Disclaimer: not mine. I do not profit from it.

Warnings: contains a reference to the Dark Ages of human history. Takes place immediately after 'For The World is Hollow...'. There are spoilers for that ep and for 'The Ultimate Computer'.

A/N: when watching the episode, I was reminded of Giordano Bruno, whose fate was not unlike that of the old man who died punished by the computer. Also, the ending was so ridiculously improbable, that I could not help but be suspicious. I tried to reconcile these two streams of thought here. Special thanks for Aragonite, who told me about the Maven's 'Word of the Day' website. All my marlinespikes are yours!

'I used to colour-code my notes.'

Kirk's lolling head snapped up.

He could forgive Spock anything after the Vulcan cured their other close friend, but he was jittery with nerves, exhausted, and not in a reflective mood.

'In fact,' Spock continued, 'I seem to have memorized the pattern remarkably well. It was crude and the logic was questionable, but it served its purpose.'

'Easy for someone with a mind that organized.' Kirk disregarded the 'questionably logical' part. Modesty was a human trait that attacked his friend at the most inopportune (for him) moments.

Spock was staring straight ahead, vacantly, and the conscience that all good captains share forced Kirk to contribute something.

'You tagged the subjects? There a system to follow, wasn't there?'

'There was little order save for my whimsy, Jim.'

Now Kirk felt awake.

'You don't do whimsy, Spock. Tell me more of your code. What was the blue for?'

'The rarest colour on Vulcan. Mathematics.'

'The green?' He smiled involuntarily. What a childish game. Spock intoned, 'Green meant Biology, including Xenobiology. Mother has a bonsai garden. I had been - surprised by Terran vegetation during my first visit to the planet.'

'You knew they're big, but you didn't realise it.'

Spock's face soured imperceptibly. 'My mother's relatives live in Auckland.'

Kirk laughed.

'Eucalypts, eh?'

'Eucalypts, Jim.'

There was a stoic contemplativeness about his First Officer, a veneer of barely-visible remorse; as if he had understood or witnessed something he would rather avoided.

Kirk's instincts cried murder.

'Yellow?' Nonchalantly.

'Geology.' And here was that blankness he'd come to associate with the whole non-feeling business.

'Orange?' He hoped human terminology would suffice. Who knew what those eyes even saw?

Spock clasped his hands behind his back. 'Orange was for Planetary Studies.'

There was a pattern. The captain looked at his XO's rigid back. He despised being led like a blind man to a revelation that would likely cause pain to his friend. 'The red, then, was for Astronomy, or some such?'

Spock nodded. 'Precisely.'

Kirk stood up, stretched and walked to stand beside the Vulcan cataloguing the two cups on the table.

'Please explain,' he prompted. His proximity had an effect, but not the one he desired; the other clammed up, straightening.

'The pattern is incomplete - '

'It's about Astronomy, isn't it?' Silence. He ploughed on. 'But why would it distress you? For a Vulcan, it would be an obvious choice.'

Spock gazed straight ahead.

'Which is why it had not been questioned.'

'By Vulcans,' Kirk guessed.

'Indeed.'

It was worse than pulling teeth. Kirk wondered fleetingly at the strange bits of knowledge one accumulated on an exploratory mission. Had he stayed on Earth, he'd never have his teeth pulled.

'But it was, by someone else.'

'Indeed.'

'By whom?' Kirk asked brightly, clasping his hands, and Spock's eyebrow acknowledged his acted optimism.

'By me, and now, by you.'

'So?'

For whatever reason, it was important that he listen to Spock's reasoning, though his own tiredness made him swallow yawn after yawn.

Spock noticed, of course. 'Perhaps you would care to retire for the night?'

Kirk flopped on his bed, but remained sitting. 'Do go on.'

'I chose red for Astronomy in deference to my human ancestors. They were sea-farers,' Kirk's face softened at the word he'd never expected to hear in his cabin, 'in ancient times, those who travelled by sea used stars for navigation, and charted land; a seamless union. However, on Earth, knowledge had always been paid for: in money, in time, in blood, and blood was the cheapest currency.'

Kirk nodded, wrung out and dejected. That Vulcans had established contact with the Terran civilisation at all surprised him sometimes. Spock was concentrating at a point beyond the bulkhead, so he allowed himself to recline on the bed.

'What had transpired here is not, in fact, dissimilar. We have observed what you humans call the cutting edge of science.' Spock's hands flexed.

'Are you angry?'

'Anger - '

'But are you?'

'I am... ' Inconsolable, Kirk supplied. 'Dissatisfied with the situation. That the old man was the only victim of his own curiosity is too improbable to contemplate. How many died for no better reason than a malfunctioning program?'

Add to that estimate the entire crew of the Excalibur.

'For the world is hollow... They were forbidden to talk about it, not to think or know.'

'In what way is it better?'

'It isn't. Although considering the other improbabilities we recently encountered, I still retain some hope for this people's development.'

Kirk made a show of removing his boots, ignoring the intrigued Vulcan. 'Ahh, good.'

'To what are you referring?'

'Why, that they would have a cure for a rare enough disease, one that our Chief Medical Officer has developed so suddenly, and the cure is compatible with humans, and that we meet them in time - '

'Remarkable,' Spock agreed, his cheeks colouring slightly.

'Indeed.'

'Yes.'

'And considering the hours you've been spending in the labs lately - '

'Captain - '

'And your sudden interest in human biochemistry - '

Spock coughed, now definitely greenish. 'To your information, I minored in human biochemistry.'

'Than you're just the man for the job.'

Success! Spock was flustered. 'I would ask you not to share your speculations with the doctor.'

'Oh? Why not?' Kirk had to hide behind a pillow from the daggers glared in his direction.

At long last, Spock answered, all the more obvious for his evenness.

'If he has a reason to consider his vacation not a total waste of time, but a step leading to a valuable discovery, his conscience would not be so burdened.'

Sigh.

'Okay, Mr. Spock, I promise.' He felt half-dead even lying down.

'Then I shall leave you to your rest.'

Kirk made an effort to appear a hospitable host and removed the pillow from his face to nod at his leaving guest.

'Marlinespikes,' he mumbled, slurping drool.

'Jim?'

'We're Fleet,' he explained, not bothering to open his eyes. 'We glare marlinespikes.'

'...Good night, Captain,' Spock answered in a carefully bemused voice.

They both allowed their lips to quirk when he exited the room.