Dwellers in the Crucible

by Margaret Wander Bonanno

  "I remember how high they kept the temperature control in that vessel; we were all in a sweat by the time we were through with her. I learned later how hot it is on your planet, how sensitive you green-bloods are to cold."

  T'Shael said nothing. The blanket she had thrown over her shoulder to make the brief trip across the compound was eloquent proof. She was beginning to understand what Kalor had in mind.

  "What did you tell the human?" Kalor demanded. "I'm sure I would have heard her screeching and carrying on if she knew why you were here."

  "I told her you required some task of me," T'Shael said evenly. "Since you were unwilling to have me complete my housekeeping this morning. It is the truth in either case."

  Kalor grinned like a crocodile.

  "I'm beginning to like you, Vulcan," he said with admiration. "You're learning to think like a Klingon."

  * * *

  T'Shael did not tell him that Cleante hadn't accepted her story from the beginning.

  "Just what the hell was that all about?" she had demanded the instant T'Shael returned to the cage. "I saw what he did to you. You're covered with dirt. Are you all right? What happened out there?"

  "I am undamaged," the Vulcan reported. "Kalor's ethanol intake has increased with the departure of the Rihannsu, and apparently he felt a need to exercise his authority. To do so he found it necessary to knock me down. It is of no matter."

  "But what did he say to you?" Cleante persisted, her fists clenched, her Byzantine eyes blazing. "What did he want?"

  "Nothing of consequence was said," the Vulcan said vaguely, wondering if that was a lie. The ripple effect of one's actions upon the face of the universe—

  "That's not good enough, T'Shael."

  "His subject matter was racist and not particularly coherent," T'Shael said with a touch of impatience. "Would you have me repeat his words? They were neither interesting nor especially original. I would prefer to utilize my time more fruitfully."

  The subject was closed. T'Shael sat at the computer console and inserted one of the linguatapes Tal had ordered for her, absorbing herself in a research project she had begun as soon as she felt strong enough after her ordeal.

  Her concentration was High Rihan and its phonemic linkages with Ancient Vulcan. Previous researchers had theorized that both could be traced back to a common preliterate matrix, incontrovertible proof of the kinship between Vulcan and Rihannsu. But their data was incomplete. T'Shael picked up the thread where her predecessors had left off. She would contribute what she could in the time remaining to her. If Kalor meant to kill her, and she had no doubt that he did, her final hours would not have been wasted.

  When the moment came for her to cross the compound to whatever fate awaited her, she looked at Cleante, who was more than a little hurt at being ignored all day. There had been no alternative; the most aimless of conversations might have let slip the true content of the dialogue between T'Shael and Kalor. T'Shael was visited with a sudden pang of pure dismay. She could not so much as say farewell without revealing the nature of her journey! The trouble with being a Vulcan was one fell prey to well-asked questions.

  Cleante sprang to her feet as T'Shael tried to reach for a blanket and slip away without drawing attention to herself.

  "Where do you think you're going?"

  "Logically there are few places for me to go," T'Shael said drily. "Kalor requires that I complete the morning's tasks."

  "At this hour? Why wait till after dark?"

  "Perhaps his inebriation made him desire solitude," the Vulcan suggested, trying to make the human believe her. How else was she to keep her end of the bargain?

  Cleante looked at her for a long moment. Something was seriously wrong here; she could sense it.

  "T'Shael, if you're lying to me—"

  "Cleante," the Vulcan said gently, then paused. She must make this work; she must. "T'hy'la, I trust my exposure to outworlders has not so corrupted me. Try to remember that a Vulcan cannot lie."

  Cleante tried to laugh, but the foreboding lingered. She hugged herself, suddenly cold.

  "I just have this feeling," she began.

  "Kalor values his life," T'Shael pointed out. "He will not harm me."

  He may take my life, but he will not reach what I am, the Vulcan thought as she crossed the compound with all deliberate speed, knowing the human's eyes were upon her. When I say he will not harm me, this is my meaning. In being imprecise, t'hy'la, am I in fact telling a lie?

  "Leave the blanket," Kalor said harshly, his rough hand ripping it out of hers.

  T'Shael understood. His experiment would be to consign her to the cold of the planetoid's nighttime surface, barefoot, without shelter, wearing only her worn prisoner's uniform. His reasons were known only to himself.

  "Does your experiment include my death?" she asked, remembering the Deltans.

  "Does the laboratory rodent question its keeper?" Kalor snarled. He relented a little; there was an almost lascivious pleasure in having the Vulcan at his mercy after so many months of being threatened by her very existence.

  "You don't want to prejudice my experiment, do you? All right, I'll tell you. For this night at least I probably won't let you die. I only want to test your species' tolerance for cold. If you can still walk when the suns come up, you may return. As for subsequent nights. . . ."

  He indicated the door on the far side of his quarters, the only one in the encampment that led away from the compound toward the barren plain where Krazz had died and the scraggly hills beyond. The night wind moaned dismally; a turgid ground fog undulated across the plain, obscuring thorny scrub and innumerable sharp stones. It was already below freezing, and the long night had just begun.

  T'Shael gathered herself and passed outside without giving the Klingon so much as a backward glance.

  Two courses of action lay open to her. She could keep moving, forcing her circulation with carefully paced jogging and controlled breathing; it could be done under desert night conditions as every Vulcan child learns by the age of seven. But there was no succulent plant life here to provide fluids; exhaustion and exposure would claim her long before sunrise. She must find shelter, or make it.

  There would be caves in the hills, but one did not seek shelter in a cave where seismic disturbances were so frequent. On Vulcan, one could scoop out a shallow depression in the sand, but here the ground was hard-frozen; T'Shael had already tried it. She weighed all of this without slowing her purposeful, energy-conserving pace.

  Reaching the foothills at last, she found enough loose rock to build a partial shelter in a crude semi-circle against the cliff face. The labor was exhausting but it kept her warm.

  When at last she had finished, T'Shael braced her back against the barely sheltering curve of the unyielding cliff face and slid first into a fetal position, deliberately slowing her breathing. Then, as she felt the circulation returning to her lower extremities, she was able to curl her feet under her in a way most humans would find contorting, if not impossible.

  The soles of her feet were gashed and bloody from her headlong journey across the rock-strewn plain, but no matter. Their throbbing assured that they weren't yet frostbitten. T'Shael wrapped her arms tightly across her thin chest, tucking her long and elegant and now totally numb hands under her arms to try to restore them. At last she curled up into herself, curving her back until her forehead touched her knees.

  Her lank hair whipped against her face in the raw wind that still got through the chinks in her rock wall, frost-stiffened into stinging needles. She welcomed the pain; it would keep her alert. The nape of her thin neck, exposed by the inadequate collar of the uniform and her flailing hair, lay naked to the wind, vulnerable. She locked her jaw to stop her teeth from clashing together, but nothing would stop her body's trembling. She engaged the lightest of trances; anything deeper would slow her heart rate and she would freeze all the more quickly. She had only to endure until the first of the twin suns appeared, bringing with it some semblanc
e of warmth.

  Nothing in her disciplined life or all her Vulcan training had prepared her for this. Like all Vulcan children she had undergone Kahswan, the ten-day trial in the desert, but the dry cold of nights on Vulcan was as nothing compared to the raw, damp, murderous cold of this nameless place. No natural thing could kill a Vulcan faster than the cold.

  I must not die! T'Shael thought, realizing as she had not before that Kalor's pledge might not apply to a dead Vulcan. Until the Rihannsu return, for Cleante's sake, I must not!

  The thought gave no warmth, yet it focused her, gave meaning to her suffering, and each minute survived was a minute she need not live through again.

  T'Shael endured.

  Kalor sat in the comfort of his quarters contemplating his sensors, which showed a Vulcan reading several kilometers off in the hills, at low ebb but still functioning. If the readings still registered in the morning he would fetch the Vulcan back, thaw her out, and repeat the process the next night, and the next and the next. Then he would implement the next phase of his experiment.

  Kalor smiled his crocodile smile. He would teach Vulcan and human and even Romulan the parameters of a Klingon's honor.

  Cleante awoke with a start. She'd promised herself she'd stay awake until T'Shael returned, but as the night wore on she'd succumbed to sleep.

  The first of the red suns was already up and the Vulcan's bunk had not been slept in. Cleante bolted for the transparency without thinking. She was in time to see T'Shael crossing the compound slowly and with some difficulty. Careless of her own safety, Cleante rushed to her side.

  She threw her arm around the Vulcan's shoulders, half supporting, half dragging her, feeling how cold she was through the fabric of the uniform and the blanket clutched carelessly about her as if she couldn't get her hands to work. T'Shael's eyes were closed; she seemed to feel her way across the compound, her feet dragging in the dust. The Vulcan mask could not hide the fact that she was in pain.

  Kalor watched from his window and found the scene amusing.

  Cleante led T'Shael to her bunk, sat her down, removed the blanket, and assessed the now bloodless lacerations on her hands and feet, the evidence of exposure and possibly frostbite on her hands and face and the tips of her ears.

  "What did he do to you?" the human said, nearly choking on her rage. "That animal! That vicious animal! Oh, T'Shael, what has he done?"

  T'Shael shook her head, unable to speak at first.

  "He has done nothing," she whispered hoarsely, her voice almost gone, "Nothing to which I do not acquiesce. We have made a bargain, Kalor and I."

  She would say nothing more, and she was so weak Cleante did not have the heart to question her further. She programmed the food synthesizer for the herbal tea T'Shael favored; the Vulcan refused its fragrant, steaming comfort though her eyes expressed her gratitude.

  "I will require a healing trance, or the frostbite at least will exact its price. If you would watch over me until I call to you—"

  Cleante merely nodded, helping her lie flat and pulling extra blankets off the other bunks to cover her.

  The human spent the next hour pacing the length and breadth of the cage, once again keeping the Vulcan's vigil, trying to understand what this new form of torture could mean. What kind of "bargain" could Kalor have exacted from T'Shael? And how could she, mere human, make him stop torturing her friend? How?

  "Why?" Jim Kirk demanded. "Why us? Why an unarmed, unescorted shuttlecraft? And why did the Romulans insist upon the two of us—you and me—specifically and unconditionally?"

  By rights the Admiral should have been pleased at the genuine breakthrough in the final negotiations with the Rihannsu. He should have been further pleased that he and the Enterprise were to recover the two surviving. Warrantors from their as yet unspecified location. But the terms of that recovery smelled fishy to him, and he didn't mind saying so.

  "You suspect a trap," Spock suggested. "A trade-off. Two civilian hostages exchanged for two high-ranking Starfleet officers, against whom the Empire has a considerable vendetta."

  Kirk made a face. Old memories …

  "Wouldn't you?" he asked. "Suspect a trap, I mean? They've tried everything else to save face. Their demands for ransom and release of political prisoners were rejected outright. They were forced to execute three of their own officers to appease the Andorians. Their rift with the Klingons continues to widen. What's to stop them from salvaging a little glory by snatching us? What a coup—capture and summary execution of the thieves who stole the cloaking device. And no maneuvering room. It makes me twitch."

  Spock said nothing. Sometimes it was necessary for Kirk to do his thinking aloud.

  "It's too pat," the Admiral admitted at last,rubbing the back of his neck where the muscles knotted. "They wouldn't risk it at this point. They're as anxious to end this thing as we are. But why don't I feel right about it?"

  He got no answer, and threw up his hands in resignation.

  "Paranoia, I guess. I just wish Special Section would finish debriefing Sulu so we could get his perspective. They've refused to give us a crack at the last set of coordinates he brought through with him. Afraid we'll jump the gun."

  Spock looked at him mildly.

  "I know, I know," Kirk admitted. "The thought has occasionally crossed my mind. I don't like having my terms dictated to me by Rihannsu. But I've held out this long—with a little help from my friends." Spock acknowledged this with his silence. Kirk relaxed at last. "I haven't heard your opinion, old friend."

  "In my opinion," Spock said deliberately. "Where Command dictates, we will go. If it means two of the Rihannsu's most desired targets journeying alone in a shuttlecraft to the edges of the quadrant as some test of honor, of good faith, then so be it."

  Jim Kirk grinned.

  "You're right. Although you forgot to remind me that I asked for this."

  "Gratuitous, Jim."

  Kirk fastened the flap of his tunic and checked his chronometer.

  "Looks like as soon as we get destination orders I'll get what I asked for. Sacrificial lamb is not a role I'm comfortable with. Or is it Judas goat?"

  Thirteen

  "I ONLY HAVE one thing to bargain with," Cleante said to Kalor, trying to keep her voice steady. "Bring T'Shael back. Leave her alone. I'll do whatever you want."

  "I'm not interested," the Klingon lied, lolling back in his chair, studying her.

  His powerful legs were stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, his coarse hands folded over his stomach in an attitude of total relaxation, total command. He had the Vulcan, and now the human, completely at his mercy.

  For three more of the desolate planetoid's long and glacial nights he had consigned the Vulcan to the cold. Twice she was able to drag herself back to the compound at dawn; on the third morning Kalor had had to set the Kzantor for surface skim and fetch her back from the hills.

  He had carried her into the cage, semi-conscious and near frozen, dumping her unceremoniously on the carpet at the human's feet. The Vulcan's resistance lowered with each exposure to the cold; the human's was destroyed anew each time her companion went off into the night.

  For three days Kalor had watched as Cleante hounded T'Shael with questions to which she got no answers. This seeming rift between them pleased him inordinately. For three nights he had forced the human back into the cage at disruptor point as the Vulcan departed, locking the transparency against her reasoning, her pleading, her rages and tears.

  This night he had returned to unlock the door, leering at her, his breath pluming out around him like dragon spume in the frigid air.

  Cleante watched him swagger back to his quarters. She knew exactly what he expected of her, but she would do it anyway. She had made the decision as soon as she'd seen what he was doing to T'Shael. All she had needed was this opportunity.

  She found the clothing the Rihannsu had left behind, choosing a shimmering, lowcut tunic over soft trousers that accentuated her figure. With s
teady fingers she unbraided her long, luxuriant hair, letting it cascade over her shoulders and down her back. She found among the exotic Rihannsu toiletries a vial of scent—an ironic joke in this place—of a kind that enhanced the body's natural chemistry.

  The next best thing to Deltan pheromones, Cleante thought, with homage to Jali. She applied the scent liberally, running her perfumed fingers through her hair at the last and, steeling herself, started across the compound.

  Kalor studied this new aspect of the human, his relaxed posture belying his ravening desire. It had been a long time since he had had a female under any circumstances; he could not ever remember any female so frankly sexual offering herself with so little pretense. If he did not seize the moment her loathing might overcome her desperation to save the Vulcan. Still, Klingon perverse, Kalor toyed with her.

  "I'm not interested," he said, as if dismissing her.

  He pretended great interest in the scanner readout at his elbow, though it showed him the same thing it had for four consecutive nights: a solitary life form in the far hills, slowly cooling down toward death.

  Cleante dared not look at the screen. If that single life reading should fade or suddenly flicker out … she glared at Kalor, who knew what she was feeling and reveled in it.

  "All right," the human nodded.

  She had one ploy left. She wrenched open the door that led to the hills before Kalor could stop her.

  "What do you think you're doing?" he snarled, slamming the door shut, planting himself between her and it.

  "I'm going to die with my friend," the diplomat's daughter said with all the grandeur she could muster. "It's the only way I can guarantee the Rihannsu give you exactly what you deserve!"

  Her Byzantine eyes blazed at him. Kalor scowled, licking his lips, feral.