Chapter 11- Is There In Truth No Beauty?

Disclaimer and pairings as before.

((This is longer than my other chapters, and I'm not really sure why. Sorry I've been sitting on it so long, something serious came up at home and I've been under a lot of pressure.

This story is also posted on the Spock/McCoy Haven on Yahoo Groups and on under the screenname "Traycon3 and Fishey Me".))

Leonard sat up with a start to the sound of boots tromping on the planks above him. Scotty wasn't in the room, so Leonard figured that the boots on deck were the landing party. He pulled on his waistcoat, jacket and tricorn, pulling his cravat out of his pocket and draping it around his neck as he walked out of his quarters. Just before he left, he grabbed the doorframe, turned around and undid his hammock. He rolled the cloth up tight like Scotty had shown him his first day. While he wasn't fond of the little routine, he had to admit that after a day in the sun, the hammock smelled better than when he left it in the cabin. The gun deck reeked of mold, stale water, and waste and the smell seeped into even the 'officer's' cabins.

Officers, the physician thought to himself, go figure. He had never thought that the men who protected his country, his colony, and his family from all the dangers of the sea would ever need or want to defect. Kirk's situation was certainly… incredible- in every sense of the word. When he stepped up on deck he felt a fresh gust of the morning breeze smack him sharply in the face with that kind of cold that only a midsummer sunrise can manage- after the night had settled in and before the day could begin to heat up. He shivered and finished tying his cravat, if only to keep his neck warm. The boys on deck were lugging crates of citrus and root vegetables, barrels of pickled cabbages and cucumbers, sacks of hardtack and salt pork, barrels of ale, beer, and rum ('cheap stuff,' Scotty had mentioned as he rolled the barrel past the doctor to the lower hold), and four live pigs.

Kirk smiled at McCoy from up on the quarterdeck. "Does it meet with your satisfaction, Bones?"

McCoy picked up a crate of oranges. "I'm taking these to the poor souls still in my Sickbay."

"You're welcome," Kirk muttered with a wry grin.

McCoy stomped down to the Sickbay and dropped the crate next to the wan looking blonde woman. She groaned a little, but didn't wake up. Christine walked over from one of the lad's sides. "It's a relief that we can finally do something for these people."

"I just hope it's not too late. Miss Rand was the first person I gave the oranges from my home to, and she's still the worst off."

"Well, if I tell the truth, it's probably because she slipped the captain her rations. Most of the boys didn't like the fruit or vegetables, but Janice went down almost as soon as we realized we were low on rations. She usually tends to the galley, she'd probably been making sure Captain Kirk was getting the best fare long before we ran low on supplies."

McCoy grunted with a shrug, deciding there was nothing that he could say to convey his frustration. He could not understand what made everyone on this ship so damned confounding. He didn't know how he was going to treat a ship full of mysteries. He looked at Christine, who had picked up an orange and was peeling it within her neatly kept nails.

"Why are there three women aboard this ship? Willingly, I mean. One I could understand- a runaway slave or a lovesick maid, but three?"

Christine froze, staring at the orange peel in her thin fingers. "Maybe we're three runaway slaves and lovesick maids."

McCoy plucked up an orange himself. His fingers broke bluntly through the rind and juice dripped down his fingers. "How? I don't mean to pry, but I'm going to be here a while. I want to know more about the people I'm serving with."

Christine sighed. "Nyota is a runaway slave in the most literal sense- she fled from a Dutchman who thought a woman with a skilled tongue should put her tongue to a… baser use. Fortunately, his ship ran afoul of a sand-dune before he could-" Christine blushed. "I'm told the first thing Captain Kirk did as a pirate was rob that evil man blind. He even took his pretty slave girl with him to Asia, so he could pick up some new crewmen. Kirk didn't know what he saved her from until later- and he says if he ever sees that man's ship again, he'll send it to the Vulcans as a present, complete with that Dutchman still on it."

McCoy nodded. For a man to try and do such a thing to any woman was despicable; given the chance, he would probably sink the bastard's ship as well. "Did he ever mention the man's name?"

"Trelane," Christine replied. "A squire or some Dutch equivalent. Nyota always tells me the word, but I can't ever remember."

McCoy nodded. "So, how is she lovesick?"

Christine smiled. "She loves freedom. No other ship in all the world can give her the freedom she has here."

McCoy could hear the sweet song from earlier this morning seeping through the decks even now. He smiled and nodded. "Well, it's an odd connection, but I can't fault you for it. What about Janice?"

"Janice met Captain Kirk before he turned pirate, but since he loved Miramanee, he never… well, he never solicited her services."

"She's a whore, then," McCoy sighed, looking up at the blonde woman lying on the narrow cot.

"She was. She gave it up."

"Why? It seems to me there are a lot of customers right here on this ship."

"Because even whores can be lovesick maids," Christine helped Janice upright and squeezed the orange, getting juice all over the woman's mouth and her own pale hands. "Every minute she spends here she's away from her prison. That tavern kept her away from the only man she ever wanted to love."

"Jim Kirk… I'll be damned."

Christine laughed. McCoy looked up at her and quirked an eyebrow.

"What's so funny?"

"You called the captain 'Jim'. I've never heard anyone call him that before."

"I think Spock did once…"

"Spock probably did it to get his attention. He never calls him Jim in conversation."

"What does everyone else call him? His friends, I mean?"

"What friends? As far as I know, the only man aboard this ship the captain considered a friend fell overboard almost a year ago. Everyone else calls him 'Captain' or 'sir'."

McCoy blinked. He's never considered the possibility that Kirk may have been completely isolated on his ship. He seemed like such a charming man and his crew seemed to like him a great deal. "I don't recognize his authority over me. As far as I'm concerned, he's a man and a pirate, not my captain."

Christine giggled and handed McCoy the pulp of her orange. "You and Janice, both."

McCoy scowled and handed her the other orange. "Well, then, what about you? How'd a prim and proper lass like yourself end up working for pirates?"

Christine looked down at Janice, her face becoming like a mask. "I came aboard because I've booked passage to Jamaica. I plan on meeting up with my fiancé."

McCoy blinked at her. "You 'booked passage'?"

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

McCoy frowned; judging by her expression, it was a tender subject. He looked down at Miss Rand. The pale woman's eyes were fluttering open. She groaned and clutched her stomach.

"Janice! Thank God you're awake!" Christine sighed stroking the woman's cheek. Janice blinked tiredly.

"Everything hurts, Chris."

"You've got scurvy, but fortunately we've got a doctor now who's going to make you all better. Here," she handed Janice the pulp of her orange, "eat this. It will make you feel better."

Janice nodded and gnawed weakly on the fruit. "Thanks," she panted as her eyes slowly drifted shut. Christine looked at McCoy with concern.

"It's alright," McCoy said calmly. "She's still weak. Once she's had some more fruit, she'll be on her feet again in no time. Can you handle the other three? I want to make sure all the lads on deck get and eat their oranges."

Christine smiled and nodded. "Go ahead. I'll even eat one myself, just in case."

McCoy grinned. "Eat more than one. Get as many of these fruits into these folks as you can. One orange won't cure weeks of scurvy, no matter how much better y'all may feel." Then the doctor tromped back on deck. By this point it was much warmer, almost sweltering in the midsummer morning. He heard a sharp whistle from the quarter-deck and looked up to see Sulu smirking at hum from behind the helm.

"What do you want?"

"Your neck feeling alright?" Sulu asked. "After yesterday's adventure and all?"

McCoy brought a hand up to the thin cut on his neck from where the Spaniard had pressed his sword the night before. Then he noticed the makeshift bandage on Sulu's arm. "Oh, damnit, Mr. Sulu, I'd completely forgotten-"

Sulu laughed and rocked a little on his heels. "Ah, don't worry about it, Doc. You were pretty rattled last night. I saw how you treated the lads with sores a few days ago with ale, so I poured some on my cut before I tied it. It's not like I haven't had to tie my own bandages before. You don't need a bandage or anything, do you?"

"I…" McCoy felt his face flushing. "I've had worse shaving accidents. It's no matter."

Sulu nodded. "Just looking out for you, Doc."

McCoy laughed a little, running his hand against his cut. It had already scabbed up and didn't hurt. He got one of the lads on deck to open another crate of oranges and began handing them out to the men. He took one personally to Scotty.

"Hey, I want you to eat this."

Scotty took the orange from it and began to dig into the rind with his grimy, blunt fingers. "Mighty kind of ya, lad. I was beginin' to get hungry."

McCoy quirked half a smile and began peeling his own orange. "It's come to my attention that I… I don't fight very well."

"Aye," Scotty chuckled. "That came to me attention the minute you set foot on deck."

McCoy leaned against the mast. "I'm a liability to everyone if I keep going in without a way of protecting myself. Riley and I would have died if not for Sulu. I froze back there."

"I canna say I blame ya. How many men before ye met us held knives to yer throat? How many prisons have ye broken into before?"

McCoy shook his head. "If I want to live long enough to go home in one piece, I need to know how to protect myself. Can you teach me?"

Scotty plucked a chunk of the orange into his mouth. "Well, lad, I tell ye," He chewed a bit and pat his pistol on his hip with his empty hand, "I prefer me pistol, and seein' how you donna have one of yer own, you'll probably wanna find someone better at the sword than me."

"Who, then?"

"Well, Sulu's a right swashbuckler if I ever saw one, damned handy with his blades. I've seen him take on three great devils with one leg bleedin' and still cut them all to ribbons."

"That's great. He seems to like me well enough, I'll ask him-"

"Och, no. Sulu's as closed mouthed as a man can be when it comes to technique. Says it bein' somethin' about how he was trained. In Asia we heard whispers that he'd learned his technique from mystical masters and Musketeers who crossed the seas to become Jesuit priests. It sounds like rubbish to me, but I canna deny the man fights with the Devil's skill."

"Who then?"

"I'd warrant yer best bet would be Mr. Spock. I've worked with the lad ever since he came aboard. He's good at teachin' the new lads the ropes and he's patient as a saint or a philosopher. Plus, aside from Sulu, you'll not find a man better with a sword than he is."

"Spock?" McCoy groaned, popping a quarter of orange into his mouth. "Isn't there anyone else?"

"Not even the captain can teach you well as Spock. Go on, Len. He's not quite the devil he looks like."

McCoy crossed his arms and sighed. He didn't want to ask that cold-blooded man any sort of favor. There was something about those dark, calculating eyes that made Leonard shake in his bones. He didn't trust him. Besides…

Spirit without discipline does little good, Doctor…

Something about the Vulcan just unsettled him. That really was all there was to it.

One of the lads told McCoy that Spock's shift had ended and that he was in is cabin resting. McCoy gave him the rest of his orange and told him to fetch Mr. Spock a new one from the crate. The boy nodded and scurried off. McCoy knocked on the heavy wooden door to the First Mate's cabin.

"Enter," he heard barked from the other side. McCoy stepped inside hesitantly, taking in his surroundings.

Spock was sitting in a contemplative pose on a simple wooden chair behind a simpler wooden desk in his quarters. A cot was nailed to the wall and the floor in the back corner of the room, it's mattress so thinly stuffed that the Vulcan might as well have been sleeping on the tightly wound ropes that supported it. Under the cot was a locked chest just like the one in Leonard and Scotty's quarters. Unlike Leonard and Scotty's quarters, though, there were three small shelves nailed to the wall of the room, their wood a warm honey color instead of the dark mahogany color of the other walls and furniture. They were a new addition to the old ship. On the shelves were books. The Bible was no surprise, though unlike most of the Bibles he had seen, the spine looked crisp- like the book had never been cracked- which to a Christian man like Leonard was a surprise, if not an offence. Though, if Leonard really considered it, it made sense; why would a sea-demon see any purpose in reading the Bible? There were other books that Leonard recognized: a very dog-eared copy of Caesar's De Bello Gallico, a copy of Plato's Republic that had some pages poking out of their usual positions- indicating that they had fallen out of the book and were re-secured, either permanently or temporarily- somehow, a few books bound in unmarked leather covers, and three books bound in cheap leather: one reading "Ship's Logs," another reading "First Officer's Logs," and the last reading "Boatswain's Mate's Logs". McCoy noted that the writing on the covers of those three books were all different in style- handwritten by the men who penned the entries, no doubt.

McCoy hadn't come here to discuss literature- and while he didn't actually want to be discussing swordplay with the Vulcan, Scotty had assured him that Spock was the only man for teaching him how to defend himself properly. "I am not disturbing you, I hope?"

Spock did not look up at him. "How may I be of service to you?"

"I was hoping… I-"

"I am trying to meditate, Doctor, if you must interrupt me, please do it quickly."

"I need your help, God damnit!"

Spock raised an eyebrow, deigning now to look at McCoy. "How so?"

The doctor swallowed back his nerves. "I need you to teach me how to fight."

"So that you may leave the ship despite opposition?"

"No!" McCoy ran a hand along the back of his neck, "I just don't want what happened back in the gaol to happen to me again."

"You mean when the guard surprised you?"

"I mean when I froze! I had a damned sword to my neck and I couldn't do a damned thing about it!"

"If I teach you how to use your sword, you must not think it will protect you. The first thing you must learn about fighting is that the 'civilized' rules of fencing are only appropriate in civilized settings. Since battle is never civilized, I will not hold to the pretence of the upper class 'gentlemen' who fight for sport rather than for their lives. I will fight you like the men who are likely to raid our ships fight, with all the cowardly tricks and underhanded moves of a swashbuckler who has learned to fight for his own sake. If you want to learn how to fight according to the rules, you might as well continue waving your blade about haphazardly- you will get killed just as quickly. A raider sees a man with a sword as a threat to be eliminated, not a force worth stepping away from. You might have a better chance of surviving if you learn to control your temper."

"You once said to me that spirit without discipline would do me little good… but I've seen what your discipline, without compassion, does. The blood-trail it leaves."

A knocking interrupted McCoy before he could continue on his tirade.

"Enter," Spock ordered. The boy from before peeked his head in warily and held up an orange.

"Dr. McCoy asked me to bring you this?" He ventured cautiously.

Spock raised an eyebrow. McCoy bounced on his heels. "Here, give it over," the physician ordered. The boy dropped it in McCoy's hand and zipped out of the doorway without bothering to ask for dismissal. McCoy shook his head at his manners.

"I am not suffering from scurvy," Spock stated.

"I am well aware of that. You're eating the damned orange so that you won't suffer from scurvy. It wouldn't do for this ship to succumb to scurvy almost as soon as it's free of it."

"She."

"I'm sorry?"

"The proper way to refer to a ship is as 'she', not 'it'." Spock said this with a perfectly straight face.

McCoy blinked a few times, not sure of why the strange man had found that a relevant point. "Alright… Almost as soon as she's free of it, then. Here," he stepped closer and held out his hand, offering the Vulcan the orange.

"Thank you," Spock reached for it, his fingers brushing against McCoy's thumb and wrist. McCoy didn't let go of the orange. Spock quirked his eyebrow again.

"Scotty tells me you're a Vulcan. So does Captain Kirk. I don't believe them."

"Is that so?"

"It is. If you're Vulcan, show me."

"How shall I do that? Bleed for you?"

"I'd settle to see you're ears. The stories all say Vulcan's have pointed ears, like demons."

"Ah," Spock took off his hat and shook his head to loosen his hair so that despite being tied back, it could reveal his ears. Like an Orient's hair, it was perfectly straight and seemed to reflect every light in the dim room. Like a pirate, his hair was slick with grime, long unwashed, but unlike any man he'd ever seen before, Spock's ears swept upward into short but unmistakable points. McCoy leaned forward, his curiosity getting the better of him, and tucked some of Spock's hair behind his ear, scrutinizing the point- trying to tell if it was a fake tip made of some kind of wax or the product of some childhood accident. Spock grabbed his wrist. "That is quite enough. Come by tomorrow at third rotation, and I will teach you how to defend yourself."

McCoy pulled back, letting go of the orange. "My apologies. If you will excuse me, Mr. Spock."

"Good afternoon, Doctor," Spock replied by way of dismissal.

McCoy left the room feeling quite bewildered and wondering what had come over him in there. He had always been a curious man, prying his professors and town physicians for all their secrets, as well as old wives, quacks, and Negro and native medicine men for whatever knowledge he could glean from them, but he had always had the sense before not to invade a man's privacy like that! His heart was pounding. He had thought it was some kind of great farce- some kind of attempt to sway McCoy to their side by telling him about Vulcans and Mitchell, but to think that it could be real…

He sagged against the wall beside Spock's quarters. He looked around at all the men and boys minding the ship: the Captain looking into the horizon, Chekov measuring speed and distance with his complicated tools, Sulu winding the ship through unseen currents of wind and water, and Scotty calling out, directing every lad in his tasks with the grace of an orchestral conductor, and above all the pounding of the boots and the rustle of the wind through the sails he could hear Uhura singing a song he didn't understand the words of.

Maybe they were all runaway slaves and lovesick fools, if Christine's definitions could be believed. He sighed and went back to handing out his oranges to the men on deck.