Kirk and McCoy exchanged curious looks. “Pipe it down here to Doctor McCoy’s office,” he said as he slipped behind the desk and turned the monitor to face him.
“Captain Kirk,” the Goeg commander said formally as soon as the connection was made. “Why didn’t you inform me that your ship had saved one of the Taarpi when you were aboard just now?”
“Because I didn’t know then,” Kirk told him. “We had tried to save all three, but two didn’t make it, and the third is under the care of our doctor.”
“You must hand this terrorist over to us,” Laspas said. “Even according to your own laws, you’re not to interfere in the internal affairs of foreign worlds and governments. By holding this criminal, you are doing exactly that.”
Kirk almost had to laugh at the way Laspas had phrased his argument: even according to your own laws. As if the Prime Directive was a minor consideration in comparison to whatever legal or moral right he had as a member of the Domain. “I disagree,” Kirk told him. “That vessel fired on the Enterprise, the Enterprise returned fire and forced the ejection of that lifepod, and it was the Enterprise who recovered it and its passengers. From where I stand, it’s the Goeg Domain who wants to interfere in a Starfleet affair.”
Laspas pressed his leonine face close to the monitor screen. “By Erhokor, this is not a game!”
“No, it is not,” Kirk agreed, equaling the other man’s intensity. “Your people intended to kill everyone on board. So you can understand why I might be hesitant to turn the sole survivor over to you and your tender mercies.”
Laspas glared at him from the monitor for a silent moment. “James,” he then said, switching back to using his familiar name again, but not evincing any of his earlier camaraderie. “I would like to settle this peacefully. But if forced to, I will employ other methods.”
Kirk’s eyes flicked briefly to McCoy, whose expression was one of indignation mixed with worry. What “methods” was Laspas threatening? Sending armed soldiers onto the Enterprise? Or worse, using their control over the ship’s warp engines and other systems to do them further damage?
The captain turned his attention back to the monitor and matched the Goeg’s stare. “Laspas, I have gotten to know you rather well over these last several days. Not well enough, perhaps, but still, I feel my estimation of you as a good and honorable man was a correct one. So I believe you when you say you would like to settle this peacefully.”
Laspas smiled. “Thank you, James.”
“But,” Kirk continued, “this woman will not be turned over until my doctor is ready to discharge her. Enterprise out,” he said, cutting the channel before Laspas could respond.
The captain leaned back in McCoy’s chair and let out a long breath as he considered the now-blank screen before looking across to the doctor. “Well,” McCoy said, “let’s hope your estimation of Laspas is right.”
“Amen to that,” Kirk said.
* * *
Even though the mess hall was just as full and active as usual for the alpha to beta shift change, it felt oddly subdued now to Uhura, with so many of the 814 crew gone. She certainly couldn’t fault Captain Kirk for the new restrictions, allowing only engineers and technicians who had legitimate work to do on the Enterprise aboard—he was merely adopting the same policy Commander Laspas had put in place on his ship. But it was terribly sad that what had started out as a way of exploring and celebrating new and exciting cultures had been cut short.
There were only three Goeg present, whom Uhura recognized as engineers. They were seated together at a single table, apart from the rest of the Enterprise crew, eating quickly and talking in low whispers among themselves. The lieutenant found herself repeatedly glancing their way as her dinner companions, all from the astrophysics lab, discussed their department’s ongoing nystromite research. Their excited conversation about ionic lattice properties and electron band structure and other characteristics of the alien crystals for the most part sailed far over Uhura’s head.
The near entrance to the mess opened, and Uhura looked over to see First Lieutenant Fexil entering. Their eyes met briefly, and Uhura offered her a smile. But though the Abesian engineer clearly noticed her, she made no gesture of recognition or greeting, and instead headed directly to the food slots. Uhura sighed silently, regretting that what had promised to be a rewarding cross-cultural learning experience had come to such a premature end. She continued to watch as Fexil collected her tray from the open food slot and carried it across the room to where her colleagues were seated. But as she took an empty seat, the other three abruptly stood and, without a single word, walked away and filed out of the room, leaving their half-eaten meals behind. Fexil behaved as if she hadn’t even noticed, lowering her head and methodically shoveling her food into her mouth as fast as she safely could.
Uhura, shocked by what she’d just witnessed, excused herself from her tablemates and crossed the mess. “Mind if I join you?” she asked Fexil in a soft, sympathetic tone.
Fexil glanced up at her, then back down quickly to her food. “We’re no longer allowed to fraternize with Starfleet crew any more than is necessary to perform our duties.”
“Well,” Uhura said, as she pulled out one of the recently abandoned chairs, “as one of the senior Starfleet officers aboard this ship, I think it necessary that we engage in a little fraternization.” She sat, and faced the Abesian directly. “What just happened?”
Fexil kept her eyes down on the tray in front of her. “I don’t know what you mean.”
The lieutenant took one of the forks that had been left behind by the others, reached across the table to tap the edge of Fexil’s plate, then lifted it, pulling the other woman’s gaze up to her own face. “I’m pretty sure you do know what I mean.”
“Nyota . . .” Fexil looked at her miserably. “I know you’re trying to be a friend . . .”
“Oh, this isn’t friendly,” Uhura said, fixing her with her most serious look. “I’m a senior officer. If I witness something that I think may potentially put the ship at risk, such as an interpersonal rift that may compromise team performance, I am obligated to look into it, and report it if need be.”
Fexil’s eyes went wide, and the green coloration leached from her face. “Oh, please don’t . . .”
Uhura put a reassuring hand on the other woman’s forearm. “Then talk to me. What just happened?”
Fexil dropped her head again. “It’s the Taarpi you took on board.”
“What about her?” Uhura prompted.
“She’s an Abesian.”
Uhura nodded, and waited for Fexil to say more. “And?”
Fexil scowled at her. “Do I need to spell it out?”
Uhura’s mouth fell open in disbelief. “You mean that because she’s an Abesian, and you’re an Abesian, your crew would treat you that way?”
“It’s nothing I’m not used to,” she muttered as she started poking at her food again. “Abesians aren’t that well regarded by the Goeg to begin with.”
“Why wouldn’t they be?” Uhura asked.
Fexil shrugged. “It’s just how things are. Abes was not technologically advanced when the Goeg first discovered our world, and there’s still the general perception that Abesians are kind of backward, intellectually inferior . . .”
“That’s terrible!” Uhura said. “But surely, you’re living proof those kinds of stereotypes just aren’t true: an intelligent and talented engineer serving as a first lieutenant on a Defense Corps starvessel.”
“And then there are the malcontents like the one in your sickbay,” Fexil answered, with a low hiss of frustration, “who instead of working and struggling to make a better life for themselves, think they deserve to have all that handed to them, and attack the Domain when they don’t get it. It doesn’t matter what any of the rest of us do; we all end up tainted by them.”
Uhura was stunned by what she was hearing. Whatever else she might have thought of the Goeg Domain, she couldn’t believe that an advanced interplanetary so
ciety could still harbor such prejudicial attitudes toward their fellow citizens. “I’ve seen you and your teams in action, though,” she told Fexil. “Your people certainly seemed to respect you.”
“They respect the rank, and they take the work seriously. But they have their more subtle ways, while we’re on duty, of reminding me that I’m not as good as they are,” the Abesian woman said pitifully.
“You can’t believe that, though,” Uhura told her vehemently. It was almost impossible to think that this accomplished young woman could actually accept the negative self-image forced on her by others. “If you weren’t good enough, would Chief N’Mi have put you in charge of the integrated warp operations team?”
“But she’s not Goeg, either,” she answered ruefully.
“I don’t understand.”
Fexil finally looked up from her plate at Uhura and said, “No, I wouldn’t expect you to.” She then pushed away from the table, her food unfinished, and left Uhura to stare silently after her.
* * *
Pock-pock.
Chris Chapel closed her eyes and pressed the palm of her hand against their lowered lids.
Pock-pock.
The xenopharmacology text she was trying to read was difficult enough to plow through all on its own. The added distraction—
Pock-pock.
—only made matters that much worse. She really needed to get this down, if she had any hope of finishing the required academic work for her doctorate in any kind of reasonable timeframe.
Pock-pock.
She opened her eyes again and concentrated on the data slate lying on the desk in front of her. She just needed to focus and not to let—
Pock-pock.
Chapel bolted up out of her chair, marched from the anteroom into the near-empty main ward where Lieutenant Joe D’Abruzzo was still laid up, and snatched the hollow, palm-sized rubber ball he had been bouncing off the near bulkhead and deck for the last hour out of midair.
“Forgive me, Joe,” she said when she saw the pitiful, disappointed look he gave her. “I know how bored you are, cooped up in here for so long . . .”
“I really don’t think you do, Nurse,” he said. “It’s been over a week now. I’m this close to going completely buggy in here.”
“Soon,” she assured him. “Doctor McCoy still needs to monitor how your arm is healing.”
“You mean how it isn’t healing,” he said, his head falling back onto his pillow.
Chapel stepped over beside him and placed a hand lightly on his wrapped left arm. “You took a lot of damage. You can’t expect an injury like yours to heal overnight. You just have to stay positive.”
“Please,” D’Abruzzo said, staring at the biosensor array overhead. “With all of the sugar-coating you and McCoy have been feeding me, I think I’m getting cavities. If it was going to get any better than it has so far, you would have seen it by now, wouldn’t you?” He waited for Chapel to answer, and when she didn’t, he lifted his head and asked her directly, “Please just give it to me straight: I’m not going to get full use of my arm back, am I?”
“No, you won’t.”
Chapel whirled in her chair to see Deeshal standing in the doorway to the ward. “I had hoped we could save more of your muscle tissue before it necrotized, but I’m afraid I failed in that regard. But with the proper physical therapy regimen, there should be no reason you cannot regain some degree of functionality.”
“Thank you, Doctor, for being honest with me,” D’Abruzzo said, looking satisfied if not happy. He lay his head back down, and Chapel stood up to leave him alone with his thoughts, making sure to place the ball back in his open palm.
She then turned on Deeshal, and once they were back out of the ward and out of earshot of the patient, she told him, “Doctor McCoy is not going to appreciate your doing that.”
“It seems to me I’m not likely to get any appreciation from anyone here, whatever I do,” he answered.
“You’re right about that,” Chapel said as she brushed past him.
“Christine, wait,” Deeshal said, trailing in her wake. “Can’t we talk?”
“What would you like to talk about, Doctor?” Chapel asked as she took her seat at the desk again.
“I’d like to talk about why you’ve suddenly become so aloof toward me.”
Chapel gave him an incredulous look. “Do you really need to ask? After the way you treated that woman?”
“That woman is responsible for the deaths of over one hundred innocent people,” Deeshal reminded her. “She should count herself lucky she’s being treated at all.”
“No thanks to you,” said Chapel. “If you had your way, she’d have been dragged out of sickbay and thrown in a cell.”
Deeshal looked affronted by that accusation. “She would have been brought to my medical bay, and taken care of there.”
“Yes,” Chapel said acidly, “I saw the way you would have treated her, Doctor.”
“I forgot myself for a moment there,” Deeshal said, dipping his muzzle in a fleeting look of shame. “But,” he then continued, raising his head again, “I am also a member of the Goeg Domain Defense Corps. I also have a responsibility to help protect our citizens from those who would do them harm.”
Chapel stood then to meet his eyes. “Then explain why you were willing to treat Lieutenant D’Abruzzo down on Nystrom IV, when only minutes earlier you were being fired on by the landing party.”
“Well, that’s different,” Deeshal said. “Once we learned your people weren’t Taarpi, I realized that the weapons exchange was just a terrible misunderstanding.”
“But they were still actually firing at you,” Chapel pressed him. “How could you be so sure of that?”
“I wasn’t. But—”
Chapel preempted whatever qualification he was trying to make. “So you and your shipmates could still have been at risk, but you put your duty as a physician first,” she said, just as she heard the approaching voices of Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy. “That is what I’m asking of you here now.”
* * *
McCoy led Kirk into sickbay, and tensed as he saw the Domain physician was present. “Doctor,” he said to the other man, attempting a degree of civility. “Was there something you needed?”
“I came to check on Mister D’Abruzzo,” Deeshal answered. “We spoke about his arm, and the progress of his recovery.”
McCoy felt his good manners betray him. “And who authorized . . .” he began to harangue the alien doctor, but trailed off when he noticed Chapel putting up a placating hand and mouthing the words, It’s okay. “Well,” McCoy said, still scowling, “I suppose I did put it off longer than I should’ve . . .”
“I assume, Doctor,” Kirk interrupted, stepping between the two and addressing Deeshal, “that you also had another reason for being here?”
Deeshal nodded. “It’s been twenty-four hours. The Abesian can be questioned now.”
“Yes,” Kirk said, “and with respect, we would prefer that you not be here when we revive her.”
“Hold on, Captain,” Deeshal objected. “Your agreement with Commander Laspas says I have the right to be here.”
“Yes, you do,” Kirk said. The accord Kirk had reached with the Domain commander allowed the prisoner to remain in Federation custody—protective custody, McCoy mentally amended—for the remainder of their joint operations. However, it also permitted the Domain physician to attend to her and to be present during any formal questioning. “And we’re not trying to keep any secrets from you—we’ll have a comm link open, and you can listen from here.”
Before Deeshal could protest, McCoy told him, “Listen, what do you think’ll happen if we wake her, and one of the first things she sees is a Goeg in a Defense Corps uniform?”
“Yes, but . . .” Deeshal began to protest, but then stopped as his eyes flicked to the side and he apparently caught a glimpse of Chapel giving him an entreating look. “Very well. Perhaps it is best that the patient not be agita
ted any more than necessary.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Kirk said, as he activated the comm unit on the wall and set it up to receive only.
And thank you, Christine, McCoy mouthed to his nurse before turning to follow after the captain into the private recovery room. The patient lay sleeping peacefully, the monitor above her head showing all vital signs in the middle green range. As a precaution, restraining straps had been fastened across her chest and her ankles. Her green skin was still slightly dry, though from what McCoy had learned about the amphibianoid race, that should reverse itself once her injuries were fully healed.
Kirk activated the comm unit by the bed, and then turned to the doctor. “Ready, Bones?”
“As ready as I’ll get,” McCoy said with a shrug. He pulled a hypospray loaded with the species-appropriate stimulant and pressed it to the patient’s shoulder.
As soon as he pulled the device away, the Abesian rocked her head to the side and moaned softly. Her large, bulbous eyes opened slowly as she gradually came to consciousness. She stared blankly for several seconds, only gradually coming to the realization that she was not dreaming, and the two figures looming over her were of no species she’d ever seen before. She tried to jump off the biobed.
“Calm down, easy,” McCoy said as the bands holding her in place were pulled taut. “We’re not going to hurt you. You’re safe. I promise.”
The woman stopped thrashing, but was far from convinced she was safe. “Who are you? Where am I?”
The captain took a step closer and said, “My name is James Kirk, and this is Leonard McCoy. You’re aboard the Starship Enterprise from the United Federation of Planets.”
“The . . . what?” Her head whipped back and forth from one to the other. “What are you?”
“Our species is called human,” Kirk told her. “We’re from a planet called Earth, over one hundred light-years from here.”
Understanding crossed her face then. “You’re from the supervessel.”
“Supervessel?” Kirk asked.
“A gigantic white superstructure, with a large disk protruding from its bow,” she said, “joined to a Class III starvessel.”
Star Trek: The Original Series: The Shocks of Adversity Page 16
