Chapter One: "Nyota Means Star in Swahili"
Disclaimer: No money made here. A labor of love only.
Spock almost never dreams. For a long time after he lost his mother, he slipped into troubled nightmares whenever he closed his eyes to rest, but those stopped long ago—years, though at this moment he cannot calculate the exact number. Nine years since his mother's death, or perhaps ten? He is never unsure when he is awake.
Yet he is certain he isn't asleep. He knows he is sitting cross-legged in front of his asenoi in the crew quarters he shares with Nyota. She is still on duty on the bridge of the Enterprise, monitoring the communications between stellar cartography and a shuttle survey team sending back data on the only variable star in this quadrant.
Variable stars of this magnitude are not rare and the work should be routine. Ever since the ship entered orbit, however, the crew has reported unusual neurological and psychological symptoms to sickbay.
Radiation emitted by all stars affects organic life in some way, so the fact that Procis 241 might influence the crew's behavior is not, in and of itself, cause for concern. Earth's star, for instance, provides the requisite energy for plants and animals to thrive.
Of course, overexposure also causes epidermal burns and cancers.
That doesn't mean that Procis 241 is necessarily a danger, or even the cause. Any number of reasons for the headaches and dizziness the crew have reported are possible, including a parasite or another contagion. The Enterprise crew also could be suffering the normal effects of being in close quarters without shore leave for an extended period of time.
Even Nyota has been exceptionally irritable with him lately, snapping with uncharacteristic anger at minor annoyances. Hence his choice to work separate shifts, and his increased need for meditation. Part of him hopes their current rift is the result of the star and not proof of an inevitable slide into a parting of the ways.
Speculating about the star and its effects is pointless until the survey team finishes gathering data in 12 hours. Or 13. Spock feels something close to alarm at the gap in his memory.
"Are you well?"
The voice is both familiar and not. Spock opens his eyes and looks into the face of a young woman. Her worried gaze is human, but her features—upswept brows and ears—are Vulcan. With a jolt, he knows who she is.
"I am...fine," he says. "Daughter."
The syllables are odd on his tongue. Surely she has a name, something he calls her that is less formal. He casts about in his memory but comes up with nothing.
The young woman—his daughter—leans over and puts her hands on her knees so she can peer more closely at him. "Are you certain? You seem distracted."
Looking around, Spock sees that they are in a park, he sitting cross-legged on a blanket spread over the grass. In the distance, children laugh. A motorized scooter rumbles past. A warm breeze lifts a matted strand of his hair and he shivers.
If this is a dream, it is far more detailed and realistic than any he's had in the past. And although he occasionally indulges in imagined scenarios while he meditates, he is always the conscious author. This is something different.
The young woman stands up straight and crosses her arms. "Are you going to sit there all day? I thought you were going to show me around." Her tone is playful and she grins as she speaks, something no Vulcan would do. A human would, and in particular, the human he knows best.
Spock gives an audible sigh of relief. Nyota must be somewhere nearby.
"Where is your mother?"
"Who knows," his daughter says, shrugging. "She and Bubba went to see some boring something a little while ago."
"Bubba?"
"I know he hates it when I call him that, but Uncle Jim was right. All brothers need to be teased."
Spock is mystified but also quietly delighted. This young woman is obviously Nyota's child—graceful and dark and mischievous like her mother. But she is his daughter, too, her Vulcan features and dry wit part of his inheritance.
"Now, are you going to come on?" She raises her voice slightly and Spock gets to his feet.
"Berlin," he says, recognizing the park, though he cannot remember its name. His father took him here once on a tour of European capitals before he'd applied to the Vulcan Science Academy. They'd had an argument—here, in this park—and the rest of the trip had been awkward and silent.
Not an argument, but a disagreement. Sarek did not argue. He pronounced what was, and Spock either agreed or was wrong.
The argument in the park—the disagreement—was about trees, of all things. Sarek had insisted that the trees in bloom were a species of oak, but Spock was equally sure they were linden.
"The linden trees of Europe were extinct by the late 21st century," Sarek said. "A fungus destroyed them all. You are mistaken."
"Nevertheless," Spock said, "the scent of linden pollen is unparalleled. Surely you noted it. And although oak leaves resemble linden to a degree, it is you who are mistaken. Obviously, some linden trees survived the mass extinction to which you referred."
A twitch crossed his father's face. When he spoke, Sarek sounded annoyed and disappointed in equal measure. "Why do you always question what I say? Why are you like this, Spock?"
Even now—even here in this not-dream world—Spock feels a measure of surprise at what he did then.
"As you know," he said, locking his gaze with his father's, "I am the product of my genes and my environment, and you are responsible for both."
The scent of linden trees wafted around them like an aftertaste of a bitter meal.
His daughter—the young woman whose name he does not know—runs ahead of him. "Come on!" she calls back. "There's not much time!"
He picks up his pace and breathes in the heavy fragrance of the trees. His daughter stops abruptly and turns to him, lifting her arms over her head to indicate the canopy of green leaves.
"This!" she says, her tone joyful. "I want to learn all about this!"
"They are linden trees," Spock says, grateful to have something to say. "People long believed they had become extinct after the Third World War, but here in Berlin they survived."
In a rush, his daughter—this lovely young woman with her mother's eyes—comes toward him and takes his right hand in hers. A warm spark of energy flies between them.
"Yes, I know that, Father! What I want to explore is why! Why are they here? Why did the ancient molecules evolve into trees and not something else? Why these trees? Why here? Why?"
She lets go of his hand and he feels as bereft as if he had lost someone dear to him. Her words make no sense, almost as if she is speaking an unknown language, but he gives himself over to the reality of this not-dream-not-meditation. His usual anxiety about things—his drive to find out and know—is quieter here. Somehow he is content to let his daughter be the explorer, even if he does not understand her quest.
He's a different father than his father had been. Or he will be.
Perhaps the variable star is interphasing with the future and this is a vision of what will be. Twice already the Enterprise has recorded instances of spacial interphase in variable star formations. Could this be a third, with a peek into what will happen years from now?
Or perhaps he is suffering a psychosis brought about by the proximity to the unknown radiation signature of Procis 241. Given the odds, that seems more likely.
"You need to wake up," he hears Nyota say like a faint echo. He presses his eyes closed and tries to return to his room, his asenoi.
But his daughter is suddenly at his side and they are walking through a copse of trees scented with tiny white flowers.
"Remember how Mother got so mad that time I overwatered her orchid," she says, and to his astonishment, Spock does remember it. His daughter barely up to his elbow, her black hair pulled back into two sleek ponytails, confessing that she'd been watering the orchid on the sly. Nyota's dismay that this gift from Spock to celebrate the birth of their fist child was drowned in rusty colored water.
"And remember how Grandfather brought her another one just like it, and how he said flowers can be replaced but children are fragile?"
This, too, Spock recalls—the potted orchid in his father's hands as he stood in the doorway of their apartment in San Francisco—Nyota's eyes watering as Sarek spoke, the harmony between mother and daughter restored by his words.
"I remember," Spock says, feeling such a measure of love for Nyota and his daughter and Sarek that his heartbeat thrums like a timpani in his side.
"Please come back," Nyota says in his ear, but his daughter takes his hand and again he feels the electricity between them.
"I'm not ready for you to leave," she says, tugging him forward. "If you go, I may not see you again."
That is true, Spock thinks. If this is a figment of his imagination—a construct of his star-addled brain—she will disappear when he regains consciousness.
But if she is a glimpse of the future, seen through the strands of a stellar interphase—
"I'm going to give him 40 cc's of methadryl. That should get his attention—"
Dr. McCoy's voice this time.
Spock lets his daughter's fingers slip from his. "I must go," he tells her. He opens his eyes and sees Dr. McCoy squatting beside him on the floor of his and Nyota's quarters. The asenoi flickers behind him like a misshapen jack-o-lantern.
"That will not be necessary." Spock motions towards the hypo in the doctor's hand.
"Well, welcome back, Spock," the doctor says. "You gave us a scare."
"How long have I—"
"I found you like this when my shift ended." Nyota is kneeling behind his left shoulder and he swivels around slowly to make eye contact. A faint sheen of perspiration is across her cheeks and nose. Her eyelashes are wet.
"I'd like to keep you overnight for observation in sickbay," Dr. McCoy begins, but Spock interrupts.
"Unnecessary. I am unharmed."
"As I was saying," McCoy says, pointedly addressing Nyota, "I'd feel better if I could haul him down to sickbay for awhile, but there's no more room at the inn. We are full with patients much more agreeable and compliant than your partner here. I'm on my way now to report to the captain. As far as I can tell, it's not a virus—"
"The star," Spock says. "The odds are that it is emitting some sort of scandian particle radiation, or it might be undergoing a stellar interphase—"
"Dammit, Spock. Spare me the mumbo jumbo. You can tell Jim yourself. And sit back down. He'll come to you." To Nyota he says, "Keep him here." He raises his eyebrows and adds, "If you can."
McCoy leaves with a noisy flourish.
When the room is quiet again, Spock listens to Nyota's soft breaths. Still sitting beside him on the floor, she edges closer until her arm brushes his.
"You were somewhere else," she says at last, breaking the silence. "I couldn't reach you there."
"I could hear you," he says. He feels her bristle, her anger flaring across her skin.
"Then why didn't you—"
"Our daughter required my attention."
At once her anger dissipates. He hears her sharp intake of breath. "How is that possible?"
"I would be untruthful if I said I knew. But she was ours, Nyota. Or she will be. It defies logic, but I know this."
He looks up then into her face and is startled to see her smiling. Of all the emotions he could have anticipated—disbelief, skepticism, worry—he is caught off guard by her amusement.
"You do not believe me."
"On the contrary," she says, taking his hands in hers. "I do. You would never, ever, ever tell such a ridiculous story unless it was true."
Her laughter unlocks something inside him and he falls easily into their private, affectionate patter.
"Even delusional people can sometimes sound convincing," he parries. "Or my logic could be faulty and I might be mistaken."
Nyota grins. "It won't be the last time, will it?" She stands up and holds out her hand to him as an invitation to join her. "Come on," she says.
"You heard the doctor," Spock says as he gets to his feet. "I am to stay here until the captain arrives for a debriefing."
"Exactly. Which knowing Jim Kirk, won't be for at least twenty minutes. We have plenty of time."
"What did you have in mind?" Spock follows her as she makes her way to their bedroom.
"Use your logic," Nyota says, smirking. "I want to hear all about that possible daughter of ours."
"Khio'ri."
"What?"
"Khio'ri." Spock lets the word tumble across his lips. "Khio'ri. Vulcan for star. We will name her after you."
Author's note: Long time no see! I've missed writing and playing in the Star Trek universe and hope you enjoy this new story. Let me know!