The starbase was very big. Or very small, depending on
your point of view.
From Spock's point of view at the moment, the station was
very big. To the habits of thought of the creature whose
perceptions he currently shared, the station was quite
small. He was simultaneously aware of every inch of the
starbase, the purr of the oxygen generators like the
working of his own lungs, the cameras and sensors like his
eyes and ears, the opening and closing of doors was like
flexing his fingers.
The misalignment in perceptions was causing him some
difficulty.
The difficulty was increased by the necessity of
maintaining a scrupulous differentiation between what he,
Spock, observed, through both his own senses and the
diffuse awareness of the entity, and what he allowed the
entity itself to become aware of. His mental discipline had
been equal to the task so far, but it left little attention to
spare for the mundane task of walking.
Their initial attempt to leave the Starbase core had been
unsuccessful. Spock successfully distracted the creature
from its own awareness of both the shuttle-bay and the
starbase core, and had managed to combine this task with
the act of walking, but he had failed to consider that the
entity had access to his perceptions as well as he to its. A
dangerous mistake. When it realised he was leaving its
retribution had been swift.
Contact with his mind had increased its subtlety, and his
vulnerability. The ensuing few moments had not been
pleasant, and the creature had not released him until it
realised he could not tolerate further physical and psychic
shock and survive. He had almost no recollection of those
minutes, save the sound of his own voice screaming and
the grip of Kirk's hands on his shoulders. The captain had
been terribly vulnerable to the creature's attacks for the
period in which Spock was disabled, but as always Kirk's
concern had been for others, and not himself.
Their second attempt had gone considerably better, apart
from a few uncertain seconds at the start when Spock's
attempts to walk had resulted in the opening and closing of
doors and the operation of turbolifts around the starbase.
~We'll laugh about this one day,~ Jim had said.
In better circumstances, Spock would have responded with
some remark about the unlikelihood of a Vulcan laughing.
Speech was, however, beyond him.
While he had been incapacitated something had occurred
in shuttle-bay. Due to the necessity of keeping the creature
convinced that there was nothing of any importance
occurring in the shuttle-bay, the core, or the corridors through
which they walked, Spock was aware of those areas only
through a sort of psychic 'peripheral vision', but he knew that
most of the shuttles had left the shuttle-bay, but there had
been extensive damage to the area. He was aware that the
entity's interest in the shuttle-bay was intense, and it was
necessary to repeat his distraction - a kind of 'look over there'
- at frequent intervals. The reason for such interest was not
clear to him.
He missed his footing and once again Kirk caught him. It
was an increasingly likely possibility that his difficulty in
keeping his feet was as much due o the exhaustion that
weighed his limbs and fogged his mind. He thrust it down
with the mental disciplines of Vulcan, but he had scant
attention to spare for the task, and even that little caused
him to lose his balance once again.
~An interesting scientific problem. How many tasks can
one mind cope with simultaneously?~ He had been trained
in precisely this type of mental exercise, as a boy, but
evidently under extreme stress one's ability to multitask could
be expanded.
The captain was talking to him again, but Spock could not
spare the concentration to listen to him. He could guess
what Kirk was saying. Not much longer now, Spock. Not
much further. Hang on a little longer. He could see Kirk
beside him, the captain's face calm, his bearing unhurried.
He could also see Kirk from above, from the side, from
the end of the corridor. He walked forwards as he usually
would. he walked forwards as if his body was a remote
controlled machine, one of the servos they used for external
repairs on the Enterprise.
He saw his doll-sized body stagger and saw Kirk take his
arm, take his weight. The figures moved on.
There were others on the Starbase. That was not right.
There should not be any others there. Spock could not
observe them more closely without rousing the entity's
suspicion but there was one he could identify, a presence
moving through the access crawl-ways at breakneck
speed. He recognised it through the creature's memory,
and not his own, for he observed it through the creature's
senses and this was one person the creature had met.
~Be careful, Lieutenant Larssen,~ he wished her. ~Be oh so
very careful.~ Images swirled through his mind, supplied
by the entity as it sensed Spock was thinking of her. The
creature had sought Larssen's consent and been refused, of
that Spock was already aware. Now he was mercilessly
driven through the details of that encounter. He resolved
to ignore it, to forget it as soon and as thoroughly as he
could. He himself would have without hesitation given
everything he now and had ever owned to prevent another
being from knowing the contents of his own experience
with the entity.
He wondered if the idea he would survive long enough to
forget was an example of irrational hope, or Vulcan
tal'ath'at.
~Another interesting question.~
Scotty listened to Sulu's report in silence.
"You know what this means, laddy?" he asked.
"Nossir, what?"
"It means ye hae the conn!" The engineer's face split in a
grin, and he bolted from the centre chair towards the
turbolift. "I hae to get down to engineering and get those
torpedoes modified!"
Sulu watched the lift doors closed, and then limped down
the stairs to the centre chair. "Sickbay." he said into the
comm.
"I'm busy!" McCoy's voice answered.
"I know." Sulu said. "Doctor, we need Chekov on the
bridge as soon as he comes round."
"I'll send him - as long as you promise not to let Uhura hit
him again. That boy has a skull like granite but Uhura has
a punch like Saurian brandy. Any word from the captain?
"Not yet, doctor, I'll let you know as soon as we hear."
"You do that. Out."
Sulu called for the reports he needed, and tried to find a
comfortable position in which to sit. He would call
McCoy if Kirk and Spock -
He would call McCoy *when* Kirk and Spock made it
aboard. ~Not if. Not ever if.~
"Laddie." came Scotty's voice from the comm.
"Aye, sir." Sulu said.
"I need more hands here in Engineering." Scotty said.
"We hae a lot of tricky work down here on the torpedoes
and a number o' the mechanical loaders are still jammed."
"You'll have them, sir." Sulu said. "Bridge out." He
turned to Yeoman Rand. "Do we have *any* off duty
crew?"
"No, sir." she said.
"All right. Send all weapons crews to Engineering. If the
Romulans turn up, they'll just have to run back again.
Strip all other departments to space-dock status only.
Suggest efficiencies."
"Sir, there's security guards on the cargo bays,
Commander Scott posted them after the riot was
contained."
"Riot?" Sulu half turned to look at her, and then raised his
hand to forestall her explanation. "Tell me later. Security
seals on the doors?"
"Yes, sir, but Commodore Whittaker lifted them once
before, so -"
"Commodore Whittaker lifted - never mind, tell me later.
What were you going to suggest?"
"Sir, that we drop the seals and strip the security guards."
Her voice shook slightly but she held herself calmly.
"Do it." Sulu said.
"Aye sir." She turned away, touched her console with a
hand that was almost steady. "Done, sir."
~Nobody can say I don't learn from my mistakes,~ she
thought.