Chapter 29: Cuts and Splices
Mid-quarter examinations were taking place all over Akadem, for all students above second-year Lower, and below last-year Upper divisions. The youngest children were subject to more frequent evaluations. The more privileged seniors, while enjoying exemption from mid-quarters, were agonizing over their preparations for the grueling exit exams facing them in their next-to-last Quarter.
This day the libraries, the benches underneath the pavilions, the grass of the Main and other parks, the walkways and stairwells were populated with knots of mumbling and frantically obsessing students. Carinne Ramsey sought out her spot on the Jenner House roof. Saavik stayed in the room with her terminal. Neill followed her regular routine of room-to-library-to-class-to-room (and back again). Luine had gone back to classes recently but seemed to study even less than she had before. Holly came by to try to work with her every day, but was no match for her friend's depression. (Carinne had observed to Saavik that the other girl's presence seemed to help a little; in any case, Luine did not want Saavik's help, nor had she recently responded to the Vulcan's offers to play chess.)
To break the grimness of the day, most students welcomed the chance to crowd into the bars and coffee houses to mingle with friends they would ordinarily not see during the study crunch. When they gathered, almost anything was a better topic of conversation than modular physics, algebra, Denebian linguistics, or Arcturan computer patterns. So by lunchtime on a Wednesday, not quite two weeks after Tesat's acquittal, the news was all over the planet that her Inquiry Board was reconvening to hear new evidence.
"They've found the guy who tried to frame her!" Cranston Pike was the one who informed a packed table at the Grub, and as his voice carried rather well, no one in the place could avoid hearing. There was immediate interest as other conversations ceased.
Sshajaimajz Raxmi's gray features stretched with emotion. "How do you know? Gossip! Gossip! Let's have it!" The others laughed, but no one disagreed. Someone handed Cran a mug of Kentaur, and he perched on the corner of a table.
"Well, I heard it over at Faculty House… I kind of eavesdropped… well, it can't be a big secret if Dr. Brady was telling it to Dr. Shawe and Dr. Joe with me right there in the office, right? Brady was trying to track this guy down. Tesat thought he might've been a student here once, 'cause he looked familiar. They checked through the back files and matched this guy's holo from the records. He was here a couple of years ago, and just disappeared without finishing his year." One of the students flung a bagel at him; it glanced off his arm. "O.K.! O.K! I'm getting to it! They didn't mention his name while I was listening. Anyway, you can bet Brady was excited. I don't know if they've found out where the guy went."
Kazaba DeMille raised an elegant hand to pet the symbiote she carried on her shoulder. It snuggled its tawny striped head into the hollow of her collarbone. 'Zaba said, "You've even got Oto interested. So, when does the new show start?"
Cran Pike shrugged; he did not know. "I want to know what's gonna happen to Komack. I bet they batch this hearing together with investigating her." This contribution came from Miller DeMott.
Pike added, "And you won't get anyone on the faculty to admit they're really investigating Komack. But I don't see how they can avoid it. Too many people heard her admit her own scuzzy tricks. And that Romulan representative – Bar'ej? – he's after Committee to bring some kind of suit against Komack, for defamation of character. That's what I heard, anyway."
"She made it so obvious that she hates Tesat! I mean, when Saavik threatened to repeat what she was mumbling to herself up there…"
Miller's comment set them to rehashing the entire hearing, which was so much more interesting than talking about classes or exams. They speculated on the repercussions for Sarader Komack. Sapi Tul, an Andorian friend of Shaji's, ventured the opinion that any action against Komack would be taken behind the scenes, very discreetly, so as not to expose her to the scrutiny of students. "They don't just run a prof through the wringer, not like if it was a student. They'll treat Komack really gently, and it probably will not make much difference."
Pike disagreed. "Sapi, I can't see that happening. She's got a lot to answer for. The electronic surveillance. The computer tampering."
"Can they prove that? I don't know how seriously the faculty took that business, not without lots of supporting documents. Brady had some of the records, but who knows?" The blue face was impassive; Sapi was skeptical about the chances of Komack's getting any real punishment. Others chimed in with cynical agreement, and verbal abuse of Dr. Komack.
"Well, let's wait. We might be surprised," Cran Pike said cheerfully. "I for one would love to see Tesat go one-on-one with Komack in cross-examination! I think this incident will be the one that finally makes the crap fly."
"I hope you're right. But I hear that whatever they decide to do, it will be a closed hearing." Shaji did not sound too upset about that: the planetary gossip system would ensure that everyone learned what happened the same day. A thin band at the second joint of its arm glowed and beeped softly. "Agghhhh, my next exam. Is anyone else doing one at 1300 hours?"
'Zaba straightened in her chair. "I wish I cared. Yes, I do have an oral in Tantrian physics, with Dr. Dru. It is depressing to think how many lectures I have slept through this Quarter, and I am still at the head of the roster." She laughed and stretched out her arms, as if seeking the wings which her human physiology had, regrettably, not provided. Cran Pike sent another bagel her way, and she ducked more gracefully than he had. "I am going with Shaji. You groundlings can decide what will go out on the rumor line."
Pike grinned at her back as she floated out with her companion draped over her shoulder, with her gray friend by her side. He liked 'Zaba. She was brilliant and never let them forget it , but seemed to enjoy that fact that the more she slacked off, the better she performed academically. Akadem was a lot more fun because of beings like 'Zaba. He heard his own chronoband chime off as he had programmed it – for a dreadful bout of studying before his three-hour organic chemistry test.
"Anyone else? O.K., may the stars be with you." He hadn't had time to eat after all. A pity, but he'd get something later. Leaving the noisy Grub, Cranston Pike trotted the short distance across the grass to Delta. He realized that in some ways he was reacting like 'Zaba. He felt almost detached from the results of his exams. There was so much more coming up for him: the Star Fleet cadet examinations loomed in the middle of next Quarter… Cran whistled softly as he bounced up the steps to the third-story study center with its soundproof pods. Maybe, later, he'd go find 'Zaba and they'd paraglide together…
--
Tor Srimandan was glad but surprised that his group had drawn a human cadaver for his anatomy practical exam that afternoon. Sunek had not told the student teams which species they would be examined on; it was, after all, a very broad exo-anatomy course, and the pre-meds were expected to know details of the gross anatomy of eighteen different species. The Vulcan had assigned this male specimen to Tor and his team without a comment.
T'Lemmi was not one of his partners, but would be taking her exam in another part of the building. Tor was working this Quarter with Gaaru, a hollow-chested Mominat who always looked deathly ill but who was a perfectly healthy member of his species; and Daryann Teol, a Taffi girl who usually introduced herself as a "Martian" (which was true after a fashion: she had been hatched on that planet where her parents were on assignment). Tor reflected that for his partners this testing cadaver was an exobiological specimen.
The three secured the floor clamps over the hoverjets of the gurney holding their "victim", who had been brought in a tech. Daryann observed rather sourly that Tor had an advantage over them in this exam.
"Hah! That's rich. You know that Sunek is gonna ride my butt doubly hard, for that same reason.. Just wait, he's going to make me sweat for that 'advantage'."
The Taffi's amusement showed in ripples through her pink crest. Gaaru, as rockfaced as the ancient Sphinx, scanned through his notepad one more time. Then Sunek swept into the room, black-caped and austere. The students immediately put away all notes as he commanded attention and silence.
The exam was, as Tor had feared, brutal. For him, the Vulcan healer seemed to have reserved the most obscure and ambiguous problems. He felt the perspiration rolling down his face and neck as he bent over the dead figure – at least it was relatively fresh! – to point to this or that structure, somehow trying to relate what he knew from nice, clean computer simulations to the "real thing." Daryann and Gaaru got difficult questions, too, but none even approached the ones Tor had to field. In his mind, when he had a second to think, he wondered whether Sunek might just have just a little grudge against him…but that would be un-Vulcan, illogical. No, this was all legit, nothing unfair about it, but, oh, man…
Sunek circulated among the dissection tables, setting new problems in identification, disappearing to the next table, returning almost before the unfortunate student had time to grope for an answer, never mixing up a single problem. In consideration for those who did not share his Vulcan constitution, the healer called a short break after only two hours.
Tor headed for the sink in the corner of the lab, threw up, and ran glorious amounts of cold water over his head and neck. He flopped onto a bench near "his" cadaver. His partners joined him after a little heaving of their own. Other groups milled about, expressing curiosity in each others' gruesome specimens.
"Oh, you've got a Terran," remarked a small, blondish Tellarite. "We've got one, too, a woman."
"Isn't that just dandy," Tor replied without enthusiasm. "Ours is a barrel of laughs." Hau'ri shrugged.
"If it makes you feel better, Jane and Miller and Sagil have a Tellarite." He turned his back, miffed, and went back to his table with great dignity.
Gaaru remarked, "He should not, should not, be so sensitive, no? Surely, there is not anything, anything to be sensitive about, hmm? Everyone gets cut up around here, around here." Tor had got used to the Mominat's habit of repeating phrases for emphasis – it carried over from the Momi tongue into Standard. He knew that it irritated Daryann beyond reason.
Glancing over to the cadaver tables, he saw Jane Guerdon still standing by hers, earnestly poking around inside the belly cavity of the dead Tellarite. No surprise, since Jane never had "down time", unlike even the workmaniac Vulcans. You had to know Janey. Tor suspected she must be part cyborg, or a clone; that was actually possible, since rumor had it that she had been raised in – and legally emancipated from – a biotech lab planet…
Sunek broke Tor's ruminations by summoning them all back for the remainder of the exam. Tor sighed. He took the resolution to make T'Lemmi go out with him tonight – no excuses, since he would be just as tired as she was, having taken the same exam with Dr. Ting-xo. They would go out whether or not her damned Supervulcan brother liked it. He needed her company, not anyone else's. Suddenly he realized that Gaaru was giving him an odd look. He must have uttered something bizarre.
"Come on, Terran dragtail. Hop, hop, hop to it. Here comes Sunek to dissect, dissect, dissect what's left of your brain."
--
Saavik had ambivalent feelings about her mid-Quarter poetry test. Dr. Folsom had set some comparative questions for the class: essays demanding "only" a good memory of class discussions and an ability to keep the many styles from becoming spaghetti in the mind. However, Folsom had also included a freestyle question, a writing assignment Saavik had been dreading. She had turned around in her consciousness all the philosophies of poetry and versification they had studied. The troublesome assignment: write a poem to address a point or idea expressed in a poet's works, in a style similar to that poet's. This might, Saavik conceded, be a legitimate way of gauging how much she had learned, but she had no visceral sympathy with poetry, no more than she had when she began the course. At least she was allowed to select the poet whose style she was to mimic. Grimly she set to work.
It came to her, then. By the rules, she ought to select a poet from one of the cultures they had covered in the first half of the course. But she had her own idea…
…The previous day Saavik had received a small parcel from Spock. Unlike standard packages that came processed via planetary or starbase post stations, this bore no computer-generated holo-labels. Instead, the address was carefully and boldly lettered in Standard and Vulcan scripts, the characters spare and obviously done with ease born of long practice. Saavik sat on her bed to open it. Carinne was brushing out her curls – now brown – and let herself down on the bed opposite.
"Package from home?" She smiled at her Vulcan roommate. Carinne had found out from Saavik (so far) only that she had neither parents nor siblings; and of course she knew that Saavik's teacher kept in regular contact with, and she with him.
Saavik looked up and seen on Carinne's bed a somewhat larger parcel; she received these rather frequently. Already in her few months here, Saavik had learned the importance of family to human children, rather different from what it meant to Vulcan or Romulan young. She remembered some of the things Carinne had received in earlier packages: little keepsakes, articles of hairwear, preserved goods, crumbled baked goods. Nothing like that could be expected from Spock, she knew.
Pulling the tabs of the packaging, she withdrew the slim books, two volumes bound in the archaic style. A recorded letter had been included with them, which Saavik put aside for reading in privacy. She ran her fingers along the rough brown bindings and read the Vulcan script: The Mind in the Desert… Final Sayings. Two collections of the works of Surak. There was unexpected emotion, a strange feeling in the middle of her chest, which she could not relate immediately to any particular thought… great respect for Surak, the honor of owning some of his works? … or a more personal, direct feeling towards the one who had sent them to her? She called herself back to order and opened Final Sayings. She read, thoughtfully, the first item - a poem of Surak! It was poetry; poetry that came from a logical mind and sacrificed none of the logic, for all that it was beautiful.
For the rest of the evening she thought about that poem and the others in the books, interspersed with short sayings and some longer prose that seemed to be speeches of Surak to his followers of long-gone days. Carinne had received some of those famous cookies which she claimed were baked by her mother and her aunt. Saavik accepted one, enjoying the strange spicy flavors. She inspected the other items her roommate displayed from her package – quite ordinary things, they added to the feeling of "home" for Carinne. For a moment, Saavik wondered hew she would feel if ever she had a real home, if she would even recognize it.
Carinne went to study with Miller later on, and Saavik read more in Surak's books. And she played Spock's letter on her terminal.
It was, as always, reassuringly precise. He acknowledged receipt of her letters, made routine inquiries into her health, and offered encouragement for the period of examinations he knew was upon her. He did not refrain from comment on the story she had related to him.
"Saavik, you have chosen Vulcan education and life, to emulate and assimilate. Show that training in yourself, to yourself, even when no one else looks on. The right or wrong related to the temptation to withhold the useful information can best be evaluated by facing your reasons for wanting to, and by looking at what you did when the moment of truth came.
"If you motive was illogical, or born from a desire to hurt the young woman in question, you are the one who knows. Accept the illogic of it, and move on from there. If the end result of your thought processes was the exoneration of an innocent person, then you acted logically and well. Do not, however, expect thanks for this. Do not expect this Romulan girl to see your logic. It may be impossible for you see hers as well. Indeed, I think that she may consider you an adversary and a betrayer of her values."
Saavik marveled at this. Spock knew more about Romulans than she had expected… as he seemed to know more about anything else he could name. And yet… she had not told Spock about hiding her Romulan heritage from Tesat. In a previous letter she had alluded to the inner shame of not being a full Vulcan, but perhaps Spock did not guess the depth of that shame?
Yet as she read on, she saw that perhaps he did.
"If you perceive as a reason for distrusting or disliking this Romulan, your own Romulan heritage and your efforts to subdue its more emotional and destructive facets, do not regard this as unique. Do not see it as a sign that you have failed to be a Vulcan. I have sometimes felt great unease when with humans, precisely because I knew that what was in their makeup was also in mine; the knowledge was often unbearable to me in my younger years, and led me to despise them. Yet I continued to pursue my career among them."
Saavik knew the outcome well. It had been a source of perplexity when she had first known Spock, and it remained so now – when Spock would allude to his own life, split between Vulcan and human goals and expectations. He had not chosen to be exclusively Vulcan, as his father would have wished, but instead had become a vital part of a starship crew, the only Vulcan among them, subjecting himself to constant psychic bombardment from their emotions, subjecting himself in fact to the authority of a human commander.
Already, in those years Saavik had spent aboard Stanek, the adventures of Spock and his captain James T. Kirk were hard to ignore. A very popular documentary series had detailed their voyages of discovery, and there was talk about a dramatic entertainment series for children to follow. Saavik had asked her teacher if it had not been uncomfortable and difficult to deal with an illogical commanding officer and crewmates, and Spock had carefully explained. Words like loyalty and duty she understood, or thought she did. The concepts were consistent with the pursuit of logical solutions, where the loyalty was given and the duty was performed because it all worked towards a logical and desirable end. However, when Spock spoke of friend and brother and explained the bond between captain and officers on the basis of personal trust, she had trouble grasping this. Spock had told her of missions during which his own judgment had indicated one path to take; his captain had led – and Spock had followed – down another path because of a "hunch" or "intuition". The results, Spock claimed, were usually satisfactory to the Federation.
This, she had decided, was the hardest part of going into her hoped-for career. True, Saavik saw now that humans and other species could live together; she knew more about their traits, both admirable and aversive. True, she had learned that each species had a contribution to make, each had its source of pride. However, to become like Spock, to be able to balance logical training with the wisdom to know just when to follow a human's hunch, demanded an acceptance of self which Saavik the Vulcan, Saavik the Romulan, just did not have yet.
Spock had said what he wanted to say in the letter, and he did not belabor the points. He mentioned the works of Surak and noted several passages that might be useful for meditation. His closing was unsubtle and unadorned. Yet Saavik caught herself regretting that the letter was over, that there were no further words to be heard in that deep, even voice… She turned back to her poetry question…
And she was aware now, in the present reality of her poetry test, that she had outlined on her screen, from memory, one of the poems from Surak's The Mind in the Desert. Vulcan literature was part of the course for the second half of the Quarter, not part of the material on the test, but – there it was, "The Sage and the Grain of Sand", on her screen, ready for comments. Her knowledge of Surak's life and philosophies was fair, probably better than that of her fellow-students, but poorer than that of Dr. Folsom. She decided to put down her own thoughts about it anyway.
It was demanding work. Even more demanding was the task of imitating the great man's style. Perhaps it was presumptuous of her to try. She selected one point to respond to, and composed in the Vulcan style a short verse, first in Vulcan, transcribed in Standard writing, then in a freehand Standard translation...
It seemed to come to her logically if not easily or painlessly. Surak's perceptions of his world had come during a time of violence and disruption on his planet; Saavik knew only that part of Vulcan represented by Spock, the scientists on Stanek, and the faculty and students here on Akadem, all civilized beings. They would have seen the Vulcans of Surak's time almost as an alien race. And still… "The Sage" had caused a sympathetic vibration inside Saavik when she had first read it. Now she imagined a matching, harmonic vibration as her own poem developed beneath Surak's on the screen. She thought of Surak and realized that she was envisioning him with Spock's face. Absurd, illogical. Saavik turned all her attention to finishing her exam. It was disgraceful not to concentrate on one's work… most un-Vulcan.
