Corona (7 page)

"Fine." When he was alone in his quarters, Kirk played back the message and searched Grake's face closely, trying to find what Spock had found … something so vague and uncertain the Vulcan couldn't yet express it. Kirk sensed something, too …

Something very disturbing.

McCoy was in a fever of activity. He ordered the nurses about sharply, efficiently, his southern drawl becoming so pronounced that occasionally he had to repeat his orders to be understood, which exasperated him no end. The TEREC analyzer—a box about a foot on each side—waited on its floating pallet as other medical supplies were added, including the TEREC remote probe, a diagnostics tricorder and McCoy's "little black bag," a customized general practice unit now equipped for the Vulcan inhabitants of Station One. Mason watched and recorded and did her best to stay out of his way, not that McCoy would have said a harsh word to her. Already, she felt a very father-daughter relationship blossoming between them, though few words had been said. She wondered if it was her gamine personality that attracted McCoy, but suspected it was her small-planet-girl handicap.

The pallet, full to overflowing, was rushed by a harried ensign to the elevator. McCoy followed, Chapel in tow, as both donned pocket-studded medical field jackets. "He handles that pallet like it was a mule," McCoy undertoned, passing Mason. Mason grinned and fell in behind.

In the transporter room, Kirk and Spock were strapping on their security belts and phasers as McCoy and Chapel entered and positioned the pallet over its disk on the platform.

Shallert stood ready at the controls. When Kirk and Spock were in position, they were joined by Chekov, who doubled as part of Olaus's security team. Shallert switched on the transporter. McCoy muttered something beneath his breath until his eye caught Mason's, and he flashed a brave and utterly false smile.

"Let's go, Mr. Shallert," Kirk said. Shallert initiated beaming.

While in the transporter beam, there is no sensation of time or event. At the most, one feels a slight tickle at the base of the neck
(
Dr. McCoy cannot explain this, but the sensation is experienced at least once by anyone who has ever been transported.
)
Rumors of spiritual experiences, of the feeling that one has died and returned to life, or seen what lies beyond death—or even more pervasive rumors of those who have the talent to see the future while being transported—have never been substantiated. And yet
…

Spock, the least likely to put any credence into such rumors, feels a touch, the merest feathery whisper of inquiry, as if the scattered particles that will reassemble as himself are being individually examined
…

"Spock. Spock!"

They stood in the broad equipment storage dome of Station One, clustered around Spock, who lay flat on his back, not moving. Kirk bent over his first officer, while McCoy checked the Vulcan's pulse at his armpit. Spock's eyes fluttered and he turned his head. The first face he saw was that of Radak, watching him with curious interest from behind the larger forms of Grake and T'Prylla.

"Jim, I want that transporter torn apart top to bottom," McCoy said softly. "I've never liked that thing, and so help me, I'll shut it down—"

"Done. Spock, are you okay?"

"I do not seem to be injured," Spock said, getting to his feet with McCoy's help. The dome interior was empty, the flat gray aggregate flooring marked by pressure and skid marks where supplies had once rested.

Kirk flipped open his communicator and ordered a thorough maintenance check on the transporter.

"Am I the only one affected?" Spock asked.

"I'm fine," Chapel said, aiming the diagnostic tricorder at Spock's chest. Chekov agreed that he, too, felt no ill effects. Kirk turned to the group awaiting them.

"I apologize for a very clumsy arrival," he said. "But it appears to be a minor problem. I'd like to introduce the ship's doctor and his assistant, Dr. Leonard McCoy and Lieutenant Christine Chapel. I'm Captain James Kirk, this is Ensign Chekov, and this … as I'm sure you are aware," he said to T'Prylla, "is my first officer and the science officer of the
Enterprise
, Commander Spock."

"Welcome to the Black Box Nebula, Captain," T'Prylla said, extending her hand. Her grip on Kirk's hand was firm and dry, warmer even than Spock's. "If it is possible for the members of such a small team to welcome anyone to such a vast territory. My husband has already extended his appreciation, and I wish to reiterate. I am T'Prylla. This is our assistant astrophysicist, Anauk." The Vulcan male divided the fingers of one hand in the traditional greeting. "This is his clan-mate, T'Kosa. And our son, Radak, whom some of your crew have already met. Our daughter, T'Raus, is involved in a project at this time."

"Our first priority is to give all of you a thorough medical exam," McCoy said.

"That will not be necessary," Grake said, nodding graciously at McCoy. "We have an excellent medical center here. I am afraid those who most need your help, are quite beyond it."

"If you're referring to the sleepers," McCoy said, "we may be able to save them. And as for your health, Starfleet regulations require that I make my own judgment."

"Dr. McCoy is right," Kirk said. "And while he and Nurse Chapel are doing that, I'd like to begin the de-briefing."

"Of course," T'Prylla said. "Anything we can do to oblige our rescuers. Though we must warn you, the situation is not nearly as desperate as it seemed when we issued our distress signal."

McCoy asked to be taken to their medical facilities. Grake led the way, and Kirk turned to Spock and Chekov. "I want you to keep an eye on Radak," he said when the others were out of hearing.

"Is there anything wrong with the boy?" Chekov asked, puzzled.

"He isn't a ghost. Just watch him."

"Yes, sir."

Kirk took a deep breath and motioned for Spock and Chekov to come along. Spock was interested in Kirk's tone of voice. As usual, Kirk was attuned to the same incongruities as his first officer, though he reacted quite differently—with an irritated, almost angry brusqueness. "Spock," he said. "I seem to recall that this dome was supposed to be full of emergency supplies."

"It is so described in the inventory of Station One," Spock said.

"Then where is all of it? Would they have used it all by now?"

"It is conceivable, Captain, though not if damage was as low as we're being led to believe."

They walked to the hatch leading out of the storage dome and into the
reshek
corridor. "What does your tricorder say about Radak?"

Spock held up the instrument and showed Kirk the readout. "He is a quite normal fifteen-year-old Vulcan boy. His data are very distinct."

Kirk nodded and increased his walking speed. Chekov broke into a short run to catch up.

The station medical center had been altered drastically. McCoy looked around in dismay at the barely concealed evidence of tampering, rebuilding of equipment, removal of furniture and diagnostic machines. "This place is a shambles," he said to Chapel. "What in God's name happened here?"

Grake stepped forward and removed an unfamiliar chromium sphere from a plain black metal box. "T'Kosa has made important advances. This is the only device we use for medical attention now. The rest of the equipment, wherever possible, has been converted to help us with our research."

He handed McCoy the chromium sphere. It weighed at most a pound, and had no visible surface features. "It is quite easy to use. I highly recommend it."

"How …" McCoy began.

"If there is a medical problem, the device diagnoses the problem and cures it upon request. It responds to Vulcan now, but it would only take a moment's effort to have it respond to Federation English."

"I'm more familiar with my own equipment," McCoy said. "Thanks, but I'll stick with that for the time being." He gestured at the pallet of medical supplies. "I'll examine the children first. Could you bring T'Raus in here? And while we're waiting for her …" He smiled and crooked a finger at Radak. The boy stepped forward and submitted to Chapel's quick pass of the diagnostic tricorder over him. Grake went to a wall-mounted com terminal and spoke a few words of Vulcan into it.

McCoy dug into the contents of his bag and brought out the subcutane, loading it with a vial of nutrients and vitamins. Radak pulled away from Chapel as McCoy wielded the automatic syringe over the boy's arm. "No!" Radak protested. McCoy put on his most soothing expression.

"It's quite painless. Just a warm pressure—"

"My son is saying that supplements or any other medications are unnecessary."

"And I'm saying that it's my duty—"

"Never mind, Bones," Kirk said, entering the medical center. A step behind him was a slender young Vulcan girl, perhaps two years junior to Radak, walking hand-in-hand with Spock. Chekov maneuvered through the door around them.

"Jim, there are regulations I have to follow if we're going to interact with personnel—"

"I have T'Raus's guarantee that the staff of Station One is healthy."

McCoy regarded Kirk with pained confusion. The girl, her straight and flawless black hair cut shoulder-length, let go of Spock's hand and stood beside T'Kosa. "We have done remarkable things here," the girl said, "and you may require a little time to get used to them. Until then, please do not force your regulations upon us. You may examine us, as you wish, but we are quite capable of treating ourselves."

McCoy recovered his decorum almost immediately. "Then, if I'm allowed, I'd better see to the people in cold storage. That is, unless I'm pre-empted there, too …"

"We do not object to your efforts," T'Kosa said. "For us, they have been dead ten years."

"That's what I was afraid you'd say," McCoy muttered. As T'Kosa made a move to come with McCoy and Chapel, the doctor stopped her by holding up his hand. "The captain needs you here more than I do. If nothing's been changed, we should do just fine by ourselves."

"Then we will begin formal debriefing right away," T'Prylla said. "There is so much to tell, and so many records to show …"

Even as they gather in the room where meals are shared, T'Prylla struggles to find her own memory of the past ten years. She cannot control her speech or her actions but perhaps she can recall all that has happened, as she witnessed it
…

But it is confused. There was the construction of the Transformer, completed without the aid of any of the adults, using equipment in the storage dome … And the memories of that are mixed, not hers alone. Although she does recall the wonder and terror of her realization that her own small children had accomplished something beyond the ability of the most brilliant Vulcan engineers. Will the rescuers be told of the Transformer? Or of the Eye-to-Stars?

McCoy and Chapel stood in the cylindrical cold room, wearing environment packs that projected a curtain of warmth around them. The helium atmosphere outside the shimmering curtains was a brisk -260° Celsius; the temperature within the hibernacula suspended around the chamber was only a few degrees above absolute zero.

McCoy had examined the freezing and revival equipment, and everything seemed to be in order. Chapel went from hibernaculum to hiberna-culum, taking detailed tricorder readings. McCoy checked the last available medical records of the individuals suspended in the cold room and compared them with Chapel's findings. As he expected, the individuals had aged perhaps one hour in ten years … and yet all were clinically dead. The myelin sheathing on virtually all of their nerves had broken down under unprecedented levels of Ybakra radiation.

McCoy had a bizarre vision of what would happen if they were revived now …

The hibernacula would open on cue, and the people within would try to move. Each would experience a horrible, agonizing convulsion, but within seconds they would be isolated from their misery … and from life itself.

"I thought I had them licked, but those damned medical monitors are going to fight us every step of the way," McCoy said. "Or I'm back on the farm playing OB-GYN to the chickens." Chapel suppressed a smile by looking at the cold, frozen face of one of the thirty suspended team-members. "These people are technically dead, and I'm not going to be allowed to play God by bringing them back to life."

"Yes, but they're not physically dead," Chapel said. "Not yet …"

"Hell, they've been dead for ten years. Total nerve damage, through and through … that's one of the definitions of irreversible death fed into the monitors. It hardly matters that they're very well-preserved."

"But …
can
we save them? I mean, is it possible?"

McCoy shook his head. "Only if I play Clarence Darrow to a robot with a tin ear for rhetoric."

According to Grake, the station had been swept for months by intense and intermittent storms of radiation. The planetoid had been propelled a few degrees from its former position by fierce particle bombardment. Fortunately, the station had been in the planetoid's shadow for most of the violent buffeting, and they had spent the first two months in a shelter proofed against all harmful radiation but Ybakra. Sensors on the other side of the planetoid had fed the researchers the data they required to determine the position and spectral type of the new stars. Initially, there had been eighteen possible protostar clouds in their section of the nebula, but at least seven of them—those most likely to begin fusion—had been disrupted and destroyed by their precocious siblings.

"That was just as well," Grake said, though with some hint of regret in his voice. "We could have used more data on other starbirths, but our time in the shelter was running out, and the particle bombardment would probably have killed us."