FULL CIRCLE: Vulcan

Part 1 of 3

In the dream, Sarah heard the Vulcan words as though someone else had spoken them. And yet it also seemed that she had spoken them herself.

Seeing through his eyes and feeling all he had felt at the time he now dreamed of, she saw that there was no one there to say those words to him. He was alone in a cave on Vulcan's Forge. It was night, and it was cold--desert night cold, and winter as well. The fever that he had never felt before was relatively easy to bear, as was the low-level sexual tension in his body. But the chills tore at him until his teeth chattered.

He was far from ShiKahr, and so he would have no l'nara to help him though his First Time.

He would survive it, he knew. Everyone lived through the First Time, some even through the second, without giving in. Tomorrow the desert sun would bake the chills away, and he would survive. But tonight, with only a small fire in the cave, he shivered and hugged himself and fought despair.

Alone. Even when he was not alone in body, it seemed that he was almost always alone in soul....

Sarah woke with a jolt, disoriented, bathed in perspiration, her body strung tight with sexual longing. Even as she realized that she was lying on the couch in her office rather than in bed at home, she thought dazedly, But he wasn't really aroused at that age, just feverish. Why am I so--? Then she woke fully, and she knew. It had not been her dream, but his.

She sat up, gently and expertly thinning the contact until it was almost nonexistent. Until he was with her physically, fully sharing her aroused state would make his even harder to bear.

He was asleep now, she knew. Asleep aboard the Enterprise, and dreaming the dream she had shared. It might even be kinder to break the contact entirely so that he could rest easier. But she could not do that even to be kind.

With T'Pring, he had welcomed the almost immediate blanking of mental contact; he neither knew her well nor cared for her, and he was used to being alone with pain. Even now, Sarah knew that part of him wanted to spare her as much as possible until he could spare her no longer. But she also knew that he would have been devastated at an even deeper level had she left him alone in his growing anguish. This was the third Time for them, and all the lessons had been learned.

"God, it's hot in here," she murmured half aloud, now fully awake. But the rational part of her knew that it wasn't.

T'Loreth had finally convinced her that human physicians are not physically equal to working ten strenuous hours ten days in a row, year after year. And so she had formed the habit of lying down in her office for an hour every afternoon, usually dozing a little, always rising from the couch restored and invigorated. But she had never awakened like this before, drenched in perspiration, her pulse racing. Her office was air-conditioned, never hot. And it was not hot in her office now, she knew.

Good thing she kept a change of clothing there.

As she showered and changed, grateful for the amenities provided for department heads, she contemplated the dream that had not been hers alone. She had dreamed it before, long ago on Tara, when she had first shared Spock's memories as the bonding link developed between them. She had never asked him about it, knowing that the memory was a painful one.

Normally, a young Vulcan male in the throes of his first non-lethal pon farr would seek out an older female--usually a young adult who was herself bonded but not yet physically a wife. The l'nara, the surrogate, was never the bondmate, who would have been far too vulnerable; history had taught civilized Vulcans that their desperate need to delay the inevitable would often go up in flames if the l'nara were also the bondmate. Incredible as it still was to Sarah, the l'nara was a stranger as often as she was an acquaintance. Hating what was happening to them, shamed to the core, male Vulcans accepted with totally non-human serenity the ritual of revealing to a female acquaintance or even a stranger that one was in need of psychic support--revealing it as few human males would be able to do. It was the Vulcan way, as compassionate as the ritual of koon-ut-kal-if-fee was occasionally brutal. It was also logical. If one could postpone the first Fire Time, it was logical to do so. The fact that the reason for postponement was about as illogical as Vulcans ever get was irrelevant.

But Spock had been alone, in body as well as in soul.

It was his last full year on his home planet, the year he had made the decision to find his destiny in Starfleet. He had often gone camping alone on the Forge, sometimes staying out for several days, thinking, planning, worrying, fearing the inevitable confrontation with his father that had, in fact, never come about because he had cut and run for Earth in order to avoid it.

On one such excursion, his First Time had come upon him in the night. Sharing it in retrospect, Sarah was appalled at the depths of his loneliness, and wished desperately that he had not had to bear this alone. She was fully aware that only his intelligence and his memories, conscious and unconscious, of all that he knew of pon farr, had enabled him to fight his way out without help--that only his trained and disciplined mind had saved him from falling dangerously ill in that cave, far from ShiKahr. The hormonal imbalance that would later threaten his life was this time not severe enough to be lethal, and sexual tension was the least of his problems. But the fever might have been a serious threat to his life had he not been able, quite literally, to think his way out of it.

She knew also that, still irregularly affected, he had experience yet another Time alone aboard the Enterprise while serving as science officer under Christopher Pike. Then the symptoms had reversed in severity: the fever low, the sexual tension exhausting. Yet he had won again, and exulted in winning without having to reveal his plight. Pike was his idol but never his confidant; had his life depended upon self-revelation, he would have died then and there without giving the matter a second thought. Boyce, perceptive and tactful as ever, had prescribed a mild sedative and monitored the patient as unobtrusively as possible, no doubt aware of the nature of the problem but unable to determine its cause. And then, finally, Spock was well again, silently rejoicing, hoping against hope that he would be spared his Vulcan destiny, until the first Fire Time dashed that hope forever.

But then he had not been alone. The l'nara who would have done him no good anyway was not with him. But someone else was.

And Jill was afraid I might try to break that up, Sarah thought with deep affection, reliving now a memory that was her own: Jim smiling suddenly and saying It was...something of an anomaly as he thought of Spock's reaction on finding him alive....

She was due in a meeting in fifteen minutes.

Gently testing the link, she perceived that Spock was still asleep and then lowered her sensitivity to absolute minimum. He still had time--nine or ten days before his condition became critical. She did not know how he would get home this time, but she was not afraid for him. As long as Jim was with him again, there was nothing to fear.

She began to brush out her hair, perversely grateful that the showers were all sonic because of the dearth of planetary water; she would not have to conduct an H.O. staff meeting with damp hair. She was unsure just how much Vulcans could perceive in this kind of situation. But two of the physicians on her staff were human women with Vulcan husbands. Wet hair was a dead giveaway, and hers was too long and too heavy for her to have dried it in time for the meeting after a conventional shampoo.

And so she brushed and pondered, her eye on the Vulcan chronometer inlaid in the tile next to the mirror. She knew what Spock's physical condition would be when he reached home. They had been through it together twice before. For her, the worst of it was that only the two-finger touch was safe as long as he was fighting the inevitable. But of his emotional state she could only conjecture this time.

Still drawing the brush slowly through her hair, she gazed at her reflection without seeing it. Instead, she saw in her mind a memory of Jim as he had looked on a tape she had received from him months ago, in answer to one she had sent him several weeks before that.

After the Enterprise had foiled the alien machine's attempt to destroy life on Earth, Admiral James T. Kirk had regained command of his ship for a year. Sarah had no idea how he had managed that feat, but rejoiced that he had, both for his sake and for Spock's.

She had not seen Spock when he left the desert and returned to the Enterprise, and she was glad she had not. The fact that he had not communicated with her at that time was mute evidence of his condition, she knew, and she shuddered inwardly whenever she thought of it. But his first tape after his return to the ship had terrified her. He seemed almost incoherent, as though he were drifting in his own mind. He was not in agony, or even unhappy. What he said made sense enough: he had learned a great deal from the alien, and would share it with her when next they met. It was what he did not say that frightened her almost as much as his manner. What had he learned that made him appear so...preoccupied? Bemused? Always before she had been able to read his mood, even on tape. But this time it seemed that he was almost a stranger to her.

Panicky, she had taped to Jim on an impulse she had never felt before and knew she would probably regret. "I've always tried not to do anything that would violate his privacy," she had said, striving to project the calm that she did not feel. "But that's been a mistake on occasion, and I think this may be another of those occasions. Jim, what's happened to him? I have this eerie feeling that he's the same and yet so very different, and the mix is wrong somehow. Has it got something to do with the division he went through three years ago? Please tell me what's happened." She had sealed the tape and sent it off without playing it over, and heartily regretted that as soon as it was gone.

A few days later she had received a tape from Jim. Staring at the unopened container, she had told herself that this could not be an answer. Not this soon. And she had been right.

He looked better on the tape than she had seen him look for several years--no longer tense and strained as he had been while he was chief of Starfleet Operations. It was unfortunate, she thought abstractedly, that they all had to wear such godawful uniforms now, the plainsong blue-gray formfits that Jill and her PREPDIV classmates called dust covers. But he seemed relaxed, and his manner was affectionately informal as always. "I'm not asking your permission," he had said with an apologetic grin. "I think Jill is old enough to decide whose name she goes by. But I think you ought to know that I intend to discuss it with her the next time I see her." Sarah had nodded as she watched; it had always been her intention that Jill would have that choice when she was old enough, and she was relieved and touched that Jim agreed with her. But this was not the tape that she had so wanted to see.

That one arrived a few weeks later. Almost shaking with apprehension, she had walked to her office after dark so that she would have complete privacy; the subtape viewer at home was in the study where T'Ara did her homework. Turning on only one light, she sat at her desk and activated the viewer.

"Sarah." He sat before the recorder, looking even healthier that he had on the previous tape. It was the shirt, she thought. White, short-sleeved, collarless and open at the throat, almost like a tennis shirt but of some kind of heavier syncot. "I'm sorry we crossed in the mail. That must have been frustrating for you. I'll try to answer your question. But...I'm not sure that I can.

"No, I don't think it has much to do with what happened to him three years ago. I think--" He hesitated. "I think most of that got reamed out of him while he was on Vulcan." He frowned, and Sarah winced. Was he that bad when he came back? "His contact with V'ger--with the alien we encountered--caused what you see now. He's...newborn." He smiled then, and Sarah drew in her breath. "It's not all good. I don't want to get your hopes up. He's got a new center of gravity, but it's like--well, it's as though he were in null-g, trying to find a way to push off with nothing to push against." He was frowning again, shaking his head. "Sorry about the mixed metaphors. It's difficult to explain. He is changing. He's more aware of his humanity than he ever was, even when he was human. When his humanity was 'out,' I mean. But we can't--we just can't...." He was silent for a moment.

"We can't have it both ways," Sarah said softly, beginning to understand at last.

"We can't expect him to change and not change at the same time. We can't say 'I want this and this to stay the same, and I want this and this to change.' Like his doctor says, Spock's a person, not a cafeteria." Another grin, and Sarah could not help smiling at the screen as though Jim were really there.

But the grin died away. "I guess what I'm trying to tell you is that anything can happen right now. Most of the time, he seems the same as he's always been. I don't think anybody but McCoy and I would notice the things we've noticed. But...." His expression changed again, and she saw worry there, and perplexity, and something like hurt, and something like love. "An intelligent, articulate human can get you where you live when he's angry. Or hurting. Or both. I said it's not like it was three years ago, but that's not strictly true. At the time, he--his human half challenged me in a briefing session, in front of staff." Sarah gasped. "We brought out the worst in each other. No, that's not true. I brought out the human in him, and he brought out the worst in me." He sighed deeply. "He's not like that now, and yet--he is. In small ways. I think it has to be that way, at least for a while. When I brought him back to the ship after his contact with V'ger, for a few minutes it was as though the human part of him was there again, alone. Without the Vulcan."

Watching, Sarah felt her skin crawl. But you said this wasn't like that! she cried out silently. And watching Jim, she knew it was not. If Spock had been mangled like that in his contact with the alien, Jim would not look as he did now.

He had turned aside slightly, his forearm lying along the table, his eyes on his hand. "I needed information about V'ger, and he had it. So except for a few moments...." Now he silently closed his hand--gently, almost as though he held another hand within it. "Except for a new moments, I wasn't really listening to him. And if I had it to do over again, I'd have to do it the same way." His hand opened and his jaw tensed, and Sarah thought sadly, hurting for him, That's why Earth is still Earth. Because you did what you had to do.

"I can't remember most of what he actually said," Jim finished grimly, "except as it related to V'ger. He made it possible for us to save Earth. I keep telling myself that makes it all worth it, and it does. But...." He shook his head abruptly and faced the recorder again. "He's in transition. Between what and what I don't know. Just try to...." He hesitated again, and it seemed to her that he was now a little embarrassed. "He may not have worked this out before he comes home the next time." And understanding, she thought, You can count too, can't you, Jim. "If--if other factors are influencing him, if he's under tension from some other source, things could get complicated." Another hesitation. "That's all I can tell you. I'm sorry. I wish I could be of more help to you. Goodnight, Sarah. Sleep w--." A small, ironic grin. "Take care," he finished softly, and the screen went dark.

Her meeting with the H.O. staff was now two minutes away. Quickly she gathered her notes, her voice recorder and, she hoped, her thoughts. This was an important meeting, only the third since she had become chief of H.O. after T'Loreth's promotion, and only the second-last before she would be offworld for several months. Time to switch gears. Again. And she thought distractedly, What in the universe is a gear, anyway? And how do you switch them?

Her office seemed cool now, the windows translucent against the afternoon sun. She stood for a moment, composing herself. Gears. Maybe if she tried to remember about gears on her way to the meeting, her mind would be cleared before she got there. Just maybe.

"'Homes'?" T'Loreth asked, eyebrows rising.

Sitting on the couch with a tape viewer in her lap, Sarah looked up from the journal article she was reading and smiled wryly. "I know. But Chris and Mary were so delighted with this 'wonderful place' they found for T'Ara and me to live in that I didn't have the heart to say no. I should have made my own living arrangements, I guess. Or let the hospital do it. Living quarters were part of the package for the fellowship."

"Indeed." T'Loreth laid aside the color brochure for Marin Homes as though it had a faintly unpleasant smell. "These structures are all identical."

"Mmm. All hundred and fifty of them, and every one of the fifteen thousand apartments is furnished identically too. The only good thing about it is that we'll only be there six months." She leaned her head back against the couch, letting her eyes rove around the room. Unlike her own office, which had been T'Loreth's, this one was furnished in Earth tones; T'Loreth's predecessor as chief of staff had been human. "Something like this, I should think." she added, thinking of Amanda's Furniture made by computers out of God knows what. "Would you like to switch furniture with me?" She hated to think of giving up her own muted red and gold decor, but the pieces had all been chosen by T'Loreth.

"That would be highly illogical," T'Loreth answered, but there was a trace of affection in her voice. Then, since for her the subject was closed, she went on to another. "Will Jill not be living with you there?"

"No. She's been in the dorm at PREPDIV almost two years now. All her friends are there. She'll be spending weekends with us, and the three of us will be on the space liner together. Her fall term starts just after I start at All Worlds."

T'Loreth did not answer, and since she seemed preoccupied as usual, Sarah went back to her reading. She had stopped apologizing for her presence in her supervisor's office at the end of many work days. T'Loreth's company soothed her, and she had long ago fallen into the habit of doing her professional reading there.

"It would be well," T'Loreth said quietly, "if you were not pregnant while you are on Earth."

Absorbed in her reading, Sarah shook her head without looking up. T'Loreth had two sons and no daughters; at times she came as close to fussing over Sarah as a Vulcan can come to fussing over anyone. And it was no surprise to her that T'Loreth too could count.

There was a short silence, and then T'Loreth continued in the same tone, "Has it occurred to you that there is no one in the universe who could give you so much as a blood transfusion?"

Still preoccupied, Sarah did not think before she answered. "I'm never sick."

"That is a stupid answer," T'Loreth said expressionlessly.

If she had been trying to get Sarah's attention, she succeeded. "What did you say?" But as soon as she met T'Loreth's steady gaze, Sarah realized that even after so many years on Vulcan, she could still misinterpret. There was no personal attack in the words. T'Loreth had simply been making a statement of fact. "Well, yes. I guess it was. But think about it. I've had one and a third pregnancies on an uninhabited planet. My longest labor was four hours, and I've never even had morning sickness. In fact, I've never had a sick day in my life that I can remember. Besides, human/Vulcan pregnancies have very few untreatable complications nowadays."

"You are not all human, Sarah," T'Loreth answered gravely. "You and your husband think of you as human, but you are not." She was almost frowning.

"On Earth," Sarah said affectionately, "what you're doing now is called grasping at straws. Why didn't you ever say any of this before?"

"You were not on Vulcan the first Time. And the second--" T'Loreth hesitated. Still the privacy thing, Sarah thought. Even between us, even after so long. "I was not aware that your husband was...returning to Vulcan until you did not appear here when you were expected."

"The Vulcans on staff just stay home without explanation," Sarah reminded her gently. "Why should there be a double standard?" T'Loreth dropped her gaze. "No, I'm not offended. I'm touched that you care what happens to me. But H.O. is my field, and All Worlds is one of the best hospitals in the galaxy. That's why we wanted me to exchange there, remember?"

"We are discussing a situation where you would be the patient, not the physician."

"I'll be home long before the baby's born." Silence. "T'Loreth, I missed out the last time. I am not going to miss out again. I'm sorry if that's not logical, but I don't claim to be that. Especially not about this."

"Very well." It was almost a sigh, but she meant it. Vulcans argue only for reasons, and it was clear that there was no reason to argue this subject any further.

Amanda's sewing machine was Earth-made. Vulcan-made laser scanners stuck to essentials and produced patterns that fit better but allowed for little variation in style. Fabrics provided infinite variation, more so than on Earth. So it was not logical to go to great lengths to vary the style of the garment. And if someone else showed up in your dress, even in the same fabric, it was considered neither a compliment to your taste nor a threat to your unique identity. It was simply someone else in the same dress.

"I think it ought to be pastel, don't you?" Jill asked as Sarah scanned her with the wand. She wore her hair in a single braid down her back, as Sarah herself often did when she wanted it out of the way. Standing slim and straight in her underwear, Jill flipped the braid forward over her shoulder as Sarah scanned her back, and blew absently at the wisps of hair that clung to her face. Amanda's sewing room was shaded in the afternoon, but it was almost 40 degrees Celsius outside. "Now that we have the old uniforms back, we all get to see enough bright colors in the line of duty." What she meant was that J.T. got to see enough bright colors in the line of duty. But Sarah declined to point out the obvious.

"Why are they cycling you the old uniforms?" she asked.

"There's Big Change in the works, and nobody liked the dust covers. So they went back to the old template for a while."

"The white shirts were nice."

"They were okay. Are you almost done?"

"Almost. What's the hurry? Your father won't be here for several days."

Jill turned her head. "How did you know that?" When Sarah did not answer, Jill turned thoughtfully to look straight ahead once more. "Do you know what Spock's thinking all the time?"

"No." She had explained the bonding link and related matters when T'Ara was bonded. Jill had questioned her extensively, but Sarah was not sure how much she had forgotten, or how much she really wanted to know now. Only one way to find out. "What is it that you want to ask me?"

"Oh...." Jill was silent for a few moments. Then: "Nothing you didn't tell me before. I guess."

"Come on, little one. There's something--"

"Mother!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! You've been gone so much these past two years that I don't remember what your ground rules are." Relieved, she realized that Jill was smiling. "Suppose you tell me what it is that you really want to ask, and then I'll answer it if I can. It's worth a try, isn't it?"

"Why didn't you have a baby last Time?"

"Because the GS malfunctioned. I can't conceive unless it's working."

"Is it working now?"

"You better believe it is." Jill turned and looked down over her shoulder, obviously delighted. "Don't do that. Your measurements will be off." Jill turned back, and Sarah passed the wand a few more times. "Done. Anything else you want to know?"

"Uh-huh. T'Ara says there's a 48.97 percent probability that you can still have a boy." Jill picked up the abbreviated sleeveless tunic that she had draped over the computer console and slipped into it, tying the sash loosely. "I say it's less, because you and Spock already had her. But she says how many of one you've already had isn't a relevant variable with Vulcans. What do you think?"

I think you're still a lot closer to her than I am, even with me here and you light years away. Sarah frowned a little and then smiled. "Do you think that matters to either of us?"

Jill pressed Sarah's arm briefly and then turned to concentrate on programming the fabric cycler. The gesture was so adult, and so different from the impulsive hugs that Jill had been prone to as a child, that Sarah was caught between intense joy and a bittersweet sadness. I've missed two years of her life, she thought. But at least Jim hasn't.

Dropping to the floor next to the console, Sarah laid her arms loosely across her drawn-up knees. "What did you and your father do together while he was at Starfleet?" Might as well change the subject. There was something there. Something there that Jill wasn't asking. Resisting the impulse to probe telepathically, Sarah nevertheless received the impression that the unasked question was generalized, nebulous, still unformed, that there was some kind of insecurity underlying it, and that Jill herself did not yet know what it was.

"You asked me that last year." Absorbed, Jill still smiled a little.

"Humor me. I like to hear you tell about it."

"Why?"

"Because I like to see you happy."

Jill smiled again, wistfully this time. "We mostly took the boat out. You know."

"Still just in the Bay?" Sarah had always been land locked, and the idea of riding in a vessel with nothing but water under it made her feel slightly queasy.

"When we were down."

"Down?" They looked at each other uncomprehendingly, and then Sarah began, uneasily, to comprehend. "Does it fly?"

"Didn't I tell you?"

"No, Jill. You didn't tell me."

"I can make Seattle in half an hour if I go high and straight."

"You?"

"Oh, Mother. He's right there. And I got drilled." Jill rolled her eyes expressively. "Oh, did I get drilled. One time he did something--I don't know what it was, but we dropped about a thousand meters before I pulled us out of it."

"How high were you?" Sarah asked faintly.

"About ten thousand, I guess. That's where we usually cruise. Cruised, I mean." She sighed wistfully.

"Did he spend every weekend with you?" The intent of the question was innocent enough, but as soon as Sarah spoke it aloud, she realized how it sounded.

Jill gave her a look and said wryly, "He's not a priest, Mother."

Repressing, in turn, each of the several inappropriate rejoinders that came to mind, Sarah asked, "Did you ever meet any of his friends?" And then realized that the second question sounded even worse than the first.

But Jill did not respond as she had expected. "One," she said quietly.

"You didn't...." Like her. Wrong. Something else, much more troubling.

"We got along. She didn't like it much when I was with them, or when he went with me alone. But she was a pretty good sport about it." Frowning now. "She was an admiral too."

"'Was'?"

"She's dead," Jill said flatly. "It was a transporter accident. J.T. was right there watching."

"Oh, my God," Sarah whispered. "Was he--did he--?"

"It happened just before he went out again. They had a one-year, and they didn't renew. Then she died. That's all I know. He talked to me about a lot of things, but he never talked much about Lori. He seems okay now, though." Wistfully: "On his tapes, I mean."

"You miss him a lot since he's gone again." Jill nodded. "Did you always get along?"

"Mostly. But he was kind of off while he was at Operations. One time right after I got there...." She hesitated, and Sarah patted the floor next to her. But Jill shook her head. "I want to get this done."

"You have time. They don't have to be here for another five or six days."

Jill cocked her head to one side. "I thought you said you don't know what Spock's thinking."

"This isn't thinking."

Jill nodded slowly, and dropped down to the floor, lotus-like. "It's cooler down here."

"Just like on Earth. Why do you think I sit on the floor so much? So. What happened one time right after you got there?"

"Well, he was in a mood, and I said something, and...it got a little thick." Quickly: "It was really dumb, and he couldn't help how he was feeling. He wasn't following his star anymore." They smiled at each other, remembering. "He knows everybody there. I couldn't do anything that he didn't know about. That week I got a D in a pop quiz, and something happened in the dorm. Some of us...we put something in somebody's bed. Mother, don't ask, okay? You don't want to know. Anyway, I heard about the D, and I heard about the other thing. He wasn't usually that b-- like that, but he was in a really foul mood. It was a Sunday, and he was always worse on Sundays because tomorrow was Monday. Saturdays always were better. Anyway, just while we were landing he asked me what was bothering me. It was really dumb, but I was just fed up. And...I...said...." Jill rolled her eyes again as though she couldn't believe she could ever have been twelve years old. "'Being chief honcho at Operations doesn't exactly make you Mister Sunshine.'"

"Oh, Jill. Was he angry?"

"He was furious."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Not at first. Then he said it was past my bedtime." Jill grinned; at a distance of two years, she was obviously able to appreciate a skillful verbal put-down without feeling threatened by it. But then the grin faded. "He took me back to the dorm and I didn't hear from him for two weeks." She got up then, returned to the console, and began to press a button. On. Off. On. Off. Watching her expression, Sarah realized that she was moved rather than unhappy. "Then he wrote me a letter."

After a moment, Sarah asked softly, "On paper?"

"Mmm." On. Off. On. Off. "He said he was sorry, and...and about how he was proud of me. He said a lot of things." On. Off. On. Off. "I still have it. We didn't have any trouble after that." She looked down at her mother, who was smiling up at her. "Did you know he's going to rename the boat?"

"I didn't know it had a name."

"Mother! Boats always have names!"

"What was its name at first?"

"The Raven. You know. 'Nevermore.'"

Sarah shivered in spite of the heat. "Did he tell you that's why he named it that?"

"No. But I knew." Incredibly, Jill was smiling as she began to work at the console in earnest. "I think yellow. Or lavender. Everything Chris and Mary give me is pink. With lace on it."

"What about blue?" Sarah asked absently, her mind still on The Raven.

"Uh-uh. Right at the end of last term, I was in Life Sciences all the time for a month. If I never see blue again--"

"Jill, what is Jim's new name for the boat?"

"Voyager 7," answered Jim's daughter, still smiling.

T'Sal looked very much like a monolithic Terran cactus. She grew about halfway down the hill from the house, tended carefully by her mistress. T'Ara had no animal pets other than I-Chaya; Vulcan animals were never confined, and I-Chaya and Who remained house pets by their own choice. But T'Sal was T'Ara's own, and she took her responsibilities as seriously as she took everything else.

Those responsibilities included a certain amount of conversation, upon which T'Sal seemed to thrive. T'Ara did all the talking and T'Sal did all the singing, in a voice that sounded like muffled wind chimes. As they conversed, T'Ara would tilt her head slowly to one side and then to the other, and T'Sal would imitate the movement. There was a certain hypnotic serenity in the slow, smooth movements of the eyeless, faceless plant, back and forth, back and forth, to the accompaniment of T'Sal's singing. And any number could play. Sarah had tried it herself one evening when she was especially tense, and found that the experience was not unlike watching a fire or a waterfall.

"Is T'Sal self-aware?" she had asked Sarek, who had looked at her thoughtfully for a moment before answering.

"Have you asked T'Sal that question?"

"You mean...out loud?"

Sarek raised both eyebrows. "Does T'Sal not speak 'out loud'"?

Sarah had asked T'Sal the question, and been sung to for almost ten minutes. As the song died away, she thought Will my world seem as alien to my own child as hers still seems to me?

The evening of the day on which she had helped Jill make her dress (which turned out to be pale green), she determined that it was time to discuss their impending trip with T'Ara. She had informed, explained, attempted to kindle interest, but there had been no discussion. T'Ara had simply listened, asking no questions. Now nearly ten, she was intellectually several years older than that. But emotionally she was an almost total unknown to her mother.

"What would you have done if your child had been a girl?" Sarah had asked Amanda once. "Doesn't the Image relationship conflict with the human pre-adolescent's need to identify with the parent of the same sex?"

"If you think it does, it will," Amanda had answered quietly.

"I can't talk to her, Amanda. When Jill comes home, it's almost as though she'd never been away. T'Ara is here all the time, and it's almost as though we live on different worlds."

"What happened to her bangs?" Amanda asked with apparent irrelevance.

"She let them grow out. What does that have to do with--"

"Why do you think she parts her hair on the side now? Have you noticed how she smooths it behind her ears with both hands? Who else does that?"

"Jill does."

"Who," Amanda asked, giving a perfect imitation of Who, "Else?"

Remembering, Sarah smiled a little sheepishly and mentally took a deep breath as she joined T'Ara in the study where the child was supposedly doing her homework. Instead, Prokofiev's Peter stalked the wolf there. T'Ara had suppressed the holo, but Peter's theme and the bird's danced on the air, the duck proclaiming mournfully the while that it was still alive inside the wolf. T'Ara turned her eyes to her mother, utterly mystified.

"I do not understand," she said hopelessly.

"It's a story told with music," Sarah explained, sitting down next to her. Vulcans had no "program music." Music was music, and stories were stories. "Each of the characters has a theme of its own. This is Peter's theme."

"I have listened to the documentation," T'Ara informed her gravely. "But I do not understand what a hunter is. What is the purpose of the weapons they carry?"

Peter's lovely, lilting theme went on as Sarah met the child's gaze in silence. If you can answer Jill's, you can answer hers, she thought. "The purpose is to kill animals. It's a sport. Recreation. People do it for fun."

She watched the child control; the process was almost visible.

"It was my understanding that this story was written for children," T'Ara said expressionlessly.

"It was." The deep breath that Sarah took now was not mental. "Your Vulcan ancestors gave up their barbaric ways centuries ago, T'Ara. Your human ancestors are a little bit behind on that."

"It is on that world that you wish us to live for six Standard months?"

"Little one, we'll be living in a city. Like ShiKahr. Well, San Francisco isn't very much like ShiKahr. It's a lot bigger, and people live much closer together there. I showed you the picture of the place where we'll be living."

"Indeed." And Sarah was reminded of T'Loreth's expression when she said Homes? "Are there hunters in San Francisco?"

"Of course not. People have pets, though. Chris and Mary have a dog, and Robbie and Stevie love him just like you love I-Chaya." Everything so almost-true....

"Logic suggests," T'Ara's calm little voice informed her, "that you have chosen to return to your world at this time rather than remain on Vulcan and bear my father another child."

After a long moment, Sarah reached over and turned off the tape without shifting her gaze from T'Ara's. "I find your logic obscene." Her tone precisely duplicated the child's, and she took fleeting pleasure in the fact that T'Ara's eyes widened even as her eyebrows rose. "On what premise do you base your conclusion?"

Again she drew momentary satisfaction from the child's brief hesitation.

"It is not logical for you to travel to Earth if you intend--"

"That's not a premise. That's an assumption." T'Ara dropped her gaze. "It doesn't take six months to have a baby, T'Ara. It takes nine. I suggest you remember your basic arithmetic and your basic biology before you try to play logic games with me. And I also suggest that you remember that intellectual and moral superiority do not constitute a license for arrogance."

Another long moment of silence passed before T'Ara said softly, "I ask forgiveness."

"And so do I." Sarah paused for a moment, and the went on when she was sure she could keep her voice steady. "I was treating you like a baby, talking to you as though you were half your age. Each of us deserves better than this from the other. I'm going to Earth for six months because I've made a commitment to do that, and I'm going to take you with me because you need me more right now than you ever have before." Just a few more seconds. If I can just.... "I love you very much, and I know you love me even though you can't tell me or show me that you do. That gives us a choice, starting tonight. We can do this separately, as though we were strangers traveling side-by-side. Or we can do it together, as we've never really done anything before. Will you try?"

"Yes."

"I accept your gift of self." But when T'Ara looked up, her green eyes wide and faintly misty, Sarah raised her hand. "No. No obligations. Just try." Laying her hand on the child's shoulder, she leaned over and kissed her forehead. "Good night, little one. I'm going for a walk. I'll see you in the morning." 
 
 
 

I hate this place.

She sat on the steps, in the purple darkness and the desert night chill, wishing that she had brought a shawl. T'Sal stared facelessly back at her, her cactus-round head erect and unmoving. In one part of her mind, Sarah knew that she could probably find a measure of peace if she coaxed T'Sal to sing to her. But like many a human in the throes of pointless rage, she did not want to find peace, and perversely avoided it. Instead, she turned to look up at the house, now darkened except for a light in Sarek's study.

"You did this," she whispered, knowing even as she said the words that that they were only partially true. "She's a self-righteous little prig, and it's your doing! 'Logic suggests.' Oh, damn, damn, damn! It would have served you both right if I'd slapped her mouth." But it was useless. Even as she said the words, she could feel her rage abating. Painfully, she made a small sound between a laugh and a sob. Not Sarek's doing. No indeed. With a smartass for a mother and another for a father, T'Ara could hardly have escaped her destiny.

Her companion chimed a small two-syllable chime, and Sarah thought it sounded like Indeed.

"Shut up, T'Sal." Sighing, she rose. "I wish you infinite fertility, and may all your offspring have to have the last word." Silence. "And all their fathers too." T'Sal gave a faint clink. "Tell me about it," Sarah said wryly, and walked on down the hill, not really knowing where she was going.

I hate this place. The words rang in her mind, and she wondered if, at bottom, they were true. Her years on Vulcan seemed to stand on end in her mind rather than stretching backwards--a tall, emotionless barrier between her and her past life on Earth. That was real tonight as it had not been for a long time; it was the Earth years that stretched backwards beyond the barrier, beckoning her toward a nostalgia that she had not felt for a long time. Beyond the barrier of logic and control and light years, Chris and Mary waited with their children to welcome Sarah Halsted and her children home.

Nice sentiment, she thought wryly, quickening her pace as she passed the greenhouse and the wall at the foot of the garden. This was home. She knew it in her heart, and in her soul. Exactly when it had happened she did not know, but only that between them Amanda and T'Loreth had made their world home for her, sharing selflessly the part of themselves she most needed from each. Had it not been for them, she knew that with Spock gone most of the time, she could not have borne the prolonged isolation from her own race.

This is my home. She had said it years ago to Chris's alternate, speaking only of the house in which she and her children lived. But it had long since become equally true for the red planet on which that house stood. And yet, she silently rejoiced that T'Ara would soon come to know Earth, if only for a short time. Jill had been gone for two years, and yet Sarah knew that she and her older daughter were closer than they had ever been--because Jill had been on Earth all that time. If two years could do that for a relationship when the people involved were not even together, then surely six months together on Earth would help her and T'Ara to come to terms with their own relationship. 

She knew now where she was going, and why. That afternoon, she had delivered a baby for the first time since she had become the head of her department. The experience had given her great joy, and although the child was in excellent health, she decided to check on him now. She needed the walk, and besides.... For the first time since her argument with T'Ara, she smiled to herself. And besides, Zoe would be good company this evening.

Her steps slowed as she passed the Concourse of Evolution, now deserted as it had been the night she and Jim visited there so many years ago.

For several days, her link with Spock had been almost nonexistent--not her doing, but his. She had begun to think of it as 'backing off', and in one sense she was relieved that he had done it, since it enabled both of them to function more efficiently. At the time, he had communicated to her almost verbally that the Enterprise was engaged in some operation that required considerable left-brain activity on his part--some sort of precision measurement, she was sure, although she had not the slightest idea what he was measuring. Linked to her in his present state, he was incapable of performing his part in the procedure. Their link was like a subliminal tease; she now woke several times each night bathed in sweat, and took care not to doze when she rested in the afternoon. But there had been no real communication between them for several days, and she needed none. His tension and discomfort were still bearable, and he knew she was there for him if he needed her. As for when he would arrive, she hoped it would be later rather than sooner. The closer he was to giving in to his biological destiny, the less tension they both would have to endure before he did.

She walked on past the concourse, thinking again that Zoe would be just what she needed after her confrontation with T'Ara.

"You surprise me, Halsted. I thought you cerebral types all had sweet, well-adjusted little geniuses who speedread at two and pee right in the pot from six months on."

Resting her forearms on the edge of a neonate isolette, Sarah grinned. "Keller, I cannot wait until you get yours."

"Almost a year to go. Or so I...infer." Zoe shrugged, her expert eyes running over her domain. She had red curls, freckles, and a new Vulcan/human husband who seemed as tolerant of her irreverence as Sarek was of Amanda's mischievousness. She ran the neonatal nursery with one hand, as it were, and a daycare center for the infant children of staff with the other. The right hand always knew exactly what the left hand was doing, and vice-versa. Among her many talents, Zoe was an extremely sensitive telepath, and she could monitor several dozen infants simultaneously with no strain at all. Now she nodded toward the isolette. "You stuck on this kid, or what? This afternoon, I thought he might be in trouble the way you hung around after they brought him in."

"I guess I am, a little. I haven't delivered a boy in months." Still leaning lightly on the isolette, Sarah turned her gaze once more to the baby who lay asleep within it. Pixie. Changeling. It must be because of the Time, she thought. Her answer to Jill's question that afternoon had been as true for her as she knew it was for Spock. Yet this boychild engendered in her an emotion that she had never felt before. It was as though she flew back through the years on Amanda's memories as she had once, but further this time....

"Well," Zoe continued, pulling Sarah's thoughts back to their conversation, "I'm betting on T'Ara. She was a class act even when I had her in daycare."

"She was incorrigible. They all are at that age."

"Yeah. But there was something going on all the time. In her head. It was in the eyes, mostly. I don't know how to expl...Hey, are you feeling all right?" Zoe turned her head to look in the direction that Sarah was staring.

It was inconceivable to her that he could be this close without her knowing it. And looking so calm. As he moved toward her, he smiled a little and tilted his head slightly to one side, and it was almost as though he had never been gone. Except that the last time she had seen him, before he went to the desert, there had been no fire in him....

Zoe was in trouble.

Although bonded and married to a Vulcan/human hybrid, she had never experienced pon farr. And she now stood physically between them, a highly sensitive but minimally trained telepath in the direct line of fire. Literally. Apart, they had been able to reduce the contact to its lowest common denominator. But now, in the same room, there was nothing they could do to spare one another, or Zoe.

Sarah understood immediately that Spock could have had no way of anticipating this situation. An unbonded human observer, even a telepath, would have perceived nothing. A bonded Vulcan would have shielded instantly as soon as he or she perceived Spock's condition, and most human wives of Vulcan males would have done the same almost as quickly. But that response was born either of Vulcan training or of the human woman's experience with the phenomenon. Zoe had had no experience with it and no warning, and although she was not sexually aroused by the contact, she was shaken to the depths of her soul. Sarah perceived panic, dread, and even worse, self-doubt: This? Me? It was as though a virgin whose knowledge came from books had, on the eve of her wedding, abruptly witnessed rape. 

Click on the right arrow below to go to Part 2 of "FULL CIRCLE: Vulcan"