Arg-117P: Day 17
"It's stardate 2230.98. I guess. It's not been a good day. The deer got into the garden again and it's raining and I'm afraid the shuttle is going to flood if this keeps up. Belinda used to hate the rain, but she grew up in El Paso so I guess that makes sense. I wonder how she's doing. I regret cursing the drought from last autumn. I don't know if it's the weather or what, but I've got some kind of skin infection on my feet and it's hurting to walk…"
A loud sigh punctuated the playback. "Please turn it off."
Sarek looked up from his calculations to see Amanda lying flat on her back on the floor, covering her eyes with the back of her hand. It was the same position she'd assumed more than two hours ago. Burying himself in the mathematical complexity of mapping the time distortion had helped keep his mind off his very pressing, very personal problem.
"Is something the matter?" Sarek asked, reluctant to be drawn into conversation with her.
"I don't want to hear about Carl Hornsby's foot fungus."
"Reviewing his logs may provide valuable insight into how better to survive on this planet."
Her hand drifted from her face and flopped onto the floor. "Oh really? What new revelations have you gleaned from these incoherent ramblings that you didn't already know? He nearly starved to death in the winter and nearly drowned in the spring. He misses his family and he doesn't understand why any of this had to happen to him. I get it."
She lifted her arms above her head, a motion that inadvertently accentuated her breasts. He immediately looked away and began performing complex mental calculations. Under any other circumstances, it would have been preferable to acknowledge his shameful thoughts and repress them rather than distract himself into ignoring them, but these were far from typical circumstances.
"What, nothing to say?" she sighed.
"Computer, end log playback." Sarek turned his attention back to the computer screen.
"What are you working on?"
"I am attempting to compile the data from Lieutenant Hornsby's shuttle and our escape pods to map the temporal distortion."
"What will that do?"
"If I could account for the exact amount of gravimetric shear, I may be able to modify the pod's distress beacon to transmit a signal beyond the region of temporal distortion."
"One that they won't get until thousands of years from now?"
"Four days ago, you said you didn't want to die like Hornsby did, alone and forgotten. You insisted we should attempt to communicate even if our transmission wouldn't be received until after we had died."
She was quiet for several minutes, which was just long enough for Sarek to fully immerse himself in his work and nearly forget she was there.
"Do you think they'll feel sorry for us?"
Sarek ground his teeth. "I do not understand the purpose of your question."
"Whoever finds our message. I mean, I feel sorry for Carl Hornsby, so I wonder what anyone who reads our little message in a bottle will think."
He twisted his neck to look at her. Nothing she had just said made any sense. "To use your highly emotional phrase, why should anyone feel sorry for us? We will be dead."
Amanda pursed her lips, forcing them into a smile. "Thanks for reminding me."
He studied her face even more closely. Was she genuinely thanking him, or employing sarcasm? He sensed it was the latter.
Her face slackened, and the softening of the muscles around her mouth gave her a very stoic appearance and he could not help but believe she was beautiful. Her eyes drifted in his direction, meeting his and sending his heart thundering in his chest, so he looked away and decided to employ the very human tactic of changing the subject.
"I am not well-studied in human euphemisms," he began, his throat suddenly dry. "What is a message in a bottle?"
"Um, its literally just what it sounds like."
They stared at each other, unblinking, giving Sarek the impression that neither of them could identify the source of the other's confusion.
"If it is literally what it sounds like, how will encapsulating a message within a bottle benefit us?"
Amanda rolled her eyes and leaned back against the wall. "I guess when I said literally, I didn't mean literally for us. It's an expression, but it's based on something people used to do. On Earth, people used to write messages on paper, put them in watertight bottles, and put them in the ocean for other people to find. They were messages to no one and most were probably never found. Kind of like our message will be, if we can even find a way to send one."
"What was the purpose of this practice?"
"Um, maybe to write a love letter or find a pen pal? Maybe there's a thrill in thinking someone on a different continent will find it? Or someone in the distant future?"
They resumed their prior activity of confused staring. The only use for a message in a bottle that Sarek could contrive was perhaps to study water currents, but all of Amanda's theories and suggestions were so irrational. And what was a pen pal? A friend that was a writing instrument? Or a friend with whom to exchange writing instruments? Or had she said pin pal? It didn't matter, because neither possibility likely had an explanation that made any more sense than the concept of a message in a bottle.
Amanda continued. "I think some people might even do it just to feel better. Maybe they write down a confession hoping no one will ever find it. Sort of like turning their cares over to the ocean."
That concept intrigued him. Evidently something in his expression had changed, because Amanda cocked an eyebrow and said, "You almost look like you're about to smile."
"No," he replied, wondering if his oncoming pon farr had already degraded his logic to the point where he could not voluntarily control his facial features. "What you describe sounds similar to the Vulcan ritual of La'tus-pitoh'a, or mourning letters."
"What is that?"
"When Vulcans are unable to cope with profound grief and have been suffering for an extended period despite intensive meditation, they often visit a temple to seek assistance from priests through complex mind melds."
"Mind melds?"
"Were you not aware most Vulcans have contact telepathic abilities?"
"I feel like I've heard that at some point but I never really thought about it. So you… what? You read each other's minds through touching one another?"
"That is a very crude description, but yes."
She thought for a moment, then her face suddenly grew pale and she drew her legs up to her chest. "Are you able to read my mind by touching me? Or does it only work on Vulcans?"
He noticed she was rubbing her arms in a circular motion, almost as if she were attempting to wash herself without soap.
"Mind melds can work on many species, but they are difficult to initiate. For most Vulcans, a true mind meld requires one individual to join their fingertips to certain sites on the other person's face and sustain intense focus. A mind meld typically cannot occur through casual contact."
"You said most Vulcans though. And what do you mean typically cannot occur through casual contact?"
He briefly thought of T'Rea, his former betrothed, who had the most powerful mind he'd ever encountered. "There are a small minority of Vulcans capable of psionic ability without the need for physical contact."
Amanda closed her mouth hard enough for him to hear the clank of her teeth before muttering, "And you? Are you… one of these people?"
He momentarily considered explaining to her that physical contact sometimes wasn't necessarily between two or more people who shared an extraordinarily powerful bond—such as the bond between mates or between parents and their children—but the look of alarm on her face suggested she strongly disliked the idea that he could know her mind, and so he gave a simplified yet truthful answer that he believed would set her at ease.
"No. I have received extensive training in the practice of mind melds, but my abilities are generally average."
Amanda stared straight ahead, chewing on her lip. Once again, Sarek was forced to look away to avoid thinking about her in ways that were less than pure. He was considering checking the tricorder to see if the weather forecast had improved, but Amanda asked, "So what is this lattice pattoh?"
Her pronunciation was so terrible it took him several seconds to recall he'd been telling her about the La'tus-pitoh'a ritual.
"I know I probably botched that word," she added. He wasn't looking at her, but he could sense from her tone that she was smiling.
"Yes, you said something suggestive of walking on one's head," he replied, unable to bring himself to face her.
Amanda laughed, which sent shivers down his spine. She had laughed so readily when they'd first met and he'd found it tedious, but now the melody was strangely pleasing. He balled his hands into fists and took several concentrated breaths.
"You know what I meant," she said when her laughter subsided. "The thing that means mourning letters."
"Prior to the ritual of melding with the priests, the supplicant writes down their thoughts surrounding their grief onto paper, then burns it in ceremonial fire."
"That sounds cathartic," she sighed. "Maybe I should try that."
"Are you grieving?"
"I don't know. Maybe. We've both lost a lot, getting stuck here like this."
"We have lost much, and yet we have retained out lives, despite incalculable odds."
"Is that supposed to be some Vulcan way of telling me to look on the bright side?"
"There is much to be grateful for."
"And there's also a lot to be sad about."
"There is no logic in sadness," Sarek replied. "It is why Vulcans seek the La'tus-pitoh'a ritual: to rid themselves of that unfortunate burden."
"Do Vulcans do anything besides sit around and logic and meditate all day?" Her tone was clipped and verging on hostile, which was threatening to make him agitated.
"Vulcans do not do logic—logic is simply a tool that provides a more efficient way of interacting with life."
She sighed. "So what do you do, when you're not being an ambassador or astrophysicist?"
"Specify."
"How do you spend your time? What do you normally do on rainy day?"
"It does not rain in Shi'Kahr, thus I have no habit of finding ways to occupy myself on rainy days."
"What do you mean it doesn't rain in Shi'Kahr? Like, ever?"
"There have been no recorded precipitation events in more than five hundred years."
"So how do people live there, if there's no water?"
"I did not say there was no water. Much of the equatorial region of Vulcan lacks a defined water cycle similar to that of Earth, but it does not make it incompatible with life. There are many underground sources of water that originate from wetter areas of the planet that sustain the populace and the native flora and fauna."
"That's interesting," she mused. "I knew it was a hot, dry place, but it's incredible to think it never rains. Even the driest places on Earth get occasional rainfall. But I guess that also explains why you don't need as much water as I do, if your species was able to evolve somewhere like that."
Sarek saw no need to respond to her statement—she was correct. He returned to analyzing the compiled data, but had been working for less than ten seconds when Amanda asked, "So is that where you're from?"
His mind stalled as he tried to shift his focus. "What?"
"Shi'Kahr, is that where you're from?"
He turned in his chair to face her once again and found that she had adopted a prone position, lying on her belly with her elbows on the floor and her hands resting under her chin, supporting her head. Her casual posture was oddly appealing.
"Sarek?"
"What?"
"Why are you staring at me?" she scoffed. "Or are you trying to remember where you're from?"
"I do not believe I was," he answered quickly, adding to clarify, "Staring at you. And yes, I am from Shi'Kahr."
"Isn't that the capital city of Vulcan?"
"It is the name of both the capital city and the province in which that city resides."
"So are you a city boy or did you grow up in the province?"
"My family has an estate forty kilometers from the main city center."
"An estate, wow."
"What is so remarkable about this revelation?"
"An estate implies money, or landed gentry, or some idea of upper class. I grew up in a two bedroom apartment in New Chicago with my mom."
"I see."
"So what did you do on this estate in Shi'Kahr?"
"I have already explained I was an astro-"
"I meant what did you do for fun," she interrupted. "Surely it's logical to have fun? Or to have hobbies? Or to relax, occasionally?"
"Why are you so concerned with how I once occupied my leisure time?"
"Because I'm trying to get to know you," she responded, flicking her eyes in his direction. "Is it so weird that I want to know about the person I'm going to spend the rest of my life with?"
"And you believe knowledge of the fact that I enjoy music or wehk-pukan will allow you to know me better?"
"Won't it?"
"Knowing generic facts about a person is not the same as knowing them."
"It's a place to start, though," she challenged. "And what is whack pookan?"
Sarek did his best to ignore her atrocious pronunciation and simply replied, "It is a competitive form of martial arts."
"Martial arts? Like karate?"
"I do not know what karate is."
"It's a kind of martial arts, I guess," she replied, before shaking her head and staring up at the ceiling. "Wait, I need a second to process this. You do martial arts? Like, fighting people and stuff?"
"Yes. As I have stated on a previous occasion, why do you so often respond to any answer I give with incredulity?"
"Because I thought Vulcans were pacifists."
"That is incorrect."
Amanda flashed a broad smile and pushed herself up onto her knees, then folded her legs around her into a crossed position to sit. "I obviously don't know as much about Vulcans as you do, but I'm pretty sure I remember learning in my high school interspecies culture class that one of the chief tenets of Vulcan philosophy is non-violence."
"That is correct, but an abhorrence of violence is not the same as pacifism. Peace is always to be preferred, but war and violence are occasionally necessary."
"So how do you reconcile this non-violence with martial arts? I know there's more to martial arts than violence, but fighting is part of it, and isn't fighting by definition a kind of violence?"
"Since the time of Surak, Vulcans have acknowledged the necessity of maintaining certain skillsets, primarily as a means of self-defense. There is nothing more logical than the pursuit of a long and prosperous life, and to live, one must first survive, and if one is to survive, one must acknowledge that measured violence may occasionally be necessary."
Her face fell slightly and her eyes drifted toward her hands, which were sitting in her lap. "Do you think we'll survive here?"
"We are surviving now," he reminded her.
"Yeah, but for how long?"
Sensing she was on the verge of opining about the direness of their situation, he replied, "That is unknown, but neither was there any certainty to the length of our lives when we were in contact with civilization. I do not know if we will ever experience life away from this planet again, but ours is not a situation without hope, and there is strength in hope."
She stared at her hands for a long time, and he had begun to believe she was meditating and began to turn back to the computer when she sighed and asked, "So you said you liked music… do you play an instrument? Sing? Just enjoy listening to it?"
"I play the ka'athyra."
"What is that?"
"It is a stringed instrument."
"Like a harp, like a guitar, like a violin?"
"I do not know what any of those are."
Despite the fact that he had not asked her to, she proceeded to explain what each instrument was in turn, including attempting to mimic the sounds of each with her mouth. Eventually she decided to find some songs on her PADD she believed would serve as worthy demonstrations of each kind of instrument.
In the middle of a soothing harp solo that she had informed him was Canon in D, she suddenly asked, "How do you spell katheera?"
Sarek thought to himself for a moment, trying to decide on the closest phonetic Standard relatives to the Vulcan syllables before he was able to spell "ka'athyra" for her. Several seconds later, a soft, instrumental lullaby echoed through the cabin, bringing with it a wave of nostalgia Sarek hadn't anticipated. His mother had often sung this song to him when he was a small child.
"This is what it sounds like?" Amanda asked.
He looked over his shoulder to see her tapping the screen of her PADD to examine several images of different ka'athyras.
"Yes." He closed his eyes and saw his mother's face, and for the first time since the incident aboard the Bell, he admitted that he missed her. He missed his family. He missed home.
It had stopped raining in the night, but the ground was still a sloppy mess and it was so humid that it might as well have been raining. Amanda wiped her damp face with the back of her hand and was annoyed to find that not only was there mud on her glove, but she'd just smeared it all over her forehead.
"We will still need to seal the logs of the roof with tree sap," Sarek said from behind her.
Amanda pulled her gloves off and rested her hands on her hips. She glanced at the modest little shack they'd spent all day erecting to keep their firewood dry, and then looked up at the sky.
Thick clouds blotted out the sun so she couldn't precisely gauge the time, but she knew from the shifting light that it had to be late afternoon. "How much sap do we need? And did you get it from those silvery blue trees or the ones with the six-pointed leaves?"
"I will collect it," Sarek replied, not bothering to look at her.
"Ok then, I guess I can either cut more wood for our new shack or I can go back to digging holes for root cellars."
"I would recommend digging holes while the ground is soft." He picked up a small container and began walking toward the tree line.
"So I take it you're going to go get the sap now?" she called after him.
"Yes."
She rolled her eyes and sat down on the ramp leading up to the pod entrance. She was exhausted and hungry, and the idea of digging more holes sounded about as appealing as putting her hand in a wood chipper. It had taken all day to build the firewood shelter, and the task had been made even more physically grueling because of the mud.
They had spent all morning slogging through the forest to find the right trees, cut them down, and drag the logs back to camp, and from there, Sarek had cut and measured the joints. It was amazing how quickly and easily it had come together from there, more like pitching a tent or putting together a puzzle than building a firewood shack.
She would have asked him where he'd learned to do all of this, but she suspected he would have given her some short, curt answer about simple mathematics and so she decided to save her breath. Being cooped up with him in pod yesterday had been as boring as it had been awkward.
It was hard enough trying to come to terms with her new reality without his constant presence. He pulled his weight, which she appreciated, but he was so aloof that it made her uncomfortable. There was no way to get a feel for what he was like as a person because he was so closed off, and earlier that morning she'd come to the conclusion that he hated her.
It wasn't just that he didn't want to talk to her, he didn't even seem to want to look at her. Amanda had lived much of her adult life by a code that stipulated there was no point in caring too much what others thought about her, just so long as she was true to herself and generally treated others with respect, but now it occurred to her that her personal policy was currently falling very short.
Sarek didn't like her, but she couldn't just write him out of her life in favor of finding more positive people to be around. She was stuck with him and for the first time since high school, she found herself deeply upset by the idea that someone didn't like her.
Was it that she talked too much? Was it that she'd asked too many personal questions too soon? Did he think she was lazy and not working hard enough? He was Vulcan—maybe he thought she was too emotional.
But so what if she was emotional? She was human, she was allowed. Any human would be reasonably upset by the current situation. She went back and forth, struggling to reconcile the idea that he should accept her for who she was with the feeling that maybe she could try a little harder to control herself out of respect for who he was. But he had said he was an ambassador to Earth, so surely he was used to dealing with humans.
She started scraping the mud from her forehead and decided to stop driving herself crazy with speculation about why Sarek didn't like her. The best thing to do would be to just ask him outright. They might be very different people, but they could still be mature adults who could talk through their problems with one another.
A dry run of the conversation streamed through her head. She might say something like, "Why do you hate me?" to which he would probably reply, "Hate is illogical." The word hate was probably too strong, she decided, so perhaps she should be more diplomatic in her phrasing. What if she tried, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've noticed you don't seem to enjoy being around me. What can we do to fix that?"
She closed her eyes and tried to imagine how he would respond. What if he just did what he always did when she asked him an uncomfortable question, which was to stand rigidly and avoid looking at her? No doubt his hands would start shaking too.
Amanda was getting the sense that his shaking hands were something Sarek would prefer not to talk about. He clearly tried to hide it, either by clenching his hands into fists or tucking them behind his back, but she noticed all the same. She didn't know anything about Vulcans, but no one's hands would shake for no reason.
Maybe he hated her so much that his shaking hands were some kind of physical response. She laughed at such a ridiculous thought. She toyed with the idea of malnutrition but dismissed it. He was still thin and underfed, but he'd grown a lot stronger in the short week since they'd first met. What if he had some kind of neurological disease?
She remembered her granddad on her father's side used to have hand tremors and he'd refused to get treatment for several years until that one awkward Thanksgiving when he'd dropped the gravy boat and her grandmother caused a scene at the dinner table and threatened to divorce him if he didn't go to the hospital right then and there. He'd ended up having something called Parkinson's, but he'd gotten surgery and the hand tremors went away.
Amanda swallowed hard and hoped against hope he didn't have some Vulcan equivalent of Parkinson's disease. There was no telling how long it would take to get to the nearest hospital. As much as she dreaded the prospect of spending the rest of her life with him, the thought of spending the rest of her life without him was scary.
Rather than continue to dwell on her problems, she bounced to her feet and reached for the shovel, but her body protested with every muscle movement. She literally did not have the energy to spend the next several hours shoveling mud to bury more retrofitted root cellars, and the idea of swinging an axe and maul was even more ludicrous. Yet she also didn't want Sarek to come back and find she'd done nothing while he was gone, so she grabbed a hand trowel and a bucket and went to go hunt for tuberous root vegetables.
Wading through the waist-high blue-green grass was work in its own way. The ground was so saturated with water that the soil had turned into a boggy nightmare, and at least a kilogram of mud caked each of her boots. Several times she sunk down up to her knees and literally had to crawl to free herself. How could it be this much work, just to live?
When she reached the edge of the forest, she plopped into a sitting position, figuring there was no point in trying to stay clean when the lower half of her body was already plastered in mud. She pulled up several dozen of the small onion-like vegetables, then shifted forward on her hands and knees to reach several more that were further away. She struck a huge knot of them and extracted them by the handful until her spade struck the root system of a nearby tree, covering her hand in sticky sap.
Wasn't this the sap Sarek had come to harvest? She looked around. Where was he? Why had he gone deep into the forest when what he'd been looking for was right here? Her mind became active with possibilities, most of which featured some central theme of him trying to avoid her presence.
It shouldn't have bothered her, because she didn't want to be around Sarek all the time either, but it still did. Why did he dislike her so much? She spent another hour digging for root vegetables, filling the bucket to the point where she had to start creatively stacking the onions to get them to fit, but Sarek still hadn't emerged from the forest. It was going to be dark soon.
Rather than take the literal fruits of her hard work back to their camp, she contrived an excuse about wanting to wash the mud from her boots in the pond and headed into the forest to look for Sarek. And wash the mud from her boots, of course. She stuck close to the usual path, finding herself unable to avoid several deep mud puddles, but Sarek was nowhere to be seen.
Amanda stopped at the gravelly beach where she normally collected water. A flash of movement in the distance alerted her to the presence of two armadillaphants on the opposite side of the large pond, and suddenly she felt worried. Where had he gone? She headed in the direction of the setting sun, following the shoreline as best she could.
She walked and walked, doing her best to swallow her panic but feeling less capable with each passing minute. Just as she was debating whether she should start calling out to him, she spied an unusual dark shape through a copse of trees. It took her eyes a second to focus, but there was no mistake, it was Sarek. But what was he doing?
She backtracked and wound up a rocky trail to a tall ledge overlooking the pond about a hundred meters from his location. He was kneeling with his hands draped on his knees, and it was hard to tell in the fast-fading light from this distance, but he seemed to be muttering to himself. Was he praying? Meditating? Indignation started to set in. He could meditate in the pod, but instead he'd chosen to lie about collecting sap and waste daylight to come out here by himself while she kept working. And he'd scared her half to death. And yet...
Guilt would not allow her anger to continue. Just two days ago, she'd done a very similar thing. Instead of collecting water, she'd stripped off her clothes and wandered into the freezing pond like a crazy person. Who was she to judge him?
It pained her to think she'd spent so much time wrapped up in how devastating this whole thing was for her to really stop and consider Sarek. He'd continually insisted that it was illogical to be upset about being stuck here, but he'd never actually come out and said that he wasn't upset, just that there was no logic in being upset. For all his stone-faced, dispassionate acting, maybe deep down he was struggling to cope too.
Suddenly she was intruding upon a private moment, rather than busting him for shamming out of work or avoiding her. She started to head back, but she was only three steps into her journey when a rock that should have been secure slipped off the edge of the short cliff. She remembered the exhilarating feeling of falling, the terror-motivated screaming, and the sight of the huge broken tree she was about to fall on. Then there was pain, then there was nothing.
"Amanda?"
Someone was shaking her shoulder. Who? Her dad? No, that didn't make sense. Probably Sarek. Why couldn't he just let her sleep? There was a long pause, then the shaking grew more violent. A warm hand pressed onto her face, sending an involuntary shiver went through her body.
"What do you want?" she whined, swatting his hand away. The warmth of his palm disappeared from her face. Why was it so cold? Why was she wet? She opened her eyes and was surprised by twilight. Why was she outside?
A Vulcan face popped into her field of view. Sarek had a thick streak of mud slathered on the left side of his face and he was staring at her with a pressing look of concern. She rapidly blinked, hoping her brain would restart and help her figure out what had happened.
She tried to sit up, but the pain nearly made her black out. It hurt so bad she couldn't easily localize it, but the throbbing seemed to be coming from her right thigh.
"Can you feel your legs?" Sarek asked.
"Yes," she choked. "It hurts so bad. What happened?"
"You fell."
"From where?" The instant the question escaped her lips, it all came rushing back to her. She'd been wandering around the woods looking for him, she'd caught him meditating, and then…
Amanda shuddered. Despite the pain, she twisted her torso around to look at the lower half of her body. She couldn't help it: she screamed. Her right leg was twisted at an ungodly angle. It barely even looked like a leg.
"Please, try to remain calm," Sarek encouraged.
She gripped the front of his shirt with white knuckles and through incoherent sobbing, told him all manner of things about not wanting to die and begging him to tell her this wasn't happening.
"I am going to go get the bone knitter," he told her, firmly gripping her fists to loosen her grip.
"You can't leave me here," she hissed. "Please, please don't leave me here."
"I will return as quickly as possible."
Amanda uttered a panicked squeak and scanned the area. It was so dark she could barely see more than three meters away. "Please don't leave me here alone."
"Amanda, I cannot carry you out of here without further aggravating your injury. Even if I could, I do not believe you could endure the pain."
The rational part of her brain knew he was right, but the animal part of her brain refused to be left alone, broken and bleeding by a pond on an alien planet in the dark.
"Please don't let me die," she sobbed. "I don't want to die."
"I do not want you to die either," he said, his tone so polite and matter-of-fact that it frightened her. "Now, I am going to return to the pod-"
"Whatever I did, I'm sorry," she interrupted.
"Why do you apologize?"
"I don't know," she wailed, trying to wipe the tears from her face. "I don't know what I did to make you hate me, but I'm so sorry and please don't let me die."
"I do not hate you, Amanda," he replied, his tone softer. "But I must go. I do not think you will survive here long like this. If you want to live, you must allow me to go."
She nodded, closed her eyes, and rested her head back down in the mud. By the time she reopened her eyes just seconds later, Sarek was already gone. Her fear began to dilate like a massive balloon, but the harder her heart thumped, the more her leg hurt.
She tried to take some slow breaths but nearly ended up hyperventilating instead. She'd spent the past few days drowning in sorrow, contemplating the futility of living like this, but now that she was legitimately staring down death, she wanted nothing more than to keep on living. Her teeth started to chatter and she was trying to estimate how far away the pod was when a rustling in the bushes made her hair stand on end.
"Sarek?" she whispered.
No answer.
There had been armadillaphants on the other side of the pond, but from her current position and the direction of the sound, there was no way an animal that massive and clunky could have snuck up on her. The image of the huge three-toed tracks around Hornsby's shuttle popped into her head and she slid her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming.
Another rustling sound broke through the darkness, closer this time and very unmistakable. Amanda clenched her jaw and stared up at the stars overhead through a small break in the clouds. What else could she do but play dead?
"Please, Sarek," she pleaded mentally. "Please hurry."