Chapter 2
That evening the captain invaded Spock in his quarters. He was determined to be reasonable.
"All right, Spock. You've fooled around enough. Tell me – now – what's on your mind."
"I cannot, Captain."
"And why not?"
"Apparently my thoughts would be construed as treason. I do not desire to face such an accusation."
"Look, man, this is off the record. Will you tell me why you've been making a fool of yourself and of me? What the hell's the matter with you?"
"–Don't you know?" Spock cried, and froze.
Kirk felt a sudden knife warn him that he did know.
"No," he growled.
Spock turned away. He paced to the chair by his desk, sat down, quietly took several slow breaths. Kirk watched him, fascinated; he had not often seen the Vulcan pushed so obviously close to showing some temper.
Spock laid his hands on the desk. "Tell me what disciplinary action you intend to take," he said.
"If you would only be reasonable, there'd be no need for disciplinary action of any sort."
Spock sighed irritably.
"Listen, Spock. I'm asking you as a friend, an old friend. Forget that petty nonsense about discipline. Just tell me what's on your mind."
The other man, whom he knew for a fact he had known for a very long time, sent him a slow, searching look. Anguish struck Kirk as he realized that Spock was desperate enough to pass over his misgivings and speak the truth.
"Jim, I have to know what is happening on my planet. I sense, constantly, a pressure – it's partly telepathic, I am certain – Jim, why is nothing being done? Can they not learn from history? This situation has to be taken in hand before –" His voice fell away.
"Spock, we have our orders."
"Orders!" As if a foul obscenity. At that Kirk saw just how drastically natural law had been deposed.
"... I want to know," said Spock quietly, "what is being done about it."
"About..."
"About the non-existent events we all know are not taking place on Vulcan and in the regional systems."
"Look, Spock, for God's sake–"
"Of course nothing is happening there!" Spock burst out. His hands clenched the edge of the plastic table until it started to bend. Kirk withstood his cold burning stare until he too felt twisted with pain. He turned to go.
Instantly Spock was beside him. A big hand seized his arm with almost the force the table had felt.
"You," breathed Spock, "you will either allow me to resign my commission, or you will convene an immediate court-martial and have me discharged. I am leaving this ship, Kirk."
"Like hell you are."
"I am going back to Vulcan."
"You can't go there! You wouldn't stand a–"
A pause.
"Why? Could something be happening on Vulcan?" Spock – crooned.
Purely by chance, they nabbed him in the hangar deck as he was about to make off with a shuttlecraft. (How he had escaped from the brig was a mystery.) Kirk found himself confronting again a man of stone.
"Stealing a shuttlecraft wouldn't have done you much good."
"I suppose not."
"You realize that you are building up offences that will lead to quite a severe penalty. ... And this is the culmination of your many years with Starfleet... and as my first officer."
The prisoner was silent.
"Spock, it didn't have to be this way."
"The turn of events is not my choice."
"How can you say that!"
He was oddly gentle. "Jim – you know what service has meant to me. But I must go home, I'll be needed. – And there is no guarantee that the Federation will enter on the right side of the war, when they finally do. I will not remain among enemies."
"Spock, I am not your enemy!"
"...But you are. You are. You'll find out."
He was put back in the brig under double guard, and warned that another escape attempt would earn him heavy sedation as well. He declared himself flattered by their confidence in his abilities, and became a paragon of docility. Left alone, he could be spied ceaselessly, relentlessly pacing his cell like a caught panther. Or crowding up to the shimmer of the cell door, to stand entranced for hours, though flirting with a heavy shock from contact with the force field. If spoken to, however, he was his most calmly unconcerned, even affable self.
The day after they reached Letmos, Spock vanished. Alerts sent throughout the star system, a combing of Letmos, and of the Enterprise itself, all failed to flush him. Kirk resigned himself; Spock had most likely "borrowed" a spacesuit and stowed away on board some outward-bound unmanned airless freighter. Bound, of course, for anywhere but Vulcan. By the time he was traced he would be somewhere else.