Chapter Three: The Query
Disclaimer: All play and no work makes this author poor. Happy, but poor.
Admiral Nishiki looks up from her computer screen and nods once at Spock. Her short gray hair and dark eyes give her a weighty air, even when she smiles as she does now.
"Impressive, Commander. I didn't think it was possible to make the Kobayashi Maru any more stressful, but you have."
Sitting across from the Admiral in her office, Spock waits until she touches the screen to pause the simulation. In the sudden silence of the room he hesitates for a moment before speaking.
"I have been assisted in this upgrade by Cadet Farlijah-Endef, an Orion second-year. Her contributions to the programming have added a layer of complexity to the scenario."
"Indeed," Admiral Nishiki says, her eyes hooded, her expression difficult to read. "So you consider your collaboration successful?"
Of course he does; he just indicated as much. The Admiral's question is frankly baffling. With a ghost of a frown, Spock says, "I do."
"Then you are not opposed to collaborating with cadets. You don't consider such work a misuse of your time."
Again Spock is baffled. "As I said, Cadet Farlijah-Endef's contributions to the upgrade are both considerable and valued."
"Good, good," Admiral Nishiki says, looking away. Her face flushes slightly and she rubs her brow quickly with her right hand, signs of nervousness in some humans. Spock can recall nothing he has done to account for the Admiral's unease. Nevertheless, he feels his own anxiety rising in response—a learned reaction to growing up with a human parent, no doubt. Taking a deep breath, he wills his heartbeat back to normal.
Admiral Nishiki take a deep breath of her own. "I'm glad to hear it. A Starfleet instructor's position involves more than lecturing, you know. You have to be available to your students, to guide them inside the classroom and out. Meet with them not just on your time but on theirs as well."
"Agreed," Spock says. Last semester as part of his performance review Admiral Feldman noted that he needed to increase his office hours, something Spock had done immediately. Perhaps Admiral Nishiki is unaware? He starts to point it out but she hurries on.
"Commander, no one questions your abilities as a teacher. Your lessons are clear and concise, and your students give you high marks in this area."
Spock knows all this. He stifles his impatience at her stating the obvious.
"However," she says, making eye contact with him at last, "your students consistently rate your accessibility much lower."
"I have doubled my office hours—"
"I'm not talking about office hours," Admiral Nishiki says. "I mean accessibility—or maybe approachability is more accurate. Cadets need to be able to come to you when they don't understand the lecture, or they need clarification. Your students say they are reluctant to do so."
To his horror, Spock feels himself bristle. "Cadets can and do ask for clarification."
If Admiral Nishiki hears the note of annoyance in his voice, she doesn't show it. Instead, she waves one hand dismissively and says, "Some do, yes. But many more say that they find you…intimidating. They feel you would not welcome their questions."
Untrue, of course. If he is honest, he finds pleasure in the intellectual give and take of questions asked and answered, of precepts challenged and defended. In his biolinguistics seminar last spring, Cadet Uhura often asked him for more detailed explanations during his lectures, and more than once she had expressed open skepticism about some point of contention. She was not reluctant. She was not intimidated.
With a start, Spock realizes that he can't remember any other students being quite so free.
"I—" he stammers, suddenly unsure what to say. Admiral Nishiki gives him an unblinking stare.
"I'm well aware that this may be a matter of cultural misunderstanding," she says. "Your Vulcan demeanor may be misinterpreted as aloofness when you don't intend such an impression. Human cadets, in particular, may be looking for some sort of reassurance that is unfamiliar to you."
There's no reason Admiral Nishiki would know that Spock is intimately familiar with human customs and quirks—he's tried to keep his personal life private and separate from his professional one, partly out of a sense of propriety, but also because his father's diplomatic work means that Sarek does, from time to time, make decisions that affect what happens in Starfleet. Still, Spock struggles not to be irritated at the Admiral's assumption that he needs instruction on human emotions. He steadies his breathing and says, "What do you suggest?"
Admiral Nishiki exhales loudly and sits back in her chair.
"I'm glad you've increased your office hours. That's a start. But it would also help if you had regular opportunities to assist students one-on-one. Dean Z'Aider tells me that the professor who ran the language lab has accepted a position at a civilian university and is leaving at the end of the summer. I want you to manage that lab. I know it's not your area of specialty, but as long as you are teaching some of the language courses, you will know the students who need that sort of extra help."
Spock blanks his expression and sits silently. Despite her conciliatory tone, the Admiral is not offering him a choice. Protesting that his schedule as an instructor in two departments—computer science and language—is already too full and that his own projects will suffer is out of the question, and patently false. With a minimum of reorganization, he can manage his time.
Whether he wants to is another matter.
The idea of spending time in close proximity to students in the lab is unappealing at best. Glancing up at the Admiral, Spock sees firsthand what he already surmises: He has no choice.
"This needn't be an undue burden," the Admiral adds. "I don't know if you are aware, but the Dean has approved teachers' aides for all full time instructors next year. If you haven't already started interviewing candidates, you might want to include running the language lab as part of the duties."
Spock has, in fact, considered—and rejected—the idea of hiring a TA. Anything a TA could do—lecture, file, organize and post notes—he can do himself more efficiently. And with fewer distractions. When he had, briefly, imagined offering a TA position to Cadet Uhura, he had been…overwhelmed. Even working with Cadet Farlijah-Endef on the Kobayashi Maru programming has been something of a trial, her ebullience tiring.
"That idea doesn't appeal to you?" the Admiral says, and Spock realizes that he's let his expression slip.
"I would prefer to work alone," he says. The Admiral's frown is immediate and unmistakable.
"See," she says, "that's what I'm talking about. You aren't making an effort to be approachable. A TA can be a liaison, if you will. Someone your students might be more comfortable approaching first—or in tandem with you. If you don't know any suitable candidates, I can have the Dean's secretary send you a list."
She reaches forward to her computer and Spock has an unaccountable moment of panic.
"I have someone in mind." His words tumble out so swiftly that Admiral Nishiki blinks in surprise. She pulls back her hand and nods.
"Very well," she says. "Though if you have not found someone before the beginning of the term, let me know."
Spock accepts this for what it is, a mild chastisement in the guise of a dismissal, and he says, "Understood," leaving her office as quickly as he can without drawing undue attention to himself.
He heads at once for the programming lab in the computer science building. In addition to a subspace communications console, there's an active direct link to the lunar relay station. Feeling a wash of relief that Cadet Farlijah-Edef is not there, Spock sits at the console and taps in the code that connects him to the moon.
Without preamble he asks the communications officer on the other end to patch him to Cadet Uhura's station. The line hums with gentle static for a moment—long enough for Spock to feel a twinge of regret for acting so hastily. Perhaps it would be wiser to accept a candidate from the Dean's list, someone he doesn't know, someone less…less…
A noise on the line—his heart hammers in his ears—but, no. More static.
He pictures Cadet Uhura the last time he spoke with her, her PADD clasped in one hand, her other hand raised in farewell after she asked him for a recommendation for an internship on the lunar station. He'd seen her once after that, across the campus cafeteria, though he hadn't spoken to her then. The memory of the young male cadet leaning into her shoulder as they made their way through the crowd gives him an unexplained spasm in his side and he presses his fingers there, his heart fluttering like a hummingbird.
A snap and the communications officer is back.
"I'm sorry, Commander, but Cadet Uhura is not at her station at the moment. Do you wish to leave a message?"
For a moment Spock is too flustered to think.
"Do you know when she will return?"
"The duty roster shows she is on leave through the weekend. She took a transport to Earth but is scheduled to return by 1800 hours Sunday."
He cuts the connection then, without comment, feeling relief and despair in equal measure. He had been ready to explain the teaching assistant's position and offer it to her if she were interested. Now he'll have to write to her—not his best mode of communication.
It can't be helped. If he doesn't ask her now, she may find another TA position on her own. Professor Artura had expressed an interest in someone with her qualifications. He needs to ask Cadet Uhura right away—before she finds another offer, before he changes his mind. Although another cadet might be less…distracting, working with an unknown assistant offers a different set of obstacles to overcome.
What was it his mother used to say? Better the devil you know?
Pulling out his PADD, he turns his attention to the query at hand—with more than a little trepidation.
X X
The bar is so noisy that LaChanda Anaga'Nwoke, Nyota's best friend from home, has to raise her voice to be heard.
"You're so lucky!" she says, flicking through the photographs on the comm in her hand. Occasionally she pauses and Nyota obliges with commentary.
It's Nyota's comm, and the pictures are mostly of the lunar station—computer work banks, narrow hallways, the commissary with displays of pre-packaged food, a hazy shot of the forlorn lunar landscape from the observation window. LaChanda enlarges a close up of a fellow male intern and holds the comm up at eye level.
"He's cute," she says, darting a glance at Nyota.
Nyota laughs. "He's sweet, too," she says.
"And?"
LaChanda pushes her shoulder into Nyota's, punctuating her question.
"And what?" Nyota counters. "We're too busy for anything but work."
"Well," LaChanda says, tabbing through more pictures, "you're still lucky. How many people get to work on the moon?"
It's true, and with a stab of guilt, Nyota knows she should be more grateful. Even in the age of space travel, most people are Earth-bound most of their lives. Indeed, the chance to get into space is one of the main reasons Nyota is at the Academy.
The internship isn't really space, after all. It's just routine work on the moon—not the kind of assignment Nyota is working toward. She's already seen her future—a starship still being built in the cornfields of Iowa.
A shrill chirp and LaChanda holds out the comm to Nyota. "I think someone's calling you."
"Just a mail notification," Nyota says, glancing down. She starts to put her comm away when she sees that the note has been flagged priority. "Oh!" she says, surprised. "It's from the Academy. I need to check this."
While LaChanda makes her way to the bar to refresh their drinks, Nyota opens the mail.
To Cadet Nyota Uhura, from Commander Spock—
Nyota is so startled that she stops reading and glances at the origination code. It's the Academy, alright, and it appears to be Commander Spock's personal address.
I trust that your summer internship has been and continues to be instructive. As you undoubtedly know, teaching assistantships are being offered to qualified cadets for all full time instructors beginning in the fall semester. In addition to teaching two sections of advanced xenolinguistics, I have been tasked with operating the language practice lab. Although I can maintain a satisfactory schedule without auxiliary help, Admiral Nishiki has advised me that I am to select a suitable teaching assistant. Your skills make you an acceptable candidate. If this interests you, please contact me as soon as possible.
"What's wrong?" LaChanda says, setting two tall glasses of amber beer on the small round table. "You look upset."
"I don't know," Nyota says, frowning. "It's this note from one of my instructors. At least I think it's from him. My roommate is working for him this summer. She might have hijacked his address so she can play a joke on me."
"Why, what's it say?"
"I think he's asking me to apply for a job."
"That's good, right?"
"I don't know," Nyota says, picking up her beer. In fact, she's pretty sure a job with Commander Spock would be a very bad idea. It's not just that he can be maddeningly obtuse at times, even deliberately hard to get along with. It's the way she has trouble getting a read on him, the sense she has that he is never fully there, always holding something in reserve.
That's not quite it, either. There's something else, some pent up energy that he hides, or doesn't acknowledge, like the lions she's seen in the nature preserve near her home, their casual, ambling gait lulling foolish antelopes into danger.
With a shrug and a laugh at her silly metaphor, Nyota rereads the note.
"Basically," she says over the noise of the music, "he says he's being forced to hire a TA and he might as well hire someone like me."
"He didn't say that!" LaChanda says. Nyota grins.
"Almost," she says. "See this? When someone says an Admiral advises you to do something, that means you are being ordered. He's being forced to hire a teaching aide against his will."
"Then don't accept it," LaChanda says. "Since he doesn't really want you."
"Agreed," Nyota says, but the rest of the evening one part of her mind keeps returning to the note, even as she acts the part of a good friend, laughing and listening and sharing stories.
Hours later she tumbles into bed in her childhood bedroom, her sports trophies and academic awards on one wall, a shelf of souvenirs from a camping trip to Tanzania when she was 12 against the opposite wall. PADDs and tapes and even two actual paper books fill the bookshelf beside her bed. Stretched across the quilt her grandmother stitched for her years ago, Nyota pulls out her comm and rereads Commander Spock's note.
Once again she is struck by how stilted it sounds, how awkwardly phrased. Commander Spock's word choices are often unusual, his emphasis on a particular word or the way he elongates certain vowels or clips certain end consonants a dead give away that he is a non-native Standard speaker. Fluent but lacking the native's singular ease with the language.
His writing is another step back—sounding even more abrupt than he does when he speaks, more utilitarian, perhaps, or overly functional. Toneless. Yes, that's it. What she's looking for—and not finding—is the tone behind his words.
This time she reads between the lines, searching for the genuine meaning.
There's emotion there, though tucked out of sight. A genuine concern about her well-being. An irritation that the practice lab is being foisted on him. A rueful admission that he is being forced to hire an assistant. Praise—spare, to be sure—that she is an acceptable candidate.
And something else, too. What he doesn't say—the reason he is being forced to hire an assistant. The very real anxiety in his request that she contact him "as soon as possible." Why? The job doesn't begin for another month. Surely there's plenty of time to apply and be interviewed?
Except that this isn't an offer to apply. With a jolt, she realizes the job is hers if she wants it.
Is it always going to take this much work to figure out what he means? If this simple note is any indication, she should probably tell him right now that she's not interested.
The next morning when her mother gets up, Nyota is already in the kitchen, the tea on the hob, grilled bread and sliced fruit laid out.
"What's this?" her mother says, pleasantly surprised. Nyota feels a stab of guilt that she hasn't visited more, hasn't helped more around the house when she does. She's acted like a visitor instead of like family, and she's suddenly ashamed.
"I'm celebrating," she says, pouring a cup of tea for her mother. "I might have just made the best decision of my life. Or the worst. I'll tell you next semester after I start my new job."
A/N: Thanks for going to the trouble of leaving a review. I appreciate your time and energy more than you can know. It's the best kind of pay!