MURDER WHERE THERE SHOULD BE NONE

 

Name: The Vulcan Academy Murders

Author: Jean Lorrah

Publication Date: 11/1984

Publisher: Pocket Books (Star Trek #20)

Page Number: 280

Historian’s Note: Right in between the episodes “Journey to Babel” and “A Private Little War” (Production order, of course)

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk       Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu              Dr. Joseph M'Benga                   Ensign Pavel Chekov                 Ensign Carl Remington             Ambassador Sarek                 Amanda Grayson         Dr. Daniel Corrigan             Eleyna Miller            Sorel              T'Pau               Soton        Storn              T'Mir                   Sendet                   T'Par                   T'Zan

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, unnamed Klingon K't'inga-class battle cruiser

Planets: Vulcan

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The adventure begins in the middle of a battle.  The Enterprise is attacked by a Klingon warship.  Kirk quickly outmaneuvers his opponent and all but destroys the Klingon ship.  They take a few Klingons prisoner and tend to their own wounded.  One of their wounded, Ensign Carl Remington, is extremely injured.  His injuries surpass that of Captain Christopher Pike and are more like that of Joe Bonham.  Fortunately for the injured Ensign there is hope.  On Vulcan, at the Science Academy, there is currently a medical experiment being done that could reverse the Ensign’s condition. Spock knows of this because the procedure is being used to treat his mother right now.  While the ship is being repaired Kirk, Spock, and McCoy all take Remington to Vulcan.

The Enterprise captures and damages an enemy ship!

       When they arrive, they stop at Sarek’s house and then go to the hospital where they meet Dr. Daniel Corrigan and Healer Sorel, the pair who had perfected the procedure.  Dr. Corrigan first tested the process on himself. (McCoy didn’t say anything but I am sure he was proud.) Corrigan was unnaturally aging fast the under the treatment he went from being a man in his physical sixties, restored to his physical thirties.  Amanda, Spock’s mother, and Sorel’s wife T’Zan were currently undergoing the procedure.  Corrigan states that this treatment is only for conditions that would otherwise be permanently disabling or terminal.  The process is risky as the body involuntary functions are all controlled by machine.  If the device somehow loses power even for a few seconds, the patient will die.  A number of redundancy systems are installed to prevent this.  

Spock and his comrades visit his father  

However, since Chekhov's gun must be fired, there is a power failure that results in the death of T’Zan.  Since Vulcans are touch telepaths and are mentally bonded to their spouses, her sudden death led her to instinctively call out to her husband.  This message through the mental link sends Sorel into shock and his own mind starts to shut down, and Vulcan intervention is needed and they create a mind meld between Sorel and Corrigan and his friend helps him survive.  With T’Zan dead her and Sorel’s adult children, Soton and T’Mir, arrive back home with a little assistance from Captain Kirk.  During T’Zan’s funeral a male Vulcan named Sendet shows up to make an offer for T’Mir to become his mate.  Making a pass at someone during their mother’s funeral is just as off putting to Vulcans as it is for humans.  Sendet is sent packing but not before he expresses anger at humans at this ceremony.

Angry Vulcan man

After the ceremony is over T’Mir takes a pass herself at her father’s long-time friend.  It appears that T’Mir has had a Celine/Rene-type crush on Dr. Corrigan. The newly de-aged doctor starts to warm up to the idea when he discovers that her family supports the match.

Shortly after that another power loss results in the death of Ensign Remington.  The death of two patients dying in one in a million type accidents convince Captain Kirk there must have been a murder.  Others protest that there has not been a murder on Vulcan since the modern age began.  Because of what happened in “Amok Time,” Kirk doesn’t really buy that claim.  Kirk concludes that one of the patients was the target and the other was killed to through investigators off, or the target was the research team’s legitimacy someone wants to see them fail.  Kirk begins an investigation and begins to interview likely suspects.

They attempt to track which computer was used to sabotage the stasis chambers.  However, the memory banks overload, starting a fire. While helping treat the wounded McCoy notices the medical computer is giving of the wrong medical diagnosis to patients.  McCoy remembering the incident in “Court Martial” where Spock’s chess program was corrupted exposing sabotage.  (What we since the late 1980s called a “computer virus.”)  This is evidence of sabotage to the Academy’s computer system. 

Kirk, after getting treated for burns, proceeds with his investigation and he interviews T’Pau, and leaves both impressed with her and a little embarrassed about suspecting her.   After returning he is invited by Eleyna Miller to go out in the dessert to observe T'Khut and its moon.  The pressure was off as Sendet attacked Corrigan when he learned of his relationship with T’Mir.  It is now assumed that he was targeting Corrigan’s research. 

Kirk goes off on his date while Sendet is forced to undergo a Verification ceremony.   The Verification ceremony is a forced mind meld done by healers, to determine guilt or innocence.  During the Verfication's group mind meld, it is discovered that Sendet is a member of the Followers of T'Vet, a minority Vulcan group hoping to return Vulcan to its warlike past.  When they look into his actions they find he is innocent of the two murders.  He may be a throwback and follows a violent unpopular philosophy, but he is no murderer.

While Kirk and Miller are on their date, Kirk slips and is injured with a broken ancle making it impossible for him to walk.  Miller says she is going to get help but does not return.  Kirk did not fall, he was pushed.  Fortunately, he told McCoy where he was going a McCoy grabbed a vehicle and rescued Kirk.  Before Kirk could recover and revel the identity of the killer to McCoy, Miller goes ahead with her plan to kill Amanda.  She then feels that Sarek will need to be saved, and he will then fall in love with her.  She fails because she is stopped by Sarek, Spock, and Sorel.  Miller is exposed as the villain; she is judged to be mad and sent elsewhere on Vulcan for treatment.

Time to fill Amanda in

The story ends with everyone gathered around Amanda explaining to her everything that happened.

Additional thoughts: It’s not the first Star Trek story to be a murder mystery. We have seen them before in “The Conscience of the King,” “Wolf in the Fold,” and “Journey to Babel.” It’s not Star Trek’s specialty but it is something they will do from time to time. I generally enjoyed this story but for other reasons. Mostly learning about Vulcan culture, what it is like for non-Vulcans on Vulcan, and interaction between the characters.

The very beginning features a fight with Klingons.  Immediately after reading “Tears of the Singers” where Klingons, such as Kor, are treated with complexity it was a bit of a 180° shock to have Spock dismiss all Klingons as “illogical but predictable.” Well, I suppose he was just speaking in generalizations.

I couldn’t help not thinking of Captain Christopher Pike in this book.  If such medical treatment was available would Spock have risked everything to get him to Talos IV?  Could this have restored his lost abilities?

Sarek was a lot kinder and more open than he was in “Journey to Babel.”  He is actually likeable in this book. He seems generally interested in catching up with his son and getting to know his friends. There is a great scene where Kirk and Sarek are entertaining each other with stories from their pervious adventures that I enjoyed quite a bit. 

I don’t understand why T’Pau was so surprised to see Captain Kirk alive.  I thought she had been informed about what had happened by the Enterprise.  I had always assumed that is why she contacted Starfleet to clear the crew of any wrongdoing by coming there. In this book she starts as a bigoted jerk, before revealing her more complex and interesting traits.

T'Pau

The whole T’Mir-falls-in-love-with-Corrigan story has grooming vibes all over it.  I just have to keep reminding myself that these are aliens not humans with different biological and cultural standards than us.  Also, it was clearly generated by T’Mir.  If I didn’t know that author is a woman, I would swear this was a man’s fantasy.  (I say that as an unmarried 43-year-old, who will be a 44-year-old tomorrow.)

 There is some timeline confusion they often reference “Amok Time” as if it were two years ago.  However, in this book we see Dr. McCoy recruit Dr. M'Benga to the Enterprise.  This explains why he was not involved in Sarek’s operation that McCoy performed.  However, he is in the very next episode.  All of these are part of season 2, which to me has always meant that they happened in the same year roughly.

Now for the plot twist.  I have always said that a good twist is one you don’t see coming but when you go back and check the evidence has been right there all along and you blame yourself for not seeing it. This I would give this twist a “C” grade. That’s because although there was nothing that I could see that made it clear she was committing the murders. There was the warning about the desert being fatal, I totally missed it when she invited Kirk out there.  I thought it was just humans being stupid. It was actually the perfect place to try to kill him.

Should it be canon: I have no objections to this story being canon with exception to the statements about “Amok Time” being two years ago.  

Cover Art: Spock is in the Vulcan desert with T'Khut in the night sky. Spock has a phaser pointed at a le-matya.  It’s cool and all but it’s also a lie, as this scene appears nowhere in the book.

Final Grade: Final Grade 4 of 5