Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (28 page)

Within the maelstrom of pure force, eidolons were born. Sybok recognized one of them instantly: Khosarr, the ancient Vulcan god of war, fierce and hawklike of countenance, muscular and strong, with long black hair tied with a green thong and allowed to stream down his naked back. He was dressed in a green mesh loincloth, and he carried a shield of
green—dark green, the color of war. On Vulcan, nothing that lived was green, save blood.

Khosarr’s compelling form pulsed, whirled, and took on new shape, becoming that of his warrior consort, the goddess Akraana.

The image died and was reborn again as the red goddess of fertility, Lia. Sybok stared, mesmerized. These were the deities that peopled the legends his mother had taught him as a child. He forced himself to look away, at the others beside him. The humans watched with expressions of utter bedazzlement; Sybok wondered what images they saw in the swirling display. Even Spock stared, openly enthralled.

Unnoticed, Sybok smiled at his companions. He did not know what he had expected to encounter . . . but he had never dreamed of this.

He looked back to see the goddesses and gods coalescing into the One. Sybok perceived the One as having Vulcanoid features, neither male nor female. The Being’s face and form glowed, illuminated from within. Remaining inside the perimeters of the energy shaft, it directed its gaze at the four travelers. It addressed Sybok first.

“DOES THIS BETTER SUIT YOUR EXPECTATIONS?”

Sybok stood speechless, too overwhelmed by ecstasy to speak. When at last he found his voice, he whispered,
“Qualse
. . .
tu?

The Being smiled radiantly at him. “IT IS I, THE ONE, THE SOURCE OF ALL.”

Sybok released a single sob of joy and bowed his head.

The One spoke. “THE JOURNEY YOU TOOK TO REACH ME WAS NOT AN EASY ONE.”

“It was not,” Sybok replied softly. “The Barrier stood between us, but we managed to breach it.”

“MAGNIFICIENT.” The Being glowed approvingly. “AND YOU ARE THE FIRST TO FIND ME.”

“We seek only Your infinite wisdom,” Sybok said humbly.

“AND HOW DID YOU BREACH THE BARRIER?”

For the most fleeting of seconds, Sybok felt a tug of doubt: Why would the Almighty ask a question to which It knew the answer? But in the joy of the moment, he pushed the doubt away. “With a starship. It took me years to perfect the shield design so that the Barrier could be crossed, but I persisted.”

He noticed from the corner of his eyes that James Kirk reacted strongly to the statement. In the glory of the moment, it hardly seemed important.

“Ah.” The One brightened considerably, so that Sybok shaded his eyes again. “AND THIS STARSHIP . . . COULD IT CARRY MY WISDOM BACK BEYOND THE BARRIER?”

“Yes! It could, yes!” Sybok was utterly seduced by a glorious vision of his destiny. He alone had been chosen to reveal the One to the galaxy. He closed his eyes and heard the beguiling whisper of his mother’s voice.

Shiav. ..

“I SHALL MAKE USE OF IT.”

Sybok laughed with joy. “It will be your chariot!”

Jim Kirk had heard just about enough. Politely, he
raised his hand, like a cadet trying to get the instructor’s attention. “Excuse me.”

The Being, who appeared to Jim as a benevolent, white-haired human male, ignored him in favor of addressing the enraptured Sybok.

“IT WILL CARRY MY POWER TO EVERY CORNER OF CREATION.”

“Excuse me,”
Jim repeated, this time more insistent.

The Being—Jim refused to think of it as God—regarded Kirk with annoyance. Jim smiled his best conciliatory smile. Whatever it was, it was enormously powerful, and he did not want to anger it. “I just want to ask a question: What does
God
need with a starship?”

Instead of an answer, the Being spoke again to Sybok. “BRING THE SHIP CLOSER.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Jim said, a little irritably. If the Being was unable to reach the ship from this distance, it couldn’t be all that powerful. “What does God want with a starship? I mean, if you’re omnipotent, why don’t you cross the Barrier yourself?”

“Jim,” McCoy whispered sharply. The doctor looked scandalized. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m just asking a simple question,” Jim said aloud.

Spock nodded in support. “An extremely logical question, Captain.”

“Thank you.”

The shimmering dust in the energy beam began to swirl faster. Jim realized that he had made it angry, but he stood his ground. The Being—whatever it
was—was not coming aboard the
Enterprise.
Not without a fight.

The Being’s benevolent smile began to sag. “WHO IS THIS CREATURE?”

“Who am I?” Jim scoffed. “Don’t you
know?
Aren’t you supposed to be God?”

The sky overhead began to darken; thunder rumbled faintly. The smile had left the Being’s face.

With growing dismay, Sybok glanced from the Being to Kirk and back. “Please,” he beseeched the Being. “Do not be angry. He merely has his doubts.”

The Being scowled at Jim. “DO YOU DOUBT ME?”

Jim shifted his weight, uncomfortable with the confrontation, but certain of its necessity. “I need proof. I’m captain of the
Enterprise,
and if you’re going to commandeer my ship, I—”

McCoy clutched his shoulder. “Jim, maybe it’s not such a good idea to ask to see his I.D.”

It was too late. The Being’s face darkened with righteous anger. “THEN HERE IS THE PROOF YOU SEEK.”

A blast of brilliant energy shot from the Being’s eyes at Kirk, too fast for Jim to see it coming. With searing force, it struck Jim full in the chest and knocked him to the ground.

The light blinded him. For an awful moment he lay paralyzed, unable to see, unable to catch his breath.

And then his vision cleared and he sucked in a pained, hitching breath. His chest felt as if it had been crushed, though he knew it was probably only bruised. The sharp jolt of pain that came with each intake of breath, however, told him he’d broken at
least one rib. He struggled to sit up and saw McCoy kneeling beside him.

Jim looked over at Sybok. All joy had vanished from the Vulcan’s face, replaced by shock and uncertainty,

“Why,” Jim gasped, “is God . . . angry?”

Sybok turned to the Being. “I don’t understand. Why have you done this to my friend?”

“HE DOUBTS ME.”

Spock stepped forward to stand beside his brother. “You have not answered his question. What does God need with a starship? Certainly a powerful deity would not need to resort to such a mundane mode of transportation.”

Beneath flashing bands of light, the Being’s face contorted with wrath.

“No!” Jim shouted.

A second bolt of energy streamed from the Being’s eye, hurling Spock to the ground.

Aboard the
Enterprise,
Caithlin Dar stared in mute horror at the scene and leaned against the arm of the empty command chair. Next to her, Korrd growled deep in his throat.

“Dear God,” Talbot whispered. “To have come this far only to find—” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Damn. I need a drink.

When he opened his eyes again, he laid a firm hand on Caithlin’s shoulder. “Turn away, Miss Dar. Turn away. Don’t watch.”

Caithlin kept her gaze fixed on the screen.
“How could this happen?
How could he have been so wrong? It was all so
beautiful...”

“Hell always seems heavenly at first, doesn’t it?” Talbot’s tone became ugly, bitter. “I’m going below for a bloody drink.”

But for some reason, he stayed on the bridge.

Sybok’s universe was beginning to shatter into a myriad of meaningless fragments, all of them spinning away from each other into utter chaos.

He watched in shocked silence as the luminous Being turned its attention on McCoy.

“AND YOU . . . DO YOU ALSO DOUBT ME?”

McCoy, who had been crouched over his injured friends, rose and faced the Being. He no longer appeared frightened or reverent; his voice shook with indignation. “I doubt any god who inflicts pain for his own pleasure.”

The Being’s face darkened with fury; it prepared to lash out again.

Sybok spread out his arms and stepped in front of McCoy—not in a gesture of self-sacrifice, but because he felt too bitterly betrayed, too angry to care if the Being struck him down. “Stop! The God of Sha Ka Ree would not do this!”

The Being smiled at him. It was the most hideous expression Sybok had ever seen, full of maleficence, loathing, the deepest contempt. “SHA KA REE? A VISION
YOU
CREATED!”

The sound of its demonic laughter was unbearable; Sybok covered his ears with his hands, trying to blot it out.

“AN ETERNITY I’VE BEEN IMPRISONED IN THIS PLACE! THE SHIP! I MUST HAVE THE
SHIP! GIVE ME WHAT I WANT OR I WILL KILL YOU ALL!”

T’Rea’s vision had been nothing more than a delusion, or perhaps a message from this creature. Utterly desolate, Sybok wished now only to join his mother’s spirit, to seek the solace of total annihilation.

“Sybok!” Spock shouted.

Sybok looked over at him. Spock sat, shaken but alive, beside the doctor and Kirk. “This is not the God of Sha Ka Ree—or any other God!” Spock cried.

Without responding, Sybok turned back toward the Being. Perhaps there was one small shred of meaning left in the universe—the fact that he loved his younger brother and did not want to see him perish at the hands of this evil entity. Sybok had no one, and life was no longer important to him—but Spock had his friends.

“Reveal yourself to me!” Sybok urged the Being. “I must know the truth! I must see you as you really are!”

The Being’s features wavered, changed. When at last they resolved themselves, they were still Vulcanoid . . .

But the face was a sinister likeness of Sybok’s own.

Sybok shrank from it, repelled.

His evil reflection laughed scornfully. “WHAT’S WRONG? DON’T YOU LIKE THIS FACE? I HAVE SO MANY, BUT THIS ONE SUITS YOU BEST.”

“No,” Sybok whispered. “It’s not possible.” And yet he realized, in one bright and terrible instant of disillusionment, that it was
quite
possible—in fact,
obvious. His willingness to deceive himself, his total conceit in believing himself to be the
shiav
of legend. The creature—whatever it was—had instinctively sensed the depths of Sybok’s vanity and had revealed it to him.

“BRING ME THE SHIP OR I WILL DESTROY YOU!” the creature demanded; its voice had acquired an unpleasantly shrill edge.

Destroy me now, and be done with it,
Sybok almost replied . . . but then he remembered Spock, his brother, and those remaining on the
Enterprise
—Dar, Talbot, Korrd, Sulu, J’Onn, all the others. . . .

Clearly, the creature hoped to gain control of the ship in order to cross the Barrier unscathed . . . and all aboard would be killed.

T’Rea’s death no longer had meaning. Sybok accepted this, and knew that if his own death was to have any, he would have to remain alive long enough to ensure the safety of the others. The thought helped sustain him. “The ship—” Sybok began.

“BRING IT CLOSER THAT I MIGHT JOIN WITH IT!” the creature bellowed. “DO IT, OR WATCH THESE PUNY THINGS DIE HORRIBLY.”

Anguished, Sybok turned toward his brother. “Spock, what have I done?”

“Sybok . . .” Spock began, and faltered, unable to offer any words of comfort.

“This is my doing,” Sybok told him. “My arrogance, my vanity. Save yourselves!”

“No!” Spock protested, rising to his feet and moving toward his elder brother. “Sybok, you mustn’t—”

“Forgive me,
thyla,”
Sybok said. He raised his
hand and saluted his brother in a gesture he had not made in over thirty years. “Live long and prosper. ...”

Spock raised his hand in the Vulcan salute; his fingertips grazed Sybok’s. ...

And then Sybok turned away from his brother. He faced the Being and drew in a deep breath, summoning all of his power, then looked at his evil distorted image without hope, without joy, without fear. “I couldn’t help but notice your pain,” he said.

“PAIN?” A ripple of confusion passed over the being’s parody of the Vulcan’s features.

“It runs deep,” Sybok said, feeling an odd stirring of compassion. His words were true; as he probed the outer reaches of the creature’s mind, he sensed a loneliness beyond all light, beyond all comprehension. “Share it with me.”

He stepped into the swirling beam of power and embraced his enemy.

W
ITH
M
C
C
OY’S HELP
, Jim held Spock back as his brother entered the energy shaft.

Spock struggled only for an instant, then was still. “Captain . . .” His voice was hushed, almost a whisper. “Sybok intends to sacrifice himself. He cannot possibly survive the battle. . . .” He fell silent, though Jim got the impression he had intended to say more.

Jim cautiously eased his grip on the Vulcan’s arms. His back was to Sybok and the energy-creature; he turned to see the incredible spectacle.

Within the shimmering matrix, two Syboks—the good one and his evil parody—wrestled, merging into one distorted, thrashing body. Abruptly, the good Sybok pulled himself free, and tried to fasten his hands on his evil twin’s temples.

Share your pain. . . .

NO.

The evil Sybok began to absorb the good, his bodily tissues melting, flowing around the real Sybok like an amoeba engulfing food.

Jim forced himself to look away from the sight, and back at Spock. He understood very well what Spock had
not
been able to say—that there was no hope of his brother’s survival, and that
Enterprise’s
one chance lay in destroying the energy-creature now, while it was distracted.

“Spock,” Jim said gently, “are you
sure
about. . . Sybok?”

The Vulcan’s expression was wooden; his eyes were focused on the terrible struggle. “Quite certain. Sybok . . . communicated it to me. He understands quite well what he is doing.”

“I’m sorry,” Jim whispered. He keenly remembered the pain he experienced on the loss of his own brother, Sam, even though Jim had not had to witness his brother’s horrible death—as Spock would have to do now.