Crucible: McCoy

by David R. George III

  “I see,” McCoy said, rising to his feet. He wondered just what Spock wanted to talk about, but understood that it must be significant for the first officer to seek his counsel in this way. “Go ahead. What’s said here will stay here.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Spock said. “What I want to ask you about is the human grieving process.”

  “Ah, I see,” McCoy said. “Well, as I’m sure you know, grief for a human being is a response to loss. On a very basic level, it’s generally accepted that there are five stages: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In reality, grieving is more complex than that, an ebb and flow of processes that may include the stages in any order, omitting some, repeating others. In many ways, it is an experience unique to an individual, though the broad parameters allow for an understanding of what most humans go through.” Weeks ago, after the deaths of Jim’s brother and sister-in-law, the doctor might have expected this conversation with Spock. At that time, the captain had withdrawn emotionally, isolating himself as much as he could while maintaining command of a starship, and he’d also displayed periods of depression and anger. In fact, after the first officer himself had been infected by a neural parasite, Jim had heatedly and single-mindedly ordered McCoy to do whatever he had to in order to help his nephew and Spock, and McCoy had needed to remind him of the million Denevan colonists who also required help. But that had been nearly a month ago, and Jim had seemed far more like himself of late, particularly within the last week or so. He said as much to Spock.

  “Would you consider the captain’s behavior normal then?” the first officer asked.

  “Under the circumstances,” McCoy said, “I think he’s adapting quite well. We’re not all Vulcans, Mister Spock; we can’t simply turn off our emotions when they become inconvenient to us.” He hadn’t intended to sound quite so harsh, but sometimes Spock’s expectations demanded too much of people and did not adequately take into account human behavior.

  “I think you misunderstand me, Doctor,” Spock said, walking farther into the room. “I am not concerned that Captain Kirk has taken too long to accept the deaths of his brother and sister-in-law. I am concerned that he has not taken long enough.”

  McCoy blinked. “What?” he said, sure that he must have heard Spock incorrectly. “What is it you’re concerned about?”

  “I believe,” Spock said, “that Captain Kirk is not coping with the recent losses he has suffered.”

  That brought McCoy up short. “Forgive me, Spock, but I find it odd to hear you making a judgment about somebody else’s feelings.”

  “And why is that, Doctor?” Spock asked. “I do not need to experience an emotion in order to recognize its detrimental effect on an individual, any more than a physician needs to have a particular disease in order to diagnose it.”

  “That may be true,” McCoy said, walking out from behind his desk, “but I understand disease.”

  “And I understand emotion,” Spock maintained. “Nevertheless, I have come here seeking the benefit of your experience, both as a doctor and as the captain’s friend.”

  “You’re right,” McCoy said, feeling a bit sheepish. After all, Spock had stated at the outset that he had come here wanting his opinion. The doctor turned and made his way back around his desk, where he dropped into his chair. “So you’re worried that Jim hasn’t been showing enough emotion?”

  “Not that he hasn’t been showing enough emotion,” Spock corrected, “but it is my belief that his behavior demonstrates that he has not adequately dealt with the string of losses he has just endured.”

  “I don’t know, Spock,” McCoy said. “He seemed to me to be clearly grieving during the time we spent at Deneva. It’s only in the last week, since we left there, that he’s begun acting more like himself. He’s also been helping his nephew handle the devastating loss of his parents.”

  Spock paced across the small room, into the far corner. Folding his arms, he looked over at McCoy. “It is your evaluation, then, that the captain has had sufficient time to cope with recent events?” He appeared unconvinced of that conclusion, and in truth, McCoy didn’t know either.

  “I can’t tell you that,” he admitted. “But I can point out that Jim has dealt with death a lot in his life. Three dozen of the crew have died since he took command of the Enterprise, deaths for which he feels directly responsible. Both of his parents passed away when he was very young, and at the age of thirteen, he witnessed the cold-blooded extermination of four thousand colonists on Tarsus Four.” McCoy paused, momentarily staggered by the scope of his claim. “I know Jim loved his brother and sister-in-law, but the unfortunate fact is that he has often had to weather such losses.”

  Spock nodded, steepling his index fingers together before him. “I submit to you, Doctor, that this situation is different than any of those the captain has otherwise experienced. I believe that he is attempting, on an emotional level, to ignore the deaths of his brother, his sister-in-law, and Edith Keeler.”

  “Edith Keeler?” McCoy repeated. He knew that Jim felt terrible about having to allow Keeler to die. Still, she’d been killed in a replay of history, and her name seemed out of place on a list that included deceased members of the captain’s family.

  “Yes,” Spock said. He let his hands fall to his sides and walked over to the desk, where he took a seat across from McCoy. “Doctor, do you know how long Captain Kirk and I spent in 1930 prior to finding you at the 21st Street Mission?”

  “I thought—” McCoy started, then realized that he didn’t know. “I suppose I just assumed you’d gotten there right before we found each other.”

  “The captain and I lived in the past for forty-seven days,” Spock said. “Enough time, I’m afraid, for Jim to fall in love with Edith Keeler.”

  The information surprised McCoy and better explained Spock’s concern. “How close did they become?” McCoy wanted to know.

  “I believe that they loved each other deeply,” Spock said. “I believe that Jim considered Miss Keeler…I think the phrase is, ‘the love of his life.’”

  McCoy listened as Spock related an account of the time he and the captain had spent in the past, and of Jim’s romance with Edith Keeler. The doctor said nothing, but began to understand the gravity of the first officer’s concerns about the captain. When Spock had finished, he sat quietly, apparently waiting for a response.

  “I can see why you’re worried about Jim,” McCoy said at last. “I never ended up speaking with him about his time in the past because of everything that’s gone on since: first my recuperating from the effects of the cordrazine overdose, then dealing with the neural parasites on Deneva. I wasn’t aware of what transpired between Jim and Edith Keeler. But do you really think his refusal to actively deal with his loss is impacting the captain’s ability to command?”

  “It does not appear so,” Spock said. “But I think it is impacting Jim’s life.”

  “All right,” McCoy agreed. “What do you think we can do about it though?”

  “I believe that you need to assess Jim’s emotional state for yourself, Doctor,” Spock said. “If you think it is warranted, then you and I must ensure that he receives psychiatric assistance.”

  “While that might be a good idea, Spock, I’m not sure we can make it happen,” McCoy said. “You know Jim. He’s not due for his annual physical exam for another ten months.” For the first time, McCoy lamented that, not long ago, the requirement for regular crew medical examinations had changed from quarterly to yearly. “Without concrete justification, it’ll be impossible to get him to submit to a psychological evaluation.”

  “Fortunately,” Spock said, “we possess such a justification.”

  “But you just indicated that his emotional state is not affecting his captaincy,” McCoy said.

  “That is correct,” Spock said, and then he cited a fact overlooked by McCoy during and subsequent to his cordrazine recovery: Jim had refused a medical exam after returning from the planet of th
e Guardian, despite regulations that made a physical mandatory after a visit to a newly discovered world.

  “I’ll pay the captain a visit later,” McCoy said. “I’ll have him in sickbay for a workup by the end of the day.” Although satisfied that he would be able to examine and speak with Jim and make his own determination about him, McCoy also worried about what such a meeting would reveal.

  Eight

  1930

  In the first traces of dawn, Edith reached over the rear of the lorry bed, grasped the near corners of the burlap bag, and pulled. Filled with coffee beans, the heavy sack moved perhaps two inches before she lost her grip. She exclaimed quietly to herself—“Blast!”—and although spring had officially begun a few weeks ago, her breath still puffed out before her in petite clouds, the chill, early morning air masquerading convincingly as winter. She shivered inside her cloak, pleased that she’d worn gloves, but wishing that she’d chosen a heavier outer garment.

  As Edith leaned in again for the bag of coffee, she heard the hard scrape of shoes on the pavement behind her. Assuming that the lorry driver had returned from hauling a crate of eggs into the mission, she didn’t bother to look around. “I think I’m going to need some assistance with this,” she said. Rik normally helped unload the weekly delivery of supplies, but his sinuses had been congested last night, his overly deep voice evidence that he’d caught a cold. Edith had told him to stay home and rest today, and she’d come down early herself to open the mission for the driver.

  “I’d be happy to take that for you, Miss Keeler,” a man said, and Edith looked over to see Dr. McCoy walk up to her.

  “My, but you’re up early,” she said. These days, McCoy frequently joined Edith and Rik in preparing for the morning meal, but that didn’t happen until the hour before she opened the doors of the mission at seven o’clock. Knowing Rik would stay home today, she could have asked the doctor last night to let the lorry driver in and help him unload, but McCoy worked hard, and she hadn’t wanted to ask him to rise an hour earlier than usual. Right now, glimmers of orange-red had only just appeared in the sky, ushering in the nascent day. The gibbous moon, recently full, hung low and partially visible behind city buildings as it sank toward the horizon.

  “Well, I guess I had to wake up early in order to help you, now didn’t I?” McCoy said affably. He stretched his upper body across the back of the lorry and took hold of the sack of coffee beans. As he did so, the light shining through the open front doors of the mission caught his features in a way that drew attention to the dark circles below his eyes. The grayish blue commas lent the doctor a tired appearance, and she suspected that he’d been having difficulty sleeping.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Edith said. As he hoisted the bag up onto his shoulder, the strong, rich aroma of the beans drifted to her.

  “My pleasure, ma’am,” McCoy said. He headed across the sidewalk and into the main room of the mission, and Edith followed him inside. While he and the lorry driver continued unloading the rest of the supplies, she began pulling the overturned chairs down from atop the tables.

  When McCoy had brought in the last item—a large container of powdered vegetable stock—Edith went back outside and paid the driver out of the mission’s coffers. She went back inside, closed and locked the front doors, and headed toward the kitchen. Along the way, she passed the doctor’s coat, which he had draped across the back of a chair. Still cold herself, though, she opted to leave her cloak wrapped about her and her gloves on until the place warmed up.

  Making her way into the kitchen, she saw the new supplies stacked neatly in place. McCoy, wearing a denim shirt and black trousers, kneeled at the far end of the narrow space. He had prized open one of the crates and now finished loading eggs into the icebox tucked in the corner. He then stood up and retrieved one of the large percolators, which he began setting up.

  “It’s still early,” Edith said. “We don’t need to get ready just yet.”

  McCoy shrugged. “I don’t have anything else to do at this time of day,” he said.

  “Actually, I thought that you might stoke the furnace for me,” Edith requested.

  “That’s already been taken care of,” McCoy said. “It should warm up in here in no time.”

  “How very efficient of you, Doctor,” she remarked good-naturedly, though she also recognized the truth of her statement. In the month McCoy had been at the mission, he had never wavered from his exceptional work ethic. Even among men desperate for jobs, his determined efforts continued to cause him to stand out, which lent credence to his claims of being lost and amnesiac, rather than being on the run. More than that, though, since revealing his unwillingness to move out of the mission, he had given her no reason to doubt him.

  With a sense of guilt, Edith recalled her visit to the police office a couple of weeks ago. Detective Wright had been unable to locate any report of a missing person who matched the doctor’s description, nor had he identified any unsolved crimes for which McCoy could reasonably have been considered a suspect. In fact, Wright had unearthed no information whatsoever about the doctor, indicating the likelihood that McCoy had never been in trouble with the police, at least not in New York City.

  Edith bent down and gathered a wire rack filled with coffee cups from beneath the long, deep sink. She lifted it onto the serving counter, placing it beside the early-morning edition of The Star Dispatch, which she’d brought from home. Before emptying the rack, she unfolded the newspaper so that she could look at its front page while she worked. As she unloaded the coffee cups onto the counter, she skimmed the headlines. In the bottom right corner, she saw an article titled GANDHI AIDE STARTS JAIL TERM. Simultaneously interested and appalled, she read the dateline—the story had been filed in BOMBAY, INDIA—and the lead sentence: “National Congress President Jawaharlal Nehru, a chief aide to Mohandas K. Gandhi, began serving a six-month prison sentence for his violation of the Salt Law.”

  “Doctor,” Edith said, “have you been reading about Mohandas Gandhi and what’s been taking place in India?”

  Now loading coffee beans from a sack into a hand-cranked grinder, McCoy did not look up. “Gandhi?” he said, as though not quite familiar with the name. “No, I haven’t been reading the newspaper lately.”

  Edith remembered the doctor declining an opportunity to read The Star Dispatch just after he’d recovered his health, but she still would have guessed that a man of his obvious intelligence would keep himself informed regarding current events. Perhaps the uncertainty of his personal circumstances had prevented him from doing so. “It really is an astonishing story,” she told him. “Do you know about the Salt Law?”

  “No,” McCoy said, slowly shaking his head, as though unsure. “I’m afraid I don’t.” With the grinder filled, McCoy began working the device’s crank. The beans snapped and popped as the mill’s blades pulverized them.

  “It is one of the means that the British Empire employs to maintain its colonial rule over India,” Edith explained. Feeling warm now, she peeled off her gloves and dropped them on the counter. “The law forbids the sale and production of salt in India by anybody but the British government. They also charge a tax on the purchase of salt, which helps fund their occupying government.”

  “I imagine that salt is a particularly important commodity there,” McCoy said, “considering the heat and humidity in that part of the world.”

  “That’s right,” Edith said. She reached up to the front of her neck and began unbuttoning her cloak. “What’s more, salt occurs in abundance in India and is easily accessible to people. But the law forbids them from collecting it themselves, which forces them to purchase it. And many of the population are poor.”

  McCoy stopped cranking the grinder and at last looked up. “That’s terrible,” he said.

  Edith nodded as she removed her cloak and set it down atop her gloves. “A month ago, in protest, Gandhi began walking with about eighty followers toward one of India’s coastal cities. It took them more than three
weeks, but they traveled almost two hundred and fifty miles. When they arrived, Gandhi boiled a clump of mud in seawater in order to produce a small amount of salt.”

  “In defiance of the law,” McCoy said, the tone of his voice appreciative. “Quite a symbolic act.”

  “Yes, but not simply symbolic,” Edith said, and she picked up the newspaper from beside her cloak. “It’s turned out to be motivational as well.” She stepped over to the doctor, folded the paper in two, and held it up so that he could see the bottom half of the front page. “Since then, tens of thousands have broken the law, and many have been arrested—” She pointed to the item about Nehru. “—including some Indian leaders.”

  McCoy scanned the article for a moment and then asked, “What about Gandhi?”

  “He hasn’t been arrested yet,” Edith said, “but people fully expect that he will be before long.” Anger flared within her at the injustice of the situation, at the unconscionable treatment of India’s citizenry by the British imperialists. Still, her frustrations could not forestall the esteem she felt for the man they reverently called Mahatma. Tossing the newspaper back onto the counter, she said, “Gandhi truly is an extraordinary fellow.”

  “He is,” McCoy agreed.

  “He’s provoked a rebellion without taking up arms,” she went on admiringly. “He has dedicated himself to achieving complete independence for his people, but through nonviolent means such as civil disobedience. It is remarkable.”

  “That’s one of the right ways to change the world,” McCoy said.

  “ ‘One of the right ways?’ ” Edith asked.

  “This—” The doctor pointed a finger around the kitchen and then toward the main room of the mission. “—is another.”

  “My father used to believe that,” Edith said. She felt immediately wistful about the man who had by himself raised her into a young woman, and whom she had adored. All these years later, his loss still had the power to overwhelm her.