Dwellers in the Crucible

by Margaret Wander Bonanno

  Resh nodded.

  "Our pleasures will remain for each other," he said, indicating his cousins with either hand.

  Jali came to stand beside him and he squeezed her hand hard, as if in warning. Jali fluttered her eyelashes invitingly.

  "Perhaps later," Resh put her off vaguely. "We will be here a long time."

  The hairless ones simply could not remove their clothing without some improvisation, however, and within moments Krn had tumbled down from his perch to join his elder cousins, his Klingon uniform discarded. The guard beyond the transparency peered in with renewed attention, gaping and gnashing his teeth in frustration.

  T'Shael turned her gaze inward and, without bothering with the privacy screen—it was a body, nothing more—slipped out of her somber Vulcan garb and into the ice cold shower.

  Cleante's human curiosity overcame whatever sense of propriety she possessed. After all, if they insisted upon doing it in public, why shouldn't she watch? She observed the Deltan choreography until it began to pall on her. Certain Deltan techniques required prolonged periods of immobility; humans might find these pleasurable in participation but they were boring to watch. Cleante sighed and began to gather up her human clothing. She did not mean to look at T'Shael, had meant to respect her privacy, but the Vulcan was spending too long in the icy water and the human was becoming concerned.

  "I don't think I can," Cleante had said that day at the hot spring, embarrassed at her own embarrassment.

  T'Shael's hand had paused at the closure of her Vulcan tunic.

  "Then I shall forego it also," she said.

  "No," Cleante said, upset. There was no graceful way out of this. "You go ahead. I'll sit here and read, or take a walk. I don't mind, really."

  "There are many days for swimming," T'Shael said, turning without hesitation and starting up the slope away from the steaming sulfur spring.

  But never enough for a friend, she thought but did not say.

  "Funny, aren't we?" Cleante said later on the telpher going home. "Humans, I mean. So free about sex, most of us, but funny about taking our clothes off for any other reason."

  "It is part of your sense of privacy." T'Shael suggested. She had been puzzled by the human's hesitancy toward the traditional nudity of the hot springs. "To the Vulcan, the body observed is simply the body. It is the body touched and, through it the mind accessed, that is a matter for privacy."

  "I don't understand it myself," Cleante admitted. "Maybe it's because humans are so dissatisfied with their bodies. No matter what we look like, we're unhappy about our weight, the shape of our legs, our noses, whatever. Vulcans accept their bodies. There's such a serenity in that."

  T'Shael considered.

  "Perhaps. And perhaps it is for this reason—" once again, as ever since her first contact with the human, she marveled at the words she found. "—I may observe quite objectively that you are beautiful and I am not; yet if I speak this it evokes instantaneous protest from you. This I do not understand."

  Cleante opened her mouth and clamped it shut on the protest. It would not do to become too predictable.

  The human in the Klingon cage could not help but be drawn toward the Vulcan in the frigid shower, transfixed by a sight that made her own body ache with cold: that thin, gracile body beneath the streaming water, all bones and angles.

  How fragile looking for all your Vulcan strength! Cleante thought, realizing all in a rush how T'Shael had carried the weight of all their sorry behavior—Theras's madness, the Deltans' hysteria, her own tantrums—these many days without respite.

  And Cleante understood why T'Shael had engaged Mastery of the Unavoidable yesterday in the courtyard, realized that her present behavior was perhaps some ritual atonement enacted through the cold so anathema to the Vulcan. T'Shael stood unmoving in the streaming water, arms upraised and head thrown back, eyes closed and face unreadable, even her obvious state of trance no match for the tremors that shook her.

  The human leaped off her bunk, snatching the blanket down and wrenching the shower off. She threw the blanket over T'Shael's shoulders and wrapped it around her, without touching and without a word, and without being able to look into those burning eyes.

  Breathless from the cold, T'Shael abruptly broke her trance. The icy water streamed off her lank hair and down her plain face like tears. Clasping the blanket about her with one hand, she reached toward the human with the other. The gesture was not completed before Cleante turned to face her.

  "I'm sorry—

  "Forgive me—

  both said in the same voice. "I misunderstood you."

  "In your place and in your honor," Cleante began in Vulcan, trying to take the bucket and cleaning utensils from T'Shael. The Vulcan shook her head.

  "There is still danger to you in the Klingon quarters," she said gently. "Krn and I will manage there. Perhaps you can persuade Resh to assist you here. Then Jali will participate out of fear of exclusion."

  Cleante nodded. Both had learned to use the Deltan's whims against her.

  "All right," she acquiesced. "But you be careful, too."

  Gently she touched the scar that ran across the Vulcan's face. T'Shael had forgotten about it. Now, strangely, it began to throb, and she engaged a light healing trance.

  "No danger to me," she responded to the human's concern with a touch of irony. "Lord Krazz assures me that if he has a craving for sheep there are enough on his father's farm to gratify him."

  "He has no right to talk to you like that!" Cleante flared, clenching her fists.

  T'Shael's demeanor indicated that it was of no importance.

  "His aversion assures my safety and provides me with welcome opportunity to study his language." She contemplated the youngest Deltan, who was entertaining himself with handsprings along the open space between the bunks. "If you would assist me, Krnsandor."

  "I'm coming!" he crowed, shouldering his mop and standing at attention before her.

  Cleante smiled and resisted the urge to hug him; he was a never-ending source of brightness in their long days and longer nights. Even a Vulcan was not immune to his enthusiasm, and it was possible that T'Shael's somber gaze softened as she contemplated him. She signaled to the guard to unseal the transparency and she and her assistant crossed the compound to Krazz's quarters.

  Their days devolved down into a kind of routine of long days and longer nights. Supplies were beamed down every few weeks from passing ships, whether Klin or Rihannsu none could tell, but no one left the planetoid. The ships left only enough to be consumed within the time that they were gone, as if to prepare for sudden escape and the need to erase all traces.

  The frequency of the ships was also noteworthy. They were not marooned at the far edges of the galaxy, then, but somewhere on the main Klin-Rihannsu trade routes, perhaps in the very heart of either Empire. The thought was a chilling one.

  The captives were permitted to exercise outside in the compound at the height of the twin suns under the everwatchful eyes of kalor or one of the guards. They studied what little they could see of the planetoid's surface beyond the heavy electrified fence. It consisted of a vastness of barren plain dotted with scruffy underbrush fading off to a low range of ragged hills a few kilometers distant.

  It neither rained nor snowed; there were no clouds in the rust-colored sky. A murky yellow fog hugged the ground every morning, obscuring the landscape until the ugly red suns burned it away. There was no freshness in the air; a lazy wind, baffled by the gravimetric pull of two suns, churned the dust half-heartedly by day. At night it found courage and howled about the captives' cage.

  They had no work except their self-imposed housekeeping, to which even Jali soon acquiesced as T'Shael had predicted she would. But walls and floors could only be scrubbed so much, bedding and spare uniforms hand-laundered with harsh soap only so often, and no matter their industriousness the captives managed to complete their work before the midday meal. The time might have hung heavier were it not for the agility of
their minds.

  "We are agreeing that there is no escape for us," Resh began one evening in a kind of impromptu conference he had called over their monotonous supper, the dried meat and biscuits varied for T'Shael's sake with legumes and various unidentifiable reconstituted vegetables.

  "That we must remain here for however long. Therefore we must refrain from personalities."

  Jali rolled her eyes as if she could not imagine what he meant; T'Shael was impassive.

  "And try to make our captivity as pleasant as possible."

  "Agreed," T'Shael said, taking his meaning, though only a Deltan could apply the word "pleasant" to their circumstances. "We are teachers and students here, as at T'lingShar. Our deprivation will strengthen us, and the lack of books and teaching aids will challenge our ingenuity."

  "To be grateful for a lack of things is Vulcan-peculiar!" Jali addressed the ceiling. Even her cousins ignored her.

  "We can take turns sharing what we know. Teach each other stories and languages and songs," Cleante suggested, coming alive. "We can reminisce about the good times and plan for the future, share our dreams. We must! These things will keep us going. We mustn't let the boredom get to us, or the thought that we might never …"

  She shuddered and left her thought unfinished.

  "And no quarrelling!" Krn piped up, anxious to dispel the gloom. He lay with his head in Jali's lap, alternately picking his teeth and gnawing on his nails; their captors had yet to provide them with such decadent amenities as grooming aids. "If two have a difference, a third must settle it."

  Cleante gave him a playful poke.

  "Maybe you should be the arbitrator, Fresh Face. You get along with everyone."

  "Oh, yes!" the little Deltan crowed, clapping his hands. "I am liking this!"

  They sustained each other. There was an abundance of conversation, an exchange of cultural and linguistic and musical traditions, classes in exercise and meditative techniques, jokes and games and anecdotes. What time human and Vulcan might use for sleep or meditation the Deltans used for sex. There was energy and enthusiasm and even, from all but the Vulcan, occasional laughter. The Klingons watched and grew increasingly annoyed.

  Alone in his quarters late into ship's night cycle, Spock of Vulcan knelt in meditative posture, slipped the datadisc Uhura always had prepared for him into the viewer, and refolded his hands into one of their myriad contemplative configurations. Item by item, the galaxy's tragedies and disasters passed before his deep and depthless eyes.

  Prolificomm Intergalax, the official UFP "wire service" (Spock had always found curious the enduring use of that antiquated term), made its news releases available in a variety of forms. There was the ultra-condensed version, which was really no more than a string of easily-digestible headlines for the impatient or the harried. There were the indepth analysis versions for diplomats, students and the merely obsessive, covering every conceivable topic from dilithium mining to ion warfare to extinct species to legalized brothels, complete with exhaustive statistics, local color, and commentary by every available expert in the field; Spock himself had occasionally been asked to contribute to these on a number of scientific topics over the years.

  For the squeamish and faint of heart, there was a special Purge code to fast-forward past anything suggestive of blood and/or guts. Alternatively, for the jaded and the thrill-seeker, there was the sensory-enhanced version, complete with augmented sounds and smells, appropriate background music, and 3-D tactiles and special effects.

  But there were those who took their news precisely as it had transpired, straight and unvarnished, and Spock was one of them. Ever since his return to the realm of humans from the abyss of Kohlinahr, his Achilles heel—if a Vulcan could be said to possess such a thing—had been his Mastery of the Unavoidable. To accept with resignation, if not with serenity, that which one could not change, without falling prey to the human extremes of hardness or bleeding of heart, had always been difficult for him. He had evolved a meditafive discipline so deeply personal even Jim Kirk did not know about it, and it was this he practiced now.

  The sufferings of the universe passed across his viewscreen, and Spock reached out for them and embraced them, reached into them and took them into himself, became one with them.

  "A renewal of hostilities between two worlds in the Congeriis system leaves over one million dead and an estimated three million near starvation owing to the inability of supply ships to get through …" the commentator's synthesized and androgynous voice said, almost soothingly.

  (Spock reached within and found hunger, acrid in the mouth, knifing in the gut, and he embraced it.)

  "… the precipitous cooling of a star in the Moldavi Nebula designated Z-Micron III and the estimation that populations in excess of thirteen billion have died with it …" the voice droned.

  (Spock found unending cold and dark and plunged into them, became them, became one with the thirteen billion dead and dying.)

  "… the unearthing today of one hundred and four mutilated bodies, many of small children, tortured to death in the latest religious uprising on Andros IV …"

  (Spock opened himself to depths of pain and fear as only a child can experience them, became that child, became all children, and the soul behind the Vulcan mask cried for the children.)

  Plague, famine, war and cataclysm, the deaths of stars and the deaths of children, all that fueled the insatiable human need for sensationalism, became surfeit to a Vulcan perhaps too sensitive to the sufferings of others ever to perfect his Mastery, and yet he must. He had no choice. Ultimately he would come to accept what was beyond his control, giving instead everything that he was to those matters where he could say, "Let me help."

  The larger horrors had run their course across the viewscreen and smaller ones replaced them. Minor assassinations, an occasional localized mass murder, the latest statistics on the Orion slave trade—these too Spock learned and embraced. And, there was one thing more.

  "… and on Earth this week, Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan delivered a speech before a specially convened session of the Federation Council, in which he asked …"

  Spock focussed, slightly breathless, returned from the realms he explored in ever increasing intensity. He knew of the content of his father's speech. Perhaps here there was something he could do.

  "… The representative of the Empire of the Rihannsu acknowledges awareness of the whereabouts of the six known as the Warrantors of the Peace," Sarek was saying in those measured organ tones which could by turns mesmerize, entrance, calm, persuade, dissuade or freeze one in one's tracks. "That one of the six has died is also fact. To act upon either fact at this time is, we suggest, precipitous. Until we know the reason or reasons for the taking of the Warrantors, we would ask most especially that our colleagues of Andor, despite the death of Theras shoorShras, reconsider their threats and the emotions which prompt them …"

  Theras. Son of Shras, Andor's Chief Ambassador and Prelate of the state religion. Shras of Andor, who had journeyed to Babel aboard Enterprise. This was disquieting.

  Spock could understand Jim Kirk's restiveness where the matter of the Warrantors was concerned, could almost envy him the privilege of acting it out. He, of course, had not that privilege. Not that it really did the Admiral any good to rant and pace and wring his hands, except for the emotional release it gave him. There was nothing any of them could do, it would seem, but wait.

  Spock deactivated the viewer and refolded his hands into one of their myriad contemplative configurations. They also served who only …

  "Tolz Kenran's latest dispatch," Lord Krazz announced, tossing it on his desk as if it smelled. "Somehow the Feds have learned of the blue one's death. Kahless knows how, but then the Rom system is riddled with spies. This is what comes of their subtlety, Kalor, mark my words! It turns out he was the eldest son of Shras of Andor, their chief diplomat from that world. Some sort of religious figure as well. Superstitious claptrap, but he carries a lot of weight. There have been t
he usual threats and counter-threats and Andor's mobilizing for some sort of action. Deliver me from Fed politics! All it means to us is that we're stuck at our sheepherding that much longer. Monstrous!"

  "Our sheep are remarkably healthy, considering the length of their captivity," Kalor observed, watching them moving about the compound beyond Krazz's window. "Fifty-seven days, yet they show no sign of debility or disease or disaffection—"

  "Disaffection!" Krazz snorted. "You tell me they sing and laugh like children." He never went near the captives at all now, but left that to his underlings. "What gives them the right to enjoy themselves while we perish of boredom?"

  "That could be remedied, my Lord," Kalor suggested.

  Krazz was sorely tempted. His mood had been darker than usual lately. He fingered Lord Tolz's dispatch thoughtfully.

  "We will see the outcome of this Andorian business first," he decided. "If there is to be a standoff, I want living prisoners for leverage."

  He got up from the desk and joined Kalor at the window. Together they watched the Deltans, who stood in a circle with hands linked, communing on some moderately titillating wavelength which always reduced them to giggles afterward.

  "They do this all the time?" Krazz demanded.

  "Several times a day, my Lord." Kalor timed his next statement carefully. "It would be interesting to see what would happen if they were separated."

  Krazz looked at him shrewdly. He was as anxious to get off this rock as Kalor.

  "Contain yourself for a while, Kalor. Let's not liquidate our stock before we're sure of the market."

  T'Shael left the scrub brush in the bucket and sat back on her heels, drying her chilblained hands on her coveralls and tucking her lank hair behind her delicate ears. Even a Vulcan could permit herself an occasional respite from such labor.

  It was not so much the monotonous, dirty work that wearied her (Klingons without their servitors were slovenly at the best of times, but in her advent seemed to be outdoing themselves), but the endlessness of Krn's chatter. T'Shael did not want to dampen the little Deltan's fervor, but his tongue was never still, and she was endeavoring to absorb every word uttered by the Klingons.