and merit into an inexorable slide that could not

be reversed unless he repented or she released him.

So Valkris had set him free. To all her other

blood kin, he was dead. But he was still very much alive

to Valkris, and when she thought of him, as she often

did, she wished him well in his freedom and envied

him more than a little.

She had made vows, too. Every member of each

of the great families took the vows upon coming of age.

Despite the example of her older brother,

Valkris was unable to break them. Every action she had

taken since accepting her position had been intended

to benefit the family. She had never fled a duel.

She had never even lost a duel, though she bore

scars from wounds that would have proven her honor even had

she yielded to the opponent who inflicted them. Because

of her reputation for ferocious tenacity, she

had not been challenged in some years. Valkris did

not fight for an afternoon's entertainment. She had buried

more opponents than she had permitted to be helped from

the field.

It was good that the family would recover from

Kiosan's foolishness. It was better that it was

Valkris who designed the recovery, and who would

carry it out.

She extended both her hands and clenched her fingers

into fists, feeling the tension and the strength in her long,

strong muscles. She rose smoothly to her feet

and made a hand signal before the sensor of the intercom.

The Search For Spock

"Yes?" the captain of the mercenary vessel said

after a moment.

"The gravity in my cabin is very weak. I

require it to be increased."

"There's a matter of the extra fuel to run the

grav generators."

"You will not lose by acceding to my requests,

captain," Valkris said. She was tired enough of his

pettiness to consider making him a challenge. She

resisted the unworthy impulse. She could gain no

honor by vanquishing such a creature. He

had no style.

"Very well," the captain said disagreeably.

A short time later the gravity in Valkris'

cabin began to increase. She knelt again and composed

herself for meditation. When the force increased well beyond that

of her home world, she simply smiled and set herself

to find the discipline she had been seeking.

Saavik did her work automatically. She had

practiced on the bridge of the Enterprise so often

that the responses came without her conscious thought.

Any change, any anomaly, would call itself to her

attention instantly. For the moment everything was normal

as normal as it could be for a half-crippled ship so

Saavik could think of other things.

She thought about David, she thought about Mr.

Spock, and she thought about the strangeness of her

life. Mr. Spock had helped her transform

herself from a starving, abandoned, illiterate child-thief

into a polished, controlled, and well-educated

Starfleet officer. Under most circumstances she was

the very model of Vulcan propriety. That had been

her goal, until her last conversation with Spock.

"You must find your own path," he had said. The

wisdom of his words impressed her. He had told

her she might find herself considering

STAR TREK 111

possibilities that she knew he would not

approve. She should not, he said, dismiss them on that

criterion alone. Instead, she should remain open

to them.

The path she had chosen last night led into the

unexplored regions of her Romulan heritage.

Spock would most certainly not have encouraged such a

journey. For that reason Saavik found even more

cause to admire his insight into her character and his own.

Saavik thought about her life, she thought about Mr.

Spock, and she thought about her thoughts kept coming back

to David.

"Lieutenant Saavik."

"Yes, Admiral." Saavik turned to face

Admiral Kirk, who had just stepped onto the

bridge with an unfamiliar officer Captain

Esteban of the Grissom, by his uniform and

insignia.

"J.t.," Kirk said, "this is Lieutenant

Saavik. Lieutenant, Captain Esteban is

on a survey trip to Genesis. He needs someone

along who has a scientific background, and who

witnessed the creation of the world. Dr. Marcus

has declined to go. Would you care to volunteer?"

"Aye, Admiral," she said. She thought of

David. The words tasted bitter. She turned

back to her console.

Chris Chapel paused at McCoy's bedside

and felt his forehead again. His fever had receded, and

she had heard him move restlessly as if he were about

to wake up.

"Chris?"

"Yes, Leonard." She tried to keep the ragged

wariness from her voice, but the pain still showed. Whatever

his excuse for saying a very Vulcan thing to her in a

creditable imitation of Spock's voice, it had still

hurt her badly.

The Search For Spock

"What's going on? What happened?"

"What do you mean, Leonard? Since you spoke

to me last? Since last night? Since we left

Spacedock? What's the matter with you?"

"I . . . I don't know. Everything seems so

strange."

She felt concerned enough about him to turn on the

medical sensors above his bed. She had held off

doing so earlier because she knew what he would

say if he awoke to find them quietly talking

to themselves over his head.

"What're you doing? I'm not sick. I don't

need those damned blinkenlightzen interrupting my

sleep."

Chris managed to laugh. "That's more like it," she

said. She watched the sensors through a couple of

cycles. Nothing seemed amiss.

Leonard's temperature had dropped

to normal. His body chemistry showed no evidence

of the metabolic breakdown products of alcohol.

But if he had not been drunk last night . . .

what had affected him? She turned off the sensors.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Eight hundred hours."

"Good lord."

Without comment, Chris let him sit up. If he

was well enough to help, all the better.

"Leonard," she said.

"Hm?"

"Why did you say that to me?"

"What?"

"A little while ago you woke up, and you said,

"Vulcans do not love." his

"My gods, Chris," he said, shocked.

"Did I? I'm sorry. All night I've

been having those horrible dreams where you can't tell

if they're real or not. I can't even remember

anything about them except how frightening and how real they

were. I guess I must have been dreaming . . . about

Spock."

STAR TREK 111

"I see," she said.

"I never would have said such a thing if I'd known

what I was saying. Will you accept my apology?"

"Yes," she said. Wanting to forget about it as

soon as possible, she changed the subject. "Are

you well enough to go on duty? Someone has to accompany

Carol Marcus to Spacelab. I think it should be

one of

us. his

"Good gods Jim isn't going to let anybody

go down there to was

He jumped out of bed. Chris caught him when he

staggered and nearly fell.

"I'm all right just stood up too fast."

"Uh-huh." She helped him sit on the edge

of the bed. "You're in no condition to leave the shim

especially since l don't know what's

wrong with you."

"But his

"Don't be an ass, Leonard. You can stay here

and rest under your own authority, or you can stay under

Admiral Kirk's orders. Your choice."

"I forbid you was He stopped. "Sorry.

Chris, I've already been down there I've seen .

. . what hap- pened to Carol Marcus's friends.

Letting her see it would be cruel."

"I saw the records you made surely you

didn't think I'd take Carol into that was The

violence of the murders flashed unbidden into her mind.

"Grissom's medical officer has already taken a

team into the space station," Chris said. "The . . .

casualties . . . are in stasis. The sites are

in order." The technical words made the

descriptions easier to say.

"Chris, if you're sure his

"What I said before still holds. You're staying here,

under any circumstances."

McCoy stopped trying to hide his exhaustion.

He sagged back on his bunk.

The Search For Spock

"I'm just overtired," he said. "Don't

trouble Jim with this."

"That's up to you."

"I'll stay in sick bay."

Chris nodded, relieved at his acquiescence.

The codes and the documentation for Genesis had to be

retrieved from Regulus I; the bodies of Khan

Singh's victims had to be formally identified and

transferred to the Enterprise. Carol walked toward

the transporter room, dreading the task that faced

her. David, beside her, suddenly touched her elbow and

drew her to a halt.

"What's the matter, David?"

"There's no reason for you to go down there. I can .

. . take care of everything."

"I hardly need to be protected by my own

son," Carol said. "This is my

responsibility."

"Mother his

"David, we both lost friends in this disaster,"

Carol said. One of the ways she could hold off her

grief was by reminding herself continually that she was not

alone.

was I know that Vance was more than just a friend to you."

"I know you know it. Did you think we thought we were

secret lovers?" She herself had thought it must

be obvious to everyone, because she had felt as if she were

walking around in a perpetual glow, a bit like the

way David and Saavik looked this morning. Right

after she and Vance had become lovers, David said

offhand to her that he did not understand why the two of them

spent so much time together. "Del's a lot more interest-

ing," David had said. "dance is okay, but he's

kind of, well, boring, I think." And Carol,

amused that David had not caught on, replied,

"Then you don't know Vance very well." Vance was

quieter than his partner,

STAR TREK Ill

more reserved, and steadier. Del possessed a

fragile ego and a quick temper, and Carol, for all

that she acknowledged his brilliance, thought he was a little

crazy. Vance, though . . . Vance was the sanest

person she had ever known. Del might be interesting

to be around as in the old Chinese curse, "May you

live in interesting times."

Being with Vance was simply and purely fun.

David had seemed to catch on, eventually, though

now was the first time they had directly discussed it.

Far from being jealous, as certain psychological

theories would have made him, he had

subsequently become much better friends with Vance, which

had pleased Carol

tremendously.

"I just thought," David said, "if you didn't have

to see him . . ."

Carol took his hand and held it between hers.

"David, losing Vance is the most painful thing

I've ever experienced. I still don't believe

he's gone. Because of our work, I have to go down

to Spacelab. But even if I didn't, I'd have

to go anyway. Do you understand?"

"I don't think so," he said.

"If I don't . . . If I don't see

him, I'll never be able to believe he's dead. I

have to accept it."

David hugged her suddenly.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I'm so

damned sorry. When you and he were together, you looked

happier than I ever saw you before. It just isn't

fair to was His voice broke, and he did not try

to say more.

Carol hugged him, then drew back and

scrubbed her sleeve across her eyes.

"We'd better go," she said.

50

Chapter 3

Carol Marcus and Christine Chapel

materialised within the stasis room of Spacelab.

The blue glow of the stasis fields leaked eerily from

the edges of five of the chambers. Carol hesitated

a moment, then opened the first one. She looked down

at the shrouded figure, then drew the cloth from the

pale face of a very young man, who had died with an

expression of terror.

"This is Jan." She said his full name and his

I'd. number for the identification record that Chris

was making. "He was our steward. He

hadn't tilde been on Spacelab for long. A

freighter stopped by a few months ago, and when it

left he stayed behind. He said he was working his way

across the galaxy. He wanted to see everything there is

to see. "I know that's impossible," he told

me, "but it's too good a line to pass up." He

wrote poetry, but he would never let anyone read

it."

She covered his pale face again, closed his

chamber, and opened the second one, which protected an

older man

STAR TREK 111

with flecks of grey in his black hair. After

identifying him for the record, Carol said, "Yoshi,

our cook, shouldn't have been here at all. He was

due for leave, with the rest of Spacelab's staff.

But when he found out a few of us were staying, he said

he would, too, because otherwise we would all forget

to eat and make ourselves sick with malnutrition. I

think, though, that he stayed because he was as fascinated

by Genesis as the rest of us. He didn't want

to miss the second phase of the experiment."

Carol glanced at Chris. "Is the machine

getting this? I want you to get it all."

Chris nodded. Carol was well aware that nothing was

needed beyond a formal

identification, but Chris recognized the

private eulogies to be a facet of Carol's

grief. "Yes," she said. "I'm getting it."

The third chamber held a fair, handsome young man

who looked completely at peace.

"Delwin March," Carol said. "He and Vance

Madison were partners. They practically invented a

whole field of physics. They called it

'kindergarten physics" because it dealt with

sub-elementary particles. They used to go to conferences

and drive their older colleagues to distraction

by refusing to take anything seriously. As far as we

know yet, the two particles they discovered are the

basis of the whole

universe and they named them "sparks" and

"boojums," out of a Lewis Carroll poem.

I didn't get along very well with Del March.

There was a streak of fury and pain in him that frightened

me. I didn't understand it. I couldn't do anything

about it and I couldn't do anything to help him. The

only person who could reach him when he began to sink

into that anger was his partner, and all Vance could do was

keep him from hurting himself too badly." She

brushed a lock of light brown hair from March's

forehead and covered his face with his shroud. 52

The Search For Spock

The fourth chamber held the body of a Deltan

woman. Her face was stately and elegant and

extraordinarily beautiful. "Zinaida

Chitirih-Ra-Payjh was one of the finest

mathematicians in the Federation. We couldn't have

gotten past stage one of Genesis without her."

Carol smiled sadly. "All the boys, Jan and

David and Del poor Del, particularly and some

of the young women on the station fell

desperately in love with her, of course.

Almost every human here fell in love with her or her

partner or with both of them." She glanced at the

recorder. "Jedda Adzhin-Dall isn't here.

He died by phaser, down inside Regulus I."

She sighed. "Deltans have a powerful effect on

humans. Zinaida and Jedda handled it

beautifully. They were polite and cool and amused.

They knew, I think, that nothing will douse a crush

quicker than amusement. Everybody wondered what they

did in their cabin together. I doubt anybody ever

got up the nerve to ask. I think they laughed not

cruelly, but just because human beings must have seemed so

silly and immature to them." She put the palm of

her hand along the side of Zinaida's face.

"Dear Zinaida..." Carol glanced at Chris.

"Leonard said he could not find a cause of death,"

she said matter-of-factly.

Chris hesitated, disturbed by Carol's eerie

calm. But refusing to answer would be close to Iying.

"Deltans can will themselves to die," she said. "If

they find themselves in intolerable conditions. I think she

wouldn't have felt any pain."

"She wouldn't have been frightened of pain," Carol

said. "She would have seen it as a

challenge maybe even as an

opportunity to experience something she hadn't chosen

to encounter before." She replaced the shroud carefully.

She opened the last chamber.

"This is Vance Madison." Her hands shaking,

she uncovered his face. It was strong, intelligent,

deter

STAR TREK 111

mined. The light glinted like jewels in his very

curly black hair. "I used to tease Del and

him by calling them "twins," because they were so

completely different. Fair and dark, white and

black, short and tall, quicktempered and serene . .

. crazy and sane." Her calm voice suddenly

broke. "Oh, damn, Chris, now I have

to believe he's dead . . ."

Chris Chapel turned off the recorder, went

to Carol, and put her arms around her while she

cried. "I know," Chris said. "I understand."

After Carol and Chris beamed down to

Spacelab, Saavik and David stepped up

on the transporter platform to beam into Regulus

I's new ecosystem.

"Energize," Saavik said.

"Lieutenant," the cadet said

hesitantly, "I can't find a clear place

to beam you to."

"What?" David said. "It's full of open

spaces in there."

Saavik joined the cadet at the console and

inspected the readings.

"It is true, David. The surface in

range of the beam is covered with some amorphous

material. Even the tunnels are filled." The

readings were completely different from what she had

expected. She scanned further until she found a

relatively empty spot. "Beam me here,

cadet," she said. "I will report what I find."

"Saavik, wait a minute was David said.

She returned to the platform. "I will either return

immediately or send for you. Energize."

The cadet obeyed.

Saavik experienced the brief disorientation of

dematerialization. She arrived on Regulus I,

beneath the planetoid's surface and within one of the

tunnels dug as a staging area for the second phase

of the 54

The Search For Spock

Genesis project. She held her

communicator open and her phaser ready, should

the changes

threaten her.

She found herself in a very small clearing left by the

random arrangement of a tangled mass of undergrowth.

Vines completely filled the tunnel in which Dr.

Marcus and her team had hidden the Genesis

records.

"Saavik to Erzterprise. I have reached the

surface. David, the flora has grown into the

tunnels and filled them. Is this what you intended?"

"No. Not at all but like I told you, things always

happen that you don't expect. I'm coming down."

"Wait a moment. I will clear a place for you."

First she tried to push aside the beautiful flowering

tendrils, but they sprang back into place. In

trying to move them, she crushed some of the stems and

blossoms. The damaged foliage released a

pungent and entrancing scent.

Saavik set her phaser to very-short-range

disintegrate. She had checked the phaser out

precisely because David had told her that the

Genesis experiment was so complex that its outcome could

not be predicted in every detail. She had not, however,

expected to be attacked by the vegetation.

The scarlet-edged green leaves withered and

vanished before the b eam of her phaser. The sweet,

spicy fragrance intensified. She opened her

communicator.

"Saavik to Enterprise. Cadet, can you lock

onto the cleared area?"

"Aye, Lieutenant."

David materialised beside her. He looked around

and whistled in surprise.

"I take that to mean you did not expect anything like

this," Saavik said.

"It's even more viable than we thought! My gods,

look at the growth, even under artificial light!"

STAR TREK 111

Saavik forbore to puncture his enthusiasm

by pointing out that the ball of glowing plasma deeper

inside the planetoid gave light no more

"natural" than did the overhead fixtures

illuminating the tunnels. The mass of reacting

gases was held to the proper density by magnetic

fields and kept in place by stress fields. It

and the surrounding shell of the planetoid existed in an

essentially unstable relationship.

"I would call this "overgrowth," David. And

we still must reach the Genesis records. We

do not have much time."

"Hey, I designed these vines at least give

me a chance to admire my own handiwork for a minute, will

you?"

"Admire the ones behind us. I must destroy some

of the ones in our path. Please do not take it

personally." Before she fired her phaser she added,

"They are very beautiful. And the scent is aesthetically

pleasing."

"Thanks. his

Through the intertwining foliage, Saavik could just

see the great pile of portable memory banks that

held the Genesis research. As she cut a path in

that direction, David plucked a spray of leaves

from a vine, crushed them, and inhaled the scent.

"They'll grow berries in a couple of months.

Ought to make great wine."

Saavik reached the cache of Genesis records.

She focused her phaser to a tight beam, powered it

down to its minimum level, and used it like a

scalpel to remove the undergrowth from the boxes. As

she finished, David approached. He put his arms

around her from behind and rubbed the leaves together between his hands.

The refreshing perfume rose up around her face.

"Wouldn't you like to try some wine that tasted like

these smell?"

The Search For Spock

Saavik holstered her phaser and took

David's hands between her own. She stroked the backs

of his hands with her fingers and grasped his wrists,

feeling the cool throb of his pulse.

"The scent requires nothing more," she said. "It

is complete in itself. It is perfect, very much like its

designer."

He let the leaves fall to the ground and hugged her

more tightly, burying his face in her hair. She

wanted nothing more than to respond to his caress.

Her communicator beeped.

"I'd never design a bird that made a silly

noise like that," David whispered in Saavik's

ear. "Must have been my mother, she was never very good at

music. Let's ignore it."

"It would merely make more silly noises," she

said. "And when it stopped, a whole flock of its

comrades would come looking for it,

accompanied by a whole flock of cadets playing

at being security officers." She kissed him quickly

and pulled out her communicator. Chuckling, David

brushed the last remnants of his vines from the

storage boxes.

"Saavik here."

"How long will you be, Lieutenant?" Admiral

Kirk said. "Captain Esteban wants to leave

for the Mutara sector as soon as possible."

"A few more minutes, Admiral," Saavik

said. "We have located the Genesis records and are

preparing to beam them up."

"Very well. Shake a leg. Kirk out."

With a curious frown, Saavik closed the

communicator. ""Shake a leg"?" she said

to David. "How would that be of benefit? Is it an

exercise?"

"It's an idiom, it means hurry up. Why

did he tell you Esteban's plans?"

"Because he has ordered was She stopped, and then,

STAR TREK 111

to be fair, she said, "Or, rather, he strongly

invited me to volunteer to accompany Grissom to

Genesis. Such invitations are not wisely

declined."

"What? Damn! So he's trying to cut me and

mother out of the follow-up! Saavik, do you know what this

means?"

"It means he is under the impression that you do not

care to go he said you had declined."

"The hell I did!"

"But he said tilde have. Perhaps he meant Dr.

Marcus, senior."

"He didn't even ask me! Son of a bitch!"

"Surely if you tell him you wish to go his

"He'll probably think of some way to stop me.

He'll try, anyway. Especially now that you're

going."

David made Saavik acutely uncomfortable

when he referred to the admiral in such an angry,

abusive tone.

"Why do you speak of him like this, David? I was

under the impression that you and he had found reason

to accept each other."

"So was I. For a while. But maybe I was

wrong. Maybe we're too different." He blew

his breath out in exasperation, then suddenly grinned.

"I have an idea. Let's let him wait.

Let's blast a trail to the interior and see

what's going on there."

Saavik put her hand on her phaser and very

nearly drew it. She was so tempted by his invitation

that the strength of her desire shocked her.

"I would like that very much," she said.

"Great. Let's go."

"What I would like is very far from what I must do."

"Oh, come on a few minutes won't hurt."

"It would take hours to clear a trail through the

tunnels."

He snatched playfully at her phaser. She

avoided him easily, and not at all playfully.

The Search For Spock

"Spoilsport," he said. "I thought you were

different, but you're just like everybody else in

Starfleet."

"I am like no one else at all, in Starfleet

or outside it," she said.

"Indoctrinated in the military mind."

"You are provoking me, David."

As she pulled out her communicator, David

grabbed again for her phaser, this time with more determination.

Reacting automatically, she grasped his hand in a

move Captain Sulu had taught her in a

self-defence class. The phaser went flying.

"Let got Geez, what are you doing?"

"The technical term is "kotegaeshi,""

Saavik said.

"I don't give a shit what it's called

tilde ill you let go!"

He dug the nails of his free hand into her fingers

to try to make her release him. She put enough twist

OD his wrist to hurt if he resisted.

"Okay, okay!" he said.

Before she could put the communicator away and

retrieve her phaser, the Enterprise signalled

again.

"Enterprise to Saavik," Admiral Kirk

said. There was a definite edge to his voice. "Will

you get a move on, Lieutenant?"

"Immediately, Admiral," she said. "The Genesis

records are cleared of foliage. The

transporter beam may now lock onto them."

"Preparing to beam up," the cadet in the

transporter room said through the communicator.

"Think you can cut me out of my own project, do

you, you filthy warmonger?" David shouted before

Saavik could close the channel.

"David? What are you talking about?" Kirk's

tone was hurt and surprised.

"I'll tell you what I'm talking about his

Saavik snapped the communicator closed and

slapped it back in place on her belt.

STAR TREK 151

"What is wrong with you?" Saavik had begun

to get used to David's impulsive actions.

Until now he had never seemed maliciously

irresponsible.

The transporter beam glowed; the boxes of

Genesis records sparkled and disappeared.

Saavik dragged David around till she could

reach her phaser. It had fallen into a tangle of

vines. She had to rip it loose from the tendrils that

had curled around it. The pungent scent rose up

to enclose her.

She felt dizzy. She shoved the phaser against

her belt and fumbled for the communicator.

"Saavik to Enterprtse; Beam us up."

"One moment, please, Lieutenant. We have

to clear the platforms."

"Quickly!" She slipped to her knees. The stone

floor of the tunnel felt very hard and cold. Tiny

tendrils of David's beautiful vines dug into the

solid rock. Saavik struggled to her feet. Her

grip on David's hand loosened and he came

toward her, reaching again for her phaser.

The transporter beam enveloped and

dematerialized them.

Jim Kirk stormed into the transporter room just

as Lieutenant Saavik and David appeared on

the platform among the piles of boxes that the cadet

had shoved untidily aside.

David and Saavik were holding hands.

Charming, I'm sure, Kirk thought, but hardly the

place or time and damned foolish to do while being

transported. Lucky neither had lost an arm.

"I take it you have something to say to me, young man,"

Kirk said to David.

The young scientist pulled his hand free of

Saavik's and strode forward to meet his father.

"You bet I do."

The Search For Spock

Behind them, Saavik took one step forward and

felt her knees begin to buckle. Before she could

fall, she sat down quickly on the edge of the

platform. David and the admiral argued, David

resentfully, the admiral indignantly, neither

listening to the other. Saavik stopped listening to both of

them.

"Saavik, are you okay?" The cadet crouched

beside her, concerned.

"Yes . . . of course." She had to draw on

all her Vulcan training to find enough strength to rise.

She had not had much sleep in the past several days,

but she should be able to function

effectively for much longer without rest. She had

done so before, in practice. She felt ashamed and

embarrassed.

"Admiral," she said. Neither he nor David

heard her. "Admiral Kirk!" she said more

loudly, breaking into the argument.

Kirk swung around to face her. "What is it,

Lieutenant?"

"May I be dismissed? I must prepare

to transfer to the Gr tilde ssom."

"All right, yes. Dismissed."

Saavik sat in her cabin, grateful for its

dry warmth and the dim, scarlet-tinged light. Her

preparations remained incomplete, but she needed a

moment to collect herself and to think about her own and

David's inexplicable behavior.

Absently she drew her phaser and plucked

away the delicate pink tendrils. Many climbing

plants have the ability to coil themselves around whatever

solid object they contact. This species moved

quickly, but she had seen others that were faster.

Its ability to probe into solid rock was

exceptional if she had seen what she thought she

saw. She wished for time to explore

STAR TREK 111

Regulus I. She was, she thought, nearly as

anxious as David to know the full results of the

Genesis programs.

Saavik lifted a crushed vine-leaf to her nose

to experience again the dazzling scent. The fragrance

twined around her like the tendrils around her phaser.

Dizziness hit her. Saavik jerked the leaf

away. She gazed at it, frowning. She put it

aside, went to the synthesiser panel, and requested

the ship's computer to send her a sampling envelope.

When it appeared, she swept together all the bits of

David's vine. Repressing the wish to inhale their

redolent essence, she sealed them within the clear

plastic.

Jim Kirk folded his arms across his chest.

"David, I don't understand what you're so angry

about. Carol said she didn't want to go back to the

Mutara sector naturally I assumed you didn't

want to go, either."

"You should have asked me,?"' David said

stubbornly. He felt tremendously relieved that

his mother was not willing to return yet, and terrified and

angry that he might be forbidden to do so. "I'll

tell you why you expect me to do exactly what she

does it's because everybody you know has jumped when you

said 'frog" for so long that you don't think anybody

has a mind of their own!"

Jim chuckled. "You don't know the people I know,

if you think that. Look, I've apologised I

don't see that there's much else I can do, if you're

determined to sulk."

"You can send me out on Grissom."

Jim hesitated. "Are you sure that's wise?"

"Why isn't it wise?"

"I just thought . . ."

David glared at him belligerently. Jim

took a moment to sort through his own feelings.

The Search For Spock

"I'll be honest with you, David. I was hoping

you'd stay on board the Enterprise. I've wanted

a chance to talk to you. I can't make up for all the

years that I didn't know you his

"No," David said coldly. "You can't."

Taken aback by David's reaction,

Jim said, "Whether you like it or not, I am your

father."

"You can't spend twenty years ignoring my

existence his

"David, I didn't his

was and just waltz in and expect me to shower you with

filial piety!"

"All I want is for us to try to be friends."

"It's too late! It's too damned late for

you to come along and try to make friends with me!"

They were getting nowhere; they were

succeeding only in antagonising each other. Jim

decided to try to defuse the argument until they both

could cool down.

"I hope you're wrong, David," he said.

"But I think I understand why you're angry and

disappointed. I hope someday you can forgive me,

or even accept me. In the meantime let's try at

least to be civil to each other. For your mother's

sake."

"For my mother's sake! Since when did you give

a damn about my mother?"

"You aren't going to let up, are you?" Jim was

both angry and hurt. Every concession he had tried

to make, David had thrown back in his

face. "Get your things together tilde rissom warps

out of orbit in an hour."

He stalked out of the room.

David knocked softly on the door of his mother's

cabin. He waited, then knocked again. The door

finally slid open. Darkness faced him.

"Mother?"

STAR TREK 111

"Yes, David." Her voice was very quiet.

"Your things that were down inside the cave I brought

them back up with me."

"Thank you." She turned on a light.

"They told me you didn't want to go back to the

Mutarasector."

"No," she said. "Not now. I can't, not now."

"I volunteered to. I think it's important

that one of us be in the reconnaissance party."

She looked at him in silence.

"I understand why you want to go back to Earth,"

David said. "I should, too, probably."

"I'd hoped . . ." she said softly.

"Mother, this is essential. Somebody's got

to keep an eye on Starfleet. To be sure they

tell the truth about what happened out there.

We can't just let them have free rein, not after everything

that's happened."

"I know," she said. "You're right that one of us should

go. Probably both of us should."

"No!" he said quickly, then forced his voice back

under control when she reacted to his intensity. "It

isn't going to be anything but a fast survey.

Somebody's got to keep them honest, but it won't

take both of us. Mother, I'm leaving you to do the hard

job all alone his

"I have to do it alone," she said. "It's only that

I've been afraid . . ."

"Of what?"

"There's a reason I never told you Jim

Kirk is your father, David. There are a lot of

reasons, but the main one was selfish."

"I don't understand."

"I was afraid that if you found out that your father was a

starship captain, you'd be off on the next ship,

flying around the galaxy, and I'd never see you again."

She sighed. "I told Jim I want you in my

world, not in his. But I should have let you make the

decision."

The Search For Spock

"What decision?" He laughed. "Mother, can you

really see me on the crew of this ship?" He jerked

to attention. "Yessing Aye-aye sir. I'll be

glad to swab the poop deck, sir." Slowly and

deliberately, he crossed his eyes.

Carol could not help but laugh. "I don't think

starships have poop decks, David."

"They'd probably invent one just for me to swab.

I'd never make it in the military."

"Only . . ."

"What?"

"You've met your father, and you're about to go off on a

starship."

"Yeah, but note carefully that it isn't his

starship. Honest, Mom, I'm not going to up and join

Starfleet." He hugged her. "I won't even be

gone very long. Promise."

"I know."

"They're leaving soon. I better go."

"Good-bye, David. Be careful."

"I almost forgot was He reached under his shirt and

drew out a folded piece of drafting fabric.

"Our Starfleet friends sealed the Genesis

records, but I insisted on checking them over before

they locked them away. I didn't know if

they'd let either of us in there again. Who knows who

they'll turn everything over to, back on Earth.

S. . ." The shiny, silvery material slipped out

of its folds and lay soft and unwrinkled in his hands.

Dark blue lines and stippling marked it. "I stole

this for you when nobody was looking." He handed her the

map of the second phase of Gen- esis.

After drawing the map of the ecosystem for Regulus

I, Vance Madison had made a copy for each

member of the team. They had all

contributed to the plan, and they had all been

looking forward to comparing the map

STAR TREK 111

with the eventual outcome. The vines in the stagmg

area hinted at greatly divergent results.

David wondered if he if anyone would ever get the

chance to explore Regulus I's interior.

Carol took the map from him and smoothed it out across

her lap.

"David . . . thank you." She touched the outer

reaches of the map, near the north pole. Inside the

shell of the world, centrifugal acceleration created an

artificial gravity. But as one curved around toward

the poles, the force would become more acutely

angled to the surface. The radius of spin would

shorten. Thus one would seem to be climbing up an

increasingly steeper hill, against a steadily

decreasing force.

The team had left the odd environment of the poles

almost uncolonised by their creations, for they had

primarily been interested in inventing life forms that

would be useful on a new world. Carol was rather pleased

with her silk heather, and Yoshi had suggested the

cornucopia tree, which produced several different

kinds of fruit at each season. Vance had invented

a small

carnivore that he fancifully named the white

rabbit, and Del responded by designing the March

hare. Its main distinction, he claimed, was complete

lunacy. The way he described it, it sounded like a

cross between a howler monkey and a gecko. Carol

smiled, thinking that it was characteristic of the two young men

to design a "rabbit" that was not a rabbit, and a

"hare" that was not a hare. When they presented their

crea- tions at the weekly design meeting,

Carol had laughed and threatened to make up something they

could call the mad hatter.

None of those creations lived out toward the poles.

At the very top of the map, in spidery

script, Vance had written "Here be dragons."

The Search For Spock

"I wonder if there really are dragons,"

Carol said softly.

Saavik arrived In the transporter room,

ready to beam on board Gnssom, but found herself all

alone. As she was punctual, she felt it safe

to assume the others had not left without her.

Waiting in the empty, dim transporter room,

she sought something to occupy her mind.

Someone spoke her name.

"Captain ?" She turned around, looking for the

speaker.

No one else had yet entered the room. The

deep Shadows offered no hiding places.

"Who is there?" she said.

It occurred to her that someone might be trying to play

a joke on her, though no one had ever done so before.

No one had ever even told jokes to her. Until

a few days ago she had considered them completely

frivolous, and thus beneath notice. Jokes could be

based in cruelty, she knew, but it was usually a

sort.of benign cruelty.

Cruel it would be, and not the least bit

benign, to play a joke on Saavik by calling out

her name, in Mr. Spock's voice.

"Sauvika tilde his

She clapped her hands over her ears. The voice

spoke in Vulcan, using a Vulcan form of

address.

"Sauvikam, why did you leave me on

Genesis?"

The voice was audible only to her.

It was not a joke.

"Mr. Spock," she whispered, "why are you not

at peace? I watched over you, and I sent your

body into the new world. I thought that would please you . .

."

She heard voices in the corridor. Bringi ng

herself

STAR TREK 111

back to some semblance of composure, she pulled

her hands from her face and straightened her tunic.

Admiral Kirk and Captain Esteban entered.

"Hello, Lieutenant," the Admiral said.

"I see you're on time. Think how much we could get

done, J.t., if we were as organised and

imperturbable as Lieutenant

Saavik."

Nothing Kirk had said to Saavik required a

reply, so she remained silent. She felt neither

organized nor imperturbable.

This time she did feel as if she were going mad.

Saavik had experienced mind-meld several times

during her life, most often with Spock. The touch of

his mind was the first civilised experience she had ever

had. The touch of a mind was unique. It was

impossible to mistake the mind of a person one had

touched for that of any other sentient being, strange or

familiar. Yet the voice Saavik had felt, the

consciousness that had just cried out to her, had felt like

Mr. Spock's. Which it could not have been.

"You're very quiet, Lieutenant. Are you having

second thoughts about this mission? You did volunteer,

you know you can change your mind."

"No!" she said more forcefully than she had in-

tended.

He gave her a quizzical look, not

precisely a remonstration, but not approval either.

"No, sir," she said in a more collected tone.

"I believe it is extremely important for me

to go on this mission."

"Very well. Where the devil is

David?"

"He'd better hurry along if he's coming,"

Esteban said. "I can't wait all day.,"

"Is David coming, Admiral?" Saavik

asked.

"He better be," Kirk said. "He read me

the riot act about not asking him in the first place."

The Search For Spock

At that moment David strode in, a small

pack slung over his shoulder.

"We were just about to give up on you," Kirk said.

"I was saying good-bye to my mother," David said.

"Any objections?"

"None at all," Kirk said mildly.

Kirk shook hands with Captain Esteban.

"Good to see you again, J.t. Let's not leave it

so long before we cross paths again."

"We'll be back in a month or six weeks,

Jim."

"We'll plan to get together then." Kirk turned

to Saavik and, to her surprise, extended his hand

to her. She shook it gingerly.

"Good luck, Lieutenant. Take care of my

son."

"Aye, sir," she said, and wondered how many

layers a human being, accustomed to the

ambiguities and "little jokes" of Standard, would

find in his order.

"David."

Kirk reached out to his son. When David

warily grasped his hand, Kirk drew the young man

toward him and into a bear hug.

"Take care of yourself, son," he said.

David extricated himself rather less gracefully

than he might. David's mercurial character,

Saavik thought, was not ready to forgive what had

passed between him and the admiral.

"Don't worry," David said. "There's nothing

dangerous in the Mutara sector anymore. Nothing

dangerous at all."

Kirk watched the young people Esteban,

David, and Saavik vanish from the transporter

platform. Off into the unknown. He did wish he were

going with them.

Instead, he called the bridge and asked

Captain Sulu

STAR TREK 111

to warp out of orbit and head back toward

Earth. Then Kirk himself headed for sick bay.

McCoy was up and working. His facade was

excellent, but Kirk could tell it was only a

facade. To Kirk, McCoy appeared pale and

fragile and distracted, despite the gentle joke

he made with an injured young cadet, despite the

steadiness of his hands and the certainty of his voice.

"Good morning, Bones," Kirk said. "Talk

to you in your office?"

"Hi, Jim. Sure. One minute."

McCoy joined him in the office as soon as he

had finished with his patient.

"What's up? Need a good hangover remedy?"

"I might ask you the same question."

McCoy gave up his jocular pose. "But I

wasn't was He stopped. "Never mind. It

doesn't matter. I owe you an apology

anyway. Scatty wanted to have a wake for his

nephew, and I thought, Why not include Spock?

All I can say is it seemed like a good idea at

the time."

"It's over and done," Jim said. "If I'd

thought about it I probably would have put my foot

down before the whole thing got up any momentum. My

only excuse is I had other things on

my mind. But I'm worried about you. Last night,

you were acting . . . odd."

"Odd?" McCoy chuckled. "I'm not

surprised. The synthesisers aren't quite up to decent

liquor."

Kirk frowned, detecting a false note in

McCoy's dismissal of last night's events.

"I don't mean drunk. You didn't act

drunk."

"I didn't?" McCoy exclaimed, all too

heartily. "I must be out of practice."

"Don't you remember what you said?"

"About what?"

"You stood up on a table and said 'Grief is not

The Search For Spock

logical" in a pretty damned good imitation of

Spock's voice. That isn't your usual sort of

. . . humor."

"That isn't humor of any sort," McCoy

said. "I must have been farther gone than I thought."

"Tell me what's wrong," Jim said.

"Bones, let me help."

"Sure you can help by accepting my apology and

forgetting what it is I'm apologising

for."

When McCoy wanted to avoid interrogation, he

could sidestep with the best of them. Jim had not quite reached

the point of trying to get an answer out of his old friend

by pulling rank. Besides, when had it ever done him any

good, with

McCoy, to assert his authority as a starship

captain?

"Apology accepted. Forgetting that's going

to take a little longer. If you want to talk, you know

where to find me."

Kirk returned to the bridge, still disturbed about

McCoy, and feeling that his visit to sick bay had

been very nearly futile.

On board Grissom, Saavik thanked the

duty officer for giving her a cabin assignment. The

young Vulcan did not bother to stop by her room. She

had nothing with her to drop off, and a more pressing matter

to attend to than

observing the decor of Grissom's cabins.

She felt the faint shift in the ship's gravity

fields that indicated they had warped out of orbit.

Grissom, a small, fast ship, could travel between

Regulus and the Mutara sector much more

quickly than the crippled Enterprise.

Saavik entered the main laboratory and stopped

short.

Before her stood a being like a column of rippled

crystal. Saavik had never met a Glaeziver

before. They 71

STAR TREK 111

were very rare. They intended and planned to be extinct

within a hundred Standard years. Their planet had

been destroyed in the nova of its star. They

possessed such strong ties to their world that they never

found another on which they felt anything but alien. And

so they disbanded, scattering throughout the Federation and perhaps

even beyond.

It occurred to Saavik that if Genesis could be

programmed to copy their lost world closely enough,

they might change their collective decision to die.

If they possessed a world to return to, they might

choose to live.

"Hello," Saavik said formally. "How may I

address you?"

The utter motionlessness of the being gave Saavik the

impression of enormous potential energy preparing

to translate itself into motion. When the Glaeziver

stirred, it did so with a controlled power that belied the

delicacy of its form. The many transparent

strands making up its substance brushed together with a chiming

like jewels in the wind.

"You're well-mannered for an opaque being," the

Glaeziver said. Its voice was like a cymbalon.

"If you can pronounce my name, you may use it."

It spoke a beautiful word like a song, which

Saavik reproduced as best she could.

"Not bad," the Glaeziver said. "You may call

me that, if you like. I prefer it to Fred."

was "Fred"?" Saavik said.

"One of my co-workers fancies that my name sounds

like a phrase of Chopin's. How may I address

you?"

"My name is Saavik."

"How do you do, Saavik. What can I do for you?"

"I wish to analyze a sample from the interior of

Regulus I. May I use your equipment?"

"Can you talk and work at the same time?" 72

like For Spock

"Certainly."

"In that case, I'll make you a deal. We will

analyze your sample on my equipment while you

tell me what has been going on out here inside

Regulus I, and in the Mutara."

"That appears a fair trade to me,"

Saavik said.

"Great. What kind of analysis do you want

macroscopic, molecular, atomic,

sub-atomic?"

"Molecular, please."

"You got it." --

Glaezivers had a reputation for being very formal and

stand-offish. Saavik found it quite interesting that the being

had held to formality during their introductions, but

spoke very casually otherwise. It was very easy to think

of it as "Fred."

Saavik's cabin was standard for a Federation ship,

designed and intended for a human being. The lighting

imitated the spectrum of Earth's star, and the

temperature conformed to the temperate regions of their

home planet. Saavik glanced around the room,

approving of its lack of extraneous decoration and

its communications terminal, disapproving of the heavily

padded furniture. She preferred hard chairs and a

sleeping mat.

She reprogrammed the environmental controls.

The light dimmed and reddened, and the

temperature began gradually to rise. Saavik

sat down for the first time since arriving on Grzssom.

Preparing for the survey of Genesis and

analysing the sample from Regulus I had given

her plenty of work, for which she was grateful. It took

her mind off the fears she had had for her own sanity.

But since leaving the Enterprise, she no longer

sensed Spock's presence. If she still believed in

ghosts as she had when she was little, for things happened on

Hellguard that an uneducated and unsophisticated

STAR TREK 111

child could explain no other way she would have believed

Spock's shade to be haunting the Enterprise. But

she did not believe in ghosts anymore. She

believed that for a short wh ile she had been at least a

little bit insane.

And now? To test herself, to test the silence,

Saavik took the risk of opening her mental

shields. She closed her eyes and reached out,

seeking any resonance, real or imagined, of

Spock.

After some minutes she opened her eyes again. She

had found nothing.

The echo of her teacher had vanished. He was gone,

and Saavik grieved for him. But at least she was not

mad.

She picked up the printout of the

Regulus I sample and reread the analysis.

Someone knocked on her door.

"Come."

David entered, smiling. "Hi. Guess what.

I'm right next door. Great, huh?"

"That depends. Have you come to your senses?"

"What? Are you talking about what happened down in

the Genesis cave?" He shrugged it off. "Yeah,

sure, sorry I don't know what got into me. I

guess I was overexcited."

"That is your explanation?"

"What's the matter? I'm sorry I tried

to take your phaser that was dumb. If it's any

comfort, you twisted the hell out of my wrist. I can still

feel it. And, look, there's a bruise here on my

hand where you put your thumb."

"You should not have resisted," Saavik said. "You

injured yourself with your own violence."

"And you got your revenge."

"Why do you assume I want revenge? Or that

I 74

The Search For Spock

would take pleasure in hurting you? That is beside the

point. You know that I do not use recreational

drugs. Even if I did, I was on

duty when we beamed down to the Genesis caves.

How could you not warn me?"

"Saavik, what are you talking about?"

Saavik was prepared for a laugh and a claim of "a

little joke." She was not prepared for deliberate

obtuseness. She handed him the printout.

He scanned it.

"Interesting organic make-up. What is it?"

"You should know. You designed it."

"I never did. I never saw this set of

molecules before in my life."

"David, that is an analysis of the Genesis

vines the vines you created."

"It's nothing like. Well, superficially,

maybe. But this whole subset of molecules his

"I ran the samples twice," Saavik said.

"I am hardly infallible, but this summary Is

accurate."

"But it shouldn't look like this. I don't even know

what half the stuff is."

"This," Saavik said, pointing to a heterocyclic

compound, "is an extremely potent psychoactive

alkaloid."

"What!" David looked at it more closely.

"My gods, it could be, couldn't it?"

"It is. It is also the reason we behaved as we

did why we nearly abandoned our tasks to go

exploring, like two irresponsible children his

was "We"?" David said, rubbing his wrist.

"You could have fooled me, if you were about to do anything out

of line."

"I came very close to it," Saavik said. "The

active ingredient in those vines is a narcotic."

"I designed it so you could brew tea out of the

leaves if you wanted. I put a lot of caffeine

in it, that's all."

STAR TREK 111

Saavik could see the resemblance between the

molecule in question and caffeine, but it had gone through

considerable mutation to become what it was.

"I think you would not want to brew tea out of this

plant," Saavik said. "Or make wine of its

fruit."

"You never know," David said.

Saavik raised one eyebrow.

"Just kidding," David said.

Chapter 4

Phase three of Genesis spun like a

mobile drifting in the breeze. David watched the

newly-formed star system on the Grissom's

viewscreen. Despite his calculated calm, he

was astonished that the new world was his creation. So far it

looked like the programs had worked perfectly. The

lack of a sun for the world to orbit had enabled the

star-forming subroutine The great dustcloud of the Mutara

Nebula had

provided plenty of mass to form a small, hot

star.

David leaned against the bridge rail. He

felt out of place and in the way, despite the

ship's being there at least partly because of him. Behind him,

at the main sensor station, Saavik seemed

to David very much in place, cool and controlled.

She had forgiven him for the incident in the Genesis

caves back on Regulus I. David truly

had not designed a plant containing a chemical of the

potency they

STAR TREK 111

found. They had talked about what might have gone

wrong. The changes in the experiment's outcome were

of a far greater magnitude than David had

expected. He was still trying to convince himself

that everything really had evolved nearly the way the

Genesis team

intended, only a little more so. He was not ready

to admit any serious doubts to himself, much less

discuss them with anyone. Even Saavik.

Saavikcompleted the current log entry.

"dis . . We are approaching destination planet

at point zero three five. So noted in ship's

log."

She removed the data cube from the recorder and

delivered the log to Captain Esteban to certify and

seal.

"Very well, Lieutenant." To the helm officer,

he said, "Execute standard orbital approach."

"Standard orbit, aye."

"Communications. Send a coded message for

Starfleet Commander, priority one . . ."

He paused for a moment. David decided, with a

smile, that the captain was thinking over his message

to be sure it would not include a single informal word.

was "Federation science vessel Grissom arriving

Genesis planet, Mutara sector, to begin

research. As ordered, full security procedures

are in effect. J.t. Esteban, commanding." his

"Aye sir, coding now."

David found the security on Grissom

restrictive and a little scary. Genesis had always

been, in theory, a secret project. Acceding to the

security requirements had been the only way they

could get the research funded. The whole team had

taken a rather lackadaisical attitude toward the

rules, mostly by thinking about them as

infrequently as possible. They had all been

certain that the first implementation of the project would

make secrecy impossible.

That's one thing we were right about, David thought. 78

The Search For Spock

But now the authorities wanted to try to clamp the

lid back down.

On Grissom, dealing with Starfleet directly

instead of one step removed, David had the distinct

impression that they wished he knew nothing about the

project, and that they would have denied him clearance if

they could have done so without looking ridiculous.

Captain Esteban turned toward him. "Dr.

Marcus," he said, "it's your planet."

Astonished, and pleased despite himself, David

grinned. "Thank you, Captain. Begin scanning,

please." He joined Saavik at the science station

as she activated the macroscopic

scanner. It glowed into life, forming a schematic

of the world before them. The schematic showed a stable

sphere, with core, mantle, crust, and oceans,

absolutely indistinguishable from a naturally

evolved world.

Well, what did you expect? David asked

himself. That it would be flat?

Suddenly he laughed, and all his doubts and fears

evaporated in the sheer pleasure of inspecting his

handiwork.

"This is where the fun begins, Saavik!" he said.

She replied, sotto voce, "Like your father . .

. so human." Then, turning on the recorder, she

took the irony and humor out of her voice. "All

units functional, recorders are on....

Scanning sector one. The foliage is in a

fully developed state of growth. Temperature,

twenty-two point two degrees Celsius."

"Sector two . . . indicating desert

terrain," David said. "Minimal vegetation,

temperature thirty-nine point four."

At several team presentation meetings the discussion

had cantered on whether to include desert or any

other severe climates at all. Vance said he was

not interested in working on anything "so

beautiful it's sappy," Del

STAR TREK 111

(as usual) agreed with Vance. Zinaida

persisted, as Deltans often did, in quoting the

Vulcan philosophy, "infinite diversity in

infinite combinations." David wondered how

Vulcans liked being quoted by the Federation's most

renowned sensualists. He himself had pushed for trying

to make Genesis a shirt-sleeve environment from

pole to pole. That would have been quite a challenge. He

was, however, outvoted.

"Sector three," Saavik said.

"Sub-tropical vegetation."

David glanced across the bank of sensors. They

must be scanning a region where several different

ecotypes blended into one another.

"Temperature was Saavik said.. She stopped

and checked her readings again. "Temperature

decreasing rapidly."

My gods, look at that, David thought.

Infinite diver- sity indeed.

"It's snow," he said. "Snow in the same

sector. Fantastic!" He could not get a

topographical map off the sensor he was

using, but he assumed they must be looking at a

snowcapped mountain upthrust in the midst of

subtropical forest edged by desert.

"Fascinating," Saavik said.

"All the varieties of land and weather known to Earth

within a few hours' walk!" David knew he was

exaggerating, just a bit, but for a time the team had

engaged in a sort of informal competition to see who

could design the most complicated conditions within the

smallest area. Nobody had quite come up with a workable

way to juxtapose arctic and equatorial cli-

mates, but everyone had developed a different

method of coming close. Some of the schemes were

positively Byzantine. The trouble was, Carol

eventually declared the competition out of hand and said she would

not include any of the results in the Genesis

device.

The Search For Spock

Maybe she changed her mind, David thought.

"You must be very proud of what you and your mother have

created," Saavik said.

David gazed at the sensors and felt some of his

doubts and fears beginning to creep back.

"It's a little early to celebrate," he

said.

One of the sensors erupted into frantic beeping.

Saavik started, then covered her surprise by bending

intently over the monitor.

"Same sector," she said evenly.

"Metallic mass."

"Underground, right?" Dav id said. "Probably

an ore deposit."

"Negative," Saavik said. "It is on the

surface, a manufactured object."

Manufactured! David thought. Debris from

Khan's ship? The Genesis torpedo? But that was

impossible

anything in range of the Genesis wave had

disintegrated into a plasma of sub-elementary

particles. Then he realized

"There's only one thing it could be!" he said.

He glanced at Saavik. Surely the same

answer must have occurred to her. She gazed intently

at the sensors.

"Short range scan," David said.

Esteban joined them at the console and glanced over

the readings.

"Approximately two meters long,"

Saavik said. "Cylindrical in form . .

."

"A photon tube to was

Saavik continued to avoid David's look.

She's upset, David thought, and she's

embarrassed about being upset. I don't blame

her If I thought I'd buried a friend, and then his

coffin turned up . . .

"Could it be Spock's?" Esteban asked.

David had noticed that the captain did not much like

being surprised.

"It has to be," David said. There were several

ways it

STAR TREK 111

could have reached the surface of the Genesis world without

burning up in the atmosphere like a shooting star. "The

gravitational fields were still in flux. It must have

soft-landed."

"In code to Starfleet," Esteban said.

""Captain Spock's tube located intact on

Genesis surface. Will relay more data on

subsequent orbits.""

"Yes, sir," said the communications officer.

"Coding your message."

Saavik continued to stare at the changing

sensors. David neither questioned nor challenged her.

Instead, he reached out and put his hand over hers. Still

she said nothing, but she did not draw away from him,

either.

As the ship passed over the surface of the new

world, crossing the terminator into darkness, the sensor's

beeps grew fainter and fainter. The ship moved out

of line-of-sight of the torpedo tube and the signals

cut off abruptly.

J.t. Esteban thoughtfully stroked his thumb under

his jaw and considered what to do. Spock's coffin was

supposed to have been launched in a standard burial

orbit, one that should have resulted in complete ablation.

There should be nothing at all left of it. That it had

landed intact created all sorts of problems, from the

possibility of contamination to the responsibility for

retrieving the casket and either re-launchingit

(j.t. would send it into the star, so there could be no

mistake), or holding a formal interment on the

surface of Genesis. Technically, Spock's

most recent C.o. shoukl make the decision. But

with any luck, someone at Starfleet HQ would

give the word. Jim Kirk could do without going through the

wringer agam over the death of a friend.

Under any other circumstances, J.t.

might have taken it upon himself to decide what would be

done, 82

The Search For Spock

but not this time not when it involved something as

important as Genesis.

Personal log of James T. Kirk

With most of battle damage repaired, we are

almost home. Yet I feel tilde uneasy. And

I wonder why. Perhaps it is the erratic behavior

of ship's eon Leonard McCoy, or the

emptiness of the vessel. Most of . trainee crew

have been ream signed. Lieutenant Sanvik and my

son David are exploring a new world. The

Enterprise feels like a house with an the children

gone.... No, more empty even than that. The news

of Spock's tube has shaken me. It seems that

I have left the noblest part of myself back there, on that

newborn planet.

Jim Kirk stalked the bridge of the

Enterprise. Sorting out his thoughts in his personal

log had failed to diminish his unease.

He paused next to the science station, where Spock

always sat. He put his hands on the back of the

chair. The transmission from Esteban, on

Genesis, troubled hirn. He felt

unreasonably angered and betrayed at the news that

Spock's coffin had soft-landed. Kirk had ordered

a trajectory that should have burned the tube to ashes in

the upper atmosphere of Genesis. Whether

Spock's body returned to its constituent atoms

quickly, in fire, or slowly, in the earth of a new

world, surely did not matter to the Vulcan any

longer. But Kirk, who wished the flames for himself

when he died, had made a decision and given an

order, and some unforeseen and

unknown conspiracy of the universe had served

to defy him.

Starfleet had sent the medical rescue ship

Firenze out

STAR TREK 111

to meet the Enterprise and to transport all but a

few of its trainee crew, injured and healthy

alike, back to Earth, so at least he no longer

had a boatload of children to worry about.

The Enterprise, though patched and limping, was out of

immediate danger. It could easily have made it to Alpha

Ceti V to rescue Reliant's crew, whom

Khan marooned when he hijacked their ship. But before

the light of Firenze's engines had

fairly red-shifted out of the visible spectrum,

Starfleet recalled the Enterprise to Earth and sent

another ship to Alpha Ceti V. "The

Enterprise is fully capable of carrying out this

mission," Kirk had said, and HQ replied, with a

fine disregard for irony, "But, Admiral, your

ship is dangerously shorthanded. was By then Kirk

did not know

whether to laugh, cry, or blow his stack. He

decided, instead, to make the best of it.

David's decision to return with Grissom to the

Genesis world disappointed Kirk. Carol was barely

speaking to him. One relationship that had started well and

one that he had thought to resume were dissolving

into nothingness.

And finally, there was Leonard McCoy. Kirk was

worried about him. Kirk could have

understood grief; he could even have understood a

refusal to admit to grief. He could not comprehend

McCoy's disjointed conversation, his brief

episodes of intense activity, and his speaking

Spock's words in Spock's voice.

For a while Kirk had felt good about having his

ship back, but the price of regaining it was far too

high.

Get hold of yourself! he thought. He turned

away from Spock's station.

"Status, Mr. Sulu?"

"On course, Admiral," Sulu said.

"Estimating Spacedock in two point one hours."

The Search For Spock

"Very well." returned to his own place on the

bridge. "Mr. Chekov, I need a

pre-approach scan. Take the science station,

please."

Chekov hesitated. Kirk understood his

reasons, but the ship could not function without the science

station. Someone had to take Spock's place. The

sooner Kirk and Chekov and

everybody else got used to that, the better.

"Yes, sir," Chekov said. He stood, left

the helm, and moved to the science station.

"Uhura," Kirk said, "any response from

Starfleet on our Project Genesis

inquiries?"

"No, sir," Uhura said. "No response."

"Odd . . ." Kirk murmured. He was

accustomed to having his questions answered without delay.

Esteban had been infuriatingly obscure

about the public reaction to the Genesis effect. He

had piqued Kirk's curiosity. Apparently,

though, Kirk was just going to have to wait until he got

back to headquarters to find out what was going on.

He opened an intercom channel to the engine

room.

"Scotty, progress report?"

"We're almost done, sir," Scott replied.

"Ye'll be fully automated by the time we dock."

"Your timing is excellent, Mr. Scott,"

he said. "You've fixed the barn door after the horse

has come home." Scott's jury-rigged automation

would help relieve the ship's shorthandedness . . .

for about the last hour of the return trip. "How much

refit time till we can take the ship out again?"

"Eight weeks, sir his

Kirk started to protest, but before he could get a

word out, Scott spoke again.

was But ye dinna have eight weeks, so I'll do

i' for ye in two."

STAR TREK 111

Kirk had the feeling the Scot had been waiting

for a very long time to spring that line on him. In the same

spirit, he said, "Mr. Scott have you always

multiplied your repair estimates by a factor of

four?"

"Certainly, sir. How else would ye expect

me to keep my reputation as a miracle worker?"

"Your reputation is secure, Scotty." He

turned off the intercom. "Captain Sulu, take

the cone. I'll be in my quarters."

"Aye, sir," Sulu said.

Kirk climbed the stairs to the upper level of the

bridge. Before he got within range of the

turbo-lift's sensors, one of the few trainees

who had remained on board half-rose.

"Sir I was wondering ?"

The cadet was an electronics specialist who

had kept the navigational computer going during and after

the battle, when Spock was no longer able to do so.

Ignoring the breach of protocol, Kirk dredged in

his memory and came up with the youth's name.

"Yeses Foster, is it?"

"Aye, sir," Foster said. The pleasure and

embarrassment at being recognised brought a red

blush to his dark face. "I wondered, when we

get home what should we expect? Does anybody

back on Earth know what happened out there?"

"Will they give us a hero's welcome?"

Kirk smiled gently, for some of the youngsters, Foster

among them, had behaved extraordinarily well for

being half-trained and inexperienced. "Lord knows,

son, they ought to. This time we paid for the party with our

dearest blood."

He took the last step into the turbo-lift's

sensor field. The doors opened, and he disappeared

between them.

When the doors closed, cutting him off from the

The Search For Spock

bridge, he let the mantle of command fall

away from his shoulders. He slumped against the wall.

The respite would be short, but at least during the

ride to his quarters he could be free of

responsibilities.

The lift slowed and stopped, and the doors slid

open. Almost as a reflex, Kirk straightened up.

McCoy stood in the doorway. He looked as

if he had not slept in days, and as if, when he

tried to sleep, he had lain down in his clothes. The

beard repressor he used had worn off at least

twenty-four hours ago. He needed a shave.

He entered the elevator, turned to stand side

by side with Kirk, and gazed nonchalantly

at the ceiling. The lift hummed into motion again.

"Bones," Kirk said, a greeting with a hint of a

query in it.

"Jim," McCoy said stiffly, ignoring the

implied question.

Kirk waited, hoping McCoy would offer some

explanation for his appearance, hoping he would show some

sign of snapping out of his strange behavior.

McCoy continued to stare at the ceiling.

"Are you planning," Kirk said with irritation,

"to shave today?"

"Quo wadis, Admiral?" McCoy said.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Kirk searched

McCoy's face, hoping to find what? A flash of

his friend's intelligence and good sense pushing him beyond the

guilt he felt for Spock's death? There was nothing

McCoy could have done,

nothing any of them could do. If Spock had not

behaved as he had, the Vulcan would not have been the

only one to die. They all would be dead. But

McCoy regarded any death as a personal

failure.

"What is our destination?" McCoy asked. He

articu- 87

STAR TREK 111

lated each word precisely, without contractions.

No trace of his southern accent showed, though usually

it was strongest when he was under stress.

"We'll be orbiting Earth in two hours,"

Kirk said.

"Then we are headed in the wrong direction."

He spoke as if to the air, without turning toward

Kirk, without taking his gaze from the ceiling.

"Bones, don't do this! This is me, Jim. Your

friend."

When McCoy spoke, his voice took on a

peculiar, low timbre. "And I have been, and

always shall be, yours."

Kirk suddenly shivered. The chill of fear

infuriated him. He wanted to grab McCoy and

shake him back to his senses.

"Damn it, Bones! Don't quote Spock

to me! I have enough pain of my own. I don't need

your your self-indulgence."

McCoy slowly turned toward him. His eyes were

glazed. "You left me," he said in a completely

matterof-fact tone. "You left me on Genesis.

Why did you do that?"

"What the hell are you saying?"

McCoy blinked slowly, then suddenly

reacted to what he himself had just said.

"I don't know . . . I just . . ." He

stopped. "Why did we leave Spock?"

"Bones! You must deal with the truth. He's gone."

Kirk gripped McCoy's upper arms. His

intensity increased. "Spock is gone. We both have

to live with that."

McCoy stared at him a moment, then lifted his

hands and grasped Kirk's forearms in a gesture of

understanding and gratitude. They stayed like that only a

split second before McCoy pulled away.

The turbo-lift stopped; the doors opened.

McCoy

The Search For Spock

took one hurried step out, then swung back

to face Kirk.

"I can't get him out of my head, Jim! I'd

give the whole state of Georgia if someone could

tell me why."

The doors slid closed again, shutting Kirk

off, alone, angry, and confused.

Valkris rose to her feet, taking only

detached notice of the smoothness with which she moved. The

high gravity, the hours in one position,

had no effect on her. She had never meditated in

such an intense gravity field before. She wished she

had discovered its beneficial properties much

sooner.

The cabin held all her material possessions,

which were honorably few in number. Valkris'

wealth resided in the holdings of her bloodline, in

her responsibilities, and in the duties she had

carried out for her family. It resided particularly

in the duty she had carried out toward her brother.

"Kiosan, dear brother, may you drink and

carouse and gamble for all time," she said softly, without

a trace of irony or anger.

She picked up her headcloth, put it on, and

drew the sheer fabric across her face. She could

see perfectly, and felt comforted to know that the

material was opaque from the other side, opaque to the

barbarians with whom she must treat;

Then she left her cabin for the first time since the

voyage had begun.

Valkris strode through the corridors of the ship,

as repelled now by the shabby, dirty vessel as she

had been when first she boarded. The trip were better

made on a sturdy, high-powered ship of

Valkris' family's own production,

but, alas, that was not to be. Not in this region of

space.

STAR TREK 111

A shadow moved.

Valkris stopped short, reaching for the dueling

knife that hung almost, but not quite, concealed at her

side.

The shadow stepped forward, resolving itself into the

feline form of the ship's navigator. Farrendahl

glided toward her, stalking

four-legged, calmly inspecting her.

"Milady passenger," Farrendahl said softly,

a purr in her voice. "To what event do we owe the

honor of your company?"

"Milady navigator," Valkris said.

"Does a simple constitutional qualify as an

event?"

"I wonder," said Farrendahl.

The single most exciting thing Valkris had ever

seen was a performance of a hunt by a troupe of

Farrendahl's people. One of the reasons Valkris had

chosen this ship above another was her research into the

crew. She had hoped to speak with Farrendahl and

to learn more about her civilisation and her people,

who had been in space thousands of years longer than

any other known species. Farrendahl's kind did

not claim planets, they did not colonise, they

did not take territory. They only explored, and

hunted, and made their homes beyond the frontiers of

space. Perhaps, to them, the exploration and the hunt were the

same.

These were the first words the two had

exchanged. When Valkris had come on board,

she realised she could not take time to socialise.

She had much to think over, much to work out. She

preferred action to meditation, but her meditation had

brought her to certain conclusions; and now she rather wished

she had chosen not to hire this particular ship.

"Perhaps milady passenger would care to divulge

our destination? I am the navigator; I must know it

eventually."

"I think not," Valkris said. "As we are

nearly there."

"But there's no star system within a parsec!"

- So

The Search For Spock

"Nevertheless," Valkris said.

Farrendahl bristled out her whiskers and growled

softly, a thoughtful sound.

"A rendezvous, then," she said.

"I did not say so."

"You did not have to."

Farrendahl's presumption amused and delighted

Valkris. It also made her very sad.

But then she thought, If one were worthy . . . if

one were sufficiently perceptive . . .

The handle of the dueling knife still lay cool in

Valkris' hand, but now she had no thought of drawing

the blade.

The sheath of the knife was encrusted with flakes of

minerals, so finely-cut they appeared as gemstones.

The sheath ended in a heavy mass of fringe that was also

thickly hung with cunningly milled discs of mica

in all the colors of the spectrum. Each

frequency of color meant

something different, some honor or remem- brance.

Many her dueling records were

transparent and colorless, the representation of

emptiness, nothingness, death. She chose to carry

only one that was black; her disinclination to carry a

disc for each member of her family was the only

fault her bloodline could hold against her.

She unfastened the length of fringe and drew it from

beneath her robe.

"Milady navigator," she said to Farrendahl,

"I wish to give you a gift." She slid the

sparkling strands across her palm, The sharp discs

touched together with a sound as silver as water. "This might

benefit you, one day. It has no intrinsic

value. It is . . . symbolic." She offered it

to Farrendahl. "Be careful," she said. "The edges

are quite sharp."

The navigator accepted the decoration gingerly.

"Milady passenger . . . why do you honor me?"

STAR TREK 111

"You might," Valkris said, "call it a

whim."

"But I might not. was Farrendahl stroked the

strands so gently that she did not need to fear the razor

edges. Her delicate, clawed fingers singled out the

black shard of mica. "Who is this?" she said.

Valkris felt pleased beyond reason and dignity.

Few in this region of space would understand, as the

navigator did, what she had been given, much

less the significance of its details. If

anything she had underestimated Farrendahl, not

overestimated her.

"It is my brother, Kiosan," she

said. "He, or any member of my bloodline, would

recognise what you hold, and honor it."

Farrendahl looked up at her, seeking the

explanations that Valkris could not speak aloud.

"Milady passenger," Farrendahl said, "your

hand is bleeding. his

"Yes," Valkris said. "It does not

matter."

She strode down the passageway without

looking back.

Farrendahl watched the mysterious passenger

glide away. The ceremonial fringe, with its

adornment of electronically readable glass-chip

records, hung heavy in her hands.

Farrendahl did not understand why the

passenger would wish to warn her, a stranger. She

did not understand why she had offered the warning in a

symbolic and obscure way rather than directly.

But she did understand what the warning was. At least

she thought she did. And if she was right, she had

to make a decision instantly.

Farrendahl attached the fringe to her belt, for she

carried no knife to which to fasten it. Then she sprang

into a run, four-legged, and loped down the

corridor.

She slid to a stop at Trants cabin and raked

her claws

The Search For Spock

across the surface of the door, scratching the paint

and the metal underneath. Like the

passenger's bleeding hand, that did not matter any

more.

"What is it?" Sleep slurred Tran's

voice. Like most primates, he woke slowly.

But for a primate he was all right.

"Let me in," Farrendahl said.

The door opened, and she paced into the darkness. In

a moment she could see. Tran sat in a tangle of

blankets, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

"What's the matter?"

"Get up. Hurry. We're leaving."

"Leaving ?"

"Do you trust me?"

"In what context?" he said, sounding more awake.

Farrendahl growled and turned on the

computer terminal on the wall of Tran's cabin.

"I have no patience for discussions of

anthropoidal philosophy," she said. She

reproduced a securitybreaching

program she had developed long ago, tunnelled

into the ship's computer, and disabled certain alarms. "I

am leaving this ship. I am leaving now. I have good

reason. You may come, or you may stay. It is of

no moment to me which you choose."

Tran threw off the blankets and reached for his

pants. "Then why are you bothering to tell me?"

Farrendahl did not bother to reply. She hid

her tracks in the computer with a flimsy cover that would

break down under any scrutiny, but she doubted

anyone would have the chance even to begin an investigation.

"I guess if I've been promoted from

pithecanthropoid to anthropoid was Tran fastened

his belt and reached for his shirt.

"No time for all that foolishness!" Farrendahl

said. She grabbed his wrist and dragged him out of his

cabin. 93

STAR TREK 111

He snatched up his shirt and his boots and carried

them with him. Farrendahl raced down the corridor,

pulling Tran behind her.

Valkris swept into the control room.

"We're nearly there," the captain said when he

noticed her.

"We are there," she said. "Kill all

velocity."

The captain frowned, then nodded to the crew member

at the control console, giving assent to his

passenger's order.

"Where the hell's Farrendahl?" he said.

The ship vibrated faintly as it decelerated

to counteract the forward momentum. And was

that a slight sideways shudder, as of a small

craft exiting its mother ship? Valkris could not be

certain.

"We have no more need of a navigator,

captain," she said evenly.

"Delta-vee zero."

"Scan the area," the captain ordered.

Valkris smiled to herself as the scanning began.

It continued for some minutes. Valkris retired

to shadows in the back of the chamber, rather enjoying the

curious and very nervous glances of the disreputable

rogues around her.

"Nothing, captain," the crew member said.

"Steady . . . steady, boys. Keep

scanning." The captain gave Valkris a

poisonous glance. "I thought you people were reliable. Where

the hell is he?"

"He has been here for some time. I can

feel his presence."

"Don't give me your Klingon mumbo-jumbo!

There ain't another vessel in this whole damned

sector!"

Valkris noticed the reaction among the crew

to what their captain had said, and by it she understood that

The Search For Spock

none but he, on this nominally Federation ship, had

known till now who or what she was.

"Put me on the hailing frequency,"

Valkris said, ignoring his impertinence. Nothing could

affect her or offend her now.

"Sure," the captain said, sourly and

sarcastically, "whatever games you want to play."

He opened the channel for her, and nodded that it was

ready.

Valkris grasped the end of her headcloth, using

her uninjured right hand, and drew it slowly aside.

The crew reacted uneasily to her appearance,

their recent suspicions confirmed, new fears

engendered. Renegades they might be, but they were

renegades within the Federation, still a part of it.

Valkris' people were their antagonists, unknown and

dangerous.

Approaching the transmitter, Valkris moved

from shadows into light.

"Commander Kruge, this is Valkris. I have

obtained the Federation data, and I am ready

to transmit."

"Well done, Valkris. Stand by."

Everyone in the control room, even the captain,

started at the rough, powerful voice that crashed out of the

speaker. The voice spoke a few words which only

Valkris recognised, for they were in a Klingon

language. Now knowing precisely what Kruge

planned, she turned toward the viewport, watched,

and waited.

"Oh, my gods," one of the crew members

whispered.

Like a ghost, like a creature of mist and fog, the

Klingon fighter glowed into existence before the renegade

merchant ship, very close,

threatening. The Klingon craft had the same

effect as its master's powerful voice.

"What the hell . . . ?" the merchant captain

said.

Valkris herself had never seen the cloaking

device in action before. It impressed and fascinated

her. She 95

STAR TREK 111

watched carefully until the ship had taken

complete and solid shape.

"Transmit data," Commander Kruge said.

Valkris withdrew the data record from an inner

pocket of her robe and inserted it into the

transmission enclosure. The monitor blurred

with the highspeed transmission. Valkris could not

resolve the images, but she knew every frame of

what she was sending.

"Transmission completed, Commander. You will find it

essential to your mission."

Valkris's hot blood streamed down her

slashed wrist and palm and between her fingers, soaking the

inner folds of her robe, growing cold. She was

beginning to feel the effects of loss of blood.

In the language of Kruge and Valkris, which

possessed an almost limitless number of forms and

variations, every utterance had many layers, many meanings.

When Kruge spoke again, he switched to the most

formal variation. Valkris understood it, as did all

well-born members of their society, but she had

never spoken it, or had it spoken to her, outside the

classroom. She felt honored, and she knew for

certain that Kruge would keep the vows he

had made to her.

"Then you have seen the transmission," Kruge said,

implying regret and inevitability.

"I have, my lord," Valkris replied, granting

permission in the second stratum and offering forgiveness

as the third.

"That is unfortunate," Kruge said, accepting

what she gave him and affirming that it was neither

frivolously given nor lightly accepted.

"I understand," Valkris said. She made all

three strata the same, for she wanted him to know that

she understood what she was doing and why, that she understood

what he was doing and why, and that she g6

The Search For Spock

understood that he would make certain the promises

made to her would be kept.

"Thrusters," Kruge said, in the form of their

language used by commanders to subordinates.

In the viewport, the Klingon fighter changed.

The wings of its aft armament section swung from

neutral into attack. The vessel rotated, arcing

around until its bulbous command chamber thrust toward

the merchant ship.

The merchant captain turned on Valkris in a

fury.

"What's going on? When do we get paid off?"

"Soon, Captain," Valkris said. "Quite

soon." She spoke again, in formal tongue,

to Kruge. "Success, Commander. And my love."

She did love him, indeed, as the instrument of her

bloodline's redemption.

She felt curiously lightheaded and happy.

Happiness had deserted her for far too long. She

was glad to experience it this one last time.

"You will be remembered with honor," Kruge said.

Then he switched dialects again. Valkris knew

he was speaking so she would be sure to hear his command

"Fire!"

The Klingon fighter swept toward them like a

hunting falcon. Valkris did not see the beams

of energy, for their destructive force reached the

merchant ship at the same instant as the coherent

light that formed them. The ship quaked. People shouted, then

screamed. Valkris smelled the acrid smoke of

burning insulation and flash-burned computer

circuits. She heard the terrible hiss of escaping

air.

I have shown my face to the world long

enough, she thought. It is time to return to the

customs of my family.

Her left hand was dark with blood. It marred the

whiteness of the veil as she covered her face for the last

time.

STAR TREK 111

"For gods' sake!" the merchant captain cried.

"Make him help us! We'll keep your damn

secrets, just don't let him space us!"

Valkris closed her eyes.

The bulkhead imploded upon her.

The merchant ship exploded into slag. A shock

wave of pure energy battered its scout ship, which

Farrendahl had gentled out into space and concealed against

the side of the larger craft. At the instant of the

explosion, Farrendahl hit the acceleration hard,

cut it just as abruptly, and fired all the steering

rockets at once. The maneuver blasted the scout

out of its hiding place along the merchant's flank

and put so much roll, pitch, and yaw on the scout that

it would look like merely another bit of exploded

debris.

Tran shouted an inarticulate curse.

The scout was far too small to carry gravity, so

the spin had its full effects on the occupants.

Farrendahl struggled to keep her bearings and

her consciousness. When she could stand the erratic

tumbling no more, she gradually engaged the steering

rockets and brought the scout to a steadier course.

She dared not do it quickly lest the attacker notice

that this bit of the ship moved under its own power.

"So "we may have to just turn around and go back

inside," huh?" Tran said, still stunned and

dizzy. That had been the only explanation

Farrendahl would give him, till now, and now the

explanation was obvious.

She used the aft scanners. Through the

expanding, thinning cloud of debris, Farrendahl

saw the Klingon ship send one last blast of energy

against the destroyed merchant, then turn away from its

kill and head toward Federation territory.

"Where did it come from?" Tran said.

"Out of the ether," Farrendahl said.

The Search For Spock

The scout ship carried too little fuel to reach the

nearest inhabited star system. She plotted a

low-fuel course toward the nearest shipping lane,

where they stood an excellent chance of being picked

up. It would take them a while to get there. Just as

well before they were rescued, they would need

to fabricate a believable and

innocuous explanation for their plight.

Commander Kruge watched the ramshackle

merchant ship go violently and silently

to pieces under his fire. He stroked the spiny crest

of his mascot, Warrigul, who sat by his side

whining and hissing with excitement.

The demise of an opponent offered more

satisfaction if the death came slowly, but the

merchant was too easy a catch to be treated as an

opponent. Besides, Kruge deigned to give

Valkris a clean finish.

He nodded to his gunner, who reacted to the

unusual order without question or hesitation. He fired

the beams and blew the merchant ship beyond atoms.

The few remaining bits of debris tumbled

away. Kruge felt completely satisfied. His

only regret was never meeting Valkris face

to face. He had heard much of her, both before her

bloodline came to grief and after. Her information would

win for him a great triumph; her death would return

her family to its previous place in their

society's hierarchy. Kruge doubted that the

family had another member to choose who would be the

match of the formidable VaLkris. He

wondered if he himself could match her. He was good, but

she was renowned as a duelist. Now he would never have

the chance to test himself against her.

Kruge rose and surveyed the work pit. His command

chair stood at a level that put him well above the

heads of the crew members. None looked at him.

Each bent intently over the task at hand, fearing a

charge of laziness and the resulting discipline. Kruge

could find

STAR TREK Hl

some breach of regulations under almost any

circumstances, but having just asserted his dominance over

the merchant ship, he felt no need to assert his

complete authority over his crew.

He removed the data plaque from the recorder and

slipped it under his belt.

Warrigul rubbed its head against Kruge's

knee. Its spines scraped against the heavy fabric

of the commander's trousers. Kruge reached down and

scratched behind his pet's ears. Warrigul leaned

harder against him. It was the only creature on board

about whose loyalty the commander had no doubt whatsoever.

Everyone else might be a spy, a challenger, a

traitor.

Kruge glanced at his assistant. As usual,

Maltz reacted badly to ambush. The officer was

deplorably sensitive to violence. Kruge

kept him on because he was an excellent

administrator and follower-of-orders, because Maltz

seldom thought for himself, and because while he might

betray Kruge anyone might become a betrayer

he

would never challenge his commander. It was inconceivable

that any of their superiors would consider Maltz a

suitable replacement for Kruge. Maltz not only

supported Kruge's position, he insured it.

Therefore Kruge pretended never to notice behavior

that some less devious

commander might not have tolerated.

"I'll be in my quarters," Kruge said.

"Execute a course to the Federation boundary."

"Yes, my lord!" Maltz said, and hurried to do

his bidding.

Kruge started away. Warrigul trotted after

him, growling. One of the crew members in the work pit

flinched. He glanced away from his work long enough to be

certain Warrigul was not growling at him, then looked

quickly down at his console again. Kruge stopped. His

boots were on a level just above that of 100

The Search For Spock

the crew member's head. The crew member

reluctantly raised his head when he realized

Kruge was not going to move.

Kruge gestured casually at Warrigul.

"You may have the honor of feeding my pet," he

said.

Struggling to keep the fear from his expression, the

underling nodded vigorously. Kruge was so amused that

he decided not even to discipline him for failing

to answer properly.

The commander strode toward his quarters, where he

kept a secure data-viewer. He was exceedingly

anxious to watch what Valkris had obtained for

him.

Chapter 5

Federation science ship Gr tilde ssom sailed

out of the darkness and into sunrise, crossing the

terminator of the brand new world. David was excited

and pleased by what he had seen so far. For a first try,

Genesis was a smashing success. Saavik, as

usual in public, showed no emotion. He wished

they could go off somewhere and talk so he could [md out

what she really thought.

"New orbit commencing," she said. "Coming up on

sector three."

She was upset by their discovering Captain

Spock's coffin down on the surface, David

knew it, but she hid the fact well. David

decided to try to persuade Captain Esteban

to send some

people down to bury the tube.

"Short range scan," he said.

Saavik studied the sensors. "As before,

metallic mass. Verifying triminium photon

tube. No new data."

"Check for trace radiation. Infrared

enhancement."

The Search For Spock

David had observed Captain Esteban's

tendency toward overcautiousness. He would surely

want to have proof that the tube was safe before he

permitted anyone to approach it.

"Residual radiation only," Saavik said.

"The level is minimal."

The sensor output changed abruptly. David

started violently and hurried to Saavik's side.

Studying the monitor intensely, she

adjusted the controls. But the new sound meant more than

simple interference. Instead of fading, it sharpened and

strengthened.

"I don't believe it," David said.

Captain Esteban, who had been hovering

around them for the whole two hours of the first orbit,

leaned over his shoulder to see the screen.

"What is it?"

"If our equipment is functioning properly,"

Saavik said, "the indications are . . . an

animal life form."

Esteban folded his arms. "You said there wouldn't be

any," he said to David.

"There shouldn't be any. We only enabled the

plant forms in the Genesis matrix."

Captain Esteban seemed unwilling to accept

what David had tried to tell him several times that

Genesis was an experiment. Besides being a

prototype, the torpedo had detonated in an

environment completely different from the one it had been

designed to affect. And who knew what Khan

Singh might have done while he possessed the

device? However obsessed he was, he had to have

been a brilliant man. He could surely have

discovered how to turn on the programs the

team had disabled for the first use of Genesis.

That must be what happened, David thought, if this

reading isn't just a sensor gremlin. If Khan was

going to use Genesis to create a world for his people to live

on,

STAR TREK Ill

he would have wanted the complete ecosphere,

animals included. He would have known he

couldn't import any species from Earth that's for

damned sure!

But David had to wonder why it had taken a

full orbit to find the first animal life form.

He pushed away his worries. Animal life

was decidedly not a symptom of the things David had

most feared might go wrong.

Good grief, now you're sounding like Esteban,

David said to himself. You're demanding a complete

analysis to ten decimal places before you have enough

information for a first

approximation. Go ahead and form a hypothesis if

you want, but don't turn it into a natural law

before you've collected any data.

Then he thought, Holy Heisenberg, what if

Vance's dragons really are down there? That

would please mother.

Saavik had been working while David

daydreamed and Esteban hovered.

"Cross-referenced and verified," she said. "An

unidentified animate life form."

Saavik had been trying to analyze her own

reaction to the discovery of Spock's coffin. At the

time of Spock's funeral, sending his body

to intersect the Genesis wave, to disintegrate into its

sub-elementary particles and be incorporated into the very

fabric of the new world, had seemed to Saavik an

elegant solution, one Spock would have approved.

Disobeying Admiral Kirk's orders so

flagrantly had troubled her slightly, but her

loyalty to Spock was of a higher order entirely.

In truth, she believed she was the only person who

could understand him and appreciate his life.

Now, having disobeyed Admiral Kirk's

instructions, having chosen an orbit of her own

design, she must take the responsibility for what

had happened. But what had happened? She

was dealing with forces that no one 104

The Search For Spock

yet completely understood. Again and again David

had stressed the potential for unexpected

events. Perhaps the potential reached as far as

inexplicable occurrences . . .

For something or someone was down there on that planet.

Saavik glanced at David and saw that he was as

perplexed as she, yet both delighted and excited.

She wished they could go off in private and discuss

what they had found.

Esteban rubbed his jaw.

"Do you wish to advise Starfleet, sir?" the

communications officer said.

"Wait a minute," Esteban said. "We

don't know what we're talking about here."

"Why don't we beam it up?" David said, just

to watch Esteban react.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Esteban said sharply.

"Regulations specifically state, "Nothing shall be

beamed aboard until danger of contamination has been

eliminated." Can you guarantee that?"

David reflected that it was no fun to pull

someone's leg if he never eventually realised leg

was being pulled.

"Not from here, no," the young scientist said.

"Captain," Saavik said, "the logical

alternative is obvious. Beaming down to the

surface is

permitted his

was "If the captain determines that the mission is

vital and reasonably free of danger." I know

the book, Lieutenant Saavik."

"Captain, please," David said. He was

getting sick and tired of having Starfleet

regulations quoted at him in regard to his own

project. "We'll take the risk. We've got

to find out what's down there!"

"Or who," Saavik said, very softly.

David glanced at her, startled. 105

STAR TREK 111

Estebannodded thoughtfully to David. "All

right," he said. "Get your gear. I'll put you

down next time around."

"Thank you sir," David said.

Starfleet Cadet R. Grenni awoke in the

trainees' dorm. He felt groggy, and his head

ached. He had slept too much. He had nothing

else to do. Whenever he slept, he had

nightmares but even the nightmares were better than

the things he remembered.

He wished he were back on the Enterprise. At

least there he would have work to do. He had volunteered

to stay, but he had been transferred

to Firenze along with most of his other classmates.

Only a few essential cadets had been left

on board the Enterprise. Obviously, Commander

Scott had not considered Grenni essential.

When Firenze reached Earth, Starfleet gave

all the trainees several weeks' leave. If they

had deliberately planned to torture Grenni,

they could not have chosen a better way.

His message light was glowing. He stumbled to the

reception panel. Hands trembling, heart beating

violently, he accepted the communication. They had

caught up to him, they had realized their mistake.

This must be his summons to a court-martial

A small packet fell into the slot.

Reluctantly, he opened the door. The envelope

bore the seal of Starfleet in gold and blue. He

picked it up and fumbled at the flap until it

came loose.

"By order of Admiral James T. Kirk,"

he read, "you are presented with the gold star of

valor, jeweled . . ."

The gold star was for conspicuous bravery. The

jewel signified an engagement in which lives had

been lost. Humans received a ruby. It stood for

blood. Grenni's hands started to shake.

He blinked rapidly, forcing

The Search For Spock

away tears. He barely made it through the rest

of the message. It commanded him and the rest of his class

to appear at Starfleet headquarters a few days from

now, for the formal presentation of the medal.

The delicate gold star, with ruby, fell out of the

envelope and into his hand.

On the bridge of the Enterprise, Jim Kirk

leaned back in the captain's seat. Before him,

Spacedock grew slowly larger. The ship was

nearly home. Kirk felt almost as he had in the

old days. He could almost forget the Enterprise was

running on automatic because it had even less than

a skeleton crew He could almost forget that the ship

was patched and scarred and battle-worn. He could

almost forget the empty chair behind him.

Almost.

"Stand by, automatic approach system," he

said. "Advise approach control."

"Approach control, this is USS

Enterprise," Uhura said. "Ready for docking

maneuver."

The controller came back with a crisp,

clear voice. "Enterprise is cleared to dock."

"Lock on."

Sulu transferred control to Spacedock.

"Systems locked."

"Spacedock," Kirk said, "you have control."

"Affirmative, Enterprise. Enjoy the ride,

and welcome home."

"Enterprise confirms. With thanks."

The ship approached the dock in a huge curve,

arcing around its flank and spiraling in to approach

threshold number fifteen. The great enclosed

docking bay allowed people to work outside the ship, yet

it protected them from the free radiation of space.

The Enterprise sailed closer and closer

to Spacedock, heading straight at the closed

radiation-shield doors.

STAR TREK 111

Kirk never liked having to give up direct

control of his ship.

Finally, at what seemed to him the last second,

the massive doors parted silently. The

Enterprise coasted in and moved slowly and silently

into the bay. It passed ships under construction and ships

under repair, ships in storage, and

decommissioned ships only waiting to be

dismantled.

The enormous bay stretched off into darkness, with

only a single pool of light in its entire length.

The Enterprise came abreast of the lights, where

NX 2000, USS Excelsior, floated

among its acolytes as they readied it for its first

voyage. It was a beautiful ship, sleek and new,

its burnished hull untouched by radiation or

micrometeorites or battle.

"Would you look at that?" Uhura said.

"My friends," Kirk said, "the great experiment

Excelsior, ready for trial runs."

Kirk glanced at Sulu, approving of his

restraint. Excelsior was Sulu's next

assignment, his first com- mand. In many respects,

Sulu was Kirk's protege. The admiral was

proud of the young captain. Kirk searched his heart for

envy and found none. Excelsior belonged to Sulu.

Kirk's ship was the Enterprise, and he wanted

none other.

"It has transwarp drive," Sulu said

matter-of-factly.

"Aye," Scott said, "and if my grandmother had

wheels, she'd be a wagon."

"Mr. Scott," Kirk said with mild reproof.

"I'm sorry, sir, but as far as I'm concerned,

there's nothin' needed for space travel that this old

girl doesn't already have."

"Come come, Scotty," Kirk said. "Young

minds. Fresh ideas." His voice grew dry.

"Be tolerant."

Sulu smiled to himself, refusing to be baited by the

conversation. Behind his calm facade he glowed with

The Search For Spock

pride. Excelsior was his ship, the ship he had

worked so hard and waited so long to command. He knew

its lines by heart. He had had

considerable say in its design. He was so proud

of the ship that even Mr. Scott's criticisms could

not get very far under his skin.

He had been around and around about

Excelsior with Scott. Scott thought

Excelsior was a kludge, full of extraneous

bells and whistles. Sulu was beginning to think that

Scott was turning into a sort of high-tech

Luddite, wanting to go just so far and no farther,

afraid of any more advances.

The engineer would change his mind if he

ever got a chance to work inside those engines. Sulu

gazed at his ship, and the sight of it gave him nearly

enough pleasure to overcome the tragedies of the past few

days, nearly enough pleasure to overcome his natural

reserve and make him laugh aloud.

After the Enterprise passed Excelsior,

Sulu noticed movement behind the row of small

ports along the upper level of Docking Bay

15, the ports that opened out from the cafeteria.

Sulu looked more closely.

Everyone sitting up there, drinking coffee, shooting

the breeze, relaxing, saw the Enterprise's

approach. As the great ship limped its slow,

stately way to its berth, all along the line the people

rose in silent acclamation.

Jim Kirk, too, grew aware of the homage.

He fought with powerful and conflicting emotions. When the

controller demanded his attention, he felt glad of the

distraction.

"Enterprise, stand by for final docking

procedure."

"Standing by. Mr. Sulu, activate moorings.

Stand by umbilical and gravitational support

systems."

"Aye, sir. Moorings activated.

All systems standing by."

"Admiral!" Chekov exclaimed. "This is not

possible!"

STAR TREK lll

"What is it, Mr. Chekov?"

"Energy reading from C deck . . . from inside

Mr. Spock's quarters."

"Mr. Chekov, I ordered Spock's quarters

sealed!" Kirk said angrily.

"Yes, sir, I sealed room myself. Nevertheless,

I am reading life form there."

"Mr. Chekov," Kirk said, his voice angry

and quiet, "this entire crew seems on the edge of

obsessive behavior concerning Mr. Spock."

Chekov opened his mouth to protest. Kirk cut him

off with a sharp gesture. "I'll have a look. Mr.

Sulu, continue docking procedure."

Kirk strode from the bridge. As the doors

closed behind him, Chekov shrugged fatalistically.

He saw what he saw. In an assertion of

Vulcan logic that had seemed completely

illogical to Chekov, Spock had always refused

to lock his cabin, or even to go through the security

procedures with the computer that would permit it

to be locked if he chose. Vulcans never used

locks. It was a matter of principle with Spock.

Because of the damage to the electronic systems of the

Enterpr tilde se, Chekov had not been able

to initiate the procedures himself when Kirk ordered

the cabin closed off. Instead, Chekov secured the

door mechanically, that is, with an alarm, with

sensors, andwitha lead seal and stamp from the ship's

archives. Consequently, someone could have broken in.

And unless the sensors had gone completely wonky

(which was also possible), apparently someone had.

Kirk strode toward Spock's room, his

temper frayed comand just short of breaking. If one of the

cadets had entered Spock's room, if this were some

tasteless and

The Search For Spock

thoughtless practical joke then Kirk would soon

be giving someone a lesson in the uses of black

humor.

An alarm was ringing softly. Kirk broke into a

run, then slowed abruptly so as to come upon the

intruder unaware.

At Spock's door he stopped short. A

violent force had ripped away the seal and

wrenched open the door, as if an intruder of

enormous strength had been too distressed, too

desperate, to try any method but direct force.

Kirk touched the alarm, and it faded to silence.

He squinted, but saw nothing through the

darkness. He stepped cautiously forward, waiting

for his eyes to become acclimated to the low light.

"Jim . . . help me . . ."

Kirk gasped. The voice was Spock's.

"Take me up . . . up the steps . . . of

Mount Seleya . . . through the hall of ancient

thought . . ."

Kirk clenched his fists. His hands were shaking with

anger and shock. He peered more deeply into the shadows

and saw

The indistinct form plunged toward him out of the

darkness, knocking him aside. Kirk grabbed it and

wrestled with it. Its strength was enormous. Somehow

he got a judo hold on his opponent and wrenched

him down and into submission. They both fell to the

floor and into the lights from the corridor.

McCoy struggled against him.

"Bones! What the hell are you doing? Have you lost

your mind?"

McCoy stared at him blankly.

"Help me, Jim. Take me home." His

voice rasped, totally drained of strength.

"That's where we are, Bones," Kirk said

gently. "We are home."

STAR TREK 111

"Then ... perhaps there is still time.... Climb the

steps, Jim.... Climb the steps of Mount

Seleya...."

"Mount Seleya? Bones, Mount Seleya is

on Vulcan! We're home! We're on

Earth!"

McCoy's e mpty stare continued. Kirk loosed

his hold on the doctor's arm.

"Remember!" McCoy said.

In Spock's unmistakable voice.

"Rememberff99

Kirk knelt on the cold deck, frozen with

shock.

"Admiral," Uhura said through the intercom,

"docking is completed. StarfleetCommander Morrow

is on his way for inspection."

McCoy shuddered, tried to rise, and fainted.

Kirk caught him before he hit the floor.

"Uhura! Get the medics down here!

Get them now!"

He held McCoy, feeling the doctor's

pulse race frantically, thready and weak.

"Bones, it's all right," he said. "It will be

all right."

But he wondered, Will it? What in heaven's name

is happening to us all?

The skeleton crew of the Enterprise assembled

in the docking chamber in preparation for Starfleet

Commander Morrow's review.

"Tetch-hut!"

The boatswain's pipe wailed eerily, the

doors slid open, and "fleet Commander Morrow

stepped on board, his aide close behind.

"Welcome aboard, Admiral."

Morrow grasped Kirk's shoulders.

"Welcome home, Jim," he said. He tightened

his hands. "Well done."

He embraced Kirk. The sincere affection between

them was of long standing. Morrow had been Kirk's first

commanding officer. He had sponsored him for his

The Search For Spock

captaincy, and again for his promotion to the general

staff.

"Thank you, sir," Kirk said, as Morrow

stepped back. To break the tension he said wryly,

"I take it this is not a formal inspection?"

A ripple of half-repressed laughter spread

through the small group.

"No. At ease, everyone." Morrow glanced

around. "Where's Dr. McCoy?"

Kirk hesitated. "Indisposed, sir."

"Ah," Morrow said, "too bad." Taking the

hint, he dropped the subject. "Well. You have

all done remarkable service under the most . . .

difficult . . . of conditions. You'll be receiving

Starfleet's highest commendations. And more

important extended shore leave."

The youngsters, particularly, reacted with pleased

surprise and anticipation.

"That is shore leave for everyone but you, Mr.

Scott. We need your wisdom on the new

Excelsior. Report there tomorrow as Captain of

Engineering."

"Tomorrow isna possible, Admiral," Scott

said, "And forbye, with all appreciation, sir, I'd

prefer to oversee the refitting of the Enterprise.

If it's all the same to ye, I'll come back

here."

"I don't think that's wise, Mr. Scott."

"But, sir, no one knows this ship like I do. The

refit will take a practiced hand. There's much to do

was He glanced at Kirk. "It could be months."

"That's one of the problems, Mr. Scott."

"Well, I might be able to do i" for ye a little

quicker his

"You simply don't know what you're asking."

"Then perhaps the admiral would be so kind as

to enlighten me."

STAR TREK ill

"I can cut you new orders to stay and oversee the

Enterprise was he said.

"I'd thank ye for that."

was but the orders would have to be for you to oversee the

ship's dismantling."

Jim Kirk felt the blood drain from his face.

He could hear exclamations of shock from the crew around

him.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Scott," Morrow said.

"There isn't going to be a refit."

"But ye canna do that!"

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

"The Enterprise his

"Is twenty years old. Its day is over,

Jim." His sorrow was sincere, but he made no

pretence that the order was anything but final. "The ship

is obsolete. We kept it on as a training

vessel, mainly because you insisted. But after this last

trip . . . well, it's clear just by looking at the

ship that it's seen its last encounter."

"Ye've no e'en done an inspection!" Scott

cried. "Ye canna just look at a ship and condemn

it to the scrap heap! All ye need do is gi' me

the materiel I requisitioned his

"Your requisitions have been through a

thorough analysis. We gave the ship every point

we could I made sure of that. But it simply

isn't cost-effective to bring it back

to optimum."

""Cost-effective"!" Scott muttered

angrily. ""Opti- mum"! What d'ye his

"Scatty," Kirk said gently.

Scott opened his mouth, saw the look on

Kirk's face, closed his mouth, and resentfully

subsided.

"Scotty, go on over to Excelsior for the time

being his

"Nay!" Scott said. "Do ye no'

understand? It isna possible!"

"Indeed?" The frost in Morrow's single word low

The Search For Spock

ered the temperature ten degrees. He was not

used to having his orders questioned, much less directly

refused.

"My nephew Peter is still on board the

Enterprise," Scott said. "His body is.

I must take him home, to my sister. To his

grave."

The admiral relented. "I see. Of course,

you must go to Earth. But Mr. Scott, the

preliminary test of the engines is urgent. You're the

best man for the job. In a day or so his

"I canna promise. I willua. Some things

there be that are more important than starships, and one of

them is family, one of them is ties of blood."

He hurried from the docking bay.

Kirk turned to Morrow.

"Admiral, I requested I'd hoped to take

the Enterprise back to Genesis."

"Genesis!" Morrow exclaimed. "Whatever

for?"

"Why a natural desire to help

finish the work we began. Dr. Marcus is

certainly ghing to want to return his

"It's out of the question. No one else is going

to Genesis."

"May I ask why?"

Morrow sighed. "Jim . . . in your absence,

Genesis has become a galactic controversy.

Until the Federation Council makes policy, you

are all under orders not to discuss Genesis. Consider

it a quarantined planet . . . and a forbidden

subject."

Morrow's expression forbade argument in general,

and argument before the assembled ship's crew in

particular.

"Dismissed," Kirk said.

Sulu broke off from the rest of the crew of the

Enterprise before they reached the transporter room.

STAR TREK ill

He had no reason to return to Earth immediately, and

no desire whatever for shore leave. All he

wanted was to get back to Excelsior. He had

gone on the Enterpnse training cruise as a

favor, out of courtesy to James Kirk. He should

have been back on board his own ship days

ago.

""Captain Sulu," Morrow said.

Sulu turned back. "Yes, sir?"

"Where are you going?"

"To Excelswr, sir. I'm several days late

as it is."

"Would you come with us, instead, for the time being?"

Sulu hesitated, but Morrow had given him,

however subtly, a direct order if he had ever

heard one.

"If you please," Morrow said.

"Yes, sir." Sulu followed, trying to ward

off a deep feeling of apprehension.

Morrow did not speak to him again until they had

beamed back to Starfleet headquarters on Earth.

The Starfleet Commander bid good-bye to Kirk and the

others. Sulu waited for an

explanation. When everyone else had gone,

Morrow motioned to Sulu to accompany him. They

went into his office, and he closed the door.

"Please sit down, Captain," he said.

Sulu complied.

"I appreciate your patience," Morrow said.

"I have a delicate situation here that I hope you can

help me out with."

Sulu resisted the obvious invitation to offer to do

anything he could.

"How much do you know about Genesis?"

Morrow asked.

"I know who developed it, I know what it

does. I've seen it work." He knew a few of

its technical details, for though he had not seen

Carol Marcus' fabled

The Search For Spock

proposal tape, he hardly needed to. The

ship's grapevine had described it quite thoroughly.

"Do you know what its effect back here has

been?"

"No, sire'

"The uproar has been . . . well . . .

considerable. There's going to be a Federation inquiry,

and a summit meeting. I'm afraid I'm going to have

to ask everyone who was on board the Enterprise during

this recent . . . incident . . . to keep themselves

available to offer testimony. This will pose no

difficulties for the others. But in your case . . ."

Sulu saw where this was all heading. He rose in

protest.

"Please sit down, Captain,"

Morrow said.

"May I assume that the Admiral has already

rewritten my orders?" Sulu said stiffly. He

remained standing.

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"Permanently?"

"I sincerely hope not, Captain. In a few

months, when this has all blown over . . ."

Sulu held back his protest. He knew that it

would do no good, and furthermore that he could only

humiliate himself by making it.

"So many factors are involved," Morrow said.

"The ramifications of the Genesis incident

complicate matters beyond any of our

expectations. But above that, our investment in

Excelsior precludes our keeping it in its berth

indefinitely. The shakedown cruise must occur as

scheduled. Captain Styles will take over for you

while you're otherwise occupied."

"I see," Sulu said. Anger made his words

tight and hard, but he did not raise his voice.

He also did not say, What about afterwards? Do you

really expect me to believe that afterwards, after Styles

has had a chance to 117

STAR TREK In

command that ship, that he'll turn Excelsior over

to me without a protest?

All this was equally obvious to Morrow, who at

least had the good grace to look embarrassed.

"Captain, after all the turmoil has died down,

I promise you Starfleet will make this up to you.

Even if things don't turn out quite as we expect,

you'll find your cooperation well rewarded."

No ship existed, no ship was even planned, that

came close to Excelsior. Sulu feared that

once he lost it, he lost it forever. Being told that

something could make up for that was so

outrageous, so absurd, that Sulu nearly burst

out laughing.

"I will find that reward quite fascinating

to contemplate," Sulu said bitterly. "If the

Admiral will pardon me, I have absolutely

nothing to do."

Morrow frowned at him, not knowing how to interpret

what Sulu said.

Without waiting to be dismissed, Sulu turned and

strode from the lavishly appointed office.

Dan nan Stuart awakened at sunrise, in her

mother's house. The young starfleet pilot could smell

the newcut hay from the field beyond the horse

pasture. The bird that had been singing all night,

confused by the huge full moon, twittered

into silence. Dannan flung off the bedclothes and

wrapped herself in her silken. It clasped itself around

her.

The floor creaked beneath her bare feet. She

leaned on the sill of the small window and looked out

across the valley. The wall of the house was half a

meter thick, for Dannan's mother's house was five

hundred years old and more. Its massive walls

insulated the interior against the occasional summer heat

of northern Scotland, and against the continual damp

cold of winter. Today would be a perfect day, cool

and sharp, the sun 118

The Search For Spock

bright. A better day for saying hello than saying

good-bye.

The valley glowed with dawn. Dew lay thick

on every surface. Dannan could see a darker path

through the silvered grass, where her little brother's old

pony had made its way to the creek to drink.

Dannan remembered coming home

from school on vacation and looking out on mornings just

like this, to see young Peter riding Star bareback and

bridleless at a gallop across the field.

She remembered all the times she had been mean and

impatient, when the prospect of taking care of a

pesky child had been too much to bear. Often she had

been too busy to pay him much heed. She had been

so eager to go off drinking and carousing with her friends that she

had pushed Peter aside. All he had ever

wanted, since he was old enough to understand what Dannan

planned for her life, all he had ever wanted from

her was to hear her tell her stories.

Poor kid, she thought, poor brother. We did

have some fun, in the last few years, but I regret

all the times I closed you out and went my own way.

I hope you found it in your heart to forgive me.

She whistled from the window. A few minutes later

Star trotted slowly over the crest of the hill. He

was old and stiff, and he had been retired since

Peter went away to school. The bay pony's

black muzzle was speckled with white.

Dannan climbed down the steep, twisty stairs

to the main floor of the house, grabbed a carrot and a

piece of bread from the kitchen, and ran through the back

yard to the pasture fence. The dew was cold on her

feet, but the water beaded up on the silken. The

motion of her running spun the droplets sparkling

into the sunlight.

Star whickered at her and reached his head over the

fence for the treats she brought. He nipped up the

bread with his soft, mobile lips and crunched the

carrot

STAR TREK In

in two bites. Dannan rubbed his cheek, then

traced the unusual five-pointed marking of white

on his forehead.

When Peter came home and whistled, Star whinnied

like a colt and galloped to him, age and arthritis

forgotten.

"Poor old boy," Dannan said. "You're

lucky, you never have to understand he isn't coming back.

Maybe you'll even forget him."

She gave the pony one last pat and trudged

back across the wet grass. The house peered at her

from beneath eyebrows of thick willow thatch, where the edge

of the roof had been trimmed in graceful curves

to leave the upstairs windows open to the light.

In the kitchen she made a pot of coffee and put

the morning's bread in to bake, though she did not

feel very hungry. She had not, since hearing the

news of Peter's death on board the Enterpnse.

The kitchen led into her mother's studio.

Dannan could smell the heavy odor of wet clay

and the sharper electric tang of ozone from the kiln.

Dannan rubbed her fingers around the fluid shape of the

mug from which she drank her coffee. Her mother sent her

sculptures and commissions into the city to be fired in

her co-operative's radioactive kiln. The

radiation interacted with the glazes she used, producing

an unusual depth and patina. But the things she

threw for use around the house, she fired in the

traditional way in her studio.

She had spent all day, and most of the night, in the

studio. Dannan had left her alone. It was her

mother's way, in bad times, to close herself off with her

work. Dannan would have liked to talk about what had

happened and about Peter, but she knew her mother would not

be able to do that for some while yet.

Dannan heard a brief, shivery sound from the

street outside, a sound she knew well but

seldom heard in her

The Search For Spock

mother's house. Dannan preferred travelinghere

by more ordinary means, by train or ground car. The time

gave her a chance to make the

transition from high tech to countryside.

Beaming in, besides being too expensive to use very often

for personal business, was terribly abrupt.

But the sound of a transporter beam was

unrnistakable. The loud knock at the front door

confirmed her assumption.

She hurried into the hallway and opened the door just

as her uncle, Montgomery Scott of

Starfieet, raised his hand to rap insistently again.

"Hush, uncle," she said. "Mother's asleep

don't you know what time it is?"

"Nay," Uncle Montgomery said. "I dinna

think to look."

"It's just past dawn." Even thirty years on

a starship should not have taken his ability to glance at the

height of the sun and realize it was early; but, then,

even thirty years on a starship had not changed his

indifference to the subtler niceties of social

interaction.

Montgomery stood on the doorstep just off the

deserted cobbled street. One of the things Dannan

loved about this house was that its front door led

directly into the village and its back into the

countryside. She had grown up here, she was used

to it, but friends she had brought home from school for a

visit, when she was in the Academy, never

failed to find it surprising.

"Well?" said Uncle Montgomery. "Are ye

going to let me in or are ye going to stand in the street

all day in thy skiwies?"

"Don't insult my clothing," Dannan said.

"It's sensitive to discourtesy."

"I knew I should ha' beamed straight in," he

muttered.

STAR TREK lll

Dannan stood aside to let him pass. Even

Uncle Montgomery had better manners than

to beam directly into a private home, whether it

belonged to his sister or not.

He tramped to the kitchen and looked at the

coffeepot with distaste.

"Is there no tea?"

"You know where it is as well as I do," Dannan

said. She sat down and hooked her bare feet over

a rung of the chair.

"I'm in no mood for shine impertinence, young

lady," he said.

"We're not on Starfleet ground now," she said.

She resisted pointing out that even when they were on

Starfleet ground, she was only one grade

in rank beneath him and thus rated being treated as a

colleague rather than as a subordinate. "We're

both guests in mother's house, and I think we should

call a truce."

He shrugged and sat down without getting himself any

tea. He fidgeted in silence for some minutes.

"When is the funeral?" he finally asked.

"Ten o'clock," Dannan said.

He lapsed again into silence. Dannan could not think

of any subject to bring up that would not cause one or

the other or both of them pain. They had never got

along very well. He had opposed her joining

Starfleet, saying she was too spoiled and

undisciplined ever to succeed. When she did succeed,

he never acknowledged it. He never said a word

to indicate that he had been wrong. Dannan

assumed he was still waiting for her to fail.

The message system chimed softly and the reception

light turned on. Grateful for the diversion,

Dannan rose to check it.

The message was addressed to her. This surprised

The Search For Spock

her. No one but Hunter, her commanding of ricer,

knew where she had gone. She turned it

on.

Dannan immediately recognised the image that formed

before her. Peter had described

Lieutenant Saavik in his letters more than once.

She was just as beautiful as he had said. She had great

presence; she gave the impression of strength,

intelligence, and depth. Dannan began to understand why

Peter had spent so much time talking about her when he

wrote.

"Please forgive me for intruding upon your

privacy," the young Vulcan said. "My name is

Saavik. I cannot convey my message in person,

as I am unable to accompany the Enterprise

to Earth. I knew your brother, Peter Preston.

He spoke of you often, with admiration and with love.

He was my student in mathematics. He was quick and

diligent and he found great satisfaction in the

beauty of the subject." The image of Saavik

hesitated. "Though I was the teacher, he taught me

many things. The most important lesson was that of

friendship, which I had never experienced before I met your

brother. I may discover other friends, but I will cherish

the memory of Peter always. I would not have been able

to speak of these feelings had I never met him; that is

one of the things he taught me. He was a

sweet child, a wholly admirable person, and he

saved many lives with his sacrifice. This is perhaps as

little comfort to you as tilde it is to me, but it is

true." Saavik paused, collecting herself,

Dannan thought, fighting to keep her emotions hidden,

as her culture demanded. "I hope that someday we

may meet, and speak of him to each other.

Farewell."

The image on the tape faded out. Dannan

removed the message disk and slid it inside her

silken, which obediently formed a pocket for it.

Dannan returned to the kitchen. 123

STAR TREK Ill

"What was that?"

"Just a message," Dannan said, trying to keep

her voice steady. "Uncle, what happened?" When

she asked the question, her voice did break.

"I canna tell ye," he said. ""Tis all

top secret."

"But everybody already knows about Genesis,"

Dannan said. "Trust Starfleet to put something

everybody already knows under seal! But I don't care

about that. I just want to know what happened to Peter!"

"I'll not have you maligning Starfleet his

"What was he doing on the Enterprise,

anyway? Why was he under your command?"

"Because ye wouldna take him under yours!"

"I'm his sister! It wasn't proper for either one

of us to train him!"

"Proper! Who says it isna proper? I'll

not be accused of favoritism by an impudent his

"Favoritism!" She laughed angrily.

"I'll bet you demanded three times as much from Peter

as you did from anyone else! Favoritism! Others

might accuse you of that, but your family knows

better!"

"'Tis for the family that I arranged to teach him!

I didna want him to be ill-taught his

"Is that why you won't tell me what happened?

Did you push him beyond his abilities? Did you put

him where he shouldn't have been?"

"None o" the bairns should ha' been where they

were," he said so sadly that Dannan felt a

twinge of pity through her grief. "They were all pushed

beyond their abilities."

"By Admiral James Kirk," Dannan said

bitterly, softly. "Admiral Kirk, who his

"I willna tolerate slander!"

"I'm not saying anything everybody else hasn't

been saying for days," Dannan said. "The

last two times he

The Search For Spock

got his hands on the Enterprise, the captains

died. First Decker, now Spock. If I had

command of a ship I wouldn't let him within a light-year

of it!"

"Ye dinna know anything about the situations! And

ye'll never get wi'in a light-year of command if

any friend o' the admiral hears ye speaking like that!"

"Or if you have anything to say about it?"

was "Twillna take a report from me for thy

superiors to see ye are too hot-headed for command."

What happened to the truce? Dannan thought.

Did I start this? I didn't intend to, if I

did.

"All I wanted to know was what really

happened to my brother," she said.

Uncle Montgomery stood up, stalked out into the

yard, and would not speak to her again.

Later that morning, Dannan endured the

memorial for Peter. She barely listened to it.

Today was the first time in years that she had been in a

church. She sat next to her mother, holding her hand.

The pastor described Peter as an

obedient and dutiful little boy a boring creature, not

very similar to what he had been as a child, and nothing at

all like the sharp and independent young man he had been

well on his way to

becoming. Dannan wanted to jump up and push the

clergyman aside and read everyone her last letter from

Peter, written just before he died, received after she

knew he had been killed. She smiled, thinking of the

practical joke he had played on Admiral

Kirk. That took nerve, it did, to face down a

general of ficer.

The last line in his letter was, "Lieutenant

Saavik says we are friends. I'm glad. I

think you would like her, Love, Peter."

She thought he was right. She hoped she had a chance

to meet Saavik someday, face to face.

STAR TREK 111

The eulogy ended. Everyone rose and filed out to the

churchyard. The raw pit of Peter's grave gaped

open in the hard, cold autumn ground. A few

dead leaves scattered past, rustling against

Dannan's boots. They came from the oak grove

that encircled the top of the low hill behind the church. The

grove was sacred, or haunted, or

cursed, depending on whom one asked about it.

Dannan remembered winter nights long ago in

front of the fireplace, and summer nights around a

campfire, telling deliciously scary stories

about the creatures and spirits who lived among and within the

trees.

In the oak grove, a dark shape moved.

Dannan started.

It was nothing. Just the wind, shaking a young tree (but

there were no young trees in the grove, only ancient

ones that did not quiver in the wind), or a

dust-devil (but weather like today's never produced

dust-devils). Who would hide up in the grove?

Who would come to a funeral and fear to attend it? Who

would prefer the solitary

strangeness of the grove to the company of friends?

At the side of the grave, Dannan's mother bent

down, picked up a handful of the cold, stony earth,

and scattered it gently onto the coffin of her youngest

child. Dannan followed, but she clenched her hand around

the dirt until the sharp stones cut into her hand. She

flung it violently into the grave. The rocks

clattered hollowly on the polished wood. The other

mourners looked up, startled by her lack of

propriety.

She did not give a good god's damn for

propriety. She wanted to bring her brother

back, or she wanted to take revenge on the

renegade who had killed him, or she wanted

to punch out her uncle's lights. These were all things

she could not do.

The Search For Spock

Tears flowing freely, Uncle Montgomery

scooped up a handful of dirt and dropped it

into Peter's grave. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

. . ."

.

"To fully understand the events on which I report,"

James T. Kirk said, "it is necessary to review the

theoretical data on the Genesis device."

Kruge leaned back in the command chair, contentedly

rubbing Warrigul's ears as he contemplated his

prize. The image of Admiral James Kirk

dissolved into the simulated

demonstration of the Genesis device.

The translator changed the words from the standard

language of the Federation of Planets into Kruge's

dialect of the high tongue of the Klingon Empire.

"Genesis is a procedure by which the

molecular structure of matter is broken down,

not into subatomic parts as in nuclear fission, or

even into elementary particles, but into sub-elementary

particle-waves."

The torpedo arced through space and landed on the

surface of a barren world. The rocky surface

exploded into inferno. The planet quivered, then, just

perceptibly, it expanded. For an instant it glowed

as intensely as a star. The fire died, leaving the

dead stone transformed into water and air and fertile

soil.

Kruge casually transferred his attention to his

officers, Maltz and Torg. A few minutes

before, alone in his cabin, he had watched the recording

that Valkris sacrificed her life to acquire.

Now, playing it again for his two subordinates, he

was more interested in observing their reaction to the

presentation.

"The results are completely under our control.

In this simulation, a barren rock becomes a world with

water, atmosphere, and a functioning ecosystem

capable of sustaining most known forms of carbon-based

life."

Torg watched intently, all his attention on the

screen.

STAR TREK 111

The young officer was in a state of high

excitement, indifferent to any potential danger.

Maltz gazed at the screen with wonder and

admiration.

The human narrating the tape thanked her

listeners. Kruge smiled to himself at that, wondering

what she would say to this audience. He made the tape

pause.

"So!" he said. He looked at Torg.

"Speak!"

"Great power!" Torg said eagerly. "To control,

to dominate, to destroy." He scowled. "If it

works."

Kruge made no response. He scratched

Warrigul beneath the scaly jaw. The creature

pressed up against his leg, whining, sensing the tension and

excitement.

Kruge turned his ominous gaze on Maltz.

"Speak!"

"Impressive," Maltz said thoughtfully. "They

can make planets. Possibilities are endless.

Colonies, resources his

"Yes," Kruge said gently. He

noticed with satisfaction Maltz's chagrin at his

tone, and his surprise. "New cities, homes in

the country, your mate at your side, children playing at

your feet . . ." As Kruge's voice grew more

and more

sarcastic, Maltz's expression changed from one

of satisfaction to one of apprehension. "dis . . And

overhead, fluttering in the breeze the flag of the

Federation of Planets!" He fairly growled the

last few words, and Warrigul snarled in support.

"Oh, charming!" Kruge said. He sneered at

Maltz. "Sta- tion!"

"Yes, my lord," Maltz said quickly, knowing

better than to try to defend himself when he had so

completely lost his ground. He hurried to his post

and made himself very inconspicuous.

Kruge regarded Torg. "It works. Oh,

yes, it works." He touched the controls of the player

to let the tape continue.

"It was this premature detonation of the Genesis

The Search For Spock

device that resulted in the creation of the Genesis

planet." On the screen, a constellation-class

Federation starship fled the expanding wave that

turned the dust and gases of a nebula into a mass of

energy and sub-elementary particles, thence into a blue

new world.

Kruge turned off the machine, removed the

information insert, and slipped it beneath his belt.

"Tell this to no one," he said to Torg. He

glanced significantly across the control room at

Maltz.

"Understood, my lord."

"We are going to this planet," Kruge said.

"Even as our emissaries negotiate for peace with the

Federation, we will act for the preservation of our people. We

will seize the secret of this

weapon the secret of ultimate power!"

Torg nodded, nearly overwhelmed by the

magnitude of what he had seen. "Success,"

he whispered. "Success, my lord."

"Station!"

"Yes, my lord!"

Torg returned to his position. At

Kruge's side, Warrigul whined and slavered,

reacting to the emotions of its master. Kruge

dropped to one knee to soothe the creature.

"My lord," said the helm officer, speaking

carefully in the tongue of subordinates.

"We are approaching Federation territory."

"Steady on course," Kruge snapped, easing

his impatient first stratum with a second stratum of

approval. "Engage cloaking device."

"Cloaking device engaged."

From within the ship, it was a most odd and satisfying

sensation. The ship and all its contents and all its

occupants became slightly transparent.

Voices grew hollow, like echoes.

Warrigul howled in protest. Lower

subordinates

STAR TREK In

shuddered at the keening cry, knowing that the doaking

device put the creature's temper on a thin

edge. It had a similar effect on people. Once in

a while it would, without warning, drive someone mad.

But this time everyone survived the transition sane.

Kruge smiled and

stroked tilde his beast, satisfied in the knowledge that

outside the cloaking field, his ship was completely

invisible.

Chapter 6

Saavik stepped onto the transporter

platfomm beside David.

"Transporter room," Captain Esteban said

through the intercom. "Stand by to energise."

"Transporter room standing by."

"Energize. his

The beam caught Saavik up and dissolved her.

A moment later it reassembled her, atom by atom,

on the surface of the world David had helped

to create.

From her point of view, the world solidified around

her. She had no real sensation of being tom asunder and

put back together. Throughout the entire process she

could feel sensations from her body, feel the weight

of the backpack on her shoulders, hear and see and

think.

The Genesis world lay wreathed in silver haze.

Great primordial fern-trees reached into the air

then drooped down again with the weight of their own leaves.

The

STAR TREK Ill

fronds had captured miniature pools of

glittering rainwater.

David appeared beside her and looked around with

wonder.

"It really is something, isn't it?" he said.

"It is indeed," Saavik said. She took her

tricorder from her belt and turned it on. David

did likewise. The bio readings were what she had

expected, similar to the long-range scans. The

animate life signals matched nothing she had ever

seen before, but they definitely existed.

David set off through the forest as Saavik

switched the emphasis on her tricorder and

scanned again. She raised one eyebrow in

astonishment.

"This is most odd, David," she said.

He glanced impatiently back.

She frowned and took out her communicator.

"Saavik to Grissom."

"Grissom here."

"Request computer study of soil samples for

geological aging."

"I'll handle that later," David said.

Saavik wondered why his voice was so sharp and

tense. She, too, was anxious to proceed, but not to the

point of recklessness.

"My readings indicate great instability."

"We're not here to investigate geological

aging, we're here to find life forms!" He

scanned around with his tricorder. The signals

changed and strengthened. "Come on!" He hurried off

between the trees.

Saavik felt an intense uneasiness, but she

followed David.

"Grissom to landing party." Even through the

communicator, Saavik could hear the worry in

Captain Esteban's voice. "We show you

approaching indications of radioactivity. Do you

concur?"

The Search For Spock

"Affirmative, Captain. But our readings are

well below the danger level."

"Very well. Exercise caution, Lieutenant.

This landing is 'captain's discretion." I'm the one

who's out on a limb here."

Saavik stood in the midst of a profoundly

unknown world and replied, straight-faced, "I will

try to remember that, Captain."

She strode after David, who had hurried

several hundred meters ahead of her. He paused

to take readings, and she caught up to him. Her

tricorder showed strange and fluctuating

life-signs. She flipped the setting

quickly from bio to geo and tilde got the same

disturbing readings of

instability. At the very least this area would be prone

to severe earthquakes.

Reluctantly Saavik changed the sensor again.

The metallic mass she had detected from on

board Grissom lay very near. She glanced in the

direction of the reading. Before her the trees thinned out

into a blaze of sun. The air was very warm and very

humid. Saavik could not see beyond the sun's

dazzle in the steamy haze.

She walked toward the source of the readings. Before

her, just out of sight, lay a casket that held the

body of her teacher. She did not need to see it to be

certain he was dead. Because now, she was certain. Her

speculations in response to the life-sign readings-

had been fantasies, dreams, wishes. She felt

nothing of the neural touch that had disturbed her so

deeply back on the

Enterprise. If Spock were nearby, if by some

incredible action of the Genesis wave, or some

unsuspected ability of the Vulcan-human

cross, he had returned, Saavik would perceive

him. Of that she felt quite sure.

David pushed his way through the thick

fronds of the fern-trees and into the glade beyond. The

sunlight burst upon him and he stood still, blinking.

SlAR TREK ill

Saavik moved more slowly out of the green shade,

giving her eyes the few seconds they needed

to adapt.

"It is Spock's tube!" David said. He

squinted at it, trying to screen out the light.

"David . . ." She pointed to the base of the

tube.

A mass of pale, moist worms writhed and

wriggled in the shadow of the casket. A few fell from

the cluster into the sunlight and frantically burrowed

into the dark loam.

His eyes now accustomed to the brightness, David

saw what she was pointing at. He took one step

toward the slimy creatures and stopped. A muscle

along the side of his jaw tightened, and he swallowed

hard.

- "Well," he said bitterly. "There's our

life-form read

ing. It must have been microbes, caught on the

surface

of the tube. We shot them here from the

Enterprise. was His voice was tinged with irony and

disappointment. "They were fruitful, and multiplied."

He looked around the otherwise peaceful glade.

"Probably con- taminated the whole planet."

Saavik could think of several other explanations

for the presence of the worms, but as the casket appeared

still to be sealed, she hoped David's explanation was

correct.

"But how could they have changed so quickly . . . his

Did you program accelerated evolution

into-Genesis?" Perhaps the creatures were far more

complicated than they appeared at first glance. She

focussed her tricorder on them, but could not

reproduce the reading that had brought her here;

David approached the torpedo tube. His

tricorder bleated and clicked, registering the

increased radiation flux and confirming the torpedo

tube as the source. Nevertheless, the level was well

below the danger point.

David grimaced, then forged ahead, kicking his

way

The Search For Spock

through the worms. Saavik followed until she

realized what he intended to do. She

stopped, unwilling to see again the-terrible burns on

Spock's sculpted face, preferring not to consider

the effects of climate.

She started despite herself when David slowly

raised the lid of the bier. He stared down into the

casket.

"Saavik . . ."

Pushing a path through the worms with her boots,

Saavik Joined him.

"dis . . He's gone," David said. He reached

into the empty coffin and drew out the black shroud.

"What is it?" he asked.

She took the silvery, silky piece of heavy

black fabric from his hands.

"It is Spock's burial robe," she said,

her voice even, but her thoughts in disarray.

Saavik heard a low, threatening rumble. The

ground shook gently beneath her feet. Merely a

temblor, not a true quake, but a precursor

to and a promise of events more violent.

As the quivering of the earth faded away, a frightened

cry echoed through the forest. A mammal? A

predatory bird? A creature unique to this world?

David spun toward the sound, that lonely shriek of

pain, then, when the echoes had faded and the

cry came no more, he looked back at Saavik.

She felt sure he was thinking, as was she No

highly evolved microbe screamed that scream.

Dannan fidgeted on the sofa in the living

room. It was early evening, and beginning to grow dark

outside. The day seemed to have stretched on forever.

- Uncle Montgomery sat on the other side

of the room, in silence and in shadows.

Dannan's mother had vanished back into her

studio. Everyone in the family knew better than

to disturb her 135

STAR TREK 111

when the door was closed. That was one of the things

Peter's father had never been able to get through his head;

it was the final bit of selfishness Dannan's mother

could not tolerate. Dannan returned from school

once to find, rather to her relief, that the elder

Preston had packed up his things and departed,

muttering about eccentric artists and heading for he said a

Federation colony, on the first available ship.

Dannan had smiled to hear that, for if he thought an

artist who did not like to be interrupted when she was working

was eccentric, wait until he met the people who

shipped out to colonies. He had not been a bad

person, just a self-involved one who should

perhaps never have tried to join a family. Dannan

wondered if anyone knew where he was, to let him

know about Peter.

Dannan rose, crossed the living room, and

took in one stride the three steps up to the foyer.

She slipped into her boots and went out the front

door, into the village. She made her way down the

steep cobbled street to the river's edge, thence through the

town and back to the churchyard, the cemetery, and the old

oak grove.

The evening was extraordinary. In the west, the sun

lined the horizon from below in a thick ochre gold.

The color shaded upward into a soft, intense, and

glowing mauve. Dannan could not describe the sky

in terms of clear spectral colors, only in

mixes and delicate hues. What color did one

name the region where the sky shaded from predominantly

gold to predominantly violet? She could not

answer. In the east, the enormous blood-red

harvest moon began to glide above the horizon. The

just-set sun and the just-risen full moon combined

to create a lavender twilight.

Tonight was the autumn equinox. Dannan spent

most of her life on starships, where every day was the

same 136

The Search For Spock

length and one counted one's time by the

artificial measurement of star dates. When she

came home, to a place where seasons still mattered and

time was more subjective, she experienced the days and

nights and dawns and evenings, the colors and sounds and

scents, as a brand new discovery.

Twilight remained when she reached the

graveyard, though the livid gold horizon had

faded and the sky had changed from lavender to deep

blue. Stars glinted here and there, bright and steady in the

cold, still air. They were never as clear as they were in

space. She was glad Peter had at least had a

chance to see them from above the atmosphere.

Dannan sat on her heels by Peter's

grave. Beneath the flowers that lay thick and fragrant

upon it, the raw earth smelled of rocks and ripped

turf. She could make out his name, and the summation of the

short years of his life, carved into grey granite.

He lay among ten previous generations of his

family, the first of his generation to die. Because of the

family's tradition of taking the name of one's parent

of the same gender, her brother was the only Preston

among many Scotts, more Stuarts, a scatter of

MacLaughlins, and one Ishimoto, a

great-uncle Dannan remembered with great

fondness.

She wished she had some memento of space to leave

on Peter's grave, some alien bloom to put down

to remind everyone that he had dreamed of and sought after and

loved the stars.

As the moon rose higher, Dannan saw a hard

glint among the flowers littering Peter's grave.

She reached between the soft petals and picked up the

bit of gold. It was a medal, the star of valor, with

ruby. She wondered for an instant if it were

Peter's, if her mother or her uncle had put it

here, but in the same instant she recognised it as the

wrong form for a posthumous

STAR TREK lll

medal. It was not engraved with name or place, so it

had not yet been formally presented. It had to belong

to one of Peter's classmates.

A sound broke the silence that lay easily over

the graveyard.

At first Dannan identified the noise as a

dog, a lost puppy. She stood up and waited

to hear it again.

It came from the oak grove.

Dannan strode toward the trees. Fallen

leaves crunched beneath her boots. All the scary

childhood stories about ghosts and changelings passed

through her mind, though she knew the sound came from someone

who was merely flesh and blood.

Besides, she thought, I'm a Starfleet officer,

remember? With citations for bravery of my own.

Big deal.

She heard the sound again a sob.

"Come on out," she said.

The usual silence of the grove was one of calm.

This was the breathless quiet of concealment and

apprehension.

"Come on," Dannan said. "It's cold out

here."

The young man scuffed out of the trees, the red coat

of his uniform black in the moonlight. He stopped

before her, hanging his head.

"Who are you?"

"One of Peter's shipmates."

He was several years older than Peter; he must

have been a third or fourth year student, while

Peter was only first.

"Is this your medal?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

He still did not look up.

"I thought Peter deserved it more than I did."

The Search For Spock

"Because he's dead and you're alive?" Dannan was

about to tell him how brutally often the difference came

down to nothing but chance.

"No!" he said before she could continue. "No!"

He hung his head lower, if that were possible. His

voice was muffled and reluctant. "Because he stayed

. . . and I ran."

Dannan stepped toward him with a flare of shock and

surprise and anger. She wanted, quite simply,

to kill him. She was perfectly capable of doing it with

her bare hands.

But then the boy did-raise his head, as if baring

his throat to accept her revenge. He made no

move to defend himself. The utter defeat was all that

saved him.

She understood why he had lurked in the grove

during the funeral, and why he had not shown himself. She

did not understand why he was still here.

"Get out of here," she said. "Why don't you just go

home?"

His shoulders slumped. "I can't," he said.

"I'm AWOL, for one thing . . . and I used up

all my money getting here. I don't know how

to get back."

"That shows great foresight," Dannan said. "Is

that what they teach you at the Academy these days?"

She sighed. "You'd better come with me."

Dannan took Grenni back to her mother's

house, wondering what the devil to do with him.

Uncle Montgomery had not moved from his place

in the corner when Dannan returned, and the door to the

pottery studio still was closed.

"I believe you know this gentleman," Dannan

said sarcastically to her uncle as Grenni followed

her into the living room. "He came . . . for

Peter's funeral."

Uncle Montgomery greeted Grenni with every

indication of pleasure and gratitude for his presence.

STAR TREK 111

""Tis good o" ye to come pay thy respects

to our bairn his

"Stop it!" Grenni cried. "Why do you keep

being so nice to me? You know where my station

was you must know Pres is dead because of

me!"

Scott stared at him.

"You know he was the only one in our section who

held his post! I was cadet commander, I should have

ordered him out of danger!"

"He'd no' ha' gone," Scott said.

"Then neither should I. his

"Perhaps not," Scott said. "Then we would have two

funerals to attend today, instead o' one." He rose

and approached the boy, took him by the shoulders, and

looked him in the eye. "Dinna get me wrong,

boy. Ye did a cowardly thing. Now ye must

decide if ye are fit for the career ye've chosen.

If this is thy character his

"It isn't!" Grenni said. "I don't know

what happened I don't understand why it happened. I

never did anything like that before in my life!"

Montgomery Scott nodded. "Ye hadna been

properly prepared for what we faced. "Tis at

least as much my fault."

"Are you saying you forgive me?"

"Aye."

Grenni looked at Dannan. "Do you forgive

me too, Commander?"

"Not bloody likely," Dannan said.

Her uncle and the cadet both looked at her,

shocked.

"Dannan was her uncle said, raising his voice

in protest.

"But I'm sorry!" Grenni cried. "I

didn't mean it! If I could make it up his

"Make it up? Make up for the death of my

brother?" Her voice was cold with contempt. "I

don't think so."

The Search For Spock

"I know there's nothing I can do, that's what makes

it so awful his

"Ye dinna want to be vengeful, Dannan,"

her uncle said.

"No," she said, surprised to find that vengeance was

not what she wanted. "You're right, uncle. But so

are you, cadet. There's nothing you can do...."

Uncle Montgomery stood up angrily.

"Ye

always were a cold-hearted little his

"dis . . and that's what makes it so hard,"

Dannan said.

Her uncle put his arm over the boy's shoulders.

"Come along, cadet. 'Tis time to go

home." He sent one quick glare at Dannan.

"Tell thy mother farewell, I canna wait any

longer for her to come out."

He and Grenni left the house. A moment later

Dannan heard the electric sparkle of a

transporter beam. The window next to the front

door glowed briefly, and then turned dark again.

Jim Kirk stared out the window of his

apartment at the night and at the bridges on the

bay, lines of light leading out of and into an infinity of

fog. Reflections overlaid the distant city.

Jim turned to them and raised his glass.

"To absent friends," he said.

Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu raised their

glasses in response. They all drank.

"Admiral, is it certain?" Hikaru said.

"What's going to happen to the Enterprise 7"

"Yes," he said. "It's to be decommissioned."

"Will we get another ship?" Pavel said.

We? Jim thought. Is there a "we" anymore?

The ship to be dismantled" the crew dispersed,

McCoy in shock and doped to the gills, and . . .

Spock dead.

STAR TREK lll

"I can't get an answer," he said.

"Starfleet is up to its brass in galactic

conference. No one has time for those who only stand . .

. and wait."

"How is Dr. McCoy, sir?" Uhura said.

"That's the "good" news," Jim said dryly.

"He's home in bed, full of tranquilizers.

He promised me he'd stay there. They say it's

exhaustion." He sighed. "We'll see."

His doorbell chimed.

"Ah," Jim said. "It must be Mr. Scott,

fresh from the world of kanswarp drive. Come!"

The door responded to his voice and whirred

open.

Expecting Scott, Jim started at the sight

of a much taller figure standing cloaked and hooded in

a Vulcan robe, half hidden by the shadows in his

foyer. Jim felt panic brush against him, bringing

the fear of madness. He thought for an instant that, like

Leonard McCoy, he was beginning to perceive the ghost

of Spock in every patch of darkness, in dreams and

wakefulness alike.

The figure reached up and drew back its hood.

"Sarek!" Jim exclaimed.

Ambassador Sarek strode into the

light. He looked as he did the first time Jim had

met him, well over a decade before. He had not

aged in that time. He would by now, Jim reflected, be

nearly one hundred twenty years old. He

looked like a vigorous man of middle age, which, of

course, was precisely what he was. But a

Vulcan of middle age, not a human being. He

had many years left to look forward to, just as

Spock, his son, should have had over a century.

"Ambassador," Jim said, feeling flustered,

"I I had no idea you were on Earth . . ." His

words trailed off. Sarek said nothing. "You know my

officers, I believe," Kirk said.

Sarek showed no inclination to acknowledge the

The Search For Spock

others. He moved to the window and stared out, his back

to the room.

"I will speak with you alone, Kirk," he said.

Kirk turned toward his friends. They regarded him

with questioning expressions, each clearly uneasy about

leaving him alone in Sarek's intimidating presence.

"Uhura, Pavel, Hikaru perhaps we'd better

get together again another evening." Kirk put into his

tone a confidence of which he was far from certain.

With a gesture he silenced Pavel's hotheaded

objec tion before it started; he shook Hikaru's hand,

appreciating his equanimity, and he returned

Uhura's embrace as he showed his three

compatriots to the door.

"We're here," she said, "when you need us."

"I know," he said. "And I'm grateful."

He let them out, watched the door close behind

them, and turned back to Sarek with considerable

apprehension.

Sarek remained at the window, silhouetted

black against black. Kirk approached him. He

stopped a pace behind him, and the silence stretched on.

"How . . . is Amanda, sir?" Kirk asked.

- "She is a human being, Kirk.

Consequently, she is in mourning for our son. She

is on Vulcan."

"Sarek, I'm bound here to testify, or I would

have come to Vulcan, to express my deepest

sympathies. To her, and to you his

Sarek cut off Kirk's explanation and his

sympathy with a peremptory gesture. "Spare me

your platitudes, Kirk. I have been to your

government. I have seen the Genesis information, and your

own report."

"Then you know how bravely your son met his

death."

""Met his death"?" Sarek faced Kirk, and the

cold expressionlessness of his eyes was more powerful than

STAR TREK 111

any gAefor fury. "How could you, who claim

to be his fAend, assume that? Why did you not bang

him back to Vulcan?"

"Because he asked me not to!" Kirk said, rising

to the provocation.

"He asked you not to? I find that unlikely in

the extreme."

Sarek stopped just short of calling Kirk a

liar, which did not serve to improve the admiral's

temper.

, "His will states quite clearly that he did not

wish to be resumed to Vulcan, should he die in the

service of Starfleet. You can view it I'll even

give you his sepal number."

"I am aware of his sepal number," Sarek said

with contempt. "I am also aware that Starfleet

regulations specifically require that any

Vulcan's body be resumed to the home world.

Surely this would override the dictates

of a will."

"The trivial personal wishes of an

individual?" Kirk did not give Sarek a chance

to reply to his barb. "I'll tell you why I

followed Spock's request rather than the rules of

Starfleet," he said bitterly. "It's because in all

the years I knew Spock, never once did you or

any Vulcan treat him with the respect and the regard

that he deserved. You never even treated him with the

simple courtesy one sentient being owes another.

He spent his life living up to Vulcan ideals and

he came a whole hell of a lot closer to succeeding

than a lot of Vulcans I've met. But he

made one choice of his own Starfleet instead of the

Vulcan

Academy and you cut him off!"

He stopped to catch his breath.

"My son and I resolved our disagreement on that

subject many years ago, Kirk," Sarek said

mildly.

Kirk ignored the overture. "For nearly

twenty years I watched him endure the slights and the

subtle bigotry 144

The Search For Spock

of Vulcans! When he died, I was

damned if I would take him back to Vulcan and

give him over to you so you could put him in the ground and

wash your hands of him! He deserved a hero's

burial and that's what I gave him the fires of

space!" He stopped, his anger burned to ashes,

yet he thought, And I can think of a few dogs I

would have liked to put at his feet.

Sarek behaved as if Kirk's outburst had never

occurred, as if he believed that by refusing

to acknowledge it, he caused it not to exist.

"Why did you leave him behind? Spock trusted you.

You denied him his future."

Jim felt entirely off balance and defensive.

He had no idea what Sarek was talking about. If

Kirk had hoped to accomplish anything by exposing

to Sarek the anger he had built up over the years,

he had failed, miserably, spectacularly,

completely.

"I I saw no future!"

"You missed the point, then and now. Only his

body was in death, Kirk. And you were the last one to be

with him."

"Yes, I was. . ." My gods, Jim

thought, is Sarek trying to tell me that if I had

behaved

differently Spock might still be alive?

"Then you must have known that you should have come with him back

to Vulcan."

"But why?"

"Because he asked you to! He entrusted you with . .

. with his very essence, with everything that was not of his body.

He asked you to bring him to us, and to bring that which he

gave you, his katra, his living spirit."

Sarek spoke with intensity and urgency that served

merely to disguise, not to hide, his deep pain and his

loss. Jim had received the response he intended

to provoke. He wished he had been gentler.

STAR TREK 111

"Sir," he said quietly, "your son meant more

to me than you can know. I'd have given my life if it

would have saved his. You must believe me when I

tell you he made no request of me." If there was

a chance for him to live, Kirk cried out in his mind,

why didn't Spock ask me for help?

"He would not have spoken of it openly."

"Then, how his

Sarek cut him off. "Kirk, I must have your

thoughts."

Jim frowned.

"May I join your mind, Kirk?"

Jim hesitated, for the Vulcan mind-meld was not

the most pleasant of experiences. The human

perception was trivial, Vulcans claimed, compared

to the discomfort Vulcans underwent in order to mingle their

refined psyches with the disorganised thought processes

of human beings. It was clear, however, that Sarek

needed information that Jim did not possess in his own

conscious mind. Acceding to the mind-meld was the one thing

Jim could do, perhaps the only thing, that might give

Sarek some peace.

"Of course," he said.

Sarek approached him and placed his hands on

Jim's face, the long forefingers probing at his

temples. His gaze never met Kirk's. He

seemed to be looking straight through him. Kirk

closed his eyes, but Sarek's image remained.

The sensation was as if Sarek's slender, powerful

hands reached straight into his brain.

Kirk travelled back through time. The recent

message from Grissom brought a strong resonance of

hope from Sarek My son's body may yet

exist perhaps there is still time! Time to save him for the

Hall of Ancient Thought....

And James Kirk understood that even if

Sarek found

The Search For Spock

what he sought, Spock was lost to the world he had

lived in. Only a few individuals, trained for

years in Vulcan philosophic discipline, could

communicate with the presences that existed in the Hall of

Ancient Thought. If Sarek found what he was

looking for, he would give Spock a chance at

immortality . . . but not another chance at life.

Sarek's powerful mind forced Jim farther back in

time. Jim's memories of Spock's death, which had

barely begun to ease, returned with the cruel clarity

of dream.

"He spoke of your friendship."

Jim could not tell if Sarek uttered words or

communicated through the mental link. Likewise he

could not be sure if he himself replied aloud, or in

silence.

"Yes . . ."

"He asked you not to grieve . . ."

"Yes . . ."

"The needs of the many outweigh . . ."

"dis . . the needs of the few his

"Or the one."

The image of Sarek faded from Jim's mind.

Spock appeared, horribly burned and dying.

"Spock . . ." Jim said.

"I have been . . . and always shall be . . . your

friend," Spock said. "Live long . . . and

prosper."

"No!" Jim shouted, as if by force of will he could

twist the dictates of the universe and mortality

to his wishes.

The illusion drained away like a spent wave,

leaving Jim soaked and shaken. He experienced one

last, hopeless thought from Sarek What I thought

destroyed, my son's body, is found; but his soul

is irrevocably lost.

He broke the contact between them.

Jim's knees buckled. Sarek caught and

supported 147

STAR TREK Ill

him. Jim pressed the heels of his hands against his

closed eyes, trying to drive back the sharpened

memones.

"Forgive me," Sarek said. "It is not here. I

assumed he had melded his mind with yours. It is the

Vulcan way, when the body's end is near."

"But he couldn't touch me! We were

separated!"

"Yes," Sarek said. "I see, and I understand."

He turned away, weariness even age apparent in

the set of his shoulders. "Everything that he was,

everything that he knew, is lost. I must return

to Vulcan, emptyhanded. I will join Amanda. We

will mourn our son. We will mourn for the loss of his

life, we will mourn for the loss of his soul."

Without a word of farewell, he started toward the

door. tilde

"Wait!" Kirk cried. "Please . . .

wait." Like a man trying to scale a crumbling

cliff he clutched at fragile branches, and they

pulled loose from the rock. "Sarek, surely he

would have found a way! If there were so much at stake,

Spock would have found a way!"

Sarek strode toward the door and Kirk feared

he would sweep out of the room without a

backward glance, hinting at possibilities,

abandoning them.

Sarek slowed, hesitated, turned. "What are

you saying, Kirk?"

"What if he melded his mind with someone else?"

Chapter 7

The flight recorder from the Enterprise lay under

seal and under guard. Even Admiral James T.

Kirk had to do some fast talking and some throwing of his

authority to see it, much less to bring in an outside

observer. Though Sarek knew all there was for any

diplomat to know about Genesis and about the last

voyage of the

Enterprise, whoever had cleared him for those

reports had not thought to include the flight

recorder. This caused what seemed to Kirk like an

endless delay. However esteemed Sarek might be with

in the Federation, he was not a member of Starfleet.

Then, when the ambassador finally received special

clearance to view the data, Kirk was absolutely

refused permission to transmit the recording anywhere

outside the records storage center. He and

Sarek had to go to it.

Kirk arrived at the center chafing under the limita

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

farm," eh? Is that the kind of respect anybody

with a few problems gets in here? Besides, I know my

rights they can't send me anywhere without a hearing.

However, they had put him in here without a hearing.

Genesis had not onl y frightened the Federation and

Starfleet, it had put them into a total panic.

McCoy wondered what would happen when Jim

called his lawyer for him, as McCoy intended to ask

him to do. He wondered if the administration of this

prison would even admit to an attorney that he was

here.

"Two minutes," the guard said.

McCoy watched the grid of the force field dim

and fade. He had to struggle against the sudden compulsion

to leap up and try to fight his way out. Since the

guard was head and shoulders taller than he, and armed

at that, such a course was definitely not logical.

As Jim stepped inside the cell, the urge

diminished in proportion to the strength of the reappearing

energy barrier.

Jim knelt beside the cot.

"Jim '9 McCoy said.

"Shh." He raised his hand, shielding it from the

surveillance camera. "How many fingers?"

His fingers parted in the Vulcan salute.

"That's not very damned funny," McCoy said.

"Good," said Jim. "Your sense of humor has

re- turned." He reached into his pocket.

"The hell it has!" Two minutes, and Jim

wanted to spend it trading one-liners. McCoy

wanted a lawyer and he wanted out of here. It was

ridiculous to maintain the pretence of being

asleep, so he sat up.

The Search For Spock

Jim drew out a spray injector.

McCoy frowned. "What's that?"

"Lexorin."

"Lexorin! What for?"

"You're suffering from a Vulcan mind-meld,

Doctor."

"Speck ?"', -- -- -

6'That's right."

"That green-blooded, pointy-eared son of a

bitch. It's his revenge for all those arguments he

lost his

"Give me your arm. This will make you well enough

to travel." He fumbled around with the automatic

hypo, putting himself in considerable danger of

shooting himself in the hand. "How do you do this, anyway?"

"Give it here," McCoy said. He took the

hypo and pushed up his own sleeve. "This once,

Admiral, you're beyond your capabilities."

Outside the prison, Hikaru Sulu ran his

hands through his hair to muss it, tucked one side of his

ruffled civilian shirt in and left the other free,

hyperventilated for a few breaths, and, when he thought

he had a properly flustered air about him, flung

open the door and rushed into the reception area. The

two guards looked up from their card game, startled

by the appearance of another visitor so late at

night.

"Where's Admiral Kirk?" Sulu said

urgently.

One of the guards looked him up and down.

"He's with a prisoner. What's it to you?"

"Get him quickly! Starfleet Commander

Morrow wants him right now!"

The guard snorted with irritation, glanced at his

partner and shrugged, laid his cards aside, and fumbled

around for his electronic key. He vanished into the

cell block. His partner glanced speculatively

at the face

187

STAR TREK Ill

down cards, glanced at Sulu with unconcealed

disdain, and flipped his partner's poker hand face up.

Then, watching Sulu with a faint sneer, he turned

the cards back over.

Sulu simply watched as if he saw men cheat

their partners every day and thought nothing of it. It was to his

advantage if the guard assumed he was a powerless

flunky.

The guard stretched and yawned.

"Keeping you busy?" Sulu said to the big man.

"Don't get smart, Tiny."

Sulu frowned. He had to remind himself forcibly

that he was supposed to be someone's messenger boy.

"This man is sick! Look at him!" Kirk's

muffled voice came from beyond the cell-block door.

The guard heard, too, and rose to his feet.

Sulu took a step forward, ready to distract him.

The console did the job for him.

The signal buzzed insistently. The guard

frowned, glanced at the cell block door, and

snatched up the receiver. Sulu relaxed, centered

himself, and waited. These few minutes were crucial.

A glitch now could destroy the whole plan.

"Sixth floor holding," the guard said.

He listened to his earphone. "Yeah, come on up and

get him, his visitor's just leaving.... What? Some

admiral, name of Kirk."

Sulu could hear the squawk of protest from the

receiver. He also heard a crash and thud from within the

cell block, but the guard was too distracted

to notice.

"How the hell am I supposed to know that?" the

guard snarled. "He's a damned admiraWill!

All right!" He flung down the earpiece and headed

for the door. He heard the commotion beyond.

Me Search For Spock

The door to the cell block opened and Admiral

Kirk stepped through, supporting Dr. McCoy.

"What the hell is going on?"

Sulu tapped the guard on the shoulder.

"Dammit, I told you was The guard swung

toward him, punching at Sulu's head as he

turned.

Sulu stepped into and around the strike, cutting down

with his hands to redirect the force of the blow. As the big

man stumbled forward,

off-balance, Sulu drew him in, pivoted, and

spiraled him up. The guard ran out from under

himself, and Sulu completed the spiral into the ground.

The wall interposed itself. Sulu's opponent hit

it with a thud a hollow thud, Sulu fancied and

slid slowly and limply to the floor.

The form had not been perfect for yokomenuchi

iriminage, and throwing one's partner into the wall was rather

bad form. But, then, this was the real world.

Besides, Sulu hated to be teased about his height.

Sulu glanced up. Kirk was watching

appreciatively.

"The side elevator," Sulu said. "Agents

on their way up."

Kirk nodded. He and McCoy hurried out the

side door. Sulu paused by the master console.

He reached beneath it, sought out the central processor,

and applied the confuser he had put together. A moment

later it rewarded him with a small fireworks display

and the acrid smell of.burned semiconductors.

Sulu started after Kirk. He reached the door,

paused, and glanced down at the unconscious guard.

"Don't call me 'tiny,"" he said.

Someone should have told the man that in Sulu's chosen

martial art, being short was an advantage.

Sulu caught up to Kirk and McCoy and

helped support the doctor.

"I'm all right," the doctor muttered. But he

did not

STAR TREK 111

try to pull away. He was steadier than the last

time Sulu had seen him. Apparently Sarek's

lexorin had worked.

Admiral Kirk pulled out his communicator and

flipped it open.

"Unit two, this is one. The Kobayashi Maru

has set sail for the promised land. Acknowledge."

"Message acknowledged," Chekov replied, his

voice sounding tinny from the small speaker. "All

units will be informed."

Kirk closed his communicator. McCoy

seemed to gain strength from the interchange and, perhaps, from

regaining his freedom. He cocked his eyebrow at

Kirk.

"You're taking me to the promised land?"

"What are friends for?" said Kirk.

On board Excelsior, Montgomery Scott

waited for the turbo-lift. He kept his hand thrust

deep in his pocket. The sharp corners of a small

and nondescript chunk of semiconductor,

elegant only at the microscopic

level, bit into his palm.

The lift arrived, the doors slid open, and

Captain Styles stepped out. Scott started. He

had not expected to see anyone, particularly not

Captain Styles. He managed to greet the

officer civilly; technically, after all, Styles

was his superior officer.

Superior officer, indeed, Scott thought

angrily. Taking this ship from our own Mr. Sulu

with nae a second thought nor a protest. "Tis

nae thing superior in that.

"Ah, Mr. Scott," Styles said. "Calling

it a night?"

"Aye, Captain, yes," Scott said, trying

to maintain his frozen smile.

"Turning in myself. Don't know if I'll be able

to sleep, though I'm looking forward to breaking some of the

Enterprise's speed records tomorrow."

"Aye, sir," Scott said through clenched teeth.

The Search For Spock

"Good night." Scott got into the lift. As

soon as the doors slid closed between him and

Styles, he scowled.

His whole time on Excelsior had been

like a replay of the arguments he had had with Mr.

Sulu about the ship. Only this time, Scott lost

most of the arguments. Scott would never admit it

to Sulu, but Excelsior was, indeed, a

miracle of engineering. He had expected it to be

full of complications, but its systems were elegantly

integrated, clean, and nearly flawless. Scott,

of course, had been looking for the flaws.

"Level, please," the ship's computer said.

There were a few things on the ship that Scott did

not like, such as the faintly insolent baritone voice

of the computer. Had he the charge of Excelsior, that

would change.

"Transporter room," he said.

"Thank you," said the computer.

"Up your shaft!"

The lift jerked into motion.

"Temper, temper," Scott said.

Saavik and David struggled up the steep

flank of the mountain, seeking a vantage point from which

to watch for other survivors of Grissom. David

believed it was at least possible that a few others

might have had enough warning to escape. He knew

Saavik thought the possibility unlikely, but she

had not tried to persuade him it was

impossible. In fact, she had barely spoken to him

since his confession about Genesis. When he suggested

they climb to higher ground, she merely shrugged,

picked up the Vulcan boy, and started toward the

mountain that rose abruptly from the surrounding desert.

"Are you mad at me?" David asked

hesitantly.

She kept on climbing. But after another twenty

STAR TREK lll

meters she said, "Were I to permit the less

civilised part of my character to dictate my reactions,

I would be infuriated with you."

"I had to do it!" David said. "It shouldn't have

put anyone in danger, and if it worked his

"Yes," she said. "So you have said."

"I knew if I told you, I'd lose you as

my friend," David said, despondent.

Saavik stopped and laid the Vulcan boy down

gently in the shade of a tree, out of the penetrating

blue-white sunlight. Then she faced David and

took his hands in hers.

"You have not lost me as a friend," sh e said.

"But you must hate me, after all this!"

"I am angry," she said, not bothering

to conceal her feelings behind a philosophical

comparison of Vulcans and Romulans, no longer

trying to claim that she did not possess those feelings

at all. "If I understand them properly, anger and

hatred are two very different emotions. And again, if

I understand correctly it is unusual to hate a

person that one loves."

"Saavik was He tightened his grasp on her

hands.

"Perhaps I am not capable of love, as humans

know it," Saavik said. "But as you cannot explain it,

I am free to define it for myself. I choose

to define it as the feelings that I have for you."

She looked into his eyes. She felt in his

wrists his cool, strong pulse. She drew her

hands up his arms, to his shoulders, to the sides of his

face. He moved toward her and put his arms around

her. She kissed him. David felt as if he were

dissolving in a white-hot flame, or tumbling

unprotected through a solar flare.

Saavik drew away.

"We must go on," she said. "We cannot stay here."

As she started toward the Vulcan boy, she heard

The Search For Spock

strange sound. She glanced back the way they had

come.

"David," she said with wonder, "look."

Far below, the glacier lapped at the foot of the

mountain, surging up in slow-motion waves. As

David and Saavik watched, the ice crept

forward, piling and folding and crushing itself against

immovable stone, squealing and cracking and shrieking.

The ice had completely engulfed the desert,

inundating it like a silver flood.

Scott materialised in the dark. He hated being

transported into darkness.

"Chekov?" he whispered.

"Welcome home, Mr. Scott," Chekov

said.

"Strasvuitche, tovarisch."

"None o" your heathen gibberish, Chekov,"

Scott said. "How did ye get on board?"

"We have ways," Chekov said.

"Which ways, in particular?"

"Partner of "Unit three" was taking

advantage of her good nature, was late for job.

Will be more difficult for "Unit one.""

"All right," Scott said. "Let's get some

life in tee this old tub." He squinted

across the transporter room of the Enterprise. He

could barely make out Chekov's hands in the faint

glow of the console's controls.

"How was trip?" Chekov said.

"Short," Scott said. "Let's get to work."

Uhura replied to the ten P.m. check.

"Roger. Old City Station at twenty-two

hundred hours. All is well."

She made a few adjustments to the controls of the

Earth-based transporter to which she had been as193

STAR TREK 111

signed. This was a peaceful posting; she had been

here since four this evening and, officially, she had

transported no one in or out. The schedule listed

no travelers officially for the rest of the night.

She became aware that Lieutenant Heisenberg

was watching her closely, with a slight frown of

curiosity. He leaned back in his chair, his hands

clasped behind his head and his feet up on the console.

"You amaze me, Commander," he said.

"How is that?" she said mildly.

"You're a twenty-year space veteran yet you

ask for the worst duty station in town. I mean, look

at it this is the hind end of space."

"Oh, peace and quiet appeal to me,

Lieutenant."

UhuMore smiled a private smile.

"Maybe it's okay for someone like you, whose career

is winding down."

Uhura raised an eyebrow at that remark, but

let it pass.

"But me," Heisenberg said, "I need some

challenge in my life. Some adventure. Even just

a surprise or two."

"You know what they say, Lieutenant. Be

careful what you ask for you may get it."

"I wish," he said with feeling.

Uhura glanced at the clock. She had tried

to persuade Heisenberg to go home early, on the

grounds that there was hardly enough work for one person, let

alone two. Unfortunately, he had declined.

Apparently he felt slightly guilty about

arriving an hour late. She wished he would choose

some other day to make it up, but that was life.

The door slid open.

Admiral Kirk, Dr. McCoy, and

Captain Sulu entered and headed straight for the

transporter platform with

The Search For Spock

out a pause. Kirk appeared intent, but intent

on something and somewhere else, distracted from this place and

time. McCoy looked exhausted, but steady.

Sulucaught Uhura's gaze and offered her his

unshadowed smile.

"I talked to Sarek," Uhura heard Kirk

say softly to McCoy. "I'm worried about him,

Bones. The strain on him his

Heisenberg dropped his feet to the floor and sat

up very straight in his chair.

"Gentlemen," Uhura said. "Good evening."

"Good evening, Commander," Admiral Kirk said.

"Everything ready?"

"Yes, Admiral." She swept her hand through the

air in a gesture of welcome. "Step into my

pallor."

Uhura saw Heisenberg's jaw go agape as

he recognized the travelers. He was the one

factor of uncertainty in this equation. She hoped

he would behave sensibly. She began setting

controls.

"Commander," he whispered, "these are some of the most

famous people in Starfleet. Admiral Kirk! My

godst"

"Good for you, Lieutenant," she said.

"But it's damned irregular no orders, no

encoded i.d. his

"All true," she said agreeably.

Heisenberg glanced over her shoulder and frowned

at the settings she had entered.

"That's the Enterprise, was he said in a low and

worried voice.

"And another one for you, Lieutenant. You're

doing very well tonight."

"But the Enterprise is sealed we can't beam

anybody directly on board!"

"Can't we?"

STAR TREK 111

"No, we can't It's directly against orders,

we can't just let people waltz in here and go on board a

sealed ship, no matter who they are!"

Uhura was rather glad he was making the objection, for

in the long run it would serve to keep him out of trouble.

"What are we going to do about it?" he exclaimed.

"I'm going to do nothing about it. You're going to sit

in the closet."

"The closet!" He backed off from her. "Have you

lost all sense of reality?"

"But this isn't reality, Lieutenant,"

she said sweetly. "This is fantasy." She drew

out her concealed pocket phaser and levered it at him.

It was set on stun, of course, but stun was more than

sufficient for this exercise. She hoped Heisenberg

would not make her use it. Waking up from phaser stun

was rather unpleasant. Uhura wished him neither harm

nor physical discomfort. His psychic discomfort,

though, was anoth er thing entirely. She owed him a little

psychic discomfort, after that snarky remark about her

career.

"You wanted adventure?" she asked. "How's

this? Got your old adrenaline going?"

Heisenberg nodded.

"Good boy," she said. "Now get in the

closet."

She touched a key and the door to the storage

doset, just behind him, slid open. She gestured with the

phaser and he backed into it.

"Wait his

She closed the door.

"I'm glad you're on our side," McCoy

said.

She smiled.

"Let's go," Kirk said. "Uhura, is it on

automatic? Come on, get up here."

"No," she said.

The Search For Spock

It took him a second to realize what she had

said. His expression changed from distraction

to amazement.

""No"?" he said. "What do you mean,

"no"?"

"I realize that the Admiral is . . . somewhat

unfamiliar with the word his

Kirk opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him

off.

was but somebody's got to stay behind and put enough

glitches in communications so you don't have every ship in

the sector coming after you."

"You can do it from the Enterprise his

"No, I can't. It's too easy to jam.

Admiral, there's no time to argue! Prepare

to energise!"

"What about ?" He gestured toward the closet.

"Don't worry about Mr. Adventure. I'll

have him eating out of my hand." If I have to, she

thought. "Go with all my hopes, my friends."

Kirk nodded, acquiescing. "Energize."...ment

She activated the beam.

fit

Chapter 9

After the figures of Kirk, Sulu, and

McCoy turned to sparks and vanished, Heisenberg

started pounding on the inside of the closet door.

Uhura ignored him and set to work opening the

communications channels that she would need to interfere

with as soon as Spacedock realized what was going

on.

Uhura was in her element at the console. She

infiltrated every important communications channel

between headquarters and the fleet. By the time the tangle

got straightened out, the Enterprise would be halfway

to Genesis. If the ship could evade any pursuit

sent directly from Spacedock, then Admiral

Kirk should be able to carry out his mission. If it could

be carried out.

Sulu felt his body form around his

consciousness, and then he was standing on the bridge of the

Enterprise with Kirk and McCoy solidifying beside

him. The ship's

The Search For Spock

systems were running at standby level,

and the bridge felt very empty with only five people.

At the navigation console, Chekov raised his hand in

greeting. Scott rose from the command chair to greet

Kirk.

"As promised, 'tis all yours, sir," he

said. "All systems automated and ready. A

chimpanzee and two trainees could run her."

"Thank you, Mr. Scott," Kirk said

drily. "I'll try not to take that personally."

He drew aside, with McCoy, and faced the other

three. "My friends," he said. "I can't ask you to go

any farther. Dr. McCoy and I have to do this. The

rest of you do not."

Taking the Enterpnse to Genesis would require a

good deal more than "a chimpanzee and two

trainees," and everyone on the bridge knew it.

Sulu strode down the steps and took his place at

the helm. Yesterday he had made a decision on

where to place his loyalties. He saw no reason

to change his mind now.

"Admiral," Chekov said, "we're losing

precious time."

"What course, please, Admiral?" Sulu

said, entering a course for the Mutara sector. -

Kirk glanced from Chekov, to Sulu,

to Scott.

"Mr. Scott ?"

"I'd be grateful, Admiral, if ye'd

give the word."

Kirk hesitated, then nodded sharply. "My word

is given. Gentlemen, may the wind be at our

backs. Stations, please!"

Kirk took his own place in the command seat.

"Clear all moorings...."

Sulu centered his attention on the impulse

engines. They had not, of course, received the overhaul

Scott had wished to give them, and they responded

hesitantly, irritably, erratically, just as they

had on the way in. The warp drive would be equally

rocky.

STAR TREK 111

The ship backed hesitantly from its slip and

swung toward the entrance of Spacedock.

"Engage auto systems," Kirk said. "One

quarter impulse power."

The Enterprise reached the berth in which Excelsior

lay. Sulu gave the new ship a single glance and

pushed the longing, and the

temptation for regret, out of his mmd.

Sulu started hearing consternation over the communications

channels, as sensors and alarms and Starfleet

personnel on late-night watch began

to realizewhat was happening. The Enterprise drifted

like a ghost ship past Excelsior, toward the huge

closed spacedoors. He heard the beginning of a command

to secure them, a command that was abruptly and rudely

cut off by a screech of static. A moment later a

raucous voice spilled over the channel. Sulu

recognized the voice of a popular comedian.

He grinned. Everything Uhura did, she did with

flair and humor. Crossing Starfleet channels

with those of a system-wide entertainment network might

well produce an interesting hybrid.

Quite, as Spock would have said, fascinating.

"One minute to spacedoors," Sulu said.

McCoy fidgeted on the upper bridge

level.

"You just gonna walk through them?"

"Calm yourself, Bones," Kirk said.

"Sir," Chekov said, "Starfleet Commander

Morrow, on emergency channel. He orders you

to surrender vessel."

"No reply, Mr. Chekov. Maintain your

course."

Sulu set the communications monitor to steady

scan. At one channel it paused long enough for him

to hear, "What the hell do you mean, yellow alert?

How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock?"

The Search For Spock

The soundtrack of an old movie cut off the

reply "Who are those guys"?"

The one thing Uhura could not do was prevent people on

Spacedock from seeing what was

happening. Everyone at the space station knew the

Enterprise was being decommissioned. By now they would have

begun to notice something distinctly odd.

"Thirty seconds to spacedoors," Sulu said.

"Sir, Excelsior is powering up with orders

to pursue," Chekov said.

Sulu switched the viewscreen to an aft scan.

They all watched Excelsior come alive,

preparing for the chase.

"My gods," McCoy said. "It's gaining on

us just sitting there."

Sulu switched back to a forward scan. The

spacedoors filled the viewscreen completely.

"Steady, steady," Kirk said. "All right,

Mr. Scott?"

"Sir ?" Scott answered distractedly, for his

concentration was fixed on smoothing out his infiltration

routine.

"The doors, Mr. Scott."

"Aye, sir, workin' on it."

Sulu had his hands on the controls to apply full

reverse thrust when the doors finally cracked open and

revealed the bright blackness of space beyond. The

doors slid aside for the bow of the Enterprise. With a

handsbreadth to spare, they were free.

"We have cleared spacedoors," Sulu said.

"Full impulse power!"

Sulu laid it on. The Enterprise shuddered and

plunged ahead.

Behind them, Excelsior burst out into space.

Uhura had left the channels clean enough for the

Enterprise to know what was going on, but she was also

STAR TREK 111

insuring that no ship could be sent after them by radio

or subspace communications.

All they had to do was elude Excelsior.

"Excelsior closing to four thousand meters,

sir," Chekov said.

"Mr. Scott," Kirk said, "we

need everything you've got now."

"Aye, sir. Warp drive standing by."

"Kirk!" Captain Styles' voice burst through

the chatter and static. "Kirk, you do this and you'll

never sit in a captain's chair again!"

Kirk ignored him; Sulu gritted his teeth.

In the background of the channel he could hear

Excelsior preparing to apply a tractor beam.

"Warp speed, Mr. Sulu," Kirk said.

"Warp speed."

The ship collected itself and lurched into warp.

Excelsior's communications switched

to subspace.

"No way, Kirk," Styles said. "We'll

meet you coming back! Prepare for warp speed! Stand

by transwarp drive!"

Damned showoff, Sulu thought. Excelsior could

catch the Enterprise with warp speed alone; with

transwarp it would overshoot its quarry and, indeed,

have to come back to meet it.

As the Enterprise struggled toward the Mutara

sector, Sulu aimed the visual sensors aft.

On the viewscreen, the tiny point of light that was

Excelsior shone white behind them. Scott watched

with a selfsatisfied smirk. Sulu

glanced at Scott, and wondered.

Excelsior's aura blue-shifted as the new

ship accelerated toward them.

The blue-shift died, and the ship's light reddened

as the Enterprise accelerated away from it. Sulu's

sensors revealed Excelsior to be intact, but

without power. He 202

. .

The Search For Spock

felt more than a little ambivalent about what was

happening.

"Excelsior is adrift in space," he said.

When Captain Styles' call for a tow came

through from Excelsior, Uhura intercepted and

damped it, feeling considerable satisfaction.

Take over Hikaru's ships will you? she thought.

You can just sit there and stew for a while.

"Commander, let me out of here!"

She ignored Heisenberg's shouts and his

pounding on the door, until she was afraid he was

making so much noise that someone else would come along and

hear him.

"Heisenberg!" she shouted. "Shut up!"

"Let me out! What the hell is going on?"

"If you don't be quiet I'll use

this phaser on you!" She continued working. Some of the

safeguards had come into play against her. Each

new disruption was increasingly difficult

to accomplish. Tracers had already been sent out. She

had only a few minutes left before she must flee,

if she were to complete one final

self-appointed task before the authorities

caught up with her. She did not doubt that by this time tomorrow

she would be in jail.

"Commander," Heisenberg said, not shouting this time.

"What's going on? Maybe I can help."

She stopped replying; she had enough already to occupy

her attention.

"Commander Uhura, please, if you'd just told me

his

He sounded sincere, but she did not know him well

enough to know how good an act he could put on. Besides,

she needed no help. If he was looking for

excitement, he would surely find it if she let

him out of the closet he would find it for a few

minutes, and 203

STAR TREK 111

perhaps spend the rest of his life regretting it, or

trying to make up for it. The best thing she could do for

him was leave him where he was. That way, it

would be clear to Starfleet that he had nothing to do with

helping James Kirk steal the Enterprise.

Heisenberg might find himself embarrassed to be

locked up by an officer whose career was winding down .

. . but it would be less embarrassing than a

court-martial.

She had done what she could here. She set the

transporter controls on automatic. Starfleet

would be able to trace her by the coordinates on the

console, but by then she hoped it would not matter.

"Heisenberg!" she said.

"What?" he said irritably.

"Somebody will be along to let you out in a few

minutes. I'm sorry I had to lock you up,

Lieutenant. It was for your own good."

"Yeah, sure."

Uhura stepped up on the transporter and

dematerial tilde zed.

Mr. Scott paused behind Sulu, at the helm.

On the viewscreen, Excelsior dwindled and

vanished behind them.

"I dinna damage thy ship permanently,

lad," Scott said softly.

Sulu glanced up. What to do to Excelsior had

been left up to Scott, and it was a

relief for Sulu to know the change was temporary.

He nodded, grateful for the reassurance.

"Mr. Scott," Kirk said, "you're as good as

your word."

"Aye, sir. The more they overthink the

plumbin', the easier it is to stop up the drain."

There are always a few flaws in a new

application of technology, Sulu thought.

The Search For Spock

"Here, doctor," Scott said to McCoy. He

took his hand out of his pocket and handed McCoy a

dull grey wafer. "A souvenirs as one surgeon

to another."

McCoy accepted it. His hand shook slightly.

He clearly had no idea what it was.

"I took it out o' Excelsior's main

transwarp computer," Scott said. "I knew

Styles surely wouldna be able to resist trying it

out."

"Nice of you to tell me in advance," McCoy

said.

Kirk hooked his arm over the back of his command

chair. "That's what you get for missing staff

meetings, doctor," he said. He

surveyed the bridge, taking in everyone.

"Gentlemen, your work today was outstanding. I intend to

recommend you all for promotion." His voice

turned wry as he added, "In whatever fleet we

end up serving."

Sulu caught Chekov's glance.

"In fleet of ore-carriers of Antares

Prison Mine," Chekov said, only loud enough for

Sulu to hear.

Kirk stood and laid his hand on Sulu's

shoulder.

"Best speed to Genesis, Mr. Sulu,"

Kirk said.

Uhura had never visited the Vulcan

embassy. The stately building stood in a

genteel

neighborhood in the city, on a hilltop

overlooking the sea. The ocean was black and silver

in the dark; the moon was one night past full.

Uhura materialised on the sidewalk in front

of the ambassador's residence, for it was protected

against penetration by unauthorized transporter beams.

She walked into the pool of light around the gate and

pressed the buzzer.

"Yes?" The video screen tucked

discreetly into a recess in the stone pillar remained

featureless. The tiny camera next to it, poin ting

directly at her, was surely in use.

STAR TREK 111

"I would like to speak with Ambassador Sarek,"

she said.

"The ambassador cannot see visitors this evening.

You may make an appointment and

return during reception hours."

"But it's urgent," Uhura said.

"What is your request?"

"It's private," she said, remembering how

reticent Spock had always been about his

background and his family.

"Sarek is occupied," the faceless voice said.

"I cannot disturb him unless I know your name and your

business."

"I am Commander Uhura, from the starship

Enterprise, was she said. "You may tell

Ambassador Sarek that my business . . .

concerns Genesis."

"Wait," said the emotionless voice.

She waited.

She could feel the minutes ticking

away, minutes during which her trail would be traced.

She knew the process well enough to be able

to estimate just how quickly the trace could be done, and

when that amount of time had passed she began to listen for the

shining satin sound of a transporter beam. Fog

rolled in from the sea. She shivered.

She touched the signal button again.

"We respectfully request that you wait." The

voice had so little inflection that she wondered if it

came from a machine, and a machine poorly

programmed for Standard at that.

"I'll be forced to go, soon," she said. "If I

can't see Sarek I must leave him a message but

I'd prefer to speak to him in private. It will

only take a moment!"

"Please contain your emotions."

She wanted to kick the gatepost, that was how

The Search For Spock

contained her emotions were. But she knew it would do

her no good, and probably break her foot as

well.

She heard a transporter beam, very near. She

pressed herself against the stone gatepost, trying to conceal

herself in the shadows. She could not hide from the

materialising security team for long. She had

considered transporting to some other location and

proceeding here on foot, but they would have deduced where

she was heading. They probably would have arrived before she

did.

She pressed the call-button again.

"We respectfully request that you wait," the

flat voice said again.

"I'm about to be taken," she said. "Please

tell Sarek his

The gates swung slowly open. The distance to the

residence was about a hundred meters, and the hundred

meters was her distance. She

plunged inside just as the security team reached

her. They chased her across the dark grounds of the

Vulcan embassy. She outraced them to the

residence, to no avail. The door remained

closed. She turned.

One of the security officers strode up the stairs

and took her arm.

"Please come with us, Commander. It'll be a lot

easier if you don't make any fuss."

"I'll come with you if you'll just give me ten

minutes to speak with Ambassador Sarek. It's

desperately important!"

The security officer shook her head. "I'm

sorry," she said. "That's impossible. It's

directly against orders."

She led Uhura down the stairs and halfway

back to the gate.

"Do your orders include invading the sovereign

territory of an allied power?"

STAR TREK 111

Sarek had crossed the distance between them and the wide

steps of the embassy with such long and silent strides

that no one had seen him approach. His commanding

presence was

accentuated by his long black cape, his drawn,

intense features, his dark and deepset eyes.

To Uhura he looked as if he had neither eaten

nor slept since word of Spock's death reached

him.

The head of the security team blushed scarlet,

knowing she had overstepped her authority. She put the

best face on it that she could.

"That was not our intention, sir," she said. "Several

people from the last mission of the Enterprise have shown. . .

evidence of severe mental difficulties. We're

trying to get them to treatment. If you'll

give me leave to take Commander Uhura to the

hospital his

"I will do no such thing. Commander Uhura has

requested political asylum, and I have granted

it. I give you leave to remove yourselves from the

embassy grounds."

The security officer stood her ground and spoke

to Uhura. "Commander, is this what you want? It could

mean exile. But we might all be able to get out of

this pretty clean. If I give you your ten

minutes off the record will you come with us?"

Ubura considered it, but she had burned too many

bridges today.

"No," she said. "I'm staying here."

The security commander took a deep breath and let

it out slowly. "Very well." She turned to Sarek.

"My government will contact you

immediately with a formal request for extradition."

"That is up to your government. Good evening."

The security commander led the team from the grounds of the

embassy, and the gate closed behind them.

The Search For Spock

"Thank you, sir," Uhura said. She was shivering

violently. "I came to tell you his

"Come inside, Commander," he said. "There is no

need to stand in the cold and the damp . . . and in

public . . . for our conversation."

Kruge materialised on the surface of the

Genesis world, near enough to the high-order life signs

to track them, but far enough away that they would remain

ignorant of his arrival, and he could come upon them

unawares. At his side, Warrigul appeared,

shivering with excitement and whining, but whining almost

soundlessly. The beast had been trained to recognize

potential combat and to behave in a suitable manner.

If Kruge ordered Warrigul to attack, the

attack would be silent.

The commander inspected the glade as his serjeant and

crew member materialised behind him. The place

pleased him, with-its dark earth smelling of mould, the

tall-stalked plants that bore drooping, leathery

leaves, the heat and actinic brightness of the brilliant

new sun.

Kruge pulled out his tricorder and scanned with

it. He located the metallic mass around which so much

activity had lately centered. It lay deeper in

the glade, perhaps fifty paces. Some minor life

signs surrounded it, but the signs lacked the high

order that would betray the presence of the

prisoners he hoped to take. Still, they had been

there, so there he would go too, and pick up their

trail.

He set off between the gnarled stalks of the leather

plants. Warrigul padded along at his side; the

serjeant and the crew member brought up the rear.

- The ground began to quiver. Kruge stopped.

The

quake intensified, till the leather plants all

swayed and

thumped together with a low and hollow sound. A

STAR TREK In

frond broke away from its stalk, making a

heavy liquid crunching noise, and the long thick

leaf thudded to the ground like some dying thing at the dead-end

of its evolution.

As the earthquake reached its peak, Kruge heard

a long and high-pitched hissing shriek, like nothing he

had ever heard before. He started toward the noise,

striding steadily across the rocking surface. He

made note, for future use, of the fact that his two

subordinates did not follow him till the quake

ceased and he was a good twenty paces ahead of them.

Only Warrigul stayed with him.

He nearly stumbled over his pet when it

stopped short, took a step backward, and

growled.

The thick gray-green vegetation thinned

slightly, letting a sharp white column of

sunlight pierce the canopy to illuminate the

Federation torpedo casing that had engendered so much

interest.

All around its base, like the monsters in the story

of Ngarakkani, a myth of Kruge's people, writhed

a great mass of sleek scaled creatures. The

creatures saw him, or smelled him, or felt the

vibration of his footsteps, and rose up in a

many-headed tangle to hiss and scream.

Kruge heard the sergeant whisper a

protective curse. Kruge smiled to himself,

gestured to Warrigul to sit and stay, and strode

toward the casket. He ignored all but the largest

of the creatures, which had squirmed to the top of the

torpedo tube and coiled there. It raised its head,

weaved toward him and away, hissed, and

squealed a challenge. It reached as high as his

shoulder.

He stepped into its sudden strike and grasped its

throat, then drew it from the slithering group

and raised it up to inspect it. It twisted in his

hands. Seve

others coiled around his boots. He ignored them,

as he ignored his two companions, though he was

aware of 210

The Search For Spock

everything, most particularly including the impression

the scene must be making. Iike the hero

Ngarakkani, he would wrestle with the demons and

defeat them.

The creature whipped its long lashing tail around

his neck and began to squeeze. Kruge thought

to unwind it from him, but its strength exceeded his. The

harsh scales of its belly cut into his throat,

squeezing the breath out of him. Darkness slipped

slowly down around him.

The creature had tricked him into going on the

defensive. He let its body tighten around him;

he turned to the attack. He grabbed its throat with

both his hands and squeezed. He began to twist.

He heard its bones begin to crunch. As he

began to lose consciousness, its strength suddenly

dissipated and it sagged away from him.

He cast the limply writhing body to the ground.

His subordinates gazed upon him with

awe. He intensified their reaction by ignoring it.

He tsked to Warrigul, who leapt up and sprang

to his side, snarling at the twitching body of the

creature.

Kruge pulled out his communicator.

"Torg," he said easily, "I have found nothing

of consequence. I am continuing the search."

- David sat forlornly on a stone

outcropping. His

world spread out around his vantage point. It was

beautiful. It was strange, and growing stranger. It

was

destroying itself. The vines back on Regulus

I had been

a warning that he should have heeded, as he should have heeded

the rogue equation in the primary Genesis

description. Evolution was running wild . Each

species

was growing and changing and aiming for its own extinction,

without creating any diversity, any new forms,

to take over when the old died out. Not that it

much mattered. If his estimates were right, the

evolu211

STAR TREK In

tionary process would be only about

half done when the more violent geological

processes tore the whole planet apart. Soon

after that, the sub-atomic attractions would break

down, and the entire mass of what had been the Mutara

Nebula, what had been Genesis and its new star

system, would degenerate into a homogeneous, gaseous

blob, a fiery, structureless plasma

protomatter.

His shadow stretched far down the hillside as the

sun set behind him. Night approached, a dark

border overwhelming day. It reached the edge of

Spock's glade. The group of delicate

fern-trees had grown and coarsened, turning from a

patch of feathery emerald green to a smudge of

bulbous gray, just in the few hours since he had

left it.

He and Saavik had found a vantage point, but

so far David had detected no sign of other

intelligent life. His tricorder showed nothing, but

it was of limited range. He had heard nothing over

his communicator; if anyone else had fled

Grissom before it was shot down, they were as

reluctant to broadcast their presence to their

attackers as was David. Perhaps they were listening

to each other's static.

More likely, no one else had survived. But

until he was sure, he was keeping his communicator

set to the Federation emergency channel.

Night fell quickly on Genesis. The land below the

promontory had grown too dark for David to see

anyone, friendly or malevolent. Darkness

obscured' everything, even the field of silver ice

now covering the desert, nearly surrounding the glade,

and grinding away at the base of the mountain itself.

David rose and trudged back up the hill.

Gnarled black trees with twisting exposed roots

loomed over him, and great broken slabs of stone

projected from the ground. Soon

The Search For Spock

he reached the narrow, hidden cave they had stumbled

upon.

He stepped inside, expecting the pale steady

illumination of the camp light from Saavik's kit.

Instead he encountered darkness.

"Saavik ?" he whispered, but before her name had

passed his lips she had uncovered the light again.

She held her phaser aimed straight at him. She

let her hand fall.

"Your footsteps . . . sounded

different," she said, in explanation and apology.

She put the phaser away again. "This place is

most discomforting."

The Vulcan child whimpered. He lay huddled on

a bed of tree branches, his face to the stone wall.

Saavik had laid her coat over him. She

turned to him, touched his shoulder, and said a word or

two of comfort. David did not speak the language

she was using, but he recognised it when he heard it.

"Why are you talking to him in Vulcan?" he said.

Saavik shrugged. "I know it is not logical.

I know he cannot understand, but he would not understand any other

language, either, and Vulcan is . . . the first

language Spock taught me."

David glanced at the child. "It's hard to think of

him as Spock," he said.

"He is only a part of Spock. He is the

physical part. The mind exists only in

potential. He might perhaps become a reasoning

being, with time and teaching. He is not so different from what

I was when . . . when he found me a scavenger,

illiterate certainly, almost completely

inarticulate . . ."

She shivered. He sat down next to her and put

his arm across her shoulders. "You're cold."

"I choose not to perceive cold," she said. She

did not respond to his embrace.

.,

STAR TREK Ill

The child suddenly cried out. David glanced up

apprehensively, for they were beneath tons of stone. The

gentle quake that followed the cry left the cave

undisturbed, but the child moaned in pain. Saavik

slid from beneath David's arm and went to the boy's

side to tuck the black cloth and her maroon

jacket more closely in around him.

"Sleep," she said softly, in Vulcan.

David pulled out his tricorder and made a quick

geological scan. The results gave him no

comfort.

"This planet is aging in surges," he said.

"And Spock with it," Saavik said quietly.

David glanced at her, then at the boy, who had

flung himself over.

"My gods was David said.

An hour before, the child had had the

appearance of a boy of eight or ten. Now he

looked more like a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old.

"The child and the world are joined together,"

Saavik said. She looked at David steadily,

as if wishing or daring him to interpret events in a

different way.

David had nothing to say that would give her, or

himself, any comfort. He nodded.

"The Genesis wave is like a clock ticking .

. . or a bomb," he said. "For him and for the

planet. And at the rate things are going . . ."

"How long?" Saavik asked. She thought that if

they must die, sooner would be less painful than

later. But though she accepted the logic of that

conclusion, she was not yet ready to stop fighting for every

instant of life left to her.

"Days . . . maybe hours," David said.

"It's a chaotic system, Saavik. Which variable

will pass the energy threshold and cause everything

to disintegrate into protomatter . . ." He shook

his head. "It's completely unpredictable." He

looked away, and then, in such a

The Search For Spock

low tone that Saavik almost did not hear him, he

said, "I'm sorry."

She nodded, accepting both his verdict and his

grief.

"It will be hardest on Spock," she said.

"Soon . . . he will feel the burning of his

Vulcan blood."

"I don't understand," David said.

I should not have spoken of pon farr, she thought. It

is not logical to burden David with one more thing about

which he can do nothing. No one has ever found a way

to free Vulcan men of the loss of emotional and

physical control they endure every seventh year of their

adult lives.

She was saved from having to choose between an

explanation and a lie by the abrupt querulous bleating

of David's tricorder.

He pulled the instrument out and frowned over the

life signs.

"Whoever they are," he said, "they're getting

closer."

Saavik estimated one chance in a thousand that other

refugees from Grissom caused the signs, and

five to ten chances in a thousand that whoever was tracking

them had other than

malicious intent. In all the other

possibilities, the beings who had destroyed

Grissom sought Saavik and David in order

to inflict the same fate upon them. Still . .

. a chance, even if it were the chance to become a

prisoner, was better odds than the certain death they

faced by remaining on Genesis.

Saavik stood up. "I will go his

"No!" David said sharply. "I'll do it.

Give me your phaser."

Saavik did not want David, untrained as

he was, to go out alone on a spy mission. She

glanced at the Vulcan boy. She did not want

to leave him alone, either, and she particularly did not

want to leave David alone with him. She realised

it would be marginally less 215

STAR TREK lll

dangerous, for David, if he were to go spying on

the unknown entity.

And she could see that his guilt impelled him

to undertake the mission. She offered him her phaser.

He touched her hand, took the weapon, and hurried

out into the darkness.

A moment later the Vulcan child cried out in

agony, just before the ground began to tremble.

Chapter 10

The Enterprise sped free through space.,

Excelsior lay far behind, still waiting

for a tow. The communications channels were just

beginning to come clear again. Kirk wondered if

Uhura was all right. She was levelheaded. When

Security came to the transporter station she should

simply have thrown up her hands and surrendered. But

accidents could happen, and Kirk could not help but

worry. Nevertheless he was grateful to her, for without

her help he might have the whole fleet converging on

him. The one thing he knew he could not do, even

to save McCoy's sanity and Spock's soul, was

fire on another Starfleet ship.

"Estimating Genesis 2.9 hours, present

speed," Sulu said.

"Can we hold speed, Scotty?" Kirk

asked.

"Aye, sir, the Enterprise has its second

wind now."

"Scan for vessels in pursuit," Kirk said.

STAR TREK Ill

"Scanning . . ." The voice was an eerie

facsimile of Spock's. "Indications negative

at this time."

Kirk turned toward the science station. McCoy,

at Spock's old place, looked up and

blinked.

"Did I . . . get it right . . . ?" he

asked.

"You did great, Bones," Kirk said. "Just

great."

"Sir, Starfleet is calling Grissom again,"

Chekov said. "Warning about us."

"Response?"

Chekov glanced worriedly at his console.

"Nothing. As before."

"What's Grissom up to?" Kirk said. "Will

they join us, or fire on us?" he said, half

to himself. "Mr. Chekov, break radio silence.

Send my compliments to Captain Esteban."

"Aye, sir."

Kirk rose and went to McCoy's side.

"How we doing?" he said.

McCoy gave him a thoughtful and slightly

sardonic glance, the look of a doctor who

recognises a bedside manner when it is being

inflicted upon him.

"How are we doing?" he said. "Funny you

should put it quite that way, Jim." He paused, as

if listening to a second conversation. "We are doing

fine. But I'd feel safer giving him one

of my kidneys than getting what's scrambled up

in my brain."

"Admiral," Chekov said, "there is no

response from Grissom on any channel."

"Keep trying, Mr. Chekov. At regular

intervals."

Carol Marcus hurried up the steps of the tall

Victorian house and knocked on the door. She

waited apprehensively, looking back over the

small town of Port Orchard. Beyond it, water

sparkled slate-grey and silver in the autumn

sun. The chilly salt air fluttered against the

rhododendrons that grew all around the

The Search For Spock

porch. They were heavily laden with the buds of next

year's flowers. She had hoped to see them in

bloom, in the spring. But if that had still been

possible, she would not have had to come here now, all

alone.

The door opened. Carol turned, still dazzled

by sunlight on the sea.

"I'm terribly sorry not to arrive when I said

I would I got lost," she said. "I have something

to give to Del March's family, but I

couldn't find the address, I ended up in a park was

She stopped suddenly. She was practically babbling.

"I'm sorry," she said more calmly. "I'm

Carol Marcus."

"Come in." Vance's mother took Carol's hand and

led her inside. Her voice possessed the same

low, quiet timbre as Vance's. Her hand in

Carol's felt frail. "I'm Aquila

Madison, and this is Terrence Laurier, Vance's

father."

Both Vance's parents were tall and slender, as he

had been. Carol had expected them to be about her own

age, for Vance had been only a few years older

than David. But they were both considerably older

than she, perhaps as much as twenty years. Aquila's

closecropped curly hair was iron-grey.

Terrence wore his longer, tied at the back of his

neck, but it, too, had gone

salt-and-pepper from its original black.

A leaded glass door opened from the foyer.

Terrence and Aquila showed Carol into their living

room. It was a high-ceilinged, airy place,

carpeted with antique Oriental rugs. Aquila

and Terrence sat side by side on a couch in front

of the tall windows. Carol sat facing them

and wondered what to say to them, how to start.

"Del never did outgrow that joke," Aquila

said.

"I thought I'd written the address down

wrong," Carol said. "Do you mean he meant people to go

to a park?"

STAR TREK 111

"NO, my dear," Aquila said, "he meant people

to think they'd written the address down wrong."

"I don't understand. Where does his family

live?"

"He has none," Terrence said. "None he'll

admit to, anyway."

"Then where did he live?"

"He lived here," Aquila said.

"What you have to understand about Del," Terrence said,

"is that he made up nearly everything about himself his

name, his home, the relatives that only existed in a

computer file, his background before he was twelve

everything."

"But his records," Carol said. "In this day and

age his

"He didn't need too much," Terrence said.

"Not here a false address, a few

counterfeit relatives and school records. He

had an uncanny rapport with computers, and the voice

synthesiser he built stood in for an adult as

long as nobody asked to meet it face to face.

He was so young no one thought to be suspicious of

him."

"As it was, he and Vance had been friends for a year

before Terrence and I realised just how odd some of the odd

things about him were. Vance knew, but he couldn't

persuade Del to trust us."

"How did you find out?"

"I tried to go to his house once," Terrence

said. "I went out all fired up with the intention of either

jumping down somebody's throat for never getting the

kid any decent clothes, or offering to get him some

myself."

"When we finally found out where he was

living it was an abandoned house we persuaded him

to move in here. We have plenty of room."

Aquila made a quick gesture with one hand,

indicating the house, the surroundings.

The Search For Spock

Carol found herself already under the spell of Terrence

and Aquila's home. It had the

comfortable and comforting ambiance of a place lived in by people

who loved each other, of a place lived in and cared

forand cared about by the same people for a long time. Vance had

told her that the Madisons, Aquila's family,

were some of the first black landholders in the area. Her

ancestors had settled here three hundred years

ago, long before the Federation, even before the region had

been admitted to statehood in the previous

political entity.

"Did you adopt him?"

"We wanted to. But he was terrified that if we

found his people and asked them to give up legal custody,

they'd make him go back. Arguing didn't do any

good his

Carol nodded. She had been in a few

arguments with Del March.

was and besides, he might have been right."

"We didn't press him about it. We were

afraid he might run away from us, too, and we were

al- ready very fond of him. Though he could be quite

trying. his

"He did have a reputation for being. . . a little

wild," Carol said.

"In college, yes," Aquila said. "Once

he was of age and didn't have to fear being

shipped back to whatever he was running from he didn't

have to be careful never to attract any attention. He

did get . . . "a little wild." We were

awfully worried about him for a few years. So was

Vance . . ."

"I didn't get to know him as well as I should

have," Carol admitted. "We just never got off on

the right foot. He and my son David were very

close, though." Carol reached into her pack and drew

out a roll of parchment. PI think you should have this. It

was

STAR TREK 111

Del's he kept it on the wall of his office.

And Vance made it."

Aquila unrolled the parchment. In his strong,

even calligraphy, Vance had copied seven

stanzas of Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the

Snark. was Those were the stanzas from which Madison and

March had taken the terminology for the

sub-elementary particles they had described and

discovered. Carol remembered the end of the poem "For

although common Snarks do no

manner of harmea/yet I feel it my duty to

say/some are Boojums 79

Aquila and Terrence read it over. Aquila

smiled, brushed her fingertips across the parchment, and

read it a second time. Terrence raised his head.

He and Carol looked at each other. They could no

longer avoid talking about Vance.

"I loved your son," Carol said. "I don't

know if he told you, about us his

"Of course he did," Aquila said. "We were

looking forward to your vacation next spring, we were

hoping you would come with him when he visited."

"I would have. He told me so much about you . . .

Aquila, Terrence, he was such an

extraordinary man. I'm so sorry was She had

to stop. If she said any more, she would start to cry

again.

"Carol," Terrence said, "what happened out there?

We never thought Vance would work on a military

project his

"It wasn't!" Carol said. "Oh, it wasn't!

It was supposed to be just the opposite."

She told them about the project, and the least painful

version of their son's and their foster son's deaths that

she could without Iying to them. But it still came down to the

Spacelab team's being caught in the middle of

someone else's quarrel.

The Search For Spock

When she finished, her voice shaking, Terrence and

Aquila were desperately holding each other's

hands. Carol stood up. She did not want

to inflict her own grief on them anymore, and she

thought they might want to be alone.

"I wish I wish I could have met you next

spring. I'm so sorry . . . I'd better go."

Aquila rose. "That's foolish, Carol.

It's a long trip back, and it's nearly dark."

It was a long trip back. Port Orchard was a

historical reference site, so it was against the rules

to beam in. The only way to get here was by ferry or

ground car.

"We had already planned for you to stay over,"

Terrence said.

When she realised they meant it, Carol agreed,

not only because of the long trip. She was grateful to them

simply for making the offer, grateful to them for not

hating her, and glad to be able to spend more time in the

company of two people who reminded her so strongly of the

person she had loved.

Saavik started awake, unable to believe she had

fallen asleep, and, at the same time,

unsure what had awakened her. She stood up and

looked out over Genesis at night. Here and there

across the land faint lights, like the shadows of ghosts,

drifted between twisted trees.

It is merely bioluminescence, Saavik thought.

What the humans call fox-fire, and Romulans

call devil-dogs. And Vulcans? What do

Vulcans call it? No doubt they speak of it in

chemical formulae, as no doubt so should I.

She was standing on the rocky promontory that thrust

out below the cave mouth. She had come out here to keep

watch, and because she was afraid her

STAR TREK 111

exhausted restlessness might wake the Vulcan child.

Genesis had permitted itself a short respite between

its convulsions, and the boy had drifted off into his first

painless sleep.

Saavik's tricorder beeped again, and she

realized how long David had been gone. She

considered, decided to take the chance of transmitting,

and opened her communicator.

"Saavik to David." She waited. "Come in,

David."

Only static replied. She closed the

communicator quickly, more worried than she cared

to admit, for worry was not only an emotion, but a

completely unproductive use of energy.

A low, moaning cry came from the cave.

Saavik braced herself against the inevitable ground

tremor that echoed the child's pain. Rocks clattered

down the hillside. Saavik sprinted for the cave

entrance, dodging boulders and raising her arms to ward

off a rain of gravel. The huge trees rocked and

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.

Spock. Alive.

Kirk wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry, he

wanted instant certain answers to all the questions

tumbling over each other in his mind. My gods, he

thought, Spock alive!

And then he had to wonder, What does this mean for

McCoy?

"Bones ?" he said again.

"All his metabolic functions are highly

accelerated," McCoy said. He made his

diagnosis calmly, despite its implications.

"In lay terms his body is aging. Fast."

"And his mind?"

McCoy glanced at his tricorder again and shook

his head. "The readings of a newborn, or at best

an infant of a few months his mind's a void,

almost a tabula rasa." He glanced up. "It would

seem, Admiral," he said drily, "that I have

all his marbles."

"Is there anything we can do?"

McCoy shrugged. Kirk glanced at Saavik.

"Only one thing, sir," she said. "We must get

him off this planet. He is . . . bound to it in some

way. He is aging, as is this world."

The young man moaned. The ground

shuddered as violently as he did. Saavik

knelt beside him.

"And if he stays here?"

Saavik looked up.

"He will die."

STAR TREK 111

Kirk withdrew as a blaze of lightning

flooded the clearing. He had to do something . . . and

only one possibility remained.

He opened his communicator.

"Commander Kruge," he said. "This is Admiral

James T. Kirk. I am . . . alive and

well on the surface of Genesis." He paused.

He received no reply except crackling

electrical interference. "I know this will come as a

pleasant surprise for you," he said, "but, you see,

my ship was the victim of . . . an unfortunate

accident. I'm sorry about your crew, old boy.

But c'est la vie, as we say back on Earth."

His answer was another convulsion of the ground, another

crash of static, another blinding burst of light from

the cloudless sky.

"Well?" Kirk said angrily. "I'm waiting

for you what's your answer?" He forced himself to relax

his grip on his communicator, to be patient,

to wait and think. "I have what you want," he said

desperately. "I have the secret of Genesis! But

you'll have to bring us up there to get it. Do you hear

me?"

Static drowned out any possibility of an

answer. The sky and the earth rumbled, the young Vulcan

moaned, the trees groaned and cracked, and

in the background the aurora rustled, soft and eerie.

A tremendous crash of lightning and thunder

obliterated sight and sound. His shoulders slumping,

Jim Kirk folded his communicator and stowed it

carefully away. He blinked a few times, trying

to drive away the afterimages that made his eyes

water. He turned back to the remnants of his

crew, whom he had led to their doom.

He joined them, but he did not know what to say

to them. Spock lay sprawled on the ground, his arm

flung across his face. The others were gathered around

him, astonished to find him alive. Kirk sat on

his heels beside

The Search For Spock

them, not knowing what to say. "Thank you" and "I'm

sorry" seemed terribly inadequate.

"Drop all weapons!"

Startled, Kirk spun toward the voice.

The sky was a luminous backdrop, a curtain of

wavering auroral light pierced intermittently

by stars. Against it stood a huge shadow. It loomed

above them on the pinnacle of stone.

Kirk rose carefully, drawing his phaser and

dropping it, then spreading his empty hands.

Sulu, Chekov, and McCoy followed suit, but

Saavik remained kneeling beside Spock.

The looming figure came a few steps toward

them. The phaser glinted in his hand. The hair of his

crest rose.

"Over there," said Commander Kruge. "All but

Kirk." He gestured to a trampled spot on the

hillside.

Kirk made a slight gesture of his head.

McCoy, Sulu, and Chekov reluctantly

obeyed. Saavik remained where she was, next

to Spock. Kirk heard the Klingon commander draw in

a long, angry breath.

"Go on, Lieutenant," Kirk said softly.

He feared that she would argue, but finally she stood and

joined the others.

Commander Kruge spun open his

communicator. "Maltz," he said, "the

prisoners are at our first beam coordinates. Stand

by."

Kirk took one step toward Kruge, who

reacted by raising the phaser.

At least I have his full attention, Kirk thought.

"You should take the Vulcan, too," he said

easily.

"No."

"But, why?"

"Because," Kruge said, "you wish it." Keeping his

gaze on Kirk, he picked up the phasers and

flung them, 265

STAR TREK 111

one by one, over the promontory and down the side

of the mountain. Then he spoke into the communicator in

his own language. Kirk did not understand the words, but

it must have been the order to transport. The energy

flux pulsed around Kirk's friends.

"No to was Saavik cried, but the beam attenuated

her voice. She vanished with the others.

Only a few hundred meters away, the whole

hillside suddenly split open with a great roar of

tortured rock. Scarlet light and intense heat

fanned out of the fissure. The glowing magma thrust

upward through the breach in the planet's crust. The

waterfall that tumbled down the hillside flowed into the

crack and over the molten rock, exploding

into superheated steam.

Kruge strode closer to Kirk.

"Genesis!" He shouted over the cacophony of the

dying planet. "I want it!"

"Beam the Vulcan up," Kirk said.

"Then we talk."

"Give me what I want and I'll consider

it."

"You fool!" Kirk cried. "Look around you!

This planet is destroying itself!"

Kruge smiled.

"Yes," he said. "Exhilarating, isn't it?"

Kirk stared at him, speechless, then recovered

himself.

"If we don't help each other, we'll all

die here!"

"Perfect!" Kruge said triumphantly.

"That's the way it shall be!" He loomed over

Kirk, smiling his wolfish smile. "Give me

Genesisff"i he said. Each word struck like a

blow.

. As if in reply, Genesis heaved and pitched

beneath him. The outcropping on which he stood shattered and

flung him forward. He lost his balance and fell.

His phaser skittered across the stone, sliding down the

hillside to the edge of the earth fault.

As Kruge struggled up, Kirk plunged forward

The Search For Spock

tackled him. Kirk's breath rushed out

as if he had run into a solid wall. Kruge

roared with anger and caught him in the side with his fist.

He fell hard but managed to roll to his feet.

Kruge ran toward his phaser. Kirk sprinted

toward him and tackled him at the knees. They both

went down. Half-stunned, staggering, Kruge

rose. But Kirk managed to get up first. He

pressed his

advantage, hitting with short, sharp jabs that

did little real damage but kept his opponent

off-balance and flailing. He ducked beneath

Kruge's long, powerful arms and hit him again.

Kirk's knuckles were raw. Each blow shot pain

up his hands.

The livid glow of magma haloed the Klingon

commander. He swung and missed. His

momentum pitched him around. Kirk sprang at

him and hit him one more time with his battered hands.

Kruge fell.

He tumbled over the edge of a bit of broken

ground.

Kirk looked over the precipice. Kruge

stood on a second cliff, just above the rumbling

magma. Steam and smoke roiled around him.

Looking up at Kirk, he laughed.

Infuriated, Kirk sprang down on him. The

heat slapped him. He struggled with Kruge. The

size and relative youth of the Klingon commander began

to overwhelm him. Kruge broke Kirk's hold and

slammed him in the chest with both hands. The impact

flung Kirk violently back against the cliff's

rock wall. Dazed, Kirk slid toward the

ground. He barely managed to

prevent himself from falling. He was soaked with

sweat. He struggled up. Kruge regarded him from

the edge of the pit. The scarlet darkness silhouetted

the Klingon commander, who waited, hands on hips, for

Kirk to regain enough of his strength to be a fitting

opponent.

The magma surged from below, scraping

against the side of the cliff. Rocks fell,

clattering hollowly. Great 267

STAR TREK 111

hexagonal columns of basalt split away

from the cliff and collapsed like the trunks of ancient

trees. The column on which Kruge stood

fractured and began to sink. The magma swallowed

its base.

The whole column began to topple. Kruge

balanced upon it, the heat rising around him

in waves. To Kirk it looked as if the commander were

enjoying his peril, testing his nerve.

"Jump, damn you!" Kirk cried.

And still Kruge delayed. The column of stone

continued to tilt, to sink.

Kruge leaped. But he had waited an instant

beyond the last moment. He fell short. He slammed

up against the fragmenting columns, gripping the edge,

his feet dangling into the glowing pit.

Kirk sprinted to the edge of the cliff and knelt,

peering down at Kruge, who looked up at him with

his teeth slightly bared in an expression that was more a

mocking smile than a threat.

"Now," Kirk said, "you'll give me what I

want his

Kruge lurched upward, trying to get his arm over

the edge of the cliff, trying to gain leverage. Kirk

let him flail at the heated stone.

"You're going to get us off this planet!" Kirk

said.

Kruge snarled something. Whatever it was, it was not

agreement. He slipped precariously down.

"Don't be a fool!" Kirk cried. "Give

me your hand and live!"

The commander lunged toward Kirk. Kirk

jerked back. Kruge's fingers grazed his

throat, then slipped away. He started to fall, but

with a supernatural effort he vaulted upward again and

grabbed Kirk's leg.

Kruge abandoned his hold on the cliff and

clenched both hands like claws around Kirk's ankle.

Jim Kirk felt himself sliding along the rough

surface of the cliff, off-balance, only a

handsbreadth from the 268

The Search For Spock

edge. He struggled back, digging his fingers between the

hexagonal patterns where the basalt continued

to fragment. His fingernails ripped, and he left

streaks of blood on the dark stone as he slipped

farther and farther over the edge. The fierce heat of the

magma gusted up around him.

He heard Kruge laughing again, laughing with

contempt and victory, laughing at the death of

Kirk's son, at Kirk's determination to save his

friends, at Kirk's defeat, and at Kirk himself.

"Damn you!" Kirk cried in a rage. "I have

had enough of you!" He kicked out angrily, and again,

desperately.

Kruge's grip loosened, faltered, and broke.

Kirk scrambled back onto the

cliff.

Kruge tumbled down, with nothing to break his fall

but the glowing magma.

The basalt columns shuddered and split away from

each other, tumbling one after the other into the pit. The

cliff was disintegrating beneath Jim's feet. He

raced for the higher cliff, leaped, caught its edge,

and dragged himself up its face. He lay panting on

solid ground, exhausted. H'e had no choice but

to get up and keep going, for the solid ground was no

longer solid. Other cracks opened, engulfing

twisted, warty trees that exploded into flame and

smoke, swallowing the hillside's streams, gushing

superheated steam. Jim struggled to his feet.

Spock sprawled,

unconscious, near a blood-red glowing

fissure.

The hot white spark of the Genesis sun burst

above the horizon, piercing the darkness and the steam and the

smoke. Lon g shadows sprang into existence. They

moved and wavered like wraiths with the convulsions of the

ground.

Kirk knelt beside Spock and gently turned him

over.

He cursed softly.

STAR TREK 111

This was Spock, Spock as he had known him. In

only a few minutes he had traveled from youth

to maturity. In a few more minutes he would

progress to age, thence to . . . death. He

moaned, as the pain of the world to which he was chained

penetrated even his exhaustion and deep

unconsciousness. The sound lanced through Jim

Kirk.

The sun was rising so fast he could feel its

progress. The rays grew hotter as their angle

changed, and the shadows shortened. The planet's

rotation was increasing as the world tore itself apart.

Jim looked up at the sky. Even the stars had

faded in the dawn. It was too bright even to search for the

reflected light of the single ship that remained in

orbit around Genesis if it had not already fled the

unstable star system.

He glanced around, found Kruge's phaser, and

scooped it up. Then he slid one arm beneath

Spock's limp body, heaved him onto his

shoulder, and pushed himself to his feet. He opened his

communicator, muffled the pickup by rubbing his

thumbnail back and forth across it, did his

best to copy Kruge's low, harsh voice, and

repeated the last words Kruge had transmitted.

Then he waited. His legs were trembling with

fatigue. He raised the communicator to try

once more

And felt the gentle tingle of a transporter beam

forming around him. It dematerialized his body, and

Spock's, and carried them away.

Saavik materialised aboard a Klingon

fighter. The others appeared around her. A single of

fleer of the ship observed their arrival.

Saavik measured the distance to his weapon with her

gaze. She glanced sidelong at Captain

Sulu. He stood in

The Search For Spock

a completely relaxed attitude of

appraisal. He was ready. If two at once

The of fleer gestured with his phaser. It was set

to fire in a wide fan. It was clear that if anyone

moved suspiciously, the of fleer would stun them all

simultaneously and dispose of them at his leisure.

Dr. McCoy suddenly cried out in pain and

fell to his knees. Chekov and Scott quickly

moved to help him. Saavik and Sulu

remained where they were, but they both realised they were

at too great a disadvantage. As Sulu turned

away to help the others with McCoy, he muttered,

"I wonder what O-sensei would have said about

phasers?"

Saavik held back from touching McCoy again.

When he brushed against her, back on Genesis, it

was not the doctor she sensed, but Mr. Spock.

McCoy carried in him the unique pattern of her

teacher, trapped and blind and weakening. The experience

left Saavik thoroughly shaken.

Nevertheless, it explained a great deal. And it

opened so many possibilities . . .

possibilities which would be closed again if they all

remained prisoners, and above all if Genesis

destroyed itself before those remaining on its surface could

be rescued.

Comporeaed once more, Saavik mentally ran

through the forms of address in the high tongue of the

Klingon Empire. She was unfamiliar with the lower

dialects she had heard the other crew members

speak, but no matter. It would surely be better

to speak to the Klingon officer in a form too high than

in one too low. If she could speak to him without

offending him, she might have some chance of

persuading him to rescue those left behind. She might

even be able to persuade him to surrender, for the high

tongue was a very persuasive language.

STAR TREK 111

Whatever she did, she had only a little time. The

ship lay oriented so its forward port faced

Genesis directly The tectonic activity had

become so violent that even from this distance she could see

the great rifts in the planet's crust and the glowing

fires of its interior. Its orbit around its sun

was decaying rapidly; the star's blue-white disk

grew larger as Saavik watched. Before the planet

destroyed itself, its surface conditions would be

lethal.

"Worthy opponent," she said, hoping that her

accent was not too atrocious, "we find ourselves in a

delicately balanced position."

He glanced at her sharply and frowned. His hand

tightened on the grip of his phaser.

"You are one," Saavik said, "and we are

five."

She neglected to point out that Dr. McCoy was

in no state to join in any opposition.

"Furthermore, this entire star system will

soon degenerate into a plasma of subelementary

particles. If we do not rescue our respective

shipmates and flee, we will all perish."

"Stop!"

She stopped. The tone of his voice gave her little

choice.

"Why do you speak to me in this manner?" he said.

He spoke quite acceptable Standard.

"I did not know you spoke our language," she

said.

"Of course I speak your barbarian pidgin do you

think me so ignorant of my enemies? But you speak

to me in Kumburan, and I am Rumaiy. Could it

be that you have not been taught the difference?"

"It could be," Saavik admitted. "I did not

intend offecse."

"Could it be that you believe the slanderous cant put

about, that Kumburanya are in the ascendancy over

Rumaiym?"

"I confess to an unforgivable ignorance of the sub

The Search For Spock

ject," Saavik said, not altogether truthfully. She

had been told at the Academy that the language

she was studying was the only significant

one in the Klingon Empire. That did not seem quite the

appropriate response just now. "In the Federation

we employ a single language in public, so we

may all communicate."

"Reductionists!" he said with contempt.

"Obliterators of diversity!" He muttered

something unpleasant in a language Saavik

did not know, and then he started to say something which she

feared would be a lengthy tirade against the social or

political group that opposed his own.

"But I am not ignorant about the world below us,"

Saavik said quickly, taking the risk of incurring his

anger by interrupting him. "And it is close

to destroying itself. Look at it! You cannot pretend the

signs do not exist! We must

cooperate to survive!"

"I have my orders."

"Orders from a commander unaware of the

dangers on the surface, or beneath it a

commander who may even now be dead? If you value

diversity . . . my worthy opponent, this system

will soon lose its diversity completely. In a

matter of hours it will consist of nothing but a

homogeneous mass of highly entropic

protomatter."

The officer said nothing, but gazed at Saavik

thoughtfully.

The communicator erupted in a muffled burst of

static. Saavik cursed silently, for it broke

his consideration. She would have to start persuading him all

over again if she got the chance. No doubt this was his

commander with new orders, orders that could not be of any

benefit to Saavik and her companions.

When she heard the voice she started. She glanced

at Captain Sulu and knew her suspicion was

correct, because he was forcing himself not to react, not

to burst

STAR TREK 111

out in surprised and relieved laughter. They both

looked surreptitiously up at the command seat.

The officer hesitated before replying to the order.

Saavik dug her nails into her palms.

The officer touched controls.

Then they all waited.

The last thing Jim Kirk saw on the surface

of Genesis was the body of his son, drifted over with

scarlet leaves and outlined by the fires of the world that had

meant so much to him.

That world faded like a dream.

A transporter chamber solidified into reality

around Jim Kirk. He blew his breath out in a

sharp reaction of relief, for if he had been under

suspicion he might have found his and Spock's

atoms spread all over space by the transporter

beam.

Dredging from the depths of his mind the layout of a

Klingon fighter, he settled Spoek's body more

firmly on his shoulder and headed for the control room.

He saw no one as he strode through the corridors,

and he could not help but think, with some trepidation, that this

was precisely the sort of emptiness the boarding party

had confronted on the Enterprtse. He drew the

phaser. It fit his hand strangely, having been

designed for different joints and different

proportions.

Doors opened for him. He stepped into the control

room.

Kruge's second in command revealed no

surprise when Kirk entered. Like Kirk, he

held a phaser. Unlike Kirk, he was alone.

Even if he fired now, he would fall to Kirk's

phaser, and the prisoners behind him would become his

captors.

"Where is Commander Kruge?" he asked.

He spoke as if the question were his final duty. Kirk

knew, then, 274

The Search For Spock

that his masquerade had not fooled the officer for a

moment.

"Gone," Kirk said. "Dead. Engulfed

by Genesis."

Defeated and resigned, the officer spread his

hands. Kirk nodded once, sharply.

Saavik vaulted from the work-pit and relieved

Maltz of his phaser. Chekov helped McCoy

to his feet. The strain in the doctor's face, the

strain of having been removed again from proximity

to Spock, began to ease.

"How many more?" Kirk said.

"Just him, sir!" Scott said.

Kirk lowered Spock to the deck. "Bones,

help Spock! Everyone else find a station."

Saavik put Maltz's phaser in her belt,

and waited. Slowly, reluctantly, he drew his

dagger and surrendered it to her.

"You!" Kirk said to him. "Help us, or die!"

"I do not deserve to live!"

"Fine I'll kill you later! Let's get out

of here!"

He sprinted to a place on the bridge, leaving

Kruge's second confused and defeated. Everyone

else had already taken a spot. Kirk trusted that

they had all spent their time here trying to figure out which

instrument performed which function.

Beyond the viewport, the Genesis sun

contracted and brightened. It was a few minutes, no

more, from nova. The instability of the planet affected

its orbit in an accelerating manner. As the path

decayed, the world spiraled toward the sun, drawing the

ship along with it.

Kirk glanced at the beautiful and unfamiliar

alien script, of which he could not read a word.

"Anybody here read Klingon?" he said.

No one answered, though Saavik glanced at him

sharply, then looked away as if she were

embarrassed. 275

STAR TREK 111

Just like Spock, Kirk thought. She considers it a

personal failing if she can't do absolutely

everything.

"Well, take your best shot," Kirk said

to his friends.

"If you can bypass into this module was Chekov said

to Scott.

Scott made a sound of disgust. "Fine, but

where's the damn antimatter inducer?"

"This?" Chekov replied. "No, this!"

"This," Scott said, "or nothing." He touched

alien controls, took a deep breath, and moved

another control to its farthest extent.

The ship whined. Everyone flinched as the sound

wavered, then relaxed as it steadied and strengthened.

Sulu occupied a station as if it were built for

him.

"If I read this right, sir, we have full power."

Kirk did not doubt that the young captain read it

right.

"GO9 Sulu!"'9

The ship arced around, accelerated out of orbit, and

hurtled at warp speed from the deteriorating system.

There was no conversation, there were no orders, there was

simply a consensus between people who had known each other

long and well. At what he judged to be a-safe

distances Sulu pulled the fighter back from warp

speed. Elf navigating the Enterprise was like

driving a team of proud and immensely powerful

draft horses, handling the Klingon ship was like being

perched on the back of a skittish two-year-old

colt during its first Mce. Sulu

oriented it so the viewport faced the system they had

just fled.

The planet fell toward its sun, which burned with

an intense blue-white light. Stellar flares

burst from the incandescent surface, reaching out

to capture anything within their grasp.

The only thing within their grasp was the Genesis world.

With shocking suddenness, the sun engulfed it.

The Search For Spock

The Genesis world was gone.

"Good-bye, David," Jim Kirk whispered.

The disk of the star expanded, exploding to millions

of times its previous volume until it was nothing but

a tenuous, vaguely luminescent, spiral cloud

of plasma.

"It will form another world," Saavik said.

Kirk glanced at her sharply.

"The protomatter will condense to a plasma of

normal matter," she said. "The plasma will cool.

It will condense to dust, thence to a star and a family of

planets. This time, lacking the Genesis wave, it

will be stable. A surface will harden, oceans will form,

the sun's radiation will induce chemical reactions.

Life will begin. In time . . . it may

evolve as David and his friends intended."

"In millions of years," Kirk said.

"No, Admiral," she said. "In billions

of years."

"I'm glad you find some comfort in the long view,

Lieutenant," Kirk said.

Sulu spoke, breaking the uneasy tension

between Kirk and Saavik. "We're clear and

free to navigate," he said.

"Best speed to Vulcan, Captain." Kirk

fell gratefully back into the role he knew

best. "Mr. Chekov, take the prisoner below."

"Aye, sir."

"Wait!" Kruge's second in command drew

back from him and turned angrily on Kirk. "You

said you would kill me."

"I lied," Kirk said, and gestured for Chekov

to get him off the bridge.

After a quick and dirty self-taught course on the

finer details of navigating a Klingon fighting

craft, Sulu laid in a course for Vulcan.

Saavik puzzled out the communications system.

STAR TREK 111

"Lieutenant Saavik of Federation

science ship Grissom, calling Starfleet

Communications. Come in, please."

"Communications to Grissom. We've been

trying to reach you folks for days! A freighter just

picked up a lifeboat with a couple of survivors

from a merchant vessel they claim Klingons raided

their ship!"

"It is likely their claim is true,"

Saavik said. "We . . . experienced a similar

encounter."

"Are you all right?"

"I regret that we are not. We have a serious and

continuing emergency. We have incurred many

fatalities. We need your cooperation."

"You have it, Lieutenant. What do you

require?"

"A patch into your library's data-base, and a

general message to all ships between Mutara sector

and Vulcan."

"The patch is made." The Starfleet

communications officer paused a moment, then said in

a startled voice, "Lieutenant, what

communications protocol are you using? What the

devil are you flying?"

"Please stand by," Saavik said. She

instructed the Starfleet data-base and waited for the

information she needed before she replied to the question. She

assumed her answer would cause consternation at the very

least. At worst, it would result in so much

suspicion that the data link would immediately be broken,

and hunters would be sent out for their heads.

A new voice broke into the channel. "Cut that

damned data link! Lieutenant Saavik! This

is Starfleet Commander Morrow. What the hell is

going on out there? Let me speak with Esteban!"

"I am sorry, sir," she said. "That is

impossible."

He cursed softly. "I want some

explanations! Have you seen the Enterprise?"

The Search For Spock

"The Enterprise is not within our range, sir,"

she said. She did not know how to react to her

new-found ability to dissemble nearly as well as a

human being.

"What is the message you want us to relay?"

Morrow said.

was "EU-INGON fighter on course to Vulcan

?"' Saavik heard exclamations of astonishment.

She continued. ""This ship is not an

adversary. It is held by a contingent of Federation

personnel. It is running With down and weapons

disabled. Essential that we reach Vulcan. Delay

will result in further casualties. This ship is not

an adversary.""

"A Klingon fighter! Lieutenant, I ask

again, Where is Grissom? What in blazes is

going on out there?"

"Saavik out." She shut down the channel.

"Good work, Lieutenant," Kirk said. He had

known perfectly well that if he or anyone else

from the Enterprise contacted Starfleet they would have

been ordered to return immediately to Earth, to surrender.

They were without doubt already under arrest, albeit in

absentia.

Saavik could think of no suitable way

to respond to a compliment for dishonesty. Instead, she

transferred the Starfleet data to Captain

Sulu's station. He gave her a smile of

thanks.

She brought up the second information module on

her own screen and began to read the dense Vulcan

prose.

"Estimating Vulcan at point one niner,"

Sulu said.

Federation ships dogged their path, but none offered a

direct challenge. Saavik left her ship's

systems open to surveillance, but continued to let

Starfleet believe that she was the only Federation

member on board.

"Lieutenant," Kirk said, "transmit a

message to

STAR TREK 111

Ambassador Sarek. Tell him we bring

McCoy, and Spock. Tell him . . . Spock

is alive. Ask him to prepare for the katra

ritual."

"Aye, sir. But..." She was still trying to sort

out the basic facts of what she had just finished read-

ing. She could hardly presume to comprehend the

philosophy. For centuries, the most

intellectual citizens of Vulcan had dedicated

their lives to its study without claiming to have reached the

limits of its meaning.

"But what, Lieutenant?"

"I do not know if that is possible." Her lack of

knowledge brought home to her, with redoubled force, comher

profound isolation from Vulcan society.

"What? What are you saying?"

"The katra ritual is meant to deposit

Spock's consciousness in the Hall of Ancient

Thought. Not back into his body."

"But we have Spock alive! Why can't they

return his katra?"

"The circumstances are most unusual. The

procedure you suggest is called fat tor pan, the

refusion. The conditions required to perform it have not

occurred for millennia. There is considerable

disagreement about whether it succeeded then, whether it could

succeed at all, and indeed whether it should succeed. The

elders may not choose even to attempt it."

"And if they don't? What will happen

to Spock?"

Saavik wished she could avoid answering James

Kirk as easily as she had avoided the questions of

Starfleet Command.

"He will remain," she said finally, unwillingly,

"always as he is . . ."

Kirk looked blankly at her, then turned and

strode from the bridge.

* * *

The Search For Spock

Spock lay on one of the pallets in the

small sick bay. McCoy stood beside him, his hand

on the pulse-point at Spock's throat. The

weak, thready beat pulsed far too slowly for a

Vulcan. McCoy passed his scanner over

Spock's body. The fragile, feeble signal

gave him no confidence. Spock had stopped aging

since they freed him from Genesis, but he had fallen

into a deep unconsciousness. As the strength of his

body ebbed, so did the strength of his spirit.

"Spock," McCoy said softly,

desperately, "I've done everything I know to do.

Help me! You stuck me with this, for gods' sake,

teach me what to do with it!" He paused, without much

hope, and received no answer from within or without. "I

never thought I'd ever say this to you," he said, and thought,

You green-blooded . . . but the old, familiar

gibe rang hollow, and he could not bring himself to speak

it aloud. "I've missed you. I couldn't . . .

I couldn't bear to lose you again."

He could feel his own strength failing him. In

despair, he hid his face *tion his hands.

He felt the touch of another hand. Jim Kirk

stood beside him, one hand on McCoy's shoulder, the

other on Spock's. The* lives had been

intertwined for so long....

Jim's face was full of grief, and yet of

determination. He gripped McCoy's shoulder

hard, as if, like a Vulcan, he could transfer

to hen some of his strength.

Chapter 1 3

Vulcan.

A desert world, limited in material

resources, yet limitless in the intellectual and

philosophical achievements of its inhabitants.

Saavik gazed upon it and wished what she had

wished since the first time she learned about this planet.

She wished she belonged here. She wished she had some

right to this world, some claim to a place upon it and within its

society. She had none of those things. She

suspected she could never earn them, no matter her

achievements.

"Home, eh, Lieutenant?"

"I beg your pardon, Admiral?" Saavik

said.

Kirk nodded toward the viewport. "Vulcan."

"Vulcan is not my home, sir. I have never

been here before."

"Oh," he said, taken aback. "I would have thought

you would at least have visited it."

The Search For Spock

"I have never been invited to Vulcan, sir."

She tried to speak as she had been taught, without

emotion. She almost succeeded, but Kirk sensed something

of her isolation.

"I think we'll find that we're welcome," he

said gently.

"The planet Vulcan is in hailing distance,

Admiral," Captain Sulu said.

"Thank you, Sulu. Saavik send a message

to Ambassador Sarek. Tell him we're coming

in."

She obeyed. A ground station accepted her

message. She waited for an answer.

"Rescue party his

In reaction to the voice, everyone on the bridge

swung toward the speaker. Sulu gave a cheer of

surprise and delight that mirrored all their

feelings. Hearing Uhura'svoice, knowing she was

well and free, was the first purely joyful thing that had

happened to any of them in far too long.

was this is Commander Uhura. Permission is

granted to land on the plain at the foot of Mount

Seleya. Ambassador Sarek is

ready." She paused. Her voice close

to breaking, she said, "Welcome. Oh, welcome

back."

The fighter shivered as its wings spread into flying

configuration. Sulu felt the energy of the ship glide

into his hands and arms and suffuse his body with a powerful

glow. He had never flown anything like this ship before.

He had developed a considerable and more than grudging

respect for the engineering abilities of the opponents

of the Federation.

He wondered what would happen to the ship. No

doubt Starfleet would seize it and send it back

to Earth to be dismembered and analysed. The idea

pained him greatly.

STAR TREK 111

He realised that this was quite probably the last time

he would ever fly any ship, of any sort.

"Captain Sulu," Kirk said, "you're on

manual."

He nodded. "It's been a while, sir." He

had not landed a ship of this size without gravity

propulsion since his student days. And, of course,

he had never landed a craft of this design. "Here

we go. Retrothrusters!"

The ship replied, responding like a dream. The

dust of the plain at the foot of Mount Seleya

billowed up around it as it settled to the ground.

The ramp hissed out and lowered itself to the ground.

Spock's friends carried his litter out into the scarlet

dusk of Vulcan.

At the foot of the ramp, Kirk stopped short and

looked out amazed. The plain led to the temple.

To either side of the long steep path, Vulcans stood

watching and waiting, curious and silent. Here and there

a torch flared against the dim light.

"My gods . . ." Kirk whispered.

"Much is at stake," Saavik said.

Kirk knew little of the Vulcan philosophy of

what he was about to ask, and he cared less. All he

wanted to hear was an acquiescence to his demand.

The light faded to the state of dimness where everything

took on an eerie cast. More torches flared.

Kirk heard running footsteps before he could tell

where they came from.

Uhura appeared before him. Jim embraced her with

his free arm. Uhura's eyes were bright with tears.

"Sarek is waiting," she said. "Above his

She slipped in between Kirk and Sulu and helped

carry the stretcher up the long path to the

crest of the hill, where the temple loomed dark and

mysterious.

Strange music teased the limits of Kirk's

hearing. As

The Search For Spock

he trudged up the slope the music grew only

a little louder. It and the flaring of the torches were the only

sounds. The enormous crowd of people watched somberly

and in utter silence.

Kirk's legs began to ache. He had fought off

his exhaustion for SQ long that he could not even

remember when last he had slept. He kept

going.

A young child let go her father's hand. She walked with

great dignity to Spock's side, and followed for a

few paces. She looked down into his face,

saluted him, and whispered, "Live long and

prosper, Spock." Then she slipped away and

vanished into the crowd again.

Sarek waited on the steps of the temple,

accompanied by several dignitaries and by six

members of the priesthood. The tall, stately

women watched with utter impassivity.

Finally Sarek strode forward to meet

them. Kirk stopped, no longer sure what he should

do.

The music faded so gradually that he was uncertain

of the transition between sound and silence.

Sarek gazed at Spock. He reached down and

placed his long, graceful hands against the sides of

Spock's face. Kirk wanted nothing more than

to grab him and shake him and make him explain what

would happen now. He glanced sidelong at

McCoy, who had reached the raw edge of his strength.

Sarek said nothing. He took one pace

backward and nodded to the members of the priesthood.

They moved between Kirk and his friends so easily, so

gently, and with such assurance that they hardly seemed

to be displacing them. The women took Spock in their

hands and carried him away. Sarek followed.

Kirk watched, astonished. The Vulcans

carried Spock easily, but their hands were not

underneath his body.

They were on top of it.

STAR TREK 111

Kirk hurried after them.

He passed between massive stone pillars and

stopped at the edge of a circular,

slightly dished platform. An altar rose at its

far side. T'Lar, the leader of the Vulcan

priesthood, waited in stately silence as her

subordinates brought Spock to her. They began a

low chant that penetrated to the bones.

Sarek paused and faced Kirk.

"This is where you must wait."

Unwillingly, Kirk obeyed. The music began

again. Sarek faced the altar as his son's body

sank gently to the age-smoothed granite and lay

motionless as stone. Lee music and the chant ceased

simultaneously.

"Sarek," T'Lar said. Her voice, barely a

whisper, carried to them sharp and clear. "Sarek, child of

Skon, child of Solkar. The body of your child breathes

still. What is your wish?"

"I ask for fat tor pan," Sarek said. "The

refusion."

"What you seek has not been done since ages

past. It has succeeded only in legend. Your

request is not Iogicah,"

"Forgive me, T'Lar," Sarek said. He

sounded very tired, and Kirk realized this must be the most

difficult thing he had said in a hundred twenty

years. "My logic falters . . . where

my son is concerned."

T'Lar looked beyond Sarek to Kirk and his friends.

She looked Kirk straight in the eye. Her

gaze, as sharp as a weapon, touched him, then

granted him mercy. She turned her attention

to McCoy.

"Who is the keeper of the katra?" The question,

clearly, lay in ritual; she knew the answer

to what she asked.

Sarek nodded at McCoy. McCoy stared

straight ahead, fixed by the power of T'Lar's

eyes.

"Bones was Kirk said urgently under his breath.

The Search For Spock

McCoy finally replied. "I am," he said

hesitantly. "McCoy . . . Leonard H."

He took a long breath of the rarefied air of

Vulcan. "Son of David and Eleanora . . .

his

"McCoy, son of David, son of Eleanora

. . ."

McCoy shivered.

"Since thou art human, and without knowledge of our

philosophy, we cannot expect thee to understand

fully what Sarek has requested. The

circumstances are extraordinary. Spock's body

lives. With shine approval, we will use all our

powers to return to his body that which thou cost

possess his essence. But, McCoy . . ."

T'Lar let the silence surround them and press

down against them. Kirk could see the faint sheen of

sweat on McCoy's forehead.

"You must now be warned," T'Lar said,

speaking with complete formality. "The danger to you is

as grave as the danger to Spock."

Now Kirk shivered, and tried to tell himself it was

only the rapid cooling of a desert at night.

"You must make the choice." T'Lar waited for

McCoy"'9 reply. Her dispassionate

expression offered neither encouragement nor warning.

McCoy, in his turn, let the silence stretch

out.

"I choose the danger," he said. Under his breath,

to Kirk, he muttered, "He11uva time to ask."

Kirk repressed a smile and fought down a

laugh, knowing it to be a laugh of apprehension. He

and McCoy both knew the choice to be

between madness and the risk of death.

"Bring him forward!" T'Lar said.

Sarek led McCoy across the long empty

platform and stopped before the altar. Kirk knew

he could do nothing, yet he hated letting McCoy

go alone, to face . . .

STAR TREK 111

A bolt of heat lightning shattered the silence.

McCoy let Sarek draw him forward to the

altar. Abruptly he stood all alone.

Spock lay before him, and T'Lar stood above them

both. McCoy was aware of music, a

rhythmic chant, and the thin sharp sighing of the wind.

The powerful voice of the Vulcan leader echoed around

him. "All that can be done, shall be done, though it take

full turn of the Vulcan sun."

T'Lar stroked her fingers along his temple.

Her touch was like fire, and he gasped. An alien

consciousness stirred deep within his mind.

Terror-stricken, he struggled against it.

The voice he heard was wordless and silent, yet so

loud he feared it would strike him deaf. He could not

see, and he feared he had been blinded as well.

"Yes! Strive, fight! Employ the power of

shine alien emotions! Wrest back thy life!"

Thunder pounded at him, and he screamed.

Built high on the slopes of Mount Seleya,

the retreat of the adepts of the discipline of ancient

thought had grown and changed over many

generations. Its hallways and galleries cut

deep into bedrock. It was said that they looped back

upon themselves and never reached an end; it was said that one could

wander through them for a lifetime and never walk the same

path twice.

Amanda Grayson, student and adept of the

discipline, citizen of Earth, knew of no one who

claimed complete familiarity with the maze. Most of the

deepest caverns had long fallen inffdisuse. Even

the most ascetic of Vulcans preferred open

spaces, open air, and the heat of the huge red sun.

The retreat overlooked the plain at the foot of

Seleya. Amanda stepped out onto her balcony,

into

The Search For Spock

darkness. The face of the retreat stretched away

to either side, a long stream of carven rock. Its

organic curves and graceful arcs flowed easily

and imperceptibly into balconies, pathways,

entrances, windows.

Amanda put her hands on the smooth

surface of the parapet. The stone held the heat of the

day, though the air had already grown chilly.

Long stretches of time often passed during which the

plain far below remained deserted. In all the years

Amanda had studied the discipline, she had never seen

more than a few people at a time approach the temple.

Citizens who had reached the death of the body were brought

to Mount Seleya by close family members, perhaps

by comrades with whom they had formed

intellectual ties. The student-adepts then

helped the citizen sever the bond between body and mind,

between substance and soul. After that, the body could go to dust

and ashes, but the presence retired to the Hall of

Ancient Thought. Always before, the studentadepts

carried out the procedure in private, in an

atmosphere of calm. comtilde

All that was changed. An enormous, silent,

curious crowd had gathered on the plain. Their

torches cast an eerie glow over the land, the

courtyard, the temple. The light was far too dim

for Amanda to see the processional, but she knew every

detail of the ceremony. She followed it, in her

mind, as if she could affect it with her imagination and

carry it to the conclusion she sought. And perhaps she could.

She dared not try to reach out to her son with her

thoughts, not now, not yet, but her heart was with him.

T'Mei knocked softly on the door, entered,

and paused at the balcony's doorway. The young

Vulcan was still many years away from adding "adept"

to her title of student, which Amanda had done not too

long before. Adepts of the discipline never abandoned the

STAR TREK 111

appellation, "student." They preferred always to be

reminded that the universe still held things they did not

know. T'Lar, the most learned of them all, had

recently and without comment ceased to use the title

"adept." She now called herself merely student.

"Amanda?"

"Yes, child."

"Do you need anything?"

"No, my dear," Amanda said. "I don't need

any- thing, except to have my wishes answered."

"I cannot do that," T'Mei said.

Amanda smiled. "I know it. Come stand by me."

T'Mei joined Amanda on the balcony. She

moved so gracefully, with such self-possession,

that she made hardly a sound. Her dark gold hair

fell free past her waist.

"One of your wishes is to be in the

temple," T'Mei said.

"Yes. I never thought I'd live to see the time

when my own son was a subject of the discipline.

Certainly- I never would have wished it! But now I do

wish I could be there. Spock is balanced between

refusion and oblivion and I can't even help him!"

She slapped the parapet with anger and frustration. From

the time of her marriage to Sarek she had known that

to adopt Vulcan

manners completely would be her destruction.

Exhibiting her emotions beyond all courtesy would have

run counter to her own upbringing, but neither did she try

to smother or deny her feelings. At the beginning of her

training, this all-too-human characteristic counted against

her, but she proved herself worthy nonetheless.

Once in a while she appreciated, and even

envied, the equanimity of Vulcans. For Amanda,

the days since Spock's death had been an

unending succession of powerful emotions grief when

the news first came, and 290

The Search For Spock

hope of saving his presence, then a desperate

anguish when it seemed that even Spock's katra

had been lost. And now she was faced with the powerful,

incredible possibility that her son still might

live.

But it hasn't been easy for Sarek, either,

Amanda thought. Equanimity or no, he's felt

these past days deeply.

I"...Mei rested her elbows on the parapet and

gazed thoughtfully down at the temple.

"It would be most fascinating to attend the

refusion," she said. "It is unlikely that this

precise constellation of circumstances will recur in

our lifetimes."

"Or in this millennium," Amanda said. "But I

want to be down there for personal reasons not

historical ones."

"Your position is ironic," T'Mei said.

"A studentadept, yet a relative of the

subject, when the subject is unique."

"Ironic's hardly the word for it," Amanda said.

No student-adept could ever participate in, or

even observe, the transfer of a close relative.

The katra was fragile and easily lost. To free

it from the bearer and place it in the Hall of Ancient

Thought; the studentadepts formed delicate,

temporary psychic ties around it, and dissolved them

again on completing the passage. If mental

connections already existed between a subject and

an adept, as they did when the two belonged to the

same family, the resonances created an interference

that invariably proved disastrous.

How the interference might affect the refusion, no

one even attempted to speculate.

When James Kirks message arrived, it had

a galvanic effect on the inhabitants of the

retreat. Many questions had to be answered instantly,

questions that for generations had been discussed, analysed, and

debated without any final

resolution. Amanda would have had no 291

STAR TREK 111

time to prepare her case, even had she wished

to argue against her exclusion from the ritual which she did

not. She knew from the beginning that she could not be a

member of the group that assisted her son. She

understood the logic of avoiding such a completely

unnecessary risk. But her intellectual acceptance of

matters did absolutely nothing to diminish her

emotional desire, her need, to be in the temple,

to try to help.

"It is unfortunate that you must forgo participating

in this unique experience," T'Mei said.

"I don't give a hang for the uniqueness of the

experience!" Amanda said angrily. She

had to switch to

Standard to get her point across. Vulcan was far

too refined for what she had to say. "Dammit!

Right this minute I wish I'd never studied the

discipline!"

"Amanda," T'Mei said, perplexed, "I do not

under- stand."

"If I weren't a student-adept, I wouldn't

endanger Spock just by being near him! At least I

could be down there! At least Sarek and I could be together

tonight!"

She turned away from T'Mei and stared down at

the bright sparks of the torches. She was furious at

her helplessness and at the injustice of the universe,

too furious even to cry.

T'Mei stood beside her in silence, unable

to comprehend her hope, her grief, her anger, or

her love.

Jim Kirk was exhausted. He had spent the

long cold Vulcan night knowing he could do nothing but

wait, knowing that it would make sense . . . that it would

be logical . . . to rest. But he was too tired

to sleep, too keyed up. It seemed that this night

he might lose all the people who meant the most to him.

He had lost David already, and he had not

even been permitted to contact Carol and tell her

what had happened. Or, rather, he had not been

prevented, but it had been made clear to 292

The Search For Spock

him that if he left the mountain and the temple before the

end of the ritual, he would not be able to return. To the

Vulcans, the stricture seemed completely

logical. To Kirk, it seemed a cruel choice.

In the end, he had stayed. He could not help his

friends, but he could not leave them, either, not when they both

ran such a tremendous risk.

Jim envied Scotty, sprawled against a stone

pillar, gently snoring. Chekov sat with his knees

pulled to his chest, his arms folded, his head down.

Uhura lay on the stone with her cheek pillowed on

her hand, as lithe as a cat, and, Jim thought, as

alert, even in sleep. Saavik waited for the

dawn, her legs crossed beneath her, her hands palm

down and relaxed, her eyes open and

unblinking. Sulu knelt motionless on the stone,

sitting seiza with his eyes half closed.

Kirk strode from one pillar to the next and back

again, trying to fight off the bone-deep chill. At

night, what little moisture was in the Vulcan air

condensed out as frost. Kirk's lungs ached

and his throat was dry and raspy.

He made himself sit down; he pretended to rest.

The stars in Vulcan's empty sky were marvelously

bright and clear. The dawn-wind began to blow, cold

and harsh, whipping up dust-devils from the desiccated

land.

Within the space of a few breaths the stars faded and

vanished, and the sky changed from black to a

brilliant royalpurple. The dawn-wind died

abruptly. The scarlet disk of Epsilon

Eridani burst above the horizon, casting

impenetrable shadows through the temple and searing the

desert as it had at every dawn for countless millennia.

A gong rang.

Kirk leaped to his feet.

T'Lar appeared first. She lay supine in a

sedan chair 293

STAR TREK 111

carried by the dignitaries who had waited

silently all night long. Kirk took a step

toward her, but she neither stirred nor opened her

eyes. The power she wielded had drained and

exhausted her, leavin g her wan and frail. The

Vulcans bearing her toward the dawn passed Kirk

without acknowledging his presence.

McCoy stepped wearily into the sunlight that

pierced the shadows behind the altar. Though Sarek

supported him, the doctor was moving under his own

power. The members of the

priesthood, tall and serene in their long hooded

cloaks, followed behind. The Vulcans remained

completely impassive, showing neither exultation nor

despair.

For gods' sakes, Jim cried in his mind, what

happened? What happened?

At the end of the procession, a single figure,

robed in stark white, moved past the altar. The

hood was so deep, the robe so brilliantly

white, that the thick scarlet light of dawn

obscured the being's features rather than illuminating

them.

Nearby, Saavik drew a quick breath of

recognition? Of distress? Jim Kirk could not

tell.

He became aware of his shipmates, if that term

had any meaning for them anymore. They

clustered dose around him, Sulu and Uhura on

his right, Chekov and Scott on his left, the engineer

stiff and sore and sleepy. Saavik stood a little

apart from the rest.

As the procession crossed the platform, Sarek

broke off from the group and brought McCoy to join his

friends. Sulu moved forward to help support him.

"Leonard was Jim said.

"It's all right...." McCoy said. Weariness

faded his voice to a whisper. "I'm all right,

Jim."

Sulu drew McCoy's arm across his shoulders and

supported most of his weight. McCoy

managed a smile, 294

The Search For Spock

a grip of his hand on Sulu's upper arm, as he

accepted the aid gratefully.

The white-robed figure at the end of the

procession walked past without a glance or

hesitation. Jim still could not see beneath the hood, but he

knew the stride, the carriage. Saavik started

toward the figure, but Jim grabbed her arm. He

could not stop her if she chose to break free, but she

halted at his touch.

"What about . . . Spock?" Jim said

to Sarek.

"I am not sure," Sarek said. "Only time will

an- swer." He turned his head toward the robed

figure, then back to Jim.

"Kirk. I thank you." Sarek's voice, if

not his words, admitted that the night's work might have

failed. "What you have done is his

"What I have done, I had to do," Kirk said

harshly. He thought he saw a flicker of

sympathy, even of pity, in Sarek's eyes. He

did not want pity.

"But at what cost? Your ship." The lines around

his eyes deepened. "Your son...."

Jim felt that if he acknowledged what Sarek was

trying to say to him, his whole being would shatter with

grief.

"If I hadn't tried, the cost would have been my

soul."

Sarek nodded, accepting Jim's unwillingness

to speak any further or any deeper. He turned

and walked silently away. Vulcan's star hung

just above the horizon, an enormous scarlet disk,

silhouetting first the procession, then a tall and

solitary figure. The wind whined mournfully and

fluttered the edge of the white robe.

Jim shaded his eyes with his hands, squinting into the

dawn for one last glimpse of his old friend.

Live long, he thought. Live long and prosper.

And the figure slowly turned. 295

STAR TREK 111

One of the members of the procession heard or sensed

his motion and reached back, but Sarek stayed her hand.

The sun shone incandescently through the fabric of the

white hood, from behind, casting the face into deep

shadow.

He hesitated, then walked slowly toward Jim

Kirk and his friends.

He stopped, reached up, drew the hood back from

his face, and let it fall to his shoulders.

The pain had left Spock's face, the pain,

and the horrible emptiness, His deep gaze questioned Jim

gently and wordlessly. An intent intelligence,

impatient with uncertainty, lit his eyes.

He glanced from Jim to each of his other shipmates

in turn Sulu, Uhura, McCoy, Chekov,

Scott; and finally Saavik. It seemed to Jim that

he reached the brink of recognition with each of them, but

could not quite cross the boundary.

Spock returned his gaze to Jim Kirk. The

hot wind of Vulcan wailed over the desert with a

keening cry.

"I know you . . ." His voice rasped across the

words. "Do I not?"

"Yes," Kirk said. "And I, you."

"My father says you have been my friend. You came

back for me."

"You would have done the same for me," Kirk said,

willing Spock to remember something from before, something that

had happened before they brought him home.

"Why would you do this?" Spock asked.

"Because was Kirk fumbled for words that would form even a

tenuous connection between past and present. "Because the

needs of the one outweighed the needs of the many."

Spock stared down at him, still without real

recognition. He turned away again and took a

few uncertain

296 The Search For Spock

steps toward his father, toward the other Vulcans.

Kirk reached out, but he knew he had been right when

earlier he prevented Saavik from stopping him. They

might provide a key, but none could force Spock

to remember.

What could I have said? he wondered. What was the

right thing?

He let his hands fall.

A few paces away, Spock paused. He

looked up into the deep sky.

"I have been . . ." he said.

At his strained and tortured voice,

Jim moved instinctively toward him.

"... and always shall be ... your friend...."

"Yes," Jim whispered. "Yes, Spock."

Spock half turned. "The ship," he said.

"Out of danger. . . ?"

"You saved the ship, Spock You saved us all!

Don't you remember?"

Spock said nothing for a moment. He cocked his

head, as if listening to some far-away inner voice.

He arched his eyebrow and slowly faced Jim

Kirk.

"Jim," he said softly. "Your name is Jim."

"Yes!" Jim's voice broke, and he caught

his breath.

Spock nodded once, briefly, as if

acknowledging to himself that he had found the proper path.

He glanced at McCoy, and then at the others.

Suddenly all his old shipmates clustered around

him, laughing and crying at the same time. None of them

knew for certain an instant of what the future would

bring, but each knew that for now, for this moment, everything

was all right.

297 COMPLETELY NEW NOVELS Join

Captain Kirk. Mr. Spock and the crew of the

Enterprise in totally original

adventures. Written

by an array of major science fiction authors.

these Journeys through the galaxies are sparklingly

fresh and exciting sagas.

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