Yoshi just stood, as dumbstruck by the
mother as he had been by the son. Tatya, as if
to get out of the glare of those eyes, drew closer.
"May 1?" she asked, reaching one hand out toward
T'Lera's face, stopping just short of touching with mother
as she had with son.
"You are a healer?" T'Lera inquired,
understanding her intent.
"A what? I'm a paramedic. Is that the
same?"
"Then you may examine me," T'Lera said with
absolute equanimity.
Tatya limited herself to hands-on; she
wouldn't have believed any of her instrument readings
anyway. But her hands betrayed her as well, because
except for the deformity of the nose, which would have to be
rebroken and reset
"You're completely healed!" the human said.
"Indeed," the Vulcan said, looking at
her son for the first time. "My gratitude,
Navigator."
"Kaiidth!" Sorahl said instinctively,
forgetting where he was.
"We will speak the language of those in whose
presence we arel" his motherst-mander said sharply.
Despite Sorahl's insistence that his people had
eliminated emotion, this certainly looked like anger.
"Do you forget so easily?"
A human might have made excuses. Sorahl
simply lowered his eyes and clasped his hands meekly
behind his back.
"I ask forgiveness, Commander."
"It is not I of whom you should ask
forgiveness," T'Lera said, neither accepting nor
rejecting his apology. "I must know what has
transpired during my incapacity."
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
She was not exactly dismissing the humans, but she
had effectively eliminated them from her consideration.
"Excuse usI"...allyoshi muttered, pulling
Tatya out of the room with him. T'Lera seemed not
to hear.
The sun was coming up. Yawning
hopelessly, Tatya set the coffeemaker and went
to freshen up. Yoshi opened the port to let a soft
breeze in, stood listening to the lap of waves, the
burble of brewing coffee, seeing nothing.
Suddenly it was there. Hours ahead of
schedule, looming on their horizon against a glare
of brilliant sunlight. The Whale.
"I'll go," Yoshi said when Tatya returned,
rebraiding her damp hair. "See if you can
persuade our friends to keep quiet and away from the
windows."
Tatya watched him narrowly. If he was still
unsure of his motivation, she was that much less sure.
"I'll tell them to leave everything dockside,"
he said off her look. "Or I'll go pick it
up. I'll say you're not feeling well."
"Yoshi . . ."
"Look, what else do you want me to do? As
soon as the rain stopped I was going to take the foil
out alone, let them think we'd tried to run for it.
Maybe it's better if we stay put, try
to bluff it out. If they'd shown up this afternoon like they were
supposed to . . ."
It was hopeless and they both knew it.
"We're still civilians," Yoshi said,
suddenly determined. "We have rights. They don't
get past the threshold without a warrant."
"Doesn't surprise me that your dreams are
inhabited by strange women, Jim," McCoy said
when Kirk told him about the nightmares.
"Personally, I wouldn't worry unless they
stopped appearing."
They were backstage behind the Kobayashi Maru
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
simulator, Kirk programming variations on the
basic scenario for the latest batch of cadets.
"I'm not joking, Bones. This thing has me
worried. You've finished the book, haven't you?
Is there such a person as this mystery blonde?"
McCoy pondered on it.
"Not to my knowledge. Not that you give a man much to go on.
Blond hair and boots, you said? Sounds like the
beginning of a pleasant kind of fantasy, but as far as
I know the only woman specifically described as
having blond hair was Tatya Bilash. Maybe
it's Tatya you're dreaming about," he suggested
hopefully.
eyes on the simulator screen. "It's
familiar somehow. I feel as if I should know who
she is, but every time I'm on the verge of remembering
a name, a face, she slips away."
"Maybe she's from another source entirely,"
McCoy suggested. "From one of your real-life
memories or fantasies. Dreams are tricky
stuff, Jim. You could be subconsciously mixing
an old memory with what you've been reading and end
up with a third thing that's neither one nor the other. I
wouldn't worry about it."
"Maybe you wouldn't," Kirk said testily,
punching in a series of codes with unnecessary vigor.
"But I would. The woman is only part of the mystery.
Why are these dreams so vivid, so consistent and so
consistently wrong? Why am I embellishing what
I read in that book to the point where I feel as if
I've been there?"
McCoy shrugged.
"You're just caught up in the hoopla like everyone
else," he suggested, anxious to dismiss it,
wondering why it had Kirk so agitated. "It's
everywhere. You can't turn on the vid without some
talk-show host or discussion group picking it apart.
Walk into a party and half the people there are describing
it to the other half."
"I deliberately avoided all that," Kirk
pointed out, 98
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
pondering the final flourishes on the day's test.
There were two Tellarite cadets in Green
Group; he particularly wanted to test the*
response to pressure. "I wanted to read it for
myself. No preconceived notions."
"Even so . . ." McCoy began, but didn't
know what to say next.
He was back here with Kirk to monitor the
cadets' interactions and responses to stress during
the test for his Medical Officers' Report.
While the Kobayashi Maru was always taped and he
could review it at his leisure, McCoy wanted
to watch the scenario as it happened. There was an
immediacy that the camera always missed.
Suddenly he found himself monitoring a response
to stress from an entirely different quarter.
"Why are you making such a mountain out of this?" he
asked his oldest, dearest friend.
"Because there's more to it than cocktail-party
chatter," Kirk said grimly. "More than what's
between the pages of that book. I can't put my finger
on it, but there's something damned peculiar
His,
"You always give 'em three Klingons,"
McCoy muttered, knowing the codes by heart, trying
to distract Kirk from what sounded like an obsession in
bloom.
"What?" Kirk asked vaguely, watching the
monitor, half listening.
"I said: you always give 'em three Klingon
vessels in the attack phase. Don't you think
they compare notes with the groups that went before? You're
getting predictable. Why not give 'em two
Klingons for a change, or four, or one?"
"Because if you knew anything about Klingons,
doctor, for all the years you've logged in space,"
Kirk said acidly, punching buttons with a
zealot's fervor, "you'd know that they are predictable
in their obsession with combinations of three. Hence a
bracket of K'tingaclass battlecruisers has
been and always will be composed of three. And who's
getting predictable?"
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
"You are," McCoy said reasonably. "Or
maybe I meant to say cranky. Short-fused,
irascible, burr- under-your-saddle nasty .
. ."
Kirk turned on him.
"You have a point, doctor?"
"Yes, I do. Low side of fifty's a little
early for a midlife crisis according to today's
demographics, Jim. You want me
to prescribe something for the hot flashes? Or someone
maybe?"
"Don't you make a mountain out of it, Bones,"
Kirk warned, returning to his console. "I get
this way when I can't sleep at night."
"I can prescribe something for that, too,"
McCoy offered. "Or someone."
Kirk broke into laughter and punched McCoy
on the arm.
"Damn you anyway!" He watched the cadets from
Green Group file in and take their places on the
mock bridge and almost pitied them. "And your
Strangers from the Sky. Tonight that book stays in the
drawer."
The book stayed in its drawer for the next three
nights. Jim Kirk continued to dream.
"And I'll tell you something else," he told
McCoy, pacing the confines of the doctor's offices
in the MedArts complex. "I have whole
conversations with them now. All of them the Vulcans,
Tatya, Yoshi, Jason Nyere. And Sawyer.
Last night I got into a real
knock-down-drag-out with Sawyer. Shouted so loud
I triggered the computer alarm. Had some time convincing
it I wasn't under attack or having a coronary.
I can tell you what they looked like, what they sound
like, what they ate for breakfast . . ."
"Jim," McCoy began, knowing it was useless.
"You're projecting. Letting your imagination run
wild. Listen, if you'd his
"No, you listen!" Kirk stopped pacing, leaned
across
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
McCoy's desk at him. "Bones, I'm
making perfect sense, aren't I? You've read the
book from cover to cover; you know who these people are. You
know how the incident turned out. I'm telling you I
do too, and I haven't touched the book since the
last time we talked. How can I possibly know
all these things?"
"Jim his
"Did you know Sawyer was a crack tennis
player?" Kirk went on, oblivious.
"She was second-seeded at the Goddard Moonbase
Semifinals in 2028."
"The book does mention she played tennis. I
think." McCoy frowned. "I don't believe it
goes into that much detail, however."
Kirk threw up his hands.
"There you are! Bones, I not only know that much about
Sawyer, but I've seen her play! In fact,
I've played against her! Last night's sequence
I don't even call them dreams
anymore; they're like episodes in a serial"
"Or chapters in a book you're writing in your
own head," McCoy interjected, unheard.
"We were playing singles. I'd gone looking for
her on the courts. Something I had to tell her about the
Vulcans, something vital. She
challenged me and we began to play. And by God,
Bones, seventeen years off her form she was still good.
Beat me in straight sets and she wasn't even
breathing hard!"
"How old were you?" McCoy asked out of
nowhere.
Kirk was momentarily startled.
"What?"
"In the dream. How old were you? were you
the age you are now, older, younger?"
"If this is leading to another crack about my being out
of shape . . ." Kirk stopped, realized something
for the first time. "I was younger. Much younger. Maybe not
much more than thirty. That's why it bothered me so much,
losing to Sawyer. Here she was with a good fifteen years
on me, without the advantage of modern
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
aerobic conditioning, and she beat me. That's why
later, when she coerced T'Lera into playing . . ."
Kirk stopped. McCoy's blue eyes had that
out-offocus look that meant he wasn't listening to him
but to the voices in his own head.
"Bones? That's not in the book, is it? About
Sawyer playing tennis with T'Lera?"
McCoy didn't answer him.
"Do you think the age thing means anything?"
McCoy blinked, came back into focus.
"I don't know, Jim. It might. Mind if
I ask you something?"
Kirk shrugged.
"Shoot."
"tilde hen did you have your last psychoscan?"
"Couple of months ago. Why? You know
the drill. Regulation 73-C, Subsection A:
'All Starfleet personnel will submit to routine
psychological profile scan no less than
once per solar year. Those of officer rank, or
whom medical personnel deem under more than usual
stress ?"
?"' will be subjected to scan as frequently as
necessary upon recommendation of senior medical
officer,"" McCoy finished for him. "Jim,
I'm recommending."
Kirk gave him one of those
stopped-in-his-tracks looks.
"You're kidding."
"No, I'm not." McCoy returned the look
with his best don't -- argue -- if -- you -- know
-- what's -- good -- for -- you look. "I'll
keep it unofficial, unless you get balky on
me."
"You just want me out of your hair," Kirk said,
trying to minimize it, shrug it off. "Or at least
out of your office. I have been monopolising your time,
haven't I? I'm sorry, Bones, I'll his
"Jim, don't try to charm me. I'm serious.
You go voluntarily or I'll write you up, but
either way you'll go. Now which is it going
to be?"
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
Kirk looked genuinely hurt.
"I think I'm entitled to know why."
"Why," McCoy began, cranking up, "is because
for the past four nights, from what you tell me, you've
been playing a major role in a historical
melodrama instead of doing what most normal
humans do after a hard day at the office, which is
engage in the entertainment of their choice and then go
to sleep. Now, that kind of activity's bound to wear
on a man. Affect his performance, maybe even his
command ability his
"Bones, I'm not exactly out on the edge
lately," Kirk protested. "People's lives aren't
ha
nging on my ability to command anymore."
"Maybe that's the problem, Jim," McCoy
said. The response was a thunderous silence. "And
since there's nothing physically wrong with you except
for hyperadrenal activity every time you get on the
topic his
"What makes you so sure of that?" Kirk wanted
to know.
McCoy opened his left hand, where he'd
palmed the smallest mediscanner Kirk had ever
seen. It was silent, too, modified so that it made
none of the whirring, humming readout noises of the standard
models. McCoy had had it hidden in his clasped
hands beneath the desktop, taking readings all the while
Kirk ranted and raved.
"Why, you sneaky, son-of-a was Kirk
spluttered, torn between rage and laughter. "If that
doesn't constitute a breach of privacy!"
"Not if you come into your doctor's office seeking
a medical consultation," McCoy said mildly.
"Look, Jim, there's nothing I can do for you without a
scan. I don't know if this is boredom,
depression, anxiety, an overdose of ground
assignments, change of life, or some new virus
that's going around. I do know, from my vast experience with
certain personality types, that it's evolving into a
full-blown obsession. It's driving you crazy, and
before I allow it to drive me crazy I'm taking
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
evasive action. You will report to Psych for that
profile with all due expediency. Now, do you
want that in writing, Admiral, or can we try
to be adult about it?"
Kirk held up his hands in surrender.
"I'll try to fit it into my schedule."
McCoy gave him a venomous look. "All right,
all right. First thing tomorrow."
"Fine!" McCoy growled, pocketing the
mediscanner and making paperwork motions. "Now
get the hell out of here, will you? Some of us have work
to do!"
And the next time I recommend a book to you I'm
going to have my head examined, he thought to Kirk's
retreating back.
Nowhere is it written that Vulcans do not dream.
Nevertheless the misconception persists.
Logic suggests that the more highly evolved the
intellect, the greater the potential, the greater the
need, for the seeming formless randomness of dream. It has
been proven that those centers of the brain which in some
species produce
telepathic impulses are closely
interconnected with the places where dreams are born.
It has been suggested that disembodied intellects