Dwellers in the Crucible

by Margaret Wander Bonanno

  Now he knelt in the presence of Master Stimm, but with a demeanor that indicated he was not accustomed to kneeling.

  "Live long and prosper, Sim're'At—" he began, a breach of etiquette excused him in view of the expediency of his mission, but Stimm motioned him to silence with a gesture.

  "Thee are called Stalek," he observed. Urgency served no purpose; there was nothing the Master could do to solve the younger Vulcan's dilemma.

  "Yes," the one called Stalek replied, then waited as was proper for the younger in the presence of the elder. He could not but wonder how long he would be required to wait. Were he not Vulcan, he might almost be thought guilty of impatience.

  Master Stimm sensed the handsome one's urgency from the depth of his wisdom, but allowed him to wait and consider his reasons for coming here. There could be no satisfactory outcome to their meeting.

  "Thee seeks the one called T'Shael," Master Stimm said at last. "Surely thee are aware of what has transpired."

  "Perhaps to a greater degree than any other, Master," Stalek replied, his proud, almost arrogant face revealing for a moment that something beset him deeply. "Excepting those who presently hold her captive."

  Were he not a Master, Stimm might have betrayed his surprise. The old one had not had cause to consider the matters of male and female for many years; it was possible he had forgotten what knowledge a Vulcan's betrothed could possess where no other could.

  "Thy mind is linked with hers," Stimm said, more to remind himself than to invade the other's privacy. His rank permitted him this leeway. "Thee knows for certain, then, that she still lives?"

  "I do," Stalek replied, and had he been less preoccupied with his own concerns he might have caught the flicker of relief as it passed across the old one's face. That his deepest student might be restored to him was cause for satisfaction even to one so disciplined.

  The younger Vulcan did not lower his gaze as was proper, but fixed the Master with an arrogant stare that perhaps held a trace of pleading.

  "The Master knows what will happen to me if she is not returned."

  Stimm caught the nuance of pain in the younger one's voice and looked at him sharply.

  "And what would thee have the Master do?"

  Stalek rose from his knees to pace the Master's cell in most unVulcan restiveness.

  "What can anyone do?" he asked. "What discipline of mind can avert what awaits me if she is not restored at the appointed time? I despair of any, Master. I do not wish to die!"

  "Kroykah!" Master Stimm cried sharply. The younger one must not disgrace himself by continuing this outburst. "This is unbecoming! If it is thy fate to meet death in such a manner, what can be done? Return to thy work and to thy meditations. Even a Master is powerless against the first pon farr."

  The words had been spoken, and hung between them like a threat. None but a Vulcan could understand the weight of shame those words implied. Stalek bowed his proud head at last.

  "I ask forgiveness, Master," he said with something like sorrow. "There is so much I desired to do with my life. To have it taken from me so soon, and in so shameful a manner—"

  "There is yet time," the Master suggested. He was not unmoved by the plight of the handsome one, and even a Master could question the illogic of Vulcan biology. He thought also of the introverted one, and wondered at her fate. "Kaiidth! None can know the future."

  Six

  "TERRA'S POETRY IS eloquent on the topic of love," T'Shael had said to Cleante in her rooms at T'lingShar, framed in the windowseat by a moonless Vulcan night, her treasured ka'athyra at her side, her words carefully chosen. "You as a human have experienced this emotion on a number of levels. I would learn from you."

  And Cleante had laughed her brittle laugh and refused.

  "I don't know anything about love," she had said, her Byzantine eyes acquiring a sadness the Vulcan could not help but see. "Sex, yes, but that's not what you mean. I can tell you what it's like to live without love. But tell you about love? I can tell you nothing, T'Shael!"

  That was when the Vulcan, for the first time and with extraordinary boldness, turned the human's words against her.

  "That is not good enough, Cleante alFaisal. You know far more than you choose to acknowledge."

  And Cleante, as amazed at T'Shael's words as the Vulcan was, told her what she knew.

  "Oysters!" Jali sighed, referring to the Deltan equivalent. Cleante recognized the word; Jali had practically lived on them at the settlement. "There is nothing equalling them!"

  "Are you meaning them or their effect, cousin?" Krn wanted to know. "The word in Standard is what—aphrodisiac?" One of his extracurricular courses here in the Klingon cage included vocabulary improvement He turned to T'Shael. "Aphrodisiac. I am liking this word. How is it said in Vulcan?"

  "There is no equivalent in Vulcan," T'Shael said and, as Krn's face puckered, "I am sorry."

  "So am I," Krn said sympathetically.

  They talked about food often, particularly at mealtimes. The Klingons had not varied their monotonous diet after all this time, and only the memory of past culinary delights gave them any appetite at all.

  "Remember the mushrooms, T'Shael?" Cleante asked excitedly. She became almost childlike during these fantasy sessions, in contrast to a growing melancholy otherwise. The Vulcan had noted these mood swings with concern. "Remember the first time I had them? Mushrooms big as dinnerplates, and so pretty I didn't want to eat them!"

  "Indeed," the Vulcan said remotely. She seemed to be listening to something inside herself.

  Cleante sat forward on her bunk, reaching across to take Resh's hand and Jali's in her own. She seemed to crave contact as much as the Deltans lately, and T'Shael wondered at this also.

  Such thoughts were an invasion of privacy, T'Shael reminded herself. Further, had the human engaged in intercourse with any of the Deltans she would have known; the lack of privacy in this place assured that.

  There were always the times when she and Krn were in the Klingon quarters, T'Shael reasoned. Of course, interaction with a Deltan or Deltans caused profound changes in human behavior, and surely she would have noticed.

  Stop! T'Shael told herself forcibly, amazed at the trend her thoughts were taking. She had read the literatures of a dozen species, including their erotica, with at least an objective understanding but without any stirrings within herself. What did such abject voyeurism mean?

  The Vulcan consulted her innate timesense. It was difficult to know the exact date it would be on her homeworld now because of the unknown number of days they had spent in the Rihannsu ship and the irregularity of days and nights in this place. But she knew enough to understand why her thoughts tended increasingly toward the sexual, toward the things Vulcans did not speak of among themselves.

  Stalek, parted from me and never …

  T'Shael kept her silence, listening to something within herself as the others chattered on about food.

  "—this big across," Cleante was explaining, letting go of the Deltans' hands to demonstrate with her own. "And the colors! Pinks and purples and some with silver stripes. We'd gone climbing in the hills and T'Shael knew where they were hidden in a little valley near a spring …

  How to capture that moment and bring it alive for the Deltans? Cleante wondered—the pristine air and crystalline silence of the Vulcan dawn, the sound of windchimes announcing the sunrise as they left the settlement, her heroic human efforts to keep up with T'Shael in the mountains. The Vulcan could climb like a goat, agile and purposeful until she realized her human companion was falling behind.

  "Forgive me," T'Shael said, an apology for her superior strength, for the differences between them.

  She extended one strong and elegant hand, slightly less reluctant to touch than she might once have been, to help the human effortlessly up the crag. They came at last to the remarkably fertile hidden valley with mosses and lichens cushioning jagged Vulcan rock, minuscule flowers loud with color and fragrance, and soft spray from the
spring misting over everything. And the mushrooms …

  "These are why I suggested we bring no provisions," T'Shael said, perhaps allowing herself the smallest trace of pride in the secret bounties her world could provide. "Each has its own unique flavor and a high nutritive value. They are one reason we were able to forego the need for animal flesh."

  Cleante said nothing. She had tried Vulcan vegetarianism and earned herself a severe case of dysentery. T'Shael had since convinced her that the difference in physiology made it unwise to attempt so rigid a dietary regime without proper acclimation.

  Now T'Shael took a small knife from her carrybag. Like all Vulcan tools, it was compact and functional yet strangely beautiful, folding out of itself to produce an incredibly sharp blade. T'Shael cut the top off one huge purple mushroom with a single stroke, leaving the stem whole and still rooted in the soil. Cleante watched in awe, expecting a ritual. She was not disappointed.

  T'Shael touched her fingertips to her tongue, then to the raw stump of the mushroom where it oozed slightly. She gently stroked the wounded-looking thing in a circular motion, chanting softly under her breath until the oozing stopped and the stem sealed over. She looked up to see the human watching her.

  "This enables another to grow in its place," she explained. "The Vulcan takes nothing without return."

  With that she took her knife to the huge purple mushroom cap, slicing it like good, rich bread.

  "How did it taste, Cleante? Oh, tell us!" Krn pleaded, breaking the spell of her narrative with his enthusiasm.

  Cleante tried to find words to describe the taste. What could she compare it to? There had been a suggestion of Terran lobster, of pomegranates, of the wild figs she had stuffed herself with as a child. Each bite had suggested something different, and something exclusively Vulcan and eluding description. Yet how much of that savor was the result of the clarity of the morning and the rigorous climb, of an unbroken fast and undemanding companionship? As Cleante sought words to gratify Krn's curiosity, T'Shael suddenly sprang up from her place on the floor.

  "Get down!" she cried. "Under the bunks and cover your heads. Tremors."

  The others did not understand her at first, did not know about or had forgotten the Vulcan ability to sense earthquakes. The sudden heaving of the floor beneath them was reminder enough. The captives scrambled for cover.

  The quake lasted only a few seconds, but it was damaging. One of the heavy bunks toppled over directly where the captives had been sitting; great chunks of hastily-cast thermoconcrete cracked loose from walls and ceilings and slammed dustily to the floor. The very face of the barren plain beyond was altered; great fissures gaped where the ground had been unbroken moments before.

  T'Shael found Resh huddled beside her under one of the bunks; the final aftershock threw him against her and she was unable to shield in time against his churning thought impulses. His immediate fears about the quake and the safety of his cousins she could cope with, absorb them as if they did not exist, for the Vulcan accepts the possibility of imminent death and knows no fear. But even in terror Resh'da could not curb his sexual impulses.

  Filtered through his general desire to unite in sexual ecstasy with all of the universe; T'Shael encountered in Resh's mind a distinct and specific longing for her! In the split second before she could block reception, she experienced the expected violent aversion coupled with a rush of reciprocal desire!

  What was happening to her? Stop! she commanded herself, withdrawing as far into herself as she could and still remain conscious.

  When the quake was over and Resh slid out from under the bunk with Deltan grace, he encountered the briefest glimmer of pure horror in the Vulcan's eyes. It was horror at herself and not at him. Then she locked her mask into place. Gentle Resh began to hold out his hand to her, to help her up, to attempt to ease her distress. He would never understand this race, never! T'Shael withdrew further. Resh's cousins' scrambling from their hiding places to cling to him made it unnecessary to explain his overtly aroused state.

  "T'Shael? Are you all right?"

  It was Cleante, covered with plaster dust as they all were, concern in her voice. The Vulcan's demeanor puzzled her.

  "Undamaged," T'Shael replied, hugging herself as if experiencing a sudden chill. "And you?"

  "I'm fine," the human said. She touched the Vulcan's arm and was astonished at how violently she flinched. "T'Shael, are you sure?"

  The human's voice drew her away from the encounter with Resh. Further, Jali was watching, surmising with a fluttering of eyelashes more than T'Shael thought she needed to know.

  "Indeed," the Vulcan said with what she hoped was conviction. She locked her gaze with Jali's until she had succeeded in staring the Deltan down.

  For the first time since their capture, T'Shael knew the desperation the others had felt all along. They had been held in this place for seventy-three of its days. Before an equal number had passed, perhaps sooner, she must return to Vulcan. She must!

  In the Klingon quarters, where they had had no Vulcan to warn them, damage was more severe. One guard had broken an arm; Kalor had gashed his head on the scanner console. Furniture had toppled and crockery smashed; half of Krazz's store of ales and fruit nectars was destroyed. Doors had warped against their frames; the power source had malfunctioned, erasing half the computer tapes and sending sparks out of the transformer for the electrified fence, nearly killing the second guard. As for Krazz, the only damage was to his already wounded pride.

  "This is the final insult!" he roared, watching over Kalor's shoulder as he tried to steady the scanners and get a full reading on the extent of the quake. "Even the planet conspires against us! Could my Lord Tolz have thought of a more idiotic place to strand us? Or is that part of his plan, to sacrifice us with our prisoners and throw a spanner into the Roms' works all at that same time? I will not stand here waiting for the ground to open and swallow me! I'll outthink Tolz Kenran yet!"

  Kalor said nothing. His head ached; he wished Krazz would stop shouting. The time might be ripe to suggest alternatives or it might be dangerous to speak out of turn. Let Krazz reach a point where he was open to suggestion, desperate for it.

  "Have you read the latest dispatch, Kalor?"

  "Not without authorization, my Lord," Kalor lied.

  "Well," Krazz grunted, not believing him. "To condense it for you, the Feds have refused to negotiate with 'pirates and terrorists,' their turn of phrase for the Roms, just as I predicted. They demand immediate return of the Andorian's carcass. What will they do when they learn it was dissected, I wonder? And positive proof that the remaining sheep are alive and well. I surmise from the conspicuous silence on our side, though you would have had to read carefully between the lines in the dispatch you haven't read—" Kalor did not so much as blink "—that we are once again at odds with the Rom Praetor. We were never meant to mix in it with these slithering freak-ears, Kalor, and nothing good will come of it. What I cannot determine from this distance is whether this turn of events shortens our sheepherding or prolongs it. I'm half-tempted—"

  Kalor shut off the scanner, satisfied that the aftershocks were over and they were safe for the moment at least. He watched the familiar crafty look steal over Krazz's face.

  "This experiment with the Deltans, Kalor. The one you outlined for me some time ago. You're convinced you could turn it to our advantage, even if they did not survive it?"

  Kalor gestured that this was of no importance.

  "My Lord has said himself that a dead witness is no witness. We now have to contend with the added danger of unstable seismic conditions. If a quake severe enough to kill our prisoners and perhaps the guards—"

  Krazz chuckled at what to him bordered on genius.

  "Very good, my—analytical—lieutenant." The word was no longer as offensive as it might have been. "You'll have your little experiment in … what was it you called it?"

  "Xenopsychology, my Lord."

  "Xeno—yes, whatever. I'm a soldier,
not a scientist. This should prove entertaining. What will you need?"

  "Only the storage shed," Kalor nodded in the direction of the windowless structure across the compound. "And a strong lock."

  Records Clerk Level-4 Lel em'n Tri'ilril moved cautiously down the endless maze of corridors in the lowest level of the Citadel, certain he was alone, but no less uneasy. All of his senses were in overdrive, and he was sweating. He remembered the security monitor at the juncture just in time and flattened against the wall to sidle out of its range, leaving damp handprints in his wake, cursing himself for such an obvious, traceable human giveaway.

  Gods, he thought. Gods, gods, if I ever get out of this one I swear I'll never cross another border. I'll stay safe on Enterprise, take battlecruisers and supernovae and doomsday machines in my stride and never get closer to a Rihannsu than a thousand kilometers for the rest of my life. Assuming there is a rest of my life.

  They were onto him, he was certain; they were just waiting for him to blow his cover and save them the trouble of hunting him down. Of course, in the general paranoia following the blunder with the ransom demands, the sudden disfavor of the faction who sided with the Klingons and the high-level purge that followed it (including, he had just learned, the ritual suicide of the Praetor's nephew Dr'ell; that could be worth something if he could get it out), everyone was suspect, but Sulu had seen an increasing number of suspicious looks leveled at him. They were onto him, and they were after him. He had to get out of the Citadel, whether over the side or deeper in, but away.

  His original timing had been perfect. He'd slipped into the Capital in the general influx of returning end-of-season leave-takers, had had himself installed on the staff of the Winter Palace—ostensibly as a temporary replacement for one Trajal m'ra Pael'naarkhoi, who had gotten embroiled with a colonial governor's housemaid and a paternity suit and was expected to be tied up in the settlement courts for months—and assigned Trajal's place in the Records Section barracks bloc just before the waste matter started hitting the ventilators.