Star Trek: The Original Series: The More Things Change (4 page)

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.”

Dax looked away for a long while. Chapel let the silence linger. She could hear various soft mechanical sounds from the shuttle, many of which, even to her ears, were subtly different than they were supposed to be. It was a testament to Spock’s abilities that the unarmed
Copernicus
was still chugging along at top warp speed after an unprovoked sneak attack. As Dax’s silence drew out, it occurred to Chapel that perhaps the commissioner could face repercussions for the discovery of the slug. That didn’t seem fair, given that she was ill; but for all Chapel knew, maybe Trill were supposed to go off and die before letting an outsider learn about the slugs.

“Well,” Dax said, turning back to face Chapel, a dark look on her face. “Obviously, I had hoped to avoid this. Such transgressions are not taken lightly by my people.” Her expression softened. “But I did say I brought you as a last resort, so I can’t simply lay the blame on you. I put you in this position, and circumstances have overtaken us.” She shook her head.

Chapel crossed to the jump seat and sat. Then she put all of her complex questions into one simple word. “Why?”

“There are lots of reasons, some of which make sense, at least to Trill. Other reasons . . . who knows? ‘Because that’s just the way it’s done.’ They say it for centuries, even though no one knows
why
that’s the way it’s done.” Dax shrugged. “It is what it is. All you really need to know is that the symbiont—my passenger—is a sentient being, and its survival is the priority.”

Chapel hesitated. The need to reach the
Troyval
as scheduled had become more imperative even as it seemed less likely. She was relieved Dax hadn’t brought up the attack yet, but they would have to talk about its effects on their rendezvous plans. Nevertheless, Chapel wanted to learn as much as she could about this symbiont first, as she might be the only doctor available for Dax in the foreseeable future.

Chapel leaned forward. “Obviously I want both of you to be fine, but from my point of view, I’m
your
doctor. You’re the one presenting health concerns to me. Unless the symbiont is the one who’s truly sick, why should it get preferential treatment?”

“You have to understand, you’re treating both of us, we’re intertwined. Audrid is my given name and Dax is the symbiont’s name. Audrid Dax is our joined name, representing both of us combined. Our minds are linked, as our brainwaves show. We’re a single entity, physiologically bonded. But the symbionts are very long-lived. While Audrid is already in middle age, Dax has centuries left. Because of that, symbionts move from host to host as needed, and the survival of that legacy is more valuable than any single host.”

“Okay. All right.” Chapel was trying to wrap her head around this. It was a lot to take in, especially after the ambush and all the unanswered questions that had raised—like how long until their attackers caught up to them? And then what would happen? “So . . . wait. If your minds are linked, then you have mutual memories?”

“Yes.”

“You can remember things from previous hosts, and future hosts will have your memories—that’s what you mean by a legacy?”

“Yes.”

Chapel flopped back in her seat. “Well, I’m just . . . flabbergasted. I mean, the Vulcan mind-meld is one thing, but this . . . this is—” She stopped, her mouth still open, as she connected additional dots. It was an incidental thing, but they were in the eye of the storm and their future was uncertain; this might be their last chance for some much-needed levity. “Oh, wait a minute. Wait one country-doctor minute. When you said that Leonard knew a relative of yours, you meant that he knew a previous host of your symbiont. So . . . does he know?”

Dax glanced down, as if toward the symbiont. Chapel thought that she seemed a little embarrassed, which was a surprise in itself. Clearing her throat, Dax said, “They met about thirty years ago. And I may have let slip an intimate detail that revealed my familiarity with their time together.”

“Well, that explains that.” Chapel laughed. “No wonder he was so nervous around you. He can be awkward enough about relationships under normal circumstances. He’d have no clue how to behave in this situation. Who would? Outside of another Trill, I mean.”

Dax looked back up and shrugged, clearly over whatever indiscretion she might have committed. She looked tired. “That was one of the reasons I didn’t want him to come with me.” She lay back down. “I didn’t want to deal with all the questions.”

Chapel got up and helped Dax arrange her covers. The lighthearted moment was already gone. “Then I’ll keep it professional. Tell me about your condition. What’s the treatment?”

“There’s still nothing you can do. It requires specialized drugs that only Trill doctors have experience with.”

“But what about just now? My touch seemed to alleviate your symptoms.”

“I don’t know. Somehow you stimulated the symbiont, which in turn woke me through our bond.” Her eyes closed, but she kept talking. “Our bond is the problem. The changes of aging can sometimes interfere with it. It’s usually just a temporary discomfort, but this early onset I’ve had is worse. Are we almost to the
Troyval
?”

Chapel frowned. Dax asked the question so nonchalantly it was clear that she was disoriented and had forgotten about the attack. Chapel considered sparing her the distress, but there was still the chance that the urgency of their situation could convince Dax to reveal more details about her illness.

Taking the Trill’s hands in her own, Chapel was concerned at their returning warmth. “Audrid, I need you to listen closely. We were attacked, remember? They tried to board us, but we escaped. We might have to delay our rendezvous to avoid being captured. Anything you can tell me—”

Dax’s eyes fluttered open as she lifted her head from the pillow and squeezed Chapel’s hands. “Our bond . . . fading. If lost, we’ll both die.” Her head slumped back to the pillow and her grip went slack. She was in a deep sleep, on the edge of unconsciousness.

Chapel let go of Dax’s hands gently and ran a few tricorder scans. As far as Chapel could ascertain, Dax seemed stable for now. Chapel erased the scans from the tricorder’s memory and left the device at the foot of the bed, setting it to chime if there was a significant change in Dax’s vital signs. After redoing the upper bed restraints, Chapel got field rations out—she wasn’t sure how long it had been since either she or Spock had eaten.Then the shuttle lurched, causing her to stumble. She dropped the unopened rations and grabbed the overhead handrail.

The
Copernicus
quickly stabilized, but then the lights dimmed. Chapel held on tightly for a moment longer, looking around the cabin, expecting something else to go wrong. It did: The shuttle dropped from warp and the lights dimmed further. If their attacker was following them at warp speed, every second the
Copernicus
was at sublight brought the enemy exponentially closer. The lights flickered but didn’t go out. She hurried into the cockpit to find Spock kneeling between the pilot and copilot seats, one hand working furiously on each control panel, literally doing two people’s jobs at once.

“I was just about to call for your assistance,” Spock said, without slowing or looking at her.

Chapel slipped into the copilot’s seat. With a glance at the panel in front of her, she saw he was resynchronizing secondary systems with the standard protocols. The interface was clear and intuitive. “I’ve got this,” Chapel said. She took over as Spock got back in the pilot’s seat and redoubled his efforts. Seconds later the stars visible through the forward port distorted and elongated as the
Copernicus
returned to warp.

The Vulcan was shaking his head as she looked over at him. “I can do no more remotely. I need to pull up the deck plates and make direct mechanical repairs.”

“Which you can’t do while we’re at warp, I suppose.”

“Correct.”

“But we’re at warp already. Can’t we make it to the
Troyval
?”

“Unlikely. The longer I push the shuttle at warp speed, the greater the chance that the next time it malfunctions it will require repairs beyond my abilities or available resources. We’ll be dead in space. The logical course of action is to stop as soon as possible for repairs.”

Chapel knew what he meant, but it felt better to keep moving than to stop, especially if they were being pursued. “And what about that other ship?”

“There’s still no sign of it, but my repairs to long-range sensors have been minimal. Logic dictates they are following our warp trail.”

“If they are, there’s nothing we can do. As soon as we drop from warp, they’ll be on top of us.”

“Perhaps. But I have formulated a stratagem.” He pulled up a star chart on the screen between the seats. “We are approaching an uninhabited system with the unlikely designation Rose’s Folly. Were I superstitious, I might find that off-putting; however, I am willing to be guided by the maritime adage of ‘any port in a storm.’ ”

Chapel smiled in spite of their increasingly tenuous circumstances and looked at the chart. “That Jovian planet has a crazy magnetic field.”

Spock glanced up at her with a small smile before continuing. “Indeed. We will drop out of warp and enter into orbit of RF III. Our sensors will not function properly within that field, but neither will theirs. Of the several predictable outcomes, there is a distinct chance that our pursuers will not immediately realize what has happened. The odds are small but encouragingly within the realm of possibility that they will warp past the system.”