“My dear Commander, we speak in riddles, and Spock speaks of murder.”
“Murder,” Spock said. “Answer that without riddle if you wish to have time for riddles.”
“But it answers itself, Spock of Vulcan,” Omne said. “Your Captain acted on his own initiative and in accordance with his character, as you know best of all. Had I wished to murder him in so spectacular a fashion, I could not have done so without his spectacular cooperation.”
“The moral question does not answer itself,” Spock said. “If you knew that he would do that—”
“No,” Omne broke in, “the moral questions never answer themselves. Suppose that I knew. Suppose that I knew that he was quite splendid—and that he was what is destroying the galaxy? Creeping do-goodism. Maudlin meddlesomeness. Smothering benevolence. I have established a refuge here from goodness. Deliver us from virtue—especially the virtuous who prescribe virtue to others. On that young mother’s planet survival is bought at a price. A widow with a young child cannot survive, would be a burden on her family if she tried, would watch the child die of slow starvation. But your Captain did not have to know that. He knew only what he felt. He has done it before, is notorious for it. Was. He was a true son of the Federation. Its Prime Directive is written on the wind—and in a trail of blood. Cultures destroyed. Civil wars started. Populations shocked out of existence. Tasmanias—from one end of the galaxy to another—”
“I have heard the view,” Spock cut in, knowing how close he had come to speaking it, part of it. But he was Kirk’s counterweight on the matter of the noninterference directive, as on other matters. That was both Spock’s function and his right. “The argument is irrelevant to the question of murder,” he said.
“It is not,” Omne answered. “I set him a test. He did not have to fail it—or die in failing. If he had passed, I would have let you both go free. There did not have to be intent to murder.”
“You do not say that there was not,” Spock said.
Omne raised a heavy eyebrow. “You notice that?” He shrugged. “I was willing to give a sporting chance, but I would not expect you to believe that when you hear the answer to the riddle.”
“I will hear it now,” Spock said with finality.
“You do not answer on the Prime Directive—do not defend him?” Omne said.
“I do not answer murder with words,” Spock said, “or defend him to one not fit to have looked on him.” He heard the ancient madness in his voice and did not flinch from it.
The Commander touched his arm, but Spock did not look at her. His eyes held Omne’s. “You nave declared no law here but challenge. State your riddle. Then, if you have the courage of your evils, answer me with your gun—or your body.”
Omne laughed. “Behold the peaceable Vulcan!” He threw his head back. “I have found your price, Spock of Vulcan. That is my riddle. What buys the man without price?”
“There is nothing you could offer which would buy me—or your life,” Spock said tonelessly.
“Isn’t there?” Omne chuckled. His gloved hand brushed across a control stud on the bar. The great mirror behind it dissolved into a viewscreen and filled with the image of—James Kirk. Laid out on a bench. The naked body draped with a thin sheet. The face exposed. Unmarked. Sleeping with that vast innocence which was his alone. Breathing…
Spock felt the Commander supporting his arm and straightened as the viewscreen winked out.
“Illusion,” he said flatly. His mind saw again the vision of flames. Was there some way that Kirk could have been extracted alive? His mind would neither permit the hope nor confirm it. He had not taken his eyes from the spot, the ashes, the—removal. His hand found his communicator, flipped it before realization struck him.
Omne smiled. “Behold Vulcan memory.” Again he touched a control stud. “Allow me to open a channel for you.”
“Spock to McCoy,” Spock said as if there had been no interruption. There was not even the delay of relay, as if Omne had known Spock’s intention and tapped into the intercom.
McCoy here.” The voice was tired beyond endurance, an answer in itself.
“The—examination,” Spock said. “There was no doubt—of—the identity?”
“Doubt?” The voice caught. “No, Spock. No doubt at all.”
“Thank you, Doctor. Spock out.”
He faced Omne bleakly.
“Quite right, Mr. Spock. The Sherlock Holmes maxim: Eliminate the impossible; whatever remains, however improbable, must be true.”
Spock attempted a shrug. “Android,” he said. “Alien shape-changer. I could name half a dozen methods-most of them tried—on us.” And if it were an android, he caught himself thinking, say—a quasi-biological android like Flint’s Rayna, capable of thought, feeling, choice…
“Not this one,” Omne said. “It is new. I will tell you a story, Mr. Spock—of a man whose planet was peaceably contacted by the Federation. Most peaceably. Most solicitously. Oh, a little bending of the Prime Directive here and there. Nothing major. Earthman’s burden. But it led to a civil war—Federation supporters against the old way. The man saw his life-mate killed, along with his sons—some on one side and some on the other. The planet was reduced to rubble and barbarism. The man conceived a hatred of Death. Before he loved again, there would be a way to defeat Death—for the dead to live again. Not his dead, perhaps. But it would be a purpose to keep going on, a kind of ideal.” He shrugged. “Ideals are fragile, but purposes endure. The perfect replica, Spock. Identical. Yours, if it is your price.”
“Mine?” Spock heard himself saying, then pulled himself up short. “It’s not possible,” he said. “A ghost, a zombie, a pale imitation. Some obscene sorcery—”
“Science, Mr. Spock.” Omne’s voice was cool, dispassionate. Only the black eyes guttered with the brightness of fixed purpose. “The final triumph. Immortality. The defeat of Death. Come, we have known for years that we were quite close with the transporter process. But it could only transmit life to life, not death to life. The vital spark was gone. We did not know how to capture it and reinfuse it—”
“It has been tried,” Spock said doggedly.
“Not properly.” Omne leaned back against the bar, his eyes focusing on some distance. “There are mental emanations, Mr. Spock. As a telepath, you should know. Particularly in a moment or extreme crisis-death, or the ultimate fear of it—they radiate beyond normal limits.”
Spock felt the Commander tugging at his arm again and knew that he had swayed! Yes. Through the flames he had seen it, but more: felt it. Felt the “emanations.” The astonishment, the unbelief, and finally the belief.
“The nature of such emanations has defeated science for centuries,” Omne continued, “but the phenomenon of projection of the whole personality at the moment of death or ultimate terror has been well known. How many fathers, mothers, brothers, mates have reported such a visitation—and from what distances? What is real can be studied. It merely required an approach without preconceptions, and an enduring purpose.”
“It would require a whole new theory,” Spock said with a heavy effort to focus on the fact.
“Yes,” Omne acknowledged. “After which the hardware was relatively easy—merely requiring some years of development. What is real can be recorded. It required only a new type of recorder, and a means of playing the recording back into combination with the basic biological matrix of a transporter scan.” He straightened and faced Spock gravely, for a moment without challenge or hostility, merely as if presenting the fruits of his work to a mind capable of understanding. “Every cell, every molecule. And now—every thought, every memory. Identity, Spock, indistinguishable identity. Immortality.”
“There would be a difference,” Spock whispered, not as a scientist.
“Illogical, Mr. Spock. A difference which makes no difference is no difference.” Omne moved, dismissing the moment of naked communication. “I do not speak of the philosophical problem, of course. A—replica—is a created object, and therefore property. My property, and it is for sale. Would you care to inspect the merchandise?”
The Commander was suddenly in front of Spock, her hands on his shoulders. “Spock, don’t! He is dead. You must think of him as dead. One step and you are lost.”
“Yes,” Spock said, to her or to Omne, and put her aside.
Omne smiled and bowed Spock toward a door.
CHAPTER IV
