THE CAPTAIN OF THE BOUNTY

He spent another sugar-and-bile day requisitioning a bubble pipe and the necessary furnishings for the bubble. In the first coolness of evening he programmed the pipe with Spock as a fascinated observer: minute bedrooms with clothing recyclers, a bath with solid waste reducer, a centralized food-service area, and the office that would be their base of operations.

Spock's responses to the programming operation made Kirk want to cry. He was fascinated by the readouts on the bubble's tiny console, even though, initially, he had no idea how to use them. Yet each new procedure that Kirk showed him became his own. By the time they were ready to activate the programming, he had the internal specifications of their dwelling committed to memory, and when Kirk wondered aloud if the office area were too small, Spock quoted the figures in three dimensions. "I do not think that will be too small, Jim." Then, without pause, he rattled off the ratios of cubic space to internal population that were used in building Constitution-class starships, figures that he and Kirk had not discussed since the last renovation of the Enterprise when it was converted to a training vessel. "The allotted space will be adequate for our needs," he finished, sounding as he had always sounded. Yet a moment later he was questioning Kirk like an insecure child regarding the procedure for modification of an existing design feature.

When they were ready, Kirk was tempted to asked him if he would like to push the switch, as one might ask a child if he wanted to perform a task under adult supervision. Resisting that impulse, Kirk pushed the switch himself, and the bubble in which they would live for three months expanded from the top of the console, glittering in the fading light. It broke free, floated to the area where it had been programmed to float and settled to the ground several dozen meters from the Bounty, sealing itself in place. Kirk turned to Spock, but suppressed what he had been about to say.

Spock was looking in the direction of the bubble. After a few moments he spoke, still gazing into the middle distance. "Who or what was the Companion?" Before Kirk could answer, Spock turned to him, smiling a little. "Zefrem Cochrane. Gamma Canaris N. We took the Galileo." The smile spread. "The second Galileo." He clasped his hands behind his back.

Kirk nodded, grinning, and they went to inspect their handiwork. All they needed was time, he told himself. Give it a little time and they'd all be fine.

That night, they began to decontaminate the ship. "Are you sure he's up to this?" Kirk asked McCoy, sweating under his backpack of chemicals as he watched Spock. "My God, Bones--four days ago he was dead."

"I'm watching him."

"Are you sure you're up to this?"

"Get off my back," McCoy snapped without pausing in his work, sounding as though he wouldn't have minded punching somebody out himself.

After their first joyful reaction, the others were uneasy in Spock's presence. He asked fewer questions now, but had a tendency to follow them around, first one and then another, as though he were trying not to be a bother to anyone in particular.

In the morning, with Spock already sound asleep and Scotty still prowling the ship, Kirk sat in the office with his coffee and his CMO and listened with growing irritation to the conversation in the next room.

"I just wish he'd talk more," Sulu was saying. "It's like having a...." His voice trailed off.

"Say 'ghost,'" said Uhura, "and you'll wish you hadn't."

There was a short silence, and then Chekov's smug voice said, "Ghost."

Something hit the wall. There was a sound of muted laughter, and then something else hit the wall.

Kirk sprang to his feet and McCoy said, "Don't."

"They're adults." Kirk kept his voice low with an effort. "They're Starfleet officers--"

"Leave...them...alone."

Kirk stared. In all their years together, McCoy had never used that tone with him, nor had he ever seen those eyes so blue.

He sat down. After a time, he drank his coffee. After more time, the laughter and the splattering were replaced with normal conversation and the sounds of clean-up. When Kirk went to the door between the two rooms, the food area was as immaculate as it was devoid of intelligent life forms.

Four-sevenths of an apple pie lay in its plastic tin in the exact center of the table, cut into four wedges. Kirk picked it up, carried it back into the office, laid it in McCoy's lap and then stood back, arms akimbo, his teasing grin and defenseless stance inviting retaliation for his Herbert-like behavior a few moments before. McCoy studied him as though genuinely tempted, then closed his eyes, shook his head, opened his eyes, picked up one of the pie wedges and took an enormous bite.

"Good breakfast," he said. "Natural sugar. Lots of energy."

"What would you have done if I'd gone in there?"

"That's for me t'know an' you to figger out." McCoy wiped his mouth on his sleeve and his hands on his shirt. "How about letting up on yourself too? Throw something and then clean it up, like they did." He gestured toward the wall with the pie tin. "Might do you some good."

"I'm fine."

"Like hell you are." The blue eyes met Kirk's directly. "Jim, there is a dead boy that you've hardly talked about, and a dead ship that you haven't talked about at all. Forget the rest of us. Give yourself a break."

"Spock is alive."

"Spock is not your son, and he is not your ship. You can't expect him to make up for the loss of--"

"I am not expecting--"

"And I am not finished." They glared at each other in silence for a moment, and then McCoy went on. "Losses are losses. Don't try to bury them with gains." Kirk made a quick movement. "And don't run away from them. Which reminds me. Where is that girl? Why isn't she here with us?"

"What g--you mean Saavik?"

"Yes, I mean Saavik. What problem is she wantin' Spock to solve for her?"

"That's privileged information, Doctor," Kirk snapped.

"Terrific. Here we all are--"

"We?" Kirk lashed out on a hunch. "What problem are you wanting him to solve for you?"

The color left McCoy's face, but his gaze did not waver. After a moment, he said, "Thank you."

"What for?"

"For callin' the kettle black." McCoy stood up, and staggered. Kirk moved to his side, hand under his elbow. McCoy raised his hand and patted Kirk's shoulder. "Don't worry about it."

"Bones--"

"It'll pass." The man was out on his feet. By the time Kirk had guided him to bed and covered up him up, he was sound asleep.

Kirk stood looking down at him, all his anger gone. I'm not, he thought. That's not what I'm doing. But it was a long time before he fell asleep that day.

At first it surprised Spock that he felt most comfortable with Montgomery Scott. But then he remembered: once, long ago when he had been split in two, his human half had sought out Scotty for human company unburdened with tension. Now, when so much of what was Vulcan in him was still inaccessible, it was Scotty who accepted the fact that memory did not serve.

"I cannot remember," he admitted, controlling his impatience at the fog in his mind that still would not release needed information on demand. "I do not understand how these intermix equations differ from those for the Enterprise engines."

"Aye," Scott sighed, as though he were as confused as Spock was. "'Tis a bit of a puzzle, sir, with everything written in Klingon and all. I'm goin' on the seat o' me pants m'self." But he pulled out a stylus and drew expertly on the bulkhead. It still dismayed Spock to see the crew scribbling notes and diagrams on every flat surface. But since the inside of the ship would eventually be repainted as part of decontamination procedures, there was no logic in restraint. "Y'see, sir...." Scott went on drawing and talking, and the concept he was illustrating took shape in Spock's mind as though Scotty were drawing it there. Because it is already there, he thought. I must find the means to tap into--

"FIRE!"

The shout came from outside. Sulu's voice. The bubble or the ship? Had Sulu forgotten the first rule of--

"Bubble on fire!" Still Sulu, now pounding on the outside of the ship as he ran past, and Spock controlled his pride in a student well taught. With no words wasted, he directed Scott in the most expeditious method of using the ship's fire-fighting equipment outside the ship in case back-up equipment was needed.

Outside it was full night, clear and unseasonably warm. Kirk and McCoy had gone to Con Tower one point two nine hours ago to deliver a progress report, so there was no question in Spock's mind as to who was in command of the fire-fighting operation. Nor, it appeared, was there a question in anyone else's.

Working like the team they had always been, he and the others attempted to extinguish the fire that had begun inside one of the walls in the central food-service area. But soon he ordered them all back, knowing what would happen next, even as they all did. The bubble exploded, scattering flaming, noxious debris several meters in every direction.

"Most inefficient construction," Spock murmured, and wondered why Uhura gave him a quick, grimy smile. "It should have imploded. Mr. Scott, prepare to dispense a coolant so that we may initiate cleanup operations before the captain and Dr. McCoy return. Mr. Sulu, come with me." And he moved off, too intent on examining the wreckage of their temporary home to see the wink that Sulu, grinning, exchanged with Chekov as he obeyed.

After the other two were gone, Uhura went on smiling. "'The captain.' He still calls him that about half the time. But did you see those moves? Not just what he said. But those moves!" She imitated Spock's hand movements as he had instructed Scott to dispense coolant, and Chekov smacked one fist into the other as though he were applauding both the original and the imitation.

"Lass," Scott said with a sigh, "don't set your hopes too high."

"But didn't you see him?"

"Aye. That I did. But I've seen that b'fore. D'ye not ken that he only remembers facts when he sees or goes through somethin' that reminds 'im? That willna suffice if he's t'be what he was. He canna possibly experience everything he ever knew!" 
 
 
 
 

Another dawn was breaking, another work "day" ending. By the time they had cleaned up the mess that remained of their home away from home (Good thing, Kirk thought, that none of them had so much as a pot to pee in of their own here), the night was almost over, Spock had taken an overnight pass to visit his family, and the rest of them had stretched out under the alien stars for a few moments' rest before heading back for another day/night in TOQ.

"Abstractions," Kirk said. "He's going to have to relearn everything from astrophysics to xenology. What do you think, Bones?"

"I think he needs to go away to college," McCoy answered with a faint grin. "Can't keep him tied to the apron strings indefinitely, and there are learning aids in existence that could re-educate him in a few weeks."

"Those are Vulcan techniques," Kirk said uneasily.

"Jim, it's got to happen sooner or later. What're you gonna do--order him back to the Academy for two or three years?"

"I can't order him anywhere," Kirk said, and there was a long, empty silence.

Finally, Chekov asked, "Vill he be able to decide for himself vat he needs to do?"

"I hope so, Pavel." Kirk grinned at his only navigator, and then got to his feet. "Let's get moving. I won't be able to requisition another bubble pipe in time to keep us from frying out here today. Let's go up to TOQ and get some sleep." And eat some more shit, he thought. The only good thing about that was that, once again, he was the only one who would have to do it.

That evening, as he and Spock approached the new pipe, Kirk said, "Your show, Mr. Spock. Think you're up to doing it by yourself this time?" He seated himself a few meters away on the ground and rested his arms across his drawn-up knees.

As he had expected, Spock hesitated. "As you wish," he said. But his gaze lingered on Kirk's, questioning.

"Give it a try, my friend," Kirk urged him. Was this the same Spock who had directed the fire-fighting operation last night? He himself had not seen that Spock since Khan, and he wondered if it were some kind of collective wish-fulfilling dream on the part of the rest of them. "If you need me, I'll be here."

Spock smiled a little, nodded, turned, and went about his work without assistance.

An hour later, they had a new bubble, perfect to the last detail, and programmed to implode in case of fire.

"Hours would seem like days," Spock had said once. "By The Book, Admiral." But there was no Book to go by now, and each hour was longer than the last. The crew gradually lost much of their tension and took on a resigned gaiety that obviously made their work more pleasant. As the weeks passed, McCoy looked better and more relaxed every day, although Kirk sometimes wondered what inner trouble that might be covering up. But eventually he decided that speculation was sheer projection. Bones, damn him, had been right. James T. Kirk was the one who was covering up.

Losses are losses, McCoy had said when Kirk had offered "Spock is alive" as a one-sentence recompense for the loss of his son and his ship. But as the weeks wore on and the days grew cooler and more humid, the winter of his discontent seemed interminable and his thoughts turned often to death.

Even though David's death had been as unavoidable as Saavik's and Spock's would have been if the Enterprise crew had not intervened in time to save them, he could not overcome a deep sense of having lost something barely found. He tried to talk to McCoy about it, only to discover again what he already knew--that Bones felt as though he had lost his daughter in the painful ending of his marriage to her mother. But Joanna was alive somewhere; she and her father even corresponded from time to time. There were still options open, and he had known her and cared for her as a child. Kirk had known his son so briefly that even now their meeting was like a dream, and there seemed to be no one in the universe who could understand the emptiness that thought brought him.

But for the death of his ship he could still feel no grief. Sometimes, on waking, he would forget for an instant where he was, and open his eyes expecting to see the captain's quarters aboard the Enterprise. But he did not dream about his lady, only saw her again and again in fantasy as she plunged to her death in a sky the color of dried blood. "Did I see the ship fall?" Spock had asked McCoy that first evening under the trees outside the Bounty. And Bones had nodded; Spock's katra had seen her die through McCoy's eyes. Yet Kirk had had no feeling of Spock's presence at his side during that brief agony, and there were times when he wondered if the full impact of the sight of Enterprise plunging to her death were waiting in the wings to be shared by the only one who really could--and never could.

There was no question in his mind that the Spock he had known was returning to him. The Vulcan healers were doing their work well, and yet Spock was doing what Kirk had come to think of as holding his own against all odds. There had been no emotional withdrawal that Kirk could perceive, and in spite of his own unshed burdens, he could still rejoice in that. But everything had its price. Spock no longer slept through the day in the bubble with his crewmates, but went home to his family each morning. Be patient, Kirk counseled himself. He's never had a chance to be with them for this long a time before. Yet he and Spock were never alone together, although they worked together all day.

The weeks went by, and then Jill was there, home for mid-winter break from PREPDIV. The feel of her arms around his neck and her hair against his cheek was a welcome respite. But the two of them, who always had had so much to say to each other, now became easily tongue-tied. There was no Raven to sail on the Bay; he was not staying with Sarek and Amanda as he always had before when he came to Vulcan; he was persona non grata at the Officers' Club, and so there was nowhere they could go to simply talk together except the office or the food center of the bubble. His crew took off, trying to give them space. But both of them felt awkward and uneasy in that context, and then there was the basic fact that Jill slept nights and he slept days.

One morning soon after Jill's return, he watched Spock head for home with a feeling of despair that he seldom allowed himself. He had dreamed of David the day before--standing in the captain's quarters of the Enterprise, saying, "I should have known you'd come." Waking, he had realized that those words, almost David's last, had not been spoken on the Enterprise but as a disembodied voice. That trick of the unconscious mind disturbed Kirk deeply, and he found that he did not want to sleep and dream again.

An hour later, he was on his way up the garden steps, inwardly castigating himself. But he knew that no one would be there but Spock and possibly Jill. Sarah worked nights now too, but she had a day meeting at the hospital, and Spock would be Shevek's sole caretaker all day. If he left before the rest of them got home, there could hardly be a problem for Spock's family, and he did not want to spend another day dreaming about David or trying not to think about him.

Lying on the couch in the study, feeling better than he had in days, Kirk watched Shevek scoot across the floor toward the tall, floor-length windows that opened onto the garden court.

"Do all kids crawl that fast?" he asked, calculating. "He isn't even six months old yet, is he?"

Sitting cross-legged on the floor behind the small potter's wheel that his healers had recommended as relaxation therapy, Spock raised his eyebrows without answering. No expert on babies, he. The wheel hummed, and Shevek went on crawling toward the open window.

"Shevek," Spock said without raising his voice. "Stop."

To Kirk's surprise, the baby stopped crawling, appeared to think it over, and then went on crawling without looking around.

"Stop now," said the Father.

There was no change in Spock's tone, and the wheel continued to hum. But the baby stopped again. Still without turning, he straightened his legs so that he was all but standing on his head and gave the Father his famous smile from between his own legs.

"Keep alert, Mr. Spock," Kirk said, grinning. "Those trainees'll get you every time."

Shevek immediately flopped down and continued crawling.

In one graceful movement, Spock rose, swooped down on his son, lifted him--squealing with delight and still crawling in the air--deposited him on Kirk's chest and returned to his wheel, looking insufferably pleased with himself. The wheel had barely slowed during his absence.

"Hey--!" Staring into the grinning baby face, Kirk tried to sit up, thought better of it, grasped Shevek around his middle and moved him a little farther away. "Is this thing waterproof?"

"Affirmative, Admiral." Spock was so deadpan that Kirk would have suspected he was controlling if he hadn't looked so completely relaxed.

"Well...hi, Shev," said the admiral with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, and then grinned again in spite of himself when Shevek made an imitative noise that sounded like "Hi!" Still holding the baby around his middle, Kirk pulled him to a sitting position. "Looks like we're stuck with each other." He thought about baby Peter, with whom he had become friendly one summer when Sam and Aurelan had visited at the farm while he was on vacation from the Academy. Easing himself to a sitting position, he gave the baby one forefinger and then the other, expecting to have to show him the game as he had had to show Peter. But Shevek grasped his fingers with surprising strength, and when Kirk raised his hands slowly, saying, "Up. Up," the baby actually attempted to stand, gathering his legs under him. Kirk pulled him up, and realized that he'd been had. Peter's attention span had always outlasted his uncle's, and Shevek was even more determined.

After what Kirk thought was a reasonable length of time, he put the baby on the floor again and began to discuss the spaceworthiness of the Bounty with Spock. The conversation moved quickly to the reception they would receive when they got to Earth, and Kirk's attention moved with it; they had discussed the subject before, but always briefly, and always in the presence of the rest of the crew. Now, with only Spock there, it was much easier to explore all possible futures without concern for listening ears. The subject was not a pleasant one, and yet discussing it with Spock, alone, was pleasant and unthreatening on this summer/winter morning light years away.

Kirk was only peripherally aware that Shevek had returned to pull himself up, using the admiral's knee for balance. Now Shev patted his knee urgently, repeating "Bup bup bup" as though it were an actual word. Still intent on his conversation with Spock, Kirk laid his hand on the baby's arm, and Shevek was quiet. But when Kirk removed his hand, gesturing to emphasize a point, Shevek arrived at the end of his patience.

"Up!" he demanded. "Now!"

Pausing in mid-sentence, Kirk stared first at Shevek, then at his father. "I didn't know he could talk."

Spock stared back, no longer deadpan, the wheel silent under his hands. His lips moved. Four syllables. No sound.

Fascinating.

Shevek had missed his morning nap, and fell asleep on the admiral's chest shortly before midday, thumb in his mouth, seat in the air. The admiral closed his eyes, trying to decide what evasive action could be taken under the circumstances. The next thing he knew, it was late afternoon; he had slept dreamlessly for more than five hours. The house was quiet, and Spock was nowhere in sight.

"Spock?"

"Here, Jim."

He turned carefully, so as not to disturb the baby, and saw that Spock was standing at the window, looking out. His voice sounded muffled.

"Are you all right?" Kirk asked, touched by a vague apprehension. He sat up, gathering the stirring but still sleepy baby against his shoulder, and went to stand beside Spock at the window. Looking out, he drew in his breath. The sun hung just above the wing opposite, red and oddly rounded by the intervening atmosphere. It was almost time for the Na-Shoma, the spring wind that would break the unusual humidity. Odd-looking sunsets were commonplace at this time of year, he knew; he had awakened to one only a couple of days ago. But this one.... By some atmospheric caprice, this sunset looked very similar to the ball of fire that had watched Genesis in its death throes.

"I did not know you," Spock whispered, staring at the apparition in his home sky as though it were the eye of hell. "I did not know any of you. There was nothing...there."

Kirk turned him from the window and laid Shevek against his chest. "Take him. Come on, Spock. Take him. Hold him."

Spock sighed and took the baby in his arms, looking down now, away from that awful glowing ball in the sky. Shevek, now wide awake, looked back up at his father and grinned.

"Hi!" he said, and waved his fist.

For a moment, Spock simply stared. Then both eyebrows did a slow rise that ended near the hairline. When Kirk silently cracked up, letting the tension go in soundless laughter, Spock raised his eyes and tilted his head to one side. "It's not that funny," he said, faintly reproving.

Kirk, unable to answer, could only nod.

As they walked back to the Bounty together, Spock asked, "Why did you decide to visit us today?"

Kirk stopped in his tracks. "I forgot."

Spock turned to face him, frowning. "You have forgotten why you came today?"

"No." Kirk sighed. "No, I haven't forgotten. But...I forgot about it all day." They began to walk again. "Until now."

As he had expected, Spock did not ask what it was he had forgotten all day. Instead, he repeated a Vulcan idiom that Kirk had heard before, from Spock's father when he was a house guest in Sarek and Amanda's home: "It pleases me to share my home with thee."

"That isn't all you shared with me today, my friend." Spock smiled a little. "I accept your gift of self. Can't remember how to say it in Vulcan."

"You're welcome," Spock answered.

They were both still smiling when they arrived at the ship.

Jill sat on the study floor across from Spock, cross-legged as he was, the potter's wheel between them. In a time no longer out of mind but clear as her eyes, a child with those same eyes had often sat with him on Tara's white beach, listening to stories from the stars. Often he had fancied that she understood him; when he would tell her over and over that her father was the captain of a starship, she would point to a bird wheeling in the pale green sky and say "flying" when she knew few other words. It was the word "father" that had meant nothing to her then, for there was nothing in her experience to give it meaning.

"How is J.T. really?" she asked now, and the question flung him around the sun into the present moment.

"Really?" he repeated softly, wondering what had happened to the Spock who always had a ready answer to every question. And if not....

Speculate, Mr. Spock. How is J.T. really?

"Is he sad?" she pressed. "Angry?" He felt her force herself to say the other. "Scared?"

The wheel spun on, and Spock's hands went on stroking the dry clay. Is she old enough to understand him? he wondered. Does she love enough to understand him? Finally he said, "All of those, perhaps."

"What about David? Does he ever talk about him?"

"It is difficult for your father to speak of David with us, who did not know him."

"He was on the Enterprise, wasn't he?"

"Yes. But--" He sighed. "There was not much time for social interaction."

"Then he and J.T. didn't get a chance to know each other." He heard the aching disappointment in her voice, and raised his eyes to hers, questioning. Sarah had told him more of Jill and David than Jill knew she had. But unless Jill told him herself, he could not speak of it to her. "I went to see David once," she went on, and he made no attempt to control his relief. "Last year, just before they left for Spacelab. We were only together for a little while, but...it was funny. Kind of like we knew each other better than we did."

"Your mother has told me of this meeting." Spock hesitated, then stopped the wheel. "I would not have spoken of it with you if you had not brought it up." She nodded, reassuring him that he was not violating her privacy. "It might be well if you were to consider sharing this information--" He paused, frowning. "It would be good for your father if you were to confide in him."

"About knowing David?"

"Indeed."

"Oh, Spock, he'd be furious." She smiled nervously, and he thought: You are not here to fulfill his expectations--and put that thought aside for further examination in context. "It's been over a year," she went on. "I didn't tell him then. If I tell him now--"

"He has attempted several times to communicate with David's mother. She has refused to answer his messages. It is Dr. McCoy's opinion that your father needs to talk with someone who knew David. He believes this could be an integral part of the grieving process."

Not ready. He saw it in the quick, unconscious movement of her hands, clasping together as she said, "I didn't really know David."

A step backward. One must go more slowly. One could not, after all, shout at a child: Are you blind? Can't you see his pain? Help him. You're the only one who can.

Slowly, then. "That is not what you appeared to be saying a moment ago."

"I can't just walk up to him and say, 'Guess what I did'!"

"He needs something that only you can give him, Jill. Just as you once needed something that only he could give you."

Ready or not, that gave her pause. Her gaze continued to meet his, and her hands remained still. "But he'll be mad at me for not telling him sooner."

Spock allowed himself a smile. It was, after all, fully appropriate, if not particularly logical.

"Don't you know by now how long that lasts?"

When she had gone, he went on spinning the potter's wheel, attempting to center himself as the healers had instructed. But it was a difficult task. His own words echoed in memory: "He needs something that only you can give him." You are not here to fulfill their expectations, the Father had said, and the Father was wiser now than he was in memory. He spoke the truth. 

His truth. And expectations are not the same as needs.

Memory's ears heard the words: "My God, Bones, what have I done?" And McCoy's answer: "What you had to do. What you always do...." Memory's eyes saw Jim's agony. But memory's voice was mute.

He stopped the wheel and let his head fall backward a little, losing his center as it fragmented in pain that was as much his as the other's.

"T'hy'la, how can I help you?" he whispered. And memory answered.

That evening, Jill came to the bungalow and requested the admiral's company. "We can't go sailing here and we can't go to the club here and we can't do this in the daytime because it's too hot. Do you really have that much work to do tonight?"

"Yes," said Kirk, and McCoy said, "No," and Kirk said, "Bones."

McCoy just looked at him, hard.

"No," said the admiral, and he and his daughter went off together to round up a herd of mandilla.

In the gathering darkness, they angled west and slightly south across the northwest corner of ShiKahr toward Sarek's home, and then climbed on past it, over the hill to the parkland beyond. Out across the forge, the sun had already disappeared behind the L-langons; only a faint citrus glow illuminated their tips and the western slopes of the north range perpendicular to them--the same barren peaks that had shot sunward beneath the Bird of Prey until Sulu banked it around Seleya to land on the plateau hidden from the city by the mountain's southern shoulder. Then the eastern sky had been pale orange and the north range the color of old wood--a misty peach-yellow ambience, all edges indistinct. Now the mountains north and east loomed knife-edged against dull gold, and Kirk was glad the L-langons were far away to the west. Born and raised on the flat belly of North America and later accustomed to the infinite reaches of space, he had no liking for horizon-blocking facades unless he could climb them. These last weeks, he had found the near ranges increasingly oppressive--the confining, consigning walls of an alien world, ever reminiscent of the fact that he and the others were not free to come and go, but only free to stay.

Nor had he any great liking for wandering around on the edge of the Forge in the dark without a phaser. But Jill assured him that the force field at the park's inner boundary would readmit them without difficulty; only large nonhumanoid predators were excluded. In any case, there didn't seem to be anything alive in the vicinity except for a flock of mandilla--small airborne equines, short-snouted and dark-eyed like the dawn horses of Earth, but hollow-boned, their wings rustling faintly as they clustered around the two humans.

"Another research project?" he asked, and she nodded, her mind elsewhere for the moment. This past term, she had become the first PREPDIV student to win Starfleet Academy's Fossey award for her telepathic research with alien animals, specifically a Vulcan snake called the varnth. The only real conversation the she and her father had had since her return to Vulcan had been about the project itself, which obviously interested her far more than the award did. "Am I in the way here?"

"Just don't make any sudden moves. They startle easily." Her manner was abstracted rather than commanding, but there was no doubt as to who was in change of the mission. "I have to get them marked so I can locate this herd with a tricorder later on."

"Are you sure I'm not expendable?" he asked drily. "Doesn't look like you need any help."

"I don't." She bent to spray a slender fetlock, and moved on to the next. "But if I said I just wanted to talk to you, you wouldn't have come with me."

Kirk watched her thoughtfully as she moved from one animal to another. Finally, he said, "It wasn't much fun back at HQ, was it?"

"No. But I'm not the one who lost a ship and a son and is probably going to get a general court." She sprayed two more fetlocks, and then walked back toward him, hooking the hypo on her sash, two of the mandilla trotting along with her, one on either side. She was wearing a sleeveless shift, round-necked and loosely sashed at the waist, the soft material of the flared skirt rippling in the evening breeze, her hair blowing around her shoulders. Back at the ship, the shift had looked yellow-gold and she had looked about fifteen, which she was. In starlight, the shift looked dark-gold, and she looked like the woman she almost was. "Are you ever going to talk to me about David?" she asked quietly. Her hand stroked a mandilla's nose, and then pushed it gently away as she took her father's arm and steered him back across the park toward the low hill behind Sarek's house.

"It's hard, Jill. You never knew him, and--"

"I knew him. I went to see him once, last year. In San Francisco. Just before they left for Spacelab."

He stopped, trying to see her face in the darkness.

"Come on, J.T." She patted his arm. "I have to sound for predators if we're out here in the dark. You can get mad when we're inside the force field."

After they had walked on for a few moments in silence, he asked, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was afraid you'd go see him and the two of you would fight. Did you?" She was still trying to sound casual, but there were tears in her voice now.

"Why did you think that?"

"We had a fi--an argument. About you. I tried to tell him...." He realized that she was crying, and he forgot his anger and pulled her against him. "Oh, this is so dumb!" she wailed. "All this was supposed to be for you."

"Tell me what's hurting," he said huskily.

"He h-hated you, and it was tearing him to pieces. I tried to tell him--"

"No. Now listen--"

"I can't think about him dying like that. He could have been so diff--"

"Listen to me. He said 'I should have known you'd come.'" There were tears on his own cheeks now, but they were for her pain, not his. "From Genesis. 'I should have known you'd come.'"

"You're not just saying that!" It was a plea and an accusation.

"No, I'm not. Listen now." He kissed her hair and tasted his own tears there. "Are you listening? When we thought--when Spock was dead, David came to see me. He said he'd been wrong about me, and he was sorry. He said he was proud to be my son. So you can stop hurting for him, because he wasn't hurting anymore. He died free. Are you listening? He was free, Jill. He was free."

She cried a little longer, but the desperate sobbing was over. He held her, silent now, until she stopped crying, sniffed, and said "Damn" against his shoulder.

Then he said, "I have a handkerchief this time."

"In a minute." She didn't want to let go, he realized. Neither did he. At least I held him once, he thought. And he was free. "At least you got to know each other," she said then.

"In a way. There wasn't much time."

"If he was proud of you, he knew you." He did not answer, but simply held her. He knew you. "I had this great fantasy," she went on. "I was going to comfort you, make it all up to you by being...." Her voice drifted off, uncertain.

"Just be Jill."

"Is that enough?"

He took her by the shoulders and pulled her away from him. But it was too dark to see her face.

"What more do you think I want from you?"

She sighed, leaning her forehead against his chin. "Nothing, I guess."

"You guess?"

"I mean--just nothing." She sighed again, her forehead still against his chin, his hands still on her shoulders. "David and I were like this when we said goodbye." The tears came to his eyes again, but he did not speak. At this moment, he would not have interrupted her to save his life. "I told him I had a little sister. He said a little sister would be nice, and he put his hands on my shoulders, and I...." They held each other tight for a long moment, and then she said, "I liked him."

"I liked him too," he managed to say.

After a moment, she said in a different tone, "J.T., we have to get through the force field. There's a Le-matya about a kilometer from here, and I think it can smell us."

"You think...."

"Well, if it's that close, it can smell us."

"Is it coming fast?"

"No. It isn't hungry. I think it's just curious." She took his arm again, and they climbed over the hill and into the lights of ShiKahr together.

Later, as they parted at the foot of Sarek's hill, she asked, "Are you scared about going back?"

"I don't think so." He glanced at the north range, opaque now, a featureless wall, still looming. Here be dragons. But scared? "No. I'm not." At her incredulous stare, he smiled a little. "Jill--do you know who Alec Styles is?"

She grimaced. "Excelsior? Everybody calls him Smart Alec?"

"The same. Well...." How could he make her understand? "He patched in bridge-to-bridge just as Enterprise cleared Spacedock. Excelsior was right behind us. He said, 'Kirk--'" Chirp. Not a bad imitation, he thought. Jill was enthralled, but her mouth twitched anyway. "'Kirk, you do this and you'll never sit in the center seat again.'"

"What did you say?" Jill whispered.

"'Warp speed,'" he whispered back, grinning now, and felt it happen again. The overwhelming certainty, the once-in-a-lifetime knowing.

At any cost.

When he got back to the Bounty, McCoy said, "You look a helluva lot better than you did when you left."

"Jill and I had a talk. About David."

"You're smiling again," was the doctor's only comment.

For the first time since he had lost his ship, James Kirk woke looking forward to his work shift. Tonight they would reseal the bulkheads and the deck, and in the morning he would tell them that they were going back into space tomorrow night. For a week. Impulse only, Morrow had insisted. Under no circumstances were they to test the warp engines on this shakedown. In a little more than two weeks, they would head for home, and they would have plenty of opportunity to warp then. But they were going, and Spock.... Kirk smiled, imagining Spock's reaction to the news. Since he had been in training, he had come along by leaps and bounds, no longer asking constant questions, on his way back to life with quiet zest. Like old times, Kirk thought, and stretched again. He knew it for the fantasy it was, knew that once it was over, reality would close in again for good. But he was determined to indulge himself for this short time.

"For a week," he told them later that night. The sealing had been accomplished in less time than he had anticipated because of Spock's unaccustomed presence during their entire work shift. Some kind of a Vulcan holiday, he had said, ignoring McCoy's expression of exaggerated disbelief in the fact that Vulcans had holidays. And now, two hours before sunrise, the work was done and Kirk had decided to surprise them early with the news.

They were indeed surprised, and then joyful. All smiles, Kirk thought, rejoicing. All except Spock.

Their gaze held, and it came to James Kirk that he had been riding yet another falling star.

The others drifted out, their pleasure muted. Sounded like they were talking in church, Kirk thought with one part of his mind, while the major part of it still tried to deny what his eyes were telling him. On the bridge of the Bounty, he and Spock faced each other in the dull red glow of running lights.

"Why aren't you going with us?" he asked. His voice was clipped, but at least it was even and low.

"I may not be back on Vulcan for a year or more," Spock answered. "I have a bondmate, and a daughter, and a son who will in all likelihood not remember me when next we meet. This shakedown cruise would consume half of the time I have left with them. That is...unacceptable, Jim." No stiffness, no control. Just a simple statement of fact, with his compassion shining in his eyes.

"Unacceptable to Sarah, you mean."

"Sarah knows nothing of this," Spock reminded him softly. "It is unacceptable to me."

"Do you have any idea--" He saw his own pain reflected back at him in two dark mirrors, and made himself stop.

"Yes." It was only a whisper.

He looked down, at the side of the command chair next to where he stood. Kruge's command chair. Not his. Kruge's. Without his volition, his hand balled into a fist and swung sideways, ready to smash against the arm.

He felt rather than saw Spock wince, torn with pain not his own, and stopped the fist in mid-swing, nails biting into the palm of his hand. Then he let it go, swinging it so that it bounced harmlessly off the side of the chair arm.

"I didn't think," he said, letting the fist bounce a second time, and then a third. "I'm sorry."

"Yes," Spock whispered again. "I know." Still looking down at the bouncing fist, Kirk heard him sigh, and then speak normally. "This is a night for windflying. With the crew dismissed, perhaps you would care to accompany me."

Kirk looked up then, startled. Much as Spock might share his pain, peace offerings were out of character.

"I brought the packs with me last evening, Jim. I had intended to suggest this in the morning."

"Yes, of course you did." Kirk smiled, trying to think of a way out. He did not want to go windflying. He wanted to find Bones and get stinking drunk. "Are you sure you really want to?" he asked, and then realized he was fooling no one.

"Yes. I am."

"Why?" It was a plea.

"I want to show you something. It is not yet dawn, and I have a promise to keep."

They flew together for an hour, and it was good. Kirk felt his pain drain away as they circled and swooped, diving and rising and diving again. The other time, they had flown over the L-langons; this morning they explored the range east of Seleya until a faint glow touched the peaks from behind.

The valleys beneath were still dark and silent with waning night when they landed on an overlook bounded by a waist-high wall, and stripped off the wings. They were in the middle of the mountain range, facing east into the rising sun with no higher peaks to block their view of it. They had not spoken since their flight began, and neither of them spoke now. They simply leaned on the wall together, watching silver birds wheel and soar as Kirk remembered the promise Spock had made so long ago, after Edith's death.

"At dawn, there is the sound of silver birds against the sky.... You will find peace there."

When the sun's rim had cleared the horizon and the silent birds were gone, Kirk teased, "Poetic license, Mr. Spock?"

Spock looked at him sideways. "Only Vulcans can hear them," he said, deadpan, and raised an innocent eyebrow when Kirk laughed softly.

"They teaching you that in school too?" A shrug was his only answer. "What are they teaching you in school?" he went on. "I don't see you going Vulcan on us again, and neither does McCoy."

"I am not a child now. An adult does not simply absorb." Spock straightened up. Sensing some agitation in him, Kirk moved a few paces back from the wall to give him space, then turned to face him again. "There is much to...sort out," Spock went on, frowning a little, abstracted, and yet turning so that he still faced Kirk. "Much of it has great meaning for me, but...much of it does not."

"You're not about to chuck it all, though."

"I cannot." The dark eyes gazed back at Kirk with a new steadiness, a new strength. "It is part of me, just as you are, just as she is. It is...my world." Still frowning, he turned toward the wall again and leaned on his elbows as a human would, gazing out over the peaks and valleys below.

Kirk moved back and leaned on the wall too, his shoulder almost touching Spock's. And as he did so, a single bird rose from below, silver in the sunlight.

Why is it alone? he wondered, following it with his eyes as it rose higher and higher--soaring now, almost close enough to touch, the light shimmering on its motionless wings--then turned and flew away, directly into the sun.

He drew in his breath, eyes smarting with sudden tears. Beside him, Spock moved fractionally until their shoulders touched, and together they watched that silent departure, backlit by a rising star.

As the silver bird flew on, growing smaller and smaller in the distance, the soft, dry wind of a Vulcan morning dried his tears before they fell. When the bird finally dwindled to nothing against the risen sun, he looked down at the eastern range below them, Spock's shoulder still warm against his. And instead of a jagged-toothed monolith, he saw a pride of razor-backed leviathans sunning themselves on the curve of the world.

"They were going to decommission her," he said into the soft, dry wind.

"Then the end was fitting." Spock's answer was barely audible, and Kirk turned to look at him. At him, he thought. No substitute. Simply Spock.

"Where does that leave us?" he asked, smiling a little.

The dark gaze shifted for an instant to their shoulders, and then moved back to meet Kirk's before Spock answered, "Here."

Without haste, Kirk took him in his arms. Holding and held, he did not want to cry, or to laugh, or to do much of anything except what he was doing. Nor, he knew without question, did Spock.

"So what do you want?" he asked softly. "An argument?"