Author's Note: A mighty big thanks to Hester for nagging me about writing this and to everyone else that read this. Generally speaking, I don't get too many reviews from people I don't know, and I actually did this time, so, gracias. (Oh, and for all those who surnamed me "the Obscure" and "the Philosophical", I get rather obscure and philosophical in this chapter, so, ha, and here's your warning. I like obscure philosophy and science, so too bad.)

Time: After the events in chapters 1 and 2

Chapter 3

As Sayel sat alone in the corner of the darkened rec room, a glimmer of a vision came unbidden to her mind. She had seen it before—many times; it seemed to enjoy lurking about her mind. In fact, if she concentrated, she could see the entire picture . . . .

. . . . A cliff of bare rock stood out in the west, jutting out to the center of the scene. Beyond it to the north was a towering waterfall, cascading over the side of a similar rock face of dull grey rock. Further back, beyond the falls, the moon shone over the waters, lighting the water, changing it from a dismal gray, indistinguishable from its surrounding, to a lovely mix of blue and gray, with a hint of white marking the shallow rapids. At the waterfall itself the swift river was fifteen meters wide, and the starlight made the falling water glint like falling jewels—diamond or topaz. If she concentrated, Sayel could almost hear the quiet murmur of the waterfall.

At the base of the waterfall was a wide, deep pool, completely darkened. The moonlight did not reach the pool, and the shadow of the falls yawned over the river for many meters to the south. Below the falls, the river was far narrower, perhaps only six meters in width. Tall, verdant grass extended to the very edge of the river, and there wasn't more than a hint of sand before the land ended and the water began. Beyond the grassy banks, a forest sprung up. In the soft glow of moonlight, the sylvan area was mysterious and yet inviting . . . but in the golden light of the sun, the area would be enchanting. The forest was friendly—all the trees were well spaced and had large, leafy branches. Although Sayel could not see them in the moonlight, she knew there were oaks, maples, and willows--with vines winding about their trunks—as well as bushes of berries and fruit. In the day, enough sunlight would pierce through the trees to allow the grass to grow thick and green. Even in the night, the light of the moon and the stars gently touched the grasses waving in the light breeze.

After the deep pool—cool and refreshing by night or day—the river was slow and relaxed. The moon was again glinting off the surface of the water as it flowed ever southward. If Sayel could have turned and gazed to the south, she would have seen, in the far distance, the mouth of the river open and pour into a bay lit by both starlight and moonlight.

"Sayel?" Siyana asked, jarring her out of her thoughts. The scene did not vanish, but only receded from her mind. Sayel blinked and focused on her friend who stood in front of her. The light from the hallway framed Siyana, making it difficult for Sayel to discern her features. A moment later, the doors slid shut, and the light vanished. "Its oh one hundred hours, what are you doing in here? I though I was the only insomniac."

"Then why is Akira with you?" Sayel asked, nodding at Siyana's companion. Akira Te'yas was Siyana's roommate.

Smiling mischievously, Siyana laughed and said: "Akira doesn't sleep."

Knowing the statement was exaggerated purposefully, Sayel simply inclined her head and said, "Ah." Sayel then swiftly moved her feet from where they had been crossed upon the chair and gestured for her two companions to sit down. "Although you may be insomniac, I simply do not require the same amount of sleep as most humanoids."

Siyana and Akira sat down. The latter was a tall, dark skinned Trill with a quiet, reserved disposition. Of course, it was possible that Akira was only quiet with people she didn't know well—most people at the Academy probably thought Siyana did not talk at all, mainly because Siyana wasn't fond of talking in class or to people she didn't know very well.

"But you didn't answer my question, Sayel," Siyana said, the mischevity returning to her features. "What are you doing?"

Glancing at the blank pad of paper in front of her, Sayel raised an eyebrow. "Although it does not seem apparent at the moment, I was attempting to write down a description of something."

"Okay," Siyana said. Then she shrugged. "What?"

"A valley . . ." Sayel said slowly. "Although I have only seen it by light of moon and stars, I know the lay of the land perfectly." She then launched into a description of the cascading falls, the gentle, flowing river, and the winding road it took to pour into the moonlit bay.

"Cool," Akira said, smiling at Sayel and Siyana. "That sounds cool."

"I want to go there," Siyana said enthusiastically. "Seriously, let's go there—it sounded beautiful. Where is it? Somewhere on Betazed? We could spend one of our breaks there or something."

"No, it cannot be on Betazed," Sayel said, furrowing her brow almost imperceptibly. "The moon wasn't right, it was too small. If I had to hypothesize, I would say it was on earth. The flora was similar althout I have never seen Luna that bright." She paused a moment. "Though I cannot say with any certainty where it is."

"Wait a minute," Akira said, sounding confused. "You don't know where this place is? Weren't you there?"

Sayel arched her eyebrows. "That is a very good question. I will say that I was 'there' more truly than I have been other places that I have visited physically . . . but no, I have never actually seen the valley with my eyes."

"You mean it doesn't exist?" Siyana asked, sounding remarkably disappointed.

Something about that sentence did not set right with Sayel. Of course, any other Vulcan listening to this conversation might have thought Sayel at worst mad, and at the very least terribly sentimental . . . but Sayel wasn't particularly sentimental. Overly imaginitive, perhaps, with an appreciation for things that did not exist, but she was not sentimental. And yet some things that did not exist, including this mysterious valley, somehow seemed more real than things that did exist, or more important.

"It exists in my mind," Sayel said. Or perhaps my soul, I do not know. Sayel happened upon a thought and almost smiled. "So, perhaps it does exist."

Now, Sayel was giving her a look as if she thought the half-Vulcan, half-Betazed were mad. Akira was staring at her with polite confusion, apparently reserving the judgment of insanity until she knew Sayel a little better.

"There is a Terran philosophy that proclaims that no one can concieve of anything greater than reality," Sayel explained. "Because we are mortal, we are by nature finite creatures, so all that we think of is limited. Finate creatures cannot truly be creative, they must only be derivitive. Think of it this way, technology, tools, anything that humans can affect and influence are things that already exist. Since creation, 'there is nothing new under the sun'," Sayel said dryly, seeing Akira nod in appreciation. "In the same way that we cannot create physically, we cannot create imaginatively or intellectually. All that we devise can only be equal to or lesser than reality. One of the derivitives of this philosophy is theism. Because moral, finite minds can concieve of an infinite being, He must exist."

"Or She," Siyana commented.

"I think not," Sayel replied. "Others have, but I do not."

"Actually, I don't either," Siyana said with a smile. "But what does this have to do with a valley?" She paused and before Sayel could explain, she nodded. "So you're saying that even if your valley doesn't exist, something better has to, or you couldn't come up with it?"

"Precisely."

"What philosophy is that?" Akira asked, her dark eyes shining in enthusiasm. "I could use that in so many things . . . ."

"I could not tell you," Sayel said, shaking her head. "Alas, I do not remember."

"Alas?" Siyana said, laughing aloud. "You just said 'alas'."

Sayel arched an eyebrow at her friend. She had used the work before, albeit infrequently. It had been a frequent part of Dominic's vocabulary, and because she had been thinking of him frequently, it had slipped into her own. She didn't think the Masters on Vulcan would approve. Dominic would have said that "the Masters can go to seed" or something equally ridiculous, Sayel thought with a hint of embittered amusement, yet often he was quite right in sentiment.

"That's Dominic's word," Siyana realized after a moment. "Like 'aye', "blast", "bullocks", "woe", "blimeney" and—well, I know there are others, but I don't know what they are."

"Dominic is from the southern part of Scotland," Sayel explained . "And therefore has unique diction."

"He's also half-Vulcan, so it's funny," Siyana said with amusement. "Yeah, have you ever seen a blonde Vulcan before?"

Akira laughed, "No, I haven't."

"He's got kind of curly, strawberry blonde hair and green eyes, so the whole pointed ears thing makes him look more like an elf than a Vulcan. And he's brilliant—even for a Vulcan, he's smart."

Sayel shook her head. "I am not absolutely certain what elves look like, but Dominic fits no elven description I have ever read. And I do not think extraordinary intelligence is included in any elven description. If I recall Kamari mythology, he certainly does not fit any of those depictions."

Siyana pondered that, then shook her head. "No, you're right, he doesn't. But he doesn't look Vulcan." After a moment, she added: "Neither do you."

If Sayel had been completely Betazed or human, she might have rolled her eyes. "That, my friend, is most illogical. Dominic is half-human, I am half-Betazed—we both look less 'Vulcan' than one would expect."

"I have heard of 'elves' before," Akira said, shaking her head a little. "But we don't exactly have them on Trill. What is the difference?"

"Between Earth mythology and Kamari mythology?" Siyana asked.

"Right."

"The modern 'degeneration' I would say, of Terran mythology describes elves as small, mischievous magical beings, although I claim no expertise in the field. They are purportedly insular, good or evil according to individual mythologies, beautiful and delicate," Sayel explained.

"I like mine better," Siyana said a little mischievously. "In Kamari mythology, the elves are immortal."

"Generally they are in Terran mythology as well," Sayel interjected.

"When you say 'immortal' you mean that they don't die of sickness or old age. In Kamari mythology, they do not die, period. On Kamari we call them the twice immortal—neither their bodies nor their souls die. There are three races of elves—the Sun-Elves, the Moon-Elves, and the Star-Elves. Each is ruled by a Liyë—a King, and the Unelyaliyë, the Star-King is the greatest of them all." Siyana smiled. "And they glow—because even the light loves them. How is that?"

"Wow," Akira said, her eyebrows going up. She was smiling, but to Sayel it seemed that her expression wasn't precisely that of happiness-it was one of surprised wonder.

"Indeed," Sayel said, gazing at Siyana. Something about that mythology appealed to Sayel on a deeper level than she had expected. "Llo ossëdí . . . neñya . . . llo elossëdí lundim." When both Siyana and Akira stared at her in questioning surprise, she shrugged mentally. "It was better communicated in Old Kamari," she explained. "In what other language can you simply say three words 'llo elossëdí lundim' and communicate so much?"

"What does it mean?" Akira asked.

Sayel glanced at Siyana to see if she wanted to explain. Siyana shook her head minutely. "Poorly and unworthy translated, it means 'I want to glow'. In truth . . . it communicates something to the effect of 'I desire, with an eternal desire, to glow with a light not my own'."

Akira nodded in avid agreement. "Wow . . . I like the second explanation better."

"Old Kamari is so much better than our language now," Siyana said with a disinterested shrug. "But I think Sayel knows as much about it now as I do."

"Connotations are fun," Akira said, gazing off into space. "They just make language more interesting."

They make it more real, Sayel thought silently. Connotations make words closer to the reality of a thing. Then a question struck her mind that she did not air to Akira or Siyana. This sort of question was a sort of question that Dominic would have asked . . . and Sayel would have chided her friend for being entirely unscientific. Except, I don't really know if he is my friend now . . . because I was, as my human friends would bluntly put it, quite stupid. Concentrating enough to keep the frown purely mental, Sayel lapsed into a train of thought that was quite pessimistic. I should apologize . . . . Sayel's Vulcan training told her that such an apology was overly sentimental and that she hadn't truly done anything to merit an apology. But my training's wrong, Sayel thought. I have known this for the past year . . . which is why I am here, at Starfleet Academy, and not the Vulcan Science Academy. A rare bit of cynicism leeched into Sayel's thoughts. That, and they threw me out.

Sayel chided herself for exaggerating, even in the privacy of her own mind. The Science Academy hadn't thrown her out—they hadn't even rescinded her Healer's license as the Masters of the Kolinahr had petitioned them to do. Two years ago, Sayel had been a member of the medical staff at the Vulcan Science Academy, along with Dominic Hawkins. Sayel, like her fellow half-Vulcan Dominic, had been born with rare telepathic talent. Sayel's was due to her unique mixture of Betazoid and Vulcan blood . . . and no one really knew why Dominic had such a facility for physical healing. However, Sayel's talent had existed primarily in two fields, one, the traditional skills of both Vulcans and Betazoids, and two, the ability to affect things on a more physical level.

These sorts of gift appeared on Vulcan one or twice in a generation, the same on Betazed and other planets with telepathic species, so Sayel and Dominic were oddities, but not overly alien. Sayel had been responsible for training children with unusual telepathic gifts while Dominic was a healer of the more traditional variety. In what in this facility that Sayel had met Siyana.

Like all Kamari, Siyana had some telepathic skill. Most Kamari could communicate without words, and others had more exotic gifts, but those, too, were rare. Siyana had some of the more exotic powers native to her species, and some of the rarest in the galaxy. She had an affinity for telekinesis as well as something even more potentially dangerous, pyrokinesis. Sayel had been appalled to learn (although she would not admit it at the time) that Siyana had not been trained at all. Sayel and Dominic had taken it upon themselves to train the Kamari while she spent a semester at the Vulcan Science Academy. Oddly enough, the three of them had been friends, and Siyana had considered taking classes at the VSA instead of Starfleet Academy, which would have fulfilled the treaty agreement between the Federation and Kamara as well. Then, of course, there was the incident with the Underlier that rather messed things up.

Underliers had always played a part in Vulcan mythology. They were creatures, if such a word could be used to describe them, of the desert, lying beneath, some said, or within, others said, the sands of Vulcan. Most often the Underliers appeared near Mount Seleya, to those making the ancient pilgrimages by walking across the desert sand. For this reason, and the fact that only a handful of sightings had occurred in the twenty thousand years following the Vulcan Reformation, they were thought to be mythology, or more accurately, thought to be a product of someone's vivid imagination.

Sayel supposed that Underliers must have been the product of the imagination of the Creator of the cosmos, for they were very real. One had appeared to both her and Siyana, and Sayel could still vividly recall the sense of overwhelming power and knowledge. It had occurred to Sayel that the Underlier was not especially nice—he gave Sayel an overwhelming feeling of justice . . . and even terrible mercy, but Sayel was convinced that the Underlier was not nice. What his words were, Sayel could never say, but she had caught their sentiment. The Underlier had something he wanted Sayel to do, and in order for Sayel to do it, she would have to gift up her telepathic gifts. Sayel had almost asked him why she should do as he asked, but she restrained herself at the last moment. Such a creature, in truth, a person, Sayel knew deep within her, was utterly flawless as regards to purpose and character—she would have to be a tyrant to refuse. The Underlier had then told Siyana she would have some part in whatever task he appointed, but she did not need to learn the same things that Sayel needed to learn. Sayel could however, give words to the Underlier's last thoughts: "Meet, then, whatever adventure comes to you."

The Underlier had left with the whispering of a breeze, leaving Sayel and Siyana alone, and very oddly, wishing that he hadn't gone. Those first days were odd, Sayel reflected. But it had not been the lack of telepathic skill that ultimately drove her from Vulcan—it had been Vulcan itself.

Oftentimes, Sayel had visited the Vulcan temples or meditated with the adepts and initiates of the Kolinahr, but now they refused her entrance. A Vulcan did not lie, and a mere touch of mind to mind revealed the truth of what had occurred. Dominic, a Healer in his own right, had validated much of what Sayel and Siyana had said . . . but the High Priestess T'Van had put her own interpretation on it. According to ancient law and custom, those spurned by either the gods or fate could not enter into the temples devoted to them. T'Van was a Separatist, very different from her predecessor T'Lar, and did not approve even of Vulcan's place in the Federation. Although Sayel would not ascribe such a base emotion as jealousy to an adept of the Kolinahr, it was the only motivation that made sense. Only a little before the Underlier had appeared, T'Lar had died, and Sayel had brought her katra to Mount Seleya. Sayel, who was not an adept of the Kolinahr, and not even full Vulcan. T'Lar had been unorthodox and carried that unorthodoxy to the grave . . . so perhaps T'Van truly believed it well to exile Sayel from the entirety of Vulcan traditional customs, ceremonies, and work. Under this edict, she could not attend weddings, funerals, trials, or even visit Mount Seleya. Her work at the Science Academy had not ceased, but before the bigotry and exclusionist nature of the Separatists had been kept at bay, now even some of Sayel's 'friends' had turned against her . . . or more accurately acted with complete ambivalence. When the semester ended, the Healer above Sayel had suggested that she contribute her skills to a place less full of those with such "adamant philosophical oppositions". Her parents, true citizens of Vulcan had advised that she not regard any of it as a personal offense, after all, to take offense was to acknowledge an emotion. Perhaps it had been her early years on Betazeds, or her summers on earth with Dominic and his loving family that held loyalty and honor in such high esteem, but Sayel did not want to spend the rest of her life on a planet that was, in Sayel's opinion, philosophically skewed. At Siyana's suggestion, she had applied to Starfleet Academy and been eagerly accepted. Leaving the fields of psychology and psychiatry as far behind as she could, Sayel decided to study astrophysics, with philosophy and religion as a minor.

Again, Siyana interrupted her thoughts. "Okay, now I'm tired. I'll see you guys for breakfast in the morning."

Sayel rose with her and wished both her and Akira goodnight, then left for her own quarters.

Finding a quiet part of the Academy grounds was a difficult if not impossible task on most days. Luckily, it was early in the morning on a Sunday, and the day itself seemed to ignore its namesake, and was content with enough fog to restrict sight more than a few feet in either directly. Just from being outside for more than five minutes was enough to make Sayel damp all over. Nevertheless, it was far quieter outside than inside, so Sayel walked far enough into the grassy common field so that the buildings around her disappeared, masked by the fog. As Sayel placed a mat on the dewy grass and sat down, she reflected that she looked as if she were in some magical place or a fantasy world. The world around her seemed to fade away more than six or seven feet out, and a curtain of damp gray hung over everything present, giving it an ethereal look. Sayel decided that she liked San Francisco, despite the fact that it was cold.

Sayel settled back into a cross-legged meditation position demanded by both the mental and physical disciplines. In this week, in this day even, Sayel had acquired many things to ponder deeply. But now, now, Sayel required clarity of mind. Another person, one less disciplined, would have forsaken the discipline for the thoughts that urgently besought her. Sayel knew, however, that the urgent could not overwhelm the important, and now she lay the urgent aside until she came to peace and clarity of mind. It took her the better part of a half hour to come to a conclusion that had been plaguing her mind for several days: what to do about Dominic Hawkins. I must visit him and his father soon, and make reparation, she finally decided.

Her meditation complete, Sayel opened her eyes and looked about. The Academy grounds were now bathed in a lighter wash of cool gray fog, and Sayel could see a hint of Earth's small yellow sun beginning to come out. Sayel would have to get used to the cold for one, and the dark as well. Earth, by Vulcan's account was a rather dim planet, in night or day. Vulcan's primary star was much brighter than Sol, and at night, Vulcan was lit not only by a moon, but by her sister planet as well. Sayel knew that the Earth and Moon were technically a part of a double planet system, like Vulcan and the Watcher, but the Watcher was actually larger than Vulcan, and therefore shed a great deal of light upon the side of Vulcan that faced her. (It also struck Sayel that the astronomers of Vulcan's past were quite a bit more fanciful than the ones around now. Because Vulcan's moon sometimes crossed between her and her sister planet, the Vulcans had called the moon the Eye of the Watcher. Sayel was partial to that in a very illogical sort of way.) But, Earth's night was a great deal darker than Vulcan's often was, and the days quite cooler.

Kali Samsara, Sayel's roommate, had invited Sayel to have breakfast with her and a few friends. Sayel had readily agreed, and had asked Siyana if she wanted to come along. Siyana had agreed, and said she would bring her roommate as well. Sayel was looking forward to meeting some of Kali's friends. The girl, although shy, was friendly, and she and Sayel appeared to have at least a modicum of things in common. Surprisingly enough, the day before last Sayel and Kali had spent the better part of an hour talking about the books they had read as children, and quite a few titles and series came up in common. Sayel's mother was a Betazoid, and was fond of most types of literature. She had insisted Sayel read as a child, and not just the classic books most Vulcan parents foisted on their children, but science fiction and fantasy and adventure novels—things that Vulcans in general frowned upon. While Sayel's classmates had been reading Macbeth or other such Shakespearean nonsense at the age of nine or ten, Sayel had read The Faerie Queene and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Therefore, Kali and Sayel had ended up many of the same books. Sayel then learned that Kali had written a spoof of Hamlet based on some archaic video game. Kali had reluctantly agreed to let her read it, but she had been skeptical about Sayel's receptivity on the matter . . . so, actually, was Sayel, but Kali intrigued her and she wanted to read anything Kali had written. Upon deeper than cursory examination, Sayel found Kali to be quite quirky, and Sayel had always considered facets of personality interesting. One such facet was Kali's apparent fondness for penguins.

Sayel walked briskly back to her quarters, took a shower, and changed—all before Kali had awoken. By Vulcan standards, Sayel was not a morning person, and she definitely slept more than the average Vulcan did, but according to her non-Vulcan companions she was practically insomniac. Sayel sat down at her computer to review her schedule for the day—she had a nice burst of classes in the morning, Molecular Chemistry, Basic Quantum Mechanics, Literature of the Federation, and Calculus 2. These were followed by a two and a half-hour break in the early afternoon and a physical training seminar that lasted a good two hours. Apparently, the Academy was introducing a new physical training regiment and the groups, although not chosen indiscriminately, were chosen in a way that no Academy student could fathom, and it seemed that Sayel, Siyana and her roommate, Lael, Elora, and Kali were all in the same training group. Three other cadets were in the group, but Sayel hadn't met any of them for more than a moment . . . except for the Andorian. After this, she had a class which familiarized every cadet with federation technology. After the first quarter ended, it switched to a class on engineering systems, and then a class on diagnostics for the second semester. Every student, unless the cadet was a part of the Medical Academy, had to take this class, and even then, it was strongly encouraged. Sayel had one class in the evening, Navigations, that again, every cadet had to take. For the first few weeks, the students learned about navigational theory and a bit about astrophysics and coordinate geometry in three and four dimensions. Next the students would practice in the holodeck, and when the students weren't prone to crashing themselves into mountains or cornfields, the students would actually fly outside of simulations. Every Starfleet officer was rated according to piloting ability, even medical officers.

At some point, Kali had oozed out of bed, told Sayel good morning with very little sincerity and went off to the shower. Sayel hoped the girl would be more alive when she exited the bathroom. Sometime later, Sayel got up to retrieve a book from her shelf. Her literature teacher had assigned them two books to read in the next few weeks, The Death of Andor and Plato's Republic. While Sayel possessed both books, she had yet to read them. In fact, Sayel doubted that she ever would have if the teacher had not assigned it. Due to her mother's influence, she preferred fiction, fantasy, science fiction, or historical fiction. But the Academy seemed to insist that the cadets read something about the real world. With a silent sigh, Sayel lifted The Death of Andor from her shelf. When she returned to her computer a packet of paper lay on the desk. It hadn't been there before.

Sayel frowned fractionally (although an observer might have missed it)—Kali hadn't put it there, she had yet to get out of the shower. And, generally speaking, things, besides elementary particles, didn't spontaneously pop into existence. This, of course, left two possibilities. Obviously, someone or something had put the packet on her desk. Even more obviously, no one had come into the room to do it. This left "something", and specifically, the use of a transporter to beam the paper on her desk.

All of this flowed through Sayel's mind in less time than it took for her to reach down and pick up the paper and examine its contents. The first thing she noticed was the picture. It was a rather macabre drawing of a dead Vulcan with an archaic weapon, a spear, thrust through his side in the approximate location of his heart. The next thing she noticed was the writing. Written in the Vulcan script, it read, "The spear in the other's heart is the spear in your own, you are he—The New Multiple Personality Disorder." Sayel quickly skimmed the rest of the packet. It outlined the major portions of Vulcan history and society in such a way that made all of Vulcan seem violently psychotic and totalitarian. What's more, it was almost amusing.

By the time Kali had exited the bathroom, Sayel had her list of suspects narrowed down. There were only a few cadets at the Academy who were this cynical or politically incorrect. Of these cadets, few were brave or insane enough to actually send it to her. In addition, Sayel knew of only one other person who actually had a working mini-transporter in her possession—one Yoshi Tamakari. Sayel hadn't even met the other girl, but they were in the same self-defense class, and a few others as well. Also, Cadet Tamakari shared a room with the Andorian—the Andorian would have been crazy enough to send the drawing, but she didn't think either of the two wrote Vulcan. Sayel knew that Kali associated with the two cadets, and it was within the realm of possibility that Kali had come up with the Vulcan philosophy bit. So, when Kali emerged from the bathroom, Sayel watched her.

When Kali realized that Sayel had her complete attention fixated on her, she instantly became nervous. Sayel decided that the direct approach would be best. She handed Kali the paper and let her read it for several seconds, watching as the other girl instntly turned red.

"You . . ." Sayel said slowly, "and Cadet Tamakari?"

Kali nodded. "Yeah," she said a little reluctantly. "It wasn't my idea—Yoshi wanted to test out her transporter."

"I am curious," Sayel said, "Which of you completed the drawing? It is quite . . . detailed."

With that, Kali grimaced a bit and stabbed an accusatory finger at the paper. "That," she said, putting heavy emphasis on the word, "wasn't either of us—it was Ayuiij."

"Ah . . . Cadet ch'Ishima—the flamboyant Andorian."

"The loud, flamboyant Andorian," Kali corrected, more than a hint of impatience coloring her tone. Then Kali started to look ashamed again, she appeared as it she wanted to ask Sayel if she were angry, but she fell silent instead.

Just then, the chime to the door sounded and Siyana walked in without an invitation. "Hi, Sayel's roommate," she said cheerily to Kali, ignoring Sayel for the moment. "I'm Siyana—I used to be Sayel's roommate too. Now I'm not."

Amused, Kali replied, "That, I gathered."

"Hello to you as well, Siyana," Sayel responded, uninvited. "This is Kali Samsara, Kali this is Siyana a'Kamara."

"Nice to meet you," Kali said hesitantly. Siyana returned an equivocal reply. After the two exchanged pleasantries, Sayel took the paper from Kali and thrust it into Siyana's hands.

"What?" Siyana asked, glancing down at the paper.

"Read," Sayel replied dryly—Siyana had absorbed enough Vulcan to read the paper. By the time Siyana's eyes had surveyed the entire first page, she was slack-jawed with shock. Then, she started laughing. "Who did this?" she asked finally.

"We are going to see them right now, are we not, Kali?" Sayel asked calmly.

"Uh . . . sure," Kali responed unenthusiastically.

The three made their way across the Academy living qaurters to the room shared by Ayuiij and Yoshi. Kali pressed the door chime, and a tall, light blue skinned Andorian answered the hail. Upon seeing Kali, the Nadorian hunched her shoulders and hissed at her, her yellow eyes seeming to glow demonically.

"Scary," Siyana commented in a tone which suggested that she meant precisely the opposite of her statement . . . or perhaps not precisely the opposite; Sayel recognized her tone as the one Siyana used when she felt that someone was being profoundly illogical or profoundly stupid.

"Oh, look, its Pointy!" Ayuiij ch'Ishima said, her eyes setting upon Sayel. "Did she figure it out or did you tell her?" she asked Kali.

"She figured it out," Kali answered flatly. "Are we going to have this entire conversation in the hall?"

"Yes," Ayuiij countered, then she crossed her arms across her chest dramatically. "So, what did you think of our satire?"

"She just learned that word last week!" someone, presumably Yoshi, shouted from inside the room. "'I do not know that word in Federation Standard'."

"You know what? Shut-up," Ayuiij responded amicably, without looking back at her roommate. "As in, zip it."

"You call this satire?" Siyana asked, disdain dripping from her voice.

Sayel thrust the paper at the Andorian, and when the other refused to take it, she folded it in two and stuck it between her folded arm and her stomach. Sayel could see the beginnings of a smile on her face.

"Mockery? Yes. Satire? No," Sayel remarked. "It was neither long enough, detailed enough, nor . . . inspired . . . enough to be satire."

"I think it ws 'inspired', Pointy," Ayuiij remarked.

Sayel sighed, her only outward sign of impatience. She supposed that she could try to reason with the Andorian to get her to stop calling her that innane name . . . but she would probably have more luck with a Tellerite. Sayel didn't know about Andorians in general, or even if any generalization could be made, but this particular Andorian did not seem as if she ruled her life through logic. If not logic, then she should use something that Ayuiij would understand a little more directly . . . like violence. With barely a pause, Sayel replied, "And I think I ought to break you in half if you use that term in referring to me anytime in the near future."

Ayuiij responded to that by falling backwards into her room and onto the floor, shaking with laughter. "My life is complete!" she shouted. "I was threatened by a Vulcan."

"Half-Vulcan," Sayel corrected, walking into the room and regaurding Ayuiij with her arms folded across her chest.

"It still counts," Ayuiij argued. She quickly added: "And I won't call you that unless I actually want you to break me in half."

"I don't think it's the genes that count," Siyana said, albeit too quietly for Ayuiij to hear.

Ayuiij cocked her head and looked up at Sayel. This time, she spoke in a serious tone. "Hey, we didn't really offend you, did we?"

"Who's we?" Yoshi muttered.

"Hey, you were in on it, too."

Sayel brushed away their concenrs with a wave of her hands. "No, I am not offended, but most Vulcans would be."

Seeing the moment diffused, Kali hurriedly stepped around Ayuiij to speak with Yoshi—who was working semi-diligently at her computer and successfully ignoring everyone else except at selected intervals. Kali introduced Siyana and the three began talking while Ayuiij continued to speak with Sayel.

"You're half Vulcan and half-Betazoid, that's one really emotional species and one, you know, not so emotional species. Wasn't that, I don't know, weird?" Ayuiij gave a brief, self-depreciating laugh. "Or confusing, maybe?"

"When I was younger, it was not a factor—and it did not use to be confusing. It is, however, much more confusing now."

"Why?" Ayuiij asked, seeming genuinely interested.

"That, is a somewhat complicated tale," Sayel reflected.

"You don't want to talk about it?"

"No, I am willing to talk about it, it is simply a rather complicated tale."

"Well, start uncomplicating it." With that brisk command, Sayel started explaining some of her recent . . . disenchantment with Vulcan philosophy.

Listening to her with some fascination, Ayuiij shook her head. "How did you ever begin to throw out Vulcan philosophy like that? I mean, you were born into it—what made you think of all this stuff.

"That, Ayuiij, is a tale for another time," Sayel said. "It would be rather pointless for me to tell you this now—but I believe that at a future date, it will be far more beneficial to you and to me."

"What the hell does that mean?" Ayuiij asked.

It means that telling you I saw an Underlier, a great being in Vulcan mythology, will only result in you thinking me mad. Later, if you should come to respect my counsel, I will gladly tell you all. "It means . . . be patient and I will tell you what you want to know."

Ayuiij sort of shook her head in disgust. "This better be good," she commented.

The four of them soon exited Ayuiij's and Yoshi's room and headed for the café. They got their respective breakfasts and sat down when Akira showed up. To those that did not already know her, Siyana introduced Akira, a dark-skinned Trill who even taller than Ayuiij, who was now the quietest and most reserved of Sayel's present group of companions. They talked about their classes and the new self-defense program when they were joined by three other cadets, all of whom Sayel knew. Elora Tereza and Lael Daemas were among the ones Sayel knew best, and the other was Jori Sadik, a cynical yet bright student who seemed to know more about martial arts than her insignificant age warranted. Sayel knew that Andorians were raised to fight, and Sayel had acquired some of her vast knowledge concerning the martial arts through unorthodox and unintentional ways, but Jori didn't have a compelling reason to know what she knew. In addition, she was stronger and faster than any teenage girl had a right to be.

With the addition of the new arrivals, the table grew exponentially louder. Before this experience, Sayel hadn't known it was possible for nine people to make as much noise as these nine were making.

"How did you learn to speak Vulcan so well?" Sayel asked Kali. "I know that your fluency is not complete, but you have already mastered the accent. Such a thing is rare."

"Uh . . . actually, I was born on Vulcan."

"Indeed?" Sayel asked, "but at some point you moved to Earth?"

"Antarctica," Kali revealed with a wry smile. "Hence penguins." Kali looked up and appeared to be glaring nostalgically at nothing at all. "The only good thing in that damned continent. I only stayed there for a few years, my parents were research scientists." Kali shrugged. "When they died, I went to live with my brother in the mid-western U. S. A."

Yoshi seemed to think that living in Antarctica was quite amusing; she told Kali so with much enthusiasm. "Antarctica is cold," Siyana commented. "And hell is hot."

"You're good," Jori told Siyana, "Do you enjoy stating the obvious?"

Siyana glared at Jori. "Shut up, Jori," she said, none too nicely. "I was just going to say that some place cold shouldn't be sent to hell."

Yoshi and even Ayuiij visibly rolled their eyes as Akira shook her head in bemusement. "That's what you get for being a smart ass," Kali told Siyana. Siyana promptly stuck her tongue out at the other girl.

"Actually," Elora said, for the first time entering the conversation. "Human artists in the Middle Ages depicted hell as frozen."

"That's right," Jori said, leaning back in her chair and looking to the ceiling—as if such a pose would help her remember the elusive bit of information she was searching for. "Brutus, Cassius, and Judas Iscariot were all frozen in the innermost circle of hell."

"You read the Inferno?" Yoshi asked Jori and Elora, "Why?"

Jori just shrugged. "It was the only interesting one of the three, though. The other two were boring as sin," she said, a glint entering her eyes.

Everyone at the table except Sayel and Elora groaned on queue. "I didn't actually read it," Elora admitted. "But Celosia did."

"Celosia would be?" Yoshi asked.

"Tereza's last host," Elora said. For a moment a brief touch of sorrow touched her dark features. Just for that instant, Sayel let her more imaginative side emerge. She looks like an elf, Sayel thought to herself. With her somewhat dark, closed features, and high and almost regal looking eyes, alongside her very straight, red-brown hair that now framed either side of her face she reminded Sayel of an elf . . . or perhaps a sprite. In the more interesting mythologies, elves were tall, fair creatures, but Elora was small. But truly, Siyana was the sprite among them, with the mystery and mystical powers to complete the image. Sayel wondered if Siyana would ever speak of her telepathic and telekinetic abilities, or would she let them atrophy and fall into shadow. None of Sayel's other companions were mystical—Cadet Te'yas had a hint of mystery about her, but she was very unassuming, and Jori seemed to enjoy obfuscation, but the rest all were rather normal . . . or they were normal in all of the abnormal ways and abnormal in all of the normal ways. Sayel wasn't quite sure what that meant. Perhaps not mystical, but more mythological? If anyone was anything as this table, Ayuiij ch'Ishima was a griffin. She had the strong powerful build, and seemed very protective of those she cared about. When Sayel had talked to her earlier, the girl had hunched her shoulders and hissed—either like a angry cat preparing for defense, or like a bird puffing itself up, trying to appear larger than what it really was. As for Akira . . . Kali was fond of cursing her 'tree-like tallness', so perhaps Akira could be a naiad, a tree-spirit. A willow naiad, Sayel thought with private, inner amusement, she could be a willow naiad—gracious and quiet, but also tall and strong. She still didn't know what the others could be—none of their personality or physical traits jumped out to be recognized.

"It is interesting that Dante thought a traitor the worst kind of sinner," Sayel commented, speaking nothing of her fanciful thoughts.

"They are," Ayuiij said firmly, her yellow, predatorily eyes flashing. Leaving nothing up to chance, she repeated herself. "They deserve death, of the worst kind anyone could imagine." Her eyes continued to gleam. "Not of anyone," she corrected herself, "most people are too nice, what I could think up would do."

As Sayel glanced about the table, she saw Elora, Lael, and Kali appear rather intimidated, and Yoshi looked as if she thought Ayuiij was insane. To Sayel's not-quite surprise, Siyana was nodding in agreement. Akira didn't voice an opinion, and Sayel couldn't quite read her open yet unrevealing features. Jori was ripping her napkin to shreds as she nodded, "Yeah, everyone hates a Benedict Arnold."

"But he betrayed everybody," Yoshi argued. "Which just makes him worse."

"Or better?" Sayel asked. "Because his loyalties were to no one? Or worse, because his loyalties were to no one? History does not speak kindly of mercenaries."

"Especially mercenaries who weren't supposed to be mercenaries and swore an oath," Jori said, her tone rather disagreeable. "The British should have shot him for being a traitor, helpful or not."

Yoshi shot Jori a skeptical look. "Yeah, right," she said derisively. "No one would do that . . . except for maybe the Klingons. But they shouldn't have trusted them."

"Okay . . ." Ayuiij said with a nervous chuckle. "For those of us who don't know what you're talking about?"

"Benedict Arnold was an Englishman who fought for the Americans, then went back over to the British side and betrayed his former allies—the American Revolutionary War," Sayel explained.

"Only the Americans call it that," Kali said.

"And history is written of the victors," Sayel responded. "We could also call Americans the 'people of the United States of America' but I shall not. It is more efficient to say 'Americans'."

"And who the hell wants to be politically correct, anyway?" Yoshi muttered.

"Uh, the people who lost," Siyana suggested with a smile. She seemed to enjoy thwarting others' logic.

"We can tell Yoshi's an American," Jori said, not appearing to disagree with Yoshi or Sayel.

"Yeah, so we won all the wars, so what?"

"And you also supplied the world with Colonel Green," Jori said condescendingly. "Who killed about 600 million people in World War Three, not to mention the Eugenics Wars—"

"Who's Colonel Green?" Siyana asked, prompting a look of disgust or shock from everyone present except Sayel. "Hey," she said, after seeing all of their expressions. "I'm new to the quadrant."

"And that's your only excuse," Jori said, a little harshly. "He's only the most evil man in history. He's worse than the Borg, for crying out loud!"

"Worse than the Borg drones, perhaps not the Queen herself," Sayel remarked, a bit introspectively. "I wonder how such a creature exists . . . ."

"I wonder about how to kill her," Ayuiij grunted. Then her eyes got a mischievous look. "You know what they say . . . if the Borg assimilated Vulcan, how would anyone ever know the difference?"

This prompted a muffled burst of laughter from everyone at the table—except Jori who laughed aloud, and Sayel and Kali who didn't laugh at all. "How about the assimilation tubules?" Kali asked with a sarcastic edge as she glared across the table at Ayuiij.

"Indeed," Sayel said, keeping the note of annoyance firmly out of her voice. But Ayuiij wouldn't have noticed anyway, she was too busy giggling at her own joke. She turned to Yoshi who was sitting beside her and held a clenched fist up to Yoshi's neck—as if her arm held the Borg machinations.

"'I am Dyslexic of Borg, resistance is futile, you will be ass-laminated'," Ayuiij crowed. Yoshi laughed as she swatted away Ayuiij's hand. "I can't claim credit for it," she said between laughs. "I actually saw it painted on the hull of a Starfleet shuttlecraft once, right after the Borg engagement."

Jori got up from her seat and headed toward the door, still laughing a little. Right before she exited, she spun around. "I've got class, and so do all of you, so you may want to leave," she suggested, before spinning fully around and heading out the door.

Sayel rose, as did her companions. As they headed for class, Sayel reflected that it had been an interesting and satisfactory morning—she could expect the rest of the day to follow in the same trend.

A. N.: A friend of mine gave another friend of mine that bumper sticker for Christmas. I thought it was humorous. And, yeah, if you were wondering what actually happened in that chapter . . . so am I.