Chapter Two
Ysaulte awakened
slowly, lying motionless until the torrent of recent memory assimilated into
this new reality. Most vulnerable on
waking, she endured the fresh pain of recall while her conscious mind grew
aware.
Eventually rolling
out of her bunk, Ysaulte stretched muscles that still ached. Some time during the night, she had dragged herself
from the deck. The surprise lay in
finding her sleep had been near to restful.
Yesterday’s horror might never completely leave her, but yesterday, by
definition, was in the past. Ysaulte
thought dwelling on it would hand Marlak another
victory. This, she refused to do.
She frowned at the
crumpled gray coverall she’d slept in, decided to try out the shower first, and
limped into the sonics stall.
The offending sickwear was programmed away. Ysaulte appreciated the energy tingle against
her skin. Sonic showers were still a
novelty for the ZaworthIan. She keyed in
the clothes synth and stood still as garments
materialized around her; a shapeless tunic in midnight blue that covered her
from neck to thigh, meant to conceal the remaining bruises on her throat and
arms. With it, she chose black leggings
and thong sandals. Ysaulte emerged
refreshed, a little startled to realize she felt hungry.
Her right hand was
still a bit clumsy, but she managed to braid her hair into a thick plait that
hung down her spine. Checking her
appearance, Ysaulte was vain enough to be glad her facial swelling had
diminished, although her bruises were beginning to turn colors that rivaled her
irises for variety.
She stepped into
the empty corridor and concluded it must be very early in the day. The curved hallways were dim and quiet.
She saw no one as
she made her way to the small dining area Christine had pointed out last
evening. That room was deserted as well.
“And no wonder,”
Ysaulte murmured absently, catching sight of the chronometer on the wall. “Zero-five-thirty hours.” Early indeed in the twenty-four hour day
cycle to which Terrans were accustomed. Ysaulte, as ZaworthIan, saw time in a less structured
fashion. On her homeworld,
they reckoned only night and day, which at most might be divided into morning, afternoon,
and evening.
Ysaulte puzzled
over the food dispensers for a moment, then selected a
cheese omelet and coffee. This
starship’s coffee was surprisingly good, with a rich aroma that teased the
nostrils. Ysaulte was pleased. Years of travel had forced her to acquire a taste
for coffee, but good coffee was a rarity.
She was on her
second cup when the doors opened and the captain strode in. His mental energy surged over Ysaulte’s perception,
making her gasp. The little sound was
covered by the hiss of the doors closing.
Ysaulte forced
herself not to flinch when he caught sight of her.
“Good morning,
Ambassador d’Aeviane,” Jim
said, a bit taken aback to find the ZaworthIan up so early. He tried not to inspect her too closely, but
still managed to take in her appearance, all bruises and pallor.
“Fair day,
Captain,” Ysaulte managed, her voice still barely audible. She had the oddest feeling this man knew her
thoughts as well as any of her people.
His mind was resonant with empathy and compassion. He heard her and smiled, genuine pleasure reflecting
from him, and Ysaulte felt her lips curve in response. He truly was a beautiful man, and she could
see no threat within him. She dismissed
that subliminal recognition as her imagination at work.
The captain got
his breakfast and made to join her, hesitating at the last minute with a
clearly visible fear of making her uncomfortable. Impulse moved Ysaulte to point to the chair
across from hers. He sat gingerly, as if
sudden movement might frighten her.
Amused in spite of everything, she relaxed into her seat.
“Did you enjoy
your breakfast?” Jim asked, noticing her
half-eaten omelet. He sipped at his
coffee, careful with the steaming liquid.
“Yes, thank… thanks,” Ysaulte
corrected herself. “Good coffee,” she
added, tapping one finger on her own near-empty cup and ignoring her
nerves. The Terran’s
unconsciously sensual appreciation of the hot beverage shivered over her raw
senses.
“Thank you. Good coffee is a weakness of mine,” Jim said,
grinning. “As the captain, I get to
insist on a better quality than is usual this far out.”
“Lucky,” Ysaulte
nodded. “Have seen
worse. Some could eat holes in
deck.”
Jim chuckled,
inwardly applauding the ambassador’s effort.
It had to be difficult for her to sit here in idle conversation. The line of strain in her spine betrayed her.
“I know what you
mean. I’ve had coffee you had to keep in
titanium pots.”
“Indeed.” Ysaulte was aware the Terran
sensed her unease, and she decided to cut to the chase.
“How much Alexei Zeitsev say?” She
asked.
Surprised, Jim
could only stare at her for a moment.
“He said secret
negotiations were in progress to admit your planet into the Federation, and
ordered us to assist you in whatever manner you require,” he answered after a
little thought, unable to bring himself to say anything of the order to protect
her.
“I’m not familiar
with ZaworthIa, Ambassador.”
“May join
Federation, may not.” Ysaulte
shrugged. “Some ZaworthIans want, some
not… many
stubborn.”
“So there are some
similarities then, between ZaworthIans and Terrans,”
Jim replied wryly, rewarded by the amusement shining from the ambassador’s
suddenly green eyes.
“What do you
favor? Membership, or
not, Ambassador?”
“Ysaulte,
please. Not sure.
Will do as Elders say.” She lifted one hand and made a back and forth
gesture that Jim took to mean uncertainty.
“ZaworthIa near… Romulan neutral zone.
Long problem.
Might be good, have Federation… support.”
“I take it the Romulans might not think that,” Jim concluded in spite of
himself, regretting it instantly when Ysaulte went pale.
"I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say.”
The ZaworthIan
shook her head.
“Captain__”
“Call me Jim,
Ysaulte,” he interrupted, rolling the name around in his mind to make sure he’d
said it right. “There’s a legend on my
world about a princess of
“What happened to
her?” Ysaulte wondered a bit sadly.
“She fell in love
with a knight of the Round Table named Tristram, but
she was promised to marry his brother King Mark of
Without thinking, Jim
put out one hand to cover hers, and had the strangest sensation of falling into
the ZaworthIan’s eyes as the physical contact
amplified her thoughts.
“You are kind,
Jim,” she whispered, and to his shock Jim could hear her voice inside his head,
feel her pretended calm as if it were his own.
Her hand beneath his tightened into a fist, but she
made no effort to pull away, and he couldn’t move. Jim stared into Ysaulte’s eyes, unknowingly
dissolving her tattered shielding.
“Let me help,” he
urged, disregarding the pain those three little words unexpectedly produced.
Ysaulte shuddered,
caught in the Terran’s steadfast gaze. She was unable to turn away, shattered by his
words and the aching sense of loss that accompanied them, losing her tenuous
control…
Fear, shock,
relief, resentment, a very real anguish mingled with a pleasure in him that was
just as intense; the range of the ZaworthIan’s
emotions rushed into Jim’s mind. He felt
as though he looked into her heart.
“Please,” he
appealed, not at all sure what he was asking for but driven to remove the
distrust from Ysaulte’s clouded eyes. Stroking
her hand unconsciously, he admitted to himself his wish to protect her, and
know her…
Ysaulte found
Jim’s strength of will remarkable. He
demanded blind faith and promised support, forcing her to put aside her confusion. She opened her mind in wary degrees,
listening past the harmonic brilliance of his thoughts.
Anchored by his
touch, the voice of the crew's collective consciousness was audible to her. It sang with enthusiasm and spirit, based on a
devoted loyalty, to this man, before her.
Jim sensed her
reaching beyond him, even understood that she sought some reassurance. He couldn’t blame her.
“I am
afraid.” The words,
unspoken.
“I know.”
Ysaulte opened her
fist, turning her palm up to rest against Jim’s.
“This is not how I
am,” she began, touching her fingertips to the pulse points in his wrist. The even throb of his life’s blood served to
calm.
“Then tell me,
Ysaulte, how you are.”
Jim was struck
with wonder at the ZaworthIan’s effortless
telepathy. There was none of the serene
purity of Spock’s mind-meld. Ysaulte’s
thoughts were awash with warmth and emotion, colors and sensations. The one thing Jim did find similar was their
limitless, tolerant compassion.
Ysaulte suffered
this curiosity with increasing ease. Her
own genuinely inquisitive nature was awakened by his comparisons, which she
followed in his mind as they occurred to him.
Ysaulte had to believe it was not wrong to trust him.
“How have you come
to learn the voice in mind?” She asked.
“My friend and
first officer, Spock of Vulcan,” Jim answered silently, forming a mental
picture and wincing when Ysaulte tried to muffle a surge of nauseated distress.
“Forgive me.” For an instant, her nails bit into his skin,
then he felt her push away her apprehension.
“You don’t know
him.”
“No. It is merely a resemblance.” Merely!
Ysaulte thought semi-hysterically, then took a deep breath, calmed
herself, and produced a mental picture of her own. A muscular Vulcanoid male, who while younger, bore a superficial
resemblance to Jim’s first officer.
There was arrogance in the man’s expression that Jim had never seen in
Vulcan eyes, however.
“Romulan.” It
was not a question.
“Yes. Marlak tr’Ahkennsai, the son of my father’s
brother.” Her mental conversation
carried none of the painful hesitations that troubled her spoken words,
fascinating Jim into doing a double take at her words.
“Then you are part
Romulan?” He asked with surprise.
“My father was a
warrior in their fleet. The Rihannsu have sought our subjugation for centuries, but we
are a hard to people to conquer, and we are blessed with dominant genes.”
“Marlak was the one who__”
Jim deliberately censored the rest of his thought, but Ysaulte knew what
he was asking.
“Yes. He thought to leave me helpless,” Ysaulte
smiled, but there was no humor in it.
“He shall so wish, before long.”
Jim closed his
eyes, disturbed by the implied threat in her mind, but understanding it. The psionic resonance between them did not
dissolve; instead, it stabilized, cementing as Ysaulte’s confidence in both of
them grew.
“Forgive me,” she
repeated. “I did not intend to distress
you.”
“It’s a natural
reaction,” Jim assured her gently. “Why
did he do it?”
“He thought to
neutralize me. By legend, forcing one
untouched is a rite of power. In
rendering me no longer…
pure… he thought to rob me
of all strength.” Ysaulte was tiring,
wearying of searching for concepts Jim could follow, as unfamiliar as he was
with her people.
Jim’s eyes flew
open, shocked by the truth of her words.
“You mean you
were_ he_ Oh, Ysaulte. I am so sorry.”
Despite the
empathetic tenor of his surface thoughts, she could feel their underlying
anger, not directed towards her. The awareness
evoked a peculiar echo, and she focused on him with alarmed suspicion.
“Last night__” She broke off,
confused, and not at all certain how to specify this kind of question to a Terran.
Jim could hear it
anyway, and nerved himself to give her an honest answer.
“Last night,” the
words were drawn from him with the same solemn formality Spock had used. “Last night, my friend and I were called to
witness, my Lady. It was our privilege
and honor to support you.”
Ysaulte went paste
pale, then flushed with an embarrassment so scalding
Jim felt his own face grow hot. She was
stunned by the insult she had inflicted on them, having not even considered the
possibility of psionically sensitive beings
nearby. How much more thoughtless could
she be, to behave so badly?
All this and more
Jim saw in her mind. Never leaving go
her hand, he stood and came around the table to sit beside her. This was going to take careful handling. He could not bear to see her so humiliated,
any more than he could Spock on his friend’s infrequent lapses. Before he could speak, however, Ysaulte slid
from her seat to kneel before him.
“I have committed
a great wrong upon thee and thine,” she said formally, closing her eyes and
tilting her head back to bare her throat.
Jim suddenly understood that her posture signified far more than
apology. This was no polite ritual, and
Ysaulte did not seek his forgiveness.
This was life or death within his grasp, and she waited, resigned to
whatever fate he decided.
“Ysaulte, my dear… the cause was
sufficient,” Jim whispered through his shock, taking her arms and lifting her
carefully back into her chair. He
believed he would never appreciate Surak’s wisdom
more!
“We were not harmed,” he assured her as she
lowered her head to stare at the floor.
“This clemency is
far more than I deserve,” Ysaulte told him, her tone strangled with unshed
tears.
“No, Lady
Ysaulte. Much less. The stars themselves are much less than you
deserve.” Jim raised her hands to his
mouth, brushing his lips over her trembling fingers with a gallantry that
served his heritage well. She met his
gaze at last, her eyes stormshot gray and damp.
“Thou art
merciful, James T. Kirk,” her mind murmured into his.
“Ysaulte, show
yourself the same mercy. Forgive
yourself for what was beyond your control.”
Jim drew the
ZaworthIan to her feet and released her hands, the intensity of their mental
connection fading to a distant warmth at the back of
his mind.
“I won’t be happy
unless you do,” he warned her slyly, and offered his arm.
Ysaulte hesitated,
then rested her fingers on his arm. The fragile air the gesture gave her struck
Jim. She was not much shorter than he,
but she seemed smaller and more vulnerable than ever. With well-hidden surprise, Jim realized this perception
was not actually his, but her own, reflected.
She felt exposed and diminished, he could sense it. He also knew that further evidence of her
faulty shielding would only magnify its instability, so he was careful to push
his thoughts away.
“I know Doctor
McCoy wanted to see you this morning.
He’ll be in Sickbay by now. May I
escort you there, Lady Ysaulte?”
“Thank you,” she
replied automatically, allowing him to walk her into the corridor.
Jim shortened his
stride, considerate of her slower pace.
He nodded to the few crewmembers they passed, aware of the ambassador’s
distraction. She was still criticizing
herself, he thought.
“What do you think
of my ship?” He asked as they stepped
into the turbolift, where he manually moderated their
speed to slow the transit time.
“It is
extraordinary, Jim__ James,” she decided abruptly, grateful for the Terran’s distraction.
“Why ‘James’?” he
wondered curiously.
“Is it not your
given name, and ‘Jim’ what is referred to as a ‘nickname’?”
“You are correct,”
Jim assured her as the lift opened onto the medical section. “Nicknames are perfectly acceptable to most Terrans,” he added, steering her down the corridor.
“It is the way of
my people to be cautious with names. The
name, given, can be an instrument of will… and is it not so, that the use of
‘Jim’ is special to another?” Ysaulte
had not missed the remnants of possession in this man’s mind.
Jim looked at her
sharply, realizing she was no longer stammering for words.
“You’re very
perceptive, Ysaulte. How has your speech
improved so much?”
“I am perceptive,
and the touch of your thoughts lent me strength. The credit is yours.”
Jim decided the
idea pleased him.
“By the way,
Ysaulte, we’ll be leaving orbit in a few hours.
I asked my chief engineer to beam your craft up and with your
permission, he’ll begin repairs. Our
next assignment is in the Etumuuyea system.
After that, if you wish, we can take you to ZaworthIa, or you can stay
on board until repairs are finished on your vessel.”
“I have no wish to
cause inconvenience,” Ysaulte replied uncertainly.
“It’s no
inconvenience to Mister Scott, I assure you,” Jim said with a smile, thinking
of the engineer’s stated anticipation at getting his hands on the ambassador's
craft.
"Unless
you don’t want us to examine your technology?” He
asked as it occurred to him, surprising a smile out of the ZaworthIan.
“No, that will not
be a problem. Thank you, James.” Ysaulte gave him a sideways look. “As it happens, I too am due on Muuye, to
inform their Negus of the membership negotiations. They are, what is
the word? Neighbors.”
Startled, Jim’s
eyebrows went up, and he halted the ambassador at the door to Sickbay.
“Ysaulte, I’ve
been through this sector any number of times, and I’ve never heard of your
world. Just where is it?”
The ZaworthIan
flushed a bit, to Jim’s surprise.
“Will you forgive
me, James, if I tell you, that is the ‘secret’ part of
the negotiations?”
He gave her a wry
look, then relieved her by chuckling.
“And thereby hangs
a tale, I think. When you’re finished
here, have Bones bring you up to the bridge.
I’ll show you around, if you feel up to it.”
“I shall, if you
will explain how one gets a nickname like Bones.”
“Ask him,” Jim
laughed, lifting a single fingertip to Ysaulte’s chin and tilting her head
up. For an instant, that marvelous resonance
of thought echoed in his mind, revealing her unspoken gratitude. “If you really want to thank me, Ysaulte,
you’ll give yourself a break. That is__”
“I understand,”
she smiled, liking his kindness and his humor.
“Call me if you
need me,” Jim ordered, dropping his hand as he turned to go.
“I believe I
could,” Ysaulte answered, watching him walk away. Her smile lingered even when she went into
Sickbay and found the Terran Healer coming out of his
office.
“Good morning,
Ambassador. You’re an early riser.”
McCoy stopped
several meters short of her. No longer
hampered by reasonless fear, thanks in large part to the captain, Ysaulte
approached the Healer with outstretched hand.
“Fair
day, Doctor McCoy.” She felt his surprise when she took his hand
after Terran fashion, squeezing his fingers briefly.
“You’re feeling
better, I take it,” Bones concluded, stepping back to look her over more
thoroughly. Color flushed her cheeks, and
those amazing eyes were clear, but she held herself rather stiffly. Bones figured she must still be having pain,
but didn’t think she would admit it.
“I shall be well
with time,” Ysaulte told him, arching one elegant, slanting eyebrow.
McCoy was
inevitably reminded of Spock, and some of the Vulcan’s more famed evasions from
examination. Ysaulte earned herself a
glare as the doctor motioned her towards a diagnostic table.
“I’ll be the judge
of that, if you don’t mind,” he muttered tersely.
“Of course,
Healer,” Ysaulte replied mildly, moving to the exam bed and seating
herself. Physicians were prone to fits
of temper. It seemed to be an
interstellar constant. She should have
realized Terrans would share the idiosyncrasy.
Bones studied the overbed readings.
“Are these
chemistries within normal limits for you, Ambassador?”
“Please, call me
Ysaulte. They fall within ZaworthIan
parameters, yes. I am somewhat dry.”
She used the
medical slang for dehydration without thinking about it, Bones noticed. Interesting.
“Dehydration
aside, you check out fine, physically.
The dysphasia and hemiparesis seem to be
resolved.”
“Not
entirely. I note a certain lack of
coordination, still, as well as a slight limp, Healer.”
So she was also
familiar with the Standard terminology for speech impairment and one-sided
weakness, despite the absence of artificial translation. Bones managed to keep his ‘hmmm’ to himself.
“Call me Leonard,
Ysaulte. What do you do when you’re not
being an ambassador?”
“Or
a patient?” She slid from the table, aware of McCoy’s
curiosity and quite unprepared for another emotional confrontation.
Despite all that, she couldn’t dismiss the
doctor’s interest. “I have, in the past,
served as a Healer myself,” Ysaulte admitted reluctantly.
“Not
anymore?” McCoy wondered.
Ysaulte rubbed one
hand over her eyes. She really didn’t
want to discuss this particular subject.
How could she explain herself?
The truth was, she didn’t know if she was
capable of healing, ever again. That
part of her soul so essential in the ZaworthIan art of healing… the will to
live… Ysaulte was not so sure that Marlak hadn’t taken that from her as well.
“Ysaulte, I don’t
mean to pry,” Bones told her gently, aware of her obvious discomfort. “I’d like to help if I can.”
“You are my
physician. Perhaps it is better you
hear.”
Ysaulte walked
over to the wall, lingering over the display case containing the doctor’s
collection of primitive surgical equipment.
“Barbaric, these,”
she murmured, caught in the echoes of blood and death the antique instruments
reflected.
McCoy kept silent,
trying to give her the time she seemed to be needing.
“Leonard. ZaworthIans are telepaths. We heal by mind. We use telepathy, or empathy, or whatever you
wish to call it, to stimulate the patient’s body into healing itself. This ability relies heavily on the mental
health of the practitioner.” She sighed. “It is not a thing to be done when one is… ill.”
“Ysaulte, are you
saying you feel mentally ill?” McCoy
questioned, putting aside the rest of her remarkable statement to focus on
counseling his patient.
“I think I must
be, after what__”
Ysaulte’s throat closed with sudden, aching anguish, leaving her
unable to finish.
“Let’s go sit
down,” McCoy invited, leading her into his office. He took a chair beside her and shivered when
their eyes met.
The ZaworthIan’s sorrow was all too visible in the darkness of
her gaze. “Can you talk about what
you’re feeling?”
Ysaulte shook her
head, turning her gaze to the floor.
“I… on my world, we
would not speak of these things thus.”
Bones set his jaw
and reached for her hands.
“Then tell me the
way you would tell another ZaworthIan,” he offered rather apprehensively.
“Leonard,” Ysaulte
breathed in wonder, and Bones shivered again to feel that unspoken voice inside
his head. “You Terrans
of Enterprise amaze me.”
“No, this is
amazing,” McCoy corrected her, surprised by how simple it was to communicate
this way. Words,
feelings, concepts, all there if he chose to perceive it.
“How much can you
see?” He had to ask.
“Only what you
wish to reveal, Leonard,” Ysaulte assured him, careful to keep their connection
shallow.
McCoy relaxed his
half-conscious resistance, and concentrated on opening his mind. A whisper of more familiar will soothed him. Jim’s presence was so recent within her the
ZaworthIan drew courage from it still, which in turn heartened McCoy. The evidence of the captain’s influence
surrounded Ysaulte’s thoughts and served as a framework for her slowly
strengthening
self-esteem.
James Kirk believed she deserved to live… so would she believe in him, until she
could manage to believe it for herself.
“How could I have
ever called Jim only a “fair psychologist”?”
Bones asked, affected by this very different perspective on his friend.
“Indeed, you are
fortunate in the one,” Ysaulte said. “My
own people would not have been kinder.”
“Tell me about
ZaworthIa, Ysaulte,” McCoy urged, sensing both her need to confide and her
reluctance to do so.
Ysaulte lifted her
hands, forming a circle that in their minds’ eyes began to glow in radiant
hues; whites, browns, greens, and blues, the colors of a living world. Continents took shape, cradled in fathomless
oceans, all surrounded by an unexpectedly verdant atmosphere.
“The
world of my birth, my Mother Za. We live upon her like nomads, tied together
by spirit and blood.” The psionic depiction
melted into a three-dimensional representation of a low, stone building, set
into the side of a mountain, fronted by a gold-green meadow, and forested along
the perimeter.
“This is os’Khul sha’deh, our Sisters’
Hall, where our government exists.
Perhaps because we hold to one another by mind, ZaworthIans tend not to
congregate in cities. We live by a
doctrine of unity, du’khyn’Ia,
the Way of All. None speak but what
another hear, and that the speaker wish it so.”
“And
the Romulans?” McCoy had to ask,
wondering how the ZaworthIans managed to defend their fair world.
Ysaulte sighed,
and the mental pictures went away.
“The Rihannsu came four thousand Standard years ago, thinking to
take our world from us. This they could
not do. We could not allow it. Since that time, relations with the Romulan
Empire have been…
difficult. Ultimately,
ZaworthIa chose to shelter herself from all outside contact. Still, things happen.” Ysaulte indicated one of her own slanted
ears. “My mother lived out years of her
life on ch’Rihan as a captive. When she became pregnant with me, she fled
for her homeworld, where I was born. My father discovered he could not live
without her, so he too left the Empire.
For this crime, the Rihannsu had them slain.”
Bones drew a deep
breath, shaken by the voiceless grief behind the ZaworthIan’s
spare words.
“Then
the Romulan who assaulted you?”
“Blood
kin to me, still trying to wipe out the blot on his family’s honor. I
fail to understand why he did not kill me,” Ysaulte confessed in bewilderment.
“You can’t be sure
he meant for you to live, Ysaulte. You
were badly injured.”
“Not fatally,
thanks to you, Leonard. He knew you were
coming, you see.”
Ysaulte separated
their thoughts and stood up, too restless to remain seated, and too near McCoy.
“Under ZaworthIan
law, what he did to me demands no less than death, and I speak less of the
physical attack than his attempt to take my sanity,” she announced abruptly,
looking at the Terran to make sure he understood
her. “It is my right to take his life. I will be expected to do it, in fact.”
“Are you… comfortable with
that?” The doctor asked. He didn’t need a telepathic link to sense
Ysaulte’s ambivalence.
“I am not. I am no killer, despite my father’s
blood.” But she said it like she didn’t
believe it herself, Bones thought, and wondered how it had been for her to grow
up on her world, with her divided heritage.
“Do you have a
legal system on ZaworthIa? Courts? Rehabilitation units?”
Ysaulte shook her
head.
“Leonard, there is
no crime on ZaworthIa. How can there
be? In the event of wrongdoing, the
person is counseled.”
McCoy raised his
eyebrows and sat back, watching her and thinking about what she’d said. On a planet full of telepaths, illegal activity
would be hard to conceal, he supposed.
“And crimes committed
offworld?”
“Are
left to the laws of that world, with three exceptions. Willful murder. The destruction of a mental bond. And mind rape.”
Ysaulte’s voice cracked on the last word, and
she turned away from McCoy for a moment, taking deep breaths to counter the sudden
nausea she felt.
“Ysaulte.”
McCoy sighed. “I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re
mentally ill because you're confused, hurt, and angry. Give it some time.”
“Sound advice,
Leonard.” She turned back to shrug at
him. “I could do nothing soon, at any
rate. I need to heal.”
Before McCoy could
respond, the comm unit on his desk whistled.
“McCoy
here.”
“Ensign
Sullivan here, in Main Rec, Doctor.
Mister Chekov has had a little accident.”
***
Jim strolled onto
the bridge, undeniably pleased with himself, as well as with Ysaulte. The ZaworthIan had the kind of courage he
admired most. She was a survivor, gifted
with the strength to face adversity; she was proud, but not too arrogant to
accept compassion; tough, without being inflexible. If she was representative of her people, Jim
could understand why their admission into the Federation was so greatly
desired.
Spock turned and
lifted an eyebrow, and Jim decided his good spirits must be a bit too
obvious. He raised his own brow, daring
his first officer to say something, but Spock relinquished the center seat
without comment.
“Good morning,
Mister Spock,” Jim said politely, sitting.
The Vulcan took up
his favored position at Jim’s right hand.
Alerted by the oddly intensified warmth of the captain’s mind, Spock
‘listened’ carefully to his psionic emanations. He could sense traces of an alien presence
in Jim’s thoughts, a presence still recent.
“Jim, are you all
right?” He asked quietly, disturbed by
the echoes of strain. The touch could
only have been the ZaworthIan’s. Spock recognized it from her agonized
lamentations of the night before, although the resonance surrounding what he
felt from Jim was considerable altered.
Spock admitted his concern. This
was a telepath of such ability that he himself had not perceived her real
strength… and
he’d had no sense of her mindlinking with the
captain. He stared hard at Jim, searching
for traces of malice within the lingering impressions, and finding none.
“I’m fine, Mister
Spock, thank you. Are you all
right?” Jim answered, hiding a
smile. He appreciated his friend’s
unease, and was well aware of its cause.
“I am quite well,
Captain,” Spock replied gravely, his voice pitched faintly off its usual
register. Jim caught the barest hint of astonishment
before the Vulcan’s mental shielding shut him out.
“Ship’s
status?”
“Mister Scott has
reported in. The ambassador’s craft is
secured in the shuttlecraft bay. The
sterile containment fields for the Cilehean medical
supplies are complete, and the remainder of the supplies will be off-loaded by
ten-hundred hours.”
“Good. Anything else?”
“Governor Van Damme sends her thanks, and says, “better
luck next time”.”
“I see. Thank you, Mister Spock.” Jim frowned repressively, aware of his
audience. Leaning forward, he peered
over his helmsman’s shoulder. “Course
already plotted and laid in, Mister Sulu?”
“Aye, Sir. For the Etumuuyea system.”
“Very
good, Mister Sulu.” Jim
settled back in his seat and took the days first round
of reports from a waiting ensign.
Spock watched the
half-smile that flirted with his friend’s mouth and wondered.
***
Bones waved
Ysaulte into the recreation room, pausing with her at the door while he tried
to sort through the confusion. Twenty
crewmen stood clumped around the martial arts area, completely obscuring
whatever, or whoever, was amidst them.
“Out
of the way, out of the way. Don’t you people have work to do?” McCoy pushed his way through the crowd, which
broke up and cleared out with guilty speed.
“What the devil happened here?”
Chekov lay on the padded flooring, under the
firmly planted foot of Ensign Sullivan, who jumped away like a scalded cat when
she caught sight of the doctor.
“Oh, thank
goodness, you’re here!”
“Bozhe moi, think goodness, she
says! Get this muzhik
away from me! It’s not enough thet I hef broken my arm, I hef to lie here like a seck of
potatoes! Meshed
potatoes!”
“Calm down, Chekov,” McCoy muttered, running his feinberger
over the younger man. “It’s broken, all
right. How did__”
“It’s my fault,
Doctor,” Ava Sullivan confessed nervously. “Mister Chekov
offered to show me some self-defense techniques, and I was demonstrating a
counter-move…”
McCoy gave the ensign
a doubtful look. At a meter and a half
in height and maybe forty kilos in weight, Sullivan hardly presented a lethal
appearance. He glanced behind him at
Ysaulte, who was trying very hard not to laugh out loud, and congratulated
himself for bringing her along. As he
well knew, there was nothing like somebody else’s problems to take your mind
off your own.
“That’s okay,
Ensign. Don’t worry. It’s a simple fracture, easy to mend… Chekov, I’m
surprised you didn’t walk to Sickbay.”
“She vouldn’t let me!” Chekov said in
exasperation, but he was smiling at the little ensign.
“Sullivan, you run
on, now, and I’ll keep your name out of the report, that is, unless Chekov__”
“Nyet, nyet.” Pavel Chekov started chuckling,
and even Sullivan grinned as she left the rec room
with a nod at Ysaulte. McCoy realized
the ZaworthIan’s amusement reflected somehow,
palpably lightening the atmosphere.
“You’d better find
another way to meet girls, Pavel,” he teased, not
immune to the effect. “Come on over, Ysaulte,
and I’ll introduce you.”
Chekov sat up and craned his neck around McCoy to
look, having been unaware of another presence.
His attention caught first by the woman’s slender figure, and then her
bruises, it took him a moment to notice her alien eyes.
“Bozhe moi,” he repeated himself,
startled, and the doctor cleared his throat rather obviously.
“Lady d’Aeviane, may I present Pavel Chekov, our weapons specialist and navigator. Mister Chekov, the
Lady Ysaulte d’Aeviane.”
“How
do you do?” Pavel asked
automatically.
“Surely that is my
question, Mister Chekov,” Ysaulte said, crouching
beside him so their eyes were on a level.
The young officer’s astonishment was rather hard to take, but it was
leavened with so much curiosity that Ysaulte had to smile.
All pain in his
arm promptly forgotten, Chekov ignored McCoy when the
doctor pulled the portable bone knitter out of his bag.
“You’re not Wulcan?” Pavel wondered, taken aback by the elegant slant of the
alien’s ears.
“Wulcan?” Ysaulte echoed confusedly. “Ah, sah’des
ka! Vulcan! No, I am from a planet named ZaworthIa. Possibly, it is unknown to you. You are Terran,
then?” Ysaulte was fascinated by his odd
accent.
“Yis, Ma’am, I am… I hef never heard of ZaworthIa.”
“We are considering
Federation membership. I am a
diplomat. It was my craft that crashed
on Cilehe,” Ysaulte volunteered, and motioned to Chekov’s arm. “May
I?”
Bones waited, feinberger in hand. He’d been hoping the ZaworthIan would attempt
to heal. After all, she’d said herself
she needed to. Although the doctor was
well aware she’d meant her own healing, he believed the therapeutic interaction
would do her more good than anything.
Chekov nodded, and Ysaulte touched her fingertips
to his forearm, feeling the separated bones.
One quick push of will, and the young man’s pain was her
own.
“Vat did you
do? My arm feels fine!”
“Your arm is fine,
Chekov. Faster
than my bone knitter could do it!” He
patted the ensign on the shoulder. “The
Lady Ysaulte is also a healer. You’d
better get up to the bridge before you’re any later for your shift.”
“Think you,
Lady!” Chekov
left for the bridge, flexing his arm like he didn’t quite trust the evidence of
his senses.
Bones knelt beside
Ysaulte, who would not meet his eyes.
“What’s
wrong?” He asked gently, running the feinberger over Ysaulte to find she had a greenstick
fracture of the ulna, identical to the one Chekov had
had.
“Leonard,
apparently I am in need of your services once more,” Ysaulte told him, plainly
forcing herself to remain calm.
“So this isn’t
supposed to happen?” McCoy wondered,
applying the knitter carefully. “We’ve
seen empathic healing before__”
“But it is not our
way, for the hurts of the patient to become our own. This proves what I was saying. There is some defect in me. I am… unfit to heal, it seems.” Try as she might, Ysaulte could not prevent a
shuddering sob, her eyes miserable. “Oh, Leonard.”
“Ysaulte, you need
more time. You aren’t physically
recovered yourself, yet. You can’t jump
to any conclusions.” Bones tried to reassure
her, aware of the radiating fear she was fighting as
she turned away.
“How can I bear
this life? To be left
so, unable to heal, unable to hope…
Better he had killed me outright!”
Battle lost, panic blasted out of the ZaworthIan like a cold wind,
threatening to freeze McCoy into immobility.
“Now hold on just
a damn minute, Ysaulte.” He dropped the
bone knitter and took her face in his hands, turning her to look at him. The colors had completely leached out of her
irises, giving her a curiously blind appearance. “You listen to me! You are alive, and you’re going to stay that
way! Even if you can’t
heal!”
“Thou doth say this to me?
What if wast thee?”
Ysaulte’s unspoken
voice almost deafened McCoy, but he ignored the resultant headache. At least the ZaworthIan was listening. For a moment, he’d heard the death wish in
her mind. He had no doubt that if she
willed her heart to stop, it would, regardless of his
intervention.
“Then I’d find
something else to live for, that’s what.
So can you, if it comes to that.
Don’t quit now, Ysaulte. If you
do, your attacker really does win.”
Bones took a deep
breath, waiting. Ysaulte closed her
mind, plainly seeking some measure of self-control. Relieved, he thanked God he’d found an
argument with which to sway her. He
watched the returning wash of pigmentation in her eyes; that first icy gray
giving way to velvety dark hues. At
length, the ZaworthIan assumed a veneer of serenity and focused on him.
“All right,
Leonard. I shall not take that path for
now. I do not promise I shall never take
it.”
Ysaulte removed
his hands from her face.
“Good enough,
Ysaulte. Thank you,” Bones said
formally.
“How strange Terrans are. Why
thank me?”
“Because it would
have hurt me, if you had died right here.
It would have hurt Jim, too, as well as Pavel Chekov. He would
have blamed himself, Ysaulte. That’s how
we ‘strange Terrans’ think. Not to mention the diplomatic ramifications. Bones grinned.
“Admiral Zeitsev probably would have had us all court-martialled.”
Retrieving his feinberger, McCoy scanned Ysaulte’s arm.
“It could stand a
little more time on the knitter, you know.”
“It will
heal.” She let the doctor help her
stand. “Leonard, thanks seem inadequate.”
“Not your living
thanks, Ysaulte,” Bones amended gently.
“I know this has to be difficult.
Maybe it looks easier, to give up and leave it all behind, but__”
“Easy is not the
ZaworthIan way, nor the Terran way, I suspect. Something else our peoples share in
common.” Ysaulte shook her head. “I salute you, Healer. My people would counsel me thus.”
“Speaking of your
people, Ysaulte, if there is some kind of… defect in your mind, won’t another
ZaworthIan healer be able to help you?”
Bones asked, deliberately ignoring her almost bitter praise.
“I am not sure,
Leonard,” Ysaulte answered, leaving the empty rec
room to its echoes of pain. “I am not a
‘normal’ ZaworthIan, you see.”
Bones took the ZaworthIan’s uninjured arm and walked them down the
corridor, which was nearly deserted in the mid-morning lull. Shortening his stride to match Ysaulte’s, he
led her to the turbolift, resuming their discussing
when the doors closed behind them.
“Is that how you
feel, or how you’ve been taught to feel… that you’re not ‘normal’ because of
your Romulan heritage?” McCoy had to
ask, releasing Ysaulte before she could sense his sudden anger.
Ysaulte didn’t
need physical contact to sense his sharp irritation. She could see it in the icy sheen of the
Healer’s blue eyes.
“No one among my
people have ever been so…
blunt… as to point that
out, not even in thought. But that
heritage is why I was chosen to go off-world to work with the Federation. It was believed my… unique perspective would enable me to
comprehend the behaviors and attitudes of aliens.” Ysaulte sighed, tired of picking her
words. “And maybe it was just an excuse
to get me off-planet.”
“Do your people
accept you, Ysaulte?”
“I have never
accepted myself, Leonard,” she admitted wryly.
The turbolift stopped and the doors opened, but Ysaulte didn’t
get out with the doctor.
“Leonard, is there
a place one can go to see the stars?”
“Of
course, Ysaulte. Just tell the turbolift
to take you to the observation deck. Be
sure you see me this evening sometime for a check-up,” Bones ordered, holding
the door until she agreed.
“This evening, I
promise,” Ysaulte said, lifting up her hands in a gesture of surrender.
Bones let the
‘lift doors close and headed for Sickbay, as exhausted as if he’d already put
in a double shift…
End Chapter Two