"The fact, Spock, that, after all I've gone through this past week, immediately upon leaving Argo I can find myself experiencing the desire I currently do."
"Which is?" his first officer prompted.
Kirk's smile twisted slightly. "I'm thirsty." Spock continued to stare at him and Kirk stopped, his smile fading. "Well, what's the matter, Spock? You may not find it funny, but . . ."
"It's not that, Captain, the humorous coefficients of the elemental coincidence are decidedly scrutable. I merely am appalled at my lack of basic knowledge where the human body is concerned."
"What do you mean?" Kirk eyed him unsurely.
"I had not known that a case of aggravated thirst . . ."
"It isn't aggravated," Kirk protested, but Spock ignored and went on.
". . . could produce such startling changes in pigmentation. Or perhaps it has nothing to do with thirst at all, but is an after-reaction to our retransformation back to normal."
"Spock, what the hell are you talking about?"
"You will see more clearly in a mirror, Captain. No," he put up a hand to forestall the coming words, "I am not talking in riddles, Captain. You know me better than that. But your coloration most definitely is not normal. How do you feel?"
"Thirsty, as I said . . . and a little tired. Normal enough, under the circumstances." His voice turned slightly irritable. "I feel perfectly fine, Spock . . . I don't know what you mean. 'Coloration' again! It's nothing at all, nothing at all . . ."
PART II
THE
PIRATES
OF
ORION
(Adapted from a script by Howard Weinstein)
VI
"Captain's log, stardate 5527.3," Kirk declaimed into the armchair pickup as he surveyed the bridge. "My 'nothing at all' turned out to be the first symptoms of choriocytosis.
"Despite an initial outbreak during which several members of the crew apparently contracted the disease simultaneously, it appears to be under control now. Dr. McCoy insists it's no longer even as dangerous as pneumonia, and we have experienced no significant drop in performance. Therefore I foresee no difficulties in completing our newly assigned mission—representing the Federation at the dedication ceremonies for the new interspecies Academy of Science on Deneb Five." He clicked off the log, looked to his left.
"Status, Mr. Spock?"
"All systems operating at prime efficiency, Captain. We are on course and on schedule. I anticipate no deviations from the norm."
Kirk leaned back in the command chair and mused on the arduous duty they would be subjected to upon making landfall on Deneb Five. They would be forced to cope with an endless round of parties, gourmet dinners, the brilliant conversation of new acquaintances and the warm chatter of old ones. Yet, after what they had been through these past several months, he somehow believed they would succeed in muddling through.
"Be nice to play diplomat for a change, eh, Spock?"
Dead silence.
"Look, Spock," he continued, turning in the chair, "I know you find the hypocritical methodology of interstellar diplomacy somewhat obscene, but that shouldn't prevent you from enjoying the fringe bene—"
Without a word, without a sound, without a shift in expression or pose, Spock abruptly toppled over and crashed to the floor.
Kirk was quite capable of reacting quickly and efficiently to anything from the sudden appearance of half a dozen belligerent warships on the fore screen to impending dissolution of the Enterprise, from the sight of a being a hundred times larger than the ship to an entire metropolis no bigger than the bridge. But Spock's collapse was so totally unexpected, so deathly quiet and matter-of-fact, that for one of the few times during his tenure as commanding officer of the Enterprise he found himself momentarily paralyzed.
Even so, he recovered before any of the other equally stunned crew. A hand slammed down on the intercom switch.
"Kirk to Sick Bay—Bones, we've got an emergency."
While seemingly hours passed without aid appearing, they fought to control their feelings and do what they could. There wasn't much they could do, beyond untangling the first officer's crumpled limbs and laying him flat on the deck—and wondering what the heck had happened. Kirk had put an ear to Spock's chest and found temporary relief in the steady beat of a Vulcan heart. But no amount of exterior stimulation—or pleading—could return Spock to consciousness.
McCoy finally appeared, a mobile surgical bed and two medical techs in tow. Kneeling over the still form, he made a quick pass over head and torso with a portable medical transceiver, then directed the pair of assistants as they laid the motionless Spock on the bed.
Kirk followed them out, knowing better than to trouble McCoy with dozens of as yet unanswerable questions. As soon as answers were available, the good doctor would supply them without having to be asked.
On reaching Sick Bay, McCoy had Spock transferred from the mobile pallet to one of the much better equipped diagnostic beds. While the doctor smoothly adjusted the requisite instrumentation for Vulcan physiology, Kirk hovered nearby, watching, waiting for a determination of some sort. Kirk knew something about every instrument and machine on board the Enterprise, but many of the figures which blossomed on the glowing panel above the bed head meant little to him. Those whose meaning he could vaguely identify seemed to indicate the presence of an uncommon abnormality within the science officer's system.
McCoy prepared and administered a hastily concocted injection. Only when the applied serum took did he appear to relax slightly.
"I brought him out of shock, Jim," he finally said. "He's sleeping normally now. Choriocytosis is a strange disease. It's relatively simple to handle in races with iron-based blood, but in others . . ."
A warning tingle started in Kirk's mind.
"Get to the point, Bones."
McCoy appeared to consider something else for a moment, shook it off and eyed Kirk steadily. "Spock has contracted the disease. It's a nuisance to humans. To Vulcans it's fatal. Ninety-three percent probability, as—" his words slowed and finished almost imperceptibly "—Spock would say."
Kirk cleared his throat. "You're sure it's choriocytosis?"
"I've triple-checked, Jim, given the instrumentation every opportunity to prove me wrong." He shrugged helplessly. "I wish to God I was wrong, but you can see it eating at him. Look . . ."
He urged Kirk to activate a nearby view screen. While the captain did so, McCoy went to a cabinet. Selecting a tiny cassette, he slid it into a slot beneath the glowing screen, punched out commands on the operating panel.
A few seconds of blurred images raced across the screen as the cassette ran up to the place McCoy had requested. It slowed and commenced normal playback. You didn't need a medical degree to understand what was happening. One sequence stayed with Kirk long after he had left Sick Bay.
It showed a collage of healthy, green-tinted Vulcan cells. From screen right, a flowing yellowish substance slid like sapient gelatin into view. It divided, subdivided, to surround each individual cell. On being engulfed, the afflicted cells started to jerk unnaturally, their steady movements interrupted. Healthy green deepened to light blue, then azure, almost to purple before all internal motion ceased and cellular disruption took place.
On that threatening note, the tape ran out.
McCoy slid the casette free, juggled it idly in one hand, flipping it over and over as he spoke.
"The sequences you saw, Jim, were highly speeded up. Simply, the infection enters the blood and affects the cells so that they can't carry oxygen. For some reason, iron-based hemoglobin fights off the encirclement much better than copper-based. I wish I knew why. The result is obvious."
"Eventual collapse," Kirk supplied softly.
McCoy quit flipping the casette, put it back in its place in the cabinet then closed the sliding door with more force than was necessary.
"That's it, Jim."
"You said ninety-three percent probability of death, Bones. What about th
at other seven percent? Does that mean there's a cure?"
"Not always. But there's a drug that would certainly improve the odds in Spock's favor astronomically—if we could get it."
"Well get it," Kirk told him. His reply would have been the same if McCoy had requested the heart of a dead sun.
"It's a naturally occurring drag called strobolin. Sixty years in the lab and nobody's been able to synthesize it. It's a rare drug, Jim, but choriocytosis is a rare disease."
Kirk nodded, moved for the switch that would open the wall intercom and connect him to the bridge. Then something that had been scratching at the back of his mind finally broke through.
"Bones, if you knew we were experiencing an outbreak of choriocytosis on board and that it could be fatal to Spock if he contracted it—why didn't you order him into isolation until the disease burned itself out?"
McCoy looked away. "I didn't want to have to tell you, Jim."
"Didn't want to have to tell me what, Bones?" Kirk shot back, a little angry. "What could anything have to do with not telling me?"
"I said choriocytosis was a rare disease. My guess is your system was laid open to it—" he looked back, "—by the multiple alterations your circulatory system was subjected to while on Argo. In which case—"
"You didn't want to tell me that Spock and I had infected the whole ship." McCoy nodded, watched the captain anxiously. But Kirk appeared to bear up well under a revelation that might have affected a lesser man dangerously.
"Then, why did I and plenty of others get sick, go through the disease and get cured, and then all of a sudden Spock collapses?"
McCoy looked tired. "Incubation period, Jim. It's a lot longer for Vulcans than for humans. There was no point in telling Spock, nothing to be gained. If he had it, there wasn't a thing I could do about it."
"Why is the incubation period so much?" Kirk began, but McCoy cut him off angrily, his voice rising.
"Why, why, why, why! If I knew the answers to all the whys, choriocytosis wouldn't be such a putrid, disgusting—"
"Sorry, Bones," Kirk interrupted softly. There wasn't much else he could say. McCoy'd only been expressing the same frustration he felt.
Instead he activated the nearby computer annex. "Library!"
"Awaiting input," came the instant, mechanical reply.
"What is the nearest strobolin supply world to our present position?"
"Canopus Two," the library responded promptly. "Four days distant at maximum warp."
Kirk flipped off the annex and headed for the door, then stopped in mid-stride and returned, to stare down at the corpselike—no, not corpselike, he hurriedly corrected himself—the sleeping form of Spock.
"How long can he last without the drug?"
McCoy considered carefully, his momentary outburst already forgotten by both men. "I said strobolin couldn't be duplicated in the lab. That's so—but there is an artificially produced related serum I ought to be able to make up.
"All it can do is slow the disease, not stop it. The destructive agent rapidly builds an immunity to the serum. Despite all forestalling efforts, at the rate his blood is losing the ability to carry oxygen, I give him three days at best, Jim. Four days to reach the drug—and Spock will die in three in spite of everything I can do. That's," an odd expression came over him, "logical. Unless—"
"Unless what, Bones?"
McCoy looked guarded. "What about a rendezvous?"
"Of course! If we can't reach the drug in time, there's a chance that another Federation ship might be close to Canopus Two right now. There's got to be!" He was back at the intercom in seconds.
"Kirk to Bridge—get me Starfleet operations control for this sector, Lieutenant."
"Transmitting, Captain."
The logistics seemed beyond immediate solution. However, it was startling how much bureaucracy and red tape one could cut through by bringing the proper amount of priority demands, prime requests and insinuations to bear—all seasoned with a touch of judicious threats.
It was eventually decided that the starship Potemkin, presently on patrol in the region of Canopus, would pick up the requisite amount of strobolin. This would then be transferred to the interstellar freighter Huron for delivery to the Enterprise.
Kirk would have preferred meeting the Potemkin himself and avoiding any intermediaries. But there were certain requests even he couldn't have filled—tying up two starships for speedy delivery of a drug was one of them.
Spock was a valued officer—but he was only one. Starfleet had a plethora of personnel and a distinct shortage of starships. Vessels the class of the Enterprise and Potemkin were too few and far between for their missions to be casually aborted—or so said the reply to his request.
Kirk didn't argue with the logic of the missive, but the word "casual" in reference to Spock filled him with a quiet hatred for some unknown officer whose career had been spent behind a desk pushing paper.
On the other hand, if all went well they would still receive the drug in plenty of time. And McCoy had assured him that strobolin's effectiveness matched its rarity.
McCoy leaned against the wall in Kirk's cabin and watched his superior officer and good friend going through mental nip-ups. With the exception of Spock, he was probably the only one on board who knew that this was the first time Kirk had ever traded on his reputation to produce desired results.
Kirk hated officers who used "pull" to get what they wanted. So his embarrassment at doing so himself was understandable. McCoy repressed a smile. If the captain only knew the awe the rest of the crew held him in for being able to generate such action on the part of a notoriously somnolent bureaucracy.
Naturally no one showed the admiration they felt—everyone knew it would only embarrass him more.
As for himself, he mused exhaustedly, he had done everything it was humanly—or for that matter, Vulcanly—possible to do for the mortally ill first officer. Now he must devote his energies to ensuring that Kirk wouldn't fold up as the critical rendezvous approached. The last thing he wanted was two important patients.
"What are the symptoms like, Bones?" Kirk finally muttered idly, staring at the ceiling. The three-dimensional desert diorama projected above his bed offered little comfort.
McCoy shrugged, tried to make the terrifying sound casual. "Increasing difficulty in breathing, coupled with a corresponding drop in efficiency. All the signs of someone working under extreme altitude conditions. Kind of like the standard Academy mountain survival test. Remember that one?"
That memory produced a small grin . . . very small. It vanished when the door buzzer sounded politely.
"Come."
The panel slid aside, and the subject of all the recent activity walked in. Spock showed no sign of the concern or trouble centering on him. His uniform and posture were immaculate, as usual. His expression was bland as vanilla, as usual. Only in his movements could one who knew him well detect something amiss. Lift of hand, drive of leg, all were just a hair slow, the movements of a man recently arisen from a deep sleep.
Or slipping into one, Kirk thought morosely.
"You wish to see me, Captain?"
"Yes, Spock. Sit down."
With a quick glance at McCoy, who in trying to avoid it only made his concern more obvious, Spock took up a seat facing Kirk. The captain swung his legs off the bed, sat up.
"We've arranged a rendezvous to pick up the drug you need."
"I trust it will not affect our scheduled arrival at Deneb Five, nor our duties there?"
"No, it won't," Kirk said gently.
"What's the matter, Spock?" put in McCoy in a forced attempt at levity, "afraid you'll miss the first dance at the Federation Academy ball?"
"I'm afraid I do not dance, Doctor."
"You can say that again," McCoy countered, but he did it without a smile and the attempted joke fell flat.
An awkward pause ensued while Kirk considered how to proceed. With any other member of the crew he wouldn't have had to.
But could he simply say what had to be said to Spock? The first officer perceived certain things differently than others. Would he be offended? Angry? More than anything else, Kirk wished now he knew more about Vulcan customs—and etiquette, in particular.
"Will that be all, Captain?" Spock asked, giving Kirk no more time to hope for divine intervention.
"One more thing, Spock," he began, without meeting his first officers gaze. "I've considered very carefully. Based on Dr. McCoy's recommendations—(that's it, make Bones the heavy, James T. Chicken)—I've decided to cut your duty time in half."
A faint glimmer of something close to emotion seemed to shine behind dark pupils. "Captain, that won't be necessary. I am perfectly capable of . . ."
A hand came down on his shoulder and he glanced around and up. McCoy, firm, not joking now.
"No argument, Spock. Doctor's orders."
Kirk watched his first officer carefully. No reaction. Of course not—a sign of health in itself.
"That's all, Spock," he said curtly, before his friend could offer additional rejoinders. "Dismissed."
Spock nodded once, rose and walked slowly to the door. McCoy relaxed perceptibly as soon as the portal closed behind him.
"Whew. He took that better than I expected."
"He took it like Spock—no, that's not fair of me, Bones."
"Forget it, Jim. I know how you feel—it's hard, watching him like that and waiting for the collapse you know is coming. I just wish there was something more I could do for him."
"It'll hurt seeing him go steadily downhill."
McCoy looked philosophical. "The only other alternative is to confine him to quarters, or to Sick Bay. I don't see any point in that. It won't do anything for him from a physical standpoint and it could only hurt him mentally. So I see no harm in letting him—"
"Feel useful in his last hours?"
Both men stared quietly at each other, each lost in his own thoughts—the strongest presence in the room that of one who was no longer there.
Star Trek - Log 5 Page 9
