"Nothing yet, sir."
The intercept course had not brought them in sensor range of the Romulan ships. Kirk frowned at the starmap in front of him. If the flotilla had continued on their course for Starbase 43, they should be right underfoot about now. Instead - nothing.
"Mr Sulu, lay in a course for the point the Romulans crossed the border. Mr Iyen, sensor scans to detect subspace emissions. They've obviously gone somewhere that Starfleet hadn't considered."
"Now there's a surprise" muttered Chekov under his breath. "With any luck they've gone straight back over the border."
"That would be a surprise." said Sulu. "Course laid in, Captain."
"Proceed at warp five. No point overrunning their trail."
"Aye, sir."
The Enterprise turned to the new course, and Iyen's fingers flickered over Spock's console. No, Kirk reminded himself. Iyen's console. He would be science officer until Spock returned, or until Starfleet assigned a new officer to the Enterprise.
He forced himself to face that prospect with something approaching equanimity, despite the sudden tightness in his throat. From the way the rest of the bridge crew averted their eyes from the Science station, he guessed that they too were aware that Spock might never stand there again, might have been condemned to a slow death by cold on Ser Etta Five, thinking - no, knowing - that his captain had abandoned him ...
Enough! he commanded himself, and forced himself to turn to Iyen.
"Acting Science Officer," he said formally, reminding the bridge crew both that they had to deal with Spock's absence and that it was not yet to be treated as permanent, "any indication of the Romulans'
emissions?"
"Not as yet sir." he said evenly, though his hands were shaking and his antenna were furled with agitation.
"Keep us informed." Kirk told him.
There was silence for a while, broken only by small sounds of bridge crew going about their necessary duties. Kirk stared at the view screen. He would need all his ingenuity and all his crew's expertise to defeat five Romulan ships, and he both dreaded and longed for the encounter. Dreaded it, for the possibility of defeat, and longed to have it resolved so the Enterprise could return to the Ser Etta system. When the turbolift doors hissed open he started, and realised that hours had passed.
"Since we're not shooting this very second," McCoy said from behind him, "I figured I had a few minutes to abandon my post and come second guess you all."
"Kibitzing is as rude on the bridge as it is in chess, Bones." Kirk said absently, an old joke between them that reminded him sharply of the circumstances of the doctor's 'kibitzing': evenings spent with Spock and McCoy and a chess board, the talk turning from casual to serious and back again...
"Can I have a moment, Jim?" McCoy asked casually, so casually that Kirk turned and gave the doctor his full attention, then rose to his feet.
"I'll be in my ready room." he said. "Mr Sulu, you have the conn."
"Aye, sir."
The ready room doors shut them off from the bridge and Kirk leaned against his desk for a moment before turning back to face McCoy.
"Come to scold me, Bones?"
"Only in moderation." McCoy said. "Get your mind on business, Jim."
"Reading my mind, now?"
"I don't need to. I can feel the pall of gloom all the way down to sick bay. You did a good enough job on the comm but you're slipping.
Captain."
"You only call me that when you're angry with me, Bones. I had no choice but to leave them-"
"I only call you captain when you need to be reminded of it." McCoy corrected him. "I might be an insubordinate medico, but I'm responsible for the psychological well-being and the morale of the crew as well as their physical health. Right now, you have a ship full of people dwelling on the fact that their crew mates are stranded on a planet we're rapidly rushing away from and you're about to go into a pretty tense situation. I think you might want to do something about that as a priority and stop mourning."
"I'm not mourning!" Kirk's fists clenched. "He isn't - they aren't dead, god damn you, not yet."
"Well, that's a start." McCoy observed. "Now what are you going to do about it?"
"What can I do?" As quickly as it had flared, Kirk's temper subsided,
leaving him drained and numb. "There's nothing I can do except wait to find the Romulans."
"You can a: do your best to make sure this ship is in the best shape possible to take on the Romulans, which means doing a somewhat better job of inspiring your crew that you are at present. You can also, b:
find the Romulans faster than you are now."
"And how do I do that?" Kirk asked bitterly.
"How should I know? I'm a doctor." McCoy said very quietly, weighing his words. "Not a starship captain. Captain." And he turned, and went back through the bridge to the turbolift, and down to sickbay,
relieving his own feelings by roundly cursing everyone involved in this mess from Spock to Kirk to the Romulans to Starfleet to God Almighty.
As he entered sickbay, he heard the two tone chime of an allcall communications.
"This is your captain speaking." said Kirk. "There are one or two things I want to remind you of."
He went on, but McCoy didn't need to listen to know it would be a very stirring speech. He smiled to himself, and whispered to the air:
"I've done my part. Jim's doing his. Pull yourself together and do yours, you copper-blooded logician!"
They travelled, for the most part, in silence. It was not Spock's nature to fill the air with idle chatter, and Lieutenant Larssen's usual fund of miscellaneous conversation seemed to have run empty.
She pulled her side of the travois silently, eyes fixed on the ground before her, with more strength than Spock had thought she possessed.
He usually found human insistence on unnecessary and frequently redundant talk a source of irritation, but Larssen's Vulcan-like silences and taciturn remarks on essential topics were disturbing.
After all, she was not Vulcan. He wondered if this was grief, or if she sought to behave in a Vulcan manner as a consequence of her interest in Surak's teachings. At one rest break, he said to her:
"Lieutenant, Surak originated the concept of infinite diversity in infinite combination. He would not approve of a student who rejected their own uniqueness."
Larssen looked at him as if he spoken an incomprehensible language over an inconceivable distance. "Yes, sir," she said politely,
leaving Spock with the distinct impression he had just been humoured.
If he had been the full telepath many believed Vulcans to be, he would have been more disturbed still.
Larssen trudged through the snow, using reason to examine her emotions. She used reason to deconstruct her anger with Commander Spock, and congratulated herself on rationality when she no longer blamed him for not being human or for Grenwood's death. After another day or so of searching self-examination and exquisite logic, she was able to exonerate the Klingons (despite the fact that they had precipitated the situation by claiming the Realgar system); the base research team (despite their stupidity in getting killed and drawing the Enterprise to this system in the first place); Captain Kirk and the rest of the Enterprise crew (despite their failure to get the landing party back in good order and reasonable time). Using reason,
she realised, she could place the blame for Bob's death precisely where it belonged: on herself.
This revelation was a peculiar relief, and she lost her footing with the force of it, falling heavily. A sharp pain in her knee when she tried to rise told her that she had injured her leg fairly badly, but she could not bring herself to feel concern.
"I'll have to brace it, sir." she said to Spock as he knelt beside her.
"Could you pass me the medpack?"
He did so, and she found herself smiling at him. He was on the other side of the wall, after all. He was not guilty. Quickly, her hands more nimble and her head clearer than had been the case for days, she strapped an emergency brace around her knee and levered herself to her feet. The pain was bad, but it was almost as if it were happening to someone else. She felt light, tireless, as if she could skim over the snow for days.
"Okay, sir, good to go." Larssen smiled sweetly at Spock again, and he felt a deep sense of unease.
"You cannot pull the travois, Lieutenant," he said. "I will pull it.
If you walk directly behind me, you can use the arms of the travois for support, and will not need to break the snow."
"Yes, sir," she said, still smiling. The dawn of reason was a wonderful thing, she thought. She had determined what was, rather than what seemed, as Surak had written, and as he promised it had set her free! No wonder Vulcans were so enamoured of logic!
As Spock pulled the travois forward, she took hold of the straps behind him and added her own strength to his. It did not occur to her to examine her conviction of her own guilt with reason and logic. She knew the truth, now, and had no more need to think. Everything was very clear, and very certain, and the terrible pain in her chest was gone.
She was, as Dr McCoy would have said, right out of orbit and exiting the system fast.
When they had made camp for the night, she took off her trousers and unzipped the leg of her cold suit, revealing a swollen knee. After nearly two months with her clothes on, an indescribable smell was also revealed. Once, Larssen would have been embarrassed by the stench,
and made a joke to cover her embarrassment; but that was before reason was revealed to her, and now she remained unmoved.
The tricorder indicated a sprain, and when she fitted a brace and tried to fasten the cold suit over it the suit would not stretch to close. Cheerfully, she put the brace over the suit leg and tightened it, ignoring the way the suit fastenings were driven into her skin,
and then pulled on her trousers.
"Should be no trouble tomorrow, sir," she told Commander Spock. He was regarding her closely, and she gave him a beatific smile to set his mind at rest. "Really, it's not that bad."
'Lieutenant," Spock said cautiously, "Are you sure you are - well?"
"Never better, sir." Larssen said calmly.
Spock doubted that. She seemed as calm and collected as the Lieutenant Larssen he remembered, but the sudden transition from her laconic manner yesterday was not, as far as all his experience was concerned, normal human behaviour. And Lieutenant Larssen, two months or even two weeks ago, would have cursed on taking a fall like the one she had taken today, would have shown signs of pain even if she remained composed. She had always responded calmly to events, but at the moment she was responding with indifference. Now, there was a distance in her gaze Spock mistrusted, but he could not think of anything to do.
As good as her word, Larssen did not let her injury slow their progress much.
She walked behind Spock, rather than beside him, but pulled the travois with a will and a vague smile. They continued to make good time, and even made up some of the time they had lost while Grenwood lay dying. It began to seem possible they would reach the research base in time after all.
The night that Spock's calculations showed they were less than three hundred miles from the base, the fifty-fourth night since they had set out from the site of the shuttle crash, something occurred to Larssen.
"What if the Enterprise had to leave orbit?" she asked Spock. Her tone was mild, as if the subject were one of academic interest only.
"The possibility had occurred to me." he admitted. "However, in such an eventuality Captain Kirk would leave a relay buoy in orbit, which would be within the range of the communicator, once we have augmented its power supply. That buoy would relay the message."
"How much would it be delayed?"
"By as much as twenty four hours."
Larssen looked at the calculations again. "We won't make it." she said."Not in time. Not at my speed."
She had made no complaint at the gruelling pace he had set, although the toll it took showed in her pallor, in the prominence of her cheekbones and the shadows beneath her eyes. It was difficult to tell beneath the bulky clothes, but Spock judged she had lost a great deal of weight in the last week or so.
"We may well reach the base five days from now. If the Enterprise is still in orbit, that will be time enough."
"It seems a shame," she said slowly, "to have come this far, at such a cost, and too miss by one day because I sprained my knee." Her gaze fixed on something beyond the walls of the shelter, she rose to her feet with an eerie grace. "I don't think that's a chance we can take.
You'll reach the base in four days if you only take necessary supplies," she continued, unzipping the front of her jacket and letting it hang open. "and ditch the travois. I suggest taking the medpack: the extra burden will be worth it if you need the stimulants in the last stages." She began to walk dreamily towards the door of the shelter. It was very clear to her now.
Come out in the snow, Cory. It isn't cold. Come out in the snow.
"Lieutenant Larssen. Lieutenant Larssen!"
Larssen turned to face Spock one last time, her hand on the door of the shelter. She was surprised, in a distant kind of way, to see him on his feet, coming towards her. "What makes you think," he asked coolly, "my answer is different tonight than it was the last time you asked this question?"
"Because," she said as if speaking to a child, "this time it's my question. I'm just going outside. I may be some time." Laughter bubbled up within her.
"If it is your desire," he said very steadily, "that I waste valuable time searching for you which would more profitably be used in travelling, you are lacking in respect for the urgency of this mission and for Ensign Grenwood."
"Then don't search." she said sensibly. The door was open now. Spock knew he could easily catch and subdue her, but after that his options seemed limited to binding her hand and foot or remaining awake and on watch for the remainder of the journey. He moved unobtrusively sideways, in position for the Vulcan nerve pinch should it prove necessary.
"I will not collude with you in this act." he said quietly. "If you go outside, I will bring you back. If necessary, I will place you in restraints. You may think you have the right to take your own life,
but if I allow you to do so I will be responsible for your death, and you have no right to make me so. Close the door."
Come on, Cory. I'm lonely.
Larssen remained motionless and he said again, "Close the door,
Lieutenant. That is an order."
She blinked, and as if her vision had cleared saw Commander Spock standing beside her, his gaze intent on her face. I grieve with you,
he had said, and: I will not collude with you in this act. Set beside his resolve, his rock-solid integrity, her belief that she had penetrated the heart of Vulcan logic and found in it a reprieve from the business of living was revealed as self-delusion. She had not mastered her emotions or dealt with her circumstances: she had only run away.
Larssen swayed, and Spock thought she would bolt for the blizzard, and tensed. Then she took a small, stumbling step back into the tent and stopped, as if dazed. He reached past her and fastened the door again, not taking his eyes from her as she took another step away from the entrance, then a third, and sat down suddenly on the floor.
"One of your suggestions is sound, Lieutenant. Tomorrow we will abandon the travois and take only the supplies necessary for five days travel. I concur with you that the medpack should be considered essential equipment, for the reasons you stated."
Her eyes closed, Larssen nodded mutely. Her logic seemed to have gone astray.
She no longer felt light, untiring, impervious to pain. Her leg ached and she was gut-wrenchingly weary, and the pain in her chest was back.
In dumb misery she watched Commander Spock separate the supplies they would need from those they would not, and set about making two packs of what they would take in morning, with room in one for the survival shelter. He makes decisions, she thought, and accepts the consequences, and goes on. Like an officer is supposed to. She did not think she could ever get up from where she sat, but she knew she would, knew she would reach the base in time or die trying, as Spock would: on her feet, facing forward, not lying down in despair.
"I'm sorry, sir." she said in a small voice, unable to stop the tears rolling down her cheeks.
Spock considered her for a moment, and she braced herself for a reprimand, but all he said was:
"I can think of more convenient times for you to have discovered your imagination, Lieutenant."
"Yes, sir." she whispered, uncomprehending.
"Rest." he said. "We must cover a great deal of distance tomorrow."
Silently, she lay down where she was and closed her eyes.