Chapter 5

"What have you got?" Brown asked as he entered the starbase's bright white mortuary.

Dr. T'Ling was present, as was Chief Engineer Patel, both of them in black surgical garb. Behind them, Reena Bird lay on an examination table, half-covered by a sheet.

"Given the mechanical nature of the cardiac implant," T'Ling said, "I asked Commander Patel to assist in its analysis, for a second opinion."

Brown nodded and looked to Patel. While T'Ling was likely very familiar with medical prosthetics like the heart, a malfunction this severe called for engineering expertise.

Patel, seemingly unfazed by the nearby cadaver, led Brown to a wall monitor which displayed a diagram of the heart's numerous fragments.

"It was tricky," started the commander. "There, uh, wasn't much of it left. But I managed to reconstruct what we did have." She tapped a control and the fragments on the screen rearranged themselves into a partial oblong spheroid device. "Doesn't look like there was any external damage to the implant. Something must have made its power cell overload, and that's what caused it to explode."

Brown studied the diagram a moment. "What could have caused the overload?" He hoped that there was now an answer to the similar question he had asked this morning.

Unfortunately, Patel just shrugged. "There wasn't enough of the implant left to tell, sorry. According to Ms. Bird's medical records, her heart was equipped with a standard krellide power cell, so it could have been certain types of radiation or EM frequencies, or even something small inserted into the heart's mechanisms which blocked the power flow. Would only need to be the size of a pinhead."

Slightly confused, Brown turned to T'Ling. "You said this couldn't be accidental, Doctor, but all those causes sound like they could have been random."

T'Ling, a short woman, held her head up proudly, but Patel leapt to her defence.

"Cardiac implants are designed to be protected from those kinds of interference," the engineer said. "It was composed of a duritanium alloy, so it would be shielded from radiation and EM fields, and it's highly unlikely that someone opened up the heart and put something in there without Bird noticing."

T'Ling now chimed in. "According to her records, Ms. Bird's implant has not been opened since she obtained it, and any object inserted at that point would have caused interference long before now."

"So what possibilities does that leave us?" Brown asked.

"A highly focused beam weapon could have overloaded the implant," said Patel. "If the killer knew precisely where to aim. Its casing wouldn't have been thick enough to defend against directed radiation."

Brown looked to T'Ling again. "Did your autopsy show any evidence of weapons-fire?"

"As with the implant, there was a lot of… debris," the doctor replied, "and we do not have the complete picture. However, none of the tissue samples examined show signs of exterior damage or weapons signatures."

Brown sighed wearily. This case was proving to be one puzzle after another. They knew that Bird's heart hadn't exploded on its own, they knew that it must have been internal or external interference, yet nothing pointed them in either direction. He looked back at the diagram of the implant on the monitor.

"The mysteries of the heart…" he said dryly.

After a heavy silence, Patel quietly spoke up, starting to peel off her surgical gown. "If you'll both excuse me, I'd better get back to Reactor Control."

Still staring at the monitor, Brown thanked her as she made her exit, remembering that she was a superior officer. Being in charge of the investigation had temporarily made it feel as though she and T'Ling were subordinate, reporting their findings to him.

T'Ling reported further. "My staff are still conducting an analysis of the DNA found at the crime scene. There is a lot of it from Ms. Bird herself to sift through."

"Thank you, Doctor," Brown said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose.

"How is your investigation progressing?" T'Ling asked, hands clasped behind her back. "Do you have any positive leads?"

Brown scoffed. "Too many leads, Doctor. Bird's heart wasn't the only thing fake in this case. Everybody seems to be hiding something."

T'Ling nodded, her sharp features contemplative. "A year ago, on Vulcan, I attended a symposium on cross-cultural artistic comparisons…"

"You?" Brown hadn't meant to sound so incredulous, but it was hard to picture the elderly doctor at an artsy event.

T'Ling tilted her silver-topped head. "My eldest daughter was giving one of the lectures. She is an artist."

"Ah."

T'Ling continued, undisturbed by Brown's reaction. "One of the other lecturers was a poet who called himself Iloja of Prim. He claimed to originate from a distant planet and was living in self-imposed exile from his own people.

"This Iloja spoke of the 'enigma tales' of his homeworld - the equivalent of Terran 'mystery stories,' I believe. He said that, in these tales, all characters were guilty of something, and the protagonist, as well as the reader, had to determine who was guilty of what."

Brown chuckled mirthlessly. "Sounds like we're in one of those enigma tales now."

Something stirred in the back of his mind.

"Speaking of Vulcan, actually… Can I ask you about one of the suspects? It's not directly related to the case."

T'Ling cocked an eyebrow again. "Proceed."

He quickly told her about T'Ves and her lifestyle.

The doctor now raised both eyebrows, the Vulcan equivalent of a shrug. "I fail to see the issue, Commander."

"Aren't you… disturbed by someone mimicking your culture like that?" He chose his words carefully, so as not to imply that T'Ling would have an emotional reaction.

"Is there not a Human expression that imitation is a form of flattery?"

Brown smirked at T'Ling's veiled sense of humour, but she continued.

"Any culture that does not allow new members is doomed to collapse. The origin of these new members is irrelevant. And it is no one else's place to gauge an individual's sincerity to the self."

"Yeah, but she's not a real Vulcan, is she?"

"A race is not defined by its members, nor is a single being defined by their race. If we accept this then we must also accept that to define such things at all is an exercise in futility. Certainly, there are practical reasons for specifying biological identity, but these reasons have no relation to societal or cultural factors.

"There are some Vulcans who do not follow the path of Surak, who embrace their emotions, and yet they are still biologically Vulcan. Therefore, what defines our sense of identity transcends any measurable means."

Brown consider this a moment. There was still something about T'Ves that didn't sit right with him. What had driven someone so young to make so radical a choice?

"Regardless," T'Ling said, "I have always thought that there were many Humans who could benefit from a Vulcan lifestyle."

Brown let out a small laugh. No one was ever quiet sure when T'Ling was joking, if at all.

"What is the next stage of your investigation?" she asked him.

He sighed. "I'll interview some of the other expo attendees, see if anyone noticed anything, or if they were upset at not being invited to interview. I'll have my staff look into the backgrounds of everyone there too, in case something pops up."

Deep in thought, he stroked his chin. "There's one prominent person I've yet to speak to though…

"It's time I had a chat with Willem Abramson."