Chapter 3
Poor Little Waif
*~*~*~*~*
The girl on the med table was painfully thin. Her ribs showed through the fabric of her shift and the skin over her wrists was stretched tight. She seemed to be made of little more than bones and bruises. Kirk and Spock stood by as Bones and several nurses worked.
McCoy shook his head as he stared at the images and readouts flashing on the screen of the med-scanner.
"She's alive, but barely. Poor diet, sickness, abuse..." He looked over his shoulder at Spock. "This may not be the best investment you've ever made."
The scanner hovering over her reached her lower legs, and the screen began to flood with charts and blinking red letters.
McCoy frowned. He punched in a command and a 3-D image of the girl's skeleton was projected into the air before him. He tapped the viewscreen and the image zeroed in on the lower part of her right leg.
"Look at this," he said, highlighting in red the bones of the calf and foot. "Congenital birth defect. The tibia's completely twisted and bowed out and the tarsals are pointing in the wrong direction."
"A clubfoot?" One of the nurses, putting away her hypospray, looked up in shock. "But we've been able to correct birth defects for centuries!"
"I know," McCoy answered grimly. "But they apparently don't have much access to medical technology on F-gamma-2."
"Is it possible to reverse it now?" the captain asked. He and Spock were trying to stay out of the way, but neither wanted to leave.
"Well, yes, but I'm afraid to do anything at the moment. She's so weak; it might do more harm than good." Bones sighed and leaned against the med table, gazing at the frail being before him. "Poor little waif," he murmured. "Looks like she hasn't had a decent meal in her life. "By the way, Spock," he said, glancing at the science officer, "Does this kitten of yours have a name?"
The Vulcan looked down at the papers in his hand for the first time.
"She is neither a feline nor my possession," he said, mostly to himself, as he glanced over them. "Her name is Atira Mikal, and she is seventeen solar years old. She is the child of a Romulan free citizen and a Bajoran / Human concubine."
"Romulan-Human-Bajoran, did you say? She's got the Romulan ears, but her facial features are human. Bajorans are characteristically smaller than either, and so is she."
The doctor mused over the readouts on the viewscreen, than nodded decisively.
"Right. She'll be fine. Oh, by the way, Atira is a Bajoran name. If I'm right, her surname is first, in the Bajoran tradition."
Kirk left shortly afterwards to sleep a few hours before regaining command of the bridge. McCoy retired to his quarters later, leaving the sickbay in the hands of several nurses. Spock, however, could not bring himself to leave.
"I will stay with Mikal," he told the doctor, his dark eyes solemn. "I do not want her to awaken alone." So the Vulcan sat in the softly lit sickbay, watching over the small being that had somehow become his charge. He folded his hands in his lap and studied the still form.
Despite her obvious frailty, there was some strength in the girl's expression. She shivered and Spock got up to tuck the covers of the medical bed more firmly about her shoulders. In doing so his fingers brushed the leather collar that encircled her throat. It was a visible sign of her enslavement, of the cruelty that this child had endured.
In a rare moment of unthinking action, Spock grabbed the exoscalpel from the supply bin and cut it away.
A hand grabbed his arm.
Suddenly he was staring into huge, unblinking eyes. Mikal began to speak in Hebitian. This was not a language Spock knew. He looked at her, uncomprehending. She switched to a throaty, guttural dialect he'd never heard before. Finally she began to plead with him in Vulcan.
"Please do not hurt me! I do not know where I am. I mean no harm to thee. Please, let me go!" She was extremely agitated, and tried to leave the bed. Spock raised a hand to stop her and she flinched sharply. When he did not strike her, she looked up at him questioningly.
"I will not hurt thee," he said in Vulcan. "Thee is a guest aboard the starship Enterprise. I will guard thee."
She lay back upon the bed, but fear still shone in her eyes. She has known nothing but fear all her life, Spock realized with a pang.
"How is it that thee speak the Vulcan tongue?" he asked. "Thee is not Vulcan."
She did not answer, but regarded him warily.
"Do thee speak Standard?" Hesitantly, she nodded.
"I am Spock of the SS Enterprise. You are in the sickbay, being treated for your wounds. I am watching over you," he said in the same.
Hearing this, she seemed to relax. "Thee may call me Mika," she murmured in Vulcan before falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Both guardian and guarded were found that morning fast asleep, Mika in the hospital bed and Spock in the chair beside it.
***
McCoy stood by the girl's bed, checking her vitals on the screen
above. Everything was
normal.
She's probably hungry, he thought. I'll have one of the nurses bring
some food.
Mika awoke several minutes later to find the doctor seated next to her
bed. Her
gaze went immediately to the tray on his lap. There was a roll of
bread, a bowl of tomato
soup and a plate of various fruits. She sat up, eyeing the food
hungrily.
"Would you like some?" McCoy asked. When she gave no response, he
handed her the tray.
She looked at him warily, and then snatched it out of his hands. She
began to tear hungrily
into the bread, pausing only to take huge gulps of the hot soup.
Knife, spoon, and fork lay
dormant as the she devoured the meal. McCoy watched in amazement as the food disappeared. Within two minutes it was gone, and
she was licking the last of the tomato soup from her fingers.
"Well, I'll take that to mean you're hungry," the doctor said,
grinning. "Nurse Chapel, a refill
on this tray, please!"
***
McCoy sat at his desk with only have his mind on the PADD in
his hands. The other half
was concentrating on the patient in the other room.
She didn't speak, didn't interact with people at all, except to flinch
when they came near. She
ate like she was afraid someone would snatch her food away. She
didn't answer to her
name, didn't make eye contact, didn't smile or frown. She just sat on
the hospital bed
like a vegetable.
Maybe Spock got something out of her last night, he thought to
himself. After all, ol'
Pointy-ears does have a way with the ladies... Chuckling to himself, he
turned on his comm
on and requested the bridge.
***
Spock stood in the doctors' study with Kirk, watching the girl
through the sickbay window.
She was immobile on her bed, for all the world like an android shut
down.
"She did speak to me last night," the Vulcan said, "In several
languages at first.
One was Hebitian. If I am correct, the other was Klingon."
"Klingon!" McCoy exclaimed, startled. "How in hell would she know
Klingon?!"
Spock frowned slightly. "Your surprise is irrational, Doctor. Did we
not see beings of many
races on the planet F-gamma-2? It is possible that she learned to
speak Klingon, as well as
Hebitian, Vulcan, and Standard, from an earlier Master."
"Vulcan, did you say?" Kirk murmured. "That's interesting. Were you
able to talk to her in
it?"
"I spoke to her in both Vulcan and Standard, but she answered only
in Vulcan. It is possible
that she does not feel comfortable speaking Standard."
"Seems to me she doesn't seem comfortable speaking at all!" McCoy
said.
Jim turned to his first officer. "Spock, why don't you see if you can
get something out of her."
Spock entered the room. The girl's old, dirty shift had been taken
from her and replaced by
pale blue pants and a tunic.
He approached the bed and knelt beside it.
"Mika. Do thee remember me?" he asked in Vulcan.
She made no reply, but kept staring at bedspread. He took her chin in
his hand and gently
raised her head.
"I am Spock. Do not be afraid. No one here will hurt thee."
She looked up at him, her pale silvery-green eyes locking with his
deep brown ones.
He did not move as she reached up to touch his face.
Her fingers explored the bridge of his nose, moving up across his
cheek to smooth out the
wrinkles in his forehead.
Spock shivered as she unwittingly stroked his psi points. He felt the
brush of a mind against
his own, a consciousness looked within itself, seeking escape. Feeling
the touch of his
psyche against her own, she suddenly withdrew. She yanked her hand
back and their
tentative link ended.
Kirk slipped quietly through the door, followed by McCoy. He walked slowly towards the bed, careful not to frighten the skittish girl.
"I am Captain Kirk of the U.S.S Enterprise. You are welcome here."
She stared at him, then looked at Spock, as if for reassurance. He nodded, and she reached her hand out to the Captain. He touched his palm to hers.
"Captain...Kirk?" She parroted, rolling the 'r'.
A smile spread across the captain's face. "Yes! And this is Dr. McCoy."
She put out her hand to the doctor. He coughed, unsure of what to do. "Bones," Jim chided. "Take her hand."
He did. "Doctor McCoy," she said. "...Bones?"
Jim laughed, a warm, unexpected sound. "Yes, that's Bones."
She looked back at Spock. "Thee is - Spock?" She asked in Vulcan.
"Yes, I am Spock."
"I...am Mika. Thank you." She looked at all three men, then, apparently satisfied with her use of Standard, she lay back in her bed and closed her eyes.
The three friends stood there for several moments.
"Well, that's that," McCoy said finally. He cast a sly look at Spock. "Well, you green-blooded hobgoblin! I think she's taken a liking to you!"
"That is highly unlikely," Spock said, frowning, "As she has only
known me for
approximately one point-three solar days."
Kirk shook his head at his friends' familiar arguing.
"Come on, gentlemen, let's leave the young lady to her rest."
***
In the back of the sickbay, Nurse Chapel was cleaning the medical
instruments, scowling.
She had watched the girl and Spock interact, and it had put her in a
terrible mood.
She had long loved Spock with no interest, not even any
acknowledgment, from him, and now
this girl enters the picture. He notices her! What does that little
waif have that I don't? she
asked herself miserably.
Poor Little Waif
*~*~*~*~*
The girl on the med table was painfully thin. Her ribs showed through the fabric of her shift and the skin over her wrists was stretched tight. She seemed to be made of little more than bones and bruises. Kirk and Spock stood by as Bones and several nurses worked.
McCoy shook his head as he stared at the images and readouts flashing on the screen of the med-scanner.
"She's alive, but barely. Poor diet, sickness, abuse..." He looked over his shoulder at Spock. "This may not be the best investment you've ever made."
The scanner hovering over her reached her lower legs, and the screen began to flood with charts and blinking red letters.
McCoy frowned. He punched in a command and a 3-D image of the girl's skeleton was projected into the air before him. He tapped the viewscreen and the image zeroed in on the lower part of her right leg.
"Look at this," he said, highlighting in red the bones of the calf and foot. "Congenital birth defect. The tibia's completely twisted and bowed out and the tarsals are pointing in the wrong direction."
"A clubfoot?" One of the nurses, putting away her hypospray, looked up in shock. "But we've been able to correct birth defects for centuries!"
"I know," McCoy answered grimly. "But they apparently don't have much access to medical technology on F-gamma-2."
"Is it possible to reverse it now?" the captain asked. He and Spock were trying to stay out of the way, but neither wanted to leave.
"Well, yes, but I'm afraid to do anything at the moment. She's so weak; it might do more harm than good." Bones sighed and leaned against the med table, gazing at the frail being before him. "Poor little waif," he murmured. "Looks like she hasn't had a decent meal in her life. "By the way, Spock," he said, glancing at the science officer, "Does this kitten of yours have a name?"
The Vulcan looked down at the papers in his hand for the first time.
"She is neither a feline nor my possession," he said, mostly to himself, as he glanced over them. "Her name is Atira Mikal, and she is seventeen solar years old. She is the child of a Romulan free citizen and a Bajoran / Human concubine."
"Romulan-Human-Bajoran, did you say? She's got the Romulan ears, but her facial features are human. Bajorans are characteristically smaller than either, and so is she."
The doctor mused over the readouts on the viewscreen, than nodded decisively.
"Right. She'll be fine. Oh, by the way, Atira is a Bajoran name. If I'm right, her surname is first, in the Bajoran tradition."
Kirk left shortly afterwards to sleep a few hours before regaining command of the bridge. McCoy retired to his quarters later, leaving the sickbay in the hands of several nurses. Spock, however, could not bring himself to leave.
"I will stay with Mikal," he told the doctor, his dark eyes solemn. "I do not want her to awaken alone." So the Vulcan sat in the softly lit sickbay, watching over the small being that had somehow become his charge. He folded his hands in his lap and studied the still form.
Despite her obvious frailty, there was some strength in the girl's expression. She shivered and Spock got up to tuck the covers of the medical bed more firmly about her shoulders. In doing so his fingers brushed the leather collar that encircled her throat. It was a visible sign of her enslavement, of the cruelty that this child had endured.
In a rare moment of unthinking action, Spock grabbed the exoscalpel from the supply bin and cut it away.
A hand grabbed his arm.
Suddenly he was staring into huge, unblinking eyes. Mikal began to speak in Hebitian. This was not a language Spock knew. He looked at her, uncomprehending. She switched to a throaty, guttural dialect he'd never heard before. Finally she began to plead with him in Vulcan.
"Please do not hurt me! I do not know where I am. I mean no harm to thee. Please, let me go!" She was extremely agitated, and tried to leave the bed. Spock raised a hand to stop her and she flinched sharply. When he did not strike her, she looked up at him questioningly.
"I will not hurt thee," he said in Vulcan. "Thee is a guest aboard the starship Enterprise. I will guard thee."
She lay back upon the bed, but fear still shone in her eyes. She has known nothing but fear all her life, Spock realized with a pang.
"How is it that thee speak the Vulcan tongue?" he asked. "Thee is not Vulcan."
She did not answer, but regarded him warily.
"Do thee speak Standard?" Hesitantly, she nodded.
"I am Spock of the SS Enterprise. You are in the sickbay, being treated for your wounds. I am watching over you," he said in the same.
Hearing this, she seemed to relax. "Thee may call me Mika," she murmured in Vulcan before falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Both guardian and guarded were found that morning fast asleep, Mika in the hospital bed and Spock in the chair beside it.
***
McCoy stood by the girl's bed, checking her vitals on the screen
above. Everything was
normal.
She's probably hungry, he thought. I'll have one of the nurses bring
some food.
Mika awoke several minutes later to find the doctor seated next to her
bed. Her
gaze went immediately to the tray on his lap. There was a roll of
bread, a bowl of tomato
soup and a plate of various fruits. She sat up, eyeing the food
hungrily.
"Would you like some?" McCoy asked. When she gave no response, he
handed her the tray.
She looked at him warily, and then snatched it out of his hands. She
began to tear hungrily
into the bread, pausing only to take huge gulps of the hot soup.
Knife, spoon, and fork lay
dormant as the she devoured the meal. McCoy watched in amazement as the food disappeared. Within two minutes it was gone, and
she was licking the last of the tomato soup from her fingers.
"Well, I'll take that to mean you're hungry," the doctor said,
grinning. "Nurse Chapel, a refill
on this tray, please!"
***
McCoy sat at his desk with only have his mind on the PADD in
his hands. The other half
was concentrating on the patient in the other room.
She didn't speak, didn't interact with people at all, except to flinch
when they came near. She
ate like she was afraid someone would snatch her food away. She
didn't answer to her
name, didn't make eye contact, didn't smile or frown. She just sat on
the hospital bed
like a vegetable.
Maybe Spock got something out of her last night, he thought to
himself. After all, ol'
Pointy-ears does have a way with the ladies... Chuckling to himself, he
turned on his comm
on and requested the bridge.
***
Spock stood in the doctors' study with Kirk, watching the girl
through the sickbay window.
She was immobile on her bed, for all the world like an android shut
down.
"She did speak to me last night," the Vulcan said, "In several
languages at first.
One was Hebitian. If I am correct, the other was Klingon."
"Klingon!" McCoy exclaimed, startled. "How in hell would she know
Klingon?!"
Spock frowned slightly. "Your surprise is irrational, Doctor. Did we
not see beings of many
races on the planet F-gamma-2? It is possible that she learned to
speak Klingon, as well as
Hebitian, Vulcan, and Standard, from an earlier Master."
"Vulcan, did you say?" Kirk murmured. "That's interesting. Were you
able to talk to her in
it?"
"I spoke to her in both Vulcan and Standard, but she answered only
in Vulcan. It is possible
that she does not feel comfortable speaking Standard."
"Seems to me she doesn't seem comfortable speaking at all!" McCoy
said.
Jim turned to his first officer. "Spock, why don't you see if you can
get something out of her."
Spock entered the room. The girl's old, dirty shift had been taken
from her and replaced by
pale blue pants and a tunic.
He approached the bed and knelt beside it.
"Mika. Do thee remember me?" he asked in Vulcan.
She made no reply, but kept staring at bedspread. He took her chin in
his hand and gently
raised her head.
"I am Spock. Do not be afraid. No one here will hurt thee."
She looked up at him, her pale silvery-green eyes locking with his
deep brown ones.
He did not move as she reached up to touch his face.
Her fingers explored the bridge of his nose, moving up across his
cheek to smooth out the
wrinkles in his forehead.
Spock shivered as she unwittingly stroked his psi points. He felt the
brush of a mind against
his own, a consciousness looked within itself, seeking escape. Feeling
the touch of his
psyche against her own, she suddenly withdrew. She yanked her hand
back and their
tentative link ended.
Kirk slipped quietly through the door, followed by McCoy. He walked slowly towards the bed, careful not to frighten the skittish girl.
"I am Captain Kirk of the U.S.S Enterprise. You are welcome here."
She stared at him, then looked at Spock, as if for reassurance. He nodded, and she reached her hand out to the Captain. He touched his palm to hers.
"Captain...Kirk?" She parroted, rolling the 'r'.
A smile spread across the captain's face. "Yes! And this is Dr. McCoy."
She put out her hand to the doctor. He coughed, unsure of what to do. "Bones," Jim chided. "Take her hand."
He did. "Doctor McCoy," she said. "...Bones?"
Jim laughed, a warm, unexpected sound. "Yes, that's Bones."
She looked back at Spock. "Thee is - Spock?" She asked in Vulcan.
"Yes, I am Spock."
"I...am Mika. Thank you." She looked at all three men, then, apparently satisfied with her use of Standard, she lay back in her bed and closed her eyes.
The three friends stood there for several moments.
"Well, that's that," McCoy said finally. He cast a sly look at Spock. "Well, you green-blooded hobgoblin! I think she's taken a liking to you!"
"That is highly unlikely," Spock said, frowning, "As she has only
known me for
approximately one point-three solar days."
Kirk shook his head at his friends' familiar arguing.
"Come on, gentlemen, let's leave the young lady to her rest."
***
In the back of the sickbay, Nurse Chapel was cleaning the medical
instruments, scowling.
She had watched the girl and Spock interact, and it had put her in a
terrible mood.
She had long loved Spock with no interest, not even any
acknowledgment, from him, and now
this girl enters the picture. He notices her! What does that little
waif have that I don't? she
asked herself miserably.