~The cause is sufficient,~ Larssen thought, waiting
for the lift. ~The cause is sufficient. The cause is
sufficient.~
The data solid in her hand felt heavy, heavier than
she knew it could possibly be. ~The cause is
sufficient. The cause is sufficient.~
That would be what she would say when Captain Kirk
asked her for her reasons. ~The cause is sufficient,
sir.~ She couldn't bear to give him any other
explanation. Let him think what he wanted. He
wouldn't want an officer on the Enterprise who wanted
to be somewhere else. After they docked at Starbase 9
she'd be free, and it wouldn't matter to her what the
captain thought of her, it would never matter ever
again.
~Free. Free to do what? Free to go where?~
~Don't think about it, Cory. Don't think about
anything. Don't think.~
~The cause is sufficient. The cause is sufficient.~
"Going up?" Janice Rand asked, and Larssen realised
she was staring into the open doors of the turbolift.
"Yes." Larssen said, and stepped aboard.
"Glad I caught you." Rand said. "Where to?"
"Deck Three." Larssen said. "Caught me?"
"Yes, I wanted to give you this." Rand said, and
handed Larssen the flat package she carried. "Well,
go on, open it!"
Putting the data solid in her pocket, Larssen opened
the box. The silky fabric of the dress she'd tried on
at Starbase 18 slipped through her fingers.
"You can wear it at the end of mission party." Rand
said.
"Janice, I -" Larssen said. Her hands shook with
anger. ~Easy for Janice Rand to wear a dress like
this.~ Janice who'd always fitted in. Janice who'd
never needed to know what Larssen had learnt in the
zirdar house about assimilation and acceptance and
invisibility.
"It fitted you so well, it seemed a shame to leave it,
and given what happened it's as well I didn't, I mean,
I bet the shop won't be open there even if we do get
back, after the evacuation most of the -"
"Janice." Larssen said. She was about to close the
box and shove it back at Janice, tell her exactly what
she thought of her empty-
headed stupid insensitive - ~she doesn't know me,~
Larssen thought, ~she doesn't know anything *about* me
Then she looked at Janice's bright smile, at the edge
of anxiety creeping into it as she didn't get the
delighted response she expected. ~Of course she
doesn't understand,~ Larssen thought. ~Of course
she's different to me. Just because she's a human
woman and so am I doesn't mean she's not Janice and
I'm not Cory.~
~A tent on Ser Etta Five. A man who she expected to
be something he wasn't because sometimes - sometimes
the less difference you expect, the less you can
accept.~
~Ask the alien how to ask the question. Reach out to
others courteously -
Accept their reaching with careful hands.~
As carefully as she would have done if she had been
talking to Bai'tin, or Athende, or Commander Spock,
Larssen made herself smile.
"Thank you, Janice." she said. "I don't know if I
*will* wear it, but thank you for thinking of me."
"Why not wear it?" Rand asked.
"Because I don't-" Larssen said, and stopped herself.
~With careful hands. With careful hands.~ "Janice, I
don't wear dresses. I don't - like to."
"Just once." Janice cajoled.
"Look." Larssen said. "I don't want to give people
another chance to think that Jack Whittaker was right
when he said I hadn't changed. All right?"
"Oh, stuff and nonsense, no-one pays any attention to
nasty old gossip from nasty old men." Rand said.
"This is my stop. Wear the dress." And she was out of
the turbolift and gone, leaving Larssen with her mouth
open to address the empty door.
~Stuff and nonsense,~ Larssen thought. It was very
odd to think that she'd spent her whole adult life
trying to live down something that could be dismissed
as 'stuff and nonsense'. It was very odd to realise
that Janice Rand, who Larssen had always thought of as
belonging to the magical world of social competence
she herself could never enter, *Janice* would blithely
take her side against the words of a Commodore of the
Fleet.
~Even after seeing the cock-up I made of the Lady
Grace.~
Larssen stood in the turbolift for a while, the box in
one hand, weighing the data solid meditatively in the
other. Finally she shoved the solid in the box with
the dress, and went to cancel the appointment she'd
requested with Captain Kirk.
"What I remember - sir." Larssen paused. Her hands
were folded on the table, her gaze fixed somewhere
past Spock's shoulder. "I wasn't thinking clearly. I
was tired. I made bad calls."
"At plus one hours you were asleep." Spock said.
"Yes sir."
"Your comm. woke you."
"Yes, sir."
"How did you feel?"
"Sir?"
"How did you feel, Lieutenant, at plus one hours when
your comm. woke you."
"Sir. I was tired, sir, I wasn't thinking clearly and
I made bad calls."
"That's the fourth time she's said that." McCoy said.
Spock touched a key, and the image ran forward.
"Lieutenant Larssen used that exact form of words
eighteen times in total during her debriefing
interview with me." he said. "Until - computer,
playback file Spock twenty nine Beta ten at thirty two
minutes seven seconds."
Larssen blurred and then came sharp. "I woke up and -
I wasn't thinking clearly. I was tired."
"Your comm. woke you." Spock on the screen said.
"What do you remember about waking up?"
"I wasn't thinking clearly and I - I woke up, I was
tired, I wasn't thinking clearly -"
"What emotions did you experience at that time?"
"Sir?"
"What emotions did you experience at that time?"
"I was tired, I wasn't -"
"Fatigue is not an emotion, Lieutenant."
"No, sir."
"What emotions did you experience at that time?"
For the first time she turned her head slightly, and
met his eyes. "I have never been so scared in all my
life." she whispered, and then closed her eyes and
turned her face away.
"Computer, playback file Spock twenty nine Beta four
at nine minutes thirty four seconds."
Yeoman Janice Rand appeared on the screen, her eyes
dry but red rimmed. "I have no excuses, I did the
wrong thing."
"And at eleven minutes twenty six seconds."
"I just got it wrong, Commander, I got it wrong!"
"And at thirteen minutes four seconds."
"I got it wrong, I was wrong, I shouldn't have left
the bridge, I - I - thought I could *stop* them, I
thought I could push them back into cargo, I really
thought I could, I can't explain, I -" Rand put a
hand over her mouth.
"You believed you could force the rioters to return to
the cargo bays without assistance." Spock's recorded
voice said.
"It sounds crazy." Rand whispered. "It was crazy. But
that's what I thought. Am I crazy, Commander?" Her
eyes filled with tears. "Can Dr McCoy help me?"
"Jesus." Kirk said.
"Computer," Spock said, "playback file Spock twenty
nine Beta six at eleven minutes fifty seconds."
The screen flickered and then showed Klein, grey and
drawn. "I wasn't sure what to do. I wanted to do the
right thing but I wasn't sure what it was."
"And at thirteen minutes sixteen seconds."
"I wanted to do what I should do - I wanted - they
were all over the ship, and Larssen - she said to drop
the seals, she said to do it, and I wanted to - I
wanted to do it - right *then*, I knew that the
civilians would be caught, and I thought - serves them
right! Serves them fucking right for risking all our
lives with their stupid, selfish, insanity! And I - I
knew - I wasn't supposed to think that, I wasn't
supposed to *want* to hurt them, and I thought - I
didn't know whether I *should* drop them, or I
*wanted* to drop them, or - or what, sir. I just - I
couldn't make myself work it out, sir. I'm sorry. I'm
sorry. Those people - I wanted to hurt them, I wanted
them dead, and I dropped the seals, and they died, I'm
sorry, I'm sorry -"
"End playback." Spock said.
"I want all of those crew - in counselling -
*mandated*. You *order* it, Jim." McCoy said.
"Agreed." Kirk said. "I'll file the strongest
recommendation for psychological support services for
the civilians aboard."
"All the crew reported experiencing extremely powerful
emotions which were illogical and inconsistent with
their training and their character." Spock said.
"Those emotions were all, with the exception of Yeoman
Rand, negative emotions such as fear, hatred, anger.
Yeoman Rand experienced a sense of power akin, I
believe, to the mania phase of manic depression. the
clustering of these effects, their similarity, and
their deviation from the behaviour we would expect
from Starfleet officers, leads me to conclude that
events aboard the Lady Grace at 'plus one hours' were
influenced by some external force."
"Bones," Kirk said, "Would the sleep deprivation and
exhaustion they experienced have produced such
effects?"
"It's possible." McCoy said. "And if this does go to
a disciplinary hearing I'm sure that will be raised -
by one side or the other. If it was one of them, or
two of them, maybe I'd think that way myself. But
they all reported a decrease in function at the same
time, right where the log entries get haphazard.
Within less than an hour the log entries pick up, they
clearly indicate a crew functioning competently even
at the high level of stress they were under."
"All crew members report a decrease in the emotional
effects they experienced and a return to what they
perceived as 'normal' emotional affectivity within
one hour."
"That is *not* consistent with sleep deprivation."
McCoy said.
"No." Spock said.
"All right." Kirk said. "Bones, standard medical and
psychological reports, plus an incident report for
Starfleet. Prepare them, don't file them. Spock, a
full report, but don't file. I'll send a your-eyes-
only heads up to the brass in general terms and wait
and see what response we get. Now, what about the USS
Gallant?"
"The USS Gallant also moved through the zone of space
that concerned me when I noted the Grace's course.
Without a log - for the Gallant did not jettison her
log buoy - and in the absence of credible testimony
from the nine surviving crew members, I cannot
establish even a tentative hypothesis on events
aboard."
"Are they still under sedation?" Kirk asked,
surprised.
"Yes." McCoy said. "I did bring them round this
morning for Spock to interview them."
"The results," Spock said sombrely, "were not
pleasant."
"He means that they heard the screams all the way down
to D Deck." McCoy said. "Those poor bastards are in
no way capable of making sense."
"It remains possible that many of the things observed
by Ms Tomlinson and her security team aboard the
Gallant were the result of some hallucinogenic toxin.
Spock said. "Given that possibility, the only certain
facts that we have to rely on are the Gallant's
refusal of communications, her hostile behaviour to
the point of attempting to deliberately collide with
another ship and destroy both vessels, and the fact
that Ms Tomlinson returned to the Enterprise heavily
covered in blood. Under analysis, this blood was
determined to be human, type O negative, but no DNA
match has been found with any Enterprise crew. I have
requested the medical files for the crew of the USS
Gallant to determine whether a match can be found with
those crew members."
"All right." Kirk said. "Keep me posted."
"There is one further point of interest." Spock said.
"Forensic examination of Ms Tomlinson's uniform
established that the blood was entirely in a pattern
of 'splatters' and 'droplets' rather than 'smears'."
His distaste for the imprecise language employed in
the human science of forensic investigation was clear.
"I suggest it is almost certain that the blood fell on
or was thrown over Ms Tomlinson - as opposed to her
having fallen or rolled in a large pool of blood, for
example."
~The ship - the *ship* was bleeding.~ That was what
Tomlinson had said.