by Rudy Josephs
He couldn’t yell at her.
He couldn’t ask the question he knew he had to ask.
All he could do was hold her. Hold her and wish that he wasn’t about to ruin everything.
“Dr. Griffin, a word if you please.” Spock caught the officer as he was exiting the Starfleet Medical building. Captain Warde had suggested that he stage his conversation this way to give her time to search the doctor’s office without his knowledge. The last thing she needed was for him to unexpectedly return because he forgot something. Being that the office was Starfleet property, it was well within her legal right to search it, whether or not he was there. Warde preferred to keep things under wraps, in case Spock’s conclusions proved to be incorrect. No need to embarrass a member of the faculty.
There was little chance of Spock being wrong. He’d agreed with Uhura’s reasoning when she’d spoken with him earlier. Dr. Griffin was in the best position to cover up the events around Jackson’s death and Andros’s illness. He was the one who had passed along the evidence pointing to McCoy. He also was responsible for insisting that Andros remain sedated even longer than what some thought was necessary, for her own protection. No one could ignore that the additional delay also kept her from talking.
“Cadet Spock, isn’t it?” Dr. Griffin asked.
“Formerly,” Spock said. “I am now an instructor at the Academy.”
“Oh, congratulations,” the doctor said. “Sorry, I didn’t know. It’s such a large campus.”
“Indeed.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I am assisting Captain Warde in the investigation into Cadet Jackson’s death,” Spock said, noticing a sudden hesitation in Griffin’s step.
“Oh,” Griffin responded casually. “Any new leads?”
“Yes,” Spock said. “A potentially valuable one. Almost as useful as the information you provided on that piece of medical equipment that had gone missing.”
“I hated turning that file over,” Dr. Griffin said. “I really don’t think McCoy performed the surgery. I hope you’ve found something that will prove his innocence.”
“Captain Warde is looking into that at this very moment,” Spock reported. “In the meantime a question has arisen that I was hoping you could shed some light on.”
The doctor walked slower, a little more cautiously. As if he were looking to avoid a physical land mine, while probably expecting a figurative one. “Anything I can do to help the investigation,” he said.
Spock stopped them on the walkway. He wanted the doctor’s full attention. He wanted to look the doctor in the eyes. “According to Jackson’s roommate, shortly after the cadet’s death, you visited his quarters. This was between the autopsy and Captain Warde’s search of the room, if I am correct. Can you tell me why?”
“I—” The doctor said nothing further as Spock witnessed a variety of emotions playing across his face. Griffin walked over to a bench off the walkway, and sat. “I knew I couldn’t count on that Andorian to keep his mouth shut. I should never have stopped by that room, but I’ve been trying to play catch-up over the past couple days.”
Spock was perplexed by the doctor’s response. He had anticipated a deflection. A lie contradicting Cadet Thanas or at least some vague excuse covering his actions. This was a much easier conversation than Spock had prepared for.
Before he could press the doctor further, Captain Warde arrived. The security detail that followed her told Spock all that he needed to know. The captain found what she was looking for in his office. Even the doctor had figured that out before she held the cylindrical instrument out to him. It was long, silver, and as thin as a writing instrument.
“Thought it would take you longer to make the connection,” Griffin said, taking hold of the device. “A tri-laser microscalpel. Only one on campus. Funny thing is that this isn’t the one that performed the surgery.” He looked up at Captain Warde. “I would never do what was done to that boy. You have to believe me.”
Captain Warde sat beside him. Spock felt like he should leave, but he knew he had to stay to witness the confession—if that was what was about to take place.
Captain Warde put a hand on Griffin’s shoulder. “Tell us what happened.”
“I didn’t do it,” he repeated. “I want to make that perfectly clear. I did not perform that operation on Cadet Jackson. I did not operate on any cadets.”
“But you know who did,” Warde said. It was a statement. Not a question.
The doctor said, “4F.” This earned a nod from Captain Warde, but Spock wasn’t sure if that was a code, some kind of location, or something else entirely.
Dr. Griffin went on, explaining the cryptic comment. “That’s what they used to call it, you know. Back in the day.” He looked up at Spock. “Bet you don’t know what I’m talking about, huh?”
“I assume you are about to tell us the identity of your associate.”
“I’ll get there,” he said, turning his attention to Warde. “That’s one of the great things about Vulcans. They cut right to the chase. No equivocating.”
“Damned annoying about them too,” Captain Warde said blithely, as if Spock wasn’t standing right beside them.
“That it is,” Griffin replied. “Anyway, as I was saying to your young assistant here, ‘4F’ is what they used to call people when they were unfit to serve in the U.S. Armed Forces, if they had some kind of medical condition that kept them from fulfilling their duty. Today it’s much more of a clinical term. It’s used for those we call ‘medically ineligible.’ Means the same thing: rejected.”
“Actually, it only means that a person cannot serve on active duty on a Starship,” Spock corrected him. “There are many other roles in Starfleet that a medically ineligible person can serve.”
“Pushing papers,” Griffin said, “behind a desk.” He looked up to the night sky. “Not up there. Exploring the universe. Making a difference.” His eyes fell Earthward. “It was my job to tell the kids who wanted to join up that they didn’t cut it. That they were medically ineligible. 4F.”
Spock failed to see where this story was leading, but Captain Warde identified the issue right away. “What is it?” she asked the doctor. “What do you have, Charles?”
“Inner-ear imbalance,” he told them. “Name’s not important. What it means is, I can’t serve on a starship. Between the artificial gravity and the inertial dampeners . . . Every time a ship goes to warp, I fall down. Not very useful to have a medical officer who can’t stay on his feet.”
“And there’s no cure,” Warde guessed.
Griffin let out a bark of laughter. “Oh no, there’s a cure. Medicine has advanced pretty far these days. Small bit of a device implanted in the brain. Takes care of the problem fine.”
“So what’s the issue?”
“It hasn’t been tested enough in space,” he said. “No guarantee it will work on an extended tour. Can’t risk the medical officer going out of commission light-years from home.”
Spock failed to understand how that information was relevant to Cadet Jackson’s case. “Jackson was not medically ineligible,” he noted. “We reviewed his file. Unless you altered it.”
“Well, now that’s where things took a bit of a turn,” Griffin said. “As the saying goes, we started out with the best of intentions.”
“We?” Captain Warde asked.
“My partner,” he said. “A friend. Back from my Academy days.”
“Another medically ineligible candidate?” Spock asked.
“Oh, no,” Griffin said. “He was eligible to serve. He left for other reasons. Reasons that should have warned me that getting involved with him would be a bad idea. But he sounded so sincere when I told him what I wanted to do. How I wanted to help the medically ineligible cadets get past the physical. That’s all it was at first. Helping them out. With medicine advancing as far as it has, there were so few medically ineligible to begin with. All it took was a matter of adjusting the conditions on the ones we could
cure. The ones Starfleet wouldn’t normally let us cure.”
Once again, Griffin threw a glance in Warde’s direction. “So simple, isn’t it?” He let out a hollow laugh. “Why should anyone be stopped from joining Starfleet when we have the tools to correct almost any deficiency? When I found those candidates, I’d sent them to the clinic. Promised to get them fixed right up. Made them swear to secrecy and rubber stamp their application.”
“How long?” Warde asked. “How long have you been doing this?”
“Five years.”
“The first cadets are already serving on starships,” Spock noted.
“We’re only talking about a handful,” Griffin said. “There are only so many cures these days that Starfleet refuses to recognize. Only so many experimental procedures that cadets need to endure. It was supposed to be a limited number of cadets. Only the ones we had the technology to help.”
“It didn’t stay that way,” Warde guessed.
“No. My partner had . . . delusions of grandeur. Wanted to help the cadets in other ways. Started experimenting. Trying things he never should have. It started with gene therapy. Nothing too dramatic. Never let on what he was doing. Figured if we were going to fix what was wrong with the potential cadets, why not make them a bit better in the process. Then he started seeking out cadets on his own. Ones who didn’t need his help but were more than happy to accept it.” Dr. Griffin sighed in resignation. “Then he started doing other procedures. Dangerous procedures. In the name of science.”
“A name, Charles,” Warde prodded gently. “We need a name.”
Dr. Griffin looked up at Warde and Spock, and told them everything they needed to know.
For the most part, San Francisco didn’t have a so-called seedy underbelly. Few cities in the United States did anymore. Poverty had been eradicated on Earth. Crime was almost nonexistent. A person could find a shady neighborhood or a dangerous street, but they were not as common as they used to be.
Kirk had found this one because Lynne had given him directions to it. And he wouldn’t have known the level of seediness surrounding him if he hadn’t been told. There were no derelict buildings, no sketchy characters roaming the street. It looked no different from the other neighborhoods he’d walked through to get there. But it was different. Kirk had been in enough dumps in his life to know when he was in a neighborhood full of them.
The clinic wasn’t a dump. Not by the looks of it. If anything, it seemed like a totally respectable operation. Probably was, too. The turbo lift that took him up to the third floor was modern and well serviced. The decor was new. The patients were a diverse mix of people. Most were probably there for innocuous reasons. A few seemed to have questionable motives. Shifty eyes and all.
Kirk was lucky the nurse was able to squeeze him in without an appointment. Luckier still that they had evening hours, though evening had stretched into night long ago. The clinic was a twenty-four hour operation. Lynne had told him that was when the doctor conducted most of his business, when cadets had an easier time slipping off campus unnoticed.
The nurse had been about to turn him away until he’d mentioned that he was a cadet at Starfleet Academy. Probably would have been shown right in if he’d worn his uniform, but he’d gone back to his quarters to shower and change first. Wanted to wash the saltwater of the San Francisco Bay from his skin.
He only waited in the lobby for about a half hour. Several people who had been there before him were still waiting when the nurse came out and announced that Dr. Schaeffer would see him now.
He was shown into an exam room and left on his own. Kirk, alone for the first time since getting there, finally realized how much he was in over his head. He didn’t know why he was doing this. He should have just turned over the address to Captain Warde, and let her sort things out. That would have been enough to get McCoy off the hook. But it also would have gotten all the cadets who were involved in trouble.
It would have ended Lynne’s Starfleet career.
Kirk considered searching the exam room, but the door opened and Dr. Schaeffer stepped inside and introduced himself. The doctor was on the short side, with a bright smile and a pleasant demeanor. He didn’t look like the kind of person responsible for what had been happening at the Academy. He looked like the kind of doctor who gave away lollipops at the end of a visit.
Schaeffer scanned the PADD he carried for the information Kirk had supplied in the waiting room. “So, Cadet . . . Samuels, what brings you here tonight? Forget that Starfleet Academy has one of the foremost medical facilities in the galaxy?”
Kirk forced a smile at the doctor’s joke. He was here to play a part. The part of Cadet Samuels, a student desperate enough to play along with the doctor when all Kirk really wanted to do was hurt the man. “Banged up my ankle in a training exercise.” Kirk rubbed his hand on the leg that he’d hurt on the survival course. He figured it was best to keep “Samuels’s” real reason for being there vague.
“Again,” Schaeffer said, “I have to ask why you didn’t go to Starfleet Medical.”
Kirk looked down on the ground, revealing a shyness that he didn’t possess. “Well, I . . . I didn’t want to report it,” he said. “You know. I don’t want it on my record.”
Schaeffer nodded. “The usual reason.”
“You get other cadets here?” Kirk asked, as if he didn’t know.
“Occasionally,” he said. “So, how did you hurt your ankle?”
“Landed the wrong way on a jump.”
“And when did this happen?”
“About a month ago.”
The doctor reached for his medical tricorder. “A month? That’s a long time to go untreated.”
“Well, the pain comes and goes,” Kirk lied. He’d been fine for a couple weeks. Surely if the fall from the bridge hadn’t inflamed the ankle, nothing was going to show up on the tricorder.
Not a problem, really. It was all part of the plan.
The doctor waved the tricorder over the spot Kirk had indicated was hurt. He took his time with it, scanning the leg repeatedly to make sure the readings were accurate. For a brief moment, Kirk worried that he was actually going to find something wrong. He had fallen quite a distance earlier that evening. Even though Lynne had broken the surface of the water before he hit it, there could have been some internal damage.
Dr. Schaeffer returned the tricorder to the counter and turned to Kirk with a skeptical expression. “Nothing’s wrong with your ankle. But you knew that coming in. Didn’t you?”
“Nothing’s wrong now,” he replied. “But I did hurt it.”
“Possibly,” Schaeffer said. “There’s evidence of a sprain that healed over fine. Some other fresh bruising to the legs. Nothing serious. Care to tell me why you’re really here?”
“You run that thing over the rest of my body, you’ll probably find a dozen other old wounds,” Kirk said. He figured that would probably be true. His first few months at the Academy had taken a physical toll.
“Maybe you need to toughen up.”
Kirk could continue the shy route he suspected Cadet Jackson had used to get what he wanted. He doubted that was the attitude Lynne had adopted. “Look, we both know why I’m here. I need some help with the training.”
There was an awkward pause. “I’m afraid we don’t prescribe drugs here to get cadets through their tests,” the doctor said, playing innocent. Kirk didn’t blame him. The proverbial heat, as they say, was on.
“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” he said. “Word about your clinic has spread. I was hoping for help that was a bit more . . . permanent. The kind that wouldn’t show up on a drug screening.”
There was a long pause while the doctor considered what Kirk was asking. “Hmm . . . we don’t usually get a lot of unexpected drop-ins.”
“You know how word spreads,” Kirk said.
“It has lately,” the doctor admitted. “Especially in light of recent events.”
Kirk went all in. “Yeah, ab
out that. I don’t want what Cadets Jackson or Andros had. I want the whole thing. That gene therapy thing.”
“What happened to the other cadets was a tragedy,” Schaeffer said. “A mistake. I’m not saying that mistake happened here, but the news has reached us. Sad, really, to see such young lives wasted. Of course, what they did to themselves was . . . I doubt it was recommended. But some people are afraid to go all the way.”
“I’m not,” Kirk said. “I want the full treatment.”
“If you’ll excuse me”—Dr. Schaeffer moved toward the door—“I need to check some information first.”
“Fine by me,” Kirk said, leaning back, like he was getting comfortable.
Kirk hopped off the exam table the moment the door closed behind the doctor. He didn’t know how long Schaeffer would be gone, but this was a good time to search the exam room. Not that he knew what he was looking for.
He wished there was a lock on the door, but there wasn’t. Didn’t matter, really. If Schaeffer came back early, it would be just as suspicious that the door was locked than if he walked in on something.
Kirk just had to keep an ear out.
The cabinet drawers were filled with medical instruments that Kirk didn’t recognize. He was hoping for something he could bring back to the administration.
He accessed the diagnostic equipment, hoping to find the files he was looking for. Hoping that the doctor kept their records on the individual computers in the exam room. It was a long shot, but worth a try.
The search turned up empty.
The PADD Schaeffer had left behind was equally as useless.
None of this was a surprise. Kirk never expected the doctor to be so lax about the information that could prove he was involved in illegal activities. He doubted that what he needed would even be on the computers that the nurses used.
He had to get into the doctor’s private office. That was the only way he was going to take these people down. And the only way he could make sure that he didn’t destroy Lynne’s Starfleet career at the same time.
