The Alternate Christopher Jones

Part 3 of 3

"It would only be for a few months," she finished, wondering why he did not move, let alone turn around, and why she could not seem to grasp the mental link between them since she had begun talking. "T'Ara will be older by then, and she's very strong. If necessary, I could learn how to support her emotionally. I mean, telepathically. I have the--talent, basically." Silence. "Spock, please answer me. This is important."

After what seemed like a very long time, he asked softly, "Important to whom?"

"To Jill." She hesitated. "And to T'Ara."

Silence.

"I wouldn't do it without telling you first. You know I wouldn't."

Silence.

"Please--haven't I cooperated enough? All I'm asking for is a compromise."

No answer.

"Oh, Spock--don't! Please, let's back off. I shouldn't have brought it up when we have so little time"--Time. Time. Time.--"together," she finished, her voice unsteady, ragged. Still he did not turn, or answer. "Oh, goddamn--why doesn't it rain?"

"It will not rain," he said expressionlessly, "before the Na-Shoma."

Not trusting herself to answer coherently, she fled to the adjoining bath, resisting the temptation to slam the door. Pulling her tunic over her head, she silently cursed the stickiness of it; it tangled in her hair and she jerked at it until her hair came loose, cascading damply down her back. Everything stuck. Everything was damp with humidity and perspiration....

Suddenly she realized that she was undressing in front of a full-length mirror, and that he was watching her in it.

Or had she known all the time exactly what she was doing?

She went on doing it, knowing that she was making the greatest mistake of her life, but now far too excited to stop herself. And when it was done and she met his eyes in the mirror, she knew that they were about to get what they both really wanted, but not at all the way they wanted it.

During the next few moments she learned well that a Vulcan in pon farr can't hold a candle to a human male who is trying to prove something. What he might be trying to prove she did not know, and cared even less while he was proving it. And even though she was not permitted access to his mind, she was certain that he did not know what it was either.

After it was over, she lay across the bed for a long time, staring unseeing at the ceiling, aware that he had gone out onto the balcony. His clothing, she knew, had barely been disarranged, and she was sure that he was now in need of temporary solitude in which to try to understand what had happened to him. Physiologically, the chain of events was all too clear. But emotionally....

He had been terrified.

She turned her head involuntarily to look toward the open balcony doors.

It made no sense. Terrified of what?

She rose, put on a light robe and followed him to the balcony.

He was in shadow, hands clasped behind his back. She knew that the control mechanism which had failed him so completely was now in good working order. He was so still he barely seemed to be breathing. Without looking at him, she went to the railing and leaned her elbows on it, pressing her clasped hands against her mouth.

"I do not understand," he said tonelessly, "why you were so responsive to that."

"I wanted you." She struck the railing with both fists. "And don't tell me you don't know what that means. I know better." No answer, nor had she expected one. Out among the clouds, the giant went on with his grim task, the knife getting duller and duller. "Spock, please don't make me feel--"

"I have not made you do anything," he answered in the same tone. "Nor you, me. It would be well if you remembered that." Only now did his voice show emotion. He was almost whispering. "As I do."

It took her a long time to answer him, and when she did, her voice was very small. "That's not the way the game is played. You were supposed to come back and blame me."

"Why?"

This time she could not answer, but only buried her face in her hands. Finally she said unsteadily, "I only tried to show you that you're human. Why must we both suffer so for that?"

"What you showed me, Sarah," he answered almost gently, "is that humans use one another. It is a lesson I shall not soon forget."

She set her teeth together, knowing that he had not meant to hurt her. But the spectre of his lost innocence was unbearable. In desperation, she reached for their link--and came up against a block so impenetrable that she gasped "Don't!" But then she realized that he was not, in fact, shutting her out any longer. She was intensely aware of his emotional state, now tightly controlled. She was even aware of his thoughts, largely identical to what he had been saying aloud. But he was blocking something--something very strong, perhaps even from himself. "Have you set up some kind of telepathic block?"

For the first time since the conversation began, he turned slightly toward her. "Block?"

"Yes. It's there. I can feel it. What's frightening you?"

"I don't know what you--"

"It's there. I can feel it. Can't you?"

"Sarah--" It was almost as though he were speaking to a child. "You are overwrought. I think it would be well if you slept now."

He wouldn't lie to her. Not now. And yet she knew he was lying. To himself. The thing was there. "Can you sleep?"

"I think not." He turned toward her, and for a moment she thought he would reach out. But it was too soon. "Please don't trouble yourself." Again, his tone was almost gentle. "I shall not embarrass you. Jill and T'Ara are asleep, and my mother would not come to this part of the house tonight." And before she could stop him, he had left the room.

She remained on the balcony for a long time, looking down at the dark courtyard below without seeing it, listening to the giant committing mayhem and yet not really hearing it. Guilt hung around her like smoke, waiting to engulf her. But for now, her thoughts were elsewhere.

Terrified.

Trying to prove...what?

Knowing his mind, she knew that he seldom thought about his masculinity, much less worried about it. She knew too that he did not want to command a starship, and had never played dominance games with her; his intermittent need to have the last word sprang more from a certain obstinate stubbornness that from any need to dominate.

Whatever it was, he had blocked it--not telepathically, but psychologically, as a human would block something that he simply could not face.

She slept more deeply than she had expected to, and more dreamlessly. But once she was awake, she remembered that Spock's leave would be over that afternoon, and that he must do something about Jill before he left.

Moving to the balcony, she saw that he and both children were indeed in the courtyard below, as she had half expected they would be. T'Ara sat on the ground staring at her Soma, with I-Chaya beside her, apparently staring at it with her. On the rim of the fountain nearby, Spock and Jill sat together, deep in conversation. The personal intensity of that communication was obvious even at this distance, and for a moment Sarah was taken back to the mornings on Tara when she had awakened to find them stargazing on the beach. But this was something altogether different. As she watched, Spock took Jill's hands, raised them, and touched them lightly to his own temples. Sarah could see Jill's face: the child was totally involved but surprisingly calm. Before yesterday, she had not seen Spock for almost half her life, yet there was no question in Sarah's mind that she trusted him completely.

It was also clear to her that Spock did not intend to make the communication two-way, and she wondered if his reverence for the privacy of the child's mind was a good thing under the circumstances. The experience was bound to be deeply moving, perhaps even traumatic, and if Spock were not aware of what was happening within Jill....

He gently removed Jill's hands and put them in her lap, now speaking to her once again. But it was clear to Sarah that Jill was not listening to him now. Her lips moved, Sarah could read I'm sorry. Spock shook his head and went on speaking to her, obviously intent on ridding the child of any guilt she might feel, and just as obviously ignorant of what he should have been doing just then. 

Put your arms around her, Sarah thought desperately. Just this once. Oh, Spock, please.... But she knew that he could not perceive her thoughts at this distance. And even if he could have, she might as well have been begging one of the mandilla to fly to the nonexistent moon.

Finally Jill turned away and rose, beginning to walk toward the gate almost as though she were disoriented. Spock started to follow her, but Sarah called his name and he turned and looked up, startled.

"I'll go after her," she said hurriedly, pulling her robe closer and securing the sash. No time to get dressed. If Jill had ever needed her, now was the time.

When she reached the gate, Jill had already moved down the path. Expecting to find her in tears, Sarah was surprised to find her face to face with Chris Jones, who had apparently been coming up the hill when the child left the courtyard.

"...For the whole day," he was saying urgently. "You could show me the city, and I could show you my ship. I thought maybe we could have lunch--" He saw Sarah, and his voice and his eyes changed, but almost imperceptibly, "Sarah, I want to apologize for the way I acted night before last. It was unforgivable." Smooth, she thought. Chris never sounded smooth unless he was trying to con somebody. "Do you suppose I could take Jill out for the day since she's not in school? I gather that you're--busy." Just a suggestion of tightness around the mouth.

"I'm afraid not today," Sarah answered regretfully. Jill looked so eager, so expectant. But The time is right. "I--have plans for her this afternoon."

"This morning, then?" For some reason, it did not seem to matter to Chris how long she gave them permission to be gone.

"Jill?"

"It would be fun to show the city to somebody who's even less Vulcan than I am." Jill gave Chris a delighted smile.

"Well--all right. But you have to be home by lunchtime." Jill nodded. "Chris, you've never met my husband. He and T'Ara are right here in the--"

"No." It came out a very flat statement, and then Chris seemed to want to amend it. "I--ah--think it would be better if I didn't interrupt your family activities today. You have only a few more hours with him."

"But it would only take a few minutes."

"Sarah--" He smiled, this time with genuine affection. "I'd really rather not. You and he and T'Ara have so little time together. You shouldn't be troubled with outsiders." He came to her and laid his hand on her shoulder. "Same old Sarah. It's...fantastic." For a moment he seemed to be somewhere else, looking at an image not nearly so pleasant. But the moment passed. "I'll take good care of Jill. Don't ever doubt it."

"Why should I doubt it?" she asked, not at all sure why he was making such a point of something he must have known she would take for granted. "Have--fun." Would that word ever have the same meaning for her now? She smiled and waved as Chris Jones took her child down the hill and out of her sight.

When she re-entered the courtyard, it was immediately obvious that the Soma had had its day. Again, Spock and T'Ara were both sitting cross-legged on the ground, facing one another like a couple of Japanese businessmen having tea. But they were not talking business.

"It feels good to laugh," T'Ara was saying, her green eyes fixed intently on her father's face. "Do you know why?"

Even at a distance of several meters, Sarah could feel the intensity of his emotions as though they were her own. There was no block there now, and nothing to hide behind it. He was not even controlling. Whatever had tortured and terrified him the night before was lost in his awe and tenderness, almost as though he were holding an exquisitely fragile piece of cut crystal in his hands, afraid to breathe lest he break it.

"Wanting to laugh is part of you, T'Ara. One day you will choose which part of you, the human or the Vulcan, will shape your life. Shall I tell you of my life decision and how it was made?"

"Yes," the child whispered, fascinated.

"It was the twentieth day of Tasmeen, a month before I was to undergo the kas-wahn on Vulcan's Forge. A--cousin of ours was visiting...."

Without a sound, Sarah slipped away upstairs and dressed, having decided that she would make rounds today after all.

Once at the hospital, she became involved in the routine. Several hours slipped by without her being aware of them. She knew that the time of Spock's return to the Enterprise was approaching, but she also knew that T'Ara needed him even more than she did, having never known him before. A sense of personal inadequacy pervaded her consciousness. It seemed as though she had bungled two of the three relationships most important to her, and immersing herself in her work helped to make the ache in her soul more bearable.

It was almost midday when she sought out T'Loreth, having finally realized the true reason she had come to the hospital this morning. There had to be some way to discuss the events of the night before with her friend without being too specific. Spock could not have been blocking anything human; his human responses had been all too evident. It must have been something Vulcan that had pounded against a mental block of his own making, but not of his own choosing. A Vulcan response to something she might have said or done? Amanda might know. But Amanda was human and Spock's mother, and T'Loreth was neither.

T'Loreth was also as close to being frantic as it was possible for a Vulcan to be. A conference in her specialty was to be held at the Science Academy in a few days. The buzzer on her vidphone sounded as Sarah entered her office, and it was almost five minutes before she had T'Loreth's slightly divided attention.

"I guess this is the wrong time," Sarah said reluctantly, "But I just--" No. She could not admit even to T'Loreth that her question had any personal connotations. And her rounds today had given her a perfect opening. "I talked with Kathleen again for a few minutes, and she was asking me about the--well, I call it the subservient posture of the Vulcan wife. It was awfully hard for me to explain it to her, since I don't understand it myself."

"Perhaps," T'Loreth answered distractedly, "you find it difficult to accept emotionally rather than difficult to understand." She checked a paper on her desk and turned aside to file it. "I have been reading your Montrose. You know his work?"

"Of course. 'The Freud of the twenty-first century.' What are you reading--The Availability Obsession?"

"Indeed." Again T'Loreth was momentarily distracted, and again she turned aside to file something. "It is most interesting that females of your culture were once in this position, and largely by their own choice."

"That was his thesis, yes. 'Men, women, and children are obsessed with the absolute necessity of the absolute availability of women, but women are the most obsessed of all.' Talk about a cultural neurosis."

"Montrose's century is not that far in the past, Sarah. It is possible, is it not, that both you and Kathleen Greenwood are overreacting to what you call a subservient posture." T'Loreth frowned at still another paper. "I find it difficult to understand how such a 'neurosis' could have developed in a society where the life of the male is not dependent on the female's--availability."

The vidphone buzzed again and T'Loreth answered it, sorting papers as she talked. Watching, Sarah began to sense that she too was pushing too hard. She was tired, even though she had been at the hospital less than three hours. Now it seemed that two realities stood side by side in her mind, both quite clear in themselves, but each unable to illuminate the other. But the feeling of being on the brink of an insight made her mind swim, and in an instant the feeling was gone. She wanted to continue the conversation. But T'Loreth was still on the 'phone, frowning, harried.

"Talk to you tomorrow," Sarah mouthed silently, and T'Loreth nodded absently, almost unaware that she was leaving.

The short walk home refreshed her a little, for although the air was still heavy and moist, a breeze stirred here and there. The weather would break in a few hours.

Looking for mail tapes, she entered the house from the outside, not through the courtyard. She glanced through them and stopped dead. One of them was from Mary Jones.

Shaking a little, Sarah sat down, staring at the tape. Dear friend, she thought. How can I bear this? Chris had not been specific about how long ago Mary had been killed; this could only be her last tape, sent before she left on the vacation from which she would never return. For a moment Sarah considered throwing it away without running it. But no--Mary deserved better from her than that.

"Hi, luv." Mary appeared instantly, pert and blond, but somehow a bit more subdued than Sarah had ever seen her. She gave news of Robbie and Stevie, and of the work she was doing in her specialty, neurology, at All Worlds Hospital. But even though her throat was tight with grief, Sarah could not help but notice that Mary was not herself. When she finished with her news, she hesitated, and the tape went dark for a moment as though she had turned off the recorder. Then it went on again. "Sarah, Chris thinks I'm brooding too much on this, but something happened last month that's really getting to me. I don't know why it bothers me so much, but I even have nightmares about it. Maybe you remember that he and I and the boys were planning to take a vacation at Aspen in January. I think I taped to you about it at Christmas. Well, something came up, and we didn't go. It was just a little thing. Robbie fell off his bike and got a slight concussion, and we didn't think it would be good for him to go skiing. So we cancelled the trip and--the next thing we knew, there was this terrible story on all the networks. One of the lifts fell, and several people were killed. It would have been more, but the thing was partially empty." The blue eyes were clouded with tears now. "I know this sounds crazy, but I just know we would have been on that lift if we were out there. Those empty places were ours. I just know it. But you know Chris. He doesn't believe in ESP or anything like that. He calls it weird. But I just can't help--"

Sarah switched off the viewer and reversed the tape, although her mind did not seem to be working. Or rather, it seemed to be screaming.

"...Sounds crazy, but I just know we would have been on that lift if we were out there. Those empty places were ours. I just know it. But you know Chris. He doesn't believe--"

Hands grasped her shoulders from behind, pulled her to her feet. Spock held her steadily between his hands, but his eyes were full of fear. "What is it? What's happened to Jill?" She could not speak, and was sure she could not have made an audible sound to attract his attention in the courtyard. Yet he was here, shaking her now. "Tell me. Who took her away with him? Sarah!" And he shook her again, harder this time.

"Who is that man?" It was only a whisper, for her throat would not let her scream. "Who is that man?"

The face on the vidscreen was impassive as only a Vulcan's could be. And of course he could not know why Commander Spock of the U.S.S. Enterprise would be making inquiries about a small space yacht parked near one of the piers at the shuttleport.

"Dr. Jones has not filed a request for orbit clearance," the face informed them. "Nor has he boarded the Peggy Jones as far as we know. However, if you wish to contact him, it would be possible to--"

"No," Spock interrupted evenly. "I think not." After the vidscreen went dark, he turned to Sarah. She realized that he was almost totally in control, and wished for the first time in her life that she too were Vulcan. "You heard."

"It is his ship, then," she whispered. "The one you noticed yesterday morning." A fusion drive modified for warp speed. She thought of the ship's odd silhouette, and of Spock's inexplicable feeling of deja vu when he saw it. She knew now why he had had the experience, for he had explained in a few words about the 'ghost story' that McCoy had told only a few hours before the Enterprise reached Vulcan. But there had been no logical reason for him to connect the ship at the spaceport with McCoy's story, and he had been under stress at the time.

"The bonding link--" She could still barely speak, but she knew that he understood.

"You think of him as 'Chris.' McCoy was the only one of us to whom you spoke his full name."

Four years, she thought. Four years, and we haven't been together long enough for him to know Chris's full name.

"But we have to stop him!" It was almost a wail. There was no police force on Vulcan, and Spock had already explained that they could not go to the Federation without proof that a kidnapping was actually in progress. Jill was barely an hour late for lunch, and there was no way that they could prove conclusively that the man she had gone away with was not exactly who he claimed to be. Not in the little time they knew they had left.

"We must go to his ship," Spock said firmly. "If he is intent upon taking her away with him, he will have to come there eventually. If he has not requested orbital clearance from the shuttleport, we may still have time."

"Spock--"

"Please," he said, so gently that the tears came to her eyes. "There is no 'hole in the sky' through which this man can take your child. It is far more complex than that."

"I know that. But it's--a visual image that I just can't seem to get rid of." She pressed her hands together and found them like ice. "Please let's go."

At that moment, out in the courtyard, a figure in Starfleet gold began to materialize. And for the first time since they had realized Jill's incredible situation, they both remembered who Sarah had invited here this afternoon, and why. 

The little ship was absolutely silent under a sky that was now beginning to lighten. Standing on the pier where she had stood with Spock and Sarek only the previous morning, Sarah felt the breeze touch her cheek, and then ruffle her hair. Still only a breath in the midst of the heavy stillness. The Na-Shoma will come soon, she thought vaguely, her eyes fixed on the silent ship until they burned. Deserted. It looked absolutely deserted. And yet....

"He probably knows what you look like." Jim's voice came to her as though from a great distance, but she knew that, only a meter or so behind her, Spock and his captain were assessing the the situation--to all appearances as though they were on a mission together, except that neither of them sounded quite normal. "If he's researched the family background--"

"Sarah believes that my alternate is not her alternate's husband in his universe," Spock insisted. "But there is a probability of 95.4 percent that your alternate is Jill's father. He is much more likely to recognize you."

"But he knows you're a Vulcan, in Starfleet."

"If you will permit me, gentleman...." Sarah turned abruptly to face them. They were both staring at her. "I'm sorry." Belatedly, she realized that sarcasm was hardly appropriate at the moment. "I'm going to get my daughter now." Her gaze held Jim's. "I'm the one who let him take her, and I'm going to get her back. I have to."

She knew that he understood, perhaps better than anyone else could. But understanding was not enough.

"And?" he asked quietly.

"He knows me. But he also knows that I haven't the physical strength to overpower him. That may seem like a disadvantage, but I don't think it is. He'll let me get closer to him--and to Jill."

Still not enough, but that did not surprise her. "And?"

"I can reach Jill telepathically. He doesn't know I can do that, and I doubt very much that he could 'hear' me do it. I used to try it with--with Chris when we were kids, Jill's age, before I started shielding everybody out. His sisters and his brother could receive a little. I scared them. But Chris was like a brick wall."

"You don't even know if she's in there."

"She's in there."

Jim's gaze shifted to Spock's. It seemed to her that Spock did not respond in any way, that his expression did not change. But after a moment his eyes met hers.

"Go, then," he said softly, and she turned, stepped off the edge of the unfinished pier, and began to walk steadily across the field toward the Peggy Jones.

Deserted. No sign that it was not deserted. Yet she knew that her child was inside.

The breeze freshened as she paused near the ship, looking up at the smooth surface that now seemed to tower over her. The hatch was not too far from the ground for Jill to jump down safely if it were open.

With every scrap of concentration she possessed, Sarah thought: Open the hatch and jump down, Jill. Ask Chris to show you how. Open the hatch and jump down....

Nothing.

She had tried to keep the desperation out of her mental voice, knowing that it would frighten the child. But now, when there was no answer but silence, she thought again, deliberately, of the hole in the sky that had no bottom, and from which no light came. Open the hatch and jump down, Jill. Ask Chris to show you how.

The hatch opened slowly, and Jill peered down at her. "Mother? What are you--"

"Jump!" Sarah held out her arms, and the child jumped, nearly knocking her over.

"What're you doing here?" Even as she held the squirming little body in her arms for one wordless moment, Sarah was aware that Jill was highly agitated. "How did you know where we were? Mother--Mother, did you know that Chris had a little girl who d-died? He said he didn't have a little girl, but I knew--but he did. Her name was Peggy and she f-fell a long way and she died." Pulling away a little, Sarah studied the child's face--and more--intently. Overexcited. A little frightened. But unharmed. "That's okay," Jill said quickly. "You can listen in if you want to. She really did die. She fell all that way and she--"

"Yes. I know about that." She was aware that Chris had dropped down from the hatch and was standing beneath it, watching them. "Spock is over on the pier, and there's someone with him who would really like to see you. I want you to go to Spock. Right now."

"But Chris was going to take me for a ride in his ship." The child's voice rose. "What are you doing here? Why are you so scared? You were thinking about a hole I was going to fall into, just like Peggy f-fell when she--"

"You are not going to die," Sarah said firmly, thinking it too, just to make sure. "It was Chris's little girl who died, and you are not Chris's little girl. Go to Spock now, Jill."

"A-all right." The child looked back at Chris, standing like a statue beneath the hatch. "I hafta go home now," she informed him with genuine regret. "Can you come back some other time so we can take that ride in your ship?"

The man's lips moved, but no sound came. Finally he managed to smile a little, a grotesque imitation of a smile. "Maybe," he managed to say. "Goodby--Jill."

"G'bye." Freeing herself from her mother's arms, she began to walk backwards in the direction of the pier. "I'm sorry Peggy had to die," she finished, and then turned and broke into a run.

"What did you do to her?" Chris asked thickly. "She almost went crazy trying to get to you."

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"You have a husband and another child," he said softly, pleadingly. "Please. You let me--us have her once."

"That wasn't me."

"I know." He stared, his face colorless. "You're...so different. Here."

"Tell me about her." She did not want to know, and yet she had to know.

"She never married."

"Why?"

"The--your--the Spock in my universe was killed when the Tara colony was annihilated." He took a deep breath. "She told us about it, but I'm not sure I got all the details. They were examining a cave of some kind. Y--Sarah and Spock and someone else. I don't remember who the other--"

"Sutek," she said softly. "The geneticist who was my partner."

"Yes. A Vulcan. He was outside somewhere."

"In the hovercraft."

"I guess so. Well, you--Sarah followed Spock into the cave, and he heard her coming and got upset that she was in there."

"Heard her coming?"

"Before she could get very far in. He moved outside and ordered her out. They had an argument, she inside and he outside...." Is that an order, Mr. Spock? "...And in the middle of it the bomb went off. He was pointing at the hovercraft and he got the flash right in the eyes. The other--this Sutek got out of the 'craft to help him, and then the shock wave hit and there was a rock slide. It killed them both."

"What did she do?" Sarah whispered.

"She went back into the cave and closed the door. She wanted to protect the fetus if she could. She was in there about a year, she thought."

"J--Peggy was born in there?" In the dark?

He nodded. " She--Sarah was afraid to leave until then. She never told us a whole lot about it. But when she finally got back to us, she was--not herself. She never has been, since then. They--there wasn't much of a bond between her and Peggy. They were both deeply disturbed when they got back. Sarah called her 'Jill,' but I guess she never called her by name much while they were isolated. She started calling herself 'Peggy' after a few months, and we let her. It seemed like she didn't want to be 'Jill' after her mother left."

"Left?"

He sighed, and for the first time since she had met him, the sadness in his eyes spoke of a loss other than the loss of his wife and child. "She had a succession of jobs on one planet after another. Staff positions. Research grants. We lost track of her a couple years ago."

Lost? But she could not get the word out.

"She disappeared, Sarah. She didn't want to be found. When she got back from Tara, she didn't want to be close to us, or Peggy, or--"

"I think...that's about all I want to hear. Except--what about Peggy's father?"

"Sarah never told us who the father was."

"But didn't the Enterprise...?" But she knew the answer.

Chris frowned, puzzled. "A scoutship picked them up. The Enterprise never came back." She could not answer, or even speak. After a moment, he said quietly, "Goodbye, Sarah. Please try to listen a little harder." He turned away quickly, grasped the edge of the open hatch, and swung himself up, disappearing into the hole. The hatch closed, turned, sealed with a small thump.

Unable to think or even to feel, Sarah began to walk back toward the pier. It was not until she was almost there that she realized that Spock had moved off toward the dome, leaving Jim and his daughter alone together.

He had watched Jill running from the ship with feelings that were more ambivalent than any he had ever experienced. When he had last seen her aboard the Enterprise, she had been scarcely more than a baby, and she was not yet even remotely the woman she would someday become. She seemed, in fact, almost androgynous--thin but not skinny, her fair hair held at the back of her head in some sort of comb, and flying out behind her like a plume. The loose pants and tunic she wore seemed to have been designed to minimize the differences between the sexes, but he sensed that she would not have been comfortable in a dress; in three years, maybe, but not now. She came plunging out of the abyss in which he had believed she was lost, back into his life headlong but without even knowing he was there. It seemed to him that she was coming at him entirely too fast, and for one of the few times in his life, Jim Kirk was just plain scared.

She had been making straight for Spock, although slowing her pace as she neared him, almost hesitant about approaching him. Before Jim could wonder about this, she caught sight of him and came to an abrupt stop a few meters from the pier. Then, still more slowly, she climbed up on it and came toward him, scanning his face intently.

At that moment, he became aware that Spock was fading fast down the pier toward the dome.

She came up quite close to him, still looking him over, and he began to wonder if she were running a fever. Her cheeks were flushed, and she looked like a new ensign after the first dangerous landing-party assignment. Then something snapped into place behind her eyes, and he knew that she knew where she had seen him before.

She took two steps backwards, and suddenly her eyes were full of pain and tears. She looked away then, away and down, and thrust her hands into the pockets of her trousers.

Slowly he moved to stand in front of her, raising her chin with one finger. Up close, she seemed a lot smaller. "Let me help."

"You can't!" It was an accusation. "You're just Spock's captain. Everybody is always somebody else's something. Never mine."

"Your...what?" But he knew. He did not know how this thing could have happened, but there was no other explanation for the pain in her eyes.

"You said you weren't." It was a wail of despair and confusion. The tears were running down her face now, even though she had pressed her fists into her eyes.

In despair himself, he went down on one knee and pulled her against him as her arms went around his neck. "I never said that, Jill. I never said that. Please don't cry." It was all he could think of to say to her, and it seemed incredibly pointless at the moment. But somehow he could not stop saying it over and over. 
 
 
 

Still not thinking clearly, Sarah started toward them, aware only of the fact that her child was in tears.

"Sarah." Spock had barely raised his voice, and he was still some distance from her. But she could not fail to respond to the urgency in it. "Don't." He reached out as he came toward her, extending his hand but not attempting to restrain her physically. "Please. Don't."

She hesitated only a moment--before she began to think again, before she realized what it was that he was asking, begging her not to do. Then she took the hand extended to her and allowed him to lead her away, realizing for the first time why he had not put his arms around Jill that morning.

A short while later, Jill sat on the high coping that ran partway along the edge of the pier, her father's hands resting lightly on either side of her, her face level with his. She was trying very hard not to cry anymore, since it seemed to make him so unhappy when she kept on doing it. But she simply did not understand.

"Did you answer me?"

"I don't think so. But you said something that distracted me. Don't you remember that?

"What did I say?"

"Oh--just something a little kid would say." He smiled then, and that made her smile too, although she couldn't figure out exactly why. "I'd never say I'm not your father, Jill. You just don't remember what really happened."

"Then why don't you ever tape to me?"

"Because I misunderstood...something. Several things."

"Did you think Mother didn't want you to?"

He stared at her, apparently thinking hard. "I thought so. But now I think I was wrong. Grown-ups can be wrong, you know."

"Oh," she assured him, "I know that." Which made him smile again. "Didn't you ever love each other at all?"

Part of the smile seemed to fade away, and she knew he was thinking again. Just about everything she said seemed to make him think pretty hard. "Yes, we did," he said finally. "And we do. But--not the way she and Spock do. I'll explain it to you someday. Or your mother will. When you're older."

"Oh, that's okay. I take Basic Reproduction. We aren't up to the end yet, but I always read ahead. I fast-forward on the boring parts, though."

Still leaning on his hands, he rocked backward a little, dropping his chin so that for a moment all she could see was the top of his head. It was hard to figure out whether he was embarrassed or trying not to laugh, but she thought it was both. He was a new person, and she couldn't always tell with new people. Then he raised his head again, and she was sure he had been trying not to laugh, even though he was hardly smiling at all now. "I'm not talking about Basic Reproduction. But I just can't explain it to you now. I promise I'll try when you get a little bit more grown up, though."

"All right," she answered immediately, and felt that he was surprised. But with the grown-ups she had known, a promise was always kept.

There was a strange sound in the vicinity of his belt. She already knew that he didn't have any pockets because she had asked him for a handkerchief when she was crying and he had told her about not having pockets. But he unhooked something from his belt and flipped it open. "Kirk here."

"Captain," said a voice out of the inside, "they're givin' me the very devil out of Space Central here. We were supposed to be out of orbit half an hour ago."

He looked down the pier, and she looked too. Spock and her mother were standing close together with their arms around each other. She had never seen them do that before, and she couldn't help staring.

"Ah--Scotty, give us another five. Kirk out." The thing in his hand made a sound midway between a moan and a squawk, but he snapped it closed, put his hand on her shoulder, and gently turned her to look at him again. "Can you keep a secret?"

She set her chin firmly so as not to show how disappointed she was. Your very own father shouldn't come on as though you were about T'Ara's age. "I suppose."

"What'd I do wrong?" He studied her thoughtfully for a moment, and she wondered if he might be some kind of a hearer too. "I did say something wrong, didn't I?"

She explained about wouldn't-you-like-to, and how-you've-grown, and can-you-keep-a-secret.

"I see." He lifted one of his hands to scratch the back of his neck. "Right between the eyes." He was smiling again, and she was glad. She liked him to smile. "There's something I'd like to tell you that I've never told anybody else. If I promise never to say how-you've-grown, will you listen?"

"Why?"

"Well--"

"I mean, why do you want to tell me?"

"Because it's important to me that you know." And it was. You could tell.

"All right." She knew that he knew she wanted to hear the secret now. When he put it another way, it came out different.

"Almost everybody else on my ship has somebody to come home to. Even Spock, these last few years. But I haven't." He raised his hand again and lightly brushed her cheek where a tear might or might not have been. "It's something like not having a father when everybody else has one."

"How do you know what that's like?"

"I...guessed."

"Oh." She swallowed hard. "The Na-Shoma is starting."

"The what?" He looked around. "The sun's coming out."

"It's the south wind. The Na-Shoma. In about a few minutes, there won't be any more clouds. You'll see."

"That's a big thing around here--on Vulcan?"

"It only happens at the end of winter."

He looked up at the sky, where the clouds were beginning to break up. He was, she decided, just as handsome as anybody's father. Handsomer, even.

"Sometimes it doesn't even happen," she went on. "There has to be a stat inversion first."

"You know what that is?" She explained, and he seemed to be fascinated by what she said. Then: "Do you know what a lodestar is?"

"You set your course by it."

"Well, I don't. But you've got the idea." He put his finger under her chin again. "If you'll be my lodestar, I'll come and see you whenever I can."

She smiled, forgetting that there was an incisor missing on each side of the top.

"All right," she said, and was not surprised at all when he hugged her.

As Spock led her away from Jill and her father, Sarah had begun to repeat to him what Chris had told her about her alter's life. When they had gone about halfway to the dome, they stopped, and she finished the story, her voice beginning to shake as feeling returned. "Was there a rock slide?" she asked when the story was finished.

"Indeed." His gaze was lowered, and she could not see his eyes. "I saw it when I was bringing Sutek back into the cave." Sadness. Almost--grief? For Sutek?

"What is it?" she asked.

He looked up then, and said softly, "There is no T'Ara there."

She had thought only of his death, and of that other Sarah who was not quite sane. But now she felt his grief as though it were her own, and it was.

Always before, she had repressed her need to hold him, and instead simply touched him or laid her cheek against his shoulder, fearing that he might pull away or reject her in some less overt way. It had seemed, until now, that he must always make the first move, that if she did that she would violate his privacy in some unforgivable way. But this time she did not think about rejection or privacy, or anything else that had seemed important before. Her arms were around him, and his around her, before she could think about anything but how much she loved him at this moment.

He held her tight, his face hidden against her hair. And she thought If I'd done this last night..., and cried out with the pain of it. "Oh, my dear love--what other mistakes have I made that I don't know anything about?"

Later she would wonder what she had expected his answer to be: a litany of her mistakes, or some kind of opting out? But what he actually said surprised her more than anything he had ever said to her before.

"You think too much about making mistakes." The words were muffled against her hair, but all that her empathetic sense had ever told her of his love was in his voice now. "You have your answers when most of us would still be forming questions, and when those answers prove wrong, it seems to you that you have lost control of everything at once." He drew away little so that he could met her gaze, and she saw, even in his suffering for her and with her, a gently ironic smile in his eyes. "My Sarah, who does that remind you of?"

And she thought, Without this love, I would be like her. Lost. And the pain was more than she could bear.

She closed her eyes, fighting it, and felt the touch of his hand on her face, fingers probing for pressure points. She had seen him do this only once, and heard in her mind Sutek's voice: "Spock, help me now." She had not understood it then, but now it was exquisitely clear to her. It was as though he drew the pain from her soul. What remained was neither peace nor emptiness, but a heightened awareness, a sense of being cleansed. She remembered all that Chris had told her; nothing had been taken from her except the pain.

She opened her eyes, feeling the breeze on her face--the bright south wind that they had all waited for so long--and the touch of his hand on her forehead, gathering back the tendrils of her hair that the persistent, freshening wind was drawing across it.

"I love you." She knew that she had never said those words aloud to him before, and wondered why. And it came to her that until now, she had not really known their meaning. "That may not have precise connotations for you, but it does for me."

They were still holding each other when she realized that they were no longer alone.

"Spock," Jim was saying gently, regretfully, "Space Central is giving Scotty hell. We have to go."

"Say good-by to T'Ara for me." It was only a whisper. He touched his extended fingers to hers and stepped away, controlling but calm.

Jim stood with his hand resting lightly on Jill's shoulder, hesitating. There was no reproof in his eyes, but only a deeply felt need for an answer. "How did this get so bad?" he asked softly.

"I wasn't listening." Sarah held out her arms, and Jill came to her and hid her face against her. "I'll do better now." The temptation toward breast-beating was strong. But when she looked at Spock, he was smiling faintly, one eyebrow on the rise, and she found herself smiling too, at both of them.

Jim nodded, returning her smile; clearly, what she had said was enough for him. "Spock?" And in a moment, they were both gone once again.

"Why does Spock have to go?"

Jill and Sarah had walked almost to the dome in silence but in step, their arms around each other. When Jill asked the question, Sarah's first impulse was to wonder that she had not asked why her father had to go. But no doubt that was as obvious to the child as it had once been to her mother.

"On Earth," Sarah answered wistfully, "they'd say he's following his star."

They walked on for another few steps, and the Jill said matter-of-factly, "It's not his star. It's his Captain."

Slowly, deliberately, Sarah guided their steps to the edge of the pier. This close to the dome, it was much lower, and when she sat down on it, she was at the child's eye level. Other people talk to their kids as though they were children, she thought. Why can't I? "Do you know what simplistic means?"

Jill gazed at her thoughtfully before answering. "It doesn't mean I'm wrong."

"No. Because you're not wrong. But it's much more complicated than that. Starfleet was his life long before he met your father. He went against Sarek's wishes to be part of it."

"He did?" Jill was momentarily fascinated by this vision, but the moment passed. She looked down, and Sarah resisted the impulse to try to probe her telepathically. Whatever was coming would come, and Jill's privacy must not be violated simply because her mother had the power to do it. Finally: "I never saw him put his arms around you until today."

When she looked up, Sarah said calmly: "That's right. You never saw him do that until today."

"You could try and get him to stay here with you instead." But it was really a question.

"And who of us would be happy then?"

The child flung herself against her, hugging her tight, and Sarah could feel the relief surging through the small body in her arms. "Don't be sad," Jill said softly, comfortingly. "They need to take care of each other."

As they stepped off the transporter pads, the first officer of the Enterprise asked with what was, for him, elaborate casualness, "Captain, did you ever get 'off track' with Drillmaster Concord?"

The captain, whose mind at the moment was far from his memories of being a plebe at the Academy, answered absently, "Sure I did. Didn't we all...." He stopped then--stopped walking, stopped talking, and simply stared, his mouth literally falling open.

Spock too stopped walking, but only for a moment--long enough to favor the captain with one brisk half nod accompanied by two raised eyebrows. He then moved quickly out of the transporter room, looking as though he would be insufferably pleased with himself for at least a month.

The attendant, who had not heard the exchange, watched the captain's grin spread and considered the remote possibility that Mr. Spock might have cracked a joke. The probabilities, he decided, were negligible.

The captain headed for his quarters, still grinning.

Max Concord had been an Academy legend for decades. His job was to introduce incoming first-year cadets to a variety of tentacled creatures, toxic clouds, and green slimes via the most realistic simulations on the known worlds. That was his job, but his passion was military history, and his hero the legendary Marine top sergeant, vocabulary and all. He ran his sims like boot camp, and no plebe who ever got "off track" was allowed to forget it for the rest of the term.

By the time Kirk was halfway to his quarters, he was laughing.

No Starfleet cadet would ever forget Drillmaster Concord's monologue, which never varied. As you crawled through the slime, hacking away at the tentacles, he followed you, shouting at the top of his voice until you knew you'd hear it in your dreams: "Keep on track, mister. Keep on track. No more bullshit, hear? You hear me?"

With eyebrows, yet.

The captain changed direction, heading for Sickbay, already imagining the conversation. "You're not gonna believe this, Bones", he would say, and then....Before he reached his destination, he was laughing again.