“You’re not in much shape for a check. I can’t find the injuries, but you’re hurting as bad as Jim.”
“It will pass,” James said quietly. “Let’s go. Spock, you rest.”
Spock sighed and lay back down in the manner of being put upon. Two of them!
“That should do it,” Kirk said. “Take the con, Scotty. Commander?”
He led her quickly off the bridge, flashing looks to the bridge crew, again acknowledging their response to his return. Uhura had worked steadily, with tears drying on her cheeks.
But he couldn’t take time for more. The turbo-lift doors closed and he said, “Sickbay.” And the Commander caught him as he sagged.
She held him up, then bent quickly and picked him up.
“Put me down,” he gasped, and considered himself lucky not to yell.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I can carry you easily.”
“Damn it, not through the corridors of the Enterprise!”
She arched an eyebrow. “I daresay you’ve been carried to Sickbay before. You mean—not by a woman.”
“Probably,” he admitted. “What if I do? It’s a tough idea to get used to. I don’t mind if you have muscle-but do you have to throw your weight around?”
She shrugged as if his weight were not a problem. “Do you? Its a fundamental principle: if you’ve got it, you’ve got to use it”
A point, he thought with a weary effort at fairness. Didn’t he use any muscle he had—and damn glad to have it? Enjoying it? If the shoe were on the other foot—? He let a rueful grimace concede the point Then—just put me down because—I’m asking. Would you have me carry you through your ship if you could walk—or crawl?”
She lifted her eyebrows, and her slow smile conceded a point too. “You’ll do, Captain,” she said and slowly swung him down.
He might have to crawl at that. He fought his knees while she kept her arm around him, and there was no teasing in her support now. “It’s all right,” she said softly. “You have every right. Don’t fight it quite so hard. Surely you can accept a shoulder?”
He smiled weakly and put his arm around her, leaned on her heavily. Hard to believe such slimness could contain such strength. “Friends?” he whispered.
“Friends,” she said and stood straight under his arm as the turbo-lift decanted them, her circling arm all but carrying him as he tried to make his feet track.
But she made it look good, and the odd looks he got in the hall were more Captain-got-the-girl-again than anything else. Or just It’s-the-Captain-welcome-home-sir. He could see that they wanted to run to him, touch him. But they held to discipline and let him move on, never knowing quite how much they had. One day he would have to take a week off and let himself feel what he felt about that.
“Spock,” he said near the door. “I have to make it from here.”
Her eyes understood and she let him go, but he could feel hair-trigger reflexes at his side ready to catch him again as he cleared his face and set himself to make it.
CHAPTER XXI
James closed his band over McCoy’s as the hand pulled the spray hypo away from his arm. He pointed the Doctor toward the door, and McCoy was there when the Captain came through.
McCoy shoved the shot home without asking and fastened on the arm. The Captain didn’t protest being steered to the nearest bed, but he hefted himself onto it with some care and sat with an air of unfinished business.
Spock had turned from the computer to watch, but restrained himself from going to him.
And James thought that he himself was, after all, getting the hang of this link-resonance business. He couldn’t seem to screen Kirk’s pain out of his own body, but it was he, by God, who had been tuning the link to a thread to keep it away from the Vulcan. Doubtless Spock was allowing it, to keep his own pain to himself. But it was progress.
The Commander had stuck with the Captain to the bed, now turned and came to stand beside James. “All clear,” she said in the tone of a report. A singular performance. The conference of delegates was quite impressed. It will be some time before most of them dare to accuse him of honoring the Prime Directive in the breach again. There is talk of an alliance which would open relations with both Federation and Empire. Omne’s people, likewise. A little shell-shocked, but seeing—logic. The delegates will send a commission to verify the facts of Omne’s death, and report back to us shortly.”
“And Sub-Commander S’Tal?” James asked.
“Annoyed,” she said, “as is his custom.” She smiled down at him gravely. “He still half suspects that I am a hostage.” She met his eyes in acknowledgement of fact. “He is—my balance. My advocate of—shooting ‘em up. However, I command.”
So that was the way of it. Tal perhaps more than he had seemed—
“S’Tal will follow us out to the offshore limit, Captain,” she said in a level tone. “As you suggested, twelve transporter diameters, out of range of transporters and weapons. I suppose we must wait for the delegates’ report. I would feel better if we could head out at warp speed.”
“How much hell have you bought today?” Kirk asked.
She turned to him with a little lift of her head. “All there is to buy,” she said. “I must now take the Empire apart and put it back together. The decision of peace or war does not rest in my hands, and I must reach the point where it does.”
Kirk nodded. “That was what I thought. Will Tal back you?”
“No,” she said, “But they will have to go through him to get to me.”
Kirk smiled in comprehension and sympathy. “Still, you will make a time when we can be allies as well as friends.”
“Yes.”
“I, too,” Kirk said soberly—and then made a rueful face. “I’m more likely to get talked to death.”
“A terrible fate,” she said. “On the whole, I would not trade with you.”
Kirk grinned. “On the whole, neither would I.”
“On the whole, a satisfactory arrangement,” Spock cut in, “since a trade would be somewhat illogical However, I take it we are agreed that for our part the alliance has already begun, and both Federation and Empire must be taken apart, if necessary, until both can stand against Omne’s threat.”
“Agreed, Spock,” Kirk said questioningly.
“I recommend we move on to the other problem while you and James are still able to focus on it. You are not concealing from me the need for medical attention and long rest.”
So much for that, James thought, suspecting that he looked as sheepish as Kirk. When had Spock ever needed an actual link?
“For once, that’s—logical,” McCoy said. “Get out of here and let me pack ‘em both in.”
“I’m afraid that I have to leave before long, Doctor,” the Commander said, “or S’Tal really will conclude that I am under duress—or out of my mind.”
“Well, excuse me, Commander,” McCoy said, puzzled, “but I really can’t see that that has much to do with it. You can work out your alliances by viewscreen—later—tomorrow—whenever.”
“No, we cannot,” she said, looking at Spock
McCoy thought that he caught her drift. “Oh, well, uh—you and Spock, then, but—
“No, Doctor,” Spock said. “Commander, Captain, we have checked the identity patterns on James. He is absolutely identifiable as James T. Kirk, to the last decimal, beyond doubt or disguise.”
Kirk sighed and nodded, looking at James. “What we expected,” he said. “You didn’t have to go through that.”
“Yes, I did,” James said, but could not quite bring himself to elaborate.
Spock cut in again. “The implications, Captain. He cannot be hidden anywhere within Star Fleet. Or—except
