The BLTS Archive- Empathy 
by Kelthammer

---

Rating: PG-13 for now; some adult issues of violence

Disclaimer: Paraborg owns Star Trek

Archive:  Sure

My attempts to answer some really puzzling questions about the 
episode DeForest Kelley called "terrible or marvelous."
(T-Negative 3)

---

*click* the chrono marked another relentless minute from his life.

*click* and what did he have to look forward to?

*click* nothing more than getting *click* drunk as a skunk and *click*
a  stopover on Base VI, the UFP's third- *click* sleaziest source of
revenue  and second-rate supplies.  Just the *click* thought alone was
enough to make  him hole up in his cabin while the ENTERPRISE docked
and *click* finish up  his dwindling brandy supply.

*click*

Leonard McCoy, CMO, was feeling every second of this week's duty when
his  encroaching depression was interrupted (violently) by the
invasion of his  Head Nurse/Surgical Assistant/Lead Biochemist/Girl
Friday.

Christine Chapel slammed her back against the wall with a dramatic
groan, a  fistful of colored plastic in her palm.  She waved the
wafers at him.  "I've  got to take orals in ALL of this?"

"Forensics is an ugly little branch of medicine."  Leonard warned her.
"If  you want to get certified in THAT..."

"I'm sure."  Christine assured him.  "What if something I see could
prevent  a death in the future?"

"I understand those reasonings, Christine, but," Leonard held up his
hand.   "I'm certified too.  Take it from me.  At the best, you're
gonna have to put  up with snarky comments about your antiquated
interests, and at worst,  you'll kill your at in god."  Bones fell
silent.  Pediatric forensics had  to be the worst.  "I was studying
for my certification just as Joanna was  born.  Gave me nightmares."
For years.

Christine's mobile face cringed.  "I'm sorry.  That's got to be
awful."

"Well."  He stepped out of the memory carefully.  "Just try not to
empathize  with what you see too much."

Christine sighed and sat down on the edge of his desk.  Normally
Leonard  would have made a point of enjoying the view in an
exaggerated way, because  if nothing was sacred in Starfleet, it was a
woman's thigh.

"Sometimes," she said carefully, tapping her entrance wafers together
like  playing cards, "I wonder if we aren't meant to empathize with
it."

Leonard frowned and she saw something unreadable flicker in his eyes.
"Let's talk about this."  He said.  "Lunch in the rec?"

"Which rec?"  She teased, as if they ever had time to take a break
elsewhere.

"The usual."  He chuckled.  "Glad you caught me.  I'm gonna be off for
36  hours, and lemme tell you, I am planning on enjoyin' every bit of
it."

"You'd better."  Chapel warned as she slid to her feet.  "Because
Starbase  VI isn't going to make you feel better."

"Don't remind me."  He sighed.

---

They took their usual table against the wall, surrounded by a
neverending  variety of Hikaru's weirder plants.  Christine knew her
boss was in a mood  when he got the paprika chili.  Leonard went right
for the spice rack when  he was feeling down--you could practically
use his menu as a barometer; God  help you if he went Bayou Cajun.

Christine decided to go with it.  Today she couldn't' stop feeling
chilly  and some heat would warm her right up.  She ordered roobios to
drink.

"Nyota really got you hooked on that stuff."  He lifted an eyebrow
(Spock  wasn't the only one with the habit).

"It's good for your immune system."  She said defensively.

"It'd be even better for you if it was real."  McCoy gave his stew a
sickening poke.  "I can't wait to eat real meat again.  This Textured
Vegetable Protein is an offense to everything I stand for."

"I hope you're not trying to persuade me."  Chapel was an
oystershucker from  way back.

"Yup. OK."  Leonard took a taste of the chili and shuddered.  "OK, now
where  were we?"

"Empathizing with images."  Christine took a deep breath.  "I've been
thinking about this a lot, so...well look.  Human esper abilities are
a  proven fact.  They are certainly unrefined compared to say, the
Vulcan or  Deltan species, and they're also very different.  But what
if empathy is a  form of higher perception?  I'm not going into that
Biblical "beasts of the  field" distinction.  I'm wondering if our
ability, or our propensity, to get  emotionally involved with a
representation is more than an overactive  imagination.  I guess,
well...look at the human people who are gifted in a  little esper.
They see an image and read the people inside it."

Leonard didn't say anything for a moment, just ate some more of that
vile,  red chili.  Rumor had it the sight made Vulcans ill.

"Have you checked with the Scramble Studies?"  He finally asked.

Chapel blinked.  "I was under the impression it was unprofessionally
done."

"No, no...It was the language that confused our modern analysists.
This is  pre-Eugenics War stuff, y'know."  He leaned his chin on his
hand and  frowned.  "Empathy's a sticky subject, Christine.  It's a
downplayed  emotional state.  To voluntarily feel what another is
feeling, well, Vulcans  aren't the only people tetchy about that
idea."  He sighed.  "I know more  about it than you do, I daresay,
because Major Thompson funded the studies  practically in the
ancestral backyard.  Talk about a man who needed  killing."

"Didn't Colonel Green finally do just that?"  Chapel wondered.  The
infamous  Colonel had a habit of executing his most faithful followers
in fits of  temper (later learned to be a form of illness--a brain
tumor the size of a  melon).  You lost track of his victims after a
while, just like you lost  track of the Old USA Presidents after
Lincoln.

"Hell, yeah.  Had him hung instead of shot like he usually did.  One
of my  ancestors was part of the slave labor detailed to the
gravedigging."  McCoy  had to shrug.  "I'm getting off the subject,
but the Studies were comprised  of 200 photographic images of horror:
rape, murder, starvation,  disease--lots of children were involved.
Equally half the images were  false; faked or staged somehow.  Only a
code on the back of each printed  image told the genuine from the
imitation.  Viewers'  responses were  carefully recorded.  Now, some
people were complete boulders.  They didn't  react to anything.  And
some reacted to everything.  But a significant  number--twenty
percent--reacted mostly to the real images, and barely to the  faked
ones."  McCoy frowned darkly.  "That's enough to raise some eyebrows.
Those people were set aside and given different tests to see if they
scored  on any forms of esper.  They did.  But here's the frightening
thing.  The  "boulders" were also tested, to see if they could
manipulate--PKU tests,   getting their favorite numbers on the dice
rolls, that kind of thing.  They  did.  And they were they types that
wound up as the finer sort of  narco-whiffing homicidal maniac in the
Eugenics Guard."

"Oh, *God.*"  Chapel said with feeling.  "You're saying people found
it  safer to dismiss these theories?"

"Yup."  Bones lifted his hands.  "The reasons were unethical in the
extreme,  but then, so were a lot of bad decisions."

Chapel exhaled.  "I need to start reading."  She decided glumly.

"Not on a weekend."  He warned.  "You'll be unfit for duty. Wait for
when we  get back on."  He glanced up.  "What are you two doin' here?"

Captain Kirk and Spock finished strolling their way to the table.
Spock was  typically distracted by the blooming canary vine Sulu had
up on a trellis.   Chapel looked patient.  Ever since Sargon had
hidden his mind inside hers,  she'd been putting up with his overdone
Vulcan casualness.

"Sorry to interrupt, Nurse Chapel...Bones."  Kirk wavered between
informality and formality and leaned into the spare chair while Spock
remained standing.  "We just got the most...fascinating...communique
from  Starfleet."  He spoke carefully.  His expression was at its most
neutral,  which meant he had no clue as to whether he had good news or
bad news to  share.

McCoy bit down on a manufactured pinto bean.  "Well, spit it out.  I
ain't  got forever to live."

"We're being sent to the Hestian Quadrant."

"What the hell for?"  McCoy was understandably startled.  "There's
nothing  there but low-carbon planetesimals and crumbly black
diamonds!  Well--there  wasn't anything else the last fifty or so
times they ran a sweep."  One of  the first things a green plebe
learned in Starfleet was the art of  chart-making in the Hestian
Region.  There was nothing to bump into, and  therefore, somewhat
safe.

Jim pursed his lips, shaking his head.  "Seems there were some
intelligent  life forms on one of the planets we didn't know about."
He looked at the  pitcher and Chapel poured him a glass.  "Thank you,
Christine..."  He sipped  gratefully and cleared his throat.  "Truth
to tell, they seem to have  been...transported to Hestia from wherever
they originated from."

McCoy finished his stew, swiped the bowl clean with re-constructed
sourdough  bread, and leaned back.  "What is it you're not saying?
Who discovered  these people-- Interstellar Geo *& Survey?"

"Correct."  Spock entered the conversation for the first time.  "A
Vulcan  vessel freelancing their labor for the company's equipment,
the SHI'KAHR."

"Then why aren't *they* dealing with the First Contact and
Observation?"   McCoy frowned at the disregard for the basic Operating
Procedures.

Jim cleared his throat.  "They...specifically asked for us to be
there, you  and I and Mr. Spock."

McCoy's body went motionless.  "Uh."

"There are some unique challenges to communicating with the immigrants
that  the SHI'KAHR was unable to deal with anyway."  Jim added.  "For
example,  each and every inhabitant of the discovery settlement needed
to be issued  their own Translator Voder."

"Wha?"  McCoy sat straight up.  "What for?  They do
triple-harmonic-throat  singing?"

"Not exactly..."

That odd note was back in Jim's voice, and Spock was looking remotely
uncomfortable.  His dark eyes were studying the doctor closely without
seeming to.

Astonished, Christine saw a phenomenon she had heard of, but never
before  witnessed: the hairs on Leonard's arms were standing straight
up as chills  walked his skin.  Prescience?  She felt he already knew
what the captain was  going to say.

"The people," Jim said slowly, "Possess no vocal cords."

--- SD 5477.00

Hi, there, Bones Boyce...This is Bones McCoy, answering your somewhat
testy  letter.  You really shouldn't let the Medical Admiralty get to
you like  that.  Remember the good old days of semi-autonomy on a
starship?

Well, as in response to your loaded question, we are one weary crew.

D'you remember when I submitted my first Log for the ENTERPRISE upon
being  assigned?  I said, '"This ship has been refitted to be bigger,
faster,  sturdier, and more efficient.  I hope this doesn't mean
Starfleet expects to  run us into the ground.  The efficiency of a
machine is not what a flesh and  blood crew depends upon for emotional
and mental support."'

If we make it back from this, I'm going to press for a complete
re-evaluation of the Five Year Mission plan.  Yeah, yeah, I know...one
of  the reasons why we're out here in the first place is to see what
we're  capable of, but this is too much.  Our supplies and resources
are far, far  too low for the expected output.

The first year wasn't all that bad.  We stayed pretty much within the
boundaries of well-established space, and did a lot of re-discovering
of the  various Terrans that are scattered all over.  Space is big,
and I think a  lot of the crew didn't realize it until we found that
poor kid Charlie  Evans, and the Craters; Dr. Korby...all these people
inside what was  supposedly familiar territory.  They could see just
how easy it was for someone to lose  themselves, deliberately or
accidentally, on some little moon, asteroid, or  impervious planet.

Little things started to creep in our awareness; we find Kodos the
Executioner on our very own ship, with his daughter biding fair to
match his  record of homicide.  We see our captain forced to make a
decision that might  lead us to another war with the Romulans because
communications to Headquarters is too slow.  We see a psychotic penal
psychiatrist experimenting on his own inmates because he's become so
out of  touch with reality that he thinks he can play god with
research.  Then we  see the real (sorry) McCoy, in Trelane, who CAN do
anything he wants, so  long as his parents don't know about it!

We nearly hit into a war with the Gorn, parlay antimatter with the
Lazarus  men, damn near get lost in the past, bump into egocentric
supermen with  super id, superego, and super superegos, whiff
lungfulls of Happy Plant  Spores, get our self esteem tucked in tight
with the Organians, witness the  Denevan invasion of parasites, and
all kinds of other things that I don't  *really* want to talk about.

The point is, we knew space was dangerous when we signed up.  But we
didn't  think the pace would be this unrelenting.  And it is.  When we
threw out  First Year Mark party at the end, I heard our helmsman,
Hikaru Sulu  (Remember him?  He trans'd from Astro), say, "Well, that
wasn't so bad.  A  pretty good way to begin."

At the Second Year Mark party, he told me in plain English:  "I don't
think  this year was as good as the first."

I told him that he at least, only gets brainwashed by aliens on
average of  once a year, while I, due to my close confines with Jim,
can look forward to  it on a regular basis.  He thought I was fishing
for sympathy.  I'm not.   Just look at our records.  I didn't even
count the number of times we were  brainwashed together, like on Beta
III or Pyrrus.

Scott overheard, and said being brainwashed compares to the
helplessness he  feels whenever he has to stand command on the Bridge
and watch the Beamdown  party go hip-deep in "mucker-trouble."
Granted, its not easy for him.  And  he's had to do that a lot.  He's
also been zapped by a self-proclaimed God  (not somebody I'd care to
worship, thanks), been rendered "living impaired"  by an insane
machine, and set up for murder on a planet where the penalty of  that
crime is death by slow torture.

It would take me all day to list what we've all been through.  Let me
just  say in conclusion, we're not getting enough rest for the time
we're doing,  and it would do the morale of the crew infinite good if
we knew the supply  lines were more efficient.  There's nothing like
running into a sister  starship, adrift and derelict, its crew dead,
and knowing that it happened  because they were just a little too
slow, too ill-equipped, too complacent,  too something.

I looked at the Rec-leave specs just now, refreshing my memory.
Starship  duty is considered 43.221 percent riskier than any other,
save Hazardous  Survey.  Why then, are we not allowed more options of
medical and  recreational compensation?  A doubling of life insurance
and Burial Benefits doesn't make us feel better!

Reserve me a seat on the Evaluation Board when we return.  I'm going
to be  there with bells on.

Your friend and beleaguered ship's CMO, Bones

---

McCoy went through the motions of the rest of the day, but he was glad
to be  alone in his cabin at the end.  The doors hissed shut and he
locked them  before slumping down on the bed.

He was tired.  His back ached from being stuck in an unnatural
microscope-hunch for two hours and he resolved to work out heavy at
the gym  before sleeping.  Not that he was a slouch with his physical
condition.  You  didn't SURVIVE under James T. Kirk if you weren't
athletically inclined  somehow, somewhere.  And you never knew.
Someday all those medals in gym,  running and steeplechase just might
save his life.  As many hostile natives  they kept running into, that
wasn't beyond the bounds of possibility.

His mind had been wandering.  Deliberately.  Leonard closed his eyes
for a  moment, then opened them to look at the shelf of books above
his head.  He  didn't know what he should be thinking about, with an
Empathic planet.  Of  course, no one did.

Hadn't been that long ago...less than a quarter...since they'd ran
into that  unholy duo.  Good God...Bones relived the horror that swept
them all to see  Linke and Ozaba, dead in tubes with their pain and
suffering preserved  forever.  It made him ill.  DOCTORS for the love
of God!

The Vians had hurt them all; Jim and Spock where they were most
vulnerable.   Jim's worst nightmare was to choose between the lives of
his crew.  Worse if  they were friends he relied on.  Spock's
nightmare was twofold: insanity and  being unable to take
responsibility.  Nobody wanted to survive when their  friends died.
But McCoy had already been through that when they were  battling the
amoeba; Jim's choice of Spock, Spock's almost cocky attitude to  go
risk his life...he was still, to this day, fiercely glad that THIS
no-win  scenario had been rendered moot, angst and all, with a
finely-aimed hypo.

Leonard sighed into the thin air and yanked his uniform off for the
shower.   The sting of water and pressure couldn't erase the unclean
feeling that  thoughts of Lal and Thann had left behind.  He grabbed a
bar of Christine's  homemade soap and scrubbed hard into his scalp.
Gem, though...

Gem made him cringe at every thought.  She had gone through far too
much for  one person...and such a person.  Two men dead and she had
been unable to  stop that because their own "flaws" had led to their
deaths.  And yet, she  had looked upon the ENTERPRISE men with a
childlike curiosity, and  wonder...a lack of fear.  The fear had came
later, when she touched him,  trying to heal him...

Bones shivered, feeling the ice forming again around his heart.  He
scoured  his skin harder.  Echoes...they had shared something when she
touched him.   And there was no way he could describe it.  Words
couldn't define layers of  emotions.  There weren't even verbal
concepts for the feelings.  Or were  they feelings at all?

Maybe "experience" was a more total word.  But when she had touched
him, he  could have sworn she was talking to him inside his mind.

He leaned into the spray, eyes squeezed tight.  *It's been waaaay too
long,  Leonard Horatio.  You have got to find yourself a girlfriend.*

*Nothing doing.*  His uglier mental voice jumped in.  *You want
another  Tonia in your life?  Barely got to know each other before she
took that  "chance of a lifetime" transfer to Tellar.*

Tonia had reminded him of Emony, and there was nothing like a
resemblance to  your firstest, bestest infatuation to send you
straight down an emotional  wormhole.  Never knew where you'd end up,
but the odds were against Eden.

Romance and Starfleet mixed about as well as mashed bananas and
ketchup.   Couldn't blame human nature for trying, but Leonard had
realized he was  beyond the point where he could deal with this.  It
was one thing to play  the field for fun, but he got tired of that
scenario a long time ago.   Watching Jim's ill-fated affairs only
re-enforced the uselessness of that  action.

But Gem's simple touch had conjured up things he had been needing for
a long  time: concern and warmth, a need not to be alone...

"You're not going to find somebody until you get out of the service."
Leonard gritted his teeth as he said this for the umpteenth time.
"You  already tried it the other way, and look how THAT turned out!"

Thoughts like this led to the inevitable:  Just how much longer could
he  stay in Starfleet?

Not too much longer, maybe retire as soon as this mission was over,
assuming  he survived it!  He was sick and tired of regs, admirals,
conflicting  interests, psychs, moderate-grade equipment, and being
alone.  There, he'd  confessed it.  He was lonely.  Seriously,
seriously lonely.  Just not lonely  enough to obsessively pursue a
walking heartbeat like Jim Kirk.

(Crossing fingers on that one)

Dressed in fatigues, he couldn't bring himself to leave for the gym
just  yet.  He sank down on the bed, feeling his wet hair soak into
the mattress.   He was going to lose his mind if he didn't get some
kind of shore leave  soon.  As much as he hated the thought of sex
with a stranger who was  motivated by either money or an equal desire
for non-attached ecstasy, it  was better than going crazy.

*Too bad we HAVE to drag our emotions into everything!*  He exhaled
loudly,  knowing this problem rested entirely with the human race.
*Imagine how much  simpler it could be if it was all just about
lighting up the nerve endings.   'Thanks for the stimulus!'  'No
problem!'*

Without knowing it, he dropped off to sleep.  But his dreams were
haunted of  soft rainbow colors shimmering against smooth white skin.

---

"If insanity is contagious, we need a vaccine." (written on the
Graffiti Wall in the Sickbay Lounge)

"Check out Tholian Space!" (written underneath)

"Theragen is NOT a vaccine!" (written underneath)

"No, just a deadener of certain nerve impulses to the brain."
(written  underneath)

"Scotch is cheaper, and mixes well." (written underneath)

"Will somebody tell the patients from Engineering to write on THEIR
Graffiti  Wall??" (the last word)

---

*Nobody*, but *nobody* was looking forward to the stopover on Base VI.
Despite the attempts to standardize the supply lines, VI was in the
Rigellian System, which meant the natives had a fifty-percent chance
of  understanding you and a thirty percent chance of pretending
otherwise.  The  Orion Empire was only a few thousand parsecs away,
contributing to the  tension immeasurably.  Scotty called their
equipment "pre-Industrial"; the  food was substandard by human norms
(and that of three-fourths of the  galaxy), and Spock's Vulcan blood
was vulnerable to every Tom, Dick, and  wandering bug that was
currently floating around.  It was a dread for more  than one reason.

"At least Mr. Spock will be happy."  Chekov summed up the situation as
he  and Sulu stared hopelessly around the center spiral of the
station.  Various  cubicles made a show of selling hydroponically
produced foods for Vulcans.   That was almost just about it, except
for a handful of gloomy-looking shops  that made you want to check
your credit voucher for safety.

"As happy as Mr. Spock gets, you mean."  Hikaru sighed.  "Why do
Vulcans  like to snack on flavored SALT, anyway?"

"Conductivity?"  McCoy had been behind them with a bag over his
shoulder.   As they gaped he shrugged.  "Beats me.  Rumor has it their
superior  telepathy has to do with superconductivity on their
electrical synapses.   Just one of those questions that keep me up at
night--not that I'd go  anywhere near a lightning storm with a
copper-based life form."

"Thanks."  Hikaru said sourly.  "Thanks a lot, Doc.  Pavel here has
already  messed me up big time with his great ideas."

"All in the name of science."  Chekov protested with almost enough
sincerity.

"Hooking up a lie detector to an ouija board is *not* my idea of
science."

McCoy let them evolve their quarrel (longstanding), catching up to Jim
on  the other side of the center.  Jim was, of course, in uniform.  He
seemed to  wear his stripes even in civilian clothes.

"Did you find Dr. Yxl?"  Jim asked as he fell in step.  "That didn't
take  long."

"Finally."  McCoy huffed. "S/he was undergoing a phase of gender
fluidity,  and quite distracted.  Couldn't get more than this--"  He
held up a single,  thin wafer "--on empathic species.  I feel
cheated."

"Cheated on the skimpy material, or cheated that there's a lovely
species  that can re-create parthenogenically and doesn't need he-men
like  ourselves?"

"Don't even get me started."  McCoy was cranky.  Jim knew he'd be too.
O'otonmo pheromones did that to humans.

*He needs shore leave in the worst way.*  Jim decided.  *Too bad this
is  it.*  They strolled aimlessly down the center, drifting almost by
accident  towards the stall of eateries the base kept.  Surely,
somewhere, there was a  token stall for iron-based lie forms.
"Empathic species are rare, though,  aren't they Bones?"

"Hah."  McCoy snapped.  "Empathy just happens to be one of the more
embarrassing emotions and people don't want to discuss it.  We've got
Deltans, whose definition of emotion doesn't even fit with ours, we've
got  the pre-reform Vulcan cultures like the Romulans and Rigellians,
the  applicant Betazoids--but I dread the day they're fully inducted
into Starfleet.  Can you imagine them with Vulcans?"

Jim chuckled.  "They'll probably just hang around with the Deltans."

They found what claimed to be a coffeeshop and settled against the
bar.   McCoy wordlessly pointed at a color image of a large latte and
plunked down  his credit voucher.  The big blond Swede waiting the
stall made them stare  by pulling out genuine coffee beans and pouring
them into a little mill that rested right under a sign that warned
arabica beans were known to cause birth defects in Tellarites.

"Real coffee?"  Jim whispered.

"Looks like."  McCoy whispered back.  "Think we've got enough in our
accounts?"

"For a cause like *good* coffee, I'd take out a loan!"

McCoy grunted and leaned his head against his hand in silence.  His
eyes  held tired smears and hew as slumping a lot.  Jim thought he'd
looked this  way earlier, but news of Hestia seemed to have made it
worse.  If he was  afraid of what they would find, Jim couldn't blame
him a bit.  He often  thought of the Vians, and what if they were
still around?

"Let's get to where we can watch the ship."  Jim grabbed his drink in
one  hand, McCoy in the other.  McCoy followed the path of least
resistance,  nursing his own latte.  "You look tired, Bones."

"I am."  Bones snorted.  "I am."  He let his head fall back for a
moment.   "M'Benga and I've been helping Christine with her orals.
Oh, God.  She's  destined for greatness.  I'll miss her like hell when
she leaves but she's  too good to stay here."

"You sure?"  Jim was chary of the subject.  "We can use another
doctor."

"I know, but I'm not sure it'd be the best for her.  She's a bio, Jim.
A  great researcher and hard-nutcracker.  I'm pushing her for the
DAYSPRING."

"The DAYSPRING?  Bones, the waiting list still has Florence
Nightingale!   Who do you know?"

"Phillip, of course.  And Mark.  I'd go there myself if I could."
Somewhat  listlessly, McCoy stirred his drink.  Jim heard the weary
resonation in the  other's voice, an odd, sad echo of a note out of
tune.

*I didn't know he was feeling this bad.  And he's got to be tired if
he's  talking to me about this...*

"Why don't you try to go, Bones?"  He murmured.  He was afraid of the
answer, but he needed to know.

McCoy looked up, blue eyes meeting hazel across the table, across the
cups.   *I'm staying here,* that look said, *because without me you
won't make it  back home.  Because I promised Mark and Phillip I'd
watch out for you and  Spock.*  "I chose to be here."  Was what he
said.  "And I don't regret that  decision."  *I only regret what I'm
turning into...*

Jim nodded.  "I'm glad, Bones."  He said quietly.

The silence was going to turn awkward.  McCoy was the older, ever the
listener while Jim was the talker, the confessor (once you pried it
out of  him).  Neither was comfortable with hashing the strange
boundaries between  friendship and rank no matter how badly Leonard
needed to confide in  someone.  Starfleet expected camaraderie; it did
not approve of a too-close  friendship among officers.  As it was, Jim
had to constantly defend his open  trust of his crew.  Aware of this,
the usually regs-defiant McCoy hung back,  not wanting Jim to get it
any worse off than he already was.

Jim's active mind raced, searching for a way to deflect the heavy
mood.   "Look on the bright side, Bones.  At least Christine isn't
like Joanna."

Bones blinked.  "How so?"

"I remember you told me she got your books out of your office and was
using  them for her public gaming."  Jim began laughing at the
memory--it was just  the kind of stunt he would have pulled.  "How
many eight year olds can get  "corrugator supercilli" on the triple
word score plus "oculi" on the O?"

When Spock found them, ten minutes later, they were still laughing.

---

It was a ragged, tired and weary crew that gathered to Brief two days
later.    In the center of the table sat a triscreen image of a
jade-green continent  resting inside a calm sea of violet blue.

"This was formerly Hestia VVI," Jim opened the meeting up with the
most  basic information of the world available.  "A barren rock
without even water  vapor until...until the Vians did whatever they
did to it."  His voice ended  on a disgruntled note.  The professional
in him disliked just handing the  credit over to the Vians when they
didn't know anything for sure.  And on a  personal note, he didn't
like  the Vians enough to give them credit for  *anything* related to
a humanitarian issue.

"That's a lot of ocean compared to land."  Sulu voiced what they were
all  thinking.  "But then, this isn't the Hestian's original world."

"Nae.  God knows where thot is."  Scott grumped.

"A high possibility that intelligent life is still evolving in the
sea."   Spock said.  "Nearly all forms of life depend on an ocean to
begin with."

"Well, sure."  McCoy shrugged as he signed the RollPadd and passed it
to  Jim.  "It's one of the easiest ways to create life."

"Easiest?"  Jim smiled absently, scrolling down the padd before
initialing  the bottom.  "I might have missed that class."

"You miss a class?  To laugh."  McCoy grinned.  "Nah.  It's just that
living  species have their origins in genetic mutation; and cosmic
rays are a rich  source for those mutations."  He nodded to the
viewer.  "The main part of  cosmic rays at sea level is the mu meson
(which we use in Sickbay for lab  experiments)."

"Oh, yeah."  Sulu broke in.  "The muon's created when an atom collides
with  an extra-terrestrial cosmic ray proton."  The former ship's
physicist  apparently hadn't missed his classes either.  "The funny
thing is, it would  decay long before it reaches the sea, but time
dilation in special relativity  makes it possible."

"Da."  Chekov nodded soberly.  "The high velocity increases its
lifetime."

"Sorta how you keep the temperature of the water high by moving the
molecules around."  McCoy lifted his coffee cup to punctuate.

Jim thought that Spock was charmed at the exchange.  Sulu, now a
helmsman,  rarely spoke of his old profession while McCoy was
(in)famous for avoiding  math on the grounds that he needed to
"Conserve vital space in his brain."

"Planetary flora is primarily carboniferous with evolving diocotes."
Spock  picked up the thread.  "It would seem they have not progressed
far from the  Coal Age."

"And there's bipedal mammals down there?"  Eyebrows popped up all over
the  table.  "No competition with big green dinosaurs?"

"Hardly, doctor, nor purple ones."  Spock was always dryly SuperVulcan
when  McCoy used the word "green" in any way.  "Adequate vegetation
would inspire  an ecological balance of some sort."

"Adequate is the right word."  Pavel's voice sank in wonder.  "Three
hundred  foot palms?  Twenty-foot ferns?"

"You could carve a house out of the trunk of one."  Uhura commented.

"Why bother?"  Sulu was getting that dreamy plant-heaven look on his
face  again.  "You could rig up a permanent campsite under a fern."

"Captain, if I may," Spock politely switched the view to a large
jungle  panorama.  "The SHI'KAHR was quite adamant that we familiarize
ourselves  with this species."  Data scrolled at the bottom off a
flock of  long-feathered birds in plumage that covered every color in
the spectrum.

"Poisonous."  McCoy mused.  "Interesting.  Earth only has one
toxic-feathered bird.  And it's a jungle critter too.  But this looks
SOP."

"Even the females have toxic feathers."  Uhura was puzzled.  "I wonder
how  they can properly nurture their young?"

"This is a planet full of questions."  Jim murmured.  Inside he was
thinking  how much Gem's clothing resembled the birds' feathers.  It
had to be  deliberate.  Gem herself have been very birdlike, small and
small-boned,  light and frail-seeming yet stronger than any of them
put together.  The  rainbow shimmer of her clothing had accentuated
that frailty, the way the colors of an opal displayed itself in
layers.

"The people, when the concept was reached," Spock continued, "simply
called  their world, "home."  They possess varying degrees of
awareness."  He  steepled his fingers.  "Despite their being incapable
of space travel, they  are aware of it, and are quite skilled in the
sustainable arts: weaving,  metallurgy, sustainable agriculture,
stonework and painting.  It should be noted that they were  amazed the
crew of the SHI'KAHR would wear solid colors."

"Would wearing solid colors offend them?  Uhura asked.

"A sensitive question, Lieutenant.  But they seem to be merely curious
at  our differences, and being empathic, understood the landing party
was not  offensive."

"What about..."  Jim rubbed his jaw.  "Family structure?  Politics?"

"Family structure is matrilineal."  McCoy filled in.  "Each house is
based  on the founding of a mother.  The groups are referred to as
gens; a large,  fluid community structure of members constantly
entering and leaving and  renewing familial ties.  Everyone's related
to everyone.  Politics, an alien concept.  These people are complete
matrilineal socialists.  They share all, equally.  Crime is
purportedly
nonexistent."

"Sounds pleasant."  Jim said cautiously.  That claim had been made
before.   "Did they say anything about being transported here?"

"Only that their people and ecosystem was moved here, and this place
is  "identical" to where they used to live."  Spock said.

"The Vians weren't kidding about transport."  McCoy muttered.

Jim shook himself.  "Very well.  It will be myself, Dr. McCoy and Mr.
Spock  for the first landing party.  Mr. Sulu, you and Mr. Scott will
be in command  on your shifts..."  He rattled of the right sort of
data while watching his  CMO; McCoy had that tired look again, his
long fingers toying with the  wafers spread over the table.  It didn't
look like simple insomnia.

Thinking back, Jim thought he could see a progression of this
behavior, a  subtle process that began right after Minara, and went
steadily worse.  The  trouble was it was just so...subtle.  Bones, the
captain's CMO, was supposed  to be the CMO's confiaza; Starfleet specs
*demanded* it.  But the reverse  was not true.  If the CMO needed to
talk to anyone, it had to be someone  completely out of the command
loop; Ship's Psychiatrist, assuming the  starship carried one.  And
half the time, they didn't.  Bones filled that  occupation in a lot.

As custom, the senior officers remained behind as the rest left.
Spock was  his usual taciturn self, but the occasional flick of a
glance in McCoy's  direction told Jim that the doctor's unusual quiet
had been noted.  Jim was  not completely sure which tactic to take
with him; McCoy re-defined the  concept of "unexpected", and was more
complex than a Deltan navigation  equation.  As much as they bickered,
Spock might be able to reach the doctor  better.  They had in common
the status of equal rank...and were twins when  it came to sharing
worry over their captain.

"Well, Bones, what do you think?"

"I'm thinking 'bout who it is we'll meet."  Leonard was obviously glum
and  thinking hard.  He dumped his empty cup as they filed to the
turbolift, and  as they watched, worried his fingernail with his
teeth.
"We're taking  phasers, aren't we?"

This from a man who would have let a gladiator open his guts on public
TV  not all that long ago, was nothing less than astonishing.  Spock
didn't even  bother to hide his surprise.

"Bones, I'm going to go check myself into Sickbay for auditory
hallucinations.  I could have sworn you were pushing for weapons."

Bones chuffed.

"*Empaths?*"  Jim gaped.

"Oh, for--if empathy was all that hunkey-dorey--"

--Spock and Jim had to guess what that meant--

--"why did the Vians feel Gem's people *might not* be worthy of being
saved?"

That was an ugly question.  They absorbed that in silence as he pushed
on.   "Think about it.  They knew about the Federation.  Did they ask
for our help  to save *both* worlds?  No!  They conducted a bad
experiment to see if Gem's  was deserving of survival!  And bein' an
empath doesn't mean just the great  things only, Jim!  Frankly, I'm
scared of what we might find down there."

Jim looked at Spock.  "Have you reviewed the wafer of empathic
species?"

"Yes, Captain.  Due to the rarity of the condition, there is precious
little  evidence, but I believe I understand what Dr. McCoy is
saying."

"Well, I don't."  Jim stopped the lift at McCoy's floor but left the
door  shut.  "Perhaps if you'd enlighten me?"

"Pre-Reform Vulcan has large portions of its history missing," Spock
began,  the Vulcan equivalent of "once upon a time".  "But empathy was
a powerful  tool in that it helped render our species less
destructive."

"Still does, right?"  McCoy murmured under his breath.

"Correct."  Spock's expression faded.  "Once Vulcan chose, as a race,
to  adopt nonviolence, it increased our racial bond all the stronger."

"To a certain point."  Bones grumbled.  "What about the trained
warriors of  your past who could resist mental overtures yet use their
own minds on  others?"

"You have heard of the H'e'ar?"  Spock queried.  "That was *not* in
the  data."

"I have many sources, and that includes your mother.  Jim, imagine the
world's greatest con artist who can make you think you want to kill
yourself.  And that's just the military potential.  I'm also thinking
of the  more subtle forms, such as the brain of all sentient species
being  susceptible to endomorphic "highs"...pain and misery can be a
"high" with  trained exposure.  And of course, Munchausen's Syndrome,
where a person is  so dependant on being a savior, they literally
damage their own children to  stay in that role."

"On another level, there is also the fact that a small portion of the
Deltan  population is considered "mentally ill" for deliberately
inflicting damage  on themselves in order to enjoy healing."  Spock
pointed out.

"Now d'you see what I'm saying?"  McCoy pleaded.  "Lock the phasers on
STUN,  but let's not go down without them!"

Jim hesitated, reluctant to reconcile anything bad with his memories
of Gem.    Besides the Vians, of course.  Guilt made him want to play
the devil's  advocate.  "The SHI'KAHR made it plain they saw nothing
but pleasant,  peaceful people."

"Checking the whole time for snakes in the grass."  McCoy added
skeptically.

Jim put his hands up.  "What can I do?  The language used gave me the
distinct impression there was nothing to fear.  What if the presence
of  weapons insults them?"

"It didn't with Gem, but I'd rather risk it myself, if it meant the
Vians  were around."

And it was officially out in the open.

Jim held his breath as the air in the turbolift froze.  McCoy's glare
was  unrelenting.

"Yeah, I've said it."  He growled.  "I've been thinking about them as
much  as you have.  Crazy freaks."

"I don't know if we can call them that, Bones."

"Why not?  If they were all that evolved, and that concerned with the
survival of Gem's people, why wouldn't they offer themselves up to
Gem's  imprintation?  Were they incapable of those deeper emotions
that they HAD to  use lower-evolved lives like ours?  You recall, it
wasn't their fault Linke  and Ozaba died!  It's always the fault of
the lab rat if it starves before  it gets out of the maze!"

Jim swallowed hard.  "I know..."  He looked at Spock who appeared
slightly  ill.

"I confess I never thought of that."  Spock again laced his fingers
together, a pose of detached thought.  "Nor, as I consider, did they
account  for any variables in their experiment with us.  When we
forced them to  change their rules, they capitulated with surprising
swiftness."

"They were too evolved to think for the little guys."  McCoy paced the
slim  confines, hands behind his back.  "Typical Colonel Green
attitude.  Gem  nearly lost her mind!  What would have happened to the
Hestians then?   Ooops, we'll have to start all over?  Better luck
next time?  Next please?   It would have made more sense if a
representative of each people had been  pitted in a contest together!"

Jim's grip slipped on the handle.  The turbo doors opened.  McCoy held
his  hand on the bar.  "I'm gonna make sure Sickbay is *good* and
*prepped*  before we go down."  He warned.

Jim and Spock were left alone.

---

Jim broke the silence first.  "That was...intense."

"But understandable."  Spock had lifted his gaze from his
contemplative  poise.  "I myself was startled by my own insights when
Gem instigated  contact with me...the good doctor's contact was far
more deep, and much more  involved than mine was."

"Yes, mine too."  Jim gnawed his lip, almost like McCoy had done with
his  fingernail.  "I suppose there *aren't* words to describe what I
felt.  There  was a...kind of communication flowing between us...she
did more than heal my  body, Spock.  She healed something inside me
that...that I didn't know was  broken."  He stopped, momentarily
drifted back into his memories.  What he  was attempting to explain,
was almost rendered obscene by the use of verbal  language.

"Dr. McCoy's behavior is not unlike a Vulcan's who has been forced
into  healing against their will."  Spock reluctantly released this
minor  bombshell to a stunned captain.  "While the body can be healed,
the mind can  remain defiant.  And we know that he was defiant of the
Vians on principle."

"Yes..."  Jim would never forget the look on Bones' face as they took
in the  sight of Linke and Ozaba, preserved in glass tubes
with--horrible  gesture--their own names on them.  He'd seen that
particular expression on  the doctor only a few times before; when
Kyle's counterpart was being  tortured in that terrible parallel
universe, and Jim had been about to jump  upon the Capellan that had
killed his man.  It had been a terrible, utterly  still kind of
expression that let very little in or out; an impassive  waiting that
chilled who saw him.  It always made his captain think of a  wild
animal that has to analyze the situation before bolting or fighting.

"My Lumbee blood," Bones had once joked, back when they were waiting
tensely  for the ship to get Spock to his wedding, in time...but the
joke had held a  grim cast to it.  "We've spent centuries trying not
to be noticed, it just  comes natural in a bad situation."

"Well, I guess that explains why you're not afraid of snakes."  Jim
had  attempted a joke in return.  Somehow, the way the humor had
fallen flat  between both of them had eased the tension generated by
their worry over  Spock.  Probably because they were being so pathetic
over a grown man.   Albeit, a grown man acting irrational.

Jim slowly restarted the turbolift for Officer's Quarters.  "In a way,
they  stood for everything he was against as a doctor...and as a human
being.  If  he had surrendered to letting Gem heal him, he would have
been a willing  participant to an unethical experiment, and a party to
murder with letting  her die."

"Compounded more by his own ethics."  Spock pointed out.  "He will not
*take* a life, not to save his own.  If my speculation is true, he
will need  healing or his condition will gradually worsen."  Spock
spoke soberly, very  quietly.  It was not easy for him to discuss
emotions of anyone, although  many were fooled.  Feelings were so
intensely private for him his dread of  the subject approached phobic
levels.

They stopped at the Off-Deck and got out; it was still early enough in
the  shift that no one was about.  It gave the corridor an eerie
feeling of  desertion--a feeling Jim, who thought of the ENTERPRISE as
alive, had never  liked.  "Let's go get something to eat before
Bridge."  Jim offered.

"I would be pleased, captain."

"Spock,"

"Yes, Jim?"

They paused at his door, and stepped inside.  "Do you think there
*would* be  anything that would drive McCoy to...kill?"

*Now why did I even think that?*

Spock was silent as Jim pulled out a holiday box of fruit.  "I know
that he  only dissects animals that have already died.  I remember
that he killed the  M-113 being when it was obviously killing you.
Confused and uncertain with  the sedative and its hypnotic influence,
he still would not act rashly."   Spock stopped a moment, thinking.
"He would prefer death to a life without  quality..."  Spock's
thoughtful gaze sharpened.  "Any one of us may kill.   One would think
that those of us who do not hesitate, are clouded in their  judgement
and confidence."

Jim toyed with a slice of dried pear.  "I just keep thinking of how
badly he  fought as a gladiator."

"He is in truth, an excellent fighter."  If Spock had said, "I am a
redhead"  Jim could not have been more astonished.  "He was aware that
I possessed the  skills to keep us both alive without killing in
return.  Ergo, he did not,  as you would say, "put out."  But if you
will recall the events of the  anger-feeding entity from Beta XIIA,
and you were separated from us--"

"I'm not likely to forget a Klingon as big as Kang mad at me."  Jim
muttered.

"He led the attack to rescue you.  I recall he muttered about a duel
with  steak knives, but did quite well.  His style is a form I am
unfamiliar with,  but it got him past a defense of armed Klingons."
Spock added, "even when  he was compelled to be violent, as when under
the control of the Archons and  Sylvia and Korob, he was *very*
inefficient.  Their controls, I would  presume, were not whole enough
to make him *want* to kill.  Not even the  paranoid delusions of
cordrazine could drive him to that."

And logically, there was no way that McCoy could not know how to kill.
A  doctor's skill was a two-edged sword, or the second of the serpents
on the  caduceus.

Jim chewed that over in silence.  "Well, he's just full of surprises."
He  sorted out a handful of maypops and limes, knowing Spock liked the
salty  rinds.  Spock wordlessly thanked him and bit down on the tart
slices.

"But as to your question..."  Spock's eyebrows genuflected all over
his  forehead.  "McCoy prefers not to reveal the reasons he would need
for such  an action.  But he would kill, to protect the
defenseless...as he did to  save you."

---

Back in Sickbay, Christine Chapel came across her CMO at his desk, a
distant  expression in his eyes.  He was studying an image on his
viewscreeen, she  realized, of a gorgeous flying bird, wrapped in
flowing, multicolored  plumage.

---

...concussion...(rhisorius; platysma; levator labii superioris) broken
bones  (greenstick racture/ulna) impact upon abdominal aorta (visceral
and  parietal) knee (patelloemoral joint; tibiofemoral joint; proximal
tibiofibular joint) wrists--think about the muscles, the bones, the
joints.   Label the blood vessels, be clinical.  Observe objectively.
Wrists--ellipsoid joint; condyloid.  A reduced ball and socket
configuration.  Interosseous ligament--*Gem, don't touch me.  You'll
die.*   Lal and Thann, their pathetic apology to him, absolving
themselves of any  guilt, telling each other as well as himself there
was no other way.  He had  no use for that.  "Get on with it!"  *Like
getting hit with large rocks.*   Internal stuff; bleeding seeping
through the tissues.  Damaged organs.    Liver?  Now *that* hurt.
*Gem?  What the hell are you doing??*

[Hurt/pain? Stop hurt]

*Gem, get away.  You'll die.  Too close to death.*

[Negativefeelingstubborn; stophurt/hurtpain]

Healing slow; cells repairing as she takes the obscenity inside
herself.   Vians wanting her to WANT to do this, set her up for it.
The death of thy  neighbor.

[Puzzlement what is a T-cell?]

*As soon as I can, I'm pushing you away--GET AWAY!!!*

McCoy gasped himself awake, found himself in an upright position in
bed
in  his unlit cabin.  For a moment, two coldly remote wrinkled faces
looked back  at him in the darkness, then they were gone.

The Vians and their sincerely-believed--in sympathy were gone.

Gem was gone.

He was alone.

McCoy pulled a deep, shuddering breath inside his ribs, feeling the
floating  bones shake.  He was in his fatigues again.  He rubbed his
now-rough face,  realizing he'd forgotten to shave.  He'd fallen
asleep before making it to  the gym again.

[?..!]

[Pain?] Gem whispered in his mind, an emotional query.

[Pain!...stop...stopTHIS/outrage]

He closed his eyes tight against the flood off images.

[Dare you...hurt...]

She didn't speak in words inside his mind, just ways that defied
description.  She communicated in feelings as intricate as any
language, and  if pressed, he could only say that he "knew" what she
was saying.   Translations were free because he knew what she *would*
say, had she the  ability to speak.  And he wanted to return to that
communication again, see  her, look into those deep eyes and find out
what the Vians had done to her  when they were done...

Had it been in their power, they would have pulled her limp body from
Lal's  arms as the trio floated away.  But they couldn't; they could
only watch,  wondering.

He could stay here and wallow in self-inflicted angst, or he could go
do  something.  Anything.

He glanced at his ChronoPadd out of habit; Christine was getting
tutored by  M'Benga today, subject: THE ORIGINS OF EMBRYONIC MUTATION.
Lovely.  Better  you than me, son.

...Spock was going in at 0400 for a rhinovirus he'd contracted on Base
VI  (surprise!).  M'Benga was doing that too.  Way to go, M'Benga!  He
didn't  feel like donning the warpaint and duking it out with a
clogged Vulcan  today.  They were both low in spirits and liable to
start slicing each other  open.  Anything else?  Ohgod.  A request
from FedMed over that mitochondria  sample taken from Miri's Planet.
Maybe if he gave Maggie Tong a whole  bottle of Godiva Liquor she'd be
so kind as to run it thru the compensator  and send the whole damn
thing out to those deskbound mathoms...

He dropped the Padd with a shudder and fled to the gym for about
80,000,000  laps around the small pool.  Fled?  *fled*.  As in,
running like hell.  He  did not, could not, would not, deal with
FedMed.  If there was any logic to  human paranoia, destiny was
pushing him to some sort of confrontation with  the Hestians; he
hadn't heard from FM for at least a quarter, and it was to  sit and
listen to High Admiral Waabs cuss him out in her unique mixture of
Anglish, Federation Standard, Cherokee and Ojibwa for putting himself
on the  line to save Spock.

"The captain and First Officer are trained soldiers!"  She yelled
while he  sat politely in front of her desk and tried to think
pleasant thoughts.   "You aren't!  If I EVER hear of you pulling
another stunt like that, all the  semaa in the world won't keep me
from yanking you OFF THAT SHIP AND  TRANSFERRING YOU TO THE PEDIATRIC
WARD INSIDE THE GRAND MARTIAN CANYON!"

"Gawd."  McCoy breathed as he dove into the pool.  For a few blissful
moments his world was nothing more than water and bubbles.  Then he
broke  surface, caught air and waved to Elpel and Yaga on the other
side.   From  badminton to the backstroke; they really needed to cut
out these "tutoring"  sessions and just jump in the romance.

*Who am I to talk?  I've got a classic obsession with an alien mute
young  enough to be my daughter!  Well, not QUITE that young; but
still really  young, and--*

He went under again.  Cool water went over his head.  Yup, that was
it.   *You are *obsessed*.  You can't think of anyone or anything else
but Gem.   And God help you, she's an Empath.  She'll find out what
you're all about   inside ten minutes of beamdown.  Ten minutes?
Five.  Maybe two.  Or  instantaneously.  You're hopeless.  Maybe that
ward on Mars wouldn't be so  bad after all.*

He went to the bottom of the pool where depressions were carved out;
concaves and convexes, training grounds for the rare undersea
maneuvers.  He  was determined to shut his mind out of this extremely
unprofessional  fixation even if he had to stay submerged for most of
the night.  At least,  until he could convince himself that the
Universe wasn't pushing him to  another meeting with Gem.

Unbidden, an image of Spock popped into his head.  The Vulcan was
sitting  crosslegged in a lotus position, eyes closed and chanting, "I
am Vulcan.   There is no co-incidence."

On the other side of the pool, Yaga, who happened to be a Martian
colonist,  commented to her hypothetical lover:  "He's been under a
long time."

Elpel didn't look up from the view of Annbjorg's wetsuit.  "Mmn,
honey, you  need to keep breathing deep.  It's good for your lungs."

---

An hour later, shaking and sweating (and not wanting to examine the
reasons  why), Leonard turned on Ship's Channel at random while he
changed to dry  clothes.  Nyota was running DJ tonight, which meant
even Spock would be  contented with the selection.  He felt himself
relax enough to smile a  little as long, complex notes began to fill
his cabin.  Maybe, just maybe,  he could let the music take him away
from himself.

*What is it about you, Gem?*  He stared upward at the ceiling, no
longer  frightened  but there was a deathly calm now, a part that was
temporarily  exhausted of reaction and only the cool intellect
remaining behind.  *I was  in awe of you down there.  I still am.  I
keep wondering if you're...real.   Did you really adapt the way the
Vians planned?  Or did we hurt you so badly  you never recovered?  I
can't stop thinking about you, I can't stop wishing  I could see you
again, touch your hands and read your eyes.  Something about  you
struck me when I first saw you.  Odd.  Usually it's Jim who falls head
over heels...I guess you're never too old to be deranged.*

Nope.  It seemed that one never got wiser with age.   You'd think,
that  getting his heart shattered into atoms as well as fatherhood
from a distance  would be the cure.  Who was it that said the human
heart was the only  machine that could still function while split
open?  They were *so* right.

---

Not far from the doctor, Spock was seated at his desk, filing the
day's  reports.  It was a task he could perform easily and yet think
of other  things simultaneously.

By the time he finished three duty shifts, they would enter the
Hestian  orbit.  Spock's insatiable curiosity had already wrangled
permission to  extend the ship's scanners to maximum capacity; if
there were tangible means  by which the Vians had terraformed this
planet, he would be interested in  knowing what they were.

Not that he believed those methods would be easily discernible.
Psychologically, the Vians fit no profile he had ever encountered,
with  their peculiar, unfathomable conflict of duty and cruelty.  Even
their  expressions of compassion had been unclear.

Dr. McCoy believed the Vians had forgotten how to experience emotions,
and  so had been forced to use them instead.  Spock strongly suspected
this was  the truth, and not the least because it was the doctor's
impressions.   When  it came to understanding emotions, the doctor's
ability to translate far  overtook his own.

And, he had been the most natural bridge between Gem and the Vians.
Even at  a glance, he had strode toward her without fear--an action
that had  privately alarmed Spock.  And when they had persisted in
thinking  objectively, he had named her, forcing them to see her as
something beyond a  remote particle of the puzzle.

In the end, it had been an equal mixture of extremes that had salvaged
them  all.  Spock found it oddly gratifying that the solution had lain
in both  McCoy's emotion, and his own ability to put emotion aside.
Without either  ability, he doubted it would have been more than
another failed experiment  of the Vians.

He signed his name to the personnel report, and wondered if the Vians
had  truly intended to keep their corpses in the preserving vials.
With the sun  about to Nova, he would have thought no, but the
presence of this new planet  suggested they could have moved their
strange laboratory with them.

Or, had the Vians moved at all when they parted ways?  Perhaps it had
been  they who had been transported, for just as suddenly, they were
above the  surface, answering Mr. Scott's frantic hail over all three
communicators.

Possibly, he decided, they would have kept their corpses.  Their lack
of  knowledge about humans and Vulcans was obvious.  They might have
found  specimens useful.

He opened the last file; the programming outline for the week.  The
Ship's  logicians, despite their title, were an easily aroused sort
and prone to  handle surprises  badly.  It was in the best interests
of high performance  that he submit their schedules two weeks in
advance.

Debate over the vials finished, Spock mentally turned to the last
issue on  his mind.

He still did not know if he had broken a confidence or not.  As
captain, Jim  should be aware there might be a medical difficulty with
Dr. McCoy.  But a  medical difficulty fell under McCoy's province.  It
was possible he should  have spoken to the doctor, and not Jim about
the possible need for a skilled  mind-healer.

He was not at all young by humans standards, but by Vulcan's, he was
*very*  young.  And his youth/inexperience was glaring in his psyche
at this moment.    Try as he might, he could not find in his memory a
comforting precedent of  any kind.  This was not something he would
know much about until he grew  older.

He needed to decide upon a course of action, whether proven right or
wrong.

---

Jim Kirk tightened his resolve with his figurative belt.

It wasn't easy.  He'd feel more comfortable approaching Spock.

Not that he considered Bones any less a friend, but Spock was easier
to  fathom, and never asked difficult questions of him.  Bones always
probed, or  would pop out one of those koans that made you think,
especially during  those times when Jim just wanted to STOP thinking
and start acting.

And, Spock was closer to his age.  Maybe there had been a time when
that  hadn't been important, but there were times (at least once a
day) when he  surely felt like David Farragut, given command of a ship
while not even  sixteen.  Being qualified hadn't mattered to the
grinning crew until he  proved he was just as good as all the adults.

Eventually, some day, he would stop needing to prove himself.

(Jim believed this firmly, and because he'd never confessed this
belief to  anyone, he'd never had it shot down.  McCoy would have
keeled over from  laughter, and his mother would have fled the room to
laugh at her son in  privacy.  Spock would have just stared with his
eyebrows and said,  "Indeed.")

Comparing Spock and McCoy was always an abject lesson in kitchen
antimatter;  he was more outwardly at ease with Bones.  He used his
civilian nickname  where nobody else on the ship did and was a little
proud of himself for  being able to do so.  But McCoy was (if you
wanted to use an analogy from  Iowa), a lot like having a herd of
Dexter cattle on your farm.

Dexters were a short, antique, argumentive breed of cattle founded by
the  argumentive Irish race.  They could do just about anything, be it
provide  meat, milk, pull a team, and superior leather.  But the
tradeoff was their  attitude.  They *chased* predators away...but they
also trampled your fence,  helped themselves to your garden, and made
you prove who was the boss of who  every day of their lives.

They were the perfect emblem of a man who came from a part of America
who  generated the proverb:  "If two men are in agreement, one is
worthless."

Spock, upon hearing McCoy say that once, replied only that the
statement was  "beyond any defense."

Another reason to be easier around Spock; Spock had a set of values
that  more closely mirrored Jim's own.  Spock was possibly the one
who'd gotten in  the *least* amount of trouble while growing up.
Except for an incident best  forgotten with his schoolmates, Spock had
always upheld law, order, and  careful action.

McCoy had never been one of those boys who garnered speeding tickets,
warning citations and "community time" as a result of youthful
exuberance  (unlike Jim); it had been more his style to just pop off
and vanish into the  swamps, the forests, or the marshes.  So huge
portions of his life were one  big, blank mystery to even his parents.
He was private but not clam-mouthed;  he simply preferred to talk
about
other things besides himself.  Which meant  if you wanted to really
get to KNOW Bones McCoy, you were going to have to  actually make the
effort.  You'd die of old age before he'd think of  volunteering
anything; he considered himself a most boring subject.

According to Clark Terrell, one of his very few military friends,
there were  always dark rumors of "slow deer" on the McCoy dinner
table, as well as  "slow trout", "stupid alligator" and "Magic Moonbow
Mountain Moonshine."

If those rumors were any near true, it just confirmed that the ship's
doctor  came by his irreverence for the straight and narrow honestly.
Jim believed  in breaking laws only when there was a just reason.
With Bones, he had the  uncomfortable suspicion that McCoy only
maintained the laws that didn't  bother him at the moment, and too bad
when they did; he was going to ride  right over them and then sleep
the sleep of the just.

*I hope I'm wrong about that.*  Jim glanced down at the bottle in his
hands.    He wasn't sure how this would be received.  Bones reveled in
a good  liquor, but tended to keep it for his free time.  And he would
be on duty  tomorrow.

The captain was a little irritated at himself.  Neither were currently
on  the roster; their mornings would begin comfortably late.  Bones
didn't LIKE  psychoanalyzing him save in the line of duty, it was just
that when he DID,  it was very unpleasant.

*One of these days I am going to grow up and get out of this teenager
self-defensive attitude about getting questioned.*  He promised
himself.  He  thought this at himself quite often, but it was probably
just part and  parcel of being the youngest Kirk son, the youngest
nephew on both sides of  the family, and the "baby of the
neighborhood" in his small farming town for  the first ten years of
his life.

"That town was TOO small."  He said aloud, and blinked as a passing
crewman  stumbled over a salute.

He rang the chime.

---

McCoy had his cabin dim for the evening, which just emphasized how
Spartan  he kept his quarters.  Even Spock would win more points for
homeyness--albeit with a more exotic flare with the firepot beast.

Music was playing at a barely audible range; Norwegian kulling blended
with  the traditional hardanger violin.  Bones was sitting at the
narrow table  with a late supper.

"Figured you might show  up."  His doctor said.  "Want an egg roll?"

Jim decided to ease himself into casualspeak.  "I'm amazed that a
determined  meat eater like yourself always eats vegetarian on the
ship."  He leaned  over and grabbed a roll of the plate, knowing to
avoid the hot and sour  soup.  Ever since the induction of Mexico,
Southern palates had enjoyed a  half-life of 5.7 E-7 rads per minute--

McCoy snorted.  "You call THAT stuff meat?  I know its supposed to
copy  everything properly, but the base matters ARE from vegetables
and nuts.  No,  captain, there's no point in eating fake animal.
First thing I'm gonna do  when we get back to Earth is grab my Mere
Heath longbow and hit the woods."

Jim chuckled, setting the bottle down, clunk, and taking the only
other  chair.  "I might go with you.  Grab my grandfather's
sinew-backed self bow  and we'll see how it matches up."

"You, captain, need to be eating more lean meat anyway."  McCoy
snapped.   "Those molecular starches are what's expanding your
waistline.  Or have you  not noticed when you get some of your
mother's bison roasts you stop  gaining?"  He rolled his eyes to the
ceiling.  "Some Lakota you are."

Jim pretended to lob his egg roll at him.  "This from the man whose
ancestors were civilized JUST as forcefully--"

"--except the ones who carved GONE TO CROATAN and fled like rats."
McCoy  shot back.

"--at least MY people don't feel the need to put a pod of cayenne in
our  milk."

"You shouldn't be drinking milk anyway.  Bad for your
Lakota-influenced DNA.  For shame.  Besides, there's nothing like a
cup of  pink milk in the morning to wake you up, dose you full of
folic acid, and  kill all unfriendly intestinal flora."

"So you say.  But someday we'll make truce with the Romulans, and I'm
going  to see how your heat tolerance levels add up.  I hear they
spread harissa  sauce on their morning pancakes."

Bones lit up.  "Fine.  I'll bring my mother's habanero cookies.  Old
recipe.    You'd love it."

Jim gagged and ignored yet another subtle dig at McCoy's ongoing
campaign to  prove he was a masochist.  "Never mind.  How long is
Spock going to be out  for the count?"

"Just the Rigellian common cold--something the Vulcanoid colonists
brought  over with their Pre-Reform philosophy.  I'd say he'll be fine
tomorrow.  You  know Vulcans.  They'll do anything to recover if their
eyes are watering too  badly to read."  McCoy grinned as Jim choked on
that last sally.  "What's on your mind, Jim?"

"What makes you think anything's on my mind?"

"You're here, aren't you?  When you just want to kill time, you plunk
a  chessboard down in front of Spock."

Jim blushed, about to protest, but Leonard's eyes stopped him.

*I always wind up feeling guilty about something.*  Jim thought
blackly.

"If you think I'm upset about that, think again."  McCoy said gruffly.
"God  knows, someone as maladjusted as Spock needs a friend, and he
can't really  BE someone's friend without laying claim to 'em."  The
doctor's face was  dead serious.  "A lot of people can't handle that,
Jim.  He's a prodigy, and  always will be.  Just like you.  I'd hate
to think of what he'd be, and  where he'd be, if it weren't for you
and Pike.  Phillip told me plenty."

Jim measured him carefully with his eyes.  "As I recall, you're a
prodigy  yourself--or is it SOP for men in their mid-twenties to
develop neural  grafting techniques."

"I'm also an insomniac."  McCoy told him with impeccable poise.  "But
no,  let's not count me.  Unlike the two of  you, *I* am gloriously,
perfectly  adjusted.  And I've got the plaques and awards that tell me
so."

He said it with just the right amount of ridiculous dignity to show
how  little he thought of paper-honored certificates.  Jim felt a
snort tickle  the back of his throat.  "All right, Bones.  I'll
confess.  This planet has  me worried."

"News?"

"Even our long-range sensors are picking up odd bits of data...every
time we  finish a scan..."  Jim hesitated.  "Something new
and...bizarre...comes up."

"How come we haven't had an update meeting?"

"Because we haven't finished collating data YET...and I'm starting to
wonder  if we ever will!"

McCoy was openly puzzled.  When did the unknown EVER slow down James
T.  Kirk?

"I know there's not much point."  Jim clarified slowly.  "We didn't
detect  the smallest hint of the Vians before, and we're bound not to,
I think.  But  Spock is determined to try and see if they leave
traceable prints.  So...I  guess it's a matter of time.  We'll be
having one last briefing to cap  everything pertinent about the planet
just before we beam down."

"Hmn."  McCoy pushed his empty bowl aside and reached for the tabasco.

"Bones, how CAN you do that?"

"S'easy.  If I wanted hospital food I'd be there.  Now what's going
on?"

Jim glanced down at his hands.  He hoped he wasn't too transparent
with  McCoy.  The man could laser through any concern if it was
directed at him.   And yet, Jim *was* worried.  Spock had opened a can
of worms over his  concern.  And Jim found it extremely difficult to
imagine McCoy going to Gol  for treatment.  The man had greeted
*T'Pau* with a happy smile, for God's  sake!  Damn.  He was toying
with his food.  He hadn't done that in ages, no  wonder Bones was
staring at him.

"I've been thinking of Gem."  He admitted.  "And I know it's always
good to  be careful.  There's a part of me that doesn't want to
believe SHE could be  associated with anything dangerous.  But she
was, against her will because  the Vians made it that way.  And when I
start thinking about how  unpredictable this new planet is, it gets
all confused and chaotic."

Nyota switched to another music track, still on the northern side of
the  world.  McCoy was silent, and Jim wasn't through talking.

"This planet..."  Jim was frowning now, impatience coloring his voice.
"We  know its been terraformed somehow.  There was *no* life until
now.  So the  Vians did that.  But they must have copied everything
about the previous  planet...it's ODD, Bones.  Its hard enough to get
good, solid scans on the  surface between the constant chain reaction
of storms.  So far jungle growth  and heat dispersion has kept us from
finding any more settlements and every  time we find a new animal in
our sensors, its poisonous!"

"No predators?"  McCoy frowned.

"None!  Can you believe that?  There has to be something that preys on
the  smaller, weaker members of the food chain!  But so far, there's
nothing  bigger than a fat, single-tusked herbivore about the size of
your desk.  Are  the humanoids the supreme predator?"

"Ummmmmmmm...THAT doesn't make sense.  You need some kind of supreme
predator to give us the incentive to develop intelligence."

"Exactly.  What ARE we missing about this planet?"

"What about those birds?  Environmental defense against a predator
that no  longer exists?"  McCoy hazarded.  "Maybe Lal and Thann forgot
to put the  lions on their Ark?"

Jim thought about it.  "Good point."  He conceded. "But it doesn't
sound  like a good idea, you know.  It would eventually jeopardize the
ecosystem."

McCoy shrugged mightily.  "I don't try to scope Vians.  Their
thinking--when  they think at all--is beyond my ken.  But you're
right.  When there's  nothing to keep the pond clean, that's when the
REAL predators pop in: viral  invaders."

Jim nerved himself to another point.

"Another thing," he said, "Bones, I can't stop thinking  about what
happened...between you and Gem."

"Hell if I know."  McCoy said bluntly.  "I'm still trying to figure it
out  myself."

That was not a good sign.  "You resisted the  healing...I'd do the
same.   But when I think of how she looked..."  Jim stopped.  Bones'
face was one  blank wall, the impassive warrior's look.  "Maybe I'd
feel better if I knew  the end of the story, but I don't.  I want to
know what they did to her when  we parted ways."

"I...couldn't even begin to imagine."  McCoy looked at his hands.  "I
take  it there was no sign of them at all on any of the sensors?"

"No...not that we really know what to look for.  Spock  has..."  Jim
stopped.  "Theories."  He didn't trust himself to quite say more.

"Theories?"  McCoy's eyebrows went up.  "Theories that royally disturb
you,  I take it?"

*Oh, yes.*  Jim thought sourly.  *Spock's trying to prove the Vians
are  related to the Thalosians.  And if he's even remotely true, what
would  Starfleet's reaction to THAT be?*

"Theories that can't be anything more than theory as long as we keep
seeing  nothing suspicious.  There's no indication of any kind of
interfering  lifeform."  Jim slumped back in his chair, a bad sign
for his normally erect  body.

McCoy's eyes were deep and troubled.  "Bein' that close to death," he
began,  "It's not like that's the first time that happened."  He
sighed and picked  up the bottle, giving the label a nod of approval.
Jim wasn't surprised  when he rose to dig out glasses.  "S'funny how
we all had to deal with our  worst nightmares down there.  I could
almost be grateful to them or that,  you know.  For me."

Jim hadn't expected that.  "What were *you* afraid of?"

McCoy didn't glance up from pouring drinks.  "A slow death."  He said
frankly.  "It's always scared the bejesus out of me. Dying ain't all
that  impressive in itself.  God, Jim, I once sat down and counted the
number of  times the Grim Reaper shaved my face with his bilhook.  I
got it to around  six or seven..."

Jim took his white brandy gratefully.  "Where were you--Nova Patrol?"

"Hah.  Nah, I drowned twice when I was a kid.  Not fun, let me tell
you, but  the one in the ocean was *really* unpleasant...three times
before the  ENTERPRISE...mishaps from my ship patrolling hostile
borders.  I was on the  WILD HERITAGE, remember?  Big science and
research vessel, big egos to  match.  Orions kept trying to grab our
goods and they weren't very subtle  about it.  Once I got hit by a
Capellan powercat--that's *just* like getting  hit by lightning--"

"How do you know that?"  Jim wondered.

"How do you think?  We're discussing my close scrapes here.  But the
lightning hardly counts.  Runs in the family."  McCoy paused to take a
drink--Jim wasn't sure if Bones was kidding or not.  Appalachian humor
depended on having a perfectly straight face half the time.

"But," McCoy shrugged, "I've always thought that a quick death is the
only  death to have.  Dying slow...well, it does horrify a lot of
people.  I know  I'm not the only one with that problem."  The doctor
swirled his drink,   watching the butter-pale liquid paint the sides
of the crystal thoughtfully.

A slow death.  Jim shivered.  The Vians had taken their time with
McCoy.   The sedative had cost Spock and him hours, and then more time
for Spock to  puzzle out the stolen T-bar.  Maybe half a day in all.
And all that time,  he'd hung there, probably floating in and out of
unconsciousness.  His eyes  had been open when they'd found him.
Because it wasn't like him to shut his  eyes and die.

"When my father died, it scared me."  McCoy said suddenly.  That
remote,  "listening" look was back on his face, as if he was paying
attention to a  separate audience besides Jim.  "But at the same time,
I was tired of being  afraid, do you know what I mean?"

"Yes."  Jim agreed fervently.  "It takes a lot out of me to be afraid.
I  hate it."

"Yeah, but when I was dying, and knowing that Gem might or might not
be able  to heal me, I was thinking that no death lasts forever.
Eventually the  process would stop."

"I'm just glad she saved you."  Jim said without embarrassment.  "I
don't  know what we would have done without you."

Jim didn't know that was one of McCoy's personal demons; the captain
was  closer to his crew than most, but carried a protective padding of
distance  between everyone.  And every time he lost someone he cared
about, you could  see the hide grow just a little bit thicker.

"You," he said crankily, "would have hauled Phillip back from active
retirement, kicking and screaming.  He was the only other doctor crazy
enough to put up with you AND Spock.  You damn near gave Mark Piper a
nervous breakdown!"  McCoy grinned, then sobered.  "Anyway, I'm saying
that  a slow death was the worst way I could imagine death...and it
wasn't all  that bad."

They clicked their glasses; fluid rippled down their throats and
caught  fire.

"Anyway, let's give credit where its due; it was Lal and Thann who
finished  healing me.  When you forced them to."

"You make it sound like it's a habit of mine to bully people."

"You bully machines, not people.  And the Vians qualified.  It's a
measure  of Spock's IDIC that he's your friend; if anybody's a walking
abacus, it's  our pointy-eared First Officer."

Words had run out.  Liquor was sipped slowly, the silence compatible
between  old friends.  Nyota's choice of music continued on, gently,
just outside the  easy range of their hearing, and loudly enough to
keep the atmosphere  smooth.

"Old friends can have very deep thoughts."  Jim murmured.  "I remember
that  from a Tuvan song she was playing last night."

Bones chuckled softly.  "Maybe too deep."

---

Oh, Lord.

With a long-patient sigh, he punched up the least of the evils on the
day's  list of choices--cracked kamut hot cereal, and the latest
attempt to blend  up a plausible tomato juice.  Might as well show
some support to the poor  slaves chained to the galley oars.

The sunflower-oil-butter was a compromise.  Leonard told his genes to
just  think of home cookin' and picked up his tray with a fatalistic
acceptance of  his destiny.

Christine and Nyota had been yakking away but automatically made room
for  him before he could pass by.  "Leonard, take a look at this."
His nurse  nodded to a sheaf of plastic paperwork sitting between the
two women.

"What am I looking at?  Those aren't M'Benga's work specs.  Does this
have  to do with work?"

"Not literally...possibly later when you get down on that planet--are
they  going to find a better name for it than Hestia VVI?"

"Beats me.  You'd think it'd be up to the natives on what to call
their  world.""

Nyota chuffed.  "When does it ever matter?  We always label them by
our star  charts.  When we DO refer to someone by the name of their
own language, we  pat ourselves on the back for being enlightened."

McCoy blinked as he spooned up hot cereal and sprinkled the contents
of the  spice packet on top.  "A little feisty today, Lieutenant.  But
I think part  of an anthro's job specs is to ask stupid questions."

Nyota chuckled.  "That explains why so many of them get adopted by
native  tribes.  The people are probably wracked with guilt at the
idea of letting  those of sub-standard intelligence wander off and get
killed."

"There ya go..."  McCoy frowned at the pages.  Nyota's unquestionable
handwriting was scrawled all over an image of one of the  poisonous
birds.  "Speculation, ladies?"

"Extrapolation."  Christine corrected him.  "We were trying to think
of WHY  they would be toxic, and were frankly, drawing parallels on
Earth's  example."

"When you think of it, we've had just about everything."  Nyota
pointed out.    "From the hooved carnivore to whales with ankles."

"We do seem to come by our individuality honestly." McCoy agreed
blandly.   "Well, in our case, birds evolved from reptiles, and some
reptiles adapted  their own evolution to fit in with the avians."

"It's a well known fact that serpents are the purest biological check
to  keep birds from getting out of hand."  Christine nodded.  "But
here you have  a bird that has such toxic feathers, it seems to have
developed side by side  with something...really nasty."

"It would have to be nasty."  Nyota added.  "Nature uses color to
catch the  eye--sometimes that color says 'don't touch' and sometimes,
'hi honey, let's  shack up' but here you have a double standard of a
bird who is just as  visible as it can possibly get...and as
poisonous."

Leonard had choked on Nyota's 'let's shack up' phrase and was now back
to  normal.  He wiped his eyes with his napkin and leaned back.  "The
question  is, how do they achieve their poisonous state.  They might
be born with  appropriate glands, which we can't pick up with our
sensors.  Or maybe like  the macaws, they ingest a lot of toxic
substances."

"Macaws eat toxic foods because they know to neutralize the acids with
a big  bite of clay from the local cliff wall."  Christine pointed
out.

"I know.  It's not a pure example, but it was the best one I could
think  of."

"Hmmn."

"Hmnn."

"Nobody'd be wearing those feathers."  Nyota commented.

"Not without a suit of armor to go underneath.  And even then, I'd bet
it  would discolor most metals."

"Comforting."  McCoy muttered to Christine.  "Corrosive feathers..."

"But we're just puzzling this out on our own time."  Christine assured
him.   "I'm fully aware I have to discuss with Dr. M'Benga, why our
thyroid began  as burgeoning gills in our embryonic stage of
development."

"Better watch out.  Our favorite AMO is just dying to prove to the
Galaxy  that humans could be as good as Vulcans on self-healing
techniques if they  only had proper training."

"Tell me about it.  I've had to play truth or dare with him."

Nyota snickered at this exchange.  "You make me feel so lucky.  All I
have  to do is work with Angela on the Synthetic Language programs for
Subspace  Comms."

"Is that hard?"  McCoy asked innocently.

Nyota didn't laugh at him.  "It is...when the synthetic languages in
question are based upon an illogical construction.  More like a
patois, if  you must know."  She turned thoughtful.  "Of course, the
designers were  English, and that's a patois if there ever was one."

---

Breakfast wasn't all that filling for him.  He wound up digging in his
stash  drawer, confident that he had plenty of time to relax and plan
out his  worksheet before he was officially on duty.

Jim had left very late last night; just as well they were on Kappa
Shift; he  probably had enjoyed a sound night's sleep on top of that
blended white  grape.  Leonard was feeling pretty good himself, but
made a personal note to  check Jim over at the nearest opportunity
that wasn't invasive or openly  nosy.

Like many people of his particular genetic background, Jim tended to
secret  higher levels of noradrenaline and adrenaline, which enabled
him to respond  not just quickly, but successfully, in any given
stressful situation.

Unfortunately, recovery was more difficult because it took them much
longer  to break down those catecholamines.  Having an O-blood type,
Jim was  particularly handicapped in that area.  Even at the peak of
his health, a  test of his platelets would show he had extremely low
activity of the  monoamine oxidase enzyme that broke down the
catecholamines.

So what you got was a man who could handle almost any kind of
stress--ideal  Starship captain type--but moodiness threatened when
the stress never went  away, or, there wasn't enough stimulation.  His
wanting to talk over a drink  was enough of an indication.  McCoy had
been flat-out warned about Jim's  tendency to borderline depression in
peacetime by a medical record crammed  of vivid examples.

If Jim hadn't been Jim Kirk, he would be considered unsuited for the
captaincy.  But, he was a man who took his crosses to bear and made
them a  part of his armor.  He used his tendency for depression to
sharpen his focus  and heighten his outlook on life rather than sink
down into a spiral of  nonproductive activity.  It made him a tougher
opponent, but not a merciless  one.

[Good morning, Bones!"]

Not for the first time, the nocturnal medical officer thought about
killing  his morning-bird captain.  No one should sound that cheerful
before noon.   Speaking of inclement depression...[You going to be
here for the Briefing?]

McCoy stifled the urge to tell Kirk that being trapped in a small,
claustrophobic room with a daylark for a captain and a walking
Rigellian  rhinovirus First Officer was somewhat less attractive than
say, Orion ritual  immolation.

"Sorry, Jim."  He grumbled.  He was chewing his way through a
breakfast
bar  (lots of flavor, and lots and lots of fat).  "Gotta ton of stuff
to clear on  my desk.  I'll be there through the intercom, ok?"

[Sure thing.  It's just me n'Spock having breakfast right now.] 
Slurp,
Jim  swallowed more of his coal-tar coffee.  McCoy shuddered and tried
not to  think of impending osteoporosis.  [Briefing starts in 'twenty,
don't forget  to sign on so we can put your name on the RollPadd."

"I wouldn't dream of missing out."  McCoy said, straight-faced.  He
smiled  as the 'com went out with a click.   Jim sounded like all was
well in the  world known as the Starship ENTERPRISE.

Relaxed, he zipped through the usual morning data, signed one of the
non-medicos permission to access reference files for an upcoming
report, and  his own request to see some of Spock's stuff on Green
Sun Ecosystems.  As  weird as Jim said Hestia was...no sense taking
chances.  Ridiculous that he  even had to ask but ever since the Ben
Finney Escapade with the computer,  security had extended to bizarre
areas.  Your taxes at work.

Second (or third) cup of white coffee of the morning was choked on as
Bones  caught a blurb out of the figurative blue: Sulu was requesting
counseling on  an ursus marriage.  How about that...

He sighed, deciding to advise against a one-year contract.  Better to
aim  for the real thing, and not to make a move unless you were sure.
And how  sure could  they be if they were wanting to commit for only a
year?  Set up  a dual living arrangement and file temporary medical
waivers; see how living  together for a while suited them, and then
they could talk.

"Leonard--!"  Christine stuck a puffy, teary face in his office,
scaring him  nearly half to death.  Chapel was as likely to cry in
public as a Tholian.   "Can you PLEASE help me with my COMPUTER
AGAIN??  I was in the middle of  Geoff's worksheet and it went OUT ON
ME AGAIN!"

"Ohhh, I'm sorry, Christine."  Leonard got to his feet, brushing
crumbs off  his tunic. "Here, use mine.  I'll see what I can do."

"I wish Janice was still here."  Christine snarled, fiercely wiping
her eyes  dry.  "She could make these stupid computers do anything she
wanted!"

"Yeah, and didn't it burn Spock up too!"  Leonard snickered at the
happy  memories.  "We need to send her a tape soon."  He pushed his
seat back.   "I'll holler when I get your junkheap online."

"As opposed to your usual hollering?"

"Cuuuute."

He slung up his toolpad and crossed Chris' small alcove.  Nothing
frivolous  here, but he did frown puzzled at a lilac cactus on her
desk before  sitting down on the floor and popping the underbelly of
the plate open.

*I hate, hate, hate Starfleet.*  He thought it again, and again, as he
stared at more doodads than common sense approved of.  It wasn't
difficult to  FIX a computer.  Anybody with a few memory bars and a
cube of synthesynapses  could hopscotch their way through half a
system.  But, Starfleet's paranoia  about Security led to all forms of
system safeties and blocks and walls that  took up tons of memory and
slowed capability.  It was like stocking the  castle moat with
alligators and then letting the drawbridge rust shut.   Medical was
permanently at war with Security, believing (rightly) that it
infringed upon the medical oath.  Sure, they'd protect a patient's
privacy,  but hoarding healing technology was flat-out wrong and he
resisted the order  at every chance.  As CMO he had free run of
Sickbay's systems...but that  meant he was one of those people
invariably called when the "drawbridge"  rusted shut.

*This would never happen on Sigma...sure those techs were crazy and
made  Jim's computer fall in love with him, but those Amazons knew
what they--*

McCoy yanked out a board he didn't remember stalling, the realized
with  galloping horror that Spock had "improved" the system again.

*Oh, that pointy-eared Puck!  That cruel and unusual dangling
participle!   That--that--PROVERBIAL THORN!*

McCoy rapped his head against the underside of Chris' desk, purely
frustrated.  *Owwww!  When is he gonna learn Vulcan efficiency is NOT
compatible with HUMAN efficiency???*

This thought reminded him with a start that the meeting would come to
order--when?  Soon?  Right now?  He fumbled blindly for the switch and
was  rewarded with a screen of snow and frying bacon.  "Hello,
Briefing!"  He  snarled.  The tint of hellfire continued to color his
mental horizons as his  day slid further downhill.   He hammered on
the switch to more electric  blizzard.

"Larrupin!  Consarned gob-faced woodscolted, poltroon--"

He swore in every back-country rural dialect he'd ever picked up at
every  family reunion and hit the Vulcan-infected machine.  The static
vanished.   Jim and Spock were talking.  Alone.  The meeting hadn't
started yet.  GOOD.

"Goddammit, McCoy here and *really* mad about it!"   He roared.
"Spock you  pea-green fiend, the next time you--"

"--to the surface."  Spock was finishing.  McCoy realized his portion
of the  comm wasn't accessing.  Damn it to Thomas Alva Edison, they
didn't know he  was there; he'd have to dig deep in this thing's guts
to--

"Yes, I know."  Jim laced his fingers into a solid net of flesh and
clasped  it white.  "We need to keep an eye on him while we're down
there.  I'm  worried about his involvement with Gem."

"There is a possibility we are being overly concerned."

McCoy's hand had gone numb over the OFF switch.  Suddenly shaking, he
felt  the freeze creep over his body.  Spock never expressed worry of
him to *his*  hearing.

Jim shook his head.  "You said yourself he's displaying
characteristics of a  person who was healed against their will."

"A Vulcan healed against his will, Jim.  McCoy is hardly a Vulcan."

McCoy slumped backwards into Christine's chair, deafened by the roar
of  blood in his ears.  His eyes had gone cold as a fjord and all
sensation  seemed to have deserted his body.

*And you have no idea how happy I am for that, Mr. Spock.*

He swallowed hard, feeling a spate of nausea claw up his throat.  His
fingers drummed on the desk crisply.  If they were going to talk about
him  like this, he'd carry no guilt about the accidental
eavesdropping.
And it  wasn't *his* fault Spock had bollixed the machine up.

The doctor sighed.  Up till now, he'd only been apprehensively hopeful
about  Hestia.  Now he would be very, very glad when their mission
here was over  and done with.


---

As Scott had been Commanding Officer when the sensors had finished
their  last scans, it would be his job to head the meeting.

"Hopefully," Uhura murmured to Sulu, "He won't be too much of a bear."

Chekov grimaced.  "Priterpyelost."  He opined.  It was a uniquely
Russian  word for the silence one held in the face of rampant
injustice.  Listening  to a sulky Highlander grumble data against his
will was a perfect growth  environment for priterpyelost.

Sulu sighed at his console-partner.  Chekov's claim that everything
was  Russian was a joke...but it seemed like the Rus had a word for
every single  occasion.  Especially if it was morbid, ironic, or
fatalistic.

Spock, as any superior being should, was ignoring the chatter, offers
of tea  or coffee, and aligning his wafers just as McCoy swept in.

"Thought you were too busy."  Jim commented.

McCoy's head shot up as he was sitting down, his eyes an open act of
murder.    Oblivious to the startled glances,  he swept an equal glare
of ice at  Spock and finished seating.  "I was."  His voice dared
anyone say anything  else.

Lovely, Jim thought.  Bones grew moodier every day.

"We ready?"  The doctor asked brusquely.

Jim hesitated, assessing the situation.  "Almost."

"Before we go down," McCoy drawled, "Is there anything you feel like
sayin'  that I should know about?"  Liquid nitrogen coated his voice.
Jim repressed  the stab of guilt and the urge to glance at Spock.

Scott entered just then.  The Blue Hag take these tasks, his face
said.  He  would endure it like a man, but mo bhron, the things duty
demanded of a  simple engineer.  "All right, we've discovered an
important reason for the  constant chain 'o atmospheric storms on
th'planet."  Scott sat down without  preamble.  Or even a greeting.
Past experience had taught Spock to activate  the recorder the second
he passed the doorframe.  "Ta  begin with, th'single  continent of
th'planet is interferrin' wi'th'rotation o'th'axis."

Scott flipped a switch and showed Hestia spinning in space.  "When
th'tides  come up under th'influence o' the moons, th'ocean fashes
against yon land  mass, und slows down rotation a wee tad."

"A wobbly planet."  Sulu made a face.  "That's just great."

"As can be imagined," Spock began (years of experience going into
saying the  i-word), "The temporary decline in rotation encourages
atmospheric upheaval.    While relatively small and insignificant to
begin with, the pressure  gathers itself until accumulation into a
chain of hurricanes that sweep  across the surface every 24-28 days."

"Und there be such a helligan a-broon."  Scott growled.  "Ye'd best
wait a  week before beamin' doon, sair."

"Possibly not, Mr. Scott."  Spock offered.  "If we beam down as
scheduled,  we will have an estimated 48.27 hours before atmosphere
prevents beamup."

"Two full days."  Jim rubbed his cheek, glad Scott was settling
down--with  his accent.  "That's not bad.  Enough to pay our respects,
answer questions  from both sides, and we pull out, wait for the storm
to pass over, and ue  the time to give us all a chance to absorb the
diverse cultural impact..."

McCoy didn't deign to say anything.  He'd heard these "simple" plans
before.    Damned if he was gonna fall for THAT trap.  The Universe
was *never* that  simple.  It wouldn't shock him a bit if Trelane's
great-granddaddy was in  charge of Galactic Lunacy: Just call in the
Energy Beings of Gothos, Patron  Saints of Gleeful Chaos and
Interesting Times...

Unnoticed for the moment, he signed the RollPadd and thought of how
silly it  was to be mothered by Jim and Spock, who collectively had no
more sense of  caution than a bowl of turnips.  It boiled down to a
very juvenile value  both men placed on physical ability.  Jim was a
tight natural athlete some  years his junior, and Spock was probably
twice as strong as the strongest  man on ship.  That made *him* a
weakling in such company.

McCoy was naturally wiry with no slump or fat on him, but he reserved
his  mental focus for his work, not for battle.  His body was light
and flexible,  and he rarely had to "ground" himself the way they did
in a fight.  Too much  Celt in him; moving swift and striking like a
wasp was the way his people  had always fought; guerilla style, not
the rule-bound martial combats Jim  and Spock followed.  His was an
individual way, but not an efficient method  of team-fighting.
Teamwork invariably got him clobbered.

Plus...Leonard judged maturity by EQ a lot, and Jim and Spock were
both  still babes in his woods.  Hell, Spock WAS a kid in Vulcan
years, his first  Pon Farr happening on ship.  But Leonard had
squashed most of his own  youthful craziness when Joanna was born.
Fatherhood made you grow up in a  hurry, and appreciate certain things
more.  That caution kept a balance  against Jim's natural
impulsiveness and Spock's innocent curiosity.

It was really too bad those two saw themselves as
unstoppable...because they  tended to forget other people even existed
when they were together.  It  wasn't deliberate; it was their own
energy that tuned the rest of existence  out.  Spock was someone Jim
didn't have to worry so much about losing,  thanks to his incredible
intelligence and abilities, and Jim was one of the  few humans brave
enough to approach Spock on his own terms.  That created  just a bit
of a childlike wonder at the friendship they had created between
them.

*If they ever live long enough to learn how to slow down a little
bit,*  McCoy thought (not for the first time), *then I can die in
peace.*

---

Warm airflow replaced the cool sting of the transporter; the floral,
living  and earthy fragrance was startling after the stale, sterile
(and cold) air  of the ship.  For a moment they all stood in silent
appreciation.  Spock was  already lifting his tricorder, scanning as
Jim opened his comm.  "Beamdown  successful, Scotty.  We'll contact
you in one hour...yes.  Kirk out."

"Huh."  McCoy's soft voice took their attention.  The doctor was
hunkered  down by a discarded red feather longer than  his forearm,
using a twig to  examine without touching.  "Spock, aim that thing at
this."

Spock equably complied, curious as to what had intrigued the doctor.
"Interesting."  He lifted his brows.  "The entire feather is toxic.
Normally it would be the subcutaneous glands manufacturing the
chemicals."

"I bet these guys aren't edible without a lot of cooking."  McCoy
mused.   "Lookit.  Over 12% astringent compounds.  Why the hell would
Nature design a  bird to be poisonous *and* inedible?  If something
tried to swallow the  owner, it would stick inside its throat and
choke'em!"

"Makes you wonder about predators, doesn't it?"  Jim wondered.

McCoy shuddered.  "Thanks ever so.  I'm keeping my tricorder on."

Jim chuckled faintly, equally uneasy at the kind of mystery this
offered.   "Shall we, gentlemen?"  He was relieved that McCoy was
toning down on  whatever was bothering him.

Spock abandoned the feather reluctantly.  McCoy glanced uneasily at
the  canopy above their heads.  The thick and dizzying shades of
mottled green  were broken up by a yellow-green sky, teal-colored
cloud, and tiny bursts of  color that revealed themselves to be
parasitic orchids.  It would be easy  for a predator to sneak up on
prey in this kind of environment...IF the prey  was primarily visual.

And audible.  All around, sound clashed and melded of every
description.   The soil underneath their boots was light and loamy,
travel packing down the  trail Scott had set them on.  Signs of
cutting showed it was blazed by  tool-workers, not animals.
Occasional alien fruit scattered in the dust,  and fell with a sound
like fat raindrops.  Butterfly-like blooms grew  fearlessly on the
bark of fern-trees and giant palms, feeding on minute  matter off the
trees and the air around.

"Where do you--"  Spock began.

Kirk's communicator chirped.  They all stopped as Jim pulled it out.
"Kirk  here."

[Cap'n.]  Scott sounded like a man who had just been given a problem
without  his express permission.  [Sensors have finished collating.]

"Is there a problem?"  Kirk intuited.

[Well, aye sir, if not a conundrum.  The settlement ye'r headed to,
'tis the  only one on the entire planet!]

Even McCoy donated his eyebrows to THAT one.  Jim stared back at his
crewmates.  "Really."  He strangled.  "One settlement..?"

"And the SHI'KAHR only found five hundred people..."  Bones' darker
skin had  gone light.  "Well that explains some of it."  He muttered.

"Scotty, continue to scan specifically for any traces of civilization.
Ruins, young growth, keep focused on the waterways and any open
areas."

[Already doon thot, sir.  Enythin else?]

"No, continue as planned.  We're about to walk to the village..."

Scott muttered something more and Jim closed his communicator with a
click.   Spock's eyebrows still hadn't descended, and McCoy was
looking glum.  "What  did you mean by that, Bones?"

"Just another reason for the Vians to say Gem's folks were on the
verge of  ruining themselves.  If they're down to such a small gene
pool..."  McCoy  was shaking his  head.  "This is not good."  He said
softly.

"Resurrecting a viable race from a handful of people only works in
mythology  or paramecium cultures."

"Yes." Spock was equally quiet.  "Only time will tell what stresses
have  reduced the native population down to its current size."

"What if they couldn't move more than one group?"  Jim scowled even as
he  said it.  "No.  How could they have the resources to create an
entire  planet...but fall so short with the people?"

"Why would they only save one planet, and not groups rom both?"  Spock
asked  by way of reply.  "The Vians operate on a different level of
comprehension  than our own."

Jim sighed.  He was a man who listened to his instincts, and they were
beginning to talk.  "Something tells me we did right by bringing
phasers."

McCoy gave merely one of his "umph" sounds and looked away.

They walked in silence down the trail.  Each man was absorbed in his
own  thoughts; Bones could read them as easily as a telepath after
three years.   Jim was obsessing about his ability to keep them all
safe, and his ship  inviolate.  That was to be expected.

Jim Kirk's MAO-deficient brain had already analyzed the situation and
decided there was a potential threat somewhere.  This thinking made
him  prone to the occasional moods that manifested as depression or
even a  bipolar disorder among extreme cases.  Jim, however, knew
this.  And his  amazing willpower turned what could be a handicap into
an advantage by  making it a focusing tool.  He was never more intense
and directed than when  he was skimming the surface of his personal
pain.  And it had saved his life  many a time.  His and those of his
crew.  It was just one of the things a  ship's CMO had to watch out
for.  Jim wasn't the only one who had that trick  down.  And what made
an excellent starship captain could, in the worst case,  make a man
crack up and go insane or delusional.  Ron Tracey was probably  the
best example of what could happen when a good man isolated himself and
then went bad.

McCoy often wondered if Jim kept them around to prevent him from
becoming  another Ron Tracey or Matt Decker.  It wasn't something Jim
was likely to  confess to.  But the circumstantial evidence was quite,
quite strong...

Spock was absorbing data at a frightening rate, eyes and ears as busy
as his  tricorder.

McCoy was oft-grateful for Spock's exasperating ability to withhold
judgement  until enough information came in.  It was interesting that
such a  telepathically advanced race was so determined to rely on
hard data above  all other senses.  Made you wonder if his people
hated their esper talents.

*Suffer the death of thy neighbor, eh, Spock?  You wouldn't want to
wish  that on us, would you?*  He had leveled this, purely curious as
to the  reaction.  And Spock had said, with his wonderful
slightly-superior calm:   *It might have rendered your own history a
little less bloody.*

Funny thing was, humans had *never* been as bloody as Vulcans.  Did
their  lack of empathy (comparative lack) save them that?  How could
anyone get  caught up in bloody war if their emotions were
unstoppable?  Or...perhaps  they denied their knowledge far less
strongly than Vulcans did, and so it  affected them to a lesser
degree.  There was no way of knowing--or learning.

Empathy could hurt.

Leonard took in the canopy of rainforest again; the shade was deep,
and only  bits of sunlight filtered through the leaves.  Haze settled
in the air,  pleasant to his skin but Jim looked hot and
uncomfortable, and Spock was no  doubt wearing his thermals under his
uniform.  Occasional flocks of brightly  hued birds  rippled
raucously through, bright as Gem's clothing.

*Easy.*  He admonished himself.  *You've managed not to swoggle your
thoughts about her for half a day now--don't ruin it.*

Jim's affairs were the stuff of legends, and rivaled the affair he had
with  his starship.  The fact that it never seemed to work was because
it was the  mashed banana and ketchup thing again.

Spock now, he was even younger than Jim and in love with the control
his  logic gave him.  So he was utterly helpless when that control
left him.  It  was no surprise to McCoy that Spock followed Jim's
example in disastrous  unions.

And himself?  He didn't believe in the perfect woman any more than he
saw  himself as the perfect man.  And he'd paid his dues with the
wrenching  divorce that had hurried his steps into space.  Starfleet
was full of career  people like himself; his was a common problem.  If
there was anything  against him, it was the fact that he really wanted
to settle down after this  tour of duty.  That left out nearly
everybody he knew in Starfleet.  Hell,  he wasn't even sure he could
go back home to Georgia.  Maybe settle down on  a frontier colony
somewhere, set up a shingle and take his chances with some  bizarre
cross-species pathogen epidemic, or getting blasted off the star
charts by the latest--discovered version of the Gorn, Orion, or
Klingon.

It was depressing, but he considered it a healthy dose of reality.
And he  would keep dosing himself if his thoughts of Gem threatened to
get out of  control.  For all he knew, he was obsessed with her
*because* of the  healing.  Jim hadn't felt this way, but she'd
managed to finish with him.   Himself, the Vians had had to take over
when she faltered.

Their Magic Toy hadn't been the same as Gem's touch.  They had been
clumsy,  inelegant and unpleasantly intimate.

"Captain."  Spock warned.

Jim was already moving forward, letting the other two fall behind and
flank.    The posts of the settlement were a surprise; two large
striped trunks  painted with bright bands of pigment--rainbow layers
upon layers that was  even more like Gem's clothing than the birds'.
Green vines with berries  threatened to choke the pole and were being
trimmed by its Gatewatcher, who  had stopped at their arrival.

Wearing identical clothing to Gem's was a young man with
chestnut-brown skin  and eyes, his guileless face open and trusting
and expectant.  He was  startlingly like M'Benga if he had ever been a
round-faced boy.  They slowed  before him, thinking he must be a teen.
Even a beard wouldn't hide those  young eyes.  A square plastic black
disk hung around his neck on a plastic  loop: Federation-grade voders.

"Greetings."  Jim let his arms dangle at his sides.  "My name is
Captain  James T. Kirk of the USS ENTERPRISE."

---

The boy's smile was a shocker.  He had too many teeth in his mouth to
be  considered Terran human--at least 36.  Looking closer, Jim could
see the boy  had an underbite to compensate for the teeth.

[Thank you for coming, captain.]

The voder was very scratchy; they usually were at first, and smoothed
out  the more they were used.

[We hoped you would come before the rains at least.]

"The rains?"  Jim repeated.

"Storms?"  Spock offered.

[Storms.  We mark our time-cycles with them.]  The boy made a
self-correcting gesture and gracefully nodded.  The voder was a
strange  effect; he didn't even open his mouth to transmit his
thoughts through the  little tool.  [Call me Oxal...please come and be
welcome at least.]

"Excuse me..."  Jim cleared his throat, which suddenly felt as
scratchy as  the voder sounded.  "We're looking for a young
woman...she met us before..."

[Gem?]

Jim swallowed dryly.  "Yes.  We named her that..."

{She is Gem now.  We have not seen her for several days.  She will be
back  tonight before the storms.  Then we may all...talk?  Talk.]  He
appeared to  like that word.  [Will you come inside?  We promise to
respect your privacy  and not approach you unless you are comfortable
with it.  Your people told  us privacy was very important at least.]

"Oh."  Jim smiled, thinking of the Vulcans.  "We thank you.  Yes, but
we're  also anxious to learn about you...please don't interrupt your
schedules on  our account."

[Is no problem.  If you wish to observe us in our everyday activity?]
When  Jim nodded, he imitated, pleased.  [Tonight we have a dinner
under the  Communal Roof and when Gem arrives she can help us
understand our questions.    For now why don't you make yourself...at
home?]

Jim was a little disappointed the voder hadn't finished with "at
least" this  time.

"An excellent suggestion."  Spock nodded.  "Oxal, are there any
centers of  learning a visitor would be permitted to see?"

[visitor?]  Oxal was puzzled.  [We have not visitors.  We have
guests.]

"Translator glitch."  McCoy murmured.  "These people are down to one
population group."

"Of course."

Oxal picked up on Spock's illumination.  [All our home are available
to  you.]

"Gentlemen, let's explore."  Jim urged.

---

The village was small and built of highly processed ceramic and
dressed,  dusty yellow stone.  Circular, the adobe-style, three-storey
houses  interlinked and faced the large stone plaza that hosted a
community well  (that seemed to be mostly for show; there was plenty
of indoor plumbing).   Where there were no houses, a low wall circled
the small courtyard.  It  gathered heat and acted as a de-humidifier,
burning up the excess moisture  in the air.

Jim saw people in multicolored clothing engaged in weaving, metalwork,
jewelry making, glassblowing, and paper making.  Males seemed to be
darker  than the females, almost a different subspecies.  There were
no signs of  long-distance communication, but why would there be?  A
species so sensitive  had no need for even a radio.  And while mute,
they did everything with a  joyous noise.  Small children tapped toys
against walls and tiles for the  delight of the rapping.  Musical
instruments played on the rooftops.  Bangs  and thumps told if a house
was inhabited.

There were no domesticated animals.  None.  Not even small pets.
Birds  rested on roofs but nothing else.  That was odd; even Vulcans
kept animals  around.  Even more unsettling was the...lack of
curiosity the people were  showing.

"Figured out yet why nobody's really noticing us?"  Jim mumbled.

"Why should they?"  McCoy didn't look up from his study of his
tricorder.   Spock was stuck on cultivated plants growing out of
container gardens.   "They're bein' polite.  No, so far nothing.  I'm
scanning people and they  sure are a lot like humans...more like early
Peking Man in bone structure  and skull shape.  Some indication of
sex-linked genes to explain why the  women look they're another
species from the men...

"Got some parallels to Vulcans in brain development.  Huuuuge
Weirnike's and  Boca's. Unsurprising considering their nonverbal
language.  And three times  the neurons of Vulcans too!  Talk about
overachievers.  If these people were  light bulbs, we'd be blind!"

Spock looked positively pained.  "A clumsy analogy at best, doctor."

"Is THAT the best you can do?"  McCoy chided in a gentle voice full of
pity.    "That rhinovirus really hurt you, didn't it?"

Spock's expression quickly turned scandalized.

Jim glanced around again.  "Why would their neurons be so plentiful?"

Bones shrugged.  "When our brains are developing, if we can't find the
proper connection, the cell dies.   The result is a brain tailored to
its  environment.  Maybe a little too tailored.  Not much room for
flexibility."

"Humans are considered exceptionally flexible."  Spock argued, and
pointedly  added, "for the most part."

"Oh, ho.  There's the Acid Vulcan we all know and love...what I'm
sayin' is,  our brains don't develop esper abilities unless there's
cause to.  Look at  Garth of Izar, poor bastard.  He's unique, but not
all that unique because  it was necessary in his environment to learn
Antosian abilities."

"Possibly."  Spock quickly accepted the theory.  "When Garth did learn
the  secrets of cell manipulation he surely would have been able to
re-direct his  brain development."

"Biofeedback?  THAT isn't all that unusual."  McCoy argued.  "C'mon,
there's  thousands of examples out there.  Some Australian aborigines
can recover  from broken bones in a few hours.  Scotty's
great-grandmother can sit back  and watch herself undergo surgery
without anesthesia.  And Jim can turn off  the sensible portions of
his brain at will."

"Oh, thank you."  Jim said sourly.  "Your examples will all be duly
noted."

"Just doin' my job."  There was an ugly edge to McCoy's voice,
identical to  his earlier dig at Spock, and Jim hesitated again.

"Something wrong, Bones?"

"Not unless you'd care to tell me."  McCoy looked Jim right in the
eye.

Did he find out they were worried about him?  Again, Jim stabbed his
dragon  of guilt down to the earth, St. George style.  Spock was
wearing his trapped  look.  "No, Bones, nothing."  He denied,  knowing
even as he said it,  something must have leaked out.  McCoy knew they
were hovering.

Bones' face closed up tighter than a drum.  "As usual."  He said with
deceptive softness.  "Well, I'm going to check out the parameters."

McCoy's departure left mutual guilt hanging in the air between captain
and  Vulcan.  They didn't risk speaking of it.  McCoy's ability to
ferret out  their motives could be uncanny.  Ignorant of a certain
incident of  accidental eavesdropping, that was their only conclusion.

Eventually they each drifted away to explore.   Spock of course melted
away  as soon as he saw a squat structure with scrolls lined up in the
windows.

Jim felt a tug on his sleeve to find Oxal.  [Please are you hungry?
We have  things here at least.]

"Thank you."  He said cautiously.  He *was* hungry.  It was often
difficult  for him to eat in the excitement before beamdown to a new
planet.

Oxal presented a long, carrotlike purple pile of roots on a dish of
yellow  metal.  He was obviously very proud of it, although the color
scheme would  have gotten you kicked out of any art colony on Terra.
Jim decided a  flattering interest couldn't hurt.

"Tell me about these, please.  They look...wonderful."

Oxal's voder barely kept up with the story, which had to do with
harvesting  meli roots, a difficult prize because animals stole them
right out from  under you, but at least one didn't have to worry about
the stragli anymore,  at least.

"That's great."  Jim wondered what a stragli was.  He didn't ask,
halfway  afraid of a more involved story.

[Yes, it is.  We can thank the Shields for that at least.]

Jim's curiosity sat up.  "Who are the Shields?"

Oxal hesitated.  [Strong warriors.  They killed the stragli for us.
We are  weak, they are strong.  Able to kill.  We cannot.]

"Is it hard for you to kill?"

Oxal pursed his lips.  [Impossible.]

"I see."  Jim did.  It explained a lot.  "So you depend on them
to...hunt?"

[Not like we used to.  The stragli are gone.  Now we make noise
joyfully and  the Shields kill meat for us.]  He hesitated again, and
looked ready to  confide in a terrific scandal.  [Sometimes they give
us more than we need.]   He obviously expected Jim to be horrified.

---

Jim wound up strolling back across the busy, noisy plaza with a large
meli  in each hand, hoping that by the time he saw McCoy, he'd be
cooled down.

*Damn it, I don't even know why we protect him the way we do...it's
not as  if he's helpless...*  When Jim examined his motives carefully,
he knew they  did treat him with kid gloves.  Bones had a right to be
furious.

If Spock believed McCoy could kill, then Jim could only believe it.
But he  never, ever wanted that to happen.  Because what would that do
to McCoy?  He  was their anchor.  If something happened to damage his
strength and  solidity...then their entire strength as a whole was
jeopardized.  Jim hated  it, but being protective was the least they
could do.  In a way, he had a  grip on reality that was very different
from he or Spock.  And his ability  to just sacrifice his own life for
others...well, that didn't mean he  should.

Jim sighed.  He would have to talk to Spock about this.  God knows,
only  attempting to explain to Bones would make it worse.

Of course, they were *all* nervous about the Hestians.  Starfleet had
conceded (and wasn't it big of them), that, being fellow prisoners of
the  Vians, they had been faultless in their contact with an unknown
species  (Gem).  But, they were still paranoid that no damage had been
done to the  Hestian culture.

Jim had tried to point out that Hestia had *definitely* been tampered
with,  only don't blame us, blame the Vians.  But Starfleet didn't
follow.  They  wanted severe reassurances that they hadn't broken any
cultural directives.

And if that was what being an Admiral was all about, he sure didn't
want to  be one.  Jim believed this with splendid naivety.

He found Bones up by the stone wall, laughing with a little boy
letting a  furry worm crawl up his arm.  Of course the boy made no
sound but you could  tell.  Still smiling, the child walked his "pet"
away, arm extended to  display the insect.

"Good God, where'd you find the antique carrot?"

"A who?"

"Didn't you know all carrots were purple in the early days of
cultivation?   And you bein' a farm boy."

"MY people farmed maize, spelt, and teff, Bones.  With a little red
winter  wheat thrown in for good measure.  I can answer any question
you might have  on Nepalese popping amaranth and the nutritional
benefits of quinoa and  millet.  And anyway, YOU are a country boy,
ever barefoot and fishing with  bamboo canes deep in cottonmouth
territory with a mouthful of spicebush  leaves.  What would you know
about carrots?"

"I know they're great baked in a clay pot."  Bones answered with
lovely  aplomb and whipped out his scanner. "OK, one toxitest coming
up."

Jim sniffed cautiously.  "It smells good.  Sweet."

"Uh, huh.  It smells sweet for a reason, captain.  That  lil' sucker
is full  of coumarins."

"Coumarins!"  Jim was swayed from the dish.  "Fatal?"

Bones grinned.  "Nah.  Eat up.  It'll do your blood cholesterol some
good."

"Are you *sure* about that?  Because it seems to me that coumarins are
what  people shouldn't be taking a lot of.  Not if they want their
blood to clot  properly."

"Well, me an'Scotty couldn't eat it, but  you can just fine."

"Why can't my Scots-Irish representatives eat this?"  Jim bit down and
his  mouth was instantly filled with a sweet, clover like flavor.

"Bein' Gaelic has nothing to do with it.  We don't have antiglutins
to  break down those things.  One of them and I might bleed to death
from a  paper cut."

"Huh.  How about that."  Jim looked around.  "Have you seen Spock?"

"Guess."

"Still in the library?"

"Bright boy."

"Should we join him?"

"I s--ssssssuss..."  Bones' voice trailed off into a soft, warning
hiss.   (Stay loose, be careful, keep cool) that look said.  Jim
deliberately bit  down on the meli again, making a point of turning
around to look at  something Bones was pretending great interest in.

These people were nothing like the villagers.  Their skin was pale,
abnormally so and they blinked in the open light.  Weapons were
prominently  displayed; Jim recognized heavy bows, and large knives
hung from each hip.   Their clothing was rough canvas-like cloth with
boiled leather vests--armor,  he realized.

"Shields."  Bones whispered.  He must have been gathering similar
information.  Jim considered that a Shield might be a defensive thing,
but  here it was in the sense of a strong offense.  A VERY strong
offense.   Twenty of them.

They walked slowly, not quite swaggering, more like stalking, but they
knew  they were superior.  All over the plaza, people were hustling
away, dropping  silent,  not making eye contact, not looking up.  They
avoided the newcomers  as if diseased.

When they got closer, Bones held down his emotional response.  They
WERE  diseased.  Every man and woman's scalp was scarred with lesions.
They  looked every bit as bad as the antique images of smallpox scars,
worse  even--the marks were vivid pink against the abnormally pale
skin--and raw  bald spots and flaking skin in the hair.  It looked
especially terrible  close to the eyes.  Several eyelids were scabbed
over and runny; scar tissue  made cheeks hollow and thrust facial
bones sharply against the skin.  It was  worse than ugly, because the
bearers' smug attitude made them look as though  they were proud of
the marks.

The leader was the biggest of all, a prototype for a thug with a
patchy red  beard full of flaying skin.  His face was raw and his eyes
black as coal.  A  nose often broken sat under his eyes like a potato,
his jaw jutted from  injury, his brow pronated from a warping
injury.  Jim and Bones were no  debutantes, but their instincts were
screaming to back away, if not run.  Or  at least cower behind the
strong wall.

Finally, the last Shield finished walking across the plaza and were
back in  the jungle.  A collective air of relief ran through the
people.  Jim was  amazed that the birds hadn't stopped singing.

"Whooooo."

They exhaled at the same time.  McCoy slid up the stone wall for a
chair.   "What d'you make of THAT?"

"Like the shadow of death just walked by."  Jim mumbled.

"By that I presume you mean the Shields?"  Spock's voice made them
both  jump.  "I beg your pardon, captain."

"Not at all.   Here, have a meli.  Can Vulcans have meli?"

"HE can."  McCoy answered absently.

"Eat up."  Jim felt giddy after what had happened.  "And tonight we
can eat  Bones' share.  He's allergic."

"I'm not allergic, just against the idea of bleeding to death from a
paper  cut."

Amazingly, considering the conversation, Spock took a bite.  "Most
agreeable."

"I thought it good myself."

McCoy zoned out, fingers tapping against his chin as he absorbed the
tricorder's krypta.  His eyes were narrowed into fine blue lines, his
face  completely expressionless.

"I hate it when he does that."  Jim confided.  "It makes me nervous."

"I concur."  Spock said.  "When an overly emotional being suddenly
stops  displaying all emotion, it bodes ill.."

"Ohhhh, oh..."  McCoy whispered.  His face had gone white.

"Bones?"  Jim already regretted teasing him.

"Canvanine.  DAMN!  Those people were full of canvanine!"

"What's that?"

"An uncommon plant toxin."  Spock supplied.  "It is fairly abundant in
various members of the clover family, especially in Medicago."

"Alfalfa?  I know it makes animals bloat."

"That's because it interferes with Vitamin A absorption.  Canvanine is
in  newly-sprouted seeds.  That's what had those people all scarred
up."  McCoy  was scowling.  "You'd have to eat a lot of that to get
that result.  They're  not human, that's for sure.  We'd be dead if we
took in that much.  Spock  too."

Jim slowly chewed on meli.  "It doesn't look like it does them much
good."

"From what I can understand of their body chemistry, canvanine acts
like a  grand mood alterant."  McCoy made a bad face.

"What kind?"  Jim already sensed the answer.

"Think of hashish in humans, Jim.  Ten feet tall and phaser proof."

Jim peered over his shoulder to read the screen.  "Did you get a
feeling  when they walked by?"

"Yeah, shadow of death."  McCoy traded a rattled look with his
captain.   "These people are psychopathic killers."

"Yes."  Spock spoke very, very quietly, conscious of Hestian hearing.
"My  senses were warning me to avoid them even before I could see
them."

"It's like a brain allergy, Jim.  Like the guy you hear  about in
school who  had broccoli for the first time, had a rare reaction to is
and threw himself  off the bridge.  That level."

"Good God."  Jim hardly ever swore.  This called for it.

"This is a most dangerous situation."  Spock murmured.  "We should
take care  not to let them near our weapons."

"If this is the reason for Vian interference," Bones warned, "They
could  have handled this a lot better than they did.   Not that I've
just reached  that conclusion."

"How so, Bones?"

"It'd be pretty risky for a Hestian to heal someone that sick and
addicted.   They would *have* to be willing to give their life up to
do it!  And maybe  even then, they still wouldn't survive!"

He'd given himself up to the Vians to save Spock from insanity and Jim
from  fatal guilt.  He hadn't thought further than that.  But if the
Vians had  imprinted his need to save his friends onto Gem to pass to
her people...the  result could very well be people who were killing
themselves in order to  heal people who didn't want to be healed.  And
they were killers in the  bargain.

Leonard swallowed, feeling ill.  "This is bad, he said in a low voice.

--- CAPTAIN'S LOG, SUPPLEMENTAL

"The Shields, as the Hestians call their militant group, are
exceedingly  dangerous.  My First Officer and CMO managed to
surreptitiously scan them  during their brief appearance from the
forest; the results are alarming.   Combined with the input of Ofv,
the unacknowledged leader, and Spock's  access to Hestian records,
Hestia is indeed in danger of self-extermination.

"Early in their history, a Shield was selected by lot to defend the
people  against vicious predators.  It was very difficult to kill, and
use of plants  to alter their moods was the only way this was made
possible.  Over  time,  some Shields developed defenses against all
traumas and then a pleasurable  act of killing mixed with a
dependency on the plants.  When there were no  more predators to kill,
a Shield could turn restless enough to kill their  own people.  Not
unlike the example of trained murderers in our own history.

"Apparently the Shields stopped being satisfied with the pleasure of
killing  animals several decades ago.  They are now killing the
defenseless members  of their own people when the urge strikes them.
My CMO has discovered  canvanine, the dominant substance in their
plant abuse, inspires an intense  high to the act of murder...

"McCoy cautions that canvanine is poisonous to  ourselves, but
addictive to  a Hestian. It would take more than empathic healing to
help these people  recover.  They need allopathic and conventional
methods that involve  isolation from the masses.  Sadly, such concepts
are unheard of in these  people, who truly do suffer the deaths of
their neighbors.  Attempts have  been made to heal these addicts, and
the results have all been at the murder  of the healer.

"We are saddened to note that one of the healers was  Ting, a daughter
of  our  friend Gem.  She was killed by Fala, the leader of the
Shields, and for  this reason Gem left with two friends to be alone.
We are hoping to meet  with her tonight as her people say she is
expected.  The growing storm,  however, is cause for concern..."

McCoy briefly tuned out his captain's drone as he worked on his own
specs.   Spock was sitting relaxed and calm at the Communal Table, to
all appearances  dozing but ready to act at the first warning.  McCoy
couldn't feel a thing  about Spock; it was like sitting next to a
giant mass of inertia, his  shields were up so high.

That meant he was thinking.

The doctor didn't feel very comfortable sitting under the Communal
Roof.  It  was a lot like a Longhouse, with the walls taken down for
the summer and  leaving the large, U-shaped roof over sturdy stone
pillars.  The roof gave a  feeling of shelter.  The lack of walls made
him feel exposed and vulnerable.

His nerves were toying with him.  He couldn't blame Jim for his
harried  expression.  The captain was strolling back and forth, his
boots dusty from  the sandy soil under the Roof.  Once in a while, he
would look out from  under the supports to view the open sky, where
storms were gathering with  aggression.  Distant dark spots showed
birds, going up and taking the  updrafts for the thrill of the intense
winds high above.

"Twitchy."  McCoy commented.

"Nervous."  Spock agreed.

"Jim's never been patient."

Jim sat down between them, snapping his communicator shut with a
little more  force than was needed.  "Scotty says the storm will be
hitting a bit earlier  than planned."  He laced his fingers together
and held them on the  table--forcing himself not to twitch.  "If Gem
doesn't arrive soon, we'll  have to beam up or stay here and wait for
the weather to return to normal."

"Which would you prefer, captain?"  Spock queried.  It was exactly the
question Leonard had wanted to ask.

Jim paused, thinking.  "I dislike being forced into a choice."  He
grunted.  "And I'm worried if we don't see Gem soon..."

"She's out in the woods with twenty dedicated berserkers."  Bones
snapped.   "Can't imagine why you'd be worried.  And what's the
problem, Jim?  We've  been planet-ridden before."

"Hopefully there will not be further unexpected complications."  Spock
considered.  "There are still incalculable unknown factors."

"I try to listen to my instincts."  Jim said shortly.  "And I smell
trouble."

"Yeah--smells like canvanine."  Bones shot back.

Spock was staring at them.  Because Vulcans could only smell half as
well as  humans, they understood his stymied look.  It wasn't the
fault of the  literal minded Vulcans that they were confused when
humans claimed to "smell  trouble."

[Gem should be arriving soon.  We may begin eating.]

Oxal's father Ofv, a larger carbon copy of his son--damn near a
clone--set  down a bowl of what looked like red mashed potatoes and
went to get more as  Hestians settled in, silent with their mouths,
but noisy with their hands.

"That's got enough Vitamin A in it that you could read a newspaper
under a  dark moon."  McCoy warned.  "Go easy or you'll get a migraine
for sure."

"Noted and logged."  Jim took a bit and passed it to Spock.  "What
else did  we find out?"

"Not much on top of what Spock le--"  McCoy took a sip of tea and
sputtered,  "NO, Spock, don't eat THAT!"

Spock froze.  "Sensors say it is safe."

"It's an insect byproduct."

Silently, Spock passed the plate to Kirk, who passed it on to his
confusion.    If humans had no qualms about prizing honey, why did
they avoid this?

"And stay away from the green stick-things.  They're seasoned with
dry-roasted biting insects.  The formic acid in their venom adds a
lemon-pepper flavor."

"Bones, I believe I have just HIT overload on cultural collisions."
Kirk  confided.

McCoy shrugged.  "Remind me to tell you about Capellan food someday."
He  took one of the sticks, crunched down and smiled his approval to
Ofv.  Ofv  beamed and set down a platter of what Jim was about to
swear was cold boiled  maggots, but turned out to be salty pasta.  He
loaded up.  So did Spock.

"Well I found out that these people originally had vocal cords, but
several  thousand years ago, a geographic upheaval encouraged the
proliferation of a  predator that made it bad to be noisy around.
They used their abilities to  render themselves mute."

"Not uncommon."  Spock opined.  "The applicant Empathic species, the
Betazoids, claim to be able to encourage the growth of certain
portions of  their brains."

"Well, these critters were just the stuff of nightmares.  You think
YOUR  ears were great, these were monsters.  "stragli" or something
like that, and  they just *loved* the way people tasted.  I have it on
good authority that  they weren't at all fussy about what or who they
ate; everything was fair  game."

Something clicked in Jim's head.  "Does this explain the mystery of
the  toxic-inedible birds?"

"Yep.  Nothing really STOPS a stogli--stragli--whatever.  But if it
tries to  devour a member of the flock, it usually choked on the
astringent compounds,  and died of the toxins.  That freed the rest of
the flock to live another  day."

"That sounds pretty bad."  Jim admitted.  "I wonder if the Klingons
know  about these things."

"Imagine," McCoy shuddered, "getting swallowed whole by a thirty-foot
legless reptile with sensory organs all along its sides, a head larger
than  your shoulders are wide and teeny little eyeballs that it
doesn't really  need.  Oh, yeah, and it can compress itself into
really small entrances like  a snake.  Hey are you sure you want to
hear this?"

Jim didn't want to be shown up.  "Just give one example."

"Well, ok..."  McCoy said dubiously.  "Picture one of those things
crawling  into a gen in the middle of the night and being trapped
inside because it  was too big to get out from swallowing your mother.
But that's ok--there's  *lots* of food to go around."

Spock had been about to bite into a large blue fruit.  He set it down
and  favored the doctor with an icy glare.

"He made me."  Bones reminded him.

Spock looked at Jim.

"I think I'm going to be sick."  Jim said faintly.

"That's cold comfort."  McCoy snorted.  He picked up his glass of tea
and  began drinking.

Jim was patently annoyed.  "How can you possibly put anything in your
stomach after a..."

A sudden clatter of dishes made them cringe slightly.  Ofv was tapping
a  rhythm against a beaten metal plate of square metal suspended in a
small  frame.

"Fascinating."  Spock lifted one eyebrow.  "Were they not overwhelming
themselves with the volume, the quality of the music-patterns would be
extraordinarily complex."

"They probably spent a lot of their silent existence dreaming up music
in  their heads."  Jim offered.  "Maybe in time they'll settle down."
He  certainly hoped so.

"Hear,  hear."  McCoy said, drolly ironic.

Jim watched as Oxal joined in with his father, creating a sound effect
like  a waterfall over shallow rapids.

"If the gens are based on a mother, why am I seeing so many children
with  obvious older male relatives?"

"The mothers do the majority of the upbringing until the child is of
age."   Spock explained.  "While Ofv knows who is son is, I sensed a
distinct lack  of cultural interest in the subject.  Many times the
maternal uncles are the  patron, but in all cases, it is the mother
who chooses who will take over  after her time of nurturing is over."

"Hmn."  McCoy had missed that in his detective-work on the Shields.
It  still amazed him that Gem had *had* a daughter, full-grown.
Obviously the  tricorders needed some calibration for this race; they
were saying Ofv  wasn't much older than Oxal.

Ofv was suddenly walking hurriedly to their side of the table, his
face
silent and calm against the riotous bustle, bang and clatter of noisy
Hestians who considered it good manners to treat their dinner plates
like  brass gongs.

[Captain may I speak with you please?]  Ofv's voder was much smoother
than  his son's.  [Oxal is sensing distress from Gem.  I worry.  The
Shields left  not long ago...]

"Where do the Shields normally go during storms?"  Jim wondered.

Ov shook his head in ignorance.

"Can you tell us how far away she is?"

[Not far]

The men looked at each other, hoping that "not far" really did mean
that.   McCoy sighed and put his glass down.  "Let's do this sensibly
at least."  He  said.  "Let Spock and his super-vision go first; you,
Jim, in your  glow-in-the-dark shirt second, and I'll bring up the end
with my tricorder  scanning for canvanine-laced lifeforms."

"Not to forget,"  Jim added grimly, "we have phasers.  Under no
circumstances are the Shields to get them."

"I recommend we lock them on STUN."  Spock was already fiddling with
his.   "That way no one but a Starfleet Officer will be able to kill
with them."

"Light stun."  McCoy suggested softly.  "These people have triple the
neurons, remember.  No need to fry out their nervous systems of cause
a  permanent erasure of the Boca Area."

Jim's face was set and tight as the evening grew palpably darker.  The
burning torches made him look much older, the way trouble made anyone
look  older.  McCoy didn't see that as a good omen; it was too much
the way he'd  imagined Jim would look like, burned out and defeated
from too much of the  strain Starfleet kept pushing on him.

---

The air was wet and heavy.  The storm's pressure laid upon them like
hot  breath, as hot as the torches of burning fatwood they each
carried in one  hand.  Jim's shirt did indeed, glow to McCoy's eyes as
the doctor followed  his young friend's back through a twenty-foot
tunnel of shining green  leaves.  Trumpet flowers hung as if suspended
against black trunks, their  night-blooming petals burning a cold
iridescent white.  It made the doctor  shiver because it reminded him
of the datura of his home.  Prolific in the  South, its scopolamine
chemical components could make an unwitting human  ingestor go
completely mad...and cannibalistic, believing they were ravening
wolves.

[We stop a moment so Oxal can sense]

Ofv's voder explained, harsh in the soft plastic texture of the jungle
air.

They all stopped, breathing quietly in the humid dark.  The large
splinters  of resinous wood burned rather quietly, inky smoke boiling
from the center  of the males with a smell like copal.  Slips of
starlight glimmered wetly  from around scraps of collecting cloud.
The smell of rain was everywhere,  bringing out the scent of wet
earth, mold, growth and chlorophyll.  A thin  ribbon of river wended
its way through the green, sparkling with what little  light it could
catch.  A sturdy flatboat rested on their side off the bank,  moored
tightly with nearby paddle-poles.  A waterfall hummed less than fifty
feet away.  There was no telling how far it cascaded with their human
eyes.

"Any luck, Bones?"

McCoy shook his head unhappily at Jim's soft voice.  "None."  He
snapped his  useless tricorder shut.  "Radiant dispersion is just
impossible to scan  anything this tangled."

Jim nodded once, forced to accept the unpleasant discovery.  "Ofv," he
spoke  gently, "How is it Oxal can sense Gem?  Are you related?"

[Oh, not in blood.  Gem recently healed Oxal of a fever.  A slight
connection remains.]

Leonard was disgusted by a flash of embarrassment.  There was no
reason
for  it.

[Gem should be by the boat...on the other side...this is odd...]

The big man glanced around, frightened for all his size.  [Have the
Shields  found her path?  Where could they be?]

Jim shook his head.  "We could search the other side if you wish."  He
offered.  The two Hestians swallowed with relief, and Leonard wondered
what  they were doing, bringing two vulnerable people like this into a
situation  that could erupt into a war zone.

He looked forward at Spock on a feeling.  Spock was standing quietly,
alert  as a patient owl.  His dark eyes made a slight movement,
telling McCoy he  could not hear anything for now.

"ENTERPRISE."  Jim pulled out his communicator.

[Sulu here, sir.]

"Mr. Sulu, pinpoint our location and give us a scan; are there any
Hestians  around us?"

Silence while they waited.  McCoy flicked his gaze around, senses
aching to  detect something, anything.  Spock's outward serenity
didn't fool him.  The  creeping, dread sensation was stealing over him
again.  The Shields were  somewhere nearby.  Oxal and Ofv were pressed
tightly together, shivering  with wide-white eyes.

Sulu responded after McCoy counted up to thirty.  [Besides the two
with you,  sir, there's two groups; one is 500 metres 35 degrees
upcurrent and closing  fast.  Twenty lifeforms.  The other groups is
three, and on the other side  of the river, further downstream,
measurement undetermined from presence of  waterfall and--]

"--radiant dispersion."  Jim finished resignedly.  "And the storm, Mr.
Sulu?"

[I'd beam up if *I* were you, sir.]

"Noted, Sulu, and we just may do that as soon as we finish here."  He
clipped his communicator back to his waist and studied the others.
"Gentlemen, I suggest we avoid the Shields that are approaching us
with such  enthusiasm and get on the boat."

The Hestians were already uncoiling the rope.  Soft earth squashed
under  their rigid boot-soles and stank of silt.  Small animals
splashed away from  them without ever being seen.  The officers
boarded, McCoy's face plainly  uneasy as the torchlight spread oily
patterns over the moving water.  Jim  remembered his past history as a
drowning victim, and hoped it had nothing  to do with his swimming
ability.

"Bones, can you swim?"

"Of course I can swim!"  Leonard was offended.  "Why?"

"Just asking...since you said you'd drowned before..."

"Wasn't my fault either time!"  McCoy rubbed his arms nervously.  "My
God,  Jim!  Think of where I grew up!  how could I NOT know how to
swim with all  that water around me?"

Spock flicked a single eyeball at McCoy's outburst.  Jim caught the
message;  the doctor was sensing the Shields better than they were,
almost as well as  the pasty-faced Hestians.  Jim sought for a
witticism, which he wasn't often  good at, so what did come out of his
mouth was surely divinely inspired.

"Well, Bones, all I know is, I grew up around air, and I haven't
learned how  to fly yet."

Leonard was startled into a choke of laughter.  "You win."  He
snorted.  Jim  slapped him on the back and turned his attention to the
Hestians.

Wood creaked.  Rope fibers stretched and was suly.  Spock suddenly
started,  his dark head whipping about and peering in the gloom as Jim
went up front  with Oxal and Ofv.

"Spock?"  McCoy muttered.

"I thought I heard something."  Spock sounded awfully calm for the
quarry of  professional berserker assassins.  "But I see nothing."

McCoy snorted.  "Let's hope those crazy carrots have kicked in your
eyes.   I'd hate to be killed in a place like this."

"It is not my intention to be killed at all, doctor."

Jim tuned them out; he looked to their rowers, who were applying
strong ropy  muscles to the current.  The waterfall, frankly, made him
a little nervous.   He thought they were too close, and the sound
effects, too loud.  "Can we  help you in any way?"

[Best not.  We know the current.  If you are not familiar you could
hit a  rock or enter the chute, and then we would go over the falls.]
The voder  sounded far calmer than the owner looked.  Sweat shone on
the dark face and  his arms tightened with effort.

"What's a chute?"

[A dug-out channel in the bed.  It flows very very fast compared to
the rest  of the river.]

"Like old riverboat channels."  Jim grinned.  "I--"

"Spock, look out!"

Spock turned swiftly in the boat, sending it rocking, just as Fala's
dripping, tooth-studded club came down on McCoy's warding arm.  What
had  intended to crush the Vulcan's skull like an egg did the same to
human  bones.  Spock clearly heard the crunch, the rip of hooked teeth
tearing the  doctor's shirt and flesh.  The Shield pulled; the weapon
dragged him  overboard into the water.

"They're in the chute!"  Jim realized and with perfectly awful timing,
the  first rumble of thunder vibrated over the valley.

Behind Spock, Jim shouted a warning, a splash, then something hard hit
the  flatboat.  The structure jumped, and rocked, its momentum
spoiled.

McCoy had surfaced with a gasp, briefly, then simply vanished in the
ink-dark water.  Spock had no way of knowing if he was even alive.
Fala was  swinging, lumbering towards them, the river water sloshing
away from his  stride in waves.  Two more Shields were coming into his
view; one was  splashing up behind him.  Spock dismounted off the
flatboat in the rib-high  water, fighting his natural instincts to
avoid this non-desert environment.   He ignored Jim's protest.  His
mind was focused on protecting the Hestians  and Jim from this
oncoming threat; he wondered if the Shields had divined  the
perfection of a water battle, the one place where phasers were
forbidden  because of the energy dispersion.

A neck presented itself.  Spock pinched hard, his free hand wrenching
the  club away.  A Shield on the far shore was hammering his weapons
together in  a gross parody of his peaceful kin and their dinnerware,
his eyes rolled up  to white balls in his scarred face in ecstasy.
Lightning flashed.  Spock  shoved the Shield away, knowing full well
he would drown before regaining  consciousness.  His own companion
shoved the sinking body aside in his haste  to get to Spock.

Behind him Spock heard the nearing Shield stop; a wet sound, a skull
broken.    He glanced backward as he retreated.  Jim had wrested his
own weapon from  his attacker.  His young face had never looked so old
or grim in the  flickering torchlight.

"GET HIM, SPOCK!"

Spock did not know if Jim meant his attacker, or to rescue McCoy.  But
he  could not see McCoy at all and the current was tugging them
inexorably to  the roaring falls.  Fala was getting ever nearer, his
club whistling as he  swung it through the air.  Torchlight caught the
blood on it.  McCoy's  blood.  Spock felt a sudden anguish, and a
rage.  The next Shield was clumsy  in her haste to kill, and again a
body sank below the water and drifted to  the falls.

Fala's bigger form was travelling against the current with
breathtaking  ease.  Spock retreated, his boots slipping on the
algae-slimed bedrock,  heard the slap of water against wood and Jim's
wet hand grabbed him by the  arm, pulling him up with bruising force.
Water slapped his face, filling  his mouth with the taste of mud.
Oxal and Ofv were terrified; their limbs  moved sluggishly from the
fear that the Vulcan could feel rolling off them  in choking miasma.
Fala was gaining and Spock's muscles had slowed from the  icy cold of
the water.

Chilled human fingers clutched his shoulder.  Jim was trying to pull
him  back even as Oxal and Ofv plied the boat with all their strength.
But they  were not fast enough.  Spock opened his mouth to insist Jim
let go, stubborn  though his captain would be about making such a
logical decision--

Fala's blotched, ravaged face froze in a stroke of lightning, his
throat  opened in a second smile that bubbled and hissed with escaping
blood and  air.  His bloody face a grim mask, Bones McCoy used the
last of his strength  and his one good arm to push him backwards, over
the falls.  Fala's hand  flew up, and went over into the bath of
roaring white foam.

*You won't be hurting anyone else, ever again.*  McCoy had the supreme
satisfaction of thinking before the water closed over his head.

----

Both times he'd drowned, he'd recovered to blurred vision, aching eyes
and  throat, and stared down at by anxious parents who couldn't wait
to see him  be well before he got the spanking of the year--an unfair
scenario to a kid  who hadn't intended to get overwhelmed by water in
the first place.

This time he simply opened his eyes with a largely pain-free body.
The  lights were dim because it was still night.  And Gem had replaced
his  parents.  A lot prettier, but still alarmed.

He tried to move.

Mistake.  "Ow."

[Be careful, please!]  Gem's voder was smooth and well-honed.  [You
nearly  died, Leonard!]

"Again?"  He tried to smile, then memory shocked his skin.  "Jim and
Spock!"

Gem had her elbow on his chest before he could translate the thought
to  action.  [Don't you even think of it!  They made it across the
river safely;  we are still searching for a way to get to them, but, I
do not think they  are dead.  I would feel it."

McCoy trusted his own instincts, so he had to trust hers, even though
his  last conscious memory was anything but reassuring.  He let
himself fall  back, relief mixing with a different kind of worry.
Were they still in  trouble?  Spock wasn't adapted to the climate, and
he swam like a kiwi  (Jim's grimly determined lessons in the pool
aside).  Jim wasn't very  adapted either.  Iowa wasn't famous for its
jungles...

They were out there, somewhere in that tangled mass with Fala's
berserkers.   Maybe both groups were looking for each other, maybe
they were all just  trying to survive.  He turned his head as
lightning flickered across the  room.  There was no way they could
return to the ship with this kind of  atmospheric chaos.  Even a
shuttle was too risky.

[Here.] Gem passed over a cup of black stuff and he sat up (carefully)
to  sip it.  The steam floated into his lungs and loosened something
tight  inside.  [Be easy on yourself.  We will find them when the
storm is  over...we will not give up.]

"They don't give up either," he reminded her--as if she could forget.
He  glanced upwards at a rumble of new thunder against the invisible
dark of the  ceiling.  This unlit room reminded him far too much of
Minara...even the  lightning reminded him of terrible things
discovered in the subterranean  maze.

He tried to put the image of Linke and Ozaba out of his head.  *Their
own  imperfections killed them...*  Easy to solve a puzzle when you
aren't part  *OF* the puzzle!  Again, the familiar old stew of anger
and sorrow tried to  rise up.  He closed his eyes and fought it back
down.  Ozaba's twisted dead  face haunted him the worst; a face that
had been kind and quiet and  humorously spiritual on the recorder.
The kind of man who made the perfect  grandfather or neighborhood
mentor.

Gem shivered.  [The seasonal storms always frighten me...we were
afraid to  make noise because of the stragli...sometimes I forget.]
Her hued pantsuit  clung to her body in the damp.  Once again, McCoy
wondered how she could  look so young and be a mother.  Empathic self
healing, he supposed.

[Can it be true?]  Gem hugged herself as she paced.  Her red hair was
longer, and clung to her skin like the gauzy webs of clothing.  [Can
the  rouges be poisoned people?  I don't know if I want to believe
that.]

He didn't know what to say.  She knew they hadn't been lying...but she
still  had to accept the knowledge.

"Gem...Fala and his people are addicts to canvanine.  And an addict is
like  any other...they'll do anything to get what they want."

[This is why no one could heal them.  This is why Ting died for trying
to  help.]

"I'm sorry."

Greatly inadequate.  If that had been Joanna...and yet, he shivered,
what if  Joanna had been like Fala?  That had to be even worse.  He
remembered  explaining Daystrom's obsession for his child-computer to
Jim.  Even a  killer, a parent loved their offspring.  Their instincts
were too strong.   He watched Gem finger her necklace, face a
whirlwind of emotions and  thoughts vying for supremacy.

[We tried to heal them.  We really did.]

"Gem...I believe you."  God.  What if it had been Joanna?  He ached
for her;  felt the muscle in his chest open up and collapse under the
weight of her  pain.  Disaster.  To outlive your own child.  Disaster.

Gem blinked tears away.  [Fala is dead...and I cannot be sorry.  What
does  that make me?]

"Normal."  He said gruffly.  "Don't you think?"

[Not our people.  We cannot kill.  We...cannot.]  She wrinkled her
face,  confused, and sank down next to him, leaning her head against
his shoulder.   [I am sorry you had to.]

"I didn't have much choice.  He was going to smash Spock like a
pumpkin."   Just the memory dried his throat.  M-113 all over again,
only instead of  firing a phaser into a telepath that was killing
Jim...it had been a lot  more up close and personal.

Fala had been like a bear, who, once it developed a taste of its own
kind,  would prey on nothing else.

When Fala's club shattered his arm, the contact had flooded him with
Fala's  essence--a dirty, smeary choking miasma of insanity what
whirled between  frenzied joy in killing, and the orgasmic lull that
followed.  Until the  next killing.  He'd understood then why there
had been no sign of  domesticated animals, no pets in the
village--easy objects to torture to  death.  Fala had been placed
outside the loop of his people, his world, the  entire natural order
of things, and he would kill until there was nothing  left to kill,
then he would resort to destroying the forest.  Knowing what  he was
up against had given him the strength to take up his good arm against
the Hestian, and risk a killing blow to give the man a quick death.
Shock  of the entire writhing mass of hate had been what made him
collapse.  Gem  had saved him from that.  It was now little more than
a faint memory.

[Like Lal and Tha--]

He had jumped at her voder's voice.

[I am sorry.  I felt you thinking of them.]

"What happened?  Where are they now, Gem?"  He asked grimly.  Quietly.
All  the healing in the world might let him step back and observe
impartially  without pain, but he still wanted to speak to those
wrinkled Vians.  Oh,  yes...

[I do not know.  They returned me to my home, here, when I woke up I
never  saw them again...]  She wrapped her arms around his neck and he
hugged her  back, feeling very low on resistance.  She sighed, a tiny
steam-sound.  [I  do not know if they will come back, or if they are
content to observe from  afar.]

He was pulling away with a puzzled frown.  "Gem, where's your voder?"
He  stared at her exposed neck.

[voder?]

Realization thundered over his head like the storm.  "Oh."  He said in
a  tiny voice.  Thankfully, his brain froze up and not a single
thought crept  through for a few heartbeats.  He was never so glad to
be empty-headed in  his life.  "Uhmmm."  Clear your throat, Leonard,
attaboy..."How long have  you been talking to me like this?"

[Since I healed you.  I don't need one of those things right now.  The
connection is very strong since I healed you from the point of death.]
Her  long white fingers flipped up like birdwings, settling down in
the air that flashed dark, then  white from the outside clouds.  Her
gaze drifted inward as she lifted her  head.  [It is why I am trying
to reach Oxal.  I recently healed him.]

"Makes sense."  He agreed faintly, still on overload.  Or maybe he was
just  exhausted.  He couldn't really tell the difference at this
moment.  *Maybe  I'm about to pass out.  That would be nice.*  He
*probably* couldn't  embarrass himself if he was unconscious.

She must have been thinking too hard to pay real attention to his
mental  state.  [Had I been able to finish the last time, you would
have already  been this sensitive...]  She chewed her bottom lip--one
of *his* mannerisms,  he noted with hazy shock.

Why did the Vians want her people to override their instinct for
self-preservation?  Did they think it would have to be all or nothing
for  the Hestian race?  The instinct that made Gem falter had been
what kept them from killing  themselves in doomed attempts to free the
canvanine addicts.  Imprinting on  McCoy had overridden that need to
live...and several had paid the price for  that.  Including her
daughter.

With every answer they fought for, more questions showed up to replace
them.    And burning the brightest, was the need to ask the Vians what
the hell  they were doing, playing god.

Gem returned to leaning against him.  He was not on her level of
skill, but  she was clearly fatigued.  Her small body bowed down from
too much weight.   What did it cost her to take Fala's venom into her
own body?  [But I'm not  taking chances.  That tea should put you to
sleep very soon.] A crack of  thunder made them jump.  [You are
worried about them.]

"That's an understatement."  He groaned.  "Those two get in the
*worst*  trouble together..."

[But they know how to defeat killers and we do not.   Killing ices our
souls, we cannot save ourselves from the feeling.  We ourselves would
die...]

She heaved in brief sorrow, and he wondered again what was happening
to her.    She'd healed *him* from the killing-trauma, so did that
mean she was now a  healer who could give herself to the point of
death *and* be able to kill?   God, what would she become now?  Such
thoughts went circular and wore him  out.

[We can trust they will shelter until the worst of the storm
passes...Ofv  and Oxal are with them, and if they get close enough,
we'll find them with  our spirits.  Now,] she added sternly, her head
going up [try to sleep.]

"How can I not?"  He tried to grumble but his head was heavy.  He was
gonna  be out as soon as his eyes closed.  Behind him she was putting
the empty cup  up.  He heard the click of ceramic.

"Leonard...can your people heal mine?]

"Sure...f'they ask's't."  It was going to be a battle to stay awake
long  enough to answer the million questions in her large eyes.

[Then we ask.  How do you heal canvanine addiction?]

"Humans," he murmured as reality slipped away, "don' get 'dicted
to...canva...nine..."

---

Spock had never been so cold.  Not even on the polar worlds he had
visited  under Captain Pike and his ability to control bodily
temperature still  undeveloped.  It was the wet that constantly fell
from the sky, leaching the  efforts of his thermal-thread uniform into
uselessness.  For what it was  worth, his boots were still dry, and he
was thankful as they slogged through  the shallows of a choked bed of
plants like water lilies deep in black mud.   Something long and
narrow and muscular pressed against his ankle, then  slithered away,
still invisible.

Next to him, steam rose from Jim as he kept active, marshalling his
strength  into aiding Ov and Oxal up the too-steep bank of clay.
Spock's impartial  powers admired the efficiency of the
humidity-evolved human body.  It was an  enviable trait.

Water had gathered atop a leaf above their heads larger than the
entire  briefing room.  Overladen, its fibrous ribs began bending; Jim
rubbed at his  face furiously, wiping the runoff and blinking rapidly.

"How are you holding up?"  He asked, a little too loudly over the
sounds.   Spock wondered if Jim could even hear himself.

"I am unhindered."  Spock answered back at a volume he intended Jim to
hear.    As soon as they were out of the rain, he would be able to dry
and warm his  body.

"Good..!"  Jim breathed hard, face flushed with his hands on his hips.
The  latest stormcloud was rolling away, and taking its place was a
deafening  roar of millions of raindrops slapping against the surface
of the river.   Lightning turned the river white; the raindrops marked
passage with dark  craters into the silver surface.  When the captain
looked, he could just make  out the outline of a large brown-clad body
with red hair tangled in the  reeds.

*Bastard.*  Jim thought, unrepentant.  They'd found Fala's club not
far  away; it was his now, and ready to be used again.  Spock was
standing still,  ignoring the drench, eyes searching.

"Any sign of Bones?"

Spock only shook his head.  "He was close to the falls when he went
under  again."

"I'll accept that when I see it!"  Jim spat, rage at the berserkers
his  predominating emotion.

"Agreed, captain."  Spock answered stiffly.

*This has got him too.*  Jim blinked aching eyes.  He was so weary it
was a  wonder he could stand.  And he knew Spock would hold out so
long as he  did...which meant, he had to get them all sheltered.

"I'm not giving up."  Jim said for the record.  He knew Spock could
hear him  over the drumroll of rain.  "As often as we've made him
think *we* were  dead...the least we could do is give the benefit of
the doubt."

Spock said nothing, which meant he agreed but had no idea how to
express it.

A leaf like the one that semi-sheltered them went past them like a
loosened  sail.  Jim flinched back thinking it would be very
unpleasant to get hit by  such a thing.  Spock was calmly stepping
backwards, putting his body between  the outer rim of the storm and
the Hestians.  Jim could see their clothing  better than he could see
them.  Oxal was shivering, and his eyes closed as  he leaned against
his father.

*Now what?*

Jim sucked his breath in, violently.  Rain drenched him with the same
force  of the numbing cold rolling down his back.

"Jim?"  Spock had to shout over the sounds as a warm cloud struck a
cold one  and split open in an iridescent tree-branch of fire.

Spock called again, alarmed at the lack of reaction.  He staggered
through  the steep slick of clay, falling on his knees against stones
and knotted  roots.  Jim remained unmoving, even as the Vulcan's cold
fingers closed over  Jim's solid muscle.

"Did you see them?"  Jim screamed over another clap, not turning
around to  face him.

Spock peered in the weeping gloom; every leaf poured a waterfall of
rain all  about them, sending mud three and four feet straight up to
spatter their  uniforms, even their necks.  "See who, Jim?"

Jim twisted his head around, a large purple bruise on his neck.  Spock
had  not seen that until now.  "I..."  Wide, dilated eyes took him in,
then  whipped sharp back to the endless black of the canopy tunnel.

"I thought I saw them."

Only Spock could have heard that mutter.

"Who did you see, Jim?"

"Them."  Jim answered dazedly.  He shook his head as if to clear it.
"I  thought I saw the Vians..."

Spock heard a distinct squelch of a footfall, and stiffened.  "Jim!"
He  turned his head, wishing he had been able to find a weapon for his
own use.   Paste-pale faces reflected the atmospheric storm in the
depths of the jungle  above them.

"Three of them?"  Jim asked tightly.

"I believe so."  Spock murmured.  His eyes swept downward, calculating
how  long he had to find something to defend with.

---

They stood as they always did; side by side, remote, wrinkled, and
weirdly  timeless.  He was standing in front of Ozaba's glass coffin,
staring at the  dead man inside and hating his helplessness when their
reflections caught on  the glass above the hands frozen in pain.

*He was a family man.*  The rage of seeing the dead
scientists--murdered  scientists--had never left him.  He turned and
faced their static features,  fists clenched tight at his waist.  *A
good man.  Jim had to tell his  children and grandchildren what had
happened to him.  And you say you had to  do it.*

Lal spoke first, and McCoy thought his lips were wrinkled like soft
paper.

*We did what we knew how to do.*

*We have forgotten so much.*  Thann added in his toneless voice.

*Too much.*  Lal agreed.

*Why am I even asking you questions?*  His rage roared from his
throat.   *You don't understand.  Who were the other people?*

*That person failed.*  Lal murmured.  *And with him his people.*

Frost grew over his heart.  *Oh, God...and you still went through with
this?*  He waved at the glass coffin, hit it with his ring.  It made a
strange bell-tone in the dream.

*We did not know.*  Lal seemed to think it was important that McCoy
understand this.

*It has been too long.*  Thann whispered.

*Too long?  Too long for what?  WHAT?  Do you know what you did?*  He
was  shouting, but in the dream barely whispered.  *You made Jim face
his worst  nightmare!  Choosing between his friends on who would have
to die!  Do you  think its easy for him to have friends?  He feels
every death like its his  own fault!  It HURTS him to care!  And
Spock!  My God!  He'll give until  there's nothing left and then he'll
apologizing for failing!  You don't have  any idea what you put them
through!*

*We tried.*  Said one.

*It was what we knew.*  His brother said.

*We are sorry.*

*We regret the pain caused.*

*Pain?  Do you really know what pain is?  Why didn't you offer
yourselves up  for your experiment?  Were you too valuable so you had
to use Linke and  Ozaba?  Why did both of them have to die when one
failed to give for the  other?  Why were you planning to do that with
all of us?*

*We are not humans.*

*We cannot understand as humans do.*

*It has been too long.*

*Too long.*

*It was Linke, wasn't it?  He was the weaker one.  You picked the
wrong one.    That's why you wanted JIM to choose which of us would
die!  You fools!*

*We learned too, as Gem did.*  Lal admitted in a voice like a dying
wind.

*Why did you hurt Jim at all?*

*So that Gem would understand him.  Absorb his concerns and cares.  It
was  the only way.*

*You hurt him to make her feel?  My God!*

A deeper bell-tone, like a ring against a glass coffin and the
subsonic hum  of the T-bar.  Their silver robes began to melt,
metallic dust powdering to  the stone floor around their feet.  He was
screaming at them to at least  explain *that* but their faces were
falling away too, size diminishing until  they were as small as
Talosians...

*We were Vians once,* Lal's softer, more alien voice outlasted the
death of  his body.  The words soaked into his skin, went through the
bones of his  skull.  *I do not know if we still are.*

---

The bell was in his ears; it was a metal bowl, fallen off something
and  rolling in the stone of the courtyard below.

He woke up slowly to a world of sight and silence; an Empath's world.
The  lightning was flashing without thunder throughout the jungle.
Red and blue  electricity arced across the sky, burning black clouds
the hue of pearl, and  white lightning the most fierce of all.

White lightning, his grandfather had told him, the old-timers believed
that  red and blue lightning could be put out, white lightning would
create a fire  that could never extinguish.  That was why they named
their drink white  lightning, because a thirst started could never be
quenched.

Winds tossed the frail greenery amid erratic silver sheets of rain.
Fern-trees bobbed on slender trunks, their finger-fronds spreading and
flowing against the air.  Silica giants shed their dreck against its
force,  leaves and sticks flew like stormbirds across the quick-lit
sky and blew  into the open room.

Gem was standing in front of the large window, snow-white thunderbolts
illuminating her bird-like body.  The damp clung her clothing to her
body.   She was less than an arm's length away, and her eyes were as
remote as the  Andromeda Galaxy.

Then she turned, knowing he was aware, and her smile brought her back
to the  room.  [Awake?]  Her weight barely disturbed the pallet as she
lifted the  cover and slid against his chest.

[Help me?] silent plea.  [Too much death...]

In Minara, she'd given him a fighting chance for life with a kiss as
he laid  in a helpless stupor.  Her hands, hot with the power to heal,
had pushed the  fog of cold away.  This kiss was a request; not to
give, but to be given.

He closed his eyes as she brushed against his ear and traced his
jawline.   It had been a long time, for both of them.  Somehow he knew
that.

Her hands were sliding over his chest now, across arms that still
remembered  ghost-injuries.  Her touch had been warm.  Now it was hot
again, hotter than  a reiki healer.  Heat like what had been in her
hands when she pulled him  from the Vians, when she closed the broken
skull and shattered arm and  filled lungs, heat spreading from her
touch to his skin, soaking inside...

"Gem..."  He gasped and held her tight.  She smiled against his neck,
every  contour pressing through the thin cloth of her suit.  "Slow
down...slow  down..."

[Can we have a night together?  Before you go?]

*Yes...*

She kissed with experience.  He held her head back and covered her
throat  down to her collarbone.  Her fingers slipped across his back,
her nails  anchored in his skin, slid up into his hair.  Likewise, her
mind was twining  inside his like vines, definition between individual
identity blurring at  the edges.  He was beginning to feel what she
was feeling, and what she  liked.  What she wanted.  She was smiling,
her large eyes glassy.  Soft lips  parted, a flush spreading up her
pale throat to every inch of her face.  In  sudden impatience, she
pulled back enough to fumble her annoying bodysuit  off; he chuckled
at her irritated expression and they found each other  again.

Not even mental words now; it was the communication they'd had on
Minara.   He *knew*.  His mind no longer needed to translate the
complexity of her  language into sentences.  There was nothing of him
that frightened her, and  she'd seen the worst inside.

---

"Jim...Spock..."

Gem was watching him as he slept.  He somehow knew this, or maybe it
wasn't  *his* knowledge.  Maybe it was hers.

Sleep chained him down like when Joanna and her cousins had buried him
in  beach sand, only he had pretended to be asleep then...now he
couldn't seem  to wake up.

"are you here..."

She reached over and touched his face; warm fingers, driving away the
fog  again.  Now the sleep was natural, unhampered by memories.

A flicker, small as a firefly, but it was enough.  Gem sighed her
relief as  Oxal managed to touch her essence.  Faster than even
telepathy, a brief  exchange of identity took place, and was gone
leaving each to absorb the  information the other had supplied.

More than Fala was dead now; Jim and Spock were not.  She could see
them the  way Oxal had, hunched with their backs underneath a large
leaftree, waiting  for any new threats.  Jim looked tired but capable
of keeping the pace all  night.  Spock...balancing a chunk of tree
root for a club.

They were alive...and she conveyed that with a touch, felt the worry
in the  sleeping mind absorb and melt to nothing.

Gem turned her head to the window, exposing her pale throat.  Her air
had  turned expectant, waiting.  The storm was dying, and the day was
about to  begin.

---

Jim and Spock emerged from the edge of the jungle less  than an hour
after  the storm cleared.

After the sheltering canopy, it was a pure, bright day full of yellow
sunshine, sucking mud and a world pasted with soggy flower petals.
The  officers were merely bedraggled, but McCoy thought the Hestians
looked like  drowned, tie-dyed chickens in their multicolored clothes.
Oxal had flower  stamens stuck in his curly hair like a madman's idea
of Andorian earstalks.   Jim's beam of joy could be felt across the
steaming plaza.

"Oxal said he sensed you were safe!"  Jim waved from the gate as their
weary  feet shambled in.  "You got our message through Gem?"

"Yup!"  McCoy yelled back, holding up clean and--yes--dry uniforms
stacked  neatly on the Communal Table.  Spock moved with a haste that
was scandalous  for a Vulcan and began peeling out of his muddy
clothing on the spot.  His  lips were set in a tight line, which got
the doctor's suspicious nature up  instantly.  He peered hard at the
First Officer as Jim yanked his own uniform  up.  "How's that head
cold, Spock?"

"Doctor, I am no cooler there than anywhere else."

"Fine.  Have it your way.  Do things as difficult as possible.  A
change of  pace would give me a heart attack anyway."  McCoy perched
on top of the  table and passed out tricorders and communicators.  A
swarm of Hestians  rippled by in their bright robes, stampeding Oxal
and Ofv in a riotous form  of hello that politely left the officers
alone.  Jim decided that was very,  very fine.  He couldn't deal with
that much happiness all at once.  "And you  got to reach Scott too."

"Yeah, I still had *my* communicator, which worked once I held it up
to drip  dry for a few hours."  McCoy rolled his eyes up, then
switched on his  mediscanner.  "I figured we can use 'em while the
ship searches for the lost  stuff."

"You figured right."  Jim clutched a pitcher of red tea and poured a
massive  amount.  He gulped thirstily, stopped to get his breath, and
drank more  slowly. "Where's Gem?"  He looked around.

"She had to talk to the gen-mothers...easy on that, cap'n suh...I put
enough  vitamins in that stuff to let a Shetland pony take the
Kentucky Cup."

Jim snorted around his drink.  "Thanks...we were really worried about
you."   He thumped McCoy's shoulder with his free hand while Spock
ignored that he  had been included in an emotional state.  "I guess
this time you didn't  drown, huh?"

"Gem says I would have died from a skull fracture going over the
waterfall  first."  McCoy shook his head.  "Oh, well...I was worried
about myself."  He  stuffed a mug of tea under Spock's nose.  "This is
laced with medicine.   Drink it or I'm beaming you up to Sickbay
*right now* for a siphoning of the  nasal cavities."

Spock's expression could have turned the figurative lump off coal into
a  higher life form.  "An obvious waste of facilities.  I am perfectly
able to  respond."

"Did you ever try this stuff on your mother?  Sarek, I can imagine him
falling for that linear stuff, but not Amanda.  Spock, human ears are
pretty  bad compared to yours, but even we can hear the whistling in
the respiratory  tract...and that's not a good sign."  McCoy ran the
scanner over him,  slowly.  "Don't move your tric; it'll get in the
way of mine."  He read the  data, shuddered visibly, and pulled out a
hypo.  "Take a tip from those of  us who evolved on a watery world.
When you're caught in the rain, don't  look up.  It gets precipitation
up your nose."

Jim chuckled around a mouthful of tea.

Spock looked hurt that Jim would be amused at his expense.

"I'd go along with him."  Jim suggested.  "Because if you don't, Gem
will  want to heal you."

"If you would proceed, doctor."

"I *am* proceeding.  What the blazes d'you call this?"  McCoy pointed
dramatically at his scanner.

"Bones," Jim was looking right and left, "Did you see any Shields
around the  village today?"

"My God, no!"  McCoy was shocked.  "Are there any left?"

"At least five.  The others..."  Jim lifted his hands quietly.  "We're
pretty sure that ten are dead.  They kept rushing at us.  We had to
protect  the civilians."  He glanced over to the busy little knot of
Hestians.   Father and son were sluicing their hair clean at what
looked like a giant  bird fountain.  "They couldn't defend themselves
at all, Bones!  It  was...scary."

"I can imagine."  McCoy turned sober for a moment, his face sad and
hushed.

"You looked wiped, Bones.  Did you get *any* rest?"

"Um, no, not after I woke up from Gem's healing."  McCoy coolly slid a
fresh  wafer in his tricorder and thought o poker.

"Well you really need to get some when we beam up.  Don't even try to
tell  me you haven't been working too hard."  Jim put on his Best
Captain's Manner  as his CMO stared at him.  "And don't give me *that
look.*  I know how  focused you get when  you're involved with
something.  I'll bet you were up  all night with Gem."

"Can't fool you none."  McCoy strangled.

"So."  Jim sighed in satisfaction as he plucked at his clean, dry,
wonderful  uniform shirt.  The rain had left his skin feeling fresh
and gleaming.  "Did  you miss us?"

McCoy didn't bat an eye.  "When I revived, yeah."

Jim chuckled, trying to his his relief they were all safe.  "Honestly,
you  do look pretty tired."

McCoy sipped more Hestian  tea.  "I tol' ya, I didn't get much sleep."

"You don't look like you got *any* sleep."  Jim looked at Spock, who
had of  course, completely dressed with record speed and was now
absorbed in his  nice new tricorder, next to a pile of neatly folded
up wet clothing.

"His hair looks freshly combed."  Bones muttered with no small amount
of  envy.  "How in blazes does he do that?  So you're sure there are
no less  than five, and no more  than ten Shields left?"

"Reasonably sure."  Jim shrugged stiffly.  "We'll be leaving a whole
*contingent* of security guards to help protect these people, and send
a DNA  tank down too.  It should make do before the more-equipped
Science/Cultural  Team comes in."

"Better add a CAT to the Tank."  McCoy reminded him.  "Those things
can save  a lot of time."

"And signaltracks for our lost equipment.  I hate to think of a phaser
breaking down its powercell into a body of water."

"Way ahead of you, Jim."  McCoy held up a ListPadd.

Jim took the data gratefully, choking on his drink when he saw the
title.   "Things to Do?"  He quoted, eyebrows going up.

"What's left to do, anyway."  McCoy told him dryly.

"Yes, I noticed you crossed out 'save the planet', thank you.  It
saves me  the trouble.  Now all we have to do is 'pitch Federation
spiel' and  'introduce Democracy.'"

Spock, who came from a planet of functioning pananarchists, looked
annoyed.

"Don't forget."  McCoy tapped the Padd.  "We also have to let them
know what  bad people the mean Klingons are and how we can protect
them from those  disruptor-totin' Bumblebees."

"Captain."  Spock broke in by coughing against the drainage in his
throat.   "I believe Gem is coming."  He said gently.

All talk died as the little woman stepped across the steaming tiles of
the  courtyard, eyes bright.  Her hair gleamed like the burnished red
scales of a  copperhead.  Jim stood; Leonard stood; Spock was already
standing.

Odd how she seemed much smaller in daylight, Bones mused.  He was
wearing a  silly little smile to see her peer up into Jim's happy
face, her small hands  swallowed up in his.  And stolid, starkly
dignified Spock was standing  before them, hands clasped politely
behind his back, stance at protective  attention.

---
CAPTAIN'S LOG, PERSONAL NOTE:

"I will be relieved when the last of the Shields are found.  While
they  clearly need help that their people cannot give them, my
personal experience  left me with a lack of...sympathy to their
situation.  I cannot describe it  any further.  In a world where
people were meant to bleed for their  brothers, these addicts reveled
in murder.

"Bones reminds me that our history is full of such examples, such as
the  narco-whiffing guards of the Eugenics Wars.  Not that that
excuses them, or  anyone, as he is so quick to remind me.  "Everyone
has a choice, Jim.  Even  insanity is a choice.  But the thing is, a
lot of people don't know it.  If  you're not raised to be responsible
for your actions..."  I will need time  to adjust to that concept.

"On a more personal note, I am pleased to say Bones is clearly
improved from  his visit with the Hestians, and with Gem in
particular.  I understand.  The  simple act of touching her hands in
friendship produces a soothing  balm, as  if I were with my own
mother.  It feels odd considering how young she looks,  but tricorder
graphs show she is closer to Spock's age than mine.  Perhaps  that
longevity  (when uninterrupted) will help her people build up their
numbers.

"We will all be sorry to go.  Tomorrow morning we will beamdown and
oversee  the settlement of the C-S Team, and attend a communal dinner
held in our  honor--this  time with everyone attending.  This will
give Mr. Sulu and the  Horticultural Department some time to collect
the specimens they so  treasure.  And then all that will be left is
our final good-bye..."

---

[I think you will meet the Vians again.]  She said simply.

He could only nod his agreement.

"You take care."  Leonard wondered if his words would strike her as
amusing.    Considering the source, she should.  But she merely
returned the pressure  of his hands and brushed red hair out of her
eyes.

[It will be good to see the life returning to our people.  All my
life, we  have been suffering either the stragli, or the Shields.  Or
both at the same  time.  Either one had the power to destroy us.]

"It's not easy.  Your people made a deal with the devil when they
tried to  learn to kill.  Some people can't do it."  Leonard sighed.
"I hope you  never try to learn.  Let others shoulder the burden.
Yours is rarer; you're  true healers, all of you.  We need you."

[The Federation is an exciting possibility for us.] Gem's face, so
fluid and  changing, was hopeful.  [I think Oxal wants to be what you
call a diplomat.]

"He'd be a good one."  McCoy grinned.  "He's a nice boy."

[Yes.  He wants to be a better healer.  I will be busy teaching him.]

"Tell Ov that if Oxal can be your official liaison with the Cultural
Team,  its a good start and Jim would be willing to sponsor his
admission to the  Corps."

[Oxal reminds him of his son, doesn't he?] Gem startled him.  [Did I
upset  you?  I didn't mean to.  His longing reached out to me when he
was teaching  Oxal the tricorder.]

"Yes."  McCoy said very slowly.  "But please, don't mention it to
anyone."

Gem, ever sensitive, nodded and smiled.  [We will see you all
tomorrow?]

"None of us would dream of missing one last visit before we warped
out."  He  chuckled at the thought.

[Good.]  Gem's small white fingers curled inside  his larger brown
ones.   Suddenly she looked shy or excited or uncertain how to speak.
[And above  all, we thank your people for giving us the means to
defeat the canvanine  addiction.]

He blinked.  "Thank you, but...we haven't done anything yet."

Gem chuckled.  Well, it was soundless, but he could have sworn that
was what  she'd just done.  [Didn't you say humans are unable to be
addicted to  canvanine?]

"Oh."

McCoy swallowed.

Hard.

Past information about Hestian family gens ran through his head at
lightspeed.

"Just for your information, Gem," He managed a remarkably steady
voice, all  things considered, "It's good manners to let a human know
you want them to  parent your offspring."

[Really?] Gem cocked her head to one side, charmed by the novel
notion.   [How unusual.  Why?  Do they share the responsibility of
parenting?]

"Most of them do."  He said dryly.  "Sometimes, the fathers do all the
rearing."

She was delighted with this amazing information.  [I really must tell
the  other gen...usually the men raise the children once  they
approach the  threshold of adulthood.  This will change our approach.]

"You do that."  He watched her go, fairly scampering, to a small knot
of  women who were probably a lot more mature than they looked.

*a lot* more mature.

"Hoo...boy."

"Ready to go?"

McCoy jumped from the captain that had materialized behind his ear.

"Gawd, Jim!  I've had enough shocks on this planet!"

Jim crunched another meli.  "Sorry.  These are *good.*  Ofv's letting
us  take a bunch back for the bulk molecular stores.  I think I may be
addicted."

"Please, don't say that word to me."  Leonard pleaded.  "And remember,
all  things in moderation."

"Except for buffalo meat."

"Except for buffalo."

"When we hit Earth, I'll grab my bow and we can go hunting on the
plains."   Jim promised.  "I want to see that weird Mere Heath of
yours perform."

"Weird?"  McCoy knifed his ribs with an elbow.  "You Lakota snob.  The
Mere  Heath is the penultimate longbow."

"Bones, its too thick, too long, too broad, too heavy and the wood's
all  wrong!"

"So why does it outperform all other wooden bows in the world?"

"If it was that good, why did it have to be re-discovered in a peat
bog by  underpaid archaeologists?"

"Underp--ohhhhhh."  McCoy made a fist.  "And I suppose that if you
were  invading Saxons, you'd want to encourage the natives to keep
using those  things on you?"

"Let's invite Spock."  Jim offered gleefully.  "He can examine the
specs and  give us performance reports."

"Let's invite Scotty.  He can see it as an engineering problem, and he
won't  get upset at the sight of us up to our elbows in bloody
buffalo."

"Come on, Bones.  Spock doesn't *really* hold our primitive urges
against  us."

"I'm aware that arrogance works against his MO as a superior being,
Jim, but  I'm just a simple hunter-gatherer, and my shamanic powers
are conjurin' a  vivid image of Spock's reaction when he finds out he
has to share a  shuttlecraft back to port with two giggling,
meat-drunk officers and several  hundred pounds of once-living and
noble
woolly herbivore."

Jim and Bones were leaning on each other at that point, gasping for
breath.

"Ohhh, no."   Tears were rolling down Jim's face. "Maybe I'd better
*not* introduce him to Winoa.  Her favorite Native dish is  raw
kidneys with red wine."

They managed to collect themselves, knowing if they saw Spock before
they  did so, they'd collapse all over again.

"I'm applying for shipwide shoreleave when we get back."  Jim let
Bones  shamble into step beside him as they went to the plaza's center
for beamup.   Spock was already there, naturally, waiting patiently.
"And you're going to  be on the first group."

"I'm not complaining."

Jim eyed him strangely.  "You're starting to worry me.  Just how tired
are  you?"

"Not so tired that I can't tie up some loose ends when we get back to
the  ship."  McCoy hung his medikit over one shoulder.  If he started
composing  that letter to Joanna today, it might be credible by the
time they hit Vega:    (Dear Jo, or should I say, Big Sister?...this
is your dad.  Remember how  your mother reacted when she found out you
were pregnant and I defended you?    It's time to collect that
debt...give my grandson a hug, and tell him that  pretty soon there's
going to be another addition to that patch of kudzu we  call a family
tree.  Details forthcoming as soon as I know what the hell is  going
on...)

The absurdity hit him.  Jim and Spock looked at each other, then at
him.

"M'sorry."  He managed helplessly.  "I'll explain later."

Much, much, much MUCH later...

---

The End