Chapter Ten

 

The landing party materialized within the arms of the ul Nru, those black mountains surrounding them and becoming familiar.  Held to silence by the forbidding, hulking stone, Jim led them to the mouth of the tunnel, where they paused for a last look outside.

 

Late afternoon sun hung still, the quiet lazy, no breezes stirring the air.  Spock’s tricorder whirred, interrupting the peaceful atmosphere and recalling Jim to duty.

 

“Indigenous plant and animal life, Captain.  Within the limits of the tricorder’s range, I can detect no Muuyeans, however__”

 

“I know, Spock.  The nullifier.”

 

Ysaulte grimaced, saying nothing.  Her unease was apparent to Jim, although she shrouded her thoughts from him with disconcerting quickness.  Jim shouldered his pack, taking point, and they moved into the dark passage.

 

McCoy stopped them just inside and administered the neural impulse suppressor to Spock and Ysaulte.   Bones had waited for the last minute on purpose.  He’d wanted to cut down on the amount of time it would take Spock to mount some logical argument against taking it.  The ZaworthIan ambassador endured the hypospray with stoic indifference, and the Vulcan, of course, could do no less.

 

Jim lit the chemical torches Spock had unearthed from somewhere in ship’s stores.  They cast a constant, low luminescence and were not dependent on electronics for their function, which made them ideal for caving.  Particularly in these caves.  He handed one to Spock, and when McCoy had his medical bag repacked, he got one too.  Ysaulte declined one, as Jim had half-expected.  Nor was he disappointed when she took a place at his back.  He had not imagined she would allow herself any other position.

 

The party started beneath the ul Nru.  Twenty meters in, Spock noted the efforts of the nullifier and congratulated McCoy on his formula for the impulse suppressor.  Bones took this as his cue to inform the science officer of the changes Ysaulte had made.  The doctor fancied he could feel Spock’s eyebrow lifting, but he didn’t turn to look.

 

“How about you, Ysaulte?  How do you feel?”  McCoy asked when the ZaworthIan did not speak.

 

“Know you no other question, Leonard?”  Ysaulte asked him over her shoulder, with less humor than Bones had come to expect from her.

 

“Does the formula work for you, Ysaulte?”  He prodded impatiently.

 

“I am in no pain, thanks.”

 

McCoy, who had watched the ambassador shake her head a couple of times in that brisk, uncertain way of someone trying to clear it, had his doubts.  Doubts that suddenly crystallized into suspicion.

 

“What did you change in that formula?”

 

“Bones__”  Jim bit off a protest.  Ysaulte could defend herself, but he suspected what she was finding difficult was the attenuation of their mental link.  Jim could still sense her emotions, but the feeling of distance produced by the nullifier bothered him.  He knew Ysaulte had to find it much more troubling.

 

The ZaworthIan sighed, wishing she had found a formula that would protect her from the Terran Healer’s perception.

 

“There was that within the formula better altered for Spock’s sake, Leonard.  Done was, only to the one’s benefit.”

 

“Indeed.  Not to yours, Lady Ysaulte?”  Spock inquired, one hand on the doctor’s arm keeping him quiet.

 

“It serves me well enough, even so,” Ysaulte said shortly, walking on after Jim.

 

Spock exchanged a long look with McCoy, clearly telling him to leave the subject alone, before they followed along.  The party passed the tunnel’s trifurcation in silence, and the hand-hewn walls melded into natural stone.  The passage narrowed, slowing the pace.

 

Jim marked a gradual incline and said as much to Spock, who pointed out dryly the slope had increased seventeen point nine four degrees in the last one hundred meters.  The doctor snorted, but Ysaulte evinced no interest in the gentle byplay, making Jim wonder what she was thinking.

 

“What’s on your mind?”  He asked her.

 

“The nullifier,” Ysaulte replied literally.  “It limits me.”

 

“You can handle it.”  Jim was certain of that.

 

“Eventually,” she answered, her lips twitching at the smile in his tone.

 

“You are working on it?”

 

“Oh, yes.  Would you hear theories, Sir?”

 

“Please, Ambassador.”

 

“It is neither electronically nor mechanically produced, in my opinion.  It is undetectable to sensors, yet plain to sight within.  My belief, it is psionically laid.”

 

“What are you saying?  It’s like a curse of some kind?”

 

“In a sense.  Someone focused sufficient Talent on this block to maintain it.  That being so, I will find a way around it,” Ysaulte promised Jim.

 

“I don’t doubt that, my Lady,” he replied, letting out his breath to squeeze through a small spot.

 

Several hundred meters more walking saw the darkness begin to lighten.  In another two hundred, the tunnel widened, encroaching stone giving way to artifice, revealing an opening to the outside which was held apart by large wooden beams.

 

“Slowly,” McCoy recommended.  “Give your eyes time to adjust.”

 

Jim nodded, waving them against the sides of the passage.  Progress was made in stealthy inches until they'd neared the opening, which was occluded by heavy brush.  Sludge pooled in the undisturbed backwash of the flooring, and water was running loudly outside.  Spock moved up and tapped Jim on the shoulder, drawing his attention to a line of silt along the wooden beams holding up the entrance.  The watermark was well above their heads.

 

“Warning, danger, keep out…  flood control, Spock?”  Jim wondered in a whisper, remembering Spock’s earlier efforts at translation.

 

“Given the possibility, Captain, perhaps it would not be wise to linger.”

 

“Agreed.”

 

Jim waded through the ankle deep mire, using the bushes to cover his reconnaissance.  Crouching, he pushed past the brush, which was fortunately thorn free.  He emerged onto a small ledge, set into a cliff that overlooked a broad expanse of swift water.  Jim wished he knew when it rained last.  The river thundered by only a few short feet below.

 

Jim saw no sign of people, upriver or down.  Craning his neck, he looked overhead.  The cliff face extended upward another ten meters.

 

“What do you see?”   Ysaulte asked, weaving her way through the brush.  She stopped when she spotted Jim, unwilling to trust the narrow ledge with both their weights.

 

Jim told her, adding his observation of handholds and footholds cut into the rock above.

 

“This place is a damned fortress,” Bones muttered from behind Ysaulte.

 

“So it would seem.  One wonders what could be up there.”

 

“There’s only one way to find out,” Jim remarked with a shrug, and started to climb.  He tested each hold with experienced care.  The escarpment sloped away at an eighty-degree angle, he judged.  “A walk in the park, people.”

 

Ysaulte crept out onto the ledge and watched him, sighing.

 

“I dislike climbing,” she announced, getting to her feet with a surge of nausea.  She knew better than to look down, at least__ then did just that, surveying the rushing waters with a frown.

 

Spock appeared beside McCoy, threading low through the bushes.

 

“We will be behind you, Ambassador,” the Vulcan said, and that was all, every assurance in his imperturbable courtesy.

 

“Yes, of course.”

 

Reaching above with trembling fingers, Ysaulte found a handhold and began pulling herself up the cliff, taking her eyes off the river and putting them exclusively on Jim.  She felt Spock beneath her, and pretended to herself it helped, although it occurred to her to wonder what the first officer would do if she did freeze, or fall.  Ah, well.  Giving in to the desperation crawling along her nerves, Ysaulte hurried.

 

Jim levered himself over the top, saw nothing, and turned around to extend his hands to Ysaulte.  Her inward discomfort at being so exposed on the cliff’s face was washing through his mind in waves, even here.  She locked her eyes on his, irises murky, climbing like he was her last hope for salvation.

 

“You’re doing fine,” he encouraged.

 

Huh.  He was a fool to believe that, Ysaulte thought grimly, cold dread clutching her by the throat.  She fought that same, nonspecific anxiety she had felt on their first trip to this world, when they’d ended up poisoned.  Something was going to happen… something just as bad.

 

She was within Jim’s reach.  He locked his hands onto her forearms and lifted her over the edge.

 

“What’s wrong?”  He demanded, rolling with her away from the drop.

 

Ysaulte could not answer.  She caught movement in her peripheral vision and reacted on instinct, shoving Jim to one side.

 

“Ysaulte!”

 

Spock yanked himself over the rim in time to see everything.  A large (very large) furred quadruped was springing at Jim and Ysaulte, and the Ambassador was directly in its path!

 

The first officer drew his phaser on the roll, another gut reaction.  It would not fire.  Spock watched, helpless, as the creature leaped at Ysaulte.  Half a ton of predatory teeth and muscle… and to Spock’s genuine astonishment, the slender ZaworthIan woman did not go down under it.

 

In a sequence of events so rapid both men wanted to discount the evidence of their own eyes, Ysaulte slipped through the creature’s outstretched claws, wrapped her arms around its neck, and swung up onto its back.  She jerked the thing’s head until it reared on its hind legs, raking at the air.  Jim climbed to his feet and started forward.

 

“My God, Jim!”

 

The doctor was present.  Spock grabbed his captain’s ankles and pulled, respecting Ysaulte’s efforts.

 

“Damn it, Spock, let me go!  That’s an order!”

 

“Regretfully, Sir, I cannot,” and Vulcan muscle told, for the moment.

 

Ysaulte took vague note of this, grateful to Spock and hoping to thank him someday, but now was not the time…  Locking her legs around the animal’s furry belly, the ZaworthIan pressed herself tight against its withers, clinging closely as it discovered itself prey and forgot about Jim, Spock, and McCoy.

 

Her own heart pulsed to the creature’s base emotions, throbbing with the carnivore’s rhythms.  At this proximity, there was no avoiding it, nullifier notwithstanding.  Kill or be killed, the Law…  survival.  So be it.

 

The creature rolled.  Ysaulte had been expecting it, and had only to roll with it.  The ground was loose enough, but not so much the heavy tumble did not jar her to her ZaworthIan bones.

 

She closed her fingers on the animal’s warm throat, absorbing its angry blood lust and searching out the rudimentary intelligence behind it.

 

“I am stronger!  Leave, or die!”  Ysaulte seized its windpipe, her words in voice and mind spoken in the language of her father’s people.  This did not pass unnoticed by Ysaulte’s companions, who gazed on in varying degrees of shock.  The ZaworthIan’s challenge rang inside their heads, too, as well as the beast’s reply.

 

“Home/territory/land mine!  Duty/serve/protect!  Never flee/go/leave alive!”

 

“Go thou in life or go in death, but thou shalt go!”  Ysaulte screamed, losing reason to animal savagery.  It protected land, while she protected Jim, and she absolutely refused defeat.

 

Squeezing the creature’s trachea, Ysaulte began to make good her offer.  They rolled, then rolled again__

 

“Ysaulte!  The edge!”  Jim shouted, horrified.

 

She heard him, more by thought than sound.  Still screeching Rihannsu invective (and only just realizing that!), Ysaulte freed her grip at the last possible instant to throw herself toward his beloved voice.

 

Jim thought she was too late, and not even Vulcan muscle could hold him when he saw Ysaulte’s feet kick out over empty space.  She virtually pulled herself away from the drop by her fingernails.  The creature executed an incredible, mid-air twist, long claws scoring Ysaulte’s legs and catching in the tough cloth of her coverall…  plainly intent on taking her with.

 

While she scrabbled for a solid grip, the animal’s greater weight was dragging her back… down… almost tearing her arms from their sockets when she grabbed onto a stubby outcrop of rock.  That she could hold on at all was a miracle, which she knew, crying out despairingly.

 

"No!  James!” then he was there, his grip inevitable, with the Vulcan his anchor.  Ysaulte gasped as the beast’s claws ripped through her, unable to scream with the pressure of being pulled apart.

 

Jim never loosened his hands, although her pain tore into his mind undiminished by the nullifying field.  He wracked his brain for something to do, because Ysaulte could not take much more…

 

Bones saved the day.  Bending over, he selected a largish rock and took aim, hurling it right into the beast’s tender nose (and the ZaworthIan flashed on echoed time: a lanky boy of ten, plugging at Georgia crows with stones).

 

Startled by the sharp pain, the animal’s claws splayed open in reflex.  Only for a second, true, but long enough for Spock to give a mighty heave.  Ysaulte was catapulted into Jim’s arms, knocking them both away from the edge, while Spock tried to break their fall.  The impact stole their breath, even so, accompanied by the creature’s yowling, then a splash.

 

“It can swim,” Bones announced to no one in particular, watching the animal head for the opposing bank.

 

“Fortunately for you,” a voice spoke evenly, bringing to their attention what none of them had quite had time to notice.

 

They were surrounded.

 

A small crowd of silent, watchful people was positioned to intersect any route of escape.  By appearance native Muuyeans, tall and lean and clean of limb, clothed in forest colors; warriors, wearing knives or swords or carrying spears.

 

Jim, still shaking with adrenaline, found his phaser in his hand and left it there.  It might be worth a bluff.  McCoy was at his side, Spock and Ysaulte behind him… and the standoff ensued, somehow not looking as uneven as it might have.

 

A white-haired woman stepped toward them with outstretched palms.  Fine creases at the corners of her eyes marked years, but she carried herself with a leader’s natural grace.  Still, her peaceful gesture was rather blunted by the way the line of warriors closed at her back.

 

Slowly straightening from his defensive crouch, Jim kept his eyes on the Muuyean elder.  That was when he became aware Ysaulte was also watching, with irises black as death.  Force of will surged within her, his bonded ZaworthIan, and no nullifier existed that could inhibit her reach at such an extremity.

 

Understanding the danger, Jim forced himself to relax.  Ysaulte was near to completely defeating the nullifier, he could feel it… but she was farther from control than he’d ever seen, and coiling to strike.

 

“On your life, madam, don’t come any closer.”  Surprisingly enough, the words came from McCoy, who moved in front of Jim with deliberate caution.  Bones spared himself a glance at his captain.

 

“You’d better do something fast,” he mouthed at Jim, motioning toward the ZaworthIan with an imperceptible nod.  Leonard McCoy knew body language, and some things transcended race and species.  Poised on fingers and toes, the Lady waited, positively feral… and Bones thought she was not yet completely free of the animal’s mindset.  He’d observed a similar phenomenon a time or two, recognizing something else.  Nobody would be able to help this, help her, except Jim.  If he couldn’t__  Well.  They might have a problem.

 

Jim returned the nod, noticing in the fringes of his vision as the elder halted, kneeling, waving back her warriors with one lifted finger and receiving prompt obedience.  That fact was not lost on the Star Fleet officers.

 

Reflecting on loyalty, Jim turned, gently, gently, securing his phaser to his belt, facing Ysaulte directly.  Those colorless Romulan irises made him feel weak.  He bit his tongue on all the things he wanted to say to her now, while his blood still pounded to the memory of her impulsive courage.  What he had to say to her, he would say in the voice unspoken.

 

Jim knelt, laying one hand against his Lady’s throat (and McCoy was right.  No other living soul in the universe could have done it, could have touched Ysaulte now).  Jim called into her thoughts, because he knew Ysaulte would hear him, and because he knew it, it was so.

 

“a’Tohrza, kha’el jez’re,” Jim acknowledged, remembering her oath words very well.  Shield she was.

 

“Beloved.”  Summoned to sanity by her Terran sorcerer, Ysaulte felt everything slip away, leaving no thoughts but his, and their mutual astonishment at the clarity of this bond.  Another legend lent reality, that the link of hearts should run deeper than reason or cause, before all, beyond All__  “Kha’el shas du’lan’h, a’Tohr,” and why should it be elsely done, given who and what he was?

 

“Why, indeed?”  Jim asked, absorbed in the darkness of Ysaulte’s eyes.  The pure black irises were circled by the faintest shimmering gold, an effect Jim found remarkably subtle, and remarkably beautiful.  “Do you have any idea how much I__  Of course, you do.  Ysaulte, I’d like to kiss you… but we aren’t quite… alone.”  He settled for holding her hands, raising them to his lips, unable to hide a wince at the sight of her split and bleeding nails.  “You frightened me, you know.”

 

“Yes.  I frightened me.”

 

Ysaulte’s wry answer concealed nothing.  Jim reached into her mind (not without wonder.  It still amazed him, feeling Ysaulte’s emotions inside himself).  He was beginning to appreciate the finer points to this thing between them, and helped her push away her pain and the fear behind it.  Reaction was a luxury they had no time for.  Her strength might be needed.

 

“Lucky for me you’re no frail Terran, to be easily killed,” he remarked under his breath, chuckling at McCoy’s strangled gasp.  As he’d expected, Ysaulte seized on the humor in his words.

 

“Lucky for me!”  She quipped, meaning it, though.

 

“I know.  Ysaulte.  I could turn you over my knee and blister your butt for doing what you did…  but I understand why you did it.  You saved my life, on your oath.  Thank you.”  Jim knew what she needed to hear.

 

“I’m sorry.  I behaved… precipitously.”

 

“It worked.  You do what you have to.  I admire that, Ysaulte, and I… love you for it.”

 

“James.”

 

Content to believe him, Ysaulte allowed the moment to stand hostage to peace, just long enough to get to her feet and deal with the discomfort in movement.  Jim supported her, audibly hoping the situation wasn’t beyond the reach of diplomacy… either kind.  Neither paid much attention to the blood that dripped down Ysaulte’s legs and soaked into the ground.

 

“Never complain about my nerve endings again,” Jim ordered silently, as they turned to the watching Muuyeans.

 

“Never, beloved,” Ysaulte promised, while the white-haired elder rose to inspect them with her own unreadable gaze.  It was a courtesy Ysaulte returned in fascination, aware of some measure of this Muuyean lady’s thoughts.

 

“Talent, James.”

 

“I feel it.  It seems almost… familiar.”

 

“Indeed!”

 

Ysaulte eyed the elder speculatively; wondering what it could mean that her perceptive Terran lover found something he recognized.

 

Long minutes passed while no one spoke, hard stares all around.  Jim finally bowed in the elder’s direction.

 

“I’m James T. Kirk, Captain of the starship Enterprise, in orbit at the invitation of your Negus.  About the animal__”

 

“A sentry, and valued, young lord, as we value all life.”

 

The Muuyean’s unaccented Standard surprised Jim, considering how remote this valley was.

 

“I hope you’ll forgive the manner of our arrival, Lady__”

 

Another sharp look, and the elder’s lips twitched.

 

“Silivia,” she supplied, lowering her head with an air of concession.

 

A rustling sigh made the rounds of her observant people.  Jim saw Ysaulte put one eyebrow up at their reaction, then he stepped forward with Bones, leaving Ysaulte with Spock.  Something going on there.  The Vulcan was… too still.

 

“This is my chief medical officer, Doctor Leonard McCoy__”

 

“Ma’am.”

 

“__and my first officer, Commander Spock, and… my bondmate, the Lady Ysaulte.”

 

Jim’s choice of words sent a few more eyebrows up, but the elder, Silivia, was nodding, and Jim knew he’d said the right thing.  Smiles spread across the faces of the stern Muuyean warriors; smiles revealing genuine indulgence.  The warriors then turned to vanish into the surrounding woods.  Only the elder and a child remained, a gangling boy on the short side of adolescence.  The incident was apparently resolved.

 

“Just like that,” Bones whispered dryly.

 

“Just like that.  Doesn’t it feel good to be right, Doctor?”  Jim replied, hoping the Muuyeans would give Ysaulte a little time.  The elder stared at him, then at Spock and Ysaulte, who stood motionless, trapped in each other’s gaze.

 

“Who is she, to inspire such devotion from a man by myth without feeling, Captain Kirk?”  Silivia asked softly, unoffended when the Terran did not answer.  His attention was plainly on the scene behind him, and the elder considered that for a moment, surprised.  By the evidence of her senses, all her senses, she herself could feel power in these strangers.  How had a starship captain come to bondage thus, with him an Earther, and how was the Vulcan involved?

 

“Her blood is a curious color.”

 

“Jim, Spock__”  McCoy burst out, interrupting the elder.

 

“It’s all right, Bones.  Give him a minute with Ysaulte,” Jim said in a low voice, taking his friend’s arm and saying something else into his blue eyes.  “Spock is ‘overset’ (using the ZaworthIan term and making Bones understand it), he was hit by the ‘psychic fallout’ of Ysaulte’s attack on the animal, and by your own admission, Doctor, you cannot treat this,” because Jim was feeling in Spock what Ysaulte felt.  The fires of Vulcan, unexpectedly fanned.

 

Bones shook his head, reading the message too well and afraid to believe it.

 

“Jim, if it’s__”

 

“Ysaulte can handle it… safely.  Trust me.”

 

“I wish you hadn’t put it that way.”

 

Jim winced, and the Muuyean elder reached out and patted his arm.

 

“You are correct, James Kirk.  I do not believe there is much your Lady cannot handle.”

 

It took Jim a moment to realize he heard Silivia’s voice in his mind…

 

***

 

Naturally, Ysaulte sensed the elder’s mental reach, without sensing any threat.  Remanding it to ‘later’, she bore the Vulcan’s scrutiny.  Spock regarded her steadily with his immense darkness of vision, and less than pleased.

 

Ysaulte thought it was more than possible his mind had been unsettled by recent events.  He would have been faced with much psionic discomfort.  Aside from whatever personal concern he might have allowed himself, Spock had also to suffer Jim’s reactions, and her own.  All the fear, anger, and pure blood lust of killing rage, inflicted on a Vulcan, bred to peace…  and that relatively recently, as Vulcan generations go... plus, Spock had also borne the weight of his support of her and James' new bonding, and that couldn't have been easy for him.

 

Ysaulte rubbed her upper arms, ignoring the stretching ache the motion produced in her shoulders.

 

“James, diplomacy thine to manage.”

 

“I’ll stumble through it.  Take care of Spock.  You do know what’s, ah, wrong with him?”

 

“He feels.”

 

“It isn’t your fault, or his.  Circumstances.  Make him understand.  Just be careful.”

 

“Yes, beloved.  Lady Silivia.”

 

“Huh.  Did I think to hide my thoughts?”  Silivia wanted to laugh, but feared the Terran doctor would misunderstand.  “You hold much power, Lady of stars, to do what you do.”

 

“Forgive me?”

 

“Resolve this.  I have many questions.  You have my protection.”

 

Ysaulte acknowledged the offer, the entire exchange having taken only an instant.  From the periphery of her sight, she saw Jim casually usher Leonard and Silivia a few feet away, giving her space.  Brilliant, the gesture.  Quite symbolic… and she prevaricated.

 

Taking the bull by the horns, so to speak, Ysaulte voiced a question for the Vulcan’s inner hearing.

 

“a’he’Ra, art thou… overset?”

 

“How would you have me respond?”

 

The tone, so cold on the surface.  Ysaulte had to smile, thinking to herself she might enjoy any variety of responses, and she rather doubted Jim would fault her for that, either.

 

“I wouldst thou feel no shame, for one,” the Lady remarked gently, honestly, leaning forward to rest her fingertips against Spock’s throat.

 

Jim muffled a gasp, holding onto Bones as he felt the heat smoking along the Vulcan’s nerves, but Ysaulte never flinched.  Her thoughts were a break before flames.

 

“Forgive me, an thou art able, my part in this, Spock.  I beg of thee.”

 

The Vulcan wrapped one hand around her neck, and McCoy tensed, alarmed.  Jim stepped in his way, still holding his arm.

 

“Leave them alone.”

 

Spock’s head jerked, without loosening Ysaulte’s touch.  She held him by more than physical means, replacing his shielding with her own.  He searched her thoughts, looking for some trace of condescension, and found none… but what he did find!

 

“Are you unbalanced?”

 

“Spock.  Trust me,” Ysaulte assured, consciously echoing Jim’s voice.  “Hath thou no cause to fear this as thou doth.”

 

“I?  You should be afraid,” Spock managed to warn her, the fingertips of his free hand drawn to her temples as if compelled.  “Do not let me hurt you.”

 

 “Never, Spock.  Thou shalt never hurt me,” Ysaulte promised, relieved her back was to the Muuyeans.  She doubted she could hide the visible evidence of her emotions as she stared into the Vulcan’s dark gaze.  Her bond to Jim aside, she saw nobody but Spock.  “How can I fear thee?”

 

Spock sighed, breath stolen by comprehension.  Marlak was less than a memory to her now.

 

“You are endangering yourself.”

 

“Phooey,” Ysaulte snorted indelicately, irreverently, exasperated by Spock’s continued subliminal refusal.  One eyebrow arched, showering her with his insult at her refusal to take him seriously.  Strong in the truth, Ysaulte opened her thoughts to Spock’s perusal, illuminating what he had to know.

 

“You are capable of controlling every aspect of my__ our__” and for once, words failed the Vulcan, but Ysaulte knew what he meant.

 

“__by psionic means.”

 

The conclusion left Spock shaken, unsure.  There was no healer, adept, nor elder on Vulcan who believed the process of the pon farr could be easily handled exclusively by psychic methods.  It was not the Vulcan way.

 

“True… and there doth be within me an appreciation of… the Vulcan way.”

 

“Lady Ysaulte.”

 

Spock paled, and Jim sympathized with the shock he felt in his friend.  He couldn’t share it, thought, not when he was fighting to swallow past the ache in his throat caused by his awareness of Ysaulte’s self-admitted desire to follow this through to a natural conclusion.  Jim couldn’t protest, even to himself.  Sharing the ZaworthIan’s emotions proved just how much she reflected his…

 

Jim shut his eyes, sure at some involuntary level they were turning off amber.

 

Fascinated, Spock watched the ZaworthIan’s irises swirl, green to gold to green and back again, finally settling on a brilliant, gilten turquoise.  A human voice in his head told him angels must have eyes this color, and the Lady had to have heard it, for she blushed.

 

“Thou poet Vulcan,” Ysaulte whispered in that language, struggling for a moment with her conscience.  Allowing it the victory became a little more difficult, something else Ysaulte made sure Spock recognized.  “Crisis impends, abandons us to face rebellion.  The Fleet of the Twin Worlds approaches…  and know thou, it doth not lie beyond my reach to stop Time, and hold him to ourselves.”

 

“My Lady Ysaulte.”  The hoarse, low tones.

 

“Yes, I know, a’he’Ra.  It would be selfish.”

 

Ysaulte’s mind extended effortlessly into Spock’s, moving through him, and her touch could only be described as loving…  loving him, loving Jim, loving life…  Her thoughts wandered into memory, and she took them years and light years away from now, to a ‘when’ where the air was thin, hot, and dry.  A tired red sun peered suspiciously through a hazy dusty sky… and a chiming echoed.

 

“This is the Vulcan heart.  This is the Vulcan soul.”

 

Remembrance presented itself until Spock stood once more on his homeworld, frozen in the instant of his sense of betrayal… of having betrayed.  Standing over the body of his captain, and his friend, the bitterness of it still scored his soul.  It crippled him.

 

“I cannot permit this.  See thou his side, Spock.  How James values thee.”  Ysaulte held no more than his head, smoothing his silky hair while her mental touch soothed away the old hurt.  “Know thou, the one truly believed he was meeting death, and there was no blame on thee within him.  Then, or now.”

 

Spock felt the pure force of Ysaulte’s psionic energy surround him, submerging beneath logic and reason, to that level where instinct bound action.  He wanted to object__ and couldn’t.  All resistance melted away, drawn out by the joy in her living spirit, and all that joy directed at him.  He would not presume to debate her.

 

“That is well, for beloved as thou art, how can I help but want thee?”

 

The Lady’s voice unspoken confessed her own devotions, turning Spock’s defenses inside out.  Awareness tuned to understanding, and will to helpless acceptance.

 

“I betray him now!”  Spock attempted one last protest.

 

“Never so.  Was true, would I not know it?  Spock.  Attend me.”   The traditional imperative, and Spock was not immune to tradition, nor Ysaulte.  Giving her the degree of control she demanded, however, required a conscious admission of trust.  “An thou wilt allow it, hath thou this within thee.”

 

“I feel it,” and Spock was more than a little surprised.  He did know that measure of faith essential, finding it inside himself, inside Ysaulte, and most of all, inside Jim, where it added a new dimension to the Vulcan concept of the t’hy’la… only strengthened by love for each other.

 

“I believe you, Ysaulte.  I do trust you.”

 

The Vulcan turned the total focus of his being upon Ysaulte, prepared, at last, to believe she could bear it.  She did, although his spirit burned through her with precognitive vision, revealing that time to come when the truth of Spock’s love would call him across a galaxy, setting him on a path leading to destruction__ a perception the ZaworthIan looped away from any view save her own.

 

Isolating his bonding center, Ysaulte absorbed the last wounds from the tragedy of Spock’s failed betrothal.  An event already riddled with anxieties had been tied in his mind to disloyalty, treason, and murder.  Small wonder it had marked the one so.

 

The healing fire of his thoughts Ysaulte took into herself, meeting it with her own fire, burning them together in incandescent pleasure before she figured out how to safely return his will…  transmuting the blast of psionic energy into regenerative dominion.  Never again would Spock be caught so by ungoverned will…  unless he wished it so.

 

She felt his astonished wonder at that provocative distinction.

 

“I do cherish thee, a’he’Ra.  Do thou never doubt this.”

 

Spock felt his face burn, then the ZaworthIan restored his mental autonomy with an ease that would have insulted him, at any other time.

 

“I ‘got what I asked for’.  I wanted to see the reach of your will, my Lady Ysaulte…  will you forgive me, if I regret you chose to use it to express your kal-i-fee__”

 

“Spock!”

 

He saw Ysaulte blush, which made him feel better for some reason he declined to analyze.  Instead, he inspected his own mind (like a man with his tongue in his teeth, trying to find out which ones were loosened by the blow).  Spock discovered his bonding center whole, undamaged, shields secure.

 

“Fascinating.”

 

Jim breathed for the first time in minutes.  Ysaulte’s weary relief, mirrored in a sense of loss for what might have been, flooded over him for the instant it took her to catch her breath.

 

He opened his eyes to meet the elder’s gaze.  Silivia looked sympathetic, but curious.  Very curious.

 

“I have met Terrans, although I did not realize you practiced pair-bonding,” Silivia remarked on impulse, sure it had more to do with the alien woman and who she was.  “Of Vulcans, I have heard tell.  By her blood, your Lady of stars is neither, young lord.  Who is she?”

 

Jim inspected the Muuyean and wondered if they could trust her with the truth of Ysaulte’s heritage, considering the reaction that information had produced on their first visit to this world.  He was well aware his ‘Lady of stars’ (a phrase he rather liked) was in no way ready for another confrontation, no matter what she pretended.  Ysaulte was running on pure nerve.  He still didn’t know how she was managing to overthink, even partially, the nullifying field.  He did know what the effort was costing her.  He felt it in her now, while she forced herself away from the temptation of Spock and wished for strength.  She hadn’t been so sure, after all, that she could ‘handle’ the Vulcan…

 

Jim grinned, hearing Ysaulte’s disgusted admission  __he was right, but what else could she have done under these conditions, and who was he to argue with success__

 

What other answer could he give the Muuyean elder?

 

“Respectfully, Lady Silivia, it is not my place to say.”

 

“You command,” the elder said sharply.

 

“Only as much as she’ll let me,” Jim noted in a wry tone, rewarded by Ysaulte’s muffled amusement.

 

Judging from the Muuyean matriarch’s snort of laughter, he’d once again given an acceptable answer.

 

“Well enough, young lord.  Why are you come here?”

 

“Ryu Gnaur has threatened to withdraw your system from the Federation.  Normally, we could leave this to be resolved through diplomatic channels, but the Romulan Fleet is approaching with an eye toward… consolidation.  They’ll be here in__ how long, Spock?”

 

“Twenty-two point nine three five Standard hours, Sir.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

Jim crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels, waiting to see where his blunt statements left them.

 

Silivia rubbed her chin, a gesture striking Jim as somehow familiar.  She looked from him, to where Ysaulte was straightening to turn, with Spock to steady her.

 

“Your legs must be painful, Lady of stars,” the elder spoke gently in a patent attempt to reserve her opinion of Jim’s sanity.

 

“Scratches, but they sting,” Ysaulte replied, irises once more Rihannsu black (quite a triumph, considering the ZaworthIan’s perceptions of her companions’ thoughts__ three heart-felt wishes to shake her until her teeth rattled!).

 

The Muuyean snorted again.

 

“Here, Dyer.”

 

The child handed her a bag from which she drew a jar and a roll of bandages.

 

“May I treat these… scratches, Lady Ysaulte?”

 

“One assumes it is the custom to treat those so left injured by the sentry.”

 

Well, there was no mistaking sarcasm, alien or not, Silivia concluded.

 

“I came prepared.  It happens that nammle’s victims must be tended, for he is a bad-tempered beast.”  Silivia kept her voice level, recalling a Terran axiom she’d been told about a soft answer turning away wrath.  She saw more in this outworlder woman than her starlord thought, up to and including the exhaustion in her dark eyes.  Whatever else she was, she was not indestructible.

 

Ysaulte shrugged at Jim, who glanced over at Bones.  The doctor responded with his own shrug.

 

“Terran diplomacy,” Bones thought as loudly as he could, knowing Ysaulte heard when her lips twitched.

 

“I would appreciate your help,” Ysaulte conceded.

 

Accompanied by McCoy, the elder knelt to examine Ysaulte’s lacerations, the two of them clicking their tongues in the universal language of disapproving medicalese.

 

“Dyer, give me the scissor.  Good.  Indeed, an unusual color, Lady of stars.  I am told Terrans bleed crimson, and Vulcans verdant.”

 

The Muuyean cut away the mangled portion of Ysaulte’s clothing, then set to cleaning the slashes with the doctor’s close attention.

 

“So I have observed,” Ysaulte allowed distantly, trying to ignore what they were doing to her legs (namely, hurting her like hell).  "It makes little difference.  Blood is blood.”

 

“Perhaps.”  Silivia would have bet it made all the difference in the known galaxy.  Applying a salve that went on clear, she watched it color itself the same odd hue of the alien woman’s blood; almost violet, almost burgundy.

 

Ysaulte swayed, putting out her hands for support.  The Muuyean salve drew the pain from skin and nerve, and Leonard’s hypospray could not have acted faster.

 

It shocked the ZaworthIan to realize how much pain there had been, with Jim bearing it all, and never even saying anything__

 

“It’s all right, Ysaulte.  I’ve got you,” always, Jim added in his mind, catching her upper arms with careful fingers.  She stared into his eyes, and he heard her wish she could free her irises’ natural expression.

 

“Another burden, as I am, injured.”

 

“No, no.  Don’t think that,” he murmured out loud, disregarding the trio of raised eyebrows around them.  “We’ll be fine.”

 

“Night approaches, a’shas,” Ysaulte reminded him, standing motionless under his touch.  For the time being, she needed his constant reassurance, within and without.

 

Jim looked away to keep from flushing, noticing the gathering dusk for the first time.  He hadn’t spared much interest in their surroundings, what with one thing and another going on.  It was an oversight he tried to correct.

 

On this side of the bluff, the land sloped off into rolling hills that were anchored by forest.  From where they stood, Jim could see clear across the valley to where the far arc of the bowl was bordered by the ul Nru or their brethren.  Silver water glittered at the center of the basin, catching the dying rays of the Etumuuyea sun as it slid off the mountain peaks.

 

“This is beautiful country,” he whispered, meaning it.

 

Silivia paused in her bandaging of Ysaulte’s calves, following Jim’s gaze with a smile.

 

 “Beeyt ul ku Tuura, the Cradle of the Hidden.  It has been our home for four millennia.  Will you stay as our guests tonight?”

 

Jim glanced at Spock, who lowered his head in an infinitesimal nod, then at Bones, who echoed the science officer’s gesture with equal subtlety.  His blue eyes, on Ysaulte, spoke volumes.  She didn’t need to climb back down that cliff face, or the trip through the ul Nru caves.

 

Declining to address these audible doubts about her fitness, Ysaulte contented herself by pointing out as far as tactics were concerned, it made better sense to stay.

 

“Thank you, yes, Lady Silivia.  We would be honored to be your guests,” Jim said to the elder, aware of Ysaulte’s faint irritation.

 

So was Silivia.  She made quick work of tucking the bandage ends and handed her supplies to Dyer, who rebagged them.  Getting to her feet merited a groan.

 

“Arthritis?”  McCoy asked.

 

“The natural consequence of years, Doctor,” the elder corrected, allowing the Terran to help her.  “I expect I have a few on you.”

 

“Oh, very few, surely,” Bones demurred, turning on the Southern charm.

 

The little boy giggled.  Silivia bent down and swatted his posterior, sending him on down the hill.

 

The atmosphere thus (and quite neatly) lightened, the landing party and its Muuyean guides began the trip through the underbrush and into the forest.

 

Jim let Ysaulte take a couple of steps on her own, until he saw the wrappings on her legs darken with blood, before he lifted her into his arms.

 

Ysaulte astutely comprehended this was non-negotiable and linked her hands around his neck.

 

Silivia watched everything with a grin, pausing for one remark.

 

“I see you do command, young lord.”

 

She led them through the dark and trees, happy to lean on the doctor’s arm and listen to the starman’s chuckling.

 

***

 

Loosening her grip on consciousness, Ysaulte permitted her mind to drift.  She could hear the woods singing murmured greetings, gentle on the rawness of her perception.

 

“Welcome woods,” she mumbled sleepily.

 

“What?”  Jim was half-afraid she was hallucinating, strained as she was.

 

“The voice unspoken.  Friendly.  They say hello.”

 

“Trees?  Trees have voices, and feelings?”

 

“Most, on my world.  Here, too.  Trees call low, slow.  An thou listen, thou hear.”

 

Jim was fascinated by the idea, but worried Ysaulte would exert herself on his whim.  She had to have recovery time.

 

“Upon my Mother Za, beloved, it is meditative exercise.  It can only help,” Ysaulte roused enough to realize and joined their thoughts along the self-restoring brilliance of their bond.  “Solace needed, and mine best found in thee.”

 

Jim felt her center them both, dismissing their physical surroundings and all the evidence of their circumstances.  As thoroughly as he knew her, his Lady still managed to amaze him with her force of will.  Every time he presumed to believe Ysaulte had reached some limit, she soared beyond it, taking him with.

 

Ysaulte filtered out the varieties of psionic frequencies, and apologized to Jim for not noticing sooner how worn by it all he was; a remark for which Jim had to twice forgive her, with great patience.  Following a resultant confrontation with the actual magnitude of Jim’s stress, Ysaulte set aside even their emotions, until all he sensed was the foundation hum of existence… like the white noise hidden in subspace radio.

 

Gradually, almost hesitantly, Ysaulte took them back ‘up’.  Jim’s mind insisted on symbolizing it as ‘increasing the bandwidth’.

 

“Listen, thou,” and Jim did, now sensitive to the quieter presences around them.  Ysaulte taught him something his ancestors had known, something the stargoing kind often forgot.  The trees, with the wind, the soil, and the stones spoke to night, to stars, and to him.

 

“Do I answer?”

 

“Theirs not to hear, a’shas.  Neither thee, nor me.”

 

Another sorrow, but one that offered a little perspective.  The trees and the soil and the stones would be here after they were gone, judging history as constant witnesses.

 

“Thou art certain we ourselves belong to history here?  This world is alien to us both.”

 

“Ysaulte, I think we already are… have… whatever.  We’re not unexpected here.  I don’t mean they’ve been waiting for us, personally, but someone like us, here for a purpose.  Even the trees know.”

 

“I am blind, for I did not see this, nor that thou wouldst feel it.”

 

Ysaulte wondered what else she was overlooking, asking herself if she was subconsciously trying to avoid some new impending disaster.  She hated them being involved in any of this.

 

“Don’t you think that’s the nullifier?  It’s still affecting you.”

 

With that sense of being too clearly seen, Ysaulte confessed her agreement.

 

“The manner of its handling difficult.  Derogating its effects the same.  The sooner we get rid of the damned thing, the better, James.”

 

Jim fought a grin and lost, amused by his Lady’s very Romulan determination.

 

“I’m sure you’ll take care of it,” he teased, and Ysaulte’s rueful self-awareness rose between them in mutual laughter.

 

“As thou wish it, thou sorcerer Lord,” Ysaulte pretended resignation and shrugged.  “Hold thou sight beyond sight.”

 

“As long as I hold you, my Lady fair,” Jim whispered, suddenly serious.

 

The distant ringing of the woodsong slid out of his mind, as he cradled her against him, focusing on the comfort they found in each other… the give and take subliminal and golden…

 

***

 

It seemed to Spock the Captain’s step was becoming rather mechanical.  Exercising his own mental disciplines, the Vulcan engaged a sublevel of thought to reflect calm and safety.  Both were qualities he believed Jim and Ysaulte needed to feel, given the day’s events… and he was willing to stand them psionic watch.  He owed Ysaulte that much, and more.

 

She had demonstrated to two skeptical men the absolute power of perfect trust, creating an ascendant coda to the infinite compositions of faith and love.  As much as Spock might wish to discount these emotions, he could not possibly do it, realizing he’d do anything the ZaworthIan required of him… which come to think on it, meant he’d finally be obeying Admiral Zeitsev’s orders.  To the letter.

 

Meditating on irony, Spock watched out for Jim’s clear path.

 

McCoy felt some sense of ‘absence’, checking behind him with a quick glance that revealed nothing untoward.  The elder patted his arm, distracting him.

 

“They are well, Doctor.  It is not much farther.”

 

Silivia nudged him along, guiding the party left at a fork in the path.  The trail sloped away downhill before it flattened off, and Bones guessed they must be near the center of the ‘cradle’.

 

“Home,” she announced as the path widened into a clearing, set beside a sparkling creek and hosting a number of naturally constructed lodges.

 

The view struck Jim out of his daze, reminding him so strongly of his time with Miramanee and her people he had to stop in his tracks.

 

“James?”  Ysaulte started awake, gasping.

 

“Jim.”  And there was Spock, at his elbow.

 

“I’m all right.  Just an old hurt from a former life,” he explained to Ysaulte.  “Spock knows__” then the ZaworthIan knew too, accepting the memories in all their regret and laying them to rest.  Ysaulte happened to believe Miramanee had died a fortunate woman, in Jim’s arms, although she was careful not to broadcast her opinion.

 

The landing party entered the camp, the elder leading them to the largest structure.  No one looked out of the other lodges, which Jim thought odd, but fatigue was beginning to blunt even his curiosity.

 

Silivia paused inside the door, giving the Terrans a minute to adjust their eyes before showing them into the lamp-lit interior.

 

“Rest now, young lord, you and your Lady,” she ordered, steering Jim to the far room, where sleeping quarters sat half-hidden by curtains.

 

"Council meets in the morning.  We will talk then, and answer each others’ questions.”

 

Before Jim could gather the presence of mind to protest, the elder was gone, drawing the curtains behind her.

 

“James, put me down.  These are well-mannered people to leave us so.”

 

Jim chuckled, settling Ysaulte on the raised pallet.  It was covered with woven cloth quilts and not animal skins, a relief to them both.

 

“You’re tired.”

 

“A little.  Don’t leave me.”

 

“Never, honey.”

 

Sitting on the floor beside Ysaulte, Jim crossed his arms on the edge of her pillow.  Intending just to rest his eyes, he laid his head next to hers.

 

So Bones found them, when he peered cautiously around the curtain.  He motioned Spock over with a wave, and they stood watch for a while, as the sleepers breathed to the same respiration…

 

***

 

Silivia found Dyer where she expected to find him, at the creek.  She slipped off her sandals and sat next to him, dangling her feet in the cool water with an enjoyment as great as the boy’s.  It was a fine night, moon bright and leavened by an occasional cloud.

 

“What did you see?”  She asked him comfortably, lying back to view the heavens.  “Amazing.  In three hundred seventy Standard years, I have never seen two clouds alike.”

 

Dyer flopped over onto his belly, studying the hardy grasses beneath them.

 

“Nor two blades of grass, Mother,” he remarked, smiling.  He knew what she was really asking.  “They are strong, these aliens.  Well shielded.”

 

“And?”

 

“And… the Lady of stars, most of all.”

 

“And?”  Silivia waggled her fingers at him in a ‘go ahead, say what you think’ gesture.  She wanted the boy to verbalize what he felt.  “What do you sense in her, Dyer?”

 

“She feels… passing familiar, Mother.  If I had not seen the outworlder color of her blood, I would have judged her… one of our own.”

 

Partially satisfied, Silivia nodded.  She had felt the same way on first hearing the alien woman’s mental cries.  For a moment, she had taken the voice as belonging to one of their number; a villager caught by stubborn nammle and warning the creature away.

 

“How do you explain this?”  She inquired, hiding a grin when the boy goggled at her, obviously surprised.

 

“You always tell me to leave the explanations to my elders, Mother.”

 

“You have never listened.  Why begin now?”  Dyer sniffed, pretending offense, which lasted until Silivia dashed water on him with her foot.  He retaliated, finally dissolving into helpless giggles. 

 

“Shh, Mother.  You’ll wake everyone.”

 

“Me!”

 

“Do Terrans have legends like ours, Mother?”  Dyer wondered eventually.

 

“I suppose they might, child.”

 

“Could they be__”

 

“It is too soon to tell,” Silivia interrupted.  Dyer, undeterred, pressed on.

 

“According to legend__”

 

“Yes, yes.  The story of Iananthe and Ilyuuron.  What makes you think of that old tale now?”

 

“That ‘old tale’?  Mother.  The first time I heard it, I heard it from you.  I bet I have heard it five or six times a year, every year of my life.”

 

“Such an eternity, that.”

 

“It is our history, the creation story of the Beeyt ul ku Tuura.  It has always been more than just a story.”  Now Dyer prodded, and like most children, he did it very well.  “What are you trying to avoid?”

 

“Ah, Dyer.”

 

He always knew what questions to ask, Silivia thought to herself.  She had waited two hundred years for his birth.  An heir to power, gifted to hear and speak in all voices, and capable of leading his people.  The boy had an ability that had grown increasingly scarce over the centuries, bred near to extinction.  More than that, Dyer was stronger than she, but still so young!  Who could blame her if she wanted to delay what suspicion suggested was coming to pass?

 

“Mother, you are worried about something.”

 

“Dyer, if you know the story, you should know why I worry.”

 

He thought about that for a minute, on the verge of another question.

 

“Will you settle for learning it all in the morning, with our travelers?”

 

“So there is a connection!”

 

“Dyer, aren’t you ready for bed?”  The child refused to be diverted, however, fastening those grave dark eyes on hers until Silivia had to relent.

 

“There may be a connection, as you put it.  Without knowing who the Lady Ysaulte really is, I cannot say, but it has occurred to me, perhaps some legend speaks through her person… through them all.  You know, I had no idea Terrans practiced pair-bonding.”

 

“I believe you said that once,” Dyer pointed out, earning himself another splash of cold water.

 

“He would have killed me for her,” Silivia murmured, thinking back to that instant when the Terran starlord had faced her, phaser in hand.  A fine, valiant gesture, considering the phaser would not fire.  She had known that, and so had he, and they both knew the polite pretense that it would was all that had stopped open fighting, or worse… given the Lady Ysaulte’s force of will.

 

“You frightened him, Mother.  And us,” Dyer scolded.  Silivia’s mental warning had alarmed the entire village.

 

“Huh.  They needed help, child, and you overreacted.  Alerting every warrior in camp was a little extreme.”

 

Dyer realized now this was true.  The sight of superior might did not necessarily induce compliance.

 

“Correct.  These people strike me as honorable, spirited, courageous and gallant.  Rarely will you meet their like, so strong even in defense and weakness.  All that aside, you will learn, unless you seriously intend to attack, a show of force is counterproductive.  These people would have died in battle, or seen us killed.  Make force your last alternative.”

 

“Yes, Mother.  I see.  I’m sorry.”

 

“There is no teacher like experience.  Except me, of course.”

 

“Oh, of course,” Dyer agreed, giggling again.

 

“Huh.  To bed, child, or we will oversleep and miss something!”

 

***

 

Ysaulte was dreaming.  She'd always been prey to vivid nightmares, suffering from too much imagination and too much stimulation.  This being the usual case, she had developed several subconscious strategies for dealing with her bad dreams, and was generally able to work through them without fear.

 

Not tonight.  Nothing worked.  Images accosted her with particular intensity, fueled as they were on memory…

 

The beast was upon her, hot breath in her face.  No choice but to defend James with her body, while thought wrested free of the nullifier, pushing, pressuring past__ Ysaulte felt it all again, the moment replaying itself with illusory slowness.  Fusing will with the creature and reaping the whirlwind, the bloodlust…   only Aesaulte’h of ch’Rihan could match that rage, and did; smashing into the mind of the beast and shattering the barriers to hers.  Becoming the beast, all control lost to homicidal fury.  Black death bidding on two souls.

 

“Ysaulte.”

 

He who held her, seeing everything, feeling everything, even to the murder in her heart… loving her anyway.  For All to witness, James astonished her.

 

That nightmare broken with the reminder, Ysaulte’s subconscious settled into deeper levels, extending her intuitive reach in other dreams.  Low in mind, a voice spoke, telling stories that ceased with her approach.

 

She was bade welcome, the voice adding ‘did she know, long ago there was a time when the sha’deh du Khyn had moved to defend this world?’

 

“I heard this was so, yet I know nothing of it,” Ysaulte replied to the voice in her dream, which muttered in audible disappointment at her honest answer.  What strange creation of fantasy could speak so?  “Who then art thou?”

 

“One of your own, I believe.”   And the voice was gone, the dream going visual, producing a disturbing view.  The picture, war.  A war she did not recognize, crawling over the face of an alien planet… but a war she knew.  War of possession.  Bloody, desperate conflict, continuing until the very mountains walked.

 

“Stop!”  Ysaulte demanded as the world began to tremble.

 

“Wake up, Ysaulte!”

 

Jim, shaking her in this fashion?  No__

 

“It’s an earthquake, Ysaulte!”  that ground to a finish with Jim’s words, Ysaulte seizing cognizance.  He covered her, holding her through a twitching aftershock and asking himself what had awakened him first; the tremor in the ul Nru, or the tremor in Ysaulte’s nightmare?

 

“James?”

 

“I think it’s over.  Are you all right?”

 

“The dream.  Think thou wast the dream?”  She asked confusedly.

 

“I don’t know, Ysaulte.  I don’t think it was a coincidence.”

 

“Captain Kirk?  Captain?  Jim?”

 

Vulcan urgency as only one Vulcan did it.

 

“We’re fine, Spock.  Are you and Bones okay?”

 

“Uninjured, Sir.”

 

“Stay there, we’ll come out,” Jim ordered, none too speedy at lifting himself off Ysaulte.  It felt like ages since they’d__

 

“James!”

 

“Forgive me, Ysaulte, but I’d like to give you something else to dream about, I think.”

 

“Was not me,” Ysaulte protested irritably, gritting her teeth against the sharp discomfort of rising.  She’d stiffened up, always a mistake.  How long had they slept, anyway?

 

“Spock!  The time!”

 

“Zero two twenty one, Standard.”

 

“Then it should be close to morning,” Jim noted, helping Ysaulte stand.

 

“Spock?”

 

“Seventeen point seven two five hours until the arrival of the Fleet as estimated, Lady Ysaulte,” the Vulcan answered evenly.

 

“How’d you know what she wanted to know, Spock?”

 

“Captain Kirk?”

 

Another worried voice interrupted McCoy’s question to Spock.  Jim recognized it as belonging to the Muuyean elder.  He pushed back the hanging curtains and walked Ysaulte into the larger room.

 

“We weren’t hurt, Lady Silivia.  Come in.”

 

Silivia opened the door flap, letting in the gray light of pre-dawn.  Jim used the illumination to check on Ysaulte, found Bones and Spock doing the same… as did the elder when she came inside.  Ysaulte responded to all this attention with one sharply lifted eyebrow, managing to deflect their eyes with her own black gaze.

 

“I am glad you are unharmed.  Perhaps you would come to my home for first-meal.  It is not so old as this structure, and earthquakes tend to produce unfortunate effects in old homes.”

 

“As a matter of fact, I would like to go out,” Jim agreed, trying not to tease Ysaulte for the relief she felt at this decision.

 

Silivia ushered them outside and through the village.  People rushed past them with fast nods of acknowledgment, going lodge to lodge.  No one seemed panicked, just intent on damage control.  All the hustle-bustle Jim had thought was missing last night.

 

The elder led them slowly across the clearing, her destination a stone building set apart from the others, and almost hidden in the trees.  It was a little smaller than the lodge where the landing party had slept.  Jim paused at the door and looked behind him, where the village was quieting.  Pearly fingers of mist gave it the appearance of a ghost town, calm restored.

 

“Is the region prone to seismic activity, Lady Silivia?”

 

“It happens, Commander Spock.  Come, all.  This is my home.”

 

More curtains divided the interior, which was surprisingly light, by some fashion that was hidden from view.  A turn found them in the main room, where Dyer was setting a pot on a low-banked fire.  Bones sniffed, a wonderful, impossible aroma tickling his nostrils.

 

“Coffee?”

 

"Yes, the bean grows well here.  Fair day, Dyer!”

 

“Fair day, Mother, and welcome guests,” the boy replied with what Jim, for one, considered a remarkable degree of aplomb.  You’d think the Muuyeans woke to earthquakes every day… then again, maybe they did.

 

“How often do these tremors occur?”  He asked.

 

Silivia looked at Dyer, who held up his hands in a ‘what did you expect’ gesture.

 

“The last recorded seismic activity within the ul Nru ranges happened around four-thousand years ago,” the elder said with a sideways glance at Ysaulte.  “Please, be seated.”

 

This took Ysaulte a few minutes, while she tried to find a position that did not make her want to curse out loud.  Bones stood it as long as he could, then reached over to zap her with the hypospray.

 

“Quit being so damned pig-headed,” he muttered when she glared at him.

 

“Thank you, Doctor,” Jim soothed, knowing Ysaulte would forget to be mad as soon as the medication took effect.  She needed it, a fact she confessed when pain stopped fogging her thoughts.

 

“Leonard, forgive me.  I am pig-headed.”

 

“Yes, you are.  Must be why I like you so much,” McCoy informed her, his gruff tone belied by the gentleness with which he checked her bandages.

 

Silivia observed all this with a grin, but there was more than amusement in her gaze.  This alien woman fascinated her.  So strong and proud and self-reliant, yet commanding such care from these military men… and underneath all that, the most aggravating, efferent familiarity.

 

“Mother?”

 

“Yes, Dyer.  Time to learn.”

 

Ysaulte looked up, catching the hints of unspoken communication between the Muuyeans, and feeling their stares as a palpable thing.

 

“Mention was made of questions, elder Lady.”

 

“So it was, but before I ask them, I have to say.  You come as a stranger, of unknown race and unknown blood, but you touch my mind with the casual grace my own children use.  You might not know it, but your presence here with this… ability… speaks to legend.”

 

“I find that difficult to accept,” Ysaulte demurred quietly.  “It seems unlikely.”

 

“It is not.  If you are who legend says you must be, it is not unlikely at all.”

 

“A circular argument, Lady Silivia,” the first officer informed her, his tone not concealing the merest trace of refined Vulcan annoyance.

 

Silivia rubbed her chin and wondered how to proceed.  Dyer was not prepared to wait her out.

 

“Do Terrans have legends?”  The child asked, gracefully serving Jim and Bones their coffee.

 

“Yes, we do,” Jim answered, handing his cup to Ysaulte just so he could touch his fingertips to hers.  The little caress diverted her from the increasing unease the elder’s words created and brought a bit of color to the ZaworthIan’s pale face.  That she was pushing herself again, Jim had no doubt, feeling the reach of Ysaulte’s shielding block the Muuyean’s curiosity.  The funny thing was, watching the two women only reinforced some ill-defined similarity between them, and it seemed to Jim this concerned the Federation least of all.

 

“And do Terrans have princes?”  Dyer went on, giving the starlord another cup.

 

“What?”

 

“Princes.  Are you a prince?”

 

“I don’t have royal blood, if that’s what you mean,” Jim said, mystified by the boy’s question.  Beside him, Ysaulte set her coffee down untasted and drew herself bolt upright.

 

“Why ask?”  She wondered sharply.  “Are princes valued here?”

 

“Not for their worth on the open market, I assure you.  It is part of the legend,” Silivia hastened to tell her, not sure whether to kiss Dyer or shake him.  She shared this polarity of emotion with the child, not that it made Dyer hesitate.

 

“I ask, Lady of stars, because I believe he is more than he says,” Dyer explained, his eyes on Ysaulte’s.

 

Startling everybody, particularly the child, the Lady smiled.

 

“I have always thought so, myself.”  Ysaulte’s smile lingered as she bowed her head to Dyer, honoring his perception.  “It is no longer the way of Terrans to measure princes, but so stands the one to any world’s consideration.  Stands he thus for me, as for my people.  James, Lord of Enterprise, son of Star Fleet, heir to the Federation.  The stars his.”

 

“Ysaulte__”

 

“Legend should be satisfied,” Dyer announced, patently satisfied himself.  “We welcome you, Prince of stars, with pleasure.”

 

Jim coughed, swallowed his protest, and tried to ignore the raised eyebrows Spock and Bones exchanged.

 

“Thank you, Dyer.  We are pleased to be here,” he managed to reply, forgetting his embarrassment when Ysaulte turned that smile on him.  The Muuyean boy had relieved some of her concern, which rushed back into its entirety with the next question.

 

“Who are you to be here, Lady of stars?”

 

Ysaulte closed her eyes and wished she knew how to respond.

 

“Go on your gut, Ysaulte.  If you can’t do that, go on mine,” Jim ordered her silently.

 

“Thou trust?”

 

“They’ve given us no reason not to.  Talk to them, and forget the nullifier.  It’s still your call, Ambassador, but you’d better be certain you’re not acting on nightmares.”

 

“Huh.”  Shielding her eyes with one hand, Ysaulte smiled again, wondering who else in all the universe would ever speak to her with the impatient, confident challenge she felt in James.  If he believed she was strong enough for everything, then she must be.  “I never used to be much of a worrier.”

 

Jim had to grin back, aware of her uncertainties leaving.

 

“It must be all this Terran influence.”

 

“No doubt.”

 

Apprehensions silenced, Ysaulte replaced them with the more familiar imperatives, like curiosity, the need to learn, and teach in turn.  Keeping her eyes downcast, she turned back toward the elder Lady, who waited with patient interest.

 

“I mean no disrespect, Lady Silivia, in holding the name of my homeworld and my people.  For us, to give the name in understanding is to give forth a sword, and not knowing which way the blade will cut.  For the Terrans of Enterprise, this is not so.  Give they the name freely, bold as children and fearing nothing.”

 

“Do you need some assurance on their lives?”  Dyer wondered, with his gift for asking the right questions.

 

“I do,” Ysaulte admitted, shrugging off the hard stares she was earning from her companions.

 

“Then you have it, Lady Ysaulte,” Silivia promised, reproving herself for not anticipating the woman’s request.  “Well done, Dyer.

 

“Lady of stars, you are guests in my home.  For my people, the Beeyt ul ku Tuura, this means no hand will raise against you, no stone will turn against your foot.  No matter what you tell me.  I remind you, I did give you my name.”

 

“Indeed.”  So she had been right to believe that meant something to these Muuyeans, Ysaulte realized, knowing she could offer no less in return.  “Know thou, then, the name given.  I am Ysaulte, of ZaworthIa,” she answered, loosing the proof into her irises.

 

Silivia gasped, a sound Dyer echoed, a sound which must have carried past hearing and into thought, because three more Muuyeans entered the room as if bidden.

 

“Stay ye, Council,” Silivia directed, putting up one hand to stop them, like they hadn’t already been halted by the door by the Terran doctor and the Vulcan.  “It is well.  I know your star, Lady Ysaulte.  You are welcome.”

 

Ysaulte nodded, undisturbed by the arrivals.  The elder’s honesty was inalienable.

 

“Knowing this, Silivia, does legend then speak?”

 

“Before I can say, I must know one other thing.  You are not solely of ZaworthIa.  Where else?”

 

Jim grimaced, finding this emphasis on Ysaulte’s heritage unwarranted and crass.

 

“Captain, this is neither idle curiosity nor lack of courtesy,” Silivia said, watching the Terran starlord’s irritation as it reflected in his Lady’s eyes.  What eyes!  Colors burned with spirit, dancing, shifting…  the elder caught herself laughing out loud.  “All praise to my ancestors, I never believed this could happen in my lifetime, yet here it is__ here you are.  I must be certain.  Ysaulte__”

 

“I understand.  Know thou, I am a child of two worlds, two stars.  I live claimed to the fire of aShaiLan, born to my Mother Za, sha’deh du Khyn… but I am named also Aesaulte’h, daughter of the house tr’Arriellus, bred to fair ch’Rihan and sired in Eisn’s wary glow.”  She stood involuntarily, easily, the long repressed glitter of her irises ranging through shade and hue.  “Shall I presume to legends belonging to neither world?”

 

“As who you are, it is no presumption, Lady.  Sha’deh du Khyn, begat of ch’Rihan, descended of warriors.  You proclaim a day at hand, foretold on our creation, a day of reckoning due these millennia.”

 

The Muuyean elder got up, approaching Ysaulte, and something in her posture held everybody back, even Jim.

 

"Not I,” Ysaulte protested, hands out.

 

“You,” Silivia insisted sternly, although she was not unsympathetic to the younger woman’s obvious shock.  “In your heart you know, and if that is not sufficient, ask yourself this.  What do your Sisters see?”

 

There was but one answer to this.  The absolute truth.

 

“So stated, even my Sisters see we must be here.”

 

“For the Sisters of Za to see it is evidence enough.  Let me tell you how I know this to be true__” but Silivia did not have to explain anything.

 

Impressions coalesced within Ysaulte’s mind, striking like lightning, illuminating perception with near-perfect clarity.   There was reason for this mysterious familiarity.

 

“You’re ZaworthIan too!”  Jim exclaimed, coming to Ysaulte’s conclusion with his own intuitive reach.

 

“ul ku Tuura,” Silivia corrected, shaken by the extent of the Lady’s will, which scarcely exceeded that of her Terran.  “We are ul ku Tuura, now.”

 

“But four thousand years ago?”  Jim demanded.  “Ysaulte?  There must be some way to__”

 

“Yes, James.  There exists a method of verification, if the elder will permit me.”

 

“Please,” Silivia assented with the broadcast hope that she wouldn’t regret this.

 

Ysaulte placed one fingertip between Silivia’s eyes and gathered her force of thought.

 

“Seen thou art, as thou art!”

 

Jim’s turn to gasp; Bones, Dyer, and the other Muuyeans with him, as the elder’s eyes cleared of some film.  Even Spock allowed himself a sigh (and could be forgiven for it) when Silivia’s irises matched the restless scope of color in Ysaulte’s.  Now, here was evidence!  Visible, living proof.

 

“I am a child of your ancestors, Ysaulte of ZaworthIa.  So legend holds.”

 

“So too thou art accepted, Silivia, without question.”  With a great deal of surprise, however.

 

“Will my eyes do that?”  Dyer interrupted, fascinated.

 

“Surely, Little Brother, for thy Talent shines in thee.”  Waiting for Silivia’s consent, and obtaining it, Ysaulte touched the child.  His irises washed over pale, brilliant shades.

 

“One of your own,” Silivia murmured, watching Dyer fondly.

 

“In my dreams a voice spoke these very words to me.  Was it you?”  Ysaulte asked the elder, lowering her hands.  The colors did not fade from the Muuyean’s gazes.

 

“No, not me.  The voice of legend, perhaps,” Silivia answered, wondering at the ZaworthIan’s psionic power.  Looking away from Dyer, the elder was reminded of her patient, watchful council.

 

Jim followed her line of sight, assessing the Muuyea.  Two women and one man, all as tall and lean as Silivia.  The man was shaking his head in disbelief.

 

“Mother, are you all right?”

 

“Keep silent, Laaru  I am fine.”  Silivia rubbed her chin.  “You are nothing like I would have expected, yet you are everything, Lady of stars.  There is much you should hear, but it is a very long story to tell on an empty stomach.”

 

“With respect, Lady Silivia, time stands precious.  James warns thee in all honesty, the Rihannsu Fleet approaches.  With the dark shall come the possibility of new allegiances, formed, perhaps, in conquest.”

 

“Because you say it, Sister of Za, I believe it, with all respect to you, Captain.  Do they come for Etumuuyea, however, or for you, Ysaulte?”

 

Ysaulte lifted one shoulder.

 

“Maybe both.”

 

“How do they know you are here, Lady of stars?”  Dyer, of course.

 

“My presence betrayed.”

 

“By whom?”  Silivia pressed, sensing reluctance in the ZaworthIan she had believed gone.

 

“I prefer not to say.”

 

Silivia cleared her throat.

 

“I see.  Then we will share with you part of the story before we eat, but we will eat, young Lady.  Your strength is not without limit, and dusk is some time away, yet.”

 

The elder waited for a protest, but got none.  Ysaulte had seen that particular brand of determination before, and knew better than to argue.

 

“You may wonder,” Silivia began, “why we have not asked you why you come here, to the Beeyt ul ku Tuura.  I must tell you, it is because your reasons do not matter.  For us, it is enough that you are here.  As a people, we live by prophecy, for our home is itself a fulfillment of fate.

 

“Dyer, recite to the Lady the Endwords.”

 

“Yes, Mother,” the boy replied solemnly, straightening.

 

“’In distant autumn, choice will fall to declaration, silencing the last work of the mage.  Where all was hidden kings should spring defense.  Stand ye against servitude, ye lovers of freedom, seek ye aid from a prince of a far-flung star.  Find, set before him, a child of two worlds.  One of your own, who is more than our own.’”

 

Finishing, Dyer sat, and his voice unspoken rang like crystal inside their minds as he repeated the words, in the manner Ysaulte suspected they were intended.  They chimed through her subconscious, prying loose fragments of inherited memory.

 

“’The last work of the mage’?”

 

“Kirin razSaman.”

 

Ysaulte, concentrating, knew the name, knowing also… what?  A phrase wrenched itself out of the back of her mind, translating from the language of her mother’s people.

 

“’For all this doth be said, even unto time’s entropic end, du Q’rin razS a’Man shalt all and ever be; more than matter, more than spirit he.’”

 

“Ysaulte?”

 

She shrugged at Jim.  The memory was gone, although the remembered words teased at her.

 

“Excuse me, please,” the councilman said, turning away to speak to his female companions.  The women nodded and left, the man seeing them gone before explaining.

 

“Tiisch and Melila go for food.  I know you have other questions, Mother, and it is better only family hears.”

 

“Yes, Laaru.  Perhaps we might sit again, Ysaulte?”

 

“Are you feeling the weight of your years again, Mother?”  Dyer asked, while Laaru glared his way past Spock and McCoy to help the elder get settled.

 

“Except in my eyes.  Souls end!  My eyes feel young!  I have not seen this clearly in thirty years.”  Silivia used that clarity of vision to see the ZaworthIan’s pallor as her starlord assisted her back down.  “You must have found it taxing, Lady Ysaulte.  Thank you.”

 

“It needed doing.”

 

“There’s always something that needs doing, Ysaulte,” Bones pointed out, noticing the elder’s sharp regard and coming nearer to check on the ambassador.  “You don’t always have to be the one who does it.”

 

“Yes, Leonard.  I shall try to remember this,” Ysaulte agreed meekly, in hopes of heading off a lecture.

 

“You are the healer?”  The councilman inquired curiously, his eyes going to each member of the landing party and stopping at McCoy.

 

“I am.  Doctor Leonard McCoy, at your service, and since you ask,” Bones retorted, suddenly determined to get his two cents worth in, “I would like to beg your care with the Lady Ysaulte.  I don’t know what all this legend stuff is building up to, but she needs a little time before she does anything else.  These aren’t the first of her recent injuries, and they aren’t the worst.”

 

Ysaulte pinched the bridge of her nose, certain she would be outraged if she were just a bit less… weary.  Even so, she had to hide a smile when she felt the irritated stare Jim sent his friend.

 

“I am not quite sure what all this ‘legend stuff’ means either, Doctor,” Laaru said, his gaze going to Ysaulte.  “Neither do I understand how three Star Fleet officers fit in.   Have you considered the noninterference directive?”

 

The ZaworthIan’s head abruptly came up, irises responding as if to dare, diamond bright and proud. 

 

Had she been tired?  Only for a moment, surely!

 

“As you are a member of the United Federation of Planets, stand you exempt.  Secession will not alter this, for as a pawn to the Empire, the Enterprise will still be unchallenged as an agent of military intelligence for the Federation.  As for me,” she reminded them in silky tones, “I am bound by neither Federation nor Empire.”

 

“This is known to us, Lady of stars.”

 

“Well that it is.”

 

“She could be the Zaltana talSherea, sitting beside you with war in her eyes, Mother,” Laaru whispered as an aside to Silivia.  He did not know about Rihannsu and Vulcan hearing.

 

“What do you know of talSherea?”  Ysaulte asked sharply.

 

“Oh, can I tell her this part, too, Mother?”

 

“Go ahead, Dyer.  Tell the Lady Ysaulte where the pasts of our worlds meet, and in whom.”

 

“It was talSherea, Zaltana du Khyn d’ZaworthIa, bound to Mavre Sidr, who gave life to twin daughters.  The Lady Zariel, and the Lady Iananthe… and it was the Lady Iananthe, who found heart call in the Negus Ilyuuron of Muuye, who gave life to our people and created the Beeyt ul ku Tuura,” and in case it wasn’t self evident, Dyer added one more thing.

 

“Four thousand years ago.”

 

End Chapter Ten