The Price of the Phoenix sttos(n-4 Read online

  But Spock had learned poker from Jim Kirk. He betrayed no impatience, made Omne speak first.

  I see,” Omne said. “Very well, Mr. Spock, we understand that you have not, after all, conceded so easily. We have merely established the value of the stakes, have we not? A no-limit game.”

  “No limit,” Spock said. “State your details.”

  “Quite simple. Have you wondered why this was aimed at you?”

  “The thought has occurred.”

  “A convergence, Mr. Spock On you. As Vulcan goes, so goes the galaxy. As you go, so goes Vulcan. I have become aware of the importance of your family there and the effort of your father and yourself to keep Vulcan from breaking with the Federation over the matter of Human interference with alien customs.”

  Spock shrugged. “That effort does not depend upon me. My father—and Vulcan—will not be impressed by anything I do under duress.”

  “Ah, but you will not appear to be under duress. Therefore, the necessity of giving you a plausible reason to appear to recognize the error or the Federation—and of your friend—in his very death. More in sorrow than in anger, you will denounce him—and the galaxy rallies to the cause of the great, brooding figure from Vulcan. That is your script.”

  Spock felt his jaw hardening and a gulf opening in front of him. The man had an understanding of what would work. And an unlimited evil. Poker, Spock told himself. “There is a flaw in your theory,” he said. “By that script you could not intend to let Kirk leave with me alive. Therefore I would not do it.”

  “Second point of convergence, Spock,” Omne said, looking again at the Commander. The Commander-wants you.” He shrugged and spoke to her. That’s your business, my dear. But as you go, so goes the Romulan Empire. My script for Spock will benefit you, too, by bringing my alliance to life, and you will commit the Empire to defend it. That combination will free you of the trap of the Romulan Neutral Zone and make you strong enough to challenge the Federation. You get your brooding Vulcan—and the bonus of a slightly disguised friend whom you can hide in the vastness of the Empire.”

  “The flaw in that theory,” she answered smoothly, “is that you need the Empire far worse than I need you.”

  “The flaw in that” Omne said, “is that I have the price of the priceless Spock.”

  She shrugged. “Mr. Spock is not my price or he could have bought me long ago. I am the buyer.”

  Omne spread his hands. “Perhaps he was not for sale at your price.”

  Her shoulders stiffened, but she smiled at Omne. “I will make you a counteroffer: immediate support of the Empire, which should breathe life into your alliance without benefit of the Spock script. And all I want is—a certain reproduction. The print and the negative. The matrix.”

  Omne laughed. “All? That would give you Mr. Spock’s price. And—the priceless. That would very likely give you enough information to figure out the process, and the process could buy the galaxy.”

  The Commander nodded. “That thought has occurred.”

  “Very astute, my dear.” Omne leaned back, gripping the back of the chair, flexing the muscled arms which the thin black silk sleeves of the jumpsuit displayed to advantage. “Perhaps more than I had thought. What would you like to be? Empress of the Empire and Commander in Chief? With Spock as Prince Consort and Kirk as an attendant lord? You could do it with my process. There is no Empire, no Federation, no planet, no starship, which does not have a key man with a wife, a child, a friend. Of course, I have no intention of releasing the process. However, I might use it for you on occasion. I fear you are a trifle squeamish, my dear.”

  “If I wish murder done,” she said, “I will do it myself. You understand that while you have the process, you cannot be allowed to live?”

  Omne laughed. “The lady raises the bet.” He shook his head. “No, my dear. You don’t have the chips or the cards for this game. I cannot be threatened. The man without love gives no hostages to fortune. While my shields hold, your three ships are as powerless as Spock’s Enterprise. If I cannot deal with you, I can deal with the Empire—eventually. And if not, I do not truly need the Empire. It would merely be a convenience at the moment. The Federation is the great, unbalanced power to which I must pose a counterweight—for the freedom of the galaxy.

  “Do not pose as a champion of freedom,” Spock said flatly, gesturing toward the screen, the underground, Kirk. “You buy and sell—slavery.”

  Omne shrugged. “There is the political, Spock, and the personal. You are apt to believe, as the day reveals its surprises, that my purpose is merely personal, merely malevolent. I caution you against that. No man of importance is merely a villain, and none can act without some belief in the worth of his cause.” He smiled. “Even an outlaw is entitled to a hell-busted ideal or two.”

  “A murderer is not,” Spock said, losing the sense of the playing of poker. Jim had taught him to play, and Jim was—dead.

  Omne shrugged. “I am at war, Spock. I have made no separate peace. The galaxy is being taken over by super-empires, including yours—especially yours, with its noble pretensions and even noble aspirations. Nothing is more dangerous than nobility. Your Kirk has been the noblest and deadliest peacemaker in the galaxy. If he were allowed to go on, there would soon be one wall-to-wall empire, sickeningly sweet and subtly oppressive. In conflict there is room for enclaves of freedom.”

  “Where you can keep a slave?” Spock said implacably.

  Omne spread his hands. “There is also the personal, the elemental. Domination is the natural instinct of man, Spock, born of the jungle. We are all wolves here.”

  “One of us is,” Spock said, looking at Omne. He let the fire flare in his own eyes. “Two.”

  Omne smiled a curious smile—rather like the smile of a wolf. “Three,” he said, “even the she-wolf.”

  “You have no political purpose,” Spock said, “only the malevolence of the wolf.”

  “There you are wrong, Spock,” Omne said soberly.

  “However, it is also true that I have a personal stake in seeing your own performance.”

  “What stake?” Spock said.

  Omne laughed. “When I buy the man without price, I wish to see whether you have the honor to stay bought, Vulcan.”

  Spock shrugged. “What else?”

  Omne looked at him very solemnly. “Call it-enduring purpose, Mr. Spock The lie you speak will be a truth a certain man learned decades ago when he watched love die.” The black eyes looked through Spock into some distance, then snapped back with a glint as cold as space. “Or say that I cannot stand to see a man who dares to love even in the face of death—even when he gives such a hostage to fortune.”

  Omne’s gloved hands suddenly shoved the stacks of golden chips into a heap in the center of the table and clenched into fists in the heap. ‘The best either of you can do is call. Spock! Your word on your script. Commander: the alliance and refuge for two fugitives. If Mr. Spock’s performance lacks luster, I will give you a slightly used copy—when I have finished with it.”

  Spock knew that he kept the muscles along his jaw from jumping. “I will not accept damaged merchandise,” he said, “and I advise you not to believe that I cannot threaten you.”

  Omne inclined his head. “If there is a man alive who could, Mr. Spock, you are the man. But I hold the high card. Do you call?”

  “I call,” Spock said.

  “Commander?”

  “I am in,” she said.

  Omne dismounted from the chair and stood up, took his untouched liquor glass, and raised it in salute as the Commander and Spock stood up. “Spock, the delegates meet in two hours to discuss the implications of the shocking event of this morning. It should give you time to compose a suitably convincing script along the lines sketched. It must convince me. I need hardly say that the hostage answers for your behavior with his person. Commander, a word with you as my new ally—and I believe that we should see to the comfort of the merchandise.” He lifted the glass. “
To business—the buying and the selling.” He drained the liquor in one smooth sweep, but the black eyes remained cold and unblinking. “Guards, escort Mr. Spock out”

  CHAPTER VI

  The Commander had watched the Vulcan out, and known how close he had come to making his stand there across the gold-heaped table—with the lone six-shooter against Omne and a dozen guards.

  And she knew that part of what stopped him was his doubt of her.

  If he could have counted on her even to be neutral… But she could not explain her position in front of Omne.

  And it would not have helped, neither the explanation nor the position.

  There was not even a legend that Romulans could not lie.

  It was necessary for Omne to believe Spock was not her price, but she suspected that it was Spock who had believed her. He had half-believed her about Kirk. “The original-to the life.”

  She caught herself smiling. The Vulcan deserved that. And the Human, too. He would have been in there pitching if he had not regarded her as staked out as private property by Spock.

  They would learn something about property. Perhaps too much.

  She did not look at the burial bier as Omne ushered her silently through the candled room. The flowers meant nothing to her.

  At the inner door she raised her hand to tap.

  Omne picked the hand out of the air and drew it down to her side, held it against her lunge for her sidearm. She had killed men for less.

  He saw it in her eyes and laughed silently.

  She controlled herself. His strength was more than equal to holding her, certainly, unless she used advanced all-in-combat techniques.

  It was not yet a time for war.

  He touched the opening stud and led her in by the hand, unannounced.

  Kirk sat up suddenly on the bed, startled, indignant, embarrassed now as he had had the will not to be when he was naked. He wore a short robe which was some kind of cross between an all-in-combat jacket and a hospital gown, and she suspected that he wore it backwards. The edges did not quite meet across chest and hips, and the string ties were of no assistance. Moreover, it was done in some fabric which looked like thin white velvet and clung like a live animal. There was some kind of brief in the same fabric which was supported by a low band around his hips, and provided, possibly, moral support.

  He swung soft white boots to the floor and stood up. The edges of the robe fell a trifle further apart and soft folds of fabric shifted, but he had regained the control not to tug at anything. He brought his hands together in the Human military posture of parade-rest, and his manner announced again that he was clothed in dignity.

  “Where I come from,” he said, “and in the civilized world, the custom is to ask permission to enter.”

  “One does not ask permission of property,” Omne said.

  “We have had that argument before.”

  Omne smiled. “You lost.”

  “Force is not an answer to argument”

  “It is the last answer.”

  Kirk shook his head, not deigning to answer.

  The original, she thought, to the life. She found that she was holding her breath. Yes, she could understand well enough why he was the Vulcan’s price.

  Omne turned to her as if reading the thought. “And what price would you pay for this one, my dear—if I were not practically throwing him into the bargain?”

  “Irrelevant, since you are.”

  “Not quite,” he said. “If Spock convinces me—and the delegates—presumably you will have this one, too, but as a refugee, not property. And if he does not—I am singularly hard to convince—then you would have this one as property, presumably with Spock trying to buy him. But in either case, there could be some question of the condition of the merchandise. For example, his appearance would have to be altered. Romulan ears and eyebrows you presumably would not mind. I believe you have seen them on him before. But there could be other changes. And other damages.”

  “I would not take Spock’s threat lightly, if I were you,” she said, seeing Kirk’s face working at remaining set, the fine, slanting muscle in the jaw betraying him fractionally.

  Omne saw it too, but kept an eye on her. He shrugged “The planet is impregnable. This compound is a fortress. The underground is a maze, with chambers which even I have not seen for twenty years.”

  “Spock has a life span of perhaps two hundred years left to breach the impregnable,” she said. “He would use all of it.”

  “He has perhaps two hours to storm the fortress and thread the maze. Two hours which we could better employ.” Omne’s eyes raked over Kirk slowly, and his massive arm twisted hers and drew her against his side. She could feel the heat of his body through his black silk and her tunic. “There is really no need to wait. Spock will be glad enough to accept damaged goods. If it comes to that, he will have no choice. Moreover, this one would never tell. Your old enemy, Commander, who made a fool of you in front of the Empire and the galaxy! Wouldn’t you like to see the Starship Captain beg?’

  “What I like is that he would not beg.”

  She saw Kirk’s eyebrows rise in astonishment

  Omne jerked her to face him. “I think he would, ally. Would you care to make a small wager?”

  “I will wager that I can kill you where you stand unless you unhand me and leave this room.”

  Omne chuckled. “Lady, I admire your notion of odds,” he drawled. “You are nearly as interesting as the priceless price. But what’s your game? Don’t you know that you’ll never have the Vulcan while this one lives?”

  I’ll never have him if this one dies. And you will never have ally or Empire if you harm him. Your bet was called, Omne. If you have no honor, I have. Spock has his two hours and his chance to pay his price. Hell get what he pays for—undamaged—or one of us will die in this room.’

  Omne twisted her arm up behind her back. She set her teeth and saw Kirk gather himself. She needed the one break against an opponent of Omne’s strength and size. It was comforting to realize how certain she was of getting it. If she could have this game Human willingly, at her back or at her side, and the Vulcan at her right hand, the universe could not stand against them.

  But that was a dream.

  Omne laughed, whirled her, and tossed her into Kirk’s arms. The black glove blurred and the ancient Colt was in his hand, looking like the deadly weapon it was. “I can’t tell you how you terrify me, my dear,” he grinned. “Perhaps I should say, my dears. However, your point is well taken, Commander. I am not a man of honor. Our alliance does not depend upon my honor, since you know my motives and my power. It does depend upon yours, and I shall hold you to it. You also called the bet. I’ll permit you to keep this one safe for your Spock while we determine whether your Spock is a man of honor where this one is concerned. I have never allowed my satisfaction to depend upon a particular piece of property.”

  He bowed, and there was some expression in his eyes which she wished she had not seen.

  “And with that thought, I will leave you,” Omne said, and backed through the door.

  Her hand fell to her sidearm, but she abandoned the impulse. Omne was quick and cautious and on his own territory. He might only wish to draw her out away from Kirk.

  Kirk turned her slowly in his arms, and she did not resist. “Thank you,” he said simply. And after a moment, “Somehow I don’t think Spock would mind if I thanked you properly.”

  She pulled his head down into the kiss, suddenly grateful that there was neither Romulan nor Vulcan need for ritual gesture and slow propriety. She lived between the stars and so did this one. So, really, did the Vulcan, but there was much he could learn about the joys of abandoning custom. She would teach him, but there might not be much that she could teach this one.

  He was not used to the strength which had pulled his head down, but he had resisted it for only a heart-beat, then relaxed and trusted himself into it, concentrating a certain power of his own on taking her breath away.
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  On that contest, they were about even, she thought. But presently he lifted his head and she let him, let him gather her head to draw her face against his temple and cheek. He held her for a long moment. “I think he would mind more,” he said softly into her ear and brushed it with his lips, then slowly drew back from her, still holding her at a little distance.

  “You are welcome,” she said with a straight face, and saw his eyes light with a glint of mischief.

  “You’d have to take that up with Spock first,” he said with a little smile which was nevertheless serious.

  “I intend to.”

  He raised an almost Spockian eyebrow, undeterred by the fact that the other one got into the act. “A—custom of your people?”

  “No. A custom of my own. I call it ‘thinking beyond the phalanx.’ Phalanx is not the word. But there are certain military problems which cannot be solved inside the standard military formations.” She smiled, also seriously. “Other problems, too. And other-formations.”

  He nodded. “I know the concept. Get out of the box. Change the name of the game. He shook his head thoughtfully. “You might find that Spock and I are further outside of the phalanx than you know. In fact, I seem to be out of all boxes whatsoever.” He looked at the door. “Except this one.” He took her shoulders in his hands. “Commander, I can’t see the future, and I can’t wipe out the past—even if I never lived in it. I know you are supposed to be the enemy, and have cause to be mine. But you just acted as a friend, to Spock and to me.” He slipped his hands down to hers and lifted them. “Friends? And—allies? Where honor permits and purposes do not cross?”

  She took his hands. “That will do for a beginning.” She let her eyes laugh and disengaged her hands, guided his right one into a fist until their right wrists crossed in the Romulan warrior gesture, which could mean in its degrees from first comradeship to the blood-bond of brothers of the sword. It was she, and a few like her, who had made it include sisters.