"Oh my--" Corrigan's hands turned white at the knuckles from his tight grip on the report padd.

McCoy could see it was marked 'high priority' even from his seat on Daniel's couch. With Sorel and S'ad still under suspicion, at least of being used as accomplices, Corrigan still stayed one of the few people it was safe to be around. "What is it?"

The look in the other man's eyes could only be called stunned. "It's from R'vik. She's the healer who started helping with my caseload and Sorel's when we got busy with the disease team. It's one of my patients." Corrigan ran to his desk and punched a control. "Sorel! I need you in my office! In fact, I need everybody."

Every ounce of the medical man inside of McCoy came alert. "Is your patient all right?"

"She probably doesn't think so. A mixed couple, she's human and he's not, both spacers, and with the usual trouble having children. She finally was pregnant, and then I got this. Hysterical pregnancy."

McCoy took the padd. "Poor woman. It's a damned shame. I'm guessing they were out on a run and didn't get to a physician early on? I don't see how else she didn't--"

"That's not my point! Len. This woman showed every sign of being pregnant, but she's not."

"It still happens even in this day and age, Daniel. We just usually catch it right away."

"Dammit, think about what I'm saying! Sorel! There you are, good. Len, what kind of condition has symptoms, can even kill people, but never shows up on any tests?"

McCoy echoed Daniel's Oh my god to himself. "The disease!Psychosomatic. That's why we can't find anything, not a goddamn thing!"

"The greatest tool any of us has is our mind. And for a Vulcan? Somebody took that extra ability and twisted psychosomatic into-- into– obscene."

Srre had only caught the tail end of the bombshell and had to ask what he missed. Sorel spoke in Vulcan, the long stream of words more than a translation of what McCoy had said, probably saying his next words before he did.

"The hybrids never were injected or ingested or inhaled anything! Someone got into their minds and put the whole damn disease into their subconscious! They're killing off themselves."

Silence laid heavy as the first stares went around the room. Then eyes looked away. Sorel spoke, gathering his authority around him and using it to draw up the others. "The implication is obvious. The majority of these patients had training in mental shielding. It would not be easy to break past such self-protection. It would need someone equally or better skilled in these techniques, and with medical training to install the mental conditions of the disease. In addition -- let me finish, Daniel. In addition, it is someone the patient would allow to meld with them, and I believe only a full meld could bury this suggestion into the subconscious so well."

Corrigan choked out, "You're saying it's a Vulcan healer."

"I am saying the odds favor the implication. I calculate them to be--"

"Don't. I can't stand it right now."

Dammit, Jim was right.

S'ad spoke up. "Sorel is correct. We knew we were already under suspicion. The thought disturbs me as much as anyone. However, if one of us is responsible, that one must be found. Meanwhile, this suspicion has caused us to focus away from the most important detail."

Sorel already moved out of the room, activating a communicator in his hand. "We know how to treat our patients."

Relief flooded McCoy even as he hurried after the others as they hustled to the patient ward. Still, a nagging thought sat, worrying at his brain. Which one of the Vulcans did this?

Not necessarily one of THESE Vulcans! But he didn't know that for sure. He watched Sorel and S'ad running with him, slowing their pace to his. One of them, a killer?

A VSE guard at the Phase III almost blocked Sorel from going in, but Healer T'Juri had taken Sorel's call and came out to clear them. McCoy still had clearance and moved his way to the front.

The ward was scheduled to be closed down. Too many beds lay empty and the few living patients would be better off in private rooms. The Vulcans discussed how to preserve Micar's mural that now stood over the room like a tombstone.

Sorel finished explaining all the details and everyone barreled into the ward. T'Juri's head reared back from what she heard, in the closest sign she'd ever give to showing surprise.

I know exactly how you feel.

But now they had a cure! A cure!

Sorel addressed the hybrids in the room. Vi'hai was back in a bed after his excursion with Jdehn, and Saavik blasted through the entrance at the other end. He hadn't had time to get a hold of Jim and Spock.

One of the worst off -- A'kornora -- couldn't even raise a hand anymore and her voice was no louder than the whisper of dust on the floor. "...I will...volunteer."

T'Juri stepped next to her bed and warned her in an equally soft voice of how far she would have to reach in with the meld. When A'kornora didn't change her mind, the healer had to make the connection for both of them, holding the weak woman's hand to her temple. Her patient only mouthed the words by making the slightest tremors in her lips. Everyone in the ward took one group breath and waited.

The healer raised her voice. "I have found it."

The breath blew out.

A'kornora stiffened and then convulsed, mouth opened wide in a silent scream. Sorel grabbed T'Juri, trying to separate them. The skin around his eyes and across his cheekbones stretched, lines gouging deep creases in his forehead and it was nothing next to the horror in the woman's face.

It was only a shade next to A'kornora's pain. She fought off the contact, but T'Juri was frozen in the meld. S'ad rushed forward, joining Sorel in pulling T'Juri out of the meld. McCoy saw the moment it broke because she sagged in between them. He shoved forward with the others to A'kornora who choked and gasped for air. Her mouth stayed open, now in a silent plea to breathe. Another of the new medical team rushed forward with a crash cart. He grabbed a tricorder and hurriedly scanned the struggling patient.

Corrigan shouted, "Blocked windpipe? Mental trauma?" He snatched a hypospray, and waiting impatiently for McCoy's diagnosis so he could load it.

"Doctors!"

The shout came from across the room. McCoy glanced up once, saw Komal choking like A'kornora. Corrigan was already running, Srre jumping the few steps to Komal, joined by the last present member of the new team with another crash cart. Arik suddenly appeared in the ward door and stared at Komal, face draining to a sickly white-green.

"Daniel! Nothing's showing up on the scans!"

Saavik moved even as McCoy yelled, but she boxed in Arik, not Corrigan, and herded him to the foot of Komal's bed. No one could hear what she said right into his ear, but it was clear that he didn't like whatever it was. He tried escaping her like a frightened rabbit, but couldn't get around her.

"Do not repeat my mistake."

Everyone heard her say that, but even with the force of her wake dragging him there, they barely got to the bedside in time. Komal reached out to him, her hand a mere breath off the bed. Arik pulled away and blindly shook his head, no matter how much Saavik leaned in.

"–should never have been born."

What! McCoy couldn't believe he just heard T'Juri say it, but she looked up from where Sorel had left her, barely holding herself up on the crash cart, eyes wide on the laboring A'kornora.

Saavik reached to take Komal's hand just as another katra bearer rushed to A'kornora's side, but too late. It was over in seconds. Two more dead and their katras, lost.

"These people are supposed to safe! And then she says something like that! How do we know what she did in that meld?"

McCoy's voice rang over the empty ward beds like a cold breeze until it struck the far wall and echoed back. A'kornora's and Komal's bodies were gone, the living patients moved out, and he updated Kirk and Spock. The only infected people who were still here were Saavik, whose head bent over a tricorder, and Arik, who sat slumped on a bed. His eyes stared with a dead light at nothing, so lost that he probably didn't realize he sat on Komal's bed.

"T'Juri argues," Spock said, "that the statement did not originate with her, Doctor. Nor did she do anything in the meld to cause A'kornora's death."

Kirk's mouth was a tight, thin line. "She certainly didn't touch Komal."

"Sorel has also verified that he witnessed nothing untoward in the meld, Dr. McCoy."

"Aren't you one of the people saying Sorel's involved in killing these people? What good is his word now?"

"I am one of those people, Doctor, despite my personal connection with him, and I take the possibility of Sorel's guilt into consideration. However, we have no need for argument. Healer T'Juri has voluntarily removed herself from the medical team and offered herself for investigation."

"Dammit, Spock, why didn't you say so right away! I swear, sometimes I'd love to--" McCoy rubbed his hands over his face and then into his hair. "Never mind. That's not going to get us anywhere." Except to get rid of the worst bile choking his system. "All right, what do we do now?"

Spock nodded, obviously pleased that McCoy focused on what was important. He glanced over his shoulder. "Saavik?"

She looked up from a tricorder and came forward. Realizing she was leaving, Arik jumped to his feet. Bags hung under his eyes from his thoughts, not from a lack of sleep. "I should have... I could have... something. You were right."

"Yes, I was."

"It's why you told me not to repeat your mistake." He stood with his shoulders pulled down by the gravity of not giving Komal some moment of peace at the end, even if he had only pretended to forgive her. Then he leaned in towards Saavik.

Saavik's head came back until she made herself stop the reaction, looking as stiff as he did.

What was that about? Even Spock looked askance at Arik hugging what McCoy knew to be the boundary of a Vulcan's personal space. Sure it was a little too close, but he hadn't touched her. That shouldn't be enough to make Saavik look like she had seen a ghost.

Kirk started saying something about it to her, but Spock held up a hand. Arik got his shoulders back and less sick-green in the face. "I can't sit here and mope. It doesn't do any good."

She vaulted her eyebrows. "Excellent. The Adepts will arrive in two point three five hours. You could prepare or aid in preparing the others."

He didn't smile, but it was in his eyes even his back was stiff from forcing himself not to slump. "I'll see you then." He toughened up his jaw line and if he still couldn't be called calm, he had found some strength.

She had shaken off whatever it was when she reached them. "I apologize for the delay, sirs."

"It was necessary," Spock said before anyone else could say anything. "We were discussing the latest attack and the possibility it was caused by a meld with Healer T'Juri. You investigated another possibility?"

"I have and I must disagree with the theory of the meld causing this latest attack."

Figures. What Vulcan isn't going to argue–!

McCoy told himself to knock it off, but all those empty beds and the dead faces staring out from Micar's mural... the place was haunted, even to someone who didn't believe in ghosts.

"Based on what we experienced, I speculate this is a manner of attack we have seen previously and I therefore reviewed the recordings of A'kornora's and Komal's deaths. The facts agree." She brought up a report on the system where Salok the pediatrician had helped McCoy investigate patient records in what seemed an eon ago. She stepped aside so they all could see. "Their asphyxiation lasted exactly fourteen seconds. As in all other factors of the disease, no physical cause has been found."

Kirk's lips pressed together and the rest of him went still, with that all too familiar energy right under the surface. The Romulan weapon of a glowing box with alternating lights filled the left hand side of the screen as Spock's own report scrawled alongside of it.

It kills its victims through oxygen deprivation in fourteen seconds. The same as the two hybrids just now in the ward. McCoy's bile rose even higher in his throat.

"How?" he asked before he could stop himself. He had the answer as soon as he thought of the question. "Anothersubconscious suggestion!"

Saavik agreed. "To mimic the asphyxiation of the weapon. This report was previously available to all members of the medical team. I do note Healer T'Juri was not given access to it, nor were any others on the newly assigned medical staff."

"Asphyxiation," Spock murmured in that calm, matter of fact way that McCoy had always hated in times like this. It didn't mean none of this didn't bother Spock; after all, look at Saavik. She was just as calm and she was the dying from it. For all they knew, the same mental order that destroyed Komal could be in Saavik's head right now. And they couldn't go after it in fear of setting it off.

Kirk grabbed the back of the chair in a tight fist. "It wasn't enough that he had to make people relive the starvation and dehydration deaths."

His eyes flew to Saavik, but she made no sign of his referring to her own imminent death. "We have already surmised that the purpose of the disease is to undergo the suffering experienced by the Vulcans captured on the Romulan colony. Such experiences would include the oxygen deprivation deaths of those used as test subjects for the weapons. It would include as well the kalifee v'rekor deaths."

McCoy whispered, "Micar and Ny'Jul."

"As well as Eitan and Kf'iskjyk, Doctor. It would explain their sudden change in decision to commit suicide rather than the plans to which they had committed themselves moments earlier."

Kirk leaned over the chair he still held tight. "It also explains what happened to you on the Aerfen. Whoever this is infected you with the mental suggestion for the disease and then wiped out that memory."

"I have also speculated as much, Captain."

But Spock disagreed. "Not 'wiped out', Saavik. I suggest the memory was repressed."

"Indeed?" She frowned in thought. "On what facts do you base the distinction, sir?"

"The existing evidence testified to your security access being used to remove ship's records. We have speculated he gained this access himself. However, someone with the skill level necessary to violate your security codes would know to remove the incriminating traces. That is not what happened. Nor is it what happened at the stasis chambers with the technical removal of the security video. It does, however, reflect the structure of the disease itself, such as the lack of variety in Phase II symptoms."

McCoy got it the same time as Kirk, but Jim said it first. "Literal instructions! He gave explicit orders on what to do and didn't let in any personal experience! Like the Phase II problem Daniel and Rrelthiz found."

Saavik's frown grew as she looked from one to the other. "I do not understand."

"It's like this, Saavik," McCoy explained. It felt so good to know something again. "When this person created the disease, he did it with a list of commands that your mind had to carry out. It's almost like a computer program controlling your subconscious. That part's clear."

She nodded. "Captain Spock and I discussed this as well."

And now trying to cure the disease could trigger another death like it had with A'kornora and maybe even Komal. Only the Adepts coming from Gol and Seleya were trusted to attempt melds or design a meditation technique to let Saavik and the others cure themselves. Even they weren't going to do anything until they were sure their slightest attempt didn't kill the very few survivors. But that took time, and for someone like Vi'hai, they didn't have enough.

McCoy had a mental image of a hourglass with only a few grains of sand left to fall to the bottom. There's only six of them left now. He swallowed. "The only time we've seen variants show up between – say, you and Ny'Jul – is when the instruction was broad enough that your body could act out its experience. Phase I told you to have vertigo and lose your hand and eye coordination."

She finished his explanation. "I have a set of personal experiences differing from the others and therefore act with a variant in my actions. However, you have seen the instructions disallowing such experience and relate it to the security breach on the Aerfen?"

"Phase II showed no variance in anyone that was infected. Everything about it was exactly the same for each patient."

Jim jumped in for that one. "And now we're seeing that again. Saavik, this person hasn't shown any technical skills when it comes to security, communications or any computer systems."

"Aye, sir. It is why we theorized an accomplice may be used." Her frown turned into upraised eyebrows. "I understand. The most logical way to remove the Aerfen records with such limited system skills is not to breach my security, but to order me to remove them. And you suggest his instruction was literal with too limited a focus."

"Exactly! He told you to remove the records when he should have told you to remove all traces of his being there! Or at leastasked you what was the best way to do it. If he had done that, you would have gotten rid of the evidence that your access removed those records. Instead, he tied your hands on what you could do."

Saavik's only reaction to someone tampering with her mind to such a horrible degree was an infinitesimal Vulcan pause. It always looked to McCoy like the Vulcan shutdown for that tiny moment while the cause of it sank down each level of control, without their emotions lashing out - or letting out something private. "Might it also explain the headaches I experienced when questioned about that time period?"

Spock jerked in place. "You experienced headaches?"

"Yes, I reported them to Dr. McCoy."

"And I couldn't find anything that caused them." He tried to keep the defensiveness out of his voice, but he couldn't help it when Spock drilled that stare into his head like that. "Why?"

"From my studies on Gol, Doctor, I know Vulcans can suffer from two types of memory suppression. Both list headaches as a sign of the repression."

McCoy folds his arms across his chest and dug his fingers into his biceps. Not because of Spock, but because of himself. "I put it down to the disease. I would have known better if I had talked to Sorel or someone else."

Spock gave in. "You had every right to do so. It is only hindsight that allows us to see the other diagnoses. Such speculation serves no purpose."

Not even Saavik blamed him, but McCoy would feel it for a long time.

She was saying, "The guard stationed at the stasis chamber also reported head pain, did he not? As well as the debilitating condition Vi'hai, Jdehn, and Mekhai experienced." She paused, maybe because she made the connection only then. She wouldn't do it for a dramatic effect. "It occurred during an attempt to leave the planet, perhaps permanently."

Kirk moved to stand next to the chair, and unconsciously mimicked his normal pattern to stand or even lean on his captain's seat on the Enterprise. "So it probably wasn't some new affect of Phase III. You're suggesting it was another new attack on them, to make them come back to Vulcan."

She nodded, and so did Spock. "As a possibility, Captain. It does maintain their accessibility although it no longer seems necessary. Perhaps whoever is responsible merely desires personal contact to witness our destruction."

"That's disgusting!" It sounded like such a cliché, but McCoy didn't know he had even said it out loud until everyone turned to look at him.

Spock's eyes were far away as he looked back in total understanding. "Agreed, Doctor. Saavik," he came back from wherever he had been. Probably picturing what could happen to her. "You can no longer be alone. Nor can any of the others. Security should be assigned to each of you at the minimum."

She doesn't like that.

But she knew it made sense. Even if the killer had already implanted another way for her to die besides Phase III, as he had done with all the others lately, or the way to make sure she stayed here, letting him get to her whenever he felt like it was dangerous. And maybe, just maybe, he hadn't gotten to her yet and they could keep him away.

Or catch him when he tried.

Kirk took pity on her. "One of us could do it instead of Security or the VSE. I'd volunteer, so would Spock and McCoy. And I'm sure Amanda and Sarek would help. At least it wouldn't be strangers."

"It would also provide me with a katra bearer if we continue to be unable to remove the mental trigger for the disease."

Just when I thought I couldn't feel worse.

"That is," Saavik gazed at Kirk before turning her eyes to Spock, "if those who volunteered also agreed to the possibility of their being needed for the task. I do not presume."

Spock said something in Vulcan which meant his answer was for her alone. She gave the barest nod, maybe so she didn't have to take her eyes away.

"I still volunteer," Kirk said and gave a warm smile. "I'd be honored if it came to it. So would McCoy, wouldn't you, Bones?"

"Absolutely. It'd be a blessing after carrying Spock around."

Jim didn't know what he was agreeing to, and McCoy almost wanted to insist that it be him who took her to Seleya. It was the least he could do after failing her as her doctor. But even with all of that, he hoped for their sakes that if it came down to it, Spock would be the one with her.

A chime sounded on the system. "Captain James Kirk, you have an incoming transmission from Commodore Bass."

"Jim!" McCoy couldn't believe it. "Are you still putting up with that--"

That showed up onscreen. "Kirk! I thought we agreed I'd be getting regular updates from you or Spock! So why haven't I heard anything in days except some report about an updated body count at the hospital? Maybe you can even explain why Starfleet is wasting resources on this when someone is obviously doing us a favor by getting rid of any goddamn Roms and their spawn that Vulcan has shoved down our throats!"

Saavik did another one of those pauses where everything about her froze for one brief second and in that quick cessation, Spock moved to get to the comm screen even as Kirk started to yell. She beat them both to it. She slipped in front of them and must have looked enormous on Bass' screen.

"Commodore." Her voice was like her body language: professional, calm... unyielding.

Bass had seen her file of course. Starfleet would have sent it when the Aerfen had to leave her behind, and then the update about her inactive status. McCoy gave a silent cheer that the bloated excuse for a human being got caught with his pants down by her jumping in like that. "Lieutenant Saavik."

"Yes, sir. We have our report on our progress in this investigation. We now know the disease's cause, although its creator remains unknown and the success of its cure has proven unstable. However, the facts reported to you are correct. We have a 98 death rate with only six of those infected currently surviving. This count includes myself, Commodore."

His ruddy faced grew extra red with temper, but she hadn't given him one thing to complain about. "That's sad news, Lieutenant. I hope you can get that cure to work."

Liar!

But McCoy egged Saavik on with her approach and Jim grinned like the Cheshire cat from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland fable. It was the best thing that had happened in days.

"Your support honors us, Commodore."

Oh, beautiful!

"We will endeavor to maintain your timetable for status reports." Spock stayed at her shoulder which made Bass still focus on her. "Do you require anything in addition, Commodore?"

Bass' mouth opened and snapped shut when Spock lifted an eyebrow. "No! Just don't let it happen again!"

"Agreed, sir. Vulcan out."

McCoy let out a crow of triumph and Kirk gave the ultimate compliment, "Excellent work, Lieutenant."

"Excellent isn't the word for it! It was so good, I could kiss you!"

Saavik took a large step back from McCoy.