Work Text:
Scattered Atoms
There's no chance for us, it's all decided for us.
This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us.
Who wants to live forever?
- Queen; "Who wants to live forever?"
Kirk lay on the bunk in his quarters, thankful to be in one piece again. "I've seen a part of myself no man should ever see," he'd said, and it was true. No one should be forced to look upon the baser side of their nature and say, "This, too, I am!" And yet, Kirk knew that everyone eventually had to come to terms with the fact that there was someone inside them who could sabotage every sane idea they had. But it was a part of being human - no, scrap that. A part of being sentient. Yes. Realising that he was truly whole again, that the darker side was a part of all sentient beings, Kirk relaxed, and finally slept.
Not so Dr McCoy. He was up studying the modifications made to the transporter. It had really been a - he cringed to even think the word - fascinating procedure indeed. The fact that the transporter had somehow created a duplicate Kirk out of spare energy was one thing, the fact that they had managed to send the excess energy back into space when amalgamating Kirk back into his whole self, was another. At the time, they had all been so worried about Kirk, his problem, and the landing party freezing down on the planet, they had not even stopped to think about what the transporter had actually done. Now McCoy was thinking - and listening to that little voice inside him which knew there was a medical breakthrough here, if only he could grasp onto it.
Once again Bones McCoy looked at the schematics Scotty had given him. He was the first to admit that he didn't know much about engineering - he was a doctor, not an engineer, dammit! - but he had made it his business to study up on the transporter so that if he had to keep having his atoms scattered all over space by the gadget, at least he knew what was going on.
So he was now frowning at the screen. What the transporter usually did was scan an individual prior to beam up/down, save the pattern, convert the matter in the body to energy, beam it through space, and convert it back to matter according to the saved pattern. No problem there. What the faulty transporter had done was use a previously saved pattern (that of Jim Kirk), collect excess energy, and convert it to matter according to that pattern.
"Good grief!" McCoy sat up dead straight. The implications of this were staggering. Theoretically, according to this, one could collect spare energy and make duplicates of people! Or one could change one person into another by converting that person's matter to energy but beaming it aboard using another person's pattern! And then the physician in him kicked in. All one had to do to keep someone alive, once something went wrong with their body, was use a previously saved pattern of the person's healthy body and beam the person up, restored. One would also be able to filter out disease, merely by modifying the transporter.
McCoy hit the intercom. "McCoy to Spock."
"Spock here."
"Get down here, I've got something to show you."
After studying the data, Spock concurred. "Do you realise what this MEANS?" Leonard McCoy was almost shouting. "No more death! That gadget is our passport to immortality, Spock! We've gotta tell Starfleet, all the medical teams everywhere! This'll revolutionize medicine!"
Spock merely sat there, taking it all in. Finally he spoke, playing devil's advocate as usual. "Doctor, are you advocating the use of the transporter as a medical tool? Would that not - according to you - be unnatural?"
"So is injecting people with fungus by-products to stop infections! So is implanting artificial hearts! And I do that!" He had to get through to everyone; this was probably the greatest discovery ever made! McCoy beamed at Spock. "We can save lives, all lives, now! That has to be worth something!"
"I do not know if Starfleet will concur," replied Spock. "Vulcans live on even without their bodies; keeping a body when you have grown beyond it is illogical."
"Are you saying that, rather than be revitalized, you'd prefer death?"
"Not death, doctor. A different existence. Do humans not have the same beliefs, termed religion? Some humans might agree with such sentiments."
"I'm sending off a Priority One message to Starfleet immediately," McCoy retorted, adding, "on my medical authority as Chief Medical Officer of the Enterprise."
Very well," said Spock. "I shall continue to study these schematics prvided by Mr Scott." He left Sickbay; McCoy began composing his message to Starfleet.
***
James T. Kirk felt much better the next day. "All right, gentlemen, let's get down to work. The Klingons were recently sighted in this quadrant; we're to patrol and make sure they're no longer here. No hostile action to be taken unless provoked." He looked around at the faces gathered round the Briefing Room table. "In other words, let them take the first shot."
"An' they will," from Scotty.
"Let's not look for trouble," responded Kirk. "They may be long gone."
But everyone knew how likely that was. The quadrant they were to patrol was deep in Federation space; if Klingons had been sighted in the area, they were probably up to no good. Kirk adjourned the session after a few other items of ship's business, and began to walk in the direction of the bridge. McCoy waylaid him, asking if he had been briefed by his seemingly skeptical Science Officer.
"That's a difficult one, Bones." They entered the turbolift. "Who doesn't want to live forever? But look at some of the 'immortal' and long-lived races we've come up against. Forever can get mighty boring."
"But Jim! We can cure all disease - any disease."
The turbolift opened and they stepped onto the Bridge. Kirk sat down, McCoy stood next to him, still in his 'persuasive' stance, as Kirk went on. "If we all lived forever, we'd overpopulate the universe, Bones. Think of Gideon. They know that immortality is a curse, not a blessing."
McCoy threw up his hands in disgust. "So you agree with Spock, then? Starfleet'll say thanks for the effort, but no thanks?"
"We'll see," replied Kirk, turning to the viewscreen, a frown on his handsome features.
***
Later, in his quarters, Jim Kirk was still frowning. He even frowned at Janice Rand when she brought him his dinner. Who didn't want to live forever? And yet, Kirk felt that if he someday had to choose between death of natural causes and being revitalized by that wonderful matter/energy unit, he'd probably pick death. Just as having a dark side was part of being sentient, so was dying. It was a natural order.
But the captain's mind rebelled against thinking in terms of the laws of nature. If anyone had ever listened to that, they'd've never even got off the ground, let alone met other races in space!
It was a difficult question, and Jim Kirk knew that Starfleet was going to have a hard time deciding whether to sanction it. He also knew that McCoy was torn inside waiting for Starfleet's reply, because, with each hour that passed, there were thousands of people out there in the galaxy who didn't have to die, if only there was a transporter somewhere nearby.
***
Spock, too, was pondering life and death. He didn't have any personal reasons for objecting to this use of the transporter, but he, too, felt that death was a stage one had to pass through. And he certainly did not fear it - being Vulcan, he knew that his katra would live on, if not in a prepared vessel or katric ark, then somewhere else. Katras that were liberated floated upon the wind - a romantic image from such a logical race - and found their own way to their final state. But that there was a final state for such katras, the Vulcan First Officer did not doubt.
It was three days before they encountered the Klingons. One warship orbited a Class-M planet to which the Prime Directive applied. "Have they seen us?" Kirk asked, leaning forward.
"Negative, Captain. Our approach has been careful. They appear to be doing some reconnoitering in an uninhabited area of the planet."
Kirk mentally sighed in relief. He didn't want to have to go down - again - and explain space, stars, and the Federation to people who didn't even know that there was more to the sky besides the clouds. "Okay, then we can send down a landing party and see what they're up to." He looked at Spock, who was scanning the planet for possible sources of anything the Klingons might want. Spock looked up. "No dilithium, captain. Nothing to justify Klingon interest."
"Him," said Jim thoughtfully. "Legends? Klingon Holy Grails?" A few members of his bridge crew looked sideways at him, but Spock caught the reference.
"Negative, sir. Not that I know of."
"Damn. All right, Mr. Spock, let's you and I go pay the Klingons a little visit."
The captain and First Officer beamed down on the other side of some trees so as not to be seen by the Klingons. Also in the party was a geologist and three security people, including the chief of security, a large man named Lieutenant Erik.
They circled around until they found the Klingons' camp. They appeared to be scanning for something - but what? Spock's sensors had not shown anything that could possibly be useful to the Klingons... unless...
"Mr. Spock, do those look like seed collectors to you?" Kirk whispered.
"Affirmative, Sir."
The geologist, Kella Art'h, added, "This planet has very fertile soil, captain. It could be that something is growing here which the Klingons need. Or it has seeds of some kind which could be used to fill the place of certain minerals."
"SEEDS could do that?" put in one of the security men.
She nodded. "But I think it may be a cheap fuel for their food dispensors. It would be easier to stock up on some highly nutritious plant source and use that as the base for the materialization of food rather than synthesize it from non-food sources through manipulation of atoms the way we do."
Kirk looked at her with infinite patience. "Commander Art'h, are you telling me that the Klingons are collecting FOOD?"
"It appears to be the logical answer to our problem," responded Spock. They were moving away from the Klingons so as not to be accidentally spotted. Spock went on, "That is why they have taken care not to be conspicuous. It would complicate things for them. They may be afraid that we will blockade the planet."
"We should; this is Federation territory." Jim Kirk's voice still betrayed his shock at realising that the Klingons were not up to some nefarious deed.
"They will have other avenues of obtaining food base," said Spock, "so I would advise that we avoid a direct confrontation and merely warn them to stay away from here in the future."
"Right," replied Kirk, opening his communicator. "Kirk to —" and then the trees in front of them exploded. He ducked behind the nearest rock, finding his geologist there as well. "Disruptors," he shouted.
The geologist already had her phaser out. "Yes! Sir, would you say that the Klingons don't want us to know what they're doing?"
"They probably think we'll try to stop them, so they're trying to get rid of us before we can do it," Kirk yelled over phaser (his phaser) fire. He looked around. Spock was crouched behind some very large fallen tree trunks, one security person lay dead, and Lieutenant Erik and the other were behind a small grassy hill. Kirk searched for his comunicator. It lay right in front of him, and sound was issuing forth. "Captain? Captain Kirk!"
"Uhura, five to beam up, and hurry!"
"Can't beam you up, Sir." Sulu's voice. "The Klingons know we're here. They fired on us, but I'd already raised the shields."
"Good, keep them up," yelled the captain. He looked over at Spock: what do we do now?
Spock shouted at him, "The USS Constellation is near this quadrant, I believe."
Kirk called the Enterprise again. "Mr Sulu, call the Constellation. Tell Matt Decker we need reinforcements on the double. And use a code the Klingons know."
"Sir? Yes, Sir."
Kirk smiled disarmingly at his geologist. "Klingons never surrender."
She smiled back. "They'll retreat in the face of superior firepower."
"That's the plan, yes." He fired back in the direction of the Klingons, mostly to keep up appearances. "From which planet are you, Commander?" Anything to keep their minds off the waiting.
"Mars," she said. "Born ’n bred, and you?"
"Iowa," he replied, laughing. "That's on Earth."
"Yeah... look out!" A last round of disruptor fire came, striking Commander Art'h, but before Kirk could get to her, Spock gave a shout, pointing at the flicker of the silent Klingon transporter.
The Klingons were gone. Kirk stood up, as Spock, his security chief and security person came up. He went over and picked his geologist up, his eyes meeting Spock's. It didn't look good at all. Kirk's communicator beeped.
"Kirk here."
"Captain, the Klingons have warped out of orbit. They appear to be heading towards Klingon space. Commodore Decker sent a message that says, 'Hi ho Silver'. Sir."
If the situation hadn't been so bad, Kirk would have smiled to himself. Instead he only said, "It's a private code of ours, Mr Sulu. Reply with my thanks and say I'll see him at Wrigley's sometime soon. Five to beam up, Mr Sulu."
When they materialised, Kirk was still holding Commander Art'h. McCoy had a gurney ready, and he examined her right there, shook his head. Then he said, "Jim, we have her previous pattern in this thing." He nodded towards the transporter pads. "We just have to use it to beam her down..."
Now Kirk understood McCoy's arguments concerning the transporter. It was a tough decision, but it was only his to make. "Do it," he said.
"What? What?" Kella Art'h tried to raise her head as McCoy's orderlies lifted her back onto the transporter platform.
"It's all right," soothed Bones McCoy, "We're just going to beam you down using an older pattern. You'll be fine then."
And Uhura cut in on the intercom with, "Priority One message for Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy." Kirk and his chief medical officer merely locked eyes. The reply from Starfleet was finally here. Kirk said, "In two minutes, Lieutenant." He motioned McCoy to carry on.
But Kella grabbed his hand. "Without this... I'll die, won't I?"
"You're not going to die," answered Kirk.
"I don't want it. It's not meant for that. I don't want it." She sounded adamant.
"But..." McCoy spluttered.
"It's my time. No magic, doctor. Just... remember me, okay?"
McCoy let out a long breath and bowed his head. He motioned to the orderly, who took the Commander to Sickbay. Then he turned to Jim. "I can't do anything for her. Only that thing could."
"We're none of us immortal, Bones," said Kirk, who sadly walked off in the direction of the Bridge. Leonard McCoy followed.
***
Kirk and Spock had been right on the money about the transporter, of course. To use it as a miracle cure, the Federation Council had decided, was out. The implications were just too staggering. Allow one use and every use would eventually come with time, including age-regression through the use of a younger pattern, sex transitioning, cloning, you name it. "We will continue to strive to save lives, doctor," the admiral on the viewscreen continued, "but that device is out. Patterns are to be used once when beaming up or down, and then wiped, as per usual."
"Madam," McCoy pleaded, "we can eliminate death."
"We will continue to try," said the admiral. "But this deus ex machina is out, do you read me? Starfleet does not want this knowledge to fall into the hands of the Klingons or Romulans. It is considered classified. Usual decontaminant screening is allowed, and usage at captain's discretion to stop possible threats to the Federation. Otherwise, Leonard, leave it alone, got that?"
"Yes, Ma'am." McCoy looked ready to strangle the admiral. Kirk thanked her, closed off the transmission, and went with McCoy to Sickbay, where Nurse Chapel was pulling a sheet pver the body of Commander Kella Art'h. Janice Rand was standing by the bed crying - Kella had been a friend of hers. McCoy asked Christine the question with his eyes.
Christine gave him the woman's last words. "She said, "It's been fun." Janice Rand cried louder and fled from the room.
Kirk went to the intercom and hit the button for the Bridge. "Lieutenant Sulu, resume course, warp four." At the door he turned and looked back at his friend.
"I'm sorry, Bones," he said. The Sickbay doors closed behind him.
THE END