Chapter 6
A Study Of Violence In Females
Nurse Chapel was having a rather bad day.
Her new shampoo had turned her hair a rather nasty shade of orange, which she was hiding under a cap.
While getting dressed she had stubbed her toe and knocked over a vase.
While tidying up the doctor's study ("Do I look like a janitor to you?") she had tripped on an empty case of Romulan Ale and sent the file cabinet flying.
Now the replicator was malfunctioning and it wouldn't make her favorite cabbage soup.
Chapel was sitting in the mess hall, poking sullenly at a plate of salad.
Across from her, Yeoman Janice Rand was chattering about some guy she'd met yesterday.
"And he's like, 'Do you want to come over to my place?' and I'm all, 'What should I wear?' and then he was like-"
"It's her," Chapel interrupted.
The yeoman followed her gaze to the mess hall entrance.
"You mean Lt. Uhura? You know, I heard that she was having an affair with an ensign, can you imagine?-"
"No, not her," Chapel said impatiently. "The other one. The dark-haired waif in the blue uniform."
"Oh." Rand blinked. She was considered the queen of ship gossip and it was rare that she didn't know the who, what, when, where, and why of every person aboard.
"I've never seen her," she admitted at length. "Who is she?"
"That's just it," Chapel commented, watching the small girl follow Uhura through the replicator line.
"No one seems to know! She was in the sickbay when I got back from shore leave on Fortune, but the doctor won't tell me where's she from. The name on the records is Atira Mikal."
The nurse grinned nastily, realizing that this was a perfect way to get that brat. She leaned across the table.
"I heard she's living in Mr. Spock's quarters," she whispered conspiratorially. "I wonder if she's...you know?"
Rand's too-close eyes grew large at the thought of such a juicy rumor - a girl sleeping with Mr. Spock!
A few yards away, Uhura was ordering a triple-fudge banana split for she and Mika to share.
"You're gonna love this!" she exclaimed happily.
Mika was fiddling with the belt on her jumpsuit.
"Are you sure I don't look ridiculous?" she asked for the fourth time.
Uhura took in the girl's appearance with a practiced eye.
She was wearing one of Jesse's uniforms which had been tucked in and brought up so that it fit the girl perfectly. Her dark hair was pulled up in a french braid, and she was wearing a smudge of lipstick.
Uhura mentally congratulated herself. Even the shoe problem is fixed, she thought smugly.
Mika had refused to put on any kind of shoes - and in truth, what shoes would fit her misshapen foot? - so they had left the pants long and cuffed them so her feet didn't show.
"Mika, you look gorgeous," Uhura said.
The girl blushed and smiled. "It is thanks to you," she deferred, but she was pleased.
They scouted out a table and made their way through the crowded cafeteria, passing Chapel and Rand as they went.
There was no love lost between Chapel and Uhura, and the latter made a point to ignore the former. It was because Uhura wasn't looking that she didn't see the foot in her path. She tripped and went flying, her coffee spilling everywhere.
"You should watch where you're going, Lt.," the nurse said sweetly.
"And you should watch those gangly legs of yours," Uhura said with thinly veiled disgust as she picked herself up off the floor.
Rand shifted in her seat, so as to get a better look at the two women. This was going to be good.
"Are you threatening me?" Chapel asked calmly.
"It's not a threat, just a warning. I wouldn't want to be responsible for any accidents you might have," Uhura said innocently.
"The captain doesn't allow violence on this ship."
"Oh, the captain and I are good friends. I think he'd make a allowance."
Chapel rolled her eyes. "Please, Uhura. Just because you'll give yourself any man doesn't mean you have any authority."
"Don't say that about Uhura!" Mika, who had been watching the confrontation in silence, now spoke up. "It's not true."
Chapel smirked at the small girl. "You would know, wouldn't you? You must be the best of all - you even got a Vulcan to sleep with you!"
Mika leapt on the nurse with a shriek of rage.
Rand gasped as Chapel began to scream. The small girl was furious and stronger than she looked. She was going to pull Chapel's platinum blond hair out by the roots!
The yeoman jumped up and tried to yank the girl off the screaming Chapel. That having failed, she picked up her tray and began to hit Mika in the head with it.
"Get off! Get off!"
Uhura had frozen, but as Rand began to whack the girl's head she burst into action.
Thinking fast, the communications officer scooped the banana split off the floor from where Mika had dropped it and hurled it at Yeoman Rand.
The ice-cream concoction hit Janice square in the face. Startled and blinded by whipped cream, she dropped her tray and began to paw frantically at her eyes.
Uhura dashed past the yeoman and grabbed hold of Mika's shoulders.
"Mika, stop! Let go, Mika!" She gave a great tug and pulled the girl off of Chapel, who was still screaming bloody murder.
By this time, McCoy, Kirk, and Spock - who had been having their own lunch on the other side of the mess hall - had arrived.
"What in the blue blazes of Hell is going on?" the doctor asked incredulously.
Chapel, who was sitting on the floor with a bloody nose, sniffled.
Rand blinked up at him through a face-full of fudge.
Mika looked sheepishly at the ground.
Uhura wiped a bit of ice-cream off her chin and tried for a smile as Spock frowned.
Captain Kirk's usually jovial face was dark with anger. The entire mess hall was quiet as he pointed to the doors.
"Sickbay. All of you. Now."
***
Mika crossed her arms and stared sullenly at the doctor through the haze of a shiny black eye.
"Now, Nurse Chapel told me that you attacked her for no reason. Is this true?"
She looked around the doctor's study, which was empty save McCoy and herself, then slowly shook her head.
"Well, why'd you do it, Mika?"
Dr. McCoy was genuinely confused. The girl was, to his knowledge, shy, gentle, and unassuming - yet for some reason she'd tried to bash the living daylights out of his nurse!
Silence.
McCoy stood up. "Alright. You can go to your quarters. Put some ice on that eye, though."
"And Mika - " She turned around in the doorway. "You can always come to me if you need to talk."
He sighed and returned to sickbay. Uhura hurried up to him from where she had been waiting.
"Dr. McCoy, it isn't Mika's fault! Nurse Chapel- "
"Miss Uhura, please slow down. Can you tell me what Miss Chapel said to Mika?"
McCoy respected Chapel professionally, but he was not a fool. He knew that she could be very cruel when she wanted to.
Uhura fidgeted, twirling her hair apprehensively.
"Mika and I were carrying our food through the table, and Chapel tripped me.
"I told her to watch where she put her feet, and she said that I shouldn't threaten her, because the captain didn't allow violence on the ship.
"Then she said - well, she said I was a loose woman."
Here she blushed angrily.
"And what did she say to Mika?"
"Well, Mika told Chapel not to say things like that about me, because they weren't true."
There was a glimmer of pride for her friend's loyalty in Uhura's eyes.
"And Chapel said that Mika was the loosest of all because... she'd slept with a Vulcan."
Oh. Now he understood.
"Thank you, Lieutenant. You may return to your station."
***
Mika sat on her cot, watching Spock at his computer. The Vulcan's face was as impassive and unreadable as always, but she knew he was displeased.
She hunched her shoulders submissively, waiting for the angry blow that was sure to come.
He had not spoken since she had returned from the sickbay. He had not even looked at her. Did he know she was here?
Mika fidgeted uncomfortably, hiding her clubfoot behind the other. She wished that he would beat her and get it over with.
Finally he stood up. She closed her eyes, counting his footsteps as he came closer. She would not cry out.
Spock sat down on the cot next to her.
"Mika."
She opened her eyes. He was staring intently at her face.
"Are you in pain?" he asked.
She touched the bruise that circled her right eye. "No."
His gaze became harder. "You have disgraced yourself."
Realizing that he was not going to hit her, she became bold.
"I was defending my name! The nurse- "
"People will speak wrongly of you throughout your life," he interrupted coldly. "You would do well to control your emotions."
He touched her black eye, and his voice softened.
"It was a foolish thing to do. You were fighting against one bigger and stronger than yourself. You could not have won."
Mika stiffened slightly.
"Just because I am small does not mean I cannot fight," she protested.
Spock studied the girl next to him. With her fists clenched and her face scratched and bruised, she looked like a prizefighter fresh from the ring.
"No," he mused. "I suppose it does not. But I trust you will refrain from doing so in the future?"
"I will not shame you again," she said earnestly. "It was wrong of me - even though I know she is mistaken. I did not seduce you."
"Is that what Nurse Chapel said?" the Vulcan asked, frowning. Mika nodded.
"She is a foolish woman. Pay her no mind."
***
Illogical.
The fire at the foot of the Vulcan statue flickered, casting light and shadows over Spock's bedchamber. The statue seemed to stare at him, burning the word into his mind.
Illogical.
Why must women be so illogical? This girl-child had attacked a crew member. She should be punished - but he could not bring himself to speak to the captain about it.
She had been wrong to assail the nurse, but Chapel had no doubt brought it upon herself.
The Vulcan sighed and rubbed his temples. Here, in the solitude of his bedroom, he could allow his shields to slip. In the quiet of his private chamber he could do as he wished.
He opened the lowest drawer in his bureau and took out an old, leather- bound book. It was his mother's heirloom Bible, passed down through the generations.
Whenever she was anxious or worried, it was Amanda's practice to read whichever page it fell open to.
A primitive practice, Spock had once said, but he found it soothing as well.
The spine creaked as it fell open. Spock began to read.
You have ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse. You have ravished my heart with one look of your eyes, with one link of your necklace -
He shut the book and returned it to the drawer.
Illogical.
The flames leapt higher, casting shadows on the ceiling, and the statue's eyes seemed to glint with a strange, forbidden knowledge.
Illogical.
A Study Of Violence In Females
Nurse Chapel was having a rather bad day.
Her new shampoo had turned her hair a rather nasty shade of orange, which she was hiding under a cap.
While getting dressed she had stubbed her toe and knocked over a vase.
While tidying up the doctor's study ("Do I look like a janitor to you?") she had tripped on an empty case of Romulan Ale and sent the file cabinet flying.
Now the replicator was malfunctioning and it wouldn't make her favorite cabbage soup.
Chapel was sitting in the mess hall, poking sullenly at a plate of salad.
Across from her, Yeoman Janice Rand was chattering about some guy she'd met yesterday.
"And he's like, 'Do you want to come over to my place?' and I'm all, 'What should I wear?' and then he was like-"
"It's her," Chapel interrupted.
The yeoman followed her gaze to the mess hall entrance.
"You mean Lt. Uhura? You know, I heard that she was having an affair with an ensign, can you imagine?-"
"No, not her," Chapel said impatiently. "The other one. The dark-haired waif in the blue uniform."
"Oh." Rand blinked. She was considered the queen of ship gossip and it was rare that she didn't know the who, what, when, where, and why of every person aboard.
"I've never seen her," she admitted at length. "Who is she?"
"That's just it," Chapel commented, watching the small girl follow Uhura through the replicator line.
"No one seems to know! She was in the sickbay when I got back from shore leave on Fortune, but the doctor won't tell me where's she from. The name on the records is Atira Mikal."
The nurse grinned nastily, realizing that this was a perfect way to get that brat. She leaned across the table.
"I heard she's living in Mr. Spock's quarters," she whispered conspiratorially. "I wonder if she's...you know?"
Rand's too-close eyes grew large at the thought of such a juicy rumor - a girl sleeping with Mr. Spock!
A few yards away, Uhura was ordering a triple-fudge banana split for she and Mika to share.
"You're gonna love this!" she exclaimed happily.
Mika was fiddling with the belt on her jumpsuit.
"Are you sure I don't look ridiculous?" she asked for the fourth time.
Uhura took in the girl's appearance with a practiced eye.
She was wearing one of Jesse's uniforms which had been tucked in and brought up so that it fit the girl perfectly. Her dark hair was pulled up in a french braid, and she was wearing a smudge of lipstick.
Uhura mentally congratulated herself. Even the shoe problem is fixed, she thought smugly.
Mika had refused to put on any kind of shoes - and in truth, what shoes would fit her misshapen foot? - so they had left the pants long and cuffed them so her feet didn't show.
"Mika, you look gorgeous," Uhura said.
The girl blushed and smiled. "It is thanks to you," she deferred, but she was pleased.
They scouted out a table and made their way through the crowded cafeteria, passing Chapel and Rand as they went.
There was no love lost between Chapel and Uhura, and the latter made a point to ignore the former. It was because Uhura wasn't looking that she didn't see the foot in her path. She tripped and went flying, her coffee spilling everywhere.
"You should watch where you're going, Lt.," the nurse said sweetly.
"And you should watch those gangly legs of yours," Uhura said with thinly veiled disgust as she picked herself up off the floor.
Rand shifted in her seat, so as to get a better look at the two women. This was going to be good.
"Are you threatening me?" Chapel asked calmly.
"It's not a threat, just a warning. I wouldn't want to be responsible for any accidents you might have," Uhura said innocently.
"The captain doesn't allow violence on this ship."
"Oh, the captain and I are good friends. I think he'd make a allowance."
Chapel rolled her eyes. "Please, Uhura. Just because you'll give yourself any man doesn't mean you have any authority."
"Don't say that about Uhura!" Mika, who had been watching the confrontation in silence, now spoke up. "It's not true."
Chapel smirked at the small girl. "You would know, wouldn't you? You must be the best of all - you even got a Vulcan to sleep with you!"
Mika leapt on the nurse with a shriek of rage.
Rand gasped as Chapel began to scream. The small girl was furious and stronger than she looked. She was going to pull Chapel's platinum blond hair out by the roots!
The yeoman jumped up and tried to yank the girl off the screaming Chapel. That having failed, she picked up her tray and began to hit Mika in the head with it.
"Get off! Get off!"
Uhura had frozen, but as Rand began to whack the girl's head she burst into action.
Thinking fast, the communications officer scooped the banana split off the floor from where Mika had dropped it and hurled it at Yeoman Rand.
The ice-cream concoction hit Janice square in the face. Startled and blinded by whipped cream, she dropped her tray and began to paw frantically at her eyes.
Uhura dashed past the yeoman and grabbed hold of Mika's shoulders.
"Mika, stop! Let go, Mika!" She gave a great tug and pulled the girl off of Chapel, who was still screaming bloody murder.
By this time, McCoy, Kirk, and Spock - who had been having their own lunch on the other side of the mess hall - had arrived.
"What in the blue blazes of Hell is going on?" the doctor asked incredulously.
Chapel, who was sitting on the floor with a bloody nose, sniffled.
Rand blinked up at him through a face-full of fudge.
Mika looked sheepishly at the ground.
Uhura wiped a bit of ice-cream off her chin and tried for a smile as Spock frowned.
Captain Kirk's usually jovial face was dark with anger. The entire mess hall was quiet as he pointed to the doors.
"Sickbay. All of you. Now."
***
Mika crossed her arms and stared sullenly at the doctor through the haze of a shiny black eye.
"Now, Nurse Chapel told me that you attacked her for no reason. Is this true?"
She looked around the doctor's study, which was empty save McCoy and herself, then slowly shook her head.
"Well, why'd you do it, Mika?"
Dr. McCoy was genuinely confused. The girl was, to his knowledge, shy, gentle, and unassuming - yet for some reason she'd tried to bash the living daylights out of his nurse!
Silence.
McCoy stood up. "Alright. You can go to your quarters. Put some ice on that eye, though."
"And Mika - " She turned around in the doorway. "You can always come to me if you need to talk."
He sighed and returned to sickbay. Uhura hurried up to him from where she had been waiting.
"Dr. McCoy, it isn't Mika's fault! Nurse Chapel- "
"Miss Uhura, please slow down. Can you tell me what Miss Chapel said to Mika?"
McCoy respected Chapel professionally, but he was not a fool. He knew that she could be very cruel when she wanted to.
Uhura fidgeted, twirling her hair apprehensively.
"Mika and I were carrying our food through the table, and Chapel tripped me.
"I told her to watch where she put her feet, and she said that I shouldn't threaten her, because the captain didn't allow violence on the ship.
"Then she said - well, she said I was a loose woman."
Here she blushed angrily.
"And what did she say to Mika?"
"Well, Mika told Chapel not to say things like that about me, because they weren't true."
There was a glimmer of pride for her friend's loyalty in Uhura's eyes.
"And Chapel said that Mika was the loosest of all because... she'd slept with a Vulcan."
Oh. Now he understood.
"Thank you, Lieutenant. You may return to your station."
***
Mika sat on her cot, watching Spock at his computer. The Vulcan's face was as impassive and unreadable as always, but she knew he was displeased.
She hunched her shoulders submissively, waiting for the angry blow that was sure to come.
He had not spoken since she had returned from the sickbay. He had not even looked at her. Did he know she was here?
Mika fidgeted uncomfortably, hiding her clubfoot behind the other. She wished that he would beat her and get it over with.
Finally he stood up. She closed her eyes, counting his footsteps as he came closer. She would not cry out.
Spock sat down on the cot next to her.
"Mika."
She opened her eyes. He was staring intently at her face.
"Are you in pain?" he asked.
She touched the bruise that circled her right eye. "No."
His gaze became harder. "You have disgraced yourself."
Realizing that he was not going to hit her, she became bold.
"I was defending my name! The nurse- "
"People will speak wrongly of you throughout your life," he interrupted coldly. "You would do well to control your emotions."
He touched her black eye, and his voice softened.
"It was a foolish thing to do. You were fighting against one bigger and stronger than yourself. You could not have won."
Mika stiffened slightly.
"Just because I am small does not mean I cannot fight," she protested.
Spock studied the girl next to him. With her fists clenched and her face scratched and bruised, she looked like a prizefighter fresh from the ring.
"No," he mused. "I suppose it does not. But I trust you will refrain from doing so in the future?"
"I will not shame you again," she said earnestly. "It was wrong of me - even though I know she is mistaken. I did not seduce you."
"Is that what Nurse Chapel said?" the Vulcan asked, frowning. Mika nodded.
"She is a foolish woman. Pay her no mind."
***
Illogical.
The fire at the foot of the Vulcan statue flickered, casting light and shadows over Spock's bedchamber. The statue seemed to stare at him, burning the word into his mind.
Illogical.
Why must women be so illogical? This girl-child had attacked a crew member. She should be punished - but he could not bring himself to speak to the captain about it.
She had been wrong to assail the nurse, but Chapel had no doubt brought it upon herself.
The Vulcan sighed and rubbed his temples. Here, in the solitude of his bedroom, he could allow his shields to slip. In the quiet of his private chamber he could do as he wished.
He opened the lowest drawer in his bureau and took out an old, leather- bound book. It was his mother's heirloom Bible, passed down through the generations.
Whenever she was anxious or worried, it was Amanda's practice to read whichever page it fell open to.
A primitive practice, Spock had once said, but he found it soothing as well.
The spine creaked as it fell open. Spock began to read.
You have ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse. You have ravished my heart with one look of your eyes, with one link of your necklace -
He shut the book and returned it to the drawer.
Illogical.
The flames leapt higher, casting shadows on the ceiling, and the statue's eyes seemed to glint with a strange, forbidden knowledge.
Illogical.