I own nothing (except Eala), and I profit not. Thanks to my beta SpockLikesCats, guest beta Hopefuladdict, and my chapter wranglers.

Warnings:/ Triggers :Terminal illness, child death, medical experimentation without consent, mental abuse.

Part 13 – If You Tolerate This, Then Your Children Will Be Next

Arriving too early, Uhura was surprised to find Briefing Room Six already occupied – by Hawkins. The boy was laying out carafes of water and stubby glasses, and a silver pot of coffee with delicate, china cups.

"Can't a steward do that, Hawkins?"

"Well, they could. If the Captain had remembered to ask me to ask them." His eyebrows gave a conspiratorial hike and he grinned.

Intrigued by a memory from the day she first met him, she asked, "You once told me your name; Eala. Is it your surname?"

"No ma'am, my name is Eala Curran; Eala is my first name. When I was born, I didn't cry at all. I was as pale as milk, and covered in white baby-hair; my mam said I was a swan. Eala is Irish Gaelic for a mute swan."

"Your mother must be proud of you now."

"She died, Ma'am; that's what put me off the rails."

Uhura reached out and put her hand on Hawkins' sleeve. "I'm sorry."

"Thank you." He allowed her hand to remain for a minute. "I'd better be going Ma'am, I've not the clearance to be here."

Next to arrive was McCoy. "How're the knees?"

"Almost better. I took my stick but I don't really need it; the re-generator helped a lot."

"No, it didn't; it wasn't switched on. I set it on standby mode. Just an old country doctor's trick – a placebo."

"You fooled me!"

"Well, whaddaya know – so I did. I needed to keep you there for observation, in case your interaction with our friend in the tank there harmed you. But I didn't want to scare you."

Now she considered it, the thumb that got jarred on the wheel on the tank-room door felt so normal she had forgotten it was even injured. "The gene therapy is doing its job then?"

"Seems like it is. Can you come by Sick-deck later so I can analyse the repair to your tissues?"

"Of course, Doctor."

Medical crew filed into the room, followed by the captain, who carried a magnificent bicorne hat, trimmed with gold and bronze braid, under his arm. It was embroidered on the front with the Alpha's insignia. McCoy leaned close and confided, "If he brings the hat – it's deadly serious."

Uhura felt as she had before a dangerous mission; her stomach shrank to the size of a walnut. Mouth dry and muscles tensed for an unknown assailant, she reached for water.

Taking his place at the head of the table, the captain rested his hat on the surface, then parted the tails of his coat and sat, wearing an expression graver than she had ever seen on either James T. Kirk. The medical team were all present, but no Commander Spock.

A few seconds after 07.30, the commander entered the briefing room, and all who saw him were alarmed. Enterprise McCoy once said 'if Spock goes down, we're finished,' and she saw that fear in the assembled group. He sat in the only free chair, opposite Nyota; his appearance cadaverous. The dark hair and uniform coat contrasted so sharply with his pale skin and linen shirt that he could have been an image projected in black and white, except for his olive-rimmed eyes.

Kirk barked, "Mister Spock, are you fit to be on duty?"

"I assure you, Captain, I am."

"Report to Sick-deck after this briefing. That's an order, mister."

"Very well."

"Right, ladies and gentlemen, we're here to discuss the matter of the Herald, and last night's developments. Before we can do that, Doctor McCoy will take us through the background to the project, which up until a few days ago was hidden from us by Starfleet. Even I know nothing other than the Herald's primary mission objectives. Other than Doctor McCoy's, no Padds are to be used; you will be relying on your memories only. Is that clear?"

Murmurs of acceptance whispered around the table.

"Very good; carry on Bones."

The doctor pushed back his chair to stand and lifted his Padd, his fingers playing over its screen until a small image of the tank containing the Herald materialised above the table, a glowing magician's box. He discussed the case in professional tones.

"The Herald, as all of us here know, is a bio-engineered being designed to act as a first contact to non-federation planets. It invites loyalty and protection in those who tend it. It projects unparalleled empathy, and has a disturbing ability to provoke strong paternal and maternal instincts. It can't read minds, only sense vague feelings, and project.

"Mister Spock and I discovered a couple of days ago that it's a second-generation being. There was a prototype, Gem, that originated in the Starfleet medical facility in San-Francisco."

Kirk sat bolt upright in his chair, clearly startled; Chapel began to ask something, but was cut off by McCoy. "Questions at the end please, Nurse."

"The being is bewildered, despondent and is threatening the sanity of my team. Last night it lured Able Starman Uhura to the tank-room by means of perception alteration, something we haven't seen before. I don't think it's deliberately harmful, but I'm sure as hell open to the possibility it may be accidentally harmful. It's only a child. Stunted in development, and intellectually curtailed, it's confused, and lonely."

Through the exchange, Spock was silent and unfocused; when he spoke at last, the crew flinched at the edge in his voice. "I am bewildered by the continued insistence on calling the Herald 'it'. Humans do have an amazing capacity for believing what they choose, and excluding that which is painful."

McCoy regarded the commander as if he were a torpedo stuck in its tube with the counter at 000001. "Spock, this isn't the time; I thought we agreed we would wait until we knew what to – "

"I disagree; it most certainly is the time. I'm frequently appalled by the low regard you Earthmen have for life. Orianna should be discussed by her gender; her current body may be neuter but her mind is not."

"Dammit Spock - we said we wouldn't drag Jim into this!"

Silence, like the seconds before an impact, filled the room. Doctor and commander stared at each other like bomb disposal experts deciding which wire to cut. Kirk broke the spell, his finger tapping his chin.

"Let's hear it Bones, whatever it is."

The surgeon thumped back into his chair, and grappled with his Padd until the Herald was replaced by a three-dimensional holo of two people in Starfleet Lieutenant's uniforms, a man and a woman.

The woman wore a tall mass of jet curls that were braided and pinned up in places; she had a wide smile and large, dark eyes lined with kohl. For a moment, Nyota thought the woman was Vulcan, but her large ears ended in a bifurcated point. She looked up at a tall, serene, bald man who had his arm around her waist. He was paler than her, but also with very dark eyes. His eyelashes were luxuriant, and Nyota recognised the stare of the Herald in them. Burning vomit rose in her gullet and she swallowed it down, the acrid sting bringing tears to her eyes. She gripped one edge of her seat so that it bit deep into her palm. Something was very, very wrong here. Grabbing her water, she drained it in one gulp, but it hit her stomach lining like vinegar.

McCoy narrated in wary tones: "Lieutenants Esile; a Halanan, and her partner, Faran; a Deltan. She was a strong, projecting telepath and he is a weak telepath with empathic pain-relieving skills." The tenses were not lost on Nyota. "While working on a research vessel near the edge of the Milky Way, Esile took a cutter and flew it near to the Galactic Barrier; an insanely dangerous act that baffled her colleagues. Shortly after that happened, Starfleet Medical discovered that, for many species, intimate relations with a Deltan leads to madness."

"Did she die?" asked Chapel.

"Not immediately. She passed out, and the cutter's instruments sensed the pilot was incapacitated and took her back to her ship. She was brain dead. They kept her on life support for three months."

M'Benga spoke up. "Why did they do that if she was brain dead?"

"Because she was six months pregnant."

Christine's hand flew to cover her mouth, as if trying to suppress nausea. "That poor man."

McCoy continued. "The father wanted it; he felt guilty because he was the indirect cause of her death – although he couldn't have known – and he wanted the child to survive. It was all he had.

Christine again: "Why couldn't they remove the foetus and tank it? Give the mother a dignified exit?"

A sharp, bitter laugh came from her Spanish colleague, "Because the body of the mother was cheaper than a tank."

With a flicker, the image changed to the man, Faran, with a little girl on his knee, the light in his eyes grown dim. The child was about seven years old, with the huge eyes and stick-limbs of the chronically sick, bald like him, and blessed with the longest black eyelashes Nyota had ever seen. Thin tubes tethered her to machinery behind them.

"This is Faran and his daughter, Orianna. Unfortunately her parents provided her with a faulty gene. She was the only child ever to have been born to a Halanan and a Deltan, so it wasn't even anticipated. By age three she became clumsy and stopped walking; by age four she was unable to swallow, finally entering a Starfleet Medical facility at seven because of chronic muscle wastage. Her father was persuaded it was for the best. In reality, with help, she could have been home, for a few more years at least."

"But?" M'Benga asked.

"But – Starfleet couldn't have monitored Orianna, or Gem as she was codenamed – 24/7 if she was at home. They sweet-talked her father into believing their superior medical care was for the best. While her body wasted, her mind became strong; exuding telepathic empathy on an unbelievable scale. Staff poured out their hopes and fears to her, and became protective and loving towards her."

"Why?" asked M'Benga again.

"Well, there's a theory about the Galactic barrier, that there's something alive in it, a presence. Folks have touched it before, and gone stark raving mad. We've got this recording from Esile's cutter." The doctor's fingers moved over his Padd once more, and the static crackle of a transmission began, only to be interrupted by a distraught woman's voice.

"Faran! Forgive me, for I know not what I do..." static, "...what are – ?" static, "Please! I beg you, protect my child." The last three words were a desperate shriek, followed by a high-pitched squeal, like nails on a blackboard. The incongruous, curt tones of the cutter's computer broke through:

"Pilot malfunction; engaging autopilot," then nothing.

The silence at the recording's end pervaded the room like poison gas, and the assembly recoiled from the intimacy of it. A mother's last words, hurled into the void; a plea for her first, and only born. Uhura's hand fluttered to her stomach. The terror of being trapped in a shuttle, assuming she was in her final moments, was well known to her. To be in that situation, and carrying a child, was a horror beyond imagination; the woman's moment of lucidity among her madness, a pitiless intrusion.

After a minute's silence reminiscent of a period of reflection at a memorial, the surgeon picked up his tale. "Eventually, Orianna was housed in a facility lined with psionic deflectors. The only thing that seemed to temper the projection was her father's voice. He came in twice a day to read to her. They loved poetry, and he read her the classics, and cared for her bodily needs."

"...Her condition deteriorated, and by the age of ten she was completely paralysed, suffering from what we call 'locked-in syndrome.' Her blood was artificially oxygenated; she was fed intravenously and faced the prospect of being a person of consciousness only. Eventually her muscle tissue began to break down, poisoning her system. At the age of eleven, she fell into a catastrophic decline, broadcasting to all those around that she wished to join her mother."

Christine's eyes were closed, M'Benga's hand on her arm. Nyota noted that Alpha Kirk made no move to tell her to act like a professional, or pull herself together, like Enterprise Kirk would have.

"That was the cue for a few Starfleet vultures to step in and carry out a monstrous procedure. Her brain tissue was unusual, whether by genetics, or because of contact with the galactic barrier, we don't know. Individual brain cells were extracted for study over her lifetime, supposedly to help investigate her affliction, since her brain was unaffected by the wasting disease. They cloned the cells over a period of years, effectively growing an artificial 'brain' based on Orianna's.

"It was just tissue in a tank 'though; in order to activate it, they erased most of Orianna's memories, and transferred her consciousness into the new brain – without her father's knowledge. He came to see her that day as usual, and assumed her unresponsiveness was because she was near death, which by then, she was. They removed her life support and allowed him to hold her while she 'slipped away,' not knowing that she was effectively dead already."

"But how could they do that? Her projection makes people want to protect her!" Uhura didn't understand.

McCoy rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. "They told her they were preparing her to meet her mother. She was eleven years old, for God's sake. Orianna would've built her mother up to be a beautiful princess, living in a castle in the sky. I'm pretty sure she was mentally exhausted by the compulsion of everyone about her to reveal their sorrows.

"She was a child, absorbing their grief like a sponge. And of course, they had the best telepath in Starfleet, a neuroscientist skilled in mental shielding;

"...a Vulcan."

He knows the baseness in his blood, at such strange war with something good.

Commander Spock got up and walked from the room.

Dead silence followed the commander's departure. Christine wept silently, M'Benga's arm about her shoulders now.

"Now I think that grief's leaking out and she can't stop it," said Mcoy

In a voice as cold and hard as steel, Sanchez broke into the quiet; "What kind of organisation is it that we work for? Who would do that to a child? And her father?" He banged his fist down on the table, causing an empty water glass to jump and land on its side. Once more, Kirk made no move to chastise. "It's disgusting. I have never heard of such a thing."

M'Benga released the nurse, who was swallowing rapidly, to allow her to run out of the room. "I have not heard of such a thing either, it is monstrous, a violation of everything our profession stands for. It is a violation of a child. She was assaulted in the worst possible way. Just so we could have better first contact? It makes no sense."

Kirk was ashen, his normally ruddy cheeks standing out above his beard, hands balled into tight fists, the knuckles white. "Why did I not know about this? Why has it taken so long for Starfleet to tell you, Bones?" His voice was thunder.

"Starfleet didn't tell us. We couldn't implicate a ship's captain so Spock and I undertook some research on our own. Spock saw something - a residue in the Herald's brain - a trace of Vulcan mumbo-jumbo. Once we felt the creature's influence, we doubted very much that it was entirely synthetic. Spock hacked Starfleet's main databanks, only bringing down tiny amounts of information at a time so's not to arouse suspicion. He even routed the data packets through other ship's computers, effectively 'laundering' them. Two days ago we fitted the final piece of the jigsaw."

Kirk placed his fingertips at his hairline, and dragged them down his face. "You could both be court-martialled."

"Spock's the best first officer in the fleet, and probably the finest computing mind in the galaxy. That's not going to happen. Unless anyone here wants to turn informant."

"Of course not, Bones," the captain snapped. "My David is ten years old. If Starfleet did this to him I would hunt the perpetrators down and make it so that they would never sleep again. Every hour would be a waking, living death as it is for that poor child. There's no question of carrying out this mission, not on my watch – assuming we live to tell the tale and the entire crew haven't thrown themselves out of an airlock first."

"Those goddamn idiots at Starfleet didn't think through the fact that the Herald might affect those around it during its gestation."

Once more thoughtful, the captain mulled over the doctor's statement, "Or they did suspect, and we are also an experiment. Easy to hide a clinically depressed crew up here, not so easy to hide away an incident on the ground." His comprehension sucked the air from the room.

Kirk pressed his thumb and forefinger together below his nose, then stroked his moustache in contemplation. "It's not a first contact being, Bones – it's a spy. How could Starfleet have thought we'd be so naïve?" A short puff of a laugh accompanied a shake of the captain's head.

"...Not even a spy, a weapon, gathering secrets to use against potential enemies. This apparently noble 'first contact' purpose is smoke and mirrors. And they used a child to achieve it. Starfleet is a vile necrophage." He exhaled, exhausted. "What more can you tell us, Bones?"

"Its gestation seems to have a daily cycle, third watch being the time when cellular growth and projection are at their highest. We've started lowering the temperature of the tank then; it helps calm things down, but it's a distasteful – and temporary – solution."

Nights spent chilled to the bone now made sense. Last night had been the worst, and there was no doubt that Spock spent the previous night awake and frozen, and didn't come to her because of her abominable behaviour towards him in Sick-deck.

M'Benga broke into her thoughts with a question. "It has to be another two months in the tank before it can survive on its own. What happens then? We can defy Starfleet, but the Herald will be walking about this ship."

"Starfleet is not a problem." Kirk pulled at his beard and reached into his jacket for a pipe before tapping the stem on the table. "What they did is completely unethical. If Orianna's father found out, they would be sued for billions of credits; the neuroscientist who carried out the procedure would be living his long life out on Rura Penthe, and legitimate research would be held back decades because of the public outcry. I'm sure Spock could engineer an untraceable, anonymous 'leak.' Bones, you have a theory to help us in the meantime?"

"I have. In old Britain in 2006, there was a disaster during a medical trial for an anti-inflammatory drug called TGN1412. It caused catastrophic systemic organ failure in the subjects, despite being administered at a supposed sub-clinical dose. One theory was the reaction was caused by the dosage being too low.

"I think we need to start having more contact with the Herald, not less. Uhura spent three months solid with it, and she's not nearly as affected as the rest of us. I think there's more to that than simply Mister Spock's mental shield. Even he couldn't keep it up at a consistent level for three months. He reads to it, a couple of hours every day, and the projection he experiences is more physical than mental. Although that could be because the Vulcan hobgoblin who erased the memories did some protection hoodoo for himself that works on Spock. I can't force anyone to do this though, only suggest we do that."

"I'll do it," volunteered Sanchez. "She's only a child."

Releasing a long breath, the doctor dragged a thumbnail over the briefing table. "I'm not really certain what she is any more."

After the briefing wound up, McCoy took tissue readings from Uhura's knees and asked if she would go and see Spock to cajole him into presenting himself at Sick-Deck. He persuaded her that it would be an opportunity to patch up the cracks in their relationship, if that was how their tenuous connection could be described. Being on Sick-Deck was different now, knowing who lay behind the submarine door.

Tentatively, she probed, "The captain has a son?"

For the first time in days, the doctor smiled. "Yeah, David. He's ten. Lives with his mom in San Francisco. She and the captain aren't together. He's a sparky little kid, been on the ship a couple of times. Put Jim's nose out of joint by following Hawkins around like an excited puppy. I suppose he's the big brother he doesn't have. Your Kirk not have a kid?"

Uhura answered truthfully, "I don't know, but he wasn't open about his life."

As she left Sick-Deck, she glimpsed M'Benga and Sanchez through the half-open door of the office, locked together in grief. They were all drowning.

Marching up to the commander's cabin, she hesitated at the threshold when the door slid open as soon as she pressed the comm. Silence greeted her, and she drifted into his accommodations. He was not at his desk. Swallowing to counteract a closing throat, she commanded Ada to open the panels to the sleep partition, fighting against the invasion of privacy; necessary due to her growing concern.

Spock was resting on his bunk, curled toward the wall. Nyota tiptoed over to him, unable to tell if he was asleep, ill, meditating or lying awake. Her hand floated to his hair, and hovered above it. He turned his head then sat up, dislodging the bed's cover, startling her so that she snatched the hand away in embarrassment, saying, "You were cold and unable to sleep last night. I know about the temperature in Herald's tank, that they turn it down."

"Indeed. Last night it was lowered further as a precaution, due to the evening's incident. You feel what she feels, and – because of the physical bond – the discomfort is passed on to myself."

Nyota winced at his use of the feminine. "You aren't on the bridge?"

"Obviously."

Deja vu; both Spocks were so literal. "I meant that as a question - is this not your watch?"

"The Captain has granted me second watch today, due to my – " he groped for a word, "fatigue."

"Vulcans don't tolerate cold well, do they."

"Affirmative."

"I behaved terribly yesterday. I'm sorry."

"Agreed. I am surprised you would believe me so unprincipled."

"It was misdirected frustration at my situation."

"How illogical."

She offered him a thin, closed-mouth smile, "Yes, it was. Very illogical." Nyota sat on the edge of his bunk and pulled off her boots. The Vulcan regarded her with lowered eyebrows. "Lie down as you were, please."

He complied, like a broken prisoner.

She slipped behind him on the bunk, swaddling his long limbs with hers and both of their bodies in the cover. Beneath, he was wrapped in white linen, and as cold as the clay.

.

.

Much later, she awoke to hear Ada stating that Spock was due on watch in thirty minutes. Almost seven hours had passed since she entered his room.

Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me; a sleep by kisses undissolved.

Her limbs left his warmed body, a buffer of cold air separating them, and she agitated his shoulder, "Spock, wake up; you're on watch in half an hour."

She was the diver before the dive as his eyelids lifted. Fear and exhilaration bubbled through her blood as his flesh heated her hand.

"I am...somewhat restored. And grateful, Able Starman, that you have aided me in evading the ship's surgeon."

Able Starman. She hit the water with a hard smack.

"I'll go, sir; you have to be on the bridge."

.

.

Back in her own quarters, there was a recorded message from Hawkins: "Mister Spock would be pleased if you could accompany him for dinner during his mid-watch break this evening."

They met in the mess, quiet at this hour, and sat in a corner, away from prying eyes, although Nyota could not shake the feeling of being observed. They spoke of Vulcan music, Terran poetry and the ship's computer systems. The commander appeared much improved, and she was moved by the sight of him in full uniform, as imposing a man as ever walked the decks Eventually, Nyota asked a question, one she maybe didn't want answered.

"Sir, what is that doll? The one you returned to me?"

"When she was six years old, Orianna painted the doll at occupational therapy. It is a representation of her mother; medical notes suggest the unusual colour was simply her favourite. Indeed, I wonder if her current complexion is a subconscious projection."

Nyota's chin sank to her chest and her fingers worried the edge of her tray. "I thought she doesn't remember her life? How did the doll get to me? What is it even doing on the ship?"

"Will you permit me to address all three questions in one answer?" He was teasing her, and she nodded.

"The doll was in a box of her effects, along with the volumes of poetry in my possession, grave goods robbed by Starfleet. Orianna's mother belonged to a race of Halanans who, in extreme psychological distress, are able to project seemingly solid objects telepathically. I hypothesise that the child has evolved beyond this and is able to move certain items by telekenesis."

"But she shouldn't know about the doll, if her memories were wiped." The taste of the last phrase was acid in her mouth.

"Indeed, but a Halanan who projects has no knowledge of the projection and would not recognise it as part of their 'self', so far buried is it in their subconscious. It is curious that she remembers poetry; beyond a few simple words, it is her sole method of communication. I have formulated a hypothesis."

The commander pushed his chair back and bent forward, elbows resting on knees and with his elegant fingers steepled before him.

"Orianna was as an infant for much of her life; her motor skills were exceedingly poor due to the affliction. She walked late, and only then for 10.8 months, regressing again by the age of three. The lower functions of the brain, normally used for motor control, were underdeveloped, as if they had given up in the face of the impossible challenge of moving her wasted muscles.

"Her cerebral cortex became a mass of memories, fears and grief, not her own, but from those who unburdened themselves. In the same way that Halanans project subconsciously, her brain may have instigated emergency measures to preserve a small piece of self, secreting her poetry where it would not normally reside – in subcortical grey matter – effectively encasing it in a disguise."

With her head still lowered, hiding the brimming of tears, Nyota whispered, "That Vulcan, the best Neuroscientist in Starfleet, he would know that, wouldn't he? You thought of it."

"Agreed."

"So he left her with something of herself. He wasn't a complete monster. It also allowed him a get-out. He could write a report on his actions without lying."

The commander sighed, but he did not answer so she continued, "If that's there, what else is in there, and why doesn't it come out?"

"Unknown; perhaps it requires a trigger, or perhaps there is nothing more."

"She must be so lonely; I'd like to read to her, if you think it would help."

"I believe we should attempt all possible comfort."

That night he came to her, and they clung to one another. Chaste shipmates enduring the enforced intimacy of a shipwreck in icy waters, all correctness dashed and broken on the rocks.

- end part 13 -