closer to his father, and at that instant, Sarek knocked the phaser
from his
hand with a mighty blow. Spock watched as it sailed across the room.
The chair fell backward as Sarek, miraculously recovered, rose to his
feet.
A thought flashed across Spock's mind. In a contest of sheer strength,
he was no match for his father.
Spock scrambled for the phaser and almost succeeded, but Sarek kicked
him in the jaw with such force that it sent him flying backward. He
shook his head to clear it and once again made a move for the phaser.
Sarek lunged at him, forcing him to roll quickly out of the way.
Spock had hoped that it would not come to this he had already promised
himself that he would not harm Sarek--or more precisely, Sarek's
body.
"Father," he said and reached out mentally, desperately, to see if
anything of his father remained.
Sarek stopped momentarily and blinked.
But all Spock found was darkness and a black terror that made him tear
away in fear that it would veil his own mind.
Sarek roared and charged; Spock, still recovering from his attempt to
contact his father, reacted a split second too slowly. Sarek caught
him and threw him against the stone wall. There was a sharp crack as
Spock's head impacted with the wall. He slid, unconscious, to the
ground.
"So what do you think our chances are?" McCoy asked.
Anitra was busy checking the calibration on the decompression chamber
and did not look up. "Of what?"
"Of making it out of here. "She looked up at him. "What, out of the
medical lab?"
"You're getting to be more like Spock every day," McCoy noted
irritably. "Getting too literal. You know what I mean. Surviving.
Finding a way to get rid of those things."
Anitra studied the gauge dispassionately. "What kind of question is
that, Doctor? Would you like me to do what Spock does and calculate
the odds for you?"
"God, no. I suppose I was just trying to find a little reassurance."
She sighed and gave up her attempt at working. "Frankly, Doctor, I
don't see any point in talking about our chances. I think such talk is
far too depressing."
"I see," McCoy said, disheartened.
"Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of Vulcan scientists out there,
probably many of them doing what we are now. Eventually, someone will
come up with a solution."
"Eventually," said McCoy, "may be too late."
"Exactly my point," she said, folding her arms in front of her. "That's
why I was trying to get this damn thing calibrated. Now are you going
to help me or not?"
McCoy had two choices to get angry or to laugh and help her. He
laughed. "That's better." She brightened. "You've had a pretty rough
time on Vulcan so far, haven't you?"
"It's not a nice place to visit. God forbid I should live here."
She laughed; it had a startlingly lovely effect on her
features, and he walked over to smooth her hair with his hand. She
did not protest.
"What can I do to help?" he asked, smiling.
"You're the boss in the medical lab," she admitted. "I'm more at home
with physics. But you might want to check on the radiation shields in
the isolation chamber."
"Will do." McCoy went over to the control console. As he began
working, his brow furrowed. He began to say something, then stopped
himself.
"All right," Anitra said. "What is it?"
"Well ... I hate to keep bringing up morbid subjects, but what happens
if Spock doesn't make it back?"
"He'll make it back," Anitra said firmly.
"Telepathy is a fact," McCoy said, "but I've never believed in
precognition. You don't know that, Anitra."
"I know Spock," she said simply. "I know he'll find a way to make it
back."
"And if he doesn't?"
Her expression saddened and she looked away. "Then we go out and find
ourselves a subject, Doctor. What else would you expect us to do?"
He got up and walked up behind her chair. "Look, I'm sorry if I'm
upsetting you.. .." He put his hands on her shoulders.
She leaned back against him. "I'm not upset."
"You're right about Spock. I'm sure he'll make it." He leaned forward
and kissed her. She returned the kiss, but after a moment, pulled out
of the embrace.
"Hey," he said, "is there something wrong? I thought before that..
."
She sat up straight and turned to face him. "No offense, Len, but we
do have important work to do. We can't afford to take time out
for--"
"Little wonder you have an ulcer," McCoy teased gently, trying not to
sound injured. He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "No
problem. I'll just go back to my console and look pitiful."
"You do that," she said, all business.
They worked in uncomfortable silence for a time. Suddenly, Anitra
stood up so quickly that her chair scuttled backward and nearly toppled
over.
McCoy looked up in alarm. "What's wrong?"
Fear clutched at her throat so tightly that she was barely able to
squeeze the words out. "It's Spock."
"What's wrong? Is he hurt?"
"He .. ." she gasped, unable to get enough air to speak, "... he
simply isn't there anymore."
"What the devil are you talking about?"
"We--we mind linked some time ago. That way each is aware of the other
at all times; each can know if the other becomes affected or is in
danger."
McCoy took her hand and tried to calm her. "I know, Spock told us..
.."
She looked up at him and blinked back tears. "Don't you understand?
He's gone."
"Take it easy," said McCoy. "All right, he might be dead. But could
something else break the link? Could something else have happened?"
Anitra took a deep breath and concentrated. In a voice that was much
calmer, she said, "He can't dissolve the link without my presence, so
there's no way he can consciously break it. He might be
unconscious."
"Asleep, maybe?"
"No, not asleep. I would know his dreams."
McCoy raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
"He's either dead or unconscious. If it's the latter, it means he's
hurt somewhere." She pulled her hand away from McCoy and went over to
the panel and pressed it. The metal walls began to recede. "And I'm
not going to sit here and wonder which one it is."
"Now, just wait a minute," McCoy called, frowning.
Anitra shot him a look that dared him to stop her.
"I'm coming with you," he said meekly.
There had come a merciful hour of silence when Tomson had stopped
ranting, and Kirk had been grateful for the silence. He drifted off to
sleep until he was awakened by a small, persistent knocking.
"Is anyone out there?" Tomson called.
Kirk rose stiffly to his feet and swore as the broken rib reminded him
of its presence. He went to the console and checked the chronometer;
it had been roughly twenty-eight hours since the security chief had
been incarcerated. He went over to the lounge door and
opened it, but
not without first drawing his phaser as a precautionary measure.
Tomson sat on the floor by the door, looking particularly pathetic and
disheveled. Her uniform had bunched up around her waist, and the
retentive bun she wore her hair in had disintegrated into a mass of
pins and tangles.
"Sir?" she said curiously, and out of a sense of military protocol
began straightening her hair and uniform. The response was so typical
of Tomson that
"If you don't mind my asking, Captain, how the hell did I get in
there?"
"It's a long story," Kirk said, grinning with the relief that he was no
longer the only sane human on board. "Too long."
"I was in Stryker's quarters.. .." Her expression slowly became one
of realization. "Stryker ... he hypnotized me or something, sir. He's
the one who's responsible for al-Baslama's death. I'm sure of it."
"I don't doubt it," Kirk said soberly. "Only Stryker himself isn't
responsible."
"Sir?"
"Some sort of infection, Lieutenant. Or an entity using Stryker. But
not Stryker. You and I have both suffered from its effects
ourselves."
Tomson's pale eyes grew larger. "You mean I..."
"And most of the crew by now, I think. Whoever, whatever they are,
they've taken over the bridge. We're sealed off here in auxiliary
control."
"Are we still orbiting Vulcan?"
Kirk shook his head. "We're not far from there, but Spock sabotaged
the ship so she'd drift. Communications are out, too. We didn't want
to risk spreading this thing."
"So you're saying we're trapped on the ship with most of the crew under
the influence of..."
"Something. I don't know what, but something that causes them to be
violent."
Tomson shivered. "Any chance we could get off the ship?"
Kirk stopped; since Spock and the others had gone, the idea had simply
not occurred to him. It smacked too much of desertion. "No. Both
shuttle crafts are gone. And we're not close enough to anything to
transport down."
"What sort of plan do you have, sir?"
Kirk paused. "I need my bridge crew back first. Once I have them, I
can do anything with the ship."
Tomson confronted him with those freezing-blue eyes of hers. "Sir, you
still haven't answered my question about how I got here."
"I brought you here, Lieutenant. I was .. . repaying a favor, you
might say."
Tomson flushed. "When I was .. . affected, do you know if I... hurt
anyone?"
Kirk half smiled. "Well, I happen to know that you gave me a run for
my money."
"Sir?" "It's not important, Tomson. What's important is that we get
the bridge crew back."
"Any suggestions on how to do that, Captain?"
"I've already started on it. And you can help."
He took her via the emergency shafts to C deck (and his broken rib made
him swear under his breath the entire climb up). There was the sound
of a loud fracas in the hallway, and they clung to the ladder silently
for a while until it broke up. When the way was clear, they headed for
Sulu's quarters. Kirk stopped at the door.
"If my calculations are right, to quote Mr. Spock, they've been in
there approximately twenty-eight hours. That was the amount of time it
took you to come to your senses. They ought to be all right."
"You mean, all you had to do was shove me in the lounge for
twenty-eight hours and I was fine?"
"It seems to be that simple."
"Too simple," Tomson said.
"We'll see." Kirk called softly at the door, "Uhura? Sulu? Can you
hear me?" There was no reply. Kirk tried again, but feared raising
his voice too loud. "They're in there," he said over his shoulder to
Tom son. "There's no way they could have gotten around that lock." He
pressed his ear to the door; he could just barely make out the sounds
of Uhura moaning softly. He remembered the fall she had taken and
opened the door immediately. His phaser was still on his belt, but
Tomson, the quintessence of security, held hers at waist level (which
guaranteed that it would hit most others directly on the chest).
Uhura lay on the bed in the inner room, exactly where Kirk had placed
head.
"Captain," she said sweetly.
"Uhura, are you all right?" Kirk moved toward her. "You took quite a
fall--"
As he entered the inner room, Sulu leapt from behind the wall and
jumped him.
Tomson could not shoot until the two separated. When she did, and Sulu
lay twitching on the floor, Uhura came charging. She never had a
chance. Tom son fired almost leisurely; the communications officer
dropped one step away from Kirk.
"Thanks," Kirk said. He was still breathing heavily from the shock to
his injured side. "It's nice to have a bodyguard for a change."
"That's what we're here for," Tomson said, putting her phaser back on
her belt. "Did you miscalculate the time, Captain? Did we come too
early?"
Kirk folded his arms protectively about his rib cage. "No. I gave
plenty of time, even allowed extra. Something's not working here."
"Maybe you should have used the lounge," Tomson suggested. "Maybe
there's something special about it."
"It's worth a try," Kirk said.
Tomson hoisted Sulu over her shoulder in a graceful move that wasted
little effort. She paused, waiting for Kirk to do the same with
Uhura.
Kirk contemplated the picture of Tomson with a body slung over each
shoulder... and himself, empty handed, and decided not to explain the
rib to her. He bent down, grimaced and pulled Uhura awkwardly over his
shoulder.
He wondered how the hell he was going to make it down the emergency
shaft.
Spock awoke to the sensation of warmth on his face; the sun was
streaming in the window of his room, filling it with intense light. For
a moment, he was in the past, a boy in ShiKahr, wondering why his
parents had permitted him to sleep so late this particular morning. He
began to call for Ee-Chaya, his father's old pet sehlat, but stopped at
the realization that Ee-Chaya had died some thirty years before.
He looked around the room and was struck by a wave of nausea. The
light pained his eyes and he closed them. Obviously, he had injured
his head. But what was he doing at his parents' house?
He tried to rise and crawl onto his bed, but could not. He was somehow
restrained into a sitting position, his hands behind him, his knees
bent. It was then
that he remembered the body that had fallen in the doorway and the
struggle with his father.
Sarek would no doubt be returning for him soon.
It occurred to him that he should contact Anitra, but after some
consideration he decided there was no logic in risking her as well. It
would be better to keep his thoughts from her as best he could. She
and McCoy were s
afe in the lab where they should be. When he was dead,
she would know it and then find another subject. He trusted her to
find a solution.
He prepared himself for death and promptly fell asleep.
Chapter Twelve
"He's alive," anitra crowed triumphantly. "I just got a sensation
then.. .." She was sitting behind the control pane! of the skimmer
they had found parked in the street not far from the academy. In
typical Vulcan fashion, it had been left unlocked--in fact, it was made
entirely without locks--and she was trying to figure out how to start
it.
"Where is he?" McCoy turned toward her in his seat and leaned forward.
"Is he with Sarek?"
"I don't think so." She frowned. "I don't think he knows where he is.
He's not making it easy for me." "What do you mean?"
"He's trying to shield his thoughts from me, but he's not doing a very
good job of it. There .. . he's asleep right now."