Kirk felt his face flush with anger. “My son is on Vulcan. I will not leave without him.”
The Vulcan raised a finger and the other three members of his team were instantly at his side.
“Mister Kirk, given the capabilities of my world’s peacekeeping agencies, it is not logical for a criminal organization to keep a kidnapping victim on Vulcan. Therefore, your son is not on Vulcan.”
For a few moments, Kirk’s mind raced as he weighed what he would need to do to get past the security team. But just as quickly he decided that the effort wouldn’t be worth it. Even if he managed to drop all four Vulcans, there would be more in the corridors outside the transporter depot.
The wiser course was to return to the Belle Reve and, from there, to make his way back to the planet below.
If Norinda wanted him to return to Earth, then more than ever, Kirk knew, for Joseph’s sake he must remain on Vulcan.
He felt certain even Spock would approve of his logic.
14
THE GATEWAY, VULCAN
STARDATE 58564.5
It took less than twelve hours for Kirk to return to Vulcan.
The Belle Reve maintained a full data library of Starfleet’s most secure codes, including those required for high-level communications with Vulcan authorities. It also carried a simple device that, when worn like a combadge, overwrote the individual Starfleet ID code that was transmitted with each personnel transport.
Kirk applied for a landing visa under the name of Lieutenant Roger Ramey of the Starship Sovereign, and the Belle Reve’s computers were able to surreptitiously upload Lieutenant Ramey’s service record into the memory banks of Vulcan’s Joint Operations Center.
Kirk doubted any Vulcan would personally review his application-the entire system was automated and, under present circumstances, operating at the limits of its capacity. He beamed from his ship to an orbital hotel where some of the survivors from the Sovereign and other stricken vessels were being quartered. From there, with Lieutenant Ramey’s ID, he had his request to beam to Vulcan approved without comment.
Kirk had been tempted to try to arrange for a second visa, so that Janeway’s Emergency Medical Hologram could accompany him. But the Doctor’s holographic emitter would likely be flagged as suspect technology during transport, and Kirk was determined not to do anything that might attract attention. Instead, the Doctor remained on the Belle Reve with Scott and McCoy, standing by to retrieve Kirk the moment Kirk felt retrieval was necessary.
Thus, alone, Kirk beamed into the central transport hub at the Gateway, and at once made his way to the only local contact he believed he could trust not to report his presence.
Scholar T’Vrel.
As Kirk had expected, T’Vrel’s s’url was a simple compound, completely unremarkable, except for its location in the oldest part of the ancient desert community. Supposedly, several of its buildings had existed in Surak’s day, though Kirk doubted any structure from that time had survived the battles that had raged in this location.
Wide stone steps, heavily worn by centuries of grit and dust and the sandals of thousands of pilgrims, led up from the street to an unornamented portico of stone blocks. The blocks were deep desert red, a peaceful color to Vulcans, Kirk knew. It spoke to them of the stunning vistas of their desert regions, and of the absence of blood.
Kirk walked up the center of the steps, his coarse-woven cloak wrapped about him, his hood pulled forward, not for cooling, only for anonymity.
As he reached the top step, he looked into a wide courtyard of wind-smoothed stone slabs, ringed by a series of single-story buildings, each with a wide sheltered walkway serving as a porch, and as a way to move from one building to another in shade. But for now, it was nearing sunset, and the orange Vulcan sun cast long shadows from the horizon. Shade wasn’t necessary.
A solitary Vulcan, dressed in brown and tan robes identical to those T’Vrel had worn, swept the sand from a few stone slabs with precise, methodical movements. The impossibility of ever completing that task across the entire courtyard made Kirk think the exercise was more one of meditation than of groundskeeping.
The soft glow of candlelight flickered through many of the open windows of the surrounding buildings. Kirk paused, trying to see if one building seemed more likely than another to be a main hall where he could inquire after T’Vrel.
In those few moments, one of the nearest doors opened and a second Surakian walked out, not slowly, not rushing, but with purpose.
The Surakian lifted her hooded head as she neared Kirk and, from what little Kirk could see, she was young, no more than twenty standard years. It is only after Vulcans reach full adulthood that their chronological ages become difficult to reconcile with their appearance.
Because the young Vulcan’s robes were colored with a single shade of brown, and not two like T’Vrel’s, Kirk judged she was a novice. Still, she might know where T’Vrel could be found.
“Good evening,” Kirk said as the young woman came within speaking distance.
Her eyes met Kirk’s with surprising intensity, and in a soft whisper, she said, “You’re not safe here-follow me at once.”
There was no time for Kirk to reason his way through to a decision. No chance to apply logic to an assessment of how likely a trap might be. Instead, acting solely on instinct, he changed direction in midstride and followed the novice back down the stone steps, into the sunset shadows of the street.
The cloaked figure didn’t look back to see if Kirk followed. Kirk understood; her Vulcan ears would have answered that question upon hearing Kirk’s footsteps stay close.
For fifteen minutes they proceeded on a circuitous route that Kirk assumed was designed to expose anyone who might be following them. It was little defense against orbital scans or even a distant pursuer with a tricorder, but Kirk guessed the young woman was employing other defenses against those techniques. Simply ignoring them wouldn’t be logical.
At last, night fell and the Vulcan stars came out, much fewer than seen in the desert skies of Earth due to the brightness of the two small companions to this world’s primary star. Eridani B and C, so distant they were little more than points of light, still were bright enough and close enough together this time of year to cast faint double shadows between the widely spaced streetglows illuminating the empty thoroughfares.
Eventually, the young woman turned in to an alleyway, and when Kirk followed, he found her waiting for him, her face still half obscured by her hood.
“Did T’Vrel send you?” Kirk asked.
Her answer surprised him.
“No. She expected you. But so did others. There was concern you would be captured and we had no clear plan to prevent it.”
“Captured by whom?” Kirk asked.
“I think you know.” She turned toward an unmarked door in the side of what appeared to be a warehouse. “In here.”
Beyond the door was a narrow corridor. At the end of the corridor, another door. As to what lay beyond that, on any other occasion Kirk might have laughed at the incongruous and very un-Vulcan scene before him.
It was a bar, old and run-down. Mostly for alien visitors, it seemed, but with many Vulcans, both as customers and staff.
The light level was low. Most illumination came from phosphorescent channels in the floor, evoking the living lights of Vulcan’s T’Kallaron caves.
The sound in the bar was a gentle rush of a dozen alien tongues, too many for the universal translator in Kirk’s combadge to make sense of all at once.
