But the sound of footsteps approaching told Kirk he hadn’t managed to hide at all.
Shadows fell upon him. Dozens of them now.
Kirk used the last of his strength to stand, to face them.
But then the creatures cried out as one in anguish, turned away from him, back toward the platform at the center of the chamber.
Kirk stared after them in wonder.
Joseph had waded into the mass of projections, all different forms and guises of Teilani and Norinda, some even an intermingling of the two.
Instantly, the supplicants converged on his son, and as if a ripple of heat or an atmospheric distortion had roiled through the command center, one after another they shifted and changed into reflections of the female of Joseph’s species.
“Be loved!” they begged, demanded.
At the same time, more and more of them arose, as in the ancient tales of dragon’s teeth spawning invincible armies, compelled by the primal emotion that drove the life-force of their reality.
Kirk knew he was witness to the smothering power of love frustrated, passion denied, and that logic and force of arms could hold no sway over either.
But somehow, his son could.
Kirk edged out from cover, preparing to go to Joseph’s side. Despite his son’s apparent resistance to the Totality, Kirk didn’t know how either he or Joseph would or could escape this confrontation and if they would survive, together.
Then a familiar golden light played over another curved bank of workstations. A familiar musical note chimed.
As quickly as that, the game changed once again.
Jean-Luc Picard had beamed in.
36
VULCAN SPACE CENTRAL
STARDATE 58571.6
Picard took only seconds to assess the situation, and he was appalled.
He was also startled to hear Kirk call for him.
Picard ran for the workstations where Kirk crouched. He glanced over his shoulder to see scores of creatures resembling Norinda tear apart other workstation tiers with the terrible focus of the Borg. They were clearly searching for something, or someone.
Picard ducked down beside Kirk, took in his condition, knew it was bad. “You look awful.”
Kirk smiled as if nothing were out of the ordinary. “Good to see you, too.”
Picard had no time for pleasantries or sparring. He estimated that the mass of beings disassembling on the far side of the command center would reach their position in only minutes. “What are those creatures?”
“Norinda,” Kirk said. He coughed suddenly, winced, and pressed a hand to his side.
“All of them?”
“She’s desperate,” Kirk said. “She’s so convinced that we have to love her, that she’s trying to become a version of herself that we can’t resist.” Kirk gave Picard a wry smile. “But that’s not how it works, is it?”
“This is hardly the time for a philosophical discussion of love.”
“Then what are you doing down here?”
Picard shook his head. Trust Kirk to try to find humor in the most dire of situations. “The gravity projectors are working, but the dispersal shielding protecting this place…” Picard shrugged.
“I’m surprised you could even beam in,” Kirk said. Picard could see he was becoming paler, struggling to keep his eyes open.
“Beaming in we can do-the Enterprise is hovering two hundred meters over the operations center.”
“The Belle Reve…?” Kirk asked with effort.
“Standing by.” Picard and Kirk both started as a horrendous crash of metal echoed in the center. “What’re they doing?”
“Looking for Joseph,” Kirk said, coughed again. “But he’ll be safe… I know he will be….”
Picard didn’t understand where Kirk’s assurance came from, didn’t want to argue with him. He pulled a tricorder from his belt, spoke urgently. “Look, Jim, we can’t beam anyone out past the shielding.” He held up the tricorder. “So I need to set this on a target, to be a beacon for the Enterprise and the Belle Reve to use to focus their gravity weapons.”
“Then you’re going to have to get it as close as you can to the original Norinda.”
Picard frowned. “How can I tell which one’s the original?”
“All the others have grown from her,” Kirk said. “She’ll be somewhere in the center.” He tugged at the combat tricorder strapped to his own wrist. “Use this one-it has a strap.”
Picard took it. “I’ll be right back.”
Kirk forced a grin. “I’ll be here.”
Picard peered over the edge of the workstation, saw more than a hundred Norindas, all resembling Joseph to varying degrees, half of them ripping apart the center in their search for the youth, half wandering without purpose, as though they’d been abandoned.
But there, in the center of the room, looking back and forth frantically as if lost, Picard saw one Norinda who was more familiar, more human than the others.
He had his target.
Dozens of Norindas turned to meet his charge.
“Yes!” they called out to him with chilling conviction. “Be loved!”
Even as Picard sprinted toward them he could see the danger he faced-a living barrier of hands raised to grasp, to tear… some of them already beginning to lose definition, dissolving into the black formless substance that could somehow extract people from this reality and absorb them into the Totality’s realm.
But Picard didn’t falter.
The brave crews of two ships waited above for his signal.
A galaxy waited to know if it would live or die.
He kept running.
The hungry, driven throng engulfed him.
“Accept! Be loved! Embrace!”
Picard dove forward, over one, past another, slid across the hard floor, then fought his way to the center of the maelstrom and leapt to his feet in front of the Norinda he recognized.
For a moment, the encircling, swaying vortex of creatures kept their distance while the first Norinda reached out to Picard as if to caress him with relief and adoration.
“Yes, Jean-Luc! You understand! You’ll tell James and Joseph and all of them!”
She touched his face and Picard shrank back as Norinda slowly and subtly began to shift her appearance to resemble Beverly Crusher.
“I love you so much,” Norinda crooned as her fingertips made electric contact with his skin. “I want to give you so much.”
The shock of gazing into familiar eyes that could not be Beverly’s was enough to catapult Picard into action, and at once he slapped the combat tricorder to the creature’s slender wrist.
An instant later, the creature’s touch burned against his face as Norinda’s arm rippled into a column of swirling dust and the tricorder, with nothing physical to support it, dropped to the floor, lost in the shadows.
“Why?!” she cried, inconsolable. “Why do you beings deny all that you love?”
Picard began to move back as Norinda sobbed before him, wrapping her arms around herself, racked by grief.
