Title: The Sound of Silence

Author: Jazz

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: The usual rap. I'm still borrowing the characters. They've been shoved down the back of a desk draw while I wait for inspiration to strike.

Author's Apologies: This chapter is a little short. I didn't really want to dwell in alien death too long. Sorry.

Author's Note: We return to our main storyline, via the scenic route. I'm still on character cycle. Number 98, Doctor Phlox, you're meal is ready…

The Sound of Silence

by Jazz

~~~

Part 4:

Doctor, Doctor

When somebody meets me for the first time, I find that a certain awkwardness lingers. Not as indifference or revulsion – heavens, no – but I believe it has something to do with my temper, and this is especially apparent in humans. Other species, to a degree…the Vulcans, bless their logical hearts, found my eternal chatter so off putting that they (or so I am told) almost fought each other to get to the pen that signed my attendance away onto a new starship. I don't mind. They might preach the teachings of Surak through each and every pore, but for all their stubborn logic, they are a good, peacefully minded species, and I shall be forever grateful for their establishment of the Interspecies Medical Exchange.

And now I find myself on a human vessel. So far it has been fascinating, to say the least. I have learnt so much about these people in such a small stretch of time. Of their longing for exploration and for first contact, which, to be honest, they seek out with a fair lack of self-restraint. Of their fondness for nostalgia, evidenced weekly in the cinema. Of their at times pondering and awkward social interactions. (I could go on and on about this. But let me just say that while compared to the Vulcans they are the embodiment of openness, placed aside my own species humans are like tied-tongued monks.) When Jonathon Archer met me for the first time it was a quick exchange of words over the unconscious form of a Klingon warrior – so quick that there was no opportunity for awkwardness to linger. I think it was some hours later when I sensed he was a little concerned; concern that rose from the fact that my cheerfulness was perhaps rubbing off on him. I like to think that it did, and from that point he and his crew looked upon me not as a curious entity who fills his sickbay with a menagerie of worms and bats, but as a physician who heals by sharing a little of his happiness with his patients. 

But they are still human, and I am still Denobulan, and it is their emotions that astound. I say this because of the behaviour I witnessed on board the salvaged alien vessel; when I saw Lieutenant Reed and Ensign Sato standing at the foot of where the mother and child lay, the looks in their eyes was that of terrible anguish mixed with that which humans give so freely – compassion. I saw it in the eyes of Captain Archer, but in his there was added a flash of determination, of wilful dedication to the cause he outlined to us as we stood there and then in the alien bridge: that we would find out what happened to these people, and how it came to be that their ship ended up as flotsam in this huge nebulous expanse.

I think they saw something in that ship which placed fear in their minds. Not of death, but of what it must have felt like to look death in the face and succumb to its numbing brilliance. In fact-

"Doctor?"

In sickbay, Elizabeth Cutler interrupts my thoughts. She stands over the body closest to me – behind her is an area closed off but which I know contains the remaining corpses, sealed in the dull greyness that are Starfleet body bags. She eyes me with a calmness which I immediately find comforting, and says, "I've finished prepping the body. Are you…?"

"Ready to begin?" I let one corner of my mouth curl upwards. "Well, I wouldn't be much of a physician if I wasn't, now would I?"

At this she smiles, and I begin working.

****

The male I conclude to have died from his injuries. He had suffered from third degree plasma burns and smoke inhalation which, while I will have to wait for Lieutenant Reed and Commander Tucker to finish examining the vessel, I can only assume were the result of internal damage to the ship. Elizabeth takes my gloves from me, zips up the body bag and looks back to the sealed off area.

She says, "What do you think? Are you going to find the same injuries on the others?" and hands me a fresh pair of gloves. There is a weariness in her voice, of which I am certain comes from a mixture of exhaustion and sympathy for what we have to do to these individuals who once lived and breathed themselves.

"Well…" I pause to ease the latex over my cuffs. "I have only just finished examining one individual among seven deceased. However, while it is early, from what I observed of the bodies initially, I have to suggest that it appears they all died more or less in the same manner. Their ship was damaged beyond repair, Elizabeth. We can only imagine what they went through."

So she wheels the next one into the centre of the room, and I know, before the zipper is pulled down, before the overhead lights expose to the world another life lost and empty to all but the souls it has since joined, that the shape under the grey expanse is that of the female we found on the bridge. She with the child clung to her torso as if pulled by their own gravity. Here she is alone, and I am struck by how small and delicate she is. Her body is stiff, disjointed and ungainly in death, but under the raw skin and the singed hair, under the bruises and snaking cuts, her skin is smooth and lightly mottled, her walnut coloured hair is plaited, and I believe, quite strongly, that she would have been beautiful in life.

I start removing clothing, undoing clasps and pulling up sleeves. And then I find it - a data chip, buried deep in one of her pockets.

Elizabeth peers over my shoulder. "What is it?"

"I'm not sure," I reply, turning the small item over in my palm. "Call the Captain. I would say this constitutes as evidence."

I listen as Elizabeth thumbs the communication switch. "Sickbay to the bridge."

"Archer here."

"Captain, the doctor has found some sort of data chip in the clothing of one of the bodies."

There is a pause, and I picture Captain Archer shifting in his seat, his interest piqued. "I see," he says. "Thankyou, Crewman. I'll send Hoshi down to pick it up. Archer out."

I return to the female, and this time I particularly take note of the damage to her lungs. "You weren't just breathing in smoke, were you?" I murmur, running a medical scanner over her torso. "It was something that knocked you out…" Trailing off, I notice that Elizabeth is eyeing me strangely from the other side of the room.

"Do you always talk to your cadavers, Doctor?"

"Only when they appear lonely," I say, smiling, but it is a smile half-dipped in sadness.

With a sudden thump the doors open, spitting Hoshi Sato into sickbay like an exclamation mark into our conversation. I eye her curiously. "That was quick, Ensign. Did you run all the way down?"

The petit communications officer rewards me with a scowl, which does nothing for her face but is countered rather sweetly by a wave of one hand. I am aware that she has back catalogued a remarkably long list in my native tongue, and know she could all but cut my remark in two with goodness knows how many Denobulan foul words. "You said you found a data chip," says Hoshi, regaining her composure.

I nod towards Elizabeth. "It's on the table, there."

Hoshi walks over and picks it up. She examines it in silence, before saying, "This is the only one you've found, right?"

"So far, yes."

"Okay, um, leave this with me. I'll have a look, but I can't guarantee anything." She turns to leave, and then adds, "I'll let you know what I find. If you happen to come across any more-"

"I'll let you or the captain know." I nod and turn back to my work. "Thankyou, Hoshi."

But she lingers, watching as my gloved fingers press the scarred tissue at the alien woman's neck, and in a low voice I hear her say, "I wonder what her name was…"

I turn to answer, but Hoshi is gone, lost in the purr of the closing doors.

****

For a further three hours I examine the bodies, one after another, until all seven lie zipped up once again, and pulled away from view. With a methodical technique learnt from years of experience I catalogue injury after injury, gather data, hypothesize, list my findings and collate evidence until I have a report spaning many pages and containing what I hope constitutes as answers. But still these are answers pertaining to medical quandaries. Whatever the hard evidence may be, it remains just one part of the whole picture.

With data padd in hand I leave sickbay under Elizabeth's charge, and head to the bridge.

TBC