T'Aramu

by Susie49

The 'Enterprise' is sent to survey a colonised planet decimated by nuclear war 200 years ago, so survivors are the last thing they expect to find. And when one of the survivors, a powerful telepath, is linked by accident to both Kirk and Spock, no-one could have predicted the impact she would have on their lives...

10. Chapter 10

T'ARAMU by Sue Newlands

CHAPTER TEN – VULCAN

'Spock,' said McCoy, sticking his head round his office door, 'got a minute?'

Spock paused in his measured pace down the corridor and replied,

'A moment only, Dr McCoy. I am on my way to the bridge.'

'This won't take long.' McCoy gestured him into the office and continued, 'Its about Sally.'

'Miss Kilsyth?' Spock's face assumed, if that were possible, an even more withdrawn cast than usual.

'And how many other Sallys do we know?' McCoy demanded. 'Have you spoken to her recently?'

'As I am sure you are aware, doctor, we have been on the same bridge shift for the past eleven days. Our last discussion, since it seems to be of interest to you, concerned the inter-field anomalies…'

'No, Spock, blast it, that's not what I'm talking about,' McCoy snapped, inwardly cursing the Vulcan's literal-mindedness which was making this conversation even more difficult than he had anticipated. 'She's still complaining that she's 'fuzzy'. I'm not trying to pry but her health, telepathic or otherwise, is my business and I'm worried. I just wondered if she'd said anything to you about it, that's all.'

'She has not mentioned anything of the sort to me,' Spock said, and did not add that Sally had been avoiding him since their release from Sickbay. 'This is most disturbing. What course of treatment do you recommend?'

'There isn't much I can do for her, as you know. What I'd like is for her to spend some time with T'Pern, the woman who trained her.'

'But T'Pern is on Vulcan.'

'Yes, Spock,' McCoy said patiently. 'I know she is. And that's where I'd like Sally to go. We're all getting shore leave in any case during this refit that's coming up and I could kill two birds with one stone by sending her to Vulcan.'

'That seems perfectly straightforward to me, doctor. Why, then, are you consulting me?'

'Because she doesn't want to go and nothing I've said so far has changed her mind.'

'Then exert your authority.'

McCoy snorted.

'On Sally? You know better than that. The last time I brought the subject up she retired to her cabin for a sit in sulk and threw a shoe at me when I tried to reason with her.'

'Doctor,' Spock said primly, 'the physical and mental health of the crew is your prime consideration. If Miss Kilsyth is refusing to undertake the treatment you prescribe then your brief allows you to order her to do so, no matter what objections she raises.'

'I'm very well aware of what my brief allows me to do,' McCoy retorted. 'It's just that Sally's objections tend to be extremely loud and, on occasion, distinctly hazardous to my health.'

'Surely your facilities here can provide you with a pair of ear plugs.'

'Spock,' said McCoy suspiciously, 'did you just make a joke?'

'Certainly not.' The Vulcan looked affronted. 'I merely made a suggestion based on my knowledge of the volume of decibels Miss Kilsyth can achieve when she sets her mind to it.'

'Well, thanks a lot, Spock, but actually,' said McCoy, taking the plunge, 'I was looking for suggestions of a more… practical nature.'

'Such as?'

'Such as how to get Sally to Vulcan without knocking her out and gagging her.'

'I fail to see how I can help you achieve that object.'

'Aren't you spending your leave with your parents? I was wondering if you could possibly invite Sally to go with you. She really likes your mother. And if you were there, you could make sure she actually went to her classes. Of course, I wouldn't want to impose on your family…'

There was a pause. Then,

'I am sure my mother would be perfectly amenable to the suggestion, if you believe Miss Kilsyth will accept the invitation.'

'Oh, I think I can pretty much guarantee that,' McCoy said.

Kirk, meantime, was calling on Sally in her cabin.

She looked her usual picture of blazing health, but Kirk knew she was unhappy. He also knew that, for the first time in all the years he had known her, she did not have a lover – a situation unprecedented in his experience.

She welcomed his visit without much eagerness, but he affected not to notice this and sat down on the bed, watching her as she put up her hair before going on duty.

'I need your advice, Sally.'

'What's new about that? Fire away, Cap'n Jim.'

'It's about Spock.'

'Spock?' Her expression was unusually guarded. 'What about him?'

'You know him as well as I do, and you also know he'd never admit he needs a rest. And he is looking… strained these days.'

'Agreed on all counts,' Sally said, watching his expression closely in her mirror. 'So?'

'So I think it would be a good idea for him to take his shore leave on Vulcan, with his family. But unless I make it a direct order, I don't think he'll do it. He'll probably stay on board for the re-fit, supervising the overhaul of the library computer.'

She turned to look at him directly then, a clear and questing gaze, and Kirk was visited by a momentary qualm. Spock, to whom the word 'subterfuge' was only a term in military language, was likely to accept what McCoy told him at face value. Sally, on the other hand, was a five star general when it came to the relationships between the sexes and all the subtleties involved therein; was she going to see through this stratagem all too clearly?

'Am I to provide him with a reason for going that does not require him to admit to a weakness on his own part?'

So – she had seen that much of it.

'If,' Kirk said, very carefully, 'we could tell him that it's vital for you to work with T'Pern again – and it wouldn't do you any harm – I think I can persuade him to invite you to stay with his parents again. After that, Vulcan courtesy would dictate that he went with you.'

'Would it?' She turned away from him again, unaware in that moment that the mirror reflected a face which was confused and dejected. He had to make a real effort to sit where he was, not tell her that he was doing all he could to make sure his two best friends had their happy ending. Then she was smiling at him, the woman who was his friend and Spock's, who would do anything to save either of them from harm.

'Okay, Cap'n Jim. If you think it'll work, I'll be your bait.'

Kirk stood up and deliberately messed up her neat curls.

'I knew I could count on you,' he said.

The chief conspirators met up in Kirk's cabin some ten minutes later.

'Well?' McCoy asked, as Kirk poured out the drinks.

Kirk grinned.

'She swallowed it,' he said, handing McCoy a glass. 'And Spock?'

'Hook, line and sinker,' McCoy said with satisfaction.

The glasses chinked together.

Kirk and McCoy were as satisfied as they could be with their undercover work, given that Spock and, more recently Sally, had been at pains to hide their feelings from each other as well as the world. There were far too many things to go wrong with their nebulous plan if neither of them were at hand to help things along.

It was therefore an unexpected bonus when Spock, possibly feeling there was safety in numbers, formally invited both Kirk and McCoy to also spend their leave on Vulcan. Another two brandies were secretly consumed on the strength of this proposal.

Kirk had another reason for looking forward to the visit. Eowyn, currently on a joint mission to Denevan with Sarek, would be joining them for the latter part of their stay.

Sally was exceedingly interested in this piece of information.

'Sally,' Kirk said, eyeing the assorted mounds of bags and cases lining the transporter room walls, 'what the hell have you got in there?'

'Clothes,' Sally said briefly.

'We're going to Vulcan, not some polar wasteland.'

'I know that,' Sally informed him indignantly. 'I've only packed hot weather gear.'

Kirk eyed askance the floating smock she wore. It fell from neck to feet in a series of loose, shimmering folds and was undoubtedly suitable for Vulcan's heat-baked climate. It was also almost completely transparent and she was wearing very little underneath it.

'God help us,' he sighed.

'What did you say?' Sally demanded, bristling.

Fortunately, Spock and McCoy walked in before battle could be fairly joined. Each was carrying a small holdall.

'See?' Kirk said, pointing. 'None of us is taking the equivalent of three large wardrobes.'

'None of you,' said Sally, smiling sweetly at him, 'have got my figure.'

Kirk had to admit that this was undeniable, though he was not sure he understood its relevance, since Sally's chief method of displaying this asset was to wear as little as was decently possible.

They mounted the transporter platform. Scott, who was taking the ship on to Starbase 11, said from behind the console,

'Have a grand time, now. Dinna worry, Captain. The ship's in guid hands.'

'I know, Scotty. Take good care of her.'

'That I will, sir,' Scott assured him.

They materialised, as Kirk had on the occasion of his last visit, in Amanda Sarek's gracious garden. She was waiting for them there, serene and as lovely as ever, with a slight smile of welcome on her face.

Her eyes fell on Sally, and widened momentarily.

'I see you haven't changed, Sally,' she said.

'Not at all,' Sally replied cheerfully, correctly and unconcernedly divining the meaning behind this statement. 'Smack 'em between the eyes at fifty paces, that's still my motto. It's great to see you, Amanda.'

'And you,' Amanda said, responding to Sally's hearty hug and kiss with a salute that was more restrained, but just as affectionate. She welcomed her son and other guests and made her way up to the house, arm in arm with Sally, saying, 'I believe all of the florists in Shi'Khar have stocked up on red roses in anticipation of a surge in business…'

Kirk, watching them together, was visited with an uneasy feeling that he might have miscalculated somewhere. No two women could have been more unalike, yet Amanda was a human who, in her younger days, might have been as demonstrative and open as Sally was now. Since her marriage to Sarek she had accepted the Vulcan way of life by choice as well as by custom, and its dignity suited her quiet beauty well.

There was absolutely no situation Kirk could envisage where Sally, that gaudy creature, would behave in the demure and submissive manner a Vulcan would consider proper in a wife. And Spock had chosen to live as a Vulcan. Could he in all seriousness be considering such an unsuitable pairing?

'You thinking what I'm thinking?' Kirk muttered to McCoy.

'Sure am, Jim,' McCoy muttered back. 'But you know me. I've never let centuries of Vulcan tradition get in my way…'

Dinner that first night went well. Kirk and McCoy, out of uniform for the first time in as long as either of them could remember, seemed to slough off their responsibilities with their outfits and became simply old friends, not captain and chief medic. Spock, very elegant in traditional Vulcan garb, took Sarek's place at the head of the table and was a courteous and attentive host. Amanda's cuisine was superb, her person no less so.

And, of course, there was Sally.

There had been times Kirk believed the superlative had not yet been invented which could describe her beauty, and tonight she was simply beyond words. With her hair piled regally on top of her head and poppy-red tendrils flaming at her forehead, she was clad in a long and full-skirted gown of no particular colour but when she moved, the pale, sheeny fabric glittered with iridescent flashes of purple, blue, pink, green and gold. The fine bones of her face and bare shoulders gleamed like old ivory and around her neck she wore a collar of delicate stones, each tiny circle spinning with rainbow lights.

Sally was essentially an earthy woman – not in the coarse sense but because she had both feet firmly planted on the ground, and in reality. Her beauty, too, had never been a spiritual thing demanding worship, merely a feature of a warm and generous woman who was always human.

But tonight she was Ariel, spun-clouds and gossamer. Tonight she was the T'Aramu.

It could hardly have been more fitting that here on Vulcan she should assume the persona of her namesake, for Vulcans and Romulans have many things in common and one of these, Kirk had discovered, was the legend of the T'Aramu.

Sally, T'Aramu, Firewoman, She Who Flies on the Wind, she was all of these.

She was also – Kirk's.

As Spock stood by Kirk's side, and under his command – and by his own choice – then so did Sally. The Vulcan would say respect and duty kept him there – and mean love.

Sally would just say love.

Spock was the comrade of a hundred adventures, their now legendary friendship the result of years learning to trust each other, learning to care and to admit that they cared.

Sally had walked in there, into his mind, the easy path – and it had never mattered. With her, the isolation of command had ended forever because there was now one person who knew exactly what he suffered, who would comfort, advise, sympathise and even argue with him if he needed her – and keep silent if he did not. The day when he had feared his ability to command would be affected by her presence had died for good during the link's long silence. He had known then that, although he did not need her to function, did not depend on her, the warmth of her presence in his mind had become a part of him he did not want to lose. It no longer mattered he could hide little from her. She loved him, so he held her – not always willingly, not always silently – but he held her under his command. Sally's power and Spock's abilities could have led them down many paths away from Kirk, and still they remained by his side.

Whatever happened here, it would always be so.

Kirk, Spock and the T'Aramu. Stand them together, and what in the Universe could gainsay them?

-Jim-

Sally's voice, soft, for him alone. He looked over at her and only when he saw her blurred outline did he realise his eyes had filled with tears.

-Did you get that?-

-Some. Enough. You're right. Always. With you-

She reached out one delicate hand to him and he took it between both of his own, holding it so tightly that he must have hurt her, but she made no protest. Her own woodsmoke violet eyes were glittering with a moisture which had nothing to do with his grip on her fingers.

Then she grinned at him and through the link came laughter and an effervescent lightness spread over the profound emotion still echoing between them.

-What?-

-We're on Vulcan, for God's sake. All this illogical love business is in the worst possible taste-

He laughed out loud at that, drawing every eye upon him, and kissed Sally's hand before he let it go.

After dinner, Sally took possession of the couch where she looked so lovely that no-one had the heart to ask her to make room. Amanda, sitting on a chair by her side, seemed more than content to let her guest be the centre of attention.

'What are your plans for tomorrow, Sally?' McCoy asked.

'Sleep,' Sally replied instantly. 'Shop. Play chess.' ('Not with me,' Kirk interposed.) 'Sit in the garden and read books, if Spock and Amanda will allow me to raid their library.'

'Certainly, if you have time,' Spock said. 'However, you have appointments with T'Pern each morning in the Meditation Centre.'

'Don't I get even one day of holiday?' Sally protested, resting her chin on the arm of the couch and gazing soulfully at Spock with the forlorn air of a kitten who has just been unreasonably deprived of a bowl of milk. Kirk, not even attempting to mask the smile this expression induced in him, asked,

'Is it so much like work?'

'Hmmmm, no,' Sally said hesitantly. 'Though it's hard, like…like being a gymnast but you've had an accident that's put you out of action for six months. You still know how to make the moves, but you have to train your muscles all over again. It stretches you. It…' She waved her hand vaguely through the air and Spock said,

'Dilates.'

She nodded, and added, with her eyes half closed,

'Cosmic… there's so much space inside a mind, you just wouldn't believe it… infinity with boundaries.'

'Which is a distinct contradiction in terms,' Spock said, in the Vulcan tone.

Sally sat up straight and retorted briskly,

'It was meant to be, Spock, don't be pompous.'

'Sally, the Vulcan science of mind is precise above all else. Emotive inaccuracies are not the best way of describing its function.'

Sally's skirts billowed and scintillated with hundreds of points of flashing colour as she turned to face him, and smiled. Kirk saw comradeship suddenly spring into life between them again.

'Inaccuracies aside, you understood what I meant. Didn't you?'

'To understand is not necessarily to approve,' Spock said primly.

He is baiting her, Kirk thought. He is doing it deliberately, and enjoying it.

'Spock,' Sally said crossly, 'I really hate your habit of weaselling out of an argument by going all Vulcan on me.'

'I happen to be right,' Spock said.

'You just sound right,' Sally snapped, her eyes beginning to flash.

'Stop fighting,' Kirk said automatically.

'It's a discussion,' Sally and McCoy said in unison, at which point Sally began to snort with hysterical laughter and fell off the couch in an undignified tangle of skirts and hair.

'I'm afraid this is Sally's idea of after-dinner conversation,' Kirk said apologetically to Amanda, after order had been restored and Sally had regained a modicum of precarious control. 'Are you sure you can put up with a month of it?'

'Don't forget, she has stayed here before, and things were… lively.' Amanda rested an affectionate hand on Sally's bright head for a moment. 'Besides, I find her refreshing. I must admit, Sally says many things I have often wanted to, and never quite dared to.'

'Why not?' Sally wanted to know. 'It's easy.'

'For you, I daresay it is,' Amanda said, watching her son out of the corner of her eye. 'You only have the one Vulcan to deal with, after all.'

'One is more than enough,' McCoy was heard to mutter darkly.

'Oh, bring 'em all on,' Sally said lightly, waving a magnanimous hand. 'They are only people.'

And it was that small phrase which finally brought Sally into clear focus for Kirk, and he understood how it was she had been able to make friends wherever she chose, finally winning for herself even a Vulcan's trust.

Because she did not categorise. She did not label. She had no patience with pre-conceptions and made no judgements. She treated everyone she met with the same warm familiarity, offered her friendship without restrictions or conditions, asked for nothing in return that was beyond their power to give.

Because she asked for nothing, she was always victorious. Had won over Kirk, then McCoy and finally even Spock. She made no conscious effort to be loved. She was a law of nature, and as such, irresistible.

Kirk came out of this reverie to hear Amanda say,

'Sally, it's not polite in any culture to insult your host and threatening to 'sock him a good one' is quite beyond the pale.'

'He started it,' said the law of nature, with a martial light in her eye.

'You really must restrain your impulse to resort to physical violence when you are losing an argument,' Spock said disapprovingly.

'If he will insist on speaking to me in that infuriating smug way, what else can I do but hit him?' Sally said to Amanda. 'Anyway, I wasn't losing the argument, I was just marshalling my forces. If you think for one minute…'

Kirk decided the time had come to exert his authority.

'Sally, shut up,' he said.

'But, Jim…'

He stood up, stretched out a hand and hauled her, protesting, to her feet.

'It's time for your pre-beauty sleep walk. Coming, Bones?'

'I'm not tired,' Sally objected, by no means pleased with her schedule for the rest of the evening.

'I realise that, but I hope you will be after I've marched you round the garden fifty times,' Kirk replied, and heard Amanda give a tiny chuckle.

'Count me out of that,' McCoy said, less enthusiastic. 'I'll watch.'

'It'll be good for you,' Kirk said ruthlessly, ushering them both towards the open window. 'Besides, it's time Spock and his mother had a little privacy.'

'Oh, that's fair. Come on then, race you both.'

'In that get-up?' McCoy asked incredulously, but she was already gone, picking up her heavy skirts and kicking off her shoes. Kirk hesitated for a split second and went after her. McCoy followed at a much more sedate pace, muttering, 'They are mad, both of them.'

Amanda rose from her chair, gesturing the beam-operated main light off as she did so. The room suddenly filled with starlight and the silver glow from T'Khut, so close they could almost have touched it. She stood quite still, hands folded calmly in front of her, watching her son. She could see his profile quite clearly, though the eyes were in shadow.

'The captain is behaving most illogically,' Spock complained.

'He's human, and on holiday. A combination that does strange things to one's logic circuits, I assure you.'

'I am aware of it,' Spock replied. His eyes were fixed on the garden, and Amanda turned her head to see what he was watching.

Over the calm white pathways and elegant flowerbeds, Sally Kilsyth was giving a highly convincing impersonation of a hoyden. Her rich laughter bubbled across the silence as she darted from place to place, her dress glimmering and glowing like the heady sparkle of a fallen star. It looked as though she and Kirk were playing a game of tag, albeit an extremely undisciplined one.

'She has absolutely no conception of proper behaviour,' Spock said, indignantly. 'She is a grown woman, and she acts like a child.'

Amanda moved closer and stole a look at the shadowed face. What she saw there made her say, gently probing,

'She is enchanting, though, isn't she?'

There was a long silence. As Amanda held her breath, Sally performed a series of inelegant cartwheels across the lawn. Then Spock turned to face his mother and said, very deliberately,

'Yes. She is.'

The days assumed a pattern very quickly. They rose early to gain the benefit of the relative coolness of the morning air, enjoying a leisurely breakfast together before Sally departed for her lessons at the meditation centre. Spock and Amanda were excellent hosts. If their guests wanted to sit about and read or play chess, they were accommodated; if they were feeling more energetic, there was always a suggestion ready for a place to see or visit. Thus Spock conducted both Kirk and McCoy to the Fire Plains and the spectacular Vulcan's Forge, and the superb architecture of the temple of Amonak.

Sally took great exception to this, as these visits took place while she was otherwise engaged, and she cornered Spock one afternoon to expostulate that it wasn't fair, she was working and they were all on holiday, she hadn't seen much of Vulcan during her last visit and unless he wanted to witness a tantrum of massive proportions he had better see to it that something was planned to include her, immediately. She managed this entire sentence without once drawing breath.

As a result of this conversation, Kirk found himself being rudely awakened very early the next day by Sally, who came charging into his room without bothering to knock.

'Okay, Kirk, rise and shine!' she shrieked, crossing the floor in two leaps and bouncing on to the bed beside him. 'We're all going out today come hell or pathetic excuses, so get dressed.'

'Out?' Kirk repeated, sitting up and clutching at a dangerously shifting sheet. 'Out? It's the middle of the night.'

'Sun's up,' Sally retorted, 'and so had you better be, pretty quick, or nasty things will happen to you. Put your clothes on at once.'

'Where are we going?' Kirk asked, deciding not to comment on the fact that Sally herself, as usual, could hardly be described as 'clothed'.

Sally swung her legs over his body to sit cross-legged beside him, and assumed the pleading expression of a pitiful orphan without a friend in the world.

'Jim, you and Bones have been going off on all this fun sightseeing without me. We haven't done anything together. Spock and Amanda are going to take us to the L-langon Mountains and Amanda has made a picnic with the most amazing food in it. You'll love it. Get up!'

Kirk resigned himself to the inevitable. He said,

'Fine. Ten minutes. Now beat it and let me get dressed in peace.'

'Going now.' She suited the action to the word, and two seconds later Kirk heard her hammering on McCoy's door.

There were times when Kirk found it very hard to believe that Sally Kilsyth was all of twenty-five years old.

A few hours later, lying with his back against warm rock and his stomach full to bursting point with Amanda's quite superb food, Kirk had to admit the trip had been worth the early awakening.

Spock had piloted the hover over the length of the city which had looked, if that were possible, even more sombrely beautiful from the air, and then over the desert towards the L-Langon mountains. Vulcan was not a particularly hospitable planet for humans but it was spectacular and Sally had actually been awed into silence – an occurrence which prompted McCoy to ask if they could take the trip every day. The mountain range was dominated by the flat, stepped peak of T'Samr, and rose towering out of the sands in impossibly huge and sculptured shapes.

They ate their meal in a cleft at the base of T'Samr. The high walls of rock had given them welcome shade from the heat of the sun and had the added benefit of a tiny waterfall of mineral water which, though warm, was refreshing.

Sally shaded her eyes from the glare of the heavens with her hand and followed the glint of water upwards.

'It looks as though it comes down from the peak,' she said to Spock.

'Not quite. There is a large plateau some five hundred metres from the summit where the water has formed a pool over the centuries, forced upwards through cracks in the rock by the heat. It overflows there and formed the waterfall.'

'A plateau?' Sally looked up again at the vast form of red and gold rock above her. 'There must be a wonderful view.'

'Oh, yes, quite spectacular, especially in the evenings,' Amanda said.

'You've been up, then?' McCoy eyed the mountain unenthusiastically. 'Quite a climb.'

'Sarek took me when I first came to Vulcan,' Amanda explained. 'As you say, it is quite a climb, although there is a path, of sorts.' She smiled slightly and added, 'I was a good deal younger then, of course. I couldn't do it now.'

'Bet I could,' Sally asserted, looking around her for support. 'Is anybody game?'

Kirk glanced quickly at McCoy from under lowered lids.

'I'm a doctor, not a mountaineer,' McCoy said instantly.

'Jim? Come on, climbing mountains is your hobby. You must want to have a go at this one.'

'Not in this climate, I don't.' And Kirk closed his eyes and settled his shoulders more firmly against the rock behind him.

'Take the hover up,' Amanda suggested.

'Oh, no, climbing's half the fun,' Sally protested.

'But it would take you all afternoon just to get up there,' Amanda pointed out practically. 'You'd have to spend the night, you most certainly couldn't come down in the dark.'

'I wouldn't mind that,' Sally said wistfully. 'Spending your life in a starship really makes you appreciate the wide open spaces and fresh air when you get them.'

'You aren't going up alone,' Amanda said, very decidedly.

'She will not have to,' Spock said. 'If you would like to make the attempt, Sally, I am willing to accompany you.'

Sally grinned happily at him.

'That's a very noble offer. Do you mean it?'

'He'd better,' Kirk said, without opening his eyes, 'because if I know you, you'll make our lives a living hell if you don't get what you want.'

'Is that an order, Captain?'

'Yes, Mr Spock, it is.' Kirk opened his eyes and yawned, affecting nonchalance. 'I'll see Amanda gets home safely and come out to collect you tomorrow. Okay, Sally?'

'Fantastic,' Sally said happily.

'Take the rest of the food and drink with you,' Amanda was packing up the remains of the meal. 'Spock, there's a backpack in the hover with blankets and spare water. You'll find a jumpsuit and decent boots in there for Sally, too; she can't possibly go mountaineering in that outfit.' She eyed Sally's bare legs and torso as Spock obediently went over to the hover.

'Amanda! You knew I'd want to do this.'

'I know I would have wanted to – and you and I are more alike than you realise.'

Now what, exactly, Kirk thought, did that mean? He was beginning, belatedly, to realise there were undercurrents here which had nothing to do with any plan he and McCoy had hatched; so he sat up a little straighter and prepared to take an interest in the next few minutes.

Spock returned with the backpack and Sally's more practical clothing; showing unusual modesty, Sally retired behind an outcrop to change. McCoy collected his med kit from the hover and injected Sally with Tri-ox, giving Spock a further hypo to be injected after twelve hours. Spock handed it to Amanda, to be packed with the remainder of the food. As their hands touched over it, she smiled up at him and gave him an almost imperceptible nod.

Oh, my God, thought Kirk.

Spock slung the bag easily over his shoulder as Sally joined him. She had tied her hair up loosely and looked as if she had every intention of enjoying herself.

'Don't break anything,' McCoy said.

'Take care of her, Spock,' said Amanda.

He nodded and gave his hand to Sally to pull her up the first steep incline. Sally had glanced away from him to bid Amanda goodbye, and therefore did not see the expression that flickered momentarily on his face.

But Kirk did.

Amanda's hand came down quietly but firmly on his arm.

They watched in silence until Spock and Sally were out of earshot.

'Amanda, I rather think I've been amazingly obtuse,' Kirk said. 'I thought you didn't know.'

'Not know?' Amanda turned a face that was frankly incredulous towards him. 'Not know? He is my son. I have known for years.'

'How?' McCoy asked. 'These past few days have been the first time you've ever seen them together.'

'For heaven's sake,' Amanda snapped, with the first flash of temper Kirk had ever witnessed from her, 'he writes to me! And so does Sally, for that matter.'

'So they wrote about each other?'

'Oh, I don't suppose either one of them realised quite how much they were giving away. But reading between the lines is a gift you acquire when you are married to one Vulcan and mother to another. I knew… oh, long ago. Before either one of them suspected, I think.'

'And do you approve?' Kirk wanted to know.

Amanda smiled. The still lovely eyes were pensive and years of self-imposed discipline had etched a camouflage over her features, but Kirk thought triumph radiated quietly from her.

'Approve? Absolutely.'

'But…' said Kirk.

'She's human? Well, so am I.'

'But, ' Kirk said again, 'you've adapted. Sally won't, Amanda.'

'I haven't seen the slightest indication that Spock wants her to do so. Jim, I am not Sally and Sarek is a full Vulcan. We found a way that suited us, and if it has not always been easy, well, there have been compensations too. Spock and Sally must find their own way.'

'And Sarek?' McCoy asked. 'What does Sarek say to all this?'

Amanda said, very crisply,

'Sarek has set his son such an appalling example that he had best say very little indeed. Shall we go, gentlemen?'

The sun had started to set by the time Sally scrambled ungracefully after Spock on to the plateau. She was hot, tired, bruised and quite remarkably dirty and she knew her muscles would be screaming at her after a few hours, but she strolled across the smooth stone triumphantly, feeling she had not done too badly.

Spock waited for her, standing by the plateau's far edge as she sauntered over to him, hands jammed into the pockets of her overalls.

'Oh, wow,' she said.

Directly in front of her, Vulcan's sun was setting in all its fiery splendour, lighting up the fire of her own hair into a halo around her head. The sky was streaked with shades of red and gold, from deepest crimson to palest, creamy primrose. The desert gave back fire for fire and between these two extremes lay the city, an oasis of spires and white stone, glinting where the sun's final rays caught a window or picked out shards of silver in the stone.

'Well?' Spock said from beside her.

'It was worth it,' Sally said, with a sigh of pure contentment. 'Amanda was right about the view; I wouldn't have missed this for anything. I'm damn glad we don't have to go down on foot tomorrow, though. Where's the food? All this exercise has done wonders for my appetite.'

She went over to the pack and sat down cross legged beside it, giving a running commentary as she unpacked its contents.

'Ho, some of that amazing chocolate cake, great. Sandwiches, too. This box of salad stuff must be for you, there's no carbohydrate or sugar in it, so I'm not touching it… water…more water…ooh fruit, excellent, pity we haven't any ice cream… blankets…Oh, look, how organised is your mother? She's even put in some clean clothes for me…' Seconds later, hoot after hoot of laughter rang out across the mountain and Spock turned to see Sally laughing til tears ran down her cheeks.

'My God, what was Amanda thinking?' She held something very sheer and light in her hands, but to Spock it did not look much different to her usual outfits, and he said so.

'Dear Spock, you wouldn't know this, but this is my absolute best lingerie. Arkan spider silk, tremendously expensive, would pass through the eye of a needle, never mind a wedding ring.' There was a slight hiatus while she explained this concept to Spock. She had noticed that Spock could always be relied upon to forget embarrassment when his curiosity was engaged. 'The point, Spock, is that a woman just does not wear this kind of thing unless she has every expectation of having it removed at some point in the evening. And Amanda would have known that.'

'I am sure that my mother did not…'

'Nor are you the only child in the galaxy who finds it hard to believe their parents ever had anything to do with sex. Trust me on this one. Amanda would have known exactly what this is for. I wonder why she put it in? However, you will have to put up with my lack of clothing for once, since this is all I have to wear. Is that pool safe to bathe in?'

'Bathe? Spock looked mildly disconcerted.

'Yes, bathe,' Sally repeated, enunciating the word precisely. 'Verb, transitive, origin Old English. Meaning: to take a bath; a swim, or dip. Oh, yes.' Sally had found the pool, hidden behind a small outcrop of rock. She bent down and tested the temperature with her hand. It was warm.

'Care to join me?' she said to Spock, unlacing her boots. He could not see her face, but the tone was not quite her usual casual mischievousness.

'I will make up the camp and leave you to your ablutions in peace,' he said.

By the time she emerged from the water, full darkness had fallen and Spock had made up the beds, a small fire and some coffee. The light was dim but it was certainly true that the silk chemise might just as well not have been there; however Spock, for reasons of his own, had for once no desire to complain.

'Good, good, you've done all the work,' Sally said. 'Oooh, coffee.'

She picked up her cup and ambled over to the plateau edge. Spock followed her and stood behind her; she shivered slightly, although the night was still warm.

'Look at the stars,' she said. 'I've never seen a sky so full of stars. I bet you know all their names, too.'

'Yes,' Spock admitted. 'Do you wish to know them?'

'Oh, hell, no,' Sally replied, and started to laugh again.

'May I know the joke?' Spock enquired politely.

Sally snorted a couple more times and then said,

'Well, you should at least understand the irony. Spock, this is just luscious. Possibly the most romantic setting I have ever been in. Warm night, stars twinkling, fantastic view, best undies. I mean, let's be frank, we both know I can be seduced with a bar of chocolate, never mind a set-up like this. And who am I here with? A bloody Vulcan!'

She tilted her head up to look at him, a slightly self-mocking smile on her mouth, knowing he would appreciate the incongruity, waiting for the lift of the eyebrow that would show her he did.

And Spock kissed her.

As first kisses go, it was not exactly the end of the fairytale. The princess, in fact, jumped back like a scalded cat, dropped her coffee and shouted,

'What the bloody hell was that?'

'Not quite the reaction I was hoping for,' Spock said, thus demolishing the myth that Vulcans have no sense of humour. 'Did you not just express a desire for seduction?'

'Yes, but you know I was joking… oh, wait a minute.' Her face lit with sudden comprehension. 'This would be Pon Farr, then.'

'No, Sally,' Spock said, managing to preserve his calm, albeit after a short but severe internal struggle.

'In that case, I have absolutely no idea what's going on.'

'That,' Spock said wryly, 'has been abundantly clear for quite some time. May we focus on the main issue?'

'Main issue. Yes. Certainly. Main issue. Um… and that would be…?'

'How do you feel?'

'How do I feel? How do I feel, hmmm…' She was walking round in circles, running her hands through her hair, holding it away from her head as if to release weight from her brain. 'How do I feel, now, there's a question…'

Spock sighed, grasped her arms, pulled her towards him and kissed her again.

The second kiss was a good deal more successful. Sally was expecting it, for one thing and was able to give it the attention it deserved. For another, Spock allowed all of his blocks against her to fall.

And there it was, laid out before her, all secrets revealed, honesty at last between them. And Sally reciprocated, dropping her own defences in return so that he understood how much she had hidden, even from herself.

'It's always been you,' she said. 'Always.' She raised her head slightly to look into his eyes but made no move to free herself. 'Considering that we are linked, we seemed to have managed to keep a remarkable number of secrets from each other.'

'We have.'

'Yes, but you at least admitted the truth to yourself. I didn't even do that. Are you absolutely certain you want to spend the rest of your life with someone as abysmally stupid as I am?'

'I am certain I could spend it with no-one else.'

'I'll never be able to cook.'

'I know.'

'I've been cheating at chess for years.'

'I know, Sally.'

'You do?' She was fleetingly side-tracked. 'Then you might have had the decency to let me win from time to time.'

'I thought you should learn that cheats never prosper,' Spock said, a smugly virtuous expression on his face.

There was a slight pause. Then Sally said,

'You are not my first love, Spock. Not by a long shot.'

'I would infinitely prefer to be your last.'

'Just so we're clear,' Sally said, with a scowl, ' am I going to say anything you don't have an answer for?'

'You have never yet won an argument with me. Do you want to start with this one?'

'Good point. Oh, well, sod it. Less talking. Much more kissing.'

The third kiss was the charm; third time lucky, winner takes all. Past, present and future lit up together in one blinding flash and Sally finally knew she had waited all of her life for the moment when her body melted into Spock's arms with all things unspoken understood between them. Here, in the person of the man who had been the silent backbone of her life since their fist meeting was her centre, her peace, and her love.

After a time, a laughing voice spoke in the starlight to say,

'"Licence these roving hands to go, above, between, betwixt, below…"'

'Donne,' Spock said, momentarily distracted.

'Yes, and while we're on this subject, can we please remember only one of us is a Vulcan? Don't start something you can't finish.'

In a voice of commendable steadiness, Spock replied,

'It is my invariable custom to finish what I start.'

'Excellent,' said Sally, with immense satisfaction.

Kirk sent the little hover into a series of swallowtail spins and then skimmed her across the peak of T'Samr in salute. Beneath him he could see Spock packing up the small camp while Sally stood alone, some distance away, gazing across the desert in deep contemplation.

He was a happy man this morning. He did not yet know with any certainty what had happened the preceding night but he had been woken abruptly from a fitful sleep by one single flash of sheer ecstasy, electric in its power. In the past, vague echoes of Sally's many passions had occasionally found their way to him but nothing as powerful or satisfied had ever interrupted his dreams before. The only thing that puzzled him ever so slightly was that the link thereafter had been totally silent; not a word, not a whisper had touched his consciousness until Sally's link voice called him to the rendezvous.

The hover touched down and Kirk jumped out, calling cheerfully,

'You ordered a taxi, I believe?'

He took a couple of steps towards them, grinning in anticipation. Then he stopped in mid-stride, assailed with an awful sense of wrongness, his words drying up in his throat.

They stood apart from each other, not in itself unusual since they had never made any public display of whatever affection lay between them. But the aura of companionship, of togetherness, that Kirk, almost unconsciously, had become so used to seeing had quite vanished. They might have been complete strangers to each other. Spock's face wore that inhuman Vulcan mask which Kirk has seen but rarely since the earliest days of their service together and only now, looking at Spock as he once had been, did Kirk realise just how much he had asked of the Vulcan, and how much had been given.

Sally moved slightly and Kirk transferred his stunned gaze to her. She was smiling but the smile did not reach her eyes and she was paler than he had ever seen her.

He thought, with appalling clarity,

'This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me.'

'Morning, Jim,' Sally said, walking past him to the hover without looking at him.

'Sally, what's happened?' he whispered, in an urgent undertone.

'Not a thing,' she replied lightly, but her eyes would still not meet his.

Kirk turned back to Spock and saw that nothing he could say would break through the mask.

'Come on then,' he said at last. 'Amanda has breakfast waiting.'

Breakfast was a horrific meal.

Spock maintained a stony silence. Sally, on the other hand, chattered non stop and said nothing with such brittle gaiety that Kirk wanted to strangle her.

After half an hour during which no-one ate anything, Spock excused himself and vanished into the house. Five minutes later, Sally went off to the Meditation Centre. Kirk, McCoy and Amanda were left sitting at the table, staring miserably at each other over the untouched ruins of what Amanda had planned so carefully as a celebration meal.

'Maybe we were wrong,' Kirk said reluctantly, after a long silence.

'No,' said Amanda at once, with a determined shake of her head. 'We weren't wrong. But there's obviously something we didn't take into account. And I have no idea what it is.' She shook her head slightly, and smiled. 'Leave it. They'll sort it out.'

'I'll drink to that,' McCoy said, picking up his coffee cup.

TO BE CONCLUDED

T'ARAMU by Sue Newlands

CHAPTER TEN – VULCAN (CONCLUDED)

Kirk and Spock were playing chess that afternoon when Amanda came out of the house on to the terrace where they were sitting. She looked slightly agitated, and Kirk asked,

'Has something happened?'

'It most certainly has,' Amanda responded decisively. 'Where's Sally?'

She held a card in her hand which seemed to be the cause of her barely suppressed excitement. Spock glanced at it and raised both eyebrows at once.

'Sally has taken 'Dr Zhivago' into the garden, I believe. Is that…?'

'Yes, indeed. All four of you. But here, look for yourself.' She laid the card down on the table and made her way swiftly down the path to where a bright red head could just be seen, bent in absorption over her book. Kirk eyed the card but was none the wiser; it was inscribed in Vulcan. He said patiently,

'Is someone going to tell me what all the excitement is about?'

Spock brought his gaze back from its grave contemplation of Sally's distant figure and said,

'My apologies, Jim. We have been invited to dine with the High Council of Vulcan. As you may have gathered from my mother's attitude, this is an unprecedented honour. The High Council has kept itself mainly apart from outworlders, although you have met one of its members before.'

'T'Pau?' Kirk asked nervously. Spock nodded.

'Er…' Kirk cleared his throat. 'Won't that be just a little awkward, Spock? We did fake my death for her benefit, after all.'

'The fact that you are still alive does not seem to have escaped her attention,' Spock said dryly. 'Your name is clearly written on the invitation. Besides, Vulcans do not bear grudges. It would not be logical.'

Maybe not, Kirk thought, but I bet they don't forget, either.

He decided to change the subject. A discussion of that episode, here on Vulcan, brought the memories too close.

'Your move, Spock,' he said.

Amanda looked down at Sally's relaxed figure and was once again devoutly grateful for the high walls which shielded the garden's privacy. It was true that on Vulcan she was probably safer than she would have been on any other planet, but Sally had a body that might easily arouse a saint and, clad as it presently was in the briefest pair of shorts Amanda had ever been privileged to set eyes on together with a top that was even briefer, most of it was on display. She wished she could think of something to say to induce Sally to confide in her. Her own courtship of Sarek had not been without its problems and she knew how major the smallest obstacle might seem in the face of hundreds of years of incomprehensible Vulcan tradition.

'Hi, Amanda,' Sally said, closing her book and rolling over on to her side. 'What's up?'

'My dear, you've been given a signal honour. The Vulcan High Council has invited you, Jim, Spock and Dr McCoy to dine with them tomorrow evening.'

'Oh my God,' Sally shrieked, bolting upright, 'I haven't a thing to wear!'

'I expect we'll find you something,' Amanda replied, unable to resist a smile. 'But listen to me, Sally, this is serious.'

'Serious enough for the repeat of the 'you must conduct yourself with the propriety expected of a Starfleet officer and non-Vulcan woman' speech which you made the first time I was here?'

'You mean the one you completely ignored?'

'That would be the one, yes,' Sally grinned cheerfully at her. 'I promise I'll behave, will that do? Oh, wait a minute…' Her expression changed. 'Oh shit. Amanda, have I been invited to this thing so they can look me over?'

'I wouldn't say that, exactly,' Amanda said cautiously. 'Anyway, would it matter?'

'Matter? You're damn right it would. If you think I'm going to sit there quietly while the high and mighty Vulcan council decides if I'm a suitable mate for Spock…'

'Even if that were so,' Amanda interrupted, seizing her opportunity, ' and I don't say it is, do you think for one second that Spock would allow it? You may not be in love with him, but I thought you trusted him.'

There was a long silence. Amanda held her breath. Then Sally said, in a very subdued voice,

'I do trust him. And I do love him. Too much to do anything to hurt him.' She stood up very suddenly and added brightly, ' And now, I have to look through my wardrobe, though I'm sure absolutely nothing I brought with me will be equal to the strain. Can you recommend a good dressmaker?'

She walked away quickly without waiting for a reply. Amanda followed more slowly, knowing she had just been given a vital clue but unable for the life of her to work out what it was.

Sally stopped on the terrace and scrutinised the chess board.

'Winning again, Cap'n Jim? How do you do it?'

'Skill,' Kirk responded briefly, making his final move. 'Checkmate, I think, Spock.' He pushed his chair back from the table and looked up at Sally, taking in her costume – or rather, the lack of it. A slow grin of appreciation spread across his face.

'I sincerely hope you'll be wearing something slightly more decent tomorrow – though, mind you, it's hard to see how it could be improved on.'

'You're a dirty old man, Kirk,' Sally said cheerfully as Amanda came quietly up behind her.

'Less of the 'old', thanks.' Kirk gestured at the chess board and asked, with real nobility in view of Sally's still publicly assumed standard of play, 'Do you want a game?'

'No, a shower has more appeal at the moment,' Sally replied, chuckling at his expression of relief. 'By the way, any ideas about what I should wear tomorrow?'

'I'd say I'd trust to your own good taste, but unfortunately you don't have any. So…'

'Go on,' Sally encouraged him, sitting down and helping herself to his glass of iced fruit water. 'Dressing modestly is way outwith my experience and I need all the help I can get.'

'I don't know much about clothes, I spend my life in uniforms. But I liked that dress you wore the first night here.'

'Definitely one of my better buys,' Sally agreed, 'though I was kind of hoping for an excuse to buy something new.' She added, without looking in Spock's direction, 'What about you, Spock?'

'I believe I am even less qualified in this subject than the captain.'

'Does that prevent you from having an opinion?'

'I was under the impression,' Spock said, very evenly, 'that my opinion was a matter of indifference to you.'

Several things happened at once. The glass in Sally's hand exploded, showering her with splinters. The table lifted itself off the ground by three or four feet and crashed back down again. And the chess set pieces flew off in all directions, some of them detonating like little bombs, quite spectacularly, as they did so. It had been such a long time since Sally had so completely lost her governance of her power that it took Kirk at least thirty seconds to realise she was responsible.

'Oh, God,' Sally said, stricken, putting her hands up to her face. There was blood on her hands, and on her cheek. 'Amanda, I'm so sorry. Your chess set…'

'The things aren't important. Let me see those cuts,' Amanda commanded, bustling her off the terrace and into the house.

Spock had half-risen but Amanda shook her head at him very decisively. He sat down again and set the chess board upright. Kirk began to pick up the fallen pieces. He held a white pawn in his hand for a moment, rubbing his thumb over the smooth, cool surface of it. It had been a beautiful set, black and white ivory-stone, and a pleasure to play with; a relict of Spock's childhood, Kirk knew. He said,

'Can the broken pieces be replaced?'

'I doubt it,' Spock said calmly. 'No matter. I am more concerned for Sally's injuries.'

'They didn't look like bad cuts to me,' Kirk retorted callously, 'and anyway, it serves her right. You know, I have always believed Sally is the most sensible woman of my acquaintance. I am rapidly changing my mind.'

Spock's response to this gambit was to close his face with such a stony expression that Kirk's nerve almost failed him. He took his courage firmly in both hands and went on,

'Look, Spock, I'm not trying to pry… at least… well, I guess I am, actually. But you and Sally are the best friends I have, and I'd like to help if I can. I thought the two of you were… Oh, hell, were we wrong? Amanda, McCoy and myself? Were we wrong, Spock?'

There was a long moment of quiet, during which Kirk thought Spock was going to get up from the table and walk away without a word. Then,

'No, Jim. Since I appear to have been so obvious, there seems little point in denying that I had…hopes.'

'You've been far from obvious,' Kirk replied, feeling his way cautiously in case Spock clammed up again and gave his famous impersonation of the proverbial shellmouth. 'It didn't finally dawn on me until a few weeks ago. McCoy knew before all of us – maybe even before you.'

'The good doctor's perception is unique,' Spock agreed and Kirk found himself hoping things would work out just so he could repeat that statement to McCoy. It had to be the biggest compliment the Vulcan had ever paid him.

'Then if none of us have been indulging in wishful thinking or fantasies, what went wrong?' Kirk demanded.

'Jim… I do appreciate your concern but there is nothing you can do. Sally considers her reasons sufficient, and she may – indeed, I hope she will – tell you herself, in time. Your persuasions may succeed where mine have failed.' He stood up and added politely, 'I believe you must now find it uncomfortably warm out here. Shall we go in?'

Sally disappeared for the rest of the day, and returned to the house laden with several bags. She arrived late at the dinner table, apologised to Amanda and said nothing throughout the meal, returning to her room as soon as it was finished. Amanda excused herself saying she was expecting a call from Sarek, who was due back from his mission with Eowyn very shortly. Left to themselves, conversation between Kirk, Spock and McCoy began to pall and Kirk had the feeling Spock was regretting his brief moment of openness that afternoon. McCoy eventually settled down with a book, yawned ostentatiously a couple of times and declared his intention of seeking his couch for the night.

Kirk grinned wryly at Spock as McCoy meandered up the stairs.

'I think McCoy has just been tactful.'

'My impression also, Jim. Despite his perpetual doom-mongering, I suspect the doctor is really an optimist at heart.'

'Well, since I don't intend to try and force confidences from you, shall we have another game?' Kirk suggested, and could promptly have kicked himself from one end of the house to the other. 'Sorry, Spock. I forgot.'

'It was only a chess set, Jim. If you would not object to a mere two-dimensional game, I believe I have a small pocket set somewhere.'

'Really? It's been years since I tried my hand at that. I'll give it a try.'

Spock went upstairs. Kirk wandered about the room, picking up a book and putting it down again. He felt uneasy, edgy, tense; he was not used to being in a situation he could not resolve. He decided a good night's sleep was all he really wanted right now and went up the stairs after Spock to tell him to forget the chess game.

'Spock,' he said, pushing open the bedroom door, 'I've changed my…'

Spock turned to face him, moving away from the desk by the window where he had been standing. The light was off but the brilliant light of T'Khut falling through the window reflected on something with a myriad of dancing lights.

'You said it was just a pocket set,' Kirk said slowly.

'I did, Jim. I found…this.'

The pedestal was of black and clear glass. The pieces themselves were of crystal and black goldstone, carefully and delicately carved into the figures of what they traditionally represented. Kings crowned in golden circlets, queens regal in flowing robes, knights on prancing ponies, castles spun into fantasy shapes of turrets and battlements, and the pawns garbed as soldiers, helmeted and speared.

'So that's what she went shopping for,' Kirk said. 'That's a fairly impressive apology, Spock.'

He looked up to find Spock watching him, almost with a question in his eyes.

'Jim… do you understand women?'

'Women, yes,' Kirk said, without hesitation. 'However, if we are talking about Sally then the answer is no. Not at any time. Not at all. Never.' He scooped up one of the figurines and watched the starlight reflect through it on to his hand. Beautiful. He put it down again very carefully and added, 'Still…I honestly don't think I need to advise you to give up hope.'

Kirk ambled slowly down the corridor, thinking hopefully of bed and sleep and possibly a small brandy to take the edge off the dead weight of unhappiness which seemed to have settled in the pit of his stomach.

'Make that a large brandy,' he muttered to himself, walking into his bedroom and making straight for the cabinet where Amanda had thoughtfully secreted a bottle of quite excellent vintage.

'It's poured already,' said a voice from behind him, 'and I think you should know that talking to yourself and drinking alone are both signs of a disturbed mind.'

'Quite right,' Kirk agreed, 'and you have disturbed it. What have you got to say for yourself?'

Sally walked out of the shadows of the room towards him. With her hair falling loose around her shoulders she looked, in that kind half-light, very much younger, almost the child she had been when Kirk first met her. Her brocade robe rustled as she handed him his drink. How many memories were woven into the golden fabric? Her first night on board the 'Enterprise', held in Kirk's arms against her fear and her loss. The rescue and death of Taishun. The night Kirk had heard both the legend of the T'Aramu and the secret Spock and Sally had kept between them. The argument with Spock during which McCoy had voiced his prognosis to a disbelieving Kirk. And it had been McCoy, practical and unimaginative McCoy, who had insisted she be dressed in her own robe when Kirk and Spock brought her home from Kerad's ship, so that her second awakening was still another moment caught and held forever in the amber of that cloth.

Kirk went to her without a word and folded her into a soundless embrace. This Sally of his could be flamboyant, elegant, hoydenish, sensual, maddening or practical, and she was always beautiful whatever she wore. But that golden robe embodied Sally for him. In it, he always found the woman who was his sister, his daughter, his friend.

'You want to talk about it?' he asked.

'Hell, Cap'n Jim, you don't think I snuck in here just to snitch your brandy, do you?' said Sally, and promptly burst into tears.

Kirk sat on the bed and watched her helplessly for a few moments. He had seen her through almost all of the emotional crises of her life but he had never seen her control break so completely and the spectacle stunned him.

'For God's sake,' he said eventually, 'you're unhappy and Spock's unhappy. I just can't imagine any problem so insurmountable that the two of you can't get past it when it's so bloody obvious you're made for each other.'

'Stop shouting,' Sally said, still snivelling but perking up somewhat at the scent of battle.

'I feel like shouting,' Kirk informed her truthfully. 'Are you going to dare to sit there and tell me you're not in love with Spock? Because if you do, I give you fair warning I'll box your ears from here to next week.'

'I'd damn well like to see you try it, Kirk.'

'Sally, it's late. I am tired, worried and depressed and you are the sole cause of all of these conditions. I would like to think that someday I can look back at this singularly hellish day and say it was worth it. Would you please tell me, once and for all, when I can have the pleasure and infinite relief of giving you away?'

'Well, I have no doubt you'd be very glad to get rid of me, but it's not going to happen,' Sally said pettishly.

'He won't marry you? Is that what this is about?'

'On the contrary,' Sally said, and looked as if she were about to burst into tears again. Kirk, with great presence of mind, picked up the glass of brandy and thrust it into her hands.

'Thanks,' she said, but she didn't drink it, just sat turning the glass round and round. Kirk sat beside her on the bed and waited.

'I suppose you must think I'm really stupid,' she said eventually. 'I remember that grand speech I gave you, about how there would only ever be Taishun because I could never really love anyone but another telepath. Feel free to laugh at this point. I swear I never thought, never dreamed… Spock was my friend, my dearest friend. Even though, in the dark place, it was him I missed, I was so blinded by that silly preconception – and when I knew, I thought… well, Spock has always been good at hiding his feelings. Too good. I've never been rejected, Jim, I've never not been able to get anyone I ever wanted. I didn't know what to do. And when I found out he did want me, it was like the gates of heaven opened. But we can't be together.'

'Why the blue bloody blazes not?' Kirk yelled, completely losing his temper.

'Isn't it obvious?' Sally shouted back.

'Not to me!'

'Look at me,' Sally commanded savagely. 'Do you know how many lovers I've had?'

'No,' said Kirk, who had given up trying to keep count a long time ago, 'but I've no doubt Spock does, and if it doesn't matter to him, why should it matter to you?'

'Oh, don't be obtuse, Kirk.'

Some vague inkling of what the problem actually was began to take shape in Kirk's brain. So fundamental, so appallingly simple, he had not given it a second's thought.

'Sally, is this about sex? Does that need to be such a problem? Spock is half-human, after all. And haven't you already… I mean… surely you… oh, dammit. Didn't you?'

'Coyness does not suit a man of your years and experience,' Sally observed. 'You know we did. That's not it. Jim, I am one of the most notorious women in Star Fleet. I've never kept my affairs secret and I have ex-lovers scattered on starships and planets from here to the galaxy's edge. I'm not ashamed of my past life, and I know it doesn't worry Spock. But can you imagine, can you begin to envisage, what people would say if I married a Vulcan? The innuendoes, the jokes, the sly remarks, the looks Spock would have to put up with? We are neither of us exactly unknown. We'd spend the rest of our lives in a glare of publicity and speculation that would hurt him. And the Vulcans will never accept me. Spock is still the half-Vulcan and to marry me, in the teeth of all tradition and expectation, would be the final wedge between him and his people. And I can't do that.'

Kirk stared at her in silence for a few moments. Sally waited for words of comfort, until it dawned on her that the silence was not exactly sympathetic.

'Don't you agree with me?' she asked, uncertainly.

'I've never heard such a load of crap in my life,' Kirk said. The tone was uncompromising and the gaze was flinty; Sally was left in no doubt he meant exactly what he said.

'Jim, I thought you'd understand.'

'Did you? Well, I suppose the fact I haven't put you over my knee could be attributed to the fact I do understand, though I wouldn't count on it. Live in a glare of publicity and speculation, indeed. You stupid woman, what else has Spock done all his life? He's been a target from the day he was born. The half-breed. The walking computer. The green-blooded alien.' Sally flinched visibly at each stinging insult. 'And to 'his people' he is Amanda's son, and he's never been allowed to forget it.'

'I know all this,' Sally pointed out.

'Do you? And do you begin to understand what it has meant to him? I don't think so, Sally.'

'If I don't,' Sally said, very quietly, 'who else can honestly claim to do so?'

'All the more reason for you not to put a sanctimonious expression on your face and spout self-sacrificing rubbish at me,' Kirk said tartly. 'Spock's place isn't here. It's with us. That's where he has chosen to be. And he has chosen you, out of all the women he could have had – and there have been a lot of them, Sally, who would be very happy to be standing in your shoes right now. And you sit there, making pious claims about friendship when you can't even get past a couple of minor problems.'

'How can you say that?' Sally demanded.

'How can I not say it? And I'll tell you something else…' Kirk hauled Sally to her feet and hauled her, protesting, over to the mirror. 'That,' he said, grasping her chin and tilting her face towards her reflection, 'is the face of the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. It's also the face of a woman who's going to spend the rest of her life alone. Can you go back, Sally? Do you want to? Sleeping in a different man's bed every night, knowing how you feel about Spock? Can you do that?'

'Stop it!' Sally shouted. The mirror fell off the wall and shattered. Sally tore herself out of his grip and hurtled to the other side of the room. 'I don't want to hear any more.'

'No, I'll just bet you don't,' Kirk replied, advancing towards her.

'Come one step nearer and I swear…'

'Hey,' said a sleepy voice from the doorway. 'You two wanna tone it down a little? And if you intend to murder each other, can you at least do it out of earshot?'

Kirk turned to see McCoy, tousled and heavy-eyed, with an expression of anxiety on his face quite at variance with the lightness of his tone. Peering over his shoulder, looking scared, was Amanda.

'Oh, shit, did we wake you up?' said Sally, appalled.

'Of course not,' McCoy said, heavily sarcastic. 'I always go for a stroll at midnight. And I expect Amanda does too.'

'Invariably,' Amanda agreed gamely, but her voice shook.

McCoy glanced from Kirk's grim face to Sally's taut and furious figure.

'Anybody want to tell an old country doctor what the discussion was about?'

'It wasn't a discussion,' Sally muttered.

'But it's over,' Kirk added, holding out a hand to her. 'Isn't it?'

'I surely hope so,' she said with a sidelong look, allowing him to put an arm round shoulders still stiff with resentment.

'Good,' McCoy said, still watchful. 'Maybe we can all get some sleep now. Where's Spock, by the way? I'm surprised those supersensitive ears of his didn't catch every word.'

'They did, doctor,' Spock's voice said from the hallway.

'Oh, bloody hell,' Sally exclaimed, diving past Kirk on to the balcony. Her bare feet could be heard receding rapidly and then her bedroom doors were jerked shut with unnatural emphasis.

Kirk sauntered into the hallway, shouldering past McCoy, and grinned ruefully at Spock.

'I'm glad you heard that,' he said. 'I'm too tired for explanations. Mr Spock, I am going to bed and, I hope, to sleep. Before I retire from the fray, I'll give you a piece of advice. You may take it or not, as you please.'

There was silence. Kirk, looking at his friend's face, was visited by a momentary but strong desire to beat Sally senseless. What had she said to him, so long ago? "There's Spock. Before, during and probably after Sally. There will always be Spock.'

McCoy and Amanda stepped back quietly into the shadows. Spock's eyes remained fixed on Kirk's face, waiting.

'Don't stand any more of her bloody nonsense,' Kirk said tersely, and walked into his room and slammed the door.

Kirk, unsurprisingly, slept badly for what remained of the night and woke not much refreshed.

Had he done the right thing by tackling Sally so vehemently? Spock was entirely capable of managing his own life, and was a master of logical argument into the bargain. And Sally would surely have realised that Spock would have considered all the points she had made prior to making his declaration. If Sally still remained convinced that she would hurt him more by accepting him than refusing him, then what could Kirk say that would sway her?

Kirk took a shower and cursed heaven he had been afflicted with two friends so stubborn and opinionated. The irresistible force had met the immovable object with a vengeance and Kirk was not sure that the collision wouldn't yet prove to be disastrous for one, if not both of them.

He stubbed his toe getting out of the shower and hopped about angrily on one foot. Sally came through on the link at that moment and he swore heartily at her.

-It's not my fault you're clumsy- she said to the unspoken accusation. –If you were so busy thinking about my problems that you didn't watch where you were going, then you should mind your own damn business-

-Tell me what you want and get out of my brain, please-

-Sorry about last night. You were right, I think-

-Sally, hang on a minute-

-Hailing frequencies now closed-

Kirk hastily threw on a pair of pants and went down to her room. She was gone.

None of them saw Sally that day. Amanda, when questioned, said she was being fitted for her dress.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy, in full dress uniform, met up in Amanda's lounge five minutes before a hover was due to pick them up and transport them to the Council Chambers. Kirk and McCoy were indulging in a pre-dinner brandy. Spock, of course, was not, nor did he look as if he needed one.

'Sally's going to be late,' Amanda said. 'Will I go up and get her?'

'She won't be late,' McCoy said confidently. 'Our Sally likes to leave enough time to make her entrance and receive her due portion of adulation.'

'Bones, you're a cynic,' Kirk said, not for the first time.

However, it seemed this time McCoy was wrong. The door had chimed twice to signal the hover's arrival before she came running down the stairs, apologising without much conviction. She wore a long black cloak, its hood pulled up over her hair, and her make-up, at least was restrained and elegant. Kirk, concerned they were going to be late, ushered her into the transport without first inspecting her, which had probably been her intention.

'Okay,' he said, when they were all seated, 'let's go get this over with.'

'Jim, this is an honour,' Spock said, very dryly.

'Right, it's an honour. T'Pau still scares the hell out of me.'

They were escorted directly to the main council chamber. It was, like all public rooms on Vulcan, large, sparsely furnished and very cool. The floor and three walls were of dully gleaming black stone, flecked with silver sparkles. The fourth wall had been left open to the air and commanded a magnificent view of the city and the red desert sands beyond. The lighting, though entirely modern, flickered like torchlight, lending golden glows to the shadows and the superb sculptures which lined the walls.

Facing the 'Enterprise' party were the twelve members of Vulcan's ruling council. Without exception, they were clad in sombre hues of black, grey and silver, and Kirk instantly felt the blues and golds of their dress uniforms were indecently colourful. There were six men and six women present, but T'Pau was immediately recognisable as the leader. Kirk had never forgotten her confident aura of power and dignity and the grace she still possessed, despite the stick she used to assist her movement.

'Spock,' T'Pau said, making the Vulcan sign which Spock, standing sword straight, returned. 'It is too long since thy last set foot on thy father's planet.'

'I hope my next visit will not be too far distant.'

'And I may still hope that one day thee might stay.' T'Pau turned her laser-like scrutiny on Kirk and McCoy, who had been practicing the Vulcan sign behind their backs and now produced it for her inspection. 'Captain Kirk and Dr McCoy. I see thee are both… in good health. I trust thy previous visit left no lasting ill-effects?'

McCoy cleared his throat.

'I was unwell for a short time,' Kirk said frankly, knowing she must be aware of the full depth of their deception and wondering just how she had taken it. 'Fortunately, thanks to Dr McCoy's skill, I made a swift recovery. I am glad to have been given the opportunity to see more of Vulcan's beauty this time round.'

'Yes,' T'Pau agreed. 'Thy last visit was a little eventful, was it not?'

'You could say that,' Kirk replied dryly.

T'Pau nodded, her eyes not on him but on Sally, who stood quietly and decorously behind her captain. Kirk silently grasped McCoy's arm and pulled him to one side, leaving T'Pau and Sally facing once another. Sally raised her hand in a perfect Vulcan salute and spoke briefly in flawless Vulcan; Kirk had no idea she could speak it.

'T'Aramu, we greet thee,' T'Pau said, giving her the Vulcan/Romulan name. The atmosphere in the room took a sudden and dramatic turn. Kirk had the sense of an indrawn breath being silently held, of a measured judgement calmly taking place.

'It is said thee has great powers, T'Aramu. Is it true?'

'It is true.'

'It is also said that thou art beautiful. May we not judge this for ourselves?'

Sally raised her hands to her hood and slipped it carefully down. Her hair was dressed neatly in a perfect chignon, with sparkling pins set into it. She stood straight, grave, relaxed, and Kirk was proud of her. He was also, for the first time, profoundly grateful for being so very lovely. In that, at least, no Vulcan could begin to fault her.

T'Pau nodded abruptly.

'Yes,' she said. 'Thou art beautiful.' There was a moment's pause. She gestured for an aide to take Sally's cloak and said to Kirk, 'If I may introduce the rest of the council…'

Sally undid the clasp of her cape and the aide swept it from her shoulders.

'Oh, crap,' Kirk and McCoy said simultaneously.

Because the T'Aramu emerged from that drab and demure wrapping. She was tightly glad in gold cloth, which barely covered her breasts and left both midriff and back bare. It was long, but so snugly fitted that Kirk wondered how she could breathe, let alone move; and it was absolutely covered in thousands of little multi-coloured crystals. She flashed and flared and glittered defiantly in the light; she looked as exotic and out of place in that gathering as a bird of paradise among crows.

A Vulcan would have been able to hear a feather fall in the silence that followed. Kirk was trying to decide whether it would be better to drag Sally bodily from the room or merely murder her when he caught Spock's eye, and what he saw there made all conscious thought stop dead.

Spock had known that Sally would do this. Known it, counted on it, planned for it.

T'Pau's gaze swept dismissively over Sally and came to rest on Spock.

Battle had been joined, and T'Pau was ready with her first salvo.

'Thee has called thyself Vulcan, Spock. Thee has chosen to follow the Vulcan way. Is T'Aramu the wife who will help thee on that path?'

'Which is a completely academic question, since I don't intend to marry him – just so we're all clear on that point,' Sally remarked to the room as a whole, with a wide and friendly smile.

Spock said nothing. But he removed the IDIC pendant he wore around his neck and held it in the palm of his hand. He looked at Sally. She smiled.

'Yes,' she said. 'Of course.' She snapped her fingers, the pendant floated across to her, and she hung it around her own neck – where it looked, it had to be said, highly incongruous.

'She wears the IDIC,' Spock said to T'Pau. 'The finest product of our society has been that philosophy. Do we abide by it?'

'Of course we do,' T'Pau replied. 'IDIC is basic to our way.'

'So basic, in fact,' Spock said evenly, 'that I, the first half-Vulcan, have met with prejudice even within the walls of this chamber. So basic that my mother, who has willingly adapted herself to our society, is still regarded as an outworlder by many. So basic that my choice of wife is judged, not by the worth of her character but by the mere fact of her humanity.'

'Resentment is a human emotion, Spock.'

'I resent nothing. I simply query the logic which makes judgements on such a basis. The humans had a word for it, in their past. They called it racism.'

'She is no fit wife for thee,' T'Pau said flatly.

'Make no mistake, T'Pau,' Spock said, and his voice was very cold, 'I neither ask nor require your permission. What I do ask is that you explain the logic that has led you to make that decision.'

Vulcans are not given to gasps of astonishment, but the whole room came pretty close to it and Kirk thought he had never seen an expression so un-nerving as that which appeared on T'Pau's face after Spock's question.

'You have said that she will not help me on my path, T'Pau. But what path is that? In the life that I have chosen, she would be a fit and suitable companion. As for my Vulcan blood – of all the humans I have ever met, she is the only one who has never sought to change me, never sought to force from me that which I could not give, never once complained that I do not behave as a human should. She is the only human who has never sought to turn me from that Vulcan path you so desire. And in return, all that she has ever asked is that she remain as she is – a human. Together I believe we will become greater than the sum of us both. We will be living examples of IDIC.'

'I cannot permit this,' T'Pau said.

'Well, excuse me, ma'am,' McCoy said, his Southern drawl and charm both blatantly apparent, before Spock, Kirk or Sally could say the words so clearly hovering on their various tongues, 'but shouldn't this get put to a vote? I've always been led to believe that Vulcan is a democracy. Please do correct me if I'm wrong,' he added politely.

There was a quite appalling little silence.

Then T'Pau unclosed the thin white line which was her mouth and uttered two short Vulcan words. Instantly the room was filled with the low-pitched, guttural sounds of Vulcans debating. Spock sat down, steepled his hands in front of his face and appeared to withdraw to some inner realm of contemplation. Kirk, though making rapid strides in his understanding of the language, was not yet proficient enough to follow the discussion taking place around him. Sally was, apparently; but when Kirk looked at her she did not even appear to be listening. Her whole attention was on Spock.

Kirk sidled over to McCoy. No-one paid any attention to him. He said,

'Bones, are you enjoying this?'

'Sure as hell am, Jim. Why, aren't you?'

'No, and I'm wondering what it is you know that I don't…'

'Psychology, Jim,' McCoy said, with a chuckle. 'Psychology.' He glanced at Kirk's face and added, with no hint of laughter in his voice, 'Stop worrying. No-one has ever stood up against Sally's charisma for long.'

'T'Pau is,' Kirk pointed out.

'Wait,' McCoy advised, and strolled off to watch the sunset.

The low drone of voices was suddenly hushed. The council members all turned to face T'Pau and one man spoke, briefly. T'Pau bowed her head.

'What did he say, Spock?' Kirk demanded, beside himself with impatience. 'Sally? What did he say?'

Sally's knees seemed to buckle beneath her and she sat down suddenly and heavily on the stone steps leading down into the chamber. T'Pau raised her head and looked across the room at her.

'The council have decreed this choice can be made only by the parties concerned. They have decreed we shall not interfere. Thine is then the last word. How says the T'Aramu?'

'Jim?' Sally whispered. 'What should I do?'

Kirk thought for a moment, trying to find the right words to carry her over the final, most difficult hurdle.

'Sally,' he said at last, aware of McCoy moving to his side and silently willing him on, 'you know that I love you. And I tell you this - Spock is the only man in the universe to whom I would let you go.'

Sally drew a very deep breath and stood up.

And Kirk was visited by a hallucination so vivid that there were times in his final years when he almost believed it had actually happened.

The Vulcan sun was setting, flushing the sky and igniting her hair. The crystals on her dress flashed rainbows around the room. Sally took a step, and seemed to float across the room.

Kirk heard wings. The air was filled with the rushing, beating sound.

And he saw them.

Great, glorious, golden wings springing from her shoulders in a sublime and glittering arc, gleaming with wild-fire where the last rays of the sun caught their tips. As he watched, almost convinced it was real, the airy plumage began to ruffle and settle, folding in upon themselves with a gentle, hypnotic rhythm, folding over and over until they had quite vanished.

Spock, for the first time since the beginning of the discussion, raised his eyes from the steadfast inspection of his locked hands and looked at her. She smiled. Her hand sketched a movement in the air and Kirk saw it with a thrill of recognition; the classic chess player's movement, the tipping over of the king. Checkmate. Defeat. Surrender.

'Your game,' Sally said to Spock. 'All the way, your game. And I may even arrange a grand master's citation.'

'It would be deserved,' Spock replied and the tone, if not the face, told Kirk how great had been the fear that this, of all games, would be lost.

'Spock, said Sally Kilsyth, laughing, holding out her hand to him, 'would you please marry me?'

'I will,' said Spock, and took her hand.

The T'Aramu had come down from the skies at last.

After Kirk and McCoy, incoherent with jubilation, had finally finished pounding each other on the back and generally giving the Vulcan Council the most amazing display of human irrationality it had ever been privileged to behold, things calmed down just a little. T'Pau gave orders for the best vintage to be brought to the table – non-alcoholic, of course, but nobody cared; Kirk and McCoy were both as high as kites anyway. Once the short ceremony, conducted on all sides in faultless Vulcan, was over the council solemnly toasted the health of the newly married couple and Kirk and McCoy embraced the bride with enthusiasm. T'Pau, with the air of one succumbing to events with the greatest possible reluctance, commanded Sally to kiss her, which Sally did with caution. Spock accepted the congratulations of his captain and McCoy with grave composure and unbent sufficiently to allow them to shake his hand.

'Where's Sally gone off to?' Kirk asked, having seen both Sally and T'Pau disappear through a door at the end of the room some minutes before.

'My wife,' said Spock, affecting to be unaware of Kirk's broad grin at the traditional words and the ill-concealed pride with which they were uttered, 'has retired for the moment with T'Pau.'

'Well if there's going to be a fight, my money's on Sally,' McCoy said, coming up to them in time to hear this last remark. 'If logic fails, she'll use her fists.'

'There will be absolutely no necessity for anything of the sort, doctor,' Spock responded frostily. 'T'Pau is behaving in the proper Vulcan fashion. As the most senior woman present, it is her duty to advise Sally on the responsibilities of the married state.'

'Oh,' McCoy said, enlightened. 'The Vulcan birds and bees, huh?'

'Not precisely. There are other factors involved.'

'Just as well,' McCoy said irrepressibly. 'How much d'ya think she could tell Sally?'

'Bones,' Kirk said quietly, unsure how this reference to Sally's somewhat chequered career would be taken – now.

Spock regarded them both patiently.

'Jealousy is quite beyond my capabilities, gentlemen. How Sally chose to conduct her past life is no concern of mine.'

'What about the future?' McCoy asked, avoiding the subtle kick Kirk aimed in his direction.

Kirk could have sworn there was a gleam of humour in those dark eyes as Spock replied,

'Do humans not have a saying – "Why go out for a hamburger when you have steak at home"?'

'Why you smug, conceited, arrogant, pointy-eared hobgoblin…!'

'Hey! No fighting on my wedding day.'

There was a rustle of movement and a smooth hand slipped into Kirk's. He turned his head, and she smiled at him. And he saw the difference then. Serenity had come to her, glimmered in her eyes, had stilled the restless spirit into peace. For Sally, the long search was over and she had come to her safe harbour, finding her refuge and her sanctuary in Spock.

T'Pau, who had brought Sally back to them, stood watching her for some moments. The icy chill had vanished from her face and in it's place had come a surprising warmth, and even a measure of approval.

'I will watch thy future with curiosity, T'Aramu. I have no doubt it will be… interesting.' She bowed courteously to Spock, Kirk and McCoy and moved off.

'Told ya,' McCoy said triumphantly to Kirk. 'By the way, your credit's good with me, Jim.'

'What?' said Kirk.

'We had a bet on this, did we not?' McCoy asked, with a Cheshire cat grin. 'Which I believe I have just very conclusively won!'

It was late by the time they got back to the Sareks' home, but lights were still burning on the lower level.

'Amanda, awaiting developments,' McCoy whispered to Kirk.

They went in.

Sarek rose from his chair to greet them. Behind him was Amanda – and Eowyn.

'Wyn!' Sally shrieked, darting forward with a sparkle of skirts to kiss her and then embracing Sarek with enthusiasm, a performance he endured with resignation. 'Wyn, how lovely. I do wish I'd known you were here earlier.'

'Why?' Eowyn asked, with one of the delicious chuckles Kirk remembered so well. He bowed a formal greeting to Sarek and turned to collect his share of embraces from Eowyn. She restrained herself to a chaste peck on the lips, but her naughty expression promised further pleasures once they were alone.

'Witch,' he said quietly. She was looking quite enchanting, with her hair tumbled out of its ambassadorial knot and her figure generously displayed in a simple cream dress.

'Jim,' she replied, with satisfaction. 'You look good.' Her gaze travelled to Sally, who was perched on the arm of the couch beside Amanda and smiling faintly, and to McCoy, who was positively smirking. 'In fact… you're all looking remarkably self-satisfied. What have you been up to?'

'Not much, really,' Sally said, glancing up at Spock. 'How are you, Sarek?'

'I am well, Sally, as you see. I trust you have found your stay here interesting so far?'

'Hmmm, there have been some moments,' Sally conceded. She slid off the arm of the couch and knelt carelessly on the floor, her sparkling skirts spread out around her. She began to unpin her carefully arranged hair which had, unusually, withstood the evening's events.

'Sarek,' she said, 'are you calm? Are you in a reasonably even-tempered mood? Are you, in fact, feeling logical?'

'One does not 'feel' logical, I believe,' Sarek pointed out. His austere expression, beside which Spock's seemed almost human in comparison, softened a little as he looked at Sally.

'What have you done, Sally?' Sarek asked, with unruffled tranquillity. 'I am prepared for the worst. Should I sit down?'

'Good idea,' Kirk heard McCoy mutter.

Spock, who had said nothing since entering the room, now bent down and pulled Sally to her feet. She threw him a look so sparkling with affection and mischief that Amanda said sharply, almost shouting,

'For heaven's sake, what's happened?'

'We were married this evening,' Spock announced calmly.

There was a gasp of pure delight from Amanda, instantly quelled. Eowyn opened her mouth to utter congratulations, saw Sarek's face, and decided on silence.

Sarek stood immobile in the centre of the room as if he had grown there, or been carved from a single block of hard Vulcan redstone. It was impossible to tell his reaction from his appearance, though Kirk assumed the news could not be wholly unexpected; even if Amanda had not yet filled him in on recent developments, she must surely have made him privy to her suspicions before now.

'Sarek?' Sally said softly.

Amanda said nothing. In private, she would voice her opinion but in public, Kirk knew, she would submit to Sarek as she had submitted once before, when she had lost her son for eighteen long years as a result.

'Spock,' Sarek said at last.

'My father?'

'Stand before me, if you please. With your…wife.'

They obeyed him. Sarek looked at them both for a long moment, his face quite impassive. Finally, just as the silence threatened to become oppressive, he said,

'Spock, I decided to marry your mother two days after I met her. What took you so long?'

Kirk grabbed McCoy and Eowyn and they just made it to the garden before all three of them lost control and broke up completely.

When they returned to the house, Sarek and Amanda were alone and quite obviously wished to remain so. With rare tact, Kirk did not enquire as to Spock and Sally's whereabouts. There were quiet goodnights all round and Kirk, McCoy and Eowyn went upstairs to bed.

Eowyn followed Kirk into his bedroom.

'Do you think we should?' he asked, a little startled. It then registered with him that his were not the only belongings in the room.

'Amanda's getting a little short of bedrooms,' Eowyn explained innocently. 'I said I didn't think you'd mind sharing. Of course, if you've any objection…'

She broke off with a squeak as Kirk lunged across the room at her.

After that, there was mainly laughter.

'Eowyn? Eowyn, wake up.'

Eowyn rolled over, reaching for him, and encountered empty sheets.

'By the window. By God, you must have a clean conscience, you sleep like the dead.'

'Either that, or I've been very well satisfied tonight,' Eowyn replied smugly. 'Hey…what on earth is all that light?'

'Come and see.'

Eowyn joined him at the window.

'Look,' Kirk commanded.

From the top of T'Samr, lightening flashed. It lit up the desert with its intensity.

'Just a lightening storm, Jim,' Eowyn said, and then, puzzled, 'But there was no storm forecast for tonight.'

'There wouldn't have been. This is courtesy of a certain redhead.'

'She couldn't,' Eowyn said, awed.

'She has,' Kirk replied. Eowyn moved into his arms and he held her there, tightly, as they watched the lightening spread across the sky.

Sally Kilsyth had called down fire from the heavens to bear witness to her love.

If anyone had ever told Kirk, prior to his stay, that he would spend some of the happiest, most emotionally satisfied times of his life on Vulcan, he would have thought them certifiable. But, spending his days and nights with Eowyn, falling more deeply in love with her in every passing moment, it turned out to be true. How much he was influenced by the radiant happiness that was pouring out of Sally it was impossible to say. The 'Enterprise' had been everything to him for all the years he had captained her; wife, mother, mistress, friend and certainly the most demanding woman in his life. He had always known there was a core in him unsatisfied, resentful of the demands his ship had made on him, a yearning for something he believed he could never have. Eowyn filled all of his need.

When the 'Enterprise' moved into a parking orbit around Vulcan four weeks after that momentous night in the council chambers, Sarek and Amanda threw their doors open to her crew and watched the resultant human chaos with tolerant eyes.

Sally, wearing her iridescent dress, flitted from one friend to another and accepted comments and congratulations with typical exuberance. She was glowing like a flame-moth and Spock, restrained as always in public, observed her antics with a covert pride not even he could quite disguise.

The main reaction to the news was one of surprise; few people on board had been as observant as McCoy. Only Siran McKenna, that grave and silent young woman, had shown not the least astonishment. She exchanged one swift and secretive smile with Sally, and Kirk was pretty sure she had known everything there was to know, all along.

Uhura gave one huge and atypical shriek of glee and then retired to a corner with Sulu and the rest of the ship's entertainment committee. She may have been thwarted of the organisation of the wedding but her determined expression, not to mention the dazed and slightly dismayed faces of her colleagues, spoke of amazing celebrations still to come.

Kirk beamed back to the ship to discuss the refit with Scott and cast an eye over his new orders, sent from Doran in a sealed tape. What was contained there brought him back to Vulcan within thirty minutes, in search of Spock and Sally.

The party was in full swing and he could not see Sally's distinctive tangle of flaming hair anywhere among the press of bodies. A tug on his sleeve made him turn. It was Eowyn, lovely as ever in a copper-coloured dress.

'Where's Spock?' he asked her.

'In the garden with Sally, I think. Jim, are you okay? You look like you've had a shock.'

'I have. Could you chase me up a brandy?'

'Sure, I'll snaffle one from McCoy. Jim…'

Kirk kissed her swiftly on the forehead, smiled at her, and made his way through the crowd to the open windows. Eowyn watched him until he vanished into the darkness beyond, and then went in search of McCoy and a brandy bottle.

Kirk made his way slowly down the garden path towards the bench beside the small pool in the centre of the garden where he could just make out the starry glimmer of Sally's dress. She was sitting there with Spock, not touching, of course, but with their heads very close together. It was no part of his intention to spy on them, but something in their attitude warned him not to disturb them at that moment, so he stopped some yards away. He had thought they were quite motionless but Sally must have moved because something on her hand flashed fire in the starlight and she said, very quietly,

'Taishun knew. He knew it would be you.'

'I am glad to think we have his blessing,' Spock replied and looked at Sally with such tenderness that Kirk was momentarily transfixed by a hideous and unexpected stab of sheer jealousy. In all the years they had served together, though all the adventures they had shared, Spock had managed to keep the mask intact and it was Kirk who had to learn to read what was behind it. But for Sally, there would be no mask.

Then Spock looked up and saw him standing there and his eyes lit, quite definitely, with welcome and pleasure.

'Jim. Join us, please.' The tone told Kirk that Spock knew he had witnessed that little scene and, what was more, that Kirk was the only man whose presence he could have discovered without embarrassment.

The sensation of jealousy vanished like the bad dream it had been. Kirk walked down the slight slope towards his friends.

'Look,' Sally commanded gleefully, holding out her hand to him and he saw what it was that had flared and glinted under the stars. She wore a big violet opal instead of a wedding band, its translucent purple surface coruscating with veins of blue and gold and emerald and pink.

'It's lovely, Sally,' he said. He tried to instil enthusiasm into his voice but didn't quite manage it; or perhaps he did and they both just knew him too well.

'Something's happened,' Sally stated. 'What is it?'

He sat down beside her, bumping her over with his hip. She put her arm around him. Her body was warm and infinitely comforting.

'Still yours, Jim,' she murmured. 'Still your Sally.'

'I know,' said Kirk, and reached up to hold the hand resting on his shoulder.

'You have had new orders?' Spock asked.

'I have had new orders,' Kirk agreed. There was a pause.

'And?' Sally prompted.

'They're going to take her away from me, I think. Oh, Doran hasn't said so in so many words, but we are to take our refitted 'Enterprise' back to Earth where ' a proposition concerning my promotion and advancement' will be made to me.'

'You could decline,' Spock suggested.

'I could,' Kirk agreed, 'but we both know I'd just be postponing the inevitable. Hell, we all knew this had to happen sooner or later.'

'But this is sooner,' Sally protested. There were tears in her eyes. 'Cap'n Jim, I can't imagine a life without the 'Enterprise'. I thought it would last forever.'

'Nothing lasts forever,' Kirk said, with a pragmatism equal to McCoy's. 'We're none of us getting any younger,' ('Speak for yourself,' Sally advised, snorting) 'and our mission has already lasted longer than we originally planned.'

'Oh, stop behaving as if you've just had McCoy surgically stiffen your upper lip,' Sally snapped.

'Spock,' Kirk said, unsure whether he wanted to laugh or cry, 'I'm going to kiss your wife.'

'Be my guest, Jim,' Spock said blandly, and Kirk hugged Sally to him, drawing strength from her warmth and her fragrance.

'I still have 'Perihelion', Sally announced, apropos of absolutely nothing at all.

'What?' Kirk and Spock said together.

'I still have 'Perihelion',' Sally repeated patiently. 'She's in dock at Kairon Omega. I've had her refitted.'

'How did you afford that?' Kirk asked.

'Bloody men, can't see further than their own noses. Siran and Nyota had this sussed within two seconds of setting eyes on my wardrobe.'

'What the hell do your clothes have to do with anything?' Kirk wanted to know.

'Dear Jim, how much do you think the dress I got married in cost?'

'I haven't the faintest idea,' Kirk said shortly, and the tone said he didn't much care, either.

'It was 15,000 credits.'

'Considering the paucity of material, I suspect you were grossly over-charged,' Spock observed.

'Kindly banish any intention you may have of being a miserly husband, or we will have the quickest divorce in history. The point, gentlemen, is that it is a designer model, as are most of my clothes. And you're right, I certainly can't afford them on what you pay me.'

'Are you telling us you have money? Where from?' Kirk asked.

'Not only do I have money, I have lots and lots of money. Not all of my family were on Staxis, you know. My grandparents stayed on Earth. They were pretty wealthy anyway. They knew I'd been placed in stasis and they left me everything. Add two hundred years of interest and very clever investment and a few DNA and genetic identity hoops and we get – very rich.'

'Did you know about this?' Kirk demanded of Spock.

'Of course he did,' Sally replied.

'And nobody thought to tell me?'

'I did not think it was very important,' Spock said, and Kirk reflected he was one of the few men alive for whom that statement was probably true.

'Anyway,' said Sally, 'I had 'Perihelion' refitted to take a crew of twelve. Just in case.'

'In case of what?' Kirk wanted to know. 'What have you been planning?'

'You were the one who said nothing lasts forever,' she pointed out. 'Anyway, I haven't planned anything. All I'm saying is that I still have 'Perihelion' and she'll need a captain if I ever use her because I will have other fish to fry. Here's Wyn.'

'I found you a brandy,' Eowyn said to Kirk, 'but I'd get a move on if I were you because Bones is looking after it for you. Sally, everyone wants to know where you are.'

'I'm on my way, is what I am,' Sally said, getting up. She linked arms with Eowyn and began to walk towards the house. Kirk and Spock followed.

' "Other fish to fry"?' Kirk quoted ominously. 'Spock, what's she up to now?'

'I do not know,' Spock said, with a sigh, 'but I would put nothing past her.'

Kirk grinned suddenly and slapped his first officer lightly on the back.

'Spock, I think I can safely say you may find married life aggravating, exasperating, maddening, frantic and occasionally bizarre. But I don't think you will ever be bored.'

'I concur with that analysis,' Spock replied, and there was a smile in his voice, if not on his face.

They reached the terrace and Kirk took possession of his lady and walked into the throng with her. Sally waited on the terrace for a moment with Spock.

'Actually,' she said thoughtfully, 'this whole new orders thing is quite timely. I was going to have to resign my commission anyway. You can't go racing round the galaxy with babies in tow.'

'Are you pregnant?' Spock asked, startled.

'According to the medically-qualified godparent, whom I consulted this morning.'

'How?'

'How?' she repeated, with an eyebrow lift of her own. 'I'm sorry, do I not recall that you were present during the 'how' part of the process?'

'I simply meant… conception between species is not normally possible without medical intervention.'

'Well, our combined genetic material is 75% human, after all. McCoy checked and doubled checked, everything is dividing and growing exactly as it should. I can't wait to see what we turn out… Still, a woman does need a career, don't you think?'

'Possibly,' Spock agreed cautiously. Four weeks of marriage had considerably honed his early warning systems.

'I like being married, though.'

'I hope so.'

'In fact, it's a pity everyone we know isn't as happy… Don't you think it's a pity that all of our friends are so determinedly single?...Spock, I have it! Of course! Matchmaking! I'll take up matchmaking full-time. It's more than time they were all paired off.'

'Sally, I absolutely forbid you to do any such thing ,' Spock said instantly, in a tone of strong disapproval.

She laughed, and tilted her head to look at him. Her eyes shone with unholy mischief, her hair tumbled in wild curls around her face and her face was filled with teasing affection. In that one moment, Spock banished forever any hope or desire of turning Sally into a proper Vulcan wife.

The smile widened.

'Spock,' said Sally Kilsyth. 'My love, my life… up yours!'

THE END