III: Paradise

It was unfortunate that Jill asked Saavik what she thought of Simon only a few hours before they were to beam down to Beta Canaris 12. Saavik had been on board for two days, and they had spent a great deal of time together, but mostly with Spock present. After their learning sessions, both of them had been exhausted, with little inclination for anything but exercise, solitude and sleep. And so it was not until dinner of the evening before their beamdown that Jill finally asked, "Have you seen much of Simon Greenwood since you came one board?"

"No. But he taught briefly at Starfleet Academy during my first year as a student there."

"What did he teach?" Jill asked eagerly, and Saavik smiled a little. No secrets now. Saavik was as circumspect as Spock with regard to Jill's mental privacy, but the nature of her relationship with Simon was as evident to Saavik as it was to Spock.

"I believe it was called 'Breakthroughs in Alien Psychology.' It was...interesting. He brought much of himself to his teaching." "What did you think of him?"

Saavik waited a moment, appearing to take Jill's measure as she had so often done in the past. Finally she said expressionlessly, "He is very pretty."

After a moment, Jill said tightly, "That was uncalled for."

"On the contrary, Mister Halsted," Saavik answered mildly, "you called for an opinion, and I gave you that."

"You might as well have called him 'soft,' and me 'humanchild.'"

"If I had wanted to call him 'soft' and you 'humanchild,' I should have done so." The gray eyes looked back at Jill calmly, but with a touch of the compassion that Saavik had once found so difficult to understand. "It is you who are thinking those words, not I."

With a small part of her mind, Jill noted that in times past, such a remark in context would have cued tears on her part. Oddly enough, she had not felt like crying since the morning after she told J.T. of her decision to leave Starfleet.

"'Spoiled,'" would be more like it," she said. "Just like you thought I was the first time we talked at prepdiv."

"And I was wrong. Just as you are wrong now." Jill stared, her mouth slightly open. "I believe you do him an injustice, and yourself as well."

"But you said--"

"I said he is pretty. He is. Humor is a difficult concept. You must give me a chance to practice." Could that be a twinkle in her eyes?

"You mean you were teasing me?" Saavik gave her a round-eyed Who--me? look, and Jill laughed, infinitely relieved.

"He has never been tested, Jill. Nor have you. You believe him 'soft' because he is frightened of Monica." Jill lowered her eyes, no longer inclined to laugh. "You forget that he is an extremely sensitive empath who is neither kylh nor telepathic. Have you ever attempted to imagine empathetic contact with Monica without benefit of telepathy or kylh sensitivity?"

"Imagine?" Jill repeated, awed with revelation.

"Yes," said Saavik with a small sigh. "Romulans have imagination. Even Vulcans do."

"Don't patronize me, Saavik."

The eyebrows flew. "Was I patronizing you?"

"Just then, yes."

"That too is a difficult concept," Saavik said, frowning, and Jill felt her irritation wane. "I ask forgiveness."

"Oh, I forgive you. I'm just looking for a fight. Humans find it hard to be...as close as you and I have to be when we're working. Just like Vulcans do."

"Thank you for the information, humanchild," Saavik said wryly, and this time Jill knew she was teasing.

In another part of the ship, two other crew members who knew one another much less intimately were also working out their tensions with one another, but with considerably less success.

"I am the ship's counselor, sir," Simon was saying to an adamant Captain Kirk. "It's my job to monitor crew-alien contact in this kind of situation." He and Kirk glared across the table at one another in Briefing Room 1, where the captain had chosen to have this confrontation when he heard of Simon's request that he be part of the landing party on BCÊ12 the following day. "I won't 'get in the way.' Mr. Spock and I will be several meters away from Lieutenant-Commander Saavik and Ensign Halsted, but my abilities will compliment his. We're the best possible back-up team for this mission."

"I had someone else in mind to accompany Mr. Spock," said the captain.

There was a moment's silence, and then Simon said quietly, "All due respect, sir, but accompanying Mr. Spock in this mission is not your job. It's mine."

"Thank you for reminding me, Commander," said the captain, dangerously calm. "But I don't need you to tell me whose job is what aboard my ship."

"If you want to command this ship, then command it!"

Kirk did not move a muscle, much less make a sound. There was a long silence between them, during which their gazes remained locked. Then Simon said softly, "My compliments, Captain. Making a person listen to the echo of his own words is an excellent way to make him wish he could eat them. I stand corrected." His gaze dropped. "Do as you think best."

"Is that doing your job, counselor?"

It took Simon a few seconds to realize what Kirk had said. Then he slowly raised his eyes to meet the captain's.

"You're supposed to counsel me," Kirk said, the challenge evident in his voice even though he had not raised it. "You're supposed to tell me when you believe that personal considerations are interfering with the performance of my duties as captain. Do it. That's an order."

Simon swallowed. "I believe that personal considerations are interfering with the performance of your duties as captain, sir."

"Do you believe that you're more objective about this mission than I am?"

"No, sir. But it's my job to go with the landing party in a first-contact situation. Your place is here."

"Then say that," snapped the captain, watching Simon's eyes. But the Vulcan control had kicked in, he noted with relief. The dark eyes were opaque, expressionless.

"I believe I did, sir." Faint trace of puzzlement. And Kirk had to admit to himself that he had no idea whether his counselor was putting him on or not.

"Not," said Spock, when the captain repeated the conversation later. "He is putting himself on."

They had been playing chess without much interest in the game. The CMO lolled in a chair with a drink in his hand. At Spock's words, McCoy sat up a little straighter.

"Mr. Spock," he said appreciatively, "I had no idea you were that good a psychologist."

Kirk fingered a pawn, his mind far from the game. "Why would he do that?"

McCoy made an after-you gesture at Spock. There was a hint of mockery in it, and more than a hint of respect.

"The Vulcan way is strange and unfamiliar to him still," Spock said slowly. He steepled his fingers, looking thoughtful and interested, as though he were considering a unique scientific phenomenon. "He mocks it because he finds himself drawn to it. Because it is part of him, although he might wish it otherwise."

"And," drawled McCoy, "if he'd been brought up Vulcan, he might do the opposite, right?"

Spock sighed. "Perhaps, Doctor. Perhaps."

After McCoy had gone away to bed, sporting a self-satisfied grin, Kirk and Spock played in silence for a time. Finally Kirk asked, "Is she ready?"

"As ready as she will ever be."

"Can she do it?"

"With Saavik's help, I believe that she can."

"I wish you could stay right with her the whole way."

"Saavik is better with her than I am." Kirk looked up, startled. "My impulse is always to protect her, to make it easier for her. Saavik supports her without protecting her. That could make a crucial difference."

"And Simon? Wouldn't she do better without him there?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because," said Spock, "she wants him there. She may even need him there."

"But not me."

"No, Jim. Not you. Quite the contrary."

The following day, soon after the final phase of Jill's quest began, Spock had reason to wonder if they all might have been wrong. It was clear to him almost immediately that Jill was going to need all the help she could get.

As had been previously agreed, he and Simon beamed down a few minutes after Jill, Saavik and Monica did so that the Dac would not be troubled by his presence. When they materialized at the edge of a chalk cliff overlooking the ocean, the other three were moving slowly up a wide sandy beach below them, toward where a flock was roosting, upside down. His first impression was of stifling humidity laced with the salty scent of the sea that lapped at the beach below. He felt sweat spring up beneath his coverall, and saw that Simon's upper lip was already thinly filmed. Concentrate, he thought. The humidity was of no consequence. If he were distracted, he would not be able to observe with his mind as well as with his eyes.

"Remain here," he said softly to Simon, and then realized that he need not have bothered. Simon had gone immediately to the edge of the cliff, but he had no intention of trying to descend it. And for the first time, it came to Spock that his companion was intensely frightened.

So that was what Jill had insisted on hiding from him, he thought. Simon was afraid of the Dacs.

For a moment he beheld a tragic vision of the mission ending in failure, and possibly worse than failure for Jill. But that was illogical, he counseled himself. Simon's fear could have no effect on the outcome of the mission. They were too far away.

A short while later, he knew that he was wrong.

Jill, Saavik and Monica now stood on the portion of the beach just below the flock's roost, looking up at the great creatures above them. Alone, Monica had been a formidable sight, an angular alien blotch on whatever landscape she inhabited at the moment. Now, although she was as tall as her two companions, she was dwarfed by the white cliffs and considerably smaller than the rest of the flock. Three tiny figures, completely unprotected. and yet, what alternative--

Even at a distance of half a kilometer, he could sense Saavik's thrill of panic as Jill dropped to her knees in the sand, and then sank back on her heels. Her head remained lifted, but there was something odd, something faintly distorted about the position of her body.

"Saavik to backup team," whispered Spock's communicator.

"Spock here."

"Ensign Halsted is in trouble, sir." Calm. Controlled. He was proud of her. Suspecting what had happened, he also suspected that Saavik was holding onto Jill's mind with every bit of concentration she had. A human would not have been able to speak under these circumstances. "She refused to release Monica's mind until she was certain she was safe. Now--" Saavik's voice drifted into silence.

The Dacs on the cliff did not move, except to drift silently in the salt wind from the sea.

"Are you able to maintain contact with her, Saavikam?"

"Affirmative." She sounded half awake, and then her voice became slightly stronger. "But she will have to be removed physically from this area. I cannot maintain concentration and carry her away at the same time."

"We cannot use the transporter in this situation."

"Understood."

Spock moved fractionally toward the edge of the cliff, and a voice at his elbow said, "No."

He had, he realized, completely forgotten that Simon was there--sweating profusely now, his skin pale green, no human pigmentation visible.

"Monica won't let you near her, sir. I have to do it."

Logical, Spock thought. And completely irrational. What manner of idiotic heroics could the man have in mind? "You cannot simply grab Jill and run, Commander. If that were an option, I would have summoned the transporter. It will do permanent violence to her mind if she is abruptly withdrawn from the meld."

"Understood, sir."

"What alternative do you have in mind?"

"None," said the ship's counselor. "But I'll think of something." And before Spock could answer, he was gone.

Imagine the worst, the Betazoids had told him. If you are afraid of a challenging situation, imagine the worst thing that can happen, accept it emotionally, and get on with the task at hand. And so, as he walked down the beach toward the place where Jill crouched in the sand, her mind and her emotions compressed into a tiny space with one fragile lifeline linking her essence to Saavik, he imagined the worst. He had never touched Jill in Monica's presence, and Jill was, for all he knew, still Monica's territory. She could turn on him and put his eye out in a second. Better: he wouldn't have to live with the memory, because he wouldn't be alive. Some comfort there....

But that was not the worst after all. As he approached the three on the sand, he realized that he would have to turn his back on the whole flock in order to get Jill's attention.

He checked his pace momentarily, and then went on, moving slowly but steadily nearer and nearer to Jill. She and Saavik both had their backs to him now, but Monica turned slightly and watched him approach. Mindless. Vicious. On guard....

She was guarding Jill from the flock. Could that be why they weren't attacking?

"Relax, sweetheart," he whispered, meeting her beady gaze. "I just want to get her away from your folks up there. S'pose you and I can work together on this?"

No answer. But he sensed recognition. She had seen him before. With Jill. He was not, to her mind, dangerous to Jill. And that was all that mattered to her at the moment.

"Remind me that I owe you an apology." Moving even more slowly now, he circled around, turned his back to the flock, and approached Jill, again imagining the worst. A beak piercing his neck from behind. Green blood spurting out over Jill's uniform, her hair, her pale and empty face....

Empty.

Sick with horror, he glanced at Saavik. Her face too was pale, far from empty. Every part of her mind and emotions were concentrated on Jill. She did not even look his way.

He thought for another instant about the feel of a beak through his neck and the sight of green blood spurting, and then decided that he had had enough. Make it your own, they had said, and then forget about it.

He forgot about it.

"Jill," had said softly, and then repeated her name several times as he hunkered down before her on the white sand. "Jill. Jill. Jill." Is that your name? Almost her father's first words to her, she had told him. Most important person in her life, the bastard. Start there. "Jill. Jill?"

Nothing. His mind wandered. Split your skull with one of those beaks, maybe? Tear your back to ribbons with those talons? Forget about it. A trickle of sweat down his side told him that he was not forgetting the way the wise people of Betazed had told him to do. But Jill's empty eyes.... "Jill." He took her limp hand in his. "Come walk with me and be my love."

No change in the eyes, or in her curiously distorted posture. But within his hand, hers made a flicker of movement.

Beside her, Monica twitched her wings, and he sensed a faint, baleful envy.

Knowing that the move might be his last, he grasped both Jill's hands and pulled her to her feet. Nothing happened. Monica remained motionless. The wind blew salty moistness against his face. Behind him, silence.

"Saavik?"

"Go," Saavik whispered.

And they went, he leading Jill by the hand and Saavik beside her on the other side.

The half-kilometer beach felt like a hundred. The closer he came to the small cave that was the landing party's rendezvous, the more he wanted to cut and run. Walk do not run, he thought, to the nearest exit. He walked. And in the cave entrance, Spock was waiting.

It was totally illogical, Spock knew, not to call for a beam-up immediately. Jill was virtually comatose. Sitting on a flat rock near the cave's entrance, Simon held her on his lap, rocking her gently and whispering to her. Eventually she raised one arm and laid it around his shoulders. But Spock had seen her face when Simon led her in, and he knew that if he could see it now, her expression would not have changed.

Deep within him, he knew that he could not return her to her father like this.

Not logical. Necessary.

Saavik knelt on the sand in front of the other two, her eyes fixed on the back of Jill's head. Could he be of assistance, Spock wondered? Then Jill turned her face from Simon's shoulder, and he saw that her expression had indeed changed. If she had been asleep before, now she was having a nightmare. Her eyes were almost black, pupils incredibly enlarged.

"Don't let go," she whispered.

Saavik simply shook her head. It seemed to Spock that she did it as though she were afraid she might break something.

That bad.

He would have to do something. But what? If Simon's embrace and Saavik's telepathic life line could not bring her back, what could he do that would?

I'll think of something.

He approached the tableau and positioned his hand along the side of Jill's face. And he thought of something....

As they walked in the woods on Tara, he had talked to her almost constantly, surprising himself the while. He had never been much of a talker, had never talked much even with Jim, and certainly not with Sarah, who now presented the most unendurable dilemma he had ever faced. But Jill was only a baby, barely one point three seven five years old, Terran. She demanded nothing but his undivided attention, and he gave her that gladly, using the time to ensure that she would never forget the father she had never known. "Your father is the captain of a starship," he would repeat over and over. And: "When your father speaks to you, you are to say, 'Yes, sir.'" He had no clear idea why he was insisting on this last; Jim of all people would never demand that his child call him 'sir.'" But in some obscure way, he knew that Jim would find it amusing, even moving, that his little girl would call him 'sir' at their first meeting.

Jill's talk was still little more than a babble, with a "Mummer" and a "Pock" thrown in from time to time. But one day, sitting with her in a shaft of sunlight on the forest floor, he had been rewarded for his persistence. "Say, 'Yes, sir,'" he had urged her, sitting cross-legged opposite the tow-headed baby, who sat with her short legs straight out in front of her. "Yes, sir. Yes, sir."

And the baby had thrown her arms up, grinning, and cried, "Esser!"

He had smiled, and chuckled, feeling the laughter rumble pleasantly in his chest....

Even as Jill could feel it now, years later, in a chalk cave on paradise.

She turned, her head still resting against Simon's shoulder, her eyes clear of the nightmare at last, and smiled.

On the floor next to Spock, Saavik sat back on her heels with the longest, deepest sigh he had ever heard from her.

Satisfied and only slightly embarrassed at Saavik's mental delight in hearing him laugh, even in retrospect, Spock moved away, motioning to Saavik and Simon to stand up. Opening his communicator, he was forming the words Spock to Enterprise when Jill said, "Put me down."

Startled at the clarity and strength of her voice, Spock glanced at her, eyebrows rising. Simon had climbed to his feet with her still in his arms, but now she kissed him lightly on the lips and repeated, "Put me down, Simon. Please."

At Simon's questioning glance, Spock said quietly, "Do as she asks, Commander." Apparently Jill too had some ideas about how she did not want her father to see her.

Simon reluctantly set her on her feet, and she walked a little unsteadily to take her position for the beam-up. She was close to the cave entrance and facing toward it, as was Spock. Both of them saw a shadow skim across the tidal pool just outside. Before Spock could object, Jill moved through the cave entrance and outside, looking upward at the blue sky where something that looked like a large black kite was swooping and soaring.

"She's flying!" Shaking her hair back, Jill stood looking up, the color coming swiftly back into her face. Those two words were the only ones spoken in the next few minutes, while the four of them stood watching Monica fly over her own world at last.

And then only one of them was watching Monica, and the other three were watching Jill watch Monica. Or was she just watching, Spock wondered. He had seen that expression a few times before, when Jill was windflying on Vulcan. Joyful. Exultant. Free. Her feet might be on an alien world, but it was clear to the others that her soul was in flight in the alien sky.

When Monica made one last gliding pass low over the tidal pool and then flew away, back toward her flock, Jill raised both arms above her head and moved them back and forth, waving goodbye. Just before Monica disappeared, she performed an especially exuberant flip and roll, and the Poet Laureate of the Milky Way said softly, "'Look, ma. No hands.'"

Jill turned, eyes bright and skin glowing, and went into Simon's arms. They held each other silently, and then Jill moved away and embraced Saavik, still in silence, but with considerably more restraint than she had shown with Simon. Expecting Saavik to draw back anyway, Spock was surprised to see her return Jill's embrace with a small, almost thoughtful smile.

His surprise turned to disappointment when Jill made no move toward him, but simply said, "Ready to beam up, Mr. Spock." Instead of complying, he raised an eyebrow at her.

As she ran to him and hugged him, Jill saw a truth that had been in front of her all her life, although she had never seen it before. Drawing away a little, she looked into the dark, smiling eyes.

"You could have cut him out with me," she said in wonder--wonder that she had never understood that before. The look he gave her was puzzled, slightly bewildered, and she loved him the more for it. "You had four years on Tara. You could have cut him out."

The bewilderment deepened into a frown. "For what purpose?"

She kissed his cheek and said, "I accept your gift." In English. "You are most welcome," he answered, still smiling.

That evening, the captain and the first officer made another unsuccessful attempt to continue their chess game. They were both distracted by the events of the day, and apprehensive about the events of tomorrow. Jill had made an unofficial preliminary report to Kirk and Spock regarding the motivation of the Dacs for attacking the colonists and, particularly, their children, and then gone to her quarters to sleep. Ten hours later, she was apparently still asleep. Both Spock and Saavik had assured McCoy that her mind was intact and that there was nothing wrong with her physically that a good night's sleep wouldn't cure. But the CMO had made it clear that he wanted to be present at the official debriefing just before the subspace conference with Cunningham. "If she's not up to that, it can wait," he had insisted adamantly. The captain had agreed; he himself was quite sure that Jill was fine. She looked like herself and sounded like herself, even though exhausted. But relieved as he was about Ensign Halsted, there was still a question in his mind about the ship's counselor.

After he and Spock had sat gazing at the triboard in companionable silence for some time, he asked, "Was he grandstanding?"

"He was terrified, Jim. I could smell his fear."

"And yet he did the job, and he did it right." Spock nodded. "Would it be the same with another crew member in danger?"

"It would not be the same with another crew member."

Kirk made an impatient gesture. "That's exactly my point. Don't fudge, Mr. Spock."

"I cannot answer your question, Captain. One cannot know these things in advance. To each according to his gifts."

Kirk nodded, and then a flicker of pain crossed his face. "Or hers," he said softly.

Sitting at right angles to him, Spock laid his hand on his arm, the long fingers pressing gently. "It must be her choice," he said.

Kirk was silent, warmed by the hand on his arm, but feeling the hurt that he had shown to no one else up to now, not even to himself. "What a waste." It was only a whisper.

"No."

Spock's hand remained on his arm as he struggled with the pain and then took the first grueling step toward making it his companion rather than his adversary. Sighing, he looked up at Spock, smiled slowly, and repeated, "No."

Still later, he put his uniform jacket back on, also buttoned himself into it, and called the ship's counselor on the intercom. "Do you have a minute, Commander?"

There was a short silence, and then Simon answered, "Yes, sir." Within a few moments, Kirk's door buzzer sounded.

"Come." Simon stepped in, buttoned up to the neck, and Kirk felt a reluctant pride in him--the kind of pride, he recognized, that he felt only for a member of his own crew who was measuring up to his expectations. Simon's voice, when he answered the intercom, had indicated clearly that he had been sound asleep a few seconds earlier. He was not on duty. It would have been perfectly acceptable, by The Book, had he appeared in a coverall or sweats. After the day he'd had, no captain in the fleet would have blamed him.

"Thank you for coming," this captain said, and watched Simon's eyebrows rise slightly. Putting himself on? No. Not this time. The raised eyebrows were a reflex. Part of him to be Vulcan too, Spock had said. "I received a subspace message late this afternoon that I want to discuss with you, give you time to think about it." He went on to explain briefly that the Klingons were sending out peace feelers, possibly because the Romulans had been threatening their borders of late. Possibly not. No one knew exactly what they were up to, and everyone wanted to know that rather badly. "I'm to meet with General Korrd on Nimbus III at 1600 tomorrow. He and I know one another, and we've both been there before, about five years ago. Neutral territory." Simon nodded. "I like Korrd. He more or less saved my life once. But I'm not sure I trust him. I...I think it would be a good idea for an empath to be present at the meeting." Kirk paused, having not quite figured out how to say what he wanted to say next without sounding condescending. "You went through a hell of an ordeal today. If this thing with Korrd is too soon for you--"

"Tomorrow?" Simon breathed, and Kirk realized that he had not even heard the last sentence. There was very little of the Vulcan in him now. He looked like tomorrow was going to be Christmas.

"Tomorrow. We'll talk more about it at 1100, after the BC 12 debriefing."

"Yes, sir."

"Now get some sleep. The three of you deserve it." Kirk smiled dismissively, and Simon rose, turned toward the door, paused fractionally, and then moved on.

"Simon." Simon paused again, but did not turn. "Is there something you want to say to me?"

Several seconds went by before Simon turned around. His eyes were wary now. Didn't want to screw anything up, Kirk supposed.

"Off the record, sir?" Kirk nodded, and Simon moved slowly back toward the desk where they had both been sitting, facing one another. It came to Kirk that Simon did not want to sit down; whatever he had to say needed to be said standing, and not to a superior officer seated behind a desk. As unobtrusively as possible, the captain stood up too.

"Are you familiar with Wuthering Heights?" Simon asked. While the captain was still concentrating on keeping his mouth from dropping open, he went on hastily, "Nineteenth century. The author's name was Emily--"

"Bronte." Kirk nodded. Go with the flow on this one. "I have a first edition. I've read it twice. No. Three times." Up with the eyebrows. A reflex. No doubt about it. Have to tell Spock--

"Do you remember Cathy's dream? The one she told Nelly about?"

Again Kirk felt the flicker of pain, and again he made it his own. "She dreamed she went to heaven and wore herself out crying to come back to earth. When the angels threw her out on the heath, she woke up sobbing for joy."

They regarded one another steadily for a moment, and then Simon said, "I won't try to change her mind. Will you?"

Kirk shook his head. "I never have."

A brief gleam in the eye, and then the put-on. No doubt about it. It was gentle, in no way malicious, but it was there. Simon became an instant Vulcan, impassive except for that gleam of intense satisfaction in his eyes.

"Very good, sir," he said. "Permission to return to quarters, Captain?"

"Good night, Counselor," said the captain. "Sleep well."

When Jill appeared in the briefing room precisely at 0958, her father noted with relief that she looked rested, if a little apprehensive. She smiled at Spock, Saavik, Simon and McCoy when each came in, a slightly different smile for each. But when the captain asked her if she were ready to begin, she answered formally, "Affirmative, sir," and did not smile at him.

Still a ways for them to go. But he had some ideas on that. Meanwhile, there was a job to be done.

During the next hour, Jill reviewed in detail what she and Saavik had learned about the Dacs during their relatively brief meld with the flock mind. They compared their impressions, and refined verbally what Jill would report to Starfleet, attempting to keep the presentation factual rather than emotionally charged. Simon reported with admirable detachment what he had observed of Jill's condition, corroborating Saavik's assertion that Jill had indeed been in deep rapport with the flock, even deeper than Saavik had herself. Spock provided more detail. As the time for the subspace conference neared, Kirk suggested that it might be better if all of them reported their own observations.

He had expected resistance from Jill, probably delivered in the formal manner with which she had set the tone for this meeting. He got the surprise of his life when she answered him with an affectionate smile.

"Thanks, J.T," said the captain's daughter. "But I have to do this by myself."

When her father grinned in uncontrolled delight, Simon and Saavik both raised their eyebrows, the corners of Spock's mouth actually turned up, and McCoy murmured huskily, "Way t' go, Mistah Halsted, honey."

"About time, don't you think?" She looked around the table, and it became obvious to Kirk that everyone present had heard about her last encounter with Admiral Cunningham. "And I want to stand. The future of that world depends on my not screwing up this time."

The admiral sat behind his desk, looking regal and commanding in front of the blue insignia. Ensign Halsted stood facing the view screen in the captain's quarters, impeccably uniformed but suitably respectful of her superior officer. He did not like what he was hearing, but could find no fault in the way the information was delivered to him.

"They're part of their world, sir, and their world is part of them. It's their territory, but there's so much more to it than that. Territory to them isn't a possession like it is to us. It's an extension, something like a parent and something like a child. A part of their bodies. They are Beta Canaris 12, and Beta Canaris 12 is them. It's all one entity."

The admiral frowned. "A conscious entity?"

"Not the planet, no, sir. They're conscious, and intelligent enough to have names, and to know the difference between a mining operation and a visit. That's partially why they didn't attack Lieutenant Commander Saavik and me as soon as they saw us."

"Partially?"

"Monica, my...." A slight pause. "The Dac who killed Monica Franklin remained loyal to me even after she had melded with her flock. She was protecting me telepathically from the rest of them." Cunningham rubbed his chin and said nothing. "But we weren't a threat to them at that point. The two of us hadn't done anything to their world. Yet. But the planet is...flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone. It doesn't matter that the dilithium mines are hundreds of kilometers from any of their roosting areas. They can feel us tearing into its flesh, its bones. It's an atrocity to them. Mutilation. We're savaging their mother's breast."

After a moment, the admiral said softly, "But killing our children?"

"What better way to make us pack up and leave?"

"They're intelligent enough to figure that out?"

"Yes, sir. They are. This mining operation is a clear violation of the Prime Directive."

"That's your opinion, mister," the admiral said lightly. "It has been brought to my attention that an opinion is not the same as a fact. Do you concur?"

"Yes, sir," answered Mister Halsted without missing a beat.

"Very well. Your recommendation will be forwarded to the Federation Council by Starfleet Command. My compliments on the way you've handled your mission. You're going to be a fine officer."

Watching and listening, Kirk held his breath. But after a moment's hesitation, Jill answered quietly, "It's an honor to be a Starfleet officer, sir."

The admiral nodded. "Captain Kirk?" The captain stepped forward into the admiral's sphere of vision. "Do you have anything to add at this time?"

"No, sir. I'll be sending my report by subspace later today." He could not resist adding, "This would be a hard act to follow."

"It wasn't an act," said the admiral a bit ruefully.

"That," said the captain, "is what I meant."

"There's something I want to show you and something I want to give you" was all J.T. would tell her. She knew that the Enterprise had only a few hours stopover at Spacedock before they went out again, and she had expected to be beamed out to Lunaport shortly after they completed the preliminaries of her discharge; because she had completed her mission and Earth was her base of origin, all the red tape had been dispensed with while they were on their way in from Nimbus III. So when she and her father, in jeans and T-shirts, materialized on a flat prairie in front of a large white house, she had no idea where they were.

And then she saw the inner tube.

Her first thought was: But the weather is wrong. Instead of the clear, bright sky at Old McDonald's Farm, this sky was roiling with clouds that looked like smudged marble in gaseous form. A hot, wet breeze smelled of rain, but there was no sense of the proximity of the ocean, no hint of the familiar scent of salt in the air. Instead, there was a dry, warm smell like a mammoth straw basket full of black dirt. As they walked up the road to the house, the air felt thick in spite of the breeze, which was strong enough to whip the trees along the path until the backs of their leaves showed silvery green. Everything was moving; even the marbled clouds were in a hurry. And everywhere there was a sense of something about to happen.

"Is there going to be a storm?" Jill asked. Her hair was blowing wildly about her face, and she caught a strand of it and pulled it behind her ear.

"Could be," J.T. said amiably, his eyes scanning the horizon. "Air's getting green. Bad timing. Maybe we better think about getting down cellar." But the idea didn't seem very appealing to him.

"Down where?"

He explained as they neared the house, pointing back at the horizon. "That could turn into a wall cloud in a few minutes."

"Do you want to go down cellar?" Jill asked, disappointed. The air might be getting green, but there was a charge, an excitement in it that she didn't want to be away from. Watching her, he grinned.

"In a minute." And he began to point out landmarks, his eyes returning to her face time and again as he talked. She was fascinated. That was the road along which he and Sam had walked to school. There were the trees they had climbed, the fences that had kept their horses in the pasture now empty, its long grass in motion and showing silver in the odd green twilight just as the backs of the leaves were.

"Where did you fish?" she asked.

"Down by the crik," he said, and grinned, thoroughly enjoying himself. "C-r-e-e-k. Crik. Like the capital of South Dakota is 'Peer.'" They both laughed. "And it's not 'Where's your brother?' It's 'Where's your brother at?'" Then his gaze drifted past her. "Uh-oh."

Turning, she saw that the marbling had blended to deep gray-blue in the southwest. The wind was stronger now, and a few drops of rain spattered against her face. But she did not want to go in.

J.T. was on the porch, waiting for her, and she knew his gaze was still on her face.

"Did you ever see a tornado?" she asked.

"Once. Mom told us to get down cellar, but I went up in the attic instead." At her questioning look, he pointed to a tiny window just beneath the roof at the front of the house. "She damn near killed me when she found me up there."

Jill turned and looked back at the deep blue that was spreading across the entire western sky. "Let's--"

"No, Jill." But he was grinning, half-sitting on the porch railing as she stood at the foot of the wooden steps, his eyes still on her face.

"What do you do with the animals if there's a tornado coming?" she asked.

"Hope there isn't. You can't put stock in a storm cellar."

"You could beam them in." He simply looked at her; now it was his turn to be fascinated. "Build a cellar under the barn and beam them in. If you had several transporters and just a few animals, it would only take a few minutes."

"So it would," he said softly, proudly.

She turned again toward the horizon, and wondered if she had ever been this happy. "It's real," she said into the whipping wet wind, and pulled another strand of hair behind her ear.

"It's yours."

She turned slowly to look at him. "Is this what you were going to give me?"

"No. This is what I was going to show you. But the more I think about it, the better it sounds." He gestured toward the gathering storm, which was now beginning to drop ragged tails toward the nearby fields. One of the tails appeared to be gyrating. "Downstairs. On the double." When she looked longingly up at the attic window, he laughed out loud. "Now, Jill!" He was still laughing when she passed him on the way into the house.

The storm cellar turned out to be a small recreation room, paneled in real wood. The chairs were soft to sit in, and there was a fireplace with wood stacked neatly in it. When the rain began in earnest, roaring like there was a waterfall just above the house, J.T. inspected the small, ground-level windows while Jill sat in one of the soft chairs and hugged herself.

"What if a tornado hits the house?"

"If it does," he said, "we'll know." Returning to the braid rug in front of the fireplace, he asked, "Cold?"

"It's so damp in here."

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you're part Vulcan." They laughed again, gently this time. Then he lit the fire, and they settled down to talk business. Jill learned what "free and clear" meant. It meant that you don't owe anything to anybody, that you're your own boss. Gazing into the fire, she said quietly, "I want Barb and Noah and the rest to be able to live here and work here. If we can find another grant." Then she grinned. "Noah could be the foreman, and we could get two of each kind of animal and call the place...." It wasn't really very funny, she knew, but both of them reacted as though it were. When they were through laughing, she said, "We couldn't afford that many transporters, though."

"You sell the back forty." He was still grinning.

"Sell back the what?"

"Never mind." Serious now, he explained that the sale of one-tenth of the acreage would finance two heavy-duty cargo transporters with enough left over to support her and her friends for several years.

"Years?" He nodded, watching her face again. "No grant from the Feds?"

"No grant from the Feds."

After a moment, she said, "I haven't thanked you."

"Oh, yes," he said. "You have."

After the storm, the sky became blue as the sky at Old McDonald's Farm. But what a difference. The holo chamber had no green smells, Jill realized as she and J.T. sat on the porch steps, listening to what sounded like a thousand different birds singing hello to the sun and goodbye to the fading day. Here, the fragrances came in many shades of green, from the rain-slicked emerald of the grass to the moist, earthy brown-green of the fir tree that stood sentinel to the centuries beside the house. Now it was shadows that moved continuously--leaf shadows on the lawn, with the setting sun flickering through in golden patches. The breeze had gentled, and J.T. predicted that by the time the sun had set, it would be gone. So quiet, he said, that you could hear a dog bark a mile away. Jill thought briefly about asking how far a mile was, but she was too happy to care.

When the sunset had paled to a soft blue, he took something out of the pocket of his jeans and laid it in the palm of her hand.

It was his Command School ring, its stone as blue as the darkening sky.

She looked at it in silence for a time. It lay in the palm of her hand as though it belonged there. Then she said softly, "I can't ever wear it, J.T."

"No." Still holding her hand in his, he closed her fingers over the ring. "But you can keep it."

She raised her eyes to his and said, awed, "I'm not crying."

Laying his arm around her shoulders, he rested his chin on her hair.

"I noticed," he said.