Fellowship & Fairydust

Montgomery Scott was the first to admit that he was too well-insulated for Vulcan. Even if he had chosen to recline on the sand in no more than bathing trunks, something he would never inflict on the Vulcan population, there was just too much of him for this heat. And since all of the Vulcan clothing stores catered for more moderate figures – after all, obesity was quite illogical – he was pretty much stuck with the clothes that he had landed here in. There were some outfits remaining on the bird of prey but he wasn’t going to strut around in a Klingon uniform, not even if someone paid him.

The best that he could say was that due to the aridity of the Vulcan atmosphere, sweat did not stick around for long, and at least it was somewhat cooler here in the carved-out rooms of Gol than it was on the exposed rock around.

Waiting to see Spock, though, was enough to make anyone perspire. He had been prepared through the word of his colleagues for what he might encounter, but he could not quite imagine it. He had seen Spock last when he had walked away from his Fal-Tor-Pan, bewildered and empty and just reaching towards a hint of memory. He had heard that he was getting better, but he still did not know what he might find. He preferred mechanics to minds. Give him an engine in a thousand pieces and he could have it put back together by the end of the day. A mind in crisis was a different thing entirely.

He looked cautiously through the half open door and saw the Vulcan there, sitting on a chair, apparently accessing data on a Vulcan-designed padd. He seemed to be engrossed in some kind of multiple-choice quiz, and Scotty half-smiled at the sight. He had never thought to see Spock doing something like that.

He cleared his throat and Spock looked up.

“Aye, lad, I thought it was high time I paid ye a visit.” he said rather awkwardly, coming into the room.

“Mr – Scott,” Spock said, with just the smallest degree of hesitation. “Do you characterise me as a lad?” he asked curiously.

“Well, just a wee figure of speech.” Scott said, and Spock half-frowned.

“Your linguistic choices are significantly different from my other human visitors’.” he remarked.

“Well, I spent a lot o’ ma life in Aberdeen, Mr Spock.” Scotty told him in a confidential tone.

Spock regarded him with a rather blank expression.

“Oh, it’s a wee town up in Scotland, Mr Spock,’ Scott shrugged. ‘It doesnae matter.”

He looked about the room briefly and then took a seat on the bed. The mattress creaked gently as he stretched his legs out over the smooth stone floor.

“How are ye, Mr Spock?” he asked solicitously.

Spock regarded him with a steady gaze. “I am physically well.” he said, but there was something searching behind his eyes.

“Aye, but – “Scotty tapped his finger against the side of his own head.

Spock tilted his head quizzically. “You refer to my mental capacity?” he asked with a directness that was rather disconcerting.

“Aye, well – that, yes.” Scott mumbled.

“I am told that my progress is encouraging.” Spock said, but it seemed unlike Spock to not know the precise degree of his own progress.

“What have y’got there on the padd?” Scotty asked curiously, and Spock passed it over. The text was in English, he was relieved to see, and was testing Spock on his knowledge of advanced warp theory. Scott carefully saved the test progress and took the padd back to its main screen. It was connected to the planet-wide information service, and he opened a browser and brought an image up on the screen. Turning it to Spock, he waited to see what his reaction might be.

Spock took the padd with an almost reverential hesitation.

“It is the Enterprise.” he said, his long fingers cradling the padd as if he were afraid he might drop it.

“Aye.” Scott nodded; his voice rich with pleasure. “The original Enterprise too, as it was back in our day. Clean as a swan and just as pretty.”

Spock shot him a quizzical look, looked back at the picture, then at Scott again. “Swans. An aquatic Earth fowl. Not generally regarded to be exceptionally clean, they are known to carry the avian influenza virus.”

“Mr Spock, I thought ye might like t’have a look at the ship and jog yer memory perhaps.” Scotty said with careful patience. “I’m sure those automatons in charge here haven’t taken ye down that particular memory lane.”

“Mr Scott, I am not in the care of automatons.” Spock said very seriously.

He looked back at the image, then began to navigate through the layers with sure fingers, zooming in on the schematics of the bridge, hesitating, and then accessing the details of the science console.

“I remember this.” he said in a tone of fascination, his gaze seeming to sharpen. Scott was heartened to see something of the old Spock in his eyes.

“Aye, well ye sat there for hours at a time for two decades or more.” Scott told him with a smile. “Look,” he said, leaning in and touching his finger to the screen. “there’s the communications console, Uhura’s place, ye know. And engineering, environmental, defence, and weapons. And helm – “

“Mr Sulu,” Spock interrupted. “Ensign Chekov at navigation. And there – “

“Aye, that’s where Jim Kirk sat.” Scott nodded, brimming with happiness. “Sat there a few times myself, and so did you. Och, I remember the smell of that chair. Wood and faux-leather. Creaked a little every time ye turned in it. They didn’t make it quite the same after the refit.”

“No,” Spock said musingly. “things are rarely re-made the same.”

He put the padd down frowning and stood abruptly, moving over to the window to look out at the sun-struck plateau. Then he then angled his gaze upward to the vibrant red sky as if searching for something that was not there.

“I have been told that the ship was destroyed entirely,” he said.

“Aye, that it was.” Scotty said with a sigh, coming to stand behind the Vulcan. His heart ached more for that ship than it had ever ached for anything. He would have lost his dearest possessions on it a thousand times over before losing the ship itself.

“It was destroyed by – Khan Noonien Singh?” Spock asked.

“Not exactly,” Scott said. “He tried his best, but you – you saved everyone, Spock. Almost everyone.”

Pain welled in him as he remembered his own nephew dying on the Enterprise because of Khan and his thirst for revenge. Peter and Spock, both destroyed by radiation burns because of one man’s vendetta. He had stood holding Peter in his arms, not knowing that blow was about to be followed by another, by Spock sacrificing himself for everyone else on board. Peter’s coffin had not fallen to the Genesis planet. Instead they had followed his wishes and brought his body home. If they hadn’t, perhaps they would have found him alongside Spock, regenerated and alive.

“No,” he said, shaking that memory away. “it was the captain who destroyed the Enterprise, later, when we came back for you. It was the only choice he had. We may have escaped in a Klingon rust bucket, but we escaped, and my poor wee lass…”

Spock looked at him, confusion clear on his face.

‘“The ship, Mr Spock,” Scotty explained tiredly. “My poor wee lass, the Enterprise. I know, she wasnae wee, she wasn’t even a lass. I’m just a sentimental old Scotsman.”

“Yes, Mr Scott,” Spock said after a moment of reflective silence. “I believe that you are.”

He went back to the padd and picked it up, zooming out of the graphic again until he could see the Enterprise as a whole, gleaming white against the backdrop of space

“This was my home,” he said. “It contained almost everything that I possessed.”

Scott felt his heart swell with grief. He came to stand behind the Vulcan, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“Aye, she was a home for all of us,” he said. “Gypsies, we were. Never right unless we were moving. But maybe we’ll get her back. I hear they’re working on rebuilding. We’ll get you back, and then we’ll get her back.”

Spock nodded, still looking at the picture, and Scott was not entirely sure that he had listened to his words. It was all a half-truth anyway. They were rebuilding the Enterprise and Spock was on his way to returning to the man they had known, but it was likely that none of that core of crew would be on the ship when she was complete. Perhaps they would all be in a prison facility, and Spock would still be here, searching for the memories that made a man himself. Perhaps someone else would be seated in that captain’s chair, someone else bending over the library computer, someone else down in the engine room cajoling those wee bairns to keep on purring.

“I should go, Mr Spock,” he said abruptly. “they told me not to spend too long.’

Spock looked up very briefly, but he returned his attention to the picture of the Enterprise, his forehead slightly furrowed and his eyes intense. When Scott walked out of the room he was still standing there, looking at the image as if looking at it could bring it to life, and make every fragile memory come home.

<Previous|Next>