I studied my doppelganger on the screen with interest. Since we swapped universes last time we had never actually met, so my only experience of him was through the images the Enterprise's internal cameras had caught and via my later debriefing of those crewmembers who had interacted with him. He was physically identical to me, of course, but I was sure that I could take him in a fight. Our strength and our fighting skills would be about the same, but unlike him I had no qualms about killing. In fact, I enjoyed it.
"I'll need a full report and analysis, of course, but what do you make of him?" asked Sybok, watching me thoughtfully.
I'd been starting to wonder if Sybok had brought me along just to do physical labor, but this was my real purpose here. I was to observe and assess this other Captain Kirk to a degree that no one else could.
"The man's a strutting popinjay," I said.
Alarmingly, Sybok burst out laughing at this.
"I imagine he'd say the same about you," he said, wiping tears from his eyes.
I don't think I'll ever get used to the sight of a Vulcan expressing emotion as freely as Sybok does. It's extremely disconcerting.
The two of us were sitting in a viewing room we'd located that gave us audiovisual coverage of everything happening in the chamber. We'd secreted ourselves in the room shortly before Kara woke the populace. A short while later a landing party had beamed down from the Enterprise. Several hours had then passed, and Sybok and I had watched as the other Kirk and his McCoy and Scott had entered, along with Kara and the body of their Spock, animated like some golem of old. They had soon discovered his brain was now housed in our machine, and had bought the story about it being dubbed the Controller and used to run the city. This was greatly helped by Kara, now their prisoner, who was turning in an impressive acting performance. She had just explained to them that while she had removed Spock's brain she could not restore it, that she was only given the necessary surgical skill in the first place by the Thinker.
"How long does the knowledge last?" asked Kirk.
"Three of your hours," replied Kara.
"It would be just enough time," said McCoy.
"If you had the knowledge, could you restore what you've taken?" asked Kirk.
"I would not," said Kara, defiantly.
"You must help us. You must restore with that knowledge what you have taken."
"No!"
I was impressed. Kara was really selling this.
"You must put back what you have taken."
"I will not betray my people. The Controller will stay."
"Jim, it worked for her. It might work for me."
Finally, McCoy had taken the bait.
"She is an alien," said Spock, his voice coming from a speaker somewhere. "The configurations of her brain are different. It could cause irreparable damage to your human brain, Doctor."
"I'm a surgeon already. If I could learn these techniques, I might be able to retain them."
"Captain, you might lose the doctor that way,"
"He might, but we're sure to lose you if I don't try."
"I cannot allow you to jeopardise your life for me."
"Spock, didn't you hear? I might be able to retain and bring these techniques to the world. Jim, isn't it worth that risk? Wouldn't you insist upon taking such a risk yourself?"
Kirk had carefully listened to this argument between McCoy and the disembodied voice of Spock, weighing what each man said before arriving at his decision. I recognised his process; how could I not?
"Go ahead, Doctor," he said. "Put the Teacher on."
"No!" cried Kara, managing to sound genuinely alarmed at the idea.
McCoy walked over to the device, and Kirk pulled the cowl down over his head. McCoy winced as knowledge flooded into his brain, clearly in pain, then fell to his knees.
"Of course," he said, eyes wild, "of course! A child could do it! A child could do it!"
Sybok and I both leaned forward in our chairs as McCoy began the task of restoring Spock's brain to his body. It was astonishing to watch. Scotty spoke for all of us when he said:
"I've never seen anything like it. He's operating at warp speed. I'd like a try at that teacher myself."
"This is where it gets interesting," said Sybok. "Now we'll learn just how long humans in this universe can retain such uploaded knowledge."
"That's the reason you set this whole thing up," I said, comprehension dawning.
"One of the reasons," he agreed, nodding. "To get a meaningful result, McCoy had to volunteer to accept a download rather than having one forced upon him. This scenario ensures that he does so."
"Then this was always an information gathering mission."
"In large part. We need to learn as much as we can about these people without letting them know that's what we're doing and...ah. It's happening. McCoy is starting to falter."
I looked back up at the screen as Sybok tapped some figures into a notepad. McCoy had been working away feverishly for well over an hour, but it was clear he was now in trouble.
"Bones? Bones?" said Kirk. What a stupid nickname! I couldn't imagine referring to my McCoy that way.
"All the ganglia, the nerves," said McCoy, looking and sounding spaced out. "There are a million of them. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do?"
"Bones, you can't stop now."
"I'm trying to thread a needle with a sledgehammer. What am I supposed to do? I can't remember. I don't remember."
"Bones?"
"No one can restore a brain."
"You could. A while ago it was child's play."
Sitting beside me, Sybok leaned back and let out a satisfied sigh.
"Well," he said, "it looks like the length of time the humans of this universe can hold a knowledge download is the same as the humans of ours. Taken together with all the other measurements we've made, I'm now prepared to report to the Council a 99.9% physical match between us."
"Was that ever in question?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"There were those who thought it might be, hence this test."
I turned my attention back to the screen.
"Is Spock going to die?"
"I have no idea. Let's watch and find out."
Spock survived. In the event, McCoy reconnected his speech center and Spock then gave the Doctor a running commentary on the effect each connection he made was having. It was a clever solution, and McCoy was able to finish up before the final vestiges of the knowledge transfer fled his mind.
"Impressive," said Sybok, grudgingly. "These men of the Federation might one day make a more formidable opponent than we'd imagined."
"No," I said, "they won't. If that day ever comes we'll easily crush them. We have weapons they don't, weapons they have no defense against. It would all be over in less than a week."
