Evidently having convincingly demonstrated to the Melkotians the benevolent nature and motivations of the citizens of the Federation, the crew had then been welcomed to the aliens’ world. Jim had actually taken down to the planet a smaller group—just Scotty and xeno-anthropologist Delgado—to make first contact, leaving Spock in command of the ship, and ordering McCoy to confirm Chekov’s health after the ensign’s illusory death. The doctor didn’t particularly mind not being included in the real landing party—he generally embraced any chance to avoid having his molecules scattered through the universe by that infernal transporter—though if pressed, he’d have to admit to a curiosity about Melkotian physiology. If the being he’d seen during the counterfeit landing party had been an accurate depiction of a Melkotian, then they possessed an interesting bodily structure. Through simulated fog, McCoy had made out a thin and extremely long neck, a roughly textured gray-green hide, and a mouthless face with large, glowing eyes. For now, though, he would have to settle for reviewing Lieutenant Delgado’s scans and report once the landing party returned. In the meantime, he would follow the captain’s orders and examine Chekov.
“I’m not dead,” the ensign said, “but one of these days, I think a visit to sickbay might just change that.” He smiled, but in a nervous way that betrayed his anxiety.
“Relax,” McCoy said, “and that’s an order.” Chekov looked momentarily as though he might continue to object, but then he shook his head and hopped up to a sitting position on the edge of the diagnostic pallet. He muttered an acknowledgment while McCoy moved in closer to him. The doctor raised the scanner and waved it slowly in front of the ensign, beginning the physical as he almost always did, by checking his patient’s heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration. The readings all appeared well within the normal range for a healthy human male of Chekov’s twenty-three years. “According to my instruments,” McCoy joked, “you really are still alive.”
“Then I can go?” Chekov said, his expression brightening for a moment.
“One more comment like that,” McCoy replied, “and I’ll be examining you in the brig.” He switched off the portable scanner and placed a firm hand on Chekov’s shoulder. “Now lie back and let me do my job so that you can get back to yours.” The ensign resisted the pressure McCoy applied to his upper arm for just a second, but then relented and reclined on the pad. The doctor reached up and activated the diagnostic panel above the head of the pallet. The display came to life, the circular pulse and respiration monitors blinking red in time with Chekov’s heart and lungs, corroborating the readings McCoy had already taken. The white triangular indicators rose along the vertical scales as they too measured the ensign’s bodily components and processes.
Just as McCoy prepared to call to Nurse Chapel, she entered from his office. She held out a data slate to the doctor. McCoy took it, handing her his portable scanner in exchange for the device. He peered at the display and spied a list of Chekov’s previous exams, with a brief summary accompanying each. McCoy quickly scanned the list, recalling the incidents that had necessitated the repeated certification of Chekov’s health: his removal from the Enterprise by the android Norman, and his subsequent exposure to Harry Mudd; his contact with tribbles, Klingons, and other aliens aboard Space Station K-7; his abduction by the Providers of Triskelion, and his ensuing captivity among members of various alien races; his proximity, along with the rest of the crew, to the vast, enervating, spaceborne protozoan that the ship had encountered; and his transformation by the Kelvans into a compact polyhedron comprising his essence.
Several other entries filled the rest of the screen, and McCoy took note of them before bringing up a record of Chekov’s most recent medical evaluation. As he reviewed it, Chapel moved across the room and returned with a small rolling cart of medical equipment. With the nurse’s assistance, McCoy began his examination of Chekov.
For some time, the physical proceeded without incident. McCoy ran tests, recorded observations, and discussed the process with Chapel as they worked. Chekov for the most part remained quiet, though he did ask several questions along the way, and at one point, balked at McCoy’s assurance that a particular procedure would not hurt.
McCoy had nearly completed the exam when he noticed an aberrant, and yet familiar, reading. Not wanting to alarm Chekov—especially since there appeared to be no real reason for concern—he asked Chapel to assist him with inputting the ensign’s medical information. He told Chekov that they’d be back shortly and then walked with the nurse back into his office.
Once they reached his desk, out of earshot of the ensign, McCoy said, “Do you see a discrepancy there?” Standing on the opposite side of his desk from the nurse, he held out the data slate to her, pointing to a set of readings on the far right side of the display. Chapel studied the screen for a few moments.
“I don’t see any abnormalities,” she finally said.
McCoy walked back out from around his desk and over to the nurse’s side. He found the set of readings that had caught his attention and again pointed to them with his forefinger. “There,” he said. “The expected and calculated energy output of the central nervous system.”
“From Doctor M’Benga’s algorithm?” Chapel asked. “I looked at those numbers. They’re well within the range he established as normal.”
“What concerns me aren’t the numbers themselves,” McCoy said, “but the fact that one of them has changed.”
“What?” Chapel said. “Which one?”
McCoy grabbed the stylus and used it to split the screen in two, keeping Chekov’s current readings on the upper half of the display. On the bottom, he called up another set of measurements, recorded the last time that the ensign had been examined. That physical had taken place just a few months ago, during the annual crew evaluations. McCoy found the numbers provided back then by M’Benga’s algorithm and circled them. “There,” he said. “From Chekov’s last exam.”
Chapel looked with McCoy at the readings. The first, gauging the expected energy output of Chekov’s nervous system, precisely matched the corresponding calculation they’d made today. The second number, though, which quantified the actual energy output of the ensign’s nervous system, now showed an increase. McCoy could see that the change hadn’t been dramatic, and that the new assessment still fell well within the expected norm, but—
“This change is negligible,” Chapel said, echoing his thoughts. “And according to Doctor M’Benga’s paradigm, there’s nothing unusual about such a value.”
“I know, I know,” McCoy said. “But in all the other crewmembers we’ve examined in the year or so since we started using the algorithm to calculate these quantities—”
“Since we visited Deneva,” Chapel said.
“Yes,” McCoy said. “In all the time since then, only one other member of the crew has ever shown any change at all in their numbers.” McCoy thought back to the Enterprise’s time at Deneva, and how the value measuring the actual energy output of Jim’s nervous system had spiked immediately afterward. The captain’s numbers had remained constant since then, and he’d shown no ill effects as a result of the higher reading, but it bothered McCoy that he did not understand the cause of the change.
“Could it be a simple flaw in Doctor M’Benga’s formulae?” Chapel asked. She handed the slate back to McCoy.
“Possibly,” he said. “But here’s what concerns me.” He quickly tapped out a series of commands on the slate, then showed its display to the nurse. “Chekov’s had a lot of exams in the last year, and here are his M’Benga numbers from each of those evaluations.” He ran the stylus down a list of paired numbers, each duo identical to the next, but for the last entry.
“They’re all the same,” Chapel noted.
“All but the final reading we took today,” McCoy said.
“What do you think it means?” Chapel asked.
“I don’t know,” McCoy said. “Maybe nothing. As you say, it may simply be a flaw in Doctor M’Benga’s
algorithm. And even if it’s not, there’s no indication at all that such a small change in the numbers is any reason for concern.” Though he did not say it, McCoy thought about Jim’s readings, which had shown a far greater increase than Chekov’s now did, and yet the captain had been in virtually perfect health in the year since that increase had first been detected.
“What should we do?” Chapel asked.
“Take these readings over to Doctor M’Benga,” McCoy decided. “We should find out what he thinks. Ask him to run an analysis on the numbers, and on his algorithm.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Chapel said, and she accepted the slate back from him. He reached over and settled the stylus back in its place above the screen. The nurse exited into the corridor, and McCoy headed back into the outer sickbay compartment.
“Is there a problem, Doctor?” Chekov asked, raising himself up onto his elbows.
“Not at all,” McCoy said, his manner intentionally casual. “Now lie back so I can finish up here and get you back to the bridge.” Chekov complied, and McCoy resumed his examination. It didn’t take long to complete the ensign’s physical, and no other readings appeared out of the ordinary. As best McCoy could tell, young Ensign Chekov seemed to be completely healthy.
And still, even after Chekov had left sickbay, even after M’Benga had reported no problems with either his algorithm or the ensign’s readings, McCoy could not shake the feeling that he himself had missed something, that he had overlooked the significance of the discrepant numbers, both for Chekov and for Jim. For two days, McCoy pored over the medical records of both men, enlisting the assistance of the ship’s entire medical department, and still he could find nothing. Finally, despite having nothing concrete to report, he decided to take his concern to Spock.
Fifteen
1932
Edith set the spoon down in the empty bowl that one of the visitors to the mission had left on the table, then slid the bowl to one side. Using the damp cloth she’d brought with her from the kitchen, she wiped clean the breadcrumbs and spills of soup the man had left behind, then dried the surface with a second cloth. When she’d finished, she tossed the makeshift towels—actually remnants from the mission’s boxes of old clothes—over her shoulders, picked up the bowl, and started for the kitchen. As she did, she caught sight of Leonard standing on the other side of the counter, doling out cups of coffee to the men lined up there. On his face, he wore no expression at all, and that troubled her.
Edith continued into the kitchen through the swinging doors, where she put the bowl down in the long sink with the other dirty dishes piled there. Stepping up beside Leonard, she asked, “Do you need a hand?”
“No, that’s not necessary,” he said as he tilted the large metal coffee pot down, pouring the dark, steaming liquid into a white cup.
Edith didn’t move, instead waiting until Leonard looked up at her. “How are you feeling?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he said, and he offered her a smile that fell a long way from touching his eyes. She returned it and went back out into the main room of the mission, but she knew that the time had come. She didn’t really understand why, but she could pinpoint when it had happened.
In the months since New Year’s Eve, when a skein of penny bangers had been set off near them in Times Square, Leonard had shown a marked change in his demeanor. He still worked his construction job, still volunteered his time at the mission, still lived in the same flop in her building, but now the life seemed to have gone out of him. Edith recognized the similarity of the sound of the firecrackers to that of gunfire and feared that the incident had reminded Leonard of some traumatic event from his past. He appeared careless and despondent, and it concerned her.
An hour later, the matter remained at the center of her thoughts. She stood over the basin in the kitchen, washing the night’s dishes, as the last of the visitors to the mission left. When she heard the front doors close a few minutes later, she knew that the two other volunteers who’d worked here today had also departed. She peered over her shoulder and into the main room, where she saw Leonard locking up and pulling down the shades. Edith rinsed the bowl she’d just scrubbed, and after setting it in the drying rack, she went out into the main room. “Leonard,” she said.
He looked up from the front of the room, where he’d begun overturning chairs and placing them atop the table. “Yes?” he said, and she interpreted his unanimated face as a mask of despair.
“I’d like to talk with you,” Edith said. She walked over to the table nearest the kitchen and gazed across the room at Leonard. “I’d like to know what’s wrong.”
“Wrong?” Leonard said, shrugging and looking down at the upside-down chair in his hands. “Nothing at all.” He put the chair down on the table, then moved to the next chair. Edith sensed that even he knew that his words sounded unconvincing.
“If you don’t want to say anything to me, that’s fine,” Edith told him, “but I’d very much appreciate it if you’d listen to me.”
Leonard set the next chair down and then moved on to another. “Of course,” he said.
“I’ve known you for a long time now,” Edith said, lifting her hand to the top of the table beside which she stood, and nervously tapping on its surface. “Even though I don’t know where you came from or what sort of life you lived before we met, even though you refuse to talk about yourself—” Leonard stopped lifting the chair and opened his mouth as though to speak, but she raised the flat of her hand to him. “If you’re going to protest that you’ve no memory of your life before the 21st Street Mission, please don’t. I’m not disputing that. What I am saying is that despite all of that, I think I’ve gotten to know you.”
“Probably so,” Leonard agreed. He held the chair motionless before him.
“Please believe me then when I tell you that I know there’s something wrong,” she said. “And that I know that it’s something different than your failing memory, or that your friends haven’t come here to take you back home. And whatever it is that’s wrong, it started on New Year’s Eve.”
Leonard set the chair back down on the floor and rested his hands atop its back. “You’re very perceptive,” he said.
Edith bowed her head in acknowledgment of the compliment, but quickly moved on. “I can’t imagine that after all this time, you’d want to talk with me about your troubles.”
Leonard lifted one hand from the chair and then dropped it back down in a gesture of helplessness. “I really can’t,” he said.
“Can’t?” Edith said. “Or won’t?”
“Does it really matter?” Leonard asked.
“I think it does,” she said. Suddenly, Edith felt the distance between them in an almost palpable way. She crossed the room until she stood before Leonard, where she pulled out two chairs still on the floor. She took a seat and said, “Would you sit with me?”
Leonard didn’t move for several seconds, a long enough time that she thought he might refuse her invitation. Finally, though, he sat down with her. “Edith,” he said, “I don’t want you to feel insulted, but—”
“I don’t,” she interjected. “Not at all. I know that whatever’s bothering you has nothing to do with me, and I know that I’ve been a good friend to you.”
“You have,” Leonard said.
“Well, it’s because I’m your friend that I want to talk with you right now,” she said. “I don’t know what’s distressing you, and I’m not even asking you to tell me. Whatever it is, though, let me help.”
Leonard smiled then, in a way that he hadn’t earlier. His teeth showed, and his skin wrinkled at the edges of his eyes. “I know that you want to help,” he said, and at that moment, Edith knew that he would never allow her to do so. She also knew what she would have to do. “If there were any way at all that you could help, I’d tell you,” he said.
Edith leaned forward in her chair. “Leonard,” she said as gently as she could, “I think it’s time for you to leave.”
“What?” He
seemed genuinely startled by the suggestion.
“You’re stagnating here,” she explained. “You’re not happy here. You never have been.”
“I…I thought my work here was appreciated,” he said, conspicuously not denying her characterizations.
“It is,” she said. “It most certainly is. Because of that, I know that wherever you go, you’ll help people.”
Leonard stood up abruptly and strode away from her. He reached the front corner of the room, away from the doors, and then spun back around. “Are you really asking me to leave?” he asked, apparently incredulous.
“Leonard,” she asked him, “where did you come from?”
“I told you that I have amnesia,” he said, somewhat belligerently.
“I don’t mean where were you before you came to the mission,” she clarified. “I mean, where were you born?”
“Oh,” he said, and he hesitated, evidently disarmed. Edith wondered if he would keep even this piece of information from her, but then he didn’t. “I…was born in Atlanta,” he said.
“Atlanta,” Edith repeated. “Georgia.” She couldn’t prevent herself from smiling at even this small detail of Leonard’s life. He had kept so much hidden away that just the disclosure of his birthplace delighted her. “I suppose I always knew you came from the south.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Leonard said with an exaggerated drawl. She laughed and then he did too, diffusing the tension that had risen between them. Leonard walked back over to the table, where he stood behind the chair in which he had sat just a few moments ago. “Edith, do you really want me to leave?”
“I don’t want you to leave,” she said. “I like you, Leonard, and I certainly appreciate everything you’ve done here at the mission. But I think you need to leave. This isn’t the place for you.”
Crucible: McCoy Page 18
