Finding her friends proved challenging. Not even Phillipa’s humanness distinguished her from this crowd. In the wan white-yellow quartz light, the counselor’s Scandinavian blond braid seemed to be nearly the same hue as most of the Andorian hair. She finally recognized Thantis, kneeling beside a member of her dining circle, a platter balancing on her forearms. Weaving in and out among the dining circles, she made her way across the room to a group situated close by a series of floor-to-ceiling windows. Even with the ambient noise of clanking plates and conversation, Prynn could hear the rain splattering against the panes, the reverberation of thunder.
“Sorry I’m late,” Prynn said, squeezing in next to Shar and situating herself cross-legged. “The clothes I arrived in must have been misplaced along with my bag. I appreciate the loan of a ceara, Zha Sessethantis.”
“No, I apologize, Ensign,” Thantis said, walking over to Prynn’s place. “The gatekeepers were careless. I hope our garb suits you. I know you are accustomed to uniforms, trousers, and such.” She knelt down, providing Prynn access to the food platter. “By some, our traditional clothing is seen as quaint.”
First retrieving a clean plate from a stack in the center of the circle, Prynn scooped the sour-grain pilaf off the proffered platter, the aroma of nutty citrus inciting more stomach growls. A seared marine animal of some kind and roasted vithi bulbs finished off the course. She bowed her head in thanks and then, in what she hoped wasn’t too eager a fashion, dove in with a slice of hari, shoveling the pilaf into her mouth as delicately as she could. Between mouthfuls, she said, “Zha, I’m quite taken with your clothing. I’d like to take a ceara back home with me if it can be arranged.”
“I would be honored to send several, Ensign, as a gift from my clan,” Thantis said, placing the mostly empty food containers in the center of their dining circle and resuming her own place.
From the subtle twitch in Shar’s antennae, Prynn could see he was gratified by her compliments. If I can help Shar’s standing with his mother-in-law by being a gracious guest, so much the better.
But Prynn wasn’t merely being polite—the three-piece ceara was warm and comfortable. The cloth—a fine-gauge fuchsia knit—feltlike cashmere but draped like silk, delicate and supple. With a sheer, formfitting neck-to-ankle body stocking as the foundation garment, the ceara top was a long rectangular piece of blue and gold fabric that she wrapped around her torso to cover her from waist to collarbone. At her neck, she crisscrossed the two ends, throwing one over each shoulder like a cape; then she pinned the ends to the undergarment with brooches bearing the clan insignia. On her lower body, she wore a pair of loose, wide-legged burgundy pantaloons, cropped at midcalf, with an elastic waist that sat at her hips. While Prynn wasn’t sure she could wrap the top properly without more practice, the result was an easy-to-move-in outfit that was neither Starfleet androgynous nor the provocative fashion slavery that the Federation-dominating Risan designers tended to promote. She could sit cross-legged on a rug, hunched over her meal plate, in this half-underground two-story hall with its rock walls and musty draft and feel as relaxed as if she were skinny-dipping in the Mediterranean back home. This was fashion she could live with.
As her hunger was sated, Prynn shifted her focus to her fellow diners. The discovery that Anichent and Dizhei sat in their dinner circle troubled her—didn’t Shar deserve more consideration than to be seated with his exes? On most worlds, such a move would be seen as a faux pas. Prynn imagined that Thantis was probably trying to make a point by seating the surviving bondmates together. The Zha’s class quotient dropped dramatically in Prynn’s eyes.
She’d never met either of them properly. Their arrival on the station had coincided with the Defiant’s departure for the Gamma Quadrant, and they had returned to Andor so overwhelmed with their individual grief that there hadn’t been an appropriate time for introductions. Prynn didn’t want to appear to be ignoring them, but she couldn’t think of a polite segue into a conversation. Sorry we dropped in on your funeral. Great food. Excellent spa. Love the clothes. So, have you found someone to replace Shar yet? As that last thought crossed her mind, a mouthful of fish caught in her throat. Coughing, she covered her mouth. His face etched with concern, Shar abandoned his own plate, and massaged her back, patting her between the shoulder blades. Such a gesture was common in a Starfleet mess hall, but as she noted the expressions on the faces in the circle, she guessed it wasn’t so common here. Thantis especially had an odd look in her eyes—not quite suspicion…something else.
Prynn recovered quickly, clearing her throat and blaming the spasm on a bone she’d forgotten to excise from her fillet. The incident passed and her fellow diners resumed their conversations and meals. But Prynn couldn’t shake the feeling that the zhen had become aware of her in not so desirable a way.
Shar requested the platter of roasted bulbs, sitting at Thantis’s elbow, to be passed to him. The Zha continued eating, dabbing at the sauce on her plate with the last of her hari. Another diner reached for the platter and passed it to Shar.
Without shifting her attention from her plate, Thantis said, “Weather controls will make it safe to travel out of the Archipelago by tomorrow Deepening.”
“My zhavey expects me,” Shar said.
“I will notify the Thelasa-vei shuttleport that you will need passage—but wait. You’re not traveling alone, are you? You and your friend—” She nodded in Prynn’s direction. “—will be traveling to the capital together.”
“As you say, Zha.”
He calls her “Zha,” not “Zhadi.” Prynn’s eyes widened at the implication. She understood that “Zha” was a polite form of address to a zhen—like “my lady.” “Zhadi” was akin to “mother-in-law.” He’s letting her know that she’s not the only one who has issues with this relationship.
“Commander Matthias will join you after she is finished here, though I understand she would like to make time to arrange meetings with some local colleagues before returning to Deep Space 9. Will you three meet up at the Orbital Control Station? Or perhaps in Zhevra?” Thantis’s calm, unwavering tone belied the sharpness of her words.
Shar flushed deep blue.
Ouch, Prynn thought. Drive it home that he’s not welcome, why don’t you.
Before Shar could reply, Phillipa said, “I’m afraid that my determination to meet the Zhevra University faculty limits the time I’ll be spending in the Archipelago, but I’d like to become better acquainted with this area. Perhaps you have time to show me around your home—review some of the clan history?”
“Indeed. We are finished here,” Thantis said, adding her empty plate to the stack of used ones beginning to accumulate, “and I have political obligations later. The regional Visionist Party chapter is convening in the keep. Now would be a good time if you’d like, Commander.”
“It would be an honor, Zha Sessethantis,” Phillipa said, and stacked her plate with the others.
“Oh, and Shar, I believe you have something that belongs to me,” Thantis said, a shade too casually for Prynn’s taste.
Still munching on the roasted bulb, Shar didn’t look up.
“There was obviously a misunderstanding because—” She leaned over, insinuated herself into Shar’s personal space, and reached up beneath his collar to pull out the shapla. “Commander Matthias was going to deliver this to me.”
No one moved. Prynn glanced over at Dizhei and Anichent, both of whom had tensed visibly.
Shar’s calm was undisturbed. “Custom dictates that the bondmates return their weavings to the dead.” Lifting the chain from out of Thantis’s hand, he dropped the shapla back to its place beneath his clothes. “Before I leave, Thriss will be completed by me. I owe it to her.” Shar returned to his meal.
Kneeling down beside her, Phillipa touched Thantis’s shoulder. “I apologize, Zha. I know that you had charged me to deliver the token in lieu of Shar. But when his journey here became necessary due to the storm, I assumed he ought to present the weavin
g himself.”
“No matter,” Thantis said, waving Phillipa aside. “You do not know our ways. You cannot be expected to understand. We shall leave now.” Stiffly, she rose from the circle, with Phillipa following close behind, and strode away.
With the hostess gone—and considering the awkward moments before she left—even the most impersonal talk abruptly dried up. Prynn knew the parched silence resulted from the presence of Shar and his bondmates.
Dizhei and Anichent had never spoken during the meal—at least not since Prynn had arrived. From the apparent indifference between them, the three could just as easily have been mistaken for strangers rather than former lovers reuniting to commemorate a loss. Her own awkward encounters with Vaughn since their return home—some sad, some difficult—taught her that avoiding confrontation wouldn’t help facilitate the healing process. Vaughn’s insistence that he would be part of her life had started her gradually moving past her mother’s horrific death. Shar, too, needed to mend. And her presence in the dining circle provided him with an excuse to avoid his bondmates.
“You know,” she said to no one in particular, “I’m exhausted. Unless there’s something else going on…?”
“Dancing,” someone said. “There’s always dancing after Deepening meal.”
“Oh?”
“Music. Several new compositions have been prepared for the—” The speaker stopped abruptly.
The Sending, Prynn finished mentally. The funeral.
“The kitchen will bring out sweets,” said another. “Spring Festival begins tonight. Many delights have been made to celebrate the season.”
The prospect of dessert and dancing appealed to her. She knew if she stayed that Shar would be her dutiful escort, showing her the dance formations, introducing her to the clan members he knew from earlier visits. He’d be the perfect, doting host, fully occupying himself with her welfare for as long as she needed him. But this isn’t about me….
“As much as I’d love to join the celebrating, I’m going to turn in. After all, I don’t have your steely Andorian constitution—I do need to sleep occasionally.” Prynn rose from the circle before Shar could appeal to her to stay. If he had asked, she wouldn’t have been able to refuse him. “Who should I thank for this delicious meal?”
Her dining companions exchanged confused expressions.
“Never mind. I’ll figure it out.” Without a look back, she walked away, wondering how long it would take her to find the sleep room and, by extension, her bag—assuming it had been found. Not that her clothes would be of any practical use: shorts, string bikinis, and tropical-print tanktops wouldn’t be appropriate keep attire. Her toothcleaner would be nice, though, and a favorite pair of fuzzy slippers. Before leaving DS9, she’d downloaded a few novels into a padd—a great way to pass a stormy evening. Shar could have all night; she would be there for him if he needed her.
And she had to admit: she really was tired. Andorians might be able to subsist on three or four hours of sleep, but as a human, she needed at least six followed by a large raktajino to be considered sentient.
Emerging from the dining hall into a domed central foyer, she realized at once that she should have asked for directions to the hall she’d been assigned to; she counted ten relatively indistinguishable arched passageways branching out from the foyer like spokes on a wheel. I suppose I could just pick one…
It took little time for Prynn to conclude she’d chosen the wrong passageway. After the first bend, she began to hear sounds from up ahead, like the echo of many soft whispers. Her curiosity piqued, she pressed on, and the sounds resolved into children’s voices, becoming clearer as she went. United in rhythmic chants, they told the story of two people named Thirizaz and Shanchen who were calling upon a volcano to bleed lava into the sea, bringing forth a mist through which the duo could escape a wicked spirit that sought to keep the heroes separated. Prynn followed the voices through an archway and onto a cross-shaped path that allowed her to peer through the transparent ceilings of four classrooms.
Odd time for school, she thought, before the truth came to her: Needing to sleep for only one-eighth of their thirty-two-hour day, Andorians were neither diurnal nor nocturnal, but completely adapted to living and working day and night. That explained all the activity still going on in the keep, why they could eat comfortably at midnight, and why children would be at their studies in the hours following.
On one side, a dozen preteens clothed in coarse brown tunics squatted on rugs, hunched over large pads as a proctor/teacher strolled among them, looking over their shoulders at what Prynn guessed was an exam. Switching her view, she studied the chanting students in an adjacent class, who appeared to be on the young end of the primary grades—maybe six or seven. Seated in a circle, the students chanted their myth and illustrated the story with arm movements. All students wore a plain uniform in the same drab brown as the previous group. Prynn listened to catch a bit more of the story, gratified to learn that Thirizaz and Shanchen had made it, and had reunited with their companions, Zheusal and Charaleas.
Moving again, Prynn gazed over the railing at next class. Below her, two dozen older students had been organized into quads—presumably bondgroups—and each individual had been dressed in clothing that Prynn realized must denote gender. Recalling that bondmates were “given” to each other in their mid-teens, Prynn surmised that she was observing the keep’s equivalent of pre-university studies. She drew closer and saw the instructor standing at the front of the classroom near a rotating holo of an anatomical diagram.
Prynn looked around and spotted some simple-looking speaker controls on the railing: four squares arranged two-by-two, matching the classroom arrangement. One tap on the right square muted the chanting from the previous classroom and accessed the biology lesson below. The instructor was in the middle of a sex-education lecture, currently specifying what nerve bundles on a thaan required stimulating to attain optimal sexual satisfaction. Her Federation cultural studies curriculum had taught that Andorians took their familial responsibilities—from parenting to lovemaking—seriously. Evidence of that assertion played out in the classroom below as Prynn followed what would have been considered an explicit, even titillating discussion in her own secondary-ed classes, but without witnessing any hint of prurient behavior—none of the snickering or lewd comments she’d experienced with her human peers. To the contrary: what Prynn sensed was reverence. She started to think that perhaps her cultural studies classes had understated the earnestness with which Andorians prepared themselves for the shelthreth and beyond; the society viewed sexuality as a serious component of the education one required to become a complete individual, and the students conducted themselves accordingly.
Most of them, anyway. Off in the corner of the classroom, Prynn noticed one student attempting to hide a padd within his tunic sleeve. His furtive glances at the padd followed quickly by a casual study of the hologram told Prynn he wasn’t following class protocol. She smiled, remembering her own teenage misbehaviors—attempting to cram for tests in the fifteen minutes beforehand, hastily scribbling out an essay on Vulcan Poetics because she’d stayed out too late the night before hot-rodding with her friends in Rome.
Prynn wasn’t the only one to notice the student’s clandestine attempts to do outside work during the lecture. Shortly after she’d first observed him, the instructor stopped abruptly, directed the class’s attention to the offender and called on him to stand.
Busted, Prynn thought, wondering what sentence would be passed down. During her school years, she had received the odd demerit or spent hours in after school academic servitude to do penance for her transgressions.
“Thezalden ch’Letha. You feel this lecture is unnecessary?”
“No, Sha.”
“Why, then, do you violate the harmony of our learning place?”
The young chan lowered his eyes. “I have an exam in geophysics, Sha. My institute placement depends on it.”
The instructor moved c
loser to him, stopping when she stood in the midst of her students. “Truly, an important step in your life’s journey. It is necessary to set such goals, and to devote oneself to achieving them.”
The chan seemed to relax.
“But,” added the instructor, “it is also necessary to keep those goals in perspective, to remember that they have no meaning outside the context of your bond. Why is that, Thezalden?”
The chan mumbled at the floor.
“Class?” the instructor said.
In atonal unison, the class recited, “With the bond, we are Whole. Without the Whole, there is nothing.”
“Thezalden?”
Louder than before, the chan repeated, “With the bond, we are Whole. Without the Whole, there is nothing.”
“Yet you dishonor your bond with your selfishness.”
“I do not—”
“You have acted to satisfy your needs.” The instructor circled the chan as she spoke. “Not theirs, and not those of the Whole.”
“But—”
“One alone cannot be Whole—nor two, nor three. What one chooses, is chosen for all,” the shen said, indicating Thezalden’s bondmates. “What befalls one, befalls all. Their lives are yours….” She paused to let her pupil complete the mantra.
Worlds of Star Trek Deep Space Nine Page 24