"Captain!" Uhura said. "Incoming message from the relay buoy. It's Mr Spock, sir!"
"On screen." Kirk ordered, beginning to smile.
"Audio only." Uhura said, and transferred to the communication to the general bridge audio.
At the sound of the familiar rasping voice, Kirk felt a surge of elation, quickly tempered when he heard the unusual strain in Spock's tones, hidden but there to be heard by anyone who knew him well. My god, Kirk thought, he sounds awful!
"This is Commander Spock of the USS Enterprise with urgent information for the Federation Council." Spock was saying tiredly. "This message has priority one. All ships, immediate relay. Message starts: The biomedical research team in the Ser Etta system has discovered that the Realgar System contains a cure for Mansinni's Syndrome. It is imperative that this system _not_ be ceded to the Klingons in the upcoming negotiations."
"Uhura, immediate relay."
"Aye, sir." A moment later the message was on its way, boosted by the far more powerful equipment of the Enterprise.
"Send it down to McCoy in sickbay, too." Kirk added, but a voice behind him said
"No need." McCoy had just exited the turbolift.
"What brings you up here so conveniently?" Kirk asked with a smile.
"By the prickling in my thumbs, something Vulcan this way comes." said McCoy dourly, but there was a sparkle in his eyes that told Kirk the doctor was as happy to hear from the landing party as anyone else.
Then McCoy stepped close to the captain's chair and said softly,
"Jim..."
"You hear it, too?" Kirk asked, just as softly.
"I've heard Spock sound that bad before." McCoy said. "Once or twice.
I want him in sickbay as soon as you can do it, Jim."
"No argument from me." Kirk raised his voice. "Increase speed to maximum, Mr Sulu."
"Aye, sir. Going to warp 8.1. 8.2. 8.3." Sulu calmly counted the numbers off, stopping at 9.2. There was no physical sensation of increased speed, but Kirk imagined he could see the starfield warping past them at a faster rate. On cue, the intercom spluttered.
"What is it, Scotty?" Kirk asked without needing to verify who was calling.
"Captain, what are ye doin' to my engines?"
"We have to get back to Ser Etta in a hurry, Scotty. We've had a signal from the landing party, and we want them home as soon as it can be done."
"Aye, sir." said the engineer. "I'm right glad to hear that they're all right. But ye will nae get them back faster if you fly the ship apart on the way there."
"I wouldn't do that, Scotty." Kirk soothed. "How much power can you give me?"
"How much power I can give ye, Captain, and how much power I should give ye, are two different questions. Tell young Sulu to take the ship to 9.5 and hold her there. I'll do what I can for ye, Captain,
but I'm nae guaranteeing anything."
"Understood, Mr Scott. Thank you."
"Aye, well, we all want Mr Spock and the others back, sir."
"Mr Sulu, warp 9.5." Kirk said, and then "Uhura, return signal to the landing party. We are approaching the system at all possible speed.
Stand by to beam up."
"Aye, sir." She gave a dazzling smile. "Sending now."
"Bob." Spock heard Larssen whisper. "I'm coming." The hair on the back of his neck rose, and he did not need reason to identify the emotion he felt.
"Larssen, wake up." he ordered severely. "Lieutenant, I am ordering you," as he backed rapidly down the access tube, "Lieutenant, respond immediately, that is an order, Lieutenant-"
An ear-splitting clatter he identified as her comm. unit falling to the floor.
Bracing his wrists and ankles around the edges of the ladder, Spock slid down the last floor, landing with a stagger he would in other circumstances have been relieved there was no one to see, and managed to raise a run. Pausing only briefly to tear a medkit out of the nearest first aid station, he turned left, left again, right, leaving green blood on the walls where he caught himself from falling.
Larssen was still sitting at the communications console, the red lights giving her skin a ruddy, healthy glow, and her eyes were open,
but the comm. unit lay where it had fallen and her head was tilted back, too far back...
Spock took the hypospray out of the medkit, loaded it with delactovine with a speed and precision that would have done credit to the most experienced doctor or nurse, and pressed it against the exposed skin of Larssen's neck. Then inoprovalene, and the hypospray hissed again.
She did not move, and the medical tricorder indicated low core temperature, no pulse, no respiration, no circulation to send the life saving drugs around her body to where they were needed.
He pulled her from the chair, laid her on the floor and tore open her jacket. There was only a millisecond's hesitation as he overrode the instinct to place his hands over the place a Vulcan heart would have been, and laid them on her sternum instead. Steadily, he began the compressions, pausing as required to administer artificial respiration. His own voice echoed through the room, talking to ships far distant, telling them about the Realgar System. It made no impression on him: even though Larssen's heart beat obediently in response to the pressure on her chest, the medicine was not restoring her.
He stopped, and reluctantly laid one hand on the side of her face,
expecting only the stillness of death. That was all he found, and yet ... and yet ...
He had the impression that something was there. He remembered the words spoken by his teacher at the Vulcan Academy. Even the most skilled healer should not join the mind of those truly close to death,
Senik had said. It is too easy for one consciousness to follow the other into silence. The healer must attempt to repair the body and the will, but when it is time, he or she must also be prepared to let them go...
Spock was not a healer, but without hesitation he placed his fingers over the psi points on Larssen's face.
"My mind to your mind." He whispered harshly. "My will..." -warm snow.
Lying down in the warm snow-
For an instant he almost yielded to the strength of the impulse to give up, to rest, for he had done his duty and no-one could blame him if he was not willing to do more, but only to lie down in the warm comforting snow that was falling all around him and sleep in peace at last. It might have been the strength of the image that saved him.
For an instant he was there, in the snow, exhausted, his job finished,
and he could not imagine other than -
Getting up and doing the duty of a Starfleet officer. he thought pitilessly, with all the rigour of his will. Getting up and doing -
- the duty - he felt Larssen respond, so faintly he could barely sense it.
- of a Starfleet officer -
- the duty -
- getting up -
- doing the duty -
He was turning away from the arena on Vulcan where he had met the trial of koon-ut-kal-if-fee at his time of pon farr, the knowledge that he had killed James Kirk clear in his head, the knowledge that he would have to live with the rest of his life, going back to serve on this ship where every second would remind him of his dead captain, his friend. He turned away and began walking -
her heart in her mouth, out on to the floor at the Academy hand to hand combat training hall, knowing she was about to get beaten, and badly, but knowing she had to pass this course to get through the Academy and into Starfleet, which was everywhere she wanted to be.
The young man opposite her bowed and then struck with a speed she couldn't counter, sending her hard to the floor. She cried out once,
and then rolled over, and got to her -
feet, his side aching where the horta had slammed him to the floor,
but this was a new life form and they were seeking such, so he steadied himself, setting aside the pain and standing -
up despite the blows that rocked her, the daily gauntlet she ran to get into the schoolyard.. She was a motherless child, zidar, a no family nobody, and other children knew they could torment her with impunity. Even at seven, though, she knew that this education was the only way to get what she wanted, to get to the stars, and so she stayed -
on his feet as the photon torpedos struck the ship and the gravity fluctuated wildly. "Shields at 20%" someone cried nearby, and the order to abandon ship came. He was the last to leave the bridge despite the danger of another strike, because it was his duty to stand -
at her post, but her knees had given way and she slumped on the floor.
She would never get up from here, never get up, she was done,
finished, and then the section chief roared like an angry god "ON YOUR FEET, ENSIGN! and she discovered, she could after all -
get up, despite their pain and exhaustion, despite misery and guilt,
as the -
horta turned to them -
floor of the dojo rocked beneath them -
hot Vulcan sun beat down on them -
children mocked -
Klingons fired -
they gathered their strength -
As the snow fell -
The force of Larssen's movement pulled her head away from Spock's hand and the mind meld snapped apart, leaving him momentarily disoriented.
Larssen had lunged upward, trying to stand, but only made it to a kneeling position before she crumpled to her hands and knees, breath coming in agonised gasps. Spock collected himself, and ran the medical tricorder over her. The inoprovalene and delactovine were doing their work. She would need more sophisticated medical attention soon, but there was time.
"Lieutenant, I am going to get the anti-grav stretcher." he told her.
"Remain here until I return." He would have omitted the last instruction if talking to a Vulcan or a member of another species whose would react logically to the several physical distress Larssen must be feeling, but with humans one never knew.
"Aaawarrraa..." Larssen said, eyes closed. "Aaawaaaa ... aaawwahhh"
Her head was spinning. She had been back on her home world - on Vulcan? - on a ship she'd never seen - on the USS Brigadoon, her first posting - in the snow? "Aawaaa?" she inquired as the anti-grav stretcher stopped beside her. Strong hands helped her on to it,
leaving green smears on her jacket.
"I suggest you do not try to talk." Spock said dryly, guiding the stretcher to the station's sickbay, pausing occasionally to gather his strength. In the sickbay he set her on a diagnostic bed and set it to run, turning the medical tricorder on himself. As he suspected, he was very weak, but not to the point of collapse. As every alert on the diagnostic bed blinked to red, he took a handful of ration tubes from the corner locker.
"Although I suspect the food synthesisers can provide something more palatable later," he said as he used a sonic scalpel to open one before handing it to Lieutenant Larssen, "The immediate imperative is to provide sustenance."
"aahhn - hunh" she managed as she sucked obediently on the tube. The medical computer was flashing a long list of treatment recommendations. Spock ignored those not immediately concerned with keeping the Lieutenant alive - the medical computer was equally anxious that he raise her red blood cell count and treat abrasions on her leg with antibiotic cream.
Patiently, he carried out the most urgent tasks, taking time to eat when the procedures allowed, and giving Lieutenant Larssen a new ration tube each time she finished one. His fatigue made him slower than usual, but he curbed his frustration and continued methodically.
After the medical computer confirmed that Larssen's temperature and blood chemistry were close enough to normal to make sleep no danger,
he ceased to remind her to remain awake and within minutes her eyes had closed, which was something of a relief to Spock. Larssen's persistent attempts to speak were unintelligible and were an irritant on his fatigue-eroded control.
He spent some time removing the tool she had taped to her cold-savaged hand, trying to minimise further injury, an easier goal now that the food and warmth had allowed his hands to steady a little. Setting the tissue regenerator was not a task Spock considered himself qualified to do, so he was forced to content himself with cleaning the injuries and covering them with permaskin. Her other injuries would wait a little, until she woke and was able to make his task easier with cooperation.
Spock sat down by the bed. He would rest a moment, he thought to himself, and then check on the communications unit. Later, his first priority would be to check on Lieutenant Larssen's left hand, possibly injured even more severely than her right. The sprain to her knee had not healed properly, and that would have to be attended to ...
He was still patiently, wearily, running through the tasks his duty set him when he drifted to sleep.
"Uhura, what's the status on that answer?" Kirk was able to keep himself from snapping at her, but not able to keep the urgency from his voice.
"Still no response, sir."
"Jim, if you don't calm down, I'll tranquillise you." McCoy whispered.
"Shut up, Bones. Are we sending the new message?"
"Yes, sir, for the past four hours."
Kirk knew he had asked a useless question, and one which implied his communications officer did not know her job, and knew he should apologise. Later, he thought. When I hear from Spock. When I can speak to my crew without biting their heads off.
"Sir, we're approaching the planet." Sulu said. "Entering orbit now."
"Record another message." Kirk said. "Start recording: Spock, if you're there, answer this! We got your message about Realgar and it's been sent on to Federation HQ, but we've been trying to raise you for 6 hours. Unless you want to get a reputation for napping on the job,
Mr Spock, I suggest you pick up the phone."
"Vulcans don't nap." McCoy pointed out.
"Bones, I'd be a lot happier if you didn't keep pointing out all the reasons why any possible non-serious explanation isn't true. That's an order, doctor."
It was Larssen who woke first, out of a vivid dream of mountains on a desert world she had never seen. She opened her eyes to the soft chime of a computer trying to tell her something, and saw a cream coloured ceiling she could not make sense of. Turning her head, she saw medical equipment.
Aha, sickbay, she thought. No wonder I feel so awful. And what's that smell?
Oh, it's me. With an effort, she raised herself to one elbow. Not the Enterprise sickbay, though, which deepened the mystery. And then,
with a start, she saw there was someone beside her, seated in a chair by the bed, leaning forward to rest his head on his arms, one green hand outflung.
Commander Spock, she thought, and the immediate past came rushing back.
The computer was still chiming. She wanted to get up and get it without disturbing Spock, but a bone deep ache when she tried to move warned her this was not a good idea. She let it ring on for a moment,
but reluctantly realised it could be something important. Like life support failure. Sorry, Commander, she thought ruefully. "Commander Spock." she said softly, and then more loudly. "Commander Spock!"
He came awake with a start, but recovered himself immediately.
"The computer." she said softly, staring at him. There was something she needed to remember, something to do with her dream, something to do with the hazy part of her recollection between punching the transmit sequence and waking up.
He got up without a word - no, Larssen corrected herself, he got up without an unnecessary remark, wondering where that gut-deep comprehension came from - and walked to the comm unit at the door,
keying in a Starfleet code.
"Incoming message for Commander Spock of the USS Enterprise," the computer said, and then a familiar, welcome, human voice:
"Spock, if you're there, answer this! We got your message about Realgar and it's been sent on to Federation HQ, but we've been in orbit 2 hours and we haven't picked up anything further." A pause, and the Kirk's voice softened, "Spock, damn it - "
One long green finger jabbed the off button, and Larssen was half frustrated, half relieved. The crew speculated often on whether Spock and Kirk had a personal relationship beyond their duty, for friendship was not uncommon between the tight knit command crew of a starship,
but Vulcans did not have friends, or so the myth went. Larssen suspected she had just missed out on hearing the definitive answer to that particular crew mystery, but she also suspected that eavesdropping on her commanding officer's messages was not a good way to find out. Besides, it seemed to her that she knew the answer. When had she heard Spock, a tell tale shake in his voice, tell her that Kirk was his captain, and his friend? Larssen shook her head gently,
trying to settle her skull. Hallucinations were not something she would have expected, and she hoped they were not a sign of some other,
more serious injury. She felt quite appalling enough, thank you very much.
Spock stood with his back to her a moment more, and when he turned his face was impassive. "I shall reply to the Captain's message." he said. "For the moment, you should consider yourself relieved of duty and confined to sickbay."
"Yes sir," she said promptly, "Couldn't get up if I tried, sir."
The feared eyebrow lifted, but only slightly. "I am suggesting you refrain from the attempt." he told her. Larssen though he was about to add something else as he studied her expressionlessly, but instead he turned abruptly and left the room.
"We've had confirmation from Federation HQ." Kirk said, leaning over the back of Uhura's chair. "The whole Realgar system has been withdrawn from negotiations. A team in on their way there now, with the data you extracted from the Ser Etta records. Senik of the Vulcan Academy is with them, and he reported that it was probably production of an effective treatment would start in less than three standard months."
"That was my estimation, also." Spock said calmly. Kirk wished he could see the science officer's face, but the boosted communicator could only handle audio transmissions. Still, Spock sounded less drained than he had the last time. Kirk was still getting over the shock of his friend's response to the sharp enquiry: Spock, where the hell have you been? Asleep, Captain, Spock had responded evenly, as great an admission of weakness as Kirk had ever heard the Vulcan make.
"Ms Iyen confirms that the storm is blowing itself out. We should have you back on the Enterprise in a week or so."
"That would be satisfying, Captain." Was it Kirk's imagination, or was there relief in Spock's voice? "I am transmitting a set of medical records to the Enterprise. They detail Lieutenant Larssen's condition and treatment. I would be - I consider it appropriate for Dr McCoy would examine them and make recommendations."
"'Appropriate'", huh?" Bones snorted. "I've got them, Spock, but I want yours as well. Get yourself back to that sick bay and on a diagnostic bed on the double. By the time you have your own records for me, I'll have something on Larssen for you."
"Those are my orders as well, Spock." Kirk said. "We'll talk again later. There's nothing urgent at the moment."
"On the contrary, Captain. Meteorology's analysis of my tricorder readings over the past 61 days is of some urgency, as it-"
Kirk cut him off. "Meteorology will call you if they need their hands held, Spock. You're under doctor's orders for the moment."
"Yes, captain." Spock said. "Spock out."
McCoy was fuming. "'Thank you, captain.'" he said. "'Thank you,
doctor McCoy. Good to hear your voice, Captain.' That cold-blooded,
green-hued automaton! I'll 'appropriate' him!"
Kirk let the doctor get almost all the way to the turbolift before he spoke. "Bones..." he said. "That's more convincing if you manage not to smile."
"Hrrmmph." McCoy said, and "Vulcans!" as the doors shut behind him.
Spock had sent his own medical records to the Enterprise, carried out McCoy's recommendations for treating Larssen, satisfied himself that she was able to get to the food synthesisers and otherwise care for herself, and then gone to bed and slept like a Vulcan. Larssen found herself sitting in sickbay in an empty and echoing station. For the first day and night she slept most of the time herself as ivopraine speeded her healing, but by the second day she felt well enough to walk a little (provided there was something to hold on to) and the idea of washing became very attractive.
She began to explore.
Going past the closed door of the quarters where Commander Spock slept, she tried the next room. It was quarters as well, a few pictures and ornaments of the dresser. She felt suddenly as if she were a grave robber, prying through the lives of people who had died in that desperate attempt to reach the rest of the Federation with their news. If it were me, she thought, if I were frozen out there in the snow, how would I feel about someone wandering through my quarters, going through my things?
I'd feel cold, she thought dryly, and dismissed her squeamishness.
Larssen investigated the other quarters and found one which had belonged to a humanoid around her side, a man to judge from the clothes she found. She took a sweater and pants with her down the hall to what she hoped was - yes it was! - a communal washroom,
equipped with (oh, thank you, all deities who watch out for Starfleet personnel in their hour of need) a bath. The shelf above the bath held a small collection of bottles and jars, and she investigated until she found one that she liked the smell of, then turned the water on and dumped the contents in.
The bathroom was filled with a rich fruit scent she couldn't identify.
Apricots, the bottle said, and Larssen wondered if that was an Earth flower or something from one of the colony worlds. She started to peel off her clothes, and then the stinking cold suit beneath.
Halfway through her hands began to shake, and she sat down on the edge of the bath. Must be tireder than I thought, she said to herself, but the shaking didn't ease as she rested, but spread.
Oh, damn, Cory, she said to herself, let's not be stupid about this,
shall we?
Whether it was the homely familiarity of the washroom or the first privacy she'd had in months, she began to cry. It seemed so unfair that she was sitting here warm and safe when the owner of the bath oil, the owner of the clothes, when Bob Grenwood, were cold and lost and alone out in the storm. It was Bob who troubled her most. They had been side by side through the journey, the same challenge, the same training, and yet somehow she had survived and Bob had died. It was incomprehensible. She, Corrina Larssen, had not been a better person than brave Bob Grenwood. She had not tried harder, she had not been all that more experienced, and yet here she was... what had made the difference? Had it been luck? Or had she been less wholehearted than Grenwood, holding back from the reality of their situation and from him? Had that been the difference that saved her?
Larssen sat on the edge of the bath until her quiet weeping stopped,
and then heaved a sigh and pulled off the rest of the cold-suit. It wasn't really something she could solve herself. The Captain would judge: she'd make a full report, and so would Commander Spock (her eyes squeezed briefly shut with embarrassment at the thought of that cool, dry voice describing her decision to walk heroically into the night) and Captain Kirk would be able to see clearly where she could not.
The hot water stung the permaskin on her hands and feet, but it was worth it to scrub away the filth of their journey. Painfully, she untangled her hair and washed it, going through two changes of water.
That was the great thing about planets, she thought wryly, when they aren't trying to kill you they have decent amenities. The sight of her body shocked her slightly, bones too prominent beneath the skin.
Her hair came out in handfuls as she washed it, and there were raw patches on her skin beneath the dirt where the cold suit had been chafing for two months. When she was clean she stood up and examined herself in the mirror, and could barely recognise the gaunt face that stared back as her own.
When had submitted herself to the hot air blasts from the drier and dressed in her borrowed clothes she looked better, the bulk of the heavy sweater and loose pants disguising her thinness. There wasn't much she could do about her face, but her hair didn't look much the worse for wear as it dried, thick as it had been to start with. She got a nasty surprise when two of her nails snapped off while she was dressing, and on examination realised that all her nails were brittle with malnutrition. Not finding a file, she snapped the rest of her nails off more or less neatly, and went falteringly back up the hall to sickbay.
Commander Spock was awake, seated at the medical computer terminal,
and he did not look up when she entered. He too had washed and changed, and had managed to resume his customary air of catlike neatness, seeming far more alien than he had on the last weeks of their trek. If not for the prominence of the bones of his hands and face, and the unusual length of his hair, Larssen would not have believed he was the same man who had struggled through the snow with her only days before.
His hearing was acute enough to have heard her enter the room, and so she suppressed her human instinct to clear her throat. Commander Spock was well known to eschew the human social habits of greeting crew on when they, or he, came in. He would speak when he had something to say. Larssen went over to the diagnostic bed and submitted herself to another one of its scans. Most of the readings stayed in the orange range this time, with only weight and white blood cells tipping over into red.
This was as good enough excuse to eat as any, and Larssen got up again. "Sir, I'm going to the synthesizers. Can I get you anything?"
"I have eaten." he said coolly.
"Yes, sir."
The base had chicken-with-almonds-and-don't-ask, and Larssen chose it for its familiarity. As she settled in to the nearest table, a sudden feeling of unreality struck her. She could have been in any Starfleet facilities, albeit a very quiet one, perhaps in the middle of night shift, sitting at anonymous Starfleet issue benches and eating anonymous Starfleet food. If she squinted and blurred her vision, she could almost be in the officer's lounge on the Enterprise - and in a few more days, that WAS where she would be. The whole nightmare would be over, and her life would go back to normal as if it had never happened.
Except she'd be 30 pounds lighter. And Bob would still be dead.
"Lieutenant."
Spock's voice made her start, and she realised she was sitting with her fork in midair. She laid it down, carefully, and turned.
"Yes, sir?"
"The Enterprise has been able to make brief contact with those members of the landing party left at the shuttle crash site. All three are in good health."
Larssen expected to feel relieved, but all she could think was And Bob isn't. And Bob isn't.
Spock was waiting for her response.
"I'm glad to hear it, sir. Thank you for telling me."
"One does not thank logic." he said expressionlessly. Larssen took another bite of her meal to cover her reaction to that, and realised it was stone cold. She wondered how long she'd been sitting with her fork in the air, and how long Commander Spock had been standing in the door way watching. No doubt that would go on her record, as further evidence of psychological disturbance rendering her unfit for further active duty.
Without a word, she took her plate to the disposal and began to clear it. Spock placed a recorder on the table. "When you are ready,
Lieutenant, your mission log must be completed."
"Yes, sir." she said. He looked at her speculatively at the weary note to her voice, but by the time she turned from the disposal he had gone.
"Feeling better?" Kirk asked Ann. She had been quickly released from sickbay, and had spent most of the intervening time in her quarters,
only emerging that day to go about her usual work in lab seven. To Kirk's eyes, she looked as if she hadn't been sleeping well, and he wondered if his decision to leave her in peace had been the right one.
"Yes, thanks." she said, and her usual lightness sounded forced.
Kirk cast a glance at the technicians working nearby, and then said:
"Care for a walk, Professor?"
"Certainly." she said, a glint of real amusement in her eyes. When they reached the corridor she took his arm and said softly, "Jim, if you think our relationship is a secret that needs to be kept, I have news for you. News is the only thing in Starfleet that travels -"
"Faster than warp 10, yes, I know that one." He looked down at her as they walked. "I wanted to ask you how you were, really, and I thought you might be more likely to answer without anyone listening in."
"Oh," she said. "Oh, I'm fine. Just - a little shaken, still. Do you ever get used to that sort of thing? Red Alerts, things flying everywhere, enemies all around?"
"Well, I've had a lot more time to get used to it," Kirk said. "And training, of course."
"But you do - I mean, one does - get used to it? In time?"
"Not used to it, exactly. You do learn to disregard it to a degree."
"I see." she said quietly, frowning slightly.
"Ann, what's wrong? Can I help?"
She smiled at him sadly. "You're sort of part of the problem," she said, and leaned up to kiss him gently. "I'll see you later, Jim."