The Entropy Effect

But was there a certain haunted glitter in his eyes?

Perhaps Vulcans went mad the same way they did everything else, with serenity and an absolute lack of emotion. Bring Jim back to life? McCoy encountered the blank expanse of loss created in his mind by the death of his friend. It would always hurt when he brushed up against those knife-edges of despair, but the empty places beyond were filling with memories. McCoy had begun to accept Jim’s death. But completing the process would be a long and arduous task, and he did not think he could bear being dragged back and forth over the threshold of acceptance and denial by the mad plans of Mr. Spock.

That McCoy had suggested them himself to begin with made them less tolerable, not more.

“Mr. Spock, I went a little crazy last night. If I didn’t hurt you I’m glad of it, because I certainly tried.

I’m ashamed of myself because of it. I couldn’t accept having failed so completely when the person I failed was my closest friend.”

“I do not understand the connection between your emotional state of last night and the task we have to do.”

“We have no task, Spock, except to bury our dead and mourn them.”

“Dr. McCoy—”

“No! If I can admit that I went off my rocker last night then you can admit the possibility that your judgment just might be a little untrustworthy right now.”

“My judgment is unimpaired. I am unaffected by these events, which have caused you so much distress.”

McCoy did not want to fight with Spock; he did not even feel up to trying to force him to admit he cared that Jim was dead. His irritation was not great enough to overcome the tremendous lethargy he felt. He turned his back.

“Please go away, Spock,” he said. Leave me alone, he thought. Leave me alone to grieve.

He hugged himself, as if he were cold: he did feel cold; a chill had descended with the silence. Spock did not reply for so long that McCoy believed he had gone, leaving as quietly and stealthily as he had arrived. The doctor turned around.

He started violently. Spock had not moved; the Vulcan gazed patiently down at him.

“Are you willing to listen to me now, Dr. McCoy?”

McCoy sighed, realizing he would have no peace till he heard what Spock had to say. He shrugged with resignation.

Spock accepted the gesture as acquiescence.

“Dr. Mordreaux should not have killed the captain,” Spock said.

McCoy went on the defensive. “I’m well aware of that.” He had rubbed his nerves raw trying to think of things he could have done differently, any procedure that would have saved Jim’s life. He had come up with nothing. Perhaps now Spock would tell him of some obscure paper he should have read, some untranslated monograph on the emergency treatment of spiderweb .. .

“I mean no criticism, Dr. McCoy. I mean that in the normal course of probability, unaffected by anachronistic events, yesterday, James Kirk would not have died. Indeed, Dr. Mordreaux would not even have been on the bridge.”

McCoy’s scowl deepened. “What the devil are you trying to say? What do you mean, ‘anachronistic events’?”

“The drugs that were given to Dr. Mordreaux to keep him manageable and incoherent have worn off. I spoke to him this morning. I now know what he was working on, all alone on Aleph Prime. I know why his work was suppressed.”

Annoyed by the apparent change of subject, McCoy did not reply. He would sit here till Spock was finished, but he had no intention of expressing enthusiasm for a lecture on weapons research.

“He has taken his monographs on temporal displacement, the ones that caused such controversy, and attempted to bring his theories into practice. He has succeeded.”

McCoy, who had been listening halfheartedly at best, suddenly straightened up and went back over what Spock had said, sorting through the technicalities.

“Temporal displacement. Motion through time. You mean—time travel?”

“I have just said so.”

“So you intend to use his realized theories to go back to yesterday and save Jim’s life? I don’t see why your plan is any different—or any more ethical—than the one I suggested.”

“It is very little different in effect, only in means and motive. Your motive was to save the captain’s life. Mine is to stop Dr. Mordeaux.”

“Forgive me, Spock, if I fail to appreciate such subtle shades of ethics.” McCoy’s tone grew sarcastic.

“No subtlety is involved. But I have not provided you with sufficient information to understand my logic.”