And perhaps Merata as well, Number One wondered, or am I being too generous there?
“May the Seasons bless Cypria,” Rosha concluded, “and all our families.”
Number One shut off the transmission, surrendering the screen to the broadcasters on the planet. No longer before the eyes of her world, Rosha allowed herself to weep quietly in her seat. Number One looked away, granting the other woman privacy and time to compose herself. Rosha had done an admirable job as far as Number One was concerned. All that remained was to see if a mother’s heartfelt words were enough to sway public opinion on Cypria III, and if there was still time enough to stop the fever from taking a deadly toll upon the crew—and the captain.
“Cypria to Enterprise.” A chime heralded the return of Flescu to the screen. He looked perhaps a tad more optimistic than he had before. A pearly white smile tempted Number One to dial down the brightness on the screen. “Well, that went better than I expected. It’s too soon to tell, of course, but I can’t imagine anyone really wants that vicious Klingon hellion coming home anymore.”
“Let us hope that is the case,” Number One said, “so we can resume discussion of the ryetalyn without further delay.”
Flescu turned his attention to Rosha, who wiped her eyes as she looked up at the viewer. She appeared calm and controlled.
“An excellent oration, Madam Mursh,” the prime minster said. “You missed your calling. You would make a fine politician.”
Rosha frowned. “There is no need to be insulting, sir.”
Number One repressed a smirk.
Twenty-seven
“So,” Pike said weakly, “about that business with Merata . . .”
Doctor Boyce’s best efforts had done little to slow the fever’s relentless progress. Confined to a biobed in sickbay, while Number One attended to the bridge, the captain looked worse than Spock had ever seen him. His skin was pale and clammy in appearance, his lips dry and cracked. Discolored veins pulsed across his brow and along his throat. His eyes were sunken and bloodshot, the tiny red streaks testifying to his essential humanity. Pike’s voice, usually so firm and commanding, was little more than a hoarse whisper. He shivered despite the insulated blankets and sucked on a hand respirator as he spoke, pausing between sentences to feed oxygen to his lungs.
“With all due respect, Captain, now is not the time.” Spock stood stiffly at the foot of the bed, while a nurse counted out small purple tablets into a plastic cup. The life-signs monitor above the captain’s head charted a precipitous decline in Pike’s vitals. His blood oxygen levels were sinking, as were his pulse, metabolism, and neural activity. “You need your rest.”
Pike managed to shake his head, to an almost imperceptible degree. “Indulge me.”
“The facts are simple, if somewhat embarrassing.” Spock felt uncomfortable lying to the captain, but, politically, it was better that the official record held that Merata escaped back to the Klingons on her own, without the assistance of any Starfleet personnel. “Following the altercation with her brother, I felt it best to transfer Merata to the brig. Unfortunately, I underestimated her resourcefulness, and she succeeded in turning the tables on me. I apologize sincerely for my carelessness in this instance.”
Pike gazed thoughtfully at Spock. A hint of skepticism showed in his eyes.
“Apology accepted, Mister Spock.” A knowing smile lifted the corners of Pike’s cracked lips. “Everything seems to have worked out for the best. No need to beat yourself up about it. You’re only human.”
Spock wondered how much the captain truly suspected. “I beg to differ, sir.”
A brutal coughing fit cut off whatever retort the captain might have offered. Flecks of blood stained the inner face of the respirator. He gasped into the device until he could manage to speak again.
“What’s keeping the doctor?” Pike muttered. “I don’t have all day.”
Spock feared that might literally be the case, unless the promised cure materialized. The Kepler had returned to the Enterprise three hours ago, bearing a sizable quantity of processed ryetalyn. Spock gathered that they had Rosha Mursh to thank for the Cyprians’ change of heart concerning the precious mineral. Although this was a welcome development for the crew, benefiting the ship, he could not help being taken aback by the fickleness of humanoid emotions; it was as though the Cyprian people had been gripped by a passionate, emotional hurricane that had ultimately blown over almost as fast as it had arisen. The sheer volatility of their reactions was unnerving, to say the least, and served to demonstrate why his own people had wisely chosen the path of logic instead. Emotional responses were too . . . explosive.
“Hold your horses.” Boyce emerged from his lab, gripping a hypospray. “It’s not like this formula was going to mix itself.”
“That my cocktail, Doctor?” Pike asked. “I think you forgot the olive.”
“Very funny.” Boyce sounded less than amused. He glanced up at the diagnostic monitor, and the worry lines on his face deepened. His rumpled blue jumpsuit looked like it hadn’t been changed in days. “Leave the comedy to me. It doesn’t suit you.”
Spock eyed the hypospray in Boyce’s hand. “Is that the cure, Doctor?”
“I sorely hope so,” he replied. “I prepared the formula along the lines suggested by the latest medical literature, tailoring it specifically to humanoids of Terran descent, but we’re in uncharted waters here. It should work, in theory, but I have to stress that this treatment is highly experimental. At the very least, I ought to conduct further tests and run a few more computer simulations.”
“No time for that, Doctor,” Pike said. “Consider me your guinea pig.”
Spock could not keep silent. “Captain, I must protest again. It is folly to volunteer yourself as the first test subject. You are too valuable.”
“As opposed to some poor expendable ensign?” Pike’s resolve showed through the illness sapping his vitality. “No, Spock. I am not about to subject any member of my crew to a risk I’m not willing to face myself.” Running out of breath, he took another hit of oxygen from the respirator. Even his whispers rasped. “Think of it as one of the perks of command.”
“But logically—”
“This isn’t about logic, Spock. It’s about responsibility . . . and trusting you and Number One to carry on if things go south.”
Spock could tell that Pike’s mind was made up. “Are all Starfleet captains so stubbornly illogical?”
Pike chuckled, despite his physical distress. “Stick around long enough, and you may find out.”
“I am no hurry, sir, to serve under another captain.”
“The future will get here regardless, Mister Spock.” Pike turned his gaze toward Boyce. “And speaking of time passing . . .”
Boyce hesitated. “I’m serious, Chris. This is a pretty potent concoction. There’s no telling what effect it could have on your nervous system. In your weakened state, it could kill you . . . or put you in a wheelchair for life.”
“That’s a chance I’m willing to take, Doctor. Get on with it.”
Poisoned veins pulsed like a countdown. Pike grimaced and clutched his stomach. Severe abdominal pains, Spock recalled, were among the penultimate symptoms of the fever, preceding violent seizures and death. That the captain was evidently suffering such pains, despite the various analgesics available to Boyce, indicated a definite need for haste. There was no stage four.
“All right,” Boyce conceded. Spock stepped aside to let the doctor approach his patient. “Heaven help us if this doesn’t work . . .”
He pressed the hypospray against Pike’s jugular. After all the tension and debate, the quiet hiss of the device felt oddly anticlimactic. Boyce stepped back to await the results of the treatment, joining Spock a short distance from the bed. Pike winced and rubbed his neck.
“Is that it?” he asked. “How soon before—”
Convulsions rocked his body as the drug took effect. Pike began to thrash atop the bed, his back arching g
rotesquely. His eyes rolled upward until only the whites could be seen. Swollen veins pulsed like those of a Talosian. Froth bubbled up from between his clenched jaws.
“Spock!” Boyce raced back to his patient. “Help me hold him down!”
Spock hurried to assist the doctor. Pike’s flailing limbs fought him with surprising vitality, but they were no match for his Vulcan strength. Following the doctor’s lead, Spock rolled Pike onto his side to keep him from choking on his own saliva. Up on the monitor, Pike’s life-signs fluctuated wildly.
“Can you give him something, Doctor,” Spock asked, “to halt the seizure?”
“Not without risking a dangerous drug interaction. We’re taking enough chances here already.” Boyce gripped Pike’s jaw and tilted his head back to clear the airway. “The last thing we need is another question mark!”
Spock saw the logic in the doctor’s restraint. It seemed that there was nothing to do but wait to see if Captain Pike survived the serum’s considerable impact on his body. He restrained the captain until the convulsions gradually subsided and Pike’s thrashing limbs quieted. The captain’s eyes closed and he sank limply back against the bed. Spock could not immediately determine if this was a positive sign or not.
Had the cure proved worse than the disease?
Along with the doctor, he gazed up at the monitor. To his slight surprise, Pike’s vital signs, although weak, had stabilized. Spock’s keen ears heard Pike breathing softly.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Boyce said.
He ran a handheld medical scanner up and down the length of Pike’s unconscious body, then examined the readings. “The drug appears to be fighting the infection. The inflammation is going down, and his immune system is responding positively. Respiratory and cardiovascular indicators are looking better too.” He placed his palm across Pike’s forehead; this struck Spock as a distinctly primitive way to measure a patient’s temperature, but Boyce seemed pleased by the results. “His fever is ebbing.”
“Then it’s working, Doctor?” Spock asked. Boyce’s previous statements had definitely indicated as much, but Spock felt a need to hear him say it. It was irrational, but undeniable.
“You bet your pointed ears it is!” Boyce turned exuberantly toward the nurse. “Start producing this serum in mass quantities. We’re going to need all we can get.”
She ran briskly toward the lab. “Yes, Doctor!”
A great deal of tension seemed to evaporate from Boyce’s weary body. He dropped heavily into a nearby chair and sighed in relief. Clearly, his concerns about the serum had run deep. Spock sympathized; he too had experienced an uncomfortable degree of apprehension, which was now abating.
“I don’t know about you, Mister Spock, but I could use a stiff drink.” Boyce slumped against the back of the chair. “Don’t suppose I could interest you in a dry martini?”
“Thank you, Doctor, but I will abstain.”
“Suit yourself.” He smiled wryly at Spock. “Guess you’re not getting bumped up to first officer today.”
Spock realized that he needed to alert Number One of the positive outcome of the test. He began to make his way out of sickbay.
“That is satisfactory to me, Doctor. As I informed the captain earlier, I am in no hurry.”
The bridge awaited him.
* * *
“The captain regrets that he cannot be here in person to bid you farewell,” Spock said. “Along with much of the crew, he is still recovering from his recent illness.”
Rosha and Soleste Mursh were on the hangar deck, waiting for the Kepler to transport them and Junah back to Cypria III. As Climber One had been lost to the Klingons, who were unlikely to return it, the Starfleet shuttlecraft had been drafted for the task. Junah was already aboard the shuttle, under restraint, which was fine with Spock, who did not miss his presence. Although Spock understood, on an intellectual level, that the hostile Cyprian youth had been under extraordinary pressures in his own right, Junah had hardly coped with those stresses well; one could only hope that time and maturity would grant him greater control over his turbulent emotions.
In the meantime, Spock was content to deal with Rosha and Soleste instead.
“Tell the captain we understand,” Rosha said. “I trust that he and the others are doing well?”
“Doctor Boyce assures me that the afflicted crew members are expected to make a full recovery, for which we have you and your fellow Cyprians to thank.” His voice grew more somber as he acknowledged Rosha’s trials and disappointments. “I am sorry that your own visit to the Enterprise did not bring you the outcome you hoped for. My condolences on losing your daughter a second time.”
“Thank you, Mister Spock,” Rosha said, sighing. “At least I know now that she is alive and healthy and has found a new home elsewhere in the galaxy. It’s not the life I would have chosen for her, but I suspect that I’m not the only parent whose child took a different path than the one you planned for them.”
Spock thought of his own father, who had yet to forgive Spock for choosing Starfleet over the Vulcan Science Academy. “In that respect, I believe you are correct.”
Rosha gazed fondly at Soleste, who was letting her mother assist her to the shuttle. Doctor Boyce had wanted Soleste to avail herself of a motorized wheelchair while she was still recovering from her injuries, but Soleste had insisted on leaving sickbay on her own two feet. She leaned against her mother for support.
“At least I have one daughter back,” Rosha said. “For good, I hope.”
“You don’t have to worry about me anymore.” Soleste squeezed her mother’s hand. “My tracking days are over.” A rueful expression came over her face, as though she was contemplating all the years she had wasted searching for her lost little sister. “It’s hard to let go, I can’t deny that, but Elzura—I mean, Merata—is where she wants to be. I guess I’ll just have to learn to live with that.”
“And live for yourself,” her mother counseled. “At last.”
Spock wished them well.
Twenty-eight
“Can I help you, Mister Spock?”
Pike sat at his desk in his private quarters, reviewing a stack of reports and requisitions. Cypria III was now days behind them, and Doctor Boyce had grudgingly cleared the captain to return to work, provided he eased back into his duties gradually and did not overexert himself. Spock suspected that Pike and the doctor had very different definitions of “gradually.”
“I wished to get back to you, sir, regarding that opening on the Intrepid.”
Pike looked up from his paperwork. “And what have you decided, Lieutenant?”
“While the prospect of joining an all-Vulcan crew does indeed offer certain advantages, I believe that the Enterprise is where I can best serve Starfleet as well as further my own career. This ship is, in its diversity, a more intellectually stimulating environment than the Intrepid and, I like to think, in greater need of a qualified Vulcan science officer.”
If he had truly desired to live among Vulcans, Spock reflected, he would have stayed on Vulcan. Like Merata, I too must choose my own destiny—and right now the Enterprise is where I belong.
“All right,” Pike said. “If that’s your decision.” He looked as though he approved. “Even though it means putting up with a shipload of embarrassingly emotional humans?”
“I believe I can manage, sir.”
Acknowledgments
Like many fans, I first encountered Captain Christopher Pike in the two-part Star Trek episode “The Menagerie,” featuring flashback footage of Pike’s grueling visit to Talos IV. I’m not sure when I became aware of the fact that the Pike scenes were lifted from the original Star Trek television pilot, “The Cage,” but it was many years before I finally got to see that original adventure in its entirety.
With the fiftieth anniversary of The Original Series coming around, it seemed high time to revisit Pike and his crew, including the young Lieutenant Spock, although I’m hardly the first Trek writer to do s
o. In preparation for this book, I devoured as many Pike-era novels and comic books as I could get my hands on, including memorable stories by such authors as D. C. Fontana, Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Margaret Wander Bonanno, Jerry Oltion, David Stern, Dan Abnett, Ian Edginton, and others. Needless to say, this wasn’t exactly a hardship, and I borrowed shamelessly from those earlier works as needed. (Thanks in particular to Fontana, for inventing Chief Engineer Caitlin Barry, whom I got a lot of mileage out of.)
Every Star Trek novel is a team mission, so I want to thank my editors, Margaret Clark and Ed Schlesinger, for encouraging me to visit Pike’s Enterprise, and the good folks at CBS for giving me the green light to proceed. Thanks also to my agent, Russ Galen, for closing the deal as he has so many times before.
Finally, as ever, I have to thank my girlfriend, Karen, and our four-footed housemates, Sophie and Lyla, for keeping the house warm even though it’s snowing outside as I type this.
About the Author
Greg Cox is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous Star Trek novels and stories, including Foul Deeds Will Rise, No Time Like the Past, The Weight of Worlds, The Rings of Time, To Reign in Hell, The Eugenics Wars (Volumes One and Two), The Q Continuum, Assignment: Eternity, and The Black Shore. He has also written the official movie novelizations of Godzilla, Man of Steel, The Dark Knight Rises, Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Death Defying Acts, and the first three Underworld movies, as well as books and stories based on such popular series as Alias, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Farscape, The 4400, Leverage, Riese: Kingdom Falling, Roswell, Terminator, Warehouse 13, and Xena: Warrior Princess.
He has received three Scribe Awards from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers and lives in Oxford, Pennsylvania.
Visit him at www.gregcox-author.com.