"Who...?" As he looked at her, he suddenly knew who she meant. "You, Micky?" He could not keep the anger out of his voice. "Goddammit, woman... !"
"Watch your goddamn mouth, McCoy!" she shot back.
He was so surprised at her anger that he snapped his mouth shut. She glared at him.
"See here, Micky," he began again, "trying something like this on a terminal patient is one thing -" He broke off in horror.
She nodded. Her voice was very soft, and now he could see the fear in her eyes. "I am a terminal patient, Leonard. I have ADF syndrome; I confirmed the diagnosis myself a few minutes ago. You've just given me the only chance I have. I thank you for it- however it turns out."
"Micky..."
She shook herself and gave him a fierce smile. "Now bug off, will you? We've both got a lot of work to do today. I'll keep you posted." She gave him no chance to say goodbye.
He was glad for that. He had no wish to say anything that sounded so final.
Captain's Log, Stardate 1573.4:
Mr. Spock's coordinates have brought us to an area of space uncharted by the Federation. Mr. Spock and the entire Astronomy Division are making a brief but exhaustive survey for solar systems that fit the necessary parameters.
Personal Log, James T. Kirk, Stardate 1573.4:
Three weeks to reach Spock's haystack and another spent sitting here in the middle of nowhere while Astronomy takes pictures....
Every time I think this is impossible, I think of Heinrich Schliemann. I'm not the only one. Like Starfleet Command, the crew has been told only that we're following certain leads Spock has found in Eeiauoan literature, and Dr. Wilson has been dispensing her prescription with a liberal hand. "Heinrich Schliemann" has become a catch phrase all over the Enterprise. I've heard it in a dozen different contexts in the past few days. Spock even found it deserving of comment- "baffling."
"Ah, Captain," said Spock, as he stepped into the turbolift to find Jim Kirk already there. "I believe we now have sufficient information to begin a closer scrutiny."
"Good, Mr. Spock. Very good." Having spent so much time twiddling his thumbs, Kirk was not about to waste another moment. He activated the intercom and said, "Lieutenant Uhura, please have all senior personnel meet me in the briefing room immediately." As an afterthought, he added, "Mr. Spock is ready."
"Thank you, sir," said Uhura's voice. He could hear the relief in it. "Uhura out."
"Kirk out." He turned again to Spock. "Just what are our chances of finding Sivao?"
"They depend largely upon Lieutenant Uhura, as she is the only one of us with any knowledge of the world we seek."
"Well, she's gotten us this far. Let's hope she can keep it up."
Spock nodded once but said nothing further. Jim Kirk knew better than to press him on the subject. At most, he'd get an estimate of the odds against them, and he was not sure he wanted one.
The turbolift doors hissed, momentarily framing Evan Wilson in the opening. Spock raised an eyebrow at the picture she presented; Kirk said, "Good Lord!"
She wore heavily padded fencing garb that had been slashed in several places as if by enormous claws. Sweat shone on her forehead, her hair was in total disarray, she was openly bleeding from two parallel cuts across her left cheek- and she was grinning from ear to ear.
She stepped into the lift, carrying a wooden staff a few inches taller than she was high, and saluted triumphantly. "Mr. Spock, Captain," she said. "Do I have five minutes to clean up, or can the briefing room take it?"
"You have five minutes, Dr. Wilson. I won't have my ship's doctor running around looking like..." Kirk found himself hard put to say what she did look like.
"Like something the cat dragged in?" she suggested. "I'll have you know, Captain, Snnanagfashtalli looks like something the doc dragged in."
"Are we to understand, Dr. Wilson, that you have been engaged in combat with Snnanagfashtalli?" Spock had no trouble with the name; the Vulcan language had more than its share of throat-twisting sounds.
"It was something of an experiment, Mr. Spock. Quarterstaff against teeth and claws. The results were inconclusive. I think I gave as good as I got, but then, Snnanagfashtalli kept her temper, so I'm not sure if she was pulling her pounces. I may just have been pummeled like a kitten." She daubed at her cheek ruefully.
Spock contemplated her weapon and, without a word, she handed it to him. He lifted it, testing the weight. "I have never seen one used."
"Pick your time, Mr. Spock, and I'll be happy to further your education. The quarterstaff is one of the finest weapons ever invented." She took the staff back and smiled. "It might be interesting to try it against the Vulcan disciplines. But that's a separate offer and I wouldn't push you into anything."
The turbolift doors opened. "My stop," she said. She stepped out and saluted, "Heinrich Schliemann, Captain." The doors closed and the turbolift shifted sideways.
"Remarkable..." Spock began.
"I'll say," Kirk agreed, but the Vulcan's expression seemed to call for further comment. "Something wrong, Spock?"
"Wrong, Captain? No, I should say rather 'anomalous'."
"Anomalous? In what way?"
"In both her presence and her behavior."
"I wouldn't worry about it, Spock- her presence, at least. Unless you want to wonder who she knows. She told Bones she cut her own orders and I'm inclined to believe she could. Dr. Wilson is most certainly not shy."
The turbolift came to a halt. As they walked down the corridor to the briefing room, Kirk went on, "You know Snnanagfashtalli, Spock"- the name got easier with practice- "do you suppose she pulled her punches?"
"Doubtful, Captain. If Dr. Wilson wished to test her abilities, it would do neither of them honor for Snnanagfashtalli to do less than her best. However, as Dr. Wilson herself seems quite aware, her best need not and did not include a killing frenzy."
"Let's be thankful for small favors," Kirk said. "Going to take her up on her challenge, Spock?"
"I shall consider it, Captain."
Kirk was taken aback. "I was joking, Spock!"
"I was not."
They entered the briefing room to find Scott and Uhura waiting.
"Lieutenant Uhura," said Spock, without preamble, "I shall require your assistance." He gestured her to the computers.
After a moment of preparation, he said, "We have found twelve planetary systems that meet our general specifications. On the assumption that the Eeiauoans would have chosen a world as similar in type and position to their home world as possible, I have narrowed this to three. I have prepared computer simulations of skies of those three worlds. Logic can do no more."
The day's full of surprises, thought Kirk. Bones would have a field day with that.
He got still another surprise when he looked over Uhura's shoulder at the display screens. The starfields were reversed- white stars on black backgrounds- certainly not standard issue from the Astronomy Division.
He wasn't sure exactly what Spock expected of Uhura, but he kept quiet while she did whatever it was.
When Sulu hobbled in with Chekov's support, the Russian chattering excitedly, Kirk silenced them with a glance. Dr. Wilson entered a few moments later, damp and still triumphant. From the look of awe given her by Sulu and Chekov, Kirk could guess the content of the conversation he'd interrupted.
She grinned at them and settled herself silently to watch the screens, craning forward. Her absorption was complete and encompassed not only the display but Spock and Uhura as well.
At last, Uhura shook her head. "I can't help, Mr. Spock. I'm sorry." From her tone of dismay, she was more than sorry.
Wilson touched her hand lightly to Uhura's arm. "I seem to be missing something, Nyota. What are you up to?" Her eyes held a child's grave and intense curiosity, and they drew from Uhura a small, almost embarrassed, smile in return. "Mr. Spock hoped I would have a hunch," Uhura said.
"Oh." Wilson managed to pack the single monosyllable with both comprehension and exasperation. With a comic shrug of her shoulders, she said, "That's not how hunches work, Mr. Spock. Captain, I appeal to you! Explain to him!"
"Captain?" said Spock, clearly expecting him to do so.
Kirk did his best. "Spock, hunches aren't something a person has on command- and certainly not under this kind of pressure!"
"I have observed this human ability to function under conditions of extreme pressure. You yourself, Captain..."
"I'm not the one we're talking about. You make no allowance for individual response." Even as he said it, Kirk knew he had made the matter no clearer to Spock. He tried another tactic. "Dr. Wilson, perhaps you have a prescription?"
"Talk, Mr. Spock. Tell us everything you know about what's on those screens. Who knows? That might trigger something for someone, maybe even you."
"Go ahead, Spock." Kirk nodded.
The rest of his senior officers gathered closer, drawn in by the possibility that they too might be of help. Wilson relinquished her chair to Sulu. Kirk found himself watching the screens over her head while Spock took them on a guided tour of this region of space.
Red giants, white dwarfs, double stars, globular clusters that would be seen as single stars, X-ray sources that would be invisible to the Eeiauoan or human eye...Spock's long slender finger indicated each in turn but his focus of attention remained on Uhura. That's hardly what I call taking the pressure off, Kirk thought. Perhaps it's time I created a little diversion.
Spock was saying, "This is a visible pulsar."
"Pulsar?" said Wilson. At Sulu's look of horror, she said, "Medicine I know. You tell me what a pulsar is and I'll tell you whatever you need to know about the organ of Zuckerkandl."
Sulu made a polite scoffing noise but explained anyway, "It's a neutron star that seems to blink, sometimes in visible wavelengths, sometimes in X rays. Small but massive. It spins very fast and each time the magnetic pole sweeps by, it shows up as a burst of X rays." He flipped his hand to demonstrate. "Think of it as a lighthouse." He looked at her slyly and inquired, "Lighthouse?" She nodded, and Sulu grinned and said, "Just checking. Anybody who doesn't know what a pulsar is..." He left the thought unfinished but Kirk could see Wilson wasn't going to hear the end of this for some time.
Sulu went on, more seriously. "Each has its own very specific rate of spin. They're so regular, you could set your watch by them."
Chekov put in, "They are very useful to a nevigator."
"I'll bet they are!- Go on, Mr. Spock, I apologize for the interruption. What's its pulse rate?"
Sulu laughed. Spock said merely, "The periodicity of this particular pulsar is ninety-five flashes to the minute."
"Normal," she pronounced, in a tone of satisfaction.
"Dr. Wilson, the normal pulse for the human adult is between seventy and ninety beats a minute." Spock had evidently caught the joke but was treating it with his usual literal-mindedness. "Unless, of course, you refer to the normal heartbeat of a human child."
"Normal for an adult Eeiauoan, Mr. Spock. I told you: medicine, I know. If there were any justice in the universe, that would be our lighthouse, too."
Uhura turned suddenly to stare at Wilson. "Evan? What's the pulse rate for an Eeiauoan child?"
"Somewhere between 120 and 125 beats a minute, Nyota. Is that any help?"
Instead of answering, Uhura turned sharply back to Spock. "Mr. Spock, is there a visible pulsar of that periodicity- one that the Eeiauoan eye could see from any of these worlds?"
"If you will permit me..." He took the chair from her and made some few movements at the computer console. After a moment the display changed, although the stars still showed white on a black field. Spock pointed. "This," he said, "would be visible to an unassisted Eeiauoan eye from three worlds in this quadrant."
Uhura took a deep breath. "Can you tell me, Mr. Spock- two thousand years ago, when the Eeiauoans left their homeworld, was that star the north star for any of the three?"
"One moment, Lieutenant." Spock focused his attention on his computers.
Uhura seemed to hold her breath in anticipation. Kirk found himself doing the same; he knew he was not the only one.
Spock said, "Affirmative, Lieutenant." A single image flashed and froze on the screen.
"Sivao!" said Uhura, rising with her excitement. "Sivao, Mr. Spock!" The words tumbled out in a joyous flood. "I thought of all the ancient songs but never the everyday songs the children sing. Their equivalent of 'Once upon a time' is"-she spoke a few words in Eeiauoan, startling those who had not previously heard the language, and then translated- "'Sivao, where the North Star beat like the heart of a child...' Mr. Spock, that's their world! Oh, Evan, there is justice in the universe!" Impulsively, she put her arms around the smaller woman. Evan Wilson returned her hug with enthusiasm.