Evlyn rolled over in bed, too excited to sleep. From the sliver of light on the horizon, she guessed the time and closed her eyes to imagine him still lying next to her. She pictured that she could turn on her side and peer with one eye over the satiny edge of her pillow and let her gaze wander the umber spots along the side of his neck and toned shoulder. Oh, how she had enjoyed getting to know those spots – their placement, their taste. She knew them by memory and had promised to name each and every one. He had pet names for certain spots of her as well, she thought in delicious reflection. Alain had been gone for eighty-nine hours, or six barely eaten meals, fifteen calls to the Symbiont Commission, two holo-novels on the Klingon/Federation war, and twelve exhausting workouts where she repeated ribbon routines that she performed at the Institute. Nothing stemmed the excitement that coiled inside her as the moment the wonderful life she had joined through marriage would become truly Joined – joined with one of the symbionts from the pools of Mak'ala, to begin his life as Alain Sar.
She wondered if she would still be able to wake him with her gaze. It was a talent they were delighted to share; one would awaken first and in sly quiet, study the other and without a touch or word, roused the other into a sleep-smudged smile. When their eyes met, they were connected. Touching, they were one. Even the memory alone was enough to send a languid energy through Evlyn Yassal, starting at her fingertips and shuddering all the way to her belly. It was their gift and the gravity that pulled them together.
She enjoyed her morning coffee in Alain's studio, which to her seemed a palace of light. His latest holo-sculpture lazily spun above the concept table. Her favorite spectacle of the almost magical room sat at the center of the far wall. It was a composite sculpture of synthesized crystal and holographs that formed a series of intertwined ribbons crisscrossing and flowing in watery patterns around a silvery shimmer that captured the color and twist of the ribbons and flung it outward in a dazzling shower of color. With the rest of the lights low, the ribbons seemed to dance across the room. When he had shown her, Evlyn had recognized the ribbons and the patterns from her rhythmic gymnastic competitions, but the light they surrounded baffled until he told her it was his heart.
The wall behind the sculpture served as a chronology of their life together. The far ends of the wall each held a bookend of the journey that brought them together– their Compatibility of Joining Certificates, bound in a thin frame of onyx. For most Trill, compatibility testing began and ended a perfunctory genetic test followed by a polite smile. For one in ten, there were more tests in preschool. Again, most are thanked for their efforts and never met anyone from the Symbiosis Commission again. For Evlyn and Alain, their assessment certificates were embossed in gold, denoting them as tier one candidates - two of over a thousand in any given year who would select and be selected by three hundred available symbionts.
In this process of joining, the Symbiosis Commission was matchmaker, broker, and advocate, facilitating a union in which death did not part, but instead began a new existence which endured until the host could no longer support the symbiont, and a new host was found. Evlyn and Alain were to spend most of their years growing up in the Commission Institute, which functioned as home, school, monastery, mausoleum, and genesis – the gateway to the godhead. The Joining Caverns in the Caves of Mak'ala were their only destination.
Some of their instructors at the Institute were guardians, caretakers of the symbionts in the caves of Mak'ala; witnesses to hundreds if not thousands of Joins. They served as teachers and mentors to the hosts to help them understand how the body would change to accommodate the symbiont, and how to form a complete whole, the current life of the symbiont and the host end to become a new life, with the symbiont holding on the host's old life. There was no death, they would explain, as the symbiont held the hosts life within itself, while the symbiont experienced the new life built on the contributed memories of the host combined with memories from the symbiont's previous lives. It was the most important thing for a host to understand – this third life was built on what the host contributed to the Joining, and what the symbiont accepted.
For Evlyn and Alain, the Commission's Institute was a place where competition became a mutual gravity. Evlyn found herself inspired by and continually trying to outdo Alain. There were other rivals, to be sure, but when Evlyn thought about who she needed to exceed, it was always Alain. To her, he was a perfect Join. Artistic, handsome, a gifted artist who made his heartbreakingly beautiful holo-sculptures a stair step of achievements. His success pushed Evlyn hard into long hours of ribbon practice and choreography, and to broaden her horizons with fencing and history. The symbionts liked their hosts with broad life experiences.
A smiled as her eye caught the contents of a small bloodstone shelf next to her certificate. She still remembered the night she caught him spying on her practice. She angrily completed her routine, but when she was ready to confront him, he was gone. In his seat was a small sculpture of lobi, the delicately carved gymnast unmistakably her, her ribbons arced high and low as she stood on one toe. It was simply called 'Muse'. The figurine never failed to cheer her up when she was frustrated.
A series of red jasper sconces formed a graceful arc toward Alain'sculpture. Each sconce held a holographic moment in its obsidian bobeche which became a collage of lives that had touched them both as Evlyn and Alain discovered first a telepathic joining, then a physical – one building on the other. Romance between candidates was not uncommon – so many of their friends had paired, after all, who else could understand the quest to become part of a Join better than another candidate? And yet, how could something as fleeting as physical romance – even love - compare to the promise of the godhead? How could it not? In the dark warm moments of each others arms, they dreamed of the third life they would create - not together - but with their symbiont, and agreed that for all the moments they would share in making their third lives, their time together was the cornerstone. No moment if not this one.
Alain had proposed the night Evlyn's world had ended. The wan-faced representative of the Commission apologetically said that the symbiont Tien had refused Evlyn as a host. Her face had been brave for the Commissioner, even as she felt herself dying. Useless. Discarded. They never said why. Explanations meant negotiation, and there was no negotiation. After the first rejection, second chances were unheard of. There were too many candidates, too few symbionts. Why would one symbiont go through the grueling process of choosing a host another had rejected? The Commissioner was as kind as one could be delivering the death of a dream. It was an honor to be considered, and there were many fulfilling lives outside of Joining. Trill, even the galaxy, offered wonderful opportunities when one could just take a shuttle anywhere. She could consider being a guardian. There was always Star Fleet. Evlyn wanted none of it. She wanted to join. She wanted to stop crying. She wanted to die. At first she didn't understand Alain's question. He had to repeat it until he took her face in his hands, forced her to look at him, to connect. Then she understood, and while the memory wormed an ache into her heart even now, it was bearable by that moment Alain had pledged himself to her.
Their wedding holograms formed two matching arcs that met at the center of the wall and completed the journey to the statue that held the eternal light of their love. Above it, a neat circular plate of repousse and chasing, depicting a series of figures stacked on top of each other, overlapping at the midsection. Around that central point, they rotated in a circle, their hands and feet touching the raised outer edge of the plate. In the abdomen of the topmost figure was a crystal helix representing the symbiont. It was only fitting. The godhead had brought them together. The godhead had made them one.
The computer's chime interrupted her reverie. His flyer had landed; a surge of excitement lunged through her. She remembered being a little jealous when the symbiont Sar had chosen Alain, but how could one remain jealous of someone achieving their deepest dream, their most pressing need? Alain's joy and excitement at being selected had undone those tiny knots of jealousy and now, moments away from seeing this new life as Alain Sar, she couldn't be happier.
Not since those first years in the Institute had she felt intimidated by him. The form was Alain's but a stiffness in his bearing turned her excited rush to a series of tentative steps that ended with her standing pensively in front of him. She made out every minute detail of his face, but the details clung to the face of a stranger. When their eyes met, that sweet, wonderful resonance was gone. She hid her frown, then remembered it was not uncommon for newly joined to be confused and even distant as they continued to accommodate a host's mind and body. She could only silently love and wait for the memories to come back as he beheld her an outsider, his usual smile pinched into a tight frown. Without a word, Alain Sar stepped around her and entered their home.
He drifted from room to room. Occasionally, he reached out and touched the furniture, or idly thumbed through a book in the bookcase. Lahn followed as a ghost, quietly haunting, straining with all of her being to feel something of Alain – a memory perhaps, or some familiar gesture. But this was a stranger that studied their wall with a vague, detached curiosity. He paused at their holo-sculpture and ran his fingers along the swirling ribbons. He looked it over curiously, then found the switch in the back. For the first time since Alain had put it in place, the statue was in darkness, the ribbons slowly spinning to a halt. Sar switched it on and off as if watching to see how it worked. His momentary curiosity satisfied, he wandered away, leaving the ribbons and the heart in darkness.
Evlyn reached for the switch, then stopped herself. She stalked him to the other room and pounced, roughly yanking him around to face her. She desperately searched his shocked expression for a glimmer of connection. As he started to turn away, she gripped the collar of his shirt, straining on tiptoe and pulling him down to kiss her. His mouth was mere flesh, his scent only trill. In that touch, she searched with every fiber of her body and mind for Alain until Sar roughly pushed her away and shook his head as Evlyn fled the room.
Alone in her study, Evlyn tearfully watched holo-recordings of their wedding. Alain had been embarrassed by those moments Evlyn loved most - the ones where his parents looked more dubious than proud. They had raised him for to be part of the infinite line of Joined, not just another husband. Still, they had been gracious and tried to appear happy. She wondered if they would still be proud of him knowing that the symbiont Sar had taken none of Alain's contribution to the new life and was just a shell. Had something gone wrong? She called the Commission, but they found her concern puzzling. The symbiont was healthy and the join had been successful. She should rejoice that Alain was there, preserved within Symbiont, even if the will had not been strong enough to contribute to the third life in a meaningful way.
Evlyn ended the farce of communication. She studied their darkened sculpture, trying to remember it bathed in light. She sobbed, and wrenched the disk from the wall, but just stopped herself from hurling it away as she made out the bedroom door through the shadows of the room. Her hands gripped the blunt, heavy edge. Sar slept on his side, so very unlike Alain. Clasping the opposite edges of the disk in her hands, Evlyn raised it above her head, ready to hurl all her weight behind the downward swing to shatter the man, the god, and all their lies. There was no sharing, only taking. Alian was gone. Forever. She trembled and Sar's form blurred through her tears. Alain wasn't gone, only gone to her, and to kill Sar was to kill the last part of Alain, buried deep in the symbiont's memory. Even that tiny part was too precious to destroy, even if she never saw it again.
She returned to the studio and slammed the edge of the plate against on their statue with a dense crunch that showered her in crystal. The first blow fueled the next, and the next. She smashed the sconces from the wall and shattered the delicate holo projectors. She hammered at their assessment certificates until they were jammed deep into ragged gashes in the wall and the plate itself was folded in half. Exhausted, she glared at the shards of the statue on the floor until they turned into a galaxy of cold, jagged stars. Her gaze traced between the stars and the black emptiness between until her gaze rested on the lobi muse sculpture of the gymnast and ribbon. She was surprised it had survived and as she picked it up in her trembling hand, realized it had to. Her ragged gasps and trembling subsided.
She wiped her face with her hand and packed as Sar called The Commission. The guardians had arrived as walked out the door. Her expression told them what they could do with counseling, what they could do with Sar, what they could do with Trill. She dropped the battered plate at their feet.
There was a shuttle. There was always a shuttle. And there was always Starfleet.