MEDITATION
Spock was content to leave the Bridge with Saavik-an at the Con, with Jim as overseer, while he took his rest period. The training flight with the cadets was proceeding without incident, despite the emotional undercurrents of nervous tension emanating from the youngsters, their first time on a Starship and eagerly wanting to please and impress their senior officers. With a sigh, Spock unfastened his tunic and put it on a hanger in his wardrobe, taking out his Vulcan robe and putting it on. Time for a period of meditation, he thought, before retiring to sleep. He moved towards the square of Vulcan granite, knelt on it, and assumed the meditation position.
His disciplined mind quickly went through the first level of meditation, that of complete mental relaxation, through the second, that of deep subconscious contemplation, and into the third and ultimate state, that of transcending his body and reaching out beyond the hull of the Enterprise to be One with the stars, the galaxy, the Universe. His mind soared, watching in eternal awe the slow wheeling of the Milky Way, then away and beyond to the countless, unbelievably beautiful galaxies. The wonder of it all never ceased to move him profoundly. He allowed his mind to travel for some time through the Universe then, gradually, he returned his mind to his body, to the level of deep subconscious contemplation, there to examine its state. Slowly, he projected his personal timeline into the near future and encountered - nothing. Spock's mind recoiled from the shock of realisation -
*Oh, no! Surely not now! Not already! It cannot - be so soon. Must run the timeline back a day. Yes, there - must save the ship! Ah! Skin - crawling, burning! Jim's voice - crying - blackness, darkness, cold, the utter cold of space.*
Desperately, Spock ran the timeline forward again, re-entered the state of nothing -
A dark tunnel, travelling on down the tunnel of time, nothing but blackness. Wait - what is that ahead - a light! I must - reach the light - but it's so far away, so very far - how long? How long must I sleep? At last, reaching the light now. What is there - beyond? Must - know -*
On the periphery of awareness, Spock's brain heard the doorchime in his cabin. He felt annoyance and frustration at the ill-timed interruption, but thought:
*Must return now to full consciousness, retrace this path at the next opportunity.*
As Spock returned to full awareness and his eyes focused on Jim standing before him, a worried frown on his face, the last vestiges of his inner contemplation recalled, and echoed a thousand times, a line from a Terran children's fairy story he had watched during his researches on a video - that of a boy clad in green, standing alone on a rock, standing tall and brave and alone against impossible odds, shouting defiantly to anyone near enough to hear -
"To die will be - an adventure!"