As this conversation ended we three girls, Father and his two aides emerged from the labyrinth of grassy pedestrian ways running between the walled compounds of our residential neighborhood to join numerous other walkers on the verges of the vehicular road that links the temple of Surak in the outer park to the heart of Shih-Kahr.
As we walked the sun rose, struggling to break through the gray walls of the clouds but succeeding only in tingeing them a delicate orange. She was her own diameter above the horizon by the time our party reached the city center. We walked along the path beneath the ancient walls of the citadel, now the seat of our planetary government. They rose above us in a smooth white slope from the rain dimpled waters of a wide moat dotted here and there with clumps of floating lilies. Usually it is a pretty sight but today moat and walls were drear, reflected the gray clouds rather than brilliant sunlight. Father and his aids left us to cross the bridge of the western gate to their offices in the Palace of Greetings, now the secretariat for interplanetary affairs.
We three girls continued across the great Square of Assembly beyond the walls. Normally we stop for a brief rest beneath the tree marking the Chancellor's station but today the drizzle had turned to genuine rain so we hurried on into the tangle of pedestrian paths lined with commercial and apartment buildings on the other side of the square taking the winding way that led eventually to our school.
The T'el Sherat school for Maidens of Gentle Birth is surrounded by a grassy berm surmounted by a densely woven thorn-tree hedge. This encloses perhaps a hectare of ground landscaped into a flower garden, a vegetable garden and a rock garden in the midst of which stands the school itself, two long low buildings shaded with Tek Tek trees and facing each other across an open court.
In better weather we often had our classes outdoors, in courtyard or gardens, but today we joined the other pupils hurrying inside where it was dry. The glass latticed doors fronting the long gallery were shut tight against the inclement weather and we added our rain cloaks to those already dripping on the pegs before slipping into our classroom - we are all three in the same form - and taking our places with the other pupils behind the low desks set in tidy rows on the polished stone floor.
Instructor T'Sia entered from her office behind the classroom and mounted the low dais with her desk and chair. "Knowledge is the basis of all virtue." she said, as she does every morning.
"We come to learn." we answered in muted chorus. She sat. We pulled out the mats tucked beneath our desks and folded ourselves down upon them activating the padd device before us. The day's work began. It took place in total silence except for the click of keys and an occasional sigh. Each padd is programmed with the pupil's assigned learning tasks monitored by the instructor's computer. Advice, admonitions and sometimes praise appear in the teacher's block at the upper right of the screen. Only rarely is it necessary for T'Sia to leave her seat and correct a pupil's work with her own hands. When this happens it is extremely humiliating for the student. It has never happened to T'Sar, T'Pelle or I - despite our Human ancestry. Excellence is a matter of effort and application not biology - just as Father says.
Mathematics are our primary study, for it is the basis of all logic and reason. Today my tasks included designing mathematical models for three dimensional problems; quadratic equations to solve and tables of natural logarithms to memorize. Our other study is Vulcan culture and history, as I prefer those subjects to mathematics I always save those readings and essays for last.
The hollow boom of a brazen gong marked the end of the first session. We rose respectfully as Instructor T'Sia departed then filed out into the gallery, on our way to the tearoom for our mid-morning refreshment. My sisters and I were joined by T'Prang and the twins, T'Psing and T'Ptim, who are our special friends. We have many others - unlike Spock.
I have heard that Brother had a very difficult time when he was our age, that the other boys tormented and insulted him for his Human blood. We, his sisters, have not been so troubled. Perhaps it is because our instructors keep better discipline than at Spock's school. Perhaps it is because girls are naturally more courteous and decorous than boys. Or perhaps it has something to do with the unfortunate incident that took place on our very first day at T'el Sherat three years ago.
I remember we were standing among the stone drum seats set in a circle beneath the spreading branches of a H'Pual tree waiting for the instructor to arrive when one of the girls said something uncomplimentary about our Terran heritage. I no longer recall exactly what she said, just that the word 'Earther' was repeated more than once. She did not finish her sentence, T'Sar marched over and hit her hard in the belly. All the girls gasped, two started forward; I tripped one and T'Pelle grabbed the other by the hair and pulled until she shrieked. It was at this moment the instructor, T'Pien, arrived. All six of us were punished for violence in speech and deed - but the word 'Earther' was never again spoken in my hearing, or T'Sar's or T'Pelle's. Violence may not be a good way of resolving conflicts but in this case it proved a decisive one.
Today they served M'Alakh tea, hot and bitter, to guard against chills and warm fruit rolls to go with it. Vulcan fruits are very sour. Mother cannot eat them, they make her mouth pucker, but T'Sar and I can. We eat everything other Vulcans do for tastes in food are a matter of acclimation rather than biology.
No sooner had we seated ourselves around one of the low tea tables dotting the refreshment hall then we were approached by an instructor's aide, so designated by her red sash. She placed a handful of data chips in front of T'Sar. "One bring the lessons prepared for the time you will be absent."
"This one thanks the honored instructors for their graciousness, on her own behalf and her sisters'." T'Sar replied. The aide nodded and left.
"One does not wish to offend," said T'Prang formally, "but her father has said often to her that the feudal displays associated with noble marriages are illogical."
"The teachings of an elder cannot give offense." T'Sar said as formally, then wrinkled her nose. "Besides we heard it all before when I married!" as indeed we had.
"The modernist views of the honored professor Sakas are well known to all." added T'Pelle. T'Prang's father is a teacher of social logic at the Academy.
"Our grandmother says it is good for the old ways to be remembered." said T'Ptim.
"Remembered yes, it is their re-enactment Father objects to." T'Prang answered her.
"And child marriages and child betrothals." remembered T'Psing.
T'Ptim frowned. They had argued this point before. "We are twins." she said, yet again. "It was logical for our parents to betroth us to the twin sons of Sharrn of the House of Shan. Now our bond and theirs need not be torn apart when it is time to mate."
"And our parents chose to bondmate us as children to show their devotion and ours to the Vulcan Way." said T'Pelle.
"Father argues that when children are grown they may find they are not compatible meaning either families will be shamed by broken oaths or a husband and wife must live in discontent." T'Prang answered then directed her words to my sisters and me: "Your own grandmother broke her betrothal. And what about Spock and T'Pring?"
It was a good point. T'Pelle's bondmating with Kalon, grandson of our grandmother's rejected betrothed, was meant to repair that old breach between our Houses. As for Spock and his bondmate T'Pring - when we were small my sisters and I hadn't realized there was anything wrong between them but after T'Sar's marriage two years ago it became very clear to us all that something had gone awry with Brother's bonding.
Though Senok, T'Sar's husband, lives on Vulcan's sister planet T'Khut the two of them communicate daily by cybernet and she was looking forward eagerly to seeing him when he and his grandmother, our aunt T'Les, came to attend T'Pelle's wedding. Spock and his wife live in the same city but see each other rarely. And when T'Pring does come to visit she spends most of her time with us, his sisters, not her bondmate. It was painfully clear - to us - that they were ill-suited but the Elders showed no concern.
T'Pelle bit her lip. I knew she worried that she would find Kalon as uncongenial as T'Pring found Spock. After all Grandmother had reject his grandfather!
"Didn't the Elders chose Senok for T'Sar as well as T'Pring for Spock?" I reminded my sister. "Surely the chances are at least even that they have done well in choosing Kalon for you."
"I hope so." said T'Pelle, but I could see she was not reassured.
I turned to T'Prang, allowing a note of irritation to tinge my voice as I said. "It would be better not to disturb my sister's heart as she has no choice but to obey the Elders of our House and Clan!"
T'Sar nodded. "T'Jess is right. Debates of custom and change are not the concern of children."
"That is true." T'Prang agreed.
The gong sounded again, marking the end of the refreshment interval and we went into the gallery to don our now dry rain cloaks for our next session would be in the training hall in the building opposite and the covered but un-walled gallery connecting the two offered little protection against the driving rain.
The training hall is the same size and shape as the refreshment hall with six polished, unpainted wooden pillars supporting the high coffered ceiling. The dim gray light leaking through the stone grilled windows beneath the eaves was supplemented by wall lamps and the tiled floor covered with a thick layer of matting. Instructor T'Praed stood waiting in the yellow-orange light flanked by her aides, including Brother's intended T'Pring.
She is thin and wiry, excelling at sport and dance, but sallow of complexion and plain of face with snub nose, pointed chin and drooping mouth. I don't know why Spock doesn't like her, not only is T'Pring clever and accomplished but she is an eminently suitable match. Her House of Sidak is older than ours, though less distinguished by public honors, and she belongs to the same noble clan, the Talek-sen-deen, as we do which should count for a great deal more with Brother then her lack of beauty. It is very puzzling.
We shed our over-tunics and took our places on the mats in six rows of seven. At T'Praed's command we began our exercises with the le- matya form, which involves a great deal of bending and stretching. The instructor and her aides circulated among us correcting errors of posture and footing with long sticks. T'Sar, T'Pelle and I did not require correction. We passed to the sehlat form, which requires much crouching and stomping, then ran through the toshi-ya, okonoh and kah forms.
Having completed our exercises we pupils sat on the mats, resting, while T'Praed and her aides rigged the targets for Tae-Konn. These are thick rolls of matting suspended at various heights between the columns of the hall. At the instructor's signal we divided into four groups, each supervised by an aide, and began practice.
Tae-Konn is a female fighting style involving high kicks and leaps. Aim and focus are very important as is balance. T'Sar excels at this art. T'Pelle and I are less skilled, maybe because we are younger. We were all tired and somewhat breathless by the time the gong sounded for the end of session.
We students promptly assumed meditation posture on the mats as our instructor and her aides cleared away the targets and dimmed the lights. We sat in the watery twilight, breathing and being, not thinking, until the final gong of the day commanded us to resume our outer clothing and prepare to go home.
It was midday. The sky was a dense and roiling purple. Rain came down not in buckets but sheets. Naturally nobody was expected to walk home in this. Enclosed chairs, slung between aki-kah, powerful, flightless two legged ornithoids, queued up beneath the eaves allowing us to get into them without getting soaked. T'Sar and T'Pelle took one chair. I shared mine with T'Pring who was to go home with us today to help in the endless sewing of T'Pelle's trousseau.
"T'Prang was talking against child marriages again." I observed after T'Pring had programmed the directions to our home into the electronic driver.
"T'Prang would do well to hold her peace." my sister-by-marriage answered.
"She repeats the teachings of her father." I said.
"The debates of scholars are not our concern." said T'Pring correctly.
Bluntly and none to courteously I asked: "Why do you and Spock not like one another?"
She was not offended. Her brow crinkled in thought then she shook her head. "I do not know. He is in every way suitable and admirable. I should like him - but I do not." a forlorn note entered her usually controlled voice. "I wish that I did."
"I wish you did too." I answered, sighed. "Spock has no friends, not even his own bondmate."
T'Pring squared her shoulders. "No doubt we will feel differently after sexual awakening. Then we will need each other. That will be enough.
That seemed logical. I hoped it would be so.