— Chapter Four —
— Awek'es —

Cold.

Freezing, biting cold.

The pale, glaring brightness of Seskilles VII was almost blinding to his eyes after the muted lighting of the Transporter Room, and Spock had to squint against it to see clearly. He took immediate stock of his surroundings, what little he could see of it as his eyes adjusted to the glare of the world around him. Rock. Ice. Wide, open land. A low-hanging white sky. A heaviness in the air that draped on him like a weight and took root behind his eyes. And such cold…

The breath was stolen from him as swiftly as he took it in, knocked from his lungs from the force of the wind slamming at them. It was only the density of his body and the quick shift of his posture that prevented him from being toppled backwards by it. His human companions were not so lucky; they had been unprepared for the strength of the weather, and he had to throw an arm out to balance his captain from falling. One hand gripping tightly to a golden yellow sleeve, he reached half-blind for the other presence at his side and wrapped his other arm securely around it. Lieutenant Tabea; he caught a glimpse of her science blues as she pressed into him for stability.

Securely in the grasp of his XO and no longer in danger of falling, Kirk was following his example and reaching out for both Lieutenant Uhura and Ensign Kemen-Varley, holding them steady against the onslaught. Spock could not help but notice that no one, even those with their hands untethered, bothered to help the ambassador. He had been propelled backwards by the wind and now half-kneeled, half-sprawled on the rocky ground in a heap. The man did not appear to be in any further danger than that, and there were other, more pressing concerns to attend to. After all, Spock only had two hands, and both were otherwise occupied. The wind, though brutal to the unprepared team, was more than survivable; he estimated the windspeed was approximately 66.042 knots, although without readings he could not be certain of his accuracy. Uncomfortable and difficult to stand steady in, but not overly dangerous unless one was near a cliffside.

"Gather close and hold on!" Kirk shouted out to the assembled crew; his voice was stolen just as swiftly as the wind slamming at them; carried away into the air. He pressed tightly into Spock and pulled his two charges inwards to do the same. The increasing physical contact of others was unpleasant—a grimacing sensation even with their clothing shielding most of the direct touch—but the idea of allowing his crewmates to come to harm for the sake of his own personal comfort was unthinkable. Spock brought in Lieutenant Tabea and shifted so that he was shielding her and Lieutenant Uhura as much as he could with his own body; they were in their uniform skirts and in far more danger of freezing than he or his male colleagues were.

"Status, Spock! Any sign of them?"

Only his ears would likely hear the voice of the captain over the dull roar of the gust. His tricorder hung at his waist, having been ignored in favor of securing the safety of his captain and team, but now was taken up for preliminary readings. He operated it with one hand, having had to shift Tabea to hold onto him instead of the reverse. His other hand kept a firm hold of the captain's arm; a precautionary measure. The tricorder hummed faintly as it scanned, a whirring lost to the wind; he looked at the readings, but he did not need the data to inform him that the landing party was very, very much alone.

Around them, as far as his eyes could discern, there was little more than baren landscape; a far-stretching tundra sprawling for miles. Icy, sand-colored rock made up the ground beneath them, flattened and smoothed by millennia of forceful wind scraping granules of mineral debris across its surface. Jagged cliffsides and irregular boulders dotted the otherwise even landscape to their close north, and far in the horizon were ice-capped mountains that rose and disappeared into the low-level cloud cover, which hung over the planet in a white shroud. Fissures and cracks wove through the land, but it was otherwise very level. The mountains and cliffs besides, they had a vast range for line of sight.

There were no beings waiting for them, in any form that Spock could tell. No vegetation or flora that he could see, no lowland brush or twigs. No audible sound of fauna, or visual signs of life around them. Not even sprigs of grass or weeds growing out through the cracks in the plateau. Only the howling moan of wind as it tore through rock and the strange, weighted pressure in the air.

"None, sir. Increasing scan range."

Tabea was doing the same at his back with her own tricorder, her brow furrowed as she huddled into his shadow for some protection against the wind. Even as he shifted to provide her with better coverage, the wind was dying down, rapidly approaching a more tolerable speed than it had before. There was a communal sigh of relief as it faded to little more than a heavy, icy breeze; one slow enough that Ambassador Hammett was at last able to clamber, red-faced and staggering, to his feet. No one offered him a hand up, Spock noticed, instead turning to take stock of their surroundings with a practiced professionalism. It was, perhaps, somewhat counterproductive to peaceful team dynamics, but no one else appeared to notice or mind it but himself. The other man stood before Spock was able to offer him any assistance.

"Well, that's some welcome; beaming into a veritable blizzard," the captain murmured to Spock, expression as severe as the stone under their boots. He was examining the flat terrain with a critical eye, lips a similarly flat line. Spock suppressed the urge to correct the error in fact: it had not been a blizzard—those required specific conditions which had not been met. "Although it doesn't seem we've got much of a welcome party. The Seskille said they were going to meet us here, didn't they? I thought they gave us the coordinates of their largest city."

Spock had memorized what limited data they had gathered of Seskilles VII, as well as the conversation transcripts between Communications and the inhabitants of the planet. The coordinates had indeed been provided by the Seskille, however…

"Not precisely, Captain." Spock took his eyes off his tricorder screen for only a moment. "The Enterprise requested the coordinates, which were then provided, but only after notable errors in communication. A small distinction, but an important one."

"You see, they didn't understand at first, sir." Lieutenant Uhura spoke up, shielding herself against Kirk's back; already a steady shiver was trembling her arms. She had to speak loudly to prevent her voice from being lost to the wind; even if it only gusted now, it was still frigid and unforgiving in its chill. "We asked them what coordinates we should send a landing party to, but they didn't seem to understand that. We then clarified that we were asking for the coordinates of their largest city or village; it's usually a safe bet when you want to interact with a leading council of some kind. They didn't get that either; there was some kind of breakdown in comprehension. Unknown if they didn't know what a city was, if they didn't have them, or if the word just didn't translate correctly. I ended up asking for the location of their most physical buildings or built structures. With the delay, there wasn't much else we could ask without more time."

Time which they had not been granted due to an enforced deadline. Kirk's jaw grit tightly in dissatisfaction. While the other humans—the ambassador excepted—stood huddled together for warmth, Kirk stood with the same strong confidence he always displayed in the face of challenge. Shoulders back, posture rigid, eyes narrowed.

"Clearly there was a miscommunication there as well; I don't see any buildings. I also don't see any Seskille. Even if there was an error in translation, they understood enough to give us a location to meet at." The captain squinted against the ebb and flow of the wind, but he appeared to be seeking out some sign of life in the relatively flat tundra around them. "And so, the question remains: where are they?"

The tricorder readings did not reveal much he did not already suspect when it came to lifeforms; even with the increased range, the only life signatures registering were the six members of the landing party. Nothing else appeared; not plant life, not animal life. It was possible that bacteria remained in the permafrost of the soil, what little there might be amidst or under the rocky plains, but he would require samples to be taken for lab inspection. He could not, at present, verify that there even was soil to sample.

The heat of their breath fogged in the chill and disappeared as swiftly as it emerged; stolen away by the harsh gust. Based on the positioning of the planet to the system's sun, Spock estimated that it was approximately midday planetside. For the afternoon, a time commonly displaying the warmest daytime temperatures on most planets, it was a freezing -16.66 degrees Celsius. With the windchill, the built-in thermal regulators of their uniforms were proving wildly insufficient. Vulcans could withstand a wider extreme of temperatures, and for much longer than that of a human, but even this level of cold was a shock to his system. Too long planetside and they would be beaming back aboard in early stages of hypothermia, Lieutenants Uhura and Tabea in particular.

Already, snowflakes were beginning to fall intermittently.

"Anything?"

Spock shook his head, glancing down at his readings. "No, sir. The only life forms detected remain our own. Not signs of fauna or flora in the immediate area."

"That's unusual, isn't it?"

It was highly unusual. A deserted planet wasn't what any of them had expected upon arrival, but an entirely barren one had not even been up for consideration. With few exceptions, all planets they explored had at least something there, even if it were only foliage and insect life. Bacteria at the very least. It was possible that life remained in the planet's oceans; he knew that the Boa's previous imaging had shone numerous large bodies of water, but even the early Cambrian period of earth had evidence of plant life on landmasses.

It also brought into question the Seskille themselves. Any creature or being that could communicate with a ship in orbit would be far more advanced than a plant, and less common by a considerable degree. Although life existed in incomprehensibly vast quantities in the universe, intelligent life required very specific conditions to be met to exist as they understood it.

"Captain, we may also have another concern." Lieutenant Tabea spoke up, from where she was staring at her own tricorder. She was shivering violently now, head tucked down with her shoulders hiked high to protect her exposed neck. "There's an unusually high level of gamma radiation in the atmosphere.. and in the rock, the air, everywhere. It's all over. More than just standard background, but not anything immediately dangerous. I can't identify any source; levels remain consistent within scan range and don't seem to be showing an increase or decrease to point towards one. There shouldn't be any effects from exposure lasting even upwards of a few months—and even then, it'd likely be a very mild case of acute radiation sickness—but it's something to note for future colonies if mining negotiations succeed."

"Of course there is. Even the air here has to be an issue…" Kirk's mouth flattened into a thin line, eyes hard against the wind. Wind that was now proven to contained gamma rays and the potential for long term health complications, no matter how slim that possibility was. Spock wasn't overly concerned about the radiation itself—he too was studying the readings on his tricorder and calculated the danger to the captain and crew as minimal—but the cause of the radiation itself was a curiosity. Impossible to know for certain the origin without a rising or ebbing of millisieverts with which to provide a direction for tracing.

However, there was a growing problem that he could no longer ignore. His head had begun to hurt, worse than a mere headache and with an acute pain that felt different in a way he could not fully explain. The very air itself felt stifling, heavy and oppressive to Spock's mind. It was weighted, smothering, and a low throb was starting behind his eyes and pounding dully in his head. It felt as if something were pressing on him with intense force; an energy of great power. He took a moment to breathe in the chill of the air, ground himself in the hard rock beneath him, and to reinforce the barriers of his mind.

Control. Calm. Focus.

It was easier said than done. His meditation between the meeting and the landing party hadn't been as long and or as thorough as he would have preferred. His mental controls were not weak, but they were not currently operating under optimal efficiency. What thoughts and emotions he hadn't been able to sort through glared out like a wound; a glaring vulnerability. Breathe. Focus.

He observed his crewmates; they didn't display any outward signs of feeling ill or otherwise affected. There was curiosity and misery in their expression, signs of freezing due to the extreme temperature, but he could not discern there to be any show of pain otherwise. It appeared to be only himself who was suffering. He worked on his shields with haste and no small amount of desperation, hypothesizing that it was due to his telepathy that he was solely experiencing this. It would be of scientific intrigue to him, were it not so intensely detrimental.

He did not mention it to the captain. If it worsened… if his condition deteriorated further, he would re-evaluate the situation and make a more informed decision then. There were more important concerns now than the presence of a headache, ones that required his attention.

"Alright, everyone fan out into pairs. Keep within scanner range and report in every five minutes. Phasers set to stun and on standby, just in case. If something goes wrong, you return to these coordinates exactly and get out of here. No playing hero, no charging off to save the day. There will be no casualties this time around. Ambassador…" Kirk paused momentarily, glancing at the assembled team, and how the man in question hovered near Lieutenant Uhura. "…you'll be going with Ensign Kemen-Varley."

Ambassador Hammett looked disappointed. The women looked relieved. The man had not been subtle in his efforts at flirtation, and word traveled fast aboard the ship. The female crewmembers knew to keep a watchful eye on him and did their best to avoid interacting with the diplomat entirely. Even now, Uhura and Tabea wasted little time walking west into the tundra, arm in arm. Of the two remaining, the only one who looked pleased at the assignment was Ensign Kemen-Varley. The security officer was smiling viciously, eyes steely and glinting. He was well-known have a particularly low tolerance for discrimination of any kind, with the harassment of women being high on the list. His hand rested suspiciously close to his phaser, Spock couldn't help but notice with some level of bleak futility at the lack of professionalism. The captain undoubtedly noted the same, but he made no mention of correcting it.

Sometimes, the illogicality of his team was as exasperating as it was perplexing.

"Oh, but James, surely I could be more helpful here with the command team! After all, I do outrank you in matters such as these. I should be part of any major decisions, you know; my experience in first contact could be to your benefit. No offense, of course; you're a fine example of a captain, but you aren't a trained ambassador. I'll stay, and someone else can go. Your first officer, perhaps—"

But the captain didn't budge and cut him off. "Oh, but I assure you, Roger, that if and when I decide to make any of those major decisions, I'll give you plenty of advanced notice. As for first contact, we have to first find who we're supposed to contact. I don't know if you noticed, as you seemed a bit preoccupied by the wind down there, but we're all alone. In the meantime, I trust that Ensign Kemen-Varley will keep you well protected; you'll be safe and sound with him."

It was a warning for the ensign, as much as it was a placation towards the ambassador—albeit not a very politely phrased one. In fact, it was edging towards insubordination and would have raised flags were it not for the politely sincere tone of voice that the captain used. Hammett reluctantly trailed after the security officer, looking more than a little disgruntled. Kirk side-eyed him until he was far enough to be out of hearing range and then leaned in close so his murmured voice could be heard over the wind.

"… Safe and soundly out of my way. I swear…" Kirk shook his head absently. "Well, Mr. Spock, the adventure's ours. I don't know about you, but I've had just about enough of all this; time to clear up some confusion. The sooner we can get answers, the sooner we can get out of here."

There was a gentle tug on Spock's hand, breaking his concentration. He looked down. A golden sleeve, still securely wound between his fingers tightly enough to crease the fabric. Jim's sleeve. Spock realized, with no small degree of discomfiture, that he'd never released the other man from his protective hold against the wind. He did so now, belatedly, feeling a low and uncomfortable flush of heat climb at the base of his neck. But Jim only offered him a small smile, eyes warm and fond even in the frigid cold.

He straightened his posture, suddenly consciously aware of how close they were standing and how his mental shields, normally so rigid and prompt, hadn't considered the sustained physical contact to be an intrusion. It never did anymore, he realized; his barriers registered Kirk's touch as comfortable and familiar to him as his own.

The captain pulled out his communicator, flipping it open with a small chirp.

"This is Captain James T. Kirk, of the USS Enterprise," Kirk said in a voice that was all calm professionalism. He leaned over to examine Spock's tricorder screen and Spock angled it helpfully. Kirk's arm brushed lightly against his side as he did. It didn't cause discomfort to him, as it would otherwise have were it anyone else. Instead, he only felt a slow press of warmth through the blue of his uniform.

Silence.

No immediate response given, but the delay had been expected, if undesirable. Spock had theorized that the interval between messages would have reduced upon arrival to the planet; the landing party was now beneath the unknown energy shield, after all. The captain had vocalized his hope that the delay would be gone entirely. Hope was a human emotion and one he did not allow himself to feel, but the mission would have proved less tedious had the delay been eliminated.

Exactly 2.839 minutes passed, when finally—

"Greetings, Captain James T. Kirk, of the USS Enterprise, it is our happiness."

The same voice as before, welcoming and emotional with its inhuman vocals. With it, however, came the same whining, popping, and static howling. It railed against Spock's ears in a deafening screech, and he fought the urge to cover them with his hands. With the pressure building up in his head already, the sound was worse to him than it had been on the bridge. Whereas it had been mildly painful before, it was now almost excruciating in its intensity. He couldn't help the shudder that raced down his spine, nor the grimace that furrowed at his brows. He didn't need to look at the captain to know that he looked concerned, and so he smoothed his expression out as much as he could to appear unaffected.

A light touch against his arm, as if to steady him. It was grounding in a way he could not fully explain.

"It is our happiness as well." The captain looked anything but happy, still shooting Spock a cautious glance, but his voice did not reflect it. "My team and I have beamed down to the coordinates you provided, but we appear to be alone. Has there been a mistake with the location?"

In the silence that followed, Spock dedicated his focus to the tricorder scans, taking a detailed analysis of the rocky plains surrounding them. It was unlikely, but the possibility remained that they had missed a cave system of some kind that might explain the missing Seskille. The chance of it was slight enough to hardly be worth the mental energy to make the calculations, but doing so provided a distraction from the sharp spikes of pain in his head.

"We are here, Captain James T. Kirk, of the USS Enterprise. We would like greatly to show you what we have made and see what you have made; to share with you, as you share with us. We will learn from each other when you arrive."

Spock raised a brow, wincing at the screeching whine even as his focus moved from the scans to the captain. Kirk's expression was mystified, a brow raising as well as he met Spock's gaze. There had been no one here upon arrival but themselves, and even now the only life signatures in scanning range remained their own.

Behind them, the landing party had spread out into the distance. All of them were shivering, hands cupped to catch the warmth of their breath, but Lieutenants Uhura and Tabea looked particularly miserable as they huddled close together. The built-in thermal regulators in their uniforms could only compensate for so much. He felt a momentary sense of professional satisfaction in the performance of his crew as they worked diligently in suboptimal conditions.

Uhura, posture scrunched against the wind, was looking over her PADD in great detail as Tabea bent in to say something. It caused the other woman to give a loud, startled laugh. The two looked shamelessly over at the ambassador, who was sulking along behind Ensign Kemen-Varley. Spock did not think their conversation likely to be relevant to the mission objectives. Laughter between the two women erupted once more, echoing over the rocky slopes, and now Spock, eyeing them, was certain of it.

That previous professional satisfaction turned a sharp corner towards exasperation.

The captain cleared his throat.

"Yes well, we would like nothing more… however, there appears to be a misunderstanding. We have already arrived."

Perhaps it had been triggered by the shrill whine of the Seskille's communication, but the pain was worse than moment prior. The pressure in his head was building, becoming increasingly inconvenient and nearly unbearable. Spock had to pause, close his eyes against the insistent throbbing, and wrestle his control back. Pain was of the body, and the mind controlled the body; this was hardly the worst discomfort he'd felt before. The parasites on Deneva came immediately to mind when he considered the scale of suffering one could experience. He had controlled it then; he would do so with this now.

Only, the pain didn't feel as if it were in his head, it felt as if it were in his mind. There didn't seem to be a source he could isolate. No physical injury, no venom, no poison. Other than the present radiation, there did not appear to be any lingering toxins in the air—and the radiation wasn't a current concern of his. It certainly couldn't cause these symptoms. It was… concerning.

"Captain James T. Kirk, of the USS Enterprise, we are here, but you are not. We hope to share with you soon and experience what there is to experience."

Spock could tell that the captain was frustrated at the delay, and how stilted the conversation between himself and the Seskille was because of it. With the wait between responses, having very little information given during them was proving to be an unfortunate waste of time. The inhabitants of the planet, whoever or whatever they were, did not appear to be concealing anything maliciously—their tone sounded genuinely confused, based on his understanding of, and experience with, auditory emotional expression—but they did not expand on what they had said already.

"We are also here," Kirk said, and although Spock knew the man's emotional state of irritation, it wasn't present in his voice when he next spoke. Instead, that calm attitude took center stage, just as it always did when faced with adversity. Sometimes, he thought that the captain thrived on the challenge. "It is you who isn't. We appear to be entirely alone in the mountains and our scanners pick up no lifeforms around us. Can you confirm your location?"

The delay brought a muted relief to his mind. Every time the Seskille spoke, the whine and pop of the static bit at his control that little bit more. Focus. Calm. But those states were elusive to him right now and his head ached.

"Mountains! We are also in mountains. Many and vast mountains. We look forward to sharing them with you, and you to us, when you arrive."

The shrill screech, too high of an audible frequency for human ears, felt like knives piercing into his mind. He needed to meditate. He needed to focus. Control. He longed for his quarters now. For the stillness of his cabin and the spiced smoke of his incense. Regrets were illogical, but he could not help but wish he'd had more time to meditate prior to beaming down. Perhaps he would have been better able to fight off the pain that continued to bloom, dull and throbbing, in his head.

He looked up—

Spock paused.

For a just a moment, there… he blinked purposely and intently to clear his vision. For a fraction of a second, he was certain had seen—but there was nothing there now except wide, open tundra and snow steadily falling from the low hanging clouds. Exactly as he had expected there to be when he had looked up from his scans. Exactly what he should have seen, and somehow had not. Spock subtly observed his surroundings, wary and cautious and on edge now, but the fleeting image of his quarters aboard the Enterprise, with its red curtains and spice-scented darkness, did not reappear.

And it had appeared. So swiftly there and gone that he had barely time to process what he'd seen. His ship quarters, as if he were suddenly standing in them. Chess set still half played, waiting to be finished at a later date. The feeling of carpet beneath his boots. The heat. And then it was gone, in the span of a flicker. A blink and the snow was back to falling in an icy world around him.

Adrenaline coursed through him, speeding up the rapid beat of his pulse. His muscles, stiff with the cold, readied and warmed for a possible threat. Even with the pain blooming sharp in his mind, he kept a hawklike watch on his surroundings. His first thought was of the captain. Jim. Spock immediately marked the position and condition of him, but the other man did not seem to have seen anything unusual. Not for lack of looking, either; he was gazing over the tundra too, keeping close tabs on the rest of the landing party.

The captain's expression was, to put it politely, one of swiftly diminishing patience. Still, he took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. His carefully crafted protest, of which Spock could see him already formulating, went ignored in favor of expediency.

"Right, we're looking forward to it and hope not to keep you waiting too long. Please stand by while we try to work on a solution to this from our end; with some luck we can clear all this up. In the meantime, I'm transferring you over to my communications officer, Lieutenant Uhura—who I believe you've met already—to further coordinate." He closed the communicator with a small snap; the sound being stolen by the still brutal wind. In the distance, through the increasingly heavy snowfall, Uhura gave them a wave of acknowledgement.

"Well, that's… something. I feel like I'm playing a game: how to say a lot without saying anything at all and take a long time to do so. I'd say they're winning at it, too. Spock, any chance the coordinates were wrong?"

But Spock had already thought of this when the misunderstanding was first brought to light, and the numbers matched precisely. Someone absently, he provided them. "We are at the coordinates provided, accounting for a margin of error of 1.14 meters. Unless the numbers they provided were incorrect, we have landed exactly where they requested."

The captain didn't look pleased, but he didn't look surprised either.

"A mystery then, how lovely. You know, I've always enjoyed my puzzles and mysteries, but not in two-degree weather… and not when I'm about to get blown off my feet, either. That's just about where I draw the limit." But then Jim turned to him fully, looking him up and down with concern shining bright in his eyes. "Speaking of, Spock, are you doing alright? Just, you looked like you were in pain earlier. Is it the cold?"

The snow had picked up, falling in large flakes that stung at his skin. Spock had to narrow his eyes to see through it clearly. No unusual sights, no anomalies in his scans, no irregularities of any kind. The visual of his quarters had been so brief and unexpected that he could not be entirely certain he had truly seen anything at all. There and gone in the span of a blink.

It was also possible that he had not actually seen anything at all, and that this was merely the pain in his head influencing him. Pain could cause the sight to fail in inexplicable ways. He recalled attempting to take over the Enterprise in a fit of agony-induced madness caused by the Deneva parasite. He had not fully understood his own actions then, driven by pure impulse and agony, but even those horror-filled memories were full of the ship. His actions were highly questionable, but Spock knew his thoughts had been of the Enterprise in some fashion. And now, he had wanted to meditate badly enough, had imagined the dark solitude of his meditation space with the clarity of perfect recollection. It was possible…

The captain was frowning at him; Spock gave him his full attention, as if nothing had ever happened at all. Indeed, perhaps it had not.

"Vulcans can handle more extreme gradients of temperature than humans can, and for longer periods of time. It is not ideal, sir, but it is survivable."

Jim didn't look any less bothered, and Spock forced his own expression to soften somewhat, as much as stoicism would allow. Even with the throbbing in his head and the adrenaline beating at his heart, he made certain his brows were unfurrowed and that the lines of tension in his posture were relaxed. It took more effort than it should have to display an unaffected appearance, and it would not be able to hold for long; the pain even increased as he did so. Still, it eased the captain's distress and that was more than worth the cost to himself.

"… I am alright, Jim, do not concern yourself about me. I may not be comfortable, but the cold is not dangerous to me at present. In fact, it is I who should be concerned about your safety; you are not accustomed to this temperature either."

The captain let out a short laugh.

"Oh no, no, trust me, I am. Riverside is like this all winter long—worse even, you should have seen some of the blizzards growing up; makes this look almost balmy. You, on the other hand… Shi'Kahr only gets to down to, what, a little below forty Fahrenheit at night? With the highs in the one-fifties? I'd say that's a pretty big difference, Mr. Spock. A one-hundred and forty-eight degree difference, if you want to get technical…" Kirk shook his head, a reluctant smile spreading. "But if you assure me that you're okay—"

"I am."

"—then I'll stop fussing. If it gets too bad, just let me know and we'll get you back up to the ship to thaw out." Spock had no intention of doing so; not when his captain would remain down here in the cold. Not when he could not be certain there was no immediate threat. "In the meantime, our hosts appear to be both here and not here. Thoughts? Speculation? … I'll even take a wild shot in the dark at this point."

"… There will be no need for shooting in the dark, sir; it is noon and quite bright out. Should the use of phasers prove necessary, it will undoubtedly take place in adequately lit conditions." Spock understood the aphorism quite well despite his passing comment, but it made Kirk smile at him, amused. "However, I do not at present have enough data with which to form a reliable theory; it is possible that we are, to apply one of your phrases, missing a vital piece of the puzzle."

"Then let's go try to find some pieces."

The captain started towards the rolling, rocky outcropping of boulders and jagged cliffs and Spock followed somewhat reluctantly. If the situation were to turn dangerous—and he could not disprove with any certainty that it had not already done so—he would have preferred that Kirk remained close to the landing coordinates for a swift retrieval. Already, the mission did not have a positive outlook; there were too many uncontrolled variables. In his experience, large barriers encountered at the beginning of an objective would prove to remain throughout it unless they were otherwise able to be removed or worked through. He did not have high expectations for a positive conclusion, as these particular barriers appeared quite immovable.

Too many diplomatic missions had ended in multiple deaths and near total disaster. He did not believe in the concept of luck, but even he couldn't account for the series of unusual and often insidious circumstances the crew of the Enterprise found themselves in with alarming frequency. Jim in particular seemed to attract a statistically anomalous amount of danger. Spock had been working on the calculations for some time, hoping to find a scientifically precise explanation for this peculiar phenomenon, but no hypothesis had been finalized yet. No other starship captain in the fleet seemed to experience even close to the same number of unfortunate mishaps.

Spock had checked.

Perhaps it was something he would bring to Mr. Scott's attention during their next brainstorming session; it would be relevant enough to the chief engineer's interests and certainly another mind involved was better than one. There would be ample opportunity to theorize; he was working on a prototype Quantified Helioionization Buffer with the other man and they met often in Science to further their progress on the device. Rather, Spock met to further progress. Mr. Scott, on the other hand, seemed to consider it a fine time to socially air his grievances about anything and everything—the ship itself being the sole exception to his ranting.

However, if anyone had cause to be concerned about the inexplicable events that endangered the ship and crew on a frequent basis, Spock thought it likely that Mr. Scott would be high on the list. He certainly had enough motivation for suitable investment, even if it was primarily dedicated towards his engines. The man had proven himself to be easy enough to work with in both a professional and personal capacity, if unfortunately a bit too chatty. His leaps of logic—or illogic, as the case were—had been the difference between life and death on more than one occasion. Perhaps the two of them could calculate the numbers and then, more importantly, find a way to somehow counteract them.

Spock, as a scientist, would never hesitate to brave the unknown. This was not in question. But scientific advancement should not come at the cost of the ship, the crew, and his captain.

Especially not his captain.

His breath was more labored than it should have been, and this was concerning. The elevating terrain would normally not have been an obstacle to him; he had scaled mountainous outcroppings and jagged rock formations far steeper on Vulcan in his own youth. With the pain swelling in his head, it was increasingly clear that he was becoming compromised—quite possibly he had, in fact, already passed the threshold to be considered such. It was harder to put one step in front of the other evenly, although he forced himself to do so now with the same smooth pacing as Kirk. No expression, no sign of the advancing levels of pain. He did not want the captain to unnecessarily worry over what was, in all probability, nothing more than a particularly bad headache. It was illogical to waste time on this when the mission objectives took priority, when Jim's safety took priority.

In that, he would offer no compromise.

Spock knew with utmost certainty that, should he broach the topic of his worsening condition to the captain, he would be sent immediately back to the Enterprise for medical evaluation. The decision would be more than justified; he himself would not have hesitated to make an identical one were it another member of the crew who was suffering and approached him as such. It was logical. However, it was also unnecessary. It had not happened to another member of the crew. It had happened to him, and in his case, it was not intolerable. He had suffered intolerable pain before, at the Deneva colony, and had conquered it then. That he struggled to do so now was undoubtedly a personal failing of his, but not one that reflected the broad reality of the situation. He was more than capable of handling the pain. He had done so before. He would do so again.

If he returned to the Enterprise, Jim would remain here with the landing party. The landing party that otherwise consisted of three highly capable officers and an official Starfleet ambassador. Of those four crewmembers, only one regularly trained for combat; the others had specialties of their own. Should something go wrong, Spock would be best suited to protecting the captain. The objective of the mission was important. The objective of his own mission, that of keeping Jim safe, took priority above all else.

There was a degree of emotionalism that colored his motivations. That was undeniable, and he would be forced to process through his own irrationality at a later date. Spock understood that, accepted that. However, he also understood and accepted that this mission was not taking place under optimal circumstances and that there was a degree of danger involved. Especially now that he had experienced a visual anomaly. It might have been a brief hallucination or moment of confusion caused by the pain, but it also equally might not have been. He could not be certain, and this made him uneasy.

Kirk should be informed of it either way; it was the captain's duty to know the status of his team. Spock both understood and agreed with the logic. Except… he did not want to see Jim harmed when he might be able to stop it. He would be unable to do so if he were not here. The pain to himself was inconsequential when it came to the safety of his captain and his closest friend. If the resulting cost was his own comfort, it was a price he was more than willing to pay tenfold.

"What do you think? Continue up or start heading back down?"

Spock looked upwards from where he had been carefully navigating the quickly slickening terrain. The snowfall made each step largely precarious; already the sand-colored rock was coated with a thin layer of white. It reminded him of Vulcan in his youth; the way that the native tra-wan svai would bloom and coat the sand around the base of the low trunks with cloud-like petals. A familiar sight from his bedroom window overlooking the courtyard.

The scent of the flowers in the air, unmistakable and distinct.

He froze midstep.

Sweet and fragrant with a peppery undertone; not overpowering or overwhelming to the senses, even when its petals blanketed the sand in sheets. He'd always found the scent of them rather pleasant… but he'd also always found them on Vulcan, and Vulcan only. Not Seskilles VII, where he had yet to find evidence that plant life grew at all. Not a barren, rocky mountain with thick snowfall and sub-zero temperatures. It was impossible for them to be here; he could not see them, they did not register on his scans, they could not exist in this land, and yet, he knew that scent.

He carefully scented the air again, subtly, but the unique fragrance was gone just as swiftly as the wind blew. Just as swiftly as his quarters had been. All that remained was the chill of frost, snow, and cold, earthy rock. But for that split moment, he was certain—

"Spock?" The captain was staring at him.

He blinked, absently responding with something approaching autopilot rather than any intentional thought. "There is a crater less than one kilometer ahead containing large rock formations that might be of interest."

If anything, it would provide more distraction than the tundra below them; there was little further he could gain from the flat expanse of bare rock.

"Onwards and upwards, then."

Spock followed the captain silently, warily. Every few steps, he carefully tested the air for any hints of that distinct fragrance, any traces. The scent did not return, if it had ever been there at all.

The pain in his head only increased.

The aforementioned Deneva colony is a direct reference to the TOS episode: 'Operation - Annihilate!', which is a particular favorite of mine.

Vulcan:
K'oh-nar — The fear of emotional vulnerability and emotional exposure.
Awek'es — Solitude; the state or quality of being alone or remote from others.
Tra-wan svai — Cumulus Flower; the fluffy, cloud-like flowers that bloom from a specific native Vulcan tree.