Chapter 3

Dr. McCoy looked up to see Spock entering Sickbay wearing a look McCoy read as trouble, big trouble.

McCoy left Dobius on the diagnostic table with Chapel and gestured Spock into his private office.

“No physiological damage to Dobius that we can pinpoint,” McCoy said.

“And mental damage?” Spock asked.

McCoy shrugged. “I doubt we’ll detect any, but then-how would we know what to look for? There’s not a lot of research on the new collective-consciousness entities. They themselves are not much interested. Or maybe they know in their own way without research. And we ‘singletons’ don’t know where to begin.”

“Doctor,” Spock said, “you had better find out. The Captain has just had mental contact with such a collective-consciousness or multiple-life-form. I suspect now that he may have been under some mental pressure from it even before.”

“What?” McCoy said.

“Doctor, it is pointless to try to keep the Captain’s medical condition from me. He just collapsed in front of me.”

McCoy reached for his med-kit. “In front of you? Then it’s worse than I thought.”

Spock stopped him. “Not yet. What is it?”

McCoy faced him squarely now. “Spock, I don’t know. Stress, of course. You can kill anything by making it get ready to fight or run too often. Even a Starship Captain. But that doesn’t seem to account for it fully. Sure, he was banged up lately on a few missions. God knows he’s taken a terrible beating for years. But he’s always bounced back. Now-” He shook his head.

Spock straightened. “Doctor, you and I have seen him hurt worse and under more stress. We have never seen him stopped. I suggest you consider what I suggested. An alien effect.”

“But damn it, Spock,” McCoy exploded, “to what purpose? And if it were from Gailbraith’s party-what would we do about it?”

“Doctor,” Spock said, “there is no public figure in the galaxy more resistant to the New Humans and other collectives’ philosophies and life-styles than a Starship Captain-especially this Starship Captain, who is now known to the immediate galaxy. What would happen if Captain James T. Kirk became a New Human?”

McCoy looked at him incredulously. “Never happen, Spock. Not him.”

“Leonard,” Spock said gravely, “his own natural mental shielding has been eroded by necessary mental contact with aliens over the years, including me. Once or twice he has reached me spontaneously. Recently something has lowered his shields further. Possibly it is a cumulative effect. And possibly now it is a mental assault from Gailbraith’s party. Unless I shield, I can feel the Captain’s pain now. An immense weariness…a resistance to some pressure he cannot name…a wish for something he cannot have…”

Spock turned away. For a moment he stood with hands locked behind his back. Then he turned back to McCoy. “You cannot know the hunger for unity which can exist in one whose island self has begun to taste it, only to be cut off again.”

McCoy stared at him, but Spock was moving toward the door. “I suggest that you perpetrate one of your famous deceptions, Doctor. ‘Wangle’ yourself an invitation to this landing party.”

McCoy grabbed the med-kit and bolted after Spock. He tried to match the Vulcan’s stride in the hall. “God damn it, Spock. You can’t leave me hanging with that. Are you saying that your contacts with Jim, among other things, may have left him vulnerable to being absorbed by a collective?”

“I believe that is what I said.”

“I don’t buy it, Spock. He’s the last man in the galaxy-“

“Doctor, he is the first. He always has been. If he has not so much explored inner space, it is because stars were at his feet. Now he has seen the strange new worlds. He has lost more than most men ever attempt-lost loves, lost friends, lost enemies. He has tasted forbidden fruit. And he has walked out on Eden, more than once. What if, once, he did not?”

Spock turned then, without a further word, into the Transporter Room.