was because she and her followers were trying to foment unrest between Romulus and Remus and Joseph, hailed by some as the new Shinzon, fit into their plans. When Norinda had vanished and her divisive Jolan Movement had collapsed, Picard had expected that everything would return to normal.
“I think it’s time you tell me what’s so special about your son,” Picard said.
Kirk’s slight hesitation told Picard that if he didn’t have an answer, at least he had suspicions.
“Jim,” he urged, “Joseph could be of the utmost importance to the future of the Federation.”
“He’s a child.”
“We’re at war.”
Picard’s challenge went unanswered. He tried again, still urgent, but reassuring. “If you tell me what you know, all of Starfleet will work to keep your son safe.”
Kirk’s face was like stone.
“You’re asking me to send my only child to war.”
Picard couldn’t speak as a father, only as a starship captain, and in that role it sometimes seemed he had been a soldier as often as an explorer. So as a soldier, he said simply, “If that’s what it takes to win, yes, I am.”
Kirk turned, went to the door, and it slipped open before him.
He paused there, looked back at Picard, face drawn by some terrible inner conflict that Picard would not dare presume to understand.
“He’s my child, Jean-Luc. How can I place him in danger? How can I risk losing him?” Picard could see there was something more Kirk wanted to say, but this wasn’t the time. “I love him,” he said quietly. “I’ll find another way to fight.”
Kirk stepped into the corridor. The door slid shut and locked behind him.
Picard wondered if Kirk, in his parental anguish, had found the answer to Janeway’s question: “How do you propose we fight love?”
Faced with the extinction of all life in the galaxy… perhaps all life in the universe… Kirk could not, would not, risk the one chance life might have to survive.
Was that the secret of the Totality’s power? The secret that revealed why it couldn’t be defeated?
Perhaps there was no way to fight love.
If so, the poets had known it all along.
Love did conquer all.
29
S.S. BELLE REVE
STARDATE 58571.1
When Kirk had had the Belle Reve refit at Admiral Janeway’s expense, he had equipped four small cabins with workbenches, computer consoles, and universal equipment racks, turning them into labs. They had become a favorite of the researchers he invited aboard, not the least reason being that the cabins he had chosen all had forward-facing viewports.
Eight hours out from Vulcan, Kirk found Spock in the largest of the four. He wasn’t surprised. It was the best lab, with the best view, and even after a lifetime of serving in Starfleet, Spock was looking out the viewport at the stars.
“Will we ever get tired of them?” Kirk asked as he entered.
Spock stood with his hands behind his back, kept staring ahead as the stars streamed by above and below and to each side. “In the past, I found them peaceful.”
Kirk stood beside Spock, puzzled by what his friend had left unsaid. “But not anymore?”
Spock angled his head, pursed his lips in consideration. “I spent a year within the Totality. They see stars differently-the equivalent of death. I still have echoes of that perception. It is an intriguing dichotomy, to be drawn to something, yet fear it.”
Kirk smiled. “I can think of a great many things that fit that description.” He looked away from the stars for a moment. “What does the Totality know of death?”
Spock didn’t answer at once, and Kirk didn’t hurry him. Spock had explained that he found it difficult to put into words what he had experienced during his time in that other realm.
“They do know of nonexistence,” Spock finally said. “Not as a life-force overall, but as projections.”
“Projections? That’s their equivalent of individuals?” Kirk asked. “So they do know personal death?”
Spock nodded, eyes still fixed on the stars. “The projections do take on individual attributes, especially the more time they spend apart from their realm. Some become bolder than others. Some more thoughtful.”
“Did you interact with any?”
“A few,” Spock said, “though it was difficult. We had no real points of reference in common. Most times, I felt them around me, observing me as I interacted with other personalities that had been drawn into their realm.”
“The people they had captured?” Kirk asked.
“Abductees, yes. As well as those they had replaced.” Spock turned to Kirk, and as he spoke Kirk felt it was almost as if Spock was still trying to make sense of what he had experienced. “I found the range of their reactions to be… surprising.”
“How so?”
“For some, there was a great deal of fear. The Totality took images from our memories, to create illusory environments that they hoped would put us at our ease. But the settings that resulted were far too confusing. A disturbing blend of places the abductees had been in the past, mixed with places they had only dreamed of, or imagined.”
“Did you experience anything like that?”
Spock nodded. “My first experience of the Totality took place in a reconstruction of the mountains overlooking my family’s estate. I was a teenager, and Norinda appeared to me as… someone I knew.”
Kirk heard the hesitation in Spock’s voice, and as a friend, he understood it was a memory Spock didn’t want to discuss.
“Of the people you encountered,” Kirk asked instead, “were there any who weren’t afraid?”
“Some felt they were in an afterlife that corresponded to their religious beliefs. Most of those were surprised, but content. But others… as I said, there was always that presence, unseen, unfelt, but trying to pull us further into the experience. Out of our reconstructed environments and deeper into the Totality.”
Kirk knew Spock well enough to understand what he wasn’t saying.
“You were tempted,” Kirk said.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, Spock gestured to the viewport. “It was much like these stars, Jim. Peace. Understanding. Belonging.”
Kirk found that unexpectedly amusing. He turned away from the viewport, found a place to sit on one of the consoles. “How many worlds have you and I visited where the leaders told us they had the secret of a perfect society?” He laughed. “And all we had to do to achieve perfection is not ask any questions.”
Spock kept his attention on the stars. “This wasn’t the same.”
Kirk didn’t like the sound of that.
“You… believed it?”
Spock looked at Kirk with an almost apologetic expression. “I felt it. I felt… there was something more to understand, if only I would let down my guard and accept what they offered.”
“Why didn’t you?” Kirk asked.
Spock didn’t answer.
“Spock?”
Spock bowed his head. “I don’t know.”
Kirk got up, moved closer to his friend. “Were you afraid?”
