"DOCTOR MCCOY?"
McCoy, who had only been recalibrating the tricoders anyway—a tedious task, even for someone restricted to light duty—turned eagerly to see who'd called his name.
Clifford was standing with K'leb at the entrance to sickbay, awaiting the chief medical officer's acknowledgment. The crewman looked a little fidgety, as if he were uncomfortable about something.
"If you're not busy, sir," he said, "we'd like to have a word with you."
We?
McCoy grunted, swiveling on his stool. "Well," he said, "don't just stand there, you two. Come in and take a load off your feet."
Clifford looked grateful. "Thank you, sir."
He gestured to the P'othparan and they approached together, taking the pair of empty stools to McCoy's left.
"All right, then," said the doctor. "Now, is this an official matter—or a personal one?"
Clifford frowned. K'leb just looked from one to the other of them, his eyes darting like insects trapped under glass.
"It's … both," said the crewman. "In a way, that is." He shrugged. "Depending on how you look at it."
McCoy couldn't help but smile.
"Son," he advised, "if you've got something to say, come out and say it."
But the crewman's frown only deepened. "It's hard to know—" he started to say, then stopped himself—as if his resolve had suddenly stiffened in midsentence.
He looked the doctor in the eye. "Sir, K'leb thinks that Captain Kirk isn't Captain Kirk. He says that the Captain Kirk on the bridge now is … an impostor."
McCoy wasn't quite sure what he'd expected to hear—but that certainly wasn't it.
"An impostor?" he echoed, unable to keep the laughter out of his voice entirely. "What gives him that impression?"
As if he understood the question, the P'othparan fashioned a rapid-fire answer. Of course, the doctor had no idea what he was talking about.
He looked to Clifford for help.
"K'leb says," offered the crewman, "that he can feel inside the captain. And that there's nothing there."
"You mean," said McCoy, "that he doesn't feel any affection from the captain. Any warmth."
Clifford shook his head. "No. That's how it sounded to me too, at first. But K'leb means something else. He's saying that there's nothing inside the captain. Nothing at all." He paused. "Before, he says, there was something there. It wasn't affection, as you say. But it was something."
McCoy regarded Clifford, then the boy. "Before?" he asked, still disinclined to take this too seriously. After all, empathy was such a subjective talent. And K'leb had some justifiable reasons for resenting Jim Kirk—which certainly could have colored his perceptions. "Before what?"
Clifford glanced at the P'othparan. "Before the captain beamed down for shore leave." He turned to McCoy again. "He says that the person he met in sickbay—when you were recuperating, after you'd just come back—wasn't the captain." He licked his lips. "In fact, according to K'leb, that wasn't a person at all."
McCoy looked at him askance. "Not a person, you say? Then what?"
Clifford looked miserable saying it. "A demon, sir. At least, that's the way it translates."
The doctor started to make a joke out of it, stopped himself. Judging from their expressions, he didn't think either Clifford or K'leb would have appreciated it.
"A demon," he echoed.
The crewman nodded.
"I see," said McCoy. "And what about you, Mister Clifford? What do you think of all this?"
Clifford shrugged. "It's a little hard to believe. In fact, I'd say it was nonsense altogether … if it wasn't coming from K'leb." He glanced again at the P'othparan. "As you know, I've spent a lot of time with him, breaking down his language for input into the translator system. And what I've seen … his empathic abilities are amazingly accurate, sir. Not raw, as you might expect, but—well, polished. Sharpened to a fine point."
McCoy folded his arms across his chest. "All right," he said. "Let's put those abilities to the test." He regarded the boy. "What am I feeling now?"
Clifford relayed the question. K'leb nodded once, then replied without hesitation.
"He says," the crewman translated, "that you are skeptical, for the most part. But also the least bit afraid—because you're starting to wonder if he could possibly be on to something."
It was true—all of it. And after the exactness of K'leb's analysis, the cracks in his skepticism were widening.
The doctor snorted. "All right," he said. "I'll look into it." And even as he said this, he thought of the way to approach he matter. "The captain owes me a physical, anyway, and it's high time he took it. If there's anything different about him, I'll know it soon enough."
He smiled wryly at K'leb. "Satisfied?"
Clifford translated, and the P'othparan nodded. But he didn't smile back.
"Good," said McCoy. "Then get out of here. I've still got a heap of tricorders to work over."
The crewman rose, and K'leb along with him.
"Thank you, sir," said Clifford.
"Don't mention it."
McCoy watched them go for a moment. Then he got up and went over to the intercom.
A flick of the toggle switch activated it. And it took but a press of a button to connect him with the bridge.
"McCoy to Captain Kirk," he said into the grating.
There was a sharp click, and the captain's voice came over the intercom circuits.
"I'm a little busy now, Bones. Can we talk later?"
"Sorry, Jim," said the doctor. "You've put this off long enough. Our bet was two weeks, not two years."
The captain seemed to hesitate.
"Jim? You still there?"
"Of course, Bones. I'm just a little preoccupied with the search."
"Well, you're not doing any good up here anyway. So why don't you hightail it down to sickbay and get it over with?"
Another long pause.
"I don't think so, Bones. I really am busy."
McCoy grunted. "Look," he said, "you're always going to be busy with one thing or another. Now, are you going to come down here willingly, or do I have to pull rank?"
"Rank?" repeated the captain. "Why? Do you think I'm unfit for duty, Doctor?"
"How am I supposed to know," asked McCoy, "until you take your blasted physical?"
The longest pause of all.
"Tell you what," came the response. "As soon as I come back from planetside, I'll turn myself in."
"Planetside? But you just beamed back up."
"I know. And I'm finding it very difficult to sit here when there are people disappearing down there. I'm going back down."
McCoy found himself frowning. "All right," he said. "But as soon as you set foot on the Enterprise again, I expect you to make a beeline for sickbay. And that, my friend, is an order."
"I hear you, Bones. Kirk out."
The doctor leaned away from the intercom and the wall. He had a queasy feeling in his stomach that hadn't been there before.
"Nah," he muttered out loud. Then, again, "Nah."
Suddenly, he was gripped by another sensation—that he was not alone there in sickbay. That there was someone else, standing just beyond the edge of peripheral vision. Listening.
He whirled.
And started when he saw the tall, slim figure in the shadows.
But in the next moment, recognition colored his perception. He felt a flush of embarrassment climb into his cheeks.
"Damn it," he rumbled. "Don't ever sneak up on me, Christine."
The nurse smiled apologetically. "Sorry, Doctor. I didn't mean to frighten you."
McCoy turned away to hide the heat in his face. "You didn't frighten me. You just … surprised me."
"Then I'm sorry I surprised you," she amended.
He looked at her. "What are you doing back here, anyway? I thought you were going to stick it out until the search was over?"
Christine shrugged. "It looks like it's going to take longer than I thought. The captain decided I'd be more valuable up here."
The captain.
McCoy sighed. The queasy feeling had returned.
"Are you all right?" asked Christine.
He shrugged. "Did you see the pair I was talking with before?"
The nurse shook her head. "No. I was at the computer—catching up on what happened while I was gone."
He went over to one of the stools, plunked himself down on it. "Clifford and K'leb were in here just now. It seems that K'leb, with his empathic talents, thinks the captain's an impostor. That the fellow up on the bridge now is someone posing as the captain."
Christine looked as doubtful as he must have looked earlier. "It sounds a little farfetched," she said.
"That's right," said the doctor. "It does." He felt himself frowning again. "But I told them I'd check into it. And I did—just now. I called the captain down for that physical he's been trying to duck."
"And?" asked Christine.
"He ducked it again. Said he was going back down to Midos Five—to lead the search."
Her smile gained in enthusiasm. "Sounds like the captain to me," she said.
McCoy shook his head. "I'm not so sure."
"What do you mean?" asked the nurse.
"It didn't sound like the captain. The words were right, but the way he came out with them …" He tried to recall the conversation objectively. "When I referred to our bet, and then to the physical, he seemed to hesitate—as if he didn't know what I was talking about." He paused, remembering. "And then, after I made it clear I was referring to the physical … that's when he told me he was beaming down again. As if he'd made that decision right then and there."
Christine seemed caught between laughter and sobriety. "Doctor," she said, "you know how gullible I am. If this is a joke …"
He shook his head, more insistently than before. "No, Christine. No joke. I may be way off base here, but it's definitely not a joke."
"Then you think," she said, "that there really is an impostor—pretending to be the captain?"
He took a deep breath, blew it out. "I think," he said, "that it's a possibility."
For a moment, she just stood there, looking at him. Appearing to absorb his seriousness.
Then her air of easy optimism returned to her. "Well," she said, "until we find out one way or the other, I'm starved. I think I'll try to scare up some dinner."
"Bon appétit," said McCoy.
As she left sickbay, he returned to his work on the tricorders. Unfortunately, they hadn't recalibrated themselves while his attention was elsewhere.
It only occurred to him later that Christine hadn't asked him to join her. But then, he told himself, she might have preferred more cheerful conversation with her meal.
"Are you sure?" DeLong asked.
"That's what I heard," said Critelli. "And I was right there on the bridge, standing not three feet from him. Waiting for him to sign the damned requisition order already."
"And he said he was beaming down again?"
"Absolutely. Without a doubt." He looked at her, his dark eyes questioning. "Why? What makes this so important to you, anyway?"
DeLong shrugged, perhaps a bit too quickly. "I don't know—I thought maybe I'd volunteer to go with him."
Critelli smiled disbelievingly. "You're kidding, right? You want to spend your time in one of those cramped, little shuttlecraft, straining your neck to pick out some tiny glitch a hundred feet below? Eating in it, sleeping in it—getting bounced around at the mercy of those mountain winds?"
She grunted. "When you put it that way, how can a girl resist?"
"Great," he said. "Then you'll be free next tour of duty? To show me how you use those dallis'karim?"
DeLong shook her head. "Maybe some other time. By then I hope to be straining my neck in one of those cramped, little shuttlecraft."
Leaving Critelli openmouthed, she strode down the corridor in the direction of the transporter room. Her footfalls echoed from bulkhead to bulkhead.
It had been foolish of her to try to arrange a—a what? a rendezvous? a date?—with the captain while he was rushing from one duty to the next. Especially right after what had happened to Doctor McCoy, and in the middle of the crew's recall from Tranktown.
But if she could wangle a berth beside him on one of the shuttlecraft … spend some time with him, get him to know her better …
There was no guarantee, of course. But he had shown at least a spark of affection when he apologized to her for the incident in the gym. Not to mention respect—even admiration.
The doors to the transporter room parted and she saw Chief Kyle standing over the console. He barely looked up when she came in, intent as he was on fine-tuning the controls.
"Denise," he said. "What brings you here, love?"
"I heard that the captain was beaming down again. I wanted to go along this time."
Kyle shrugged. "Well, you heard right. But he's not Kyle shrugged. "Well, you heard right. But he's not leaving for a little while yet." He finished setting one of the dials and raised his head. "But if I were you, I wouldn't wait here to join the expedition. He can't very well dismiss someone else at the last moment to make room for you."
She nodded. "Do you have any idea where he is now? The captain, I mean?"
"Don't know for sure," said Kyle, returning to his work. "But I wouldn't be surprised if he was in his quarters. I'd want to freshen up a little before I subjected myself to the confines of a shuttlecraft."
She had to smile. "Thanks, Chief."
"Think nothing of it," said Kyle, glaring at his gauges.
It wasn't a long trip, really, from the transporter room to the captain's cabin. Most of it was spent in the turbolift.
By the time DeLong reached the right level, however, her knees were a little weak. Steeling herself, she exited the lift and negotiated the length of the corridor. It was quiet here, as most of the command staff was either up on the bridge or planetside, engaged in the search.
She stopped before the captain's door, knocked once. She was just about to knock a second time, thinking that the first knock had perhaps been too timid, when the door slid aside.
The captain was standing just inside the doorway. She couldn't tell if he had just arrived or was about to leave.
He looked at her.
"Yes, Ensign?"
For a moment, she had the same feeling that she'd had the other day in the corridor. That the captain didn't know her from Adam. But that couldn't be. Not after that business in the gym, and what he had said to her afterward.
No. He was just acting the way a commanding officer is supposed to act: aloof, reserved.
"Begging your pardon, sir," she began, "but I understand you're going back down to the shuttlecraft."
Kirk continued to stare. Then, it was as if he'd shaken off some matter that preoccupied him, and he smiled a little. "News travels fast on this ship." He stepped aside and gestured politely. "Please come in, Ensign. There's no need to discuss whatever you've come about out here in the corridor."
DeLong entered, found a spot where she could stand. The captain gestured again.
"Have a seat," he told her.
She took the proffered chair—an antique wood-and-leather affair that must have dated back to the twentieth century. It stood beside a bookcase of the same vintage—and actually filled with books, rather than tapes.
"Now then," said Kirk, pulling up one of the ship's standard chairs, "what's on your mind, Ensign?"
She looked him in the eye. "When you go back down there," she said, "I want to be part of the relief party."
He seemed to consider her words individually. "I see," he said after a while. He leaned back in his chair. "Actually, I had already picked out some individuals to accompany me."
DeLong had been expecting that. It didn't faze her.
"I appreciate that, sir. But those are people who've been ordered to go. Surely, it's better to have someone in the shuttlecraft who really wants to be there."
The captain's gaze appeared to intensify. "I can't help but agree," he said. "But why do you want to be there?"
She lifted her hands out of her lap, let them fall back again. "I want to help," was what came out. And of course, that was part of it, so she wasn't exactly lying.
"A sense of duty," he offered.
"Something like that," she said. "And a desire to see a killer brought to justice."
The captain's eyebrows went up. "Killer?" he echoed. "We don't know that just yet. All we know is that people have disappeared."
She nodded. "Yes sir. Make that kidnapper, then. I'd like to see him stopped."
Kirk leaned forward again. "Very well, Ensign. You've gotten yourself a berth. Be ready to leave as soon as you're called."
She suppressed a grin. "Thank you, sir. You won't regret it."