by Jean Lorrah
The screen blanked before Kirk could say a word. But he would not question a medical emergency. “Ensign Chekov, lock in a course for Vulcan.”
“Aye, Keptin.”
Kirk punched one of the buttons on his intraship console. “Bones, did you—?”
Leonard McCoy’s voice responded immediately. “Yeah, Jim, I got my walking papers, along with a report on the epidemic on Nisus. If the best collection of scientists in the galaxy can’t stop it, they’ve got some wild bug on the loose. It’s gonna take a while to study this report.”
“One hour,” Kirk replied. “Then you meet Spockand me in the briefing room.” The captain swung his chair around to face Spock’s station. “You know anything about this, Spock?”
“Only what we have just heard,” he replied.
“Well, then, please go tell your parents that our arrival at Coriolanus will be delayed. They may want to arrange other transport.”
“There is no other ship available,” Spock replied, having scanned the schedules of warp-speed vessels to and from Vulcan in their preparations for departure. “However, my father will want to send a message to Coriolanus, explaining the delay.”
As Spock entered the turbolift, Kirk instructed Chekov to take the science station. The doors were closing. As he rose, Chekov leaned over and murmured to Lieutenant Sulu, too softly for Kirk to hear, “Last time ve couldn’t get to Wulcan. This time ve cannot get avay from it!”
Spock, of course, was not meant to hear the comment. Humans always forgot the acuity of Vulcan hearing.
His parents were not in their cabin, nor were they in the ship’s library or on the observation deck. Having tried the most likely places by intercom, he decided to call the rec room before putting out a page.
Yeoman Kasita answered the rec-room intercom. “They were here earlier,” he told Spock, “but then Ambassador Sarek offered to tutor Miss Chong in astrophysics, and the Lady Amanda went down to the gymnasium.”
“Thank you, Yeoman,” Spock said automatically, but his mind was elsewhere. There had just been a disturbance in the gymnasium—but Captain Kirk had not mentioned Amanda.
Instead of calling, he went down to the recreation level and asked Ensign Walenski if his mother were there.
“Yes, she’s in room six. Don’t worry, Mr. Spock —she didn’t even know about the excitement in gym A.”
Room six was a private exercise chamber. Spock pressed the door buzzer. “Mother? It’s Spock. May I come in?”
“Yes—of course.” Her voice sounded more muffled than it should just from filtering through the door. Nor did the door open until he pressed the plate beside it.
Amanda was in the middle of the room, upside down.
In a moment he recognized that she was doing a shoulder stand. What he did not know was why. Her recent near-fatal illness had reminded him forcefully of Amanda’s ephemeral humanity. Why should she now be forcing her fragile body into such contortions?
After a few seconds, she rolled smoothly out of her inverted position, to lie flat on her back, her blue eyes twinkling up at him as the flush left her face. “No, Spock, your mother has not taken leave of her senses. I’m under doctor’s orders to do a series of simple exercises each day, to tone my body after the time I spent in stasis.”
“I… have never seen you do them before,” he said, for she must have started them at home, while he was visiting.
“No, I did them at the Academy gym.” She smiled as she sat up, got onto her knees, and began stretching to right and left. “I didn’t want my son to see me looking so silly.”
“You do not look … silly,” he replied. As a matter of fact, she looked fit, her dark blue leotard revealing aslender but healthy figure. Spock had never thought of his mother as having a figure, slender or otherwise, for she always dressed in flowing garments of bright colors, not exactly of Vulcan design, but modestly concealing in the same fashion.
“I have a message for you and Father,” Spock continued. “Starfleet has ordered the Enterprise to divert to Vulcan and then Nisus before proceeding to Coriolanus.”
Amanda’s blue eyes studied her son. “How late will we be?”
“Six days.”
“Not six-point-one-three-seven?”
“Six-point-two-five-two. Mother, is it not illogical to be annoyed when Father or I give you a precise figure yet ask for such precision when we do not?”
“No,” she replied with a shrug, “just Human. There.” She stood and put on her shoes, then took one of her usual flowing robes off a bench and wrapped herself in the voluminous folds.
With that, Amanda was Spock’s mother as he was accustomed to her. With her silver hair piled atop her head, the heels of her shoes giving her added height, and the robe falling in vertical folds, she was once again tall, stately, dignified.
“Sarek is in the computer lab,” Amanda told Spock, “helping one of the crew prepare for her astrophysicist’s examination.”
“I know,” Spock said. It was the one thing he understood that his parents had in common. Both were teachers. Give either a willing student, and Sarek or Amanda would work patiently for hours, in perfect contentment.
As Spock and Amanda left the exercise room, she asked, “I suppose you’ve already checked to see whether there is a way for us to get to Coriolanus on schedule?”
“There is not.”
Amanda smiled up at her son. “Then we shall simply enjoy a brief extension of your vacation with us. Why has the Enterprise been rerouted?”
When Spock explained the medical crisis, she sobered. “Experts in interspecies medicine? Spock, what’s wrong?”
“An epidemic. Dr. McCoy will brief command personnel in forty-one-point-seven minutes.”
“Very well,” said Amanda. “I will send the news of our delay to Coriolanus. There is no reason to disturb your father until we know more.”
Spock’s mother was not a telepath, but living on Vulcan she had had to learn to shield lest she broadcast her emotions to everyone in her vicinity.
Even so, as Spock felt her mental shields shut him out, he knew exactly what she must be thinking.
The intermingling of species, people living on planets they were not native to, even living in the artificial environments of starships and starbases, was something still new in the history of intelligent life in this galaxy. No one could predict the long-term effects; many of them were only now beginning to show themselves.
Spock’s own mother, today the picture of health, had only a few months ago been dying of degenerative xenosis, a condition associated with leaving her native Earth and living for many years on Vulcan. The precise causes of the disease were not fully understood, but at last there was a treatment for it. Amanda had been cured—permanently, they hoped—by Sorel and Corrigan, the Science Academy’s brilliant Vulcan/Human medical team.
Spock had known the Vulcan healer and the Human doctor all his life, for he, the first Vulcan/ Human hybrid, had been the occasion of their first working together. They, like Spock, like his parents, like the Federation and Starfleet itself, were examples of what could be achieved when intelligent species learned to work together and rejoice in their differences.
But only too often it appeared that nature objected. How many times had the Enterprise found empty outposts, like Psi 2000, where the entire research party had gone mad, killing themselves and one another? When the virus that had destroyed the research party was accidentally brought on board the Enterprise, it appeared for a time that they were never meant to go so far from the worlds where nature had first placed them.
But the ingenuity of the Enterprise crew had saved them that time, and every other time … so far. That crew was assembled from all parts of the Federation.
The silence between mother and son stretched all the way down the corridor. When they reached the turbolift, however, Amanda paused, saying, “Spock … you are worried.”
“Worry is illogical,” he replied automatically.
His mother turned to face him, blocking his way and remaining out of the turbolift doors’ sensor range. She gave him a knowing smile. “Concerned, then. But with medical experts from all over the Federation, surely this plague will quickly be contained.”
“Mother,” he reminded her, “Nisus already has experts from all over the Federation—and some from outside it. Even Klingon and Orion scientists are part of the cooperative effort there, as well as researchers in every branch of science from every Federation culture.”
“I know,” Amanda replied. “Nisus has existed for three generations—I remember learning about it in school when I was a little girl on Earth. ‘The finest example in the galaxy of cooperation among intelligent life forms.’ There was a time when I thought I would apply to do linguistic research on Nisus—the effects of all those varied languages spoken in one small area—but then I met your father … and decided to practice a different form of cooperation between intelligent life forms.”
He knew she wished to coax a smile from him —that her statement would easily have won one from Sarek. But Spock’s mind was on the connections Amanda refused to make: the scientists of Nisus could not stop the epidemic—for it was probably their own work that had caused it, their cooperation between species that spread it.
The concept at least of tolerance was universal among intelligent species that had reached a certain level of civilization, although some practiced it with greater diligence than others. Spock, grown up on Vulcan, knew the ideal as IDIC, Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination.
IDIC was a sacred concept to Vulcans—yet logic required recognition of fact. It appeared that just as nature had attacked Spock’s mother for daring to live where humans were never meant to, now the scientists of Nisus were suffering for living the ideal of IDIC.
Insufficient data to form a hypothesis, Spock told himself. Surely, as had happened with his mother, the combined medical wisdom of many worlds would unite to preserve Nisus.
Chapter Four
The healer Sorel returned from surgery to his office at the Vulcan Academy of Sciences. He had two more patients scheduled that day: T’Kar and her daughter T’Pina, for routine examinations before leaving Vulcan to return to the science colony on Nisus.
Just as he reached the door to the reception area, his paging signal sounded. He continued inside, asking T’Sel, “Why are you paging me?”
“Vulcan Space Central is calling.”
Space Central? “I’ll take it in my office.”
All Vulcans practiced emotional control, but Sorel now knew from long experience what he had been told when he began his training many years ago: “A healer,” his master teacher Svan had explained, “is a paradox. While he must keep the strictest emotional control of any Vulcan, for the sake of his patients’ health and his own sanity, he has also chosen a profession which, above all, provokes the universal Vulcan failing: curiosity.”
Indeed, by the time he reached the console in his inner office, Sorel was nearly consumed with curiosity. His daughter was safely home now; there was no member of his family off-planet. So his curiosity was unmixed with concern as he wondered what Space Central could possibly want with him.
The moment he pressed the switch, his screen was filled with the image of a Human male in the uniform of a Starfleet commodore. “Greetings, Healer. I am Vincent Bright, director of Starfleet activities in this sector. Vulcan Space Central is patching this message through to you. Starfleet Command requests the aid of you and your associate, Dr. Daniel Corrigan.”
Long years of training automatically suppressed Sorel’s concern that the Enterprise, which had left Vulcan only two days previously, had a medical emergency. If Dr. Leonard McCoy, whose skills he had recently come to know and respect, had to call for help, the situation must be dire indeed.
With complete calm he replied, “I am here to serve, Commodore. What aid does Starfleet seek?”
“There’s an epidemic out of control on the science colony Nisus. The residents request medical personnel with knowledge of interspecies medicine. You and Dr. Corrigan are specifically named in the request, as is your daughter, the xenobiologist T’Mir. The USS Enterprise will return to Vulcan for you in two-point-seven days. I have been able to contact all Vulcan medical personnel that Starfleet has requested, with the exception of Lady T’Mir and Dr. Corrigan. Do you know their whereabouts?”
“I do.”
“Excellent. Please give me their communications codes.”
“That is not possible,” Sorel replied.
“What? It has to be possible! Corrigan’s a doctor; he has to be reached in emergencies. And surely you can contact your daughter.”
“My daughter and Dr. Corrigan are recently married,” Sorel replied. “They are in Seclusion.”
“You mean honeymooning?”
Someone off-screen grabbed Bright’s arm and tugged. He shook off whoever it was in annoyance. “I’m afraid this emergency takes—”
The hand was back on Bright’s arm, followed by a body in a blue Starfleet uniform. It was a Human female, middle-aged, wearing commander’s stripes. A protocol officer, Sorel judged as he watched impassively, using his strongest controls to curb an inappropriate amusement.
“Commodore!” the woman whispered sharply, pulling Bright away from his console. “Nothing can take precedence when married Vulcans are in Seclusion!”
Sorel, accustomed for many years to judge Human abilities by Corrigan’s, realized that a Human could not have overheard the woman’s voice.
Bright frowned at her. “Dammit, Miss Frazer! I don’t care what planet it is, vacations don’t take precedence over medical emergencies!”
“It’s not—” She gave a quick glance at the screen, and must have remembered Vulcan hearing, for she tugged Bright right out of the picture.
Sorel could no longer hear her words, but after a pause he heard Bright’s blustery protest, “But this Corrigan is Human!”
The man’s obtuseness irritated Miss Frazer enough to make her raise her voice, for Sorel heard her whisper angrily, “We don’t know anything about how these things affect Vulcan women, sir! And with Vulcans, when it comes to biology, you don’t ask!”
Then both voices were too low for him to hear, although there was a soft hum as words were swiftly exchanged.
Finally Commodore Bright appeared on screen again, red-faced and sweating. He cleared his throat. “Is there any way to get a message to Dr. Corrigan and the Lady T’Mir?”
Nisus, a colony of the best scientists the galaxy had to offer, would call for medical aid only in the gravest emergency. So, “Yes,” Sorel replied. “I can do so. And,” he added, “Daniel and T’Mir can travel in two days’ time, should the situation warrant it.”
“Thank you,” Bright said in obvious relief. “If you will set your console to record, I will send you the information we have on the Nisus plague.”
The screens of data flashed by too quickly for even a Vulcan to follow—but the last one lingered for a moment, burning itself into Sorel’s brain.
The mortality figures.
Quickly, Sorel called up the summary of the disease and its pattern of spread. What he saw told him why he and Daniel were needed.
When Commodore Bright reappeared on the screen, Sorel said, “We will come, Commodore. In this situation I can speak for my partner. Although I cannot speak for my daughter, I expect her to be honored to be requested. I will verify with them, and notify you within the hour.”
“Thank you,” Bright repeated, and gave Sorel the communications code.
There was, of course, no biological reason for Daniel and T’Mir to be in Seclusion, but Sorel had no intention of enlightening that officious Human. He doubted such a one could comprehend the imperatives of privacy and tradition. As soon as the commodore left the screen, the healer punched in the code of his partner’s home, along with the privacy-override sequence that he alone knew.
Chapter Five
Korsal shared a room in
the isolation wing of the Nisus hospital with Therian, the Andorian epidemiologist. Ordinarily, each patient would have a single room in this area, but the hospital was so badly overcrowded that it was impossible to put any but critical patients in private rooms.
Both men had requisitioned computer terminals and had spent the past two days trying to keep their minds off their own danger by plotting the progress of the plague. Korsal put Borth’s threat out of his consciousness and concentrated on helping Therian search for clues to the cause of mutation of the virus.
The Andorian’s blue skin was pale with fatigue, for neither man had been able to sleep. The incubation period was almost up—provided, of course, that the new strain followed the pattern of the old at least in that respect. Dr. Treadwell had begun exhibiting the new symptoms yesterday—but as a physician he had been in contact with other victims before the council meeting and, thinking himself immune, might not have exercised complete caution. All the weary hospital staff could tell them was that the Human doctor had not injured anyone, and was now critical. So was Keski.
Therian entered data on every newly reported case, his antennae drooping as more cases of madness were reported, fewer of fever and headache. He plotted everything on graphs that meant nothing to Korsal.
“They mean nothing to me, either,” Therian said sadly. “I cannot find a common factor of race, age, location, or previous illness. Here,” he added, pulling a data cartridge from his computer and handing it to Korsal, “please check the math on this while I try something else.”
Korsal inserted the cartridge into his own terminal and began graphing the equations, knowing that once again Therian would be proved accurate.
The Andorian, meanwhile, asked the hospital computer for family records on all victims of the latest strain. Then, almost as an afterthought, he asked for family statistics on everyone reported to have any form of the disease. Soon he was busy figuring again.
