Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (13 page)

It was a brutal act. There would be permanent damage to Storel’s mind.

But in the midst of regret, Sybok felt a surge of victory. His mental powers were far beyond those of
the Watcher. Sybok was a highly trained adept—so skillful that he discovered he could take whatever information he pleased from Storel’s mind with only a little struggle.

The sense of power was utterly intoxicating.

He drew what he needed from the Watcher’s brain: a perfect, clear vision of the great Hall, the interior of which Sybok had never seen and, within, T’Rea’s shining vrekatra.

Sybok let go of Storel’s head and caught the old Vulcan as he fell; he lowered the Watcher to the floor. There was no time to feel remorse for what he had just done. The damage to Storel’s mind was unavoidable, and Sybok’s desperate loyalty to his mother outweighed all other considerations.

Sybok went to the massive door and pushed with the whole of his strength. The door slid open with the faint grinding sound of stone against stone.

The sight within filled Sybok with reverent awe. Before him, a high, vast cavern lined with glowing vrekatras, full of the knowledge of the centuries, stretched into apparent infinity. The chamber was sufficiently lit by the luminous force fields surrounding the receptacles.

Sybok ran lightly through the chamber, past a thousand spheres of living light until he reached the one so clearly envisioned in the Watcher’s mind.

He stopped. Before him, chest-high and nestled against the polished black stone of the mountain’s interior, his mother’s vrekatra rested upon a stand of ebony trihr wood. Beneath the receptacle a name had been simply carved in old Vulcan script: T’Rea. The
legend was drenched in the radiance cast by the retaining field, whose light reflected off flecks of diamondlike crystal embedded in the onyx wall.

Sybok knelt before the receptacle and reached up. His hands sought out the orb’s vibrating surface and rested there. The tips of his fingers prickled and tingled with the field’s energy . . . or was it the restless energy of T’Rea’s mind?

He directed a single thought into the globe.

Mother
. ..

Her response was so immediate, so powerful and joyous that Sybok gasped aloud and struggled to keep from falling backwards.

Shiav
. . .

He clutched the globe and wept without sound, without tears.
I have come to keep my promise to you, Mother. Tell me where Sha Ka Ree is and I will take you there with me.

She responded, not with thoughts or images, but with wordless, grateful love. For a moment, he basked in it.

And again T’Rea shared with him the vision from the One, the Other, the Source. But it was not the gentle vision she had bestowed upon her young child. This time, T’Rea withheld nothing from him . . . and the experience was almost too terrifying for Sybok to bear.

At first he shrank from it in fear. The vision was one of darkness—complete and hideous blackness, evoking within him mindless fear. It swirled about him, engulfing him within its center.

When he thought he could stand no more, that his
heart would cease beating from sheer terror, the darkness parted, and gave way to light.

The sight was one of unutterable glory. In the cold clarity of space, a lone planet circled a single white star.

The planet loomed toward him; Sybok sank down, into its atmosphere.

Its surface teemed with life, with beauty—lush vegetation, dense forests, rivers, oceans, lakes, streams—more precious water than Sybok, born to a desert world, had ever seen.

And the mountains! Higher, more majestic than Mount Seleya herself. The tallest of them formed themselves into a perfect circle, a ring. And at its center. ..

Intrigued, Sybok strained to see, but his sight failed him.

Herein lies the One,
a voice said.

It was not T’Rea’s voice but, Sybok realized with ecstasy, the voice of the One Itself.

He swooned, lost to himself.

How long he remained unconscious was unclear. When he awoke, he found himself still within the great Hall, on the floor beside T’Rea’s vrekatra.

Beside him stood the High Master and three attendants.

He pushed himself to a sitting position and stared up at them in total confusion—until he remembered Storel. Sybok’s crime had been discovered.

Worse, T’Rea’s consciousness was no longer with him . . . but he could not remember intentionally
severing the link. Panicked, he glanced up at the receptacle.

It was dark.

“My mother!” He jumped to his feet and glared at T’Sai. Whatever fear or respect he might have had for the position of High Master fled him in that awful moment. “What have you done with her?”

In his desperation, he was prepared to engage in physical and mental battle with them all—T’Sai and her three most powerful adepts—to find the vanished T’Rea. His rational mind understood he would most likely destroy himself in the attempt, but he was too distraught to care.

T’Sai remained implacable in the face of his dismay. “We found both of you thus.” She gestured at the floor. “T’Rea refused to reenter the vrekatra. It was her choice to embrace annihilation instead.”

Sybok closed his eyes. T’Sai was still speaking, meaningless words:
You have committed a grave offense, for which there can be no forgiveness.

He heard without understanding as his heart descended into darkness. . . .

Sybok sat, head bowed, in the blue glow of the monitor.

J’Onn, still crouched beside him, was filled with sadness for him. “How do you bear it?” he whispered. “How do you bear it, and all our sorrows as well?”

Sybok raised his head. “The vision sustains me.”

“Sha Ka Ree?”

Sybok nodded. J’Onn could hear the strength return in the Vulcan’s voice. “I am bound to go there; it is the only way T’Rea’s death can be given meaning. I w
ill
find it.” He looked at J’Onn with eyes that burned like a prophet’s.

J’Onn’s home planet was ruled by Romulans. He spoke their language and knew of their legends. The name T’Rea came from Reah, the ancient goddess of the underworld, of death and bereavement.

J’Onn also remembered that Sybok’s mother had called him by a special name. It was a very ancient word, almost as ancient as the root from which the name T’Rea had sprung, a word that J’Onn recognized as having a cognate in the Romulan tongue. He understood its meaning and the legend behind it very well.

J’Onn stood and laid a hand upon the Vulcan’s shoulder.

“Shiav,
” he said.

“I DON’T LIKE THIS
,” McCoy muttered, shaking his head. “I don’t like this at all.” They were on their way to the bridge—for once, the lift was functioning smoothly—and for Spock’s sake, Jim and McCoy had changed the subject to the
Enterprise’s
space-worthiness. The doctor was less than pleased about the fact that the ship had just entered the Neutral Zone—without benefit of a cloaking device.

Jim didn’t much care for the idea himself, but he did what he could to reassure McCoy. Spock, lost in reverie, seemed quite oblivious to the conversation. “We’re sticking carefully to the Nimbus corridor,” Jim said. “It’s off limits. No one can attack us here.”

“You mean no one’s
supposed
to,” McCoy contradicted him darkly. “You think when the Klingons see NCC-1701-A emblazoned across our hull, they’re just
going to say ’Drat! We’re in the Nimbus corridor. I guess we’ll just have to wait to blast them to kingdom come’?”

Jim thought for a moment. “Chekov’s scanning for them. We’ll know the instant they approach. You have to admit, Klingons don’t hang around Nimbus very much; there’s nothing for them to steal, no one looking for a fight. We aren’t going to run into any Klingon vessels until—”

“Until the one that’s probably gunning for us arrives.” McCoy’s expression was glum.

“Well. . . yes,” Jim admitted. Behind them, Spock maintained his mysterious silence. “But look at it this way, Bones: we seem to have beaten them there.”

“Joy of joys,” McCoy said, with something less than enthusiasm.

The lift eased to a smooth stop. “Bridge,” the computer announced brightly, in a pleasant feminine voice.

“Well, I’ll be.” The doctor smiled and took a step forward as the lift doors began to part. “Something on this ship finally
works.”

Spock caught him by the shoulder just in time to keep him from colliding with the unopened left door. Jim forced it open and let them pass.

“It could have been worse,” he told the scowling McCoy. “At least the right door worked.”

Together they stepped onto the bridge.

“Approaching Nimbus Three,” Sulu said.

The main viewscreen showed a pale ochre planet with only a few microscopic dots of blue.

“Hailing frequencies open,” Uhura told the captain. She glanced at the three as they crossed to their
customary places: Kirk at the conn, Spock replacing Chekov at the scanner, McCoy as always at the captain’s left.

Kirk took his seat. “Standard orbit, Mr. Sulu.” He looked over at Spock, who was already bent over his scanners. As distracted as Spock had been at the sight of the terrorist leader, he was now—ostensibly at least—composed and perfectly focused on the task at hand.

“Captain.” Uhura’s voice struck a note of urgency. “We’re receiving a transmission from Paradise City. They demand to know our intentions.”

“Give us some time, Commander. Respond with static. Let them think we’re having difficulties.” The corner of Kirk’s mouth twisted wryly. “It wouldn’t be that far from the truth.”

Uhura leaned toward her speaker. “Paradise City, can you boost your power? We’re barely receiving your transmission.”

“Spock,” Jim said. “Any sign of Klingon vessels?”

“Negative, regarding the immediate vicinity.” The Vulcan kept his eyes on his screen. “Commencing long-range scanning.”

Kirk allowed himself a very small sigh of relief then pressed the intercom. “Transporter room. Status.”

“Scott here, Captain. The transporter is still inoperative. Even if we could manage to locate and lock on to the hostages, we couldna beam them up.”

“How much time do you need, Scotty?”

“I canna say exactly, sir, but several hours, minimum.”

Kirk’s lips thinned. “Without a cloaking device, I
can’t sit around waiting for Kruge’s relatives to find me.” He paused. “Do what you can, Mr. Scott. I suppose we’ll have to get the hostages out the old-fashioned way.”

Spock turned from his viewer to catch the captain’s eye. “Klingon Bird of Prey now entering this quadrant. Estimating one-point-nine hours until her weapons come to bear.”

“Damn,” Jim said softly. They had less than two hours to find the hostages and get them back up to the ship without a transporter. . . and then attempt to outrun the Klingons. He rose. “Let’s move.”

Sybok sat alone through most of the night in the darkened saloon and stared at the bright, blank communications screen. His plan had thus far met with success: Dar, Talbot, even the stubbornly resistant Korrd were his to command.

Now he merely watched and waited. He could afford to be patient. It had taken him the greater part of his life to get this close to his goal; he could wait a few hours more.

Soon one of two events would occur. Either the Klingons would arrive and blast Paradise City cleanly from the planet’s surface . . . or a Federation starship would come. Only a starship bore the weaponry impressive enough to strike fear in the hearts of desperate terrorists; only a starship possessed the capabilities Sybok required to complete his quest.

Sybok believed in fate. If the Klingons arrived first and killed him, the homesteaders, and the hostages, then it meant Sybok had been misguided, that his
mission was a self-created idle fantasy. But if a starship came first. . . If a starship came, it would show that he, Sybok, was in fact divinely guided, divinely protected. It would prove him to be the
shiav
of legend, and it would quell his private doubts that he had been indulging himself in egotistic fantasy.

The last few hours, despite his self-imposed calm, had not been easy. The painful recollection of the loss of T’Rea had stirred up the past. Old memories returned to trouble him, from a time and a life so far removed from the present that Sybok had believed them forgotten—resolved and buried long ago.

But here they were. Memories of Spock, and the old pain.
Why do I think of Spock?
Sybok wondered.
Why now? Does he think of me? Could that be the source of these thoughts? Spock, wherever you are—on Vulcan, no doubt, or perhaps on Earth—are you thinking of me now, through all this time, this space?

He should have quashed the memories immediately; they only served to distract him from his goal. Still, the thoughts of Spock reawakened an old fondness that was pleasant.

Sybok placed a hand atop the terminal and gently laid his forehead against it. At times such as these, when weariness overtook him, he found himself assailed by doubt and strange thoughts. No matter; he would rest, and these emotions would pass.

He jerked his head up suddenly as the screen flickered. A human face, female, dark and lovely, appeared before him.

“Paradise City,” she said. Her voice was as pleasing as her countenance, but it was her words that moved
Sybok to tears of joy. ’This is the Federation starship
Enterprise.
Please respond.”

“A Federation starship,” Sybok whispered. He squeezed his eyelids tightly shut and regained control of himself. It was a sign, an omen from the Source, that he had acted according to the Light. This vessel was a gift, given so that Sybok might reach his goal and uncover the ultimate mystery. He trembled as the screen flashed again, and the image changed to that of the starship’s interior.

A human male, dark-haired and authoritative, frowned at the screen. It was all Sybok could do not to laugh aloud with ecstasy, with amusement at the absolute absurdity of it all.

“This is Captain Pavel Chekov speaking,” the human said. Sybok smiled at him, but the smile had no effect; the captain’s expression remained oppressively serious. “You are in violation of Neutral Zone treaty. I advise you to release your hostages at once, or suffer the consequences.”