L'NARA

The team's living quarters consisted of four rockbound rooms just below the surface of the south pole--a common room and three bedrooms, each a cube precisely three point six nine four meters on a side. The ventilation system was adequate for life support, but the air tasted of dust and smelled of scorched rock. The best that could be said for the suite was that, unlike the caves Saavik had lived in as a child, the rooms were dry and warm. Too warm, obviously, for her human colleagues.

Between the evening meal and bedtime, Lieutenant Commander Elena Arenales would sit, sallow and solidly muscled, sweating and fanning herself with a Japanese fan held in her newly grafted hand, reading tapes on geological exploration and gourmet cooking, periodically sighing, blowing out her breath, and remarking, "Jeez, it's hot in here" to no one in particular. Ensign Michael Morgan seemed less affected by the ambience; he had brought his guitar with him to Cauldron and he played it incessantly all evening, sang along occasionally in a melancholy baritone that matched his thin, melancholy face, and read nothing. His spare frame seemed most comfortable when he slid down on his spine and stretched his long legs under the table, and he was equally laconic about keeping his heavy growth of dark beard under control. The best that could be said for the two of them was that when they became intoxicated together one evening, they were both reasonably restrained about it. Starfleet had promised the team that they would be provided with suitable diversion, including hologames and a library of tapes that presumably exceeded Arenales' private collection in scope and variety. The promise was never kept. The team, Arenales speculated, had fallen into a crack in the Starfleet bureaucracy. The only thing that made their collective existence bearable was that most evenings they were all too tired to do much but count the days until they would be free to go their separate ways.

Saavik, who had spent the last dozen years warily skirting the edges of whatever group she was supposedly a part of, made no effort at first to socialize. But after three point seven days of relative isolation, she was snapped abruptly out of it when Arenales demanded one evening: "Mister Saavik, you got something against humans, or is this just your own sweet self you're treating us to?"

Morgan had discovered a forgotten deck of cards in his duffle bag, and he and Arenales had been in the midst of a game of Hearts when Saavik had risen to go to her room. She turned, controlling the impulse to stiffen with unspoken resistance to an obvious overture of friendship. Arenales wore an amiable grin, and Morgan's sad blue eyes smiled faintly.

"I do not wish to intrude on your game." Saavik answered with the first excuse that came to mind. "Request permission to go to my room, sir."

"The hell you will." Still grinning, Arenales tapped her cards on the table and jerked her head toward Saavik's empty chair. "Permission denied. C'mere and sit down."

Saavik complied without further resistance. She knew that the three of them could not remain a team if there was no rapport among them, and humans obviously required a semblance of conviviality, however forced, to sustain rapport. So far they had worked well together, and she had no desire to disturb the equilibrium of the team.

"Now." Arenales set her cards aside. "We can spend two months wondering why anybody else would volunteer to work themselves to exhaustion on a shitty assignment like this, or we can satisfy each other's curiosity and save some time." She held up the grafted hand, a dark line still visibly circling her lower arm. "This happened three weeks ago. The rest of the team died." Her black eyes were bright, intent, and suddenly red-rimmed. "I wasn't in charge and it wasn't my fault. But try to tell yourself." She turned to Morgan, blinking rapidly. "Mike?"

"My wife was gone when I got home this time," Morgan answered, reaching for his guitar. His eyes were averted, his voice husky. "She took the kids with her. I don't even know where they are." Head bent, hugging the guitar, he strummed it softly.

"Saavik?"

"I cannot tell you." The bizarre unreality of the situation kept Saavik's affronted privacy at bay, and Elena Arenales' honesty touched the hidden part of her being that would never be Vulcan. But she knew that confiding in anyone, no matter how well-intentioned, would give her no relief, even if the confidante were capable of understanding the extent of her betrayal of Spock's expectations of her. "It is not the Vulcan way." That, at least, she could still do for him.

They were both looking at her now, Arenales with an intent, probing gaze and Morgan with bewildered compassion. Often she had wondered how it could be that humans read her so easily when she tried so hard to control the visible expression of emotion.

"Okay," Arenales said finally. "If you change your mind, nobody's going anyplace for the duration. Just give a holler." She swept up the pack of cards and handed them to Saavik. "Deal."

"I am not well-versed--"

"Deal," said Arenales, smiling again. "And quit making a career out of being perfect. That gets old fast." Saavik's eyebrows rose. "You're a royal pain in the ass, Mister Saavik," Arenales elaborated obligingly. "Deal, will you?"

She dealt. An hour later, they had switched to poker, and an hour after that, Saavik had cleaned the other two out. Or so they put it.

For the first time since their arrival on Cauldron, she fell asleep immediately rather than lying exhausted but tense until her exhaustion defeated her tension. But she woke before the work day began, and lay remembering how Arenales had described her: making a career out of being perfect. On Hellguard, she had always been one of the leaders, protecting the younger children, settling disputes among the older ones, daring to lead an attack on a large predator when there was need of food for the group. But on Vulcan, she had become a follower. When Spock had singled her out and brought her home to his world, she had vowed not to disappoint him. That meant doing everything as close to perfectly as possible, never letting him or anyone else know that she sometimes felt, in that hidden part of her that would never be Vulcan, that her unsmiling, often rigid Vulcan teachers were...a royal pain in the ass.

She closed her eyes, controlling the rebellion away. The entire planet had been at peace for centuries, and Surak and his philosophy had accomplished that feat with a race of barbarians. But even that was unimportant beside the trust and confidence that her mentor had given her. And how had she repaid it? By rebelling. Again. But this time it could have cost him his life.

She had been all too aware that the Klingons were already on the planet when she stroked and comforted that miserable, shivering boy. Physiologically, he was dominantly Vulcan. The probability that her actions would bring on the blood fever had been well over 80 percent. Had she triggered plak tow in him, Kruge and his crew would have slaughtered him like an animal. And they would have laughed at him.

Still lying on her back, she felt the tears come and pressed her hands to her face. "The finger touch wasn't enough," she whispered. "I knew it wasn't enough. He's half human." Yet the cost could have been his life, and his honor. And he would know that. Now.

She went over it again in her mind, perhaps for the hundredth time. What had her alternatives been? It was a test of character, an ironic voice whispered. Rewrite this one, Admiral. Damn. He couldn't always be right.

Could he?

In the days that followed, the three of them realized that the team they thought they were was a team becoming, not a fait accompli. Arenales drove them as she drove herself, keeping them in their suits all day except for a short break at high noon. Morgan complained that his suit itched, and Saavik informed her superior officer that her actions were not logical. There were arguments at the dinner table, arguments over their intercoms. Saavik came to perceive that the three of them actually did not like each other very much, and probably would never have chosen one another as friends. Arenales had an explosive temper, Morgan loved to sulk when he didn't get his way, and Saavik irritated them both a great deal of the time. But all three of them enjoyed the painstaking work involved in mapping hundreds of fault lines against the day when the dilithium mining operation would begin on Cauldron and their maps would save lives. Had they been trapped there together for an indefinite period, she knew that the team could not have survived as a team. But as Arenales was overly fond of repeating, for two months a person could stand anything.

In spite of his tendency to sulk, Morgan was a more congenial companion than Arenales was, and Saavik learned to enjoy the folk songs he sang to the accompaniment of his guitar. As their time on Cauldron turned the corner and moved back toward the date of their departure, he taught her to play simple tunes on the instrument and shared his private treasury of chocolate with her. And, eventually, he shared his bed.

Like the chocolate, the experience was surprisingly pleasant. She had had limited sexual contact with human males, but even that had taught her that her natural Romulan drive for satisfaction was usually perceived by them as predatory. Not so with Michael Morgan. His needs were not complex, and his psyche apparently not easily damaged. As they lay together on his bed, he turned his head to smile lazily at her.

"Real ball o' fire, aren'tcha?"

"Does that please you?" she asked, still mildly incredulous.

"I'm not proud." He winked, rolled over and hid his face in his arms. By the time she was dressed and ready to leave the room, he had turned on his back again and was snoring.

The following evening, a poker game kept the three of them up longer than usual. Tired after a long day in the field, Saavik wished her companions goodnight and went to her room. Waving on the light, she turned to close the door and found Morgan standing in it, leaning against the frame.

"Game for a rematch?" he asked, his blue eyes holding hers. Confident, expecting agreement, he straightened up and began to move into the room.

"No," she said, controlling her voice to hide the revulsion she felt as he invaded her space unasked.

He stopped dead, a slow flush creeping into his cheeks. Still at the table in the room outside, Arenales said quietly, "Oh, shit." Then Morgan reached for the bedroom door and moved forward, drawing it closed after him.

"This is my room, Morgan," Saavik said evenly, shifting her stance to improve her balance. "I did not invite you here. Please leave."

Standing sideways in the doorway, Morgan flicked a glance at Arenales, now on her feet, and then back at Saavik. Then he turned and walked rapidly to his own room, where he slammed the door just as Arenales advanced on Saavik, livid.

"Two more weeks!" she shouted, jabbing the air with two fingers. "Two more weeks and we'd've been done and out of here, and you guys had to go and fuck up my first command."

"This is my room--

"Tell me about it!" Arenales began to pace.

"What was my alternative?" Saavik asked, confused by the violence of the outburst. "If you can suggest how I might otherwise have handled the situation--"

"'If you can suggest how I might otherwise have handled the situation,'" Arenales sneered, still pacing, and then wheeled to face Saavik again. "Don't you goddamn Vulcans ever quit? No, Mister Saavik, I can't suggest how you might otherwise have handled the situation. That's the fucking problem!" She waved both hands at Saavik. "Go t'bed! Go! Shut up! Go!" And she grabbed the bedroom door and slammed it in Saavik's face.

In the morning, Saavik and Morgan entered the common room almost simultaneously. Arenales rose from the table where she had apparently been drinking coffee for some time and faced them both.

"Are you two still going to be able to work as a team?" she demanded. "Or do I knock your heads together first?"

"Don't make a federal case out of it, El," Morgan muttered, scowling.

"Are you?"

"Yes, sir," said Saavik.

After a moment, Morgan echoed sullenly, "Yes, sir."

"Fine," said Arenales. "Let's go to work, then."

They worked all day in relative silence and with surprising efficiency. Morgan sulked venomously, but Arenales displayed no further outbursts of temper. After supper, Arenales disappeared into her room without explanation, leaving the other two at the table alone.

"So what's your problem, Mister Saavik?" Morgan asked finally. "You into one-night stands or something?"

"You invaded my room. I did not invite you there."

"Christ, you always sound like a Vulcan."

"I have no wish to offend you, Morgan."

He snorted. "Thanks a helluva lot. You always so formal after a roll in the hay?"

Roll, she thought. In the hay. Fascinating. "What should I have done?" she asked, genuinely curious as to how he would answer.

"You could've said you had a headache," he mumbled. "Or something."

"I did not have a--"

"Ah--forget it." He rose, scowling again, and retired to his room, slamming the door only a little less violently than he had the night before.

Saavik remained at the table, pondering hopelessly. "I don't believe in the no-win scenario," James Kirk had said. And yet it existed. Her Vulcan instructors had taught her that logic could solve every problem, and yet it could not. Most interesting of all was the fact that she had not been rebelling against the Vulcan way when she declined to allow Michael Morgan into her bedroom. There had simply been no alternative if she were to preserve her own integrity.

As a Vulcan? As a Romulan? As a Starfleet officer?

No. As Saavikam--the name that only one person in the universe still remembered was hers. He had asked so little of her....

He asked much, said that other voice within her. Perhaps too much.

"It was no more than he asked of himself," she said aloud, and the inner voice was silent.

Time passed, and the Shepard beamed them aboard on schedule. In the interim, the three of them had had virtually no conversation other than the necessary exchanges related to their work. There were no more poker games. Arenales read her tapes in the evenings and did not comment on the temperature. Morgan got drunk two nights in succession, and there was a brief, unpleasant intercom argument the following day when Arenales ordered him to stay sober for the rest of the mission after she and Saavik had spent the better part of an hour rescuing him from a crevasse he had fallen into, landing on a narrow ledge barely ten meters above a river of boiling lava. They had completed their maps, but barely. After two months together in cramped quarters, they knew one another only a little better than they had the first night they played cards together, and there was little doubt in Saavik's mind that they would never see each other again.

As the three of them materialized in the transporter terminal on Starbase Vulcan, Saavik turned to Morgan, whose pad was next to hers, and said, "Goodbye, Michael."

In the act of adjusting the strap of his duffle bag on his shoulder, he paused and met her gaze. His eyes were angry slits above a three-day growth of beard. "You gotta be kidding," he growled, yanked the strap higher, and half turned toward Arenales. "Seeya 'round, Commander," he said without looking directly at her, and strode away.

Saavik looked at Arenales, who grimaced. "Some team I built." She grinned crookedly and waggled one finger at Saavik as she moved past her to follow Morgan out of the terminal. "Luck." The word was tossed over her shoulder, and she continued on out the door without looking back.

A few days before the Bounty left Vulcan for its shakedown cruise, Jill Halsted returned for winter break. It was Christmas time in San Francisco when she left, and Vulcan was more like Los Angeles in the summer. But she did not miss Christmas, since she had grown up in Sarek and Amanda's home on Vulcan, where the holiday was not celebrated. And with everybody talking general court for J.T. and his crew, she did not miss being at HQ at all.

While her mother was helping her unpack, she asked, "Where's Saavik? There's something I want to do while I'm here, and I need somebody who's kylh to work with me on it. I tried with some people at PREPDIV, but they all listen to animals as though they expected them to talk in words. Out loud, even."

Mother frowned a little. "Is Saavik kylh?"

"Uh-huh. She was the one who had me tested last year."

"I didn't know you knew her that well."

"She was one of my instructors."

"I know, but I thought her specialty was geology."

"Well--we had a sort of a fight, and that's how we got to know each other."

"What kind of a fight," Mother asked, "is a 'sort of a fight'?"

"There was this clique," Jill explained, resigned. "They liked to try to make her look foolish in class, because she doesn't know all the English idioms. I butted in, and she got mad because she felt like she didn't need any help, and I smarted off when she yelled at me--"

"In class?"

"No, no. This was after class. Anyway, I straightened her out, and we got to be friends. Sort of. I think."

Mother nodded, smiling. "She yelled at you, and then you straightened her out, and then you got to be friends. Sort of."

"Uh-huh. Is she at TOQ?"

"She might be. She's been on a temporary assignment on Cauldron, but she should be back by now."

Walking alone one morning, on her way to visit the Federation School for Offworld Children that she had attended before she went to PREPDIV, Jill detoured to pass the plateau halfway up Mount Seleya that was the resting place of the Bounty during her refit. It was empty and hard in the morning sun, with one large discolored spot in the middle of it. The deserted bubble sat on the edge of the clearing. Even empty, it looked much too small for so many people to be living there. She went in and toured the office and the food-service area, feeling more depressed by the minute. She did not go into the bedrooms, but the doors were all open, and she could see that there were few personal possessions there. Like being in prison, she thought, and then put the thought away. Time enough to think about it if it happened. As long as J.T. wasn't scared, she would try not to be.

When she came again to the outside door, Saavik was standing in the middle of the flat landing field, looking up at Seleya. She wore a Vulcan tunic and trousers, with her hair down her back and her crossed arms hidden in the loose folds of her sleeves. She looked...alone, Jill thought. In fact, she had never seen anybody look as alone as Saavik looked at that moment.

"Good morning, Mister Saavik."

Saavik turned quickly. Thought nobody was here, Jill surmised. But why should it disturb her to think that the crew might be back?

"Good morning, Mister Halsted." Speculative, now. But pleased. Definitely pleased. "Ah, yes. Christmas in San Francisco, is it not?"

"Uh-huh. Do you have a minute?" Saavik's eyebrows rose, but she was smiling a little. "Okay. About ten minutes. I want to talk to you about something I'm working on." Curiosity. And she was pleased. That was nice. Jill gestured behind her. "You want to have a cup of tea or something?"

Saavik cycled tea, and Jill cycled a chocolate malt. When they were sitting at the small round table in the food-service area, she said, "I hear you've been on assignment to Cauldron. How was it?"

"It was...interesting."

"You want to talk about it?"

For a moment she thought it was the wrong thing to ask. Saavik frowned and looked down at her cup, but Jill made herself keep quiet. She had found that if you screwed up, it was usually best to keep quiet until you found out how badly you'd screwed up. She waited, and finally Saavik looked up again and surprised her completely.

"Yes," she said, and began to talk.

Jill had heard stories about isolated Starfleet scientific teams that got to hate each other before they finished their assignment. This didn't sound quite that bad, but Saavik seemed to think it was pretty bad. Jill couldn't quite understand why, because Saavik simply described what had happened without showing how she felt about it. It was hard to know why she wanted to talk about it at all if she was going to control her feelings like this. But Jill kept silent except for an occasional question, and at the end of the story, she said tentatively, "Sounds like the three of you had different agendas."

"Agendas?"

"He wanted sex, you wanted space, and Commander Whatshername--"

"Arenales."

"Commander Arenales wanted a cozy team. They just didn't fit together."

"It should not have happened that way." Saavik was looking down at her cup again. "It should not have ended the way it did."

"How else could it have ended?"

Saavik was silent for a moment. When she looked up, sadness had come into her eyes. "We could have parted friends," she said.

"Not unless you were three other people." Jill hesitated. "Um--you aren't blaming yourself for what happened, are you?"

Saavik simply looked back at her. After a moment, she asked, "What was it you wished to speak to me about?"

Jill opened her mouth and then closed it again. Three years at PREPDIV with the same Vulcan roommate had taught her to recognize warning signs when she was getting too close. T'Kama was doing a lot better now, but Saavik had probably never had a human roommate.

"I need somebody kylh to help with an experiment. It's about the mandilla and how they herd. Are you off the duty roster now, or what?"

"I am on leave." Saavik hesitated, and then went on. "I would be available for your project. Where will you be working?"

"At home."

Saavik nodded. "Yes," she said firmly. "I will help you in your work."

"You don't sound too crazy about the idea." Again, Saavik simply looked back at her. Controlling again, Jill thought. Not a lot, but controlling. Afraid of something? But what? "Spock's fine," she continued, hoping that was it. "He didn't go on the shakedown, but he remembers everything now."

"I am pleased that he has recovered fully. Growing from a small child to full adulthood in a few hours involves great pain."

"From a what?" Jill gasped. "I thought the Genesis wave regenerated him...as is."

"It did not. When we found him, he was a child of eight or nine years Terran." Saavik went on, explaining, describing, reliving. This time she did not control so obviously, and the story was a lot more interesting because of it. Watching and listening, Jill forgot the passing of time. How could he be whole? How could he be sane? Even a Vulcan--

"What about the Ti--" she began, and stopped, her hand to her mouth.

"He experienced First Time," Saavik answered, and Jill remembered that it was all right for females to talk about the Time. Only the males were hung up on it. Mother had not said anything about First Time, but Saavik was controlling again, and now it was a lot. Not much fun, probably. She herself had had some recent experiences fending off seventeen-year-old males who supposedly had minds, and even that wasn't a whole lot of fun. You could tell guys like Morgan to stay out of your space, but....

"Did you have to have sex with him?" she asked sympathetically, thinking she was home free. And for the second time in her life, she watched Saavik virtually explode.

"Gods, human! Can't you people imagine any problem that doesn't have something to do with 'having sex'?"

Jill sighed. "Look, I don't want to fight with you again. I'm just sort of feeling my way, okay? My mother said it was all right for female Vulcans to talk about stuff like this. Is it because I'm not a Vulcan?"

"No." Saavik was looking down now, tight-lipped as a shellmouth.

"It's okay," Jill assured her. "You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to. It's just that I thought we were friends. Sort of. I guess I shouldn't have thought that. But -- well, sometimes people are kind of dumb about other people's customs. I didn't mean to--"

"I have no friends."

Jill held her breath for a moment, and then she said, "That was Cauldron. This is here."

In the dorm at PREPDIV, there was a human girl from Alpha C whose family belonged to the throwback Roman Catholic sect. When Margaret had described, during an all-nighter, what it was like to go to confession, Jill had imagined it must feel like Saavik obviously felt now.

"I stroked his fingers with mine," she said miserably, unable to look up. "I held his hand all night."

"He's half human. You played a hunch."

"I played with his life. No l'nara would behave so."

"What's a--" Jill began, and stopped again. Saavik was crying.

Jill put her hand out, but Saavik snatched hers away. "I ask forgiveness for this emotional display," she whispered, brushing the tears from her cheeks as though they were filth. "I have shamed myself before thee."

"That's a crock," said Jill. Then she remembered what she herself had just said about humans being dumb about other people's customs. But it was already too late.

"I regret that I will not be able to assist you in your experiment with the mandilla," Saavik informed her, shellmouthed again. "My behavior today precludes any further association between us until I am able to control."

"Who says?"

"I say, humanchild." There was no contempt in Saavik's voice now. It was matter-of-fact. "I am unworthy to accept your gift, and the obligation is mine. It is the Vulcan way."

"I'm not a child, Saavik."

Saavik nodded. "Indeed. I ask forgiveness once again." And she turned and left the bubble, straight-backed, defiant, and alone.

Jill considered kicking the table leg, and then considered kicking herself. Tell Spock, she thought. Spock could take care of the whole mess in about ten seconds. But she knew better. Sometimes being a friend meant that you couldn't tell anybody, no matter how much you wanted to.

She trashed the teacup and half a chocolate malt, and went on her way. Right now, there was really no place she wanted to go except someplace where she could soak her own stupid head, and there wasn't enough water in all of Vulcan to do the job right.

After her encounter with Jill, Saavik returned to TOQ, exercised in the gym, and then went to her quarters to meditate. The trance state calmed her, and she remained in it for a long time. Returning to herself, she kept the meditation position and let her thoughts wander.

All that was Vulcan in her still accused her of failing to resolve the situation on Cauldron in a logical manner. The spectre of James Kirk informed her that there was no such thing as a no-win scenario. Yet the voice that spoke most compellingly carried another message: Not unless you were three other people.

If only I had not wept in her presence. And yet now, after the fact, she felt no shame. When, growing up, she had failed to follow the Vulcan way, Spock's answer had always been the same: Try again. It is past. Begin again.

"But I should have been able to resolve the situation," she said aloud, thinking at once of the Kobayashi Maru, and of Genesis, and of Cauldron. And memory answered inexorably: "There is no correct resolution."

Not unless we were three other people.

In memory, she stood in her bedroom on Cauldron with Morgan lounging and leering in the the doorway.

No other way. Not unless she were someone else.

The boy Spock crouched by the fire on Genesis, teeth chattering, dark eyes pleading. No l'nara would behave so, she had told Jill. But no l'nara had ever faced a half human male bereft of his Vulcan memories.

No other way. Not unless she were someone else--a fully indoctrinated, controlled Vulcan female who had never questioned the way of her people or fought for survival because she had none. That Vulcan female-- Saavik drew a deep breath and slowly let it out. That Vulcan female would have touched the tips of his fingers with the tips of hers--and wondered why he died anyway.

She rose from the meditation position and went to the window. It was now late afternoon, and she knew that the Bounty crew worked at night. But the Bounty was on shakedown, and according to Jill, Spock had not gone with them. The probabilities were high that he was at home.

Even Elena Arenales had understood that when one could not do otherwise, one did what one must. Could Spock do any less?

As she climbed the hill toward the house of Sarek, Saavik controlled a resurgence of a resentment long forgotten. Disfranchised from birth, she had for a time after coming to Vulcan entertained a fantasy that Spock's family might invite her to visit them. It was not an altogether pleasant fantasy. The Father was a Vulcan ambassador at large, and her child's mind had placed Sarek, sight unseen, in the same category as the Vulcan functionaries on Hellguard who refused to acknowledge her existence. Spock's mother was human, and his bondmate as well. The child Saavik had met few humans, and those she had met disturbed her intensely by exhibiting many of the characteristics that she was trying to eradicate in herself. If she were itching with curiosity about the woman Spock had married, she did her best to control that affliction. But sometimes, when she was bored and alienated from her Vulcan fellow students, she had wondered if Spock's family had no curiosity about her. And when she was lonely, she had wondered why they had no compassion, and resented them all for failing to offer her something that she was not even sure she wanted.

In recent years, she had all but forgotten that Spock had a family. But now, climbing past the garden that covered the hill above the retaining wall halfway up the slope, she remembered her resentment and was tempted to turn around and return to TOQ. She did not want to meet these people any more than they wanted to meet her.

But it was time. If the Spock he had become could not accept the Saavik she had become, it was better that she discover that as soon as possible.

She had reached the gate to the courtyard between the two wings of the house when she realized that someone was climbing the garden steps behind her. Too young to be Spock's mother, the woman wore a white tunic with the insignia of the Vulcan Science Academy on the left breast. When she sensed Saavik's presence, she looked up and slowed her pace, her expression the half smile, half frown that Saavik recognized as the typical human reaction to encountering a stranger in a familiar setting. The woman's long hair, wound at her neck, was brown rather than fair, and her eyes were blue. But her height, her steady, purposeful gait, and the alert curiosity in her expression reminded Saavik of Jill even though there was little physical resemblance between them. This, then, was the bondmate, Sarah Halsted.

As Saavik thought the name, Sarah's pace slowed, and her expression changed. She was now neither smiling nor frowning, but simply gazing upward at the stranger, rapidly examining and discarding possibilities as to her identity. "Saavik?" she asked finally, and when Saavik nodded, Sarah checked fractionally and then began to walk again, her gaze still meeting Saavik's. As she cleared the steps, she said, in ritual Vulcan, "This house is honored by your presence." Moving a little closer, she added, still in Vulcan, "It pleases me to share my home with thee."

You are lying, Saavik thought. Perhaps to yourself as well. Aloud, she said, "It has not always been so."

Sarah paused, and they regarded each other in silence for a moment. Then Sarah said quietly, "That's true. But it would have taken most humans about and hour and an half to get around to saying it." When Saavik lost control of her eyebrows, Sarah smiled faintly. "I was jealous of you. Maybe I still am. But I was a little girl without parents too, and I might have remembered what that's like." Tears came to her eyes. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry now that I didn't."

"Thou must not weep before me," Saavik whispered, appalled--and then controlled a start of surprise.

"Oh, hell, Saavik--don't Vulcan me!" Clasping her hands behind her neck, Sarah inclined her head backward against them and closed her eyes. "It couldn't hurt me to cry in front of somebody who's never going to use it against me!"

Remembering her own I have shamed myself before thee and Jill's That's a crock, Saavik felt her own eyes sting. "That is logical," she acknowledged.

"I doubt it, but I won't argue." Sarah opened her eyes, sighed, and lowered her hands. "Spock is with the healers this afternoon, but he should be here any minute. T'Ara," she continued, raising her voice slightly, "I want you to meet someone." She gestured toward the courtyard as Saavik turned to look in the same direction, and froze.

A few meters inside the gate, a Vulcan child stood with a diapered infant slung on her hip. The hot breeze blew the little girl's long hair around her face and her tunic around her thin, bare legs. Her green eyes shifted apprehensively from her mother's face to Saavik's and then focused there, curiosity overcoming apprehension, but still mistrustful of the stranger who appeared to be responsible for the emotional charge that the child was obviously sensing. T'Ara moved closer, still scrutinizing Saavik while the rumpled baby yawned and grinned. But Saavik barely saw the baby. Except for her green eyes, his sister's face was the face of the child Saavik had found freezing to death in a snowstorm on Genesis.

"I am Saavik," she whispered in Vulcan, moving to meet the child. Can you speak? She barely caught the question in time to suppress it.

"I am T'Ara," said T'Ara. "This is Shevek."

"Hi!" said Shevek, and held out his arms.

And Saavik thought: This one has the eyes.

She took Shevek from his sister and sank down on the ground with the wriggling baby in her lap and T'Ara squatting protectively close by. Shevek pulled Saavik's hair, and when she did not object, he used it to try to pull himself up.

"Up," he said.

T'Ara reached out to untangle Shevek's fists. "I will take him," she offered.

"No," Saavik whispered. "No." This one would have no pain, she thought, dazed with the joy of it. This one would grow as a child was meant to grow.

"Up!" Shevek demanded, pulling hard on Saavik's hair. "Now!"

"Take his hands," T'Ara instructed, and Saavik obeyed. "Pull," said T'Ara. "No. Up." Saavik pulled up, and Shevek stood in her lap, grinning. "He's squishing, Mother," T'Ara added. Then, to the startled Saavik: "She who is our sister is not Vulcan. She uses many picturesque expressions."

"Indeed," said Saavik, and caught herself smiling.

"He's fine," Sarah answered T'Ara's implied question. Saavik looked up at her, for the first time uncertain; she had taken the baby from his sister without a thought for his mother's wishes in the matter. Their gaze held, and Sarah said gently, in ritual Vulcan, "It pleases me."

Reassured, Saavik turned her attention to Shevek once more. It was not until Spock came into the garden that she looked up.

For nearly three months she had envisioned this meeting--dreading it for so long, and even now anticipating it with mixed feelings. And now that it was happening, she was sitting on the ground, her hair straggling over her shoulders, Shevek bouncing in her lap and clinging to both her hands.

"Kroyka," she murmured, and Shevek was quiet, turning his head to look at his father. "T'Ara," she went on, "please take him now." When T'Ara complied, Saavik rose with as much dignity as she could salvage and moved to meet Spock at the gate.

He is at peace, she thought, as her gaze met his. No longer suffering, no longer struggling to remember. And different, somehow. A new Spock, perhaps, for a new Saavik. Smiling a little, she said in Vulcan, "I am Saavik. Can you speak?"

His gaze holding hers, he raised his hand, and for a moment she thought he would touch her face as the child Spock had touched it on Genesis. Instead, he returned her smile and continued to raise his hand, keeping the first two fingers together long enough for everyone present to observe the silent, lifelong greeting of a Vulcan male to his l'nara.

Then he spread his fingers in the conventional salute and said, in Vulcan, "Live long and prosper, Saavikam. It pleases me to share my home with thee."

Saavik too raised her hand, paused with the first two fingers together, and then spread her fingers as Spock had done.

"Peace and long life, Spock. It pleases me to see thee well."

It was time for dinner, but Jill hoped that her mother would somehow know enough not to disturb her. She had coaxed the marked herd of mandilla to follow her home, and they stood around her now in an irregular circle while she, sweating a little in the slanting early evening sunlight, thought them into trusting her even further. Vulcan animals did not fear humanoids, but the mandilla startled as easily as their Terran counterparts both equine and avian. Three of them pawed the sandy soil behind and uphill from the house; a fourth rose and flew around the circle and then settled again to the ground, folding its wings at its sides. The other three switched their tails and snorted, eager to be off and flying again, their ears pointed forward toward Jill as though awaiting a signal that she was finished with them.

Once en rapport with an individual animal, she would always recognize its aura if it was nearby. But there were seven in the herd, and she had only recently made their acquaintance. If she were going to be able to study them during the rest of her time on Vulcan, she would have to spend time with them without being interrupted--

Someone came around the corner of the house, and the herd took off, their wings fanning the hot breeze. "Damn," Jill whispered, and turned to see Saavik watching her from the corner of the house. "Oh, hi. Uh. I mean...." Saavik? Here? After all that nonsense about the crying?

"I ask forgiveness," Saavik said, watching the herd disappear over the hill. "You must teach me not to startle them if I am to be of assistance in your work."

Jill rose, wiped her forehead and then her chin on her sleeve, and grinned. If somebody Vulcan trusted you when you'd seen her cry, she couldn't mind if you smiled at her. "We learn by doing," she said, and held out her hand.

Saavik shook it, but now she was frowning a little, trying to get her mind around something again. "Do you know Admiral Kirk well?" she asked.

"Uh-huh." Should have known better than to say something that J.T. liked to say. And being friends made you want to tell things.

Don't tell her, said a familiar voice deep inside. She'll change. One way or the other, everybody always changed as soon as they knew. But Saavik was here. After all that stuff about the crying, she was here. "He and my mother met each other before she met Spock." She was here, and she was trusting, and she was Saavik. "He's my father."

Saavik went on looking at her, but she wasn't exactly staring. It was as though she were looking into mirrors within mirrors within mirrors, all of them somewhere behind her eyes. Finally she smiled a little, and nodded.

"Indeed," she said with a small sigh. "That is logical too."