"Why not? By all means, let her go marching up and down the halls at her leisure. Maybe you'd like to take her to the gym for a workout—half-knit bones, damaged organs and all. The old saying is true: you can't win an argument with a Vulcan—much less two of them!"
Saavik's face might have betrayed a momentary amusement, and she and T'Shael were united for an instant in the fellowship of logic against the forces of human emotionalism. It was T'Shael who broke the bond, driven by something of greater import.
"If I might have more suitable garments than this," she said, indicating the disposable Sickbay robe.
"Of course!" McCoy said, suddenly finding something about this scenario to his liking. "Can't have you walking around like an advertisement for death, can we? Don't go 'way. I've got just the thing."
Saavik watched him disappear into an anteroom, her raised eyebrow implying that even for a human he was eccentric. T'Shael reacted not at all. In a moment, McCoy returned with a bundle of recently synthesized clothing, handing it to T'Shael with a mysterious smile. He watched her unfold each garment slowly and with considerable interest.
There was a pair of close-fitting dark trousers, cut in the unisex Vulcan style, that tapered softly to the ankles, and sandals almost identical to the single worn pair T'Shael had owned at T'lingShar—so far away, so long ago. T'Shael unfolded the knee-length tunic last of all. It was high-necked and flared of sleeve as she favored, and the color …
So far away, so long ago: the deep rich purple of the arras that sheltered Salet's harpsichord in the crafters' shop, the precise color which in the ancient frescoes in the ruins of the Old City symbolized fidelity and remembrance. Only one could have pored over every shade available in the synthesizer, selecting this one exactly.
"There's something else," McCoy said, grinning, avuncular. He handed T'Shael a small octagonal box he'd had hidden behind his back. T'Shael looked at him. Had she understood the reference, she might have said he was like a small boy at Christmas. "Go ahead. Open it."
Inside on a bed of some soft stuff lay a single ruby stud earring, identical with the one T'Shael had worn in her left earlobe since her betrothal, appropriated by the Rihannsu in the first drugged days of capture and then lost forever. Symbol of unwed female, gift of understanding. Amicus usque ad aras. T'hy'la.
Saavik, understanding the significance of the ruby if not of the clothing, studied the tips of her boots, allowing the introverted one her privacy. McCoy, human curious and less attuned to the nuances of Vulcan propriety, watched the solemn face for some trace of that deep-buried emotion he had studied for years on a kindred face.
"Cleante asked me to give you these when I thought you were ready," he said meaningfully. He did not know what words had last passed between Vulcan and human, but knew too well the agonies, the broken rules that this kind of relationship necessitated. "She also asked me to tell you she'd stay out of your way until you had reached a decision."
T'Shael's hand might have trembled so that she almost dropped the jewel box. She said nothing. With a Vulcan's indifference to the body she began to undress, causing McCoy to beat a hasty retreat, muttering something about tending to more cooperative patients.
Saavik led the introverted one down the corridors, close enough beside her without encroaching on her personal space to offer assistance should the unsteady pace falter, the battered body give way to minor inconveniences like fatigue or mere gravity. The rich purple tunic effectively hid the sharp outline of bones barely contained beneath taut flesh; the careful mask hid still-present pain, but nothing could hide the burning in those hooded eyes. Saavik, whose life had been short but not uneventful, wondered what manner of inner fire burned in this way.
She pressed Spock's doorchime, indicating to the introverted one that she was to enter first.
"Come," Spock said, as Saavik had known he would. He never demanded the identity of visitors; it was as if no one, nothing, could disturb him.
The door slid open and T'Shael entered slowly but with dignity. Spock was at his desk, writing with an antique pen on real paper, though he put both aside when he saw who his visitors were. T'Shael had not seen anyone write in this manner since the Ardanan illuminators in their enclave at T'lingShar. So long ago, so far away.
Spock's eyes appraised the introverted one, then fixed on Saavik, who lingered just inside the doorway.
"You desire something, Saavik-kam?"
His tone was bemused. Saavik started slightly, chagrined at being found out. Her mentor knew quite well what she desired—to witness with her insatiable curiosity the dynamics of a conversation between these two. She drew herself up, military correct.
"Negative, sir. I shall be at my duty station until I am required."
"Very well, Ms. Saavik," Spock said, as correct as she, though his eyes might have smiled. None need instruct him in insatiable curiosity. "Dismissed."
He turned his attention to the introverted one.
Jim Kirk found Cleante walking in the herbarium.
He simply watched. The setting was perfect. She was a flower among flowers, a unique and exotic bloom in the midst of this plethora of blossoms from all the Federation's worlds. He did not know how he had known she would be here among the butterflies and the plashing fountains, but he had known. He who longed for a beach to walk on could understand her yearning for the scent of flowers and the smell of damp Earth after such captivity as had been hers.
Cleante sensed his presence, looked up from the lotus pool she had been contemplating and smiled at him. Jim Kirk felt something tug at his heart.
"There's a special holiday in my part of Earth," Cleante said. "It was begun in the twentieth century by the visionary leader Anwar el Sadat, but I suspect it goes back further than that, back to the Egyptian soul. We call it 'Smell the Breezes Day.'"
Jim Kirk grinned at her.
"I can appreciate that," he said.
Something in him wanted to reach out and touch her, to caress the luxury of her hair if only for a moment, but he refrained. The years were wrong, for one thing, and so soon after the Klingon … perhaps another, later time. The galaxy was wide, but not so wide their paths might not cross again. Rank hath its privileges; he could find her again if he wanted to.
"We'll be arriving at Starbase XI around 1200 tomorrow," he said, trying to be businesslike. "Have you spoken to your mother?"
Cleante shook her head.
"I could have sent a commpic once we were in range, but I didn't. I want to talk to her face to face. And, there are other things on my mind."
"It isn't easy being friend to a Vulcan," Jim Kirk suggested gently, knowing what at least some of those "other things" were.
"Especially when the Vulcan insists she's not worth the friendship," Cleante said softly, the sad look coming into her Byzantine eyes again.
Jim Kirk thought about that.
"It's a flaw in the species," he suggested. Who knew better than he? "That's why they excuse themselves with logic all the time, try to explain away how deeply they care. Why they need humans to argue with them, convince them of their worth. It's a lifelong struggle."
He said this last in a martyred tone calculated to make Cleante laugh. She did, covering her mouth with her hand, the old nervous habit. She liked this man, liked him very much. How wide could a galaxy be?
"What 'other things?'" he asked her suddenly, basking in the sheer enjoyment of the moment, but mindful too of McCoy's insistence that the captives exorcise their captivity.
"Oh—" Cleante moved away from him slightly, contemplating the lotus pool again. "For a while I thought I might be pregnant. False alarm, though."
Kirk digested this.
"Would that have been a problem for you?"
Cleante shrugged.
"Possibly. A lot depended, and still depends, on T'Shael."
Jim Kirk could resist no longer. He took her hand and kissed it, lightly, gallantly, in his best officer-and-gentleman manner.
"Stubborn
lot, aren't they? Vulcans. Sometimes I wonder why we bother."
Cleante knew what years of struggle and persistence and sheer strength of will lay behind his offhandedness, knew as much awaited her, if T'Shael would only—
T'Shael must make the right choice; she must, or their captivity would have no meaning. And they would have the pattern of this man and his Vulcan to follow as they chose their own particular path.
Spock turned his attention to the introverted one. He offered a chair with a silent gesture and she, as silently, refused it. Spock made note of the particular color of the tunic, the single earring, and saw from these things that the human's influence still held T'Shael to this life, if only temporarily. Once she had unburdened herself of what she had to say to him, what would she choose?
Spock looked at T'Shael and saw, as if in her shadow, Salet the Gifted One. He recalled the composer's exquisite harmonies as they had saturated his own youth, the creative energies which belied the myth that Vulcans had no emotions, for that which did not exist could not have expressed itself in such music.
He looked at T'Shael and thought as well of T'Pei the master scientist, whose death in the death of Intrepid had reached him across the vastness of space. In what way could he honor these two unique beings in service to their offspring?
He looked at T'Shael and saw her pledge as Warrantor freeing him to fly between the stars, to explore the strange new worlds within as well as without, freeing him to be by Kirk's side.
Warrantor in place of Sarek's only son, Spock thought, what return can I offer you?
More to the point, could he who had witnessed the simple gesture between Vulcan and human in the shuttlecraft possibly stand detached? He who had faced a number of kinds of death must do what he could to shield another of his kind from its enticement.
"I owe you my life, T'Kahr Spock," T'Shael began, using the word that among other things meant teacher. "My gratitude for this."
"Does one thank duty, T'Shael?" Spock asked mildly, sounding not unlike his father. He would savor the debate needed to win her to the side of life. "It is I who owe you a debt of gratitude for being Warrantor in my place. It is a debt which I can never fully repay."
"It was not duty which continued mind-touch despite your awareness of the message I carried," T'Shael countered. She was driven, and the words came readily. "I would not be the instrument of shame to you, but in insisting that I live you leave me no choice. I have made a pledge which I must now keep."
Spock stood slowly and moved away from the desk, his hands outstretched as if to bare his heart to the Rihannsu sword he had read in T'Shael's mind.
"Speak what you have pledged, T'Shael-kam, freely and without reservation. None can bring shame to me but myself."
T'Shael spoke what the Commander had instructed her, her voice low, her words carefully chosen, her eyes downcast in respect for Spock's privacy.
"She said I was to be the Warrantor of her vengeance. 'Living proof that a Rihannsu has sometimes more honor than a Vulcan,'" she finished. "These were her exact words."
She felt strangely lightheaded, though whether as a result of her weakness or of some burden lifted from her soul she did not know. She felt the deck move beneath her and thought illogically of groundquakes. Perhaps a storm of some sort …
She swayed and would have fallen, but the hand of one of her own caught her and indicated with a gesture the eminent good sense of seating herself. Then, in a voice mellow with something T'Shael could not name, he told her the tale of a Rihannsu and a Vulcan and a thing called a cloaking device.
"And how do you judge me, T'Shael-kam?" he asked when he had finished. "Do you find my actions dishonorable?"
"T'Kahr, it is not my place to judge," she began.
"But it is," Spock interrupted her. "If you are to fulfill the pledge of the dirhja."
He watched her shy from the term, though she had not shied from the responsibility. She was almost free of that now. Whatever followed, he must tread carefully or he would lose her.
"Do not trouble yourself," he said gently. "What the Commander could not know is that she need not have used you. Whatever scars I bear are neither new nor are they of your doing. I have weighed this question of honor often since our encounter, yet I cannot say that I would not do as much again. But I must know how you judge me."
T'Shael studied him for a long moment. This was a deep one.
"I judge that I cannot judge," she said at last. "In your place I should have lacked the courage to attempt such, even for the safety of the Federation."
"Perhaps," Spock said with a suggestion of doubt. There were many kinds of courage, including that which considered death before the disgrace of a friend. "But one discovers different levels of meaning when one dwells among humans. As I need not tell one whom a human calls t'hy'la."
He had deliberately broached the one topic which could cause her more distress than all the ravages her captivity had visited upon her.
"If she calls me such, it is to my shame," T'Shael said with difficulty. "Such cannot be for me. Not with this one, not with anyone, for I have proven unworthy."
"Yet Cleante calls you t'hy'la," Spock countered. "Why do you refuse her equal honor?"
T'Shael's eyes were deep with trouble and she did not answer.
"You fear the responsibility for one who would bind herself to you unconditionally," Spock suggested. "As I also feared once. However, it was easier for me."
"I do not understand," T'Shael said. From what his face told her, nothing had been easy for this one, ever.
"I am half human. I had some basis from which to begin. For you it is all unknown, therefore it will be more difficult. Death might be easier, for you."
T'Shael's silence acknowledged how readily she entertained this thought.
"But will you accept the responsibility for what it will do to the human?" Spock asked, knowing he would get no answer. "You must decide what you want."
T'Shael's eyes flew to his.
"What I want? And who am I to want?"
"You are neither more nor less than any other. Do not presume to too much humility, T'Shael. It dishonors that which created you and those who gave you life."
"T'Kahr—" T' Shael began, but he refused the title with a gesture, implying that he could not be teacher to her who would not be taught.
"Consider to whom you speak," he said, and T'Shael was silent. She whose mind he had touched understood what he had given and would give for a human t'hy'la. "It is of course your privilege to deny yourself the glories of t'hy'la. But by what right do you deny one who has sacrificed herself for you?"
T'Shael's eyes were deep with misery. Oh, that she were human so she could wash away this feeling with tears!
"The nature of her sacrifice, T'Kahr—" Cleante, my more-than-worthy, that you should do such for me!
"—was selfless in the extreme," Spock interrupted her, his voice gone suddenly harsh. "And how do you repay her?"
"I can never repay her, T'Kahr!" she said with acute distress. "This is the nature of the difficulty!"
"Is that how you define friendship, T'Shael?" Spock demanded. "As a balance sheet—one sacrifice equally repaid with another? Then perhaps you are right. Perhaps it is not for you."
T'Shael struggled with anger. He had no right to oversimplify the matter, to trivialize it. He had not suffered the crucible of their captivity, could not know—
Was he smiling? Smiling at her? For what reason? T'Shael forced her anger down. She was a Vulcan; she was in control. She tried to understand.
"You speak of my friendship as an honor," she said deliberately. "This I do not understand. What am I that she, that Cleante, should continue to choose me?"
"You are that which she needs," Spock suggested, his voice gentler. How familiar were these agonies! He wished he could spare her some of this, but it was necessary. "The other half of her soul, as the ancient poets of both your species have expressd it. Accept this from one who knows, T'Shael-
kam."
T'Shael studied him for a long moment, and he permitted this from the depth of his serenity. She wondered what he would have become without his human counterpart.
"Perhaps High Master of Kohlinahr," he answered her unvoiced thoughts. "Or the hollowest of beings. Essence of emptiness. I have stood on the edge of such a precipice, T'Shael. It is no pleasant place.
"Perhaps you are unaware that your own Master has chosen death," he added after a moment.
Word had reached him through diplomatic channels a day or two earlier; he had taken it upon himself to tell her when he judged the time to be right. T'Shael gave no reaction, though this must have reached her. Necessary. Spock went on.
"Despite all logic, you will no doubt take the burden of this upon yourself, as you would the death of your betrothed, of the other captives, even of your captors. It is a heavy burden, T'Shael. Perhaps more than one can carry alone"
T'Shael did not answer. How could she?
"Perhaps you would also like to assume responsibility for my actions," Spock continued, relentless. Necessary. "You were, after all, my Warrantor. Does not your freeing me for Starfleet give you a share in my moral decisions? Perhaps you were instrumental in my betrayal of the Rihannsu Commander."
Even the introverted one could protest so wild a leap of illogic, yet she did not. Hadn't she entertained these thoughts?
She was on her feet, disregarding her weakness and her injuries, taken with a sudden trembling that was not physiological in origin. She turned away from him, hugging herself in unconscious emulation of a certain human.
Spock watched her. Her distress reached to him from across the room and he allowed it to do so. Necessary. There was no growth without pain.
"Consider that the Way of the Vulcan speaks of the suppression of all emotion," he suggested gently. If she would call him teacher, he must be worthy of the title. "Yet it also speaks of IDIC. Consider that Surak never met a human. Might such an encounter have altered his formulation of the Way? Is there not room for growth in any philosophy? And the concept of t'hy'la is more ancient than any philosophy.
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