Vivian could not explain why, but her current Bridge duty was putting her on edge. Distress signals were relatively normal in their line of work, resulting in various levels of actual or imagined distress from the source of the signal, but there didn't seem to be a source this time.
No source, yet still a signal.
"The reading's growing strong, Captain," Sulu said. "Coming from a star system directly ahead. It's not a signal, sir. It does not even seem to exist, and yet it's affecting all our channels."
This confirmed Vivian's readings, and she rubbed the back of her neck, feeling the tension in it seeming to grow as she tried to rub it away.
"Well?" Captain Kirk prompted Spock and Vivian, looking at them both with high expectation of some kind of answers.
Spock said, levelly, "Someone or something is attempting to attract our attention."
If anyone but Spock had said it, Vivian might have laughed just to relieve the mood, but he wouldn't understand if she laughed at what he saw as a perfectly logical statement.
"Well, it's certainly got mine," she said, before taking a deep breath. "A phantom distress signal feeding directional coordinates to the ship? How?"
She wasn't specifically asking Spock, but he seemed to take it as a question to him, saying, "I do not know. Not even a Vulcan can know the unknown, Counselor. We are hundreds of light years past where any earth ship has ever explored."
Vivian licked her lips and nodded. She understood why he carefully used her address rather than her name, but it wasn't doing anything to help her nerves.
"Planet ahead, Captain," Sulu announced. "Becoming visual."
They looked up at the viewscreen to see a yellow-and-gold planet blooming over the image. Spock began to take sensor readings.
"Class M planet, Captain."
"Close to Earth conditions," the Captain said as acknowledgement.
"With two very important exceptions," Spock said. "It's much older than Earth, and about half a million years ago, its atmosphere totally ripped away by some sort of cataclysm. The planet has evidently been dead since then. Sensors detect no life of any kind."
A deep, unfamiliar voice sounded around them, not from the speakers but seemingly in the air itself.
"All of your questions will be answered in time, Captain Kirk," the voice said.
Vivian felt a rush of adrenaline, turning toward the helm.
"Sulu," she said, "did you open hailing frequencies?"
"No, sir," he said, looking around, puzzled.
"I am Sargon," the voice said. "It is the energy of my thoughts which has touched your instruments and directed you here. Now with this closer distance I can speak to you at last."
That certainly caught Vivian's attention. She was beginning to think of all the ways that the energy of thoughts could do such things. To steal a word from Spock, the possibilities were fascinating.
"Who are you, Sargon?" the Captain asked, almost demanded.
"Please assume a standard orbit about our planet, Captain."
"Is that a request or demand?"
"The choice is yours," Sargon answered calmly. "I read what is in your mind. Words are unnecessary."
That was chilling, but Vivian wasn't about to let it deter her curiosity. Superior power did not necessarily lead to malevolence, as the Organians had shown.
"The planet you've directed us to is dead," Vivian said, knowing this Sargon, if he was as good as he claimed, knew who she was without introduction. "Life as we know it is impossible there."
"And I am as dead as my planet," Sargon answered, with that same calm, chilling simplicity. "Does that frighten you, Vivian Buckingham?" Her heartbeat was speeding in her chest. "For if it does, if your ship lets what is left of me perish, then all of you, my children, all of mankind must perish, too."
Captain's Log, stardate 4768.3. The Enterprise is in orbit above a planet whose surface, our sensors tell us, is devoid of all life, a world destroyed and dead for at least half a million years. Yet from it comes a voice, the energy of pure thought, telling us something has survived here for those thousands of centuries. Since exploration and contact with alien intelligences is our primary mission, I've decided to risk the potential dangers and resume contact.
Vivian curled her thumbs into her fists and hid them behind her back, knowing that Spock would see but hoping she was wrong.
"How long before Starfleet receives that log?" the Captain asked Sulu.
"Over three weeks at this distance, sir."
"Captain," Spock said, and Vivian moved quickly to his side.
"Anything?" she asked.
"Sensors registering some form of energy deep inside the planet."
Vivian wasn't familiar enough with his instruments to identify the energy any better than he had, but the voice of Sargon said, "Your probes have touched me, Mr. Spock."
Spock raised his eyebrows, turned to the Captain, and said, "Reading energy only, Captain. No life forms."
"I have locked your transporter device on my coordinates," Sargon said, unconcerned with Spock's comment. "Please come to us. Rescue us from oblivion."
That was a word that worried Vivian, but Spock was already considering his readings again, saying, "Coming from deep under the planet's surface. Under at least one hundred miles of solid rock."
Vivian felt dizzy at that number, and Sargon said, "I will make it possible for your transporter to beam you that deep beneath the surface. Have no fear."
Had Sargon sensed her fear, her anxieties, or was it supposing that there would be human fear at such a seemingly impossible feat?
Spock then said, "Reading a chamber now. Oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, suitable for human life support.
"Sulu," Vivian said softly, "call Doctor McCoy to the transporter room with standard away equipment. Ten minutes."
"Yes, sir," Sulu said, before making the call.
"Spock," the Captain said as he began to follow the two women to the turbolift.
"Captain," Spock said, glancing at Vivian before turning his attention back to the Captain. "I do wish to investigate whatever this is that lived that long ago."
"And I would like to have my science officer with me on something as unusual as this," Captain Kirk said, frowning, "but it is full of unknowns, and Vivian is coming, and we can't risk all three of us being off the ship."
The lights went out suddenly, and Vivian crossed to the Engineering panel, flipping the override switch. Nothing.
"All the power's gone," she said, raising her eyebrows at the Captain. The message, she thought, was pretty clear.
Experimentally, Captain Kirk said, "On the other hand, perhaps this Sargon would like you to come with us."
The power was instantly restored, the lights going up and Vivian felt a small shiver run through her at that kind of power, at the eventualities possible with all three of them on the surface.
"Fascinating," Spock said.
"All normal," Sulu reported. "No damage at all."
"I see," the Captain said with a frown. "Will you transport down with us, Mr. Spock?"
Feeling a bit bitter and nervous, Vivian said, "I don't really see that he's got a choice."
"Mr. Sulu," Captain Kirk said, still frowning, "you have the conn."
Vivian exchanged a glance with Spock as the three of them stepped into the turbolift, and she hoped the sense of foreboding in her gut was nothing at all.
/-/
Spock was trying to determine whether Vivian was struggling inordinately with fear when Doctor McCoy entered the transporter room, complaining as was his usual state of being.
"Jamie, why no briefing on this?" the Doctor demanded before a single word of greeting or acknowledgement. "I'd at least like to know what we're getting into."
The Captain smiled at him, perhaps even amused, and she said, "Easy, Bones. As long as you know there's something down there, you know as much as we do. The rest is only guesses."
Mr. Scott, who was manning the transporter, felt the need to add in his issues with the situation.
"I don't like it, sir," he said firmly. "The transporter coordinates preset by an alien of some sort. You could materialize inside solid rock."
"What?" Vivian said, clearly startled. Spock wanted to turn back time and stopped Mr. Scott from voicing his concerns, but was an impossible wish. "That can happen?"
Her voice cracked slightly, her brown eyes going wide as she turned not to Mr. Scott or Captain Kirk, but to Spock. He felt a kind of swelling in his chest as he thought for the briefest moment that his wife was seeking answers and comfort from him, although it was not a logical response to her fearful reaction.
"Unlikely," he said, watching her eyes, recalling how they had looked up at him that morning with an expression he could only classify as adoration. He preferred that expression to the one facing him now. "These coordinates correspond with the location of the subterranean chamber."
Captain Kirk nodded and said, "I have the feeling that they or it could destroy us just standing here if they or it wanted to."
A woman with dark hair and pale eyes entered, a woman Spock knew from his own briefings with scientists.
"They or it?" she said, by way of announcing her presence.
The Captain looked at her, frowning, and said, "Who are you?"
"Doctor Ann Mulhall, Astrobiology," she said, her voice all business and her demeanor alert and professional. However, the lack of recognition did seem to puzzle her, and she added, "Well, I was ordered to report here for landing party duty."
"By whom?"
She frowned slightly and said, "Strange, I'm not sure." She straightened up more and said, "Well, I'm not a liar, Captain. I did receive an order to report here for duty."
Quickly, Vivian said, "She probably did, Captain. Like with Spock."
"Oh, yes," the Captain said, nodding, recognizing Sargon's influence.
Doctor McCoy, who had barely acknowledged Doctor Mulhall, said, "Let's get back to this solid rock business. Just how much rock are we going to go through?"
"Approximately one hundred twelve point three seven miles, Doctor," Spock said.
"Miles? Are you joking?"
Spock was about to point out that he did not joke when Vivian said, "I wish. Let's just go."
The voice of Sargon spoke again, saying, "Please stand ready. I will operate your controls."
The crew went to the transporter pad, apart from Doctor McCoy, who hesitated.
Captain Kirk smiled and said, "Doctor, if you would prefer to stay behind?"
"No," Doctor McCoy snapped, angry at the suggestion. "No, if I'd be useful, as long as you're going down, I might as well take a medical look at whatever this is."
He joined them on the pad. Mr. Scott watched them from behind the transporter controls, arms crossed and scowling as Spock noted Vivian tensing out of the corner of his eye.
/-/
Vivian looked around the chamber Spock had described, which seemed to certainly be populated with an oxygen-nitrogen, breathable atmosphere. But the guard that had been assigned, as usual, had not materialized with them, and as Vivian realized this, Spock spoke beside her.
"Captain," he said, "the security guard."
The beep of a communicator. The Captain flipped it open.
"Kirk here."
Scotty's voice said, "Can you read me, Captain?"
"Loud and clear," Vivian said, looking around the room, frowning, "which should be impossible. The guard?"
"He's fine," Scotty said with a kind of bitter edge to his voice. "He just didn't dematerialize. I don't like it, sir."
"No problem yet," Captain Kirk said dismissively. "Maintain alert. Kirk out."
She snapped her communicator shut and Ann Mulhall, who had been taking readings, said, "Atmosphere report, Captain. "A fraction richer in oxygen than usual for us, but otherwise normal."
Vivian looked over Spock's shoulder at his readings, leeching his calmness from being close to him, drawing on the strength of his logical, ordered mind to help keep her logical and ordered.
"Constructed about when the surface was destroyed," she said. "Underground survival bunker?"
Captain Kirk shrugged and said, "Composition of the walls?"
Spock said, "They're an alloy or substance completely unknown to me. Much stronger and harder than anything I've measured before."
"All readings are off the scale, Captain," Mulhall said.
Bones nodded and said, "The air seems fresh. It must be recirculated somehow."
"Is that for us, or does it need fresh air?" Captain Kirk mused.
A panel behind her slid back with this question, revealing a much larger area with rock walls, and a strange glowing sphere poised on an angled support. It was actually very aesthetically pleasing.
The glowing sphere pulsated, and the voice of Sargon emanated from it, saying, "Welcome. I am Sargon."
Vivian, feeling a rush of excitement as she looked at the almost swirling, glowing sphere.
She held up her tricorder and said, "Would I be able to—?"
"You and Mr. Spock may use your scanning devices, Vivian Buckingham. Your readings, will show energy but no substance. Sealed in this receptacle is the essence of my mind."
This revelation was wondrous, and Vivian and Spock began their scans with haste.
"Pure energy," Spock said. "Matter without form."
"Impossible," the Captain said, Vivian's least favorite word. She ignored it as she reveled in the incredible readings she was getting.
"But you once had a body of some type?" Bones asked.
"A body much as yours, my children, although our minds were infinitely greater."
Captain Kirk frowned and said, "That's twice you've referred to us as 'my children'."
"Because it is possible you are our descendants, Captain Kirk. Six thousand centuries ago, our vessels were colonizing this galaxy, just as your own starships have now begun to explore that vastness. As you now leave your own seed on distant planets, so we left our seeds behind us. Perhaps your own legends of Adam and Eve were two of our travelers."
Doctor Mulhall said, "Our beliefs and our studies indicated that life on our planet, Earth, evolved independently."
Spock said, "That would, tend, however, to explain certain elements of Vulcan prehistory."
This piqued Vivian's curiosity, but she knew this wasn't the time or place to ask him.
"In either case, I do not know," Sargan said calmly. "It was so long ago, and the records of our travels were lost in the cataclysm which we loosened upon ourselves."
"A war?" Vivian prompted.
"A struggle for such goals and the unleashing of such power that you could not comprehend."
This either amused or even pleased the Captain, who smiled and said, "Then perhaps your intelligence wasn't so great. We faced a similar crisis in our early nuclear age. We found the wisdom not to destroy ourselves."
Vivian would never have said such a thing, but the Captain liked to point out where Earth had learned its lessons, although now it felt more like gloating.
Sargon, too, seemed amused as he answered, "And we survived our primitive nuclear era, my daughter. But there comes to all races an ultimate crisis which you have yet to face."
"I don't understand," the Captain said.
"One day our minds became so powerful, we dared think of ourselves as gods."
"You said you wanted our help," Captain Kirk prompted. Vivian thought the Captain was perhaps growing comfortable with the line of conversation. "What is it you wish?"
Startlingly, the Captain staggered backward two steps, then a high-pitched sound emitted as her head flung back. Bones began to cross to her, but Vivian held out an arm, still getting readings.
"Wait, Bones," she whispered.
"I am Sargon," said the Captain's body, the Captain's voice, but with a different pattern of speaking.
"Where's our Captain?" Bones demanded. "Where's Jamie Kirk?"
"She is unharmed," Sargon said, smiling with the Captain's lips. "I have taken her body to demonstrate."
In a rash, highly emotional act, Bones drew his phaser and snapped, "I won't go along with this. Back to where you were Sargon, or whatever you are."
Spock raised an eyebrow and said, "And if he refuses, Doctor, what do you propose to do with your phaser? That is still Jamie's body."
The body in question convulsed briefly, and the sphere dimmed significantly. Vivian shivered, but she was awed with the readings she was receiving.
"Lungs filled with air again," Sargon said, looking at the Captain's hands. "To see again. Heart pumping, arteries surging with blood again. A half a million years. To be again. Your Captain has an excellent body, Doctor McCoy. I compliment you both on the condition in which you maintained it."
"What are your plans for it?" Spock asked. "Can you exchange places again when you wish?"
"Have no fear. Your captain is quite unharmed, although her mind generates insufficient energy for her to speak from there as I do."
A spike in the scans startled Vivian's enjoyment of discovery and she gasped, "God, Bones."
Doctor Mulhall nodded and said, "Yes, I have the same readings."
Bones scanned the Captain and said, "Are you aware of what's happening to her body? Heart action doubled, temperatures a hundred and four degrees!"
"She'll die if you don't leave her body," Ann Mulhall said sternly. "Soon!"
"What is it you want of us?" Spock prompted again.
Sargon turned Captain Kirk's eyes to him and said, "In the next room, there are other receptacles. The other two of us that survived. You, Doctor Ann Mulhall, and you, Mr. Spock, we require your bodies also. We must have Captain Kirk and you so that we may live again." Sargon led them into the room in question, with boxes on the wall containing spheres. Of all the spheres there, only two were lit, the two that had survived Vivian realized with a chill. "Even for us," Sargon said solemnly, "a half a million years is almost too long to wait. Two others still survive. Henoch and Thalassa." Then lovingly, Sargon said, "Thalassa, my Thalassa. I am pleased you survived with me. Forgive me. It has been so very long."
Spock, trying to keep Sargon on task as Vivian gestured to her readings again, said, "When the struggle came which devastated your planet—"
"Only the best minds were chosen to survive. Thalassa, my wife, as you may have guessed. Henoch, from the other side. Realizing our mistake, we attempted to perpetuated both sides. We built this chamber here in order to preserve our essence in this fashion."
"Fascinating."
"We knew the seed that we had planted on other planets would take root, that one day you would build vessels as we did, and one day you would come here."
Vivian cleared her throat, gesturing again to the readings as she said, "It take it the difference in storage meant you were supposed to stay there—"
"And search the heavens with my mind, probing, waiting, probing," Sargon said, nodding the Captain's head. "And then one day my mind touched your vessel and brought you here."
"So you could steal our bodies from us?" Ann Mulhall asked sharply.
"To steal?" Sargon asked, puzzled, tasting the word. "To take them from you? No, no my children, you misunderstand. We mean only that you should lend your bodies for a short time."
"And destroy them," Bones said, "just as you're burning up that one now. Heartbeat's two hundred and sixty-two, Spock. Entire metabolic rate correspondingly high."
"I will return your captain to you before the body limit has been reached," Sargon said calmly, as though he could not feel the strain he was putting on the body he inhabited.
Spock, ever one to get down to business, prompted, "Our bodies, Sargon, for what purpose?"
"To build. To build humanoid robots. We must borrow your bodies long enough to use your hands. Your fingers."
"Then you intend to construct mechanical bodies," Spock said with a measure of understanding, "move your minds into them, and then return our bodies to us."
Doctor Mulhall still harbored a great deal of what Vivian would have termed as healthy scientific suspicion. She said, "We have engineers, technicians. Why can't they build your robots for you?"
"No," Sargon said softly. "Our methods, our skills are far beyond your abilities. It is time," he said abruptly, and they helped the body back to the orb. The Captain convulsed again, and the sphere glowed brighter as she fell to her knees. Vivian took more readings as Bones knelt down beside her.
"Is it you, Jamie?" he asked. The Captain nodded as he took readings of his own. "Good, her metabolic rate is back to normal."
"Are you aware of what happened, Captain?" Vivian asked. "Can you remember any of it?"
"Yes," Captain Kirk said, almost groggily. "Sargon borrowed my body. I was floating in time and space."
"She doesn't appear to be harmed," Bones said, standing and helping the Captain up. "Physically, anyway."
"Spock, I remember," she said. "When Sargon and I exchanged, as we passed each other, for an instant we were one. I know him now. I know what he is and what he wants, and I don't fear him."
"That's the most ridiculous statement I've ever heard," Bones said bitterly. "An alien practically hijacks your body and then corks you into a bottle and—"
"I'm afraid that I must agree with Doctor McCoy," Doctor Mulhall said, further irritating Vivian. "You could be suffering from a form of false euphoria."
Vivian took a deep breath, feeling her spine stiffen at an astrobiologist sticking her nose into Vivian's specialty, and she gave Spock an irritated glance.
"Maybe we could—"
"I understand, my daughter," Sargon cut over her, but it was nice to know that someone was listening to her. "Go to your vessel. All who are involved must agree to this. After all these centuries, we can wait a few more hours."
Bones, still fuming, said, "And what if we should decide against you?"
"Then you may go as freely as you came," Sargon said calmly.
But Vivian could not shake the feeling that it was not quite so simple as that.
/-/
They sat in Spock's quarters. Or rather, Spock sat, watching his wife pacing the floor, looking at her over their three-dimensional chess set. It was so easy to think of things as theirs, so simple that he barely noticed that things that had been his for many years before he'd ever heard of her were suddenly theirs in his mind.
He had expressed to Vivian that he wished to aid Sargon, to take the essence of Henoch into his body and help them to build new bodies.
Spock had miscalculated her reaction, however. He had supposed that as a scientist, as a student of the mind and as someone who clearly believed the Captain's belief that Sargon meant them no harm, and that they had nothing to fear from him – he supposed that she would be supportive of his decision. Instead, it seemed to agitate her, to cause her some measure of concern and fear that did not seem logical.
"Vivian," he said softly, and he saw in watching her throat that she swallowed. "My wife, come here."
She did as he asked, and he even surprised himself by pulling her onto his lap, feeling the weight of her slight frame on his legs. He wrapped an arm around her waist to stead her as she rested her forehead against his, sighing through her nose.
"What concerns you?" He asked, touching her cheek with two fingers, in a kind of kiss.
Vivian leaned her face toward his fingers, closing her eyes as she whispered, "I don't know how to explain it, Spock. I just have this…intuition. The procedure is obviously interesting, and the opportunity unprecedented. The things they could teach us…. But beings who bring themselves to the brink of total extinction must have done it for some reason, and I…."
She breathed deeply, in and out, leaning closer to him as he traced his fingers down to the corner of her lips. The smooth, softness of her skin on his fingers was always a peculiar and almost thrilling sensation. Most distracting.
"Then there is no concrete reason for me not to accept?" he prompted. Her lips were very close to his.
Vivian never asked for kisses, either from pride or from some kind of respect for his Vulcan sensibilities, but he knew that her human emotions desired them, and desired physical gratification from him. When they were this close, it was easy to remember that she had particular human needs, and to feel his human half cry out to fulfill those needs. His Vulcan half struggled in these moments to maintain control, all the more now that they had a marriage bond to connect him to her feelings, her desires. He could feel his own pulse raise with hers as he tasted her breath.
"I…I don't know," she said, frowning as he pressed his lips to hers.
The frown melted slowly as he kissed her, sprinkling his logical reasoning between the touching of their lips, whispering against her mouth all of the things that had caused him to make the decision he had made, the one that seemed to trouble her.
And although her frown melted, when she parted from his mouth fully, looking into his eyes with soft, brown, warm eyes she still had concern and anxiety in them that he knew he would be unable to kiss away, although in this moment he was fully willing to try.
"This is really what you want?" she asked, brushing her loose strand of hair behind her ear as his fingers traced her jaw.
"Yes."
"And there isn't any illogical, irrational thing that will change your mind?" she whispered, looking at him with almost beseeching eyes.
He wished that he could ease her fears and still fulfill his duty to science and Starfleet, but he could not.
"No, Vivian. One does not abandon logic because it does not say what one wants to hear."
For some strange reason, these words seemed to soothe her slightly, and she nodded.
"Then promise me one thing," she said, "and I will agree."
"If I can, I will," he said.
"Promise me that you'll bring my husband back in one piece," she said, closing her eyes again, and he could feel her pain and fear in a sharp, strong stab as though they were his own. His hold on her tightened, and he was keenly aware of the weight and feel and scent of her body, knowing that he would likely not be aware of these things during the exchange.
This was not a promise he could logically make. He could try to quote odds, but the things needed to make an estimate were as yet unknown.
"If there is any bearing I have on this matter," he said, "I will use every power I have to do this. However, I doubt there will be any need."
She hummed, but his words had only slightly alleviated her fears, and he knew he could give her no words that could do better. Instead, he kissed her firmly and with all the passion he could channel from his repressed emotions in order to help her to feel how much he meant those words. If they would not kiss again for some time, he wanted her to remember this kiss well and with positive feeling.
Although he did not actively think this, he also wished to recall the eager and passionate response from her to this kiss, and her desire for his touch and closeness, while he was disconnected from his body. Surely he could have memories, even if he could not be aware of her fully in his separation. It would have to suffice.
/-/
Vivian knew she should have listened in the Briefing Room, but she couldn't shake the feeling in the pit of her stomach that she should say no. Of course, Spock would take advantage of her human weaknesses to entice her to his way of thinking, which now made her question if there were weaknesses in his logic.
No, she thought as the Captain spoke. No, there were never weaknesses in her husband's logic, and she was obviously becoming too paranoid if she suspected Spock of toying with her emotions to get his way. She believed him capable of many things, but not that.
"You're going to do what?" Scotty yelped. "Are they alright in the head, Counselor?" he demanded, looking at Vivian pointedly as if expecting her to say that this was the sign of too much mental strain, and that they should all be put under medical observation for their own safety.
Vivian just shrugged.
She'd promised not to stop Spock, and so she would keep that promise. He wanted to do this, and she wouldn't stop him, even though she hated it.
"No comment," Bones said pointedly, making it fully clear what he thought of the situation.
"A simple transference," Captain Kirk said cheerfully. "Their minds and ours."
Here Vivian had to speak, because her medical duty required it, and her job as the next highest ranking officer required it of her, as well. She and Scotty would be in charge while this was happening, and they would also be busy monitoring the project from both ends.
"I don't know if simple's really the best descriptor, Jaime," Vivian said softly, frowning, but if the Captain heard she didn't care.
"Scotty," the Captain said, "I need your approval, too. Since you'll be working with them, furnishing all they need to make the android robots. You won't be working with them, you'll be working with us, our bodies. They'll be inside us, and we'll be—"
"It all seems rather indecent to me," Bones grumbled.
Was that the problem? Vivian looked down at the table and wondered if her issue with the matter was some kind of old-fashioned sensibility about the body. But she wasn't an old-fashioned kind of person, not like Bones. She was forward-thinking when it came to the blending of cultures, ideas, and even bodies. And yet, she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd gotten a warning about…something like this.
"I'm not so certain of that, Doctor," Ann Mulhall said. "It is scientifically fascinating."
That word felt like a knife, but Vivian was careful not to react.
"Once inside their mechanical bodies, Mr. Scott," Spock said, "they can leave this planet, travel back with us. With their knowledge, mankind could leap ahead ten thousand years."
An argument Spock gave Vivian, and an argument that still did not sit well with her. What was it they were always saying when invoking the Prime Directive? Natural evolution of knowledge was critical not to outgrow their morals too quickly.
"Bones," Captain Kirk said eagerly, "they'll so us medical advances, miracles you never dreamed possible. Scotty, engineering advances. Vessels this size with engines the size of walnuts."
"Ach!" Scotty said, balking. "You're joking."
"She's quite serious," Vivian said softly, glancing up at her husband, who was watching Scotty's face, obviously trying to deduce his response to this news.
"They're giants," Bones said, "and we're insects beside them. They could destroy us without meaning to. And all he wants is the body of our captain, and our second-in-command, too. Coincidence?"
"If that were the reasoning," Captain Kirk said softly, "they would have chosen Vivian, not Doctor Mulhall. They selected us as the most compatible bodies."
"What's your attitude on that, Doctor?" Bones asked Ann Mulhall.
She looked around at Spock and the Captain before saying, "Well, if we all agree, I'm willing to host Thalassa's mind. I'm a scientist. The opportunity is an extraordinary one for experimentation, observation."
Scotty said, still stunned, "A starship engine the size of a walnut? That's impossible." Vivian felt her lips twitch as he continued, "But I don't suppose there'd be any harm in looking over diagrams on it."
He was so predictable, she thought, almost sadly. Start talking engine schematics and he would agree to almost anything, a tactic she'd used a time or two as well. But Bones, Bones was a tougher sell.
"Then it's down to you, Bones," Vivian said, wanting to hurry the decision, almost hoping he would be the bad guy so she could give Spock her word and still get her way. "We need to do this unanimously, or it won't work. You've seen the demands on the body that we'll be dealing with. One word from you and we shut it all down."
Bones nodded, considering her for a moment before turning to Captain Kirk and saying, "Then I still want one question answered to my satisfaction. Why? Not a list of possible miracles, but a simple, basic, understandable why that overrides all danger. And let's not kid ourselves that there is no potential danger in this."
All of their eyes turned to Captain Kirk, the only person who could answer that question, not just because she was the Captain, but because she had closer contact with Sargon than anyone. She pressed her hands together and leaned forward, musing over the question for a moment before giving her answer.
"They used to say if man could fly, he'd have wings," she said softly. "But he did fly. He discovered he had to. Do you wish that the first Apollo mission hadn't reached the moon, or that we hadn't gone on to Mars and then to the nearest star? That's like saying you wish that you still operated with scalpels and sewed your patients up with catgut like your great-great-great-great-grandfather used to. I'm in command. I could order this. But I'm not, because Doctor McCoy is right in pointing out the enormous danger potential in any contact with life and intelligence as fantastically advanced as this. But I must point out that the possibilities, the potential for knowledge and advancement is equally great. Risk. Risk is our business. That's what the starship is all about. That's why we're aboard her. You may dissent without prejudice. Do I hear a negative vote?"
They all sat silently, feeling the truth of her words. Their mission was exploration and contact, regardless of danger. Contact with many species wouldn't have been made if mankind had stopped to think about danger.
"Engineer," Captain Kirk said more firmly, "standby to beam aboard three receptacles."
/-/
The three volunteers were laid out on biobeds in Sickbay, and Vivian was monitoring their mental functions, unable to shake the anxiety in her chest. She studiously avoided looking at the spheres beside the patients, focusing her thoughts on the readings she was recording. She knew Spock was watching her, but she ignored it.
"The extreme power of the alien mind will drive the heart action dangerously high," Bones was explaining to Christine Chapel, who would be assisting them through the experiment, "and the body functions will race many times their normal metabolism, so we're going to have to monitor this very carefully."
"Yes, sir."
Vivian lingered by the Captain, smiled forcefully and said, "I suppose there's no more to do but the swap, Jamie."
"Ready, Sargon," the Captain said, leaning back her head. The orbs glowed brighter, the patients twitching on the biobeds. When the spheres went dim Vivian looked up at the readouts again, copying down the new data as rapidly as possible.
"The transference is complete," Sargon said, using the Captain's body.
"Metabolic rate is double and rising, Doctor," Christine said, looking between Doctor Mulhall's readings and Spock's readings with some concern.
Spock's body sat up and grinned, which made Vivian feel decidedly uncomfortable, as he looked at Christine.
"Hello," he said, his voice strange and echoing, not at all its usual tone. "Oh, you are a lovely female. A pleasant sight to wake up to after half a million years."
"Thank you," Christine said, obviously taken aback and flattered by Henoch's words.
"You're welcome," Henoch said, and Vivian felt that burn of jealousy that someone was using Spock's body to flirt with someone, but she knew she was being unreasonable. Half a million years without eyes or any other anatomy to speak of, it was a given that Henoch would appreciate an attractive woman, and Christine was the first attractive woman he saw.
Ann Mulhall sat up and said, "I'd forgotten what it felt like to breathe again." She looked around, from Spock to Bones. "Sargon?" she asked no one in particular.
"Here," Captain Kirk's body responded. "In this body."
Thalassa used Doctor Mulhall's eyes to examine the body, and she smiled.
"I am not displeased, my husband," she said. "Your body is in ways not unlike that which was your own."
"And I too am pleased, my beloved," Sargon said.
"After so long," she replied. "So very long."
Vivian looked away, recalling the taste of Spock's breath as he kissed her just a couple of hours ago, the feel of his fingers on her face and his hand at her waist.
"Kiss," Sargon said with the Captain's voice, and Vivian didn't have to look to know they were.
"This is an excellent body, Doctor," Henoch said to Bones. "I seem to have received the best of the three. Strength, hearing, eyesight, all far above your human norms. I'm surprised the Vulcans never conquered your race."
Bones was clearly irritated by what could be excused as a throw-away observation.
"Vulcans worship peace above all, Henoch," Bones said, and Spock's eyes turned to him.
"Yes, of course," Henoch said. "Just as we do, Doctor."
Mulhall's body collapsed onto her bed, and Bones called out for Christine. Captain Kirk's body showed signs of dizziness, and Vivian helped her onto the bed.
"Doctor?" Christine asked, looking up at the metabolic readings.
"Henoch," Bones said, "you'd better get back to bed too."
"It will be unnecessary, Doctor," Henoch said, almost cheerfully. "This Vulcan body is accustomed to the higher metabolism."
Vivian tried to get a sense of whether she could feel Spock still in her mind, but she was too distressed by everything around her to focus on it as Bones said, "Sargon, it won't work. You've got to get out before you kill them."
"We will vacate at once," Sargon agreed. "Until you can administer a metabolic reduction injection."
Feeling a small rush of panic, Vivian said, "But we haven't got anything like that."
Spock's eyes turned to her, but she saw difference in them, a foreign presence that seemed to recognize her as it considered her, seemed to know everything. What had Henoch learned in the exchange, she wondered. Or was she imagining she could see more than was really there?
"I'll prepare the formula, Sargon," Henoch said calmly, still using Spock's eyes to look at her.
"Henoch, your condition?" Sargon demanded.
"I can continue in this body for several hours."
"Fortunate," Sargon sighed. "We will vacate at once."
Sargon was once again as good as his word, and Thalassa and Sargon vacated the bodies back to Captain Kirk and Doctor Mulhall.
"This woman will assist me," Spock's voice said, his hand gesturing to Christine. "You will take me to your pharmacology laboratory."
Vivian stood stiffly as Christine did as asked, and the Captain sat up, groggy.
"Bones, what…?"
"It was too close, Jamie," Bones said softly. "You both barely got back alive. Unless the formula works, we can't risk it again."
Vivian found herself hoping that it wouldn't work, but her instincts told her that it would.
/-/
Naturally, it seemed to be working. Vivian took some time off to go to her quarters to rest, unable to shake the feeling that she should have tried harder to make Spock say he wouldn't do it. She should have begged, although she knew Spock well enough to know it wouldn't move him.
Perhaps there was some logical point she had missed, she thought as she took down her hair, wanting to sleep for a few hours before she went back to check on things. She didn't anticipate getting much sleep while she waited for this whole mess to be over.
There was a buzz at her door, and she supposed it was probably one of the medical technicians needing her approval on something.
"Enter," she said, taking out the last pin as the door opened.
But it was not a medical technician who entered, but Spock. Vivian's arms froze as she looked at him in the mirror and reminded herself that it was not Spock, but Henoch in Spock's body, standing there.
"Henoch," she said, turning to face him as the door closed behind him. Her heart rate had raised, but she wasn't thinking of why. "Is there…something I can help you with?"
"Perhaps there is," he said brightly, smiling at her as he took a few steps toward her. She didn't back away, but she wanted to. "You see, I…. Let me see, where to begin?"
"Is everything alright?" she asked, trying to keep things professional. "There's no trouble with the transference?"
"No, none at all," Henoch said, smiling, moving a couple of steps closer still, close enough to reach out and touch her. "Do you know, Vivian, what the problem is with a mechanical body?"
"No," she said, feeling uncomfortable with the question as he moved another step closer, almost too close. "I suppose that would depend on the mechanical body, wouldn't it?"
"Not at all," Henoch said, using Spock's hand to touch a long strand of her hair that had fallen to her shoulder when unpinned. She wanted to step away, but somehow she was rooted to the spot. "In this body, I can feel, but there is no technology to make a mechanical body feel sensation. And there are certain sensations…." He smiled, looking her directly in the eye as his hand touched her shoulder as he caressed her hair. "Sargon has Thalassa, if for a sort time, Vivian, but I have no one left."
She said nothing, almost afraid of what she thought he might ask What she was almost sure he would ask. And he kept smiling at her with Spock's mouth.
"You see, during the transference," he said, "I could sense things about Spock, and his most immediate thoughts. I know that you are his wife, and I also believe that in both Human and Vulcan custom it would be inappropriate for his body to kiss someone other than you. And so I present myself to you in this opportunity, that you might allow me to feel in a way that suitably no one else would."
In some ways, it seemed almost reasonable, and Spock no doubt would have thought the whole thing perfectly logical. It certainly was difficult to think of reasons why she shouldn't when his fingers – Spock's fingers – were now caressing her shoulder through her dress.
"I didn't want him to do this anyway," she said, trying to step away. "Forgive me, Henoch, but I can't…. I just can't. I've sacrificed enough for this project."
He smiled at her, seemingly unconcerned, and he startled her by touching her forehead. Instead of swatting away his hand or stepping back, she felt strangely disoriented as he said calmly, "Your sacrifices have barely begun. You can see no reason to doubt me, can you?"
She could not, and she felt slightly dizzy as she tried to think of a reason to doubt him. His face was very close now, but that was fine. After all, it was her husband's body. And Henoch knew best, knew far more than she did. An infinitely superior being. She did not struggle as his lips touched hers, although she did not kiss him back. She just stood, dizzy, confused, trying to organize her thoughts when she felt as though someone was continually reordering them.
"Very beautiful," he said, stroking her face, familiar fingers on her skin and an almost familiar voice speaking to her. Vivian struggled to stay in the moment. "I plan to live like a god, my dear, like Sargon is too afraid to live. In this body I can do it, and in time I believe you can be trained to be a worthy consort. Perhaps one of many. That would suit you fine, wouldn't it?"
She was supposed to agree, so she said yes, it suited her fine, although even as the words cemented themselves in her mind as fact, there was a part of her that struggled to reorder her mind, to regain control of her own thoughts even as she felt a kind of cool calm while her thoughts slipped away, slipped past her, ordering into some kind of reality that told her everything would be alright if she did as Henoch told her. Sometime inside of her mind was fighting, pushing, but it was weak and far away. And after all, Henoch was an infinitely superior being.
Enterprise Medical Log, stardate 4769.1. Three alien minds now inhabit the bodies of Captain Kirk, Science Officer Spock, and Doctor Ann Mulhall. As planned, the construction of android robots is underway. All is proceeding as expected and as promised. I can find no reason for concern, but yet I am filled with foreboding.
Vivian was taking readings, and she noticed that Christine looked puzzled, staring at the hypos she was holding and frowning like she was trying to remember something important. Because Christine was so competent and proactive, Vivian didn't think she'd ever seen such a look on her face.
"Christine," she said, "have you got the metabolic readings?"
"You'll find them all excellent, Counselor," Christine said, with a strangely distracted manner. "Well within normal."
Vivian glanced at Bones, who seemed equally puzzled by Christine's behavior.
"Is something wrong, Miss Chapel?" he asked.
"Er, yes," Christine said, frowning at the hypos still. "I, er, I had something to say. I can't seem to remember."
"Regarding our patients?" Bones prompted.
"Yes," she said, smiling slightly. "That must be it. I am so pleased the way they're responding, Doctor. The formula's working perfectly."
But Vivian began to get an uneasy feeling building in her stomach as Bones said, "You look tired, Miss Chapel. Perhaps you'd care for me to administer the last few injections."
"Tired? Well, not at all, Doctor. Thank you for asking."
She went out of Sickbay, leaving a very puzzled Bones and Vivian frowning at each other. Very slowly, as Vivian went to her office, she felt a strange sense that she'd forgotten something important, as well. She strained, but could not imagine what it was, and all the same she couldn't shake the feeling that she needed desperately to shower.
/-/
She had a few hours off, and Vivian went to her quarters to rest before she had to do official notes on some files. She was just about to pin up her loose hair when someone buzzed her door. A sudden wave of fear rushed over her, something in the very back of her mind telling her not to answer it, but when she couldn't think of a good reason not to, she told the person waiting to enter.
It was Henoch, in Spock's body, and as he entered with the confidence of someone who knew a place, she felt a kind of dizzying fear, but by the time the door closed behind him he had crossed the room and pressed his fingers to her forehead. A kind of leeching calm seeped through her, and she realized she'd felt this sensation before.
"How long do you have?" he asked her.
"A little over two hours," she felt herself saying, although she wasn't consciously aware of forming thoughts or words. Something in the pit of her stomach was still tight, something telling her that she needed to get away from whatever she was in.
"Go into the next room," Henoch said with Spock's voice, his fingers caressing her neck. "Remove your uniform and lay down on your bed."
It was a strange thing to do at this time of day, but apart from a tiny bit of discomfort in the furthest corner of her mind, she saw nothing wrong with it, so she did as she was told, not noticing as he watched her pull off her uniform, as he crossed the room and came to touch her skin. Something was telling her to stop him as he spoke words she heard but did not actively processed, as he took off the uniform that was Spock's uniform and told her to part her legs. There was a deep internal struggle as body reacted to his touch and mechanical behavior, as she was told that this was perfectly natural, as he told her that she would not remember until he was ready.
The struggle was continual, but it made little ground against the steady stream of commands and suggestions from Henoch, and the fuzzy feeling of dissociation from the moment that kept her from developing any emotional position on the situation on it.
/-/
Back in Sickbay and feeling a keen sense that she was forgetting something important, Vivian was just finishing one official report on one of her sessions when she heard the voice of Captain Kirk call on the intercom, "Sickbay."
Bones pressed the intercom button and Vivian looked up, realizing that her heartbeat had risen, although she couldn't imagine why.
"Sickbay. McCoy."
"Sargon here," Kirk's voice answered weakly. "I'm in your deck six briefing room."
A sense of urgency filled Vivian and she said, "Sargon, you sound really poor. We'll be right there. Don't move."
They hurried to the briefing room, bringing Christine with them, and when they entered Vivian froze, seeing Kirk's body, which had held Sargon, collapsed, with Doctor Mulhall's body, inhabited by Thalassa, standing over him.
"Hypo," Bones said, quickly kneeling beside the body.
"Doctor, help him!" Thalassa said urgently.
But Vivian knew before Bones spoke, knew by the way he lifted his head and looked up at her mournfully. The host's body and the mind were lost.
"He's head. She's dead."
Medical Log, stardate 4770.3. Do I list one death or two? When Kirk's body died, Sargon was too far distant from his receptacle to transfer back. Sargon is dead. But is Captain Kirk dead? Her body is, but her consciousness is still in the receptacle into which it was transferred earlier.
Vivian felt strangely out of her own body as she watched a medical team hooking up the Captain's body to the life support machine in sickbay. She saw the face, like Captain Kirk could be sleeping, but knowing that the essence of the Captain's mind was still in the receptacle.
"All her vital organs are now working, Doctor," a young nurse Vivian didn't know said.
"Yes," Bones said, looking up at Vivian with a meaningful glance, "we can keep them going for a few weeks, or a month. For all the good it'll do."
/-/
After about an hour of Vivian and Bones going through records, trying to decide what to do for official paper work, Thalassa in Doctor Mulhall's body, entered.
"Doctor," she said, with a kind of determination about her. "Counselor."
"Thalassa?" Vivian asked, puzzled. Shouldn't she be working on the android bodies?
"Would you like to save your Captain Kirk?" Thalassa asked.
Bones narrowed his vibrant blue eyes and said, "But you said that was impossible."
"We have many powers Sargon did not permit us to use," Thalassa said smoothly. "He thought them too tempting to us. This body pleases me. I intend to keep it."
That caused a kind of alarm bell in Vivian, but she didn't know why.
"I see," Bones said darkly. "And Henoch intends to keep Spock's body, of course."
Vivian should have been panicking. She knew that, and something in the back of her mind was telling her that this should upset her, but she felt as though she knew these things already, and that there was nothing wrong with them. Natural, was the word that came to mind.
"Henoch's plans are his own affair," Thalassa said coolly. "I wish only to exist in peace as a living woman."
"If you're asking our approval—"
"I require only your silence. Only the three of us will know that Doctor Mulhall has not returned to her body. Isn't that worth your Captain's life? Doctor, we can take what we wish. Neither of you, nor this ship, nor worlds have the power to stop us."
"And not myself, nor Vivian, nor Jamie can trade a body we don't own," Bones said, answering for them all, which suited Vivian, who still felt strangely fuzzy. "It happens to belong to a young woman."
"Who you hardly know," Thalassa argued. "Almost a stranger to you."
"I will not peddle flesh. I'm a physician."
"A physician?" She laughed a harsh laugh, and Vivian felt dizzy, like she was looking down on them from another position. "In contrast to what we are, you are a prancing, savage medicine man. You dare defy one you should be on your knees worshipping? I could destroy you both with a single thought."
Flames appeared around them, and Vivian could feel excruciating pain. McCoy writhed as he fell to his knees, and although Vivian could feel that pain, she felt her body too lax to respond to it. She did not struggle against the pain, although that same place in the back of her mind told her to fight. But fight against what?
"Stop!" Thalassa suddenly cried, the flames gone. She seemed distressed and she softly said, while looking right at Vivian with knowing eyes, "Sargon was right. The temptations within a living body are too great. Forgive me."
The voice of Sargon, startlingly, said, "I am pleased, my beloved. It is good you have found the truth yourself."
"Sargon?" Thalassa said, brightly. "Where are you? I thought you destroyed by Henoch."
Destroyed by Henoch.
"Henoch," Vivian said softly, frowning. She felt a strong flash of memory, of Henoch in Spock's body telling her his plans, his desires, his expectations. A shiver ran down her spine. "Spock…."
She remembered, realized everything, like being doused in freezing water. Only she felt a kind of grime on her skin, a kind of violation that went deeper than her skin, and she desperately wanted to shower, to try to get away from this sensation of being used. And what would happen now, now that Spock's body was possessed by a supposedly malevolent being?
Vivian felt weak and dizzy.
"I have power even Henoch does not suspect, beloved."
"Yes. Yes, I see. I understand. Just as we have placed our consciousness within robots, Sargon has placed his in your vessel."
Christine entered, looking puzzled as she said, "Doctor."
"Doctor, leave us," Thalassa said, smiling. "Sargon has a plan. We have much work to do."
Vivian felt dizzy as Bones left the room, and Thalassa gently touched Christine's forehead. Vivian's forehead suddenly felt incredibly dirty, and she found it hard to breathe.
"She cannot hear us," Thalassa said, with surprising gentleness. "Counselor, do you know what I have done to her?"
"Kind of," Vivian said, feeling a shiver. She tucked her thumbs into her hands and she glanced up at the receptacle that held Spock's mental essence. She felt an urge to touch it, but she felt so terribly guilty that she was afraid. "Henoch…."
"Unfortunately," Thalassa said softly, "because of the specific connection between yourself and your husband, Henoch will be more acutely aware of your thoughts. He will not have to scan your mind to know your thoughts."
"Yes," Vivian said. Somehow, this made perfect sense to her. She understood, almost instinctively, that this was why Christine had been called in to Sickbay, because Vivian could not be used to thwart Henoch.
Vivian felt dizzy as her own forehead was touched. When she was awakened again, time seemed to have passed. Christine was leaving the room and the Captain was sitting up. The ship shook, and the spheres were cracked.
"Jamie?" Bones said, entering and seeing the Captain alert as Vivian helped her out of the life support machine. "Are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine, Bones," she said, uncomfortable.
"Thalassa?" Bones asked, looking up at Doctor Mulhall's body.
"She is now with Sargon, Doctor," Ann Mulhall said softly. "I'm Ann Mulhall, back in my own body."
Bones looked up to the broken spheres, and he began to panic.
"Jamie, the receptacles," he said, horrified. "Spock's consciousness was in one of them."
Vivian felt a jolt of pain at the lie she was telling as she said, "We had to do it, Bones."
She hoped he bought the idea that Spock was gone, because it was the only way it would work.
"What are you talking about?" Bones said, horrified. "There is no Spock to return to his body. You've killed a loyal officer, your best friend."
Overcome with the guilt and grief and pain from the whole ordeal, with that feeling that she'd given in to Spock's logic when she wanted him to say no, she began to cry, and she turned away from Bones's aghast face.
"Bones," Captain Kirk said firmly, "prepare a hypo. The fastest, deadliest poison to Vulcans. Spock's consciousness is gone. We must kill his body, the thing in it."
Bones was horrified, Vivian knew, but he couldn't possibly understand. None of them could understand the hell she was walking in every moment, and that she felt fairly confident she wouldn't ever leave.
/-/
Palmer was screaming as they rushed to the Bridge, and Vivian saw her collapsed at her console when she stepped off the turbolift. She moved to check on the young woman, and she purposefully ignored Christine, who was standing rigidly beside the Captain's chair, where Henoch was using Spock's body.
"Must I make an example of you, too, Helm?" he was saying, but Henoch turned the chair turned the new arrivals, paying particular attention to Bones.
"Pain, Captain," he said, smiling at them like they were flies that were irritating him. "And you, my dears?"
Vivian felt an even more excruciating pain than before, but she felt her body collapse, saw the Captain and Doctor Mulhall collapsing beside her, and she focused on the pain. Bones was rushing forward, ready with his injection, but Henoch just smiled with Spock's lips.
"Fortunately, Doctor, I know every thought of every mind around me. See?" He gestured to Christine. "Take the hypo from him. And inject him with it."
Christine took the hypo and Vivian braced herself as Christine turned abruptly and injected Henoch instead. He leapt from his seat.
"Fools," he cried, looking specifically at Vivian. "I'll simply transfer to another place, another body." He moved toward her, then whirled around suddenly.
"Sargon!" he cried, as if anguished. "No, Sargon, please. Let me. Let me transfer." He collapsed and Vivian felt the pain in her nerves extinguish, but she still felt a burn she'd not been able to get rid of, the dizzying pain unique to her. The others were free, but she….
"My friend Spock," Captain Kirk said mournfully, kneeling beside him. "If there'd only been another way."
Vivian winced, but Sargon said, "I could not allow your sacrifice of one so close to you."
The lights dimmed and glowed, and Christine wobbled slightly, and then Vivian felt him, strong and surprisingly emotive in the back of her mind.
"Spock!" she gasped as he sat up, feeling the full force of her relief and guilt.
"You're alive," the Captain said, astonished.
Spock's eyes went to Vivian first before he turned his attention to the Captain and Bones, who crowded around him.
"There was enough poison in that hypo to kill ten Vulcans," Bones said, astonished.
"No, Doctor," Sargon's voice said. "I allowed you to believe that to be true so that Henoch would read your thoughts and believe it also."
"Sargon," Bones said, almost smiling.
"It seems, Doctor," Spock said with a voice that filled Vivian with warmth and that sensation of shame, "the injection was only enough to cause unconsciousness."
"But Henoch believed and fled the body," Sargon said calmly. "He is destroyed."
Feeling tightness in her throat and chest, Vivian said, "And you had to believe his consciousness was gone, Captain, when the vessels were destroyed, but actually it was just rehearsed."
"The place Henoch would least suspect, Captain," Spock said, glancing over at Vivian. She looked down at the console because she didn't feel she could look at him without feeling the full force of what had happened. And she hadn't had time, she just hadn't been able to breathe, much less process everything.
"That is why I was summoned into Sickbay, Doctor," Christine said brightly. "Mr. Spock's consciousness was placed in me. We shared a consciousness together."
"We now know we cannot permit ourselves to exist in your world, my children," Sargon said. "Thalassa and I must now also depart into oblivion."
"Is there any way we can help you, Sargon?" Captain Kirk asked.
"Yes, my daughter. You can allow Thalassa and me to share your bodies again. A last moment together."
Vivian looked up to see Doctor Mulhall nodding. The lights flickered and the Captain and Doctor Mulhall stepped to the side, toward the science station. Vivian could feel Spock watching her, but she pointedly watched Ann turn to the Captain and, with Thalassa's words, say, "Oblivion together does not frighten me, beloved. Promise me we'll be together."
Vivian's eyes were stinging as Sargon said, "I promise, beloved."
"Together forever."
"Forever, beloved. Forever." They embraced and the light effect happened again, and when they parted the Captain was clearly herself again. She said, "Well, I'm sure that Sargon appreciated your cooperation, Doctor Mulhall."
"Yes," she said with a smile. "I was happy to cooperate, Captain."
"It was beautiful," Christine said breathlessly, and Vivian felt that she couldn't breathe.
"Captain," she said quickly, "I…I think I…. Permission to…to…."
The words weren't coming, and Bones said something about exhaustion and all she heard was the Captain's approval for time off before she rushed to the turbolift, not hearing anything else, only feeling Spock's concern pulsating as she watched the doors close and the tears stinging her eyes.
/-/
Spock could feel Vivian's distress strongly, and he knew he needed to be with her. He had thought of nothing but her fluctuations in emotional state while he was in the receptacle, but he was too cut away to do more than sense and make his presence mildly known. He had felt Henoch's nature in the exchange, felt Henoch's intentions, and even felt Henoch's consideration of the memories Spock was holding of his wife.
He knew, he just knew when her mental and emotional state fluctuated so wildly, that Henoch was enacting his plans and exerting control over her, and he could not begin to suppose what impact that was having over her. He let himself into her quarters, and he heard the sound of the shower running. For some reason, he was struggling to feel exactly what she was feeling, more a strange mix of pulsating and conflicting emotions. He lingered at the door to her bedroom, wondering if perhaps he should come back later, to give her some time and space, but he heard a trembling sob.
Without a further thought he went through, ignoring her bed, which she had torn apart and ransacked, that her wardrobe was open with uniforms across the room. He only knew that she was crying in the shower. He peeled off his uniform, thinking briefly that it would only inhibit leaving when he did decide to leave if his uniform were soaked. He stepped into the shower without announcing himself, and Vivian was curled against the shower wall, skin bare and obviously red from water too-hot for her delicate human skin, crying.
"Vivian," he said, adjusting the water closer to her usual temperature before kneeling beside her. "My wife, look at me."
She was reluctant, but she did look up, and he could see such pain in her eyes. Emotions he didn't understand, shame and fear and guilt and anger. He couldn't separate them out to find any logical root to them.
"I was weak," she said, wiping her eyes and trembling as he brushed a soaked strand of hair from her eyes. "I…I…"
"I know," Spock said, knowing how difficult it was for her to speak. "I was with you always, Vivian. I am always with you. I only regret that I could not project enough from my location to aid you in your struggle."
She shook her head, crying, again, and Spock leaned in, touching his forehead to hers to help her feel his comfort. He wanted to help her understand that it was not something she could have stopped, that it was illogical to feel these strange emotions.
"I can't get the feeling off of me," she whispered.
"What feeling?"
"Like…like something dirty is on my skin," she said, through tears. "Spock, I feel so violated. And I feel like I should have been able to stop it, but I…I…."
"You could not," he said, touching her chin. "Vivian, their powers were so far beyond ours, and nothing but their own kind could have saved you from his whims. You have nothing to feel guilty about. I only…I only wish that I would have done as you asked and denied the use of my body in the first place."
"What about science?" she said with an almost bitter laugh.
He pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth and felt her muscles relax slightly.
"Science is nothing," he said, "if I lose you."
He could feel a strange sensation breaking through her erratic emotions, something more akin to the sensation that came from her as she climaxed, something that made him feel closer to her even when he was trying to maintain his grip on logic and control. Even this small flash of her emotion through the strain of the whole experience was pushing him forward. Suddenly it seemed that the only logical thing was to kiss her.
Her lips were cold, but she responded. Not with her usual eagerness, but Spock was able to build her responses through continual kisses. He did not let her focus on her other emotions, but on the physical insistence of his presence. Now that he was embodied once more, the memory of her body perched on his lap returned with increased power, and he could feel a dizzying combination of their sensations and emotions as she wrapped her hands around his neck, allowing him to pull her trembling body to a standing position so that he could press her to the wall, her legs wrapping around his waist.
Spock did not feel the same need as when his blood burned, the same urgency as their wedding night, but he could feel her need and in some ways it was as powerful, knowing that this was healing her, to some extent. His wife needed him, and in the moment nothing else mattered. If she forgot everything but him by the time he carried her out to her unmade bed, he would have succeeded. When he did carry her out she was clinging to him eagerly, so desperately, and he was able to shift the bed before laying her down on it.
He pressed his face into her neck and let his fingers trace up her body and re-learn every curve.
"You're not…." She swallowed. "It's just that he…."
"I know," Spock said. "My body was still what touched you, Vivian. And I was with you. As far as I'm concerned, nothing is there to forgive. You are still the only woman I have touched, and regardless of anything before we met, I believe that it does not count as you being with anyone but me since our marriage. And I know it will take time."
"Yes."
He kissed the juncture of her shoulder and neck, and she said sighed his name, her body relaxing again as he opened his mouth slightly to taste her skin, feeling her fingers in his hair, encouraging him.
He closed his eyes and thought that if he could reach thoughts to oblivion, he would send his thanks to Sargon every day for giving him back these moments. For giving him back his wife.
A/N: So…remember when I said I'd be taking a break to catalogue characters? Well, I just finished the A's. SO. Because there's way more characters than I took into account, I'll be updating a chapter for every letter I finish. So… pray I finish the B's more quickly? The good news is, some letters will be really quick, but others (like probably the B's) will take time.
Next chapter, when I post, will be "By Any Other Name," and I'm currently outlining in Season 3! I've recently started outlines for "And the Children Shall Lead." That's still a ways away, but if that's an episode you like, you can rejoice in knowing that it will eventually be in this story!
So, cheers everyone! I've officially got a teaching job (so I'll have regular holidays for writing), so stress is over as far as not knowing what's coming up in my life.
I appreciate your patience, and hey, one letter down – 25 to go (because of course I've got every letter of the alphabet involved).
Review Prompt: If you'd been in Vivian's situation and your partner wanted to let someone else inhabit his body for science, what would your logical argument against be?
-C