Title: Thursday's Child

Author: Sita Z

Rating: T (please note that there's some "rude language" in this chapter (Trip's fault, not mine ;-) ). Anyway, I hope it won't offend anyone)

AN: Thank you for reviewing!

Tata (thank you! good to hear you like the mix of past and present, that part was a lot of fun to write), Emiliana Keladry (yes, he'd be happy... and maybe a little scared, too), stage manager (here goes ;-)...), RoaringMice (I see what you mean... Ma'Khor was sort of a writing experiment, and maybe I got a little carried away :-)... Part II will be only from Trip's POV), firebirdgirl (thank you... there's more about Malcolm's past yet to come. Happy reading!), Luna (exactly... he must have seen the entire world as his enemy, eventually), bunsdarien (thank you! I'm afraid it's not going to be so easy, though -evil grin-), Rinne (thank you!), JadziaKathryn (I'm glad you're enjoying the story; and yes, you'll see more of Commander Soval yet ;-) ), MuseUrania (thank you, please keep telling me what you think!), Parisfan (yes, we're going to have a closer look at both Trip's and Malcolm's past), The Libran Iniquity (no gloom and doom? Oh well, I guess I can live with that ;-)... und ja, das war ein böses Grinsen -g-), Maraschino for Chapter 7 and 8 (please let me know what you think of Part II!)

Keep telling me what you think, it's interesting to get lots of different point of views on the story!

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Chapter 9

Trip thoroughly enjoyed movie night. Several times, he laughed out loud (which Malcolm had never seen him do before), and the next day he and the children watched the movie a second time, on their console with the UT linked in. Neither Sara nor Sammy had ever seen a movie before, and, quoting his son, Trip told Malcolm that Sammy had found it "the funnest thing he had ever done".

Malcolm was surprised how fast Trip picked up the technical details of life on Enterprise. Even though he couldn't read the signs that came with devices like the turbo lift controls and the resequencer in the mess hall, he instinctively seemed to know how these things worked, and how you could fix them if they didn't.

A few days after their conversation on the observation deck, Malcolm dropped by Trip's quarters only to find the whole family gathered in the bathroom. Trip, his back to the door, was crouched over something on the wall next to the shower stall. Sara watched her father's every move with rapt attention and was too focussed to notice anything else, but Sammy bounded toward Malcolm once he had seen him standing in the doorway.

"Hello Malcolmreed!" He held out his arms to be picked up. "Daddy's fixing the fountain!"

Malcolm lifted the little boy up and smiled. "Really?"

Trip spoke up, his eyes still on the wall where he had removed the panel. "That's a shower, Sammy, not a..."

Realizing who Sammy had been talking to, he quickly turned around. Malcolm was secretly amused to see that he looked like a little boy himself; a little boy who has been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Oh! I... I'm sorry, I didn't hear you coming." Guiltily, Trip glanced at the open panel where a few wire ends were sticking out of the wall. "The shower wouldn't work, and I thought I might be able to fix it."

Malcolm opened his mouth to tell Trip that a minor malfunction had occurred with parts of the piping system and that maintenance was on their way, but he never got the chance. A sudden spray from the shower head came down on them, sprinkling all over Trip who was standing next to the open shower stall.

"It works!" Sara jumped up and down with excitement. "You fixed it, Daddy!"

Malcolm gave Trip a surprised look. "How did you know what to do?"

"Oh, it took us a while to figure it out," Sara said, obviously feeling that her supervision had played a decisive role in the matter. "First we tried to stick the red wire into one of the blue boxes, but that only made sparks come out of the wall. Then we took the yellow wire-"

"That's okay, honey," Trip said, his cheeks reddening when Sara mentioned the part about the sparks. He reached out to turn off the water. "I'm sorry, I-"

"You fixed the shower," Malcolm smiled. "That's amazing. You must be quite a gifted engineer."

Trip seemed embarrassed, and avoided Malcolm's eyes as he reattached the panel to the wall. "I sometimes tinkered around with some of the farm equipment," he said. "It was no big deal."

"He fixed the harvester once when it broke down," Sara said proudly, not at all concerned by the look her father was giving her. "The old scumbag said he would have had to buy a new one if Daddy hadn't fixed it."

Trip frowned. "That's not a nice word, Sara."

Malcolm had come to notice that Trip wouldn't tolerate any "dirty" language with his children, just as he took their personal hygiene and overall neatness very seriously. Sara and Sammy were always clean and neatly dressed, and Trip was very strict when it came to their manners.

This time, however, Sara didn't accept the rebuke with her usual obedience. "You called him a scumbag yourself, Daddy," she said. "He's not here, he can't hear me. And that's exactly what he is - a scumbag."

To Malcolm's surprise, a faint smile tugged at Trip's mouth as he answered. "I'm not going to argue with you there, honey. But I still don't want you to use that word."

He caught Malcolm's inquiring look. "The Kareedian who ran the farm. He was not a very... pleasant person."

"I can imagine he wasn't." Malcolm remembered what Sara had said before. "If you like, I could ask Commander Archer to show you around Engineering one of these days."

He expected Trip to hesitate; the man was always very reluctant when it came to "disturbing" anyone. This time, however, he nodded immediately, his eyes sparkling in a way Malcolm had seen before when Trip had come across a particularly interesting piece of machinery.

"I'd love to."

Of course, Sara and Sammy begged to be allowed to go, too, and so, on the same afternoon, Jonathan Archer found himself explaining the warp engine's functions to two awed children and a man who had more questions than any engineering manual could answer.

When Archer told Malcolm later about Trip's visit to Engineering, Malcolm could see that the Commander had taken a genuine liking to the man. Which wasn't surprising; in his passion for technical details, Trip was a kindred spirit, and more than willing to listen for hours when Archer explained a particularly fascinating detail about the power flow or the plasma distribution. After that first tour, Trip regularly went down to Engineering and soon Archer would allow him to assist the staff with some of the less complicated repairs. As the Commander put it, anything to do with engineering came to Trip as naturally as learning alien languages came to Hoshi.

Archer's comments still in mind, Malcolm asked Trip if he could imagine working as an engineer at some point in the future. Trip hesitated before he answered.

"It's what I always wanted to do," he said. "Working with machinery, I mean. But I don't think anyone'll want me to work for them. I mean, I can't even read and write."

"You'll learn," Malcolm answered. "And even if you do have some problems, you can still get a job."

Trip nodded, but he didn't look convinced. Malcolm knew that he was thinking about his children, and what they were going to do once they were back on Earth. For go back to Earth they would; in a few months, Enterprise was going to return from her first five-year mission and stay in dry-dock until Starfleet and the Joint Forces decided when - or if - she was going to leave for her next expedition. Malcolm and Trip had talked about the impending return, and Trip seemed willing to do almost anything to ensure that his children received the best education they could get. Never once, however, did he mention his family - the parents and siblings that had been mentioned in Charles Tucker the Third's personal file - and Malcolm decided not to broach the subject if Trip didn't say anything about it. Hoshi had (without Trip's knowledge) done a few researches, and found out that Susan and Charles Tucker II still lived in Florida, in the same town that had been attacked by the Orion Raiders so many years ago. It would be no problem to contact them, but Malcolm knew that Trip had to do so himself. If he had decided that he wasn't ready yet to talk to them, then Malcolm wasn't going to push him.

In the meantime, Trip spent most of his time poring over padds and papers, and at the same time keeping an eye on his children's schoolwork. Hoshi had made it her business to teach him and the children how to read and write, and downloaded every learning program she could get from the database when she began her lessons. Her two older students worked hard (a little too hard on Trip's part, who saw a personal failure in every error or mistake he made), and soon Sara was able to have simple conversations in English, although she tended to switch back to Kareedian when she became tired. Sammy picked up English words and expressions with a young child's natural ease, but he wasn't a particularly diligent student, and hated to sit still for a longer period of time. Hoshi reassured Trip that Sammy could take his time, since he had started "school" at about the same age as the children back on Earth. And although Sammy's father insisted that the little boy wrote his ten lines of letters every day, he had grown more relaxed, taking into consideration that Sammy was, after all, only four.

"He'll come up with all sorts of tricks," Trip told Malcolm in a half-exasperated, half-amused tone one evening on the observation deck. They had taken up the habit of meeting there on a regular basis, to talk or sometimes just to sit in silence, Malcolm studying his armory reports and Trip poring over his lesson of the day. "Today he got away with only half of his assignment done, teaching Hoshi Kareedian instead of doing his schoolwork."

"Don't worry," Malcolm said, and bit back a grin when he remembered how charming Sammy could be if he saw a chance to have fun instead of reading stupid lines. "Most children back on Earth only start to read at the age of five or six. He's doing great as it is. And Hoshi told me that Sara is a quicker study than some of her students at university."

"She told me so, too." Trip's voice spoke of barely concealed pride. "At first, I was afraid she might not be able to catch up with the other children of her age, but now I'm confident that she will. She's going to start school as soon as we're back on Earth."

Malcolm was silent for a moment, thinking that her reading proficiencies weren't going to be Sara's only problem. The girl was slowly starting to come out of her shell, to behave more like a child, but Malcolm never lost the impression that she was actually a lot older than nine years. But he didn't say anything. Trip was so confident when he talked about his children's future, and Malcolm couldn't bring himself to dampen his friend's attitude.

"I know it's not going to be easy," Trip said as if he had read Malcolm's mind. "There's so much that she has to learn, and I won't be able to help her with her schoolwork and... other things. I wish..." Trip hesitated. "Sometimes I wish it was Deborah raising the children instead of me. She'd do a far better job than I ever will."

"Deborah?" Malcolm repeated quietly, remembering what Trip had told him about Sara's and Sammy's mother being dead. "Was she your wife?"

A bitter smile, mixed with sadness, crossed Trip's face. "I don't think you would call her my wife."

Malcolm waited. For a while, Trip only stared down at his padd. Then he said, in an absentminded tone as if he were talking to himself rather than Malcolm: "Remember when I told you I didn't want Sara and Sammy to live like I have?"

Malcolm nodded.

"They're the best thing that's ever happened to me. And they're great children. When I was Sara's age, I was a mean little bastard."

Malcolm opened his mouth, but Trip continued before he could say anything.

"It's the truth. The only thing I thought about was how I could get back at people for the things they'd done to me. That, and food. I remember one time when I put poisonous detergent into the cook's dinner because he had thrashed me for trying to steal a slice of bread. He almost died that night."

"What happened to you?"

"They never found out that it was me. The cook, of course, knew. He beat me black and blue the day he was able to get out of bed again. And I decided that I was going to take more detergent next time."

"Did you?"

Trip who was still looking down at the padd in his hands, shook his head. "He was smart enough to lock away all poisonous chemicals from that day on. But I think I would have tried again if I'd had the chance."

A moment's silence followed.

"You were a child, Trip," Malcolm said then.

"I was a child, yes. And I knew exactly what I was doing."

Yes, I think you did. Malcolm didn't believe that Trip's attempt to poison the cook had been made with the cold-blooded intention to kill, but he doubted the boy would have felt any real remorse if his tormentor had actually snuffed it that night.

"It was a reaction to the circumstances."

Trip said nothing. His face was troubled, and Malcolm knew that he wouldn't accept his "circumstances" as an excuse. To a certain extent, Malcolm could sympathize; some people tended to excuse his many social shortcomings with the fact that he had grown up without parents. Malcolm hated the way they carefully phrased those excuses; never experienced parental love, came from a broken family, no wonder he's never learned how to socialize. And it only added to his disgust when he realized that they might be telling the truth.

"You never told me how you came to be on Kareedia."

Trip raised his eyes, and Malcolm added: "You said it's a long story. And I believe the episode with the cook is only a small part of it."

"It is a long story." This time, Trip did not use the Kareedian expression. "Too long, I think."

"Tell me."

And he did.

Part II

"Asshole!" the boy screamed. "You limpdick bastard, let go!"

The servant who was dragging him down the hallway didn't even look at him. "Shut up, sev'im."

A second later he stumbled as the boy landed a solid kick on his right leg. "Let me go!"

"Why you-"

The boy never cried out when the servant slapped him, but he stopped struggling. His small face was a grimace of hate and helpless anger, an expression that had become second nature to him over the years.

"You eat shit!" he hissed. "You fucking asshole, you go lick you mother's-"

This time, he received a slap so hard it made his eyes water, but he didn't cry. The boy hardly ever cried.

"Asshole," he whispered. "I hate you."

That was nothing new; the boy hated almost everyone he knew, and it seemed that the feeling was mutual. It was a good feeling, hating someone. It made you feel strong. People hated you back when you hated them. They might hurt you, they might even try to kill you, but that way they acknowledged that you existed. Sometimes the boy felt that it was only his hate that kept him alive.

"Damn little bastard," the servant muttered as he jerked him forward. "Getting rid of filth like you is the best idea the old man had in a long time."

"I not go away!" the boy said angrily.

The servant laughed. "Oh yes, you go away," he mocked the boy's broken MoH'kwan. "And not a day too soon either."

The boy fell silent. He had heard the rumors that people were going to be sent away, now that the Lady had died and the Master was going to move to the city. But no one had said it was him who was going to go, had they? He couldn't imagine leaving this place. He had been here for as long as he could think, and he was used to it. It was familiar. The boy realized that he didn't want to go away.

"I not go," he repeated, but his voice sounded a little unsteady. "I stay here."

"You'd like that." The servant opened a small door that led to the yard and pushed the boy outside. The first thing the boy noticed was the huge spacecraft that was parked several dozen meters away from the house. Then he saw the people gathered in front of it, and knew that the servant had been telling the truth. These people were here because Ma'Khor was sending them away. And he was going to be sent away as well.

"Bastard," he whispered because he didn't know what else to say. "Bastard. I not go away."

"Is that the last one?" Ma'Khor, who had been talking to a bearded stranger, frowned at the servant. "Why the hell did it take so long?"

"I'm sorry, sir." The servant tightened his grip on the boy's arm. "The little bastard wouldn't come along when I told him to."

The bearded stranger came closer, and the boy saw that he looked very different from the MoH'kwan. His skin was of a pale, pasty red, interrupted by a dark green pattern around his eyes and ears. Involuntarily, the boy bared his teeth at the man, and shrank back when the stranger reached out for his arm.

Bastard. The word pounded in his head, closing up his throat. Fucking bastard.

"Is that a Human?" the red-faced man asked, and looked the boy up and down with the air of someone who doesn't like what he is seeing. "I don't know if I have any use for him. How old is he?"

"We've had him for five or six years," Ma'Khor said carefully. "I think he's about ten years old.

"Ten years," the redface repeated as if Ma'Khor had pointed out a particularly nasty disease. "And he looks half-starved. I need men and women who can do hard work. Farm work. The farmers back on Kareedia can't afford to feed up a sick kid."

"Oh, he won't need feeding up," Ma'Khor said quickly. "He's stronger than he looks. And in a few years he will be able to do adult work."

"Is that so." The stranger sighed, waving at the servant. "Well, never mind, one more or less doesn't matter."

The servant yanked at the boy's arm to get him moving, but the boy wouldn't budge. "I not go!"

"Get a move on, sev'im!" Ma'Khor hissed with a side-glance at the stranger. "Now!"

"Sev'im yourself!" The boy didn't know where the words had come from. Calling Ma'Khor a "little bastard" was an unwise move, but he was so angry he could not stop himself. Hatred had swept over him like a hot wave when he had listened to their conversation. The stranger didn't want him, which was no surprise; the boy could not remember any occasion when someone had actually wanted him. But he wanted to stay here, and his anger boiled up when he realized that they were going to take him away from the only place he knew. "Sev'im yourself! I hate you!"

Ma'Khor's eyes narrowed as he turned around to look at the boy. "Asking for a proper goodbye, are you?"

The boy gave no sound while the Orion beat him up, and there were no tears in his eyes when the stranger dragged him over to stand with the rest of the people who were going to be sent away. Only later, when he lay curled up in a corner of the cargo hold, did he cry. The boy told himself he was crying because of the pain in his bruised bottom and empty stomach, but deep in his mind he knew that it wasn't true. Now that they had taken him away from the only place he had ever known, he was completely alone again. For the first time since he could remember, there wasn't even anyone he could hate.

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Several weeks later, after endless days in the cargo hold of the red-faced man's ship, the boy lay in another corner in a different vehicle, one that was taking him to his new master's farm. The boy hardly remembered what had happened on the space station; at some point, someone had pressed a hypospray against his neck, and after that his memories were blurred shapes at the best. A man had come and led him away, and he hadn't tried to fight him. They had walked down noisy hallways, the boy feeling as though he was walking in a big bubble made of iridescent colors. It was a nice feeling, in its own strange way, and the boy had welcomed it fiercely. Anything that made the hunger cramps disappear was welcome at that point.

The man, another redface, had locked him into the loading space of his flitter and left again. The boy had curled up in a corner and fallen asleep, dreaming of strange, shapeless places and weird sounds that hurt his ears.

The iridescent bubble was gone when he woke up. The deck beneath him was moving, and the boy felt sicker than he ever had before. Retching and gagging, he knelt in his corner, but he couldn't throw up because there was nothing in his stomach. A few times, he believed his guts were going to come spilling out of his mouth and he desperately tried to suppress the urge to vomit, but to no use. It took more than half an hour for his stomach to settle again. When it was over, the boy lay down on the plastic floor covering and hoped that he was going to die. Maybe it only took a while for the poison to infiltrate every part of his body. The boy waited; if he was lucky, it would finish him off before the flitter reached its destination. Nothing happened, though, and after a while even the nausea began to subside. Whatever had been in the hypospray had been too weak; it hadn't succeeded in killing him.

The boy buried his face in his arms and tried to think of nothing at all.

He woke up to a voice barking words he couldn't understand. The boy raised his head and saw that the flitter's rear hatch had been opened. Instinctively, he scrambled as far away from the opening as he could, out of the red-faced man's reach.

"Bastard," he hissed, baring his teeth. So maybe he wouldn't have cared if the poison had killed him, but he wasn't going to give them another chance to try and do away with him. That was what the bastards wanted, they wanted him dead, and he wasn't going to give them the satisfaction. "You go away fucking bastard."

The redface didn't seem to understand what the boy was calling him. He didn't react to the insult in any way, and only repeated what he had said before, this time in a rather impatient tone. The boy didn't move. He knew that the man wanted him to get out of the flitter, but there was no way he was going to let them poison him.

He expected the redface to climb inside and drag him out, but the stocky man didn't seem inclined to do acrobatics in order to get his reluctant purchase out of the flitter's cramped rear compartment. Instead he turned around to someone, a tall man who had been waiting motionlessly in the background. The boy heard him say a few words to the man, and another spike of anger and fear went through him as he realized that he did not understand a word of what they said.

"Bastards," he whispered; that was a word he understood, and knew very well. "Go away bastards."

A movement in front of the hatch caught his attention; the redface had left. The boy watched like a hawk as the tall stranger slowly and carefully sat down in the open hatch. He was not a redface; the boy had to take only one look to see that he was different. His skin was of a dark olive, and in the dusty light of the evening sun it seemed almost golden. The straight, black hair enclosed his head like a cap, the tips of his tilted eyebrows almost touching the bangs that covered the man's forehead. What caught the boy's attention, however, were the ears. He had never seen such ears before, and involuntarily raised a hand to his own left ear which seemed very small and round in comparison.

"Bastard," he said, more as an expression of surprise than an expletive. The man's face never changed, except for a flicker of something that might have been amusement.

"My name is Sarin," he said in MoH'kwan. "I am a Vulcan. What are you called?"

For a few seconds, the boy only stared at the tall, pointy-eared stranger. The man's face and voice were calm and collected, which meant that he was up to something. The boy knew that if he fell for it, if he came closer, the man would haul him out of the car and beat him up for his name-calling. Or maybe he would save himself the trouble and go for the poisonous hypospray right away.

"Bastard."

"I am not familiar with that word," the man called Sarin said. "I speak only limited MoH'kwan. Is that your name? Sev?"

The word for "bastard" was sev'im, but the Vulcan had only caught the first syllable. Sev. The boy remained silent.

"Very well. I realize that you do not trust me. I cannot change anything about that fact. But Ja'Lin has ordered me to look after you, and that is exactly what I will do. Do you understand that, Sev?"

His calm tone allowed no contradiction. The boy tried to find enough anger within himself to hate the man, but somehow, the familiar emotion wouldn't apply to Sarin.

He said nothing, and the Vulcan continued.

"I have no wish to harm you. But I will not accept disobedience. As long as I am responsible for your actions, you will do exactly as I say. Is that clear?"

Despite his fear and distrust, the boy realized that the man's words held no threat. Sarin was simply stating the facts, setting the basic rules of the life that awaited the boy in this strange, unfamiliar place. And while the boy would not have realized it, he fiercely welcomed those rules. Back at Ma'Khor's place, he had known exactly what was expected of him - namely do what he was told and keep quiet the rest of the time. He had disobeyed these rules as often as not, but they had given him a structure to live by. Do what you are told, and they'll leave you alone. Disobey, and you will have to suffer the consequences.

Sarin was offering him a similar structure, and the boy surprised himself and the Vulcan by answering to the man's last question.

"Is clear, yes."

"Good." Sarin got up. "Now get out of the flitter."

The boy didn't move. He remembered the hypospray and the terrible nausea that had followed, and realized that he'd rather accept Sarin's punishment than let himself be poisoned again.

The Vulcan, however, didn't seem inclined to punish him. His calm features never changed as regarded the skinny, trembling child that cowered in the back of Ja'Lin's flitter.

"I thought you were going to obey me," he said.

The boy fought an inner battle - he never told anyone anything, and for good reason - but then he blurted out: "I not get out. They try to kill me. Make me sick again. I not let them."

"Someone tried to kill you?" The Vulcan sat back down in the hatch. "I do not understand."

"They-" The boy mimicked someone holding a hypospray against his neck. "I feel sick. But I not die. I..."

His words failed him. The boy sensed something hot and burning rise behind his eyes, but he blinked away the tears before they could trickle down his cheeks. He felt so tired, and in a way more lonely than ever before.

"Bastard," he whispered hoarsely, drawing his knees to his chest. "Bastard."

Sarin was silent for a while, then stood up again. "I will be back in a moment."

The boy waited, his throat constricting with fear. He knew the Vulcan had gone to get a stick or a whip, that it was only a matter of time until he was going to be dragged out of the flitter and punished by the hands of this man who had never even raised his voice against him. The worst thing was that he couldn't hate him. Back with the MoH'kwan, the boy had received his share of punishment, and he had hated every single one of his tormentors for the pain they inflicted on him. But he couldn't hate the Vulcan, and that left him helpless.

When Sarin came back, the boy hid his face against the wall and closed his eyes. He was going to take his punishment like he always did, without making a sound, and maybe the Vulcan wouldn't notice how confused, how hurt and tired and lonely he was. A minute passed in silence. When no one grabbed his arm and pulled him outside, the boy carefully turned around again. Sarin was sitting in the hatch, holding a small dish which was filled with assorted bits and pieces that looked like dinner left-overs. The boy's stomach tightened painfully, and he couldn't take his eyes off the plate. Of course, the Vulcan couldn't be planning to give that food to him. He had disobeyed, he had called him names, and according to the rules he was going to suffer the consequences. Maybe withholding the food was going to be part of his punishment.

"You must be hungry," Sarin said. "Maybe you will feel better if you eat something."

Slowly, keeping his hands where the boy could see them, he set the dish down next to him on the floor. The boy saw chunks of bread and meat as well as several small, juicy-looking fruits, and his stomach cramped so hard he almost felt sick again. Part of him knew that it could be another trick, that the food might be nothing more than a bait to lure him out of his hiding place. But he couldn't bring himself to care. Even if this was a trick, he could try and grab a few bites before the Vulcan snatched the dish away.

Carefully, the boy began to creep forward, his eyes darting from the food to the Vulcan and back to the food. When he was almost close enough for the Vulcan to reach him, he froze. Hungry or not, he couldn't bring himself to come any closer. Sarin reached out for the plate and the boy was about to scramble back into the flitter when he realized what the Vulcan was doing. Calmly, Sarin pushed the dish to where the boy could reach it.

For the next few minutes, the boy forgot all about tricks and baits and poisonous hyposprays. He gulped down the food so hastily he almost threw it up again, hardly noticing the alien taste of what he was eating. When he was finished, he even licked the crumbs off the plate and used his fingertips to catch whatever tiny piece of bread had escaped his tongue.

The Vulcan watched him, and when the boy was finished he held out a glass.

"Here."

This time, Sarin did not set the glass down for the boy to pick it up, and after only a moment's hesitation the boy took it from the Vulcan's hand. The water cleared his thoughts in a way the food had not, and for the first time he realized that he was sitting well within Sarin's reach, close enough for the Vulcan to grab him. Nothing happened, though, and gradually, the boy allowed himself to relax. So maybe it hadn't been a trick, after all.

He did not smile when he looked at the Vulcan - it was years ago that he had smiled at anyone - but the rigid grimace of fear faded to a softer, more childlike expression.

"I not leave any food for you."

"Do not worry," the Vulcan told him. "I have already had my ko'brehn."

The boy frowned.

"That means "evening meal" in the language you are going to use," Sarin explained. "Ronaj k'veh ko'brehn tu'a."

Instead of repeating the sentence, the boy asked in MoH'kwan: "Your language?"

Sarin raised an eyebrow. "No. My mother tongue is Vulcan. The language I used is spoken here on Kareedia."

"I learn Vulcan, then," the boy said decidedly.

Again, there was a brief flicker of amusement in Sarin's eyes before he answered sternly: "No. You will learn how to speak Kareedian. It is what your master expects you to speak, and he will not allow any alien tongues. I am allowed to speak MoH'kwan with you, but that will stop as soon as you have learned enough Kareedian to follow my orders. And you will learn quickly, pa'sahn? Understood?"

"Yes," the boy said, and at the look on the Vulcan's face quickly added: "Pa'sahn."

"Pa'sahnri, kan. I understand, sir."

"Pa'sahnri, kan," the boy repeated, stumbling over the alien words. The Vulcan, however, seemed satisfied.

"Good." He gathered up the plate and glass and got up again. "Rech'vi, Sev. Come with me."

The boy hesitated a second before venturing out of the hatch, frightened by the unfamiliar smells and sounds. The grass under his bare feet was of a strange, light blue shade, so very different from what he was used to. He raised his head, and his eyes widened at the sight of the evening sky - a pale pink mixed with dark green streaks. Most of his surroundings had an unfamiliar shape or hue, reminding him that he was indeed on a different world than the one he had grown up on. Even the buildings surrounding the yard struck him as alien; none of them looked anything like Ma'Khor's palace with its ornamented columns and decorative statuettes.

"Over there are the stables," Sarin said, and repeated the word in Kareedian. "It will be your duty to help me care for the animals and keep the place clean. Have you ever looked after an animal before?"

The boy considered. One of Ma'Khor's servants had kept a large, furry creature, and on sunny days it sometimes lay on the porch and enjoyed the warmth. One day, the boy had sneaked up to it and carefully touched its fur to see if it was as soft as it looked. The creature had raised its head and looked at him with gentle brown eyes, stirring emotions within the boy's soul which he had buried under a layer of hate years ago. He had stayed out there even though he wasn't allowed to, petting the silky fur and almost smiling when the animal gave a deep, contented rumble. Soon enough, someone had discovered him and chased him back inside, but the boy had never forgotten the animal's soft brown eyes.

"No," he said quietly. "But I want to learn."

The boy never realized how much his demeanor had changed in the short time since Ja'Lin had opened the flitter's hatch. Sarin regarded him thoughtfully, this dirty, ragged boy that acted as if he had been treated like an animal himself for most of his life. Maybe looking after him wasn't going to be as difficult as Sarin had initially assumed.

They went over to the stables, and the boy stared in awe as he saw the large, horned beasts that began to paw on the wooden floor when the door was opened. Once inside, Sarin proceeded to a singled-out stall near the door and motioned for his new assistant to come closer. At first, the boy stood frozen, afraid of the shaggy, purple-colored being behind the wooden bars. When Sarin motioned again, however, he carefully approached the stall.

"These are ghurat," the Vulcan explained. "The Kareedians keep them for their meat and furs. They are menach, which means that they only eat plants. This one," he pointed at the animal in the stall, "needs special feeding, so I keep it in the detached stall. We need to feed it by hand, since it is cut off from the electronic feeding mechanism that fills the rest of the troughs."

He showed the boy how to refill the animal's feeding bowl. Pouring the gravel-like feed into the chute, the boy noticed that the animal's sides bulged under its purple fur.

"She have baby?" he asked, pointing at the ghurat's swollen belly. Sarin raised an eyebrow.

"Indeed. How did you know?"

The boy didn't answer. The image of another animal came to him, a large, golden... dog. The boy was sure that this was the right word, even though he had no idea where that knowledge would come from. The dog's belly was slightly bulging as well, and the boy remembered a woman (...Mommy?...) talking to him and another boy, saying that Lady was going to have babies at the end of summer.

He blinked, shaking off the reverie. He hadn't thought of that place and its people for years, and had a feeling that it wouldn't be a good idea to start now.

When they had finished feeding the pregnant ghurat, Sarin walked over to a steep ladder that led to a square opening in the wooden ceiling.

"Up there is the hayloft," he said. "That is where you are going to sleep. I suggest you go to bed now. I will show you around the farm tomorrow. Try to get enough sleep, we have a lot of work to do."

The boy stared up at the black square that seemed to swallow the end of the ladder, and felt a familiar panic rise in his throat. For as long as he could think, he had been mortally afraid of the dark.

"I sleep down here, yes?" he asked, his voice trembling ever so slightly. "Sleep on the floor."

"No, certainly not," the Vulcan said sternly. "You will do what you are told. Now get up there."

Fear formed a heavy knot in his chest, and the boy had trouble speaking. "Please," he said, almost stumbling on the unfamiliar word. "Please, I sleep down here. Please."

He expected Sarin to hit him, but the Vulcan only regarded him for a long moment. "There is an old electric lamp installed in the hayloft," he said. "You can turn it on by pressing the switch on the wall next to the ladder."

There was no reason why the Vulcan shouldn't be telling the truth. Reluctantly, the boy began to climb the ladder, swallowing hard as he approached the black opening. Once he had reached the top, he fumbled for the switch on the wall, and a second later the large room was lit by a dim yellow light. The boy took a hesitant step forward, and jumped when something behind him moved. Scraping over the edge of the hatch, the ladder disappeared from his field of vision. He scrambled back to the opening just in time to see the Vulcan place the ladder on the floor in front of the stalls.

"I am not going to take any chances," Sarin said calmly, meeting the boy's eyes. "Ja'Lin will hold me responsible if you try to run away."

"I not run away," the boy said. The idea had crossed his mind, but where would he go?

"Maybe not," Sarin agreed. "But I cannot be sure." He disappeared into the back of the stable and returned with a gray bundle in his hands. "Here."

He threw the bundle to the boy who caught it clumsily. It was a thin gray blanket.

"Sleep now. I will come to get you in the morning."

With these words, the Vulcan turned around and left. The boy stood next to the hatch for a few seconds, pressing the gray blanket against his chest. The hayloft was huge, and the weak electric light lit only a small part of it. In the back of the room, the boy could see bales of hay stacked on top of each other, some of them all but touching the ceiling. Darkness lurked in between those stacks, and he quickly looked away again.

A few meters away from the hatch was a large pile of hay. The boy decided to use it for a bed, and for a few minutes forgot about his fear as he dug a hole wide enough for him to crawl into. Once inside, he wrapped himself into his blanket as tightly as he could. The hay was warm, and softer than the floor he had slept on back at Ma'Khor's place. It was as if he had built himself a cocoon, a hiding place of his very own. The boy closed his eyes, listening to the muffled noises of the animals below, and after a while he drifted off to sleep.

That night, for the first time in almost three years, the boy dreamt of a hot day in August, of himself and his brother playing soccer on the front yard, and of his mother screaming as she fought the MoH'kwan raiders. And he cried in his sleep so that his face was still wet when Sarin came to wake him in the morning.

TBC...

Please let me know what you think!