Dwellers in the Crucible

by Margaret Wander Bonanno

  "Heat flares!" she shouted, pointing in the direction of the scout. "And there's a portastretcher in the storage hatch. Quickly!"

  Cleante stayed only long enough to see the Commander casually shove the boulder out of the way and catch T'Shael as she pitched forward before she fled down the slope.

  The Commander laid the Vulcan on the semi-rigid portastretcher while Cleante struggled with the heat flares, watching as the Rihannsu performed a perfunctory examination, wincing as the small hands gingerly probed the thin, battered body.

  "Broken ribs and clavicle, probable lung puncture. Possible pelvic damage as well; I can't be certain. Considerable internal bruising, at any rate," she reported matter-of-factly, strapping the portastretcher as tightly as she thought the Vulcan could tolerate. T'Shael was beyond the reach of pain. "And of course exposure. The price of self-sacrifice! She will probably live, if your Federation is punctual. We must move her back to the compound."

  So saying, she hefted the portastretcher by the carrystraps and brought the Vulcan down the slope toward the scout, with Cleante holding a flare to light the way. The ground rumbled and pitched beneath them, causing both to stumble more than once. Somehow, they made it.

  They lashed two of the heavy bunks together to form a makeshift shelter within the confines of the cage, "in case the quakes bring the roof down," the Commander said tersely. Together they padded the floor with mattresses and blankets, and Cleante crawled into the shelter to offer her body heat to the still-comatose Vulcan. She sat upright when she realized the Rihannsu was studying her.

  "I must go," she said, crouching close to her two former hostages, almost protective. "I have already overstayed my escape margin."

  Cleante touched her arm.

  "Thank you!" she cried, frustrated by the inadequacy of language at such a time. If T'Shael were conscious she could at least say it in High Rihan, but it was still only words, insufficient. "From T'Shael and me, from Vulcan and human, thank you!"

  The Commander looked at her wryly.

  "Tell it to your gods, if you believe in any," she said shortly, and was gone.

  The quakes continued throughout the endless night. Chunks of concrete broke loose from walls and ceilings, and more than once Cleante wondered if the entire planetoid would open and swallow them as it had Krazz. Her mind whirled with the events of the past few hours.

  She finally understood that Kalor was really dead, that the Rihannsu were gone and that within a matter of hours, perhaps at any moment, a Federation ship would rescue them. T'Shael was alive, if barely; their ordeal by fire and ice was almost over. It seemed too much for her poor, exhausted human brain to fathom.

  Kalor—dead! How did she feel about that? Cleante wanted to cry, to wash herself clean of him, but also to mourn him. She found that she couldn't. What might he have become if that embryonic intellectualism, that almost-sensitivity in him had had a chance to grow and conquer his Klingon need to maim and destroy? She would puzzle it all out later, after they'd been rescued. Maybe then she would be able to mourn him, to fit him into her past as she might have cause to fit him into her future.

  Could a human be impregnated by a Klingon? Cleante wondered. Human children grew up on whispered horror stories of what happened to those captured and enslaved by Klingons. It hadn't seemed important before, when all that mattered was saving T'Shael. Now, with the promise of a return to a normal life, it suddenly became critically important.

  Cleante huddled closer to T'Shael, who had begun to tremble, regaining consciousness, reacting to her injuries and the hypothermia. A strangled moan forced itself from the Vulcan's lips.

  "T'Shael, be still! Don't move," Cleante whispered. "You're badly hurt but you're safe now. They're coming to rescue us, t'hy'la. Hold on a little longer!"

  The Vulcan began to cough and Cleante quailed, thinking of the internal bleeding and the incredible pain. She held T'Shael's head while she coughed up an alarming amount of blood from damaged lungs and lapsed again into welcome unconsciousness.

  Cleante began to weep then. Oh, don't let it end now! she pleaded, not knowing to whom. She's been through so much and I've failed her so abysmally. Don't let her die now! She wanted to wrap her arms around the Vulcan and infuse some of her strength into her, but was afraid to hurt her more.

  How—unclean—you must think I am, Cleante thought, wiping the tears away at last. How weak and carnal and utterly human you must think me! I wouldn't touch you at all except that the could makes it necessary. I feel so dirty compared to you.

  I've failed you, T'Shael. I let you flee to almost certain death while I jumped right back into Kalor's bed. I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!

  With a great effort of will, T'Shael forced herself to the surface of consciousness. How much more preferable to stay down out of the reach of pain, but she must …

  Her entire body was a mass of pain; were she human, she might have screamed. She was beyond the ability to suppress the pain, too weak to engage a healing trance. Though the light was a stabbing agony, she opened her eyes; opened them to meet the depthless gaze of one of her own.

  Not Rihannsu, but Vulcan. T'Shael knew. A glance took in the deep red of his uniform, the glint of insignia. Starfleet? It was true, then. She had not imagined Cleante's voice pleading with her to hold on.

  They were safe. They?

  Cleante! T'Shael's mind screamed, but she could not make the words come. The Vulcan who held her—she could feel through the pain that he was carrying her gently, setting her down with infinite care inside some unfamiliar, low-ceilinged structure—read her distress.

  "Do not attempt to speak," he cautioned in a voice deep with something T'Shael could not name. "All is well. Your companion is unharmed."

  Had her distress been so apparent? T'Shael struggled to speak despite his warning, to ask forgiveness for her display of emotion before one of her own, but stopped. There had been no reproach in his voice, but, rather, a vast understanding. Who was this one, and why was his manner thus?

  "You will jeopardize your life if you continue to struggle," he said and, reading her thoughts, answered all her questions. "I am called Spock."

  T'Shael closed her eyes against a fresh pain. That it should be this one of all!

  "I would advise that you neither open your eyes nor attempt to move," the one called Spock said. T'Shael felt his fingers at the reach-centers of her face. "Nor should you attempt a healing trance. You are too weak."

  T'Shael thought an acknowledgment to him and he took his hand away. Another presence made itself felt—heavy male footsteps resounding on a metal floor. Not a building, then, but a vehicle of some sort. They had been rescued, would be transported away from this place. It was over. T'Shael fought the impulse to open her eyes, to ask where Cleante was.

  "How bad is she?" demanded the voice of the second male, a voice of authority.

  "Difficult to be certain, Jim. I can maintain her at certain levels of self-healing until we reach the Enterprise, but that is all."

  "And we can't contact McCoy until we're back in our space," the one called Jim said grimly. "The sooner we get moving the better. Do you think it would disturb her if—"

  "On the contrary, it may prove therapeutic," Spock said, again in that voice of vast understanding.

  T'Shael heard other footsteps—light, quick bare feet against the metal deck. No need to open her eyes this time. With what little strength she had left she raised one hand. It was gently embraced by two human hands, and T'Shael's pain receded in the emanation of love from those hands.

  Did she dare smile? If death were to claim her before she could let Cleante know the depth of her gratitude, her—yes, call it love—even in the presence of strangers—

  For the first time in her life, T'Shael smiled.

  "I'm here," was all Cleante said, and it was all that was needed.

  Jim Kirk looked at Spock, who acknowledged the scene in silence before setting the controls for a gradual, low-angle liftoff that would avoid j
arring the shattered body of their very ill passenger.

  "Please understand, Ms. alFaisal, I have to ask you these questions. Those are my orders. If there were any other way—"

  "I don't mind, Admiral," Cleante smiled. "I'm a little disoriented, that's all. I spent six months convincing myself that the cage was real. Now I have to do the same for the Enterprise, for all of you. It's strange being treated with such kindness after—after so long. And I'd feel much better if you'd call me Cleante."

  Jim Kirk grinned his spontaneous, boyish grin at her. He had been struck by her beauty even in the chaos of rescue and had taken surreptitious pleasure in simply looking at her—covered with plaster dust, exhausted and near shock—on their two-day journey in the shuttlecraft. He looked at her now, safe aboard his ship, almost at ease with her return to civilization, her long hair brushed till it gleamed, flowing down her back, her Byzantine eyes more than a little sad, and found her breathtaking.

  "Cleante," he acquiesced warmly, and she liked the way he said it.

  They were seated around the table in the officers' lounge of the vast and, to Cleante, awesome starship—the Admiral, the one called Spock and herself, with the odd one named Dr. McCoy just arriving now after looking in on T'Shael. While his face showed only some of his concern, Cleante did not need to look at him to know that T'Shael's condition had not changed.

  Cleante tried not to think about that. As T'Shael herself would only too readily point out, it was needless emotion over that which one was helpless to control. Cleante made a conscious effort to relax. She was back among humans and Vulcans again, safe at long last. Why was she still so uneasy?

  "You've been very specific about the events of your immediate capture," the Admiral was saying now. "If you could tell us a little more about the rest—your internment by the Klingons, how they treated you—"

  "How they treated us?" Cleante laughed her high-strung, humorless laugh. "At first they ignored us. Until they found out they could use us for experimental purposes, like lab animals." Oh, Kalor—sad, twisted Kalor! "Of course, that wasn't until months later. We were fed, sheltered and ignored for months. Until they took Resh away …"

  Her voice faltered, and she looked slowly at each face around the table, not seeing them at first, but seeing the Deltans: Resh'da, Jali, Krnsandor, the gentle companions who were no more.

  Cleante shook it off, concentrating on each pair of eyes that looked at her. The Admiral's hazel eyes were encouraging. The doctor's blue eyes were preoccupied; part of him was still with his patient. The Vulcan's eyes were deep and quietly receptive.

  "That isn't what you want to know!" Cleante said, suddenly, unreasonably angry.

  She had no right to be angry, she told herself. For the first time in months she knew for certain that there were still such things as normalcy and compassion in the universe. Everyone had been so helpful: the cadet who had gotten her settled in the guest quarters; the paramed who had treated her bruises and reconstructed her teeth where they had decayed through months without proper food or hygiene; Commander Uhura who had personally contacted her mother for her, and the rest of the crew who had welcomed her, taken her on a tour of the ship, invited her into their recreations, updated her on news and gossip she had missed in her absence …

  And these three, who had saved her life and were trying to save T'Shael's. What right did she have to be angry with them?

  It was only that she did not want to answer their questions, did not want to gratify their male curiosity about what was done to women in captivity and, most especially, did not want to answer any questions about T'Shael. They would find ways to make her tell them about pon farr, about her own involvement with Kalor, about things she wanted to lock away unexamined forever, and most especially did not want to discuss with men.

  "That isn't what you want to know!" she lashed out at them, jumping up from the table wildly, turning her ankles in the unfamiliar shoes, struggling for control. "You want to know if we were tortured, beaten, raped. I hate to disappoint you, gentlemen, but we were not!"

  "Cleante—" the Admiral began.

  "Let her talk, Jim." McCoy interjected.

  He recognized the cathartic value of her anger and knew she had a great deal locked inside that had to be let out. He also had a thousand questions following the physical he'd given her when she first came aboard, and had been counting on this debriefing to answer at least some of them.

  McCoy had been the first to greet the shuttlecraft, barely able to contain himself while the hangar deck pressurized. Spock had raised him as soon as they'd crossed back into Federation space, and the doctor had been on tenterhooks until he could actually get his hands on his patient. He never felt completely comfortable treating Vulcans; their bodies were entirely too dependent upon their brains.

  The first thing McCoy did was recruit Lieutenant Saavik as a blood donor; her type matched T'Shael's almost exactly. He couldn't help comparing the robust, vital young cadet with the pallid wraith in the diagnostic bed.

  T'Shael's lack of response puzzled McCoy. His indepth diagnosis coincided almost exactly with the Rihannsu Commander's cursory one; T'Shael had extensive internal injuries, but nothing that a combination of the best medical technique and her own innate healing powers couldn't cure in time. But she either could not or would not engage the healing trance without Spock's assistance, and McCoy was at a loss to understand why. He tried talking to her the first time she regained consciousness.

  He'd been doing a minor microsurgical procedure to repair her damaged lungs, afraid to risk anesthesia in her weakened condition. He cringed every time he was certain he had hurt her. T'Shael made no sound, but McCoy was suddenly aware of those dark, hooded eyes assessing him. Could anyone's eyes look as deep as a Vulcan's?

  "T'Shael?" McCoy tried his best human smile, only slightly mispronouncing her name. "You're among friends, in the sickbay of the starship Enterprise. My name's McCoy."

  The somber eyes acknowledged this in silence.

  "I'm sorry if the procedure caused you any discomfort," McCoy went on, careful not to say "pain" to a Vulcan. "Your injuries were rather severe, but you're getting the best possible care. I realize it will be normal for you to remain unconscious for considerable periods of time. If you could assist us with a healing trance—"

  The solemn eyes closed, a withdrawal. She was incapable of anything as vehement as refusal.

  "Can't you tell me why you won't?" McCoy watched the deep eyes open again, saw something in them he didn't want to examine too closely.

  "It makes no difference," she said in a voice that was barely a whisper, and withdrew again.

  McCoy turned away from the bed to find Cleante, barefoot and silent, holding the doorframe as if uncertain whether she was allowed in. McCoy supposed he and his team had been rather perfunctory in hurrying T'Shael out of the shuttlecraft and into Sickbay, all but pushing the human aside, their concern for the physically injured perhaps unfair to her whose injuries were not as readily visible.

  "Ms. alFaisal? Come in, please." McCoy got a chair for her. "It must seem as if we're ignoring you. We've been so preoccupied with your friend here."

  Cleante stood by the bed looking down at the unconscious figure, tears glistening in her eyes. For the third time she must keep a vigil for the Vulcan. Was three truly a lucky number, or was that only an old Terran superstition?

  "Won't you sit down?" McCoy fussed, recognizing symptoms of shock, chronic fatigue and all manner of delayed psychic trauma without having to look too closely.

  Cleante shook her head. She did not take her eyes off the Vulcan.

  "What's going to happen to her?"

  McCoy hesitated.

  "We're doing everything we can for her," he said, reassuring her without giving her false hope. "And wearing yourself to a frazzle won't do her any good. Why don't you—"

  Cleante seemed not to hear. McCoy stood rocking on his heels, watching her. Finally, he took her gently by the arm.

&nb
sp; "I'd like to do your examination now, if you don't mind. You can come back and sit with her as soon as we're through."

  Cleante nodded and went with him, throwing a last wistful glance over her shoulder at the Vulcan. The look was not lost on McCoy, who had seen it far too often on another all too human face.

  "There's something you should know before you begin, Doctor," Cleante said, settling herself a little warily on the examining table, which immediately began its welter of readouts. "There's a chance I may be pregnant."

  McCoy nearly dropped his mediscanner, but he said nothing.

  "I was due for an immunity booster when we were captured," Cleante was saying, looking at the ceiling and not at the doctor, "and my cycles became very irregular during our imprisonment. Then they stopped altogether for a while—nerves and poor nutrition, I guess. It wouldn't have made any difference, except—" She looked at him, a plea for understanding. "If I am pregnant, I don't want you to tell me, just yet. I have a special reason for asking, Doctor."

  "I understand," McCoy said, although he did not. He patted her hand absently and went on with the exam.

  He puzzled over it. If she was pregnant, it could only be by a Klingon, probably the one Jim and Spock had found blasted in the compound. What did it mean? If the Klingons had sexually abused their captives, wouldn't they have eliminated all evidence before the prisoners were due to be repatriated? His examination of the Vulcan had shown her untouched. Why only the human? What did it mean?

  On a larger scale, what sort of life awaited a child of human-Klingon parentage? McCoy was certain such intermix offspring existed within the Empire, assuming they weren't aborted or murdered at birth, but he knew of none within the Federation. Wouldn't Cleante want to know as soon as possible?