Interlude: Spock gets a lead
Summary: Spock finds out the Doctor's interested in some academic papers.
OBS: I've finished posting the corrections for the first episode.
Stardate 2479.1 - Aboard the Enterprise
Spock reviewed his notes. His requests for information regarding an individual known as Doctor John Smith had been met with indifference by the Starfleet departments he had contacted. There were either too many people by that name, or too few fitting his profile, none matching all the required parameters. Besides the Parangan incident, which happened before the Enterprise arrived at Galinedoria Beta IV, he had found no other information pertaining to the identity or whereabouts of this 'Doctor' in Federation records.
What made him more curious was that the news of the discovery of the cloaking pattern had failed to arouse more than fleeting interest from Starfleet. After the initial excitement, even the technical and research departments had lost interest, deciding that the pattern discovery was a fluke, unlikely to be repeated or of further use. Most were doubtful of his findings about the existence of the second cloaked ship, or how it managed to avoid detection. They had eventually concluded that the attacker had been a lone Klingon mercenary, of whom there were unfortunately quite a few, using a possibly stolen cloak of unknown origin, under hire by a Parangan faction supporting the Galinedorian rebels.
Even Starfleet Intelligence had shown no interest in pursuing the issue further. They would be interested in interrogating the Doctor if he ever showed up again, but they thought it wasn't worth the effort to go after a rogue explorer who could be very hard to find and probably had little useful information to give. The suggestion that Doctor John Smith might have been a SI operative was met with bemusement, and they showed no interest in the possibility that he might have been employed by an adversary. The only reason Spock could imagine that would explain the indifference from the normally paranoid organization was that they were already overworked with some ongoing top-secret intelligence operation. That, or they were trying to deflect any suggestion that the Doctor was really under SI employ.
All Spock had managed to get from Starfleet was a warrant for the Doctor's detention if he was ever identified within Federation territory. He was wanted for questioning for trespassing the blockade, assaulting a crewmember, and leaving the Enterprise before the investigation on the circumstances of the Galinedorian incident was complete. But the low priority assigned to the warrant made it almost certain that it would be easy for him to avoid capture, especially given his proven resourcefulness.
Since the Galinedorian incident, four months earlier, the Enterprise had been through a number of scrapes, and almost everyone had forgotten their encounter with the Doctor. Except Spock, of course. His continued usage of Federation channels for further inquiries had resulted in complaints. He hadn't been outright ordered by Starfleet Command to drop his investigation, but there had been strong suggestions that the matter was not worth his time or Federation resources. The captain had backed him, but even Kirk was eventually forced to suggest he drop the issue, at least officially, and conduct any further investigation through private channels.
Ironically, it was as a result of resorting to alternate sources of information that he had his first real clue to the Doctor's whereabouts after he left the Enterprise. There'd been a brief incident on Alander Prime, around one month after they left Galinedoria, where a person identifying himself as 'Doctor John Smith' had requested copies of a number of medical research papers in the university, disappearing before retrieving them. It had only been reported because one of the authors of the requested papers, a Professor Jovan Ka'h, was murdered in the same city on the following day. There were enough Doctors named John Smith that Spock wasn't particularly intrigued by the coincidence, especially because the Doctor who'd appeared in the Enterprise not only didn't seem to be the academic type but also had seemingly nothing to do with medicine. But with no real evidence, he had to follow any possible lead. He'd decided to contact an old acquaintance, an assistant astrophysics professor who taught in the university, asking for further information related to the incident. And he finally got a positive response.
He examined the copy of the report made by the university's security on their visitor. The images were not high quality, but Spock could recognize the Doctor by a brief shot of his face and by his clothing, which was, surprisingly enough, the same that he had worn while on Galinedoria. Satisfied that this was the man he was looking for, he considered how he'd gotten there. It would have been possible, though just barely, for the Doctor to travel the distance between Galinedoria and Alander Prime in a normal civilian shuttle in the time separating the two incidents. He would have to make an official inquiry about the shuttles that arrived on Alander Prime in the days before the crime and left soon afterwards. He hoped just one inquiry would not attract undue attention, since there was no need to mention Doctor John Smith's name.
Spock went over the report looking for any possible clues regarding the Doctor's intentions. Apparently meeting him was remarkable enough for the library assistant to clearly remember him, asserting her confusion with the visitor's excitable behavior and strange requests. He turned to watch for the second time the video where the murder investigators interrogated the librarian. 'You see, he's certainly not the murderer! He asked about Professor Ka'h, hoping he could meet him, yeah, but that's only because I asked him if they had worked together before, the way he talked about the Professor's research! We talked about a million things. Well, it was mostly him talking, really... He seemed so enthusiastic about everything!' If Spock hadn't recognized John Smith from the image, he'd be doubtful the man described by the girl was the same man he had met in Galinedoria.
He considered the possibility that the Doctor had purposely attracted attention to himself, but for what possible reason? Without the murder on the following day, the records of his visit would have been erased after the prescribed fifty days. But the investigators soon learned about the stranger asking for the murdered man in the university, and collected what they could about him. However, the weapon was never found, and there was no evidence connecting the Doctor to the man's death. The crime was eventually attributed to a wild shot fired during a heated discussion in a bar, which hit the professor passing nearby. Spock considered it was unlikely that the Doctor's visit had anything to do with the murder. Instead, the news could instead have convinced him to change his plans, so he left before he could collect the papers.
Spock reviewed the list of papers the Doctor had requested. Research articles and panel reports in microbiology, immunology and genetics. Most were retrieved immediately, but a few, exactly the ones to which the murdered professor had contributed, were not available to the general public. They referred to ongoing research, so the Doctor had had to fill in a form explaining his interest in them. But Spock couldn't understand it due to his lack of knowledge in human medicine. However, he suspected it was, at least in part, meaningless babble, designed to impress less than knowledgeable readers.
He decided to obtain copies of the papers himself and ask for Doctor McCoy's opinion on them and the Doctor's declarations on the request form. After all, the subjects fell within his purview. Perhaps the good doctor would be able to help Spock understand what Doctor John Smith was looking for. Meanwhile, it was possible that he'd visited other universities looking for similar information. Spock began to recall all his acquaintances currently engaged at universities and research institutes, whether in Federation territory or on nearby systems. He took some time to elaborate his messages carefully, framing his interest in finding the man as being purely academic, and sent them. If he could figure out what the Doctor was searching for, maybe they could eventually catch up with him.
A/N: I thank you all, who have favorited and are following this story. I hope you'll continue to enjoy it! Now that the overall plot is beginning to take shape, I invite you to review and tell me what you think about it, ask questions, and correct me if I made any mistake. Your reviews will help me write more and better!
My heartfelt thanks to my beta, Ersatz Einstein, who has been painstakingly reviewing my drafts. Without him, reading this story would be much more painful.
The first chapter of the second episode, Investigation, should follow soon. It'll be shorter than the first. I've finally realized that I won't be able to maintain the previous pace this year, so starting in March I'll post one chapter every other week, probably on Tuesdays. There'll probably be a slightly longer interval between episodes.