Vulcan's Forge

by Josepha Sherman

  "Picturesque," someone commented wryly, but Spock ignored that. Humans, he knew, used sarcasm to cover uneasiness. Or perhaps it was discomfort; perhaps they felt the higher level of ionization in the air as he did, prickling at their skin.

  No matter. One accepted what could not be changed. They had, at David Rabin's request, beamed down to these coordinates a distance away from the city: "The locals are uneasy enough as it is without a sudden 'invasion' in their midst."

  Logical. And there was the Federation detail he had been told to expect, at its head a sturdy, familiar figure: David Rabin. He stepped forward, clad in a standard Federation hot-weather outfit save for his decidedly non-standard-issue headgear of some loose, flowing material caught by a circle of corded rope. Sensible, Spock thought, to adapt what was clearly an effective local solution to the problem of sunstroke.

  "Rabin of Arabia," McCoy muttered, but Spock let that pass. Captain Rabin, grinning widely, was offering him the split-fingered Vulcan Greeting of the Raised Hand and saying, "Live long and prosper."

  There could be no response but one. Spock returned the salute and replied simply, "Shaiom."

  This time McCoy had nothing to say.

  It was only a short drive to the outpost. "Solar-powered vehicles, of course," Rabin noted. "No shortage of solar power on this world! The locals don't really mind our getting around like this as long as we don't bring any vehicles into Kalara or frighten the chuchaki—those cameloid critters over there."

  Spock forbore to criticize the taxonomy.

  Kalara, he mused, looked very much the standard desert city to be found on many low-tech—and some high-tech—worlds. Mud brick really was the most practical organic building material, and thick walls and high windows provided quite efficient passive air cooling. Kalara was, of course, an oasis town; he didn't need to see the oasis to extrapolate that conclusion. No desert city came into being without a steady, reliable source of water and, therefore, a steady, reliable source of food. Spock noted the tips of some feathery green branches peeking over the high walls and nodded. Good planning for both economic and safety reasons to have some of that reliable water source be within the walls. Add to that the vast underground network of irrigation canals and wells, and these people were clearly doing a clever job of exploiting their meager resources.

  Or would be, were it not for that treacherous sun.

  And, judging from what Rabin had already warned, for that all too common problem in times of crisis: fanaticism.

  It is illogical for any one person or persons to claim to know a One True Path to enlightenment. And I must, he added honestly, include my own distant ancestors in that thought.

  And, he reluctantly added, some Vulcans not so far removed in time.

  "What's that?" McCoy exclaimed suddenly. "Hebrew graffiti?"

  "Deuteronomy," Rabin replied succinctly, adding, "We're home, everybody."

  They left the vehicles and entered the Federation outpost, and in the process made a jarring jump from timelessness to gleaming modernity. Spock paused only an instant at the shock of what to him was a wall of unwelcome coolness; around him, the humans were all breathing sighs of relief. McCoy put down his shoulder pack with a grunt. "Hot as Vulcan out there."

  "Just about," Rabin agreed cheerfully, pulling off his native headgear. "And if you think this is bad, wait till Obsidian's summer. This sun, good old unstable Loki, will kill you quite efficiently.

  "Please, everyone, relax for a bit. Drink something even if you don't feel thirsty. It's ridiculously easy to dehydrate here, especially when none of you are desert-acclimated. Or rather," he added before Spock could comment, "when even the desert-bora among you haven't been in any deserts for a while. While you're resting, I'll fill you in on what's been happening here."

  Quickly and efficiently, Rabin set out the various problems, the failed hydroponics program, the beetles, the mysterious fires and spoiled supply dumps. When he was finished, Spock noted, "One, two, or even three incidents might be considered no more than unpleasant coincidence. But taken as a whole, this series of incidents can logically only add up to deliberate sabotage."

  "Which is what I was thinking," Rabin agreed. " 'One's accident, two's coincidence, three's enemy action,' or how Josepha Sherman & Susan Shwartz ever the quote goes. The trouble is: Who is the enemy? Or rather, which one?"

  Spock raised an eyebrow ever so slightly. "These are, if the records are indeed correct, a desert people with a relatively low level of technology."

  'They are that. And before you ask, no, there's absolutely no trace of Romulan or any other off world involvement."

  "Then we need ask: Who of this world would have sufficient organization and initiative to work such an elaborate scheme of destruction?"

  The human sighed. "Who, indeed? We've got a good many local dissidents; we both know how many nonconformists a desert can breed. But none of the local brand of agitators could ever band together long enough to mount a definite threat: they hate each other as much or maybe even more than they hate us."

  "And in the desert?"

  "Ah, Spock, old buddy, just how much manpower do you think I have? Much as I'd love to up and search all that vastness . . ."

  "It would mean leaving the outpost unguarded. I understand."

  "Besides," Rabin added thoughtfully, "I can't believe that any of the desert people, even the 'wild nomads,' as the folks in Kalara call the deep-desert tribes, would do anything to destroy precious resources, even those from off world. They might destroy us, but not food or water."

  "Logic," Spock retorted, "requires that someone is working this harm. Whether you find the subject pleasant or not, someone is 'poisoning the wells.' "

  "Excuse me, sir," Lieutenant Clayton said, "but wouldn't it be relatively simple for the Intrepid to do a scan of the entire planet?"

  "It could—"

  "But that," Rabin cut in, "wouldn't work. The trouble is that those 'wild nomads' are a pain in the—well, they're a nuisance to find by scanning, because they tend to hide out against solar flares. And where they hide is in hollows shielded by rock that's difficult or downright impossible for scanners to penetrate. We have no idea how many nomads are out there, nor do the city folk. Oh, and if that wasn't enough," he added wryly, "the high level of ionization in the atmosphere, thank you very much, Loki, provides a high amount of static to signal."

  Spock moved to the banks of equipment set up to measure ionization, quickly scanning the data. "The levels do fluctuate within the percentages of possibility. A successful scan is unlikely but not improbable during the lower ranges of the scale. We will attempt one. I have a science officer who will regard this as a personal challenge." As do I. A Vulcan could, after all, assemble the data far more swiftly than a human who—no. McCoy had quite wisely warned him against "micromanaging." He was not what he had been, Spock reminded himself severely. And only an emotional being longed for what had been and was no more.

  Commander Uhura had to admit that sitting in a captain's chair felt . . . just fine. Being called "Commander" was fine, too, for that matter. You could have gone after your own ship, she chjded herself. Had enough of "Hailing frequencies open," didn't you? Had just about sufficient seniority. Yet you turned down the chance, foolish you.

  Maybe not so foolish. When it came right down to it, Uhura knew that the command chair was figuratively a bit uncomfortable. Restricting. She never had settled down in any traditional fashion: no husband, no children, no regrets. A Federation captaincy left very little time for anything else but restriction. If she hadn't married a man, she was not, Uhura thought dryly, ready to be married to a ship.

  Was Spock? That was a question she'd asked herself often enough in the last three years—a question Uhura rather suspected even he, for all his Vulcan logic, couldn't answer. Vulcans never fidgeted, but there were times when Captain Spock looked as if he found the command chair an uncomfortable fit. And if he couldn't decide—

  "Commander," Lieutenant Duc
hamps said suddenly. "A message is coming in from Captain Spock."

  Just in time to keep me from getting sentimental. "I'll take it here."

  "Commander Uhura." No mistaking Spock's precise voice. "I would appreciate the crew performing a planetary scan."

  "Yes, sir. Looking for. . .? "

  "Life, Commander. Preferably intelligent. Science Officer Richards will want to coordinate with Medical for the requisite parameters and brain-wave complexities."

  He said no more. But the sudden silence spoke volumes.

  Fascinating, Uhura thought. Wonder what's going on. And trust Spock not to say anything melodramatic like, "I can say nothing further for reasons of security." But it's "reasons of security," all right. She contented herself with, "We'll start that scan right away, Captain."

  "Thank you, Commander. Spock out."

  They would have to shift position, Uhura thought. Lieutenant Commander Atherton had been counting on maintaining a geosynchronous orbit. He was not going to like this. Or rather, to be charitable, he was going to act as though he didn't like this.

  Sure enough, when Uhura advised the engineer of the forthcoming scan, she was treated to a series of precise, peevish, but strangely happy complaints about "It may put an undue strain on my test configurations," and "It will take some time to straighten things out without upsetting previous calibrations," not to mention, "It will completely derange my training schedule."

  Scotty, Uhura thought, bemused. The accent may be different—ohh, yes!—but underneath that prickly façade, he really is just like Scotty. If a captain is married to the ship, she added wryly, then a good engineer is that ship's lover,

  Well, well. They might have a new ship, they might have a crew half veterans still in mourning, half newcomers wary of the veterans, but maybe they were going to be able to mesh into an efficient unit after all.

  Though I doubt I'll ever get used to that British Colonial accent!

  "Commander?" It was Ensign Chang, a small, wiry young man, one of the newer crew members and still somewhat tentative about what and where he was. "I . . . uh . . . think I just . . . uh . . . spotted something. Something odd."

  "Odd."

  "Yes, Commander. While we were unscrambling ground communications, there was the weirdest blip on the screen." His voice became more sure as he continued. "It emerged from the Neutral Zone, just for a second, then vanished. I recorded it, though."

  "Good man!" Uhura quickly moved to his side. "Play it back."

  "And . . . there! Did you see it?"

  "I did, indeed," Uhura said grimly. "Open a hailing frequency, narrow beam, Captain Spock only." Even in this urgent moment, she couldn't help but enjoy ordering someone else to do that. "And scramble it."

  "Hailing frequency open, Commander. Scramble activated."

  Uhura leaned over the control panel. "Captain Spock: Urgent. We have just uncovered signs of a Romulan Warbird. It's cloaked, but they lowered that cloaking just now for a few moments. And that suggests to me that someone just beamed down to Obsidian."

  Spock replied almost instantly, "Excellent logic, Commander."

  Uhura stiffened in a moment's pleased surprise. That was high praise from a Vulcan! "Why, thank you, sir," she said, and returned to the command chair, trying very hard not to grin. The chair felt a little less restricting now.

  McCoy, there in the Federation outpost on Obsidian, overheard Spock's transmission to Uhura. "Why, Spock," the doctor drawled, "I didn't know you had it in you."

  Spock glanced at him, catching just a hint of an edge to the jesting words, almost as though McCoy were feeling left out. It would hardly be rational for the doctor to be envying David Rabin his prior friendship with Spock. More probably, McCoy was longing for the old Enterprise camaraderie. It would not, Spock thought, be wise to say that. Instead, he merely raised an eyebrow and pointed out, "Common courtesy is never amiss. Nor is it illogical to commend someone for being logical. Particularly," he added, voice totally without expression, "when that someone is human."

  McCoy nearly choked on a laugh. Spock, satisfied that the issue had been defused, turned to David Rabin. "I think we must speak together. In private."

  "Just what I was thinking. We can talk in the closet they call my office."

  The space was, indeed, barely more than a closet, but the blank walls and smooth, unornamented furnishings left no place for spy devices. Spock, nevertheless, ran a quick check. Yes. Secure. Which brought him to his first point. "Security on Obsidian has almost certainly been breached. There are too many examples of a supposedly low-tech people knowing too much about activities here: this can only point to inside involvement."

  Rabin sighed. "I thought as much, though I haven't been able to prove a damned thing."

  "We cannot rely on information from the Intrepid alone."

  "Right. No matter how good the equipment on your ship is, it's not going to be able to pinpoint what's going on in that wilderness outside. It can give us some idea of where to look, but . . ." He paused, looking at Spock, the two of them in perfect understanding, then shrugged and added, with the tone of someone saying the obvious, "Someone has to get out there and search."

  "Indeed. But since we do not know the extent of infiltration, the locals, even those seemingly friendly or helpful, cannot be trusted. Logically, it must be Federation personnel, and they alone, who investigate in the desert."

  "And equally logically," Rabin added, "it's going to have to be those with the most desert survival experience." He stopped with a wry grin, considering what he'd just said. "Guess what, Spock?"

  "There is no 'guess' to this. We are the most logical choices."

  "You've got it. It's been a long time, my friend, but it looks like we're a team again."

  SIX

  Vulcan, Mount Seleya Day 6, Seventh Week of Tasmeen, Year 2247

  Dawn hovered over Mount Seleya. A huge shavokh glided down on a thermal from the peak, balanced on a wingtip, then soared out toward the desert. Spock heard its hunting call.

  Where it stoops, one may find ground water or a soak not too deeply buried, Spock recalled from his survival training. He had no need of such information now. Nevertheless, his gaze followed the creature's effortless flight.

  The stairs that swept upward to the narrow bridge still lay in shadow. Faint mist rose about the mountain, perhaps from the snow that capped it, alone of Vulcan's peaks, or perhaps from the lava that bubbled sullenly a thousand meters below. Soon, 40 Eridani A would rise, and the ritual honoring Spock and his agemates would begin.

  It was illogical, Spock told himself, for him to assume that all eyes were upon him as he followed his parents. Instead, he concentrated on his parents' progress. Sustained only by the light touch of Sarek's fingers upon hers, veiled against the coming sunrise, Amanda crossed the narrow span as if she had not conquered her fear of the unrailed bridge only after long meditation.

  Few of the many participants from the outworld scientific, diplomatic, and military enclaves on Vulcan could equal her grace. Some had actually arranged to be flown to the amphitheater just to allow them to bypass the bridge that had served as a final defense for the warband that had ruled here in ancient days. Others of the guests crossed unsteadily or too quickly for dignity.

  Vertigo might be a reasonable assumption, Spock thought, for beings acclimating themselves to Vulcan's thin air or the altitude of the bridge.

  "The air is the air," one of his agemates remarked in the tone of one quoting his elders. "I have heard these humans take drugs to help them breathe."

  All of the boys eyed the representatives from the Federation as if they were xenobiological specimens in a laboratory. Especially, they surveyed the officials' sons and daughters, who might, one day, be people with whom they would study and work.

  "They look sickly," the same boy spoke. His name, Spock recalled, was Stonn. Not only was he a distant kinsman to Sered, he was one of the youths who also eyed Spock as if he expected Spock's human blood to make h
im fall wheezing to his knees, preferably just when he was supposed to lead his agemates up to the platform where T'Lar and T'Pau would present them with the hereditary—and now symbolic—weapons of their Great Houses. By slipping out early into the desert to undergo his kahs-wan ordeal before the others, Spock had made himself forever Eldest among the boys of his year. It was not logical that some, like Stonn, would not forgive him for his presumption, or his survival; but it was so.

  A woman's voice provided a welcome interruption. "Let's assume your tricorder is broken or missing—David, don't lean over like that or you'II give me a heart attack! Your tricorder's crashed, and you have to calculate how long it'll take you to hit the lava down there and turn into shish kebab. Say it's a thousand-meter drop."

  One thousand point five nine, Spock corrected automatically, but in silence.

  "Remember, you'll have to account for less air resistance; the air's thinner. Get back, no, you're not stretching out flat on the bridge, and you can't see the lava from here! I gave you an assignment, David!"

  From the corner of his eye, Spock could see a woman in the glittering uniform of a Starfleet captain tug a boy who resembled her back from the edge of the bridge. Allowing for variations in species and body type, the human youth seemed close to his own age—perhaps a little old for such brusque treatment, although he seemed amused rather than annoyed. He had courage, if not judgment, Spock decided. If it were not that emotion was impermissible at any time and completely unacceptable this morning so close to the Shrine, Spock might have envied the boy his excited grin and that eager gaze darting from Mount Seleya's peak to the bridge and the desert.

  He might also, were emotion not unacceptable, have envied the way the Starfleet officer, clearly his mother, did not rebuke her son with a politeness that would be worse than any human rage, but instead distracted him with mathematics.