"You know, my legs aren't as long as yours," Amanda panted.
Sarek glanced to his left, noting her cheeks were flushed with a pale pink hue. "A very apparent statement."
They turned the corner and her dormitory came into view. "It's just that my calves are burning. Are we in a hurry?"
He'd been too preoccupied with mentally preparing for Amanda's visit and debating the logic of concealing his concerns about the men in the park from her to realize the pace had become rather brisk by any reasonable person's standard. He scanned the area but saw nothing out of the ordinary. "I apologize for not taking your weaker physiology into consideration. Forgive me."
"My weaker physiology?" she scoffed, falling in step beside him.
"It is a well-documented phenomenon that Vulcans have many physical advantages over humans, and that the males of both species have greater bone density, muscle mass, and lung capacity than females, on average."
"Fair enough, but it's not like I have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel," she smirked. "I just don't see the need to jog back to my dorm."
"Is there some custom regarding placing one's foot on a banana peel?" he replied, turning to observe her.
She laughed. "It was supposed to be a joke that implied I was perilously close to death."
"You appear quite healthy," he countered.
"I like to think I am," she said with a small smile.
His heart quickened at her warm expression and he swiftly looked away and set his mind to getting his emotions in check. He would not deny that genuinely cared for her and so the thought someone might hurt her to get to him was intolerable. Was it logical to keep the truth from her to avoid alarming her, knowing that she was an illogical being and there was no way to predict how she might react to such a revelation?
They were friends but they led separate lives: he could not spend the rest of his life escorting her through her daily activities. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't do it for more than several days without drawing her suspicion, particularly because she already seemed aware something was wrong. He decided he would tell her, but not here while they were out in the open and exposed. Not now, when she was in such a carefree mood.
He destroyed the tiny piece of his conscience that also implied he didn't want to upset her right before she'd agreed to spend the night as his apartment. Of course he was only inviting her to his apartment for her own safety, not so he could selfishly enjoy her company. Yes, he would tell her, but he would have to judge the moment and now was not ideal.
As they neared the door to her room, Sarek heard Mara's voice permeating through the thin walls. Amanda began digging through her bag for a keycard. Sarek didn't intend to eavesdrop and though Mara's voice was muffled and strained, his ears were sensitive enough to make out the distinct words.
"What are we going to do?" Mara asked, adding extra emphasis to the last word.
"I told you I have a friend on the Kessik IV colony," Vedek replied, his voice calmer than his female companion's.
"Oh sure, I'm just supposed to move out to wherever that is? Drop out of school?"
"You hardly ever go to class anyway—"
Amanda slid her keycard into the lock with a click and the door slid open, revealing Mara sitting on her bed with her head in her hands and Vedek standing by the window.
"I thought you were going to the park?" Mara grumbled.
"Yeah, that was several hours ago," Amanda sighed, pulling a gray bag from the top of her closet and tossing it onto the bed. "But don't worry, we're not staying. I'm just here to get some clothes."
"I should go," Vedek said, rubbing his hand through his hair. When Sarek looked closely, he realized Vedek's eyes were bloodshot and his face wore a patchy stubble of a beard that was several days old.
"Please stay," Mara whined. "I don't want to be alone right now."
"I'll be back," Vedek replied. "I just need to go meet up with someone."
"Who?" Mara cried.
"This may come as a surprise to you, but I actually do know other people," Vedek answered. "I'll be back in a few hours. I promise."
Amanda adjourned to the lavatory to collect whatever hygiene equipment she required, leaving Sarek alone to observe Mara brooding over her mate's sudden departure. She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "I guess things between you and Amanda are getting pretty serious if she's staying over at your place."
"I believe she is staying with me because her current living quarters are so frequently occupied by your male suitor," Sarek replied, preferring to avoid addressing her comment about his imaginary relationship with Amanda.
"Amanda always was a prude," Mara replied with a wistful laugh. "But be good to her. She's a really good person."
"I agree," Sarek replied. "And I shall."
Amanda tossed a small satchel into the gray duffel bag on her bed and announced, "All packed. Let's go."
"You guys could stay," Mara mused. "I don't really feel like being alone right now."
Sarek's eyes turned toward Amanda, fully expecting her to entertain her roommate's request, but instead she responded, "Vedek said he would be back later and Sarek and I have plans."
"Sex plans?" Mara chortled.
Amanda's face turned steely. "Maybe. Anyway, have a good weekend."
"Yeah, you too," Mara grumbled. "And don't forget to use protection!"
As soon as the door was closed behind them, Amanda turned and briskly walked down the hallway, this time forcing Sarek to pick up the pace to catch up with her.
"Your cheeks are flushed," he commented.
"Obviously we're not going to have sex this weekend," she mumbled, racing down the stairwell two steps at a time.
"I had deduced as much. You have already made it very clear that we will never engage in sexual intercourse. It was a main stipulation of our agreement and though our arrangement has been terminated in the interest of friendship, I did not suppose that specific proviso had changed."
"Right. I just needed her to think that we might because she'd probably think it was weird if we didn't," Amanda continued, stepping outside.
Sarek took note of their surroundings but did not see the men from the park or anything else he perceived to be a threat. Still, he fell in step next to her on the street side of the sidewalk and kept himself alert for any potential danger. Perhaps he was overreacting.
"You've gone quiet again," Amanda muttered after several minutes of walking at a leisurely pace.
"I have nothing to say."
"I hate it when you get quiet after an awkward conversation."
"What was awkward?"
"Me implying we were going to have sex."
"And you expect me to feel embarrassed?" he replied. "I have already explained that embarrassment is illogical. Why do you so often anticipate how I will feel about your social interactions and feel the urge to apologize? I am Vulcan. I am not in the habit of feeling anything."
"I have a hard time believing that," she replied.
"Explain."
"You're an expert at keeping things bottled up and not outwardly showing emotions, but I get the sense that you do feel things, even if you think it's illogical and even if you hide it."
"Vulcans do have emotions," he conceded. "And they are quite powerful, but we turn to logic as a means of tempering ourselves."
"I can understand not wanting to feel angry or sad, but wouldn't it be nice to feel happy? Excited? Why does it have to be an all or nothing thing?"
"If I were to allow myself to only experience positive emotions such as joy or excitement, they would eventually fail to hold any meaning and I would find myself drawn to more extreme situations in order to be happy. Balance is necessary. Good emotions must be countered with the bad in order to appreciate why the good ones are good. Yet it is the bad emotions that most often lead us astray."
"So you're saying if you were happy all the time, you would get bored and start doing reckless things to feel happiness?"
"Yes."
"And so you figure that in order to have balance, as you say, it's better to just not feel anything at all?"
"Precisely."
"That sounds really miserable."
"It is actually quite serene," he insisted, ignoring the memory about his experiment that morning to feel emotions.
As they turned into the street where his apartment building was located, a man called out from behind them, "Hey, Amanda!"
Sarek instantly squared his body to block her from a possible attack, but he quickly identified the speaker as Amanda's employer. He was grinning and trotting in their direction.
"What's up, Adam?" Amanda asked.
"I was just about to send you a message," Adam explained, displaying a smile so broad that Sarek could see his hind teeth. "I'm on my way in to the learning center. Nicoletta had to go home early for some family thing and Sarah just called in sick. Is there any way you can work tonight?"
She frowned. "I'd like to help—"
"Great," Adam beamed.
"But Sarek and I had plans tonight," she finished.
Adam dropped his smile and turned to Sarek. "Surely you can spare her for a couple of hours? The center closes at 2100."
"She does not answer to me," Sarek explained. "If she wishes to work for you, that is her choice."
"I really do want to help, it's just that Sarek was going to help me with physics," Amanda added. "I have a final exam coming up."
Adam shifted his eyes from Amanda back to Sarek and suddenly both men were engaged in a battle of stares. After several tense seconds, he shrugged and said, "I guess I'll just pull double duty then. Have a good night."
"I really am sorry," Amanda called after him before turning to Sarek and asking, "Do you think I should go help?"
"I think you should do whatever you think is appropriate."
"It's just—I work all the time. He always calls me whenever he needs someone. I used to be flattered but I work way more than any of the other interns."
"If you are confident you are doing your share of the work, why do you question whether you should do more?"
"Because I feel kind of guilty, I guess?"
"Staffing the learning center is not your responsibility," he replied, walking in the direction of his building.
"True," she sighed. "But back to our original conversation about not feeling feelings, there was definitely some kind of weird standoff between the two of you just now. Do you not like Adam or something?"
In truth, he did not like the way the man looked at Amanda, but he could not explain why, which was quite illogical. Finally he said, "There is nothing to dislike about him."
"Would it surprise you to know I used to have the biggest crush on him?"
"Crush?"
Amanda laughed a vibrant laugh. "I used to like him. A lot."
"Romantically?" Sarek asked, deciding he liked Adam even less than before.
"Yeah."
"What did you find so attractive about him?" Sarek asked, immediately regretting his impoliteness at posing such a personal question. Yet she seemed unfazed by the intrusion into her private life.
"I don't know, honestly. He's handsome. He likes kids. He's likable. Then he started dating that Vulcan woman and it only made me like him more. I guess it's easy to pine for what you know you can't have."
"He smiles too much," Sarek replied.
"I smile," Amanda countered.
"Yes," Sarek replied, thinking she smiled exactly the right amount.
"Does it bother you that I smile too much?"
"If I said it did, would you stop smiling?"
"No."
"Good," he replied. "You are human and you are as you should be."
Sarek chose to walk around to the side entrance rather than go through the front out of a desire to vary his routine in the event that he really was being followed. If Amanda noticed the diversion, she made no remark about it and for that he was grateful.
Moments after entering his apartment, his PADD began to vibrate in his breast pocket. Garrett Fischer, his supervisor, was attempting to contact him directly. Sarek glanced at Amanda, who had taken a seat on his sofa.
"Are you going to get that?" she asked.
He engaged the audio transmission.
Garrett's voice through the device's tiny speaker. "Hey Sarek, sorry to bother you on a Saturday afternoon."
"How many I assist you?"
"I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?"
"The order is irrelevant," Sarek insisted. "Also, goodness and badness are relative."
"Okay. The telemetry specialist, Lulu, she came down with a nasty case of Andorian flu. She was supposed to go to Io Station this morning to get the telescopes on line for the Regulon project. I was hoping you'd be able to go. I can have a shuttle ready to take you in an hour."
Sarek noticed Amanda's face was beginning to show signs of disappointment. She had agreed to forgo work in order to spend time with him and he felt obligated to return the favor, though of course purely as a courtesy and not because he was looking forward to spending time alone with her. "I have already made plans with Amanda."
"Not sure what plans you had, but you can take her with you. Cary Cartographic is all about promoting family time, and that includes maybe someday-to-be families."
Sarek watched Amanda's eyes glow brighter than they had when they'd watched the fireworks together. She leapt off the sofa, raced toward him, and gently gripped his forearm. "Please?" she mouthed.
She had told him on numerous occasions about her desire to travel to space, but Io Station was a research facility and hardly a diverting destination. Still, his main objective for asking her to stay with him was to keep her safe, and Io Station sounded safer than anywhere on Earth.
"Sarek, you there?" buzzed Garrett's voice through the speaker.
"I am here."
"Tell your girlfriend your boss would be eternally grateful to her if she'll let you go. We have several suites on Io Station and you guys will be very comfortable."
Amanda was jumping up and down with enthusiastic excitement now.
"What about your schooling? And your work?" Sarek whispered.
"You guys should be back Monday by midday at the latest," Garrett interjected.
She clasped her hands together and hissed, "Please? I want to see space so badly."
Sarek lifted the PADD closer to his face and asked, "Where do we go to board the shuttle?"
Amanda's foot jiggled up and down in anxious excitement and her fingers toyed with the vokaya amulet at her throat. Sarek had insisted she take the seat by the window and she didn't hesitate to accept. This was her first time in space and she wanted to enjoy every minute of it. Aside from the pilot in the front of the cabin, they were alone on the private contracted shuttle.
The shuttle's engines rumbled below their feet and they smoothly glided off the ground and up over the city, which became smaller and smaller with each passing second. Soon the Gulf of Mexico was visible and the sky around them was getting darker as they entered the mesosphere.
The view was breathtaking. She would almost say it was the best and most romantic date she'd ever been on in her short nineteen years, but this clearly wasn't a real date. Still, maintaining the appearance of a fake relationship as far as his job was concerned was turning out to be…not so bad. She snuck a peek at Sarek, who was sitting calmly next to her, hands folded in his lap and eyes gazing straight ahead. "You're not even a little excited?" she teased.
Small wrinkles formed on his brow. "It is not that I do not enjoy your company. We are friends, it is merely that—"
"I meant excited to be going to space," she interrupted, feeling her cheeks turn hot. "I didn't mean to say you should be excited to spend the weekend with me, I meant—"
"I see," he replied, cutting her off. The tips of his ears seemed to be a shade greener than before. "I have been to space many times."
"And it doesn't hold any wonder for you?"
He glanced out the small portal to her left at Earth, which now appeared to be the size of a tennis ball in the distance. "It does. But it does not hold the same novelty for me as it does for you. Enjoy it while it still occurs to you to do so."
"Thank you for bringing me with you," she smiled, turning back to the portal. "How long will it take us to get there?"
"We are not yet traveling at full impulse and are not permitted to do so until we reach a certain distance from Earth's orbit, but Io Station is approximately 628.3 million kilometers away and full impulse speed is 74,660 kilometers per second." He thought to himself for the briefest of moments. "If our speed remains constant, we shall arrive in two hours and twenty minutes."
"And you really just do that kind of math in your head?" she scoffed.
"Yes," he replied, curious that she still seemed so impressed by his prowess at basic arithmetic.
The sound of the engines suddenly changed from a loud thrum to a much softer hum, and the stars began to blur until they were only visible as little flashes. Sarek extracted his PADD from the bag sitting at his feet and began scrolling through recent news stories.
"Didn't you say we're traveling at 74,000 kilometers a second?" she asked, turning back to Sarek.
"74,660 kilometers per second," he corrected.
"That's really fast," she murmured.
"It is," he agreed.
"So then how does Newton's first law of inertia not apply? Shouldn't we be crushed at those kinds of speeds?"
He gave her a look that indicated minor disappointment. "Have you learned nothing during our tutoring sessions? By simply standing on your home world, you are traveling at more than 100,000 kilometers per hour around your system's local star, but you are not pulverized because you are doing it at a constant velocity."
Amanda groaned inwardly, instantly aware of her mistake. "I meant acceleration. How can we accelerate to those kinds of speeds without being killed?"
His facial muscles relaxed in a clear sign of approval. "Vessels capable of traveling at impulse or warp speeds are outfitted with inertial dampeners to counter the effects of rapid acceleration or deceleration. In fact, approximately one third of fatal space travel incidents are related to failures in the inertial dampener system."
"That's…comforting," she muttered, drawing her arms around her body.
"Prior to this excursion to Io Station, we had planned to review the topic of wave optics," he continued, clearly oblivious to her newfound nervousness at being crushed to death if the pilot accidentally hit the wrong button. "Perhaps it would be prudent to utilize our time wisely and review your study material now."
"I don't want to study," Amanda groaned.
"There is a difference between what is wanted and what is required."
She rolled her eyes and pulled her PADD from her bag. "Okay, dad."
"Why do you imply that I am your father?"
Amanda had to hold in a snort. "I'm not, but you're acting like it, trying to make me be responsible. This is my first time in space and I want to enjoy it."
Sarek gestured toward the blackness outside window. "At full impulse, this will be your view for the next two hours and twenty minutes. There is little to observe."
She scowled but conceded. They spent the rest of the shuttle ride studying the same topics that had eluded her understanding at the tea shop and it wasn't long before she was confidently answering his verbal quizzes about constructive and destructive interference. They were in the middle of reviewing older material when Sarek glanced up and said, "We have arrived."
Amanda twisted in her seat and tried to keep her jaw from dropping to the floor. Just outside her window and larger than she could have ever dreamed was Jupiter, replete with dazzling swirls of red, green, and blue gas on its surface. The shuttle was quickly turning away from the incredible view to dock at the station and Amanda strained to keep watching it as long as possible. When she looked back at Sarek with breathless awe, she was surprised to find his eyes were glowing and the corners of his mouth were turned upward just enough that it gave a vague impression of a smile.
He'd been so tense all day but now he finally seemed relaxed. Happy, even, despite what he'd said about eschewing all emotion earlier in the afternoon.
Io Station turned out to be nothing like the space resorts she'd heard so much about. There were no clubs or festively dressed waitstaff offering multi-colored drinks over the thrum of upbeat music. Aside from a handful of Starfleet officers and a couple of civilian engineers, there was hardly anyone here at all.
The station was a utilitarian, corporate-style place, clean and well-lit with just enough amenities to be considered adequate without being able to stake any claim to the word luxurious. They passed a cafeteria, a small gym, and a twenty-seat holotheater that was showing movies that had debuted more than a year ago.
The pilot directed them to the lodging office and perched on a tall chair behind an artful glass desk, they met an elegant Andorian receptionist. She added them to the station's roster for the next day and a half and quickly flew through a speech about safety, what to do in the event of an emergency, and a list of the station's available facilities. She passed a key card across the desk and began to give them directions on how to get to their room when Sarek interrupted, "Is it possible to secure separate quarters?"
"The only room Cary Cartographic has available at the moment is the executive suite," the woman explained. "But it is quite large. I am sure you will be comfortable."
Sarek took the key card from the desk and nodded without lodging any further complaint. Amanda followed him down the corridor, her mind racing through all the possibilities of having to share a room with him. Was it really any so different than staying over at his apartment?
When she saw the room, she wasn't certain the receptionist's claim that it was large was entirely accurate. A medium-sized bed took up nearly a third of the room and a narrow couch sat crammed against the opposite wall between a desk and what she figured was supposed to pass for a dining table. Certainly comfortable enough for one, quite cozy for a couple, but awkwardly small for two platonic friends.
"I can take the couch," Amanda said, setting her bag on the desk and thinking she was going to have to sleep half curled in the fetal position. "If for no other reason than I don't think you'd fit."
"Feel free to settle in as you like," he said, setting his bag on the bed. "I need to visit the telemetry laboratory and see to the project I have been assigned."
"Can I come with you? See what you do?"
He seemed conflicted for a moment but gave a small nod. "If you like."
They worked their way through a maze of narrow hallways until they arrived at a dark, cramped lab off the main corridor. It was full of all kinds of impressive-looking gadgets and monitors, including three massive cylinders in the center of the room that she supposed were telescopes. Sarek took the PADD that had been mounted to the wall next to the door and set to work adjusting the position of the central telescope.
"I know you told me what you do when we first met," Amanda mused, watching him over his shoulder. "But remind me again."
He craned his neck to look at her. "I am employed by a company that has a contract with Starfleet to map the outer regions of the Alpha quadrant. Starfleet is planning a series of five-year missions to visit these sectors, but they require at least some indication of what they will encounter."
"That makes sense," she agreed.
"A colleague has been working on a project to chart the topography of the Regulon sector," he explained, pivoting in his seat to the large main screen that was displaying an astral map of the known galaxy. He tapped a small box and expanded it. "Calculations suggest there is an anomaly affecting the space-time continuum there, possibly a stellar black hole."
"But couldn't telescopes on Earth give you this information? Don't get me wrong, I'm really excited to be here, it's just—why come all this way?"
"To capture a detailed image at such a distance requires a large array of telescopes and Io Station has some of the best in this system," he began. He wandered through an explanation of telemetry and obscure math and Amanda found it all very dry and barely understood any of it, but the confidence with which he explained it was immediately attractive, which only made the thought of returning to that tiny room with him that much more awkward.
When he resumed his calculations and adjustments, Amanda wandered around the lab, looking at the extraordinary map of the Federation and scanning the dozens of monitors that lined the walls. One in particular caught her gaze—a live feed from the USS Tourmaline sending imagery from a place called the Briar Patch back to Io Station. Vivid shades of pink and orange mixed in with flashes of green spiraled from the nebula, capturing her imagination and taking her breath away.
"My work is complete."
Amanda jumped, surprised to see Sarek had snuck up behind her and was standing off to her left with his hands neatly tucked behind his back. "I was just looking at…well, whatever this is. Space is so incredible. I'm really sorry I didn't get a better look at Jupiter when we got here."
"If you wished to see Jupiter, all you needed to do was ask," he replied, reaching for a switch on the main monitor. The wall on the far side of the room began to break in half, revealing itself to be a viewing window. Jupiter, the great giant of the Terran solar system, was just coming into view as the station orbited around the planet's third largest moon.
Amanda clapped her hands over her mouth in delight. It took several minutes for the planet to disappear from view and when it did, she asked, "I know you said you're capable of understanding beauty, but does logic really keep you from being moved by something so beautiful?"
She looked at Sarek and was startled to find him watching her. "Emotions may be illogical, but awe is a sensation that occurs when one is in the presence of something vast and greater than the self, and it is logical to acknowledge such an event. Just as it is logical to admire beauty."
His gaze lingered a moment too long. Was he implying that she was beautiful? Did she want him to?
"Maybe we should go back to the room," she said, desperate to change the subject.
He finally looked away. "Yes."
It was a long, slow procession back to their shared room, full of frantic thoughts about how they would pass the time once they got there. They could only study physics so much. Of course, they would need to eat and sleep as well, but what would they do all day tomorrow?
When the door to their quarters shut behind them, leaving them all alone, the silence immediately felt impossibly heavy.
Sarek cleared his throat and asked, "Would you like to replicate something for end meal?"
"That'd be great," she croaked.
They ventured toward the replicator on the opposite wall, but were stopped halfway when the entire room became bathed in darkness. She immediately halted, threw her hands out to try and orient herself, and swallowed a scream. It wasn't just dark, it was pitch black.
"Sarek, what just happened?" she cried. "Why did the lights go out?"
"I do not know," he replied, his tone as calm and rational as ever.