Chapter 10

Kirk was still asleep when Koh arrived the next morning.

"How is our patient this morning?" he asked Khich, who was monitoring.

"You asked to be called if he went berserk, or started talking. He did neither, sir."

"And did he take off the footpads, or the hand leads?"

"No, sir, he never attempted it. There was one interesting reading, sir, but it puzzles me."

"Go on." Koh was never patient with dithering, and Khich rarely prevaricated.

"About two hours after you left, sir, his stress level showed a marked increase. But there's no outward behavior that goes with it. Here's the video playback. See what I mean? He looks unconscious, but he's not. The readings show he was wide awake. However, just after the high stress reading, everything plummeted. All the readings since then indicate he's asleep."

"Asleep!? How could he be?!"

"I don't know, sir, but the instruments don't lie, sir. He is asleep, and has been for almost eight hours." Khich was certain; he'd abandoned all hesitation.

Koh sat down in shock. "Khich, what am I going to do? I promised Konti results. I was sure he would crack today. But if he can sleep through that, I don't know. Are you sure everything's working?"

"Yes, sir. I checked three times. If you want my opinion," he paused and Koh nodded, "Throw him everything you've got all at once. If that doesn't do it, nothing will."

"Perhaps, but that gives me an idea. Tell Krun I'll need him most of the day. And get the treadmill sent in here before you leave. I think breakfast is in order for our most important patient."

Kirk woke up when Koh switched off the power. He felt Koh flip a switch on the head device as well, leaving him completely pain-free. The suddenness of it was a shock. Koh flipped the table right side up. Kirk's neck muscles protested as he gingerly put his head down. Koh then tilted the head of the table, putting Kirk in a half-sitting position - almost comfortable.

Kirk was even further surprised when Koh put a straw to his mouth - an invitation to drink. I'll probably be sorry, Kirk thought. But it was irresistible, a fruit drink of some kind. Remembering how long it had been since he'd put anything in his stomach, Kirk drank slowly, expecting Koh to remove it at any time. But Koh was patient and let him finish the whole glassful.

Koh then gave him two injections and left. Kirk expected a return of the stomach virus symptoms of the day before. And with the juice in his stomach, the results would be somewhat nastier. But as the minutes passed, his stomach remained calm. Nor did he feel at all feverish. Instead a feeling of well-being came over him. It was euphoric. In fact, he was definitely high. What goes up must come down, he thought with some amusement. And Koh will undoubtedly arrange it to be a crash. Meanwhile he might as well enjoy himself.

He felt emotionally on top of the world. He felt as if he could do anything. In fact, he was positively itching to do something, anything. His muscles seemed bursting with energy. It became a real struggle to calmly sit there doing nothing, waiting for the drugs to wear off. But in his drug-induced euphoria, he was sure he could manage it. He wasn't even aware that his muscles were tensing up, straining against the straps.

Koh, however, noticed it immediately when the crewman brought in the treadmill. He nodded to himself in satisfaction. At least Kirk couldn't ignore the drugs. He waited until the crewman had left and Krun had locked the door. Just a precaution in case Kirk tried to escape. Koh didn't think he would, but Konti's warning had been clear.

Koh spent a few minutes taping wires to Kirk's skin so they wouldn't drag. Then he released the straps holding Kirk down and stepped back. He took up a position in the corner and just watched to see what Kirk would do.

Kirk stood up cautiously, as if unsure this was to be allowed. He took a deep breath, straightened his back, settled his feet, and seemed to come to some internal conclusion. What he did next surprised Koh. He proceeded to make a minute inspection of the entire room and its contents with his fingers.

It did not surprise Koh that Kirk didn't immediately rip off all the wires. What did surprise him was the delicacy and carefulness with which Kirk moved. Koh knew that Kirk's muscles were positively crying for activity - lots of it. He wasn't even all that surprised that Kirk had the self-discipline to refuse to give in to that crying need. What he didn't understand was why Kirk thought this activity so important that he would choose it over something more active.

But Kirk needed mental input as much as his body craved activity. And if Koh was going to stand there and let him do this, he was going to take advantage of the opportunity. He carefully avoided the door. He didn't want Koh to think he was going to try to go through it. When he got to the treadmill, it didn't take him long to figure out what it was, and even less time to guess this was what Koh wanted him to do. Well, he would, but not just yet.

The last thing in the room to be inspected was Koh himself. Kirk did it mostly to find out if Koh would let him. He approached Koh slowly, giving him ample time to evade him if he wished. But Koh stood stock still and let Kirk examine his face, ears, neck, chest, arms, and hands with the tips of his fingers. His touch was very light and quick. Then Kirk stepped back and spoke the first words he had uttered since the head device had been put on.

"Thank you." He had to say it in Standard, because there was no Klingon equivalent.

Koh was profoundly moved, but could not have said why.

Kirk turned briskly back to the treadmill, set it in motion and stepped up on it. For the next half hour, Kirk gave himself a good workout. He had just settled into a gait he could keep up for hours, when suddenly he felt like he'd run into a brick wall. He fell to his knees, and it was only after he'd fallen off the treadmill that he realized what had happened.

The pains had returned en masse, and at a higher intensity than anything previous. What's more, they were still going full blast, all locations at once. Before he could manage to get up, Koh darted in, delivered another injection, and stepped back to his corner. Kirk gained his feet and stood there swaying, trying to mentally assimilate the idea that they had a remote control on these pain devices.

Without conscious volition, Kirk dialed the treadmill back to a walk, stepped up on it, and started walking. The euphoria was gone; in its place, agony, made worse with every step. Kirk didn't try to analyze why he did what he did, beyond a vague sense that activity was better than no activity. And he didn't think it had anything to do with the drug-induced muscle tension.

After a few minutes, the pain stopped as abruptly as it had started. Kirk took a deep breath, dialed back to his previous speed, and resumed jogging. A few minutes later the latest injection kicked in, and his muscles were in danger of cramping. He stepped up the pace to a run, and two minutes later the pain hit him like a ton of bricks.

Again he fell off the treadmill, but recovered much faster. Koh put him through the same sequence half a dozen times, varying only the frequency. Kirk got so he could adjust fast enough not to fall off. The last two times, he hardly even slowed down. Koh gave it up, and left the room. Kirk continued jogging, wondering what was next.

Koh was wondering the same thing. He checked with Krun about the stress readings. The news was as he had feared. The highest reading had been the first one, and even that had showed only surprise. Nothing Koh had done had been able to crack Kirk's emotional stability.

In desperation, Koh planned 24 hours of the worst misery he could concoct. A variety of injections producing nasty symptoms, coupled with unremitting pain from the two devices. He added several taped messages, some of them urging Kirk to talk in order to get relief from the pain, others describing various gruesome procedures in gory detail. Unfortunately the victim would not survive such procedures. Before implementing this plan, Koh tried one other thing. He turned on the speaker in Kirk's head device, and spoke into the mike.

"I want to talk to you."

Kirk stepped off the treadmill and stood facing the observation window.

"I'm listening."

"You could save yourself a lot of pain by talking. Why don't you?"

"Am I to infer your bag of tricks is empty?"

"No. Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Why else would you try to negotiate with the enemy? Bring on the worst you've got. The sooner you do, the sooner you'll be convinced this is a waste of time."

Koh turned off the speaker, aware that Kirk had just given him the same advice Khich had that morning. He looked through the window at Kirk, who was just standing there waiting. His stance wasn't exactly arrogant, but calmly confident. He knew very well what he had just asked for, but didn't appear to be the least apprehensive. Koh was determined to crack that confidence. He barked at Krun.

"Maximum non-lethal setting. Both devices on all locations. Now!"

Koh watched Kirk stagger, then crumple to the floor. But there was no scream of agony, no facial contortions or clenched fists. Instead a mere ghost of a smile on his face as he lost consciousness.

Kirk spent most of the next 48 hours in a sea of agony. The first couple of hours, he drifted in and out of consciousness, til they got it regulated to the maximum he could tolerate without losing consciousness. Then occasionally they backed it off to make sure he was aware of all the other drug-induced symptoms. Every hour or so, they talked to him, and when he didn't answer, they blasted him with enough pain to put him out for a few minutes.

Kirk knew all he had to do was endure it. Koh would eventually give up. The only question was how many hours it would take. He was prepared for it to take days. He did not know that what infuriated Koh the most was his ability to accept the torture without complaint or resistance of any kind. Kirk did not know he was doing anything unusual; he was merely coping the best way he knew how.

After 24 hours, Koh made a few adjustments in the program, and ordered it be continued for a second 24 hours. After that, he would have to use the talking drug, no matter what Kirk's stress reading showed. He could hardly believe it was still showing under normal. For the first time, it occurred to him that there was a reason for Kirk's confidence. But what the man's secret was, Koh had no clue.

After 48 hours, Konti showed up. Koh gave his report without any excuses. Konti didn't seem at all surprised at the lack of results. He ordered the talk drug administered at once.

"He's barely conscious, sir. And several of the drugs are still working their way through his system."

"Doesn't matter how coherent he is. I want to know what he's thinking."

Within minutes after Koh administered the talking drug, Kirk started talking.

"I wonder what that one was for. Doesn't seem to be any immediate change. Oh- I said that out loud. So that's what this one is. I was wondering when you'd get around to this. Well, I won't bore you with the multiplication tables, but you better ask me a question I can answer, or you're liable to get the Gettysburg Address. Or would you prefer the Declaration of Independence? The Gettysburg Address is shorter."

He paused and Konti broke in.

"How do you feel?"

"Now that's a pretty general question, open to several interpretations. Where I come from, the standard polite response is 'I'm fine,' whether or not you really are. You might be asking for a recitation of physical symptoms, though I imagine Koh could give you a pretty accurate summary. Or you might be asking about my emotional state."

"How do you know that I am not Koh?"

"I recognize the sound of your voice."

"And who am I?" Konti demanded.

"You are Konti. I am Kirk. You own me. I am your slave. Now that we have the introductions out of the way, what would you like to know?"

"You are too arrogant."

Kirk would have shrugged if he'd had enough freedom of movement. "Sorry, but discretion will have to wait til this drug wears off. Until then, you get whatever I'm thinking, without editing."

"Why do you have no fear?"

"There's nothing you can do to me that I fear. I do not fear pain or death; nor do I fear life as your slave. I do not even fear this conversation. There is nothing I can tell you that I object to your knowing."

Konti protested, "If you do not object, then why didn't you start talking days ago?"

"You would not have believed me. Even now you will have trouble believing it, but under the influence of this drug, I can't lie to you, so you will be forced to believe it."

"What is it that I wouldn't believe?"

"That all the information you seek has already been erased from my mind. I remember nothing between the day I entered the Academy and the moment I boarded your ship."

"We have ways of dealing with memory blocks."

"This isn't a memory block. The memories have been permanently removed from my mind."

"You mean like the mindsifter?"

"Yes, but this wasn't done by a mindsifter, and my early memories are intact."

"How was this done, and when?" Konti demanded furiously.

"We did it the morning after the first night aboard. You may have heard that I lost consciousness briefly. As to how it was done, I don't really know. There was a presence in my mind and he did it. He's gone now, so I can't ask him how he did it."

"Does this presence have a name?"

"Yes. His name is Spock."

"Who is Spock?" Konti's tone was suddenly mild, almost mocking.

"I don't know. I have asked myself that question several times in the past few days. I assume he's not human, because no human could do what he did. But what form he has, if any, I have no idea. I do know this: he is a friend, a very special friend."

"What friend would violate your mind the way you say he did?"

"He didn't want to. I insisted. I take full responsibility."

Konti sighed. "Yes, you undoubtedly will, since you are here, and he is not. And you're right; it is very hard to believe, since I do not know of any species with the capability of doing what you say he did. Not at long distance anyway. I'm afraid you will have to prove it."

What followed was a grueling, hours-long session of constant questioning. They gave him another dose of the talking drug every hour. By the end of it, Kirk was sure he was just babbling. Very few of the questions had any answer other than 'I don't know.' By the nature of some of the questions, he was able to deduce that he had been a person of some importance in Starfleet. The Klingons felt he was a significant enemy.

One question in the middle of it all surprised him. There had been at least three questioners taking turns. This one came from Koh.

"Why is your stress reading so much higher now than it was yesterday, or even this morning?"

"I do not know exactly what it measures, but if you want to know why this activity bothers me in a way that all the rest of it didn't, that I can answer. It's because every question forces me to look into the aching void of lost memories and face the reality that thirty years of my life are gone. It hurts in a way that touches the real me more than any physical pain could."

He did not know it, but that answer did more to convince Konti he was telling the truth than all the 'I don't know's put together. Nevertheless the questioning went on for several more hours. Eventually they took a break, but Kirk could not rest. It took several hours for the drug to wear off, and although they didn't pester him with any other drugs, they did leave the pain devices set on maximum. They'd been at the max for the past two days, but Kirk couldn't manage to sleep through it regardless of how exhausted he was, or perhaps because of it.