Let it go, she thought, as she had so many times before. Spock is who he is, and you can’t do anything about it.
As Amanda rose from the comm equipment and started for her studio at the side of the house, where she would begin preparing her artwork for shipment, she also knew that, in one way, none of what she thought about Spock mattered. For however he chose to live his life, he was still her son. Even if he couldn’t love her, she still loved him.
At the table in his apartment, Spock carefully wrapped the box in the decorative paper that he’d ordered shipped from Earth. Though he no longer subscribed to the human tradition of celebrating birthdays, his mother did. He knew that she would be disappointed if he did not attend her party—something that he had already agreed to do—and he knew further that a gift from him would make her happy. Consequently, it seemed only logical that he should arrive at her gala with a present in hand.
As he listened to the Vulcan comnet report current events on his wall-mounted display—a shuttle accident, a historic archeological find on the slopes of Mount Tar’Hana, the upcoming summit with the Tzenkethi—Spock also calculated just how to fold the colorful paper around the box. Several weeks ago, at the opening of his mother’s art exhibition in Paris, he had contacted the proprietor of the Primrose Gallery to ask if any special materials had been created for Amanda’s show. When Spock had learned that a commemorative program had been printed, he’d requested that one be sent to him. It had arrived last week, and he’d taken it to a local artisan and had it framed as a keepsake for his mother.
Spock finished wrapping the box, then prepared to leave for his parents’ home. When he had spoken with his father yesterday, Spock had agreed to arrive several hours before the celebration so that he could assist with any final tasks that needed to be done. He had thought to wear casual clothes, but Sarek had informed him that Amanda wished her party to be an elegant affair, and so she hoped that guests would dress accordingly. He therefore gathered his ceremonial robes and tucked them into a carryall, along with his gift.
As Spock reached to deactivate the comm display, a red indicator light began flashing, signaling a break in the broadcast. His hand hovered by the controls as he waited to learn the content of the bulletin. On the monitor, a map of space appeared, depicting the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, with Federation and Romulan territories labeled and highlighted.
“From around an area of space that Starfleet identifies as the Foxtrot Sector,” said a commentator, “reports are telling of a catastrophic event.” The Foxtrot Sector, Spock knew, bordered the Romulan Neutral Zone and contained thirteen manned Starfleet outposts. A moment later, an inset appeared on-screen, illustrating those facts. “Indications are that the entire sector has been decimated by some form of massive explosion. Initial estimates of the dead stand at four thousand.”
Spock found the news unfortunate, not only for the terrible loss of life, but also because of the devastating impact such an incident could have on galactic politics. Tensions had been running extremely high for some time now among the Federation, the Romulans, and the Klingons, and no matter what had caused the destruction of the Foxtrot Sector, it could readily serve as a flashpoint for the commencement of hostilities.
“Although neither the Federation nor Starfleet has yet issued a statement,” the commentator continued, “the Klingon Empire has claimed the cause of the destruction to be a Romulan ship that crossed the Neutral Zone into Federation space, where it attacked a Starfleet outpost. Klingon Chancellor Azetbur has branded the attack an act of terrorism and cowardice. There has been no response thus far from the Romulans.” The commentator paused, then concluded, “More details will be provided as they become available.”
Spock deactivated the display with a touch. He considered contacting his parents about what had happened, but decided against it. If his mother had not yet learned of the events in the Foxtrot Sector, then he did not want to inform her. Such news could easily cast a pall over her enjoyment of her party, or even cause her to cancel it.
Picking up the carryall, Spock left his apartment and walked the two and a half kilometers to the Vulcan Science Academy campus there in T’Paal. He made his way to the academy transporter, from which he beamed to the primary VSA facility on the outskirts of Shi’Kahr. Once outside, he found an airpod to take him on the short journey to his parent’s house.
When he arrived, he approached the front gate and pressed the signal pad in the wall beside it. He waited for several seconds, but the gate remained closed. He peered through it into the courtyard and saw the front door of the house open, but he saw neither his father nor his mother. It also surprised him that he did not see any birthday decorations. He could only surmise that his parents had gone out this morning, perhaps to perform some last-minute errand needed for the party.
Returning to the controls beside the gate, Spock touched the pad that activated the retina scan. A beam of light flashed into his eye, verifying his identity. When it ceased, the two sections of the gate divided and opened inward. Spock followed the slate path that snaked through the courtyard to the front door.
When he stepped inside, he immediately sensed something wrong. In the great room, where Sarek and Amanda had always held all of their gatherings, Spock saw not a single preparation that would indicate that a large number of guests were expected later today. More than that, though, the house seemed… empty.
But not just empty, Spock thought. Empty in an unnatural way. He perceived… something…
“Father?” he called. “Mother?” He heard no response.
Peering around, Spock made his way across the great room, past the fountain at its center, and over to the communications panel in the recess at its rear. If his parents had needed to leave for some reason, he thought that perhaps they had left him a message. When he activated the comm display, though, he saw nothing.
Spock walked from the great room into the main living area of the house. He gazed into the sitting room to his left and saw nothing out of the ordinary, but also no sign of his parents. The hall that led to his mother’s studio led away to his right, and Spock traversed it. He reached the doorway that opened into the geodesic addition to the house and looked inside. Several of the sculptures on which his mother had recently worked no longer stood where he’d last seen them, no doubt packaged up and shipped to Earth for her exhibition. He did not see Sarek or Amanda.
As he headed back down the hall, though, Spock heard a sound from behind him, a soft noise that he could not identify. He returned to the studio and listened for a moment. The sound did not come again, and he paced deeper into the room.
That was when he saw his father.
Hidden behind a work table at the center of the studio, Sarek sat on the floor, slumped against the wall. “Father,” Spock said, taking a step toward him.
Sarek lifted his eyes then, and Spock saw an expression on his face he had never before seen there. His father’s eyes looked hollow and didn’t seem to focus. Spock could only describe his appearance as one of terrible sadness.
“Father,” Spock said again, going over and crouching down beside him. “Are you all right?”
Sarek peered up at him, and finally he appeared to see Spock. “No, my son,” he said. “I am not all right.”
“Are you injured?” Spock asked. He reached for his father’s legs, feeling for any obvious break.
“No, I am not physically hurt,” Sarek said, taking hold of Spock’s shoulder with one hand. “You have not heard the news?”
The news? Spock thought, and the bulletin he’d heard on the comnet recurred to him. “Are you speaking of the apparent terrorist attack in the Foxtrot Sector? It is a regrettable loss of life.”
“No,” Sarek said. “Your mother…”
“Where is my mother?” Spock asked. He knew that Amanda had been scheduled to return from Earth yesterday.
“Your mother… was killed this morning,” Sarek said. A tear trailed down his cheek. “A shuttle accident.
”
The revelation startled Spock. Though he had detected something wrong when he’d first entered the house, he had never anticipated anything like this. He felt-
Nothing.
His Kolinahr training held.
Twenty-Seven
2311/2312
Beneath the fiery sky, on the plain of Vel’Sor, in the land held by his family for more than thirty generations, Sarek let go of Amanda. He stood at the center of the megalithic structure, atop a low platform, beside a circle of burning coals that represented so much: his wife’s lost katra, their connection to each other, their life together. Even now, thirteen days after the shuttle crash that had taken her from him, after confirmation that she had indeed been aboard the doomed craft, Sarek battled his emotions with his logic, and he did not always win. In his many years, he had never faced a more difficult challenge.
Silently, he gazed about the circular grounds, at the dozen members of his extended family who had come here today and who now ringed the periphery of this ancient place. Behind them, red granite pillars rose out of the hard soil, topped by horizontal slabs of stone. The breeze blew hot here, the air a furnace even by Vulcan standards. The chimes scattered around the structure infused the environs with a continuous peal.
“What we have experienced here today,” Sarek said, his voice sounding stronger than he felt, “has come down from the time of the beginning, without change.” He addressed all of those present, but as he had for most of the long ceremony, he peered into the steady gaze of T’Pau. “This is the Vulcan heart. This is the Vulcan soul. This is our way.”
Sarek bent and hefted the large ewer that sat beside the bed of white-hot coals, the searing temperature nearly blistering the flesh of his arms. Holding the antique container away from his body, he angled it downward. Water spilled from its mouth into the pit. The coals hissed as they drowned, gushing clouds of white steam rising upward. Sarek poured until he upended the ewer. Then, its contents spent, he set it back down.
“As it was at the time of the beginning,” he said, “so it is now.” He reached behind the irregular hexagonal shield suspended above the doused coals and took hold of the small mallet stored there. With a long, measured breath, he struck the metal surface, which tolled a deep, reverberant sound. “It is done,” Sarek said. He dropped the mallet to the ground.
About him, the family moved. First, those attending T’Pau lifted her palanquin and carried her from the ritual site. The others followed next, all but Spock, who waited until only he and Sarek remained. Then, as tradition dictated, Spock crossed his hands atop his chest, and then he too turned and exited the grounds.
In this place where he and Amanda had joined together in matrimony, where they had brought their son at the age of seven to be bonded for the pon farr with T’Pring, Sarek stood alone and felt lost. It is the natural order of things, he told himself. Each life begins, each life ends.
For all his life, he had believed that his reason would always prove victorious over his emotions, but right now, his arguments to himself went for naught. Those emotions that he had for so long mastered would no longer be denied. Oddly enough, his logic prescribed that he accept the reality of his situation, which necessarily included the loss of control over his feelings.
Amanda gone, her katra lost, Sarek thought. He knew that her wishes had been that, upon her death, her organs be donated to the medical system on Earth for patients in need, with the rest of her remains given to a medical school for educational purposes. But effectively nothing of her body had been left after the crash.
Around Sarek, hot gusts blew, perpetuating the light clink of the chimes. He stepped down from the platform and crossed toward the square-arched entryway. The dirt grated beneath his shoes.
Outside the great stone ring, Spock waited. Custom held that, when possible, the immediate family of the deceased walk together from this place back to their home, but Sarek suspected that his son would have waited for him even were that not the case. Since Amanda’s death, Spock had stayed at the house with him, taking leave from his position at the Vulcan Science Academy. He had assisted with numerous practical matters—contending with the guests to Amanda’s party, preparing meals, rescheduling Sarek’s upcoming ambassadorial agenda—but perhaps more important, he had provided a calming influence in a time of virtual madness.
As Sarek strode away from his family’s ancestral land, Spock fell in beside him. “Father,” he said, “though it is tradition, you need not walk all the way home.”
“I am aware of that, my son,” Sarek said. “My emotional control has failed me, not my logic.” They had arrived here for the ceremony via public transporter from Shi’Kahr, and they each carried recall devices for the return trip. The rest of the family had arrived and departed in the same manner.
“It is a long journey,” Spock said. “I am concerned for your health. You have been under tremendous strain, and with your surgically repaired heart—”
“We will walk,” Sarek said, continuing along. “It is to honor your mother, a symbolic passage that avows that we leave her neither quickly nor easily.”
“Very well,” Spock said.
They moved along in silence, each with his own thoughts. During the time Spock had remained with Sarek at the house, it had mostly been like this. They had spoken little, no doubt because there had been little to say. Spock’s Kolinahr training had allowed him to retain complete restraint of his emotions, and so there had been no need for Sarek to counsel him in any way. And although Sarek himself had been mired in sorrow, Spock’s own perfect control made him an imperfect vehicle to discuss sentiment. Regardless of all that, what could either of them say anyway? Amanda was gone, and no words would alter that fact.
Minutes passed, and then hours. Sarek concentrated on the scrape of his footfalls as he and Spock walked along the trail that would eventually lead them back to the city. He focused on the sound, attempting to clear his mind, seeking a meditative state, but one image continued to vex his thoughts: an abstract sculpture that Amanda had recently completed. Two and One, she had called it. A pair of rounded, flowing forms joined at the base and formed from colored glass, it had been one of the many pieces she had brought with her to Earth for her exhibition.
Unreasonably, Sarek had grown to hate the work in recent days, leveling the blame for his wife’s death at the inanimate object. Cargo would typically have been loaded onto a space vessel with the use of a transporter, but in the case of artwork, Amanda required—as did many people—that it be hauled to and from the ship aboard a shuttle. In general, people wished items that had been handcrafted to remain so, rather than at some point in their existence converted into energy and reconstituted back into an echo of its original material form. In her case, Amanda had not only insisted that her art be taken by shuttle to and from the vessels on which she’d traveled, she had wanted to accompany it during loading and unloading. The ship on which she’d returned to Vulcan had been delayed, arriving on the morning of her party rather than on the prior day. The shuttle carrying her to the surface had apparently suffered a total systems failure, and its flight path had taken it beyond the range of emergency tractor beams on the surface.
“Father,” Spock said, his voice seeming loud as it broke the silence about them, “your breathing is becoming labored.”
Though he had not been aware of it, Sarek now heard the rasp of his own respiration. He allowed himself to feel the fatigue in his muscles and joints, and he realized that he had pushed himself almost to his physical limits. The illogical idea of continuing to walk rose in his mind—continuing to walk until he collapsed, his own life mercifully ended so that he would not have to endure the unbearable horror of missing Amanda.
Perhaps not so illogical, he tried to argue to himself. Perhaps an elegant solution for ending his pain.
Sarek stopped walking, the rational portion of his mind asserting itself. “We will rest,” he said. Ahead, he saw the skyline of Shi’Kahr, still far in the d
istance.
“Will you not reconsider transporting back to the city?” Spock asked. “We have walked far from our family’s grounds. We have fulfilled the tradition in honor of my mother. Our ways do not demand that you sacrifice your health in order to carry out a symbolic act.”
Sarek turned to look at Spock. “You are right, of course,” he said. He looked around and saw several large rocks beside the trail, and he moved to one and sat down. Spock walked over as well, but remained standing. “I will pay more attention to my body, and if it becomes necessary, we will transport back to Shi’Kahr.”
“If it will suffice to meet your wishes,” Spock offered, “I can complete this journey by myself, in your name.”
Sarek regarded his son more closely, seeking in him any hint of compassion or sympathy or love. He saw only logic. If Sarek could not accomplish this goal and Spock could, and thereby spare both his father’s physical and emotional health, then reason suggested that Spock should. “We have come full circle, you and I,” Sarek said.
Spock did not respond.
“When you were a boy,” Sarek went on, “you faced the issue of your identity in a way that most Vulcans do not.”
“The hybrid nature of my existence forced me to such a point,” Spock said.
“Perhaps,” Sarek said. “Or perhaps I forced you to it.”
“I do not believe so,” Spock said. “At the time, my emotions whirled within me, undermining my reason.”
“As it does to all Vulcan youths,” Sarek said. “Your mother and I wanted what was best for you, of course, as parents do. But where she trusted you to grow and make your own choices, I pushed you.”
“You offered me guidance,” Spock said.
The Fire and the Rose Page 33
