The men standing at the pool were townspeople. Pike recognized one of the prominent merchants he had met four years before, Melkor Aliat. Aliat was as tall as Faraah, but with nowhere near the same bulk, a strong man but soft with town living. He had an aristocratic face, a thick mane of gray-flecked dark hair and intelligent brown eyes. As he saw the nomads approaching, he turned on them angrily.
“So you’ve come back to the scene, have you? Where is my son? What have you done with him?”
“Your son?” Farnah snapped. “We have no concern for your son.” He turned to Berendel and Pike. “Speak to this one.”
Aliat moved in on Farnah, ignoring the others. “Bardan was forbidden on pain of death to see the nomad girl.” He snorted disdainfully. “The boy is young, gullible, believing he loved her. I thought it was settled and done months ago when I ordered him to forget her. But last night he left the city, and we followed his trail here. This is your oasis, Shinsei Farnah. Was it your girl who lured him?”
“Lured him!” Farnah roared. “Silene would never—”
“Your people kidnapped him—”
“Never—!”
[147] Pike and Berendel pushed in between the two shouting fathers, separating them gently, careful of their dignity. “Shinsei Farnah, Trader Aliat, please. A moment to speak quietly.” The two men backed off a few steps, glaring at each other.
“Good men,” Berendel said in a conciliatory voice, “surely there is some agreement to be reached here. I am makleh of Shinsei Farnah’s tribe, but I see there are two sides to be considered here.”
Pike had conferred briefly with Durlin, who had rejoined the group after scouting the oasis and studying the ground. Now he turned to the two fathers. “Two sides indeed. Shinsei Farnah, your own son has examined the tracks. The thing that is clear to him is that Silene brought two meercans from your camp to this oasis. Another person—we will assume it is Bardan—walked here from the direction of Sendai. Two persons rode out together, away from the city.”
“It is true, Father,” Durlin said. “You may study the evidence yourself. The ground has been walked over by these townsmen here in the oasis, but the tracks in and out can be easily read.”
Farnah and Aliat glared at each other, angry and stiff in their assumptions. Pike exchanged a glance with Berendel and nodded at her to speak. “The two must have met here by agreement, good men. There was no kidnapping. They have run off together.”
“Then your son plotted this!” Farnah snapped at Aliat. “My daughter is pure, naive.”
“Pure? Bardan is shy, inexperienced. He has no idea of the desert. It was your daughter who—”
“Good men! Good men, please!” Pike interrupted. The two men subsided, glaring at each other but [148] grudgingly listening to Pike. “There is no blame attached to either of you. I think these two young people decided they loved each other and that their parents were wrong to demand that they stay apart. So they got together. Whether they love each other and should be married is a question to be worked out.” Farnah and Aliat both grunted angrily at the same time. Pike shook his head. “You are rightfully concerned with their welfare, but nothing can be done until they are found. Let me go after them and bring them back to you. Surely they will both see that running away from their families and their duties is not the best beginning for a marriage—if there is to be one. It is up to you, their fathers, to speak through the makleh about a correct, acceptable marriage bargain.” He paused and looked at the two men. They were glaring at each other but seemed to have calmed a little.
Farnah turned to Durlin. “In what direction do the tracks lead from here?”
“Toward our winter graze at Tisirah Oasis, Father.”
“Mmm,” Farnah grunted. “Silene keeps to the places she knows will provide them with water and shelter.” He looked at Aliat. “What say you, Trader Aliat? Shall we let Indallah Krees bring our children to their senses?”
“Yes,” Aliat snapped. “But I’m going with him.”
“So am I.”
Pike winced. Alone he might have been able to convince the two youngsters that they should come back and seek out a suitable marriage agreement in accordance with custom. With their fathers at his heels, the young couple might be far more difficult to [149] deal with. “Makleh Berendel, will you come with us? I think there may be need of your services as a mediator.”
Berendel bowed her head and touched her palms together lightly. It was a symbol of acquiescence and agreement to the suggestion. Only Pike saw the expression on her face, the half-smile and twinkling eyes that told him she realized this was going to be a touchy, but amusing, situation.
T’Pris moved her knight to the second level of the three-dimensional chess game and looked over the board at Spock. He nodded, approving the move which put one of his bishops in danger. The long, slender fingers of T’Pris’s right hand crept along the top of the table beside the board and caressed Spock’s left. He captured her hand in his and raised it to his lips, the game forgotten. Their duty tours were over for the day; there was a long night to follow.
She smiled at him and rose, tugging him with her. As one, they moved to the bed. She reached up to playfully dishevel his shining dark hair with the ruffle of bangs that started over his brow. He started to move to straighten it, but his hand involuntarily went instead to the coil of braid that crowned her head, and he found himself unfastening the pins that held the braid in place. She allowed him to free the braid and helped him loosen the thick hair that hung to her waist. She shook her head, and the curtain of hair cascaded around her winsomely. They moved sideways together, instinctively found the bed, stretching out on it. Smiling, his eyes half closed in lazy anticipation, Spock held up his right hand, fingers spread, and [150] T’Pris matched it with her left. The tactile contact sent a flow of warmth through him. Their eyes locked, and the look went deeper, mentally chaining them together. He sent the first gentle probe along the bond, reaching out to her.
T’Pris opened herself to him, welcoming him, the merging of their feelings racing after the intimate mind touch. He felt her glory in the flickering touches he sent along her most intimate nerve endings. She began to tremble in anticipation and joyously sent back the same. The simple fingertip-to-fingertip touch shifted as he grasped her hand fully, fingers winding together tightly.
Her mind touch became bolder, more sensual, under his encouragement. He felt her hesitation about probing too deeply yet, a little afraid of her full Vulcan abilities matched to his. He sent another caressing thought along the bond, urging more from her, wanting to feel the full envelopment when both minds were open and responsive. Just as the delicate touch of her sensitive reached him, the desk comm wailed with the traditional bosun’s whistle, and Number One’s crisp voice spoke.
“Mr. Spock, please report to me in the geology lab immediately.”
Spock’s hand tightened on T’Pris’s briefly, then he rose and tabbed the intercom. “I will be there in five minutes.”
“Very good. Number One out.”
Spock turned to T’Pris, his eyes warm and gentle and promising. “Whatever it is, I will hurry to be done with it.”
[151] “I will wait.”
“Wait just as you are now.”
Catlike, she stretched her lithe body on the bed and smiled at him. “As you wish, master of my heart.”
Spock felt an emotional shock that plunged from his chest to the pit of his being, and his breath caught for a moment as he stared at her. The phrase was traditional, exchanged often between husband and wife and between betrothed lovers. T’Pring had never used the phrase to him. T’Pris meant it; he could see it in her eyes, a look of love that was soft and gentle and forever.
“I will return as soon as possible—mistress of my heart.”
“I accept your word as a promise,” she said gently.
Spock hastily put his uniform to rights and left.
The geology lab was not very familiar to Spock. He had not yet had an
opportunity to work closely with the scientists and technicians there. When he arrived, he found Number One and Dr. Boyce waiting with Security Chief Orloff. Another man hunched timidly near the lab door, as though afraid to stay but forced to. Spock glanced at all of them curiously as he entered the lab, but before he could ask why he had been called, the first officer stood aside and gestured behind one of the work tables.
Lieutenant Commander Meadows was sprawled on his back on the deck, his eyes staring at the overhead lights. Spock immediately realized that the man was dead. His eyes flickered back to Number One.
“Meadows told his lab technician, Sandson, he wasn’t needed on duty this shift. At first he took the [152] time off, but Meadows’s order bothered him, so he looked in on the lab fifteen minutes ago and found him like this.”
“Not a natural death, I assume.”
“You assume right,” Boyce said flatly. “Meadows was murdered.”
“Why?”
“That is the question we’re here to investigate, Spock. The man was innocuous, inoffensive, a scientist who tended to his business almost to the exclusion of everything else. Who would want to murder him, and, as you ask, why?”
Chapter Nine
SPOCK CAREFULLY SCANNED the geology lab, then brought his eyes back to Orloff. “There seems to be no sign of a struggle.”
“Suggesting Meadows knew his assailant.” The security chief nodded. “I noted that, too.”
“Since no one has beamed onto the ship, it has to have been a member of the crew,” Number One said grimly. “I don’t like to think about the implications of that. Starfleet doesn’t normally harbor murderers in the ranks.”
“An act of passion, perhaps?” Spock ventured.
“Meadows never seemed to have any, except for his rocks,” Boyce commented dryly.
Number One turned to him. “Never mind the sarcasm, Doctor. Have you determined the cause of death?”
“Oh, yes. Quite simple. Meadows was strangled.”
Spock glanced at him quickly. He had had only a cursory look at Meadows’s corpse, but suddenly he [154] felt the intuitive flash of what humans called a hunch. “Pardon me, Doctor. Do you mind if I examine the body?”
“No, of course not.”
Boyce stood aside as the Vulcan knelt beside Meadows’s corpse. Spock leaned close to study the man’s throat, carefully tilting the head to one side to examine the neck column.
Number One noticed and pushed forward a step. “Something?”
“This man was strangled in a very particular way, Number One.”
“Explain, please.”
“I am speaking of a Vulcan method of killing.”
Number One’s eyebrows arched upward skeptically. “Is that possible? I understood Vulcans to be a peaceful and uncommonly logical people.”
“Now they are,” Spock said. “In ancient days, we were warlike, savage. There are several hand-to-hand killing methods that were practiced. One was tal-shaya, the breaking of the neck. Another was lan-dovna, strangulation by one hand. It is still taught in Vulcan self-defense techniques. One does not wish to expect a killing attack on Federation planets, but one goes ... prepared to defend oneself.”
“Meadows didn’t strike me as someone who’d attack a Vulcan,” Number One said pointedly.
“No. But attack or defense is not the question. It is the method we have under scrutiny. I have never before seen a victim of lan-dovna, but the evidence is unmistakable.”
The executive officer turned inquiringly to Boyce. “Do you concur, Doctor?”
[155] “I don’t know anything about this technique Spock’s talking about, but yes, the marks are plain on Meadows’s throat. Only one hand was used to strangle Meadows. The right hand, if you’re interested.”
“Can anyone other than a Vulcan do this lan-dovna?” Number One inquired.
“I do not believe so. Certainly no one else on this ship.” Spock paused, then went on doggedly. “I must tell you that Vulcans of both sexes are trained to accomplish this feat by the time they are adolescents. The most likely suspects for this murder would include all Vulcans on board.”
“I see. Thank you, Mr. Spock. You’ve been most informative. Commander Orloff and I will undoubtedly be calling on you again for assistance.”
“I must point out to you that I am also a suspect.”
“Noted.”
Orloff pushed his way forward, feeling neglected in this discussion. “We have to inform the captain at once.”
“No.” Number One shook her head and then held up a hand in the face of Orloff’s protests. “We’re under strict captain’s orders not to communicate with him on the planet surface. To do so might place him in danger, or at very least might put him in an embarrassing situation. We must wait for him to contact us. With that as a given, I will conduct the murder investigation until such time as the captain can do so himself.”
“Motives, Number One?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Commander. Until we discover one, we’ll have to operate on the idea that the murder was for unknown reasons, possibly [156] unpremeditated. We will sequester and question all Vulcan personnel on the ship until we discover the murderer.”
T’Pris turned to Spock, smiling softly as he entered his quarters. She realized something was wrong when she saw his grim face. “What is it?”
“Lieutenant Commander Meadows has been murdered.”
“Murdered?”
“Approximately two hours ago, by Dr. Boyce’s estimation. Rigor mortis had not yet set in. The body was only just growing cold.”
T’Pris lowered her eyes in sympathy, thinking of the earnest man who had so urgently entreated her to put in a word for him with the captain in regard to the Glory. If Meadows had had selfish motives for making the request, he still had wanted it to further Federation knowledge of a great Vulcan artifact. “He was a good geologist. I did not know him well, but he seemed to be an efficient scientist, a capable officer ...”
“I know, T’Pris. But there is more. He was murdered by a Vulcan.”
“No. That could not be.”
“There is no question of it. The murderer used lan-dovna.”
She stared at him, horrified. “But that is taught only in self-defense. Meadows could not have attacked anyone. He was not a physical person. It would have been laughable for him to attack a Vulcan for any reason.”
“Nonetheless, it was the technique used. There was [157] no sign of a struggle, of an attack. It appeared to me as though Meadows was the one attacked.”
“Why would anyone—least of all a Vulcan—wish to murder him without provocation?”
“I believe Number One and the security chief will be giving that question the most serious consideration. But ...” He paused, and a gentle smile curved his lips. “I also believe it will be a while before they call you and me for questioning.” He reached for her, and she smiled back, sensuously running her fingertips up the palm of his hand.
Number One and Orloff immediately set up a preliminary interrogation of the seventeen Vulcans. None of them except Spock and T’Pris appeared to know the reason for the questioning. As luck had it, all of them had been off duty at the time of the murder. Every one of them contended that he or she was alone at the probable time of the murder, except for Spock and T’Pris, who admitted they were together. Number One lifted an eyebrow at that information but accepted it equably otherwise. Starfleet had no strong rules about fraternization between officers, and personal affairs were usually kept personal. T’Pris was a widow; Spock was not married. Number One would not condemn a relationship between them, unless she discovered it was a cover for murder.
She turned to the screen mounted on Orloff’s desk and called up the personnel file on T’Pris. Almost as soon as it was displayed, Number One said, “She’s clear.”
“Why do you say that?” Orloff asked.
Number One tapped the screen display. “T’Pris is [158] left-handed. Most Vulcans aren’t, but a sma
ll percentage favor the right brain. Boyce was positive the murderer was right-handed, which lets her out.”
“Could she be ambidextrous?”
“No. According to all Starfleet testing, she is totally left-handed.”
“She and Spock claim to have been together most of that evening. Would she cover for him? The relationship appears to be ... close,” Orloff said discreetly.
Number One debated with herself and finally nodded. “She might. But is it conceivable that Spock is a murderer?”
“He’s half-human, Number One. Maybe that cuts the conditioning, makes him vulnerable to passion. She said Meadows approached her earlier in the evening. What if she told Spock something that roused his anger—or his jealousy?”
“Perhaps.” Number One considered it and finally rejected it. “Every notation on Lieutenant Spock says he embraces a code of nonviolence that would simply preclude his being a murderer. He is also the one who pointed out the exotic strangulation technique that neither you nor I would have easily detected. I just don’t believe it is possible, Orloff. And what would be his motive?”
“It’s the motive that puzzles me in the first place. We know Meadows was a fine scientist in his field but a nonaggressive man by nature. Not one to pick a fight—if a fight can be picked with a Vulcan. What could have precipitated his murder?”
“I’m not a detective,” Number One said quietly, “but I like to read mysteries, especially the classics. I’m not sure I’m quoting correctly, but I believe Sir [159] Arthur Conan Doyle had Sherlock Holmes say something to the effect that when all obvious possibilities have been exhausted, the only possible answer is the impossible. So, while it seems impossible that a Vulcan committed murder, it also seems impossible that anyone other than a Vulcan committed the crime.”
“Including Lieutenants Spock and T’Pris?”
“Somehow I find it difficult to include them. They swear to being together. Unless I discover some other clue that would link them to the murder, I’m inclined to dismiss them from consideration. There are still fifteen other Vulcans who are suspects, Mr. Orloff. None of them can account for themselves except on their personal word, and all of them admitted to being able to perform the killing lan-dovna technique. I’m afraid we’re committed to discovering who among them killed Meadows—and why.”
STAR TREK: TOS #44 - Vulcan's Glory Page 12
