Chapter 7
The Planet Earth
Atlanta, Georgia.
Stardate 1435.4
The sun had set over a clear blue horizon, which had gradually changed into a pale pink/cerulean blush then to a rich shade of orange. It was now eleven o'clock Earth hours in the evening.
Captain Spock was laying in bed in the darkness contemplating the two messages he had received three days ago. One from Nogura about a most important mission, which must not be shared with other crewmembers until it, was technically confirmed that the mission would go ahead and the other...Jim Kirk was dead.
McCoy had not yet received his paper for some reason. However he was informed of the terrible news before Spock arrived at his apartment. Despite his Vulcan training Spock could not put the terrible letter out of his mind.
He wondered if the lapse of control was still connected with Amanda's loss and the anger at his father, Sarek. Spock sighed. The reaction was illogical and purely human based. He realised that that was the case. He still hadn't got over Amanda. And now this happening!
Spock turned uncomfortably in his bed and pulled the blanket tightly around his body. Finally he felt his eyes involuntary close and let his mind relax until a light sleep took him.
The sleep was dreamless. He was glad really as nightmares did have a tendency to plague his mind from time to time. They were probably to do with his strict suppression of human emotions. After all it wasn't natural to suppress one's feelings in such an abrasive manor. Being half human made it even more difficult.
Spock awoke in pitch darkness. His head ached and he felt decidedly chilly. Spock opened his eyes and gazed around his room. The glowing chronometer on the wall read twelve twenty one. He had slept just one hour and twenty-one minutes.
Spock sighed deeply. He had gone to bed two hours ago. He lay awake in the blackness gazing up at the ceiling in McCoy's apartment. He shivered and pulled the thermal blanket tightly around his shoulders in a desperate attempt to conserve body warmth. He mentally made a note to ask McCoy for another blanket. One wasn't enough despite it being the middle of summer in Atlanta. It was cold here. Nights were always cold on Earth.
Spock couldn't understand how the doctor could have a cool air fan running at full power through the night. The thought made Spock feel increasingly more benumbed. He turned to lay on his back and gazed at the window. The curtains were pulled across which made the room very dark. It was however equally as black outside. Through the pale drapery he could see the dim flicker of lights from the city.
Spock repositioned himself and adjusted the pillow. The bed was still uncomfortable, to soft for his comfort. He finally sat up and swung his legs out. He stood up and proceeded towards the window.
He opened the curtains and leaned forward gazing down towards the ground and towards the elaborate garden.
The doctor's apartment was moderately large. He was living on the top floor in a late Victorian England house. Spock had arrived in the deep south of North America late yesterday afternoon following the typed hand pressed parchment he had received three days earlier.
Rarely did any one-use paper these days, as the use of trees was band for commercial and home use. Only when something of great urgency and importance enabled paper letters to be sent.
The one which Spock received along with other members of his ex crew mates, personal friends and family of James T. Kirk stated that Kirk was declared missing in action. Details were yet to be confirmed, but it was obvious that they had no hope that Jim was alive so he was declared officially dead anyway.
Spock couldn't comprehend how it could have happened. Kirk, Chekov, and Scott had only been guests at the Enterprise B maiden voyage. What ever happened to the captain would remain a mystery until Spock received the authoritative reports from Headquarters on the incident.
Jim had always managed to cheat death in some amazing way, but this time death had got him straight in the back. Spock felt helpless. He realised that nothing could bring his friend back now. Nothing at all.
He remembered when his friend had fallen off the mountain called Mount Capitan in Yosemite National Park on Earth while Jim, McCoy, and himself had taken a brief trip to the park during shore leave a few years ago. Spock had saved his friend from plummeting to his death. Luckily he had bought a pair of gravity boots along on the trip. If he hadn't been there Kirk undoubtedly would have met his maker then.
Spock was now blaming himself for not being with his friend on the Enterprise B when he was killed. I should have been there, he thought with anger. Anger, which was being directed at him. Spock had been given the contingency to attend the ship's maiden voyage, but he had stood down and instead attended the meeting with Nogura just three days ago.
Spock felt helpless and isolated. Despite staying with his friend Leonard McCoy he felt more desolate than any time in his life. He sighed and rubbed his temples in an attempt to try and regain control over himself. Over the terrible shock and his grief that was fast consuming him.
More alone than the two years spent up in the hilly deserts of Gol after the successful completion of the Starship Enterprise's five year mission. Spock had been drove to attempt the Kolinahr on Vulcan to purge all remaining human emotions. To do so he had to sever all remaining links with his friends and family. The hardest however had been to brake the link with Jim. It hadn't been an easy task on Spock's part.
Jim had spent his time as an admiral in San Francisco, but the eternal link between he and Spock was there despite the parsecs of time and space. Perhaps because of the few times they had joined minds for various reasons, an inconspicuous telepathic link had been established. It was difficult to break.
It had been know that if two minds of the same linked more than a couple of times a partial empathy could be established between the two even if consciously Spock didn't realise the fact.
*Of cause it wasn't just Jim who caused him to fail. There was something else completely different besides. It was another entity of great power and empathy. Spock had felt drawn to it. He had realised that the entity had a similar quest as he did in life. It had called itself V'ger and it had caused Spock to fail the Kolinahr on his very last task. This link was much more profound on him than anything he had ever experienced in his life.
He also had felt the admiral's determination to seek out and save the Earth from the mysterious cloud V'ger, which was later, identified as an ancient Earth probe that went missing over four hundred years ago. And he also sensed Kirk's boredom of being a member of Starfleet Command.
Spock had known that it was a mistake for Jim to accept the admiralty. When the V'ger problem arose Jim jumped at the chance of returning to space again after nearly two years. For a short time he had even got back his beloved ship, the Enterprise, his ship was his again.
*Star Trek: The Motion Picture
It was assumed that V'ger had travelled into what was once called a black hole and emerged at the other side of the galaxy whereat an unknown intellect took it to it's world, a planet of living machines who repaired it and gave it unlimited power to return back to it's creator. And on it's journey back it had gained so much knowledge it developed a consciousness of it's own.
Spock had felt the alien's mind, barren and infertile. Somehow he had felt a connection. It was searching for something.
The probe was seeking out what he had sought all his life. Security, a place in the universe. It was lonely, but it was also barren. It never knew what it was to live, to feel, to love. That was what it's final task was before it could evolve. It had to join with it's creator, a human being, an emotional being to become one before it could transcend onto the next plain of existence.
Spock had telepathically sensed the probe's conquest toward Earth resulting in the revival of his human feelings that he had thought that he had resolved at long last.
The human qualities within him were too strong. Of course his father was correct. Perhaps one of the reasons to attempt such a feat as the Kolinahr was to prove to his father that he was a worthy logical and dispassionate Vulcan.
At the time when he had decided to pursue Kolinahr his father had tried to persuade him against it. Sarek had said that the Kolinahr would be near impossible for a half human.
It was exactly the same principle what he had done before when he joined Starfleet Academy. He suddenly gasped inwardly at himself for the truth that he had denied from himself for all those years.
Was it possible that he had left Vulcan because he could no longer cope with it there? Of course not, he told himself repeatedly, but was he once again falsifying it to himself?
At the time when he was nineteen and had chosen Starfleet as his life. Humans hadn't even known he was half human. Among them he could be a Vulcan, but on his home planet, his own people saw him as a human trying to be a Vulcan.
Maybe that was a reason for leaving home. Humanity was the last thing he had wanted to admit to himself. Perhaps Sarek was correct. Perhaps he was more human than he first apprehended.
All his life he had fought against that reality and denied the fact that half of his personality was completely human. Deep down inside him despite his continuous futile attempts, a part of himself was always trying to break free. It always nearly succeeded, but over the years his wall of restraint protecting him from the emotional wars from inside and outside his mind had strengthened.
But now it was being chipped away and Spock was fighting continuously to rebuild it up again. The death of his friend James Kirk had made a serious blow to his mental shields and Spock was once again struggling.
Returning back to the present the Vulcan sighed deeply as if attempting to draw energy surrounding him, within himself. The meditation failed and sleep had failed. Nothing had prepared him for this.
The Vulcan moved away from the window in the darkness and a chill ran down his spine. Why must this happen? He thought. Confusion and anger had plagued his mind for days since he was contacted about his friend's death.
Spock remembered that time not so long ago when Kirk had risked his very own existence to rescue him from the dying Genesis planet and take him with Dr McCoy to Vulcan. It had nearly cost Jim his career, his life even, to deliver them safely to Vulcan.
He wondered briefly about Saavik. She had been so distant from him following the refusion and he had wondered why.
There was nothing to do now. Nothing but sit back and wait for the report on James T. Kirk. Perhaps the human part of his soul was too strong to control the depth of sorrow he felt inside any longer.
"Perhaps I should have gone with him," he said out loud what he had repeated before over and over in his head. "Then perhaps I could have avoided the incident. Jim may still have been alive." Spock shook his head.
Doctor McCoy had gone to the local bar to drown his sorrows following the news on Jim's disappearance. Spock had tried to persuade the good doctor that what he was doing would not erase the pain, but only numb it temporally. Tomorrow he would feel the results of last night's bingeing.
Suddenly the front door banged open.
McCoy staggered in with two unknown men dressed in jeans and plaid shirts. One had a shock of red hair that hung down his back. The other had a straw hat and appeared to be a farmer judging by the pig smell he was emitting. McCoy's physical appearance clearly showed what he felt. Evidently the two farmers had taken him home after his fateful evening.
Spock was physically startled by the huge whack of the door slamming open. Rarely anything disturbed him, but in this case this was one of those rare occasions and with his current lack of mental control anything could and would startle him.
Spock stepped out from the darkness of the guest room bear footed wearing a simple long grey satin sleeping robe. The bright light of the hall offended his vision and he had to struggle not to squint too hard.
The unfamiliar men greeted the Vulcan with a grimace. They did not look at all happy. McCoy's head flopped onto his chest. He clearly had trouble manoeuvring himself.
The doctor fell forward nearly flopping to the floor just moments before Spock grabbed his arms and stabilised him.
The farmer with the hat grunted. "Your friend here had a little too much to drink this evening." He ogled at Spock for a moment.
"Hey, your the Vulcan guy aren't ya?" Suddenly both men roared with laughter which offended Spock's sensitive ears. One clutched his distended beer belly. Spock raised a mystified eyebrow. The two men clearly had a little too much tipple themselves.
They released the doctor and McCoy slumped down on a near by chair like a sack of spuds.
"Spock, um..." The hatted man slurred with the mixture of southern drawl and excess alcohol. He scratched his untamed beard "That's your name isn't it?" The Vulcan nodded gravely. "Sorry to get ya up this late in the night." The man cleared his throat. "Arr Jerry, we better be off then."
"Thank you for bringin' the doctor home. He should have known better," said Spock.
"Perhaps we will see you some time," said Jerry then chuckled.
"I believe not. We shall be returning to California within the next few days."
"Ha, that's Vulcans for you. Your not a very sociable animal are ya?"
Suddenly McCoy's loud snoring shortly interrupted the conversation.
"Better be goin'." said the hatted man. "See ya!"
They turned and walked out. The door banged shut and McCoy awoke with a start and grunted. The doctor discovered Spock was bending over him. He gasped and nearly fell of his seat.
"Angels and ministries of grace DEFEND ME," he cried rubbing his head. "What a hell of a sight to wake up to. A Vulcan in a nightdress. Well I'll be." Spock frowned and was clearly not amused.
"Dr McCoy you belong in bed."
"Oh, the hell I do. We've got lots of things to do!"
"They can wait until the morning."
"Look Spock, look," he said pointing to his chronometer. "You sure hell got that wrong. It's...it's half past one already."
Spock sighed. "You are obviously intoxicated."
"I don't need sleep you wretched Vulcan," McCoy slurred as Spock hefted him up on his feet. McCoy's legs buckled beneath him and he fell asleep again. Spock shook him awake, but to no avail.
"McCoy wake up." The doctor snorted.
"Go away. I've had enough." McCoy pulled away from the Vulcan's unyielding hand clasped on his arm.
"To bed Doctor McCoy. You are a disgrace to the medical profession."
"To hell with it." He tried to sound exasperated, but the words came out as a mumble. "I've got things to do."
"At this time? Why are you are being difficult?"
McCoy yawned and reached out towards a bed that wasn't there and collapsed like a rock. Spock hefted the doctor back off the floor with remarkable strength. "You shall regret this tomorrow. I promise you," said the Vulcan with a subtle shot of anger in his voice. He marched off leaving the bemused doctor swaying in the hall.
Spock couldn't face any more of the human's illogical behaviour and returned to his room. To the relative safety of the darkness.
