Title: Coals of Fire
Author: Jane (jat_sapphire)
Contact: [email protected]
Other Headings, Disclaimer and Notes, see Prologue
Act III: Out of the Frying Pan
Spock had little time to recalibrate the sensors, so after a discussion with Sulu about the approach and orbit, he concentrated on only the sensor bank that would be trained on New Grove while Jiilau was there. He and Scott worked on it while the president and his secretary and intern went through correspondence - and, somehow, got Boridi's permission for those highly compromised security arrangements - and Jim attempted to contact Rachandra Estellare. For more information about the specific biochemistry of the new goldenwood strain, of course.While his hands worked, while his voice spoke to his fellow crewmembers, Spock again thought through his recent reactions to events. He was dissatisfied with them, and had been since the previous night, when he had gotten the Transporter Chief's message that the captain and his guest had beamed aboard. It was only routine that the first officer should be notified when the captain boarded; it was none of Spock's business that Jim had brought a guest with him. But he had not been able to stop himself from paying attention to the ambient sounds of the ship, from noticing the low voices in the corridor and the sound of Jim's door . . . and then the other sounds.
It was not the first time he had overheard Jim having sex in his quarters, but now that he knew the touch of Jim's skin, the way his head fell back when he was deeply aroused and the sound of his voice vibrating through both their skins and echoing in Spock's own chest cavity - now to hear him so far away and with someone else was not tolerable. It was not logical to stay and try to ignore what he knew could not be ignored. So he had gone to Rec Room 1. Even there, Spock could not meditate, and had never managed to solve the chess problem he had called up from the computer library before Jim had found him there.
Jim had smelled freshly washed. Why must Spock notice such things? Why must he know where Jim was in the room, overhear everything he said?
Why must he feel for Jim what apparently Jim did not return? It was not logical to do so.
He could not stop.
Meanwhile, however, the recalibration proceeded unevenly. Test-runs for the sensors revealed that the new settings created an erratic malfunction. Scott muttered under his breath and left the bridge to physically check the relays where the malfunction seemed to be focussed; Spock continued to run programming checks and rechecks. Jim had recorded a message for Ambassador Estellare and had left the bridge, taking Uhura with him, to devise some sort of entertainment for the Jiilaus.
Spock took his usual satisfaction from working with the computer. When it ran well, it was like an enormous extension of his mind: a touch here and there on the controls, a word or two, and from the earplug interface or viewer came a flood of information which sometimes amazed him with its beauty. Even working with a malfunction or an incomplete program had its pleasure, however, as he made each slight change and saw the predicted or unpredicted result. * I think you will do this,* he said silently to the computer, and it did - something else, now, and where had that error crept in? Another overtaxed relay, he suspected, but where was the programming glitch that had overtaxed it?
The ship's phasers had been set on stun and blanketed the area in which President Jiilau's meeting was to take place. The rest of ship's sensors could not find life readings, aside from what appeared to be animals of various kinds. Spock felt, however, that one or two humanoids might be there, especially if they had devised some technological means of taking special advantage of the goldenwood's sensor distortion . . . Spock pulled his mind away from that topic of speculation with some effort, and ordered security teams to the areas where sensor readings were uncertain. The first two teams found a local form of deer, and the tricorder readings they took were helpful in eliminating some of the other anomalous life signs. Others found nothing, and also took readings for further recalibration.
He tried his recalibrated sensors, while Doctor McCoy looked on. His presence on the bridge, while unusual in Jim's absence, was explained at some length as a retreat from the needs of diplomatic hospitality, and Spock had agreed that McCoy's tact had better not be put to any further strain. Now, McCoy looked over his shoulder at the readings and said, "Is that the best you can do after a couple hours' work? Here I thought you could make the computers do anything, Spock. You're disappointing me."
"Forests," said Spock, "are hardly chemically homogenous at the best of times, Doctor, and this is a highly unusual forest."
"What's that?" McCoy pointed.
Spock took an even breath, not quite a sigh, willing to seem irritated with McCoy although his real reaction was to the recalcitrant sensors. "It may be a foreign substance, or it may be a variation in the trees' normal growth, or it may be some mutation of the experimental strain. You do realize, Doctor, that we seldom need to use the sensors to do more than identify trees as trees; rarely is this kind of painstaking analysis necessary."
"You're saying it might be . . . something dangerous?"
"There is a 34.57% chance that it is some sort of toxin or chemical weapon."
"That's too high, Spock."
"I agree. But I suspect President Jiilau will not."
"Yes. Or Jim."
"Perhaps not."
"Well. What's the next step?"
"I will report the sensor findings, such as they are. We will keep watch on these particular areas, and the maps in the shuttlecraft computers will be marked accordingly."
"You got the OK for the shuttlecraft?"
"The flyovers may only start after Boridi has arrived, when we set up the perimeter guard."
McCoy looked to the side, with that aimless movement by which he expressed frustration with an absent person, and then looked back. "Even I can tell this 'security' is pretty much makework, with the holes we've had to leave in it. You know Jim might be held responsible. That court-martial business might not be just a joke. If something goes wrong."
Spock wanted to deny it but could not. He could only say, "We have logged everything. There is ample evidence of the captain's efforts to make this as safe a mission as possible."
"As safe as possible is pretty damn dangerous in this case."
Spock went on trying to make it less so, with little result and no further information from Ambassador Estellare, who had not yet returned Jim's call. The time of the meeting arrived; President Jiilau beamed down, closely followed by the bulk of the ship's Security force; Jim came up to the bridge to watch and wait, and occasionally to look over Spock's shoulder much as McCoy had done. He was sitting on the railing behind the science station when Uhura said, "Captain, receiving transmission from Altair 6, from Ambassador Estellare."
"Put it on audio," said Jim.
But Uhura said, almost apologetically, "It's . . . text, Captain."
Jim looked surprised. "Well, then upload it and put it on screen here," gesturing to the central Science screen above Spock's viewer.
The screen blinked on and filled with a font too small to read from Jim's position; Spock touched a few buttons and adjusted it. Spock began to read but very soon realized that this was not information about the biochemistry of goldenwood. It was an anonymous letter, addressed to the ambassador, describing in some detail the location of President Jiilau's meeting with Boridi - in fact, the location was described in greater detail than Jiilau had told Jim when they were setting the security perimeter. The letter spoke of an assassination attempt, though vaguely.
"We've got to get to Jiilau," said Jim. "Can you pinpoint the coordinates from this?"
"Not precisely. But I can use the descriptions and the communicator trace to track him."
"Good. Let's go. Sulu, you have the conn."
Jim was passing the Communications station already. Spock followed, after pressing a few buttons to send the information where he could download it into a tricorder when they reached the transporter room. Jim was waiting impatiently in the lift; Spock could feel the energy roll off him like scent as the door closed and the lift dropped.
~~~~~
Jim and Spock walked among the goldenwood trees, up a logging road, which Jim was a little surprised to find unpaved. Wheel ruts told of groundcars that had been here; undergrowth broken and bent at an even calf-height on either side showed where the wider beds of the hovertrucks had passed. Leaves had fallen into the road almost as thickly as beneath the trees; their boots scuffed through layers of dead foliage, and the fermented smell of the leaves was in each breath. The air seemed very dry for all the pungent, bitter-edged scent; there was little undergrowth. The trunks around them were dark and seamed, the leaves above and below all yellow and brown, glossy and fragrant and whispering. Occasionally Spock or Jim would tread on a fallen branch, which cracked or turned under foot, sometimes raising a surprising length and stirring up the leaf-fall with a rustle like a digging animal. These things spoke; both men were silent.Spock was a little ahead, glancing down at his tricorder and up at the road, back and forth. Suddenly he stopped, in a shaft of yellow light, his head tipped a little back, very still. The light fell along the curve of his ear and Jim began to smile in spite of himself, opened his mouth to speak though he hardly knew what he meant to say -
But Spock, dropping the tricorder to his side, suddenly swerved off the road altogether and strode away, more and more swiftly through the unmarked woods. Jim went after him, calling "Spock?" and then smelled the change in the air. Muskier. Sharper.
Smoke.
In Jiilau's direction? Jim was willing to bet it was, from Spock's behavior. Pulling his communicator out as he began to run, keeping Spock in sight but not trying to catch up, Jim called into it, "Enterprise, Kirk here, come in," and heard Uhura's cool voice in answer.
"Enterprise here, Captain."
"Advise perimeter guards and shuttlecraft crews that there may be a fire here. What do sensors say?"
"Checking, sir." A brief pause; Jim ran on without much sense of progress. The trees all looked alike as they passed, and the smell - but it *was* getting stronger. Oh, yes, that was a puff of real smoke. Jim shook his head and wiped his eyes with his free hand, the other still holding the open communicator. "Enterprise -" he gasped.
"Yes, sir, we have a forest fire on sensors. Not yet a large one, but you're headed right into it. I'm signaling all security teams to move toward it - toward you - "
Spock ran up a ridge and stopped; Jim stopped beside him, and for a long, appalled moment, they both stood looking down a slope and across a field cleared to stumps and grass. They had found the fire.
It ran crazily along the tops of the trees, leaping from one tree to another, running down the trunks or dropping in bright falling stars to the ground. Smoke puffed upward in large, ballooning clouds, white and gray and black. Strangely, the fire burned not only in the yellows and reds Jim would have expected but in a wild fireworks' rainbow, and the flames' growing roar was constantly interrupted with pops and whistles and sparks, and occasionally with real explosions. While hardly an experienced firefighter, Jim had seen tapes from time to time, and did not remember anything exactly like this.
His communicator chirped, and he opened it. "Captain, all security forces checked in and updated. Will you rendezvous with them? Or beam up?"
"Neither until we know where the president and Boridi are. How did the fire start? Where? When?"
"Uncertain, sir," said Uhura; "we just registered it," but Jim knew that was no comfort. A fire could get well established in a very short time, and Jiilau could easily have been caught in it. If he and Boridi had not been on the spot where it started.
"You've notified the planetary fire control authorities too?"
"Yes, sir. They'll probably beam in right about where you are now."
Jim could already see the shuttles closing in, beginning to spray the flames from above.
"This is the spot to rendezvous. Tell the security teams."
"Yes, Captain."
"Captain," said Spock, echoing Uhura so closely that by the time Jim had registered the word, Spock was already moving. "I see him!"
Was there a dark figure moving in the smoke? Could Spock tell from this distance who it was? Jim ran as hard as he could, but Spock's legs were longer and he maintained his lead. This, Jim reflected in one of those moments of lucid thought that were merely distracting in a crisis, was a crazy thing to do. Yet it never occurred to him to order Spock back. Neither of them had protective clothing or firefighting equipment, but neither could stand still and watch Jiilau burn.
Now they were running through spots of fire, jumping from side to side to avoid flames, trying to pull the overheated air into their lungs and keep their eyes clear enough to see where they were going. Now Jim too could see the humanoid shape ahead, stumbling, arms over its face. Jim looked around through heat haze and smoke and falling water from the shuttles. His eyes were streaming and his face kept being spattered with hot water, but even when he pulled his sleeve across his eyes and blinked hard, he could not see anything helpful, not so much as a large enough patch of clear ground for the man to roll on to put out the fires in his hair and clothes. Spock reached the figure, grabbed it around the waist and began to turn; everything had slipped into slow motion, and the change in momentum seemed to take seconds. Jim leaned back, slowing to turn himself, and felt for his communicator but did not pull it from its fastening, realizing he would not hear the chirp over the noise of the fire.
Something dropped from Jiilau's hands to the ground, and he began to struggle in Spock's arms, reaching after it. Jim lunged forward again to get it. Spock passed him and his mouth opened over Jiilau's shoulder. Jim had the illusion that he was outrunning the sound of Spock's voice. He bent down and grabbed blindly, scrabbled between hot wet leaves and found smooth edges whose hard shape he did not take time to identify, ran back while he was still pulling his torso upright. And there was Spock, in front of him, tall as another tree, flickering red and orange, stretching his arms upward, and now the shout was audible: "Jim!"
Out of the air, Spock caught a burning tree-limb in his bare hands. Caught, held, his arms bending, taking the weight and pushing it back up, away - throwing it to the side with all the strength of those Vulcan arms and a horrible grimace on his face. Jim, his feet still moving, felt the vibration and burning in his own throat as he shouted "No!" and then without pause they were both running again, back into the field, out of the fire, diving and rolling as soon as they saw unburned grass.
Everything hurt: the air in his nose and throat, the impact of the ground under his shoulder, head, hip, legs - he rolled over twice and stopped, the hard edge of the object he had picked up underneath him. More noise above him - shuttlecraft? How badly Jim wanted to lie there, for McCoy to be bending over him with a med sensor and for it all to be over. But the roar of the fire was still in his ears, and what had Spock done with Jiilau, anyway? And the fire would find them, perhaps before the security teams did. And Spock - Jim tried to sit up and got about halfway, pulled the communicator from his belt, flicked it open and could only groan into it.
*Thank god,* Jim thought as the world around him began to sparkle, so a groan appeared to be good enough.
He found himself lying down on the transporter pad, and turned his head to see Spock's hunched shoulder - *oh, my god, *black* - t-shirt?* - and Jiilau's still form beyond that. There was a thin whine, a kind of low scream, in the room, or was it more than one? Everything was pain: he felt the flames around him though his eyes said they were safe. The scream might have been his own. He couldn't seem to tell. He turned his head again and saw a shape loom over him, heard a hiss and went gratefully down into unconsciousness.
~~~~~
Things made a bit more sense when Jim woke up in Sickbay. He was full of painkiller, and McCoy was grumbling. Business as usual."...half the security guards in the *quadrant* down there *with* you and another of the craziest damn bungee-jumping glory hounds I have *ever* seen, and you still manage to get away long enough to..."
"Good to see you, Bones," he said in a raspy voice he almost couldn't recognize and that hurt him amazingly.
"Oh, so you're back among the living?" The gentleness of McCoy's hand on his shoulder belied, as always, the rough voice and the angry frown. "No, try not to talk. Let me just run this dermal restoration and tell you what happened, since I'm sure that's what you're gonna want to ask about." The hum of the device was in the air, Jim belatedly noticed, and strange sensations were travelling across his chest and up his neck.
"The fire's under control. The shuttles and the Altair 5 natives are managing it as well as can be expected. There'll be reports from both. Ask Uhura for them later. Far as they can tell, may have been this Boridi fellow Jiilau was meeting who started the fire. That's not real clear yet - kind of a puzzle given the type of fire it was, the firefighters say - and Boridi's still missing. We'll have to see if Jiilau can tell us anything when he wakes up. If he does. He's the worst off of the three of you, naturally. Anyway, the things you had in your hands were data disks, boxed, and we've kept 'em . . . they belong to Jiilau? *No,* Jim, just nod."
He nodded. McCoy turned his attention to Jim's right hand, where the tingle of the restoration began at the very tips of his fingers and moved slowly up toward his wrist.
"OK, the disks seem to be functional, but they can wait. You know they can," this with a particularly evil glare, "so just *get used* to it. If you're not good, I'll beam 'em over to Constellation the way Decker wants."
Jim was surprised into laughter, another bad idea. He wheezed, and McCoy held him down and cursed him out until he stopped.
". . . made me drop it! All right now, just *lie still,* dammit! You do want to be able to *use* this new skin for something?" Jim nodded meekly. "Yes, you can imagine how Decker is carrying on. Fortunately, he's blowing off to Scotty, who is just doing that Edinburgh granite act. No, sir, yes, sir, I'll pass your concerns on to Captain Kirk, sir. Now. When you went back for the data, Spock apparently threw Jiilau clear of the fire - "
"Threw - ?"
"Shut *up,* Captain! And then came back for you. It wasn't a *good* idea, but then there weren't many options. Jiilau had a few broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder. We fixed them. It's the burns that are the real problem, and he had them when you found him. We've got him in one of the ICU rooms . . . it's too early to tell. We've been talking to doctors on Altair 6. They'll be as ready as they can be when we get there. Anyway, how do you think you would have dodged that branch if Spock hadn't been there?"
"- hands -"
"*Will* you shut your mouth! Yes, he hurt his hands pretty badly, and his forearms. And his uniform tunic was burned through in places." McCoy worked in silence for a few seconds, but just as Jim started to brace himself to speak, McCoy began again. "Third degree burns, Jim. We've put temporary dressings on the arms, but he's still unconscious. We'll have to see." McCoy paused again, and the expression on his face sent a chill down Jim's spine because it was so full of compassion and anxiety. "He'll survive. I'm sure of it. And use the hands. I think."
Jim's chest cavity seemed suddenly empty, and very cold. He swallowed, breathed deeply, but it was not much help.
"And *you* came through with your usual luck. Superficial burns, first and a couple second degree. A few treatments with this thing, and you'll be good as new. I'll just do your other arm," he moved around the end of the biobed, checking the control panel of the machine as he passed it, and began again on Jim's left hand, "and then your throat and you'll be free for bed rest. And that is *exactly* what you will take, if I have to confine you to quarters or restrain you to this bed."
Jim nodded, and then closed his eyes. McCoy took the hint and finished the skin restoration in silence, then sprayed him with the antiseptic and rubbed it into the new skin with a sterile cloth. The touch was soothing but Jim was not comforted. He lay in the dark behind his eyelids and could not get away from the images he saw there.
Spock's hands. Thousands of times he had seen them, the long, elegant fingers, so flexible and so strong; on computer terminals, on the consoles of the Bridge; handling tools with such precision, his lyre with such sensitivity, living creatures - even experimental animals - with such gentleness. His hands steepled in front of his face as he thought. His hands moving over the chessboard, hovering above the pieces, settling on one.
The touch of those hands.
McCoy finished rubbing down the new skin, and Jim didn't notice; it took a long time for him to realize that he was alone. He lifted his arm and rested his wrist on his forehead, then lifted it again, opened his eyes, and looked at the blotchy new skin. When he put his wrist down, McCoy was standing beside the biobed with a different medical instrument and a tongue depressor.
"Open wide," he said, and put the instrument slowly down Jim's throat while Jim controlled his gag reflex as best he could. This kept him busy for a minute or so, and when McCoy took the thing back out, his throat felt peculiar, hollowed out, but better.
McCoy touched his neck lightly. "Don't talk any time you don't have to. Rest your throat for a while," he said. "I have an inhalant for you, too, and a cream to put on later." He handed Jim a standard black t-shirt. "Why don't you go take a look at Spock while I get it? He's in the nearest private ICU." And he turned away before Jim could try to speak.
So Jim sat up carefully and pulled the shirt on, feeling the painkillers in his head but needing the real sight of Spock after all those guilt-ridden mental images. He slid down from the bed, braced himself, and walked into the corridor, and then into Spock's ICU.
Immediately a wall of heat almost overpowered him, and all his new skin throbbed. The air here still smelled remotely smoky, scorched; the lights were even lower than in Sickbay in general, so the only real light was coming from the readout panel. Even that was dim, and Jim tried not to look, knowing that the readouts would not mean what they seemed to. Nurse Chapel, seated next to the biobed, rose as he came in. "Captain," she said, half a question. Her blond hair and sweat-beaded skin glimmered.
"Just - a short visit," said Jim, and discovered how weak and hoarse his voice still was.
"Yes, of course."
They both looked down at Spock.
Jim knew that the position he lay in meant nothing: the biobeds were even narrower than the regulation-size bunks, and there was no room for sprawling even if Spock normally slept that way, which Jim doubted. But he seemed so lifeless, so swollen and dark, like a corpse, laid out with his forearms across his body, and those forearms were so heavily wrapped in medical dressings that the shapes of his hands could not be seen. *...use the hands. I think.* McCoy's voice echoed in Jim's head.
"Nurse," he said slowly, "did you . . . see his hands?"
"Yes," she answered, and the expression on her face said that she thought her captain did not want to know the details. But, damn it, he *needed* to know. He stared until she went on.
"Everything was," and she paused slightly, "intact. But the skin was badly scorched. Two of the fingers on one hand and three on the other were fused together. One of his arms . . . stuck to the transporter platform."
Jim closed his eyes, then forced them open again. The bright green, burned Spock was still there.
"He made this . . . sound," said Chapel, now clearly reliving it, "just a small sound, I wouldn't have heard it over the one President Jiilau was making, but I was helping to lift him." She paused. "He stuck to my hand, too." She shook her head, shuddered slightly, pulled herself together. "Captain, I think we'll have to do a debridement, that's a surgery to take off the dead tissue. Sometimes it involves . . . if the dead areas . . . we might lose some fingers."
Jim said nothing for a while, and she let him just stand there.
"And the good news?" he asked at last, his throat hurting, hearing that there was none of the captainly detachment in his voice that he had been trying for.
She put a damp hand on his arm, and he almost could not bear the sight of it, whole and pale. "I couldn't see any bone," she said starkly, and those were the words that stuck in his head.
Jim stood outside the ICU, shoulders against the wall, looking at the floor, his mind in the hot, dark room he had left. Then he heard noise from the direction of the next ICU room. Muffled voices - then the door opened with another rush of heated air past Jim's head, and the voices were no longer muffled.
"I never - I only - " Akino was backing out, stammering, looking as terrified as if a wild animal was stalking him.
"Out," said a voice like lava, so enraged the sound was almost not a word, and Jim could not think who was speaking.
" - I thought it would help - " Akino was beyond the doorway now, not six feet from Jim, still too terrified to take his eyes from whoever was just inside keeping the door open.
"*You*! *Thought*!" And now Strephon was standing in the doorway, hanging on to both sides, his face far more like Spock's in plak tow than Jim cared to remember.
"I shall kill him," said another voice, dull and cold as wind-chimes, higher than Niu usually spoke, but it was she who was twisting around Strephon, ducking under his arm, and holding - Jim belatedly lunged toward them - a knife.
He caught her halfway to Akino, who seemed to be mesmerized by the couple's rage. If she had been taller, with longer arms, Jim would not have been quick enough to save the young man, at least from injury. Her knife was only a few inches from Akino's eyes, and she stretched and writhed in Jim's grasp, still reaching, as the heat from Jiilau's room flowed past them. "Let me go!" she said, still in that mad voice.
"*What's going on*?" Jim tried to shout, gripping with all his might. His hands and throat burned.
No one answered for several seconds. Then Lieutenants Jansen and Raschid from Security ran down the corridor toward them, and Niu slumped in Jim's grasp.
"Take him," she said, "take him, or I will kill him. He has murdered Aulua."
"No!" Akino protested. "I'd never hurt him! I wanted to help, is all, and I can't help it if it all went wrong! Nobody trusted Boridi - *he* didn't - " pointing to the door of Spock's ICU room " - so I sent a message, that's all, to someone I . . . know . . . just to protect him!"
"He is the information leak," said Strephon. "Aulua should have known. I suspected." He raised his chin as if he were going to howl like a wolf. "Aulua! That Aulua should suffer for your - your self-importance - your anonymouss tips and letters!"
Niu cried out unintelligibly and lunged for Akino again. Jansen threw herself at the woman and Raschid pulled the young man away. Jim said, "Put all three of them in the brig. Separate Akino and the others."
"Stop, Captain," said Strephon, suddenly calmer. He let go of the door and stepped out of it, and it closed. "Think again. Niu and I are not just anyone."
"No," said Jim, discovering he could express quite a bit of anger himself, even with his damaged voice, and feeling a rush of satisfaction at doing so, "you're not just anyone. You are two people who threatened a third with violence *on my ship*!" He disengaged from Niu, leaving her in Jansen's competent grip, and stepped forward, so close to Strephon that he could hear him swallow. "All right," he went on softly, "I will think again. I'll confine you and Niu to the guest quarters you were assigned, and the Security locks will be engaged until we return to Altair 6. There will be guards in the corridor outside, and the ship's computer system will monitor your actions inside. In fact, it will be just like the brig, but a little more private." His voice had thinned to a whisper against his will, but the space around them had gone so quiet that Jim thought everyone could hear him. When he looked around, Jansen and Raschid both said "Yes, sir," before he could repeat the order.
He turned back in the direction of Spock's ICU, and saw McCoy there. Jim didn't know how he expected Bones to react in these circumstances, but he was surprised when McCoy just stood, without much expression on his face. When the others had gone, Bones put one hand on Jim's shoulder and said quietly, "Come to my office. I'll take another look at your throat and give you those medicines."
By the time they were in the office, the adrenaline had worn off and Jim felt shaky. McCoy looked down his throat and added a gargle to the little heap of stuff he put into Jim's hands. Jim stared down at the medicines, thinking of Spock and Aulua Jiilau, of Strephon who already thought the starship rooms were like prison cells.
"Come on, Jim," said McCoy, and took him, practically by the hand, back to captain's quarters. About halfway there, Jim shook himself mentally and tried to protest, but McCoy cut him off. "Don't talk," he said with a little edge to his voice, "listen. This is my chance to make my report, *Captain,*" and Jim was too tired to make a fuss. As they walked on, McCoy started with general Sickbay stats, talking a little quickly, in the tone Jim associated with a stiff drink at the end of the day - oh, yes, that would be when Bones really needed to talk something out but couldn't just say it. Jim began to pay attention. And then he was sorry, because Bones was talking about Spock's and Jiilau's burns, and any detail was horrifying. Jim wanted to know and yet had to force himself to listen, reminding himself that he was the captain, and he needed to hear whatever McCoy needed to say. The worst part was as they rounded the last curve of the corridor, when McCoy said slowly, "You know, Jim, if it comes to that, there are some fine prosthetics on the market. Spock could take a medical leave, get the physical therapy he'd need and come back."
It was all too much. Jim said something to McCoy, but couldn't remember what afterwards, and stepped blindly into his quarters. "Lights down," he gasped out, so the overhead ones just flickered. He shoved his handful of medications onto the ledge below the dividing grille, and then just stood in the near-dark of the emergency lights and the faint line at the edge of the door. If he hadn't been so bone-deep tired, he would have wanted to kick through the wall. His hands were clenched so tightly that his knuckles ached and the skin pulled painfully. *Fuck* McCoy. Why couldn't he say, 'Jim, he'll be fine'? or 'Come back tomorrow and he'll be ready to go back to work'?
Or maybe, 'It's all a bad dream; it never really happened.'
No. So actually the first medication he was going to take was a non-REM-sleeping pill that McCoy had given him, a while back, after some other near escape when he couldn't sleep and needed to. Because this wasn't a bad dream, and he didn't want to know what kind of nightmare his subconscious *could* come up with, given today's material.
The pill worked, or maybe it was just fatigue, but the next morning, he didn't remember dreaming at all. He got up and put a uniform on over his sunburn-tender skin, and then went to Sickbay, and then to get some information out of Akino.
It was like interrogating cooked spaghetti. It was easy enough to get the young man to confess that he had been the information leak, but he didn't even really seem to know who his own contacts were. He said he had sent the location of the meeting in the forest to someone in the Army High Command, and he thought his press contact was a particular vid journalist, and he did seem to know where his letters to Rachandra Estellare went. But later, when Jim was having Uhura search for the "code names" Akino had given them, she didn't have much luck. Jim couldn't tell what that meant. He wondered again and again if Spock could have coaxed more from the Altairian computers - or from Jiilau's data disks, though the computer scientists in Spock's department were getting a lot out of them: the real names of conspirators and, even more interestingly, records of the pork barrels, outright gifts, and concessions that were being used to sway the Altair 6 legislature. All the money trails seemed to be there, and Jim could see that getting that proof had been worth the risk to Jiilau - or worth it in that abstract, before-the-action way. He doubted any of it would seem enough if Jiilau lived to consider the question.
Certainly, neither Strephon nor Niu would be comforted by the data. He had seen them just after his interview with Akino, heard their apologies and apologized to them, everyone very diplomatic and cold as ice. Then he escorted them back to Sickbay, where they settled in to their vigil over their husband. Jim felt a bizarre envy as he left them in the ICU and went to the bridge, where the Science station seemed intolerably empty.
They went back to Altair 6. Jim stood in the transporter room to see off the sad group around Aulua Jiilau's life-support tank - and then oversaw Akino's beamdown into the waiting arms of the Altair Intelligence Agency.
Over the course of that alpha shift, Jim talked to Decker several times, apparently making a terrific impression of proper respect for rank because he could hardly keep his mind on what he was saying. He apologized for having the audacity to accede to Jiilau's request for transport and the unmitigated gall to save his life. All without Decker's supervision; he apologized for that, too. The only time he nearly lost his temper was during the last call, after alpha shift was over and he had been back to Sickbay again, when Decker was trying to be friendly.
"Heard one of your people got injured. Your first officer, I think? Too bad, Kirk. Too bad."
Rage boiled up in him until he actually had to look away from the screen, and both his hands - now, after two more treatments, unmarked as the day he was born - clenched again into helpless fists. "Yes, Matt, too bad," was all he could trust himself to say.
Of course, it was himself he was really angry at. And Matt shamed him by ignoring that anger and saying, "I've finally talked to Komack, too, after calling and leaving messages all day. I went to bat for us, Kirk. We did the right thing, trying to help - what else are we for? You took a cartload of precautions, from your logs, though I still think . . . well, never mind that now. And we *can't* leave here while everything's in flux. Damn bureaucrats, why do they think we were here to begin with? To keep the peace, and what's at stake here right now? The same peace. Anyway, Komack finally agreed. We're staying until the acting head of government says go."
*We did the right thing* - an amazing concession, from Matt. Jim tried to believe it.
~~~~~