"I confronted violence and madness," Spock countered, "in the person of Sered, your colleague. And I prevailed."
Sarek's frown deepened. "We must oppose violence, not embrace it. Your control frequently slips even here on Vulcan where every incentive is provided you for mastering your emotions. If your control fails among off worlders, you do not simply fail, you fail all Vulcan."
"T'Pau gave us weapons on Mount Seleya as a sign that we were adults. Why would she give us swords if we were to shun weapons? Why are the martial arts taught in Vulcan's schools?"
"For discipline." Sarek bit off the words.
"Quite so," Spock retorted. "I require a specific type of discipline that the Science Academy does not provide, but that Starfleet does."
Sarek rose, only slightly taller than his son, but much more solid. "For thousands of years, Vulcan has stood for passion's mastery. In turning aside from our Way, you set yourself in judgment over Surak. If your logic were not impaired, you would not need to be reminded that Surak died by violence."
"Surak followed his own choices, my father," Spock replied. "As must I. Or, the ritual on Mount Seleya notwithstanding, I am no more than a boy to be rebuked, and the ceremony and all I learned in the Womb of Fire are lies."
"The adepts do not lie—" Sarek began, but Spock cut through his father's words.
"On Mount Seleya, I swore to be an autonomous adult, not an extension of you, my father. Or of anyone else."
"You are no part of me," Sarek told him. "Observe what you have done to your mother, to one of those humans among whom you will go. Your very presence will damage them."
"My father, do you consider that your years as ambassador have damaged Earth? In that case, it seems illogical of you to persist."
Sarek cast a glance at Amanda. "I require an interval of meditation. I shall speak to your son only when his reason has returned."
He strode from the room. Even the echoes of his footsteps seemed to ache.
Spock stood frozen, staring after the father who had just repudiated him. "What else could I have done?" he asked, and behind the rigid self-control, Amanda read a hint of plaintive confusion.
"You were very harsh," she told him. "I know that you acted as you logically believed you must, but I wish things had been otherwise."
"Why must it be my will that you wish 'had been otherwise'?" Spock demanded. "What of my father's will?"
"That," said Amanda, "is what I am going to find out."
Drawing the soft silk folds of her skirts about her, she withdrew. As she passed through the door, she glanced back at Spock.
She had left him holding his ground in the spacious, silent living room, but now that proud posture had sagged as if he had been defeated, the image of confusion, of anguish.
You are still young, my poor dear, deny it though you will!
As she watched, she saw Spock straighten and take the three breaths with which, she knew, control was invoked. Unaware that his mother was still watching, he turned to the communications console in the corner, clearly meaning to use it, not the computer in his room, to announce his decision and his rights in public, as befitted an adult.
Amanda retreated down the corridor, fighting for selfcontrol. A human needed all the control she could get when Vulcans, even Vulcans loved out of all logic, fought. Was she truly reduced to eavesdropping upon her son and her husband? An irresistible force had met an immovable object. Careful, Amanda, or the impact will crush you.
Or break your heart.
For a moment, Spock stood looking about the room his mother had so carefully arranged to mix both Vulcan and human tastes. Right now, its warmth, careful lighting, and meticulous choice of furnishings seemed as much an illusion as his mother's hope that one of them—Spock or Sarek—would see reason, or at least the other's point of view.
I cannot live the life my father has planned for me. I am myself, a separate adult.
The thought was not quite as convincing as it should be. He kept picturing his father's face, feeling his father's utter rejection. Quickly, Spock pressed a button, another, opening a specific communications channel.
"Spock!" David Rabin's voice pierced the stillness. "That you? How're you doing?"
The human's voice was warm and friendly, almost overwhelmingly emotional after the so very controlled confrontation with Sarek. But then, David had shown how he could turn emotion, particularly humor, into a survival instinct.
Such techniques cannot apply to me. And yet, how much has he —and his humor—influenced my decision? Has it been contamination? Or... an improvement on the whole?
Not certain, Spock resorted to a formal "I am restored to my customary level of function. And you? Have you recovered from dehydration?"
"Oh, I'm fine. Takes more than a little desert trek to stop a Rabin! But, you know, Spock, about that plomik soup you like? They fed me a fair amount of it. Seems it has some valuable stuff in it for recovering humans. But as for taste, well—"
"Am I to assume that it does not 'taste just like chicken'?"
"Hey, he remembers! We'll have you punning yet."
"No. I . . . David, I ..."
"Oh. You told them, didn't you?"
"It was not pleasant, but it is done."
"Spock, I'm—I'm—" Another, longer pause. "I'll get my mother."
"Thank you." Alone in the silence, Spock stood rigidly still.
It was done. He had taken another irrevocable step toward a new future.
And away, a small voice in his mind whispered, from his father.
Hesitantly, Amanda laid her fingertips on the closed door of Sarek's study, waiting for her presence to resonate through the bond to her husband.
"Enter, my wife," Sarek called, his voice leached of the subtle expressions that deep love, infinite patience, and twenty years of marriage had taught her to discern.
The small room was serene, almost austere, the walls hung with a few weavings chosen for their soothing patterns, so amenable to meditation. In the corner of the room, a firepot in the shape of a haran, a legendary fire-beast, glowed. An incense that Amanda recognized from her marriage, when Sarek's mind and hers touched each other for the first time, filled the air. It was an aid to concentration. One that Sarek rarely needed.
She made herself look at her husband. For once, his meditations had not refreshed him. The furrows in his cheeks were deeply marked, and his eyes were hollow. He looked as if he had fought and was still fighting for mastery.
Of Spock?
Her answer came immediately through the bond.
Not of Spock. Of himself.
He held out two fingers to reaffirm their bond. Parted from me and never parted. Never and always touching and touched. It was second nature for her to glide forward and touch his hand. And to respond.
His fingers were hot and dry. The anguish that came through the bond and the ferocity with which he suppressed it made her recoil. Before she could stop them, she felt tears roll down her face.
"Amanda, this is not logical."
His voice was gentle. Amanda forced herself not to flinch as Sarek rose and his fingers touched the tearstains on her face. Illogic lay not in weeping on a desert world, but in flinching away from her husband. He was offering her support, yet his touch told her that he was the one who needed comfort. And she had rebuffed him.
She must. Sarek had no comfort for Spock, and she, therefore, had none for him.
Because dissembling was futile through the bond, she said only their son's name. "Spock."
Sarek drew back. "I should have insisted that an Adept of Gol probe Spock's mind while he was under the Healers' observation."
She knew he sensed her flare of anger, but she managed to keep her voice even. "Your inference is unfair, my husband. Unworthy. T'Pau would not have honored our son had he been deranged."
"It violates all logic that a son of mine would turn his back on my instruction."
There was a limit to human self-control. "Sarek," Aman
da snapped, "if you don't remember the nightmare of those days when we didn't know if we could have a son, I do! Does it matter, does it truly matter, what lifepath Spock chooses, provided it is honorable—and that he is alive to pursue it?"
"Spock has rejected thousands of years of peace to choose Starfleet and its ethic of war, its glorification of violence. How long can anyone survive that way?"
"Vulcan survived its wars," Amanda retorted, "long enough for there to be a Surak. And Earth survived, long enough to make First Contact."
"My wife, you use logic as a weapon. That is a human trait."
"Oh no, we are not alone in that trait, my husband. But we will be alone, you and I, unless you reconsider your treatment of our son."
"I shall have no son," said Sarek. "Again."
"Is that what it is?" Amanda demanded, while inwardly she winced. Of course she and Sarek sometimes quarreled; it would have been beyond even Vulcan will for twenty years of marriage to have passed completely smoothly. But surely there had never been so much at stake. "You're afraid of being hurt again? Is all this disdain for Starfleet just simple fear? Let me tell you, my husband, I am afraid too. But human women have been sending their boys off to war—"
"In that case, my wife, why do you weep?"
"Because I hate it! And because my child is now old enough to make a man's decision. Chickens can't go back into eggs—and I don't need you to tell me I'm speaking in outworn metaphors! Spock is old enough and certainly intelligent enough to choose his own path. You did not even ask his reasons."
Sarek merely raised a disdainful eyebrow.
"Yes. I know. His choice is so alien to you that you reject it as illogical by definition. But Sarek . . ." She tried to draw breath around the lump in her throat. "When we married, humans and Vulcans both told us how illogical our decision was. Do you recall how many people told us it was a mistake?"
"Seven hundred and fifty-five, at last count," Sarek said, and there might have been the slightest trace of ironic humor in the words. The humor vanished. "Do you now consider our union a mistake?"
Her awareness of him had rarely been stronger. And her fury at him had never been greater.
"I have never felt so, not for a moment. But I tell you, I will not let you destroy our son, or yourself. Or," her voice broke, "me."
Suddenly the small study felt unbearable alien and oppressive. Amanda rushed from it out into her gardens. She walked for hours as the night grew chill, staring out at the Forge on which her son had been hammered into something new.
What would become of him?
And what, O my husband, my love whom I could cheerfully strangle right now, will become of us?
Subtle filters tempered the ruddy violence of 40 Eridani A's light into a glow more like that of Earth's sun. In the discreet restaurant near Shikahr's Terran enclave, Amanda folded back her sunveils and waited for her guest.
Ah. Captain Rabin was punctual and most tactfully wearing civilian clothing much like her own: robes of elegant, flowing fabric that was sturdier than it seemed. After all, she came from a culture that prided itself on its desert heritage; she had proper respect for Vulcan's sun. But then, Amanda had seen the captain under medical care, wrapped in a thermal blanket and sprouting tubes, and had observed at the time that this was the kind of officer whose true uniform was her own dignity.
Whispers rose from the few patrons fortunate enough to secure reservations nearby. Meet the ladies who lunch, Amanda thought ironically: the Vulcan ambassador's human wife and one of the first women ever to command a starship. More whispers presented various inaccurate implications and hypotheses. Amanda flashed her best smile, then attempted to ignore the onlookers out of existence.
"Lady Amanda?"
"Captain Rabin."
"Are you often one of the ladies who lunch, Lady Amanda?"
Apparently, Captain Rabin possessed her son's gift for usiag humor to ease her way. "Right now, Captain, I don't feel particularly ladylike. Please, call me Amanda."
"I'm Nechama. After all, our sons are friends. What can I do for you?"
"Well, for a start, you can sit down and order lunch." Nechama Rabin looked at the choices. "Vegetables, vegetables, and more vegetables. Ever want a steak?"
"After twenty years, not very often." Amanda could not help smiling at the other woman. The woman who had stolen her son.
"Frankly," said Nechama, after a moment, "right now, I feel as if 1 am going into battle. I almost think I'd prefer Klingons."
She picked up a glass and drank. Holding her gaze, Amanda raised her glass, murmured, and drank too.
"Water ritual?" asked the Starfleet officer. "Why?"
"You helped save my son's life. I can never thank you enough." I, not necessarily my husband. She is intelligent enough to understand what I do not say.
"Please. Spock helped save my son's life and, for that matter, mine."
"Let me make this perfectly clear. I do not believe that you meant to steal my son."
"If we're being clear, Amanda, I don't know if I would have told Spock anything about Starfleet. Granted, he's a fine boy, but the Federation is full of fine boys. And girls. But, when David told me that Spock might be interested . . . well, for all David's youth and his habit of turning everything into a joke, his people skills are astonishing." Rabin grimaced. "It would have been worse than illogical not to offer Spock the chance. It would have been wasteful."
She eyed Amanda as shrewdly as her son must have sized up Spock. "So, is that the explanation you wanted from me?"
Amanda looked down at the assorted greenery on her plate.
"I see," Rabin murmured. "The ambassador's taking it badly, isn't he?"
To reply would violate Vulcan privacy. But just then, Amanda realized, faced with an understanding, accomplished, and above all human woman, she did not care. "Very badly. Vulcans, for all their obsession with logic, are not passionless." She could feel herself flushing. "But they master their emotions by a discipline so harsh it makes Starfleet look like shore leave."
"I . . . don't envy you."
"Please, don't misunderstand! My husband and I have a good marriage, a very good marriage." Usually. Just not now. "But Sarek takes Speck's decision as a betrayal. He refuses to speak to him. Spock pretends not to care and spends his time preparing to leave home." To Amanda's horror, she heard her voice break. She mastered it with every discipline she had learned on Vulcan. "My Vulcan son. One kind word from Sarek would have won his obedience. He adores his father, and he's tried so hard to win his approval!"
Nechama Rabin reached out a hand, then made a small gesture of futility with it.
"It's all right," Amanda said dryly. "I'm Vulcan only by marriage. You can touch me. And I can't really blame Spock for finally deciding that he can't please his father and finding something of his own. Even if it's Starfleet."
Captain Rabin straightened. " 'Even'? You share the ambassador's dislike of 'Federation militarism'?"
"I'm not from a Starfleet family. And my family has no tradition of fighting men, much less fighting women. For generations, we haven't needed one."
"I see. The political situation could deteriorate if the ambassador supports Vulcan secession."
"In revenge for Spock's joining Starfleet? No. Revenge is illogical. And Sarek would consider reprisals beneath his dignity."
So he will turn his pain inward instead. After a time, he will believe he truly does not care.
"Amanda, what are you trying to tell me?"
"That I can't fight what must be. Look after my son, Nechama. I know your duties take you away from Earth, but Starfleet is your world. You can help ease a lonely boy into it."
"Don't go imagining Spock as some stranger in a strange land. No, it won't be easy for him at first; it isn't easy for any of the cadets. But as you say, I know Starfleet. And that's why I can promise you that Spock is going to make friends who will last him his entire life."
Amanda dropped her gaze to her plate. For the
first time in days, she felt as if she could eat. She raised her glass, a gesture Nechama Rabin copied.
"L'chaim," the captain. "Here's to life."
"To life," Amanda echoed, and almost managed a smile.
TWENTY-FOUR
Intrepid II, Obsidian Orbit
Year 2296
The sirens of red alert whooped in rhythm with the red lights that flashed across the bridge.
"Shields on!" Uhura ordered. "Have you still got a fix on that Warbird?"
"Aye-aye, ma'am."
"Lock on phasers," Uhura ordered Weapons.
"Phasers locked on, ma'am."
"Good," she said. "Now, keep your hands away from the firing button. Sit on them, tie them behind you if you have to. If a Klingon like Azetbur managed to wage peace, so can we."
That drew appreciative smiles from the bridge crew. Well, what did you know? She hadn't thought they had it in them.
Maybe I've underestimated them. Maybe all they needed was action. Our own little private Kobayashi Maru.
"Ma'am?" Lieutenant Richards began. "They don't seem aware that a flaw in the cloaking device is concentrating radiation from the solar flares."
Skeptical, Lieutenant? Shows you have sense.
"Won't that radiation subside when the flares do?" Uhura asked. "Yes? Keep tracking that Warbird. Plot its course on screen."
"Aye-aye."
Warbirds have to drop cloaking before they fire. At least they used to. There'd been some mutterings about the events that had led up to Camp Khitomer, but they'd been slapped with "nosebleed" classification status. There had been a lot of "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you" tied up with that conference.
All right. Go with the facts that were, not those that might be. "Let's think this one out," Uhura said. "What Mr . . . . I mean, Captain Spock calls a thought-experiment. We know that Warbirds have to emerge from cloaking to fire." Or we used to know that. "So far, so good."
"Aye-aye, ma'am." That was general agreement, albeit mystified. They didn't know where she was going with this.
Vulcan's Forge Page 24
