Star Trek V: The Final Frontier Read Free

because of the force of experience, which had long ago taught him to expect ill of strangers—J’Onn scrambled for the weapon lying next to him. A handmade pipe gun, with stones for projectiles. It was not reliably lethal, but it was the only protection he had.
    At the same time that he fired a warning shot in the intruder’s direction, J’Onn asked himself,
Why am I protecting myself? I wish only to die.
    Yet habit was strong. J’Onn clutched the gun protectively as the rider reined his mount to an abrupt stop several feet away. Behind him the storm continued its slow but inexorable approach.
    The beast stamped its feet while its rider uncovered his face to remove his breathing device. He and J’Onn studied each other tentatively. The stranger’s face, half hidden inside the hood of his white cloak, was distinctly humanoid, male, adult; the eyes were shadowed, yet somehow J’Onn perceived that they were extremely intelligent, full of a strange, disconcerting brilliance.
    Still clutching the pipe gun, J’Onn gaped at theapparition before him until at last the rider spoke. The language was Standard, a tongue that J’Onn had mastered before coming to Nimbus.
    “I thought weapons were forbidden on this planet,” the rider said. He said it easily, with good humor rather than reproach, then swung down from the saddle to stand directly before J’Onn; he was tall and well muscled. J’Onn should have shot him then, but something held him back.
    With a powerful arm, the stranger gestured at their barren surroundings. His voice became soft, full of knowing sympathy. “Besides, I can’t believe you’d kill me for a field of empty holes.”
    J’Onn stared out at his land. The stranger was right; there was nothing left of his farm now except a parched field of dry wells. And in most places the soil had become too soft and shifting even to serve as a proper burial site for Zaara. “It’s all I have,” he answered feebly.
    He had meant to sound strong and defiant, but the stranger’s kindness stole away the last reserves of his strength. J’Onn collapsed under the weight of his grief, his exhaustion, his fear. He was dimly aware of the stranger approaching him and gently taking the pipe gun from his hands . . . and of the sound of his own sobbing.
    “Your pain runs deep,” the stranger said.
    “What do you know of my pain?” J’Onn cried. It was both an accusation and an admission.
    The stranger did not move, but J’Onn felt cool fingers brush his cheek and rest lightly on his temples. “Let us explore it together.”
    The stranger, again without stirring, seemed tocome closer, until he loomed vast in J’Onn’s field of vision. The sun-scorched land with its pathetic holes, the storm ominous on the horizon, even the memory of Zaara’s death—all were obliterated, swallowed up by the incandescence in the stranger’s eyes.
    J’Onn was mezmerized by those eyes, but even so, in the back of his mind lurked mistrust. His culture was rich with ancient legends of magicians who wielded untold powers to control weaker minds, and here, without a doubt, was one of them.
    Yet, try as he might, he could not be afraid of the stranger. The brilliance seemed full of nothing more than kindness and love.
    The stranger spoke again, his voice as soothing as a caress. “Each of us hides a secret pain. It must be exposed and reckoned with. It must be brought forth from the darkness into the light.”
    “No!” J’Onn cried with sudden anguish. As the stranger talked, the image of Zaara, lying dead upon the hard narrow cot that was their bed, struck him full force. He could see her last few moments of life again, could hear her gasping for breath, unable even to speak his name, her eyes full of misery and concern for him. For him! She had chosen to be loyal to her husband, and the decision had destroyed her. J’Onn trembled under the weight of Zaara’s quiet suffering, under the weight of his own guilt.
    The sensation of a