FULL CIRCLE: Earth

Part 2 of 3

He turned away and began to walk again, but slowly, head down. She moved to fall into step, and they walked on. Finally he said, "I wish I couldn't remember him at all. He was...tense. Stiff. Military. You know what 'Herbert' means?"

"I've heard it."

"Everything I did irritated the hell out of him, and the madder he got the worse I acted. I don't know why. It just happened. Like a bad dream."

"That was then."

He glanced at her, alerted, confused. "You ever give him a hard time?"

"Once." Remembering Mister Sunshine, she tried not to smile. "He did fine."

He almost stopped walking again. "You're proud of him."

"He's special."

David sighed and shook his head. He wasn't even angry anymore. Not even interested enough to be angry.

Unreal. This was like a dream. Like they weren't both talking about the same man.

They had come to her stop, and she could hear a cable car grinding up the hill, still out of sight.

"You said your mother's married now. Do y-- does she have any other children?"

"I have a little sister." This time she really smiled.

"I'm glad." Moving slowly so that he would not scare her again, he put his hands on her shoulders. "A little sister would be nice to have."

"You could."

"It's too late." The wistful gentleness in his voice almost made her want to cry again. "We'll be leaving for Spacelab in less than a week."

As the cable car ground to a stop, she leaned her forehead briefly against his chin, and his hands tightened on her shoulders--the same hands that had shaken her so hard that her neck still hurt. Looking back from the window, she saw him wave, turn, and begin to walk away. She turned from the window and sat staring straight ahead, not moving until it came time to get off.

It had taken Mother only a of couple hours to find out where she'd been, and with whom. It wasn't that she pressed. She just made you want to tell her somehow. And there was the neck business. It was stiff and it hurt, and Mother had said she couldn't treat it unless she knew what kind of injury it was.

Whiplash, Mother called it.

After T'Ara was in bed, they talked about it.

"Do you think I should tell J.T.?"

"Not about your neck," her mother said firmly. "What do you think David would do if your father went to see him?"

Mother didn't look so good, even lying on the couch with her shawl around her. But she was still "just tired" and "just getting used to the new job." And there was no one to tell about it. No Amanda. No T'Loreth. No Spock--not for another two weeks.

"Jill?"

"Sorry. I was thinking."

"You think he might get violent with Jim too?"

"Mother, he didn't mean to hurt me. This is tearing him to pieces. One minute he hates J.T. for not being there for him, and the next minute he wants him there so bad you can feel him hurting."

"You didn't answer my question. Do you think he'd try to harm Jim physically?"

After a moment, Jill whispered, "He might. I told you--he hates him."

"But?"

"He doesn't know about the 'but.'"

"I see." Her mother leaned her head back against the couch, closed her eyes, and sighed, and for a moment it seemed that she would not go on. Then, with her eyes still closed: "I just don't know what to tell you, Jill. I wish I did. If only they could get some time together, to really get to know each other...." Her voice was shaking. "There's never enough time."

"Not while they're following such different stars." Jill stood up, rubbed her neck and straightened her shoulders. "Mother, you should be in bed too. How 'bout letting me tuck you in?"

She got a little argument on that. But not as much as she had expected.

April was not the cruelest month after all, Sarah decided. November had to have that honor.

Rain. Day after day. Rain and fog. And cold. It made you want to stay inside and crawl in bed. At least there you could get warm for a little while.

Chris had noticed she was tired all the time. But he hadn't said anything. He thought she was doing regular self-scans. Any physician would have thought that.

What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

If I can just hold out. She found herself thinking it over and over as she drifted through her days. If I can just hold out until Spock gets here. What difference would it make? And yet she kept thinking it. Three weeks more. Then two weeks. Now one. Just one more week.

Jill came home promptly on Saturday morning, her neck flexible and without pain.

Little punk. Who the hell did he think he-- Good question. Very good question. Why didn't she ever tell him why? And deep within, the answer whispered: She wanted him all to herself. You remember.

On Saturday morning the sun came out, and Sarah decided to update some of her case histories. She was further behind than she had realized, she felt reasonably well for once, and Jill and T'Kama and some of their friends were going to Golden Gate Park for a picnic. Motley crew, Sarah thought, smiling fondly. All five from different races, different worlds. Where but at PREPDIV?

She was already working at the computer in her room when she heard Jill leave the breakfast table and go into the small study where the vidphone was. Funny. She usually looked forward to having breakfast alone with T'Ara on weekends. Since their mother didn't eat breakfast these days, it was a good time for them to talk.

She heard Jill call T'Kama and beg off from the picnic. "It's personal. No, that's okay. It's okay." She sounded impatient, a little upset. "Friends can ask, remember? I'll talk to you when I get back tomorrow night." Then another call, and Sarah remembered that Jill had said that Jim was going to be shuttled in from Starbase One for a one-day meeting. Not long enough to spend time with her, but that was okay. In a week he would be there for good.

Just one more week.

Jill was standing in the doorway. Lounging. Hands in her pockets. Why didn't she cycle another set of sweats? Did all fourteen-year-olds have to look like that?

"J.T. wants to talk to you." Grumpy.

"Why?"

Jill shrugged, and Sarah bit her lip, rose, and went into the study.

The 'phone screen showed her a desk, presumably Jim's at the Academy. The admiral was not in view, having stepped out of range, she supposed. Can't wait half a minute? Thanks a lot. She sat down at the console, folded her hands, and tried to compose herself.

When he came back in view, she was momentarily disconcerted. Jill had told her that the new uniforms--the Big Change for which the dust covers had been prematurely trashed--was being phased in at HQ, although crews and cadets were still on interim dress code. But Sarah had been completely unprepared for the extent of that change. Becoming, though. At least to Jim. Immediately she began to picture Spock in the new uniform, her irritation submerged in imagination as the admiral glanced up once and then began to paw through the papers on his desk as though he wasn't all that sure he wanted to talk to her either.

Distraught. Coming back to reality with some effort, she decided that if she had to describe him in one word, that would be it. The man on the screen wanted most intensely to be somewhere else. Anywhere else. Didn't matter where.

Without looking up, he asked abruptly, "What the hell does she want to do this for anyway?"

Sarah ran her fingers across her forehead. "If you would be so kind," she said carefully, "as to tell me what the hellit is that she wants to do, maybe I could answer your question. Admiral."

Her hand still half covering her face, she waited. But he did not answer. Finally she dropped her hand and looked again at the screen.

He was looking directly at her now, and she was peripherally impressed with the elegant red-mahagany monolithic effect created by the uniform and his coloring. They continued to stare at one another in silence for another moment, and then he spoke in an entirely different tone.

"Are you sick?"

"No." She sighed and shook her head. "Just tired. Jim, what is this all about?"

He continued to gaze at her intently for a moment longer, and then answered almost absently, "She wants to take Raven out."

"Alone?"

"No. She wants to take T'Ara with her."

Sarah closed her eyes briefly and then opened them again, half hoping that he would be gone. He was still there. "Would you let her take it out alone?"

"Sarah, I drilled her until she was ready to jump out of her skin, and then I drilled her until she was cool again. She knows as much about that boat as I do."

Her mouth and throat felt dry, and she swallowed. "T'Ara hasn't been drilled."

With a small shock, she watched him shrug and grin a little. "Tell her something once and she'll remember it forever. Kinesthetic images and all."

"How can you know that?"

Deadpan. Eyebrows up. The imitation of Spock was perfect.

She laughed.

"That's better." Still smiling a little, he again regarded her intently.

Best put a stop to that. "Let me talk to Jill." She rose and began to turn away from the screen.

"Sarah?" Slowly, reluctantly, she turned back. "Go see a doctor, Doctor. That's an order." Smiling. But he meant it.

"I'm all right." He did not answer, simply looked at her, and she frowned, remembering. "When do you go back?"

He rolled his eyes briefly upward and sighed. "Tomorrow morning. Sooner, if possible. Right now if it were up to me."

"I...suppose you'll be telling tales when you get there?"

"Hundred percent probability. Unless...." Damn the man. You knew it when he was going to win even before he told you how. "Tell you what. You promise to have a complete checkup first thing Monday morning and my lips are sealed. Deal?" She did not answer. "Do we have a deal, Sarah?" Not smiling now.

"All right. Wait while I talk to Jill?"

He gave her a wry, sketchy salute, and she left the room smiling again in spite of herself.

"Nothing seems right to her here, and she's so cold all the time. Even when she's not outside. Since I had to tell her about the DCV, just about all she thinks about is home."

"DCV?"

"The Dog Control Vigilantes--you remember. She was going to tell Cal to try and get free, and I had to tell her so she wouldn't do it."

After a moment, Sarah said, "I'd forgotten about the DCV. What else?"

"Well, she feels like the building is tipping on the cushion, and she's got this thing about the fog. It's a whale, like in Pinocchio, and she's inside-- oh, Mother! She knows it's a fantasy."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. I don't think you know how strong she is. Besides, it's not logical."

"What about this thing with the boat?"

"She's used to being in something that flies, and we don't have to go that high. I thought I'd take her up the Columbia River and maybe climb Beacon Rock with her. It's a natural monolith, but there are trails. J.T. and I used to go up there all the time when he was here. It's beautiful, especially on a day like this. She needs to be away from here for a day. Please?"

"Jill--" How could she say it?

"I wouldn't take chances with her, Mother. That was just me, and I didn't understand about stopping myself." More eagerness than hurt. She wanted this so badly that she could hardly bear the thought of a no.

"Of course you wouldn't. I'm sorry."

"What did J.T. say about Raven?"

"He says you're fully...qualified?"

"Rated? He did?"

"Yes," Sarah said quietly, resigned. "He did."

She had thought that she would not even be able to sit still while they were gone. Instead, she lay on the couch, covered with her shawl, and fell almost instantly into a restless sleep that went on all afternoon, rolling and pitching like a sailboat. Fragmentary dreams pursued her to the accompaniment of Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead. Then, at sunset, one dream that was not fragmentary.

She stood looking down into a neonate isolette which was, for some obscure reason, lined in red satin and barely large enough to hold its contents. The baby she had delivered the day Spock returned lay there. Curled up. Naked. Dying.

"Is he in trouble yet?" Zoe's voice asked, disembodied.

And she answered, "I can save him. It's only a week more." And looked up into Zoe's sad, mocking eyes.

"Surely you jest...."

She woke, sat up slowly, and pulled the shawl around her shoulders, glad that it was as big as it was. Two meters each way, and yet when you crushed the filmy thing into a ball, you could almost hold it in your hand....

The baby was still all right. She knew it without question. But she was not. And without her, he too would be lost.

For the first time in weeks, she took her scanner and performed the examination that should have been a weekly ritual. When she had finished, she sat in the dark without moving until her daughters returned.

"Mother?" Jill stood in the living room doorway. T'Ara continued on to her bedroom. "Why don't you have any lights on?"

"What happened? What's the matter with T'Ara?"

"She's all right now. I think. Can I turn on a light?"

Sarah waved on a table lamp. "What happened to her, Jill?"

Jill crossed the room and sat down next to her, subdued and frowning. "She's okay. It's my fault. I should have known, but I didn't think--"

"Will you please--"

"I forgot about the fish ladders."

"Fish...what?"

"Ladders. On the Bonneville Dam. The salmon have to get upstream to spawn, and the dam blocks them. The fish ladders give them a fighting chance, but--a lot of them don't make it."

"You let her watch that?"

"I didn't think! I'm not a Vulcan! She even--she was fascinated until--until she figured out what was happening to them. Why, I mean." Jill bowed her head, and Sarah began to stroke her hair gently, automatically. "I made her get back in the boat and we took off and started back. Then I looked at her and she was crying. Just tears. She didn't make a sound."

She cried? She never cries. "She didn't say anything?"

"After a while she said, 'They are suffering so. They cannot reach the appointed place. Why do men do this?'"

"Stay here. No--Jill, stay here. I'll be right back."

T'Ara was in bed, the covers up to her chin, her eyes wide open. The fog had come in with the night, and the windows were black. Blank. A small light shone near the head of the bed. Sarah sat down and laid her hand against the child's cheek. It felt like iced silk.

"We're going home, little one." She had no idea how she would do what she was promising to do. At the moment, she doubted that she could make it down to the lobby. But she would get her child off this planet or die trying. "We can be on a space liner by the middle of next week." And I won't be here when.... But even that seemed unimportant now. At the very least, T'Ara's emotional balance was at stake. At the most, perhaps her sanity.

The child turned on her stomach and wordlessly laid her head in her mother's lap. They sat in silence for some time, Sarah's hand still against T'Ara's cheek. It felt warmer now. It was Sarah who was shivering.

"You must get warm," T'Ara said finally. She sat up, her face drained, pale, relaxed, free of strain. "Jill and I will tuck you in." Taking her mother's hand, she got out of bed and padded the toward the door.

It did not occur to Sarah to argue with her.

Chris Jones was thinking about jelly beans.

When he and Sarah were children, they had often played doctor, although not in the legendary sense. His mother had six children and, unlike most of her peers, was not employed outside her home. She knew a great deal about small children, had wonderful eyesight, and was even more wonderful at doing what she called protecting her kids from their own innocence. When Chris and Sarah played doctor, it was the real thing.

"You're really sick," Sarah would say. "You have tubbercolossus."

"What's that?"

"It's a dread disease. It says so on the tapes." And then she would explain, at length, how the dread disease under discussion would be treated, and proceed to treat it.

His turn to show his knowledge of the obsolete: "You have cancer of the pan...pan...."

"Pancreas."

"Yeah, that," he agreed. "That means you're gonna die."

"No," she had insisted firmly. "I'm not."

"Sure you are. It was almost always fatal."

"You're just saying that because Sunday is Easter."

"Huh?"

"You just want to get all the jelly beans," Sarah had said smugly. "You can con Alex and Patty out of theirs, but you can't con me."

All true.

Now, on this November Monday morning, he thought about jelly beans and sat down slowly opposite Sarah in the lounge area of his office. The results of her tests were still on the screen behind his desk. They had both looked at them in silence before Sarah had turned and walked to the chair nearest the window, sat down there with her feet tucked under her, and turned to look out at the Bay. It was another lovely day, like Saturday. He knew that the Bay was sparkling in the sunlight. But he did not look out at it. The brightness would hurt his eyes, and they were already smarting with unshed tears.

"How long has it been since you did a self-scan?" he asked.

"Before Saturday? I don't remember."

"Why have you done this to yourself?" He realized that he was whispering, and cleared his throat.

"I don't think I want to tell you."

"Tell me anyway."

Silence. Then: "I was afraid to find out what's wrong with me."

"My God, Sarah!"

"I know. I never understood it either. Until now." Softly: "I don't know how to do this."

"How to do what?"

"Be sick. I never had the easy stuff to practice on." After a moment: "It would be nice if I had cancer of the pancreas."

Chris pressed his fingers briefly against his closed eyes. "Would that you did."

"Yes."

"Were you and T'Loreth aware of the leakage of antigens during your second pregnancy?"

"That's really reaching, Doctor."

"Do you have a better hypothesis, Doctor?" Silence. "You weren't aware of it, then."

"No. If I were all human...." Her voice drifted off and then came back strong. "We did the best we could to monitor everything. But even Vulcans have limits. I seem to be...unique in the universe since my grandmother's planet was destroyed. But we don't know that my second pregnancy caused the formation of this antibody. We don't know if it is an antibody."

"The fetus is defending itself against something. Something we can't see, much less identify. The phenomenon is not human. It's not Vulcan. It's not caused by male fetal hormones, but nothing like this happened when you carried Jill or T'Ara. I think we have to start with the assumption that the situation is analogous to the old Rh-negative problem taken one step further. You're producing antibodies, but the fetus is defending and you're the one that's at risk. Jill's father's race isn't different enough from your grandmother's for you to have been exposed to enough alien antigens to trigger antibody formation during your first pregnancy. But T'Ara's father is half Vulcan. And this is the second time around for the two of you."

"I could have a virus."

"You said yourself that you've never been sick. Your father was never sick either, was he? Your grandmother?" She shook her head to both. "He died in an aircar accident. She died from a fall off a thoroughbred jumper. At age 82. Hardy stock, from all indications. Survivors. And now a highly efficient alien fetal defense system has been activated by something, and you're being poisoned as we sit here talking about it. If you want another analogy, try HCL."

"I'm not in pain," she said firmly. Chris simply looked at her. "Yet," she said finally.

"You saw the organ damage with your own scan. And you saw the source of it here." Chris gestured toward the screen behind his desk.

"At least he's not affected."

"Not yet. But he can't survive without you. Not at twelve and a half weeks. There are too many unknowns."

"In another month, he might."

"You don't have another month. We can't transfuse you. We can't give you an artificial liver or an artificial kidney designed for a human because you'd reject it in hours. The only possible kidney donor is Jill--"

"No!"

"I agree. I agree. If it would solve the problem permanently, I might argue with you. But in another month or two, you'd be right back where you are now. The only solution is to repair the damage as soon as possible with regeneration therapy." Chris stopped, silently drew in his breath, silently held it.

"That would kill him. Or...worse. Even if we used a Vulcan drug. He's not all anything. Or even half anything."

"That's true, of course. But that's not the usual protocol in these cases." And he held his breath again.

"Vulcans do not terminate pregnancies, Doctor."

In despair, he exhaled. "Sarah, you'll be dead in less than a month. As long as you carry the fetus--"

She turned in her chair, eyes blazing. "Stop calling him that!"

"For God's sake, you're a physician!"

"Thank you for reminding me," she said with exaggerated politeness. "I'll try to remember."

"Look, you're carrying this Vulcan wife thing beyond--beyond logic." He smiled hopefully, but she did not. "That stuff went out here on Earth a couple centuries ago. Women wouldn't put up with it. You have to make him understand that you don't need his permission to make decisions, just like you did when you brought T'Ara here. You won that one, didn't you?"

"Yes," she said softly, bitterly. "Indeed I did."

"Well," he said lightly, "as long as he doesn't know that was what it was about, you've made a good first step. Now--"

"Oh...." She sighed, and for the first time he saw the ghost of a smile. "I'm sure he knows. I calculate the probabilities at 99.99 percent that that's why he didn't try to stop me."

"What?"

"I can't explain it, Chris. If I tried, you wouldn't believe me."

"Know what? I think you're right." This time he almost got a real smile in answer to his. "So he let you get away with it that time, for whatever reason. But that doesn't change the fact that you have a lot of catching up to do. If you'd stood up to him before, in little ways, something like this wouldn't be so catastrophic. You just have to show him little by little that things like your leaving Vulcan for a while aren't a matter of life and death." Her eyes narrowed slightly, and he went on quickly before she could interrupt him. "Your coming here yourself was a step in the right direction." Teasingly: "After all, he knows how to find Earth if he really needs to see you."

She simply stared at him. Then, finally, almost in a whisper: "His ancestors didn't."

"Didn't what?"

"Know how to find Earth," she said softly. "Where I'd just told him I was going." Her gaze drifted from his, as though she were looking at some internal image. For the first time, he wondered if she could be more ill than either of them realized, possibly even delirious. "But I showed him where I was right then. And he found me." Again almost whispering: "That's what he was trying to prove. It was the dam scene one-on-one."

"You're talking in riddles," Chris said uneasily. Then, when she looked directly at him and he realized that she was indeed rational, he tried to hold back the anger that flooded him. "And I think you're doing it deliberately. What the hell does your coming here have to do with his ancestors? Correct me if I'm wrong, but your husband is a command-line officer on one of the most sophisticated spaceships ever built. You've given me the impression that the man is extremely well educated and highly intelligent--."

"He's not a 'man'! He's only half human!"

All that she had said in the last minute or so seemed to come together in one sickening thud. "Did he abuse you in some way?"

"Oh, Chris! Talk about human linear thinking. No. I abused him. Six years ago. With one"--she made a swift upward slicing motion with her hand--"brilliant masterstroke, I betrayed his trust, annihilated his control, and made him despise his humanity when that was only the means. And not five minutes before that, I convinced every Vulcan instinct in him that I'd let him die alone."

"All right. Fine. Whatever it was, it was all your fault. Same old Sarah. If I accept that, can we talk about now instead of then? This--problem that you had with him has nothing whatever to do with the fact that you need an abortion now. Today."

"It has everything to do with it. If I end his son's life before it begins, he'll know he can never trust me again."

"But you'd be alive!"

"And what's your definition of alive?"

"For God's sake--"

"This has nothing to do with God and you know it."

As the conversation became more intense, they had both leaned forward in their chairs. Now their gaze held for a moment in silence, and then Chris said quietly, "It doesn't have much to do with Vulcan ethics either."

"Not much."

Chris stared, at once fascinated and horrified. "What has this man ever done to be loved like that? All right!" He put up his hand as she began to speak, and she fell silent. He lowered his hand slowly. "All right. So he's not a 'man.' But if he really is half human, maybe this is the time for him to remember it."

After a moment, Sarah lowered her eyes and looked away.

And Chris thought, She's going to die. And I can't stop her. The tears came to his eyes once more, and he went down on one knee beside her and put both arms around her. "I'm going to have to find you another physician."

She held him gently, just as she always had. "Chris, you're not in love with me."

"I know. But--I can remember a time before Chris-and-Mary, but I can't remember much before Chris-and-Sarah. Can you?"

"I can't go home until the baby is born. But you can." Watching T'Ara's eyes, Sarah dreaded the fear and disappointment she was sure she would see there. She saw nothing. Controlling. "There are complications. That's why I've been so tired lately. So I can't travel. But I promised you that I'd see that you got home. Back to your grandfather. And I will."

"Do you want me to go without you?"

"No," Sarah said carefully. "I don't. But it won't be that long, little one."

"Will you have to go to the hospital soon?"

"I hope not. Chris--well, he seems to think that it would be a good idea, just to be on the safe side. But I'd rather stay here and hire a nurse. Jill will be with me on weekends."

Now, for the first time, an emotion. Excitement. Intense excitement. Almost joy.

"I can take care of you," T'Ara whispered.

"T'Ara, don't you want to go home?"

"Yes. But it won't be that long. You just said that." Always something going on behind those eyes. Was it Zoe...? "You could be my teacher, and--and--" Utter joy. "I could make you tea and tell you stories. It is logical, Mother. We could play hooky together until it is time to go home."

And it came to Sarah in a rush that until this moment, there had been nothing for this frightened child to do on this world but be a frightened child, light-years lost. Protected. Cherished. Loved. Useless. Even to herself.

"Yes," her mother said softly. "That would be the logical thing to do."

"Go see her," Chris had said. "Talk some sense into her. She always did listen to you more than she did to me. Please, honey. She won't last a month if somebody doesn't get through to her."

And so Mary had gone, reluctantly, not willing to tell Chris that sense was not what Sarah needed right now. How long had he said? Another five days until the Enterprise came home? But Chris saw the presence of Sarah's alien husband as a threat, not a promise of hope. Maybe he was right. And maybe.... Maybe he was just jealous.

"What I don't understand," she said when she and Sarah had talked around the problem for almost ten minutes, "is how you ever got pregnant on Tara. The GS had been programmed for Kiso and humans, right?"

"I reprogrammed it. I spent quite a bit of time doing it, but it was a scattershot operation." Sarah smiled faintly. "Maybe it was mind over matter."

"Fine. Except that would mean that you wanted to get pregnant with Jill."

Still the faint smile. "That thought has occurred to me." When Mary simply stared: "Consider the case carefully, Doctor. No preconceived notions? All right. Young, healthy professional woman wants to have baby. Enter Starfleet's finest. She doesn't plan to go out with him, but she does. She doesn't plan to sleep with him, but she does. When she turns up pregnant, it takes her all of three days to make up her mind: young, healthy professional woman wants to have baby. Do you detect a certain...circularity to that scenario?"

Blushing, Mary giggled nervously. "Sarah, that's obscene."

"Agreed. But when the CMO on the Enterprise asked me why I didn't use anything--"

"He asked you?"

"No, no. But he was concerned. Country doctor type. You'd like him. When the subject came up, I told him I never even thought about it, and I almost added, 'At least not consciously.' Stopped myself just in time. He would have had a field day with that one."

After a moment, Mary said softly, wryly, "Anatomy is destiny?"

Grinning, Sarah stuck her feet out from under her shawl. They were bare.

How can we be laughing? Mary thought, wiping tears away. This woman is dying, and here we are....

When they were calm again, she asked, "Are you sure T'Ara can handle this--this playing nurse routine? A month ago you were treating her as though she were Robbie's age."

"Yes. I'm sure." Again, Sarah smiled a little. Every time she had mentioned T'Ara this evening, she had smiled. "What she has in mind--it's just what the doctor ordered."

"What doctor?"

"This doctor."

"What about Chris?"

"I thought we were finished with Chris's prescription for the time being."

Mary gazed at her in silence for a moment. Then: "You've made up your mind."

"Yes."

"I can't talk you out of it."

"No."

"And what am I supposed to tell Chris?"

"What he already knows."

"Sarah--you don't know what this is doing to him. No, you don't." She looked down for a moment. They were sitting on the couch in Sarah's apartment, hand in hand. Best friends, she thought. Tell each other everything. Everything but the one thing that made all the difference. "He always did love you best." Funny. It didn't hurt as much to say it out loud as it had to think it alone all these years.

"Oh, Mary." But Sarah didn't argue.

"I know he's as much in love with me as I am with him. But...sometimes I wonder why I never wanted to fight how he feels about you."

"Don't ever want to do that."

Startled, Mary looked up. Sarah was looking at her with an almost feverish intensity. But she needn't worry. That lesson had been learned a long time ago. "Because I'd lose."

"No. Because you'd win."

Their gaze held, and then Mary shook her head slowly. What in the universe was the matter with her?

"Yes," Sarah said quietly, intently. "He's totally committed, so you'd win. But these bonds don't break clean. We have to twist and twist until they come out by the roots. What you'd 'win' wouldn't be Chris anymore."

"I guess I knew that. But--I can't help it. I want him to love me best."

After a moment, Sarah said softly, "I know."

"How can you possibly know?" In spite of her best intentions, Mary heard a hint of impatience in her own voice. Damn research. Lose your bedside manner before you knew it.

But Sarah didn't seem to notice. "I'm going to tell you something that you aren't going to believe at first. Will you try to take it on faith and think about it later?" Mary nodded. "The way Chris feels about me is part of the reason you love him. If he couldn't care that much about someone, you might not love him as much."

"I don't have to think about that, luv," Mary answered gently. "I've known that for years. But how do you know?"

"Let's just say I've given the subject some thought. From time to time." Suddenly spent, Sarah lay back against the cushions, what little color there had been in her face draining away. "Oh, Mary, I'm so tired."

Mary silently took her pulse. "You need to have somebody with you who knows the whole story. Are you going to tell your kids how serious this is?"

"Jill, maybe."

"Not T'Ara?"

Sarah shook her head. "Jill can cry."

"What about your husband? Aren't you going to try to reach him?" Sarah opened her eyes and stared, almost uncomprehendingly. "Is the Enterprise the fastest way in?"

"No. They have long-range shuttles that are much smaller and faster. Jim--Jill's father took one back...yesterday morning. Was yesterday Sunday?"

"Couldn't Spock catch it on the way back?" Again Sarah simply stared. Not quite tracking. Better get home and tell Chris. "Sarah, don't you want him with you?"

"Yes." Sarah covered her face with her hands. "Yes, yes, yes."

"Don't cry. Chris--somebody can help you get in touch with Starfleet."

"I don't have to get in touch with Starfleet."

Not quite tracking. Get her to bed, and then get home and tell Chris.

T'Ara had awakened to find someone at the door of her bedroom, looking in. It was Mary. She could tell without opening her eyes. Then Mary went away again, and T'Ara heard her leave the apartment.

She controlled her resentment at having been awakened by the presence of someone unfamiliar. It was difficult to get to sleep when the fog was all around the building, obscuring the windows. She had finally accomplished it, and then Mary had awakened her by attempting to discover if she was asleep. Totally illogical, and precisely what she would have expected of Mary.

She got up and moved silently to the door of her mother's bedroom. Mother was asleep, and yet not asleep.

Mother was in a trance. Fascinating.

Mindful of her mother's privacy, T'Ara returned to her own bedroom and lay down. But she could not fall asleep again. Controlling her shivering, she went across the unsteady, tipping floor and retrieved the Hollowbox that Jill's father had sent her soon after they reached Earth. She would not release the holo tonight. But the note was in the box, and it would be interesting to read it again.

"When do you think Pinocchio became a real boy?" the writing asked her. "This isn't a trick question, T'Ara. I don't really know the answer myself, but I'm sure he was a real boy long before he thought he was. What do you think?"

She had intended to answer the note, but since she did not know the answer to the question, it did not seem logical to answer the note. But What do you think? was an interesting question. No one had ever asked her that question before.

Her time sense told her that it was after midnight when she again went to her mother's bedroom. Mother was asleep now. Reassured, thinking about making tea and telling stories, she was beginning to turn away when it came to her that Mother was dying inside, and that it would be precisely eighteen point five six Standard days until the process was complete.

Not even a healer could help her. If she were Vulcan.... But she was not Vulcan. And the small one fought most effectively to save himself.

Fighting death--to the death. Most illogical.

She returned to her room and crawled under the covers, trying to control. It was like clawing her way up stone. She thought about the red stone of home, and of Grandfather on the steps in the garden, proud that she had learned to control so well. She could remember that quite clearly. But she could not remember the Image.

She looked at the window. Black window. Blank window. She looked away.

There was no whale outside. The whale was in the Hollowbox.

Not logical. The Hollowbox was not large enough to hold that whale. Was it outside the box, then? Outside the building? If Pinocchio was not a real boy, what was he? If she forgot the Image, would she be a real anything? Would she disappear like the holo going back into the box? If she lay very still, perhaps she would not disappear inside the whale.

She lay very still for a long time, trying not to disappear. The wind rose, and the building tipped on the cushion. She thought about calling for Mother. But she had never done that, and Mother was asleep.

"Mother?" she said very softly.

Mother was the one who was going to disappear. In precisely eighteen point five six days, Standard.

She could not control the hurting. It was beyond control. But she could hold it down, she discovered. The method involved not thinking about it. But there were too many things she dared not think about. The whale, and the building tipping over, and Caliban being hunted in San Francisco, and the fish ladders, and the hurting inside because Mother was going to die. She could have managed all the others, but not this. If she were not very careful, the hurting would become the whale and eat her up.

She too would disappear unless she could remember the Image.

The admiral had barely had time to change into his old uniform when Spock came to his quarters to tell him what he knew and to make a request. What Spock knew was that his wife was dying. His request was for compassionate leave and a long shuttle ride.

What the admiral knew was that he had made a bad mistake.

"The shuttle's gone," he said, noting distractedly that he sounded curt rather than sympathetic. What's inside usually manages to show outside. Inside, he was shouting at himself. Why did I make a deal with her? If I hadn't been so busy hating my assignment, I'd have skipped the deal and kept the shuttle. "As soon as we signaled free, the Hood requested it. Starfleet business." Spock just looked at him. Three more days if they gave it all they had. Even with the shuttle, it would have taken almost two. "What's wrong with her?"

"I do not know." Controlling. Expressionless. Eyes opaque. "It was not a verbal communication. She tried to tell me, but I could not understand." A faint suggestion of utter hopelessness, quickly controlled.

"I see." Dear God, if he were human, I might be able to help him somehow. But no human could shut down all systems like this. Human. Kirk drew in his breath sharply. "Does Jill know?"

"I do not know," Spock repeated. "The communication was not verbal."

"She might sense it without being told." Kirk turned away and began to pace. Spock stood with his hands behind his back, immobile.

"Possibly. But she is human. A Vulcan would--" Spock ceased speaking abruptly, and Kirk turned on his heel to look at him. Spock stared back at him, his eyes no longer opaque. But not grieving. There was no pain there. Only fear, as he whispered his daughter's name. Not fear. Horror.

No wonder. Kirk thought of the green eyes searching his when he asked her if she feared Jill's humanity. Not Jill's. Hers. "Poor little kid," he said aloud. "She needs somebody to help her deal with this."

"She requires the Image," Spock said, barely above a whisper.

"What image?" Kirk moved slowly toward him. Spock did not answer. "This is a human child we're talking about. She needs support, comfort. If she could let go and cry it out--"

"That would destroy her now," Spock said softly. "She is a child in great pain. If she loses the Image, she loses her self."

Kirk felt helpless anger rising in him. "What would you do if you were there right now? Tell her to keep a stiff upper lip? I cannot believe--"

"What you believe is not relevant here, Jim." Still no discernible emotion, but urgent and intent. "Virtually every decision I have made since Tara has been based on human values. I will not--I cannot permit that to happen now."

"Including your decision to come back to the Enterprise," Kirk said tightly, and Spock nodded. "Twice." Another nod. "Why the hell did you permit that to happen if being human is such an unforgivable sin?"

No answer.

"When we were bound for Altair, mister, it was human values that kept you alive."

Hurt now. Even anger. "That too is irrelevant."

Nice going, Jim. You're outdoing yourself. "Of course it is. I'm sorry, Spock. But she doesn't need a father image now. She needs a father."

"I might have said the same to you six or seven years ago."

Then why the hell didn't you? But Kirk bit the words back. Not a cafeteria, Bones had said. Can't pick and choose. Especially not now. "Touche," he said quietly, and Spock looked away.

"Request permission to return to quarters, sir. I should like to initiate subspace communication with Earth."

"You could do that from here, my friend."

Spock looked directly at him for a moment, and now Kirk saw fear--the same fear that he had seen when Spock, empty and searching, had returned to the Enterprise and Jim Kirk had made the grave mistake of telling him that he needed him. And if I keep hacking away and finally break through his control, what do I have to give him instead? he thought. Unwanted advice about human values? Not much of a gift of self, that. "Granted," he said with a small sigh, and Spock turned away.

But as he neared the door, his steps slowed. Watching, Kirk saw him put both hands on the wall and simply sag, head hanging between his arms. As often as he had heard it said that we all reach our limits eventually, he had never seen those words so graphically illustrated. Without thinking, he moved quickly to lay his hand on Spock's shoulder from behind.

Spock turned his lowered head violently away from the comforting hand, and Kirk almost withdrew it. But he hesitated, obscurely convinced that what Spock seemed to want was not what he wanted at all. In the absence of speech, he knew, body language becomes even more significant. Spock had turned his face away from comfort, but he had not moved otherwise. The almost instinctive withdrawal from human contact that Kirk had seen a hundred times was simply not there this time.

An instant later, he knew that had he withdrawn his hand, he would have made one the worst mistakes of his life.

With his bent head still turned away, Spock reached across and grasped the hand on his shoulder so tightly that it hurt. Suppressing the need to wince, Kirk slowly released Spock's shoulder and turned his hand to grasp Spock's.

"Hang on." Laying his free hand on the other shoulder, he began to knead it gently. "I'm here, Spock. I'm here." The hand on his tightened, but somehow the pain that caused seemed very far away.

Eventually, Spock slowly loosened his fingers, gently brushing them across Kirk's before he dropped his hand to his side. He raised his head and straightened his shoulders, and Kirk said quietly, "Offer still open. Do you want to send that message from here?" Still mute, Spock nodded, and they moved together toward the admiral's private communications console.

Sarah opened her eyes, feeling that she had closed them only moments before. Yet the place where she lay was a place that she did not recognize.

Then, slowly, fighting panic, she began to recognize it. She was in a room in the H.O. unit at All Worlds. A monitor screen watched her; an autoscanner scanned her continuously. There was a vidphone on the table next to her bed, and a low light in the ceiling above her. It was too hot in the room, and the low light was too bright. How in the universe did they expect patients to sleep with lights shining in their faces?

The window showed her that it was night outside. A foggy night. The window was blank and black.

"Where is T'Ara?" she asked aloud.

There was no answer, but a small light at the bottom of the autoscanner went on. She waited. And while she waited, it came to her that she had been here much longer than she had at first thought.

The nurse came in quickly, airhypo in hand. "How are you feeling, dear?" she asked brightly.

"I don't think I've had the pleasure."

"Probably not. I work evenings." She took Sarah's pulse, and then prepared to administer the shot. Sarah sat up, the room revolving slowly, dizzily around her, and drew herself as far away from the airhypo as she could.

"What's that?"

"Now don't worry about it, dear. Doctor Noble--"

"Who the hell is Doctor Noble?" The nurse reached for her arm. "Get that thing away from me, dear. I mean it. I want to see Doctor Jones."

For the first time, the nurse looked her in the eye. "Doctor Jones is only a consultant on the case. Doctor Noble is the attending physician."

"There is no Doctor Noble on staff here. Is there Hot Milk in that?"

The nurse set her mouth. Hot Milk was a universal trade name for a mild tranquilizer that was safe for all known races. It was the only tranquilizer approved for trans-racially pregnant females. "I can't tell you that."

"Then maybe you better find somebody who can, dear. This case wants to know what's in her medication. Or is that too much to ask?"

"Sarah--"

Chris came toward her from the doorway with a man she had never seen before. He looked to be in his early sixties, with pale, thinning hair and pale, alert eyes. Friendly eyes.

Click on the right arrow below to go to Part 3 of "FULL CIRCLE 2: EARTH"