flailing blows, trying to reduce him to quivering pain with the sheer power of its black essence.
He knew that he would feel the pain, even absorb the essence, and not be reduced.
“Say good-by to it,” he snarled aloud.
The black eyes locked with his in ultimate resistance.
And the great muscles heaved in convulsion. Pain hit Spock from directions he could not name—in body, in mind—but he held on.
The giant’s great legs bucked and heaved his bulk backward, dragging Spock along.
Omne’s hand reached the gun, and Spock’s hands abandoned all else to lock on the thick wrist.
“Die, Vulcan,” the black fury breathed.
The gun barrel shuddered by millimeters toward Spock’s head, and he forced it away with all his strength, began to force it down towards Omne’s head.
“You die, he said triumphantly and realized that he meant it. A thousand years of peace were cool in his mind, but the blood of millennia, of eons, pounded hot in his veins. And even the thousand years agreed: this one deserved it, for a crime worse than murder, for the hell he would unleash, for the lack of honor which made no peace possible. But it was simpler than that. For Jim. For James. Spock forced the gun down further. He had the vital knowledge. Let the man lose the memory in death. There was no other choice now, and he wanted none.
Take no chances.
He saw the real fear of death in Omne’s eyes, now, and felt it in his mind. It was not a fear at the level of sanity. It stretched to the blackest deep levels of the great mind and the vast ego, the ultimate “I” which would not yield to dissolution.
Yes, that would be the worst fate for this one. Yes.
Spock jerked as if he had been hit and stopped the straining of his fingers for the trigger.
What if this one died-but the I did not dissolve? What if it disappeared into the hidden machinery of some hidden lab to rise from the ashes?
Spock called some last reserve of strength to hold against the gun with one hand and free the other to go for the neck pinch again.
“No,” he said aloud and in the black mind. ” There will be no death to free you. Say good-bye.’”
Spock forced his mind to the root of the memory, began to pull—And the nerve hold was true. All of the giant’s last strength was in the gun arm and was not enough to force it back to Spock. The paralysis was creeping over Omne.
Fear hit him—and the sudden knowledge that it was possible to fear worse than death. Then, slowly, the gambler’s grin formed on the savage lips. “I—raise. Good-bye, Mr. Spock.”
The man who hated death suddenly let the arm yield, let the Vulcan muscles force the gun down and up under Omne’s jaw. Spock tried to recover to pull it away, but couldn’t. ” ‘Or—au revoir,’” the black mind said in the link.
Omne pulled the trigger.
Spock threw his mind back, fighting not to get caught in the death—true death, black and reaching. He felt the astonishment and rebellion of the great black mind, even in its choice…
Blackness reached for Spock, found him. He was not sure that he had lived through it…
CHAPTER XVIII
Kirk snapped himself out of it, berating himself for standing and watching, knowing that he could not have torn his eyes away.
But, damn it, he was letting himself get used to the idea that he was a prisoner, locked in, lost, unable to act.
To hell with that. He probably was locked in, but maybe not. And—not permanently. There was a way out of any box. This seemed to be only a monitor center. But there had to be a control center somewhere. A way out. Something he could use to get to Spock.
Just blunder his way out, maybe. He had seen how Omne released the baffle walls that blocked the passages of the inner labyrinth,
No. He had already seen that there were several exits. Which way?
His hands flew over the monitor controls, punching up new views. He wished that he had Spock’s gift for reading alien machines. Or for calculating angles, correlating information. The Vulcan could probably back-figure from the multiple view angles to determine exactly where everybody and everything was—and draw a map.
Well, it was all done with the subconscious mind.
Kirk tried to relax and let his operate.
He punched up several angles of the big lab where Spock had fought Omne—where both lay still as death. Don’t think about that. He scanned the outer corridors. He found a place with three panels ripped off, one showing an entrance to the inner labyrinth. The screens offered miscellaneous angles of assorted inner labyrinth passages, branches, baffle walls.
And in a tiny corridor near one half-torn-down baffle wall, Kirk saw the Commander—and the other Kirk.
She was bending over the other Kirk, and he was half-sagging against the wall, his eyes withdrawn.
“James!” she said, shaking his shoulders gently.
The other—James, Kirk adopted immediately—tried to focus on the Commander. “It’s Spock—” he said weakly. “Alive, I think, but so badly hurt. He couldn’t keep me out at the last.”
The Commander’s hands were gentle on James’s face, but her voice asked for a report. “And Omne?”
“Dead.” James reported. “Killed himself.”
She set her jaw. “Therefore—alive.”
James’s eyes widened. “Again—My God.” He shook his head. “We have to go back, get to Spock.”
“No. We have to get to Kirk. We don’t know how long it will take Omne to live again. Spock’s strength will serve him.”
James swallowed. “Let me go to Spock.”
She shook her head. “You’re my guide to Jim. Are you still picking him up?”
“I—don’t know. Can’t feel anything but—Spock.”
“Try.” She took his shoulders again. “That’s an order, James. Let’s go.”
James pried himself off the wall and turned with her. She ripped at the baffle wall.
Kirk shook himself. Damn.
On reflection, damn, and other words for when there were no words. And to hell with standing here.
He turned toward a door almost at random.
Let the subconscious do its stuff. Or whatever he had felt from James, whatever James felt from Spock. Whatever. Plain dumb luck. Whatever. Move.
As a matter of fact he did have some feeling that he could walk unerringly to Spock, like a somnambulist.
He tried not to think about the feeling or touch it. Let him walk in his sleep, but let him walk.
He pressed the catches to release the baffle walls and just moved.
Omne alive. Dear God, the “automatic machinery.” But what a chance for Omne to take. Omne of all men.
And where was he—and how long would it take?
Would the next baffle wall reveal him standing, big as life, laughing?
Not yet, Kirk told himself firmly. Not yet
He found himself in the study.
Good. The subconscious had its points. He scooped up the spray can from the couch.
He started to go through the door Omne had carried him through. Presumably he would find the Commander and James somewhere if they were on the right route.
Something seemed to draw him toward another door. He hesitated. It was only the vaguest of hunches.
