When the Winter Comes

By

Pat Foley

Chapter 8

The next morning Sarek had resurveyed the site and decided he had indeed gleaned all the usable electronics from it. Then he put a question to me. We sat down to "lunch" to discuss it.

Lunch wasn't usually on our schedule – we ate breakfast at first light, and dinner at sunset, and rarely met up at mid-day anymore. But I heated water in our new containers, and tossed in some berries. It was wonderful to be able to have a hot drink in the morning rather than gulping handfuls of cold water from a stream. Sarek, particularly, appreciated it, and neither one of us could quite adjust to the novelty. We nibbled on some fruit and a bag of the flatbread while Sarek explained what he'd found and the transmitting device he wanted to build.

The question foremost in his mind was should he set up here, or should we haul our finds back to our "camp" and build it there.

It may have seemed like a trivial question, but it was a big one for us. There we had a natural, sturdy shelter. Here we had only the metal shelter. We could reinforce it, but it was nowhere near as sturdy. There we had forest, and the resulting food and fuel. The immediate area we were in was treeless. Perhaps the small, swift running creek nearby flooded in the spring and kept the ground too damp for new trees. Though now the turf around us seemed dry and springy with deep grass.

There was forest and the resulting fuel and food about half a mile away. But to scout for and set up a new shelter there would take time, perhaps days. Sarek was eager to start crafting now, if I was amenable.

Food and fuel were the biggest issues to me. On the one hand, our previous camp had had plenty of food and fuel, at least at first. But even there the food had been becoming well gleaned in the short time we'd been there. No doubt we would have had to move on there too, probably sooner than later. There seemed to be less food here, but perhaps I just hadn't looked enough. It seemed it would need to be hauled for greater distances in any event.

On the emotional side, I really liked our old location. Mostly because it was familiar, and seemed like a haven, but for its practical considerations too. The spring in our cave was small, but good. The water was clean, and as the spring rose inside the rock shelter, it was uncontaminated by falling debris. The shelter wasn't deep, but it had a base of rock, and thus wasn't too damp. We could have a fire in it. It was sturdy and felt safe to me. I mentioned these considerations to Sarek, not sidestepping the emotional considerations.

He didn't disagree. But on the side for staying here was that we could still salvage and cannibalize things off the downed cruiser, without a long walk to get back here. And we also didn't really have a good way to get what we'd salvaged back to our present camp.

We turned over all these pros and cons and decided, at least for the present, while Sarek was building his device, to stay.

We spent the morning scouting for a place for him to work. We settled finally on a small part of the half crashed hull of the spacecraft that had survived. The metal had cooled some since we had first arrived and the smell was not as bad as it had been then. Together we tugged and lifted and propped up some metal sheets. I spent some time insulating them at their joins with woven panels of reeds and branches, packed in with mud. Sarek eyed this critically, mud not being something you'd find on his sandy world. But when the mud was dry, he had a reasonably wind and rainproof work shed. It was well out of the way of the smoke of our cooking and heating fires, which Sarek was concerned might further damage the already battered components. We rigged him up a table of sorts, for a workbench, and a stool, because I couldn't see him sitting on the cold ground.

He then helped me gather wood for the day, and settled down to his work, while I went off to see what food I could scavenge.

I didn't really want to use the emergency kit food, thinking perhaps we should save it for…well, an emergency. After all, an injury, an illness, bad weather, a future attack could keep us from foraging. That food might be the difference between real hunger and starvation or survival.

My good intentions were one thing. Practicality was another.

After a couple of days of searching, I concluded I'd been right. Food was not as plentiful in the area we were in. I had to roam pretty far into the woods to find it, and then lug it back. Often I came back with more wood than food, even though Sarek was gathering wood enough for our fires before he started his transmitter work in the mornings.

Since I wasn't loaded down with that much food, and I was going deep into the woods anyway, my practice was to carry back as much as I could, as far as possible, whether food, or if I couldn't find food, then wood. If I wasn't able to carry back all that I found, when I did find a good cash of food, I dumped the wood. But at least the wood that I then dumped was closer to camp when I could carry it back.

Even if I found a good cash of nuts or berries, I had trouble bringing back all that I wanted to carry. Sometimes I had to make several trips to and from camp. All this became exhausting and painful. It just wasn't working.

When we ran short, we ended up delving into our emergency food.

And within a few days, my feet were on active rebellion. Not to mention my shoulders and arms. Later that evening, while Sarek meditated and the fire burned low, I considered what I could do to alleviate the situation. My eyes fell on the metal boxes of the survival kits. Sarek had appropriated two for his electronics. I still kept our emergency food in the largest, away from bugs and other potential predators. That left one. I considered them as my eyes got heavy with sleep. And in the morning when I woke I had a plan.

After Sarek had gone on to his work, I stayed behind, rather than food prospect. It had occurred to me that one of the metal boxes, opened fully, was about the size to make a nice flat bed for a cart. I cut out a metal sheet for a stabilizer, and fastened the open box to the top of it. That left me needing only an axel, something to pull the cart, and of course, wheels.

An axel was no problem; there were plenty of short lengths of metal around in the ship debris. But wheels were few and far between. You'd think a ship might be full of this basic tenet of civilization, but most mechanical parts now used puffs of air, rather than levers or wheels or gears. I finally had to fashion them myself. I didn't have the skill to fashion spoked wheels. Instead, I used two circular rounds of metal, pounded outward on each side in a flange to serve as the wheel, joined together so there was a web of wheel on each side, and using a bit of pneumatic piping to join the two wheels together. For this was a two wheeled cart, not a wagon. I started to use the laser awl to punch holes and rivet the strips together, but soon discovered a sharp piece of metal worked just as well and saved the power. I used all the metal wire I could find to join the axel to the cart bed, and the wheels to the axel. Another length of pneumatic pipe, heated and bent in a loop on both ends, served to form as a handle on one end, giving me a loop to pull with, and connected the handle to the axel on the other.

The end result was extremely ugly and ungainly. The Surak it was not. Nor could it take a great weight – which was no problem as I couldn't have pulled a great weight anyway.

But it rolled and I was thrilled with it. No longer did I have to carry things in my arms or on my back. I could pile it with wood or food and not have to make trip after trip to handle loads bigger than I could carry.

And I had made it all myself.

I test pulled my little cart back and forth, and was excited enough to interrupt the master at his work, to show it off.

"Look at this!" I pronounced as I picked my way through the crash site, tugging the ungainly vehicle behind me. It struggled a bit on the uneven ground, but it moved. "I have discovered the wheel!" I stopped before his work shed. "Well, rediscovered it, anyway," I modestly amended.

Sarek turned from his work and his eyes narrowed incredulously. He rose up and came to the front of his shelter, presumably to get a better look at it. Then he looked at me as if to verify that it wasn't some figment of his imagination. And then…

His mouth twitched, ever so slightly. He caught it, instantly, and grew as if stern, surveying the contraption before him, brow furrowed in contemplation.

I took a look at it with new eyes, and realized that it was rather more pathetic than I thought. Though still dear to my heart.

But for Sarek it was too much. The corners of his mouth twitched again, and he turned a little away.

"You're laughing at me!" I said, wounded to the quick. "At my wonderful cart!"

He drew himself up into Vulcan dignity. "I am not," he said loftily. But then, eyes rolling over my contraption, he pulled in the corners of his mouth again into strict Vulcan lines as if they were failing him, and straightened his shoulders a little, as if against an incipient shaking.

"You are! You beast!" I dropped the cart handle and gave him a clout with both hands, which he was too busy trying to keep his countenance to arrest. "You ought to be--- you should be worshipping it as the technological marvel it is! Behold your new idol, the wheel!" I trundled it back and forth before him, while he shook his head, human style at the absurdity.

"Weep, as Caesar did, when he beheld the glories of Egypt!" I was laughing myself and offended it at the same time. True, my husband had a privileged background, surrounded by the best and most technological equipment. I suppose he'd been distracted enough by his own advanced electronic work that my appearance with my little knocked together cart struck him as absurd. But I still took umbrage at his continued reaction of incredulity. He hadn't yet stopped the Vulcan equivalent of laughing. At the very least, it was very unsupportive of his hard-working wife. Not to mention rather ignoring the reality of our situation. "Sarek!"

His shoulders were shaking, just a bit, and though his face was still stern, the corners of his mouth were definitely twitching. He shook his head again, human style. "That is the most pathetic contrivance --"

"Pathetic? It's beautiful!"

He covered his eyes with one hand, ostensibly to rub his brow or perhaps push his trailing bangs out of his eyes, but I suspected as a cover to give him a moment to regain his countenance. He took a measured breath, and with control reestablished, looked up. And closed his eyes again, and his shoulders twitched. Setting his face with ruthless Vulcan control, he finally recovered enough to say, "Beautiful?"

"Well….practical anyway."

Finally becoming serious, he flicked a brow of acknowledgement. But he still shook his head at it.

"Look, it may not be a Vulcan 'lematya class' corvette, with a high speed warp sled," I said, annoyed. "But it's here, and the Surek is not. At least, not yet. And it can haul wood." I grabbed a couple of loose branches and a few pieces of debris for demonstration purposes and trundling it along, proved it.

"So it can," he said, finally interested. He stepped forward, his levity now arrested by Vulcan curiosity. "How did you manage the axel?"

"Ummm," I stepped quickly in front of my contraption, defensive, suddenly unwilling for it to face technical Vulcan criticism. "Well, there you have me. It's got what you might call a fixed axel – like the old Roman carts. But they still managed to conquer most of Europe! And think what straight roads they created, to accommodate them."

Sarek gave me a glance that told me that the necessarily straight old Roman roads of long distant Terra were of no pertinent relevance here. Soon he had my bogus load tossed out and the cart up-ended. "Where are your tools?" he asked, sitting down with a typical Vulcan problem-solving look on his face, his fingers itching to get into it.

"I didn't come here for you to -- Listen, it's my cart."

"I wouldn't dream of appropriating your creation. I am just going to make it better for its task. Go and get them."

I made a face but brought them, and proceeded to watch, as anxiously as if he were doing surgery on my baby, as he proceeded to undo much of what I'd done underneath the cart and refit the underside with a more flexible axel that would turn and gave it sturdier fastenings and underpinnings. At least, he didn't waste anything I'd contrived. With his greater strength, he could also pound the wheels into something that more resembled circles, and reinforced them too. I've never been that great at free form drawing, and my wheels had not been noted for strict hemispherical roundness. I had to admit, when he was done, the cart pulled much easier.

"It was still my idea," I said, giving his improvements a slightly jaundiced eye as I gave the newly remodeled vehicle a test drive.

"And a very useful one, as you say."

"With it, I can gather all our wood myself. So you can work full-time on your transmitter."

He looked up at me, from where he'd been sitting on the ground surveying the motion of the new axel as I pulled it, suddenly grave. "Is that why you built it?"

"Not entirely, but it seems like the logical solution. Why should you waste your time on gathering firewood?" I asked. "Manual labor, I can do. Building complex electronics, I can't. The faster you get it built, perhaps the faster we'll get out of here."

He was quiet, considering that. "Very well," he finally said reluctantly. "As you wish. I will leave all provisioning to you then, and concentrate full time on the transmitter. Unless you request assistance."

"I won't," I said, suddenly serious.

He gave me a long look. Then he reached out, took the fingers of my hand, rough and calloused and more than a little dirty with my morning's work, and… brought them to his lips.

It was a rare gesture, and a very pretty one. It wasn't emotional. His manner was grave and quiet. It wasn't even necessarily an unVulcan touch, between bondmates, in private. But it could still surprise and overwhelm me when he reacted in a way, however Vulcan, that was almost human, and that touched me in an emotional human way. I closed my eyes and had to fight to keep my countenance, in this case not from laughter. "We've both got things to do," I said, my voice choked.

"Amanda?"

"I forgive you for laughing at my cart," I said, as if the last moment had never happened. One thing Vulcans failed to consider, is that however much humans value emotion, sometimes it is too much even for us. And before I betrayed myself, I pulled my hand and my cart away.

I waited until I was out of sight before I scrubbed, ineffectually, at my eyes with my dirty hands.

I could have washed my hands in a stream. But after all, they'd only get dirty again with the next branch I picked up.

And I had work to do.

Now that I had the cart, I could go further afield. And I needed to. This area had a slightly different micro-climate that was proving very frustrating for me. I found less berries, for one. There was a bit more grain, but as in our former location, so much of it had fallen over and gotten moldy in the rain. I fashioned a scythe of a piece of metal scrap, and cut all the grain grass I could, to bring it back to camp and strip in the evenings. But it never amounted to many handfuls, for all that labor. Honey and nuts I still found, and the nuts were beginning to be ripe. But the stands of nut bushes were never in a group together. I traveled long distances to get to all these different types of food.

Have I mentioned I was not unknown for getting lost in the seemingly unending stone corridors of the Fortress?

I did my best to forge a trail, both for the cart's maneuverability and for me. It was faster traveling along a well broken route. I also did my best to mark trees, and set up small piles of stone pyramids and otherwise point the way I'd come, and the way home.

But it was so tedious to traverse back to camp along the same ground I had come across the first time. It didn't help to find new food either, to trace back along my old route.

I wanted to have a series of circles when I traveled. And so every day I tried to go a little further, to circle around to camp, marking my trail as I went. I watched the sun, to figure out how long it took to walk. When I didn't seem to make it back to camp in the circle I'd chosen, I tried on alternate days, coming from the other direction, hoping to meet up with the other side of my attempted trail.

It wasn't as easy as it should have been. Surely two halves of a circular trail ought to meet somewhere… But I couldn't seem to manage it.

It was so frustrating; I was determined to do it.

One day, I'd pushed through a few more hundred yards on the outbound side, certain I'd recognized where I had come from the other direction before, positive I had picked up my trail on the other side. I walked, and walked, occasionally going a little afield to glean something. Then I began to be uncertain that I had found it. Everything looked familiar and unfamiliar. I didn't see any of my piles of stones or other trail markings. Trees, after all, look a lot alike. But I felt like I certainly should be coming to it soon, so I pushed on. And pushed on. And pushed on. My feet were aching, my shoulders too, from the drag of the cart. I hurried now, eager to have the comfort of knowing where I was, and pushed on even faster. And still there was no trail sign or confirmation that I had stumbled back on the other half of my trail.

I couldn't believe it. I had timed and measured how far I was coming from each side. Surely if the laws of physics held true, I ought to come across my other trail.

And yet I didn't.

I looked back at the woods, through the low hanging trees, and thought about retracing my steps back where I had come. But I had walked so far. I was positive that the shorter walk back to camp would be connecting up with the far side trail on other side rather then going back all the way I had come. I was determined not to keep retracing my steps and back tracking every day. So, I pushed on.

And still I saw nothing familiar.

Now the afternoon was advancing. The sun was lowering. I had gone too far to get back the other way. I'd never make it back before sunset if I did that. In the dark I wouldn't be able to find my signs on trees and piles of stones. I'd be hopelessly lost.

Suddenly the way back looked as blank and confusing as the way forward.

And the sun sank a little more.

And I realized I was deep in the woods, hours and hours from camp. And in a very few minutes, it would be dark.

I swallowed hard and kept going. "Lions and tigers and bears, Oh my," I muttered. I was starting to feel that way. But when in doubt, forge ahead.

I came to a largish hill I thought looked familiar and I went up it, pulling the cart that seemed heavier with every step, sure that when I came to the other side I'd know where I was. But at the summit, the ground dropped abruptly, down to a big stream I had never seen before. None of this looked familiar, and I grew panicked again. I stood on the top of the treeline and peered through the deepening gloom of the trees as the sun slanted. Surely I ought to be able to see the clearing. I'd come so far. It ought to be just ahead.

But I saw nothing but more and more and more trees.

I looked back and the way back seemed more daunting than the way forward. And the way forward was no way at all.

I was lost.

"How can I be lost on this stupid planet, only a few miles from camp," I said.

I sat down for a moment, not just because I was tired enough that I almost couldn't go on, but to regroup. To stave off panic that kept threatening me.

The sun dipped a little more, and in this dark, moonless planet, there was hardly any light left at all.

And I did panic.

I cursed my fate under my breath. Then I yelled Sarek's name, even though I was probably far outside his hearing. Non-telepath that I was, I tugged hard on the bond, as if I were pulling back on the bridle of a runaway horse. I couldn't feel anything in return. Not a single thing.

"Stupid bond. Where is it when you need it?" I muttered.

I had no choice. I walked on. And then I thought to whistle. I put my fingers in my mouth and let the whistle shriek out as loud as I possibly could.

I felt better about it, being able to whistle. I was a terrible whistler, and never did it. I wasn't even sure if I had ever whistled in Sarek's presence before. But Sarek, if he could hear me, would know no animal on this planet had so far sounded like that. He'd recognize that sound as me and nothing else. Or at best I was counting on Vulcan curiosity to come looking to see what it was.

Though since there was no guarantee he could hear me, as tired and miserable as I was, I kept walking. Every ten minutes, I gave a put my fingers in my mouth and gave another piercing whistle.

Never had our little camp seemed more desirable. I'd almost take it, now, over the Surek. Just to be home, as camp now seemed to me.

Now I could hardly see the ground under my feet. Doubts crept in on me. Perhaps I was heading away from the camp, not round to it. Perhaps, like the cart wheels themselves, I had not made my circle round enough. Perhaps, perhaps. I put my fingers in my mouth again and drew a deep breath, preparing for another whistle. And a voice came out of the dark, practically in my ear.

"Must you make that ear shattering noise again?"

I nearly jumped out of my skin. "Sarek!"

"What are you doing here?"

I spent a few minutes calming my racing heart and catching my breath. "I ask myself that. Constantly."

"I mean here." Sarek took the handle of the cart and turned in a direction perpendicular to where I had been heading. I fell into step beside him.

"Do you always walk like a vampire, silent in the night?"

"Would you prefer I blundered around, crashing through leaves and cracking tree branches and making a noise like a trumpeting elephant?"

"An elephant?!" I said, offended.

"Forgive me, perhaps it was the cart that was making all that noise," Sarek said. "But the shrieking whistling certainly was you. And you haven't answered my question. Why are you here?"

"I was trying to get back to camp."

"You were trying… But Amanda, you were heading away from our camp. You are, in fact two miles past it. And were heading further away."

"I was afraid of that," I admitted ruefully. "You'd never believe that I really did get an A in geometry at school."

"You didn't know where you were." Sarek said it as if he suddenly realized it. He stopped and turned, staring at me. "You didn't know where you were going?"

"Does that surprise you? How many times have I gotten lost in the Fortress alone?"

He drew a huge breath. "I didn't think--" he turned to me again, "You should have said something."

"I was doing well enough!" I defended. "I marked my path. I made some trails."

"You made some trails," he said as if stunned. "Trails. It was these trails that you were following, when you were heading away from camp into oblivion?"

"No, of course not. I got lost. Don't look at me as if I'm the village idiot!"

His eyes narrowed at that criticism. "At least if you were, it would imply there was a village and there would be that much less possibility of getting lost. Or of being found if you were. You went in these woods without knowing where you were going?"

I lost my own temper in turn. "Have you forgotten again that I am not like you?! I don't have a compass built into my head that tells me where I'm going. I just have to wing it."

"To wing it," he said, as if appalled.

"So I got lost. I called you. You found me." I turned away and pushed past to walk ahead of him, indicating I was done with the subject. "What is the big deal?"

Sarek wasn't ready to let it go. "No more," he said darkly.

I paused and looked at him over my shoulder. "Don't. Don't over-react."

He gave me a look at my accusing him of that. "We will discuss this tomorrow."

"Sarek!" I warned.

"Tomorrow," he said curtly.

I drew breath to argue then I saw something, in the set of his shoulders, the look in his eyes that made me subside. Tackling a Vulcan with his ire raised was not a very smart thing for any mere human to do. Best to wait until we both had calmed down.

It took us an hour before we got back to camp. He must have run all the way to find me, but of course, with the wagon, we couldn't do that going back. It was good I had Sarek with me. By that time it was so dark that I could hardly see my hand in front of my face.

Sarek didn't say a word the rest of the way back. A few times he took my hand or arm when I stumbled in the dark. But then let go of me as quickly as if he'd been burned. I took that to mean he had still yet to gather his own control.

No camp had ever looked as good as our little cluster of rude panels and possessions.

Sarek had left some hot water with berries over some dwindling coals. In the time we'd been gone, the liquid had boiled down. Sitting by the fire was the cup he had set down when he must have heard my first whistle, still half full.

I added more water to the juice, built up the fire, and took a cup of the drink for myself. I was terribly thirsty. Across from me Sarek went to the emergency food supplies, opened a packet, and set it in front of me.

"Aren't you?--"

"I am not hungry," he said shortly, and stalked off into the night.

"Well!" I said, frustrated and beginning to be angry all over again. But my feet hurt too much to go after him.

I fell asleep before he got back and was out like a light all night. In the morning, I slept a bit later than usual. And when I woke, Sarek was already up, getting a drink from the fire. There was a sharp, acrid burning smell in the air, and when I looked, I saw that one of our pots had a mess of berries in it, and they'd boiled down so far they were inedible. I bit my tongue over that waste.

When Sarek saw I was awake, he brought a drink for me too. And something else he handed over with the drink, something small, and round.

"Here."

I am not always my best in the morning. I focused on it laboriously. "What--"

"It is a compass for your eyes. Since as you say, you don't have one in your head."

"Oh." I looked down at it, blinking.

"Today, I'll go with you, and teach you how to use it."

I flushed, irritated. "I can use a compass." Actually, I wasn't entirely certain that I could, but I felt sure I could learn on my own.

"And I will mark your trails. Properly."

I stared at him and then shrugged. It could have been worse. At least he wasn't going all SuperVulcan on me and insisting it wasn't safe to let me stir out of camp at all. "All right. Thank you." We breakfasted in a rather self conscious silence. "What about your work?" I asked, as Sarek took the handle of my cart, and put the pot with the burned berry juice in it.

"It can wait a day," he said, still a bit darkly. "There's hardly much point to being rescued, if I end up losing my wife and going back alone to an even worse fate."

I didn't quite like the sound of that but I let it pass. "Why are you bringing that pot? We don't need to dump it far from camp. It doesn't smell that bad."

"I don't intend to dump it. It is dye, to mark your trails."

"Oh."

Sarek also took the ax, a long pole and one of our precious rags, presumably also for trail marking.

And when he marked trails, he really marked trails. Huge gashes, stripping the bark away from trees, high up so even at a distance the signs were visible. Leaving part of the peeled bark a stark white, and other painted a deep red from the juice, that was easily visible through the green leaves of trees whether the sun was high or low. He chose trees for markers that stood a little apart, so that his markings were harder to miss even when I was off the path. And not just a V trail marker indicating the shortest distance back to camp, but with symbols for time, distance in kilometers and direction from our campsite. With different symbols for the main "alpha" trail loop, for a shortcut beta trail. For an even shorter gamma loop. He hooked up with my main trail on the other side of the alpha loop, the one I had searched for so fruitlessly yesterday, as easily as if it had been the yellow brick road to Oz with the Tin Man and the Scarecrow there to point the way. (Cowardly or not, in deference to my husband's Vulcan prejudice against cats, I am leaving the Lion out.)

"How do you do that?" I asked, frustrated as he strolled along as comfortably as if we were in our own garden on Vulcan. "Why can't I do that?"

"How can you not?" he answered, equally puzzled. "How can a people as vastly traveled as humans have never developed a directional sense?"

"I'll take it up with the complaint department the next time I'm up there at the pearly gates."

He gave me a glance. "Not anytime soon, I trust," he answered. And then took my hand.

It was apology, of sorts, for his temper yesterday. I had to smile at the non-verbal message. I squeezed his hand briefly, to let him know the apology was accepted. And then let it go.

He also showed me, for when I had to go off the marked trails for food or fuel or water, how to use the compass to get back to them.

It was actually a pretty nice day, all in all. We stopped for lunch at mid-day. And as we sat by the side of a stream, and had some fruit and drank some water, I saw something waving in the stream that stirred a memory.

"That looks almost like cress." I stripped off my shoes, and waded into the water, wincing at its coldness, avoiding Sarek's abortive grasp.

"Must you?" he asked uneasily.

"Do you want me to see if this is edible or not?"

"I want you to stay on dry land. Why is it that humans continually wish to immerse themselves--?"

"Oh, hush." I gathered a few handfuls and brought it out, shaking off the water and tasting it tentatively.

"Don't do that. It isn't safe. Let me--"

"It does taste like cress. I knew I was right. Try it."

He tasted it delicately and then raised a judicious brow. "Yes. It has some excellent nutritive qualities."

I went back in and gathered the rest of the small patch, while Sarek rather looked as if he hadn't thought of that repercussion, and wished he had said it wasn't edible.

"I wouldn't have minded something more substantial than the equivalent of lettuce," I said, coming back out, "but still, it will be a change. This will be nice for dinner, with some toasted nuts, don't you think?"

"Yes," Sarek resigned himself to the inevitable. "Just be careful going in after it. I am not adept at water rescues."

I lay back. "I'll keep that in mind. So I found another food source. See? You brought us luck today."

"Luck," Sarek said, as if it were a ridiculous statement, which to a Vulcan, I suppose it was.

"Don't be tiresome," I yawned, still tired from the death march of the previous day. "Life is not all logic, you know."

"I only meant that of all things I might have brought you to, this is hardly a fortuitous circumstance."

I gave him a glance. "Feeling contrite?"

He didn't rise to the bait. "You know me better."

"Indeed I do," I said with meaning. "It hasn't been all bad. Like now, for example. I almost wish you didn't have to go back and build that transmitter."

"What is that odd human saying?" Sarek responded, thinking through the catalog in his mind of all the odd human sayings I'd said over the years. "Bite your tongue," he finally came out with.

"I don't really mean it that way," I said. "I want to be rescued – as soon as possible. Just that it's nice, to spend some time with you this way."

"You could have, on Vulcan. And you never have."

I bit my lip, suddenly sad, wondering if we'd ever see Vulcan again. I wondered at the even tone in his last statement, and wondered what it was hiding. Was he disappointed I didn't go out on the desert with him? "You know the Forge is not my element. I wouldn't want to be in your way."

He gave me a look. "How can you possibly be in my way? You're my wife."

It was one of those moments when your emotions hit you like a punch in the stomach. I didn't want to tell Sarek how inhuman his attitude was. In a moment of closeness, you don't want to throw up a cultural wall. I didn't want to get all emotional either, because that would be a cultural wall of a different kind. But it was a gift he had given me.

I gathered myself and gave him a smile, turning my flutterings of emotion into the light teasing that had become accepted in our marriage. Human or Vulcan, we both had a sense of humor. And something more together than just humor. "Prove it."

He gave the ground a disdainful look, not misunderstanding me. "On Vulcan, it would be warm sand. These rocks and branches--"

"I'll help you clear them away. I'm useful that way."

He gave me a long level look. I knew that behind it, his supercomputer brain was calculating a number of things, air temperature, humidity (how cold that ground really would be), how much work he had to do, how improper taking time off from such work for such doings was to his Vulcan values. His own inclinations. And mine. The tenor of the day. And perhaps a general awareness that after yesterday's cross words, we both had a few things to make up.

"You're useful in many ways," he finally said.

"Such sweet nothings," I teased in earnest. "Be still my heart."

"Not for long," Sarek warned.

He was right, of course. There's nothing like a Vulcan husband intent on an amorous encounter to get one's heart racing.

Afterwards, long before my heart had settled back down from racing, he shouldered his hatchet and paint pot and his other trail marking tools and sauntered back to his own work, leaving me with the wagon and a bundle of cress and a heart that needed a good ten minutes to recover. I watched him taking a slanting short cut, far off the trail, back to camp, sure of where he was going. Back home, at least for now.

It was a nice thought. It was becoming home.

I picked up the handle of my little cart, that in my mind I'd christened the Surak, and wondered if I'd ever see him sauntering off to the Forge again. And if someday, I'd go with him.

And then I put that thought away. Best not to think about that future. And I had food to gather. And fuel to get.

And the sun was already looking a little lower in the sky.

To be continued…