Strangers From the Sky (16 page)

“So noted,” Spock said, giving her no indication as to whether or not he found that answer satisfactory. “You will inform me immediately, on the odd chance that there is any response.”

“Aye, sir,” Tran said, relaxing at last.

How simple their lives are at this age, Spock mused, watching her, knowing her to be preoccupied with nothing more serious than the approval of her commanding officer. Some of us have never found life so simple, though perhaps we are the stronger for it. His thoughts returned to his most immediate concern.

Ensign Ky’s evidence indicated that Jim Kirk’s private transceiver was presently inoperative. Only Star-fleet Command or the officer himself could deactivate a flag officer’s transceiver. In view of what Spock knew, there were several reasons why either might have done so.

His logic had yielded this much: he and Jim Kirk were being subjected to a series of subconscious impressions, masquerading as dream, threatening insanity unless some action were taken. Had Kirk, compelled by his very nature, already acted, and what had been the outcome?

Enterprise
was less than six days from Earth. Would it arrive too late to help?

When he returned to the realm of light, Kirk found himself sitting upright on a narrow ledge against a cliff face, squinting into an early morning sun. His hands rested loosely on his knees, which were drawn up almost to his chest, and his head was tilted back against the cliff. He blinked against the light, felt a dryness in his throat, wondered where he was. And where was Galarrwuy?

His host sat cross-legged beside him, leaning against the same harsh red rock, smiling pleasantly, fresh as a daisy with the morning and, after the night’s Singing, extremely familiar. But when had he exchanged his crisp tailored khakis—the Down Under business suit for generations—for the ceremonial garb and body paint of the Dreaming?

Kirk sprang to his feet, grazing his head on the overhang. Where were they? There were formations of the same red rock on Easter, the statues of the Long Ears were hewn from them, but these paintings were other.

He touched them reverently, recognizing them now: Thunder-man and the Turtle, the Snake-goddess and the Mimi. Had he been so lost in the Singing that Galarrwuy had somehow transported him to his homeland? What was this place?

“Nourlangie Rock,” Galarrwuy answered him. “From the north near Woolwonga. Not my birthplace, but one I managed to salvage from the rains and the buffalo. I have, so to speak, brought the mountain to Muhammad.”

Kirk leaned against the rock and laughed. The rest of the room came into focus. They were in a part of the museum he had not seen last night; it contained an entire rock wall from Australia preserved in a controlled environment. He stepped down off the ledge onto a man-made floor and Galarrwuy followed.

“Are you well?” the Australian inquired.

“Yes. I think so.” Kirk touched his own face, as if to convince himself that he was really here. He was no closer to an answer, but he felt refreshed, better than he had in weeks, and, somehow, hopeful.

“That is good.” Galarrwuy nodded, contemplating his own person in its other worldly garments. “Permit me to return to our century. Then we will talk about yours.”

He went off to change. Kirk wandered outside, roamed the grounds of the museum, stood on the lip of the crater lake listening to the gulls and the silence.

But the silence did not last. The sound of an oversea craft of considerable size approaching the harbor filled Jim Kirk with dread long before it hove into view, its Starfleet insignia giving it the right of way past the small craft plying these waters. They had found him. And pulling a scene in public would only make it worse.

McCoy was the first to hit the beach, flanked by a couple of security guards and followed by a tall, leggy blonde. It seemed not only Kirk’s dreams were populated by blondes, and for a wild moment he thought she might be the “someone” Bones had in mind to take his mind off his troubles. His hopes were dashed when he saw the medical uniform, the traditional caduceus of the Physicians’ Branch replaced by the insignia of Psych.

Uh-oh. He’d really blown it this time. Nearly twelve hours AWOL and unaccounted for, after who knew what had turned up on his psychoscan. They were going to throw the net over him for sure.

McCoy was breathless and steaming by the time he’d made it up the beach to the crater lake.

“Don’t give me a hard time!” he began without preamble. “It was all I could do to keep them from sending an armed escort and an elephant gun. Now you come peaceably or I’ve got a right cross will see that you do. Oh, by the way: Krista Sivertsen, Jim Kirk. Last time you two were together there was a one-way mirror between you.”

His eyes met hers briefly and at least he had a face to attach to the voice that had led him through the scan less than twenty-four hours before. He wished he could show more enthusiasm, but he had a hunch they’d be seeing a lot of each other from here on. The medikit clipped to her belt no doubt held the elephant gun, just in case.

“How much trouble am I in, Bones?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. Let’s go.”

“May I at least say good-bye to Dr. Nayingul?”

“You may not,” McCoy stated, taking his arm and leading him as if he expected he might break and try to run for it.

The last person he’d wanted to see him this way stood watching from the pier. Koro Quintal had come back with the morning, to return Galarrwuy’s boat and, he’d hoped, hitch a ride with Jim Kirk and get him to talk about the Dreaming. Now he only stood in the small crowd of arriving tourists ogling the Starfleet craft, and watched.

“I have to go,” Jim Kirk said simply, his hand on Koro’s shoulder. “Give Dr. Nayingul my regards.”

Koro merely nodded, for once acting the man Galarrwuy insisted he should be.

“Galar will know,” he said. He did not ask if Kirk would return. “
Haare raa
. Go well, Jim Kirk.”

“
E noho raa
,” Kirk replied wistfully, not knowing how he knew the Maori farewell. “Stay well, Koro Quintal.”

The Starfleet craft kicked up a considerable wake as it rose above the surface and headed into the sun.

It was McCoy who met
Enterprise
.

No matter how often she went out or how brief her run, Jim Kirk was always there to see her home. Sometimes he would be waiting in the officers’ lounge at TerraMain, watching her coast into her slip through the big clearsteel window, but more often he rode shotgun on the shuttle traditionally sent to escort the senior officers off. The crew could beam directly down to the Admiralty and home, but Spock and Scotty had to report to branch HQ in the spacedock itself for debriefing, and Kirk was always there to greet them.

That he was not this time only confirmed what Spock already knew. Something was wrong. When he stepped out of the shuttle to find McCoy rocking on his heels in the corridor outside the hangar, he began to surmise how wrong.

“Here now!” Scotty chimed in, lugging a duffel bag of “personals” he didn’t trust to the transporter (or, more accurately, to the transporter crew below on the mainland, who’d get their hands on the bag long before he did; there was a distinct clanking of bottles in the bottom). “Somebody’s missing! And what’re you doing up here, McCoy?”

“That’s a long story,” McCoy replied. He had circles under his circles. “Spock, can I have a word with you? I don’t know why I had to greet you with this kind of news,” he said after Scotty had wisely gone on ahead and Spock had heard him out. “Didn’t want you to get it secondhand, I guess. And I needed to get it off my chest. Not that I expected you could do anything.”

“I appreciate your confiding in me, doctor,” Spock said in a tone McCoy had always taken as ironic, until he’d learned better. “And I may be able to do more than you know. How long has he been in Dr. Sivertsen’s care?”

“You make it sound so pleasant!” McCoy said wryly. “It’ll be a week tomorrow. Spock, I’m worried about him.”

“With good cause, doctor, from what you have told me. Is he permitted visitors?”

“I’ll arrange it,” McCoy promised, struggling with something. “Spock, I—thank you. It’s been a terrible burden, carrying this by myself. I don’t know why, but I feel better about this already.”

A number of possible retorts about the illogic of such a feeling when in fact nothing had yet been done to alter the situation sprang to Spock’s lips, but he made use of none of them.

Let us hope, doctor, he thought as he stood outside the briefing room and watched McCoy amble away, that your feeling is neither premature nor inaccurate. For all our sakes.

“The first phase of the patient’s therapy was initiated by having him read
Strangers from the Sky
in its entirety,” Dr. Sivertsen reported to her colleagues during her department’s weekly consult. “The patient consented to this only after presenting me with a voice tape of his version of events as taken from his recurring nightmares.”

“And how does Admiral Kirk’s version compare with the account in the book?” One of the department heads wanted to know.

Krista Sivertsen fought to keep herself from screaming. The rest of the department knew she was treating a high-ranking official, nothing more. She’d tried to keep Jim Kirk’s identity confined to the fewest number of people. That number had just been increased by everyone in this room.

“Except where the outcomes diverge,” she began, counting to ten before she trusted herself to speak. “Admiral—the patient’s—nightmares coincide with the historical account to an uncanny degree. The patient remains convinced that in some other reality, if you will, he was a participant in events which transpired over two hundred years ago. He speaks of historical personages as if he has known them personally.”

“And he remains fixated on this one period in history?” someone asked.

“His attention is focused on this one event, the Vulcans’ landing on Earth, yes,” Krista corrected the questioner.

“Simple delusion,” the questioner suggested. “Projection. Identification with historical personages as avoidance of his own feelings of inadequacy.”

“The old Napoleon Complex,” someone else added, and a few of the others concurred.

“I don’t think so!” Krista said sharply, willing to risk her peers’ disapprobation in this instance. She had lived with Jim Kirk through three intensive therapy sessions a day for nearly a week. The more she learned about the man the more she found to respect, the more she became convinced of the metaphysical truth of what he was saying, regardless of historical fact. “I’d ask you to consider the kind of man we’re talking about. He’s lived through, acted upon, more history than probably anyone else in this century. He doesn’t need to compensate for feelings of inadequacy.”

“But that was the past,” one of her colleagues reminded her. “He’s a desk jockey now. Perhaps in compensation for the boredom, a sense of failure—”

“Is it possible he’s suffering from delusions?” someone else suggested before Krista could reply. “Maybe he had read the book before, but in a denial phase he—”

“That hardly explains the abnorms on his scan, does it?” Krista demanded, silencing them.

“What was his response after he’d read the book?” the department head wanted to know.

“He acknowledges the undeniable objective truth of events as stated in the book,” Krista said carefully. How could she make them understand? “But he retains a belief in the alternate truth of his nightmares. Those nightmares are also increasing in frequency and intensity, to the extent that I’ve had to abandon dream monitoring and, in some instances, had to sedate him.”

“Sounds like he needs an exorcist!” someone quipped, gallows humor.

“Maybe he does!” Krista snapped; she saw no humor in this situation. “I’ve tried everything else. I don’t know what this is. Schizophrenia? Multiple personalities? Reincarnation? Possession? Ghosties and beasties? As I see it, there’s only one thing left to do.” She took a deep breath, looked at them looking at her around the table. “I’m going to try hypnosis. I intend to regress him past those memories.”

But the hypnotism session was an utter failure. It left both patient and therapist drained, exhausted, and no further along than when they’d started.

“I’ve turned you inside out, Jim Kirk,” Krista said, bringing the lights up. “I know as much about you as you know about the people in your dreams. But something’s blocking this thing and I can’t get through.”

“You should have left me with Galarrwuy,” he said, only half joking, sitting up on the consulting couch and absently plumping the needlepoint pillows. “He and I might have found the answer. If you’d let me out of here, let me go back to the Dreaming…” Something occurred to him. “Has Galarrwuy tried to contact me?” he asked. “I hated to leave him so abruptly. Without explanation.”

“No,” Krista lied. No point in telling him Admiral Nogura had tried to contain the rumor of his sudden disappearance by having his home transceiver deactivated, to make it look as if he were away on some top-secret mission. In his present state of defeat, she wasn’t sure how he’d take that. “There have been no messages for you since you got here.”

“None at all?” Kirk was incredulous, and suddenly wary. “What day is it?”

Despite the timelessness of this place and the fact that he’d smashed his chrono during one particularly violent nightmare, he knew the answer before she told him.
Enterprise
should have gotten in this morning. Would McCoy tell Spock where he was or was he sworn to some kind of secrecy? They were shutting him away, treating him like he had some kind of dangerous disease. He had to get in touch with Spock.

“I have to get out of here!” he said, on his feet, suddenly agitated. “Krista, listen, there are some things I have to take care of. An hour or two—”

“Out of the question!” she said sharply, not about to tell him that the failure of this morning’s session meant he might not be getting out of here for a very long time. “We’re at a critical point right now. You can’t just—”

“You said yourself it was a failure,” Kirk began, but the beep of the intercom interrupted him.