Vulcan's Soul Trilogy Book One Page 17

  “He is late,” T’Vysse mouthed to Karatek over Sarissa’s head. Rovalat had trained their first two sons, who had returned to them barely tired out from their isolation in cave and sand. Even now, Karatek remembered how the boys had marched behind their teacher up to the Gates, singing as they came. It had been a solemn and wonderful moment.

  Ivek stirred. It was part of his responsibilities to assume the worst. Perhaps a boy had fallen and broken a leg, and required help. Or perhaps Rovalat was simply debriefing his young students. It was clear that the security officer wanted to stride down into the sand, find the kahs-wan class, and bring it back, dragging all of them if need be.

  The sehlat belonging to young Aloran, son of T’Loran and Varek, whuffled in distress, and bayed once, inappropriately, before T’Loran silenced it with firm pats to its broad shoulders. Sehlat s always wanted to accompany their masters into the desert and always had to be kept penned up until the boys were safely away. Now the sehlat whined with eagerness to have its Vulcan cub safely home.

  Sarissa leapt to her feet, faster than the adult decorum that she had been trying on in recent months permitted.

  “They’re coming!” she cried. “That’s T’Kehr Rovalat, but—oh, night and day, there are so few of them!”

  Karatek had his hand on T’Vysse’s shoulder. She reached out to her foster daughter, but the girl shrugged it off. She took a few steps forward, then stopped.

  “I see him,” she whispered in a soft voice. The Veils flickered once over her eyes. She pulled her hood down over her face, seated herself, and forced decorum on herself once more with the resolve that had been one of the first things Karatek had noticed about her.

  Aloran’s sehlat howled again, a terrible, disconsolate sound. His young master was not part of the straggle of ragged, bleeding, and exhausted boys whom Rovalat aided in their trek back to the Gates and home. His parents sat motionless, too stunned yet to grieve. All around the Gates, the families whose sons had returned pulled away, for fear and decency, from those whose sons had not.

  Other sehlat s were racing off into the desert: they might return in a day or three, nudging their masters along in the same way they had shepherded them since they were infants.

  A boy or two might struggle back even now, Karatek protested silently. Surely, it was too early to despair.

  But the numbers were terrible. Of the twenty boys who marched out onto the Forge, heads up, shoulders back, and as well prepared as everyone in ShiKahr could make them, only thirteen had returned. And of that thirteen, Rovalat was carrying one of them, ragged and bleeding.

  “There’s got to be raiders out there. I’m taking my people out,” Ivek announced. “They’ll find the boys. And if they don’t, they’ll find the…”

  Torin put himself in front of the security officer with a speed astonishing in a man of his age.

  “That thee will not do, Subcommander,” he said.

  Ivek stiffened before the veteran. “Who’s going to stop me?”

  “I am,” said Torin.

  “I can’t fight a man your age,” Ivek grumbled.

  “It would be more accurate to say you can’t fight me,” said Torin. “Look at it tactically, man. Let’s say there are raiders out there. What if they’re waiting for our security guards to do precisely what you plan? You leave the city defenseless, and they come in and strike for a second time. And we lose more than we’ve already lost.”

  He looked around at the families who had begun to realize that their sons would not return and lowered his voice guiltily.

  “I knew it was a mistake to tear down ShiKahr’s walls,” said Ivek, as if he took personal offense at an event that had occurred three hundred years in the past. “But T’Kehr, it goes against the grain to abandon those children.”

  “We’re not going to abandon them. Thee,” said Torin, returning to the language of formality, elder to younger, “will return to thy duties guarding this city. I shall lead out the fathers and brothers of the boys who didn’t come back, together with their teacher, who desperately needs some occupation. Who has a better reason to go out there and hunt with all their hearts?”

  So, Torin felt responsible for the old survival-training specialist? Karatek supposed that was only logical.

  The man had done his best! he reminded himself, fighting down a stab of resentment.

  Then, as Kovar trudged past the Gates, Karatek’s heart lifted. He studied his son. The boy’s sandsuit was ragged, with one sleeve torn and wrapped about his leg as a bandage, stained with blackish green. He was limping, braced by some sort of stick he had found. As he spotted Sarissa and his foster parents, his face brightened, then fell again, as if he was controlling his joy in the presence of other families’ anguish.

  Kovar saluted his teacher, who kept his face impassive—just barely—then walked over to Karatek.

  “Live long and prosper, Father,” said the boy. “I have returned.” His bare arm was burnt deep by the relentless sun, and he leaned on his improvised crutch. Something about it…

  “Peace and long life,” Karatek said. He could not suppress the smile that spread across his face.

  How can you smile when others are weeping? he asked himself.

  My son lives.

  He would mourn the other boys later, but he would mourn. To each joy its celebration; to each sorrow, its observance. That was, as Surak said in his Analects, only logical.

  “Thee is injured,” Sarissa said. Already, she had knelt beside her brother. Her hands were patting at him, examining him. Now that Kovar had been reunited with his family, he was wilting, sliding down against his sister, as if only the staff he still clutched held him upright.

  “Let’s get you home,” said T’Vysse.

  The feast would be a fast; the festival, a funeral.

  Drawing her cloak about her, T’Vysse rose, walking over to speak with the kahs-wan instructor. Tears poured down his face, a terrible, illogical waste of water.

  “Let’s see that staff.” Karatek held out a hand to Kovar. “If you don’t mind.” An adult’s weapons were almost sacred.

  Kovar leaned against Sarissa. He was almost as tall as she. He held out the staff to Karatek.

  He had expected to see some ancient, toughened brush, or a structural support from one of the deserted, half-buried settlements that turned up on the Forge every time there was a strong sandstorm.

  What he saw instead, broken in half, was a carefully turned shaft, surmounted by a cruel, pyramidal-shaped metal blade bearing te-Vikram marks.

  Karatek felt his blood chill. “Where did thee get this?” he asked softly.

  “I took it from the man who carried it, Father,” Kovar told him. “Te-Vikram have been moving in, just as they did…” He gestured, clearly not wanting to talk about the circumstances in which he had met his new father. “I saw them take Aloran. I don’t know if they are looking for new warriors,” the boy added. “Or sacrifices.”

  It was one thing to condemn the te-Vikram as barbarians who sacrificed their own, or their captives. But Karatek now realized that worse could lie ahead of the men of ShiKahr. They could die at the hands of warriors whose faces, once, had been familiar and beloved. Had been family.

  The boys, though, were on the threshold of adulthood. They might be too old to change. In that case, Karatek knew, they would die.

  Ivek had an arm around Rovalat’s shoulders. “Let’s get you home,” he said. “No, man, I don’t blame you. T’Kehr here’s gotten so many boys through the trials for so long we just forgot how dangerous it really was. It’s not your fault,” he was saying.

  The blame was collective.

  “Now we will have to remember,” said Rovalat. “But someone else,” he added. “I have sent my last charge into the desert to die.”

  “Get home,” T’Vysse was saying. “The boys who have returned need to tell us of their ordeal. And they could use baths, dinner, and bed. The rest of us will fast and meditate. When you have all heard from yo
ur sons, let us come back here and find out what happened.”

  Karatek led his family across the bridge leading to their house wall. It creaked, sending up the traditional warning. Pressing the lock panel, he opened the door and gestured to Kovar to be certain to step over the threshold using his right foot.

  That was his son’s injured leg, he realized. The boy pressed his lips together, leaned on the staff that had once been a te-Vikram spear, and entered. T’Vysse swept Sarissa off to the kitchens. In ancient times, the women of the house would have cooked a feast: these days, however, the feast had been shared among all of the families rejoicing in their sons’ returns.

  Karatek suspected they would return in later years to the older custom. He led Kovar into the baths, shutting the door, leaving the womenfolk on the outside while the male adults bathed, allegedly in peace and quiet after their labors. The boy flickered a grin at him before peeling off the rags of his sandsuit.

  “Let me see your injury,” said Karatek. “What caused it?”

  “Energy burn,” the boy replied. “Good thing I was fast. He just grazed me, and the injury was cauterized. I used cholla root for the pain and wrapped the wound in the pulp of ches’lintak, secured by bark. T’Kehr taught us the pulp has natural antibiotic properties.”

  Suppressing an impulse to race out and waylay the first Healer he saw, Karatek examined the burn. As the boy said, it was healing nicely.

  “It’s not his fault!” Kovar protested about his teacher. “If it hadn’t been for what he taught us, I’d have been dead. As it was, he showed me how to braid a cord and secure it to two rocks, and that let me come up behind the te-Vikram and…”

  Karatek eased his son into the hot water. The boy sighed in relief.

  “Better, isn’t that?” Karatek asked. “You know, there’s some sort of speech I’m supposed to give to the newest warrior of my house, but…”

  He went to the door and took a pitcher, glistening with condensation, and pungent with the odors of citrus and cinnamon from T’Vysse’s hands, and brought it over to where the boy lay in the water, submerged almost to his ears.

  “Warrior?” said Kovar. “I fought. I didn’t expect to have to, but that’s what I’m saying, I could adapt what T’Kehr taught me, and that was how I lived when I came back from gathering fruit and found the te-Vikram…”

  Karatek heard a protest from outside the bathing chamber. Sarissa, certain she was missing something important, allowed her disapproval to be known.

  “Is this the respect you grant returning warriors, young lady?” Karatek called. This kahs-wan was hardly a laughing matter, but she had made him smile.

  “Not one more word,” he ordered. “Your sister’s conduct is proof that she and your mother wish to hear this story too. So, finish your bath. Empty that pitcher; you need fluids. I will not hurry you, but you may not talk about this until the family can hear you.” He flickered a grin at the boy. “Unless, of course, you prefer to waive the privilege of having escaped the women’s quarters and admit them?”

  Kovar reached for his cup again. He raised it as if preparing to gulp, then sipped prudently.

  Dressed in fresh clothing, cut like a man’s robe, not a child’s, and with House sigils embroidered upon it, Kovar seated himself in his father’s place at the table by the firepit. Blue globes of fire floated in a bowl of water, providing centerpiece and light. The boy’s eyes brightened at the array of dishes that T’Vysse and Sarissa had managed to improvise. Kovar had to have been ravenous, Karatek remembered from his own kahs-wan and those of his older sons, but he controlled himself, raising his soup bowl in time with the rest of the family. With a pang, he remembered Varen, dead in the desert defending Surak.

  After what felt like the interminable rituals that followed kahs-wan, it finally came time for Kovar to tell his story. He had found himself a small cave in a rock escarpment, clear of feral sehlat s or le-matya, and made it his. He had dragged brush into it and made himself a bed. He had chipped flakes of stone and used them as plates, tools, and weapons. And he had, he realized now, become entirely too comfortable.

  He had been careless, and he had been observed by one of the te-Vikram who had been moving into the part of the Forge nearest ShiKahr for the past year or so. The man had been overconfident, however, thinking Kovar a soft, city-bred boy who could be intimidated if a warrior invaded his campsite. Instead, Kovar had seen a shadow approach his cave and slipped out—not quite fast enough.

  The te-Vikram had fired at his shadow and injured his leg.

  At this point of the story, T’Vysse bit her lip, while Sarissa simply took her brother’s hand.

  Kovar had crawled off. He had had a bad couple of nights of it, but had managed to dig himself into shade long enough to bring the pain of the burn down. Once his meditations succeeded, he was able to dress his wound.

  “I had been the hunted,” said Kovar. “Now I became the hunter, and snared my warrior. Then, I tried to wage peace with him, convincing him what an error it is to prey on boys taking the kahs-wan. He said I was weak, but I pointed out that he was the one bound like a ferravat for plucking at a harvest festival. We debated for day after day, sharing the food from his pack, because I feared to leave him.”

  “How did you leave him?” asked T’Vysse. “After all, if you unbound him, he would pursue you. He was a man grown, and you were already injured.”

  Sarissa drew in her breath sharply.

  “No, sister,” said Kovar. “I saw no logic in killing him. But it was surely a dilemma. If I left him bound, the le-matya would have him. Now, perhaps he deserved to be le-matya fodder, but did I wish the responsibility of providing them with a feast? If I freed him, he would come after me and I could not trust his word.”

  “So what did you do?” asked Karatek.

  “Hit him on the head with a rock, loosened his bonds, and stole his spear. I wanted it as a prize of war and a way of easing my path. I had just enough time to meet up with the others of my year—those who made it back,” he finished up soberly.

  Sarissa’s eyes flashed with pride before she subdued it. “It sounds as if you behaved very logically,” she said.

  “Don’t!” cried the boy. “Don’t you understand? I tried to wage peace. I failed. My logic didn’t work, but my training did, which is why I am alive and my friends—”

  Now it comes out. T’Vysse flashed Karatek a look.

  All control gone, Kovar flung himself weeping at his elder sister. She caught him and held him, both of them crying as they had not wept the terrible night Kovar had met them.

  “I grieve with thee,” murmured Karatek.

  They were adults now, and they had adults’ griefs. And adults’ burdens. He walked over and put his arms around his two newest children, who remembered themselves, controlled themselves, and sat up.

  “Has thee thought of the name thee will take?” Sarissa asked. She had been Tu’Pari, then chosen an S-name to indicate her attempt to follow Surak’s disciplines.

  “I did not give my name to the warrior in the desert, though he demanded it as a right. As Kovar, I fought him and escaped. As Kovar I returned to ShiKahr,” he said, his head high. “And now I give that name to you, along with the prize I took. And I choose a new name. I am Solor.”

  “Kovar’s name,” said Karatek, “will be written on the wall beside your spoils of war, near the other treasures of our House.”

  Sarissa tensed, hearing the bridge outside the walls creak. “Someone’s there,” she said, more a shape of her lips than a whisper.

  “I shall go,” said Karatek.

  Rising, he went to the door. A package lay outside, wrapped in layer upon layer of filmy silk, each layer a faintly different shade of red. Attached to the package was a scroll, exquisitely calligraphed.

  “Permit me to share your rejoicing.”

  It bore the sigil of Surak’s House. Of Surak himself.

  When the silks were unwrapped and carefully put away, Kovar—no, Solor, now�
��held a beautifully wrought blade the length of his forearm. Its pommel was wrought like a shavokh’s head, with its wings, outspread, forming the hilt, and its blade shimmered with the striations, like layer upon layer of silk, of the celebrated ancient smithies found at the lip of the Forge.

  “I will wear it always,” vowed Solor.

  Twenty

  Now

  U.S.S. ALLIANCE

  The communication from Starfleet began, not surprisingly, considering the circumstances, as a tirade. In fact, almost before the face of Admiral Randall finished winking in on screen, his lean, normally pale face had turned to an angry pink and he was all but shouting, “Captain Saavik, just what is going on out there?”

  “Sir, it would not be logical for me to attempt to answer for any of the non-Starfleet vessels that may be in the region.”

  The pink deepened into an angry red. “Don’t play logic games with me, Captain Saavik. You know that isn’t what I meant. What is the Alliance doing with a fleet of, as you just said, non-Starfleet vessels, heading out on an unapproved flight?”

  With a surreptitious signal to the others to be silent, Chekov leaned forward. Resting both folded arms on the ready-room desk, he stared into the viewscreen. “Thomas? Thomas John Randall? Is that you?”

  “Pavel? Pavel Chekov! Good lord, man, what are you doing aboard the Alliance?”

  “I’m afraid that I can’t tell you that, Thomas,” Chekov said honestly. “But I vill say this: Neither the Alliance’s captain nor its crew are at fault here. Any blame that may be incurred in this expedition, no matter vhat happens, should fall squarely on me.”

  “What are you—”

  “And no, Thomas, I vould rather not explain any further. I vill only say that Starfleet and the Federation Council both can consider vhat ve are doing as maneuvers and surveillance, if they like, rather than humanitarian—or Romulan—assistance.”

  “Oh hell. You’re going after the aliens.”

  “Ve are?”