Who would have guessed? Nyota thought with some amusement, as she prepared her station for transfer to second shift. James Kirk does have his uses after all.

True to his word, Kirk had hooked up Mallory with the astrophysics team. They were all working on what Mallory called "the resolution problem"— trying to get Spock's station to produce the same results that Spock got even though Spock wasn't here to operate it. As a result, the last two shifts had gone amazingly smoothly, with Mallory's enthusiasm safely diverted to a team below-decks, and a lot fewer agonizing replays of Spock's soft, compelling voice stating fact after fact with measured precision.

Kirk had also— and this was beyond the call, Nyota thought— taken to spending more time personally with Mallory, talking over her challenges and progress. This meant that Mallory spent more time engaged in conversation with him and less time distracting Nyota and Lo. Nyota was unashamedly grateful for both developments.

In fact, even though second shift had officially begun, Kirk was still here, listening to Mallory's latest update. He gave the appearance of being genuinely interested, but the wink he'd given Nyota when he'd sauntered over from the captain's chair betrayed his true motivation.

"So, thanks to Kwak's help," Mallory was saying, "we've got the signal cleaned up to almost Commander Spock's baseline. We're now within 0.03% of his most recent readings."

The twinkle in Kirk's eye was clearly directed at Nyota. "Well, that seems close enough for our survey purposes."

"Possibly, but we've got to eliminate every bit of distortion we can. Just think of the discoveries we're making today because of our improved signal resolution. I mean, compare what we have now to just a few years ago. When Admiral Pike's first command went out, do you know how much cruder their spectronomic readings were?"

Nyota knew that Kirk was perfectly aware of the signal resolution during that time period, but he kept an admirably straight face as he answered, "How much?"

"600%!" Mallory answered with energy. "600% in only 20 years— can you believe that?"

"It's hard to imagine," Kirk answered, shaking his head. He gave Nyota a bob of his eyebrows over Mallory's head, but the science officer was too obsessed with her dissertation to notice.

"We've found literally hundreds of new systems with the increased resolution. So we can't afford to neglect any improvement, no matter how small. Ten years from now, they're going to be wondering how we ever got by with systems as crude as this."

"I have no doubt that you're right."

Nyota had finished her lockdown and handed her PADD to her relief, Ensign Flynn. Her relief. That word was taking on ever-more appropriate connotations, the longer Nyota worked beside Mallory.

"Now, Commander Spock—" Mallory went on, and Nyota couldn't help rolling her eyes. She shouldn't have been surprised; it was almost a minute since Mallory had mentioned him.

"—somehow got rid of that extra bit of noise, but we still can't quite figure out how he did it. I've put a tweak on all these manual controls, so we can find out by sheer trial and error exactly what settings he was using in what combination to get his unprecedented results. Personally, I think he must have extraordinary hearing—"

"I'll see you later," Nyota murmured to Flynn.

"Have fun," Flynn murmured back, trying to hide his amusement as he shot a glance at Mallory.

Nyota laughed, and made her escape.

It was Friday. Normally, Friday's didn't have much significance aboard a starship. Unless shore leave was involved, one day pretty much ran into another. But some members of the ship still upheld the fine Friday tradition of... what might euphemistically be called "winding down." And if ever there was a week where Nyota needed to wind down, it was this one.

Fortunately, considering the reputation of her host, she suspected the winding-down process had already begun. She had a standing invitation to attend this informal weekly gathering of the ship's senior officers, but considering that Spock didn't care for social functions involving alcohol, and she and Spock often preferred their own activities anyway (Nyota felt her cheeks warm), well, she'd let this routine fall by the wayside. And Jim Kirk had told her to resume her former, pre-Spock activities. Damn! Two useful suggestions from that man in one week. He was breaking new records here. But tonight Nyota found herself eager to comply.

She turned the corner leading to Sickbay, walked in, and stopped short.

Christine Chapel was in the outer office accessing a medical record. What arrested Nyota was the image, small though it was, in one corner of the nurse's screen—a very familiar, dark-haired image... with pointed ears.

Christine looked up quickly, hearing someone come in. She spotted Nyota, and promptly blushed.

Nyota's surprise turned instantly to anger. What was it with these people? Irately, she marched up to Christine and demanded, "What are you doing?"

Christine attempted to pull herself together—but she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, and looked it. "Ensign Mallory asked me to review Mr. Spock's file."

Nyota was going to crack a tooth over all the jaw-clenching she'd been doing lately. "What possible reason could Ensign Mallory have for prying into Mr. Spock's private medical records? And why would you agree to help her?"

The why was pretty obvious; Nyota had long suspected that Christine harbored tender feelings towards Spock. But she'd managed to keep them under control—at least until Mallory came aboard.

Christine looked flustered, but plunged ahead. "It's part of this signal resolution problem they're working on. Mallory wanted to compare Mr. Spock's hearing range with that of a normal human's." Christine hesitated. "The captain authorized it."

Nyota was not mollified. "Did he also authorize you to display pictures of your patients?"

Now Christine looked offended. "The pictures are part of every medical profile. Unlike some people, I don't have the name and face of every crew member memorized."

Nyota looked at the picture. It was actually a fairly gorgeous portrait of Spock, his head tilted slightly and his eyes looking upward. She had always liked that pose. Apparently, Christine did, too—enough to attach a generously sized image of one to the corner of his medical file.

This was torture. Nyota looked away. "So, have you finished looking up his hearing range yet?"

"I was just getting to it. Really, I had only just opened the file when you walked in."

Which meant that Jim Kirk had given the order after Nyota had left her station. It might simply have been a response to Mallory nattering on about Spock's amazingly sensitive hearing—but Nyota couldn't help wondering if he'd deliberately waited until she was out of the room, possibly to avoid her protest against this very thing. Well, she'd found something to protest, all right. Plenty, in fact.

Icily, she said to Christine, "Well, you'd better get those statistics back to Mallory right away. She's probably chewing off her left hand waiting for them to come in."

Christine frowned. "Nyota?"

Nyota backed away, heading for the inner office. "Oh, don't mind me. I honestly don't care about people looking at pictures of Spock all day long and listening to his taped reports over and over again. It's fine. I enjoy it. Please carry on, Nurse."

She walked away without waiting for Christine's reaction, and strode briskly into Dr. McCoy's office.