Captain's log, Stardate 2258.164. The Enterprise is due to enter orbit around Emagious III within the hour. Despite repeated attempts to contact the shuttlecraft, Commander Spock has not responded. I hope that he is simply away from the shuttlecraft and therefore unaware of our messages, but his five-day period of silence is unusual, and I am concerned.

* * *

Jim spun around in the command chair toward the communications station. "Lieutenant, are you still tracking the homing beacon for the Galileo?"

"Yes, Captain," Uhura replied. "Signal is strong."

At Jim's elbow, Bones muttered, "He should have taken along that medical kit."

Kirk said to Uhura, "Transfer signal to navigation."

"Aye, sir."

"I knew he'd need it," said McCoy.

Chekov reported, "Coordinates received. Plotting synchronous course."

"You know what we'll find has happened to him, don't you?" Bones said fiercely. "He'll have succumbed to something innocuous like an insect bite—something that could easily have been warded off by plain antibiotics. You mark my words."

Jim resisted the impulse to roll his eyes. He knew that Bones was worried; he'd been getting more wound up than Uhura over the continued silence. Unfortunately, when Bones got nervous, his inevitable course of action was to show up on the bridge and start complaining to Jim. Jim was not entirely reconciled to this chain of events. Further, he had a strong aversion toward speculating about his First Officer's untimely death. It was too soon to begin writing epitaphs.

"Course plotted," Chekov announced.

Jim rose from his chair to approach the helm. "Standard orbit, Mr. Sulu."

"Aye, Captain."

Unfortunately, Bones trailed along with him. "You never should have agreed to let him go off by himself."

"Standard orbit achieved," Sulu reported.

"Why couldn't he take a vacation on a civilized planet, like a normal person?"

Ever since they had begun closing on Emagious III, Bones had followed Jim from station to station, voicing his opinions on the situation at hand, Vulcans in general, and Spock in particular. Jim did his best to ignore him, but it was like trying to ignore a giant Labrador retriever that was breathing in your face and drooling all over your margarita. The effort was doomed from the start.

Jim completed his circuit of the bridge and stopped at Uhura's station. She had her signal amplifier to her ear, listening intently. "Anything?"

"No, sir. No acknowledgement." She looked concerned but contained. Good. Jim wanted officers who could keep their heads in a crisis.

"Is he reading us?"

"He should have brought Scotty's laser beacon," Bones interrupted. "We'd be able to get through to him if he'd brought that laser beacon."

Uhura tactfully did not comment on this suggestion. "Message is getting through to the shuttlecraft. Diagnostic loops indicate a fully functional connection." She met Jim's eyes. "If he's there, he's reading us."

Jim turned toward Mallory. "Ensign, get a scan going. Optimize the settings for Mr. Spock—you know, whatever human/Vulcan thing he reads out as."

"Actually, Captain, Mr. Spock reads almost entirely as Vulcan."

"How do you know that?" Mallory opened her mouth to explain. "Never mind," said Jim quickly. "It doesn't matter. Just optimize the settings for Mr. Spock. Mr. Chekov..." He turned toward the front of the bridge. "Coordinate your search pattern with the science station. Start at the shuttlecraft, and widen your scan in concentric circles from there."

"Aye, Keptain."

Jim turned to face Bones. "I'm going down there."

Bones looked resolved. "I'm going with you."

"You are waiting up here."

"That's ridiculous, Jim! He could be injured. We have no idea how long he's been lying there. Help might have to be immediate or—"

Jim put a hand on his shoulder. "Bones, he's not at the shuttlecraft."

Bones had a full head of steam, which meant he wasn't thinking clearly. Jim wondered what quirk of fate gave him a best friend who always went straight to emotion as a first response, and a First Officer who wouldn't know emotion if it came up and kissed him on the lips. Surely there had to be a happy medium.

"How do you know he's not at the shuttlecraft?" Bones demanded. "Just because he's not responding doesn't mean he isn't there, unconscious on the floor—"

Jim turned towards Mallory. "Ensign, scan results?"

Mallory partially turned from her viewer. "Negative within 100 meters of the shuttlecraft. Widening search pattern."

"Very good, Ensign. Continue scan." Jim turned back towards Bones. "He's not at the shuttlecraft."

Bones grumbled, "You won't get a reading on him if he's dead."

Jim shot a look at Uhura. From the stiffness of her posture, he was certain she'd overheard the doctor's remark. Yet she went on with her patient attempts at communication nonetheless.

"He's not dead," Jim said firmly, wishing Bones could be a little more circumspect in his honesty. "Besides," he added, lowering his voice, "if he is, there's nothing you could do for him anyway."

"Jim—"

"Bones." Jim put his hands on Bones' shoulders. "If he's hurt, he's away from the shuttlecraft. I want you standing by in the transporter room so we can beam you to his location at a moment's notice. Doesn't that sound... logical?"

Bones subsided, his jaw working as he tried to find some way around Jim's reasoning. Then he said in a defeated tone, "I'll have a team standing by."

"Good man." Jim turned toward the forward consoles. "Mr. Sulu, you're with me. Lieutenant Uhura, have a security team of four meet us in the transporter room. Standard equipment."

"Aye, sir," she softly acknowledged.

He waited until he could catch her eye, and then gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile. "You have the con."

She looked momentarily surprised, then smiled with gratitude. "Thank you, Captain."

He headed for the turbolift, trying to forget the fear and determination he saw lurking in the depths of his communications officer's expressive eyes.

Jim arrived at the transporter room, Sulu at his heels, to find the security team already waiting for him. Chief Han was in charge. It embarrassed Jim, but he didn't remember the names of the rest of his team. The feisty redhead—he should know her. And that blond guy was Marron— Macson? Crap. He'd have to study the crew roster again tonight.

Scotty was manning the transporter station, a decision of which Jim approved. Routine as Emagious III's readings had been thus far, it was still an unexplored planet, and the possibilities for interference with transportation were unknown. Scotty was being assisted by Technician Lumley, a blonde bombshell that Jim knew Scotty'd had his eye on for some time. Ah, well; whatever keeps his crew happy.

"Mr. Scott," he said, automatically taking the phaser and communicator that Han held out to him, "set us down just outside the Galileo."

"Very good, sir."

Sulu accepted his equipment from Markson or Merkle or whoever, and joined the others on the transporter pad.

Jim nodded. "Energize."

Scotty and his fetching assistant dissolved in a series of sparkles. When the world put itself back together, Jim staggered. "Ugh." He felt as if he was being smothered in a warm, damp towel. He curled his lip. "What's that smell?"

"Methane, sir." Merkson was busy with his tricorder. He nodded into the distance. "Probably a result of volcanic activity."

"Volcanic?" Jim looked around, but all he could see was a vast plain, obscured by banks of mist that floated gray in the weary mid-morning light, and covered with some sort of low-lying vegetation in almost every color except green.

Markle nodded again, toward the horizon. "Most likely from those mountains."

Jim looked. He couldn't see any mountains. Just mist and... what the hell was this stuff coating the ground? He picked up his feet one by one, and examined the bottom of his shoes. They were wet, but not slimy. He shuddered.

"They're about 270 kilometers from here, maybe a little more," Marsden explained.

"Active?" asked Sulu.

Merrick studied his readout. "Not for about 100 years." He gave the rest of the party a reassuring smile. "We should be safe enough for now."

"Fine, good." Jim set his foot down, wincing a little as the fleshy plant he was standing on sagged beneath his weight. "Chief Han, divide your team into pairs. Perimeter search. Keep your eyes open for potential threats and unconscious Vulcans."

"Aye, sir."

Jim took a step toward the shuttlecraft, looming like an irrelevancy on that primitive landscape, and stumbled. Sulu caught his arm.

"The gravity," the helmsman murmured. "It's going to be easy to overbalance."

Jim turned to shout after the security guards, rapidly disappearing into the mist in either direction. "Watch your footing! Remember, you weigh about 20% more than you're used to. Don't break anything!"

"Acknowledged," Han called back.

Jim turned back to Sulu, then pointed at his feet. "This is disgusting."

Sulu looked surprised. "It's fungus." He stooped to examine it. "It looks like some form of Basidiomycota."

"Hooray," Jim mumbled.

Sulu glanced up. "That means it's probably edible."

"You'd eat that?"

Sulu grinned. "Don't you like mushrooms, sir?"

Jim glared at the ground, horrified. "Not mushrooms as big as my whole body. Or this weird color..."

"The color is likely due to the lichen mixed in. There, you see?" Sulu swept his hand over some orange blisters on the side of an enormous brown mushroom cap. "Lichen." He studied the sky. "Despite the current moisture level, this part of the terrain must suffer periods of drought. The symbiotic relationship—"

"Will do just fine without me," Jim cut in. "Let's get inside the shuttlecraft, and try to figure out what Spock's been up to."

The Galileo had the forlorn look of an abandoned vehicle that had been waiting for its owner for far too long. Part of it must have been due to the speckles of dirt on its sides and landing skids, as if numerous rain showers had passed over it, leaving their unblemished mark. Another indication was how deeply the treads were sunk into the weird groundcover—but Jim was less certain how to use this as an indicator of time passage, as he had no way of knowing how vulnerable the local... vegetation, was to the weight of a space-faring vehicle.

Jim used his override to unlock the door. With a whine of servos, the hatch lifted. Through the widening slit, Jim saw the interior lights click on. That meant that the shuttlecraft was uninhabited; or rather, that nothing had been recently moving around in there that would have triggered the lighting mechanism. Jim suppressed a wave of worry. Bones must be getting to him.

When the hatch was wide, he bounded up the first step—landed heavily, and reconsidered his decision to bound. More carefully, he stepped onto the lip of the entrance and peeked inside. While he hadn't expected it, he couldn't help releasing a sigh of relief over not seeing Spock's body sprawled on the floor, dead from eating some exotic mushroom. The craft was properly set to standby mode and all was trim, just as he might have expected a Vulcan to leave it.

Sulu was waiting behind him. "Captain?"

Jim said with false heartiness, "Everything's in order. Come on in." He then stepped down carefully into the craft, freeing the entrance so Sulu could follow.

The extra gravity was a peculiar sensation, as if he were overtired or slightly drugged. He'd worked out in elevated grav, of course, as part of his fitness training. But it was different being on the gym floor in workout gear, and standing in a shuttlecraft in a normal uniform, feeling the floor press extra hard against his feet. He supposed he could get used to it in time.

Sulu had opened the storage locker behind the pilot's seat. "His uniform," he murmured, gesturing.

Jim glanced into the bin. Spock's boots were placed side-by-side on the floor of the compartment, with his uniform neatly folded on the bench above it. A variety of dun-colored clothing lay heaped on top of the blue shirt. Kirk picked up the first item he came across; it unfolded to shape itself into a long-sleeved shirt. The material was lightweight but very tough. It would make excellent survival gear— provided that Spock had taken it with him, which he hadn't.

Sulu was observing the garment also. "I suppose he didn't need it, with the temperature as warm as it is."

Jim nodded and dropped the shirt back into the bin. He settled himself in the pilot's chair, and entered his authorization code. The console sprang to life.

"Computer," Jim ordered. "Play last log entry."

The screen came to life. Spock's sharp-angled visage sprang onto the screen. It was only a head shot, but he looked... different somehow. Perhaps it was his color; he seemed less pale, more relaxed. Make that definitely more relaxed; there wasn't much to the image, but Jim was seeing enough of Spock's neck to determine that he wasn't wearing a collar. While Jim occasionally recorded log entries shirtless, he'd never imagined his up-tight First Officer doing so. Apparently Spock's vacation was doing him good— provided he lived through it.

Jim put his visual observations on hold as the Vulcan's measured voice rolled from the speaker.

"Ship's log, Stardate 2258.158. I have relocated to the northern continent to continue my studies of the planet's ecosystem and geology. I am making preparations to survey the mountain range to the west, bearing 278 from the Galileo's current position, as preliminary readings indicate potentially intriguing mineral deposits. Prior to departure, I shall survey the local flora and fauna. Unlike the continents to the south, this one boasts large quadrupeds of a variety of species. The terrain also appears to contain significant deviations from that in the south. I look forward to my new observations."

And that was it. The screen went blank.

"Six days ago," Sulu said grimly. "That's a long time for a local survey."

Jim was preoccupied. "Large quadrupeds." He rose and crossed to the security locker. "Please," he murmured. "Be smart enough to have taken your phaser." He entered his override code, and the locker door rolled open. Inside, neatly placed, lay Spock's tricorder, communicator, and phaser. Jim sighed.

Sulu hung over his shoulder. "I don't see my slingshot."

Jim was unimpressed. A slingshot was hardly an adequate weapon, but he didn't care to say that to Sulu. Instead, he crossed to the ship's comm panel and touched the appropriate button. "Kirk to Enterprise."

The answer was almost immediate. "Enterprise. Uhura here."

"We're inside the shuttlecraft. No sign of Spock, but no sign of any disturbance, either. Have you had any luck with your scans?"

There was a pause, then Mallory's voice broke in. "Negative, Captain. Expanding search radius to... 20 kilometers."

Jim paused. 20 kilometers. That seemed a long way for someone to venture on foot. He raised his voice out of habit. "Mr. Chekov."

"Chekov here."

"Spock's last log entry said he was planning to survey the mountain range to the west of this location, bearing 278. Can you give me a reading? How far away are those mountains?"

"Scanning." A moment later, the navigator said, "I read a distance of approximately 271 kilometers from your current location."

Even expecting the answer, Jim's spirits sank. There's no way Spock would try to traverse all that distance on foot, not with the shuttlecraft at hand. He probably meant to complete his survey here, and then relocate. "All right. Continue concentric scans from this location. And be advised that he didn't take his communicator, so you won't be able to lock on to him that way. Lieutenant Uhura."

"Uhura here."

"Spock didn't take his phaser either, even though he reported large quadrupeds in the vicinity. Sulu said his slingshot was missing. Would Spock have any other weapon with him?"

Uhura sounded reasonably steady, despite what must be a distressing situation. "He was bringing a sonic repeller."

"Did you actually see the repeller in his gear?"

"No, sir. But he said that he would bring one. He always follows through if he definitely promises something."

Jim reassessed. So Spock had a sonic repeller and a slingshot. Still not nearly enough firepower in case of serious trouble. Spock was probably lying somewhere with a broken leg—that is, if the local quadrupeds hadn't eaten him first. Still... "What gear would Spock have brought to survey mountains in? All I saw were some pretty lightweight clothes."

"They're more rugged than you might think," Uhura answered. "Is his jacket missing?"

"I saw a long-sleeved shirt..." Jim moved back to the storage locker. Everything beneath the shirt was smaller still. The first garment he picked up unrolled into... some kind of loincloth thing with colorful symbols on the rectangular panels that hung at the front and back. He frowned. "What is this," he mumbled aloud. "A bathing suit?"

"Captain," Uhura said slowly. "Vulcans prefer to swim in the nude."

Good grief, he was holding a pair of Spock's underwear. He dropped the garment as if it had burned him. Beside him, Sulu turned sharply away, covering a snicker with his hand.

Jim glared at the helmsman. "You look," he growled.

Still grinning, Sulu efficiently browsed through the pile. "No jacket," he reported.

Well, wherever Spock was laid up, in whatever state of injury, at least he wasn't naked. That was something.

"Mallory," he said to the comm, "status of scan?"

"Expanding radius to 30 kilometers," she replied. "No positive reading."

"Continue scan."

Jim sighed, then switched the frequency over to Han. "Hi, Chief. Any luck?"

Han answered in a moment. "No, sir. No higher animal lifeforms at all."

"What about, ah... Mersdale. With the tricorder. Did he find anything?"

"Marksdon. No, sir. He got readings of some form of large quadruped scattered about the plains. The closet grouping is about 50 kilometers away, to the north."

So, if the quadrupeds ate him, they'd long since moved on. "Nothing closer, Chief? No animal forms at all?"

"No, sir. None."

Bones' words echoed in Jim's mind. You won't get a reading on him if he's dead. Jim took a deep breath. It seemed his best option was to begin a painstaking search on foot of the area around the shuttlecraft, with the probable outcome being the discovery of Spock's remains. The whole situation seemed surreal, particularly in these weird surroundings. Yet, however it had happened, Spock's demise seemed the most likely outcome of their search.

But he couldn't bring himself to say that, not with Spock's lady love listening from the sky. Jim switched the comm link back to surface-to-ship. "Enterprise."

"Uhura here."

"Lieutenant..." Jim considered his phrasing. "Begin ordering search parties for a Phase 1 search. We're looking for a missing man who might not be in a position to call for help." He paused. "Do you read me, Lieutenant?"

The delay was slightly longer than was probably required. Then, "Yes, sir. I'll arrange for search parties now."

"Two-man teams," Jim added. "Set them down at increasing distance from the shuttlecraft at regularly spaced intervals. We'll want to search the ground meter by meter."

"I understand, sir. Uhura out."

Jim sighed. There's no way she could have missed the implications of his orders. Jim looked at the pile of rumpled clothing in the storage locker. "Damn you, Spock," he growled. "Why'd you have to go and..."

But he couldn't finish the sentence. Wearily, he straightened. "All right, Sulu, let's look for any other clues as to where he might have gone. After that, we'll start searching the terrain ourselves."

Sulu was grave. "Aye, sir."

Feeling exhausted, Jim slumped into the pilot's chair. He might as well play Spock's entire log, for all the good it would do. He found it unbelievably depressing that these were probably the last words Spock would ever say.

Gloomily, Jim began playback.