Sulu had
been born on Earth--to two
human parents--and he
was male. For all the high ideals and Federation principles,
it still
mattered. The most cursory review of the
demographics of top level
Starfleet personnel attested to that. But people who have
never been
subjected to the little pressures that build up around those who don't
quite
fit in can never really understand what it is like--the constant force
of an
osmotic gradient shoving one up against a frustratingly transparent,
but
utterly impenetrable barrier.
She didn't think she could make him understand, at least not in the two
hours
she had to decide. "I didn't want to break a nail."
Sulu laughed. "Well, worst case scenario on both: you don't take the
study
grant, or you don't get your position back. Which would give
you more
sleepless nights wondering what you missed?"
"The first, definitely. I know what the
"But you're still thinking of going. Sounds like an answer to
me."
"You're saying I should go?"
"I'm saying I would; I couldn't stand not knowing what else I could
have
been."
Janice rolled her eyes. "I'm taking advice from a man who two
months
ago wanted to be d'Artagnan."
Sulu chuckled. "I'm not you. I'm just saying,
that's the
choice you've got."
"It's such a muddle." Janice crossed her arms in front of her
chest and leaned back wearily against the counter.
Sulu looked over at her.
"What?" said Janice, unable to read the queer expression on his face.
"Hm? Nothing," said Sulu. He picked up a plant supplement.
"Just trying to help."
Janice squealed as Gertrude pinched her through her skirt, leaving a
scattering
of pink fluff behind.
Sulu broke out into gales of laughter.
"Sulu! That's not funny!" said Janice, attempting to smooth
out
her wounded pride, composure and posterior.
Sulu made a transparently token attempt at contrition. "Maybe not from
where you stand, but it sure is from here. My mother was
right;
perspective is everything."
"She sure was." Janice rubbed the sore spot, her confusion rendering
her more far more irrationally irritated than hurt. "That
settles
it; I'm going! I'm going as far from you and your collection
as humanly
possible."
"Happy to be of service," laughed Sulu as she fumed out the door.
As the panel slid shut and the silence of his lab resumed, only then
did he
realize how much he was going to miss her.
No new endeavor is without problems and Janice had envisioned
there would
be trials and failures in the three months of the fellowship. She
hadn't
anticipated that the first one would be getting
dressed. After
eight years in uniform, dressing was more of a reflex than a conscious
action. With the first thought she gave it, she realized that
she had nothing
even close to suitable to wear. Everything she had packed was either to
formal,
too casual, or too intimate by far.
What would Captain Kirk do, she asked
herself. That's easy: he
would go in uniform. That uniform was as much a part of him
as his teeth
or hair. Rumor had it that he had had his trousers
painted on in
order to save time, but as his yeoman, she knew that wasn't
true.
Fortunately it seemed that there were scores of other women on dozens
of
planets who could testify the same if need be--although likely not for
the same
reasons--as a proper Captain's Yeoman would never disclose such things.
She was different, though--no Captain Kirk. Besides, men in
uniform
didn't have to worry about burning their thighs on hot metal parts or
tearing
their tights crawling under a mechanism. In the end she chose
a jumpsuit
she had brought for hiking. It was more low-cut than she
would have
preferred and clung more tightly in several places, but it seemed the
best of
all of her bad options. She tried to cover the worst of it
with a scarf
and left her dorm for the orientation meeting.
Janice was accustomed to heads turning when she walked into a room. She
was not
accustomed to them dismissing her so rapidly.
The man at the head of the conference table addressed
her.
"Young lady: Miss--"
"
"Of course. There are lab jumpers in the closet. You'll want
to
change before the tour. Applied mathematics, he stressed the
first word
of the sentence and nodded to her flowing sleeves and scarf, "means
more
than just sitting at a computer all day. We take safety--and
everything
else--around here very seriously and trust that you will too."
Janice flushed. She considered explaining about how she lived almost
only in
uniforms, the delay in the shuttle and how she had had no time to shop
or even
settle in. Instead she settled for, "Yes, sir," with all the
humble solemnity that she could muster.
Someone snickered.
"'Doctor' will do--or better still, just 'yes'," said Latham.
He ignored her for the rest of the meeting.
On the second day she had no regrets. She was assigned to the
transporter
redesign team, which, in retrospect, was no surprise. The
transporter was
an Andorian invention. It had been Andor's dowry to the
Federation and
the main reason Earth and Vulcan had joined with a world still in such
a
violent state. The current problem was that non-Andorian
minds weren't
geared to follow the Z'errd extraquantum phase math theory that made it
possible.
With yet another civil war on Andor, transporter upgrades and
modifications
were not high on their priority list.
Andorian theory had come naturally to Janice. Her father had taught her
a great
deal. It was one of the few ways she took after him. As a
child Janice
had always assumed it was a selfish thing--a way of somehow preserving
the last
of his own father's memory and heritage through her.
It wasn't until after he died, four months before her eighteenth
birthday, that
she realized that he was only trying to give her everything he
had.
She could do this. She knew she could. Transporters had been
used on
Andor since before the Wright brothers could walk. It wasn't that
complicated
when you grasped the basics, but humans and most other species simply
couldn't,
and there was the rub.
The challenge was that she didn't know half the terminology used in the
mechanical specifics of the machine. Fortunately,
there was an easy
answer to that.
It was past 2200 when the custodian threw her out of the institute
library.
"Go home," he said. "The computers will still be here in the
morning."
"Sure." Even as she nodded acceptance, she was transferring
the
schematics and the references onto her padd to go over more in her
dorm.
She would have plenty of time to sleep back on the
It wasn't that she meant to let her hair go. It just sort of
happened
that way. She had taken it down at night like usual but
between the space
lag, the excitement, and screen after screen of engineering terminology
non-excitement, at sometime she collapsed over her padd at the
desk. When
she woke up it was to the buzz of the comm asking where she
was. She
barely made time to run to use the john and blot on her skin screen
concurrently
before dashing out the door. In the hallway she clipped her hair up
into a
quick knot, with the easy familiarity of long habit--making sure it
covered the
critical areas--as she jogged over to the lab, still in the same frumpy
lab
coverall she had worn the day before.
The odd thing was that no one seemed to notice. No one looked
at her
either more or less. Nor did they look at her more or less the next two
days
when she arrived clean, made-up, and hair back to normal.
On the third day, when she solved the inverter flux rate ratio that had
stymied
the team for weeks, then they looked at her a little harder.
She thought that she liked the way that felt.
Setting the inverter flux ratio had advanced the project to the next
step and
sent the whole team scrambling. While the engineers and physicists
worked on
the lab model, Janice and Latham moved on to the resolving the Kyrillid
curve. Janice worked the numbers while Latham stood over her
shoulder
watching the numbers fly by on the screen.
"That explains it," he said.
"No, it's not right," she said, the irritation plain in her
voice. "I've got to start over."
"Not that."
"What?" She turned. "Explains what?"
From behind he pushed back her hair at the top of her head where the
knot had
fallen loose. A vestigial stubby blue antenna poked through
the strands.
Quickly, she reached up and covered it again. The faintest hint of blue
flushed
through the make-up on her cheeks.
"I should have known," he said. "I've been doing this
thirty-five years and I've never met a Human with a mind like that.
"I am Human," she said. "Three-quarters, which is what counts.
My father's father. All that really shows is those." She
rolled her
eyeball up in the direction of the antennae. There was no
need for him to
know about the make-up. Women were entitled to their little
secrets,
weren't they? Besides, it was the barely a tint; even without
makeup, you
could only tell in the strongest light.
Growing up, she had hated them. Is there any planet in the
galaxy where
teenagers don't feel self-conscious for whatever difference they have? Her plan had been that the
day she turned
eighteen she would go sign for the surgery to have them
removed. When her
father died four months before that birthday, she had changed her
mind. She figured she could always have it
done...later.
"And that mind," Latham said, jerking her back to the
present.
"Why do you hide it?"
"Have you ever been in
"Hence Starfleet?" he asked.
"I don't know." She tried unsuccessfully to shrug off her discomfort.
"Maybe." Definitely. Alien, go home!
"That would explain some things," said Latham.
"Like?"
"You don't seem like the warp-rider type. If that was the
only
reason you went into Starfleet..."
"It isn't," she answered too rapidly. "I love space." She
did.
Latham shrugged. "I'm sure. I just mean, in
retrospect,
sometimes when one has moved a little time and distance away, things
become
clearer than when one is too close."
"You sound like someone I know," said Janice. Unbidden, her
mind turned to Sulu and the rest. She wondered what they were
doing
now. It was odd to think of the
"Sounds like a smart guy."
She smiled. "He is."
"Then maybe you should try it."
"It doesn't matter now," she said. "What happened in the
past can't be changed."
He gave her a peculiar look. "How old are you?"
"Thirty-five."
He shook his head. "So young, so many
possibilities. At
thirty-five you don't have to change the past; you just make new
future."
She hadn't thought of thirty-five as young. In fact, rather
the
opposite. "Now why are you so interested in my career
choices?"
Latham started. "I should have thought that that would be
obvious. I want you here. With the war on Andor,
transporter development
has come almost to a standstill for lack of design personnel. What
you're
trying to lose in the depths of space I consider to be your greatest
asset."
"I have plenty of assets," she said irritably.
Latham backed off. "No doubt you do. You're right; it is none
of my
business. Forgive an old man for hoping."
"If the old man would double-check my computations. The
entire
Baxtleer array is going to have to be reset."
Janice looked over in amusement, as Latham took a seat at the computer.
Of course,
one didn't go into mathematics expecting days full of screaming
excitement, but
the array was 27,783 cells--each to be verified
independently. Well, he
said he wanted her here; he might as well get the full joy of
it. She
pulled up the Kyrillid curve dynamic and began to solve for the first
cell.
On the fifth night--or rather in the wee hours of the sixth day--when
she sat
working at her dormitory desk that there was a knock on her door. She
crossed
the room to find a young physicist--Townsend? No, Tussand--at her door
with a
padd.
"Miss Rand?" he said, as if there was anyone else there to confuse
her with.
"Yes?"
He was short for a human, coming barely to her nose. That put his eyes
about
her chin level and at the perfect position to stare down at her
neck--or the
neckline of her caftan. Janice doubted that she was the only
one of them
to notice that.
"I'm Bruce Tussand,” he said. "I'm on the team working on the
mechanics of the beam generator. Dr. Latham said
that you might
help. This Dysson wave variance doesn't seem to have any regularity;
it's got
us stumped."
"It has to," said Janice. "They all have a cyclic
pattern."
"I know, but I can't find it. I've been at it for a week."
"Come in," she said, and stood back from the door.
He stood planted on the threshold.
"I don't bite."
"I know; it's just that.... Can I touch them?"
"What?"
"They're real, right? I mean, I've never seen them up close
before.
Would you mind?"
She wrapped her caftan and little tighter around her chest and body,
but then
saw that he was looking at her head.
"Oh." She inclined her head toward him.
He brushed one finger over an antenna tip and jumped back as it
quivered in
response. "They are real." He stared at his fingers in
wonderment.
"Right. The wave now?" I'm only here for another twelve weeks.
"Oh, right. Thanks." He hurried to the desk and activated his
padd.
When daylight broke, they were still working. All night in
her bedroom
and the kid hadn't even tried to hit on her once. She thought
maybe she
should be offended, but she was much too tired to even
bother. Besides,
he'd given her a solution idea, and a math solution was much better
than sex.
It was on the sixth day that she blew up the laboratory transporter
model. Bangs weren't all that uncommon with modifications in
progress; it
was more likely the smoke that brought Latham running.
"What did you do?" he asked.
"I increased the pararotary regulation factor," said Janice, fiddling
with her computer. "If we can keep it above the Kyrillid
curve, then
there's no normal space limit to the inducer output. I
calculated the
upper limit based on the minimized Paxton-Lipschitz class, but I had to
approximate the viscosity solution. I don't think I was close
enough."
"Irrelevant," snapped Latham. "You can't reset it. It has
to stay tied to the mass consolidator."
"Why?"
"Leave that to the engineers; you just worry about the Kyrillid
curve."
"But if we can increase it to above the curve at all points..."
"We can't. It go above gravity or the consolidator will
fail."
Latham moved in short, quick jerks, resetting parameters, not even
looking at
her.
"Andorian gravity."
"What?"
"Andorian gravity," Janice repeated patiently. "The
setting is still based on Andorian normal gravity. With Earth
or
Starfleet normal..."
"....it could go almost twice as high--and very possibly stay above the
curve!" He spun to her and searched her over as if seeing her
for
the first time. "Janice--"
"And on ships or stations with artificially gravity generators, gravity
could be increased temporarily if needed to boost range."
Latham grabbed her by the shoulders and whooped. "Kinto,
Martin! Fix that model! All the rest of you over
here. We
have a lot of work to do!" Latham reset the parameters the
way she
had had them.
On the ninth day he asked her to dinner. His wife was out of
town, he
said. She thought about refusing, but decided to go
anyway. She did
like him, it was only dinner, and she had handled married men before.
He took her to a Denebian place. The walls were covered with
stills--some
from places she had been, and even some ships that she had been
on. She
could name almost all of them--a leftover cache of knowledge from so
much time
spent with Kirk and his official business. She'd been on of
the very few
privy to the inner workings of the intimate relationship between Kirk
and his
only woman--the
She was proud to see that the
The waiter recognized her--or recognized Latham and concluded who she
must be.
"Miss Rand?" He approached politely with the still of the
It sounded funny not to hear the accustomed "ma'am."
"You're the first one we've had here from the
The color came out silver as she signed with her full rank and title in
a
neatly rounded hand. It looked quite nice, she
thought. As the
waiter placed it back in its position on the wall, she couldn't help
but wonder
what Captain Kirk would think with her name alone underneath his ship.
She hoped that she had done him proud.
Latham had promised that the food would be excellent, and it was--it
just
wasn't much like anything they ate on Deneb V. Latham had no
way of
knowing that, however, so she politely held her tongue. She
didn't much
care for raw prithiss anyway.
At first they talked enthusiastically about Kerruian plasma physics and
warp
space fluid dynamics. Then he brought up his wife, how little
they saw
each other these days and how hard that was on him. She
braced herself
and set her standard, distancing smile. He then brought out
pictures of
the grandkids. Now, that was a new one on her.
"I wish I could talk with my family like this," he said.
"But they don't--they can't understand. But I expect you know
what
that's like."
"No," she said, "I'm lucky. On a starship there was always
someone." She thought of Sulu, Scotty, and Spock.
Spock had
tutored her in multi-temporal regression theory back before he became
first
officer--back when he still had time.
"Someone special?"
Sulu. If only-- No. No point rehashing
that. She
laughed. "No, a Vulcan. The only thing buzzing between us was
our
tricorders."
"It's a shame. You're young…and pretty."
Here it comes. She armed her first line of defenses.
"I love your mind," he said.
She hadn't been expecting that.
"Do you know Vitterkov's limit theory of wormholes?"
"Yes." This was an even more pleasant surprise. Sulu had
taken
her to navigation computation seminar on Starbase 11. It had
been the hot
new topic and seemed better than shopping for more clothes that she had
places
to wear.
They talked limits and wormholes and inversion dynamics until the
coffee
chilled and the waiter stopped offering warm-ups.
His wrist comm beeped. "My wife's home early!" He answered
it,
holding his wrist against his cheek. "Hello,
dear….With
Janice….That's great! I'll see you soon."
He rose and smiled. "I'm sorry. It pains me to
leave a lady so
abruptly, and ordinarily I would see you home, but my wife and I have
had so
little time together lately--" He made a helpless gesture with his
hands
that made her think that Mrs. Latham was a very lucky woman indeed.
"No, problem," she said, pushing back her chair with haste.
"I once lead a blinded landing party back over three kilometers of
terrain
using just tricorder audio data--I think I can find my dorm just fine."
She had, of course. It had been only a training simulation, but she had
done
it. It seemed like a full lifetime ago.
He smiled at her. "Of course, I keep forgetting: you are more than just
a
practical mathematician. See you in the morning."
The odd thing was, she believed him, and was vaguely
disappointed.
Not that she wanted to muddy the waters, but men were at least supposed
to look
and lust, weren't they? Could it be that she was losing her
touch?
The next day she did her hair up--not the usual weave, but something
that had
proved eye-catching before. She put full makeup on like usual.
You know,
you really couldn't see the blue unless you were looking for it.
Had she
imagined it all those insecure years in school. She added an
ample daub
of her favorite perfume as
well. It took her twenty
minutes longer than she planned, and she was late for lab.
No one commented on any of it. The next day she didn't bother.
On the sixty-eighth day they finished the modification. It
made for a
modest 47 percent increase in range on the model for normal transporter
operations in Earth standard conditions, but the possible ranges on
ships and
space stations was staggering. Needless to say, Starfleet was very
interested
indeed.
Latham took her out to celebrate. "Is your wife coming?"
Janice
asked.
"No, she says that we'll just talk shop and bore her; she knows me much
too well." He offered her his arm. "Shall we?"
She took it. "Delighted."
They talked about the write up, the next phase and the mathematics of
theoretical physics into the wee hours. When she went back to
the dorm,
alone again, all she could think of was how much Spock would have
enjoyed it.
Of course, Spock likely thought through things like that every day.
On the seventy-sixth day, she got the orders from Starfleet: the
"I'm sorry," she told Latham. "It looks like you'll have
to present our paper without me."
"Or you could stay," he said. "I could have the contract drawn
up today. I guarantee that you'd like the terms.
Permanent
staff. Research assistant."
Janice's eyes widened.
"Oh, you can't be surprised. You know what I think of you."
"Yes…no…yes," Janice said. "I know, I just never
seriously
considered not going back, you know?"
"You should. You're wasted there."
"I'm thinking of going back for my engineering certificate," she
tried. It would take two years at least, with no preferential
assignments
afterward. Berths on starships aren't casually handed out to
people who
changed their minds and gave them up.
"You could teach the classes," he said.
She laughed without humor. "Tell them that. It would save me
a lot
of time and trouble."
"Not if it gives you more reason to leave."
Out of long reflex she started to brush away his flirtation, then
realized it
wasn't that at all.
"You mean it?"
"We need you."
She paused. "You've never been in space, have you?"
"No."
"You can't give it up, not just like that. It's all so
different--the life, the people. It's the biggest and best
thing that I
have ever been a part of. I've been places only a handful of
people have
ever seen." Her eyes grew distant. Hell, she'd been places no one else
had
ever been--wherever that was that Charlie Evans had sent her...
"You're a part of this," he said. "You belong."
She shook her head. "It's the
"So do we, although I suppose it isn’t as glamorous," he
said, with a
rueful glance around the lab. For a long moment there was
silence, but
for the hum of the models and generators at work.
She thought of Kirk. "I told them I'd be back," she said. "I
took an oath."
He relented. "I see. We'll miss you."
"Perhaps I'll see you again when we put in for transporter refit with
the
new design." In point of fact, she rather doubted that the
"Our new design," Latham stressed.
She rather liked the sound of that.
The day that she had feared would never come, of course, came too
soon.
Janice checked her hair for the twentieth time. She
had forgotten
exactly what weave pattern it was that he Kirk once said that he liked,
but she
pulled up an old photo and redid it exactly the same. She
smoothed her
uniform, brushed off her spotless tights for good measure, and picked
up her
duffel to go.
"Are you sure we can't talk you into staying?" said Latham.
"I'm flattered--and tempted, " Janice admitted, "but I
can't. It's the
"And it's Captain Kirk?"
"He goes with the
"That he does."
"I was scared he wouldn't want me back," Janice confessed.
"But he does."
"Yes."
"So now you don't have to be scared."
"Pardon?" she wrinkled her brow.
"Nothing." Latham shook her hand. He took her
duffel from
her. "I'll walk you to the transporter room. Just
remember
that we want you back too."
Her last sight of the institute was Latham standing at the side of the
room
watching her twinkle away.
Leslie greeted her with a giant hug and a laughing comment about it
being good
to see her--all of her--again. His voice was friendly, but
his eyes were
aimed at her unidress top. It didn't phase her in the least;
she was
quite accustomed to hearing that sort of meaningless banter from her
crewmates. After all, they were practically family--like 250
annoying
brothers she'd never had. It just caught her off guard; it
had been three
months since she'd heard it from a colleague.
The passageways seemed a little narrower. The paint was not
as fresh as
when she had come aboard. The peculiar stuffy scent that
lingers in
recycled air seemed much more noticeable now. She wondered if
they had
changed the air processing. She stopped at an environmental
control
access panel and found that they had not.
Teresa Ross brought her up to speed on the captain's business first and
the
ship's business second. The
"No problems?" said
"Nope. It was a little rough the first week or two, but since
then
it's been smooth sailing." Teresa beamed, clearly proud of having held
the
fort for so long.
"No problems?" repeated Janice.
"None. I made sure everything was done and perfect before you
got
back. I wanted you to see how well I'd done.
Really, you can go
back it you want an extra day."
"No." Janice tried to sound less petty than she felt. "I
need to get caught up before we leave orbit. I
don’t want to look sloppy
to the captain."
"As if," laughed Teresa. "He called me 'Rand' for the
whole first month you were gone. But suit yourself." She
picked up a
stack of padds.
"The dailies?" asked Janice, knowing darn well that they'd better be.
"Um-hmm. He's on the bridge getting mission briefings from
just
about everyone with more than two stripes. It looks like it's
going to
last for a while."
"I'll take them," said Janice. "You've been pulling double
duty long enough."
"Don't you want to settle in?"
"I'm trying to," said Janice.
"Right." Teresa passed her the reports. "The waste
computations are going to be late; they're recalibrating today."
"Waste computations get turned in weekly," said Janice. "They
aren't due for two days."
"They changed all that." Teresa blew by the details. "And the
warp stats are on top. Scotty says to tell him not to worry; it was
skewed by
the Sakwa phenomenon."
"The what?"
"The captain will know."
"Right."
Teresa hesitated. She reached to take the pile
back. "Maybe, I
should take them, this time."
"No." Janice hurried out the door. "I've got
it." Three months was longer than she'd thought.
The bridge was in full swing with the main viewscreen muted but on a
room full
of brass and all of the small screens running information feeds.
Kirk jolted as she passed him the dailies. "
She smiled.
"Did you change your hair? It looks nice."
The smile sagged. "Thank you, sir." She didn't see
any
reason to answer the question. He didn't seem to remember
asking it.
She watched as he scrolled though the reports. What was the name of
that thing?
He had already signed the engineering one. He passed the
stack back to
her with his eyes and mind apparently having already moved on to the
next issue
at hand. He turned to her again in afterthought. "Tell Scotty
not to
worry; that's just the Sakwa effect we're seeing. It'll
normalize by
tomorrow."
Then he pushed from his chair to join Spock at the science station.
"Has
the astroplasm data come in yet? If they're right about this,
we need to
be prepared. It could take out the entire star cluster."
"Oh, and yeoman." Kirk called to her while still staring over Spock's
shoulder. "Some coffee would be nice. It's going to
be a long
night; we've got a lot to do."
"Yes, sir," she said and rearranged the reports in her arms for
better balance.
Janice went to the galley and fixed the coffee just the way he liked
it.
Chicory, bitters, flavors--she remembered his favorite blend.
She filled
it to the exact level he liked and heated it to his preferred
temperature. While she waited, she used a reflective tray to
check her
hair. It occurred to her that if she had those antennae removed, she
could wear
some less complicated styles. Not that she minded them these
days, it
just didn't seem to matter anymore, and it would be nice to let her
hair down
more often.
Maybe she would look into that.
And you
really couldn't see the blue,
not even in the strong
light of the working galley. Even
if you
could, who really cared? What
had she
been so worried about all those years?
On the walk back to the bridge, as she greeted her friends and
colleagues, she
realized that she had been wrong in her earlier impressions. The
passageway was
not small or cramped or dark for what it was. This wasn't a planet with
limitless land and resources; this was a sailing metal microcosm in
space and
it was simply astounding that this starship, built and run by humanity,
could
change so much throughout the galaxy. Now she was about to head off
again, no
doubt to do great things.
This was truly the best thing she had ever been a part of, and the
memories,
the pride, that she would garner from having been an integral part of
what made
the finest starship in the Federation run might well be the highlight
of her
life.
But then again, it might not. There was only one way to find
out.
Janice double-checked the temperature to make sure she hadn't taken too
long
with her greetings and reunions. It wouldn't do to deliver
cool coffee
today. She wanted everything to be absolutely perfect for her
last shift
on the Enterprise.