Chapter 5

McCoy saw Spock give up a fruitless search for Kirk. Abruptly he became aware that he had never-well, not for years-seen Spock search fruitlessly for Kirk. Unless some alien interference had cut off the “carrier wave” of some kind of empathy which they seemed to have between them….

Abruptly he became aware that he was missing something from Spock himself. McCoy had always contended that he had about as much psionic sensitivity as a potato. That was a pretty good cover. And it might even be true, given that plants shriveled when you directed hostile thoughts at them, and vice versa. But he had been aware for years that he tended to bask in the Vulcan’s presence. Whereupon, of course, he made it a point to bristle. Now whatever it was that he basked in was shut down.

“Spock,” he said, “you’re not there. And you can’t find him. Have you-closed up shop-to keep him from feeling something?”

Spock turned to him and his look was suddenly savage. “You will cease to pry into my personal affairs, Doctor!”

He turned and strode toward the Transporter Room, leaving McCoy to follow in his wake with alarm bells going off.

They met Kirk at the door and went through it without even comment, although McCoy saw Kirk flash Spock a “later for you” look for bringing McCoy. The Vulcan seemed oblivious. But he inspected Kirk closely, and evidently did not like what he saw. Personally McCoy thought Kirk looked better than they had any right to expect. He must have gone through some mental discipline of his own and banished most of the weakness and fatigue. You didn’t survive as a Starship Captain without having a pretty fair selection of mind-body techniques and Alpha-hypno routines. But McCoy knew this man’s mind and body better than he knew his own-and paid far more attention to them. He saw the underlying stress, perhaps worse than he had ever seen it.

And there was some new abstracted look which he didn’t like at all.

He pulled out his spray hypo.

“Not now, Bones.” Kirk waved him off.

“Who’s the doctor around here?” McCoy grumbled and continued to set the hypo.

“Who’s the Captain?” Kirk shot back. “Mr. Spock, is it possible you are bucking for both jobs?”

“Neither,” Spock said stiffly. Then he seemed to make a massive effort to rise to the occasion. “However, I believe Doctor McCoy has complimented me on my bedside manner.”

“Doubtless,” Kirk said. “The two of you make a pair.”

McCoy attached himself to an arm and shot the spray hypo home. Mega-vitamins and mild stimulants, and mild neurotransmitter normalizers. He didn’t dare try more. If Spock was right, more stress could just push Kirk over the edge. And he wished he had a normalizer for Spock. He saw Kirk look at the Vulcan and not much like how he looked. But he was still irritated that Spock had dragged McCoy into it.

“I don’t recall inviting you, Bones,” Kirk complained.

“Scuttlebutt,” McCoy said, “has it that you’re going down there after a Free Agent. I’ve never met one. Mind if I tag along?”

Kirk sighed with his look of missing nothing. “Maybe I need a nursemaid.” He gestured McCoy toward the transporter.

But the outer doors opened and a Communications Yeoman came in. “An ‘eyes only’ command-code transmission, Captain.”

“Thank you, Yeoman. Dismissed.” The Yeoman turned on his heel and left. Kirk snapped the seal, read the brief message. McCoy saw surprise register in his face, then a kind of shock.

He looked up at Spock and McCoy. “You might as well hear this. ‘Effective immediately Enterprise is placed at disposal of Free Agent 7-10.’ It’s signed by the Chief of Staff.”

“But that would be giving the Free Agent the ultimate authority over the ship,” McCoy said.

Kirk’s jaw was set. “Exactly, Bones.”

“Must be hell’s own crisis,” McCoy said. “Or the Old Man wouldn’t put you in that position.”

“We’ve had some tough ones lately. What if somebody is beginning to figure I’ve had it?”

“Nuts, Jim. They know you.”

“Spock knows me-and he headed straight off to bring the doctor along.”

“Captain-” Spock began.

“Never mind, Mr. Spock. You’ve made your point. Probably correctly. For your information, gentlemen, I have had waking nightmares lately in which I-or someone who might have been me-was drawn to Oneness. Let’s go.”

A security man entered with equipment Kirk must have ordered earlier. Bio-belts with heavy hand phasers. And McCoy noted that there were already three of them. Maybe he had been invited, after all. Kirk knew damn well he needed McCoy now if that was happening to him-and not only as doctor.

Kirk flashed him an expression which had a trace of the old mischief in it, and McCoy felt unaccountably better. Whatever the stresses and strains, this still wasn’t a man who came apart.

“Set phasers on heaviest stun and bio-belts on three,” Kirk said.

McCoy raised an eyebrow. “That would ignore everything but some pretty large animals, wouldn’t it? What is down there?”

“We’re about to find out. Energize.”