Strangers From the Sky (17 page)

“Yes?” Krista put the receiver in her ear so Kirk couldn’t hear. “How long has he been waiting? The session went overtime; you should have let me know. All right, I’ll send him right out.”

“Truce, Admiral,” she said, putting the receiver back. “You have a visitor.”

“Spock!”

He gripped the Vulcan’s shoulders in sheer joy, stopped himself from outright hugging him. He’d learned that in this place a mirror was seldom only a mirror, and the visitors’ room had an unnatural number of them. He doubted he had any dignity left after a week in this place, but he was mindful of preserving Spock’s.

The Vulcan accepted the embrace, and with it the turmoil in the human’s mind. Masking his own concern, he allowed his eyes to smile.

“Jim” was all he said.

Spock sat while Kirk paced, listened as Kirk talked, provided as always the balance for everything Kirk was—shadow to his sunlight, coolness for his fire, calm against his agitation. Centered and impeccable, in contrast to Kirk, who was pale and tousled from the morning’s ordeal, Spock was simply there, focus for Kirk’s fears, center of his immediate universe.

Jim Kirk talked, couldn’t stop himself. The weeks of anxiety, the puzzlement and fear, poured out of him. Spock listened.

“I should have kept quiet about it,” Kirk said at last, running out of steam. “Asked McCoy for some sleeping pills, tried to ride it out. But no, I had to drive him up a wall to where he recommended the psychoscan. And then, to borrow Galarrwuy’s expression, took a tail wind and ended up halfway across the planet. That was the dumbest move of all.”

He sat, ran a hand through his hair, tousling it further, let Spock see the depth of fear in his eyes.

“Spock, I don’t remember what it means to sleep anymore. Krista’s as much as admitted she can do nothing for me, but they won’t let me go. What do you think they’ll do to me?”

“Perhaps nothing,” the Vulcan said at last, and calmly.

He had needed to listen as much as Kirk had needed to talk, in order to be certain. He had heard what he needed to know. He leaned toward Kirk now, his long fingers moving gently toward the familiar places, seeking the familiar paths.

“If I may…” he began.

“What is this ‘if I may’?” Kirk demanded, feinting as if to avoid Spock’s Touch, laughing at the relief that flooded his soul. “Since when have you needed permission?”

“Indeed,” the Vulcan said, and Reached.

When he withdrew his hand, and with it his mind, Kirk grew very still.

“That’s incredible!” he said.

“Is it?” Spock asked mildly. “What you and I have experienced has always stretched the bounds of ordinary credulity. This is no exception.”

“You’re right,” Kirk acknowledged. “God, I hope you’re right! It doesn’t give me any answers, but at least I know I’m not crazy.”

“That does it!”

Their harmony was shattered by Krista Sivertsen’s sharp take-charge voice.

“You simply insist on taking risks, don’t you?” she flared at Kirk, charging into the room, ignoring Spock entirely. “First the Dreaming, now this! One of my aides was observing from the booth.” She nodded toward one of the suspect mirrors. “And she called me.” She turned on Spock, furious. “I suppose you’ve already done your damage?”

“There has been no damage of my causing, Dr. Sivertsen,” Spock replied coolly. “However, unless Admiral Kirk is released from this facility immediately to seek an alternate form of cure, certain irreparable damage may ensue.”

“I know you have a great many talents, Captain Spock,” Krista said icily. “But I had no idea an expertise in psychology was among them!”

“It is not,” Spock said evenly. “None is needed in this instance. Admiral Kirk’s difficulty is not psychological in origin. He is not insane.”

(“Never try to second-guess a Vulcan,” her best friend Liz had once written to Krista, years ago when she’d taken her first deepspace assignment, transferred from the Aldebaran Colony to serve on a ship with a Vulcan first officer. “They’ll outflank you before you can shake your argument out of the mid-brain.”

Krista still kept all of Liz’s letter-disks, still remembered all of Liz’s pearls of wisdom. They’d been roommates during their internship, looked enough alike to be mistaken for sisters. Krista had adored Liz, treasured her sharp-cornered advice. But an innate restlessness had driven Liz offworld, and she had died not long after she’d left Aldebaran for her first starship assignment.)

But this was neither the time nor the place to resurrect those memories. Krista Sivertsen took a deep breath and readied herself. She would not second-guess this particular Vulcan—Liz had learned about him and his kind too late to save herself—but she wouldn’t let him outflank her either.

“The term ‘insane’ is considered somewhat archaic in modern psychology, Captain Spock,” she began, buying time as she showed him into her office. Kirk had agreed to wait outside; whatever else could be said about a Vulcan mind-meld, it seemed to have a calming effect upon the human participant. “We feel it has a connotation of hopelessness which, under contemporary advances in the field—”

“Whatever euphemism those in your profession currently employ,” Spock cut her off, “the fact remains: Admiral Kirk is not insane.”

“Would you care to look at his psychoscan?” Krista demanded heatedly. She could not abide amateurs, regardless of their species. “Or perhaps you’d like to read the transcript of my report on his condition, or a tape of this morning’s hypnosis?”

Spock said nothing; his face told her nothing. She had the facts at her disposal. Why did she feel as if she were up to her ankles in quicksand?

“I know you’re a close friend of Jim Kirk’s,” she said, trying the reasonable approach. “And I respect that. But if you think you can persuade me on that basis—”

“It would never occur to me,” Spock said mildly.

What was his game? Krista wondered, groping. Her field was human psychology; she was out of her depth with Vulcans and this one seemed to know it. She felt the metaphorical quicksand creeping up to her knees.

“If you think you can pull rank on me, you can forget that, too. You’re on my turf here, and my orders are to keep Jim Kirk confined ‘until he is completely and permanently cured,’ unquote. And they’re signed by the Old Man himself.”

Spock seemed to weigh this.

“Was the order deactivating Admiral Kirk’s transceiver also signed by Admiral Nogura?”

“It was.”

“May I ask why?”

“As a security measure. I’m sure you’re familiar with the procedure. And to spare Kirk any unnecessary disturbances during the course of treatment.”

“Meaning messages from Dr. Nayingul or myself.”

“If you want to look at it that way.”

“I shall have to persuade Admiral Nogura to rethink his decision,” Spock said with utter equanimity, and Krista had no doubt he was one of the two people on the planet who could. “However, that is inconsequential at present. Dr. Sivertsen, I have heard your arguments regarding Admiral Kirk’s condition. Will you grant me the courtesy of hearing mine?”

“I have the facts on my side, Captain, and I won’t be budged. No one suffering such severe delusional nightmares will be allowed to leave this facility as long as I’m a member of the staff.”

Spock appeared to arrive at a decision.

“Very well, doctor. Then I suggest you commit me to your facility as well. I have experienced the same nightmares.”

Krista Sivertsen watched the results of Spock’s psychoscan come up on her screen. When she had adjusted the readout for Vulcan Norm, it showed the same mnemonic dysfunction as Kirk’s.

“I thought you were bluffing,” she said.

Spock resisted the obvious response. The psychiatrist was staring at the readout in disbelief.

“I’ve never seen anything like this. The odds against it must be astronomical.” Spock resisted responding to this as well. “Maybe it’s what you get for messing around in mere human minds with your Vulcan techniques.” She turned off the screen, as if not seeing the readout before her would somehow make it less uncanny. “I don’t understand how this is possible. I understand even less the point of this Pyrrhic victory of yours, but it looks as if you’ll be keeping the admiral company. I’ll see you get adjoining rooms.”

“Then I trust you have a Vulcan healer on-staff?” Spock inquired mildly.

“This is Earth!” Krista Sivertsen said incredulously. “There are probably fewer than a dozen Vulcan healers on the entire planet, and to my knowledge none of them is a practicing psychiatrist. Tradition has it your people don’t suffer psychological disorders, but the evidence I have on that scan says otherwise.”

“Seven,” Spock said quietly.

“Come again?”

“There are at present seven Vulcan healers in residence within the sol system, including Luna and the Martian Colonies, and none is a practicing psychiatrist,” Spock said. “The nearest healer so qualified is T’Sri of Rigel XII, and assuming she were immediately available, she could not arrive on Earth in less than seventeen Standard days.

“Consequently, doctor, unless you or someone on your staff possesses a degree in xenopsychology, you cannot keep me here.”

“Why, you cold-blooded, manipulative…!” Krista Sivertsen flared, losing her cool entirely. “What the hell do you want from me?”

Spock told her.

“Forty-eight hours, no more,” she told McCoy when she’d sent for him. “They’ll be in your custody. They’re not to leave Kirk’s apartment, and you’re not to let them out of your sight. If you need a couple of security guards—”

“Of course not!” McCoy blustered, not quite sure of that himself, considering the hijinks these two had pulled on him in the past.

“Forty-eight hours,” Krista repeated. “Sooner if you see any indications of crisis. If they can’t work their miracle in that much time—”

“You’ll have them back,” McCoy promised, hoping against hope that whatever his two charges were up to would work.

Krista delivered them to him at the Admissions desk with a kind of relief.

“Liz was right,” she said to McCoy. “She always said, ‘Never try to second-guess a Vulcan.’ I should have listened.”

“Yes, Liz always was good with the homey little Earthisms, wasn’t she?” McCoy said sadly; obviously he knew who Krista was talking about if the other two didn’t. He eyed Spock skeptically. “Pity I never had the benefit of that particular one. Might have saved me a decade or two of aggravation. Poor Liz!”

“A mutual friend?” Kirk asked, making conversation as they walked across the MedArts quadrangle. Now that Krista was no longer his shrink, at least for the next forty-eight hours, he could devote his full appreciation to her as a person.

“Friend of Krista’s,” McCoy specified. “Briefly a student of mine. Brilliant girl, untimely death. Come to think of it, Jim, you knew her, too.”

“Did I?”

Kirk searched his no-longer-to-be-trusted memory for another lady psychiatrist. He’d gone through a phase where he’d found professional women—Ruth, Carol, Janet, Areel—particularly attractive, but as far as he knew—

“She was assigned as
Enterprise
’s staff psychiatrist when she died, Admiral,” Krista said, keeping her voice level, her tone free of accusation.

“Liz,” Kirk mused. “Elizabeth. Not…?”

“Elizabeth Dehner.” Krista’s voice trembled slightly, though her face would have done a Vulcan proud. Kirk was less fortunate. The mention of the name froze him barely inches from freedom.

McCoy noticed the impact immediately, wished he’d kept his mouth shut. Liz Dehner would always be irrevocably linked with Gary Mitchell in Kirk’s mind. To remind Kirk of Gary now, when he was so vulnerable…

But Kirk wasn’t thinking of Mitchell at all. What had him nonplussed was a memory of Elizabeth Dehner before the incident on Delta Vega, a moment of déjà-vu that all but announced itself by a lightbulb over his head. An instant before it had not existed in any reality he knew.

“Elizabeth Dehner,” he said incredulously, “is the blonde in the dreams. Spock, the voice—”

The Vulcan also stood transfixed, seemed to shake off some private reverie. “Yes. Yes, indeed!”

“Spock!” Kirk said, groping for something. “The landing party on M-155…the Planet That Wasn’t There.”

“Interesting,” the Vulcan said slowly. “A possibility.”

McCoy, standing between them, felt his hair stand on end as if he were about to be struck by lightning. He had no idea what had just happened, but if it had anything to do with what they had less than forty-eight hours to solve, he was hardly going to let it take place here. Krista was looking at both of his friends as if she were strongly tempted to change her mind.

“Jim,” McCoy interceded, grabbing his arm. “Spock, save your thought. Our meter’s running.”

“Bones, you really could take the time off,” Kirk said winningly, over the ticking of his multitude of antique clocks. “We’ll be good.”

“Not likely!” McCoy growled, rattling around in Kirk’s minuscule kitchen. “Don’t you ever buy any real food? Goddamn synthesized, reconstituted…” He emerged finally with a prefab sandwich and a glass of amber liquid in his hand. “At least your bourbon’s real. Where’s Spock?”

“Talking to Galarrwuy on the bedroom screen,” Kirk said distractedly, wondering what part of his brain the two were dissecting in his absence. “Did you think he’d shimmied down a drainpipe? It’s over fifty stories to the street.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him! Can we get on with this? The more I think of baby-sitting you renegades for two entire days—I should have taken Krista up on her offer of security guards. Posted one at the front door and another in here to relieve me. I can see where I’m gonna have to watch the pair of you in my sleep.”

“Considering the usual stentorian clamor which accompanies that activity on your part,” Spock remarked, emerging from the bedroom, “it is unlikely any of us will derive much rest from this experience.”

“Don’t start with me!” McCoy began, but Kirk cut him off.

“Bones, our meter’s running. Spock, what’ve we got?”

Spock settled himself by the inactive fireplace between Kirk and McCoy.

“The facts are these, Jim: you and I have, simultaneously and in the absence of communication, experienced a series of dreams relating to a particular event in Earth’s history previously unknown to us. This in itself is neither surprising nor especially alarming. Doubtless many individuals, upon reading
Strangers from the Sky
, were sufficiently intrigued by its premise to incorporate it into their dreams.”