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Astraea looked at the old Vulcan in front of her. Same height as Sa-mekh. Same facial proportions. Same build. Same eye color. “You aren’t my sa-mekh,” she accused.
The old man smiled in the same way Sa-mekh smiled—barely there, but a smile nonetheless. “I never said I was.”
“But you are him,” she said. “You’re just… old.”
“Astraea Eirene!” Daddy said.
“It’s quite alright,” the old Vulcan said. “‘From the mouths of babes,’ I believe the saying goes.” He turned back to Astraea. “Yes. I’m from a different universe.”
Astraea looked at him, trying to figure out what he meant. Sometimes adults did this, tell you something fantastic in order to distract you from something else. She just couldn’t figure out if the Vulcan was doing that, or if he was telling the truth. A glance at Sa-mekh answered the question. Sa-mekh would not be that upset about someone lying to her to distract her; Daddy did it all the time and Sa-mekh never tried to stop him. So the old Vulcan was telling the truth.
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” the old man said, “In my universe there are a lot of things that are the same, but there are a lot of things that are different.”
“Like what?” Astraea asked eagerly.
“Like, there’s another James Kirk, Captain of a different U.S.S. Enterprise. I was his First Officer and Science Officer onboard that ship. So those things are the same. We were together, so that’s the same.”
“What’s different?” Astraea asked. “Tell me, tell me, tell me.”
The Vulcan hummed thoughtfully. “Well to start, my James Kirk and I didn’t fall in love until we were much older than your parents are. Also, your Grandpa Kirk didn’t die until James was a teenager. And because his father was alive, he never had a certain medical procedure done.”
“What medical procedure?”
The Vulcan shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, since your dad had it done in this universe. All I can say is that is the one thing I prefer about this universe to my own.”
Adults were weird. “So you are my sa-mekh but you’re not?”
“Exactly,” the old Vulcan answered. “I’m what your sa-mekh could have been, had our universes not collided. And I think that he could be a better man than me because of it.”
Astraea looked at Sa-mekh. “Could you, Sa-mekh? Be a better man than yourself?”
Her father regarded her thoughtfully before glancing at the other him. “I shall endeavor to try. However, to be a better man than the Ambassador would be a great challenge.”
Astraea looked between her parents and old-Sa-mekh and realized there was something going unsaid between the three of them. She crossed her arms and pouted. She hated it when adults did this—acted like she was too young to understand.
“You are simply not old enough,” Sa-mekh said, making Astraea realize she had been projecting. “I have no doubts in your abilities to understand. It is simply that some things are not meant for children’s ears.”
Astraea scowled down at the hot ground. The gong that signaled the start of the wedding sounded, just as she complained, “It’s hot.”