“Aye, sir.”
“If you think you can negotiate with the Klingons, by all means try it. But I don’t hold out much hope there.”
McCoy raised an eyebrow. “They don’t seem too big on the Organian Peace Treaty.”
“We’re a long way out, Doctor.” Kirk turned back to Scotty. “Get the crew home safe.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“I know you will.”
Kirk turned to look at Spock. In all the time Kirk had been awake, the Vulcan hadn’t moved an inch. He looked paler than usual, like a corpse prepared for viewing. Not a comforting thought.
Kirk glanced at McCoy, who flashed him a tight smile. Then he looked over at the alien device that held all their lives in its cold, metal grasp.
“Dr. M’Benga,” Kirk said. “Send us back in.”
Kirk’s first impression is of a rush of bright red and blue, hazy yet familiar. Then the fog clears, and he and McCoy are standing on the bridge of the Enterprise.
But not, he realizes quickly, my Enterprise.
The alert tones sound different: longer, less sharp, more dissonant. The bridge stations sport an older, gooseneck style of personal comm screens. Star charts display an entirely different sector of the galaxy.
And in the center chair…
McCoy nudges Kirk. “Is that—”
“Yes. Chris Pike.”
Not only is it Christopher Pike, Kirk’s predecessor, but a younger Pike than Kirk has ever seen before. Younger even than in the Talos IV record-tapes. Pike sits, frowning at a padd, oblivious to Kirk and McCoy’s presence.
Kirk looks around. The bridge is fully staffed—and no one else seems to notice him or McCoy, either. A young helmsman turns to Captain Pike.
“Space warp engaged, Captain. On course to Delta Aurigae III.”
“Mmm.” Pike doesn’t look up.
“Jim. Look.”
Kirk follows McCoy’s gaze to the science station. A young Spock—again, younger than Kirk has ever seen him—is engaged in deep-voiced conversation with a handsome, dark-haired woman.
“Number Five,” Spock says. “That is what the crew calls you?”
“That’s right.” The woman smiles tightly. “Because I’m fifth in command. Sixth, actually, counting the Captain.”
“That is logical.” Spock hesitates; he’s not used to being around humans, Kirk realizes. “And you do not object to this appellation?”
Number Five shrugs. “It reminds me how far I have to go.”
Spock raises an eyebrow.
Kirk and McCoy move closer to them, fascinated. Spock, Kirk notices, is an ensign.
“This is the main science station,” Number Five says. “Just remember: When the captain asks for something, give it to him fast and to the best of your ability. You’re only stationed here temporarily, till we pick up Science Officer Yu at Delta Aurigae.”
Spock nods, studies the controls.
“Bones,” Kirk says softly. “I think we’re seeing a memory…of Spock’s first day aboard the Enterprise.”
McCoy smiles. “You don’t need to whisper, Jim. They can’t hear us.”
Suddenly the scene freezes, and the sounds stop. Pike stares, unmoving, at his padd; Number Five halts in mid-gesture. Only Spock moves, turning to face the two visitors.
“I can hear you, gentlemen.”
“Mr. Spock.” Kirk smiles, reaches toward the Vulcan. “Do you know us? Do you know who we are?”
Spock’s eyebrows narrow. He frowns and flinches away, toward the science console. “Captain Kirk,” he says slowly. “Dr. McCoy.”
McCoy nods. “That’s right.”
“Spock,” Kirk continues. “Do you realize what this is? Where we are?”
Spock glances around, and a brief flash of fear crosses his impassive features. He looks so young, Kirk thinks. Untouched, as yet, by the scars of the Psi 2000 virus, by the agonies of the Denevan parasites, and most of all, by the violation of the mind-ripper.
“The Enterprise,” Spock says. “The United Starship Enterprise.” His pronunciation is odd, accented. As though, Kirk realizes, he’s never said the word Enterprise before.
“No,” Kirk replies. “This isn’t the Enterprise. It isn’t real.”
But Spock is moving away from them, pacing the bridge with powerful, nervous steps. “The Enterprise,” he repeats. “My first posting in Starfleet. And I don’t know how to do this.” He pauses, looks fearfully from Number Five to the unmoving, frowning Captain Pike. “Too many humans. Too much chaos—too much illogic.”
“Spock—”
“Jim.” McCoy touches his elbow. “Let me try something.”
Kirk nods.
“Mr. Spock,” McCoy says. “You say there is too much illogic here?”
Spock nods. His face is impassive now, but his movements are still jerky, frightened. “Illogic—yes. And more. Danger.”
“Well, what you want to do is take it one step at a time.” McCoy smiles now, the very picture of a friendly country doctor. “You’ve been trained in how to deal with illogic, right?”
Spock does not answer. He looks up at the ceiling, then down at the science console. “Danger,” he repeats. “Danger from within.”
“Now, never mind that,” McCoy continues. “Just use your training, Spock. You mentioned a technique before—what was it? Chaotic Response—”
“No!” Spock turns to them, panicked now. “Danger from within. Now!”
Suddenly, across the bridge, the engineering console explodes. A junior lieutenant flies backward, screaming, and sparks rain down across the bridge. Pike stands quickly, and alert sirens begin to blare.
The bridge has come to life.
“Phaser control reports overload!” the helmsman says.
Number Five is already at the engineering station, fanning away smoke and squinting to read the remaining active controls. “Radiation leak,” she says. “Contamination, deck five.”
“Warp drive has cut out,” the navigator reports.
“Science officer!” Pike turns urgently to face Spock. “Report!”
They still can’t see us, Kirk realizes.
Alert klaxons blare. Number Five coughs, recoils as her hand touches a burning switch on the engineering station. Medics exit from the turbolift, kneel down to attend to the wounded lieutenant. And backed up against the science station, looking around with wide eyes, stands Ensign Spock.
Frozen with fear.
The deck shifted violently, and a few instruments clattered to the floor. M’Benga grabbed onto Kirk’s diagnostic bed to steady himself, almost yanking one of the Klingon machine’s connector leads off the captain’s forehead. He swore.
The intercom bleeped. M’Benga crossed to the desk.
“Dr. M’Benga here. What’s going on?”
“The Klingons are back for another round, Doctor.” Scotty’s voice sounded tense—understandably, M’Benga thought. “How are things down there?”
Another blast shook the ship. M’Benga gripped the edge of the desk, glanced over at his unmoving patients.
“Shaky.”
“I could use the captain and Mr. Spock.”
“Hang on.” Grimacing, M’Benga ran to Kirk’s bed, examined the diagnostic for a minute. He shook his head, then returned to the desk.
“Their synaptic movement has plateaued at a wildly accelerated level, Mr. Scott. I don’t know what’s going on in there, but I don’t dare bring them out now. The shock would probably kill them.”
Another impact, even greater than before. McCoy’s unmoving form shifted, moved dangerously close to the edge of the bed.
Through the intercom, M’Benga could hear cross-chatter on the bridge. The new ensign’s heavy Russian accent, alternating with Mr. Scott’s clipped burr.
Then Scott’s voice came through again. “It’s your call, Doctor. But if they don’t come out soon, we may not have a ship for them to come back to.”
“Understood.”
; M’Benga cut the connection. He glared at the Klingon mind-ripper, glowing with dark, electric energy. Even if I understood that thing, he thought, I wouldn’t dare adjust its settings. The amount of energy coursing through the three men’s minds was recklessly high.
M’Benga’s eyes swept from Kirk’s unmoving form to Spock, whose hands were twitching now, just slightly. Then he walked over to McCoy, spoke softly.
“Physician, you better hurry up and heal yourself,” M’Benga said. “And your friends.”
Outside, in the cold of space, the Klingons circled around for the kill.
Spock’s mind is a welter of chaos. Flashing red lights. Shouting people. Smoke, small fires. Illogical human minds, pelting and assaulting him with their panic and their flaring, emotional thoughts.
“Science officer!” Captain Pike says again. “I said, report!”
For just a moment, Spock sees two Klingon cruisers, arcing around toward him with phaser turrets glowing. No, he thinks. That’s not right. Not Klingons; this is a phaser control emergency. An internal problem with the newly refitted ship, a malfunction. That’s how it happened before.
Before…?
The two men are still here, too. His friends.
“Jim,” one says. “I think something’s going on outside—on the Enterprise. Our Enterprise, I mean.”
“We’d better deal with this problem first, Bones.”
Stop, Spock thinks. Go away. Leave me alone. I cannot deal with this; no Vulcan could. This is too much.
Again the thought flashes through his mind: I will die here.
Then one of the men—Kirk—has him by the shoulders. “Spock,” Kirk says. “Listen to me. We have to get out of here—all of us. Your mind has retreated into this fantasy. But we’re staring right down the barrel of reality now—and it’s charging full phasers, locked straight on us.”
The man’s eyes are probing, knowing. Spock turns away.
“Your logic training,” Kirk continues. “Use it. Use it to get yourself out of this.”
McCoy steps forward. “For God’s sake, Spock…if you were ever a Vulcan, be a Vulcan now.”
Captain Kirk’s eyes stare imploringly. Past him, Captain Pike’s glare is just as steady, and much more hostile. A yeoman hovers over Pike’s shoulder, staring at Spock along with the rest of the bridge crew.
Once more, Spock hears Salak’s taunts: Mr. Spock is part human.
Logical thought is lacking in humans.
And then, the Teacher:
These are deliberately adverse conditions for logic.
Recall your techniques of Chaotic Response Suppression.
Focus.
Spock turns to the science station. “Contamination is limited to deck five; damage control reports four casualties,” he says. “Recommend sealing off deck five, port side, including emergency battery room and officers’ lounge. All personnel, decks four through six, should be issued rad treatment packs.”
Pike stares at him and begins to nod slowly.
“Do it,” he says to the yeoman. She nods and moves off.
The crew move about, carrying out their tasks. Spock ignores them. The smell of smoke, the clamor of alert sirens: all these, he pushes to the side of his consciousness. He closes his eyes.
“Spock—”
He holds up a hand, and Kirk falls silent.
“There are two phases of Chaotic Response Suppression,” Spock says aloud. “Phase One is the calming of mental processes. This plants the garden where logic may bloom.”
The bridge sounds fade around him. All is calm; all is logical. The garden is green once more, and he stands within it. Gathering strength from its pure, ordered serenity.
Kirk and McCoy are still with him in spirit. He can feel Kirk’s mind, in particular, close to his. Lending him strength.
He continues speaking aloud, to focus himself. “Once the mind is calm,” he says, “Phase Two may commence. The employment of logic; the cold weighing of variables, of priorities. The strict code of controlled, emotionless judgment that saved my people from destruction, millennia ago.”
“Yes,” Kirk says.
Spock studies the green, healthy vegetation, feels the calm air. The sun shines warm, but not hot, on his back. This is a good place…a peaceful place. A place of logic.
“When the mind has been trained to remain calm at all times, the student has achieved Kolinahr…the state of total, eternal logic.”
“Ugh,” McCoy says.
“I have not achieved that state. Perhaps I never will. And yet…at this moment, my mind is calm.”
Kirk nods. “Stay with it, Spock.”
Spock looks around. He is alone here, and yet…
“All else has receded,” Spock continues, “yet you persist. The two of you remain in my mind.”
“Like bad pennies.” He can feel McCoy’s wry smile.
“Therefore…logic suggests…”
Spock hesitates. Kirk’s consciousness hovers nearby, merged partially with his own. Supportive, but not intrusive. Watching, carefully, the process that will hopefully save all three of their lives.
Something shakes, violently. Pike’s Enterprise? Kirk’s? Spock’s own mind?
“…that only you two, out of all of this…”
“Spit it out, you blasted Vulcan!”
“…are real.”
Then Kirk and McCoy are there, shining mental constructs standing tall and proud in Spock’s garden of logic. They reach out and take Spock’s strong hands in their own.
“I understand,” Kirk says.
Together they look to the sky, as they have always done, as they will always do. And together they rise, up and out, toward the bright star above and the unknown reality beyond.
Kirk’s eyes flew open. He sat up, immediately alert.
To his right, McCoy groaned, rubbed his head. Kirk turned to the left, saw Spock lying still, his eyes wide open. Those eyes looked tired, but Kirk could see that they were taking in every detail of the scene, every piece of information available.
And so am I, he realized.
“Was that…a mind-meld?” McCoy asked.
“Of sorts,” Spock replied. The Vulcan struggled to rise, then slumped back on the diagnostic bed.
Dr. M’Benga eyed them each briefly, then moved to the Vulcan. “You’d better take it easy, Mr. Spock. You’ve been through a lot.”
“Indeed,” Spock murmured.
Kirk’s mind was spinning. Yes, the Klingon machine had merged their minds together. Spock had drawn strength from him and McCoy, enough to reassert his Vulcan disciplines and pull them all out of his mindscape.
And Kirk? Had he also taken something from the merge…?
“Captain. Doctor.” Spock’s voice was raspy, his head almost perfectly still on the bed. “My thanks.”
McCoy sat up, pulled the leads off his head. “It was worth it, Spock. Now you owe me one.”
Kirk looked at his first officer, weak and unmoving on the bed. He recalled the way Pike had barked at the Vulcan, the trauma it had induced in Spock’s mindscape.
Maybe I have been a little hard on Mr. Chekov, Kirk thought.
The ship shook with a harsh impact. Kirk looked up in alarm. He recognized the distinctive vibration of a phaser attack.
As if on cue, the intercom blipped.
“Any progress, Doctor?” Scotty’s voice said.
Kirk tested himself, swung his legs around, and climbed to his feet. He crossed to McCoy’s desk, pressed the intercom button. “Kirk here, Scotty. I’m on my way.”
“Glad to hear it, Captain.”
McCoy stood with M’Benga now, over Spock’s body. Kirk hesitated, remembering his own words to McCoy a short time ago. He moved to their side.
“Mr. Spock,” Kirk said slowly. “I could really use your help.”
Spock nodded, tried to rise. “Just…one moment, Captain…”
He slipped, fell back onto the bed. McCoy and M’Benga grabbed him together, rolled him
onto his back. Spock lay still.
“I’d advise against it,” M’Benga said.
“Absolutely not, Jim. Not possible.”
“Bones…”
I need Spock, he started to say. I need his guidance, his ability to sort and evaluate information. I need his talent for—
—Chaotic Response Suppression.
The moment the phrase popped into Kirk’s mind, he saw the whole process laid out before him. Phase One: Calm the mental processes. Allow the garden to bloom. Push all external stimuli to the side. Phase Two: Employ logic. Evaluate all variables dispassionately, emotionlessly—
Kirk had never realized before just how rigorous Vulcan logic training really was. Spock had studied all his life—years, decades—to train his mind to this peak. And now…
Now, he realized, I’ve absorbed it all from him in a matter of minutes.
Those skills would fade, he knew. That was the nature of a mind-meld. Like a dream, the particulars would melt away, while the core memory of the experience remained.
But right now, Kirk possessed all the mental discipline of a Vulcan.
He closed his eyes, cleared his mind, and employed Chaotic Response Suppression. He saw the possible scenarios on the bridge, all the various ways the battle against the Klingons might play out. He inserted himself, with his new abilities, into the scenarios, one by one. All in the space of a millisecond.
And something else, too. His own human intuition—the unquantifiable, illogical talent that made him a starship captain—became part of the process. He could not only see the various scenarios, not only sort the necessary data. He could also pick and choose among those scenarios, zeroing in on the actual outcomes of each possible action. He could see which way the Klingons would jump if prodded. How far he could push the engines beyond their specs. How each of his officers would respond under pressure. How much pounding his ship could take, and how much the Klingon cruisers would withstand.
Beyond any doubt, Kirk knew: I can do this.
He looked over at Spock, who was struggling to rise again. McCoy and M’Benga protested, holding his arms.
Constellations Page 18
