officer and former Enterprise crewmember. During filming, Kelley noted that Chekov never met Khan in "Space Seed" (Koenig had not yet joined the cast), and thus Khan's recognizing Chekov on Ceti Alpha did not make sense. Non-canon Star Trek books have attempted to rationalize this discrepancy; in the film's novelization by Vonda N. McIntyre, Chekov is "an ensign assigned to the night watch" during "Space Seed" and met Khan in an off-screen scene. The novel To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh fixes the error by having Chekov escort Khan to the surface of Ceti Alpha after the events of the television episode. The real cause of the error was a simple oversight by the filmmakers. Meyer defended the mistake by noting that Arthur Conan Doyle made similar oversights in his Sherlock Holmes stories. Although they did not appear in the episode together, the Star Trek timeline indicates that Chekov was a member of the crew at that time. Chekov's screaming while being infested by the Ceti eel caused Koenig to jokingly dub the film Star Trek II: Chekov Screams Again, in reference to a similar screaming scene in The Motion Picture. Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, the Enterprises communications officer. Nichols helped convince Meyer and Bennet to marginally cut back their vision of a more militaristic depiction of Starfleet, which Gene Roddenberry took issue with. Bibi Besch as Carol Marcus, the lead scientist working on Project Genesis, and the mother of Kirk's son. Meyer was looking for an actress who looked beautiful enough that it was plausible a womanizer such as Kirk would fall for her, yet who could also project a sense of intelligence. Merritt Butrick as David Marcus, a Project Genesis scientist and Kirk's son. Meyer liked that Butrick's hair was blond like Besch's and curly like Shatner's, making him a plausible son of the two. Paul Winfield as Clark Terrell, the captain of the Reliant. Meyer had seen Winfield's work in films such as Sounder and thought highly of him; there was no reason for casting him as the Reliants captain other than Meyer's desire to direct him. Meyer thought in retrospect that the Ceti eel scenes might have been corny, but felt that Winfield's performance helped add gravity. Kirstie Alley as Saavik, Spock's protege and a Starfleet commander-in-training aboard the Enterprise. Serving on board as the navigator in Chekov's absence, she has a