FIC: "Break" (Star Trek AOS, Spock/Uhura), rated R, 1/3
In the time it took me to write this, about ninety thousand other "how this 'ship got started" stories have sprung into being; the only distinction this may now hold is being the slow-burn version. This story is about 26K long, so I'll be posting in three sections, one a day. Spoilers for the movie, naturally. I have felt free to take from fanon where I liked and not where I didn't. (Jim Kirk is treasurer of the xenolinguistics club, for instance, but Spock is not Uhura's instructor in Advanced Phonology.) This is by far the shippiest thing I've written in a while. Great thanks to my betas and canon-masters taraljc, rheanna27 and marinarusalka.
Summary: During their final semester at Starfleet Academy, two people who have no intention of ever changing transform each other.
Part Two
Part Three
Break
By Yahtzee
PART ONE
December
“I don’t understand why you’re in the xenolinguistics club to begin with, since you don’t speak anything but Standard,” Nyota said as she pushed her way out of the hall where they’d held their final meeting of the semester. “And I really don’t understand how you got yourself elected treasurer.”
“It’s called politics, Uhura.” Jim Kirk matched her quick stride step for step, somehow managing to look relaxed while he did so. How did he do that? “It’s called listening to people. It’s called understanding their needs and concerns.”
Nyota stopped in her tracks, put one hand on her hip and stared him down.
Jim’s smile broadened. “It’s also called bribery, if you want to be negative - just giving a certain guy’s dorm number to a certain interested young lady in return for influencing the Centaurian vote-“
“Unbelievable. You get ahead by acting as the Starfleet Academy pimp.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. I promise you, no money changed hands.”
“Which brings up another point. You took up a collection for funds to cover the club’s trip to the museums in Beijing. I just checked; there’s no admission fee for those museums.”
“We’ll have other needs,” Jim insisted. “Let’s just say that after the scholastic portion of the trip is done, there will be a beverage service.”
“Somebody seriously needs to nail your ass to the wall.”
“Somebody seriously needs to nail your -“
“Watch it, farmboy.”
“Uhura, give me a break.” When he stopped smirking, Jim’s face was actually very handsome. It didn’t happen that often. “This isn’t a class or a seminar or official duty. It’s a club. It’s about having fun. Remember fun?”
“I’ll remember fun when my thesis is written, my final grades are in, I’ve graduated with honors and I’ve got the assignment I want.”
She must have sounded even more tired than she felt, because Jim actually started to look concerned. “Hey. Don’t wear yourself out before we even get up there.”
It was like trying to hold a grudge against a puppy. “In Beijing, I promise to slow down long enough to have a drink from the ‘beverage service.’ So there had better be Cardassian Sunrises.”
“Any chance you’re going to split one with me?” He had a trick of somehow getting in her personal space without moving any closer.
“Do you ever stop?”
“Not until I get what I want.”
“Then you’re never going to stop.”
Jim smiled. “To answer your first question, I’m in the xenolinguistics club because I want to know your first name.”
“Like I’ve been saying for three years, you can look it up in the student directory.”
“But I want you to tell me.”
It was a battle of wills between them, both annoying as hell for Nyota and yet perversely enjoyable. “Keep dreaming. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s somebody I have to catch before he leaves.”
Jim pressed his hand to his chest, mocking the response of somebody who has received a mortal wound. “Another man. So you do remember fun.”
She just laughed as she walked away, both at the general absurdity Jim was capable of and the idea that she was going to meet a guy for some romantic rendezvous. First, Nyota had decided in her second year that serious relationships could and would wait until after her graduation from Starfleet Academy. Flirting was fine. So was sex, if the guy in question understood her boundaries. (Jim Kirk was a guy who did not understand boundaries, except as something to be broken, which ruled him out.) But getting involved meant getting distracted, and Nyota wanted to keep her focus on the stars.
Second, of all the men she might ever have been involved with, she was about to meet the least likely.
Nyota hurried down the Ji Hall steps, speeding up as she saw who she was looking for. If she shouted, he would hear her despite the din of cadets laughing and talking after class; he had the ears for it. But she suspected shouting was not the best way to start a conversation with him. When she was within a few steps, she raised her voice only slightly. “Commander Spock?”
He turned. “Lieutenant Uhura. Do you require my assistance?”
“Require? No. Request, yes.” She smiled at him, before thinking better of it. Surely a Vulcan wouldn’t want to see any unnecessary displays of emotion - even a pleasant one. “You might know that I’m doing my dissertation on the Romulan language, specifically nuances in the ch’Vian dialect.”
“That is the lowest-caste dialect, I understand - but the vernacular for laborers on border colonies, traders, miners and others who would make important intelligence assets. You have chosen well.”
“The ch’Vian dialect is the one most closely related to Vulcan. Obviously, I won’t have the chance to talk with a Romulan before graduation -“
“Let us hope not.” Ever since the slaughter of the Kelvin, the Romulans were known and feared throughout the Alpha Quadrant. Perfecting Federation intel on the Romulan Empire had been a top priority from that time on. Nyota knew that the Vulcans had not disclosed their connection with the Romulans before that incident, and then only unwillingly, so she’d been unsure about asking Spock for more information. He seemed untroubled, though, so she plowed on.
“-but I thought that if I could discuss certain questions in-depth with a native speaker of Vulcan, that might be useful. Obviously, the languages and customs have diverged widely since the split, but I still think I might come up with some useful insights by comparing and contrasting the two.” Nyota took a deep breath. “We’d need to meet repeatedly from now until I finish my thesis in the spring. I know I’m asking for a lot of your time for uncertain benefits, but - I’m asking.”
“All research is by its nature uncertain,” Spock said. “Your hypothesis appears sound, and I recognize that you have no other Vulcan to whom you can readily turn. I agree to your proposition.”
Nyota blinked. Both the courses she had taken from Spock in the past two years had heavily featured Socratic dialogues; she had been prepared for any kind of argument, but not ready agreement. “I - great. That’s great. Thank you.”
“When do you wish to begin?”
“As soon as possible, if that works for you.” Quickly she checked her PADD. “I have time tomorrow afternoon. 16:00 hours? The linguistics lab?”
“I look forward to it.” One slight nod, and he was gone.
**
“Tell me you didn’t ask Spock out,” Gaila said. “Please. Tell me you have listened to at least one thing I have told you about men in the past three years.”
“I didn’t ask him out. I asked him to work with me on a project. That’s all.” Nyota unfastened the clip around her ponytail and felt her thick hair fall free across her back. Sometimes she felt like this was the only time of day she got to relax.
“But you have a thing for him!”
“I should never have told you that.” It didn’t pay to drink with Orions. Gaila had the alcohol tolerance level of five strong men combined, and had learned most of their classmates’ secrets during late-night binges. Nyota had found this out the hard way. “I just think he’s attractive, that’s all. Trust me, I know how it is. Vulcans - they’re like spacedock jockeys, or married men, or poets. All sane women should stay the hell away.”
“I disagree about the spacedock jockeys,” Gaila said. She fell back onto her bed with a nostalgic smile that suggested she had one very specific jockey in mind. “Still, as long as you’ve got your head on straight. What am I saying? Of course you do. You’re - you.”
“Damn straight.” Nyota paused, wondering whether she wanted to talk about this with Gaila, who could be a loving friend but was not necessarily the most introspective person in the galaxy. Then she decided she wanted to talk about it with someone, so it might as well be Gaila. “It would be interesting to get to know him better.”
“I will tie you up in this room and refuse to let you out before I let you break your heart over a Vulcan. You might as well try to mate with one of the statues in front of the Academy museum. If the carving is anatomically correct, your chance of success would be higher.”
“I don’t mean that I want to seduce him. I mean - you know, a big part of linguistics is going beyond merely speaking the language. You have to understand the native speaker. You have to try to think the way they think, to comprehend what they’ve really said.”
Gaila frowned at her. “We were talking about sex, and now we’re talking about your coursework? Don’t you ever stop working?”
“You were talking about sex. And I’m not talking about my coursework; I’m talking about my vocation. There’s a difference.” Nyota began rubbing lotion into her skin, weighing precisely what she wanted to say. “Xenolinguistics is, in part, about learning to think like an alien. Starfleet Academy lets a lot of biologically compatible lifeforms live and work together for a few years. I think I’ve learned a lot.”
“You haven’t learned that Orions need their sleep.” Gaila had never fully accepted Nyota’s morning routine.
Nyota ignored this interruption. “I’ve studied Vulcan culture, at least the basics, but I don’t understand them. They’re hard to crack. If I could understand more about them through Spock, then - maybe I could get someplace. And I feel like, once I figure Vulcans out, I can figure anybody out.”
“Seems fair,” Gaila admitted. “But watch yourself.”
“I always do.”
“And take a break once in a while, okay?”
“Not happening.”
**
Spock’s study of xenolinguistics had been cursory at best, at least in his opinion - he spoke only seven languages, and was not qualified to teach beyond the starting level in any subjects save Phonology and Morphology. He had earned multiple degrees in hard sciences, which did not leave time to achieve full expertise in other fields. All the same, he found the subject interesting, not least because his father and mother were both expert in the area. Sarek had been the first Vulcan speaker of many Earth languages, from Mandarin to Dutch, and Amanda Grayson had written the first Vulcan-English dictionary meant for common, rather than academic, use.
They would perhaps want to hear about Lieutenant Uhura’s theories, if he and his father ever began speaking again.
The linguistics lab was by its nature a cozy place. Soft chairs were gathered around small tables where students from two dozen worlds could converse and, in so doing, teach one another. Warmly lit isolation cubbies, set into the walls, offered students places to work with recordings or holos; each of them shimmered slightly, evidence of soundproof shielding. The walls were a deep orange, a color he found soothing and somewhat reminiscent of home. Spock chose a smaller table in the far corner, where he judged the acoustics to be favorable.
Uhura looked chagrined when she came in to find him already in place. “I hope I’m not late.”
“To the contrary, I arrived early. You are admirably prompt.”
“You sure know how to flatter a girl,” she said wryly as she sat opposite him. Her hair was knotted in a bun, pulled back almost severely, but the effect on her features was most pleasing. Spock did not consider abstract aesthetic appreciation inappropriate - and, when it came to Uhura, such appreciation was unavoidable. “All right. Let me explain where we’re going to begin. My hypothesis, at this point, is that ch’Vian Romulan has retained not only certain grammatical constructs and word origins of its Vulcan root language, but also certain phonological, syntactic and semantic qualities.”
“Logical.”
“I’m not as positive about that as you are. Languages change rapidly, and while I’ve observed a lot of parallels - at least, I think they’re parallels. Right now, I have less than perfect fluency in both Romulan and Vulcan. With your help, I hope to confirm my understanding of the Vulcan half.”
“Then let us begin.”
“Okay. Let’s start with mechanics. Phonology. The eh sound, let’s say.”
“It is common in both Vulcan and Romulan,” Spock said. She would of course know this, but with humans, he had found that repeating the obvious was a surprisingly effective conversational tactic.
“Yes, but in Vulcan, the eh sound is pronounced differently at the end of a word than it is when it’s in the middle of a word. With the end of the word, you have that glottal stop.”
This was something he had never consciously considered before, but instantly understood to be true. “Shau-zehl,” he said. “Naliveh. You are correct.”
“In ch’Vian Romulan, however -“ Uhura’s voice trailed off. For the first time since he had come to know her, she deviated from her chosen task. “Wait. Shau-zehl? I don’t know that word. The literal translation would be something like ‘break line,’ but the meaning - no idea. Please tell me it’s obscure.”
“Not obscure, but unlikely to be covered in any of your texts. It is a children’s game.”
“Really?” A small smile appeared, almost uncertain, as if she were worried about causing offense. “What kind of games do children play on Vulcan?”
“We compete to see who can solve algebraic equations most quickly.”
After a moment, she smiled even more broadly. “Does anybody believe you when you say that?”
So few humans understood when he was joking. “In shau-zehl, all the available children from two lines by holding hands. Each line chooses a runner, who in turn attempts to break the line.”
“You mean, Red Rover! Vulcan kids play Red Rover!” Uhura laughed. “The only difference is, with humans, the opposing line chooses the kid who has to try to break through.”
“Instead of calling forth the strongest individuals, they call forth the weakest.” Among Vulcan children, he had often been the weakest; among human children, he would always have been the strongest. He would not have been called for in either case. “An interesting variation.”
Uhura clearly wanted to ask him more about Vulcan childhood, but she returned to the subject with admirable discipline. “Anyway. In ch’Vian Romulan, they only pronounce the glottal stop when the word falls at the end of a sentence. Otherwise, if the eh sound is at the end of a word, they tend to run that word into the following word, combining them. It can make voice-only translation difficult to follow, so I’m hoping there are some precedents in Vulcan - some similar running-together of words. I’m not familiar with any, but are there dialects, special forms of speech, anything like that you can think of?”
Spock considered this. “There is only one similar use that comes to mind.”
“What’s that?”
“Combining words is a common form of - I believe the term in Standard is ‘baby talk.’”
“Excuse me?”
“The kind of simplified speech that adults use to speak to children.”
“You’re telling me that lower-caste Romulans are going around baby-talking to each other all the time?”
“Apparently so.”
Uhura did laugh at that. Spock felt some amusement himself: The idea was rather absurd, particularly for a race as feared as the Romulans.
“Wow. Okay. Baby-talk. I wonder what possible sociological -“ She cut herself off. “No speculation. I have to stick what I can quantify. But if we could record some Vulcan parents - if they would be willing to speak informally in front of researchers-“
“Most Vulcans would consider that appropriate in the context of scientific inquiry.”
“That might be very helpful with programming the translators.” Uhura quickly jotted a few notes on her PADD. “I should have known you’d have all the answers.”
“The right questions are fundamentally much more difficult to supply. Your insight is remarkable.”
She paused at that, not looking up from her work. The moment passed quickly, and they resumed their discussion of phonology.
They continued for more than an hour, mostly remaining on-topic. Although they discovered no insights as surprising as Romulan ‘baby talk,’ the conversation seemed highly productive to Spock, and he observed that Uhura had stored nearly a dozen pages of data on her PADD before they were done.
As they walked out of the linguistics lab, the sun was setting over the Pacific. The Golden Gate Bridge gleamed in the radiant light. They paused on the steps, and Spock realized he was reluctant to say goodbye. He had always found Lieutenant Uhura’s company agreeable, but this sensation was different. It occurred to him how few humans he had allowed himself to know well during his time on Earth; there were reasons for this, but none of those reasons seemed to apply at the moment.
“Thanks again for agreeing to do this,” she said. “I hope it’s not going to take too much of your time.”
“The experience was both informative and enjoyable. I look forward to our next session.”
Uhura tucked her PADD under one arm. “Glad to know you’re liking this as much as I am. But when I said thanks, I meant - you didn’t have to tell me everything you did.”
“I meely answered the questions posed to the best of my ability.”
“You went above and beyond the call of duty. You didn’t have to tell me how your parents talked to you as a child, for instance.”
“I did not tell you that.”
She frowned. “But -“
“My mother always spoke to me in Standard.” Spock hesitated, then said, “My father was not inclined to speak informally to me.”
Slowly, Uhura nodded. Had she guessed the fuller implications of that statement? Possibly - humans were surprisingly perceptive in such matters, at least when they took the time to listen. Uhura always did. Although Spock did not care to expose his personal information, he realized he was not disturbed by the idea of Uhura realizing this much. She was discreet. She could be trusted.
“Good night, Lieutenant Uhura.”
“Good night, Mr. Spock.” She strode away across the Academy courtyard, and for a few seconds he indulged the impulse to watch her go.
January
6 a.m. - time to move.
Nyota slipped into her running suit and tiptoed into the hallway to put on her shoes, so Gaila could sleep in a little longer. Her roommate more or less stuck to the Academy-standard fitness training, which was grueling enough. Nyota put in an extra hour a day, every day: Running three days a week, grav-resistance training three more days, and then she chose the seventh day’s activity each week for variety’s sake: swimming, rock-climbing, Tellarite hoverball, whatever would make a nice change.
Today was for running.
The January air was unusually brisk that morning, especially for a woman who had spent much of her childhood in Kenya. Nyota reminded herself that despite all her efforts, she might wind up with a duty station on Andoria, a world snowbound almost to its equator, or the observation post on Delta Vega, which was even worse. So she didn’t seal her jacket around her as she left the dorm - simply let the cold air bite into her skin. Better to get used to it, and besides, once she got moving, she would be beyond the reach of the cold.
Briefly she closed her eyes, shutting off the entire world except for the thudding of her feet on the ground, and the awakening burn of her muscles. Let other people hang around in bed throughout the morning. Nyota was on the move, and she did not intend to slow down.
**
The Academy mess was one of the most jumbled places on the entire campus. Non-humans who attended the Terran campus expected to adapt to Earth ways to some extent, but dietary needs remained constant. Beyond that, eating was one of the areas most resistant to cultural change; everybody wanted familiar food to eat and became very grumpy if they didn’t get it occasionally. The mess therefore served meals from almost three dozen worlds, and featured a rather complicated layout to make sure that one race’s treat (say, live Halwort beetles) didn’t turn into another race’s health crisis. Nyota had tried almost everything non-poisonous to humans, except for the beetles. She still liked waffles best.
As she sat down with her tray, sweat still damp on her skin after her run, she saw a few other students coming in, as well as a few instructors - including Commander Spock. Nyota gave him a half-wave and turned back to her own meal.
“Good morning, Lieutenant.” Spock’s tray held half a cantaloupe and a bowl of some rather joyless-looking shredded grains.
“Good morning.” Nyota was surprised that he had come up to her; despite the increasing informality of their meetings about her thesis, this was the first time he had approached her in any social setting. She began with the simplest opener she could think of: “You don’t usually eat in here.”
“The morning is normally the best time to work on personal projects in the science labs. However, I chose to forgo experimentation today because I had hoped to speak with you in person.”
Her fork seemed to have stalled somewhere between her plate and her mouth. “Oh?”
“Your records indicate that you achieved top marks in the Advanced Subspace seminar last semester. Professor Qrori has been called back to her homeworld for a family emergency and will be unavailable this semester. I have offered to teach in her place.”
“That’s a hard course to take on at the last minute,” she said.
“Indeed. My purpose for speaking to you today is to ask you if you would consider serving as my teaching assistant. Your diligent effort on your thesis has convinced me that you would not be dismayed by Vulcan intellectual rigor, and I believe we would work well together.”
It was a huge opportunity. That kind of responsibility in a top-level course would all but guarantee her the posting she wanted - namely, the new flagship of the fleet, the U.S.S. Enterprise.
So why did she feel like a thousand-pound weight had just settled on her shoulders?
“May I have until tomorrow to think about it?” she said. “I’m honored to be asked, and I know I would get a lot out working with you. But - my thesis, my other classes - I need to be sure I can manage it.”
“Your consideration is most prudent.”
“Thanks.” From a Vulcan, “prudent” was probably the best compliment you could get. Nyota put down her fork and began collecting together her tray. She was too distracted to eat anything else.
Had it been some other man looking up at her as she rose to leave, Nyota would’ve sworn he was disappointed that she was going so soon. Spock said only, “Good day, Lieutenant.”
Once outside, Nyota would normally have hurried back to her dorm for a shower and then to the library for some quality time with her thesis. Instead, she unzipped her jacket and started running again. She hadn’t eaten enough to throw her off, and now she had tension to burn.
Why aren’t you jumping at this opportunity? This is huge. This is important. You know you can do it. So turn around and tell Spock yes.
But it was one more thing. One more burden, one more responsibility, one more thing she had to get right or else. Ninety-nine percent of the time, Nyota felt as though she was able to manage her obligations well enough; that other one percent, when she let the exhaustion and uncertainty get to her, it could feel like her whole world was falling apart.
Today was a one-percent day.
She turned right instead of left, toward the Academy museum rather than away from it. At this hour, it was deserted, and the long steps up to the entrance were empty. Ignoring the antigrav ramps to either side, Nyota began pushing herself upward.
It’s not that much more work in the greater scheme of things.
Fact.
You wouldn’t have as much time to sleep - or to jam with Wei Su and the guys, or just hang out with Gaila - but that’s not what you came to Starfleet Academy for.
Fact.
Sweat began to slick her skin. She ran faster.
If you’re Spock’s teaching assistant, you’ll learn even more about subspace, and that’s information you’re going to need if you want to excel in the field.
Fact.
Your thesis project has helped you know Spock better, and at this point, if you felt like you were getting too snowed under, you could talk to him about it. He’d understand. He’d help.
Fact.
Her legs were aching now, but Nyota kept her eyes fixed on the gleaming edifice of the museum.
Even Vulcans can feel sympathy when others are in trouble.
Fact.
Nyota’s breath came in gasps, cold and harsh in her lungs. The steps seemed to go on forever, but she kept pushing herself onward. And as she neared the top, a new thought came to her in a rush:
If I had to tell Spock that I couldn’t hack this, I would feel like such a failure.
She half-stumbled on the last step but caught herself on a marble bench. Panting, she sat down on the cool stone to think.
The fear of failure haunted her, and it always had. Nyota had always thought that when she achieved more, accomplished more, that fear would dissipate. Instead, it seemed as though she were climbing higher and higher on a fragile framework, and if it broke apart now, she would just have farther to fall.
But she had never let fear of failure stop her before. She wouldn’t start today.
**
“I am most gratified that you were willing to take on the work, given the short time we have to prepare.” Spock handed her several data solids as they took their now-usual table in the linguistics lab. “However, we can arrange a separate time to discuss the class.”
“That works.”
Spock was busier even than she - and no matter how big and squishy that Vulcan brain of his might be, there was no way his schedule wasn’t completely blown by the addition of a new class for him to teach, particularly one of the advanced courses. But he still considered her thesis a priority.
See, Spock finds a way to manage, Nyota reminded herself. You will too. Maybe that’s the best reason to take this on - to learn how he does it.
“Okay,” she said. “We left off on the ceremonial chant, didn’t we?”
“Affirmative. You were attempting to replicate the k’gl sound, without success.”
“Please, don’t remind me.”
“You asked whether or not we were working on the ceremonial chants. Why should I not have responded with the correct answer?”
“’Don’t remind me’ is just a saying. It means the speaker would rather not remember something they didn’t handle well.”
Spock tilted his head, considering her. “Your efforts should not be denigrated. The sound is exceedingly difficult for non-native speakers to replicate.”
“The human mouth and the Vulcan mouth are shaped almost exactly the same. I ought to be able to get it.”
“I am confident that with practice you will.” Spock hesitated, and she wondered what he could be leading up to until he said, “Perhaps tactile information would be useful.”
“You mean, a holo-simulation?” Nyota had used several in the past, putting her fingers within the mouths and throats of various alien-race holograms to feel the motions and vibrations of different words most correctly. “Is there one for the Vulcan chant?”
“No. I could create one if necessary, but it seems to me there is a simpler solution.”
He was offering to let her touch him. At first Nyota didn’t know what to say. Touching Vulcans, bare skin to bare skin, was considered violative; doing so transmitted human thoughts and emotions in all their chaos straight into the mind of a touch-telepath.
He’ll know. He’ll know how scared I am, how close I am to the edge. Nyota took a deep breath. It’s okay if he knows. Spock won’t be worried about how you feel as long as he also senses that you’re focused on your goals, and his, nothing else.
“Thank you,” she said. She raised one hand, giving him a chance to reconsider, or to clarify if she had misunderstood.
Spock lifted his chin slightly. Nyota brought her palm to his larynx and rested her fingers on the underside of his jaw. His skin felt so warm. This was a really bad time to remember how attractive he was, so she forced her thoughts back to the matter at hand.
Their eyes met. Carefully, Spock said, “Fa’wak’glansu.”
That particular catch beneath the tongue - that was it. “Again, please?”
“Fa’wak’glansu.”
“Fa’wak’glansu,” Nyota repeated, and if it still wasn’t as precise as Spock’s pronunciation, it was close enough for jazz. She laughed out loud in sheer pleasure as she quickly withdrew her hand. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Indeed. Most impressive, Lieutenant.”
Spock’s expression conveyed nothing more than the simple liking and respect she had always seen before. Whatever weakness he had sensed in her - or even that momentary flash of attraction - he had accepted it, and her. He believed she was strong enough to handle it; Nyota chose to think that someday she’d believe it too.
“Okay,” she said with satisfaction. “Now we can move on.”
**
My beloved son.
She began every letter that way, she who had lived decades among Vulcans who disapproved of her every show of emotion. Spock’s mother did not express herself as exuberantly as the humans that surrounded him at Starfleet Academy, but she had never ceased to remind her son that she loved him.
Mt. Seleya is rumbling again, threatening to awaken after thousands of years of sleep. You can imagine the consternation this has caused -- on any other world, I would say “outrage” instead. A centuries-old symbol of serenity is about to explode, and for all its insistence on logic, Vulcan is a world that values its symbols. But the physical world prefers irony, I think. We shall see what Vulcan makes of a Mt. Seleya that breathes and bleeds fire.
Spock had often meditated on the desert plains in the evening, gazing upon the silhouette of Mt. Seleya against Vulcan’s stark red sky. He, too, had always seen it as a symbol of serenity and, in addition, of the very essence of Vulcan - what he had always desired but could never possess. Now it seemed that Mt. Seleya’s true nature had been closer to his own, with fire banked down low, but still burning.
Your father and I have decided to attend the linguistics conference on Andoria next year. He travels so much for his diplomatic work that it’s difficult to convince him to board a vessel for any other purpose. But he’s like you, unable to resist the lure of intellectual challenge. I can’t wait to see snow again, and when your father shivers and starts to complain about the cold, I will remind him that, for his sake, I have lived my life in a desert. Then I plan to throw a snowball at him.
Despite himself, Spock could not resist a small smile. His mother’s letters often had this effect; this was one reason he always waited to read them until he was alone.
Speaking of linguistics, the paper your colleague is working on sounds intriguing. Be sure to let me know if she publishes her thesis; it’s just the sort of thing that ought to be featured at that conference. Do you think she would be willing to present her work there? Don’t talk to her about it yet, if you think she would feel pressured. I remember well what it felt like to have your unfinished thesis breathing down your neck.
Lieutenant Uhura seemed to thrive under pressure, a quality Spock admired. He resolved to mention his mother’s suggestion at their next meeting.
I watched a holovid about the new Federation flagship last night. The Enterprise is supposed to be the pride of the fleet. I can understand why you’ve been so eager to be posted there. But five years of deep-space exploration - it’s a long time, my son, and it’s hard for me the bear the idea of not seeing you again for so many years. It’s been too long already.
Once more, I must ask: Won’t you think about returning to Vulcan, even for a brief stay? If you do not wish to see your father, I will not insist. But I would like to see you. Of course your schedule is very busy, but please, consider it.
Now I will stop being a nagging mama, and simply be a very proud one. You bring me joy with everything you do, Spock. Never forget that.
Mom
Spock clicked off the computer screen. His mother rarely resorted to employing blatantly emotional tactics such as guilt. Her willingness to do so now indicated that she missed him badly, and he wondered if this in turn was a sign that her emotional state was worsening.
He did not doubt that his mother was unhappy. As he had matured into adulthood, he had become more deeply convinced of this, and his conviction troubled him. Amanda Grayson presented a gentle, steady face to the world, but Spock knew better than most the gulf that could lie between an impassive face and a troubled heart. He also knew that, in order to be truly happy, human beings needed to feel that they were loved.
And his father did not love his mother.
Spock thought of her - living out her life on a desert world, she who loved cool winds and rain. Knowing herself to be forever bound to a man who considered their bond merely a matter of logic. And now estranged from her son, because Sarek had cast Spock out after his refusal to attend the Vulcan Science Academy. It was almost unbearable.
He would gladly have gone to Vulcan to visit her, even taken a leave of absence to do so, had the request been as simple as it appeared in her letter. But Spock knew his mother: She was more than capable of making her own journey to Earth if she wanted only to visit him. She had done so before, during his first year at the Academy. No, her request was an ill-veiled attempt at forging reconciliation between father and son. And that could not be.
**
“Wow,” said Uhura, as they sat together in his office, quickly reviewing the results of the first Advanced Subspace quiz of the new term. “I have spent my entire Academy career worrying too much.”
“You are troubled by your course load?”
“No, no - I meant, I didn’t realize the competition was so - how shall I put this? - non-competitive.”
Spock had experienced a similar reaction the first time he graded exams. “Given the stringent entrance requirements for Starfleet Academy, underperformance is rarely a reflection of lack of ability. It usually indicates unpreparedness, emotional turmoil or a subject beyond a particular student’s strengths. Subspace is a challenging concept for even exemplary pupils.”
“You’re more generous than I am. This guy wants to know why, if we can send subspace messages faster than warp 10, we don’t just fly our ships through subspace.” Uhura snatched that particular data solid from her grader with what appeared to be disgust.
“That sounds most illogical. However, I am obliged to point out that, for centuries, scientists on both Earth and Vulcan had similar reactions to the idea of warp speed.”
“One era’s crackpot is another’s genius?” Uhura sighed. “Maybe so. But some crackpots are actually cracked.”
Reassured that Uhura’s motivation remained unaffected by her new teaching assistant duties, Spock began, “I had a letter from my mother this morning.”
Uhura looked up from her grading, obviously confused by the sudden shift in topic. “Oh. Okay. Is - is she all right?”
He had chosen an ineffective conversational segue. Quickly Spock explained his reason for mentioning his mother, and the idea of the linguistics conference on Andoria. She responded to the challenge quickly. “I was planning on waiting to publish for a little while - maybe until I got real field experience to back up some of this - but it should be strong enough on the theoretical level,” Uhura said. “This is a fantastic opportunity. Thank you for mentioning it to her.”
“I deserve no credit for benevolent motives. My mother was the one who conceived of this plan.”
“Then thank your mother for me. Besides, you do deserve credit - in the literal sense, I mean.” Uhura leaned forward slightly, her hands on the table between them. “You’re all over my thesis as it is, but if I revise for publication, I’d want to credit you as a contributor.”
“You overestimate my input.”
“Hardly. Besides, hey, then we could both present at the conference. You could visit your mom. That would be nice, right?”
Spock knew that he could have sidestepped the issue by continuing to honestly emphasize Uhura’s independent work. But the thought of himself on Andoria - with his parents - silenced him for one moment too long.
“Commander Spock?” Uhura frowned. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Not at all, Lieutenant. Your generosity does you credit. However, I do not wish to attend the conference on Andoria.” That was simple enough. He felt he had moved on from the subject quite smoothly.
Yet Uhura continued to look at him, the furrow between her brows deepening. “Excuse me - I don’t want to pry, but - you get along with your mother, right? You correspond with her; you talk about her often.”
“My mother will be attending the conference on Andoria with my father.”
She nodded. They were both quiet for a few moments, and Spock took up another data solid, willing himself to face more inadequate answers. Uhura made no move to resume her work, and finally she said, “I meant what I said before, about not wanting to pry. But - I want to understand. Humans in your situation would probably want to talk to someone about this. If that’s also true for Vulcans, well, I’m willing to listen.”
“Vulcans do not discuss such matters.” Just as his father would not only not speak to his son, but currently refused to even speak of him. Spock considered it in that light, then said, “I am half-human. Perhaps I should hear a human perspective.”
Although she seemed surprised that he had accepted her offer, Uhura put aside her data reader and folded her arms on the table. “Okay. Have you and your father always had --- difficulties?”
“He has always wanted me to live as the exemplar of all that is Vulcan, and he was sometimes severe with my shortcomings.”
“Shortcomings? What are you talking about? You’ve got to be as Vulcan as any Vulcan out there.”
She had such naïve faith in him. “I am the only Vulcan you have ever known, Lieutenant. I assure you, my shortcomings are plentiful.”
“But you’re one of the top young officers in the whole Fleet. That must stand for something.”
“My decision to join Starfleet was the cause of the breach between me and my father. He wished me to attend the Vulcan Science Academy.”
“Wait a second.” Uhura stopped looking confused and started looking angry. “You’re telling me your father threw you out because you went to a different college than he wanted? That’s it?”
“Admission to the Vulcan Science Academy is among the highest honors my homeworld can bestow. Declining was undoubtedly seen by many as an insult.”
“Is that how you meant it?”
“No. Starfleet Academy intrigued me, and -“ This next was difficult to speak of. Spock believed, however, having undertaken this conversation, he should be thorough and accurate in every respect. “-I knew that, at the Science Academy, I would forever be considered not truly Vulcan. The admissions committee even said that I should be proud of excelling despite the ‘disadvantage’ of having a human mother. At Starfleet Academy, I am still judged by others’ preconceptions, but they are at least new preconceptions.”
Uhura’s wrath had only increased. “They actually said you weren’t worth as much because your mother was a human? Vulcans are supposed to be logical, serene, et cetera - and they still spout this racist bullshit? Excuse my language.”
“No offense was caused,” Spock said quickly. In truth, Uhura’s reaction was strangely appealing.
“Your dad shouldn’t be mad at you for wanting to go to a school where people would treat you decently. He should be mad at the people who put you down. What kind of a father lets people treat his son like that? Logic or no logic, he should have smacked that guy in the face. He should have stood up for you.”
“I do not think that would have helped matters.”
“No, but it would’ve helped you.” She took a couple of deep breaths, visibly calming herself. “Any dad with his priorities in the right place would be proud of you. That’s all I’m saying.”
Spock wondered what it would have been like, to have been defended so passionately. He knew only that it was gratifying to see Uhura do so. Gravely he said, “Thank you.”
She straightened in her chair, becoming once again the model cadet. “So, if I do publish my thesis, and I end up presenting at Andoria, I’ll go alone.”
“That would be best.”
“And if I see your dad, I will kick him in the ass.” Smoothly she took up her data reader to begin grading again. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure they can’t trace it back to you.”
“You are employing humor.” He felt he understood human conversation well enough to say this, but the fire in her eyes made him doubt himself. “You do not seriously plan to do physical violence to my father.”
“Maybe.” She said it in a way that left no doubt she was in fact joking, and yet he liked her refusal to admit it.
Spock glanced down at the next exam, the better to hide his face, and wondered how he could have let his control slip so far as to smile twice in the same day.
**
February
Nyota’s friendships often developed slowly; she liked to take a person’s measure before she shared more than a casual beer or road trip. Becoming friends with Spock was another matter altogether. It took forever, like waiting for a glacier to thaw.
But the thaw was worth waiting for.
“Fascinating.” Spock stood in the Nairobi heat, not even a bead of sweat on his skin, watching the 65th Annual Neo-Traditional Luo Music Festival - a cacophony of sound so extravagantly joyous that even Nyota, who had been attending this festival her whole life, was overwhelmed. The singers and drummers on stage were only the center of the show - all around them, people were singing along, clapping hands or thumping their feet in tempo. Small children darted between the adults, clutching snacks or glow-spheres that shimmered in various colors.
Although Spock did not share in the freewheeling energy around them, he didn’t reject it, either. There was something beautiful in watching a man so controlled accept the exuberance of others. He said, “You say this song’s origin lay in a funeral chant, and yet the singers express vitality rather than mourning.”
“When you face death, you can truly see the beauty of life.”
“We must discuss this after your command-track classmates begin to take the Kobayashi Maru exam,” Spock said.
“What do you mean?” Nyota had heard of the test, but knew no details; it was a hotly guarded secret among the cadets.
“For now, I can only say that I find the parallels intriguing.”
“Then I’m glad to have intrigued you.”
Spock inclined his head, not quite a nod, but it would do. Nyota had brought friends here before who simply tried to treat the festival like any other party - and it was a party, to be sure. But it was more than that, and Spock was the first one who had seen it. A shame, really, that he would never dance.
Smiling at that mental image, Nyota handed a couple of credits to a vendor, who in turn gave her a cup of roasted sweet potatoes, cubed, spiced and impaled on small skewers. “You have to try this,” she said. “Much better than those twigs you eat in the mess hall.”
That earned her a raised eyebrow. As the drums thumped all around them, Nyota held up one skewer of potatoes, thinking Spock would take it from her. Instead, he took a bite from the skewer in her hand.
Her heart beat a little crazily for a second. From a human, such a move would have been flirtation; from Spock, it was merely a missed social cue, one of the gaps between human and Vulcan habit. Nyota wanted to remember that --- but she also wanted to enjoy the moment.
“Most pleasant,” he said. “I agree that it is a far superior example of culinary skill than virtually any offering in the Academy mess.”
Nyota grinned. “I have to get you to try waffles sometime.” She took the next skewer from herself.
And how was it that this friendship - this new sense of closeness with the most unexpected person - had set her free? She didn’t expect anything from Spock, but that was just it: Spending free time with him was the first thing she’d done in years with no driving purpose behind it. The long grind she’d been on ever since she had set her heart on Starfleet Academy as a young girl had been wearing her down, more than she’d realized until now.
It wasn’t that she was slacking off; in some ways, Nyota was busier than ever, and sometimes she felt more overwhelmed than ever. But freeing herself of the tyranny of expectations had energized her on almost every level, and restored to her something she’d almost lost - a sense of joy.
That feeling crept into her social life --
“Wait,” Gaila said, sitting across from her in a bar in the Old Chinatown district where students often came to blow off steam. “You’re starting a band?”
“Wei Su and Francois and Nruo’bek and I have been talking about it forever. If we don’t do it now, when will we? Chances are we can’t all end up on the Enterprise. It won’t be too much for me to handle,” Nyota said, hoping very much that was true.
“You’re going to take time off to practice. Time off from studying.”
“Time off for gigs, too. And we will get gigs. I don’t care if we’re just busking for credits in the Academy commons; this band is going to play.”
Gaila’s face had paled almost to the color of mint. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. When did you learn how to have fun? And why did you have to take four years to do it?”
Nyota might have gotten annoyed about that a few months ago. Instead, she simply took a strawful of Cardassian Sunrise and blew it at Gaila, spattering pink all over her clothes. Gaila laughed instead of getting upset, but Nyota still made it up to her by buying the next round.
It bled into her teaching assistant duties --
“What if subspace is capable of supporting life?” said the crackpot, aka Hikaru Sulu. “If there are dimensions within dimensions, why not multi-dimensional universes similar to our own?”
Instead of insisting that the study group get back to the subject at hand, Nyota considered this. “We haven’t discovered any dimension remotely capable of that - but on the other hand, subspace is almost infinitely complex.”
“Sometimes -“ Sulu hesitated, as if afraid of mockery. A few members of the study group were smirking, but Nyota leaned closer, willing to listen. He continued, “Sometimes I think of it as origami. Folded-paper art? My grandfather was Japanese; he taught me how to do it.” He took a sheet from his class materials and deftly began making creases, never fully looking down. “You can turn a one-dimensional plane into a three-dimensional object. When I study subspace readings, sometimes it seems to me that the different dimensions are creating their own shapes. Why not their own universes?”
“We should run that by Mr. Spock. See what he says. Who knows? You might be on to something.”
Sulu smiled, grateful that someone had listened. At the end of study group, he put the folded sheet of paper - now a perfect dodecahedron - on her desk.
More than anything, it bled into her friendship with Spock.
“What purpose does the surface grid serve?”
“Wait and see.”
Nyota poured syrup over Spock’s plate, wondering whether he’d go into sugar shock. She didn’t think that was a real risk for Vulcans, but maple syrup could do it if anything could. “Okay.”
Spock took his first bite of waffles, chewed slowly, and swallowed. “The surface grid acts as containment for the syrup.”
“Exactly. Do you like them?”
“They are quite satisfactory.” The response might have come across as fairly cool, had Spock not been cutting himself another bite of waffles at that very moment.
Sometimes, when she let herself think about it - right before she fell asleep, or when she saw Spock across the Academy commons and felt her heart leap - Nyota had a sense of what was really going on with her. But she told herself that particular impulse was just mischief, the irrepressible urge to trouble still waters. Other times she told herself it was just the welcome contrast between Spock’s cool intellectual appreciation and the panting eagerness she had to deal with from other guys, who seemed like eager puppies in comparison. Every once in a while Nyota let herself get as far as admitting that Spock was attractive to her, but told herself it was pretty simple, really. He was a handsome man, in an exotic sort of way, and both his mind and his character were appealing to her. Why wouldn’t she find that attractive? She was driven, not dead.
But further than that she would not allow her mind to go, until one late night.
“The use of indirect speech acts in ch’Vian Romulan is extreme - I don’t think those guys ever ask a direct question.” Nyota scrolled through her notes for this section of her thesis. She and Spock had given up the formality of the linguistics lab, and now usually met in his quarters. As an instructor, he had a full suite: kitchenette in one corner, a small sitting room with table, chairs and sofa, and beyond the plexiglass wall, presumably a bedroom superior to dorm digs. The decor was stark to the point of being Spartan, with simple dark furnishings, fawn-colored walls and a simple holo of a Vulcan scene on one wall, but Nyota felt that it had a certain minimalist chic. He had poured them each small hot cups of tea. “It’s strange to me, because there are almost no uses of indirect speech acts in Vulcan.”
“Do you believe so? I would disagree.”
“Vulcans? Passive-aggressive? Come on.”
“Aggression is culturally denied us. Most adult Vulcans have moved past such primitive emotions - but for those who have not, passive-aggression is the only socially permissible outlet. People are commonly asked about their ability to understand certain ideas as a method of critiquing their failure to embody that idea to the questioner’s satisfaction.”
“When you put it that way, Vulcan doesn’t sound like the most enjoyable place to be.” Nyota waited for a riposte, whether serious or wryly humorous; none came. His eyes met hers, and she realized again what it must have taken for him to defy his father - and a whole planet besides - to follow his dream. Despite his quiet manner, Spock was a brave man. “What about performative illocutionary acts in Vulcan? Is the word ever the deed? As in, ‘I now promote you to the rank of lieutenant,’ or ‘I pronounce you married by the laws of the Federation.’”
“I am familiar with the concept. Vulcan does indeed have such utterances, in which the act of speaking is in itself the deed. As in most languages, promises and oaths fall into this category.”
“Promotions?”
“Those are handled separately. A Vulcan teacher advancing at his school would receive paperwork informing him of his new position and the duties entailed. He would take on those duties effective immediately; no ceremony would be required.”
“Marriages? Please tell me they aren’t handled through paperwork too.”
Spock remained quiet for a moment, and she felt a flush heat her cheeks.
“I’m sorry - if I’ve been rude, I apologize.”
“Your curiosity is natural.” He seemed to be at a loss for how to explain, and yet she could tell that he wanted to. Nyota had learned, by now, to simply wait out such moments and let Spock decide how far he wanted things to go. There was a time for prying, with him - he wouldn’t really open up any other way - but this wasn’t one of those times, not yet.
Spock finally said, “The marriage ceremony for Vulcans is a private matter. The Silences govern this; I cannot speak of it, neither to an outworlder nor to any other Vulcan beyond the realm of the ceremony itself.”
“Okay.”
“I can tell you that it is not a matter of paperwork.” Dry wit crept into his voice, but Nyota sensed this small joke had something of gallows humor about it. “Generally, Vulcans are betrothed as children. The pairings are handled between families. That is all I can say.”
She nodded. Arranged marriages sort of made sense, for Vulcans; if emotions like love and affection weren’t supposed to play a role in a lifelong partnership, why not get engaged when you were a kid? Why not have your parents pick for you? They’d studied odder customs in xenosociology.
Then the full implications hit her. “Wait. Are you telling me you’re married?”
“Betrothed.”
It hurt. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. She quickly took a sip of her tea, hoping that would mask her reaction. The liquid was still slightly too hot, and it singed her tongue and throat on the way down, a dry, lasting burn.
When she looked up from her glass, Spock was studying her impassively. At first, Nyota wondered if he was resenting her intrusive questions - but that wasn’t like Spock. In fact, he looked like he wanted to talk.
He would never do it, if left to his own devices; this was one of those times when being a friend meant prying. “Will you tell me about her?”
“Her name is T’Pring. She is a year younger than I am. I believe that she is studying history and political science.”
“You believe she is?”
“We are not in contact.” Spock’s steady gaze faltered. He, too, suddenly became very interested in his tea. Steam from his cup wreathed his face. “Sometimes the bonding between a betrothed pair is very powerful. Sometimes it is not. For T’Pring and I, it is not.”
“Do you like her?” When Spock did not answer, Nyota continued, “Do you even know her?”
“Not really. Perhaps that will come after.”
They were quiet together for a few moments. Spock’s quarters were slightly warmer than most at the Academy; Nyota suspected he kept them even hotter most of the time, but turned the temperature down before her visits for her comfort. The shades over the lamps tinted the light honey gold - again, something to rest his Sol-weary eyes - but to a human, the atmosphere came across as intimate, almost welcoming. Only here could Nyota have found the courage to say, “Is that really what you want?”
“It is what I promised to do.”
“Back when you thought you would attend the Vulcan Science Academy, and live out your life there.”
“Joining Starfleet changed the course of my life, but it did not free me from my obligations. When I - when the time comes, I will wed T’Pring. I must hope that, as my wife, she will be committed to finding the balance necessary for me to continue as a Starfleet officer.”
“I hope she will. I hope - I hope she wants to see the galaxy, just like you.” The next was hard to say, but she got it out: “Maybe I could have two Vulcan friends, instead of one.”
Spock straightened, and had he been human, she would have said he was touched. “I thank you for your friendship, Lieutenant.”
She gave her name to so few people, but this time, it was easy. “I’d be honored if you would call me Nyota. And I thank you for your friendship, too.” He nodded solemnly, and she thought once more about performative utterances - whether they had just sealed their friendship by daring to name it.
After that, she knew, concentrating on Romulan was a lost cause. Nyota gathered her things as Spock took her teacup to the small ‘fresher in the kitchenette. She slipped on the soft jacket she’d worn over her cadet reds earlier that night; in Spock’s room, it felt as balmy as the beaches of Mombasa, but in San Francisco, the moisture in the air would still hold a chill. The temptation was great to find an excuse to stay, but she didn’t give into it.
At the door, he said, “Good night, Nyota.” Her name sounded beautiful in his voice.
“Good night, Spock.” She left off his title before recalling that he hadn’t given her permission to do so - but he didn’t seem to mind.
Nyota didn’t return to the dorm right away. Instead she walked over the Commons to the long line of benches that looked out on the bay. For a long time she sat there, hugging her knees to her chest.
The irrational pain she felt at hearing of Spock’s betrothal tore away the last shreds of her denial. But Nyota would be damned if she’d sit around and weep about falling in love with a man she couldn’t have.
The Academy had a light-filter shield around it to block out the city lights of San Francisco and allow its students to see the stars to which they would travel someday. Nyota gazed upward at the constellations overhead. By force of habit, she started to name the stars, to think of the races that dwelled around them, but then she stopped herself. For the first time in years, she saw it only as starlight - nothing more, nothing less.
Summary: During their final semester at Starfleet Academy, two people who have no intention of ever changing transform each other.
Part Two
Part Three
Break
By Yahtzee
PART ONE
December
“I don’t understand why you’re in the xenolinguistics club to begin with, since you don’t speak anything but Standard,” Nyota said as she pushed her way out of the hall where they’d held their final meeting of the semester. “And I really don’t understand how you got yourself elected treasurer.”
“It’s called politics, Uhura.” Jim Kirk matched her quick stride step for step, somehow managing to look relaxed while he did so. How did he do that? “It’s called listening to people. It’s called understanding their needs and concerns.”
Nyota stopped in her tracks, put one hand on her hip and stared him down.
Jim’s smile broadened. “It’s also called bribery, if you want to be negative - just giving a certain guy’s dorm number to a certain interested young lady in return for influencing the Centaurian vote-“
“Unbelievable. You get ahead by acting as the Starfleet Academy pimp.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. I promise you, no money changed hands.”
“Which brings up another point. You took up a collection for funds to cover the club’s trip to the museums in Beijing. I just checked; there’s no admission fee for those museums.”
“We’ll have other needs,” Jim insisted. “Let’s just say that after the scholastic portion of the trip is done, there will be a beverage service.”
“Somebody seriously needs to nail your ass to the wall.”
“Somebody seriously needs to nail your -“
“Watch it, farmboy.”
“Uhura, give me a break.” When he stopped smirking, Jim’s face was actually very handsome. It didn’t happen that often. “This isn’t a class or a seminar or official duty. It’s a club. It’s about having fun. Remember fun?”
“I’ll remember fun when my thesis is written, my final grades are in, I’ve graduated with honors and I’ve got the assignment I want.”
She must have sounded even more tired than she felt, because Jim actually started to look concerned. “Hey. Don’t wear yourself out before we even get up there.”
It was like trying to hold a grudge against a puppy. “In Beijing, I promise to slow down long enough to have a drink from the ‘beverage service.’ So there had better be Cardassian Sunrises.”
“Any chance you’re going to split one with me?” He had a trick of somehow getting in her personal space without moving any closer.
“Do you ever stop?”
“Not until I get what I want.”
“Then you’re never going to stop.”
Jim smiled. “To answer your first question, I’m in the xenolinguistics club because I want to know your first name.”
“Like I’ve been saying for three years, you can look it up in the student directory.”
“But I want you to tell me.”
It was a battle of wills between them, both annoying as hell for Nyota and yet perversely enjoyable. “Keep dreaming. Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s somebody I have to catch before he leaves.”
Jim pressed his hand to his chest, mocking the response of somebody who has received a mortal wound. “Another man. So you do remember fun.”
She just laughed as she walked away, both at the general absurdity Jim was capable of and the idea that she was going to meet a guy for some romantic rendezvous. First, Nyota had decided in her second year that serious relationships could and would wait until after her graduation from Starfleet Academy. Flirting was fine. So was sex, if the guy in question understood her boundaries. (Jim Kirk was a guy who did not understand boundaries, except as something to be broken, which ruled him out.) But getting involved meant getting distracted, and Nyota wanted to keep her focus on the stars.
Second, of all the men she might ever have been involved with, she was about to meet the least likely.
Nyota hurried down the Ji Hall steps, speeding up as she saw who she was looking for. If she shouted, he would hear her despite the din of cadets laughing and talking after class; he had the ears for it. But she suspected shouting was not the best way to start a conversation with him. When she was within a few steps, she raised her voice only slightly. “Commander Spock?”
He turned. “Lieutenant Uhura. Do you require my assistance?”
“Require? No. Request, yes.” She smiled at him, before thinking better of it. Surely a Vulcan wouldn’t want to see any unnecessary displays of emotion - even a pleasant one. “You might know that I’m doing my dissertation on the Romulan language, specifically nuances in the ch’Vian dialect.”
“That is the lowest-caste dialect, I understand - but the vernacular for laborers on border colonies, traders, miners and others who would make important intelligence assets. You have chosen well.”
“The ch’Vian dialect is the one most closely related to Vulcan. Obviously, I won’t have the chance to talk with a Romulan before graduation -“
“Let us hope not.” Ever since the slaughter of the Kelvin, the Romulans were known and feared throughout the Alpha Quadrant. Perfecting Federation intel on the Romulan Empire had been a top priority from that time on. Nyota knew that the Vulcans had not disclosed their connection with the Romulans before that incident, and then only unwillingly, so she’d been unsure about asking Spock for more information. He seemed untroubled, though, so she plowed on.
“-but I thought that if I could discuss certain questions in-depth with a native speaker of Vulcan, that might be useful. Obviously, the languages and customs have diverged widely since the split, but I still think I might come up with some useful insights by comparing and contrasting the two.” Nyota took a deep breath. “We’d need to meet repeatedly from now until I finish my thesis in the spring. I know I’m asking for a lot of your time for uncertain benefits, but - I’m asking.”
“All research is by its nature uncertain,” Spock said. “Your hypothesis appears sound, and I recognize that you have no other Vulcan to whom you can readily turn. I agree to your proposition.”
Nyota blinked. Both the courses she had taken from Spock in the past two years had heavily featured Socratic dialogues; she had been prepared for any kind of argument, but not ready agreement. “I - great. That’s great. Thank you.”
“When do you wish to begin?”
“As soon as possible, if that works for you.” Quickly she checked her PADD. “I have time tomorrow afternoon. 16:00 hours? The linguistics lab?”
“I look forward to it.” One slight nod, and he was gone.
**
“Tell me you didn’t ask Spock out,” Gaila said. “Please. Tell me you have listened to at least one thing I have told you about men in the past three years.”
“I didn’t ask him out. I asked him to work with me on a project. That’s all.” Nyota unfastened the clip around her ponytail and felt her thick hair fall free across her back. Sometimes she felt like this was the only time of day she got to relax.
“But you have a thing for him!”
“I should never have told you that.” It didn’t pay to drink with Orions. Gaila had the alcohol tolerance level of five strong men combined, and had learned most of their classmates’ secrets during late-night binges. Nyota had found this out the hard way. “I just think he’s attractive, that’s all. Trust me, I know how it is. Vulcans - they’re like spacedock jockeys, or married men, or poets. All sane women should stay the hell away.”
“I disagree about the spacedock jockeys,” Gaila said. She fell back onto her bed with a nostalgic smile that suggested she had one very specific jockey in mind. “Still, as long as you’ve got your head on straight. What am I saying? Of course you do. You’re - you.”
“Damn straight.” Nyota paused, wondering whether she wanted to talk about this with Gaila, who could be a loving friend but was not necessarily the most introspective person in the galaxy. Then she decided she wanted to talk about it with someone, so it might as well be Gaila. “It would be interesting to get to know him better.”
“I will tie you up in this room and refuse to let you out before I let you break your heart over a Vulcan. You might as well try to mate with one of the statues in front of the Academy museum. If the carving is anatomically correct, your chance of success would be higher.”
“I don’t mean that I want to seduce him. I mean - you know, a big part of linguistics is going beyond merely speaking the language. You have to understand the native speaker. You have to try to think the way they think, to comprehend what they’ve really said.”
Gaila frowned at her. “We were talking about sex, and now we’re talking about your coursework? Don’t you ever stop working?”
“You were talking about sex. And I’m not talking about my coursework; I’m talking about my vocation. There’s a difference.” Nyota began rubbing lotion into her skin, weighing precisely what she wanted to say. “Xenolinguistics is, in part, about learning to think like an alien. Starfleet Academy lets a lot of biologically compatible lifeforms live and work together for a few years. I think I’ve learned a lot.”
“You haven’t learned that Orions need their sleep.” Gaila had never fully accepted Nyota’s morning routine.
Nyota ignored this interruption. “I’ve studied Vulcan culture, at least the basics, but I don’t understand them. They’re hard to crack. If I could understand more about them through Spock, then - maybe I could get someplace. And I feel like, once I figure Vulcans out, I can figure anybody out.”
“Seems fair,” Gaila admitted. “But watch yourself.”
“I always do.”
“And take a break once in a while, okay?”
“Not happening.”
**
Spock’s study of xenolinguistics had been cursory at best, at least in his opinion - he spoke only seven languages, and was not qualified to teach beyond the starting level in any subjects save Phonology and Morphology. He had earned multiple degrees in hard sciences, which did not leave time to achieve full expertise in other fields. All the same, he found the subject interesting, not least because his father and mother were both expert in the area. Sarek had been the first Vulcan speaker of many Earth languages, from Mandarin to Dutch, and Amanda Grayson had written the first Vulcan-English dictionary meant for common, rather than academic, use.
They would perhaps want to hear about Lieutenant Uhura’s theories, if he and his father ever began speaking again.
The linguistics lab was by its nature a cozy place. Soft chairs were gathered around small tables where students from two dozen worlds could converse and, in so doing, teach one another. Warmly lit isolation cubbies, set into the walls, offered students places to work with recordings or holos; each of them shimmered slightly, evidence of soundproof shielding. The walls were a deep orange, a color he found soothing and somewhat reminiscent of home. Spock chose a smaller table in the far corner, where he judged the acoustics to be favorable.
Uhura looked chagrined when she came in to find him already in place. “I hope I’m not late.”
“To the contrary, I arrived early. You are admirably prompt.”
“You sure know how to flatter a girl,” she said wryly as she sat opposite him. Her hair was knotted in a bun, pulled back almost severely, but the effect on her features was most pleasing. Spock did not consider abstract aesthetic appreciation inappropriate - and, when it came to Uhura, such appreciation was unavoidable. “All right. Let me explain where we’re going to begin. My hypothesis, at this point, is that ch’Vian Romulan has retained not only certain grammatical constructs and word origins of its Vulcan root language, but also certain phonological, syntactic and semantic qualities.”
“Logical.”
“I’m not as positive about that as you are. Languages change rapidly, and while I’ve observed a lot of parallels - at least, I think they’re parallels. Right now, I have less than perfect fluency in both Romulan and Vulcan. With your help, I hope to confirm my understanding of the Vulcan half.”
“Then let us begin.”
“Okay. Let’s start with mechanics. Phonology. The eh sound, let’s say.”
“It is common in both Vulcan and Romulan,” Spock said. She would of course know this, but with humans, he had found that repeating the obvious was a surprisingly effective conversational tactic.
“Yes, but in Vulcan, the eh sound is pronounced differently at the end of a word than it is when it’s in the middle of a word. With the end of the word, you have that glottal stop.”
This was something he had never consciously considered before, but instantly understood to be true. “Shau-zehl,” he said. “Naliveh. You are correct.”
“In ch’Vian Romulan, however -“ Uhura’s voice trailed off. For the first time since he had come to know her, she deviated from her chosen task. “Wait. Shau-zehl? I don’t know that word. The literal translation would be something like ‘break line,’ but the meaning - no idea. Please tell me it’s obscure.”
“Not obscure, but unlikely to be covered in any of your texts. It is a children’s game.”
“Really?” A small smile appeared, almost uncertain, as if she were worried about causing offense. “What kind of games do children play on Vulcan?”
“We compete to see who can solve algebraic equations most quickly.”
After a moment, she smiled even more broadly. “Does anybody believe you when you say that?”
So few humans understood when he was joking. “In shau-zehl, all the available children from two lines by holding hands. Each line chooses a runner, who in turn attempts to break the line.”
“You mean, Red Rover! Vulcan kids play Red Rover!” Uhura laughed. “The only difference is, with humans, the opposing line chooses the kid who has to try to break through.”
“Instead of calling forth the strongest individuals, they call forth the weakest.” Among Vulcan children, he had often been the weakest; among human children, he would always have been the strongest. He would not have been called for in either case. “An interesting variation.”
Uhura clearly wanted to ask him more about Vulcan childhood, but she returned to the subject with admirable discipline. “Anyway. In ch’Vian Romulan, they only pronounce the glottal stop when the word falls at the end of a sentence. Otherwise, if the eh sound is at the end of a word, they tend to run that word into the following word, combining them. It can make voice-only translation difficult to follow, so I’m hoping there are some precedents in Vulcan - some similar running-together of words. I’m not familiar with any, but are there dialects, special forms of speech, anything like that you can think of?”
Spock considered this. “There is only one similar use that comes to mind.”
“What’s that?”
“Combining words is a common form of - I believe the term in Standard is ‘baby talk.’”
“Excuse me?”
“The kind of simplified speech that adults use to speak to children.”
“You’re telling me that lower-caste Romulans are going around baby-talking to each other all the time?”
“Apparently so.”
Uhura did laugh at that. Spock felt some amusement himself: The idea was rather absurd, particularly for a race as feared as the Romulans.
“Wow. Okay. Baby-talk. I wonder what possible sociological -“ She cut herself off. “No speculation. I have to stick what I can quantify. But if we could record some Vulcan parents - if they would be willing to speak informally in front of researchers-“
“Most Vulcans would consider that appropriate in the context of scientific inquiry.”
“That might be very helpful with programming the translators.” Uhura quickly jotted a few notes on her PADD. “I should have known you’d have all the answers.”
“The right questions are fundamentally much more difficult to supply. Your insight is remarkable.”
She paused at that, not looking up from her work. The moment passed quickly, and they resumed their discussion of phonology.
They continued for more than an hour, mostly remaining on-topic. Although they discovered no insights as surprising as Romulan ‘baby talk,’ the conversation seemed highly productive to Spock, and he observed that Uhura had stored nearly a dozen pages of data on her PADD before they were done.
As they walked out of the linguistics lab, the sun was setting over the Pacific. The Golden Gate Bridge gleamed in the radiant light. They paused on the steps, and Spock realized he was reluctant to say goodbye. He had always found Lieutenant Uhura’s company agreeable, but this sensation was different. It occurred to him how few humans he had allowed himself to know well during his time on Earth; there were reasons for this, but none of those reasons seemed to apply at the moment.
“Thanks again for agreeing to do this,” she said. “I hope it’s not going to take too much of your time.”
“The experience was both informative and enjoyable. I look forward to our next session.”
Uhura tucked her PADD under one arm. “Glad to know you’re liking this as much as I am. But when I said thanks, I meant - you didn’t have to tell me everything you did.”
“I meely answered the questions posed to the best of my ability.”
“You went above and beyond the call of duty. You didn’t have to tell me how your parents talked to you as a child, for instance.”
“I did not tell you that.”
She frowned. “But -“
“My mother always spoke to me in Standard.” Spock hesitated, then said, “My father was not inclined to speak informally to me.”
Slowly, Uhura nodded. Had she guessed the fuller implications of that statement? Possibly - humans were surprisingly perceptive in such matters, at least when they took the time to listen. Uhura always did. Although Spock did not care to expose his personal information, he realized he was not disturbed by the idea of Uhura realizing this much. She was discreet. She could be trusted.
“Good night, Lieutenant Uhura.”
“Good night, Mr. Spock.” She strode away across the Academy courtyard, and for a few seconds he indulged the impulse to watch her go.
January
6 a.m. - time to move.
Nyota slipped into her running suit and tiptoed into the hallway to put on her shoes, so Gaila could sleep in a little longer. Her roommate more or less stuck to the Academy-standard fitness training, which was grueling enough. Nyota put in an extra hour a day, every day: Running three days a week, grav-resistance training three more days, and then she chose the seventh day’s activity each week for variety’s sake: swimming, rock-climbing, Tellarite hoverball, whatever would make a nice change.
Today was for running.
The January air was unusually brisk that morning, especially for a woman who had spent much of her childhood in Kenya. Nyota reminded herself that despite all her efforts, she might wind up with a duty station on Andoria, a world snowbound almost to its equator, or the observation post on Delta Vega, which was even worse. So she didn’t seal her jacket around her as she left the dorm - simply let the cold air bite into her skin. Better to get used to it, and besides, once she got moving, she would be beyond the reach of the cold.
Briefly she closed her eyes, shutting off the entire world except for the thudding of her feet on the ground, and the awakening burn of her muscles. Let other people hang around in bed throughout the morning. Nyota was on the move, and she did not intend to slow down.
**
The Academy mess was one of the most jumbled places on the entire campus. Non-humans who attended the Terran campus expected to adapt to Earth ways to some extent, but dietary needs remained constant. Beyond that, eating was one of the areas most resistant to cultural change; everybody wanted familiar food to eat and became very grumpy if they didn’t get it occasionally. The mess therefore served meals from almost three dozen worlds, and featured a rather complicated layout to make sure that one race’s treat (say, live Halwort beetles) didn’t turn into another race’s health crisis. Nyota had tried almost everything non-poisonous to humans, except for the beetles. She still liked waffles best.
As she sat down with her tray, sweat still damp on her skin after her run, she saw a few other students coming in, as well as a few instructors - including Commander Spock. Nyota gave him a half-wave and turned back to her own meal.
“Good morning, Lieutenant.” Spock’s tray held half a cantaloupe and a bowl of some rather joyless-looking shredded grains.
“Good morning.” Nyota was surprised that he had come up to her; despite the increasing informality of their meetings about her thesis, this was the first time he had approached her in any social setting. She began with the simplest opener she could think of: “You don’t usually eat in here.”
“The morning is normally the best time to work on personal projects in the science labs. However, I chose to forgo experimentation today because I had hoped to speak with you in person.”
Her fork seemed to have stalled somewhere between her plate and her mouth. “Oh?”
“Your records indicate that you achieved top marks in the Advanced Subspace seminar last semester. Professor Qrori has been called back to her homeworld for a family emergency and will be unavailable this semester. I have offered to teach in her place.”
“That’s a hard course to take on at the last minute,” she said.
“Indeed. My purpose for speaking to you today is to ask you if you would consider serving as my teaching assistant. Your diligent effort on your thesis has convinced me that you would not be dismayed by Vulcan intellectual rigor, and I believe we would work well together.”
It was a huge opportunity. That kind of responsibility in a top-level course would all but guarantee her the posting she wanted - namely, the new flagship of the fleet, the U.S.S. Enterprise.
So why did she feel like a thousand-pound weight had just settled on her shoulders?
“May I have until tomorrow to think about it?” she said. “I’m honored to be asked, and I know I would get a lot out working with you. But - my thesis, my other classes - I need to be sure I can manage it.”
“Your consideration is most prudent.”
“Thanks.” From a Vulcan, “prudent” was probably the best compliment you could get. Nyota put down her fork and began collecting together her tray. She was too distracted to eat anything else.
Had it been some other man looking up at her as she rose to leave, Nyota would’ve sworn he was disappointed that she was going so soon. Spock said only, “Good day, Lieutenant.”
Once outside, Nyota would normally have hurried back to her dorm for a shower and then to the library for some quality time with her thesis. Instead, she unzipped her jacket and started running again. She hadn’t eaten enough to throw her off, and now she had tension to burn.
Why aren’t you jumping at this opportunity? This is huge. This is important. You know you can do it. So turn around and tell Spock yes.
But it was one more thing. One more burden, one more responsibility, one more thing she had to get right or else. Ninety-nine percent of the time, Nyota felt as though she was able to manage her obligations well enough; that other one percent, when she let the exhaustion and uncertainty get to her, it could feel like her whole world was falling apart.
Today was a one-percent day.
She turned right instead of left, toward the Academy museum rather than away from it. At this hour, it was deserted, and the long steps up to the entrance were empty. Ignoring the antigrav ramps to either side, Nyota began pushing herself upward.
It’s not that much more work in the greater scheme of things.
Fact.
You wouldn’t have as much time to sleep - or to jam with Wei Su and the guys, or just hang out with Gaila - but that’s not what you came to Starfleet Academy for.
Fact.
Sweat began to slick her skin. She ran faster.
If you’re Spock’s teaching assistant, you’ll learn even more about subspace, and that’s information you’re going to need if you want to excel in the field.
Fact.
Your thesis project has helped you know Spock better, and at this point, if you felt like you were getting too snowed under, you could talk to him about it. He’d understand. He’d help.
Fact.
Her legs were aching now, but Nyota kept her eyes fixed on the gleaming edifice of the museum.
Even Vulcans can feel sympathy when others are in trouble.
Fact.
Nyota’s breath came in gasps, cold and harsh in her lungs. The steps seemed to go on forever, but she kept pushing herself onward. And as she neared the top, a new thought came to her in a rush:
If I had to tell Spock that I couldn’t hack this, I would feel like such a failure.
She half-stumbled on the last step but caught herself on a marble bench. Panting, she sat down on the cool stone to think.
The fear of failure haunted her, and it always had. Nyota had always thought that when she achieved more, accomplished more, that fear would dissipate. Instead, it seemed as though she were climbing higher and higher on a fragile framework, and if it broke apart now, she would just have farther to fall.
But she had never let fear of failure stop her before. She wouldn’t start today.
**
“I am most gratified that you were willing to take on the work, given the short time we have to prepare.” Spock handed her several data solids as they took their now-usual table in the linguistics lab. “However, we can arrange a separate time to discuss the class.”
“That works.”
Spock was busier even than she - and no matter how big and squishy that Vulcan brain of his might be, there was no way his schedule wasn’t completely blown by the addition of a new class for him to teach, particularly one of the advanced courses. But he still considered her thesis a priority.
See, Spock finds a way to manage, Nyota reminded herself. You will too. Maybe that’s the best reason to take this on - to learn how he does it.
“Okay,” she said. “We left off on the ceremonial chant, didn’t we?”
“Affirmative. You were attempting to replicate the k’gl sound, without success.”
“Please, don’t remind me.”
“You asked whether or not we were working on the ceremonial chants. Why should I not have responded with the correct answer?”
“’Don’t remind me’ is just a saying. It means the speaker would rather not remember something they didn’t handle well.”
Spock tilted his head, considering her. “Your efforts should not be denigrated. The sound is exceedingly difficult for non-native speakers to replicate.”
“The human mouth and the Vulcan mouth are shaped almost exactly the same. I ought to be able to get it.”
“I am confident that with practice you will.” Spock hesitated, and she wondered what he could be leading up to until he said, “Perhaps tactile information would be useful.”
“You mean, a holo-simulation?” Nyota had used several in the past, putting her fingers within the mouths and throats of various alien-race holograms to feel the motions and vibrations of different words most correctly. “Is there one for the Vulcan chant?”
“No. I could create one if necessary, but it seems to me there is a simpler solution.”
He was offering to let her touch him. At first Nyota didn’t know what to say. Touching Vulcans, bare skin to bare skin, was considered violative; doing so transmitted human thoughts and emotions in all their chaos straight into the mind of a touch-telepath.
He’ll know. He’ll know how scared I am, how close I am to the edge. Nyota took a deep breath. It’s okay if he knows. Spock won’t be worried about how you feel as long as he also senses that you’re focused on your goals, and his, nothing else.
“Thank you,” she said. She raised one hand, giving him a chance to reconsider, or to clarify if she had misunderstood.
Spock lifted his chin slightly. Nyota brought her palm to his larynx and rested her fingers on the underside of his jaw. His skin felt so warm. This was a really bad time to remember how attractive he was, so she forced her thoughts back to the matter at hand.
Their eyes met. Carefully, Spock said, “Fa’wak’glansu.”
That particular catch beneath the tongue - that was it. “Again, please?”
“Fa’wak’glansu.”
“Fa’wak’glansu,” Nyota repeated, and if it still wasn’t as precise as Spock’s pronunciation, it was close enough for jazz. She laughed out loud in sheer pleasure as she quickly withdrew her hand. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Indeed. Most impressive, Lieutenant.”
Spock’s expression conveyed nothing more than the simple liking and respect she had always seen before. Whatever weakness he had sensed in her - or even that momentary flash of attraction - he had accepted it, and her. He believed she was strong enough to handle it; Nyota chose to think that someday she’d believe it too.
“Okay,” she said with satisfaction. “Now we can move on.”
**
My beloved son.
She began every letter that way, she who had lived decades among Vulcans who disapproved of her every show of emotion. Spock’s mother did not express herself as exuberantly as the humans that surrounded him at Starfleet Academy, but she had never ceased to remind her son that she loved him.
Mt. Seleya is rumbling again, threatening to awaken after thousands of years of sleep. You can imagine the consternation this has caused -- on any other world, I would say “outrage” instead. A centuries-old symbol of serenity is about to explode, and for all its insistence on logic, Vulcan is a world that values its symbols. But the physical world prefers irony, I think. We shall see what Vulcan makes of a Mt. Seleya that breathes and bleeds fire.
Spock had often meditated on the desert plains in the evening, gazing upon the silhouette of Mt. Seleya against Vulcan’s stark red sky. He, too, had always seen it as a symbol of serenity and, in addition, of the very essence of Vulcan - what he had always desired but could never possess. Now it seemed that Mt. Seleya’s true nature had been closer to his own, with fire banked down low, but still burning.
Your father and I have decided to attend the linguistics conference on Andoria next year. He travels so much for his diplomatic work that it’s difficult to convince him to board a vessel for any other purpose. But he’s like you, unable to resist the lure of intellectual challenge. I can’t wait to see snow again, and when your father shivers and starts to complain about the cold, I will remind him that, for his sake, I have lived my life in a desert. Then I plan to throw a snowball at him.
Despite himself, Spock could not resist a small smile. His mother’s letters often had this effect; this was one reason he always waited to read them until he was alone.
Speaking of linguistics, the paper your colleague is working on sounds intriguing. Be sure to let me know if she publishes her thesis; it’s just the sort of thing that ought to be featured at that conference. Do you think she would be willing to present her work there? Don’t talk to her about it yet, if you think she would feel pressured. I remember well what it felt like to have your unfinished thesis breathing down your neck.
Lieutenant Uhura seemed to thrive under pressure, a quality Spock admired. He resolved to mention his mother’s suggestion at their next meeting.
I watched a holovid about the new Federation flagship last night. The Enterprise is supposed to be the pride of the fleet. I can understand why you’ve been so eager to be posted there. But five years of deep-space exploration - it’s a long time, my son, and it’s hard for me the bear the idea of not seeing you again for so many years. It’s been too long already.
Once more, I must ask: Won’t you think about returning to Vulcan, even for a brief stay? If you do not wish to see your father, I will not insist. But I would like to see you. Of course your schedule is very busy, but please, consider it.
Now I will stop being a nagging mama, and simply be a very proud one. You bring me joy with everything you do, Spock. Never forget that.
Mom
Spock clicked off the computer screen. His mother rarely resorted to employing blatantly emotional tactics such as guilt. Her willingness to do so now indicated that she missed him badly, and he wondered if this in turn was a sign that her emotional state was worsening.
He did not doubt that his mother was unhappy. As he had matured into adulthood, he had become more deeply convinced of this, and his conviction troubled him. Amanda Grayson presented a gentle, steady face to the world, but Spock knew better than most the gulf that could lie between an impassive face and a troubled heart. He also knew that, in order to be truly happy, human beings needed to feel that they were loved.
And his father did not love his mother.
Spock thought of her - living out her life on a desert world, she who loved cool winds and rain. Knowing herself to be forever bound to a man who considered their bond merely a matter of logic. And now estranged from her son, because Sarek had cast Spock out after his refusal to attend the Vulcan Science Academy. It was almost unbearable.
He would gladly have gone to Vulcan to visit her, even taken a leave of absence to do so, had the request been as simple as it appeared in her letter. But Spock knew his mother: She was more than capable of making her own journey to Earth if she wanted only to visit him. She had done so before, during his first year at the Academy. No, her request was an ill-veiled attempt at forging reconciliation between father and son. And that could not be.
**
“Wow,” said Uhura, as they sat together in his office, quickly reviewing the results of the first Advanced Subspace quiz of the new term. “I have spent my entire Academy career worrying too much.”
“You are troubled by your course load?”
“No, no - I meant, I didn’t realize the competition was so - how shall I put this? - non-competitive.”
Spock had experienced a similar reaction the first time he graded exams. “Given the stringent entrance requirements for Starfleet Academy, underperformance is rarely a reflection of lack of ability. It usually indicates unpreparedness, emotional turmoil or a subject beyond a particular student’s strengths. Subspace is a challenging concept for even exemplary pupils.”
“You’re more generous than I am. This guy wants to know why, if we can send subspace messages faster than warp 10, we don’t just fly our ships through subspace.” Uhura snatched that particular data solid from her grader with what appeared to be disgust.
“That sounds most illogical. However, I am obliged to point out that, for centuries, scientists on both Earth and Vulcan had similar reactions to the idea of warp speed.”
“One era’s crackpot is another’s genius?” Uhura sighed. “Maybe so. But some crackpots are actually cracked.”
Reassured that Uhura’s motivation remained unaffected by her new teaching assistant duties, Spock began, “I had a letter from my mother this morning.”
Uhura looked up from her grading, obviously confused by the sudden shift in topic. “Oh. Okay. Is - is she all right?”
He had chosen an ineffective conversational segue. Quickly Spock explained his reason for mentioning his mother, and the idea of the linguistics conference on Andoria. She responded to the challenge quickly. “I was planning on waiting to publish for a little while - maybe until I got real field experience to back up some of this - but it should be strong enough on the theoretical level,” Uhura said. “This is a fantastic opportunity. Thank you for mentioning it to her.”
“I deserve no credit for benevolent motives. My mother was the one who conceived of this plan.”
“Then thank your mother for me. Besides, you do deserve credit - in the literal sense, I mean.” Uhura leaned forward slightly, her hands on the table between them. “You’re all over my thesis as it is, but if I revise for publication, I’d want to credit you as a contributor.”
“You overestimate my input.”
“Hardly. Besides, hey, then we could both present at the conference. You could visit your mom. That would be nice, right?”
Spock knew that he could have sidestepped the issue by continuing to honestly emphasize Uhura’s independent work. But the thought of himself on Andoria - with his parents - silenced him for one moment too long.
“Commander Spock?” Uhura frowned. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Not at all, Lieutenant. Your generosity does you credit. However, I do not wish to attend the conference on Andoria.” That was simple enough. He felt he had moved on from the subject quite smoothly.
Yet Uhura continued to look at him, the furrow between her brows deepening. “Excuse me - I don’t want to pry, but - you get along with your mother, right? You correspond with her; you talk about her often.”
“My mother will be attending the conference on Andoria with my father.”
She nodded. They were both quiet for a few moments, and Spock took up another data solid, willing himself to face more inadequate answers. Uhura made no move to resume her work, and finally she said, “I meant what I said before, about not wanting to pry. But - I want to understand. Humans in your situation would probably want to talk to someone about this. If that’s also true for Vulcans, well, I’m willing to listen.”
“Vulcans do not discuss such matters.” Just as his father would not only not speak to his son, but currently refused to even speak of him. Spock considered it in that light, then said, “I am half-human. Perhaps I should hear a human perspective.”
Although she seemed surprised that he had accepted her offer, Uhura put aside her data reader and folded her arms on the table. “Okay. Have you and your father always had --- difficulties?”
“He has always wanted me to live as the exemplar of all that is Vulcan, and he was sometimes severe with my shortcomings.”
“Shortcomings? What are you talking about? You’ve got to be as Vulcan as any Vulcan out there.”
She had such naïve faith in him. “I am the only Vulcan you have ever known, Lieutenant. I assure you, my shortcomings are plentiful.”
“But you’re one of the top young officers in the whole Fleet. That must stand for something.”
“My decision to join Starfleet was the cause of the breach between me and my father. He wished me to attend the Vulcan Science Academy.”
“Wait a second.” Uhura stopped looking confused and started looking angry. “You’re telling me your father threw you out because you went to a different college than he wanted? That’s it?”
“Admission to the Vulcan Science Academy is among the highest honors my homeworld can bestow. Declining was undoubtedly seen by many as an insult.”
“Is that how you meant it?”
“No. Starfleet Academy intrigued me, and -“ This next was difficult to speak of. Spock believed, however, having undertaken this conversation, he should be thorough and accurate in every respect. “-I knew that, at the Science Academy, I would forever be considered not truly Vulcan. The admissions committee even said that I should be proud of excelling despite the ‘disadvantage’ of having a human mother. At Starfleet Academy, I am still judged by others’ preconceptions, but they are at least new preconceptions.”
Uhura’s wrath had only increased. “They actually said you weren’t worth as much because your mother was a human? Vulcans are supposed to be logical, serene, et cetera - and they still spout this racist bullshit? Excuse my language.”
“No offense was caused,” Spock said quickly. In truth, Uhura’s reaction was strangely appealing.
“Your dad shouldn’t be mad at you for wanting to go to a school where people would treat you decently. He should be mad at the people who put you down. What kind of a father lets people treat his son like that? Logic or no logic, he should have smacked that guy in the face. He should have stood up for you.”
“I do not think that would have helped matters.”
“No, but it would’ve helped you.” She took a couple of deep breaths, visibly calming herself. “Any dad with his priorities in the right place would be proud of you. That’s all I’m saying.”
Spock wondered what it would have been like, to have been defended so passionately. He knew only that it was gratifying to see Uhura do so. Gravely he said, “Thank you.”
She straightened in her chair, becoming once again the model cadet. “So, if I do publish my thesis, and I end up presenting at Andoria, I’ll go alone.”
“That would be best.”
“And if I see your dad, I will kick him in the ass.” Smoothly she took up her data reader to begin grading again. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure they can’t trace it back to you.”
“You are employing humor.” He felt he understood human conversation well enough to say this, but the fire in her eyes made him doubt himself. “You do not seriously plan to do physical violence to my father.”
“Maybe.” She said it in a way that left no doubt she was in fact joking, and yet he liked her refusal to admit it.
Spock glanced down at the next exam, the better to hide his face, and wondered how he could have let his control slip so far as to smile twice in the same day.
**
February
Nyota’s friendships often developed slowly; she liked to take a person’s measure before she shared more than a casual beer or road trip. Becoming friends with Spock was another matter altogether. It took forever, like waiting for a glacier to thaw.
But the thaw was worth waiting for.
“Fascinating.” Spock stood in the Nairobi heat, not even a bead of sweat on his skin, watching the 65th Annual Neo-Traditional Luo Music Festival - a cacophony of sound so extravagantly joyous that even Nyota, who had been attending this festival her whole life, was overwhelmed. The singers and drummers on stage were only the center of the show - all around them, people were singing along, clapping hands or thumping their feet in tempo. Small children darted between the adults, clutching snacks or glow-spheres that shimmered in various colors.
Although Spock did not share in the freewheeling energy around them, he didn’t reject it, either. There was something beautiful in watching a man so controlled accept the exuberance of others. He said, “You say this song’s origin lay in a funeral chant, and yet the singers express vitality rather than mourning.”
“When you face death, you can truly see the beauty of life.”
“We must discuss this after your command-track classmates begin to take the Kobayashi Maru exam,” Spock said.
“What do you mean?” Nyota had heard of the test, but knew no details; it was a hotly guarded secret among the cadets.
“For now, I can only say that I find the parallels intriguing.”
“Then I’m glad to have intrigued you.”
Spock inclined his head, not quite a nod, but it would do. Nyota had brought friends here before who simply tried to treat the festival like any other party - and it was a party, to be sure. But it was more than that, and Spock was the first one who had seen it. A shame, really, that he would never dance.
Smiling at that mental image, Nyota handed a couple of credits to a vendor, who in turn gave her a cup of roasted sweet potatoes, cubed, spiced and impaled on small skewers. “You have to try this,” she said. “Much better than those twigs you eat in the mess hall.”
That earned her a raised eyebrow. As the drums thumped all around them, Nyota held up one skewer of potatoes, thinking Spock would take it from her. Instead, he took a bite from the skewer in her hand.
Her heart beat a little crazily for a second. From a human, such a move would have been flirtation; from Spock, it was merely a missed social cue, one of the gaps between human and Vulcan habit. Nyota wanted to remember that --- but she also wanted to enjoy the moment.
“Most pleasant,” he said. “I agree that it is a far superior example of culinary skill than virtually any offering in the Academy mess.”
Nyota grinned. “I have to get you to try waffles sometime.” She took the next skewer from herself.
And how was it that this friendship - this new sense of closeness with the most unexpected person - had set her free? She didn’t expect anything from Spock, but that was just it: Spending free time with him was the first thing she’d done in years with no driving purpose behind it. The long grind she’d been on ever since she had set her heart on Starfleet Academy as a young girl had been wearing her down, more than she’d realized until now.
It wasn’t that she was slacking off; in some ways, Nyota was busier than ever, and sometimes she felt more overwhelmed than ever. But freeing herself of the tyranny of expectations had energized her on almost every level, and restored to her something she’d almost lost - a sense of joy.
That feeling crept into her social life --
“Wait,” Gaila said, sitting across from her in a bar in the Old Chinatown district where students often came to blow off steam. “You’re starting a band?”
“Wei Su and Francois and Nruo’bek and I have been talking about it forever. If we don’t do it now, when will we? Chances are we can’t all end up on the Enterprise. It won’t be too much for me to handle,” Nyota said, hoping very much that was true.
“You’re going to take time off to practice. Time off from studying.”
“Time off for gigs, too. And we will get gigs. I don’t care if we’re just busking for credits in the Academy commons; this band is going to play.”
Gaila’s face had paled almost to the color of mint. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. When did you learn how to have fun? And why did you have to take four years to do it?”
Nyota might have gotten annoyed about that a few months ago. Instead, she simply took a strawful of Cardassian Sunrise and blew it at Gaila, spattering pink all over her clothes. Gaila laughed instead of getting upset, but Nyota still made it up to her by buying the next round.
It bled into her teaching assistant duties --
“What if subspace is capable of supporting life?” said the crackpot, aka Hikaru Sulu. “If there are dimensions within dimensions, why not multi-dimensional universes similar to our own?”
Instead of insisting that the study group get back to the subject at hand, Nyota considered this. “We haven’t discovered any dimension remotely capable of that - but on the other hand, subspace is almost infinitely complex.”
“Sometimes -“ Sulu hesitated, as if afraid of mockery. A few members of the study group were smirking, but Nyota leaned closer, willing to listen. He continued, “Sometimes I think of it as origami. Folded-paper art? My grandfather was Japanese; he taught me how to do it.” He took a sheet from his class materials and deftly began making creases, never fully looking down. “You can turn a one-dimensional plane into a three-dimensional object. When I study subspace readings, sometimes it seems to me that the different dimensions are creating their own shapes. Why not their own universes?”
“We should run that by Mr. Spock. See what he says. Who knows? You might be on to something.”
Sulu smiled, grateful that someone had listened. At the end of study group, he put the folded sheet of paper - now a perfect dodecahedron - on her desk.
More than anything, it bled into her friendship with Spock.
“What purpose does the surface grid serve?”
“Wait and see.”
Nyota poured syrup over Spock’s plate, wondering whether he’d go into sugar shock. She didn’t think that was a real risk for Vulcans, but maple syrup could do it if anything could. “Okay.”
Spock took his first bite of waffles, chewed slowly, and swallowed. “The surface grid acts as containment for the syrup.”
“Exactly. Do you like them?”
“They are quite satisfactory.” The response might have come across as fairly cool, had Spock not been cutting himself another bite of waffles at that very moment.
Sometimes, when she let herself think about it - right before she fell asleep, or when she saw Spock across the Academy commons and felt her heart leap - Nyota had a sense of what was really going on with her. But she told herself that particular impulse was just mischief, the irrepressible urge to trouble still waters. Other times she told herself it was just the welcome contrast between Spock’s cool intellectual appreciation and the panting eagerness she had to deal with from other guys, who seemed like eager puppies in comparison. Every once in a while Nyota let herself get as far as admitting that Spock was attractive to her, but told herself it was pretty simple, really. He was a handsome man, in an exotic sort of way, and both his mind and his character were appealing to her. Why wouldn’t she find that attractive? She was driven, not dead.
But further than that she would not allow her mind to go, until one late night.
“The use of indirect speech acts in ch’Vian Romulan is extreme - I don’t think those guys ever ask a direct question.” Nyota scrolled through her notes for this section of her thesis. She and Spock had given up the formality of the linguistics lab, and now usually met in his quarters. As an instructor, he had a full suite: kitchenette in one corner, a small sitting room with table, chairs and sofa, and beyond the plexiglass wall, presumably a bedroom superior to dorm digs. The decor was stark to the point of being Spartan, with simple dark furnishings, fawn-colored walls and a simple holo of a Vulcan scene on one wall, but Nyota felt that it had a certain minimalist chic. He had poured them each small hot cups of tea. “It’s strange to me, because there are almost no uses of indirect speech acts in Vulcan.”
“Do you believe so? I would disagree.”
“Vulcans? Passive-aggressive? Come on.”
“Aggression is culturally denied us. Most adult Vulcans have moved past such primitive emotions - but for those who have not, passive-aggression is the only socially permissible outlet. People are commonly asked about their ability to understand certain ideas as a method of critiquing their failure to embody that idea to the questioner’s satisfaction.”
“When you put it that way, Vulcan doesn’t sound like the most enjoyable place to be.” Nyota waited for a riposte, whether serious or wryly humorous; none came. His eyes met hers, and she realized again what it must have taken for him to defy his father - and a whole planet besides - to follow his dream. Despite his quiet manner, Spock was a brave man. “What about performative illocutionary acts in Vulcan? Is the word ever the deed? As in, ‘I now promote you to the rank of lieutenant,’ or ‘I pronounce you married by the laws of the Federation.’”
“I am familiar with the concept. Vulcan does indeed have such utterances, in which the act of speaking is in itself the deed. As in most languages, promises and oaths fall into this category.”
“Promotions?”
“Those are handled separately. A Vulcan teacher advancing at his school would receive paperwork informing him of his new position and the duties entailed. He would take on those duties effective immediately; no ceremony would be required.”
“Marriages? Please tell me they aren’t handled through paperwork too.”
Spock remained quiet for a moment, and she felt a flush heat her cheeks.
“I’m sorry - if I’ve been rude, I apologize.”
“Your curiosity is natural.” He seemed to be at a loss for how to explain, and yet she could tell that he wanted to. Nyota had learned, by now, to simply wait out such moments and let Spock decide how far he wanted things to go. There was a time for prying, with him - he wouldn’t really open up any other way - but this wasn’t one of those times, not yet.
Spock finally said, “The marriage ceremony for Vulcans is a private matter. The Silences govern this; I cannot speak of it, neither to an outworlder nor to any other Vulcan beyond the realm of the ceremony itself.”
“Okay.”
“I can tell you that it is not a matter of paperwork.” Dry wit crept into his voice, but Nyota sensed this small joke had something of gallows humor about it. “Generally, Vulcans are betrothed as children. The pairings are handled between families. That is all I can say.”
She nodded. Arranged marriages sort of made sense, for Vulcans; if emotions like love and affection weren’t supposed to play a role in a lifelong partnership, why not get engaged when you were a kid? Why not have your parents pick for you? They’d studied odder customs in xenosociology.
Then the full implications hit her. “Wait. Are you telling me you’re married?”
“Betrothed.”
It hurt. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. She quickly took a sip of her tea, hoping that would mask her reaction. The liquid was still slightly too hot, and it singed her tongue and throat on the way down, a dry, lasting burn.
When she looked up from her glass, Spock was studying her impassively. At first, Nyota wondered if he was resenting her intrusive questions - but that wasn’t like Spock. In fact, he looked like he wanted to talk.
He would never do it, if left to his own devices; this was one of those times when being a friend meant prying. “Will you tell me about her?”
“Her name is T’Pring. She is a year younger than I am. I believe that she is studying history and political science.”
“You believe she is?”
“We are not in contact.” Spock’s steady gaze faltered. He, too, suddenly became very interested in his tea. Steam from his cup wreathed his face. “Sometimes the bonding between a betrothed pair is very powerful. Sometimes it is not. For T’Pring and I, it is not.”
“Do you like her?” When Spock did not answer, Nyota continued, “Do you even know her?”
“Not really. Perhaps that will come after.”
They were quiet together for a few moments. Spock’s quarters were slightly warmer than most at the Academy; Nyota suspected he kept them even hotter most of the time, but turned the temperature down before her visits for her comfort. The shades over the lamps tinted the light honey gold - again, something to rest his Sol-weary eyes - but to a human, the atmosphere came across as intimate, almost welcoming. Only here could Nyota have found the courage to say, “Is that really what you want?”
“It is what I promised to do.”
“Back when you thought you would attend the Vulcan Science Academy, and live out your life there.”
“Joining Starfleet changed the course of my life, but it did not free me from my obligations. When I - when the time comes, I will wed T’Pring. I must hope that, as my wife, she will be committed to finding the balance necessary for me to continue as a Starfleet officer.”
“I hope she will. I hope - I hope she wants to see the galaxy, just like you.” The next was hard to say, but she got it out: “Maybe I could have two Vulcan friends, instead of one.”
Spock straightened, and had he been human, she would have said he was touched. “I thank you for your friendship, Lieutenant.”
She gave her name to so few people, but this time, it was easy. “I’d be honored if you would call me Nyota. And I thank you for your friendship, too.” He nodded solemnly, and she thought once more about performative utterances - whether they had just sealed their friendship by daring to name it.
After that, she knew, concentrating on Romulan was a lost cause. Nyota gathered her things as Spock took her teacup to the small ‘fresher in the kitchenette. She slipped on the soft jacket she’d worn over her cadet reds earlier that night; in Spock’s room, it felt as balmy as the beaches of Mombasa, but in San Francisco, the moisture in the air would still hold a chill. The temptation was great to find an excuse to stay, but she didn’t give into it.
At the door, he said, “Good night, Nyota.” Her name sounded beautiful in his voice.
“Good night, Spock.” She left off his title before recalling that he hadn’t given her permission to do so - but he didn’t seem to mind.
Nyota didn’t return to the dorm right away. Instead she walked over the Commons to the long line of benches that looked out on the bay. For a long time she sat there, hugging her knees to her chest.
The irrational pain she felt at hearing of Spock’s betrothal tore away the last shreds of her denial. But Nyota would be damned if she’d sit around and weep about falling in love with a man she couldn’t have.
The Academy had a light-filter shield around it to block out the city lights of San Francisco and allow its students to see the stars to which they would travel someday. Nyota gazed upward at the constellations overhead. By force of habit, she started to name the stars, to think of the races that dwelled around them, but then she stopped herself. For the first time in years, she saw it only as starlight - nothing more, nothing less.