wiseheart: (Federation)
wiseheart ([personal profile] wiseheart) wrote2017-10-11 08:02 pm
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The Child 12 - Cryontha

THE LOST YEARS
by Soledad
EPISODE 02: THE CHILD

For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Prologue.

Author’s note: Some of the dialogue contains rephrased lines from the original script, meant for Phase II of TOS.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
CHAPTER 12 – CRYONTHA

Four days later, the Enterprise and the alien cylinder were still staring at each other in the black, starry solitude of deep space. The new crisis prophesied by Xon hadn’t occurred yet, but everybody agreed that it was only a matter of time. Therefore Captain Kirk called for a crisis meeting – this time not in the briefing room but in Sickbay, so that Scott and his people, who were still undergoing treatment, could also participate - those who were conscious, that is. Only a skeleton crew remained on the bridge, with Uhura in the command chair and the unshakable Ensign Bernstein at the helm.

“If we just knew why the thing’s attacked us!” the badger-haired Lieutenant Leslie, who’d been promoted as head of Computer Diagnostics right before the launch of their current mission, complained. There was more annoyance towards the unknown in his voice than real concern, though. He was a veteran who’d served on board the Enterprise during the previous five-year-mission, in various departments, and was not easily frightened.

“All efforts to establish communication with the cylinder have failed, so far,” Ensign Ga’qus added unhappily. “We’ve tried on every single frequency we could think of. We’ve even bombarded the thing with ultrasound waves, as crude a method as it might be. But we couldn’t achieve anything, aside from almost rendering ourselves deaf,” she finished, rubbing her large, sensitive ears ruefully.

Glum silence followed her report. If Tiburonian communication techniques failed, that could only mean that one couldn’t establish First Contact with the cylinder – or whatever dwelt inside it – through the usual channels.

McCoy scratched the nape of his neck thoughtfully.

“This might sound a little extravagant, but… everything began when we passed through that peculiar cloud of energy,” he reminded the others. “Would it be possible that there is a connection between the cloud, the cylinder and Irska? Could you imagine that the cloud might be an intelligent entity?” he asked his colleague, Dr. Helen Noël.

The neuropsychologist shrugged. “This is a big universe, Leonard. Everything is possible.”

“Besides, we’ve met several cloud-like entities during our previous five-year-mission,” Kirk added grimly. “They were all capable of interstellar travel just fine.”

“Aye, and neither of them was particularly friendly,” Scott commented from the tank full of green regeneration gel tiredly. He was buried in the stuff up to his ears and had even a gel mask covering his face. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

“True enough,” McCoy nodded. “But if the cylinder is housing an intelligent cloud entity, and if said entity has hostile intentions towards organic life in general, why didn’t it attack us while we were flying through it?”

“I’m not up to the challenge to understand the possible motivations of a cloud that travels through space with warp speed and most likely isn’t even sentient,” Kirk muttered. “Assuming, of course, that there is a connection between the cloud and the cylinder - which is by no means certain yet.”

“Perhaps it didn’t have a reason to attack us back then,” Colonel Tigh, whom Kirk had expressly invited to staff briefings since the beginning of the current crisis, in the hope to benefit from his decades-long military experience, commented. “Very few people attack other people without a reason; at least they usually believe that they have a sound reason. Even the Cylons were convinced that their war to eliminate mankind as a whole would serve the perfect order of the universe.”

“What sort of reason could have a cloud that has apparently a highly developed technology to its disposal, to kill us?” McCoy asked with a frown.

“I don’t know,” Tigh replied calmly. “Perhaps we ought to ask the cylinder.”

“That’s what we’ve been doing all the time!” Ga’qus exclaimed.

Tigh shook his head thoughtfully. “No, Ensign, it’s not. We’ve been bombarding it with messages that it apparently doesn’t understand. Perhaps they don’t even register with the cylinder. If its technology is truly so alien that we can’t even begin to understand it, where is the guarantee that it would be compatible with ours, on any level?”

“Do you happen to have a suggestion?” Kirk asked impatiently.

Tigh nodded. “If the cloud is indeed sentient, it ought to have some sort of thoughts. In that case, the cylinder has to contain certain traces of those thoughts. There are telepaths aboard this ship – fairly powerful ones, at that. Why don’t they try to establish contact on a non-technological level?”

“It is not that simple, Colonel,” Xon said. “Vulcans are touch-telepaths. How am I supposed to touch the cylinder?”

“I didn’t mean you,” Tigh replied. “There is a person on board who most likely already does have a connection to the cloud... or to the cylinder… or both. Perhaps you should try to learn something through that person.”

“What are you talking about?” Kirk demanded. “Who on my ship is supposed to have to do anything with that… that thing?”

“Someone whose existence has probably been initiated by the cloud,” Dr. Noël, who started to understand what Tigh was hinting at, said. “The child of Lieutenant Ilia.”

McCoy raised a hand in protest. “That child is fourteen days old; or, if we take the rate of her individual development into consideration, fourteen or fifteen years, tops. She can’t have any objective knowledge about the cloud… or articulate it.”

“If Irska’s conception has been induced by the cloud, of which I’m personally convinced, she must have some kind of knowledge about her origins,” Tigh pointed out. “Perhaps buried, not on a conscious level, yet a Vulcan ought to be capable of reaching that buried knowledge and find some answers.”

“I might be capable of doing so,” Xon replied seriously. “However, you may not be aware of the fact, Colonel, that a forced mind-meld is considered on Vulcan a crime even worse than physical rape. There are serious repercussions for that sort of crime; at least in theory. There has not been a single recorded case in the last two thousand standard years.”

“But Mr. Spock repeatedly performed mind-melds with alien beings,” Kirk said in surprise.

Xon raised an eyebrow. “Did he? How unethical of him. No wonder he found it necessary to cleanse himself from his past in the Desert of Gol.“

The comment was met with stunned silence. Everyone from the veteran stuff respected and admired Spock, whom they considered the epitome of lofty Vulcan ideals, even though his mother had originated from Earth. The thought that Vulcans might see him differently, and that Xon’s opinion might mirror the general Vulcan opinion about Spock, was quite… unsettling for them. Not the least because they had always thought they’d understand Vulcans through Spock - until now. Now they had to realise that they hadn’t even necessarily understood Spock; and that the more conservative circles on Vulcan might not even consider a Terran hybrid as their equal.

Not that this fact would have lessened their respect and admiration for Spock who, after all, had saved the ship and the crew several times through those supposedly unethical mind-melds. Accordingly, half a dozen senior officers were giving the clueless young Vulcan decidedly hostile looks.

“I believe Mr. Spock’s motivation isn’t the matter of discussion right now,” Colonel Tigh intervened, steering the discussion back to the original topic. “Tell me, Lieutenant Xon: would you perform the mind-meld is Irska agreed to participate?”

Xon didn’t answer at once. The thought to share his mind with a complete stranger, and one of uncertain origins at that, was against everything he’d been trained for. He had to admit, though, that this time it might be necessary… not that it would make him any less uncomfortable.

“Considering the potential danger we are currently threatened by… yes, I would be willing,” he finally said. “I may be able to discover things in her subconscious to explain her connection to the alien vessel.”

“Excellent,” Tigh said with a shrug. “We only have to ask Irska, then.”

Dr. Noël rose. “She must be in Ilia’s quarters,” she said. “Perhaps it would be best to bring her here… in case there might be complications with the meld.”

“You can use my office then,” McCoy offered to the Vulcan. “I know it’s a very private affair; you’d be undisturbed there.”

Xon nodded his thanks stiffly, but – despite his expressionless mien – one could clearly see that he didn’t like the whole idea at all. His rigid carriage, the way his lips were pressed into a thin line, the way his eyes were fixated on a corner of Sickbay where was absolutely nothing to see, spoke volumes.

“And who’s gonna ask the girl?” McCoy inquired sceptically.

“I’ll do it,” Scott offered in that tired voice of his.

The others looked at him in surprise, but Decker shrugged.

“You’ve probably got the best chance of us all,” he agreed.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dr. Noël left to bring the girl, and everyone waited in tense silence until she returned with Irska. Ilia came with them, clutching the hand of her daughter protectively. As McCoy had mentioned before, the speed with which Irska was growing had slowed down considerably during the last few days, as if the current period of her life had come to its end. She looked about fifteen or sixteen right now.

Releasing her mother’s hand, she hurried straight to the gel-tank in which Scott was resting. With infinite care, she took the chief engineer’s hand – patched up with several layers of syntheskin – between her narrow palms. She was still wearing the headband Scott had made for her.

“How are you doing, Mr. Scott?” she asked. Her voice was warm and friendly but had already lost its high, child-like pitch.

“Better,” the battered Scotsman replied. “As ya can see, Dr. McCoy has patched me up again; he’s very good at that. But in the end, it was you who saved us all. Wouldya help us again, lass?”

“I’d do anything for you,” Irska replied with such disarming honesty that Scott became beet red with embarrassment; still half a child or not, she was stunningly beautiful. “What shall I repair now?”

Despite being in a great deal of pain, the chief engineer laughed. “Nothin’ this time. What we need is information, lass. We must know where that bloody cylinder has come from, pardon my phrasin’; why it has attacked us and what it still may be plannin’ against us.”

“How could I know?” Irska asked unhappily. It clearly distressed her to disappoint her fatherly friend. “I haven’t got any idea!”

Scott patted her hand in a fatherly manner. “We believe ya do, sweetheart. Ya do have the answers, deep within ya, where ya cannae reach ‘em… not yet. And when ya’ve grown enough to understand, it may be too late for us all.”

“Perhaps Mr. Xon can help,” Tigh suggested.

Irska glanced through her tears at the Vulcan, who looked back at her openly and seriously.

“Vulcans know a method called the mind-meld,” he explained. “We can unite our thoughts with another person and so search for answers deep within that the person herself might not find alone. I cannot guarantee that you indeed have the answers. But I would like to try – if you allowed me.”

Irska looked from the Vulcan at Scott, then at the dark, intently focused face of Colonel Tigh… then at the Vulcan again.

“Is it gonna hurt?” she asked hesitantly.

“Of course not,” Xon replied, choosing to keep his own discomfort well hidden from the girl; it wouldn’t have helped the case, had Irska known how much he was dreading the meld. “And in exchange I will show you how the Vulcan silverbirds, also called the wind-sailors, dance in the thin air of my home planet.”

Whether it was that promise that convinced Irska to make up her mind, or her desire to help, it would be hard to tell. In any case, she looked at her mother... and smiled mischievously.

“I think I’d like to join minds with Mr. Xon, Mother,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be funny if we taught him how to cry?”

Ilia rolled her eyes. “Very funny, darling; but that isn’t the point of this exercise,” she said. But she couldn’t suppress a smile, and that made Kirk a little nervous. Deltans were known for their peculiar sense of humour, and suddenly he was afraid that Xon would get more than he’d bargained for.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“I hope everything will work out,” M’Benga muttered as Xon and Irska retreated into McCoy’s office to prepare themselves for the meld. “We haven’t got a clue how much Irska has inherited from her mother’s strong telepathic abilities. By the ancestors, I’m not even sure that Vulcan and Deltan telepathy are compatible at all! It has never been tried before. Should the neuro-chemicals in Xon’s mesofrontal cortex get off-balance, we’ll be facing a serious problem.”

“Could someone kindly translate for me, please?” Kirk rolled his eyes. “I don’t speak medical jargon.”

“The mesofrontal cortex is the seat of the Vulcan psycho-suppression system,” McCoy explained. “To make it easier for you to understand: it’s what enables them to suppress their emotions. Should the neuro-chemical balance be disturbed, Vulcans lose their iron self-discipline and run amok.”

“Is that what happens when they get into the mating heat?” Kirk asked, memories of a crazed Spock at his own, failed wedding ceremony coming back to him with unsettling clarity.

McCoy nodded. “Exactly. And since they aren’t used to face their suppressed emotions, such patients usually go stark, raving mad within hours… if they survive the shock in the first place.”

“They don’t die from pon farr, though; not usually,” Kirk pointed out.

McCoy nodded again. “True. But the pon farr is a natural sequence of their biological cycle. They’re prepared for it, and they have found certain ways to channel it, millennia ago. Also, their bodies build up strength during the seven-year-break to deal with the madness when it comes. Should it come unexpected and hit them unprepared-for, though…” he trailed off and shook his head ruefully.

“It isn’t just the concern about their privacy why Vulcans are so hesitant to perform a mind-meld with alien species,” M’Benga added. “Such an experiment could easily cost them their sanity… or their lives.”

And he glared accusingly at Colonel Tigh, who’d come up with the idea in the first place and more or less blackmailed Xon into cooperation.

Tigh shrugged. “It wasn’t my intention to harm Lieutenant Xon, doctor; but if we don’t find a way to come to an understanding with the cylinder or its hypothetical inhabitants, his life won’t be safe, either; no more than that of the rest of us,” he said.

Which was very true again, of course – an uncomfortable truth no-one could really argue with. So they remained in unhappy silence, waiting for Xon to do what he could in order to find at least some answers.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Vulcan, in the meantime, had Irska sitting in a chair and pulled up a second one for himself, before turning to Ilia who was still clutching her daughter’s hand.

“Let her go, please,” he requested softly, “and do not interfere. You would only endanger us both.”

After a moment of hesitation, Ilia obeyed. Sitting down opposite Irska, Xon cautiously reached out and touched the girl’s face at the appropriate spots to accomplish the link.

“My mind to your mind,” he murmured the ancient Vulcan mantra. “My thoughts to your thoughts…”

Ilia watched them intently and was a little frightened when she saw the shock on Xon’s usually so impassive face. But after a moment, the features of the Vulcan smoothed out again and rearranged themselves into an expression of almost transcendental beatitude.

“Love…”he murmured, and his voice seemed to come faintly, from a great distance. “life… death… compassion… fear… body… pain… cryontha… learn…” he trailed off. Then he shuddered, took a deep breath, and said in a strangely changed voice, if someone else would be speaking through him, urgently and with great emphasis. “Understand cryontha… End peril…”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The unexpected whistle of the intercom tore everyone from their concentration rather abruptly.

“Bridge to Captain Kirk and Mr. Xon,” Uhura’s tense voice, the one she usually reserved for upcoming crises, said.

“Kirk here,” the captain answered. “What is it, Uhura?”

“Sir, the alien cylinder has generated an energy field of some sort… and it’s expanding in our direction,” Uhura reported. “I’ve contacted Security, but Mr. Chekov can’t tell me what kind of energy it is, either.”

“The expanding energy field is has begun to discharge emissions, Keptin,” Chekov added from his office on Deck B. “Possible effects can’t be estimated just yet, but I’ve got a really bad feeling about this, sir.”

He wasn’t the only one.

“Go to red alert, Mr. Chekov,” Kirk ordered, “and come up to the bridge; I may have need of your skills there. Battle stations! Engineering, initiate Warp engines and prepare for emergency Warp!”

“Sir,” Scott intervened tiredly, “Ya know we cannae outrun the bloody thing, don’t ya?”

“I know; but sitting here and waiting for the next move of the cylinder is no solution, either, is it?” Kirk retorted. “Well, I must go to the bridge. When Xon’s done with the girl, let them both follow me there.”

With that, he was in the turbolift cabin already. Lieutenant Garrovick, who had represented Security during the briefing, could barely catch up with him. Tigh, moving in on his trail, had to wait for the other ‘lift to arrive.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Uhura welcomed them with alarming news.

“Captain, I’ve called Lieutenant Park to the bridge,” she nodded in the direction of the Tellarite radiation biologist, sitting at Science Station One, while vacating the command chair for Kirk. “She’s the one who’s been analysing the energy readings of both the cloud and the cylinder, since our first encounter with the phenomenon, so I thought she might have some useful insight.

Kirk nodded. “Good thinking, Commander,” he then turned to the Russian who’d just arrived and sat down at his weapon/defence station, waving Ensign Lane away. “Mr. Chekov, damage control?”

Chekov switched on his damage control monitor and studied the screen with a frown. This time, the entire superstructure of the Enterprise was blinking on and off rather just one small area. The code letters: HL-SPRTR MOL INTGY appeared… and the flash warning: 12 HOURS TO CRITICAL.

Uhura took back her position at the communications console and put the images transmitted by the front sensor array to the main viewer. Then she divided the image field to add the pictures from the heck- and side sensor rows as well. All three image fields showed the same thing: the alien cylinder emitting a filmy magenta energy net that was swirling slowly as it enveloped the Enterprise. The mysteriously glimmering energy field was a beautiful sight; it was hard to believe that it would mean them any harm, yet their previous experiences with the alien vessel warned them that it might be so.

“Sir,” the Tellarite said, “As you can see, the cylinder has extended its energy field around us. It’s completely enveloping us, from all sides, and is breaking down the molecular integrity of our hull.”

“The ship will be pulverized!” Uhura added, alarmed.

“What about deflector shields?” Kirk asked.

“By the speed the energy field is crumbling them down, they’re gonna fail in little more than two hours, Keptin,” Chekov replied. “Once they’ve collapsed, the ship will be destroyed in another twelve hours.”

“In twelve hours, sixteen minutes and twenty-four point four, one, six seconds, to be accurate,” a visibly exhausted Xon added, emerging from the turbolift in Irska’s company.

Kirk ignored the very… Vulcan comment.

“Have you learned anything useful?” he asked instead.

Xon shook his head and gestured Park to remain at her station while lowering himself gingerly into the next best empty chair. It was a bit shocking to see a supposedly indestructible Vulcan so battered.

“I was confronted with a maelstrom of thoughts and emotions so alien to me that I found myself unable to even identify them,” he answered tiredly. “I am afraid Irska does not have any answers just yet… or else they are hidden in such a deep layer of her unconscious mind that I was simply unable to reach them.”

“Is there no way to reach them at all?” Kirk asked.

Xon shook his head again. “No, Captain. For that, we would need an experienced healer; and even so, invading someone’s mind to such depth would be life threatening, for both parts.”

“So you haven’t found anything at all?” Kirk was very disappointed.

“On the contrary, Captain,” Xon replied. “I am just not certain that it would help us in any way. There were two recurring thoughts of outstanding clarity, repeated like some sort of mantra… or a code: Understand cryontha… End peril… But that was all I could figure out of the chaos.”

“Better than nothing,” Kirk turned to the girl. “Do you have any idea what those sentences might mean?”

Irska shook her head wordlessly. Kirk frowned.

“But you agree with Mr. Xon’s interpretation, don’t you?” he insisted. “That the peril would end if we understood cryontha… whatever it is.”

The girl nodded without hesitation.

“Do you know what peril is?” Kirk asked.

“Of course!” Irska replied, clearly surprised by the question. “We are in peril, right now.”

Kirk nodded. “That we are. And cryontha? You know what that is, too, don’t you?”

But Irska just shook her head slowly, negatively. She looked puzzled… perhaps even a little frightened.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” she answered. “I really don’t know.”

Kirk exchanged helpless looks with his science officer. The Vulcan shrugged, clearly at a loss of what else they might try.

“Well,” Kirk said with a resigned sigh, “at least we’ve tried. Thanks for your efforts, Irska; and yours, Mr. Xon.”

Irska beamed at Uhura.

“You were right, Commander,” she declared. “Captain Kirk really doesn’t mean to say nasty things. He’s just under a lot of pressure.”

The look Kirk gave Uhura could have frozen Vulcan over.

Fortunately for her, Nahar Singh, who was supervising the control station of Engineering, swivelled his chair to his commanding officer.

“Captain,” he said, “I’m afraid Lieutenant Park’s estimate was a little too optimistic. Several key systems of the ship are nearing their tolerance limits… including the phaser banks and life support. If nothing happens, the complete molecular breakdown of our hull will only take another nine hours.”

~TBC~