fresh as a daisy with the morning and, after the night's
Singing, extremely familiar. But when had he
exchanged his crisp tailored khakis the Down
Under business suit for generations for the ceremonial
garb and body paint of the Dreaming?
Kirk sprang to his feet, grazing his head on
the overhang. Where were they? There were formations of the same
red rock on Easter, the statues of the Long Ears
were hewn from them, but these
paintings were other.
He touched them reverently, recognising
them now: Thunder-man and the Turtle, the
Snake-goddess and the Mimi. Had he been so
lost in the Singing that Galarrwuy had somehow
transported him to his homeland? What was this
place?
"Nourlangie Rock," Galarrwuy answered
him. "From the north near Woolwonga. Not my
birthplace, but one I managed to salvage from the
rains and the buffalo. I have, so to speak, brought the
mountain to Muhammad."
Kirk leaned against the rock and laughed. The rest
of the room came into focus. They were in a part of the
museum he had not seen last night; it contained an
entire rock wall from Australia preserved in a
controlled environment. He stepped down off the
ledge onto a man-made floor and Galarrwuy
followed.
"Are you well?" the Australian inquired.
"Yes. I think so." Kirk touched his own
face, as if to convince himself that he was really here.
He was no closer to an answer, but he felt
refreshed, better than he had in weeks, and,
somehow, hopeful.
"That is good." Galarrwuy nodded, contemplating
his own person in its other worldly garments.
"Permit
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
me to return to our century. Then we will talk
about yours."
He went off to change. Kirk wandered outside,
roamed the grounds of the museum, stood on the lip
of the crater lake listening to the gulls and the silence.
But the silence did not last. The sound of an
oversee craft of size approaching the harbor
filled Jim Kirk with dread long before it hove
into view, its Starfleet insignia giving it the right
of way past the small craft plying these waters.
They had found him. And pulling a scene in public
would only make it worse.
McCoy was the first to hit the beach, flanked by a
couple of security guards and followed by a tall,
leggy blonde. It seemed not only Kirk's
dreams were populated by blondes, and for a wild moment
he thought she might be the "someone" Bones had in mind
to take his mind off his troubles. His hopes were dashed
when he saw the medical uniform, the traditional
caduceus of the Physicians" Branch replaced
by the insignia of Psych.
Uh-oh. He'd really blown it this time.
Nearly twelve hours AWOL and unaccounted for,
after who knew what had turned up on his
psychoscan. They were going to throw the net over him for
sure.
McCoy was breathless and steaming by the time he'd
made it up the beach to the crater lake.
"Don't give me a hard time!" he began without
preamble. "It was all I could do to keep them from
sending an armed escort and an elephant gun.
Now you come peaceably or I've got a right
cross will see that you do. Oh, by the way: Krista
Sivertsen, Jim Kirk. Last time you two were
together there was a one-way mirror between you."
His eyes met hers briefly and at least he had
a face to attach to the voice that had led him through the
scan less than twenty-four hours before. He
wished he could show more
enthusiasm, but he had a hunch they'd be 140
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
seeing a lot of each other from here on. The
medikit clipped to her belt no doubt held the
elephant gun, just in case.
"How much trouble am I in, Bones?"
"You'll find out soon enough. Let's go."
"May I at least say good-bye
to Dr. Nayingul?"
"You may not," McCoy stated, taking his arm and
leading him as if he expected he might break and
try to run for it.
The last person he'd wanted to see him this way
stood watching from the pier. Koro Quintal had come
back with the morning, to return Galarrwuy's boat
and, he'd hoped, hitch a ride with Jim Kirk and
get him to talk about the Dreaming. Now he only
stood in the small crowd of arriving tourists ogling
the Starfleet craft, and watched.
"I have to go," Jim Kirk said simply, his hand
on Koro's shoulder. "Give Dr. Nayingul my
regards."
Koro merely nodded, for once acting the man
Galarrwny insisted he should be.
"Galar will know," he said. He did not ask if
Kirk would return. "Haare rua. Go well,
Jim Kirk."
"E noho rua," Kirk replied wi/lly,
not knowing how he knew the Maori farewell. "Stay
well, Koro Quintal."
The Starfieet craft kicked up a considerable
wake as it rose above the surface and headed into the
sun.
It was McCoy who met Enterprise.
No matter how often she went out or how brief
her run, Jim Kirk was always there to see her
home. Sometimes he would be waiting in the officers'
lounge at TerraMain, watching her coast into her
slip through the big clearsteel window, but more often he
rode shotgun on the shuttle traditionally sent
to escort the senior officers off. The crew could
beam directly down to the
Admiralty and home, but Spock and Scotty
had 141
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
to report to branch HQ in the spacedoclc itself for
debriefing, and Kirk was always there to greet them.
That he was not this time only confirmed what Spock
already knew. Something was wrong. When he stepped out
of the shuttle to find McCoy rocking on his heels
in the corridor outside the hangar, he began
to surmise how wrong.
"Here now!" Scotty chimed in, lugging a
duffel bag of "personals" he didn't trust to the
transporter (or, more accurately, to the
transporter crew below on the mainland, who'd
get their hands on the bag tong before he did; there was
a distinct clanking of bottles in the
bottom). "Somebody's missing! And what're you
doing up here, McCoy?"
"That's a long story," McCoy replied. He
had circles under his circles. "Spock, can I have
a word with you? I don't know why I had to greet you
with this kind of news," he said after Scotty had
wisely gone on ahead and Spock had heard him
out. "Didn't want you to get it secondhand, I
guess. And I needed to get it off my chest. Not that
I expected you could do anything."
"I appreciate your confiding in me, doctor,"
Spock said in a tone McCoy had always taken as
ironic, until he'd
learned better. "And I
may be able to do more than you know. How long has he
been in Dr. Sivertsen's care"...'7
"You make it sound so pleasantI'" McCoy
said wryly. "It'll be a week tomorrow. Spocl",
I'm worried about him."
"With good cause, doctor, from what you have told
me. Is he permitted visitors?"
"I'll arrange it," McCoy promised,
struggling with something. "Spock, I thank you. It's
been a terrible burden, carrying this by myself. I
don't know why, but I feel better about this already."
A number of possible retorts about the
illogic of such a feeling when in fact nothing had
yet been done to 142
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
alter the situation sprang to Spock's lips, but
he made use of none of them.
Let us hope, doctor, he thought as he stood
outside the briefing room and watched McCoy amble
away, that your feeling is neither
premature nor inaccurate. For all our
sakes.
"The first phase of the patient's therapy was
initiated by having him read Strangers from the Sky in
its entirety," Dr. Sivertsen reported to her
colleagues during her department's weekly consult.
"The patient consented to this only after presenting me
with a voice tape of his version of events as taken from
his recurring nightmares."
"And how does Admiral Kirk's version compare
with the account in the book?" One of the department heads
wanted to know.
Krista Sivertsen fought to keep herself from
screaming. The rest of the department knew she was treating
a high-ranking of ficial, nothing more. She'd tried
to keep Jim Kirk's identity confined to the fewest
number of people. That number had just been
increased by everyone in this room.
"Except where the outcomes diverge," she
began, counting to ten before she trusted herself to speak.
"Admiral the patient's tilde ightmares
coincide with the historical account to an uncanny
degree. The patient remains convinced that in some
other malice, if you rill, be was a participant in
events which transpired over two hundred years
ago. He speaks of historical personages as
if he has Icoown them personally."
"And he remains fixated on this one period in
history?" someone asked.
"His attention is focused on this one event, the
Vulcans" landing on Earth, yes," Krista
corrected the questioner.
"Simple delusion," the questioner suggested. "Prm
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
jection. Identification with historical
personages as avoidance of his own feelings of
inadequacy."
"The old Napoleon Complex," someone else
added, and a few of the others concurred.
"I don't think so!" Krista said sharply,
willing to risk her peers' disapprobation in
this instance. She had lived with Jim Kirk through three
intensive therapy sessions a day for nearly a
week. The more she learned about the man the more she found
to respect, the more she became convinced of the
metaphysical truth of what he was saying,
regardless of historical fact. "I'd ask you
to consider the kind of man we're talking about. He's
lived through, acted upon, more history than probably
anyone else in this century. He doesn't need
to compensate for feelings of inadequacy."
"But that was the past," one of her colleagues
reminded her. "He's a desk jockey now. Perhaps
in compensation for the boredom, a sense of failure his
"Is it possible he's suffering from delusions?"
someone else suggested before Krista could reply.
"Maybe he had read the book before, but in a denial
phase he his
"That hardly explains the abnorms on his scan,
does it?" Krista demanded, silencing them.
"What was his response after he'd read the
book?" the department head wanted to know.
"He acknowledges the undeniable objective
truth of events as stated in the book," Krista said
carefully. How could she make them understand? "But he
retains a belief in the alternate truth
of his nightmares. Those nightmares are also increasing
in frequency and intensity, to the extent that I've had
to abandon dream monitoring and, in some instances, had
to sedate him."
"Sounds like he needs an exorcist!" someone
quipped, gallows humor.
"Maybe he does!" Krista snapped; she
saw no humor in this situation. "I've tried
everything else. I don't
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
know what this is. Schizophrenia? Multiple
personalities? Reincarnation? Possession?
Ghosties and beasties? As I see it, there's only
one thing left to do." She took a deep breath,
looked at them looking at her around the table. "I'm
going to try hypnosis. I intend to regress him
past those memories."
But the hypnotism session was an utter
failure. It left both patient and therapist
drained, exhausted, and no further along than when
they'd started.
"I've turned you inside out, Jim Kirk,"
Krista said, bringing the lights up. "I know as much
about you as you know about the people in your dreams. But
something's blocking this thing and I can't get through."
"You should have left me with Galarrwny," he said,
only half joking, sitting up on the consulting couch
and absently plumping the needlepoint pillows.
let me out of here, let me go back to the Dreaming .
. ." Something occurred to him. "Has Galarrwuy
tried to contact me?" he asked. "I hated to leave
him so abruptly. Without
explanation."
"No," Krista lied. No point in telling him
Admiral Nogura had tried to contain the rumor of
his sudden disappearance by having his home transceiver
deactivated, to make it look as if he were away
on some top-secret mission. In his present state
of defeat, she wasn't sure how he'd take that.
"There have been no messages for you since you got
here."
"None at all?" Kirk was incredulous, and
suddenly wary. "What day is it?"
Despite the timelessness of this place and the fact that
he'd smashed his chrono during one particularly
violent nightmare, he knew the answer before she
told him. Enterprtse should have gotten in this morning.
Would McCoy tell Spock where he was
or was he sworn 145
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
to some kind of secrecy? They were shutting him
away, treating him like he had some kind of dangerous
disease. He had to get in touch with Spock.
"I have to get out of here!" he said, on his feet,
suddenly agitated. "Krista, listen, there are some
things I have to take care of. An hour or two his
"Out of the question!" she said sharply, not about to tell him
that the failure of this morning's session meant he
might not be getting out of here for a very long time.
"We're at a critical point right now. You can't
just his
"You said yourself it was a failure," Kirk began,
but the beep of the intercom interrupted him.
"Yes?" Krista put the receiver in her ear so
Kirk couldn't hear. "How long has he been
waiting? The session went overtime; you should have let me
know All right, I'll send him right out."
"Truce, Admiral," she said, putting the
receiver back. "You have a visitor."
"Spock!"
He gripped the Vulcan's shoulders in sheer
joy, stopped himself from outright hugging him. He'd
learned that in this place a mirror was
seldom only a mirror, and the visitors' room
had an unnatural number of them. He doubted he
had any dignity left after a week in this place,
but he was mindful of preserving Spock's.
The Vulcan accepted the embrace, and with it the
turmoil in the human's mind. Masking his own
concern, he allowed his eyes to smile.
"Jim" was all he said.
Spock sat while Kirk paced, listened as
Kirk talked, provided as always the balance for
everything Kirk was shadow to his sunlight, coolness
for his fire, calm against his agitation. Centered and
impeccable, in contrast to Kirk, who was pale and
tousled from the morning's ordeal, Spock was simply
there, focus for Kirk's fears, center of his immediate
universe.
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
Jim Kirk talked, couldn't stop himself. The
weeks of anxiety, the puzzlement and fear, poured
out of him. Spock listened.
"I should have kept quiet about it," Kirk said at
last, running out of steam. "Asked McCoy for some
sleeping pills, tried to ride it out. But no, I
had to drive him up a wall to where he
recommended the psychoscan. And then, to
borrow Galarrwuy's expression, took a
tail wind and ended up halfway across the planet.
That was the dumbest move of all."
die sat, ran a hand through his hair, tousling it
further, let Spock see the depth of fear in his
eyes.
"Spock, I don't remember what it means
to sleep anymore. Krista's as much as admitted
she can do nothing for me, but they won't let me go.
What do you think they'll do to me?"
"Perhaps nothing," the Vulcan said at last, and
calmly.
He had needed to listen as much as Kirk had needed
to talk, in order to be certain. He had heard what