hopelessly in love with the tall, handsome Vulcan. She was a sensible woman, though, and knew that any relationship other than a purely professional one was impossible. But every time he came near her, a wave of desire washed through her that she found hard to control, but did… somehow.
“I… I wouldn’t do anything to harm Mr. Spock. I’ve had enough tragedy in my life,” she went on, referring to her years’ long search for a man she had once loved who had been lost on a space expedition, and the heartbreak and horror that came when she finally found him.
See: “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” STAR TREK 11, Bantam Books, 1975
Kirk considered the woman’s words. As he looked into her strained and worried face, he thought: True, but infatuation can make the best of us do strange things. Could she have hoped that linkage with a highly emotional Kyrosian mind would make Spock react to her femininity in human terms? Kirk rejected that thought almost as soon as it entered his mind. She would be no more capable of doing that than McCoy would be of administering an aphrodisiac to a woman he desired.
And that left only the petite newcomer, Ensign George. Though she had a pertly attractive face and a provocatively rounded body, the few brief contacts Kirk had had with her since she joined the Enterprise had given him the impression of a person so involved in her work that there was no place for anything else. But now, as she looked at him, there was a new quality about her, a smoldering sensuality that Kirk’s maleness couldn’t help reacting to.
“Well, Ensign?” Kirk said.
“I had nothing to do with whatever happened to Mr. Spock,” she said defiantly. “Somehow, the magcards must have gotten mixed up. I wasn’t even in the operating room when the link was activated.”
“More than a mix-up is involved here,” Kirk said coldly. “Someone took Chag Gara’s profile from the medical library, wiped the one that had been originally selected for Spock, and deliberately imprinted Gara’s personality pattern. Since the visual identification printout on the card was that of the original subject, neither Dr. McCoy nor Lieutenant Chapel had any way of knowing that a switch was made.”
“You seem to have found me guilty already, Captain,” she replied.
“Are you?” Kirk demanded.
The woman’s composure remained unruffled. “Chapel knows how to run the equipment,” she said coolly, “and she knows how to read profiles. Maybe Gara’s sensuality quotient gave her a bright idea. Her feelings about Spock are no real secret; she turns into a quivering schoolgirl every time he comes in sight.”
Lieutenant Chapel’s eyes brimmed with tears at the accusation, but her voice retained a bite as she glared at the smaller woman. “You’re lying. You had the opportunity, too, and the motive. I’ve seen you near Spock…” Turning to the men, she said. “You both know I’d never… never do anything like that.”
“Of course, Christine,” McCoy replied softly.
Another five minutes of interrogation brought nothing but continued denials.
“We’re getting no place,” Kirk said, glancing at the digital chronometer on one bulkhead impatiently, “and we have much more important matters to attend to. Dr. Mbenga, Lieutenant Chapel, you are excused. Ensign George, consider yourself under arrest. You will remain in your quarters until a board of court-martial can be convened.”
The girl shrugged and started to rise.
“I think we’ve overlooked something important,” McCoy said, making a restraining gesture. “With your permission, Captain, I think I may be able to clear this matter up in a few minutes.”
Kirk glanced at the chronometer again, then gave a nod.
“Dr. Mbenga,” McCoy directed, “will you please go to sickbay and get me a spray hypo of 200 milligrams of neo-chlorprothixene.”
As the black physician left, Kirk looked at McCoy with a puzzled expression.
“What’s all this?”
“I’ve been working quite closely with Sara the last few weeks, but she hasn’t been the same person since she received her dop,” McCoy replied. “Until now, I thought the dop effect was only minor, but her behavior during the last half hour indicates a major change. Her dop’s behavior pattern must be so different from her own that a major psychic distortion has taken place. I’m going to inject her with a fast-acting ataractic—”
“A what?”
“Ataractic. It’s a powerful tranquilizer that will temporarily depress the substrates of the midbrain that control emotional responses. My hunch is that once Sara is her normal cool, cerebral self, she’ll be able to tell us what happened.”
At his words, Ensign George stood up. Idly, she wandered toward the briefing room door just as Dr. Mbenga came in to hand McCoy the hypo. She slammed into him, trying to get out.
“Grab her!” McCoy shouted.
Kirk jumped, throwing his arms about her. She struggled fiercely, clawing and screaming. McCoy dashed to her side, slapped the end of the hypo against her arm and pressed. There was a low hiss as the spray penetrated to her skin. Kirk held onto her as she stiffened, then collapsed.
“Put her in that chair, Jim,” McCoy said. “She isn’t unconscious, but she isn’t able to stand by herself.”
As the two officers stood looking down at her, the girl’s face began to change. The look of sullen defiance drained away to be replaced by an expressionless mask.
“All right, Sara,” McCoy said, “how did it happen?”
When she answered, her voice was as flat and toneless as the ship’s computer.
“My life has always been my work; I refused to allow myself to get entangled in emotional relationships. I considered them disruptive and counterproductive. When I met Mr. Spock, all that changed. I found him strangely attractive. I was conscious of his maleness—something that never happened to me before—but I controlled that easily. I was determined to let nothing interfere with my work. But when I beamed up with that batch of native profiles and checked through them, I found one so unlike my own that I was filled with an intense curiosity. I wondered what it would be like to be that person, to feel the way she felt. For once in my life I gave in to temptation and acted on impulse. At any rate, I tuned my telescan link to that profile and let it be implanted. Since I was in charge of that much of the experiment, they didn’t think to check on the one I chose. Dr. McCoy and the rest assumed I would follow normal procedure.”
The woman, in spite of the drug, squirmed in her seat.
“The instant the linkage was established,” she said, “I knew I had made a terrible mistake. I found myself in the grip of emotional forces I couldn’t control. It was too late to do anything about it. From then on, I knew what I was doing, and I hated myself for it, hated those feelings, but I couldn’t… couldn’t stop.”
“Can you say why?” McCoy asked softly.
“I think because I had repressed my own emotions for so long, refusing to deal with them, trying only to deny them. When my dop’s feelings came surging across. I couldn’t handle them,” the ensign went on, her voice flat and objective. “When I was assigned to the Enterprise and learned of Lieutenant Chapel’s feelings about Spock, I thought, how illogical. I had nothing but contempt for her. I couldn’t conceive of a mind fine enough to be a Starfleet officer and earn a doctorate in bio-research and medicine, letting itself be disturbed by such a futile hope and childish infatuation. But like Spock, I denied my own humanity. Unlike him, however, I am human, and humans are sexual beings. The ordinary linkage allows just enough emotion to make the observer authentic to a native; but, like Spock, I became my dop. If you will examine her profile you will see.”
McCoy gave the necessary commands to the computer, and when the personality profile appeared on the screen, he whistled in astonishment.
“Good Lord, Jim, look at that!”
“You know I can’t read those wiggles, Bones,” Kirk said. “What does it mean?”
“It means that Sara has hooked herself into a walking sex machine with as many inhibitions as a green Orion slave girl—namely, none! This profile’s only purpose in life seems to be immediate and frequent gratification of her desires of the moment.” McCoy looked at the woman sprawled in the chair.
“What do you know about her, Sara?”
“Not much. When I was collecting the profiles, I tried to get as much diversity as possible. She seemed a good candidate because of her beauty and an aura of sexual magnetism around her. As she went through the plaza that day, nearly every male gawked at her. She was obviously lower-class, but I thought her behavioral characteristics might be useful if a mission required a female officer with those characteristics.” She paused.
