U.S.S. Enterprise
Pergamum Nebula
Spock meditated.
Despite his assurance to Captain Pike, the efforts of the day had taxed him. Galadjian’s calculations had been instrumental in effecting their quick exit from the nebula, but the theoretician—rightfully renowned, in Spock’s judgment—had little discernible experience in putting his findings quickly into action. Spock had served as the conduit, understanding that his skills were, on that occasion, superior. It was what officers did on an efficiently functioning starship.
Spock had taken a small meal and recorded a personal log in his quarters, after which he had read the report on what had happened to Shenzhou. It had been troubling. Ostensibly, Michael Burnham had acted to protect her starship and others from an anticipated—and, it turned out, correctly predicted—Klingon attack. But assaulting a superior officer in that cause was beyond the pale. Spock could not visualize any situation that would lead him to commandeer Enterprise.
But while the episode was shocking, the fact that Burnham had committed the acts did not come as a complete surprise. Their connection had been fraught and complicated. The brief joint mission at Sirsa III had been productive, but their interaction had not changed the basic facts of their relationship. It already felt like many years since he had spoken to her, and he expected she felt the same way. Spock was gratified that she had survived Shenzhou’s destruction, but her fate did not move him.
His mother, he expected, would differ. That, he cared about.
His eyes fixed on the light from the candle he had lit in Shenzhou’s memory. The glow lingered when he closed his eyes and bowed his head. He knew the effect: a physiological afterimage created by retinal photoreceptor cells continuing to send impulses to his brain. A negative afterimage followed. It was reproducible but not pathological, as it might be if he suffered from an ailment that caused palinopsia.
There was no magic to it. Just as there was none to the stars, to Enterprise—or even to the place where their sojourn would now resume. Despite the insistence of its discoverers to imbue the Pergamum Nebula with some mythological significance, there was nothing paranormal about its arrangements of atoms, its varieties of rays. Science had brought them safely in and out once before. It would do so again.
He extinguished the candle and went to sleep.