Kf1 B5?!
Black has moved his Queen forward to H4 – exposing her – but forcing White to move his King along the row to F1 to avoid instant peril. White cannot move a pawn in defence as it Black's pawn would already be lying in wait to open up for the Queen. White cannot castle on either side. Black had a number of options, but elected the gambit that sacrificed a pawn in order to force White's Bishop of its diagonal that threatened the weakness in Black's ranks. Both sides are equal in numbers now, but Black has limited his manoeuvrability.
Thesis.
Not for the first time, Spock evaluated the correctness of his decision to leave the planet of his birth.
In terms of his accustomed biological parameters, it was cold here. If he had insufficient control of his body to let it act reactively, he might have shivered.
Spock did not have pores, an evolutionary response to the undesirable loss of water through sweat in a desert climate, so at least heat was efficiently conserved by the same means. Thermostatic homeostasis was largely regulated through his conscious mind. Therefore Spock was aware that he was cold and aware that he could safely endure it without compromising his overall efficiency. Mere comfort was secondary.
He adjusted the cuff on his charcoal grey jacket; it was a fraction too small and exposed a pale wrist, faint milky green veins forming the tracery of a delta beneath the pale skin. Starfleet uniforms were fashioned from an adaptable polymer designed to regulate the body's temperature but these were largely made for Human specifications. A Vulcan-specific garment was unfortunately still under development.
Spock, perplexed by the unaccountable delay in the Material Sciences laboratory, had begun the synthesis of his own chemical compound in-between official duties and was anticipating that he would be able to supply the recalcitrant team with a variety of potential options before the week was out in order to stimulate their research progress. The idea that Humans were not as efficient multi-taskers as Vulcans owing to their need for regular sleep merely added to the statistical unlikelihood that the species should have proved so successful in Inter-Galactic research and exploration.
As it was, his grey homespun jumper – tucked into his storage trunk with his other meagre personal effects – was being called to serve on a number of unobserved occasions. He did not pack it and Spock deduced his mother's contribution from the thoughtful care it demonstrated and the faint sent of Mitan'y'a root oil that clung, citrusy and bright, to the collar.
Spock did not think he could be less Human.
His mother, quiet, highly intelligent and long used to emotional reserve, had done nothing to ready her son for this sudden emersion in his recessive heritage. The noise, the easy familiarities, the gross violations of decorum. He had studied the humour, he had studied the idioms, he had studied the mating practices (or perhaps, as it should correctly be termed, the dating practices), he had studied the physiology, he understood the broad range of cultural influences from different geographical regions of Terra's surface. He had studied and he had thought he had understood.
The Vulcan Science Academy was the single goal of every Vulcan student. It was the only recommended course of education. It represented the pinnacle of academic achievement in mathematics and quantum physics. It closely guarded its research and only operated through carefully regulated information exchanges with other Federation planets.
Starfleet was erratic, inefficient, and operated via unfathomable heuristic learning principles: the 'trial and (inevitable) error', the inexplicable 'rules of thumb', oxymoronic 'intuitive judgments', or, worst of all, the entirely indefensible 'educated guess'. Parsimony, and related concepts of eradicating errors of logic, seemed practically unheard of.
Spock's left eyebrow had made a bid for freedom when he had discovered the lack of centralised databanks. Multiple research fellows, not to mention students, had overlapping areas of investigation and had made no effort to coordinate their conclusions. Outdated publication systems seemed to be the only way of discovering the confusing array of hypotheses and studies that had been completed, often contradictory and filed under the incorrect title: why, someone please inform him, was singularity µ-type radiation theory only to be located in a supplement to the American Philological Journal?
Not only did they have no idea of what it was that they did not know, but apparently they had very little idea of what they did know. The mystery of Humanity's progress beyond the occasional uncontrolled explosion was a thing of acute xenological interest.
The VSA was a researcher's paradise: ordered, quiet, focused, documented.
But he had turned it down.
For reasons that he did not which to analyse too closely since they appeared to be decidedly human in heuristic application: a moment of so-called intuition.
The disadvantage of your human mother.
Suddenly his whole past, his whole future was spread before his eyes in a perfect continuum: it was a moment of sublime clarity of perspective. Always struggling, always pushing himself to surpass his peers, to justify his existence to people that had already prepared their own conclusions. Jumping hurdle after hurdle. Never free.
Spock knew, in that moment of absolute lucidity, that this was not acceptable.
He was ambitious – utterly logical to strive towards high aspirations and to be determined in one's pursuits – but his potential, whatever that should prove to be, could simply not be fully realised in conditions that were adversely set against him. Far better to work in an environment that fostered his talent, saw him as an asset and not as a liability.
And to accept this honour, this sublime condescension, was to betray the only person who unconditionally loved him.
And here he was. But was this environment not set against him? After only a few months, the number of administrative and circumstantial obstacles to true research had overwhelmed his capacity to get on with a single project of his own. He was initially supervising only a small computer science contingent as an introduction to potential professorial candidacy (his credentials had naturally fast tracked him) and even the five innocuous mousy heads in labcoats had generated enough inefficiencies and downright absurdities to occupy him through several sleep cycles. Now, he had discovered this sample to be representative of the entire Starfleet system of operations.
It was barely tolerable.
Spock restrained the slight urge to shiver as gust of cool air followed the opening of his door. He did not look up, but flexed his fingers once over the PADD keys reflectively, and added the last flourish on Starfleet's new CDP: Centralised Data Program.
"Sir?"
The low voice was rough. A throat-clearing followed - undignified, loud. Humans seemed to make a number of extraneous noises. Spock had noted that this was often as result of their bodies apparently entering a number of standby settings should the inhabitant mind fail to actively keep on the alert. Likewise, Spock had observed from his mother, a surfeit of thought could delay and perturb sleep. A most inefficient combination. But Vulcans did have an unusually high degree of mind-body coordination.
"Sorry, did I interrupt your work?" The voice sounded smoother now although still with a slight hitch that Spock was starting to recognise as the discourtesy of a smothered laugh. It was not illogical to extrapolate on that. It seems uncontrolled displays of humour was a way in which Humans disguised feelings of inadequacy or intimidation. The anticipating apology likewise.
Spock pushed the Padd aside, delicately, letting the screen liquify into a power-neutral silver, like molten mercury coalescing beneath his fingertips.
"No, Mr Wellesly; I have just concluded my most recent task. How may I assist you?"
The cadet had begun inauspiciously under his tutelage, having been recently added to his research team as a means of securing extra credit for a failed science sub-major examination in his second year of the command track.
Spock's deduction from the – the emotive word 'dismal' seemed justified in these circumstances - failure mark and a brief perusal of his wider academic record was supplemented by the striking nature of the man's features.
He was tall, broad shouldered and his smile was improbably white. Spock posited artificial veneers as a likely explanation, since human bone exposed to the typical erosions of diet for twenty years should not produce such a pristine brilliancy.
The man was dark haired, with a strong clean-cut jawline and rakish black brows, the hint of an afternoon shadow.
This man was not in the Command stream on academic merit; therefore, some other unfamiliar principle of leadership lauded among humans was to be expected. Spock regarded the intruder much in the way he would regard an interesting specimen.
The man, for despite his obvious youth he indeed seemed fully mature, finally insinuating himself beyond the doorjamb and answered him with a blinding smile.
"Uh, I don't need anything in particular, sir, I, er, just haven't really met a Vulcan before… Up close and personal." The awkward delivery of the words were in no way reflected in the cadet's confident almost bullish posture, wide-legged, forearms tanned dark by the sun crossed in front of him.
"As a founding member of the Federation, Vulcan has maintained a constant presence on Earth. However, as a species that values its privacy, I am unsurprised at your lack of exposure."
The man's grin, if anything, broadened as though Spock had just said something highly amusing. Spock re-examined his response and found nothing likely to qualify.
"A Vulcan in Starfleet; man, I guess it's our lucky day."
"I do not see why this diurnal cycle should prove particularly propitious on that basis."
"And so modest!" Cadet Wellesley's smile glinted in the industrial strip light. Spock tilted his head slightly and stood, finger pads pressed lightly to the cool desk surface. It was new and gave off no psychic vibrations but those of his own familiar calculations.
"I assure you, I did not intend to misrepresent my projected contribution. I merely observe that fortuity is, by definition, random and your construction is, therefore, most illogical." Spock paused, realising that he had unwittingly been drawn into an exchange of human social 'pleasantries' with which he had no experience. "Please specify the purpose of your visit."
Wellesley ignored him. "Do you always talk like this?"
"I am uncertain to what you are alluding."
"You know, like a robot. Is Vulcan super-formal as a language or something?"
"I was unaware that my lexical selections were in any way… artificial in their choice or delivery. I am not using a Translator device and the lack of authenticity is not a result of overly-literal translation." The cadet had the good grace to look lightly abashed. An eyebrow quirked as Spock seriously considered the question, not as a casual rudeness, but a serious cultural-relations question posed to a professor. "Vulcan, as does Earth, has a wide variety of regionally distinct dialects and a uniform language – equivalent to your Standard – that has achieved unilateral dominance through time and cultural globalisation. Whereas Standard achieved such dominance through economic dominance and mass-media, Is-kalak was the language of academics and as such is neutral in register and diverse in vocabulary to enable greater precision in explanation."
Spock found himself with a question, "Why do you, as a species, have such a variety of words available and insist on using the most simple and least specific of those to convey your meaning? I asked Mr Pacheco how his yocto-chip project1 was progressing, to which he responded, 'Just fine, Professor'. I find that from that descriptor I am no wiser as to the state of his work. Why employ dialogue that involves an inferred sub-text?"
Wellesley blinked, unprepared for the sudden turn in conversation. He had not had a plan, as such, when he had snuck in on his attractive, mysterious and disconcertingly forthright supervisor, but this particular turn of events certainly had not been it. A bit of teasing – universally interpreted as flirting – would see him either with the hottest date on campus or a fail in compsci… But now the Vulcan's burning gaze was boring into him as though he was a fascinating cryptography problem that he was mentally undressing and he wasn't half turned on by it.
"Uh, not really sure, sir. I guess… Do you like coffee?"
Spock's eyebrow ricocheted off his hairline, the only thing that betrayed his utter bemusement a the non-sequitur. "I do not know."
Disbelief. "You've never had coffee? Seriously?"
"What is the advantage of this beverage?"
"Well, it's, er, steamin' hot and caffeinated and bitter and smells fantastic and is pretty much the ichor of the gods to most sentient beings."
"I infer that caffeine is extoled for its properties as a stimulant. Since I metabolise at a rate approximately 3.87 times faster than the average human male between the ages of 16 and 23 Terran years, it is unlikely to have the desired effect."
The cadet looked somewhat deflated at that news, the megawatt grin drooped a little at the edges.
Spock felt the beginnings of a shiver prickle at the back of his neck and supressed it smoothly. "However, I would not be averse to partaking in something 'steaming hot', as you put it. I will wait for you to locate your jacket."
The grin lit up like a solar flare and Spock was oddly gratified that his first foray into an entirely gratuitous social exchange had produced such spectacular results.
Antithesis.
Jim awoke in the darkness, gasping, heart-hammering and a slick, familiar stickiness pooling at his groin. "Fucking hell… Wow, fuck…" He drew in a heady breath, the chill damp air telling him he'd dozed off in the barn again, the holes in the ill-fitting corrugated iron having let in a pair of moths who were now winging a ghostly gavotte in the half-light. He tried not to do that too often – fall asleep in the barn - lest Frank finally take it upon himself to track him down and destroy this last haven of solitude. But the barn was ramshackle and on the furthest edge of the fallow field than ran sharply uphill, nestled in a thicket of scrub, making it barely visible from the farmhouse he had once called home.
These dreams had been sneaking up on him with increasingly regularity, several in the last year, but since his thirteenth birthday it was like a time-bomb had gone off in his groin. Sometimes it was names, faces, dialogue, elaborate fantasy seductions and he'd wake warm and lazy and wet and have to shake his head to clear the lingering fog of sensations and warm brushes of skin. Sometimes it was just a darkness, a heat, faint whispers of identity and he awoke in a warp rush, synapses exploding like stars behind his eyes and coming so hard he nearly blacked out again.
This time it was a bit both: it was Lily Shepherd, icy blonde and haughty. She was in his class in school and had never deigned to say a word to him. It drove him wild, that automatic prejudice, that pitiless unattainability. She had eyes as blue as his own and a fringe of long black lashes that fluttered against her cheek as looked coyly down. She had tiny dimples, barely pin pricks, and small puffy lips; she was like a china doll. She was too superior to look twice at the pathetic loner that was always disrupting the class for attention, always doodling something on his PADD under the desk when he was meant to be working, always tapping his scuffed converses with impatience.
Those puffy doll lips had been wrapped around his cock, leaving a shining trail of saliva, as those blue, blue, periwinkle eyes fixed on his with something like worship. Her uniform was ripped hastily open, her breasts were small and taut against their white lacy confines. So virginal, so haughty, so filthy. Her mouth was hot and slick and her lips sealed perfectly around the suction. She had begged him to let her suck him, pleaded to be allowed to feel the heat of him, taste his seed. She knew now how wrong she had been, how lucky she was to feel him, how sorry for laughing when her brother had stolen his lunch money again.
But then those glassy eyes were changing, the lashes still long, still girlish, but the brows heavy, the rasp of stubble on his jaw and it was her brother there on his knees. He wasn't begging, he was taking. His mouth was greedy, violent, a vacuum of desire, his long throat was drawing him down to the root. Jim's hands were tangled in the messy hair, pretending to be in control. Jim could feel the power of him, this older boy, whose strong football arms were braced against his thighs, bruising him, wresting away his desire from him like an assault. This cruel, stupid boy with his jock's jaw-line and ropy shoulders suddenly had a mouth – with those swollen obscene lips like his sister's - that was the centre of Jim's universe.
Just as Jim could feel his balls starting to tighten, that panicked arrhythmia of breath, that moment of suspension on the edge of a precipice, the image darkened to blackness. He could still feel a mouth on him, the curl of sure, warm fingers around his shaft, some indelibly masculine scent in the air. But the dark hotness that claimed him, that greedily swallowed the explosion of his need and lathed him with a nimble tongue, was neither cringing nor controlling. It was intense and rapt and sure and Jim awoke with an overflow of want want want.
When the familiar angles of the barn resolved themselves in the gloom and the cold air began to feel uncomfortable on his damp shorts, all the details faded into that mysterious featureless longing which lingered elusively as the last shreds of the dreamscape vanished into morning.
"Computer, time." His voice felt rougher, deeper.
"Good morning, Jim. Did you have nice night? It's 5:00 am, handsome." The latest upgrade to his interface may have been a mistake; the sultry southern strains of a synthesised pay-per-minute girl breathed huskily over the speakers and Jim felt himself involuntarily blushing.
"Um, thanks. Computer, get up the latest game with Xiao."
"Sure thing, honey." A flicker as the board flickered onto his nearest monitor, making Jim blink furiously at the sudden brightness. "Congratulations, Jim. Qin Xiao has resigned. White has won the match. Do you wanna to play again?" The computer purred, the automated request sounding incongruously flirtatious.
"What, already?" He peeled back the tangled sheet and eyed his opponent's last move with disgust. "He's not even trying. Jeez."
Qin Xiao, Chinese 2-d chess prodigy, had agreed to a series of online matches with one of Jim's numerous avatars. Jim had soundly thrashed him in every one and now he was apparently beating an ungraceful retreat. Whatever.
The three-dimensional games had been proving more challenging, encouraging numerous simultaneous strategies and sudden shifts of focus between strata. The computer programs meant he was learning fast though, and soon he was going to run out of virtual opponents.
Jim stretched his arms above his head, feeling the pleasurable ache of last night's pull-ups deep in his newly-discovered deltoids. He swiped the Xiao window closed with finality and ordered, "Lights, seventy per cent." There was no shower system out here, never mind a fancy sonic system, and Jim had to slide un-dignifiedly down the ladder as he tried to keep as little of the cooling and slimy semen from rubbing uncomfortably between his thighs as possible, then waddle bow-leggedly towards the old metal water trough. He grimaced as the icy rainwater made sharp contact with his sleepy skin and did his best to clean up the worst of the evidence, clenching his jaw against the burn of coldness on his sensitive cock. Nothing like a cold shower the old fashioned way.
He climbed back up the ladder and settled himself comfortably in front of the screens, pulling a jersey over his head against the morning chill as they all hummed into life. A moth tickled his ear for a moment before he absently swatted it away.
It was hours before he needed to run the 7-mile track into town. He had whittled it down to just over an hour and was trying to beat his own records with each daily attempt. Now, he had time to begin the latest first-year mechanical engineering course assignments before downloading the fourth-year computer science onto his personal PADD for the rest of the day. There was only so much interest one could feign in beginners calculus day after day when you'd already finished the Berkley mathematics Master's degree course. He had nothing else to do after all: no friends, no team sports, no family. Sam could be detected these days only by the ion trail of dirty laundry he seemed to leave in his wake. A few words here and there every few days, but they were like ships meeting in the night.
He ran a distracted hand through his corn-thatch of blonde hair and began to look at the first warp-core schematics, one hand flicking through the images as the other absently tapped in notes and observations. The preliminary propulsion equations – he pulled up the relevant quantum theory papers and began a close cross-reference of the variables. Minutes bled into hours as he single-mindedly hunched over the material, brain stripping and storing and arranging like a photon processor. It was exhilarating, the feeling that he had embarked on this sheer mountain-face of information that was building with every new report, every new study. Now was the gruelling ascent, to map the terrain and find the finger-holds and pinches and muscle on upwards. Then, at the apex, he knew there would be a view worth fighting for. He would be able to stand, to survey, and to plant the next seeds of his own. The sum of federation knowledge and, perhaps, beyond was simply waiting on his processors to be read and understood. A life time wasn't enough. He sure as hell wasn't going to sit around and wait to be taught.
A momentary hesitation and an intermediate Orion conversation workfile was added to the day's tasks on his PADD.
When it was past seven he headed down the hill to the house. The clod was wet and slippery between his toes, kicking up flecks of mud up the backs of his calves and he whooped as he began to gather momentum, pelting headlong, always dangerously on the verge of losing his footing. He slowed as he reached the back door, breath pluming in the air. Frank wouldn't be up yet; it had been a heavy night. He slipped into the house for a quick shower and change, snatching Sam's discarded red biker jacket on his way out. He slipped it on, liking the way it made him feel older, invulnerable. Satchel slung over one shoulder, he set his stop watch and began the familiar road, sneakers slapping on the tarmac, the burn in his lungs a vital pleasure of burgeoning adolescence.
The day passed in a blur; he barely noticed the shuffle between classes, fingers still flicking, typing. In Federation History & Politics he was looking at the latest chains of complex polymers, developed for high radiation resistance. In Organic Chemistry, he was looking at the effects of gravitational anomalies on sub-light sensor circuits. In Math, he was reading the second catechism of Surak, High Vulcan lexicon disabled. In Advanced Astro, he was reading a comparative analysis of rimworld colonial constitutions and the potential significance of Federal homogeneity. In Computer Science he was beating the Dubrovnik 3-D chess program after he read the final exam material for programming search-and-gather automata.
He spoke to no one, the teachers knew better than to ask questions of the bowed head at the back. He spared a self-deprecating smile at the back of Lily Shepherd's glossy head.
Suddenly it was six and the janitors were sweeping out the stragglers and Jim was running, fit to burst, down the long, straight road home, jacked into something with an erratic electro beat and a throbbing bass line that settled beside his heartbeat. The bullies were too lazy to chase him, now, and his heels kicked up a cloud of dust.
He was on the porch when he heard it, Frank's whiney, weak voice on the comm. He pulled out the sonic transmitter and pressed an ear to the crack.
"Sure, I'll drive it round tomorrow. Yessir, you got yourself a sweet deal. A real classic convertible, with hardly a scratch…"
He recognised the voice, and yet didn't recognise it. Frank always sounded so reasonable, so responsible, so trustworthy when he wanted to. He sounded like a fifth grade teacher, Mr Picket-Fence. That's why no one had ever believed Sam in school. There was nothing of the belligerent drunk, the layabout, the deadbeat, the mindless thug who struck first and apologised later, who left porn Holos on the screen and stains on the couch.
Just the all-American stepfather of two whose high-flying widow of a war hero trusted with her most precious boys while she was off scanning algae somewhere in the gamma quadrant.
"Of course, I wouldn't expect less, sir… Test-drive, uh huh uh huh, yup, sure… It's nice to talk to another connoisseur of fine machinery, sir… 1973… Sports red… Not worth a credit less..."
Jim's blood ran cold. George's car. Their car. He couldn't. He had no right.
He could do what he damn well wanted and mom wouldn't even know, or care.
There was a rushing in his ears. Jim punched the doorpost hard enough to draw blood, angry splinters protruding from the welt.
The voice paused, turned, "Kid, is that you? … Hey mister, I gotta go. My son's just got home, I'll swing round at about 16:00 if that suits you? Great, great, have yourself a nice evening now…" The beep of the earpiece the earpiece being disconnected.
"Jim-boy? You there, son?" Jim gritted his teeth and pulled the leather sleeve down over his swelling knuckles before he shouldered through the door.
1 yocto – is a prefix similar to nano – , but instead of being 10^9 it is 10^24.