Sondra Marshak: The Price of the Phoenix

He felt his mouth go dry and the knot in his stomach tighten, and knew that he was moving on the balls of his feet, circling, finding clear space, not having to think about the body signals which made it a giving of ground that was not a retreat, but thinking about them anyway. Alpha-male stuff, he had said. He was pretty good at that. Usually he was content to let it operate mostly at the level of instinct, this would take more than that. It was tough as hell when that kind of dominance had to cross the gulf between species with different strengths. You wouldn’t think it would operate at all, but it did.

Omne did not have to have Vulcan strength to scare him; there was a power in the man which was only too apparent, whatever world he came from, and an indomitable fighting will which would see the body it drove broken apart before it would yield.

That was a quality of mind, not of muscle.

Omne recognized it in him as well as he in Omne. Somewhere each of them had learned to use it, not only on the level of instinct. Omne could play games with it, and play for keeps.

But also Omne had Vulcan muscle to back it up.

And Kirk had learned too well what that could mean.

“So,” he said with the deceptive mildness which let the deception show through, “that makes it interesting.”

Not all strong men in the galaxy are Vulcan, Captain.” The bow of a black eyebrow made it an acknowledgement.

Kirk inclined his head. “No. Only some of the best.”

“And the best plays beta to your alpha.” Omne smiled. “I will say it for you, Captain. That makes you good, very good. You sail the stars and take on all comers. Somehow that is even more attractive in one so vulnerable.”

Damn, that was a dangerous package. Kirk laughed. “By the same token, it makes me not so vulnerable. I’ve been up against two, three, five times my strength, maybe more. Vulcans, mutants, androids. It is not a question of muscle.”

Omne shook his head, his smile indulgent. “Other things being equal, it is, Captain.” He moved closer to Kirk, the panther stride emphasizing quickness, the towering width underlining difference.

Kirk stood his ground, looking up without apology to meet the black eyes, his muscles set for a kick and roll if this was to be it.

Omne laughed and stopped, towering over him. “But you would meet few to equal you in other things, Captain. Mind, will, decision. The all-out streak which yields to no man. Death before dishonor. The stiff neck and the straight spine. Backbone. Bluff. The alpha male is half bluff and all guts.” He gestured toward the screen; he must have been monitoring. “I, too, am a student of the jungle, Captain.”

“Then let’s knock this off? Kirk said, shifting with a posture of dismissal “Who is bluffing whom? At what game? There are more serious matters between us.”

Omne shook his head, not responding to the change of posture. “This is the serious matter, Captain. Games are always the serious matter. The game of gunsmoke on Front Street. The game of galactic confrontation.”

“You are playing games with fives.”

“Certainly. Those are always the stakes.”

“Murder is not a game to me,” Kirk said, “and I am not playing.”

“But you are,” Omne said, gesturing over his shoulder toward the screen, “You—both of you—just declared intent to murder me—in violation of every law you own, by the way. And I have not even done murder.”

Kirk brushed it aside with a hand. “Self-defense. No cop-outs, Omne. You have. And you have done worse. You’ve caused all the grief of murder. I don’t know how to name the other grief. But the woman died.”

“Suicide,” Omne said. “It was her right and her custom. I did not arrange that, merely used it. I have created a haven here for custom and free choice, even the wrong choice. The first principle of freedom is the right to go to hell in your own handbasket.”

Kirk shook his head. “Provided that it is your own hell, your own handbasket—and you don’t take passengers who have no choice. Such as a baby.”

Omne spread his hands. “It’s not possible to have it both ways, Captain. Custom is custom, or it is not. Noninterference is noninterference, or it is not. Anything else is moral judgment on the basis of feeling—and the self-indulgence of imposing your gut reaction on the universe.”

Kirk straightened gravely and stood quiet. “No,” he said solemnly. “It can be—which is the reason for having a Prime Directive. But there is a logic to moral judgments, and there are judgments which have to be made. That is the reason for having men who will make them on the tough ones. Right or wrong, but make them and stand responsible. There is no sanctity to custom. The many can be as wrong as the one, and antiquity as wrong as tomorrow. The sanctity is in life—and in the freedom needed to preserve and enjoy it. Custom is the frozen form of men’s choices, not to be shattered lightly, but it does not abolish the need to choose.”

Omne was looking at him thoughtfully, one eyebrow rising. “So—you are the true antitheses,” he said.

“No mere thoughtless bundle of reactions, and no apologist, but the true son of moral certainty.” He nodded as if pleased. “It was what I had wanted to learn.”

“To what purpose?” Kirk said. You are no champion of justice. That is a pose. Your real character stands revealed today: killer, kidnapper, plotter, buyer and seller of bodies and souls.”

Omne shrugged.

Kirk stood silent for a moment, some part of him impressed. Omne’s black eyes were opaque pools of a pain not to be sounded.

The man who owned those eyes was a giant. And a monster.

“No,” Kirk said steadily. “I do not grant you the name of a real man.

The giant’s black-gloved hand impacted flatly against Kirk’s jaw and he went down. It had been only a slap—and it was all but a knockout blow, all but broke his neck.

“Elemental needs,” Omne said, standing over him. “Spock can have the copy. I will keep the original.”

Kirk rolled away and came, too slowly, to his feet, fighting down blackness and fear. It was not possible to stand against that strength for long.

“Go to hell,” he said softly.

Omne nodded. “You will make a delightful handbasket, my proud Captain.”

“You don’t own the merchandise.” Kirk launched a feint and leap which would carry him past the big man’s bolstered gun. He had nothing to prove about muscle. Take no chances. Kill.

Omne picked him out of the air.

Steel arms crushed him against the corded and molten steel of the big body, his chest against the spring-steel barrel chest, the other’s gloved hands digging into his back and thigh. His left arm was pinned too far from the gun at Omne’s right, but he chopped with the other hand, reached with the left for the gun.

Omne bent him back with a wrench that threatened his spine. The black eyes looked down into his and a hand moved to twist his left arm up behind his back. The fingers digging into the top of his thigh supported his whole weight, and felt as if they would part muscle, snap bone.

“Learn about muscle, vulnerable one,” Omne whispered. He pulled Kirk back against his chest, twisted the arm up into a slow agony, clamped an arm around ribs which strained in protest

Kirk felt the blackness rising again and a scream clawing at his throat, choking him with the effort to hold it back. God, the man was like Spock unleashed, Spock… If he were here… there would be Vulcan steel fingers clamping into the massive black shoulder…

Suddenly Kirk realized that his chin was above that shoulder, not far from Spock’s neck pinch spot—from a good spot for any chop.

He brought his chin down with all his strength and his knee up between the muscled legs.