It looked different, somehow. Unfamiliar. Kirk leaned a bit closer and saw why. It was his eyes.
They were gleaming with a strange, silver light.
Something stiffened in him. He had seen eyes like those before. Before he could remember where, he heard the soft breath of air that signaled the opening of a door. Someone entered sickbay—and even before he turned to see who it was, he knew.
It was his friend, Gary Mitchell. Captain Gary Mitchell. Not only his pal since his Academy days, but his commanding officer as well.
“Gary,” said Kirk.
“How are you feeling?” asked Mitchell.
“Something’s happening to me,” Kirk told him, his mouth dry and getting drier by the moment. “Something ... bad, I think. I mean, I can do things I’ve never done before, but ...” He swallowed. “Dammit, I’m scared.”
Gary nodded grimly. “I know, Jim.”
Kirk held his hand out. “You’re my friend, for godsakes. You’ve got to help me,” he pleaded.
But he wasn’t speaking normally anymore. His voice had become so powerful, so expansive, it echoed from bulkhead to bulkhead like a roll of thunder in the heavens.
[41] Kirk looked at his reflection in the monitor screen again, amazed. What was he, that he could speak with such a voice? What in the name of all the stars and planets was he becoming?
He turned to the captain again. “Gary ... please ...”
The captain bit his lip, clearly sharing his friend’s pain. But he didn’t take Kirk’s outstretched hand.
“Listen,” he said, “I didn’t want to do this, Jim. You’ve got to believe that. If I’d had any choice at all ...”
Kirk didn’t understand. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice deep and ponderous, breaking like waves off the walls around him.
Gary didn’t answer the question. He just stood there with an apologetic expression on his face, as if he were saying he was sorry for something that hadn’t happened yet.
Then, suddenly, he was gone.
In fact, all of sickbay was gone. Kirk found himself floating in the immense starlit vastness of space, his arms and legs flailing, his skin an agony of tiny, cold pinpricks. Cursing inwardly, he held his breath ... or what was left of it.
He looked around and saw that he was a hundred meters or more from the familiar shape of the Enterprise. The ship glinted invitingly in the light of a distant sun, but Kirk had no means of propulsion ... no way to reach it.
And he couldn’t hold his breath forever—not even in his altered, more powerful state. He could survive unaided and unprotected for only a few minutes at [42] the outside. Then he would die like any other human being.
But as he floated lazily in the void, he began to comprehend. He began to realize what he had seen in his friend’s eyes: fear, bone-deep and profound, the kind that overrode all other emotions. But it wasn’t for himself that Gary had been afraid. It was for his ship, his crew.
That was why Kirk had been beamed off the Enterprise. That was why he was drifting in the endless sea of space now, cut off from even the remotest hope of survival.
Because he had become a monster—a clear and immediate threat to the four hundred other men and women serving on the Enterprise. Because he had become a problem Gary hadn’t dared to ignore—even if it meant sacrificing the life of his best buddy.
Kirk might have hated him for it. But he didn’t. In fact, he respected his friend for what he had done. Gary was the captain, after all. It was his place to make the hard decisions.
If their roles had been reversed, if Kirk had been the captain, he would have made the same hard choice ... the same reluctant sacrifice. At least, that was what he preferred to believe.
It was that last thought that occupied his mind as he began to asphyxiate in the vacuum of space. ...
Suddenly, Kirk found himself sitting upright in his bed, bathed in a cold, sour sweat. He was gasping for breath, drawing it into his lungs in great, greedy, throat-searing mouthfuls.
[43] It took him a moment to realize he wasn’t suffocating in the numbing chill of space. He was in his quarters on the Enterprise, where air was in mercifully abundant supply.
Not space. Not a vacuum. His quarters ... where he was safe.
Shaking his head to rid himself of the panic that had gripped him, Kirk remembered something else. Gary Mitchell wasn’t the captain of the Enterprise. He never had been. Now that Gary was dead, he would never be the captain of any vessel.
He found that ineffably sad, all of a sudden. Regret washed over him like a cold, heavy surf. Gary would never be anything to anyone ... except a memory, maybe. And it was his friend who had killed him.
His best buddy. Me.
Casting off his covers as if they were shackles, Kirk swung his legs out of bed. Then he sat there on the edge of it for a while, remembering what he had done and trying to come to grips with it.
He kept telling himself he’d had no choice. It was either Gary or the rest of Creation. In the dream, Gary had made the same decision, hadn’t he? That’s because it was the only decision he could have made. The only decision anyone could have made.
And yet, he thought.
And yet.
As first officer, Spock often took command of the Enterprise through the night—or at least, what the ship’s computer called “night” as it sailed through the darkness of the void.
[44] Like most nights, this had been a quiet one. The Vulcan had had time to contemplate the events of the previous day, to turn them over and over in his mind and inspect them from every angle.
But none of it had told him what he wished to know. Clearly, he had questions that couldn’t be answered by any facet of his experience. Only by speaking to someone with more knowledge of the subject could he obtain the wisdom he sought.
Spock was trying to decide whom he might ask when he heard the lift doors open and admit someone to the bridge. Turning in his seat, he caught a glimpse of Yeoman Smith with a computer padd in her hand.
Smith was tall, blonde, blue-eyed ... what humans would no doubt have called attractive. Also, thought the first officer, she was efficient. She did her job well, in his estimate.
“Mr. Spock?” the woman said as she drew alongside him.
He looked at her. “Yeoman?”
“I have a requisition from engineering,” she told him. “Mr. Scott’s asking for backup parts in case we run into another phenomenon like the one that crippled us the other day.”
It wasn’t likely that they would approach the edge of the galaxy again, knowing what they now knew about it. Still, the Vulcan accepted the padd and perused the list, which included a number of power-coupling components. It seemed to be in order. Besides, he mused, Mr. Scott wasn’t in the habit of making frivolous requests.
[45] Entering his officer’s code, Spock authorized the requisition. Then he handed the padd back to Smith.
She nodded. “Thank you, sir.” Then she turned to go.
That was when it occurred to the Vulcan that Smith might have the knowledge he was looking for. Certainly, it was worth finding out.
“Yeoman?” he said.
Smith looked back at him. “Yes, sir?”
He scanned the bridge, making sure no one was listening to their conversation. Fortunately, the few officers present at this hour were all occupied with their respective tasks.
“I have a question,” Spock said at last.
The yeoman shrugged. “If I can help, sir ...”
“I believe you can.” He crafted his query carefully, so there would be no misunderstanding it. “I have noticed that when humans mourn the passing of a comrade, they extend verbal condolences to one another.”
It took a moment for Smith to realize she was being asked for confirmation. “That’s true,” she told him.
“Vulcans do the same,” he said, “albeit in a more detached manner. However, I sense there is more to human mourning procedures—something more subtle, perhaps—which I have bee
n unable to identify.”
“Something more,” the yeoman echoed.
“That is correct.”
She thought for a moment. “Well, one thing we do is share stories about the deceased. Uplifting stories, usually. It’s our way, I suppose, of establishing him or her more firmly in our memories.”
[46] Spock nodded. Now that Smith mentioned it, he had observed that form of behavior since the deaths of Mitchell and Kelso.
“But beyond that,” Smith went on, “I can’t really think of anything significant. Mainly, I suppose, we just keep each other company until we get over the hardest parts.”
“Keep each other ... company?” he wondered.
“Uh-huh. Sit and listen to one another. Or sit and do nothing at all. Even then, it makes us feel better not to be alone.”
The Vulcan cocked an eyebrow as he considered the idea. Among his people, solitude was something to be sought after, even treasured—most particularly at times when one was troubled.
“Fascinating,” he said.
The yeoman smiled at him. “If you say so, sir. Can I give you a hand with anything else?”
Spock thought about it, then shook his head. “I do not believe so. You have been quite helpful already,” he told her.
As Smith returned to the lift, padd in hand, the first officer thought some more about what she had said ... and resolved to act on it.
His hair still soaking wet from his shower, a thick towel wrapped around his waist, Kirk padded out of his bathroom on bare feet and made his way into his bedroom.
The bracing, cold water had cleared away the cobwebs, but his eyes still hurt and he felt hollow from lack of sleep. Of course, he could have lain in bed a [47] while longer, staring at the ceiling and trying to will himself into a dreamless limbo, but he hadn’t found the prospect appealing.
Better to get the day on the road, he told himself. Attend to business. Try to take the next step in the rest of his life.
The captain looked around the room, taking stock of his surroundings with the dullness of a man whose mind hadn’t caught up with his body. By the far wall, he noticed, a freshly laundered uniform hung from the metal framework where Yeoman Smith had placed it the night before.
He considered the brand-new pullover shirt for a moment—the gold fabric of command, the even brighter, glossier gold of the captain’s bands on the sleeves and the soaring insignia on its left chest. There was no sign of the ragged holes he had torn in his uniform on Delta Vega, no indication of the blood he had spilled or the injuries he had suffered.
If he went by his neat, clean uniform alone, he might have imagined he had never been to Delta Vega ... never tried to abandon Gary there, never been forced to murder his friend in the end.
But it had happened—all of it. His nightmare had been a reminder of that ... as if he needed one. He had killed his friend and it would haunt him the rest of his days.
With that grim thought in mind, Kirk began to get dressed. First he pulled on the pants, then the shirt, then the socks and the boots that had been laid out beneath them.
[48] He was sore and tender in a dozen places, and his hand was still stiff and swollen despite the medications Piper had pumped into it. Sighing, the captain snapped on his plastiform cast, knowing the doctor would take him to task for it if he didn’t.
Normally, he used his dressing time to project what his day would be like—to remind himself of what destinations he might have to reach, what assignments he might have to carry out, what deadlines he might have to make. He visualized each hurdle, each step in the process, and formulated a plan to deal with it.
But not today.
Today, Kirk couldn’t find the strength to think beyond the present moment. He would take his duties as commanding officer one at a time, setting aside anything that didn’t require his immediate attention. He would lean on his command staff wherever he could, knowing he still had a good one, and hope that that would be enough.
Crossing to his workstation, he pulled up the previous night’s log, which had been updated just a few minutes earlier. It had been an uneventful shift, the captain observed. Just the usual notations on celestial phenomena and the occasional course refinement.
Business as usual.
It was a good thing, Kirk remarked to himself. But in light of what he and his crew had been through the last few days, in light of their increasingly desperate struggle for survival ... a report of normalcy couldn’t help but seem a little bizarre.
[49] They had destroyed a burgeoning god, after all. They had buried a force of nature. The stars should have been trembling, their planets crashing into one another in panic, the Milky Way crying out in pain and wonder.
But to Kirk’s knowledge, nothing in the heavens had marked the death of Gary Mitchell. Only a log entry, and a brief one at that.
Sighing, he stored the file and brought up another one—the captain’s log in which he had reported his friend’s death. Though there was no one else in his quarters to hear it, he read the thing out loud: “Lieutenant Commander Gary Mitchell ... same notation.”
Kirk winced. I’ll have to work on it, he told himself. Elaborate a bit. After all, the man deserved it.
Suddenly, he heard a familiar beeping sound. Turning to his door, he wondered who might be calling on him at this hour ... who would have bothered to notice that he was awake enough to access the night log.
Obviously, the captain thought, someone who was damned eager to speak with him. Maybe Scotty again, hoping to iron out some last-minute detail in Kelso’s funeral service?
“Come in,” he said.
The door slid aside, revealing the tall, slender form of his first officer. Spock was standing with his hands clasped behind his back, his features as impassive as ever.
Kirk was shocked. The Vulcan had served as his [50] executive officer for more than a year to that point, yet he had never made an effort to visit the captain in his quarters.
Why the change of heart, Kirk wondered ... if “heart” was a word that could even be applied to a Vulcan? Then he recalled Spock’s comment on the bridge the day before.
“I felt for him, too,” he had said.
The captain had been surprised then as well. He had even dared hope the Vulcan meant it. Then he had seen the expression on Spock’s face—or rather, the lack of one—and had realized it was only a courtesy.
Just as the man’s appearance now was, no doubt, merely a courtesy.
“Well,” said Kirk, “don’t just stand there.”
Tentatively, the Vulcan stepped into the room. With a soft hiss, the door closed behind him.
“Is everything all right?” the captain asked him.
“It is,” Spock confirmed, looking around. “For the moment, Lieutenant Alden has the conn.”
Kirk waited for his first officer to say something more, but Spock just stood there. If there was a reason for his visit, he seemed reluctant—or even unable—to speak of it.
“Look,” said the captain, “if there’s something I can—”
“I would like to apologize,” the Vulcan blurted.
Kirk regarded him. “Apologize?”
“Yes. Yesterday, on the bridge, I responded ... inadequately to your emotional turmoil. I would like an opportunity to rectify that oversight.”
[51] The captain sat back in his chair. “I don’t think I understand what you mean, Mr. Spock.”
“When humans mourn, they require the company of their colleagues and ...” The first officer stumbled slightly over the next word. “... friends. Yesterday, I saw you mourning the death of Commander Mitchell, but I failed to provide such company. I would like to do so now.”
Kirk couldn’t help smiling to himself. “I appreciate the thought, Spock, but it’s really not necessary.”
The first officer blinked. “Then you no longer experience sadness over the death of your friend?”
“I do,” said the captain. “But that doesn’t mean—”
“An
d would it not help you to discuss your feelings?”
Kirk sighed. “It would, I suppose. But—”
Spock cocked an eyebrow. “But I am not the individual with whom you wish to discuss them.”
Inwardly, at least, the captain was about to agree—when he realized that, out of everyone left on the Enterprise, the Vulcan might well be the best friend left to him.
It came as something of a shock. After all, he really didn’t know Spock very well. In most respects, the first officer kept to himself. But there had always been a bond of mutual respect between them. ...
No, Kirk decided. It was more than that, somehow. He respected Piper, too, but he had no inclination to confide in the man.
So what made him feel more at home with Spock, despite the Vulcan’s alienness? The captain looked [52] inside himself for an answer and couldn’t come up with one.
“Sir?” Spock prodded.
“Actually,” said Kirk, “I’d as soon discuss them with you as with anyone. I’m just not sure I—”
“Tell me about Commander Mitchell,” the Vulcan suggested.
The captain was caught off-balance. “Excuse me?”
“Commander Mitchell. Tell me about him.”
Kirk could see that his first officer wasn’t going to take no for an answer. And since he had more than an hour before his presence would be required on the bridge ...
The captain gestured to a chair on the other side of the room. Obediently, Spock took it.
“What, specifically, did you want to know?” Kirk asked.
The Vulcan’s eyes narrowed. “I served with Commander Mitchell for thirteen months and twelve days,” he noted. “However, I never delved into his personal history ... never learned a great deal about where he came from or how he became a Starfleet officer. I would appreciate it if you could correct those gaps in my knowledge. You were, after all, his friend.”
Kirk grimaced. “Where he came from and how he became an officer ... that’s a tale and a half, Spock.”
The Vulcan regarded him with what seemed like infinite patience. “I am not needed elsewhere,” he replied.
STAR TREK: TOS #85 - My Brother's Keeper, Book One - Republic Page 4