Early days.

Part 1.

Nyotas point of view.

Well. He certainly was handsome; she'd give him that… That was Nyotas' first thought when he entered the classroom where her advanced xenolinguistics were to take place. His pale yellow-green complexion alone made him stand out in a crowd, never mind the pointy ears. She had heard both female instructors and cadets sighing wistfully over him because of that almost hypnotic effect he had. She'd also heard that he went to great pains to avoid too much contact with females, as it sometimes ended with a tearful scene. At least there was that rumour that circulated about a girl named Kalomi or something.

The reputation he had made for himself as one of the strictest instructors along with the fact that he always stood with his back straight and his hands on his back, gave him an strange "old world" feel. Like something out of an old novel or something. Like a king or a knight… She let her mind wander a bit but got yanked back to the reality of Starfleet Academy by his matter-of-fact-voice.

"I am Commander Spock. You will either refer to me as Commander or Mr. Spock. In this class you will get to study alien languages; Morphologi, phonologi, syntax. The more proficient you become in this, the better possibility you will have to get assignment on a starship. I will expect each and every one of you to do your utmost at any time to better yourselves in this subject; however experience tells me that most of the persons in this classroom at present time will not succeed in finishing this class."

The cadets stirred nervously. Nyota almost felt her jaw dropping. Was he seriously starting up a class by saying they most likely wouldn't succeed? "Well," she thought while mentally shrugging, "Let's see what he's got. I've made it this far…" She relaxed her shoulders which had somehow crawled up in a tense cramp. If she looked around her she could see a lot of shoulders and jaw muzzles being tense. "I'll make it. I'll show him." She thought straightening her back and looking at him in what she hoped was a defying way.

She soon learned however that it was no where near enough, to just want to be the best. In the Commanders class you had to PROOVE everything before it was approved. With most of the other instructors there was always the possibility to dispute a grading of a paper, but with him, it might as well have been written in stone. She especially got a lot of heat in the beginning, when she thought she could get away with statements and not back it up with proper arguing. But somehow, in this "Think or sink"-situation, she found she was thriving on the challenge.

His scathing answer or the way he could win a discussion in a few sentences sometimes made her feel like she hadn't tried hard enough. When she felt like that she grid her teeth and worked harder than she had ever thought possible. As the year went on she slowly settled into a rhythm, and even when she hadn't slept for, what seemed like, an eternity and it felt like her brain could think no more, she felt like she had finally found her niche.

She was very careful not to openly enjoy his laconic answer to what she thought were some of the more obvious questions. Sometimes she even suspected him of making jokes only to be understood by those "in the know" and she spent hours, and sometimes even whole vacations, coming up with waterproof arguments. She often tried to test her theories or arguments on her roommate Gaila or some of the others from the Xenolinguistics class, but usually she only achieved them getting bored or in some cases angry.

"Sheez! Nyota. Can't you talk about something else?"

Nyota looked with surprise at the blond girl she had been chatting with. She had thought they were having a nice conversation, but now she realized they had talked of nothing else than the grammar of ancient Ska'abu.

"I get enough of that in class. No, I don't know what the infinite verb of "s*roij*t" is… I DON'T CARE! OK!" She threw her notebook on the table in front of Nyota and stalked of. The rest of the group sat silent for a few seconds, obviously uncomfortable.

"OK," Nyota said, trying to save the situation, "Maybe I got a bit "One-trick-pony there. Didn't mean to freak her out…" She smiled at the others around the table.

"C'mon Nyota" a very tall girl, with glowing purple eyes and orange tinted skin, said. "You know she just failed her last paper. Maybe it's not such a good idea to shove it in her face that you already have started studying Ska'abu… Like that is something she needs…"

Nyota looked surprised. "Tanli… Is Gitte failing?"

Tanli focused her strange eyes on Nyota. "Sweetie. I can name at least seven others that are struggling to keep up this year. And I don't blame them. We know it's going to get harder after summers break, and he isn't exactly Mr. Sweet-Talker, our dear and glorious Mr. Spock, is he?"

"Oh, I don't know. I think he's alright… I mean, the standard of his graduates are usually so high that I bet it's worth it…"

"Bah. "alright"? Nyota." The intrusion came from Simon, a brown haired, blue eyed young man. "That guy is like a robot or something. Just standing there rattling information, like it's going out of fashion…"

Xasha interrupted with a scowl on his face "…And it's not like it's enjoyable to be humiliated on a weekly basis all year long by that poity-eared…"

"A robot! He's a ROBOT I tells ya!" Simon yelled in a mock-panicky voice, grinning. They all cracked up and relaxed a bit.

Nyota laughed with them, but when her eyes caught the notebook Gitte had left as she stormed out she grew silent. "Seriously guys… I really think he is alright. He may be a bit sarcastic from time to time, but that's only when you ask the most silly questions, or try, Simon, to argue that it feels right to use a word. I could have told you that that wouldn't be very popular…"

"Nyota, you can be such a nerd sometimes." Xasha smiled at her to make his words sound less harsh. "Of course YOU can handle it, and even find time to appreciate to his "subtle humour", or what ever. You almost scare the rest of us with your work ethics and how quickly you pick up on things. I mean… If I didn't know better I'd think you were a robot too…"

Nyota felt the sting of that remark, but smiled never the less. They spent the rest of the afternoon teasing each other, and Nyota were very careful not to mention any topics related to Xenolinguistics.

However, when she closed the door to her doormroom and settled down to go to sleep, she thought about what had been said. She didn't really think it was fair to call her a robot just because she liked a subject, but she knew what they had all meant. She certainly had a flair for catching languages, both Terran and others. She had, what her Granny had said, a zawadi maalum , a gift, for it. She had been called parrot kidogo, Little Parrot, back home sometimes, because of her talent for speaking in any language she encountered. It also made some people back away from her.

She had gotten used to not flaunting this special "gift" because of how other people got insecure around someone so talented. She supposed it didn't help that she often accidentally talked "shop" and, as Gittes' reaction clearly had shown her; there was a limit in other people's interest in the subject…

The workload and the high demands in xenolinguistics steadily grew after the summer break, and during the year more and more cadets gave up, just like Mr Spock had predicted. Nyota never heard him mentioning the steady drop in attendees in class. When spring came they were about fifteen students left in the class, and The Commander was lecturing on the subject of the dialects of the Scandinavian settlers on Elsingore VI.

"The settlers consisted mostly of Scandinavians from the costal areas, as they were forced to move because of the rising sea level. This meant a large part of the Scandinavian settlers were used to water and therefore had no problem assimilating to the life at Elsingore VI, which, as you know is almost entirely covered by sea. This fact, getting used to the more aquatic life, had some interesting effects to the Scandinavian dialect in a matter of a few years. If you observe this audio/visual recording you can hear for your self how the retroflex has become less prominent and how they seems to have adopted a more nasal sound to their tone. This is believed to be the effect of having to live underwater for such a extended period of time as well as the symbiotic relationship the settlers seems to have developed with the native "Ohm-ra'-ruck", which is in many ways comparable to what we used to know as "Whales" here on Earth."

Nyotas hand shot in the air. "Excuse me Commander"

His eyes found her and calmly acknowledged her "Cadet Uhura. Do you have a question?"

"Yes, well… The settlers didn't adopt that way of talking until they came to Elsingore VI?" She asked curiously. She could see in her periphery vision that both Xasha and Tanli were a thousand miles away.

The Commander looked at a point over her head. "No, Ms Uhura. As I said; the dialect was developed as a result of the settlers having to adapt to the new environment…" He was about to press play when she interrupted again.

"But Commander, The people who were going to settle on Elsingore VI were aware of the environment they were going to, weren't they? And if you search the library for communications with aquatic lifeforms with extra focus on earth mammals' one name pops up. Namely the marine biologist Inge-Lise Ström. She had made extensive research and experiments on this subject AND she was among the settlers on Elsingore VI. It was she in fact who developed this new dialect before the settlement took place as a way to ease communication with the native intelligent species. This makes this dialect a created dialect in that it didn't originate by osmoses but rather was dictated by one single person." Nyota took a deep breath. She had been waiting for this moment. The moment of actually being able to correct him. And it wasn't much, some might say it was too small to care about, but damn it. It was something!...

The commander had, during her little speech lowered his gaze to look at her directly, and now that she was done his face was completely expressionless and his hands had found their way to his back. Nyota kept looking into his unblinking eyes, and fighting the urge to look down or away or start fidgeting out of nervousness. And how she hoped he wouldn't unleash his scathing sarcasm on her because he found a flaw in her argument…

Even Simon who had been almost drooling on himself out of tedium had registered that something unusual was going on. Most of the students sat up a little straighter and paid attention to what was going on. Maybe Nyota was going to get an earful for interrupting or making a mistake. Anything to disrupt the boredom of studying whistles, whoops and gurgles.

Finally the Commander blinked and cocked his head a bit. "It seems my research into the subject of Elsingore VI has not been sufficiently extensive, and that I was in error in assuming the origins of their dialect. My thanks, Ms Uhura, for pointing it out." He looked at her with neutral eyes. But at least he looked at her and not at the usual point above her head. "Now, if we can watch the recording I want you to pay attention to…" The Commander pressed play and the class collectively sighed as the sounds of whistling and splashes lulled them back into boredom.