Leonard McCoy glared at the transporter from which he, Kirk, and Spock had just disembarked. The small of his back felt sticky with nerve sweat, as it always did when he was forced by circumstance to use a transporter rather than a more conventional, safer method of travel -- like his feet. He snaked an index finger inside the pale green collar of his uniform and tugged gently. If man were meant to fly... he thought sourly. "I hate those damned things."

"I know you do, Bones." Jim Kirk paused beside him, his voice tuned sympathetically and, to McCoy's ears, a trifle resignedly to an old and oft-aired complaint. "Just think of it as one of those wonders of the modern space age."

The doctor snorted, glancing up at the tall Vulcan beside his captain. "I consider Spock one of the wonders of the blasted galaxy, but I don't like him, either."

"Thank you, Doctor," Spock replied. "I shall take that as a compliment."

Kirk's hazel eyes danced with barely contained humor. "As I'm sure he intended it."

McCoy snarled and let it ride. Shifting his medikit from one hand to the other, he looked around.

The transporter room aboard the Nordstral Pharmaceuticals orbital station Curie was spare and utilitarian. A flat-finished hue known back in McCoy's school days as "institutional pond-scum gray" colored the unadorned walls. McCoy assumed the only door afforded access to the rest of the station. Behind a glass-fronted area to the right, a lone technician with the bright-hued logo of Nordstral Pharmaceuticals splashed across the front of his coveralls worked diligently at a console, ignorant or uncaring of their presence. McCoy couldn't decide which rankled him more.

"You two didn't have to come with me, you know. I'm a big boy -- I can handle a simple medical consultation on my own. You have a rescue team to lead."

"Spock doesn't," Kirk said, avoiding discussion on McCoy's first comment. "This stop won't take long, and I want to find out as much as possible about this medical crisis Nordstral's having before I go down to look for their lost shuttle. After all, Nordstral Pharmaceuticals asked us to help with both problems."

"And they may prove to be related," Spock pointed out.

McCoy grunted reluctant agreement. "Wasn't someone supposed to meet us?"

"That's what I was told." Kirk stepped off the final riser, obviously bent on hailing the preoccupied technician. At that moment the door at the other end of the room slid open to admit a short, dark-haired woman of middle years. She hurried toward them, her pale blue lab smock rustling faintly against her trousers. Her eyes flicked over their rank insignia and she extended her hand.

"Captain Kirk? I'm Maxine Kane, station physician for Nordstral Pharmaceuticals. Welcome aboard Curie."

Kirk's hand met hers. "Thank you, Dr. Kane. This is my first officer, Mr. Spock, and my chief surgeon, Dr. Leonard McCoy."

"Mr. Spock." Kane nodded politely to the Vulcan, then offered her hand to the doctor. "Dr. McCoy."

Her handshake was firm, but her palm was damp. She attempted a genuine smile at McCoy, but it faltered at the edges. The skin around her green eyes was pinched tight with fatigue and worry, giving her face a harsh cast. McCoy would have laid odds she was nursing a massive headache. He smiled. "My pleasure, Dr. Kane."

As though unsure what to do with her hand once McCoy released it, Kane shoved it into her pocket. The pull of the smock's loose material showed the fingers curled into a fist.

"I apologize for not being here when you arrived. Things have been... hectic lately. Between the shuttle crash and the problems in my own division, I'm usually needed in about fifteen places at once." She chuckled, a decidedly sad sound, and ran a hand through her gray-shot hair. "Too bad our cloning facilities only work for the local plankton."

Spock cleared his throat. McCoy rolled his eyes; he could guess what was coming.

"Unless I am mistaken, Dr. Kane, 'plankton' is not a technically correct term for Nordstral's indigenous marine protists. Plankton, such as found on Earth, are photosynthetic, using sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates and oxygen. Nordstral's marine biota, however, use energy from the planet's strong magnetic field to perform the same function."

"I really wouldn't know about that, Mr. Spock," Kane said with a sigh that McCoy thought sounded suspiciously like his own. "I'm a medical doctor -- all I know is that Earth plankton and Nordstral biota both float around in the oceans and churn out the planet's oxygen. That's enough for me."

"But since these plankton" -- McCoy threw a defiant scowl in Spock's direction -- "are the main reason Nordstral Pharmaceuticals is here, it seems to me they can call them whatever they want."

Spock lifted an eyebrow. "The company did not invent the biota, Doctor."

"Yes. Well." Kane stared at the floor when they all turned back to her, then looked up with a faintly embarrassed grin. "I'm sorry Dr. Stehle isn't here to discuss this with you, Mr. Spock. Vernon..." She paused. Emotion washed her features, changing them like the permutations of warm wax. "Vernon Stehle headed the planetary research team that vanished. He's the one who could have explained the plankton's pharmaceutical uses -- I just do first aid." She breathed deeply and expelled it in a huge, gusting sigh. "Why don't I take you someplace more comfortable to talk?" She left the room without waiting for a reply, trailing the Enterprise officers behind her.

Kirk caught McCoy's eye as they followed Dr. Kane down a well-lit corridor. Eyebrows sought hairline as he mouthed, What do you think?

McCoy shook his head and shrugged fractionally, his eyes reading the slump of Kane's shoulders. She was an obvious victim of stress, fatigue, and, if her comments were any indication, overwork.

She led them to a small laboratory. McCoy couldn't help but think that only a scientist would find a lab a "comfortable" place to hold a serious conversation. Places and names might change, but labs had a tendency to remain the same, world to world.

She motioned for them to sit at one of the tables.

"Can I get you anything?" When they refused, Kane ordered an enormous cup of coffee and two aspirin from the servitor in the corner before sitting across from Spock. She popped the aspirin, knocked back a mouthful of the steaming black beverage, and sighed. "It may be ersatz coffee, but at least the caffeine's real." She toyed with the cup, running a finger around and around the damp rim. "Sometimes I think it's the only thing keeping me functioning."

"Perhaps sleep would help," Spock suggested diplomatically.

A corner of her mouth quirked with a sad little twitch. "It's a precious commodity around here right now. I don't know of anyone who's had a whole lot of it lately. Too much has been happening."

"Why don't you start wherever's easiest?" Kirk said.

"Nowhere's easiest." Kane slumped back, fingers clasping the coffee cup. "Suffice it to say that several weeks ago some of our staff began acting erratic. We've learned over time that a certain amount of odd behavior is normal in the people on long-term company assignments, particularly when the planet is as nasty as Nordstral. But this was like nothing we've ever documented. We currently have over a dozen personnel in residence at the medical center."

McCoy pursed his lips in a silent whistle. "What kind of behavior are we talking about, Doctor?"

Kane held up one hand and ticked down the fingers as she talked. "Paranoia. Hallucinations. Hysteria. Violent mood swings. Suicidal ideation." She snorted. "You name it, we've had it." Her fingers twisted, lacing together like mating spiders. "And then it got weirder."

Spock tilted his head. "Could you be more specific?"

She put aside her cup and stood. "Come with me and I'll show you."

Kane tapped a short identification code into a recessed panel beside a high-security door. A tone sounded, and the indicator light flashed from gold to blue. She pressed another button and the door silently slid apart down the middle.

"Home, sweet home," she said, ushering them before her. "This is the psychiatric section of our complex." She made certain the door was secured, then preceded the three men down the hall.

A young med-crew staffer sat behind a station, back bent over her work. She looked up at the sound of footsteps and smiled in greeting, obviously glad for the opportunity to take a break.

Kane returned the young woman's smile. "This is the help Starfleet promised us." She indicated the men beside her with a short sweep of her hand. "They're finally here."

"Thank God," the medtech commented without rancor. She rubbed her eyes and stifled an enormous yawn. "These late hours are killing me."

"How's the gang tonight?" Kane asked.

The medtech rested her chin in one hand. "I checked them an hour ago and they were quiet -- watching vid and playing cards."

"Well, that's promising, at least." Kane snagged a chart from the rack beside the work station and tucked it under her arm.

"Be forewarned, though," the medtech added in a lower tone. "Mr. Personality is looking for you."

Kane's expression of bitterness and utter contempt startled McCoy. "What did the... what did he want?" she amended, her eyes shifting only slightly toward her guests.

"He didn't say." The tech splayed one hand across her chest. "I'm just a lowly peon, remember?"

"Right." Kane sighed with such irritation that McCoy, beside her, felt her whole body shudder. "Well, let's hope he's given up and gone to bed. Gentlemen, if you'll follow me?" She started down the hall.

"'Mr. Personality'?" Kirk queried when they were out of the medtech's earshot.

Kane's lip curled. "Nicholai Steno, Nordstral's station manager. If you haven't met him, you're in for a singular treat. He makes you hope the old adage of everyone having a twin somewhere in the universe isn't true." She stopped beside a door and keyed in another code. The smile she flashed over her shoulder momentarily eased the tension around her eyes. "Come on in and meet the gang."

The community recreation room was similar to many McCoy had seen in his long tenure as a doctor. Colorful and well-lit, the walls were decorated with what appeared to be native handicrafts. Better than a dozen people dressed in generic spacers' civvies were in attendance. Some read from viewers in secluded carrels, while others sprawled in comfortable-looking chairs and watched an old movie on a wall-mounted vid. A card game was under way at a table in the center of the room.

"Hey, Dr. Kane!" A stocky, dark-haired man involved in the card game greeted her with a wide grin. "Care to try your luck?"

She toggled a finger at him. "Not tonight, Bracken." She rested a hand on another patient's shoulder. Her genuine affection for these men and women was obvious. "How's everyone feeling?" From around the room came responses in the affirmative.

"Are you doctors, too?"

McCoy looked down at the gentle-eyed man at his elbow. At Kane's nod of encouragement, the ship's doctor smiled. "Well, I am, at least. This is Captain James Kirk and First Officer Spock."

"Are you here to help us?" A slight woman, curled in a chair, had spoken up. Her hands tussled nervously in her lap. "We'd all like to know what happened. Why we went so crazy."

"You're not crazy," Kane stressed in the uncomfortable silence that followed the woman's remark. "You have to believe that."

"Then what happened to us?" someone else asked.

Kane appeared stymied. Before McCoy could frame a reply to the patients' fears that wouldn't sound condescending, Kirk jumped in.

"We don't know yet. But we'll do everything in our power to discover what happened." Kirk's voice fairly rang with assurance. He stood in the center of the room and, one by one, caught each person there with his eyes and drew them in.

With pride in his friend and something bordering on amazement, McCoy saw every set of shoulders in the room relax. Even among people other than his crew -- people with no idea who he was or what he'd accomplished in his lifetime, people who had no reason whatsoever to believe in him -- Kirk won instant trust. If he said it was so, then it would be so, or he'd die trying to make it that way. Somehow McCoy knew these patients had picked up on that and would believe in Kirk when they'd lost the ability to believe in themselves. McCoy shook his head in gentle wonder, supremely glad for his friend's presence.

Dr. Kane cleared her throat, obviously moved by what had just occurred. "We've got work to do, so we'll say good-night." She glanced at the chronometer on the wall. "Lights out at ten," she reminded them, and headed out the door.

Down the corridor and two turns later, they followed Kane into her spacious, pleasantly appointed inner sanctum. She urged them to pull up chairs around her desk, then leaned between them to key into the computer system. "Watch the main screen on the far wall."

The screen flared to life. It was obvious they were watching from the viewpoint of a wall camera situated somewhere to the side and above the subject. McCoy immediately recognized the slender man who'd first spoken to him. The man sat cross-legged, arms outstretched, fingers crooked and plucking the air.

"He's playing a harp," Kane murmured by way of explanation when Kirk made a confused-sounding noise. "Or thinks he is, rather. Said he was Rory Dall Morison. The computer identified the name as belonging to a Highland harper who died on Earth in 1713."

The view changed to the woman who'd asked whether the Enterprise crew were going to help them. A man sat to her right, watching her intently. She chattered animatedly, aiming most of the conversation to the empty area on her left. She was so frenetic, Kane keyed down the volume. "That's Risa. She started talking to saints." She shrugged when McCoy glanced sharply at her. "This particular discussion took place between her and Saints John Bosco, Raymund Nonnatus, and Dympna."

"Who's the man with her?" Kirk asked.

"Captain of the John Lilly, where Risa was stationed. When she demanded to see a priest, he filled the bill until they could get her topside."

"What kind of ship is the John Lilly?" Spock inquired. "One of your orbital fleet?"

Kane shook her head. "Oh, no. It's one of the submarine plankton harvesters that work under the ice sheets on Nordstral. The other two are the Cousteau and the Soroya."

"Were all of these occurrences on the John Lilly?" Kirk asked, not taking his eyes off the screen.

"No." Another scene change, this one so abrupt and startling that McCoy lurched in his seat as a close-up of Bracken's face filled the screen. He paced the confines of a tiny room with lurching strides, arms swinging spastically and colliding with the walls. Abruptly, Bracken lifted his shirt and distended his stomach as far as he could. "I call this my monument to an unsung hero!"

"Bracken was stationed on the harvester Soroya and had never met either Risa or Davis. In fact, almost none of the affected staff had any contact with each other."

The scene shifted again. Another room, with all the appearance of having been hastily padded. A woman stood in one corner, face to the wall. She turned abruptly and staggered to the center of the room, legs trembling. She straightened as much as she could without losing her balance, and lifted her hands toward the ceiling. She'd scored her arms with her fingernails, and blood streaked her flesh like gory comets' tails. Head thrown back, eyes clenched like fists, she began to shriek.

"That's Baker." The sorrow in Kane's voice made McCoy look up. "We didn't get to her in time." Kane's hand slapped down, cutting off the video and consigning the room to darkness. "She suicided in a very ugly manner shortly after what you just saw. Incidentally, fifteen minutes before this was recorded, she'd been given the highest dose of Valazine considered safe."

The lights abruptly came up and McCoy blinked painfully in the sudden brightness. "That's impossible!"

"You're so right," Kane agreed. "She should have been flat on her back and snoring. I've been over it a million times and it beats me all to hell." She shoved the chart into his hand. "So you figure it out."

Kirk stared at the empty screen, lips pursed, while Spock steepled his fingers in thought. "Those people..." The captain waved a hand vaguely toward the distant rec room. "They seem sane and lucid..."

"Very sane and very lucid, Captain. There's not one who's crazy."

"The drug protocol worked, then?" McCoy flipped through the chart. "What did you use?"

"That's the whole point, Dr. McCoy. Beyond the use of drugs to calm them enough to get them to our sickbay, there hasn't been any drug protocol because there hasn't been any need for one." She waved a hand toward the silent screen, her voice tight. "The patients seem to be healing themselves without the benefit of psychotropic drugs and, so far as we've been able to determine, without any lasting deleterious effects."

Spock looked at her. "Mental illness does not usually cure itself."

"Oh, you're correct, Mr. Spock. But this illness does, whatever it is, and we have absolutely no idea how it's happening. And believe me when I say we've tried every angle we can think of."

McCoy flipped through the chart, eyes racing over the lines of small, tight print. "These are all the personnel who have been affected?"

"So far." She didn't sound hopeful that it would stop with these hapless few.

"Did any of these people have anything to do with the shuttle explosion that stranded Dr. Stehle and his team?" Kirk asked.

Kane's short, bitter laugh seemed out of place with her dismissive wave. "No. That was just a common Nordstral accident. We've been losing equipment to the planet since the day we set up shop here."

"Given that Nordstral's magnetic field is many times stronger than normally found on a class-M planet," Spock remarked, "such losses are not surprising."

Kirk frowned, drumming his fingers on the table. "The Enterprise was told you lost that shuttle because of sabotage. Are you telling me Nordstral Pharmaceuticals lied to Starfleet about what's going on?"

Kane sighed. "According to our station manager, sabotage is always a possibility. He says other pharmaceutical companies would love to get their hands on our concession with the native Kitka." She waved a hand at the screen. "But I don't see how it could be related to these mental problems."

"Are there other records we could see?" McCoy interjected. "I'd like to check their personnel records, to see if there's some medical risk factor they all shared."

Kane shrugged. "Certainly." She leaned across her desk to swing the computer console toward McCoy. "Be my guest. I don't mean to sound short, but I've run out of ideas."

"That's what we're here for," Kirk assured her as McCoy began to work. "Sometimes all a problem needs is a new set of eyes."

"I hope you're right."

McCoy accessed the personnel files and sent the computer searching for corollaries between the sick crewmen. Anything had to be considered because nothing seemed likely. Despite hope that he might find a common home planet or education or a genetic link like eye or hair color, there was only one match he felt had any credence.

"Did you know that all your sick personnel came off surface installations and harvesters? None of them is from your orbital fleet or from this station."

She leaned over McCoy's shoulder and followed his finger as he traced the corollary. "My God... you're right!"

"So whatever's happening is confined to the planet's surface." Kirk turned to Kane. "We'll need to investigate this at the source. Can my people go down to visit one of the company's permanent installations?"

"That won't be easy. Our contract with the native Kitka limits us to only a few employees at our harvester docks. We might be able to find you space to stay on a harvester, but they're hard to reach by radio. It's those damned magnetic storms." She reached across to blank the computer screen and bring up further information. "You're in luck, though -- the Soroya's due for a brief stopover at Byrd Station midday tomorrow. I can call ahead to have Captain Mandeville expect you."

"That would be fine," Kirk agreed.

"Jim..."

Kane sighed. "Is there anything else you need me to arrange?"

"Jim..."

Kirk cocked his head thoughtfully. "You could transfer Dr. Stehle's plankton research files to the Enterprise for Mr. Spock to analyze. It might turn out to be useful."

"Jim--"

"After all, I -- What is it, Bones?"

McCoy's stomach felt awash with bile. "I hope I heard wrong, but when you said 'your people' would go down to the planet surface, you didn't include me, did you?"

Kirk looked confused. "Of course I did. You have to examine the workers down there for evidence of illness."

"I don't like water, Jim."

Kirk blinked and stared at his friend. "It's not water, Bones, it's ice."

"Under that ice is a lot of water, and I don't like water unless it's surrounded by a glass and mixed with Kentucky bourbon."

A chime sounded, cutting them off, and Kane looked up in irritation. "Come."

McCoy heard her heavy sigh when the door opened to admit a tall, angular gentleman with blond hair. "Dr. Kane." His voice was heavily accented -- Swiss, or Swedish, or something like that, McCoy couldn't be sure. "You're a hard woman to track down. I'd like some infor--"

"Mr. Steno," Kane coolly cut him off. "May I present Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy of the Federation starship Enterprise? Gentlemen, this is Nicholai Steno, Curie station manager for Nordstral Pharmaceuticals." There was no mistaking the undertone in her voice.

Steno either hadn't picked up on her dislike or didn't care. He came into the room as though he owned it -- which, McCoy mused, he technically did. "So, Captain. Report to me."

"I beg your pardon?" Kirk asked with far more politeness than was deserved.

"Report, report! Tell me what you've found."

Kirk's gentle hand squeezing McCoy's shoulder stilled the doctor's tongue. "Nothing as yet, Mr. Steno. We've only just arrived."

"Don't waste my time, gentlemen. I hate when my time and money are wasted. Dr. Kane's been virtually worthless coming up with a solution to our difficulties. I was told the Federation could do better. Now I'm not so certain."

"We will do our best." Kirk's voice, low and calm, displayed the best of the diplomacy and tact drummed into him at the Academy, when, McCoy suspected, he'd really like to drive Steno's teeth down his lanky throat.

"I certainly hope so," the station manager sniffed.

"We're planning to get an early start down to the planet's surface tomorrow to hunt for Dr. Stehle and his team. I don't want to be kept waiting."

"You don't...?"

"I'm heading the rescue team, Captain. You didn't think I'd leave it in the hands of amateurs, did you?"

"Captain Kirk and our security force can hardly be considered amateurs," Spock commented.

Steno snorted. "They're amateurs on Nordstral. This is a dangerous planet -- and with the magnetic storms we've been having lately, you can't just beam off it when you get yourself in trouble." He glanced at Kirk. "Fortunately, my people will be along to keep you and your rescue team from doing anything stupid."

Kirk's body practically thrummed with irritation. Caught between his captain and Dr. Kane, McCoy felt like a tuning fork. "I'm sure my rescue team will appreciate that, Mr. Steno," Kirk said tightly. "But I'm afraid I'll have to miss out on the expedition."

Steno struck a pose apparently meant to convey righteous indignation. "But I thought you came all this way to find our missing shuttle crew. Are you going to look for them from orbit?"

"No." Kirk glanced over at Kane. "Judging from what I've just seen, your missing shuttle crew is the least of your problems on Nordstral. I've decided to send Lieutenant Chekov with the Enterprise search and rescue party, while I investigate what's causing the mental instabilities on the planet."

"I see." Steno sniffed. "And just who is this Lieutenant Chekov? Your second-in-command?"

"No." Kirk sounded amused. "He's chief of security aboard the Enterprise. My second-in-command is standing right next to you."

Steno scowled at the silent Vulcan, thin mouth pulled into a frown of displeasure. "For goodness sake, Captain. If you refuse to see to your own duties, I at least expect your second-in-command to take over for you."

"In case you haven't noticed," Kirk stated in tones so clipped McCoy expected them to draw blood, "Mr. Spock is a Vulcan. If we send him down to a glacial planet like Nordstral, he'll freeze."

"Is that true?" When Spock nodded, Steno rolled his eyes with a subvocal sigh. "Isn't that just like Starfleet? They always find a reason to do exactly what they want."

Kirk favored the businessman with a smooth, if chilly, smile. "Then it's good for both of us that Starfleet wants to help Nordstral Pharmaceuticals. I think you'll find Lieutenant Chekov's very good at what he does. He'll find your missing research team."

Steno huffed. "He will if he has the sense to stay out of my way and do what I tell him. And I'll expect timely reports from you as well, Captain. You can be sure I'll report your change of plans -- and obvious lack of desire to cooperate with Nordstral management -- to Starfleet." Without saying goodbye, Steno left the room.

"I hate that man," Kane rasped angrily.

"I can't say I blame you," Kirk replied. He looked down at McCoy's snort of laughter. "What is it, Bones?"

The doctor's blue eyes danced. "So, Chekov's leading the shuttle rescue team now, eh? Does he know this?"

"He will shortly," Spock replied. "In fact, I will deliver the message personally upon my return to the ship."

McCoy chuckled. "Spock, you get to have all the fun."

Kirk shared his friend's smile. "Not all the fun, Bones. We get to beam up with him, long enough to pack and catch the shuttle down to Nordstral."

"Some fun." McCoy tried to hide the wash of fear that flashed through him, suspecting he wasn't too successful. "First I get to have my particles spread all over the known galaxy, then I get to drown under billions of metric tons of water."

"Would you rather not come planetside?"

McCoy looked away when concern flicked over Kirk's features, knowing he'd do it if only because Kirk wanted him to. "No, I'll come. But I promise to hate it."