Fic: Everything Was Beautiful; Nothing Hurt, Chapter 3
Title: Everything Was Beautiful; Nothing Hurt... or Even More Kin and Even Less Kind
Chapter Title: Chapter 3: The Great Doctors Abiliana
Author: katiemariie
Artist: tprillahfiction
Fanmixer: civilbloodshed
Beta(s): subluxate and avsioss
Link to Art: Art
Link to Mix: Fanmix
Word Count: 6.9k
“As your elected ambassador, it is with great pride that I officially open Sha-Ka-Ree for visitation and commerce. It was a mere three months ago that we settled on this planet. Now, due to the perseverance and ingenuity of our citizenry, we have obtained a space dock that will allow us to securely receive larger numbers of visitors at one time.” T’Pring reached under the lectern, brandishing a pair of scissors. “With this oversized cutting implement, I will bisect this red ribbon. What this symbolizes, I am not certain, but I was told this was of great import.” T’Pring cut the ribbon and walked off the stage with little fanfare.
-
After ten hand-wringing minutes, the daycare worker finally managed to convince Spock and Geoff that their children wouldn’t be forever traumatized by them leaving for work. “It used to be so much easier,” Geoff sighed, walking out of the daycare center.
“At the very least,” Spock said, “their separation anxiety gives us more information on Valeris’ developmental rate. She appears to be developing as a full Vulcan would.”
“If that means she’ll cry that every time we leave for the next five years, I’d prefer she develop like a Klingon.”
They continued along the newly paved sidewalk to the hospital and research labs. “I am debating whether visiting Saavik and Valeris during my lunch hour would be a comfort to them or further upset them when I must return to-”
“Jesus! Fuck.” Geoff stopped walking and wiped his face with his shirt sleeve.
“What is the matter?”
“That girl just spit on me,” Geoff explained, looking back at a young Vulcan woman who had passed them on the sidewalk.
“Ko-kan,” Spock called to the woman, advancing toward her. He knew she was a visitor because there were no white Vulcan colonists outside of his family. “Did you purposefully expectorate on this man?”
The girl, who looked no more than sixteen, stared up at Spock defiantly. “Yes.”
“Judging by your youth, I assume you are ignorant concerning Terran history and unaware of the implications of spitting on a Black Human in the street.”
“Your assumption is false; I have an M8 certification in Terran history.”
“Then you are fully cognizant that you have just performed a hate crime, which is a punishable offense under our law.”
“I challenge that claim; as a full-blooded Vulcan, I do not experience hate. Perhaps you could could explain it to me, Commander Spock.”
“You are aware of who I am, and yet you still commit violence against my bondmate? You are a foolish child.”
“I disagree. I expectorated on that man precisely because I recognized him as the disgraced Dr. M’Benga, the Butcher of the Ancients.” She looked over at Geoff. “If given the opportunity, I would repeat my actions.”
Spock leaned in, so this his face was a few inches from the girl’s. “You are fortunate your mother deemed your father worth copulating when she had. If you were born any earlier, I would teach you a valuable lesson on interspecies etiquette.” Spock took a step back, raising his hand in the Vulcan salute. “Live long and prosper.” Spock returned to Geoff’s side, running two fingers over his face. They shuffled down the sidewalk, away from that girl.
//How are you?//
//It’s not the first time I’ve been spit on in the street. That’s why I left Ek’tra.//
//And why I left Vulcan.//
//I had never pegged Vulcans to be the type that would spit on people.//
//Expectorating on someone is considered to be one of the greatest insults a Vulcan can deliver.//
//Isn’t that illogical?//
//Precisely. As a gesture, it says that a person is so dishonorable that another would waste saliva to tell them such. It is especially meaningful considering how much of Vulcan was desert.//
“I get it,” Geoff said, stopping in front of the hospital doors. “Vulcans really hate me.”
“And me.”
“Do you think Vulcans will spit on Saavik and Valeris?”
“On Ek’tra, most definitely. Here, I am more optimistic.”
Geoff brushed his thumb over Spock’s eyebrow. “See you at lunch?”
“Of course.” Spock nodded and walked toward the research labs.
-
“I checked over your tranlations,” Uhura said, entering T’Pring’s office. “There were a few minor err-Hello.” Perched on Worf’s desk was the most beautiful woman Nyota had ever seen. Besides her wife. Yes, T’Pring was very, very... not as gorgeous as this woman. “Who is this?” she asked Worf.
Worf craned his head around the woman’s fabulous bod. “Miss Magda Kovacs. She requested to see my label maker.”
Magda ran her fingers sensually across the label maker.
“Huh di buh.” Nyota spoke dozens of languages. In none of those were the noises she just made words. She coughed. “I should... Bye.” Nyota turned tail and left, forgetting all about Worf’s translations.
-
“Good god, look at her,” McCoy whispered to M’Benga “Talk about a blonde bombshell.”
“What do you think she’s doing here?” Geoff asked.
“I don’t know, but I’d like to give her a physical.”
Christine glared at them. “Pigs,” she mumbled, exiting the hospital break room in a huff.
“Or her annual pelvic,” McCoy chuckled.
M’Benga laughed along for a moment before he realized how wrong it was. “Len, we’re married.”
McCoy seemed to sober up as well. “More than that, we’re doctors.” He put down his cup of coffee. “Let’s get back to work.”
M’Benga exited the break room and went to the urgent care ward. “You have anything for me?” he asked Suvin, the receptionist.
“A patient came in a few minutes ago, asking for a Dr. Abiliana. I told her we had no doctor by that name, but she insisted,” Suvin said, antennae twitching in irritation. “I sent her back to exam two just to shut her up.”
“I’ll take a look at her.” As he walked back to exam two, Geoff was glad he was on Sha-Ka-Ree. If a woman came in asking around for a Dr. Abiliana at a hospital on Ek’tra, Geoff was sure he would be found out. He didn’t want to think about what the High Council would have done if they knew.
He wasn’t surprised they had followed him. He’d placed the right clues with the right people on Ek’tra. In fact, he’d been expecting a deluge of Vulcan women coming to see Dr. Abiliana once the space dock was complete. He had assumed they’d be smart enough to go through the proper channels, not to his hospital.
He took the chart off of the door. T’Ki. God, he hoped that was a fake name.
“Miss T’Ki,” Geoff said, opening the exam room. “What can I-” It was her. Sitting on the exam table-that girl who spat on him. “-do for you?”
The girl recoiled. “I do not wish to see you. I requested Dr. Abiliana.”
“And here he is.”
“No. I was told Dr. Abiliana was a woman and...” The girl seemed to search for a word that Vulcan didn’t have. “She does not look like you.”
He ignored the sting. “You do realize Dr. Abiliana isn’t real?”
“No. The friend who recommended her to me said she was a female.”
“When did your friend visit Dr. Abiliana?”
“Last year.”
This was bad. This was very bad. Someone who wasn’t him was operating as Dr. Abiliana. Best case scenario: some noble do-gooder Vulcan doctor picked up his handle. Worst case scenario: some noble do-gooder Vulcan with a wire hanger picked up his handle. Even worse case scenario: a spy for the Vulcan government was running a sting operation using his handle. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Geoff looked down at the girl’s chart. “Are you really twenty?”
“No.”
Right. “How far along?”
“Ten weeks, five days.”
“How long will you be on Sha-Ka-Ree?”
“Just today.”
Drugs were out then. If something went wrong, she needed to be able to receive treatment. “I’ll need to get a few things.”
Just before he reached the door, the girl asked, “You would help me after I expectorated on you?”
“You would want this kind of help after what you spat on me for?”
-
Worf didn’t know what he was doing wrong. At long last, he had found a woman worthy of being his mate. She was beautiful and.... She was beautiful. He had done all he could to woo her: he’d taken her to his place of work, shown her his label maker which she failed to hurl at him, read her some love poetry; he’d even begun to duck preemptively in the hopes that she would take a hint. But she failed to do so. Miss Magda Kovacs did nothing to indicate interest or that she even realized he was trying to win her favor. Still, Worf persevered. After all, she had not rejected him. Yet, she hadn’t roared or clawed at him either.
He was beginning to suspect she was a lesbian. Not due to her lack of interest, but the way she behaved. She was well-versed in the ways of winning a female. She read poetry in a mellifluous voice. She was gentle and courteous. If Worf had not informed her to the contrary, he would believe she thought he was the female of the species and was trying to woo him.
Magda was the first woman to express interest in him since the accident. She was also apparently a butch lesbian.
-
Spock had expected productivity to fall once the lab opened up for touring groups, but not so drastically. From his console, he could see that Maltz had imputed half the data he was supposed to, and Carol Marcus had returned only one out of five samples to the incubator. Spock was hesitant to discipline them despite his position as the director of scientific research. Both Maltz and Carol had just as much experience and renown as he did, and Spock was cognizant of the talk throughout the colony about nepotism. From the outside, it must have appeared that there was a de facto royal family; everyone related to Spock by blood, bond, or marriage held a position of authority in Sha-Ka-Ree society, with the exception of Sybok, who for all the power he possessed could never be said to hold authority over anyone. After watching productivity fall increasingly rapidly, Spock determined it was time to gently remind Maltz and Carol to return to work.
As Spock left his office and entered the main lab, he saw the source of their distraction. Lying on one of the lab tables, in a slinky green dress with a cut-out that revealed the underside of one her breasts, was a highly aesthetically pleasing woman who would easily tear apart Spock’s life if he let her. Spock knew that his Vulcan upbringing at times complicated his relationship with Geoffrey, but for once he was grateful for the restraint it granted him.
“Would you care to introduce your latest test subject?” Spock asked Maltz and Carol, who were staring at the woman, seemingly entranced.
Dumbfounded by her beauty, Maltz and Carol made no move to answer him. The woman smiled up at Spock. “Ruth Bonaventure.” She outstretched her hand, palm down, inviting Spock to kiss it. Miss Bonaventure apparently knew nothing about Vulcan customs.
“Miss Bonaventure, please relocate your person to a more suitable piece of furniture.”
She rolled off of the table like a cat and sat upon a stool.
“Please excuse me and my colleagues.” Spock herded Carol and Maltz into his office. Deprived of the woman’s presence, they regained the ability to speak.
“What do you want?” Carol asked, anxious to return to the main lab and Miss Bonaventure.
“What I want is immaterial. What I require is a secure environment in which to unravel the many curiosities of this planet. It is one thing to allow guests a carefully crafted glimpse into our work via guided tours; it is another to let said guests recline on our work. I need not remind you this is a matter of planetary security.” To make himself perfectly clear to his stupefied colleagues, Spock said, “Remove her from the premises and do not invite her to return.”
Maltz looked ready to protest, but Carol cut him off. “Fine. We were about to take her out to lunch anyway.”
Spock watched them leave along with Miss Bonaventure, before locking up the lab and walking to Geoffrey’s parents' house for lunch.
When he arrived, Geoff was already at the kitchen table, picking at a rice dish prepared by his mother, who was sitting across from him. “Eva.” Spock nodded at her, and then pressed a kiss to Geoffrey’s temple. “You are distressed,” Spock said taking a seat next to him. Eva passed him a plate, and he began to pile food on it.
“I think I’m in trouble,” Geoff mumbled.
Eva’s face pinched in concern. “The last time you told me that you were brought before the Vulcan High Council for malpractice.”
“This time I doubt I’ll be so lucky,” he sighed. He turned to Spock. “Someone’s been performing abortions as Dr. Abiliana.”
If Spock’s heart was located in his chest cavity, he was certain it would have figuratively dropped into his stomach. “Do you know who?”
“No.” Geoff shook his head.
“Geoffrey,” Eva said. “What did you do?”
Geoff looked down at his food. “I’ve been performing abortions on Vulcan women.”
“Why would you be in trouble for that? It’s part of your job.”
“So was following the last wishes of my patients,” Geoff muttered bitterly.
“After Ek’tra was established, the Vulcan High Council reviewed several of Vulcan’s laws to see if they were still applicable,” Spock explained. “As members of a matriarchal culture, Vulcan women have long had access to abortion on demand. However, after the loss of so many lives during Vulcan’s destruction, the High Council was moved to support policies that would ensure the repopulation of the species. Former laws regarding abortion were repealed and a review board was created to determine whether abortion was necessary on a case-by-case basis.”
“The review board almost always denied women’s requests, unless her health was endangered by the pregnancy,” Geoff added.
“The High Council also ruled that women below the age of majority required the consent of their guardians and their clan matriarch to petition the review board for an abortion.”
“After the eugenics laws were passed, women had easier access to abortion if they were seen as having bad genes or the fetus was diagnosed with a disability. But before that it was almost impossible to get an abortion. I knew what was going to start happening, so I started doing abortions under the table as Dr. Abiliana.”
“After your great-great-great-great-grandmother Abiliana,” Eva surmised.
Spock was unaware that Geoffrey's alias was crafted in honor of a distant ancestor. He wondered why Geoff chose that woman in particular. Becoming ever more of the fluctuations in their bond, Geoff's sensed Spock's curiosity and explained, “Abiliana is sort of a family legend on my mom's side.”
“She is not a legend,” Eva said. “The Eugenics War museum in Habana has her papers on display.”
“What did she that was so notable that it warranted a museum display?” Spock asked.
“Do you want to tell the story, or should I?” Eva asked Geoff.
“You tell it better,” Geoff replied.
Eva leaned in, wrapping her hands her mug of tea. “At the end of the 20th century, before the Eugenics Wars began, an Augment named Ragnar Thorwald took control of Central and South America. His pet project was breeding out the indigenous blood from Latin America. For the most part, he did this through arranged marriages between lighter skinned mestizas and sterilizing people who looked more indigenous. He considered the Caribbean a lost cause because of the number of former African slaves who settled there. He turned the Caribbean islands back into slave states and used the women as incubators for his genetically modified offspring. Half of Cuba was forced to carry his children. Women had little they could do prevent this; Thorwald was in control of all the medical facilities, and abortions were outlawed, except in the case of inferior genetics. Very much like the law on Ek'tra.
“Geoffrey's great-great-great-great-grandmother Abiliana acted as an informal doctor for her work camp. People would come to her when they were sick or injured and she would heal them and give them different types of medicine. Eventually the women came to Abiliana for drugs that would induce abortions or make them less fertile. As a result, her work camp had the lowest birth rate out of all of Thorwald’s projects.”
“And the camp guards did not realize what Abiliana was doing?” Spock asked.
“No,” Eva smiled. “That's the beautiful part. The guards didn't think anyone in the camp was smart enough to smuggle or synthesize those drugs. They thought Abiliana was just some voodoo medicine woman, gathering different herbs for her witch’s brew. Of course, they didn't know she was a chemistry student before Thorwald invaded, and that she was distilling the active ingredients from herbs that her grandmothers had used for generations. The camp supervisors and Ragnar Thorwald convinced themselves that there was something wrong with the water in the area that caused the women to have so many miscarriages. They would rather make up a problem than admit an Afro-Cuban woman could beat their science.”
“She did the right thing,” Eva said, reaching across the table, placing her hand on Geoffrey’s. “And so did you.”
Geoff shook his head. “I fucked up. I didn’t cover my tracks, and now someone knows what I was doing and is pretending to be me.”
“Why does that have to be such a bad thing?” Eva asked. “At least women on Ek’tra can still get abortions.”
“I don’t know who is performing them, though. It could be some hack who doesn’t know what he’s doing, or a V’Shar agent undercover working to take me down, along with as many Vulcan women as he can. Just the fact that someone else knows puts and my family in danger. If the same people who firebombed T’Pau’s apartment and ran Sarek off the planet found out... they’ll go after me, Spock, the girls...”
“T’hy’la, we are safe here,” Spock said. “You need not feel guilty for endangering us; extremists on Ek’tra have enough reasons to murder us all without knowing you moonlighted as an abortionist.”
These words did not seem to comfort Geoffrey.
-
T’Pring had been confined in her office all day, dealing with the aftermath of opening up Sha-Ka-Ree for trade and visitation. She received complaints from neighborhoods surrounding the planet’s main market-mostly people griping about tourists walking across their lawns and upsetting their flowerbeds. The Ferengi Bolshevik caucus was particularly vocal in their premonitions of what tragedy would befall the planet if this capitalist reign of terror continued.
“If you do not put an end to free trade with outworlders-”
T’Pring interrupted the Ferengi woman on her vidscreen. “As elected diplomat, my role is limited to communicating the will of the people. The people voted in favor of commerce with-”
“It is insentient to allow the buying and selling of people within this planet’s orbit.”
T’Pring pinched the bridge of her nose. (She wasn’t overcome with frustration or a migraine; she simply found that the more emotional species responded well to these visual cues.) “However violent your reaction to capitalism may be, you need not resort to hyperbole to-”
“I am not exaggerating! Some hew-man came to our village and tried to sell my son a bride.”
“Have you contacted the police?”
“Yes, and they told me that there was no law against what he was doing. So I called you.”
“Thank you. I will investigate this matter personally.” T’Pring turned off her vidscreen, and walked into the main office, where Worf’s desk was. Typically, it did not have a stunning aesthetically ideal woman on it. Focusing her mind on the matter at hand, T’Pring did not allow the woman’s beauty to affect her. “Worf, we have an urgent situation.”
“Of what nature?” Worf asked, barely looking away from the Human woman.
“I have just received a report of an outworlder attempting to sell women as brides. I require your assistance in running a full investigation out of this office. In addition, I require an emergency townhall meeting to determine the legality of sex trafficking within Sha-Ka-Ree’s orbit.”
“Sex trafficking?” the woman squeaked in a delightfully feminine voice.
“Yes.” Perhaps she didn’t know what those words meant. “The movement of bodies by a coercive agent for the purpose of selling said bodies with the guarantee or promise of sexual activities, such as those expected from a wife.”
The woman’s face went red. “You make it sound like the women have no choice. Maybe the women want to find husbands... even they are Ferengi. Did you ever think of that?”
“I do not believe I said anything regarding the women marrying Ferengi,” T’Pring said accusingly. In those Terran films Sybok was so fond of, the guilt was often revealed through a character mentioning a detail they should not have known. “For what reason are you visiting Sha-Ka-Ree?”
The Human woman looked caught between a rock and a hard place. (Figuratively, of course. In reality, she was caught between a coffee mug and Worf’s label maker.) “Please don’t throw me in jail.”
“I will not, if you answer my questions.” T’Pring conveniently omitted that the woman was not breaking any law, and even if she was, Sha-Ka-Ree did not yet have a jail. (Mandatory counseling sessions with Sybok and therapeutic art lessons with Apple Pie Motorbike were threat enough to deter crime.)
“Okay.” The woman nodded.
-
“What I don’t understand,” McCoy said, “is how he got off that planet.”
Being the only ones besides his “cargo” who knew what he looked like, Spock, Uhura, and McCoy were tasked with searching for Harry Mudd. They had originally planned to search separately to cover more ground, but Spock soon realized that McCoy and Uhura would be largely useless if Mudd deployed one of his beauties to distract. He decided it would be best for him to supervise the others.
“I know,” Uhura agreed. “Last time we saw him he was trapped on a planet by hundreds of android copies of his wife with no mode of transportation.”
Spock considered this for a moment while scanning through the crowd. “Perhaps he somehow managed to disassemble the androids and used their parts to construct a rudimentary vessel.”
Uhura shivered. To her, that was like that serial killer who made lampshades out of women’s earlobes.
“Excuse me.” McCoy stopped a Romulan woman passing by. “Have you seen this man?” He held what was supposed to be a sketch artist’s rendering of Mudd’s face, but they didn’t have the software for that yet or a sketch artist, so they had to ask M’Benga’s mom to give it her best shot. Realism, apparently, wasn’t her favorite genre.
The Romulan peered at the sketch, turning her head to the side. “Is that a nipple?”
McCoy shoved the sketch in his pocket. “A white Human male around six feet tall, a little on the heavy side. Brown hair, ridiculous moustache. Calls himself Mudd, or Leo Walsh. This ringing any bells?”
“Oh, him,” the Romulan replied. “He tried to sell a Human woman to my bondmate. If I wasn’t a pacifist...”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“The last time I saw him he was in Little Aventine, selling crystals door-to-door.”
“Thanks.” The Romulan woman walked off, and McCoy waved Uhura and Spock over. “She said he might be in the Romulan village.”
-
“Look who I found,” Sybok said, entering the exam room where Chapel was looking over Mudd’s women. He stepped aside, revealing a blonde Human. “Miss Eve McHuron, the third and final woman.”
“Could you please get on the med bed?” Chapel asked Eve. “Thank you.” She turned to Sybok. “How did you find her?”
“She was hanging around outside the hospital. I guess she wanted to land a doctor.”
“How did you know she was...”
“You can’t tell by looking at her? She’s the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen. After Leonard. Not that he’s a woman. But if he was a woman, he’d be the most beautiful woman in the galaxy. I’d imagine. Just going off of how he looks when we dress up. He doesn’t really like that. But if I have to do it...”
“You’re blathering. I thought these women couldn’t affect Vulcans.”
“Not if we don’t want them to. And I don’t. I’m just a little impaired right now.”
“You’re high?” Chapel whispered angrily. “You’re supposed to help me assess them!”
“No, no.” Sybok waved his hands. “I’m not high. I, um, I bought a deep fryer today-don’t tell Len-and I made deep fried Twinkies with powdered sugar.”
“So, you’re good to help me?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
Behind them, the biofunction monitors began to beep wildly. Chapel and Sybok rushed over to the women.
“Are you in pain?” Chapel asked.
“No, I’m fine,” Ruth replied, even though she curling into a fetal position on the med bed. The other women nodded as they grimaced.
Chapel ran her medical tricorder over the women, but the readings didn’t tell her much. “I can’t help you unless you tell me what’s wrong. Where does-”
All three shrieked in pain, cowering. Sybok gasped.
“What?” Chapel asked. “Are you picking up on something?”
“No. Don’t see it?” he asked.
“No.”
“They’re-they’re not beautiful anymore. They changed.”
“They look exactly the same.”
“No,” Magda cried. “We’re ugly! Hideous!”
“No,” Sybok said in a calming voice. “You’re very-” He tried to lie, but his Vulcan training reared it’s honest head. “You’re not ugly; you’re homely.” He tried to imbue that word with positivity, but it merely caused Magda to sob louder.
“If it means anything,” Chapel said over the women’s crying, “you look the same to me.”
“So,” Magda asked, wiping the tears from her eyes, “you would still marry me?”
“If I was attracted to women, yes.”
Magda buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
“Wait,” Sybok said. “You’re straight?”
“Yes,” Chapel answered.
“Completely, one hundred percent, zero on on the Kinsey scale heterosexual?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow, I didn’t know that there were any of you left. They should stuff you and put you in a museum somewhere. That’s probably why their mystical feminine wiles don’t work on you.”
“It’s not mystical,” Eve said, sitting up. “Harry has been giving us beauty supplements. I didn’t want to take them, but once I tried it I found out they really work. They just wear off after a while.”
“Do you know what’s in these supplements?” Chapel asked.
Eve shook her head. “I know it’s foolish taking a mysterious pill to be beautiful, but we all wanted to get married so badly. Harry said the pills would get us ten proposals a day. It sounds vain, but none of had a chance of getting married until Harry found us.”
“What did you think your future spouse would do when you ran out of supplements?”
“The same thing any man does when his wife gets older or lets herself go.”
“Find a mistress,” Sybok said.
“No,” Eve said sternly. “See past that because he loves her. The supplements are a trick-a dirty trick, but doesn’t everyone put on a show to find someone? Who can really say that their husband or wife is the same person they met all those years ago?”
-
If there was a formula for a civil town hall meeting, calling people out of their homes and places of work shortly before dinner time to an emergency meeting was not one of the components. While every citizen was informed of the meeting (as per the law), T’Pring and Worf hadn’t managed to get the entirety of the planet’s population to appear, but they had a sufficient number of people to debate and vote according to the planet’s bylaws.
“By criminalizing sex trafficking,” an Andorian thaan argued, “we risk stigmatizing all sex workers.”
“It limits bodily autonomy,” their zh’yi added. “If a person wishes to have sex for money, that should be their own decision.” Several people murmured their agreement.
“But a lot of the time it isn’t ‘their own decision,’” a Ferengi youth interjected. “Trafficking is different from other types of sex work, where some of the time people have enough options to choose sex work rather than being forced into it.”
“From what I hear,” the thaan said, “these women chose join Mudd. They wanted to find-”
Worf hissed, having the effect of a judge swinging a gavel. “This meeting was called to vote on sex trafficking, not to try Harry Mudd. Stay on topic.”
“While I respect a woman’s right to choose what she does with her own body,” a Ferengi woman-the one who had vidcalled T’Pring-said, “I know that circumstances can take away that right. Sex trafficking is one of them. Though I’ve never heard of it, women could be moved from planet to planet for sex work by a kind of head hunter. That, despite its ties to capitalism, should not be outlawed. It is when people are coerced or forced into sex work by someone else or extenuating circumstances that the state should intervene.”
“But what counts as coercion?” the thaan asked. “Who decides that?”
“Juries, the same with other crimes,” the Ferengi woman replied.
“If the trafficked person has been coerced,” Stonn said, “they should not face criminal charges.”
“Agreed,” the thaan said. “Only the procurer and the johns should be charged.”
“Are we ready to take a vote?” Worf asked. No one objected. “All those in favor of making sex trafficking a class F offense with severity of punishment determined by a jury, say aye.” Worf waited for the votes to register on his PADD. “All those opposed, say nay.” He waited once more. “The ayes have it. Meeting adjourned.”
-
When they found him, Harry Mudd was pitching his wares to little old Romulan man, who looked grateful to have the nuisance dragged off his porch.
“Excuse me,” Mudd said, “but I believe you’ve got the wrong person. I’ve been reformed. I’m out of the game. Gone straight.”
“Then what’s with the crystals?” McCoy asked, gesturing to Mudd’s suitcase.
“Those? Well, those are spiritual crystals for religious ceremonies. I’m a missionary, you see? A man of the cloth, going ‘round spreading the good news. Say, did you know that Landru died for your sins?” Spock tightened his grip on Mudd’s arm. “Okay, okay! Those are love potion crystals.” Spock squeezed tighter. “Imitation love potion crystals. I lost me last batch to a bunch of gangsters in a game of fizzbin.”
Uhura’s comm chirped. “Uhura... Thank you.” She placed her comm back in her belt and smiled at Mudd. “The police will be here to pick you up soon.”
“For what? I didn’t do nothing but try to ply me trade. Is that a crime?”
“No, but as of five minutes ago, sex trafficking is.”
-
“Are you feeling any better?” Chapel asked.
Ruth shook her head. “I feel worse.”
“Here.” Chapel filled a hypospray. “This should help.”
“What is it?”
“A beauty supplement,” Chapel snarked, injecting it into her arm.
Across the room, Sybok’s eyes widened. “What did you do? She looks-She’s gorgeous again.”
“The supplement must have worked,” Ruth said brightly.
“I was being sarcastic,” Chapel said. “That was just a vitamin.”
“Oh.”
Before Sybok’s eyes, Ruth’s beauty faded. “It’s a-The beauty supplement is-It’s...”
“What?” Chapel asked.
“I can’t think of the word. It starts with an ‘r,’ or a ‘t,’ or an ‘s.’ I don’t know. Um, it was a band. And old Terran band.”
“The Beatles?” Chapel offered.
“No. It’s not a beetle. It’s-Okay, you give someone something that looks like the thing that they think they’re getting, and they act like it’s that thing?”
“A placebo?”
“Yes! No. Yes.”
“I’m telling McCoy about the deep-fryer.”
-
After her partner whispered something in her ear, the detective smiled at Mudd. “You’re rather smart for someone who’s been caught five times.”
“I’ve picked up a few things here and there,” Harry responded.
“You knew that if you gave the women the Venus drug, you’d be painted by the prosecution as a pimp getting his whores hooked on drugs. Or as the supplier of a date rape drug that made people powerless to lust. But you needed your women to be irresistibly beautiful, so you just told them they were getting the Venus drug. When really it was a placebo that inspired the kind of self-confidence that makes people beautiful.” The detective lowered her voice. “It was a smart move, but we’ll nail you to the wall even if the pills are fake.”
“Fake?” Mudd yelped indignantly. “I paid good money for those!”
-
Sybok and Chapel had just convinced the women that they didn’t need the pills because they were placebos and that true beauty comes from within, when M’Benga came through the door. “The pills aren’t placebos.”
Ruth and Magda slumped back into their homely state, while Eve shook her head. “I don’t care. Don’t you see, girls, we don’t need pills to trick men into marrying us; we can do that all on our own.” Ruth and Magda flourished once again.
“Somehow,” Sybok said under his breath, “I don’t think that was the lesson they were supposed to learn.”
“What are the pills, if they’re not placebos?” Chapel asked.
“What substance do you know that makes people more self-confident and think they’re irresistible?” Geoff asked rhetorically.
“Alcohol,” Chapel answered, just as Sybok said, “Chocolate.”
“You’re both wrong,” Geoff said. “An old Terran substance derived from the coca plant-cocaine.”
“That would explain why they were in so much pain,” Chapel said. “They were in withdrawal.”
“They seem better now,” Sybok said.
“The power of suggestion,” Chapel surmised. “Along with the neural stabilizers in the vitamin hypo I gave them.”
-
After discovering that Mudd had been feeding them a highly addictive stimulant since the day they met, the women didn’t hesitate to press charges. Considering how ready to kick his ass Ruth was, Mudd got off lightly. The woman agreed to stay on Sha-Ka-Ree for as long as it took to get, in the words of Magda, “that creep locked up for good.” Knowing Mudd’s slippery nature, very few people were confident that would ever happen.
Assured that Sybok would set the women up with the adequate housing, M’Benga and Chapel returned to their regular duties at the hospital.
“Thank Uzaveh you’re here,” Suvin said from behind the front desk. “I was just about the comm you. Dr. McCoy is having trouble with a Vulcan patient.”
“Where?” Chapel asked.
“Exam four.”
The doctors nodded, and rushed to the exam room. When the door opened, they saw a young Vulcan woman-a girl, really-curled up on the med bed, and a red faced McCoy arguing with an adolescent Vulcan male. Both Vulcans were white, meaning they were outworlders.
“-the only doctor we have on call. We’ve got two others on the way and neither of them are called Abiliana. If you don’t convince her to let me treat her, she’ll bleed out.”
Chapel went to the the young woman, talking softly to her in Vulcan, while Geoff walked over to McCoy and the boy. “What’s the situation?”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” McCoy snapped. “She’s refusing treatment-won’t even let me run a tricorder over her, but I can see she’s got a sustained vaginal bleed. And neither of them won’t tell me a damn thing, except that they want to see Dr. Abiliana.”
“They’re in luck,” Chapel said, looking over at the men. “The doctor’s in.”
“You know?” Geoff gaped. “How? How do you know that-”
“It’s the biggest open secret on Ek’tra.” Oh, god.
“Do you mind telling me what the hell you’re talking about?” demanded McCoy.
“On Ek’tra, after abortion was effectively banned, some caped crusader Scarlet Pimpernel abortionist by the name of Dr. Abiliana started performing under the table abortions,” Chapel explained. “He was pretty good, apparently; like he was an actual doctor. But he disappeared-some say he was caught and executed, or he just got scared and ran-and for about a year there was no place for Vulcan women to get abortions. When I got there, I took up the mantle.”
“You?” Geoff asked. “You’re the white woman who’s been practicing as Abiliana?”
She nodded. “You can’t tell anyone, especially my husband.”
“Oh, god.” Geoff clutched his heart and sighed. “I thought I was cooked. I’m glad it was you and not some crackpot or spy that took my place.”
“You’re Dr. Abiliana?” Chapel balked. “The original?”
“Yeah.”
“High five!” The two Dr. Abilianas slapped hands.
“The Dread Pirate Roberts reunion is nice and all,” McCoy said, “but we’ve got a teenage girl bleeding out over there.”
“Right,” Chapel said, tucking her hair behind her ears.
“We’re both Dr. Abiliana,” M’Benga said to the Vulcans. “Why do you need to see us?”
“I am pregnant,” the girl said. “I did not want to have to carry a fetus to term, so I searched for Dr. Abiliana.”
“We could not find him,” the boy said. “We heard rumors that the doctor had moved to Sha-Ka-Ree, but we feared that her condition would be discovered before the planet opened for visitors.”
“I thought we could do it ourselves. We both have class M9 certifications in chemistry.”
“We synthesized the abortifacient easily, but we must have made an error.”
“Do you have any more of the pills?” Chapel asked.
“Yes.” The boy pulled a tiny container from his pocket, and handed it to Chapel.
She opened the container and ran her tricorder over the pills. “They’re pure.”
“In some cases of medical abortion,” Geoff explained, “the medication doesn’t fully terminate the pregnancy and causes bleeding. When did you take the pills?”
“Fifteen days, four hours, and thirteen minutes ago,” the girl answered.
“Jesus,” McCoy gasped. “You’ve been bleeding since then?”
“Yes.”
“You’re lucky,” Chapel said. “If you were Human, you’d be dead.”
“One of us needs to examine you. Do you have a preference?” M’Benga asked.
“I would prefer an examination from you, as you have the most experience.”
Chapel and McCoy left M’Benga to it, telling him to comm them if he needed assistance. Out in the corridor, McCoy asked, “Is it really that bad on Ek’tra?”
Christine nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised we got a couple cases like this a month.”
McCoy cursed. “Next time we get a Vulcan in for a routine surgical abortion, can I observe? I know it’s gotta be at least a little different than Humans.”
“Yeah, of course.”
-
After three days of therapy and art lessons, Mudd begged to placed on a penal colony. “Or Rura Penthe, I’m not choosy.”
After much debate, Sha-Ka-Ree handed Mudd over to the Federation, which had legal jurisdiction over the planets and space station where Mudd first drugged and procured the women. Despite the jury being unable to determine whether Mudd was criminally insane or criminally incompetent, Harry was sentenced to a long vacation at the Elba II asylum.
Life on Sha-Ka-Ree settled down after the planet’s first day of commerce and open visitation. Those who fell for the women’s charms did their best to forget about it, even though the women remained beautiful. For most, it was the guilt of almost buying a trafficked person that kept them from acknowledging it, but for Worf it was the embarrassment of courting a Human.
Eve and Ruth took the first commercial vessel to Terra, while Magda, as a scientist, was offered a position as Elder Spock’s assistant as he outfitted the planet with its very own starship, the Squid.
Chapel kept her word and told McCoy about Sybok’s deep-fryer. McCoy’s Southern upbringing won out over his medical training, so he didn’t rant and rave about it. Well, not too badly.
Previous Next
Chapter Title: Chapter 3: The Great Doctors Abiliana
Author: katiemariie
Artist: tprillahfiction
Fanmixer: civilbloodshed
Beta(s): subluxate and avsioss
Link to Art: Art
Link to Mix: Fanmix
Word Count: 6.9k
“As your elected ambassador, it is with great pride that I officially open Sha-Ka-Ree for visitation and commerce. It was a mere three months ago that we settled on this planet. Now, due to the perseverance and ingenuity of our citizenry, we have obtained a space dock that will allow us to securely receive larger numbers of visitors at one time.” T’Pring reached under the lectern, brandishing a pair of scissors. “With this oversized cutting implement, I will bisect this red ribbon. What this symbolizes, I am not certain, but I was told this was of great import.” T’Pring cut the ribbon and walked off the stage with little fanfare.
-
After ten hand-wringing minutes, the daycare worker finally managed to convince Spock and Geoff that their children wouldn’t be forever traumatized by them leaving for work. “It used to be so much easier,” Geoff sighed, walking out of the daycare center.
“At the very least,” Spock said, “their separation anxiety gives us more information on Valeris’ developmental rate. She appears to be developing as a full Vulcan would.”
“If that means she’ll cry that every time we leave for the next five years, I’d prefer she develop like a Klingon.”
They continued along the newly paved sidewalk to the hospital and research labs. “I am debating whether visiting Saavik and Valeris during my lunch hour would be a comfort to them or further upset them when I must return to-”
“Jesus! Fuck.” Geoff stopped walking and wiped his face with his shirt sleeve.
“What is the matter?”
“That girl just spit on me,” Geoff explained, looking back at a young Vulcan woman who had passed them on the sidewalk.
“Ko-kan,” Spock called to the woman, advancing toward her. He knew she was a visitor because there were no white Vulcan colonists outside of his family. “Did you purposefully expectorate on this man?”
The girl, who looked no more than sixteen, stared up at Spock defiantly. “Yes.”
“Judging by your youth, I assume you are ignorant concerning Terran history and unaware of the implications of spitting on a Black Human in the street.”
“Your assumption is false; I have an M8 certification in Terran history.”
“Then you are fully cognizant that you have just performed a hate crime, which is a punishable offense under our law.”
“I challenge that claim; as a full-blooded Vulcan, I do not experience hate. Perhaps you could could explain it to me, Commander Spock.”
“You are aware of who I am, and yet you still commit violence against my bondmate? You are a foolish child.”
“I disagree. I expectorated on that man precisely because I recognized him as the disgraced Dr. M’Benga, the Butcher of the Ancients.” She looked over at Geoff. “If given the opportunity, I would repeat my actions.”
Spock leaned in, so this his face was a few inches from the girl’s. “You are fortunate your mother deemed your father worth copulating when she had. If you were born any earlier, I would teach you a valuable lesson on interspecies etiquette.” Spock took a step back, raising his hand in the Vulcan salute. “Live long and prosper.” Spock returned to Geoff’s side, running two fingers over his face. They shuffled down the sidewalk, away from that girl.
//How are you?//
//It’s not the first time I’ve been spit on in the street. That’s why I left Ek’tra.//
//And why I left Vulcan.//
//I had never pegged Vulcans to be the type that would spit on people.//
//Expectorating on someone is considered to be one of the greatest insults a Vulcan can deliver.//
//Isn’t that illogical?//
//Precisely. As a gesture, it says that a person is so dishonorable that another would waste saliva to tell them such. It is especially meaningful considering how much of Vulcan was desert.//
“I get it,” Geoff said, stopping in front of the hospital doors. “Vulcans really hate me.”
“And me.”
“Do you think Vulcans will spit on Saavik and Valeris?”
“On Ek’tra, most definitely. Here, I am more optimistic.”
Geoff brushed his thumb over Spock’s eyebrow. “See you at lunch?”
“Of course.” Spock nodded and walked toward the research labs.
-
“I checked over your tranlations,” Uhura said, entering T’Pring’s office. “There were a few minor err-Hello.” Perched on Worf’s desk was the most beautiful woman Nyota had ever seen. Besides her wife. Yes, T’Pring was very, very... not as gorgeous as this woman. “Who is this?” she asked Worf.
Worf craned his head around the woman’s fabulous bod. “Miss Magda Kovacs. She requested to see my label maker.”
Magda ran her fingers sensually across the label maker.
“Huh di buh.” Nyota spoke dozens of languages. In none of those were the noises she just made words. She coughed. “I should... Bye.” Nyota turned tail and left, forgetting all about Worf’s translations.
-
“Good god, look at her,” McCoy whispered to M’Benga “Talk about a blonde bombshell.”
“What do you think she’s doing here?” Geoff asked.
“I don’t know, but I’d like to give her a physical.”
Christine glared at them. “Pigs,” she mumbled, exiting the hospital break room in a huff.
“Or her annual pelvic,” McCoy chuckled.
M’Benga laughed along for a moment before he realized how wrong it was. “Len, we’re married.”
McCoy seemed to sober up as well. “More than that, we’re doctors.” He put down his cup of coffee. “Let’s get back to work.”
M’Benga exited the break room and went to the urgent care ward. “You have anything for me?” he asked Suvin, the receptionist.
“A patient came in a few minutes ago, asking for a Dr. Abiliana. I told her we had no doctor by that name, but she insisted,” Suvin said, antennae twitching in irritation. “I sent her back to exam two just to shut her up.”
“I’ll take a look at her.” As he walked back to exam two, Geoff was glad he was on Sha-Ka-Ree. If a woman came in asking around for a Dr. Abiliana at a hospital on Ek’tra, Geoff was sure he would be found out. He didn’t want to think about what the High Council would have done if they knew.
He wasn’t surprised they had followed him. He’d placed the right clues with the right people on Ek’tra. In fact, he’d been expecting a deluge of Vulcan women coming to see Dr. Abiliana once the space dock was complete. He had assumed they’d be smart enough to go through the proper channels, not to his hospital.
He took the chart off of the door. T’Ki. God, he hoped that was a fake name.
“Miss T’Ki,” Geoff said, opening the exam room. “What can I-” It was her. Sitting on the exam table-that girl who spat on him. “-do for you?”
The girl recoiled. “I do not wish to see you. I requested Dr. Abiliana.”
“And here he is.”
“No. I was told Dr. Abiliana was a woman and...” The girl seemed to search for a word that Vulcan didn’t have. “She does not look like you.”
He ignored the sting. “You do realize Dr. Abiliana isn’t real?”
“No. The friend who recommended her to me said she was a female.”
“When did your friend visit Dr. Abiliana?”
“Last year.”
This was bad. This was very bad. Someone who wasn’t him was operating as Dr. Abiliana. Best case scenario: some noble do-gooder Vulcan doctor picked up his handle. Worst case scenario: some noble do-gooder Vulcan with a wire hanger picked up his handle. Even worse case scenario: a spy for the Vulcan government was running a sting operation using his handle. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Geoff looked down at the girl’s chart. “Are you really twenty?”
“No.”
Right. “How far along?”
“Ten weeks, five days.”
“How long will you be on Sha-Ka-Ree?”
“Just today.”
Drugs were out then. If something went wrong, she needed to be able to receive treatment. “I’ll need to get a few things.”
Just before he reached the door, the girl asked, “You would help me after I expectorated on you?”
“You would want this kind of help after what you spat on me for?”
-
Worf didn’t know what he was doing wrong. At long last, he had found a woman worthy of being his mate. She was beautiful and.... She was beautiful. He had done all he could to woo her: he’d taken her to his place of work, shown her his label maker which she failed to hurl at him, read her some love poetry; he’d even begun to duck preemptively in the hopes that she would take a hint. But she failed to do so. Miss Magda Kovacs did nothing to indicate interest or that she even realized he was trying to win her favor. Still, Worf persevered. After all, she had not rejected him. Yet, she hadn’t roared or clawed at him either.
He was beginning to suspect she was a lesbian. Not due to her lack of interest, but the way she behaved. She was well-versed in the ways of winning a female. She read poetry in a mellifluous voice. She was gentle and courteous. If Worf had not informed her to the contrary, he would believe she thought he was the female of the species and was trying to woo him.
Magda was the first woman to express interest in him since the accident. She was also apparently a butch lesbian.
-
Spock had expected productivity to fall once the lab opened up for touring groups, but not so drastically. From his console, he could see that Maltz had imputed half the data he was supposed to, and Carol Marcus had returned only one out of five samples to the incubator. Spock was hesitant to discipline them despite his position as the director of scientific research. Both Maltz and Carol had just as much experience and renown as he did, and Spock was cognizant of the talk throughout the colony about nepotism. From the outside, it must have appeared that there was a de facto royal family; everyone related to Spock by blood, bond, or marriage held a position of authority in Sha-Ka-Ree society, with the exception of Sybok, who for all the power he possessed could never be said to hold authority over anyone. After watching productivity fall increasingly rapidly, Spock determined it was time to gently remind Maltz and Carol to return to work.
As Spock left his office and entered the main lab, he saw the source of their distraction. Lying on one of the lab tables, in a slinky green dress with a cut-out that revealed the underside of one her breasts, was a highly aesthetically pleasing woman who would easily tear apart Spock’s life if he let her. Spock knew that his Vulcan upbringing at times complicated his relationship with Geoffrey, but for once he was grateful for the restraint it granted him.
“Would you care to introduce your latest test subject?” Spock asked Maltz and Carol, who were staring at the woman, seemingly entranced.
Dumbfounded by her beauty, Maltz and Carol made no move to answer him. The woman smiled up at Spock. “Ruth Bonaventure.” She outstretched her hand, palm down, inviting Spock to kiss it. Miss Bonaventure apparently knew nothing about Vulcan customs.
“Miss Bonaventure, please relocate your person to a more suitable piece of furniture.”
She rolled off of the table like a cat and sat upon a stool.
“Please excuse me and my colleagues.” Spock herded Carol and Maltz into his office. Deprived of the woman’s presence, they regained the ability to speak.
“What do you want?” Carol asked, anxious to return to the main lab and Miss Bonaventure.
“What I want is immaterial. What I require is a secure environment in which to unravel the many curiosities of this planet. It is one thing to allow guests a carefully crafted glimpse into our work via guided tours; it is another to let said guests recline on our work. I need not remind you this is a matter of planetary security.” To make himself perfectly clear to his stupefied colleagues, Spock said, “Remove her from the premises and do not invite her to return.”
Maltz looked ready to protest, but Carol cut him off. “Fine. We were about to take her out to lunch anyway.”
Spock watched them leave along with Miss Bonaventure, before locking up the lab and walking to Geoffrey’s parents' house for lunch.
When he arrived, Geoff was already at the kitchen table, picking at a rice dish prepared by his mother, who was sitting across from him. “Eva.” Spock nodded at her, and then pressed a kiss to Geoffrey’s temple. “You are distressed,” Spock said taking a seat next to him. Eva passed him a plate, and he began to pile food on it.
“I think I’m in trouble,” Geoff mumbled.
Eva’s face pinched in concern. “The last time you told me that you were brought before the Vulcan High Council for malpractice.”
“This time I doubt I’ll be so lucky,” he sighed. He turned to Spock. “Someone’s been performing abortions as Dr. Abiliana.”
If Spock’s heart was located in his chest cavity, he was certain it would have figuratively dropped into his stomach. “Do you know who?”
“No.” Geoff shook his head.
“Geoffrey,” Eva said. “What did you do?”
Geoff looked down at his food. “I’ve been performing abortions on Vulcan women.”
“Why would you be in trouble for that? It’s part of your job.”
“So was following the last wishes of my patients,” Geoff muttered bitterly.
“After Ek’tra was established, the Vulcan High Council reviewed several of Vulcan’s laws to see if they were still applicable,” Spock explained. “As members of a matriarchal culture, Vulcan women have long had access to abortion on demand. However, after the loss of so many lives during Vulcan’s destruction, the High Council was moved to support policies that would ensure the repopulation of the species. Former laws regarding abortion were repealed and a review board was created to determine whether abortion was necessary on a case-by-case basis.”
“The review board almost always denied women’s requests, unless her health was endangered by the pregnancy,” Geoff added.
“The High Council also ruled that women below the age of majority required the consent of their guardians and their clan matriarch to petition the review board for an abortion.”
“After the eugenics laws were passed, women had easier access to abortion if they were seen as having bad genes or the fetus was diagnosed with a disability. But before that it was almost impossible to get an abortion. I knew what was going to start happening, so I started doing abortions under the table as Dr. Abiliana.”
“After your great-great-great-great-grandmother Abiliana,” Eva surmised.
Spock was unaware that Geoffrey's alias was crafted in honor of a distant ancestor. He wondered why Geoff chose that woman in particular. Becoming ever more of the fluctuations in their bond, Geoff's sensed Spock's curiosity and explained, “Abiliana is sort of a family legend on my mom's side.”
“She is not a legend,” Eva said. “The Eugenics War museum in Habana has her papers on display.”
“What did she that was so notable that it warranted a museum display?” Spock asked.
“Do you want to tell the story, or should I?” Eva asked Geoff.
“You tell it better,” Geoff replied.
Eva leaned in, wrapping her hands her mug of tea. “At the end of the 20th century, before the Eugenics Wars began, an Augment named Ragnar Thorwald took control of Central and South America. His pet project was breeding out the indigenous blood from Latin America. For the most part, he did this through arranged marriages between lighter skinned mestizas and sterilizing people who looked more indigenous. He considered the Caribbean a lost cause because of the number of former African slaves who settled there. He turned the Caribbean islands back into slave states and used the women as incubators for his genetically modified offspring. Half of Cuba was forced to carry his children. Women had little they could do prevent this; Thorwald was in control of all the medical facilities, and abortions were outlawed, except in the case of inferior genetics. Very much like the law on Ek'tra.
“Geoffrey's great-great-great-great-grandmother Abiliana acted as an informal doctor for her work camp. People would come to her when they were sick or injured and she would heal them and give them different types of medicine. Eventually the women came to Abiliana for drugs that would induce abortions or make them less fertile. As a result, her work camp had the lowest birth rate out of all of Thorwald’s projects.”
“And the camp guards did not realize what Abiliana was doing?” Spock asked.
“No,” Eva smiled. “That's the beautiful part. The guards didn't think anyone in the camp was smart enough to smuggle or synthesize those drugs. They thought Abiliana was just some voodoo medicine woman, gathering different herbs for her witch’s brew. Of course, they didn't know she was a chemistry student before Thorwald invaded, and that she was distilling the active ingredients from herbs that her grandmothers had used for generations. The camp supervisors and Ragnar Thorwald convinced themselves that there was something wrong with the water in the area that caused the women to have so many miscarriages. They would rather make up a problem than admit an Afro-Cuban woman could beat their science.”
“She did the right thing,” Eva said, reaching across the table, placing her hand on Geoffrey’s. “And so did you.”
Geoff shook his head. “I fucked up. I didn’t cover my tracks, and now someone knows what I was doing and is pretending to be me.”
“Why does that have to be such a bad thing?” Eva asked. “At least women on Ek’tra can still get abortions.”
“I don’t know who is performing them, though. It could be some hack who doesn’t know what he’s doing, or a V’Shar agent undercover working to take me down, along with as many Vulcan women as he can. Just the fact that someone else knows puts and my family in danger. If the same people who firebombed T’Pau’s apartment and ran Sarek off the planet found out... they’ll go after me, Spock, the girls...”
“T’hy’la, we are safe here,” Spock said. “You need not feel guilty for endangering us; extremists on Ek’tra have enough reasons to murder us all without knowing you moonlighted as an abortionist.”
These words did not seem to comfort Geoffrey.
-
T’Pring had been confined in her office all day, dealing with the aftermath of opening up Sha-Ka-Ree for trade and visitation. She received complaints from neighborhoods surrounding the planet’s main market-mostly people griping about tourists walking across their lawns and upsetting their flowerbeds. The Ferengi Bolshevik caucus was particularly vocal in their premonitions of what tragedy would befall the planet if this capitalist reign of terror continued.
“If you do not put an end to free trade with outworlders-”
T’Pring interrupted the Ferengi woman on her vidscreen. “As elected diplomat, my role is limited to communicating the will of the people. The people voted in favor of commerce with-”
“It is insentient to allow the buying and selling of people within this planet’s orbit.”
T’Pring pinched the bridge of her nose. (She wasn’t overcome with frustration or a migraine; she simply found that the more emotional species responded well to these visual cues.) “However violent your reaction to capitalism may be, you need not resort to hyperbole to-”
“I am not exaggerating! Some hew-man came to our village and tried to sell my son a bride.”
“Have you contacted the police?”
“Yes, and they told me that there was no law against what he was doing. So I called you.”
“Thank you. I will investigate this matter personally.” T’Pring turned off her vidscreen, and walked into the main office, where Worf’s desk was. Typically, it did not have a stunning aesthetically ideal woman on it. Focusing her mind on the matter at hand, T’Pring did not allow the woman’s beauty to affect her. “Worf, we have an urgent situation.”
“Of what nature?” Worf asked, barely looking away from the Human woman.
“I have just received a report of an outworlder attempting to sell women as brides. I require your assistance in running a full investigation out of this office. In addition, I require an emergency townhall meeting to determine the legality of sex trafficking within Sha-Ka-Ree’s orbit.”
“Sex trafficking?” the woman squeaked in a delightfully feminine voice.
“Yes.” Perhaps she didn’t know what those words meant. “The movement of bodies by a coercive agent for the purpose of selling said bodies with the guarantee or promise of sexual activities, such as those expected from a wife.”
The woman’s face went red. “You make it sound like the women have no choice. Maybe the women want to find husbands... even they are Ferengi. Did you ever think of that?”
“I do not believe I said anything regarding the women marrying Ferengi,” T’Pring said accusingly. In those Terran films Sybok was so fond of, the guilt was often revealed through a character mentioning a detail they should not have known. “For what reason are you visiting Sha-Ka-Ree?”
The Human woman looked caught between a rock and a hard place. (Figuratively, of course. In reality, she was caught between a coffee mug and Worf’s label maker.) “Please don’t throw me in jail.”
“I will not, if you answer my questions.” T’Pring conveniently omitted that the woman was not breaking any law, and even if she was, Sha-Ka-Ree did not yet have a jail. (Mandatory counseling sessions with Sybok and therapeutic art lessons with Apple Pie Motorbike were threat enough to deter crime.)
“Okay.” The woman nodded.
-
“What I don’t understand,” McCoy said, “is how he got off that planet.”
Being the only ones besides his “cargo” who knew what he looked like, Spock, Uhura, and McCoy were tasked with searching for Harry Mudd. They had originally planned to search separately to cover more ground, but Spock soon realized that McCoy and Uhura would be largely useless if Mudd deployed one of his beauties to distract. He decided it would be best for him to supervise the others.
“I know,” Uhura agreed. “Last time we saw him he was trapped on a planet by hundreds of android copies of his wife with no mode of transportation.”
Spock considered this for a moment while scanning through the crowd. “Perhaps he somehow managed to disassemble the androids and used their parts to construct a rudimentary vessel.”
Uhura shivered. To her, that was like that serial killer who made lampshades out of women’s earlobes.
“Excuse me.” McCoy stopped a Romulan woman passing by. “Have you seen this man?” He held what was supposed to be a sketch artist’s rendering of Mudd’s face, but they didn’t have the software for that yet or a sketch artist, so they had to ask M’Benga’s mom to give it her best shot. Realism, apparently, wasn’t her favorite genre.
The Romulan peered at the sketch, turning her head to the side. “Is that a nipple?”
McCoy shoved the sketch in his pocket. “A white Human male around six feet tall, a little on the heavy side. Brown hair, ridiculous moustache. Calls himself Mudd, or Leo Walsh. This ringing any bells?”
“Oh, him,” the Romulan replied. “He tried to sell a Human woman to my bondmate. If I wasn’t a pacifist...”
“Do you know where he is now?”
“The last time I saw him he was in Little Aventine, selling crystals door-to-door.”
“Thanks.” The Romulan woman walked off, and McCoy waved Uhura and Spock over. “She said he might be in the Romulan village.”
-
“Look who I found,” Sybok said, entering the exam room where Chapel was looking over Mudd’s women. He stepped aside, revealing a blonde Human. “Miss Eve McHuron, the third and final woman.”
“Could you please get on the med bed?” Chapel asked Eve. “Thank you.” She turned to Sybok. “How did you find her?”
“She was hanging around outside the hospital. I guess she wanted to land a doctor.”
“How did you know she was...”
“You can’t tell by looking at her? She’s the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen. After Leonard. Not that he’s a woman. But if he was a woman, he’d be the most beautiful woman in the galaxy. I’d imagine. Just going off of how he looks when we dress up. He doesn’t really like that. But if I have to do it...”
“You’re blathering. I thought these women couldn’t affect Vulcans.”
“Not if we don’t want them to. And I don’t. I’m just a little impaired right now.”
“You’re high?” Chapel whispered angrily. “You’re supposed to help me assess them!”
“No, no.” Sybok waved his hands. “I’m not high. I, um, I bought a deep fryer today-don’t tell Len-and I made deep fried Twinkies with powdered sugar.”
“So, you’re good to help me?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
Behind them, the biofunction monitors began to beep wildly. Chapel and Sybok rushed over to the women.
“Are you in pain?” Chapel asked.
“No, I’m fine,” Ruth replied, even though she curling into a fetal position on the med bed. The other women nodded as they grimaced.
Chapel ran her medical tricorder over the women, but the readings didn’t tell her much. “I can’t help you unless you tell me what’s wrong. Where does-”
All three shrieked in pain, cowering. Sybok gasped.
“What?” Chapel asked. “Are you picking up on something?”
“No. Don’t see it?” he asked.
“No.”
“They’re-they’re not beautiful anymore. They changed.”
“They look exactly the same.”
“No,” Magda cried. “We’re ugly! Hideous!”
“No,” Sybok said in a calming voice. “You’re very-” He tried to lie, but his Vulcan training reared it’s honest head. “You’re not ugly; you’re homely.” He tried to imbue that word with positivity, but it merely caused Magda to sob louder.
“If it means anything,” Chapel said over the women’s crying, “you look the same to me.”
“So,” Magda asked, wiping the tears from her eyes, “you would still marry me?”
“If I was attracted to women, yes.”
Magda buried her face in her hands and sobbed.
“Wait,” Sybok said. “You’re straight?”
“Yes,” Chapel answered.
“Completely, one hundred percent, zero on on the Kinsey scale heterosexual?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow, I didn’t know that there were any of you left. They should stuff you and put you in a museum somewhere. That’s probably why their mystical feminine wiles don’t work on you.”
“It’s not mystical,” Eve said, sitting up. “Harry has been giving us beauty supplements. I didn’t want to take them, but once I tried it I found out they really work. They just wear off after a while.”
“Do you know what’s in these supplements?” Chapel asked.
Eve shook her head. “I know it’s foolish taking a mysterious pill to be beautiful, but we all wanted to get married so badly. Harry said the pills would get us ten proposals a day. It sounds vain, but none of had a chance of getting married until Harry found us.”
“What did you think your future spouse would do when you ran out of supplements?”
“The same thing any man does when his wife gets older or lets herself go.”
“Find a mistress,” Sybok said.
“No,” Eve said sternly. “See past that because he loves her. The supplements are a trick-a dirty trick, but doesn’t everyone put on a show to find someone? Who can really say that their husband or wife is the same person they met all those years ago?”
-
If there was a formula for a civil town hall meeting, calling people out of their homes and places of work shortly before dinner time to an emergency meeting was not one of the components. While every citizen was informed of the meeting (as per the law), T’Pring and Worf hadn’t managed to get the entirety of the planet’s population to appear, but they had a sufficient number of people to debate and vote according to the planet’s bylaws.
“By criminalizing sex trafficking,” an Andorian thaan argued, “we risk stigmatizing all sex workers.”
“It limits bodily autonomy,” their zh’yi added. “If a person wishes to have sex for money, that should be their own decision.” Several people murmured their agreement.
“But a lot of the time it isn’t ‘their own decision,’” a Ferengi youth interjected. “Trafficking is different from other types of sex work, where some of the time people have enough options to choose sex work rather than being forced into it.”
“From what I hear,” the thaan said, “these women chose join Mudd. They wanted to find-”
Worf hissed, having the effect of a judge swinging a gavel. “This meeting was called to vote on sex trafficking, not to try Harry Mudd. Stay on topic.”
“While I respect a woman’s right to choose what she does with her own body,” a Ferengi woman-the one who had vidcalled T’Pring-said, “I know that circumstances can take away that right. Sex trafficking is one of them. Though I’ve never heard of it, women could be moved from planet to planet for sex work by a kind of head hunter. That, despite its ties to capitalism, should not be outlawed. It is when people are coerced or forced into sex work by someone else or extenuating circumstances that the state should intervene.”
“But what counts as coercion?” the thaan asked. “Who decides that?”
“Juries, the same with other crimes,” the Ferengi woman replied.
“If the trafficked person has been coerced,” Stonn said, “they should not face criminal charges.”
“Agreed,” the thaan said. “Only the procurer and the johns should be charged.”
“Are we ready to take a vote?” Worf asked. No one objected. “All those in favor of making sex trafficking a class F offense with severity of punishment determined by a jury, say aye.” Worf waited for the votes to register on his PADD. “All those opposed, say nay.” He waited once more. “The ayes have it. Meeting adjourned.”
-
When they found him, Harry Mudd was pitching his wares to little old Romulan man, who looked grateful to have the nuisance dragged off his porch.
“Excuse me,” Mudd said, “but I believe you’ve got the wrong person. I’ve been reformed. I’m out of the game. Gone straight.”
“Then what’s with the crystals?” McCoy asked, gesturing to Mudd’s suitcase.
“Those? Well, those are spiritual crystals for religious ceremonies. I’m a missionary, you see? A man of the cloth, going ‘round spreading the good news. Say, did you know that Landru died for your sins?” Spock tightened his grip on Mudd’s arm. “Okay, okay! Those are love potion crystals.” Spock squeezed tighter. “Imitation love potion crystals. I lost me last batch to a bunch of gangsters in a game of fizzbin.”
Uhura’s comm chirped. “Uhura... Thank you.” She placed her comm back in her belt and smiled at Mudd. “The police will be here to pick you up soon.”
“For what? I didn’t do nothing but try to ply me trade. Is that a crime?”
“No, but as of five minutes ago, sex trafficking is.”
-
“Are you feeling any better?” Chapel asked.
Ruth shook her head. “I feel worse.”
“Here.” Chapel filled a hypospray. “This should help.”
“What is it?”
“A beauty supplement,” Chapel snarked, injecting it into her arm.
Across the room, Sybok’s eyes widened. “What did you do? She looks-She’s gorgeous again.”
“The supplement must have worked,” Ruth said brightly.
“I was being sarcastic,” Chapel said. “That was just a vitamin.”
“Oh.”
Before Sybok’s eyes, Ruth’s beauty faded. “It’s a-The beauty supplement is-It’s...”
“What?” Chapel asked.
“I can’t think of the word. It starts with an ‘r,’ or a ‘t,’ or an ‘s.’ I don’t know. Um, it was a band. And old Terran band.”
“The Beatles?” Chapel offered.
“No. It’s not a beetle. It’s-Okay, you give someone something that looks like the thing that they think they’re getting, and they act like it’s that thing?”
“A placebo?”
“Yes! No. Yes.”
“I’m telling McCoy about the deep-fryer.”
-
After her partner whispered something in her ear, the detective smiled at Mudd. “You’re rather smart for someone who’s been caught five times.”
“I’ve picked up a few things here and there,” Harry responded.
“You knew that if you gave the women the Venus drug, you’d be painted by the prosecution as a pimp getting his whores hooked on drugs. Or as the supplier of a date rape drug that made people powerless to lust. But you needed your women to be irresistibly beautiful, so you just told them they were getting the Venus drug. When really it was a placebo that inspired the kind of self-confidence that makes people beautiful.” The detective lowered her voice. “It was a smart move, but we’ll nail you to the wall even if the pills are fake.”
“Fake?” Mudd yelped indignantly. “I paid good money for those!”
-
Sybok and Chapel had just convinced the women that they didn’t need the pills because they were placebos and that true beauty comes from within, when M’Benga came through the door. “The pills aren’t placebos.”
Ruth and Magda slumped back into their homely state, while Eve shook her head. “I don’t care. Don’t you see, girls, we don’t need pills to trick men into marrying us; we can do that all on our own.” Ruth and Magda flourished once again.
“Somehow,” Sybok said under his breath, “I don’t think that was the lesson they were supposed to learn.”
“What are the pills, if they’re not placebos?” Chapel asked.
“What substance do you know that makes people more self-confident and think they’re irresistible?” Geoff asked rhetorically.
“Alcohol,” Chapel answered, just as Sybok said, “Chocolate.”
“You’re both wrong,” Geoff said. “An old Terran substance derived from the coca plant-cocaine.”
“That would explain why they were in so much pain,” Chapel said. “They were in withdrawal.”
“They seem better now,” Sybok said.
“The power of suggestion,” Chapel surmised. “Along with the neural stabilizers in the vitamin hypo I gave them.”
-
After discovering that Mudd had been feeding them a highly addictive stimulant since the day they met, the women didn’t hesitate to press charges. Considering how ready to kick his ass Ruth was, Mudd got off lightly. The woman agreed to stay on Sha-Ka-Ree for as long as it took to get, in the words of Magda, “that creep locked up for good.” Knowing Mudd’s slippery nature, very few people were confident that would ever happen.
Assured that Sybok would set the women up with the adequate housing, M’Benga and Chapel returned to their regular duties at the hospital.
“Thank Uzaveh you’re here,” Suvin said from behind the front desk. “I was just about the comm you. Dr. McCoy is having trouble with a Vulcan patient.”
“Where?” Chapel asked.
“Exam four.”
The doctors nodded, and rushed to the exam room. When the door opened, they saw a young Vulcan woman-a girl, really-curled up on the med bed, and a red faced McCoy arguing with an adolescent Vulcan male. Both Vulcans were white, meaning they were outworlders.
“-the only doctor we have on call. We’ve got two others on the way and neither of them are called Abiliana. If you don’t convince her to let me treat her, she’ll bleed out.”
Chapel went to the the young woman, talking softly to her in Vulcan, while Geoff walked over to McCoy and the boy. “What’s the situation?”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” McCoy snapped. “She’s refusing treatment-won’t even let me run a tricorder over her, but I can see she’s got a sustained vaginal bleed. And neither of them won’t tell me a damn thing, except that they want to see Dr. Abiliana.”
“They’re in luck,” Chapel said, looking over at the men. “The doctor’s in.”
“You know?” Geoff gaped. “How? How do you know that-”
“It’s the biggest open secret on Ek’tra.” Oh, god.
“Do you mind telling me what the hell you’re talking about?” demanded McCoy.
“On Ek’tra, after abortion was effectively banned, some caped crusader Scarlet Pimpernel abortionist by the name of Dr. Abiliana started performing under the table abortions,” Chapel explained. “He was pretty good, apparently; like he was an actual doctor. But he disappeared-some say he was caught and executed, or he just got scared and ran-and for about a year there was no place for Vulcan women to get abortions. When I got there, I took up the mantle.”
“You?” Geoff asked. “You’re the white woman who’s been practicing as Abiliana?”
She nodded. “You can’t tell anyone, especially my husband.”
“Oh, god.” Geoff clutched his heart and sighed. “I thought I was cooked. I’m glad it was you and not some crackpot or spy that took my place.”
“You’re Dr. Abiliana?” Chapel balked. “The original?”
“Yeah.”
“High five!” The two Dr. Abilianas slapped hands.
“The Dread Pirate Roberts reunion is nice and all,” McCoy said, “but we’ve got a teenage girl bleeding out over there.”
“Right,” Chapel said, tucking her hair behind her ears.
“We’re both Dr. Abiliana,” M’Benga said to the Vulcans. “Why do you need to see us?”
“I am pregnant,” the girl said. “I did not want to have to carry a fetus to term, so I searched for Dr. Abiliana.”
“We could not find him,” the boy said. “We heard rumors that the doctor had moved to Sha-Ka-Ree, but we feared that her condition would be discovered before the planet opened for visitors.”
“I thought we could do it ourselves. We both have class M9 certifications in chemistry.”
“We synthesized the abortifacient easily, but we must have made an error.”
“Do you have any more of the pills?” Chapel asked.
“Yes.” The boy pulled a tiny container from his pocket, and handed it to Chapel.
She opened the container and ran her tricorder over the pills. “They’re pure.”
“In some cases of medical abortion,” Geoff explained, “the medication doesn’t fully terminate the pregnancy and causes bleeding. When did you take the pills?”
“Fifteen days, four hours, and thirteen minutes ago,” the girl answered.
“Jesus,” McCoy gasped. “You’ve been bleeding since then?”
“Yes.”
“You’re lucky,” Chapel said. “If you were Human, you’d be dead.”
“One of us needs to examine you. Do you have a preference?” M’Benga asked.
“I would prefer an examination from you, as you have the most experience.”
Chapel and McCoy left M’Benga to it, telling him to comm them if he needed assistance. Out in the corridor, McCoy asked, “Is it really that bad on Ek’tra?”
Christine nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised we got a couple cases like this a month.”
McCoy cursed. “Next time we get a Vulcan in for a routine surgical abortion, can I observe? I know it’s gotta be at least a little different than Humans.”
“Yeah, of course.”
-
After three days of therapy and art lessons, Mudd begged to placed on a penal colony. “Or Rura Penthe, I’m not choosy.”
After much debate, Sha-Ka-Ree handed Mudd over to the Federation, which had legal jurisdiction over the planets and space station where Mudd first drugged and procured the women. Despite the jury being unable to determine whether Mudd was criminally insane or criminally incompetent, Harry was sentenced to a long vacation at the Elba II asylum.
Life on Sha-Ka-Ree settled down after the planet’s first day of commerce and open visitation. Those who fell for the women’s charms did their best to forget about it, even though the women remained beautiful. For most, it was the guilt of almost buying a trafficked person that kept them from acknowledging it, but for Worf it was the embarrassment of courting a Human.
Eve and Ruth took the first commercial vessel to Terra, while Magda, as a scientist, was offered a position as Elder Spock’s assistant as he outfitted the planet with its very own starship, the Squid.
Chapel kept her word and told McCoy about Sybok’s deep-fryer. McCoy’s Southern upbringing won out over his medical training, so he didn’t rant and rave about it. Well, not too badly.
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