16

CRYSTAL CLEAR - novel by Roberta Haga

"You have discovered the reason behind my condition, Doctor?" Spock asked as soon as he'd stepped inside McCoy's cabin two and a half hours later.

"Have a seat, Spock." McCoy waved him in the general direction of a couple of chairs.

"Want anything to drink?"

"No, thank you." Brown eyes were intense and McCoy felt his knees quivering under the stare. "Do you, or do you not, have a specific reason for requesting my presence this evening?"

McCoy sighed in resignation, claimed a chair of his own, deliberately waiting until Spock had seated himself. "I know what is causing your symptoms. All the tests show you're perfectly healthy. However, it seems you have acquired a slight case of . . . " he swallowed, " . . . love."

Brows soared through the black bangs and McCoy would swear to his dying day that the hair on the Vulcan's forehead had actually moved from the impact.

"I BEG your pardon!"

McCoy swallowed again. Spock was as close to being a pure, unadulterated Vulcan as he'd ever seen him and the doctor was trembling inside in reaction to the flaming eyes daring him to repeat his absurd statement. "There's nothing wrong with you. You're just in love."

"Are you attempting an ill-conceived joke, Doctor?"

"Why would I joke about something like this?"

"I am Vulcan," Spock insisted.

*****

"As for our third guest, there's nothing like her anywhere in the computer, so she's not from any species that's already been discovered. She's mildly dehydrated and very undernourished. We've already given her a variety of vitamins and I'll take care of her empty stomach as soon as she's awake. She's a vegetarian, Jim. If they tried to feed her, she couldn't, or wouldn't, eat what they gave her. From her condition, Abert estimates she's been without food for nine or ten days."

Kirk's eyes narrowed in anger.

As upset as the doctor himself had been on learning of the length of time she'd been without food, he still preferred to give the two prisoners the benefit of the doubt. "Jim, you can't blame them for not trying other things, it would have taken us a while without the blood tests.

It isn't something you'd normally suspect about an animal.

"Anyway, she's 6 feet tall and weights one hundred forty-six pounds. I don't know if that's too little or not. Her age is impossible to tell. Even with all that dirt, her fur is the most remarkable I've ever encountered. It's half an inch long, except on her hands and feet; there, it's almost an inch. Yet it's incredibly thick to lay so smoothly to her body. I can't wait to see what it'll feel like when it's clean. What's left of her tail is hidden by the same longer fur over the coccyx. Her facial structure is definitely in the process of evolving from feline to humanoid. Of course, I'm sure you've noticed that her body is remarkably human female in shape." He couldn't resist the tease and was rewarded with a sharp glare.

"I've found her hands and feet to be a most interesting combination of human and feline.

From the configuration of her vocal cords, Abert doesn't think she has any language discernible to the translator. I've named her 'Crystal.'" McCoy ended his report with a big grin.

COVERS

ART

March 1988