by Peter David
Selar glanced around at the medtechs. They were watching her, commenting to one another in low voices that her sharp hearing would have been able to discern were she not already in the quarantine area, sealed off from the rest of sickbay. She was reasonably sure she knew what they were talking about, though. They were going on and on about how she had become unconscionably cold, even for a Vulcan. Even for a Vulcan. That was the exact phrasing she had overheard when they thought she wasn’t listening.
They had no idea. They had all bought into the notion that Vulcans were emotionless beings rather than what they were: a race that labored every single day to keep emotions in check lest they lead to endless strife. They were relentlessly rational by choice, not by design. Would that the lie were the truth and that emotions were never a consideration for her.
If she ever allowed the emotions roiling within her to display themselves, it would be a sight that would terrify her coworkers. They would run screaming from the sickbay.
She waited calmly with her instruments at the ready. She still believed that beaming the patient directly into sickbay was the wrong way to proceed. But if they were determined to ignore her advice, then she was perfectly entitled to ignore protocol as well and wait for the patient without wearing any protective gear. That would show them.
Selar knew that her attitude was, at best, petulant, and at worst, unprofessional. It was, however, her attitude, and she believed she was perfectly entitled to have it.
She remained where she was as the quarantine area filled with light and with the building hum of energy that heralded the transporter beams. Credit Transporter Chief Halliwell: her aim was precise. The incoming patient materialized, supine, atop the diagnostic table. Selar immediately moved toward the Hermat—for such the patient clearly was—and proceeded to apply the various scanning devices to get readings on hir.
She did not require the scanners, however, to make an instant assessment of the patient’s main problem: radiation poisoning. The cellular damage, the skin deterioration, were both consistent with that diagnosis.
Selar worked quickly. Bioskin could be applied to heal the surface wounds easily enough, but how she would deal with the poisoning itself would depend upon the extent of the damage. The first thing she needed to do was stabilize her patient, and she did so with her customary brisk efficiency. Within minutes, she had the Hermat’s vital signs at levels that were low but acceptable.
She became aware of a familiar presence behind her. She didn’t even have to look to see hir there; she just knew it. The fact that they still had that sort of connection was troublesome, but she resolved not to let it impede her ability to do her job.
“Why are you here?” Selar asked.
Burgoyne, standing on the other side of the quarantine partition, said, “The captain wanted to know hir condition.”
“Then the captain could easily have asked me himself. I am correct in assuming the comm unit is still operational, yes?” She did not look away from her instruments.
“Yes, but considering the species of the patient, I thought I would come down personally to…” Burgoyne’s voice trailed off and then s/he said softly, “I’ll be damned.”
Selar made no comment as to how likely it was that Burgoyne would be consigned to the flames of perdition. It didn’t seem especially relevant to the situation at hand. “May I correctly assume you know this individual?”
“Rulan,” said Burgoyne. “Rulan 12. I remember hir all too well.”
For the first time, Selar looked toward Burgoyne. “A former lover of yours?”
“No. Not for want of trying,” said Burgoyne. There was no shame or embarrassment in hir voice. Burgoyne was impossible to shame when it came to sexual exploits. “We were educated together. Our teachers despised both of us. Said we were bad influences on each other.”
“Then I am surprised you did not, in fact, have sexual relations, if you were that much in accord with each other’s sensibilities.”
Burgoyne gave her a curious glance. “You seem rather intrigued by my romantic history all of a sudden.”
“I have a patient dying of radiation sickness and no idea how s/he became this way. Anything and everything in hir background could be germane.”
The first officer appeared skeptical, but then shrugged. “We did not become lovers because Rulan prided hirself on hir chastity.”
“Really?” She arched an eyebrow, which was the most she typically allowed in her reactions. “Why?”
“S/he never said.”
“Hmm. Unusual for a Hermat.”
“Very much so.”
“And did s/he share your wanderlust as well?”
“No. In that s/he was as conservative as the rest of our race.”
“Obviously something changed.”
“Obviously,” said Burgoyne. “Is s/he going to be okay?”
“It is too early to know for sure. I have managed to stabilize hir vitals and have commenced a biocellular regeneration process.”
“That sounds positive,” s/he said hopefully.
“The problem is that the process takes time. Up to seventy-two hours. Any time during that period, when the damage is this catastrophic, vital organs could give out from the strain. Should that happen, I may be unable to save hir. If s/he is alive three days from now, hir chances are good. Otherwise…”
“I know you’ll do your best.”
“Your confidence is most uplifting.”
Burgoyne opened hir mouth as if s/he wanted to say something more. Selar waited. Burgoyne remained that way for some seconds, looking—in Selar’s opinion—perfectly ridiculous. It was clear to Selar what Burgoyne wanted to do. S/he wanted to bring up their relationship, or lack thereof, yet again. But everything that could be said had already been said, at length, repeatedly, and to no real effect. What could possibly be the point of wasting both their time yet again?
She must have managed to convey her thoughts, or at least her state of mind, to Burgoyne, because eventually s/he closed hir mouth, nodded as if everything that needed to be said had, in fact, been said, and then walked out of sickbay. Selar noticed that others were staring at her. They quickly looked away, like voyeurs who had been eavesdropping on the personal matters of other people. Which, Selar supposed, they were, though she didn’t especially care. She had matters of far greater importance to worry about. Let them listen in if it amused them. Let them draw whatever inferences they wished to from all that was left unsaid.
She had work to do.
iv.
Burgoyne stared into the contents of the glass before hir on the table as if the answer to all life’s questions could be found within the amber liquid. Unsurprisingly, none seemed to be forthcoming.
S/he had gone off shift an hour earlier and had wound up in the Team Room, the informal name for the crew lounge. On a typical day, Burgoyne was one of the more accessible senior officers. Anyone from a lieutenant commander on down to the lowliest ensign did not hesitate to approach Burgoyne, and socialize with hir.
However Burgoyne was equally capable of conveying through attitude and body language that s/he felt like being left alone. It wasn’t all that often, but on those rare occasions when Burgoyne wanted to discourage company, s/he had little trouble doing so.
So it was that Burgoyne was sitting alone at a table toward the back of the Team Room, nodding in acknowledgment to any who walked past hir, but otherwise enjoying solitude. Or, if not enjoying it, at least being relieved that s/he didn’t have to interact with anyone.
A shadow fell across hir table. S/he glanced up, although s/he had an idea who it was going to be before even looking. S/he turned out to be correct. “Hello, Xy,” s/he said softly.
“Dad.” Xy indicated the other chair at the table with a tilt of his chin. “Mind if I join you?”
Anyone else would not have even thought to ask. They would have given Burgoyne hir space. Xy, on the other hand, didn’t need to ask, but did so anyway out of politeness.
Xy sat in the chair opposite his father. He was already holding a drink. Burgoyne recognized it immediately and said, slim eyebrow arched, “Romulan ale? Isn’t that still illegal?”
“Only technically,” said Xy. “Since the war, it’s been a lot easier to acquire.”
“Still, rules are rules. I’ll have to file a report about this…unless, of course, something happens to impede my memory…”
Without a word, Xy switched his glass with that from which Burgoyne had been drinking. Burgoyne picked it up, sipped it, and sighed contentedly.
“Well?” said Xy.
“My mind’s a blank.”
“I thought that might be the case. So I understand you know the Hermat that mother is working on.”
Burgoyne inclined hir head slightly. “Hir name is Rulan. We’ve had passing acquaintance. Although,” s/he said, sounding chipper, “Selar seemed extremely interested in learning the details of whatever relationship I may have had with hir.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean”—and Burgy paused for effect—“she sounded jealous.”
“Jealous.” Xy repeated the word. The skepticism was evident in his tone.
“Yes. Jealous,” Burgoyne said again, more insistently, perceiving the doubt in Xy’s voice.
“I just…”
“You just what?”
“I just don’t see it. I mean, jealousy is an emotion. She isn’t exactly brimming with emotional depth. You know what I’m saying?”
“Yes, I do. You’re saying that I’m imagining it. That I made it up.”
“I’m saying,” Xy said softly, “that you’re trying to force yourself to believe it because you’re so anxious to do so.”
“Is it so impossible…?” But Burgoyne knew the answer to the question before s/he even asked it. Xy didn’t even have to respond. Burgoyne knocked back the rest of the contents of Xy’s glass and muttered, “You don’t have to look at me that way.”
“What way?”
“Sympathetically. Sadly. As if I were pathetic.”
“I don’t think you’re pathetic.”
“Why don’t you? I do.”
“Dad…”
“It’s all your fault, you know.”
“My fault?” Xy didn’t sound angry at the accusation; he was more amused than anything. “How is it my fault?”
“You know why.”
“Because I’m aging so quickly,” Xy said patiently. “Because, thanks to the combination of my Vulcan and Hermat biology, I’m speeding through my life. Except I didn’t create my metabolic processes, Dad. I didn’t ask to be the way I am. I didn’t even ask to be born. All things considered, I could be the one going around pointing fingers at you and Mother for getting together in the first place without regard for what the results of such a union might be.”
“Your mother didn’t have all that much choice.”
“I know.” Xy looked uncomfortable for the first time. “And we shouldn’t really be talking about that.”
Burgoyne smiled at hir son’s streak of provincialism. Topics such as Pon farr, the Vulcan mating drive, were generally considered inappropriate matters for discussion. Usually that applied only to outworlders. Burgoyne was hardly any outworlder, having mated with Xy’s mother. And Xy was, naturally, not a full Vulcan himself, although he shared Selar’s delicate pointed ears and arched eyebrows. Yet he was respectful enough of Vulcan traditions to balk at talking about such delicate subjects, even with his own father.
“All right,” said Burgoyne, not desiring to press it. S/he leaned back in hir chair and sighed deeply. “You know…for someone who purports to have no emotions, your mother is one of the most passionate creatures I’ve ever met.”
“Do we really need to talk about that?” said Xy, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
Burgoyne laughed, displaying the edges of hir pointed teeth in doing so. “I’m not referring to that sort of passionate. I mean that she can become so fixated on something that it can—well—consume her.”
“Are you thinking of anything specific?”
“You know I am.”
“You’re thinking about me,” said Xy. “And her obsession with trying to find a way to ‘cure’ me. Rather than appreciating the time she has with me, she can only obsess about the time when I’ll be gone.”
Burgoyne nodded.
“In fairness to Mother, the latter span is going to be so substantially greater than the former that it cannot help but weigh on her mind. Plus they were her—impulses,” he said for lack of a better word, “that set the events into motion that led to my birth in the first place. So it’s reasonable that she would feel the greatest sense of responsibility.”
“Yes. It’s reasonable. It’s just tragic that it has to overwhelm every aspect of her life so that she can’t take any joy in anything else.”
“‘Anything else’ meaning, specifically, you.”
Burgoyne chuckled in spite of everything. “Certainly that’s one aspect of it. There’s this as well, though: just the sort of interaction you and I are having now. I’m egotistical enough to think that your mother is missing out on a lot by wanting to have nothing to do with me. But I know for a certainty that she’s missing out on even more by having nothing to do with you.”
“I don’t take offense, if that’s any consolation,” said Xy. “She doesn’t keep me at a distance because she dislikes me. It’s simply that it hurts her too much to interact with me for long, and someone like my mother doesn’t do especially well with feeling hurt. Or feeling anything.”
“So I should feel sorry for her like you do, is what you’re saying.”
“I wouldn’t have put it that way…” He hesitated, then said, “Yes. I guess I am saying that.”
“As am I.”
“What if she knew that we feel sorry for her?” said Burgoyne.
“Honestly? I doubt she would care very much. Or at all.”
“Or at all,” agreed Burgoyne.
v.
Selar did not care that she hadn’t slept in more than thirty hours. She knew what her body was capable of enduring, and her need for rest was not as great as a human’s. Various technicians would come and go on their shifts as the hours progressed, but Selar remained where she was and monitored Rulan’s vital signs. She told herself that she was doing so because she was the logical individual to take on such a sustained duty.
Selar had not left the quarantine area the entire time that she had been monitoring Rulan’s status. She had consumed a small amount of food, taking care not to exceed the minimum her body required to continue functioning, and had been likewise sparing with drink. Her assistants had offered to relieve her from time to time during the first twenty hours. She turned them down flat every time with the slightest shake of her head, not even bothering to reply. After that they had stopped asking.
It was during the thirty-first hour of scrutinizing Rulan’s healing process that she began to notice something odd. She checked and double-checked and triple-checked the results, and she was still having trouble understanding or even daring to believe what she was seeing.
She had been standing while going over the results of the cell monitoring. She was surprised to now discover that she was sitting. Selar didn’t recall actually sitting down in a chair; one moment she was on her feet, and the next, on her backside. It was an indication of just how stunned she had been that she had momentarily blacked out, for there was no one on the Excalibur who was more aware of her surroundings, and of the passing of every moment, than Selar.
Focus, she told herself. Focus on procedures. That is the only way to function.
“Medical log, supplemental,” she said. Her voice sounded distant, alien even to herself. “Although the bio-regeneration process is proceeding, the results are surpassing expectations sufficiently to warrant further study. The cellular damage sustained by subject Rulan 12, particularly the damage to the internal
organs, is healing forty-three percent faster than my original estimates would have allowed. Since my estimates were based upon documented previous results of applied bio-regeneration, this is clearly some manner of aberration. The question to be pursued is whether the aberration can, in some manner, be replicated. Could, for instance…” She paused. To her internal shock, her voice was bordering on being choked with emotion. An outside observer would have been unable to determine such a reaction, but she was all too aware of it. An expert after long years of self-control, she managed to bring her emotion in check so that on her log there was only the briefest of hesitations, as if she were calmly pausing to select the right word with her customary precision. “…an individual such as Xy, who is essentially suffering from accelerated cellular deterioration, be aided by some manner of controlled application? An infusion of Rulan’s DNA into his own genetic makeup? The notion would have no practical application if Xy did not already have Hermat biological markers in his own DNA. The further matter to be investigated is just how Rulan came to have such attributes. If s/he underwent some manner of procedure that enabled hir to regrow cells at an unusual rate, then Rulan’s genetic components may not be necessary for further research; I could go straight to the source. As long as Rulan remains insensate, however, I cannot determine the—”
She stopped talking, suddenly aware of Mackenzie Calhoun’s presence.
Calhoun stepped up to the partition that separated the quarantined section from the rest of sickbay. He studied the unconscious Hermat for a moment, then shifted his attention to Selar. “Please don’t allow me to interrupt, Doctor. Feel free to complete your medical log.”
“I can do so later, Captain.”
“Doctor, seriously, you shouldn’t allow my presence to—”
“I do not believe it is within your prerogative to dictate when and where I choose to perform my duties, Captain. Now, did you have something specific you wished to discuss?”
Calhoun did not reply immediately. Instead he stared at her for a time before saying, in a formal tone, “What’s the prognosis?”