Undiscovered Country (Star Trek Movie 6) (Star Trek: The Original Series) by J.M. Dillard

Author:J.M. Dillard [Dillard, J.M.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Pocket Books/Star Trek
Published: 2002-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

FROM THE SAFETY of the Enterprise bridge, Spock watched with the others as the prisoners were led away.

“Rura Penthe!” Uhura recoiled, horrified, from the sight.

“Known throughout the galaxy as the aliens’ graveyard,” Chekov whispered, his face slack with shock. Beside him at her post, Valeris kept her expression taut, controlled, belying the agitation in her eyes.

“Better to kill them now and get it over with,” Scott muttered bitterly behind them.

Spock stared mutely at the screen. Impossible to deny that the trial had evoked deep emotion within him. After many years spent among humans, he had learned to accept his heritage and the fact that he possessed emotions. He had even come to see how he had overcompensated for the fact—which Dr. McCoy had taken great pains to point out, on one occasion accusing Spock of “trying to out-Vulcan the Vulcans.”

Yet he remained devoted to logic. He was most comfortable in his role as a Vulcan and saw no advantage in abandoning it now. While certain positive emotions, experienced judiciously, might enhance life, none could be permitted to control it.

And so Spock contained those he experienced now: frustration, anger, despair, and, strongest of all, an entirely irrational guilt.

Guilt, because he had volunteered the Enterprise and James T. Kirk for the Kronos mission. To some degree, he had been guilty of manipulation. Yet his reasons for doing so were logical beyond reproach. The Enterprise under James T. Kirk was the safest choice for transporting the Klingon chancellor, it was merely incidental that Kirk would have the opportunity to meet Chancellor Gorkon, to know that Klingons other than Kruge existed in the universe. Both Kirk and Gorkon stood to benefit from the encounter.

But circumstance had conspired against them. And more, Spock realized now, than circumstance. The real conspirators were free, while Kirk and McCoy stood trial, which meant that Azetbur’s life and the chance for peace were still endangered.

Spock also felt guilt for not boarding Kronos in Kirk’s place. He argued most logically with himself: had Kirk not gone, the Klingons would simply have destroyed Enterprise. The captain’s gamble had saved the ship—and now would save the peace conference.

Nevertheless, Spock could not quite free himself of the nagging conviction that it would have been better for him to stand in Kirk’s place in the prisoners’ dock.

Initially he had experienced relief on learning that his two friends had escaped the sentence of death. He had prepared himself to face that outcome with some measure of acceptance.

Yet a small internal voice—one he had almost silenced during the emotion-denying discipline of Kolinahr, one that had led him back to the Enterprise and V’Ger, one he had learned in recent years to carefully attend—refused to accept the possibility and insisted, even in that grim instant before sentence was passed, on hope.

His relief was immediately outweighed by alarm. Rura Penthe had attained legendary status as the cruelest penal colony in the Klingon archipelago. Spock agreed with Commander Scott; a swift execution would have been more merciful. No one survived a stay of any length on Rura Penthe.

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