A Decorated Tree
Sulu goes, later that evening, back to look at the decorated tree.
Uhura is already there, sitting with her knees drawn up, and her arms wrapped around them. He drops down to sit beside her.
She doesn't say anything; and as the minutes pass, he thinks she must be as mesmerized by its glory as he finds himself to be.
Looking at it, he feels his heart fill with delight.
The main lights of the room are off, and the small lights fixed on the tree make it glow: Magical – mysterious - against a velvet background of black.
He stares at it for a long time. He tries to look at each ornament, one by one – but the task is too large, and he finds himself reluctant to dismiss one to move to the next. It strikes him then, how unlikely it is that this thing should be here, looking like it does, way out in Space. He cannot contain himself, any longer.
"All different parts of Earth," he says, and there is wonder in his voice. He is quiet for a few seconds; then: "Look at it, Uhura, every continent is there, and how many nations?"
He glances over and sees tears swimming in her eyes. Her gaze appears to be fixed on the tree, and he tries to imagine what she is seeing there. Perhaps just its beauty? Well, that is cause enough.
"And – what – seven more planets, besides?"
"Six," she says firmly.
After a minute she stands; then silently leaves the room with deliberate, resolute steps. Sulu thinks maybe there was pain in her voice; and, pretty as she is in her party clothes, he doesn't have the heart to watch her walk away.
His eyes search the tree.
Earth, obviously.
Nene, Melva, Altair. He recognizes, easily, the symbols of those worlds, and thinks he knows which crewmen put them there. He thinks it's funny that Shaandra took the suggestion to 'pick something that represents Home' so literally – and suspects she passed that idea along.
The three interlocked rings surely have to have been put there by someone from Alpha Centauri.
Even the Tellurites have added to the tree.
He counts that up and comes to six.
He eyes the tree, dubiously; searches it some more. He knows there was something else.
He feels triumph, then, at Uhura's mistake: A triumph made more glorious, somehow, by the certain flatness of her voice as she said that single word – because there is one more ornament on that tree that he knows was not put there by human hands. And it is funny really, that it's the one he sees last - as though Uhura forgot it was there.
Seven.
"Peace," it says, in curling Vulcan script - a single figure fashioned by the only fingers on the ship strong enough to shape this particular wire in such a way. It is rotating slightly, suspended on its invisible strand; and it catches the light, and gleams.
The little red crystals wired to the arms catch the light, too. They form a halo orbiting that solitary Vulcan figure. It turns a little more, and the crystals glint fiercely like crimson phaser fire.
Or drops of human blood.
And Sulu knows then, why Uhura said "Six." And he knows she never forgot that solitary figure at all.