Chapter Text
The message arrived on Alpha shift. It read:
Received at *u7%/J on [-0&3.,}
To: S’chn T’gai Spock; USS Enterprise
From: >sss$3nd%r X //jj68/
Phirnouai Province, Delta 09:00
(a bit of code gibberish)
Sector IV, 18863
(and a jumbled mess of letters in an unknown language)
Had he not been using a very secure server, Spock would have thought it was spam. The code was nonsensical and the language one he could make neither heads nor tale of, but it didn’t matter just then. He was on duty. He should really let it be. He turned back to his station.
It itched.
He had already looked over the scans from the planet and confirmed that the ionic fields would be clear whenever Jim could possibly choose to beam down. At this point, any other tests would be redundant. He could take a break.
Of course, he would have to wait until he was off to actually do the logical research, but he couldn’t just leave it there, undeciphered and alone for hours. He glanced around the bridge, first at Jim, who was ranting animatedly at something Chekov gave him. Sulu was huddled up to his station looking like he would kill anyone who interrupted him, and Scotty was idly charming a yeoman. That left McCoy, from whom Spock would never ask for casual assistance, thanks much, and his ex girlfriend. He believed this was a situation that humans referred to as a ‘catch 22’. As much as his friendship with Uhura had begun to mend, McCoy was still looking like the better option.
He shook himself. Uhura, given her qualifications, would be most logical to approach on the matter of the message.
He opened his mouth to speak to her and swiveled his chair around to find her staring at him, an eyebrow raised in a very good impression of himself. That seemed to be the point, given the smirk tugging on her lips.
“You look troubled.”
Troubled? Unlikely. “I have received a message that I am unable to decipher. I was going to ask you for assistance.”
She immediately reached for his Padd. “Alright, give it here.” Uhura frowned, twisting a strand of hark hair. “It’s Boruvan.” She tapped her fingers against her thigh. “It’s an address. I couldn’t tell you what the code is, but that,” she pointed to the symbols, “isn’t too far away from where we’re scheduled to deploy.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Your help is appreciated.”
“You’re welcome, Spock.”
They would be on Boruv in three days, six hours, and five minutes. He glanced at the sender, or lack thereof. It could be a trap. If the history of previous diplomatic missions were taken into account, it was a trap.
Jim, were he involved, would suggest that it may be an SOS from a troubled life form.
“Captain,” he said, rising from his seat. Jim looked up from the data that he had his nose buried in and smiled.
“Yeah, Spock?”
“I have received a message from an unknown sender. It contains an address on Boruv.”
The smile dropped. “Awfully coincidental that we’ll be landing there in a few days, don’t you think?”
“Three days, six hours, and four minutes, Captain.”
Jim rolled his eyes. His shoes made soft clicks as he approached. “Can you show me?” he asked over Spock’s shoulder.
Spock passed him the Padd.
“Hey, this looks like the kind of signature that a telepath leaves on electronics. There was this Betazoid girl who sent me messages that were so disorganized I couldn’t tell one word from another—her mind was so strong it was actually messing with the computer. I mean, of course I knew what they said, but the code was all over the place.”
Uhura rolled her eyes.
Spock watched as the captain stalked away with his Padd. He turned around, pointed at his first officer, and said, “I’m going to try and isolate the address. See where this came from. I’ll give it back to you in a few.”
Well, now he no longer had a mystery to solve or the ability to do his job properly.
“Jim, at least give the man a break if you’re going to take off with his equipment,” McCoy mumbled from the corner.
“Oh, right.” Jim shrugged. “I didn’t mean to keep you away from your science.”
“I do have obligations that I can attend to elsewhere.” He nodded politely and turned towards the labs. The doors made a metallic swish as they closed behind him.
Four hours later, Jim informed him rather testily that he could not find the address. If Jim couldn’t figure it out and Scotty couldn’t decipher it (since he had undoubtedly run for help when he reached a dead end) then he could probably get it to work.
He couldn’t. It irked him tremendously.
They arrived on the planet three days later.
It was a tundra climate with very little rainfall and a sun that was just a bit too mild for Spock’s Vulcan temperament. The ground was so dense with long, hard spikes of golden grass that he could barely see where his feet were going. He reached out to touch one of them. It left a tiny ball of pollen on his finger.
Ensign Bernard and a security woman by the name of I’carf paced behind the party looking like foxes with their hackles raised. Dr. McCoy was fondling a tricorder as if it was his last line of defense and Jim was idly making eyes at a particularly symmetrical humanoid. Spock wondered what it would take to convince him to check cultural standards before flirting.
The sound of a thousand tiny bells filled the air like a fine mist. Jim dropped to one knee, motioning for the others to follow suit. The envoy had arrived, or so it seemed, headed by a blue woman much taller than he or the captain with long tubes flowing from her neck and the back of her head. Spock knew her to be Tokar, Ambassador to Xeophina, and one of the several leaders of their current province. She was beautiful. A gust of wind threaded a scent not unlike a cactus flower through the grass. If there were chemicals involved, he decided they were not aimed to ensnare. He felt the weariness sap from his system.
“You are captain Kirk,” she said without a hint of a question, “and you are S'chn T'gai Spock.” Even her tongue was blue. “We have matters to speak of,” she continued, “but not with present ears. F’iqe has generously offered his family home as quarters to your crew. He asks only that you do not keep the weapons you carry, for his daughters are still quite young.”
The counselor in front whom she referred to with masculine pronouns nodded politely. Spock was unable to discern biological gender differences between most of their species.
Jim smiled. “The quarters are much appreciated. My crew will do as asked and leave behind our phasers.”
He tilted his head meaningfully at the security officer who looked more than uncomfortable with the prospect of leaving her weapon behind. Doctor McCoy seemed to be fighting a smile. Spock did not understand his distaste toward things that had been and would continue to be used in his defense.
That afternoon, Spock was left behind. He was not pleased. Jim had left him with a heartening, “Hey, you kids have fun while I’m off doing grownup work!”
As much as he would have liked to, Spock did not retort that he would much rather be ensuring that the leader of their current company not offend any alien royals.
That was four hours ago and the inside of his room had not gotten any more interesting.
He checked his inbox (he would not admit to having checked it twice as often as he would have otherwise) and found nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing new, and nothing interesting. With a flick of his hand, he brought up a map of the surrounding area. The address read 1339 10649 Fortasi Province, Location VIX. He was not proud that he had no idea what it meant.
The door creaked open.
“Spock? Are you still…oh, of course you’re awake, who am I kidding.” Uhura smiled brightly.
“Has the matron of the house released you from her grasp?” he asked.
“Oh, she’s sweet, don’t get me wrong. She’s just very enthusiastic. I don’t think they get many visitors. They’ve got some weird thing about communication here that makes it very difficult to communicate with those outside your socioeconomic class. Leonard is still playing with the twins.” She sat down and crossed her legs. She had changed from her usual regulation reds and into the local garb, which consisted of a lot of light brown. She made it look good, of course. Not that Spock thought about it much anymore.
“Did you find your conversation productive?” he asked, still flipping through his inbox.
“Very! Oh, and she gave me a nice sightseeing map. If, you know. You’d like to use it.”
Spock raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what you are referring to.”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about following the address?” she asked, eyes bright.
Oh, so that was what she meant. “I have. I simply doubted that the captain would be pleased if we went without him.”
Uhura rolled her eyes. “Spock, if we go without Jim, we are way less likely to get kidnapped or assaulted or—”
“Four point three eight times less likely,” he corrected.
“Exactly.”
She stared at him. This was the pleading stare, the puppy dog eyes, the compelling gaze that so few could resist, including him. And, just maybe, he might be a little bit curious.
“I will get ready,” he said. “I recommend leaving before the sun goes down.”
Her eyes shone with victory.
This, of course, was exactly when Doctor McCoy walked into the room without so much as a warning knock. His face morphed from a pleased smile, something Spock had definitely never seen before, to the very picture of suspicion, something Spock had absolutely seen before.
“Hold it right there, where do you two think you’re going?”
Uhura smiled innocently. “We were just going for a walk. A private one,” she said.
McCoy crossed his arms. “I’ll fall for that cute look you’ve got there when hell freezes over, kid. Where are you going?”
“I received a message several days ago, Doctor, containing an address in the native language. It is relatively close by, and I thought it a reasonable hour to search for it,” Spock said.
“You mean the mysterious note you got on bridge? Alright, I just put the girls down for a nap. Let’s go.”
“Excuse me?” said Nyota incredulously.
He raised an eyebrow. “You can’t think that you’re going to follow this bread crumb trail without someone to put you back together when you inevitably find some way to fuck up?”
Spock blinked. He didn’t really have an argument as to why they shouldn’t have a doctor with.
“Well,” Uhura said, “I guess so.”
“Damn right, you guess so. When are we leaving?”
--
“Okay, give it here.”
“I am navigating us perfectly fine, there is no reason to—”
“Spock? You’re sweet, but this map is not the same as a Vulcan map. You do not read it like a Vulcan map,” Uhura snarled. “It’s not an earth map, either, Doctor, so stop hovering!”
“Jesus, alright,” McCoy said.
She flicked the map to the other side of the screen. “Well.”
Spock and Leonard leaned forward slightly in hopes that they were not ‘hovering’. The afternoon sun was angling toward the hills, coating the side of the hill in gold. It was cold for him, and he was relieved that the doctor had suggested he bring a jacket. Grudgingly.
“It’s over that hill,” she said, pointing to the east, “but that’s not really a residential area. Look. Here’s where we are, which is the cultural equivalent of the slums. This is the mansion where we started. And this,” she flicked her finger down and the map rotated, “is spot X.”
“There’s nothing there,” McCoy said.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re not looking for a house, then.”
“It looks like farmland,” he suggested. “It wouldn’t surprise me of somebody’s barn isn’t on the database.”
“If it is a structure at all,” Spock added.
Leonard nodded.
They had to climb over a fence—jagged wire that (thank god) wasn’t electric. McCoy jumped it, shoved it down for Uhura, and held out his hand for Spock like he was a delicate princess that needed to be guided over a puddle. Spock resisted the urge to take him up on it just to see what he would do.
Farmland on this planet wasn’t quite like others he had seen. All of the vegetables were clumped together in one large, colorful garden, root vegetables peeking from the surface beneath tomato-like fruits. Grasses all had their own individual squares. Not the acre wide ones that hearth had, but meter-wide squares that made up a checkerboard field around the homesteads. They walked across a former field, now empty, with tire tracks down the center. One elderly man of the local species peered at them suspiciously over his pile of gourds. Spock listened to Uhura and McCoy highlight the differences between the growth cycles of this planet and Earth as fields slowly turned into undeveloped tundra.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, standing in front of a barely-functioning fence, “but this is it.”
“Wow,” Leonard breathed.
It was a farm house of decent girth, elegant and wide, but it hadn’t been beautiful for a very long time. The mud-brick foundation was flaking out over the crawling vines and the ground was littered with shattered panels of low-grade glass. The garden that had been left untended for years was slowly overtaking the yard. Twisted red-leaved shrubs hid pieces of metal while root vegetables that had gone to flower were making their own environments in the tundra. The air smelled like rich dirt.
His mouth went dry.
A cactus. A S’chigi Ka’ai. A plant that by all rights should have been extinct.
There were hundreds of them. Little fist-sized auburn bulbs built for the cold, high elevation of Vulcan’s mountains were nestled in between red tipped grasses and tiny yellow flowers. He leaped over the fence and brushed his hand over one, ignoring the spikes that wanted to cling to his hand. They were still soft for the summer. He plucked a button from the side, a pale yellow, and popped it into his mouth.
Yes, he thought, it’s real.
He heard the crunch of Uhura’s boots next to him. He handed one to her.
“This is a plant from Vulcan,” he said, “I had thought it to be extinct.”
Doctor McCoy knelt next to him, inspecting one with a keen eye. “It looks a bit like peyote.”
“This plant has no psychoactive compounds, I assure you. The fruit is…was…commonplace in higher elevations and rarely harvested. You can eat it.” He watched as the doctor ran his hand along a yellow bud the size of his thumb and nibbled on the side.
“It’s sweet,” he said, sounding pleased.
Nyota placed a hand on his shoulder. He ignored it in favor of running his fingers through the rocky topsoil.
“Hey,” said McCoy from his other side, “Spock, I’m not dumb enough to ask if you’re alright, but breathe, kid. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”
Spock knew his breathing was a little bit erratic and his heart was pounding in his side, but he didn’t think it was that obvious.
“I’m going to call Sulu,” Uhura said to McCoy.
He nodded. “Tell him I’ll send him some readings. Spock, let’s check the house.”
Spock was lead through a tilted wooden door by a hand on his elbow. He had to leap past rickety steps and over a fair amount of animal scat. He sneezed once. One of the windows had fallen in, leaving only slowly rotting organic screen material and cup was broken in the corner. Leonard took another look around the place, ran his hand over the muddy concrete of the walls, and frowned.
“Spock, nobody’s been here for thirty years.”
“So our mysterious sender has not likely been here themselves?” he hummed.
“Definitely not. Do you think the cactus was what they wanted you to find?”
“I don’t know,” Spock said.
“They send you to a mysterious planet where an extinct Vulcan cactus has started a revival? Seems like it to me. No sign of the mystery man, though. Looks like our search is still on.” Leonard said.
He blinked. Our search? Uhura poked her head inside, looking disdainfully at the floor. A communicator was still clutched in her hand.
“Sulu says one per eight feet won’t harm the environment. Anybody home, Doctor? Records say the last owner of this place died twenty years ago and his kids just…let it go.”
“Looks like they left it for good,” McCoy confirmed. “You can come in if you like. Nothing’s going to bite.”
“I wasn’t worried about biting animals, Doctor.” She paused, glancing at Spock. “I called Mitith.”
Spock stared blankly.
“Our landlady, you…” she sighed. “She said if its government property, her family has access to anything they want. She said to consider it a gift.” Her boot crunched a piece of foundation.
“Is it government property?” he asked. He didn’t get what she was insinuating, but apparently he was the only one.
“If it has been uninhabited for more than ten years, yes.”
McCoy beamed. “Well, Spock, looks like we have a delivery to New Vulcan en route. Did you see some pots over there, Uhura?”
She disappeared from the doorway. They followed.
“Pots?” he asked McCoy.
The other man just grinned. “We’ll send them up to Sulu gift wrapped with a bow. Besides, I haven’t had my hands in good dirt for a long time.”
“Jim’s going to hate us,” Uhura said.
She was probably right.
McCoy taught them to protect the roots for transplant, and Spock told them both how much moisture it could withstand before becoming compromised. He lightly pushed down the dirt, crushing air pockets. It was surreal. He didn’t know why they were helping him. By all known logic, Uhura shouldn’t want to spend her time with someone who had hurt her, and he had always known McCoy to be a bit adverse to his presence. There they were, though, clothes far past the point where sonics would clean them, potting cacti until their hands were raw and cold and they could barely see in the dark. The sides of his mouth twitched. He was in control of his emotions. That didn’t mean that seeing something from his home didn’t make his chest ache or that his companion’s presence didn’t grant a smile.
They sent forty-three cacti back to the ship, the exact number appropriate for environmental stabilization. Spock was grateful. He didn’t know how to tell them, but he thought they probably knew.
--
“Okay, I can’t believe this. You went without me. You actually went without me.” Jim paced across the room. He was, predictably, furious. “I’m seriously pissed off, you know that? I should restrict your shore leave. What’s the deal with that, anyway? You actually, like, left your rooms during shore leave. Since when do any of you—not you, Uhura, you have a life. You know what? I don’t care.” He snatched the bottle of bourbon away from McCoy who grunted in indignation.
“Hey, not our fault you left us here to rendezvous with a whole bunch of tall blue aliens. How were we supposed to know you’d want to come along?”
Spock recognized this as an overt lie.
Jim just nodded sarcastically. “Mhm. So you leave here without a telling anyone—without a security team—and you think this will all be dandy? Is that it?”
“What, like a security team wouldn’t attract any attention at all,” McCoy said.
“So this was a covert operation, then, was it? What if it had been an SOS call? What would you have done then?”
“Jesus, Jim, we went to a farm. We literally went to look at plants. We had Sulu on the line. We told…what’s her name?”
“Mitith,” Uhura supplied, trying and failing not to look amused.
“We told Mitith where we were. She gave us permission. Take a damn valium, kid.”
Leonard pried Jim’s hand off of the bottle and poured four drinks. He held one out and lifted an eyebrow. Jim glared and struggled against the beckoning gaze. He succumbed with a sigh, grabbed the brown glass, huffed, and fell to the plush cushions on the floor.
“I’m making a rule,” he announced. “No more mysterious letter searching without me. That’s an order.”
Spock rolled his eyes.
“No, seriously. I’m coming with next time. I don’t care what you say, I’m going to be there.”
Nobody dared to say anything for about a minute. It was Uhura who broke the silence.
“I told you he’d be pissed,” she said with a smirk.
“The lady gets it,” Jim said fondly. “She always gets it.” If Spock didn’t know better, he would say that his captain was very stubbornly pouting.
“If I get another letter,” Spock said, “you will be the first to know.”
“Good.”
“We good, kid?” asked McCoy.
“’Course.”
They beamed at each other. Spock would never understand human interactions.