Crucible: McCoy

by David R. George III

  “You start ahead, Doctor,” Spock called back over his shoulder. Despite the illogic of it, he reached for these last seconds with Zarabeth and wanted to hold them with her in private. Time passed relentlessly, though, now and in the future. From the captain’s insistence that they hurry through the portal, Spock gathered that, five thousand years ahead, only minutes remained before Beta Niobe would reach the point in its nova cycle when it would destroy the lone planet in its system—this planet, Sarpeidon. Once that happened, he and the doctor would be marooned here permanently.

  And would that be so bad? Spock asked himself. The smooth feel of Zarabeth’s skin beneath his hands, the ache of love in her eyes, his own reluctance to leave her—all of it told him that he should stay.

  “I do not wish to part from you,” he said.

  “I cannot come,” Zarabeth said, shaking her head. “If I go back, I will die.” Spock knew that. She had told him already. While most of the inhabitants of Sarpeidon had used their time portal to escape the coming nova by traveling into their world’s past, Zarabeth had been stranded here by a tyrant. Serving a life sentence for the sins of two family members, she had been prepared and sent here in a way that would not permit her to survive another trip through the portal.

  “What are you waiting for? Hurry!” said the captain, his voice reverberating as he called back to Spock and McCoy from their own time.

  “How much time do we have?” Spock asked, raising his voice to be heard over the wind. He heard the activation sound of a communicator, and then the captain and Mr. Scott talking. He heard the word now.

  Dr. McCoy strode up beside Spock and Zarabeth. “Come on, Spock,” he pressed. “Now!”

  Spock brushed the hair from Zarabeth’s face, then looked to the doctor. He and McCoy shared a strong bond. Spock had known the truth of that for a long time, but he had never felt it in the way that he did right now. But something in his passage through the time portal had affected him, reverted him to the state of his Vulcan ancestors in this period: uncivilized, uncontrolled, emotional. And now he made an emotional decision.

  He turned from Zarabeth, spun McCoy around, and pushed him into the portal. Spock would remain here, spend his life with the woman he loved—

  Except that McCoy struck the ice face and stopped. The doctor staggered backward. “Something’s wrong,” he called.

  Confusion washed over Spock, followed by a sense of elation, his choice reinforced by events. “It appears that we cannot go back,” he told McCoy.

  The doctor peered at him with shock, and then mistrust, as though Spock himself had somehow rendered the portal unusable. Spock ignored McCoy’s suspicions, which he believed would fade over the course of the weeks and months and years that they would spend here. Instead, he went back to Zarabeth, taking her hand in his. “We are staying,” he said, and her entire aspect changed, her face brightening like the sky at dawn. Spock smiled back at her.

  “Spock, McCoy,” the captain called, “you can’t get through unless you both come back at the same time.”

  Zarabeth’s face fell, and the joy Spock had experienced a moment ago vanished. Not only could he go back to the future, he must go back to the future. If not, he would have earned McCoy’s mistrust, immorally elevating his own desires over the doctor’s fundamental need to return home.

  Zarabeth understood. Even as Spock found himself unable to move, she stepped back from him. Her courage only deepened his love for her.

  “Spock, McCoy, hurry through the portal!” came the captain’s voice. “Time is running out!”

  Zarabeth let go of his hand, turned, and walked away. Spock knew that he must go now, or he would never go. He moved toward the ice face, toward the unseen portal, toward the future and his life aboard the Enterprise—and away from Zarabeth. McCoy went with him. They shared a look and then pushed forward.

  The sensation felt to Spock like passing through a wall of sand. His vision clouded in a way reminiscent of travel by transporter, then flashed several times and cleared. He peered down at himself and noted that the pelt he had been wearing had not journeyed forward in time with him.

  He looked over at McCoy, but then saw movement to his right. Before Spock could react, the keeper of the time portal pushed between him and the doctor and threw himself into his world’s past. Spock watched him disappear in a flicker of light and then felt suddenly benumbed by all that had transpired.

  Captain Kirk walked up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. Spock did not—could not yet—look away from the portal. Through it, he imagined that he could see Zarabeth and knew that he could not. He felt powerless to do anything, and he strived to regain his composure.

  With a sigh, the captain said, “He had his escape planned,” obviously referring to the keeper of the portal. “I’m glad he made it.” Then the captain activated his communicator and moved a few paces away. “Kirk to Enterprise,” he said.

  Spock stared at the portal and then noted Doctor McCoy’s presence beside him. He looked over and saw the doctor watching him closely. Spock shook his head, unwilling to allow the scrutiny. “There’s no further need to observe me, Doctor,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back as he tried to hold on to the here and now. “As you can see, I’ve returned to the present in every sense.”

  “But it did happen, Spock,” McCoy said. He spoke softly, with enough tenderness, enough caring, to convey his intention to speak only of Zarabeth and not of the conflicts the two men had engaged in during their time in the past.

  “Yes, it happened,” Spock said, grasping onto the facts that would underscore the futility of whatever emotion still lingered. “But that was five thousand years ago…and she is dead now…dead and buried…long ago.”

  Behind the doctor, the captain spoke into his communicator. “Scotty, are you there?”

  “It’s now or never, Captain,” said the chief engineer.

  “Beam us aboard,” the captain said, “and go to maximum warp as soon as we’re there. Kirk out.”

  Spock walked past Dr. McCoy and over to the captain, positioning himself for transport. Seconds later, he stood with his colleagues aboard the Enterprise. At the transporter console, Lieutenant Bates pressed the intercom button.

  “Bates to bridge,” he said. “Mister Scott, they’re all aboard.”

  “Acknowledged,” Scott said. “Bridge out.”

  As Spock descended from the platform to the deck along with Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy, he detected the vibration of the ship’s drive as it took the Enterprise to warp. “Thank you, Mister Bates,” the captain said, and then he turned to face Spock and McCoy. “Are you two all right?” he asked.

  Spock bowed his head in response, while the doctor said, “Yeah, Jim, we’re fine.” He flexed his fingers and added, “Maybe a little frostnip, but otherwise okay.”

  “Good,” the captain said, starting toward the door, and McCoy went with him. “So what was it like where you were? It looked like an artic waste on the discs.”

  “Captain,” Spock said as the transporter room doors slid open. “With your permission, I would like to go to my quarters. I am…fatigued.”

  The captain took a step back into the room. “Yes, of course.” He regarded Spock for a second and then asked, “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I simply require rest,” Spock said, wanting to make no claims of which he could not be completely certain.

  “Very well,” Captain Kirk said. “I’ll look forward to your report on what happened.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Spock said, and he walked past Kirk and McCoy and out into the corridor.

  When he reached his quarters, Spock set the lighting to a subdued shade of green, then lighted a combination of incense candles. When he’d completed his preparations for meditation, he lay down on his bed, his fingers held tip to tip above him. He closed his eyes and sought to center himself in his logic. In his mind he pictured the Kir’Shara, the ancient Vulcan artifact that held the writings of S
urak. Spock directed himself to visualize the surfaces of the triangular pyramid, to see the old Vulcan characters adorning them.

  But he could not prevent himself from envisioning Zarabeth’s face instead: her round cheekbones, green eyes, soft lips, her long, sinuous red hair. “That was five thousand years ago,” he said aloud, opening his eyes. “She is dead, and buried.” Except that, out in space, the nova of Beta Niobe had by now lain waste to Sarpeidon. The bones of Zarabeth no longer rested beneath the strata under which time and tide had buried her. “Now she is stardust,” Spock said.

  He closed his eyes, but it was a very long time before he felt centered again.

  “Spock, I think I’ve got it,” McCoy said as he looked up to see the first officer enter sickbay. The doctor stood beside diagnostic pallet number two, atop which he had spread several data slates.

  “I trust that whatever ‘it’is, Doctor,” Spock said dryly, “that it is not communicable.”

  McCoy chuckled to himself. Since the ship’s visit to Beta Niobe a couple of months ago, he had been concerned about his shipmate and friend. Despite Spock’s assurances to the contrary, the first officer had not returned unaffected from their shared time in Sarpeidon’s past. Although McCoy often bantered with Spock about his stoic demeanor and dedication to logic, he also recognized that over the years the Vulcan had actually integrated well into the Enterprise’s mostly human crew. While Spock rarely showed emotion himself and seemed discomfited by the strongly expressive displays of others, he mingled freely in his off-duty hours. He frequently played music on his lyre in the rec room, took part in three-dimensional chess and other games, and often demonstrated a sly wit, sometimes even to the point of playfulness.

  After Spock’s doomed love affair with Zarabeth in Sarpeidon’s ice age, though, all of that had changed. Other than in the performance of his duties, the first officer had become uncommunicative, and for weeks he hadn’t ventured out of his quarters except to take his shift on the bridge. Jim had certainly noticed the differences in Spock’s behavior, mentioning it to McCoy on three occasions. McCoy had suggested to the captain that he needed to give their friend time to recover from the events on Sarpeidon. The doctor had written nothing in his report about the nature of Spock’s relationship with Zarabeth, nor had he spoken of it to Jim, believing that aspect of the incident should remain private. But he had detailed Spock’s reversion to the barbarity and emotionalism of ancient Vulcans, and he had cited that when recommending to the captain that he allow the first officer a period sufficiently long for him to readjust. Over the past week or ten days, McCoy had noted such a readjustment, and Spock’s quip just now about communicable diseases appeared to support that view.

  “If I had anything contagious,” McCoy retorted, “I’m sure it wouldn’t like that green syrup in your veins that you call blood.”

  “I do not call it blood, Doctor,” Spock said, walking over to McCoy. “It is blood.”

  “Well, whatever it is, your heart should get it pumping when you see this,” McCoy said, waving his hand over the five slates he’d placed on the pallet. He could have placed all of his research on one slate, of course, but he’d wanted to see all of the data, all at once. He picked up the one on the far right. “You’re aware that we completed the annual crew evaluations not that long ago.”

  “Your uncomfortable invasion of my body with your vast array of medieval medical instruments remains fresh in my mind,” Spock gibed. “I take it that the evaluations have revealed something of interest.”

  “They have,” McCoy said. “We’ve discovered more increases in the M’Benga numbers of some of the crew.”

  “That is hardly without precedent,” Spock said. “Nor, as those precedents indicate, are such increases of any apparent concern.”

  “Maybe not,” McCoy allowed, “but this time, I may finally have found the cause.”

  “Indeed,” Spock said, arching an eyebrow.

  “Here are the four crewmembers whose numbers have changed,” McCoy said, handing the slate over to Spock. The first officer took it and examined its display.

  “Captain Kirk,” Spock read.

  “As usual, the captain’s numbers showed the greatest increase, by a wide margin,” McCoy said. “Yours showed the second greatest.”

  “Yes, I see,” Spock said, and then he read: “Doctor McCoy and Lieutenant Bates.” He peered up from the slate, obviously intrigued by that final entry. “Lieutenant Bates,” he repeated.

  “That’s whose readings sent me in the right direction,” McCoy said. Paul Bates had served aboard the Enterprise for several years, moving up from crewman to ensign, and recently to lieutenant. A member of the engineering and services division, he’d functioned in a variety of roles during his tenure, including security guard and transporter operator. Not long ago, he’d accompanied the captain and Spock on an uncommon mission. To assist annalists in the investigation of Federation history, the three men had traveled back in time to the dawn of Orion civilization via the Guardian of Forever. Although they had acted as observers only, and had done nothing to alter the past, Federation historians monitoring the Guardian had accidentally changed the timeline. According to the captain, Spock had subsequently set things right.

  McCoy had no recollection himself of the disruption of time, but Jim had recounted the story for him. Consequences of the incident had included the banning of all travel through the Guardian, as well the elimination of direct studies of the enigmatic portal. Starfleet still maintained a security presence on and about the planet, but personnel were no longer permitted anywhere near the Guardian.

  The medical report in Spock’s hands described another consequence of the incident, McCoy believed. “Bates serves primarily aboard ship,” he explained. “Because he almost never joins landing parties, he’s rarely exposed to anything that the rest of the crew are not.”

  “Yes,” Spock agreed, nodding. “His presence on the research mission through the Guardian of Forever was a notable exception.”

  “Precisely,” McCoy said. He retrieved a second data slate and scrutinized it for a moment before continuing. “Bates’s latest physical took place after that mission, and it showed an increase in his M’Benga numbers. His previous physical took place less than a year before that, when we rechecked the entire crew and found that everybody on board had suffered an increase.” McCoy recalled finishing those exams just prior to his being diagnosed with xenopolycythemia. “But we already knew about that increase, so I decided to go back even further, to all of Bates’s previous exams.”

  “But the so-called M’Benga numbers were not collected prior to our mission to Deneva,” Spock said.

  “Right,” McCoy said. “Doctor M’Benga developed his algorithm as a means of testing for the presence of the neural parasites, but his formulae utilized data already commonly collected. So I went back and applied the algorithm to readings from all of Bates’s physicals. I found one more instance of an increase for him.” McCoy held the slate out to Spock, who exchanged it for the one in his hands. He read through it, and then looked up.

  “Lieutenant Bates shows an increase after his second year aboard, after his third, and now after his fourth,” Spock said. “Are you suggesting that this is occurring cyclically?”

  “No,” McCoy said. “But the physicals are administered at regular intervals for most of the crew, with the exception of those who participate in hazardous landing parties and therefore require additional checkups.”

  “Such as you, the captain, and myself,” Spock said.

  McCoy nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “So I assembled the results of every physical the three of us have taken since we’ve been aboard the Enterprise, and I applied Doctor M’Benga’s algorithm to them.” McCoy picked up a third slate and offered it to Spock. “I found four increases for each of us, all at the same times.”

  Spock set down his slate on the diagnostic pallet and took the next one from McCoy. He studied it for a while. “I see no commo
n indicator or event that correlates with each of these times,” he concluded.

  “It’s not obvious,” McCoy said, “and I might not even be right. But to double check, I programmed the computer to apply M’Benga’s algorithm to the readings from every exam administered since the Enterprise began its current tour of duty under the captain. There appears to be a total of five periods when the numbers increase in clusters, either for the entire crew or for just a few of us.” McCoy tapped at the fourth slate on the pallet. Spock picked it up, putting the other one down.

  “I am unable to discern any pattern,” he said.

  “Neither did I,” McCoy admitted, “but I had a hunch because of Bates.” He grabbed the final slate and handed it to Spock. “This is a list of the events I think have caused the increases.”

  Once more, Spock peered at the display. “The controlled implosion of the warp engines at Psi 2000,” he read. That event had unexpectedly sent the ship backward in time seventy-one hours. “The full-warp breakaway from the black star en route to Starbase Nine.” An accident that had propelled the Enterprise back in time to the year 1969, when they’d had to bring U.S. Air Force Captain Christopher aboard. “Kirk, Spock, and McCoy traveling through the Guardian of Forever.” The three had ended up on Earth, in 1930, where they’d met Edith Keeler. “The Enterprise’s mission of historical research, to Earth, in 1968.” Utilizing the warp breakaway maneuver, the crew had taken the ship back in time to study events on mid-twentieth-century Earth, where they’d encountered the enigmatic Gary Seven. “Kirk, Spock, and Bates traveling through the Guardian to the dawn of Orion civilization. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy traveling through the portal on Sarpeidon to the planet’s ice age.” Spock looked up and stated the obvious: “Time travel.”

  “I think so,” McCoy said. “That wouldn’t explain why Jim’s readings are so much higher than anybody else’s, but there could be other factors involved. Or it could be something entirely different, because we don’t have direct proof. For that, we’d need these readings made right before and right after somebody travels in time.”