"Music I Heard..."

"Music I heard with you was more than music..."

--Conrad Aiken

Part 1 of 3

Always before, she had gone to T'Loreth's office at the end of the day to unwind and catch up on her professional reading. But on the day of Kathleen Greenwood's death, she was summoned to her own office at sunset to take a vidphone call from Amanda.

"What is it?" Sarah demanded. How many balls could she juggle at the same time? Rejecting the image, she thrust her hands into the pockets of her medical tunic. "Is T'Ara worse?"

"No." On the small screen, Amanda looked ill, and old. After these past few days, no wonder. "My dear, you have to stop worrying about her like this. Even Vulcan children get the flu."

"She's never sick, and it's not the flu."

"Call it what you will. Her immune system is probably in shreds, but you know this isn't a serious illness for a Vulcan child. Would you be so worried about her if you weren't under so much stress yourself?" Sarah sighed, shook her head, and slid into T'Loreth's desk chair, relaxing for the first time in hours. "You look exhausted," Amanda continued, frowning. "I wish you hadn't worked today. We've heard--"

"Kathleen Greenwood died about half an hour ago." Her elbow on the arm of the chair, Sarah shaded her eyes with one hand.

"Oh, Sarah!" Amanda was familiar with the name, and aware that Kathleen was barely thirty. "What happened to her?"

"Aircar accident. She was at term, and the baby was born on the way to the hospital. But we couldn't save Kathleen." A statistic, Sarah thought, running her fingers across her forehead. Baby doing fine, period. "Before she died, I promised her I'd stay until I'm sure the baby's all right."

"Stay?" Amanda repeated, startled. "You mean...tonight?"

"I promised, Amanda. The poor little thing seems fine, but there was so much trauma, and she is a hybrid. I have to stay until I'm sure there aren't any complications."

"How long?"

"In ten to twelve hours we'll know one way or the other. I'll probably be here most of the night."

There was a long moment of silence. Odd. Amanda was usually so quick and articulate.

"Yes," she said finally. "I think you should do that." Another pause. Then: "I hope you'll forgive me tomorrow for not...insisting."

"I can rest here," Sarah assured her. "As long as T'Ara's all right, I'm needed here more than I am there."

Amanda appeared to be weighing alternatives, her eyes slightly narrowed. "I think that's probably true," she said finally.

"Is T'Ara's temp still spiking?"

"No. She's all washed out, but she tranced just before--before I called you." Again the preoccupied stare. Then Amanda sighed. Whatever conflict she had had, it was over now. The decision was made. "I won't leave her, Sarah." It sounded like a vow.

"I know that!" No one would leave a Vulcan child in a healing trance for more than a few minutes. Amanda must be breaking, Sarah thought. Too much stress. Too much heartache.

And then Amanda smiled.

Startled by the change, Sarah tensed again. "Have you heard from Jim?"

"No. I haven't." It would be days before Sarah remembered Amanda's faint stress on the word I. "You're right. You're better off where you are than...than here. Good night, my dear. Try to rest as much as you can. You'll--we all need to do that." And the screen went dark.

T'Loreth worked at her desk, available for conversation should she be needed. Sarah stood at the window, sipping tea that smelled of Vulcan spices and warming her hands on the cup. Outside, the setting sun hung smouldering in an ochre sky tinged with peach. Inside, the air felt chilled. Here on one of the hottest planets in the Federation, Sarah felt as though she could never get warm again.

Another day passing. Now another night, and then another day. Sarek had said it would be at least three more days until they heard from Jim, if they heard from him at all. How am I supposed to feel? she thought, panicking. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. Then the panic subsided, leaving only the pain.

The news of Sarek's plan for Spock's refusion had truncated the healing of her soul, and even the grief. Yet she felt no hope. Events, faces, voices swirled around her, not touching her. Surreal. Until Kathleen Greenwood died. That was real enough.

She leaned her forehead against the window, closing her eyes. A moment later she felt T'Loreth's familiar presence at her side and an unfamiliar touch on her arm. It was the first time in all their years together than T'Loreth had touched her.

"Are you well?"

"Don't make me cry," Sarah whispered. She pressed T'Loreth's hand against her arm for a moment and then released it, knowing that weeping humans were more disturbing to her Vulcan colleagues than they liked to admit. "I don't want to offend you."

T'Loreth shook her head. "I would not be offended, Sarah. But you must go home. You should not be here now."

"I can't stay home, just waiting for news. And I promised Kathleen. Just give me a moment. Please?"

"As you wish." T'Loreth moved back toward her desk. Sarah gazed out at ShiKahr until the tears were gone, and then she turned.

As she did so, a gigantic shadow sped across the window.

Drawing in her breath, she checked her movement. What in the universe...? There had been heat lightning every night for weeks, but there were no clouds in the sky now, and no bird on the planet was a tenth that size.

"Did you see that?" she whispered, laying her hand against the window. Nothing. The shadow was gone.

Shadow of death. Everywhere.

God, she thought. I must be losing my mind.

"What did you see?" T'Loreth asked.

"I don't know." Sarah turned to face her. "Nothing, I guess. A shadow. I don't know."

As she moved away from the window, floodlights began to sweep the darkening sky.

"Nurse Keller has a rocking chair in Neonatal," T'Loreth had said. She put the same emphasis on both words, as though they were adjective and noun rather than one concept. But her eyes were smiling. The rocking chair would never have occurred to her, which was precisely why Sarah was on her staff.

"Why do you want me here?" Sarah had asked her all those years ago, when T'Loreth had invited her to become a permanent member of the Hybrid Obstetrics staff. And T'Loreth had answered, "I need you here." After many years of working with human mothers and their hybrid newborns, T'Loreth still did not consider herself the resident expert on humanity. "We have much to teach you, and you have much to teach us," she had said. Rocking chairs were not in the curriculum, but using one as a monitoring station would be a good deal more restful than spending the night watching Kathleen's infant daughter being crooned to and rocked by a simulator.

The sun had almost disappeared by the time Sarah reached the anti-grav tube that ran up and down the outside of the hospital building, its transparent aluminum rear wall giving the floater a magnificent view of the city. She paused for a moment, looking across the Science Academy complex toward home. Standing many stories above ground level, she could see the hills that circled the city rising dusky blue against a sky now pale orange, the lights from the houses winking on like Terran fireflies against the blue. Beyond the hills, a narrow strip of yellow-green parkland circled the city, a force field at its inner edge calibrated to permit humanoid life to pass through it freely but allowing no sub-humanoid life forms larger than a Terran rabbit to approach the city. Beautiful and efficient, she thought, as always. But she had a promise to keep. Looking down, she put out her foot to step into the grav tube, and froze.

In fantasy, she plummeted down the tube in free-fall while a voice inside her head chattered, He's dead dead dead or a vegetable or scorched inside like Kathleen outside or Sarek will claim his soul for logic and Jim will claim his heart for Starfleet and the two of us will be right back where we BEGAN.

Trembling and sweating, she clung to the edge of the tube opening, her gaze fixed on the dusky-soft hills with their pinpoint lights now blurred and dancing. If she'd held together when Spock died, she could hold together through anything. But in fantasy's eye, juggler's balls went tumbling down the grav tube after the juggler, ready to bury her at the bottom.

Two Vulcans approached along the hallway, deep in conversation. As they neared, their conversation stopped, and they both turned toward her. Closing her eyes for an instant, she stepped into the tube and floated downward, watching the hills rise to enfold her like the petals of a velvet-blue flower. The sweat dried on her skin, and by the time she floated to the exit at the second floor, she was chilled to the bone once more.

But when she reached Neonatal, she was walking steadily and almost calm. Amanda had been right, as usual. T'Loreth had been right, as usual. She should not be here now. But she had a promise to keep. When that was done, she could go home and fall apart at leisure. With luck, she might even sleep.

Fireballs rose from the blue hills and spun in a circle, their juggler invisible, their light too bright to bear. Then they merged into one sphere spinning on its axis, and Jim's voice was saying, Soft-landed on Genesis.... If you could have seen it forming....

Sarah jerked awake and glanced at the clock. It would be dawn soon. She began to rock again--a slight and gentle motion so as not to wake the infant who slept in her arms. Funny how newborns all looked like they were trying to wring their hands, but were unable to grasp and hold--hands back-to-back under the chin, clutching nothing. Face so small, wrinkled still, ancient-looking and yet new as a bud, green as a pickle. Miniature pointed ears. At three months, Shevek weighed twice as much as this child, was half again as long yet only a little broader. But this one was just as solid, and her breathing was normal.

Tabula rasa.

Spock too, perhaps. If Sarek's plan worked.

And what about McCoy? If you back up your data by saving it over another file.... Leaning her head against the back of the rocker, Sarah cleared her mind. Blank. That was best. No precedent, Sarek had said, except in ancient legend. No preconceived ideas. Blank mind, Sarah.

Mindless. Spock could be mindless.

Blank. No precedent. Keep the mind blank.

Next door in the neonatal nursery, Zoe and her staff were going about their rounds, their voices muted under low lights. This baby might be better off in a simulator. At least there she would have a tireless computer to soothe her vocally. Smiling a little, Sarah cuddled the baby closer and began to sing softly.

'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free,

'Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be.... Her voice sounded thin, like a child's.

And when we are in that place just right,

We will be in the garden of love and delight. No, she thought. Don't think about that now.

Too late for tears, and too soon for hope. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel.

"You look like you could use a break," said a voice from the doorway.

Sarah opened her eyes to see Zoe leaning against the door frame, arms crossed, face in shadow.

"I wasn't asleep."

"Tell me about it," Zoe said drily. "Look, she's doing better than you are. Let me put her in a sim for a while, and you go lie down."

"Thanks. I'm fine." Sarah tried for a smile, and made it.

Zoe shrugged. "You feel like talking shop?" When Sarah nodded: "I think there's something wrong with Junior."

Sarah narrowed her eyes, trying to see Zoe's face. If there were really anything wrong with Shevek, his one-woman fan club would not have announced it with suppressed laughter in her voice.

"Okay, I'll bite. What's wrong with Junior?"

"That kid," said Zoe with the air of making a pronouncement, "is not your normal Vulcan baby. I mean, he looks Vulcan, and he's doing things a human his age couldn't ever do. But this kid is happy. You know what pre-controls are like. Like, autistic."

"He has some 'interesting' recessive genes."

"'Indeed,'" Zoe said primly. "Five'll get you ten Grampa's gonna shit a brick if things keep going the way they're going."

Sarah laughed, and the infant in her arms stirred, yawned, and sneezed.

"She could be getting hungry. What time is it?" Sarah asked.

"Time for you to go home, and for this one to have breakfast." Zoe moved into the anteroom, the light from the nursery gleaming on her russet hair. Standing in front of Sarah, she craned her head around so that her face was parallel with the baby's. "Doesn't she even have a name?" she asked sadly.

"At her last checkup, Kathleen told me they had a list. They were going to decide when Simon got home. Gets home. Oh, hell, Zoe--" She closed her eyes, but the tears came anyway.

"So she needs a name." Moving to Sarah's side, Zoe put her arm around her shoulders and squeezed hard. "Hey, I got it. T'inkerbell." Sarah giggled, the tears still running down her cheeks. "Brilliant suggestion, and she laughs." Zoe rested her cheek against Sarah's hair and they were silent for a moment.

In that moment, Dr. Kim Sung come to the anteroom door. As her eyes met Sarah's over Zoe's shoulder, Kim frowned a little, her obvious concern for Sarah diluted by her equally obvious bewilderment at seeing a side of Zoe Keller that she had never seen before. You see? Sarah thought, tears already drying on her cheeks. What have I been telling you? Kim was not a telepath, but the message was apparently clear from Sarah's expression. A smile crept into Kim's dark eyes, but her face froze as Zoe spoke again.

"Don't tell Dragon Lady, though. Might crack her face if she--" Sarah stiffened. Zoe turned to look where Sarah was looking and then, taking her time, straightened up, raised her hand and waggled her fingers at Kim. "Hi, there." Kim's lips twitched, and Zoe went blithely on: "As I was saying--might crack her face if she smiled."

"So you've told me several times." Kim moved forward into the room. "For the record, who's Dragon Lady?"

"Western cultural archetype," said Sarah. At the same time, Zoe said, "Oh, just some pushy broad."

"Some day--" Annoyance and amusement warring in her voice, Kim pointed an unsteady finger at Zoe while Sarah shook with silent laughter. "Some day, sweetheart, you are going to find yourself in such deep shit--"

"Me? Nah." Moving toward the door into the nursery, Zoe made an exaggerated swing to give Kim a wide berth. Then she glanced back over her shoulder, still grinning. "Say goodnight, Sarah."

"Goodnight, Sarah," said Sarah. "Hey, before you go--where'd you stash Junior overnight?"

"Right in here." Now in the doorway, Zoe jerked her head toward the nursery. "All the other daycares went home after the evening shift, and he was lonesome." And she was gone.

"That," said Kim, looking after Zoe, "I could do without."

"No, you couldn't."

"Funny how folks around here keep repeating themselves." Kim put her hands on her hips. "Are you out of your mind?"

"Fine way to talk to your department head."

"When was the last time you slept? I mean all night long."

"Last night. I mean, the night before last. Night before this. Whatever." In memory, she saw her unfriendly bed, the pillow sweat-stained, the covers tangled.

"Yesterday morning, you said you'd hardly slept." Sarah could not summon the energy to answer. "Sarah, you cannot go without sleep like this. I don't care if your grandmother was an ox. You are three-quarters human."

"In medical school, I could go for three days without sleep."

"That was twenty years ago. I think it's about time you faced reality. You can't expect--"

"Kim, one thing this isn't is reality."

Their gaze held, and then Kim asked, "How soon do you find out about Spock?"

"Another couple days, Sarek thinks. They might get here in another couple days. Then...." She could not go on.

"Good God." Kim took the baby from Sarah's unresisting arms. "Go home, boss. Now. Take a red pill, okay? Take three."

"All right." Sarah rose, and as she did so, she saw at the edge of her vision two pairs of dark Vulcan eyes.

Like the nursery itself, the anteroom windowed on the hall. At the window stood a Vulcan couple whom she recognized. Of course. If Kathleen were alive, she and her baby would be going home this morning. The last time, seven years ago, Simon's Vulcan grandparents had come to take Kathleen and her first baby home. Now they had come to take this one home. Baby doing fine, period. Totally logical.

"Give me the baby," she said. And when Kim wordlessly complied, she went though the doorway into the hall.

"Live long and prosper, Sivor--T'Resh." They were of a height--smooth dark hair with no gray in it, thin unsmiling faces. In their nineties, probably. Sivor wore a black jumpsuit, elegantly trimmed in blue. T'Resh wore a robe of deep reddish brown that triggered in Sarah an anxiety that she was momentarily unable to define. She knew only that she did not want to turn this vulnerable newborn over to the silent Vulcan in his elegant black suit, or to the figure beside him in...Starfleet red? Shivering a little, she told herself that Kim was right: if she didn't get some rest soon, she wouldn't last another day, let alone two. Or three. Or....

Between the two adult Vulcans stood Kathleen Greenwood's son, Seth. From the nursery anteroom, he had not been visible above the bottom of the observation window. Dark little boy, nothing of his mother in him. The Vulcan genetic dominance was virtually unrelenting, even outnumbered three to one. Seth's eyes were solemn, yet alert and interested.

"Is this child Simon's daughter?" T'Resh asked.

"Yes." With an effort, Sarah withdrew her gaze from the little boy's. "You'll have to check her out of the hospital. The pediatrician will give you instruction, but she's fine. Do you understand--" Her arms tightened around the baby. "She has to be held," she went on, her voice trembling as she realized that this baby was not only Spock to her, but herself as well. "She's human. You have to hold her sometimes."

"I can hold her," said Seth.

Sarah turned her unbelieving gaze to the two adults, her Terran conditioning expecting "Not now." Or "You're too little." Or "Maybe later, if you're a good boy." She heard nothing.

Totally logical. Baby needs to be held, you hold her. And without a word spoken among the three of them.

She knelt in front of the child, wordlessly showing him how to support the baby's head. At seven, he was well able to carry the infant's weight, and like most Vulcans, he absorbed kinesthetic images as a plant absorbs water, fascinated but still unsmiling. It was only when Sarah touched one of the baby's tiny wrinkled hands and whispered, "Goodbye, Tinkerbell" that she finally saw an afterimage of his mother's smile.

In the nursery, Shevek was up on his hands and knees, rocking. Jill had not pulled herself up like that until she was seven months old. T'Ara had neither rocked nor crawled; she had simply stood up and walked at the age of eight point three five months, Standard.

Feeling less tired than she had all night, Sarah dropped to her knees at the head of the crib, so that she could grin at her son at his eye level though the transparent aluminum enclosure. Rocking energetically, Shevek grinned back and made a noise that sounded like "Hi!" Coming from a child who looked completely Vulcan, the effect was demoralizing. Sarah laughed again, and her son rocked all the harder, his black eyes sparkling, genetic dominance relenting without ceremony. His pigmentation was almost human, but his hair was a smooth cap that glinted faintly in the pre-dawn light from the window. His eyebrows followed the angle of his pointed ears. The smooth alien effect was totally negated by the state of his attire.

"Shevek of Vulcan," his mother informed him, "your diaper is falling off."

"Mup," said Shevek, rocking and grinning.

Dawn was breaking as they walked toward home. Shevek, his stomach full and his diaper changed, slept in a canvas carrier on his mother's back, his head on her shoulder. His mother savored his solid warmth against her back.

Halfway up the hill to the house, she paused to rest on the low wall that defined the Vulcan garden that rainbowed up the rest of the hill. The house looked deserted in the yellow light, and she turned her head to look back at the dawn over the city. Lovely. Heat lightning most of the night, but now this, as though the lightning had melted and thinned to a desert-gold wash. Sitting on the wall, she closed her eyes and listened to a bird announcing a new day.

All the shadows were gone. The surreal sensation that had imprisoned her spirit had lifted sometime in the night. Again her face was wet with tears, but there was no pain in her now.

"He's dead, Shev," she whispered. "Your father is dead, and Sarek is mad, and Jim must be both by now. Why can't I believe any of it?"

Her son had no answer, and gave her none.

After putting the sleeping baby in his own bed, she went to T'Ara's room. The door was open, as though Amanda were listening for a familiar step.

But Amanda was asleep, stretched out on top of the covers next to the child, her hand resting on T'Ara's arm to detect the first sign that the trance was thinning. In repose, the faces of the two sleepers showed none of the stress and grief of the last nightmarish week. Amanda looked years younger than she had on the phone screen the evening before, and her color was better. T'Ara, who had grown several inches in the last year, had nevertheless not yet begun to mature. The resemblance to pictures of her father at the same age was still uncanny--the long, narrow face framed in dark hair, the soft child's mouth, lips now slightly parted.

Rest well, little one. Resisting the impulse to touch T'Ara's cheek lest she disturb the trance, Sarah tiptoed out, checked Shevek again, and went to her own room, a mist of fatigue rising around her. She knew that she would sleep long, for her grandmother's people had slept longer and more deeply than Earth humans did. But there was time. Two or three days before they could expect to hear anything.

But I'll only sleep for one, she thought, stripping off her clothes and crawling into bed, pulling the sheet up to her neck. Forgive me, my love. I'll have my clothes picked up before you....

Blackness.

After what felt like a very long time, she dreamed again.

Amanda stood by the bed, looking down at the sleeping Sarah. The strain was back in her face, and her healthy color was gone. She was speaking to someone who stood in the doorway, hesitating but determined.

Jim.

In the dream, Sarah saw his expression clearly. He had been in a fight, and his face was bruised and cut. Now he approached the bed where the dreaming Sarah lay, and he and Amanda stood beside it together, whispering. Arguing in whispers. Dreaming, Sarah saw Amanda lay her hand on his arm, pleading.

It's all right.

Sarah tried to speak, disturbed by the agitation in Jim's stance, his expression, his voice.

I'm awake.

And she thought that she was awake, that she had spoken aloud, that they must have heard her. But they went on whispering, both looking at her where she lay, still dreaming. Jim said something quite clearly, and she understood the words.

What do you mean? she asked.

Amanda drew him away, toward the door. Just as they reached it, Jim looked back over his shoulder.

Don't go! she called. Tell me what you meant by....

Blackness again.

On the morning after Spock's fal-tor-pan, Admiral James T. Kirk had had one of the most difficult conversations of his life, and that across nearly sixteen light years of space. If it had been anyone but Morrow, it might have been easier. But Starfleet's current commander had never been one of the admiral's favorite people.

"If there had been any other way, sir," he told the subspace screen, "I wouldn't have. The Enterprise was the only alternative open to me." Thanks to you.

"You could have listened to me, Jim." The dark eyes were reproving, the regret in the voice genuine. Yet Kirk had to set his teeth to keep from shouting. Spock was alive and McCoy saved from insanity, and this man-- "Now you're finished," Morrow went on, "and the best of your crew right along with you. I'm going to have to send somebody after you."

"Sir, I'd like to suggest an alternative."

"Such as?"

"We'd like to come home under our own power." Morrow stared, shaking his head. "In the Klingon ship," Kirk finished.

"Is it spaceworthy?"

"Not really, sir. We just about made it here. But Scotty estimates that with Starfleet's help, we could have her refitted in about three months. How much sooner than that can you spare someone to come and get us?"

The conversation balked, twisted, backtracked on itself. Kirk had often felt that he and Morrow spoke different languages with the U.T. out of commission. He began to sweat, trying to keep his voice calm and even. If he blew this one, the four who had risked their lives and their careers for Spock and McCoy would be hauled back to Earth like criminals, and he could not risk that even for the exquisite pleasure of telling Commander, Starfleet, to go screw himself.

Eventually, Morrow agreed that the six of them would be housed in crew quarters on Starbase Vulcan for three months, and that they could requisition supplies and materials at the discretion of the base commander. The only conditions were that they were not to leave ShiKahr and that they were not to be seen in Starfleet uniforms under any circumstances. Kirk had the impression that Morrow was procrastinating, that somewhere around the middle of the conversation he had decided that keeping the whole situation on hold for a while might be For the Good of the Service. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered right now except that Spock was alive and the crew still free.

"What about Lieutenant Saavik?" Morrow asked, and something inside Kirk snapped, releasing his pent-up outrage.

"Saavik hasn't been accused of anything!"

"Jim," said the voice of sweet reason, "get hold of yourself. I'm not suggesting that she has been. I meant--what about her request for transfer to Starbase Vulcan?" Kirk stared. "It came in by subspace about an hour ago, and I've asked to be informed immediately about any new information related to Genesis. Didn't you know?"

An hour ago? It was barely two hours since the fal-tor-pan had ended.

"No," he said. "I didn't know." But he thought he knew why.

A few months after V'ger, on a deep-space mission when there was nothing much to do off duty except talk, he and Spock had done an all-nighter in the captain's quarters on the subject of Vulcan culture, philosophy, and biology, and the intersections thereof. He had learned a great deal, some of it more than he really wanted to know. But it was worth the decision to stay sober on Altair water to hear Spock expounding at length on the manners and mores of his dominant racial heritage with his feet propped up on a chair and his hands clasped, relaxed, in his lap.

Along about 0430, Spock had dropped the one bombshell that Kirk had not been able to get his mind around.

"You mean this kid just walks up to a--er--lady of his acquaintance and says, 'Now's the Time'?"

"In a manner of speaking." Spock repressed a sigh. "Previous acquaintance is not necessary, however."

"He just walks up to a stranger and says--"

"A prostitute," Spock said gently, "is invariably a stranger, is she not?"

"There are times," said his captain, grinning as he got up to stretch and pour himself another Altair water, "that I think I liked you better before V'ger." Spock's raised eyebrow was accompanied by a slight shrug. "Besides, isn't that a false analogy?"

"Not entirely. First Time is an adolescent phenomenon, just as certain rites of initiation--"

"I get the connection," Kirk said drily, resuming his seat and leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "You said it can be as lethal as the real thing if the fever isn't controlled." Spock nodded. "Yet the l'nara treats the condition telepathically with no physical contact at all?" He imitated the hand position of the Vulcan mind meld.

"Very minimal." Spock raised his right hand, the first two fingers extended--but upwards, not at an angle as Kirk had seen the gesture done before. Then he raised his left in the same way, and brought the two together, fingertips barely in contact. Watching, Kirk was reminded of a childhood game: This is the church/ And this is the steeple.... "The afflicted male is feverish, confused, and frightened, but not sexually aroused to any great degree. Sustained physical contact could...complicate the situation."

Kirk sighed. "Is there a Vulcan synonym for 'emotional support'?"

"We are not discussing a human male, Jim. The l'nara's function is to assist a Vulcan in raising to the conscious level the information that was telepathically implanted in his unconscious mind at the time of the bonding." Spock folded his hands in his lap again.

"Hand-holding, Vulcan style."

"As I said, that is not the Vulcan way. There is a very high probability that actual hand-holding would trigger the plak tow."

Kirk nodded, resisting the impulse to ask, But what if he's half human and scared half to death? "So she fills him in telepathically on what's really happening, and that calms him down. Cold shower effect?"

Spock sighed. "Indeed."

"Cures the fever--for the time being." Spock nodded. "But this ritual only works for First Time." Another nod. "Was your l'nara a stranger or someone you knew?"

"Neither. I was isolated at the time, camping out alone on Vulcan's Forge."

After a moment, Kirk asked, "How old were you?"

"Seventeen point four six years Terran."

A year ago, Kirk thought, he would have said 'in your years.' "How did you survive?"

"The necessary information was within, and had been since my bonding with T'Pring. Learned disciplines enabled me to access it--eventually--without assistance. It was an interesting experience."

Good God. "And if you hadn't been able to access it?"

"I would have died of the fever, and of the fear." Spock rose, stretched, and returned his cup to the recycler. "Captain, we are due on the bridge in precisely three point two seven hours. May I suggest that this...." He paused, and a smile crept into his eyes. "...most enjoyable interlude be terminated." He cocked his eyebrow. "For the good of the service?" Kirk nodded, his grin surfacing. "Good night, Jim. It is a rare--" He checked himself, and then went on, "I've never done this before. Thank you for listening."

"Neither have I, Spock." Not stone sober, he thought. And not like this. "Thank you for sharing."

Kirk met Saavik by chance, in one of the anti-grav tubes in Con Tower, the main operations building at Starbase Vulcan. He had spent most of that first morning slogging through hostile red tape, which turned out to be much more aggravating than the friendly kind he was used to. Even with Morrow's sanction, he was persona non grata everywhere he turned; it was as though his rescue of Spock were the moral equivalent of mutiny and treason combined. The bizarre irrationality of it infuriated him, and he had forced himself to smile, to be congenial, even obsequious. And when he found himself about to gag on sugar and bile, he called to mind the memory of Uhura's triumphant "This isn't reality. This is fantasy!" And of Scotty and Sulu and Chekov, pledging their lives and their loyalty for the thousandth time on the newly re-lit bridge of the Enterprise. And when even those memories threatened to elude him, he called up one that he hoped he could someday forget: Bones's ghastly face as he pleaded, Take me home. Now he would take them all home. But not as prisoners. They would go as free beings, in their own ship, and if Jim Kirk had to eat shit to arrange it, he would eat it with a smile or die trying.

Click on the right arrow below to go to Part 2 of "'Music I Heard'"