Constellations (20 page)

“Well, what about the human soul?” McCoy said. “Or the Vulcan, for that matter?”

“Such beliefs are not unprecedented, Doctor. Even among Vulcans.”

“Well, I wonder what human beings would have done if we'd had certain knowledge of something like that, of an afterlife.” The physician looked back at the armada of Tholian ships on the bridge screen. “I hardly think it could have divided us any more than we were already.”

“I harbor no doubts that human society could have found a way to do so regardless, Doctor.”

McCoy glared at the Vulcan faintly. “Maybe all we needed was a common enemy,” he said. “Unfortunately, the Vulcans arrived a few thousand years too late.”

“In that, we are in complete agreement, Doctor,” Spock said.

“Stand down, gentlemen,” Kirk said as he settled back into his command chair. “One civil war at a time.”

Stuart Moore has been a writer, a book editor, and an award-winning comics editor. His recent and upcoming comics work includes
Firestorm, Nightwing,
and
JSA Classified
(all for DC Comics),
Wolverine
(Marvel), and
Stargate Atlantis
(Avatar Press). For Games Workshop's revived Dark Future series, Stuart has written the original prose novel
American Meat
and its upcoming sequel,
Reality Bites.
Other recent comics include
Lone, The Escapist, Justice League Adventures, Para,
and
Western Tales of Terror.
Of his graphic novel
Giant Robot Warriors
(AiT/PlanetLar), Steven Grant of Comic Book Resources said, “Stuart Moore's turning into one of the best comics writers in America. Buy this.”

At DC Comics, Stuart was a founding editor of the acclaimed Vertigo imprint, where he won the Will Eisner award for Best Editor 1996 and the Don Thompson Award for Favorite Editor 1999. From late 2000 through mid-2002 Stuart edited the bestselling Marvel Knights comics line, before turning to writing full-time. Upcoming works include a comics adaptation of the bestselling novel
Redwall
(Philomel/Penguin), the original graphic novel
Earthlight
(Tokyopop), and more
Firestorm.

Stuart lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife—and two cats who really don't know the first thing about logic.

“Mr. Salak. Mr. Spock.”

“Sir.”

“Sir.”

“Take your places and begin.”

Spock rises from his chair, steps up to the raised podium. The room is bright, harshly lit, unlike the antiseptic classrooms he has experienced before. Multicolored lights flash and strobe at irregular intervals along the walls: green, yellow, violet. Subsonic pulses hum through the room, raising the pressure in his sensitive inner ear.

This place, he realizes, is designed specifically to test one's logic.

Spock positions himself on the podium, facing his adversary. The Teacher stands between them, on a higher level. Despite himself, Spock shifts nervously. The other students notice; a ripple of murmured disapproval runs through them.

“Quiet!” the Teacher says.

As though a switch has been thrown, the students go abruptly silent.

The Teacher turns to Spock's opponent. “Mr. Salak?”

“Sir.”

“Begin!”

Salak cocks his head, smirks slightly at Spock. “Logical thought is lacking in lower life-forms. All humans are lower life-forms. Therefore, logical thought is lacking in humans.”

Again, the murmuring laughter. Spock feels the words like a knife in his gut. Salak has chosen an opening gambit that strikes directly to the heart of his opponent's being.

A green light flashes on the far wall, then a sharp yellow one—directly in Spock's eyes. The subsonic hum rises, becoming almost audible.

“Spock?” the Teacher asks harshly.

Spock clears his throat. “Fallacy.”

“Explain.”

“Fallacy of presumption.”

“Specify. Quickly!”

“Fallacy of accident. The first statement is true in general, but not as a universal. Logical thought is lacking in many lower life-forms, but not all. Therefore the conclusion is invalid.”

“Correct,” the Teacher says.

A bright light pulses from red down to yellow. Salak flinches slightly. The boys murmur, eyebrows raised.

Spock tries not to take satisfaction in his opponent's discomfort.

“Mr. Spock. Begin!”

Spock opens his mouth…

…and his mind goes blank.

He glances up, sees Salak half concealing a smirk. Then he turns to the class—and sweeps his gaze along a dozen more pairs of eyes, all fixed intently on him.

They have combined forces against me,
he realizes.
They're acting in concert telepathically to disrupt my thought processes. They want the half-human to fail at this crucial class exercise.

The old anger and frustration rise within him. The feelings…the unwanted, alien sensations he has tried all his life to deny. If he fails this exercise, he will not be passed forward!

Spock closes his eyes, tries to banish the thoughts.
I am a Vulcan,
he thinks.
A Vulcan
—

Then the Teacher is at his elbow. “Mr. Spock.” His tones are even, cold, yet somehow soothing. “These are deliberately adverse conditions for logic. Focus; recall your techniques of Chaotic Response Suppression.”

Spock jumps; for some reason, the phrase—Chaotic Response Suppression—provokes an emotional response. Why? Is he thinking of something else…somewhere else entirely?

No. There is no time for this. Spock quickly calms himself, eyes still closed. The Teacher, he realizes, knows what the other boys have done, and is allowing him the opportunity to compensate. Any other student would have been eliminated for such hesitation.

“Half the secret of logical thought,” the Teacher continues, “lies in cultivating a garden where it may bloom.”

Spock concentrates, forcing himself to begin Phase One of Chaotic Response Suppression. In a millisecond, he calms his mind. Then he proceeds to Phase Two, sorting the stimuli assaulting him into categories and dismissing them one by one. The lights: He banishes them from his consciousness. The sounds: They are nothing to him. The pressure on his mind: mere noise. Deliberately, meticulously, he pushes each of these distractions to the corners of his mind.

Then he opens his mouth and begins to speak.

“Mr. Salak believes that only purebred Vulcans should be admitted to the Science Academy,” Spock says evenly. “But we all know that Mr. Salak desires a spot in the Academy for himself—a purebred Vulcan. Therefore, admittance to the Academy should be open to all.”

The Teacher frowns; briefly, Spock wonders if he has gone too far. But then the Teacher turns to Salak. “I will allow the proposition. Mr. Salak?”

Salak's eyes light up. “Fallacy of relevance.”

“Specify.”

“Ad hominem reasoning. The conclusion rests on the fact that a single person believes the opposite proposition. But the opinion of an individual is irrelevant to truth.”

“Correct.”

I made that one too easy,
Spock realizes.
That is the trouble with this exercise: Every statement must contain a flaw, or else it is invalid as a test of the other student. But if the flaw is too obvious, the test is too simple. I have hurt my own cause.

“I must caution both students,” the Teacher says gravely. “Personal attacks have no place in these proceedings. Employ your Chaotic Response Suppression techniques rigorously; banish such petty motives from your mind. Logic is all that matters here. It is your birthright, your salvation, your heritage. As Vulcans…it is your duty.”

Spock and Salak nod as one.

Spock looks down, attempts to focus his thoughts. But somehow, the lights seem to shine even brighter than before.

“Mr. Salak. Begin.”

Salak fixes Spock with a hostile, laserlike stare. “Humans are illogical beings. Mr. Spock is part human. Therefore, Mr. Spock is an illogical being.”

Spock's hand quivers, just slightly.

The Teacher glares at Salak. “Final warning, Mr. Salak.”

Salak nods, looks down with feigned contrition.

“Mr. Spock?”

Spock stares his opponent straight in the eye. “Fallacy of ambiguity—division. The conclusion rests on an improper inference. The premise may be true of the human species as a whole, but that says nothing of its truth when applied to any individual member.”

“Correct.”

Spock realizes he is shaking. Salak knew just how to attack him, even at the risk of another rebuke from the Teacher.

Suddenly Spock knows:
I'm going to lose.

“Mr. Spock. Final proposition.”

Spock begins to speak. But again, his senses begin to overload. The lights, blinding now. The aching thrum in his ears. The sounds of the other boys' thoughts, more hostile than ever.

He forces himself to concentrate. Phase One, he thinks: Calm the mental…the mental…

It is no use. His techniques fail him; he cannot suppress the chaos. His mind is a disordered, unclean thing.

But he must say something.

“All…all Vulcans realize that the so-called ‘purity' of the Science Academy is nothing but rank bigotry dressed up in the guise of academic standards…”

He pauses, eyes darting about nervously. Salak looks like a feral
sehlat;
the boys, like carrion birds awaiting their meal. The Teacher glares at Spock with open hostility.

“…therefore…the Academy must change,” he finishes.

The Teacher shakes his head, turns to Spock's opponent. “Mr. Salak?”

“Fallacy of relevance.” His eyes widen hungrily as he stares Spock down. “Appeal…to
emotion.
”

The word strikes like a blow to Spock's head.

Emotion. The bane of his existence; the unwanted heritage of his human mother. And now, he thinks, I've dragged it into this test of pure, impartial logic.

With a sick, creeping dread, he glances at the Teacher. As he feared, the Teacher is nodding approvingly at Salak's rebuttal.

“…the overblown language of the premise disguises the fact that it has no relevance to the conclusion…”

Spock tunes Salak out. He has lost; he knows this now. Worse, he has proven the other boys correct. He cannot compete with them. He is
less
than them.

The thrumming sound fills his mind; the lights leave painful after-images in his vision. He can no longer block any of it out. Chaotic Response Suppression has failed him. He will not pass this course; he will not attend the Vulcan Science Academy. Ever.

A thought passes through his mind like a communiqué from another world, a foreign star.
But I don't
want
to go to the
—

Then, in the midst of the brightest, whitest spot of light, a figure in blue and black begins to form. A slim, craggy man with an analyzer device strapped over his shoulder. As he approaches, the rest of the room—Salak, the Teacher, the students, even the blinding lights—seem to recede to the corners of Spock's awareness. As in a Chaotic Response technique, he thinks idly.

The man reaches out a quivering, human hand.

“Mr. Spock,” McCoy says. “You annoying Vulcan. Take my hand already, will you?”

 

The phaser blast struck the
Enterprise,
and Kirk pitched forward out of his command chair. He lurched past Sulu, then caught himself on a handrail. He shook his head to clear it, then looked around hurriedly.

“Everybody all right?”

General noises of assent. The red-alert siren continued, a grim backdrop to the chaos all around. Kirk crossed back to his chair, glancing briefly at Sulu's helm console.

“I still have full helm control,” Sulu confirmed.

“Damage reports coming in now,” Uhura said. “Minor hull breaches, decks seventeen through nineteen.”

“Aft shields down to…32 percent.” The navigator, a young woman named Sanchez, sounded nervous.

“Hangar deck temporarily depressurized,” Uhura continued. “No casualties—”

“Just a second, Uhura.” Kirk stabbed a button on his command chair. “Scotty, how're we doing down there?”

A brief pause, then the Scotsman's filtered voice filled the bridge.
“We took a pounding, Captain. I'm gonna need an hour or so to get warp drive back online.”

“Life support? Essential systems?”

Scotty sighed audibly.
“We should be okay as long as those Klingons keep their distance.”

“I don't think there's much chance of that, Mr. Scott.” Kirk looked up at the viewscreen, which showed the two D7-class Klingon battle cruisers. They were still moving away…but they were starting to circle around.

“Mr. Spo—” Kirk turned to his right, then stopped. “Mr. Chekov. Can you analyze the Klingon ships' energy output?”

Chekov looked up from the science station, his face lit bright blue. “Sir?”

“Their coil emissions. I need to know if we did them any real damage.”

“Ah.” The young Russian turned back to his work. “One moment, Captain.”

Ensign Chekov had only been a bridge officer for three weeks. For a brief moment, Kirk wondered if he'd promoted the young man too quickly.