Captain's Log, Stardate 6118.9:
Our attempts to locate the crippled Sparrow have been unsuccessful. Helm reports that an unusual number of small ion disturbances in space are impending the search. The Klingons are becoming more belligerent, and Starfleet has informed me that the planets Boaco Six and Boaco Eight may be preparing for a civil war within their solar system. Klingon and Romulan arms are being delivered to Boaco Six at an increasing rate, according to intelligence reports. If war breaks out, the Federation will have no choice but to arm the other side.
Time is running out. Starfleet is calling upon Flint, the man who invented the new, experimental cloaking device, to help us penetrate and recover it. Mr. Flint is, of course, the great ancient creative genius, the Methuselah who has lived through most of Terran history, and given us so much. Calling on him for help seems a wise move …
Yet I am troubled by personal concerns. Something gnaws at me which I cannot define. I believe I have come to terms with Miri's death, and the catastrophe of the Onlies. Thanks to my chief surgeon's injections, I am better rested. What is it, then, that makes me so uneasy?
* * *
KIRK WONDERED when he would again feel at peace with himself. Ever since the order had come from Starfleet Command to enlist Flint in the search effort, Kirk had felt restless; voices and nameless shadows kept appearing and fading in his dreams, and disrupting his thoughts as he sat in his command chair, or alone in contemplation. His dreams were violent and strange. He would awake periodically in a nervous sweat, searching for a clue to their meaning, then drift off again, letting them envelop him.
He could remember little about his earlier encounter with Flint—which was odd. He had a good memory for the people and events woven into his life throughout his space travels. Yet his recollections of Flint were vague and blurry. Such an impressive individual, who had given so much to human culture, would surely have had a lasting impact on one's mind. Kirk could conjure up his face, but nothing of their conversations. What he felt toward Flint was violent emotional rage, bitterness, and embarrassment … how could these feelings have been caused by this miraculous man? Kirk could not account for them. It puzzled him greatly. The answer seemed always in reach, always eluding him. Even in dreams.
It was a quiet day in sickbay. A few crewmen had come in for checkups, a young lieutenant rested on warmth pads to heal a shoulder muscle she had strained in the gym. Leonard McCoy had left Nurse Chapel in charge, had spent most of the day scanning tapes on the situation of the Onlies and the program that had been set up for them, and then tapes of Flint's accomplishments since he had been discovered and identified by the men of the Enterprise. The list was impressive: contributions to the arts and music, to medicine and physics. But McCoy was worried about the captain. Why Flint? A thousand inventors in the galaxy … why did he have to be the one pioneering the new cloaking device?
McCoy pulled the tape he had been viewing out of the computer and threw it down on his office desk.
"Christine," he said, as he ambled out the sickbay door, "I'm heading out for some lunch, be back in an hour or so. Keep an eye on things, will you?"
"Certainly, Doctor," Nurse Chapel assented.
McCoy soon found himself in the major mess hall of deck five, hit by a dizzying array of aromas. A food computer programmed with two hundred thousand recipes made every cafeteria on the Enterprise smell like a smorgasbord. But McCoy knew just what he wanted.
His fried chicken seemed to sizzle and crackle up from the plate in front of him, as he plunked himself down at an empty table. A few feet away, Helmsman Sulu was explaining the finer points of fencing to an admiring crowd of friends. But McCoy felt in no mood to socialize with the crew. Jim has enough on his mind, what with Miri's death, and what's happened with the Onlies, and this whole damn Boacan entanglement. Why did he need to be reminded of Rayna?
The beautiful and brilliant robot girl, Flint's creation, had fallen in love with the captain, and he with her. Discovering that she was an artificial construct did not lessen Kirk's love for her; he declared she had become human. Kirk and Flint had fought each other, recklessly, madly, for Rayna. She was overwhelmed by having to choose between the two of them, by the pain she was causing both of them, and short-circuited, died … however you described it, it came to the same thing. The ancient Flint and the young Kirk had been heartbroken, abashed … hardly an experience that either would want to be reminded of. Especially now, this way.
And it was painful for McCoy to be reminded of it.
He had felt for the captain's grief, and had lashed out, perhaps unjustly, at Spock. The Vulcan seemed too cryptic, too aloof, to deal with at such a time. McCoy told Spock that he felt sorrier for Spock than for the captain. Because Spock would never know what love could drive a man to. The glorious victories. The glorious defeats. He had left Spock deep in thought as Kirk slept finally, slumped over his desk. They had never again discussed the matter.
No emotions … Well, it must simplify things for him, in the long run. By suppressing his human half, Spock seemed to think he gained something, achieved something.
McCoy picked up a piece of chicken and took a halfhearted nibble; the flavor revived his spirits somewhat. He'd be glad when this whole cloaking-device caper was over, and he could go back to his research on Boaco Six. Those crazy young ministers and health workers … he'd found that world stimulating and refreshing. And it would be good for the captain too.
From across the mess hall, Spock watched him. McCoy did not notice him as he headed for the food dispenser, then hesitated for a moment. At last he moved soundlessly across the room until he stood beside McCoy, and made him jump when he spoke.
"If I might have a word with you, Doctor." He slid onto the bench, placing his tray on the table. McCoy surveyed his food selections; Spock had a Vulcan torbak salad, a tall glass of water, and what appeared to be an Earth dish of broccoli mixed with snow peas, Asian in origin. A meal ascetic enough for any monk.
Damn that pointy-eared Vulcan! McCoy had been looking forward all day to tearing into some juicy home-style southern fried chicken, but the vegetarian science officer always made him feel self-conscious about enjoying meat. He took another cautious nibble.
Spock seemed to sense his uneasiness. "Do not let my eating habits trouble you, Doctor. I long ago ceased to wonder how a healer of human flesh can take pleasure in the cooking and eating of other animals. Please continue to enjoy your meal."
"Thanks a lot," McCoy grumbled. He laid down his food and looked at Spock. "What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"
Spock spoke quietly but earnestly. "As we will soon be approaching Flint's planet, and as you are the only other person who is aware of what happened during our previous visit there, who knows what our experiences were … it is necessary for me to tell you that the captain no longer remembers them."
McCoy responded with the violent emotional reaction which Spock feared this news would excite.
"What do you mean he no longer remembers them? That's impossible! I admit, he stopped speaking of the fight with Flint, and of Rayna pretty suddenly … I was glad he put it all behind him … just what have you been up to, Spock?"
Spock, in a rather un-Vulcan gesture, pushed the blue torbak salad aimlessly about on his plate. Perfectly vile-looking vegetable, to McCoy's way of thinking.
Finally, Spock spoke. "I used the Vulcan mind-meld to help the captain forget. It was necessary that he put the experience behind him. So that he could command more efficiently."
McCoy was touched. The mind-meld, he knew, involved a degree of mental intimacy, a loss of privacy which Vulcans found most distasteful, and avoided whenever possible. "I guess I was a bit rough on you that night, Spock. Said some things I shouldn't have. What … made you do that for Jim?"
The Vulcan remained impassive.
"Well, anyhow," the doctor said, "since you say he doesn't know about it, I won't give you away. Things could get complicated, though, when Flint comes on board. He may want to talk about Rayna, about the whole episode."
Spock nodded. "A possibility I have considered, Doctor. However, it seems more likely that Mr. Flint will wish to avoid all discussion of the past, and concentrate on penetrating the cloaking device he designed. Let us handle each contingency as it arises. But I believe, for now, it is best to leave things as they are."
Flint lay before a crackling hearth of sweet-smelling wood and rosy fire. His fingers dug into the deep harsh wool of his fine exotic rug. He idly traced the pattern of a vine stem as it snaked around another, with his fingers. His thick eyebrows, his sad stern features were immobile.
Flint, the man who had been Methuselah, Solomon, Alexander, Merlin, Brahms, Leonardo … Flint, with no project at hand, no diversion, could at last feel his rugged old leathery body aging. It was a strange thing to feel.
Of course, he had aged up to a point, millennia earlier. He had started his life in 3000 B.C., in Mesopotamia. He was Akarin then, a mercenary soldier, a bully, and a drunken fool. He grew from boyhood as Akarin, and was pierced to the heart in battle. When he did not die, he became aware of the strange gift that he possessed, the gift of rapid tissue regeneration. Veritable immortality. His aging process slowed, and halted when he entered a virile early middle-age. It was then that he had to undertake the business of his life; traveling from place to place, hiding his true nature by moving on before others could remark it. His dazzling wealth—his private planet had been bought with a modest fraction of it—and his equally dazzling store of information and wisdom had come with centuries of acquisition. Yet wisdom and wealth could not assuage the most unlikely characteristic of immortality: an ennui that could paralyze him, make it all seem worthless.
A hundred different professions. Languages. He would learn new ones to amuse himself. Years of travel and carousing would give way to centuries of longing for security, for one precious, lasting love. And in those centuries came girl after precious radiant girl, clutched to him until she withered, turned to dust. Cynical years of carousing and numbness would then follow, a resolve to never love and mourn again. And then … he would trip again, be pricked again by a loveliness so startling, a girl he cherished so deeply that he knew they could never be sundered … until the woman withered, turned to dust.
Twice he had tried to follow them by taking his own life. He hanged himself in Cadiz in 712. The rope was cut by his interfering, swart, stupid landlady. His unconscious form was lowered, and soon he breathed life again; dead tissue gave way to living.
In 1419 he lost Chloe in a village in Bordeaux. He was playing the part of a wealthy baron at the time, had a house well-run with serfs, servants, and courtiers. He shut them all out after Chloe's burial, pictured her honey hair, heard her voice calling him, took a knife from the wall and cut and slashed his chest, goring and carving several vital organs. Unconsciousness engulfed him. He did not truly expect to die. But it amused him to lie in bed during the weeks that followed, feeling his body renew itself, a film of new flesh forming over the healing organs, the sting of pain distracting him from a deeper wound, his recent loss, and masking the dull, aching, ever-present lack of some sweet constant in his life. Scars remained, after his body healed, for several decades. Then they, too, melted away.
But this flesh-carving proved to be frivolous; a servant had spied on his convalescence, and spread stories of witchcraft and forces of the occult at work in his manor. It forced Flint to flee, to Italy this time …
All the dates and wars, brides, achievements, places … sound and fury, signifying nothing. Incidents that stood out in his mind, centuries that sped up to a blur, undistinguished, unremembered. What soured Flint on so many women and so many bosom friends was an inescapable feeling of contempt. An impatience with their blearing eyes, wandering minds, creasing faces, trembling hands growing ever feebler … And a feeling of rage, almost jealousy, that their short spans made their lives sweeter, seemed to give them meaning. They could choose some quaint little toy village in which to live out their days, and have it be their world. They would never return to see it portioned into pastures for the rich, burned, sacked, or paved, or renamed, its monuments and houses of worship razed and replaced, or its industries mechanized, or the streets giving way to malls and lots, or the air jets of a city in the sky… Flint had watched the human circus on parade going by, had at times contributed to it, or manipulated it, until at last, disgusted, he retreated into solitude. Yet his friends, his loves, the rest of humanity knew only the bliss of mortal ignorance.
And I am mortal now. Flint rotated his ankle experimentally. It twinged sharply. Something wondrous and new; even the ankle seemed surprised. Arthritis had been appearing for a month, steadily insinuating its way into his muscle joints and limbs. "The thrill of deterioration!" Flint said, and laughed. "We see now the meaning it adds." He had talked to himself when alone, as to one trusted companion, since before he left the Valley of the Euphrates and Southwest Asia and embarked on all his travels. When he fell in love, or had a family, he tended to lose the habit. Since the death of Rayna, he had begun talking to himself once again.
Rayna … sweet mortal twinge for the two of them, meant to have been immortal. Rayna, his Pygmalion's creation, the culmination, synthesis, orchestration of his love and all his most cherished dreams. Dreams nurtured, with her near him, for a handful of decades. Rayna, his child, student, protected one, his mother, sister, lover, friend, female companion for all time … but the story had never been completed. She had never found maturity, or her capacity to be completely human and love as a woman, until too soon, too late, too suddenly.
Did he hate the impudent young captain whom he had used as a puppet, his pawn, his initiator? There was no hatred in him, not even a bitterness left. Flint had acted as foolishly as Kirk, after all, for all his age—and now he was as mortal.
Rayna's death, Dr. McCoy's discovery that Flint, away from the elements and atmosphere of Earth, was slowly dying, and the departure of the men of the Enterprise, had left Flint with a curious sense of peace. Perhaps the peace he would have felt had Rayna lived and learned to love him—perhaps sadder. But a peace that gave him focus and set him working again, with a deadline at last. No longer did he merely dabble in long-neglected music, painting, and experiments. He set aside time each day for each. Yet, he rushed nothing. Every moment, active or idle, was sweeter, and he savored it. Such pleasure, in lying alone before a magnificent smoky blaze that stung his eyes with water. Man's greatest achievement, capturing fire, came long before my time. We are foolish to think we have outgrown it.
A metal whirr filled the room. The loyal machine hung in the air by the old-fashioned door of Flint's study. It moved toward him, gliding through space, the firelight shining off its curves and angles with a steely glint. He absently admired the new, modified robot servant, designed to meet his current needs. He had added the voice component to it for the mild diversion of having someone else to talk to now and then. Its new metal arms hung limp for the moment. It stopped in the air near Flint, and hovered, suspended by its antigravity unit.
"Yes, M-7, what is it?" Flint asked.
"Signor," the robot whirred, "the dilithium splinters have been prepared, as you requested, for the cloaking experiment."
"Very good, M-7," Flint answered, easing to his feet before the robot could offer to assist him. "Let's get some work accomplished before the Earthmen arrive and want results."
The device he had designed had been stolen and misused, and he wished to participate in its recovery. So he would sacrifice his privacy, would mingle with ordinary people again. The thing he had said he would never do. He had finally consented to Federation requests that he join in the search for the Sparrow. He viewed the future with reservations, especially about the starship he would be boarding—but also with a touch of excitement. Could it be that he still missed the society of others?
He moved gingerly through the door, bemused by the pain in his right leg. The robot lingered, to spray the fire in the hearth with a water mist. The flames hissed and died. M-7 followed Flint to the laboratory.