The Price of the Phoenix

CHAPTER XII

James Kirk limped on an ankle wrenched almost to breaking and on bare thighs scalded to blood by the friction of the pole, but he barely noticed that or his raw scalded hands for the pain from the other Kirk’s body, which throbbed still in his own.

And he fought to keep the other’s pain, for it was his guide.

They had dropped—God knew how many levels. Possibly twice the first drop. But he had seen where Omne left the pole. He had caught that stop-stirrup as he had seen the Commander do, but his foot was dragged out of it by the force. That left him clawing and catching the edge with his hands, and when he could look, Omne was out of sight with his burden.

Oh God, he was going to get very damn tired of this place.

He lurched raggedly along the halls, scrubbing at his eyes with the backs of his hands, mostly managing to keep from crashing into walls.

He could have used the Commander.

He could use Spock.

But that could not be.

That could never really be.

The right was not his. The friendship. All the years before—and to come. The agonies and the little private jokes. The shared looks speaking volumes in a familiar silence.

The right. It was the right of the other, who had just learned the meaning of Hell for that right. He had earned it again, and it had always been his.

The link, for all its agony, was still full of the subdued note of the single fact which had been singing in the Vulcan’s mind, beyond shielding and beyond the need for words: Jim alive.

Not all the Vulcan’s generosity would ever erase the difference. He had spoken the name of James.

James. He was James. He had to be James.

But damn it, he was also Jim. Always had been. And—he grudged even—the other—the life which should have been his.

He heard the echo of—Jim’s—voice saying, “But he must have it if I can’t.”

Was there no difference?

Did—James—have that? Whatever said those words—and paid the cost?

James lurched around a corner. Down there somewhere he told himself.

He was about to find out.