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A low grunt escaped McCoy. “I’m not surprised. It would’ve been too easy.”

The monitor bleeped loudly. Bouchard’s levels were now dangerously low. McCoy turned to demand where the devil Brent and Abrams had gotten to, and found that Brent was already hurrying over, hypospray in hand. “Dalaphaline,” he said, delivering it to McCoy.

In one swift motion, McCoy set it for five cc’s and injected it into Bouchard’s jugular. The drug would boost his nervous system and help his brain keep going. He looked up at the monitor, though he knew the change wouldn’t happen instantly. The readings stopped plummeting only for a few seconds before resuming their decline.

Chapel came up to him then, holding a whole tray of devices suited for brain analysis and repair that she’d taken over from Abrams. “Thank you,” McCoy said, grabbing the neural stimulator. Lifting Bouchard’s head gently with one hand, he slid the arc-like device underneath and positioned it around the man’s parietal bone. After a few seconds, it squealed to indicate a connection with the brain’s regulatory centers, and small lights on it began to flicker accordingly. The doctor pressed a button that would start the preprogrammed stimulus sequence.

Impatient, he counted to ten. Now this should have an immediate effect. McCoy glanced up at the monitor.

Nothing.

“If there’s no physical cause,” he said, increasingly worried, “then what’s slowing his brain down?”

“Infection?” suggested Brent. “Virus?”

“Can’t be,” McCoy said, “he hasn’t been off the ship. The only recent possibility of infection is C-15’s anatid flu, but biofilters would stop that from getting aboard.”

“Blood analysis?” Chapel asked, grabbing an empty hypospray.

McCoy nodded. “Worth a try—but we need to treat him immediately. This man is dying.” Desperate to try anything, he adjusted his hypospray. “Ten cc’s should do the trick.”

Still no reaction. He didn’t understand—what could be causing this? By all appearances, there was nothing wrong with the man.

You have no idea what to do, do you?

McCoy shook off the thought. The problem was that the dalaphaline took too long to work through the bloodstream. If injected into the brain—

It was insane. It was dangerous. He could remember reading journal articles about how terrible an idea it was.

But all he needed to do was give Bouchard a little nudge. He set the hyprospray for just two cc’s and reached out to place it against the man’s skull, where the frontal and parietal bones met.

This time, Chapel grabbed his hand. “Doctor, what are you doing? You can’t increase the dosage again,” she whispered sharply. “You’ll kill him!”

“He’ll die otherwise.” McCoy gestured up at the readouts with his free hand. They were as low as they could be without Bouchard being dead. “I’ve never seen this outside of one of Spock’s healing trances.”

Chapel didn’t let go. “He’s not Spock. No human being can take that much neural stimulation.”

“I do this, or he dies,” McCoy said, hoping to drive home their lack of options. With a short but vigorous shake, he freed his hand. Before Chapel could react, he had jabbed the hypospray through the tangle of Bouchard’s thick hair and into his skull.

The monitor began bleeping alarmingly. A few of the level indicators shot straight up. Over the course of his career, McCoy had probably done crazier things, but nothing with so uncertain an outcome.

“His brain’s going into overdrive.” Reproach coated Christine’s words.

And just like that, the bleeping stopped. The levels slid back down to where they were before—but no lower. They weren’t decreasing.

He’d done it! McCoy allowed himself a small smile. “Well, look at that. Perfectly fine.”

Chapel’s look was more than enough to indicate how she felt.

“Well, not fine,” McCoy admitted. “But stable. That’ll give us time to figure this thing out.”

Chapel locked eyes with him. “Yes, Doctor.”

For a young ensign fresh out of the Academy, a posting on a Constitution-class ship operating on the edge of explored space was a plum assignment. It still amazed Chekov that he’d been picked for the