For a moment, as he saw her pain, understood her anguish, his heart went out to her, and then-
– more hands than he could count took hold of him, forcing him to the floor, holding his legs and arms immobile.
Picard cried out in surprise more than pain. He tried to tear himself away but there were too many of them.
He could only look up to see the original Norinda, no longer Beverly, moving toward him, eyes soft with tears.
“Embrace… ” all the Norindas murmured at once, their voices resonating like prayers in a temple. “Be loved….”
The hands that gripped Picard tightened, riveting him in place.
Norinda loomed over him.
“Why don’t you understand?” she asked, full of sorrow and incomprehension.
Picard prepared himself for what would come next-dissolution into her realm, into nothing.
His last thought was of Beverly.
Until a familiar voice broke through the moment of defeat.
“Norinda!”
Kirk’s voice echoed above the others.
Picard peered past the forest of Norindas to see Kirk staggering closer, each step a struggle.
“Let him go!” Kirk shouted. “You only want me! You’ve always wanted me!”
Picard struggled uselessly, helpless to aid his friend as black tendrils snapped from the multitude to snare Kirk and drag him forward.
The Norindas deposited Kirk on the floor beside Picard. There was no need to hold the new captive down. Kirk’s strength was exhausted. Where he sprawled now was where he would die.
“Brave attempt…” Picard said through clenched teeth, fighting the pain of the hands that imprisoned him. “Incredibly stupid… but brave nonetheless.”
“You would’ve done the same for me,” Kirk said hoarsely.
“Oh, probably not,” Picard said.
The two captains looked at each other, began to laugh through their pain.
“I do want you, James…” all the Norindas said.
“Then take me,” Kirk said. “I give myself to you.”
Picard watched in amazement as Norinda’s desolate expression changed to one of transcendent joy, and she became the only Norinda to speak.
“James… do you love me?”
“I understand you,” Kirk said. “I understand what’s driving you. I can’t hate that. I can’t hate you.”
Norinda held out her arms to him. “Will you be embraced in love?”
“I have loved and been loved. And that’s why I’m giving myself to you, so you’ll leave all the others I love unharmed.”
Norinda hesitated, uncertain. “But I want them, too.”
“Love carries a price,” Kirk said. “If you truly want to make all the others happy– “
“Yes! I do!” Norinda interrupted.
“– then take me,” Kirk continued, “and give the others their freedom.”
“No,” the Norindas sighed in unison . “They will be alone….”
The one Norinda stepped closer to Kirk and Picard. “I will be alone.”
“You’ll have me,” Kirk said, roughly, urgently. Picard knew his friend was fading.
“Not enough,” Norinda said. Picard heard Kirk sigh as the one Norinda began to lose form. “Never enough,” the Norindas sadly chanted.
A slow cloud of darkness moved toward Picard and Kirk. The negotiation was over. Norinda’s reversion was complete and they were in the presence of the basic, primal, all-encompassing Totality, all-encompassing desire.
Picard glanced at Kirk. “Well, I never wanted to die in bed….”
Kirk grinned weakly. “I never wanted to die….”
STOP.
Picard didn’t understand where that command had come from. It wasn’t spoken, but somehow he had sensed it.
LET THEM GO.
The one Norinda coalesced into her humanoid form, stepped back.
FACE ME.
All the Norindas turned from their captives as one.
Picard raised his head as he was released.
There was someone else in the command center now.
It was Joseph.
And once more he had changed.
37
VULCAN SPACE CENTRAL
STARDATE 58571.6
Kirk heard the voice that was not a voice, and he recognized it.
It brought him from the darkness that was poised to claim him. He had to know, he had to see his son one last time.
“Jim, look…” Picard said in awe.
He helped Kirk sit up. He helped Kirk see what was before them.
Joseph and the one Norinda.
Surrounded by her duplicates, she was a transformed creature, solid once again, human once again, collapsed on her knees before Kirk’s son, consumed and defeated by the unyielding need she had tried to force on all life.
Joseph had also been transformed, and Kirk blinked back weary tears.
The harsh masculinity Norinda had brought forth in his child had softened. Joseph was himself again, neither one gender nor the other. His ridges, his ears, all the marks of distinction that had echoed the myriad species of his genetic makeup, had also blurred, until there was nothing more to point to, to call out a difference.
The thought came to Kirk unbidden-an ancient wisdom revealed: Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Never had he understood that more than at this moment.
A perfect being… he thought in wonder.
NO, the voice answered him.
JUST A BEING.
Norinda’s voice was petulant, defensive. “You can’t win this time!”
Her body began to change again, taking on its formless bulk of black cubes, black sand, primordial matter in constant motion.
This time…? Kirk thought. How long had this battle been raging? How many times had these foes met?
Norinda had become a waving mass of writhing tendrils snaking through the air, darting at Joseph, seeking to draw him into her embrace.
But Joseph stood unflinching, spread his arms to her as if to offer no resistance.
As if in the face of her love, he offered love in return.
Kirk saw the combat tricorder on Joseph’s wrist-he had made himself the target for Starfleet’s new weapon, though Kirk didn’t understand how his son could have known of that plan.
