Something was wrong. Nothing Kirk had heard on the Independence changed that. Instead, it strengthened the whole reason why he and Spock had questioned the three --
He still didn't know what collective name to call Jdehn, Arik, and Mekhai. Not Romulans, of course, but not Vulcans either. Physically, they were both, but while physical names were all right for someone like a human or an Andorian, it didn't fit a Vulcan (or Romulan) that didn't embrace the culture.
Similar to how Kirk hadn't called himself a Terran in decades. He hadn't, as much as he loved Earth, since some point during his command of the Enterprise.
Would that change now that he had given up the Fleet?
He put that away -- and fast. Put it away with Jdehn's comment about his understanding that there was no room in their lives for both their ships and their lovers. Friends, yes. Jdehn had said that if the worst happened and she entered Phase III of the disease, she had friends who would be by her side through the ordeal.
Friends could stay. But lovers had to go.
For him, no matter how much he loved someone -- someone like Carol or Antonia, he always saw it as a choice between them and Starfleet. Enterprise won every time.
So his son died hardly knowing him, his nephews barely saw him, and his lovers were set aside as a threat to his life in the Fleet.
It wasn't true of every captain. Sulu had a family; Robert April, the 1701's first captain, had been married; Hunter was in a loving group marriage and had a daughter. So many more in the Fleet were like them. Good captains every one of them, as good and committed to their ships as he was. Hunter, for instance, gave up her passion for the sciences and her love for physics when she finally had to choose between that and the Aerfen.
But passion for a lover and a child, that she knew how to balance with the captain's chair.
He was not her. As they so painfully found out.
Spock's reply, when Kirk mentioned that Jdehn's comment had touched on something, was simple. He merely had to decide, to make the choice. Was this merely the way his life had taken him, in which case he could choose differently, or was it his nature? If that was the case, he needed to accept it and see he wasn't wrong for being who he was. What suited one, did not suit another.
If he didn't accept it, he was going to have too many days like the one when he had stood next to Hunter in the hospital waiting room and remembered how he had once loved the Aerfen's captain. How she had loved him so much in return, she had given him her dream name, which he had treasured. But he hadn't loved her enough to accept her when she asked him to marry her and be her husband. He couldn't make that commitment and he had hurt her, especially when he had gone back to her, asked her to take him back and love him again, only to leave her once more.
Looking back on that image of his predecessor, Christopher Pike, walking hand in hand with Vina brought a whole different emotion to the moment. Back then, Kirk had been glad that the broken Pike had been made whole. Now he felt envy that the Enterprise's former captain had someone to go to when the Fleet was done with him.
Or, to be honest, when he had decided he was done with the Fleet.
No Vina for him. And no more Enterprise.
The public groundcar coming to a stop made him want to curse. He had wasted time thinking about the wrong thing. People were dying, and he sat here wallowing in self-pity brought on by a casual remark, dreading the empty apartment waiting for him on Earth.
He snatched up the tricorder on the seat next to him and got out in front of the Science Academy. The car took off again. Spock had taken the private groundcar they had been using when Kirk said he was staying behind to question the port authority.
Something in the story just didn't add up. Of course, Arik could have fallen asleep and Mekhai could have stomped around in a fit of pique, but Jdehn? Ignoring a comm signal? Or getting shocked by a ship she knew better than she knew herself? Space would have killed her by now if she was so sloppy.
And Spock was sure nothing in her logs or parts list showed it was plausible.
Something or someone had interfered. The worst case was that someone had knocked them out. The lesser of evils was Phase I of the disease had done it, causing such disorientation that Jdehn had gotten sloppy and Arik had gone asleep.
Spock had gone ahead to the Science Academy to request the security information from when the Independence had landed there. Kirk stayed behind to do the same thing with the port security. Jdehn's files might show clear, but someone else's might show someone breaking into her ship.
Spock was meeting him here. Their next step was discussing the disease with McCoy and finding out if it could be behind the time discrepancy of Jdehn answering the orbital station's team and her blacking out. Not to mention, the blinding headaches they had now.
They could talk with anyone on the medical team, but Kirk had something to solve with Saavik: Valeris. And she was with McCoy.
The morning heat grew as it approached midday, making him move into the pieces of shade formed by the Science Academy's buildings. Bones was supposedly giving Saavik some sort of exam at the hospital's exercise yards. An odd place to do a physical, but then Kirk wasn't the doctor. He rounded the corner and stopped dead at the sight.
Saavik and Spock bore down on each other with lirpas.
For a second, they stood poised, ready to attack with the half-moon blades and not the bludgeoning ends aimed at each other, as they measured one other.
What the hell happened?
He broke into a run, ready to risk getting in between the Vulcans, even as they charged each other, to attempt disarming Saavik in time.
Is she still suffering from the blood fever?
"Hi, Jim!"
McCoy's shout from the stone benches near the exercise field grounded Kirk's flight before it really started. Unfortunately, he didn't stop gracefully, but stumbled for a step.
"Jim! Come over here, why are you standing there like that?"
Bones would never sit idly by if Saavik attacked Spock. And now that he stopped to think, Spock wouldn't pick up a lirpa as a way to disarm her, and he especially wouldn't take the time to remove his uniform jacket. Still, Kirk walked crab-like over to the seat by McCoy, keeping his face forward and his eyes on the Vulcans.
Who circled each other.
"How did it go with Jdehn?"
He took a deep breath, coming down off the adrenaline. A spar. Of course Spock and Saavik were sparring. Still, the way they looked -- it was an intense match.
He told McCoy everything in a rapid report, including the headaches, getting it done as fast as possible.
"Hmmm... Saavik's not having anything like that and I'd expect it more from her. She was one of the ones who didn't... well, who went it alone for Phase II. It's why I'm not surprised about Mekhai showing residual effects."
"Bones! What the hell is going on here?"
"You mean them?" He jerked his head in the direction of the exercise field.
Sometimes, McCoy tried Kirk's patience more than he tried Spock's.
"Exercise, Jim. Some of Saavik's neurochemical levels are still a bit high because she didn't have any activity to get rid of them. She was working out alone when Spock came along and offered the match."
"She should have picked someone for Phase II." Refusing it made no sense and Saavik was more practical than that.
But McCoy shook his head. "I don't know, Jim. I still think you'd do what she did."
Long ago, Kirk had learned the skill of watching one thing play out in front of him while taking in someone reporting information. It wasn't true multi-tasking because he couldn't fully focus on both things, but it let him watch Saavik and Spock even while McCoy talked.
But he did spare a look that informed Bones that his theory was crazy.
McCoy snorted, but his voice gentled in a sign that he knew he touched on tender ground. "I know you'd do it, because it's what I'd do since I wouldn't die from it. And I'd make that choice because of you."
Kirk didn't like taking that bait, not with the match in front of him. "Bones, what are you talking about?"
"What you went through, Jim, when the transporter split your personality. Remember?"
That shot Kirk's head from the sparring match to McCoy.
An eyebrow lifted on his forehead and then he gave a little laugh at the gesture, a sad, rueful sound because of what he said next. "I've had Spock in my head, Jim. I know what pon farr is now." He brought the eyebrow down. "And I'd do what Saavik did even though it'd mean going through hell. So would you, instead of repeating --- what happened with Rand."
That horrible time -- how his unchecked lust made him attack Janice Rand and he couldn't stop it, because the need burned him, forced him.
The way Spock had attacked him over T'Pring.
The doctor asked softly, "Remember what you told me, Jim? About taking that part of you back?"
I don't want to take him back, is what he had said. He's like an animal. A thoughtless, brutal animal. And yet it's me. Me!
For the first time, he understood Spock's disgust over the insanity caused by pon farr.
I've seen a part of myself no man should ever see.
But Vulcans saw that part of themselves every seven years. And could die from it, the way his inability to command in that condition had threatened his crew's lives.
So if he had been Saavik, with no one already intimate with her to be a tender partner, he'd have gone it alone too.
But looking at the way she and Spock eyed each other so carefully instead of casually going about the exercise still made him doubt that this was wise.
"Bones--"
"They need it, Jim, both of them. Let 'em go."
They had clearly gone against each other before; that was obvious from the way they watched each other for 'tells', those slight mannerisms in a person that spoke volumes. The fact that they bothered to look said they had the experience of what to look for.
Saavik struck first and her speed was surprising. It caught her opponent and their audience off-guard. Spock got his lirpa up in a block, his experience and longer reach paying off.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?"
McCoy cleared his throat as if he wondered the same thing. But he was insistent. "It's not just the neurochemicals. They both need to work out what's still between them and this is a good way to open up some communication. It's indirect and it makes them remember each other." He ran over Kirk's attempt to argue. "You've been through this, Jim. We both have. When Spock came back from studying Kolinahr after his leaving felt like he rejected us. It left a scar in you, deep where nothing really reached it to heal it. Me too. When he showed up again, for the V'Ger mission, I wanted to hug him, and I wanted to keep him at bay with a ten foot pole. Or hit him with it. I didn't really trust him again for a long time. Neither did you, don't bother lying about it. It's why you got worked up over his keeping Sybok a secret. And again when you found out he -- we -- kept everything about Saavik and the other half-Romulans a secret. That scar reminded you how much trust can get you hurt." He nodded to Saavik and Spock. "They're not reacting logically and they'll never admit it. But they have scars now where they used to have a relationship. They know they didn't make those scars, but it doesn't matter to the subconscious. It just keeps screaming about how badly they were hurt... and could get hurt again. And there's no V'Ger around to get them past it."
Hunter said Saavik looked like someone with a belly wound when she thought that letter was from Spock, Kirk thought. He nodded to the Vulcans in the ring. They had pulled back again, measuring the next move. "So... what do they do?"
"Keep each other at bay with lirpas. Let them work off the steam they haven't been able to get rid of in their meditations. Like you did when you screamed at us for keeping secrets... the way you wanted to knock our blocks off. Sooner or later, they'll get logical, but that scar isn't going away until they really open up again. Even if that means they have a new relationship instead of the old one. And that won't happen if they can't do something as simple as exercise together."
Kirk still wished he felt as comfortable as McCoy did about the whole thing, but his chest ached with the memory of the lirpa blade slicing him during his fight with Spock over T'Pring.
Bones, of course, saw this. "You don't have to hang out here if you don't want to."
Kirk shook his head and looked at the match for what it was. The two Vulcans pulled back to size each other up again. Spock had the advantage of reach, height, and strength, as well as more experience with the weapon, and yet Kirk could tell he didn't view Saavik as an easy victory. She held the practice lirpa in one hand now with casual assurance, the weight not bothering her yet. That would change as the match dragged on. She balanced lightly and well on her feet as she waited patiently. And yet, she considered the match no less than Spock did.
He lunged, but it ended up being a feint, drawing Saavik in when she had intended to wait and strike. She quickly twisted at the waist, turning her block into an attack at Spock's back with the bludgeon end. He spun away himself, but not in time to avoid the whole blow. Her practice lirpa left a smear of green chalk on his uniform shirt, giving her the point. She struck once more and then a third time, but couldn't get inside his reach again. She kept him on the defensive though, not giving him the chance to press his own attack.
Until with no warning, he switched to the offensive.
Now Saavik had to block as Spock methodically attacked her defenses. She held her own, more than once getting in a blow that made him break off for a second, but the lirpa started to weigh her down and she fell back. Streaks of green chalk marked her one arm and thigh.
Spock stayed patient, pushing her further and further, using the strength in his upper body to make her exert hers, and she began to fail. She held on, not giving in, and then rallied, suddenly lashing out with a kick. Spock jumped back and she pressed her advantage. She swung hard in multiple diagonal slashes and he jumped back again, unable to get past her lirpa. Once more she struck out, but this time in a single strike. It was a mistake, because he waited for it to pass and then lunged. He struck the shaft of her weapon hard with the bludgeon end of his. Her lirpa almost dropped from her hands; the vibration through the shaft into her arms had to be terrible, but she quickly scrambled for a hold even as dropped to her knees.
It was over and Kirk could see by her eyes that she knew it. Spock had waited through her attack, letting her tire out, until she didn't have enough remaining force to stand up against him when he had preserved much of his energy. A sudden strike had been her best chance to get inside his reach, but when she couldn't make it happen, it was over. He struck now at the lirpa raised against him. She shoved against his blade one last time with the last of her strength, but it left her open, unable to get her weapon back up as he used her momentum to push his lirpa high over his head while hers dropped with her tired arms. He swung down for the victory.
Kirk's breath drew in sharply and he heard McCoy do the same. He knew Spock would stop before striking her with even a blunted blade, but the sight of it was still frightening.
And in that second, Saavik charged. Spock was the one left open this time, protected previously by his longer arms now lifted above his head. She kicked off into an extremely tight roll under him, so that she moved underneath his reach into the close space inside. She shot her legs into his wide stance, then split them to knock his feet out from under him. She snapped her lirpa vertically in between his arms, bludgeon end up, so that as he fell, his weapon smashed against the shaft of hers and popped from his hands. He struck the sand and she scrambled to her feet, her blade at his throat, his fallen lirpa behind her and out of his reach.
Spock blinked up at Saavik while her whole expression shifted to something Kirk had never before seen in her.
"I told you once," she said, "years ago, I am very good at fighting."
He stared for a second and an eyebrow flicked up. At the same time, Kirk let out a long breath as he realized that the something in her expression may be new to him, but it was a spark that Spock recognized.
Spock reached up a hand, silently asking her to pull him to his feet. She arched her eyebrows. "Do I look so unwise? You did not concede the match. You were not, by chance, thinking of pulling me off my feet?"
Spock's eyebrow raised again and the corner of his mouth twitched so slightly. "I concede the match," he said and reached up again with his hand. Her head tilted to one side and her own mouth lifted a millimeter, but she took his hand and helped him to his feet.
Bones had been right. With their disciplines, sparring did not let loose hurt tempers through its mock violence. Instead, it brought back the knowledge they had of each other, of their rhythms and thinking. Because it released how they knew each other well in this indirect way, it smoothly slipped past any wary barriers they might still harbor. They connected again. Only a start but still, it was a start.
"Where was my mistake?" Spock asked her.
"You have not changed your tactics. And you assumed I had not either. My opening moves tested this."
"You, however, have changed yours while I was vulnerable in assuming otherwise. It allowed you to create opportunity by plotting my course of action."
She gave a slight shrug in way of explaining the apparent training and experience that had gone on in the time they were apart, but couldn't verbally reply because McCoy was on his feet, applauding.
"Bravo!" he yelled. "Hit him again!"
Registering their audience for the first time, she pulled back, returning the practice lirpa to its case and dusting herself off with a towel. She didn't quite look at Kirk. Spock did the same, although having no problem with meeting Kirk's eyes as he and McCoy crossed over to them. The doctor didn't get far before Rrelthiz and Daniel Corrigan came running up, Rrelthiz forcing herself to match his slower speed. They excitedly waved McCoy over.
Corrigan called out, "Len, we just hit on something big." He grinned.
McCoy hurried over. "What is it?"
The rest of what they said couldn't be heard once he was close enough for them to talk in their normal voices. Kirk wanted to know what had gotten them so excited, but Bones would tell him when it was time.
Spock glanced down at the dirt and green chalk stains marking his skin and tunic. He excused himself to clean up and Saavik started to do the same when Kirk asked her to stay.
Now when she looked at him, it was with the same resolution to face the situation that she had with the Kobayashi Maru years ago. She remembered that their confrontation over her behavior with Valeris was unresolved. He wasn't sure she would through the haze of Phase II.
He had told Jdehn the truth: Saavik was no follower. Neither was he. He had no problem confronting her on the topic and she was the same. She had raised questions he had not yet answered within himself. Too much else needed his attention. More important things and they still did.
So he said something else. "You probably heard Spock and I are helping investigate what's happening here."
Of course, if she was surprised that he didn't bring up Valeris, she didn't show it. "Yes, sir. And if there is any way I can be of help, I would like to do so in any way I can."
"Good, because we need your help. Starting now." He activated the tricorder, but didn't offer it to her. Yet. "If I asked you to consider anyone -- anyone -- who would hate all of you so much to do all of this, who would it be? Don't consider logic or opportunity, just anyone, Saavik. Who do you think of first?"
"Besides each other--" The bitter words surprised him, especially because they didn't break her control. Her tone stayed even and calm as she continued to speak, even with the wealth of painful years in what she said. "-- the Romulans who would wish no physical evidence existed for their actions on the colony. There is also those Vulcans who have been unable to accept us. However, their causing multiple deaths seems unlikely when it violates Surak's teachings in addition to their having other means at their disposal for expressing their disapproval. Including removing us from Vulcan."
He filed that away despite her caveat at the end. He had seen people in legitimate pain do desperate things. Things they normally wouldn't do.
She thought for a second and what had risen behind her eyes stayed there. "I am not unaware of any party in the Federation that knows of us and the colony. However, it is clearly a possibility and enough animosity still holds against the Romulan Empire that such people would move against us. As we have recently seen with the Klingon peace talks."
He had never given much thought to what prejudice she had been dealt, a Romulan in the Federation. He did now.
It made him quiet for a second before handing over the tricorder he had picked up from the bench. "Part of the investigation is into the medical team and trying to find out who treated any of you before the disease."
"My records for Starfleet and Vulcan are available, Captain. I will request you be given access to them if the medical team has not already done so."
"They have, but we're making sure no one has removed something they don't want us to find. Could you review that list and tell me which healers have ever treated you?"
As she read it over, he said, "We've already checked to see if any of them came onboard the Aerfen. We haven't found any record of it, but your ship is checking into it on their end."
She didn't look up. Maybe deliberately. "It is no longer my ship, Captain."
I know how that feels. He said gently. "I think they'd disagree with you."
Her eyes flicked away from the tricorder, as if thinking over what he said, and then went back. "That would be very generous of them."
Talking about them reminded him of something else. "They also certainly demonstrate the border patrol mentality."
Saavik asked him, "Could you be more specific, sir?"
"They're very... informal. Even irreverent at times." He explained some of the things they had said, from the orphans' party to calling her Savage.
She came back with something just as surprising. "Interesting. Sir, did Captain Hunter eventually ask you a difficult question?"
"Stuart did. Why?" He suddenly came very close to snapping his fingers as things fell into place. "They distracted us so that when the hard question came, we weren't prepared. We couldn't fake a reaction. I've pulled that same maneuver myself."
I can't believe I fell for it.
"I admit, sir, I cannot see what information or observation the Aerfen crew needed to make with all of you.""
"To find out why Spock and the rest of us where here to see you after--" Just in time, he caught himself. "Valeris' letters."
Saavik handled that well, only nodding slowly.
"I wonder, did Hunter really plan this? She looked surprised when Stuart spoke up. Maybe the other three decided this on their own."
"Captain Hunter does encourage us to take our own initiative. She has gone so far as to have each of the bridge crew command the ship during skirmishes, in the event she is killed in battle and we must assume command."
"She's done that?" It sounded like Hunter and her ways of shaking up Starfleet. And Command would choke if they heard junior officers took the Aerfen's captain's seat.
"Yes, sir. So the latter situation you described is quite possible." She got that apologetic look Vulcans did. "However, they should not have questioned you as they did. I regret such actions took place, Captain."
"You're one of their crew. I'd have done the same."
Which was why, despite Hunter saying he was stealing her officer, she had gladly signed Saavik's transfer. The Border Patrol was no place for a real science officer. Hunter, who had given up her adored sciences, knew that better than anyone. Saavik was limited on Aerfen. She had needed to get back onboard a deep space explorer.
If only Valeris and Cartwright hadn't ruined it for her. Especially now when... she might never see active duty again.
"Perhaps you did so then?" she asked, breaking into his thoughts. "On Spock's behalf. It might have served as a catalyst for their questioning."
She never has a problem with saying what's on her mind. "Maybe I did, unconsciously. Either way, it was a good thing or we may never have found out what really happened."
Saavik took this as a compliment on behalf of the Aerfen. "They are a good crew, Captain."
He thought about when he and Hunter, so long ago, had loved one another. "Yes, they are." He swallowed, and for want of something to say, as well as still wanting it to happen, he brought up Jdehn. "Saavik, I don't know if you have made plans."
Her eyebrows arched as if she questioned whether this was going to be something positive.
"Jdehn is shipping out tomorrow and she needs an experienced crew. She could use your help."
She didn't argue. She merely answered as matter of fact as if he had asked what was her name. "She would never ask, Captain. And I would never accept."
"Perhaps you should offer."
He could actually see the mask come down over her face, but he wasn't giving up that easily. "Saavik, I know that on your colony, grouping together meant you might not survive. But that was then and we're talking about here. Saavik, think." That was damned insulting to a Vulcan, but he had to shake those barriers if he was going to get past them. "Your survival now means grouping together. Stay apart and you make it easier for whoever's attacking you."
He finished with the only other thing that would make her take notice. "Put the past behind. I know it's not easy. I just had to do something similar. But as Spock reminded me, it's the type of job Starfleet expects you to do. It's why Hunter put you in that captain's chair."
She... watched him. He didn't know what she was thinking (Would Spock?), but he knew this. She was thinking.
She handed over his tricorder as if he had never brought up the other issue.
But she heard me. I got through to her that much.
"Of the healers on this list, I have only seen Sorel and Sa'd prior to my inception to the disease. It was necessary for me to meld once with Sorel, after Spock's fal tor pan. Because of..." She hesitated and Kirk wondered if she would actually go against her nature of speaking her mind. But in the next second, she said, "On Genesis, it was once necessary for me to meld with Spock. Being opened to his mind when his mental presence was barren, the healers were concerned I may have suffered damage."
He had never heard about this -- that it was necessary for her to meld with Spock. Or that she may have suffered consequences from it. Which meant it wasn't really his business to know; if it had been, they would have told him.
Saavik was saying, "Sa'd performed my routine physical while I was stationed on Vulcan, and T'Ahiyya was the nurse involved."
"Can you think of anything else?" Her eyebrows drew together. "Saavik, if someone's guilty, they have to be found out. If they're innocent, it won't hurt to say what you're thinking."
She nodded. "I agree, Captain. I do not hesitate for that reason. It is merely a minor point, and speaking of it may cause a damaging misperception. However, as you have requested all details, you should know Mal'shik was with Healer Sorel when he examined me. Sorel dismissed him for other duties."
"Mal'shik was one of you." She still didn't like being lumped together with them, but she nodded. "So he worked closely with Sorel."
And Mal'shik was one of the first to get sick and die.
"As I said, it is a minor point, perhaps insignificant. However, it must be noted and if Sorel is innocent, it will stay insignificant."
He rolled this over in his mind, putting pieces together. Sorel was tied closely from the beginning to at least one victim and he had treated Saavik. Sa'd and T'Ahiyya not only treated her, but went to the orbital station as well, right before the problems started happening on Jdehn's Independence.
Except Saavik didn't get the disease as early as Spock's fal tor pan. She didn't get it for years. So if it was Sorel, he hadn't infected her then, when he had possibly infected the others like Mal'shik. Had Sorel or Sa'd been offworld? Saavik never reported coming back to Vulcan during the time in question.
He asked her again to be safe, but the answer stayed the same.
"Thank you, Saavik. I don't have to tell you, every bit of information helps. We did an initial check on the medical team and now we have these new details. Someone is getting information on the Romulans--"
She didn't react. He had wondered if she would. After all, she somehow had contact with a Romulan agent. He still mulled that one over.
"-- which leaves us with going through the Vulcans again."
"As well as the information from the Aerfen."
He nodded. "Right."
As if responding to a cue, he heard, "Captain!"
Plenty of heads turned in Uhura's direction as she bustled across the yard, white teeth flashing in a smile of good news. McCoy, Daniel, and Rrelthiz turned back to each other, and after gazes of curiosity, disapproval, or acceptance of alien behavior, so did any Vulcans.
But it wasn't news from the Aerfen. Catching her breath, Uhura still managed a broader smile. "Archernar."
He went to grab her tricorder, but almost dropped it when it banged against his. Saavik rescued Uhura's and immediately glued herself to it.
"He found something this fast?" Kirk exclaimed. He had the evidence of Archernar's success right in front of him, but the speed of the reply was still surprising.
"It's like we guessed. He said he had ties to this for awhile. He just had to pull on the right strings."
Saavik interrupted, her head jerking sharply up from the tricorder. "Commander, where is the data? This is only the communication acknowledging it is being sent."
"Oh, we have it," Uhura reassured her. "I wouldn't come out here without it."
"With all due respect, I requested to see the data first."
With all due respect... that was a sign of an upcoming Vulcan storm.
"I know, but I bumped into Spock on my way here. Literally. I explained that I was bringing it to you and he said it had to go to T'Pau. Sorry, Saavik, but he outranks you. And it does make more sense this way."
Saavik grew stiff. "Did Spock's order specifically include not giving the data to me?"
"Captain Spock's order?" Uhura reminded her. "Actually, yes. Does that matter?"
Clearly, it did. Saavik gave a fast, "If you will excuse me, sirs." and rushed off before they replied. Kirk wanted to stop her, but he recognized something Uhura hadn't. Saavik would never simply forget to use Spock's rank anymore than Spock ever forgot Kirk's. The fact she hadn't used it was the same as Spock calling him Jim. It meant this was personal.
So either McCoy's getting them to talk was about to work or the step they had just made was going to be blown to bits. Either way, he had to stay out of it.
Someone else, though, jumped in. Up ahead, Arik suddenly appeared, calling out for Saavik to wait. She stopped, her discipline extending that far, but with her bearing that tight, she was forcing patience in listening to Arik.
Kirk especially wanted to interrupt now, but he had just lectured her on opening up to Jdehn and everyone else. Which was more important? Giving Arik his chance to say... whatever it was he wanted to tell Saavik or letting Saavik play out whatever she wanted with Spock?
Arik leaned into her, his hand gestures as emphatic as the expression on his face. She looked like she was about to bolt off when something made her half-turn and really listen.
Kirk couldn't help his curiosity. Who could? What does he want with her?
Arik talked a little more, and even at this distance, his earnestness was clear. He took a step close to her and she unbelievably jerked back. Hurt spread all over his open face and he took another step. She recoiled.
Come on, Saavik! Don't run! Whatever it is he wants.
But she instead backed away with a short reply and left him. As if she was threatened.
"What was that all about?" Uhura asked, watching them.
Kirk had almost forgotten her. "I don't know."
For the second time in less than half an hour, McCoy gave an imperious, "Jim! Come over here!"
"You'd better go, Captain. I'm headed for T'Pau's office. I was only stopping to let you know about Archernar's information, and I don't want to keep them waiting."
Uhura left as he went over to where Bones stood with the other two doctors.
"They were right, Jim. We got a bit of a breakthrough, at least maybe in tracking down whoever's responsible. Tell him, Daniel."
Corrigan said, "Rrelthiz found it, let her tell it."
The throat sac on Rrelthiz's neck rumbled a bit in excitement. "While checking over the Phase II tests from Saavik, I ran a comparison against the other patients. Every single one of them had the exact same test results. No variance in any of the patients! None! What disease acts like that? Even manufactured?"
McCoy answered, "None, Jim. At least none that any of us know of. A disease acts differently to some extent per person. Even the first and third stage of this one varied with each patient. But Phase II lasted the same length of time and had the same exact symptoms to the same degree for everyone. Not even one minor difference in them."
Kirk grabbed the padd, using his tricorder as a table for it. The data didn't mean much to him, but he could see every chart, ever numerical readout was the same for each person. "What do you think it means?"
Rrelthiz replied, "I do not know, but I am taking this to Sorel and the others. We will hear their thoughts on it." She was off, waylaying a Vulcan orderly for a communicator to reach the rest of the medical team.
McCoy waited for her to be out of earshot. "Daniel, I know one thing. It looks like someone other than the medical team or the Vulcans is behind this. Maybe not even the Romulans."
"Why, Bones?"
"Because Vulcans, not to mention physicians, and unfortunately the Romulans know how pon farr varies. At least the Romulans from the colony would and anyone else who has their records. They'd put that variation into Phase II. Obviously the disease is strictly scripted, but until now, whoever wrote that script and the patient's systems put in the body's natural ability to react uniquely to a disease. But this... it looks like someone new to pon farr. They're reading a text book version about the syndrome and putting it into play. They have no personal experience."
"That's the other way it backfired on them," Daniel said. "If the disease is scripted in the same way for each phase, you can rely on the patient's body putting in a natural variance. It would know how for the other Phase I and III."
"For example, Jim, say you were infected with Phase I, and it passed on the order to feel dizzy to your body. Your body has experience with feeling dizzy so it would call on that experience."
"And if you acted dizzy," Kirk said, "you would act differently to some degree because of natural differences between us."
"Exactly," Daniel answered. "But it backfires with Phase II because of the patients' ages. None of them ever went through pon farr. Their bodies don't know how to act. So not only is the disease written in a textbook fashion, giving them no variance, their bodies can't add it either."
"That means, Jim, someone inexperienced. Vulcans would know, the Romulans from Hellguard would know, or someone like Amanda and Daniel would know. Or someone like me, a doctor whose had Vulcan patients with it."
Daniel asked, "Hate to play devil's advocate, but maybe they only picked the one scenario because they didn't care about adding variance per victim?"
Kirk added, "Or couldn't it be a younger Vulcan who hasn't gone into pon farr themselves?"
But Daniel didn't think so. "Now I'm giving up being devil's advocate. All Vulcans study pon farr so they're better prepared for it."
Kirk thought of that other half of himself, split from him by the transporter accident. If he had known it would happen, he'd have studied it so he was better prepared.
Daniel was chewing on his lower lip. "Although it might explain it being such a textbook case."
That looks like Sorel and Sa'd are ruled out. They're old enough and they would have seen plenty of patients. Unless they're only involved in infecting people. Or they just made a big mistake.
"Bones," he asked. "You said something a few days ago about Phase II only has male symptoms."
"Right. It's another mistake in the disease's script."
"Males and females have different symptoms?"
"Different hormones, different symptoms. To some extent anyway. Humans are no different, Jim." McCoy let out a big breath. "Who knows? Maybe we didn't discover something that big after all. If Daniel is right, it could still be the Romulans or their Hellguard records or Vulcans or doctors, and they just didn't care about variance."
"I think you did find something, Bones." Kirk looked down at the padd. We just have to figure out how it fits.