especially an older child, would gain much from such exposure to the
universe and its varied cultures.
A soft chime came from the intercom; then the steward's voice informed
the Vulcan that the Zephyr would be docking with the Freelan station in
thirty Standard minutes.
Sarek spent half of those minutes in deep meditation, checking his
biocontrol, verifying that the mental barriers he had set up against the
heat in his blood were holding, would hold long enough for him to
accomplish his duty. The moment the negotiations with Darov were
concluded, he would return to Zephyr and order her captain to take him
to Vulcan at the freighter's maximum warp.
Then he would lock himself in his cabin for the duration of the trip,
and fight to keep control over the madness that would be nibbling at the
fringes of his mind.
Minutes later, dressed and outwardly as cool and composed as usual,
Sarek walked through the short tunnel linking the Zephyr's airlock with
the Freelan station.
The station was empty at the moment, save for him ... there were no
other outworlders staying here as they met with the Freelans on the
planet below via corem link.
Sarek was relieved that he would be spared the necessity of engaging in
small talk with other beings. He did not even enter his sleeping
quarters--a neutral, pastel chamber as bland as any hotel room--but
bypassed them to go directly into the adjoining office with its comm
link.
Within moments, Darov's figure materialized before him.
Sarek was used to facing the cowled, swathed figure, completely muffled
in shimmering garments as colorless as a Taka moth's wing. Darov's
mechanical voice echoed in his ears. "Greetings, Liaison Sarek! I was
not expecting you until this afternoon."
"My ship made good time," Sarek said neutrally. "Greetings to you,
Liaison Darov. I trust you are well?"
"Entirely, thank you," Darov said, and Sarek imagined that he could hear
a touch of genuine warmth tingeing the artificial voice. "And you?
Perhaps you will honor me with a game of chess after we conclude our
meeting?"
Sarek bowed slightly. "I regret that I must respectfully decline, Darov.
I am ... fatigued, and am looking forward to reaching my homeworld, so
I may rest."
Darov's cowl jerked slightly forward, as if the Freelan had moved his
head suddenly to peer at Sarek's face. But the liaison said only, "How
unfortunate that you are not feeling up to playing. I will miss our game
... it has become one of the few pleasures I still allow myself, with
my busy schedule." He straightened slightly, briskly. "If you are not
well, let us by all means conclude these few points quickly, so that you
may rest. Shall we begin?"
"Certainly," Sarek replied, activating half of the screen to show the
data he had brought concerning the crysium ore.
"Now, concerning these subsidiary mining rights ..."
Hours later, they were nearly finished, when Darov suddenly turned his
head, then announced, "Excuse me, Sarek.
I am being summoned on a priority channel. Would you wait for a moment?"
"Certainly, Darov," Sarek said. The Freelan's image vanished, and he
busied himself going over the points they had negotiated. He experienced
a brief flare of satisfaction at his own performance. He'd protected
Vulcan's interests in all major areas, while giving in on minor points
that would no doubt allow Darov satisfaction regarding his own
negotiation strategies.
Halfway through the list, the Vulcan attache gasped suddenly as pain
lanced through his mind and body like a
phaser blast. T'Rea! Her desire called to him, reached out for him,
threatened to engulf him. Wait, he attempted to transmit along the bond,
I am coming to you ...
"Sarek? Sarek? Sarek, are you--" Dimly, Darov's voice reached the
clutching the comm board as though it were a lifeline.
"I ... am fine," the Vulcan managed after a moment.
"Perhaps a brief rest ..."
"I did not know that Vulcans could lie ... until now," Darov said
flatly. The shrouded figure of the alien nearly filled the comm screen,
as though he were leaning forward, peering intently at the Vulcan
attache. "Our station has a fully equipped automated med center. Perhaps
you should--"
Agony lanced through Sarek again, rolled over him in waves so crushing
that they left nothing in their wake except blackness ... a dark so
deep that it had no end, a dark that should have been cool, but was
instead an inferno of black flame, and he was burning, burning, burning
...
Hands on his shoulders, a voice in his ears, calling his name. T'Rea? He
lunged blindly at the hands, at the body he sensed hovering over his,
pulling at him, dragging him.
T'Rea! It had to be she, for the hands on his shoulders were not cool,
as human hands were, but the same temperature as his own fevered flesh.
It must be T'Rea!
Sarek called her name, reaching out, then opened his eyes to see a dark
form bending over him. Moments later he was lifted in arms as strong as
his own, lifted and carried.
"T'Rea ..." he gasped, only to hear a male voice say, "No,
she is not here. Come, I will help you."
Not T'Rea? A male? A rival?
He was being challenged! T'Rea had chosen the Icad-if fee--how dare she?
Enraged, Sarek thrashed, striking out, then found himself falling. He
crashed to the deck of the space station with stunning force.
Space station? Wasn't he on Vulcan?)
But he had no time to ponder his location, for his rival
was bending over him, grappling with him. With a bellow, Sarek struck
out, grabbing madly at the other male's dimly seen figure, his hands
seeking the challenger's throat.
Cloth met his fingers, impeded them from their goal.
Snarling, Sarek ripped savagely, felt the cloth give and come away in
his hand.
But he was on the Freelan space station, wasn't he? I, Vasn't this
Darov, who was trying to save him? This couldn't be a rival Vulcan.t)
But it was. As the shrouding cloth parted, Sarek saw features swim
before his eyes--features that nearly mirrored his own! He was right! A
Vulcan male was trying to take T'Rea from him! He must kill him, kill
him ... kill him ...
A voice crying out, a voice he recognized, despite its lack of
mechanical quality. Darov voice, calling his name ... and those were
Darov features? Slanting black brows, proud black eyes, high cheekbones
chiseled like his own, black hair, rumpled now from their struggle, and,
amid the black locks, ears that were ... that were--)
"I regret this, my friend," the dimly seen figure said, as Sarek froze
in shocked confusion. The arm drew back; then Sarek saw the shoulder
roll forward with sudden movement.
Something struck him hard on the chin, and he knew no more ... "What
happened then?" a voice said, pulling Sarek out of the haze of memory
&nbs
p; into which he had sunk. The sun was setting behind him, and, before him,
T'Rukh loomed at full phase, T'Rukhemai disappearing behind it. Spock
was gazing at him intently.
"Obviously you survived to reach Vulcan. How did you manage it, if you
were deep in plak tow?"
"When I regained consciousness," the ambassador said,
"I was in the med center aboard the Freelan space station, and I was
alone. The automated machinery had evidently diagnosed my condition,
then administered sedatives and hormones that allowed me to function
with some semblance of normaicy. It also helped that T'Rea, unknown to
me, had contacted the consulate on Earth, discovered that I was several
days' journey away from home, and was shielding her mind, blocking me
from reading her ... desire ... through our bond.
"Under the influence of the medication, I reboarded my ship, which
reached Vulcan before the end of the fifth day.
My marriage ceremony took place less than one hour after the Zephyr
achieved orbit around Vulcan."
"And that was when Sybok was conceived?"
Sarek slanted a surprised glance at Spock. It wasn't like his son to ask
such personal questions ... but perhaps that was because he'd never
given him an opening before. "Yes," the ambassador replied simply.
"T'Rea hid his birth from me, though. I did not know he existed until
her death, years later. When she ascended to be High Master of Gol, two
years after our wedding, she divorced me. This was legal, under the
ancient laws, because the High Master is expected to sever all ties to
the outside world in order to more fully embrace kolinahr and the
teaching of that discipline to the Acolytes."
"Did you regret her action?" Spock asked. Two highly personal questions!
The ambassador took a deep breath. "No, I did not. I was immersed in my
work, and had just been appointed under-ambassador.
Besides," he added, with a glance at the villa, "if T'Rea had not
divorced me, I would not have been free when I met your mother. My
relationship with Amanda is eminently more ... satisfying ... than
anything I shared with T'Rea during our single, brief encounter. She was
..." Sarek paused, remembering." ... a typical kolinahru."
"What really happened that day with Darov?" Spock asked. "Pon farr can
... distort ... one's sense of reality."
"Precisely. For that reason, I dismissed what had happened as a plak
tow-induced hallucination," Sarek replied.
"I concluded that I must have blundered around the station, at one point
running into a mirror and deciding that my own reflection was a
challenger in the kal-ocfee ... then, by sheer happenstance, wandered
into the med center, where the automated equipment took over and saved
my life."
"Under the circumstances, that would be the most logical deduction,"
Spock agreed. "But now you know that is not "Yes. My first suspicion of
that was when your ship, the Enterprise, discovered twenty-seven
Standard years ago that the Romulans, whose faces no one had ever seen,
were plainly of Vulcan stock."
"Indeed," Spock said, obviously recalling the incident.
One corner of his mouth twitched. "I recall the first moment when our
viewscreen gave us a glimpse of the Romulan commander. It is odd that
you mention that Darov bore a resemblance to you ... because this
Romulan did, also. I was rather startled when I first saw his image
on-screen."
"Perhaps he and Darov were related in some way," Sarek speculated. "At
any rate, from that time on, I could not dismiss the notion that the
Freelans were not what they seemed. Two years ago, when the Romulans
began to emerge as a serious military threat to the security of the
Federation, I began researching Freelan exhaustively. As I did so, a
pattern emerged."
"What kind of pattern?" Spock asked.
"I believe that the Romulans are behind the sudden popularity and
high-profile activities of the Keep Earth Human League," the ambassador
replied.
Spock blinked. "Please explain that allegation. How could the Freelans
have anything to do with the KEHL?
The KEHL is against all extraterrestrials ... including Romulans."
Sarek rose from the bench and began pacing back and forth as he spoke.
"Consider, Spock. Every time the KEHL has experienced an upsurge in
growth, at least one Freelan has been attending a diplomatic, trade, or
scientific conference within the same city."
Spock raised an eyebrow. "Every time?"
His father nodded.
"What are you postulating, Father? Some form of mass coercion? Drugs?
Hypnotism?" The younger Vulcan could not disguise his skepticism.
Pausing in midstride, Sarek turned to regard his son levelly. "Mental
influence." His words were clipped, terse.
Quickly, he summarized his encounter with Induna, and what he'd
discovered from the KEHL leader's mind.
"But Romulans do not have the ability to meld or mind-touch," Spock
protested. "It could not have been a Freelan who influenced the KEHL
president."
"I know that Romulans do not share the Vulcan telepathic ability," Sarek
said, somewhat sharply. "I am not suggesting that they are influencing
KEHL members personally. During the past three years, Freelans have
begun using Vulcan secretaries and aides in increasing numbers. Have you
noticed this?"
He watched his son in T'Rukh's lurid illumination as Spock mentally
reviewed the data stored in his mind. "I have only recently begun
attending diplomatic conferences, but you are correct. Every time I have
seen a Freelan envoy, he or she has been accompanied by a Vulcan
secretary or aide. The Khitomer Conference is a case in point."
"Yes," Sarek said. "Soran was rather taken with the Freelan aide he met
there."
"Father, the practice of hiring Vulcans as administrative aides is
hardly unusual."
"True," Sarek agreed. "Many young Vulcans take employment on other
worlds as a way of traveling after completing the first stage of their
education. However ..." He fixed his son with an intent gaze, his voice
dropping to a near-whisper.
"None of those Freelan secretaries or aides were born on Vulcan."
"Indeed?" Spock blinked, then his eyes narrowed.
"Fascinating ..." he murmured, suddenly comprehending what the other was
saying. "None of them?"
The elder Vulcan shook his head. "None. Including the young woman named
Savel. I have traced every young Vulcan traveling off-world for the past
five years ... and no records show that any of them have been hired by
Freelans."
"Yet I saw the Freelan envoy with her at his side myself," Spock said.
"I recall them clearly."
"As do I," Sarek agreed. "But whoever that young Vulcan woman was, she
was not born on this world."
"Then where did those young Vulcans who are influencing the KEHL leaders
come from?" Spock asked.
"They came from Freelan." Sarek's voice was harsh and flat, and he
swallowed to ease the dryness in his throat.
"Spock, the Romu
lans have been systematically hijacking ships with
Vulcan passengers for decades. I have studied the shipping reports, the
passenger lists, for every nearby sector, and there is an
eighty-six-point-seven-percent correlation between the disappearance of
a ship and the presence of one or more Vulcans on board."
"Continue," Spock said, his expression grim.
"It is my belief that those abducted Vulcans were taken to Freelan and
forced to produce offspring. Their resulting children grew up under
Romulan influence and training--and they serve the Romulans. These
children learned to use their telepathy in ways Vulcans raised on this
world are taught to abhor."
Spock was quick to follow the ambassador's logic. "So now we have
Freelan envoys, merchants, and scientists traveling to Earth and the
Terran colonies on a regular basis, most of whom are accompanied by a
Vulcan secretary, or aide. And those young Vulcans, trained in Vulcan
mental disciplines, but lacking our ethical prohibitions, are using
their telepathy as they mingle among the populace. They influence humans
with a buried streak of xenophobia, inflaming them into becoming prime
material for the KEHL."
"Exactly," Sarek said. "I must admit that at first I doubted that Vulcan