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  She wished she’d met that Spock.

  “Come,” she said, “dinner is nearly ready.”

  He seemed almost to attempt to make small talk as they enjoyed the meal. Saavik worked extra hard to draw him out, glancing over at Perrin as she did so. Sarek seemed pleased at how hard Spock appeared to be trying.

  Perrin forced herself to relax. Maybe this would all work out?

  Cardassian roses bloomed along the path of the government center, filling the air with a meaty sweetness that Perrin found offensive as she hurried after Sarek. He was angry. Visibly angry.

  “How dare he disagree with me in public?”

  She was angry, too. Angry at Spock, yes—he could have found a way to do what he had to do in a less public way.

  But she was angry at herself, as well, for not seeing what had been right in front of her.

  Sarek had been getting more emotional. He’d been having short memory lapses. Had seemed to reminisce more, to express frustration more. And now this: anger. True, raw anger.

  She’d known the danger of Bendii’s Syndrome. The doctors at the Institute had told her what to watch for, but she’d only listened with half an ear. Sarek was her touchstone when it came to control. He’d never give in to something like Bendii’s. The disease would find him too great an opponent to bother with.

  She’d been a fool to think that.

  “I will make a statement,” Sarek said. “And then I will disown him.”

  She touched Sarek’s hand, trying to calm him, but he whirled on her, slapping her hand off his, his face reminding her of her father’s. She shrank back.

  And he seemed to understand immediately what he had done, and where she had gone for that moment. “My wife, I beg … I beg forgiveness.”

  He stood, staring down at his hand as if it had betrayed him. “I have never struck you.”

  “You did not mean to this time.”

  “I did.” There was confusion in his eyes, pain in his voice.

  “No, Sarek, you didn’t. I just surprised you. You were startled and reacted by instinct.” She touched his hand again, and this time he did not flinch, instead put his other hand over hers.

  “I would never hurt you, Perrin.”

  “I know.” But she felt suddenly trapped by his hand.

  He let go of her, and she knew by his face that she had been transmitting what she felt.

  “Sarek, it is forgotten. We must plan how you will counter Spock’s argument. I know you did not expect him to oppose you, but he has. And now we must find a way for you to win.”

  His look was very bitter. “I never win when it comes to him.”

  “Then forget it is Spock. Think of it only as a puzzle you must solve. I have faith in you, my dearest.” She took his arm, urged him to walk more down the path.

  He did as she wanted, drawing her with him, his hand coming over hers again, but not trapping. It showed how much he needed her that he would touch her this way in public. She had somehow become his touchstone, too.

  She pulled every bit of control she had around her and made him talk, plan, strategize. He would win this one, or if he could not win, he would fight it in the way only Sarek of Vulcan could, with overwhelming logic. With the natural timing of a master swordsman. With the pure power of centuries of Vulcans behind him.

  And she—one small, human woman—would help him. Even if she did not feel up to the task. Even if she was nothing compared to him. She would help him.

  They walked, and he spoke while she listened and offered a suggestion here, a correction there. All done evenly, calmly. All done to hide the fact that this man she loved so dearly was beginning to lose his mind.

  He must never, ever know. Not until it was so bad that she couldn’t hide it from him anymore. She began to assess who in their household she could trust, which of her family, how many of Sarek’s staff. The number was overwhelmingly small.

  Saavik. Saavik could be trusted. And Sakkath.

  She would have two allies in this. That was all.

  “My wife? Are you listening? Is this not a fitting argument?”

  “Very fitting, my love.” She patted his arm, realized she’d done it as if he were a child—or an addled old man.

  He was neither. He was Sarek of Vulcan. He was the greatest man his planet had ever produced. And she would protect him if it killed her.

  They walked on, the overpowering smell of Cardassian roses only adding to her muted despair.

  Perrin walked through Amanda’s rose garden, trying not to step on the trampled flowers that just that morning had been afire with blossoms. Blood-red blosoms—the color of the blood in her veins, not in Sarek’s. Although there were drying green stains on the door from where Sarek had rested his thorn-sliced hands before pulling the door open savagely and striding inside and back to his study. He’d paced for hours.

  He hadn’t yelled as he’d caused this destruction. He hadn’t shouted or hit her. And she hadn’t cried. But, during the time it had taken him to destroy the garden she’d been back in London. A frightened child trying to not attract the attention of a raging adult.

  Perrin heard the door open again and braced herself in case it was Sarek.

  “It is only I,” Saavik said, walking gently as if she could do the roses any more damage than Sarek already had. “Oh,” she said, taking in the amount of the damage.

  “It is the disease.” That was Perrin’s answer for everything. Sarek laughing uproariously at a joke only he understood: the disease. Sarek calling her by Amanda’s name and saying things she knew had nothing to do with her: the disease. Sarek huddling in the corner of their bedroom crying for his sons: the disease. This damned disease that was making Sarek act … human.

  Saavik walked over to one of the bushes near the back. Sarek had missed it, or perhaps some part of him had overruled the wild man and made him leave something standing.

  “These were her roses,” Perrin said.

  “They’re yours, too.”

  “So I shouldn’t assume he’s just striking out at her?”

  Saavik shot her a look full of compassion. “Yes, that is what I mean.”

  “I used to come out here when I wanted to feel Amanda’s presence. I know he did, too.” Perrin sank down in the middle of the garden. The scent of crushed flowers rose around her, and thorns poked into her skin. “Why would he destroy this?”

  Saavik sat next to her, her face giving no evidence that she, too, probably had thorns ripping into her flesh. She took Perrin’s hand, letting it sit between hers, and said gently, “It is as you said. It is the disease. None of this is Sarek’s fault.”

  Perrin nodded and started to get up, but Saavik didn’t let go.

  “I’ll make tea, Saavik.” Tea. The answer to an Englishwoman’s woes. Bread refusing to rise? Drink tea. Aphids eating the roses? Drink tea. Living with a man three times your strength, who was more than a little crazy? Drink lots of tea. It had been Perrin’s way of coping with her father—would it now be her way of coping with her husband?

  “Tea can wait.” Saavik pulled Perrin back down, back to the piercing thorns and the sickly smell of bruised roses. “Has he done this kind of thing before?”

  Perrin recognized the tone, the careful wording of the question. It was the way those who came from the Institute to check on Sarek would have asked—with ever so much politeness—if she was all right. Many times, they had offered her the out of this being too much for her. But she’d never taken it.

  She loved her husband. And, in his way, he loved her, too.

  Even if he never called out her name, anymore. He seemed locked in the past. Stuck with his lost sons and his dead wife.

  “You need help here,” Saavik finally said.

  “We’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t want to leave you alone with him.”

  Perrin laughed, imagining what her life would have been like if her mother had only said that and taken her with her.

  “Perrin.”
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br />   “If my husband has hurt me, I’ve learned there’s very little left of the Sarek we knew to blame.”

  Saavik’s face was full of unending compassion. “This disease rips away everything that matters.”

  Alcohol had been like that, too. What kind of man would her father have been if he’d never been infected with his taste for drink?

  “Do you think Spock will come home?” Perrin asked, knowing Picard would find him. Picard found everything he sought. He’d found out about Sarek when Perrin had tried so hard to protect him and his reputation.

  Saavik shook her head, deep sorrow in her expression. “No. Spock has chosen his cause. And we are not it.”

  We. His family. Saavik had never not included Perrin in that. It was why Perrin loved her so.

  She felt tears sting her eyes and tried to blink them back.

  “Don’t.” Saavik’s voice was gentle, calling up Amanda’s, making Perrin feel like she was fourteen again and back in that rose garden in that suddenly beautiful park. “Let go, Perrin. I won’t tell.”

  “Let go,” she thought she heard a ghostly whisper say in Amanda’s voice.

  She let go, but only so much. She allowed the tears to fall, but refused to give in to the sobs and tangled breaths her mother would have called up. She cried silently, her throat getting tighter and tighter, her vision blurring.

  Saavik’s hand settled on her shoulder, an easy grip, meant to comfort, not contain.

  “He’s going to die,” Perrin managed to get out with a mouth nearly frozen in pain.

  “I know.”

  “Soon. It will be soon.” Perrin tried to stop the tears, but they weren’t ready to cease falling. So she stared up at the sky, and squeezed blooms as her fingers found them, causing the scent of roses to grow.

  She thought she would probably never want to smell roses again once this was finished.

  But what would she have left once this was finished?

  She was not Vulcan. She was not anything except Sarek’s wife.

  “Where will I go?” she said, realizing too late that she’d given voice to the thought.

  Saavik looked at her in surprise. “Go? Why would you go anywhere? This is your home.”

  “This will be Spock’s home, soon.”

  “Spock has no home. Or if he does, it’s not here. It’s never been here, Perrin.” Saavik stood up, holding her hand out to pull Perrin up. “I plan to stay on Vulcan. You should, too. This house is big enough for both of us.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “When the time comes.”

  Perrin let her pull her up. She kicked at the roses. “What should we do with these? I’d like to tear them up. Jasmine would be nice here. Wouldn’t jasmine be nice?”

  “It would. But it would be wrong.” Saavik smiled at her sadly. “Replant the roses, Perrin. They’re as much yours as hers.”

  The door opened, and Perrin recognized the look on the servant’s face.

  “Call the priestesses,” she said to him. The priestesses must come so they could find Sarek’s katra somewhere in his muddled mind and set it free.

  The servant nodded, shutting the door quickly.

  “It is time,” Perrin whispered.

  She imagined her father at this moment, railing at the stars, his voice harsh and loud.

  Her mother would have fallen in a lump on the roses, making much noise and fuss.

  But Perrin—Perrin would face this thing as she’d learned from Sarek. She’d face this with dignity, hiding the emotion. She wiped her face. There must be no trace of tears.

  Then she followed Saavik in, walking slowly down the hall to her husband’s rooms, knowing that no matter how many times she walked down this hall in the future, it would not be to a room that held her husband.

  Saavik reached back, squeezing Perrin’s hand when she grabbed hold. At first, Perrin thought Saavik had done it to comfort her. But as Saavik caught up to her, she could see by her expression that Saavik had been seeking comfort, not giving it.

  “It’ll be all right,” Perrin said softly, and Saavik nodded.

  It would be all right. Perrin just had to keep telling herself that. She would find her way—on her own.

  The door to Sarek’s room stood open and she walked in, head held high, breath slow and easy despite the fear that washed over her. She walked in, ready to face her future—a future without Sarek to guide her.

  It would be all right.

  The Doomsday Gambit

  Rick Dickson

  Rick Dickson is a Seattle native who enjoys flying airplanes, scuba diving, snowmobiling and reading books. Rick read Dean’s request to submit a story in the introduction to Strange New Worlds VII and couldn’t think of a single reason not to accept the challenge. Much to his surprise, he has now discovered that he enjoys writing stories, as well. Thanks, Dean!

  T he planet screamed!

  Out of the clear sky, the blue beam streaked in from high orbit and slammed into the ground, biting deeply into the crust and wrenching yet another piece of the planet into space. The beam returned again and again, each time prying off larger slices of the uninhabited world. All too soon the dying planet was reduced to a cloud of rubble and the Doomsday Machine settled down to begin its feast.

  The planet’s death did not go unnoticed. High in the night sky, thousands of miles above the planet killer, a solitary being studied the carnage from his perch in the middle of empty space. Eyes normally filled with irreverent amusement looked instead upon the destruction with a terrible and profound sense of sadness, soon to be replaced by a stoic resignation to the chain of events that would follow. Necessity was a cruel master.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the new arrival shouted. He looked human, but was clearly something far more. Brushing a lock of blond hair from his ageless face, he stomped furiously across space as if marching on solid ground.

  The first creature tore his gaze from the planet killer and glanced over to the other. “Oh,” he said, boredom dripping from his voice. “Hello, Q. What brings you out of the Continuum and into this dreary corner of the Cosmos?”

  “I asked you a question!” the taller Q fumed. “Those … things are a menace. If I recall correctly, and I always do, even you were appalled by their creation! Wasn’t it you, Q, who went to such great lengths to make your displeasure known to those responsible for building them in the first place? What could possibly have possessed you to resurrect one and bring it here, to this universe?”

  The dark-haired Q returned to his quiet contemplation of the solitary planet killer as it swept through the debris field, hungrily gobbling up asteroids and other planetary remnants like a ravenous shark in a feeding frenzy. “Oh, they’re a menace, all right,” he said softly, almost to himself. His eyes lost focus as he remembered another time and another great race, long since extinct. “They were so proud of their mighty creation, so arrogant in their presumption of superiority. So sure they could keep their little fleet of technological terrors under control.” He shook his head and sighed. “Such fools.”

  “I’m waiting, Q,” the second growled.

  The first Q glared resentfully at his brother. “It so happens, my dear Q, that I didn’t resurrect anything. I found this one! Quite by accident, actually.”

  “Q!” the other warned, touching his own temple. “Remember? All-seeing, all-knowing …!”

  “Oh, all right,” the first one muttered. “I may have had a small something to do with it.” He sighed and stood up, dusting off his black slacks and picking an imaginary piece of lint from the gold sleeve of his Starfleet commodore’s uniform. Ignoring his brother’s fury, he said, “As to what I’m doing, I’m teaching these humans a lesson they can’t learn soon enough, if you really must know. They seem to think they’ve been given a divine mandate to explore the universe just because they’ve learned the rudiments of space travel. They’ve given no thought to the consequences, placing their trust in their handful of pitiful starships—their own fleet of technologic
al terrors—to get them out of any mess they might happen to stumble into. I’m simply showing them that they aren’t nearly as ready to meet their neighbors as they’d like to think!”

  The Doomsday Machine continued its single-minded task of funneling planetary debris down a maw that could easily swallow a dozen starships. As it reversed its course for another pass through the debris field, the pale light from the distant sun glinted along the nearly endless length of its conical hull. The blonde Q folded his arms across his chest, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his long brown robe and watching its progress as he contemplated his brother’s words.

  “So, this is simply another of your famous tests,” he finally concluded. “Frankly, I’m baffled this time, Q. I’ll grant you that there is a certain elegance in using an extinct civilization’s ultimate weapon of mass destruction to teach a constructive lesson to a younger race, but I just don’t see how it can work in this case. These humans aren’t strong enough to win, after all, and they can’t learn very much if they’re all dead.”

  “Don’t be silly!” the first Q scoffed. “I won’t let that happen, but I will throw a scare into them that they’ll not soon forget. They’re going to learn that there are things out here far worse than their precious Klingons and Romulans and that a handful of toys isn’t going to do them any good whatsoever!”

  He chuckled and added, “They have no idea.”

  The planet screamed!

  This time, fate was kind and its screams were heard by a more compassionate audience than a pair of coldhearted Q. As the Doomsday Machine continued its mindless attack on a solar system so remote it only had a number instead of a name, a shining white speck streaked to the rescue from the darkness of deep space: U.S.S. Constellation, NCC-1017.

  “The fourth planet is breaking up, Commodore!”

  “Can you identify a cause, Number One?” Commodore Matt Decker asked from his command chair in the center of the bridge. Although approaching the end of his career as a starship commander, Decker remained as physically fit as any officer half his age, with only the slightest hint of gray frosting his dark hair. He leaned on his elbow and absently gnawed a knuckle as he watched the main viewer.