"First thing I'm going to do when I get home," McCoy said dreamily, eyes fixed in mid-air, "is take myself down to the parkland west of the Savannah, south of Augusta, where my dad used to keep a boat, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest trace of anything. Going to head downriver a day or two, going to feel the breeze on my face and going to moor up for the night where there's no one else to see, not so far as a voice can carry - and a voice can carry a long, long way when the night is black and the fields are empty." He let his voice die away, tilted his head back, closed his eyes briefly and then opened them directly at Kirk to say severely
"And I'm not once going to think of either of you."
Kirk gave him a grin.
"You're just saying that, Bones. It'll feel so strange without us, you'll be asking to be back in the Polaris before the first bend in the river."
McCoy snorted.
"Nevertheless," Spock said, from Kirk's left, "it is of interest that your preferred situation appears to be supplied by a method of transport. Whilst the environment may contrast in many ways, there is perhaps less that is inherently objectionable to you in a shuttle journey to Romulus if your optimal circumstances are a boat on the Savannah river."
"Well, of all the nonsensical, idiotic, insensitive, ridiculous, ignorant pieces of baloney, that takes the biscuit," came the inevitable irate response, while Kirk sat back in amused resignation. "This shuttle has about as much in common with a boat on the Savannah as you do with my great uncle Bob. Last time I checked you both had ten fingers and toes. Difference is, he made sense occasionally, when he hadn't had too much bourbon. Why on earth would I want to be locked up in half a shuttle with the pair of you, just because I can appreciate the peace of a boat on the water on a Georgian evening?"
"I merely attempted to suggest, doctor," the Vulcan said, unperturbed, "that had your preference, for example, been the company of a much larger quantity of individuals, I could have more readily understood your frustration at being unable to leave the Polaris."
McCoy eyed him.
"Let me tell you something, Mr Spock," he said, getting to his feet. "You have absolutely no idea what frustration means to anyone unfortunate enough to be exposed for any length of time to your company. I'd choose the mosquitos on the river any day. But forget Savannah, I'm expecting to be hauled straight from this shuttle to the funny farm. As for you, I imagine first chance you get when you're back, you'll go find a bigger computer to talk to. Have a good shift, Jim. Another day gone. Thank God for small mercies."
In the wake of the doctor's departure, Kirk rubbed his face and took the seat vacated by McCoy. Looking across at his companion, he caught a speculative look on Spock's face.
"Do you have a question, Mr Spock?"
"I was merely curious, Captain, as to what your own destination of choice might be, once the mission is accomplished."
Kirk smiled, slowly.
"Well, I might take a leaf out of Bones' book and talk about going home, back to Iowa. God knows that offers contrast enough, if I needed it. But in fact, I'm planning on taking that trip to Yosemite. Still got the gear, waiting in my apartment, and El Capitan is still there, waiting for me." He shot a sideways look at Spock. "Asked you before if you wanted to come with me, Spock. Would still like your company, if you've had time to think about it."
Spock did not answer immediately, and Kirk saw that the reason was not a refusal of the invitation but that the Vulcan had something on his mind, something to do with a boat on the Savannah and the cliffs of El Capitan. He watched and waited, and into the silence between the two and the deeper silence which had persisted since the Neutral Zone, the console beeped.
The Enterprise's First Officer was the first to move, lightning swift. He bent over the monitor, fingers accessing blind sequences in a display of proficiency which would have come naturally to any world standard concert pianist. And then Spock turned to his CO, hesitation gone, as if the tentative personal exchange had never started.
"It is a basic universal binary distress signal, Captain."
"Source?"
"We are passing through a small system," Spock said. "The strength and direction of the signal suggests to me that it originates from the largest planet, which is sixty seven point eight thousand metres at zero seven mark two."
"And the planet?"
"Readings indicate Class M, sir. Nitrogen oxygen atmosphere, extensive plant and animal life forms. No immediate evidence of advanced civilisation, Romulan or otherwise."
"Then who's talking to us?"
"Unknown. It must," Spock added, "be at least a computable possibility, given the nature of the signal, that it is automated and the reason for its establishment defunct."
Kirk drummed his fingers lightly on the arms of his chair. Spock watched, didactic memory recalling the same dynamic a thousand times on the bridge of the Enterprise, decisions which had led to discovery and challenge and tragedy and triumph – before, inevitably, the subsequent post mortem. Spock knew, better than anyone, the effect on Kirk on taking life and death decisions in the way most people decide whether to have another cup of coffee. He also knew that it was something of the measure of the man that he had fought for the right to go on taking those decisions, after Starfleet had offered him a gentler choice.
Here, though, it was just the two of them, the Polaris and McCoy. And their orders, of course.
"I'm going down," Kirk said abruptly, as Spock had known he would.
"Sir, the orders from Starfleet Command –"
"- said nothing about distress calls or visiting friends on the way. Lay in a course, Commander. We'll just check it out, stretch our legs."
"My lower limbs," said Spock, "are in no need of being lengthened. Moreover –" but he checked, in mid-sentence, at the look on Kirk's face, and he knew why. It was the first time since Mount Seleya he had embarked on a Vulcan tease; he could see written all over Kirk's face the question which had entirely supplanted the uncertainty of thirty seconds ago. Is there someone down there in trouble, or am I taking us into a trap? had become Does Spock know what he is saying? Was that – was that really a joke?
He turned to lay in a course to take them into orbit and hit the shuttle's intercom system, unused until that point, and said to it, "Dr McCoy, your presence is requested in the main cabin" and reached for communicators and phasers, entirely because they were necessary landing equipment and not because it allowed him to conceal his expression from Kirk, to ascertain the way ahead (and not just on the planet below). He heard McCoy grumble, "I know my rights – it's not my shift. Can't the two of you manage for five minutes without me?" and Kirk said, briefly,
"There's a distress signal emanating from a planet nearby, Bones. Spock and I are going to check it out. The Polaris is yours. Try not to break anything." His tone was entirely normal and the only sound in the cabin, as the shuttle turned smoothly at the Vulcan's bidding into the familiar circle of orbit, was of McCoy retrieving a coffee and Kirk making a log entry. The moment was gone and the two of them were beaming into the old accustomed familiarity of planetfall, of the search for unknown answers and for the shape of the way home.
"Here is your answer, Captain."
Kirk had materialised into dazzling sunshine and a sweep of grassland. He could hear birdsong, sweet and clear in an otherwise peaceful silence. Trees swayed in a gentle breeze. Above him crowded a range of hills, standing benevolently around the valley, shoulder to shoulder, reminiscent of the stance of the Vulcan backing him up. He took a moment silently to thank a benevolent deity for the simple fact of Spock's presence there, just behind him. He had beamed down to a number of destinations after they had stopped serving together, and had never quite got used to the feel of materialising without Spock behind him. It had grown to feel so much part of the transporter effect that he felt more naked beaming down to San Francisco without it than would have been the case transporting into a Romulan stronghold with just Spock at his back.
He hoped that wasn't exactly what he had just done.
He also wondered, again, It was a joke, wasn't it? Spock just made a joke – and then he put the thought away, and his eyes were raking the prospect in front of him, analysing, checking out. Spock had his tricorder in his hands and Kirk stepped away slightly, looking around.
McCoy had been right, of course, about his Georgian boat, and so was he, with his plans of Yosemite. This was the antidote to the Polaris, this soft green footfall, the wind on his face, the vista of hills. He drew a deep breath, and Spock said,
"There are no humanoid or Romulan life forms, Captain. I surmise, however, that the source of the signal is at three hundred and twenty six metres to our left, where the tricorder indicates an artificial construction."
Kirk nodded and the two set off in a companionable silence. In the direction Spock had indicated was a low hill on which, as they drew near, appeared a small stone edifice at the top of a flight of stone steps. Kirk ran up, two at a time, with Spock behind him. The Vulcan had long since ceased to insist on going first on these occasions, and he had known that his CO would be first to arrive at the anomaly, just as he had known that Kirk would take the stairs two at a time. He would not have been able to explain how he knew or why Kirk did it, just that it was true, that he would take the first step with his right foot, and then the third and the fifth and the seventh, because he always did. He even knew that at the top Kirk would pause infinitesimally, wait for Spock to catch up and survey the hills briefly, hand up to shade his eyes from the sun, before the two regarded the edifice together.
Spock reached out to a device embedded at shoulder height.
"Here, Captain, is the point of origin. It is a simple binary electronic emitter."
"For what purpose?"
"Unknown. However, it may simply act as a marker. It is likely that this building functions as some sort of memorial."
"To the dead?" Kirk walked around the stone wall. There was no point of entry, simply a shape on a hill in the sunshine. On one side, an area of perhaps half a metre square had been smoothed and words were cut deep into the stonework.
"It is a memorial to the departed," Spock confirmed.
"Is it Romulan custom to bury the dead in places like this? The planet isn't even inhabited."
"I do not believe it is a tomb, sir. I suspect it marks an historical event."
"With a distress signal. Perhaps that is the Romulan way, a sign of grief." Kirk reached his hand to the stone, which was cold to the touch. "Well, mystery solved." Spock watched him as he hesitated briefly, then picked up his communicator.
"Kirk to Polaris. Bones, we've found the source of the signal. It appears to be an old memorial. We'll wait here twenty minutes before beaming up, just to check there's nothing untoward."
He put the communicator away, smiled cheerfully at the Vulcan, walked over to the brow of the hill and sat down.
"Sir," said Spock carefully, "would you like to elucidate on the purpose of waiting here for twenty minutes?"
"Well, I think it would be prudent to ensure we're not missing anything. And I owe myself twenty minutes in the sunshine, Mr Spock. You're allowed to enjoy it, you know. It's just paradise; it's not a dereliction of duty."
He leaned back on his elbows, and Spock said, slowly,
"Might I make an observation, Captain?"
"In the past twenty years I've never once been able to stop you," said Kirk, pleasantly. The Vulcan checked and opened his mouth, and Kirk corrected himself, hastily, "I mean, of course, go on." And he saw, then, somehow, that what Spock wanted to say was to do with Yosemite and had been interrupted by the binary signal and so he put his arms on his knees, sat up and waited.
"Sir, you appear to be perturbed by certain choices you believe I make in relation to the range of options presented by a combination of human and Vulcan heritage."
"That's a fair approximation," Kirk conceded.
"Whilst you believe that options available to me include the conscious assumption of Vulcan customs and cultures on the one hand and human comportment on the other, your tendency is to criticise whenever circumstances dictate either extreme, instead preferring me to compromise through a combination of behaviours."
You don't like it when I'm either human or Vulcan. You want me on the fence, in the place of conflict and compromise. McCoy had said something very similar, a few days ago, and he had been right, too. This was Spock's response to the parallel he had drawn about Janice Lester's self-hatred. He had wondered what it would be.
"That's probably fair enough," Kirk conceded. "Where are you going with this, Spock? And what's the connection to El Capitan?"
"I merely observe, sir, that most beings carry around their own dichotomies. Mine is perhaps more obvious, given my biological heritage, and certainly gives the good doctor substantial ammunition for constant gratuitous commentary. However, you yourself carry no less inner conflict."
It wasn't a memory to which he'd expected Spock to bring him. It was a place comprising territory long forbidden to himself by Kirk, even in the most solitary of musings. Sulu, freezing on the planet; Rand's tears and accusing eyes; his own arms around a silent figure in gold, stepping up to the transporter platform. I don't want to go back…. The imposter's back where he belongs. Let's forget him. And even as he began the customary instinct to clamp down on the memory, he saw a look of comprehension on the Vulcan's face, and knew immediately that he was mistaken.
"Forgive me, Captain. I was not referring to events on Alpha 177."
He nodded, registering the look of consternation on Spock's face. Spock knew exactly what the memory meant to Kirk, would have been dismayed to have been thought capable of bringing it up. He said nothing, but watched the Vulcan almost visibly giving him time to come back to the moment. And Kirk realised how far they had come, even in the brief ten days since leaving Earth. This Spock, the Spock who knew exactly what Kirk was thinking, who was perturbed at inadvertently raising the ghost of Kirk's own divided self, had never walked by his side to Sausalito and refused to call him Jim. He would settle for this. Even if the rest of the journey took longer than he thought, even if they always bore the scars of Mount Seleya, he had been wrong to be scared off by Spock's lesson about didactic memory, by the Vulcan's stiff manner since his return, as though he were invoking long disused dialogue, rusty connections, dusty words. So what? This was his friend.
He smiled at Spock, found it came quite easily, despite the old ghosts.
"Why don't you sit down? Tell me about my inner conflict."
Somewhat to his surprise, Spock lowered himself to the top step, and said,
"I merely observe, Captain, that you manifest, from time to time, two opposing tendencies or inclinations. One is embodied in the command persona, and the other lies in the desire for peace, solitude and the pursuit of nature. Surely, they are no less diverse than elements in my own psychological profile? And yet you rarely achieve a compromise where they are both present in any obvious way. Your normal pattern is to live fully in the command function. Your preference when not on duty is to engage in very different pursuits."
Kirk considered this. He couldn't help but feel encouraged that Spock was turning the tables, was quite flattered to be the object of Spock's psychoanalysis but that didn't mean he was necessarily going to agree with it.
"I see your point," he said. "But it's hardly the same, is it? What I choose to do with my time depending on whether I'm on duty or not is very different from the sorts of choices you make."
"I may have over-simplified my point. Let me re-phrase it."
Kirk bit back a grin. At least one thing was unchanged. There was something about the way Spock attempted to make himself clear to human interlocutors which had never failed to amuse his captain. It always involved an inference of adopting the language of inferior intellect, of a renowned professor attempting to address a promising pre-school gathering, which Kirk found particularly endearing, coming as it did from the least arrogant of beings.
"It was evident to me, when serving with you on the Enterprise," continued the least arrogant of beings, "that you were constantly drawn to two extremes in terms of personal circumstance. One was dominant, and that was the command function. The other was the opposite entirely, the abnegation of all responsibility."
Kirk looked at him, curiously, wondering if he was going to have to revisit the entirety of the five year mission from the perspective of having been covertly psycho-analysed by Spock.
"You're talking about Miramanee, aren't you? The obelisk."
"In part. There were other occasions."
"Others?"
"Sir, your natural inclination is to describe an unspoiled planet as a "paradise". This brings with it a range of connotations and imputes a certain frame of mind. You may also recall this dynamic with regard to Gamma Trianguli Six and Tyree's planet. On all those occasions, you used phrases such as "the Garden of Eden" and you also spoke of serpents, of the departure from Eden, even of Satan. Colourful imagery, but nonetheless indicative of a state of mind, of a value set. Before you were lost below the obelisk, Dr McCoy spoke of the Tahiti syndrome."
Kirk regarded him a little warily. He was not given to being cross-examined on his psyche and had had in the past more than one sharp exchange of words with McCoy on the subject – which, to be fair, McCoy had taken in good part. Kirk was apt to say that he was aware of being a flawed human being and would prefer to admit to such and avoid the need for spending too much time with his faults, face to face. Fairness demanded now, however, that he hear what Spock had to say.
Spock appeared to take his silence as an invitation to continue.
"Almost your first words on beaming down to Gamma Trianguli Six, in naming it a paradise, were by implication critical of Starfleet. Dr McCoy suggested that our intrusion was unfortunate and your response was that you were operating under orders and had no choice. In fact, during most of that particular mission, you constantly questioned your orders. When Ensign Mallory was killed, you yielded to self-recrimination and you seemed both to be protective of the planet and of the crew you had lost on the one hand, and resentful of Starfleet orders on the other."
"Nothing much wrong with your memory, Spock. What are you trying to say?" Perhaps this was as good a way forward as any. Perhaps letting Spock sort out Kirk's own mind might even, conversely, be a better way to restore them, to find the way back.
"I am suggesting, sir, with respect, that your conduct indicates that you are torn between two extremes, between the command role and between the privacy of what is known as the simple life. And your choice has always been extreme. You could have lived a different kind of life, which would have involved both elements in your daily existence, but you chose instead to deny a not insignificant part of who you are, to the great benefit, of course, of Starfleet and the Federation. Nevertheless, I believe this indicates that you made a choice not dissimilar to mine."
Kirk stared at him.
And Spock looked back, with rather more trepidation than he was prepared to disclose in his impassive features. He was aware that Kirk allowed him a very significant amount of personal latitude, but he also knew that the odds were vanishingly small (29,851 to one against) that anyone else, saving perhaps McCoy, would have dared to suggest to James T Kirk how his brain worked.
The truth was that the day after Kirk had been retrieved from the obelisk and Miramanee had died, McCoy had arrived at Spock's quarters with an unprecedented bottle of guava juice and an even more unprecedented apology. Spock had been unprepared for either and only really interested in the guava juice. However, it transpired that McCoy had felt the need to talk through what had happened, the days and nights of the journey back to the obelisk, the dread of being too late, the single fear which had united and divided the two of them and which no one else, not even Kirk, would ever know. And although the words "I apologise, Mr Spock, you were absolutely right and I was entirely in the wrong" had yet, to Spock's knowledge, ever in twenty years to cross McCoy's lips, he had also come to the Vulcan's quarters to acknowledge the lonely road that Spock had walked down, those fifty nine days on his way back to Kirk, with everyone else giving up or, worse, looking at him with open accusation.
And this was how Spock knew how McCoy viewed the whole episode. The strange thing being that, illogical as it was, at some point, Spock had adopted this view himself.
From McCoy's perspective, the reality of the history was so entirely surpassed by what it symbolised that the facts – a beautiful planet, a dead girl buried with a child who never drew breath – were almost mythical. Kirk had arrived at the obelisk planet and had fallen in love with another reality, the choice he had never made. No problems, no command decisions, just living. And, somehow, that was what he had accordingly managed for himself. He had lost command, lost the ability (let alone the need) to decide, had embarked on just living. Had swum and slept and laughed and loved. Had made a child. Had given up everything. And would have done so permanently, except that Spock had refused to let him make the choice. Spock had walked deep space for fifty nine days and nights and brought Kirk back not only physically but mentally to the ship he had surrendered. And Kirk had, at Spock's insistence, accepted back the gift of command, of the life he had chosen first.
Which was interesting in the context of choices and the decisions Spock had made about his own future and those which Kirk had wanted to make for him.
There was a silence, there on the hill top by the strange stonework, into which Kirk said absolutely nothing. After a little while, Spock continued,
"Your role has necessitated both the abnegation of self and the interference with a number of Edens, and I suggest that one exemplifies the other. Perhaps, sir, the exemplar of all the occasions when you have defied the Prime Directive was with regard to yourself."
Kirk gave a wry smile.
"Poetic, Spock?"
"Perhaps, sir. I do not mean to criticise. Far from it. Whilst you overtly would have preferred other choices to those I have made for myself, I have, as you know, only admiration for the way in which you have excelled in your chosen path. I simply suggest that we all make choices. Further, it seems to me that only someone who has the self-discipline to make choices for himself can make choices on behalf of an entire planet."
Kirk stirred. He had put up a shield against some of the memories Spock had conjured up, was deliberately distancing himself from some of the images but was unable not to interject, at that point,
"Not always choice, Spock. There were plenty of times I had no choice at all. Plenty of times I made the wrong one. You brought up Tyree. Nothing much to be proud of there."
"And other times? The choice you made at Gamma Trianguli Six was that it was better to leave paradise if paradise were stagnation. As you know, I entertained doubts on that decision. You were the one who had the strength to be able to make it, perhaps because you had already made choices about leaving behind personal stagnation when you decided on command. Consider Eiminiar Seven. Hardly a paradise when we arrived, Captain, but you were prepared to take the decision which changed their future for the better."
He smiled then, more naturally.
"Much to your chagrin, as I remember, Commander." Spock had said, A feeling is not much to go on, and he had replied, Sometimes a feeling is all we humans have to go on. And Spock had said, in one of his biggest ever end-of-mission concessions, Captain, you almost make me believe in luck, and he still remembered the rush of warmth, had looked at Spock and reflected how they had come through yet another day, he and this other-half of himself from a different world, and said Mr Spock, you almost make me believe in miracles.
"You took those poisoned thorns for me," he said suddenly. "On Gamma Trianguli. You deliberately pushed me aside and took them."
Spock looked back, and then said, very gently,
"I apologised at the time for my clumsiness."
"I didn't mean-"
"You rightly pointed out that Starfleet had invested significant amounts in my training and that I should have been mindful of this in preserving myself from unnecessary risk."
Kirk gave him a sharp look and the Vulcan looked blandly back.
Yes, that was exactly what he had said. Spock had pushed him out of the way so fast he had hardly understood what was happening until Spock was lying on the ground and McCoy was treating him and getting no response; he had tried to get them off the planet but the transporter had failed and then he had seen Spock sitting up and the shattering relief had turned immediately to anger – Just what do you think you were trying to do? – and just as swiftly to the refuge of Do you know how much Starfleet has invested in you? Of course, he had known that Spock would immediately translate this as You scared me.
Was he forgetting that he, too, was experienced in translation?
Merely my quite logical relief that Starfleet had not lost a highly proficient captain.
Should he have seen in that light, It would not be proper to refer to you as Jim whilst you are in command, Admiral? Spock's comments on the Polaris on Gary Mitchell, on Edith - It was not a logical reaction and remains inconsistent with the competencies and behaviours necessary for command?
Perhaps in some cases, not others. No question Spock was opening up, was changed from the more forbidding figure of the first couple of days on the shuttle.
Was this what Spock was trying to tell him?
He took a chance, said,
"Well, that's all very well, but it's not to happen again, Commander. After all, you've got to factor in not only Starfleet's investment but the fal-tor-pan as well, now. So – no more clumsiness, right?"
"That would seem logical."
"And there's absolutely no question of any personal involvement in the object of the exercise – I mean, it's not as though you were trying to save my life, or anything like that, right?"
"That would be a presumption on my part, Captain."
"Damn right. It's not as though I hadn't seen the problem. In fact, you just got in the way when I was trying to avoid the plant."
"It was unforgiveable of me to hinder your escape, sir."
"Apology accepted. On which note," he said, pushing himself off the grass and climbing to his feet, "I think our time is up." He turned back to the stonework.
"How old do you think it is, Spock?"
"The monument? I would estimate perhaps fifteen years, sir."
"Nothing to do with Colton, then. And the binary emitter?"
Spock picked up the tricorder. He angled his head in a way which, Kirk knew, often substituted for a change in tone, and said,
"It appears to have been manufactured less than a year ago."
Kirk raised his eyebrows.
"Suggesting that someone is trying to show us something. At any rate, there's no current emergency, so I think we can resume our journey." Turning, he laid a hand on the cold stonework one last time, in a gesture of salute or farewell which took him by surprise.
"I wonder who he was," he said, and then his communicator sounded and he nodded to Spock as McCoy's voice filtered through and the transporter effect took them away from the hillside.
Back again in the enclosed sterility of the shuttle, he noticed that Spock went straight to the computer banks and watched as the Vulcan effected a download from the tricorder and studied the results.
"What are you looking at, Spock?"
The Vulcan turned with a preoccupied expression.
"I recorded a visual image of the writing on the edifice, Captain, with a view to obtaining a Romulan translation from the computer's linguistic coding. It appears to comprise a single name."
"And that is?"
"Commander Marillus."
Kirk's eyes widened.
"Coincidence?"
"It is reasonable to assume that there are many Romulans of that name, Captain," Spock said, but for all that his demeanour was the Vulcan equivalent of uncertain.
"Does make you wonder, though."
"What are you wondering, Jim?" McCoy asked, coming back into the cabin.
"We're on our way to Romulus to meet up with a Romulan called Marillus, and we get diverted to an unmanned distress signal built into a memorial to someone of the same name." He remembered the moment on the planet, an unexpected feeling of awareness of the dead Romulan, and then, Kirk-like, he put the memory away and nodded crisply to Spock.
"Set a course to Romulus, Spock. Warp factor six. Let's go."