He found himself yawning on his way back into his office. The three mugs of coffee he'd guzzled over his steak and salad kept his eyelids up, but little else. Thirty hours awake now. McCoy, you're not a young man anymore. How many times have you berated everyone else for not taking care of themselves, hm?
Before he got caught up again in the needs of his patient, he took a moment to himself to send out several subspace messages to colleagues on other ships, stations, back home. Anyone who might have a suggestion over treatment. Specialists in xenobiology, burn wounds, radiation treatment... and after a thought, he sent out one last message to a veterinarian that he dated back before the bitch ex-wife. She specialized in farm animal reproduction, no help there, but she'd have connections to folks who might be of help.
McCoy bumped into Uhura on the way out to get clean scrubs on.
"Lieutenant."
"Doctor." Uhura's eyes crinkled in a suppressed smile, her hands flitted like butterflies over a PADD. "I've got my idea. Here."
She handed it to him; looked like any other tablet he'd seen. He tipped it back and forth, then handed it back. "Okay. I give, what is it?"
"We don't know her language, she doesn't know ours. And she can't speak right now, anyway, so I've pulled some program from our archives, modified them some. Here."
She flipped it on, poked through a bit, until a variety of pictures cropped up. In the computer's usual placid voice, words, then sentences formed around the pictures it showed.
"And, better yet," she snapped a picture of him with the camera on the PADD, flipped it so he could see his own likeness. "Doctor Leonard McCoy," she told the PADD, which it recorded, then played back. "It'll let her select whatever she takes a picture of. If the database doesn't have the word already, then she can show us and we'll supply it for her."
"You're thinking of teaching our patient Standard?"
"Or, she can flip through the pictures and indicate what she needs. Spock figured that an associative algorithm would be the most efficient, so it will start off by suggesting related words, which should help things I think. And once she can talk again, she can tell the computer whatever her words for things are, and then, Ta-Da! Our UT will be updated with her native language and she'll be able to tell us about-"
"Alright, Uhura, alright." McCoy couldn't help but smile in the glow of her excitement. "Get Chapel to find a cover for it, then you can join me in the tent and we'll see if our patient has enough energy to give it a try. As it is, I don't want you to raise your hopes too high."
He disappeared to scrub up and once again don his sterile surgical garb, glove and mask and all.
Inside the tent, he could see the strain on Doctor M'Benga and his patient alike. What surprised him, however, was the visible relief he saw writ all over his patient's bare flesh, the way the muscles turned slack in whatever asymmetrical manner they could accomplish.
"Hello again, my friend. I trust M'Benga hasn't been taxing you too far."
"McCoy, I'm not sure I can handle-"
"It's alright, I understand. Go take a break. I'll be fine for a while."
His colleague straightened his shoulders. Like many other officers in Starfleet, being told, "It's okay," translated to a slap in the face and a direct challenge to continue.
M'Benga took in a deep, slow breath, his eyes closing for a moment.
"No, no I'm fine. If I can handle ten Vulcans with the Rigilian flu on a weekend trip in a shuttlecraft, I can handle this."
McCoy nodded. If their patient showed continued signs of stress around the doctor, McCoy would send him off regardless. Their chance for success sat in the below thirty percent as it was; anything added to the pile wouldn't be appreciated.
"Sorry I've been gone so long, but we've been trying to decide what to do about your ship. Can't believe how hot it got in there."
"Any luck on communication?" M'Benga asked.
"No, but Uhura-"
McCoy stopped himself, at the tentative touch of the two digits on the hand closer to the incubator, followed by a familiar gesture towards the case.
"It's not quite time to rotate them," he said quietly. "But perhaps you'd like to take a peak in, hm? How'd it get this far away anyway?"
"Had to get to the scanners," M'Benga grumbled while McCoy wheeled it back.
"Of course. Just remember to bring it back around, okay? This poor creature doesn't have much reason to trust us as it is."
After a moment's consideration, McCoy decided to crack it open a moment and retrieve one of the precious, still-living ova.
The desecrated two fingers trembled as they reached to touch the perfect curved surface. McCoy flinched, but allowed the gentle caress. Everyone was sterile, at least. The painful gap between the two remaining digits, making the missing finger in the middle more obvious, cast a pathetic pall on the moment.
"We're doing the best we can for them. It's no comfort at all right now, when you can't understand me, but we are doing the best we can."
"What happens if... our patient dies, and we're left with the eggs?"
McCoy blinked over at M'Benga.
"How about we keep the negative talk outside the sickbay, huh?" M'Benga didn't look chastised in the least. The CMO drew himself up to his full height. "Go take some readings and write up the hourly report."
"Of course, Doctor McCoy."
Both doctor and patient looked calmer for his exit from the tent.
McCoy sighed and turned his attention back to where it ought to be. "My apologies for him, we're all a bit strained and-"
A familiar chime interrupted him.
"Time to rotate everyone."
The hand reached for him, grasping his wrist in a strong, lopsided grasp.
"We'll be right here."
With both his hands cupping the egg he had to wait until he was released. Luckily, Uhura pushed into the tent with her bright smile and coated PADD to rescue the day.
"Our Lieutenant Uhura has something to show you while I check the eggs."
The fingers retreated, the lidless eyes turning back and forth between them.
McCoy took a place on the far side of the incubator so that he could rotate in the full view of his patient. And so he could watch Uhura work her magic.
"This is called a PADD," she informed with fierce cheerfulness. She rotated between a couple languages, after declaring each sentence in Standard. "I've got it programmed to help us communicate, hopefully, but we're going to need your help. Here, see? You can tap it, like this, and it'll tell you words to the pictures." Her fingers selected one thing, than another, showing first a boy child, then a girl, offering words for both.
"You should make sure to have species other than human in there," McCoy recommended.
"Every species I could find pictures of," Uhura replied with a grin. "I figured, if we saw some recognition somewhere, then the species she know's might be one that knows her in turn."
Her fingers continued to demonstrate, showing young male and female Vulcans, Klingons, Ferengi, some adults added in here and there.
"Anything but people?"
"Oh, yes. Here, I have different headings." She poked an icon off to the side, and the viewer went from humanoids to larger concepts: ocean, water, river, beach, sand, swamp, island. "Spock thought that we might get a better idea of the native environment if-"
"Of course, of course."
After a few more flicks back and forth, a gauze-wrapped digit reached up and tentatively poked at a great expanse of water.
"Lake." The feminine computer spoke. "Lake. Lake. Lake."
"I think she's got the idea."
"You do realize everyone is going to assume female now, with that voice."
"Oh deal, Doc."
"Ocean. River. Stream. Water. Glass. Cup. Drink."
Doctor and Lieutenant glanced between them, then down to their patient.
"Drink. Water."
To make the point stronger, the two digits reached up and touched the exposed teeth, before once again touching the two pictures.
"Do you think..."
"All we can do is try," McCoy said. He didn't rush finishing with the eggs, but the moment he had, he tucked the lid down and retrieved a cup of distilled water and a small sponge.
Without the proper plumbing to bring the liquid down, straws were out of the question, but a few drops moistening the little yellow cube and then touched to the indicated flesh brought a long stretch of the ribcage.
"Water. Drink." The fingers tapped again.
McCoy continued to dab little bits of moisture at a time, until the pair of digits touched his wrists to stop him.
"Do you think she understands Standard?"
McCoy looked down. "Well, do you?"
Unblinking eyes stared up without change in expression.
"I'll take that as a no. You'll have to compliment Spock and his associative algorithm."
McCoy reached over, tapping the PADD a couple times himself, to see the images supplied for Water and Drink, which the computer narrated. A short, looped video of water flowing from a spigot, and another of a human woman drinking from a water fountain.
"Let's see if we can work out a stand or something for that."
Modern pictographs. Who would have guessed it?
With a bit of work, they set up a spot for the PADD to sit on one of the movable medical tables. Not the most stable location, but their patient seemed capable of picking it up and setting it down well enough. Without a thumb the movement took longer, with the fingers gripping it down onto the remaining flesh of the palm.
"I put a couple games on it, as well," Uhura said after a moment, showing with gesticulation how to minimize the language section and pull up some large, colored icons. "It's kinda boring in here. No offense, Leonard."
"None taken, Nyota," he replied. "I'm glad you thought of it. It will be a good way to watch reaction times and-"
He felt his eyebrows head for his hairline again at her selection. Kids games. Color matching, minesweeper, solitaire, target practice-
"Umm..."
But she was already pulling up one game, showing how to make colorful spinning atoms explode by matching up volatile compounds.
"If you end up showing our friend how to make TNT, I'm reporting you to Jim."
She chuckled. "I only had a little while to work on this. I'll find some more suitable ones. Just be glad I didn't put the Enterprise's targeting demo on it. These are all of Chekov's games."
"That makes more sense... and makes me want to avoid the transporter pad all the more."
A shaky finger swiped one way, then another before tapping several times in rough succession, each time away from the gyrating hydrogen atoms.
McCoy reached over again and quit the game. He pointed towards the language center, but let his patient make the selection.
They sat back while word after word passed with ever increasing speed. Plants, minerals, animals, different foods, plates, styles of cooking, history of Italian dishes, the molecular compounds of salsa.
"...Perhaps I was too optimistic with my earlier assessment of Spock's algorithms."
The two fingers made a loose fist, then poked McCoy hard in the hand, before pointing towards the incubator.
He smiled and nodded, understanding immediately.
"What's going on?"
"Our friend is looking for the picture of an egg."
"How did you...?"
McCoy shook his head. He picked up the PADD, taking a quick snapshot of first the incubator, changing the computer's assumption of, "Display case," to something more medically appropriate, then another couple of the eggs, getting one for singular, and a last one with the whole group.
Just to make sure his staff didn't go slack, he made sure to designate in the computer that they were "Child" and "Children," rather than "egg" and "eggs." It'd be difficult enough as it was to keep people from dehumanizing the lump of flesh that remained.
"Good idea, Leonard," Uhura commented, as the doctor handed the PADD back to his patient.
"Thanks," he mumbled, as the computer declared "Child. Child. Child." Over and over in the clear, feminine, chipper voice. "Can't help but think that might bite me in the ass."
He grinned as he pulled out a different egg this time for his patient to check on.
"Incubator."
He put the egg away.
"Child."
Another pulled, so that one desperate hand could smooth the surface.
"Incubator. Child."
The fingers flicked faster now between the two. McCoy kept his pace slow and measured.
After the fifth egg was checked, he touched his patient's fingertips carefully.
"If we keep opening the incubator, the kids will get cold."
Pleading eyes flicked over to Uhura. She hmmed and hawed, before selecting the photo of the incubator, juxtaposed with an iceberg. Perhaps extreme, but the patient settled down.
"Thanks."
"No problem. We're all going to have to figure this system out, but it's better than nothing."
"Water. Drink."
McCoy wet the sterile sponge again and moistened the exposed flesh.
"Would you like me to leave you to it then? The Captain wanted me to assist with... well."
"Of course, thank you."
"Water. Drink. Child. Incubator. Doctor Leonard McCoy."
A gauze-wrapped finger pointed to Uhura.
She smiled. "You're welcome."
McCoy huffed in frustration, lifting the machine and taking Uhura's picture.
"Lieutenant Nyota Uhura," he told the computer.
"Lieutenant Nyota Uhura," it repeated, once prompted.
"There. Now go on with ya, before Jim finds you've been showing a new species Solitaire."