Sickbay was a place Kirk associated with many things. Relief, and the feeling of safety, whenever he woke up in it. The soft beeping of medical instruments and the distinctive antiseptic smell, could be comforting and had often given him a feeling that everything was going to be alright. It could also mean the exact opposite, worry, pain and sorrow, when he'd sat on one of the hard chairs beside a bio-bed, waiting for a badly injured crewmember to regain consciousness - or take his last breath.

There was one constant: Bones. He was a comforting presence, either making sure he himself was feeling better, giving him something for the pain, telling him to rest, assuring him he was alright. Or he would stand beside him, laying a hand on his shoulder telling him to let it go. You can't always win. Just a few days ago, Bones had been lying in one of the bio-beds himself, which had shaken Jim up more than he'd realized at that moment, but at least, he had been there.

When Spock and he entered sickbay, and Bones was nowhere to be seen, Kirk briefly felt his knees give and he reached for the nearest bio-bed for support. A few beds further, he saw M'Benga lying unconscious with his head bandaged, on artificial respiration, looking pale, despite his dark skin.

Dr. Pulliam and Dr. Taylor were standing beside the bed, now looking over to him and Spock. Dr. Pulliam's eyes were red, as if she had been crying. This can't be happening, Kirk thought, there had to be another explanation.

"Captain Kirk, Commander Spock!" Dr. Taylor greeted them with a tired smile, "We've sent Leonard to his quarters. He is resting," he quickly provided when he saw Kirk swaying and his face lose all colour.

"Then his injuries were not serious?" Spock had briefly put his hand on Jim's elbow to steady him, but he quickly let go. Emotions, he had them, although he didn't like having them, and he particularly disliked the emotion he felt right now - guilt. It was illogical. He hadn't been responsible, he'd tried to reason ever since he'd left the antigrav chamber. With not much effect.

"He lost a lot of blood. But no organs or main blood vessels were damaged. He was very lucky, actually. Had he been a Vulcan, he would have been stabbed right into the heart and he'd be dead now."

Kirk let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, and turned to look at Spock. He also seemed relieved.

"Spock, in the mess you said you stabbed him right into the heart. You probably tricked that virus into thinking its attack would be lethal."

"I do not remember doing such a thing, Captain. However, I am glad that the Doctor is alive."

Kirk smiled at Spock, then turned to face the doctors again.

"How is Dr. M'Benga?"

"He should make a full recovery, although his injuries were far more serious than Dr. McCoy's," Dr. Pulliam said. She held on to the bio-bed the doctor occupied, in order to steady herself, Kirk realized.

"We'll know more in 24 hours, Captain."

"Thank you," Kirk nodded at Dr. Taylor and then, to get Dr. Pulliam's attention, called her name.

"Dr. McCoy once told me, he thought of you as a brilliant doctor."

"He once told me, that I'd better go back to med school until I had learnt how to set a hypo," she said bitterly.

Kirk smiled at her. He could imagine Bones doing that. He wasn't said to be a particularly nice boss. However, he was sure that he hadn't meant it. "Well, I'll make sure to tell him you can do that single handedly!"

"He apologised for it later, Captain. Still, ..."

"Captain, we've sent Leonard to his quarters, because he wouldn't stop fretting over Jabilo. He should rest. Would you mind paying him a visit? Maybe give him an order to stay in bed, or something?" Dr. Taylor cut her off.

Strange, there seemed to be something else on the young doctor's mind. However, maybe she was just exhausted.

"Yes, we'll do that," Kirk said, but thinking at the same time that an order would probably not achieve anything with Bones. Maybe he could get him to make a promise to stay in bed, as compensation for the scare he'd given him. Better yet, Spock could get that promise from him. Spock felt awful and guilty about what happened, and Bones knew that, of course. So he'd probably promise Spock just about anything at the moment - though he'd later regret it.

"Spock, will you accompany me to our good doctor's quarters?"

"Yes, Captain. I will ask him to stay in bed until he has fully recovered."

Kirk blinked. Spock had obviously come to the same conclusion, which surprised him this time, because it involved an understanding and accepting not only of Bones' emotions, but also of his own. On the other hand Spock had already admitted of having emotions just before they'd come to sickbay.

"Great. Let's go then!" Kirk said, leading the way to Bones' quarters, feeling like a secret agent. His spirits were lifted again, another mission that could prove to be interesting.

o0o

He immediately felt guilty about feeling so giddy on the way to Bones, when they had entered and saw him lying on his bed, holding a padd to his chest.

He looked awful. White as the sheets, dark circles under his eyes and he was shivering slighty. He was awake but barely able to keep his eyes open when they greeted him.

"You look awful, Bones," Kirk said as he sat down on the bed. He took the padd from Bones' hands and handed it to Spock.

Bones snorted. "Well, no wonder, I ..." He stopped himself, looking at Spock who seemed to be engrossed into studying that padd. "I probably look much worse than I feel, thank you. How's Jabilo?"

"Dr. Taylor said he'll be fine." Kirk surpressed the urge to tuck the blanket around Bones' form. "You need another blanket? You're shivering."

"Yeah. That nurse piled a mountain of blankets on me, before she left. I threw most of them off. Couldn't move."

Kirk looked to the foot of the bed where a big pile of blankets lay. He picked one up and spread it over Bones who roled his eyes at such a fuss. "You're not supposed to move, Bones." Kirk's eyes searched for Spock. He should support me, jump in at this very moment, Kirk thought. But instead he was still looking onto that padd.

"Fascinating." Spock finally said.

"Isn't it, Spock? I knew you'd find that interesting." Bones said enthusiastically, gaining some strength.

"What?" Kirk was annoyed. His plan to get Bones to rest was beginning to become sabotaged by the person whom he had thought of as his greatest ally.

"Jim. A virus is an interesting biological phenomenon. It is basically speaking nothing more than a DNA string which is able to bring living cells to replicate this DNA string instead of itself. Vulcan virologists have spent a lot of time researching the origin of the Vulcan flu virus," Bones started to lecture and then Spock joined in:

"With success, as I may add. The Vulcan Science Academy has concluded that the virus developed around the time of the Great Awakening, approximately 2000 of earth's years ago."

"That's right. And it's origin is a certain bacteria that befell an animal called Tchorka which the people on Vulcan used mainly as a meat supplier. It looks sort of like a camel."

"Vulcans are vegetarians," Kirk said. Though he didn't really care. At the moment there were other things on his mind. One of them was to get Bones to shut up and rest.

"Not at that time, Captain. Before Surak taught us the way of logic, we were quite different, violent, very emotional, although technologically speaking, quite advanced and therefore on the verge of destroying ourselves."

Spock, although I enjoy these rare occasions when you and Bones agree on something, I feel as if the two of you have teamed up against me, at the moment, he thought, but didn't say anything.

"Right. Now, I did a little research myself and it seems that the virologists think that these bacteria in the Tchorkas sort of dissolved under the influence of a certain gas which was emmitted by generators used to produce energy at that time. This gas, in combination with the radiation of Vulcan's sun, proved to be dangerous to other life forms as well, which is why they are not used anymore."

"You mean under the influence of that gas and Vulcan's sun the bacteria mutated into the virus?" Get to the point, will you?

"Not mutated. They dissolved and the only thing that survived were lose DNA strings. One of them survived as that virus which then jumped over to other hosts. The bacteria are extinct today, as are the Tchorkas by the way."

"Unfortunately when the Tchorkas weren't needed as a source of food anymore, they slowly died out. It is one of the few unfortunate consequences of Surak's teachings. Another was the secession of the dissident group that later founded the Romulan Empire."

"What does all this have to do with the virus that is controlling the Vulcans and Romulans on that planet?" Jim felt somewhat dense. He hated it when his friends became all the scientists and let himself be in the dark.

"Well, that virus is very similar to the Vulcan flu virus. But it is more complex. It is not very likely that the Vulcan flu virus mutated to produce our zombie virus. What is more likely is that this virus developed on its own but from the same source as the Vulcan flu virus." Bones patiently explained.

"You mean from your bacteria?"

"Yes, in combination with the gas from the energy generators and radiation."

"Fascinating. Captain, we need to search the planet for ruins and other signs of a past civilization again."

"What? Forgive me, but I think what we need to do is save the people on the planet, and then get out of here as fast as we can! We're in the neutral zone, and although there are special circumstances, this is a violation of our treaty with Romulus," Kirk said. Actually it had just come to him that the Romulans were able to detect their presence in the neutral zone. Hopefully, they wouldn't make the acquaintance with the Romulan fleet in the near future.

"Jim, what he suspects is this: When the Romulans defected from Vulcan they took their space ships, and supplies into the direction of Romulus to found their own world. They would have taken some Tchorkas, as well, and energy generators. So, it is possible that the same thing that happened on Vulcan, also happened in their colony, only that the virus that appeared in their colony was our zombie virus and not the Vulcan flu."

"If that was the case, then the Romulans should know about the virus. But they didn't. Tamulok's crew was so sick that they couldn't keep up maintenance of their own engines. Many of them died, too."

"Some historians believe that the Vulcans who marched beneath the raptor's wings, did not settle on Romulus first. There is evidence that they built up a colony on another planet which was destroyed. This colony has never been found, although archeologists have searched for it. It is said to have been a very rich and thriving colony. Many legends surround it, and the Vulcan Science Academy came to the conclusion that Vor-ka-ri is just that, a legend. Similar to your earth's Atlantis. Now, the Romulans and Vulcans stopped here, so it is possible that this the place of the virus' origin."

"But, if that planet is your Vor-ka-ri, where are its inhabitants?"

"If the legends are true, the colony was completely destroyed and the survivors fled the planet to what is now Romulus."

"Why didn't they take the virus with them, then?"

"Space ships at that time usually did not have artificial gravity, at least not everywhere on the ship."

"So the virus was killed on their way to Romulus, but it could have survived on the planet. A virus can befall just about anything, animals, plants, fungi even bacteria," Bones said smiling triumphantly, but still looking as if he was about to keel over.

"That colony could hardly have been thriving," Kirk mused, smoothing out the blankets over Bones, "those people on the planet were nothing but sloths. Slurping up these sugary fruit."

"I've been thinking about that too, Jim. We ... know it is able to control its host. It is probably able to do so after it has reached a certain number within its hosts body. Maybe there's something like swarm intelligence. The more ... the more of them there are, the more in-telligent they become."

"Fascinating. We already know that they can communicate with each other across their different hosts, Captain. You said that all of them suddenly tried to attack you on the planet. Maybe, if there are enough of them, we will be able to communicate."

"Spock. Are you suggesting to wait until the virus is intelligent enough to negotiate?" Kirk turned to look at Spock, then back at Bones, who was beginning to sweat.

"Jim, there's ... still the danger th-that it can kill its host. Many - many of Tamulok's crew were killed by it."

"Yes. And I will not wait until that happens. We'll beam them up into cargobay 1 and then shut off artificial gravity which should cure everyone, and Spock, I don't want ..."

McCoy could feel himself drifting. He knew he had overexerted himself. If he were his own patient, he'd be furious right now. Black dots were dancing in front of him. Jim was discussing the Prime Directive with Spock, he realized. He used the time to rest his eyes, just for a few moments.

When he came to, he realized he wasn't in his quarters anymore, but back in sickbay. Great! I'll never hear the end of it, he thought, but then he fell asleep again.