Dwellers in the Crucible

by Margaret Wander Bonanno

  A vast complex of buildings in the Old City—part commune, part university campus, part cultural and arts center—the settlement was literally a city within a city, exhibiting the traditional aesthetic tranquility that was Vulcan. T'lingShar lacked for nothing. Outworlder and Vulcan alike intermingled freely in an atmosphere of social and cultural exchange. New Warrantors could emulate the Vulcan way of life or adapt it to their own or, as some of the less evolved like the Elaasians preferred, remain within small enclaves of their own kind. No security measures other than the usual planetary screening were deemed necessary on a world that had not been conquered as far back as collective memory, and Warrantors were free to come and go as they pleased, required only to register at the settlement once in the Vulcan solar year. Each Warrantor remained on Vulcan for the duration of the term of office of those who had sent them there.

  Cleante alFaisal had come to T'lingShar on her mother's accession as High Commissioner of the United Earth Council two years before. When her mother's term of office expired in an additional two years, the peace capsule within her heart would be deactivated and she would be free to return to Earth. She had been the only possible choice as Warrantor for the formidable Jasmine alFaisal. They had no other acknowledged relatives, and Cleante's mother did not allow herself the luxury of friends.

  Cleante spent her days on Vulcan dabbling in a variety of academic studies and pursuing her particular passion, which was archeology.

  As a child she had clambered ecstatically among the excavations in the City of the Dead in Old Cairo, delighting in the antiquity of her people and the mysterious past they whispered to her. On Vulcan she could study the relics of a people even more ancient, more mysterious than her own. Vulcan reminded Cleante of her native Egypt in so many things, and everything else was an adventure. T'lingShar was one of the best things that could have happened to her.

  Her imminent departure for Vulcan had also given her an excellent opportunity to extricate herself from a messy love affair on Earth Colony Seven, only the most recent of several. Her love affairs always seemed to be messy, at least toward the end. Cleante enjoyed being with men, but they became easily infatuated with her and she had never mastered the art of easing herself out of their lives gracefully. What better way to discourage a lover than by telling him she'd be spending the next four years on Vulcan? Cleante was only too pleased with the way things had worked out.

  A woman whom men find exceptionally attractive often has difficulty retaining close friendships with other women. There is always a tinge of jealousy, an unvoiced competitiveness. With a Vulcan female such considerations did not exist. Cleante had been drawn to T'Shael from the beginning, and told herself it was only a Vulcan's innate reserve and T'Shael's particular shyness that prevented a return of her overtures of friendship. At least it had seemed that way until recently.

  Cleante did not know what turmoil thrived in T'Shael's heart. But it saddened her to think that in two years she would leave T'lingShar, while T'Shael would remain for life.

  T'Shael was one of the few who had become a Warrantor at her own request. She was parentless in a society where family ties were strong, and in a world where every individual was of equal worth, a leader would no more sacrifice the life of a stranger than of one of his own. Volunteers could "take the place of those whose presence was required elsewhere, or simply choose the life of a Warrantor as their personal commitment to intergalactic peace. This had been T'Shael's choice.

  As the most politically stable Federation member and the origin of the concept of Warrantorship, Vulcan was the logical place where the Warrantors of the Peace should make their home. Surely none would molest them there.

  But none had anticipated an attack which in a single pristine morning netted a human, a Vulcan, three Deltans and Theras of Andor, transporting them against their will to an unknown destination and for an unknown purpose.

  "Shall we submit or shall we fight?" Theras hissed, his Andorian-soft voice shaking with rage.

  He had, as T'Shael had expected he would, sprung up from a deep slumber ready to attack, groping for his deadly-sharp flabjellah, the ubiquitous Andorian dagger, which had of course been taken from him upon his capture. Not content to accept his situation, he frantically sought some escape, stumbling over the others in the darkness and banging his antennaed head against the low bulkheads.

  "We must do something!" he hissed now, not a little fear edging his anger.

  "Indeed," T'Shael observed. "You must restrain yourself, or be restrained."

  She heard his sharp intake of breath, sensed his coiling in on himself, preparing to spring. T'Shael readied herself.

  "Would you fight me, Vulcan?"

  "I would fight no one. But if you would fight, as I surmise you would, it might be more logical to fight your own fears than to turn your aggressions upon a fellow captive."

  The Andorian subsided. He was a stranger to most of them, though Jali had taken a course in socioeconomics with him once. Like all his race, he was terrified of any form of enclosure. Andorians were bred to the outdoor life, and certain primitive instincts raged in them still, despite recent centuries of advancement under Federation. If Theras's claustrophobia proved contagious …

  No fear for the Deltans, who were happiest in a clump. T'Shael listened to Cleante's breathing in the dark and found it calm. The human was fully awake now, apprised of the facts and strangely silent.

  "T'Shael!" she had half-shrieked, coming awake abruptly in the darkness.

  "Here," T'Shael had said and, after a moment: "Are you harmed?"

  Cleante seemed to examine herself, listen to her body in the darkness.

  "No. Are you?"

  "No." T'Shael would have been unable to put words to her experience had Cleante's answer been otherwise.

  They sat together in the darkness, listening to the insistence of massive engines taking them no one knew where, none but their captors knowing why. Jali cuddled up to Theras in an attempt to ease his fears. Even an Andorian could find solace in the Deltan touch.

  "If only we could see!" piped a small voice. Krn had been quiet for as long as he was able. Small Krn, child of eleven Deltan years, well-versed in the love arts but inexperienced in all else, wrung the hearts of his auditors. "I would not fear if we had light!"

  He said the last word loudly, hopefully. Lights on many Federation vessels were voice-activated. Not so Rihannsu craft, apparently. It was the first thing T'Shael had attempted when she woke. Now she realized why it had not worked.

  She spoke one of the few words she knew in yet another language, a language none of the others had heard before. Like most of the words in the abbreviated Battle Language of this particular species it had a harsh, grating, guttural sound to it. Spoken in T'Shael's soft voice it was especially incongruous.

  Yet the lights turned on. The others blinked in stunned silence, studying each other for a moment before murmuring their relief. Only T'Shael retreated into a thoughtful silence.

  "How did you do it?" Cleante asked wonderingly, though she was already convinced that the Vulcan could do anything. "What was it you said?"

  "It is the word for light," T'Shael replied softly. "In the Battle Language of the Klin."

  The silence this time was electrifying. The group surveyed their surroundings more closely—a barren cargo hold, sealed from the outside and provided with minimal life support—a holding pen for the exotic fauna of several worlds. But for what purpose?

  They could surmise any number of reasons why they had been taken—none of them pleasant to contemplate—but by whom? Their captors had been Romulans, but acting on their own or at the behest of their uneasy allies the Klingons? Rihannsu honor was legend, but the Klin—

  "The Rihannsu have utilized Klin vessels since their alliance," T'Shael, whose mother had been in Starfleet, observed. "Yet, were this manned by Rihannsu, one would have expected them to recalibrate the voice control."

  Whatever frantic speculation this might h
ave evoked halted with the abrupt sliding open of the cargo bay doors.

  The same trio that had captured Cleante and T'Shael—garbed now and not surprisingly in Romulan military uniforms—stood framed in the cavernous opening, the leader bracketed as before by his two muscular cohorts. The light seemed to surprise him.

  "Clever!" he remarked in heavily-accented Standard. His eyes scanned them—Theras coiled and vigilant in a far corner, his clawed fingernails scoring the metal of the bulkhead in his tension, small Krn cowering between Jali and Resh, Cleante drawing calm from T'Shael and neither moving—and locked on T'Shael. "And which of you has managed this?"

  Before T'Shael could speak, he leered at them as he had on Vulcan.

  "It makes no difference. We shall soon restore your darkness."

  His two lieutenants drew their disruptors as he casually produced a hypospray from a pocket of his uniform tunic. Singling them out, he began with the Andorian, who presented the greatest threat.

  As first Resh and then Jali abandoned him in heavily-drugged sleep, Krn let out a wail and flung himself at T'Shael. She swept him up in her arms by reflex—he was feather-light and rife with pheromones—fighting her reluctance to touch in response to his need. His psionic impulses exploded dangerously into her consciousness until Cleante realized what was happening and pried his desperate fingers from around T'Shael's neck, wrapping the little Deltan around her own body instead.

  "How touching1" the Romulan leered as he pressed the hypo against T'Shael's unresisting arm.

  T'Shael thought her gratitude to Cleante in the engulfing darkness.

  Two

  "IT IS OF the utmost importance to remember one thing only," Master Stimm had said in the very beginning to his student T'Shael. "Question this not for its simplicity, but consider: It is not that the Vulcan has not emotions. It is that the Vulcan has powerful emotions that are kept ever in check. Emotion must be ruled lest it rule. She who sees this not would do well to remove herself to a solitary place to reconsider."

  T'Shael spent much of her life in a solitary place.

  Outworlders came as Warrantors to T'lingShar, took advantage of the many things the settlement had to offer and, for the most part, contributed something of their own gifts. They would stay their year or two or four or ten—as long as those they represented held office—then return to their home worlds.

  T'Shael stayed.

  "It must be lonely for you," Jali said the first time they met, fluttering her very long eyelashes—they and her feathery soft eyebrows being her only hair—and drawing closer then T'Shael would have wished. "To acquaint yourself with so many persons for so short a time and then to have them depart—to have no friends …"

  She had wanted to say lovers—the word was the same in Deltan, with only a slight variation in inflection to distinguish, and T'Shael noted the distinction—but she knew that was impossible for a Vulcan. Jali fluttered her eyelashes again and drew closer still, exuding a special level of warmth that few could resist.

  "I am of service," T'Shael had responded tersely, retreating into herself; she was too well-mannered to physically withdraw from Jali's allure. "And 'friend' is a word too easily spoken by some."

  "How long have you been here?" Jali asked, knowing such a direct question was a breach of Vulcan etiquette.

  "Since my sixteenth year," T'Shael replied remotely. "Is that pertinent to your calculations?"

  Jali had then given up, and gathered the diskettes for her math course, before going off to seek more receptive companions. The humans in the settlement—and they were the major concentration of outworlders—were more appreciative of her talents.

  She could not have known what levels of meaning were held in check by the Vulcan mask; Deltan behavior is so overt that it sometimes overlooks the nuances of others'. Jali had felt only pity for the soul imprisoned in the angular, seemingly sexless body swathed in its somber clothing—no throbbing Deltan colors or giddy florals for this one, ever.

  Jali did not know that a Vulcan of T'Shael's circumstances might find this question of friendship disquieting despite her disclaimers. Constant exposure to outworlders could prove expanding to the mind or dangerous to the Vulcan soul, depending upon one's perspective.

  "If this one may speak, Master—" T'Shael ventured; it had taken her weeks of silent listening to find the boldness.

  "It is permitted," Master Stimm replied, masking a secret satisfaction at her presumption. He was an old one, and even a Master could fall prey to an excess of words. Further, it was a sign of growth that his student could open out of herself even this much. If T'Shael had a fault, it was an excess of reticence.

  "Given the premise that knowledge is a good—" she began softly.

  "Does thee consider this so?" the Master asked.

  He was wont to task her with continual re-examination of the self-evident, but T'Shael had never given any indication of impatience. It was this docility that her mentor found most disturbing.

  "This one's simple gifts indicate to her that it is among the greatest of goods," T'Shael answered simply.

  Master Stimm let her words fall into a careful silence, allowing her to weigh them even as he did. Simultaneously, he studied the figure kneeling on the bare floor at his feet—her slender back straight, her quite beautiful hands folded gracefully in her lap, her less then beautiful face downcast and showing no trace of what roiled in her mind. Her soft dark hair was unadorned, contrary to the custom among females of her age; she wore no jewelry or ornament of any kind, but seemed content with her plainness. She was one for whom self-denial was a natural state, one who could attain the status of Master with alacrity, if only she desired it. From her present train of thought, it was apparent that she desired something other.

  T'Shael thirsted for something she could not name.

  Master Stimm repressed the sigh that rose from his soul. This one's father, the reknowned musician Salet, had studied with him many years before, and had entrusted his offspring to the Master's care. There had been no possibility of persuading Salet to achieve Master; his soul, his being, had been music, his fate chronic illness and early death. But the musician's daughter possessed gifts which were less clearly defined. If her spirit could be guided in the proper direction. . . .

  Stimm considered. He was contending with the allure of the outworlders, toward whom T'Shael with her aptitude for languages and a Vulcan's innate curiosity was inexorably drawn. Her pliability concerned the Master. Yet was his concern completely objective, or was it colored by the Master's having no offspring?

  "Indeed," Master Stimm said at last in response to T'Shael's statement. "But it is to question whether thee speaks of knowledge or merely of information."

  T'Shael took his meaning—that the mere gathering of data on other species, the mere absorption of their languages and forming of acquaintances, was insignificant. This is not my purpose! she wanted to cry, but such an outburst was beyond her.

  "If this one may presume to an analogy," she said. "If it is the Master's purpose to attain levels of meaning ever loftier and more complex, rising upward in the soul from one reach to the next, then it is this one's purpose, through the linguist's gift which has been given to me, to seek levels of meaning that expand outward toward a spiritual horizon in ever-enlarging circles."

  "Thee waxes poetic," Stimm observed, though not as an accusation. "And one wonders if in expanding outward thee also considers the other purpose of the Master, which is not only a reaching upward, but a reaching inward, not only to the more complex, but also to the most simple."

  T'Shael had no ready answer to this. As to her presumption to poetry—

  "I ask forgiveness," she said, self-effacing.

  Stimm repressed another sigh and softened his posture slightly.

  "Consider this," he said. "That which is good leads to tranquility of soul. I submit that thy soul is far from tranquil."

  T'Shael lowered her eyes and said nothing.

  Perhaps one mus
t pass through degrees of turmoil in order to arrive at tranquility, she thought.

  T'Shael had begun as a student at the settlement; her place now was that of instructor. She taught advanced linguistics and the intricacies of Ancient Vulcan to the youth of T'lingShar proper, and basic Modern Vulcan to any and all in the settlement. All but the most primitive members of the Federation spoke Standard in addition to their native tongues, but Vulcan was the language of scientists and mathematicians and, to some degree, of musicians and philosophers. As T'Shael meticulously unfolded the mysteries of her language to her students, she absorbed each of their languages in turn, with as much enthusiasm as a Vulcan could permit herself.

  To know a language intimately is to understand the soul of those who speak it. Salet her father had taught her that. He had meant it of music, the ultimate, universal language, but the concept applied in greater degree to words. T'Shael's mind mastered words as her being struggled with the concepts behind them. The more she learned of all these many species, the more she desired to learn. It was a hunger.

  But the Vulcan knows there is a time for everything. In addition to her studies, her teaching, her meditations under Master Stimm, T'Shael somehow found time for two other things—music, and paleoarcheology.

  She whose father had been perhaps the greatest musician of his time played the ka'athyra with but a pedestrian gift. Nevertheless, a transcendent look came over her austere face when she played. If a Vulcan could not admit to joy, then this would perhaps serve.

  Her interest in the ancient artifacts of her people stemmed in part from the ever-presence of the tumbled ruins beyond the Old City of T'lingShar. T'Shael knew them intimately. She who had no friends could find companionship in the shattered columns and broken monuments, the somber-faced friezes and heroic statuary of another time.

  It was among the ruins that she first encountered Cleante.