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Bones has already decided he's going to accept the offer. Sure, it's in deep space, constant danger, decent liquor will be hard to come by, and a five-year commitment. But on the other hand, what else was he going to be doing? And Jim is a friend.
Still, he makes Jim buy him dinner first. May as well have a nice time before they have to get aboard. And Jim has questions of his own. "You ever work with any Vulcans before?" he asks, toward the end.
Bones regards Jim across the table. "Couple of times. Can't say I liked it. I know it's just their way, but I can't seem to connect with them. Or they refuse to, on my level. Hard to say which."
"You're going to have to make an effort. Spock's the science officer, and you'll be CMO. You'll be working together all the time."
"I've heard of him. Isn't he just half Vulcan? Maybe it won't be so bad."
Jim gives him a skeptical look. "You can't just half work well with him."
McCoy rolls his eyes, leans back. "Yeah, I know. Don't worry, I know how to act. If he were a squid creature for Andromeda I'm sure I could handle it."
"You'd better. Starfleet is trying to move away from separate ships for different species, but there's a lot of resistance. As I understand it, Spock was offered the Intrepid and turned it down. He wanted to serve on a human ship. And this gives Starfleet a chance to test drive integration. Pike speaks incredibly highly of him. If we don't make him feel welcome and he feels like he has to transfer—"
"Won't happen. Not on my account. Anyway, if he requested a human ship, he must favor his human side."
“I don’t know about that.” Jim pulls out the science officer’s photo, shows it to Bones. “He sure didn’t smile for his photo.”
“Ah, I’m sure he’ll loosen up when he gets to know us. I’ll be careful not to treat him any different.”
Commander Spock does not appear to favor his human side. At all. Bones looks him up and down: rigid posture, that ridiculous haircut, no expression. Bones has seen full Vulcans more relaxed.
Spock turns, and Bones pretends he wasn’t staring. “Commander Spock!” Bones says, with a cheerful smile. Not treating him any different. No matter how difficult the man makes it. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” He extends his hand for a shake. He’d put some thought into it and decided that failing to shake might be as big a slight as trying to shake, for a half Vulcan. Surely his human parent has acquainted him with the custom.
Spock’s hands remain behind his back. He stares at the doctor’s proffered hand like it is a particularly ripe dead animal. He nods sharply. “And now you have done so.” He moves on to greet the next member of the senior staff.
Bones exchanges a glance with Jim. What the hell?
Jim gives a baffled shrug.
The next time they meet is when Spock reports for his first medical exam. It’s not so much an exam as a formality. Spock has had his quarterly physical already, but Bones needs to get a baseline sense of what healthy looks like before he ever gets sick.
“So I don’t know a whole lot about your unique physiology,” says Bones apologetically, as Spock perches ramrod-straight on the side of the biobed. “You’ll have to tell me what part to take out of which medical reference.”
“The Vulcan medical index will largely be accurate, Doctor.”
“Really? Even though you’re half human?”
Spock stiffens perceptibly. “It is impossible to predict the results of a genetic experiment until it is tried.”
Bones grimaces. “I wouldn’t put it that way.”
“How would you choose to put it, Doctor?” Spock’s dark eyes are piercing under their upswept brows. Bones feels like a first year med student, being called on to explain the Denobulan flu by the most intimidating instructor in the university.
“I dunno,” says Bones intelligently, and buttons his lip to complete his basic read of Spock’s vital signs. “All of these are within the norms for Vulcans.”
“As I told you,” says Spock. “May I go now?”
Things remain chilly between them for months. Bones does everything he can think of. He smiles every time they meet. He offers Spock to drink with him every week or two, which he declines every time. He finds out Spock’s birthday and drops off a card. Spock comments that Vulcans do not celebrate the day of their birth, and if they did, they would not use the Terran calendar to do so.
Inclusive comments Bones has made and Spock has rebuffed:
“We’re not that different, you and I.”
“It disturbs me that my personal physician would say that. I hope you grasp the differences before you attempt to treat me.”
“Isn’t it human nature to have a moment of weakness now and again?”
“You will have to tell me, Doctor. I wouldn’t know.”
“You can’t go this long without sleeping, the human body needs eight hours and I can’t believe—”
“I find it staggering that you have not yet realized I do not have a human body. I require four, which is the Vulcan norm.”
Bones gives up. There is clearly no hope in making Spock one of the gang. He does not want to be included among the humans of the crew. He wants to stand apart and perceptibly bristles when any attempt is made to change that.
Jim seems to be doing fine, because of course he is. But the man has charm, and it’s charm of a kind that doesn’t rely on human idioms, human body language, or human nature. He’s charmed plenty of aliens before and Spock does not seem to present a challenge to him. But Bones has never worked closely with aliens before, not for the long term, and he just doesn’t know how to break in. The kinds of unifying, difference-flattening comments recommended in his Starfleet diversity training course definitely do not work. Bones wonders who made the curriculum for that course. Probably an elderly Earth admiral who had never traveled beyond Pluto.
And then the Vulcans arrive.
It’s a small party of scientists they are shuttling from one planet to another. They happened to be going that way and Starfleet is, at the moment, working hard to impress the Vulcan High Council. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy meet them in the transporter room.
Bones has learned from Spock enough not to try shaking hands with them either. But he’s never been able to do the Vulcan hand thing, so he puts his hands behind his back and nods politely.
“Welcome aboard the Enterprise,” says Jim, his voice a few degrees more serious than usual, but nothing pointed. “I’m Captain James T. Kirk, and this is my first officer, Commander Spock, and my chief medical officer, Doctor Leonard McCoy.”
The head scientist, Setek, raises his hand in the usual gesture. “Live long and prosper, Captain Kirk. Doctor McCoy.” And he sweeps out, trailing his four subordinates.
Bones exchanges a shocked glance with Jim. The captain is as surprised as he is. Bones tries to do the same with Spock, but Spock’s chin is held high and his eyes pinned directly on the wall opposite. “Ooookay,” says McCoy. “Let’s catch up to give them the tour, I guess.”
“Insights, Mr. Spock?” asks Jim.
“I expect they would prefer if I did not join in on the tour, Captain.”
“Do you know why?”
“I prefer not to speculate.”
So Jim and Bones hurry to catch up with the Vulcans alone.
In the science lab, the Vulcans look at all the machines and experiments in progress. “Impressive for a human crew, Captain,” says Setek.
“My first officer is also my science officer,” Jim points out.
“My comment stands,” Setek replies.
In the engine room, one of the scientists points out that the risk tolerance of human ships is set rather high; that pushing the warp drive that hard would never happen on a Vulcan ship.
“We don’t really consider ourselves a human ship,” Jim points out. “While we’re majority human, of course, Starfleet is working on integrating the crews within the next decade.”
“That scheme sounds unlikely to be successful,” says Setek. “Consider even the simple question of environmental controls. There is no temperature that is comfortable for all Federation races, or even simply the humans, Vulcans, and Andorians. The temperature we prefer falls into the danger range for Andorians, as you must be aware.”
Bones was not aware, and he feels like an idiot. He’s a doctor. With a Vulcan—half-Vulcan—patient. He should have known. “Do Vulcans like it hotter than us, or colder?” he asks.
The Vulcan gives him a long look. Bones is good enough at reading Spock by now that he recognizes the expression as contempt. “At least ten degrees centigrade warmer, Doctor.”
“Good to know,” says Bones, and shuts his mouth again.
In the mess, Jim points out the food synthesizers. “We have a number of Vulcan recipes available,” says Jim, “given we have a Vulcan on the crew.”
The Setek raises an eyebrow. “You do not have any Vulcans on your crew, Captain Kirk.”
“I think I introduced to you—”
“You have,” interrupts the scientist smoothly, “one experimental human-Vulcan hybrid aboard your ship.”
There is a long silence. Jim and Bones exchange a glance. For once, Jim doesn’t seem to have any more idea how to react than Bones does.
“It is no surprise to me he has failed to meet the standards on a Vulcan ship,” Setek continues. “I am sure things are much easier for him among his own kind.”
Jim’s face goes past serious and all the way to dangerous. “He was, in fact, requested by the Intrepid,” says the captain, his voice cold. “He refused it.”
“Perhaps he saw the wisdom of no longer attempting to fit in where he did not belong,” says Setek.
Jim’s face is flushed, and for a minute Bones wonders if he’s going to slap the man. But, with an effort, he turns on his heel. “I think that is all we have to show you on the tour,” he says flatly. “I’ll show you to your rooms.”
“What the hell, Jim,” says Bones that evening, over a generous cup of Saurian brandy.
“I have never in my life seen such genuine nastiness out of a Vulcan,” says Jim. “I thought they weren’t capable of it. But dammit, Spock really brings it out of them.”
“Isn’t bigotry illogical?”
“Logic can be used to justify anything,” says Jim sourly. “It’s just that our Vulcan uses it to justify being compassionate and decent, and they—”
“I thought we weren’t supposed to call him a Vulcan,” says Bones. “Too much emphasis on difference. Not accurate to his real identity.”
Jim reflects on this. “He has never once identified himself as anything but a Vulcan,” he says. “Maybe that’s why he didn’t want the Intrepid. They’d always see him as human. But we’d see him as Vulcan. You know how it is. Water is invisible to fish. Any humanity in him, we don’t notice. We see the Vulcan-ness.”
“That was the whole theme of the diversity training,” says Bones. “People naturally do that and we’re not supposed to. Stop focusing in on what’s different, emphasize what we all have in common.”
“Clearly it doesn’t work on Spock. I think he came here to be seen as Vulcan. And it sounds like instead all we’re doing is reinforcing what these assholes are saying.”
Bones takes a drink. It’s true. Every damn time he has attempted to include Spock by referencing his humanity, Spock has stiffened up like a board and avoided his eyes. Which, in a Vulcan, is a dramatic display. “You know what, Jim?” he says after a minute. “I’m throwing out the diversity handbook. I’m gonna try something totally different.”
Jim looks doubtful. “You don’t have to try anything. I just treat him like a person. He’s always been fine with me.”
“It’s too late for me to take that tack, Jim. I’ve been insulting him for months. I need to show I don’t think of him that way anymore.”
It’s a risky move. It could blow up in his face. But then again, he could hardly be more disliked by Spock than he is now. What’s a little obvious racism between enemies?
The next time Spock is in sickbay, he takes the chance. It’s a big one. “Your pulse is two hundred and forty two,” he says. "Your blood pressure is practically nonexistent, assuming you call that green stuff in your veins blood.”
Spock hefts himself off the biobed with, Bones could swear, a very slight smile. “The readings are perfectly normal for me, Doctor, thank you, and as for my anatomy being different from yours, I am delighted.”
Against all odds, his gambit has worked. He keeps at it.
“I guess a Vulcan like you wouldn’t understand a genuine human emotion if it bit you.”
“Emotions do not bite, Doctor. But you are correct that I am unfamiliar with them.”
“What’s going on between those pointy ears?”
“A great deal more than happens in a human brain, I expect.”
“Are you out of your Vulcan mind?"
Spock, without appearing to move a muscle in his face, beams.