Vulcan's Forge Read online

  "There can be no value in any matters that include a return to the practice of violence. My son, I do not mean to belittle your thinking. But you must admit that I have had many more years of study—many more years of life and its experiences."

  "Yes, of course, but—"

  "You are letting control slip, Spock."

  And you—you patronize me. my father. But Spock wisely kept silent, willing himself to emotionless calm. After a moment, Sarek nodded approval. "Yes, the words of Sered sound intriguing. Who would not wish to learn more about our sundered cousins? But as a mature adult, Spock, I truly am more aware of the warning lessons of history. Yes, those ancient days must sound fascinating to one as young as yourself, full of what your mother would call 'romance.' I remember when I was your age and felt the same. But there is nothing romantic about war, nothing fascinating about mindless bloodshed. As I grew, I learned that not all paths are safe to walk."

  The lecture was rapidly becoming more than a young Vulcan's self-control could endure. Before he could disgrace himself by blurting out something such as But I'm not you, Spock dipped his head courteously to his father and said instead, "You have given me much to ponder. If I may . . . ?"

  Sarek nodded, the ever so slight upward crook of his mouth hinting at his amusement.

  At me. At my youth. At my thinking in other ways than his and—no. Emotion. Control it.

  Spock gladly fled to the sanctuary of his mother's wetplanet conservatory. There he stood alone amid unfamiliarly damp air and strange, lush-leaved plants, seeing little of them, willing himself back to proper Vulcan reserve.

  "Spock!" said a startled voice. "I thought you were with your father."

  Spock turned to see Amanda, looking every bit a true Vulcan lady in her simple, elegant grey robes for all her undeniably human features. "I was," he told her. "Till now."

  Amanda moved closer, comprehension lighting her eyes. "Oh. I see. He doesn't mean to lecture you, Spock, truly he doesn't. He—I—we are concerned about you. I'll even use an emotional term if you'll excuse me the lapse of good taste: We're worried about you."

  "Why? Because I am not truly Vulcan?"

  "Because," Amanda countered gently, "you haven't yet puzzled out who and what you are." She held up a hand before he could speak. "And that, believe it or not, has nothing to do with mixed heritages. Spock, everyone goes through the 'Who am I?' stage. It's part of growing up, no matter what the sentient species, particularly when the being involved is also going through what my people used to call, with dread, 'the teenage years!' And—you aren't hearing a word of this, are you?"

  "Mother, forgive me. I have heard too many lectures this day."

  "Teenagers," she muttered, but there was a wry smile on her face. "They're all the same. Come to think of it, everyone's the same."

  "I fail to see—"

  "Oh, I don't mean in surface things like appearance"—one finger lightly touched an Earthly orchid, very foreign in appearance to any Vulcan bloom—"or culture. But you know that I've been studying the various Federation races. And the more I study, the more I realize that there are greater similarities than differences among us. I'm finding certain constants in all the sentient races."

  Spock frowned slightly, as much in confusion as denial. "I will grant that all peoples have concepts of what they consider moral or immoral. But more than that—I would not criticize your logic, Mother—"

  "Why, thank you, dear," dryly. "

  —but how can your statement be true?"

  Amanda paused to delicately pinch off a wilted leaf. "Have you never heard that ancient children's tale of the hero transformed into a hideous beast, a guise from which he's rescued by the heroine?"

  "Yes, of course. That is 'Sikan and T'Risa,' though no one tells such a tale to children nowadays."

  "A pity."

  She clearly meant it. Spock blinked. "Surely you do not claim to find truth in such a . . . a foolishly emotional story."

  "Oh, I do. To you that tale is 'Sikan and T'risa.' To me that's 'Beauty and the Beast,' and to Andorians it becomes "The Prince Trapped in Monster Form.' Spock, archetypes, certain set figures and concepts, are built into all of us. Even Vulcans, with all their self-control, have them."

  "I do not see—"

  "The Eater of Souls," she challenged, and laughed when Spock could not quite suppress a tiny flinch. "You see?"

  The Eater of Souls was an ancient Vulcan myth, a demonic being that had once been said to manifest in sandstorms during the summer solstice—a being that could devour Vulcan essences, even down to the katra.

  Spock shook his head in disapproval. "This proves nothing. The Eater of Souls is a foolish relic far removed from the cold equations of science."

  "Properly logically stated. And yet, like it or not, you reacted."

  "I . . ."

  "Spock, even Vulcans can't—and shouldn't!—deny their basic mythic roots. Those are a part of every sentient being. And I know that Vulcans don't want to throw away their honored heritage."

  Spock opened his mouth, shut it, finding absolutely nothing to say. The day had begun with confusion, and his father and mother were only adding to that. By now he was no longer sure where he stood. And anything he said, Spock knew, was going to be disgracefully emotional.

  Rather than breaching good manners, Spock bowed and withdrew without a word. The doors of the conservatory sealed shut behind him.

  FOUR

  Obsidian, Deep Desert

  Day 3, Seventh Week, Month of the Raging Durak,

  Year 2296

  He spurned even the faintest shadow of the sheltering rock cliff and strode out into the deep desert, his arms outstretched as if to welcome the light of a star that both gave life and took it, agonizingly, away. The world's sun flashed into his eyes, and the veil, in instinctive reflex, descended over his eyes, and he permitted it to remain—for that instant.

  He lifted his hand further, baring his head to the light. The star was at zenith. It was too bright a gold and more poisonous than the star under which he had been born and that he would never see again unless the Faithful and his sundered brothers helped him wrest its control from weaklings and traitors.

  He was too old for the blood fever. Still, his blood was fire. His eyes were fire. He stripped the veils from them and gazed directly into the sunlight.

  The Faithful who had followed him from their rock fastnesses now assembled behind him. They moved softly, lest his meditations be disturbed and he be angered.

  They feared him more than they feared their own deadly sun!

  The light burned. His eyes were fire, and that was good.

  The Faithful ventured forward. He heard the whisper of worn cloth and knew that one or two, perhaps more, had followed his example and dared uncover there in the pitiless light.

  Would you skulk your puny lives away underneath a rock because you fear your star and its gifts of life and death? he had demanded only the night before. Pale you are, and call it safety.

  As a Terran maggot was safe, whether it crawled or walked abroad on two legs and made futile attempts to make the desert bloom. Deserts were not supposed to bloom; they were a forge on which the strong must be tested if the race were to thrive and conquer.

  At that, the nomads' carefully swathed pallor was at least a survival positive, unlike the arrogance with which the citydwellers squandered their substance on Federation drugs and exposed themselves to the sunlight for no better reason than to display their wealth and that they could. The Faithful despised those of the cities. If their hatred were as strong as their faith, they would serve him well.

  He heard one of the Faithful tumble to the ground: that dawn, the man's breath had come too fast, and he had raised a hand to his chest as if a spear had transfixed it.

  Behind him, the others groaned at this proof of weakness, unworthiness.

  "Drag that back to shelter," he commanded. "He will not stand here upon the sands with us again."

  Or anyplace
else. The man had stopped breathing.

  "When shall we be worthy?" Eldest of the Faithful, Arakan-ikaran dared speak to him, dared even to question.

  "When you are ready!" he snapped.

  They whispered briefly among themselves, saving their strength for endurance and to contemplate the garden that he had promised to set in the middle of the deepest waste, filled with sweet water, abundant food, and strong children. In that paradise, no one's skin fissured or blossomed with evil, deadly colors. No one collapsed and died. But there was a world to win before paradise could be regained.

  He allowed the translucent veil to shield his eyes once more. There was endurance and there was stupidity. And there was meditation, as well. His keen hearing heard the whisper of every grain of sand that shifted or the faint flicker of air that brushed against the lesions that had begun to open even on his skin. If he strained his hearing in the dry air, he could fancy he heard ionization itself as energy built up for the next set of solar flares, prominences leaping past the star's corona, attempting to embrace this world. Blurred by the veil, dune and rock promontory acquired a halo as if rainbows turned malignant and extended past the spectrum visible to the Faithful into fascinating patterns of ultraviolet and infrared.

  His eyes were fire. His blood was fire.

  And his brothers were calling.

  To meet him here at the appointed place, far away from the concealment of rock or the reassurance of shielded equipment, when solar flares were imminent was a risk worthy of his warrior forebears. Energy pooled, static crackling as a sudden, turbulent shimmering erupted on the desert plain. For an instant, the brothers who were more outsiders than true kindred seemed to float above the sand and gravel, sheathed in light, crowned with fierce colors. They flickered out, then returned, stronger than before.

  "They come! Without a ship, they come!" the Faithful whispered. "Crowned in glory, they walk, so tall and so unscarred."

  To these primitives, he thought with sharp contempt, the Romulans with their lean height, their arrogant bearing, ready for thought or warfare combined, would look like messengers from that paradise he had prophesied for them. Now their dreams must come true.

  And his along with them.

  It was not illogical to dream: it was merely illogical to pour one's blood out upon the sand.

  Far better that it be Federation blood.

  The Romulans—even here, he would not willingly speak the name they had for themselves or call them brothers before lesser creatures—saluted him, to which he replied with a stately inclination of his head.

  "Even these messengers from the heavens honor him. Our Prophet. Ours," whispered one of the Faithful.

  It was more to the point, he thought as the Romulans, heavily armed, clasped his arm in the warrior's greeting, to say not that he was their prophet, but that they were his sacrifices.

  Or anything else he needed.

  If you can bear to hear an insult and not blindly kill to avenge the slight, the young centurion had once heard a senator say, you can bear to salute a traitor. Even here, it was not safe even to think the name of the senator: one never knew who among these savages just might bear telepathic abilities.

  And it was not, after all, as if the tall figure casting a long shadow over the sand were a traitor to the senator his own commander served, much less to the Praetor himself. He was simply a traitor to his own race. The young centurion thought that he could very well endure another world's treachery, especially if the traitor declared himself open to alliance against the Federation. They would use him. And when they had won, they would turn and conquer the traitor's world as well, giving him his dream of a reunited breed—only not in the way he had hoped.

  After all, alliances, especially covert ones, could always be disavowed.

  The Romulan touched the amulet at his throat. He was a warrior born and had learned more than a warrior's skills. Still, the amulet helped him face the traitor and his band of mad primitives with suitable composure.

  If it were not for this planet's location and the embarrassment that expulsion from it would cause the Federation, he would not have remained here for longer than it took to request removal.

  The young centurion nodded respect to the one who faced the sun with naked eyes and bared head—no one had ever said that Romulans could not or did not lie, especially not to beings they held in contempt. Then he turned toward the rocks as if studying them. Gradually, he let himself drift toward the nearest escarpment. The rest of his landing party spread out, attempting to distract the natives that their contact called the Faithful.

  His boots crunched on the sharp black rock that littered the ground. Sound carried a long way in the desert. If the cursed Federation risked an agent out this far (and they had one mad enough and almost brave enough that it would be no disgrace for a Romulan to fight him), he would hear, just as he would hear if their catspaw and madman moved toward him.

  Protected by the striated rock, momentarily somewhat cooler, he snapped open his communicator. Shielded though it was against the miserable static on this irradiated world, static crackled from it. He muttered and adjusted the gain. Perhaps the interference—and the exceedingly narrow communications band that any Romulan signals officer knew to monitor—would prevent any Federation meddlers from eavesdropping, as was their contemptible habit.

  A faint beep came from the communicator, and he whispered words, implanted by drug therapy, that he had not even known he had learned and that he would later forget.

  There was a pause during which the young Romulan listened to the electrons dance between here and the Warbird he wished to his ancestors he had never left. Then:

  "Well?"

  Only that one word. Avrak, sister's son to Senator Pardek—he who proclaimed so eloquently the reasons (if you could call them such) that he desired more knowledge of the Federation—rarely spoke more than needful. It was far safer that way. The senator stood in place of a father to Avrak, who was in turn the centurion's own patron. If he were to make a career, win a share of his family's estate, even select a suitable consort, he could do nothing without Pardek's consent. As a military client, the young officer rose and fell, lived or died, with Avrak.

  "Sir!" He could be as sparing of speech as Avrak.

  "How is our traitor?" That Avrak asked at all was high praise.

  "This malfunctioning star hasn't cooked his brains. Not quite yet. Even if he does think he's in charge."

  "Excellent. Keep it that way."

  The communicator went dead.

  Had that been a chuckle he had heard?

  Despite the heat of the deep desert and the restraint bred into him, the Romulan shuddered.

  FIVE

  Intrepid II and Obsidian Day 4, Fifth Week, Month of the Raging Durak, Year 2296

  Lieutenant Duchamps, staring at the sight of Obsidian growing ever larger in the viewscreen, pursed his lips in a silent whistle. "Would you look at that?"

  Spock, who had been studying the viewscreen as well, glanced quickly at the helmsman. "Lieutenant?"

  Duchamps, predictably, went back into too-formal mode at this sudden attention. "The surface of Obsidian, sir. I was thinking how well named it is, sir. All those sheets of that black volcanic glass glittering in the sun. Sir."

  "That black volcanic glass is, indeed, what constitutes the substance known as obsidian," Spock observed, though only someone extremely familiar with Vulcans could have read any dry humor into his matter-of-fact voice. Jim, for instance. Getting to his feet, Spock added to Uhura, "I am leaving for the transporter room, Commander. You have the conn."

  "Yes, sir."

  He waited to see her seated in the command chair, knowing how important this new role was to her, then acknowledged Uhura's right to be there with the smallest of nods. She solemnly nodded back, aware that he had just offered her silent congratulations. But Uhura being Uhura, she added in quick mischief, "Now, don't forget to write!"

  After so many years among humans
, Spock knew perfectly well that this was meant as a good-natured, tongue-in-cheek farewell, but he obligingly retorted, "I see no reason why I should utilize so inappropriate a means of communication," and was secretly gratified to see Uhura's grin.

  He was less gratified at the gasps of shock from the rest of the bridge crew. Did they not see the witticism as such? Or were they shocked that Uhura could dare be so familiar? Spock firmly blocked a twinge of very illogical nostalgia; illogical, he told himself, because the past was exactly that.

  McCoy was waiting for him, for once silent on the subject of "having my molecules scattered all over Creation." With the doctor were several members of Security and a few specialists such as the friendly, sensible Lieutenant Clayton, an agronomist, and the efficient young Lieutenant Diver, a geologist so new to Starfleet that her insignia still looked like they'd just come out of the box. Various other engineering and medical personnel would be following later. The heaviest of the doctor's supplies had already been beamed down with other equipment, but he stubbornly clung to the medical satchel—his "little black bag," as McCoy so anachronistically called it—slung over his shoulder.

  "I decided to go," he told Spock unnecessarily. "That outrageously high rate of skin cancer and lethal mutations makes it a fascinating place."

  That seemingly pure-science air, Spock mused, fooled no one. No doctor worthy of the title could turn away from so many hurting people,

  "Besides," McCoy added acerbically, "someone's got to make sure you all wear your sunhats."

  "Indeed. Energize," Spock commanded, and . . .

  . . . was elsewhere, from the unpleasantly cool, relatively dim ship—cool and dim to Vulcan senses, at any rate—to the dazzlingly bright light and welcoming heat of Obsidian. The veils instantly slid down over Spock's eyes, then up again as his desert-born vision adapted, while the humans hastily adjusted their sun visors. He glanced about at this new world, seeing a flat, gravelly surface, tan-brown-gray stretching to the horizon of jagged, clearly volcanic peaks. A hot wind teased grit and sand into miniature spirals, and the sun glinted off shards of the black volcanic glass that had given this world its Federation name.