The night sky was dark and empty, on this world. There were a couple of tiny moonlets, just fast-moving dots of light, but few stars, nothing to compare to Earth's Luna, or Vulcan's sisterworld, T'Khut. Nyota sat beside the fire and nursed it, and somewhere out in the night something screamed. Hunter, or hunted? She didn't know, and she wasn't about to waste the tricorder's power on a distance scan to find out. She had a few intact solar cells, but only the half-built beginnings of a converter for them. It was just one of the many things she'd been working on, since the crash.

Moving carefully to protect her damaged ribs, she added another piece of wood to the fire, and poked it into place. The light was a comfort, under the looming darkness of that sky. Fully half the sky here was pitch black; this obscure little system was literally in the mouth of the Lion Nebula.

That was the only thing that had let them escape their pursuers.

They'd been returning to the Enterprise, after attending a conference on the Sslithii homeworld. Nyota had presented a paper on translator algorithms, for the reptilian Sslithii tongue was based on far different precepts than that of most hominids. Spock had presented some research that he and they had been working on for some time, esoterica of stellar physics.

Departure had been flawless, and they'd anticipated a leisurely trip back to the rendezvous point. But 18 hours out, they'd picked up a sensor blip coming up fast behind them. Scan had showed an Orion marauder, little more than a scout, really, all fuel tanks and phaser banks. Probable crew of five, maybe six -- but she carried stingships.

There had been scattered reports of marauder activity in this sector for some time now; hijackings, kidnap for ransom, piracy -- the usual. Spock had brought the engines up to full power, and they'd run, as hard and as fast as possible, on a long looping course toward the Nebula. They'd almost reached it, when two of the stingships caught up with them. There had followed a running battle. Copernicus had only low-powered phasers, and her deflectors; they never really had a chance.

The battle had lasted just long enough for them to reach the fringes of the Lion Nebula's dust clouds. That was when Spock had worked his pilot's magic. He'd put Copernicus through maneuvers that would've turned her designers' hair white. He'd flown under and over, through and around the swirls of gas and dust, obscuring their ion trail past all deciphering. Then he'd powered down and they'd sat, silently, listening, while the hunters sniffed about, exchanging increasingly angry comm traffic, till finally came the curt order to disengage, break off to look for easier prey.

It was only then that they had noticed the fuel leak; some stray shot that hadn't quite missed, and suddenly their options were a whole lot fewer. Nyota had tickled the sensors as finely as she could, and finally found this system, right at the edge of their newly-shortened range. Spock had worked out the most efficient vector, and flown them there -- only to find, upon arriving, that they really didn't have enough fuel left to land safely.

And so they'd landed anyway. Not much choice, really -- Copernicus wasn't built for long cruises, and they'd lost some air as well as the fuel -- after 2 days running, the supply was nearly gone. Add to that their inability to reach or repair the leak while in space, and their only course was clear.

She'd stayed silent as he hunched over the pilot board, tapping at the keys. Finally he'd nodded and sat back.

"Are we rigged for re-entry?" he'd asked.

"Aye, sir -- everything's battened down."

"Very well." He'd reached out and touched one last key. "Prepare yourself, Mr. Uhura -- at best, this will be a rough ride." She'd nodded, checked her harness one last time, and made the thumbs-up sign, for luck.

It had been silent, at first. The tiny change of vector needed to start their descent was unnoticable through the inertial dampers. Spock had programmed it for the shallowest curve that wouldn't just bounce them out again, allowing for their lack of fuel. It was perhaps an hour before they entered the upper edge of the atmosphere. No turbulence, yet -- just a thin, high whistle, conducted through the hull. He'd turned the inertial dampers down, and turned the shields down to the minimum, just enough to take the heat. All those functions drew on their fuel, and the balance of it was a delicate thing.

Soon they could see the shields, glowing red in a shell about the hull. One phaser shot, then, or a rock the size of her fist, and all would have ended.

But the hunters were gone. None remained to see, as Copernicus flamed across the sky, trailing a fiery plume of superheated air, shock diamonds twinkling in her wake.

It got rough, then. The air was thicker, here, and turbulence rocked and buffeted them as they punched through each layer. All the way down, Spock never flinched, never hesitated; his hands, on the controls, were rock-steady. No prayers from him, nor muttered oaths -- only, in the way of his people, that total focus on the task at hand. When at one point they flew through the top of an immense thunderstorm, and actinic blue-white chain lightning danced all around the ship, his only response was to have her check the electron flux, and verify the shields. They held, and soon the storm was far behind them.

Somehow, although they should have run out of fuel by then, he'd brought the wounded shuttlecraft down almost intact.

Nyota had heard Scotty, once, grousing about the standard shuttle design, telling Chekov that they were about as aerodynamic as a thrown brick. Sulu and Chekov had shuddered, and Scotty had poured them all another round. If only Scotty were here now...

Even so, Spock had got them down alive. She realized now what he'd done -- he must have saved just enough fuel to put the dampers and shields on max, right before they hit. It was a good idea, and it had almost worked. She didn't think the shuttle would ever fly again -- but they had survived the crash.

That had been three days ago -- at least, it was three days since Nyota had awakened, sore and battered and surprised to not be dead. She'd found water nearby and ferried it back a bucket at a time, refilling the almost empty tank aboard the shuttle. Scan showed nothing inimical, and it was pure, and sweet, and tasted of home.

She'd scavenged as much of their supplies as she could -- there'd been a fire, briefly, at some point, but the automatics had put it out. Allah be praised, those had an independent power supply. One of the first things she'd done was to cut down a sapling and make herself a long, fire-hardened spear, the weapon of her ancestors, against the chance of predators. Her phaser charge was almost full, but they had no way to recharge it once spent, and it might be needed for other things, if she couldn't get her half-built subspace transmitter up and running.

Her first command -- and it had to be this. Nyota sighed.

Spock hadn't moved since the crash; hadn't made a sound, didn't respond to stimuli. She had him propped at a 30 degree angle, to ease his breathing.

Her tricorder told her he'd inhaled some smoke in the crash.

His harness had not survived the impact; when she'd found him he'd been crumpled into the corner of the cockpit, half underneath the main console. She'd thought he was dead, at first, until she noticed he was bleeding.

It hadn't been easy to get him out of there; he was tall, and Nyota wasn't heavily built. Eventually, though, she'd managed, after scan assured her his spine was uninjured. That done, she'd wrapped him in most of their blankets, for even though the temperature here was pleasant to her, she knew it was too cold for him, in his weakened condition.

For the first 36 hours or so she'd kept him on supplemental oxygen, until the supply ran out. It seemed to have helped; scan showed the oxygen level of his blood was up to 97% of normal. He had a knot on his forehead and a huge bruise along the left side of his face, but his heart seemed strong enough. According to the onboard medfiles, his temperature was normal for a Vulcan, though to her fingers it seemed that he was burning up. Unfortunately, the information in the files was rudimentary at best, little more than lists of standard readings for the commonest races of the humanities.

She'd cleaned him up as best she could -- just as well he was asleep, she'd thought to herself, and smiled. Using the inflatable splints from the medkit, she'd managed to immobilize his left leg -- the knee was swollen, almost twice the size it should be.

Copernicus had essentially no fuel left, and little remaining battery power, but at least inside he was sheltered from sun and wind. Now all she could do was wait, and hope it was nothing serious. McCoy would have known, or M'Benga -- but Nyota was a comms engineer, not a medic. She'd had the basic first aid they all got at the Academy -- but in this, she was flying blind.

She'd hunted that day, in the way of her childhood, and brought down two small grass eaters, this world's equivalent to a Terran prairie dog. It had been a small but very real pleasure to find the old skills came so readily back to her hands. Scan had showed them safe for her to eat, and she wanted to save their E-rations for Spock. She knew he did not eat flesh if he could help it, and when he woke up, he would be hungry.

The meat had been tender and sweet, the smoky tang of the fire reminiscent of hunting trips she and her brothers had taken as teenagers, on safaris to the Nova Africa colonies. And as she'd sat in the door of the shuttle and eaten of her catch, she'd felt as if the spirits of her ancestors had joined her, and stood watch with her, beside the fire.

Out in the darkness the screamer cried again, and an atavistic shiver ran down her spine. Here beside the fire, with her blanket around her shoulders, and her spear kept close beside her, little remained of the poised and polished Lt. Uhura, chief comms officer on StarFleet's finest ship. Here she was Nyota, who had once run, barefoot, clear across the Homeland; three days and two nights, shattering the record set by her own grandsire when he was but a boy himself. The only girl in a family with four boys, Nyota had always been encouraged to make use of her physical skills.

Her uniform was torn and dirty, marked with soot, oil, and blood, both red and green. She'd tied a strip of cloth to keep her hair out of her eyes, having neither mirror nor spray to style it as she did aboard ship. She thought of how the captain would react if he could see her now, and had to laugh -- he might not even recognize her.

There was a loud pop from the fire and she jumped, startled. Then she froze, listening -- had she heard something else just then, besides the fire and the wind?

No... Except for the soft noises of the small-lives as they went about their business in the night, it was silent. Not even a mockingbird sang -- there were no birds here.

There it was again -- an almost inaudible rustling, followed by a sound like a very faint moan. Nyota stood up. It was Spock, it had to be. She ducked as she went through the low doorway, and padded into the shuttle's main cabin, pointing her pencil flash toward the corner where he lay.

He was still lying in about the same position, but he was moving now, hands plucking restlessly at the covers, head turning from side to side. His eyes were closed, but he was frowning, where before his face had been blank, as if he were deeply asleep.

So. It probably was the healing trance, and it wouldn't be long before he came out of it. He would need her help, then. Nyota had heard the story once, of the time he'd been shot with an old-fashioned flintlock on that godforsaken backwater planet -- Neural? Chris Chapel had told it to her late one night, over a shared pitcher of mimosas in the nurse's quarters. She'd had to laugh at Chris' expression as she'd told of M'Benga hauling off and slapping his patient, good and hard -- but she was damned glad she'd heard it, now. If the need arose, she knew what to do, and knew that she was strong enough to do it. Her ribs might give her hell, but they'd been doing that ever since the crash. It didn't matter, and she didn't care.

She went outside then, just long enough to bank the fire down -- every morning fire she could start without using her phaser put them ahead of the game. That seen to, she returned to Spock's bedside.

"Spock," she said quietly, near his ear. "It's Uhura, Nyota Uhura. I know you can hear me, and that you can't answer me yet. I'm here, and I'll be here all night. If you need help at some point, just say it, or make some noise." He didn't open his eyes, but something changed a little, in his face, and she knew that he'd heard and understood.

After that she took up her nightly guard post, just inside the door, sitting cross-legged, leaning against the wall. Her phaser was on her belt, just in case, and her spear across her knees. She'd closed the bottom half of the shuttle's door, and strung a noisemaker across the open upper half -- a strand of wire, with shards of wreckage tied along it. Thus settled, she let her eyes close, and drifted into a light doze.

She awoke, once or twice, and padded silently around the shuttle, just checking. It stayed quiet -- the screamer, whatever it was, had shut up, and as far as she could tell, nothing much bigger than a kitten was moving out there. Each time, she resumed her post and let herself doze again.

The sky was growing light outside when she heard him again. He coughed, and instantly she was awake. She reached out and powered up the emergency lamp; she needed to see for this, and there wasn't really enough light out there yet to be much help.

He was trying to sit up, but without much luck. He was sweating, and his breath was rasping in his throat, as though suddenly, he couldn't get enough air. Nyota could sympathize -- she was very glad, now, that she'd strapped up her ribs before she'd settled down to sleep. This wasn't going to be a lot of fun...

Spock coughed, and cleared his throat.

"Help me sit up," he said, his voice little more than a harsh whisper. She peeled off all the blankets and pulled him upright, ignoring the angry twinge in her ribs as she did so.

He coughed again, and winced. He was trying to open his eyes, but they wouldn't stay that way; they just kept on drooping closed. "Hit me," he rasped. "Please -- hit me..."

"I know what to do," she told him, resolutely not smiling. She set herself as best she could, hauled off, and slapped the unbruised side of his face, hard, three times in succession. Her ribcage howled in protest, but she paid it no mind.

"Again," he said, and she did, and once more, before he opened his eyes and kept them open. "Thank you, Mr. Uhura -- that... will be sufficient." His voice was still harsh, but it was rapidly growing clearer. A wave of relief washed through her -- it had been hard, being the only one awake. He wasn't going to be able to do much, not with that knee the way it was, but it was good not to be alone any more. Maybe she'd be able to catch up on her sleep a little, now.

"Here -- I brought you some water..." She held out the canteen she'd filled the night before. He reached for it and missed, knocking it from her hand. She grabbed for it and caught it, and the second time, made sure he had it in his hands before releasing it. Only a mouthful had spilled, but that clumsiness was worrisome. He thought so, too; she could tell. There was a tightness in his face that hadn't been there before.

"Spock," she said quietly, after he drank his fill, "can you see me?"

He frowned, and in a most un-Vulcan fashion, squinted as he tried to see.

"Not very well," he said, picking his words with care. "There seem to be two of you, and I cannot bring you into focus." He sighed, just a little, and leaned back again, closing his eyes.

"Does your head hurt?"

He started to shake his head, no -- and stopped, unable to keep from wincing.

"Apparently, yes," he said, in the familiar dry tones he used instead of a smile. "How long?"

"How long were you out cold? Three days and a bit. Part of your harness snapped when we crashed. Do you remember the landing at all?"

"No, not the landing itself. I remember most of the descent, up to the moment when I brought the shields up to full power."

"That's not bad; we hit about a minute later, near as I can figure." Now she let herself smile, a little. "That was pretty good piloting, mister -- there's about a cup and a half of fuel left, if that."

"It was the only logical choice." He lifted the canteen and drank again, still keeping his eyes closed. "Status report?"

"Well, we're not flying out of here on empty tanks. There doesn't seem to be any sentient life here, at least none that registers on my tricorder at max boost. The emergency beacon didn't make it through the crash. I've been working on building a subspace transmitter; it's about half finished. It'll be a total kludge, but it ought to work."

He raised one quizzical eyebrow. "What is a kludge, Mr. Uhura?"

She grinned. "It's an old Terran programmers' term; it means something put together out of any old stuff you happen to have around."

"Ah. Quite." He leaned back again. "Please continue."

"We've got water, food, shelter, and a decent medkit, along with one functioning tricorder and two almost fully charged hand phasers. Battery power is down to 30%, which isn't enough to lift off with, even if we *had* enough fuel. I've been using the self-powered lights, to save the juice we have left. Once I get the converter finished, we can recharge the batteries with solar cells -- I found half a dozen in back that survived the crash."

"Where are we? What sort of terrain are we in?"

"We're on a little knob of ground between two rivers. It's mostly grassland, with bands of trees wherever there's a stream. We're near the equator, in what I think is late spring from the measurements I've been able to take so far. There are insects, and plenty of small game, but nothing big enough to be dangerous has come into scan range. There's some kind of large predator out there that hunts at night -- I've heard its hunt cry. But it doesn't seem to be interested in us. And there's been no sign of the Orions at all. I think we lost them, as we'd hoped we might."

"Well enough, then. So now we wait."

"We wait. It'll be full daylight pretty soon, and I can get back to work. Are you hungry?" He nodded, gingerly, and she put a couple of ration packs into his hands, along with the refilled canteen. Then she got up and walked outside, to make her morning rounds. She had some thinking to do.

-----///-----

Once more Nyota sat beside the fire, staring into the flames. Her spear lay beside her; behind her, she could hear the uneven rasp of Spock's breathing, as he slept. Occasionally his voice would rise in a querulous mumble, though it wasn't loud enough to decipher.

They were now two days overdue at the rendezvous point. If they hadn't been diverted elsewhere, Enterprise would be flying back along their planned course by now, searching. Copernicus' batteries were fully charged -- she'd finished the solar converter the same day Spock first woke up. This evening, she had almost finished the transmitter, but the sun had set while she was still tracking down an intermittent short.

It was frustrating -- they had two perfectly good communicators, but they weren't powerful enough to reach much further than standard orbit. No-one passing by this system would hear her, unless they came within the communicators' too-narrow range.

Hence the transmitter. Hooked to either communicator and powered by the recharged batteries, it would provide a 20 to 1 boost; that ought to do the trick. She just hoped they would get here in time; she was getting very worried about Spock.

He'd been all right for most of the first day after he awoke; she'd made him a pair of crutches, and he'd come outside, with all due caution, tottering about in the fresh air and sunshine. She'd patched one of his eyes, temporarily solving the problem of his double vision. He had sat on the end of the port nacelle and watched as she finished up with the solar converter. He'd even spotted, and pointed out, a wiring mistake that could have damaged both the batteries and the solar cells. She was so damned tired she hadn't even seen it.

All the same, as the day wore on it had become increasingly obvious that the healing trance hadn't quite worked the way it should. True, most of his bruises were gone, and his knee was almost down to normal size. But he was still in a lot of pain, and he didn't seem to be able to control it, as he always had before. He made no complaint, but twice Nyota saw him wince and put a hand to his head, when he thought she wasn't looking. She said nothing. To a Vulcan, she knew, any loss of control was bad enough -- but to have it pointed out by a Terran? No.

She had redoubled her efforts on the transmitter rig. The Enterprise *had* to find them; that was all there was to it.

By the following morning, it was no longer possible for her to pretend he was all right. He was very pale, and when he reached out to take the canteen from her, he couldn't stop his hands from shaking. Nyota bit her lip, but stayed quiet, and after a moment he was able to lift it and drink his fill. But when she offered him a ration pack, he averted his eyes.

"I... do not think that would be... wise," he'd said, speaking slowly and carefully. "I am... not... hungry." That was a bit of an understatement. The look on his face was one of nausea.

"I think I'd better run a scan on you, Spock," she'd told him, expecting an argument.

But he had only leaned back and closed his eyes, and said, "Perhaps that would be best." That was when she really started to worry. And when she'd finished with the tricorder, she found no reassurance in the results. It wasn't a medical model, so it lacked the fine resolution of the one McCoy usually carried. But it could and did diagnose the problem. The Vulcan had a hairline cranial fracture just behind his left ear, and somewhere inside his skull there was bleeding and a slow buildup of pressure. Her tricorder couldn't localize it any more than that, and Nyota had neither surgical training nor the necessary tools. Copernicus' medkit was a standard field type, made for use by non-medical personnel. There was a small protoplaser inside, but it was for dermal use only, for burns or abrasions; the maximum field depth was only 10 millimeters -- not nearly enough.

Most of the kit consisted of injectors, and she didn't know which, if any, to use. For the moment, all she could do was to save the scan result, and put the tricorder away again.

"What does it show?" he'd asked, his voice almost too soft for her to hear. Keeping her own voice pitched low and quiet, she told him.

"I see." He'd opened one eye, to watch her, but it was obvious that even the dim emergency light was painfully bright, and very soon he just closed it again. She'd offered him medication for pain, but he declined, telling her that it would only make him sick and disoriented. He had no tolerance for such, having never needed to use them before.

"I'm sorry, Spock," she'd told him. "There's nothing more I can do..."

"It does not matter. You have done... the best you could." With that, he'd allowed himself to slide down again, until he was lying almost flat, and pulled his blankets up under his chin.

Biting her lip, she sat down to once more review the medfiles, such as they were, racking her brains for anything Chris Chapel might ever have said that could be useful. The only thing she could think of was to give him a dose of steroids, to reduce the chance of swelling -- and even that was a long shot. She spent a while digging through the medkit until she found an injector that was labeled as safe for Vulcans, and coded as what she sought. Then she'd carried it to his bedside, explained what it was, and with his permission, administered as much as was safe. Whether it would help, she didn't know, but at least it would do no harm.

"I'll be outside, working on the transmitter," she'd told him then, and gone to do just that, not wishing to add her own anxieties to the discomfort he already felt.

Dammit, it wasn't fair! He'd saved both their lives with his skills as a pilot, and now she was supposed to just sit back and watch him die? No. Not on her watch! She'd spent the rest of the day elbow deep in that misbegotten excuse for a transmitter, muttering vile curses on the bastard raiders who'd caused all this in the first place. By sunset there was only that one last intermittent short that needed to be solved.

She'd had to force herself to eat supper; she had no appetite whatsoever, but she knew only too well the folly of attempting duotronic diagnostics with almost no blood sugar. It was bad enough that she was so tired she could hardly see straight. It seemed like years since she'd been clean and well-rested -- and there was no end in sight.

Inside Copernicus she could hear a faint murmuring; Spock was dreaming, perhaps, or maybe hallucinating. The last time she'd gone to check on him she hadn't been able to fully rouse him. For a few hours the steroid injection had helped, but then he'd begun to decline again. There was no more oxygen left, and she didn't dare give him a stimulant. His pulse was slowing, his blood pressure gradually dropping -- he was simply fading, despite everything she could do.

Fading... Wait a minute. There was something there... Something about the interface between initial and second stage signal boost? For a moment, Nyota's eyes focused a thousand miles away; her hands made little sketching motions in front of the flames as a circuit path sketched itself inside her head. Yes! Now *that* was something she hadn't thought to check... In one smooth and flowing motion she got up and sidled along between the fire and Copernicus' port nacelle, till she got to her cobbled-together mess of a transmitter. Still muttering under her breath, she dropped to her knees beside the machine, and shone her pencil flash into the deepest part of its innards.

She couldn't see -- wait, maybe if she moved this board here just a smidgen that way... Yes. There. That piece, right there. Damn, what a stupid mistake -- a first-year cadet could do better than that! Very carefully she eased the offending module out of its matrix and took it back to the fireside. There were a couple of anxious moments while she looked for her pin-welder, and then she was flying, fingers racing to keep up with the diagrams and circuit changes she could see in her mind. Hell, she should have done it this way from the beginning! Get a better power output *and* a clearer signal. What the devil had she been thinking of?

Never mind. It was done; now to plug it back in and see how it worked... Her hands were shaking, suddenly; after almost dropping it in the fire she made herself stop and take some deep breaths before continuing. This *had* to work right; Spock was running out of time.

She waited until her hands were completely steady, then knelt, and plugged the newly altered module back into its matrix. So far, so good. Holding her breath, she reached out and hit the power switch. There was a click, a low humming noise -- and she was on-line! Green lights, all across the board! Nyota grinned a fierce hunter's grin, and pressed three more switches, activating the taped distress call she'd recorded earlier. It would repeat automatically now until she told it to stop, drawing on battery power at night, on the solar collectors during the day.

That was one of her problems solved. Now to see about the other.

As she ducked under the doorjamb she could hear him muttering to himself, there in the corner. As the beam of her flashlight passed over him, her heart sank. His face was pinched and hollow-cheeked; there were great dark shadows encircling his eyes. His hands moved constantly, aimlessly -- patting and plucking at the blankets, rubbing at his forehead... He was shivering, although it was not particularly cold.

Nyota knelt down and reached to touch his shoulder. At her touch, he jumped, and opened wide, startled eyes to look at her. There was no recognition in his face; in the light from the flash she could see that the pupil of one eye was quite a bit larger than that of the other. The eye bandage she had rigged for him lay crumpled on the floor, dislodged at some point during the last few hours. She reached out her hand, and he grasped at it with a desperate, feverish strength. His fingers felt hot and dry against her own -- too hot, even for him. He cocked his head and peered owlishly at her, trying unsuccessfully to focus his eyes.

<What... where am I? Who are you?> The words were in Vulcan, the harsh, guttural language of his childhood. Nyota had learned it at StarFleet Academy; she was reasonably fluent, although she'd never quite lost her sing-song Terran accent. Even Spock's mother, the Lady Amanda, spoke it that way; Vulcan was hard on Terran throats. Nyota scooted closer, leaned forward, and looked into his eyes, hoping that he could see well enough to recognize her. She cleared her throat, and gave it her best shot.

<I'm Uhura, Spock -- Nyota Uhura. Don't you remember? We were in a shuttle crash; that's how you were injured.>

Spock frowned, staring up at her, trying to remember, to find his way through the growing haze that clouded his thoughts.

<I cannot... I do not recall, how I came here... > His voice was little more than a whisper, hesitant and full of doubt. The look on his face, of fear and confusion, was a terrible thing to see. In all the years they had served together aboard the Enterprise, Nyota had never seen him like this. He was always the strong one, the anchor the rest held fast to. Even when they'd thought the captain was dead, that time with the Tholians -- or when they'd fought the creature that had already killed the Intrepid -- Spock had never wavered, never hesitated to do what was needed. But this was different. This was no external enemy he could stand against; this was his own mind and body turned traitor, turned against him.

He was looking right at her, and she could tell that he had no idea who she was.

<Please... > he whispered, <I need... I don't know, I can't... > He shook his head, then gritted his teeth at the sudden flash of pain. <Please... make it stop... >

If only she could... But the latest scan she'd done had only repeated what she already knew -- the treatment he needed was surgical, not chemical. There was no drug in their medkit that would stop what was happening to him. She couldn't even give him any pain medicine -- his vital signs were too low for safety now, as it was. All she could do was try and keep him comfortable, and hope the Enterprise was on her way. If only she could give him some of her strength -- even now, exhausted and afraid, she was in far better shape than he was...

By the beard of the Prophet! Maybe she *could* share her strength, at that. Vulcans were telepaths, she knew that -- more than once, Spock had used that gift to save his crew-mates' lives. If she could get him to link with her, maybe he could draw on her strength to extend what was left of his own. It was dangerous -- even if it worked, he still might die, and she might die with him, helpless and unaware. If he survived with brain damage, she might take damage, too. She might end up comatose in some nursing home somewhere. Such things had happened before.

If the Enterprise didn't reach them in time, they'd end up as a footnote in some coroner's report. But if she didn't do something fairly quickly, Spock was going to die anyway. The more she thought about it, the more Nyota felt it was his only chance to live -- and she'd worked too hard to admit defeat now. She had to try...

"An' 'twere to be done at all, 'twere best done quickly," she muttered, under her breath. She picked up his hand and held it to her temple, then reached with her own hand to touch his face. This *had* to work...

<my mind to your mind,> she whispered. <my thoughts-->

<-- to your thoughts,> came his reply. It *was* working. She could feel an odd tingling coolness at the edges of her awareness. She frowned, trying to remember how the words he always used went -- she had no concrete plan in mind, only the hope that perhaps in this way she could sustain him long enough for help to arrive. Everything depended on him. She was no telepath, never had been. She could offer her strength, but he would have to make the link, if he could, if he willed it -- if he trusted her, whom he no longer recognized...

His eyes were open now, still eerily mismatched, staring at her; his fingertips were little islands of heat against her cheekbones. The next phrase in the pattern came to her, then, dredged out of old memories.

<our thoughts are growing closer,> she whispered. <our minds-->

<-- are growing closer...> Again, he finished her sentence. And now she was definitely feeling *something*; an odd doubling of perception, a slight echo to every thought. She held in her mind thoughts of welcome, of acceptance -- of friendship, and respect. Of their own volition, her own hands were cradling his face; from somewhere came the knowledge of where her fingers had to go, and she followed it. Somewhere down inside her there was fear, but she set it aside, and following the new knowledge she had found, willed her mind to open and accept the link.

Something lowered/faded/opened wide -- and there he was, where before was only her. First was pain; an ocean of it, a vast and troubled flood without bottom or border. Dark and terrible, it tried to pull them down to oblivion -- but there was strength to resist, now, where none had been before. Fear was there, too -- fear of the stranger, of death, or of what might be worse, to live on unawares. But that, too, had less power now. Fear could not stand against the truth, that here was one willing to give what was needed, not counting the cost. And slowly the process of dissolution came to a stop. So far it could go, and no further, for now there were defenses, where before had been only exhaustion and emptiness.

She was still herself, but somehow she was him, as well -- worn and battered, reduced to little more than awareness of self. But even so, they were alive...

-----///-----

Hands on her shoulders -- what? Hands on her shoulders and a voice, murmuring in her ear. She knew that voice...

"Easy, now, Chris. Careful you don't bump her head -- that's it." She shivered, suddenly cold, and struggled to open her eyes -- it was hard; her eyelids were gummed and sticky, as if she'd slept for a week. Finally she managed it, to see a familiar face smiling down at her, one she'd despaired, for a while, of ever seeing again.

She tried to speak and wound up coughing -- her throat was as dry as the desert. Someone held water to her lips and she drank, and it was sweet and cool, the best thing she'd ever tasted in her life. She tried again, and this time, though her voice was scratchy, she was able to speak.

"Len -- Chris!! In the name of Allah, you're a sight for sore eyes!" Chris smiled down at her while McCoy pretended to be busy with his kit -- but Nyota saw the shine in his eyes. Chris handed her more water and she drank it all, feeling herself coming back to life. Even her head didn't hurt, now...

Suddenly she remembered, and tried to sit up. But gentle hands pushed her back down on the stretcher, then held her, as a savage bout of dizziness tried to sweep her away.

"Chris -- you have to tell me: how did--"

"At ease, Uhura -- that's an order. You're dehydrated, your electrolytes are still out of whack -- and your nervous system's been through one hell of a shock." McCoy's gruff voice sounded beside her head, as he triggered the antigravs and began to guide the stretcher outside. One of her hands escaped the blankets, but Chris was there, gently taking hold, giving her a reassuring squeeze. As the stretcher floated through the shuttle's outer door, Nyota had to close her eyes -- the sun was blindingly bright.

McCoy again, next to her ear.

"He's still alive, Nyota. We took him out of here first. We've got him on life-support, and M'Benga's getting ready to operate. Damndest thing, really -- according to scan he ought to be dead -- but he isn't. Seems some damn fool person risked her life to keep him going..." She just knew, if she opened her eyes, he'd be frowning at her -- but she didn't care.

"Was it -- will he recover? He saved our lives, Len, when the marauders attacked. Gods, I still can't believe he got us down in one piece..."

"We don't know yet. But he's made it this far; he's already ahead of the game. And Kesse interned in neurosurgery at ShiKahr General, on Vulcan -- there's none better in all the Fleet." In the background, Nyota could hear Chris Chapel activate her communicator and tell the Enterprise they were ready to transport.

"How long did -- how long were you looking for us?"

"Chekov picked up your signal 24 hours ago, and the captain took us up to Warp 8 getting here. Scotty says you shouldn't even have survived that landing -- your engines are basically scrap metal." There was a brief pause, and then, very softly, he added, "That was a damned gutsy thing to try, Nyota -- and it saved his life. Not too bad, for your first command." She started to ask another question, then, but was silenced by the familiar tingling rush of the transporter effect.

-----///-----

The sickbay doors swished open as Nyota approached, carrying the instrument under her arm. It had arrived from Vulcan that morning, and when she'd opened it, she'd thought at first that there must be some mistake -- the fine-grained, flawless wood, the deep, hand-rubbed finish -- it was a hand-made Vulcan ka'athyra, just like the one Spock played, save that his was an antique.

She'd carried it down to her favourite glade in the arboretum, and run through the scales and exercises he had taught her over the years. The tone of it was rich and full; every last detail of the workmanship was perfect. Allah alone knew what a thing like that must cost -- surely it had been sent to her by mistake... And then she'd noticed the small silver plaque set into the back of it. The delicate swirls of Vulcan glyphs spelled it out: "Nyota Uhura, colleague and bard. With gratitude, for the gift of a life."

She marched into Sickbay fully intending to tell him off -- but when she got there and saw him sitting up, tuning the instrument that was twin to her own, she understood. No gift could match the value of a life, and none was needed to. That which was freely given was complete in itself; all else was merely a token.

He still wore a patch over one eye, but Chris had already told her he'd be discharged tomorrow, and back on duty by the end of the week. Other than the patch, no sign of his injuries remained.

He looked up as she came through the doorway, and gestured toward the chair that sat beside his bed. She sat, still holding her instrument, and smiled.

"You didn't have to do this, you know," she said, stroking the wood with her hands.

"True. It seemed a logical course of action, however. You have reached that point in your studies where an instrument of your own is beneficial."

"Ah, I see. Well, I suppose that's logical enough."

"Indeed." He raised an eyebrow at her, and pointed to what she held. "Are the dimensions correct? Traditionally, it is custom-built for each player who first owns it."

"It's perfect!" She bent her head, and produced a liquid, rippling trill of notes, reminiscent of a stream tumbling down a slope. Then she looked up again, and smiled. "Of course, now you're going to have to teach me the rest of it."

"That was my intention," he answered, setting his own instrument into place on his lap. "We shall begin with the duets of Sevek, son of Sokar." He put his hands on the strings. "If you will notice, the fingering here is slightly different -- as follows..." And with that they were off, the music filling Sickbay and spilling out into the halls, a delightful addition to the bland shipboard air.

In his office, Leonard McCoy raised a glass in tribute, then propped his feet up on his desk and leaned back, to enjoy the show.