Therazine Chapter 7

The day had been exhausting for Jim. The master was patient, but Jim was having trouble concentrating, even with the synthetic injections. His head hurt. Whether or not the master expressed emotion, Jim felt his own exasperation coloring his judgment. That night in his room he found Spock waiting for him. It was what they had, by default, silently agreed on, that Spock would come to him before bedtime to check on his progress. Spock waited.

"It's not…it's not what I expected. I don't think I'm making much progress." Jim paused, gathering his thoughts. "The master isn't you, Spock."

Spock was patient and let Jim take his time.

Jim took a deep breath. "I've decided I need to be on my own. This is my problem and I need to deal with it in my own way. I can't ask you to be involved any longer. I'm leaving and going back to Earth."

Spock heard the words but wasn't immune to the sense of defeat he felt from Jim. "And if this path leads you to another airlock?"

"Then it leads me to another airlock. But it's my choice, Spock. It has to be my choice. If I can't be free to make my own decisions, then what am I?"

Spock had no response.

"The truth is, it's time for you to go back to your career, your job, and let me go. I appreciate all you've done for me, but I need to handle this on my own." Jim waited until he could say the words. "You don't need me here, and I don't need you to come with me. That's the way it has to be." Jim felt overwhelmed and frustrated, but thought it was the correct choice for him.

"I see I have convinced you of a lie. Sarek, the Vulcan elders, the masters here at Gol, would all be pleased that I have fully embraced logic, to the exclusion of all else. But where you are concerned, it's a lie, Jim. It's a lie."

"You are perfectly capable of going on with your life without me. You've never needed me, not really. We both know that."

"Then our victories were solitary ones. If we had no need of each other, then you defeated the spores on your own. You defeated Apollo on your own. You escaped from the Doomsday Machine on our own. You had no help to escape the Squire of Gothos. And Kahn. He was brought to ruin through your efforts alone."

"No, of course not, that's not what I meant."

"And you, what made you focus the Enterprise sensors back at the Galileo 7 as I ignited the fuel, to signal our survival, when we left orbit? Against all logic, you should have left. You had orders to do so. Against all logic, we survived. Logic dictated that we should have been left behind. And yet…"

"I waited. For as long as I could. I didn't want to leave you, all of you, behind."

"And when we went through the Guardian of Forever. We did so against all odds, against all logic that told us we could never succeed, we would never return the past to its proper path and return ourselves to the correct timeline. It was the most impossible thing of all, but it was done, all of us, together. We should have failed. You should have never met her. And she should never have chosen you. And yet, it was done…against all odds, it was done."

Jim's head still hurt and he rubbed his temples with his fingertips.

"I never understood, not until that moment, the true power of time and space—"

"Spock can we not talk about that now. I don't want to relive the past. I have enough problems with the present." Jim's head was pounding; the relentless heat and thin air was taking its toll. He hadn't sleep well, it was time for his next injection, and on top of everything else, he was hungry. Didn't the masters ever eat? Spock was talking about the complexities of time travel, but all Jim heard was "Edith." The room began to spin; Jim knew he was losing his temper but couldn't seem to control it. His fist flashed out in the general direction of Spock; he didn't know if he really meant to hit anyone.

As Jim's fist swung at him, Spock caught it easily with one hand, and held on. When he had Jim's attention, he continued. "When you let her die, it was in that moment that I, finally, for the first time in my life, understood what love truly was. I knew in that moment that you possessed all of the wealth and knowledge of the universe, and I was nothing but poor and ignorant. I was a slave, and you were a king."

Spock approached him slowly, still holding on to Jim's fist. "You loved her so easily, without struggle. You just loved her. And I knew, in this, I could never be your equal. How could I let the person who taught me this lesson walk through an airlock into space? How can I?"

Jim was breathing but every breath seemed a struggle. Was it just the thin air? Spock was still holding on to his fist, but the rage had left him.

The Vulcan's face was close to his own now, and Jim could see the sadness there; it manifested itself as a single tear rolled down Spock's lean face. Jim knew it was the truth, not due to spores, or a disease but Spock's own truth, for him. Jim felt his knees weaken and he slowly dropped to the ground, Spock following him and holding on with both hands, partly supporting Jim. He understood, finally who Spock truly was, not two species but one being, his own special kind of person, a blend of both Vulcan and human. Somehow Jim had forgotten what he knew; that Spock was not just two halves, with only his human half feeling empathy and emotion. Jim was shocked to discover he was crying, too, from his memories of Edith; he had never allowed himself to cry about her, to mourn her, too busy with command and too angry that the Guardian had not found a way for Edith to live in the past. As if that anger was rational, as if the Guardian had anything to say about it.

"I tried to hit you."

Spock nodded but never let go of Jim's hand.

"You've done nothing but try to help me and I tried to hit you." Jim sat on the stone floor; all of the fight gone out of him. "Who's the ignorant one?"

Spock let Jim go and sat by his friend on the floor. The warmth of the stones radiating softly around them.

After a while Jim touched Spock's hair very lightly with a fingertip, feeling the silken softness of the fine strands of hair, shining with a blue-black highlight from the light of the flame lantern. It was the first time Jim touched him that way, like he would touch a lover, a child, his own brother, Sam. He realized as he did it that he loved Spock, always had, for years, but was finally able to acknowledge it to himself. He was immediately self-conscious about it and got up. "Thank you," he whispered.


Jim paced. He felt caged.

"I need to leave. I can't stay here."

"Where will you go?"

Jim thought about it for a moment then the answer came to him. "Alpha Centauri."

"Your cabin there?"

"How do you know about that?"

"You've mentioned it before."

"Oh, yeah. It's isolated, which is what I need."

"Not so isolated, any longer. The settlement has grown around it."

"I still own a little land."

"But you have close neighbors now."

"How do you know that?"

"I was curious. I looked it up."

Jim felt defeated before he had even left Vulcan.

"I propose another location."

"Where?"

"There is a tradition—"

"There always is."

Spock ignored Jim's comment and continued. "On occasion, a warrior and his T'hy'la would remove themselves from battle, from the duties of their station, in order to strengthen their bond, to renew mind, body, and spirit."

"Like a vacation."

"Yes, but a vacation with a purpose. Contemplation, learning, experience."

"What planet did you have in mind? A tourist location? I don't want to go to a tourist meca."

"No, a different place, one where you have never been. It is one of the Vulcan colony worlds. My House owns it. They conduct research in a remote location on the northern continent, but the remainder of the planet is uninhabited. It is acceptable for what I propose. There are no facilities. This vacation requires only the right time and place."

"Wait a minute. A Vulcan colony world, that you own?"

"It does not resemble Vulcan, if you are concerned. It is a lush, verdant world with many beautiful plants, rivers, waterfalls. There are many areas of this world that have not been explored."

"Surely, it's been mapped?"

"Yes, but Vulcans have walked only a very small portion of it. I believe this world could hold many interesting surprises for us."

"All right, Spock you've intrigued me. What do you have in mind?"

"A walkabout."

"A what?"

"A walkabout. It is an Australian word that means to go on a long excursion, by walking. It is a journey on foot undertaken by an Australian Aboriginal in order to live in the traditional manner."

"Walking. That could take a long time."

"Yes."

"Do you have a destination in mind?"

"A walkabout is not so much a destination, but a journey."

"A journey. By walking. Just the two of us."

"Yes, the two of us."

"For how long?"

"For as long as it takes."

"For as long as it takes to do what?"

"The journey will tell you."

Jim just shook his head, his mind too tired and his head hurting too much to try to make sense of what the Vulcan was saying.