Lawful Obedience, Part Thirteen

by J. Rosemary Moss

Genre: Slash Fan Fiction (Star Trek)
Rating: PG-13

LINK TO PART ONE

~

Kirk met Spock, Bones and Lee in the conference room, but then he asked for a word with Spock outside. He turned to the Vulcan as soon as the doors slid shut behind him.

“I don’t know what you found out,” he said softly, “but, Spock, please make sure you present it as gently as you can. Try not to cause Lee any...any undue distress.”

Spock cocked his head at him. “Lee has proven quite capable of adjusting to new information and situations,” he pointed out.

“But this is different, Spock,” Kirk explained. “Remember that he doesn’t even know what a clone is—and, if he is one, he’s not going to be happy to find out about it. At the very least, that information will leave him with one hell of an identity crisis.”

Spock blinked. “But, Captain, if the yeoman has all of Robert E. Lee’s thoughts, memories, emotions and values—and a body that was developed from Robert E. Lee’s own DNA—then, logically, he is Robert E. Lee. I see no need for an ‘identity crisis.’”

Kirk smiled. “Spock, it’s not that simple. And you can’t expect even Lee to be entirely logical about it. Just go easy in there, please.”

The Vulcan narrowed his eyes for a moment, but then nodded. “I will do my best, Jim.”

“Thank you,” Kirk said. “All right, let’s go in.”

~

Spock took a deep breath before beginning. He was not accustomed to ‘going easy’ when it came to imparting information, but he meant to obey orders.

“Yeoman, the mind meld has proved to my satisfaction that you do, indeed, have all the memories of Robert E. Lee,” he began. “You are, in a very real sense, the sum of Lee’s experiences. As you may know, the DNA tests we have done so far have proved that you’re a member of the Lee family. I fully expect that we will soon be able to match your DNA to that of Robert E. Lee himself.”

He paused. Lee nodded at him while Dr. McCoy placed a hand on the yeoman’s shoulder. Kirk, meanwhile, leaned forward in his chair toward Spock.

“Moreover,” Spock continued, “I’ve been operating on the theory that someone ‘cloned’ Robert E. Lee’s body, Yeoman—that is, they duplicated it—and transferred, if you will, the general’s thoughts, memories, values and emotions into the new body. I am now certain that theory is correct.”

Lee looked stunned. “This—this body is a duplicate?” he asked, pinching his own arm.

McCoy nodded. “Cloning is a complicated—and very uncertain—procedure,” he explained. “But it is possible to create a duplicate of an organism, providing you have the original DNA.”

Lee swallowed. "And that explains why...why my...why this body is only thirty?"

"It's theoretically possible to create a clone of a specific age," the doctor confirmed.

“How do you think the ‘transference’ happened?” Kirk interjected, looking at Spock.

Spock shut his eyes for a moment. He knew that it was perfectly possible for a Vulcan to preserve his katra—what humans would call a soul—even beyond his own death. He was still uncertain, however, of how this could be achieved by a human. Particularly a human who did not consciously attempt to transfer his soul into the care of another.

The answer then, was that someone had forcibly taken his ‘katra’ from Lee and preserved it without his knowledge or permission. Spock would not have thought that possible—but then, he knew little about the human soul. Perhaps a powerful telepath could perform such a feat.

“I do not know, Captain,” Spock admitted as he opened his eyes. “I can, however, ‘go out on a limb.’”

Kirk nodded. “Please do.”

Spock furrowed his brow. “Yeoman,” he said, turning to Lee, “your subconscious mind remembers the slow death you suffered in the wake of your stroke. At a guess, you seem ultimately to have died from pneumonia—though you were in and out of consciousness during that ordeal.”

He paused, trying to keep his voice gentle. “However, you do remember the presence of a stranger. And you remember trying to warn your family of her presence there—and trying to warn them that she was touching your face and draining you, as you felt it. You were not successful in conveying this information to your family.”

“It was a woman?” Lee asked.

Spock nodded. “Yes—and humanoid, though not necessarily human.”

“How is it possible that my family didn’t see her?”

“I have no answer to that,” Spock said. “I can only reconstruct the events as you remember them.”

He paused again. “That same woman continues to appear in your memories of this century. She was in a medical lab with her hands touching your face—not unlike the position I would use to perform a mind-meld.”

“Was she a Vulcan?” McCoy interjected.

“It’s possible,” Spock admitted, “but I don’t believe so. She was, at any event, careful to keep her face behind a veil. She gave Mr. Lee no opportunity to form a clear picture of her—either in the 19th century or our own.”

He turned back to Lee. “I believe she achieved the ‘transference’ through telepathy. I’m theorizing that she is a powerful telepath herself—and that she made use of your own latent telepathic abilities to assist her. She also subjected you to a variety of hallucinogens—”

“Forgive me, sir,” Lee interrupted. “By hallucinogens you mean—”

“Drugs that cause hallucinations,” Kirk explained. He paused to cock his head at Lee. “Would you like to take a break, Yeoman? We don’t have to hear all this right now.”

Lee shook his head. “No thank you, sir. Please continue, Mr. Spock.”

“The woman and her assistants used the hallucinogens to recreate some of Lee’s experiences for you—to force you to relive aspects of Lee’s life. She also subjected you to diseases that Lee had experienced; you relived malaria, for example, while under her care.”

“Malaria?” Lee asked.

“You’d know that as ague or swamp fever, General,” McCoy put in.

Lee nodded and turned back to Spock. “How did I escape from her?”

“You didn’t,” Spock answered. “She ordered her assistants to abandon you in the wilderness around Octavian VII—presumably knowing that you’d be found by security there.”

Kirk narrowed his eyes at Spock. “But why?” he demanded. “Who would go to all that trouble in the first place? And, having gone through it, why would she just abandon her captive?”

“I have insufficient data at this time, Captain, to explain the woman’s motives.”

“There’s another problem,” McCoy added. “Are we dealing with a woman who has a lifespan of hundreds of years—or a woman who can travel in time?”

“I do not know the answer to that either, Doctor,” Spock responded.

There was a long moment of silence after that. At length McCoy broke it.

“Come on, General,” he said, patting Lee’s shoulder as he stood up. “As your doctor, I’m going to make sure that you get to your cabin and get some rest. It’s been a long day.”

“I’d like to ask Mr. Spock some more questions, sir,” Lee objected.

“They can wait,” McCoy insisted.

Lee sent a questioning glance to Kirk, but the captain shook his head. “Bones is right, Mr. Lee. Listen to your friendly-neighborhood country doctor.”

Lee managed a smile at that. “Very well, sir.” He stood up and followed McCoy out of the room.

Spock, meanwhile, turned back to Kirk. “I did my best to ‘go easy,’ Jim,” he said. “But I could not avoid the facts.”

Kirk smiled. “You did fine, Spock. Thank you.”

LINK TO PART FOURTEEN