Chapter Text
“I-Chaya will be accompanying us to Doctari Alpha.”
Amanda looked up from her packing. Three Vulcan assistants were scattered about the house, placing the family’s critical belongings into crates for the move, but there were some things she felt more comfortable taking care of herself. “Does he understand that Doctari Alpha isn’t on Vulcan?”
“To the extent that it was possible for me to convey, yes.” Sarek sounded resigned.
She lay down the perfume bottle she had been wrapping and crossed the room to lay her head on his shoulder and capture his fingers briefly, checking to be sure the other Vulcans weren’t looking before pressing them to her lips. “And he understands that he’s going to have to ride there, in a tiny room, on a courier ship, for eight days.”
Sarek’s shoulders dropped. “As I said, I conveyed the situation as clearly as I could. He will not be parted from his children.”
“His children, are they now?” She turned Sarek to face her. “No, he’s right, they’re his, we just borrow them from time to time to ensure they don’t grow up entirely feral. You have tasks to complete at the embassy. I can take care of arranging for a berth and supplies for I-Chaya.”
“You are as busy as I. You would not have requested my assistance if…”
“If I could talk to sehlats. You’ve talked to him. He’s as stubborn as the rest of your clan. I can handle the logistics of getting a 200 kilogram ball of,” she brushed at the golden hairs clinging to Sarek’s robes, “overprotective saber toothed bear cat onto a a courier.”
“I do not believe overprotective is quite apt, given recent events.”
Amanda acknowledged him with a tightening of the lips that wasn’t quite a smile. “Wait, there is one thing you can do.”
“And what is that?”
“Ensure that the personhood of sehlats is explicitly spelled out in the colony legal code.”
“Indeed.” He turned quickly, so that his robes swirled around him, a tiny vanity she appreciated as he left.
She finished wrapping sealing film and packing foam around the perfume bottle and placed it in the carton on top of her hand mirror and the decorative combs T’Pau had given them on the occasion of their bonding, then moved on to the contents of the next drawer.
*
They were going to be on this courier for three more days. Spock, of the four children, had taken to travel like a trooper. He was on his knees on a couch in the passengers’ his nose pressed to the glassteel window, watching the stars streak by at warp. He dragged four fingers in parallel across the window, tracing their path in silent commentary.
“They do look interesting when we’re moving fast,” she agreed.
The older three, Sol, Malkie, and Michael, lay on their backs on the floor, heads together, looking up into a holoprojector that displayed an old Earth three dimensional sandbox game. Amanda had reluctantly loaded it up for them from her educational program files after they had rejected assembling puzzles, chess, and reading books as too boring. “The creeper’s gonna get me!” Michael squealed, and was quickly shushed by Malkie.
She curled up on the couch next to her younger son, watching his fascination with the stars. Oddly enough, the combination of low, constant hums produced by the ships power, propulsion, and environmental systems produced a white noise he found especially soothing. She wasn’t sure he had ever slept so well. “I live here now?” he signed.
“Only for the week. Then we will have a new house.”
“I live here now,” he repeated, more adamantly.
“People generally live on planets, not on spaceships.”
“I want to live on a spaceship.” He turned back to the window, that apparently being his final word on the subject.
“Maybe someday you will,” she replied, humoring him.
*
The shuttle set down at the tiny, makeshift spaceport, essentially just a field that had been covered with a simple pad of ceramacrete, the building a hastily erected prefab cube. Sol and Malkie exploded out of the door as soon as it opened, squirming between adults to pelt full speed ahead into a meadow that separated the landing pad from the town proper. To be fair, several days in a courier had made all of the children stir crazy, Sol more than the rest perhaps. She saw him fall flat onto his back in the tall grass, spread eagled, Malkie orbiting him in a wide circle, her arms stretched out like bird’s wings. She was glad she’d make them dress in hiking boots, heavy pants, and shirts that covered them from neck to wrists, the better to keep out bugs and itchy plants.
Spock leaned forward in her arms, peering up at the bright blue sky. His head turned, and he stuck both hands out in front of him, fingers spread like the spokes of a wheel, and twisted them back and forth. “Pinwheel!” he said, his voice not much louder than a whisper, but he said it, and without prompting.
She looked around to find the source of his excitement. A row of wind turbines bordered the southern edge of town, their huge blades turning slowly in a wind that was almost too light for Amanda to notice.
Sarek came around the back of the shuttle, l-Chaya walking behind him with mincing steps, shaking each paw as he lifted it as though uncertain whether he liked the feel of grass beneath his feet. Sarek turned his head at the sound of Spock’s voice, eyes wide with surprise. He caught Amanda’s gaze and she nodded. “They are called wind turbines,” he said.
Spock nodded thoughtfully. “Win bins,” he repeated, again in that just above a whisper voice. He signed, “Are they machines or rocks or plants?”
“Machines. The wind catches the blades and turns. We use the energy from the turning to make other machines work.”
Sarek was getting better at the explanation thing. She set Spock down. He stood quietly at her feet for a few moments, taking it all in, then spotted Michael a few meters away, squatting on the ground, absorbed in some tiny and fascinating natural phenomenon. He toddled over to her and squatted beside her in that effortless way that adults could almost never replicate.
“Sarek.”
“Yes, Amanda.”
“I think I’m going to like it here.”
Sarek didn’t answer.
“I know it’s not forever, a year, maybe two, until the colony is well established. But it will be good for the children to spend some time somewhere that values their existence.”
He regarded the town with his gaze. “It will be good to devote some of my time to scientific pursuits again. In the name of diplomacy, of course.”
“Of course, Sarek.” He did not smile, quite, so she smiled for him.