In touching Spock, his pain filtered through into Christine's mind. She felt sick with the intensity of it and she had to force herself to keep her hands on him, knowing that he was taking some little comfort from the contact. She looked towards the aliens again. They were standing close together still, focussing on each other, their fur shimmering so brightly in the sunlight that it was hard to look at them.
'They're distracted for the moment,' she murmured, close to Spock's ear. 'Mr Spock, you need to try to focus. You need to block them out of your mind.'
Slowly, as if it were agony to him, he shook his head, his face tight in a grimace of pain. His entire body was taut with pain, his spine a row of beads down his back and his shoulder blades catching the sun as he shuddered.
'Can't,' he whispered. The effort it took to speak was obviously tremendous, but he understood the importance of not projecting his thoughts. 'They're – beyond controls.'
He swallowed hard, and Christine knew he was trying to suppress the need to vomit.
'Can you make yourself unconscious?' she asked on a sudden whim. 'Would that cut them off from your mind?'
He lifted his head with agonising slowness, his tear-misted eyes focussing on her face with great difficulty. There was a sense of wonder in his gaze, as if there were questions in his mind that he could not manage to ask.
'You – could not – communicate,' he rasped out.
'I don't believe that,' she whispered.
If only she still had her pack, with the hypos inside, the debate would not be necessary. She swallowed, picking up a hefty chunk of concrete in her hand, wondering if she was as good as McCoy at the medical bluff.
'Make yourself unconscious, Mr Spock,' she said quietly, with deadly seriousness, 'or I will do it for you. I don't have any hypos, but I can and will hit you with exactly the right force and in the right place to leave you out cold for a good few minutes.'
For a moment Spock's eyes focussed more sharply, as if he were trying to focus on the truth behind her threat – but he could not read her while trying desperately to keep their conversation from the Talasees. Even while he was talking to her his speech was punctuated by agonised cries. It was obvious that he would not be able to stand the presence of the aliens for much longer without something breaking.
Finally he nodded, and touched a trembling hand to his own temple. A moment of concentration, and he slumped face forward onto the ground.
Christine looked up, the sudden silence wrapping around her. It was more than the silence of Spock's screams having died away, she realised slowly. There was a silence inside her head, replacing the jarring, inarticulate voices of a people so alien that they communicated in concepts rather than words, even though her own mind translated those concepts into words.
She stared at the small huddle of Talasees. They were still turned to each other, still obviously discussing what to do with this pair of strange, cloth-wearing, mentally undeveloped creatures. Their song was fluctuating, sometimes barely any louder than the wind and sometimes rising up again into something less musical and far more emotional that sent shivers through her skin.
Barely knowing what she intended to do, as if she were in a trance, she began to peel her torn and filthy clothes from her body. Any moment of self-consciousness was shed as she glanced at the aliens and saw again that they were so different from her that embarrassment was meaningless. It was as foolish as being self-conscious before an elephant or an eagle. The heat of the sun and the gentle wind stroked her skin and she realised as she stepped out of the final shreds of clothing that it was far more pleasant like this.
Still they were focussed away from her. She stood watching them, wondering what was passing between their minds, following the movement of their song but understanding no more than a suggestion of their emotion. Finally she stepped forward and began to hum the first song that came into her head. She could not use her voice for words, but she could use her emotions, something that was virtually impossible for Spock to do.
She realised that she was humming Beyond Antares. So many evenings on the ship she had heard Uhura singing that song, Spock playing along on his lyre. The movement of his fingers on the strings and the dark, reflective look in his eyes was something that made her heart ache, and she was suddenly filled with an overwhelming sadness for the love that she bore him that he did not return.
Slowly the aliens turned. They stared, moving close to her, their glittering eyes moving close to her face and their hands reaching out first to the shreds of clothing she had dropped on the ground and then to her naked skin. She kept humming, not letting her concentration waver. And then, threadlike, she felt a thought in her mind that was not her own.
It feels.
She caught onto that thought, not letting herself stop the humming, putting all the emotion she could into the tune as she looked into their eyes. She continued to think of Spock sitting in the muted light of evening in the rec room, the music shimmering from his lyre and wrapping around her. She thought of Uhura standing behind his chair and singing, and let the stinging, sad jealousy rise up in her at that friendship that extended beyond working hours into the sharing of music and song.
It feels, she heard again, and she focussed her eyes on the closest of the aliens and thought clearly, Yes, I feel. And I hear you.
A great calm was descending now that Spock was unconscious. While he was attuned to their thoughts and her sense of the aliens was bound in with his it was impossible to view them with any detachment. But now the sadness that was swelling in her and the absence of Spock's tortured thoughts was leaving behind a warm and calm plateau of emotion. She could almost have sat down in the hot sun and slept, and dreamt of Spock.
It is sad, she heard in her mind.
I am sad, she confirmed, because you hurt my friend. Because you held him captive for weeks and treated him so badly.
There was a bewildered moment of interchange between the aliens that she could not keep up with. She pulled her mind away momentarily, reminding herself to keep humming, to keep rotating the tune. She moved to an old Scottish ballad and let the music drift around her.
Their thoughts focussed toward her again, and she heard, It is useful. That one, the white one, is useful.
Her eyes turned to Spock. His skin looked startlingly white in the bright sun, in contrast to the blue dress she had previously been wearing and the aliens' bright and iridescent fur.
She frowned, concentrating, changing the tune she hummed to an angrier one, remembering a particularly vibrant song from the 2250s punk revival and letting her anger charge through it.
That is no excuse for harming him. You tortured him. That is unacceptable. He cannot bear your method of communication but you continue to hurt him. How can you expect help in return for that?
Quiet again as they turned their thoughts away from hers, communing amongst themselves, the pitch of their song wavering like an orchestra tuning up. There was a stillness settling through them despite the fluctuations in tone, as if an anger in them was slowly subsiding. Was it perhaps that their thoughts clashed so badly with Spock's thoughts that their interactions could not be successful? She was not sure if she would ever truly be able to understand these strange, beautiful, cruel beings.
Finally they turned back and alien thoughts entered her head again.
How can you help?
She sighed, trying to resist an instinctive smile, aware that such gestures might be offensive to these people. After everything, this felt like an enormous breakthrough. She began to hum, Dance, then, wherever you may be… letting the joy of the tune ripple through her soul. She visualised the Enterprise, somewhere up in orbit above her, and the hundreds of people on board with all of their combined knowledge. She thought of the sick bay and the healing of Dr McCoy, and of the engineering and computing departments, Scotty's miracle working and Spock's deft skill. She thought of the captain, standing with open arms and a welcoming smile, offering help and assistance and asking nothing in return.
And then she caught their response reflected back towards her – the crumbling buildings and the crumbling shelters underground that were built so long ago that they did not know if it was the radiation or age destroying them. She caught their despair at gathering enough food for those who were left, the fear of those who joined the parties who went to the there-above to find food, and the fear of those who stayed below. She caught the misery of beings who used to lay themselves open to the sun at staying trapped in darkness and half-light for fear of the radiation sickness touching them too. She caught the frustration and hope mixed together when they thought of those banks of computers that held medical and scientific knowledge long lost by living minds, that because of decay and seeping damp and creatures' burrowing teeth just would not work.
Their song was becoming a keening wail, a funeral dirge lacing above and below their thoughts. Christine found herself on her knees, the sadness pouring through her, and she knew that the aliens were taking her empathy and binding it in with their own lament.
We can help, she thought again, trying to make that thought clear and vital, cutting through their ballooning grief at the ruin of their world. Not all of your land is destroyed. Not all of your people are sick. We can help you, if only I can contact my ship.
Their thoughts all riveted at once, focussing on her and asking the same question. How?
She looked down at the clothes that she had shed, thinking of her communicator and how it was somewhere down there in the ruins she had come from, and how Spock must also have had a communicator. She thought of how she would have to travel away from the radiation until it no longer interfered with the device, and how then she could send a signal to the ship, and speak to her people there.
But we will speak with words, and we will wear clothing, she warned them, conjuring an image of a recreation room in the evening, milling with people all talking in happy and unrestrained tones.
The aliens shrank away briefly.
We cannot work without speaking with words, she insisted, and almost every person on my ship will insist on wearing cloth on their bodies. We have no fur. It is a cultural difference. We will have many of those.
They moved close again, their eyes coming close to Christine's face and their hand-like things touching the skin of her arms in a new exploration of the strangeness of her body. She stood still, letting them touch her – and then she slowly raised her hand and reached out to the shining, rainbow-sheened fur of the closest being. It was soft and deep and cooler than she had expected. It was like touching fur made of chilled silk. As her fingers moved in it ripples of iridescent purple and blue moved across the surface. She felt entranced by the beauty of it.
There was a moment of palpable empathy, where the aliens touched her and she touched them, the sensation of skin as fascinating to them as the fur was to her. She looked into the glittering eyes of one and for a moment saw a soul beyond, almost unreachable by a mind such as hers, but perhaps attainable with time and effort. And then the hands dropped again and they turned away, putting their heads close again and letting their thoughts entwine.
She stood and waited in the brilliant sunshine, her eyes slipping between Spock, unconscious, and the shimmering aliens and the wreckage of their civilisation. If it were not for their treatment of the Vulcan she would feel a deeper sorrow. As a nurse, or simply as a human, her feelings were quite deep enough as it was, but the sight of Spock, pale and vulnerable, stayed the last depths of her feelings.
She waited, sensing but not quite catching the discussion between them. Their song wavered low and high. One moved over towards the stairwell that she had escaped with Spock and prised open the door, looking impassively into the darkness. Then another joined that one and then disappeared into the dark opening. Some minutes later it returned, holding her dust-stained pack in its hands. With an air of ceremony it passed it to her.
Christine remembered to hum a snatch of a joyful song, and opened the pack. Her communicator was there, safe and apparently undamaged. She opened it and static crackled. The tricorder was a little more useful, at least, showing her that the radiation weakened somewhat to the north of where she stood. She hesitated, looking at Spock, trying to work out if she could bring him to consciousness. She certainly could not carry him.
Their thoughts filtered into hers again, asking with a repeated sense of trust, do we trust it, are they to be trusted? She let her mind open, thinking again of the ship and the people on board and their readiness to help when good faith was shown. And then one of the aliens picked Spock up in its spindly arms as easily as if he were a child.
Christine turned to the north and they began a slow trek through the ruins and the heat towards where the radiation was less keen. She kept the tricorder open, always monitoring as well as she could and checking that the radiation continued to wane. Spock's modifications to the tricorder were typically excellent. Where previously the tricorder had barely managed, stuttering, to even analyse the radiation, now it was giving useful, even valuable, feedback, picking up much more reliable readings of intensity and type.
Christine's eyes widened as she analysed the readings. She was no physicist, but she could see why buildings were crumbling and natural life was so stunted. No wonder these people needed help. The radiation made everything crumble at the cellular level. Short-lived plants and animals could survive, but the long-lived and the never-alive were equal prey to its ravaging effects.
Her clothes were slung over her arm. In the dry, fresh heat she had almost forgotten that she was naked, but now she ruffled through her folded dress, looking for the radiation badge that had been affixed to her chest. She had almost forgotten the device while she was underground, in the dark. It showed that she had been exposed to nearly seventy-three Cohens of radiation. Seventy-five was the utter limit that guidelines advised. Without the anti-radiation shot she knew she would have been feeling severely ill by now. It was a blessing that Spock had been underground all this time, or he would undoubtedly be dead.
The fabric of her clothes was already beginning to feel rough and friable under her fingers just from the cumulative time she had spent on the surface. Too long, and she did not trust the tricorder or communicator to hold out. But the radiation was lessening, ever so slowly. A mile, or perhaps two, and she was sure – she hoped – that the communicator would work at last.
Her thoughts turned to the others involved in the search for Spock. Had they searched and returned empty-handed, but at least returned? Were there now parties out searching for her too? She wasn't even sure how long she had spent underground.
She flipped open the communicator again, trying to open a channel without speaking and offending the aliens. Static crackled at her again, but then, broken through the interference, she heard the briefest snatch of a female voice. Nyota, she was sure. She checked the tricorder again and saw the dip in the radiation. She tried again and again, opening the communicator and tuning it carefully, until suddenly the voice came clear.
'This is the Enterprise. Come in, Nurse Chapel. Come in.'