Chapter 11 - Inmates, Part 5

Kirk accompanied Graham to the Hampton's sickbay. The staff were still moving rapidly about, arranging equipment, discussing ongoing treatments. Kirk crossed to the bed at the aft end of the room where Zulan lay unmoving. No treatment equipment was in place, just a neurofield probe extending out beside the pillow.

Kirk looked back. Graham was still near the door, at the nurse's station, speaking to Comm about a formal request to Vulcan. Kirk checked each bed for Noel, whom he'd managed to not think about for nearly twenty minutes, but did not see her. He pulled a chair around to the far side of Zulan's bed and sat there out of the way of staff. The security crewmember that had escorted Kirk to the brig and back joined his fellow flanking the door to sickbay. There were penal colony prisoners being treated, strapped down, drugged into sleep, as well as himself to guard.

Graham strode over, stood at the end of the diagnostic bed. "You staying here?"

"I said I would, sir."

She turned and walked away.

Kirk sat back against the bulkhead. He spoke low in Vulcan, reciting as best he could remember the meditative path he'd heard Amanda recite to Spock. When he'd done that, he waited, watched the monitor indicators. He couldn't see a change. He started a new meditative path, one about traveling the galaxy, navigating a nebula. He closed his eyes as he spoke, let his thoughts wander through checking ship settings, shield power levels, taking measurements. He didn't know a lot of the words in Vulcan, tried to make up words using the roots of others or combining unrelated words to make an approximate meaning.

Kirk's head nodded. He'd put himself to sleep. He sat forward, asked someone for a cup of coffee. He watched sickbay wind down into calm over the course of three hours. Graham returned, spoke to security at the door, came over to Kirk, stared up at the bed monitor.

"Any change?" she asked.

"Not that Doctor Imlay mentioned."

"You're okay without an escort. I cleared you while reviewing the tapes computing fetched from the penal colony. There was seventy two hours worth, after that they got wiped and written over again. Small mercies of this mission. Makes the reporting a hell of a lot easier."

Kirk watched her face when she paused. She was good at hiding her thoughts and her intentions when she wanted to. He wasn't sure it was a useful command aspect when seen from the other side.

She said, "Adams didn't program you to crash the shuttle. He didn't do anything to you beyond torture you and make you fall in love with someone you barely knew. Based on your reaction to her, it worked pretty well. By my read of it, Adams was showing off and when Noel chastised him, he got mad and took it out on you."

Kirk tugged the hair at the back of his head. He looked around the room at each bed. "What is Noel's status?"

"She's in isolation, heavily sedated. CMO wants to try using the same neural neutralizer that injured her as a treatment method. Even before the sedation I didn't get the sense there was much left."

"I'm sorry."

Graham zeroed in on Kirk, held his eyes. "Bother you more than it should?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Curious."

"I feel guilty that it does. Cover it?"

"Vulcans are the jealous sort. You told me that once."

Kirk sat back against the wall, crossed his arms. "I wasn't even thinking of that. I was thinking how flimsy love apparently is. You can make it out of nothing."

"That's always been my assumption. Welcome to the club." She stood looking at him. He couldn't tell what she was thinking.

Kirk shook his head, managed a wry smile. "Since you saw the tapes. Did Noel yank the primary power switch?"

"No. Adams did. Based on my quick review, Noel was doing a pretty good job convincing him he needed to rethink whether he was actually doing something positive. He really wanted to impress her. Adams's assistant Eli was the one that put her in the treatment room. He wanted her to quit messing with the boss. By the time Adams realized Eli was using the neutralizer on her, it was too late. We found Eli's body in one of the dormitories. He had been dead longer than any of the others."

Kirk adjusted his crossed arms to fit them together more snugly.

Graham said, "So, Kirk. How are you feeling other than your emotions?"

Kirk snorted. "You doing your CMO's job too? You're supposed to delegate, Commander. Leadership 101."

She waited, face neutral.

"I feel empty and uneasy," Kirk said. "If I think about that room, I long to flee."

"Not fight?" She cocked her head. "Not like you."

"I did fight it. With everything I had. That's why he kept upping the power."

She shifted her feet. "I saw on the tape."

"Did you find Adams?"

"He went out the emergency tunnel. If he had a private ship, cutting the shielding to run the transporters might have let him get to orbital altitude. Sensors didn't record a ship departing but might not have on standard scan if it was a small ship. I sent down a probe to do a detailed scan in the vicinity of the emergency exits in case he's holed up somewhere."

She studied Zulan on the bed. "You're free to roam, Kirk. Get a meal if you need one. Go to your quarters if you want."

"I'll be here at least until the Healers arrive."

"I admit. You're doing great with the part of this mission I most needed help with."

"Thank you, sir."

She shrugged. Departed.

The emptiness was overwhelming any relief Kirk should be feeling at learning he wasn't harboring any hidden commands. Kirk pulled the monitor over from the wall on its articulated arm, brought up his messages. There was one message from Spock from half a day ago. Kirk had the computer convert it to text. It was an ordinary daily message with a closing reiterating that Kirk needed to be extra careful around the Militants, that Spock considered himself responsible for Kirk being there. The clear subtext was that Spock was going to feel hopelessly, destructively guilty if anything happened.

In a low voice, Kirk told the computer to reply in text that he was back on board the Hampton and would follow up when he could. He pushed the monitor away and watched Zulan's unconscious face in profile. He spoke quietly to himself, "Your father's right, Spock. Humans are the more dangerous ones."

Spock ascended the steps of the Starfleet Annex auditorium to the very top back. Cadets Jaek and Horton looked up from the thick padd centered between them, watched Spock slide into the row.

Spock nodded, put on his best deferential tone. "Sirs."

The senior cadets looked at each other, looked at Spock.

Spock fixed his gaze on the front of the room. Chanel strode in. Turned to the female ensign slipping in behind her.

"Fursten, kind of you to join us. No no, take a seat in the front row. So few seem to want to." She smiled artificially. "And I need a target for the day. And you are already in red anyway."

Fursten blushed fiercely beneath her bright blond bangs, slid into a seat, sat at attention.

Chanel surveyed the room. "Your midterm project assignments are due next week. Everyone proceeding as planned? Before you polish them up to turn them in, consider that I may randomly and capriciously call on you to present them. Make them readable and organized and you will be considerably less likely to suffer such a fate." She gave a wry smile, began discussing flow design and modeling, accounting for the movement of personnel during the cycles of the day, and during different emergency and alert conditions.

Spock checked his messages manually, even though the system polled them automatically three and a half times a second. There was still nothing. It was now seven hours past the time that Spock had estimated as the longest possible for Kirk returning to the Hampton without a diversion in the expected mission events. Spock could no longer dismiss the rising estimate of something serious having gone wrong. And now he did not know how to estimate the timing for when he may be informed what.

Spock used his latest lesson with Zienn to isolate and diminish his worry and focus his attention on the instructor. The technique worked well, Spock's mind cleared, undisturbed. But by the end of the lecture, he was feeling adrift. His concern for Kirk was not just an emotional distraction, it was an anchor and purpose. It was not logical, but it was undeniable. He had never heard of this phenomenon being part of any formal Vulcan philosophy. And now wondered if he was comprehending the other side of Zienn's quest. Lacking this sort of suffering, worry and yearning, Zienn lacked a core purpose. Spock knew nothing else. Perhaps it was not entirely a curse as he'd always assumed.

Ten hours now. Lecture completed, Chanel was answering questions about projects, some of which indicated several students were not as far along as they should be.

"How about someone from the back? Our kiddies are so quiet up there, I forget we have them here to be babysat. How are your projects?" She paced the auditorium dais, hands on hips. "You do have projects underway, right? Someone report."

Jaek stood up, face aglow. "Yes, sir. Cadet Horton and I are just completing a project with the ship contractor my mother works for, to conduct a full habitability review on their showpiece project, which is a two generation colony ship. It's one of the few ships of its kind-"

"Did I give you permission for a joint project?" Chanel faced the room full on, seemed larger.

Jaek grew pale, lips thinner. But he had to speak up to be heard from the top row. "It's a large project, sir. Far too big for just one person."

"That's irrelevant, Cadet. The second project of the term is a group project. This was an individual project assignment. Anyone else make that mistake?"

No one replied.

She looked up again. "Cadet Spock, did you manage to follow instructions?"

Spock stood up. "Yes, sir."

"Of course you did. I suspect you are biologically incapable of doing otherwise. Sit down."

"After class, Cadets Jaek and Horton. Stay behind. I suggest you use the next twenty minutes of class to start cutting your project into two distinct ones. You're going to need the time."

She continued taking questions. Jaek and Horton argued in whispers over the padd lying between them. Other students turned to glance back at them in annoyance, looked ready to order them to shut up, but held back.

Spock opened his project on his padd. He needed to obtain actual data from the sensor array for his final report to have real meaning. The Apollo may not make a trial run in space before Spock's assignment was due, but it would more than likely power up the new impulse engines and run the fields at startup idle. That would constitute the secondary baseline data for future measurements. It would be something rather than nothing. But Spock would have no access to the sensor's data by the time such tests were run, and he doubted Chief Ping would provide him access.

Spock's padd flashed as he'd programmed it to do if he received a message from Kirk. The entirety of the message fit in the preview box. Kirk was safe. But the message was uncharacteristically terse. Spock's emotions of concern were still stored away, in a place resembling a quasi present-distant past. If he examined the emotions again, they would shift, perhaps surprising him with their strength. He left them stowed away. It was not logical to feel anything until he spoke with Kirk.

Kirk lifted his head from resting it back against the sickbay bulkhead. Two older Vulcans approached, both female, both wearing headdresses that indicated their attained priesthood level, although Kirk didn't know what level it indicated for their sect.

One of them held a hand out over Zulan's body, moved it until it was right above his nose, held it there, closed her eyes.

After a minute, she withdrew her hand and turned to Doctor Imlay, who had come up behind her. Imlay was squat woman with short black curled hair and ridged brows.

"We will attempt a chain of healing melds," the taller of the Vulcans said in slow measured tones.

"Do you want to use an isolation room? We have one available."

"This location is sufficient," the other replied.

Kirk rocked to his feet. "I have a request." He spoke in Standard so Imlay could understand. "Don't change him. Don't heal him beyond what the machine did to him. Okay?"

The smaller Vulcan tilted her chin rather than raise a brow. "We have yet to evaluate him."

"This is important. I know there is a way he's supposed to be, according to your way, and he's not like that. But don't fix that right now. I promised his family you wouldn't do so." Kirk looked between them. He wondered if this conversation was more difficult because it should be in Vulcan, or if he cared for Spock on a level that would always make this conversation difficult.

"What an unexpected and strange promise."

"It's not strange to me. Trust me." Anger woke Kirk up. He stood taller, resisted glaring at the Healer.

The three of them stood silent for a time. The taller one said, "We shall do our best. It is likely, in any event, that the recent injury is significant work to repair on its own."

Kirk exhaled, returned to his chair, returned to leaning his head against the bulkhead to relieve his sore neck.

Zulan didn't even twitch when the gnarled fingers contacted his face. Kirk had expected, had hoped, that the boy was lying low and faking such a dangerously senseless state.

The healer stood motionless until it was time to switch melds to the other healer. Kirk's head nodded. An orderly pressed a hot coffee cup into his hand. He mouthed a thanks.

Hours dragged by. Kirk paced, trying not to annoy any of the patients by doing so. He was glad to have a purpose to keep the emptiness at bay, so he made himself overly determined about his present duties. He couldn't afford to think about Spock until he could speak with him. Noel had been hovered out an hour earlier. It made his hands sweat to remember the limp sight of her. How could he feel something so powerful so easily?

From the center of the room he watched the taller of the two Vulcans, her head bent so the opaque white stones on her headdress were straight vertical, like stone tufts on a bird. Her aged hands were pressed to Zulan's face in exactly the same position as the last hour. Kirk felt a twisting pang. He wanted to be under those hands, any hands. No longer desperately alone.

Kirk closed his eyes. He mouthed the word "damn," began pacing again.

Another hour. The priestess healer opened her eyes and withdrew.

"Allow him to rest," the taller one said.

Kirk nodded as if he were in charge of things. They departed with a shuffle of heavy robe.

Kirk wanted to wake the boy and drag him to the brig. He didn't know how long Zuram would hold out with just the sliver of Kirk's promises holding his violent anger in check. Kirk shifted the chair so he could prop his head against the side of the diagnostic panel, dozed.

Kirk woke to movement, Imlay checking the readings.

"Looks like he's coming around." She reached under the blanket to check the security straps on Zulan's arms.

Kirk stood up, leaned against the bed. Zulan's face was turned far to Kirk's side of the bed. His eyes just barely cracked open. He remained that way, unmoving.

"Zulan." Kirk spoke in Vulcan. "No one's going to harm you."

Zulan's arms tugged suddenly against the straps. Kirk didn't react. Imlay did. She stepped back, glared.

"I'll report to the commander." She shuffled off shaking her head.

Zulan still hadn't moved his eyes beneath his slitted lids or shifted his uncomfortably placed head. Kirk crossed his arms, waited many minutes.

"Need anything?" Kirk asked.

"Your Vulcan is terrible." Zulan finally turned his head to stare straight up. He pulled on the straps again, strained his arms many seconds before relaxing again. "What I would do to you if I could."

KIrk leaned jauntily on the side of the diagnostic bed. "Such as?"

"You taunt me?"

Kirk smiled. "What would you do? Suck out my soul?"

Zulan's brows lowered in confusion. "I do not possess that skill."

"My Vulcan lover does. You are failing to impress me."

Zulan stared up at the overhead again. He gathered a stern face. "Your words are like a puzzle. I must pluck out the meaning from a tangle."

Kirk smiled. "At least we're communicating. Feeling up to returning to your uncle?"

Zulan's gaze swung to Kirk, considered him darkly. "This will be allowed?"

Kirk found the CMO with his gaze. She came over.

"Can he be released to the brig?"

She held up a scanner, looked at the readings, adjusted the monitor, studied that. "He needs to take it easy. I'd prefer to hold him here for twenty four hours."

"That's not feasible," Kirk said.

"Let me check with the commander."

Kirk watched her at the desk by the door speaking with Graham. He said to Zulan, "If you don't want to be with your uncle, you need say that now."

"I displease him."

"He was tearing the ship apart due to being separated from you." Kirk made a funny face. "I mean, actually damaging the ship with his bare hands."

"I displease everyone."

"Comes from pleasing yourself first."

Zulan shook his head. "Your words are like . . . idiot poetry." He stared upward again. "But uncle honors you."

"For reasons I'm not comfortable with, but I'll take it because it's convenient."

Imlay came back over with security flanking her, weapons out. "You're being moved." She looked at Kirk. "Tell him to behave."

Kirk stared at Zulan, brow raised. Zulan looked away, rolled his eyes. Nodded.

Zulan walked slowly down the corridor. Security made a move to prod him to speed up and Kirk raised a hand, gave them a sharp back-off signal. They straightened, slowed to the youth's pace.

Kirk led the way into the brig, stopped in the doorway to invite Zulan in. Zuram was at the back of his cell, leaning against the wall, bent over. He raised his head and stared. He came to the field just as security ordered him back from it. Zuram reluctantly stepped back, face brooding.

The field came down with a sizzle. Zulan approached, stood opposite Zuram but still outside the cell.

"Uncle. I have failed but I have returned."

Kirk stepped closer, but remained out of range of any sudden movements Zulan may decide to make. "He needs to rest. Doctor's orders. Go on," Kirk said to Zulan.

Zulan stepped inside and stood before Zuram, head bowed as if expecting the worst. The security field sizzled back into place.

Zuram moved jerkily. He gestured at the damaged bed. "Rest," he gruffly ordered.

"Do you require anything else, Commander?" Kirk asked.

Zuram turned, stared at Kirk's chest. "Not from you."

"Fair enough." Kirk turned to Lt. Nangana who had come aside him. "If you need me, I'll be in my quarters. Your quarters. Sleeping."

"Yes, sir. Thank you for your assistance, sir."

Kirk looked back at Zuram, who was now sitting on the floor in a meditative posture. He opened his eyes and stared off to the side of Kirk.

"Pride," Kirk said in Vulcan, thought it a valid warning.