Title: The Best Substitute (#8, The Drabble Bin)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek TOS
Characters: Kirk, Spock, McCoy
Summary: Wherein there has to be a silly drabble about Kirk running late and the cadets who suffer in the meantime.
Previous Drabbles: The Old Four | Those Neighborhood Hoodlums | Trapped | A Cage of His Own | Of Perky Starfleet Bottoms | An Hour Past | War of the Bots

“What does boredom buy a person?”

A cadet raises his hand. “More assignments?”

“Or time to nap,” another person cuts in, causing a few chuckles.

“Hardly,” mutters someone darkly from the back row of the seminar, no doubt bored beyond belief but also unable to enjoy his nap.

“Wrong and wrong,” the speaker remarks good-naturedly. “Boredom buys the cheapest and most abundant commodity in the universe.”

At that, even the irritable thwarted napper straightens a little in his seat to listen. But rather than providing them with the answer, the speaker prompts again, “Now, any thoughts as to what it is?”

A chuckle, from a mature voice, rumbles through the audience’s silent contemplation. In the farthest corner of the domed-ceiling room is a person leaning against a wall by a door. He may or may not have been there for some time.

“That’s easy,” the man to whom the voice belongs says.

The speaker slouches against the podium, folding his arms across its top, and smiles. “Is that so? Well then, sir, tell us: what does boredom buy?”

The response is immediate and full of amused conviction: “Trouble.”

The speaker nods and lets his gaze wander over the wide-eyed men and women who have turned in their seats to stare at the newcomer. “That’s right—trouble. And who would know more about trouble than the man y’all are gaping at.” He straightens, thumps his fist against the podium like he’s knocking against a drum, and announces, “Let’s give Admiral Kirk a round of applause!” Over the sound of surprised (and very ecstatic) clapping, he drawls, “Admiral, they’re all yours,” and steps down from his place on center stage.

As Admiral Kirk passes the former speaker, he drops a hand to the man’s shoulder and murmurs a thank you.

“Don’t mention it,” Leonard McCoy replies. “But next time you’re gonna be late, Jim, and need somebody to entertain a bunch of bright-eyed hooligans…? Call Spock. I’m a doctor, not a tap dancer.”

The podium microphone captures the sound of Jim’s laughter and fills every corner of the room with it. An echo of that laughter stays with McCoy as he escapes the auditorium, keeping a grin on the man’s face all the way back to his office in Starfleet Medical.

~~~

The speaker is precise, clearly knowledgeable, and tireless: “And what I believe is that essentially the same phenomenon operates in almost every area of mathematics. Just like in multiway systems, one can always add axioms to make it easier to prove particular theorems. But I suspect that ultimately there is almost always computational irreducibility, and this makes it essentially inevitable that there will be short theorems that only allow long proofs.”

A whimper, and a hiccup of despair.

“In the previous section we saw that computational irreducibility tends to make infinite questions undecidable. So for example the question of whether a particular string will ever be generated in the evolution of a multiway system—regardless of how long one waits—is in general undecidable. And similarly it can be undecidable whether…”

Cadets shift restlessly in their seats. In the third row from the front, someone has fallen over. His peers on either side of him are wondering if he’s dead. But if they look at him for too long (or attempt to prod him in various soft, fleshy spots) the speaker’s drone takes on a sharp note of I know you are not paying attention. So they quickly return to staring numbly at a spot just over the speaker’s shoulder and wishing for a swift mercy of some kind.

That mercy comes in the form of someone entering noisily through the back door of the auditorium, causing the speaker’s dry monologue to suddenly halt. Huffing and just slightly red-faced with exertion from a run, the newcomer apologizes, “Sorry, sorry!” He regains his composure and strides for the podium. “Ah… Thank you for minding the store, Mr. Spock.” The words are brisk yet spoken warmly.

“Admiral,” the Vulcan greets in return. He moves away from the podium, whereupon there is a collective almost-sigh from his captive audience.

Jim’s eyes skate over the glazed eyes of the young people in the room (only pausing momentarily with a touch of concern upon the body of the one cadet who has seemingly expired) and he lifts his brows at his former XO.

Spock’s bland look meets Jim’s. “I see you were able to join us, Admiral.” He glances at the audience. “If any of you wish to hear the remainder of my discourse, I welcome the interest. My contact information is in the campus directory.”

Jim grins. “What a perfect idea for extra credit, Mr. Spock!” For torture, he really means. It appears, by the panic on some of his students’ faces, they understand Kirk’s intentions well enough.

The Vulcan merely nods, locks his hands behind his back, and heads for the steps of the stage. He has not gotten far when Kirk calls, albeit in a hushed undertone, “Spock! What was the lecture about?”

Spock quirks his eyebrow. “I was not lecturing, Admiral. I was reciting, passage by passage, from an old text—Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science, published at the turn of the twenty-first century.”

Jim stares at him for a long moment before understanding dawns. Then a slow grin spreads across the man’s face.

“It was an effective method,” the Vulcan confirms, “to engender anticipation for your return.”

“And Bones says Vulcans don’t have a sense of humor!”

“May I remind you, Jim, Doctor McCoy has never claimed to be an expert on the subject of Vulcans.”

And with that, Spock leaves the near-to-weeping cadets to Kirk. The consensus among them is, undoubtedly, the best substitute is no substitute at all.

-Fini

Footnote: Spock was quoting from A New Kind of Science (which I own, haha) and was in fact on page 779 when Kirk showed up. …Those poor cadets!

Surprise Meeting

Related Posts:

• Stay With Me (#29, The Drabble Bin) – from December 29, 2023
• An Ominous Setting (#28, The Drabble Bin) – from May 4, 2021
• Beyond the Call of Duty (#27, The Drabble Bin) – from September 24, 2020
• Surprise Meeting (#9, The Drabble Bin) – from December 31, 2012
• An Hour Past – from April 11, 2012