"Just give him time. He'll come around. Meno ya mbwa hayaumani."

"I do not comprehend your meaning. 'The teeth of a dog do not lock together?'"

"It means that brothers don't hurt each other when they fight. I can understand why Jim reacted the way that he did when that Atkinnon Great Minister spat on you," she regarded me seriously. "To be honest, I wanted to kill him too. I just didn't act on it."

"The captain should not have acted on that impulse as well."

"I know where you're coming from, too. It's just... hard to keep level headed and cool when someone's abusing a person you care about."

"I was not subjected to abuse."

She sighed. "Denial doesn't look very good on you, Spock."

"In their context, the actions of the Atkinnons were socially acceptable and therefore—"

"Call it what you want, but there are some things that are absolutely inviolable. Respect for all the life in this universe is one of them."

--

"Just give him time. It takes Jim a couple days to come around. Sometimes he gets it in his head that he's right no matter what."

"Public opinion seems to be divided on this matter."

"Why, you've been polling people?" Dr. McCoy looked up from his desk. He put down his datapad and stylus. "Personally, I think you were right. Jim's a captain, and shaping up to be a pretty good one at that. But it hasn't sunk in that it means sacrificing some things—sometimes good and noble things. He wants to have his cake and eat it too."

"Does he understand the rationale behind my arguments? No matter my personal discomfort, the needs of the Federation take priority—"

"Yeah, he gets it. He hates that you're right in this case, but he gets it. Give him time."

"How many hours does the captain need to integrate this new paradigm?"

"You can never tell with a human, Spock. Maturity's a tricky thing, especially when it comes to Jim."

"Thank you, doctor." I moved to leave.

"Oh, and by the way—Jim's got weird ways of sayin' sorry. Just giving you a heads up."

--

"Commander Spock?"

"Lt. Ozani, Ensign Yeats."

"Um, this is for you, sir."

"The entirety of this package?"

"Yes, sir."

"May I inquire as to the sender?"

"Don't know, sir. We were beaming up some supplies from the outpost and there was this package with your name on it."

I scrutinized the label.

"Um, Commander?"

"Yes, Ensign Yeats?"

"Could you take it? Or let us set it down in your quarters? It's kind of heavy."

I keyed in the sequence for my quarters.

"Place it here, thank you."

"Right, sir. Let us know if there's anything amiss."

"Certainly."

Inside were three items: a finely woven and extremely rare geometric Vulcan tapestry depicting the Mandelbrot Set fractal, the newest model of the Vortex Xai nano-supercomputer, and a slim, worn copy of the Songs of S'lmon.