The Price of the Phoenix

CHAPTER VII

Kirk grinned quick, rueful thanks at the Commander and turned back to face Omne.

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.

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.

In some sense there would still be old-fashioned death, his old enemy, and now perhaps a friend.

Curious how hard it was to feel that. Illogical.

Omne rushed him and he vaulted half-over the big man’s shoulder, bull-dancer against bull.

Kirk had no illusions. The giant would regain sight and speed and precision in a moment. Kirk could not beat him. And the uncanny strength, the vicious imagination, could cause the Human body pain beyond its capacity to endure.

And the soul, also. Humiliation. A sickness of soul which could be felt through the body.

At some point he would beg abjectly, and for himself.

No illusions. Tough universe. It could be done to a man, any man. He had always known that it could be done to him. He had been very lucky.

And here his luck ran out

One last hand to play. Raise and call with the last stack of chips. Pay the forfeit

He had always known that there were things worth dying for.

He must learn now that there was something which he could not bear, which he would die not to have to bear.

Kirk ducked a sudden chop to his neck, rolled quickly away and to his feet

And straightened very slowly.

So. His body knew it, then, if his mind did not. That chop of the massive hand would have killed, and quickly. It was the death he had courted, and he would not stand still for it.

In the end, then, he would choose life and bear what he had to bear. He would even bear what it would cost the Vulcan, as Spock would.

He felt his head lift with a sudden pride.

And he saw Omne stop, his black eyes reading the decision in the lifting head and the eyes that met his.

There was sight now in Omne’s black eyes, and control, and a sudden glint of savage laughter which was both admiration and envy—a wish to possess some element of soul he did not own and to own the man who did—to punish the man who had the effrontery to own it.

The gloved hands dropped to the gunbelt and slowly drew it off, drew the heavy leather strap through the loop of the holster, tossed the bolstered gun carelessly aside to a couch—stressing no need to use it, no need to fear that it could be used against its owner.

Omne doubled the black strap and cracked the doubled end into a gloved palm with a sound like the snap of doom.

So that was how it would begin, Kirk thought, feeling the dryness in his throat and refusing to swallow.

But Omne smiled, the smile reaching the black eyes, underlining all of the possibilities. Then he tossed the belt after the gun. “No,” he said. “That does not belong to the jungle.” He began to strip off the black gloves. “Nothing which does not will touch you, and you will wish that it had been that simple. He tossed the gloves after the belt, flexing the massive, muscled, long-fingered hands. “Have you ever cried, Captain, since you were a child?”

No,” Kirk said, somehow wanting this man to know it. When Edith died, Miramanee—no, worse than cried, possibly, but no. Other times—No.

Omne nodded. “Men don’t cry, Captain. Curious how widespread the necessity of that lesson is.”

“Necessity? Or error?”

“Both,” Omne said. “The alpha male must protect, defend, cannot afford to cry. The jungle knows, but we must learn. We must choose when we choose the hard path. It is harder for us because we can cry.”

Even Vulcans can, Kirk thought. And why not? But was that it? Was it the alpha choice? Was that why he never had, never could? “Doesn’t matter,” he said aloud. “We choose what we choose.”

The choice can be broken,” Omne said, “for—any man.”

“For you” Kirk said with sudden certainty.

“Once,” Omne answered, the black eyes clearing to the final depth again. “And now—for you.”

“Not by this. I choose.”

Omne shook his head. “Oh, no. You could bear to choose to cry, as you could choose to beg—for Spock, for your choice, for others. Not for yourself. There will be no choice here. You will cry—for yourself—like a child, like a woman, and not be able to stop, and know that you have broken.”

“No,” Kirk said flatly-and then felt the unbidden amendment coming. “Not if I can help it.”

Omne laughed. That is the point, Captain. There is the point beyond help or endurance. You will cry—and then you will beg. You will know the real right of the man who can best you and master you.”

“I’ll see you in Hell first,” Kirk said.

The laugh rumbled again. “Captain, this is Hell.”

And then Omne came for him, this time with the speed which could not be matched—and making it look lazy, relaxed, even—playful.

Kirk dodged—and the black figure was already where he dodged.

Omne cuffed him lazily, great bear cuffing troublesome cub.

The blow caught only his shoulder, padded muscle which would take any ordinary blow. But he felt agony shoot through his body and he was slammed across the room, unable to catch himself. He slammed against the sharp metal corner of a cabinet, and it tore a gash across his back as he fell.

He got up slowly and turned to face the man again, ready to go at it again with all the Star Fleet and gutter-fighting skills he could still muster, but he knew already that he had lost. It remained only to keep on taking it to the last.

He caught a glimpse of horrified faces in the viewscreen, watching in helpless agony. But he had eyes only for Omne.

See him in Hell.