Home is the Sailor
by
Pat Foley
Chapter 44
McCoy slipped out of the club. Under Vulcan's starlit night, he flipped open his communicator.
"He's here," he told Amanda.
He heard a soft exhale. "What a relief."
"You were worried."
"He's never stormed out of the house like that before. Even the night before he left for Starfleet, when he and Sarek had serious words, he stayed until the next morning."
"I guess that's reason enough to worry."
Even through the tinny speaker of the communicator, he heard her half laugh. "Standard non-directive counseling technique, Doctor. Your shrink hat is showing. Or do you feel more like a lion tamer, keeping all us big cats up on pedestals with a chair and a whip?"
"Now that you mention it," McCoy grinned.
"I just got my son back," Amanda said. "When he had been missing and presumed dead in Klingon hands. And my husband and my son are both speaking again and living relatively compatibly in the same house for the first time in eighteen years. So if you think I'm walking on eggs, as if I were a pregnant Caitan about to give birth to twelve kittens, you're right. I'm trying not to risk anything that changes the precarious count of my reconciled resident family from three to two." She paused. "I think Spock storming out of here scared Sarek too."
McCoy chuckled. "Well, maybe Sarek'll think twice next time."
A beat. "I wouldn't count on it. He's Vulcan."
"Well, I think a night out might be good for Spock. Vulcan or not. He can play a little music, blow off some steam."
"Somehow I never think of my very Vulcan son as needing to blow off steam. And what do you mean, play a little music?"
"I think we are all discovering bits and pieces of Spock he compartmentalized very well. Did you know that he used to play in a rock band?"
"He was a session musician," Amanda corrected him severely. "Some studio wanted a Vulcan lyrist and scouring Terra for all available Vulcans, contacted the Academy. He did a lot of session work after that. More in the summers than during the Academy term."
"Well, he first hooked up with some friends - Sanjean is here, and Tongo Rad, an old acquaintance. And he may play a set with this band here, who also appear to be old friends. Looks like he played with this group quite a bit. They call him Junior."
There was a long silence. Then Amanda said in a slightly different voice, "Oh, I would like to hear that. And see him play with them. But it's better if I don't."
"Why not?" McCoy asked frowning. "This is Spock too."
"Doctor, I am the wife of a diplomat. And you are a commissioned officer. Even if you're medical rather than tactical you're surely familiar with the concept of plausible deniability. I'll need it when I mention this to his father."
"Ah," McCoy chuckled. "Now I understand."
"Did he eat something?"
"Yes, Mother," McCoy teased. "I think Rad staked him to a meal."
"Good," she said. Then she hesitated. "Rad - You don't mean that Tong Rad? The son of the Catullan Ambassador?" He could hear the frowning shock in her voice.
"Yep."
"The one whose father practically remanded him to Vulcan after charges were conveniently made to go away for grand larceny, attempted murder, and various other crimes?"
"That's him," McCoy said cheerfully. "Nice kid. Reminds me a bit of Spock."
Amanda sighed again. "Oh, my. I think plausible deniability is getting a workout here. And Sarek might be right. Maybe he should choose his son's friends. I'm no great fan of Tong Rad."
"Now, now. What's a little starship theft among friends? And thieves?"
"I'm not going to tell Sarek this," she said decisively. "Just that he's been found and will come home later."
"Quite a bit later. He went off with this band. And in addition to maybe playing a set or two, they want him to look at their electronics."
"It's not like he's twelve years old and has a curfew," Amanda said. "So long as he does plan to return."
"Amanda. Sarek does realize Spock's past his micromanaging?"
"I don't know about that. Vulcan concern can be rather smothering. With Spock not entirely well..." He heard her sigh a little. "I'll just let Sarek know he's in the city. And if more detail is necessary, that he met up with some old colleagues from his session musician days. He's probably bound to hear something about this. Vulcan is not a small planet, but Spock is pretty well known. But I'm saying nothing about rock bands and Tong Rad." She paused a minute. "How's Jim? Is he a music fan, or is he pacing and counting the hours till he can shanghai him back to the Enterprise?"
"Come to think of it, I don't think he has had much to do with Spock's shipboard concerts in the past. Maybe not his kind of music. Anyway, I left him flirting with an Orion girl."
"Well, he's all right then," Amanda said. "Sounds like you all are going to have a fun night. While I'm stuck here about to be quizzed on human interpretations of Abraxis positions by a Vulcan tyrant." She sounded put out by that.
"You could run away too," McCoy suggested. "And join us."
"Plausible deniability," she reminded him. "Anyway, you've got my flyer. But with the house empty of guests and children for the first time in days, once we have spent sufficient time on Abraxis, maybe I'll do a little flirting."
"Good thing we're staying out late then," McCoy teased back.
When McCoy got back to the club, Jim had gotten up too, and switched tables to the Orion girl's. They were rising from it to dance. She didn't look like she understood much Standard. But with Orions, words were very much a secondary communication skill.
Sanjean had also tablehopped and was off chatting with some Vulcans. McCoy's original table had been cleared and commandeered by three Tellurites. He wasn't going to try to claim it back from them.
The club was crowded now. The clientele had shifted from Academy students to a denser and more diverse evening crowd, louder and rowdier, half non-Vulcans. In spite of a constantly humming air recycler, the air was acrid, sharp with a euphorics and a tinge of alien sweat.
McCoy stood at the back for a while, observing and listening. In the break between one crashing song and the next, McCoy snagged a passing waitress and ordered a Saurian Brandy, who in spite of her Rigelian ears, had to strain to hear him over the subdued roar of the crowd.
On stage, the drummer raised his sticks over his head, and clapped them loudly together, setting the beat for the band's next song over the crowd's cheers and noise, calling out one, two, three, four. And then their music crashed over the crowd like a wave.
And McCoy could see near the drummer, Spock had found a guitar and joined the group. He didn't have a spotlight on him as the regular band members did, and the club was dark and smoky. But the stage was small enough that he was clearly visible in the spill of the other lighting. He was playing rhythm to the lead guitarist, eyes on Drew across from him, shoulders down as if leaning back on the waves of music coming from Chad's keyboard behind him, head tilted to the beat of the drums just to his left. McCoy watched while Spock closed his eyes as if he were totally immersed in the music, wholly unaware of the crowd and the noise.
McCoy noted that unless there was a screen in the bulkhead above the musicians heads, he was playing by rote, having absorbed the 'sheets' in one apparent review. Spock's comprehension and eidetic memory apparently had no problems with that kind of data.
By the next song, the lighting techs had adjusted to the group's addition, and Spock had his own subdued lighting spot, illuminating him for the crowd. There were a few calls of his name. Spock looked blindly out in the direction of the calls, nodding absently in acknowledgement, but not missing a beat.
McCoy watched him with a mild uncomplicated interest, sipping his brandy, taking his own night off. He was pleased at this sign of Spock's recovery, but not thinking of much else. With the next song, Spock traded the acoustic guitar for an electric one. He was playing a complicated rhythm scheme with the lead guitarist. Sometimes Drew picked up and gathered the answering band after his phrase. Sometimes Spock did.
And then McCoy saw something that made him straighten up, his back against the wall. When it came to his turn, Spock didn't just answer the lead guitarist and let the band follow him. He looked around to the group, a glance over his left shoulder, a glance over his right. Gathering them almost palpably. And as the band crashed into the chorus, the band somehow played as if welded into one coherent unit, playing with renewed vigor.
McCoy set down his emptied glass on a convenient tray and walked over to Jim, interrupting his swaying dance with the Orion girl. Neither one of them were moving so much to the music as to a private rhythm of their own. McCoy had to speak directly in his ear to be heard over the noise. "Hey, Jim." He gestured to Spock.
Kirk raised his head, blinking as if he had half forgotten McCoy was there. Or where he was. He looked through the gloom to the bubble of light on stage, following McCoy's pointing finger. Spock and the lead guitarist were playing alternate phrases, with the keyboardist rippling between them, weaving them together. Spock's head was down at the moment, concentrating on his fingering.
Playing was probably something of a physical challenge for him, even if not a mental one, given he still had some residual numbness in his fingers from the effects of the restraints cutting into his wrists. But his shoulders were still relaxed and he looked entirely caught up in the music. The drummer was beating away in a frenzied, complicated riff that McCoy could feel in his eardrums. He wondered how the Vulcans were withstanding it.
Most of the aliens and even some of the Vulcans in the audience had risen from their seats and were giving the band a solid back-clap, the more uninhibited of the alien patrons dancing in place. The Vulcans were fascinated by the aliens' behavior, perhaps here as much for the outworlder experience as for the music.
Spock went into a complicated guitar solo, cheered on by Chad yelling "Go, Junior!"
Then Spock did what McCoy had seen and brought him over to Jim. That glance from left to right, a cut of his eyes to the drummer, gathering and welding them back into a group, a solid unit, as the band joined and followed him into the chorus. Almost a taking of command.
McCoy felt Kirk stiffen beside him. And he knew Kirk had seen what he had in that moment. That harmony, the attunement among the group that had nothing to do with music. That was personal, even emotional. Kirk had it with his command team. He had it with Spock. It was a phenomenon that McCoy thought made Jim an exceptionally able commander, that ability to gather and weld a group into one coherent whole.
Spock sometimes had it when he took Command. He could do it. But he didn't tend to, often keeping a wall up between him and his fellow officers, except for the rare times when he unbent. McCoy had thought it had been something he'd learned from Jim. Even perhaps, preening himself a little, that it might have been something the rigid Vulcan had managed after a certain human physician had broken down a few walls.
But he'd been wrong. Spock had possessed it before. Perhaps it was the military nature of the Enterprise that he resisted it on the Enterprise. Or the fact that as a senior officer he was responsible for his juniors. Perhaps it was the scientific nature of many of his duties, or his responsibilities. Or that everyone there largely expected him to be Vulcan and act Vulcan most of the time.
But with this group there was no hierarchy. Obviously no one cared that he was Vulcan or what being Vulcan meant. All that mattered at the moment was playing the music. Together.
Maybe he had been involved in that counter-culture group a little more than anyone had guessed.
McCoy half wondered why Spock had even left this unity for a career in Fleet. Well, perhaps for a scientist and a Vulcan, even this kind of emotional resonance wasn't enough. Perhaps he still felt alien in spite of it.
But it was hard to believe that. Caught up in the moment as they played together in a unity that was almost palpable, the human members of the band grinned and cheered. And Spock narrowed his eyes, half amused but with a little half smile teasing his lips, that he allowed himself during moments when he really unbent.
And Kirk watched, face set and neutral, oddly at his most controlled when Spock was the opposite. Only his eyes betrayed the wound.
The group ended the song to a roar of audience applause. Before the crowd could settle, the drummer yelled out the name of the next song, setting the beat on his sticks, raised above his head, crashing together. And band set off again.
"They're good," Kirk finally allowed to the expectant McCoy, eyes roving from the band to his First Officer. "Spock, too. But come on, Bones. I'd be surprised if he wasn't." His voice was even. Neutral. "He can play a computer like a virtuoso, why not a musical instrument? He's been trained in music well enough to have been able to recognize Brahms' notation."
"Not sure if you've noticed, but he's not playing Brahms. Or Bach, for that matter. They're really jamming."
Kirk shrugged. "But I've heard Spock play before. Accompany Uhura when she was singing some fairly risqué stuff. I'm sure he can play anything. But this is not really my kind of music."
"He looks relaxed. Happy." McCoy waited then said. "Come on, Jim, I know you're seeing what I'm seeing."
Kirk didn't answer.
The lead guitarist was playing a bodacious riff, almost as if in a challenge. Not missing a beat, Spock was answering back, as matter of fact as if they were holding a conversation. The non-Vulcan part of the crowd was going wild. The Vulcan part of it looked to be fascinated by the spectacle.
"You can see the wheels turning in their heads," McCoy said to Kirk, pointing out a few wide-eyed Vulcans enthralled by the crowd's emotional surge.
Kirk spared them a glance, but then his gaze went back to Spock and he shook his head.
"What?" McCoy asked.
"I'd be happier if I knew this was just shore leave."
"It is shore leave."
"Just shore leave."
"Jim, can't you take a night off and worry tomorrow?"
"I've got a ship preparing to go out on space trials tomorrow. And I'm short an officer." His voice sharpened. "No, wait. I'm short two."
"Those trials are just with the yard crew and Scotty. A minimal staff only for an engine test after a refit as complex as that. Spock would never be allowed to go on that anyway. It's a dockyard/engineer thing."
"Still, I wish he'd try getting back to the Enterprise as hard as he is doing this," Kirk nodded at the stage. "He hasn't even been back on board yet."
"Jim." McCoy shook his head.
"Who knows," Kirk argued, "it might just make those memories click."
"He indicated he might go tomorrow before the trials. But don't get your hopes up for a miracle cure, Jim. I doubt it's that simplistic."
"And he didn't give Sivesh's suggestion a fair trial." Kirk shook his head again. "I get that he doesn't like the regime. I understand. I would never ask him to do anything he wasn't ready for. But Bones, you can't expect me to be happy at the prospect of leaving him on Vulcan. The whole point of this was to work together to get him well. Everyone is trying but him. What's wrong with him, Bones?"
"You can't really know how hard he's trying. Do you want to know what most mind-sifter victims look like, the few that we've managed to rescue? For one thing most die. As for the rest - he's not curled up in a ball in the corner of a room, non-verbal and interminably insane. He may have only fought with his mind, but he did resist."
"I just want him well, Bones."
"Jim, he is doing very well. And he may get well, and still choose not to go back to Fleet."
"That's not well."
"Events can change people, Jim. Weren't you changed by Tarsus? Didn't it change you from a slightly wild teenager to a grim Fleet cadet? And you're still a little grim at times, particularly when you're thwarted. And you don't have much appreciation for the slightly wild types anymore. Unless on your own terms. What, do you think there's a Tarsus waiting for anyone who indulges in a little too much license? Some kind of cosmic punishment?"
"You know that's not true, Bones. And don't headshrink me. I'm not your patient now."
McCoy leaned in to drive his point home. "Maybe it's just a little true, Jim."
The Orion girl, bored with this contentious talk, mewed and tugged at Kirk's arm. She jerked her head to the crowd, making it very clear if he wasn't going to pay attention to her, she'd find someone who would.
"I'm going to take your earlier advice, Bones," Kirk said with a significant glance to the girl. "And Spock's flyer. When this is over, you and he can go back to the Fortress in Amanda's."
"Your girl's not going to care if you have a flashy aircar."
"Maybe not, but I may spend the night on the Enterprise, check in with Scotty in person, help him get ready for trials tomorrow."
"He won't need your help."
"Maybe I need a break, Bones. And I think it's just as well Spock doesn't have a warp sled right now."
"You might be right on that. Though I think he was never considering going off planet."
Kirk's mouth tensed as if he didn't quite like the sound of that. "Whatever."
McCoy caught his arm, "You don't want to tell Spock yourself?"
"He's busy," Kirk said, with a glance for the stage. He put his arm back around the Orion girl and they made their way out.
McCoy glanced up at the stage. And even through the distractions, crowds of people and the smoke and outgassing from a hundred euphorics, he could see that Spock, in spite of his attunement with his present group, with his preternatural awareness of Kirk, the same as Kirk's for him, looked up from his playing to watch somberly as Kirk walked out the door.
To be continued...
