“Have you always served on vessels where the human crew was the majority?” N’Mi asked, watching him move the chess pieces from level to level.
“Yes,” Spock said. “I’ve served aboard the Enterprise my entire career as an officer, first under its previous captain, Christopher Pike, and was offered the position of first officer when Captain Kirk assumed command.”
“I can’t imagine,” N’Mi said. “To be the only one of your kind on a ship of this size, that must be terribly isolating for you. Why wouldn’t you choose to serve on a Vulcan-crewed ship instead? You said there are such vessels in Starfleet, didn’t you?”
The memory of the Intrepid—and specifically, of the death of its entire crew—came back to Spock unbidden. “Yes, I could have requested a posting on such a ship,” he answered, forcing the recalled emotional shock back behind his mental barriers. “But I came to the decision, early in my Starfleet career, that by living and working alongside humans, that would better serve my efforts to be a Vulcan.”
A look of confusion crossed the Liruq’s face. “I don’t understand. What effort does it take for you to be a Vulcan, and why would being among other Vulcans impede that?”
Spock sighed silently, then explained, “Because I am not, in the strictest sense, a true Vulcan. My mother was human, and I am half human.”
N’Mi’s mouth gaped open. “You’re a mongrel?” she said.
“ ‘Mongrel,’ ” Spock repeated. “Vulcans generally refrain from overt expressions of distaste . . .” he said, even as he recalled the taunts of his childhood peers.
N’Mi’s expression quickly shifted to one of mortified embarrassment. “I . . . I apologize, Commander Spock. I . . . you . . .” The engineer continued to stammer, standing up, nearly knocking her chair backward in her haste to leave. Spock considered giving her some sort of reassurance that he had not taken offense, telling her it was unnecessary to leave in such a state. Instead, he silently contemplated the board before him as N’Mi rushed off and out of the hall.
* * *
Just off the recreation deck was a small storage area, which housed a large array of entertainment items ranging from chess sets to jigsaw puzzles, and playing cards to portable computer games. In addition, it also served as a repository for an impressive collection of musical instruments. Many of the Enterprise’s more musically inclined crew members had their own personal instruments—Spock had his Vulcan lyre, and Scotty owned bagpipes—but most didn’t. The transitory nature of a Starfleet officer’s life precluded carrying extraneous possessions from one posting to the next. Therefore, a morale officer had established an assortment for the use of anyone who wished to play. Included were several styles of guitar, multiple woodwind and brass instruments, a Tiburonian wheel harp, a full set of Andorian percussion blocks, and the small stringed instrument Fexil currently held cradled in her hands.
“This looks almost like a gelbartix,” the Abesian said, her entire face lighting up as she gently ran her fingers up the length of its wooden neck. “What did you call it?”
“A ukulele,” Uhura said, smiling back. The Domain engineer’s attention had been caught by the instrument collection immediately upon entering the small room, and the way she had been drawn to the ukulele was like watching the reunion of two long-lost best friends.
Fexil plucked at the four strings in sequence, then positioned her long elegant fingers on the frets and strummed a chord. “Almost sounds like a gelbartix, too,” she said, giving her head a small shake of wonderment.
“Do you play?” Uhura asked.
“I haven’t for years,” Fexil answered as Uhura led her out of the storage room back into the recreation deck proper. “My mother played professionally, and she started teaching me as soon as I was big enough to hold one.” She tried a few more experimental chords, and then was strumming out a melody.
“That’s lovely,” Uhura said after a few bars, thinking the melody sounded oddly familiar. Fexil smiled more widely, revealing a row of pink, gummy protrusions that served in place of teeth. As she continued to play, Uhura noticed the rec deck’s background level noise falling and conversations halting as everyone’s attention was drawn to the Abesian’s impromptu performance. The alien melody started to repeat itself, and all of a sudden it dawned on Uhura why the song seemed so familiar. The rhythm was slightly different, and not all the notes matched, but it was close enough that Uhura found she couldn’t refrain from adding old lyrics to the new song. . . .
“Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee . . .”
Fexil’s eyes bulged in surprise at first, but she didn’t miss a beat as she segued into a closer harmony with Uhura’s vocals.
“Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,
Lulled by the moonlight have all passed away . . .”
Instrument and voice flowed and melded together, complimenting one another like longtime musical collaborators, and ultimately rising to a final crescendo.
“. . . Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me,
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!”
Fexil ended her rendition with an exuberant strumming flourish, and was rewarded by a round of enthusiastic applause, which took her aback. “Does that mean they liked it?” she whispered to Uhura, wide-eyed.
“Yes.” Uhura laughed as she joined in the applause for her accompanist. “It means they liked it very much!” Fexil smiled shyly back at Uhura, and then to the audience.
* * *
“This is to indicate we liked the song?” Deeshal tentatively mimicked Chapel, clapping his hands rhythmically.
Chapel tried to hold back a smile at his confusion. “Yes, it is,” she assured him. It was oddly charming how the alien doctor, who had exuded such poise and self-confidence in the operating room, was so tentative and reserved in this social setting. “Was that an Abesian melody she was playing?” she asked once the applause ended, and the alien woman began playing another soft song.
Deeshal nodded. “Yes, an old traditional song of theirs, called ‘The Sailor’s Romance.’ The lyrics were something different, though.”
“An old human song, written over four hundred years ago,” Chapel said. “But the melodies were almost the same.”
“By Erhokor, isn’t that incredible?” Deeshal said, shaking his head as he marveled at the connection. “Two completely different people, separated by almost a hundred light-years, the products of their own unique evolutionary and cultural developments, yet somehow, they both independently produce such remarkably similar pieces of music?”
“Yes,” Chapel agreed. “It’s something we see all the time, but still, I’m constantly amazed by it.”
Deeshal looked dubiously at her. “All the time?” he asked.
“Well, we do encounter truly alien species, too,” Chapel admitted. “But, there are still similarities and parallels. In almost all cases,” she carefully qualified herself, “there is something that allows for a connection between us.”
“That’s really how you humans see others, isn’t it?” Deeshal said, fixing her with an intent, thoughtful stare. “You look past the differences between yourselves and others, and focus on the similarities instead.”
“Well, we try to,” Chapel said. “Humans nearly destroyed themselves centuries ago because we refused to look past our differences and recognize that everyone is worthy of respect—even those we disagree with. It’s a lesson we’ve taken to heart, and have applied to others as we’ve traveled out into the galaxy.”
“So when you look at a Goeg like me,” Deeshal asked, “your impression is . . . what?”
A corner of Chapel’s mouth curled up as she tilted her head and considered the man across the table from her. “I see a brilliant, dedicated healer. A person who cares deeply about others, who is compassionate, kind, and generous.”
Through the light coat of pale fur that covered his face, Chapel thought she saw Deeshal blush. “Actually, Nurse, I meant th
e Goeg in general; I wasn’t soliciting compliments.”
Now Chapel felt her own cheeks get warmer. “I’m sorry, I misunderstood,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind the compliments.”
“Oh, not in the least,” he told her, smiling widely. The rows of pointed teeth exposed in his lion-like muzzle might, at first glance, have appeared threatening. But Chapel could see in his eyes that his expression was one of enjoyment of their shared company . . . and perhaps admiration? Christine Chapel was certainly no stranger to the admiration of men; it was almost a monthly occurrence that some new crewman would land in sickbay and, at some point while under her care, express his deep (yet fleeting) romantic infatuation with her.
But it had been some time since she’d found herself the object of this more genuine sort of attention. It was something she had been hoping Spock might someday return to her, even though he’d never given any indication he would, even if he were to ever lower his Vulcan emotional shields.
“I have to admit, Nurse . . .” Deeshal said.
“Call me Christine.”
Now there was definitely a pink tint beneath his light yellow facial fur. “It’s a bit more of a challenge for me to look past our differences,” Deeshal said, looking down at the table. “Like you, I try. I treat all my patients equally, of course. But even though it was obvious—while I was working on Lieutenant D’Abruzzo—how many similarities there were between Goeg and human, I found myself concentrating on the dissimilarities instead.”
“Well, that’s natural . . .” Chapel started to say.
“What I want to tell you, Christine,” he said, clearly struggling with his thoughts, “is that right now, here, talking with you . . . those differences seem irrelevant. You are unique . . . and I realize that those two statements actually contradict each other.” Deeshal finished with a small embarrassed laugh.
“That’s okay,” Chapel said, and slid her hand across the table to brush her fingertips against his. Their eyes met. “I think I know exactly what you mean.”
Six
On the seventh day of their journey, the Enterprise experienced an inauspicious failure of one of its primary missions.
Spock sat in the captain’s chair with his fingertips steepled in front of him. Though he had the conn, his command authority was severely reduced, with the Enterprise’s navigational control turned over to the Domain ship. As he watched the starfield on the forward viewscreen move and warped streaks of light slide past without effort, Spock reflected on how the current arrangement impacted the bridge’s operational standards. While Lieutenants Arex and Kyle manned the forward astrogation panel, they were only monitoring their respective stations. The rest of the crew posted at the stations ringing the command well still had their own duties to perform, but turning control of the ship itself over to another crew had a marked negative effect on the crew’s emotional state.
Spock found this somewhat troublesome. He recalled Chief N’Mi’s query from days earlier, and considered that he would not need to concern himself with the crew’s emotional state if they were Vulcans. But they were humans, and he needed to deal with them as humans. It was perhaps his greatest challenge as a Starfleet officer, and one of the reasons he had refused past offers to command his own ship.
As the Vulcan weighed the question of how to best address this pervasive emotional state, Ensign Frank turned in his seat at the science station and said, “Mister Spock, I think you should see this.”
“See what, Mister Frank?” Spock asked, pivoting the chair in the junior officer’s direction.
“I just picked this up on our long-range scans,” Frank said, indicating the imaging hood on the console before him. “At first I thought it was a ship, but then I noticed some odd anomalous readings. I ran them through the data banks and found a correlation to the thing we encountered in the Gamma 7A system.”
For a fraction of a second, Spock felt a jolt of emotions test his mental barriers. The “thing” Frank referred to was a giant spaceborne organism that had engulfed the Gamma 7A system, killing its four billion inhabitants and the crew of the Intrepid, and had also nearly killed Spock. The first officer made a concerted effort to maintain his emotionless bearing as he rose and moved to his regular station.
At first glance, Frank’s comparison between his discovery and the Gamma 7A organism appeared overstated. As the ensign had said, the object was twice the size of a Constitution-class ship, nowhere near the size of the other creature. And though smaller, it registered as a complex multicellular construct rather than a single-celled life-form. However, Frank was absolutely correct in noting the similarities between the biochemical signature and the genetic data Spock had collected during his probe of the Gamma 7A life-form.
“Fascinating,” Spock said, as he pulled back from the scanner display. “I believe you are correct; this is a heretofore undiscovered form of spaceborne life.” He stepped back into the command well and resumed his seat. “It is unfortunate that we will not have the opportunity to study it fully.” Spock disregarded the semi-articulate protest Frank voiced to that pronouncement and addressed the Triexian officer at the navigation station. “At our current trajectories, how long before this life-form is beyond scanner range?”
Lieutenant Arex keyed the variables into his console. “Just under fourteen minutes, sir.”
“Couldn’t we ask the 814 to adjust our heading?” Frank proposed. “Fourteen minutes of long-range scans isn’t much.”
“No, it is not,” Spock agreed. “But deviating from our course to Wezonvu, and delaying our repairs, would not be in the Enterprise’s best interests.” There was also his supposition that the Domain crew would not be favorably inclined to such an “inefficient” use of time, and further delaying the duties they were already putting aside in order to aid the Enterprise. “We shall simply have to make the most of our limited opportunity. Focus long-range sensor arrays two through five on the creature.”
“Aye, sir,” the ensign said. Though disappointment was unmistakable in his vocal inflection, this did not dampen the excitement of discovery manifested in his demeanor as he carried out his orders and studied the incoming data. Spock was gratified to note that—as he looked around the bridge and observed the rest of the crew following the conversation—they also shared in Mister Frank’s enthusiasm.
Spock switched on the companel on the side of the captain’s chair and said, “Bridge to sickbay.”
“Sickbay. McCoy here.”
“If you are not otherwise occupied, Doctor,” Spock said, “I would ask you to report to the bridge.”
“Why? Is there something wrong up there?” McCoy asked, concerned.
“If there were something wrong,” Spock replied, “I would have required you to come, occupied or not.”
“Dammit, you pointy-eared—” McCoy stopped in mid-outburst, then, after a curiously long pause, said, “Is it too much to ask for a simple answer to a simple question?”
Spock raised an eyebrow in reaction. Since the dinner aboard the 814 back at Nystrom IV, McCoy had exercised an uncharacteristic degree of restraint during their exchanges. “There is no emergency, Doctor. We have made a scientific discovery, and I merely wished to solicit the input of a medical professional.” He then added, “I will, however, settle for yours.” Closing the channel, he cut off any retort the doctor may have offered.
As he did so, Spock heard a signal from the communications station behind him. “Mister Spock,” Lieutenant Palmer, the officer manning that station, said, “we’re being hailed by the Domain ship.”
That struck Spock as curious. Most of the routine communications between the two ships were being handled by the liaisons aboard the 814—currently, Lieutenant Sulu and Ensign Chekov—and the officers at the helm and navigation. There had proven little need for this more formal ship-to-ship protocol since getting under way from the Nystrom system. “Open channel, and put it on the main viewscreen,” Spock said.
Moments later, the image of
Second Commander Satrav, standing at the front of his command center, appeared. “NCC-1701, code 5-58,” he said. “Your long-range scan arrays have gone out of their alignment,” he then added gruffly, giving the impression that he was being put upon by having to explain his communication.
“We are conducting a scientific inquiry into an unusual spaceborne life-form,” Spock explained to his Domain counterpart. “This is an unparalleled opportunity for us to gather data on a rare and—”
“Mister Spock,” Satrav said, cutting him off, “standard protocol is for all sensor arrays to remain in their standard configuration at all times, unless needed for a specific purpose.”
“There is a specific purpose now,” Spock said. Behind him, he heard the turbolift doors open, and determined, without turning away from the Goeg on the viewer, that it was Doctor McCoy who had arrived. “Starfleet protocols place a high priority on scientific inquiry, and surely your vessel’s own navigational sensors are more than sufficient for—”
“NCC-1701, execute code 5-59,” Satrav ordered just before abruptly cutting the communication link.
“So what’s code 5-59,” McCoy asked from where he stood at the rail just in front of the turbolift, “and why are we executing it?”
“It is the order to bring the sensor arrays into alignment,” Spock answered. “And we are not.”
“No, sir?” Frank asked, turning in his seat with a look of concern.
“No, Ensign,” Spock affirmed. “The Domain Defense Corps’s operational standards are for their own ships; they do not apply to the Enterprise. Continue scans of the life-form.”
“Life-form?” McCoy queried. “I assume that’s what you called me up here to look at?”
“That is correct. Mister Frank, would you display your data again for Doctor McCoy?”
Frank keyed the command into the computer and slid aside for McCoy, who peered into the hooded viewer. “Hell, it looks like a giant jellyfish!” he said.
“Just the quality of insight I was hoping for from you, Doctor,” Spock commented drily.
Star Trek: The Original Series: The Shocks of Adversity Page 10
