Chapter 6

Commander Spock's quarters, 18.18 ship time

Remaining finally alone in his quarters was much looked forward to. And much welcome.

Just like in the morning, Spock paused in the middle of the room to take long deep breaths with closed eyes. He was in no rush now, so he began finally releasing his muscle tension and taking time to review the course of the day and analyze it hour by hour.

After having to endure the bridge crew's initial excitement , Spock had then worked through his shift fairly uneventfully, mostly catching up on all the information that had accumulated at the science console and keeping a side glance on the current readings, which were unremarkable. Also he kept occasionally exchanging words with Captain Kirk, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov, but only concerning the ship's state, the ship's course and the conditions in the space around them. He even had time to do some breathing exercises while at his console.

Spock then ended his shift at the due time and had a scheduled medical evaluation in sickbay with a still unusually non-talkative doctor McCoy and a still-beaming Nurse Chapel, joined by an enthusiastic Doctor M'Benga. To whom, for all his previous experience, the existence of the third eyelid in Vulcans was equally news. So Spock had to explain that he had had absolutely no logical reason to discuss it with anyone before. And then he had to endure a predictable enough storm:

"I am your DOCTOR! WE are your doctors! And you are… you are… I don't even know how to call you on this! You like to be a mystery, Mr. Spock, I get it, suit you fine - but one day it will cost you your LIFE!" All of it was not from Doctor M'Benga, naturally.

Thankfully Doctor M'Benga, from his side, took it easy and only congratulated Spock on his luck, promised to get in contact with the Vulcan Health Institute on this topic, and made Spock promise he'd help him with his research later. And thankfully it was the only outburst Doctor McCoy had during that medical evaluation. This was good for the peace in the Universe – but then, not a very good sign for the doctor himself, if you applied some logical analysis to his typical behavioral patterns.

The Captain was present at the evaluation, but the CMO carefully avoided looking at him or addressing him, and only answered curtly to direct questions. Then Spock and the captain left sickbay and had dinner at their usual table in the Officer's Mess Hall. Spock was pleased enough to do both things, and also to discuss the successful end of the Deneva mission with Jim. It was really a great victory. They both wished Jim's brother had lived to see it, but they both agreed Sam died fighting and he and his wife were true heroes to try and send warning to the Enterprise like they did. They both agreed then that Doctor McCoy should have a proper rest and Jim promised to grant him a holiday. Spock firmly declined the suggestion that he too needed a holiday – he just needed to resume his meditation sessions in the off-duty hours. Then the Captain walked the First Officer to his quarters, engaging now in "small talk"(and sometimes casting him side glances oddly resembling the doctor's side glances in the corridor in the morning. The word that seemed to define them best was "incredulous"). But then Spock politely refused the offer of a chess game and stepped into his quarters alone.

He needed time and space alone to truly put himself together. He needed to meditate. This was more important than any medical procedures, more important even than sleep.

Meditation was a highly private experience, so Spock turned off all his notification signals and the intercom, and locked the door properly on privacy code. Should the captain suddenly need him, he knew he could come in person. Everything else could wait.

Spock ordered the headlights off, leaving only a small lamp at the bed. With the dimly-lit red curtains, now the bedroom part of his quarters reminded him of a sunset on Vulcan. He removed the bathrobe discarded on the bed early this morning and smoothed the covers on the bed not slept in for several nights. Nothing should distract him. Taking his meditation cloak from the wardrobe, he put it on and instantly felt warmer. Ordering the temperature full ten degrees higher, to relieve the chill in his body because of his depleted energy level, he took off his Starfleet boots and sensed the relaxing softness of the carpet under his bare feet. He wished it were the warm sands at the real sunset… But regrets were irrational.

Opening the antique gold chest that held matches, coal, incense and herbs, Spock fell into the familiar relaxing ritual of lighting the asenoi, the fire-pot held by the winged statue, and sprinkling aromatic substances over the glowing embers. Then he stepped back into the space of his less-furnished office room, not taking his eyes from the flames, and performed a stretching sequence from Suus Mahna to ease the muscle tension and decompress his spine after a day of mostly sitting down. Sitting down in a chair for a long time was something that Spock always found uncomfortable, so he often could be seen standing near his station or walking back and forth between it and the Captain's chair. (Sure enough, he was mocked for his "restlessness" – by Jim of all people, who could never sit straight for a single minute). The reason for this was simply that he was much more accustomed to sitting on the floor. Years in Starfleet couldn't change that.

Finishing his preparations, Spock stepped closer to the ancient statue, lowered himself on his knees on the carpet and sat back on his heels. Out of a variety of positions, that was the position for a deep meditation that nevertheless allowed full awareness of the physical body. He flexed his shoulders to shake away any remaining tension and lowered his head. Inhaling deep the aromatic fumes that by now filled the room, Spock closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing.

Taking a long breath, he held it counting the heartbeats, then carefully let it out, making the exhale much longer than the inhale. The same breathing sequence again and again, releasing the tension, releasing the traumatic memories, sensing his heart rate slow down.

My thoughts are not me, I am not my thoughts – let them pass and fade away. My emotions are not me, I am not my emotions – let them pass and fade away. Like the birds that fly over the horizon, like the clouds that fade away in the heat of the sun. Fade away and never come back. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight… Hold breath. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight… Release very slowly. One, two, three, four… sixteen. Hold. Listen to the heartbeat and the blood flow. Sense the life energy. Sense it grow stronger within you with each intake of breath. Like fire showing through the cracks in the stony ground. Let the peace sweep over it like the cool night wind. Breathe…

Many cycles of this, and he stopped counting. His body was now in the state of calm, not interfering with his mind anymore. His breath was now even, silent and effortlessly deep. His mind was in control of his body once again. The flow of life energy through his body was strong, and it was under his mind's control once again. So Spock willed the flow of energy through the body meridians to restore those places in his body that still were not completely healed. It took many minutes.

The healing of his mind took longer, or rather the beginning of it. Simple analysis of his experiences was not sufficient in a case like this, with all that happened to him these past few days. He was already through with the preliminary analysis – now he needed to heal his mind on a deeper level. To deal with the things he had never experienced before and had no frame of reference to compare them to. One meditation sequence would not be sufficient either, it will take days and many sessions, but now at least he was in the safe solitude of his quarters and could start the process.

Going into the deepest layers of the subconscious required greater concentration than usual, and also it required departure from the verbal-based thinking and scientific analysis. Also it required departure from conscious self-control, but in a good way that helped to navigate the subconscious freely. This was something he learned to do by himself, not quite in line with the Mental Disciplines and their techniques. Or rather he discovered this ability of his in his adolescence, during sleepless nights. It was more akin to human "lucid dreaming", or else to the Ancient Vulcan mysticism. He heard stories about the Old Masters of Gol who were capable of something like that – of the visionary experiences, the clairvoyance. No mantras were used here, no verbally-controlled visualization, no thought analysis, no verbal or mathematical symbols. This was something not quite explained by words or by figures. When going to the deep layers of subconscious, words and figures became redundant – the deep subconscious was the realm of visual images, sounds and… yes, emotions. All that lay beneath, hidden. All that could be controlled by will and certain skills, but was so hard to understand.

Ken-tor rik'faiyan… *

And the ultimate goal of the deepest meditation was Total Silence, the Great Void which was where the Universe came from. It held all the answers, past and future – the answers that were not explained even in images and visions. One just knew. And a small part of that Great Void existed very deep inside the mind of each living thing. The Kohlinar masters were trained to reach it effortlessly and to align their being with the very essence of the Universe. That explained why they were never troubled by the mundane anymore. But Spock, as capable a psychic as he was (oddly enough, his human half seemed to actually give him benefit in his psychic powers – his mother called it "intuition") - without that special training he could only attempt to approach the deepest layers surrounding that void. This still was deep enough and worked well for him. When he invested enough time and concentration into his meditation, he could succeed. This time he did.

Spock leaves the verbal plane of his mind and mutes the signals from his body. The layers of mental landscape are like the geological strata on the mountain side which then becomes the wall of a ravine, and he slowly and carefully descends down, down, away from the bright sunshine of logic and into the darkness and hidden fires of below. His breathing is Movement that gradually becomes Sound that gradually becomes Light…

And then he descends deeper – into Silence.

Commander Spock's quarters, late evening

After 21.30 Commander Spock, now much more balanced and rested, decided to give his attention to the much-accumulated command paperwork and, taking his PADD, saw a private message signal on it. The message came at 20.01, when Spock was meditating in silence, and it was from his captain, flagged "important". Spock briefly wondered why the captain hadn't come himself. It was a short – and carefully worded – message, asking Commander Spock to read the attached message and tell him what he thought of that, off the record. Also the Captain was informing Commander Spock that he had already tried to deal with the issue in both official and unofficial ways - with little to no results, so it looked like he needed assistance from his First Officer. In fact, it looked like the XO's assistance was the only hope, strange as it might seem.

Spock's eyes widen as he takes in the meaning of the attached message. After reading that problematic message (written by Doctor McCoy in the most official form possible) Spock closes his eyes with a sigh. Just when he thought he could have some peace… Spock, son of Sarek son of Skon son of Solkar, heir to a long line of tradition of the Vulcan Way of Logic, dating back to Surak himself – Spock finds himself losing his newly-found balance all over again.

Spock made several intercom calls to the doctor's quarters that evening and sent several messages to the doctor's personal PADD. He got absolutely no answer. The communication channels were most likely blocked. So finally Spock called the captain again and compared their results. Negative.

*Ken-tor rik'faiyan – "to understand without knowing", one of the concepts of Vulcan philosophy.