“Technically, it is. However, we were not always fortunate to be close enough to Vulcan for me to arrange transit in the leave time I had.”
“And now?”
Spock hesitated, decided honesty was best. “I was on Earth, taking leave there before reporting to my new ship. I was ordered back to Vulcan.”
“So if Sarek had not ordered you here, we would not be having this meeting. Do you find me so ugly, so unattractive?”
“You are very beautiful. I have always thought so.”
“Then there is some other reason why you avoid our marriage?”
“I have explained that my duties require me to be elsewhere.”
T’Pring abruptly pushed herself to her feet to face Spock. “You also have a duty to me. We have been promised since we were both seven.”
“T’Pring, I wish to please you, as I am bound to do, but my Starfleet obligations have precluded it time and again. And if I seem to hesitate personally, it is only because I do not feel I know you. Even when we were children, we were not close.”
“The way to change that is to become close.” She reached out to touch her fingers to his. “With time, we will know each other well.”
He didn’t move away from her, but he felt nothing as her hand lay against his. There was something cool in her eyes, something calculating that disturbed him. “Time is precisely the problem. I am due back on [47] Earth in just five days. I must report to my ship, and I have no doubt we will be assigned a mission almost immediately. I cannot say with any certainty when I will be able to return to Vulcan.”
Her eyes seemed to turn darker, colder. “You have been committed to our marriage. Before you leave Vulcan, you will announce it. I have done with humiliation and with making excuses for you.”
“I cannot name a date—”
“Then you will pay the bride price, and you will continue to pay it until we are married.”
Dowries were not paid by a bride’s family on Vulcan. It was the husband who was deemed to be fortunate to gain such a life partner. From the formal announcement of marriage, the husband-to-be paid a monthly sum to the bride’s family until the wedding took place. The money was used to provide for the woman’s needs until her husband officially took on his marital responsibilities, even if the woman herself was wealthy, or involved in a career of her own, or both. The bride price varied according to the husband’s wealth. By every standard on Vulcan, Spock was personally wealthy, and the price extracted for T’Pring would be very high.
“You ask a great deal of me.”
She stood away from him, anger carefully controlled but evident in her dark eyes. “I ask a great deal of you? I have responsibilities to my house—and to yours by right of betrothal. We should have been married years ago. Your own heir should be alive today. You have refused to return to Vulcan of your own volition. What am I to assume but that I and my clan are being insulted?”
[48] “That was never meant—”
“Then what is meant?”
Spock turned away, hands clasped behind his back. “I tell you, I cannot give you a marriage date. My missions will interfere.” He looked back at her. “I know I have an obligation to you—to be a good husband, to behave in the correct Vulcan tradition. But I also have obligations to Starfleet, and those obligations require me to be away for years at a time. It is unfair, I grant you. But I chose to accept the responsibilities Starfleet puts upon me.”
“Do you reject me as life partner because I was chosen for you?”
“No. I only say to you that perhaps you would wish another. I cannot be what you seem to want.”
“I do not wish another. We are betrothed, and we will be married.” Her voice dropped away to a whisper. “When it is possible. I will defer to you regarding the day.”
“Until pon farr?” he asked suddenly.
She looked up at him, gauging him, and finally nodded. “Until pon farr, then. But you will announce our marriage now, and you will pay the bride price.”
“As you say.”
A quiet voice spoke deferentially behind them. “Refreshments.”
They turned to see Senak carrying a tray as he approached them. It was laden with a large platter of dainty sweetmeats and tartlets, a pitcher of cool fruit-water, and a pot of the hot Vulcan drink saya, similar to Earth’s herbal tea. The delicate crystalline glasses and cups tinkled almost like bells as they clinked lightly together on the tray.
[49] Spock glanced at T’Pring. He didn’t want to stay any longer, but it would be an insult not to accept the offering. She seemed to view it in the same way, waving at her brother to come closer.
“Put the tray on the bench, Senak.”
The boy hurried forward and carefully lowered the tray to the bench. He looked up at Spock, about to say something, but T’Pring curtly cut it off. “You may leave.” He nodded to her stiffly and moved away. T’Pring gracefully settled her body into a sitting position on the grass beside the bench, motioning Spock to join her. “What will you have, saya or the fruit-water?”
“Anything. The saya will do.”
Unperturbed now, she poured the hot drink into a cup and passed it to him. He chose one of the tartlets and bit into it, consuming it in two bites. T’Pring took her time, nibbling daintily at the sweetmeats. The silence between them extended as he sipped at the saya, trying to dispose of it as quickly as decently possible. T’Pring seemed not to notice, drinking her fruit-water and staring out over the quiet pond toward the stand of trees beyond. Her profile was lovely, and Spock reflected that if that were all he wanted, he would have had no complaint about arranging their wedding; but he had always had reservations about T’Pring.
Even when they were children, she had had a shrewd aloofness, a calculating coldness about her, especially when he and she had been together. He hadn’t known exactly how to read it then. Now it lay at the back of his mind, troubling him, although he didn’t know why. Vulcans were cool by nature, [50] reserved, holding back, but this was different. Even his father at his most shrewd did not have this kind of manipulative coldness. Spock admitted to himself that he had not truly dealt with the problem of their marriage; he had simply put it off until he would have to consummate it. Pon farr would force the decision upon him, but at least he knew that was some indeterminate time in the future. Because of his half-human heritage, he had biologically escaped pon farr, the maddening lust urge that turned Vulcans back into the undisciplined savages they had been before logic and reason came to rule their lives. Most Vulcan males experienced it for the first time when they had achieved the age of twenty and in seven-year cycles after that. He had dreaded its onset, but so far it had not happened to him. Doctors at the Academy and on his mission ships had run him through routine physicals many times. Several had expressed the opinion that his human blood might spare him from pon farr completely. If it occurred, however, he would have no choice in the matter but to succumb to the biological demon that hid in every Vulcan male; he would have to consummate the marriage with T’Pring immediately.
He had drunk the saya, and now he carefully placed the cup back on the tray and rose to his feet. “I must go. There are details about the estate I must discuss with my manager. I leave for Earth tomorrow to report to my ship.”
T’Pring looked up at him, her face set. “And you will announce the marriage.”
“Yes. Of course. Tonight.”
“Goodbye, then. When you choose to return—or [51] when you have to—I will be here.” She turned her attention away from him, her fingers hovering over another sweetmeat on the tray.
“Live long and prosper, T’Pring.”
She merely nodded and picked up the tiny sweet she had chosen. She waited until she heard the door of the house close behind him before she got to her feet. Listening closely, she finally detected the soft purr of the ground car as it started and went out the gates. Then she moved quickly around the pool and into the stand of trees opposite the bench.
“Stonn.”
The man who stepped toward her was all Vulcan, not as tall as Spock but brawny and darkly handsome. He held out his hand to her, and her fingers caressed his. “Will he announce the marriage?”
“Yes, it is done. He agreed to pay the bride price. He did not even ask how much it might be. And, Stonn, he agreed to let the marriage wait until his pon farr.”
“But that might be—”
“Never. I know. But I will still be his life-partner-to-be. The announcement will be recognized by all Vulcan, and he will pay and continue to pay because he is honorable.” She playfully ran an index finger up the line of Stonn’s jaw and then followed the shape of his outer ear up to the point, tickling him. “In the meantime, we have each other.”
Stonn frowned at another thought. “If he does undergo pon farr, you will have to marry him.”
T’Pring laughed softly, although her mouth barely smiled. “Even so, he has his precious Starfleet, and he will never stay here very long. When he is gone, we will still have each other.” He started to say [52] something, and she placed two fingers over his lips, following it with a light kiss. “And if he ever does decide to retire here, we will still have each other.”
Stonn pulled her more closely to him. Her body was warm; her lips were soft as they roamed his neck.
Stonn wondered why he sometimes felt a chill quiver through him when he was with her.
Chapter Four
THE ENTERPRISE LOOKED MAGNIFICENT.
Spock studied the ship closely as he was ferried toward it on a transfer shuttle from the San Francisco spaceport. He could have beamed up via transporter with a good deal less trouble and time taken, but he had wanted to see his new ship from outside. While looks could be, and frequently were, deceiving, the Enterprise he saw in the huge spacedock was a taut, well-run ship—lean, powerful, eager for space. She had just been worked on, upgraded; everything about her was shining and in its place. She was lined up in the bay, ready to cast off the tethers that kept her leashed to the spacedock and nose out to where she could engage her impulse engines and go.
Several other officers and crew personnel had elected to take this shuttle with Spock, and most of them also had their eyes turned out the ports to study the ship that would be their home for a number of years to come. One young lieutenant moved around [54] the transport craft as it began to angle up toward the giant saucer and the shuttle docking bay. The dark-haired officer seemed more interested in the engine nacelles than in the whole of the ship. A brilliant smile played around the man’s face as he studied the exterior of the great pods. As he turned back to find his seat again, Spock caught a glimpse of the insignia on his uniform. Of course, Spock thought. What else but an engineer?
Pike was alerted to the arrival of the transfer shuttle carrying the last of the new crew members. As soon as they disembarked, they were met outside the shuttle bay by Number One, crisply greeting each by name and rank. She swiftly assigned them to their individual quarters and concluded with the information that the captain would speak to them all in the briefing room at thirteen hundred sharp. Then she left them to sort themselves out and find their way to their new homes.
Spock found his quarters easily; he had scanned the Enterprise’s blueprints on the voyage from Vulcan, committing them permanently to memory. He was not surprised at the size of the two-room accommodations, but the obvious comfort caused him to raise an appreciative eyebrow. The fleet’s ship architects had apparently given much thought to the many possible Federation aliens who might occupy the space. There was a temperature control which could be set to suit a Vulcan’s high requirement for heat; but it could also drop down far enough to accommodate a Tellarite, one of the bearish creatures who normally had to wear cold suits to tolerate the human temperatures that [55] governed most ships. Spock was pleased to note the thermostat was already set high enough for his comfort. He had felt perpetually cold on the previous vessels on which he had served.
The lighting could also be adjusted to varying shades of brightness, according to the needs of the cabin’s occupant. The furniture was Starfleet standard, but there were interesting little nooks and shelves and bare wall spaces where personal treasures could be hung or displayed. Spock’s trunk had arrived and been left in the sleeping area. Glancing at a chronometer built into the spacious desk, he decided he had time to unpack and get his things stowed before he had to report to the briefing room. He bent himself to the chore.
Lieutenant (j.g.) Montgomery Scott had no trouble finding his quarters, either. He not only knew the blueprints of the ship intimately, but he had built an exact cutaway scale replica of the Enterprise as soon as he learned of his assignment to her. Her corridors and decks and service tunnels were already as familiar to him as his mother’s house in Linlithgow, West Lothian, Scotland.
As an assistant engineering officer, and a junior one at that, he had been assigned a large two-room suite with another assistant engineer. Because of a carefully planned schedule of duty rotation, neither man would be on shift at the same time; and at the moment, his new roommate was on duty. He had left a message for Scott blinking on the viewscreen on the desk.
“Hello, Scott. I’m on engine-room duty, but make [56] yourself at home. If you have time, come by engineering and introduce yourself. Otherwise, I’ll see you at 1600. Bob Brien.”
Scott immediately started to unpack his baggage. The uniforms and off-duty clothes protected two of his most precious possessions. He lifted the top layer of uniform shirts and trousers from the chest and hung them in the small closet assigned to him. Then he pushed aside the long length of red Scott tartan that covered it and brought out the ancient fighting targe and its accompanying sheathed two-handed broadsword. They had been passed down in his family for centuries, eldest son to eldest son, and he would no more dream of going into space without them than he would dream of relying on engines he hadn’t checked out personally. He looked around and found a suitable bulkhead wall between his bed and a stack of built-in shelves that would nicely accommodate the targe and sword. He dug out several metal-adhering hooks that would bear the weight of his two prizes and swiftly attached them to the wall. Then he lifted the old bronze-studded leather targe and the great sword into place and stood back to study their placement. Yes, bethought. They belong there. I’m home. Satisfied with his work, he turned back to the chest and started to bring out his engineering manuals.
The briefing room was moderately crowded with new personnel, both officers and crew, when the door slid open and Pike stepped through. Young Engineer Scott had chosen a place toward the front of the room, among a group of other engineering technicians. [57] Spock stood at the back of the group and studied the captain. With his superior height, he could see the man clearly, and he had to admit he was impressive. Captain Christopher Pike was approximately an inch shorter than Spock himself. He was an inordinately attractive man, graced with black hair, intensely blue eyes that seemed to notice everything, and a slim, well-muscled body. His voice was confident and friendly when he spoke.
“Welcome to the U.S.S. Enterprise. I am Captain Pike. I don’t know you all individually yet, but I guarantee you I will before very long. That’s not a threat.” There was an appreciative chuckle from the people assembled. Pike flashed a brilliant smile at them, seeming to favor everyone. “The Enterprise is a small community, a family, if you will. I make it my business to know who everyone is. There may be times when my life and that of others will depend on what you do. I know there will be times when all of your lives will depend on what I do. I want to have complete confidence in you, as I hope you will have confidence in me. I believe Starfleet has always attracted the best and the brightest. I trust that you will prove my belief is sound. Our first mission together will be one that might be considered tame by most of you, something fairly routine. However ...” And here Pike paused dramatically. “I can assure you that no mission is ever just routine. Every time we go out, we learn something. We blaze new trails into the unknown
. But remember, space is not our ally. The Enterprise is. This is a fine ship, and I insist on a superior crew. I know you’ll live up to my [58] expectations.” Pike glanced around and flashed his attractive smile again. “I look forward to meeting you all personally. Dismissed.”
As the group began to break up, Pike’s eyes moved over them critically and landed on Spock. “Mr. Spock.”
Spock promptly stiffened to attention. “Yes, sir.”
“Join me in my cabin, please. We have a few things to discuss.”
“Very well, sir.”
Spock followed the captain out of the briefing room, down a corridor, and into a turbolift. Pike didn’t speak, and Spock felt he should not, either, under the circumstances. As the doors slid closed on them, Pike snapped, “Deck 5.” The lift promptly began to glide downward.
“Have you met Number One, Mr. Spock?”
“Only in passing, sir. The executive officer greeted us upon arrival this afternoon.”
“I’ll expect you to work closely with her.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have no problems with that?”
“No, sir. My record will show I have had good relations with all the first officers under whom I have served.”
“Some officers have had a difficult time dealing with the fact that she is a genetically perfect being. On her planet, Ilyria, excellence is the only criterion that is accepted. She is technically designated as being the best of her breed for the year she was born.”
“I see. She therefore would receive the appellation ‘Number One’ even if she were not the executive officer.”
[59] “You have it.”
Spock thought it over briefly and flashed a sidelong glance at Pike as the turbolift slowed. “Vulcans do not indulge in genetic manipulation as such, sir. However, we have been known to do a great deal of selective mating to achieve the highest form of individual of which our society is capable. I believe I can understand Number One’s background, and I have no difficulty in accepting it. I appreciate excellence in all its forms.”
STAR TREK: TOS #44 - Vulcan's Glory Page 4