Crucible: McCoy

by David R. George III

  Maybe it’s not a lie, he thought. If I love Natira…but no—

  “This,” Natira said, “is my universe. You came here with a great mission: to save my people. Shall I abandon them?”

  McCoy lowered his head as she made the argument he knew she would, as she cited her responsibility to her people even as he ran from his responsibility to her. Did she see this? Did she perceive his dishonesty?

  She lifted his chin with her hand. “Perhaps one day,” she said, “if it is permitted, you will find Yonada again.” They looked into each other’s eyes, and he hoped desperately that she did not see through him.

  After a few seconds, Natira moved forward and leaned her head against his shoulder. He held her and felt her sobs as she cried. They stood like that for what seemed like a long time, until at last Jim and Spock emerged from Yonada’s control room, and the three men returned to the Enterprise.

  The engines throbbed in the great expanse below, and Spock felt their power as he peered through the observation port at them. The baffling impressed him, keeping as it did the pulse of the drive from making itself known in the populated sections of Yonada. The octet of cylindrical conduits rose up in a line out of the decking, each metal tube half a dozen meters in diameter and running exposed along the deck for perhaps fifty meters before connecting with the far bulkhead.

  Spock examined the control panel located beneath the observation port. For a sublight propulsion system, it appeared simple and elegant, an obvious necessity on an automated voyage of such extended duration. Tapping a control, Spock brought up a readout of the one tube in which he’d detected a weakness. The symbols of the ancient Fabrini marched across the display, and he quickly spotted the partial failure of a check valve. Fortunately, he saw, each of the tubes possessed multiple redundancies, some of which had already been triggered during Yonada’s long journey through space.

  “A very simple problem,” Spock said, knowing that the captain would hear him in the control room below. “Easy to correct.” He activated a secondary check valve for the faulty engine, then shut down the primary. At once, the readings of the weakened tube changed, and he waited to see if they would rise to the necessary levels.

  As Spock watched the display, he returned his mind to an earlier event. As he’d read through the table of contents in the book that had detailed the location of Yonada’s control room, he’d seen references to “intelligence files” and “the total knowledge of the Fabrini.” Now, he visualized the control room below, and realized that he’d seen something there similar to an illustration beside those terms in the book. He searched his memory for what more he knew of the conclusions that historians and archeologists had drawn about the Fabrini and recalled the accepted judgment that the ancient race had made significant medical advancements. Though it seemed illogical to do so, he thought of the illness infecting Dr. McCoy and wondered if the Fabrini files might provide him a cure.

  On the panel before him, Spock watched as the readings of the previously weakened tube attained the optimal performance of the other such drive components. He quickly verified the numbers with his tricorder, then turned and headed for the stairs at the rear of the compartment. He descended to the control room below, where Captain Kirk still stood at the guidance panel. “I believe we can attempt a course correction, Captain,” Spock said, walking back over to the controls.

  “Good,” the captain said, and he switched off the tube monitor, which had superimposed readings atop the guidance display. The numbers vanished from the screen, leaving only a map of Yonada’s plotted and actual courses through space. Spock worked the controls to bring the latter back in line with the former. Captain Kirk turned from the console and stepped over to a secondary monitoring panel, where he threw a couple of toggles. “Going back to marked headings,” the captain reported.

  As the captain returned to Spock’s side, the first officer watched the readouts of Yonada’s directional equipment. “Guidance controls taking over,” he said, satisfied with what he saw. “I believe we can allow this ship to go back to its automatic control.”

  “Steadying in course marked in red,” the captain confirmed. He tapped the console with one hand, obviously pleased with the work they’d done. He started around Spock and toward the access hatch that led back into the Oracle room.

  “Captain,” Spock said, stopping him. Spock approached the bulkhead beside the hatchway, drawing Captain Kirk’s attention in that direction. “Intelligence files,” he said. As he raised and operated his tricorder, he said, “Their banks contain the total knowledge of the Fabrini, ready for the people to consult when they arrive at their destination.” The people had been left with a book pointing the way into the control room, and consequently to the files, and so it only made sense that the Fabrini had left their knowledge for them. Spock executed a rapid scan of the files, randomly searching for sequences of easily recognizable chemical and biological data. The tricorder identified a considerable volume of such information. “And they seem to have amassed a great deal of medical knowledge.”

  Captain Kirk looked at him. “Bones?” he said, his hope plain. “The disease?”

  “I cannot tell yet,” Spock said, still consulting the tricorder screen, “but the amount of technical medical data appears vast.” He stopped the scan and moved to the hatchway leading into the Oracle room. There he executed another sensor sweep, this time attempting to confirm information they’d to this point only been able to assume. “I am scanning Natira,” he said, “and I read extensive similarities between her biological makeup and that of humans.” Spock deactivated the tricorder and looked at the captain. “If the Fabrini did provide a cure for xenopolycythemia,” he said, “it stands a significant chance of being applicable to Doctor McCoy.”

  “Spock,” the captain said, “that’s wonderful.”

  “It would appear so,” Spock said. “It would be gratifying indeed if the Enterprise did not lose a chief medical officer of Doctor McCoy’s abilities.” But despite his efforts to suppress anything beyond satisfaction, Spock actually felt something more: hope.

  “Nurse Chapel tells me that you’re now officially cured,” Jim said. McCoy peered up at him from where he sat behind the desk in his sickbay office and pretended indignation.

  “Chapel?” he protested. “Since when have you been talking directly to my nurses? She reports to me.” Though playing his customary character of disagreeable doctor, McCoy didn’t have to feign exuberance. Both Chapel and M’Benga had come to announce the news to him this morning, and he couldn’t help but feel that he had dodged a photon torpedo. Though his initial treatments had begun five days ago, when the ship had left Yonada, the final confirmation of his restoration to full health had come only today.

  “Rank hath its privileges, Doctor,” Jim said, delivering with a grin what had to be one of the captain’s favorite old saws.

  “How well we both know that,” McCoy returned, his usual response to Jim’s use of the maxim.

  “Speaking of privileges, Doctor,” the captain said, touching a finger to the top of McCoy’s desk, “we’re not all that far from the Klingon border.”

  McCoy’s brow creased. He understood neither what Jim seemed to be hinting at, nor his obvious reluctance to speak plainly. “The Klingon border?” he said. “I don’t follow.”

  “The Klingon border,” Kirk repeated. “Very shortly we’ll be required to maintain subspace silence…” He let his words trail off, as though he’d said enough for McCoy to glean whatever he meant to communicate.

  “If you’re talking about me contacting Joanna,” he said, “I sent her a message last week.” He paused, then clarified: “Before I’d been diagnosed.” Not quite true, of course—he’d recorded a communication to his daughter after he’d learned of his xenopolycythemia, but he hadn’t been able to tell her about it. Still, he’d made the point to Jim that he didn’t need to contact her right now.

  “Not Joanna,” Jim said. “Natira.”

  Nat
ira, McCoy thought. He should have realized to whom Jim had been referring. At the time the Enterprise had departed Yonada, after the high priestess had made a gift to McCoy of the accumulated medical knowledge of the Fabrini, the prospect of finding even a mitigating treatment for xenopolycythemia, much less of finding a cure for it, remained a possibility only. It had taken hours of translation and study by the linguistics and medical staffs to identify the Fabrini remedy for the disease, and hours more to produce and administer the necessary sera.

  “I, uh, I hadn’t planned on contacting Natira,” McCoy said.

  “Oh, I see,” Jim said, though McCoy could tell that he clearly didn’t see. Jim walked away from the desk and toward the door, and McCoy thought for a moment that he might escape having to discuss what happened, but then the captain said, “Bones, this may be none of my business, but…she wants to hear from you.”

  “I know, I know,” McCoy said, raising his hands in capitulation, but he did not elaborate. He hoped that Jim would simply leave, but he didn’t.

  “She cares for you, Bones,” he said, “and when we left Yonada, your prognosis was still for only one more year of life. I’m sure she’s terribly worried about you.”

  “Jim, you’re right,” McCoy said, searching for some way to avoid talking about all that had taken place on the Fabrini asteroid-ship. “I know that. But everything that happened between us…it was so fast, and with my illness and all…” He knew that his words said nothing, carrying more implication than actual meaning. He hoped that Jim would see and accept his reticence on this subject.

  Jim paced back over to the desk. “Whatever happened, Bones, Natira cares for you, and she was the one who authorized the transfer of the Fabrini medical database to our library-computer,” he said. “Whatever you’re feeling now, whatever she’s feeling, Natira deserves to know that you’re going to be all right.”

  McCoy felt a mix of emotions, chief among them embarrassment. “You’re right,” he said again. “I will send her a message.”

  Jim looked at him and slowly nodded his head. McCoy had seen the expression on his face before and knew that the captain didn’t fully believe him. Still, thankfully, he didn’t press the issue. Instead, he simply said, “We begin subspace silence at seventeen hundred hours.”

  “Thank you,” McCoy said and meant it. “For everything.”

  Jim appeared uncomfortable himself for a moment, and then he turned and left the office. McCoy watched him go, then activated the monitor on his desk, knowing that he must do this. But instead of recording a message, he wrote one out instead, using a data slate.

  Dear Natira,

  I wanted you to know that the Fabrini medical database did hold a cure for my illness. After receiving treatment, I have now made a full recovery. For this incredible gift, I will never be able to thank you enough.

  I know that you are busy preparing your people for the days ahead. I wish you good luck in this, and I wish you peace and happiness.

  McCoy paused, holding the stylus in the air above the slate, deciding what more he should say. Finally, he finished by adding:

  I will never forget you.

  After signing his name, he transferred the note to a data card, then inserted it into the slot below the monitor. He ordered the computer to translate what he’d set down into the written language of the Fabrini. Then he contacted the bridge and asked Uhura to send it on its way.

  McCoy deactivated the monitor and sat quietly at his desk for a few minutes. He didn’t feel numb, exactly, nor did he feel relieved. He only knew that, after meeting, falling in love with, and then marrying a complete stranger, in virtually no time at all, he never expected to see Natira again.

  Twenty-One

  1932

  Phil had already climbed into bed by the time Lynn returned from the privy out back. She slipped quietly into the bedroom without looking at him, closed the door, then moved to the dresser and pulled out her nightgown from the top drawer. As she changed out of her clothes silently, Phil could tell that something troubled her.

  “That was a pleasant evening,” Phil said, hoping to distract her. After supper, he and Lynn had spent the evening in the parlor with Len, just chatting about the day and the town and each other. As far as he could tell, they’d all enjoyed it.

  “It was,” Lynn said. She pulled the white peignoir on over her head and let the loose-fitting white fabric fall down the length of her body. Then she crawled into bed beside him, keeping her back to him.

  Phil slid across the mattress and reached a hand to her hip, then leaned in and kissed the graceful curve of her neck. Lynn moved her shoulder, shrugging off his attentions. “Would you put out the light?” she said. On the little table next to his side of the bed, the oil lamp still burned.

  Though it had gotten late and they both would be up early tomorrow morning, Phil didn’t want to go to sleep without finding out what bothered Lynn. He knew that she would resist, but he hated for her to be upset. “What’s the matter, sugar?” he asked, moving his hand from her hip up to her shoulder, bare but for the wide strap of nightgown.

  “Nothing,” she said with no conviction whatsoever. “Go to sleep.”

  “I’m not gonna go to sleep until you tell me what’s bothering you,” Phil said. Earlier in the day, when they’d been driving back from church, he’d thought he detected a problem. Lynn had been particularly quiet, with Phil and Len doing most of the talking. But she’d seemed more herself as the day had worn on, chattering away as she’d fixed supper, and later, telling Len about the people of Hayden. At one point, Len had asked about Lynn’s family, and though she’d changed the subject before too long, she had answered, talking lovingly about both of her parents. Phil thought that perhaps her grief had revisited her now. Though her mother had been ill for a long time, she’d still only been gone for a few months, and he knew that haunted Lynn every day. He knew that he could do nothing to ease that burden directly, but he could simply be a reminder that life and love had not abandoned her.

  But Lynn would have none of it. “Everything’s fine,” she said, anger now tainting her words. “Go to sleep.”

  “Lynn—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she snapped. “I don’t want to argue on the Sabbath.”

  Suddenly Phil realized that it wasn’t the loss of her mother that troubled Lynn right now, but something that he had done. Squeezing her shoulder lightly, he said, “We don’t have to argue, but you can still tell me what’s wrong.” Lynn said nothing. “You might as well tell me,” Phil persisted, “otherwise neither one of us are gonna get any sleep.”

  Finally Lynn reacted, spinning onto her other side to face him. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong,” she said. “I don’t cotton to lying, that’s what’s wrong.”

  “Lying?” Phil said, confused. “You mean me? When did I lie?”

  “And I specially don’t appreciate it on the Sabbath,” she went on. “Or on church grounds.”

  Phil felt completely befuddled, and he thought back to when they’d gone into town today. They’d taken the truck and had arrived a few minutes before services had begun. They’d sat next to Daisy and Woodward Palmer and their two boys, but they really hadn’t said much. Afterward, they’d thanked Pastor Gallagher, then had chatted with a few folks on the way out of the church. To their surprise, Len had been waiting for them by the truck; he’d earlier told them that he would walk home, but then had changed his mind. Phil had been happy about that, as he and Lynn had then been able to introduce him around. Though Len had arrived in Hayden under strange circumstances, and though he hadn’t even been staying with them for two weeks yet, Phil felt a kinship with him.

  “Sugar,” he told Lynn, “I’m really not sure what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about Leonard,” she said. She pushed her pillow up against the wall and propped herself up in bed, folding her arms together across her chest. “You know,” she said, “your ‘cousin.’”

  “Oh,
” Phil said, raising a hand to his forehead as understanding finally dawned on him. “That.”

  “Yes, that,” Lynn said, determinedly looking forward and not at him.

  “Sugar,” he said, reaching up and rubbing her bare arm. “I did that for Len.” When Phil and Lynn had been introducing their houseguest around after church, Becky Jensen had asked how they knew him. Becky had asked the question innocently enough, but Phil knew that, like a number of the townsfolk around here, she didn’t really trust—or even like—outsiders. “He’s my second cousin,” Phil had said, “from down Atlanta way.” He’d then repeated the fib to anybody else who’d asked a similar question.

  “I don’t care why you did it,” Lynn said. “It’s still a lie.”

  “Sugar,” Phil said, but Lynn continued looking away from him. “You like Len, don’t you?”

  “You know I do,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I’d lie for him.”

  “What was I supposed to say?” Phil asked, beginning to grow angry himself. Yes, he’d told a lie, but he’d done so for a good reason, and it hadn’t hurt anybody.

  Lynn turned to face him. “You didn’t have to say anything,” she said.

  “I didn’t?” Phil asked. “So when Becky Jensen asked how we knew Len, I was just supposed to ignore her, like she hadn’t said anything?”

  “Well, no,” Lynn conceded, “but—”

  “Was I supposed to tell her the truth then?” Phil asked. “Was I supposed to say that Len’s a vagabond, and he jumped off a train near here, and now we’re putting him up? What do you think she would’ve thought of that?” Lynn unfolded her arms and started fiddling with her fingers in her lap. When she didn’t answer, Phil said, “I’m really asking you, what do you think Becky Jensen would’ve thought?”