Spirit Walk_ Old Wounds (Book 1) - Christie Golden [34]
“Please, get on the biobed. This won’t take long.” He gestured, and she hopped obligingly onto the bed.
The biobed ran through its analysis, then Kaz asked her to sit up while he examined her himself. He attempted to make small talk.
“How do you like Voyager so far?”
“So far, so good,” she replied.
“Good people,” Kaz ventured.
“Yes, it seems so.”
“How have you been feeling overall?”
“Fine.”
Not exactly forthcoming. She seemed to sense that he was probing, and she didn’t appear to like it.
Akolo Tare was a special case. In keeping with Starfleet confidentiality, few of her current crewmates knew about her ordeal at the hands of Oliver Baines’s holograms. Only Kaz, Astall, and Chakotay had been officially briefed about the incident. After she had been returned, Tare had undergone a thorough physical and psychological exam and been deemed fit to return to duty.
That was all Chakotay needed to know, but Kaz had a concern that the captain of Voyager didn’t. Words and phrases from Tare’s medical report floated back to him: Subcutaneous hematomas present on both forearms and shoulders…some apparent erythema…indication of disruption at the cellular ATP or possibly mitochondrial level…moderate soft tissue abrasions…superficial lacerations…small areas of contusions and ecchymosis over labia…Etiology of trauma indeterminate, possibly secondary to sexual assault or other causes.
In other words, Kaz thought bitterly, the doctor could neither confirm nor deny if Akolo Tare, in addition to being abducted, humiliated, and beaten, had also been sexually assaulted. Tare herself had volunteered no information either way.
If she had indeed been raped, it was a bad business, for more than the first and most pressing reason. Obviously, the most important thing was that Tare needed to come to terms with it sooner rather than later. She needed to heal emotionally as well as physically.
Also, Kaz knew it would shake the holographic rights issue to the core. Questions would arise that would need to be addressed: Did a hologram qualify as a person under these circumstances? Could it properly be called “rape” if the perpetrator wasn’t a living being, but a collection of protons?
He was worried about her, but was unsure as to how to get her talking. After finishing his analysis, Kaz had an idea.
He looked at the tricorder and frowned. “There’s nothing like good old-fashioned tactile input to help along technology,” he said, extending his hands. “May I?” He wanted to see how she would react to a male touch.
Tare tensed. “Is that really necessary?”
“Strictly speaking, no,” said Kaz. He kept his face bland, but watched her like a hawk. He didn’t lie to his patients. “But,” he continued, again telling the truth, “it would help me in my analysis.”
“Do you suspect there might be something wrong?” she challenged.
He hesitated before replying, then decided that full disclosure was the best option. Akolo Tare didn’t look like someone who appreciated the roundabout method of approaching things.
“Yes,” he said finally, looking her right in the eye. “I suspect you might have been raped, Lieutenant.”
Lieutenant Tare went very still. Her dark brown eyes never left his, but her nostrils widened as her breathing quickened. When she spoke, her voice was icy and calm.
“Have you completed the physical, Doctor Kaz?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m out of here.”
She slipped off the biobed and strode purposefully toward the door.
“Lieutenant Tare,” he called after her, “you didn’t want me to touch you even in a professional manner during the course of a routine medical exam, and I’m a doctor and a flesh-and-blood being.”
“What’s your point?” she snapped, not breaking stride.
“What would you do if something happened to me? If you had to be treated by the Emergency Medical Hologram?”
She had reached