Eyrie Productions, Unlimited - Split Infinitive mini: The Vulcan Heart (v2.0)

Personal log: Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Hutchins
United Federation of Planets Starfleet
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A)

The sun is always a little hotter, the air a little thinner, the gravity a little heavier, on Vulcan than I'm expecting it to be. I've been here before, I imagine I'll be here again, and yet it always takes me slightly by surprise how uncomfortable it is when I arrive.

It doesn't help that I didn't have any time to prepare this time. I wasn't expecting to be here today. I wasn't expecting to be anywhere near here today. But here I am.

This is a part of Vulcan I've never visited before. It's apparently territory that belongs to Spock's family - some kind of ceremonial site way to hell and gone out in the Wastelands. Even if I hadn't been warned somewhat about the purpose of this unscheduled visit, I'd know it's important because the guard who met us when we beamed down is clearly not very pleased about having not one, but two Earthmen along. Dr. McCoy can get by a lot of that because he's a doctor, but I'm an engineer, so what am I doing here?

Simple enough. I'm here because a friend asked me to come, and that's the kind of guy I am. I'm not sure how she came to decide I have anything to contribute to the proceedings, but now that I'm here I intend to give it my best shot. Because it's what I do. I try to help.

When I succeeded Hikaru Sulu as helmsman of the Enterprise, the joke began to circulate around the fleet that Captain Kirk only permitted swordsmen to drive for him. Sulu, after all, had been a renowned fencer and kendoka since his Academy days, and though I've never competed in any sword-based sport, it's no secret that I practice a form of kenjutsu as a personal devotion. There's a famous holo of me as a civilian consultant attached to the old Enterprise, part of the shore party that secured Vega C-612, in which I'm standing next to Spock, tricorder in one hand, with both my swords strapped to my back.

Stardate 8821 was a Wednesday to the rest of the galaxy. The second dogwatch found me in the larger of the ship's two gymnasia, dressed in gi and hakama, sparring against one of my shipmates. I do this regularly, not always with the same shipmate, but quite often. Not to seem like I'm bragging, but there isn't another swordsman of my caliber aboard the Enterprise now that Hikaru has moved on, but I can always practice the empty-handed parts of Katsujinkenryuu with somebody and do my sword kata solo later on, so whenever I can find a dance partner, that's usually what I do.

My sparring partner yesterday afternoon was the Enterprise's deputy science officer, Lieutenant Commander Saavik, and when sparring with her I sometimes start with a bokuto. I feel confident doing this for three reasons: first, Saavik and I have known each other for many years; second, her Vulcan strength and resilience are superior enough to my own that the advantage conveyed by the weapon is largely negated; and third, I can generally trust her not to do anything foolish that might get her head cracked open.

So it came as quite a surprise to me when she did just that, fumbling a simple overhand flat-of-the-blade parry to such an amateurish extent that I had to abandon the bokuto to prevent it from coming down right smack on the top of her skull. For a second, as it thudded to the padded floor, I wondered whether that might have been a strategic move, intended to force me to give up the sword - but that wouldn't have worked in an actual fight, and she never did things like that in sparring. It's cheating.

Regardless, I'd lost it now, so I shifted gears, moving into one of the empty-handed forms. I blocked her follow-up attack, noting as I did that it was also not very well-executed; then I got inside her guard, crossed her up, got my arm across the front of her shoulders, hooked my leg behind her knee, and threw her to the floor. She didn't fall properly either, hitting the floor harder than I'd intended and expelling her breath with a painful-sounding WHOOMPH.

At that point I abandoned the entire proceeding, startled by her repeated basic errors and the idea that I might've hurt her. Dropping to one knee by her side, I asked whether I had. Saavik coughed, drew fresh breath, and gave me a puzzled look.

"I... do not think so," she said, sitting slowly up.

"That throw never works on you," I said, baffled. "Are you all right?" I rose and offered her my hand. After looking at it for a couple of seconds as if she'd never seen it before, Saavik took it and let me lever her to her feet.

"I'm not sure," she admitted thoughtfully. "I feel... strange."

I took a closer look. "You do look peaky. Maybe you should go to sickbay."

Saavik shook her head. "Unnecessary. I have slept poorly the last few nights; I merely need rest." She turned to leave the gym.

I snagged my bokuto from the floor in mid-stride, remaining in step with her as we emerged into the corridor, and persisted, "That's not normal either. Maybe you should get that checked."

Saavik paused and rounded on me with faint indignation in her eyes. "You are not my husband," she snapped, then blinked in surprise and said, "Where did that come from?"

"I'm... sure I don't know," I replied, just as surprised as she was. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I simply need rest," she said again. "I must not have meditated sufficiently before bed the last few days. I will have to correct that oversight tonight."

I wasn't convinced, but there's no arguing with Saavik when she's got that tone in her voice, so I fell silent as I walked alongside her up the corridor to the turbolift, then around the sector corridor to one of the officers' staterooms.

At the door, Saavik paused again, then turned to me and said calmly, "I'm retiring for the evening. Unless you intend to come with me, this is goodnight."

"Well," I replied, "then you're gonna have to let go of my hand."

Saavik looked down and saw that she'd never released me after letting me pull her to her feet. "Oh. Er. Yes." She let go. "There you are." Then, as if nothing at all weird had just happened, she nodded cordially and wished me good night, then disappeared into her room.

I stood outside her door for a few moments, hopelessly puzzled; then, shaking my head and muttering, "This never happened to George Lazenby," I walked off toward my own quarters.

As was my usual routine, I swung by Saavik's on my way to breakfast the next morning. It's our custom to join several of the other mid-level officers for the morning meal, then report together to our watch stations on the bridge. An earlier and readier riser than I am, she's often waiting for me in the corridor; if not, she invariably answers the door at the first hail. Today, though, there was no response at all, not even her voice on the speaker telling me to wait.

I hailed three times, waiting a decent interval between each, and my anxiety mounted. She'd looked slightly ill the night before, and she'd definitely been acting odd. Suppose she'd come down with some strange malady in the night and now couldn't answer? Odd, but not unheard-of, not out here in the black where weird occurrences are practically the norm. I grappled with conflicting imperatives for a few moments, then made a small sound of frustration and keyed an override into the lock.

The sight that greeted me when I stepped through into her stateroom - the mirror image of my own, since it's on the opposite side of the saucer - startled me more than her behavior the previous night. The place looked like a wrecking crew had come through, scattering furniture and the relatively few Vulcan decorations she'd personalized her quarters with.

"Whoa!" I said in a voice intended to carry around the divider to her bunk. "What happened? Did you host a fight club in here last night or something?" I crouched down and examined the underside of an overturned armchair, marveling at the sheared-off bolts. "I didn't even know these chairs could be turned over." Straightening, I rounded the end of the divider - to find her bunk disarrayed, as if someone had spent a very restless night in it, but empty.

Calling her name, I checked the relatively few places in such a small set of quarters where she could be. I found her in the sonic shower cubicle, huddled in a robe, shivering, even though it wasn't cold in there.

"My God!" I blurted, hurrying to her. "What's wrong?"

Saavik blinked at me, her eyes slightly unfocused, and seemed to take a few seconds to recognize me. "Benjamin," she said, relief audible in her voice. "I... I need... " She trailed off then, as if she couldn't quite remember what she needed.

"What? What do you need?"

"I need... " She hesitated again.

"Tell me!"

"I need... "

She seemed to be having trouble getting it out. I decided to try deliberate obtuseness to see what she would make of it; under normal circumstances she would see through it, but it would at least get her to focus a little. "Paracetamol? Piso mojado? Nice bowl of plomeek soup? What?"

She suddenly grabbed the sides of my head, staring fixedly into my eyes, and snapped, "I need you to SHUT UP."

I shut up. We stared at each other for a few seconds. She let go of my head.

"I think something is wrong with me," Saavik admitted in a small voice. After what I'd just seen in the sitting room, I might've found that funny if the situation hadn't been alarming me so much.

"You didn't even get sick when Johnny brought back the mudfleas from his practicum on Melvara," I said, more for something to say than because it was any kind of objection. I placed the inside of my wrist against her forehead, then removed it and said, "I think you're running a fever, though it's hard to tell since you're always running a fever by my standards anyway." I decided to try levity. Her reaction might give me a better handle on just how badly damaged her self-control was. "Let me see your nose - your nose is dry, that's not - no, wait, that's Porthos - say 'aah.'" She complied and I recoiled in shock. "Good God, your tongue is green."

Saavik gave a little snort at that, looking away.

"You laughed," I accused her.

"I did not," she tried to protest.

"You did, you laughed at that. All right, I'm convinced." I caught hold of her hands and, standing, used them to pull her upright. "Come on, on your feet. Time for sickbay."

"I remember!" she declared as I helped her through the wreckage of her sitting room. "Wait, wait, I remember." She pulled herself free of my guiding arm, took my face between her hands, and leaned close, almost touching my nose with hers.

"I need to go to Vulcan," she said, and then she lost consciousness.

I had no trouble getting her to sickbay - she's not heavy - and then Dr. McCoy threw me out. This was frustrating, but not entirely unexpected, and I had work to do anyway, so I reported to the bridge and tried not to look like I was fretting.

Half an hour later, Captains Kirk and Spock were summoned to sickbay. Ten minutes after that, Captain Kirk was on the intercom ordering best speed to Vulcan. Now, in addition to being a certified starpilot and navigator - occupations that require a great deal of expertise in certain abstruse fields of mathematics - I'm a warp propulsion engineer, which requires a great deal more. I can add two and two in a wide range of bases.

I was still barred from sickbay when I clocked off for the evening. Lacking anything else to do with myself, I went to bed. That may seem callous, but it's a lesson I've learned from long and painful experience in the field: If it's the only constructive thing you can do, get some rest so you'll be prepared when the time comes for you to do more.

Even after all these years in Starfleet, there are still times when I wake up, sit up, and briefly wonder where the hell I am. I had one of those times about six hours later, when I was awakened from a chaotic dream by the trilling of my doorbell.

"Wuh," I said cleverly, and then, in a slightly more coherent voice, "Come in."

Ten minutes later I was up, dressed, and on my way to the transporter room, still revolving what I'd just been told in my mind. I had part of a picture forming, and though I couldn't tell entirely what it was yet, my instincts told me it wasn't something I was going to like when I could. Almost without thinking about it, I deviated to the ship's security office.

"I need your help," I told Chief of Security Chekov as I entered his domain. He clearly knew where I was heading; he gave me a concerned look and didn't interrupt as I went on, "Things may get weird on me down there. If they do I'm going to need an edge."

"That's against policy," Chekov reminded me.

"I know, Pavel," I told him, "but I'm pretty sure the game's rigged."

He looked at me for a moment, catching my meaning; the phrase was a reference to something that had happened to us long ago, on shore leave from the old Enterprise, when he was a raw ensign and I was officially nobody at all.

Then he nodded and said, "Wait here," before disappearing into the armory.

It helps, in situations like this, to go way back with the ship's weapons officer.

And so to the surface of Vulcan, disorientingly in broad daylight when, according to the Enterprise's clock and thus my own internal one, it's about two in the morning. The three of us are trudging across a stone bridge leading from one small mesa, where we beamed down, to a larger, taller one next to it. As we approach, I can see that the taller one is capped by some kind of ceremonial site - a big, sandy, open area with a very large cylindrical bell, reminiscent of the ones outside East Asian temples, on a dais in the center.

There's a guard, grim-looking even for a Vulcan, standing under the arch leading into what I can only think of as the arena, carrying a weapon reminiscent of a pike and wearing very old-looking ceremonial armor. He's a virtual twin for the one who met us on the smaller mesa and led us to this place. Also awaiting us under the arch is a tiny, slightly stooped, very elderly Vulcan woman in elaborate robes. The two guards flank her as we arrive, dusty and hot, before her.

Saavik can barely stand up at this point; she stands unsteadily next to me, trying without much success to fix the old woman with a suspicious glare and mostly just managing to look uncannily like she's drunk.

The old woman, clearly assuming neither Dr. McCoy nor I can understand the local language, welcomes Saavik blandly back to Vulcan and asks with exaggerated cordiality after her health.

<You know perfectly that I am unwell,> Saavik replies with unaccustomed venom. <What have you done to me, T'Vrin?>

<I?> T'Vrin replies.

Saavik clenches her fists, visibly fighting for self-control.

T'Vrin shakes her head and replies imperturbably, <Of course you did, or you would not be here now. Come and meet your husband.> She gestures, and another man appears from behind the bell-thing - a tall, thin man, about Saavik's age, simply dressed. I take a good, close look at him, trying to gauge how willing a participant he is in all this, but there's nothing in his face I can get a decent hold on. He's glazed and blank, looking at my shipmate with a covetous, almost hungry look - most un-Vulcan, and more than a little disturbing on a Vulcan's face.

Saavik says, the surprise apparently having cleared her mind enough for her to make use of her excellent memory. <The second was a plainly accidental crossing of paths in secondary education. The first... > Her dark eyes go wide; she gives T'Vrin a sharp, incredulous look and calls her a startlingly filthy name.

The old woman doesn't seem fazed by the obscenity; she merely nods and says, <Was on the day you agreed in the name of Surak to follow the path of a Vulcan citizen. What did you think that entailed?>

Saavik shoots back.

<It's hardly my fault that Spock neglected your education before bringing you to me,> T'Vrin replies with a repulsively infinite complacency.

I glance at Dr. McCoy; he gives me his patented how-are-we-going-to-play-this face and says nothing. He's been in a situation like this before, and knows more or less what the song is, even if he can't understand the lyrics. My left wrist itches. I almost make my play then and there, but my instincts tell me to wait; there's still the possibility of extracting us from the situation without resorting to outright defiance.

The window is rapidly closing, though, and I fancy I hear it shut altogether when T'Vrin goes on, <Now stop your childish temporizing and honor your vow. This is the Vulcan heart. This is our way.>

Saavik glances at me, her expression a hard-to-read mix of barely contained emotions - fury, desperation, maybe even a paradoxical urge to just give in and have it over with. Without seeming to be entirely in charge of body or spirit, she shuffles across the sand to the bell and stands waiting, rocking gently on her feet, her hands working in and out of fists. Spann crosses to her, giving her that same up-and-over look like I would give a nice bit of sirloin fresh from the grill, and takes hold of the chained hammer that hangs on the frame next to the bell. He raises this as if to strike a note, and I start running through my tactical options very fast in my mind, wishing I'd had time to brief Dr. McCoy on what we might have to do -

- when Saavik raises her hand and blocks the face of the hammer with her palm, uttering three explosive syllables as if it's taken all of her strength to force them out of her body, and changes the game entirely.

I suppress an urge to smile. That's exactly what I was hoping she'd do. It doesn't make my day any easier, but it does open up the playing field.

T'Vrin scowls faintly and raises a mocking eyebrow. <You invoke the challenge? There is another you would prefer?>

Saavik turns slowly, almost unwillingly, and gives me a simultaneously apologetic and pleading look as she points straight at me. T'Vrin turns to me, composing herself; she clearly expects me to have no idea what the hell is going on.

<Has chosen the kal-if-fee and named me as her preference,> I reply, deeply enjoying the ill-concealed microsecond pulse of shock on her face as she realizes that I speak Vulcan quite well, thank you, and I've understood what they've been saying all along.

She recovers quickly, arching an eyebrow patronizingly at me. <And what use have you for a Vulcan wife?> she asks.

<That's not the sort of question a gentleman answers,> I reply with a faint smirk I simply cannot suppress. It seems to annoy her, which I find very gratifying. At any rate, she stops trying to dissuade me and just explains the rules: combat to the death, and if either party tries to escape, the guards will step in without mercy or hesitation to preserve the honor of the ritual. She probably assumes, since I'm a weak, inferior Earthman, that I'll be so disadvantaged by the thin air, the heat, and the gravity that Spann will make short work of me. Good. I like being underestimated. Len asks me if I'm out of my goddamn mind, and it's a fair question, but I just wave him back. I haven't got time.

Spann seems confused by what's going on now; from the look of him, his brain is juuuuuust barely ticking over, he's so deep in the plak tow. One of the guards has to more or less herd him to his place and put a lirpa, the fan-bladed Vulcan glaive, in his hand. It's a nasty-looking weapon, but, I'm surprised to discover when they hand me mine, it has lousy balance. The actual weapons they're based on must have gone out of fashion a long, long time ago even by Vulcan standards for them to have mutated this much in a ceremonial context.

<Begin the challenge!> T'Vrin snaps, and Spann starts running toward me with all his speed. I haven't got a lot of time to make this happen. I take a half-step back, make sure of my firing arcs, drop the lirpa, and flex my left wrist in a very particular way. The Phaser-I Chekov strapped to my arm under my sleeve drops neatly into my hand. One second; one guard down. Two seconds; two guards down. Just like I knew what I was doin', as my grandfather would say.

By that time, of course, Spann is on top of me, but that's OK. I don't want to shoot him anyway; with his neurochemistry so screwed up by the plak tow, a normal stun setting probably won't affect him appreciably, and if I crank it up high enough that it can, it might just kill him. Instead I have just enough time to shove the phaser in my pants pocket before I have to apply all my ingenuity to ducking a wild swing of his lirpa that would have taken my head clean off if it had connected.

He's completely out of his mind now - there's actual foam gathering at the corners of his mouth - and it makes him easy pickings for someone with my training, particularly since I still have all my marbles. If I actually fought him straight up, instead of cheating, it would be a couple of seconds' work to cover the sand with his blood and walk away with my prize, as it were... but I don't want to do either one of those things. From the sound of it, this poor jerk is just as much a victim as Saavik of this crazy priestess's machinations. It wouldn't be sporting to cack him for that. After all, it isn't like he can help being crazy right now.

So instead of fighting him, I let him wear himself out trying and failing to hack me to bits, and then, when he's slowing down and getting sloppy, I get inside his reach, take the lirpa away from him with my right hand, and abandon fancy martial arts techniques in favor of giving him my very best George Foreman hello with my left. And down goes Frazier.

I get out my phaser again, just in case anybody's gotten any ideas, and turn to face T'Vrin as Len kneels next to Spann and Saavik crosses unsteadily to stand next to me.

The old priestess is furious, so much so that she's not even bothering to try and hide it.

<You do not understand the seriousness of the crime you are committing, Earthman,> she spits at me. <You will never be welcome on Vulcan again.>

"He'll be fine," the doctor replies, straightening up. He doesn't know whether to look admiring or censorious. After all, I am treating a hallowed Vulcan ritual with blatant disrespect, but on the other hand, he knows me well enough by now to have a pretty good idea that they must've been asking for it.

Saavik collapses again once we're back aboard Enterprise, but I expected that. Having lost the kal-if-fee, even if I did cheat, Spann's plak tow should be broken. Hers, on the other hand, is still galloping right along, and there's only one documented way to fix that. I have to admit I wouldn't really mind that, but it would almost certainly have unforeseen consequences and under the circumstances I'd always feel at least a bit weird about it.

Jim Kirk is waiting for us when we arrive; he stands watching with a bemused look as Len and Pavel hustle Saavik back to sickbay, then turns to me when we're alone and says conversationally,

"I didn't have a lot of options," I tell him. "Basically it was either do what I did; shank the crazy dude; or nuke the site from orbit." I shrug. "At least I didn't punch the old lady. I have to admit I seriously wanted to." I suddenly realize I'm still holding Spann's lirpa. Not knowing quite what else to do with it, I hand it to Jim; he doesn't know what to do with it either, but that's not my problem right now.

"To take care of our other problem!" I reply over my shoulder. " ... Not in that way!"

Leonard McCoy and I have known each other for a lot of years, even more than I've known Saavik. He doesn't give just anybody the run of his sickbay, but the need is such right now that he offers no objection as I barge into the place at full steam and commandeer Ensign Ruskine and the full biochem lab. He's seen me in this mode before.

"Just stay calm, follow instructions, and don't ask silly questions," I tell Ruskine, who is understandably bemused to find himself and the lab in the hands of a man he knows as a warp drive engineer. "We're going to do what they say can't be done. And do you know why?"

"Because, Ensign, there is nothing that is beyond the grasp of science!" Still riding the adrenaline rush of the adventure below, I can't help letting out a maniacal villain laugh: "MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Now get me 150 milligrams of zaphrexadine."

I'll give Ruskine credit. He clearly has no idea what I'm trying to do, and he just as clearly thinks I've gone crazy; but after receiving only one nod to one questioning look at Len, he follows my instructions to the letter for the next three hours. Even when I start combining things that totally shouldn't go together; even when I start drawing molecular diagrams on a scratch pad and repeating rhyming mnemonics in Minbari (a language that does not exist in his universe) to remind myself of the more esoteric parts of this formula, which I've only seen made once before and that a long time ago.

Finally, I've got it down to the last two tinctures - the way this compound goes together, when synthesized in a 23rd-century biochem lab from medications readily available aboard a starship, really is like movie mad science - and I'm just about ready to combine them. This is the moment of truth. Either this works, or... well, or it doesn't, and I'm back where I started without, most likely, enough time to try it again, at which point we're deep into bat country.

To calm myself down before the big moment, so I don't spill anything or otherwise louse up the final combination, I take a deep breath, hold it for a moment, and find the center.

Then I say casually to Ruskine, "I once worked in a biotech lab. You know what our motto was?"

"You Should Because You Can. And I... " I pour the contents of the smaller test tube I hold into the larger, watching with satisfaction as the combination turns bright red and starts gently steaming. "... can." I take a moment to smirk with satisfaction at my curved reflection in the tube, then snap, "Hypo! Stat!" When nothing happens after a moment, I turn to see Ruskine staring with astonishment at the red liquid. I'm pleased he finds it so riveting, but we're pressed for time, so I let him look for a moment longer and then bark, "I don't know where you went to medical school, son, but where I come from 'stat' means RIGHT GODDAMN NOW!"

Out in the isolation ward, Saavik is strapped down, mumbling and sweating, the readouts above her biobed showing completely deranged vital signs. I have a moment's pause at the sight of her. Is it really fair to her to take this risk? I mean, I'm 99.99 percent sure I've got this nameless drug right, but I'm 100 percent sure the other method would work. Is my own peace of mind worth even that little risk?

Well, think about it logically, son. It's not just your peace of mind; it's hers. This is science. There's risk in it. She's a scientist. This is the path she'd want.

I'm pretty sure I've convinced myself when I hand the hypo to Dr. McCoy and he shoots its contents into her arm.

For a second nothing happens; then she goes quietly to sleep and her vital signs stabilize like magic, one of those "sonofagun!" moments that are so rare but satisfying in the medical sciences, and Len turns to me with his big ol' country-doctor grin.

"Thank you, Doctor," I reply, shaking it. "Hot diggity. I've invented a pharmaceutical for which there is no recreational market whatsoever. It's a red-letter day for biochemistry."

For the second time in a day, I'm awakened from a deep sleep by my doorbell and deeply disoriented for a moment. Rather than just saying "Come in," I go and answer the door in person. The exercise will do me good.

It's Saavik, and she looks about as tired as I feel, but I'm damn glad to see her.

"Hey," I say, stepping back to let her in. "Good to see you up and about - oh 'ello!"

The last is occasioned as, once the door has shut behind her, she takes one brisk stride and hugs me, something she's done perhaps twice before in our entire long friendship.

"Thank you," she says softly in my ear. "I knew you would not fail me. I apologize for involving you without any explanation, but by the time I knew an explanation would be necessary, I was in no condition to provide it."

"It's OK," I reply, hugging her back - I'm no fool - and turning her loose when it's clear she wants it to be over. "Spock gave me the heads-up when he came to tell me you wanted me to go to the surface with you, as much as he could without being too indiscreet. I had a general idea what was going on. The rest... I improvised."

She smiles very faintly; I'm one of the few people I can think of who would have spotted it. "As I hoped," she says. "When I realized the trap I was in, it was almost too late to do anything about it. I did not know precisely how it had happened, how T'Vrin had arranged it, but it did not matter. I knew I needed to change the game if I were to emerge with my... my self-possession intact."

"I chose you because I knew you were the only one who could find a way out. A Starfleet officer would fail, trapped in the doctrine of cultural deference at all costs. But before you became a Starfleet officer, you were the man who wrested me by fire and sword from the ruins of Hellguard. You were Gryphon of the Wedge Defense Force. And he would find a way out."

I can't help but give her a rueful chuckle. "You still took a hell of a chance. You do realize that if I hadn't cheated, Spann would be dead and you'd be - hell, I don't even know, my wife or something."

She nods. "I was confident that you'd find a third path. Besides, there are worse fates."

I blink at her in the gloom of my night-lit cabin. "I'm... not sure how to take that."

"I apologize for the ambiguity," she says with exaggerated contrition. "It was intended as a compliment."

"We're probably both going to get officially yelled at," I remind her. "I'm cool with that, but... "

She shrugs. "I am indifferent to the opinion of the Vulcan authorities; especially now. Besides, I doubt T'Vrin will press the issue. If she does, her actions will be exposed to scrutiny as well... and though there are those among the priesthood who probably agree with her, privately, that I am a dangerous and unstable half-breed who needs to be taught her place," she adds with uncommon bitterness, "they would not all condone the disregard for the law she showed in arranging today's events."

She lets it pass, clearly not expecting great thoughts from me at this hour, and goes on in a semblance of her usual brisk, efficient manner, "At any rate, we are both exhausted; so goodnight and thank you. Without your help this matter could not have been resolved satisfactorily. But it has been, and we may go on with our lives."

"And never speak of it again, I assume," I say with a wry, relieved smile, but Saavik merely says,

"Oh, I expect we will speak of it again... if we are still serving together in seven years." Then, while I'm absorbing that remark, she kisses me on the cheek and adds, "Such is the Vulcan heart. Goodnight, Benjamin."

I stand there pondering the matter for a few moments, then sigh and mutter, "Man, today didn't happen, it only thought it happened," and go back to bed.

"The Vulcan Heart" - a Split Infinitive Mini-Story by Benjamin D. Hutchins
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