Chapter 21 - Learning Opportunity

Late evening, Spock sat at the desk in his dorm room repairing his padd. Components and fixtures were laid out on a panel of red microvelvet and the room's air held a hint of epoxy scent. He had purchased another very powerful, but solid core, unit to use while he worked on this one. The new one could not be modified but it was nearly unbreakable. It sat on the corner of the desk ready with an alarm in case of a connection request from Kirk.

Spock picked up another ribbon with a touchless tweezers and fitted the ribbon into adjoining boards, sealed the join, clamped it, watched the status lights glow green. He sat back and looked over his work. He had plasti-welded the cracked frame, wondered if it had been flawed from its time of manufacture to break against his femur the way it had. He would have estimated previously that his femur would have lost in such a battle.

Spock's padd trilled softly. The lower middle of his chest seemed to swell in response, illogically so. He shook his head and accepted the connection.

"Hi." Kirk was sitting back against a pillow. His relaxed face held a sly smile.

"James."

"You alone?"

"Yes."

Kirk's hand filled the screen as he adjusted the monitor arm to better aim down at his face and bare chest. His hands came back up and propped behind his head, which made his pectoral and triceps muscles stand out.

"Busy?"

"I am repairing my padd. I have additional, optional class readings I could do, but they can also wait until we are through communicating."

"You have the privacy lock on your door?"

Spock instructed the door to change status. "Yes."

Kirk drew in his lips. "You're in a nice cozy light there. Sort of orange on one side, blue on the other."

"I am?"

"Yeah."

"Am I to assume from your breathy voice that you are physically involved in this conversation?"

Kirk's lips cocked sideways. "I'd like to be. You willing to spend our allotted time being intimate?"

"As much as that is possible. If you wish."

Kirk rocked forward, propped himself up with his pillow, then shifted his hips. He reclined back, looked over Spock's face. "I want to see you. Do you mind?"

Spock stood and shed his uniform. He sat again, held his new padd in his lap. Reconsidered, and lay back on the pillow, padd propped vertically on his abdomen.

Kirk sighed. His eyes closed. "I really wish you were here."

Spock moved the padd to his thigh, estimating the camera would pick up all of his torso. Kirk made a sound of approval, shifted his body.

"You okay?" Kirk asked.

"I am fine."

Kirk's eyes closed. His head tipped back. He opened his eyes, looked Spock over with a distant expression.

Kirk sat up, pushed the monitor around on the hinged arm, sat back against an additional pillow which concentrated his softly human abdomen. Spock knew the feel of that flesh by memory, the tiny roll at his waist when he had been ashore more than two weeks, the softness of some parts, the muscles of others.

Spock suppressed his reactions. Doing so pushed the physical reality of Kirk farther away, as if he were a recording or a simulation.

Kirk opened his eyes to look at Spock with a low, hooded gaze, tipped his head back, eyes slitted.

"I don't mean to tease you."

"It is all right, James. If I can assist you from here, I am pleased to do so."

Kirk smiled. "I won't have any trouble today. Not much else on my mind. When I get a bit of leave from more stressful times I'll probably need more from you. I'll be really grateful to have you to focus on. If I get a bit kinky on you, I apologize ahead of time. Seems to help with getting a real break from things."

Spock raised a left brow. "I am curious now."

Kirk smiled but it didn't reach his eyes. "Are you?"

Spock pitched his voice low, which he estimated Kirk would enjoy. "So I observed."

"I want so much to touch you right now."

After a time, Kirk sighed loudly and sat up. "That's better." He might have been running and just stopped. "I've gotta sleep in this bed yet tonight." He laughed. He sounded wistful, wildly alive and satiated, all at once. Spock ached, wished for him there with him, felt trapped in his body.

Kirk fell back on the pillows. "You still okay?"

"Yes."

Kirk seemed to sense the ambiguity.

Spock said, "I suppressed my reaction to you."

"I'm sorry about this situation. I wish we could do something for you."

Spock felt hollow, but he nodded.

"You sure you'll be all right?"

"This is new for me, James. I will know better next time we communicate."

Kirk's eyes closed. He appeared regretful.

"James. I want you to be pleased. And I do not think there is an alternative so it would be illogical for you to resist because of how I am." Spock sat up, cradling the padd on his forearms. "I am very pleased to be here for you. I do not wish to need to deceive you to obtain the logical outcome for you."

Kirk pulled the monitor over his head so it had a view downward on him. It made Spock ache more, which required he use his old disciplines of resisting reacting. He did not wish yet to put his emotions aside.

"You are doing better at communicating than I am."

"I am gratified to be with you this way."

Kirk put his hand on his head. "God, stop it." He laughed. "My Vulcan. Okay. I'll indulge myself and keep that separate from my concern for you. Okay?"

"Thank you, James."

Spock sat in his dormitory room with Joseph Conrad's words glowing on his new padd. He was sitting back with his feet up on the bunk, missing the padded window seat in Kirk's old room. He looked away and the eye tracking auto scroll stopped moving. It was his second time through the work. He was attempting to rethink it, to see it as a couched or coded message of some kind. Or at least read it poetically, which at times it seemed to reach for in an almost Vulcan style which Spock should ostensibly be capable of parsing given his year of tutoring in that.

The book seemed to be making an argument regarding the assumption of unchecked depravity outside social controls. And his naive protagonist provided the neutral view of events for the reader. But this argument did not need to be made. It was logical and obvious. It did not require extensive rehashing chapter after chapter to prove its worth. So Spock was certain he was missing something. The situations described in the story did closely match current concerns surrounding first contact with newly discovered planets and uncontrolled colonization of marginal worlds. The kind of problems the Federation worked hard to prevent, especially through brutal enforcement of the prime directive.

Spock did appreciate the author's attempts to support this viewpoint through displaying it baldly and wondered that it wasn't assigned at the Academy. Unlike newer works in a similar vein, this one focused more directly on that single issue and the age of the work made it harder to deny this sort of corruption's timeless power and would help argue against relaxing existing rules.

Spock turned back to the padd and it began to scroll again as his eyes moved over it. This was not the kind of discussion that would impress his tutor and he did not, so far, see any others.

Commander Absom repeatedly looked up to the higher tiers at Spock during his Propulsion lecture on ion injection and emission channeling in fueled thrusters. It happened enough times that P'Losiwst turned to Spock with antenna extended in question.

Spock expected to be waylaid on the way out of the auditorium, and he was. Commander Absom called him over to the front table where his flimsies and padds and extra remotes for the AI were scattered. P'Losiwst remained by the door, glittery yellow-jeweled satchel clutched across her front, as the other students filed out.

"Cadet Spock." Absom stared down at Spock from under his bushy white eyebrows. He appeared displeased. "What are you working on right now. Project wise?"

"I assist in student services."

Absom stood with hands on hips. "How'd that happen?"

"I suppose a human would say I fell into it, Commander."

Absom stared. His eyes appeared slightly cloudy. "Are you attending the advanced research internship reception this Saturday?"

"I had not intended to."

"You intend to now."

"Yes, sir."

Absom began gathering up his things in a manner as disorganized as the things themselves. "I sent your file to a colleague working on the Antaras Project. But talk to everyone. Understand? Every high-level project accepting students will be there. I got Captain Chanel to add a note vouching for your independent work when it was questioned, so make us look good over here. All right?"

"Yes, sir."

Spock and P'Losiwst strode together to the larger auditorium for Core Cultures. "Do you have an interest in accompanying me to this event Commander Absom mentioned?"

"Absom had me at 'reception'."

"I see."

Kirk's latest message appeared to have been written in four sessions based on an analysis of styles and shifting moods. Kirk was bruised from heavy workouts; he was sleeping well; he up to date on the planetary security situation and his new crew; and he was finally feeling somewhat confident. Spock was relieved to see Kirk's attention moving onward to his duties. He didn't advise Spock on any matter in any section of the message.

Kirk was due to arrive at his assigned post in less than 24 hours. Spock immediately estimated what distance Kirk would progress in 3 days 20 hours, and ten minutes. There were four former colony worlds that distance from the base where Kirk had changed ships. Spock entered the names of the worlds into his Starfleet feed filters along with the system names.

Spock's breathing became too shallow. He put the reaction aside, then put aside the one behind it he hadn't been aware of. He stood fixed, a single feed item trickle in. There had been only a handful of notices for those locations over the last month. Lack of data was going to be the first significant change to grow accustomed to.

Spock's door chimed. P'Losiwst stood in the doorway. She wore a silver scarf and silver insignia brooch around her neck. "Ready to recept? I hear it's an open bar."

At P'Losiwst's insistence they took a ground car to the private venue on the edge of campus and found their way inside. Admission appeared to be free and open but the hall's occupants were almost entirely senior cadets with a few second years. P'Losiwst surveyed the room, grinned broadly at Spock.

Immersion experience booths were arranged around the perimeter of the hall. High tables were scattered in the center. Most of the senior class seemed to be present, standing relaxed in the poses humans favored in a bar setting. P'Losiwst left Spock's side, returned with two bright yellow glasses of liquid.

"They called this drink 'coolant fumes on Vega' and said to sip slowly."

Spock held up the glass. Threads of a green liquid were snaking through the glowing yellow, refusing to mix. He pretended to sip it.

"That Antaras?" P'Losiwst asked.

Directly opposite the entrance, occupying half a wall of space, stood a significantly larger than average booth draped in black. The logo hovering to the left of it was a pair of As vaguely resembling the Starfleet deployment insignia, mirroring each other upside-down. The lower A had a squiggle at two corners as if to indicate a ripple in water.

"Let's practice first. Come on," P'Losiwst said.

"Wise," Spock said, but she didn't hear him. She'd already headed off to the first booth on the right.

They worked their way up the row. In most booths, P'Losiwst stepped into the experience zone and back out within a minute. She listened longer only in the extreme environment botanical chemistry research booth. In the others, she waited for Spock while sipping her drink, eyes scanning the other cadets as they made their way around the room, talking about what they knew of the projects.

Spock was either ignored by booth staff after they observed his first year cadet grays, or given too much attention after they observed his race. He would have kept to himself, observing, but accepted P'Losiwst's logic as his own and asked questions about how students managed to juggle projects and studies, how their work was acknowledged on the project, whether students had any autonomy with their work selection.

"Feel ready?" P'Losiwst asked when they were halfway along the wall of booths.

"Yes."

Her antenna were unusually angled outward. Spock wondered if that was an outcome of consuming her third drink as rapidly as she had the first two. Spock reluctantly offered her his untouched first drink before they stepped up to the Antaras booth.

Unlike the others there were no informational panels on the outside, only romanticized images of prototype ships being simulated flying in open space. Inside, Spock heard Cadet Jaek's voice. He was gesticulating at a human female dressed all in black wearing Antaras logos on her shoulders.

"My cousin does a lot of contract part work for impulse engines. I worked in that division two summers when I was fourteen and fifteen. Learned everything there was learn about engine specialty metals and crystal growth. And we're bidding on the full scale of the standardized units about to be deployed fleet-wide. I expect we'll get those. My aunt and uncle run the shop. I said that right?" Jaek looked up as did everyone else when the projections on the black backdrop shifted to show a set of curvy field grids overlaid on an unusual engine design. Equations and force lines bloomed outward. The star field behind the engine surged to the left, inflicting a dizzying impression of motion, of riding along with the engine model through a 3D starscape.

Jaek kept talking. The booth staff member stared past him, glaze eyed. Senior cadets filled in, eyes reflecting the simulated engine.

P'Losiwst nudged Spock. "Go on."

"I will wait. If you do not wish to, please continue on to the other booths."

She sipped her drink. "We have to stick together. This is hostile territory."

"Indeed."

Cadets stepped out, more wandered in and picked up the large silvery data cards with the logo on it. Cadet Horton came in with a drink in each hand. He nudged Jaek with one of them, spilling on his uniform, which Jaek didn't seem to notice. He spotted Spock and P'Losiwst at the edge of the simulation projection area, and his face wrinkled.

"This is my best friend, Horty. Can't do anything without him." Jaek gestured at the black clad Antaras representative, said to Horton. "Antaras is doing the next gen glider field design. No longer impulse. My uncle thinks it's bunk that they can get it working at scale." He sipped his drink.

Horton tapped Jaek's arm. "Look who's here."

Jaek turned around, seeming annoyed to have his thoughts interrupted. He looked Spock over and his brows lowered. He turned back to the representative. "So, what's available end of term here in the Antaras SF office?"

The rep ignored him. "Are you Cadet Spock?"

Beside Spock, P'Losiwst said very quietly, "Sic 'em."

Spock gave a small bow and stepped forward two paces, not enough to intervene in the existing social tableau.

"I was promised you'd come by." The rep stepped through the crowd to Spock. She held out a small round chit. "There's a real recruiting meeting and the information is on there." She looked plainly at Spock. "Okay? Any questions for me?"

Spock bowed again. "No, sir. Thank you."

"Good man. See you then."

Spock resisted looking at his fellow cadets on the way out, resisted looking at the coin on the way out as well, palming it instead. P'Losiwst held her drink to her lips as she went.

They were back out in the table area. P'Losiwst set the half-full glass down. "Take your drink back. That was priceless." She wore a crooked smile as she watched him sniff the substance in the glass. "Nice touch with the ultra humble. That really put a nice layer of ice on it."

Spock allowed a small amount of liquid between his lips as a test. It tickled his tongue and the heat of his mouth ignited vapors which entered his sinuses and smoldered there. "I was not attempting to accentuate the interaction in any way."

Her antenna tilted inward. "Even better."