Old Child, Young Child

Star Trek TOS Fanfiction
Title:	Old Child, Young Child
Author(s):	Mary Louise Dodge and Laura Scarsdale
Date(s):	1976
Length:
Genre:	het
Fandom:	Star Trek: The Original Series
External Links:
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Old Child, Young Child is a Star Trek: TOS story by Mary Louise Dodge and Laura Scarsdale.

It was published in Delta Triad #3 and is #6 in a 7-part Kirk/Uhura romance series.

John Martin, art for "Old Child, Young Child"

John Martin, art for "Old Child, Young Child"

Reactions and Reviews

In this charming segment, Kirk and Uhura are sent undercover to plant a listening device on a Romulan installation. Their shuttle passes through time waves which replace Uhura with two of her selves - the 8-year-old and 80-year-old versions. And, as it happens, the mission could not be accomplished without their respective skills, as the child wriggles along a drainage trench to get under the installation's shield, and the old woman has learned a thing or two about communications "our" Uhura doesn't know yet. Romulans interfere, but the trio handle them. Nice bit is that the elderly Uhura forces Kirk to leave her when a choice has to be made, since the child holds the possibilities for them all - and, she points out, if it doesn't work, then she will have left her love with a last blessing, that of not having to witness her death.

'Old Childe, Young Childe' concerns a secret mission that Kirk, due to a time warp, must complete with an old Uhura while protecting a young Uhura. While the story is correct in the mechanics, the feeling of it is a trifle bland; though it is difficult to give suspense to continuing characters, Scarsdale and M.L. Dodge have done it before. A little more work would have really brought this tale up to peak.

The first story [in the zine] is called "Old Child, Young Child." By some wild quirk of nature, Uhura is split into an 8-year old and an 80-year old version on route to a spy mission against the Romulans. The plotting and rationale of this story are both weak and instead of the characters being pursued closely by the Romulans, you get the feelings that it's the fanciful whims of the authors fortuitously creating the circumstances along with the way, with everything falling neatly into place.