CHAPTER FOUR

Spock screamed without making a sound. He had felt the tranquilizer enter his bloodstream then his consciousness, as though caught in a whirlpool, had been sucked down into darkness. But it hadn't lasted. Somehow, they had pulled him back from the darkness, pushing his consciousness into the background as they continued to rifle through his memories. Curiously, they showed little interest in the functions of the Enterprise or any classified information. They had a need, a veritable hunger, for something very specific. Whispers floated around his consciousness. They weren't in any language he recognized, but his mind translated the sensations he was feeling into Standard.

Pain! Where?

Broken! Repair!

Pain! Who? Where?

Here?

They paused briefly at one of his childhood memories, of his classmates on Vulcan as they took turns criticizing the inferiority of his mixed biology. Spock had concealed his shame and anguish at their words, but he had felt the emotions nonetheless. Indeed, his child self had quickly concluded that the existence of such emotions proved that, in fact, he was inferior. Yet, after being questioned by his father later that evening, Sarek had simply asked why Spock was so concerned with fitting in with his classmates, when he was clearly born to stand out.

Had that been . . . pride in his father's eyes? It had only lasted a moment, but Spock thought that it had been, and he had held that memory close, like a balm over the wounds his classmates had opened.

The beings in Spock's mind had relived the memory of Sarek with him, felt the peace there, and dismissed it as not what they were looking for. With increased urgency, they moved to more recent memories.

Pain! Pain! Pain!

Repair! Now! NOW!

The need had grown so strong within Spock that he found himself floundering, looking at random memories without knowing what to look for. All he knew was that they clung to the idea that he was somehow in pain, and yet—Spock's consciousness refocused on the invading minds. Their thought structure was hive-like yet not perfectly synchronized, and it made him feel slightly dizzy, as though he were staring at a picture made up of a thousand layers and where each layer was off by several microns. The minds were aware of his probing but were either too busy to stop him or just didn't care.

No, not his pain specifically, Spock concluded. They were using his mind like a computer database, looking for—the minds came to an abrupt halt, snapping Spock back into the present.

They had found what they were looking for.

Curious, Spock did the mental equivalent of standing on his toes to see the memory the minds had gathered around. It didn't make him dizzy this time—every single mind was in perfect accord as they watched it play before them—but it was the one memory that Spock had hoped to forget, while knowing he never would.

It was of Dr. Maggie McCoy, her body bloodied and partially crushed beneath the manifold where he had found her. Of course, he hadn't known that it was the young doctor for sure, but he had made an educated guess from the general body size and the piece of scalp laying near the head. The remains of the rest of the crew had been little more than burned husks from the exploded propulsion unit.

Spock mentally brushed by the other minds crowding in as he pushed away from the memory. He would never forget the sickening dread that had filled him, those eternity-filled seconds as the tricorder scanned the broken body for life. As it had scanned a friend's daughter for life.

And worse still, seeing Leonard McCoy's face after Spock had materialized on the transporter pad, body bags at his feet and a single, unidentifiable survivor. What was he supposed to say? Did words of consolation even exist for this type of pain? Spock's vast knowledge had failed him then, and he hadn't been able to utter a single word his friend.

Do not think about it, he told himself as he continued to back away from the growing crowd of minds. Do not feel. . .

The words had become a mantra the weeks following the accident, but Spock had thought about it, had felt it, because he couldn't get away from the younger McCoy's mental broadcast of terror and pain. Ever since the accident, Spock was driven to distraction, restlessly prowling the bowls of Engineering in a vain attempt to put distance between himself and the intense emotion coming from Sick Bay. Meditation only seemed to heighten the sensations, as though her final scream had been recorded and replayed in a continuous loop with a direct feed into his brain.

But how did a normal human—although an extraordinarily brilliant one—develop telepathic abilities? Such inclinations were typically genetic, but Leonard McCoy showed as much telepathic aptitude as a rock. No, Spock corrected himself quickly. Less than a rock. He had forgotten about the singing stones of Silmar, who would often hum either an upbeat or slow tune depending on the visitor's mood.

Not genetic then, Spock concluded. It was likely then that Maggie McCoy's mind had been in repeated contact with a telepathic being. A Vulcan? Spock mentally shunned the thought; melding of the minds was such an intimate act that he could not imagine a Vulcan voluntarily sharing his thoughts, his katra, with another.

And yet, Spock's own consciousness had brushed up against the captain's just often enough that Kirk himself had developed rudimentary telepathic abilities. That was different, Spock reasoned. Many of those unions had been done out of necessity. Moreover, James T. Kirk was his friend, a brother even.

But if Maggie McCoy was telepathic by association, she probably wasn't even aware of it. Which meant—

Sudden comprehension caused Spock to rear back mentally. How had he missed it?

The telepathic projection, the perpetual loop of distress, the unexplainable coma—it all made perfect sense! Such was his shock that one of the smaller minds detached itself from the crowd gathered around the memory and hovered close his consciousness. Fix? It inquired. It did the mental equivalent of poking him. Repair?

If he had been in his body, Spock would have, perhaps, sighed in mild annoyance. Instead, he mentally batted the mind away as though it were a fly. He needed to confirm his hypothesis, and quickly.

Gathering all his extrasensory abilities, Spock pushed his mental awareness outward and was immediately slammed by Maggie's echo of terror and pain. Spock quickly funneled the panic and emotions into a mental box labeled "Not Spock" and slammed the lid down. Now, besides just hearing and feeling it, Spock could retrace the broadcast back to its source. It looked like a rope, drifting in a physic current, with the other end anchored within Maggie's consciousness. Spock caught the end and pulled—

—and was instantly transported to a new surrounding. He now stood in a dry and barren landscape, made of dust and abandonment. Spock squatted down. At his feet, a child's stuffed animal was partially buried in the ground. He pulled it free and turned it over. It was a Terran-style bear, and one that had been well-loved from the multiple repairs along the seams. He set the bear down and retrieved another object a few feet away. A vintage stethoscope. He'd seen one before on the shelf in McCoy's office.

Spock set the stethoscope next to the bear and stood, turning to face the obstacle that had prevented him from entering Maggie's mind.

The wall was clearly thick, made of roughly hewn slabs of stone, and offered no gate or door in which to pass through. Neither the left nor the right direction revealed an end in sight, and it was very possible that, within Maggie's mind, it went on forever. The other logical option was that it eventually turned to form a circle, protecting her consciousness like a king behind fortified walls.

Spock ran his hands over the stones. They were rough but not enough to gain purchase to scale the wall. Still, there might be a way . . . the fact that Maggie's mind was telepathically untrained benefited her now. Perhaps she hadn't had the skill to construct a perfect barrier.

Voices off to his right piqued his interest. He'd noticed them earlier—two partially formed figures standing near the wall—but had dismissed them as a partial memory, much like the bear and stethoscope.

He approached them now, curious. The figures were of two men, one wearing a gold shirt and the other blue. Their voices were tinny and fragmented, as though they were speaking through a bad communicator. As Spock drew closer, he saw that their faces were smooth and featureless.

Gold shirt: "Yes, all the way."

"To China? Through the Earth's core?" Blue shirt asked, sounding vaguely amused.

"-just an expression, T-. Like absence makes . . . heart . . .fonder."

With a jerky motion that reset their stance to the beginning of the loop, the two figures began again.

Gold shirt: "Yes, all the way."

"To China?"

Spock turned away. He was now convinced that Maggie McCoy had indeed left clues behind, but he doubted that he had the necessary skills to help her. And time was of the essence. The longer a mind was separated from its physical self, the harder it would be to rejoin the two.

Letting go of the mental tether, Spock found himself once more within his own mind. The other minds had retreated but had left behind echoes of their thoughts. Spock studied each of them in turn, adding it to the pool of information he'd gained from earlier probes, and as he did so, he grew unsettled.

"Healing" and "repairing" did not carry the same meaning to these minds.

Spock needed to warn the captain. Now.

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