The Absent-Minded Professor

[Ethan Neufeld 0]

Ethan rubbed the back of his head as he left the galley. He was dumbfounded. So much had occurred in a relatively short amount of time that he wasn't quite how to quantify it. He thought they had been talking about vowels and then, suddenly, the tablet was babbling at them in whole word sequences. He didn't know what had possessed him to repeat what he'd done to the tablet by accident. He'd thought he was undoing it, but he ended up doing the opposite. There was no making sense of that moment for Ethan. It only baffled him more that linguists – the men and women with the years of training and study that he didn't have – had been stumped for all this time, yet he managed to 'break the code' with a flub.

 

Was this what serendipity felt like? Next time, he'd pass.

 

But all that paled in comparison with what really had him completely bemused. As he entered his cabin, he recalled their conversation almost word-for-word:

 

"This should be something that you are quite accustomed to, Selek… I had been meaning to ask," Sal paused. "How much Vulcan blood do you actually have…?"

 

"Hmm." Ethan flatly frowned. He finally sat down in a chair across from Sal and suddenly wanted to rub a hand down his face in mild exasperation.

 

"Not a lot," he admitted and paused; then: "in fact, none."

 

There was no doubt in his mind that he had spoken those words aloud; he had confessed the truth to Sal: bluntly, absolutely. He wasn't Vulcan. At first, it seemed as though Sal brushed off the confession like it was common place and that had mildly alarmed Ethan. Sal was so unresponsive to the news that Ethan was, in fact, a fake, that Ethan was having difficulty gauging how the scientist might use the information. For a short span of time, Sal was a very real threat in Ethan's mind. But now he was starting to wonder if there was far less to it. By the end of their conversation it seemed – no, Ethan was almost positive that Sal had completely forgotten. The scientist was so engrossed in Zoalus and his new breakthrough that he wasn't seeing much else. Ethan had a distinct impression that he had gone back to being a Vulcan in Sal's mind.

 

Well, Ethan mused as he laid down on his bunk to sleep; at least Sal's not a threat.

 

Yet.