S'chol'nios
In the corner of the school yard, Spock, the youngest son of the great Vulcan Ambassador Sarek, stood watching. To an observer, it would have appeared that Spock was merely gazing at the activity of the yard as the other children ate, ran, or practiced for the upcoming drills. The teens were throwing long knives in the air and catching them with almost impossible accuracy. The youngest children were running around, catching icy looks from the teacher who was on duty that day. It was true that he was watching, yes. But his eyes were focused on one particular boy; a human.
On Vulcan, humans were rare. Their presence often gave cause for scrutiny by the Vulcan children. This boy that Spock was watching was no exception. With his blonde hair and sky-blue eyes, he definitely stood out among his raven haired and black eyed classmates. This boy intrigued Spock; he wandered why the boy was sitting by himself studying their physics book with what appeared to be great earnest. Did the boy not remember there were three more hours until it was time to return home where he could then study? Spock began to walk toward the lone spot of shade where the boy sat under a kasa tree. He noticed that the boy was hunched over, as though sleeping on his book. His breath shook each page as he read. He constantly rubbed his left eye with his balled fist.
"Do you require assistance?" Spock touched the boy's shoulder. To Spock's surprise, which he kept hidden of course, the boy started and jumped 1.3 feet in the air.
"Jeez! Don't you know it's rude to sneak up on people?" The human boy folded the page of the book he was reading and set it next to him. As he did this, he tried to calm his racing heart and rapid breath intake. Spock was confused.
"Were you having difficulty reading the required texts?" Spock asked the question bluntly, as all Vulcans do. The little human boy was unprepared for the question and thought that by the tone of Spock's voice that he was mocking him.
"No! I'm just tired! I understood every word of that stuff!" The boy was defensive. Spock thought for a moment and then apologized.
"I did not mean to question your reading comprehension abilities. What is your name? My name is Spock; I am the son of Sarek." Spock raised his hand in the Vulcan salute.
"My name is David Scott. I'm the…son of Jonathan." He tried to mimic Spock's salute, but his fingers couldn't seem to do it correctly. Spock sat down next to him and spread David's fingers so that the index and middle fingers were on one side and his ring finger and last finger were on the other side. David gave Spock a smile, but soon took it back as he remembered that it could not be reciprocated.
"David, may I ask you a question?" Spock asked the boy, who nodded. "Why is it that you read so that your eyes are so close to the manuscript?" Spock had noted that in several of his classes as well, David could be seen pressing his nose against the paper, his light lashes flicking gently across the pages.
David's eyes did not reach Spock's gaze. They wandered around aimlessly, until David put a finger in front of his eyes and focused them.
"Sorry about that. Well, to answer your question…" he paused, gathering a large breath of air. Whatever he was going to say, Spock could see that it was difficult for him to talk about. "…I, I can't see as well as Vulcans do. My glasses are hardly useful here because of the gravity change and there are no optometrists here because Vulcans always have perfect sight. So there is really no choice. It's not like you have "books on speech pad" or anything." Spock carefully noted the sarcasm in the boy's voice.
"David, I did not mean to insult you or make you defensive. If you wish, I can read the texts aloud to you to help you with your studies. You have only to ask." David nodded, but didn't say anything. As they stood up, the bell to signal the end of the break rang and the boys walked silently back to their classroom.
"David Scott, what is your theory as to why molecules have polarity?" The teacher stood expectantly, waiting, watching. David fumbled for a minute with his notes and then admitted defeat.
"I don't know." His head hung low. The teacher, T'Sar, spoke again.
"Perhaps you ought to read the textbook instead of relying on your classmates to answer the questions, Mr. Scott." T'Sar turned a disapproving eye upon him. David looked like he wanted to disappear. He shifted books around in his desk and then tried his hardest to look like he was paying close attention to every word. T'Sar turned and called on a Vulcan boy, Sofek, who supplied the standard Vulcan answer, right out of the textbook. As the rest of the class began a debate on molecular polarity and its effects on matter/antimatter displacement, David felt small drops of liquid fall from the corner of his eye. He was puzzled. The reprimand had not been harsh enough to make him cry, so what was the liquid? As he looked down at his notebook, he saw a growing puddle of blood. He did a double-take, causing it instead to run down the side of his face. He grabbed a handkerchief from his book bag and pressed it to his eye. Hopefully the cloth would help stop the bleeding. He put the soiled notebook papers away and then pulled out some fresh slices of paper. Only one hour to go.
The time went by slowly; David could feel the delicate balance of pressures in his eye slowly distort. He took a little bit of pressure off his eye by bringing the handkerchief off of the corner for a moment, but clapped it on again once the blood started to trickle. The children began packing up their bags and soon after, the release bell rang. David, who had packed up with one hand while holding the handkerchief with the other, filed out of the classroom quickly. The other children whispered behind their hands as they watched him go. Spock, who had studied to the last second of the debate, inserted his books into his pack and walked out, saying the formal good-bye to his teacher who said it back to him. He walked home and began his nightly studies.
David went home quickly as well. Since his home was only two short blocks from the school, he made it home in about ten minutes. He pulled out the access card from his back pocket and inserted it in the card slot in the gate. The gate was part of a high fence that ran around the perimeter of his parents' property. His sight, even at other times, made it impossible to do a full retina scan, so his parents had installed an alternative type of security. The card had been accepted by the system and had unlocked the gate. He pushed it open, pushed open the front door and went inside the generations-old house. He relished the cool temperature of the house in contrast to the sweltering heat outside.
David put down his book bag on the table in his room. Opening the bag, he pulled out the textbook he had struggled to read that the morning break and set it face-down on a machine in the corner of his room. There was a hinged lid on the machine, which he promptly flipped down on top of the book. Then he flipped a switch on the side of the machine and it softly began to hum.
"Kurtzweil Reading Edge. Please press key one to start scanning. To stop scanning, press key 5. Press key 2 to start reading." The synthesized voice's familiarity relaxed David. He picked up a keypad and pressed the largest key on the far left. The Kurtzweil made a chirping noise and then, a light moved across the glass screen under the lid. While the Kurtzweil was scanning, which took about a minute, David came back into the room with a patch of artificial skin over his left eye. It would grow over the eye and then separate so that there would be a new corner to his eye and an eyelid with lashes. He pressed "key 2" and the machine began to read the textbook aloud to him. He went and sat on his bed as it whirred and clicked.
"In the year 2273, Zephram Cochrane, the Terran man responsible for creating the first piece of warp-capable technology from the planet Terra (Earth) , began work on his shuttle, the Phoenix."
David closed his aching eyes and lay back on his pillows, listening. On his eyelids danced minute patterns of light created by the detachment of his retinas from the muscle walls at the back of his eyes. The darkness in the corners of his eyes, ever creeping closer, did not keep the lights aflame. They would disappear into the nothingness and then return in glory as they were born aloft by his ever-searching pupils. Many times, he would come home from school, his eyes bleeding as usual from the strain put on them to read constantly. Such days, which were occurring closer together as of late, were cause for the wearing of sleepshades, a piece of cloth contoured to the face to block light.
David opened his eyes and stood. He waited for the haze of light to vanish and then he walked over to the shelf were he kept some other adaptive technology like a notetaker and a few canes. On top of his favorite cane, there lay a pair of sleepshades. He picked them up and tied the elastic in a knot behind his head. He then walked back to his bed, counting the steps. He scanned the next page of the book and waited for it to begin reading. In the silence that came after a scan, he heard a knock at the door. He was puzzled. Anyone who gained access to the gate should have access to the door…