The Wind in the Bowstrings
By Marla F. Fair
The room swam around her, hot as Vulcan.
It left Amanda Grayson dizzy and slightly dazed. The air was heavy. Oppressive. And custom was breathing down her neck.
She wanted to run, to be anywhere other than where she was, and she wanted to stay. The music was compelling, the warmth seductive, and she knew that if she left, she would never return. He was also here and that was—how would he have put it—fascinating? Yes. How long had she been fascinated by this tall brooding figure with the exquisitely upswept ears? It seemed an eternity, just as the time she had spent in this room, on this planet, seemed eternal.
A chance wind from the fiery Vulcan night swept the curtains aside, revealing his inner chamber and challenging her inner being. His harp, haunting a darkened corner, quivered as its melancholy voice called her. She felt her small frame shudder in reply. The soft red coals in the brazier—the one that had reminded her of ancient Rome the first time she had seen it—sighed, casting their red light over his stark bed. Sarek rose and looked at her.
Then he sighed.
“Teacher, why are you here?”
“To speak to you.”
“There is nothing more to say.”
“Nothing but to say again that I love you. I do,” she repeated as his shoulders stiffened and he looked away, “no matter what you say, no matter how illogical.” She stopped and her spine stiffened imperceptibly. “Besides. You know as well as I, that logic had no part in our beginning.”
“Our beginning,” he bit off the words, “should have been an ending. We should never have begun.”
“But it was not the end,” she paused, laying her hand on her abdomen, “or if it was, that ending has brought a new beginning.”
“And end may bring about a new beginning, Teacher, but not for the elements that have parted.”
“Isn’t it your world that speaks of ‘parting, but never parted’? That is the way it is with us. We had an exchange which was...permanent...that has altered out lives.” She looked at him closely and stopped before she fell into the depths of his dark brown eyes. “Or at least, it has altered mine.”
“Cease you riddles. What is it you speak of?”
The pale-haired young woman turned from him and fingered an ancient tome that lay open on his desk. Amanda smiled. So he had a love of books as well. She glanced at him. How little they really knew one another.
“When first we met, I wanted nothing. I hoped for nothing. With each day that passed I...desired...more, but still, expected nothing.” She pivoted and faced him with the truth. “Then, finally, when the offer came, it came from you—an offer I could in no way refuse. Therefor, logically,” she lingered on the word, “the result of that exchange is yours in flesh and mine....” Her voice faltered, “Mine in spirit.”
Sarek stepped out from under the canopy that covered his bed. His face was composed, serene. But she knew the fire that burned inside. “And what result is that, Teacher?”
“You may continue to call me that if you wish, but it will not push me farther from
you. You use that term as if it will build a barrier between us that will protect you.” Her voice rose even as one black eyebrow climbed towards his straight black bangs. “Am I so ghastly? So terrifying that you cannot meet me here and now? Face to face...mind to mind.”
The woman paused and then she reached out to him.
“As you did before.”
Amanda’s soul recalled the singular bittersweet passion that had filled her that night. All of the caution bred into her, all of the training she had had in first contact had failed her when she had been confronted with his pain.
She had been a vulnerable and naive thing when she had first set foot on the fiery world of Vulcan where she knew love to be forbidden. She had told herself to banish all childish fantasies of alien romance and settle down to the task at hand—teaching the children of the village of Shikahr colloquial English and Earth slang. That would be challenging enough without becoming embroiled in some silly school-girl crush. After all, Earth’s close contact with Vulcan was a relatively new thing, and they were a most curious race.
But not nearly so curious about her as this shy young Earth-woman was about them. This was her first non-human species assignment, and no amount of training could have prepared her for what she would find in the field. After all, they hadn’t prepared her for him.
And that had been a grave mistake.
Tall and unfathomable, that had been the first impression of this Vulcan of hers. Cool and controlled. She had looked into Sarek’s eyes one afternoon when his soft voice called her from a daydream of home and the broken love-affair she had left behind. He had required assistance with a particular form of Earth slang which he had become curious about after a debate he and a colleague had had concerning the gang wars of the late twentieth century. Amanda had answered his questions, neatly and precisely. He had merely nodded and said that was as he had suspected. And then he had left.
Rude. That was her second impression and it lasted to this day.
Teacher, indeed!
She hadn’t seen him again after that, at least nowhere but in her mind’s eye. Finally she had assumed that he had been a visitor to the area. One that had long since departed.
It didn’t take her long to find out how wrong she was.
The children—if they could be called children—learned quickly, too quickly as a matter of fact and she was soon trimming their lessons back by hours. And then by days.
Amanda’s time soon became more and more her own and this left her feeling isolated and depressed. She had tried to be friendly, the only way she knew how, and had been met with a cold wall of indifference. Her way of breaking the ice in a new relationship had always been a winning smile, a soft hello, and a feminine twinkle in her eye. Here on Vulcan a smile never won. What human contact there was also left much to be desired. There were few women, and the ones who were here were mostly stern intellectuals. And the men—if they weren’t old and wise—were young and wizened...miners, engineers, professors, archeologists...men whose lives were dedicated to their respective professions. Each and every one of them beyond caring how lonely a young girl was away from home.
Loneliness was home, to them.
Then, without warning, she saw him again.
She had stayed on, working into the early hours of the morning trying to devise a method by which she could condense everything she had yet to teach the children into a few lessons so she could return to the Earth. She realized that the lack of emotion here was stifling her -- that the very core of the Vulcan being, which was logic, seemed to make her life appear wildly out of balance and without purpose. Back home there was someone who waited. Someone who needed her.
Even if she felt nothing for him....
She had laughed then. Running from the arms of one cold unfeeling reality to another. Smart. Very smart.
Then, without warning, a shadow fell across the threshold. It brushed her desk and then fell across her shoulders and she shuddered.
It was him.
He stood, his lean figure cut in stark contrast against the even red sky. He was shaking, his hands trembling. She rose, thinking perhaps he had been in an accident, but then she saw his eyes. They were the eyes of an animal facing death without understanding. The eyes of a creature asking ‘why’. She took a step back, surprised, and as she did, a low moan escaped him and he fell into the shadows and disappeared.
She rose and moved around the desk and called him. The room was silent. She called again. Was that his voice? Or the rustle of the wind through the strings of a harp?
Suddenly she was upon him. He sat in the corner pulled so tight she thought he might break, and the sound of that breaking would be like sweet bells jangled in the dark....
“Can I help?” Amada whispered as she reached out to him.
He shook his head. “No, I should not have come here. I cannot— ”
“You can.”
“No. I will not.”
“Yes,” she touched his cheek. “You must...”
The dark eyes fastened on her face. Her breath caught. The man she had known was gone. What sat before her was a primordial god—savage, fierce, proud, and hungry.
A sound of pain escaped his lips. “Yes...” he whispered, reaching for her hair, “help me....”
A tear ran down her cheek. “I don’t know how.”
He caught her neck and placed two fingers to the vein beneath it and she gasped.
“I will show you how.”
Three
The next few hours were a at once a nightmare and a dream of unknown – unearthly – pleasure. The torrid Vulcan night seemed no more harsh than her own breathing. Her mind seemed to press beyond the limits of creation. At times she was frightened, terrified as a small child separated from all that defines who and what it is, but all the while he was there, and the music of his thoughts mingled with her own and the tune was not unlike dying.
When Amanda awoke he was still there beside her, asleep. She had never seen a Vulcan sleeping. Sarek looked like a little boy. And as a teacher she knew a child has wisdom lost to the man. Perhaps that was the Vulcan’s wisdom, their inheritance, and their soul. It wasn’t until much later that she learned his life’s mate had been killed that night, trapped and burned in the crash of her air-car. So simple an act had parted ‘they who could not be parted’.
She remembered wondering at the time if he had even known it was her.
And then she had wondered what his reaction would be upon waking and finding out what he had done.
It had, of course, been logical. It returned to them quickly, she was to learn. Sarek had been fascinated by what the Pon Far had driven him to -- had found it remarkable that humans and Vulcans could mate -- and found it extremely interesting that she had lived.
How kind of him.
How rude.
And now here she was, three months later, staring across a gulf wider than the half a dozen feet which separated them, hearing the whisper of his mind in hers, listening for the music that was always just a breath away, perhaps never to be captured again....
“What result is it you speak of, Teacher?”
It was a simple question and from its simplicity, she knew he did not suspect. In all the vast depths of his flawless logic and masses of knowledge, he couldn’t figure the simple sum of two plus two. She looked at him and thought she should let it go. She should go. But she couldn’t. It would not have been fair to him.
Or to him.
Amanda drew a breath and stepped forward and crossed the gap of feet, customs, unwritten laws and worlds. She took his hand and looking into those eyes, so cool and collected now, laid his long exquisite fingers on her abdomen.
“This,” she said softly as her eyes filled with tears, “cannot you not sense it? This new beginning?”
In that moment she knew he comprehended. And she knew she could hold him. He was to be a diplomat. This could destroy his career. She knew that he knew the responsibility was his. She knew she had him, and she knew she would let him go.
A silence fell between them as again she heard the music yearning to be free. Amanda swayed and ran her hand along her face, stepping back. The sun had risen and the day was hot, pressing on her as this child she bore soon would.
“I thought you should know. I hoped you would want to know.” She held her head high. “I hold you to nothing. I said I expected nothing and now I will go.”
She turned quickly, intending to fly before the wave of emotion that rushed over her overwhelmed her, and she felt shamed before him -- before she fell to her knees and pleaded, ‘if you could just love me.... If you could just ask me to stay.....
But she knew love was forbidden.
How rude.
“Amanda.”
He said it simply. Compellingly. Calling her back and breaking her heart.
“I have been aware for a space of time now,” Sarek began, “that when my intended died, you thought yourself merely...convenient...to me. This was true.” He continued, even though he saw he flinch and draw away, and knew his words had hurt her. “Do not leave. You must hear all that is true. Did you not know that I sought you out? Of all I encountered that night—amidst the hellish visions and burning desires—yours were the only eyes to look in mine and to feel the loss that I myself had no right to feel. You were my salvation.” Sarek drew a breath. He had not released her hand. “I would not have lived -- could not have lived -- not with the fire that threatened to consume my mind, had it not been for the healing wash of your compassion. As a Vulcan, I should have died that night.” His voice fell to a whisper. “As a Vulcan, I cannot thank you for saving me, for by that saving I have become untrue to all I am.” Sarek drew a breath and released her fingers. “And yet, I did not wish to die. One does not seek an ending when life has just begun.”
Amanda smiled sadly. “And what are we to do now? I cannot take back that part of me which you shared, no more than you can take back that which was yours, which is now ours together.”
“Nor do I wish to.” Sarek laid his fingers alongside her jaw and gazed longingly into her blue eyes, searching them and then moving beyond them to her soul. Without words he expressed to her all that he was -- and she saw all that she was which he could never be --and how in that moment he had found completion.
As Sarek drew back, he whispered, “It is only logical to seek completion, there can be no fulfillment in the half. If we were to part now, the child would be divided. It is better that the two become one, than that the one be split in two.”
Amanda Grayson met the Vulcan’s dark eyes. She touched his hand. She saw the logic of his words, and saw as well the world that would become her own -- the world without love where she would end her days -- and knew the love that she would find there.
Amanda drew a breath as he touched her again and listened for the wind in the bowstrings, and in it found the music of her soul.