THE FIRST THING McCoy noticed as they neared the station bridge was the smell of cleaner air. The stench of the Romulans' decomposing corpses was alleviated, and the scent of rotting peaches had all but vanished. He took a deep breath and for the first time in his life was pleased by the sterile smell of recycled air aboard a space craft.
The second thing he noticed was Spock.
"Spock! Have we got something to tell—!" As he and the others came onto the station bridge, McCoy's excited greeting died on his lips. The Vulcan looked awful.
Spock was exactly where they had left him, seated at a computer console with the generator at his side. Anyone other than McCoy would probably have noticed nothing other than the Vulcan's peculiar stillness, and might have put it down to the singular concentration that often characterized Spock. But McCoy was nothing if not utterly himself, and what he saw sent him rushing across the room before the others could even register that something was wrong. The Vulcan's color was off. Spock's skin had developed a waxy sheen, like a corpse filled with embalming fluid.
"Spock!" McCoy gripped the first officer's shoulders firmly and swung him around, then scrabbled the fingers of one hand into his medipouch at his side. A quick scan showed him that Spock's internal body temperature had dropped drastically from its standard 91 degrees to 85 degrees. It might not seem like much to the layman, but McCoy knew that unconsciousness would set in for the Vulcan at 79 degrees, and those six tiny units could slip by awfully fast if you weren't careful. After that … Hell, if Spock were Human, he would have been unconscious already, slipping his way toward coma and death.
It wasn't as though the doctor hadn't anticipated this event, and McCoy reached for the hypospray he'd administered to Hallie. Changing the dosage slightly to account for the Vulcan's different metabolism, McCoy pressed it home through the material of Spock's field jacket and waited.
Funny, how a minuscule amount of time can seem inordinately long when you're worried half to death. Beneath McCoy's fingers, Spock was frighteningly still, though occasionally his body shook with tremors that let the doctor know he was still alive.
Finally, the Vulcan blinked sleepily, licked his thin lips, which were practically devoid of color, and slowly raised his head. "Dr. McCoy—" His voice was raspy and hoarse, a broken parody of his normal tones. "I have been …" He sighed heavily, tiredly.
"Take it easy, Spock," McCoy urged. "It'll keep for a few minutes. Let the medicine take effect first." He looked over his shoulder at the others crowding in behind him. "It's the hypothermia, though I can't understand why Spock's being affected so radically before the rest of us. He tolerated the cold temperatures of Sarpeidon's ice age better than I did, and that was one hell of a cold place. This just doesn't make any sense." His mouth twisted wryly. "But, why should it? Nothing else has. How are the rest of you doing?" Before any of them could reply, he ran the mediscanner in a long sweeping gesture across the three of them.
"How are we, Doctor?" Chekov asked, and McCoy was reminded that he hadn't answered the lieutenant's question earlier. The doctor was fairly certain the security chief could read his expression quite adequately.
"We all have lowered internal temperatures.
They're not as radical as Spock's, mind you, but they're still something to be concerned about, particularly if we can't find a way to bring them back up and maintain them there. I can't figure it out. It's chilly in here, sure, but more like a brisk autumn day. It's definitely not cold enough in here to induce hypothermia."
"Ensign, that's what it is, though it shouldn't be a problem at all. We need to get warm, and soon."
Spock's fingers curled loosely around McCoy's wrist and squeezed to get the doctor's attention. "What is it, Spock?"
"Doctor—" Already the Vulcan's voice sounded better. His eyes were open now, the vision clearer and brighter. The sight did a world of good for McCoy's spirits. "I have much to report. I have been successful in tying in the generator to some of the station systems, though, naturally, it does not produce enough energy to power up everything."
"Naturally. I noticed the air smelled a whole sight better." McCoy took a deep breath through his nose. "That peach smell is all but gone."
Spock nodded. "Air is being recycled at slightly better than minimal. In addition, heat production has been brought up marginally as well."
"Well, that's good news, but it doesn't do much for us when we don't know what's causing our temperatures to drop. We need to find a way to maintain our body heat at safe levels without letting it drop so far we succumb to unconsciousness."
"I'm on it, Dr. McCoy," Leno announced suddenly and vanished out of the room at a run.
The doctor stared after her. "Where's she going?"
"I don't know …" Chekov snapped his fingers. "Yes, I do! And she'll probably need help. I'll be right back." He took off after his crewman.
McCoy blinked at Hallie. "Do you know what that's all about?"
She shrugged. "Beats me. How are you feeling, Mr. Spock?"
"Much better, Ensign, thank you for asking." The Vulcan sat straighter and took a deep breath.
McCoy noted with completely detached, utterly professional, joyous enthusiasm that Spock's color was much better than before. He made another pass with the scanner. "Well, your internal temperature is back up to safety levels, but I don't have any guarantees on how to keep it there, since I don't know why it's dropping in the first place. This is damned peculiar." He slapped the scanner against his palm in irritation, as though maybe it was acting up and hitting it could make it work correctly again. He knew that wasn't the case, but the physical gesture did wonders for his outlook.
"I have spoken with the captain." Spock made the announcement with all the aplomb of a remark about the current weather conditions.
It made McCoy want to hit him but, being a physician, he didn't like to manhandle his patients, even when they deserved it. "You talked to Jim?! Is everything all right?"
"Evidently, Doctor, everything is far from 'all right.'" Spock sat back in his chair, looking better by the moment. "We were only able to speak briefly due to the energy fluctuations we are currently experiencing."
"Why doesn't that surprise me?"
"But our conversation was long enough for me to learn that the Enterprise is also suffering from power drainage, which is why they could not beam us back when we lost contact with the ship. Evidently, they are attempting to send out a shuttlecraft to enact a rescue, but I do not put much faith in the attempt, given the current parameters of our situation."
But Kirk was trying. That was all that mattered. Leonard McCoy had known Jim Kirk long enough to know that the starship captain would try every trick in the book to get them back. And, when those were exhausted, he'd try a few more. And if those didn't work …
… McCoy didn't want to think about that.
"I lost contact with the ship shortly thereafter," Spock continued. "And so I turned my attention to—" He blinked over McCoy's shoulder. "What do you have there, Lieutenant?"
McCoy turned. Chekov and Leno were back, their arms filled with yards of shiny black material. Leno grinned, unable to contain herself. "Romulan environmental suits, Mr. Spock, from the security office, or whatever it is back there!" She indicated the direction with a jerk of her head.
"Chances are, Ensign, that if the Romulans did not endeavor to use these suits to save at least part of their number, they will be no good to us."
"Oh, put a sock in it, Spock!" McCoy growled. He stood and took a suit from Leno's outstretched arms, smiling reassuringly at her suddenly wobbly expression. "Give the woman a little credit for trying, will you? Maybe these won't help in the long run, but if they aid in any sort of heat retention, even for a little while, it helps our position until we figure out a way to stop the drop in our temperatures or come up with a way to get back home. Hell, they're better than what we have now. Don't mind him, Ensign," he added for Leno's benefit. "He's always difficult to deal with."
He shook out the e-suit and held it up against him. "Well, I can't say it'll be a perfect fit, but I'm not about to quibble." He took another and tossed it at the Vulcan. "Here you go, Spock. Climb in. Doctor's orders. And everyone make sure you pull up the cowls. Heat loss is greatest through the top of your head. The longer you keep that covered and insulated, the better your chances of retaining heat for a longer time."
The next few moments were spent in getting out of their bulkier clothing and into the sleek lines of the environmental suits. The soft, smooth material clung to their bodies like a second skin or a thin, insulating barrier of fat. Alpine skiers and deep sea divers in the twentieth century had first discovered the practical use of such a suit, and mankind had wisely taken it with them into space.
McCoy snugged the open-faced cowl up over his head and immediately began to feel warmer than he had in the bulky field jacket. "How's everyone doing?"
Their replies in the affirmative made him feel better than he had in hours. Even Spock looked pleasantly surprised by the difference he felt once inside the environmental suit. Hallie's suit sagged here and there, as it was made for a much taller person, and McCoy took note of that fact. The suit's poor fit would probably make her more susceptible to further heat loss than the rest of them, if it happened that these suits did not do their job and halt the loss of body heat.
He didn't for a minute think it would go any other way. If so, the Romulans would have used these suits to try and save themselves, as Spock had said. For now, it was a help, and it was at least an attempt on their parts to stay alive just that much longer, but he would have given almost anything to know why the Vulcan was so much more affected than the others.
While they dressed, Spock told Chekov and Leno what he had told the others about his short conversation with Kirk, then resumed his recitation. "I turned my attention to accessing the computer banks and learning what I could about this station. It appears that much of the records have been wiped, probably out of fear they would fall into the wrong hands."
"I'll bet the computer didn't tell you anything about what we saw in the corridor," Leno said darkly. Her face flushed when Spock looked her way, one eyebrow cocked in silent encouragement for her to continue. He listened attentively to all of their descriptions, his head cocked curiously to one side.
"You only saw it," Hallie said almost accusingly after Leno and Chekov had finished their part of the story. She still looked shaken by her experience. "Whatever it was, it touched me." She shivered and hunched her shoulders.
"And me," McCoy added, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder where she sat beside him on one of the consoles, her feet dangling several inches off the floor.
"And me," McCoy added, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder where she sat beside him on one of the consoles, her feet dangling several inches off the floor.
"Did it seem intelligent?"
"I didn't give it time to show me its diplomas, if that's what you mean," McCoy stressed, wide-eyed. "It didn't act like it was trying to say howdy, but how would I know anyway?"
Spock was annoyed. He didn't show it, but McCoy could tell. "What sensations did you experience at its touch?" the Vulcan pressed.
McCoy paused, thinking about it, remembering the feel of that tentacle along his face. He'd immediately wanted to say revulsion, but that hadn't been part of it at all. There had been nothing to be repulsed by, no sliminess or slickness or anything of that nature. In fact, the touch had been surprisingly dry and smooth, almost like the touch of a snake. He told Spock as much. "And cold. It was really cold." The doctor rubbed his cheek where the thing had briefly caressed him.
Hallie nodded vigorously. "Very cold. It kind of leaned up against me, and it felt like all the heat in my body had …" She trailed off, turning wide eyes up to McCoy's face.
He shook his head wonderingly. "Spock, could there be a … a creature … who leaches out body heat as a form of energy consumption and induces …" He shook his head again. It all seemed so far-fetched, but so had Vulcans before humans met them. "Am I just grasping at straws?"
"On the contrary, Doctor. Given my other findings, that is a most interesting theory."
"Well?" McCoy asked, when further explanation wasn't immediately forthcoming.
Spock paused, deep in thought. "After losing contact with the Enterprise, I attempted to access the ship's log or other records in order to find out the reason behind the station's existence or some information pertinent to energy loss or equipment malfunctions. There was singularly little to go on. I did discover that this station was intended to be the first of many such outposts in Romulan-held territory—"
"Terrific," McCoy muttered.
"—and that there were hopes it would manifest itself into a gathering spot of some kind."
"Sounds pretty nefarious to me," Leno observed.
Chekov, seated beside her, nodded grimly. "When were the Romulans ever up to something that wasn't?"
"What about station power, Mr. Spock?" Hallie encouraged him to continue.
"I could not access the command log, Ensign. Either it is under some type of strict locking code, or no longer exists at all. I had hoped to find records or reports on the malfunctioning of their central power source but, as I stated earlier, there is nothing of the kind. Be that as it may, the situation exists."
"So?" McCoy prompted. Where was Spock going with all this?
Spock held up one fist, uncurling one finger for each point raised. "First, we have a space station that has suffered energy loss. If our present experience holds true, that loss presented itself in a series of fluctuations before power dropped to minimal standards." His middle digit joined the index finger. "Second, since speaking with Captain Kirk, I have discovered that the Enterprise has suffered much the same sort of affliction and can only deduce that, given enough time, her systems will also drop to minimal and she will begin to drift, as did the station." Spock ignored the looks that the remark raised on the faces of his companions. "Since the Enterprise did not suffer a power loss until coming in contact with the space station, I think it safe to speculate that the power drain is caused by the station itself, either something aboard the station or in the vicinity."
Another finger came up. "Third, your reports of this entity you encountered in the corridors pose some interesting theories about loss of energy and how Romulans could die of hypothermia when the temperature makes it unlikely if not impossible. I don't think I need to remind you that body heat is a form of energy, just as are electrical impulses or the power that drives a starship." His look held them. His little finger joined the rest. "Fourth and last, when I lost contact with the Enterprise, I took a tricorder reading. If the reading can be trusted as even marginally accurate, and I believe it can be, there were indications of a power drain emanating from directly aboard this vessel."
"Excuse me, Mr. Spock," Chekov interrupted. "You tried using the tricorder earlier, when we first came aboard the station, and it didn't register any power drain. Why now?"
"I suspect, Lieutenant, that is because the creature is growing stronger as it draws more energy from the Enterprise, if it is, indeed, the creature that I am reading on the tricorder. If I interpret my reading correctly, and the creature is doing what I am suggesting, then it is logical to assume that the center of our problem lies in engineering."
"And no Scotty within reach," McCoy lamented.
Spock's head dipped in a brief nod. "I agree that it would facilitate matters if Mr. Scott were here, should the station's power source indeed prove to be the problem; however, I suspect that is not the case."
"Why do I think I hate the sound of that?" McCoy watched while Spock stood and reached to disengage the generator from its conduit. "What are you doing that for?"
"We may need it in engineering," Spock answered simply.
"Oh." McCoy swung his foot and shared a look with the others. "What about that"—his head jerked toward the open doors—"whatever it was, that thing, out there?"
Spock quickly coiled wires and slid the generator back into its sling. "When we find engineering, Doctor, I believe we will find your 'thing,' as well."
"Great." McCoy levered himself off the counter and picked up his equipment from atop his discarded field jacket. "Just great."