Kraith Collected

He went on to describe the arrangement for transportation that were at that moment being made, and the refunds of all fees paid in advance. Spock wasn’t listening. He was watching the tour Guide. The boy wore the simple red uniform of Vulcan Tours. He was slightly built, with a thin, sharp-nosed face and deep brace eyes that seemed to see everything at once. Right now, the boy was looking at Spock with a sort of wide-eyed awe that was the closest to reverence his Vulcan training would allow. He was oblivious to the glances being shot at him by the humans who had been denied their holiday.

Spock guessed what had happened. He’d worked for Vulcan Tours himself at that age . . . fourteen, he guessed the lad to be. The Beom Tour was a tight schedule, arriving at sunrise and leaving at sunset. But Earth-human tourists were the most unruly in the galaxy. This particular group was predominantly female, and they were all carefully groomed females, too. Even on Pilgrimage, Spock’s ability to add two and two wasn’t impaired. This tour was hours behind schedule, and the tourists blamed the Guide. Vulcan Tours would also blame the Guide for the unhappy customers if not for the delays.

Spock took pity on the boy. It could have been him standing there. He rose from his seat and placed a hand on the Chief Attendant’s elbow. "Sinzu, I’m not in that much of a hurry. Let them finish their tour and have dinner. There’s no sense sending them home tired and hungry and with nothing to show for the day."

"But . . ."

"I insist. I will wait."

He’d said it in English, one of the universals of the human communities, and the language Sinzu had employed. The smiles and smug glances darted toward the Guide attested to the understanding of the message. What the humans failed to understand was the unprecedented nature of the occurrence. A Pilgrim rarely spoke at all, never spoke anything but Vulcanir if necessary, and never, but absolutely never, deferred to anybody for any reason.

The Guide understood, though, and the dumbstruck expression of shock and amazement lingered long after the buggy had passed through the gate and discharged its august passenger at the utsulan’s corner door.

The boy’s father, however, would have been proud to see that, within moments after the black and gold disappeared from view, his son came to life once more. Clearing his throat of the inhaled grit, he said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, you have just witnessed the arrival of a Pilgrim at Beom, an event which has remained, so far as I know, unavailable to any other tourist group. Now if you will all follow me into the lecture room, you will be shown a tape describing the historical significance of the valley. At one time this was the most fertile region of Vulcan . . ."

Within the utsulan proper, the boy’s voice was inaudible. Thick masonry and layers of a glassy slag insulated the corridors from external influences. However, the pyramid was anything but solid. It was honeycombed with layer upon layers of tunnels and chambers, some of which had been walled up and forgotten for thousands of years.

With the Chief Attendant trotting at his heels, Spock abode those corridors as much in possession of the place as if they were the corridors of the __Enterprise__. And his darting eyes missed no more than a First Officer’s inspection. As he had traveled the face of the planet, he had visited utsulan after utsulan, and in each he had found some irregularities. True, it took only one quick glance at the Chief Attendant, and the situation was immediately corrected. But Spock considered the existence of a correctable flaw as a disgrace in itself. He had taken it as his duty to exact the maximum penalty in each case. And the Attendants Collect had seen fit to back him up in every instance. The wrath of a Pilgrim was to be avoided at all costs. But Spock did not enjoy the exercise of power. He sought only the end of his quest.

And now that he knew he would find it at Beom, strangely enough he wasn’t in any real hurry to mount the wheerr. Beom was his during his stay. He would enjoy for a few hours, savoring his anticipation of success at last, the final and complete success that would open the door his Pilgrimage had slammed shut between him and Kirk. Wryly he remembered his words to Stonn, so many years ago. "Having is not so satisfying a thing as wanting." He would indulge himself in wanting for a few hours more.

Outside the utsulan, as Spock prowled the corridors looking for any slightest misalignment, any speck of dust, any chipped or broken components, the tourists piled into waiting sand buggies and prepared for a junket down the valley to see the legendary Pillars, one of the Ten Wonders of Vulcan not to be missed by any tourist. As their Guide began the spiel preceding their caravan down the valley, a tiny speck in the sky grew into an aircar which swooped low over the utsulan, and circled onto the sands beside the buggy which had delivered the Pilgrim.

Wondering if they were being treated to two Pilgrims in one day, the tourists aimed their recorders. As the occupant alighted, there was a general sigh of disappointment. No black and gold, just an ordinary civilian. But then their Guide’s voice came over the intercoms. "Ladies and Gentlemen, Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan."

Those who had put their recorders away grabbed them out again, but Sarek’s back receded into the shadows of that mysterious door and he was gone. There was an audible sigh of disappointment, followed by a general gabble.

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Sarek heard none of this. He was intent upon his own concerns. One of the Attendants escorted him rapidly down to the anti-wheerr where Spock was inspecting the facilities.

For the Pilgrim’s Inspection, the nether chamber giving access to the bottom of the main crystal was lighted with portable lamps placed along the downward trending corridor and in the anti-wheerr itself. Whereas in all the other still functioning utsulan, the anti-wheerr was a mere token crawl-space, at Beom it was a luxuriantly appointed chamber with walls and floor set in richly patterned mosaics, studded with slivers of gemstones that picked up and broke the light of the main crystal into billions of shimmering pinpoints.

The room that Sarek entered was about forty feet in radius. On a circular rim raised about six inches above the floor, a low bench ran the entire perimeter of the room. It, too, was covered with intricate patterns of tile and gemstone. Apparently it wasn’t meant to be sat upon.

From the center of the low ceiling jutted the bottom of the gigantic orange crystal that was the heart of the Beom installation. Directly under the crystal, a dais rose four steps above the floor so that even a short person could reach up and touch the crystal. The dais was surrounded by a rope barrier.

At the barrier stood Spock, gleaming black cloak thrown carelessly off his shoulders, head back as he searched the crystal’s reflections. Behind him, the Chief Attendant stood quietly awaiting the Pilgrim’s approval which he knew was Beom’s well-earned due.

Sarek paused at the door until Spock had completed his examination. Then he stepped forward, waiting recognition. He knew that Spock would be within his rights to refuse that recognition, but he hoped that his son would not refuse.

And he did not. He turned to the Chief Attendant. "Leave us."

Sinzu opened his mouth to protest. It was his duty to be present whenever the anti-wheerr was open. But a Pilgrim . . .

Spock repeated, tonelessly but firmly, "Leave us."

He shut his mouth and left. Certainly between these two, Beom was in good hands. They would never inadvertently damage the crystal.

Spock folded his arms across his chest, feet braced apart. "Speak, Father."

"I have been waiting the completion of your Pilgrimage for many weeks. It can wait no longer. Yet I must apologize. Were our positions reversed, I doubt if I would listen to such presumptuousness."

"I await the departure of the tourists. I have time to listen."

"You . . ."

"At my own request, Father."

"Yes, of course." To cover his momentary confusion, Sarek took a few moments to circle the central dais and come up beside his son. "The matter concerns Jim. That is the only reason I considered taking such liberty."

"You did well. Continue."

"Soled informs me that he will soon be ready for his first visit home."

"I would like to be there. If I am finished, I will be."

"That is not my purpose. The matter which must be settled soon concerns his betrothal. Your mother and I have been unable to reach an agreement, and she insisted that you be consulted."

"You have located a suitable choice?"

"Not precisely. I have been unable to convince her that he must marry a Vulcan."

"I see."

"Your decision, of course, as Head of Family, is beyond appeal."

"He is your son. The choice is yours by right. I would prefer to leave it that way."

"You __would__ . . . ?"

"But, as you are no doubt aware, Jim’s culture includes the element of independent choice of mate. And he is an adult, even by Vulcan standards. Has he requested tslo-farr?"

"No. But how can he choose logically if he is unacquainted with the possibilities?"

"True."

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"Your mother agrees there is no harm in introducing him to appropriate people--as soon as he is ready to meet people that is."

"You expect him to be ready on his first visit?"

"Soled reports that he is an unusually persistent pupil. He has mastered nearly eighty per cent of his estimated maximum during First Session."

"Jim is a remarkable individual. I’ve never doubted that."

"There are no human females at Dakainya now."

"Ah, now I see!"

"Am I not correct in assuming . . ."

"Perfectly."

"There is one individual I would like him to meet."

"Hmmm?"

"T’Lel."

"Indeed."

"You approve?"

"No."

Spock had used the Vulcanir negative which indicated that while he did not approve, neither did he disapprove. "Why does Mother disapprove?"

"She expects Jim to . . ." Sarek paused to consider if he should bring the subject up, considering Spock’s Pilgrimage. But Spock beat him to the draw. ". . . give her the grandchild I have not?"

"You understand your mother."

"Contrary. Her mind eludes me. She has, however, expressed the conviction to me . . . as politely as she knew how."

"There is no polite way."

"Agreed." Spock shifted uneasily. It was beginning to feel close and stuffy in the underground chamber despite the cool air that constantly moved through the room from the vents.

"Your mother wanted me to make sure you had heard the news regarding T’Aniyeh’s name."

"News?"

"The name has been assigned to Siyr’s wife, and she has chosen it. Her acceptance speech emphasized that she considered it an honor."

Spock looked back up into the crystal. It was almost dark now, and acting like a mirror. He saw his own face, drawn into long planes and deeply graven lines.

"She was given a full hundred names to choose from."

"I am honored at her choice."

"I can understand that."

"Can you?" As he said it, Spock regretted the utterance. It revealed too much of his own pain. His hand went to the clasp that held his cloak and he released it, flinging the shimmering garment onto the circular bench behind him. He paced off a quarter of the circle and stood looking up into the crystal again. He knew he shouldn’t be speaking like this. The strength for it wasn’t in him yet. His Pilgrimage was still unfinished, though it lay within his grasp now. He hoped his father would blame that for his slip.

Sarek took his time circling the crystal, the long way around to where Spock stood. When he reached his son, he had made his decision. He took the Pilgrim’s shoulders in his hands and forced him to turn away from the crystal. "Spock, my son, my heir, I demand that you accept talo-farr from me. I demand it in Aivahnya’s name."

It was an unthinkable thing for a father to say, yet Sarek said it the way a drowning man calls for help. That very urgency was what undid Spock. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to accept tslo-farr and let his father choose his next wife.

The next moment, he realized what he had almost said, and what the consequences would be. He pulled back, sweat starting out on his face as he moved his head from side to side, not in the human gesture of negation, but in an attempt to avoid his father’s eyes. When he spoke,

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it was in a rough whisper, rich with fascinated horror. "Father, I cannot. I . . . can . . . not!"

He gathered one last surge of strength and wrenched himself away from that grip, staggering to the bench where his cloak lay. He fell to the floor, beside the cloak, arms resting on the bench, and there he laid down his head and wished he were alone so he could sob out loud.

But his father would not leave him, and now that it was spoken, he could not ask him to. "Spock, what is it? What’s happened?"

Fingering the Pilgrim’s cloak, Spock took his time gathering enough composure to answer. He had to go through the whole exercise three times before it took effect. But when he finally did speak, he at least sounded rational again. "It is quite simple, Father. The Severance from T’Aniyeh almost killed me. I do not believe I am able to expose myself to that once more. A half-human body has physical limitations that must be lived with . . . and died with. I only hope that I will have time to train the Second Realm in Suvil’s precepts and memory.

"Don’t tell Mother just yet. Let her have her grandson from Jim."

"It’s not the same."

"True. But it is all she will ever have."

"Perhaps not."

"It is so. Some things never heal."

"You should have had help with the Severance. It was for you like a sixth?"

"Worse. I couldn’t control it at all. The pain is still there, walled up, but raw."

"Have you consulted anyone?"

"No. It’s no use. To whom can I go?"

"T’Uriamne."

"I couldn’t. It requires trust."

"She would do it in good faith. She is Vulcan."

"But I couldn’t. I am half human. I have considered all of this at great length. It is no use. And there is no other qualified."

"T’Pau . . ."

"Is too old. Her heart would fail."

"Soled has granddaughters. They are young yet, but perhaps they will be grown in time."

He was grasping at straws and they both knew it. "Any other mind than a Daughter of the First Realm would collapse. It would be murder. I apologize."

"Unnecessary. You are my son."

"Then let Jim be the grandson I couldn’t give you. If I had a brother, he couldn’t be closer than Jim."

"The First Realm will be terminated."

Gathering his strength, Spock rose, hoping the action would indicate his acceptance of his fate. "Perhaps it is time for a new First Realm. In any event, there is nothing that I can do . . ." Spock saw the room recede into the distance, as if he were rocketing away from it at warp speed. The weakness that seized him then made the experience on the desert sands seem as nothing.

The muscles of his hand relaxed involuntarily, until they were flaccid like those of a paralytic. His arms went numb. The all-important balancing muscles of back and abdomen ceased to play against one another, and his body slumped forward. His knees and calves released their grip. Strangely enough, he didn’t expect to fall. He flung out his arms as if to lay his head upon a tabletop, but there was no table, and he toppled forward head first.

"Spock!" Sarek’s firm grip took him under the arms and eased him to the floor, but he never felt the contact.

Nor did he feel himself being lifted and carried and thrust upward into contact with the Beom crystal. Sarek, in a last desperate attempt to save his son’s life, injected his own mind into triple rapport between Spock and the crystal. Seizing upon the power of the utsulan, Sarek sent a spear of pure energy racing back along the linkage that was draining Spock’s vitality.

At that moment, he didn’t care if that lance of savagely released power maimed or killed the one responsible. __He__ __who__ __touched__ __a__ __Pilgrim__ __deserved__ __no__ __consideration__.

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The crystal began to pulse with glimmers of light, throbbing in increasing tempo. The utsulan awakened, trembling as from a long sleep . . . it __growled__ from its depths, shaking the ground in ominous majesty. The resounders strung on lines from the uprights at the center of each face of the pyramid began to pulse in resonance, casting up their aura of coruscating light. But instead of the usual, deep purple, the utsulan throbbed blue, occasionally pulsing greenish, and only once in a while was there a glimmer of purple.

But within the anti-wheerr, none of this was visible. The main crystal gave off dazzling displays of oranges, yellows and even reds that seemed to be aimed directly at the chips of gemstone embedded in the walls and floor. The entire chamber became sun-bright with scintillating reflections, dancing shafts of intense light bounced from wall to wall, and increasing with every reflection.

The surge seemed to feed itself, multiplying with frightening rapidity. The deep growl rose higher and higher in pitch, heterodyning into the ultra-sonic range within seconds, until horror-stricken Attendants who had been busy here and there throughout the pyramid stared about themselves wide-eyed, certain that the very crystal would shatter.

The Beom utsulan was operating in a mode that had not been touched in thousands of years . . . but operate it did. The whole pyrotechnic display lasted no more than fifteen seconds. Then the paralytic mind-meld which had victimized Spock was snapped clean. Instantly, the utsulan reverted to quiescence. But the damage had been done.

Sinzu found Sarek bent over Spock’s unconscious body, directly under the lower-most facet of the crystal depending from the ceiling. The rope barrier had been knocked down on the far side of the door. The Pilgrim’s cloak lay on the floor beside the rim bench. The room was unbearably __hot__.

Panting from the all-out run down the corridor to the anti-wheer, Sinzu approached the pair. It was all over now. No point in great haste, yet obviously decisive action must be taken immediately. The Pilgrim’s welfare was the first concern. The mysterious surge of power could be investigated later.

Sinzu stepped to a recessed wall-bracket and used the speaker to call for a stretcher, and to order the Resident Physician to attend.

Sarek rose. "He seems to be in total withdrawal. But I believe I acted in time. He’ll live."

"__You__ activated the crystal? From down __here__?"

"I had to. There was some sort of peculiar mindmeld assaulting him. His heart stopped for at least twenty seconds. But he’ll live." Sarek looked directly into Sunzu’s eyes. "I did not intend to damage the crystal."

"I’ve set a crew to assessing the results. Any serious damage will probably be due to the presence of out-worlders in the valley."

Sarek had forgotten about the Terrans. "I hope none of them were injured."

The stretcher arrived, and conversation ceased. The physician met them half-way out of the utsulan and accompanied them on the short ride back to the Resident’s Infirmary. Spock never did realize it, but he was laid in the same bed where T’Aniyeh slept off the aftermath of her donation to Beom.

At this moment, the room was vacant save for Spock and the cluster of deeply concerned Attendants. Sarek stood at the foot of his son’s bed and relived those crucial moments again and again.

There had been much that he hadn’t had time to notice or respond to properly. It had happened so quickly! He was now convinced it had been an error to approach Spock with the problem of Kirk’s spouse, and the error had been compounded by opening the subject which had led to Spock’s forced confession of failure. A Pilgrim should not speak.

Yet he was not totally convinced Spock’s collapse was due solely to the over-strain that had preceded the attack. There had been something very strange in that linkage . . . a doubling of impressions and a feeling of vast __distance__ being spanned. Or no, not __distance__ exactly, but something akin to it. It had been so vague that Sarek refrained from mentioning it to the physicians. It might have been an error in his own perceptual interpretation. It was more elusive than a forgotten dream, no more than a lingering taste of strangeness that nevertheless had a familiarity within it.

But Sarek was ruthlessly accurate in his report of the conversation that had preceded the attack. "We were discussing . . . personal matters. The strain on him was obvious. At one point, the information that I delivered caused him to attack my competence. From the unwarranted severity of his retort, I deduced that he was in very grave difficulty. His mother is human, and thus he has certain personality traits which are extremely difficult for a Vulcan to understand. Through long exposure, I’ve developed a fair ability to calculate these aberrations."

Sarek looked from one face to another and saw detached professional interest. These were physicians gathering data to treat a patient. They had to understand that patient’s mental

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state. "Siyr has only daughters. That could make Spock the last of the First Realm. I came to understand in that moment that because he is half-human, he would continue to refuse to request tslo-farr. I decided it was my duty as a father . . . and as a Vulcan, to demand it."

Even the professional calm shuddered under that admission. They traded glances around the circle, and then looked to Spock’s face, rock-steady in repose. Sarek continued, "I was both right and wrong in that. It was the right thing to do, but the wrong time to do it. There had been an important fact he’d been withholding from me . . . possibly in the belief that I would not be able to understand.

His Severances had been more severe than is normal for a Vulcan. He now believes himself unable to attain ne’ir once more."

The sharply indrawn breaths were a collective gasp of alarm. Sinzu whispered, "T’Uriamne?"

"There is no trust between them. Spock believes himself totally unable to commit himself in that fashion. She has shown herself only as his adversary."

"For tsaichrani, she . . ."

"She would, but he cannot. He is half-human."

The Chief Physician said, "He might well prefer this death to that."

"Exactly my point in recounting this. He believes the situation to be hopeless. He lives now only to train the Second Realm, and to finish what he has started."

The men and women clustered around the patient’s bed, taking readings and muttering to each other. Sarek left them to their conferences, knowing his son was in the best possible hands. Sinzu joined him.

As they emerged into the late afternoon sun, a sand buggy slid to a stop before the Chief Attendant. The driver, an employee of Vulcan Tours by his uniform, jumped out. "Sinzu, almost all the Terrans collapsed screaming and clutching their heads! We need a full emergency crew at the Pillars immediately. Send who you can spare. I’m going to Tourist Central to alert the ambulance craft."

CHAPTER THREE

COMMODORE SPOCK ACTS

Kirk woke to cherry-red dawn light from the cloudless Vulcan sky that filled every window. The Infirmary room where he’d spent the night was large and airy and lonely. He was the only patient, and the staff took little interest in him since he’d been tacitly discharged as healthy. They’d wanted to monitor his body functions during the night, so he’d remained.

Now he rose and dressed. He didn’t feel unwell, but there was a creeping horror lurking somewhere behind a veil in his mind. He admitted a profound aversion to re-entering Soled’s studio. Fortunately for his peace of mind, he knew that Soled had been sent to the Academy of Sciences hospital for study by the Legion of Medicine experts. Nobody told him anything more than that it was expected he’d recover completely, but he was quite old.

Seeing nobody about to stop him, Kirk headed for the dining hall in order to avoid the inevitable hospital meal that had been ordered for him. He was assigned field duty for the day, and he wanted some solid calories in him for that. Field duty was the administration’s idea of resting up from a long stint at the learning console. And Soled had promised him a day in the fields.

Actually, Kirk rather looked forward to the change. It was freedom of a sort and he relished it. What took the edge off his anticipation was that Soled wouldn’t be waiting when he returned. And Soled, Kirk realized with a tiny shiver, was his foster-cousin several hundred times removed. His absence was like a big hole in his life, a big, sudden, hole.

Kirk found his food going down in hard lumps despite his appetite. The dining commons was teaming with hasty eaters, and Kirk, seated at a long table with those headed for the fields, failed to respond to the feeling of acceptance, of belonging and warmth that always engaged him when he was a member of a predominantly Vulcan work-crew.

He knew that the other humans mostly found the Vulcans cold and stand-offish. There was no small-talk at the table, very little in the way of traded glances, and absolutely none of the little signals with which humans welcome a newcomer to their company. The other humans at Dakainya gossiped among themselves on the endless topic of the hostility the non-staff-member Vulcans felt toward them.

All of Kirk’s attempts to explain Vulcan customs had failed to penetrate their ignorance. "Maybe it’s different for you. You’re practically one of them. They accept you."

"They do, but not because of any family connections. They accept me because of my behavior. I don’t go around wantonly touching minds or seeking to provoke reactions from people. It’s not considered polite here."

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Kirk supposed it was the eternal gulf between Starfleet and civilian, but they just couldn’t seem to understand that one gains entrance to a society by learning to respect its culture. Kirk was especially glad he’d learned that lesson early in his career. He could read his acceptance into this work crew by the gradual relaxation in his presence. And he needed that acceptance now. He needed it in the worst way.

When all the members of Crew Five had finished eating, the company rose from the table, Kirk with them. There were twenty in all, five Dakainya students from off-world, and fifteen Vulcans, three of whom were students from down the valley, the rest being from Dakainya Valley Industries.

In one body, they moved out of the dining commons across the yard, and into the huge open shed where the farm equipment was stored. The lumbering flat-bed truck with a ‘5’ painted on it in Vulcan script waited for them, chugging softly to itself as the driver tested out the power-driven parts.

Sildon, who happened to be with this crew for the day, fetched down a packing case for the shorter ones to use as a step. One of the Vulcan women leaped onto the truck bed and reached down to help one of the off-worlders up. Then everybody was swarming aboard. Kirk ended up in the front of the bed, just under the cab’s rear window.

At his right was one of the off-world students, a human boy from some far-out colony. He never talked much, except about Vulcan hostility to the students, so Kirk didn’t know him well. On his other side sat a Vulcan woman, one of the students from up the valley.

Sildon called, "S’chames, signal go."

Kirk turned around and pounded on the cab, four times in rapid succession. Then he sat down fast. The truck lurched into gear and circled hard left out of the shed. Kirk had decided a long time ago that the Legion of Agriculture’s schools were shockingly deficient in the study of Newton’s Laws. Still, he’d never seen anybody fall off the truck. Somehow, the off-worlders always ended up in the middle. Only the Vulcans sat with their feet dangling over the edges of the truck bed.

As they emerged into full sunlight, Kirk donned his sun-visor. It wasn’t color-corrected like those the other off-worlders used. Kirk somehow enjoyed seeing Vulcan in all its peculiar glory. It would be a travesty to transform its coloration to Earth-normal. Of course, that was a Service attitude--minimum protection from environmental influences. The others were civilians.

A white-hot sun in a ruby-red sky was striking sparks of blue off the bright orange lake that filled the central chasm of the valley floor. The northern end of that lake, shrouded now in morning mist and incipient heat-shimmer, lapped at a desert wonderland of carved sand-dunes that rose up in weird and sometimes grotesque formations. They were solid stone sand-dunes, wind-sculpted with scintillating jewels encrusting them in the most unlikely places. At night, when the wind would blow, Kirk imagined he could hear generations of Vulcan ghosts gossiping among the fossilized dunes. Or, when it was quiet, he could hear the placid lake currents skirling between the formations, eating away at them until they would come crashing down into the waters and be dissolved.

As he rode the wagon on his way to work that morning, Kirk gazed out over the heads of his companions toward that distant northern end of the valley. Deep inside him there was a frozen knot of thoughts which he dared not touch yet. __He__ __had__ __injured__ __Soled__! __How__?

Looking to the north, Kirk caught sight of the Dakainya utsulan. He let his thoughts be drawn to it to avoid asking himself questions, affixing blame. Several yahvee ago, Kirk had accompanied Sildon up that northern road to deliver a load of supplies to the Vulcan school there. Strangely enough, that day was the happiest Kirk had spent at the school. Or perhaps not so strangely. It had been like old times.

On their way back from offloading at the warehouse up there, Sildon had asked, "Ever seen an utsulan?" Kirk had said, "No. I’ve heard of them but still haven’t a clear idea what they’re for." Everything Vulcans did was __for__ something, Kirk had discovered, but not always for exactly what humans would expect.

"Dakainya utsulan is one of the most interesting ones. Next to Beom, it’s probably the most famous. It’s only a few minutes out of our way. Let’s drive over there and take a look."

That was how it had started, innocently enough. Kirk had said, "Yes. I’d like that." And the attack, when it started, had practically escaped his notice. North End Park lay below them as they wound down the switchback service road. "Nobody ever comes this way any more. Good to drive it once in a while just to keep the road open," said Sildon.

And occasionally, they did have to stop to roll stones off the road. In one place, they found the edge of the roadbed crumbling over the side of the cliff and placed a service marker buoy so the repair crew would find the spot.

They had stopped at a turnout overlooking the whole of North End where Kirk could get a clear view of the utsulan from above. It lay amid the carved fossilized sand dunes both reflecting their myriad colors and being colored by them. The sun flashed dazzlingly off the utsulan resounders, and Kirk’s main impression was of painful brilliance. "So that’s an utsulan," he’d said conversationally to Sildon.

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The Vulcan had seated himself on a rock beside a piece of undressed pipe that protruded from the sheer cliff behind them. Mineral water dribbled out of the pipe to be instantly soaked up by the dusty ground. Sildon had been sitting there behind Kirk chewing dried bydo slices and drinking the mineral water from a cup he’d found in the truck. The unusual and delicious water was Sildon’s real motive in coming this way, Kirk had deduced, and he was prepared to dawdle until his Vulcan friend had drunk his fill.

At length, Kirk wondered at Sildon’s lack of response to his comment. He turned—and Sildon was gone!

Searching with quick, Star Fleet trained eyes, Kirk had noted there was no place the Vulcan could have gone __to__. On one side, the ground fell away steeply to the barren waste of North End. On the other side, the cliff rose straight up. As far as he could see up and down the road there was no sign of life.

Standing beside the empty truck which he’d searched around and under three times, Kirk knew the old thrill of alarm. __Danger__. __Crisis__. Nothing ultimately galaxy-shaking, to be sure, but definitely a personal danger both to himself and to his new friend. He had waited long enough to be certain Sildon hadn’t merely trotted off to relieve himself. Then he made his decision.

Slowly, with clumsy but deliberate moves, he had lowered his barrier, relinquishing the protection of his idlomputt. Far away, in his room, and in Soled’s studio, the pair of devices tuned to him and pulsed briefly and subsided. He stood exposed to reality in a way he had been unable to bear just a few months before. He faced it with a fierce pride, a Captain’s pride.

It had been a foolish thing to do. He, of course, hadn’t known that at the time. Sildon hadn’t told him about the wildlife infesting this sterile-looking wilderness. Even so, the name sepmaht wouldn’t have meant much to Kirk then.

As a result, Kirk forgot all about Sildon and about Dakainya. His feet carried him downslope, to his left along the road, until he came to a narrow gash in the cliffside. He edged through it into a rocky defile, hardly more than a cleft in the solid mountain. There was enough ground water to support profuse Vulcan plants, some of a variety Kirk hadn’t seen much of in this desert region, fleshy-leaved, almost green in the deep shadows.

High up the sides of the cliffs on either hand, Kirk saw numerous cave openings and recesses that might become caves. But these didn’t register on him at all. He was drawn onward by a promise of exquisite pleasure.

All memory of Sildon had evaporated from his consciousness by the time he stumbled on the shallow pond rimmed with drooping willow trees (or what looked like willow trees.) And so it was with every anticipation of experiencing his heart’s most satisfying pleasure that he came upon the scene. In that the sepmaht, being only a beast surviving by usually valid methods, had miscalculated.

Triggered by the sepmaht’s beamed signal, Kirk’s mind told him that before him lay Spock helpless under the claws and dripping fangs of a lean, ferocious, and utterly deadly sehlat. The illusion wasn’t much, as sepmaht illusions go, but it was all the poor creature could spare for Kirk after subduing Sildon’s better trained mind. Turning Sildon into Spock had been easy. But even Kirk had a hard time visualizing the gigantic beast as one of the charming, domesticated cousins of the sepmahts.

The illusions shattered. Kirk blinked. And in the split instant that two warring visions occupied his mind, Kirk acted. Unable to choose which was reality, he acted on them both. His greatest pleasure, rescuing Spock, and his intended action spurred by the real situation, rescuing Sildon, both required the same action.

He jumped onto the animal’s back, gripping its neck with one elbow, and holding himself with his knees. Instantly, the beast let go of Sildon and reared up on shaggy hind legs. Kirk found himself a good fourteen feet in the air being lashed about mercilessly. Then he was falling, thrown clear as the animal came down on all fours, facing Sildon.

Kirk landed softly on a springy bed of surface-floating plants that covered part of the pond. Splashing to his feet, he found Sildon crouched before the beast as if fighting it with a knife. But the Vulcan had no weapon, except his mind. Wave after wave of thought beat at Kirk’s barriers, now only weakly maintained without direct contact with the idlomputt.

And the beast countered Sildon’s every suggestion with overpowering assaults of __pleasure__, __ease__, __safety__.

Suddenly, before Kirk’s eyes, the sepmaht __became__ T’Uriamne. She was tall and splendid in rich, flowing robes of golden furs and a queen’s ransom in jewels worked through her hair. Without knowing how he knew, Kirk saw her as preparing to march in her own wedding procession (and the thought didn’t even shock him); not only her own wedding—but his!

He stiffened as if his skin had been punctured by a thousand needles. The shock was like a thud in his brain, slamming a door closed on another reality. __Vulcans__ __don’t__ __wear__ __furs__! was the only thought in his head when Sildon called, "S’chames! Help me teach this sepmaht a lesson she’ll never forget!"

Kirk slogged out of the tepid water. "What can I do?"

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"I’ve got her subdued now. You hold her while I show her what happens to wild beasts foolish enough to attack people."

It never occurred to Kirk to wonder if he could do it or not. Soled had never given him a task beyond his ability, and he’d come to trust that he could do whatever was given him to do. In short, he had developed psichometric self-confidence. He reached over and took control from Sildon.

Sildon immediately dropped to his knees beside the now recumbent animal and reached up to grip its skull for a mind-meld. The sepmaht whimpered a little, as if in nightmare, and at length, when Sildon released it, it thrashed about on its back and then subsided as if dead.

"There, that should keep it from trying __that__ again," said Sildon. "S’chames? __S’chames__! You can let her go now.

Kirk came out of it staggering a little but otherwise unscathed. Sildon had sustained a wrenched ankle and an assortment of bruises and cuts. They walked the length of that cleft arms over each others’ shoulders for support in a companionable silence.

For Kirk, the greatest pleasure had come when Sildon had hardly thanked him for the rescue. He had accepted it as Spock always did, with a curt nod and a word of acknowledgement. Neither of them knew at the time that the experience would soon save Kirk’s life.

Kirk glowed as he watched the rising sun chase shadows from the distant North End Park. There were dangers there, true, but that just added to the attraction for him. He vowed he would visit that utsulan properly before he left Dakainya.

Suddenly, the image in Kirk’s mind shifted from tall, proud, formations reaching eternally for the stars into twisted, horrible shapes that slumped and crumbled into dark, oily water.

Kirk shook his head. That wasn’t __his__ image. North End Park was a phantasmagoria of ethereal beauty. The park was a natural playground, and it exuded some of the elusive Peace that he’d always associated with D’R’hiset alone.

Hastily, he ran a check on his barriers. The sorting and filtering of impressions reaching his conscious mind had been trained into his subconscious again. Most of the time, now, the barriers worked perfectly. But . . .

Kirk’s head whipped around and zeroed in on his fellow student. "Don’t __do__ that!"

The truck jounced onto the un-paved field-road. They were passing along the outside of a high hedgerow. The Vulcans seated on that side of the truck drew up their legs and inched deeper onto the truck-bed. The boy started to shrink away from them an irrational inch farther. He raked Kirk with a sullen glance, "Just tryin’a’be friendly."

"Sorry, but I’m not ready for that kind of friendliness just now. I find it . . . painful . . . when my barrier is broached."

The sullenness turned to a sneer. "You . . . damned . . . __Vulcan__!" It had been in English, but the single word, Vulcan, spoken in that tone, had certainly carried to every pointed ear aboard, though not an eyebrow flickered.

Down the flatbed, Sildon got to his feet, balancing alertly against the jerky motion. The Vulcans turned to see what he was doing. But he only said, "S’chames, if you are not busy, come here. I have something I think you might appreciate."

Curious, Kirk rose from the crate he’d been sitting on and started carefully toward Sildon. The humans seated on similar crates scattered on the flatbed watched silently. As Kirk walked the length of the heaving flatbed, strong Vulcan hands reached out to steady him, each of the workers rising in turn as he passed. The humans sat clutching their boxes as if afraid they’d fall off the truck even though they were securely seated in the middle.

When Kirk finally reached for Sildon’s hand, he began to realize what had happened. And when Sildon pulled him down to a seat on the edge of the truck, Kirk had put a name to it. He’d been included on the Vulcan side of a Vulcan/human joke. Nobody was laughing, but it was still a prime example of spontaneous Vulcan humor. Kirk could tell from the definite relaxation of tension, which was after all, what humor was __for__.

Now, here he sat sleeve-to-sleeve between two Vulcans, and he was more secure than with thirteen inches of air between him and a fellow-human student. He could feel a . . . a . . . pressure lifted from his barriers. And it came home to him what Miranda had meant: "No, not how to read minds . . . how not to read them."

Sildon gave that peculiar Vulcan nod, a tilting twist of the head to the left. "I thought you’d appreciate that. If you consent, I’d like you to be a foreman today. Most of the others have never harvested bydo before."

"This is the first day I’ve worked a full shift. I don’t know . . ."

"If you get tired, I’ll rotate you into the sorting room and combine two of the picking

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crews. But this morning, I’d like to scatter as much as possible. I think the stalv’in field is almost over-ripe for gleaning. The auto-harvesters brought back a heavily yellowed load yesterday, and I’d like to have some intelligent eyes evaluating the crop today."

"You want me to glean the northwest field?"

"Yes. I have to train a new sorting crew this morning."

The implication, Kirk realized, was that next to Sildon, he was the best qualified to boss the gleaning squad. He’d been harvesting bydo now off and on for about five weeks. Most of these here were green recruits by comparison.

The truck turned a corner, throwing everyone seated on the tail-gate, Kirk included, hard to the right. Kirk slid a few inches into Sildon’s hard-muscled side. When the truck righted itself again, Sildon gave Kirk a little shove back into position. "You needn’t worry, though. I’ll keep an eye on the stalv’in boxes, and if you get off I’ll let you know."

"Good enough."

"Now this time," said Sildon, as another turn approached, "grip the bed with your legs, like this." He swung his feet back under the bed until his calves touched the bottom. Kirk copied the motion and found he could hold himself in place quite easily. His calf-muscles had developed somewhat during the last few months.

The truck swung into the portable shed used as a base of operations for the field crews. Long sorting tables occupied one end of the complex. Automatic machinery had been scrubbed down and readied for the day’s load. The boxes delivered on robot dollies would be dumped onto the sorting tables and conveyed under auto-scanners which would sort the produce according to grade. The sorting crew was already taking its station, beginning to calibrate and program the equipment. Huge stacks of empty crates stood ready at the far end of the shed.

The truck let them off in the picker’s area. Sildon stood up on the flatbed of a two-wheeled wagon with enormously tall wheels. He called out names of the four foremen for the day, and then went on to call the names of the groups they would handle and their assignments. He did it all without reference to any list, but there were no protests.

Kirk ended up with a mixed group. Two Vulcans, man and wife, one of the human students from Dakainya, and one of the Vulcan students from up the valley. The five of them were joined by a second group of five with a Vulcan woman foreman. She came over to Kirk as he was passing out sampling kits. "My name is T’kaley. You’ll have to show me the criteria. I’ve never picked bydo before."

Kirk pulled the corners of his mouth in to keep from smiling outright. "I’ll bet you’re better at eating it than I am, though."

She looked at him measuringly. "It __is__ an acquired taste."

Kirk unlimbered one of the testing kits. "You insert this probe into the fibril. If you get a red light, you harvest; if you get a green light, you pass. But if you get a yellow light, you use your own judgment."

"Yes, I’ve worked threnr fields often and it is similar. The crucial step is the judgment. Unripe fruits don’t contain the necessary nutrients, over-ripe ones can be poisonous, but the question is will a crew be along in time to harvest the almost-ripe before it becomes over-ripe. Therein rests the profit margin for the entire farming operation."

"Right. This field we’re gleaning today was picked yesterday by the robos, and they brought in a preponderance of yellows." He glanced at the crew standing behind her. All deeply tanned Vulcans. They’d learn quickly, but his own crew would need constant supervision. "Can you drive the lorry?"

"Yes."

"Good. Take your crew out to co-ordinates three-five-five by nine-nine-two, stalv’in. I’ll show you through a row first, then I’ll put my people to work. Let’s go."

Kirk climbed into one of the lorries behind the driver, the heavy-set Vulcan woman assigned to his team. The high wheels began to turn, and they moved out onto the soft, fertile soil of the cultivated fields. The lorry was built high to straddle rows of plants for inspection, but now, during the harvest season, it went between rows of ripening vines.

Behind it, T’kaley brought the other lorry with her crew. As he threw a glance over his shoulder, Kirk saw they were all examining the test-kits they’d been supplied with. But something in their manner, as they turned the tricorder-like instrument over and over in their hands, told Kirk that they were not merely curious, as Spock would be, given a new tool and job, they were studious in a very purposeful way.

Kirk turned back to face front. His driver cornered the lorry expertly and straightened out along the proper row without instructions. Her husband, seated beside her on the front bench, was also examining the testing kit. His manner was subtly different from Spock’s, but it reminded Kirk more strongly of his absent friend. His fingers caressed the instrument with the

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competence of the scientist.

It had been a long time since Kirk had seen fingers move with that particular air. The man seemed to be drawing information in through the tips of his fingers. And there was a vague sort of . . . __reverence__ in the way he handled the nearly indestructible machine. __Yes__, thought Kirk, __here__ __was__ __a__ __man__ __accustomed__ __to__ __using__ __priceless__, __delicate__ __instrumentation__. He leaned forward and said, "Legion of Science?"

The man turned. "Affirmative. Assistant Director of the Academy. Sekei."

Kirk mustered his best Vulcanur accent and said, "Peace and Long Life, Sekei."

The heavy-set woman turned to glance at Kirk without taking her hands off the controls. She said in nearly unaccented English, "May You Live Long and Prosper, James."

Kirk returned the courtesy. These people who were almost from his world pleased him. The others at Dakainya had nearly all been from non-scientific, mono-cultural backgrounds.

__How__ __I’ve__ __missed__ __my__ __ship__! The void in his life where Spock belonged suddenly ached like a gnawing hunger. The __Enterprise__ and all the swift problems that passed through her solved by the co-ordinated union of Spock’s unmatched mind and his own well-tempered judgment . . . now seemed so far away and so desirable. That was life. This was unreal.

Suddenly, the symphony of colors loomed before his eyes, transmuting themselves into a garish nightmare. Dakainya’s distant buildings lay in ruins on the horizon. The fields lay bare and dead at his feet. Across the sparkling orange lake, the drying beds of the potassium salt mines lay dry and untended, choked with dirt. The white-hot sun pressed down on his head, seeming to Pound him into the rock-hard soil.

The barren hostility of the valley was no worse than the emptiness of his life. Of what possible __use__ could an adopted second son be? He didn’t even have Name Rights in the family. They could tell him what he must do, but he had no control over their actions.

Kirk squeezed his eyes shut, and used the bright darkness behind his eyelids as a barricade against the scene. With all the strength of his will, he summoned the image of the Idlomputt flame and wrapped its peculiar field about himself as a shield. In his room, deep in the faraway Dakainya complex, the Idlomputt flared briefly.

When he opened his eyes, the fields lay spread out around him, lush, ripe, and friendly. He wiped sweat off his brow with the inside elbow of his sleeve. The tough, desert-weave material dried instantly. Kirk let out the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. __Something__ __pierced__ __my__ __barriers__, he thought.

What had he been thinking before he broke the contact? A second son adopted without Name Rights? Weird. He not only had Name Rights, he had all the hellish responsibility that went with it. By accepting the kraith of adoption, he’d written Spock a blank check on his future. But it hadn’t been without compensations. If Spock had rights over his life, he had just as many rights over Spock’s!

The more so now that Spock was on Pilgrimage. Technically, as youngest brother, he was Head of Family in Spock’s absence—or would be if he, himself, weren’t on the sick-list. In fact, he wasn’t qualified to handle the family business and knew it better than anyone else. Sarek tended to the whole job with one-tenth of his total working hours and barely noticed the strain.

Kirk shrugged the affair off. He must have picked up the maunderings of some Vulcan on the work crew and combined that with some long-ago memory thrown at him by another worker. And he thought he’d mastered the barrier! He still had plenty to learn.

The two lorries drew abreast at the end of a long, curved furrow where the vines drooped heavy with the long tendrils of bydo. The soft ground still held the impressions from the robo-harvesters. Kirk could see where they’d been pausing, backtracking and hesitating. This was a job for real pickers, not machines.

As the two work crews jumped down, Kirk stood up on the lorry’s floorboards. "Sekei, take your group down to the far end of this aisle and try out your test-kits. But don’t do any picking until I get there. T’kaley, bring your group around to this aisle." He jumped down and led the way toward an adjacent row.

The morning went swiftly for Kirk after that. He was busy and it took his mind off his feelings. He was picking bydo, gleaning an important field of it, in fact. The general crop-year had been bad for this staple of the Vulcan diet. Too much rain in the south had ruined their bumper crop. Fire set by heat-lightning had devastated forty per cent of the un-gleaned fields on the western continent. And an unpredicted volcanic eruption had nearly destroyed the usefulness of some of the most fertile northern fields. Dakainya’s crop was therefore trebly valuable. Nobody would starve for lack of bydo-sausage, to be sure. But the open market price was skyrocketing.

Kirk felt he was doing useful, important work. There was nobody around more qualified to do it than he, and it had to be done now while the V-complex content of the bydo was at

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peak. Kirk himself didn’t much care for the prepared bydo-sausage. The long, bean-sprout-like tendrils of the bydo plant (a kind of ‘flower’ in that it served to attract fertilizing insects) were twined into rope-like bundles, cemented with an herb-rich paste, and allowed to age gracefully (rot, that is), deep in the caves above Dakainya. The product was then sliced into pastrami-thin segments and sometimes deep-fried in hot oil, or eaten fresh. The pungent flavor did resemble some Earthly cheeses, but Kirk didn’t go in for limburger too often. Nevertheless, the average Vulcan consumed about ten pounds a year of bydo-sausage products, and Dakainya was considered the prime producer of the highest quality sausages.

The eight-foot high clusters of vines, spaced in rows only a few feet apart, provided plenty of shade throughout the morning. It was hot, but not unbearably so. It was dry, but the robos that brought the flat boxes and took away the full ones always came with plenty of cold water for the humans. The work wasn’t heavy, but it was dirty. The sticky bydo tendrils somehow managed to collect enough muck to cover the pickers with dirt within a few hours. Sweating skin, despite the desert-weave coveralls, still got gritty enough to itch. Kirk was ready to quit for lunch when his com-box gave a low whistle.

Kirk answered it, "Stalv’in."

"Sildon here. S’chames, your crews are to be commended. We’re getting ninety-five per cent pass out of your fields."

Kirk swallowed an automatic thank you. "Commendation accepted. We’re about ready to come in for the noon break."

"The Dakainya lunch wagon is almost here. Any time you’re ready."

"Kirk out." He flipped the recall switch that would bring the crews back to the lorries and send the robos in with the last of the morning’s crop. He slung the command-unit communicator over one shoulder and the testing kit over the other, then parting a curtain of bydo tendrils, he stuck his head through to the next aisle where the other human from Dakainya was working. "Lunch break, Chester. Look over the other row and see if Sandruk noticed my recall light."

Chester, a gawky red-haired boy, started to move across the aisle in which he worked. Kirk called, "But don’t talk to him. He’s in Intensives, you know."

Chester turned back. "How the hell can you __know__ with these people?"

"They get . . . hmmm . . . withdrawn. Don’t worry, after you’ve been here a few more months, you’ll catch on." Kirk watched the boy check on Sandruk, who was already headed for the lorry. Then he angled on down his own row.

Yes, he thought, after a while it was easy to detect the signs of that peculiar, intense concentration of the Vulcan learning-phase. He’d recognized it in Spock for years before he found out what it was. Now he was beginning to be able to tell the difference between the various degrees of Intensive and between the Intensive learning state and the other types of withdrawal.

Kirk winced as he remembered what a boorish clod he’d been just a few years ago. Learning Vulcan manners had sensitized him to the attitudes of the various non-Earth-derived cultures, and the elaborate protocol of Interstellar Diplomacy made much more sense to him now that he could see what it was __for__. But an Interstellar Diplomat rarely had to deal with intensely personal matters, so the book of rules didn’t cover such situations. He’d been good at the book, and even graceful in its application. But now that he stood with one foot planted firmly in each of two vastly different cultures, he knew he’d be much better at it. Much better.

It wasn’t just that he could recognize the symptoms of, for example, pon farr. It was that now, if he didn’t know something, he knew how to ask without being needlessly offensive as he had been. The key was both obvious and subtle. Logic.

As he strode along between high rows of bydo plants, Kirk let his mind drift into a daydream. If he’d known then what he knew now, what would he have said to Spock? He wouldn’t have pounded Spock’s desk. He wouldn’t have demanded an explanation. He wouldn’t have hounded his friend into seeking to shield himself with the Idlomputt barrier.

He’d have drawn up an argument diagram, as neatly laid out as he could. He’d have weighted each factor in the decision—Vulcan or Altair—as closely as he could, leaving unknowns in each of the places where he didn’t understand. He’d have presented his diagram to Spock, displaying his alternatives as clearly as possible, the decision for Altair being mathematically obvious.

Spock would have drawn in the numbers for the x-factors, written the missing equations, and elucidated the result, Altair and death, Vulcan and life. __Vulcan__ __and__ __marriage__.

Kirk was not stupid. He would have understood.

Ah, it was a nice fantasy. Kirk would have understood. He’d been depending on that, if it become necessary. Kirk wouldn’t have asked any painful questions, even though he knew nothing of the pon farr. He was glad it had never become necessary—never would become necessary. He was immune, even to the Blooming. T’Pring would never have a chance at him as she had at Ssarsun’s Spock. And that Ssarsun’s Spock would have no more chance to abuse his Kirk with his almost-adoption!

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Long, competent fingers flew over glowing console. Lights flickered. Between one step and the next, the surrounding bydo plants flickered and disappeared. Kirk stumbled headlong to the parched, bare ground.

He picked himself up, automatically brushing stone-hard clods of dirt from his hands and knees. The sun scorched this valley without benefit of shade or irrigation. Where was he?

There, that lake! And far to the mist-shrouded north—

yes, the Park. Dakainya! But . . . he pivoted, the buildings, the people, the crops . . . not a trace. Or, no. There did seem to be ruins climbing near where the school buildings used to be. His eye climbed the distant hills searching—the bydo caves, gone! It seemed as if some heavy hand had crumpled the sheer rock cliff that had harbored the world-famous caves. With them gone, no wonder the valley had died.

But with the valley dead, it was a good five hundred miles to civilization! He’d never make it out, on foot, alone, without transportation. How had he gotten here? He looked around. There was nothing, absolutely nothing in sight.

A movement caught his eye. Far to the north where the mist lay heavy among the rock-formations of the Park, a small aircar rose. In moments it was growing larger skimming low over the cracked, barren soil. It set down expertly not ten yards from him.

The man who emerged was wearing the Starfleet Commodore’s uniform with the service patch of Vulcan Starbase blazoned on it. That man was . . . was . . . was Spock!

No, no, he mustn’t think of Spock. It would endanger his friend, his brother. This was just another mind-incursion. Someone else’s memory was inducing these thoughts in him. It wasn’t real!

He turned and ran, stumbling, away from the apparition. His throat burned dry after a few steps, but he forced himself to scramble away from the one thing that he must not face. He’d been thinking about Spock, and now look what had happened. He’d indulged himself once too often!

Horrified at the nightmarish quality of the landscape, and the bizarre appearance of a man supposedly half a world away, he ran. But deep in his mind, a cool river of thought remained undisturbed. His incoherent mind was a disgrace to the Name that had been entrusted to him. Something commanded, __Stop__. __Gather__ __yourself__. __Think__.

But he could not heed. Could not. He’d been picking bydo. He’d slipped into nightmare. It couldn’t be real. Had to get out . . . get back.

__Get__ __back__. __Yes__. __Get__ __back__, __bring__ __help__.

The thought reverberated through a mind suddenly gone empty of all but the almost reflexive service training. Before attempting rescue, report! Hand went to hip, reaching for the communicator that wasn’t there.

The Pilgrim who wasn’t a Pilgrim called in Spock’s voice, "Stop, Jim. I won’t harm you."

But he didn’t stop. Feet crunched behind him, moving effortlessly. He was weak, too weak to run further. Something was draining his strength, draining away all until he moved as if engulfed by yhotekhq syrup, unwhipped and nearly solid. Seen through the diffracting syrup-crystals, the scene was smeared out into bands of too-bright colors—reds, ochre, browns, brilliant yellow, singing oranges, red, red, red!

It took all his strength and will to drive his right leg forward one more inch. He squeezed his eyes shut and pulled his left foot free of the yhotekhq syrup. He moved slower and ever slower as he strove to race the wind. He knew he was losing. It was as if there were a gigantic hole through which his strength flowed at warp speed, faster than he could generate it.

He felt his muscles giving way, one at a time. His knees folded under him. His thighs loosened. His arms barely held enough to break his fall. An arm encircled his chest, catching him in mid-air, easing him to the ground.

The face loomed once more, the face he mustn’t know until the Pilgrimage had been completed. __Must__ __report__ __to__ __Soled__. __Report__. __Report__. __Report__.

He felt the hard band of the man’s arm across his chest, restraining him from sitting up. He put all his will into breaking that restraint. Up, up, he pushed his body, willing to break that contact. Slowly, he rose against it, and felt it parting, breaking away.

Steely Vulcan fingers closed over his shoulder. The pain that couldn’t quite be felt before it was gone in the mists of unconsciousness cut off the rising hysteria.

When the Captain awoke, it was to the certain knowledge that what surrounded him was real and could be dealt with using the concrete tools of reality. Clinging to that thought, he sat up and looked around.

He was in a cave . . . no, he amended that thought, it was some huge, artificial structure. It had the regular outlines of an elongated prism, perhaps all of four or five stories high, resting on its small end. He sat on a field-mattress amidst shards of broken glass, some of

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which was pulverized to the texture of coarse sand. Nearby, several portable instrument cases were arranged around a low stool, forming a makeshift control console. An eerie blue light emanated from the instruments. It was just bright enough to make out a stoop-shouldered figure coming toward him out of the gloom.

Kirk pulled his bare feet under himself and stood on the mattress, waiting.

The strange Spock in Commodore’s uniform came toward Kirk crunching the broken glass with shiny black boots. In one hand, he held a steaming mug, in the other a plate with slices of some plain bread-like cake. He held them out to Kirk. "Drink. You will feel better."

Kirk hesitated, making no move to accept the offering.

"You will be safe here until all your questions are answered."

"How do I know you aren’t trying to drug me?"

"To accomplish what?"

The genuine Spockish surprise convinced Kirk that he’d come to no immediate harm. He accepted plate and mug. Spock moved back into the shadows to reappear bearing two stools which he placed carefully. Kirk sat and pulled on his boots, which had been meticulously arranged at the corner of the mattress. Then he took up the mug and sipped. It was good coffee.

The steam gave off a slightly nauseating aroma to which he’d accustomed himself over the years. Caffeine rarely agreed with his metabolism, but one couldn’t expect others to understand such things.

Kirk pulled back from the contact, clamping down his barriers as hard as he could.

"Captain, is something wrong?"

As those words echoed smaller and smaller up the prism-shaped chimney above them, they soothed his parched throat just like the hot coffee, going downward to un-knot his hunger-tensed stomach.

Kirk shook his head to clear away the vertigo of doubled vision, doubled senses. How long it had been since he’d uttered such words! No! __He__ hadn’t spoken, he’d drunk the coffee which tasted delicious, not nauseating. Nightmare again! And he couldn’t deal with that. Reality. Where was reality?

He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud until he found Spock’s hands on his biceps, shaking him firmly. "Captain, this is real. I am real. You must believe that. __This__ . . . __is__ . . . __no__ . . . __dream__!"

Kirk twisted away, and Spock let him go. Gradually, he rebuilt his barriers from scratch. To do it, he had to pretend his Idlomputt was right there before him. He worked with the memory of it shielding his mind. They’d told him it could be done like this, but he’d never tried it before. Now, he had to make it work. Had to hold onto reality.

When he’d finished, he turned to look once more at this Spock who claimed to be real. "__You__ . . ."

"I am real, Captain. But I am not the Spock you’ve known all your life."

"Parallel universe?"

"Precisely. I brought you here."

". . . bu . . . why? Got to get back."

"No, you needn’t worry about returning. There is a place for you here." He gestured, "Sit down, and I will explain."

Knees suddenly weak, Kirk sat. ". . . can’t stay here. Look . . ."

"Jim, I ask only a few minutes of your time to convince you. You’re safe here. You can afford to listen to me, can’t you?"

There was something in the way the Vulcan spoke that riveted Kirk’s attention on his words. Here there was no trace of that withdrawn, almost mocking detachment with which his foster-brother observed the antics of humans. Instead, Kirk heard a man who had paid an enormous price to obtain an interview, and who asked nothing in return but a few moments time to be heard. Yet there was something else in that voice—or no, not the voice but the silences between the words. It was fear. Fear that that audience would not be granted after all.

"Well," said Kirk at length, "I suppose there’s no harm in listening."

Spock drew a deep breath and relaxed systematically as if he’d just won the greatest battle and the rest would be a mopping up exercise. He spoke then, earnestly, in quiet tense words, convincing words. As he listened, Kirk knew that this was Spock driven to an act far beyond desperation.

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Kirk learned, in little flickers and flashes, from a phrase here and a word chosen there, something of his other self, that other Kirk who had been the life’s strength to this Spock. But there were odd differences in that other Kirk. The choices he made, the things he enjoyed, the things he had done together with Spock—such as the glimpse Kirk got of the two of them sail boating on an Earthside lake, batching it at an isolated mountain cabin during a long layover at Luna Base. Differences.

But this was __Spock__. Nevertheless, it was Spock. Kirk found himself shrinking from that knowledge in an odd way he couldn’t define. Yet, he thirsted to know more of this man so different from his brother. And so he listened.

At length, they shared a meal. From habit of recent months, Kirk ate in silence, giving the flavors his total attention. It was a while after he had finished all but the coffee that he noticed the Commodore, seated tailor fashion before him on the mat, had let his hands fall limply to his ankles while his eyes closed as if in rapt contemplation of some infinite pleasure.

The Vulcan’s breathing came in long, deep shudders. For a moment, Kirk thought the Commodore was merely savoring the act of eating once more with his friend—a term he used more readily than Commander Spock ever did. But with the passing seconds and increasing surrender of the Commodore to whatever subjective experience gripped him, Kirk became uneasy and then alarmed.

He looked around him with new eyes. They were sitting, Kirk had learned, in the cavity that had housed the central crystal of the Dakainya utsulan. The shards of glassy material about them were thought to be the remains of that crystal shattered by some pre-historic catastrophe, possibly a quake. But it was essentially the Dakainya valley’s North End, and, thought Kirk, the wildlife would be the same only more profuse. Wildlife such as sepmahts, for example. The abandoned ruin would make a good lair for such a creature.

Kirk rose, shaking his legs to uncramp them. Spock didn’t seem to notice. Kirk turned, crouched to a fighting stance, eyeing each of the portals opening into the central shaft at various levels above him. Nothing visible.

On his own, ground floor, level, there was only the one dark entryway, a low tunnel leading outward. He wondered briefly if the honeycomb of passages that was the utsulan acted in some way as a sort of waveguide to telepathic signals. If so, the animal (if such it was) could be anywhere.

He bent down and shook Spock’s shoulder. "Spock! Wake up! Fight it, man!"

But there was no response. The animal, Kirk knew, having enraptured its prey, would strike soon. It must be near. There were only three things Kirk could think of to do. He could wait for it to strike and try to fight it then. He could open his own mind to its call and be drawn to it (perhaps; Spock hadn’t been drawn away, but then possibly he was fighting it). Or he could instigate a mindmeld with Spock and attempt to disentangle the Vulcan from the net before the animal struck.

This last had the advantage of not leaving Spock alone and unprotected while he, Kirk, was wandering around in a daze. It also had a peculiar appeal to Kirk’s way of thinking—it put him on the offensive, rather than calling for him to play the helpless victim. It was better, tactically speaking, to take the initiative. Kirk did.

He knelt behind the Vulcan, forgetting in the press of the emergency that this was not __his__ Spock but rather his kidnapper to whom he owed no special allegiance. He had never initiated a mindmeld in his life (except with Tanya and that didn’t count since she had done all the work), but he now knew the theory.

He visualized the idlomputt flame and focused his mind selectively on the precise areas of mentation he had to reach, rejecting all others (he hoped). Then, groping to recall the layout maps of the Vulcan brain, he arranged his fingers, one pair at a time, and as if reaching through them and out their tips with his mind, he tried to grasp Spock’s thoughts.

He met only a blankness, gray and featureless. He struggled against it for several minutes before breaking contact. Sitting back on his heels, he thought furiously. He had read a description recently—but it had been in Vulcanur and he hadn’t exactly understood it—of what contact with a psi-null or reflexively barriered person feels like. The article had detailed ways of breaking through that barrier.

Kirk smiled, but there was nobody there to appreciate the wry chuckle or to see the nervous tremble of his lips as his suddenly dry tongue wiped them. It had been an authoritative article, and totally reliable. Kirk was absolutely certain of that. The author had been Spock. And now Kirk was going to use what Spock had learned by working on Kirk’s mind in order to break through to a psi-null Spock, or a reflexively barriered Spock. The article had asserted positively that there was no way to detect the difference.

Once more Kirk scanned the galleries above, black holes leading off the shaft. Not a flicker of movement, but now the mental pressure had increased. He could feel it even though he held his own mind closed and concentrated. This must be a bigger, older, perhaps wiser sepmaht than he’d faced before.

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Kirk swallowed hard. From somewhere within himself, he found the old steadiness he’d always relied on in tight combat situations. He composed himself, focused his mind as he’d been taught, and launched a piercing assault on that featureless gray under his fingers. One brain center at a time, he opened the Vulcan mind. "We are growing closer, closer. We are __Spock__ . . . I . . . am . . . Spock!"

After his initial, clumsy, overshooting, Kirk withdrew from the deepest personal levels and maintained the contact on the most superficial plane he could manage. Still, the untrained Vulcan mind fought to regain privacy almost harder than it fought the sepmaht.

__We__ __must__ . . . __I__ __must__ __show__ __you__ __how__ . . . __fight__ . . . __beast__!

__Out__! __No__!

Sinking again into languid pleasure. Image: T’Uriamne enrapt by golden furs marching against a red sky. Kirk’s face aglow as only Kirk’s face could. A future stretching deep before them; shared labors; shared exhaustion; shared accomplishments only their unique teamwork could achieve. Shared celebrations danced beneath the stars among the ancient pillars at Top of World. Kirk and T’Uriamne seated beside each other surrounded by the formal tables of the Federation Council, speaking with one voice for All Vulcan. And beside them, Spock aglow as only Spock can be. Satisfaction. __Is__.

__Not__ __yet__! __Is__ __not__ __yet__!

Is. Peace. Contentment. Future reached and secured.

__Is__ . . . __not__!

Serenity. Achieved.

No! Not what will be like. Come. See real.

No.

Come.

And Kirk showed the flaring joy of a true Spockian accomplishment, the sweetness of breath drawn through clenched teeth as a triumph earned opens new vistas to conquer. Come, vanquish this beast with me and experience the reality of this together—share with me!

The reality of shared battle with Kirk drew the ensnared Vulcan mind strongly enough for Kirk to begin. He had never been taught this technique, had in fact developed it himself after observing Sildon at it only briefly. But he had been taught many such techniques by this non-verbal method. Now, gripping and guiding Spock’s mind, much as a teacher guides a beginner’s pencil, Kirk imparted the control method. Meanwhile, he kept himself aloof from the sepmaht’s influence—or so he thought.

The beast had reached through Spock’s barriers and touched the pleasure centers of his brain. And Kirk’s conscious barriers were tissue paper compared to the well developed Vulcan’s shield. This Spock had been taught, from the cradle, that he was different, that he would never develop any of the inward sensitivity natural in his family. And so it became true.

The young Spock—the different one—had found refuge from long solitary days in exploring old ruins, abandoned places, where ordinary people never went because of the sepmaht and other such beasts. They became his private havens. But, at least one sepmaht had learned a way through to his mind, and through it to Kirk’s.

Fighting that silent, formless, gray battle, Kirk taught that precocious sepmaht a lesson just as Sildon had, while Spock held it. It would never attempt its tricks on a biped again!

The two men awoke to find themselves sprawled on sun-warmed sand as night enveloped the utsulan. About them, the sand was churned with overlapping tracks. They helped each other stagger upright, panting and leaning on each other for support.

__We__ __did__ __it__. The last thought Kirk allowed before he snapped the contact that bound them.

CHAPTER FOUR

DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT

He felt the hard band of a Vulcan arm across his chest, restraining him from sitting up. He put all his will into breaking that hold. Up, up, he pushed, forcing his way against and through that barrier. And slowly, it parted, giving way before him, falling away as he rose up against it.

"REPORT! REPORT! REPORT!"

The hoarse scream echoed off the gleaming ceramic tile walls. The light blanket that had lain over his chest slid down onto his lap, no longer a dead weight holding him down. An

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orange irradiator lamp had been positioned over his body, and he could already feel the strength it infused into his system—better than McCoy’s vile potions, good solid, Vulcan medical practice.

Slowly, he re-oriented himself. Utsulan. The face looming over his was Sarek’s. Anti-wheerr. Unexpected assault, draining his strength away. Flashes of Dakainya, as it had always been, and then as it might become without the bydo caves. Kirk!

It was a cold shock that ran through him. The pieces of the jigsaw fell neatly into place now that his mind was no longer befogged by that incredible weakness—Jim kidnapped, stolen away across time by a Spock who believed he was rescuing a Kirk from unjust treatment. And Jim was in no condition to present explanation or argument—his mind would soon be losing its integrative factor out of contact with the Idlomputt-shielding device.

"Spock, lay back down. The physician is coming."

Mind racing, Spock allowed his father to push him back into a horizontal position. The orange-red light that bathed his bare skin did feel good. It helped to clear his head, and precise thinking would be needed now. There wasn’t a second to waste.

But first the physician must certify him fit for duty. He concentrated on restoring his physical equilibrium. The physician arrived and he answered the routine questions, submitted to the intravenous nutriment, performed the required tests and was discharged. But all the while, his mind focused on the plan to rescue Kirk, and when he was freed, he sought out the Chief Attendant.

The administrative offices of Beom were of the same tile-faced stone as the rest of the Resident’s building. One wall was of translucent bricks yielding a blurred view of the utsulan. The Chief’s desk was a waist-high strip of table filled into one corner of the translucent wall. Above it hung a complex of monitor screens beneath which were switching controls.

As Spock entered, Sinzu turned from his work. It was plain he’d completely switched attention from the duty rosters he’d been working on to the Pilgrim who had just entered. He swiveled a second chair around in silent invitation. Spock took it, joining the Attendant at his desk. The other occupants of the room went about their tasks apparently not noticing.

After a suitable pause, just long enough to be polite yet short enough to indicate haste, Spock opened. "The experience I have just undergone has brought me to a crucial decision."

It was an opening jarring to Vulcan nerves. One doesn’t introduce discord before one’s conversant has had a chance to attune himself and erect appropriate barriers. Spock knew he was being harsh, even barbarously human, especially considering that the Beom Attendants lived a somewhat secluded life which spoiled them for the rapid adjustments of the city-dweller. But Spock was now more a Starfleet officer—than a Pilgrim. "Traditionally, my position puts Beom under my autonomous control. I have never exercised that prerogative before. It has now become necessary to declare rexath here."

Sinzu’s reaction was limited to a slight widening of the eyes. Spock hastened to add, "I do not intend to supplant your authority. It will only be for a short while. I do not have time to argue with you over every step that must be taken, nor to explain the information and reasoning behind my actions."

"I cannot prevent rexath. It is your right."

Spock could see the apprehension behind those words, and he moved to allay that incipient fear by touching Sinzu’s thumb with his own in the gesture of sincerity. "Beom means as much to me as it does to you. It is as safe with me as it would be with you. This is truth."

It was an unprecedented gesture from a Pilgrim, and Sinzu didn’t take unfair advantage of it. This was no ordinary Pilgrim. He broke the contact after the minimum courteous time and reached out to the intercom switches. All over the Beom installation, except for the dark and silent tourist buildings, his voice echoed. "This is Sinzu. The Pilgrim, Spock, has declared Beom under rexath to him. All strictures regarding a Pilgrim in rexath are to be promptly reviewed by all personnel and hereafter scrupulously observed."

Spock sketched a Vulcan nod. Rexath was extremely rare. He didn’t think Beom’s recorded history included one such case, so the injunction to review the procedure was well-founded. The closest concept to rexath among the Earth-based cultures was ‘usurp’, but Spock didn’t plan to usurp Sinzu’s place, he planned to use the Chief Attendant’s skills as Kirk would use his Science Officer’s.

"Rig for an internally generated twelfth-mode resonance. Drape the anti-wheerr and all main-crystal access portals with reflectives. I’m going to tap the energy core, and I want the entire output focused upwards through the wheerr." He looked toward the intercom equipment. "Do you have an external com-patch on this desk?"

Silently, Sinzu handed Spock a com-grid with a button lighted for outside communications. Spock said, "Give the orders to commence the procedure while I place this call." Sinzu continued to look at Spock. He’d been prepared for something incredibly outrageous by the request for rexath, but this was unbelievable.

"Spock, I am compelled to offer data on crystal reverberation damping times. Theoretically,

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a twelfth mode resonance will shatter the crystal with positive feedback if it’s internally generated and under closed portals. At the very least, it will crack the utsulan walls possibly disintegrate some of the off-spherical resounders. Beom would be destroyed, irretrievably."

"I am familiar with the theory. There will be a powerful energy-tap functioning in conjunction with the emitters. No permanent harm will be done."

Still Sinzu hesitated.

Spock gave a tiny, almost humanly despairing shrug. He couldn’t really expect a Chief Attendant to risk destruction of his utsulan without further assurance. He pulled a sketch-slate toward him and wrote out the system of equations that described the high-mode operation of the utsulan. He slashed out the factors his draping would delete. He inserted the energy-drain factor and re-arranged the equations, demonstrating that they balanced perfectly. "You may compute the stress-factors yourself. They are well within safety limits. But first, issue the orders. There isn’t much time."

Having seen that Spock knew at least as much of the utsulan’s theory as he did, Sinzu capitulated. "Your utsulan, Spock." Then he turned to give the orders. He had violated rexath by asking for credentials, and the Pilgrim had gone far beyond custom in establishing those credentials. He promised himself to seek no further explanations. If Spock couldn’t handle Beom, nobody could. He’d been trained by Suvil, and Suvil . . . ah, Suvil . . .

While Sinzu’s orders shot out to groups of Attendants here and there, Spock placed a call direct to Dakainya. It took a few moments to brush aside the question of the forbidden nature of his call. When he announced he was in rexath, he got action. Someone checked with Sildon in the field-crew and confirmed Spock’s assertion that Kirk had disappeared. Computer search confirmed the confirmation. They were convinced.

Spock said, "Get the nearest kataytikh to crate both the Idlomputt flames Kirk was using the one in his room and the one in Soled’s studio. Commandeer transportation under authority of rexath and have them flown here to Beom as quickly as possible. Keep me informed. Kirk’s life depends on getting those devices here by the time we’re ready."

"We’ll have to de-activate them . . ."

"Negative! That’s why a kataytikh must crate them for you. They must be shipped live.

"But that’s against . . ."

"I am in rexath, and I demand it." It hurt to have to use that power, to cause men to act against their convictions without reasonable argument. Perhaps, Spock reflected, his service training had indeed undermined his Vulcan sensibilities as his father had so often warned. Or perhaps what he was doing was worthy of rexath-power. Perhaps this was why rexath had been created. It hurt, but it was a bearable hurt. He pushed it aside with the same gesture that cut the connection.

Sinzu had completed the arrangements and awaited the next outrage. Spock was ready to supply it. "Bring the repository keys and meet me at the wheerr entry."

Sinzu’s eyes closed over this announcement as he refused to violate the Pilgrim once more. Spock took pity on him. "I was planning to do this anyway. Later I will give you arguments that will convince you. There is no time now."

Sinzu acquiesced silently and hurried off to procure the Flame Keys. There wasn’t one person on all Vulcan more qualified than Spock to invade that closed realm, yet Sinzu could not help remembering Suvil’s corpse. The scene of that death was so deeply engraved on his mind that he was sure it would become part of his descendant’s direct memory. It was both Beacon and Warning.

And Spock knew that warning with the same scorching memory as Sinzu. Suvil had sought The Uncommon Occurrence—

what the humans called a miracle—at Beom, a miracle to save T’Olne’s life. To produce it, he had used all the knowledge gained in a lifetime of study of the Forgotten Sciences, that branch of knowledge proscribed on modern Vulcan as being much too costly.

But before he died, he had trained Spock in all he’d learned, that it should not once more be forgotten. Time after time during his young teen years, Spock had visited Beom with Suvil. He had learned the secret of the Flame Keys, he had explored the hidden repository the Keys guarded, he had read the records of all previous experiments with the Forgotten Sciences, and he had learned some of the minor tricks Suvil had mastered.

Then had come that day when Suvil planned his last, and greatest experiment. Suvil’s theory, on which he staked his life and that of his wife and the unborn child of what could only have been his last Blooming—a small, local Blooming, one of the very last for the plague was even then in the soil causing erratic, weak, brief and unpredictable Bloomings—Suvil’s theory had been based on all the traditionally sanctioned uses of the kraith sciences plus every oblique reference to the Forgotten Sciences in the Book of Fragments. He’d combined all of this with his practical, experimental knowledge of the devices stored in the repository, and he’d synthesized a general theory to explain these phenomena.

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He’d been wrong. And now, Spock thought he knew exactly what Suvil’s error had been. Suvil had lacked one significant fact to the matrix—knowledge of the dze-ut’. Spock had gained that knowledge at the expense of Kirk’s natural barriers--the experience with the dze-ut’ and the glowstones had left Kirk wide open to the dark star, and the combined effect had nearly killed him. Now Spock was determined to use the knowledge of the dze-ut’, for which Kirk had paid so dearly, to save Kirk’s life and bring him home.

Spock used the time it took Sinzu to bring the Keys to inspect the draping of the anti-wheerr. The job had been done with the usual Beom exactitude and Spock found nothing upon which to comment. He climbed back up the passage and made his way around to the tunnel entrance that led to the wheerr.

He found Sinzu waiting there, and Sarek next to him. It was Sarek who bore the draped tray upon which the Keys rested. "I will accompany you."

"That won’t be necessary."

Their eyes locked for a long moment. The knowledge that lay between them was almost palpable. Sarek, his grandfather, and his grandfathers before him for uncounted generations had remained unalterably opposed to their sons’ tradition of studying the Forgotten Sciences.

"Spock, if we are to train the Second Realm, then let us train them as one."

Spock nodded. "It is your right. Come." And he led the way up the long passage to the wheerr. His stride was steady, but his heart trembled, unspeakably touched by his father’s proposal. To unite the alternate generations and hand down an un-bifurcated Tradition . . . it was often done where the rift was not deep, but the rift was always great in Xtmpraqzntwlfb, the greater between him and his father.

He had never expected Sarek to offer this. When they’d mounted the wheerr and stood beneath the darkened dome. Spock turned to take the tray. "Why?"

"Yesterday you lay in my arms dying. Today you live again. But I understand things now that I did not understand before. It will be not many tomorrows until you are gone into space again beside your Captain, to finish what you have started."

"If I survive what I am about to do, yes, I will go where Jim Kirk leads."

"If you do not survive, or if you do not return . . ."

"Vulcan cannot afford to lose what I have learned."

"We have transaffirmed. The risk should not be that great . . . certainly no greater than if you’d Affirmed under me.

"There is a device here which Suvil prepared for this time. He believed it would reduce the risk to negligible proportions."

"I wouldn’t have thought he’d have considered the possibility."

Spock laid the tray on the brown tile mosaic that formed the floor of the wheerr. The only light was from the dim glow of the top of the orange crystal itself, and from the keeper lights that always glowed around the wall. Squatting beside the tray, Spock removed the draping and carefully folded it aside. "Suvil taught me . . . the meaning of the idic." He looked up into his father’s eyes. "The meaning of my own existence. He taught me to live . . . with myself. He valued the energy released by the coming together of the dissimilar. He believed that you, too, valued the anti-entropic function of intelligence."

"He did not live to see our separation. It is enough that he foresaw our joining together. I have only one apprehension. Can I withstand what you have lived with all your life?"

"The device makes it unnecessary for you to withstand it at all. My personal memories will be imprinted under call-lock. You will have only what you choose, and that only while you choose." He turned back to the tray.

The Flame Keys spread out before him. Physically, they were nothing more than a strip of intricately carved metal alloy on which every few inches there was a spherical nodule about an inch in diameter. There were a lot of nodules. The strip of metal alloy curved in and out among itself until it covered the tray with its apparently senseless meanderings.

Spock positioned the tray carefully on the mosaic, then twisted his head around to sight in on the ceiling, making sure he had it exactly right.

"Spock, are you sure you can operate the Keys? Shouldn’t you finish your Pilgrimage first? Or at least explore what Beom can do for you?"

"No time, Father. As you will see in a few minutes, Jim has been kidnapped. He lies helpless and in danger. To save him, I will have to violate almost every tradition of the proper usage of the utsulan. I hold rexath by right of Pilgrimage, yet I must violate Pilgrimage to accomplish the goals for which I seized rexath."

Spock's Pilgrimage continues here.