Sondra Marshak: The Price of the Phoenix

The knee didn’t connect fully, but the chin did, and it was enough. He jackknifed out and away as the hold loosened and the big man swayed, half-doubling and shaking the massive head.

Kirk landed off balance, out on his feet, but tried to come back in to follow the advantage. There would be no second chance. But the bone-bruised thigh gave suddenly under his weight and he fell He turned the fall into a scissors chop of his legs which cut Omne’s feet from under him. The giant fell hard, but caught himself like a cat, rolling up to a crouch.

Kirk came up on one knee and a hand, dazed. Watching warily and trying to rub feeling back into the nearly paralyzed thigh.

The big man straightened only too easily, not really much hurt, and started toward Kirk.

Kirk waited, deciding that he regretted only that the knee had not done its full work.

He doubted that he could stand, but he braced to move. He’d get in a shoulder block, try to bring the giant down.

But Omne stopped. “That, too, is what I wanted to learn.”

“To what purpose?” Kirk asked. “To prove the obvious? That big is big?”

Omne smiled and shook his head. “To prove that you will not quit, even against me.”

Kirk straightened onto both knees and shrugged fractionally. Who are you that I should quit against you?”

“The man who will make you quit.” Omne moved closer, towering.

Kirk looked up and sat back onto his heels. “I am everything which you are not.”

“No, Captain. You are everything I might have been.”

“And for that, you want to destroy me?”

“No, Captain. I want to own you, to own—the other half of my soul.”

“You will not own mine.”

Omne raised an eyebrow. “But—surely you know that it is for sale? There is the question of letting Spock leave here alive.”

Kirk was silent, feeling his stomach crawl, his legs tremble. Finally he said, “You would lose everything. Star Fleet would take you apart from one side, and the Empire from the other. There’s no such thing as impregnability, given time. My Mr. Scott also doesn’t quit. Nor—the Commander.”

Omne shook his head. “Mr. Spock will make his speech, or he will not. In either case, in an excess of grief and despondency, he will fall upon his sword—or the Vulcan equivalent. The Commander might even be persuaded to do the Romulan version. Star-crossed lovers, this time, seeing the failure of all their hopes. That would be a lovely script. Or—I’ll write you three others. I can produce bodies. We might, if you are very good, keep a recording. Take it out and—play it—on special occasions. And—put it away.”

“You understand that I will kill you,” Kirk said as flat fact.

“Oh, yes,” Omne said. “The automatic machinery is programmed for that contingency. It will scarcely inconvenience me.”

“Or kill myself,” Kirk said, knowing the answer already in his bones.

“The programming covers that, too,” Omne confirmed. “There’s no exit.”

“There is always a way out of a box,” Kirk said, seeing none.

“I can keep you for a thousand years. The Phoenix from the flames.”

“If it takes me a thousand years, I will find the way to destroy your evil.”

“Is it evil to offer eternal life?” Omne smiled distantly. “There was a time when I would have offered it to the galaxy. The time may come again. But I have seen in myself how it would be used.”

“You are not the universe. You are a dark mirror. A bottomless pit. A black hole.”

Omne drew himself up. “So are we all, Captain. That is what I can teach you. The other side of innocence. Your other half, which you imprison in a cage of virtue. Can’t you feel it crying and raging to get out? Whimpering for the pleasure of being petted? Poor wolf. What gives it less right than virtue?’

“It is possible to be kind to—the wolf,” Kirk said, with an effort, “without unleashing it at other throats.” He put his hands on his thighs and straightened his shoulders. “Don’t give me cop-outs, Omne, or excuses for evil. State your details. Name your price. I’ll name mine. Spock—and his price. The Commander into the bargain.”

“You would be willing to see Spock go free—with your—other, and willing never to see Spock again? You would stay with me for that?”

Kirk felt his jaw set. “Not-willing,” he said. I would grudge even—the other—the life that should have been mine. But he must have it if I can’t. Spock is not to see me die—twice. You have me. I’ll fight, but you want that. I’ll stay—and see you damned.”

Omne grinned. “Good! That also I wanted to learn. Yes, I’ll have you, fighting—and I want that. You will learn to acknowledge me as your natural master. You’ll learn to bend your stiff neck. You will be my final hostage against Spock, and he against you.” He moved closer. You are on your knees, but not to me. You will kneel and bow and beg for Spock.”

Kirk smiled without amusement. “Only to be reminded that you are not a man of honor?”

“Perhaps,” Omne said smoothly, “but with the certainty that you will see him die if you don’t.”

Kirk rose to his knees without a word, finding his face too close to the big man, but arching back a little and bowing his head. I beg for Spock,” he said easily, stressing the ease.

The gloved hands clenched into his hair, jerking his head up, pulling his chest against the corded thighs, his face almost against the great body.

Omne’s face was the face of the wolf, the beast—the face of jungle and night “Now beg for yourself. I am alpha here, and you will—now—yield.”

One big hand twisted his head down and forward and the other ran down the back of his neck, feeling it cord and crackle with the resistance.

“Yield,” the low voice snarled. “Let it happen.”

Very suddenly Kirk released every muscle, letting the power of the big hands smash his forehead down into the target his knee had missed.

A roar, and as the giant doubled and the hands threatened to snap Kirk’s neck, Kirk’s arms caught tree-trunk legs at suddenly bending knees and toppled the hulk over backwards to the floor.

This time the giant fell heavily and was stunned, writhing. Kirk heaved himself forward with an abandonment of caution into the arms which could crush him, but going for the target again with his knee and with his hands for the throat and eyes. Omne flung him off and halfway across the room to smash against a wall. He could barely haul himself to his feet against the wall.

But the giant was rising again with a terrible vitality.

Murder was in the black eyes now, beyond mistake. Slow murder after much screaming.

Well, Kirk thought, that was what he had bought and paid for.

Spock’s freedom, and his own.

It seemed the only way to buy both. He would not be the final hostage. Now it remained only to goad the dark fury.

Kirk gathered himself, using white fury against the pain, and dashed in, rapier against broadsword, with a quick stabbing punch, and out again, narrowly evading the slashing blind reply which tried to catch him.

He must not be caught, not until it would be killing, and he must not let the giant regain his mental balance.

Spock’s freedom, he told himself like a prayer, and danced tauntingly again. Whatever this cost the Vulcan, it would free him to act. Whatever the difference, no replica would ever be quite the same to him as—the original. Nothing which happened to a replica would be quite the same. He could spare Spock that and himself.

Even if Omne did not lie and the automatic machinery were already set for Kirk—which Kirk doubted that it was, so soon—but if it was, even if it would seem to him—to his successor—that death was scarcely an inconvenience, still it would not be quite the same.