Chapter 4
It took three hours of diligent labor, but it worked. Kirk laughed with delight as they maligned his character for a good hour. From there, it degenerated into a free-for-all, and no one escaped unscathed. When they tired of it, Kirk called another rest break. It had been six hours, but it didn't seem like half that. The entertainment had been well worth it.
McCoy nailed him as soon as he finished his rounds. "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"
"Did what?"
"You know what! Mind you, it was very skillfully done, but every one of us knows you did it on purpose."
"So?"
"So, we also knew you would if they kept it up long enough."
"You all planned this?!"
"Oh, no. We're ad-libbing everything."
"Does this mean we can dispense with the character assassination for the remainder of this trip?"
"Probably. I'm thinking very shortly, we're going to have more serious matters to think about. Spock has outdone himself with these puzzles, but there's only one left, yours. After that, he said things get difficult."
The puzzles had indeed been intriguing. Guessing which of them was to solve each puzzle was fairly easy, because each puzzle was stated in technical terms that matched their specialties. Uhura's was encrypted Romulan, McCoy's was a complex chemical formula, Chekov's was star charts, Sulu's a diagram of a battle plan, and Scotty's several circuit diagrams. But there were puzzles within puzzles. Or at least, there seemed to be.
They worked as a group to solve Uhura's puzzle, since she had neither computer nor eyesight. But when it was decoded, she looked puzzled.
"I'm not sure what it means. It doesn't seem to make sense, and yet I've the feeling that I have the key to it, somewhere in my memory."
And she continued to ponder it, while they discussed some of the other puzzles. McCoy kept reminding them who wrote these puzzles. Kirk listened to it all, but had nothing to offer. His knowledge of all such was part of the thirty years lost to him. And he doubted his own puzzle could be in any technical format due to his ignorance.
But it was, sort of. It was simple Morse code. Sulu read the dots and dashes aloud for Uhura. Everyone easily translated the message, but no one understood it, except Kirk. He turned and stared at Spock, marveling at how much he knew. Then he remembered that Spock had examined his mind just after he'd been taken from Konti. All he said though, was, "Why Morse code?"
Scotty answered him. "Doubtless there's a reason, Cap'n. If'n ye think on 't long enou', it'll come clear ta ye."
They did not ask what the message meant, and Kirk wasn't sure he was ready to tell them. Suddenly an urgent question surfaced in his mind. Once again, he moved in close and confronted Spock. McCoy was already at his side.
"Spock, do you know them all as well as you know me? Have you looked into each of their minds? Do your puzzles ask them to open their inner selves for all to see? If so, why do you demand such openness? Is it not enough that you know? Why must they be so vulnerable?"
Spock did not answer. McCoy sighed.
"Jim, that's a lot of questions. First of all, Spock knows you better than he does any of us. Yes, he's melded with each of us, but nowhere near as often as with you. Many times you've said he knows you better than you know yourself. You seemed to want it that way. Never have I seen you object to his using what he knows. Even now, you're not upset by his plastering your secrets all over the wall, but because you think he might be doing the same to the rest of us."
Kirk silently acknowledged that it was so. He remembered how angry he had been at Koh for using Konti. McCoy went on.
"When you and Spock became Christians last year, you began being completely transparent with everybody, not just each other. Many copied you because of how thoroughly you modeled this behavior. There are no secrets among us. We don't need personal defense mechanisms. We fear no attack. Vulnerability is a non-issue.
"As to whether the puzzles require intimate personal history to solve, it's entirely possible. Spock has the knowledge. But if he's used it, it won't be any more a problem for us than it is for you."
Throughout this explanation, Spock endured Kirk's scrutiny in silence. And knowing how much Kirk could read in his body language, Spock remained motionless as well.
Kirk sighed. "Difficult to remain silent. I wonder how accurate McCoy's answers are. No answer would be easier than a wrong answer, wouldn't it? Anyway," he gestured at the message on the wall, "thanks for the warning."
Kirk decided the others deserved the benefit of the same warning, so he gathered them all together for a conference before pressing on. He stared at the message one more time. It read:
Remember 280
Belly scar
7th day 1st mo 4 min
1550
Challenge to a 16 mind
No breaks
"There's a story behind each of those six phrases. I will tell those stories, but not now. The overall message behind them is that what we are about to face will press the limits of our endurance. I mean, it's going to be awful. But the most important ingredient to our survival is not strength, but trust.
"Do you still consent to go on? Or do we tell Spock to call it off?"
They each answered in the affirmative. So Kirk led off, and they resumed their journey. Within ten minutes, conditions began to deteriorate. The corridor began to slope upward, sometimes so steeply that steps were necessary. Often they were uneven; more like rocks than man-made stairs. The walls varied in width, sometimes so narrow as to require sideways walking. They strapped Scotty and Chekov to the stretchers, and it was still agony, especially for Chekov's legs.
They came to a section where the ceiling descended to the point that forward progress was possible only by crawling on their bellies. Kirk and Sulu each pulled a stretcher behind them. Uhura guided the second stretcher from behind. Spock and McCoy strapped their broken arms to their sides, and pulled themselves through one-handed. On the far side, Kirk called a halt for a brief rest. He wanted a medical report. It had only been three hours, but he wanted a close watch on everybody's condition. This was only going to get worse.
McCoy's report was brief. "Everybody's doing as well as I would expect. Nobody's in serious trouble. Morale's still high. Nobody's exhausted. How about you?"
"Me? I'm fine. It takes a lot to exhaust me."
"Are you drinking?"
"No. I suppose I should. No IV's in this game."
"No IV's? Why would you think there would be?"
"I'm used to consuming nothing except by IV for days and weeks at a time."
"It's positively criminal!" McCoy was still angry at what they had done to Kirk.
Kirk laughed. "Depends on your perspective. I suppose you think what we're doing today is not criminal?"
"That's different!"
"Is it?"
McCoy didn't answer.
They pressed on. Within another hour, their surroundings had become definitely cave-tunnel-like, as opposed to corridor-like. The light gradually dimmed and finally disappeared altogether. Opinion was unanimous, however, that this did not imply a lengthy rest break. They were to proceed, but with only the light available from the hand torches they carried. To conserve power, they used only two at a time.
The temperature dropped, the humidity increased, and a cold wind began to blow. Kirk had been sweating slightly. Now he was chilled and grateful to be wearing clothes. They wrapped Scotty and Chekov in thermal blankets. The rest of them could move to stay warm. A few hours later, the climate changed again, to hot and humid. Thereafter, the climate changed every few hours, from one extreme to another, the transitions shocking their systems.
Then there began to be choices in their route. Having no idea whether his choices made any real difference, Kirk invariably chose whichever route looked more difficult.
Kirk lost all track of time. His only concern was that the others survive this. The question of his own survival never entered his thinking. In spite of the circumstances, he was nowhere near his own personal limit. But the whole point of this was to find out where the others' limits were. And what happened when they were reached.
He took to making a visual inspection at every opportunity. And he asked for a medical report so often that McCoy got annoyed.
"Look, I'll tell you if somebody's dying. Other than that, we're surviving. Just barely." He paused. "I'm sorry, Jim. I know you're concerned. I am too. I wish I could tell you we're all fine. On the other hand, if we were, that would just mean it was going to get a lot worse. As it is, I don't know how much more we can take."
"Still trust Spock?"
"With my life. More to the point, with Chekov's and Scotty's lives."
At another rest break, Kirk made the rounds, checking on each one. In spite of their exhaustion, morale was still high. And each reiterated their trust in Spock. Suddenly McCoy cried out in alarm. Kirk scrambled to his aid, only to discover Spock had keeled over. McCoy had his scanner out.
"He's put himself into a trance. That's just what we need!"
"Why? What do you mean?"
"Spock can make himself unconscious at will. There's more than one way to pull him out of it. In this case, I suspect he has a pre-arranged trigger of some kind. What concerns me more is why he did this."
"And that is?"
"I don't know, but I can think of three possibilities. Maybe there's something up ahead for which he needs to be unconscious. Maybe he's afraid your questions will force him to talk."
"I don't think so. Nothing could make him talk if he'd decided not to."
"Or maybe he wants you to leave him here."
"Not a chance. We stick together."
"The other possibility is he wants to make you carry him."
"I can do that."
They rigged shoulder straps for carrying the stretchers one-handed. When they started out again, Kirk had Spock over his shoulder, and steadied Scotty's stretcher with his left hand. Uhura was moved to the back of Scotty's stretcher. Sulu and McCoy carried Chekov. That way each stretcher had three hands and a shoulder. When they came to tight spots, Kirk took Scotty through, then returned with the stretcher and took Spock through on a second trip.
Kirk had no idea what else Spock could throw at them, but was no longer surprised that he found a way to make it worse. They were resting after a particularly long crawl space. Suddenly the rocks under them became burning hot. They stood up and the rocks immediately cooled off. They sat down and the rocks heated up again. This time they didn't cool off until they started walking again. Thereafter the rocks only allowed them four minutes of rest at a time. Kirk was tempted to call a halt every fifteen minutes, but didn't want to risk the possibility that they would be denied even the four minute break. So he compromised with a break every hour.
He wasn't sure how to keep everybody moving through the next crawl space. But Chekov solved the problem by pointing out that he could pull himself through with a little help from Uhura. This freed Sulu to pull Scotty through, with McCoy helping from behind. Kirk rigged a harness to pull Spock behind him without a stretcher.
At every four minute break, Kirk made the rounds to check on everybody. Thus he himself got no rest at all. Neither did McCoy. Gradually their forward progress slowed to a stumbling crawl. But as long as they moved, the rocks stayed cool.
At some point during that interminable trek, Uhura began to sing. It was an old song, with simple words about the will to endure, to overcome, to press on. Chekov joined her. Then Scotty did too. Kirk had thought Scotty unconscious, but the song roused him. It seemed to give them all new energy, even Sulu who hadn't even heard it.
Finally they were reduced to crawling a few feet every time the stones got hot. Even Kirk was starting to feel exhausted, but only because he was carrying Spock. Even so, he could have kept going, but he would not leave the others. He had put Sulu in front some ways back, because he didn't trust himself to set a pace they could all maintain.
Suddenly he became aware of a source of light up ahead. He was tempted to go investigate, but decided not to. They must stay together. Eventually they would reach the light. The rocks would force them to keep going. Kirk made the rounds once again, and asked each one if they still trusted Spock. They did. He encouraged them that the end was in sight. They picked up a little speed, and within half an hour had reached the light source.
It was an oasis of ordinary corridor in this endless tunnel of rock. On the wall was another message. They sat in a stupor for at least twenty minutes, just grateful to be there. No rocks tormented them to move on.
Kirk read the message. It was in Standard, very brief, and straight-forward.
Put all the puzzles together,
Speak the key words,
And I will awake.
Gradually the others stirred, read the message, and began to discuss it. Kirk let them talk for half an hour. He was somewhat surprised they were still mentally coherent in spite of their exhaustion. Finally he stood and tried to summarize.
"Okay, you all agree that this riddle means that Spock will wake up if we can figure out the right words to say. So what do the star charts, battle plan, chemical formula, circuit diagrams, Romulan nonsense, and my cryptic phrases all have in common? Could the connection be some shared experience, rather than each puzzle having its own solution? Or maybe it's some combination of personal history and shared history."
"Cap'n, have ye any more thought on why yer message was in Morse?"
"No, but I remember when I learned the code. I was eight, I think. Friend of mine at school, his name was Mark, we thought it was cool to have a secret code. Used it to pass messages for months. One day we discovered this girl in class had been reading them all before passing them on. We felt betrayed. Funny thing, though, by the time we were in high school, she was a good friend. We shared the same dream - getting into the Academy." He paused. "Sorry, sometimes things that happened a long time ago seem closer. Anyway, where were we?"
"Keptin, could 'betray' be one of the key words? I've just remembered what's important about one of those star charts - the one out in the middle of nowhere. That's where we were when we met up with First's vessel the first time."
Understanding dawned on their faces, but Kirk was clueless.
"Sorry, Keptin, I forgot you don't remember. Spock deliberately betrayed you, but you refused to consider him an enemy."
With this direction as a framework, they fit all the pieces together. Uhura's Romulan was unscrambled to become something Ael had said to her. Sulu's battle plan was the one they had used against the Tomarii, when Spock had been negotiating as a Romulan officer. Each puzzle brought to mind an incident in which the situation had been resolved only by trusting someone who appeared to be an enemy. Kirk looked at Spock who was still unconscious. In all their discussion, they somehow hadn't hit on the right combination of words. Then he thought of his relationship with Konti. The concept could be summed up in one sentence.
"Enemies betray trust, but overcome betrayal by trusting your enemy."
Spock woke up.
"Computer, end program."
Immediately they found themselves on the bare holodeck floor, dazed, still exhausted, but no longer actively in pain. Their injuries had evaporated along with the tunnel walls. Spock rose and faced Kirk.
"Debriefing now would be best, unless exhaustion prohibits clarity of thought."
"Bones, what do you think?"
McCoy had already begun scanning them. "You two can stay up all night if you want, but the rest of these folks need several hours of rest to recover from this little party. And Spock, I'm warning you, just because his endurance is multiplied doesn't mean it's endless."
"Acknowledged, Doctor."
Kirk and Spock talked for four hours, going over every detail. Kirk shared his impressions of each of them. Spock asked probing question after question, giving no indication of his agreement or disagreement of Kirk's answers. Finally they began to discuss Spock himself.
"And what have you learned of me?"
Kirk chuckled. "You weigh less than Konti does."
"You are not angry then?"
"No. I thought the whole thing was rather well done. Not boring. You should meet Koh sometime and compare notes."
"What I know on the subject I learned from you."
"I marvel at how much you got from such a short probe."
"I know your mind well. I have been there many times."
"Were McCoy's answers correct?"
"Yes, but I would not have told you if they weren't."
"You're as stubborn as I am. What I marvel most at is how much they trust you. It never wavered."
"They learned it from you."
