Thank you for downloading this Pocket Star Books eBook.
* * *
Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Pocket Star Books and Simon & Schuster.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com
This story is affectionately dedicated to the memory of DeForest Kelley (1920–1999).
Historian’s Note
The main narrative of this story takes place from April 20 to November 17, 2254 CE (stardates 605.2–814.2), roughly concurrent with the U.S.S. Enterprise’s mission, under the command of Captain Christopher Pike, to Talos IV (“The Cage”). Chapter 13 occurs on May 13, 2264 (stardate 1013.9).
The prologue, interludes, and epilogue take place on March 22 and 23, 2285 (stardates 8130.4–8131.0), just prior to and at the beginning of the training mission of the refitted Starship Enterprise (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan).
“I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.”
—from the Oath of
Hippocrates of Cos
“It was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven
we were all going direct the other way—”
—Charles Dickens,
A Tale of Two Cities
Prologue
SAUSALITO, CALIFORNIA, EARTH
Stardate 8130.4 (March 22, 2285)
A pair of small maroon gift bags tucked beneath his arm, Doctor Leonard McCoy waited alone in the apartment building’s tidy entry hall. He touched the door chime and began a slow and silent count; by his reckoning, it should have taken at least a good “six Mississippi” for the man he’d come to visit to appear at the entrance.
But the door slid open in roughly half that time. McCoy found that fact worrisome, considering what day it was. Didn’t his old friend have anything better to do?
A weary-looking Jim Kirk, clothed in casual civilian attire, stood just inside the door’s threshold. His remarkably smooth face, still boyish despite the inexorable advance of the years, registered authentic-looking surprise at the doctor’s unannounced appearance.
Surprise, yes, but no real pleasure.
“Why, bless me, Doctor,” the admiral said. “What beams you into this neck of the woods?”
“ ‘Beware Romulans bearing gifts,’ ” McCoy said, deliberately misquoting as he stepped inside the apartment without waiting for an explicit invitation. While still in motion, he handed off the larger of the two gift bags. “Happy birthday, Jim.”
Leading the way through the entry and into the apartment’s small but comfortable living area, McCoy idly tossed the second, smaller gift bag into the air, catching it on its way down as he continued moving forward.
“Thanks,” Jim said, still displaying no real enthusiasm. McCoy stopped and watched his old friend expose the bag’s contents: a small bottle filled with a cobalt-colored liquid. The admiral paused to study the bottle’s label. When he looked up his expression was both nonplussed and chiding, as was his tone. “Romulan ale! Why, Bones, you know this is illegal.”
“I only use it for medicinal purposes.” McCoy deposited the remaining unopened bag on a small glass tabletop near an intricately detailed model of an ancient three-masted sailing ship and an antique hardcover edition of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. Doffing his white, lightweight civilian jacket, he added, “I got a border ship that brings me in a case every now and then across the Neutral Zone. Now don’t be a prig.”
Discarding the empty bag, Jim held the bottle up at arm’s length, squinting slightly as he resumed scrutinizing the label. McCoy knew that the alien inscription wouldn’t yield much information beyond its obvious Romulan-ness. Fortunately, his reseller had supplemented the bottle’s original label with a second one written in far less abstruse Federation Standard.
“Twenty-two eighty-three,” Jim said, sounding impressed in spite of himself.
McCoy tossed his jacket over the back of a nearby synthleather-upholstered chair. “Yeah, well, it takes this stuff a while to ferment.”
Jim responded with a noncommittal “Hmmm.”
This man needs a mixologist as much as he needs a doctor, McCoy thought.
“Here, give me,” the doctor-cum-bartender said. Moving with a prestidigitator’s swiftness, he plucked the bottle from Jim’s hand, scooped the second gift bag up from the tabletop, and left it in the bottle’s place. “Now, you open this one.”
“I’m almost afraid to,” Jim said, though he wasted very little time trying to get at the bag’s contents.
McCoy unstoppered the bottle and then noticed that the admiral had conveniently left a pair of glass tumblers sitting on the tabletop. He immediately started filling them with the electric-blue fluid.
“What is it?” Jim asked, obviously referring to the small bag he was still in the process of opening. “Klingon aphrodisiacs?”
“No,” McCoy said as he finished pouring the drinks. “More antiques for your collection.”
The admiral finally freed the gift: a pair of small, rectangular glass lenses mounted on a delicate wire frame. As he studied it, his genuine perplexity—mixed, perhaps, with some poorly suppressed dismay—became clearly evident.
“Well,” Jim said, meeting McCoy’s gaze. “Bones, this is . . . charming.”
“They’re four hundred years old,” McCoy said, with no small amount of justifiable pride. “You don’t find many with the lenses still intact.”
It wasn’t precisely a lie, since McCoy had come close enough to the truth to make the difference hardly worth mentioning. Though the lenses were indeed the originals, McCoy had subtly altered their optical characteristics using a precision medical laser; this process made the retrofitted eyeglasses a near-perfect match for the unique idiosyncrasies of James Kirk’s presbyopia profile.
The admiral resumed his careful study of the new gift. “What is it?” he asked again.
For the first time, McCoy realized that Jim really wasn’t kidding around—the artifact in his hand had him legitimately flummoxed. The doctor found that surprising, considering how many very old things Jim had surrounded himself with, from the sailing ship model displayed near the room’s center to the small projectile firearms mounted on the walls to the venerable grandfather clock in the adjacent room.
For an antiques enthusiast, McCoy thought, he sure doesn’t know much about the chronic pathologies of yesteryear.
“They’re for your eyes,” he said. “For most patients your age, I generally administer Retnax V.”
“I’m allergic to Retnax,” Jim said.
“Exactly.” McCoy reached for his glass and hoisted it in an informal salute. “Cheers.”
Jim raised the remaining tumbler, apathetically repeating the doctor’s monosyllabic toast.
McCoy took a medium-size swallow and relished the not altogether unpleasant burning sensation as the liquor made its way down. The admiral followed suit, and his eyes widened comically a heartbeat or two later. His protracted, surprised silence reminded McCoy how easy it was to underestimate the potency of Romulan ale—especially when a Federation embargo, Starfleet regulations, and simple propriety had conspired to make the stuff all but unobtainable.
The sound
Jim made as he recovered from that first swallow was midway between a groan of pain and a sigh of relief. He followed up by setting his partially emptied glass back on the table—and by displaying the first real smile McCoy had seen since he’d arrived. Another successful prescription, the doctor thought, warmed by friendship at least as much as by the alien libation. Like I said, it’s for medicinal purposes.
Raising his tumbler to his friend once again, McCoy repeated, “Happy birthday.”
The admiral’s smile abruptly slid back into melancholy. He regarded the spectacles in his hand pensively, then looked up at McCoy.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, you could say ‘thank you,’ ” McCoy said. Jim’s insistent cheerlessness was becoming damned annoying.
“Thank you.” He sounded robotic, like a man who was forcing himself to execute the motions of a life that had grown devoid of meaning.
McCoy thought he had a pretty fair idea why.
The doctor’s exasperation intensified as he watched his old friend drop the spectacles back onto the table, recover his glass of Romulan ale, and cross to the tall panoramic windows. Like a mourner in a graveyard, Jim stared in brooding silence at the San Francisco Bay’s calm, blue-black waters. The sky overhead was slate-gray, filling with thunderclouds that threatened to bring a dreary spring rain.
McCoy couldn’t watch in silence any longer. “Damn it, Jim. What the hell’s the matter with you? Other people have birthdays. Why are we treating yours like a funeral?”
“Bones, I don’t want to be lectured,” Jim said, waving the doctor away dismissively as he took another swallow.
“What the hell do you want?” McCoy growled, moving to the chaise longue in front of the hearth, where a fire was already vigorously burning. Settling down into a comfortable reclining posture, he soaked up the fireplace’s welcome warmth and composed his thoughts.
“This is not about age, and you know it,” he said. “This is about you flying a goddamn desk when you want to be out there hoppin’ galaxies.”
Still holding his half-empty drink, the admiral followed McCoy to the fireplace. “Spare me your notions of poetry, please. We all have our assigned duties.”
“Bull,” McCoy said. “You’re hiding. Hiding behind rules and regulations.”
Sitting on the chair nearest the fire, Jim somberly raised the tumbler to his lips again. But he stopped at the last moment, as though finally realizing he’d find no answers at the bottom of a glass.
Lowering his drink, Jim stared straight ahead into the fire. “Who am I hiding from?”
“From yourself, Admiral.”
Jim sat quietly for another few moments before moving over to the recliner beside McCoy’s chaise, and he adopted the doctor’s laid-back posture. Suits me a lot better than it does him, McCoy thought. Both men gazed into the fireplace as though the flames were an augury.
“Don’t mince words, Bones,” Jim said at length. “What do you really think?”
McCoy turned so that he faced his old friend, who continued to peer into the leaping, crackling flames. “Jim, I’m your doctor and I’m your friend. Get back your command.”
The grandfather clock in the adjacent room tolled, and it sounded to McCoy like a muted death knell. The weapons mounted on the wall suddenly took on a vaguely menacing aspect.
“Get it back before you turn into part of this collection,” McCoy continued. “Before you really do grow old.”
Jim seemed to consider the doctor’s words carefully for at least a full minute. Then he set his drink down and favored McCoy with a scowl. “Bones, you’ve had quite a change of heart since my last command crisis.”
McCoy blinked in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about, Jim?”
Jim’s brow furrowed. “You know perfectly well what I’m talking about: V’Ger.”
“You never should have given up command of the Enterprise after V’Ger got you back into that big chair up on the bridge.”
“I seem to recall you accusing me of using V’Ger to get myself back into the big chair.”
Though McCoy could feel himself reddening with embarrassment at the memory, he knew he had to face it head-on. “It wasn’t the first time I’ve been wrong, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. But unlike you, I’m not too stubborn to admit when I’ve made a mistake.”
Jim got to his feet and strode back toward the windows. “Bones, there are only two kinds of flag officers serving in Starfleet—the ones who say they’d rather shuffle data slates around, and the ones who are lying.”
McCoy rose and followed the admiral. “What about the ones who lie to themselves?”
Coming to a halt beside the table that supported the Romulan ale bottle, Jim said, “I took advantage of a crisis once. That was my mistake. I won’t make it again.”
“Jim, an ethical compass is an indispensable thing,” McCoy said as he came to a stop next to the table. “But . . .”
“Bones, grant me a birthday wish.”
“What’s that?”
“Let it be.” Jim picked up the bottle of Romulan ale and tossed it to McCoy.
The doctor momentarily fumbled with the unstoppered bottle before catching it. Some of the blue liquid slopped over the sides before he succeeded in righting it.
“I take back what I said about you being stubborn, Jim,” McCoy said. “It was a gross understatement. Truth is, you can be even more pigheaded than Spock when you set your mind to it.”
Jim marched into the entryway, his face a mask of bitterness. He slammed his fist against the keypad and the front door slid open in response. “Thanks for the drink, Bones. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, bright and early. We leave for the Enterprise inspection tour at oh-seven-hundred.”
A moment later, McCoy found himself once again standing in the apartment building’s tidy entry hall.
Alone, he thought. He glanced down at the Romulan ale bottle. Well, not completely alone.
Raising the bottle to his lips, he downed a single large, incendiary swallow. His knees wobbled slightly, like San Francisco in the grip of an earthquake aftershock. The doctor considered his options.
Why not? he thought as he paused to examine the bottle in his hand. In vino veritas.
Determined to make one final stop before heading home for the evening, Leonard McCoy made his way out into the gathering gloom of the approaching thunderstorm.
STARFLEET HEADQUARTERS, SAN FRANCISCO
Captain S’chn T’gai Spock sat cross-legged on the floor of the living area of his quarters, gazing out of the broad windows that fronted the sparsely furnished Starfleet-issue cottage. A thick deck of clouds obscured the setting sun, smearing it into wide brushstrokes of distant fire. Dusk would soon diminish into evening.
The moment seemed especially opportune for solitary reflection. Spock’s duties as a Starfleet Academy instructor had kept him intensely busy of late, so much so that he’d spent only minimal time engaging in his daily meditations. Because of the preparations for the following day’s inspection tour, nine days had passed since he’d last paused to examine his life, or to study the verdant, painstakingly tended Starfleet Academy campus where he lectured, or to admire the parsimonious beauty of Starfleet Headquarters, whose sleekly modern architecture and carefully manicured grounds lay just outside his windows. A low fog from the San Francisco Bay now wreathed both complexes; the Academy’s eclectic, centuries-spanning accumulation of structures would have been all but invisible but for its distant constellations of interior lights and the haze-scattered ranks of streetlamps that illuminated the many pathways and concourses that crisscrossed the campus.
Spock had little doubt that this would be his last opportunity to meditate prior to his return to the vessel he now commanded in his capacity as an Academy educator—the starship that had been the focus of so much of his life and career.
Enterprise.
It was illogical to speculate regarding the upcoming inspection’s outcome. He’d al
ready spent much of the day aboard the ship, overseeing the final preparations. Now was the time to let go, to allow his crew of untried trainees to succeed—or fail—on their own merits.
The external door chime intruded on Spock’s carefully ordered thoughts. Snapping back to the here and now, the Vulcan rose to his feet in a single fluid motion and strode to the voice-activated pad that controlled the door.
“Open.”
A familiar slender form stood before him, swaying ever so slightly from side to side just beyond the cottage’s threshold. The bottle that sloshed in the human’s hand more than adequately explained his body’s unsteadiness.
“Doctor McCoy,” Spock said with forced equanimity. “You are intoxicated.”
“You bet your pointed ears I am,” the doctor said. He stepped over the threshold, though staggered would have been a more apt verb. For an instant, Spock thought McCoy was about to walk right into him. But much to his well-concealed surprise, the human weaved nimbly past the Vulcan as he entered the cottage, demonstrating a degree of grace that belied his obvious inebriety.
“Do come in, Doctor,” Spock said, raising his right eyebrow.
McCoy wasted no time making himself comfortable on the low, angular sofa that represented one of Spock’s very few concessions to creature comforts—a compromise with Vulcan asceticism he’d made purely out of consideration for his occasional visitors.
“So,” McCoy said as he took a moment to look around the sparsely appointed room. “This must be the Starfleet Academy party palace I keep hearing all the midshipmen raving about.”
Ignoring McCoy’s jibe, Spock closed the door, crossed to the sofa, and stood with folded arms beside the reclining doctor. “I trust you have a compelling explanation, Doctor.”
“An explanation for why I’m drunk? Or for why I decided to make a surprise house call?”
“The two matters are almost certainly related.” Spock reached for McCoy’s bottle, and the doctor relinquished it without a struggle.
Star Trek: The Original Series: Seasons of Light and Darkness Page 1
