Dear Irina,
Part 6
Stardate 5031.1
Dear Irina,
I realize that it has been over a month since I received your last letter. I feel terrible that it has taken me so long to respond. My work has kept me very busy, and we have been out of communications range or running silent for a lot of the time. Still, those are poor excuses for not writing back to you. I am sorry, and I will try to do better in the future.
Before I answer your questions, I must tell you that I am more than a little worried about your work. Irina, your almost slavish obedience to Dr. Sevrin does not sound like the questioning and independent woman with whom I spent so much time at the Academy. I do not think that it is wise to abandon everything that you have worked for to follow your colleagues in this fanciful search for "Eden". I thought when you first talked of this that you were engaged in an archaeological search. This journey that you describe seems to be more of a mythical quest. I must remind you Irina, of how so many of these quests end. Not well.
Think about the story of the Russian princess who left her prince and her castle to follow the sorcerer. He promised her eternal life. She found more than she bargained for. Eternal life in hell. I know you think I always find the worst in everything. This is not my gloomy Russian soul speaking. I tell you this from real experience. I am very worried about you and this doctor of yours. Please think carefully about your decision to follow him.
Now be calm, Irina. I can just hear you yelling at me. I know you said in your last letter that I have lost contact with reality when it comes to Captain Kirk. You are quite mistaken. My obedience to my captain is an entirely different situation. I am aware that I told you that I would follow him to hell and back if he asked. It is not the same thing. In the first place, if he ordered me to hell it would be because Starfleet ordered him to take us there. In the second place, he would never put his crew in danger unless there was absolutely no other choice. And, Captain Kirk would be the first one through the gates of hell. He is always first. I have thought about this a lot. I think it is because when he leads us he does not have to watch us in harm's way. Maybe that sounds strange, but that is the way he is.
Anyway, enough of that. You asked me to tell you about my life onboard the Enterprise. You know that this is the posting that I wanted more than anything. This was my first, last and only choice. Now that I am here Irina, the thing that is the most surprising is how utterly ordinary most of it is. I do not know exactly what I expected, but somehow I thought that my life on board a starship would be less mundane. I am very busy, but most of it is so...I guess I would have to say normal. I get up, have breakfast, go to the bridge, do my work, spend time with my friends, and go to bed.
Yes, alone.
It is sometimes hard to remember that all of this is taking place on board a starship that is hurtling through vacuum, warping space at unimaginable speeds. If I have trouble remembering this most of the time, I wonder how my shipmates who work off the bridge feel about it. It is not something I am really comfortable discussing with them. I would not want anyone, especially the captain, ever to think that I do not want to be aboard the Enterprise.
I guess you can get used to almost anything if you do it long enough. I do not have nightmares about navigating us into a star anymore. I actually miss that feeling a little bit. Even my work has gotten pretty routine. I sit on the bridge during my shift, plotting courses, practicing evasive maneuvers, and occasionally assisting Mr. Spock at the science station. For the most part, any of this could be done anywhere. There are long stretches of time when absolutely nothing happens at all. I am not really complaining about that, because what breaks up the monotony is usually bad news for all of us. It is just that when I dreamed about the Enterprise I did not think about how ordinary much of my day-to-day life would be. And, this is on a ship that sees more action than most. Imagine how boring another posting would be!
I have noticed that many of the people on this ship have taken up hobbies, some authorized and more than a few clandestine. Perhaps they too feel the monotony of this life. My friend Sulu is a fencer who thinks he is one of the Three Musketeers. He is always after me to take fencing lessons from him. So far, I have resisted. I do not much like the thought of having sharp weapons pointed at me for fun. Lieutenant Uhura's hobby is learning languages. So far she can speak and understand more than thirty. That sounds more like work than play to me, but she is so obviously happy when she masters a new one. She is trying to learn every Terran dialect currently being spoken. Uhura told me that some day she hopes to begin working on the non-Terran languages. With so many languages in the Federation, she will have to live to be one hundred before she ever gets to Klingon! Uhura also sings like an angel. Much to our delight. Mr. Spock plays the Vulcan harp and engages in martial arts for relaxation. He is very generous about teaching the crew, but I have seen the bruises on his students after some of his more difficult throws. No thank you. I still have scars from that secret Siberian chokehold you showed me.
Our chief engineer spends his off-hours perfecting his homemade whiskey. No one is supposed to know that there is a still in engineering, but I have heard that even the captain has indulged from time to time. I tried Mr. Scott's concoction once. I prefer vodka. There is an ensign in stores who runs a poker game, an unregistered game of five-dimensional Snood runs on the security computers, and one of the nurses has a stash of illegal movies from Wrigley's Pleasure Planet. At least, that is the rumor. I of course, would not have any first-hand knowledge of those.
There is probably a lot more going on that I do not know about. The unofficial position seems to be that if your off-duty activities do not interfere with your job and do not harm anyone, then as long as you do not flaunt them, go ahead. A most enlightened attitude. Since your last letter said that I sound as if I am out of contact with the real world, I am considering joining a group that experiments with the paranormal. (Stop screaming, Irina. This is a joke.)
You may have noticed that I mostly describe the same people each time I write you. That is another thing about this job. You are with the same people day in and day out. When I first came on board, the ship seemed so big. I wondered if I would ever know all my shipmates. Well, Irina, four hundred and thirty people contained in a starship make for a very, very, small town. You can't go anywhere, do anything, without running into the same people over and over. Don't get me wrong. These are some of the finest people in the universe. I am honored to be serving with them, and I am beginning to feel that these will be among my lifelong friends. But, some mornings I dread going to the mess and seeing the same faces over and over.
Speaking of the mess, the food on this ship is terrible. I know that a huge amount of effort goes into trying to make our meals palatable, but they are inedible for the most part. Behind the engineers' backs the food slots are referred to as the food slops. You never know what you will get when you dial in a choice. The other day, I tried to order some kasha. I know that I should not have even tried, but there it was on the list of choices. I was feeling a little homesick and could not resist. Well, Irina, this kasha had never been near a groat. It was green! Need I add that I did not eat it?
I have learned that it is best to stock up on real food whenever possible. I spent all my credits on edibles at the last Starbase we visited. I am also ashamed to say that I have turned into a hoarder. Like our ancestors who faced the bitter Russian winter, I am storing my food for the long months ahead. I think once, twice, and then three times, each time that I dip into my stash. You used to accuse me of being a miser. I am embarrassed to admit that you were right. I have actually lied to my friends about being out of chocolate. I find myself gargling three times after indulging. Sulu would strangle me if he smelled it on my breath. This is not something they taught us at the Academy.
Something else they did not teach at the Academy was the amount of gossip that goes on in what is essentially a very small town. I used to think the Enterprise ran on dilithium crystals. I was wrong. It runs on gossip.
The main subject of much of the gossip seems to be the captain. His private life is an endless source of speculation. Or, should I say his lack of a private life? He is a very handsome man, and most of the women and quite a few of the men seem to have a crush on him. He certainly is nothing but completely professional with his crew. In this very contained environment we would all know in a moment if the captain was indiscreet. He isn't. I am sure that he is as aware that we watch his every move. I wonder how he can handle the pressure? He does spend a lot of time in the gym. I am told that he has returned from some of his shore leaves looking a little rough around the edges. Rumor has it that the captain more than makes up for lost time when he is off the Enterprise. Apparently, some of his former girlfriends have shown up on the ship. Sulu told me about some lawyer who actually kissed Captain Kirk on the bridge. I wish I had seen that.
Here's another piece of gossip for you. Mr. Spock, our Vulcan first officer, has a human mother. She came aboard the Enterprise with Sarek of Vulcan as part of a diplomatic mission. You may have read about the Babel conference, where the vote to admit Coridan to the Federation took place. The Enterprise was assigned to transport several of the diplomatic delegations to this conference. What should have been a routine mission turned out to be pretty surprising for several reasons. Not the least of which was meeting Mr. Spock's human mother. I guess I do not know what is more surprising, that Mr. Spock is half-human, or that he has a mother at all. Somehow, even after meeting Lady Amanda, it is still difficult to see our formal and controlled first officer as someone's child. I think Mr. Spock has that problem too. He did not act like a son to his mother when I saw them together.
I wonder what Spock's mother's life is like? What could it be like for a human to live on Vulcan? How hard it must be to have to control her very human feelings so as not to offend those around you. This would be impossible for me. When she first married Sarek there could not have been many humans on Vulcan. She must have felt terribly isolated. Yet she does not appear to be unhappy. In fact she appears to be quite content with her life.
We got a chance to see quite a bit of Spock's mother while she was on board the Enterprise. Ambassador Sarek was ill for a while, but Lady Amanda seemed to enjoy being with the human crew. She was quite charming. When she first boarded the Enterprise she came to the bridge with the captain for a tour. Lady Amanda came over to me and asked me several questions. She smiled at me as if she felt a mother's pride. It was a very nice feeling. I wonder if Mr. Spock ever felt that way with her?
In some ways Spock's mother reminded me of my mother. Do you remember how my mother delighted in telling our Academy classmates about my most embarrassing moments as a child? Well, Dr. McCoy told me that Mr. Spock's mother did the same thing. She told him that our first officer used to have a pet bear called a sehlat. I looked up this sehlat. It looks a little like a Russian brown bear. But, this bear has six-inch fangs and claws. It is hard to picture Mr. Spock cuddling his sehlat, since these creatures look capable of ripping a person to pieces. I am glad that I did not have the misfortune to be born on Vulcan. A human child would never survive the pets.
Mr. Spock was clearly raised as a Vulcan. He seems to have suppressed the human part of himself. I wonder what that choice has cost him? And, I wonder what it has cost his mother? I imagine that she would not have been able to hold him and kiss him as our mothers did us. Do you suppose that Mr. Spock ever cried as a child? Would his mother have dried his tears, or would she have chastised him for being emotional? I heard a rumor that Spock and his father were estranged. How could you tell? Our first officer acted like both his parents were strangers to him. Perhaps things are different in private. Perhaps when Spock and his mother are alone, that warmth that I told you about, that I had sensed buried in Mr. Spock's Vulcan depths, emerges from his human half. Vulcans, even half-Vulcans are very secretive. I doubt we will ever really know.
Here's another funny thing. Speaking of keeping secrets, it seems that Mr. Spock neglected to mention to Captain Kirk that his parents were coming aboard the Enterprise. He and the captain are supposed to be friends. I can only imagine how the captain felt about being kept in the dark. I know that this is so because a friend of mine, Chuck Henley, was in the landing bay when Captain Kirk found out. Apparently, the captain told Mr. Spock he could beam down and visit his parents after the Vulcan ambassador beamed onboard. According to Henley, Mr. Spock turned to the captain and replied that the Vulcan ambassador and his wife were his parents. Henley said Captain Kirk had a really funny look on his face for a moment. Then he sort of straightened up and walked out with the Vulcan diplomats as if nothing strange had happened.
One benefit of the mission to Babel was that for a while the food onboard the ship was really good. There were a lot of diplomats aboard the Enterprise, and they brought with them delicacies from their home worlds. The delegates were very generous with their food. I tasted everything. Some of it was pretty strange, but most of it was a lot better than green kasha! There was this Rigellian delicacy called "chaav" that I really enjoyed. That is until Sulu told me that it was the made from the droppings of the Rigellian analogue of bats. Do you know that it is considered a diplomatic faux pas to spit out food in public?
The captain made sure that all of us had an opportunity to spend time with the diplomats. I learned so much from talking to them, and listening to their stories. There were a few delegations that were not a pleasure to have on board. Tellarites are the most quarrelsome creatures I have yet encountered. You know that I enjoy a good argument, but these beings have refined arguing into an art form. There was a bit of trouble with the Tellarite ambassador, but unfortunately I cannot go into detail. I will mention that Captain Kirk's diplomatic skills were called into use on several occasions.
Oh. I cannot believe that I almost forgot to tell you about the one exciting thing that did happen. We had a bit of a run in with another ship, and before that there was an incident on the Enterprise when the captain was injured. Anyway, the exciting part was that after the incident with that other ship, the captain had to leave the bridge. He had aggravated his injury, and needed to get to sickbay in a hurry. Well Irina, as he left he stopped and turned to me. I remember every second. It is inscribed into my brain.
He said, "Chekov, take over."
HE GAVE ME THE CONN!
For a moment I froze. The turbolift doors closed and still I had not moved. Then Lieutenant Uhura said, "Aren't you going to sit in the command chair, sir?" SIR! She called me sir. I have to tell you Irina, I was excited, shaky, sweaty, nervous, thrilled, nauseous, all at the same time. My replacement navigator came to stand by me, and I finally got up to give Ensign Leslie my station. I walked over to the command chair. I felt a little like Alice in Wonderland. Do you remember that story? I felt so small and the chair looked so big. I had this image of sitting down and having my feet not touch the floor. I took a deep breath and sat down.
Do you know what brought me back to reality? I felt wetness under my hand. When I looked down at the chair I saw that there was blood on the back of the seat. Captain Kirk had been bleeding badly all through our difficulties. There was nothing in his command performance that even hinted that he was in such trouble. Well, for some reason that steadied me. If he could perform under such circumstances, and he left me the conn, then I could do what he needed me to do.
The funny thing was that soon after that, Dr. McCoy declared both the captain and Mr. Spock unfit for duty. Apparently, Mr. Spock donated blood for an operation and was too weak to take command, and the captain was also unable to serve. I don't know all the details. Anyway Irina, they forgot that I had the conn. No one told Mr. Scott, who's next in command, to relieve me. I served a whole shift in command of the Enterprise.
I wish I could tell you it was thrilling. The idea of it was thrilling, but actually most of the work was pretty boring. There were a million reports. Damage reports, fuel consumption reports, personnel reports, medical reports. So much paperwork. I am thinking that I might reconsider the command track and go into security. My friend Henley says it's really interesting and you get to go on a lot of away missions. We shall see.
Mr. Scott finally relieved me at the end of Alpha shift. He seemed a little surprised to find me with the conn, but since I hadn't ordered the ship into the Neutral Zone or issued blinis with caviar to the entire crew, he did not have much to complain about.
I went down to sickbay to see the captain. He was asleep, but Mr. Spock took my report. His mother was sitting there, between her son and husband, looking as cool and collected as could be. I had found out from one of my friends who is a medical technician that things had certainly not been so calm just a few hours before. Apparently, Ambassador Sarek had fallen ill and would have died without a transfusion of Mr. Spock's blood. Spock refused the transfusion because with the captain hurt, he was in command. That was why Captain Kirk was on the bridge with a bleeding hole in his back. The captain and Dr. McCoy tricked Mr. Spock into giving up command and the doctor was able to save Sarek's life. Irina, I'm glad I'm not a Vulcan, and even more, I am glad I am not married to one. They were all so controlled, so cool. With so much at stake, with family bonds tested, the three of them sat in Sickbay looking a little bored, a little disinterested. Vulcans. They were certainly not invented in Russia.
Mr. Spock did say that he was satisfied with my performance at the conn. He had been monitoring me. I suppose I am pleased.
Do I want to opportunity to go it again?
Yes. I do.
I am hopeless.
Please write again soon. I promise to answer immediately.
I miss you.
Love,
Pavel