Sand and Stars

by Diane Duane

  “You people have courage,” Jim said. “Not so much an emotion as a virtue. It’s certainly one we can admire. Something like forty percent of the mapping of this part of the Galaxy was done by Vulcan teams, at the beginning of your alliance with the Federation. People in little scoutships, going out into danger, or boredom, because exploration was the logical thing to do. And a delight—more knowledge of more diversity. But the courage was always there, and it has never stopped: the kind of thing that took the firstIntrepid to its death, some years ago. I don’t know if you people knew how much the other ships in Fleet mourned that vessel and her crew. She was special.”

  Jim paced a bit more, looked up at those cameras that he knew were up there somewhere. “You keep us honest,” he said. “It may not be precisely true that it’s impossible for a Vulcan to lie, but by and large, you do not…and that cannot be said, in the same sort of way, for any other hominid species in the Galaxy. I leave the nonhominids out of it for the moment: for many of them, their structure or their environment determines their ethics, and we are not competent to judge them. But we’re closer, and I think it’s all right for me to say that in our judgment you are an honorable people—you keep your commitments and your word. A Vulcan promise is one of the solidest things there is. It’s a peculiar thing, but many Earth people will sooner trust a Vulcan, even if they don’t know them, than an Earth person, sometimes whether they know them or not.” He smiled a little ruefully. “It says something about us, too. I am not sure I agree with what I’ve heard others say, that you’re not good for us. Certainly we have no desire to be made into Vulcans. Or to make you into us.”

  “Your government’s policies,” said a voice from the audience, “do not always seem to bear that out.”

  “Yes,” Jim said, “that’s right. Theoretically, our government is by the consent of the governed. The system is not a perfect one, and we know it: we’re still feeling our way around, trying to find something that works perfectly. Though it may be that ‘perfection’ and ‘government,’ in this world at least, are mutually exclusive terms.”

  There was a little stir at that: apparently the news of McCoy’s little bombshell had hit the Vulcan news services. “Sorry—perhaps I should have said ‘this universe.’At any rate,” Jim said, as he resumed his pacing, “it’s hard to talk to a ‘government’ and find out why it’s doing what it’s doing, since it tends to consist of a large number of people, all pulling in what is supposed to be the same direction…but sometimes doesn’t turn out to be. Ask one person in a government something, and you may get an answer that’s a little different from that of the next person on the rope.” He shrugged. “It’s one of the occupational hazards. If you ask one of the governed, rather than the government, you may hear something very different. Though in service to the Federation, I’m one of the governed; and whatI say is that I don’t want Vulcans to be anything but Vulcan.”

  “That is what all this is about,” said another voice from the audience.

  Jim nodded. “I agree. But I have yet to see any evidence that we’re stopping you from being Vulcan or interfering in the process.” He looked a little indignant. “You people don’t know your own power, I don’t think. It’s possible that those who are made uncomfortable by us find it a useful excuse, that we’re somehow ruining your development. But is that really likely to be possible, in a civilization so old and stable? And on the other side of the argument, if you’re concerned that Terra is too unstable and malleable to be able to bear contact with Vulcan, I’m surprised we’re having these discussions at all…and only now, a hundred and eighty years after our association began. Surely we should have all had our ears sharpened by now! Truly,” Jim said, a little more loudly, running over the laughter that started, “we’ve been hearing both arguments at once, and I don’t think you get to have it both ways.”

  The laughter peaked, then settled down. “I should be a fairly good example of the situation,” Jim said. “For quite a while now I’ve been serving with a Vulcan first officer—”

  “Half Vulcan,” said a voice from the audience.

  “I was wondering when that was going to come up,” Jim said, smiling a bit. “What’s it supposed to mean? It can’t be a reference to his genetics. There’s no logic in pointing it out on those grounds alone. Or do you mean to imply that as such, he’s somehow less perfectly or properly Vulcan than a ‘full-blooded’ member of the species? That he’sreally” —Jim twirled a fake moustache and looked shiftily from side to side—“a fake Earth person?? Oh dear. Lock up your daughters.”

  Laughter welled up. Jim shook his head. “Well, if that’s what you think, you people must not be very familiar with your own species’ psychology, because my own observation of the result is that it tends to turn the person ‘more Vulcan than the Vulcans.’ Icy logic, utterly perfect; brilliant performance at anything attempted: no signs of emotion to be found anywhere: a tendency to go in for Kolinahr. Overreaction, perhaps one might call it,” Jim said. “Precious few of you arethat perfectly and properly Vulcan.” Jim stalked the stage for a moment, then said, rather quietly, “My first officer has a right to be judged on his own recognizance—not by his genes, not by what you think his mother did to his Vulcanness, or to the inside of his head, when his father and his teachers and the rest of the planet weren’t looking. If you doubt your own influence so thoroughly, if you’re so sure that one woman can completely triumph over the culture and presence of an entire planet—goodness, she must be tough. And why did we waste her onyou? Why didn’t we just drop her over Klinzhai? Would have solved the Klingon problem.” Laughter broke out. “But seriously, if that’s what you think of her, then it’s no wonder you’re hosting this little gathering. I’m just amazed you invitedmore Earth people here to speak. Aren’t you afraid you’ll all suddenly rush out and get your ears bobbed?”

  There was more laughter at that. “Now you’ve put me off what I was going to say,” Jim said. “Maybe it’s better that way. Look. I am living proof of the kind of friendship available for Vulcans among humans. I’m not claiming that the friendship is perfect, or ever was: there have been misunderstandings and incidents of pain, but they’ve been mercifully few. Mostly my experience of Vulcans, in the one I work with, has been of great courage, intelligence, an insatiable curiosity—the heritage of a proper descendant of all those people who went out in the little scout-ships, both in company with Federation people, and for all the years before you ever met us. And wisdom, as well, and compassion, and a great openness of mind. I thought those were Vulcan traits. I would be sorry to be wrong.”

  “You are not wrong, I hope,” someone said from the audience, “but we are not all of a piece.”

  “I know,” Jim said. “Neither are we.”

  There was a little silence. “This I want to say, too,” Jim said. “It’s impossible for me to ignore the fact that, if Vulcan does secede from the Federation, numerous people with affiliations to both are going to get caught in the middle, and hurt—”

  “The needs of the many—”

  “ ‘Outweigh the needs of the few, or the one,’ ” Jim said. “Yes, I knew that was going to come up. I have arguments with that statement. I don’t think you can count up lives, souls, and say, Here are twenty of them over here, and one of them over there: these twenty over here are more valuable than the one over there, because there are more of them. What if the soul in the other side of the balance is Surak’s? What right have you to decide that one person’s needs are less important that twenty people’s? And you people aretelepaths! You can get into other beings’ brains and find out what their needs are—and how important they seem, or don’t seem, from inside. Numbers are a poor excuse. Counting bodies is just a way to abrogate your responsibility for the situation.”

  Jim shook his head.“I say,” he said, “I submit to you, that the manyare the one. That every one of you-the-many is yourself a one, and without all the ‘ones,’ there wouldbe no many. You must each realize in your
own self that it isyou who will be causing the suffering to the many who will be caught in the middle—the Earth people who live here happily with their children, in peace with you, and will have to give up their homes: the Vulcans, content in their career in Starfleet, or on Earth, who will have to make the decision to come home and leave their work, or else remain there, but exiled, never to see their homes again. And of course my friends,” he said, “who will have to make that choice as well.You are forcing that on them,” he said, pointing up at the cameras, and turning to face, one part at a time, the whole room. “The spear is inyour hand. Not that of some vague other person, not the ‘government’—and what’s the government but a whole lot of people?You are holding it.You will cause their pain.

  “I hope,” Jim said, “that people who so revere that man who said ‘Do not cause others pain,’ will listen to what he says. Even if hewas only one.”

  There was a movement off to his side. He looked over, surprised, as Sarek hastened up on the stage. Jim blinked: he had never seen Sarek move so fast before.

  “There is an emergency,” Sarek said to the audience. “I must ask the Captain to come with me immediately. I beg the assembly’s indulgence and ask that he be allowed to complete his statement tomorrow.”

  And Sarek grabbed Jim’s arm in a grip of steel and hustled him off, leaving the audience murmuring. “What’s the matter?” Jim said to him, completely befuddled.

  “Jim,” Sarek said, “we must hurry. T’Pau is dying.”

  Vulcan: Seven

  He was in his lab, in the middle of programming a computer, when the note arrived, utterly astonishing him. He was not used to getting hard messages from people; everyone with whom he had any business tended to get in touch with him on the computer, that being where he was almost always working. But there it was—a thin, fine piece of plastic bound down with a wafer of wax. He got up from the console, stretched a bit, and opened it. In a beautiful, clear calligraphy that spidered its way down the paper, it said:

  Please come to my office at once. T’Pau.

  He almost sat down, such was his surprise.What might she want with me? he thought, wondering rather frantically what offense he had committed. She was the Eldest of House, and he was nearly the youngest: well, excepting young Silek, at least, who had just turned fifty. He scoured his memory and could find nothing to which to attribute this summons.

  —and it occurred to him then that he was standing there being most dilatory, when his first duty was obedience to his Head of House. He looked around the work-room, again rather frantically, for something decent to throw on over his coverall. There was nothing: he had not done his laundry in two days. Shocking, but when one got working on a good bit of programming, and was not expecting any visitor, and had no social obligation—

  Finally he simply brushed himself off as best he could and ran out. It was a fine, fair day, the sun bright over the Academy, people going to and fro about their business, as usual. He ran down one of the paths, then got hold of himself and schooled himself to a dignified walk. It was illogical to hurry: T’Pau would know how long it would take him to get to her offices from his lab. All the same—

  He hurried a little. Some people looked after him, as he went: he ignored them, or tried to.

  Her office was near the joint libraries, in a small, simple building by itself, a country-looking place of white stucco. He paused at the door, started to brush himself down again, and stopped as the door sensed the motion and entered.

  Slowly he went into the outer office. Her assistant was there, tapping busily at a computer herself. “Sarek,” he said to her as she glanced up.

  “I know,” she said. “Please go in: she is awaiting you.”

  Sarek bowed to her a little, went slowly toward the inner door. It opened for him.

  He walked into T’Pau’s office. It was spare and simple, the white stucco of the walls unbroken except in one place, where a tapestry of striking abstract weave hung down. The desk was clean, except for the computer pad she was working on and an old yellowed sheet of paper that lay by itself, as if it were something of importance. She was gazing at it. As he came in T’Pau looked up and rose to greet him.

  It was a courtesy she hardly needed to show him, and Sarek bowed deeply to her. “Madam,” he said.

  “Sarek,” she said. “You are welcome. I have not seen you since your trial,” she said.

  He nodded. It had astonished him then, as a child, when she showed up for his manhood trial—the morning he went out into the sands, faced thelematya, and came back to tell about it. That was many years ago, but to his eyes she was no less beautiful than she was now. Under the tightly coiled and braided hair, hers was a fierce face, like one of the flying predators of the lesser mountains, avakhen ’s face. But at the same time cool and wise, as befitted an Eldest Mother.How old isshe? he wondered, and then called back the unworthy thought. He could find out, if he wanted to. But for now those keen dark eyes were trained on him, and the consideration made him twitch. He sought down inside him for his calm. He had done nothing wrong, and T’Pau was nolematya, and unlikely to bite him.

  “I hope you will pardon my calling you away from your work in the middle of the day,” she said, “but I have a question for you. Please sit down.”

  Sarek sat down, bemused, as she too seated herself. “You have been here at the Academy for eight point six years,” she said. “All your graduate and degree work is long since completed. I am not saying that your research work has not been invaluable. It has: computer structures on this planet have improved considerably since you turned your hand and mind to them. But now I would like to suggest something to you.”

  “Please do,” Sarek said, completely mystified and concealing it, he hoped, splendidly.

  “I have been in contact with the planetary High Council,” she said. This was no news, for T’Pau as Head of House of Surak’s line might be expected to have the council’s ear: her opinion was eagerly sought, not only because of the lands and resources the house had come to control, but because she had acquired a reputation for a sharp mind that missed very little. “They have asked me to suggest the names of some people that we might send along with the embassy to Earth.”

  Sarek held on to his control with all his mind.

  “I had thought to ask you whether you would be interested,” she said. “I do not think your parents would protest too much. You are well of age to go off-planet: in fact, you are overdue for it. Someone of your intelligence should not be content to sit here, as so many of our people are, while the Universe passes them by.” She paused, looking at him carefully. “Would you be interested?”

  “In what capacity would I be required?” he said, and hoped desperately that she had not noticed the squeak in his voice.

  “Computers, naturally,” she said. “The new embassy will need someone to see to it that communications and data storage and transfer are properly handled. You have a gift for such. You would be a technical attaché, paid as such, and with the appropriate leave and benefit package. Some of your duties would require contact with the Terrans: we will be exchanging various technical information with them. It would be part of your business to discover just where their computer technology stands, so that we may work out what best to offer them, and what to ask for from them in return. Do you think you would be capable of such?”

  “Yes,” he said, “I would.”

  “Will you do this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you should prepare yourself to leave within the tenday. The Federation has sent a ship, and it will take about four days in transit to Earth, we are told.”

  “That is very swift,” he said, surprised.

  “It is indeed. Their technology is surprisingly advanced in some regards, though surprisingly delayed in others.” She tilted her head, watching him. “I should like you to examine as much Earth technology as you can, without prying,” she said, “and send me reports on what you find of interest, as soon as your
communications are sufficiently secure to satisfy you. I desire privacy, and general information, no more: I desire to know a little more about our new allies. You need not limit yourself to technology, either. As far as your duties make it possible, get out and see the planet…talk to the people you meet.” She had a considering look. “I suspect that this will be a fascinating diversity to study up close.”

  “I will do that, gladly,” he said.

  “One word of warning,” she said. “I have met some of them. They are very charming people, but the charm is as that of children: their emotions are uncontrolled by our standards. Do not judge them harshly—beware of that: there is no logic in it—but also beware of their influence on you. You will be a long way from home, and their psyches will have yours outnumbered.”

  “I will be careful,” he said.

  She lifted the parted hand to him. “Then long life and prosperity to you, in that other place. Come back to us as your duties make it possible: and may you find satisfaction in your posting.”

  He bowed to her and hurried out.

  A tenday later, he was already homesick, and had not even left yet. On his last day on Vulcan, with all his effects already packed—a great pile of reference data solids and tapes, mostly—Sarek stood at the edge of the Academy grounds, outside the walls, and looked across past Pelasht to the immensity of the desert. It was that time of month when T’Khut came up during the daytime, and she was even now easing her bulk up over the horizon, looking somewhat transparent in the daylight, somewhat ephemeral, as she always did. But this time the transparency seemed a sort of omen: a sign that Sarek was losing the real things, that the real world would shortly be fading away from him, to be replaced by—what? A cold place, by all reports—he had packed enough warm clothes to stock a small arctic expedition—and a strange one: a little planet, light in gravity, with no decent sun to speak of, just a small yellow dwarf star that sounded very pallid and unwelcoming. He was aching with immunizations that no one was sure he, or anyone else, needed: it was unknown as yet whether Vulcans—oh, the odd name, would he ever get used to it?—whether Vulcans could give Earth-humans their diseases, or get theirs from them in return. Theory said not, but Sarek and many others had preferred certainty to theory.