by Jean Lorrah
It came again: someone was pounding on a metal surface, three spaced strokes.
Deaver heard it this time. He boosted himself back up next to T’Pina and pounded three times on the cabinet they lay on.
There was a response of four strokes, which he immediately echoed.
When there was no further pounding, he said, “They must have us pinpointed. We’ll be out of here soon, now.”
Sure enough, three people in aquatic gear emerged near them. Treading water, one man removed his mask, saying, “Are you hurt? Can you swim?”
“We’ll make it,” Deaver replied for both of them.
Another of the divers helped them into breathing masks and air bottles.
Reluctantly, T’Pina slid into the freezing water, where one of their rescuers snapped a line to her, then took her hand.
“Most of the way’s not lighted,” they were told. “Just follow the line, though, and we’ll get you out.” Then the man who had spoken replaced his breathing mask, and they all dived beneath the bitterly cold water.
Being able to breathe was a great help, but T’Pina felt her hands and feet go numb. Although her head was clearer than before, her muscles had less strength; her rescuers had to drag her along.
Finally they came out into a narrow tower of still water, with gray light filtering down on them. As they rose, there was more and more light, and T’Pina recognized that they were in a stairwell, with a rectangle of sky above them where the door to the roof was open.
They surfaced, and were swimming toward the stairs when suddenly the water swirled madly!
T’Pina was thrown against one of her rescuers, and he was caught between her and the stairs as she smashed helplessly into him.
Then she was tossed in the opposite direction, her air bottle bruising her as she was brutally hauled along.
The leader dropped his mask again to shout, “Don’t lose the line!”
Everything was sliding sideways!
The stairs collapsed, and those treads above water tumbled down on them.
The open doorway above sank toward them, and T’Pina tried to follow the example of her rescuers, rapidly passing the safety rope hand over hand as it sank into the water.
And then the roof tumbled in, forcing them all to dive beneath the freezing water once more, to avoid being crushed by the collapsing building.
As one, Spock and Sarek sensed the roof beneath them move, one side rising, the other sinking. They saw the empty air car began to slide down toward the water and sprinted toward it, trying to grab hold and swing into it before it could sink.
Behind them Michaels cried out, “The whole building’s collapsing!” He made a dash for the boat, tumbled into it, and pulled the moorings loose.
Sarek reached the air car first, and sensibly did notwait to try to pull Spock aboard, but revved the motor to get the craft airborne.
Spock leaped for the passenger pod on the opposite side just as the roof gave way beneath his feet. He hung on to the lurching flyer until his father had it flying level, then he climbed up and into it, quickly strapping himself into the safety harness.
Below them, he saw Michaels in the bobbing marine vehicle, stretching to reach the end of the safety rope floating on the water. He almost overreached himself as his fingers barely closed over it, but the two women grabbed his legs and yanked him back into the boat.
Then the three of them hauled on the rope, meters of it coiling into the boat before—
A head broke the surface!
It was one of the rescue party, in a wetsuit, but with the help of the people in the boat he quickly hauled more line in until they were dragging a man in pajamas and robe into the boat, wrapping a blanket around him and taking him out of their way while they turned their attention to the others in the water.
A second head in aquatic gear broke surface, and then a third. Between them they supported a woman in a green coverall, her long dark hair trailing in the water.
Air bubbles released from the collapsed building tossed the boat as the rescue team fought to get the woman and themselves into it. When they were finally aboard, Rogers picked up a communicator. “Can you bring that craft down so we can load the patients, Mr. Spock?”
He did, then left Sarek to hold it steady as he climbed out to help.
Although she was pale, T’Pina was conscious. The other patient, the man, was out cold. “Beau!” T’Pina shouted at him, but there was no response.
In the lurching water, it took several tries to get both T’Pina and the man with her strapped into the pods. Fighting the air car to steadiness, Sarek reported the news that T’Pina had been found, alive and conscious. By the time Spock climbed into his seat, Sorel was on the communicator. “Please bring T’Pina directly to the medcamp.” They banked off toward the hills, carefully making their way through the flock of air cars and hoverers still busy rescuing survivors.
There were boats of all descriptions on the water now, plucking up survivors. Spock saw a green Orion woman take a Caitian woman and her cub from a treetop into a dinghy. A team of Tellarites glided over the water in a longboat, maneuvering the narrow streets between buildings to take people from windows. The waters were slowly receding, high-water marks on the sides of buildings a good two meters above the current level.
The worst was over. Now came the discovery of who was alive, the recovery of the bodies of the dead. And then the difficult job of cleaning and rebuilding.
Spock looked out over the drowned landscape and wondered how long it would take before Nisus rose again.
Chapter Forty-one
At the medcamp, Sorel permitted himself relief at T’Pina’s survival. He went in search of T’Kar, who was back at nursing despite being hardly recovered herself.
“Thank you, Sorel,” she told him, her eyes warm with relief. “I will come with you.”
They met the air car and helped Spock and Sarek unload the patients. There was too much rescue work still to be done for father and son to linger, they swung quickly back into their craft and went in search of further victims.
T’Kar bent over her daughter. “T’Pina—”
“I am well, Mother,” the younger woman insisted, trying to climb to her feet. “Beau—he saved my life. How badly is he hurt?”
His medscanner quickly confirmed that T’Pina had suffered few ill effects, so Sorel turned to her companion, remembering the Human/Orion hybrid. Like T’Kar, he had been saved from death by the serum from T’Pina’s blood, and was barely recovered.
“He is merely unconscious,” Sorel assured T’Pina. “Exhaustion, not his wound. Let him sleep. He will recover in a day or two. Meanwhile, we must put you back on the Rigellian drug, T’Pina.”
Her only emotional response was to blink. Then, looking around her, she nodded. “Of course, Healer.”
For the flood had destroyed every attempt at quarantine. Drowning people did not hesitate to touch their rescuers, nor did rescuers consider exposure as they saved lives.
By the time the flood-related cases of the plague began, the Nisus hospital was back in operation. The crew of the Enterprise lent their efforts to cleaning out the mud and finding and repairing furniture and equipment.
The first task was locating and identifying the dead. The very plague that had turned everyone’s attention from the safety of the dam, and thereby contributed to the flood, had kept all but minimal personnel out of the main area of the city. As a result, there were fewer than fifty fatalities.
The community mourned, pulling together in their tragedy as they had pulled apart in fear of the plague.
They took hope from the vaccines. Indeed, those of copper-based blood need not fear dying if they got medical attention immediately. Although T’Pina could not produce enough blood for serum to inoculate everyone, they could cure each new case of the plague as the victim was identified. For Vulcans, Orions, Rigellians, and the other races with copper-based blood, the crisis was over.
But not for the other h
alf of Nisus’ population.
Leonard McCoy had put Korsal and his older son back on blood stimulants, but Karl, the nine-year-old, could not continue them. There was nothing like the Rigellian stimulant for Klingons; as a result, there was simply not enough serum.
Everyone on Nisus asked why Korsal did not call for more Klingons to aid them, but the answer spread rapidly. Not only were the Klingons immune, but their blood carried the cure with which they could hold the Federation ransom. The plague was a weapon that could not be allowed to fall into their hands.
Fortunately for their peace of mind, they did not know it already had.
James T. Kirk had no such peace of mind. The captain of the Enterprise came in person to tell Korsal, “The Nisus Starfleet liaison officer, Commander Smythe, has taken Borth into custody. He refuses to say whether he sent a message to the Klingon Empire, but our computer recorded something in a code we cannot identify, sent just before the flood broke.”
“May I see the message, Captain Kirk?”
When Kirk played it, he said, “It is not Klingon code. I refused to give him that. This is Orion; Borth routed the message through his own people, but that will merely delay its delivery and risk someone in the Orion system decoding it.”
“But it will get through,” Kirk pressed.
“I wish I could doubt it, Captain.”
“I will forward your opinion to Starfleet Command. What happens next is up to them. Certainly Borth will be prosecuted. You may have to testify against him, Korsal.”
“I know. Captain Kirk, I don’t want interplanetary war any more than you do.”
“But the Orions do; they tried to break up the Babel Conference, weaken the Federation. They see war as an opportunity to plunder all sides. Strange … only dedicated scientists come to Nisus. You’re not a typical Klingon. Why did the Orions have to send a typical Orion?”
Korsal ignored the implied insult to Klingons in general, knowing Kirk did not intend it, and said, “I do not think there is any other kind of Orion.”
“There’s your wife,” said Kirk. “Quite a lady.”
“Orion women,” said Korsal, “are not educated, but neither are they indoctrinated. Seela grew up on Nisus, and despite Borth’s efforts seems to have absorbed the … what the Vulcans call IDIC, rather than Orion self-absorption.”
“You’re right,” said Kirk. “In fact, among the pictures our rescue craft took automatically, there are some you’ll want to see of Seela rescuing people.”
“You mean … she went into the flood?”
“In a little boat,” Kirk told him. “Looked home-built.”
“I built it with my sons,” said Korsal. “Seela hates to go out in the boat; she’s terrified of drowning.”
“Well, she was apparently more afraid for other people in the flood,” said Kirk. He smiled, and glanced at the two empty beds in the room. Korsal’s sons were finally having their long-awaited tour of engineering. “I’d say you’ve got a whole family of heroes, Korsal.”
Chapter Forty-two
The hospital was overcrowded. So, as fewer Vulcans and others of copper-based blood fell ill, Sorel took T’Pina off the blood stimulant and put her to work in the laboratory.
At least everyone of mixed heritage had been vaccinated; there was no new strain of the plague, no more need to isolate children. The head of the laboratory had time to teach T’Pina his methodology, and soon there were glowing reports of the young woman’s progress.
The biochemists began trying to synthesize the immunity factors in Romulan or Klingon blood, but that project would take months, possibly even years.
Meanwhile, Humans, Caitians, Lemnorians, and others with iron-based blood filled the hospital beds. The medical staff worked overtime while volunteers took over unskilled or semiskilled labor.
Beau Deaver volunteered. Somewhere in his checkered past he had had paramedic training; he filled in as ambulance driver and orderly, but finally insisted on demonstrating that he could find and pop a good vein on virtually anyone, of any race, and Sorel pressured Dr. Sertog, the head of medical services, to set him to drawing blood—even though the healer knew that Deaver’s primary motive was to see T’Pina when he delivered the samples to the laboratory.
Perhaps Sorel felt a kinship with Deaver’s attraction to T’Pina because of his own attraction to T’Pina’s mother.
At the Vulcan Academy Hospital, Sorel worked with any number of nurses, all efficient, all skilled. With T’Kar, however, he found the same rapport that he knew with his partner, Daniel Corrigan. Words were not always necessary; teamwork was raised to the level of choreography.
Along with the plague, the usual injuries and illnesses in a city the size of this one continued. It was almost refreshing to join Daniel in surgery on a Vulcan who had sustained injuries in the flood.
In the OR, Sorel was in light rapport with the entranced patient, assisting Daniel in the physical surgery while T’Kar performed as nurse. Was it imagination—something Sorel had never credited himself with having—or was it the smoothest three-way teamwork Sorel had ever experienced?
Leaving T’Kar to install the patient in recovery, Sorel and Daniel walked back toward the plague-ridden world outside surgery. Before they went through the doors into that unpleasant reality, though, Daniel stopped. “Well?” he asked.
“Is that a question?” Sorel responded.
“Come on, my friend,” said his Human partner. “What are you going to do about T’Kar?”
“Do about her?”
Daniel put his hands on his hips, blue eyes laughing up at Sorel. “If you don’t ask her to marry you, I’m going to ask her for you.”
“Daniel!”
“I have the right,” Daniel pointed out. “I’m your son-in-law, remember? T’Mir agrees with me. If you don’t approach T’Kar, we will. Sorel, she’s perfect for you … and besides, I want her in my surgery!”
“T’Kar lives here, on Nisus,” Sorel pointed out.
“She was born on Vulcan, grew up there,” Daniel said. “Her daughter can choose to stay here or return to Vulcan as she pleases—and it looks to me as if T’Pina will choose a bondmate of her own soon. You have no reason to delay, Sorel. In fact, if you do, you may lose your chance. Don’t you think there are other men who realize what a catch T’Kar is?”
“A catch? Is that not a hidden trap?” Sorel asked, familiar with the English expression “What’s the catch?”
“Different meaning,” said Daniel. “In this sense it means a fine choice, but one that is a challenge to obtain.”
“Illogical Human languages,” Sorel commented.
“And you’re being logical? Standing here arguing with me when you should be sweeping T’Kar off her feet?”
“That is not the Vulcan method of proposing marriage.”
“Oh?” Daniel said, eyes twinkling. “Tell that to your daughter. She certainly swept me off mine!”
It was useless to argue further. Sorel knew his partner only too well: if he did not propose marriage to T’Kar himself, Daniel would carry out his threat.
Feeling not quite himself, Sorel went in search of T’Kar. He found her just leaving their patient in recovery. Stopping to draw two cups of fruit juice from a hallway dispenser, Sorel offered one to T’Kar by way of greeting. “You performed admirably in surgery,” he said.
“It is a pleasure to work with you and Daniel,” shereplied. “I know now why you are the best medical team on Vulcan.”
“After today”—Sorel seized the opening—”if you are not with us, we will feel that our team is missing a member.”
Her eyes went to his. “Sorel …”
“T’Kar—come out with me into the garden.”
The hospital was designed with small courtyards here and there, to give patients and personnel easy access to fresh air. All that had been done for this garden since the flood was to hose the mud off the pavement and benches. Where plants had been there was now only drying mud.
But there was warm spring sunshine, and when Sorel looked into T’Kar’s blue eyes, he had no need of flowers to make the world a pleasant place to be.
They sat side by side on the bench, not touching, and Sorel drank his juice while he searched for words. The empty place in his mind yearned to be filled by a bond with T’Kar, but he did not know how to say so.
T’Kar was shielding her thoughts carefully; without touching her, even Sorel’s strong ESP could not read through her barriers. He was forced to rely on words.
“T’Kar,” he said softly, “if it seems as logical to you as it does to me, I would bond with thee.”
Her eyes smiled, although otherwise she remained composed. “Sorel, it is not logical, but … no,” she added swiftly when he would have interrupted to explain the logic, “do not say more. You pose a great difficulty for me. My home is here, and yours is on Vulcan. Your children are grown and married, but my daughter is unbonded and in tumult over the recent discovery concerning her ancestry.”
“T’Pina has exceptional control for one so young,” Sorel pointed out. “No Vulcan could be less than honored to have her as a member of his family.”
“Nevertheless, she needs my counsel as she decides what to do. Here on Nisus, there will never be a question about her worth. On Vulcan—”
“Vulcan has exiled those who refuse to accept the concept of IDIC,” Sorel pointed out. “T’Pina need fear no lack of acceptance, especially in ShiKahr. My partner and son-in-law, Daniel Corrigan, is accepted as Vulcan, even by T’Pau herself.”
T’Kar shook her head. “Sorel, why must you argue? It is not a matter of logic.”
“I …do not understand,” he said flatly, comprehending only that she appeared to be refusing him.
“It is not logical,” she repeated. “My daughter should be my greatest concern until she has assimilated this new knowledge about herself. I should not be thinking of myself, and yet you have come into my life now, and not at a more appropriate time. I cannot delay; you must have a wife.”
