FULL CIRCLE: Tara

Part 1 of 2

Terror gripped her. Nobody at PREPDIV would call her in the middle of the night, and no one else knew where she was except Spock.

She got to the 'phone before it had chimed twice more, activated the screen, and almost sobbed with relief when she saw that it was J.T. Grinning.

"Start packing, mister," he said. "You're on this mission, and so am I."

"Wha--" She swallowed and tried again. But nothing would come except the same sound again.

"Wake up. Wake up." He snapped his fingers a couple of times, still grinning. "Spock's going to take your mother and T'Ara home, and I'm going to take the ship until he's free, and you're going on a cruise a little sooner than you thought you would."

"But--but--Gamma Group isn't scheduled until January. We just went to Lunaport." Gamma Group consisted of one class from the Academy and one from PREPDIV. All of their field training was done together, so that the maturity of the Academy cadets would 'enrich the experience' for the PREPDIV contingent. It was called TR--theoretical ruboff. Starfleet had few illusions in spite of the rhetorical excesses of official parlance.

"You want to stay here?"

"No!" She was waking up fast now. "How did you work it?"

"Don't ask. Just accept the fact that there may be one or two advantages to having your father in charge of the Academy."

"I mean, how did you work it for you?"

"Spock's on compassionate leave," he answered quietly, no longer smiling. "I--let's just say I talked fast. Very fast." He didn't look very happy with himself now.

"Well, it's logical." When he simply nodded, she went on, "She's awful sick, J.T. But she and T'Ara really want to go home. If everybody gets what they really want, what difference does it make if one sort of rides on the other?" Before he could answer, she continued, "When does Enterprise undock?"

"Oh nine hundred."

"Tomorrow?"

"Today, Jill." They smiled at each other. "Can you be ready?"

"I'm ready now." I've been ready for this for over two years. "Sir," she added, and wiped the smile.

"Sure that's the way you want it?" But he was still smiling a little. He'd always known she was right about this, even if he couldn't quite go along with it sometimes. Most of the time.

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Spock's coming to get T'Ara in"--he glanced at his chronometer--"three hours thirty nine minutes. Mark."

"Very good, sir."

He winked.

"Don't do that, J.T.!" But she couldn't help laughing, even though she meant it.

A little over four hours later, after she had stowed what little gear she had, she went to Sickbay on a double mission. The commander of Alpha Group knew that her mother was a passenger and that she was sick, and had given her an hour away from duty. She didn't like to take advantage of it, but there was something that she needed to do and something else that might be good for Mother to do.

Twice she had briefly been a passenger on the Enterprise, and once Dr. McCoy had gone on the boat with her and J.T. He'd had a good time, she knew. She also knew that he'd had a much better time watching her and her father together than he'd had in Vegas, where he'd lost what he called his shirt while both she and J.T. had done moderately well.

If she could get him to shape up, there might be some TR on J.T. And she sensed it would work better that way than the other way around.

He was working when she came in, frowning at whatever it was he was analyzing. Something to do with with Mother, probably.

"Good morning, Doctor McCoy."

He looked up and grinned. "Well," he drawled, and knowing what was coming next, she was ruefully grateful that she could get to the first part of her mission to Sickbay right away. "'Mornin', Mistah Halsted, honey. How y'been?"

It was hard to keep herself from grinning like she always had. But she managed it. "That's one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, sir."

"Oh?" He was still smiling, but she had his attention all right.

"You know I can take a teasing, but things are different this time. I'm in uniform now, sir, and somebody might hear you."

After a moment, he said, "You don't mince words, do you, young lady."

"This is important."

"I can see that."

"Will you talk to the admiral about it too, please, sir?"

"Why me?"

"I already have. He thinks he's trying, but he doesn't really take it seriously."

McCoy nodded slowly. "You mean he doesn't take you seriously."

"He thinks he does, sir. But I crack up easy. If he winks at me or something when he thinks nobody's looking, I might embarrass both of us."

"Um-hmm." The blue eyes studied her thoughtfully. "I'll do what I can, Mister Halsted. You said there was something else?"

"Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. It's about Mother. Is Spock still with her?"

McCoy frowned. "Not at the moment. He doesn't know how to be on leave on board the Enterprise, and I suppose I can't blame him. T'Ara's with her. He's on the bridge."

She felt a small shock of fear. "What will Starfleet think about J.--about Admiral Kirk being in command if Spock is on duty?"

"Can't close the horse after the barn door is out." Jill giggled then, and he said softly, "Ah. She can still smile."

"Yes, sir. It's just that--"

"I understand, Jill," he said gently. "What about your mother?"

"I think she'd really like to watch the undocking. There's a big screen in where she is, and there aren't any other patients in there." He was frowning again. "I really think she'd enjoy it, sir."

"She's exhausted."

"Is she asleep?"

"No." McCoy set his chin. "She's had a nutrient shot, but there was no Hot--no tranquilizer in it. Your mother thinks she's the doctor here, and Spock thinks he is. Once we get underway, the three of us are going to have to have a little talk about that."

"Yes, sir. But you didn't answer my question."

"You didn't ask me a question," McCoy reminded her grumpily. "You told me what you think she'd like to do in her spare time. So join the club. T'Ara thinks she'd like to have tea, and Spock thinks she'd like to play mind games, and you think she'd like to watch a vid. What is this--a damn hotel? I'm a doctor, not a bellhop."

"Tea? Mother never drinks tea."

"Wanna bet?" McCoy jerked his head toward the next room. "Be my guest, Mister Trainee. Sounds to me like your education is just beginning."

Mother was in a bed in a blue hospital gown, with lights going up and down on a panel above her head and an empty teacup on the bed stand. The bed didn't look very comfortable, but Jill knew that it was. When her class had toured the Academy, they had visited the infirmary, and she and several others had tried out the beds. They made you feel like nothing was touching you (nothing really was, but you couldn't tell that by looking) and still you felt secure and taken care of. She was glad about that. Mother needed to feel secure and taken care of right now, she knew.

Mother was propped up a little, and T'Ara was sort of curled up next to her. Mother seemed to be telling her the story about the stockings and the cookie dough. Jill had heard the story several times, but T'Ara apparently never had. She was fascinated, but frowning a little. She reminded Jill of Saavik watching the whodilla, and she felt a momentary regret that Saavik was not here with Alpha Group. She could not remember the Greek letter for Saavik's group, but it was a ways down the alphabet.

As Jill approached, her mother held out her hand, and Jill went to the other side of the bed. Mother looked awfully pale, and she wasn't talking very loud. But she looked like she was glad to be where she was.

"T'Ara and I are taking turns telling stories," she said, squeezing Jill's hand. "I've been thinking about when Chris and I were children, so I decided to tell her a story about it." The tears came to her eyes, and Jill squeezed her hand back. She didn't know all the details of her mother's leaving All Worlds. But one thing was sure. It hadn't been Chris's idea. What Dr. McCoy called "mind games" wasn't exactly Chris's line. "Are you all unpacked already?"

"I didn't have much to bring. It's only three weeks, and almost everything is cycled for us. Mother, would you like to watch the undocking?"

"On the screen?"

"Uh-huh. Look. I'll show you."

The screen in the room replicated the image on the main viewscreen on the bridge. But while they were still inside Spacedock, Jill was able to pick up the dockside visual scanners as well. Watching a ConClass undock was a thrill that Jill never got used to, and she wanted Mother and T'Ara to see the Enterprise do it. They both seemed fascinated, but when the ship went to full impulse and the screen showed Earth shooting away behind, Mother closed her eyes against tears. She seemed to cry pretty easily now. T'Ara touched her arm and Jill squeezed her hand again.

"It's all right," she said, squeezing back. "It's just that I miss...." She pressed her lips together.

"Chris and Mary?" T'Ara asked, trying to understand. Always trying to understand.

"No. I wish it were that, but it isn't. It's not logical, little one. Not at this moment anyway. But seeing a world just disappear like that.... Your grandmother warned me. I miss her. And T'Loreth. And Zoe. Do you remember Zoe?"

"She told us that her hair is red," T'Ara answered immediately. "But it is not red. It is 65.46 percent brown and 31.86 percent yellow and 2.68 percent rinse." T'Ara waited politely until her mother and Jill were almost through laughing, and then answered their question before they asked it. "She told us about the rinse."

"All two point eight six percent of it?" her mother asked, not quite steadily. There was color in her face now, and the tears were gone.

"Point six eight percent," T'Ara corrected her patiently. "No. She called it a smidgen. Are you familiar with that unit of measurement, Mother?" But deep in her eyes, something was sparkling.

Once back on the bridge of his ship, James Kirk almost forgot the reason he was there. Almost.

Jill was right, he knew. His reprieve might well be a direct result of Sarah's illness, but given the choice, he would never have wished it that way. So we go on from here, he told himself. But the exhilaration he felt at being in the center seat with Spock at his accustomed place at the science station was still tinged with guilt.

Although he had avoided expressing his thoughts to Spock, he was convinced that they were taking Sarah home to die. Entirely apart from what he knew that event would do to Spock, he found that the phrase "with a heavy heart" was continually on the edge of his consciousness. He and Sarah had never been in love, and yet.... We did, he had told Jill once. And we do. They had given one another a priceless gift, the golden child who now insisted on calling him "sir" (and she was right, he knew. Just as McCoy was right, damn him) and looked at him with very nearly the same eyes that looked back at him from the mirror.

Sarah's gift of self, and his.

He liked to think that he had given her something of himself, something of worth to her, when she had taped to him after V'ger. At any rate, he had tried. Little enough, he thought. For he also knew that she had given him back his heart's brother and his good right arm for the last ten years. Wherever Spock might have wished to be, his captain knew that his Vulcan-bred sense of duty would have won out if his bondmate had ever tried to hold him to her, to their child, and to his home world. He knew that she had done what she'd done for Spock, not for him, and he knew why. But he as well as Spock had been the beneficiary of her generosity of spirit.

Tell me what I can do for you, Sarah, he thought, resolving to try to say something of the kind to her as soon as time allowed. Tell me what of myself I can give you that would mean as much. Hopeless. And much too late....

"Admiral?"

He had been woolgathering over a clipboard while his yeoman waited patiently for a series of initials. But the voice that now spoke to him from just off his right shoulder was not the yeoman's.

"Yes...Mr. Spock?" Took you all this time to catch up with me, did it? You must be slipping. McCoy was on me about Jill before we cleared Pluto.

"The passenger manifest does not list any Starfleet dependents on board," Spock informed him quietly. "Is that an oversight, sir?"

"No." Without looking up, Kirk began to scroll the clipboard screen, initialing. "Command decision, Mr. Spock," he said lightly. "You're not the captain yet."

"Regulations require--"

"No regulations have been broken. I'll get around to it." As long as Sarah was not officially on board, no physician of record was required to approve her medical care.

"May I ask the reason for the delay, sir?" Spock persisted. As if he didn't know.

"You may ask." Aware that the yeoman had turned aside in conversation with another crew member, Kirk went on quietly, still not looking around: "I might not answer you, though. It's based on one of those human values you don't seem to think much of."

There was a short silence behind his right shoulder, and for a moment he wondered if he had blown it again. Then Spock said softly, "Understood, sir."

He looked around then, grinning, and was thoroughly delighted to see his first officer cocking his eyebrow and looking just a little sheepish.

When Spock arrived in Sickbay half an hour later, he discovered that his wife had had another shot. This one contained Hot Milk.

"She didn't want to get you in trouble," McCoy told him bruskly. They stood on either side of the diagnostic bed in which Sarah lay with her eyes closed. She was not asleep, McCoy knew. Fighting it. Damn and blast. Between the two of them, they were going to force him to do what he must. He almost wished there were no starbase in the Centaurus system, and then wondered how he could wish that. The patient's condition was approaching critical. "Now will you please tell me why you two want to go back to Tara? Sarah seems to think that's the answer to everything, but she won't tell me why."

"Nor will I, Doctor." Spock stood looking down at his wife, his shoulders slumping a little.

"Well, you're just going to have to. This--this treatment you've been giving her may prevent further degeneration or it may not. But that's academic at the moment. Her kidneys will fail unless they're regenerated within forty-eight hours. Is there something on Tara that will stop that from happening?"

"There is a probability of--"

"Dammit, Spock--don't spout numbers at me! I'm the doctor here, and she's my patient! Can't you get it through that thick Vulcan head of yours--"

"I find it difficult to understand, Doctor," Spock interrupted him coldly, "why you find it necessary to remind me of that which I already--"

"Now don't you start--"

"Do you two ever listen to each other?" Sarah asked without opening her eyes. Then she opened them to find them both staring at her as though her suggestion were a whole new thought.

"I thought you were going to try to get some rest," McCoy reminded her gruffly.

"That thought had occurred to me. But somehow...." She smiled wearily. "I don't seem to be having much success. A lot of noise in here at the moment." The heavy lids drooped, but she forced them open again, her eyes now on Spock. "I blew it, didn't I? I was afraid--" Confused. Frightened. For him.

"I am not in trouble, Sarah. Nor will I be." Spock sat on the edge of the bed, his long fingers gently brushing her forehead. "Sleep now, my wife. All will be well."

"Where is T'Ara?" she murmured, already only half awake.

Spock glanced questioningly at McCoy, who cleared his throat huskily. "She's in the next room. She's discovered the library computer. I kind of have the feeling you won't see her for a couple hours. At least." By the time he finished the sentence, he knew she no longer heard him. In the next room was all she'd really wanted to hear.

"Give me a reason," he said softly, pleadingly. "For God's sake, Spock--I want to be able to cooperate with you, but what you're doing is only prolonging her pain. Give me a reason."

Spock rose slowly, and for a moment McCoy thought he saw indecision in those dark eyes. But the moment passed. "Your reason is not mine to give, Doctor," he said quietly. "My reason, and hers, would not seem valid to anyone but ourselves. The evidence...." He sighed. "She chose freely. That was her right. Now her only answer is on Tara, but the evidence that would convince you no longer exists. The supreme irony is that I destroyed it myself, for reasons that were valid at the time. That is all I can tell you. I shall return in three point five hours. Do not tranquilize her again. Please." And before McCoy could answer, he was gone.

Three hours later, Sarah was awake, her eyes bright, a fever spot on each cheek. "It's started again," she told him. "God, how could I have been such a fool?"

"Sarah, you'll be taken off the ship at Alpha C if I haven't agreed to be physician of record at that time. That's less than twenty-four hours from now. If we were traveling at warp speed--no, no." McCoy put his hand on her shoulder and forced her to lie down. "You don't need an anti-ab. We travel on impulse for the first five or six days on training missions. I'm sorry I scared you. I just meant that if we were in warp, you'd have had a lot less time than this. By now, you'd be there and we'd be long gone."

"How nice for you, Doctor. Just put the whole thing out of your mind. Then when the patient dies, you don't have to feel guilty about losing her. Or if she finally gives in, somebody else has to do the damn abortion. I believe it's called passing the buck."

"Don't get smart with me, lady," he said quietly. "I know you feel like hell, and we both know that physicians are notoriously bad patients. But you're rational, and bedside manner goes two ways. I believe it's called common courtesy."

They glared at each other for a moment, and then she said, "I'm sorry." The apology seemed genuine, but her eyes were still ominously bright.

"Good." He grinned, trying to defuse her. "Now, if you were a Vulcan, I might let you get away with it." Faint smile, still fire in her eye. This one was going to be touch and go. "Sarah, I asked Spock straight out to give me a reason why I should go along with this, and he refused. Said something about evidence--that only you and he saw the evidence, and that nobody else would believe it."

"He and I discussed it," she said tightly. "Last night. That was our decision. All of this should be our--"

"If you were the attending physician, would you go along with this?"

"Sorry. I can't identify."

"You can't be serious."

"Oh, but I can." To his distress, she sat up, her face going pale. "You're the third physician who's tried to tell me what I should be doing, and I'm sick and tired of hearing it. I am sick and tired of having other people telling me whether my child should live or die in the name of hallowed medical science. That decision should be mine and Spock's and nobody else's!" She was almost shouting now, her voice shaking, fists clenched. "This is my baby." She struck the bed with both fists. "It's mine. It's mine!"

McCoy felt the color drain from his face, and his mouth was suddenly dry. She couldn't know. Not even a telepath could have picked that up. It was too long ago, and he hadn't thought of it himself for years.

The child is mine. It's mine....

"What's wr--?" She stopped, confused now, shaken by his reaction. "I'm sorry. If it's personal--"

"Not...personal," he said slowly, thinking of Eleen. Remembering how desperately he had tried to make her say the words that Sarah had just cried out spontaneously, from her own heart. How desperately he had worked to establish a bond between Eleen and her newborn child--the bond that Sarah seemed to establish long before her child was in her arms.

I want my baby to have me....

She was about to pass out. Damn. Ask the right questions, Doctor. You might just get some answers without knocking the patient out in the process.

He persuaded her to lie down, and even to relax into a tense half sleep. Respiration too fast. Pulse too high. Fight or flight. He gave her a nutrient shot, swallowing the lump that rose in his throat when she roused but did not ask him what else might be in it. He called T'Ara to sit with her, and then began a slow and thoughtful walk.

Mine and Spock's and nobody else's.

"Bridge," he told the lift, and then rode in silence, thinking about evidence and ethics and choices and self-determination--and the unadorned, elemental beauty of Capella IV, which he had almost forgotten until now.

Everyone on the bridge had a trainee in attendance except the admiral, who was scowling and rubbing his chin. "This is ridiculous," he said as McCoy approached. "They've all done this in sim a dozen times. Why are we showing them how to do it again? They should be the crew, and the crew should be monitoring from.... Problem, Doctor?"

Face like a window, McCoy thought disgustedly. Give half a stripe for a little goddamn inscrutability. "If you have a moment, Admiral, you might want to update the passenger manifest."

Spock turned from his scanner, and the admiral began, "Sorry, but I'm pretty busy r--"

"And while you're at it, sir, you might want to log that Leonard McCoy, M.D. is physician of record in the case of Sarah Halsted."

Spock's eyebrows flew. Feeling more than a trace of guilty satisfaction at having gotten a rise out of him, McCoy glanced back at the admiral, who didn't look nearly as surprised as his first officer did.

"Thanks, Bones."

"You're welcome," McCoy snapped. "Mr. Spock, you're wanted in Sickbay. Come with me, please." And he turned on his heel and headed back toward the lift.

Inside, the first officer and the CMO rode with hands clasped behind their backs, both of them intently watching the location indicator as though they had ever seen it before. Cultural obsession, McCoy thought. Put a human in a lift, and he watches the indicator as though he were steering the damn th--

"Thank you, Doctor."

If the CMO had had his moment of guilty satisfaction on the bridge, the first officer had his opportunity for revenge now. But if he enjoyed it, he was controlling well.

"I am obligated," he added almost gently.

Recovering, McCoy thought again about inscrutability. The hell with it. Hopeless case. He nodded slowly.

"We both are, Spock."

"Indeed."

"May ask if you plan to tell Jim what you and Sarah are really up to?"

"I...am considering it."

"Don't consider it. Do it. If she's a passenger and something goes wrong, it's his head on the block. After all, there are several--shall we say irregular?--aspects of this little cruise."

That evening, Kirk and Spock had dinner together. Spock did most of the talking, and neither of them ate much dinner.

"Are you sure?" Kirk asked finally, incredulously. "There couldn't have been much light in the cave."

"The illumination was adequate. His retinas had been completely regenerated." Spock had spent a good part of the day with his wife. According to McCoy, the fetal defense system that was causing her condition was accelerating in intensity and efficiency. The procedure that Spock and Sarah were using taxed her very little, for she was only providing the focus. The energy came from Spock, and he already looked drawn and drained. "Green around the gills" was only too apt a description. Yet his expression was doggedly determined. "We must return there, Jim. It is her only chance."

"Yes." Kirk sighed. "Of course you must."

Spock stared. He had obviously expected an argument, and the fact that it was not forthcoming sent his eyebrows on the rise. "You will authorize the ship to go to Tara?"

"I can authorize the ship to go anywhere I damn please. This is a training mission, remember? We're not under any orders except to knock some sense into these kids. And those are my orders. What the devil are you staring at?"

"You do not require any further justification?"

"Not this time."

"You have questioned my judgment in the past. Why not this time?"

Kirk smiled faintly. "Call it a gut feeling. Sorry. Scratch that. I call it a gut feeling. You can call it anything you like."

After a long moment, Spock asked softly, wonderingly, "How is it that humans know without knowing why?"

Kirk's grin spread, but crookedly. "Still us-and-them, huh? I thought we were past that." Slight Vulcan frown. "Remember the tape that you and McCoy 'never saw'?"

"Admiral, I believe it was established at the time--"

"Bullshit," Kirk interrupted with no particular emphasis, and watched the eyebrows fly. "And don't give me 'Admiral.'" He leaned forward, quietly intent. "I said on that tape that I believed you have intuitive insight. That was more than ten years ago. Now I know you have it, and I would like to suggest--shut up, Spock. I'm not finished." He had not raised his voice, for they were not alone in the mess hall. Nor had his tone changed. He was not giving orders. He was having the time of his life. Astounded, Spock shut up. "I would like to suggest that it's illogical for you to reject the best of your humanity when it's as deeply a part of you as your Vulcan side is. It's all one, Spock. It's you. When Exar split you in half, you showed me that the Vulcan part of you is my friend as well as the human part. But it wasn't the Vulcan who snapped me out of self-pity and made me see that I couldn't let you beam down alone. It was the human in you, smiling when I asked you who was letting me win at chess. Then." Delighted, he watched the corners of Spock's turn up slightly. "You thought." More than slightly. "Was it logic that told you that Jill was ready to try her wings alone?" No answer. None needed. "That's intuitive insight, my friend. Don't turn away from it. Use it. Anything else is a waste"--grinning--"of material."

Now it was Kirk who expected an argument. But none came. After a moment, Spock said softly, "I would not presume to debate you."

Still grinning, Kirk sat back in his chair.

"That's wise," he said, noting with satisfaction that Spock no longer looked the least bit green around the gills.

But by that evening, Jill was sure that she had never seen Spock look so tired.

After she went off duty, T'Ara had told her that their mother was worse because she had skipped a treatment that morning. T'Ara seemed to understand exactly what was going on, but Jill did not. It seemed to her that foiling what the baby was trying to do would hurt the baby, but T'Ara insisted that that was not true. "It does not touch the small one," she insisted, a glint of fascination in her green eyes. "It affects only Mother. The defense is dissipated, not suppressed."

"But what about what the baby's defending against?"

"The effects are minimal at this time," T'Ara had answered calmly. "He will be taken before he is threatened."

"T'Ara, why do Spock and Mother want to go back to that planet?"

"I do not know. Are you not aware that they are shielding that knowledge from us?"

Now, sitting with Mother and Spock in Sickbay, Jill let her mind probe tentatively, just enough to confirm what T'Ara had said. The mental shields were all in place, even though Mother was so sick and Spock was so tired. Not taking any chances. She knew now that T'Ara's first knowledge of their mother's danger had come while Mother was asleep, not expecting anyone to come near enough to read her.

She was not asleep now, even though she had closed her eyes for a moment. Worried about Spock. That much Jill could sense. Worried about his mind-numbing fatigue. Loving him. As he was loving her.

They were together as they had never been before.

Spock sat unmoving, leaning forward a little, elbows on his knees, fingers steepled as though he were meditating. But he was not meditating. Vulcan's didn't meditate in a room with two other people, and besides, he was probably too tired. He had been with Mother most of the day, Jill knew, and the mental effort he was expending was wringing him out. According to T'Ara, Mother only had to focus. Spock was doing all the work.

Mother lay with her head turned slightly toward him, and his eyes had barely left her face since Jill came in. Together. Whatever she had sensed about them before--all her life, it seemed--was either gone or...on hold. She frowned a little. The feelings came to her, and her mind put words to them without understanding them. Deliberately, she shut them out. One thing was sure. It was none of her business. She had always known that too.

"You need somebody to spell you," she said aloud.

"There is no other Vulcan on board," Spock said quietly, still looking at Mother.

Jill glanced from one to the other and back. Why hadn't she thought of it before? Why hadn't they? "Yes, there is."

Mother opened her eyes, looking sick and scared. "She's just a little girl."

Crazy. Something told her that what she wanted to say now was crazy and wrong and all the rest of it. But everything else told her that it was right. If she could get Mother to laugh again....

"That's what the woman who was standing next to us at the table said to J.T. when we were in Vegas," she said innocently. "Remember, Spock?"

Fingers still steepled, Spock slowly turned his eyes to her. Nothing else moved. Then the eyebrow went, and she knew it was all right.

Mother lay still for a moment, and then she said carefully, "Who went to Vegas?"

"J.T. and I went once, for a couple hours. While he was at Operations. Then when they were in about six months ago, we went back and Spock and Dr. McCoy went with us. We only got to stay about forty-five minutes, though. One of the management types took Spock in the office, and then we had to leave." Mother was already starting to laugh silently. It was going to be all right. She went on, letting herself sound a little like T'Ara sounded when she was being literal. "Spock thought it was interesting. Dr. McCoy thought it was a damn shame that we had to bring a damn Vulcan with us, 'cause he never got a chance to find his shirt." Still laughing silently, Mother held out her hand, and Spock unsteepled his fingers and took it in his. "J.T. thought it was hilarious," Jill added unnecessarily, got up and went to take her mother's other hand, now sounding like herself. "She's a healer, Mother. Sarek knows."

To her relief, she saw Spock nod slightly.

"But--" Again, there was color in Mother's cheeks, and she didn't look scared now. Just worried.

"You don't know how strong she is."

And Spock nodded again.

He rose silently and went to get T'Ara from the next room where she was taking a break, playing chess with the most formidable computer she had ever met. She had been taking a break for almost an hour.

"I better go get some exercise." Jill leaned over to hug her mother goodnight. "She needs to be needed," she whispered as they held each other close. "It's no fun being a little kid when everybody else is grown up. Or almost. Gives you too much time to get scared." She pulled away gently, expecting to see resistence in Mother's face. But there was none. She was still worried. But she nodded, much as Spock had done.

"I know."

"Mother, what are you and Spock going to do when we get back to Tara?"

After a moment's hesitation, her mother told her.

It had been an impulse of the moment, but Sarah could not regret it. Like her father, Jill seemed to understand without knowing why, and that understanding gave her hope--something she had not had much of until now, Sarah realized, as Jill hugged her once again.

When her daughter had gone, Sarah lay still, wondering what Jill or her father might have said had they been told the whole story. For she and Spock were still the only ones who knew how Sutek had died, and when. 

But not why.

She closed her eyes again, wishing she were Vulcan and could control her fear. Spock was aware of it, she knew. And she also knew, although he was attempting to shield it from her, that he too was afraid for her.

He and his daughter were coming back.

As Spock explained to T'Ara what the treatment involved, Sarah carefully arranged her shields so that the child would not learn of the danger that awaited her mother on Tara. The rapport was deep at the physical level, but T'Ara, as therapist, would be more than busy doing her job. For a moment Sarah quailed inwardly; no child should have to see what this child's mother would have to show her. But then, she had seen it already. While I was asleep. Dear God, why didn't I hear her? Why didn't I wake up? But guilt was pointless. Spock had already shown her that. That nightmare was over now. And T'Ara had survived. More than survived.

She stood now in front of Spock, who had resumed his seat--so that he could speak to her at eye level, Sarah knew. He was facing slightly away from Sarah, but she could see T'Ara's shining eyes. "Yes," the child whispered from time to time as the deep voice went on and on, speaking Vulcan words that Sarah could barely understand. "Yes.... Yes...." If she had sensed fear, Sarah would have objected. But T'Ara was not afraid. She was.... "May I begin now?" she asked as soon as Spock paused. She was fascinated.

Neither of them was prepared for the effortless ease with which T'Ara performed her assigned duties. Unlike Spock, she was not experienced, not trained, not a seasoned veteran of the melding of minds. Nor was she fully disciplined, and Spock.... Not Spock, Sarah realized. The Image. T'Ara's mentor in this, the most challenging task of her life, was a disembodied symbol that partook as much of Sarek, of all that was Vulcan, as it did of Spock. The Image guided her, restrained her, chided her a little when she flew too fast. Chided her gently, as Sarek would have. Her spirit turned, listened, and flew on. By the time her task was half done, she no longer needed to listen, for she had made the Image her own.

Like parents from time immemorial, Spock found himself unable to withdraw sufficiently to suit his child. Gently she broke the contact and turned slightly to look at him where he sat on the opposite edge of the bed.

"Don't hover, Father," she said, smiling a little. "I can do this all by myself." Piece o' cake, her green eyes seemed to say. And she wasn't even tired.

After a moment of silent contemplation of what he had wrought, Spock looked questioningly at Sarah. The light trance required by the treatment dissolved. She looked back, face expressionless, and raised both eyebrows.

When the treatment was complete, T'Ara still showed not the slightest trace of fatigue.

Afterwards, Sarah slept as she had not slept, undrugged, in days.

She woke in what she sensed was the middle of the ship's night. The rest of Sickbay was quiet. The light from the next room was low, and T'Ara was asleep, curled up on the next bed under her mother's shawl.

In the chair next to Sarah's bed, Spock sat meditating.

She lay quiet, knowing that even if he did not sleep, this silent communion with himself would refresh his weary soul. The faint light from the next room gave his hair a slight sheen and threw his face into bold relief. He was at peace, at least for the moment.

She closed her eyes again, drifting, sinking. And across the silence of her mind, the image of a giant insect came rustling dry as leaves, trailing a Vulcan's scream like a plume.

She knew immediately that the stab of terror that shook her awake had broken his trance. Opening her eyes, she saw that he was looking at her, frowning slightly, fingers still steepled.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. He shook his head, barely moving, dark eyes searching hers. Then, as other thoughts crowded into her mind, thoughts that she had been waiting to share with him, he lowered his hands slightly and tilted his head a little to the side. "She read Sutek's genetic code, didn't she?" she went on.

"So it would seem." He glanced briefly over at T'Ara, but she was still sound asleep.

"An idiot savant for DNA."

"Indeed."

"But how does she regenerate living tissue? What would have caused that capability to evolve in her species?"

"I do not know." Again he frowned a little. "But--there was much fire in her mind."

"What?"

"The memory of fire."

"Race memory?"

"I...do not know. My rapport with her was relatively superficial at the time I withdrew."

"I wish I had more training. I've never done anything like this alone," she said, and then wished she hadn't. Her voice was unsteady, and terror hung in it like an echo of Sutek's scream.

The dark eyes gazed back at her, almost unfathomable. Almost.

After a moment, she whispered, "You have to stay out of it."

"No."

"You must."

"No, Sarah." He was almost smiling now.

She sat up, caught between the need to scream at him and the fear of waking T'Ara. In what seemed like one movement he was beside her, enfolding her, smoothing back the lank hair that needed brushing so badly, his cheek and then his lips against her forehead. "In this, there is no 'alone.' Not anymore." It seemed that he could not hold her close enough, and with a silent sob, she hid her face against his shoulder. Don't you think he's too thin? she seemed to hear Jill say, and she sobbed again, aloud this time. "Shh." He began to rock her gently, still stroking her hair. "You'll wake T'Ara."

"Sh-she...if we both--"

"Neither of us will die, my Sarah. Sutek did not know he was in danger. We will know."

"That's not--not a very l-l--"

"No," he answered softly. "It is not. But neither of us will die--as long as we do this together."

When T'Ara woke, precisely five point five minutes before her mother's next scheduled treatment, Mother was lying down but not asleep, and Father was sitting next to her, the fingers of one hand resting lightly against her temple. He looked up, smiled in his mind and in his eyes the way Grandfather did, rose to give her his place, and held out his hand, laying it on her shoulder as she drew near.

"Thank you," she said uncertainly, not sure whether he was going to hover again this time.

The smile in his eyes deepened. "The obligation is mine," he said quietly, and there was something in his voice that made her smile too, but not just with her eyes. He sounded like....

Like Grandfather. When he was proud of her.

By the next evening, the night before their ETA on Tara, Jill felt that she knew the ship by heart.

That was pretty silly, she decided. Her duty station during the first part of the mission was Life Sciences, and Spock, who seemed to be everywhere at once now that he wasn't tired anymore, had designed a regimen that kept the cadets in that unit scrambling. But there were breaks, and there were meals, and she didn't need to eat much as long as she ate the right things. So she went exploring. She went to Engineering, where Mr. Scott was careful what he called her except once, when he called her "lassie." She saw the shuttle bay, and the observation deck, and the officers' mess. She located photon torpedo tubes and phaser banks. Finally she went to the bridge, where the admiral informed her politely but firmly that she was not allowed to be until she was on duty there. She left, feeling a little funny about getting what she'd asked for. There had been nothing in his eyes or in his voice to suggest that he had ever seen her before.

Exercising in the gym, she decided again that she had been right to insist that J.T. treat her like he'd treat any other trainee. The problem was that she wasn't sure if he was mad at her. It was hard to tell, when he was being so polite. Swinging upside down from the rings, she came to the conclusion that she would just have to wait until the mission was over to find out. Having decided that, she swung up and then down again, and was beginning to think about taking a shower and going to see Mother when she realized that somebody was walking toward her and then standing in front of her as she swung slowly back and forth, thinking.

She came upright and dropped lightly to the floor as soon as she realized it was J.T.

"Mister Halsted," he said, "I need a briefing. May I trouble you for a few moments of your time?"

He had been exercising too, and still didn't have his shirt on. He was smiling pleasantly, like he had on the bridge, but he looked a little tense for somebody who had just had a workout. Had she done something wrong?

"Yes, sir." He gestured toward an unoccupied mat, and they sat down there, she with her arms around her knees and he with his arms resting on his. For the first time, she realized that they were almost alone. Two crewmen wrestling on the other side of the room were its only other occupants. "Is there something wrong, sir?"

"I don't know." He was not smiling now. "Jill, I need your help. Can we just talk for a minute? Nobody can hear us."

"All right." She sounded a little too eager, she thought, but he didn't seem to notice.

"What do you remember about the life forms on Tara? Do you remember a large insectoid creature that looks like a giant ant?"

"You mean the thing Mother and Spock think can help her?"

He seemed to relax then, and rested his forehead against his wrists for a moment. "Good. I didn't want to have to play games with you."

"Mother told me about what they're going to do. She said Spock told you."

"He did. But--" He raised his head and touched the back of his neck lightly. "Something doesn't fit. I don't know what it is, but something about this whole thing is bothering the hell out of me. Could they be in any danger down there?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. Why?"

"I'm wondering if they should beam down alone--if somebody should go with them."

No. She pressed her lips together to keep from saying it aloud. He would only ask her why, and she wasn't at all sure she could explain it. "You mean you."

"You got a better idea?" He was looking at her closely. "What's the matter?"

She didn't want them to have this talk at all, she decided. If she said what she was thinking, he really would get mad. But all she could think of was Mother and Spock last night, and Mother saying And who of us would be happy then? all those years ago. She just had to say it. There was no other way.

"She's let you have him for ten years, J.T. Now maybe it should be her turn."

For what seemed like a long time, he just looked at her. Then he said softly, "What do you think you mean by that?"

"Nothing I haven't said. He goes back and goes back and goes back with you, and she's never tried to stop him because she knows it would tear him apart. Now they have to do this together. Alone. Please let them do it alone."

"Are you in telepathic contact with them?"

"No. They shield. I shield. It's what I was taught. Spock too. Mother taught herself. T'Ara's learning. I mean, she was. She still slips. They don't. Not with me."

"Then how do you know...." He stared at her for another long moment. "You...sense what other people are feeling. The way your mother does."

"I guess so."

"What do you remember about this insect?"

"It's big. It's harmless. Never hurt anything. Never bothered us."

"Did you ever get close to it?"

"Once. I think...I think Mother chased it away from me."

Sharply: "Why?"

"I was practically just a baby, J.T. And it's...pretty weird-looking up close."

"Did it scare you?"

"I...." Blank. She could see the thing in her mind, but that was all. Blank. Nothing. "I can't remember."

"Was Spock there when this happened?"

"I don't think so. I can't remember."

He got up then, took a turn, and then swung around to face her again. "Spock said Sutek's retinas were burned. The ant healed his burns, but he died anyway."

"From radiation?"

"Spock...implied that. But he didn't actually say it." He smacked one fist into the other. "Something just doesn't fit."

"They have to do it alone. Together."

"But why?"

"They have to."

"Why?"

"I don't know! They just do." She would not look away, and neither would he. "If there was any danger, he'd tell you."

"Wrong, Mister Halsted."

"You were the one who said nobody second-guesses Spock."

"I did?"

"You said they hardly ever get to do anything together, and then you--" The answer came tumbling toward her, and she knew he saw it too. But she had to say it anyway. "Maybe that's why." When he simply stared at her, she looked away and put her cheek down on her hands. "Go ask them if you don't believe me."

When he didn't move or answer her, she realized suddenly how quiet it was, and that the wrestlers had left while they were talking. Then he came slowly toward her and hunkered down like he had the first time she ever saw him.

"I know you believe what you're saying, Jill," he said quietly. "But that's not enough. I'm sorry." She felt him lightly kiss the top of her head. "Sleep well, Mister Halsted." He waited, but when she did not answer, he got up and left the gym.

It was a long time before she did the same. 

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