The style of crew mixer that a ship threw to “debrief” after refit or extended leave was always very specifically its own. Some of the ships in Starfleet were known for classy meetings, heavy on protocol and fine food; some of them had formal dances; some of them (especially on ships running more decorous variants of command, like the Vulcan or Andorian patterns) had what amounted to panel discussions. And then there were ships that threw unashamed wingdings.Enterprise was definitely one of these. It put something of a strain on the chief of Recreation, but he didn’t mind the occasional strain.

Harb Tanzer was of Diasporan stock. That is to say, he came of a planet which one of the first waves of colonists from Earth had settled in the early twenty-second century. They tended to be tough people, and handed down that toughness, of both looks and constitution, to their children. There had also been some minor mutations, since some of the earliest generation ships had not been as well shielded against radiation as they needed to be, and the children of the Diaspora tended to lose their hair early, or if they kept it, to be startlingly silver-haired. Harb was one of the latter, and that thick, slightly unruly silver mane was the first way a new crewman would come to recognize him at a distance—that, and his stocky, solid build, a function of age, for Harb was (as he put it) “pushing three figures.” Later they would get to know the broad, friendly face, mostly unlined (that was another of the mutations) except for smile lines, and laugh lines around the eyes.

Harb stood in Rec One, theEnterprise ’s main recreation room, and surveyed the crowded, noisy place with immense satisfaction. This was his “stomping ground,” the place where the chief of Recreation did most of his work. It wasn’t all easy, helping people play: there was a lot of setup to be done, but the results were worth it…always. Getting the place ready for this party, for example: working out the best arrangement for the furniture, and which kinds of furniture would be needed, in what amounts—it was a job. After all, a Denebian, half a ton of supple invertebrate, used to sitting in something that resembled a salad bowl, would find an Eames chair fairly useless. And what about the Mizarthu crewmen, half dragon and half python, and twenty feet long?—or the Irdesh, silicon-based and so delicate and crystalline in their structure that a hasty move could shatter one like a pane of glass? Their usual Starfleet-issue gravity neutralizers were all right for everyday duty, but in a crowd an accident might happen. For the Mizarthu Harb had stolen (well, temporarily appropriated) several sets of parallel bars from the ship’s gyms: they could coil up on those to their hearts’ content and discuss philosophy with all comers while they got tiddly on ammonia-and-water. For the Irdesh, Harb had laid hands on enough inertial neutralizes from the people in the Physics labs that all the Irdeshi crewpeople could float around like the big animate snowflakes they were, and never fear a brush from an elbow or a stumble by a dancer, since the neutralizers would sop up the inertia of any blow without transmitting it to the Irdeshi in question.

With questions of comfort handled, there was nothing to do but worry about the catering.

No oneelse was worrying about it, that was certain, since the tables where food was laid out were completely surrounded by crewpeople eating, drinking, and talking at a great rate. Some functions, like this one, were still handled in the old-fashioned buffet style: it was a nuisance to have to call up a plate of hors d’oeuvres on a terminal and wait for the thing to be beamed in. Besides, the orders tended to come in so thick and fast that the computers sometimes got a little confused…and a transporter accident involving both people and food was something that didn’t bear considering. So Harb did it the old-fashioned way and put low-grade stasis fields over the cold cuts and the starch-based snacks to keep them from curling up. The drinks situation, fortunately, needed little supervision; the liquids synthesizer had only a little local transporter to worry about, which it used to produce glasses from stores, as well as cherries and paper umbrellas, things like that. It hadn’t malfunctioned since the last time someone tried to get it to synthesize buttermilk. Harb smiled slightly to himself and hoped seriously that no one would try it tonight.

Elsewhere around the room people were doing what they usually did in Rec One—playing hard—with the exception that there were a lot more of them than usual. On the night of the mixer, the usual three-shift crew rotation was laid aside to make it possible for as many people as wanted to take part. Crewpeople not scheduled for duty went out of their way to relieve other crewpeople who were on post, even if just for a little while, so that they could make it to the party; schedules were juggled until the personnel computers (those with sufficient personality) muttered about it. Now, the place was crammed. There was a big crowd around each of the games tanks, pointing and laughing and making helpful (or not so helpful) suggestions; and everywhere else, it seemed, knots of people, big and little, were talking and shouting and laughing and squeaking and hollering and singing in as many voices as the Federation seemed to possess. The language seemed the same whoever spoke, of course, due to the good offices of the universal translators; but the sound of the three-hundred-odd mingled voices made a cheerful cacophony that Harb wouldn’t have traded for any peace and quiet in the world.

The singing group was one of the largest: forty or fifty people had taken over one of the biggest conversation pits and were making some very peculiar but satisfying harmonies. Quite a few of them had brought instruments. There were guitars, both acoustical and synthetic, and velodicas, and a squeezebox, and Uhura had Spock’s Vulcan harp, as usual; but most noticeably, one corner of the pit was taken up entirely by the members of theStarship Enterprise String, Reed, and Banjo Band. The group played once or twice a week, for fun or for scheduled parties. It was comprised of three people on banjo—one of whom, an Alarshin, attracted a great deal of notice because of his three-handed strumming technique—a portable pianist, one tenor and one soprano sax, and a synthesized percussionist (the musician, not the instrument: Dethwe was a clone).

Harb watched them with some mild concern. They seemed cheerful enough—but perhaps a bit too cheerful, for people who had just come back from vacation. Their energy level seemed a bittoo high, and had a nervous quality to it. Harb recognized that twitchiness. He had seen it before, when the crew knew itself to be going into a dangerous situation that the ship might not be able to do anything about. And there was nothing to do with such a mood but keep an eye on it, and let it run its course, while being there to lend support if needed.

Harb began to stroll over toward the group, brushing through several different conversations as he did so, saying his hellos, eyeing the various tables as he passed them to make sure the food was holding up all right. “Harb,” someone said in his ear.

It was a rather sultry voice, the synthesized voice of the Games and Holography computer. Because of its complexity, it was able to have a personality, and Harb had had one installed as soon as he could…to his occasional regret. His computer had a bit of a temper, and occasionally refused to acknowledge that she was “his” computer. This sometimes made his job interesting. “What’s the scoop, Moira?”

“We’re out of onion dip.”

He rolled his eyes a little as the voice, focused for only him to hear, followed him slowly across the room. “So make some more.”

“Can’t. Stores say they’re out of the culture for the sour cream. It doesn’t seem to have been reordered.”

Harb muttered something rude under his breath in Yiddish.

“I’ll tell Seppu you said so,” Moira said. “It should be fun to watch him grow upside down on his head in Hydroponics.”

“Snitch. Look, just use what we use for yogurt, but do it with cream rather than milk, and accelerate the batch. You know the recipe.”

“It won’t work,” Moira said. “The yogurt usesLactobacillus acidophilus, and the sour cream calls forLactobacillus bulgaricus.”

Harb stood still and thought a moment. Behind him, several people in happy conversation drifted by. One of them said admiringly to another, “I love your new skin color, where did you get it?” Harb chuckled, and then the idea hit him, and he missed the reply.

“Moira, where’s Harry?”

“Your yeoman,” Moira said sweetly, “is watching Mr. Sulu rebuild another Klingon cruiser.”

“Why shouldn’t he be? It’s his party too. Do this for me. Whisper in his ear and tell him to run down to Biology with one of the empty bowls. My compliments to Mr. Cilisci, and tell him if he’ll clone me about half a pound of the organism in the bowl and get it back up here in an hour or less, I’ll get Commander Wen to put aside a cubic meter of greenhouse space in Hydro for his basil. He’ll have enough pesto to keep him going for the whole mission.”

Moira snickered. “No sooner said than done, boss.”

Harb nodded, satisfied, and resumed his course across the room. As he went, someone said in his ear, “We’re out of dip.”

“Keep your pants on,” he said, turning, and then laughed a great laugh and added, “—Captain!”

“I do try,” Jim said, rather drily. Then he smiled. “Nice party, Mr. Tanzer.”

Harb smiled back as they began to stroll together through the crowds of people. “Their doing, as usual,” he said, glancing around. “I just clean up afterward.”

Jim made another small wry smile. Recreation was viewed by Starfleet as being an extremely important part of the ship, especially for the captain: a commander who could not play—and could not relax—was a liability. So was a crew that could not unbend, and in any starship going into a battle situation, the Rec officer was consulted for his opinion of the crew’s readiness and morale. Therefore, a Rec officer who described himself as just part of the cleaning crew could be assumed to be indulging in humor. “Mr. Tanzer,” Jim said, “I need to talk to you about something.”

The “Mr.” alerted Harb to this being something official. “Certainly, sir. We’ll find a quiet corner.”

“Inhere?” Jim said, glancing around with an amused look. The musical group had begun clapping and stomping along with an instrumental in almosttoo spirited a manner.

The captain noticed this and glanced at Harb as they turned away. “They’re a bit loud, aren’t they?”

Harb nodded. “Best they express it now,” he said, as he and the captain headed off toward one side of Rec, toward the big blank walls behind which the holography area lay, and past that, Harb’s office.

“No,” Jim said, “there’s no need to be private really: just out of the crush. Have you been in the ship’s BBS lately?”

They came to the wall by the door next to the holo area, and Harb leaned against it, folding his arms. “I have.”

“Do you find anything unusual about the level of discussion going on in the ‘common room’ lately?”

Harb tilted his head a bit and thought. “I’ve been running the standard semantic checks,” he said. “The computer doesn’t find a threshold number of loaded words.”

“That’s not what I meant. The computer doesn’t have hunches.”

“My hunches are sometimes wrong.”

“That’s better than not having any at all…. ”

Harb looked at the captain. “You’re worried about some of the anti-Vulcan feeling you’ve been seeing.”

Jim nodded.

Harb shook his head. “It’s always been there,” he said quietly. “But when an opportunity like this comes along, it tends to come out more strongly.”

Jim looked uncomfortable. “I just find it hard to believe,” he said, “that in this day and age, bigotry is still with us…. ”

“I seriously wonder if it’s anything as complex as bigotry,” Harb said. “Simple envy, more likely. Consider the Vulcans from the point of view of someone who is unsure about his or her own position in the Universe, someone who’s looking to see whether a Vulcan is a threat. All kinds of obvious reasons not to like the species come up. They’re peaceful, they’re extremely strong, both physically and in terms of personality; they’re mysterious, they have powers that ‘normal’ people don’t understand; they have a great deal of political status and influence. But at the same time they keep to themselves; their stand on the requirement for personal privacy sounds suspiciously like ego, like being stuck up, to people looking for a grievance. Whywouldn’t human beings dislike them every now and then?”

Jim nodded. “I’m not seriously worried,” Harb said. “Sometimes, in the BBS especially, sentiments like those get aired so that the people airing them can get them out of the way and move on to something else.”

“But not always.”

Harb nodded too. “I’ll keep my eye on it, for what it’s worth. It’s not as if we’re going into a battle situation where someone’s stance on the subject is likely to affect the mission’s effectiveness. But at the same time a starship is a microcosm…and usually accurately represents in small the things going on in the Federation at large—”

Sirens began whooping, and all around the room people looked up suddenly and put their drinks down. The singing stopped as if someone had thrown a switch. But before anything else happened, Chekov’s voice, echoing very large, said on the all-call,“All hands, yellow alert for Engineering and Nav staff only. Rendezvous with USS Coromandelin thirty seconds. Going sublight.”

This caused a stir of pleased excitement, and a lot of people made a rush for the observation windows on the upper level of the Rec deck. No one paid much attention to the view out the windows while a ship was in warp. The otherspace in whichEnterprise traveled at such times had a speed-of-light much faster than that of Earth’s universe: even the slowest-moving particles moved faster than tachyons there. Most of the humanities found the effect of this strange light an unnerving one, and while in warp, ports were usually closed, or the views through them filtered and processed by the ship’s computers. But starlight in normal deepspace was another matter; most of theEnterprise crew, like the crews of most other starships, were addicted to it.

“Up?” Harb said.

“Why not?” said Jim, and together they went up one of the catwalk-stairs to the upper level to join the many crewmen leaning on the railings and looking out the great glasteel windows. So they saw what not too many people have an opportunity to see—a starship decelerating hard from warp, the point of a silver spear piercing through from the far side of the darkness in a trailing storm-cone of rainbows, asCoromandel came out of warp in a splendor of Cherenkov radiation from the super-relativistic particles she dragged into real-space with her. She streaked towardEnterprise, braking hard, and the rainbow lights burned low and faded and went out as she matched her sister starship’s course and speed.

“I’ve always had this feeling that there should be some loud noise when that happens,” Jim said to Harb. “A bang, or a thunderclap or something.”

“Romantic,” Harb said. “What was the reason for the rendezvous, sir? Staff transfer?”

Jim nodded. “We have some people destined for Vulcan who’ve come in from some of the more remote starbases and systems. Fleet detouredCoromandel in to drop them off.Swiftsure is coming in for the same reason later. Then it’s the straight run for Vulcan for us.”

They leaned there and watched the smaller ship ease closer—not that she needed to: her transporters would have been effective fourteen thousand miles away—but doubtless her own crew were as interested to get a glimpse ofEnterprise as vice versa. After a little while, a nearby wall comm whistled.“Bridge to Keptin Kirk.”

Kirk stepped to it. “Kirk here, Mr. Chekov.”

“Our transfers are all aboard, Keptin. Keptin Warburg wants to know if there’s anything you need out Vashath way.”

Jim smiled. “Tell her if she sends me another package of that blue stuff they eat for breakfast there, I’m going to get McCoy to send her grits by way of revenge.”

“Aye, sir,”Chekov said, chuckling a little.“Bridge out.”

“Blue stuff?” Harb said.

“Don’t ask,” said Jim. “Vashath is a beautiful planet, but if I were you, and you go there on vacation, I wouldn’t get up till lunch…. ”

Coromandelaccelerated away on impulse, then flung a cloak of spectrum-colored fire about herself, leaped away, and was gone from sight on the instant. Jim and Harb turned away from the window and headed down the stairs again. “Well,” Jim said, “keep your eye on the BBS, as you say. I’m going to be a little busy pretty soon…. ”

“Aye aye.” Harb’s practiced eye glanced over the room as they came down the stairs, and he paused. “Look, here comes Mr. Spock.”

Jim was surprised at that. “So he does. Unusual to see him come back to a mixer once he’s made his appearance at the start. Hope there’s nothing wrong on the bridge—”

“He would have called. We’ll find out soon enough.”

They got down to the floor level, where their path was crossed by a group of crewmen bursting out of the holography area, all rather out of breath. “What have you got in there this time?” Jim asked, a touch suspiciously. “I was hoping for something pastoral to stroll around in…. ”

Harb smiled a little. “Not that, I’m afraid. But come take a look.”

They went over to the wall, and Harb waved the door open. A blast of music blew out past them, something with a hard, driving beat and almost no identifiable melodic line. Together Jim and Harb stepped a little way through the doorway to let their eyes adjust.

They were standing somewhere high up, in darkness, over a great city. At least it might have been great once, but the high glassy buildings had a grimy look about them; there were shattered panes, stone stained and acid-etched, an aura of old decay. A soft bloom of rain was falling out of the starless sky, and through it blazing signs in odd languages, and strange symbols, burned with a fierce light that the misting rain fogged into slight unreality. Some kind of small shuttle craft, iondrivers perhaps, swooped past through the wet dark night on their business. In the middle of all this, seemingly in the middle of the air—for the view from where they stood was very high—numerous crewpeople were dancing on platforms, sheets of softly glowing, translucent force. Some of them were dancing cheek-to-cheek, however incongruous the effect was with the ferocious music, and some of them were doing dances that had possibly been current on the planets where the people had taken their leave…but were otherwise unidentifiable.

“What is it?” Jim said.

Harb shrugged. “A synthesis. It could be Earth, or Andor, or the Cetians, or a hundred other places where humanoids have lived.”

Jim shook his head. “Looks old. I prefer the present…. ”

“Mmm,” Harb said. “That’s doubtless why you keep pulling out that eighteenth-century naval scenario. It soaks the rugs…. ”

Jim smiled and said nothing about that. “Funny, though,” he said. “This music sounds fairly dissonant. Twelve-tone, isn’t it?”

“I think so.”

“Well, putting wind chimes in it seems a little strange—”

“Isaid,” the wind chimes repeated, more loudly this time, from behind them, “you look marvelous, Jim; have you misplaced some weight?”

Jim and Harb both looked around, and down, in astonishment. Behind them stood a twelve-legged glass spider about a meter tall, with delicate glassy spines on her domed body, and fiery blue eyes, twelve of them gazing up at them with what looked distinctly like amusement.

“K’t’lk!”

“I’ve added a syllable,” she said, putting out a slim glassy claw as Jim dropped to one knee and stretched out a hand to her. “I’m K’s’t’lk now.” There was a wind-chime chuckle. “After all, you’re entitled to another syllable when you’ve been dead…. It’s good to see you, J’m.”

“Dead” was probably not the most accurate way to put it, for K’s’t’lk’s species, the Hamalki of alpha Arietis IV, did not deal with death in quite the same way that other species did. K’s’t’lk—or K’t’lk as she had been then—was a physicist, a ‘creative physicist,’ who had done some work on theEnterprise ’s warp engines and helped to take her most emphatically where none had gone before. She had died of what happened to the ship, there beyond space and time, but she had left an egg case behind her with Jim, a forgotten piece of spun-glass bric-a-brac in his cabin. On her death the egg had hatched, with her new life in it, and her old memories; and with theEnterprise ’s return to normal spaces, her daughter-self had gone back to her work in physics.

“But what brings you here?” Jim said with surprise and pleasure. “Not that we’re not glad to see you. Scotty’ll be delighted.” It was a slight understatement: the chief engineer had become first disturbed by, then very fond of, this sprightly creature who found nothing wrong with the idea of rewriting the laws of physics if they didn’t do what you wanted them to. There were certainly going to be people on the ship who would not wonder twice, in the light of this, why the syllable K’t’lk had added to her name was “s”.

K’s’t’lk shook herself all over, a slightly dissonant chiming more in touch with the blast of background music still coming from the holodeck. “The Vulcan thing; what else? I did most of my basic research with the people at the Vulcan Science Academy, after all; so when this mess came to the boil, Starfleet reactivated my commission again and recalled me to give testimony.”

“Well, how long are you going to be with us?”

“Till Vulcan, no longer. I have one evening to spend talking the kinesics of galactic cores with Mr. Spock…then it’s to business, I’m afraid. And likely to be dreadfully difficult; the Universe is easier to reshape than a Vulcan’s mind if it’s made up.” She cocked a cheerful eye at Kirk. “However…would you particularly mind if I had a quick look at your warp engines while I was here? There are some minor adjustments I’ve come across in my research that, if you made them—”

“NO,” Jim said, and then burst out in completely delighted laughter. “Don’t you dare! You so much astouch my engines and I’ll toss you in the brig, madam, and keep you there on—” He paused. “I don’t know what you eat. Except graphite.”

K’s’t’lk glittered and sang with an arpeggio’s worth of laughter. “You might as well lock Sc’tty up with a case of Scotch, Captain. But your orders are heard and understood…. Pity,” she added.

“It’s just that we have somewhere to be,” Harb said. “Somewherenearby.”

She chimed cheerfully. “Well enough. Whereis the graphite, by the way?”

“Over there by the green salad,” Harb said, and indicated the table.

“Right you are then, gentlemen. Until later,” K’s’t’lk said, and spidered off through the crowd, exchanging greetings with the crewpeople as she went. Harb chuckled a little and waved the holodeck door shut. Everything suddenly seemed very quiet.

Jim and Harb headed casually in K’s’t’lk’s wake. Harb was shaking his head. “Who else came in on that transfer?” he said.

“The manifests are in the computer,” Jim said, pausing by one of the drinks dispensers. “Angostura and soda,” he said to it, and watched bemused as the machine beamed in first the liquid, then the glass—just in time—and finally a drinks stirrer with a tiny model of theEnterprise on the end of it. “I’m not sure I believe this,” he said, and got rid of the drinks stirrer. His eye lit on something else on one of the nearby tables. “And what in space isthat?”

Jim was pointing at a bowl that at first sight seemed to be black bean soup…except that black bean soup usually does not have an oil slick. From the other side of the table, one of Naraht’s fringes came up holding what looked like a piece of singed metal, or plastic, or both. Naraht dunked the singed thing into the bowl, and his fringe then whispered back out of sight again, to be followed by slight hissing and munching noises.

“Dip,” Harb said. “The silicon-physiology people like it. It’s crude oil and iron filings, flavored with sodium oxides and a few rare metals. At least,” he added, “most of the sillies eat it, but the Andalusian crewmen won’t, even though they like it. Religious reasons.”

Jim shook his head again, bemused. “That looked like a piece of a used data solid he was dunking in it.”

“It was. We used to incinerate them when their effective lives expired, but then someone found out that Naraht likes them as a snack.”

They walked on and paused by the spot where one of the games tanks was situated in the middle of the floor. It was simply a large three-dimensional video tank—a bare platform six feet by six that projected synthesized holographic images upward into empty air. The tank was hooked into the master games computer, and could run any one of a number of games: “board” games like 3D and 4D chess, or role-playing games with animated characters, or action games in which a player handled controls, rather than simply talking to the computer. It was in the latter mode now, and Sulu was sitting in the “hot seat,” tapping or stroking at the touchpads that curved around him. In the tank was the image of a Klingon D7D battle cruiser, diving toward a star, or appearing to. Sulu seemed to be trying a slingshot maneuver at extreme warp speed—not exactly the safest move in the world, since going into warp too close to a star usually made the star in question go nova. The crewmen gathered around were offering encouragement or cheerfully predicting disaster, or sometimes simply passing credit chits back and forth. Harb and Jim watched long enough to see that the money changing hands seemed to be slightly in Sulu’s favor. “Want to make a small side bet?” Harb said in Jim’s ear.

Jim smiled. “I already made one. Come on. I have to see someone.”

“Oh? May I ask who?”

Jim shrugged. “It’s just a suspicion. But Spockis here, and we’ve just had a rendezvous.”

They walked over toward the main doors, where Spock was standing gravely talking to some of the crew, people from Sciences. “Mr. Spock,” Jim said, “have you seen K’s’t’lk?”

“Indeed yes,” Spock said. “I anticipate a most stimulating conversation with her: her latest paper on the applications of string theory to matter-antimatter reaction is likely to revolutionize warp technology—”

“Oh no,” Jim said.

“—that is, if the Federation’s scientists can be convinced that the intermix formulas she suggests are anything less than insane.” Spock looked resigned.

“And what do you think of them?” Harb said.

“I do not understand them in the slightest,” Spock said, “and they appear to make no sense by normal parameters. But with K’s’t’lk’s brand of physics, appearances are usually misleading. I will reserve any final evaluations until the trial runs. Meanwhile—”

“Yes,” Jim said, as the main Rec room doors hissed open.

Darkness walked in: Sarek, in his usual diplomatic dress. He was not alone. He was holding out two paired fingers, and touching them with her own as she stepped through the door was Sarek’s wife, Spock’s mother, Amanda. She had always been a handsome woman, from the first time Jim had met her, years back: now she was gorgeous. She was smaller and lighter than she had been once, but the effect this produced was to make her look like one in whom time had burned away nonessentials, leaving pure essence: and her hair was so perfect a shade of silver that it was enough to make one want to run out and see a professional hair colorist, or a ghost. She wore a Vulcan lady’s standard traveling clothes—long overtunic, soft breeches, and soft boots—all quite logical, but when done in the heavy silks of Earth, luxurious and exotic-looking as well.

Jim bowed over her free hand. “It’s been too long,” he said.

“It’s good to be back,” Amanda said. “And in the middle of a party as well.” She looked a little wry. “A little entertainment will be pleasant before the deluge.”

Sarek’s eyes flicked to Kirk, a considering look. “My wife speaks figuratively,” he said, “in the tradition of her people. Deluges are not common on Vulcan.”

“My husband speaks circumspectly,” Amanda said, just as drily, “in the tradition of his.”

Sarek bowed his head just a fraction in acknowledgment, then said to Jim, “Captain, my son met us immediately upon our transport over fromCoromandel. I would welcome a chance to discuss matters with you before we reach Vulcan.”

“Choose your time, Ambassador,” Jim said. “I will be delighted to accommodate you.”

“I believe your people have a saying,” Sarek said; “ ‘there is no time like the present’?”

“My quarters are perhaps a little confining,” Jim said. “The officers’ lounge?”

“As you wish.”

“And if I may, I would like Dr. McCoy to attend.”

“The doctor met me in the transporter room as well,” Sarek said, “ ‘to check his handiwork,’ as he put it. I had already taken the liberty of asking him.”

“Then let’s go.”

 

“I had thought we weren’t going to see you until Vulcan,” Jim said, when they were all settled in the lounge. McCoy was off by the wet bar, making a great show of mixing himself a mint julep while he listened.

Sarek allowed himself a slight smile. Jim was at first surprised to see it, but then realized that what he was seeing was another diplomatic tool, as consciously used a tool as the diplomatic uniform Sarek wore, or the studied elegance of the way he spoke English. Somewhere along the line there had been a decision when on Earth, use the tools that will make you effective there…but remain Vulcan.

“I had planned to take the usual commercial carriers,” Sarek said, “but someone at Starfleet got the idea that it might be wiser for me to see certain personnel here before setting foot on Vulcan.” His eyes were amused, even though the smile had faded. “My suspicion is that various persons highly placed in the Federation were concerned that there should be no obvious evidence of collusion among us.”

“But you’re here,” McCoy said, sitting down beside Spock, “and some people are going to notice that we all arrive together, and suspect collusion anyway.”

“True enough,” Sarek said. “But at least here our meetings take place under our own eyes, no one else’s: and this is much to be desired. It may in some small way assist the Federation’s case if you are seen to arrive at Vulcan without needing coaching in the proprieties of the coming debates. The fact will impress those of our people who believe that Terrans cannot act like civilized people without extensive coaching.”

“We’re going to need that coaching, though,” Jim said. “Spock has told us about the format of the debates in a general sort of way. I was pretty effective on the debating team at Academy, some time back. But debating Terrans is one thing. Debating Vulcans—” Jim flicked an amused glance at Spock. “I have occasionally lost.”

“Half-Vulcans,” Sarek said, without any tone of reproach. “Forgive me, Captain, but I must be certain that you understand the distinction. My son—” He paused here, looking just slightly embarrassed, even for so “pure” a Vulcan as Jim felt sure he was about to claim to be. “My son, though a most excellent officer, and innovative and flexible in his use of logic, is a child of two worlds, two environments, and though he understands how it must be to be of only one of them, he has no direct experience of it. The ‘pure’ Vulcan heritage is less flexible than you might think from Spock’s example; far less willing to give up what it perceives as its own prerogatives and rights; far less willing to give up any of its perceptions at all. I am afraid that the Vulcan ‘cultural image’ of Terrans, and of the Federation, is quite set in some areas—and the vast majority of Vulcans have never taken the opportunity to go out among the people of the Federation, or among Earth-humans, to acquire data and experiences that would change their minds.”

“It’s rather shocking, Captain—” Amanda said.

“Jim, please.”

Amanda smiled. “Jim, of course. It really is shocking, though. Earth people have this picture of Vulcans as being a great force in space, because of the influence they wield in the Federation’s counsels. But at the same time, judging them against other planetary populations, a smaller percentage of Vulcans go to space for holiday or business than go off-planet in any other species. Something like less than five percent, where on other planets as many as thirty or forty percent have been off the planet at least once in their lives.”

Jim nodded. “I had heard that,” he said, “and it sounded so odd that I wasn’t sure that I trusted the figures.”

“Nonetheless they are accurate,” Sarek said. “Captain, I submit to you that, as open-minded as you have proved yourself, you have difficulty believing such a fact when it is presented to you. Imagine how much less likely Vulcans are to have their minds changed by data about humans…especially when so few of them have direct experience of them. We have a great reputation for intelligence among the humanities, but I fear that our major weak point in that regard is our rigidity.”

“Stubbornness,” McCoy said, sipping his drink.

“A word with unfortunate emotional connotations,” Sarek said, “but possibly accurate. Doctor, this may come as a shock to you, but not all Vulcans are free of emotion.”

McCoy lifted one eyebrow in an extremely Vulcan mannerism, and said nothing.

“It’s actually a linguistic problem, at its root,” Amanda said. “There are Vulcan concepts that the universal translator system has been mishandling for many years.‘Arie’mnu’ in particular.” She blushed for some reason, but went on smoothly enough. “The concept keeps getting translated as ‘lack of emotion,’ or ‘suppression of emotion,’ which is a little better…but not much. A more accurate translation would be ‘passion’s mastery.’ The word itself acknowledges that Vulcans dotoo have emotions, but are managing them rather than being managed by them.”

“You’d think a mistranslation like that would be easy enough to correct,” McCoy said. “There’s a Federation committee that handles this kind of thing, isn’t there? Approves the changes, and updates the computer programs regularly?”

Amanda sighed. “Doctor,” she said, “I used to beon that committee. The problem is, now I’m resident on Vulcan—and the committee suspects that my viewpoint is no longer unbiased. Not that they shouldn’t have suspected as much when I still lived on Earth. What human beingisn’t unbiased about some things? The illogic of it!” She threw her hands in the air, disgusted.

Sarek looked at her with an expression that Kirk suspected was very restrained affection. “So the problem perpetuates itself,” he said, “and resists solutions. Well, it is our business to impose a solution on it, of one sort or another.”

Jim nodded. “Sir,” he said, “I need to ask this, and if I offend, I’m sorry. Spock tells me that T’Pau is attempting to prevail upon you to take the position that Vulcanshould secede. Are you in fact going to do that? And if so, am I correct in believing now that you are trying to assist our side of the argument nonetheless?”

Sarek was silent for a moment. “T’Pau does not make attempts,” he said at last. “What she sets out to do, that she does, by one means or another. Captain, you understand, I think, that T’Pau could easily have me dismissed as ambassador to Earth if I defied her.”

“Yes,” Jim said.

“Not that that fact by itself would necessarily stop me from doing my own will,” Sarek said. “I accepted my embassage to Earth as much for ethical reasons as for any others, and though it is my business to voice my government’s views, if they became intolerable to me, or I felt improper pressure was being put upon me, I would immediately resign.”

“But you haven’t done so.”

“One must not act with unnecessary haste,” Sarek said. “I have not yet had a chance to talk with T’Pau, for one thing: I have only a rather brief written communication from her, stating what she desires me to do. Until I have more data, I cannot make final decisions. This I will say to you, Captain: I find being forced to speak against the planet of my embassage immensely distasteful, for reasons that have nothing to do with my history there, my marriage, or my relationships with my son and Starfleet. My whole business for many years has been to understand your peoples and to come closer to them; to understand their diversities. Now I find that business being turned on its ear, and all the knowledge and experience I have amassed being called on to drive away that other diversity, to isolate my people from it. It is almost a perversion of what my career has stood for.”

“But if you feel you have to do it,” McCoy said, “you’ll do it anyway.”

“Of course I will, Doctor. Here, as at many other times, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. What if, as the next few days progress, I become certain that my own people would be more damaged by remaining within the Federation than by leaving it? Must I not then preserve the species of which I am part? But the important thing is that this matter be managed with logic.” He blinked then, and spoke again, so that a word came out that did not translate. “No.Cthia. I must not be misunderstood.Cthia must rule this, or we are all lost.”

Jim looked puzzled. “I think I need a translation. It’s obviously a Vulcan word, but I’m not familiar with it.”

Amanda looked sad. “That is possibly the worst aspect of this whole mess,” she said. “It’s the modern Vulcan word which we translate as ‘logic.’ But what it more correctly means is ‘reality-truth.’ The truth about the universe, the way things reallyare, rather than the way we would like them to be. It embraces the physical and the inner realities both at once, in all their changes. The concept says that if we do not tell the universe the truth about itself, if we don’t treat it and the people in it as what they are—real, and precious—it will turn against us, and none of our affairs will prosper.” She sighed. “That’s a child’s explanation of the word, I’m afraid. Whole books have been written attempting to define it completely. What Sarek is saying is that if we don’t handle this matter with the utmost respect for the truth, for what is really needed by everyone involved, it will end in disaster.”

“And the problem,” McCoy said softly, “is that the truth about what’s needed looks different to everybody who faces this situation…. ”

Sarek nodded once, a grave gesture. “If I find that I must defend the planet of my birth by turning against my many years on Earth, then I will do so. Alternately,” he said, “if I find I can in good conscience defend the Federation in my testimony, I will do that. But what matters is thatcthia be observed, without fail, without flaw. Otherwise all this is useless.”

“And if you find you have to take the case against us,” Jim said, “and it means you can never see your son again, or your wife—or that you have to go into exile with them—”

Now an expression appeared, just for a flicker of a moment: anguish. Jim was instantly sorry he had seen it. McCoy had already turned his head away. “Then that is what will be,” Sarek said, his voice calm and cool, though his face had betrayed it. “You must understand, Captain, that from acts such as will happen over the next couple of weeks, ripples spread. They spread fromall acts, but especially from such as these, when people knowingly take their worlds’ fate in their hands. The short-term effects of a withdrawal from the Federation—our little personal loss and pain, the small matter of exile or estrangement—do not weigh significantly against the loss of the diversity, the well-being, theselfness, of a whole species. Ours, or yours. Here, at least as far as I am concerned, the needs of the manydo indeed outweigh mine. My son and my wife will make their own decisions, and make them well, I am sure.” Sarek looked from Amanda to Spock with almost palpable pride. “But for myself, I dare not count the cost. I have served my world for longer than you have been alive; I swore such oaths to serve it as Vulcans do not normally discuss with outsiders. I will serve it still, and serve it as well as I can choose how, regardless of the consequences.”

Then Sarek took a deep breath. “But I do not have to like it.”

“Liking is an emotion,” McCoy said quietly.

“Yes,” Sarek said, looking him in the eye; “it is. It would be a relief if you could declare me incompetent to testify on such grounds. Unfortunately, I doubt the Vulcan Medical Association would admit your diagnosis as valid.”

McCoy shrugged, resigned. “It was worth a try…. ” He shifted a bit in his seat, folded his arms. “Why werewe asked to testify, Sarek? Jim and myself, I mean.”

“It is a fair question,” Sarek said. “Most of the choices have been made by the High Council, or by delegates they selected, to represent a fair cross-section of the arenas and types of interactions which Vulcan and the Federation have shared over our association. There are logicians, historians, scientists of various types—you will have noticed K’s’t’lk: she has done more work with our people, for longer, than almost any other scientist in the Federation, and is known for the results she produces…if not necessarily for any brand of logicwe use. But results are as valuable to our people as theory.—And there are a few representatives of Starfleet: but I would imagine your testimony will carry more weight than theirs will. T’Pau, being on the High Council for many years now, has the right to make choices that no one would dare gainsay: and the fact that she choseyou will have been noticed.”

“That’s what I’m having trouble with,” Bones said, “because frankly, Sarek, the last time we came visiting, we didn’t exactly obey the rules. By Vulcan standards, of course. When we beamed down for Spock’s bonding, and found out that what’s-her-name, T’Pring, didn’t want him—”

“It is widely acknowledged,” Sarek said, “when Vulcans discuss it at all, that T’Pring’s behavior in selecting your Captain to enter mortal combat with Spock was improper in the extreme. Nothing in the briefing Spock gave you could have prepared you for the rather distasteful sequelae.”

“Distasteful is the word,” Jim said, rubbing his throat reflectively. “Being strangled with anahn woon can ruin your day.”

“My point,” McCoy said, looking embarrassed, “is that if I hadn’t slipped Jim a mickey while ‘treating’ him, he’d be dead…but by so doing, I violated the letter, if not the intent, of the whole Marriage-and-Challenge ceremony.—Dammit, Sarek, Icheated!”

Sarek nodded gravely. “I find myself wondering,” he said, “whether that might not be exactly why T’Pau chose you…. ”

McCoy looked astonished. “Your Captain conducted himself with the utmost propriety for his part,” Sarek said, glancing approvingly at Jim, “and for your part, you obeyed your oaths to Starfleet and to the Other, and preserved life, as best you knew how. No Vulcan is going to blame you much, or long, for that…. If, of course, we stoop to such an ugly emotion as blame in the first place.”

“Uh, yes, well,” McCoy said, and trailed off.

“I estimate one point six days to Vulcan once theEnterprise returns to warp, assuming she maintains her earlier speed,” Sarek said. “Captain, Spock is already familiar with the format and style of the debates and questioning that will take place. If you have some time early in the ship’s day tomorrow, I will go through some library material with you and give you some pointers. The Doctor will doubtless want to look on.”

“Certainly, Ambassador. Around point three five, if you like.”

“Excellent. I will then retire. My wife will attend me.” Sarek stood up: all the rest rose as Amanda did. “Good night, Captain. My son.”

They left, and the door closed behind them. “Your mother gets more special as time goes on,” McCoy said to Spock.

Spock nodded.

“She blushes pretty well, too,” McCoy said. “Was that something you can explain?”

Spock quirked an eyebrow, thought about it for a moment. “Before she went into teaching, Mother worked on the early versions of the universal translator, as you will have surmised,” he said. “One of her contributions to the original Translation Committee was the mistranslation of‘arie’mnu’ which she mentioned. It occurred some time after she met my father, while she was still mastering the language. I am afraid he teases her about it somewhat.”

McCoy smiled a little. “I wondered if it was something like that. Well, to err is human.”

“That is precisely what the Vulcans will say,” said Spock. “Captain, Doctor, good night.”

“’Night, Spock,” Jim said. The door closed after Spock, leaving Jim with McCoy and the end of the mint julep. “Well, Bones?”

He was shaking his head. “Sarek,” he said. “Who was it said, ‘The only thing worse than a scoundrel is a man of principle’?”

“Sounds like Twain, or Averith.”

“Mmf.” McCoy put his glass down. “Vulcans…. ”

Jim looked at him. “For so strong a species,” McCoy said, with pity in his voice, “they sure are afraid. I wonder what of…. ”

“What Spock told us about this morning,” Jim said, “should be quite enough, for starters.”

“No,” McCoy said. “There’s something else…. ”