Chapter Two: Spock
Disclaimer: These are old friends, not possessions, and I make no money from reporting on what I see them do.
James Kirk slams his hand down on the intercom button on the arm of his chair—slams it with unnecessary force, though Spock is no longer surprised by such emotional displays.
When Kirk had first succeeded Christopher Pike as captain two years ago, Spock had been alarmed by his demeanor—quicksilver, volatile, his impulsive behavior masking a deliberate, intense focus that for a time Spock distrusted. Captain Pike, by contrast, had been mature, tempered, rarely raising his voice, every move calculated and economical.
For a few months after Captain Pike left to train cadets at the Academy, Spock had seriously considered applying for a transfer. Not that he didn't think James Kirk was a competent officer worthy of respect. Clearly he was or Starfleet wouldn't have promoted him.
But he and the captain were so dissimilar—their temperaments and personalities almost at odds—that he thought it might be more logical, more efficient, to find a place where he would be more comfortable.
He had already started scouting the boards for other postings for science officer when the Enterprise was damaged by the journey through the galactic barrier and Gary Mitchell died on Delta Vega—in the line of duty, the captain reported, though Spock recognized the log entry for what it was, a deception. Privately Spock had taken his concerns about the log to Lt. Uhura. After all, she would be the one to relay it to Starfleet. If the captain's log was an obvious fiction, she could also be held to account.
"I'm not worried," she told him over a cup of coffee in the deserted officers mess shortly after a tug from Starbase 31 showed up to tow the Enterprise back for repairs. "Who would ever question it?"
"Perhaps no one," Spock said, "but an inaccuracy will remain in the log."
He watched as she lifted her cup to her lips and took a sip, as if what he had just said was not particularly alarming. She must not have understood the gravity of the situation. He tried again.
"The official, registered log will not be true," he said. "Mr. Mitchell was attempting to kill the captain at the time of his death. He did not die in the line of duty."
He gave the phrase the sort of slight emphasis he had heard his mother give when she wanted to impart a sense of irony or contradiction to her words. The lieutenant set her cup down on the table and sighed.
"Sir," she said slowly, "there's more than one type of truth. Mr. Mitchell died because of the things that happened to him while he was serving on this ship. He didn't want to change into…what he became. You can't blame him for that. Or hold him accountable, either. So yes, I think the captain is right. He died in the line of duty."
From the cant of her head, the wrinkle on her brow, he knew better than to continue to argue with her.
Later that night as he meditated in front of his asenoi in his quarters, he consciously let go of his concern about the accuracy of the log entry. Pursuing the matter might provoke the captain or call Lt. Uhura's work into question. Then, too, there was a chance that fabricating a detail to protect a friend was one of those uniquely human actions that Spock found baffling and always would.
A week later Kirk approached him about serving as his first officer—and though he harbored some misgivings, Spock accepted.
"Transporter room," the captain says now, his hand fisted on the intercom button, "tell me that you got them."
"Aye, captain," the transporter chief says. "Or something. I'm not sure what it is."
"Explain."
"It's not alive, captain. I mean, I don't think it is. It looks like some kind of a machine."
From his station Sulu darts a glance.
"There were biological signs aboard," the helmsman says quickly. "Those are the ones I gave the transporter room."
"Mr. Spock," the captain says, rising from his chair and heading to the lift. By now Spock recognizes the familiar invitation in the captain's voice—not to fill the captain's chair but to accompany him. He toggles off the data screen at the science station and follows.
"Is it possible the cruiser wasn't manned?" Kirk asks as soon as the lift starts moving. Spock considers.
"Negative, Captain. My scans showed an oxygen conversion rate indicative of biological respiration."
They fall silent until the lift stops. Twenty meters down the corridor Spock sees a security guard standing at the door of the transporter room. Hurrying from the other end of the corridor are Dr. McCoy and Nurse Chapel, each with medkits in their hands.
"Any survivors?" the doctor asks as he presses past the security guard. He stops so abruptly that Spock has to step to the side to keep from colliding with him.
"If this is your idea of a joke, Jim," the doctor says, and even Spock can hear the anger in his voice. "I was told you had an emergency beam out—"
Captain Kirk either doesn't hear or chooses to ignore the doctor's annoyance.
"Bones, could someone be inside that thing?"
The thing the captain refers to is a metallic oblong object less than a meter long and half as wide. Lying on the transporter pad, it does resemble a machine, with a seal running along one axis and two recessed buttons at the narrow end.
"My tricorder indicates no life signs," Spock says, moving to the edge of the transporter pad and leaning forward. From the corner of his eye he sees one of the security officers move closer, his phaser drawn.
"Could…this…be the pilot of the cruiser?"
"Jim, in case you haven't noticed, that is a box. It couldn't have flown anything."
A rustle from behind Spock as the doctor sets his medkit down, apparently deciding that the item on the transporter pad does not need his attention.
"What you call a box is made of a duranium alloy," Spock says, adjusting his tricorder. "It could be functioning as an escape pod with the life form inside."
"A very small life form," Dr. McCoy says. Although his words are straightforward, something about his tone is off. Skepticism? Spock darts a glance in his direction and sees that the doctor's arms are crossed.
"Or a compact one," the captain adds.
"Or young," Spock says. "This could be an incubator, Captain, that was programmed to be jettisoned if the cruiser ran into difficulty."
Dr. McCoy sighs and uncrosses his arms.
"Okay, you've made your point. Let's get it to sickbay and take a look."
One of the security officers steps onto the pad and reaches around the metallic container, lifting it slowly. Judging from the speed at which the officer stands and regains his balance, Spock estimates that the object weighs less than 12 or 13 kilos.
Almost at once the small buttons on it begin flashing—a piercing blue-white light pulsing rapidly. Startled, the security officer stumbles and takes an awkward step forward. Reaching out to steady him, Spock places his right hand on the side of the container to keep it from falling to the floor.
And that's the last thing he remembers for the next three hours.
X
Crime on Vulcan was not unheard of, but it was rare. Even among people who prized emotional control, someone occasionally slipped and let a fist fly in a moment of anger; coveted to the point of theft a valued possession; forced unwanted and unlooked for sexual attention on another. The perpetrators were treated like anyone else with a mental illness—with confinement and therapy with trained healers until health was restored.
Except for those who forced themselves on others through mind assault. In a world of touch telepaths, nothing was as valued as mental privacy, nothing as shameful as its loss.
Those who violated another's mind were expelled from society—either by forced incarceration or by exile off the planet. The v'tosh katur, for instance—the Vulcans who embraced emotions—were rumored to participate in mind assaults, though Spock had heard conflicting reports.
"Do not believe everything you hear," Sybok told him once when Spock asked about a boy at school whose parents were rumored to be members of a growing number of v'tosh katur practitioners in Shi'Kahr. Something in Sybok's tone warned Spock away from asking anything more.
Later, of course, he wished he had.
The boy's name was Tavik, and as teenagers both he and Sybok were so busy with preparation for the Vulcan Science Academy entrance exams that they didn't leave school until late in the afternoon, long after the younger children were dismissed. Rather than have his mother make a trip from home to pick him up only to have to go back out later for Sybok, Spock often stayed late while the older boys met with their tutors.
He didn't mind spending the afternoons this way. The elderly chess master Truvik sometimes offered him a cup of tea and an impromptu match in his office, or Spock ambled around the extensive school grounds, collecting various species of small amphibians and insects to study for an afternoon before releasing them.
At the beginning of Sybok's terminal year, Tavik's family provided him with a groundcar—an old-fashioned wheeled vehicle that required helium cells for fuel. With undisguised enthusiasm, Tavik volunteered to take over Amanda's school transport duties—despite the fact that swinging by Sybok and Spock's home was out of his way.
"Why is it that teenaged boys all share the same love of vehicles?" Spock overheard his mother telling Sarek as they sat on the outside portico one evening.
The afternoon heat still lingered but the cooler desert air was starting to blow, and as she often did, Amanda sat in one of the woven chairs with a cup of tea balanced on the armrest. Sarek usually joined her, though for what purpose Spock could not puzzle out. More often than not when he wandered after them and nosed around, they were doing nothing more than sitting within close proximity and chatting about inconsequential things.
"Sybok has not expressed much of an interest," Sarek murmured. It was true that Sybok had never asked about getting his pilot's license, and when Sarek offered to teach him to fly the family flitter, Sybok had begged off, saying that he was too busy to learn.
On the other hand, Spock knew for a fact that Sybok took Sarek's hoverbike out of storage and tooled around in the yard when the adults weren't home.
"Thank goodness," Amanda said. "One less thing for me to have to worry about."
Her concern was the reason she initially refused to let Spock and Sybok ride to school and back with Tavik. Then Sarek was called away to help negotiate a trade agreement between a Vulcan outpost and the Nagirini homeworld and Amanda decided to go with him.
"I haven't been off-world for ages," she said in answer to Spock's unasked question. "And your father and I need some time alone once in awhile."
At 17, Sybok was certainly able to care for himself and his 7 year-old-brother for two weeks. The only problem was transportation. With a sigh, Amanda pursed her lips and agreed to let them ride back and forth to school with Tavik.
Unlike a flitter, a groundcar was limited to the route it could take, but Spock didn't care. To his surprise he found riding in the moving car exhilarating, particularly on the days when Sybok sprawled out in the back and left the front passenger seat for him.
The landscape hurtling by never failed to interest him—not just the actual scenery, but the challenge of calculating the ground speed and predicting the precise time they would pass certain points on the route.
Once Tavik realized what Spock was doing—why his nose was pressed to the side glass, his attention focused on the landmarks whirling past—he began accelerating and slowing unpredictably, making the calculations much harder—and consequently more interesting.
"Leave him alone!" Sybok called from the back seat when Tavik sped up so quickly that Spock had to struggle to stay upright. But Spock could hear the amusement in Sybok's tone—and apparently so could Tavik. He reached over and gave Spock a quick pat on the head—a fleeting touch that reminded Spock of the way he himself sometimes stroked I-Chaya's shaggy mane—but it caught him off guard and he ducked away.
For two weeks the three boys commuted together in Tavik's ground car.
And then on the afternoon before Sarek and Amanda were scheduled to return, Spock was waiting at the car park after school when Tavik appeared, weighed down by a backpack loaded with study PADDs and exercise equipment.
"Where is Sybok?" Spock asked as he opened the groundcar boot and helped Tavik stow his things there.
"With Professor T'Sil preparing a presentation for her level two Laplace transform class. He'll be out in a few minutes."
Shutting the boot, Tavik walked around and opened the car doors, sliding into the driver's seat. After hesitating a moment, Spock took the passenger seat up front.
Even for Spock, the car was hot and uncomfortable. Leaving the door open to catch some fresh air, he sat sideways, his feet sticking out, so he could watch for Sybok.
The noise of the engine turning over startled him.
"Close the door and I'll turn on the temperature controls," Tavik said. Pulling his feet in and grabbing the handle, Spock tugged the door closed.
As he turned to adjust the seat restraint, he saw Tavik's hand dart out.
"I am not going to hurt you," Tavik said, his fingers slipping along Spock's jaw, splaying across his brow and cheek to connect to Spock's psi points. Already a tendril of Tavik's mind was in his own—pushing his shields aside and weighing him down like a physical presence.
No! Spock cried out soundlessly, but Tavik was insistent, probing Spock's early memories, looking at the world through his eyes—Amanda lifting him into her arms, Sarek holding out a piece of fruit for him to grasp.
No, Spock said, this time as if from a great distance, like someone too tired to protest.
Tavik held up Spock's feelings for review, not bothering to hide his distaste.
Spock's curiosity that led him to secretly dissemble things around his house, such as the family ka'athyra or the irrigation system in the garden—no one the wiser when he reassembled them again, satisfied as to how they worked.
His confusion about Sybok's peripatetic life, the way his older brother split his time between Sarek's home and an unseen maternal grandmother, his unvoiced distress when Sybok left for weeks or months at a time.
The heat of embarrassment when the children outside the school eyed him askance as he got out of his mother's flitter in the mornings, their muted laughter, their barely concealed whispers and slurs.
His shame about having such feelings, of letting them show, of disappointing his father with their display.
Spock was gasping now, his mouth opening and closing reflexively like a Terran fish, but Tavik kept his fingers on his face.
"Stop," Spock managed to say aloud, but already he knew that Tavik would not stop, that this intrusion was something that Tavik found satisfying or necessary.
Closing his eyes, Spock felt his head pounding and his stomach starting to sour.
"What are you doing!"
Sybok's voice, not directed at him. Suddenly the connection was broken and Tavik was gone, pulled from the car. Spock doubled over, tucking his knees to his chest.
A thud and several grunts; then the door on the passenger side of the car jerked open and Spock felt Sybok's hands brush his shoulders and arms, as if feeling for broken bones.
"Can you walk?"
Opening his eyes, Spock saw Sybok's face close to his own, his expression a mixture of grief and fury.
Instead of answering, Spock slid forward out of the car and stood up, wobbly but upright.
"I...am uncertain."
He blinked slowly and leaned against the side of the car.
In a rush, Sybok disappeared and Spock heard his voice, raised and angry, over the definite sounds of a scuffle.
"You have hurt my brother!"
"I did not!"
Taking one tentative step and then another, Spock made his way around the car. Tavik was prone on the tarmac, Sybok straddling him, one fist gripping the front of his tunic, the other pulled back ready to strike him again.
"You are also a liar!" Sybok said, and even from where he stood, Spock could hear a sickening crunch as Sybok's fist made purchase with Tavik's nose.
Dark green blood splattered on their clothes and on the ground as Tavik flailed his arms wildly, trying to deflect Sybok's punches.
"He is a human!" Tavik panted. "I could not hurt him!"
Fist raised, Sybok paused and stared. Taking his hesitation for permission to continue, Tavik went on.
"I have never melded with an alien before," he said, his lips already swelling and making his words muddled and indistinct. "I was merely curious. I did nothing wrong."
"You melded without his consent!"
"He is not a Vulcan, Sybok. His consent is irrelevant."
With a disgusted huff, Sybok released his hold and stood up. Tavik's head fell back to the ground and he lifted his hand to his mouth, dabbing at the blood.
Despite his eidetic memory—or perhaps because of it—Spock could not recollect what happened next. Somehow he and Sybok found their way home. A ride from one of the tutors, perhaps? Or had they walked?
That night when Sarek and Amanda returned, Spock stayed curled in his bed while Sybok relayed what had happened—first with words and then by showing through the family bond his own part in it, the pictures of Tavik broken and bloody disturbingly gratifying.
As Spock expected, his mother rushed immediately to his bedroom, sitting on the bed beside him and smoothing his hair with such a gentle stroke that he found himself drifting off to sleep.
His father's reaction was the one that surprised him. At some level Spock expected him to blame him for what happened—as if he had provoked or enticed Tavik merely by being who he was—in Tavik's words, an alien, a non-Vulcan with no rights and questionable telepathic ability.
But Sarek's anger was swift and fierce and so frightening that Amanda cautioned him to reassure Spock that it was not aimed at him. After informing the authorities about Tavik's assault, Sarek took the flitter before anyone else rose the next morning and returned in a few hours with a healer so elderly and stooped that she had to keep one hand on Sarek's forearm as she made her way inside the house.
From his bedroom where he lay bundled in a nest of quilts on his bed, Spock heard his mother say, "Lady T'Sarr, I'm so grateful that you are here."
"The boy?"
"This way," his father said, and Spock watched as his father led T'Sarr to the chair his mother must have pulled up next to his bed. Had she sat there all night? How odd that he didn't know.
The chair creaked softly as T'Sarr lowered herself slowly into it. Behind her his father stood, seemingly implacable. His mother waited at the door, her eyes unusually red-rimmed, her face waxy and pale in a way that made Spock uneasy.
For a moment T'Sarr said nothing, her dark eyes hooded, flat, unreadable. Then she glanced over her shoulder and said, "Leave us." Spock's heart began to race as his parents withdrew, but his attention was pulled almost immediately to the elderly healer as she lifted one hand toward him.
Spock shivered involuntarily.
T'Sarr lowered her hand at once.
"I will not hurt you," she said, her voice low and graveled with age. Tilting her head, she said, "But you have been told that before."
Spock shivered again. How did she know? The very words Tavik had uttered as he began the assault. Were Spock's thoughts still on display?
As if she could, indeed, read his mind, T'Sarr said, "It is what all abusers say. Your thoughts are your own now, Spock."
She stayed with him most of the afternoon, often saying nothing for long stretches of time, sometimes asking him innocent questions about school, about his interests. He volunteered little that she did not ask for directly, but by the time she called for Sarek to take her home, he felt a small measure of relief.
"I can do no more for him," she said as she took Sarek's arm and stood up. Through the family bond Spock felt his father's dismay.
"If I melded with him directly—to augment his psi ability—could you—"
Spock's face flushed with shame, though whether his own or his father's he wasn't certain.
T'Sarr looked back at Spock, still nested in his quilts, and said, "Spock? His psi ability is exceptional, one of the strongest telepaths I have ever known. He does not need your help," she said, turning back to Sarek. "He needs a master at Gol."
The monastery at Gol was where Kolinahr adepts lived and studied, practicing a mental discipline so rigorous that few acolytes advanced to the goal of true freedom from emotion.
The monastery itself rose up in the desert like a fortress, which at one time in Vulcan's history it had been. Now its doors were never closed, its rooms always open for guests, both casual and serious.
The master who agreed to meet with Sarek and Spock was one of the younger monks, barely 200 years old, though to Spock he looked ancient, his hair silver, his knuckles knotted with wear. His name was Sylan, and both his name and his lilting accent suggested he was from the rural part of the northern continent rather than from the capital, something Spock found oddly comforting.
He showed them to their room—spartan, carved out of the rock edifice that made up most of the monastery. A single window looked out over a bleak desert landscape. The lighting was low—deliberately so—and the wooden bunks were covered with thin blankets that offered little protection from the cool nights—also deliberate.
Surmount the distractions. One of the many lessons the monks endeavored to both learn and teach daily.
Spock quickly fell into the rhythm of the monastic life. Each morning the monks arose before daybreak to meditate and then prepare a meal for themselves and any visitors. During the heat of the day they retired into the catacomb-like web of rooms and corridors, reading the ancient texts, meditating again—or so Spock assumed. Occasionally he saw one of the monks pass by the small indoor succulent garden where he and Sylan sat talking.
His father, he knew, stayed in their room working, keeping in touch with his office by comm. His mother stayed behind in Shi'Kahr, not out of choice but because her presence would be a distraction, one of many that Spock would have to overcome to heal.
In the afternoons Sylan took him to the meditation chamber, a large room ringed with multiple asenoi set low in the wall like sconces. At first Spock was shy about the other monks, concerned that they would look at him askance—a mere boy—but soon he realized that they hardly noticed him, that their focus was so internal that little bothered them in the physical world.
It was an appealing notion.
In the evenings he was free to catch up on his schoolwork or walk around in the enclosed grounds—after being warned not to go outside the walls after dark. Lematya and wild sehlats were sometimes spotted—and more frequently, heard—in the desert nearby.
"I have a sehlat back home," Spock told Sylan when he cautioned him. "Father bought him for Sybok before I was born."
"You miss him?"
For a moment Spock wasn't sure if Sylan meant I-Chaya or Sybok. It didn't matter, really. He missed them both.
Admitting that, however, was shaming.
"If by miss you mean want to be reunited with, then I do."
Often when he gave this kind of non-answer to his mother, she laughed. Or mock scolded him. Sylan, on the other hand, showed no emotion whatsoever.
"If your sehlat is older than you are, then his life is close to its end. They rarely live longer then 8 or 9 years."
This was not new information to Spock. Indeed, he had gone down just this line of reasoning more than once, feeling each time a pang of sorrow when he ran his hands through I-Chaya's wooly fur.
Nevertheless, Sylan's words were painful.
"You will miss him when he dies," Sylan said. Spock's cheeks flushed and he nodded.
"When you meditate this afternoon, center your thoughts on your pet. Imagine losing him, and then balance any negative emotions with pleasant remembrances and gratitude that you have had him this long."
"Count your blessings," Spock blurted out. He looked down but not before he saw Sylan's eyes widen a fraction. "Something my mother tells me," Spock added.
He felt his face heat up with embarrassment, partly for speaking without being asked and partly because mentioning Amanda made him homesick.
And something else, too, drew color to his cheeks and made him squirm—his very real and often denied embarrassment that his mother was human.
And by extension, his embarrassment that he was, too.
He waited for Sylan to comment.
"You are fortunate that you are both Vulcan and human."
Of all the things Sylan could have said, this was so shocking that Spock did not know how to respond.
"Humans have chosen a different path than we have," Sylan continued. "They embrace their emotions but do not let them consume them. The danger for us is too great, of course. As a Vulcan, you must learn control. But as a human, you have more freedom. If you choose to feel your emotions—"
"But I do not choose them!"
"Not now," Sylan said, seemingly unbothered by Spock's outburst. "Right now you wish to feel nothing at all, to put aside your pain without addressing it. But if you do, it will continue to resurface. Only the high masters of Kolinahr are able to completely let go of ego enough to feel nothing. The rest of us must…struggle."
Spock looked up into Sylan's dark eyes.
"Father says that humans have less control than Vulcans, that I may never be able to master my emotions."
"True enough," Sylan said, and Spock felt a heaviness in the pit of his stomach. "But your human heritage also gives you the possibility of a richer life. As a Vulcan, I dare not indulge myself in missing my pet, in longing for my home. The feelings will overwhelm me if I do. But you. You can feel them without being carried away. That is why I said you are fortunate. Do as your mother says and count your blessings."
Suddenly Spock was very tired. Sylan's words were confusing. What did any of this have to do with what happened with Tavik anyway, with the reason he was here now at the monastery?
Sylan leaned forward on the stone bench where he sat and said, "Never let anyone tell you that you are less because of who you are. You have no reason to feel shame."
"But I—"
"You heard the healer in Shi'Kahr tell your parents that you are a strong telepath."
How Sylan knew this Spock wasn't sure, but he nodded.
"It is because of this that you find control difficult. Not just because you are also human."
Again Spock started to protest, but he drew up short. Something in Sylan's words rang true. Like tumblers in a lock lining up, Spock's thoughts clicked into place.
For several weeks Spock had avoided remembering the assault, had drawn back from those memories like someone scalded. Tavik had been a trusted friend, an amusing companion.
Balance the negative emotions with the pleasant memories, Sylan had said, but the pleasant memories were weighed and found lacking.
Instead, Spock felt his heartbeat speed up when he thought about Tavik's pushing past his shields without permission, felt the anger of having his feelings and memories examined and judged like inanimate objects on a shelf.
His declaration that his assault was justified because Spock was human, not Vulcan—at the time Spock had not understood that Tavik was lying to excuse what he had done, that underneath his words he was jealous that Spock was more Vulcan in the way that mattered to Tavik, that Spock was such a strong telepath that his still unshuttered mind shone like a lightbulb in the fog.
He looked up at Sylan.
"Now you see," Sylan said. "As a strong Vulcan telepath, you cannot help but touch the minds of others. But as a human, you will find a way to manage."
For the next 19 days Spock met with Sylan daily, refining his meditation techniques, practicing his control. By the time he left the monastery, he had developed a mantra to keep him steady.
I am human and Vulcan, he intoned to himself. I am not less. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
X X
The first thing Spock hears when he wakes is the steady thrum of machinery—or more specifically, the rhythm of his own heartbeat amplified by the biobed sensor, the quiet whoosh of an air exchanger, the static buzz of an overhead light with a faulty filament, the cicada-like whir of a handheld medical scanner.
He tries to lift his hands to cover his ears.
"Whoa!" a voice says—and Spock feels a pressure on his chest, as if something heavy is being placed there.
In the dim light of sickbay he can make out Dr. McCoy's face inches from his own.
"Where d'you think you're going?" the doctor says, his characteristic drawl belying the look of concern on his face.
"Why am I here?"
"You took a dive in the transporter room," Dr. McCoy says. "Banged your hard Vulcan head on the floor before anyone could stop you."
Spock tries to sit up and the doctor protests again.
"Be still," he scolds, "or I'll station a redshirt to stay here beside you and hold you down."
"I assure you," Spock says, struggling not to let his genuine annoyance show, "that I am capable of returning to duty. Please move out of the way."
"You can assure me all you want, but until I assure myself, you aren't going anywhere."
Spock starts to rise and the doctor adds, "Do I need to remind you that the chief medical officer has the final say in matters of health and well being on this ship? I didn't think so. If anyone knows the rules, it would be you."
The doctor is right, of course, and can pull rank if he chooses. Spock settles back and says, "Then at least contact the captain. I must communicate with him immediately about the alien pilot. I know—"
"There is no alien pilot," Dr. McCoy says, his voice testy. "While you were taking a beauty rest we scanned that container we beamed aboard. There's nothing alive inside, just a small power source, probably for the external lights."
"When I touched it, the alien life form contacted me—"
"That metal box gave you a good old-fashioned electric shock, that's all. When Hansen picked it up, he must have activated it somehow, and then when you touched it, it zapped you."
"You are in error, Doctor. The container may appear to be empty, but it is not."
"Spock, you've had a concussion. It's normal to be confused afterwards. I'm telling you, your science people think it was supposed to carry something but the ship was destroyed before the pilot could put whatever it was inside."
Spock feels his pulse speeding up. He slows his breathing to keep his voice steady, given his frustration.
"While I trust your medical expertise, Doctor, your knowledge of xenotechnology and exobiology are not as extensive as my own—"
"Gentlemen."
Striding across sickbay is Captain Kirk.
"Oh, good, Jim, I'm glad you're here. Tell your first officer that he's to remain in bed until he's had time to recover from that shock and the concussion."
Before the captain can answer, Spock says, "Captain, it is imperative that I be allowed to resume my duties at once. The container we beamed aboard contains a sentient life form. We must determine what it needs."
"I thought the container was empty. Bones?"
"It is, Jim. I've already told Spock that."
"It may appear to be empty, Captain," Spock says, "but before I lost consciousness, I was in contact with the creature—or creatures—who were on that ship."
"Creatures? You mean there's more than one? Then why don't our scans show them? Why does the container appear to be empty?"
"Unknown, Captain. If I can examine the container for myself, I may be able to answer that."
A slight narrowing of his eyes, a rapid blink, a sudden intake of breath—the characteristic mannerisms of the captain when he mulls something over and makes a decision. From the way he starts to turn toward the doctor, Spock knows he has convinced him.
McCoy reads the signs, too.
"Now just a minute," the doctor says quickly. "This man is not well. Furthermore, in my opinion, he is not thinking clearly—"
"Bones," Captain Kirk says, looking him squarely in the face, "Spock on a bad day still thinks more clearly than anyone else I know. I'm sorry, but if there is an alien life form on my ship, I want to know."
Spock watches the doctor's face run through several expressions and settle on one he recognizes—resignation.
"I'm going to be right behind you the whole time," McCoy says to Spock, sounding more like someone making a threat than promising aid.
Sitting up and sliding off the biobed, Spock is careful not to let the doctor see how much effort it takes to stand without wobbling. Taking a breath to gather his strength, he says, "The container?"
With a sigh, McCoy motions to the door leading to the lab on the right and Spock focuses on making his way across the floor.
The container, its lights still blinking, is propped up on a black lab table. On the monitor behind it are various schematics and diagrams, some showing the inner workings and wiring, and others detailing the composition of its elements.
Spock looks through the information quickly. The doctor was right. The container appears to be an empty hollow cylinder. Except for a small power signature coming from a fuel cell the size of a phaser battery, the container is inert.
Spock reaches out to touch it.
"Stop!" Dr. McCoy says in his ear. "That's what happened the last time!"
"Has anyone else touched the container?"
"Obviously. How could we have gotten it here otherwise?"
The doctor's tone is withering, but Spock dismisses it as typical of humans under stress.
"And no one else has been affected?"
"Maybe it just doesn't like Vulcans," the doctor says, his face pinched. "Maybe it's been programmed to keep you nosey types out."
Spock considers. Something in what the doctor says gives him pause.
Closing his eyes, he silences the distractions around him. First and closest is Dr. McCoy, his breath almost labored, the click as his lips part to say something—quite possibly to caution Spock again.
On his other side are the footsteps of the captain moving closer, the pendulum swish of his arms against the side of his uniform shirt.
The overhead air exchanger, a distant beeping of a sickbay monitor.
One by one Spock hears them and lets them go.
And only then can he hear it, like a hive of bees—a muted buzzing that grows louder as he lets his mind drift outward—
The buzzing morphs into a collection of disparate sounds that jar and jangle together. Dimly he feels someone's hand on his arm, hears someone calling to him. The doctor, most likely, but he ignores it and redoubles his effort to listen to the inward voices.
Despite what the scans show, someone is in the metal container—no, not someone, but multiple someones. They are calling out to him, he is certain, but their words elude him.
I cannot—he says into the void, and a wave of sorrow and desperation—his own and the others'—almost knocks him to his knees.
"Spock!"
The alien emotion wafts away and he is free. Opening his eyes, he sees the captain staring into his face.
"I am…unharmed, Captain. But I was correct. There are life forms here, and they will die if we do not hurry."
A/N: I've been warned that long chapters don't get read. I hope that's not true! If you made it through, let me hear from you. Tell me whether the premise of this story is working, that each character's contribution is essential to the mission at hand. Your comments help me become a better writer!
