A/N: So, with Doe/Cygnus now with some vocal cords, Uhura's going to work on the UT. As an editorial note, I'll be using […] to fill in for words that the computer doesn't have in Standard. So... don't read it as a pause, or a replacement for a single word, but a placeholder for any number of incomprehensible notes. Hope that clarifies some!
"I think you're jealous, Doctor."
McCoy looked up from the status report he'd been working on.
"Nurse Chapel?"
"You've had our patient to yourself all this time. Cygnus scared off everyone else, and you'd pretty much developed your own little language the past couple weeks."
McCoy sighed and turned back to his paperwork.
"I have no idea what you're talking about Christine."
She set a cup of coffee down in front of him.
"Two sugars. Hope you don't mind. I figured you could use some sweetness right about now."
"Hmm."
"Uhura is making headway with the UT. But I figured I'd tell you her biggest news."
"Hm?"
"Cygnus is the father of the eggs, not the mother."
McCoy felt his lips quirk.
"Thank you, Miss Chapel. That does make my day."
She grinned. "I thought it might. Enjoy your coffee."
McCoy took a moment to open up his patient file and preform a quick update.
Patient: Cygnus
Planet: Unknown
Sex/Gender/Other: Male, with undeveloped secondary characteristics. Unknown if typical of the species or not. Reproductive systems more similar to Earth avians, than mammalians, so point of reference is...
"Good, now let's try for some... movement words, hmm?"
McCoy saved and closed the file. The coffee mug warmed his hands pleasantly. He stood, leaning in the doorframe and watched the tent in the surgery section of his sickbay.
"Left," the tinny computer voice of the PADD suggested, showing Cygnus some icon to describe it.
A deep, musical tone flowed. The computer recorded this and gave its little affirmative chirp.
"Right," Again.
Another tone, this one more upbeat. Or something.
"Forward."
This note a flat collection.
"Reverse."
Now, a sort of arial loop.
"Very good Cygnus. Alright, how about... land formations."
Uhura's bright tenacity shown through as she pushed Cygnus on, and on. She often asked a question, listened to what the computer would be able to translate for him, then continue on a different tact. Every sound, every word she could correlate from Cygnus' language to Standard meant the computer would be more capable at extrapolating the rest.
"Any idea why it's being so difficult?" McCoy asked, after they'd finished off different types of bodies of water.
"Tonal language, Doctor. With variances like... like music. The difference between a D, a D Flat, a D Sharp... but I think he's got some half notes in between as well. Each time I try to get the computer to translate something to him, he gets frustrated. We'll get there."
"Blinking. Language. Soon we'll be in the lap of luxury, Lieutenant. Go on back to your lesson. Sorry I interrupted."
McCoy kept his place in the doorframe, letting himself enjoy the sound of Cygnus' musical voice filling the sickbay.
"Doctor McCoy?"
McCoy blinked up at the first officer.
"I... wait. How long have you been there?"
"I have been standing here with sufficient time to state your name three times, Doctor. I had begun to wonder if you had placed under some sort of alien hypnosis. Considering that you have confined yourself to sickbay for the past twelve days, however, I found it unlikely. Perhaps some sort of innate failure within the human nerves centers?"
"Just because I loose focus for a couple minutes, doesn't mean I'm got a cross circuit in the brainpan like you seem to sport around." He sucked down the rest of his coffee, frowning at the empty cup. I really had let myself get distracted. It's gone cold, the sugar settled to that gross sludge at the bottom. No wonder I don't like sugar.
"So, what brings your blasted Vulcan hide into my sickbay anyway?"
"I presumed that Uhura would have the basics of communication at this point, and felt it would be a good time to bring my partial reconstructions for your patient to examine."
"Heh, so you're excited to show off your little art project, huh? How very un-Vulcan-like, showing that much emotion. His name's Cygnus, by the way."
That infuriating eyebrow went skyward. "You anticipate an emotional investment in my work, Doctor, which I do not have. I simply wished to provide the requested material in as expedient manner possible."
McCoy waved off the argument. "Fine, Spock, fine. Where are these projections you've come up with? We'll see if Uhura has enough of a language to get your idea across."
After Spock indicated the covered cart behind him, McCoy took them both to put on sterile garb again.
"I can not wait until Cygnus has skin again. Once we've got that vital organ regenerated-"
"Doctor McCoy, you don't need to explain the complexity of infection to me. I am quite aware of the risks inherent in exposure."
McCoy rolled his eyes as he pulled his respirator mask on.
"Come on you green-blooded artisan. If I'm aching for skin, I can't imagine what Cygnus thinks about it right now."
McCoy pulled back the flap to the tent, giving Spock a wide berth to wheel in his covered cart.
A long, low hiss brought all eyes to Cygnus.
"Egg stealer!"
"It seems," Spock replied. "That your translator is working adequately, Lieutenant Uhura. I must offer my congratulations."
"I thought I told you to get the computer to say 'child,' not 'egg,' Uhura."
"I did," she huffed. "He's using a different... conjugation, for lack of a better concept. Child-before-child, would be closer. Should I tell the computer to use the word fetus?"
McCoy shook his head. "No, I suppose egg would work for that. At least medically. I'll leave you to figure out the social connotations.
"Cygnus," McCoy turned back to his patient. "This is Mr. Spock. He didn't steal your eggs, he saved them. Went right into the fire in your ship and brought them back. See? They're right next to you, just fine."
Cygnus blinked up at him, long and hard.
"You […] make sense, Leonard."
McCoy glared over at Spock, just waiting, expecting the inevitable quip in return. Something along the lines of, I have been waiting a long time to say the same, but that date will in all probability never occur.
The tilted eyebrow seemed to say enough.
"It is nice to finally be able to talk with you, Cygnus."
A long blink. "Yes. What magic allow […] song?"
Uhura waved the PADD about. "This."
A slight nod. "I thought," Cygnus continued with deep clicking, whirling, song, "teach me."
"It's called a Universal Translator. Once the computer knows enough of your words, we will be able to speak as if you knew our language, and we yours."
"It sounds like you speak my tongue. Some words […] broken."
"That's normal, until the computer has learned enough."
Another long blink.
"What egg stealer here for? This is place for Uhura. For Leonard. For horrors."
McCoy blinked at Uhura. "Horrors?"
Her worried eyes said it all. "'Doe,' apparently, translated as..."
"Ah." Horrors. Doe. The first sight of his own face. Of flesh pulled back. Unblinking eyes. Exposed bone. Tubes and switches and wires, all keeping him alive.
"We are attempting to formulate a treatment plan for you. The primary focus at this juncture is reconstruction of tissue, muscle and bone, where needed. Once this reconstruction has been complete, Doctor McCoy will endeavor to replace the skin that had to be excised because of thermal damage."
"[...] Broken words," Cygnus declared.
"And that's why we use plain Standard around here, hm, Spock?"
"I am stating the facts in as straightforward manner as I am able."
"Cygnus," McCoy fought the urge to rub the back of his head. How to word it, simply? How to word it, when he had no idea what the computer had figured out, vocabulary-wise? "You remember the images we took, of you earlier."
"Horrors."
McCoy nodded. "Horrors. I want to fix everything."
"Like you did for my children?"
"Yes. Like I did for them. I can mend what happened. But we will need your help. We've never met one of your people before. I can replace what was lost, but it will be difficult if I don't know what was lost."
"This […] why for mending words first?"
"Yes. That's why exactly."
Cygnus sighed and let his eyes fall closed.
"Ask questions. I am made of pain tomorrow."
McCoy blinked up at Uhura. She shrugged as if to say, Inaccurate translation, sorry.
"Mr. Spock has some extrapolations he would like to show you. We took pictures of your skull, of you under all of your skin. I just want you to pick the closest thing to your face. The closer we can get to start with, the less reconstructive surgery we will have to preform later."
"Face. Face. Face. All you mend is face. Eyes. Voice. Why not mend-" Cygnus lifted the stump of his right arm. "Voice is […] but need […]. Without […] I can not care for children. Without […] lost."
"Easy, Cygnus, easy. We will get to your hands in time, won't we Leonard?"
"Yes. We will be your hands, for now."
Another, long, contemplative blink.
"You are my hands."
"Yes," McCoy replied. "Just let us know what you need."
"Show […] egg stealer work."
"I think I like your new nickname, you pointy-eared hobgoblin."
Ah, if only Vulcans showed emotion enough to roll their eyes.
"I have fabricated seven different anatomical models-" McCoy glared at him a moment. "Seven different... guesses. By the time we found you, there was extensive... a great deal of damage. There is a high probability that none will be appropriate. You will inform us of incorrect areas and I will correct them."
"Did enough of that get through?" McCoy asked.
"Egg stealer shows [...] many faces. I pick my face."
"Close enough. Alright, Spock. Show us your artistic skills."
With a surprising flourish, the First Officer slipped back the cover.
Inside the glass case sat seven very realistic looking heads, taking even McCoy aback for a moment. Not every day Spock brings the gift of heads in a box. At least they're not on pikes. Now that'd be an interesting sight.
McCoy studied each of the recreations carefully.
Spock had printed the skulls in some engineering plastic at a 1:1 ratio, each just as big as the remnants of Cygnus' own face. Larger, really, since Spock had built up the flesh around each.
Each showed variation, yet the identical structure beneath lent an eerily similar quality. Close relatives. Same genetics, but seven faces that led vastly different lives. The strange effect amplified by the pale clay Spock had used to build up the mass and facial features.
Spock had even arranged them in a logical, sliding scale.
On the far side, a face quite similar to how Cygnus appeared now. Barely any muscle mass added, just a bit over the jaw, before a thin film of skin. The thinness of the face accentuated the otherness of Cygnus' species. The long face, tending towards snoutishness. Cheekbones appeared higher, more prominent with the layer of skin upon them. What lips Spock had smoothed over the teeth were thin, reached halfway down the gums, leaving Cygnus' front teeth exposed. Eyes sunken into dark pits.
On the near side, Spock had placed the other extreme. Muscle and fat built up a ridge along the bottom of Cygnus' jawbone, squaring the face. A ponderous roll of flesh about the eyes gave the impression of eyebrow ridges, of a soft facial expression. Here, the lips had been formed with generous volume, with a surprising little quirk along the edges. Nearly a smile.
Between these two extremes, a vast array. Ridges of flesh ran up along the top of the skull in one, another had massive build up of muscle, but not fat. Two had conical ridges surrounding the membrane on either side of the skull that acted as ears, the others were flat with a little build up around to the edge to show where it lived.
"That one […] I am like a […] hunter." Two fingers pointed towards the thin face. "That," a point towards the one with build up forehead ridging. "I am […] male of forward clan. Here," the fat one. "I bloat with water death."
Eyes close, then open to stare at the ceiling.
"Voice not my own. Face not my own. I am taken […] and reborn a horror."
"It's just a starting place, Cygnus. Just tell us what is missing and we will fix it."
It took a long moment for his eyes to travel back to the sculptures.
"They are all like you, egg stealer. Leonard. Uhura. Smooth-faced […]. How can I tell my face from these without […]"
"Without..." McCoy wracked his brain. Something tickling. An idea. Missing... missing...
Melodic speech. Avain lungs. Cloaca. Eggs.
"Shit. Feathers. Uhura, pull up some feathers on the PADD, will you? Not just earth ones. We're missing the most important part of his skin. I just-"
"Here, I've got a few." She flipped it around. Cygnus nodded, giving word after word for the structures. He swiped through every image the database could give. Even McCoy's untrained ear could differentiate the separate patterns that came out for each type. The computer chugged away, storing data for use.
"I'm not sure we're going to have enough words to represent all of those," Uhura said with a smile. "It'll be like that Andorian problem."
"Andorian problem?"
"Mmm. Twirty-two words in Andorian for different kinds of snow, and all Standard has is 'snow.'"
"These. […] these around my eyes. I can not find mouth-feathers. Neck feathers are," he swiped quickly. "Here. Ridge display […] over eyes. But I am young." His chin bobbed a moment. "Not so young, this new voice. No one will know me."
His eyes closed again.
"Mr. Spock will take the sculptures back and attempt to add a good layer of feathers to each of them. Maybe then you can pick out which is closest."
"No." Cygnus' eyes focused on one in particular. Just left of the middle. "That one. Molting time. I have seen my bare flesh. […] long ago. Half forgotten." His stared at the sculpture a long time. "May I touch?"
"Are they sterile, Mr. Spock?"
"Yes."
McCoy reached and picked up the one indicated. As he brought it up for Cygnus to examine closer, he realized he could in fact make out little ridges of bone traveling in a definite V formation from between the eyes, right up and over the top of his head. The raised surface on the bone didn't look like much, but he had a feeling Spock had carefully examined them, and found muscle attachments there.
Quite possibly small muscles intended to raise up follicles. Like the hair on the back of his neck. Or a bird to display plumage.
McCoy held up the sculpture to mirror Cygnus' face. His patient tentatively caressed a few folds and crevasses, before huffing in frustration.
"Do not touch others in molt time. Too […]."
"Perhaps... if you could rotate it for him, Leonard? Put it next to his head, so he could be reaching up like this?" Uhura mimed reaching blindly over her own shoulder.
"Would you like to try?"
A blinking nod.
McCoy rotated the clay skull, mindful of the weight as he hovered it in place. My luck I'll drop the thing and collapse a shoulder.
Cygnus closed his eyes again, his one hand reaching up to touch the long line of his nasal cavity.
"Ridge too shallow. Curve is like […] not thin like this."
"Didn't catch that word, Cygnus," Uhura requested clarification, her voice warbling in an attempt to duplicate.
"It is... perfect curve." His eyes shot open, then flicked back and forth. "Healthy curve, not too sharp." He reached out to her shoulder, cupping the curve there. "Too steep a curve. Close."
"I believe he might be describing a concept much like your Earth 'Golden Ratio.' A mathematical construct to explain what, to you, is a beautiful size ratio, but to another species, it is simply another number on the sliding scale."
"So, you're saying you had a beautiful nose, Cygnus?" Uhura teased gently. His hand retreated.
"I have an idea. Is this sculpture far from accur... correct?" Spock asked, pointing towards the one with the most bulk added on.
"Yes. No. I am not like that."
"Good. A moment to reclaim the clay."
"Hurry, Spock, my arms are starting to shake. I'm a doctor, not a body builder, after all."
The Vulcan wedged the clay against the flat surface recently vacated by the skull McCoy now held, then started to apply sections of it as Cygnus described.
"I recommend haste. Utilizing muscle memory, rather than conscious memory, will give you a more accurate impression."
Clear eyes turned to McCoy.
"Tell us what you should feel, not what you think you should feel."
"Don't think about it too much," Uhura helped.
He nodded, eyes closed, and began a slow exploration of his soon-to-be face. Lip walls too thick, corners not far enough back. The tissue around the eyes a little bit too heavy, but not much. Cheeks needed more build up, the bottom of the jaw as well. Nares, nasal openings, too far forward on the face, and not opened enough to breathe comfortably. He even traced little lines, trying to describe where one type of feather sat, or another. Where the skin should have a waxy texture, where it should be soft, flexible, and porous.
After an hour of minute detail changes, he described the colors and textures of his feathers, from which McCoy had to draw him back.
"Muscle and fat first, then skin. Then we will figure out feathers."
"I want [...] my princess must recognize me."
"Princess?" Uhura asked, checking her databanks. They cooed and twilled in that shared, dead language a moment.
"Mother of my children," he clarified. "When […] rejoined, my princess must recognize me."
"We will do our absolute best, Cygnus. I promise."
"If we are finished for today, I would like to take some time to refine this. Reclaim the clay on the rest, and reconstruct the other six yet again, closer to the templet that this model gives. Just to be assured that we have the correct model to be extrapolating from."
"That's a fine idea, Mr. Spock. And perhaps when you come back, we can have a conversation about your potty mouth."
Spock collected his assortment of heads, apparently forgetting to cover the ones in the display case.
"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him Horatio," McCoy quoted as the Vulcan left, preferred skull in hand, staring at it as he went. A sharp yelp on the other side of the sickbay doors gave him all the satisfaction of watching the drama unfold without the annoyance of having to, once again, go through decontamination procedures to come back in. "A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy."
"Is the egg stealer friend or foe?"
McCoy ignored Uhura's smile. "Both, and neither. I honestly don't know most days. Uhura, would you mind working on the UT with Cygnus some? It's a good time to do some scans while the new tissue is in use. As long as it doesn't hurt much?"
"Good hurt […] healing hurt."
"That's the spirit."
Cygnus and Uhura worked over him as he began his regular scans.
"What is your princess like?"
The question surprised both of the men, it seemed. McCoy went back to his instruments, but couldn't help but be curious.
"This teaches your machine?"
"No, it doesn't, but it gives me an idea of what kind of words, what concepts, we're missing."
A little huffing sigh lifted Cygnus' ribcage, causing a flicker in the blood-oxygen readings for a moment.
"She is the mother of my eggs," Cygnus said. McCoy's eyes flicked up to Uhura, watching as she tweaked grammar and word usage to fit human expectations of conversational flow. "What else is there?"
"When did you meet her? When did you fall in love?"
Where is she? Was she on your ship with you? Were there others on that flaming slag heap?
His chin bobbed a moment.
"It is as with any, I suppose. We have known each other since […]. It was the time of meeting, of mating. She said she loved my..." His ruined hand cupped the top of his nasal passage again. "My perfect nose. Hers had a little […] curve."
McCoy looked up, seeing the gesture. "Tell the computer, concave, or dished."
Uhura nodded, then gestured for him to continue. "I courted her. My voice... she will not recognize my […] now.
"She stayed […] from courting, until the eggs." He puffed up a little at this. Must be important, at least to him. For whatever reason. "Stayed another night too. Then... meeting and mating time came. Other […] called her into the dark. But I have our children. My first […]."
His hand came to rest on the glass, in an all-too-familiar caress.
"I don't understand," Uhura said, tucking her language tricorder down on her lap. "'Meeting and mating'? Why would she leave you after laying her eggs?"
"Not the same with your eggs? You stay with them?"
"Well, in a sense."
His eyes flicked away again.
"Females stay long enough [...] eggs. They are laid, and then the female finds another nest. Another worthy male. That, is our way."
"You raise your children alone?"
A nod. "But... my mate will return. She will see how well I care for them, and she will come back to us."
Uhura passed him a sad glance. Wonder if she's thinking the same 'If I raise your kids, you'll come home, right?' I am. Just replace single mom stuck in the system with single dad with more eggs than digits left and... sheesh. The universe is full of parallels.
"Leonard. You said earlier. You would be my hands."
"I already have been, haven't I? Hell, now that we can talk, am I doing right, with the rotations?"
Cygnus' eyes got a pleased little tilt. It'd be nice to see a smiling face though. Soon.
"Yes. Your image-idea helped."
"Image-idea?"
McCoy blushed at Uhura's scrutiny; Cygnus pulled up a couple of the rotation videos McCoy'd recorded days ago.
"You didn't think […]."
"Ah, another word to work on. Give me a second."
The dead parrot language didn't have whatever it was they needed to share for comprehension, so they rotated between a couple others.
"Oh!" Uhura tapped her forehead with her palm. "Time. Ick, that's never a fun one to translate. Let's get some baselines."
Uhura delved right in while McCoy not-so-patiently waited to figure out what the hell he'd been doing wrong. Again, the two of them flipped back and forth between some different languages, then started tapping fingertips against surfaces. McCoy flinched.
"What's that for?"
"Working out relative times. An hour on Vulcan isn't the same as an hour on Earth, because the days are different. And humans divide time based on the rotation of our planet into rather arbitrary sections. So, for basic communication needs, easier to figure out what the smallest practical unit of measurement is, and work up from there."
Cygnus tapped a series again.
"Ten seconds," he said, calmly.
"There, that came out just fine. And this," she tapped herself. "Is our ten seconds."
"Shorter."
"Exactly. Okay, so if that's your second, then your minute and hour are going to be-"
"Please don't tell me your going to tap that out."
"No, no point. But now when you say 'one hour,' the computer should switch it to his 'one hour, forty minutes.' Kapesh?"
"Everything but that last word."
"No wonder Spock thinks your such a pain. Okay, back in conversation. Leonard, you forgot to record a way for Cygnus to indicate time."
"I didn't think about it, I'm sorry," McCoy responded, feeling quite guilty. Not that he would have figured out a way to do it anyway.
"No, the time is close. A small time too frequent. Closer to six hours."
"Really? Six whole hours? Damn, I'll be able to get a whole night's sleep in!"
Cygnus' eyes slipped back and forth between the two of them.
"I wish to ask questions. Private questions."
McCoy set his scanner down. "Feel free to ask whatever you want to. As your doctor, I have your best interests at heart, and I am sworn to keep your private life private."
He pointed to Uhura. "She is doctor too?"
"No, Cygnus, but I'd like to be your friend. Friends keep each others' secrets."
"Many words still broken. Perhaps […] later."
"No rush," Uhura insisted with a smile. "Do you feel up to working on the UT little more?"
"Yes."
