FIC: Second Star to the Right (K/S, 1/1)
Title: Second Star to the Right
Author: jaylee_g
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Rating: Pg-13
Status: Complete
Word Count: 7,067
Universe: AU - modern day setting
Summary: Did the Nazca build the Nazca lines on their own, or did they, perhaps, have help?
Excerpt: “Do you think there is life out there?” he’d asked back then, on the cusp of thirteen, his voice breaking as the onset of puberty reared its ugly head, and his eyes looking through the lens of his gift to land on her for the first time. 40 Eridani A.
“I’m sure of it,” his grandfather had answered, looking up towards the sky. “The universe is a big place, what we see with our eyes only but an insignificant, tiny portion of it.”
“Not so insignificant, Grandfather,” Jim muttered to his memories, leaning back in his chair, while his eyes remained trained on the one star. "We were apparently significant enough to be left a map."
Notes: Written for, and originally published in, T'hy'la #32
Notes 2: It's been so long since I've posted a story on livejournal I think I may have forgotten how. Please forgive any formatting faux pas.
Notes 3: I know I've been largely AWOL the past year or so. It's been such a wretched year, not going to sugarcoat it. However, one thing that has remained consistent is my love of Star Trek, my love of K/S and my love of the K/S shippers. These three things will never change. I've missed you guys!
*****
“Phyllis Pitluga’s work has been debunked.”
Jim fought to hold back a groan of frustration, managing to succeed… just. What he really wanted to do was bang his head against a wall, but reasoned such an obvious sign of frustration wouldn’t help his cause. It just wasn’t worth making his headache worse.
Good God, why was it he was forced to share this plane of existence with idiots? Though he supposed it was just one of life’s great mysteries. But if Finnegan would only listen to him - short-sighted little pissant that he was, and even despite having the unfortunate disadvantage of possessing the IQ of a peanut - there was at least one mystery that they could solve.
He took a deep breath, then another, summoned his best poker face and flashed a smile.
Jim had long since come to the conclusion that Finnegan was a deeply closeted gay. It was in the way the man’s eyes seemed to gravitate more towards their male classmates then their female ones. The way he fought to overcompensate in his masculinity by acting like the world’s biggest douche to the point where Jim wondered if the guy went home at night and practiced smashing beer cans on his forehead and belching at high volume. The way he fondled Jim under the guise of heckling. Text book case of sexual repression. Jim would almost feel sorry for him, were it not for the aforementioned heckling and the intelligence of a Neanderthal. Which, Jim reflected, was probably unkind… to the Neanderthal.
Yet having met Finnegan, the elder, once or twice when he‘d come to visit his son on campus, Jim could easily understand why. The man was a bear. A mean one. A trait he had seemingly passed on to his son, if one didn’t look past the surface.
Jim had always made it a practice to look past the surface.
Overbearing fathers or not, Jim wasn’t afraid of taking ruthless advantage of the situation. He had a thesis to write. A masters degree to obtain. And he would graduate in the top five percent of his class if it killed him.
His calculations were sound. They had to be.
He stepped into Finnegan’s personal space, feeling the heat the other man was radiating, watching as the other man’s pupils grew, and slowly reached up to place his hand on the other man’s shoulder, hiding another smile as Finnegan subconsciously leaned closer to him. It didn’t hurt that he was bisexual himself, he could make this convincing.
He leaned in a little closer himself, watched as Finnegan’s nostrils flared.
“Not debunked,” he breathed, “but left with too many holes. The three points of the spider do match up with Mintaka, Alnilam, and Alnitak as they would have appeared in 400 A.D. - Orion’s belt - just as she hypothesized they did. I’ve checked and rechecked. It is a perfect match.”
“Your bachelors is in archeology, Jim. Not astronomy. This is not your area of expertise,” Finnegan retorted, but there was little bite to it. Progress. Jim moved in a little closer.
“The studies into the meaning behind the Nazca lines have long since been a collaboration of both.,” Jim shrugged Finnegan’s protest off. “And you know damn well I can work my way around a computer. I’m telling you, it’s not just the spider that aligns with a system. The dog? The foot on the first leg ends with two toes drawn very close together and a third toe pointed further away. None of the other feet are represented this way. Which leads me to believe it was deliberate. It’s 40 Eridani A, B, and C. I’m not wrong about this. All I need is some lab time, Ben, that’s all I’m asking you for.”
For a second it looked like Finnegan was going to cave; Jim could almost see the other man’s resistance crumbling. Could almost taste his victory…
And then Finnegan drew from some deep seated pool of stubborn reserve. Jim knew he’d lost his opportunity before the other man opened his mouth.
“40 Eridani B and C look like one star with a small telescope. You cannot tell they are separate. There is no way the Nazca possessed the technology to be able to map them. You’re as crazy as those kooks who claim those goddamned hieroglyphs are actually spaceship runways for little green men,” Ben Finnegan spat, backing away. “You’re demented, Kirk. You’re no different than that bookish, lost little freshman you were when you first came here four years ago. And just as pathetic. What would your General father think of the ‘oh so brilliant Jim Kirk’ if he heard you spouting all this bullshit? Get your head out of the clouds and back down to Earth, Kirk. And get your ass out of my lab.”
Jim sighed as he watched the other man storm to the other side of the room, as far away from Jim as he could possibly get, as if afraid Jim could corrupt him somehow if he remained too close.
And to be entirely fair, that had been the general idea.
“I never said they were little,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head to clear it. “Though they could very well be green,” he added in after-thought, grabbing his things so he could rush home to his laptop. Plan A was a dismal failure but it was no matter. On to Plan B. If he couldn’t get access to the astronomy lab semi-legitimately, he’d graduate to full-scale dubious means.
He’d hack them.
*****
Jim grimaced as the bitter, bitter taste of coffee that had been reheated at least five times over the past twelve hours hit his tongue. He looked down into his mug with blood-shot eyes, wondering if it was worth the effort to get up and make a new pot.
But that would require energy. Energy which was better spent completing the puzzle.
The spider represented Orion. The dog, Sirius. The astronaut, Alpha Centaurus. He was sure of it.
He touched his monitor, resting his index finger on the star that had started it all.
His grandfather, Tiberius, had given him his first telescope for his thirteenth birthday. Had helped him assemble it, set it up, in the backyard of the Kirk family farm in Riverside, Iowa and spouted capricious ideas about space being the final frontier.
His father had always complained that his father had been overly strict with him, that he’d come from a bygone era where children were to be seen and not heard. But to Jim, the grandson whose middle name matched his own, Tiberius was a comrade, a co-conspirator, an indulgent wizard of a man, with a twinkle in his eye, a keen, sharp intelligence and a faith in his grandson that was as unparalleled.
“Do you think there is life out there?” he’d asked back then, on the cusp of thirteen, his voice breaking as the onset of puberty reared its ugly head, and his eyes looking through the lens of his gift to land on her for the first time. 40 Eridani A.
“I’m sure of it,” his grandfather had answered, looking up towards the sky. “The universe is a big place, what we see with our eyes only but an insignificant, tiny portion of it.”
“Not so insignificant, Grandfather,” Jim muttered to his memories, leaning back in his chair, while his eyes remained trained on the one star. “We were apparently significant enough to be left a map. Just what parts of the Galaxy do the other animals represent?”
40 Eridani A was an orange dwarf star, he knew, a bit smaller in size to Earth’s sun. Any planet that orbited it would be cast in an orange glow. And since their two suns were so similar, there could very well be life, sixteen light years away from Earth.
Jim smiled to himself as he thought of his own, far more whimsical name for 40 Eridani A.
A love of astronomy wasn’t the only legacy his now-dead grandfather had passed on to him, but a love of history as well. And with a shared name like Tiberius there was a certain portion of history that was a particular passion for them both.
“Vulcan,” Jim breathed, thinking of the Roman god of fire. A fiery name for a fiery system, orange sun, potential planets, and all. It seemed fitting. “What secrets are you hiding? How did the Nazca know?”
*****
“Are you two breeding again?” Jim called as he walked through the door of his parents’ house, grinning as he startled his older brother, Sam, and his sister-in-law, Aurelan; they both jumped in shock.
Ah, he hadn’t lost his touch. And some things never changed. Sam was so easy, always only half aware of the world around, always partially lost to thought. He got it from their mother.
“What sort of holy terror do you mean to release upon us now?” he followed up with a smirk, delighting in his sister-in-law’s indignant squawk in response to his accusations.
“Well, look who decided to grace us with his presence,” Sam retorted, recovering quickly, and putting an arm around his very pregnant wife to steady her. “Long time no see there, Ace, what brings Sir James, the intrepid explorer to our humble part of the world?”
“Oh, I thought I’d stop by before heading south,” Jim announced airily, trying not to show how uncomfortable it made him, even now, to be back in his childhood home. “Very south,” he added, as a means to remind himself that he would soon be out amongst the world once more.
Humble was certainly one way to describe Riverside. Stifling, another. As a child he’d felt so repressed here, had always wondered if he would ever escape. No sooner had the ink dried on his high school diploma then he’d signed up for the Navy, aiming to follow in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, thinking he might make a career out of it, perhaps, if it suited him. And while his time there was challenging and glorious, it hadn’t been enough. He was still restless. Always restless. Just what would appease him, he didn’t know. He hadn’t found the answer yet, wondered if he ever would.
He’d done his four years, collected a college scholarship for his service, backpacked through Europe for three months and then had gone the university route instead. His family was used to his infrequent coming and goings. He visited them, when he could. But Riverside had never felt like home when he had lived there, less so now that he didn’t. It was uncomfortable to try and fit into old skin, and awkward to deal with the probing gazes of his retired father, his mother, and his ever, steady, dutiful brother - the reliable son. Thus his visits were always fleeting, and mostly rare.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ their eyes would always say. ‘Why do you run full speed ahead through life like your tail’s on fire?’
He felt bad that he didn’t feel bad that he didn’t have an answer for them. Figured half the fun of life was in the discovery part of finding answers, not so much in the answers themselves. But such a sentiment was difficult to put to words, so he didn’t try. Neither did they ever ask him to elaborate. And all of them, Jim and his family, both, seemed content to keep the status quo.
“Mom and Dad home?” he asked his brother, setting his knapsack on the kitchen table just in time to crouch and meet an overly excited four-year-old toddler who came barreling into him.
“Uncle Jim, Uncle Jim,” little Peter called as Jim picked him up, tossed him in the air, settling the child down to catch the sight of his mother and father both, standing in the doorway of the kitchen from the living room, watching the scene unfold.
Like he always did whenever he interacted with his family, Jim felt like part of a Norman Rockwell painting. It sometimes made it difficult to breathe.
“Just how far south are we talking about, Jim,” Winona Kirk asked, stepping forth to kiss her youngest on the cheek.
“Peru,” Jim answered, accepting the kiss, her hug, the smell of roses she always carried with her, and the feel of his father’s hand on his shoulder while waiting for the inevitable...
“What in the hell is in Peru?” his father asked, looking at him with an expression of bafflement that Jim, alone, could manage to elicit. Unlike his eldest son, George Kirk was not a man easily startled. Too many years in the Navy, too many years as a leader of men. Jim felt a small amount of satisfaction that he was the only one that could ever manage it. There was a deeply seeded thrill in eliciting emotion from the otherwise stoic.
Jim held his breath before answering, wondering if this was the time they’d asked for elaboration. If this was the time they’d finally chosen to probe…
“Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that. Cusco, Machu Picchu, a train, some cows,” he turned a grin towards his sister-in-law, flashing a smirk at her laughter. “Figured I would plop myself on the middle of an alpaca farm and commune with a nature a bit before I put the finishing touches on my thesis. At 11,000 above sea level, the air has got to be clear.”
“Only you, Jim, only you,” Aurelan said with a shake of her head.
“Tiger can’t change his stripes,” Jim’s father muttered under his breath, while his mother followed that up with a “Jim, please do pack a sweater,” as if he were still a teenager.
They didn’t ask.
And after a wonderful home cooked meal, and a restless night sleeping in the bed he’d used to dream of the stars in as a child, he bade them goodbye and continued on his way.
*****
Jim eyed the tower just off the left side of the Panamerican highway.
Twilight was fast approaching, and soon, the air tours would start. Hundreds of tourists passing over Nazca valley in rickety four passenger planes, most of them clutching their stomachs as motion sickness set in. If he was going to pull this off, he’d have to do it now.
The tower guard was distracted, probably off for a smoke, so, feeling a flash of adrenaline pass through him, Jim stepped off the road, and into the valley itself, no one the wiser.
He had the layout of the valley memorized. He didn’t need an aerial tour, didn’t need a map. He knew what each curve meant.
The lines had been created by the removal of surface stone, revealing the lighter colored soil below. The plateau was arid. There was no wind, no rain, thus the lines had remained, untouched, for close to two thousand years. The lines were too large, too precise, for the Nazca to have accomplished them without a) an aerial vantage, or b) some sort of outside help. It was the later idea which had prompted Jim to pursue a degree in archeology. One of the designs was an astronaut of all things. How would a people who had thrived during 400 AD have known about astronauts? For Jim that question alone had cinched an obsession.
They were a mystery. Jim had always loved a good mystery.
The dog was in the middle of the valley, separated a bit from its closest companions. It seemed like forever to get there, but a quick glance at his watch told Jim hardly any time had passed at all. He drew in a breath as he came to the exact spot he’d been aiming for, the location of the design he thought to represent 40 Eridani A. His Fire God. His Vulcan.
He was here. Finally. After all that time. He’d never been religious, had always been a more of an empirical evidence sort of person, but a small part of him wondered if his grandfather was looking down on him now, and if so, what he thought. The moment felt so… surreal. So removed from time and space. And maybe it was.
Dazed he sank to a sitting position, unsure of what to do now, feeling the cool desert ground seep through the material of his pants. Desert days were murderously hot, but desert nights alarmingly frigid. With dusk approaching, Jim was between the two extremes. Stuck in limbo. Always stuck in limbo. That feeling, at least, was… normal.
A few feet away from him a clump of lichen grew, drawing his attention. He had the odd impulse to pull it out, weed it like he would a garden, and then dig beneath it. For all of two seconds he argued with himself. The Nazca lines were relatively undisturbed for over two thousand years, putting a hole in the middle of one of the lines seemed an unpardonable sin. However, his shoulder devil reckoned, ‘you can always put everything back in place. No one has to know. You can leave it just as you found it.’
His curiosity really would be the death of him one day.
He gave into his impulse.
He was glad he had thought to wear gloves as he dug his hands into the dirt. He didn’t believe in providence, but well, luck was certainly on his side. It didn’t take long, maybe four or five clumps of soil, before he hit a snag. A metallic looking rock, worn smooth by time, molded by earth. Jim lifted it up, meaning to quickly toss it out of his way, when an odd design etched on one flat surface caught his eye. The design was that of a triangle, coming to a point within a hollow circle. At the tip of the triangle, within the empty space of the circle, the small pattern of a star, as if the triangle came to a celestial point.
This… this could be something, and he felt his excitement mount, threatening to choke him. This could make his career. Millions of people would have jumped at the chance to discover something like this. It could be an artifact, thousands of years old…. Or, his more practical side offered, it could be a souvenir dropped by a tourist who had decided that a tour by foot of the lines was a much more hands on experience in the same way that Jim had.
Upon closer inspection it did look like the design had been sketched by laser. There were no visible mistakes, no flaws, no jagged lines, the curves much too smooth to be carved using hand tools. And lasers hadn’t been invented until 1917.
‘Oh great, Jim. Your instincts led you to a paperweight. Joy. Guess what Sam’s getting for Christmas this year.’
Still, there was something about the design; in all his studies of the Nazca geometric shapes, he’d never encountered one like this. He wondered what it meant.
He set the rock down to remove his glove, wanting to trace the design with his fingers, feel it with his skin. Past friends and lovers had always accused him of being tactile, he supposed they were probably right. But being tactile had always served him well in the past, he supposed it would do so again. Couldn’t hurt, anyway.
The minute his hand touched the stone he burned, then he felt light, so light, as if he weighed nothing at all, and then he saw white, like a thick, thick fog and settled over him.
His last thought before becoming completely consumed by it was, ‘hmmm, this is certainly interesting…’
*****
“Infinite diversity in infinite combinations,” Jim heard a smooth voice say as he drifted out of his fog. He tried to move his head, but his body felt leaden, weighed down and sore, as if he’d been to battle. And there were these bright lights up above him, blinding him. Three, no four, perhaps two… okay, it was one. One light. Jesus, was the room spinning?
Christ, he hadn’t had a hangover since Sam’s bachelor party years earlier. And while that had certainly been a harrowing experience, it had nothing on this. Jim had never liked the experience of being drunk, didn’t like losing control. So what on earth had caused him to go on a bender, and what the hell had he been drinking, anyway? 100% proof alcohol? Was there such a thing?
“Wha-?” he mumbled to the voice, his throat feeling like someone had swiped at it with sandpaper, and hoping said voice had a supply of aspirin on hand. A large supply. And not in the sissy regular dose, but extra, extra extra strength. Man-sized aspirin.
“During one of your brief moments of awareness you had inquired after the meaning of the symbol on the stone. The symbol was that of IDIC, the basis of the philosophy of my people,” the voice intoned. It was a smooth voice, and a soft one. Jim liked it. Were the guy’s voice abrasive, Jim would have probably tried to chuck something at his head just then… assuming Jim could lift his arm, which was very much doubtful at present. So it was better all around the being’s voice was as smooth as chocolate.
What was that recipe for a hangover cure again? Tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce and raw egg, wasn’t it? Oh god, gross. He was going to throw-up, who on earth had invented such a disgusting concoction? And, more appropriately, who on earth would be idiotic enough to think that would stop nausea instead of induce it?
He squinted his eyes, willing them to focus. Gradually his vision cleared and he could make out the face of a man looming over him. The man had glossy black hair, and oddly shaped eye brows, his pale skin cast with a greenish hue… but none of that was the most striking feature of the man’s appearance. No, the title of striking went to his rather glorious ears, which came to a point just like something out of a Tolkien novel.
It was never a good idea to open one’s mouth after they had been hit by a truck or mauled by a lion, which Jim certainly felt he had experienced both, and probably simultaneously, but before he could squelch the desire, he blurted out…“You really are green. There’s a hint of it anyway. It’s very fetching. I like your ears. They’re fetching, too. Tell me, is your planet orange?”
But before the other being could answer him, he met oblivion once more.
*****
The second time he woke there was no pain. None. In fact, he felt incredible.
Alien medication must be quite impressive.
He turned his head and his gaze landed on a pair of large brown eyes, gazing at him unblinkingly. The guy’s posture was ramrod straight. Jim’s immediate knee jerk reaction was to help the poor guy relax.
“My name is Jim,” he said softly, surprised to find his voice in perfect working order.
Strike impressive, alien medication was extraordinary.
“I am Spock,” the alien responded. And if Jim’s brain immediately went to a comparison to the field of psychology and the subject of child rearing to the being before him, he would never admit it out loud. He thought the name suited this Spock far better.
“It’s nice to meet you, Spock,” Jim replied, flashing a smile. He was waiting for the moment when it would hit him that he had been abducted by aliens like some sort of Spielberg helmed motion picture cliché and if panic would then follow… the moment never came. He had too many questions, there just wasn’t enough time left in the current century for panic. The next century, however, was fair game.
Panic was overrated anyway. Always had been.
The alien raised an elegant eyebrow at him and Jim felt his smile grow. It was really rather cute.
“You seemed relatively calm for one of your species who has just survived the Fal-tor-pan and who has awoken to find himself in unfamiliar surroundings,” Spock announced, raising the other brow.
Jim swallowed to hold back a laugh. Calm? No. Excited? Yes. Undoubtedly. This, what was happening, was the culmination of a dream. For the first time in his life, he felt like he was actually there, existing in a moment, not watching it from afar, utterly detached.
“What is a far-tar-po? And where am I? Am I on Vulcan? How is it that you know English?” Jim asked, mentally cataloguing the other questions he had to ask, but figuring those were a good start.
“Vulcan?” Spock asked. The eyebrows raised higher. Jim wanted to know how he did that.
“Fire planet,” Jim answered with a sheepish grin. “A nod to your orange dwarf star.”
“Ah,” Spock replied, dark eyes lighting in what seemed to Jim could be construed as gentle humor. At least he’d like to think so. The look certainly became Spock. Jim found he really wanted to see the Vulcan amused some more. For some reason he didn‘t think the other guy did amused too often. He seemed kind of… stiff. “It is a fitting name.”
“I thought so,” Jim answered, a bit smugly. “So far-toupe?” he continued, not wasting any time. Questions, questions, so many questions, and never a minute to spare.
“The Fal-tor-pan is the removal of a katra, the essence of who we are, if you will, from a temporary host into that of a vacant body,” Spock explained, his shoulders relaxing. Jim took that as a win. “An ancestor of mine, one my family had considered lost to us, had crashed onto your planet two millennia ago. The rock you refer to was actually made of a polycrystalline silicone material. Such material is able to… contain things.”
“Yes, I know this. Crystal is what our computer microchips are made from,” Jim supplied. Spock gave him an odd little stare. Jim didn’t know if that meant, ‘man you humans are behind a bit in your technology if you’re still using crystal for data storage on your computers’ or, ‘hmmm, there might be intelligent life on Earth after all’… he certainly hoped it was the latter. Mankind probably must already look rather unevolved to these guys as it was for not being able travel beyond their own moon. And that was assuming that mankind had indeed actually made it to the moon, and the whole thing hadn’t been produced in a Hollywood studio the way some conspiracy theorists might suggest.
“My ancestor was able to transfer his katra into the vessel, which is where it remained until you uncovered it,” Spock continued, and that was when Jim stopped to pause.
“Wait, wait… So what you‘re trying to tell me is that I had your ancestor’s soul inside of me?!”
Why hello panic, there you are. Apparently there was room for it in this century after all.
“This is no longer the case,” Spock replied calmly, eyeing him curiously, as if he thought it odd that the silly human picked now as the time to show some concern. ‘Cause, you know, Jim housed souls in his body every day of the week. No biggie. All par for the course… were Jim living in the Twilight Zone. Which, now that he thought about it, might not actually be that far off base.
This day, week, month, however long it had been, certainly went down in the books as the oddest day of his existence. Perhaps the oddest day of anyone’s existence, except for maybe that one point in history where a posh Roman city was successfully overtaken by a group of barbarians who called themselves the Huns. Jim was sure that had to be quite odd… for the Romans. Brilliant tactician, that Attila. But he digressed.
Apparently Jim digressed when he panicked. Good to know. He wondered, abstractly, if the Vulcan whose soul he carried now found himself with an odd obsession with late BC and early AD Earth European history.
“He didn’t access your memories while housed inside your body,” Spock informed him, as if reading Jim’s mind. “Such a violation would be abhorrent to us, to our ways.”
Jim blinked. Blinked again. Then felt his body relax. “That is exceedingly relieving to hear,” he replied, once more gaining control.
“Though he did say that you are an honorable being, in possession of a truly dynamic mind. You helped him fashion a communication beacon, capable of signaling our closest ship. This is how we were able to retrieve you.”
Jim was certain Spock meant that to be a compliment, and ordinarily Jim would have preened under it. As it was though…
“Well,” Jim announced, internally trying to process that information. The fact that he couldn’t remember a lick of it disturbed him. Greatly. “Apparently I’ve been very busy recently. Would be nice if I remembered it, though. I mean, suppose I wanted to take up manufacturing communication beacons as a hobby?”
“Your memories will return in time,” Spock replied, just as dryly, his eyes lit with humor once more. So Spock had picked up on his sarcasm, then. Jim decided then and there that he really liked this Spock. The guy was obviously a kindred sou-… spirit. The word ‘soul’ was a bit of a touchy subject at present, even to Jim’s own mind.
“So the Nazca lines… the geometric shapes in the soil? Did your ancestor create those before he died and somehow managed to magically transfer his soul into a rock? Which, by the way, how exactly that feat was accomplished I’d like an explanation of… later.”
“He did not,” Spock replied, eyes dancing with even more humor. “He supplied several maps of different sectors of the galaxy to the people he encountered before his wounds overtook him, his hope was that one of our vessels traveling close enough to your planet might see the map of our quadrant in your soil and come to retrieve him. The people he encountered, however, had their own… interpretation of the information they received and they chose to record it in patterns more… familiar to them.”
So Jim had been right. And Ben Finnegan wrong. Jim was so not surprised by that he could pass out… again. Were Jim to ever see the man again, he supposed a little rubbing it in wouldn’t be too crass, if done with subtlety and style.
He’d enjoy every minute of it.
“So they really did do it on their own,” Jim mused to himself, in awe of the Nazca. “They must have done it using the nearby hills, and probably with the use of many diagrams… The math, the geometry, involved to accomplish that,” Jim shook his head. “They wouldn’t have been able to tell what the final product looked like from the sky.”
Spock nodded, his eyes belying his understanding as Jim pieced it all together. “If there is one thing this experience has taught my people, it’s that, for a pre-warp civilization, your kind is immensely resilient, and abundantly creative when presented with a challenge. We do not think it will be long…”
“Until we’re out among the galaxy creating our own star charts,” Jim supplied, grinning, imagining it. He really couldn’t conceive of a more exciting fate to befall mankind.
But not yet. There were still many hurdles, Jim knew, that mankind would have to overcome before they could make this move. A lot of hurdles. Thousands of them.
He was actually somewhat surprised that he wasn’t more upset than he should be about that, but well, he was on Vulcan. At least, he thought so. Looking around the room, truly examining it for the first time since waking up, he was certain he was in a house. He suspected a spaceship would be far more sterile. Less homey and airy. And to his right there was a window, and out the window was the dazzling landscape of reddish orange soil, reflecting the sun like fire.
Just as he had pictured it.
“I really am on Vulcan,” Jim breathed, turning back and meeting Spock’s ever assessing eyes. Jim was so excited he was shaking. “4.9 parsecs from Earth.”
“Yes,” Spock said, simply.
“But that’s amazing,” Jim proclaimed, smiling so wide he was flashing teeth.
Spock eyed Jim with barely concealed surprise, probably at Jim’s rather blatant display of enthusiasm, he guessed. “You are not at all how I predicted you would be were I ever to meet another of your kind,” he stated.
“Well, good,” Jim retorted. “I would hate to be predictable…” he trailed off as the later part of what Spock had said sunk in. “What do you mean another of my kind?”
If the eyebrow thing was cute, a completely abashed Vulcan was considerably more charming.
*****
Jim stared at the soup placed before him, partially expecting it to stare back.
“It’s purple,” he announced to the Lady Amanda, incredulous.
“Hmmm, so it is,” she teased, eyes sparkling in mirth.
“And it’s glowing,” Jim supplied, rather dubious.
“Plomeek is a vibrant vegetable, chock full of nutrients,” she placated, patting his arm. “Now be a good boy and eat up.”
Jim smiled at her, abashed, and picked up his spoon. ‘Brave new world’, he told himself, ‘this is what you wanted, remember? To discover new things?’
Thus he took his first bite of plomeek soup.
It wasn’t a bad flavor, per se, a little bland. Could use a shot or five of Tabasco. But all in all, he supposed it could have been worse. It reminded him a bit of the poi he’d once sampled in Hawaii.
Amanda was looking at him expectantly, and far be it for him to lose this golden opportunity to tease. She was almost as much fun to banter with as her son.
Vulcans, he had learned, were rather stringent vegetarians. But then, no species was perfect.
“Well, it’s no porterhouse steak, complete with russet potatoes marinated in dill sauce and butter and salted grilled fresh asparagus, but you know, in a pinch…”
Amanda laughed, the sound ringing through the kitchen. “Oh Jim, you are insufferable,” she said, but the way she said it was laden with obvious affection.
Jim felt a twinge around his heart at it. He’d been having a lot of those lately. The more Vulcan came to feel like home, the more familiar he became with this new world around him, the more the twinges came.
Being here, on Vulcan, was the accumulation of every dream he’d ever had.
The problem with having dreams come true is that inevitably, they had to come to an end.
Jim didn’t want them to end.
He was an explorer by nature, he fully and completely understood that about himself now. He’d never be happy not asking questions and searching for the answers. And here he was on this bright desert planet, with universal translators and other, mind boggling technology, with advanced medicine, and several millennia of art and history and literature. With katras and rituals and wonderfully diverse flora and fauna. Jim wasn’t simply studying history. For the first time in his life he was living history.
The feeling was unparalleled.
It didn’t hurt that the Vulcans, for all their logic loving ways - which Jim may have hard time with for exactly the five seconds it took him to realize that their use of logic didn’t mean that they were completely without a sense of humor - had widely regarded him with open curiosity. Oh there had been a few that had been snobbish, clearly looking down on him, but for the most part the Vulcans were a scientific people. They had questions about Earth, its history, its development, its foray into space travel (and how embarrassing that had been to discuss). Everywhere Jim went, he was regaled with inquiry.
That’s when it became helpful to have the very human, Lady Amanda at his back.
Jim was certain the governmental higher ups on Earth would be very uncomfortable with just how often Earth was visited, and not always by beings as peace loving as the Vulcans. There were frightening things out there, Amanda had warned. Yet, looking around him, his eyes resting on the familiar figure of a tall, lanky half human/half Vulcan being walking up the path from Jim’s vantage by the kitchen window, he seriously doubted the bad could ever outweigh the good.
Vulcan definitely had other enticing treasures to its name. And none more so than that particular treasure.
Jim wanted Spock, couldn’t remember the last time he had been so thoroughly enamored with someone in his life. It was so awful.
For the past few weeks, while Jim recovered from his experiences, and his memory gradually returned, Spock had been his constant companion. Jim had gotten… used to having him around.
…Way too used to it.
“A penny for your thoughts,” Amanda’s voice snapped him out of his reverie.
“They’re hardly worth that much,” Jim teased, turning to face Spock’s mom.
“Oh, I doubt that,” Amanda replied, an ever present twinkle in her eyes. “If there is one thing I’ve learned about you these past weeks, Jim, it’s that you’re hardly dull company.”
Jim knew he was being teased, knew he should muster a smile back, but his heart was too heavy. In a few days a transport would take him back to Earth. Sarek had asked Jim for his confidentiality on all that he had seen, all that he had experienced, and Jim had given his word that he would keep mum or die trying.
Not that it would matter even if he did blab to all and sundry. No one on Earth would believe any of this for a second. He’d be shipped off to a local psychiatrist faster than he could say, “…but I’ll even take a lie detector test.”
“I don’t want to leave,” Jim admitted, turning away from the window. Emotional confrontation wasn’t his forte. But he couldn’t afford to be anything but brutally honest, with himself, and with those around him.
The truth was less painful than self-deception, especially in the long run.
“Then don’t,” she said simply, as if it were that easy. As if anything were that easy.
There were other things to consider. He’d always felt like an outsider within his family, always bitten by a wanderlust they couldn’t understand, but he loved them and they loved him. Wouldn’t it be selfish to stay, leaving them wondering forevermore what happened to him? Letting his parents grapple with the idea that they had somehow managed to outlive their youngest child?
And then there was Spock. Who was a touch telepath. Who Jim, being the tactile guy that he was, had touched on multiple occasions. And on one particularly memorable (and rather humorous) occasion had even managed to surprise the Vulcan with a hug. Spock was going to find out that Jim harbored feelings for him eventually, mostly likely sooner rather than later. Would Spock even be receptive to that, Jim wondered? Did Spock even enjoy the company of men?
Where would he live? What would he do? His degree was absolutely useless here. And though Jim knew he could easily spend a lifetime studying Vulcan culture, reading their ancient texts, somehow finding his way aboard their ships and going on great adventures in space, he doubted any of that paid the rent.
“I would give anything to stay…” he trailed off.
“We can send your parents a message, the next time one of our ships is near Earth. You wouldn’t be able to tell them where you are, of course, but you can let them know that you’re alive and that you’re happy,” Amanda offered. “I did something similar, all those years ago, after Sarek had rescued me.”
It was appealing, so appealing but…
“What would I do? Where would I stay?”
“You teach English, and human culture and history at the Academy. There is always an interest in a new culture, you won’t find yourself lacking for students. And you stay with me,” came a second, distinctly masculine voice, from the doorway between the kitchen and the entry hall.
…The same voice Jim would always remember had once woke him up to the merry tune of ‘infinite diversity in infinite combinations’.
IDIC… It was certainly an accurate description for what he and Spock were, whenever they walked side by side, their foot fall nearly in sync. It was fitting as first songs went.
Jim turned slowly in his chair and faced Spock dead on, and knew, in that moment, that he was an idiot for not recognizing that Spock had returned his feelings before, for it was there, so blatant, stark and wanting in the Vulcan’s eyes.
Jim was normally very good at that type of thing. Normally very… intuitive when it came to his effect on others. But Spock, well, Spock was an enigma.
It was fortunate then that Jim liked enigmas best of all.
Jim smiled, the first genuine smile he’d mustered all day, and pointed to the chess board the Lady Amanda had specially designed and crafted.
“Tell you what, Spock, you win, I stay, I win, I go,” he flirted, his voice thick with promise. It wouldn’t do to be easy. He wanted to stay with Spock more desperately than he’d ever wanted anything, but there were… rituals to this type of thing.
“Agreed,” Spock affirmed, eyes narrowed in challenge.
It was the first game of Jim’s life where he did not begrudge his opponent’s embarrassingly swift victory, in fact, he may or may not have helped it along.
Not that he’d ever begrudge Spock anything anyway.
… And Spock had better watch out the next time they played chess.
The End!
Author: jaylee_g
Pairing: Kirk/Spock
Rating: Pg-13
Status: Complete
Word Count: 7,067
Universe: AU - modern day setting
Summary: Did the Nazca build the Nazca lines on their own, or did they, perhaps, have help?
Excerpt: “Do you think there is life out there?” he’d asked back then, on the cusp of thirteen, his voice breaking as the onset of puberty reared its ugly head, and his eyes looking through the lens of his gift to land on her for the first time. 40 Eridani A.
“I’m sure of it,” his grandfather had answered, looking up towards the sky. “The universe is a big place, what we see with our eyes only but an insignificant, tiny portion of it.”
“Not so insignificant, Grandfather,” Jim muttered to his memories, leaning back in his chair, while his eyes remained trained on the one star. "We were apparently significant enough to be left a map."
Notes: Written for, and originally published in, T'hy'la #32
Notes 2: It's been so long since I've posted a story on livejournal I think I may have forgotten how. Please forgive any formatting faux pas.
Notes 3: I know I've been largely AWOL the past year or so. It's been such a wretched year, not going to sugarcoat it. However, one thing that has remained consistent is my love of Star Trek, my love of K/S and my love of the K/S shippers. These three things will never change. I've missed you guys!
*****
“Phyllis Pitluga’s work has been debunked.”
Jim fought to hold back a groan of frustration, managing to succeed… just. What he really wanted to do was bang his head against a wall, but reasoned such an obvious sign of frustration wouldn’t help his cause. It just wasn’t worth making his headache worse.
Good God, why was it he was forced to share this plane of existence with idiots? Though he supposed it was just one of life’s great mysteries. But if Finnegan would only listen to him - short-sighted little pissant that he was, and even despite having the unfortunate disadvantage of possessing the IQ of a peanut - there was at least one mystery that they could solve.
He took a deep breath, then another, summoned his best poker face and flashed a smile.
Jim had long since come to the conclusion that Finnegan was a deeply closeted gay. It was in the way the man’s eyes seemed to gravitate more towards their male classmates then their female ones. The way he fought to overcompensate in his masculinity by acting like the world’s biggest douche to the point where Jim wondered if the guy went home at night and practiced smashing beer cans on his forehead and belching at high volume. The way he fondled Jim under the guise of heckling. Text book case of sexual repression. Jim would almost feel sorry for him, were it not for the aforementioned heckling and the intelligence of a Neanderthal. Which, Jim reflected, was probably unkind… to the Neanderthal.
Yet having met Finnegan, the elder, once or twice when he‘d come to visit his son on campus, Jim could easily understand why. The man was a bear. A mean one. A trait he had seemingly passed on to his son, if one didn’t look past the surface.
Jim had always made it a practice to look past the surface.
Overbearing fathers or not, Jim wasn’t afraid of taking ruthless advantage of the situation. He had a thesis to write. A masters degree to obtain. And he would graduate in the top five percent of his class if it killed him.
His calculations were sound. They had to be.
He stepped into Finnegan’s personal space, feeling the heat the other man was radiating, watching as the other man’s pupils grew, and slowly reached up to place his hand on the other man’s shoulder, hiding another smile as Finnegan subconsciously leaned closer to him. It didn’t hurt that he was bisexual himself, he could make this convincing.
He leaned in a little closer himself, watched as Finnegan’s nostrils flared.
“Not debunked,” he breathed, “but left with too many holes. The three points of the spider do match up with Mintaka, Alnilam, and Alnitak as they would have appeared in 400 A.D. - Orion’s belt - just as she hypothesized they did. I’ve checked and rechecked. It is a perfect match.”
“Your bachelors is in archeology, Jim. Not astronomy. This is not your area of expertise,” Finnegan retorted, but there was little bite to it. Progress. Jim moved in a little closer.
“The studies into the meaning behind the Nazca lines have long since been a collaboration of both.,” Jim shrugged Finnegan’s protest off. “And you know damn well I can work my way around a computer. I’m telling you, it’s not just the spider that aligns with a system. The dog? The foot on the first leg ends with two toes drawn very close together and a third toe pointed further away. None of the other feet are represented this way. Which leads me to believe it was deliberate. It’s 40 Eridani A, B, and C. I’m not wrong about this. All I need is some lab time, Ben, that’s all I’m asking you for.”
For a second it looked like Finnegan was going to cave; Jim could almost see the other man’s resistance crumbling. Could almost taste his victory…
And then Finnegan drew from some deep seated pool of stubborn reserve. Jim knew he’d lost his opportunity before the other man opened his mouth.
“40 Eridani B and C look like one star with a small telescope. You cannot tell they are separate. There is no way the Nazca possessed the technology to be able to map them. You’re as crazy as those kooks who claim those goddamned hieroglyphs are actually spaceship runways for little green men,” Ben Finnegan spat, backing away. “You’re demented, Kirk. You’re no different than that bookish, lost little freshman you were when you first came here four years ago. And just as pathetic. What would your General father think of the ‘oh so brilliant Jim Kirk’ if he heard you spouting all this bullshit? Get your head out of the clouds and back down to Earth, Kirk. And get your ass out of my lab.”
Jim sighed as he watched the other man storm to the other side of the room, as far away from Jim as he could possibly get, as if afraid Jim could corrupt him somehow if he remained too close.
And to be entirely fair, that had been the general idea.
“I never said they were little,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head to clear it. “Though they could very well be green,” he added in after-thought, grabbing his things so he could rush home to his laptop. Plan A was a dismal failure but it was no matter. On to Plan B. If he couldn’t get access to the astronomy lab semi-legitimately, he’d graduate to full-scale dubious means.
He’d hack them.
*****
Jim grimaced as the bitter, bitter taste of coffee that had been reheated at least five times over the past twelve hours hit his tongue. He looked down into his mug with blood-shot eyes, wondering if it was worth the effort to get up and make a new pot.
But that would require energy. Energy which was better spent completing the puzzle.
The spider represented Orion. The dog, Sirius. The astronaut, Alpha Centaurus. He was sure of it.
He touched his monitor, resting his index finger on the star that had started it all.
His grandfather, Tiberius, had given him his first telescope for his thirteenth birthday. Had helped him assemble it, set it up, in the backyard of the Kirk family farm in Riverside, Iowa and spouted capricious ideas about space being the final frontier.
His father had always complained that his father had been overly strict with him, that he’d come from a bygone era where children were to be seen and not heard. But to Jim, the grandson whose middle name matched his own, Tiberius was a comrade, a co-conspirator, an indulgent wizard of a man, with a twinkle in his eye, a keen, sharp intelligence and a faith in his grandson that was as unparalleled.
“Do you think there is life out there?” he’d asked back then, on the cusp of thirteen, his voice breaking as the onset of puberty reared its ugly head, and his eyes looking through the lens of his gift to land on her for the first time. 40 Eridani A.
“I’m sure of it,” his grandfather had answered, looking up towards the sky. “The universe is a big place, what we see with our eyes only but an insignificant, tiny portion of it.”
“Not so insignificant, Grandfather,” Jim muttered to his memories, leaning back in his chair, while his eyes remained trained on the one star. “We were apparently significant enough to be left a map. Just what parts of the Galaxy do the other animals represent?”
40 Eridani A was an orange dwarf star, he knew, a bit smaller in size to Earth’s sun. Any planet that orbited it would be cast in an orange glow. And since their two suns were so similar, there could very well be life, sixteen light years away from Earth.
Jim smiled to himself as he thought of his own, far more whimsical name for 40 Eridani A.
A love of astronomy wasn’t the only legacy his now-dead grandfather had passed on to him, but a love of history as well. And with a shared name like Tiberius there was a certain portion of history that was a particular passion for them both.
“Vulcan,” Jim breathed, thinking of the Roman god of fire. A fiery name for a fiery system, orange sun, potential planets, and all. It seemed fitting. “What secrets are you hiding? How did the Nazca know?”
*****
“Are you two breeding again?” Jim called as he walked through the door of his parents’ house, grinning as he startled his older brother, Sam, and his sister-in-law, Aurelan; they both jumped in shock.
Ah, he hadn’t lost his touch. And some things never changed. Sam was so easy, always only half aware of the world around, always partially lost to thought. He got it from their mother.
“What sort of holy terror do you mean to release upon us now?” he followed up with a smirk, delighting in his sister-in-law’s indignant squawk in response to his accusations.
“Well, look who decided to grace us with his presence,” Sam retorted, recovering quickly, and putting an arm around his very pregnant wife to steady her. “Long time no see there, Ace, what brings Sir James, the intrepid explorer to our humble part of the world?”
“Oh, I thought I’d stop by before heading south,” Jim announced airily, trying not to show how uncomfortable it made him, even now, to be back in his childhood home. “Very south,” he added, as a means to remind himself that he would soon be out amongst the world once more.
Humble was certainly one way to describe Riverside. Stifling, another. As a child he’d felt so repressed here, had always wondered if he would ever escape. No sooner had the ink dried on his high school diploma then he’d signed up for the Navy, aiming to follow in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, thinking he might make a career out of it, perhaps, if it suited him. And while his time there was challenging and glorious, it hadn’t been enough. He was still restless. Always restless. Just what would appease him, he didn’t know. He hadn’t found the answer yet, wondered if he ever would.
He’d done his four years, collected a college scholarship for his service, backpacked through Europe for three months and then had gone the university route instead. His family was used to his infrequent coming and goings. He visited them, when he could. But Riverside had never felt like home when he had lived there, less so now that he didn’t. It was uncomfortable to try and fit into old skin, and awkward to deal with the probing gazes of his retired father, his mother, and his ever, steady, dutiful brother - the reliable son. Thus his visits were always fleeting, and mostly rare.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ their eyes would always say. ‘Why do you run full speed ahead through life like your tail’s on fire?’
He felt bad that he didn’t feel bad that he didn’t have an answer for them. Figured half the fun of life was in the discovery part of finding answers, not so much in the answers themselves. But such a sentiment was difficult to put to words, so he didn’t try. Neither did they ever ask him to elaborate. And all of them, Jim and his family, both, seemed content to keep the status quo.
“Mom and Dad home?” he asked his brother, setting his knapsack on the kitchen table just in time to crouch and meet an overly excited four-year-old toddler who came barreling into him.
“Uncle Jim, Uncle Jim,” little Peter called as Jim picked him up, tossed him in the air, settling the child down to catch the sight of his mother and father both, standing in the doorway of the kitchen from the living room, watching the scene unfold.
Like he always did whenever he interacted with his family, Jim felt like part of a Norman Rockwell painting. It sometimes made it difficult to breathe.
“Just how far south are we talking about, Jim,” Winona Kirk asked, stepping forth to kiss her youngest on the cheek.
“Peru,” Jim answered, accepting the kiss, her hug, the smell of roses she always carried with her, and the feel of his father’s hand on his shoulder while waiting for the inevitable...
“What in the hell is in Peru?” his father asked, looking at him with an expression of bafflement that Jim, alone, could manage to elicit. Unlike his eldest son, George Kirk was not a man easily startled. Too many years in the Navy, too many years as a leader of men. Jim felt a small amount of satisfaction that he was the only one that could ever manage it. There was a deeply seeded thrill in eliciting emotion from the otherwise stoic.
Jim held his breath before answering, wondering if this was the time they’d asked for elaboration. If this was the time they’d finally chosen to probe…
“Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that. Cusco, Machu Picchu, a train, some cows,” he turned a grin towards his sister-in-law, flashing a smirk at her laughter. “Figured I would plop myself on the middle of an alpaca farm and commune with a nature a bit before I put the finishing touches on my thesis. At 11,000 above sea level, the air has got to be clear.”
“Only you, Jim, only you,” Aurelan said with a shake of her head.
“Tiger can’t change his stripes,” Jim’s father muttered under his breath, while his mother followed that up with a “Jim, please do pack a sweater,” as if he were still a teenager.
They didn’t ask.
And after a wonderful home cooked meal, and a restless night sleeping in the bed he’d used to dream of the stars in as a child, he bade them goodbye and continued on his way.
*****
Jim eyed the tower just off the left side of the Panamerican highway.
Twilight was fast approaching, and soon, the air tours would start. Hundreds of tourists passing over Nazca valley in rickety four passenger planes, most of them clutching their stomachs as motion sickness set in. If he was going to pull this off, he’d have to do it now.
The tower guard was distracted, probably off for a smoke, so, feeling a flash of adrenaline pass through him, Jim stepped off the road, and into the valley itself, no one the wiser.
He had the layout of the valley memorized. He didn’t need an aerial tour, didn’t need a map. He knew what each curve meant.
The lines had been created by the removal of surface stone, revealing the lighter colored soil below. The plateau was arid. There was no wind, no rain, thus the lines had remained, untouched, for close to two thousand years. The lines were too large, too precise, for the Nazca to have accomplished them without a) an aerial vantage, or b) some sort of outside help. It was the later idea which had prompted Jim to pursue a degree in archeology. One of the designs was an astronaut of all things. How would a people who had thrived during 400 AD have known about astronauts? For Jim that question alone had cinched an obsession.
They were a mystery. Jim had always loved a good mystery.
The dog was in the middle of the valley, separated a bit from its closest companions. It seemed like forever to get there, but a quick glance at his watch told Jim hardly any time had passed at all. He drew in a breath as he came to the exact spot he’d been aiming for, the location of the design he thought to represent 40 Eridani A. His Fire God. His Vulcan.
He was here. Finally. After all that time. He’d never been religious, had always been a more of an empirical evidence sort of person, but a small part of him wondered if his grandfather was looking down on him now, and if so, what he thought. The moment felt so… surreal. So removed from time and space. And maybe it was.
Dazed he sank to a sitting position, unsure of what to do now, feeling the cool desert ground seep through the material of his pants. Desert days were murderously hot, but desert nights alarmingly frigid. With dusk approaching, Jim was between the two extremes. Stuck in limbo. Always stuck in limbo. That feeling, at least, was… normal.
A few feet away from him a clump of lichen grew, drawing his attention. He had the odd impulse to pull it out, weed it like he would a garden, and then dig beneath it. For all of two seconds he argued with himself. The Nazca lines were relatively undisturbed for over two thousand years, putting a hole in the middle of one of the lines seemed an unpardonable sin. However, his shoulder devil reckoned, ‘you can always put everything back in place. No one has to know. You can leave it just as you found it.’
His curiosity really would be the death of him one day.
He gave into his impulse.
He was glad he had thought to wear gloves as he dug his hands into the dirt. He didn’t believe in providence, but well, luck was certainly on his side. It didn’t take long, maybe four or five clumps of soil, before he hit a snag. A metallic looking rock, worn smooth by time, molded by earth. Jim lifted it up, meaning to quickly toss it out of his way, when an odd design etched on one flat surface caught his eye. The design was that of a triangle, coming to a point within a hollow circle. At the tip of the triangle, within the empty space of the circle, the small pattern of a star, as if the triangle came to a celestial point.
This… this could be something, and he felt his excitement mount, threatening to choke him. This could make his career. Millions of people would have jumped at the chance to discover something like this. It could be an artifact, thousands of years old…. Or, his more practical side offered, it could be a souvenir dropped by a tourist who had decided that a tour by foot of the lines was a much more hands on experience in the same way that Jim had.
Upon closer inspection it did look like the design had been sketched by laser. There were no visible mistakes, no flaws, no jagged lines, the curves much too smooth to be carved using hand tools. And lasers hadn’t been invented until 1917.
‘Oh great, Jim. Your instincts led you to a paperweight. Joy. Guess what Sam’s getting for Christmas this year.’
Still, there was something about the design; in all his studies of the Nazca geometric shapes, he’d never encountered one like this. He wondered what it meant.
He set the rock down to remove his glove, wanting to trace the design with his fingers, feel it with his skin. Past friends and lovers had always accused him of being tactile, he supposed they were probably right. But being tactile had always served him well in the past, he supposed it would do so again. Couldn’t hurt, anyway.
The minute his hand touched the stone he burned, then he felt light, so light, as if he weighed nothing at all, and then he saw white, like a thick, thick fog and settled over him.
His last thought before becoming completely consumed by it was, ‘hmmm, this is certainly interesting…’
*****
“Infinite diversity in infinite combinations,” Jim heard a smooth voice say as he drifted out of his fog. He tried to move his head, but his body felt leaden, weighed down and sore, as if he’d been to battle. And there were these bright lights up above him, blinding him. Three, no four, perhaps two… okay, it was one. One light. Jesus, was the room spinning?
Christ, he hadn’t had a hangover since Sam’s bachelor party years earlier. And while that had certainly been a harrowing experience, it had nothing on this. Jim had never liked the experience of being drunk, didn’t like losing control. So what on earth had caused him to go on a bender, and what the hell had he been drinking, anyway? 100% proof alcohol? Was there such a thing?
“Wha-?” he mumbled to the voice, his throat feeling like someone had swiped at it with sandpaper, and hoping said voice had a supply of aspirin on hand. A large supply. And not in the sissy regular dose, but extra, extra extra strength. Man-sized aspirin.
“During one of your brief moments of awareness you had inquired after the meaning of the symbol on the stone. The symbol was that of IDIC, the basis of the philosophy of my people,” the voice intoned. It was a smooth voice, and a soft one. Jim liked it. Were the guy’s voice abrasive, Jim would have probably tried to chuck something at his head just then… assuming Jim could lift his arm, which was very much doubtful at present. So it was better all around the being’s voice was as smooth as chocolate.
What was that recipe for a hangover cure again? Tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce and raw egg, wasn’t it? Oh god, gross. He was going to throw-up, who on earth had invented such a disgusting concoction? And, more appropriately, who on earth would be idiotic enough to think that would stop nausea instead of induce it?
He squinted his eyes, willing them to focus. Gradually his vision cleared and he could make out the face of a man looming over him. The man had glossy black hair, and oddly shaped eye brows, his pale skin cast with a greenish hue… but none of that was the most striking feature of the man’s appearance. No, the title of striking went to his rather glorious ears, which came to a point just like something out of a Tolkien novel.
It was never a good idea to open one’s mouth after they had been hit by a truck or mauled by a lion, which Jim certainly felt he had experienced both, and probably simultaneously, but before he could squelch the desire, he blurted out…“You really are green. There’s a hint of it anyway. It’s very fetching. I like your ears. They’re fetching, too. Tell me, is your planet orange?”
But before the other being could answer him, he met oblivion once more.
*****
The second time he woke there was no pain. None. In fact, he felt incredible.
Alien medication must be quite impressive.
He turned his head and his gaze landed on a pair of large brown eyes, gazing at him unblinkingly. The guy’s posture was ramrod straight. Jim’s immediate knee jerk reaction was to help the poor guy relax.
“My name is Jim,” he said softly, surprised to find his voice in perfect working order.
Strike impressive, alien medication was extraordinary.
“I am Spock,” the alien responded. And if Jim’s brain immediately went to a comparison to the field of psychology and the subject of child rearing to the being before him, he would never admit it out loud. He thought the name suited this Spock far better.
“It’s nice to meet you, Spock,” Jim replied, flashing a smile. He was waiting for the moment when it would hit him that he had been abducted by aliens like some sort of Spielberg helmed motion picture cliché and if panic would then follow… the moment never came. He had too many questions, there just wasn’t enough time left in the current century for panic. The next century, however, was fair game.
Panic was overrated anyway. Always had been.
The alien raised an elegant eyebrow at him and Jim felt his smile grow. It was really rather cute.
“You seemed relatively calm for one of your species who has just survived the Fal-tor-pan and who has awoken to find himself in unfamiliar surroundings,” Spock announced, raising the other brow.
Jim swallowed to hold back a laugh. Calm? No. Excited? Yes. Undoubtedly. This, what was happening, was the culmination of a dream. For the first time in his life, he felt like he was actually there, existing in a moment, not watching it from afar, utterly detached.
“What is a far-tar-po? And where am I? Am I on Vulcan? How is it that you know English?” Jim asked, mentally cataloguing the other questions he had to ask, but figuring those were a good start.
“Vulcan?” Spock asked. The eyebrows raised higher. Jim wanted to know how he did that.
“Fire planet,” Jim answered with a sheepish grin. “A nod to your orange dwarf star.”
“Ah,” Spock replied, dark eyes lighting in what seemed to Jim could be construed as gentle humor. At least he’d like to think so. The look certainly became Spock. Jim found he really wanted to see the Vulcan amused some more. For some reason he didn‘t think the other guy did amused too often. He seemed kind of… stiff. “It is a fitting name.”
“I thought so,” Jim answered, a bit smugly. “So far-toupe?” he continued, not wasting any time. Questions, questions, so many questions, and never a minute to spare.
“The Fal-tor-pan is the removal of a katra, the essence of who we are, if you will, from a temporary host into that of a vacant body,” Spock explained, his shoulders relaxing. Jim took that as a win. “An ancestor of mine, one my family had considered lost to us, had crashed onto your planet two millennia ago. The rock you refer to was actually made of a polycrystalline silicone material. Such material is able to… contain things.”
“Yes, I know this. Crystal is what our computer microchips are made from,” Jim supplied. Spock gave him an odd little stare. Jim didn’t know if that meant, ‘man you humans are behind a bit in your technology if you’re still using crystal for data storage on your computers’ or, ‘hmmm, there might be intelligent life on Earth after all’… he certainly hoped it was the latter. Mankind probably must already look rather unevolved to these guys as it was for not being able travel beyond their own moon. And that was assuming that mankind had indeed actually made it to the moon, and the whole thing hadn’t been produced in a Hollywood studio the way some conspiracy theorists might suggest.
“My ancestor was able to transfer his katra into the vessel, which is where it remained until you uncovered it,” Spock continued, and that was when Jim stopped to pause.
“Wait, wait… So what you‘re trying to tell me is that I had your ancestor’s soul inside of me?!”
Why hello panic, there you are. Apparently there was room for it in this century after all.
“This is no longer the case,” Spock replied calmly, eyeing him curiously, as if he thought it odd that the silly human picked now as the time to show some concern. ‘Cause, you know, Jim housed souls in his body every day of the week. No biggie. All par for the course… were Jim living in the Twilight Zone. Which, now that he thought about it, might not actually be that far off base.
This day, week, month, however long it had been, certainly went down in the books as the oddest day of his existence. Perhaps the oddest day of anyone’s existence, except for maybe that one point in history where a posh Roman city was successfully overtaken by a group of barbarians who called themselves the Huns. Jim was sure that had to be quite odd… for the Romans. Brilliant tactician, that Attila. But he digressed.
Apparently Jim digressed when he panicked. Good to know. He wondered, abstractly, if the Vulcan whose soul he carried now found himself with an odd obsession with late BC and early AD Earth European history.
“He didn’t access your memories while housed inside your body,” Spock informed him, as if reading Jim’s mind. “Such a violation would be abhorrent to us, to our ways.”
Jim blinked. Blinked again. Then felt his body relax. “That is exceedingly relieving to hear,” he replied, once more gaining control.
“Though he did say that you are an honorable being, in possession of a truly dynamic mind. You helped him fashion a communication beacon, capable of signaling our closest ship. This is how we were able to retrieve you.”
Jim was certain Spock meant that to be a compliment, and ordinarily Jim would have preened under it. As it was though…
“Well,” Jim announced, internally trying to process that information. The fact that he couldn’t remember a lick of it disturbed him. Greatly. “Apparently I’ve been very busy recently. Would be nice if I remembered it, though. I mean, suppose I wanted to take up manufacturing communication beacons as a hobby?”
“Your memories will return in time,” Spock replied, just as dryly, his eyes lit with humor once more. So Spock had picked up on his sarcasm, then. Jim decided then and there that he really liked this Spock. The guy was obviously a kindred sou-… spirit. The word ‘soul’ was a bit of a touchy subject at present, even to Jim’s own mind.
“So the Nazca lines… the geometric shapes in the soil? Did your ancestor create those before he died and somehow managed to magically transfer his soul into a rock? Which, by the way, how exactly that feat was accomplished I’d like an explanation of… later.”
“He did not,” Spock replied, eyes dancing with even more humor. “He supplied several maps of different sectors of the galaxy to the people he encountered before his wounds overtook him, his hope was that one of our vessels traveling close enough to your planet might see the map of our quadrant in your soil and come to retrieve him. The people he encountered, however, had their own… interpretation of the information they received and they chose to record it in patterns more… familiar to them.”
So Jim had been right. And Ben Finnegan wrong. Jim was so not surprised by that he could pass out… again. Were Jim to ever see the man again, he supposed a little rubbing it in wouldn’t be too crass, if done with subtlety and style.
He’d enjoy every minute of it.
“So they really did do it on their own,” Jim mused to himself, in awe of the Nazca. “They must have done it using the nearby hills, and probably with the use of many diagrams… The math, the geometry, involved to accomplish that,” Jim shook his head. “They wouldn’t have been able to tell what the final product looked like from the sky.”
Spock nodded, his eyes belying his understanding as Jim pieced it all together. “If there is one thing this experience has taught my people, it’s that, for a pre-warp civilization, your kind is immensely resilient, and abundantly creative when presented with a challenge. We do not think it will be long…”
“Until we’re out among the galaxy creating our own star charts,” Jim supplied, grinning, imagining it. He really couldn’t conceive of a more exciting fate to befall mankind.
But not yet. There were still many hurdles, Jim knew, that mankind would have to overcome before they could make this move. A lot of hurdles. Thousands of them.
He was actually somewhat surprised that he wasn’t more upset than he should be about that, but well, he was on Vulcan. At least, he thought so. Looking around the room, truly examining it for the first time since waking up, he was certain he was in a house. He suspected a spaceship would be far more sterile. Less homey and airy. And to his right there was a window, and out the window was the dazzling landscape of reddish orange soil, reflecting the sun like fire.
Just as he had pictured it.
“I really am on Vulcan,” Jim breathed, turning back and meeting Spock’s ever assessing eyes. Jim was so excited he was shaking. “4.9 parsecs from Earth.”
“Yes,” Spock said, simply.
“But that’s amazing,” Jim proclaimed, smiling so wide he was flashing teeth.
Spock eyed Jim with barely concealed surprise, probably at Jim’s rather blatant display of enthusiasm, he guessed. “You are not at all how I predicted you would be were I ever to meet another of your kind,” he stated.
“Well, good,” Jim retorted. “I would hate to be predictable…” he trailed off as the later part of what Spock had said sunk in. “What do you mean another of my kind?”
If the eyebrow thing was cute, a completely abashed Vulcan was considerably more charming.
*****
Jim stared at the soup placed before him, partially expecting it to stare back.
“It’s purple,” he announced to the Lady Amanda, incredulous.
“Hmmm, so it is,” she teased, eyes sparkling in mirth.
“And it’s glowing,” Jim supplied, rather dubious.
“Plomeek is a vibrant vegetable, chock full of nutrients,” she placated, patting his arm. “Now be a good boy and eat up.”
Jim smiled at her, abashed, and picked up his spoon. ‘Brave new world’, he told himself, ‘this is what you wanted, remember? To discover new things?’
Thus he took his first bite of plomeek soup.
It wasn’t a bad flavor, per se, a little bland. Could use a shot or five of Tabasco. But all in all, he supposed it could have been worse. It reminded him a bit of the poi he’d once sampled in Hawaii.
Amanda was looking at him expectantly, and far be it for him to lose this golden opportunity to tease. She was almost as much fun to banter with as her son.
Vulcans, he had learned, were rather stringent vegetarians. But then, no species was perfect.
“Well, it’s no porterhouse steak, complete with russet potatoes marinated in dill sauce and butter and salted grilled fresh asparagus, but you know, in a pinch…”
Amanda laughed, the sound ringing through the kitchen. “Oh Jim, you are insufferable,” she said, but the way she said it was laden with obvious affection.
Jim felt a twinge around his heart at it. He’d been having a lot of those lately. The more Vulcan came to feel like home, the more familiar he became with this new world around him, the more the twinges came.
Being here, on Vulcan, was the accumulation of every dream he’d ever had.
The problem with having dreams come true is that inevitably, they had to come to an end.
Jim didn’t want them to end.
He was an explorer by nature, he fully and completely understood that about himself now. He’d never be happy not asking questions and searching for the answers. And here he was on this bright desert planet, with universal translators and other, mind boggling technology, with advanced medicine, and several millennia of art and history and literature. With katras and rituals and wonderfully diverse flora and fauna. Jim wasn’t simply studying history. For the first time in his life he was living history.
The feeling was unparalleled.
It didn’t hurt that the Vulcans, for all their logic loving ways - which Jim may have hard time with for exactly the five seconds it took him to realize that their use of logic didn’t mean that they were completely without a sense of humor - had widely regarded him with open curiosity. Oh there had been a few that had been snobbish, clearly looking down on him, but for the most part the Vulcans were a scientific people. They had questions about Earth, its history, its development, its foray into space travel (and how embarrassing that had been to discuss). Everywhere Jim went, he was regaled with inquiry.
That’s when it became helpful to have the very human, Lady Amanda at his back.
Jim was certain the governmental higher ups on Earth would be very uncomfortable with just how often Earth was visited, and not always by beings as peace loving as the Vulcans. There were frightening things out there, Amanda had warned. Yet, looking around him, his eyes resting on the familiar figure of a tall, lanky half human/half Vulcan being walking up the path from Jim’s vantage by the kitchen window, he seriously doubted the bad could ever outweigh the good.
Vulcan definitely had other enticing treasures to its name. And none more so than that particular treasure.
Jim wanted Spock, couldn’t remember the last time he had been so thoroughly enamored with someone in his life. It was so awful.
For the past few weeks, while Jim recovered from his experiences, and his memory gradually returned, Spock had been his constant companion. Jim had gotten… used to having him around.
…Way too used to it.
“A penny for your thoughts,” Amanda’s voice snapped him out of his reverie.
“They’re hardly worth that much,” Jim teased, turning to face Spock’s mom.
“Oh, I doubt that,” Amanda replied, an ever present twinkle in her eyes. “If there is one thing I’ve learned about you these past weeks, Jim, it’s that you’re hardly dull company.”
Jim knew he was being teased, knew he should muster a smile back, but his heart was too heavy. In a few days a transport would take him back to Earth. Sarek had asked Jim for his confidentiality on all that he had seen, all that he had experienced, and Jim had given his word that he would keep mum or die trying.
Not that it would matter even if he did blab to all and sundry. No one on Earth would believe any of this for a second. He’d be shipped off to a local psychiatrist faster than he could say, “…but I’ll even take a lie detector test.”
“I don’t want to leave,” Jim admitted, turning away from the window. Emotional confrontation wasn’t his forte. But he couldn’t afford to be anything but brutally honest, with himself, and with those around him.
The truth was less painful than self-deception, especially in the long run.
“Then don’t,” she said simply, as if it were that easy. As if anything were that easy.
There were other things to consider. He’d always felt like an outsider within his family, always bitten by a wanderlust they couldn’t understand, but he loved them and they loved him. Wouldn’t it be selfish to stay, leaving them wondering forevermore what happened to him? Letting his parents grapple with the idea that they had somehow managed to outlive their youngest child?
And then there was Spock. Who was a touch telepath. Who Jim, being the tactile guy that he was, had touched on multiple occasions. And on one particularly memorable (and rather humorous) occasion had even managed to surprise the Vulcan with a hug. Spock was going to find out that Jim harbored feelings for him eventually, mostly likely sooner rather than later. Would Spock even be receptive to that, Jim wondered? Did Spock even enjoy the company of men?
Where would he live? What would he do? His degree was absolutely useless here. And though Jim knew he could easily spend a lifetime studying Vulcan culture, reading their ancient texts, somehow finding his way aboard their ships and going on great adventures in space, he doubted any of that paid the rent.
“I would give anything to stay…” he trailed off.
“We can send your parents a message, the next time one of our ships is near Earth. You wouldn’t be able to tell them where you are, of course, but you can let them know that you’re alive and that you’re happy,” Amanda offered. “I did something similar, all those years ago, after Sarek had rescued me.”
It was appealing, so appealing but…
“What would I do? Where would I stay?”
“You teach English, and human culture and history at the Academy. There is always an interest in a new culture, you won’t find yourself lacking for students. And you stay with me,” came a second, distinctly masculine voice, from the doorway between the kitchen and the entry hall.
…The same voice Jim would always remember had once woke him up to the merry tune of ‘infinite diversity in infinite combinations’.
IDIC… It was certainly an accurate description for what he and Spock were, whenever they walked side by side, their foot fall nearly in sync. It was fitting as first songs went.
Jim turned slowly in his chair and faced Spock dead on, and knew, in that moment, that he was an idiot for not recognizing that Spock had returned his feelings before, for it was there, so blatant, stark and wanting in the Vulcan’s eyes.
Jim was normally very good at that type of thing. Normally very… intuitive when it came to his effect on others. But Spock, well, Spock was an enigma.
It was fortunate then that Jim liked enigmas best of all.
Jim smiled, the first genuine smile he’d mustered all day, and pointed to the chess board the Lady Amanda had specially designed and crafted.
“Tell you what, Spock, you win, I stay, I win, I go,” he flirted, his voice thick with promise. It wouldn’t do to be easy. He wanted to stay with Spock more desperately than he’d ever wanted anything, but there were… rituals to this type of thing.
“Agreed,” Spock affirmed, eyes narrowed in challenge.
It was the first game of Jim’s life where he did not begrudge his opponent’s embarrassingly swift victory, in fact, he may or may not have helped it along.
Not that he’d ever begrudge Spock anything anyway.
… And Spock had better watch out the next time they played chess.
The End!