"And Bread I Broke"

"...And bread I broke with you was more than bread."

--Conrad Aiken

Shakedown finished. Time to go home.

Your first, best destiny....

In whatever fleet we end up serving....

"Captain Kirk?"

He looked up at the unfamiliar mode of address, and then stood as Spock's mother came toward him in the early sunlight. She was dressed for her teaching job, in a simple blue blouse and skirt. But the skirt brushed the ground, and there was something about the way it was cut, the way it draped, that was alien. Fascinating woman. He found himself smiling, already disarmed, although he had a good idea why she was there.

"Good morning, ma'am."

"Amanda," she said, and waited.

"Good morning, Amanda," he repeated, and waited.

"Good morning, Jim." They both chuckled, and he pointed to his coffee cup. "Yes, thank you." When he returned with both cups filled, she had seated herself on the door sill, and he sat down beside her, grinning.

"I feel like the spider sitting down beside Miss Muffet."

"Then we'll have to do something about that, won't we."

"Ma'am--uh--Amanda, Jill told me about your party, and I'm--"

"That's a mistake, you know."

"No, it's not. I made the decision when we came here that we would not risk involving Spock's family in our problem. That decision still stands."

"You made the decision," she echoed him. "For yourself--and your crew."

"That's how it's usually done."

"Did you ask them how they feel about this decision you've made for them?" She was looking at him innocently; she might have been commenting on the weather.

After a moment, he said, "No." It sounded clipped even to him.

"Did you ask Sarek and me how we feel about it?" He did not answer, now wondering who the spider really was and how he was going to get out of this particular web. "This has nothing whatever to do with Starfleet, Jim. You and five other human beings have been living in a plastic ball for three months, and you're about to go home to Earth to be court-martialed. Now you tell me that you've made the decision, for them, that you and they are not to attend a party that might take your minds off what's coming for a few hours. And along the way, you've made the decision for Sarek and me that we are not to be permitted to socialize with the people who brought our son back from the dead. That does seem a little...arbitrary? Is that the right word?"

"Did Spock ask you to do this?"

"Spock would never discuss a decision of yours with me. Surely you know that."

"Did Jill?"

"No."

After a moment, he nodded.

"So." She was smiling again, the gracious lady from Earth extending an invitation. "I'm having a party tomorrow evening. Nothing formal. Just a few friends dropping by. May we count on you and your crew to join us, Captain?"

"Yes," he said, staring down into his cup. He felt her hand on his arm, and looked up into her eyes. "We'd like that very much. Thank you, Amanda. And it's Jim, remember?"

"But I like calling you 'Captain.' It suits you." Their gaze held for a moment and then she leaned over without haste and kissed his cheek. "May the wind be at your back, Jim Kirk." Her hand tightened on his arm, and he patted it, aware of how good it felt to comfort someone else--almost as good as it had with Jill.

When she had gone, he took the cups back into the food area and was only a little surprised to find McCoy with his feet up on the table, eating a piece of pie .

"I got as far away as I could get," he said.

"Why didn't you get on me about this?" Kirk threw the cups in the recycler, thought better of it, got another cup of coffee and joined McCoy at the table.

"If she hadn't, I would've."

"I mean before this."

"We didn't have an invitation before this," said the doctor.

On the day of Amanda's party, Sarah had a visitor in her office at the Academy hospital.

She had known Simon Greenwood since he was a child, when she had become a resident under T'Loreth's supervision seventeen years before. Simon's mother, a Vulcan, had been a patient of T'Loreth's when Simon was delivered. She had died at his birth, and his human father had taken the child back to Earth, where Simon had lived among humans for twelve years. Sarah and T'Loreth had never known why the father had sent Simon back to live for a year with his Vulcan grandparents. But they had both suspected that the man had realized too late that a half Vulcan was too alien to be raised as a human. Unlike Spock, Simon had no sense of himself, Vulcan or human, and had not gained it until long after his marriage to a human woman. At twelve he had been brilliant, unstable, and totally unable to adjust to his grandparents' way of life. Returning to Earth, he had eventually joined Starfleet and achieved enough stability to be assigned to the Lexington as helmsman, spending eight hours daily side by side with his future wife, the ship's navigator. Kathleen, like Sarah, had weathered the first years of her marriage to a Vulcan/human hybrid. But Kathleen had been killed in an accident half an hour before the emergency surgical delivery of her second child --the baby girl whom Sarah had rocked the night of Spock's fal-tor-pan.

She had seen the baby several times since then, reassuring herself that the child was thriving, though small and delicate. The pediatrician on the case, a Vulcan, had done his homework, and had instructed the grandparents well. Sarah was sure that the baby was not reveling in physical affection. But she had good color and seemed alert and intelligent.

"She's a beautiful little girl," Simon told Sarah as he sat smiling across the desk from her in her office. Like Spock, he looked Vulcan in his red-mahogany Starfleet uniform--spare and graceful, his dark eyebrows curving upward at the same angle as the points of his elegant ears. But his face was a little rounder than Spock's, his brown eyes less grave, and his mouth had a humorous twist and a sensuous fullness. Sarah had seen human females on staff gazing after him each time he had come to visit T'Loreth throughout the years, and she imagined that their speculations might be correct. He and Kathleen had had a difficult time at first, for no one had explained pon farr to either of them until some time after the fact. But during the last office visit before her death, Kathleen had remarked contentedly, "I always know that when my logic fails, his will still be there." Then she had looked at Sarah deadpan, and winked. "Almost always."

"I wish that Kathleen could have seen her," Sarah said now in response to Simon's remark about his daughter.

"I wish that too, very much. And I wish she could see Seth with her. My little boy," Simon added proudly. "Have you ever met him?"

"Once." She thought of the little boy saying, I can hold her, and smiled. "Actually, twice. He was the greenest baby I ever delivered." Simon cocked an eyebrow. "Really. He was beautiful. Kathleen said, 'Seth sounds Vulcan, but he'll know it isn't.'" Simon looked away and down, his eyebrows drawing together. "I'm sorry. It's only been three months. I'm sure you still miss her."

"We had a great deal of time to miss one another, and so little time together. If she could have remained in Starfleet...." He sighed--resigned, accepting, now smiling a little. "Foolish humans. Always thinking 'If only.'" Sarah nodded. "Doctor, I would like to name my little girl after you. I'm sure that's what Kathleen would want if--if she knew."

She has a name, Sarah thought. Her name's T'inkerbell. But that might be a bit much, even for Simon. "Name her Amanda," she said aloud. "It means 'beloved.'"

He smiled, but his right eyebrow crept up. "Indeed," he said gravely. "That is logical." But the brown eyes were sparkling.

Sarah laughed, thinking back to the thin, self-deprecating, failed-Vulcan child he had been the day he had been brought into the emergency room with a group of other children who had been in an accident. He had tried to heal his own burns, but had not been able to maintain the trance. "Simon," she said affectionately, "how you have grown. Do you remember the day you tried to trance downstairs in the E.R.?"

"Very well. It was...'not one of my better days.'" Earth-raised or not, he had, she noticed, the same wry tendency to put silent quotation marks around human expressions that Spock had. But then the dark eyes narrowed. "There was a man with you there. A human, in Starfleet command gold. He was...good to me." He said the words with the same simplicity of feeling that she had heard in his voice when he called his son "my little boy." "You knew him, I think."

In memory, Sarah saw Jim Kirk bending over the child on the litter, saying urgently, "You'll learn. Don't give up. You're too hard on yourself." All those years ago.

"I thought I did." She sighed. "That was Admiral Kirk, Simon."

After a thoughtful moment, he said, "Of course it was." Then he surprised her completely by smiling again. "He's a winner, that one. I wouldn't worry too much about him if I were you." His voice was Vulcan-grave, but the Irish inflection was unmistakable, and Sarah laughed.

"What would your grandfather say if he could hear you?"

"Fortunately for both of us," Simon said, deadpan now, formal, flat, insufferable, "he cannot. Nor is it logical to speculate in the absence of--" Sarah was pressing her hand against her mouth, torn between irreverent delight and a twinge of the guilt that Simon was obviously far from feeling. "Forgive me, Doctor," he said in his normal tone, rising and moving toward the door. "I've taken up too much of your time."

"I wouldn't have missed this for the world." Sarah activated the message collector on her vidphone. "Just give me a second and I'll see you down to the--"

At that moment, Jill burst into the room. She did not see Simon, who had already moved to stand beside the door, awaiting Sarah's exit. She was breathless, flushed, and had apparently been running even though the midmorning sun was scorching. All gold, Sarah thought, cherishing the sight. The sleeveless shift was her favorite. Hair tumbling down her back, skin already tanned by the Vulcan sun, even her eyes were golden with joy.

"Mother! I was right--they have a leader! It's the one I call Samson--you know, the one I told you about with the dark mane and the--" Realizing that she and her mother were not alone in the room, she stopped and turned, the soft golden skirt swirling and rippling around her bare legs.

She stood still, her back to her mother, looking at Simon as he looked back at her, also absolutely still. Sarah had shaded the windows to shield out the sun, and the varitint wash turned the room to sepia. The red-gold furnishings that T'Loreth had selected so long ago, Simon's uniform and even his skin--and Jill, standing still in the center of the room--were washed with sepia. What does he see? Sarah asked herself. A man looking at Jill would not see a mother's golden vision wrapped in hope and memory, but another one altogether.

Simon smiled then--a smile that curved his lips and spread to his eyes, and Sarah remembered Kathleen saying long ago, "They're all kind of special, you know?" He inclined his head as though acknowledging an introduction, let his gaze linger on Jill's a moment longer, turned and left the office. It was only after he was gone that Sarah realized that none of them had said a word since Jill stopped speaking.

Still sitting at her desk, Sarah leaned sideways, craning her head around to try to see her daughter's face. "Jill?"

"Who was that?" Jill whispered.

"He used to be part of one of T'Loreth's pilot groups. He still comes back to see us when he's on Vulcan."

Jill turned, skirt swirling, hands clasped behind her now. Bouncing a little on the balls of her feet, she walked to the chair in front of Sarah's desk, sat down and leaned back, her arms lying easily along the arms of the chair. Her expression was meditative, but her color was a little higher than it had been before.

"He's not a full Vulcan, is he."

"No. How did you know that?"

Still leaning back in the chair, completely relaxed, Jill crossed one leg over the other and swung her foot, tapping it lightly against the front of the desk. She was smiling a little now, and her golden eyes looked at her mother and past her, at something only Jill could see.

"Is he married?" she asked.

"I haven't heard anybody say 'gave me the shivers' since I left Earth," Amanda said, amused. "In fact, not since my mother died."

"How about, 'I didn't know whether to laugh or cry'?" Sarah asked.

"That too." Amanda studied her over a vase of lilacs, fresh from the greenhouse at the foot of the garden, that she had been arranging when Sarah came in. The entire wing smelled of Earth and spring. It was going to be a lovely party, Sarah was sure. But she had difficulty thinking about the party. "Do you think they were in telepathic contact?" Amanda continued.

"I don't know. I don't think so. It was...something else. Jill is empathic too. But...I don't know what it was. It was just there."

Amanda nodded, and then leaned over to smell the lilacs. "How old is his little boy?"

"Seven."

"And the baby is what--three months old?"

"About that, yes."

"Well," said Amanda, "that should be just about right." She looked up then, and her blue eyes were sparkling.

"Amanda!" To her own consternation, Sarah realized that she was both blushing and grinning. "My God--he's way too old for her. He must be almost thirty!"

Amanda threw back her head and laughed. In all the years they had known one another, Sarah had never heard her laugh with such utter delight. The sight and sound of it were so infectious that Sarah could not help joining her, even though she was still blushing. They were still laughing when they realized they were not alone.

In the living room doorway stood five fascinated, black-haired Vulcan children, age ten to twelve. One of them was T'Ara, and another was Sember. Behind them were seven more of the same. Both sexes were represented in equal proportion.

"Oh--T'Ara." Sarah cleared her throat, wiped her eyes, and smoothed out as much of her smile as she could. "Ah--who are all these--" She stopped, staring, her mouth half open.

"This evening is the initial round of the second session of our chess tournament," T'Ara reminded her. "Do you not recall that, Mother?"

"Oh...my...God," was all that her mother could manage to say.

"And where," Amanda asked from the vicinity of the lilacs, "will this second session of your chess tournament take place?"

"Here," T'Ara said proudly. "In the garden."

"Amanda, I forgot--" Sarah began. But she never finished.

"Well, I think that's a wonderful idea," said Amanda. "Your parents and I will be having guests, T'Ara, but I don't think that should cause a problem. In fact, I believe some of our guests play chess. Don't they, Sarah?"

"Uh," Sarah said faintly.

"Perhaps they would like to watch," T'Ara said. Her expression was guarded, and there was a slight warning note in her voice. Eleven pairs of dark eyes silently echoed the warning.

"I'm sure they won't disturb you, dear," her grandmother assured her. "But...I'd hoped that you'd take care of Shevek until he goes to bed. Would that be acceptable?"

"That is acceptable," T'Ara answered without hesitation. "Shevek may watch us if he wishes to do so." Around and behind her, eleven sleek black heads nodded unanimous agreement.

The crew of the Bounty arrived at the gate to the courtyard shortly after sunset that evening, having spent a quarter of an hour discussing what party clothes would meet their hostess's expectations. The clothes they had worn when they hijacked the Enterprise and left Excelsior behind had been freshed and stored aboard the Bounty, and were therefore easily accessible. Having spent three months in nondescript Vulcan tunics and trousers, they all felt reluctant to attend a party in recycled work clothes. But it was early spring now, August-drought weather on Earth. Sulu's wry "Peter Pan would choke" had been the deciding factor, for they had already decided that whatever the decision was, it would be unanimous. And so they all wore their loose trousers and sleeveless tunics, and felt much like nameless outcasts on sufferance as they climbed the garden steps and moved toward the gate.

"Why the hell would anybody want to run up these things?" McCoy muttered, puffing. And then they all stopped dead, staring at the floor show.

Six identical triboards had been set up around the fountain, precisely equidistant from one another. At each of them sat two diminutive, unperspiring Vulcans, six males and six females judging by the length of their hair; there was no other way to tell, since they were all dressed exactly alike.

An air of supreme contentment pervaded the courtyard; none of the children was speaking at the moment, and they did not look up when the visitors moved into the area. Yet it seemed to Kirk that it had been a long, long time since he and the others had been in such a happy place as this. It was like.... He looked over at Scotty, who was standing with his hands behind his back now, a bemused grin on his face. These kids were like Scotty alone with his engines, Kirk thought. Except that they weren't alone. The peace and contentment that radiated from these children was group-generated and totally alien; no group of humans, adult or children, could have achieved it. They're having fun, Kirk thought in wonder, his own grin spreading. One hell of a good time.

He glanced at McCoy, who was looking at him too, grinning. "Somebody knows how to plan an ice-breaker," the doctor said, and Kirk nodded, thinking I wonder who that could be. Whatever apprehension his companions might have felt before, they all looked as though they had already had two drinks and an hour of relaxed conversation.

An hour later, they all looked like babies with bibs.

Earlier in the afternoon, McCoy had asked Kirk, "Is this going to be Vulcan finger food or a real meal?" Knowing Amanda, Kirk had opted for the latter, but both turned out to be true. The meal consisted of something like cabbage rolls, something like fruit salad, and something like nut bread, with something like sparkling water in the Vulcan equivalent of a punch bowl, which looked something like the bottom half of a gigantic fresh pineapple. The nut bread was steaming hot, the fruit ice cold, the cabbage rolls--four times the size of the Terran counterpart--dripped something dark and warm and sticky, and tasted even better than they smelled. No utensils were provided. But the logical solution to the anticipated dilemma consisted of napkins the size of a squared bath towel, thick enough to squeeze but easily tied around the neck. Kirk noticed that the Sarah, Spock, and Amanda (and even Jill and Saavik, who showed up halfway through the meal, both of them breathless and flushed with discoveries) had somehow mastered the enviable technique of keeping cabbage roll juice from running down their chins. The crew of the Bounty was not similarly experienced. But greasy chins aside, no one's napkin escaped unscathed.

For reasons that were not explained and presumably were classified, Sarek had left for Earth several days before. Kirk wished it were otherwise. Seeing the ambassador in a Vulcan bib would have been an unforgettable experience.

Here they sat, Kirk thought, all dressed alike, all bibbed alike, and so much closer in spirit than they would have been if they had planned and primped to impress one another. A new reason for the unisex leisurewear occurred to him as the conversation moved from Amanda's work with Vulcan and Terran music to the ingredients of the food, to the children's chess tournament, to the coming trial on Earth--none of which was, at the moment, any more threatening than any other subject. It was so much more interesting to rejoice in differences if those differences came from within rather than from without. It was the uniform concept turned around and inside out; here there was no rank. Even Spock looked the same in a messy bib as any other Vulcan, as any human would. Kirk went on eating and pondering, not participating much in the conversation, simply enjoying himself. Once he looked over at Spock, who was looking at him just then. Spock raised one eyebrow, and his lips curved a little. Kirk grinned back at him and went on eating and talking and listening.

"I think that punch was spiked," McCoy confided as they drifted out into the court where the children were still playing chess, half of them with greasy napkins forgotten around their necks. "I am feeling no pain. But is there anyplace cool around here? I ate too damn much, and I wouldn't mind cooling off a little." Like all of the humans, he wore a mustache of sweat along his upper lip.

"Try the greenhouse." Kirk pointed toward the gate, and then toward the ground to indicate "down the hill." "The last couple years Amanda's fixed it up like a real Terran garden. There's a skylight on top and grass under your feet. Take your sandals off. Only way to appreciate it."

"Real grass?" McCoy asked, his blue eyes lighting at the thought. The others, who were nearby, all turned with similarly eager expressions.

"Believe it." Kirk gestured with his thumb. "Go on. I'll join you in a little while. I want to talk to Sarah about something."

No one was hosting them, he noted with interest. Once the meal was over, Sarah and Amanda had adjourned to their usual evening enjoyment of the relative coolness of the garden court, assuring their guests that they could join them or not as they chose. Spock wandered among the chess players, hands clasped behind his back, silent and unobtrusive and obviously fascinated. Infinite diversity in infinite combination. Shevek scooted after his father until he spotted the admiral, then changed course, closing in fast. Kirk picked him up and tossed him in the air, and Shevek squealed with delight. None of the chess players appeared to notice, but Kirk had already seen T'Ara glance up two or three times when the baby was crawling around. She obviously had him within sensor range at all times.

Making no sound, Kirk knelt on one knee behind her, balancing the baby on his thigh. Shev immediately quieted, bouncing a little, his black eyes on the triboard as though he understood what he saw there, his thumb in his mouth. Taking advantage of the momentary respite, Kirk scouted the game and realized that he had arrived at a crucial point in the contest.

T'Ara and her female partner were on the verge of being stalemated. There was only one other possibility, and he saw it as soon as he looked over T'Ara's shoulder--an unconventional move that would win the game for her in two more moves. Even Spock would probably not have seen it. But neither would Spock have boxed himself into a stalemate with the dogged, unimaginative logic that T'Ara's partner had obviously been the victim of, leaving herself vulnerable as only a Vulcan child playing chess with a human could possibly do. But T'Ara wasn't--

Even as he thought her name, she made the move that James Kirk would have made. He knew that there had been no telepathic contact. She was fully concentrated on the game and unaware of his presence.

The Vulcan girl stared at the triboard in expressionless disbelief. Logic-bound though she was, she saw immediately what had happened to her, and her rising eyebrows made Kirk press his lips together to keep from laughing out loud.

Without conscious intent, he turned his head and looked up, finding Spock standing a little behind him as Kirk had somehow known he would be. Spock did not raise an eyebrow or even smile, and yet in his eyes and in his mind, he was smiling.

After the triumphant T'Ara had relieved him of his infant nemesis and carried Shevek off to bed, Kirk wandered over to where Sarah was sitting, strumming her guitar. When she looked up, he mouthed, Let's talk. Puzzled, she nevertheless nodded, put the guitar aside, and walked with him through the gate. As they moved down the steps, he asked, "Do you think Jill belongs in Starfleet?"

"B-belongs?" Her obvious incredulity was a comfort to him, but it was not enough.

"Have you ever seen her with a group of animals?"

"A group? No, I don't think I ever have."

"Do you know that she can sense a predator's presence a kilometer away?"

"No." Sarah frowned. "I didn't know that."

"What happened with the alien, Sarah? The big alien on Tara, when she wasn't four years old yet. She remembers that you chased it away from her, but that's all she remembers. Was there more to it than that?

She stopped walking and stared at him, her face pale in the starlight. "She almost lost her mind. Literally. The alien's mind was taking over. I pulled her away in time, but--" Horror crept into her eyes. "Wasn't I in time?" she whispered.

"Look at her. Listen to her. Just do that and tell me you weren't in time."

She relaxed, her gaze still searching his. "But?"

"She takes it for granted." He still could hardly believe it. "It's like this...this gift is nothing special, just something that everybody has." They continued on down the steps, their footfalls echoing in the fragrant, starlit stillness all around them. "She's not asking who she is yet, and she should be doing that by now. She takes it all for granted, including Starfleet."

"Wouldn't Starfleet be the best place for her with this--gift she has?"

"She could be exploited," he said, frowning, and was startled when Sarah laughed.

"Jill?" She continued to laugh softly as he relaxed and smiled too. "Look at her," she mimicked. "Listen to her."

"All right. All right." This was not a night for worrying, he realized. Maybe somebody had spiked the punch after all. "But tell me about the alien. You were in deep rapport with her, deeper than Jill was?" Sarah nodded. "Was she intelligent?"

"Spock said a three-year-old child, but...I think more like an ape."

"Sub-humanoid?" She nodded again. "Well, that might have something to do with--"

As though on cue, Jill and Saavik emerged below them, having walked down the hill along the outside of the house. They were deep in conversation, unaware that they were being observed as they moved toward the path that Saavik would take back to Con Tower. Kirk watched his daughter, convinced for now, at least, that she would find her own way to wherever she was going. Then he watched Saavik and thought private thoughts--safe thoughts, because he had long ago decided that there were too many things against their ever being more than thoughts...and realized that Sarah was watching him think them.

They stared at each other for a moment, and then Sarah silently cracked up, blushing as furiously as he was, pressing her hands to her mouth. He was laughing too, but he raised his finger and pointed at her, trying to get his breath.

"You--you quit that!"

"I can't read your mind! Jim, I swear to God--"

They were both laughing now. He took her hands in his, and she hid her face against his shoulder until they were through laughing and could look at one another again. Then he said, "You've changed."

"We all have."

"I mean since that day in the bubble when McCoy told us both what we sounded like."

"Yes, I have."

"Spock might be back here sooner than you think. I've really done it this time."

Her hands tightened on his, and McCoy's words came to her mind: You've had time to become friends.

"I hope not," she said, and neither of them doubted that she meant it.

The inside of the greenhouse was in darkness except for the faint illumination coming in through the skylight. Uhura sat cross-legged on the grass, braiding marigolds into a coronet in her lap, singing one of her soft lilting songs. The rest of them were stretched out full length with their heads pillowed on their hands, except for Sulu, who had propped himself up against a small tree. All had taken their sandals off, and Chekov and McCoy were chewing on grass blades.

Kirk had opened and closed the door silently and removed his sandals before he rounded the lilac bushes and came across the grass. But Sulu looked up and smiled.

"Admiral on the bridge," he said softly. Nobody moved, much less got up, much less stood at attention. But it was all there just the same.

"Now," McCoy said a little huskily, "he's going to say, 'As you were.'"

"I wish I could." Kirk squatted down near Sulu and blinked until he could see better. "I want all of you to do something for me." Quiet, waiting silence. When had it ever been otherwise? "I want you to think about alternatives. No one has to go back to Earth just because I'm going. That was my decision. But I'm not going to make yours for you. Not this time."

After another moment of silence, Scotty said, "It's that strange, but I cudda sworn somebody said something."

"Funny," Sulu agreed immediately, making a great show of scratching his head. "But I had the same feeling, Scotty. Didn't think there was anybody else here, did you?"

"Maybe dat Wulcan punch vas spiked," Chekov chimed in without missing a beat, and Uhura added, "Air's awful thin too. We could be hallucinating." When Kirk looked up, she threw a marigold at him and grinned.

It landed at his feet, and he picked it up and studied it for a moment before he looked up and said, "Bones?"

"The air's the air, Jim. Besides--" McCoy got up, stretching. "I'm a doctor, not a--" He paused, frowning. Chekov snickered. Uhura giggled and threw another marigold, this time at the doctor. "Just a damn minute now," McCoy said grumpily. "I'll think of something."

But because they were all laughing at him, he never told them what it was. At least that was the reason he gave.

After they had all accepted Amanda's gift of self, and after she had told them all how welcome they were and waved them down the hill, Sember was still in the garden, conferring with T'Ara. I-Chaya, who had prowled the edge of the Forge while his home was infested with humans, returned and provided a warm body and an interested audience as the two children reclined against him, apparently recapitulating the first round of the second session of their chess tournament.

Sarah and Amanda sat in their usual places, enjoying the first coolness of the night. Spock, who had just returned from walking his friends down the hill, stood halfway between the women and I-Chaya, eyeing the two children--not with total approval, Sarah suspected. In memory, she heard Amanda, here in the garden several months ago, quoting her father nostalgically: Doesn't he ever go home?

"Is it legitimate to infer," Spock inquired, "that he occasionally honors his parents with his presence?"

Sarah and Amanda turned their heads to look at one another. Finally Sarah said, "Occasionally." Her voice was not quite steady, and Amanda's mouth was twitching.

"Fascinating." Spock half turned toward them, one eyebrow up, hands still clasped behind his back. "One would have assumed otherwise."

"In about three seconds," Amanda whispered, "I'm going to wipe out every point I ever made." She rose, the picture of the decorous Vulcan wife. "Good night, my dears." And she went into the house a little more quickly than she usually did.

Spock watched her go, smiling a little, and it came to Sarah that he had been close enough to hear Amanda's whisper, if not to understand the cause of her levity.

Sarah got up and went to him, linking her hands behind his neck as he put his arms around her waist.

"Is Mother in some distress?" But he knew. He knew.

"Some. She'll get over it."

"I love you," he said softly.

"Non sequitur," she whispered back.

"No." He shook his head. "It isn't." As they slipped into deep rapport, she saw what he saw and would take away with him--Sarah sparkling with suppressed laughter, Sarah beautiful, Sarah loving and loved.

The following evening, the last before they began their voyage home, Kirk and Spock stayed late, checking out the ship together. Kirk learned what he had previously suspected--that Spock knew the Bounty better than he did. To him, this ship was still Kruge's ship, and he often fancied that he could still smell Klingons in the engine room. He felt no bloodbond, no symbiotic relationship with this former bird of prey. His ship, the lady of all his dreams and aspirations, was dead, and although he spent many long hours learning this one, it was rote knowledge only, committed to memory but not to heart. Spock, on the other hand, had never wanted a ship of his own, and was much more task-oriented than Kirk was. The Bounty had also been a particular challenge in his life, the first ship he had learned since his refusion. By the time they finished and stepped outside, Kirk was convinced that he not only had his friend at his side, but his first officer as well.

It was mid-evening, and the heat of the day had flown with the setting sun. Overhead, the stars shone in what were now, after three months, familiar patterns. The Na-Shoma had come and gone, and the dry time had come upon this hemisphere. The desert night air was clear and sharp, and Kirk considered asking Spock to walk with him for a while. He was not ready for sleep. But this was Spock's last night at home.

"Have you worked out today?" Spock asked.

"No." Kirk sighed. "Morrow wanted to talk to me, and the time was wrong. I was up at the crack of dawn, and after that...." He shrugged.

"We will work out together, then," Spock said. Kirk gave him an unbelieving look. "Fifteen minutes, Jim. That amount of time will be of no consequence to my family, and it will make considerable difference in the way you sleep tonight."

The practice workouts had begun as training for Spock, whose coordination and timing had not at first equaled what they had been before the regeneration of his body on Genesis. They had developed what was almost a game. Spock's memory too was involved as Kirk would snap out questions about hand-to-hand encounters Spock had had in the past. At first, he had been cautious, going into lengthy reminiscences, quests for conscious recall that had confused the newly rejoined Spock more than they had jogged his spotty memory. And so Kirk had learned to give no warning, but simply to trigger unconscious recall without preamble. That technique had been so successful that he had used it less and less in recent days. Now, as their session ended, he asked suddenly, "How did we get Van Gelder when he was on the bridge?"

Spock immediately moved to his left, and they closed in on an imaginary Van Gelder as they had in reality so many years ago--in perfect sync, knowing the outcome as they knew one another. And there on the Vulcan sand, in the shadow of the predator ship, Kirk felt a surge of confidence that he had not felt since he had opened his communicator in the Genesis cave and snapped, "It's two hours. Are you ready?" Knowing what the answer would be. Knowing....

Spock feigned the final neckpinch on the imaginary Van Gelder, looked up, and smiled. And Kirk thought Welcome home, and grasped Spock's arms as Spock grasped his.

"Welcome aboard, Mr. Spock," he said, and grinned.

Spock answered immediately, "Thank you, Captain."

It did not occur to either of them to correct him. 

'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free,
'Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be.
And when we are in that place just right,
We'll be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we will not be ashamed --
To turn, to turn, 'twill be our delight,
'Till by turning, turning, we come 'round right.

-- An old Terran folk song