Not letting his glower affect her, she gestured at her longtime shipmate. “But Captain Spock here has been able to give you more answers about my activities and personality pre-Nomad than I have. If we want answers about my past, I’m clearly the wrong person to interview.”

Uhura hesitated to follow that thought where it led. But Spock followed it through to its inevitable conclusion. “Logically, Admiral, we should consult with Ms. Uhura’s former commanding officers and shipmates. Whatever it was she kept from the crew of the Enterprise, perhaps she was less inclined to conceal it from previous crewmates, or less successful at doing so.”

There it was. The answer was obvious, but it was one she’d resisted for a dozen years now. She had always been too afraid of what she might find—or what pain she might cause.

While speaking to Uhura’s former colleagues may have been the next logical step, the results proved that a logical process was only as good as the data fed into it. The interviews proved informative for Uhura, but not in the way Admiral Cartwright would have hoped.

“No, Captain Spock, I don’t remember Uhura doing any personal research projects off-ship,” said Commander Vheman, a bronze-haired Arbazan woman who had been Uhura’s bunkmate on the U.S.S. Ahriman, the Saladin-class scout that had been her first posting out of Starfleet Academy. On the viewer in the Starfleet Security communications room, Vheman chewed thoughtfully on one tip of her writing stylus. The mannerism seemed vaguely familiar to Uhura, though she couldn’t be sure she didn’t just want to find it familiar. “Honestly, I don’t see how she would’ve had the time. She was very dedicated to learning the ropes, as humans call it. Mastering her responsibilities, the ship’s equipment and protocols, cross-training in science and navigation.” The commander shifted her gaze to Uhura and smiled. “Your enthusiasm was stimulating, but it could be exhausting trying to keep up with you.”

“Was I that buried in my work?”

“Oh, no, Nyota. You and your keen memory—you were such a swift learner that you needed little time to study, so you were able to make plenty of time for me and our other friends. We were pretty inseparable that year on the Ahriman.

“That’s why I can’t see you having any chance to do any major research away from the ship. We generally spent our leave time together as a group—you, me, Tsukasa Komaki, and… oh, that Orion girl, what was her name?” Uhura could only shrug. “And we were pretty frank with each other about anything we did on our own, if you know what I mean.

“Oh, you weren’t the type to keep secrets. You loved to talk about your family back home, your Academy friends… the only thing I ever knew you to be reticent about was your given name.”

“My name?”