Title: After the Rescue

Part: NEW 35/73

Author: Karmen Ghia, karmen_ghia@yahoo.com

Series: TOS

Romance Code: S/Mc and then some.

Rating: NC-17

Appendices: http://members.tripod.com/karmen_ghia/atrappendices.html

See part one for disclaimers, etc.

Because old habits die hard in old Vulcans, Maja found Sarek reading backward through Vulcan and Klingon news bulletins stored in the ship's.

"There is no news of Rovirin after Imstk's coup," he told Maja.

"No, Hobie tells me Star Fleet has muzzled it and the Klingons are too embarrassed to discuss it." Except for his identity and influence in the Empire, he told Sarek his entire conversation with Jir and Hobie.

"Indeed," Sarek said, rising to pace the room. "Do they know what Yakolev and Sdiz's motives are?"

"Power. They've established a line just inside Klingon space with almost no resistance. From there they can encroach further and further until the Klingons get their back to the wall and lash out. Unfortunately, by that time, Star Fleet will have a supply line and bases to strike from that will be unassailable. The Klingons are good fighters in the field but their logistics suck. They have to strike, get lucky, destroy the target and then run back to remote bases for supply and refit. There is no way they can take and hold territory the way things are now." Maja paused for breath. "Unless they develop a powerful ally with resources in that space." He added, watching Sarek.

"Like the Romulans."

"Or the pirates. Can you imagine what the Tziviians would do if they knew that their invasion paranoia was for real? They'd side with all the demons of hell and the Klingons." Maja sighed and looked at his hands, folded in his lap. "Yakolev and Sdiz know the Klingons but they don't know what else is in that space. The Tziviians, the Horva, the Xochitarians, and god knows what all will come into the Federation and fight god knows how. Let's not forget that creatures like Yrit and Gvo come from there, from Pholian and Cvmovia, via Magidrian. How can you fight something like that with starships? And that's, with the grace of god, leaving the Roms out of it."

"Then it must be avoided at all costs, Maja," Sarek said.

"Hobie and Jir claim there are no steady voices in the Federation or the Empire to avert catastrophe," Maja looked hard at Sarek. "Unless you go back, that is." He looked away, thinking back on his calmer conversation with Jir.

Hobie had stormed out after Maja's denigration of the many and, after the ozone of his rage cleared, Jir had leaned gently forward: "Yes, I agree, fuck the many, they have never really given a second thought for any of our happiness. They simply assume that everyday they will wake up and see the same faces, do the same things and plan for a future they are arrogant enough to expect. They have not lived as we have, we know the vicissitudes of the galaxy first hand, the caprice of fate and we have learned to live with it, even thrive in it. But there has never been an all out galactic war in our lifetimes, Maja, and if it were in my power to prevent one I would beg god for the strength and humility to do so."

Sarek lifted Maja's chin, "Then come with me."

"I cannot."

"Why?"

"My life is on a different path, Sarek, I thought I could hide from fate with you but that is not the case for either of us..."

"We will marry and live somewhere other than Vulcan, Maja, we need not hide from anything."

"You have never been an outcast, Sarek, you would not enjoy it. Even with me and I could not bear to be the cause of your suffering ..."

"I will suffer more without you."

"But it will be a quick, sharp suffering, over quickly and quickly forgotten. I assure you, you will not die although you might feel that is possible." He raised his hand to forestall the Vulcan. "The other is a slow, painful death, Vulcan. First our love will die of starvation, it cannot survive in a vacuum, and then we will grow to hate each other. You cannot love someone for whom you've renounced everything. There must be something familiar, something with history around lovers or only bitterness is sown for a harvest of grief."

"Then we will not return, my Maja."

"And if we are lucky enough to survive the coming war, won't you always wonder if you could have prevented it and grow to hate me because you did not? Because you stayed with me instead of ... instead of mending the fences Yakolev and Sdiz have kicked down?" Maja fought back his tears. "The needs of the many, Sarek, always outweigh the needs of the few. Like us."

It was a flawed, emotional argument Maja had made him but logical in its own way. Sarek sat down, searching for a rebuttal, but found nothing to say.

"Maja," he said, feeling as if he were stepping into an abyss. "Could we not meet later, in more peaceful times?"

Maja closed his eyes and tried to see the future but could not. "If that is god's will, then it will be so, Sarek," he said, hoping Sarek did not hear the despair in his voice.

"Will the link remain between us?"

"No. Over time and distance it would debilitate us. It also interferes with my link to my brothers, which is precious to me."

"Where will you go, Maja?"

"I don't know," he looked into Sarek's face. "But not to worry, you know Hobie, Jir and Ling would never let anything bad happen to me. Rest assured of that."

"Then I must learn to trust in god that you will return to me someday."

"Didn't you learn that in prison, on Imk, on Gyvrre?"

"I trusted only in you, Maja."

Maja rose, walked around the table and curled up in Sarek's lap. He hid his face in the Vulcan's neck and cursed the fate that had brought him such a love, only to demand that he renounce it.

They opened the link between them and lived in sublime resonance with each other for a few more hours.

At the end of that time, Maja called Hobie and Jir to sever the bond.

Hobie was gentle. He felt around at the roots of the bond in Maja and decided that it was too deep, to chaotic and would cause lasting trauma. He turned his attention to Sarek and found that the bond was equally deep but the manner in which it extended into his psychic terrain was more orderly and neater. He felt the Vulcan resisting and paused to allow the rebellion to subside. When it did, Hobie eased out the multiple tendrils of the bond and wound them neatly around Maja's telefield where they would eventually wither away for lack of the complimentary energy. Hobie gently but thoroughly wove together the hole in Sarek's shields the bond had made. When Hobie had finished he motioned Jir to take Sarek from the room. He turned to Maja, pale and shaking, and took him in his arms. He poured healing energy into Maja, soothed the pain of the severance as best he could. It was profound pain and Hobie suffered for his brother in spite of everything that had been said and done.

* * *

Sarek slumped against the wall of the turbolift. Jir put a hand on his elbow and sent a low current of energy into him.

"The link is gone but I still sense him inside me," Sarek said dully and stiffly in Vulcan.

"That might never leave you, Sarek," Jir sighed, cursing the linguistic restrictions of Vulcan. "If you had an emotional response to him because the link allowed you to feel the universal emotional response then the energy of that response has probably created a neural pathway that will disappear in time unless you keep it open with memory."

"I will not forget him, Jir," Sarek looked at the MageCheq. "You must keep him safe until I can return to him."

'Oh, Sarek,' Jir wept in his mind but simply nodded and guided Sarek to the transporter where Albany waited. The Shilo's crew was already on the catamaran.

Dolo-fra stood at the transporter control and hailed Jir in Patois: "Last one, Fara, goes well, eh?"

Sarek stopped dead and looked Jir in the eye: "I can no longer understand the Patois, Jir. It was the link, was it not?"

"Aye, the link...." Jir began.

"Sarek!" Maja careened through the doors and flung himself into Sarek's arms.

They held on to each other, as if they were the only solid objects in the universe.

"I have lost the Patois and you, Maja," Sarek murmured.

"Then listen through me, my love." Maja put his fingers in meld position and the gibberish around him sprang into coherence.

"...running out of time, Hobie," Dolo-fra was surprisingly calm. He felt sorry for Maja and Sarek but what could he do?

"I know, I know," Hobie growled, "another moment will not kill god."

Sarek leaned back from Maja and they kissed. It was a long, tender kiss and they put their whole selves into it, knowing its memory would have to last a long time.

/I love you I love you I love you/

Maja finally stepped back. He raised his hand in the Vulcan salute.

"Live long and prosper, Sarek of Vulcan," he said in his heavily Rom-accented Vulcan.

"Peace and long life, Maja Talljet, and .. and wait for me." Sarek could not remember when his throat had ever been so constricted.

He and Albany stepped up on the transporter platform. Sarek looked back into Maja's warm brown eyes until he rematerialized on the catamaran transporter platform where Maja was not.

Hobie and Jir helped Maja, sobbing, out of the transporter room and into his quarters. Hobie was uncomfortably reminded of another time when Maja had sobbed like this. The difference was that this time, Hobie felt responsible for his grief.

The ships parted ways: the catamaran to the Federation and the Dancer to rendezvous with Admiral KzostGhet of the Klingon Empire and his flagship, the KharaTienKha.

* * *

Part III

CONCERNING LONG AGO EVENTS ON MAGIDGRIA

The first time Commodore KzostGhet of the Klingon Empire laid eyes on Maja of the Talljet Monastery of the Romulan Empire, he was sitting in a cafe in downtown Zoltir, on the wretched planet of Magidrian, dying of boredom - his usual occupation on this planet. Commodore Ghet was minding his own business, watching commerce in the bazaar and Maja was stealing Poblas (a Mage fruit deeply loathed by Klingons) and not doing very well at it. Everytime the little creature (they had not been introduced yet) got close to nabbing a Pobla, he found the vendor's eye on him and backed off. Wise; Zoltir vendors had few qualms about killing street boys that annoyed them.

The little creature was interesting: he had vulcanoid features topped by an unruly mop of dusty black curls. Huge brown eyes beneath a wide forehead and a pointed chin. He was wraith thin but fairly clean and looked, at a distance, healthy so he must live somewhere, deduced the Klingon.

'Further,' thought Kzost, 'I've seen him before, stealing in this very bazaar and he's good at it. Quick as lightening and smart, often creating a diversion. Going after Poblas is new and he hasn't got the hang of it yet. Last time he was stealing paper.

Kzost had thought it odd for a street boy to steal anything he couldn't eat but this was an odd planet. He knew, he was the Governor of the Klingon Colony here.

Kzost loathed the assignment, it was punishment for being more successful than a certain member of the Yhet clan. Magidrian was a strange planet. Hot, dusty, mountainous. Its people lived in fortified settlements in the mountains and seldom had any contact with those trying to civilize them. The party of soldiers Kzost had sent to the largest settlement to bring the leaders down to Zoltir by force had returned with its tail between its legs. They had come within sight of the keep when they were all struck down with blinding headaches and vomiting.

Unimpressed, Kzost had gone himself with another party and had exactly the same humiliating experience. He had given serious thought to going up to his orbiting ship and simply knocking the fortress off the mountainside. He was still debating this plan when, several days later, in this very cafe, a tall, beautiful Mage in a pale gray robe had joined him at his table. Kzost was taken aback by this, the Mage did not approach strangers and obviously didn't allow strangers to approach them.

"What did you want the other day?" the Mage bluntly asked in Klingon.

"What d'ya mean?" parried the wary Klingon.

The Mage simply stared at him. Kzost realized he was had: "I want to talk to your leaders. There are agreements to be made, claims to be settled, many things to discuss."

"This is of no interest to us."

Kzost was annoyed by this answer.

"Why not?" he snarled.

"We do not care what you do here until you leave so there is no point in involving ourselves with you."

"And what makes you think you can make us leave?" Kzost asked, ignoring the memory of his retreat from the mountain keep.

The Mage had humanoid features of such purity and symmetry he projected a strange serenity. What he was actually doing was allowing all the Klingon's psychic energy to wash over him, analyzing it, categorize it, file it and project it back. The Mage couldn't speak Klingon but he could glean enough from the object of his scrutiny to communicate. He looked over the bazaar. It was full of off-worlders that had come in the wake of these latest settlers, to cater to their needs and wants. Soon, they would all be gone and it would be as if they never were.

"We will not make you leave; you will decide to go yourselves."

"Why's that?" Kzost blustered but he was feeling shaken by the Mage's calm. His liver was bothering him into the bargain.

"What have you found here that you want badly enough to stay?" The Mage gazed peacefully into his eyes.

'Nothing,' thought Kzost. 'Absolutely nothing.' He looked out at the bazaar. He felt the Mage's hand take hold of his wrist. He swung round for a fight but stopped when the grip tightened.

'These Mage are strong bastards,' he thought. Kzost looked into the Mage's eyes and then began to feel physically better, as if all his aches and pains and over indulgence in food and drink were being washed away.

The Mage let him go.

"You don't want to be here, Klingon. That is sensible since there is nothing here for you but annoyance." The Mage was thoughtful. "You do," he continued, "have some things to do here before you leave and you will not leave until they are done."

"And what are these things?" Kzost sneered, he hated prophets.

"You will know them after you've done them." The Mage rose.

"Very helpful. By the way, how did you know I'd be here? Are your spies everywhere?"

The Mage smiled; it was a kind and amused smile but sent chills down Kzost's back anyway.

"I remembered yesterday that I would find you here today. As I remember now that you will soon meet someone who will change your life for the better. You will also be rid of what you now think is a thorn in your side but when it is lost you will weep with grief."

Kzost stood, ready to attack. The Mage was calm.

"You are a good man, KzostGhet, and this will bring you some consolation in your life whether you want it or not." He walked into the crowd and disappeared.

Kzost had been thinking on this when he noticed the little creature.

'If the Mage can see the future... ,' he was thinking for the nth time. He frowned. He could never get beyond that. Did he want to know the future? No, not really. Would it be a blessing or curse? He couldn't see that this power, if they had it, was doing the Mage any good. But that was because he never saw the Mage, they kept so completely to themselves. Except for a few decrepit specimens that stayed drugged and prowled the streets late at night.

'Perhaps that's what knowing the future does to some of them,' he mused. That and having no women. At least, none that he could find. He truly hated this planet.

And so, to take his mind off of all this, he decided to give the little creature a hand. Kzost rose up, knocking his table over and grabbed one of the Xochian waiters by the lapel.

"THIS IS THE WORST TEA I'VE HAD IN MY LIFE" he roared, dragging the poor man to the edge of the bazaar. He winked at the little creature whose big eyes got even bigger.

"I'll get you ANOTHER" the waiter squeaked.

"YOU'RE TOO FUCKING LATE" and he flung the poor man into the poblas stand, sending fruit rolling in all directions. He caught a flying glimpse of the little creature filling his raggedy shirt and flashing him a killer smile before darting away in the confusion.

Kzost smiled himself, leaned down and set the waiter on his feet.

"Really, waiter, you must be more careful," he drawled to the confused being before him. "And you, vendor," he turned to another confused being. "Take this," he tossed some coins on the ground, at least twice the cost of what Maja had stolen. "And get your stand fixed. It falls over too easily."

He paid his bill, gave the waiter a generous tip and strolled off with a lighter heart.

The waiter and vendor stared after him and shook their heads. Klingons. What can you do?

Someone else had witnessed the whole scene and was drawing a different conclusion.

A Vulcan expatriate named Voren had watched the entire episode from across the bazaar and had found it fascinating. Allegedly a linguist, possibly a spy but in truth something more unusual - he was simply a Vulcan who couldn't stand living in the confines of Surakian Vulcan culture. So he roamed from planet to planet, occasionally studying the local languages and writing monographs on them but mostly just being and watching life go by. This was almost unheard of in Vulcans, they seldom left their planet or their culture or if they did they dragged it along with them, the culture, that is.

Klingons, on the other hand, could not wait to get out of Klingon culture. Unless one were a member of the ruling families there, the Haats or the Yhets, one's prospects on the Klingon homeworld were mediocre, if not simply bad. The Haats and the Yhets fought over who controlled the Imperial clan, the Tzaj, and reaped considerable rewards from this struggle. The Tzaj clan played both ends against the middle with varying degrees of success. For Klingons not of these clans, life on the homeworld was stifling. This fact engendered a powerful desire in sensible Klingons to get as far away from home as possible and get as much of whatever they wanted elsewhere. As they say, it's a big galaxy, go out there and get some of it.

Voren, SaVoren being his full family name, felt a certain sympathy for the Klingons and not the usual Vulcan aversion. However, like all smart Vulcans he usually steered clear of them as the Klingons were still rather touchy that the Vul/Klong war was fought to a standstill. There were among the Klingons those who would like to finish it - one way or another.

He was therefore somewhat puzzled by Governor Kzost's behavior: why help the street boy steal when he could buy the entire bazaar for him? Illogical and an inefficient use of time and energy. Voren would have like to have discussed it with the Governor but he had no way to approach him. So he mused about it to himself while trying to overhear two vendors arguing in the Patois.

The Vulcan was trying to make sense out of a creole language that he'd been hearing in bazaars for the past 15 years. It seemed to be spoken by traders mainly and spread due to necessity - for a common barter code and for secrecy. Voren had only observed it spoken by telepathic and empathic species. He had so far only catalogued a few words, such as 'cheq' for half, 'oli' for little, 'olo' for big or bigger, 'Rom' for Romulan or really any vulcanoid, 'Klong' for Klingon, 'Mage' for Magidrian, 'Ter' or 'Hmu' for any humanoid that was not a Mage, and a very strange expression: 'hochofedra' which meant any number of things like 'let's try it', 'don't try it', 'oh well', 'I'll think about it (but not much)' and is always accompanied by a shrug. It was very challenging because verbalizations were modified by gestures, intonation and the subject. And were subject to change if the object of his observations decided Voren was understanding too much. Being a telepathic language, speakers of some acquaintance sometimes dispensed with forms and merely keened at each other to mark the duration of the communication. This made family groups and tribes impossible to study.

Magidrian appeared to be the source of the Patois. None of Voren's informants knew why; its origin on the planet was shrouded in mystery. The real reason for this was not very interesting to the Magidrians. However, it was significant for their visitors and the children they had with these visitors.

The Mage had developed a sophisticated culture in the dim past, had space traveled, time traveled and unraveled the mysteries of the universe and from this they had concluded two things: There is no such thing as time, and only the tiny portion of beings in the universe that did not know this came to Magidria (and, by the way, some of them were interesting enough to breed with when the retro urge to assume a physical manifestation took this or that Mage).

Being long-lived in bodies when they chose to be so and able to see into the future because time had no boundaries for them, the Mage had withdrawn to their mountains to contemplate the oneness of the universe and ignore into nonexistence the successive waves of aliens who came to civilize them, gave up and left in a huff. Apparently the telepathic energy was so intense on the planet itself that the Patois had developed along two lines: the first, being that telepaths need not use the entire word so words from various languages were truncated, such as cheq which in Bosq would be tolmacheqa for half of something. The second, being that the ability to see part of the future (as beings such as Hmus, Roms and Klongs understand it) is enhanced over a period of residence. Hence Kzost's boredom, Voren's continuous logical outcomes and the survival of the abandoned Talljet monks on the hill that should have starved long ago but didn't because somehow they knew where the next meager meal would be found. This ability to see into the short term future also meant that the listener already knew what the speaker was going to say and the vocalization and gesture were merely a formality.

When the speakers and listeners finally left Magidria in despair of ever making sense of the Mage or making a profit, the prophetic ability was lost (unless they are genetically half Mage and then it's only diminished) but the language code remained and had evolved over the centuries as the Magidrian Patois. Used by nomads, outcasts, traders, pirates, artists, slaves - anyone with telepathic ability and a need to communicate discreetly with diverse groups.

The Mage themselves could care less what aliens took from their planet when they left as long as they left eventually.

And now, because the Klingon Kzost and his Bird of Prey could do some serious material damage before leaving, the Mage found they could not ignore the current residents of Zoltin any longer. A council was held and it was decided that the monks the Roms had left behind were harmless, the Terrans were mostly harmless, the traders in the bazaar were useful and harmless but the Klingons were an unknown. Therefore, one of their number went into the chaos of being, sought out the Klingon Kzost and learned what was needed: Klingons - mostly harmless unless you startle them, they, like the Hmus and Roms, would kill each other before they would get to the Mage. And if they wished to blast some landscape, it was not important. There was no thing of importance in the material plane for the Mage. So they went back to ignoring the aliens, all of them, knowing that eventually they would leave and wonder why they ever wanted to be on Magidria in the first place. All except the Talljet monks, who would leave to find their god.

Voren, however, did not know all this and was merely trying to decode a language he couldn't understand. He was also stuck there, no ships he could get passage on were coming or going due to a war in the Aliterius system. So he had the leisure to contemplate illogical Klingon behavior.

He recalled seeing the street boy before, in this bazaar with another boy, stealing food. He had marveled at their ability. He now wondered if the little creature had enough sense to realize he had a potential patron in the Klingon and to exploit it.

'We shall see,' the Vulcan thought, 'we shall see.'

end of part 35

This story also lives at http://members.tripod.com/karmen_ghia/

Appendices: http://members.tripod.com/karmen_ghia/atrappendices.html