Crucible: McCoy

by David R. George III

  He looked up at her, and her heart felt touched anew at the sight of his brilliant blue eyes. “Oh, no,” he said, “I’m quite all right, thank you.” They gave each other little smiles, and she became acutely aware of the other two strangers watching them.

  “It is the will of the Oracle,” she said to them, “that you now be treated as honored guests.” She turned and moved back across the room to where Jonsa and Lai worked over the food and drink. Jonsa had begun pouring the alacoya, she saw, and Natira waited until the four stemmed silver cups had been filled. Then she passed her hand from one to the other, silently invoking the blessing of the Oracle to the visitors.

  When Natira had finished, she returned to the strangers. “It is time to refresh yourselves,” she announced. Jonsa and Lai each carried a tray over to the group, Jonsa’s with the cups of alacoya, Lai’s with several different varieties of sliced fruit. The stranger with the pointed ears, Spock, picked up a cup and handed it to Kirk, who thanked him, while McCoy selected a cup and offered it to Natira. She leaned forward and took it from him, her hand brushing his and causing a surge of emotion to rush through her. Her gaze met his with no thought to hiding what she felt, and he did not look away.

  “To our good friends of Yonada,” Kirk said, and Natira bowed her head toward him in acknowledgment. He and McCoy sipped from their cups, though she noted that Spock had left his own sitting on Jonsa’s tray.

  “We are very interested in your world,” Spock said, and Natira thought that perhaps she could find a way to be alone with McCoy sooner rather than later.

  “That pleases us,” she said to Spock.

  “Good,” Kirk said, “then you wouldn’t mind if we looked around.”

  “Not at all,” Natira said. “The people know of you now.” When the strangers had first arrived on the surface of Yonada, they had come without warning, and the Oracle had commanded that they be captured and brought before Him, to ensure that they not surprise or harm the people. Though some had seen the strangers being brought into Yonada, now all the people knew of their arrival, and also that the might of the Oracle had been demonstrated to the three men.

  Natira wanted to invite McCoy to remain with her as his friends explored Yonada, but before she could, he began to cough. “Are you well enough to go about?” she asked, concerned, but also seeing a less obvious means of seeking his company.

  He looked up at her, his blue eyes arresting. “Perhaps not,” he said, and she thought that maybe he had actually tried to find a way of staying with her right now.

  “Then why not remain here?” she asked, her smile surely giving away her joy at the prospect. “Rest,” she said. “We will talk.”

  “You are very kind,” McCoy said. Natira exulted inside that it had been that easy, and she hoped with all of her being that it signaled McCoy’s desire for her.

  “You are free to go about and meet our people,” she said to Kirk and Spock.

  “Thank you,” Kirk said, setting his cup back down on Jonsa’s tray. “And thank you for taking care of Doctor McCoy.” The slight grin on Kirk’s face told Natira that her attraction to McCoy had not gone unnoticed.

  “Not at all,” she said, grinning herself. Peering at McCoy again, she added, “We shall make him well.” They looked into each other’s eyes again, and she found that, even with the strangers and Jonsa and Lai in the room, she could not look away.

  “Mister Spock,” Kirk finally said, and the two men departed. McCoy raised his cup to Natira, as though in tribute, and then drank. She did the same.

  Lai moved forward and presented her tray of fruit to McCoy. “No, thank you,” he said, and then reached to deposit his cup back on Jonsa’s tray. Natira did so as well, and then told the two women, “Leave us.”

  As Jonsa and Lai set their trays down atop a nearby table, McCoy said, “I’m curious. How did the Oracle punish the old man?” The question did not please her, as she wished to talk of far more personal things with McCoy, and also because the Oracle forbade answering such a question from a person not yet part of their people.

  Yet, she thought. Did she dare desire that McCoy would soon become one of the people of Yonada? “I…cannot tell you now,” she said, slowly walking past him and farther into the room. Behind her, she heard Jonsa and Lai leave.

  “There is some way the Oracle knows what you say, isn’t there?” McCoy asked.

  She turned to face him. “What we say, what we think,” she replied. Surely the Oracle would not take issue with her sharing the details of life on Yonada with the man to whom she would give herself. “The Oracle knows the minds and the hearts of all the people.”

  McCoy listened, and then as he had earlier, dropped his head and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, in obvious discomfort. The sight pained Natira. She sat down beside him on the bed, taking the train at the side of her dress and draping it on the mattress. “I did not know you would be hurt so badly,” she said.

  “It’s all right,” McCoy said, taking his hand from his face and then looking up at her. “I suppose we had to learn the power of the Oracle.” It pleased her to hear his understanding of what had happened.

  “McCoy, there is something I must say,” she told him. “Since the moment I…” All at once, words failed her. The possibility that McCoy might not reciprocate her feelings occurred to her. She believed completely that he was the man for her, but…what if he did not believe that she was the woman for him? Suddenly embarrassed by the possibility, she peered down. “It is not in the manner of the people—” she began haltingly, and then realizing what she would say next, looked back up at McCoy. “—to hide their feelings.”

  McCoy seemed to consider this. “Honesty is usually wise,” he concluded.

  “Is there a woman for you?” she asked.

  McCoy appeared startled by her question, though she could not tell whether because of its content or her directness. Then a slight smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, and he shook his head. “No, there isn’t.”

  “Does McCoy…find me attractive?” Natira asked.

  This time, he did not hesitate with his response. “Oh, yes,” he said with a warm grin. “Yes, I do.”

  Natira felt weak at the contemplation of his desire for her and then abashed at the raw nature of her thoughts. “I…hope you men of space, of…of other worlds,” she said, “hold truth as dear as we do.”

  “We do,” he said with a crooked smile. She smiled back, then placed her hand atop his.

  “I wish you to stay here,” she said, unable to contain the extent of her longing. “On Yonada. As my mate.”

  McCoy felt the smile fade from his face and an eyebrow rise on his forehead. He almost couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Had Natira, a woman he’d met for the first time only earlier today, had she actually proposed marriage to him? He had noticed her fascination with him—he’d had to have been blind not to; even Jim and Spock had noticed. McCoy also understood that she lived in a culture alien to his own, but still…

  He slid his hand from beneath the warm touch of Natira’s fingers and stood from the bed upon which they’d been sitting. He faced away from her and thought of Nancy, all those years ago. By the time he’d met her, McCoy had long before sworn off relationships, a consequence of his ruinous marriage to Jocelyn. And yet Nancy had fallen for him almost at once and then had fervently pursued him. They’d settled into a long-distance romance, necessitated by his starship duty and her travels in the name of scientific research. In the end, she’d wanted more and he’d given her less.

  McCoy knew that he had failed at relationships again and again. He thought back before Nancy to Jocelyn, and afterward, to Tonia. He had known those women and yet not known them—not well enough, anyway, to know how to love them. Yes, he’d been strangely and powerfully drawn to Natira from the moment he’d first seen her, but how could he possibly marry her?

  McCoy turned back toward her. She gazed up at him from where she still sat on the bed, love and fear together tell
ingly on her face. Her honesty and her openness moved him, she moved him, but—

  “But we’re strangers to each other,” he said.

  Natira shrugged and smiled, as though he had delivered the most trifling and unconvincing of arguments. “But is that not the nature of men and women?” she asked. “That the pleasure is in the learning of each other?” Her head tilted and her chin dipped toward her shoulder in an enticing expression of delight.

  He nodded. “Yes,” he said. How could he tell her otherwise? He had never had problems courting women, only in establishing lasting relationships with them. Oddly, he thought of his days at Ole Miss, and his mind wandered back to that summer before he’d begun regular classes, to his encounter with the beautiful, mature Emony.

  All of the women in my life coming to mind, he thought. All of the relationships. He understood why, and that it had to do with far more than Natira’s proposal.

  “Let the thought rest in your heart, McCoy,” she said to him.

  “I will,” McCoy said automatically, choosing the lie because it was easy to do. But then he realized that maybe it needn’t be a lie…maybe it shouldn’t be a lie. Why not think about staying with Natira? What else would he do with his life in the year left to him? He had considered visiting Joanna, but he hadn’t even been able to tell her of his illness when he’d recorded and sent a message to her for that very purpose. Would seeing her in person make that any easier, for either of them? Would it improve their strained relationship?

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to eat?” Natira asked him, motioning toward the trays of food and drink that the two servers had left. McCoy walked over to the table and looked at the colorful fruitlike foods arrayed on one of the trays there. Though it all appeared succulent, he did not have much of an appetite.

  “No, I’m not really very hungry,” he told Natira. “Would you like something?”

  “No, thank you,” she said.

  McCoy walked back over toward the foot of the bed, contemplating what it might be like, what it would mean to him, to stay here. “Do you enjoy your life here on Yonada?” he asked.

  “It rises and falls, as with all things,” Natira said. “It is not without complications to lead one’s people. But it is a responsibility I conduct very seriously.”

  “I’m sure that it is,” McCoy said. “How long have you been high priestess?”

  “I have served the people for half of my life,” Natira said. “When Shalira, my mother, died, the title and duties of high priestess passed to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” McCoy said genuinely. For the first time in a very long time, he thought of his own mother—not the woman who his father had stayed with for a while, and whom McCoy had for a time called “mother,” but the woman who had given birth to him, and whom he’d only known, more or less, through the lens of his father’s memory.

  “It is yet difficult, even after all this time,” Natira said. “But it is the nature of things, and memories of my parents, and the gifts of life and of love that they gave me, are with me still.”

  “I’m very glad to hear that,” McCoy said, moved and impressed by the obvious peace Natira had made with the loss of her mother and father.

  “And you, McCoy?” she said. “Do you enjoy your life on your ship?”

  “I do,” he answered immediately, but then thought, Do I? “For a time, space travel was something of a refuge for me,” he said, giving voice to the source of his doubts. “But now I have good friends on the Enterprise—”

  “Kirk and Spock?” Natira asked.

  “Yes, especially them,” McCoy said. “But others too. And I’m able to practice medicine and learn about new species and cultures and worlds…I do enjoy my life.”

  “That is good,” Natira said. She leaned slightly forward, bringing her hands down flat on the mattress. “But is it a happy life?”

  The question—the logic of the question—surprised him. How could he enjoy his life and yet not be happy? Except he quickly discovered that he could not formulate a simple response. “Well…” he said, but then he could find no words to continue.

  “Then come with me, McCoy,” Natira said. “Come with me to a new world.”

  “You’re going to a new world?” he asked.

  “It is foreordained,” Natira said, lifting her hands and gesturing as she spoke. “The people, in the fullness of time, will reach a new world: rich, green, lovely to the eyes, and of a goodness that will fill the hearts of the people with tears of joy.” She seemed stirred by the vision she described. “You can share that world with me,” she told him, “rule it by my side.”

  The prospect she articulated thrilled him, as did Natira herself: strong, confident, intelligent, beautiful. But even if he wanted to, did he have enough time to get there with her? “How long will it take you to reach this new world?” he asked.

  “Soon,” Natira said, though she appeared less than pleased with that answer. “The Oracle will only say ‘soon.’”

  Soon, McCoy thought, realizing that such words now took on new significance in his life. “Oh, if you only knew how I needed some kind of future, Natira.”

  “You have lived a lonely life?” she asked him.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “Very lonely.”

  Natira looked up at him with sadness and sympathy, but only for a moment. Then her lips curled and parted, slowly, almost slyly. “No more, McCoy,” she said. She stood up and walked over to stand before him. “There will be no more loneliness for you,” she asserted, and he wanted to believe her.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” he said.

  “There is nothing you need to say.”

  “But there is,” he insisted.

  “Then tell me,” she said, “if the telling is such a need.” He found her smile infectious, her grace alluring, and he suddenly wanted so much to take this woman he hardly knew, this extraordinary woman, into his arms.

  “I have an illness for which there is no cure,” he said. The joy in Natira’s expression vanished, as though a cloud had passed over her. “I have one year to live.”

  In an instant, he saw tears in her eyes, but then she seemed to fight them back. “Until I saw you,” she said, “there was nothing in my heart. It sustained my life, but nothing more.” She paused and then actually smiled once more. “Now it…sings. I could be happy to have that feeling for a day…a week, a month…a year…whatever the creators hold in store for us.”

  McCoy stood there and stared at Natira. He felt weighed down by the knowledge that his life would soon end and yet lifted up by the love that she wanted to give him, wanted to share with him. Had he ever really known such love, he asked himself, and knew that he didn’t need to answer the question.

  He moved forward, and Natira did too. He tipped his head to one side, and she matched his movements as they came together. He saw her eyes flutter closed a second before his own. Gently, their lips met, and he felt the warmth of her flesh, the soft, supple pressure of her mouth on his. She had not said that she loved him, not in those words, but he sensed her express it now, even without words. This felt right, she felt right. Bliss enveloped him, and he thought that he could stay with her forever—

  And then recalled again that he had so very little time left. Their kiss ended as McCoy disconnected from the moment, his death sentence looming not so far into the future. The bitter fact of his imminent mortality would end his life before a year passed, but it had already begun to prevent him from living.

  But then Natira reached an arm up around his neck, lightly kissed at the corner of his mouth, and nestled her face into the crook of his shoulder. Her heart beat against his chest, her breath warmed his skin. She whispered his name as her other arm came up around his back and pulled him tightly to her. She lifted her head, and once more her lips found his. He gave in to her as his body responded to hers, to her curves, to her heat. His hands wrapped around her waist, and he and Natira moved together, her form fitting sinuously into
his.

  The kiss lasted, and McCoy immersed himself in the fire of her passion. A low moan escaped her throat as their bodies melted into each other. His hands traveled upward, across her bare back, the touch of her smooth skin beneath his fingertips electric. He felt the single thin strap that crossed her shoulder blades, and followed it to the top of her arm, where it attached to her dress. He nimbly unfastened the connection, and the strap fell away.

  Natira stepped back from him, one hand coming up to the front of her dress to hold it in place. He thought for an instant that he had overstepped, but her eyes revealed her ardor. She moved around him, though, and disappeared for a moment into the vestibule. When she returned, she said quietly, “I have barred the door.” She lowered her hand, and her dress unraveled around her.

  “Natira,” he whispered.

  She stepped out of her dress and went to him.

  Kirk paced anxiously across his cabin, from beside his desk into the sleeping area and then back again. He didn’t want to leave Yonada. For now, he’d ordered the Enterprise onto a parallel course with the asteroid-ship, although what more he and the crew could do here, he didn’t know. “There has to be some other action we can take,” he told Spock, frustrated.

  “Wherever the control room is,” the first officer said, “it is clearly shielded from our sensors, and therefore from the transporter as well.” He stood beside the door to the corridor, his arms folded across his chest. “Any further search would therefore have to take place as our earlier efforts did, within Yonada itself. Since our presence there is explicitly unwanted, such an action would be considered, at best, trespass.”

  “And at worst?” Kirk asked, though he supposed he already knew the answer.

  “Invasion,” Spock said.

  The assessment sounded like an overstatement, but Kirk understood the truth of Spock’s words. The two of them had already been caught searching the Oracle room on Yonada. While the high priestess had stayed with Bones, Kirk and Spock had roamed about the asteroid-ship, hunting for its controls. Once discovered in the locked Oracle room, they’d been sentenced to death, although Natira had relented, allowing them to return to the Enterprise with a vow that they never set foot on Yonada again.