As Quickfoot began to stir, Catchclaw arrived in a scrabbling skid of claws. "Tail-Kinker? What's so important that it can't wait five minutes?"
"I can't explain, Catchclaw, but I need you here when Quickfoot wakes. You're in charge but make a point of introducing yourself with your full name." She relinquished her place to the Sivaoan and, catching Kirk's arm, drew him along as she stepped out of Quickfoot's line of sight. Asking no further explanation, Catchclaw took Quickfoot's head in gentle hands. The patience of her waiting was so complete that, had it not been for idle movement in her tail tip, Kirk would have thought her a statue. Minutes went by, and only the tenseness in the fingertips on his arm told Kirk of Evan's fears. He laid his hand over hers and the fingers convulsed- Quickfoot's form jerked.
Catchclaw said, "Quickfoot? Gently, Quickfoot, you still have a good deal of healing to do."
Jim Kirk could barely hear Quickfoot's whisper of disbelief: "Healing? The Long Death...it's the Long Death."
Evan Wilson clenched one hand on his arm, the other behind her back. Catchclaw said, "I'm Catchclaw to-Ennien. I came to help."
"To-Ennien? To-Ennien?" Quickfoot said, struggling to sit up. Catchclaw was not about to allow that.
"To-Ennien," she confirmed. "Now behave yourself and rest, and you'll be up and around in a week."
"Why would you come? How could you have forgiven us?"
"Forgiven you?...Oh!" she said with sudden comprehension. She took Quickfoot's hand firmly between her own and went on, "We forgave your ancestors a long time ago. It was ourselves we couldn't forgive. Captain told us we were all acting like children. So here we are, trying to grow up." Her tail looped in amusement.
Quickfoot stopped struggling and said, "I don't understand...but I'm glad you came. You can help? You can stop the Long Death?"
"Yes," said Catchclaw. "Now rest, Quickfoot. We'll talk later when you're feeling better."
Quickfoot arched her whiskers forward and said, as if it were the most wonderful word in any language, "Later..." She closed her eyes.
The small hand on his arm loosened, and Kirk released it from his grip. "Thank you, Catchclaw," she said softly. Then, turning to him, "She'll be all right now, Captain. Come on, I'll take you to Leonard."
He followed her outside and down a long corridor with rows of windows overlooking the grounds, sorry now he had let go her hand. He wanted very much to offer her a hug- not for purposes of demonstration, but for the sheer good spirits of it. Because he could not say what he wished, he said, "Is he awake, Evan?"
"No, but you can wake him. It'll do you both good."
He had to ask, "Then why didn't you permit Spock-?"
"I need that sensor fixed, Captain, and Spock hardly needs an emotional pick-me-up."
"I see"- he smiled- "and I do?"
She glanced up, faintly surprised. "Don't you? Besides, you're most likely to give Leonard the lift he needs." She stopped before a door. "In there," she said, "and do me a favor? Give him a long, highly detailed account of everything you've done since you last saw him."
"And make it good enough to keep him in bed?" Kirk suggested and read confirmation in her smile. "I'll do my best, Evan." He opened the door, stepped through and eased it quietly closed behind him.
Hidden among the boxes of medical supplies was a cot. On it sprawled Leonard McCoy; curled in the crook of his elbow was Grabfoot and, at his feet, WhiteWhisker. All three were sound asleep.
Jim Kirk hesitated to wake him. Even in sleep his face seemed drawn with weariness. He had lost a great deal of hair, but only the faint traces of lesions remained. He too was healing.
Reminding himself that Evan had put him in charge of McCoy's morale, he touched his chief medical officer on the shoulder and shook him gently. "Bones," he said, "Bones." McCoy stirred with a groan. Kirk grinned and said, quietly but in a tone of command, "Status report, Dr. McCoy."
McCoy's eyelids shot open. "Jim!" he said. Kirk put a finger to his lips and indicated the two sleeping children.
Propping himself up from his cot on one elbow- not the one Grabfoot was using as a pillow- McCoy said again, more quietly but with no less passion, "Jim, it's good to see you!"
"Good to see you, Bones. No," he added, as McCoy eased Grabfoot's head from his arm, "don't get up. That's an order."
McCoy made a huffy sound, almost identical to Catchclaw's chuff of exasperation, and pointed to Grabfoot and White-Whisker. "I'm supposed to be watching them," he growled, but he kept his voice low to avoid waking them. "D'you know what I think? I think they're watching me!"
"That wouldn't surprise me in the least," Kirk told him.
"So it hardly surprises me that she's got you in on it too," McCoy continued. "D'you know she told me she'd let me make rounds once a day, I stay in bed the rest of the time? She'll 'let' me! She threatened to send me-" He stabbed a finger at the ceiling, presumably in the direction of the Flinn and, still smoldering, he added, "I tell you, Jim, that woman, as small as she is, has all the makings of a tyrant!"
Kirk grinned at him. "You sound better already, Bones."
The scowl gave way to an answering grin, as McCoy lounged back on the cot. "I feel better, Jim. Lord, it's good to see you!" he said again. "Don't just stand there: pull up a chair and tell me everything."
Unable to resist the line, Kirk said, "Just what the doctor ordered," and was rewarded by McCoy's startled laugh of comprehension. As Kirk reached for a small folding chair, he realized he was still holding the specimen case in his hand. "Micky sent her love," he said, "and some specimens you wanted. I should have given them to Evan."
"Specimens from Micky? Don't you dare." McCoy eased Grabfoot's head from his arm, and Kirk somewhat reluctantly turned over the case. McCoy opened it. "Ah," he said with a sigh. "She gave you your three cheers, Jim?" He looked up for the answer.
Kirk nodded. "For the Enterprise crew," he said, as he sat. "What's one got to do with the other?"
"That's Micky," said McCoy. "Always a woman of her word." He turned the specimen case slightly so Kirk could see the contents: a bottle of Csillag brandy and, nestled in tissue paper, a single glass. He unpacked them both. "There ought to be another glass in one of those boxes, Jim. Get one and we'll drink to the lady."
"Are you sure, Bones?"
"Is it medically advisable, d'you mean?" McCoy glared at him and went on, "It was prescribed by one of the finest doctors Starfleet Academy ever produced, and I ought to know- we shared a cadaver."
There seemed little Jim Kirk could say to that. He found himself a glass. "Sorry, Bones. I wouldn't dream of questioning the lady's judgment."
"Good," said McCoy curtly. "Sit down, drink up"- he poured- "and tell me all about it." He raised his glass and, touching it to Kirk's, said, "To Micky, McCoy and Macbeth." He downed the brandy, then sighed contentedly.
Kirk complied with the toast then asked, "Why Macbeth?"
"He was the cadaver. The report that came with him listed coronary infarction as cause of death, but he'd been run through with a sword. We never did find out the circumstances. And Micky never could resist a good alliteration."
From the foot of the cot came a sneeze, and WhiteWhisker sat up, tiny face contorted, nose working furiously. Before either could give the child a greeting, she hissed and bounced once on Grabfoot, who woke with an identical grimace. As McCoy poured himself another glass of brandy, Grabfoot leaned gingerly closer, sniffed and jerked back as if he'd been slapped. With a shout to White-Whisker, he charged for the door and out; WhiteWhisker was right behind him.
McCoy peered into the amber liquid. "Never underestimate the power of a good brandy," he said, and this time sipped it slowly. "How's Chapel?"
"She's fine. Her morale's low, but Micky says it's the...esthetic loss." At Bones's look of incomprehension, Kirk pointed to the bald patches on Bones's own head. "She'll get over it when her hair grows back."
"I think I know how she feels," McCoy growled.
They were both silent a moment, appreciating the brandy and the company. At last, McCoy set his glass on the floor and lay back once more. "All right," he said, "now you can tell me all about it. Doesn't seem right, you know."
"What doesn't?"
"While we all work ourselves to exhaustion here, you wander off and find the cure to ADF- for a song!" His smug expression told Jim Kirk that he had been waiting for a chance to use the line for some time now.
Jim Kirk grinned back at him, spread his hands and countered with the line he had been saving for just this occasion: "It was child's play, Bones."
Captain's Log, Stardate 2962.3:
Vaccinated volunteers continue to arrive on Eeiauo from all over the Federation. Soon there will be no need of our extra hands and the Enterprise will be free for reassignment. Most of the crew has already returned to the ship. With the arrivals of Nurse Chapel and Doctors McCoy and Wilson, the ship's register is almost complete.
Personal Log, James T. Kirk, Stardate 2962.3:
...which leaves us little to do but write reports for Star Fleet.
And a formal report has no heading for "Chief Medical Officer, Characteristic Entrance Of."
"Welcome back, Bones," Jim Kirk said, as McCoy sparkled onto the transporter platform.
"Jim," he said with a smile. He glanced down to confirm that all of him had arrived safely and, fixing a steely eye on Scott, he growled, "'Scrambled my mother', Mr. Scott?"
Scotty looked momentarily bewildered- then, with dawning comprehension, he said, "Oh, Rushlight! He didna warn me about his memory.... I didna expect him t' tell ye the tale...!"
"Obviously not," said McCoy acidly, as he stepped down.
Evan Wilson, hopping lightly off the platform behind him, said, "Is that where Rushlight got the idea for his 'Scramble Song'? Don't grouse, Leonard, it's a great success with the children. You should be pleased to have contributed."
McCoy growled at her, "Some day I'm goin' to take you over my knee...."
"I wouldn't advise it, Bones," Kirk said. "She's smaller than you are," and Evan rewarded him for it with a brilliant smile.
Rather than explain the remark to McCoy, she said, "I'm on my way to sick bay; I want to say hello to Christine."
"Tell her I'll be along in a minute," McCoy said.
"I'll tell her you're picking on Scotty, and I'll sing her Uhura's Standard version of the 'Scramble Song'," said Wilson and scrammed before McCoy's amiable swat in her direction could connect.
When he turned back to Scott, McCoy was grinning. "I'm in too good a mood to be bothered, Scotty," he said, "but don't think I'll let you forget it."
"I wouldna do enna such thing, Dr. McCoy."
McCoy, pleased, nodded, then said, "I'd like to see Chekov."
"On the bridge," Kirk said and, leaving Scotty to supervise transport of the few remaining stragglers, accompanied him down the corridor.
"As for you," McCoy said, "you didn't tell me how Evan got the Sivaoan solution into the boy- I had to read her reports to find out. Are you gettin' fastidious in your old age?" He chuckled. "Blew it up his nose! Lord, you should have heard Micky laugh. And wait until Starfleet Medical reads that one!"
"And here I was thinking Starfleet misses all the good parts...."
"Not that one, they won't." McCoy gestured him into the turbo-lift, said, "Bridge," then, "How's Spock, Jim?" As surprised by the question as by the seriousness of his tone, Kirk stared; and McCoy added hastily, "I don't mean medically. I mean, how does he seem to you? Noticed anything out of the ordinary?"
"Out of the ordinary," Jim Kirk repeated and thought immediately of the one bright afternoon he had found Evan Wilson and a double handful of children, Eeiauoan and Sivaoan, all sitting on the hospital steps, all listening with rapt attention as Spock- Spock-told them the adventures of T'Kay, the Vulcan trickster. The memory brought a smile. "As in telling stories to the children? I didn't know he had it in him."
"Neither did I. Evan threatened to have his pointy ears if he didn't keep his promise to tell Eager Talker about T'Kay." He grinned. "I got the full story from EagerTalker, and not just 'How it happened when CloudShape came to Vulcan'."
Then he shook his head and went on, "That's not what I mean, Jim. He's been doin' some sort of research- his idea of fun, I suppose. And Evan gets the fastest response from Starfleet on a reference search I've ever seen. All I did was suggest he take advantage of her connections, whatever they are- and he practically bit my head off!"
"Spock? I don't believe you for a minute."
"All right, I'm exaggeratin'...but for Spock it was a snap. That haughty affronted look of his"- McCoy demonstrated, overplaying considerably- "'I am quite capable of conducting my own research, Dr. McCoy, and should I require assistance, I doubt that Dr. Wilson's would be appropriate.'"
