Chapter By Chapter> Star Trek: The Vulcan Academy Murders chapters 7-8

Chapter By Chapter (usually) features me reading one chapter of the selected book at a time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as a read-along book club.

Yes, once again we have two short chapters, meaning two chapters in one installment. Keeping a count started happening with Op-Center and it continues here. I want to get a decent read, as much as I could use short chapters about now.

Last time we got a peek into the histories of Sorel and Daniel and a glimpse into what a Vulcan mind meld looks like. Turns out it’s not as trippy as one would think watching from the outside.

The mystery itself hasn’t really started yet. Instead we’ve gotten situational set-up, meeting characters, and some good character moments. So I can’t really complain because we’re only starting on the second of 35 chapters. We have time to get to know the new characters before the suspicions arrive. This will help us try to solve the mystery along with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, the outsiders and I’m assuming our detectives for the story. That’s of course considering how well the mystery is put together. Are we just seeing a procedural piece, where maybe some big clue isn’t revealed to the reader until the confrontation of the killer, or is it a case where we’ll get to see the evidence and put things together? Looking through Lorah’s bibliography the only story that was obviously also a mystery is “Reflection Of A Dream”, and I’m only saying that because it was part of a collection of stories called The Second Mystery Megapack. I’m not sure what her mystery writing preference is and this is only the second time I’ve read it since I bought it many years ago. We’ll find out soon enough, as we double our chapter count.

Chapter 7 is simply Sarek considering current events, not only with Amanda’s current condition but his still frayed relationship with Spock. Amanda mentioned, during the Babel trip, the meaning behind the expression “mending fences”, that if the two farmers mended the fence together, thus keeping the livestock farmer’s cow out of the crop farmer’s corn, hostilities may cease between the two since that was the whole complaint. She compared it to putting a fence around Cordian to keep out the Orions, thus the fence was keeping peace between the two so long as everyone respected the border. I didn’t know the full meaning of “mending fences” until rereading this. I wonder if I forgot or zoomed past this chapter before?

The only mystery significance is that Elena, who Sarek asks to take over his classes to help our trio look into this situation (they still haven’t declared this a murder, and we only know it is because of the title and back cover blurb), didn’t know anyone besides Amanda was in this stasis. Meaning she didn’t know T’Zan was in there, and I’m not sure if she knows about Remington or not. I don’t know if it’s a trace memory of the first reading or me rushing to judgement, but something seems…off about her. Again, right now we only know it’s murder because we the reader knows that’s what the story is about. To everyone else this is a tragic incident brought on by a malfunction at the worst possible time.

We move on to chapter eight. Daniel is the focus of this story, as he wakes up late for his own patients and to take some of Sorel’s patients. However, T’Par (all these ” T’ “s in women Vulcans’ names are going to confuse me: T’Par, T’Zan, T’Mir, possibly T’Pau but I don’t remember if she shows up in this novel–she will show up in one or two future Star Trek novels for me to review if the site goes that long) has already split their patients between herself and doctor M’Benga. I checked out of curiosity and this does appear to be intended to be the same M’Benga from the original series, one of the few other doctors we see in Sickbay, and now a regular character on Strange New Worlds, the Prime timeline’s version of Captain Pike’s time as captain of the Enterprise. Memory Alpha wasn’t clear if he shows up here but is in the sequel, The IDIC Epidemic, which makes sense there given that’s more of a medical procedural story.

Daniel is also visited by T’Mir and Solon, who want to check up on him and thank him for saving their father. Apparently T’Par was worried Daniel might be in trouble and pulled him out the moment Sorel’s kids joined the meld, but as it turns out he was so accepted that canceling the meld was actually more traumatic, but he’s all recovered now as both T’Par and Solon confirm. T’Mir is acting a bit strange from what we’re told and Solon’s reactions to some of her statements, but my reading is less “murdery” and more “someone has a cruuuuuuussshhhh”. We did see earlier that thanks to differences in Vulcan and Earthling maturity times age is just a number, and even though Daniel knew T’Mir as a baby, it’s not like we haven’t seen a younger person fall for the older family friend just among humans. Whether or not that ends well is case by case. At any rate he’s going to stand in as Sorel’s “brother” during the ceremony for T’Zan’s passing.

As for the case, they don’t know what caused the machine to shut down like it did. That’s it on that front. Now there will be someone actually watching them in person, not just relying on the instruments. Given how long it took for Sorel to mentally feel something was wrong versus how long the emergency call came through, that’s probably a good idea.

Quick check shows that there should only be one chapter for our next installment. The investigation continues, but how long before it becomes a murder investigation? We’ll get a…clue…next time.