Living Among the Dead

Posted on Mon Jun 16th, 2025 @ 3:08pm by Lieutenant JG Sylorik MD

Mission: MISSION 0 - History Speaks
Location: Department of Pathology, Du'Radzhek Metropolitan Hospital, Du'Radzhek City, Sh'por Province, Vulcan
Timeline: 2388
1608 words - 3.2 OF Standard Post Measure

The lights in the pathology lab ran in clean, parallel lines along the ceiling, casting a pale, clinical glow across the workstations. There was no hum of conversation here, only the muted sounds of instruments being calibrated and occasional release of compressed air from the autoclave. This was not a space for urgency. It was for interpretation--for the slow, methodical unraveling of what what the living have left behind.

Sylorik stood at one of the diagnostic stations, posture straight but not overly rigid, gloved hands proficiently manipulating a tissue analysis tray. The sample was a slice of Tellarite liver taken post-transplant and had yielded no unexpected pathology, but he reviewed it anyway. He always did. His eyes moved between the screen and the slide, the rhythm of his attention even and contained.

The shift to this department had not been abrupt. He had filed the proper paperwork, given notice, offered transition memos to the emergency surgical staff. But emotionally, it had been a fracture. A silent, measured rupture. The days here passed without adrenaline, without the press of a life slipping through one's fingers. And in that quiet, something in Sylorik had begun to defray. It was not contentment, but a stillness.

He did not hear the door open, but he felt the change in atmosphere. As though the air itself had been made aware of a presence it dared not to ignore.

A white-haired Vulcan of advanced age entered the pathology suite with the deliberation of one long accustomed to scrutiny. His hands were folded behind his back, and his narrow gaze swept the room with a feline-like approach, taking in the dimmed biostations, the silent stasis fields, and the half-assembled dermal scans on the central table. He wore the reserved, high-collared robes common to Vulcan elders--earth-toned, functional, unembellished--save for the faint insignia of the Medical Collegium at the sleeve. Though no longer in practice, the man's presence retained the gravity of someone who expected rooms to still when he paraded into them.

Several of the junior technicians faltered in their tasks.

Sylorik did not turn. "Father." He knew sooner or later, his father--the esteemed Doctor Sovar--would call on him.

"This is your domain now," Sovar replied, his voice coming like a polished blade striking still water. "I was told I would find you here."

Sylorik removed his gloves and set them carefully and precisely to the left of his workstation. Only then did he turn. "You have."

They stood across from one another with the empty tray between them. One searching. One composed.

Sovar allowed his gaze to ride across the lab, pausing with evident restraint on the digital autopsy scanner and the chromatic tissue banks. "This facility is functional. It is clean. I trust you find the work... tolerable."

"I do," Sylorik replied. "It is exacting, and free of unnecessary conjecture."

"Indeed." Sovar's eyes found their way back on his son and settled there. "Which may explain your recent decision."

There was a heavy pause and it was not hesitation.

"This is neither the time nor the place," Sylorik said quietly, glancing toward a technician reviewing scans at the far end of the lab.

"Then let us make it so," Sovar answered, devoid of heat. He raised a hand, gesturing with two fingers in a formal dismissal motion. "You may all leave us."

A tension rippled through the lab's occupants like rolling thunder. One by one, the other physicians and their aides turned off their station, collected data PADDs, and departed without word.

Satisfied they were now alone, Sovar moved closer to Sylorik.

"From Chief of Emergency Surgery to... this," he said, gesturing to the instruments with what could pass for a Vulcan sneer. "A pathologist. The work of diagnostic subroutines."

Sylorik met his gaze with neutrality. "The work is precise and valuable. I do not see it as lesser."

"No," Sovar said coolly. "Because you are not the one whose reputation is now diminished."

The words hung there, not overly sharp but heavy.

"She-who-is-my-wife is despondent. As much as a Vulcan can be."

"She has not said so."

"She would not," Sovar snapped. "Your brother Syvar is no longer invited to speak at the Interdisciplinary Neural Symposium. And your sister T'Myr's most recent research has been flagged for aggressive peer review by her colleagues. Do you believe these things unrelated?"

Sylorik's face did not change, but his stance tightened. "Syvar's exclusion is most likely due to his persistent arrogance and open disdain for non-Vulcan methods. And as for T'Myr, a critical review is the standard one should hope for in scientific inquiry. You taught us this."

A flicker of something passed over Sovar's features. It was not guilt nor anger, but is was cold. Perhaps disappointment refined into expectation.

"Your brother and sister are affected. Your mother suffers is silence. And you stand here among the dead as though your work has no consequence."

Sylorik stepped closer, now face-to-face. "I have no abdicated responsibility. I perform my duties with punctiliousness and discipline. I have not forsaken medicine."

Sovar's jaw shifted ever so slightly.

"You were raised in this tradition."

"No. I was forged in it. I do not question that."

It was almost as if Sylorik could feel the negative-charged particles that swirled around his father--it was a sensation that he had felt countless times in his life.

"You told me I would be a surgeon. That I would marry T'Vel. That I would rise through the Collegium as you did. You did not ask me if I wished to."

Sovar's voice lowered. "I gave you direction."

"You presented me with a predetermined future," Sylorik corrected. "Your expectations were uniform for Syvar, Sudorik, and T'Myr. T'Geir was the only child who did not follow you into medicine and you have not communicated with her in over forty years."

Sovar did not speak. He did not have to. The invocation of T'Geir's name landed like a fracture in crystal to him.

Sylorik felt the weight of it, as he had felt it years ago when his older sister had chosen a career in diplomacy--a highly-respected life path for any Vulcan, but evidently not for Sovar. She had severed all formal ties with her parents. Their father had never said her name again. Not once. Not in family discussions--not ever.

Now, there was only the slight narrowing of Sovar's eyes, and the impossibly long silence the followed.

Sylorik waited.

In the stillness, he catalogued the sensations that rose in him: the familiar press of duty across his chest, the tremble of adolescent guilt for speaking too directly, the deep throb of clarity that accompanied him more and more often in this new role. Pathology did not ask for his certainty. Nor did it ask for charisma or hierarchy. All that was needed was accuracy.

"You presume that your deviation is without consequence," Sovar said finally, his voice even and every consonant enunciated. "But you have not simply resigned a position. You have invited scrutiny. You have disrupted cohesion. A family--like an efficient institution--requires order."

Sylorik tilted his head. "If order is predicated upon compliance without contemplation, then it is fragile by design."

Sovar stepped to the console nearest him, eyes trailing the rows of molecular analysis that pulsed across the screen. "You were exceptional in surgery," he said, almost quietly. "Even those who resented your advancement admitted as much."

"I did not ask to advance," Sylorik replied. "I asked to serve."

"Precisely," Sovar answered. "And now you serve among shadows. Among fragments of what once was. Tell me, is this your conception of healing?"

The words stung, but Sylorik allowed them pass through him like water filtering through coffee grounds. He drew in a breath and pondered his next word.

"It is not healing I seek," he said. "It is comprehension. And in comprehension, perhaps... peace."

For a moment, he saw the faintest shift in his father's expression. It was not surprise and it was definitely not approval. But maybe, it was the first sign of something he could not yet name.

Doctor Sovar tilted his head to the side for a moment, as if to say something, but reconsidered. "You are unlike your siblings," he said. "In some ways, this has always been so. But it is not a compliment."

Sylorik remained composed, even in the face of an outright insult from his father. "I do not require it to be."

"Outside the lab's narrow windows, the sky over Du'Radzhek had begun to shift in colour, the late afternoon sun filtered through the haze of sand and dust blowing along the ground. Time, too, was passing. Of course, time would never be troubled by legacies untouched by the shape of expectation.

Sovar turned at last, his hands once again folded behind his back.

"You have made your choice," he said with a note of finality. "Let us hope it does not unravel what remains."

And with that, the elder physician departed, his footfalls quiet but unmistakable as the sound receded down the corridor.

Sylorik remained where he was, alone once more among the instruments and the still hum of sterile lights. He gazed down at the tissue tray he had been reviewing before the interruption.

A slice of Tellarite liver. Still intact and very much waiting for the former surgeon to complete his work.

As his hands reached for the sample, there was a slight tremble--almost imperceptible.

His thoughts lingered on the word his father had not said: failure.

And the one Sylorik himself could not yet fully claim: freedom.

* * *

Lieutenant JG Sylorik, MD
Medical Officer/Surgeon
USS Elysium