The Cry of the Onlies

by Judy Klass

  "Very well, Mr. Spock," Kirk said.

  Nurse Chapel moved away from the bed to allow Spock access to the child. Spock shut his eyes for a moment of concentration. He flexed the long thin fingers of his hands. With subtle, deft movements, the fingers of his right hand glided along the scalp-line and the ear of the boy. His left hand quivered and secured a hold on Pal's forehead, pressing in at the temples and around his eye socket. Pal showed no awareness of his presence.

  Spock's face became strangely hunted, haunted. He brought it down close to the boy's. "Our minds are one …" he whispered. He shuddered, the only indication he gave of the struggle now going on inside him. The Vulcan mind-meld demanded that the fiercely private Spock make himself completely vulnerable, lower his psychological barriers layer by layer, even as it demanded that Pal lower his. "Our thoughts … becoming one …" Spock urged hypnotically, "… our minds …" His words drifted off into silence.

  After a minute or two, he whimpered. His eyes darted around feverishly, defensive, like a small boy's. "Hide, curl up," said the stranger's voice that spoke through his mouth, "ball up like an Only in a ball, hide from the bright light … and his arm came off. Dr. Nazafar-7's arm … a very bad citizen … and then the snakes come down, they come spinning down to get you …" Spock's words crumbled into incoherence and he started, twitched several times.

  Minutes ticked by. Kirk became concerned. Surely Spock had maintained the mind-meld for too long. Surely it was time for him to snap out of it. There was a danger, Kirk knew, of two minds, two personalities drowning in each other if it went on too long, of the telepath being drawn so deeply into another's thoughts, merging so completely, that he couldn't get back out. Vulcans trained hard when they were young, to be able to maintain discipline and self-control, even during a mind-meld. But Spock was half—human …

  "Spock," he said finally. "Spock, come out of it."

  His friend continued to talk to himself and dart his eyes about, oblivious to Kirk and the others in the room.

  "Spock!" Now Kirk ran and pried the skinny hands from the child's head, grabbed Spock by the shoulders and shook him. "Snap out of it. Get hold of yourself!" Literally, he thought. The form he held sagged and swayed, its face dangerously pale.

  Then the science officer straightened and shook himself, as if shaking off a heavy cloak. His face regained its usual slightly green tinge. He looked around the room. "There is no need for concern, I assure all of you. I am quite myself again. And Pal, I trust, is somewhat healed and more whole than he was before."

  They all glanced down at the boy, who lay with his eyes shut tight.

  "What was it, Spock, that hurt him? Was it the shock of all the violence?" asked McCoy.

  "A combination of disturbing experiences, Doctor. Obviously, many have occurred during the last few weeks, and I believe I could now reconstruct those for you. Some of Pal's maladjustment seems unavoidable. The centuries of living among the Onlies, aging hardly at all, and his recent sudden spurt of growth"—Spock avoided Flint's gaze—"have unbalanced him, and so has the great switch in life-styles."

  Spock paused meaningfully. "However. There is much more to it. Pal is a strong and vital child, with a fine intelligence. But his mind has been entered before. More deeply than most telepaths would consider ethical. And it was not entered by a trained telepath. It was entered and severely tampered with by a clumsy and insensitive machine."

  "The chair in Voltmer's laboratory," Kirk said bitterly.

  "Yes, Captain. Used for much more than he wished us to believe. Pal's mind has been probed so deeply that many memories and many vital experiences have been completely erased. The machine has clumsily tried to reconstruct and create some memories in his mind, in order to promote what Voltmer considers 'right' thinking. Fears have been placed in the child's mind to promote discipline. For example, in order to discourage Pal from hoarding food in his closet at the Center, something he was fond of doing, an image was placed in his mind of a large, coiled, venomous snake poised to strike any who engaged in such activities."

  McCoy whistled. "Voodoo psychology. This should finish Voltmer when it gets out. If he isn't finished already."

  "I must agree with you, Doctor. Abuses of this kind need to be made public."

  "And you've reached Pal now?" Kirk asked. It was hard to tell if the boy's condition had improved. He had tucked his head under his arm and lay still, as if either stupified or frightened.

  "Yes, Captain. He is reorienting himself, his persona, after this especially lengthy melding experience. The disturbance in his mind was so great that the boy was losing ground to schizophrenia. The healthy, lively Pal, who had weathered so many centuries, was frightened by the artificial experiences and emotions the machine tried to graft onto his mind. He retreated into an infantile, subdued state. I have reached him, his voice, his center … he is by no means perfectly well, but I believe he is on the road to recovery."

  Pal was gradually becoming aware of the adults and their talk. This became apparent as he cautiously lifted his head and peered up at them. When all eyes focused on him, expectantly, he sat up and suddenly burst into tears. Nurse Chapel walked to him confidently, scooped up his shuddering body, and pressed his head against her neck. Through his convulsive sobs, they were at last able to make out the word hungry. A lab assistant was sent to get some mild broth. Talk stopped for a moment, as the other adults watched the ancient, strange little gnome of a boy, pleased to see him behaving like a child at last.

  "Yes, I believe he'll be all right now," McCoy said. "Thanks to you and that Vulcan magic, Spock."

  "I assure you, Doctor," Spock said gravely, "that no magic is involved. The principles behind telepathy are entirely scientific. I shall explain them to you, sometime."

  "Now, hold on a minute, Spock. Don't get too pleased with yourself. Sometimes I think you're after my job."

  The two men continued bickering as Kirk chuckled, and Flint watched Pal as he howled, and Nurse Chapel rocked him, smoothed his hair, and shushed him.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  MRS. FILE WAS a large, cheerful, comfortable woman with gray hair that hung down her back in a neat braid. She wore old-fashioned eyeglasses and smelled of violet water. She had been left in charge of the Children's Center until a replacement for Voltmer could be found. Ramsey quietly relayed to Kirk a rumor that there was a proposal to make her position permanent. Ramsey's own admiration for Voltmer had waned as the full extent of his abuses became known.

  Mrs. File and her staff met Kirk and the men who had come down with him in the recreation room. It seemed greatly changed to Kirk. It was cheerfully lit, and light poured through its large fiberglass windows. A light that was natural. And not too bright. It had been a gray day the last time Kirk visited this place. In every possible way.

  But it was the presence of the Onlies in the room that really altered it, made it seem a completely different place. They shouted to each other, and argued and giggled and squealed as they played on the floor, wrestling, building block towers and crystal jigsaw towers, challenging each other to pocket laser-set battles, building bridges between the low tables and the children-size chairs out of stretch string.

  A few pressed their faces against the windows, stared out at the land covered with moss and ferns. It was land that had been scarred, devastated during the war of the adults, and that over the centuries nature had reclaimed. The Children's Center was built hundreds of miles from the city in which they had lived as scavengers during those years.

  As Kirk looked about him, he remembered the faces, even the names of some of them. And how they had looked when he first encountered them, grimy and smudged and dressed in rags. They had been distrustful of the Grups from the Enterprise, and slowly given their trust. How remarkable that they could still trust adults, could still enjoy themselves, lose themselves in play, after the betrayals they'd known here. The stubborn childish determination to live, and love. An ash-blond little girl had thrown her arms aroun
d his legs when he arrived, and many of the children greeted him cheerfully, and with recognition.

  Spock was standing by Mrs. File with his hands clasped together behind his back, relating to her how Rhea had saved Pal in her final moments. Though Pal had seemed unaware and unresponsive at the time, his memory had recorded it.

  "Yes, Rhea was a courageous girl, and very gifted," the woman said. "The sheer stupidity of such a loss, such an utter waste is what baffles me the most."

  Kirk, gazing round, became preoccupied once again with another baffling loss. The death of another courageous Only. As if reading his thoughts, a boy of thirteen or so, physically, with a pinched freckled face, walked up to Kirk and said accusingly, "You're Miri's Grup, aren't you? But you never came back to see her. She said you would come for her one day and take her away from here."

  "Tomi," Mrs. File said quickly, "go see if you can help those little fellows make a hammock out of stretch string." She bustled him off toward the cluster of smaller boys and turned back to Kirk apologetically.

  "You know, Captain Kirk, Miri did often speak of you, but I believe she was happy on the Program, and she was planning next year to go away to school to train to be a teacher. Your influence on her and the other children was only positive."

  Kirk knew her words were meant to take the sting out of what the boy had said. She couldn't know how badly it stung. Glancing around the room again, Kirk saw Flint on the floor with some of the youngest children, looking ridiculous and undignified in a floppy green hat, apparently engaged in a game of peekaboo. The sight did not lift Kirk's spirits.

  "Yes," he said. "Well. I take it that the chair in the 'treatment room' is being dismantled?"

  Mrs. File's face clouded. "Yes, it has been dismantled, Captain. And I must assure you that I and the rest of the staff had no idea of the extent to which Dr. Voltmer was abusing the minds of the children. Though we did suspect, somewhat, I suppose. It explains much of their erratic behavior. Makes things clearer. Voltmer is on Starbase Twelve now, waiting to stand trial for malpractice, falsifying records, perhaps even child abuse."

  Kirk pictured Voltmer's fleshy face and ingratiating smile. He imagined the man standing before a Federation subcommittee hearing charges read against him. It brought Kirk a dull satisfaction, to think of it.

  Mrs. File turned to Spock. "Your report on the damage done to Pal's mind was most enlightening. It appears, Captain, that once again the Onlies are greatly indebted to you and your men."

  Kirk's eyes found Pal sitting in a corner of the room, piling glo-rocks in a bucket with several little girls. "Take care of them," he said softly to Mrs. File. He flipped open his communicator. "Mr. Scott. Stand by to beam up the landing party."

  McCoy had found his conversations with the staff of the Children's Center interesting and informative. He felt sure that Pal was now in sensitive, caring hands. The children were being questioned about their experiences in Voltmer's chair, something Voltmer had discouraged when he was in charge. A formal investigation, on the strength of Spock's report, was under way.

  The doctor felt eager to discuss some of what Mrs. File had told him with the captain. But when he called up to the bridge from sickbay, Spock was in command. The Enterprise was heading back toward Flint's private planet to return their remarkable guest to his study, solitude, and creative work.

  Kirk's absence from the bridge made McCoy feel uneasy. Spock had taken the doctor aside and mentioned to him days earlier that Kirk and Spock had been talking; the captain now knew something of what had occurred on Flint's planet, and he accepted not knowing everything. His peace of mind had improved; but he still seemed depressed, moody, during their visit to the planet of the Onlies. McCoy left Nurse Chapel in charge of sickbay once again, and set out in search of Kirk.

  The captain was not in his quarters, not in a recreation room or the gym, not in the main library or gardens, or in his favorite mess hall. McCoy found him at last on the ship's largest observation deck. The cavernous room was dark, and the cool air blew through it as if through an empty stadium. The walls were windows, encasing darkness and flecks of light, the galaxy dizzyingly receding around it on all sides. The giant room was simply constructed to be an amphitheater for the stars.

  The lone figure it contained looked as small as a gladiator in a giant ring. Kirk was leaning his hand against one of the colossal windows. In his other hand he held a long tall glass of Rigellian whiskey. McCoy walked toward him, and his footsteps, his voice when he spoke, echoed through the chamber.

  "Is this a private party, Captain? Or can anyone drink away his troubles here?"

  Kirk did not look at him. "Well, Doctor. You've found me out, have you?"

  "Looks like it. There were a few things I wanted to discuss with you, pass on to you. But they can wait."

  Now Kirk turned to face him. "No, no. Tell me. I'm interested."

  McCoy scratched his head. "Well, it's just that I had a talk with Mrs. File, while we were on the planet. About the question of how fast the Onlies age, among other things. She said that in the future it will be up to the children themselves, whether they decide to stay children, or whether they choose to take the shots to make them grow. She says that a surprising number say they want to grow up now. Pal included."

  After mulling this over, Kirk asked, "And what did she have to say about Pal, about his condition?"

  "Why, she says he seems to be in better shape now than he was in before he was kidnapped by the Onlies who stole the Sparrow. Apparently, Spock's mind-meld undid a great deal of the damage done by Voltmer and his cronies, with their chair."

  "Good, good." Kirk took another drink of whiskey.

  McCoy hesitated, then told him the next bit of news. "File also said they're looking into the possibility of homes for some of the Onlies that plan on growing up at a normal rate—sending them to a foster family environment, away from the Center. Since the Center doesn't seem to be doing them all that much good. And Flint—"

  Kirk's eyes flicked to meet his.

  "Flint has expressed an interest to me in adopting Pal. Helping the boy adjust from seeming immortality to the process of aging. He says that it's a process that he himself knows and understands, now."

  "Flint?" Kirk said. "Thinks he can raise a child alone on that cold, dry, sad planet of his?"

  "Well, I saw him playing with some of the children, Jim. There may be more fun in him than you realize."

  "Yes, I saw him too. Are you sure his sudden rapid aging hasn't made him senile? Does he want Pal to share his second childhood with him? Is that it?" Kirk heard the bitterness and rancor in his voice and it startled him. He looked down. "I'm not being fair, Bones. And I know it."

  "You must remember," McCoy said gently, "that all his sons and daughters on Earth have long since died, centuries ago. And Flint has not dared to stay in touch with their descendants. Any of us could be of his family. None of us is, for certain."

  "Of course, Bones, of course. I'm hardly an objective judge or a worthy judge of such a great man. And I can barely back up a single negative thing that I might say about him." Kirk laughed hollowly, then grew serious. "And I do appreciate who he is. He's certainly entitled to some personal happiness, if he can get it, in his final years."

  The doctor took another step toward him. "Jim, if you don't mind me pryin', what brought you down here all alone?"

  "I was just taking some time out to think. To think and survey my record."

  "Well, it's quite a record. One of the most impressive in the fleet." McCoy spoke with quiet earnestness. "And you did everything you could against the Klingons, and to save the children in this last crazy—"

  Kirk laughed and shook his head. "Oh no. Not that record. No, Bones, I'm talking about conquests. And betrayals. Love enough to last a lifetime. That's given a week to prove itself. Soft night music. Drowned out by a computer's hum."

  "The life of a sailor, Jim."

  "Yes, it is." Kirk raised his glass, as if in a toast. "
A girl in every port. And a heartache for every girl. Water, water everywhere …"

  "And you've had too much to drink," McCoy said sharply, and took the glass away from him. After a moment, he drained it of its contents, and said thoughtfully, "Not bad stuff, this."

  "Not bad at all, is it? Scotty gave it to me. After I convinced him I wasn't in the mood for Scotch."

  They stood in silence for a moment, in the darkness, under the observation deck's great dome. Finally, McCoy said, "Jim, sometimes we all get …"

  "I know, Bones, I know. And it doesn't mean anything. I wouldn't trade my life, this life, this ship for …" He looked around. "Just look at this ship that we're aboard, Bones. And look, look at the stars."

  Again the officers of the Enterprise assembled in the transporter room, this time to bid farewell to Flint. He had refused Kirk's offer of a banquet in his honor and said only that he was anxious to return to his work.

  "If I am to understand the communication from your Starfleet Command," he said to Kirk, "it appears the Klingons have not, through Kreth's experiences, learned enough to penetrate my cloaking device."

  "No. Although seeing our use of fluorescence must have given them a clue."

  "Ah, yes," Flint said. "Therefore, I hope to modify the Flint device so that it will screen out and disguise particles that collect around it, such as fluorescent dust. This will, hopefully, make it impenetrable once again."

  Kirk smiled. "Unless you, sir, are called in again to crack it."

  Flint's glance acknowledged the compliment. "It is a bizarre game, trying to confound oneself." He turned to McCoy. "Doctor. Has there been any further word on whether the Children's Center will permit me to take Pal as my legal ward?"

  McCoy looked itchy and uncomfortable as he stood at attention in his dress uniform. "It's under discussion, sir," he replied. "Pal is receptive to the idea. It seems to have become a symbol of status among the Onlies, the idea of having a 'Grup' of one's own. The main concern of the Center, though, is that Pal might be better off with other children about."