solid around his legs.
And then Kirk saw what was hidden in that grass.
Not a cloud of black particles, not a cord, but a mat.
And then the mat rose up and engulfed Spock in randomly crisscrossed webs of black, and where each strand touched him, his flesh dissolved into darkness, just as Kirk’s arm had in Norinda’s grasp. Spock did not cry out to protest the pain, but Kirk knew what he felt.
But Joseph did. And as the greenhouse chamber dissolved into light, his cries echoed in the transporter bay of the Calypso.
Less than two minutes later, Kirk and Worf and Picard beamed back into the chamber, and at first Kirk thought they had been transported to the wrong coordinates.
Then he recognized the transporter platform and console.
They were in the right place.
But Spock and the cloud were gone.
As was each blade of grass, each flower, each tree, each growing thriving life-form that had been in this chamber only minutes before.
All that remained was dirt and bare metal.
Kirk turned slowly in that chamber, in the heat of the Romulan sun, struggling to comprehend what had happened here, fearing Spock was finally lost forever….
Because there was a war to stop and a galaxy to save.
And what was the fate of one man compared with billions?
29
U.S.S. TITAN, REMUS, STARDATE 57489.6
At the Hour of Opposition, the three Jolan nuclear-isomer bombs detonated simultaneously, as they had been programmed.
But they did not detonate where they had been programmed.
The Titan had found them in the places Kirk had predicted, buried in greenhouse domes in the three miners’ communes, where native Remans never ventured and the crops were tended by the followers of the Jolara. From there, the Titan had beamed those destructive weapons into deep space.
Kirk stood on the bridge of the Titan now, to watch those silent explosions, like three small stars burning too brightly, rushing madly to their end.
Then one star faded more quickly than the others, leaving two to shine on by themselves just a few moments longer.
Kirk turned away then, consumed by his thoughts of Spock.
But McCoy was there for him, standing with his battered Reman cane.
“We knew it couldn’t last forever, Jim. That we three couldn’t last.”
“That doesn’t make it any easier,” Kirk said.
McCoy smiled at him then, and to Kirk, it was as if he looked back in time, to the first day a young Leonard McCoy had walked onto the bridge of his Enterprise, with that same wry smile.
“It’s not supposed to be easy,” McCoy said. He touched his hand to his heart. “That’s what lets us know how much we had, and how much we should treasure what’s left.”
Kirk looked back to the screen. Only the distant stars remained, now.
Then a turbolift arrived and Kirk’s heart lifted as he saw Joseph with Beverly Crusher and the Doctor.
Joseph took Kirk’s hand and leaned against him, instead of giving him one of his usual hugs. He was subdued and Kirk knew why. Whatever had happened to Spock on Remus, it was as if he had died before the child’s eyes, and that was something Joseph could not forget. Nor could his father.
The Doctor shook Kirk’s free hand.
“Hi, Dad,” the hologram said.
Kirk looked at the holoemitter on the doctor’s arm. “Good as new?”
“Better.”
Doctor Crusher asked if she could speak to Kirk alone, and Joseph went with the hologram to see the bridge stations. Will Riker commanded the center chair, and had none of his mentor’s nervousness about having children on his bridge.
As soon as they’d gone, Crusher showed Kirk three medical instruments that resembled hyposprays, but weren’t.
“I think you should take these,” she said.
“What are they?” Kirk asked.
“Genetic comparison modules. When we were on Remus with the Doctor disguised as Joseph, a Romulan physician wanted to use these on what he thought was your son.”
“I don’t understand the significance.”
“I brought them back with me because I thought they might contain the genotypes of Joseph’s relatives. I thought that was why they wanted him on Remus. To trace his line-age.”
“What did they contain?”
“Are you familiar with the work of Doctor Richard Galen?”
Kirk knew the name well. “Jean-Luc was one of his students. He helped complete Galen’s identification of what could be the Progenitor species, the ones who may have seeded this galaxy with life.”
Crusher nodded, pointed to the modules. “That’s the genotype in these devices. The reconstructed hypothetical Progenitor genotype.”
Kirk was perplexed. “Why would anyone want to compare Joseph’s genotype to…that?”
Crusher had no answers. “I don’t know. But I’ve given all my research to Doctor McCoy, and…well, I think you should look into it.” She glanced over at Joseph where he sat at an engineering station. “He is…a unique child.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” Kirk put the modules in his jacket pocket. “Thank you.”
Worf and Picard arrived next. Worf carried a carefully wrapped package for Joseph that was obviously a d’k tahg knife. “With your approval, of course,” Worf told Kirk.
“Only if you teach him how to use it properly,” Kirk answered.
Worf smiled with a soft snarl and went to join Joseph at the engineering station.
Picard remained with Kirk, both men watching the knot of personnel that had gathered around Joseph.
“Quite a charming lad,” Picard said.
“That’s another way of putting it,” Kirk replied.
Picard didn’t understand the comment, but had another topic to bring up.
“I spoke with Admiral Janeway. She sends her regards, and her regrets.”
“I should probably speak with her, too,” Kirk said. “Give her the full report about Norinda.”
“She mentioned that,” Picard said. “And she also mentioned that she had a proposition for you.”
Kirk forced a smile. “I like her, Jean-Luc, but she outranks me.”
“You’re incorrigible, Jim. Her proposition involves the Calypso.”
“What about the Calypso?”
“If you want her, she’s yours.”
“It’s a scow.”
“It can be modified.”
“A new bridge?”
“Anything’s possible.”
“What’re the conditions?”
Kirk could see that Picard knew more than he was revealing. “Reasonable.”
Kirk knew what a Starfleet admiral’s definition of “reasonable” would be—anything but.
