Dwellers in the Crucible

by Margaret Wander Bonanno

  He was the skeleton of a Vulcan, skin stretched taut over protruding, pain-wracked bones and rendered a mottled green where countless broken capillaries formed spidery traceries between skin and bone; there was no muscle tissue left to speak of. His concaved ribs heaved mightily with his efforts to draw breath; his noble face, plain and austere as his daughter's was and now so wasted, was thrown back in a kind of trance as his knotted fingers plied the double keyboard. But he was not so far removed that he could not sense the introverted one's presence.

  "Your mother is dead," Salet said, and T'Shael did not question how he knew. She waited while he drew breath enough to finish. "She and—three hundred ninety-nine others. The scream of incomprehension, incredulity. Death was swift but somehow—unjust. Yet her life had meaning, while she lived it."

  T'Shael examined her soul and found there was nothing there, not so much as ritual mourning. T'Pei, my mother, she thought. Living or dead, it does not signify to me except in that it affects he who is my father.

  "My father," she began, seeing that he would return to the keyboard. Its ivory surfaces glistened virescently; his flesh was so deteriorated that the pressure of his fingers against the keys tore and ravaged it. Yet he played on. "You will overtax yourself.

  "I have done so long since, my child," the Gifted One responded, his eyes burning, as hers did. "I shall find rest enough soon enough, T'Shael-kam. Permitme, while the gift is still mine to use."

  It was the only farewell he could offer her; nothing further was permitted between father and daughter in the Way of the Vulcan. T'Shael moved away out of the room to the sharp, definitive sound of the harpsichord, ironic tribute to her mother, who scorned all things Terran, leaving her father to his mourning and his privacy, knowing that when she returned she would find him slumped over the keyboard, dead, knowing that unlike the musician Anekwe she did not own the luxury of tears. Nevertheless, she carried her mourning for her father in her heart, as she carried the potential for his sickness in her blood.

  Having completed the cremation rite for the Gifted One and the memorial service for the master scientist in absentia, the introverted one relinquished claim to her parents' dwelling and all her inheritance and, in her sixteenth year, committed herself as Warrantor to the settlement at T'lingShar. If she had neither her father's gift nor her mother's brilliance, if she was an orphan in a society where family ties were strong, if she was precluded from attachments to others by the disease she carried and her own moral code, she could at least be of service.

  "He's very handsome," Cleante said when they left the crafters' shop, ruminating over the day's events and wondering if she would have a chance to see Sethan again tomorrow at his cousin's betrothal ceremony.

  "Your pardon?" T'Shael asked. She had been quieter than quiet since she had once again sheltered her father's harpsichord behind its arras with an air of finality.

  "Sethan," Cleante explained breathlessly, trying to keep up with her companion's long stride, stumbling a little on the cobblestones in the dark. Only those parts of the city where outworlders predominated had streetlights; the Vulcan's acute night vision made them unnecessary elsewhere. "I think he's very handsome."

  "Indeed," T'Shael said thoughtfully.

  "Well, don't you think so?" Cleante demanded, sensing that the introverted one was in danger of introverting herself into extinction unless a little human teasing could prevent it. Why must Vulcans always be so serious? "Of course, he's probably too young for you, and you've known him all his life, but—"

  "There is a certain aesthetic harmony to his person," T'Shael acknowledged, as if it had only now occurred to her. She studied the human's face in the darkness. "Doubtless, she who is his wife will come to appreciate this in time."

  Cleante turned her ankle on the cobblestones, but the sharp pain went virtually unnoticed in her dismay.

  "He's married? But he's so young. I—wouldn't have thought—"

  "He was betrothed in his seventh year. As T'Peli his cousin will be in tomorrow's ceremony. As all Vulcans are."

  Cleante digested this. She suddenly had answers to all of her questions about Vulcan marital customs. Or did she?

  "But how is it done? Who decides for a seven year old?"

  "It is by parental arrangement," T'Shael said. "In ancient times it served to prevent wars and to strengthen ties between neighbors whose ancestral lands adjoined."

  "But that's so unnecessary nowadays!" Cleante protested. "It's so—primitive!"

  "It is our way," T'Shael said simply.

  "But how can it possibly work? Who can tell what two children will be by the time they're adults? Suppose they're completely incompatible?"

  "It does not signify," T'Shael countered, perhaps thinking of her own parents. "Personality conflict cannot exist in the absence of emotion."

  Cleante wanted to argue that, wanted to argue with the entire concept, almost wanted, except for her overwhelming curiosity, to back out of tomorrow's ceremony. How could she enjoy it if she was too embarrassed to speak to Sethan?

  A sobering thought made her stop walking. She had a stitch in her side and her ankle did hurt; she steadied herself against a garden wall, smelling the rich night fragrance of kleshameen, hearing the windchimes announcing the hour. She studied the Vulcan she had known for nearly two years and until a moment ago, had thought she knew quite well.

  "T'Shael, is there—someone for you?" she asked carefully, knowing she risked being told in no uncertain terms to mind her own business. "Were you also betrothed when you were a child?"

  The Vulcan stopped and turned toward the human, eyes hooded, face unreadable at any rate in the thickening darkness.

  "It is our way," she said, defying debate.

  The human caught up with her. They were almost at the settlement; Cleante would have to ask all her questions before T'Shael retreated to her austere flat and her deepening silence.

  "Tell me more about it," Cleante asked softly, trying very hard to view the matter through Vulcan eyes. "About him. Your betrothed, I mean. And what it means to you. I suppose once you've gone through the ceremony there's no changing it, no going back. It's as binding as marriage?"

  "Correct," T'Shael said.

  "But what if you don't like each other?" the human asked plaintively.

  The Vulcan did not condescend to address such emotionalism.

  "Tell me what he's like, at least," Cleante persisted into the silence. She wanted it to be romantic. This was better than eugenic selection, wasn't it? Certainly parents would have their children's best interests in mind when they chose. "Is he a musician or a crafter? Does he live in T'lingShar? I've never seen you with anyone."

  "He is by profession a gravity-control engineer," T'Shael replied, nodding a formal greeting to several passersby as they entered the settlement and walked beneath the colonnades of the academic halls. There were lights here for the benefit of outworlders, but Cleante found she could read no more in her companion's face than she could have in the dark. "He makes his dwelling among the asteroids. There is much new construction in the Belt, and that is where his skills are needed. He is called Stalek."

  They stood in the archway of Cleante's apartment complex; it was a matter of moments before T'Shael would excuse herself and vanish into the night. There were so many unanswered questions.

  "You haven't really answered me," Cleante said. "You tell me what he does but not what he's like. How he feels about this 'parental arrangement.' How he feels about spending his life with you, and you with him. How you stay in touch when he lives so far away. I want to know—"

  "I will answer no question which in politeness ought not to be asked," T'Shael said tightly. It was as close as she could come to telling the human to mind her own business. Neither spoke as a boisterous knot of Tellarites stormed past, jostling and quarreling and perhaps a little drunk. Tellarites were like that. "If this will gratify your curiosity: Stalek and I are mind-linked as a result of our betrothal. Beyond that, we have
had no communication in the intervening years. Yet when he summons me, I will go. The rest is not your concern."

  Cleante opened her mouth. There were no words. The wonder of the day was tarnished somehow; the morrow held little enticement. If she'd known the ceremony was for children she would have refused the invitation, no matter the breach of propriety. She could still do so. None of it made sense to her.

  "Just one more question," she dared, perhaps a little too loudly, when she saw that T'Shael was about to walk away without so much as bidding her goodnight. "You've been betrothed to this stranger since you were a child. What happens now? How long do you have to wait—according to the Way of the Vulcan, of course; I'm sure it's all written down somewhere—before you're permitted to communicate with each other? Before you can get down to the business of making little Vulcans, or whatever you choose to call it. Or are you going to tell me there's a more logical way of doing that?"

  T'Shael studied the human for a long moment before she spoke.

  "It is to your advantage that your invitation to the betrothal comes from Crafter T'Sehn, whose wishes I honor above my own," she said coldly. "Otherwise I would question the merit of your attendance. Do not judge too easily what you cannot understand."

  What is the price of understanding? Cleante wondered, holding her breath and tensing her own body as T'Shael had another seizure in the confines of their Klingon cage. If I had known this was what it meant, what lay behind the ritual and the parental arrangement and the distance your people attempt to put between yourselves and your biological drives I would never have been so human-flippant about Sethan, would never have presumed to criticize your way of dealing with this thing. Must you die, T'Shael, for this? And must I stand here, playing at Mastery of the Unavoidable though I no longer believe in it, helpless and near hysteria, watching, listening—

  They had gone to the betrothal ceremony after all, she and T'Shael, though only after the Vulcan had come for her in the early morning to dictate what she was to wear and how she was to comport herself. Cleante chafed at being treated like a child, then realized that the smallest Vulcan child needed no such instruction and engaged what little humility she possessed. She most especially wanted to win back T'Shael's approval after her disgraceful behavior the night before.

  The ceremony itself was pristine in its simplicity: a brief processional of the intended couple and their respective parents accompanied by a number of priestesses chanting in an obscure Ancient dialect Cleante could not understand. There was an aura of incense and of flowering plants, the sound of a multiplicity of small bells.

  The ritual seemed dominated by females, and Cleante wondered at this, though she knew she would get no answers if she asked. She watched in silence, stealing a glance from time to time at Sethan, who stood with his grandmother and a large family grouping, some of whom Cleante recognized from the crafters' shop. Sethan might never have known the human he had entertained so graciously yesterday. Cleante turned her attention from him to T'Shael, who had retreated into herself, present in body only.

  Thinking of your own betrothal so many years ago, my Vulcan friend? Cleante wondered. Thinking perhaps of the stranger you must one day consign your life to? When it's time, does he come to live with you at the settlement? Or do you abandon your place as linguist and Warrantor to float among the asteroids, a forced-grav belt dictating to your every movement, an arrangement made without your consent dictating to your entire life? Oh, T'Shael, how can you simply accept this?

  But there were no answers, and the human contained herself, playing the objective observer, ignoring the pang she felt when the two small ones stepped up to the ritual dais to perform the mind-link that would join them for life. She looked at Sethan's small cousin and saw instead T'Shael so many years ago, plain-faced and vulnerable, and closed her eyes against the sight. If T'Shael noticed, she gave no sign.

  There was a banquet following, and there was dancing. Cleante could almost enjoy this, losing herself in the intricate and mesmerizing choreography, wondering how so many could move so rapidly past each other through winding circles within circles, following the complex rhythms without ever touching or so much as yielding to the ghost of a smile. How strange Vulcans were after all!

  The music was ancient and evocative and almost savage, the instruments strange and exotic, their sound compelling, and the combined effect to her human ears was at once elevating and vaguely erotic. Yet the dancers spun and patterned and clapped their hands to the everchanging rhythms, their bare feet soundless on the cool granite floor, their faces as stolid as ever.

  Cleante focused on T'Shael, now whirling past Sethan, now spinning off into a figure of her own both acrobatic and effortlessly beautiful, her lank hair flying, her spare body transformed into a fervid instrument of movement, her face as unreadable, her eyes as hooded as if she were meditating or quietly instructing her students at the settlement.

  Perhaps it was a form of meditation, this dancing, Cleante thought; there were precedents aplenty on Earth and elsewhere. But on those worlds such ritual inevitably evolved into some form of religious ecstasy. Not here. Ecstasy was illogical.

  If Cleante came away from the betrothal ceremony quieter than usual, if her depression was deep enough for T'Shael to remark upon it, it was because she had come to an impasse where Vulcans were concerned. She was no longer sure she wanted to live on this world for another two years. She had managed to antagonize her human companions long ago, and she despaired of ever understanding T'Shael. She was feeling quite alone and friendless when she received a terse commpic from Jasmine announcing her intention to run for a second term as High Commissioner. Cleante's depression was now complete. If her mother won the election she would have to stay on Vulcan for six years instead of two. It was more than she could stand.

  She had wanted to pour all of this out to T'Shael on the morning they went to gather the herbs for the Masters' tea, to beg for another chance at understanding, to evoke some consideration for her humanness, but the diplomat's daughter had her pride. She also reminded herself, there was no escaping the Vulcan influence now, no matter her mood, that it was selfish to burden another with her private concerns.

  Well, Rihannsu and Klin certainly solved my dilemma for me, didn't they? Cleante thought, trembling with contained hysteria as she paced before the transparency, staring across the dark compound to where a light shone from the Klingon quarters. Maybe I should be grateful to them, she thought bitterly, for giving me such a unique opportunity to learn the Way of the Vulcan in all its ramifications!

  She and T'Shael had been left relatively alone since the Rihannsu had completed their repair work. The food synthesizer made it unnecessary for any of the Klingons to burst in on them with their unappetizing rations, and there had been no guard for weeks. Cleante had watched any number of Rihannsu coming and going from Krazz's quarters, including a female, strongly beautiful, obviously a figure of authority. It occurred to the human that she hardly saw Kalor at all any more, and she hadn't seen Krazz since the groundquake over a week before. Were the Rihannsu taking over their captivity? What did it mean?

  She was strangely indifferent, reduced to torpor and despair. Under any other circumstances she would have been overjoyed, certain that even if their captivity endured indefinitely Kalor's reign of terror at least was over, and Rihannsu could be reasoned with. But it made no difference now. Nothing could get T'Shael back to Vulcan in time, and she was going to die. Not even the Rihannsu could remedy that.

  Or could they? Vulcans and Rihannsu had a common ancestry; perhaps she could make them understand what was wrong and they could do something. If she could attract the powerful female's notice, surely the universal bond of womankind could be called upon to outweigh race and politics.

  T'Shael's condition had worsened in the past several hours, in ways that threatened to drive the human mad. The seizures were almost continuous, each more prolonged and violent than the last. The Vulcan's wrists were raw and bloodi
ed from straining at her bonds, and Cleante had had to force a gag into her mouth to keep her from swallowing her tongue.

  Before that, the Vulcan had kept up an almost continuous stream of incoherent ramblings, obscure words that Cleante had never heard but somehow knew were sexual words, companions of fevered erotic hallucinations. These had given way to horrible feral growls and now an impassioned moaning. The hair on Cleante's neck prickled and she shivered in empathy; she had heard such sounds from her own throat in the embrace of a particularly skilled lover. She felt as much a voyeur as if she were actually witness to T'Shael and her ill-fated Stalek in the throes of their passion. The distance that separated them made this an obscenity; Cleante could not continue to watch, to listen.

  And T'Shael knew all. Her eyes were open and lurid with shame. She could see and hear what she had become. If the physiological symptoms did not kill her, surely the shame of them would. Cleante turned away in a futile attempt to lessen the Vulcan's shame, retreating to the furthest corner of the cell, eyes squeezed shut and hands clamped over her ears, refusing to witness.

  She remained that way for only a moment. Then she steeled herself suddenly and crossed to the transparency, pushing on it though she knew it was probably locked. She could not look at the Vulcan, whose eyes pleaded where her voice could not.

  T'Shael, I'm sorry, Cleante thought to her. I only said I'd try; I never said I'd succeed. I'm only human, my Vulcan friend. Please forgive me for what I'm about to do.

  Cleante clenched her fists at her temples, threw her head back and—as she had wanted to do from the moment of their capture, as only T'Shael's presence had prevented her from doing for all these harrowing months—screamed at the top of her lungs.