I still say that it makes no sense to have to spend an hour going through my formatting just because ff has a grudge against Word, but such as it be.
Also, no chapter would be complete without me thanking Spockaholic. Seriously, she's awesome.
Chapter Three
The good doctor had obviously guessed their destination as soon as he chose the floor in the turbo lift, but despite JT's apparent knowledge of the Enterprise, he had not recognized what Deck 4 was generally used for and repeatedly insisted that he disliked surprises. While Spock knew this to be true, gifts were to be anticipated and he was certain that this was an appropriate gesture.
Despite himself, Spock did feel a flicker of trepidation before he keyed his security code into the number pad by the door but quickly strengthened his shields against such failings. There was no logical reason for such an emotion. Whether JT responded positively to the surprise or not should have no impact on himself. Kaiidth. What was.
JT remained silent as the door opened, revealing a small room with one wall entirely composed of transparent aluminum, exposing a section of space to the viewer. The two Starfleet Officers allowed him to precede them, McCoy concentrated on the opaque sidewall but entered the room without any hesitation, and let the door close behind them.
For a few moments, JT merely stared at the stars in awe but eventually he raised his hand as if to caress one of the many points of light.
"It's beautiful Spock," he whispered. "Thank you."
"You are most welcome, JT."
The trio stood unmoving for several minutes, JT fixated on the expanse before him, Spock content with his Captain's response, and McCoy silently chanted the bones of the Andorian skeletal structure as he tried to ignore the vast void threatening to engulf them. Eventually JT turned back to face them, his pleasure turning to concern when he saw how the doctor was trembling.
"Come on. Next stop's my quarters. I want to check on something."
"As you wish," agreed Spock, bowing his head.
McCoy needed no further encouragement. He had come a long way in five years. Not so long ago he would've had a panic attack at the doorway. After Jim's patient coaching he'd managed to pass the Fleet mandatory space flight but had still bolted out of the simulation when it was over. These days he could calmly walk over to the door and enter in his passcode without his fingers slipping once. One day, he might actually be able to stand in that room without a qualm. Today was not that day and he was the first one out of the door by several meters.
"You ok there, Sawbones?"
"Fine."
"You sure?"
"I'm fine," he gritted out. Before JT could ask again, in which case the doctor would have felt perfectly vindicated in biting his head off, Spock interrupted.
"Your quarters are one deck down, JT."
McCoy blanched at the reminder that his own quarters were so close to that and promised himself that he'd be sleeping in his office again for the next couple of days until he could forget it again.
JT merely gestured for Spock to precede him.
As his usual place was by his Captain's side, he was somewhat uncomfortable with this but reminded himself that it was only logical for him to lead in an environment where JT had only a basic knowledge of the layout. They continued in the suddenly uncomfortable silence until they reached the senior officer's quarters, and Spock, McCoy and JT were all pleased when they finally reached the correct door.
Both Spock and McCoy noted the piercing glance JT gave the name plaque by the side of the door but said nothing as he entered and began to examine his surroundings intently.
Something he saw must have satisfied him because he headed straight towards the shelf containing most of his modest collection of books and picked one seemingly by random. It became obvious that the book had been in Jim's possession for longer than either of them had realized when he quickly skipped to a page three-quarters of the way through and stared at the primitive, pressed paper-mulch.
Whatever he found there caused his shoulders to tighten and he quickly replaced the book exactly where he had found it. Spock had always assumed that the books were arranged by random in the manner so many humans favored, but perhaps not. Their order certainly seemed familiar to the younger version of their Captain, an event that was highly unlikely if there was no underlying pattern to the chaos. It was another question to ask when Jim was found.
In a seemingly erratic manner, JT continued to assess various parts of the small rooms. He ran his hands carefully over the unworn end of a well-used stylus sitting by his personal computer. He picked up a small black rock and tossed it into the air four times before finally setting it back exactly where he'd found it. He proceeded to then check under the small desk and second shelf down on the left before finally moving to lie across the bed.
"Alright, I'll admit it. This place is mine," he said as he studied the small collection of books immediately by his bed. "I haven't even seen some of this stuff in years. I definitely wouldn't pull them out of storage unless this was a long term thing."
Spock and Leonard shared a look, but it was Spock that asked the question.
"Storage? Why are your belongings not in your current residence?"
"Older-me doesn't talk much about his past, does he?" he commented. "I haven't had a home since I was thirteen… and that didn't end well."
"Then where do you live?"
"Here and there. Before I was here, I was settling down for the night in an old abandoned train station." He sighed at their expressions. "It's not as bad as you're thinking. I'm in motels just as often."
The idea that this human could possibly be uncared for at such an age was almost unthinkable. By Vulcan custom, most children became adults by the age of twelve and the successful completion of their kahs'wan, but even so, the majority continued in their family's house until their late twenties depending on certain… biological rhythms. He had understood that Terran culture followed a similar pattern.
"Surely your mother worries for you?" he asked.
"Her? Spock, the last time I even spoke to that woman was three years ago, when the doctors bullied her into it. I don't know about you, but when someone doesn't care when everyone around me says I'm gonna die, I kinda assume they don't care much if I live."
McCoy was the first to recover from the statement.
"What?"
JT shrugged. "They gave me a fifteen percent chance of surviving the surgery to fix some organ damage. They must have told the Comm. Officer on her ship why they were calling, cause next thing I know she's on the line. That lasted maybe twenty really awkward seconds. When she hadn't called back two months later, I got the hint."
While his two future friends stood in shock, JT carefully rearranged himself so that he was lying almost in the center of the bed with his head exactly on the pillow. He shuffled about for a few seconds before judging that this spot was about right. The other-him must have a couple of inches across the shoulders on him because the imprint he'd left didn't feel right but it was close enough, especially when he realized that if he just looked to the left he could see every title of the books slightly behind him. It was creepy, but this really was how he'd arrange his perfect bedroom.
Still frowning slightly, he leant over and reached for the hidden compartment he knew should be just under the bed. It was maybe half an inch further away from where he could comfortably reach, but that made sense. Human males were still growing up until they were about twenty and the simple tap combination was easy enough. It was the same sort of pattern he'd used as a rudimentary password on his first touch PADD back when he was ten.
He had to stretch a bit further than he would have liked to grab one of the many hermetically sealed packages inside and when he finally looked at it he didn't recognize the label. His frown deepened but he carefully opened the wrapping and took a cautious bite from a corner. It took a few milliseconds for him to realize that it tasted vaguely familiar.
"They make these in apple now? It almost tastes edible." He stared at the food in mistrust and re-sealed the wrapper. "That's… actually, that's just really, really creepy. When the hell did they make these things taste like food?"
Bones stared.
He recognized the packaging on what JT had just eaten. It wasn't comfort food. As far as the medical profession was concerned, it didn't really count as food at all. It was an emergency ration. It was a highly concentrated, completely synthesized, block of complex molecule coils of carbohydrates, sugars, basic vitamins and immune boosters. It barely even unraveled in time to be digested, unless it was eaten a crumb at a time.
Basically, it was someone's last chance, hermetically sealed. The only time he could think of anyone using the stuff, was years ago during a conference, when a colleague had recommended the rations for patients with certain eating disorders. Even Starfleet thought they borrowed too much against future resources to be useful in most cases.
Those things shouldn't be in anyone's quarters, and certainly not Jim's.
"JT," softly asked McCoy, trying his best to be as non-confrontational as possible. "Why've you got rations hidden in your room?"
"Hey, do not knock emergency rations," he grinned as he easily replaced the item. "One of those can keep a person going almost a week, if you're careful."
"And willing to risk malnutrition? Jim, tell me you're eating more than that?"
Bones couldn't quite place the look on the teenager's face. It was almost amused, but in a bitter way he had never known Jim to be. He knew his friend had issues- anyone who actually paid attention to the idiot and bothered to look past some of those masks could see that- but this? Hoarding emergency rations in his room? Sleeping rough at seventeen? His mom not wanting to know? This wasn't just issues, this needed a complete psychological evaluation, and this boy was only five years younger than when he'd first met him. How could he not have noticed this?
Jim got him through the aftermath of his divorce, listened to his moaning and forced him back out among people. Now he was finding out that all the times he'd thought he'd returned the favor and helped Jim, he might not have even scratched the surface.
"Ok," drawled JT, confused by the doctor's obvious mental anguish. These people were just weird. "Either you are like the worst doctor, in the history of doctors ever, or sometime between my-now and this-now, I did some serious hacking and sealed a lot of files I'm not even meant to know exist."
JT resettled against the pillow as he considered just how much work he'd have to do to pull off a stunt like that. It was do-able at least and it reminded him of something else he'd come to this room to check.
"Computer?"
"Working," replied the synthesized female voice.
"Access Captain's Personal Log."
"Accessing."
"Replay… uh, fourteenth entry, coded 'star shape'."
The warm, more familiar tones of their Captain immediately began to echo across the room.
-Captain's personal log, Stardate 2259.0. So, today I got totally screwed over… and the bastards didn't even buy me a drink first. Fucking milk runs. I hate milk runs. I've got the best crew ever, the most beautiful lady in the galaxy and they've got us on fucking milk runs. I mean we are getting a lot of drill time in so that's good but still… Least they can't keep passing us over. I mean Enterprise is still officially the flagship. They've got a month, maybe two, before they'll have to either throw us a bone or downgrade her, and that'd be a PR nightmare. I swear if it weren't for Chris, I'd think the promotion to Admiral did something to people, liquefy their brains or something. Oh! Reminder to self, I've got to get something for the old man when we pull into Starbase 2 tomorrow. It'll take a good three months to get anything sent back to New Vulcan so if I don't get it now it'll be late for his birthday and that's just not happening. I can't let him think he's all alone out here. I've got plenty of time. Scotty says he'll need fifteen hours docked to make those unspecified engine-repairs-that-I-know-nothing-about. Plausible deniability aside, if he doesn't keep a close eye on those Rebshan Fluxes and blows us all up, I am so going to kill him. End log-
"Computer, how often is the phrase 'Old Man' recorded at least once in all personal log entries coded 'star shape'?" asked JT.
He got the reference to 'lady' meaning the ship. He'd assume from what the sawbones had been telling him that Chris was Christopher Pike, apparently an Admiral these days, which was pretty impressive. At a guess, he'd say 'Scotty' would be the Chief Engineer. He would have said Chief Science Officer as they tended to be a bit more adventurous in modifying their ships but he'd been assuming from the uniform that the CSO was Spock.
What he didn't recognize was the 'old man' code. Traditionally, that was what the crew called their captain or immediate Admiral, but that wasn't something he could imagine himself doing. Not with his family life.
"Working. Key phrase 'Old Man' occurs at least once in 63.4 percent of all log entries coded 'star shape'."
"That's interesting." Interesting and creepy. It was amazing how often that combination was coming up since this possible psychotic delusion had started. "Either of you two care to tell me who the hell this old man is?"
"You going to explain why there's rations in your room?" asked McCoy.
JT quickly ran an assessing gaze over his supposedly future-friends before mentally shrugging. It looked like he'd have to find his answers later.
"I think that's one of the thing's you really should be talking to older-me about. It's his room," he replied as charmingly as possible. He wasn't entirely sure the sawbones bought it but he did seem fairly used to the deflection and sighed at him.
"Please… just tell me you're eating. Please?"
"Bones, calm down," he said. "I promise you; ever since I set out on my own, I've been eating at least two semi-balanced meals a day. My calorie count does not dip below seventeen hundred on average, and I even occasionally eat green things." He smiled again and Bones was relieved to see the more honest expression. "And I promise I will keep that up until I meet you sometime in my twenties, and you can supervise my eating habits yourself, ok?"
The doctor nodded and resolved to keep a closer eye on his friend. He'd always known that Jim had food issues, but then so did most people whose food allergies numbered in the dozens. He just never thought about asking. That had changed. His planned conversation about the holes in Jim's medical charts had just extended to a whole host of things he'd never asked about before and Jim was going to answer.
"Come on, I want to get back to sickbay before Pasha wakes up."
That statement was enough to completely derail any previous trains of thought and McCoy stared at the teenager.
"Back to sickbay?"
JT rolled his eyes at him as he ushered everyone back out of the room.
"Bones, try seeing things from my perspective for a moment. Say you get mysteriously thrown into the future and introduced to where you live… which has all your things in it and lots of other cool stuff too, like books you've been planning to buy for years. It's really, really creepy. I might hate sickbay but at least it's familiarly disquieting instead of confusing me in entirely new and never before tried ways."
The explanation seemed to satisfy him and the trio walked on in a surprisingly less awkward silence than before. JT didn't realize it, but at least some of that newfound ease was because he'd automatically started leading the way back to the turbo lift, leaving Spock and McCoy to fall into their customary places at either side of him.
It was not until they were almost back at to the sickbay that Spock finally broke the silence.
"JT, may I ask a question?"
"You can ask whatever you want," he replied. The scientist caught the subtle warning and nodded to himself.
"What is the meaning of the phrase 'star shape'?"
"Now that's an easy one," he said, relieved. "When I was little, my brother Sam tried to get me into the habit of keeping a diary. It's one of those things all 'Fleet brats get taught, something Dad taught him. Anyway, he gave me one of those small things with the entire week cramped into two sides of A5 and, being young, my writing wouldn't fit between the lines. So I improvised. I drew shapes instead, kind of my own little code for how the day had gone. A tree if I'd been hiding, a sun if I was tired. Simple things, really. If a day was good, nothing brilliant but just nice and peaceful, I'd draw stars. So looking back that day was a star shape."
"Logical," approved the scientist. Before he could say anything further, their small group triggered the sickbay's door sensor and immediately a small figure in oversized medical scrubs charged towards them.
"JT you're back!" yelled Pasha in frantic Russian as he wrapped himself around the teen's legs and squeezed. "I thought you were dead but they said you weren't and I was so scared and you were gone and-"
"Pasha, Pasha, Pasha," he laughed as he untangled the hysterical child and hauled him into his arms. Pasha immediately snuggled in deeper, his head tucking into JT's shoulder as he held him close. "It's alright, I'm fine and no one's dead, ok?" he whispered, keeping to Standard. "Don't you remember me saying goodbye?"
"I thought I dream it," he muttered.
Spock raised an incredulous eyebrow at such emotional behavior but McCoy just sighed and after making sure that JT was alright, walked off to harangue his nurses. The three standing by the child's previous bio-bed looked flustered, two of them still pointlessly reaching for the escaped child. McCoy made a mental note to expose them to a day-care sometime soon. His staff were the only medical care available on this doomed tub of bolts, and he needed them to be able to deal with any patient they had. Children included.
JT awkwardly started walking to his own assigned bed, politely waving off Spock's offer of assistance with the heavy weight as he tried to keep Pasha stable. Not that he thought the kid would drop, even if his hands did slip. For such a little guy, Pasha had a tight grip.
"Not a dream, Pasha. I just went for a walk with Commander Spock and Doctor McCoy."
"But they are mean and the scary one hurt you!" Pasha whispered, glaring past JT's shoulder at the officer behind them.
Spock felt a slight unease at the mistrust in the child's face. He knew why Pavel Chekov had singled him out as 'scary' and while JT had apologized for his anger, he had yet to make a verbal contrition for his own unbecoming conduct.
"Scary? No, that's just Spock. He's a friend."
"Then why did he hurt you?"
JT sat on the bio-bed, settling the younger child on his lap and slowly running a gentle hand down his hair and upper back.
"We were just arguing, Pasha," he soothed. "I shouldn't have been out of bed before the doctor said I could be."
"That is why you fell down?"
JT nodded, although Spock did take note of how he did not verbally confirm the child's assumption.
"Everything's fine. Now why don't you let the nice nurse here check you over and when she's done we'll play a game all right?"
Pasha turned towards the blue-skirted Andorian that had been sent over to retrieve her young patient and her antenna twitched under the attention.
"Hi Pavel," she nervously trilled, focusing on her charge rather than the First Officer and strangely de-aged Captain. "I promise we won't take very long. Then you can play."
Pasha stared at her until her antenna started twitching again and then turned back to JT.
"What game?"
"What would you like?" JT, grinning at Pasha's suspicious question. The kid had his priorities. He could respect that.
"Math."
"Math?" At Pasha's glare, he shrugged. Obviously, adults' reactions to that subject was a sore point. "Math it is, then. I'll try and find something new, alright?"
"Yes," he agreed in a small voice as he allowed the nurse to take his hand and lead him back to the other side of the room.
Almost immediately, JT picked up the PADD he'd left on his bio-bed and began flicking through the folders. Spock watched curiously, once more noting his expertise with the younger Chekov and adding it the many subjects he still intended to discuss with his Captain. Perhaps Jim would find the explanation of his experience with young children to be an easier topic than some of the other issues his younger self had revealed.
"May I ask what you are looking for, JT?"
"Something that should be on my personal account," he muttered. "Ah! Here it is. Yeah that'll do. He's the navigator you mentioned, right?"
"Yes, Ensign Pavel Chekov is a valuable member of the senior bridge staff."
"If he makes Chief Navigator by his teens, he can handle a few advanced programs. Besides, when I was his age I hated all the math programs the school had. They were always really dumbed down."
"I am aware of the failings of the Terran schooling structure," shortly replied Spock. Considering most of his classmates and students at the Academy had been from Terran backgrounds, he was been well aware of how lax their usual standards were, especially when compared to his own school days. "In addition to Vulcan and Russian, how many languages do you speak?"
JT stared at the scientist for a second before mentally shrugging. He might have decided to stop revealing so much, but surely languages weren't privileged information. He was on a Starfleet vessel. They frowned on anyone not speaking Standard and his language proficiency might never have come up when there was probably a communication officer around constantly.
Not that he actually believed any of this was real now they were out of those quarters. Captain by twenty-something? If an officer made Captain by forty it was impressive.
"Not that many fluently," he hedged just in case. "Maybe another dozen I can hold my own in and a few others I can at least understand. I'm working on Orion Body Language at the moment, but it's really difficult getting any videos on that, and each House has it's own set of symbols, so that's going kinda slow."
"Body language? I assume you do not simply refer to posture and subconscious movements?"
"No, Spock," he said, obviously amused. "It goes back a couple of centuries to the start of the Syndicate. You know, how they'd sell the women as slaves and then they'd work from the inside to get everyone around them hooked on their pheromones? They needed some way to communicate without letting their 'masters' know they were sentient and hand gestures would be a bit too obvious. So they used their entire bodies. It's one of the many reasons why the slave girls were always dancing."
"So that they could be in almost constant communication with their group without arousing suspicion," he conjectured.
JT nodded, pleased that Spock had understood the concept so quickly.
"Yep. I mean, dancing's a huge part of Orion culture anyway, so I guess it just made sense to them. The males use more subtle gestures so that half's easy to learn. It's mostly just questions on how many people the infiltrators have enslaved. The problem is that ever since the Federation destroyed the Syndicate, it's been falling out of favor. Soon no one's going to speak it outside of festivals."
"Then you are attempting to assist in preserving the information."
"Nothing so noble, I'm just curious," he dismissed. Before Spock could comment, a grim looking Doctor McCoy interrupted the pair.
"What's up Doc?" JT asked in a strange accent that Spock was unable to identify. "Time travels making my insides liquefy?"
"Course not," scoffed the doctor. Despite his denial, he didn't meet either of his friends eyes. McCoy's normal motions were forced into stillness, his shoulders tight as he stared at his PADD. "Can you describe for me exactly how you got here?"
"I don't remember exactly," JT replied, intently watching the sawbones. "I'd just finished off my cheeseburger and was settling down for the night, like I said. I remember laying down my sleeping bag and then it's a bit… blurry, but I think I fell asleep. Next thing I know, I woke up in medical scrubs with some clothes right by my bed and you standing five feet away, glaring at your PADD."
"Any pain? Dizziness? Bright lights?"
"No, no and no. Just blurry, like I was already half asleep."
McCoy nodded, still not looking up as he typed in the information.
"That's what the others have said, too. Everything was clear until just before they woke up."
"Something wrong, Bones?" asked JT, his voice light and unconcerned. His body posture was at odds with his tone and Spock found himself carefully scanning the sickbay for whatever threat the Captain had intuited. He could see no reason for the sudden change but he had not required very long to realize that despite the seeming illogic of the fact, his Captain was often correct in situations with limited data.
"Just a few anomalies, nothing to worry about," McCoy said before finally looking up from his PADD to stare at the First Officer. As with many incidents regarding his human colleagues, Spock believed he had failed to understand an emotional communication that had taken place in the last few seconds. "Spock, I need to go down to the planet and take some readings, find out if some of the results are being caused by our proximity to whatever's down there."
"Doctor, as we do not know-"
"Spock," he interrupted before visibly forcing himself to calm down. "I need to go down to the planet."
Strangely, the temporally-displaced JT seemed to have relaxed at the good doctor's uncharacteristic actions. Almost as if a suspicion had been confirmed. It was that, more than Doctor McCoy's agitation, that made Spock reassess.
"Very well."
"Maybe I should come too," announced JT.
Bones swallowed, his fingers tightening on his PADD but his voice remained calm as he demurred.
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"If you're worried about something down on the planet affecting us, then it makes sense to see if me actually being down there makes it worse," he said, strangely cheerful against the implications.
"JT-"
"Before it starts affecting Pasha."
Both officers recognized the tone of voice. It was most often heard when a hostile force was threatening a member of the Captain's away team besides himself, or when he believed that an Admiral's or diplomats order placed the crew in unnecessary jeopardy and Spock allowed himself an idle moment of curiosity. If the Starfleet Command track had not taught the Captain so many of the skills he used to defend his crew, where precisely had he learned such habits?
"Alright JT, alright."
Spock quirked an eyebrow but did not otherwise correct the good doctor on the limits of his ability to make such decisions in his capacity as the CMO.
"I assume that haste is desirable?"
"Yeah," murmured McCoy before looking back up at the First Officer. "Yes Spock, quicker is a hell of a lot better."
"Then I shall alert Lieutenant Sulu that he will remain in command until our return."
Both McCoy and JT looked shocked but as always it was their future Captain that spoke first.
"Spock, you don't have to come too."
"As the effects of the phenomena may prove harmful, it is only logical to minimize the exposure to the rest of the crew. According to regulation, the CMO or Federation civilians may not transport to a possibly unsafe location without an escort from security or other authorized personnel."
JT smiled at him, seemingly pleased and as always, Spock carefully filed the events that had led to such a response. He was certain he would eventually gather enough information to begin to correlate such responses and provoke them purposely.
"Let me guess, you happen to be authorized personnel?" he asked and Spock nodded. He had taken care of that problem before he had even known his Captain.
"Of course."
"Alright. Let me just give this to Pasha and we can go."
For the first time since he'd seen the anomalies rendered by the computer, Bones was worried by something other than the results on his PADD. He knew Jim Kirk and this JT was not that different. Who knew what the idiot believed was suitable to give to a young child. If they weren't careful, they'd be returning Pavel to his parents able to swear in nine languages.
"Give what to him?"
JT ignored him and darted past the bustling med-staff, leaving the doctor to glare after him. He hated it when the kid just ran out in the middle of a conversation like that.
On the other side of the room, the nurses had just finished the rudimentary tests necessary after a young child had just awoken from sedation, this time with far less screaming than the last attempt. Before Pasha could begin insisting that they were meant to give him a lollipop, he caught sight of JT and grinned.
"JT!"
"Hey Pasha," he grinned back, his suspicions ignored for now. "I've downloaded something for you but I've got to leave again, ok?"
His face fell and JT felt a flicker of amusement at how easily Pasha's emotions changed. If he wasn't careful he'd end up just adopting the little brat, he was just too adorable.
"You said you will play with me!" he whined and JT sat down next to him to pull him into a hug.
"I know," he whispered into Pasha's curls. "But I've got some things I've got to get done."
"Where are you going?"
"Off the ship."
He immediately pulled away from JT's side to stare up at him.
"Take me with you!"
"I can't," he said, the apology clear in his voice.
Pasha deflated and allowed himself to be pulled back into the hug. Adults were always saying he had to stay, he was too young to go anywhere and it wasn't fair. One day he'd show them all.
"You're going to have to stay here for me. Will you be good for the nurses?"
"Yes."
"Thank you. Now if you don't like the game I've downloaded, you don't have to play it."
"You think it being too difficult for me," he glared and JT restrained his urge to ruffle the Russian's curls. "I am not stupid."
"I know, but it's a very a grown-up game so if you find it boring or something, just ask one of the med-staff to show you how to access the library database. They've got lots of things on there, okay? Please, Pasha?"
"Yes, JT."
"Good. I'll try and be back soon."
"Yes, JT."
The Chief Medical Officer glared at him as JT made his way back over to them. He might not have the hobgoblin's hearing, but he'd caught enough of that conversation to be worried. Specifically, the words 'grown-up game'.
"Please tell me you didn't just give that kid porn!"
"Why Bones! I am shocked and dismayed that you would ever think such a thing!" He managed to hold onto his mock-indignation for a few seconds before laughing. "Nah, it's just a programming tutorial thing. I kind of make them whenever I build a new system. I used to publish some of them on forums and I guess I just stayed in the habit over the years. They're meant for someone with a bit of computer knowledge though so I don't know if he'll start getting overwhelmed or not."
"Ensign Chekov has a very high natural IQ and a surprisingly logical mind," replied Spock.
"What he means is, the kid's smart as a whip."
"Doctor, I fail to understand how comparing the ensign with an archaic Terran device used to direct livestock gives an accurate impression of his intelligence."
"Look, you walking bunch of circuits! Just because you don't-"
"Guys," interrupted JT. This had the feel of a very old and long running argument that was better off stopped before they built up too much steam. "Shouldn't we get going?"