Spock Messiah

CHAPTER FOUR

Dr. Mbenga, a graying, stocky black; Lieutenant Christine Chapel, a tall, willowy blonde; and Ensign Sara George, a small, shapely woman with a long fall of lustrous black hair, were waiting in the corridor outside of the briefing room. As the door hissed open and the sober-faced officers filed out, Kirk beckoned the three in. Once McCoy’s staff was seated at the conference table, Kirk quickly outlined the happenings of the past hour.

“… and one of you,” he concluded coldly, “has not only placed the Enterprise in extreme jeopardy, but has turned a mad wolf loose in a fold of defenseless sheep. General Order One is explicit; no action may be taken by any agent of Starfleet Command which can in any way affect the normal development of an alien planet. Although we may not approve of the institutions of a native society, we have no right to intervene and direct history in the way we feel it should go. Earth’s own past is a tragic record of the consequences of a technologically advanced culture imposing its values and life-style on less advanced people. There would be no question in the mind of any board of inquiry that, as a consequence of the Enterprise’s visit and of the action of one of you, a force has been released on Kyros which threatens to transform the planet into an ugly theocratic state ruled by a mad genius. The snip’s department heads will reconvene shortly to try to arrive at a course of action. In the meantime, I’m going to find out which of you is responsible for transforming my first officer into a madman. Dr. Mbenga, we’ll start with you. Please describe your role in the programming.”

The scholarly black frowned, looked at Kirk thoughtfully and said, “I’m afraid I can’t be of much help. I had nothing to do with program selection and the subsequent telepathic linkage. I’m a surgeon, Captain. I prepared the patients by drilling a small cavity in the right mastoid behind the ear. Once’ Dr. McCoy had tuned the implant to a particular native profile, inserted it, then checked to see that a telepathic link had been established, I performed the necessary microsurgery to close the incision. That was the extent of my involvement.”

“He’s right, Jim,” McCoy said. “I had Nurse Chapel supervise the actual programming.”

“Christine?” Kirk asked.

The attractive blonde nurse cast a nervous glance at Ensign George, who returned the look with one of disdain. She faced Kirk, seemingly on the verge of tears. “I did do the profile feedins, Captain,” she began in a choked voice, “but each time I checked the profile printout on the magcard to be sure there was no mistake on the matching. I… I was… es… especially careful when Mr. Spock’s turn came. Dr. McCoy… understands why…” she glanced appealingly at the chief surgeon.

He nodded sympathetically. Like many female crew members aboard the starship, Lieutenant Chapel was hopelessly in love with the tall, handsome Vulcan. She was a sensible woman, though, and knew that any relationship other than a purely professional one was impossible. But every time he came near her, a wave of desire washed through her that she found hard to control, but did… somehow.

“I… I wouldn’t do anything to harm Mr. Spock. I’ve had enough tragedy in my life,” she went on, referring to her years’ long search for a man she had once loved who had been lost on a space expedition, and the heartbreak and horror that came when she finally found him.

See: “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” STAR TREK 11, Bantam Books, 1975

Kirk considered the woman’s words. As he looked into her strained and worried face, he thought: True, but infatuation can make the best of us do strange things. Could she have hoped that linkage with a highly emotional Kyrosian mind would make Spock react to her femininity in human terms? Kirk rejected that thought almost as soon as it entered his mind. She would be no more capable of doing that than McCoy would be of administering an aphrodisiac to a woman he desired.

And that left only the petite newcomer, Ensign George. Though she had a pertly attractive face and a provocatively rounded body, the few brief contacts Kirk had had with her since she joined the Enterprise had given him the impression of a person so involved in her work that there was no place for anything else. But now, as she looked at him, there was a new quality about her, a smoldering sensuality that Kirk’s maleness couldn’t help reacting to.

“Well, Ensign?” Kirk said.

“I had nothing to do with whatever happened to Mr. Spock,” she said defiantly. “Somehow, the magcards must have gotten mixed up. I wasn’t even in the operating room when the link was activated.”

“More than a mix-up is involved here,” Kirk said coldly. “Someone took Chag Gara’s profile from the medical library, wiped the one that had been originally selected for Spock, and deliberately imprinted Gara’s personality pattern. Since the visual identification printout on the card was that of the original subject, neither Dr. McCoy nor Lieutenant Chapel had any way of knowing that a switch was made.”

“You seem to have found me guilty already, Captain,” she replied.

“Are you?” Kirk demanded.

The woman’s composure remained unruffled. “Chapel knows how to run the equipment,” she said coolly, “and she knows how to read profiles. Maybe Gara’s sensuality quotient gave her a bright idea. Her feelings about Spock are no real secret; she turns into a quivering schoolgirl every time he comes in sight.”

Lieutenant Chapel’s eyes brimmed with tears at the accusation, but her voice retained a bite as she glared at the smaller woman. “You’re lying. You had the opportunity, too, and the motive. I’ve seen you near Spock…” Turning to the men, she said. “You both know I’d never… never do anything like that.”

“Of course, Christine,” McCoy replied softly.

Another five minutes of interrogation brought nothing but continued denials.

“We’re getting no place,” Kirk said, glancing at the digital chronometer on one bulkhead impatiently, “and we have much more important matters to attend to. Dr. Mbenga, Lieutenant Chapel, you are excused. Ensign George, consider yourself under arrest. You will remain in your quarters until a board of court-martial can be convened.”

The girl shrugged and started to rise.

“I think we’ve overlooked something important,” McCoy said, making a restraining gesture. “With your permission, Captain, I think I may be able to clear this matter up in a few minutes.”

Kirk glanced at the chronometer again, then gave a nod.

“Dr. Mbenga,” McCoy directed, “will you please go to sickbay and get me a spray hypo of 200 milligrams of neo-chlorprothixene.”

As the black physician left, Kirk looked at McCoy with a puzzled expression.

“What’s all this?”

“I’ve been working quite closely with Sara the last few weeks, but she hasn’t been the same person since she received her dop,” McCoy replied. “Until now, I thought the dop effect was only minor, but her behavior during the last half hour indicates a major change. Her dop’s behavior pattern must be so different from her own that a major psychic distortion has taken place. I’m going to inject her with a fast-acting ataractic—”

“A what?”

“Ataractic. It’s a powerful tranquilizer that will temporarily depress the substrates of the midbrain that control emotional responses. My hunch is that once Sara is her normal cool, cerebral self, she’ll be able to tell us what happened.”

At his words, Ensign George stood up. Idly, she wandered toward the briefing room door just as Dr. Mbenga came in to hand McCoy the hypo. She slammed into him, trying to get out.

“Grab her!” McCoy shouted.

Kirk jumped, throwing his arms about her. She struggled fiercely, clawing and screaming. McCoy dashed to her side, slapped the end of the hypo against her arm and pressed. There was a low hiss as the spray penetrated to her skin. Kirk held onto her as she stiffened, then collapsed.

“Put her in that chair, Jim,” McCoy said. “She isn’t unconscious, but she isn’t able to stand by herself.”

As the two officers stood looking down at her, the girl’s face began to change. The look of sullen defiance drained away to be replaced by an expressionless mask.

“All right, Sara,” McCoy said, “how did it happen?”

When she answered, her voice was as flat and toneless as the ship’s computer.

“My life has always been my work; I refused to allow myself to get entangled in emotional relationships. I considered them disruptive and counterproductive. When I met Mr. Spock, all that changed. I found him strangely attractive. I was conscious of his maleness—something that never happened to me before—but I controlled that easily. I was determined to let nothing interfere with my work. But when I beamed up with that batch of native profiles and checked through them, I found one so unlike my own that I was filled with an intense curiosity. I wondered what it would be like to be that person, to feel the way she felt. For once in my life I gave in to temptation and acted on impulse. At any rate, I tuned my telescan link to that profile and let it be implanted. Since I was in charge of that much of the experiment, they didn’t think to check on the one I chose. Dr. McCoy and the rest assumed I would follow normal procedure.”

The woman, in spite of the drug, squirmed in her seat.

“The instant the linkage was established,” she said, “I knew I had made a terrible mistake. I found myself in the grip of emotional forces I couldn’t control. It was too late to do anything about it. From then on, I knew what I was doing, and I hated myself for it, hated those feelings, but I couldn’t… couldn’t stop.”

“Can you say why?” McCoy asked softly.

“I think because I had repressed my own emotions for so long, refusing to deal with them, trying only to deny them. When my dop’s feelings came surging across. I couldn’t handle them,” the ensign went on, her voice flat and objective. “When I was assigned to the Enterprise and learned of Lieutenant Chapel’s feelings about Spock, I thought, how illogical. I had nothing but contempt for her. I couldn’t conceive of a mind fine enough to be a Starfleet officer and earn a doctorate in bio-research and medicine, letting itself be disturbed by such a futile hope and childish infatuation. But like Spock, I denied my own humanity. Unlike him, however, I am human, and humans are sexual beings. The ordinary linkage allows just enough emotion to make the observer authentic to a native; but, like Spock, I became my dop. If you will examine her profile you will see.”

McCoy gave the necessary commands to the computer, and when the personality profile appeared on the screen, he whistled in astonishment.

“Good Lord, Jim, look at that!”

“You know I can’t read those wiggles, Bones,” Kirk said. “What does it mean?”

“It means that Sara has hooked herself into a walking sex machine with as many inhibitions as a green Orion slave girl—namely, none! This profile’s only purpose in life seems to be immediate and frequent gratification of her desires of the moment.” McCoy looked at the woman sprawled in the chair.

“What do you know about her, Sara?”

“Not much. When I was collecting the profiles, I tried to get as much diversity as possible. She seemed a good candidate because of her beauty and an aura of sexual magnetism around her. As she went through the plaza that day, nearly every male gawked at her. She was obviously lower-class, but I thought her behavioral characteristics might be useful if a mission required a female officer with those characteristics.” She paused.

“Go on, Ensign,” Kirk prompted.

“Yes, sir,” Ensign George replied. “Once the link was established, it wasn’t long before I had convinced myself that linking Mr. Spock with an equally emotional native might have the same effect on him as it did on me. Being half-human, his long frigid periods could be as much the result of psychological conditioning as of physiological factors. So I switched profiles.”

“And found you were right,” McCoy murmured.

“Yes,” she confirmed in an unemotional voice. “When we beamed down with the rest of the party that first morning, it just took an exchange of glances to communicate what we both had in mind. As soon as the others left…”

“You don’t have to go on, Sara,” McCoy interrupted.

“Your injection is still blocking my sub-cortical structures, Doctor,” she said. “At the moment, I have no feelings about it. It is of clinical interest only.”

In spite of her words, she paused. Her face worked slightly, twitching with shame, alternating with a smile.

“We took off our clothes and made love. We were like two rutting cats. My old self looked on in horror and disgust at my body’s violation; but my new self reveled in it, craved it, and was satisfied.” Her voice lowered as she paused again.

“I would suggest, Captain,” she began again after a moment, “that my implant be removed as soon as possible. Otherwise, I will find some way to get back down to Kyros and find Mr. Spock. I want…” Her voice suddenly trailed off and she slumped forward.

McCoy made a quick check. “Respiration and pulse normal,” he announced. “I gave her a high dose and it’s finally hit her central nervous system. No harm done, but she’ll be out for an hour or so.” McCoy went to the intraship communicator, called sickbay and ordered a stretcher party to the briefing room. As the unconscious woman was borne away a few minutes later, and when the captain and doctor were alone, Kirk turned a shocked face to McCoy.

“Bones, she had to be hallucinating! Spock and I have served together for years. He could no more behave in the way she described than he could fly!”

“Our Mr. Spock couldn’t,” McCoy agreed. “The creature that now inhabits his body is a different matter.”

The reconvened emergency council had come to an end. Kirk rose from his chair and looked soberly around the conference table.

“It is agreed, then, that since Mr. Spock has disappeared, our only chance is to locate Chag Gara. If we can get him up here, Dr. McCoy assures me that electronically augmented crash psycho-therapy can erase his delusional patterns in hours. Once they stop feeding across the link, Spock will return to normal and, realizing what he has done, rejoin the ship immediately with the trilithium modules.”

“Somewhat abashed, I imagine,” McCoy said dryly. “It’s going to be most interesting to hear him comment on his recent behavior.”

“Finding Chag Gara shouldn’t be too difficult,” Kirk continued. “He’s conspicuous, and is unaware of what has been going on. Since his main weakness is women, we’ll lure him to the inn with Ensign George. McCoy will inject him and we’ll beam up.”

Lieutenant Uhura raised her hand. “But Captain,” she said, “you told us that Sara admitted she would have one thought in mind when Dr. McCoy’s injection wore off; she’d want to get back to Kyros and resume her—” the black officer paused a moment—“‘relationship’ with Mr. Spock. How do you expect her to follow your orders and not her new feelings?”

“Good question,” Kirk said. “Dr. McCoy will be working on that problem soon. By removing Ensign George’s implant and adding another filter stage, the emotional input from her dop will be reduced to a manageable level. She’ll be ready for duty tomorrow morning. At that time, Dr. McCoy, Ensign George, and I will beam down. The rest of you will stand by for any action necessary.”

“One last question, Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Scott said. “What if things dinna work out as planned? If Spock has those birkies making guns…” Scott trailed off, staring at Kirk.

There was a long silence. When Kirk finally answered, his voice was stiff, betraying his strenuous efforts to control his inner anguish.

“If worst comes to worst, Mr. Scott, and we can’t stop Spock the way we plan, we must attempt to restore the culture to what it was before we came by excising the infection. By any means.”

Kirk surveyed the grim-faced personnel, his own face a frozen mask.

“Dismissed.”