Chapter 15: It Takes a Thief
Disclaimer: Don't own, dagnabbit.
Even before the shuttle lands, Spock knows Nyota will be here at the transport station. When they spoke by comm last night—he in crew quarters at Riverside Shipyard in Iowa where he had spent three days overseeing the engine room baffle plate installation on the Enterprise, she back in San Francisco at the Academy—she had hinted that she might be.
Just a quick comment—nothing specific—but he is so certain that she is here that he scans the crowd waiting at the edge of the landing pad and is genuinely surprised when he doesn't see her.
Still, the sensation remains. She's here somewhere. Illogical to jump to that conclusion with no data, and yet—
"Looking for someone?" a voice at his elbow says, and he looks down at the upturned face of Natalie Jolsen, Captain Pike's adjutant. She's at Riverside more often than not, overseeing much of the construction details. When she boarded the return shuttle in Iowa and saw Spock already seated, he had an uneasy moment when he thought she might sit beside him—not that she is overly familiar or pushy, but since his disciplinary hearing he has felt awkward around her.
Her question now, for instance. Is she making what his mother calls small talk or is it hitched to a warning?
He decides to dodge it altogether.
"Do you require assistance?" he says, offering to take her travel bag.
"Thank you." Not touching his hand, Natalie releases her grip on the handle. Her care is deliberate—and appreciated. He feels another twinge of uneasiness, this time because he suspects the awkwardness between them since the disciplinary hearing is actually one-sided and unfair on his part.
They follow the crowd of passengers from the shuttle pad toward the hover bus stop at the far end of the transport station. The sun is so low on the horizon that the bus shelter casts deep shadows across the walkway.
From the corner of his eye Spock sees one of the shadows bobble and weave. Nyota, standing almost out of sight near the side of the shelter. As he draws closer, he sees Natalie catch sight of her, too.
"I can take it from here," she says, lifting her hand for her bag. "I don't have that far to go."
In the deep afternoon sunlight her hair—a short, tangled bob tucked behind her ears—is brilliant red, her cheeks pink. He hears her sigh as she swings her bag forward and says, "Don't work too late, Commander. You need to get to bed."
More small talk? Or a double entendre?
She disappears into the crowd as Nyota steps out of the shadows and pauses several feet away.
In the distance the hover bus approaches and the passengers bunch up in a line at the edge of the road. Nyota darts a look over her shoulder and says, "Do you mind walking?"
Without saying anything else, they turn toward the sidewalk and walk like strangers, Nyota ten meters ahead of him—at least until they are out of sight of the Starfleet personnel and crew waiting for the hover bus. When they round a corner Spock is almost disappointed—watching Nyota's cadence and the sway of her hips from this vantage point is…pleasing.
"I brought it to show you," she says as he lengthens his stride and comes up beside her. For a moment she fumbles with the latch on her handbag and then pulls out a square of hard crimson plastic the size of her outstretched hand.
Taking the square and holding it up to the light, Spock says, "It does look authentic. See. Orion clan missives always include the family signet. This one says Farlijah-Endef."
"So it really was meant for Gaila?" Nyota says, slipping the plastic square back into her bag.
"From her clan leader, most likely," Spock says.
Two days ago Nyota had returned to her room and found the red square in the mail slot beside the door. At first she had dismissed it as the odd piece of junk mail, but when she held it up to the light, she noticed an unfamiliar delicately carved script on one side.
She hadn't intended to intrude, but by the time she had parsed out the fact that the script was Orion, she knew the gist of the contents. That's when she had called Spock.
"I think it's a demand that she return home and assume some role in the syndicate," she told him, her voice as agitated as he could ever remember hearing. "But it isn't addressed to anyone, and it isn't signed. They can't force her to leave the Academy, can they?"
"Why not ask Cadet Farlijah-Endef herself?" Spock had replied, but Nyota harrumphed loudly into the comm.
"First of all, she's not here this weekend," she said. "She and Denny are with Professor Sarsis in Paris working out the tech specs for the linguistics conference next week. And secondly, what if someone is trying to force her to leave? Starfleet is where she wants to be, not part of some Orion slave syndicate! That isn't fair!"
"The cadet does not belong to a clan that condones human trafficking," Spock had replied as calmly as he could, but Nyota wasn't mollified. In the end, Spock had agreed to ask his father what he knew about Orion customs.
Sarek knew quite a lot, in fact. The red square was a traditional clan missive, a directive from a clan leader to a subordinate. The missives were usually handed directly to the intended reader whose touch was programmed to automatically send an acknowledgement of receipt. Then the reader was required to answer the missive within a particular amount of time, though Sarek wasn't sure how long.
"Perhaps if I knew who the intended recipient was," Sarek said, "I could find out more information for you."
For a moment Spock hesitated. Speaking of Gaila meant speaking of Nyota, if only to mention that they were roommates.
And speaking of Nyota—
He wasn't sure how to begin that conversation with his parents.
They've never talked about the disciplinary hearing, at least not directly. His parents respect his privacy—or his father does. His mother's silence has a sense of watchfulness behind it, as if she is waiting for the right moment to ask the questions Spock knows she wants answered.
He braces himself each time he calls, but when their conversations stray too close to things he'd rather not discuss, he becomes noticeably skittish and she backpedals, changing the topic so he doesn't have to. He recognizes this for what it is—kindness, and her respect for his dignity.
His cousin Chris had been at the hearing and would have told them the details—how when he was pressed by Admiral Komack, Spock admitted to the relationship with Nyota, and how the nine-member board then decided that his actions, while ill advised, did not rise to the level of fraternization.
A reprieve of sorts—with a warning to cease and desist.
Which, of course, he has ignored. Will continue to ignore.
"I am uncertain who the recipient is," Spock told his father—not a lie, not precisely.
"Unfortunate," Sarek said matter-of-factly, and Spock had the sudden insight that his mother would not have been so credulous.
"It takes a thief to catch a thief," she told him more than once when he tried to hide something from her. "There's no dodge you can pull that I haven't mastered long ago."
Nyota frowns and crosses her arms as she walks.
"What I don't understand," she says, "is why now? Gaila said that when she applied to Starfleet, her uncle didn't seem to care. Why tell her to come home now, when she's so close to graduating?"
"Her uncle is her clan leader?"
"I think so," Nyota says. "She told me that he adopted her when she was really young. Her sisters, too. They all live at the same family compound. Or she did. Before she came here."
"My father told me that in Orion tradition, all of the children belong to the clan leader. It is his responsibility to raise them and assign employment for them—"
"Forced servitude!"
"Not from the Orion point of view," Spock says evenly. "The children's needs are provided for. Usually they are required to repay the clan by working for the syndicate when they come of age."
"Without any choice!"
"I merely describe the system," Spock says, "not condone it."
At that Nyota uncrosses her arms and says, "But they don't care what Gaila does. Or they didn't care. Why call her home now?"
"You said it earlier," Spock says, brushing his hand along the back of Nyota's arm, a signal to cross the street. "This is her last year at the Academy. In seven months she will know her future posting, at which time she will be considered an adult by Orion standards. The clan leader will be unable to assign her syndicate work if she is gainfully employed elsewhere. He won't be able to recall her."
"What do you mean?" Nyota says, looking at him closely. "She's already been recalled. That's what's in the missive, remember?"
Of course he remembers. The comment from anyone else would be a slight. From her it is a measure of her frustration.
"Not until she reads it," he says, and Nyota tips her head in his direction and says, "Explain," in such an uncanny impression of him that he struggles not to look amused.
"Until she reads the missive, the clan leader is not legally able to act on it."
"Until she touches it, you mean."
"Indeed," Spock says, looking up briefly as a noisy flitter rumbles overhead. "Her touch triggers the countdown until she is required to fulfill the demands in the letter."
"But if she doesn't touch it?"
"As far as the clan leader is concerned, she has not read it until then."
"I could just tell her what's in the letter."
"That is one choice you have."
"But if I do, she might think she should go on home now."
"That is a possibility."
"It's so unfair. She's worked so hard!" Nyota says plaintively. Her obvious anguish is like a jolt in his side.
For several minutes they walk steadily without talking. The sun dips below the horizon and Spock slips his jacket off and settles it on Nyota's shoulders when he sees her shivering in the breeze.
"You do have other options," he says. Another loud flitter—with a loose muffle plate, obviously—makes him pause before continuing, but before he can, she says, "I could throw the missive away."
"You could."
"Of course, that's technically stealing," she adds, and he says, "And destruction of private property."
"And she night need it later for some reason that I can't foresee."
"Agreed."
"Or I could wait and give it to her later."
"She will still be required to fulfill the demands."
"You said not if she's employed, remember?"
Instead of answering, he gives her a jaundiced look and she smiles, the first time today.
"I know, you remember. What if I give it to her in March, after the postings are finalized?"
"She might still feel compelled to do her clan leader's bidding."
"She might," Nyota says, her frown this time looking more thoughtful than distressed. "But at least she would have a choice. She could stay in Starfleet or go do whatever drudgery they cook up for her back home."
"They might offer her employment she would welcome," Spock says, intentionally tweaking her now that her mood is lightening.
"What are the odds of that?" she says, and then she adds, "No, don't tell me."
She slides her hand around his arm and walks so closely that he feels the prickle of her electricity all along his side.
"What I'm thinking of doing isn't even ethical," she says slowly, her voice a mixture of sadness and wonder.
"But perhaps called for," Spock says, and he feels her shift her gaze suddenly to his face. Her own face is in shadow but he can see the glimmer of her eyes searching out his own.
"Do you think so?"
Does he? He pauses and considers.
In the past few months he has worked with Cadet Farlijah-Endef on the Kobayashi Maru upgrade, first letting her work on the code refinements but lately giving her more responsibility with the scenario edit. Having another mind so unlike his own working on the simulation has given it far more complexity, something he should have anticipated but didn't, a lesson he resolves to take with him to his work with Captain Pike on the Enterprise.
Cadet Farlijah-Endef is bright, creative, energetic—someone who will serve well on a starship if given the chance. If withholding the missive from her helps her achieve her goal, wouldn't it be justified?
They've been walking for 23 minutes, 14% slower than he could have made the journey alone. If they continue to walk, they won't arrive at the Academy for another 40 minutes at the earliest. They could catch a hover bus now with less risk of being seen and be outside the west gate within minutes.
On the other hand, efficiency and speed aren't always preferable.
"What do you think I should do?" Nyota asks, leaning into him as they walk along a curve in the road, the only light the headlamps of passing ground cars.
"You must decide," he says, hearing her snort once.
Shoving her shoulder into his side she says, "You're no help."
"But my mother might be," he says. "Since you are contemplating thievery, let me tell you her experience."
X X X X X X
It never failed. Invariably the house comm chimed when Amanda was heading out the door to pick Sybok and Spock up from school. Usually the caller could be dealt with quickly and she would find the boys not far from the school, walking with their heads tucked down against the prevailing afternoon wind. They didn't mind the walk—or they said they didn't—but she was so busy these days with her own work at the teacher training center that she jealously guarded even the few minutes they had together in the flitter rides home.
"We're just like ships passing in the night," she would say, knowing the metaphor was an odd one for a desert planet, shaking her head on those all too rare afternoons when she could sit at the kitchen table with Sybok and Spock after they got home, a plate of sliced fruit set out as a snack, and tease out of them what they were up to these days.
Tease out of Spock, that is. Sybok was always open and willing to share with her.
She was slipping a travel cloak around her shoulders when the voice recorder in Sarek's study picked up. With an about face, Amanda headed swiftly to the study and clicked on the viewscreen.
There was Sybok's maternal grandmother, T'Ria, a woman Amanda could remember speaking to directly only two or three times. Her face was unusually sallow and pinched, her thin, gray hair pulled back into a severe bun.
"I must speak to Sarek," she said by way of greeting. Whether she was being intentionally rude was hard to judge. Amanda had lived on Vulcan long enough to know that the myth of Vulcan indifference was just that, a myth, and that what off-worlders sometimes chalked up to stoicism was really just bad manners.
"Lady T'Ria," Amanda said, biting back her annoyance and trying to sound gracious, "how good it is to see you. I hope you are well."
"I am dying," T'Ria said without changing her expression. "That is why I must speak to Sarek."
For a moment Amanda was too flustered to say anything. Although Sarek and T'Ria shared legal custody of Sybok, they almost never communicated except to discuss his schedule or travel arrangements. Even that communication had been hard won, and only after Sarek and Amanda took T'Ria to court shortly after their bonding ceremony.
Sybok spent part of each school year living with Amanda and Sarek and the rest with his grandmother. If he minded such a vagabond life, he didn't object. Once he told Amanda that since his mother had died when he was two, he felt an obligation to offer his grandmother some company and comfort.
Sarek was less generous when he spoke about T'Ria, and though he didn't express his anger openly, Amanda sensed it—and sometimes cautioned him about slipping up and letting Sybok feel it.
"He's in a difficult enough position as it is," she said. "He doesn't need to feel torn between you two."
Now here T'Ria was, as imperious as ever.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Amanda said, genuinely grieved. One more loss in Sybok's life. "Sarek is off planet until next week, but if you have access to subspace communications, you can reach him."
"I do not," T'Ria said, leaning forward. "Nor do I have time to arrange it. You may give him my message. It concerns Sybok. I have in my possession his mother's journal and some other effects that he should have. Please see that he gets them."
"But surely you would prefer to give them to him personally. I'll make travel arrangements—"
"My healer advises me," T'Ria said, "that there is insufficient time."
"I'm so sorry—"
"So you said. Also, be aware that Sybok may be contacted by former…associates…of his mother. They are legally barred from approaching him as long as I am alive, but now they may attempt it."
"I don't understand," Amanda said, her heart beating hard. "Who are they? Why were they barred? Are they dangerous?"
T'Ria closed her eyes and took a visible breath.
"Sarek can explain," she said. "He is the reason my daughter became involved with the v'tosh ka'tur. If he had taken his rightful place at her side she would still be alive—"
A fit of coughing interrupted T'Ria and she turned away from the viewscreen. Silently Amanda fumed. Sarek hadn't told her much about his relationship with Sybok's mother except that she had been unwilling to live with him or marry him, even after Sybok's birth.
When she regained her composure, T'Ria said, "It's up to you now. Protect Sybok. Don't let his penchant for emotion lead him astray as it did his mother."
And with that, the viewscreen went dark.
Amanda's head was whirling. Of course she knew of the v'tosh ka'tur, the Vulcans without logic—the seekers of experience and sensation. Scandalous by most accounts. Frighteningly persuasive.
So Sybok's mother had been a member of the group? Or had been sympathetic to them? How had that contributed to her death? Sarek had hinted that she had been suicidal. Could her death have been the result of something criminal?
Amanda felt sick thinking about it.
And now the v'tosh ka'tur were going to approach Sybok? Not as long as he lived here they weren't, not if doing so caused him any harm.
She had a sudden image of Sybok and Spock walking home from school, alone on the side of the road, exposed, vulnerable. Her stomach did a flip and she stood up suddenly, grabbed her travel cloak from the back of the chair, and pivoted around—only to see Sybok and Spock standing in the study doorway.
"How long have you been here!" she exclaimed, looking from one boy to the other. At fourteen, Sybok was already as tall as he would be as an adult and almost as stocky. Seven years younger, Spock had recently gone through a growth spurt and was lean and wiry for his age. They glanced at each other briefly and then Sybok said, "We arrived home 6.47 minutes ago."
"Did you hear—"
She let her words drift off, watching Sybok's face carefully. A shadow crossed his expression and he nodded. At his side, Spock dipped his head.
In three steps Amanda covered the distance to the door. Placing her hands on Sybok's shoulders, she said, "I'm sorry. I wish you hadn't heard that. She didn't mean what she said about your father. She's old and sick and upset, that's all."
Sybok nodded again—not, Amanda knew, because he believed her, but because he didn't want to contradict her. Of course his grandmother blamed Sarek for her daughter's death. She wouldn't have said it otherwise.
Bad enough that Sybok had overheard. If Sarek heard the accusation—Amanda knew he already blamed himself. No reason to bowl him over with more recriminations.
"Sybok," she said, looking at him carefully, "your father doesn't need to hear that either."
A terrible price to exact for his silence—keeping a secret from Sarek—but Amanda couldn't bear to widen the circle of pain.
Later that night when she spoke to Sarek at last, Amanda was relieved that he offered to cut his trip short and come home early. Although he didn't say so, she knew he was also anxious that the v'tosh ka'tur might feel emboldened to approach Sybok now that his grandmother's death was imminent.
"But why would they even want to?" Amanda asked, and he said cryptically, "His mother would have desired it."
Two days later the package containing Sybok's mother's things arrived—and with it, a note from a family retainer indicating that his grandmother had died the same day she had spoken to Amanda. Before she went to bed that night, Amanda caught a glimpse of Sarek sitting at the desk in his study, the package opened on his desk, a book in his hand. The journal. Amanda was surprised to feel a stab of jealousy.
Sensing her in the corridor, Sarek looked back and motioned to her. She stepped up beside him and hazarded a glance down. Sarek's fingers were draped around a thick book bound in a stiff green fabric.
"Do you really think he should read that?" she said, and she felt Sarek's despair like a wave through their bond. No words, but a cascade of emotions—dismay and shame among them.
"It belongs to him," he said, replacing the book in the box. "I will give it to him one day."
Do you have to? Amanda called out silently, but Sarek could not—or would not—answer.
For the next several weeks they both were jumpy, anxious when the comm chimed and careful to supervise the boys' travel back and forth to school. Sarek spoke privately to the headmaster and canceled a lengthy out-of-town meeting.
Eventually, however, life returned to normal, and Amanda again tried to cadge little measures of time in the afternoons and evenings when she could reconnect with the boys, listening to accounts of their day, corralling them in the kitchen to help with dinner.
She was particularly attentive to Sybok, aware that losing his grandmother dredged up his earlier feelings of loss about his mother. On the surface Sybok seemed fine—busy at school and content enough at home, but his unhappiness bubbled under the surface of the family bond, like pebbles in a stream.
"You know," she said one night as they finished their evening meal, "we ought to invite that new teacher you like so much over for dinner."
Sybok's eyes lit up. Professor Robinson was a human teaching comparative literature in an exchange program at their school. It was true that most Vulcans preferred the hard sciences and mathematics to literature or mythology, but Sybok was in the minority who read widely and found pleasure in sharing what he read. Since Professor Robinson had come to the school at the beginning of the new term, Amanda had noticed a definite uptick in Sybok's mood, and if for no other reason, she wanted to do something nice for the teacher.
From the corner of the table Spock watched the exchange with undisguised skepticism, such a counterpoint to his older brother that Amanda laughed. How odd that her outgoing stepson should be so much more like her in every way than her own more serious, quiet child.
Professor Robinson proved to be good company. A tall, bushy-haired redhead, he wore old-fashioned spectacles that gave him an owlish appearance that Amanda found endearing. Over the next few months, she invited him several times for a meal, and even Sarek seemed to find pleasure in the wide range of topics they discussed over the table.
"Before I came to Vulcan," Professor Robinson said, shoving his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose, "I was warned not to talk while eating. I thought silence at the table was a tradition."
"A tradition," Amanda said, darting a look in Sarek's direction, "is not the same thing as a rule, especially when humans are involved."
"I see what you mean, Sybok," Professor Robinson said, catching Sybok's eye across the table. "Lady Amanda is indeed a very wise woman."
Amanda felt the warmth of affection and she looked up in time to see Sybok flash her the trace of a smile.
By the end of the term, she had read most of the books Professor Robinson assigned his students, not just because she was curious about his choices, but because it gave her an opportunity to engage Sybok in the kind of long, detailed analysis that offered him a distraction from the steady undercurrent of grief nagging him. When the class was winding down and the professor prepared to return to Earth, she shared Sybok's wistful sorrow.
And then everything fell apart.
Right after the first round of exams, Professor Robinson called the parents of his students to a meeting at school. Someone had stolen the flimplast posted outside his office door listing the exam grades. Identified only by student numbers to insure anonymity, the grades were always posted this way before the final assessments were computed—mostly as a courtesy so students wouldn't have to wait until after the upcoming break to measure their success or lack of it.
The students and their parents, including Sarek and Amanda, listened as Professor Robinson spoke slowly, solemnly, his eyes oddly magnified by his glasses.
"The grades were there yesterday morning," he said. "And then they were gone two hours later. Someone took them. Stole them. I'm shocked that this has happened here, on Vulcan."
A tremor rippled around the room—surprise, certainly, but something else Amanda couldn't name. Embarrassment? Vulcan pride? An annoyance that a human would call a Vulcan to task—even an unnamed thief?
No one said a word.
"I invite whoever took the grades to explain the reason why," Professor Robinson said to the crowd, but still no one spoke. Finally one parent stood up and said, "I see no reason to remain," and within another minute, the room was empty.
"A waste of time," Sarek said on the flitter ride home, but Amanda was silent, watching the dark landscape slide past. In the back seat, Sybok said nothing.
As soon as they reached home, Sarek went to his study and Amanda checked on Spock who was finishing his schoolwork in his room. Across the hall Sybok shut his door quietly and Amanda hesitated for a moment before knocking. He opened the door for her at once and she walked in and shut the door behind her.
"Do you know anything about Professor Robinson's grades?" she said, sitting on the edge of the bed. Sybok nodded as he sat at the other end of the bed.
To her surprise, Amanda's next words tumbled out almost of their own accord.
"Did you take them?"
Instead of answering, Sybok slipped his hand under the thick mattress of his bed and pulled out a square flimplast.
Amanda's heart gave a lurch. In the flitter ride home she had felt Sarek's irritation at the interruption in his evening—and his certainty that Sybok was not involved in the theft. Normal enough to feel his emotions this way, that give and take of being connected.
What she didn't feel was anything at all from Sybok. His bell-like clarity, his open affection for her, his eagerness to share what he was thinking—all muted and cordoned off from her in a way that was almost frightening. Something was up.
Her first thought was that he must have known who the thief was. It would be like him to protect someone out of a mistaken sense of compassion or empathy.
She didn't expect him to confess to taking the grades himself.
"Why?" she asked, and he handed the flimplast to her.
"See?" he said, pointing to the list of grades.
"I know," she said. "The exam grades."
He made a sound that was almost impatient.
"No, here," he said, tapping the flimplast, and she looked more closely. There beside one of the grades was the Vulcan rune used as a question mark. "Do you see?"
And suddenly she did. Her eyes welled up.
"Someone was questioning the grade," she said simply, and Sybok said, "Yes. When I came to check my exam score, I saw this. I took it down so Professor Robinson wouldn't know."
So Professor Robinson wouldn't know that one of his students doubted his grade, had cast his ability as a teacher in an unflattering light. So he wouldn't be shamed or lose face or feel his dignity under attack—the way a Vulcan might.
"I see," Amanda said softly. "But you really should explain this to Professor Robinson. Right now he thinks one of his students is a thief."
"I am," Sybok said without a trace of guile in his face.
"Well, perhaps," Amanda said with a rueful smile. "But he needs to know why you are a thief. I'm sure he's a lot stronger than you give him credit for."
X X X X X
When they are a block away from the Academy, they slow their steps and then stop, unwilling to part too quickly. With a glance around, Nyota leans her forehead briefly into Spock's chest before pulling back, speeding up his heartbeat and flushing his torso. With a sigh she opens her bag again and hands him the clan missive.
"Here," she says. "Keep this until I ask for it."
"You've decided."
"I'll give it to her after the postings in March. She'll probably be mad at me, but at least she'll have a choice about what to do that way."
"A secret is a heavy burden to bear."
"I know," she says, and though he cannot see her clearly in the dark, he hears the layers of meaning in her reply.
He tucks the missive in his travel bag and they start walking. Neither will mention it again, not until six months in the future when he holds her in his arms, stunned by the losses of Vulcan, the fleet, most of the Academy's senior class—feeling her wracking sobs shake them both.
"She wouldn't have been here if I'd given her the missive," she will say, her face roughened by mucus and tears, and he will murmur, "You cannot know that," into her unhearing ear.
"Regret is illogical," he will tell her—will tell them both—over and over again that night, and all the nights that it takes the Enterprise to limp back to Earth powered by tugs. "You cannot blame yourself."
He will say the words that neither of them will believe, six months in the future.
But right now he throws caution to the wind, as his mother might say, and takes Nyota's hands in his, reeling her to him despite the risk that they might be spotted here on the sidewalk, their palms touching, the snap of electricity jumping between their fingers. Tugging her close enough to feel the fuzz of her cheek and the brush of her eyelash as he leans in, a thief, stealing a kiss.
A/N: Ah, those of you who review—what a treasure you are. You keep me coming back to the story to watch and report what I see. Thank you.
If you are looking for a terrific Darcy/Loki story in the "Thor" fandom, StarTrekFanWriter is busy with "Blue," listed in my faves.