Perrin juggled her mug of mint tea on the side of the thin tray spat out by the cafeteria replicators. They offered enough space for whatever food had been requested; there was no place for a drink. Perrin saw it as a bizarre oversight, like allowing a power hungry ensign to romp through anyone's room without check. Perrin pushed away the irritating thought not feeling it was productive. She didn't care enough to dwell on it or the disproportionate trays. She also wasn't going to need to use the cafeteria beyond the next three days and even then Perrin always tried to eat in her room. The powers that be didn't like it, she thought, but she wasn't a student and she did her best to hide the evidence. She smiled that the thought of security breaking down her door for replicating Dizé mile one too many times. She wished the debates had been held in Paris—Perrin hadn't had the flakey donut in a while. Perrin went out following Mia who trekked on ahead of her. The cafeteria had filled out into the patio and adjoining classrooms with the conference goers.

Mia led into a Federation History classroom where the rest of the quartet had settled. A few of the Starfleet officers waylaid for the debates went through the data on the computers, questioning each other. The lowest ranked seemed to do best; school days must still be rattling around their heads, Perrin thought, amused as the senior officers cursed them.

Darin and Mia both had filled up their plates with desert. Their harpist, Abe, had a small salad. He usually parceled out his meals; salad, meat, bread. He went back for each separate bit; it couldn't all be eaten at once. Perrin learned his routine quickly in the few months she'd been with the group.

"Hey." Darrin caught her attention, mouth full of ice cream. She listened.

"What's with the tea?" She wasn't surprised. Mint tea was all they'd seen her drink and her habit caught the eye of the last three orchestras, and two traveling musicals she'd worked with.

Perrin held an answer and just like the others, the quartet moved on.

Suddenly, another question seemed to strike him.

"Hey, does anyone know that Vulcan- he was standing right near the stage?" Everyone looked confused except Perrin. But she didn't speak, worried about Darrin's habit of reading into things.

With no one saying anything, Darrin cheered.

"Jeez; I think that was our best performance then. Never thought I'd see the day when my little merry band was bringing Vulcans to tears." He did not even blink, much less cry, Perrin recalled silently. Sarek had stood listening up to the fading echoes with a degree of focus that somewhat unnerved her, but he never showed the faintest bit of emotion. She saw no way tell if he'd been moved or mulling the technical aspects of the song. She knew better than most it could have been either. She turned away from the memories that made her sure.

Suddenly there was red in her eye. Perrin blinked it away and was shocked to see Darrin now convulsing in pain on the ground, some of the others in the classroom gathered around him. She grabbed two small devices from a Starfleet Medical first aid kit by a mapping table near the center of the room. One was a tricorder she had powered up as she crawled over the desk to look Darrin over.

The injury was not as severe as she'd feared. Through the palm of his left hand, a fork had pinched into the soft tissue; the tricorder picked up no bone damage. Blood ran rapidly from the wound; Perrin speculated he might have been on some form of blood thinner due to the disproportionate amount of bleeding. He has headaches from time to time—aspirin, she concluded. The tricorder picked up small traces of it in the blood pouring from the wound.

To use the second device, a cellular regenerator, Perrin had to remove the fork. Darrin could see her reaching for it and yanked his hand away.

"No, no doctor stuff. Just get my mother to do it."

"God Darrin, she's in a completely different quadrant of the galaxy!" Screamed Mia, who was holding his head steady. She then locked down his arm, holding it within Perrin's reach.

Darrin screamed as Perrin weaned it out. Ripping it out might minimize his pain, she knew, but she'd risk accidentally pulling it out at an angle and damaging more tissue. She kept a napkin pressed down between the skin and fork as she slowly took it out, carefully letting it come out the way it went in.

After that, the injury was repaired easily. The fork was tossed into the trash with a few bloody napkins used to clean up the mess. Despite appearances, Darrin's blood levels appeared to be mostly fine and he refused to go to Starfleet Medical to be checked up. This bothered Perrin.

Take him there, take him there; she could not wipe the words from her mind. Not seeking proper medical attention could be a death sentence. She knew. She'd seen this in action: her mother; he—why she set it aside and just played her violin. Darrin is fine, she began to repeat in her mind to ease away her anxiety.

"Uh…" Darrin drawled off. Unfocused for a few more minutes, he stared at his hand before looking at Perrin with relief. This brought her back and fully brushed away her concerns. "Thanks." He whispered. Perrin smiled in response.

The room returned to normal; one of the cafeteria staff came in and wiped off the rest of the blood on the furniture. The small mechanism they used to do so also absorbed out the stains over Perrin's jeans and Darrin's whole outfit too.

"How did that even happen?" Everyone at the table asked at once, when a few minutes had passed. No one ate; no one looked like they would be.

"I don't know. Something snagged my foot, I think." Darrin looked around the room as though whatever did it would be marked guilty. No one looked concerned by then, especially a group of Klingons slurping down tentacles. Perrin had been alarmed somewhat when they seemed to enjoy Darrin's earlier screams as a game. Their species reminded her of a vase of the Furies in her family home's library. She'd always loved it; one could tell what their purpose was, they wore their hearts on their sleeves.

"You know your way around a tricorder." Darrin drew himself towards Perrin. She kept her answer distant.

He expected that and didn't pry further as with his question about the mint tea.

The others looked ready to keep picking at her, which rose again a feeling of relief that Thomas—who she'd been replacing for a while—would be coming back and saving her from dodging questions. But the thought gave her some guilt; they meant it to be nice. First taking a quick sip of her tea, she began clean up.

Perrin' was still gathering up her stuff when an alarm blared through the building, the same red lights and sounds she'd learned by heart on Tau Ceti. It had everyone else rushing to leave; it had her calmly remembering she needed to grab her PADD from her room. Some calls from the Palais Garner Orchestra were sitting unanswered concerning an opening. She wanted to do some research before reaching a decision.

"Aren't you coming?" The rest of the quartet shouted back to her at the doorway. Before she responded, some of the cadets filling out into the hall grabbed them, pushing them through. They piled up by a row of glass panels cut into the classroom wall; Perrin mouthed that she would be fine. She did not pick up her pace and considered her future.

The Palais Garner was a beautiful opera house her mother had worked for when she was young. Perrin could stand thinking about her for much longer than her father, since her mother had died in the glow of Perrin's early childhood. Times that brought a smile when considered in isolation, she thought, now piling up the rest of the left-behind dishes she could carry on her own tray. The times that followed she hadn't considered in years. It would be a waist of emotion.

Still no explosions, but Perrin wasn't anticipating any. She considered going back to clear the rest of the tables, and scanning over the mess long enough convinced her.


Sarek was crossing back to the council chambers, where the debates were held, but paused after noting his aides coming to meet him ahead of hundreds of others exiting every building in the immediate area. They all circled around him, a crimson blockade that steered most people well away. Tiv'ak faced Sarek and handed over a handheld communicator, a few messages marked on the screen—one from the Vulcan High Council, one from Spock, another from Reynard Landover. The former two where brief, acknowledging his return as was customary for his rank and Vulcan familial obligations respectively. He noted several new gray hairs on his son since last they contacted each other and since he'd had taken the photo with McCoy that was at Starfleet Medical.

Landover's message was rambling; Sarek hid back when others began to eye him as Landover shouted at points in his message. His caretaker stood tensely just out of frame.

The message was almost over: "Sarek old friend; I want you to think of me then, I wish I could remain the man I was. My dear Perrin, keep an eye out on her. She's my only child—I shouldn't have pushed her away. I shouldn't have said those things to" he sobbed "her. I hear she's there too. Matty said she was wonderful, plays just like her mother." The transmission cut.

Winds rolling off the bay sprinkled bits of water onto Sarek's skin. Its coldness did not strike him like the shaded path leading to Starfleet Medical College earlier; he was considering his old associate's words.

The similarity in their iris coloration as well as hair and prominence of both's zygomatic bones provided a further case for their relation, Sarek noted as he realized his sense of familiarity with Perrin on Tau Ceti came from her relation to Reynard. Yet father and daughter had spent no time together for an indeterminate period of significant length, the message suggested. Most humans would have found the estrangement a negative experience; Sarek speculated whether Landover's condition and age might add to that.

Sarek began to scan the grounds for Perrin. He'd noted her wearing early 21st century style jeans and a black button down shirt during the ensign's search. The look was more traditional than anything worn by the non-uniformed civilians Sarek saw rushing around to gather who they knew together. His aides parted to allow a clearer view into the crowds filing up the lawn and pushed apart a path for him back to the dormitory.

Perrin's quartet was lounging by a flag pole; Sarek noted them as he approached the dormitory. They would be the most logical reference for her current location, Sarek thought. They looked frightened as Sarek came up to them.

"I swear I was just joking about that comment earlier." Darrin sputtered when Sarek stopped in front of him. Not understanding, Sarek ignored his words.

"There is another human woman who preforms with you: Perrin. I will know where she is."

"Uh; we last saw her inside but she's probably out by now. She didn't seem to think the alarm was a big deal." Most likely too accustomed to alarms meaning nothing from Tau Ceti Station, mused Sarek. He left the quartet, Darrin trying to catch up with him for a bit as Sarek's aides contorted their positions to block his approach.

"I didn't mean it!" Darrin's shout slipped past Sarek who was focused on a new figure in a row of security personnel blocking the doors to the dormitory.

"Explain were you searching for Alegans." The ensign from that morning looked at Sarek with fear as Sarek addressed him forcefully.


Perrin had grabbed her PADD, also her violin case while she was at it. She decided to she would sit down by the bay, grab a taxi to head to Archer Park over the bridge to avoid distractions while she practiced. Maybe I'll bring up some of those Vulcan Mantras, and play a few before we officially start tonight, she considered. Sa'lak's wife had transferred them only three hours after Sa'lak spoke with Perrin. I wonder, she thought, what music Sarek might like, thinking of the ambassador again. Perrin recalled from school that his wife had been human; she could live the rest of her life on the amusement it would bring her to hear a Vulcan request Frère Jacques. But remembering which Vulcan, she tossed away the idea out of respect.

The alarm still rung, while the wall panels were now blacked out, no longer announcing campus events or showing feed from the debates. Still no fire, Perrin repeated to herself. She wasn't reassured. It was one thing to ignore an alarm when everyone else did as well as on Tau Ceti; the halls were completely void now as she picked up her pace towards the study stations. Another thing when no one else agrees that there's nothing wrong, Perrin finished her thought with concern. The intended affect of the alarms was being reintroduced to her.

A noise bounced up from behind.

Three gray skinned aliens with jutting jaws that allowed a fine trail of yellow mucus to roll onto their necks grabbed for Perrin after she whisked to face the sound. They looked like they had been ducking into an empty dorm room when she noticed them; now they clawed at her face and arms. A rush of fear made her alert; Perrin used it to move away from their grip.

Smashing her PADD into the wall display as a distraction, sparks exploded out, she ran for an exit. As she passed by an intersecting hall, a team of security officers came around. All their focus was on Perrin for a moment until they noticed the aliens rubbing at their eyes, attempting to keep after Perrin.

"Get her out." The tall Caitian commander growled as one of the others rushed Perrin from the dorms. They went up through the lobby and out to the south lawn. She was surprised to see Sarek arguing with the ensign from earlier beyond the exit as they came up to it. He looked intimidated by the older Vulcan's pose, the effect strengthened by six other Vulcans looking equally unmoved.

"You do not know if the building has been evacuated completely?" Sarek asked loudly enough that Perrin heard him as they passed through the doors.

Sarek glanced over at Perrin and the accompanying officer guiding her out. The ensign squeaked back a reply that Sarek ignored; He fell behind her, his hand reaching for her when she was pushed into a waiting hovercar.

"Where are you taking her?" The officer scooted in next to her, shutting the door on Sarek's question. As the hovercar shot up into the air she could see Sarek still focused on them. He seemed concerned, his eyes narrowed and his lips pursed. Why was he looking for me, Perrin thought through her fear.