Two of us riding nowhere
Spending someone's
Hard earned pay
You and me Sunday driving
Not arriving
"Are you sure you wish to do this?" Sybok asked. It was a few days later, and he and Eriecho were in a military shuttle with a pilot. Theo was escorting them for their own protection. The colonel had insisted. The pilot was still going through the last of her checks. There was still time to back out.
"Yes, I am certain."
"Sollastek will be upset, you know."
"He will suppress it. But me, I am weary of suppressions."
"I'm ready to take off," reported the pilot. "Is everybody coming?"
"Yes," Eriecho replied.
As they took off, Sybok told her, "I know what you mean by the suppressions. They're a lie."
"I suppose they had a use, before the destruction of Vulcan," Eriecho surmised, "but right now they seem absurd."
"Like projectile weapons," Theo murmured as he looked back out the shuttle's window at the rapidly shrinking Martian landscape.
"Yes, it's a manner of behaving that's very outdated," Sybok agreed.
They did not speak for the remainder of the trip. When they touched down, Eriecho could scarcely contain her excitement. "Look how green everything is! Oh." She suddenly looked down.
"You okay?" asked Theo.
"I was just thinking of how H'Shema had loved the color green," she explained, voice breaking just a tad. When Sybok looked puzzled, she added, "She was my adoptive mother, a Suliban. We were in Canamar Prison together."
"I saw a very brief glimpse," Sybok admitted, "when you passed me the salt."
"I saw you astride a horse, in a desert."
"This should be the house," Theo said. It was a white Victorian with blue trim and plain white columns in front. He rang the bell and then stepped back to rejoin the pilot, who was looking over the shuttle.
After a few minutes, an elderly Vulcan man answered the door. "So you live, Sybok. I am Selek."
"I do. And I am pleased to make your acquaintance. But tell me, how is it that your voice sounds like a lower version of my brother, Spock's. And your face is like an older version of his. How is this so?"
"Come in," encouraged Spock Prime, "and I will tell you." Theo and the pilot sat down on a glider bench on the front porch. "Are you certain you do not wish to enter?"
"We'll give you your privacy," Theo said, "but we'll be right here. Call us if you need us."
Inside the house, Spock Prime looked at Eriecho. "And you are, Miss?"
"My name is Eriecho. Sybok and I are acquaintances from the Mars sanctuary. How is it that you do not live in one? And how is it that you came to live in this place, instead of any other on Earth?"
"I received a special written dispensation from Sarek himself. I settled here, though, in this particular area, because of an old friendship."
"Friendship?" asked Sybok.
"Yes. I had a friend, Doctor Leonard McCoy. This is his hometown."
"Is this his house, or near it?" she asked.
"No; this is just the same town. He is lost to me now. He is not what he was."
"I'm sorry," Sybok said sincerely, "you seem bereft." He quickly changed the subject. "How are we related?"
"Sit down," Spock Prime requested. They were in a front parlor with a divan and a wing chair. He settled into the chair and gestured to the divan as the others sat down.
"Well?" pressed Sybok.
"In 2387, a Romulan named Nero went back in time. He landed several years ago, in 2233, and in 2258, he destroyed Vulcan."
"Some of this is already commonly known," said Eriecho, "although not the piece regarding time travel."
"What most people do not know is that a ship came in at the same time as Nero's vessel. That ship was my own. I had come to an earlier time when I had been alive."
"Wait, so you're telling me that there are two versions of you, Selek?" asked Sybok.
"I am, and that my name is not Selek," Spock Prime paused. "It is Spock."
Sybok's jaw dropped, "I, I thank you for insisting that we sit down." He thought for a moment. "And so it was correct when you called me brother."
"This is more than passing strange," Eriecho stated. "There are two of you?"
"Yes," Spock Prime confirmed, "but we are dissimilar. The very beginnings of our lives were identical, and we naturally have the exact same DNA. But our ultimate behaviors differ."
"Then there must have been another version of me, as well," Sybok stated, "For I am older than Spock. I mean, I am older than the, the other version."
"And of me as well," Eriecho said, "I was born in 2228. I would not have been imprisoned. My parents – the biological ones – they would not have died. I would never have been adopted by H'Shema and Saddik. I would never have been loved by Sollastek." She got up, jaw trembling a bit, and walked over to a window in order to try to collect herself.
"I do not inform you of these things in order to distress you," Spock Prime assured. "Tell me, Sybok, have you created a Galactic Army of Light yet?"
"So you know about that. It is still in its infancy. I have not had much luck with it, I'll admit."
"Fascinating. Hence I believe that it is entirely possible that, in this timeline, you would not be able to do what you did in my own timeline."
"Which was?"
"You hijacked a starship, and attempted to take it to the center of the galaxy. You were searching for Sha Ka Ree, but all you found was a malevolent alien. Sybok, you sacrificed yourself in order to save the rest of us."
"I, I did?"
"Yes," Spock Prime confirmed, "it was not until later that I realized what I had lost."
"I can feel myself slipping into those behaviors. I fear I might be ill. Spock, I don't wish to go down that path. This is; it is a second chance."
"Affirmative. Sybok," Spock Prime said, "I told my other version to not touch you, and risk touch telepathy. But I think you and I should attempt a meld. I am an experienced mind melder, and believe I may be able to assist you."
"Are you certain? Spock, I wouldn't want to damage you."
"Eriecho will be close by in the event that either of us is in distress. I am certain that this can be done. If I am correct, it is Pa'nar Syndrome, and a correctly performed meld can cure it."
Eriecho turned at the sound of her name. "What shall I do if there are complications?"
"Take a communicator and call for a physician," Spock Prime stated. He came over and sat on the divan with Sybok. He placed a hand on the other man's face. "My mind, to your mind. My thoughts, to your thoughts."
Spock saw Sybok leaving Sarek's home, coins in his hand. He saw Sybok opening his pack later that day, and finding a few toasted flat cakes made of grain. He saw Sybok working various menial labors and then arriving on Nimbus III, and saw him being thrown out of one sanctuary after another, and even the brief contact with Eriecho and the split-second sight of her imprisonment.
Sybok saw Spock trying to beam down to Talos IV to assist Captain Christopher Pike. He saw Spock beaten by Ekosians, and being attacked by neural parasites. He saw Spock lose his life in Engineering, saw the body shot into space in a repurposed torpedo tube, and saw it land on the Genesis Planet. Sybok saw Spock regain his katra on Mount Seleya. He saw him in Rura Penthe and on Romulus, attempting to negotiate peace. He saw Spock flying a small ship and being thrown back in time. And, finally, Sybok saw Spock dealing with his own counterpart, a man who was a bit delusional and desperately trying to find Sha Ka Ree.
The two men broke apart. "It is done," Spock Prime announced. "A physician will be able to confirm it, but you should be clear of Pa'nar Syndrome."
"How do you feel?" Eriecho asked.
"Free," Sybok replied, "And I am beginning to realize that I can be free wherever I am." He looked at Spock. "What I did to you, can you ever pardon me?"
"That was another version, a man who had Pa'nar Syndrome a lot longer and was much further gone," Spock Prime assured him. "You need not seek pardon; I have already given it."
Sybok bowed his head in gratitude. "I know that Father lives. I would very much like to speak with him. You said you had received his dispensation. Can you reach him?"
"We have only communicated a little, and only in writing," Spock Prime admitted. "It is ... unsettling."
"Yet it should be worth it," Eriecho urged. "If I had a sibling or a parent, or someone else so close to me biologically, I would not hesitate. Yet you have waited for years. How long is long enough?"
Spock Prime thought for a moment. "Now," he said, "now is long enough."
There was a computer in a room that Spock Prime used as an office. Eriecho stood back and watched the exchange, and the connection was made.
"Father, it is I, Sybok." Sybok swallowed a little at seeing Sarek. "You have gone grey."
"It has been many years. I am pleased that you live."
"I am so sorry about Amanda, Father. She was very kind. She gave me coins and toasted flat cakes made of grain when I left your home, so many years ago."
"She gave you the coins, yes," Sarek confirmed, "but it was I who gave you the cakes. I could not let you starve, my first born." Upon hearing that, Sybok began to sniffle a little.
"I do not know if I should call you Father," Spock Prime said, "for it seems a strange thing to say to someone younger than myself."
"What is most comfortable for you is what I wish," Sarek stated. "I will call all three of you my own offspring, and the surrogates' children as well, to anyone who inquires."
Eriecho discreetly left the room, as Sybok was openly weeping. She flipped open a communicator and contacted Mars. "Sollastek, I am sorry. I should not have left so abruptly."
"Have you seen what you needed to see?" he asked.
"That and more," she said, "and it has only served to confirm for me the thing that I have been thinking for years."
"Which is?"
"That family has more than one definition, and that a difference is not a bad thing, not necessarily. It can sometimes be a very good thing."
"We will still be shunned," he pointed out, "and it is likely that our children will be as well. Does that continue to concern you?"
"Not anymore," she stated with conviction. "For I believe now that Vulcans can have more than one definition as well. We will be coming home soon. And I fervently hope that you still wish for me to be your wife, even though I cannot suppress my emotions."
"I will always want for you to be my wife, Eriecho. Suppression, or its lack, has naught to do with it."