Mestral’s Legacy: Chapter 22

April 14th, 2154
Sickbay, Enterprise

Sickbay was a jumble of boxes, the last re-supply ship having delivered most of what Phlox had requested well ahead of schedule. Crates, boxes, cages, and other assorted containers were piled in stacks around the room waiting patiently for someone to set them in their proper place. That someone was at the moment preoccupied with matters of greater interest than where to store a shipment of Kirelian leeches or the new mediscanners from StarFleet Medical.
Phlox had a visitor–a physician, in fact–which was rather a novelty since he had not had much opportunity to talk to other medical professionals in person for the last three years. This particular visitor had brought him a most intriguing problem (those had been in short supply since Enterprise had arrived in Space Dock) and Phlox was enjoying the opportunity to exercise his neurons a bit.

“This patient of yours,” Phlox asked, examining the neurochip at his workstation, “is he human?” That Phlox could not determine that from his analysis of the neurochip was one of the things that made the case, such as it was, interesting.

Dr. Daniel Kielan, who had been lounging against one of the work surfaces, looked up and affected a nonchalant air. Phlox rather thought that he might have managed it, too, if he hadn’t blanched at the question before recovering his composure.

“You asked for a physician familiar with alien physiology,” Phlox pointed out, “that is an unusual request when your patient is human.” He watched his guest out of the corner of his eye, feigning attention to the workstation.

“The readings looked unusual; I wanted an opinion from someone with no preconceptions.” The Terran psychiatrist, having finished his envious inspection of the exotic notions and potions sitting on the work surface next to him, joined Phlox at his workstation.

“There is only so much that can be ascertained from a neural scan.” Phlox continued, eyes fixed on the screen before him. “In any case, I would need a genome scan to be sure.”

“Sure of what?” Daniel leaned in closer to peer at the display, crowding Phlox. The screen, however, displayed no more information that what he had already seen in his apartment, albeit displayed on a much more expensive and attractive screen.

Phlox hesitated before answering the question. The only time that he had seen a scan like this one was when T’Pol had been infected with the virus which had triggered her Pon Farr; it wasn’t exactly the same, but it was similar enough to rouse his curiosity.

“I may have seen this before,” Phlox admitted, removing the neurochip from the analysing chamber and thereby almost missing the reaction that his offhand comment illicited. Catching the disturbed look on Daniel’s face, Phlox asked suspiciously, “Is there something that you are not telling me, Doctor? This is all highly unusual, you know: refusing to transmit the scan, nor allowing it to be delivered through StarFleet courier.”

Ignoring the question, Dr. Daniel Kielan perfunctorily handed over the data chip containing the genome scan that he had done on himself that morning. Somewhat taken aback, Phlox put it in the analyser. After a moment he sat back and shook his head.

“I need to do my own scan,” he said dismissively, getting up from the console.

“I did that one myself, there is nothing wrong with it.” Damn aliens think they know everything.

“Enterprise’s equipment is far more advanced. I’ll be able to tell you more if I do the scan directly, but I’m not sure if that will be possible. A consultation with a physician is one thing, but bringing up civilian patients is quite another.”

“What can you tell from the neural scan?” That was the original question that had brought Daniel up to Enterprise. The Terran psychiatrist wasn’t giving up any information, maybe a gesture of good faith was in order.

“Well, again, Enterprise’s equipment would give more information, but this,” Phlox pointed at one of the patterns that Daniel had matched to the alien scans, “is fairly common among telepathic and empathic species.” Phlox looked over at Daniel, who looked back impassively.

“What about this other pattern,” Daniel asked, indicating the pattern that he was interested in, “this one that builds over a month or so and then fades suddenly.”

“That is why I asked you where this scan came from. I have only seen this once, and not in a human.” Phlox looked down, at Daniel’s sudden vice grip on his shoulder, and then at Daniel.

“Sorry,” Daniel said sheepishly, letting go, “but you’ve seen this before? Where?” Phlox looked at Daniel suspiciously.

“Why do I get the feeling that you are not being truthful with me, Doctor?”

“It is a patient’s scan and they are Terran.”

“Very well. What is it you aren’t telling me?” Phlox asked, unwilling to be put off so easily. Assessing his colleague, Daniel decided he had no choice but to take Phlox into his confidence and hope for the best. It was either that or give up his chance of knowing who and what he was.

“I don’t want anyone else knowing about this: no journals, no colleagues, no one.”

“We may have attended medical schools on different planets but doctor-patient confidentiality is a widely shared value.” Daniel looked at Phlox for a long time. Deciding that the Denobulan physician was genuinely miffed at the suggestion that he would violate patient confidentiality.

“Do the scans then. Whichever ones that you want.’

“As I said, getting permission to beam a patient–”

“You don’t need to beam anyone up,” Daniel said. Not meeting the Denobulan’s gaze, he said, “The neural scan is mine.”

“Ah, well that does explain your interest,” Phlox said, rubbing his sore shoulder unconsciously. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“Does it look normal for a Terran?” Daniel asked pointedly.

* * *

The scans took about two hours and included proteome, RNA, and DNA scans, as well as hormone profiling and a current neuroscan. Before the last scan had been completed, Phlox was watching the monitors as the analysis proceeded, leaving his patient to extricate himself from the scanner bed.

Daniel came over and looked over his shoulder, but the display was undecipherable. His researchers would have killed to get equipment this sophisticated in their labs. Phlox looked at Daniel: pale, nervous, and trying not to show it.

“This will take a while, perhaps we should got to the mess hall and get some tea?”

* * *

Sitting in the cafeteria, Phlox did a less technological analysis of the man across the table. He would have guessed Dr. Daniel Keilan to be in his early forties yet the scan said otherwise. Normally, if the patient was an unknown species, he would believe the scan. But he had met a few humans who were in their eighties and while they did not all look the same, none of them looked like the human that was sitting in front of him. He doubted that humans suddenly became younger looking when they hit ninety-six. Either the scan was wrong, in which case everything else that it came up with was also suspect, or it was right, in which case he was at a loss to explain the scan at all.

“What is it that prompted you to look into your medical history?” Phlox asked, stirring his tea, idly wondering whether chamomile really was calming because it certainly didn’t seem to be having much of an effect on Daniel.

“You said that you had seen that neural pattern before,” Daniel said, ignoring Phlox’s question. “Where?”

“I prefer to wait before we talk about that. It may not be relevant to your situation, after all I have not seen it in a Human before, it may not indicate the same condition.”

“I think we both know that I’m not Human, Doctor,” Daniel said evenly. There was nothing to say to that; even the preliminary scan that Daniel had brought with him, assuming it was accurate–and Phlox did because otherwise there was no point to this exercise that he could see–had enough detail to show that.

“You appear to be mostly Human,” Phlox reassured him.

“‘Mostly Human’ isn’t as comforting to hear as you might think,” Daniel said, smiling humourlessly. “You already know don’t you? Tell me what happened to your patient that had the same neural pattern.”

“We don’t even know if it affects you the same way. Why don’t you describe your symptoms to me.”

Daniel looked around the mess hall. There were only a few space dock maintenance workers in the room, but that was too crowded for him. Especially considering the kinds of symptoms that he had every seven years.

“Your computers should be finished with the analysis by now, don’t you think?”

* * *

“This,” Phlox said, pointing to a highlighted DNA sequence on the monitor, “is Vulcan DNA.” Phlox looked over at Daniel to see what kind of response this illicited. As far as he could tell, none; of course all doctors developed the ability to hide their emotions as part of their job.

“It was a Vulcan,” Phlox offered. Daniel looked at him quizzically, distracted by the data on the screen. “The neural pattern,” Phlox prompted. Daniel simply nodded distractedly.

“How would I get Vulcan DNA?” It was something that Phlox had been wondering himself. Humans and Vulcans had never been known to be able to successfully produce offspring. It would have been front page news if they had been, but no one, except for the occasional crackpot who was later proven to be a fraud, had ever claimed to have done so. The other thing that bothered Phlox was that the percentage of Vulcan DNA was fairly low in Daniel’s genome. There were strings of conserved sections of DNA, but the rest was Human.

As if reading his thoughts, Daniel asked him if there was only Vulcan DNA in his genome. Until that moment Phlox had not really thought that there was the possibility of it being otherwise. Daniel’s interest was clearly in a Pon Farr like cycle that he claimed to experience with a regularity that rivaled a Vulcan’s. He had run Daniel’s genome against the Vulcan one and come up with several matches that shouldn’t have been there. He had not run it against the standard Human genome. He did so now.

“Why did you ask that?” In response, Daniel pulled down his eyelid and extracted a coloured disk from his eye with his finger. Turning to Phlox, he now had one brown eye and one lilac eye.

“Humans don’t have this eye colour, and neither do Vulcans as far as I know,” Daniel pointed out, sounding a great deal more composed than he felt.

The analysis showed one other type of alien DNA, one of which was similar to those coding for eye pigmentation in other humanoid species. The sequences were not from any species in the database, however. So in a sense, they were no further ahead except to know that these unknown sequences seemed to have been introduced earlier than the Vulcan ones.

Their analysis was interrupted by a comm call for Daniel: Supriya had found another patient with the same neural pattern that he was interested in and did he want to see the patient?

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