Title: The Difference it Makes
Author: Gil Shalos
contact: Gilshandros@hotmail.com
Series: TOS
2/5
Rating: PG
Archives: ASCEML and ASC. Others ask

Summary:  When freak atmospheric conditions cut a landing 
party off from the Enterprise, Spock is forced to confront 
the differences between his command style and that of 
Captain Kirk.  Meanwhile, Kirk has to deal with his own 
frustration at the Enterprise's helplessness.

And then there's the Romulans....

Disclaimer: Paramount owns StarTrek, Kirk, Spock, the 
universe, my computer (no, wait,those last two are Bill Gates)



*********

"Professor." Kirk said from the door of the lab.

"Wait!" she snapped, finished what she was doing, and 
flicked the machine off.  "How many times," she began as she
turned, "have I said to - oh, Captain."

"Expecting someone else?"

"It's my staff who make a habit of interrupting me." Ridley 
said.  "What can I do for you?"

"Nothing, professor.  I can down to see if there was 
anything *I* could do for *you*.  Do you have everything you
need?"

"Apart from a few research assistants with brains, yes."

Kirk frowned.  "Your staff are causing you problems?"

Ridley sighed, and slumped a little.  "Oh, not really.  I'm 
sure they're very good at their jobs, particularly with the 
fearsome Mr Spock looking over their shoulders.  But *their*
jobs aren't the same as *my* job.  I'm a research scientist,
not an explorer.  The scientists on this ship are more 
concerned with logging all the possible information about 
new life forms than the kind of work I do."  

"What's the kind of work you do?" Kirk asked.  He felt a 
twinge of irritation at her assumption that the science 
staff worked so hard for Spock because they were afraid of 
him.  Spock could seem intimidating, perhaps, particularly 
to a new crewmember, and he did not tolerate inefficiency or
sloppy work, but his people worked themselves into the 
ground at his command out of loyalty, not out of fear.  
Surely that was obvious?  Kirk decided to let it pass for 
the moment. Professor Ridley would be gone from the 
Enterprise soon, he reminded himself.  There was no need to 
explain the ship, or the crew, to her.  

"Precise." Ridley said.  Nitpicking, one of the ensigns had 
said when they thought she couldn't hear.  Nitpicking.  
Fussy.  "Exact." She hesitated, and then said: "Like this, 
for example."

At her gesture of invitation, Kirk crossed to the lab bench 
and bent over the scanner.  The readings made only the 
barest sense to him, but he could see that  they were 
incredibly minute analyses.  "What are these?"

"The one on the left is a tissue sample from an Andorian 
who died of Grebosky's Disease.  See the tell-tale variation
in the upper range of the haemoglobin array?"

"Yes."

"The one on the right is a sample from an Orion who 
contracted the same disease.  Same outbreak, even.  In fact,
the Orion was exposed by the Andorian, who was one of his 
slaves."

"Poetic justice."

"Perhaps, although the Orion didn't die.  Now, look here, 
see the same variation in hemo?"

"Yes."

"But *here*, in the glucostat phasing, there's a dip that we
don't see in the other sample."

"And what does that mean?"

"Buggered if I know." Ridley said dryly, and Kirk was so 
surprised he began to laugh.

"You should show Spock when he gets back to the ship." Kirk 
said, deliberately testing himself.   No, it wasn't any 
easier.

Ridley stepped back and folded her arms.  "I hardly need the
assistance of the military." she said shortly.      

"I meant that he would find it interesting." Kirk said, 
although he had not meant that at all.  Ridley's expression 
softened a little.

"Oh.  Well, of course, I'll show him.  And if there's 
nothing else, Captain? I have a lot to do."

"No, nothing else.  Unless you'd care to have dinner with 
me?"  Although he hardly felt like making polite 
conversation, he would usually have extended the invitation 
long before now.  Spock's out of contact, not - his mind 
refused to fill in the next word - not *in trouble*.   
There's no excuse for you to shirk your duty, he chided 
himself.  Play nice with the civilian visitors.

"Perhaps another time, Captain.  I really am terribly busy."

"Of course," Kirk said, not trying to analyse the odd 
mixture of disappointment and relief he felt.  "Another 
time."

I should talk to Bones, he thought, though the idea had 
little appeal.  One of us has to say sorry first...

Perhaps his reluctance slowed his steps a little; or perhaps
it was just that it was the beginning of ship's night, when 
the lighting dimmed in the corridors and the Enterprise took
on the feel of spring evening.  Whatever the reason, he was 
nearly on top of two crewmen in the corridor that led from 
science to sickbay before he heard them.

They didn't notice his presence at all, at first, and when 
Kirk's brain registered what his ears were hearing he 
stopped dead, and slipped back soundlessly before following 
them at a slight distance.

"Well, that's all very well and good," said the first
crewman, "but you can't tell *me* the captain would have 
sent him down there if he'd thought this might happen.  Not 
after Murasake."

Murasake 312 *again*, Kirk thought.  A landing party led by 
Spock had been trapped on the surface of Taurus II in that 
mission, under attack and out of communications.  Two crew 
members had died, and Spock's refusal to delay repairing the
shuttle craft to bury them had caused deep hostility in the 
remaining crew members.

"He didn't do anything *wrong* on Taurus II," the other 
objected.  "Not really."

"Oh, maybe not wrong by the book, but there's wrong and 
there's wrong, right?  And I'm telling you, people died down
there."

"People die a lot on away missions.  It's part of the risk 
we sign on for."

"Yeah, well, when I die, I'd like to think that somebody'd 
say a few words over my frozen corpse that died serving the
Federation and not just push it to one side like some piece 
of garbage and go on with their job!"

"Yeah, you're right, there."

"I mean, catch me going anywhere with a Vulcan in command!
Not even a real Vulcan, at that."

"Aw, Jack, c'mon.  He made a mistake.  Everybody does that 
once in a while.  He probably learned."

"Yeah, but *why* did he make that mistake, huh?  Why?  He 
made it because he has logic circuits where normal people 
have feelings, that's why, and whatever he learned that 
won't change.  Every time that comes up, he'll make another 
mistake.  You want him making those mistakes on you?"

"No, not really...  I've got nothing against them, mind you.
Vulcans, I mean."

"Hell, no.  They're fine people.  In their place.  But 
command of humans is a job for humans, not aliens."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

The two turned off into another corridor and Kirk stopped.  
Half of him wanted to stride down the corridor after Jack - 
Yeoman Jack Rawlins, that was the man's name, part of the 
last crew intake - and call him on the carpet over what he'd
just said.  But... but all that would achieve was the 
silencing of one voice, and who knew how many others 
continuing to talk,  only in the privacy of their own 
quarters.  Kirk had seen what happened to ships whose crews 
felt they had to watch over their shoulders for the 
listening ears of command, and he didn't want that for the 
Enterprise.  

He'd have to handle this publicly, without naming names, 
without laying blame.  

Feeling a little ill, and with no desire to talk to McCoy, 
he went to his quarters and lay awake.


*******
Grenwood slipped to one knee and swore.  

"Up you come." Larssen said, taking his arm and heaving him 
to his feet.  He took hold of the travois again with hands 
that shook, and Larssen wished she could see his face under 
the mask.  As Spock began to move forward again she took the
straps from Grenwood's hands.

"Take a break!" she yelled through the wind, and bent to 
the task of pulling the sled forward.  The wind was in their
faces today, and it seemed to be inspired by a particularly
evil spirit to find all the tiny gaps around their facemasks
and slice in.  

I've never been warm, Larssen thought.  I've never been 
warm, I'll never *be* warm, it's all an illusion...  
Squinting forward, she could see about 10 meters before the 
ground disappeared into the snow.  There's nothing else out 
there, there's just this piece of ground that we take with 
us and snow.  Nothing but us and snow.  The base doesn't 
really exist, the Enterprise doesn't exist, nothing exists 
but snow...

She stopped that train of thought dead.  It felt too real.  
She tried to manufacture their arrival at the base to take 
its place, the doors opening, the warm air rolling out, 
but she had never been able to build herself images of the 
future.  The base dissolved into mist and snow.

Snow.

Larssen thought about her feet, instead.  Step by step, her 
feet carried her forward.  She felt the muscles in her legs 
working, listened to the noisy rasp of her breath. 
Suspended in the all-consuming awareness of her body, the 
memory of the past weeks lost the power to hurt her, the 
fear of  more weeks the same became distant, irrelevant.  
She had endured the past.  She could endure the present.  
The future, when it arrived, would be the present by then, 
and she would endure it in its turn.   

When they made camp for the night, Grenwood went to the 
corner of the shelter to take his facemask off.  Spock 
caught a glimpse of the ensign's eyes, red with weeping, 
before the young man managed to hide his face.  

He turned to Larssen and saw she was looking at Grenwood as 
well, frowning slightly.  She went to him and began talking 
to him in a low voice while Spock set up the heater and 
broke out ration packs.  When Grenwood did not come to take 
his food, Larssen fetched it for him.

As Spock and Larssen sat near the heater, eating, Spock 
noticed that Grenwood had not even opened his pack.

"Lieutenant," he asked Larssen softly, "is the ensign 
unwell?"

"In a manner of speaking, sir." she said, and then looked 
suspiciously at her food.  "Not heat'n'eat flavour 42 twice 
in row!" she said loudly and indignantly.  Grenwood looked 
up, and then picked up his own food.

"I have flavour 12." he said faintly.

"Oh, you lucky thing!  Swap?"

"Hell, no!" said Grenwood.  "Forty two is the one that's 
supposed to be spinach, right? I hate spinach."

"It's only *supposed* to be spinach," Larssen said patiently.
"Actually, it tastes nothing like spinach.  So you'd like 
it."

"I really, really, seriously doubt that." Grenwood said, 
and Spock noted that the ensign had turned towards them, 
moving slightly closer to the heater.

"Well, what do you want for it, then?" Larssen said.

"What?"

"What'll it take to make you swap?"

Grenwood looked around the shelter, his expression speaking 
volumes.  There was very little there.

"Not here, I mean, what do you want me to give you when we 
get back to the Enterprise?"

"Like what?"

"I'll stand your Friday duty for a month."  Larssen promised.
"How about that? That has to be worth flavour 12."

"*Nothing*," said Grenwood, "is worth flavour 12." He tore 
the foil top off the meal pack and began to eat with 
ostentatious enjoyment.

After Grenwood had gone to sleep, Spock replayed the 
incident in his mind.

"Lieutenant," he said, "what did you mean when you said that
Mr Grenwood was unwell 'in a manner of speaking'?"

Larssen had her head bent as she fastened the clips that 
held her braid, and her voice was muffled.  "He's tired, 
sir.  And - and dispirited, I guess you could say."

"His morale is poor?" Spock said.

His morale is rockbottom, *sir*, Larssen thought to herself.
Just like a Vulcan to put it that way.  "Yes." she said 
shortly.

"Are you also - dispirited?"

She would have thought he was mocking her, but when she 
looked up there was no expression on his face.  "I'm trying 
not to be, sir, but there's a physiological relationship 
between human bodies and human minds.  This kind of physical
effort and fatigue depletes serotonin levels."

"I am aware of that." Spock said.  "Are you less affected 
because you are in better physical shape than Mr Grenwood?" 

"Being in good shape is not an accusation usually levelled 
at me, sir." Larssen said.  Commander Spock continued to 
regard her with that unnerving Vulcan steadiness, and she 
realised he wanted a better answer. "Sir, when you're just 
trying to survive it's one thing.  It's watching things 
come at you that's difficult.  I've never been really good 
at that, and Grenwood is."

"He has, in your words, too much imagination?"

"Yes, sir.  I've tried to tell him not to worry about it, 
but it's not something that's easy to learn."

Spock raised an eyebrow.  "Yet you have done so."

"I started early, sir."  Very early, sir, and in a hard 
school.  She tucked away her comb, poked ineffectually at 
the one strand of hair that always managed to escape her 
plait, and started to unroll her sleeping bag. 

"You have said that your culture places no value on such 
'imagination.'"  Spock said.  "I would be interested to 
learn more of such a society, if it would not violate your 
privacy to tell me."

Larssen paused, and looked at him for a moment.  Her 
expression was unreadable, even to a Vulcan.  "I come from 
Initar, sir. One of the colony worlds lost from the 
Federation in the early years.  When a scoutship 
re-established contact, Initar had a primarily agricultural 
economy, with such light industry as the agriculture 
required."

"A not atypical pattern." Spock observed.

"Yes, sir, not atypical."  Larssen paused, ordering her 
thoughts.  How to describe the world of her childhood?  
Would he understand, or care, about the long golden summers
with the crops stretching out to the horizon, like a green 
gold cloth laid on a king's table?  Should she try to 
describe the way the light lingered hours after sunset, the
sky the translucent grey and blue and pink of a terran 
pearl?  Or the gentle winters that brought a rain that fell 
so softly it could be mistaken for fog?

"The climate is very good," she said at last. "Long growing 
seasons and a short, wet winter.  Initar had developed some 
- unusual - social structures, but the primary effect of the
climate and the economy was to reduce the need for much 
planning.  After the initial loss of contact with earth, 
Initar society divided between those who wanted to commit 
all the efforts of the population to re-establishing contact,
upgrading industry as fast as possible, and those who felt 
that doing so was dangerous, and unnecessary.  They quoted 
the human bible: 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil 
thereof.'"

"I have heard the saying."

"Well, the Initari who wanted to restore contact, 
sacrificing the labour of generations for the imagined 
future, didn't win out.  And their mind-set, the idea of 
envisioning something far off and striving for it, without 
regard for the present, was discredited."

I will, she had said as a child, I will ... one day I will...
and even picking herself up off the ground, split lip 
stinging, I will, she had said.

"The Initari who gained control of the government, and the 
education system, and the rest of it, were pretty clear in 
their ideas that such thinking wasn't appropriate for 
Initar.  It didn't take many generations before children 
were learning at their mother's knees that the most 
important thing you could do was pay attention to where you 
were, and that thinking about the future was a waste of time
- after all, when the future gets here, you can pay 
attention to it then.  That's a pretty loose interpretation 
of the official histories, sir. "

"But most informative.  Thank you."  There were other 
questions he wished to ask, details he desired to know, but 
it would be discourteous to ask further.

She smiled, exactly as she would do when he thanked her for 
a report or a task completed on the Enterprise.  "You're 
welcome, Commander." she said, and that too was just as she 
usually spoke.  Spock watched her as she lay down and fell 
instantly asleep, cataloguing once again the infinite 
variety of human behaviour.     

*****

"Bones."  Kirk waited at the door of McCoy's office, leaning
one shoulder against the door frame.  He would usually have 
gone straight to the chair opposite the doctor and dropped 
in to it; but McCoy would usually have looked up with 
a smile, and not kept his eyes fixed on his paperwork.

"Can I help you, *Captain*?" McCoy asked.

"Can I come in?"

"You're the captain, *Captain*, you can do any damn thing 
you please!"  

Kirk remained where he was.  "Bones..." he said again, 
tiredly. McCoy looked at him angrily for a moment, but even 
his offended dignity could not keep him from noticing the 
weary slump to his friend's shoulders, the marks of 
sleeplessness on his face.  He dropped his gaze to his 
terminal screen again.  

"Come in." he muttered, and heard the chair legs scrape on 
the floor and Kirk's sigh as he sat.  McCoy gritted his 
teeth, but it had to be done.  "I'll say sorry if you will."
he said, without looking up.

"Sorry, Bones." Kirk offered, and McCoy glanced up to see 
Kirk sprawled in the chair with his usual air of being 
exactly where he should be.  The captain's gaze was level, 
slightly amused, sincere.

"Sorry, Jim." he said at last, and immediately felt better.
He turned off the terminal where he had been reviewing the 
crew's psyche evaluations, and reflected that his own score 
would be markedly better now than five minutes ago. 

Psychologist, shrink thyself, he thought wryly.

"Do we shake hands and make up?" Kirk asked, smiling.

"I have a better idea." McCoy turned to the liquor cabinet.
"Let's shake hands with this nice rye whiskey I've been 
saving instead."  He glanced sharply at the shadows beneath 
Kirk's eyes.  "That's a prescription, Jim."

Kirk shrugged.  "Saves me from having to make it an order."
He accepted the glass McCoy offered, and raised it in a 
toast.  "To absent friends." he said quietly.

McCoy cleared his throat.  "I know you're worrying about our
people down there.  I know you'd rather be there with them."

"I'm used to it that way." Kirk admitted.  "I'm used to... 
being able to do something.  Knowing Spock is *here*, 
backing me up.  This seems upside down."

"Half of me is pleased to see you getting a taste of your 
own medicine. How does it feel to be stuck on the ship with 
me sniping at you when someone you care about is in 
god-knows what danger?"

"Particularly unpleasant." Kirk said.  "How does the other 
half of you feel?"

"The half of me that's forgiven you for all the times you've 
taken years off my life by doing some damn fool thing and 
expecting the rest of us to pull you out of it, you mean?"

"Yes. That half."

"It's more like a third." McCoy said dryly.  "Maybe a 
quarter, on a bad day.  Jim, you know, if one of you has to 
be stuck down there, I'm glad it's Spock.  He, at least, has
some prudence.  I approve of people who *don't* rush in 
where angels fear to tread."

"You *approve* of something about Spock?" 

"Well, hell, Jim, if you were the one patching up the 
rushers you'd have a certain warm spot for the 
hangers-back as well.  And if you tell him that, your next 
physical is going to make you wish you'd never been born."

Kirk leaned back in his chair, then reached to set his empty 
glass on the doctor's desk.  He knows, Bones, he almost 
said.  He already knows.

"You feel it's upside down," McCoy went on.  "So do the crew.  
Remember Murasake 312."  

"Oh, that's a comforting recollection.  They nearly mutinied
on him, Bones.  *You* nearly mutinied on him.  Thinking 
about that is supposed to make me feel better?  Spock's 
different to almost every officer the members of that 
landing party will ever deal with in their whole careers - 
and they're too young to know what to do about it.
They'll expect things from him that he can't understand.  
They'll put demands on him that he can't meet. And then 
what?"

"He's unemotional, not obtuse." McCoy pointed out wryly.  
"And besides which, he may well be different from every 
other officer any of us will deal with.  You're different 
from any other captain I'll ever deal with.  I'm different
from every CMO you'll ever deal with.  We're all of us 
unique beings, Jim.  Spock isn't human, but he's no more or 
less unique than any of us - you can't be more or less 
unique.  *I* remember when the landing party from Taurus II 
got back to the ship.  They might have nearly mutinied down 
planet, but they didn't forget that Spock saved their lives.
Every member of that party gained a new appreciation of 
Spock's abilities by the end of that mission - and he got 
them back against impossible odds.  Remember that, when
you're tossing and turning at night and wondering how he's 
doing down there.  No, Spock will be fine, and the rest of 
them down there will be fine.  Your problem isn't Spock, 
and it isn't the landing party with Spock."

When Kirk said nothing, McCoy went on: "Trust him to get on 
with his end of this, Jim.   Don't sit thinking on what 
might happen.  Deal with what you can do, now.  Sufficient 
unto the day is the evil thereof."

"That is not," Kirk said, " standard operating procedure for
Starfleet."

"Maybe it should be."  McCoy poured them both another drink.
"Just listen for a change.  I'm trying to tell you 
something."

"I'm listening."  Kirk took a drink.  

"You've got  a problem."

"I know that."

"Christine said - some of the crew are talking."

"I've heard them."  

"Ah."  McCoy was silent for a moment, swirling the liquor in
his glass.  "I was wrong, Jim."

That brought a glint of amusement to Kirk's eyes.  "Can I 
have that in writing?" he asked.

"Don't push your luck.  I was wrong about Spock during the 
Tholian mission. I was wrong on Taurus II as well.  And a 
few other places."

"You always were a slow learner." Kirk said, and McCoy 
snorted.

"So they told me in medical school.  Point I'm making is 
that your problem is not on the planet. It's on the ship."

"Huh." Kirk said, and was silent.    "So what's your advice?
To stop worrying about the landing party?" he said at last.
"To take my medicine like a man, is that it?"

"Actually," McCoy said, "I wish all my patients would take 
their medicine like women.  But let's not get into my 
theories on humanoid gender differences and the culture 
versus nature debate, I don't think I have enough  whiskey 
left.  Have you noticed which of the crew have been voicing 
their unease about Spock?"

"I overheard Yeoman Jack Rawlins.  I don't know of any 
others, but I guessed there'd be some.  And it's more than 
voicing their unease.  Rawlins was voicing his bigotry."

"Rawlins has never worked closely with Spock.  And for your 
information, I've been checking out the names Chris gave me.
None of the others have, either.  Most of them are part of 
that last intake we got, that gave us Rawlins, and Larssen, 
and Bai'tin.  They're sorta like I was, before a couple of 
tight spots and a couple of landing parties.  Not so 
different from the way you were, when you came on the 
Enterprise."

"I was never a bigot!" Kirk protested.

"No, I know that. And guess what, neither was I.  It's not 
that easy to get a posting on an exploration starship if you
have an issue with xenophobia.  There's a big difference 
between 'some of my best friends are aliens', though, and 
'I trust a Vulcan with my life.'  Spock is harder again - 
he's  more than a Vulcan, and you know it, and the rest of 
the crew knows it.  Although I suspect Vulcans are more 
than we think they are, too, but nobody has to deal with 
that, and with Spock it's staring them in the face."

"You mean, because he's half-human."

"You always say that like you expect to be able to split 
him down the middle along the dotted line," McCoy snorted.
"He's *Spock*, like you're *Jim*, and you know as well as I 
do that anyone who's had enough to do with him knows that 
that's the only terms you can take him on.  Kevin Riley 
stood up in the mess yesterday when some nitwit from 
Security was talking about being damn glad it wasn't *her* 
stuck on the planet depending on a Vulcan-" McCoy saw Kirk's
jaw tighten at that, "-and Riley said he'd never met 'a 
Vulcan', but he'd met Spock, and T'lal, and Sendet, and 
Sovik, and they were all damn fine officers even if they did
have odd taste in foods and a greeting that made a Masonic 
handshake look simple, and as far as he was concerned a 
Starfleet officer was a Starfleet officer not the damn 
planet they came from."

"Good for Riley." Kirk said, grinning.

"Get that across to the rest of the crew," McCoy said, 
seriously. "Because there aren't that many mixed crews, and 
there are none as mixed as we are, and if we can't manage it
there's not much goddamn hope."

"Aha, that sounds like typical Bones advice. 'Go forth, and 
achieve the impossible.' How do you suggest I do so?"

"Damifino." McCoy said.

"Typical Bones answer, too." Kirk said, but McCoy was 
pleased to see that he was laughing, and there was suddenly 
the old familiar energy in the way he sat, the tilt of his 
head.  Captain Kirk with a problem to solve, McCoy thought, 
and was well satisfied.

"Well," he pointed out, "You can hardly expect *me* to go 
around defending that  over-precise, under-emotional 
genetically engineered threat to civilization as we know 
it." 

"Oh, no, Bones." Kirk said softly.  "I would never expect 
you to *that*."  And at the small reluctant smile quirking
the corner of McCoy's mouth, Kirk laughed more loudly than 
he had for some time.

*********

Larssen maintained her air of calm cheerfulness, though 
there were shadows beneath her eyes and the bones of her 
face were growing sharper beneath the skin.  She cajoled 
and encouraged Grenwood at every opportunity, telling jokes 
which grew more and more risqué as Grenwood grew harder to 
distract.

Spock noted that Grenwood's strength seemed to be ebbing 
faster than Larssen's: the young man was losing weight more
quickly, as well, though all three of them were thinner 
than they had been.  One night in the third week Spock was 
awakened by the Ensign crying in his sleep, and sat up to 
see Larssen kneeling beside him, murmuring soothing phrases
and stroking his hair.  When Grenwood grew quiet and slipped
back into deeper sleep, she looked up.

"It's the cold." she said softly to Spock.  "He can't rest 
properly because of the cold."  She pulled her own sleeping
bag over to Grenwood and curled up beside him, trying to 
give him some of her body heat.  Spock noted that she did 
the same on each night after that, and Grenwood's sleep 
grew easier.  He still dreamed, though, and muttered and 
tossed until Larssen woke and calmed him.  

"Lieutenant," Spock said to her one morning, "You need to 
get adequate rest yourself."

"I can always sleep, sir." she said disingenuously, though 
there were black stains of fatigue beneath her eyes.  "I'm 
famous for it."    And then, quietly, "Trust me on this, 
Commander.  I may have been wrong about Grenwood."

She turned away, taking hold of the travois straps.  It's 
not as if he can spell me nights, she thought.  Bob's so
distressed, it'd be a torment for a Vulcan.    It was not 
like a Vulcan, though, to be so aware of Grenwood's distress.
Larssen wondered if Spock's concern was simulated, designed
to make him a more effective commander, or if his human 
heritage allowed him to feel for Grenwood as she did.  She 
didn't want to believe he was - deceptive - and she didn't 
want to think that he felt as she did and sat silent, night 
after night, without offering even a word of comfort.

Grenwood fell.  She turned, knowing that Spock would not 
move towards him, and bent to help the ensign up.  

*******

"Sir," Janice Rand said, "these new rotations..."

"What about them?" Kirk asked, when she didn't go on.

"I don't understand them.  You've put Mr Athende on bridge 
rotation."

"It's high time he got the experience."

"And Lab Eleven in Science is all Ensigns, sir.  Headed by 
an Ensign.  Ensign Regna."

"I am aware of that.  The project ze is overseeing is well 
within hir capabilities.  Yeoman, your position is designed 
to give some understanding of command responsibilities and
ship operations.  What's your analysis of this rotation?"

"Sir, I - it looks like you're moving all the non-human crew
around.  Ensign Naraht is taking a rotation in geology, when
he's normally in stellar cartography.  Lieutenant D'L is 
heading a shift in Engineering.  Yeoman Nol is second shift 
officer on Delta Security Team."

"Yeoman," Kirk said, "based on your knowledge of the crew, 
do you believe any of the changes place officers in 
positions they are unable to handle?"  

"No," Rand said slowly.  "No, it's just - all at once."

Kirk smiled.  "Yes, it is.  Sometimes the crew rotations 
need to take many factors into account."

"It looks like," Rand said, encouraged, "you're spreading 
the non-human crew out as much as possible, for this next 
two week rotation.  And putting as many as possible in 
positions of responsibility.  With human crew answering to 
them."

"It looks like that because that's exactly what I'm doing."

Rand took a breath.  "You've heard the talk in the mess, 
then?"

"I've heard *of* it." Kirk said.  "And I don't think making 
a speech over the comm. is going to be an adequate response."

"It's quite difficult," Rand said, beginning to smile, "if 
you have Starfleet training, to cling to blind prejudice 
when confronted with opposing data."

"Yeoman Rand," Kirk said, "I doubt I could have put it 
better myself."


*****
By the beginning of the second month, it was obvious to 
Spock that Grenwood was in considerable distress.  His 
face was haggard, he fell more and more often, and even 
without taking a turn pulling the travois he had trouble 
keeping up with them.  Their periods of travel grew shorter,
the rests longer.  Spock began to consider the possibility 
that they could not reach the base in anything like time to 
send a message to the Enterprise before the negotiations 
commenced.  Without the shelter, he could not attempt the 
trip alone, but without the shelter Larssen and Grenwood 
would not survive.  The ensign's worsening condition made it
possible that they would have to stop altogether and abandon 
the attempt to reach the base, or at least delay it for an 
unacceptable amount of time.  Spock was aware that the time
was approaching when he would have to make such a decision,
and it seemed there was no way out of the dilemma.  If he 
took the shelter and its heat-source, he could easily reach
the base and inform the enterprise of the importance of the
Realgar system.  Thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of 
lives would be saved.  On the other hand, Larssen and 
Grenwood would certainly die.  He sensed that Larssen was 
also aware of the situation, and perplexingly, the decision
he had to make was made more difficult by the knowledge 
that she would accept a death sentence with a calm "Yes, 
sir." and a smile.  As they trudged through the snow side 
by side, Grenwood hanging on to the edge of the travois for
support as he stumbled behind them, Spock also contemplated
the equanimity that Larssen claimed sprang from lack of 
tal'ath'at.  Perhaps humans would benefit from rather less 
tal'ath'at in general.  Larssen certainly behaved more 
rationally without it.

While he was still considering the choice he must make, the
decision was taken out of his hands.


************************************************
"Captain.  Captain. Captain."  The incessant tone of his 
com woke Kirk from a sleep made restless by frustration. 
He leaned over and slapped the button with a surge of hope.
He had left instructions he was to be wakened the very 
minute they worked out a solution to the problem that kept 
the Enterprise in useless orbit with her First Officer and 
assorted crew members trapped below.  It had been nearly 
40 days and they were well behind schedule.  Only his 
insistence to Starfleet Command that the missing crew were
still alive had prevented them from being ordered to 
proceed to their next assigned survey mission.

That sector will still be there next week! he'd snapped at 
Admiral Bantry.  I have every confidence that Commander 
Spock has ensured the absolute safety of the landing party.
They are out of communication, not missing!

That was something less than the truth.  In his off-watch 
hours, he repeated to himself over and over, I'd know if 
something had happened to Spock.  I'd know if something had
happened to Spock.  Rationally, he knew that he'd likely 
know nothing at all.  He had told too many families, too 
many bereaved spouses, that their loved ones were dead, 
had seen too many taken by complete surprise to believe 
that mere affection could guarantee a special delivery 
psychic message to announce a death.  Still, as he waited 
for sleep each night, he could not believe that Spock could
be gone and he, James Kirk, would not know.

That was simply not possible.

"Kirk." he said to the com.  "Tell me this is good news."

"Captain," Iyen said quietly, "no sir.  We've detected a 
geological tremor on the planet, sir.  I thought you would 
want to know - I mean, want to be informed."

An earthquake.  An earthquake in a blizzard.  "Any idea 
how badly it hit the area the landing party is in?"

"Seven on the Richter scale, sir.  However, as there aren't
any structures or possible sources of landslides there, 
the chances of injury are considerably reduced."

"I understand, Mr Iyen. Thank you. Kirk out." He sat up and
wondered once again why it was an unbreakable habit to 
thank the bearers of bad news. Spock, he thought, blast 
your pointy ears, once I get you back on this ship you'll
never see a landing party again.  McCoy's acidic comment 
some days ago that Captain Kirk was now in the position he 
had left the rest of the crew in on several memorable 
occasions had done nothing to soothe his temper. 

Spock, damn you, it's long past time for you to pull a 
rabbit out of your hat.

************************************************
Spock would have been glad, at that point, to pull himself 
out of the ravine that had opened beneath his feet when 
the earthquake hit.  The tremor had thrown them all to the 
ground, and bounced the travois into the air.  Caught by 
the wind, it had flipped and skittered, dragging Larssen 
and Spock with it, and then there had been empty space
beneath him, and a jolt as the travois somehow caught on 
something in that featureless plain and his grip on the 
harness brought him up short of a lethal fall.  With no 
knowledge of the security of the travois, he could not 
count on that state of affairs continuing. He also dared 
not cause the travois to shift in his efforts to pull 
himself up.  Already, there had been one disconcerting 
movement when he tried to brace his feet against the side 
of the chasm.  He held on, and raised his voice.

"Larssen!"  He hoped she had not also fallen.  Her harness 
strap flapped in the wind beside him.  If she had gone over
the edge, she had not kept her grip. He could not see the 
bottom of the fall through the blowing snow.  "Larssen!"

"Sir!"  She seemed to be a short distance away.  "Wait!"

Larssen had already realised that Spock still hung on to 
the travois from the way the right hand harness was pulled 
taught over the edge of the chasm while the left danced 
around in the gale.  She had thrown herself spreadeagled on 
the travois as she saw the pit beneath them and managed to 
bring it slamming to the ground. Now she scrabbled in the 
pack that held the shelter and drew out the 'pegs' that 
shot themselves into the ground like pistons and held the
survival shelter down in high wind.  There was high tensile
rope in another pack, and she fastened it to the first peg 
and drove it into the ground beside the travois.  Rolling 
across the sled she shot a second peg on the other side, 
and then back again, until the travois was strapped down 
with the rope crisscrossing it.  

"Grenwood!" she shouted.  He had fallen not far away and 
was not moving.  "Bob, come here! I need you!"

He moved, looked up, but made no move to get up.

"Bob! Now!"

Grenwood shook his head.  She could see his lips moving but
anything he said was whipped away by the wind.  She could 
also see that he was crying, and when he covered his face 
with his hands, still shaking his head, she cursed herself 
for thinking he was a good choice for this expedition.

Wrong, Corrina, very very wrong.

It was twenty-five seconds since Spock had disappeared 
from view.  Tentatively, she lifted her weight from the 
sled.  It held firm, and she crawled to the edge of the 
ravine and looked down.  

Spock hung about four meters below her, at the end of the 
harness strap, his face turned up to her.  "I've got the 
sledge pinned with the shelter pegs." she shouted. "Can 
you climb up?"

She saw him feel with his feet for purchase, brace to 
reach up for a better handhold, and the sled moved 
sickeningly.  "Dogs!" Larssen spat in Romulan, and hastily
she flung herself back, added her weight to the travois 
until it stopped moving.  Hardly daring to look, she 
raised her head and saw that the harness strap still hung 
taught with a weight at the end of it.   

They dare not lose the travois.  Without the supplies on 
it, they would not survive long.  Quickly, she unfastened 
the packs that held the shelter and one of the food packs 
and pushed them to one side.  The sled moved again and slid 
another inch towards the ravine.

Out of time, Corrina.  Get moving.

She grabbed the rest the rope, wrapped it around her waist 
and stepped to the edge of the chasm.  "Sir!" she called. 
"Heads up!" and dropped the rope.  It fell close enough to 
Spock for him to grab it, and Larssen took two strides back.
  
"Ready!" she called.

The shock of his weight as he took hold of the rope drove 
her to her knees and she felt the rope bite even through 
the layers of her clothing.  Gritting her teeth, she 
clamped her hands on the rope and fought back to her feet, 
bracing herself backwards.  Each twitch of the rope as 
Spock climbed was a threat to her balance.  Not daring to 
look sideways to see if the travois was still secure, 
Larssen kept her eyes fixed on the rope disappearing over 
the edge.  If the travois started sliding, she had no idea 
what she would do.

To her immense relief, a gloved hand appeared at the 
chasm's edge, followed by another, and then Spock pulled 
himself to safety and crawled clear.  Larssen staggered 
wildly backwards as he let go of the rope and then fell 
flat on her back.

"Lieutenant," said Spock, "There is a high probability of 
aftershocks.  We must move to a place of safety 
immediately."   He turned.  "Ensign Grenwood!"

Lifting her head, Larssen saw that Grenwood hadn't moved in
response to the command. Oh, Bob, she thought sadly, and 
clambered to her feet.  Spock had already taken a medical 
tricorder from the travois and was striding towards 
Grenwood when Larssen caught up with him.  "Let me, sir." 
she said. 

He yielded the tricorder to her with a raised eyebrow.   
"The packs off the side of the travois are the shelter and 
food, sir." she went on.  "I didn't want to lose 
everything."

"Indeed, a logical decision."  

Larssen waited until he had turned to repack the travois 
and drawn it away from the chasm before hurrying to 
Grenwood.  The tricorder told her little she didn't know: 
low body temperature, thready pulse, signs of shock.

"Bob," she said, kneeling beside him, "we have to get out 
of here.  There could be another tremor.  Come on; let's 
get up now. Let's get up."

He stared at her. "I thought you would both go over." he 
said, barely audible through the wind.  "I thought - I was 
afraid -"

"We're fine, Bob.  We're doing fine.  You have to get up 
now.  Come on, let's get up."

He shook his head again, burying his face in his hands.  
"Leave me." she heard him whisper.  "I can't ... I 
can't ..."

"Bob, please." 

"No..."

Larssen got to her feet, slogged over to where Spock had 
pulled the sled clear. "Sir, he's done in.  We'll have to 
pack him on the travois, he can't walk."

"How badly is he injured?"

At her hesitation, Spock turned his full attention on her.

"He's not - injured - sir.  He's just - he's gone his 
limit."  Larssen's eyes were full of worry as she looked 
at him, and then, reluctantly, said:  "He asked to be left 
behind, sir."

"That is not an acceptable course of action." Spock said, 
and noted as a subject for further consideration her 
relief at his words.  "How long to you estimate he can 
endure the temperature while travelling on the travois?"

"He'll chill fast if he's not moving, sir.   Half and hour,
 maybe?"

Spock examined his tricorder. "There is an area of solid 
rock approximately 400 yards south of here.  We should be 
safe from aftershocks there."  

He began dragging the travois towards Grenwood, and 
Larssen quickly took one side and helped him.


*******************************

Kirk was walking his ship.  He tried to be out and about on
the lower decks of the Enterprise as often as he could, to 
see the crew who did not, in the ordinary course of their 
duties, encounter the captain.  It was also a habit of his,
when worried or trying to think, to patrol the corridors of
the Enterprise as if guarding her from intruders.  
Crewmembers on night shift nodded to him as they went about
their business, most knowing their captain well enough to 
realise that no more formal acknowledgement was needed, 
Kirk being where he didn't need to be, and it being the 
middle of alpha shift's night.  Kirk looked in on 
hydroponics, complimented the yeoman in charge of the food 
synthesizers on the truly excellent night shift 
chicken-with-almonds-and-don't-ask, refrained from asking, 
and went on to engineering. 

To his unspecialised eye, everything seemed to be fully 
functional in engineering, although he could not aspire to 
Scotty's hands on understanding of every nut and bolt in the
place.  He congratulated the engineering shift on meeting Mr
Scott's high standards, suffered himself to be given a 
personal tour of the phaser banks by an enthusiastic 
Lemurian Lieutenant, then stuck his head into sickbay to see
if there was anyone there who needed cheering.

There wasn't, and he found himself almost all the way down 
to Stores before he heard what he had been listening for.

"..jump straight over more experienced crew!"  the woman's 
voice said, indignant, but hushed.

"Now, that's hardly fair, Mary." said another woman.  "It's 
a short rotation, we're not doing anything, and how else is 
he *supposed* to get experience?"

"Hmmph.  Well, what if something *does* happen?"

"Oh, come on." The second voice was out of patience now.  
"Give it a rest, will you?  I bet if a whole buncha Romulans
appeared off the bow, he'd do just fine.  I'd rather him 
than me in charge of the battery in a crisis.  I'd rather 
him than you, to be honest.  This bitching of yours is 
getting boring, Mary.  He's non-human, not *sub* human, and 
I'd think you'd have the sense to  know that."

"But -"

"Listen, I've put up with this for a few weeks, and I admit,
at first I thought you had at least a right to your opinion,
and maybe a point.  But I'm telling you, I've changed my
mind.  You've got no point, and you've got no right to be a 
bigot, and you're getting pretty close to the point where 
I'm going to turn in a report.  Understand? I can't stop 
you thinking, but by god I will stop you talking this shit."

Kirk smiled to himself, stepped back a few paced and then 
walked briskly around the corner, startling the two women 
in security uniforms.  

"How are things going in the phaser batteries, Ms Heders, 
Ms Sutton?"

"Just fine, sir," said Vic Sutton, with a meaningful look 
at her companion.  "Just fine."

Kirk smiled at them both.  "Good." he said simply.

He overheard a similar conversation between two ensigns in 
Stellar Cartography, and down in Stores Mr Singh asked, in 
a roundabout way, if the captain wanted a formal report on a
yeoman who was displaying prejudice towards Ensign Honn in 
the quartermaster's office, because he, Singh, would be very
happy to do so, sir, and it was a bit much when a starfleet
officer couldn't be relied on to give another officer a fair
go just because of species, sir!

"Mr Singh," Kirk said, "I leave the contents of your reports
to your judgement.  I *do* consider prejudice a disciplinary
matter."

"Yes, sir.  I didn't think it was right to put someone on 
report for their opinion, sir.  But perhaps I should have."

Kirk had similar conversations in astrogation, and geology.
By the time he had covered as much of the ship as he could 
reasonably hope to, he had a mental picture of the pattern 
of trouble in the crew.  There were four, perhaps five, 
crewmembers who had been displaying real prejudice against 
non-human officers, and Kirk would deal with them formally.
They were a liability to the Enterprise, and to Starfleet, 
and they would find themselves in civilian clothes as soon 
as Kirk could arrange it.  There were perhaps thirty others 
Kirk was prepared to give the benefit of the doubt.  They 
had contributed to the complaints and gossip, but it seemed 
as much out of ignorance as anything else, and several of 
them were now staunch defenders of the non-human officers 
in their sections.  All of these were from the last major 
crew intake, and had been aboard the Enterprise for too 
short a time for the ship's culture to either make them over
or spit them out.  

And, Kirk thought with a sense of satisfaction, there was 
the vast majority of the crew, who were a credit to the 
ship and to starfleet. They might have been reluctant to 
speak up and contradict their noisier crewmates, and they
might have the uneasiness with the different and alien that 
inexperience tended to breed, but when it came down to open 
bigotry about someone they worked next to then they were 
certainly not going to put up with it.  Kirk knew from long 
experience that it could be difficult for one crewmember 
to put another on report.  The issue had to be perceived 
as 'serious' before it began to be bounced up the chain of 
command.  He also knew that by the end of the next shift, 
he'd have reports on his desk covering all the main 
offenders.  His shake-up of the staffing schedule had 
shifted the question of prejudice from the realm of private 
opinion (where many people - wrongly - believed belonged) 
and into ship's operations, and if there was one thing his 
crew would show uniform intolerance for, it was an 
operational problem.

Satisfied, he found his steps tending towards science lab 
seven.  Ann Ridley was there, as she usually was even this 
late into the night, bent over a mass spectrometer with a 
PADD in one hand.  Kirk coughed, to let her know he was
there, and she said, absently:

"Hold on one minute there."

Kirk wondered if her reaction would have been different if 
she'd known it was the captain behind her.  Probably, he 
thought with wry amusement, not.  Ridley showed a single-
minded dedication to her work that was impressive, although
her temper was less obvious these days.  

She finished what she was doing and turned. "Oh, Captain." 
she said. "Is anything wrong?"

"My inner clock," he said, smiling.  "I can't sleep.  What 
are you up to?"

"I'm trying to reconstruct as much of the Ser Etta research
as I can.  It's possible that the shuttle crash had 
something to do with a bio-toxin containment breach or 
something else that made them do something - so stupid."

"What have you found?"

"Nothing as yet.  Joseph - Riboud - was working on 
Mansinni's syndrome, but that's silicon based and unlikely 
to have effected any of the research team.  Everything else
seems pretty much what you'd expect."  She perched herself
on a lab stool and indicated that he should do the same.  
Kirk did, feeling a little undignified with his feet 
dangling.  "I'm sorry, Captain.  I wish I could have found 
something to help with your people, but planetary weather 
isn't really my speciality."

"It isn't the speciality of many, in Starfleet." Kirk said. 
"Substeller weather is more our kind of thing.  And, please,
call me Jim."

"Jim." she said, smiling slightly. "I'm Ann." Even smiling,
 she looked sad.

"It's kind of late for you to still be here, Ann."

"Same as you, I couldn't sleep.  I keep wishing I could do 
something useful, but all I can think of is the base 
research, and that isn't particularly useful."

"You never know, on an starship mission." Kirk told her, 
meaning to be light.  Perhaps the memory of all the other 
times 'you never know' had turned out to be unimaginably 
deadly reached his voice, or his eyes, because Ann looked 
at him quizzically. "I mean," he corrected himself, "you 
can't predict what happens, or what's important, in a 
situation full of unknowns.  A side branch of some 
innocuous type of biological research could turn out to 
hold the key to a whole new science of weather management, 
for example."

It was weak, and he knew it, but she gave him a smile the 
joke didn't deserve.  

"I was thinking of trying the night shift chicken-with-
almonds-and-don't-ask." he ventured.  "If you have time 
tonight, care to join me?"

"You actually call it that?"

"Right on the synthesiser board.  It's a long Starfleet 
tradition."  

"This I have to see," Ann said sceptically, getting to her 
feet.  "What else do you have on that board?"

He laughed. 'With 430 crew from nearly 50 different species,
what don't we have?  From alphabet soup to zircon, the 
synthesizers handle it all."  

She rewarded him with another smile, and as they went down 
the hall to the turbolift he began telling her about the 
needs of the two crewmembers who consumed only light beams,
and then the highly carnivorous Gips, who required that 
their meals be alive... By the time he got her to laugh, 
they were nearly finished their meal.  

"I thought you'd be too worried about your crew to take time
for dinner." Ridley said as they parted.  "I didn't expect 
the Kirk who's famous for never leaving anyone behind to be 
in such good humour."

Kirk smiled down at her.  He could, he supposed, tell a 
pretty lie and say that her company distracted him from 
everything else.  He could tell her the truth, that having 
Spock off the Enterprise was like losing a limb: you 
couldn't help knowing it was gone, whether you were thinking
about it or not.  

He did neither.  

"We're famous for our good humour in Starfleet." he said.  
"Ask anyone.  Good humour and chicken-with-almonds-and-don't
-ask are the watchwords that keep the Federation safe."

And Ridley laughed and said goodnight, allowing herself to 
flirt a little.  It was quite some time later that she 
realised how deftly she'd been redirected, and some time 
after that before she understood just how profoundly it was 
a *misdirection*.
  
**************************************


The first aftershock hit as they were raising the shelter, 
but the rock beneath them was solid enough and no cracks 
opened up beneath them.  Larssen lost hold of the rope she 
was fastening and muttered "Dogs copulating" in Romulan, 
and then "Dogs copulating with their ancestors" when she 
had to search through the snow for the peg it went with, 
but they got the shelter up in good time and dragged 
Grenwood, travois and all, inside.

Larssen began ministering to the ensign and Spock let her.
He found the young man's obvious emotional distress 
physically uncomfortable at close quarters, and remained at
the other end of the survival shelter, analysing his 
readings of the geological event they had just endured.  He
ran his readings against his recording of the area where the
rest of the landing party had remained, and noted that they
were in minimal danger, before turning his attention to 
plotting a route for the rest of the expedition that would 
take them through the areas of greatest geological safety.

Hearing Larssen crossing the shelter to him, he looked up.

"I have established a low probability of harm to Yeoman 
Brand and the others." he said, and she smiled.  He noted 
the signs of strain around her eyes and mouth and hoped she
too would not collapse.  He was not sure what he would do if
both his human crew curled up in the corner sobbing and 
refusing to move.  It was not a situation he had experience
with.

"Bob's sleeping." she said, and for the first time her 
quiet voice was soft with fatigue rather than composure.  
Spock wondered how much of her previous equanimity had been
assumed for Ensign Grenwood's benefit. "Or rather, he's
passed out.  I shot him full of delactovine and adrenalse, 
but he needs proper medical care, sir."

Larssen knew as well as Spock that proper medical care was 
on the Enterprise or at the research base.

"Can he endure further travel?"

She shook her head. "The cold will kill him long before we 
could get him to the base, sir."

"Then we will remain here." he said.

"That will only ... delay ... matters, sir." Larssen said. 
"It's not - it's not just physical, sir.  He's given up, 
sir."

Spock had observed in the past that the more emotional 
species in the Federation were prone to psychological 
ailments that could produce fatal symptoms, particularly 
when combined with physical distress.  Despair makes even 
shallow cuts fatal, Dr McCoy had said once, explaining the 
otherwise inexplicable death of a crew member.

Spock knew also that such ailments could be reduced, even 
relieved: he had seen Jim Kirk persuade crew who were ready
to lie down and die to perform at the highest levels of 
efficiency.  Unfortunately, he did not know how his captain
achieved this, or how to replicate it.  He said as much 
to Lieutenant Larssen.

"I don't either." she admitted.  "I'm no Captain Kirk, sir."
'And neither are you.' he read in her eyes, before she 
turned away, and went to lie down beside Grenwood.

Grenwood did not improve with a day of rest, and Spock 
realised that the decision to go on without Larssen and 
Grenwood, leaving them to die, or to give up the attempt to
reach the base, was upon him.  However, it no longer seemed
like an impossible dilemma.  When he had told Larssen that
leaving Grenwood behind was not acceptable, he had meant it.
He would remain here with the two Enterprise crew and 
preserve their lives to the best of his abilities.  The 
thought of the lost lives that the cure for Mansinni's 
Syndrome might have saved weighed on him, but with a regret
for the unachievable rather than an urgent imperative.

When Larssen raised the matter with him in the evening, he 
told her so. 

Instead of looking relieved, she frowned.

"You should go on, sir.  I mean - I'd rather you didn't, 
personally, but it's the logical thing."

"I have long ago ceased to be surprised," he told her "at 
human's ideas of logical behaviour.  Simply because 
something is what you least desire to do, does not, 
automatically, make it the logical option."

She did not seem to understand, "No, sir, but in this case,
there are so many who could be saved by that information, 
against me, and Bob.  I thought, anyway - we could build a 
sort of igloo, perhaps? And then we'd be alright while you 
were gone."

"Not without a heat source, Lieutenant, and we have only 
one of those."

"Bob is dying anyway." Larssen said tightly, as if he had 
not grasped that fact.

"And you desire me to hasten his death? And cause yours?"

"No! No, but -" She paused.  'I - can't bear to think of - 
of all those people, the last time there was a major 
outbreak of Mansinni's tens of thousands died, I can't 
stand it, sir."  Her face was set as she looked up at him.
"I can't let myself think about it sir, I can't let it 
happen.  The needs of the many - outweigh the needs of the 
few.  Of mine. And Bob's."  

"Lieutenant," he said patiently, "that is an aspect of 
Vulcan philosophy which is widely misunderstood.  It might 
be the criteria for a decision if all other possibilities 
were closed.  However, a great many things may yet happen.
The Enterprise might discover a way to communicate with us,
even to transport us off the planet.  The negotiations could
be delayed.  The Realgar system could have become a 
Federation priority for another reason while we have been 
out of communication.  The necessary compound may be 
discovered on another planet, or a method of synthesising 
it may be invented. All of these things are possible.  If I
take the shelter and the heat source and travel on without
you, these things remain possible, and I add another 
possibility to them: that I reach the base in time to 
communicate with the Enterprise and affect the negotiations.
If I do so, however, Ensign Grenwood's possibilities - 
and your own - end here.  That is an outcome I am not 
prepared to cause.  This is not a matter for discussion."

"Yes sir."  she murmured.  He moved back slightly, 
instinctively, at the sudden surge of her emotions, but 
she controlled herself quickly.  "I'm very sorry, 
Commander."

"You have nothing to apologise for." he told her, puzzled.

"I made a bad mistake with Grenwood.  He'd still be back at
 the other shelter, bored and safe, if I -"

"Your reasoning is faulty, Lieutenant.  I chose Grenwood 
for this expedition before you made your suggestions as to 
the composition of the party.  You have performed your 
duties to the utmost of your capability, which is all 
that anyone can expect."

"Yes, sir." she said miserably, and stared down at her 
hands.  Spock was aware that another officer - Kirk, 
perhaps, or McCoy, or Montgomery Scott - would have spoken,
then, and found something to say which offered comfort, 
and hope.  He was not them, and did not know how to go 
about such a thing.  Nonetheless, Larssen was his 
responsibility, and he could not allow her to sink into the
despair that had overtaken Ensign Grenwood.  Spock cleared 
his throat.

"Do not spend time considering irrelevant possibilities, 
Lieutenant.  Such speculation is fruitless."

"'Irrelevant possibilities'? You mean, what if you'd left 
all of us and gone alone, taking the risk the other 
shelter would support five? What if I'd suggested Brand 
instead of Grenwood? What if I'd hit the panic button the
minute communications began to be disrupted?"

"That is precisely what I mean. We must deal with the 
universe as it is, not as we would like it to be."

"Regretting nothing?"

"To regret is human, Lieutenant.  But I do not regret you 
were there to help me out of the ravine yesterday.  If you 
must speculate, that is one 'what if' you should consider.
If you had not been there, I would undoubtedly have died."

"You would have got yourself out somehow, sir."

"Your faith is reassuring," Spock said dryly, "and if you 
should establish what that 'somehow' would have been I 
would like to know - for future reference."

She grinned, then, and it was close to her normal 
expression.  "Possibly," he went on "without you and the 
ensign along, I would have been closer to the base and in 
an area of more severe disturbance.  When you consider 
actions you could have taken or choices your could have 
made differently, remember that they could have had 
unforseen negative outcomes as surely as the choices and 
actions you did take."

"Yes, sir." she said, and Spock saw that it was more than 
a formal acknowledgement.  Larssen's eyes were clearer, 
and her she sat a little straighter.  "Thank you, sir."

He inclined his head, and turned back to his tricorder, 
where he was running one more set of frequency analyses on 
the atmospheric interference.  This was a most uncomfortable
conversation, and one he had no desire to continue.  

Larssen, however, did not recognise (or chose not to 
recognise) the non-verbal instruction to let the matter lie.

"Sir, this 'dealing with the universe as it is', I seem to 
remember reading something about it in the writings of 
Surak."

He looked up again. "Yes, Lieutenant, it is one of Surak's 
sayings."

"Is that how Vulcans seem to - manage - so well?"

He laid the tricorder aside, and she went on hastily: "I'm 
sorry if that's a privacy issue, sir. Forget I -"

"No, Ms Larssen.  Surak's teachings are not private to 
Vulcans.  His instructions to celebrate diversity would 
preclude such an interpretation."

"Then - is there some way you could teach me to understand 
that, sir? To accept things as they are?"

He regarded her impassively.  "It is not a question of 
teaching, Lieutenant, but one of learning. Many of Surak's 
lessons are connected to the mind disciplines which are 
unique to Vulcan, and to Vulcans.  While I am able to 
describe the philosophy of Surak, and repeat his words, 
that does not necessarily mean you would be able to learn."

"No, sir." Larssen said.  "I see."  She gave a slight shrug,
and turned away.  "Just a thought."

He watched her as she checked Grenwood's condition again 
and busied herself with double-checking their food supplies.
They might well be forced to remain here for some time, 
Spock reasoned, and while the enforced inactivity would 
have no effect on him, it might well have a deleterious 
effect on Lieutenant Larssen's morale.  As she finished 
checking the food supplies and turned to the equally 
unnecessary task of double-checking their medical supplies,
he spoke.

"Lieutenant.  Surak wrote that the first necessary lesson 
was to surpass fear.  The relevant part of his writings 
used the analogy of a lematya in one's house.  Until one 
admitted the presence of the lematya, he wrote, one could 
not call animal control and have it removed.  Refusing to 
admit the presence of the lematya might save one's pride, 
but it will not make the lematya go away.  Similarly, 
pretending not to be afraid is not the same thing as 
casting out fear.  To understand Surak's teachings, one 
must first understand this."

Larssen had given him her full attention as he spoke, and 
nodded.  "I will try to do so, sir."

He noted that she did not turn to another unnecessary task,
but sat down beside Grenwood, her expression thoughtful.
Spock could not judge her ability to comprehend Surak's 
teachings, but he judged that the attempt would occupy her 
mind.  As a Vulcan, the degree of her understanding was 
of interest to him.  As a Starfleet officer, he was 
satisfied to engage her mind and keep her from useless 
speculation and draining self-recrimination.

[end part 2]