FULL CIRCLE: Tara

Part 2 of 2

Shortly after 0700, knowing that the ship was already in orbit around Tara, he dressed and went to the bridge.

Spock was scanning the planet, but looked up when the admiral approached his station. The relief in his eyes was eloquent.

"The eggs haven't hatched," Kirk said, knowing the answer.

"Affirmative."

"Then you can pinpoint her location."

Spock nodded. "I have done so. She is still in the same area."

"Eggs all over the place?"

"No. She has confined her activities to the Tower."

Their gaze held, and then Kirk asked lightly, "You going to need any help down there?"

"No, sir," Spock answered gently. "Thank you, sir."

All pretense of lightness left him. "Are you going to tell me how Sutek died?"

There was a moment's silence, and then Spock said softly, "No, sir."

"Spock, this is--"

"Jim--don't." The tone was almost without emotion. The eyes said it all. "Please."

Kirk turned away abruptly, furious with both of them, remembering all the times that he and McCoy had tried to get Spock to express his deepest feelings. Be careful what you wish for, Jim, he thought savagely. You just might get it.

And yet: We can't pick and choose....

Ten minutes later, he was in the transporter room when Spock and Sarah came in. She looked better than he had expected her to--pale, unsteady, but walking under her own power even though Spock's arm supported her. As soon as she saw Kirk, her eyes sought his, bluer than he had ever seen them. And in their depths, he saw something she had never felt toward him before.

Fear.

"Shouldn't you be wearing something a little heavier?" he asked, moving toward them, willing the fear away. She wore a hospital gown, blue as her eyes and Spock's shirt, and her feet were bare. Around her shoulders was a large shawl that looked as though it weighed nothing--blue and green swirls of something thin and faintly iridescent.

"I walked that beach barefoot for four years," she answered quietly. "I don't need shoes to walk it now. The climate's semi-tropical all year 'round." Eyes searching his. Pleading.

I have to, he thought. You're in danger. He's in danger. How can you ask me to.... Nothing but the fear now. She wasn't even pleading anymore.

He turned his gaze to Spock's, dreading what he might see there. But there was no fear. Only understanding, and trust, and love.

He took a deep breath, and tried to think how to say it some other way. But there was no other way.

"Don't stay for lunch," he said, and saw a smile that he had only seen once before. Then it had drawn him to the gallows foot. Now it dissolved the hurt inside him, and he found himself grinning.

Sarah made a small, inarticulate sound. No fear there now. Tears of weakness and relief welled up and spilled over, and he felt his own eyes sting as he wiped her tears away with his fingers as though they were Jill's. She inclined her head so that her cheek rested briefly in his hand, and then he gently turned her face against Spock's shoulder and stepped away to let the beam take them both.

Pale green sky, deep green lake. The Tower, inlaid with what looked like chips of glass. Warm breeze against their faces. Home before home.

"All the trees are taller," she said faintly, and almost slumped against his shoulder.

He moved to pick her up, but she protested. "No. I want to walk in the sand."

"Not now." He picked her up anyway and began to walk down the beach toward where they could barely see the bungalow, shielded as it was. The trees around it had been short, skinny saplings when they arrived, and tall, waving saplings when they left. But the previous tenants had apparently planted growth enhancement with their seeds, wanting shade from the blazing mid-day sun as soon as possible. Now the little structure was surrounded and shaded by giant ash trees that looked as though they had been there for decades.

"It must be cool inside," she said. "Even in the late afternoon."

"Indeed." But he was not thinking about the bungalow now. He was looking for the ant, scanning the beach and the lake. She had been just here only a few minutes ago. But now....

There. At the edge of the forest that rimmed the white bowl that was the beach. Unmoving. Watching.

Spock paused, and with her arms around his neck, Sarah could feel the slight inclining of his head as well as the rapid staccato of his heartbeat.

"Do you think she recognizes us?" she asked.

"Unknown." Controlling now. Heartbeat slowing a little. Trying to decide whether to approach the creature or let her approach them.

"I want to walk," Sarah said firmly, and at the same moment, the ant began to move toward them.

Spock hesitated momentarily, and then set Sarah down. Better, she thought. I feel better here than I have since this started. Delusion of an exhausted mind in a ravaged body? What did it matter? She began to walk slowly toward the creature, who came toward them more quickly now, rustling as she moved. Dry leaves. No dry leaves here. No seasonal changes. Keep your mind on your work, Sarah.

As she moved forward, the creature extended her antennae as she had once extended them toward the two kneeling Vulcans in the cave. And as Sutek had then, Sarah felt the touch of an alien mind.

Light. Questioning. Simple. The eager, questing mind of a very young child. Very young indeed.

"Be careful, Sarah," Spock said quietly, aloud. "That simple, questing mind can kill."

"We don't know what killed him."

"Don't we?"

She stopped then, knowing he was right as she had always known it. As they had both always known it. Meeting the creature's many-faceted gaze, she projected acceptance and reassurance even as she said aloud, to Spock, "I'm sorry."

"'Sorry' will not keep you alive," Spock said gently. "Think of the child's safety if the thought of your own does not move you to caution." She felt him put his hands on her shoulders from behind. "I will protect you both as much as I can. But I must have your cooperation."

"Yes," she said quietly. "I know that. I'm s--" She bit her lip, and felt him briefly touch his forehead to the back of her head. Together, his mind whispered through their link. Watchful. Together. "Yes," she said again, and stood still under his hands, letting the creature approach them.

When she paused, antennae outstretched, Sarah felt the hands on her shoulders exert a slight downward pressure and remembered that Spock and Sutek had been kneeling when the creature made contact, their heads on a level with hers. She dropped to her knees in the fine sand, and he did the same, hands still resting lightly on her shoulders.

Antennae waving. Wordlessly asking permission. No aggression there. Simple as a child. Killer child, asking Can I take your hand? Sarah shivered, and the creature moved away a little.

"Sit down," Spock said softly. She sat, pulling her feet under her, and he sat down behind her, putting his arms around her and laying his cheek against hers. "Accept her, as Sutek did," he whispered. "I will watch alone until you have made contact."

Sarah extended her hand, and the creature moved closer once again, reaching out with her holding maxillae. Watching this happen to Sutek, Sarah had shuddered involuntarily, and she felt Spock controlling now. But Sutek had not been killed on contact. She remembered green blotches fading the light of the flame, and a naked, elfin child dying in his satin bed, and Zoe's voice in the same dream: Is he in trouble yet?

She accepted.

Where? the creature's mind seemed to say, and in the ant's memory Sarah saw a vivid image of Jill as a small child--pale hair tousled, hazel eyes alight, freckles sprinkled across her nose. I'd forgotten how beautiful she was, she thought, and realized that Spock was no longer outside the meld as his arms tightened a little. In the creature's memory there was joyful curiosity and recognition, the spontaneous mutual response of two children touching each other's minds--two children, neither of whom had ever met another child. But Sarah immediately perceived the horror in Spock's mind, and shielded so that the ant would not perceive it too.

Jill had not been resisting at all. The reflexive checks and balances of a shielding telepath, exercised almost without conscious volition by Sarah and Spock now and by Sutek in the past, were unknown to Jill at the age of four. At this point in the contact, where they were still quite safe, Jill had not been. Her mind had been almost literally sucked into the ant's.

"She didn't say I had no arms," Sarah whispered, and was grateful that her inadvertent use of speech did not seem to damage the contact. "She said I had arms. She was--she was this animal until I pulled her away." Not dying, she thought. Worse than dying. Trapped. Here. In this creature's mind. Forever.

"Do not think of it now," Spock commanded softly. "It did not happen. Do not think of it now."

But the creature was thinking of it. And in that vivid-vacant memory, Sarah saw that it was not the physical act of pulling her away that had saved Jill's mind, but the child's emotional response to the frantic embrace of another human who loved her. The ant had not understood then, and she did not understand now--now, the first time she had thought of the incident in the ten years since it had happened.

I can't believe this is really a mind, Sarah said silently, knowing that the ant, who was still wordlessly asking Where, would not understand her.

Your life may depend on your believing it.

Sarah had barely assimilated Spock's answer when the ant began to perceive that there was something wrong with her.

The strength of that probing mind almost panicked her for a moment, before Spock's mind steadied her. How right he had been. She felt turned inside out and examined minutely, and in the ant's mind the image of Sutek appeared, as vivid as the image of Jill had been. Burned face, burned retinas, dark sightless eyes. Sutek was there, and Sarah felt her own eyes mist. Solid, unpretentious Sutek, leaning into the meld, wanting so desperately to see again, totally unafraid at the point where Spock had withdrawn from the three-way contact. Logical that he should be unafraid. At that point, there had been nothing to be afraid of.

When will it come? she asked Spock silently. But before he could answer, the ant discovered the child Sarah carried.

No! Pure instinct made Sarah draw back, horrified, even before Spock broke their contact with the insect. She had been about to "heal" Sarah of the child; having perceived that he was genetically different from the host body, she had decided that he didn't belong there.

Free of the telepathic meld, Sarah realized peripherally that Tara's yellow sun was lower in the sky than it had been when the creature made contact. An hour? Could it possibly have been that long? "That was close," she said shakily, aloud, relaxing momentarily against Spock, who held her tightly. "Back off, big mama," she said to the ant, who stood by silently, antennae waving. "That egg's off limits." Unsteadily: "Five years wait-listed, custom specs." Her voice broke.

"Tell her that," Spock said huskily into her hair.

"What?"

"As soon as we re-establish contact, verbalize the idea you just expressed. Feel it."

"She doesn't understand words."

"Verbalizing your thoughts and feelings will make them more easily perceivable to her. She is a mother, Sarah. She will understand."

And she did. This is my egg, Sarah told her calmly. It's mine. I am the mother. It's mine. Mentally, the ant backed off, and was immediately distracted by the chaos of partially destroyed organs in the vicinity. Then the fire came. It was indeed a racial memory: eons during which the planet smoked and buckled in the throes of giving birth to itself. Insect creatures, virtually identical to their descendant (Like sharks, Sarah thought, and Spock thought back Indeed) but much smaller and much more mobile, scuttled through the steaming ashes, most of them dying of their burns, a rare few able to heal themselves. The healers survived to heal again, others as well as themselves as time wore on. Even other species.

No one will believe this, Sarah thought, as the ant began her genetic reading lesson. But as the excitement of observing a miracle flooded through her, Spock's voice cut through her consciousness like a knife, speaking aloud.

"Sutek may have lowered his shields, Sarah--just as you are doing." There was no gentleness in his voice now. "Watch."

Chastened, Sarah began to raise her shields, and the ant began to withdraw from the contact. Sarah braked, and they hung stalemated, the ant waiting meekly for her decision.

"She won't do it if I'm shielding," Sarah said aloud, trying to keep the despair out of her voice. "Maybe she can't."

"That is possible." Slowly, as though he were still thinking the question through (as indeed he was, she knew), Spock released her from his embrace and moved his hands to her temples. Feeling his withdrawal from the three-way meld, she almost panicked again. But he was not gone from her mind. The bonding link remained, quite capable--as they both knew--of informing him, physically touching her as he was, of anything that was happening in her mind or in her emotions. Once, in the next room, he had heard her mind screaming that Chris's alternate had kidnapped her child. Now, she had not the slightest doubt that he would know everything that happened between her and the insect. A great wave of relief swept through her. He was out of it--still with her, still touching and touched, able to shield her, but out of it. Whatever had happened to Sutek could still happen to her, but not to him. Not now.

Reconciled and literally of one mind, she and the ant began again.

But where was the danger? Still, after all that had happened, nothing had happened. Nothing that explained that Vulcan scream.

Soon she almost forgot the scream.

As a twenty-third-century physician, she understood the theory of organ regeneration through medication although she had never learned it consciously. Internal medicine was not her specialty, and so she had listened to tapes on regeneration under hypnosis, a practice that was approved only for the learning of material in specialties other than the student's own. As the ant proceeded, she saw happening in her own body what her unconscious mind knew happened when a patient with a dysfunctional organ took a regeneration capsule. New tissue grew, following the genetic plan present in each cell of the organism. But unlike regeneration medication, the creature's ministrations did not deform or kill the fetus Sarah carried. He, as Sarah had informed her, was off limits, and off limits he remained. Total selectivity.

Spock was fascinated. But still he kept vigil. There had still been no indication of the cause of Sutek's death.

As the healing proceeded, Sarah began to experience an overwhelming sense of well-being. It had been so long since she was well, so long since she had risen in the morning looking forward to the day, taking her healthy body for granted. But she did not take it for granted now. As the regeneration process neared its end, the joy of living filled her, and for the first time in months she began to look forward to life yet to be lived, to rejoice in her own identity, in that which was Sarah Halsted. The months of suffering had taught her much about those she loved, and even more about herself. Her self. That which was Sarah....

Sutek's eyes, dark with joy.

The image obscured all others, and then she remembered what had happened next. Too late, she remembered what had happened next, when Sutek's rejoicing in his own wholeness had threatened the identity of the powerful mind so deeply entrenched within it.

The ant too remembered, and in a second, Sarah relived that moment from within the creature's mind. Fighting to save her own identity, she had lashed out with the most primitive kind of self-preservation--the only kind she knew--seeking to imprison her attacker within her mind forever. Within the mind of an imbecile. Forever.

And Sutek had screamed, fought back, and died for it. The awesome psychophysical power that had healed him in minutes had killed him in a second. But Sutek had been alone. And even the mind of the alien ant was no match for a million-year echo.

It seemed to Sarah that something exploded in her mind, the conduit between Spock's mind and the alien's. If that explosion, breaking her contact with the alien's mind, had been anything but purely instinctive, it would have been too late. Like an explosion in a tunnel. Or like lightening striking, with her mind as the conductor.

She seemed to lose consciousness, find it, lose it again.

When she found it once again, her mind was the white bowl of the beach, with another identical bowl turned upside down on it, rim to rim.

So quiet, she thought dreamily. After struggling so long, she had come at last to this peace. There isn't anybody else here. No wonder people fall asleep in the snow and never wake up. It's because it's so quiet. Everything white, except.... Except there at the horizon, where white met white, a dark, many-legged thing was crawling.

It did not frighten her. Nothing could frighten her here. It was too peaceful. Something wouldn't let her fall asleep, though. She had no idea what it was, and she couldn't see it or hear it. But it would not let her fall asleep.

It seemed to be shaking her.

She understood then that she would never get out of this bowl without Spock's help, and that he too was telepathically exhausted, neutralized. She roused a little, trying to remember what to tell him to do. Something he ought to be doing. But he wasn't.

But he was.

The yellow sun shone in her eyes, shone low in the sky now. She closed her eyes and silently clung to the other half of her soul, even as he clung to her.

"If I were all human," he whispered, "I would have known how to reach you so much sooner."

"If you were all human," she reminded him, "I wouldn't have been there to reach."

He did not answer, and she was about to hide her face in his shoulder when she realized they were not alone. "Let me go to her," she said. "Just for a minute, my love. Please." When he reluctantly complied, she rose and turned to face the alien.

The ant had withdrawn a short distance. Approaching her slowly, Sarah remembered the glistening compound eye that had pleaded mutely against imagined retaliation after Sutek's death. The ant did not seem to be in a panic now, but she was obviously confused and disturbed.

"I'm all right," Sarah said softly, remembering what Spock had said about verbalizing her thoughts and feelings. "I know you didn't mean to hurt me. I understand." She did not hold out her hand this time. Nothing, not even gratitude, could make her invite mental contact again. "Thank you. You know that you saved my life, don't you?" No response. The creature had no idea what she had done, or what she had almost done. "Take care of your babies," Sarah finished, her voice breaking on the last word. "None of us will ever bother you again. I promise."

Without hesitation, the creature turned and moved away. She seemed quite calm now, as though a worry had been lifted from her.

Watching her rustle slowly away in the slanting sunlight, Sarah took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and then let the breath out slowly. I'm free, she thought. Back to square one, with T'Ara to help me. "God," she said aloud with a small sob of pure joy, "I wish I could brush my hair."

She turned around, took two quick steps, and then she ran.

She had never felt such joy in him. His mind and his body sang with it, and with a hunger that shocked and delighted him at once. But even as her mind and body responded, she remembered something else. Not this time, she thought, caressing his mouth with hers one more time and then pulling away a little, breathless with shared longing, but determined. Not this time.

"Maybe you better call home." She ran her finger over his lips as his human self had once touched hers. "Before they decide to rescue us again."

The highly unorthodox landing party of two had been planetside for precisely one hour and forty-six minutes when the com unit on the arm of the center seat said, "Spock to Enterprise". The admiral, who had finally been distracted for almost two minutes by the gaggle of trainees and official babysitters infesting his bridge, almost jumped out of his skin.

"Kirk here."

"Mission accomplished, Admiral." Just like that. Almost no emotion in his voice.

After a moment, Kirk asked softly, "Is she...all right?"

"Yes." Gentler now.

"You?"

"Yes."

When he could speak again, Kirk asked, "Are you ready to beam up?"

"Negative, sir. Request permission to remain until the training exercise is completed." Spock was well aware that Kirk was using the stopover at Tara as an opportunity to practice orbital maneuvers and mapping operations. As far as the rest of the crew was concerned, that was the only reason they were there at all.

Why? It almost slipped out. Then he seemed to hear his own voice, long ago in the briefing room: You want to go back and find it again.

"Permission granted." Kirk lowered his voice. "This is going to take a while. These kids are driving me nuts."

"Acknowledged, Admiral," said Spock, who had been on the bridge most of yesterday.

"We should be in orbit another two or three hours. Will that do?"

"That should be adequate, sir." Spock's voice seemed to fade out a little.

"You still there?"

"Affirmative."

"Fine. Well--uh, Mr. Spock?"

"Sir?"

"Don't leave anything behind. Kirk out." He slapped the connection closed and bounded out of the chair. "Mr. Sulu," he said to one of the babysitters at the console directly in front of him, "you have the con. I'll be in Life Sciences." And off he went.

Sulu dropped into the center seat as his partner drifted over to it, eyes still on the trainee navigator as though he could monitor her by telepathy. "Vat is going gon thees time?" he asked quietly. "Or do ve guess?"

Sulu shrugged. "I dunno. Guessing's what we've had the most practice at."

Chekov glanced at him and they both grinned. Then, turning his eyes again to his charge, he said with elaborate casualness, "Hev you noticed a PREPDIV trainee named Halsted?"

"No. Where's his unit?"

"Hers. She's in Life Sciences now."

"Oh, you mean Spock's--the kid the captain brought on board a couple times? Come on, Pavel. Robbing the cradle isn't your line o'work--uh--play?"

Chekov shook his head briefly; he obviously had something else on his mind. "Ven you see her again, tell me if she reminds you of anyvun."

"Who?"

"Meester Sulu," said Mr. Chekov, "I vould not care to speculate aloud on dat subject vitout eenput from staff." He grinned again, dark eyes dancing now. "Report back in vun point five Standard days." He moved off toward Navigation.

"Pavel`?"

"Mark," said Pavel, and reassumed the task of trying not to go nuts himself.

The Life Sciences PREPDIV group was having a lecture from the library computer. Pausing in the doorway, the admiral noted with satisfaction that the entire group seemed to be paying close attention. All but one.

A trainee in the last row sensed his presence and turned, began to rise to his feet. Kirk shook his head silently and pointed to Cadet Halsted, who was fortunately sitting on the aisle. The trainee in the back row got up silently and tapped her on the shoulder, pointing back at the admiral, who beckoned. She was out of her seat and at his side in an instant.

"She's all right," Kirk said softly, drawing her away from the open doorway. "I just heard from Spock."

"You mean...you mean...."

"He said she's all right, Jill. 'Mission accomplished, Admiral.'"

Her face was flushed, eyes joyful, beginning to believe. But still she stared, incredulous. "You didn't go with them?"

"No. You were right." He hesitated, formulating the words in Vulcan. "The obligation was mine."

She nodded slowly, just looking at him in a way that he wondered if he could ever deserve. "Sometimes I think you can't be for real," she said quietly, and leaned up to kiss his cheek without looking around to see if anybody was watching. "Request permission to go and tell my sister, sir."

He nodded, and she took off down the hall. After a few steps she gave a little skip, and then glanced guiltily over her shoulder. He winked; he couldn't help it. Then he called apprehensively, "Watch--" Too late. She had half backed into a crewman walking the other way. After she had apologized and been assured by the uninjured redshirt that he was okay, she stood still and pointed after him, mouthing See? at the admiral. She was grinning helplessly now, but had the satisfaction of seeing the admiral silently crack up before she was again on her way.

As they walked along the beach toward the bungalow, the setting sun laid its rays across the Tower, glinting off what looked like thousands of chips of colored glass. They paused to appreciate the vastness of that glinting rainbow, standing side by side in the fine sand, in no hurry. They were both whole now, and that would not go away.

After a moment, she said softly, "And the meek shall inherit the earth."

He did not answer, but simply took her hand, his palm to hers, their fingers interlaced. They walked on, hand in hand, like two barefoot children in the midst of summer. He had removed his blue shirt and his boots; in trousers and undershirt, he seemed, she thought, to have been wrought in copper and obsidian.

The trees around the bungalow, home before home, were a small forest now. Pausing a short distance down the beach, they took in the sight without speaking at first. Everything looked clearer and deeper, she thought--the colors richer, the outlines of everything sharper than she remembered. Maybe it was the time of day; sunset did wonderful things for rods and cones, she knew. And yet....

"Was it this beautiful when we were here before?" she asked in awe.

And he reminded her softly of what they both already knew. "We have never been here before."

They had sealed the bungalow as they left it, making it impossible for bacteria as well as animals to trespass there, in the expectation that the structure might be used as a base of operations for some future exploratory operation. It was clear to them both now that there would be no such operation; her cure would be classified because of the terrible danger to any future pilgrim, and this world, about to be returned to its rightful owners, would become a quarantined planet. But the seal had served them well. When they broke it and opened the windows, letting the fresh breeze blow through the rooms, they saw that even dust had been unable to intrude on their privacy. The simple furniture and utensils that had been theirs for four years were untouched, and the cot on which she had been lying when the landing party surprised them still showed the imprint of her body on the exposed sheet.

As she stood looking down, he moved behind her, took the shawl from her shoulders, and laid it on a chair near the head of the cot, then parted the tapes on the back of her light garment, slipped it off her shoulders, and let it drop away from her body to the floor. The breeze blew lightly through the room; it seemed as though she could feel it with every pore in her skin, and that she had never been this naked in her life.

He guided her with gentle hands to lie down and stretch her arms up and away from her body, her hands above her head, then stood up again and stripped himself in what seemed like seconds, his gaze holding hers. Then, lowering his body against her, he laced his fingers with hers, their hands still above her head, their bodies touching in every way possible. Without her volition, her legs spread beneath him; she could not have stopped the movement if she had tried, but she was not inclined, at that moment, to try.

"No," he said very softly, his mouth close to her ear. "Not yet." His lips touched her throat lightly, sweetly, and she began to understand that whatever was going to happen, the one way it would not happen was fast.

What he lacked in worldly experience, he made up for in quiet self-assurance. After three Times together, he knew her body as he knew his own, and her mind was open to him as it had never been before. And so, although they had never loved like this except in their separate dreams, he had no need to ask or even wonder what would give her pleasure in their shared awakening. But even apart from the mind touch, he was deeply in love, his curiosity insatiable and his learning curve astronomical--a combination without peer. He had also had the phenomenal luck to be brought up in a society where unspoken taboos do not sprout like toadstools in paradise; where there is no paradise, there are no toadstools. When their bodies finally joined, they were both near the crest of the wave they had been riding together since what seemed like forever. And when it crested, they soared together.

Dusk had crept in while they loved, and a faint chill with it. Almost without moving, he reached for her shawl, and she realized that he had planned where he put it so that he could retrieve it when it was needed. They both smiled a little, and since she lay supine beneath him with her arms relatively free, she took it from him, shook it out and sent it floating over them both. The golden threads, invisible to human eyes in full daylight and full night, caught the last of the sun's glow. Look, she thought, and they looked together through her eyes at the green and blue and gold entwined.

Slowly he raised himself on his elbows, his hands beneath her shoulders. "And I thought you were beautiful before. Oh, Sarah--" He seemed to be only smiling, but she could feel laughter sparkling within him as it did now within her. "My Sarah, tell me 'I told you so.'"

He had not withdrawn from their final joining, and so she answered without words. Once more he lay down full length against her, drawing his hands down her back beneath her and then pressing her gently toward him. "Again." His voice was barely audible; once more she did not answer in words. A nightbird gave its first call in the trees, and she thought fleetingly of the silvergreen beauty of the beach at dusk. But the thought flew away with the bird, and they saw the beach again, for the last time, by moonlight.

As Armstrong rose, and with Aldrin already high over the Tower's shoulder, they had taken one last walk on the beach before he put on his blue shirt again, brushed the sand from his feet, and replaced his boots. Then they sat for a while at the edge of the beach, resting against the low rise near the porch. Her shawl wrapped her shoulders and his arms wrapped her shawl, even as they had done that afternoon.

She drifted a little, and came awake as he whispered: "The ship will soon leave orbit. You can sleep there."

"Where?" she asked slyly, now fully awake and ready to tease him in a way that she knew would delight him. "Will I get a deluxe passenger suite like I did the last time?"

His cheek was against her forehead, and so she could feel the slow smile dawning there. "That," he said softly, "would be most--" Turning in his arms, she hugged him, laughing silently. Although many aspects of human behavior were no longer a mystery to him, he sounded mildly incredulous as he asked, "Why did you ask me when you knew what I'd say?"

"I thought I needed to hear you say it," she answered, realizing only now that teasing him had not been her only motive. "But I don't." She turned her face up to him even as his mouth sought hers. It was with considerable reluctance that, a few moments later, they disentangled themselves sufficiently for the first officer of the Enterprise to locate his communicator.

For once in his life, Leonard McCoy was at a loss for words. The pity of of it was, the admiral thought, there were only three witnesses. Almost everybody else was either asleep or at lunch.

The first officer stood at the foot of the patient's diagnostic bed with his arms folded, observing the proceedings with interest. The admiral half sat on the next bed, doing the same. The CMO scanned the patient, who dangled her feet with her shawl across her knees. If she and Spock had been cats, Kirk thought, he would have to suspect that they had disobeyed his last order and lunched on a whole flock of canaries.

She had explained what had happened to her, much more succinctly than Spock would have, using terminology that meant little to Kirk and probably, he suspected, not much more to Spock. It was more than obvious that McCoy was enormously relieved to see her so healthy. But he seemed unable to accept her explanation of how she'd gotten that way. "I don't make house calls, and I don't investigate miracles," had been the longest sentence he'd uttered in the last five minutes. Threatened? Kirk wondered incredulously. No. Not Bones. Left out. He acted like he'd arrived at the party when all the musicians had gone home with their instruments and all the booze had gone home with the guests.

"Sound as a credit," he said finally, smiling for the first time. "Pulse was a little rapid when you beamed up, but it's fine now."

Startled, Kirk glanced at Sarah, who apparently felt his eyes on her and met them with hers. As their gaze held, it dawned on him that his canary metaphor might have been right on target, verifying certain reluctant but persistent conjectures that, throughout the years, he had shared with no one.

The eye contact lasted only a second or two. Then Sarah calmly looked down.

He could not be embarrassed, since she so obviously was not. It was a serene, unhurried withdrawal, setting her own individual limits without a hint of reproof for his inadvertent surmise. She wasn't even blushing.

He turned his gaze to Spock, dreading what he might see in those dark eyes even more than he had that morning. What he saw was Sarah's serenity without Sarah's withdrawal.

"What I can't figure out," McCoy was grumbling, "is why you didn't bring her back up right away, Spock." He leaned toward the diagnostic panel, having noticed something that needed adjustment. "What the hell were you doing down there all that time--taking tricorder readings?"

Without missing a beat, his gaze still holding Kirk's, Spock said quietly, "We were reminiscing, Doctor." If there was a movement of his right eyebrow, it was fractional.

"That's great." McCoy made the needed adjustment. "Seems to me that a critically ill patient who undergoes an unexpected recovery should be examined as soon as p--"

"Bones," Kirk said gently, "knock it off."

Sarah looked up then, and this time her eyes smiled. Then she looked down again.

"Well," said the physician of record, "she should be in bed. Just to be on the safe side. At least until tomorrow. Does anybody have any objections to that?"

If anybody did, nobody said so. And Jim Kirk found himself looking very hard at nobody.

After Sarah and Spock had gone, presumably to follow the doctor's orders, the admiral listened with less than half an ear to the CMO's continued grousing, marveling that for perhaps the first time in his life, Bones had missed every boat going.

"I'd feel more comfortable if she stayed in Sickbay for a while," he confided as they headed for the officers' mess. "Where's she going to stay anyway--with T'Ara?"

"Oh...." Busily punching up lunch, Kirk produced one of his elaborate shrugs. "I wouldn't worry about it if I were you."

"And when you see Spock, you can tell him for me--"

"Spock's on leave, Bones."

"That'll be the day," said the CMO.

"It might," said the admiral.

It was.

The few items Jill had packed for Sarah included a white robe with no fastenings but a loose tie at the waist. Late in the ship's afternoon, she showered, put on the robe, sat on the bed where her lover still lay, and began to brush her freshly washed hair. She felt no guilt in taking the time to indulge herself in the activity she had anticipated with such pleasure, for he seemed to take as much pleasure in watching her do it. After a time, he invented a variation that did not include the robe.

"I can't concentrate," she told him, concentrating on getting the words out, "when you're doing that."

"Brushing one's hair does not require concentration." His answer was muffled against an upturned breast. Its mate was being lightly stroked, fingertip touches only, wrist and arm encircling her. His other hand was otherwise occupied. "You are too easily distracted." Her answer was not clearly articulated, and conversation lagged. Eventually, the hairbrush fell off the bed and onto the floor, where it lay for an unspecified period of time.

Gone, but not forgotten.

She dozed in his arms; he rested in hers, devising yet another variation. Rousing to find him already hardening within her, she realized that it was not by accident that they had ended up on the edge of the bed. In one continuous movement, he retrieved the hairbrush, gently folded her fingers around it, and eased over on his back without disengaging from her, deftly keeping her in position with his hands. Straddling him, she understood even without benefit of the mindlink that he somewhat urgently anticipated that she resume brushing her hair to the accompaniment of as much bodily movement as she thought appropriate to the situation. "Slowly," he added aloud, his eyes darker and yet brighter than she had ever seen them. She complied to the best of her ability, which proved to be considerably more than adequate to the task at hand. His eyes caressed her everywhere that his hands could not reach; his hands touched her more intimately. Eventually she dropped the brush again, her own hands tangling in her hair as her body arched backwards. He thrust upward once, twice, and again they were not alone, but together.

They cycled their evening meal. She was ravenous; he ate almost nothing, but seemed to enjoy watching her enjoy anything. She told him of the day she and T'Ara had spent shopping together, and of T'Ara's joy at the thought of making her tea and telling her stories. "It was a family joke," she explained, aware that she was talking with her mouth full and that he couldn't have cared less. She knew so much of his family, and he so little of hers. She told him about the stockings and the cookie dough, and about the tree house, and about the jelly beans.

"Your memories are so different from mine," he said finally. But there was no envy in him tonight. Instead, there was a kind of wonder that they had found one another at all.

She slept, deeply and without dreams, while he prowled the ship, then played chess with the admiral, and sparred verbally with McCoy--simultaneously, she gathered. The experience did not tire him. Rather, it seemed to refresh him. When she was fully awake, he made love to every part of her with hands and lips and tongue until her body sang. Then, as she lay sated and momentarily spent against his shoulder, knowing how her response had already excited him, she whispered, "This isn't fair. You get to do all the fun things."

She knew from his indrawn breath that he perceived exactly what variation she now had in mind. But he was more than willing to play her game. He raised himself on one elbow, and she thought again of copper and obsidian, burnished now with desire.

"'What is fun?'" he quoted softly. She knew that the long-ago conversation in which T'Ara had asked that question was one of her truest memories, and that he had often perceived it through their link. And so he knew what she would say next, and she felt his body go tight with knowing.

"Watch."

Laying her hands on his shoulders, she turned him until he was supine, propped on both elbows, the length of his own body fully visible to him. And he watched, heart pounding, as she began to love him as he had just finished loving her. Watched as she began. But when she finally held the hardness of him in her mouth and the softness of him in her hand, he had long since let his head fall back and closed his eyes. Now he whispered one word--once, then again, then once again--the Vulcan word for sweet. The whisper ended in a groan or a cry or a sigh--she did not know which, and ceased to care as he abandoned himself to her touch and her mouth and her love.

They lay together in silence for a long time, feeling the heartbeat of the ship as though it were as audible as their own heartbeats, even though they both knew it was not. The bed covering was on the floor and her shawl draped over his desk chair, but the Vulcan thermal ambience removed the necessity for covering even as the moisture evaporated from their skin.

"Are you cold?" he asked finally, and she shook her head. He drew her closer, gently separating her legs with his hand and then laying it intimately between them. There was no intent to arouse her now, she knew. He simply wanted to touch her there through the night. Then sleep with me naked he said without voice, and kissed away her tears.