Teilani or to Joseph.
Why is this here? Kirk thought.
He glanced around the bridge as it had been at the beginning of his first five-year mission. It was so new, the crew so young.
Then he saw the anomaly.
Doctor Elizabeth Dehner, the psychologist who’d been lost on this mission with Gary. She was present, but as Norinda.
“No,” Norinda said. She stood transfixed by the seething purple energy of the galactic barrier on the viewscreen.
“Not again!” she cried with the full force of the Totality and-
– when the explosion of darkness ended, Kirk was back where it had all begun.
Norinda’s ship, at a time when he had just been given command of the Enterprise.
Kirk realized now how much of her ship Norinda had reproduced on Remus-the domed environment filled with a hundred shades of green; each breath bringing with it the rich perfume of a jungle in flower, lush plants, sparkling rivers; a wall of luminescent blooms, interwoven clusters of scarlet and saffron.
He understood that connection now, between what he had seen in his first months on the Enterprise and what he had seen just last year.
Norinda didn’t know it, but the appeal and power and mystery of life in Kirk’s realm had already conquered her before the Totality could conquer the rest of the universe.
“I don’t understand,” Norinda said.
She appeared before him as she had that first time. Swathed in a diaphanous wrap that glowed with the colors of the jungle-flower wall, her dark hair lustrous, flowing, like a windswept shadow.
“You never will,” Kirk said.
“But I have so much to offer you.”
“What you offer is deadly to us.”
She looked at him in silence, then repeated, “What you offer is deadly to us.” A single tear left a glistening track down her flawless cheek.
Kirk had no way of knowing whether Norinda was parroting his words or truly understood that each of their realms was fatal to the other.
Kirk almost felt sorrow for her.
He had come to Vulcan, walked knowingly into her trap, fully prepared to give his life to save his son.
Then, when she had absorbed him into the Totality, letting him know he was wrong in his conclusion and that there was nothing special about him at all, he had accepted death. He was prepared to let go as long as he knew Joseph would be free.
But in trying to entrap, beguile, confuse, and possess him, she’d accomplished the opposite of what she had hoped to gain.
“No…” Norinda wept as Kirk’s thoughts became clear to her.
“Even here, there’s nothing you can do to control me,” Kirk said quietly. “I have Teilani in my heart, I have my son, and I always will.”
This time, the explosion was like a supernova.
It was dark and cold when Kirk could see again.
He scented fertilizer, the old-fashioned kind, and it made him think of his family’s farm and of—
He looked around in shock at the so-familiar old buildings.
He heard the hiss of sprinklers watering the immaculate lawns.
He saw the statue of Zefram Cochrane reaching to the low-hanging clouds of San Francisco and the hidden stars beyond.
He was on the grounds of Starfleet Academy as it had been ages ago, when he had been a teenager, as Joseph was today.
“Are all your memories the same?!” she demanded.
Kirk knew then that he had her.
There was a way to fight love: with more love. Real love. Family, friends, and lovers.
Kirk had those-all of those-waiting for him in his realm, in his life, and in his memories.
The lesson had been taught. To him, if not to Norinda. He would not accept death. He was ready to fight.
This time, Norinda was not the only thing that exploded.
Everything did, and-
Kirk was in nothingness, with no frame of reference, no illusory environment. All he was aware of was that he was aware, and that he could still hear Norinda.
I tried to bring you here by choice, James. It’s easier that way.
Kirk knew what she meant. Spock had described it.
Norinda was taking him deeper into the Totality, past the point of no return, to show him the ultimate secret.
Or to show him death.
35
VULCAN
STARDATE 58571.6
With Captain Picard and the Belle Reve leading the way, the Enterprise blazed through the Vulcan embargo and not one ship fired on them. Whatever technique the Totality used to communicate in normal space, their system was in disarray.
And if, as Picard suspected, only the command levels of the Vulcan defense forces had been infiltrated and replaced by projections of the Totality, then he was certain that mutinies would already be under way among the Vulcan crews.
But fighting individual projections was something to be undertaken another day.
For now, Picard’s goal was to take out the Totality’s leader in this realm. And all evidence pointed to that leader being Norinda.
Picard set course for Vulcan and the city of Shi’Kahr, where, according to plan, Kirk would already have engaged the enemy-if he had survived.
Kirk was aware of nothing but himself.
He didn’t feel weightless; neither did he feel the pull of gravity of any kind.
He felt no sensation of air on his skin. He didn’t breathe. He couldn’t hear his own heartbeat.
For a numbing, endless moment, he feared he was dead, the horror of his situation amplified by the thought that he might be conscious of his nonbeing forever.
How long would he-could he-last in this situation and retain his sanity?
He wondered if this was the ultimate truth of reality promised by Norinda: the gift of madness.
Then, vaguely, as if he was looking in the wrong direction, he became aware of a light just out of view.
It sparkled at first, then flared, its aura brightening.
He heard the growing buzz of equipment. The light shimmered like a viewscreen out of focus.
He sensed his body again, a familiar sensation of sharp sparks of electricity playing over his flesh, the constriction of clothes as if they had suddenly appeared out of nothing.
Kirk gasped and felt air explode from his mouth as the pain of his fractured rib returned, followed by the ache of his broken finger.
Gravity pulled at him. He felt himself falling.
