“Human?” Kirk asked.
He shook his head. “Unclear. It is in suspended animation.”
“Mister Chekov, you and Tra check out that new reading. The rest of us will continue ahead.”
Chekov nodded. “Aye, sir.”
“Make sure you stay out of trouble,” the captain said with a small smile. “If this is a first contact, I want it to be a smooth one. Don’t let them know you’re there, if you can avoid it.”
“Keep him out of trouble, Tra,” Giotto added.
“I’ll do my best, sir.” Tra took point, squeezing through a gap between two pods. Moments later, darkness enveloped Chekov once more.
Luke Hendrick died while McCoy was operating on him.
After finishing with Sulu, McCoy had moved on to a new patient with severe internal bleeding—a young woman in a maintenance coverall by the name of Golaski-Lawrence. When she was secure, her internal bleeding stopped and her biosigns stable, McCoy rushed over to the biobed where his next patient had just been laid.
Nurse Chapel was already there, looking grave. The man had serious abrasions covering most of his skin. His uniform shirt sported a central patch of still-wet blood. As McCoy approached, Chapel turned to face him. Her mouth had turned into a thin line, and there was a look of grim determination about her. She shook her head sadly. McCoy studied the man’s readouts. “What happened?” he asked.
“He was thrown from the observation station in the shuttlebay,” Chapel said. “Extensive damage to the spinal cord and vertebrae, as well as four fractured ribs. One of them pierced his left lung.”
McCoy glanced at the data slate she offered him. “I hope whoever brought him here took great care,” he grumbled. Spinal injuries were a damned difficult business, if you didn’t know what you were doing.
“They did. Messier was with them.”
Ah, good. One of his most capable med techs, Magaly Messier wouldn’t have let anybody mishandle a patient.
All right, then. There was no time to lose. “Get me an emergency cart!” he shouted in the direction he’d last seen Brent disappear in. Mere moments later, the cart was delivered, and Brent stood next to him, waiting for further instructions.
“Nurse, you’ll have to assist me,” McCoy said. This was a very delicate operation that needed two pairs of hands.
McCoy couldn’t avoid feeling a little uneasy; despite the almost miraculous nature of most modern treatments and surgery techniques, a damaged spinal column wasn’t easily healed. You needed to be well trained and highly experienced, especially when the patient had suffered a horrific fall like Hendrick.
You’re not that good a doctor, not today. Probably won’t ever be. Just an ordinary country doctor, way out of his depth.
The self-doubt that Jocelyn’s voice put into words stopped him from beginning the operation. After a while, he became aware of Chapel looking at him expectantly. He shook his head in a futile attempt to dislodge the phantasm and breathed in deeply. “Right,” he said, “let’s get on with it.”
McCoy lost himself in the operation. It occupied the entirety of his mind, left no room for Jocelyn to interrupt and insult him. Before long, the vertebrae showed no sign of ever having been broken, and he’d taken the first steps in splicing together the ends of the spinal cord that had been separated by the impact.
When the alarm rang out, he almost dropped his instruments.
“What the hell is it now?” he said, fearing the worst. A look at the monitor didn’t improve matters: all the readings were dropping. The indicator for neural activity was approaching zero—brain death was imminent. “How is this possible?”
Not only was the man’s brain shutting down, he was going into cardiac arrest. McCoy had no idea what could cause this, but there was no time to guess—he had to act. He tried everything he could think of. Nothing. Not even a high dose of cordrazine could get the man back.
“No, no, no!” This shouldn’t be happening.
Luke Hendrick drew his last breath.
“There’s no reason he should be dead, goddammit!” McCoy said, almost shouting. Giving in to his anger, he slammed his fist on the medical monitor. He wanted to hit something, hit it hard. “Time of death: 1819 hours, Stardate 4757.8. Name: Luke Hendrick, senior chief petty officer. Cause: unknown complications, possibly due to spinal injuries. Exact cause to be determined.” He gazed down at the still form of the man, who should still be alive.
“You did everything you could,” Chapel said.
McCoy sighed and turned away from the body, forcing himself to accept that he hadn’t been able to save Hendrick. Moving on to the next patient, he stopped after a few steps and turned around.
Chapel had been just a step behind him. “What is it, Doctor?” she asked, worried.
McCoy stood there, watching her. He could hear all the sounds around him—people talking, machines beeping, whirring, thrumming. Precious seconds passed before the doctor shook off the feeling of detachment. There was no time for woolgathering; he needed to get back to work. “Brent,” he said at last, “please take the body to the morgue.”
Once a patient is dead, you’re done. I should hardly be surprised. You abandoned me before I died.
What? Jocelyn wasn’t dead—
With a rush that made him dizzy, the doctor realized that the voice wasn’t his ex-wife’s. It had morphed into another one—that of his father. The father he’d let die four years ago now, taking him off life support rather than letting him continue to suffer.
And what did you do then? Jocelyn’s voice asked. Signed up for duty on Capella IV, to get as far away from Earth as possible. Running away from your problems and your pain. Absolutely typical.
No, no, no! He couldn’t afford this now! McCoy was usually at his best under pressure—he needed to stay focused. The voices had faded when he was occupied. If he threw himself into his work—
As always.
—he could stop them. Or at least quiet them. Time to get back to work, then.
There was little time for McCoy to think about anything other than the problem in front of him—rebuilding a shattered knee, closing a deep gash. The doctor did wonder when the stream of new patients would stop. He kept worrying about the espers, the mystery behind their comas.
Damn it all. He’d forgotten one of the most important lessons he’d learned from his father—and the one he’d found most difficult to accept—don’t let the work get to you, keep some distance from everything. McCoy liked to complain about the loss of compassion in modern medicine. But secretly, he agreed that a level of detachment was necessary.
And you’ve become too attached, to this ship, this crew. You never were attached to me. It scared you. That’s why you always moved on. You left me behind, you should leave these people behind too.
He’d never left Jocelyn behind! What was the voice even talking about?
I’m not Jocelyn. Don’t you recognize me?
Joanna. His only child, born out of a crumbling marriage. He’d wanted custody of her, but hadn’t gotten it.
By your own choice!
They still talked, exchanging messages. Joanna was in high school, and she’d mentioned something about going into medicine.
There’s a way to practice medicine… and what you do isn’t right. You’re not a doctor because you believe in it, you never chose the life you live. What you chose was escape.
No, that wasn’t true! McCoy ignored the voices as best he could and focused on what he was doing. He couldn’t afford to have his concentration slip.
“Yeoman Zahra,” he said as he gently held her right arm and ran his trusted connector over the broken bone, “how are you feeling?”
She smiled weakly. “All right. The last shake caught me by surprise. I’ve gotten enough bruises to last me a lifetime, but others weren’t so lucky,” she added, glancing around the room. “I don’t want to take up so much of your attention.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” McCoy said, waving her concern
s away. “You’re my patient now, and you have my full attention. Tell me something: have you been … experiencing anything out of the ordinary?”
Zahra looked up at him, displaying the same lack of comprehension as the other crew members he’d asked. “Such as?”
“Well, anything, really. Perhaps hearing voices?” McCoy was concerned that he was the only one suffering from this problem. If M’Benga was here… But he wasn’t. The Enterprise was wounded, her crew needed him.
Zahra bit her lip, then shook her head. “No, sir. Why do you ask?”
He took a deep breath, more to buy time than anything else. “Those folks are in deep comas,” he said, motioning with his head. “I’m trying to find out if something is affecting the minds of the crew.” There, that sounded almost believable. “And now, Yeoman Zahra, I won’t keep you any longer. Your arm’s fully healed, but try to be gentle with it.”
The most beautiful smile he’d seen in a long while lit her face. “Thank you, sir.”
“Off you go, then.” He put on his grumpy face. He enjoyed his reputation as a soft-hearted man in a misanthrope’s guise.
With Zahra gone, he only had a few patients left. He’d deal with them, then get some rest. Refreshed, he’d continue his research, while telling himself that he wasn’t going insane, that what he was experiencing was just a side effect of stress. Yes, his body was simply telling him—albeit rather creatively—to slow down a little. However, over an hour later, McCoy was still hard at work, Odhiambo lurking over his shoulder.
“Doctor,” Nurse Odhiambo said. “You’re needed in auxiliary control.”
“Is someone hurt?” McCoy asked. With the Enterprise immobile, they hadn’t hit any more distortions, but who knew what could have happened. What if another computer console had exploded? If Uhura had been injured, then this ship was going to be in even more trouble.
Odhiambo shook her head. “No, sir. Lieutenant Uhura wants a report.”
“Nurse, please tell her that I’ll report to her as soon as I finish here.” He didn’t wait for her reply but instead returned his attention to his patient. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was afraid. Afraid of not being able to help the espers, afraid they were going to die.
The closer they got to the energy reading, the louder the noises became. Kirk could hear squeaking as well, which reminded him of the Guidons, who had the highest-pitched voices he’d ever heard. As the landing party drew closer, the captain realized there was a deeper component. Each squeak seemed to carry three or four tones at once.
The rows of cryopods were coming to an end, and Kirk could just make out the wall of the chamber in the dim blue light. Large shadows moved across it. “Ensign,” he asked Seven Deers, taking care to keep his voice low. “Are those Farrezzi?”
“Aye, Captain,” she whispered back. “A large group of them—active and moving.”
“Sir,” Giotto said, “if they took our man, we don’t want to just barge in there.”
Kirk nodded, having arrived at the same conclusion himself. “Agreed. Seven Deers, find us a spot where we can observe them safely. All equipment to silent.”
Seven Deers checked her tricorder, then led them behind a row of pods, where they could get a good look.
A large group of Farrezzi—awake Farrezzi—were moving in front of a gigantic, blocky metal structure that filled the end of the cavern. Fifty meters wide and almost as high, it was embedded in the rocky wall, so the captain couldn’t tell how deep it went. The block was lined at its base with more of the semicircular doorways, and the Farrezzi were pushing cryopods through them. They were talking to one another, and now translation would go even faster because the UT could use its scans of their brainwaves to aid its analysis.
“Mister Rawlins, any readings on what’s in that structure?”
The geologist shook his head. “Machinery of some type, Captain. I can barely get a reading through the hyper-bonded metal.”
Kirk nodded. Was it a facility for reawakening the Farrezzi? Were they getting ready to reclaim their planet?
It took a few moments for him to notice that his communicator was blinking—the UT was ready. At a level he could barely make out, a voice began emanating from the device. “Attention! Order: damage avoidance. Alternative: fatality!”
“Remorse.” The translator rendered both voices androgynous. “Speed increase attempt. Obedience.”
“Order: silence! Arrival intruders on planet, high-speed necessity for avoidance load-theft.”
Kirk shared a glance with Giotto, who asked, “Intruders? They have to be talking about Yüksel. But what did they mean by ‘load’?”
“Not-we knowledge of planet location nonexistent. Statement inclusion Orions. Load-theft impossibility.”
“Contradiction! Orions commerce contact time abundance then/now, century-plus. Intruder resemblance, exception: skin color.”
Orions? Saloniemi had said he’d found a reference to Farrezz in Orion records. Were they trading with the Farrezzi, after all this time? Were they here?
“Desire: completion loading process. Nonpossession: knowledge of waking procedure failure.”
Kirk had been watching the Farrezzi, trying to figure out which two were conversing. Finally, he managed to pick them out, by virtue of their moving, trunk-like appendages. One was pushing a cryopod with two of its limbs, waving the others in agitation, as another stood next to it, slightly taller, and waving three limbs in reply.
“Attention: avoidance of merchandise damage!”
The captain didn’t like the sound of that, not in connection with Orions. “Merchandise,” he repeated, careful not to raise his voice. “Seven Deers, double-check that.”
The ensign entered commands into her tricorder.
“They definitely said ‘merchandise,’ Captain,” she said. “Ninety-two percent certainty. They are calling those cryopods ‘merchandise.’”
“Does that mean what I think it means, Captain?” asked Rawlins.
“It means the Farrezzi inside those cryopods are slaves,” Kirk said. “These people are slave traders.”
A Vulcan mind is a disciplined one, able to concentrate on many different tasks at once. At the moment, Spock had to keep the Hofstadter under control, analyze the mysterious storm, work on the conundrum of the Farrezzi, and navigate to a safe location. Had he been human, he would have been relieved that Scott had succeeded in bypassing the burnt-out circuits in only 7.3 minutes. However, Spock was well aware of the engineer’s tendency to exaggerate his repair estimates and had expected a quick solution.
Lieutenant Jaeger’s report on the storm indicated that it had reached unexpected levels of power in a very short time. The air over the southern continent was continuously being agitated by an unknown phenomenon, which was the cause of the hurricane-like effects they were experiencing. With the shields impaired by interference, the storm was already dangerous to fly in.
Spock was flying low over a Farrezzi metropolis, speeding toward a building lower than the others, with a radius of over forty meters, possibly a storage facility. “We must land.”
“Aye, sir,” said Lieutenant Kologwe, who continued to man navigation. “Quickly, in order to avoid another one of those lightning strikes.” She pointed at her navigational plot, which displayed a massive swirl of meteorological activity across the entire region.
As Spock initiated the descent, his mind actively returned to one of the other problems he had been considering since the lightning strike. The shuttle’s autopilot did most of the work for standard landing maneuvers, enabling him to examine the mysterious interference. It was not present in the initial probe surveys, or the Hofstadter’s orbital sweep. Therefore, it had to derive from an outside force. Something had been added to the equation. They would have to perform another detailed survey of the planet.
Spock brought the Hofstadter down in front of the squat building. There were items strewn all about, resembling crates and shipping containers. The building possessed semicir
cular entrances, but large enough for the shuttle to pass through. Spock sent Kologwe and Emalra’ehn outside to open one, and once they had, he moved the shuttle inside and shut it down. Scott immediately set to work on repairing the shuttle systems.
The landing party moved out in order to take stock of their temporary refuge. A few items of uncertain function littered the ground, as well as more of the containers they had seen outside. Kologwe and Emalra’ehn examined their shelter with flashlights and drawn phasers, the others with their tricorders. Having achieved a temporary reprieve, Spock turned his mind to their present situation. A check-in with the captain was due. Spock activated the shuttle’s communication systems and signaled the captain’s communicator.
No connection. During their last contact, Captain Kirk had reported that his landing party was about to enter an underground chamber, and Spock assumed that they must be out of range. He signaled the Columbus. Receiving no reply, he recorded a succinct report to be stored in the shuttle’s memory.
Outside, the storm continued to howl, fierce bouts of rain reverberating as they bounced off the roof of the structure. Spock restrained an emotional desire for the dry skies of his homeworld.
Finally, they’d caught up. McCoy ordered Chapel to rest, while the med techs moved out to check up on the people who were recovering in quarters.
The biggest problem still remained: What was causing the comas? If he applied himself to it, without interruption, the voices wouldn’t take over.
Vanishing your own inner demons isn’t really an admirable reason to practice medicine.
McCoy willed Jocelyn to shut up. But it was pointless—every time he began to think about anything, there was one of the voices, whispering in the corner of his mind. Part of him knew he should relieve himself of duty. With M’Benga off the ship, he was the only doctor.
And that’s not very much as it is.
The most recent addition to the list of perplexing facts was that the espers’ readings had taken a sudden dip around the same time the Enterprise had hit the last distortion. They’d risen slightly when the ship had pulled out of it, but not to where they’d been before. There had to be a connection between the distortions and the espers’ comas.
Star Trek®: A Choice of Catastrophes Page 13