T'Lar of Vulcan entered his cell and stood expectantly in the center of the room.
Spock rose from the smooth stone meditation stone and stood before her.
Without the slightest hint of emotion she spoke, "Spock, walk with me." And she walked out of the cell.
Spock reached up for his robe, pulling it on in silence as he walked in unhurried steps two full paces behind her.
They walked in silence along the corridors for hours. Finally having traversed every inch of the long catacombs she walked out through great entrance at the feet of Surak onto the long path that snaked through the lava flats. He followed in silence listening to the sound of his own feet on the stones, the quiet hissing of the sand, the incessant popping and hissing of the molten rock. His mind had been quieted to the point of near silence. Only doubt remained. But on this short journey, his mind's voice was silent. T'Lar summoned him and he went.
She walked the entire length of the turbulent field in even measured steps, turning at the end of the outermost path and following it back around the opposite side of the fiery pools.
Finally the main courtyard of Gol was before them, the geometric stone pattern leading up to the very feet of Surak and out as far as the eye can see. T'Lar paused at the edge of the dizzying plane and Spock, not missing a beat, stopped exactly two paces behind her. She turned to face him and addressed him in high Vulcan, "Thy mind is well disciplined and thy studies are diligent. It is time for the next step, Spock. Thou shall now join the others in the great hall."
Spock nodded his acknowledgement.
Without another word she turned away and walked up the path into the cool darkness leaving him to stand at the edge of the courtyard, looking up at the giant statue of Surak.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
He didn't mean to eavesdrop, but somehow he had managed to drop every one of his data chits on the carpet while sealing his office for the day.
A hushed hiss caught his attention, "Jason - psst - Jason!"
He heard the shuffle of Starfleet issue boots on the tile in the hall just around the corner from his office. Out of sight, but not out of earshot.
"What?" a man's voice answered.
The woman who he thought he recognized as the cadet who acted as intern to his office.
"Is he there?"
"Who?"
"You know who, Admiral Ahab?"
"What's that a new nickname?"
She laughed, "Yeah, He's our own very own hoo-rah humbug, chasing the great white Orion whale."
He snorted with mild amusement. "I like Queen of Hearts better 'Off with their heads! Off with their leave!"
"Well is he?"
"Kirk? Nah it's after 2000 he's long gone. Hoped in his bird o' prey and left the building."
Kirk stopped cold at this. They were talking about him.
Bird of Prey? Off with their leave?
"Why?" Jason asked.
The woman sighed heavily, "Oh good. I've got the latest from Enterprise. Captain Edwards is requesting more time for leave. I don't want to be there when he opens it. Whenever she implies Enterprise has been running too hard he gets all fired up and suddenly my boots aren't shined enough or my hair's out of regulation."
"Ah don't worry about it. It could be worse."
"Worse? You mean I could have been born an Orion?"
"Nah, you could have served with him on Enterprise."
She laughed out loud at this.
Kirk could hear them coming around the corner and he hastily backed out of sight into a small alcove where the coffeepot sat. Two or three minutes later the pair exited having deposited the report in Kirk's incoming messages file.
James Kirk simply sat for a very long time. He wasn't exactly hurt, he just didn't understand.
Hoo-rah humbug?
Certainly he was a stickler for military etiquette but this was Starfleet, not some country-dance. This was war.
He set his jaw angrily.
These kids just didn't get it.
He was saving their lives and their children's lives. They had no idea what they were talking about.
They didn't know what it was like to be out there on the front lines.
He smoothed his coat down neatly over his chest.
He drew himself up tall and headed home.
Damn kids. They didn't know what they were talking about.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
The great hall was full of silent Vulcans each sitting on their knees in absolute silence. Around the room stood the sentinels of logic, the Kolinahr Masters.
At irregular intervals one or more of them would leave the auditorium in silence only to return with a hand written text. At any given time there could be several of them reading aloud for the benefit of the acolytes.
Spock came to the Great Hall and sat on the dusty ground without a word. On this day there was silence when he entered. He sat facing a carved stone figure. It was both impish and grotesque, like a Terran gargoyle. Spock simply stared at it. It was what it was, nothing more.
A stone altered by Vulcan hands to resemble something. It was neither right nor wrong.
He stared at it for a very long time, never daring to believe that it could bring relief from the quiet hissing of doubt in his mind.
Not allowing his human heart to hope that the grotesque thing could extinguish the memory of the joy.
He simply concentrated on his breathing and the stone. He challenged himself with the task of utter stillness and absence of memory or emotion. How long could he simply be without the hissing memory of joyous rage? Each time the sensation or even the memory of the sensation returned it was a failure. It did not matter that the frequency of recurrence was diminishing nor that the severity of his emotional reaction was lessening. All that mattered was that it occurred and it shouldn't. He was failing by the moment.