Controlling her revulsion, Cristabeth accepted the cup of water offered from her captor's spindly hand. The fever made her mouth feel parched. The fiery, unremitting pain in her ruined legs made her too nauseated to keep any food down. Sometimes she felt like screaming, but when the urge came on strong, she thought of her father living in self-satisfied comfort in San Francisco, and anger steadied her.

Why were the Donaris keeping her in these dirty caverns? She had heard horror stories of the experiments they sometimes conducted on the prisoners they enslaved. Obviously, she was unfit for work or for breeding. What were their plans for her? They certainly devoted a lot of time and attention to her care. Their hands could be surprisingly gentle, and sometimes she thought she saw a humanlike concern gleaming from the reptilian depths of their hideous orange eyes. Bandages were changed, medication applied, and sometimes even a bit of painkiller injected through her skin by needle. Primitive care for a race capable of Space travel. It made no sense—unless this was just some kind of cruel experiment to see how slowly and painfully she could die from her wounds.

That was it, she decided. Everyone knew they were sadistic animals.

oooo

In a temper, Kirk entered the guest cabin Spock was using during his stay aboard the Enterprise. He found his friend sitting at a darkened game table, alone with his thoughts.

"Spock," he said heatedly, "I just fielded a very unpleasant call from Starfleet Command. I can't believe you asked for a beam-down to T'Beth's crash site on Donari."

"You are right," Spock said in placid voice. "I should not have asked for permission. I should simply have done it."

"Over my dead body!" Stopping, Kirk worked to calm himself. "Spock, denial is a natural part of the grieving process. None of us want to believe T'Beth is gone, but you heard what her crew said. She never had a chance." His throat tightened on the words. "Dammit, Spock, you have to accept the fact that she's dead. You have to go home."

Spock's eyes had the stubborn gleam that Kirk knew all too well. Every time he looked at the Vulcan, he was reminded so sharply of T'Beth that his own grief threatened to spill out. Quietly he said, "Spock…the crisis here is over. The Enterprise has been ordered out of the area. I have some trainees due back at Earth, so you can just ride along. Besides," he added, hoping the mention of Spock's son would help snap the Vulcan out of it, "I haven't seen Simon since he was crawling around in diapers."

There was a long moment of silence. Then, to his relief, Spock relented and gave a nod.

oooo

Now, at regular intervals, the Donaris carried Cristabeth to a cavernous underground grotto and bathed her legs in the icy waters of a pool. Each submerging was torturous, yet her stretcher-bearers did not act rough or sadistic. They performed the cleansing ritual with a reverent attitude that puzzled her. As the Donaris lowered her useless legs into the water, others gathered around and clicked in unison, as if performing some sort of chant.

She did not see any improvement in her condition. Now, with horror, she stared down at her unbandaged legs and noticed a sliver of bone working its way out of the suppurating flesh. Lying back, she gave in to her despair and sobbed, "Why…why don't you just let me die?"

Out of nowhere a synthesized voice answered her. "Life is precious. We must do everything in our power to heal you."

Startled, Cristabeth dashed the tears from her eyes and found a Donari standing over her. A new face! But didn't they all look the same with their bulbous lizard eyes and scaly gray skin? "You talked," she said, as stunned by the philosophy the creature had expressed, as by the fact that it had spoken at all.

Something in the orange eyes hinted of amusement as the Donari pointed at a universal translator dangling from its neck. "We all talk, but now you can understand."

Cristabeth nodded through her pain. With the possibility of communication, her mind flooded with questions that the Donari patiently answered.

"We are the People who live in the land of Beneath. Your spacecraft came down near one of our portals and we brought you here to safety. As you have seen, circumstances force us to live primitively, but what we lack in material goods, we make up for with spiritual richness." Its scrawny, elongated finger pointed toward the robed Donaris chanting around the grotto. "See how we commune." Its orange eyes beheld her with something very much like regret. "I am sorry that we do not have the proper medical supplies to treat your injuries. You must be suffering a great deal. But take heart, the People are praying for you recovery."

Cristabeth winced as her pallet was lifted for yet another journey out of the grotto. She knew it would take more than a bunch of praying lizards to save her life, but she did not say it aloud. The sight of the robed Donaris was strangely moving. Were they really interceding with some deity? On behalf of their enemy? Why?

oooo

Spock stood with Lauren beside a Japanese maple in the upper level of their yard. Leaves scattered with each chilling gust of wind, forming a crimson carpet beneath Simon's little shoes as he darted happily after the new ball Jim Kirk had brought for him upon their return from Space earlier today. As if Simon did not already have enough playthings. Spock feared that the boy was in imminent danger of being spoiled. Yet Simon seemed to thrive on the attention Jim and Doctor McCoy were showering on him. He was, as a rule, a sweet-natured and obedient child. He was bright. He was healthy. He was strong. But Spock could not look at his much-cherished son without experiencing a stab of uneasiness. Life was so very fragile.

Lauren moved closer. Reaching into the warmth of his coat pocket, she gripped his hand. Something of her feelings reached him through the contact—a curious mix of sadness and affection.

Softly she said, "There was nothing more you could do."

Spock nodded. She was right. Jim was right. There was no reasonable way he could have carried the search for T'Beth any further. He must accept the fact that she was dead. Gone. Forever.

Suddenly Simon broke away from his game and tackled Spock by the leg. "Daddy!" exclaimed the boy, peering up at him. "Daddy, Daddy, pick me up!"

Kirk and McCoy looked on as Spock lifted his son and perched him in the crook of his arm. Runny-nosed, Simon hugged him tightly around the neck and said, "Glad you're home. Don't go 'way anymore, okay?"

"I will try not to," Spock assured him.

Lauren reached for the boy. "Come here, let me take care of that nose, young man."

They all went inside, out of the cold of the approaching storm.

Kirk watched Lauren disappear down the hallway with Simon and quietly asked Spock, "Does she have a sister?"

Spock understood the colloquial meaning of his friend's remark and allowed a slight smile to stir his lips. "Jim, you know she does not."

Kirk sighed. "Spock, I take back what I said to you in the turbolift. I can put up with Vladis—but I just hope you realize how damn lucky you are."

Spock met his gaze, knowing that Kirk fully expected him to refute the concept of luck. But considering past events, he indeed felt fortunate to have regained the love and companionship of his wife and son. Quite seriously he said, "I am 'a damn sight luckier' than even you can imagine."

McCoy broke into a grin. "Remind me to tell Laurie that she's having a wonderful effect on you."

Spock raised an eyebrow, but did not deny the positive aspects of his wife's influence.

Kirk glanced at his wrist chronometer. "Almost time to go," he said with reluctance. "Spock, that boy of yours is something. You say he has telepathic ability?"

"That is correct."

"But he seems so—" Kirk broke off, at a rare loss for words.

"Normal?" Spock finished for him.

"Good going, Jim," muttered McCoy.

"You know what I mean!" Kirk came back at him.

McCoy folded his arms across his chest, as if enjoying Kirk's discomfort. "Spock knows exactly what you mean. Don't you, Spock?"

Spock had no wish to be drawn into another argument between the two of them. He had witnessed his fill of bickering while aboard the Enterprise and wondered at their discord. He was glad when Simon came bounding back into the room, his smiling face freshly washed.

"Jim, pick him up," Spock said. "See how he responds to your touch."

Kirk took the child into his arms and searched Simon's face. Wide-eyed, Simon stared back at him and placed a pudgy hand on Kirk's cheek. Suddenly Simon laughed. Then squirming free, he spread his arms like wings and whirled around the living room to some dizzying inner music.

As Lauren looked on with displeasure, Spock explained, "He finds your mind very stimulating."

"Overstimulating," Lauren complained. "Mark my words, before the evening's out, he's going to throw a monumental tantrum."

"That little angel?" McCoy smiled at the cavorting child, and then gave Spock a frown. "Jim told me you're teaching Simon some kind of mental discipline. Isn't he a little young? You're not going to try and train his emotions out of him, are you?"

Lauren rose to Spock's defense. "No, it has nothing to do with emotional control."

"I am teaching him how to shield his mind," Spock explained. "For the sake of his well-being, the lessons must be initiated early. You see what simple human contact can do to him." Recalling how T'Beth's touch had disturbed her infant brother, he said, "Simon finds negative emotions particularly upsetting."

Kirk and McCoy left for the Enterprise before the rain began. The predicted tantrum occurred shortly afterward, when Simon objected to something on his dinner plate. Lifting the boy from his chair, Spock carried him, thrashing and screaming, into the privacy of Simon's room. There he deposited the overwrought child on his bed and used a mindtouch to relax him.

Calming the turbulent psyche of an angry two-year-old was a challenging exercise, but when Spock finished with his son, Simon curled up beside him, utterly peaceful and secure. Spock stroked Simon's baby-soft cheek and began thinking, once again, of T'Beth. There had been times during her childhood when such a calming technique might have been useful, but direct mental contact with a female child was forbidden to a Vulcan father. And if the truth be known, Spock had no wish to enter a mind that was even partly Sy.

Sensing Lauren's presence, he glanced up and found her watching from the doorway.

"You're so good with him," she said quietly.

Spock gave his placid son one last look, and stood. "He inherited his telepathic capacity from me. It is only proper that I help him live with it."

"Did your father help you?" she asked.

The question tugged at an old, painful wound, and it was a moment before Spock felt sure of his control. "I…was given a savensu—a mind-tutor—at a very early age. Since I grew up among Vulcans with shielded minds, my father thought those lessons would be sufficient."

"But your mother is human. So when she touched you…"

"She had studied Vulcan discipline and was capable of muting her emotions. "

"Are you telling me," Lauren pressed, "that your father never once helped you through a meld?" When he failed to answer, she looked at Simon with tears in her eyes.

At last Spock divulged, "I…had the sense that Sarek found my humanness…distasteful. And my brother Sybok verified it through a visual memory aboard the Enterprise." It was something he had never before admitted to anyone. During melds he had kept that part of his mind closed, even to Lauren. Now he added, "I cannot help thinking that T'Beth died feeling a similar sense of rejection—from me."

oooo

T'Beth lay listlessly on her pallet in the grotto. Clustered near the water's edge, ten robed Donaris held torches and clicked their chant in a monotonous sound that made her head throb.

She was so tired of the pain. Since the crash she had eaten very little of their strange food. Day by day she could feel her life slipping away, and she almost welcomed the promise of oblivion that lay beyond.

"I sense in you a great darkness," her Donari companion said. "Open yourself, Cristabeth. Open yourself to the light…"

"What do you know about me?" she said bitterly. She was sick of hearing about how their "peaceable community" was the "hope for Donari's future". She was sick of hearing about the "sacred waters of the divine presence". These people were nothing but a bunch of religious fanatics. Their peace movement was useless without some kind of political thrust to bring it out of the shadows of their pathetic cave. Surak of Vulcan had known that. He had done more than just sit around and pray. These Donaris were living in a fantasy world, and the biggest fantasy of all was that she could actually be healed through dowsing and clicking.

"You are lonely here," the companion said. "Perhaps you would like to send a message to your family."

"I have no family," she said angrily, "and even if I did, there's no way in hell you can get a message to Earth."

The Donari's orange eyes gazed at her calmly. "It can sometimes be done. We have our contacts on the surface, and there are Federation sympathizers among them."

Cristabeth grit her teeth as her attendants began to unbandage her legs in preparation for yet another submerging. She dreaded the icy shock of the water and the fierce jolt of agony it always brought. Shaking with fever, she helplessly thrashed her arms about. "No, not again, leave me alone…"

"Here," the companion said gently, offering her a cup of cold water scooped from the spring-fed pool.

Teeth chattering against the cup's rim, she drank thirstily. Then slowly, and with much pain, she was lifted from the pallet and carried down to the grotto's edge. Agony ripped through her legs as the water engulfed them.

oooo

Spock awoke suddenly. Sitting up in bed, he stared into the shadows and attempted to recall the disturbing content of his dream. He could remember only that it had concerned T'Beth—and had been strange, indeed.

As Lauren slept on beside him, he quietly rose and went into his adjoining study. Unlocking a desk drawer, he slid it open and lifted out a jade-handled Golheni dagger. The weapon had been among T'Beth's personal effects, delivered to the house while he was away. It seemed remarkable that an item of such value had not been appropriated by one of her comrades. Everyone knew that the Border Patrol attracted a lower caliber of enlistee than Starfleet.

Right there, Spock brought his musings to a halt. Prejudice? Had he, too, been infected by the longstanding rivalry between the two branches of the Space service? His thoughts turned to the fresh young face of T'Beth's gunner. Lelia Chan had seemed no different from many of the cadets Spock oversaw at Starfleet Academy. She had displayed great resourcefulness in assuming T'Beth's identity. Spock had been impressed by her poise during the prisoner exchange, and the way she had tried to comfort him with a well-intended "white lie".

He had no illusions about how his daughter had viewed him. Their last words to one another had been bitter and hurtful. He had failed her as a father. Perhaps if he had been less critical, she might not have rebelled. If he had shown her more understanding—and yes, affection—perhaps she would still be alive. But warmth was not a Vulcan trait. During Spock's retraining, his mother had encouraged him to explore his emotions and even enjoy them, but she had not told him how. Of one thing he was very certain. There was nothing in grief to enjoy.

oooo

At the agonizing touch of the spring water, Cristabeth arched her back and let out a scream.

Abruptly, the pain in her legs ceased. An energizing rush of warmth flooded upward, engulfing her entire body. Lifted out of herself, she sat up, pulled free of the Donaris, and stood. And moved her legs. And splashed about in the sparkling water. Then running up the bank, she laughed as the Donaris looked on.

What were they staring at, bug-eyed?

"Praise be to the Sacred Waters!" intoned the companion. "Praise the Divine Presence that has seen fit to perform a healing on this day!"

Healing? Cristabeth stopped what she was doing. Eyes opened wide with shock, she gaped down at the slightly atrophied legs holding her weight. The once-pulverized bones looked solid and straight. The broken flesh had knit. The suppurating burns had vanished, leaving only a network of fine scarring on normal-looking skin.

Overcome with joy, she dropped to her knees and wept.

All that day Cristabeth filled herself with food and strode about on her new legs, marveling at the wonderful changes in her body and her heart. Before now, she had never given much thought to God, yet He had reached down and touched her with a powerful, loving hand. She had been physically crippled, but now she walked. She had been spiritually blind, but now she was beginning to see. The eyes of her soul had glimpsed a great purifying Light, and she felt cherished. She felt chosen. And most of all, she felt unworthy.

She no longer had any illusions as to her character. She could be self-centered, angry, and embittered. Why had someone like her been singled out for a miracle? Was she meant to do something special with her life?

"Teach me," she begged the companion. "I want to learn everything about your God, your ways, and your reform movement."

The companion's eyes shone with pleasure as it nodded. And so Cristabeth became a student of the very race that once murdered her human grandfather and used her grandmother in a cruel breeding experiment. So it was that she sat learning at the reptilian feet of the very People who were responsible for her Sy blood.

As the weeks passed, she found herself thinking more and more of Earth. Somehow she must find her way back home—to her father and all the other shattered relationships she had left in the turbulent wake of her departure. Once her past was set in order, perhaps the direction of her future would be revealed to her. Meanwhile, as the Donaris devised a plan to smuggle her off the planet, she would put the present to good use.

oooo

When Spock was not engaged in his academy duties, he sometimes assisted Lauren with her private research in the downstairs laboratory at their home. He was making some entries in her biocomp when his ears picked up the familiar, discordant twanging that could only mean one thing.

Lauren looked at him. "He's awake…and he's gotten it again."

Spock had not heard Simon get up from his nap, but going up to the boy's room, he found his tousle-haired son clutching the lyrette he had pilfered from Spock's study. Simon's face appeared completely innocent as his little fingers plucked at the new instrument, only recently sent all the way from Vulcan.

"Look Daddy," he said, banging away. "Sounds pwetty?"

"Simon," Spock began firmly, but a knock on the front door interrupted him.

Lauren called out, "Spock, can you get that?"

Taking Simon in one arm and carrying his lyrette in the other, he went back downstairs and set Simon on his own two feet. The instant Spock opened the door, Simon tugged the lyrette from Spock's hand and escaped out into the mist.

Spock glanced at the aged face of the gardener before shouting after his wayward son, "Simon, no! Not outside! Bring it back!"

Yoshi Sakata smiled. "That one has music in his heart."

Spock would never have expressed it in just that way, but now that he considered it—"Yes, he does seem to have an affinity for musical instruments. Lyrette. Flute. Pots and pans. And there is a piano at Lauren's beach house that he likes to pound."

"His hands are too small for piano," Sakata said. "You should get him into Suzuki. I have a little violin—just right."

"An interesting suggestion," Spock replied, and then spent a moment discussing the gardener's concerns regarding the yard.

Sakata went back to work. No sooner did Spock start across the lawn after his lyrette—and his son—than a certified mail carrier sped up the driveway in a groundcar and, having established Spock's identity and collected a signature, delivered an envelope into his hand. A rare method of communication these days, usually reserved for important legal documents.

Simon was as curious as his father. Dropping the lyrette into the wet grass, he bounded over. "What's dat, Daddy? What's dat?"

Spock opened the envelope and read the brief message on the single sheet of paper inside. "Father, I'm alive and well. I'll be home soon. Can't say more." And it was signed, "T'Beth."

Stunned, Spock read the words again, and then swore softly under his breath.

Simon stared at him. Jumping up and down, the boy mimicked, "Damn, damn, damn," but Spock was too consumed by outrage to notice the unfortunate increase in his son's vocabulary. Someone was trying to make him think T'Beth was still alive. Someone was preying on his loss. Someone—but who? Who would perpetrate such an unconscionable hoax? One of his more challenging cadets?

Spock's lips pressed together in a thin, taut line. Crumpling the paper in his hand, he hurled it as far as his strength could send it. Then lifting Simon up, he carried him into the warmth and safety of the house.

Behind them, the lyrette lay forgotten in the mist.