From their new hiding place, Kirk looked up to see thin shafts of blue light spike through the loose boards of the ceiling. The shafts were slowly changing their angle as whatever flying craft they originated from took station over the shop. From the movements of the light, it was clear the craft was positioning itself to hover directly over them. Somehow, they were being scanned.
It was time for a new strategy. Then the sound of mewling startled Kirk. It came from somewhere near the shopkeeper’s desk. He glanced back to see two Tiburons huddled there, their pale, bald heads glistening. Behind them, a wall of small cages held hungry, insistent domestic sehlat cubs, each no larger than an Earth puppy. This was a pet distribution outlet; the fruit was animal feed.
The new strategy came to Kirk at once. He held out his hand to Marinta, whispered urgently, “Your IDIC.”
Whatever training she’d received, Vulcan or not, Kirk appreciated that it had been thorough. Without hesitation, Marinta handed him the simple metal trinket that was in reality a sophisticated biosign generator.
Kirk only had time to nod toward the back of the shop as he unclipped his own IDIC. But Marinta understood.
Kirk sprang out of his crouch, sprinted toward the shopkeeper’s desk, Marinta right behind him.
Another phaser beam flashed in the darkness, but it was too late. Kirk and Marinta were already beside the trembling Tiburons.
“It’s all right,” Kirk whispered. “They’re after us, not you.” He waved the shopkeepers up. “Get out of here. You’ll be all right.”
The humanoids’ webbed earflaps quivered in fear. In the Alpha Quadrant, Vulcan, like Earth, was a world renowned for having banished all criminal behavior.
“Go!” Marinta hissed.
As if electrified, the Tiburons leapt to their feet and ran toward the front door.
Kirk counted to three before phasers fired again and both Tiburons thudded to the floor, heavily stunned.
Then slow and deliberate footsteps advanced into the shop.
Kirk needed no further proof that Marinta was correct. Vulcans did not shoot first and check their targets second. Whoever the security officers were, they weren’t Vulcan.
But that realization did nothing to alter the next step of Kirk’s plan.
Swiftly and silently, he and Marinta unlocked and opened all the sehlat cages they could reach.
Though only a few months old, bristling with short fur and still without fangs, the sehlat cubs growled and spit as they broke for freedom.
Kirk swept two up and clipped an IDIC to each of their collars, then just as quickly dropped them, but not before their tiny claws had slashed him. As soon as the snarling sehlats hit the floor, they disappeared under the counters and displays, their short stubby legs keeping them low to the ground.
“They’re getting away!” a security officer shouted.
Kirk peered out from behind the table and saw several of his pursuers aiming tracking tricorders toward the other side of the shop. As he’d anticipated, the officers had set their devices to scan for the false biosignatures generated by the IDICs.
Running footsteps, the crash of crates, the squeal of sehlats.
A perfect diversion.
Kirk and Marinta ran for the curtained doorway at the back of the shop. But before they reached it, an officer sprang at them from the shadows.
An iron hand closed on Kirk’s throat.
Kirk twisted, struggled, but the grip was unbreakable.
He could see the officer’s Vulcan features in the pale orange glow of the marketplace light. The officer opened his mouth, began to shout: “They’re here!”
But before the last syllable left the officer’s lips, Marinta’s knuckles slammed into his throat, left him gasping.
His grip on Kirk failed. Kirk spun to confront his attacker. But Marinta’s hand was already inside the neck of the man’s uniform, her fingers seeking contact with the unprotected flesh of his shoulder.
Kirk knew what she was doing but was still amazed-a Vulcan nerve pinch delivered by a Romulan.
The man collapsed with a strangled moan, his attempted cry of warning unheard in the noisy confusion of the ongoing search of customers, enhanced by the snarls of fleeing sehlats.
Kirk and Marinta rushed through the curtained doorway, escaped the shop.
The small alley behind the row of shops offered no place to hide.
Kirk paused to get his bearings.
Marinta studied the dark canopy of sky, agitated. “When they realize they’ve been fooled by false biosignatures, they’ll start scanning again. Probably from orbit.”
Kirk guessed what she was about to propose, didn’t agree. “It’s too dangerous to split up.”
“Captain, they’ll be scanning for two individuals traveling together-human and Vulcan. From orbit, that’s how I’ll appear to them.” She handed him the message player. “You have to get this to someone with the ability to extract all possible information. Someone you can trust.”
Kirk hefted the player in his hand, judging the weight of it-not mass, but the power it might have to stop the Totality. “There’s no one on Vulcan who can be trusted,” he said.
“You’re a starship captain. You have a ship. Use it.”
The air trembled. Something big and dark was moving through the sky. Kirk recognized the glow of an aerial searchlight approaching as whatever vehicle hovered over the shop began to change position.
“My child is on Vulcan,” Kirk said quietly. “I won’t leave him.”
Marinta pulled her hood up, hiding her features, preparing for flight. “You have to! The only way you can save Joseph and Spock is to defeat the Totality. The answer’s in that message. If you stay on Vulcan, you’ll lose it.”
Marinta suddenly reached up to touch Kirk’s face as if she meant to meld with him again. “I felt the echo of Spock in you. You know what he’d want you to do. You know what you have to do. Not just for your son and your friend, but for all life in this galaxy.”
Kirk pulled back from her. In his mind he knew she was right, but his heart couldn’t accept it.
“Joseph’smychild….”
“And if you save Joseph and lose the galaxy, what will you have gained? What legacy will you have left him?”
A sudden wind blew through the alley. A blinding spotlight stabbed the rough paving stones just ahead of them.
“You know what you have to do,” Marinta said. And then she turned and ran into the spotlight, rushed through it, kept moving.
The flying craft above the alley, its silhouette indistinct against the Vulcan stars, rotated as it banked to change direction, its spotlight sweeping forward, following Marinta.
Kirk forced himself to turn away from her, to run down the alley in the opposite direction. He wouldn’t leave Vulcan. He wouldn’t abandon his son.
And then he saw the shadows of the alley peel away from the walls and the trash bins and empty crates, rising into the air before him, knit together like living tentacles.
Kirk stumbled to a stop.
From some far distance behind him, he heard a woman scream, knew instantly it was Marinta.
He wheeled to see only a flare of blue reflected from the twisted alley walls and the belly of the craft that hung in the air like a storm cloud.
Kirk turned back to see that the tentacles of darkness were gone. In their place, a woman.
A creature.
“James…” Norinda said. Her voice was Teilani’s, tearing at his heart.
She moved toward him and with every step he saw her more clearly as the glow of the searchlight came closer.
The wind quickened.
