CHAPTER NINETEEN

His fingernails are filthy.

Paul Rawlson stares at the curved lines of embedded black dirt, at his own grey palms, and wonders if he'll ever be clean again. The thought of the millions of Denevan microbes even now breeding in the moist warmth beneath his cuticles induces vague nausea.

He spread his fingers flat against his desk, white flesh on black dust, and throws his focus. The hands don't belong to him. He's safe.

white on black

black on white

A chessboard and some grains of rice. The wise man's reward. Numbers are clean. They shine a grid inside his head in reassuring solid lines.

One, two, four, eight.

He lives in his head - that's what they said. Foster parents, counsellors, teachers. As if that was a bad thing when inside his head lay a world without shadows and sniggers; a world he could control, shape, define. Paul Rawlson ventured out only to excel in the clean sterility of the science lab. But by the time adolescence hit, his head had become an increasingly crowded place.

Sixteen, thirty two, sixty four.

Intellect was his defence. He soon learned that the outside world could forgive eccentricity when twinned with brilliance and achievement. And, as he climbed the ranks, he found that eccentricity could be disguised, subsumed, its edges blurred and blunted once you'd made both the rules of social intercourse and the parameters of Starfleet psyche tests the subject of exhaustive study.

One hundred and twenty eight. Two hundred and fifty six.

The other is quiet now. He's learned to dread the silence more than the voice that whispers his inadequacies in mocking sing song. Silence offers space for the thoughts that breathe infection faster than the dirt he fears.

Five hundred and twelve. One thousand and twenty four.

Around him the air deadens then rocks with another explosion, sifting a black cloud onto the backs of his hands, into his hair. He can taste it; grit crunching between his teeth, chemicals coating his tongue. Filth inside and out. He shudders.

Two thousand and forty eight. Four thousand and eighty four. Grain of rice spilling from the board. Rattling staccato onto the floor.

When he closes his eyes he can see the bodies. Can see the men in red shirts stepping over their own prone reflections unseeing. And now the third generation have found the explosives and seem to be engaged in some sort of private war. Why did he think he could control this? As if flesh and blood could be manipulated by numbers on a computer screen, like some grotesque video game.

Miller screwed up. That's the only explanation for the Vulcan's disappearance. He should have checked the transporter co-ordinates himself. And now... now escape on board the Enterprise seems as remote a prospect as a hot shower and a clean uniform. He thinks longingly of the decontamination chamber next to his laboratory on Epsilon three.

Then it starts. The whispering sing song. "You'll never get away from here. You'll die on this poisoned planet. Buried along with your crystals."

"No!"

He stands, chair falling backwards with a crash, dragging hands down a filthy blue shirt.

The briefcase is by the door. But as he crosses the office to pick it up he almost trips, boot toe hitting a solid object on the floor. Bending he picks up the framed hologram, shaken from the wall by the last explosion. Hazel eyes mock him from under the film of dust. Kirk. The golden starship captain. The man who tamed the beast within. Even as he stares he can feel the other rising, soaking upwards one vertebra at a time.

Shoulders straightening he flings the frame across the office where it lands with a satisfying crack.

There's still the shuttle, under tarpaulins in warehouse 10. It's designed for low orbit only, to transport supplies and personnel from one end of this cursed archipelago to the other. But surely even his rusty piloting skills can get him within range of the Enterprise. And then... Well, he knows the drill. They'll tractor him on board. And he still has the crystals, two hostages and four more syringes with a cocktail of drugs should they prove resistant. He can do this.

But as he turns to leave he's finds his way blocked. Torn red shirt, dead eyes and a phaser held in trembling fingers. Barker has deteriorated, respiratory distress, tissue hypoxia producing cyanosis. How long?

"Here you are. Where's your communicator? We've been trying..."

No knock, no sir. Rawlson eyes him coldly.

"We discussed this, Ensign. There'll be a team from the Enterprise here any minute. And they'll be scanning. Communicators are a liability. Now report."

Barker draws a shuddering breath and steadies himself with a hand on the door frame. "We've found him. Miller sent me. We were in the control room. He just called in."

"Who called in, Miller. You're not making sense."

"It's Commander Spock, sir. It worked. You should have heard him." Barker's fevered, sweat shining, eyes blinking rapidly. "Cold as ice. Got to confess, it gave me shivers. But he's with us, no doubt about that. Says he's taken care of everything."

Spock. Alive? It's been more than an hour since the Vulcan vanished, since his pattern evaporated from the colony database without trace. How...? Rawlson finds himself looking over the red shirt's shoulder as if half expecting the Enterprise's first officer to materialise in the corridor. But no, Barker said...

"Where, Ensign? Where was he calling from?"

Barker looks off to one side, frowning. "We don't understand. The Lieutenant says he set the control room destination himself. But maybe one of the others had set an over-ride. You know, when they beamed up to..."

One of the Rawlsons wants to hit him. The other steps forward and keeps his voice as steely as he can manage.

"Barker... where... is... he?"

"He's... Well, sir. He's on the Demeter."

-oOo-

Jake is staring at him, with a frown that's demanding reassurance he's in no position to give just now. Kirk continues to crouch under the control room console where they'd ducked just in time when Miller and the others arrived.

Jake's whisper is worried. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

A ghost — yes. He stares down at the broken communicators in his hand, retrieved from under the stained white lab coat where Spock had left them in game of poker a lifetime ago.

Spock. Alive.

He lifts his head to look back at the small boy who shares his hiding space and opens his mouth. Then closes it again. He can't find the words he needs; can only replay the voice he's just heard crackling through the control room speakers.

Spock. Divided?

He has no idea what he believes. He has no idea what he feels. And, more worryingly, right now, in this moment, James T. Kirk, starship captain, has no idea what he should do.

-oOo-

This is the longest delay between updates I've ever had. I can only apologise and promise this story is never far from my thoughts. I do know how it ends and we will get there. Do let me know if this isn't making sense to you.