"I believe I have seen such an encounter as you describe. Mr. Scott and Dr. McCoy both used just those words- however..."
"Something puzzles you, Spock?"
"Yes. Neither Mr. Scott nor Dr. McCoy was an equivalent height or weight to the human they challenged."
"It's the thought that counts. I would assume they were both larger than the person being threatened? Yes-so they were simply reminding the larger antagonist of the cultural strictures against his actions."
"Fascinating," said Spock, "although I fail to understand why Dr. Wilson should wish to, as she puts it, bully me."
That deserves an answer, Kirk thought, sought one and saw Leonard McCoy in his mind's eye. "For the same reason Bones does," he said. "He's always trying to bully you- or at least goad you into an emotional reaction. You must admit you make the temptation almost irresistible."
"As I do not understand your meaning, I can admit nothing of the sort."
"He means if you hang your tail from a tree branch, somebody's going to pull it," contributed Brightspot. "Right?"
"That's not quite how I'd put it, Brightspot, but that's very close to what I mean. Human beings, and Sivaoans too, it seems, have a bad habit of wanting to perturb the unperturbed- or the unperturbable," Kirk said and, with a sidelong glance at the returned Wilson, "in any event, being bullied is the least of your worries, Spock. From what I've seen of her, if bullying won't work on you, she'll stop bullying-"
"Exactly," she said, with a shrug that was deliberately comic. "Why waste time and effort? It would be illogical."
"-And try something else," Kirk finished. "If I were you, I'd worry about her next tactic."
Spock and Brightspot took point for the early part of the day, and Kirk brought up the rear with Evan Wilson. Talk was relegated to meals: the terrain took too much attention and, more importantly, they had to listen with both ears for the warning sounds of any predators. But shortly after he had passed the word forward to Spock to find a spot for a breather, Wilson caught his arm and startled him by saying, in a whisper, "Captain, Chekov isn't ordinarily this clumsy, is he?"
"No, he's not. He says he's stiff from sleeping on the ground."
"That's what he told me, too." She scowled and inched along, devoting her primary attention to avoiding a stand of sweet-stripes- or so he thought, until she demanded, "Is he? You know him better than I do. Could that be the cause?"
He had seen Chekov under worse conditions than these but- he thought of Chekov's drawn face- and he shook his head. "Let's hear it, Evan," he said, knowing from the expression on her face that he would not like what he heard.
"He walks like the Eeiauoans, Captain."
Kirk stopped to face her; a sapling he had pushed aside snapped back with a whiplike sound. "ADF? He said he had no contact with any Eeiauoan."
"That he knew," said Wilson. She hugged her quarterstaff.
"What do you advise, Evan? Should we turn back?"
She shook her head vehemently. "Catchclaw's in Sretalles, Captain; so are the communicators. Even if I knew for certain Chekov had ADF syndrome, I couldn't do anything for him except quarantine him." She shook her staff suddenly, much in the manner of a Sivaoan twisting her own tail. "I can't even do that- we haven't got a code to cover it. We'd expose anybody who met us in the transporter room."
"Scotty..."
"Scotty," she confirmed grimly.
A halloo echoed through the forest; the rest of the party had gone on ahead. Kirk called an answer to reassure Spock, as the two of them, in silence, hurried to catch up. They found the rest of the party in a mossy glen, sprawled or sitting, each on the softest spot he or she could find. Chekov shifted restlessly, as if unable to make himself comfortable. Next to him, Kirk found a little hillock and sat. "Mr. Chekov," he said, "is your back still giving you trouble?"
"Yes, sair." Chekov looked embarrassed. "I em merely stiff, Keptain. I hev no difficulty with the walking."
"Dr. Wilson, have a look, will you?"
He made the request as innocuous as possible, and Wilson matched his tone with an easy, "Sure thing, Captain."
Chekov made a mild protest, but Wilson gave him a wicked look. "Come on- it's not as if I'm asking you to chop wood!" and, when he stared at her in astonishment, she added, "You're not the only one who can quote old Russians...." At that, Chekov could only laugh and acquiesce to her poking and prodding.
"How long has it been bothering you, Mr. Chekov?"
"I didn't really notice it until the day we left Stiff Tail's kemp, sair. I em not accustomed to sleeping on the ground."
"You and me both," she said, grinning, "I bet an Enterprise bunk would play the same havoc with Brightspot's or Jinx's back. Any trouble with your vision at all?"
Kirk saw Spock's head come up sharply at that, but the query only embarrassed Chekov to admit, "Sparkles, sair- I em out of shape. I hev not been exercising regularly."
She clucked her tongue at him, then pushed back his sleeves and ran her hands over his forearms. She made one final check, this time with her sensor; then, rising, she looked at Kirk and waited.
"Straight, Evan," he said, knowing it was the right decision the moment he spoke. "It involves all of us."
Evan Wilson again knelt beside Chekov; it was to him alone that she spoke. "Listen to me very carefully, Pavel You may, as you say, be stiff from sleeping on the ground, be out of shape. But there's another possibility I have to consider: the possibility that you have ADF syndrome."
Chekov's head jerked sideways. "But, Keptain!" he protested. "I heven't been near eny Eeiauoans. I give you my word, sair!"
"No one's accusing you of anything, Mr. Chekov," Kirk assured him.
Jinx said, "He has the disease you're trying to find the cure for? The one all the Eeiauoans have?"
"I don't know, Jinx," Wilson said. "All I know about the damn disease is what McCoy knew the last time we spoke. I've no way of confirming diagnosis until the symptoms are fully developed, no clear idea of the incubation period necessary, and no way of telling under what circumstances it's contagious. I'm saying it's possible Mr. Chekov has it, and that I can't eliminate or ignore the possibility."
"You'd quarantine him if you could?" Again it was Jinx who spoke.
"If- and remember I mean if Mr. Chekov has it, we're all exposed; I'd quarantine us all."
"If I hev it," said Chekov, distressed at the thought, "I may hev given it to eweryone already."
Wilson snapped, "Don't get uppity, Mr. Chekov. Someone else may have given it to the Enterprise crew, including you- if you've got it."
"When will you know, sair...if I hev it, I mean?"
"Not for a week or so, if you follow the general pattern. That's about how long it took for Nurse Chapel and other humans to start losing hair. The blurring of vision comes sooner but, like the muscular stiffness, is no sure sign. Now that I've mentioned vision problems, you may even develop them as a psychosomatic reaction."
"Then I could finish the Walk?" Chekov said. "Keptain? You won't send me beck, will you, sair?"
"I can't, Mr. Chekov," said Kirk, "Remember the rules? Either we all make it or none of us does. It would cost us the two days we've already spent, plus an additional two days to return you to camp, and we'd achieve nothing by it. Our communicator is with Rushlight on its way to Sretalles."
Wilson added, "And Catchclaw is also in Sretalles. If you've got ADF, Pavel, I can't do anything for you or the rest of us. I'm still hoping Catchclaw can."
"Mr. Spock: suggestions?"
"I see no choice, Captain. We must continue."
Kirk rose and faced the two Sivaoans. "Jinx, Brightspot? What do you say?"
"If Mr. Chekov can make it to Sretalles, we should go on," said Jinx. "If he cannot, we must return to our last camp."
Brightspot twitched the tip of her tail. Her pupils narrowed to slits as she stared at the to-Ennien. "Jinx, are you thinking of third time?"
Jinx bristled and then, almost as quickly, smoothed her fur. "No, I'm not, Brightspot; I swear in Old Tongue. I'm thinking how many people can die in four days." She gestured at the humans. "If Dr. Wilson is correct, we may have been exposed to this AyDeeEff. We must find their answer now; we may also need it."
Brightspot looked contrite. "I apologize, Jinx. That was a pretty stupid thing for me to say."
"If it was being thought, it needed saying," said Jinx. She arched her whiskers forward. "Yes, Captain. We're willing to go on."
Go on they did. They made camp at dusk and found themselves huddled beneath a smoke-filled canopy while sheets of rain swept over, rattling the usefuls and chilling them. Squinting in the firelight, Wilson examined Chekov again; she found no new evidences of ADF. Jinx, having asked and received Chekov's permission, did the same. Little was said; the storm passed up-country, and most of the party dropped off to a disturbed sleep.
Spock shared the dawn watch with Evan Wilson. She was quiet and thoughtful; and Spock, who found the time for meditation restful in itself, said nothing to distract her.
She took a handful of branches that had been drying beside the fire and threw them on. As they caught, Spock momentarily had a glimpse of her expression: it was the same dazed horror he had seen on her face when she had been surrounded by the grabfoots.
"Dr. Wilson," he said softly.
"Yes, Mr. Spock?" There was no hesitation in her response, although he had expected one. She seemed fully aware of her surroundings. That puzzled him, and he reconsidered what he had been about to say. But she so seldom conformed to what he expected that he judged it best to make the offer. "If the incident with the grabfoots continues to disturb you, Dr. Wilson, may I be permitted to offer a solution?"
She frowned at him, clearly not understanding. He explained, "There is a Vulcan technique that would allow me to excise your memory of the encounter -"
"Do I look that bad, Mr. Spock?" she interrupted. Her smile was grim. "Never mind; I don't think I want that answered. It's not the grabfoots." She drew up her knees and, folding her arms around them, rested her chin. "It's not that," she said again wearily.
He waited. At last, she spoke again. "Suppose we've been wrong. Suppose this world has no cure for ADF?"
"I see no need to speculate on the matter," he said. "If our assumptions concerning the social strictures of the Sivaoans are correct, we shall learn the answer to that when we reach Sretalles."
"That's not what I mean." She rubbed her temple irritably. "I mean that, if Mr. Chekov has ADF, he could not have contracted it on this world- not unless he's unique in his response to the disease. Damn, even if he's unique, I haven't seen any native with anything remotely like ADF that he could have caught it from."
She straightened and looked directly at him. "No, Mr. Spock. If he's got ADF and the natives haven't a cure, then we've infected an entire world with the most deadly disease known to Federation science."
"You do not know that is the case, Dr. Wilson."
"I don't know it isn't," she shot back; there was anger in her manner and voice. Spock had seen similar outbursts from McCoy and assumed the anger was not directed at him but at the universe in general. It was not a logical response but neither was it unusual for human medical personnel. He waited once again. "Sorry," she said with sudden gentleness, "it's not you I'm angry at, it's me. I thought I had screened the Enterprise thoroughly enough to eliminate the possibility-"
"As the parameters of the disease were unknown at the time," Spock said, "I fail to see your purpose in assuming the responsibility. As you yourself pointed out to Mr. Chekov, such an attitude would be 'uppity'."
She laughed softly at his use of the word. "Yes, Mr. Spock, I'm sure you're right, but I've never known a doctor who wasn't uppity. And I took the responsibility the moment I set foot on the Enterprise."
"Then may I suggest you set aside your speculation for the moment? It is of no value at this time and could, conceivably, be of considerable detriment to our mission."
"Detriment?"
"Indeed. May I ask why you stopped when you reached the center of the grabfoot colony?"
If the question surprised her, she showed no sign of it. She said, "I could see them pulling me down again- almost feel it. I froze." She sat bolt upright. Her expression was one he had seen only once before: triumph after her experiment with Snnanagfashtalli. "Yes, Mr. Spock! You're right! My fear of what might happen kept me from seeing what was happening. My speculation endangered both you and Jinx."
"I do not say you should not speculate," Spock said carefully.
"Only that I shouldn't let it stop me from doing what must be done. I understand. Thank you."