Time Stream Chapter 8: Pain, a startrek: enterprise fanfic

Chapter Eight

Pain

The Enterprise vanished around Commander Charles 'Trip' Tucker, replaced by a large and overcrowded white marble room. There had to be fifty people in a room built for half that many, and for a moment Trip was disoriented. The vast majority of those present, both men and women, possessed the same distinctive features he'd grown familiar with in studying the files Daniels had presented. Golden tinted flesh, tinted in the same way a human's would be red/pink; a vast variety of loose flowing garments, at least on the women. Most of the men wore a variety of colored shirts, but a few wore distinctive clothing easily recognizable as uniforms, perhaps security? Most were blond the way the precious metal would be if it could be imbedded into hair follicles.

The attentions of all were on one man standing behind a large desk at the far end of the room. He was tall, but even his startling skin gave way to piercing eyes that seemed to look into ones very soul. Trip wondered if he was one who believed what his eyes revealed. He wore a pale blue garment, his only ornamentation a lozenge shaped jewel containing a blue gemstone of the same shape, from which radiated eight smaller, similar blue gems.

Before him, clad in tight black uniforms, stood three tall reptilian aliens. Undoubtedly this was the Silurian 'delegation'. To Trip they looked like snakes, if snakes on Earth had ever developed legs and arms, or walked upright at two meters tall, balanced on lengths of tail. Their long heads rested upon articulated necks, below which shoulders such as no snake had ever possessed gave way to sinuous arms and four-clawed 'hands'.

No one noticed him, least of all the woman by the far left wall, the one reaching into the fulsome right sleeve of her loose, flowing blue gown and pulling out a phase pistol.

"TIA!"

His shout disrupts everything. The Aurans, reeling with the experience of dealing with living aliens in their midst, are not at all ready to deal with yet another appearing in the room with them. All eyes lock on him, including the young woman who is his 'quarry'.

"SHAR-LES!" She exclaimed in profound shock.

Trip cut across the crowded room, no one staying him. The surprise of aliens in their midst, and the woman who had urged the halting of this encounter now holding an unknown weapon trained on the delegation was all disconcerting enough. But the sudden appearance within their midst of a pink-skinned alien who was forcing his way through the crowd toward the armed woman was just too much to deal with.

No one moved. The unknown weapon they saw held steady in the woman's left hand was enough to keep even the least wary from making any sudden motions. But the woman and the blue garbed alien speaking to one another in an unintelligible language held them all motionless with utter fascination. Trip stopped a few feet away from her, not quite blocking the pistol's aim – just in case he had thought wrong about her priorities.

"Tia, whatever you're thinking, don't. Do not do this." He tried to keep his voice calm, yet to allow some of his urgency to show through.

"Shar-les! How come you here?" She was absolutely stunned. He could not be here. There was no way he could be here.

She had not believed she would survive this act, was not entirely sure she could convince her people it was the right thing to do after the deed was done. But of all the things she had expected, the appearance of Charles Tucker was not one of them.

"The same way you did. Daniels; he sent me to stop you."

"No! I must. I my people free must!" She insisted. It was why she was there, why she had been sent into the past. Nothing must interfere with that goal.

"Not like this. You can't." He took a careful step closer. Her aim had never wavered, she still held the pistol pointed directly at the lead Silurian, and a lifetime of hatred and pain urged her to fire.

Trip approached the woman as slowly, as cautiously, as he could; all the while aware of the multitude of aliens surrounding them. That the Silurians were armed he had no doubt. He also had no doubt that the ones who appeared to be in uniform were Security Officers; whether armed or not in the presence of their leader he had no idea, but he was betting they were. But right now he had to put all that out of his mind. He had to focus on the stranger in front of him, and somehow convince her that she was the love of his life when he had never laid eyes upon her before.

All he had to go on was a padd full of pictures and logs. What she had to go on was eight months of memories of him.

Disassembling a warp core blindfolded would be less of a challenge.

"A trick you are!" She accused, as frantic as she was confused. This was all wrong. This could not be happening. As close as she was to attaining her people's salvation, it had to be another of those 'Temporal Cold War' tricks.

"Tia. I'm asking you to trust me. Have I ever lied to you?"

"Daai!"

"I don't know what that means." In his tension, the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and the effect they had on the woman was profound. She stared at him, as shocked as if he'd punched her in her face.

"You know not!" She tried to demand, but it came out in barely a gasp.

He gave up, knowing that to deceive her was impossible. He held up his hands, trying to stop her, trying to keep things from spiraling completely out of control.

"All right – I'll be honest. I'm never going to convince you otherwise. Tia, I don't have a clue who you are." She stared at him as if he had stepped up and slapped her. "I've never met you before in my life. Daniels sent me here because he says you're my wife – my future wife, rather – and you're about to do something that's going to wipe out your entire race."

The revelations in Trip's words slammed into her abused mind with devastating force. He'd forgotten her; just as she'd feared, just as she'd told him this morning. No, not forgotten – he never knew her. This was her fear magnified a thousand times over. 'Wife? Future Wife?' But the Salyuun…! 'Wipe out your entire race'? How?

Hopelessly lost, she latched on to the one thing that seemed to make sense, horribly insane though it was. "You – you me do know not?"

"Tia, I don't know how to explain this mess to you except to tell you that, in the reality I'm from, the reality you apparently made when you came back here, you were never born. No one knows you."

"But I -!" This was madness. This was completely impossible. She could not 'never have been born'. It was insane. It had to be a lie – but this was Charles.

"Tia, you came back here to change the past of your planet, but if you fire that phase pistol you will destroy that past – and future."

"Nyas! Riid?" In her distress, she could barely keep remembering to translate her words into English. "How?"

"In the reality I'm from, the one your firing created, the Silurians take revenge for this. And whatever they did in the past you remember, this time they start executing your citizens, later bombing your cities, killing all of you."

"Nyas!" She wanted to throw away his words. They had to be lies!

"In just nine months the resistance you form and lead will result in the Silurians deciding your people can't be broken by bombing and phasing whole cities out of existence, and they decide to destroy you all. They find some way, maybe a gas; I don't know, but it attacks your blood. In nine months there won't be anything alive anywhere on this planet. Nothing. No people, no animals, no life. Nothing."

She shook her head almost frantically, trying to dispel his words. "But he said save them I can! Tried to convince the Relatu to away turn them. Did work not. This -."

"Tia, I know you're trying to free your planet, probably bring back some idyllic life. Maybe this world right now is idyllic, I don't know. I've never seen any of it, but I've read that you have been longing to come back here. I wish I knew of a way to make it so, but this is not it."

"I my world can restore. I can!"

"Tia, listen to me. It won't work."

"It must. I can again try!" She exclaimed desperately, holding up her left arm, showing him the chronotran strapped to her wrist.

"Do you know how to work that?"

"Nyas. But -."

"Listen, no 'buts'. It's a cheat. A lie. It won't help you. You cannot use that to change the past, no matter how many times you talk to these people. It won't work. They're always going to let the Silurians in, and they're always going to be betrayed."

"Nyas! Nyas!" She cried, tears of frustration and pain glistening on her cheeks; but her aim never wavered. "You lying are – and to me you swore you would lie again never!"

"Damn it, I'm telling you the truth. I don't know what our relationship was, but I swear to you I am telling you the truth. If you ever believed me on anything, believe me now. I came back to stop you from making a horrible mistake, one that will kill every Auran that is or ever will be."

"Nyas!"

"You can't succeed. This was all a trap."

"Nyas!"

He hated himself for what he had to say, but he did not dare stop pressing, as much as it hurt either of them. "And even if you were to succeed, even if what I tell you was not going to happen, what were you going to do? You'll be trapped here, decades before you were born. It's over 47 of your years until you are born."

"Nyas! I this button to push am and -."

"And nothing. Tia, think. Think! Even if it took you back to the exact spot and moment you left; Enterprise is not there. The ship's hundreds, maybe thousands, of parsecs away from wherever it was when you left. It's not where it was in your history, its where it is in mine. You'll materialize in deep space and be dead in seconds." She hesitated, and he could see in her eyes that she had the horrible image he painted. But hard as it was, no matter how painful it was, there was more that had to be said. "And even if that thing somehow compensated for that, what will you be among us?"

"I your -."

"Nothing. You won't have existed among us. Tia, think! If you had been able to drive the Silurians off, what then? Whatever we have between us will never exist – you've nothing to come 'back' to."

"You!" She exclaimed desperately. She had to hold on to this. Without this, there was nothing for her. She had to save her people. She had to! She could not let them suffer decades of slavery. She had to save them!

"How? If your plan had worked, if the Silurians had not enslaved your people, your history would be different than you remember. You'd grow up in a world that had never known the Silurians. How could we ever meet then? What incentive would you and your friends have had to steal a Silurian ship and escape this planet for me to find?" She stared at him, stunned, unable to speak, barely able to think coherently as the realization of the magnitude of the Temporal Agent's betrayal washed over her.

Trip watched as his words broke her, and tears of heartrending pain trickled down her cheeks. He wished he could have stopped, but the cost was too high.

"And if you fire, if you kill them, their people will rain down death from orbit. Your people will be helpless as they are bombed and shot down, your cities leveled and your people killed; hundreds, then thousands, then millions until nine months from now, when they don't give in, every single one of them will be killed and there will be nothing left. The Silurians will kill everyone. Everything.

"Tia, succeed or fail, you cannot win. There is no way!"

"Nyas! I save them have to!" She cried desperately, the pistol shaking in her outstretched hand. "Somehow – I have to!" She was crying openly, but he could not stop it.

Trip shook his head sadly, wishing there were some other way. First Contact was only three decades ago. Earth was decades away from even testing NX-Alpha, and the Vulcans would never…

"You can't." He told her softly, hating himself for the pain he was inflicting upon her. "Your people can't fight back against orbiting starships; they don't have the technology." He slowly stepped up to the trembling woman, standing aside from her line of fire.

"They have only two fates; slavery or extermination." He put out his hand. "It's up to you to choose which Hell to give them."

Tears streaming down her face, Tia focused on the Silurian Captain still standing beyond the end of her phase pistol. With all her soul she longed to fire, but Charles was right. There was no way to save her people – not any more.

Slowly, very slowly her arm began to lower, as if the weapon were growing too heavy for her to hold steady anymore. Charles took the gun from her slackened grip. She couldn't even look at him, her eyes seething with fiery hatred, locked on the Silurians.

The words from Malcolm Reed's favorite book were suddenly there, unwelcome, in her mind, even as he'd read them to her: 'He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.'

Trip took the phase pistol, sliding the safety on and locking it in place, rendering the weapon unusable.

In the instant of his incapacitating it, the 'future' where Tia had assassinated the Silurians and, in revenge, they had destroyed all life on Aura, never occurred. Trip, having therefore never existed to go back to Aura's past to prevent their annihilation, vanished, the inert phase pistol clattering to the floor.

Tia, however, remained in the room. She stared at the spot where he had stood, unable to even feel surprise against her overwhelming grief.

She had tried to free her people. She had tried all her life, and now she had been offered a second chance, but it was a lie and she had failed.

Having been convinced by the Temporal Cold Warrior to return to her planet in an attempt to free her people, she now stood defeated. Overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of her failure, she did not even care when the Protectorate Officers grabbed her, one scooping up the disabled phase pistol.

"::Take her.::" The amazed Relatu ordered. Shaken, stunned and positively overwhelmed by the amazing events of the past hour, he was still determined to make the best of the arrival of these amazing new friends from the stars.

The squad of Protectors pulled the unresisting woman from the room. She would be held in the detention building less than a valri away, to await the Relatu's disposition of her case.

Tia said nothing as she was led out of the Pryndonitan, her mind only on her failure. As she was 'escorted' firmly through corridors and offices she could only think of the futures of these people. Everyone she saw would soon be a casualty or a slave, they and their families and children and children's children. And there was nothing she, or anyone else, could do about it anymore.

She met no one's eyes as she was brought through the main reception room. She did not want to see anyone, to know that because of her failure they were doomed to a few years of interesting changes in their lives, and then suddenly, unexpectedly, their lives would be nothing but suffering and misery. When the gold in the ground was exhausted, the Silurians would turn to the people, and Ierilsnu would begin.

She was pulled out of the building and into the garden, down the long, winding path of white gravel to the street.

Tia looked up, seeing Sabaoth high in the violet heavens, its vast rings bright with every hue of the spectrum. Suddenly, seeing this visible representation of the consort of Aura, it was as if all the fight had gone out of her. She was defeated, her people are doomed, and what happened to her now did not make any difference at all. Re-enslaved, killed, she suddenly found she no longer cares. She has failed to save her people, nothing else matters.

But as she was pulled along, she stared upward at Sabaoth, She did not care if this was the last time she would see it; she would look while she had her chance.

Whatever the Relatu does with her is meaningless now. She determines to concentrate on the moment, and to pray to her gods. And to 'enjoy' the moment, for in these minutes remaining before the Relatu's damned decision regarding the Silurians' 'offer', for this one last moment Aura is free.

The very last thing Tia Anlor sees in this life is the ringed giant Sabaoth casting its reflected red light upon the city of Zaslani, turning the blue sky violet.

The next instant she is gone, having never existed there. The Protectorate Officers surrounding her vanish in the same moment, having never left the building. Inside, in the Relatu's office, the reception of the aliens continues apace, having never been foretold nor interrupted.

x x x x x x

Tia barely knew how she made it back to her own quarters, her mind awash in misery and frustration. She has just left Trip Tucker's quarters, unable to endure another moment in that room. She would have given anything to tell him, to tell him everything, to break a lifetime of custom and rules of behavior.

She opens the door to her quarters, entering the room, violently stripping off her white robe and throwing it at a chair before collapsing dejectedly onto her bunk, misery overwhelming even her frustration.

She lays there for several minutes, wondering how she can resolve her own conflict with the expectations and mores of her planet and upbringing, when the door opens and Trip strides into the room, talking angrily even before the door closes again, pent up frustration adding fire to his words.

"All right, Tia, I've had it. That's it. No more! I am completely fed up!" She turns on the bed, looking up at him, startled as he continues in high fury, refusing to be distracted by her lush nudity, pointing his finger at her for sharp emphasis, demanding; "Now you are going to tell me right now what this 'Mrunion Alirki ne Avinyaan' means! You're going to explain what 'Tuvili' means and why it drove you out of my quarters! You're going to explain this 'kentile' thing! You're going to explain this 'Salyuuni' you've been calling me, even if it's 'honey' or something like that; and you are going to do this right now, because you are not leaving here until you do!"

Delighted at his forceful commands, she gets off the bed and stands before him, smiling radiantly. "Daai, my Lord and Savior. Yours I am."

"Look, never mind the flowery language." He demands, refusing to be distracted by her lush nakedness. "Just tell me, okay?"

She smiled even more ecstatically. "But that it is; 'mrunion Alirki ne Avinyaan', 'my Lord and Savior' you are. My 'Savior' have you been always, since you me took off the Krontis; my 'Lord' for all time you are, for you me command, and I you obey willingly in all things. 'Tuvili'; 'yours I am'. Kentile, 'bonded' we are as the only male intimate with have I been since the Luuru. 'Salyuuni' you are because I you the Malyn, um, 'Pledge' of Salyuun on Risa did give. 'I you my body offered, I you my breath offered, I you my soul offered, I you my life offered, now and always, so long as I live shall.' I yours in all things am, pledged and bound. Far more than when miktriz, than when 'slave' I was – that nothing was. Yours I am, of my own will and accord, all my body, breath and soul!"

Trip was stunned, more so at the joy in her elated declarations. He knew that, ever since their return from Risa, she had been living in an especially romantic mood, but he had not conceived of this. He now understood her devastation when she thought he had 'forgotten' her pledge, but in fact he had never understood it or its deep significance to her. 'Deep significance' did not even cover this. He was stricken speechless by the import.

Unable to think of anything to say, he extended his hands to her, and when she took them, infinitely delighted, he drew her close, hugging her. He fervently prayed that in the seconds he bought he would have been inspired in what to say. As usual, this prayer was not immediately answered.

Instead, the nude woman stood in his arms, holding him even as she pressed close, patiently, hopefully, awaiting his answer – and he could not think of one.

"Tia…" He wanted to ask her to put some clothes on, at least the robe that lay thrown over the chair, but he thought that was a bad idea. As powerfully distracting as she was, he knew his first words had better be on this subject, or he would be lost entirely. "Tia, this Pledge of … ah…"

She pulled back a bit to look at him. "Salyuun."

"Salyuun." He took a deep breath, realizing he was actually frightened of her answer. "Are we married?"

She smiled brightly and his heart nearly stopped.

"Nyas, Shar-les. We are nyasi." He tried very hard not to show the relief he felt. He honestly believed that, if he were ever to be married, it would be to this gorgeous woman. But he did not want to be unexpectedly married, nor married by some obscure custom he never knew. When and if he ever did get married, he wanted to know it!

"'Marry' Aurans do. 'Tulii' our word is." He felt a bit more relieved. "But I you bonded to am." In a moment, the apprehension was back.

"Can you explain that?" She hesitated, the same way she usually did when she was treading on things so private to Aurans they were understood without explanation, and it had become obscene to actually talk about them. "Please?" Again the hesitation. He sighed feelingly, exasperated. "All right. If I'm supposed to be your 'Lord' – and that's something we're really going to talk about – then I order you to tell me."

She smiled gratefully. "Ealyiis! Um, I mean 'Thank you'. Legend it is; that the night of the Luuru on, the 'luuruna', if a man she with it does pass; that man her true love is to be, and bonded for all time their souls are."

"That's why you got so concerned when the sun was rising. You said you wanted the night to last forever."

"Daai."

"And if I hadn't had us transported clear to the other side of the planet -."

"The night ended would have, before I a chance to you myself pledge had."

"That's why you've been walking around for the past few weeks like a … like someone in a romantic haze." He'd been so close to saying 'newlywed' before he'd managed to bite it off.

"Thought I you my Pledge had accepted."

"I didn't understand a word you said; we were kissing so much, to say nothing of my being able to answer you." He saw her joyous expression slip, and he realized how his words hurt.

"Know I that do." She admitted in a dead voice, one he could not bear to hear.

He reached out, taking her hands. "But you do know how I feel. And now that I know, I would gladly take that pledge with you."

She shook her head sadly. "We can not. For the luuruna is it. Long past that night is."

He heard in her sad tone all she had gained, and then lost. "Tia, I am so sorry."

She smiled, but it was forced. "It matters not. It a romantic legend is … was."

He shook his head. "Romantic legends are very important. And I know how much it can hurt to lose them."

"I am quilwaz nyasi, um, 'hurt' not." She said softly, but there was a deep sadness, a loss, that was still hard to bear. She looked up at him, not letting him remind her about always keeping the truth between them. "But change how I feel I can not. Bonded I you to am." She saw he was about to say something, but she did not give him the chance to interrupt. "Bonded I you to am. There other is no. I Aura see will again never. You I the only person ever imagine could spend my life with to. I another would want not. Ever. Know you this do. There for me in my life will be but you one no. Though 'tuvili' I am not, yours still I am, now and always!"

Trip held her close. He wished he could find the right words, even broken as hers were, to tell her how he felt; that he could never imagine anyone else in his life but her either.

With a gentle urging, he drew her closer to the bed, and together they sat on its edge. He took her golden hand and a man in a Starfleet uniform materialized near the viewport.

He was clearly as surprised as they were, though they did not know it was because there were two people in the room when he expected only Tia. In the moment of hesitation that stopped him the red beam of a phase pistol sliced across the room from near the door, striking him squarely in his chest! He slammed back against the bulkhead; then bounced off it to pitch face down on the deck as Trip and Tia stared in astonishment.

A black uniformed man crossed the room in front of them to where the Starfleet crewman lay; knelt next to him, and as he looked back at them Trip recognized former-Steward Daniels, since revealed to be a Temporal Agent. The last time he'd seen him was over five weeks ago during the incident on Eminiar VIII.

Trip, barely able to take it all in, found himself reacting thoughtlessly, taking from behind them Tia's rumpled blanket and pressing it with one hand to her body, forgetting in his surprise that Aurans had no distinction of any parts of bodies being more 'significant' than others, nor the human concept of 'modesty'. He acted automatically even as he tried to piece together what in hell was happening.

Daniels, looking up at them, meeting Trip's eyes, was the only one to know that, in the instant of stunning the Temporal Cold Warrior, Tia had vanished from Aura while on the way to her cell, and the meeting on that world continued, having never been interrupted. The alternate Time Line was now broken. Though he remembered having done so, he will have never spoken to 'this' Trip Tucker, nor would he appeal to the Enterprise crew, in about half an hour, for aid.

He placed one hand on the back of the man he had stunned and said to them: "Sorry for the interruption. Don't mind us. Carry on." He touched a button on the device in his hand, and both men vanished.

Trip and Tia stared at one another, astounded. It was perhaps twenty seconds before either could find any words. "Are you sure…" Trip asked, still holding the blanket to her chest, "…that you want to be bonded to any of us?"

Epilogue

Several hours had passed, and Tia was on her lunch break when she returned to her quarters, having little appetite. The conversation she had had with Charles prior to breakfast, followed by a vastly inconclusive investigation into the sudden appearance of Daniels and another Temporal Agent, clearly both with their own agendas, had left her late for her shift and unable to concentrate through most of it.

She locked her door, intending to spend a short time in communion, hoping the meditation would clear her mind, but she was not to have the peace she needed. As she turned, she immediately fell into an automatic defensive posture before recognizing the 'intruder' who had not been present an instant before.

Former Crewman Daniels stood beyond her bunk, near her clothing 'closet', dressed in the black uniform he had been wearing just this morning. "I'm sorry to startle you/" He apologized.

"Why here are you?" She demanded, aggravated at finding him in her room uninvited. She had locked her door to prevent uninvited guests, and was annoyed to find her efforts so easily circumvented. "What want do you?"

"Peace. I've come to give you something."

She was still suspicious, but no longer as much on the defensive. From what she knew from Charles and the other humans, this man normally posed no danger. But if he did threaten her, she was ready. "What?"

"It's one of the unfortunate things about temporal mechanics, that when time lines are changed, no one not 'protected' retains any memory of the change. We've actually involved you three times in keeping the Proper Time Line in order, though you remember only two times, not the last."

"Daai?" She asked, still suspicious.

Daniels regarded the woman closely. He'd last seen her here, and before then eight months after her return to her planet, when he'd found her and restored her 'chronotran' to serviceable function just days before the utter destruction of her race. Thus, they had worked together four times in actuality, one time line 'within' another. He'd been impressed by her plight each time he'd seen her, and so he had taken this unprecedented action with the permission of his superiors.

"Of all those on this ship that we have worked with, you are unique, as you are completely cut off from your world and history."

"As Shar-les say would; 'tell me something I don't know'!" She said bitingly, trying to bury again the sharp sting of the reality that was her 'new' life aboard Enterprise.

"Normally we do not 'repay' service; it would cause more complications than could possibly be tolerated. This time, however, it is agreed there would be no discernable disruption of the Time Line involved in giving you something that would be meaningful to you but would not be missed on your world."

He reached for a large, leather bound volume on the shelf of her desk, a double-sized book she had not noticed before, and when she saw it her heart skipped a beat. And another. She stared at it in monumental astonishment, barely able to think. She forgot to breathe.

It was hers! She recognized it instantly. It had stood on a shelf in her room in Pastuu, the room she had rented from her friends, the same ones who had died during their disastrous escape from Aura. It was, for her, the most important book she owned, the revealed word and wisdom of Aura to her people, one so important that she had spent the past several months trying to recreate it from memory, against the time when her memory of the Goddess would fail.

It was something so private she had not even shared the existence of the reconstruction with Charles, something so important to her that she could not even begin to estimate its personal value. Only two people, Hoshi and Patricia McCabe, knew of the existence of the reconstruction she kept hidden in a locked drawer on her 'closet'. They were the only ones who had ever touched it, and only because she had been so shocked at the similarity to their own revelation book at the Priest's first Religious Gathering aboard Enterprise.

Daniels held the large tome out to her and she took it, her breath catching in her throat as she touched it. Once she touched it, she knew it was hers. This was real! This was no dream. She took the book in her hands, staring at it as she would a beloved and long lost friend she had come to accept she would never see again. She could not speak. Her emotions clutched her throat; inexpressible joy and the grief for a world forever lost to her locked her breath and stole her voice.

She looked up at the man, her vision blurred by tears of rapture and anguish. She looked down, opening the book with utter reverence, the familiar curves, curls and whorls of Auran script exactly as she remembered.

She looked up again and she was alone.

Tia hugged the large book to her chest as tightly as she could, never wanting to let go ever again. Unable to stand, she slowly fell to her knees, so happy she could not think! Locked in the privacy of her quarters, she hugged the book adoringly, lovingly, tears of ecstasy on her cheeks.