Joseph was screaming in fear.
Kirk whirled around and dropped the communicator the instant his child cried out.
It was impossible, but Norinda had him, one arm clutching his chest, the other squeezing his neck in the V of her elbow.
How had she moved so quickly? While he was using the communicator to talk with Picard, he’d kept watch on her unmoving, kneeling form at least fifty meters away.
Kirk shot a glance back to where she’d been only seconds ago and—
—she was still there! Unraveling strand by strand as a long black cord snaked from her kneeling figure to the Norinda who held his struggling child.
The kneeling Norinda was nothing more than a paper-thin shell, used to create a duplicate Norinda. Somehow the shell’s interior volume had become a tendril that could reach out unseen, behind his child.
But Kirk was immune to awe or fear of alien life-forms, no matter how incomprehensible. The safety of his son was at stake. Remembering Norinda’s reaction to his first mek’leth attack, Kirk rushed for the black cord, the weapon already in his hands.
Spock was doing his best to keep Norinda distracted, by circling around her to keep her back to Kirk.
Kirk swung the blade down to sever the cord of what he guessed was some type of nanotechnology. That was one way to explain Norinda’s particular abilities.
But when the mek’leth sliced through the cord, the section of it leading to what was left of the kneeling Norinda shell suddenly puffed into a cloud of black dust. The side leading to the second Norinda snapped like an elastic cord and hissed through the grass and was instantly absorbed by the duplicate’s body.
With Spock on one side of her and Kirk on the other, Norinda began to back toward the transporter console, as if seeking its shelter.
Joseph screamed again and kicked his legs violently against Norinda’s side. Norinda’s hand clamped over his mouth, and Joseph’s screams faded.
“Put him down,” Kirk called out, tortured by his son’s cries. “He’s a child. There’s nothing he needs that you can give him.”
Norinda did not answer. She had not spoken since she had captured Joseph. Kirk worried that meant she had no further interest in bargaining.
He was now within two meters of her, but knew he wouldn’t dare take a chance at swinging his mek’leth so close to his son.
“Tell me what you want, Norinda.”
But Norinda merely stepped back from him with jerky, metronome precision, her movements like that of a machine.
Spock took his chance. Kirk saw him stretch across the console from behind Norinda to slam his hand down on her shoulder and pinch whatever analogues of nerves and muscles she must have there.
But Spock’s fingers plunged into Norinda, as if her body were no more substantial than froth on an ocean wave, and before he could pull his hand back, her flesh became solid again and trapped him.
“Let go of them both!” Kirk shouted to her. “Let go of them and you can have me!”
“I already do.” Norinda’s whisper was soft in Kirk’s ear.
The Norinda that held his son and Spock abruptly imploded and a cloud of black sand rained down to the ground, freeing both of them as Kirk felt a new Norinda’s arms wrap around him from behind. He shouted for Joseph and Spock to run, to wait for Picard to arrive.
Kirk tried to pull away, but the new Norinda merged with the fabric of his jacket and held him in place. He twisted from side to side, seeking any chance to drive the razor-edged mek’leth into his captor.
But suddenly he was yanked high in the air, then thrown down so violently that the mek’leth flew from his grasp.
Kirk lay flat on his back on the grass, gasping, eyes blinded by crimson fire, the Romulan sun blazing down through the overhead dome.
A shadow fell over him.
Norinda. A solid black silhouette against the sun.
Her hand reached down, lifted him to his feet. He looked past her, searching for Joseph…Spock.
“Don’t look for them,” Norinda said. “Look at me.”
Kirk complied, hoping at least that with her focus on him, Joseph and Spock might escape her.
“I’m going to show you the true reality of existence.”
Norinda tightened her grip on his hand.
“Now you’ll understand,” she said. “Now you’ll know forever….”
Kirk felt a jolt of electric pain singe his hand as Norinda’s hand first lost focus, then softened, then broke up into tiny black cubes that broke again and again into smaller and smaller cubes.
Then his hand softened and broke into darkness.
Pain flashed through Kirk’s dissolving arm.
But then Norinda gasped in surprise—as a d’k tahg blade punched through her chest from behind. An instant later, her grip on Kirk dissolved.
Kirk fell away from her, his arm on fire as it resolidified, to see Joseph, his Klingon d’k tahg in upraised hand, standing in a swirling cloud of smoke.
Kirk rushed forward and scooped his son up and out of the cloud of fine dark particles that had been Norinda. Joseph wriggled in his father’s arms.
“Did ya see that, Uncle Spock?” the child asked excitedly.
“Indeed, I did,” Spock said.
“Me and my dad, we got the bad guy!”
“Indeed, you did.”
Kirk and Spock faced each other then, and without a word Spock looked to the side, and Kirk followed his gaze to see a dark column of smoke beginning to gather by a bank of flowers.
“Theories, Spock?” Kirk asked, still shaken by what might have been. And still might be.
“Several. But they can wait until we’re safely away.”
As Spock retrieved the dropped communicator to set the transporter controls for beam-out, Kirk kept a wary eye on the cloud. It was taking on a vaguely humanoid shape, and if it followed the same pattern as before, in a few minutes there could be another Norinda in the chamber. He wasn’t sure they could hold their positions until the Calypso was back in range.
But as soon as Spock activated the communicator, Picard made contact. When he and his crew had heard Joseph’s cries, the Calypso had changed orbits, coming in lower and faster to arrive more quickly, then climbing a higher and slower orbit to increase her time over the beam-up coordinates.
Kirk carried Joseph to the transporter platform and the child sat cross-legged in the center of it, still excited by his adventure, but exhausted.
Kirk gathered the mek’leth and the d’k tahg blade and stepped onto the pad beside his son.
Spock locked carrier waves with the Calypso and prepared to set a ten-second timer on the transporter console.
It was then Kirk saw that the cloud was gone.
It took only a second for the meaning of that to register.
“Spock! Run!”
Spock didn’t look up. He rapidly entered the commands for the timer.
“Spock! The cloud is gone! She’s coming back!”
Spock hit the activation control, then ran around the console, picking up speed as he neared the platform.
And then, for just a moment, it seemed as if Spock had stepped into a hole. His foot sank into the ground past his ankle.
“Spock?” Kirk started to take a half-step from the platform to go to Spock’s aid.
But Spock waved him back. “No, Jim! Stay on the platform!”
Joseph stood up beside his father. “Uncle Spock?”
Spock dropped down another few centimeters, almost as if he were sinking in quicksand. But the grass was
