Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (24 page)

“Speak, Morek,” she said, impatient to be done with it.

“You know why I have come,” Morek began, looking to her for confirmation.

She scowled without answering.

Uncertainly, he continued. “As you can see, I have discovered a means to override the security on the officers’ quarters.” His tone became wheedling. “Few women in the Empire have managed to attain the rank of captain, Vixis. If you were to take Klaa’s ship, you would be much honored.”

And the target of Klaa’s friends and family,
she finished bitterly. Aloud, she said, “Do not try to flatter me, Morek, when we are speaking of murder.”

Morek’s expression darkened with anger. “The alternative is to become victims ourselves, of Klaa’s insanity. Are you willing to die to soothe his ego?”

“No,” she said reluctantly.

Morek stepped closer, close enough for her to feel his moist breath on her face. He touched her shoulder, then ran his hand slowly down the length of her arm. Repelled, she pulled away.

“I am first officer, Morek. The captain heeds my advice. I hold your rank—and your life, if I so choose—in my hands. Remember that before you dare touch me again.”

His arm dropped to his side. She saw a flicker of rage cross his face before he gained control of himself and adopted a servile expression.

“I ask forgiveness,” he said, “But for your sake and the sake of the crew, I ask you—do not allow
Okrona
to be destroyed to appease a madman.”

“I would never allow it,” she responded coldly. “What do you suggest, Gunner?”

“Go to him. I have seen the way he looks at you, Vixis. Go to him, distract him . . . and I will see to the rest.”

Vixis studied Morek’s crude, thick features carefully and saw deceit written there. Morek ranked one grade below her; with the first officer and the captain gone,
Okrona
would be his to command.

How convenient for you, Morek, to find the two who stand in your way together.

Yet if she was careful, perhaps there was a way to rid
herself of Morek . . . and of Klaa, if necessary. She altered her expression to make it appear that she had considered Morek’s plan carefully and decided it was the only viable solution to their problem.

“When?” she asked finally. They would approach the barrier in a matter of hours.

Morek smiled at her. “Tonight.”

M
C
C
OY’S RELIEF
at the promise of being rescued by Starfleet was short-lived. As he, Jim, and Spock prepared to exit the observation deck, Sybok and his soldiers confronted them.

Spock’s half brother smiled faintly at the startled looks on his prisoners’ faces. “I trust your message was received?” He appeared entirely unconcerned by the fact that Starfleet would soon be in pursuit.

Jim was right; he
is
mad,
McCoy decided. Besides, he’d never met anyone, human or Vulcan, who smiled quite as much as Sybok.

Spock said nothing. Jim stepped forward angrily, which caused the soldiers to cock their weapons and take aim.

“You can put us in the brig again,” Jim said hotly,
“and I’ll do everything in my power to escape again. I won’t stand by while you take the
Enterprise
into the Great Barrier. And if you kill me, then Starfleet will stop you. Go ahead and commit suicide if you want, but do it without my ship and my crew.”

Sybok’s smile faded at last. He gestured for his troops to lower their weapons—which they did, grudgingly—and focused his full attention on Kirk. His voice held no trace of anger, only concern.

“What you fear is the unknown, Captain Kirk. The people of Earth once believed their world to be flat, but Columbus proved it was round. They said that humans would never reach out into space, but they reached far further than anyone ever believed possible. They said no vessel could ever travel faster than the speed of light. . . until warp speed was discovered.

“The Great Barrier represents the ultimate expression of this universal fear of the unknown. It is no more than an extension of personal fear.”

Jim’s face and voice hardened. “That’s insane. Fear has nothing to do with it. We’re not talking about psychology; we’re talking about physicalfact. Intense gravitation and intense radiation bombardment will hurt you whether you admit their existence or not, whether you’re afraid of them or not. Enough people have died proving it.”

Sybok did not, as McCoy expected, react with anger, instead, his expression saddened, and his response was surprisingly gentle. “Captain, I so much want your understanding and respect. Will you hear me out—or are you afraid?”

“I’m afraid of nothing,” Jim said, with such conviction that McCoy almost believed him.

Sybok turned to his soldiers. “Wait outside.”

one of them, clearly the second-in-command, began to protest. “But Syb—”

“Doit, J’Onn.”

Reluctantly, the soldiers withdrew. As the door to the corridor snapped shut behind them, Sybok stepped toward his prisoners. “Come.”

McCoy saw the ripple of doubt pass over Jim’s face and knew exactly what the captain was thinking. Sybok was unarmed; if the three of them could manage to overpower him ...

But the guards were right outside, a shout away. Sybok intended no violence; perhaps it would be better to play along for a while and await the arrival of the rescue ship. The alternative was to risk getting killed by a blast from the soldiers’ crude guns.

McCoy read all of this on Jim’s face in no more than a second. For a minute, he was honestly worried that Jim might choose to risk death, as he so blatantly had at Yosemite.

“Lights dim,” Sybok commanded, and immediately the deck darkened so that the stars shining through the huge observation window brightened to dazzling intensity.

Sybok ignored Spock’s reproachful gaze. “I’m sure you have many questions.” His manner was warm and confidential, like that of a professor eager to share his knowledge with a handpicked group of exceptional scholars. “Here, with the stars for our backdrop, we shall seek the answers together.”

McCoy tensed in his chair. Sybok’s voice was deep
and full, his intonation melodic, his eyes compelling. It would be all too easy to slip into a trance....

The captain, at least, was still frowning.

“Sha Ka Ree,” Sybok said reverently. “Translated into Standard, ’the Source.’ Call it what you will—heaven, Eden. The Klingons call it Qui’Tu; the Romulans, Vorta Vor. Every culture shares this dream of the place from which creation sprang. For us, that place will soon be a reality.”

Only not quite in the way you hoped,
McCoy thought, but he held his tongue.

Kirk’s tone was hostile. “The only reality I see is that I’m a prisoner on my own ship. You’ve brainwashed my crew, manipulated them somehow. And now you’re obviously trying to do the same thing to us. What is this power that you use to control others’ minds?”

Spock shifted uncomfortably next to McCoy.

Sybok drew back as if he had been slapped. “I don’t control minds,” he said, with a trace of defensiveness. “I free them.”

“How?” McCoy demanded, before Jim could ask. “In my professional judgment, these people were brainwashed.”

Sybok regained his composure. “Not at all. I simply make them face their pain and draw strength from it. Once that’s done, fear cannot stop you . . . for its purpose is merely to help you avoid pain.”

Spock shifted his weight again. Jim caught his discomfort and asked, “Spock? Is he telling the truth?”

“As he sees it,” the Vulcan replied, with more than a hint of irony. He did not meet Sybok’s eyes. “It is an
ancient Vulcan technique, forbidden in modern times. I am not at liberty to reveal much more . . . except to say that it
was
misused by many to impose their will upon others.”

“Sounds like brainwashing all right,” McCoy said.

Sybok looked sharply at the doctor, then closed his eyes and concentrated. “Your pain, Dr. McCoy, is the deepest of all.”

McCoy jerked back, caught off guard. “What?”

Sybok opened his eyes. They seemed very wide, very deep; McCoy felt swallowed up by them. “I can feel it. Can’t you?”

Leonard. . .

The voice was hauntingly familiar. It seemed to emanate from within McCoy’s own skull. Startled, he looked over at Jim and Spock to see if they had heard, but his two friends were staring curiously back at him.

Leonard...

With heart-wrenching certainty, McCoy recognized the voice. “No,” he whispered savagely. “No, this is some kind of horrible trick.”

Sybok, Kirk, and Spock melted into the darkness. McCoy was utterly alone.

Leonard,
the voice implored, full of pain and love.

The walls throbbed with energy; images swirled, danced, coalesced. McCoy saw that he was no longer in the forward observation room of a starship, but in an intensive-care hospital room.

“My God.” Terrified, McCoy covered his face with his hands. “Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.”

When he dared to lower his hands, he saw a pale white-haired figure, wasted, skeletal, lying on a life
support bed in a white room. The white was blindingly intense, stark, dazzling; it pained McCoy’s eyes. Snowblind, he looked away.

Down at the foot of the bed was a small terminal displaying a readout on the current patient. Black characters on a white background.

The top line read: McCOY, DAVID A.

The color of death, McCoy knew, was not black, but white . . . brilliant, blinding white.

Leonard,
the old man begged. McCoy forced himself to look down at the pale, waxy face, aged and twisted by pain. It was not the way he wanted to remember David A. McCoy, but it was the way he remembered him far too often.

Three months before, David McCoy had been a square-shouldered, hale man of eighty-one who still had an active family practice in Atlanta. He hadn’t even thought of retiring when he learned he had pyrrhoneuritis.

A disease imported from the colony worlds, so rare that Leonard had to look it up to understand that his father had been given a death sentence. The worst part about the disease was the pain. Peripheral nerves were affected at first; as they flared and died, muscle function was lost. Death came when the damage to nerves serving major organs became too great.

For those afflicted, death never came soon enough. Within one month, McCoy’s father was a cripple. Within two, he was unrecognizable. During the last three months of his life, David McCoy, a slender man like his son, lost fifty-four pounds.

Somehow, Leonard found his voice. Surprisingly, it
was steady and reassuring. “I’m here, Dad. I’m right here with you.” He clasped his father’s fragile hand, paper-thin flesh against bone.

David stared up with sightless sky-blue eyes; the disease had already destroyed the optic nerves.
The pain. Just stop the pain
. . .

“We’ve done everything we can do, Dad.” McCoy choked on the words. “Try to hang on.”

David McCoy was on total life support; he had brain function, but little else. His heart, lungs, and kidneys had failed days before. He was receiving massive doses of painkillers, but they were not enough, and nerve blocks were ineffective for those suffering from the disease. There was only one way to end his father’s suffering.

“I can’t help him!” McCoy cried raggedly at the radiant stars overhead. “I can’t do anything to help him!” He screamed it so loud that his throat was instantly raw.

A calm voice in his head spoke. His conscience . . . or was it Sybok?
You’ve done all you can. The support system will keep him alive.

“You call this alive?” McCoy asked haggardly. “Suspended between life and death by a bridge of pain?”

His father tried to whisper something. McCoy bent close to the old man’s parched bluish-gray lips.

Release me. . . .

David turned his face toward the life support machinery. He could not see it, but his mind was still sharp; he knew it was there. He fumbled in its direction.

Release me. . . .

There was no doubt in McCoy’s mind about what his father was asking him to do. He recoiled in horror. “I can’t. . . but how can I watch him suffer like this?”

Sybok, the voice of conscience again.
You’re a doctor.
”

I’m his
son!”

David cried out in silent agony; Leonard could bear no more. With trembling fingers, he reached out and shut off the life support systems one by one, then gently gathered his father into his arms. The older man’s body felt cool and feather-light; he stared blindly up at Leonard, then drew a single, sighing breath and died.

McCoy held the body for several minutes. It seemed suddenly foreign and utterly empty, so devoid of the bright spark that had been David Andrew McCoy that his son had no difficulty believing his father was gone.

Sybok stood at his side.
Why didyou do it? His
tone was gentle, without a trace of condemnation.

“To preserve his dignity. You saw what he had become.” McCoy felt his throat tighten in response to what he knew would follow.

Sybok’s voice was almost inaudible; McCoy was unsure whether he had spoken aloud or in McCoy’s head.
But that wasn’t the worst of it, was it?

McCoy began to shiver violently. “No.” It was at once an answer and a plea. “No, please . . . ”

Share it,
Sybok told him.
Share it and be free of it forever.

McCoy gently laid his father’s body against the pillows and bowed his head. “Not long after . . . they found a cure. A goddam cure!” His voice broke.

If you hadn’t killed him, he might have lived.

The doctor sobbed bitterly. “No! I loved him!”

You did what you thought was right.

“Yes.”

You must release this pain . . ..

The hospital room darkened and was gone. McCoy was standing once again on the forward observation deck.

He wept until he was exhausted. And then something strange occurred. It was as if someone else were absorbing his grief and replacing it with joy. McCoy felt an incredible surge of relief. The memory of his father’s horrible suffering and death remained, but now McCoy remembered it through the eyes of an objective observer. Sybok had told the truth; McCoy felt suddenly strong, able to bear this sorrow . . . and more.