Arg-117P: Day 23

Amanda pulled the blanket more tightly around her shoulders and went back to lazily stirring the stew of vegetables over the open flame of the campfire. A clang and a loud ooooof rang out from behind her and she flipped around to see Sarek had dropped the outer panel of the pod on the tops of his feet.

"Are you ok?" she asked, hurrying over to him as fast as she could on her right leg, which was still tender.

"I do not believe I have sustained serious injuries," he replied. Amanda wasn't sure she believed him, based on the pained expression on his face.

"Why don't you come sit down and rest?" she urged, trying to lift and reposition the panel to lean against the side of the pod.

"It will be nightfall soon and I would prefer not to leave a sizable hole in the side of our shelter."

Amanda sighed and nodded. "Is there any way at all I can help you?"

He blinked and glanced away, only to reply in a monotone voice just moments later, "My work is nearly complete. Please, return to preparing end meal."

End meal. What a peculiar term.

Amanda stepped back and glanced at the chimney he'd spent the past four days building along the side of the pod before returning to her previous task. He had pulled several of the upper panels out to make a hole and had built a rock structure around it with a hole at the bottom facing outward half a meter off the ground. They would have to go outside to feed firewood into it, but now they would be able to heat the pod without relying on their dwindling deuterium supplies.

All that seemed to remain for him to do was replace the two outer panels of the pod flanking the hole for the chimney and seal the gap between the rocks and the pod's exterior, but four days of hauling rocks from a muddy creek bottom had exacted a steep physical toll on him. Amanda hadn't been able to help much because her leg was still quite bruised and sore and it almost caused her even more pain to think of how Sarek was nearly killing himself just so they could stay warm.

The past few days had cast Sarek in a very different light as far as Amanda was concerned. She couldn't pinpoint the exact moment that he'd gone from being some stuffy guy with a sharp haircut to a rugged, handsome hero, but once the idea had been planted in her mind, it refused to go away. The harder she tried to convince herself that she wasn't attracted to him, the more attractive he became.

She knew, she just knew her little crush had to be some kind of consequence of the fact that he had saved her life and also perhaps that he was literally the only man on the planet, but when she allowed herself to consider Sarek as a person, there was a lot to like under that very dry personality.

Sarek was clearly very intelligent, resourceful, and capable. He almost didn't seem real. How could anyone be an astrophysicist and a diplomat who also liked martial arts and playing the Vulcan harp-thing and someone who also just so happened to be good at building waterproof firewood shelters and chimneys? And he was in damn good shape, all things considered. The more she put the pieces of him together, the more appealing, and intimidating, he became.

This developing and unscheduled infatuation was making her review all her previous interactions with him and in hindsight most of them made her cringe. The way she had whined to him about how being stuck here was worse than prison or the way she'd sneered at him and questioned his survival skills.

Her mind drifted back and forth, probing the boundaries of her interest in Sarek and wishing she could convince herself she felt nothing. Just as afternoon faded into dusk, he sat down on one of the large logs they had turned into informal chairs and slowly rubbed his hands. Even in the dwindling light, Amanda could see they were chapped and raw from days of continuous masonry work.

"Are you done with the chimney?" she asked, glancing at the pod.

"The seal is inadequate for the winter, but it is sufficient for the night. I will finish it tomorrow."

"The vegetables are ready," Amanda announced, poking one of the swollen tubers and watching it bulge. "At least, I think so. I couldn't exactly find any recipes for Arg-117P onions."

"It is sustenance and that is sufficient," he replied, rising to his feet to collect a bowl from her.

It was Amanda who took the first bite, and while it wasn't exactly vomit-inducing, it was far from anything she'd want to eat. She scowled and popped another of the yellow, carrot-like vegetables in her mouth and avoided looking at Sarek. Even though she had no experience cooking these vegetables and even though her access to spices was non-existent and even though she only had two pots and regular utensils to cook with, she felt very self-conscious about the way it had turned out. Being able to collect food and prepare this meal was really the only contribution she'd made in the past several days and she she had ruined it.

They had plenty of rations left, but Amanda had suggested eating more of the food they were collecting, now that they had two storage containers full of the stuff. Sarek had declared it logical—the rations had a shelf-life of nearly a hundred years while the vegetables might last several months in the retrofitted root cellars—and so that night had been the first time she'd tried her hand at cooking some of it.

Bite by bite she forced it down and eventually Sarek also picked up his fork and began eating, but Amanda felt torn between asking what he thought and apologizing for how terrible it was. She watched him as casually as she could and was unable to register any general displeasure in his face, but then again, he never expressed any kind of satisfaction in his meals.

Amanda bit her lip and stuffed another of the onions in her mouth, concentrating on anything but the mealy food in an effort to avoid gagging. Four swift chews and a swallow and she took a long swig from her canteen to wash it down.

"Will we be able to use the chimney tonight, do you think?"

"It is inadvisable until I have made a final assessment of the chimney's stability and the airflow through it," he replied, not looking at her.

"And once we're done with the chimney, then what?"

"It is logical for you to continue collecting food while I cut firewood."

"I can split logs too," Amanda replied.

"I believe you can, but it is more logical for you to see to our food stores."

"How is it more logical?"

"I have greater strength and physical stamina than you and your leg is not yet healed."

Amanda clenched her jaw and allowed her cheeks to burn—it's not like he would noticed in the pale twilight.

"I just want to feel like I'm contributing."

"You are contributing," he answered swiftly. "Sustenance is essential for survival."

"No kidding," Amanda replied, glancing at the bowl of food in his hands that he'd barely touched. Was he not eating because he ate so little anyway or because the vegetables were really that terrible?

She managed to gulp down the rest of her food and waited for Sarek to do the same. He seemed to sense she was waiting for him to finish, so he ate quickly and without complaint as Amanda lumped mud over the coals of the campfire to extinguish it. They followed each other inside without uttering a single word, set the dishes in the box by the door, and readied themselves for bed.

The idea of going to bed when it got dark was so laughable, but there wasn't much else to do and these days she perpetually lived in a state somewhere between tired and exhausted. Sarek excused himself to the lavatory to wash up while Amanda scrubbed the dinner dishes and tried to keep from thinking about how dreadful she probably looked and smelled.

They had installed a bucket in the lavatory with one of the water containers for bathing purposes, but the lavatory was only the size of a large closet and the bucket only held five liters of water. It was enough to soak a rag with a little bit of soap and run it over the armpits and other problem areas, but it was a far cry from bathing.

"My kingdom for a sonic shower," she grumbled to herself, using her fingernail to scrape starch from the inside of the pot. She glanced toward her side of the pod and her scowl deepened as she added, "And my soul for a comfortable bed."

To be entirely fair, she'd lived in worse conditions before. During one of her last camping trips to Yellowstone with her father, she'd been forced to dig a little trench behind her sleeping bag to keep cold water runoff from trickling into it and soaking her during the night. She'd still gotten wet and come close to hypothermia, but her dad had said such experiences built character.

Maybe they did, but how much character could a girl build doing it for the rest of her life? Amanda surveyed the pod. It definitely was an upgrade from the rugged backpacking vacations of more than a decade ago, but at least those had had a definite end. She could handle going a week without a proper shower or a soft mattress, but doing it for the rest of her life was a tough pill to swallow.

It occurred to her she was being negative again and she tried to train her thoughts on more positive things, but there weren't a lot of overwhelmingly great things to focus on. What she needed was some kind of brief cathartic escape, like a movie or a book or anything to mentally transport her out of this mess, even if just for a few hours.

The pod had had a decent movie selection, but Sarek probably wouldn't agree to burn more of their precious deuterium reserves for entertainment. Then she remembered her PADD. It had an independent power cell with a 4,500 hour battery life, but more importantly, in addition to the Federation encyclopedia, it had come equipped with a small library of preinstalled books, films, songs, and games.

Amanda had only really ever used it for correspondence and keeping up with the news and on the rare occasion she had indulged in some form of entertainment on the device, she'd generally just streamed it from one of the networks. Streaming capabilities on Arg-117P were somewhat limited—limited as in non-existent—but maybe there was something halfway watchable in the library.

She flipped the dishes upside down to allow them to dry and sifted through her belongings for the handheld device and upon finding it, flipped the cover over to discover it was still on an informational page about ka'athyras. The little power bar in the top right corner read fifty-three percent. A little quick math told her she had about a hundred days of battery power left, if she left it on continuously.

She was thumbing through the selection of pre-installed movies when the lavatory door opened, revealing Sarek in a set of clean black clothes and carrying a bucket of dirty water. He dumped it outside and refilled it for Amanda, who hauled it into the tiny lavatory. She collected some clean-ish clothes and her bar of soap and shut herself inside, taking a slow breath to revel in the idea of solitude for the next several minutes.

Amanda was torn between being eager and reluctant to strip off her clothes. She was filthy and wanted to get herself clean, but clothes also hid the sight of her rapidly deteriorating body. When she finally did muster up the will to pull her shirt over her head, she couldn't help but gawk at what was reflected back at her in the small rectangular mirror over the sink.

Deep bruises remained all over her torso from her fall, but her ribs were also protruding more and more with each passing day. Her mother was the type of person who was always advocating some new diet every few months, but apparently nothing beat good old-fashioned starving. She pinched the flesh over her left hip and swore that if she ever made it off this awful planet alive, she would never complain about cellulite or barely perceptible jiggling ever again.

Gritting her teeth, she peeled her trousers off and glared at the wreckage of her right leg which was an impressive display of colors one might see in a Mardi Gras parade. Soft hair had sprouted on her thighs and calves. It was such a vain thing, to want to strip her body of hair that naturally grew there, and though she'd never thought of herself has overly obsessed with her appearance, a large part of her wanted to just feel normal again.

She collected her washcloth and dipped it into the water. It was freezing and the prospect of smearing it all over her body repelled her, but so too did the vicious odor emanating from her armpits. She rubbed the soap through the cloth to make a lather, but it slipped through her hands and bounced off the floor. The location it settled in forced Amanda to duck down on her hands and knees to retrieve it, and when she did, she found a pair of steel loops in the floor beside the toilet. She pulled and twisted and a clicking sound released a box from the floor about forty centimeters wide and long.

Most of the supply boxes had been neatly embedded in the walls and floors in a similar manner, but it surprised her that she'd managed to overlook this one for so long. She flipped the lid and nearly laughed. Cans of deodorant spray, feminine hygiene products, floss, UV teeth cleaners, and laser razors greeted her.

She sat down on the toilet and examined her left leg and without skipping a beat, began shearing away the soft, dark hair.


His thoughts swirled around in a nebulous cloud. Intensive meditation permitted him moments of clarity, but they were becoming more rare with each passing day. He had not been able to control his emotions for some time now. At best, he could merely conceal them by training his face into a neutral expression. He wondered whether his rapidly declining condition was noticeable to Amanda.

He had supposed he had several months before pon farr would claim his life, but now he was suspecting he had made an overestimation. His symptoms were simply too severe.

A loud clang from the lavatory startled him and in a moment of inattention, he allowed his upper lip to curl in annoyance. Amanda had been in there for a considerable length of time. Surely washing and dressing should not take forty-five minutes? It was illogical to be irritated by this—he had already performed his hygiene ritual—and yet he was.

He clenched his hands into fists and winced. Four days of masonry work had left their mark on his fingers. He'd first had to dig the rocks out of the nearby creek bed, carry them back to their camp, and assemble them into the chimney structure. His fingers were sore beyond comprehension and he suspected most of the tendons and ligaments in them were strained or torn. He had barely been able to hold his fork at dinner. Not that he was hungry much these days anyway, due to the appetite suppression caused by pon farr.

He was contemplating how best to mend them with a dermal regenerator—in order to use a handheld dermal regenerator, he needed at least one good hand—when Amanda appeared in the lavatory doorway, looking happier than she had in the entire time he'd known her.

"Is everything ok?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Yes." It seemed strange she would ask such a thing.

She moved to her side of the pod without saying another word while Sarek located the dermal regenerator in the medical kit. His hands were so battered he had great difficulty pulling it from the padded hole where it was stored, but eventually he managed it. He sat down on his bed and searched through the settings to find the necessary parameters for ligament repair when he noticed a bright, blue light appear from Amanda's side of the pod.

She was gazing at her PADD and scrolling her finger along its screen. After nearly a minute, she seemed to become aware he was watching her and tilted her head in his direction.

"Is the light bothering you? I can turn it off."

"It is not," he replied, troubled to discover he'd been staring at her.

"I thought I would try and watch a movie," she added. "I can turn on the subtitles so it doesn't make sound and keep you awake."

"That is not necessary," he replied reflexively.

"Would you like to watch it with me then?"

He had little interest in popular human entertainment forms, but her proposal piqued his interest. His fracturing logic had left him vulnerable to a wide array of symptoms, from agitation to uncontrollable sexual arousal. But perhaps most curious was a sense of growing boredom. He'd stayed occupied from the moment he stepped foot on Arg-117P, but the nature of the work was mundane and far from mentally stimulating. Realizing Amanda was expecting an answer, he gave a small nod of his head.

Amanda chuckled. "Seriously?"

He raised an eyebrow, which made Amanda hold her hands up innocently and say, "Yes, yes I know. I need to stop being so surprised by your answers."

"What is the function of asking a question if one is unwilling to believe the answer?"

"So would you like to watch a movie or not?"

"I believe I already assented. I do not object to exploring this form of entertainment."

Amanda grinned. "Ok then. What kind of movies do you like?"

"Is there anything informational?"

"Like a documentary? Um… here's the first season of Tyson Beck's Food Travels."

"Could you provide a brief summary?"

"It's this human guy with a crazy handlebar mustache who goes all over the Federation, trying different local dishes. The synopsis of the first episode has him eating Andorian ice slugs, which sounds gross, but then again, I'm so hungry I could probably eat a whole plateful of Andorian ice slugs right about now."

"Then perhaps we should try something else."

"There's not a whole lot," she sighed. "It's a bunch of cheesy romcoms from the mid-to-late 21st century, some action movies dating all the way back to 1987, a lot of sequels that should have never been made, and a few standup comedy specials I can almost guarantee aren't funny, just looking at the pictures of the comedians."

"Standup comedy?"

"Yeah, people get on a stage and just tell jokes and try to make people laugh. Real illogical stuff."

"Very well, what precisely is a rom-com?"

"A romantic comedy. They often end up being more predictable than romantic or funny."

"What do you recommend?"

"That's just it—there's not a whole lot that I'm really excited about. Well, hang on. Here's the 2185 remake of Jane Eyre. It was right before they started making holomovies."

"As it is the only program you have not expressed outright derision for, perhaps we should observe it."

Amanda smiled and pressed a button before looking around nervously. "It's a pretty small screen: should I come over there and sit by you or would you prefer to come over here?"

"I have no preference."

He watched as Amanda flipped over one of the empty boxes by the door and propped the PADD up by his bedside, then dragged the seat cushions and blankets that comprised her bed over next to his. Sarek was already regretting consenting to this and he very nearly told her he would be content to merely listen to the audio when she flopped down and leaned back on her elbows. She was only a meter away, but that was closer than he would have preferred.

Wild instincts began to surge through him and he found himself growing aroused, so he pinched the knuckle of his thumb to elicit a pain response in an effort to curb his physical excitement. The movie began and he stared at the small, twenty centimeter screen, determined to keep his mind on the cinematic feature rather than on more crude concerns.

Jane Eyre turned out to be the biographical account of a woman who endured a harsh childhood in a school run by a cruel headmaster. Humans had often critiqued Vulcan educational methods as stark and severe, but Vulcans would not use physical violence against a child in order to force compliance. Upon graduating, Jane Eyre later became a private tutor to the daughter of a well-to-do aristocrat. The clothing the characters wore, particularly the women, was most peculiar and unlike any he was accustomed to seeing on modern Earth, but Amanda had indicated this film was produced in 2185, so perhaps that was how humans dressed in the late 22nd century.

"You're frowning. Do you hate Jane Eyre that much?"

"Hatred is illogical, but I do find it rather curious that someone thought to document this woman's life when she is objectively quite ordinary."

Amanda threw back her head and laughed. "Jane Eyre wasn't a real person. At least, I don't think so. Maybe Charlotte Brontë based her off a real person, but this is a fictional story."

"If it is fictional, what is the intended moral?"

"Um, I don't know. It explores a lot of themes about life in the nineteenth century. The lack of women's rights, the tragedy of loving someone you can never have..."

"I see."

He saw her prepare to say something else, but she bit her lip and turned back to the screen. The simple act of watching her upper teeth play at her lower lip caused his arousal to return, and so Sarek once again turned to pain to try and subdue it.

He picked up the forgotten dermal regenerator and began the task of repairing his hands, but it was slow and painful work. He noticed Amanda glance at him several times before she finally asked, "Can I help you? That looks kind of hard with two bad hands."

"I do not require assistance."

"I didn't ask if you required it; it looks like you could use it."

"No, thank you."

"Please, let me help you," Amanda sighed. "I've been feeling so useless the past few days. I can handle a dermal regenerator and there's no sense in being stubborn."

What happened next was partly surreal and entirely captivating. She politely confiscated the device from his left palm, checked the settings, then held out her right hand, indicating that he should set his own hand within her grasp. He wanted to refuse, he needed to refuse, but desire compelled him to comply. The moment their hands touched, a warm, extremely pleasurable sensation spread outward from his hand to the rest of his body. It was similar to ozh'esta but far more defined, which filled him with euphoria and profound panic.

He wanted her. He wanted to touch her, to meld with her, to be inside of her. This developing want started to metamorphose into need, and when he started leaning forward, Amanda stiffened.

"Is everything ok?" she asked softly.

Their eyes met and he was greeted by her kind, mildly curious expression. She was beautiful. A lifetime passed in the ten second that they sat that way, staring at each other with his hand clasped between hers. The distance between them seemed to be narrowing, but fortunately, Amanda squeezed his hand slightly, causing just enough pain to return him to his senses. He ripped his hand away from hers and shook it, desperate to make the lingering sensation of ozh'esta stop.

"Did I hurt you?" she stammered. "I'm sorry, I-"

Sarek glanced over at Jane Eyre, which was still playing on Amanda's PADD, only to find her locked in a tight embrace with Mr. Rochester. He leapt to his feet and headed for the door of the pod.

"Sarek?" Amanda called after him.

"Leave me," he snarled, smashing his fist on the hatch release.

Pain flooded his right hand, but he paid little attention. What he had nearly done was unforgivable. He had nearly forced himself upon an unsuspecting human woman. He needed to remove himself from her presence, for her sake if for nothing else.

"Sarek?" Amanda cried again.

He lengthened his stride. Where was he going? It did not matter, so long as he was away from her. He was several hundred meters into the muddy wheatgrass when a loud roar filled his ears, followed by a familiar clicking and chattering sound, which directly preceded a squeal and violent thrashing. A different instinct emerged, prompting Sarek to scan his surroundings for immediate danger.

Even with his sensitive ears, he could not pinpoint the source of the tumult. It sounded extremely close, less than thirty meters away, but he could see nothing by the few stars visible between the clouded night sky and the grass was waist high. An animal began to scream and the swishing of the grass and Amanda's shrieks were all he could hear.

Suddenly, he saw the faint light of the interior emergency lighting of the pod in the distance and without pausing to think, sprinted in its direction. The closer he got, the louder Amanda's hysterics became. She met him about a third of the way, but he didn't stop. He pushed her back in the direction of the pod and they ran together until they reached the top of the ramp.

Momentum carried Amanda all the way to the back of the pod, where she crashed into the far wall. Sarek shut the hatch and trained his ears in the direction of the noise.

"What the hell was that?" Amanda shouted, massaging her right leg.

"Quiet!"

She complied, shuffling toward his position. There was a fierce battle raging outside, approximately two hundred meters directly in front of the entrance to their pod. Perhaps some kind of predatory nocturnal animal in the throes of a hunt. The violence continued for several minutes and after a comfortable silence, Amanda whispered, "Are you ok? Are you hurt?"

"I have sustained no obvious injuries," he replied, not looking at her.

"What was that? What happened?"

"I did not see either the predator or the prey."

"Me either, but I know it was big."

"Yes."

Amanda closed her eyes and nodded. "Maybe we should go to bed."

"Yes," he agreed.

Amanda collected her PADD, pulled her bed back to her side of the pod, and laid down facing the wall. Sarek also laid down. He thought of trying to mend his hands once again with the dermal regenerator, but decided it could wait until morning. The brief encounter with fear seemed to have had a calming effect on his pon farr and it wasn't long before he drifted off to sleep.

When morning eventually came, it revealed itself to be yet another gray day, but that was not the first thing Sarek noted upon opening the hatch. Approximately two hundred meters in front of him, the blue-green grass was stained a dark color. Amanda was still asleep, but rather than wake her only to frighten her with this development, he donned his boots and went to investigate.

He noticed the tracks well before arriving at the scene. They were large, deep, and possessed three toes, similar to the ones they had seen around Carl Hornsby's shuttle. There were also countless smaller tracks. Had this animal been hunting the ground squirrels Amanda called riki tikkis? He didn't think so. The roars and screams he'd heard last night suggested that the larger animal had been the one terrified and in pain, rather than the other way around.

When he finally found the carcass, he wasn't sure what to make of it. It was a truly enormous animal that had been stripped of the majority of its flesh. It had a long snout and a jaw lined with five centimeter long canine teeth. It possessed wide, cat-like feet with three toes and impressive claws. He knew nothing of this planet's wildlife, but any reasonable person would have considered the dead creature before him as a candidate for the apex predator in nearly any ecosystem.

There was shuffling in the grass and he sensed Amanda approaching, but he didn't turn to acknowledge her. When she reached his position, she was quiet for a long time before saying, "What do you suppose managed to bring down something like this and strip it to the bone?"

"I do not know."

At last, he turned to face her and found her complexion was whiter than he would have believed possible. Her jaw clenched and she tightly crossed her arms over her body.

"We should return to the pod and prepare to begin work for the day."

"We should start carrying the hand phasers," Amanda retorted, turning on her heel and walking toward the pod. She was shaking, but she made no mention of being afraid.

Later that morning, after patching up his hands with the dermal regenerator, Sarek resumed work on patching the hole in the side of the pod he'd created to install the chimney while Amanda continued to collect tuberous roots by the tree line. He did his best to avoid contemplating the events of the night before, how soft her hands had been and how badly he'd wanted to join minds with her. He did everything he could to push her out of his mind and had very nearly succeeded when a loud yell burst from the woods.

"Amanda?" he called back, dropping his tools and racing toward her location.

"Sarek, look!"

When he caught sight of Amanda, he saw she was standing up with one hand shielding her eyes from the brightness of the sky and the other pointing to something. He followed the line of her finger to find a bright object was hurtling through the atmosphere and appeared to be on a trajectory to land nearby.

"Do you think it's a shuttle?" she called, her face aglow with excitement. "Someone coming to get us?"

"I do not know," he called back to her, hurrying back to the pod to find the tricorder. Upon finding the instrument, he sat on the ramp while Amanda looked on in anticipation.

"So?" Amanda asked after two minutes had passed.

"It is likely not a piloted shuttle," he admitted, analyzing the chemical signatures.

She uttered a quiet groan and covered her face in her hands. "I can't believe I was stupid enough to get hopeful."

"It appears to be an escape pod," he added, noting it was of a similar size and makeup to the one he'd arrived in from the Bell.

"Will it help us escape from this planet?" she sighed.

"Perhaps," he replied, catching her gaze.

"Really?" she gasped, slowly covering her mouth with her right hand.

He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. Why did she so often insist on refusing to believe him? "Really."


Author's Note:
I know this chapter is very overdue, seeing as how it should have gotten posted the weekend before last. I had final exams all last week and then went out of town to visit my mom for Mother's Day (I have the best mom, it's true). Anyway, here it is, about ten days later with my humble apologies. Thanks for understanding!