Star Trek: The Original Series: The More Things Change

by Scott Pearson

  Chapel thought about getting a universal translator in case Dax continued speaking in Trill, but she didn’t want to leave her patient. She sat all the way down, trying to find a more stable position. The artificial gravity had been knocked out of sync, and the deck still felt like it was at an angle. “Audrid, listen. You’ve got to tell me what to do. I can’t just sit here.”

  Spock’s voice crackled over the speaker. “The hostile ship is coming about and deploying a universal docking ring.” Chapel gritted her teeth. If they were forcibly boarded, would she be allowed to do anything for Dax?

  Dax’s eyes finally opened, and she clutched at her abdomen. “Is that a rescue ship?”

  Chapel shook her head at Dax’s confusion. “No. We were just attacked minutes ago. You fell out of bed, which must have aggravated your condition.” Dax looked like she was going to ask something, but Chapel kept on talking. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, so, please, tell me what I can do right now.”

  “You can’t do anything.”

  “I don’t know about that. I’m a damn good doctor.”

  Dax managed a faint smile. “I’m sure you are. But . . . let’s just say I don’t think we’re at the last resort yet.”

  Chapel sighed. “You’re quite the optimist.” The seriousness of the situation didn’t seem to have really gotten through to Dax. “Well, let’s get you back in bed at least. If we have company, I don’t want them to find me with my patient on the floor.”

  Dax struggled to her feet with Chapel’s help and climbed back into bed, still clutching her abdomen with one hand. Just as Chapel got her tucked in, Spock announced, “Hold on.”

  Chapel felt her stomach flutter as the artificial gravity cut out. I could have used a little more warning, she thought, knowing it was unfair to Spock, who was now trying to do the work of at least two people by himself. She hurried to strap Dax into the bed, adjusting the restraints so they didn’t lay across her patient’s tender abdomen. Chapel lost her footing from the inertia of her hurried movements. She leaned into the bed and then rebounded from it, her feet leaving the floor. Trying to grab something to stabilize herself only sent her spinning. The lights flickered and went out as her head bumped against something—the overhead, maybe. She was completely disoriented. The emergency lighting finally kicked in, and Chapel realized her head was near Dax’s feet, her own feet pointing at the open jump seat on the port bulkhead. She was looking straight up at the overhead. Chapel couldn’t picture how she had gotten into that position, but she pushed her confusion aside and tried to remember her zero-g training. Making slow, careful movements, Chapel got control of her momentum, grabbed an overhead handrail, and propelled herself across the cabin to the door, which, thankfully, slid open without hesitation.

  The air had cleared in the cockpit. Spock danced his fingers across the controls, and as Chapel hovered closer, she could see that he had finished rerouting systems to make up for damage.

  “Strap in and brace yourself.” His voice was sharp, almost harsh. She was still getting settled in the copilot’s seat when he said, “Going to warp . . . now.”

  She clipped the restraints together just as the Copernicus lunged forward, the warp transition rough, like a bumpy ride in a surface vehicle. She lurched to one side, the edge of the seat digging into her ribs. There’s another bruise, she thought. After a few seconds of rough and tumble, things settled down, but it didn’t take Scott’s senses to know that something was off with the warp drive.

  Chapel sat up straight and rubbed her sore rib cage. “What the hell was that?”

  Spock continued adjusting the warp field on the fly while he briefed her. “I powered down key systems to give our attacker the impression they had damaged us more seriously than they had. They proceeded with their apparent plan to board us. When they came alongside, I engaged warp engines while they were just within our forming warp field. They received the worst of the resulting gravimetric displacement, although it did affect us as well. I was able to compensate, but unfortunately I do not know how long my patchwork rerouting will keep our engines on-line. If you could assist me again?”

  Chapel turned toward her panel, where the power levels of various systems were still displayed. Over the next few minutes she called out readings to Spock as he continued rerouting subsystems and programming new subroutines to keep primary systems in sync despite the hodgepodge nature of his field repairs. Chapel could barely follow much of the work, but overall she understood the concept. Rerouting around damage seemed simple enough, but with so many systems that needed to be highly integrated in order to work effectively—artificial gravity and inertial dampers being the most significant example—the process could be exceedingly intricate, often requiring computer assistance to manage properly.

  Finally Spock brought the artificial gravity back on-line and switched from emergency to normal lighting. He leaned back in his seat and let his hands drop into his lap. He sighed deeply. If she hadn’t still been strapped in, Chapel felt like she might have fallen out of her chair. It had been a long time since she’d seen such a—for lack of a better description—human reaction from him. She was about to say something when he spun to face her, and the look of anger on his face made her pull back in her seat and keep silent.

  “I will not”—and he slammed his hand on the armrest—“lose you, the commissioner, or this shuttle.”

  As quickly as this rage had surged to the surface it was gone, and he slumped down, his expression worn and tired. Chapel realized he was thinking of the loss of the shuttlecraft Galileo on a mission seven years ago—and the death of two crew members under his command.

  “Spock?” Chapel watched him closely. “You did everything you could back then, just as I know you’ll do now.”

  “Everything was not enough.”

  “Sometimes it’s not. But in the end you brought home more than you lost. That’s cold arithmetic, I know, but it is . . . logical.”

  “Yes.” He straightened up. “There are still times logic can be a source of comfort.” Spock glanced her way. “I must apologize for my outburst. It was unbecoming.”

  “You don’t have to apologize to me.” She undid her restraints. “I know you’ll do whatever it takes to get us out of this situation, and I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

  He nodded. “I understand.”

  “Do you? You know I’m not just talking about this mission, right? I mean I’ll help you in this transition you’re going through. After we get back to the Enterprise, any time you need to talk, you call me. That’s not a doctor’s order, that’s a friend’s request.”

  He rewarded her with a soft smile. “I understand.”

  “You better. Now . . .” Chapel peered through the forward port. “Who attacked us? And why?”

  “Unknown. Sensors remain off-line, but as the ship maneuvered around us I was able to see it clearly. It was a nondescript civilian vessel approximately twice our size, with many illegal weapons upgrades. I have no way of knowing their motives for the attack.” He paused thoughtfully. “They could have easily destroyed us but instead tried to dock. Clearly they wanted to take us alive.”

  “Or capture the ship intact.” Chapel frowned at her own grim insight.

  “True. Whatever their reasons, I can only hope that sentiment remains after my defensive measures.”

  “But we left them behind. You kicked their ass with your warp-field trick.”

  “Any so-called ass kicking would have been minimal. We must assume that they will quickly effect any necessary repairs and pursue us. Our warp trail will be easy to track. Given the vessel’s size, they will be able to maintain a higher warp factor. They will overtake us before we reach the rendezvous point.”

  “That was not comforting.”

  “No.” Spock turned back to his controls to monitor the systems and made some minute adjustments. “We are back
on course for the rendezvous, for now. I was able to get the navigational sensor subsystems operative, fortunately. But we will eventually need to take further evasive measures to elude our attackers.”

  “That could be a problem. Commissioner Dax’s symptoms are worsening. I don’t know if we can safely delay the rendezvous.”

  Spock nodded. “Nevertheless, I cannot realistically guarantee that we can safely make it to the rendezvous as scheduled.”

  They sat quietly together for a few minutes, contemplating the no-win scenario that seemed to be developing. Finally Spock broke the silence. “I will take all these variables into account as I develop strategic options. But . . .” He hesitated. Chapel waited, but before Spock could finish his thought, Dax called out.

  Chapel was out of the copilot’s seat and headed aft without any further thought about Spock’s unfinished sentence. In the seconds it took her to get to Dax’s bedside, her patient had lost consciousness.

  “Dammit.” Chapel felt for a pulse at Dax’s neck, her fingers looking pale compared to the Trill’s spots. Dax’s pulse was faint but steady, her breathing even if a bit shallow. There seemed to be no reason for Dax to have lost consciousness, but, of course, Chapel knew nothing about what was causing the symptoms in the first place. For all she knew, this loss of consciousness could be unrelated to whatever was causing Dax’s abdominal pain. Chapel suddenly felt her stomach lurch as she thought, I’m an idiot—she could have just hit her head during the attack. Are Trill at higher risk for hematomas than humans? Chapel had no way of knowing.

  Although she tried to feel better by telling herself that Dax would have surely told her about such an injury, Chapel examined the woman’s head closely and carefully. She turned Dax’s head left and right, then gently lifted it from the pillow as she ran her hands through the Trill’s long black hair. She found no external signs of injury, no blood in the hair, no swelling. She opened Dax’s eyelids. Her pupils were equal and responsive. Chapel took one of Dax’s hands in her own, felt a palm that was almost back to its usual coolness. Checking the pulse at Dax’s wrist, Chapel was relieved to find it had gotten a little stronger. She arranged her patient’s arms comfortably and tucked the covers back into place.

  Chapel paced back and forth in the small cabin. Her patient seemed stable for now, but overall Dax’s condition had been worsening since leaving the Enterprise. Now that the commissioner was unconscious—and the shuttle had barely escaped from their mysterious attackers—Chapel decided that “the last resort” Dax had spoken of had arrived. She had to break the rules.

  She didn’t activate the bed’s built-in diagnostic scanners but opted for a more narrowly focused handheld scanner, which she networked with the bed’s monitor. I’ll just eliminate the possibility of head injury. That seems least intrusive. For now.

  The doctor expected to simply confirm no signs of hematoma, but as soon as she ran the scanner over Dax’s forehead, odd readings popped up on the monitor. It was almost like the Trill’s brainwaves had echoes. Maybe a malfunction in the scanner, something out of sync?

  Setting the handheld scanner aside, Chapel grabbed a medical tricorder and ran the scan again. The higher resolution of the tricorder made it clear the secondary brainwaves weren’t echoes; they didn’t always mimic the primary waves but sometimes went off on their own. That triggered a memory, and Chapel realized that the overlapping brainwave patterns resembled scans taken of a Vulcan and another person during a mind-meld.

  But that created more questions than answers. Is this normal for a Trill? Or is this a symptom of some sort of neurological disorder in Audrid? If so, why is she presenting with abdominal pain? Chapel frowned as she leaned over Dax. “In for a penny, in for a pound?” she said aloud, trying to convince herself to go further in order to properly treat the woman.

  With a resigned sigh, she held the tricorder over Dax’s abdomen and ran a cursory scan. The results bordered on nonsensical. She reset the tricorder and scanned again. The results were the same. Similar to the dual brainwave patterns, she was actually getting dual life signs. Chapel resisted the urge to bang the tricorder on its side a few times to knock some sense into it. But maybe there was a reasonable explanation for this. Perhaps the Trill nervous system was different from most humanoids’. Maybe their spinal column housed more complex neural structures. If there were some sort of significant neural cluster in their lower spine, that could explain all of Dax’s symptoms as well as the aberrant scans.

  Chapel decided to run a more detailed scan that she hoped would confirm or refute her theory. After that, she would decide how far she could pursue diagnosis and treatment. She had to keep Dax alive until they reached the Troyval—and if she had to compromise the Trills’ tradition of medical privacy, it was always easier to ask forgiveness than permission, especially when faced with an unconscious and failing patient.

  “Here we go.” Chapel ran the scan and watched wide eyed as the results indicated a large, wormlike life-form inhabiting Dax’s abdomen.

  Chapter 4

  Chapel let the tricorder slip from her hand and fall to the bed. It rolled off the edge and clattered to the deck. She left it where it landed and went to sit in the jump seat, staring across the cabin at Dax still strapped into the bed. The fact that Dax hadn’t simply admitted to having some sort of parasite infesting her body implied that this was, if not normal, at least not unheard of among the Trill. So is that thing causing her symptoms? Or—and this was an unnerving idea—are Audrid’s health problems unrelated to the creature living inside her, because all Trill have these things? If they’re hiding that from the rest of the Federation, it would certainly explain their taboo about non-Trill doctors.

  Chapel laughed nervously, then clamped a hand over her mouth. She couldn’t let Spock suspect anything. His scientific curiosity wouldn’t let up. It was bad enough she had made the decision to do the scans; after what she had discovered, maintaining doctor-patient privilege was more important than ever.

  She got out of the jump seat and picked up the tricorder. She erased the scans from the screen, then tapped in an additional code to overwrite the device’s memory with random data, further ensuring patient confidentiality, especially if the instrument fell into the hands of their attackers. If Spock was right, and he usually was, they could still end up being boarded or worse. Chapel followed the same procedure with the hand scanner, then stowed both items. Then she turned back to her patient, who appeared to be resting comfortably. She put her hands to her cheeks and rubbed her face as she looked down at Dax’s abdomen. Again she noted how flat it was, though the parasite was at least the size of Chapel’s two fists put together. The lack of external indications of its presence implied the mysterious creature was inhabiting a natural body cavity, which in turn raised the possibility of coevolution. If the Trill had evolved a perfect space in which the worm creature could live, perhaps the relationship was more mutualistic than parasitic.

  Then two more ideas hit her, setting her head spinning. She felt like she could use some of McCoy’s special medications he kept in his office, like Saurian brandy. Because what if he knew about this all along? And what about those overlapping brainwaves? Could this thing have some level of sentience? Maybe she had better stop thinking of it as a “thing.” But if not a thing, then what? A slug? A worm? She settled on “slug” for now.

  “When I get back to the Enterprise, Leonard McCoy, you owe me the biggest and best Finagle’s Folly you’ve ever mixed,” she whispered.

  Then she gave in to her own scientific and medical curiosity. After undoing the upper safety restraints, Chapel rolled down the covers, pulled up Dax’s shirt, and placed her hands on the woman’s bare abdomen, which she gently palpated. The slug began squirming beneath her hands, and Chapel was disappointed with herself for a squeamish reaction to the writhing. Come on, you’re a doctor, you’ve had your hands inside patients . . . this should be nothing.

 
; Chapel continued her exam, noting a line across Dax’s abdomen that could have been scar tissue. Before she could ponder that, she became aware of a mild tingling in her palms, almost as though static electricity was playing across her hands where she was in contact with Dax’s skin. At the same time she noticed Dax’s breathing become deeper. Chapel kept running one hand over Dax’s abdomen while she took hold of one of the Trill’s wrists with the other. Her patient’s pulse was also strengthening, so she continued the gentle massage as the slug kept wriggling around beneath her hands.

  Dax suddenly opened her eyes and stared at Chapel in surprise. The doctor smiled back at her reassuringly. Dax placed a hand on Chapel’s hands, weakly pushing them away. “You can’t,” she whispered. But it was clear she was quickly regaining her strength. After a few deep breaths, Dax carefully sat up. She rolled down her shirt and looked closely at Chapel, who had backed up a step. “What have you done?” Her tone was firm, angry.

  “What I had to do, no more, no less.”

  Dax looked skeptical. “Did you medicate me?”

  “No, of course not.” Chapel hesitated. Although difficult discussions were a necessary part of being a medical doctor, usually the doctor didn’t have to worry about creating some sort of diplomatic crisis. She had no idea what the official Trill response would be to her discovery of their secret. Although, if they still want to keep this secret, it would be against their best interests to make an example of me. Thinking of it that way, I’m probably not the first outsider to stumble across this. She steeled herself and continued. “But while you were unconscious, I did some cursory scans to eliminate the possibility of head trauma. I noticed anomalous brainwaves, which led me to discovering your . . .”—“slug” seemed too crude for this conversation—“. . . passenger.”