Almost an hour had passed. McCoy hadn't left Spock's side, constantly monitoring both his patient and the medical equipment. Nurse Chapel had wheeled together some seats for both herself and Kirk. They sat at a distance as if McCoy were giving some sort of macabre recital just for them. Kirk's gaze never left the Vulcan's face, he searched it endlessly for the minutest sign that the procedure was working. The room was silent except for the bleeps and whirs of the ceaselessly toiling machines.
Gradually one of the indicators on the board above Spock's head began to creep up. Nurse Chapel was immediately alert to it. She stood up and walked with calm efficiency to the tray of hypos. As she reached it a low insistent warning tone began to sound from the life support machine. McCoy, never lifting his gaze from Spock, wordlessly held out his open hand to receive the hypo from her. Nurse Chapel placed it firmly in his palm. There was a gentle hiss as McCoy emptied it into Spock's shoulder. The warning tone died away and the indicator fell back. The choreography of their medical ballet over, Nurse Chapel resumed her seat beside the Captain. They were quite a team the Doctor and the Nurse, reflected Kirk.
The minutes ticked by, ten minutes, twenty, thirty, forty. An uncharacteristic sheen of perspiration was now visible on the Vulcan's face. The indicator had crept back up again and the warning tone had been sounding for some few minutes. Kirk turned to the Nurse. ''It's too soon'' she said.
Fifty minutes, an hour. Spock's body had begun to twitch and tremble. The indicator had reached halfway up the board and a new alarm was duetting with the first. Kirk turned again to the Nurse. Surely now? But she resolutely held her seat. Seventy minutes, eighty, ninety. Finally she rose. A second hypo was administered as wordlessly as the first. This time the indicator did not fall and the warning tones did not cease, but the trembling and twitching subsided. Nurse Chapel resumed her seat next to Kirk.
The minutes moved on, nearly three hours had now passed. Kirk watched as the tremors started to reclaim Spock's body. They increased in intensity as the minutes crawled by. Fifty more minutes and this would be all over, thought Kirk. Inwardly he began to count down each painful second. Forty minutes and this would be all over. There was no longer any need of machines to register Spock's distress, he was whimpering, pitifully and barely audibly. Kirk knew now the reason Christine Chapel had wept.
Thirty minutes. The tremors wracking Spock's body were now so violent that the bed was shaking with him. Twenty. The med-lab technicians returned. Ten minutes. McCoy administered the final hypo as the last of the filtered blood was transfused back, but Spock's torment continued unabated. Nurse Chapel left the room and returned minutes later with a single hypospray laid out on a tray. The anti-toxin presumed Kirk. She took it to McCoy's side, he pressed it against Spock's trembling shoulder and Kirk heard the soft hiss of the anti-toxin being driven in to do its work. The technicians detached the filtration unit from the life support unit, wheeling it, and the trolley upon which it stood, out of sickbay. Kirk left his chair to stand where the unit had been. Gradually, mercifully, the tremors rocking Spock's body began to subside. He seemed less anguished now, but he was still deathly pale. Kirk glanced up at the board above his head. McCoy was collecting up the discarded trays and hypos for Nurse Chapel to dispose of. ''The worst is over Jim'' he said ''but he needs rest. We've put him through hell.''
''How are you Bones?'' said Kirk.
''I guess I could do with a little rest myself'' said the Doctor. He said it, but Kirk knew he wouldn't leave the Vulcan's side until his recovery was a little more certain.
A last faint tremor shuddered through Spock's body and he was finally still. Still and silent as the grave.