The Autobiography of Mr. Spock Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Leave us a review

  Copyright

  Dedication

  POINT OF ENTRY—2387: SHIKAHR, VULCAN

  PART ONE

  RO’FORI—INFORMATION—2230 –2254: AMANDA

  MICHAEL

  T’PRING

  SYBOK

  SURAK

  PART TWO

  FAI-TUKH—KNOWLEDGE—2254—2293: ANGEL

  PIKE

  ENTERPRISE

  “BONES”

  SAAVIK

  PART THREE

  KAU—WISDOM—2293—2387: VALERIS

  PARDEK

  SAREK

  PICARD

  JIM

  POINT OF EXIT—2387: APPROACHING THE ROMULAN BORDER

  LEONARD MCCOY’S BEAN STEW

  LEONARD MCCOY’S MINT JULEP

  EDITORIAL NOTE

  EDITOR UNA’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE EDITOR

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

  THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF

  MR. SPOCK

  THE LIFE OF A FEDERATION LEGEND

  THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF

  MR. SPOCK

  THE LIFE OF A FEDERATION LEGEND

  BY

  SPOCK OF VULCAN

  EDITED BY UNA MCCORMACK

  TITAN BOOKS

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  The Autobiography of Mr. Spock

  Hardback Edition ISBN: 9781785654664

  E-Book Edition ISBN: 9781785658785

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP.

  First edition: September 2021

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  TM ® & © 2021 by CBS Studios Inc. © 2021 Paramount Pictures Corporation. STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  Illustrations: Russell Walks

  Editor: Cat Camacho

  Interior design: Rosanna Brockley/MannMade Designs

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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  Dedicated to everyone who has written in the Star Trek extended universe

  —and particularly to the memory of Vonda N. McIntyre

  POINT OF ENTR Y–2387

  ShiKahr, Vulcan

  IT HAS LONG BEEN MY CUSTOM, BEFORE EMBARKING UPON A GREAT VOYAGE, TO SET MY AFFAIRS IN ORDER. I am motivated, in part, by a desire to make this as straightforward and painless as possible for the executors of my will. But the practice is also—perhaps substantially—for my own benefit, providing an opportunity to reflect upon what has gone before. Nevertheless, although I began writing the story of my life once before, this was never completed, and I find that I contemplate resuming work on this with some trepidation. To revisit years and people long gone, to reflect upon what has been learned—who among us, even the most ascetic, after a long life filled with incident, would not find this task a challenge? Still, I leave very soon upon an uncertain mission, and I cannot leave this book unwritten.

  If I were writing for a Vulcan reader, I would not need, I think, to explain the nature and the purpose of such a volume. And while I know you in particular, my reader, are a person not only of information but also of knowledge and wisdom, I must not assume that this tradition and ritual are known to you. What you hold in your hands is the product of a continuing series of rituals performed by Vulcans in old age. I will spare you the details of the rest—I suspect you can easily imagine the many and intricate meditations I have performed in recent years, with varying degrees of self-denial—but this one I shall explain to you in more depth. This book you hold is called the t’san a’lat, which translates (I give a rough translation here; certain nuances are, necessarily, lost) a “wisdom book”. It is the physical manifestation of the lifelong practice of t’san s’at, the intellectual deconstruction of emotional patterns in which every Vulcan engages in order to turn impulse into considered action. We are often considered a cerebral culture, my friend, but we are wise enough to know that our minds are embodied and take physical form. It is with this knowledge that the wisdom book is best understood: the summation of an individual’s life and experiences, gathered together in one place to pass on to whomever comes afterwards.

  Allow me to explain in a little more detail the form that the “wisdom book” takes. I should note, before giving this overview, that my version will, by necessity, stray from tradition in significant ways. I am not, after all, entirely Vulcan. But were you to examine the many volumes held in the vast echoing undercrofts of the many archives dotted throughout our cities, a man such as you would quickly identify the standard form. The t’san a’lat guides us through the three “ages” of a Vulcan life. First, we have ro’fori, or the acquisition of information, that period of youth when the mind is most nimble and can seemingly learn an almost limitless number of facts. After that comes fai-tukh, the height of one’s life when this bedrock of information is operationalized as practical knowledge of the world, when we begin to see the patterns of life, and can draw upon what has happened before for each new challenge and dilemma. Last of all comes kau, that stage of life when our experiences become as rich as a tapestry wrought by the finest weavers of T’Paal, and the luckiest of us acquire a kind of wisdom—or, at least, continue to hold out the hope that wisdom might yet be acquired. Such a structure of life’s journey is not particular to Vulcan, of course. There are many similar ideas on Earth, of course, as I do not need to tell you. I am sure that you are thinking already of Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man, or the idea of the “late style” that emerges in writers beyond their hundredth year. I mention such things to evidence as early as possible in this text that my human education has not been lacking.

  But my questionable half-humanity would soon become clear to any entirely Vulcan reader of this book. This is because I have deviated significantly from what one would expected to find in the t’san a’lat. Each section of a traditional wisdom book documents, meticulously, a situation in an individual’s life in which some dilemma or crisis or peril has been resolved through the application of logic. Logic must, after all, prevail. The intention is that by examining such situations, the reader steadily acquires a bank of wisdom upon which they may draw in their own life. In my time at the learning domes, I read over two thousand examples of the t’san a’lat, my friend, and while I did learn a great deal from them, not once did I find an example that reflected back my own hybridity. I have therefore broken substantially with this form. Much of what I have learned in the course of my long life has come through my encounters with others. My t’san a’lat r
eflects this. The individual sections of my t’san a’lat contain reflections upon the most significant people in my life. A “true” t’san a’lat would scorn such an approach as subjective and therefore worthless. I leave you, and any other reader to whom you choose to give this book, to decide. You will see, therefore, that each section bears the name of someone whom I loved. On one occasion, I have used the word “Enterprise”. I note that here I might well also have used the word “family”. I believe that you, my friend, of all people, will understand.

  Let me turn to you now; any book must, after all, consider to whom it is addressed. The traditional t’san a’lat is most usually addressed to children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. I have no direct blood descendants. No child, or grandchild, or great-grandchild to remember me fondly or respectfully. Posterity is another audience, of course, and while I am prepared to admit that many of my actions have had significance—or that, at least, I have been lucky to play a part in great events and changes—it is not within my nature to address the world so publicly. I have chosen you, my friend, not least because I trust your judgment as to whether there is wider value in the experiences I have documented here. You will know what should or should not be shared more generally, and when we reach those parts of my life when secrecy has, hitherto, been necessary, I will alert you—and trust to your discretion as to what should be kept secret, and what can now be revealed.

  But there are, if you will forgive me, other reasons for choosing you as my audience, my inheritor. You, surely, will understand the nature of the mission upon which I shall be embarking in the next few days. You, surely, better than most, understand the draw of Romulus, and the Romulan people, and the desire to bring succor. I believe I do not have to explain myself here to you, of all people, who sacrificed everything for this cause. But I also give this book to you, Jean-Luc, because I hope you might benefit personally from what I have written. The twists and turns of history have, I think, dealt you some hard blows in recent years, ones that are not just reward for the man that you are, and the work that you have done. If anything in this book resonates with you, then by this alone the writing will have been justified. If this book shows you a path forward, then I will have done more than I dared hope.

  Two years ago, after your resignation, you invited me to visit you in La Barre. It is, and will be, one of the great regrets of my life that I never had the chance to take you up on this kind offer. As the great friends of my early life moved on or passed away, the opportunity to cultivate new friendships has been a most treasured aspect of this, my later life. To you, then, Jean-Luc Picard, my friend, I give the book of my wisdom, such as it is, and I leave it to your own considerable reserves of wisdom to judge its value, and to decide what to do with whatever value it contains. I do not believe that I shall be here to see what you decide. I am setting out on another mission, one last voyage, in a long life filled with many strange and wonderful journeys. I hope that when you learn of my intentions, you will understand. I hope that you will read with interest and compassion. That, surely, is what we all, in the end, most desire.

  PART ONE

  RO’FORI—INFORMATION—2230–2254

  Amanda

  ON VULCAN, CHILDREN ARE TRAINED FROM A VERY EARLY AGE in techniques that allow them to exploit their memories to their fullest potential. The rationale is straightforward enough: to be able to make logical and well-informed decisions, one must have as many facts at one’s disposal as possible. Hence the rigorous education which we undergo. As a result, many Vulcans, when asked their earliest memory, will recall learning quotations, most usually from Surak, or a philosophical couplet from a poet such as T’Nar, whose uncomplicated yet carefully worked verses form a staple of early childhood reading, asking us to consider, in the simplest terms, the importance of acting only after reflection, and controlling our baser impulses. Others might remember their first encounter with geometrical shapes, or even a mathematical equation. My earliest memory is of my mother. I recall her scent, of sweet vinver; I remember her dark eyes looking down with love, and—most piercingly—I remember my hand reaching up to touch the necklace that she often wore. In this memory of mine, and I have no cause to doubt it, even though I lack independent verification, my fingers weave through the gold chain of the necklace; gently, my mother untangles them, and instead places my hand upon the pendant that it carries. This, I think, is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, other than my mother’s face. After a century-and-a-half, and a life spent dedicated to exploration and the study of some of the most profound sights that the universe has to offer, I am still moved by the thought of this symbol, and all that it means. We travel so far, and yet still, inevitably, we come back to the place where we started.

  The pendant is a bronze disc, with a circular hole to one side. Across the disc is laid a silver triangle, and at the apex of the triangle there is a diamond. I remember how my mother held my hand to guide me around each part. I remember my enthrallment with the shapes, and my enchantment as she named circle, triangle, arc, jewel… I remember clasping the symbol, looping my fingers through the hole in the disc, connecting the tip of my thumb with the tip of my forefinger. Lamplight sparkling on the jewel, refracting many colors. Later, but not much later, my mother told me the name of this symbol, the Kol-Ut-Shan. Even as a small child, I realized that this symbol could be seen everywhere around my home: on the flags that stood outside big buildings; on pins and pendants worn by visitors to our home; even, as my mother told me once, in the way that a garden or shrine might be laid out. No wonder: the Kol-Ut-Shan is the fundamental principle of the Vulcan way of life, the first lesson that we learn: that life in the universe is infinitely diverse, in infinite combinations, and that we must acknowledge this diversity and respect it. This, above all, was the message that Surak taught, one of tolerance and inclusion. This is the principle that brought peace to Vulcan after so many years of bloody war, which has sustained that peace throughout the centuries, and which we brought—or have tried to bring—to the Federation of Planets of which we are a part. Kol-Ut-Shan, infinite diversity in infinite combinations. Accept difference, respect difference—come in peace.

  Looking back over the long years of my life, I might wish that I had understood this lesson sooner and tried not to confine myself to one of the many labels which others sought to impose upon me. My life, I think, might have contained less struggle against the simple fact of my own nature. Let me be satisfied that I have come to such understanding. I comprehend fully now the sheer beauty of the overwhelming variety that exists in the universe, the impossibility of living reductively, the enlightenment—and, yes, the joy—that comes from embracing one’s fullest nature within a universe of wonders.

  My mother was my constant companion in my early years. I learned to speak listening to her voice. I learned to walk holding her hand. And hers were the eyes through which I saw the outside world; the human prism through which I first viewed and came to comprehend Vulcan. I still, in many ways, see the world through her eyes. I know that many of my father’s peers believed that here lay his first mistake in my education, and there were times in my own youth when I myself wished that my humanity had not been so firmly, so indelibly marked upon me at such a young age. But now that she is gone, these memories of her are very precious to me, and I know without doubt that this human shaping of my Vulcan nature allowed the best parts of me to exist. It has been my observation that one of the gifts of middle age is to come to know one’s parents as an adult. To meet them again as peers. My mother died comparatively young, certainly by Vulcan standards, and even by human standards, and she and I were only beginning to come to know each other as friends and peers. In many ways, I feel that I never wholly knew her. Only after Amanda’s death, for example, did I come to realize how little I knew of the girl that she had been before she came to Vulcan. My mother was twenty-four when she met and married my father. She spent almost the rest of her life at his side. And despite the constancy of presen
ce in my very early days, I am left with a sense that there was much about her that I never knew. It seems to me sometimes as if there was a shell around her that was almost impossible to break through, or as if she somehow already transcended the world, even in her youth. And yet, somehow, my father reached her. Whatever doubts and misunderstanding confused and complicated our lives together, I did not doubt that my mother loved my father, and my father loved my mother. I have never doubted this.

  Over my years as a diplomat, I have encountered representatives from many species, and I have often needed to set individuals at ease. I have observed that one way to achieve this is to ask them to tell me the story of how they met their life partners. These stories naturally vary significantly depending on species. The shelthreth of the Andorians, for example, are constrained by the fact of their biology, requiring a partner from each of the four sexes, and with a cultural imperative for these unions to produce each child. The stories of meeting are highly stylized, ritualized, surrounded by ceremony. Even when species are more casual about their liaisons (I might include humans here), some tale is likely to be told. A version of this story-pattern can be found on almost every world. Even the highly solitary denizens of Kalestria, who rarely leave their hermitages, will tell of the fleeting encounters they have each equinox with their other-souls. (You may ask how I know this. I visited their world once, as an envoy from the Federation, and I met their representative for almost an hour. Hardly any time to me, after several weeks spent in flight to their world—although it was a lengthy meeting by their standards. Yet time was indeed found to tell exactly such a tale. “Look,” we often seem to want to say, as if to assure each other of our capacity to make connections, “we too can love.”)