The Paradise Syndrome or: the Search for Jim
Spock was silently enjoying himself when he watched Jim and Spock on the planet they had to safe from the asteroid. Especially Jim seemed to be enjoying himself. It seemed like all weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
Stop enjoying yourself so much! Jim shouted at him through the bond they shared since their stay on Vulcan.
It is nice to see you so happy. Spock answered.
But neither of them was able to forget the task at hand. While Jim was talking to the Enterprise Spock was with McCoy. He would later blame himself for leaving Jim-Trouble-Finder-Kirk all alone. He should have known something would happen. But as it was, he only knew that suddenly he felt surprise through the bond, and then nothing. The Bond wasn't broken. There just was nothing. The constant flow of the sometimes illogical thoughts of Jim were gone. Spock felt empty and alone.
While he tried to explain their situation to Doctor McCoy, his mind was crying for its other half. But no answer came.
He was able to function as usual, and no one but Doctor McCoy noticed something was wrong.
Then one day, after Spock had talked to Scotty, he finally voiced his concern about Spock.
"Well, Spock, you took your calculated risk in your calculated Vulcan way, and you lost. You lost for us, you lost for that planet, and you lost for Jim." McCoy's words were angry, but Spock knew him well enough to guess that McCoy was just as frustrated and worried about Jim as he was.
"I accept the responsibility, Doctor." Nevertheless I have to find Jim as soon as possible.
"And my responsibility is the health of this crew. You've been driving yourself too hard, and I want you to get some rest." You'll be no use to Jim half dead.
Spock turned away from the doctor to give the bridge new orders: "Mister Chekov, resume heading eight eight three mark four one."
"Back to that planet? Without warp speed, it'll take months, Spock." McCoy couldn't believe his ears. Maybe he has gone mental.
"Exactly fifty nine point two two three days, Doctor, and that asteroid will be four hours behind us all the way." Spock tried not to sound too annoyed with the constant questioning of his decisions. Any other Commander would have pressed charges against McCoy by now, but Spock knew that the Doctor ment well for both him and Jim. And that on some level McCoy was his friend, too. Not that any one of them would ever admit that out loud. But arguing was how they worked best.
"Well then what's the use? We might not be able to save the captain even if he is still alive. We might not be able to save anything, including this ship! You haven't heard a word I've said. All you've been doing is staring at that blasted obelisk."
"Another calculated Vulcan risk, Doctor." Which might not be such a high risk, after all. An idea was forming in Spock's head, but he had to get to the planet to prove it. All he knew was, that Jim's life depended solely on him now.
The only thing he did do the next few days was working. He worked on the bridge, in the labs and in his quarters on the writing of that obelisk. Of course would such a thing not go unnoticed by the ship's surgeon. McCoy could be very observant when he wanted to. And at the moment Spock was at the center of the doctor's interest.
As if to prove his thoughts right, McCoy entered his quarters to look up on him: "I thought you were reporting to Sickbay."
"There isn't time, Doctor. I must decipher those obelisk's symbols. They're a highly advanced form of cipher writing." And I do not need to come to sickbay as you are coming to me. But he didn't voice these thoughts out loud.
"You've been trying to do that ever since we started back to that planet. Fifty eight days." McCoy had actually counted the days. It was getting harder and harder taking care of the Vulcan's health.
"I'm aware of that, Doctor. I'm also aware when we arrive at the planet, we'll have barely four hours to effect rescue. I believe those symbols are the key. To everything. I need to solve this before we reach the planet, Doctor."
"Well, you won't read them by killing yourself. You've hardly eaten or slept for weeks. Now if you don't let up, you're going to collapse. And I won't let that happen, Spock. Jim may be famous for his stubbornness, but I can be just as stubborn, Spock. Mark my words." McCoy was getting desperate now. Jim would never forgive him if Spock died trying to find him.
"I am not hungry, Doctor. And under stress, we Vulcans can do without sleep for weeks." Spock didn't tell him, that he wasn't working as efficiently as usual. He had to get the man off his back.
McCoy took out his scanner: "Well, your Vulcan metabolism is so low it can hardly be measured, and as for the pressure, that green ice water you call blood..."
"My physical condition is not important, Doctor. That obelisk is." So is saving that planet.
But McCoy had been working long enough with him not to be intimdated by his words: "Well, my diagnosis is exhaustion brought on from overwork and guilt. You're blaming yourself for crippling this ship, just as we blamed you. Well, we were wrong. So were you. You made a command decision. Jim would have done the same. My prescription is rest, now. Do I have to call the security guards to enforce it?"
McCoy was clasping at straws now. But that seems to be the only thing I can persuade him with right now. What exactly is going on between these two?
Spock wasn't intimidated either. He lay down to appease the doctor and as soon as McCoy had left the room, he was up again studying the obelisk.
Then it dawned to him. He took his lyre and played a few notes. This action had the effect that he was relaxing. But it had also the effect that he suddenly knew what head been staring into his eyes without him noticing it. The writings on the surface of the obelisk were notes. It wasn't until he heard McCoy's voice that he noticed he wasn't alone in his room anymore.
"I prescribed sleep."
"You prescribed rest, Doctor. The symbols on the obelisk are not words. They are musical notes. And playing the lyre is relaxing. So, you see, that I did as you asked me to.
"Musical notes? You mean it's nothing but a song?" I don't know who is crazy: This Vulcan or whoever they were who put notes on an obelisk.
"In a way, yes. Other cultures, among them certain Vulcan offshoots, use musical notes as words. The tones correspond roughly to an alphabet. I simply do not understand why I did not see this earlier."
"I do. You were working your ass off, worried about Jim, and exhausted. Were you able to make sense out of the symbols?" McCoy tried his best not to crush Spock's mood. He was the most cheerful he had seen him in weeks. It seemed that Spock had found out something hopeful.
"Yes. The obelisk is a marker, just as I thought. It was left by a super-race known as the Preservers. They passed through the galaxy rescuing primitive cultures which were in danger of extinction and seeding them, so to speak, where they could live and grow." He sounded so much like his old self right then that McCoy had to try hard not to smile.
"I've always wondered why there were so many humanoids scattered through the galaxy."
"So have I. Apparently the Preservers account for a number of them."
"That's probably how the planet has survived all these centuries. The Preservers put an asteroid deflector on the planet."
"Which has now become defective and is failing to operate."
"And we have to find that deflector and put it back into working order, otherwise..." McCoy didn't dare to end that sentence. He didn't want to think about what might have happened to Jim. There was a possibility that Jim was dead.
"Precisely, Doctor." Spock had understood what McCoy had tried to say, but couldn't voice it either. He didn't agree. He knew that Jim was alive. During the last days he had felt something through the bond. It was like Jim was trying to reach him, but couldn't. Spock had felt confusion on Jim's part, but as far as he knew, Jim wasn't hurt.
When they materialised on the planet, Spock felt like his heart skip a beat. Jim was being stoned and falling to the ground. He and McCoy hurried to Jim and the woman lying next to him. Neither of them understood why these two had been hurt like that. Both of them weren't really conscious.
McCoy noticed immediately that he couldn't heal both of them alone and ordered his best nurse to beam down: "I need Nurse Chapel."
Spock nodded and took his communicator: "Spock to Enterprise."
"Come in, Mister Spock." Came Scotty's voice.
"We've located the captain. Beam down Nurse Chapel with an emergency surgical kit."
"My wife. Is she all right?" Jim suddenly spoke.
McCoy shot a glance at Spock: "Wife?"
"Hallucinations?" Spock was hurting inside. What has happened during these months, Jim? What have they done to you that you forgot me? That you forgot us?
Chapel didn't take long to beam down. McCoy didn't need to tell her what to do. She was good enough to deal on her own. She was almost as good as a doctor, and that was why he gave her more liberties than was usual for a nurse. But she had been serving under him long enough to pick up a few tricks.
"Miramanee."
Spock rolled Miramanee onto her back, and Chapel gave her an injection. The woman seemed to be conscious and able to talk.
"The nurse has given you something to ease the pain. Why were you being stoned?" Why did they hurt Jim?
"Kirok could not get back into the temple." The woman's words made no sense to Spock. And why was she calling Jim Kirok?
"Naturally, since he did not come from there." That was the only thing he could think of saying.
"I saw him come, come."
Chapel had turned to the Doctor while Spock was talking to the woman: "Does he recognise us?"
"His brain is unimpaired. Everything else is functionally normally except his memory."
It didn't take long for Spock to turn back to the Captain and the Doctor: "Can you help him?"
"It'd take time."
"Time, Doctor McCoy, is the one thing we do not have in abundance." They were interrupted by Sulu who gave them an update on the asteroid.
"Doctor, is he strong enough for the Vulcan mind fusion?" Spock was ready to do anything now to safe both Jim's life and the planet.
McCoy sighed. He didn't like that idea. But it seemed time was running against them. So he answered: "We have no choice."
Spock placed both his hand on Jim's face and began the procedure. But he wasn't prepared for the difficulty this would make him.
"I am Spock. You are James Kirk. Our minds are moving closer. Closer, closer, closer, James Kirk. Closer."
"No!" Cried Jim.
"James Kirk."
"Miramanee! No! Miramanee!"
McCoy watched as Spock tried to get through to Jim. It seemed Jim was a difficult case. Normally humans were easy to get through to, as they were psi null. But apparently. Jim Kirk had to be the exception.
"Our minds are one." Spock was beginning to wonder whether he was able to bring Jim back at all. He should have had succeeded by now.
"I am Kirok. I am Kirok." They both were shouting at the same time now, causing McCoy to get worried about the both of them. As far as he was concerned, paradise had turned into hell.
"I am Kir..." Spock started.
"I am Kirok! I am..." Jim started.
"Spock!" Spock interrupted, and was barely able to break the link.
McCoy looked at him and asked: "What is it?"
"His mind. He is an extremely dynamic individual. And definitely more than psi null."
"It worked." Kirk interrupted them and walked to Miramanee.
"Captain, were you inside this structure?"
"Yes. What's inside is loaded with scientific equipment." You would like that, Spock.
"This obelisk is one huge deflector mechanism. It is imperative that we get inside immediately. Captain, we do not have much time."
Jim turned to his other friend: "Bones..."
McCoy just nodded. He knew what Jim wanted from him. And Jim and Spock needed some time alone.
"I don't know how to get inside." Jim's attention was on Spock and the crisis at hand now. Personal issues could wait until they were back on the ship.
"If we are not able to gain entry and activate the deflector mechanism within the next fifty minutes, this entire planet will be destroyed." Spock, too, had his focus on the problem at hand.
"The key must be in these symbols. We've got to decipher them."
"I already have to some extent, Captain. They are musical notes."
"You mean entry can be gained by playing certain notes on a musical instrument?"
"That would be one method. Another would be a series of tonal qualities spoken in their proper sequence."
That gave Jim an idea.
"Give me your communicator. Tonal control, consonants and vowels. I must have hit it accidentally when I contacted the ship."
"If you could remember your exact words, Captain, this could work." Spock knew what was on Jim's mind.
Luckily for them it worked, and the entrance went open. Spock was able to repair the obelisk, and the planet was save.
McCoy helped Jim bury his wife. He could tell his friend was mourning and feeling guilty at the same time. But he didn't know what he was feeling guilty about. Jim hadn't done anything wrong, unless...
Two hours later in Jim's quarters
Jim sat on his bed and tried to come to terms with what had happened. He had betrayed the most important person in his life, and hadn't even known he had done it.
"Jim. Listen to me. He doesn't care. He basically ignored all logic to get back to you. He loves you. I just see that now. Talk to him. He won't. Because he can't."
"How can he ever forgive me, Bones? After what I did to him?" Jim looked at his best friend and looked as defeated as McCoy had ever seen him. It dawned to him that Jim was as helpless with feelings as Spock was.
But before he could say anything, Spock entered, and sat down next to Jim. He forced him to look into his eyes, and told him: "You have done nothing wrong. The way I see it, you did what you had to do to survive. There is nothing to forgive."
Jim's face lit up light like a light bulb. McCoy silently let the two alone. He knew they would need some time work it through. But they would come out all the stronger.
"Jim. Look at the bond. What does it tell you?" Spock asked his bondmate. He felt that Jim still had some doubts.
After a while Jim smiled at him. He could finally believe that all was going to be well. They would survive this. Together.
And while Spock had Jim in his arms he vowed to himself that he would never again let Jim out of his sight while they were on a strange planet.