"Mariner's personal log, stardate 59702.6. OK, get this. You know how Vulcans get the blood fever every seven years? And how on Earth the cicadas come out every thirteen or seventeen, and how the Rigelian firemoth breeds once every twenty-three asteroid cycles or whatever they use on Rigel. Prime numbers all over the place, and nobody can find a common explanation, like evolving to stay out of sync with a predator's life cycle or to prevent hybridizing between broods or whatever might cover some but not all of the species. Well, turns out the silicon crystal beings of Velara III take it way further. They've got number theory so far up whatever silicon-based life uses for a genetic code that they're a numbers racket. It's equations to us, but it's instinct and... whatever silicon crystals use for lifeblood for them, right? And so they've gone and broken out into a civil war over a mathematical conjecture. And they called the Federation for help! Just the other day we were big ugly bags of mostly water to them, but now they're asking us back as mediators. Aaaah! This is so classic Starfleet that I can barely believe it! Because the whole war is over heavy-duty math, Starfleet figures the best negotiator will be a Vulcan, of course, but the two sides are fighting over, like, plausibility arguments for the conjecture being true or false? Math aesthetics? So they called a Vulcan who does more sideways thinking than most.
"Aaaah! We're transporting a Vulcan ambassador. This is such Kirk-and-Picard shit that I... I mean, Boimler is freaking out. Definitely Boimler."
* * *
"Greetings, Academician," Jack Ransom says to the Vulcan on his ready-room monitor screen. "I'm Captain Ransom of the USS Cerritos. We are en route and will be within transporter range in two hours."
"We will stand ready, Captain," she says.
"And these," he turns to gesture at the two young officers, "are Lieutenants Beckett Mariner and Bradward Boimler. They'll see to all your needs on board."
"Dif-tor heh smusma!" Boimler belts out, sweeping his hand up in the Vulcan salute.
"My gratitude, Lieutenant. If I may," the Vulcan says, "I would request that my wife and I be transported directly to your Sickbay. She requires a minor medical procedure that would best be performed as soon as we arrive on board."
"I trust it is nothing serious," says Ransom.
"Not serious, Captain, but perhaps indelicate. A side effect of our mating bond is that her personal biochemistry produces certain spikes at irregular intervals. This can be resolved with an endocrine suppressant that I believe the Cerritos has on hand. If not suppressed, the spikes may have deleterious effects upon shipboard operations." She pauses. "My wife is Orion."
Without missing a beat, Ransom replies, "We have an Orion science officer with extensive medical experience. I can assign her to your wife's treatment personally."
"Much obliged, Captain. We will now conduct our final preparations for your arrival." She crooks her fingers into the salute and closes the channel.
"Make the arrangements with the transporter chief and see to it that Lieutenant Tendi is ready when they arrive," Ransom instructs.
"Yes, sir."
"Yes, sir."
Leaving the Captain's ready room for the Bridge, Boimler leans over to Mariner and asks, "A Vulcan with... lenses over her eyes?"
"Her profile said something about being born with a defective inner eyelid. They're for UV protection, I think."
"Reading the guest's profile ahead of time? What kind of Changeling are you, and what have you done with the real Beckett Mariner?"
They enter the turbolift. "Deck six," Mariner says after the doors have swished shut. "I just think oddball Vulcans are interesting, don't you?"
* * *
It's about ninety seconds after the Academician and her wife have beamed into Sickbay that a squee of enraptured joy bursts from both Boimler and Mariner's comm badges. "Eeeeeeee!"
"Tendi?" asks Mariner.
"Guys, guys, it's D'Jane. I get to hypospray D'Jane. I never dreamed that a day like this would come." She follows with the more restrained eeeeee noise that she makes when trying to hold in the science, gripping a padd to her chest and bouncing on her feet.
"We're on our way," Mariner says.
Tendi bounces and bubbles her way up to them as they step through the Sickbay doors. "I will burn today's stardate into my memory with a nadion scalpel," she declares. "It's D'Jane."
"So you said."
"Everyone on Orion knew D'Jane. She ditched a career in kick-knifing to leave the planet and do art! It scandalized the whole planet, but it helped give me the strength to join Starfleet and do science! Oh, do you think she'd do my portrait? Or me and T'Lyn together as science besties? Or a group portrait of us all?"
The Vulcan mission expert is watching them, quietly, from the wall by the doorway that leads to Sickbay's attached showers. She is shorter than the viewscreen had made her look. Mariner thinks that she's never actually met a Vulcan who could be described as petite. She wears a thermal regulation suit that's a little less form-fitting than usual, or perhaps that's due to it having more pockets than are typically arranged about, and the fabric is black with piping in forest green instead of the standard gray. She is about to speak when D'Jane saunters in from the shower, lanky and muscled and green, still buckling on her top garment, something in ruby and obsidian that straddles the line between club wear and a stab vest.
The Vulcan says, "As ever thus, I was requested, and you are admired, my wife." She reaches out a hand with the index and middle fingers extended. D'Jane makes the matching gesture and hooks her own fingers around her wife's. Mariner knows that with the digits in place, rather than sliding up and down to explore the contours and make successive contact with multiple nerve junctions, it is comparable to a cheek-peck between partners in her own culture.
"As always, my wife, it's only logical." Her smile lights up and brings gentleness to her angular, and very green, features.
The Sickbay doors open again. T'Lyn enters bearing a padd of her own. "Academician T'Ria, greetings. I am co-science officer T'Lyn, and I have compiled the data we have available regarding the Velarans."
"Greetings, T'Lyn. May I introduce my wife, D'Jane Lienne of Orion. It would be agreeable to discuss your data at the soonest opportunity."
"Science Lab 2 is available," T'Lyn says. "Perhaps we could begin our analysis now, while the others settle your companion in your guest quarters."
"We'd be happy to," Mariner puts in.
Tendi is still vibrating a little, but she keeps to her best co-science officer voice as she runs a tricorder over D'Jane. "The endocrine suppressant is working as intended."
Mariner claps her hands and interlocks her fingers. "Good. Boims and Tendi, you make sure the guest quarters are suitable for D'Jane. Our experts can start crunching what's up with the number-crunchers, and... I'll go report back to the Captain." Boimler is the only one who notices, she thinks, how she changed course midway through.
* * *
Rutherford slides into their habitual booth in the mess hall while telling T'Ria, "I installed an environment tent in your quarters like the one T'Lyn uses, so you can control the temperature and humidity outside of ship defaults. You can take it all the way from the rock garden of T'Plana'Hath to the Forge, if you want."
"I have not found the latter extreme necessary," T'Lyn observes from her spot in the back corner.
T'Ria, next to Rutherford and across from Mariner, nods briefly. "That will be most convenient."
"Don't want to get homesick?" It's the sort of jab that Mariner lobs at T'Lyn.
T'Ria replies evenly, "Environmental conditions of my species' planet ease the demands on my physiological functions." She pauses. "I have no sentimental attachments to indulge."
It's not like a Vulcan, Mariner thinks, to add a redundant sentence.
The two have brought their own isolinear chip full of replicator files. Mariner is sorely tempted to make a joke about Orion serving wenches when Tendi and D'Jane appear with hot steaming plates of food, but that would be crassly insensitive, and probably only really good as a dig at Boimler, who is following them with a tray of drinks.
"All right," D'Jane says, "our favorite, but if you don't like it, all the more for us. Slices of deep-dish pizza with pineapple, barbecue quadrotriticale seitan, and Klingon vengeance peppers." Evidently, she has chosen the file from the menu, while Tendi has tagged along like she wants to be symbiotically attached to her at the hip. The two Orions start distributing plates.
"Root-beer slushies for our guests," Boimler says, setting down drink glasses, "a room-temperature water for T'Lyn, Bloodys Mary for Mariner and Rutherford..."
Their habitual table is a little crowded with the two visitors, but D'Jane is thin and stretched-out while T'Ria is practically tiny.
Boimler takes a bite of his pizza. "Mmm!" After chewing and swallowing: "I didn't think the pineapple would work, but it's nicely caramelized, and it plays very well with the barbecue..." He takes another bite. Wide-eyed and suddenly sweating: "Oh. There's the vengeance pepper." He leans over into the aisle and wheezes.
Mariner inquires, "Need some milk, Boims?"
"Are you kidding?" he gasps. "This is awesome."
Mariner tries a bite. "Hmm. Pretty nice." From one of her uniform's well-concealed pockets, she withdraws a bottle. "Souvenir from my last trip to Earth," she says.
"Ketracel White-Hot," reads T'Ria, "small-batch hot sauce from Sisko's Creole Kitchen."
Mariner offers her the bottle, and she accepts it, sprinkling a few dashes over her pizza. She carves off a mouthful with knife and fork and takes a taste. "A combination I believe you will enjoy, my wife," she says to D'Jane.
T'Ria hands her wife the bottle, and D'Jane fills a spoon from it. "Down the hatch," she says, and rolls her eyes contemplatively as she passes the sauce around her mouth with her tongue. "Yes, that should work," she says at last.
Tendi tries to keep up, but—
"Uh-oh," says D'Jane, "I think we just kicked the Mistress of the Winter Constellations."
"Slightly," wheezes Tendi.
Mariner is a bit spice-drunk herself and decides to jump in with both feet, verbally speaking. "Speaking of burning," she says, "T'Lyn's curiosity."
T'Lyn looks up from her room-temperature water and the pizza slice that she has been systematically working through with knife and fork.
"You're not scanning the room like you normally do, observing and docketing humanoid interaction," Mariner says. "You've been paying attention to the two of them."
D'Jane looks from Mariner, to T'Lyn, to T'Ria. "She has a good eye, my wife."
"I confess myself curious," T'Lyn admits, "regarding a topic that may not be suitable for the dinner table, as I have heard humans say."
This is enough to make Rutherford pause in the middle of biting his pizza slice, and for the first time today, Tendi looks something other than bubbly.
"Perhaps it is less than polite to mention," T'Ria says, "but it is no secret. Same-sex partnerships are not... regarded as convenient on Vulcan."
Mariner forces down the cheese and tomato sauce and crust that's currently in her mouth and asks, "Where's the logic in that?"
T'Lyn says, "Emotions are part of our species' evolutionary heritage. Through discipline, we regulate them for our survival. The expression of emotion is only permitted when channeled appropriately, through ritual. Such as the rites, dating to a period lost in our prehistory, concerning pair-bonding for clan alliance formation and procreation."
"Marriage," says Tendi.
"One of the many things that 'marriage' has meant on Earth," Mariner elaborates.
"Soooo...." Rutherford begins. "Vulcan marriages are only, ah..."
"Allowed?" Boimler suggests.
T'Ria supplies, in her habitual near-monotone, "Partnerships where there is no chance of bearing children seldom fit within the bounds of ritual. When there is neither that nor what you might call a 'political' marriage, though the Vulcan concept is not exactly akin to what I understand from Earth history—"
D'Jane interrupts. "We're sexual deviants."
Mariner is extremely proud that she got her hand in front of her mouth before spewing Bloody Mary all over Boimler.
"As ever, my wife," T'Ria says, "your wit is inimitable. And perhaps best un-imitated."
"We were married on Andoria," D'Jane says. "Don't ask how we kept warm."
T'Ria takes this comment in a less wink-wink direction, saying, "Vulcan is bound by treaty to respect marriages performed on any Federation world. However, this legal recognition does not imply acceptance by all Vulcan cultural insitutions, or what you might designate as a warm welcome by polite society. We are excluded from various groups and events for which partnership is a prerequisite. Medical facilities that operate by Vulcan custom have in the past declined to regard us as joined, until the treaty implications were explained to them, and in each case they attempted to marshal logic against those implications. Hence, our reliance upon Starfleet for such care."
"Man, that is some bullshit," Mariner says, stabbing the crust of her pizza into her empty plate. "That's like Trill bullshit met J'naii bullshit and had a hybrid bullshit offspring that's all, oh, I'm too busy being a slug and inseminating this slug husk I've got here to care about freedom and love."
"Uh-oh," observes D'Jane, "this sounds personal."
"Oh, Mariner is too Mariner for gender boundaries," Boimler says. "She's dated bad boys, bad girls, bad nonbinary individuals, Jennifer..."
Tendi joins in. "I totally saw her flirt with a girl and at least one guy at my sister's wedding."
"Just one girl?" Rutherford asks.
"I'm sure the knife fight with the other was platonic," Tendi says.
Mariner is thinking that her dignity is well and bloodied but not dead yet, when T'Ria speaks up. "Have you ever seen a knife fight that was, my wife?"
"Outside of family?" D'Jane asks.
Mariner gives up and laughs.
* * *
D'Jane has gotten paperboard and a charcoal from the replicator, and she is sketching Tendi. "OK, just hold that pose, and look off to the lovely science in the distance... Perfect!" Mariner and Boimler and Rutherford are watching, a few rounds deep into the synthehol, and trying to remember which art exhibits they'd seen on Risa and which on the Cosmic Duchess, volubly correcting or incorrecting each other.
T'Lyn is standing at the window, watching the stars go by.
T'Ria approaches and stands beside her.
"It was not my intention to offend," T'Lyn says.
"I believe a human would expect me to say that Vulcans do not feel offense," T'Ria responds. "The more salient facts are that I believe you, and that I never thought so to begin with."
T'Lyn raises an eyebrow.
"You are much more obvious than she is," T'Ria tells her.
A human would have been flustered. A Vulcan waits for clarification.
"Beckett Mariner takes the trouble to hide her feelings behind bluster and exaggeration. You, on the other hand, have learned to suppress but not to dissemble. The fact that D'Jane and I are wives has evident personal relevance to you. When her proclivities are discussed, you do not join in with your comrades, but your ears are, as the humans might say, pricked."
T'Lyn says, "I find no fault with your observations." She continues, sounding almost contemplative, "For years, Beckett Mariner ran on the edge of destruction due to her emotions. I have witnessed her develop the ability to gain strength from them instead. It has been a... curious thing to witness."
"May I suggest your cast of thought might be better described by a term like challenging or resonant? Perhaps evocative?"
"Perhaps so. I touched the edges of her mind, once, to stabilize her during a moment of crisis when it was necessary. I find myself returning to the memory of that encounter more frequently than circumstances would require."
"The significant touches of mind in my life have been few," T'Ria states. "I was, however, mindlink-betrothed as an adolescent. To a man named S'loenn. An ultimately unobjectionable man, with whom I still maintain occasional but cordial correspondence. However, the betrothal bond failed."
"Failed? I have never heard of such a thing. To end neither in marriage nor in kal-if-fee, but to simply... dissolve?"
"Indeed," says T'Ria. "And all it took was the right woman."
"I would welcome your counsel," T'Lyn says. "My logic has become... uncertain."
"As was mine," T'Ria informs her, "until the moment it was not. I believe my wife would say kiss her, you fool, before correcting herself to say talk to her instead."
"You and your wife have given me much to consider."
T'Lyn thinks that the conversation has concluded there, with T'Ria walking away, having said everything that needs to be said. But T'Ria returns, carrying a cold glass filled with a substance that looks and smells familiar. She sets the root-beer slushie on the window ledge beside T'Lyn. "The experiences consequent to actions are often illuminating in their unpredictability," T'Ria says. "Or, in short, try it."
* * *
The ship lights have dimmed for the night shift. T'Lyn's quarters are darker still. She sits in her environment tent, assuming the posture of meditation, but dwelling consciously on recent memories instead.
She hears the door chime.
Climbing out of the insulated tent, she says, "Enter."
The door swooshes open to reveal Beckett Mariner in silhouette. Her shadow falls, diffusely, onto the floor in front of T'Lyn.
"So, heeyyyyy..." Mariner makes a valiant effort to speak. Then she steps inside, just enough for the door to close behind her. "Our Vulcan and Orion guests think I need to talk with you."
"Our Vulcan guest voiced the same belief to me." She pauses. "What we said at dinner about Vulcan culture was correct." She finds herself unable to face Mariner directly, and so she turns to watch the stars instead.
"I never doubted that." And now Mariner is briefly quiet. "We're getting farther from Vulcan faster than the speed of light."
"You state what is already evident."
"And I'm right here."
"Again, a fact not in dispute."
"I thought I could try... balancing your emotions?"
"That is illogical. The human brain is not capable—"
She turns and sees that Mariner has extended a hand to offer her half of a Vulcan kiss.
The energy of matter-antimatter annihilation is fueling the warp field, carrying the Cerritos between the stars, on a mission implicitly to atone for past mistakes, a mission of peace.
T'Lyn's fingers meet those of Beckett Mariner. They slide across each other, human flesh bringing pressure to one Vulcan nerve junction, then another, then another.
"Fascinating," T'Lyn says. "My logic has become certain."
The Velarans will accept one visitor.
T'Ria conducts the negotiations by beaming down to Velara III, alone, wearing an EVA suit. Either of the Velaran factions could take control of its circuits, throw up enough interference to stop the Cerritos beaming her back, and kill her. That's the point.
D'Jane watches on the multispectral viewer in the science lab. The Velarans had first tried to communicate by making sparkling patterns in the sand. Now, a side effect of their communications among themselves—fractals, distinct on two halves of a circular disc centered upon T'Ria, zooming in and out, shifting their boundlessly jagged contours, shifting in and out of EM spectra that human or Vulcan eyes can see, two halves not yet in accord.
Mariner enters the science lab quietly. She is at once extremely interested in how to maintain a romantic relationship with a Vulcan woman, and painfully aware that this is the wrong time to ask.
"I'm sure she's fine," Mariner says. Vulcans don't do nervous. D'Jane knows that. But, since she isn't Vulcan, maybe it helps to hear it confirmed from outside herself.
"I'm here to worry for the both of us," says D'Jane. She smiles, weakly, not able to keep the vulnerability out. Her bravado is not façade—she is D'Jane through and through—but the woman she loves is down on the planet, the only organic life on its surface, and she is up here.
"Is there a replicator near here?" D'Jane asks, suddenly. "I'd like another sheet of paperboard and a charcoal. Please."
It's tucked in an awkward corner because everything is built to conflicting demands on the Cali class, but the lab does have a replicator for making specialized tools and reagents on demand. D'Jane turns from the monitor screen and begins to work.
* * *
The Velarans have never known a conflict of this type and scale, and so they have no experience with conflict resolution, meaning that even some basic methods have not yet been tried.
T'Ria explains what she knows of the logico-aesthetic intuitions fueling each side. She asks for clarifications as she does so. She steps the Velarans through cases where each intuition yields provably correct results. Fragments of the images in the sand begin to reflect one another, inverted, rescaled, shifted to different spectra, but echoes all the same.
* * *
D'Jane's charcoal sketch captures the Velaran geography, the topographic contours indicated on the Cerritos display. In the flatlands, where the Velarans are making their fractals, she instead fills the space with radiating lines of Vulcan script. The spirals that Mariner is accustomed to seeing organized along vertical strokes are instead grouped into emanations from the center, from T'Ria. Mariner wonders briefly if a typical Vulcan would take this as an affront to their sensibilities, somehow, an indication that D'Jane does not appreciate the logic of their symbol organization system. It's hard to imagine that D'Jane would care.
Mariner's classical Golic script is rusty on top of sketchy—everybody gets a dose of culture from each of the Federation's founding species, at one time or another, but she hasn't exactly had to use it. But she can tell that one spiral-on-spiral motif is frequently recurring under the artist's hand.
"It's pronounced ashayam," D'Jane explains without prompting. "It means 'beloved'. Not a word that Vulcans use much in polite company. Mostly they bury it off in the sagas of pre-Surak times or use it to translate languages from other species. Trite sentiment, maybe, but it's all I've got right now."
"It's beautiful," Mariner says plainly.
* * *
T'Ria cannot convince either faction to adopt the driving intuition of the other. She does not expect to. Schools of art work to different ends. Marriage to an artist who fundamentally wants to try them all has accustomed her to this.
The Velarans do agree, however, to research the conjecture that has divided them. Some who believe in its falsehood will assume its truth and work from that premise to seek a contradiction. Some who believe in its truth will likewise assume its falsehood, arguendo. They delineate regions on the planet where these different programs will be pursued. They establish conditions under which the Federation is to be contacted again.
The loss of life beneath the sands of Velara III can end, for the time being, and that is the first step to prolonging the peace further.
* * *
D'Jane greets T'Ria when she materializes out of the blue-white fluctuations of the transporter beam, offering her hand in a Vulcan kiss.
"Mariner to Captain Ransom," says the lieutenant watching from behind the control panel. "Academician T'Ria is back on board."
"Welcome back, and congratulations," Ransom says from the Captain's chair. "The senior staff will convene to hear your report in... one hour?" he suggests.
"Entirely satisfactory, Captain."
She maintains the Vulcan kiss as they exit the transporter room together. "The Orion one will follow," D'Jane whispers, more than loudly enough for Vulcan ears, and just sufficient for those of Beckett Mariner.
* * *
T'Lyn is the soonest to arrive in the briefing room. She observes, "Your improvisational theorem-proving was remarkably effective. I do not believe such a skill has ever been deployed before in the interests of diplomacy."
"And yet," T'Ria replies, "I suspect my memories of the occasion will be dominated by the sensation of being the only organic life on the planet's surface."
"The more memorable aspect is the one that would be more easily replicable? I confess I do not grasp your logic."
"Is theorem-proving not replicable in any quiet room?"
T'Lyn is about to ask another question when Ransom arrives, followed by the rest of the senior staff, and the occasion is no longer appropriate.
* * *
"How about that woman of mine," D'Jane says to Tendi in the mess hall. "You know, there is an old Vulcan saying: For the Velarans, the day she graced their planet was one of the most important in their civilization. But for her, it was Tuesday!"
Tendi notices, "You're looking a little blue in the upper arms."
"It's probably that knife-dulling endocrine suppressant," D'Jane says as the tricorder comes out. "Always have problems with them eventually, but this is coming on fast. Maybe skin blotches, maybe waking up in the dead of night and not sleeping again, maybe having to piss too often... One reason we stick it out on Vulcan is that my pheromone spikes don't matter there. Maybe we should move to Delta IV or to Risa where nobody would notice the difference. Or would the combination of our pheromones and jamaharon cause some kind of horny subspace implosion?"
Tendi keeps her eyes on her tricorder. "Looks like the suppressant might be giving you some endocrine wobbles."
"You don't have 'em yourself, do you?"
"Um, no."
"Lucky. Of all the complications in life, these brainwash stank glands have not been among the fun ones."
"We could try a topical cream. Or a lower dose, if you start having other side effects, but I don't know if it will remain effective."
"And risk giving your crew a random whiff of Psi 2000 mixed with MDMA?" The thing about humanoid nervous systems is that it's very hard for a general dose of psychotropic compounds to have an effect so specific as an overpowering attraction to a single individual. Most of Orion pheromone domination is in riding the wave when it hits the subject and ensuring that they aren't paying attention to anyone else, until their brains are fully occupied. The secret they don't tell off Orion is that the seduction requires the dance. "What are we, three days out from Vulcan now?" She closes her eyes, splays the fingers of her left hand beside her face, curls her body slightly inward and seems to make whispering motions without sound. Then her eyes snap open again. "My wife will confine herself to quarters with me until we reach Vulcan. Why don't we just skip the last shot?"
* * *
They are scheduled to arrive at Vulcan at 0451 hours, ship time, so the night shift is in charge of assuming standard orbit, and Mariner is asleep in T'Lyn's quarters while T'Lyn meditates in her environment tent. The comm chime is dulled by the insulated fabric, or else years of Starfleet would have brought Mariner awake.
"T'Ria to T'Lyn." She speaks low and soft, for Vulcan ears.
"Proceed."
"It is my understanding that the Cerritos is to maintain orbit around Vulcan for 3.81 planetary days, for minor system maintenance and shore leave."
"Correct."
"Were you and Beckett Mariner planning to take shore leave together?"
"Our intent was to spend two days kayaking and rock climbing at Lake Yuron."
"An opportunity has arisen for an alternative activity to which you may prefer to devote some of that time. My wife reports the onset of a pheromone spike. I suspect that Beckett Mariner would in some fashion regret not experiencing Orion pheromones at some point in her life, and you would be uniquely well suited to ensuring that she does not bring harm to herself or others during that experience."
"I believe your assessment to be essentially accurate," says T'Lyn.
* * *
Mariner is not sure what to expect when they step into D'Jane's studio. The Orion firing a phaser rifle at a stellated octahedron of transparent aluminum had not been on her list, but it seems fitting, particularly when she turns and peels off her safety goggles and says, "You can't get good scorch marks any other way."
T'Ria appears in the archway, carrying a tray of water cups. "Welcome to ShiKahr. The guest room and the greenhouse will be at your disposal. Feel free to dispense with the Vulcan custom of making breakfast as houseguests, since it is highly likely that at least one of you will be incapable."
"Incapa—" T'Lyn starts to ask.
"Babe," Mariner interrupts. "Not a myth."
"Fascinating," says T'Lyn.
"Rapid, but not unexpected," elaborates T'Ria.
The two Vulcans are unperturbed while the human is in the early stages of a psychotropic response. Suddenly the Orion who had just been using a phaser rifle for sculpture detailing is the timid one in the room. "May I?" she asks, looking from one Vulcan to the other.
T'Lyn replies, "I see no reason why our prior agreement should be modified."
D'Jane focuses on Mariner. "Think about her," she says, reminding Mariner of what they had discussed via subspace. "Hold the image of the one who has touched your mind. Don't take your eyes off her." And then she crosses the floor of her studio and gently slides her arms around Mariner. "Thank you for taking care of us. For sharing pizza. For giving me the chance to draw an Orion scientist. For making sure I wasn't watching alone." No dancing, just contact and talking.
T'Lyn's fingers touch Mariner's.
Every whiff of D'Jane's hair is polywater, is clearing the next level in the Ktarian game, and Mariner doesn't want to look away from T'Lyn.
"I''m a deviant for taking a woman to wife," T'Ria says. "She's a deviant for not wanting to control anyone."
"Well matched," says T'Lyn.
D'Jane releases Mariner as gently as she had approached. The Orion artist is, for the time being, more at peace with her own body than before.
Mariner weaves just a little, but T'Lyn moves in quickly to support her. "Hey babe," Mariner says, hitting the plateau of an Orion pheromone trip such as no human has taken before. "Now I have to give you something that you'll never forget."
On the Freecloud colony, Beckett Mariner had once speedrun a Ferengi holoprogram about time-traveling to Vulcan's barbaric past and having to survive through erotic derring-do. She'd set a club record for time to rail both S'tonepecs and S'labmeat, or whatever the barbarian chieftans had been called... The real thing is infinitely more interesting.
T'Lyn's fingertips are tracing Mariner's chin. She relaxes her jaw and lets T'Lyn graze against her teeth, the faintest scratch of one nerve junction, then another, then another.
And then Mariner's combadge chimes from somewhere within the pile of uniforms discarded around fourteen hours earlier, and a chipper voice is hailing, "Tendi to Mariner."
And it is T'Lyn who sleepily curls up tighter and nuzzles into Mariner's side in what appears to be an inter-species signal for ugh, just five more minutes.
"Mariner here."
"Are you in ShiKahr? Boimler and Rutherford and I managed to sync our leave schedules, and there's this little museum of ancient weapons in the Sorahl quarter that's supposed to be off the beaten track and really cool."
Mariner experimentally tries lifting an arm and discovers that her muscles definitely still know how to complain. One of those multipurpose OTC recovery hyposprays in their leave kit bag will help, she hopes. "Uh, yeah, I'll be in town. Let's do it. But, like, after breakfast."
"Um, Mariner, it's the middle of the afternoon here."
"Logic suggests that the first meal of the day must be breakfast."
Boimler's voice in the distance: "Wait, was that T'Lyn—"
"Mariner out."
T'Lyn is awake now, and regarding her with about ten percent less severity than average.
Mariner asks, "Can I tell you a secret?"
"I would be interested to hear it."
"One reason I was afraid to say anything was because it seemed like you and Tendi might have a proto-thing of some kind going on."
"We are science besties." T'Lyn says it with Vulcan gravitas, rather than Tendi's inimitable and irrepressible cheer. "She is a living embodiment of one of Vulcan's most esteemed pursuits, yet is so fundamentally un-Vulcan herself. I am her comrade in the pursuit for which she was willing to leave her home planet. What we have is unique for the both of us. But it was not developing into this."
Their hands have found the places to sense their heartbeats, human and Vulcan.
"Besides," T'Lyn continues, "she is obviously attracted to Rutherford."
"Oh, thank you, yes, we need to get those two to talk."
* * *
They share the sonic shower. Mariner decides they really need to find a way to stand under hot water together, someday soon.
T'Lyn says, "I find myself at a loss in our situation. I did not know this kind of closeness on Vulcan or in our own space fleet. I certainly did not expect to find it when I was punitively reassigned to a Starfleet vessel. I am without points of reference on how to continue, and yet I cannot imagine holding my attentions back."
"I have a suggestion: Let me help."
* * *
D'Jane is the first person they see when, uniforms on, they step outside to take the air. Post-spike, lanky as ever, leaning against the stone archway, she speaks into what must be an antique handheld flip communicator. "The V'linkra, over in the Sorahl? Yeah, it's cool, they stay open late to do demos with the flaming weapons, and there's a café around the corner that does a great plomeek omelet."
Boimler responds, "Wait, plomeek can come in omelet form?"
"How about we meet you there?"
Mariner has just scarfed down two ration bars—Kafarian apple pie, her favorite by a wide margin—but she can tell that she'll be wanting a full meal very soon.
D'Jane cordially signs off. To the two of them, she asks, "It's good to have freakin' friends, isn't it?" There's a placidity about her now that Mariner hasn't seen before. A few strands of her dark green hair are loose in the desert breeze.
"I don't really know the etiquette," Mariner hazards, "for greeting someone who got you incredibly high by contact the last time you met."
T'Lyn interposes with curiosity, "Is there a reason why 'good afternoon' would be inadequate?"
"Call us even," D'Jane says. "I don't know how to greet a person who benefited from my damn biochemistry instead of just getting trashed."
"Unexpected developments in unforeseen combinations." T'Ria emerges from behind them. Her hair is down and loose, long for a Vulcan. "Yet another demonstration of why marrying her was the logical thing to do." She rises on her toes to press her lips upon D'Jane's cheek. "Come, let us go together."