From: Dunyazad9@aol.com

NOTE: This version is slightly revised to "fix" a plot hole
detected by the keen-eyed building inspector, Islaofhope. 
With much gratitude to Isla.

Title: This Dialogue of One
Author: Judith Gran (Dunyazad9)
Series: TOS
Pairing: K/S
Rating: Heavy R
Parts: 3
Summary: After he is forced to leave Kirk because of the
risk posed by *pon farr,* Spock tries to make his marriage
to a Vulcan woman succeed. A companion story to "The
Body's Treason."

Disclaimer: Viacom is a huge multinational corporation that
owns not only a significant part of the material wealth of this 
planet, but the entire Star Trek universe as well. I hope that 
is enough to satisfy them and that they do not need to own 
my fan fiction, too. This story is a noncommercial, transformative 
use of Star Trek and I consider it fair use. The author's copyright
extends only to original material. 

Acknowledgments: An earlier version of this story appeared
in the Tiberius Press publication, Matter/Antimatter,
copyright 1983 for the authors by Sandra Gent. Thanks 
to Sandra and Ann for editorial assistance and suggestions,

Quotations are taken from the following poems, in
sequential order:

T.S. Eliot, "Ash-Wednesday"
John Donne, "The Exstasie"
John Donne, "The Canonization"
John Donne, "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning."

Thanks  to my husband Peter for pointing out the 
connection between the Metaphysical poets and 
Galen/Ibn Sina (Avicenna). 

The psychobabble was written under the influence of Ivan
Pavlov, but please, please don't blame him; he was a great
thinker, and the faults are purely mine. If only the Russian 
Marxist version of behaviorism had prevailed over he 
American positivist version, the world would be a better place.

Feedback of all kinds welcomed, positive, negative, no-holds-
barred.


          This Dialogue of One

   Copyright 1983, 2000 by Judith Gran

     The soft ochre light of a desert dawn fell through the
tall, narrow window and slanted across his face, pressing
against his eyelids to tug him back to consciousness. He
squeezed his eyes shut against the light, clinging helplessly
to the last fragments of his dreams as they dissipated in the
stream of daylight. 

    Finally, unable to reassemble the pattern
any longer, he opened his eyes. The room's spare, clean lines
in the dim light of the rest sun's dawn shocked him fully
awake.

     The room was utterly still, the early morning
stillness peculiar to the desert. *It is over.*

     A part of him felt light and relieved; another part still
lingered, stubbornly, in that subterranean world of fierce,
glowing desire and consummation he had left behind,
wanting to relive the splendid visions of his dream. And
gathering in the distance he could sense a wave of shame
and humiliation, a wave he knew could gather enough force
to knock him down and dash away all of his control if he
should turn and face it. 

     He would not face it. A Vulcan could hold such
emotions at bay, and he would do so.

     Lying on the large bed, he felt strangely dissociated,
his mind drifting somewhere above his passive body, his
limbs disconnected as though he were a disjointed puppet,
pulled by various strings. An odd piece of verse drifted into
his mind, evoked perhaps by this strange state of
consciousness.

          And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.

     The lines were by a poet from Earth, not Vulcan. But
though they spoke of the Terran religious concept of the
extinguishing of self in God, they were oddly appropriate.
The *pon farr,* heavily surrounded in mystery and ritual,
was as close as most Vulcans ever came to the merging of
the self with another. It could easily be interpreted as a
religious experience by any culture disposed to do so. Yet
the "fruit" of the *pon farr* was not the spiritual rebirth
sought by Terran mystics, but a more prosaic and material
fructification: the renewal of their desert planet's species.

     That thought jarred him back to reality. He was
alone in the big bed. T'Val must be in another chamber of
the *koon-ut kal-i-fee,* possibly at breakfast. He must rise
and speak with her, much as he dreaded the confrontation. 

     He sighed, thinking of the old tradition, still
followed in some aristocratic families, though not in his
own, in which clan members brought a breakfast feast
to the couple in their chambers at the end of the *pon farr.*
It was a celebration of the possible conception of a child, a
symbol of the companionship and partnership of marriage as
well. He would have liked to be reassured of such worldly
values at this moment. But it was just as well that the
custom had fallen into disuse in an age of computerized food
preparation. He did not want to see other members of his
family at this moment.

     He bathed and dressed quickly. The lightness, the
total relaxation of his body generated a sense of calm. And
the knowledge that the madness would not come again for
... no, he would not last the full seven years. He knew that
now. His second *pon farr* had arrived only four point
four-eight-two standards years after the first. 

     He fought off the wave of distaste and anger that he
felt whenever he recalled his departure from the *Enterprise,* 
dictated by his impending Time. The end of his relationship
with Jim.

     No. He would not think of it. He would continue to
keep the vow he had sworn, that he would not reinforce
past experience by consciously remembering it. Now was
the time to shut out those memories, memories that had
been all too vividly awakened by the *pon farr.* It was
tempting to spend just a few moments dwelling on those
splendid, passionate visions, but he would not. They were
fantasy, and T'Val was reality.

     He found her in an adjoining chamber, seated at a
marble table, her fingers steepled in meditation. Empty
breakfast dishes rested nearby. Knowing she had not waited
for him to awake so they could breakfast together left him
with a hollow feeling. But that was as he had anticipated.
He could not blame her for feeling reserved after what had
happened.

     He felt a slight chill of apprehension as he noticed
how pale she was. Had he injured her? Was she attempting
to exercise control of pain? Although the thought stirred
deep concern, he was too embarrassed to inquire directly.
He felt cut off from her, as though the madness had thrown
up a barrier between them. 

     She looked up as he approached, her face
expressionless. He stood formally in front of the table, his
hands behind his back. "T'Val, I deeply regret my loss of
control."

     Her mouth turned up at the corner in a slight, ironic
smile. "What else would one expect to happen in the *pon
farr.* Loss of control is normal. As is the flooding of the
mind with thoughts one cannot hold back. It is the
*content* of those thoughts that is problematic, is it not?"

     He nodded slowly, measuring her steady gaze. He
knew his wife well, knew her through repeated telepathic
contact, and he could guess with ninety percent accuracy
what she was thinking. T'Val was a logical woman, and a
mature and sophisticated one. She believed in IDIC to the
depths of her being, and she followed it. It was not in her
nature to be offended by what she had seen in his mind
during the last few days, nor even to feel jealousy. No, her
concern was a totally logical one, a concern for the success
of their bonding, for the welfare of the family involved.

     She was looking at him expectantly, and he knew
she needed him to offer an explanation.

     "T'Val, truly I did not anticipate this. For more than
point eight-three-three Standard years, I have deliberately
shut out of my mind all recollection of the memories you
saw. I have trained myself not to think of them. It has
required great mental discipline, but I have accomplished
it. I am rather at a loss to explain the vividness of the
memories that the *pon farr* unleashed."

     A hint of bitterness did come over her cool face
then. Possibly she did not believe him. "This is a strange
result of point eight-three-three standard years of
discipline."

     He flinched, and a wave of shame washed over him.
He remembered in disgust how, as the fever rose, he had
cried out, over and over, the name of the partner he had left
nearly a year ago. How in the madness of the *plak tow* he
had become convinced that the person who lay beneath him
was not his new wife but his former lover. He had failed her,
and with her, all of his Vulcan heritage.

     "T'Val ..." He hesitated, uncertain how to proceed.
"Have you seen him in my mind at other times?"

     "No, that is true. Perhaps I should compliment you
on your control on other occasions." Now her voice
definitely had an undertone of irony. Plainly, she considered
that he had let himself wallow in unproductive emotion.

     Her bitterness stung him, for he had always known
her to be fair. He stood silently for a moment, unable to
think of a constructive direction in which to proceed.

     Then, suddenly, he remembered the practical matter
at hand. "Did you conceive?"

     "Yes," she replied, looking down between her arms
at the table, and he felt a momentary surge of joy that he
knew was an empathic echo of hers.

     "I am pleased," he said, and meant it. 

    She relaxed slightly, the bitterness gone, and he
felt they were on safer ground. 

     "T'Val," he continued earnestly. "I realize it must have
been deeply disturbing to you to have witnessed my
memories of another while we were linked in the *pon farr.*
I have done all I could to inhibit those memories, but
evidently I have not succeeded."

     She nodded, looking up at him seriously, accepting
his sincerity. "What can we do about it, Spock? That is the
practical question."

     Spock pulled out a chair and sat down across the marble 
table from his wife. He wished to be fair to her. All that was 
left to him now was to be a decent husband to her, a good 
father to their children. And it was not fair to ask her to live 
with these images of Jim in his mind. 

    Nor could he offer to abort the *pon farr,* as he had hoped he
could do to protect Jim, even assuming that is what T'Val would
choose. The team of volunteers and private scientists McCoy had 
cobbled together had continued their efforts to find a counteragent
after he left the *Enterprise,* but ultimately, they had failed.  

     Although a part of Spock was still lost in the images of Jim 
that had consumed him in the *pon farr,* he was grateful for T'Val's 
presence. She was a woman of strong passions, though reason
and logic dominated those passions as totally as they did in
any Vulcan. It was her strong emotions that accounted for
much of their telepathic compatibility, a compatibility that
had been a major consideration in their decision to become
bondmates half a year earlier. T'Val's atypically "emotional"
streak and the undeniable Human-emotional dimension of
Spock's character had made them a well-matched pair.
T'Val's childhood bondmate had been killed in an accident
before their bonding had been consummated; Spock's had
divorced him by the *kal-i-fee* at his first *pon farr.* He
had thanked the fates many times over that T'Val had been
willing to come to him when he had needed a mate so
desperately, a few short months before his second *pon
farr* was due, prematurely, to begin.

     Logically, then, Spock had good reason to think that
it would be a successful marriage. And he realized, even
though he was not eager to face the recognition at this
particular moment, that the *pon farr* was a critical element
of the marriage bonding. Not only did it satisfy the mating
drive, it also forged the deep-rooted empathy between
husband and wife that enabled them to surmount all the
centrifugal tendencies inherent in relationships in a complex,
advanced society with its tendency to pull the partners'
energies in different directions.

     He knew, although they had never discussed it, that
T'Val's deeply passionate nature welcomed the total fusion
of mind and body one could experience only during the
*pon farr.* Yes, despite the violence and madness of the
Time, she had every reason, as a Vulcan woman, to
consider it her birthright.

     "I shall consult a healer." It took some effort to utter
the words. He dreaded exposing himself for treatment,
dreaded even more what might have to be done to his mind.
But he could see no logical alternative.

     She nodded simply. Relieved that the decision was
made, he went to get breakfast from the food processor and
brought it back to the chamber to join her while he satisfied
his ravenous appetite. She remained at the table, still
subdued but, thankfully, no longer distant.

     Spock sat outside T'Aura's office, absorbing the
serenity of the healer's anteroom. Although he had no
logical reason to do so, he had arrived early for his
appointment. 

     But it was not illogical to be apprehensive. This
appointment was the result of a chain of consultations,
referrals, examinations, and further consultations that had
occupied him for the last seven tendays and that had all led
up to this office. 

     Twenty-four skilled healers had studied his case and
admitted they had never seen one like it before. And to
make matters worse, T'Val was having a difficult
pregnancy. Her doctors had told him that his half-Human
ancestry would make it difficult for her to carry any child of
theirs to term.  

     T'Aura was Vulcan's foremost specialist in the
neurology of the Vulcan marriage bonding and its
involvement with the Time of Mating. If she could not help
him, perhaps no one could. And then ... would T'Val wish
to end their marriage? 

     He trembled, ambivalent at the thought. He felt
keenly his responsibility to their unborn child. And Jim was
living with a woman now .... He shook his head. He *knew*
Jim's feelings had not changed. But the thought of being
doomed to live the rest of his life without a mate made him
shudder. For a Vulcan, it was a sentence of mental
instability, psychosis, or even death. As it was, it was only
T'Val's presence that kept him from yearning, impossibly,
for the one perfect mate who had been barred to him by the
genetic accident of being born a male.

     He raised his eyes to the wall, where an elaborate
diagram of the Vulcan brain was mounted. On another wall
hung a computer-generated encephalograph of the
hypothalamus area. T'Aura had instructed him to refrain
from exercising any mental discipline for several days before
he was scheduled to see her. He had not mind-linked with
T'Val, and on every suitable occasion, he had allowed his
thoughts simply to drift, with no particular focus at all.

     He sighed, recognizing the purpose of T'Aura's
instructions. Again and again, his thoughts had drifted back
to Jim Kirk. Strange .... The "letting go" he was practicing
now had been something Jim had helped him learn.

     Even after they realized that nothing less than sexual
union, not even the mind meld, could satisfy their passion
for each other, it had been difficult for his tightly-disciplined
mind to relax its controls. He had both longed for and
dreaded the self-annihilation of orgasm.

     Together, they had found ways to dissipate his
tension ... ridiculously silly ways, some of them, like lying
on top of each other in a tub of water, or massaging each
other's ears. But eventually they had been able to make love
with an uninhibited spontaneity, a sharp clarity of mind and
sensation that combined the best of Human and Vulcan
sensuality.

     He looked up at the glowing, gold-bronze ornament
on the wall, and thought of Jim's skin, tanned from the sun
on one of their rare shore leaves. A picture flashed into his
mind of Jim lying naked on his back, looking up at him with
a myriad intense emotions in his eyes: desire, yearning,
apprehension, trust. Jim's lips were slightly swollen with
passion as he whispered, "Please. Please don't be afraid of
hurting me. I want to much to feel your body in mine." 

    Spock remembered how it had felt, falling slowly into 
that well of passion.  

     There were other memories, too, of Jim lying on his
stomach on the bed, the late-afternoon light and shadow
playing over his back and broad shoulders. Spock was
leaning over him, massaging his back and hips and
thighs with gentle strokes while Jim's features contorted in
an agony of anticipation. Then he knelt between Jim's legs,
kissing his face and neck, and lay full-length against his
back, wrapping his arms around him.

      He remembered the bright colors and the energy of
Jim's mind as they melded, and the power of their closeness.
If his heart could almost burst from the memory, how sweet
must the reality have been?

     Sweet enough, he thought sadly, to have made
him almost risk everything, even their lives and their
sanity, in a futile gamble against nature. Two men together,
one of them in the *pon farr,* were more likely to kill each
other than to mate. And even if he managed to avoid lapsing
into uncontrollable aggression, the chances of damaging
both their minds were very high. 

      He had pinned his hopes on the development of a *pon
farr* counteragent -- first, on the massive public research 
program on Vulcan and then, after the Vulcan Council withdrew 
its support and funding, on the network of private research 
scientists that Dr. McCoy had supported with volunteers 
on the *Enterprise* to continue the effort. But the counteragent 
had not been developed in time to abort his foreshortened cycle, 
and he had been forced to seek a woman to mate with after all. 

     In any case, the counteragent research had failed.
None of the leads that McCoy and the others had followed had
borne fruit. As it stood now, Spock was doomed to repeat the
cycle until he was well into old age.

     Another memory flooded back: the two of them
paddling idly in a small craft on a still river, fronds of lush
vegetation dipping down into the water. Because his eyes
were on Jim instead of where the canoe was going, they
crashed into an overhanging bough. Jim laughed, using his
oar to spray Spock with water.

     Spock had paused a moment, calculating the velocity of
the water, the angle of incidence of the oar, and the force of
the impact. Then, with extreme precision, he struck the
water ... and the jet landed right in Jim's face. While Jim
sputtered, he sat back smugly, pleased with the success of
his computations. Jim glared at him and jumped out of the
boat, flipping it upside down on top of him. 

     They struggled in the water, Spock trying to right
the capsized craft, Jim turning it upside down again. Finally
they gave up and pushed it to shore, mock-fighting and
splashing each other. At last they staggered up to the beach,
gasping and hugging each other helplessly.

     The evening was chilly. They lit a fire in their cabin
after dinner and sat in front of it, Spock's head on Jim's lap.
They communicated idly, sometimes in words and
sometimes directly, through telepathic contact. 

     Their conversation was about the Vulcan sexual
bonding ... what Spock wanted most for them, what they
could never have. Jim wanted to convince him that Human
love could be just as close, that Terran lovers also
could experience complete unity.

     Spock was skeptical. The Vulcan bonding, he
argued, was a telepathic species' response to the
physiological fact of *pon farr* and therefore unique.

     "Not so unique," Jim countered. "Look at the
evidence in our literature." He stroked Spock's hair gently.

     "Show me," Spock replied, reaching up to Jim's
temple to see the unspoken words in his mind.

     When love, with one another so
          Interanimates two souls
     That abler soul, which thence doth flow
          Defects of loneliness controls.

     We then, who are this new soul, know
          Of what we are compos'd and made,
     For the atoms of which we grow
          Are souls whom no change can invade. 

     Spock absorbed the verse intently. Despite the
inexact, non-empirical concepts, he was oddly moved by the
metaphor. "One of the poets of your early seventeenth
century, if I am not mistaken," he said, removing his fingers
from Jim's temple. "I recognize the concept of the joining of
two individuals to constitute a single entity. Many species,
not only Vulcans but also Medusans and others, seem to be
capable of establishing such a link. Your poet, however,
speaks of the joining of 'two souls,' rather than 'two
minds,' and thus his ideas are rather metaphysical ...."

     "He was a Metaphysical poet," Jim said helpfully.

     "I believe the so-called Metaphysical poets based
their concept of the relation of soul and body on the
formulations of Galenic and Avicennian medicine, which
held that the soul was distilled from "spirits" generated in
the blood."

     Jim smiled and ruffled his hair. "In early
seventeenth-century England, that was an advanced and
highly empirical school of thought."

     Spock took Jim's hand in both of his own. "With a
slight change of wording the verse you quoted would be a
not-altogether-inaccurate description of the Vulcan
bonding. But Vulcans do not understand the bonding as a
joining of two ineffable souls, but of two minds. We analyze
the link down to the individual synapses of the nervous
system. The notion of 'soul' is, after all, a product of
metaphysical idealism."

     Jim looked down at him, his eyes very bright, his
smile one of fondness and amusement.

     Spock reached up, grasping Jim's shoulders, and
pulled him down so they lay side by side. "Actually,
although our cultures have developed different concepts for
interpreting the experience of profound empathy between
sexual partners, I suspect the experience itself is quite
similar for both peoples."

     "Lucky for us, Jim murmured, drawing him close,
"that our species have so much in common."

     They touched each other's faces then, Vulcan-style,
each seeing his own image reflected in the other's eyes, his
sensations reflected in the other's mind. Jim caressed him,
kissing his eyelids, his ears and his cheeks.

     Melting inside, Spock had an image of himself as a
candle burning down into a bright pool of liquid wax.
*We're Tapers, too, and at our own cost die,* he thought,
remembering another "Metaphysical" verse, the Elizabethan
metaphor equating death with sexual intercourse sending a
thrill up his loins.

     He placed his fingers on Jim's temples, sharing the
image with him, melting into the rich, vibrant depths of the
other's mind.

             ***************

     His reverie was interrupted by the sound of a door
opening. He looked up and saw T'Aura standing beside
him, summoning him into her office. He stood, trembling a
little from the intensity of the memory.

     She was an elderly woman, and she radiated an
imposing mental strength. Yet he felt a core of stillness in
her, a depth of wisdom he sensed could not easily be
summed up in the canons of logic. He knew he could place
himself in her hands with utter trust.

     She had Spock's records before her, and T'Val's,
and it would have been superfluous to ask him many
questions, since she would soon discover what she needed
to know through the neural probe. She did, however, ask
him to explain why he had formed such a relationship with a
Human male, knowing as surely he did the emotional
proclivities of Humans and the dangers of the *pon farr.*

     Spock swallowed painfully before he replied. "Our
sexual relationship began before the Vulcan Council
withdrew its support from the program to develop a
counteragent to the *pon farr.* When we initiated the
relationship, I had estimated the probability that the
counteragent would exist by the time I went into *pon farr*
again at nearly ninety-eight percent. The cancellation of the
program upset my calculations."

     She nodded, her face impassive but her eyes not
unsympathetic. Had the severance been traumatic?

     Spock flinched, even though he knew she would see
it all in his mind. "Yes. Neither of us desired it."

     And the former sexual partner?

     "He is now on Earth, and has entered into a quasi-
marriage contract with a Terran female." The Terran
legalism translated awkwardly into the Vulcan tongue,
which knew only a single, absolute form of marriage.

     "Very well." She gave him a brief explanation of
what to expect next. 

     Spock understood the theory behind her art.
Because of their telepathic abilities, Vulcan healers were
able to combine the study of the brain's physiology with the
study of subjective states of mind and sensation. The
minutely detailed knowledge of the neural circuits of the
brain accumulated in over a thousand years of Vulcan
medical history by neurologists and neurosurgeons who
were also skilled telepaths made Vulcan psychology
uniquely empirical and specific

     "When your mind is sufficiently relaxed," T'Aura
told him, " I shall 'reach into' it so that I can follow the
paths of your thoughts and feelings along the efferent and
afferent nerves, and chart their interaction with other
impulses in the integrative nervous centers. In this manner, I
hope to understand precisely how your former relationship
has interfered with your marriage bond."

     She led the way to a small inner chamber behind her
consulting room. The room was totally empty except for a
small elevated couch which was suspended so that it
appeared to be almost floating in mid-air. The walls, ceiling
and floor were a uniform shade of gray-white, suggesting
nothingness: a sensory deprivation chamber.

     T'Aura had prepared an infusion to enhance mental
relaxation. Spock lay down on the couch and waited for it
to take effect. Gradually he felt his thoughts becoming
unfocused and soon he found he could not think
sequentially. Then he was simply conscious, but not
conscious of anything in particular. His mind expanded to
fill the room, and he felt blank and formless.

End of Part 2.

     T'Aura stood behind him, her hands on his temples,
and he felt her enter his consciousness, not as another mind
but only as a presence: cool, calm and as blank as the room
itself. 

    Somewhere, at some subterranean level of his mind,
he could feel sensations come and go, as though someone
were striking a series of lytherette strings in succession. He
began to be aware of oddly disjointed sensations of sexual
arousal that began and ended with equal abruptness. He was
not sure they were even *his* sensations; he could identify
nothing except the four corners of the empty room.

     Gradually, he became aware that Jim was there,
lying somewhere at the bottom of a deep well ... at the
bottom of his own mind. He struggled to focus his mind,
fighting the blankness with all his strength. Then, suddenly,
Jim's image sprang to life before him with a clarity that
stunned him, making him half-rise and reel back on the
examination table, shaking uncontrollably.

     Finally the healer released him and told him to rest
until he was able to get up. Already the effects of the
infusion were wearing off, though he still felt weak and
turned inside out. After a few minutes, he forced himself to
stand and follow her to the outer office. 

     T'Aura was sitting silently in a chair, not behind her
desk, and she motioned him to sit facing her. Vulcan healers
never used symbols of rank and expertise to set themselves
off from their patients, and it was completely natural for her
to treat him as an equal. She looked at him seriously for a
long moment, and he was aware of her deep concern, her
charity.

     "As I suspected, it is the *hy'lar,* she said.

     Spock looked at her, puzzled. It was a term he knew
only from pre-Reform love poetry. What did she mean?

     She continued simply. "We see perhaps one or two
such cases in a generation. It was rare even in the days
before childhood bonding became nearly universal on
Vulcan, and even rarer since. We call it the *hy'lar,* the
'natural' bonding, to distinguish it from the *hy'dos,* the
'made' bonding, which is carried out by a skilled telepath.
The bond you have formed with your Human friend is a
perfect example of the natural bonding. It is like a broken
bone that has knit together spontaneously, perfectly, more
completely than it could have if set by the most proficient
orthopedist."

     Spock's heart thudded beneath his ribs in a mixture
of awe, apprehension and ... yes, pride as well. He had
heard only vaguely of the "natural" bonding and had
assumed it was merely a literary term. 

     "I have encountered the *hy'lar* only as a concept
in pre-Reform poetry, referring to an amorphous, emotional
affinity between partners." 

     She shook her head. "No, the 'natural' bonding,
when it occurs, is quite real. It is a concrete reflex arc
similar to the artificially constructed bond between husband
and wife that exists in the *hy'dos.*" 

     Spock knew, as all Vulcan children learn in school,
that the "made" bonding is created when a trained telepath,
the *hy'dosar,* opens a neural pathway between the lower
and higher centers of the brain, linking the mating drive, an
absolute reflex, with the desire for a specific partner, a
conditioned reflex. Among non-telepaths, as he knew from
his experience among Humans, such a conditioned reflex
could be created only through repeated associations in
experience.  The *hy'dosar,* however, was able to reach
into the partners' minds and impress this association directly
upon the neural circuits. 

     Many Vulcans considered that the stability of their
planet's family structure was rooted in this procedure.
Without it, during the madness a Vulcan male would be
driven to mate with any available female, with disastrous
results for the cohesion of the patriarchal family. No wonder
patriarchal and matriarchal tendencies had coexisted
uneasily for several thousand years of Vulcan history before
the institution of the *hy'dos* had brought about a decisive
victory for patriarchy.

     Spock felt a certain intellectual relief now that he
understood the cause of his symptoms. And the incredible
news that he and Jim were bondmates! The news filled him
with a sudden, irrational joy. How had it happened?

     T'Aura answered his unspoken thought. "We know
only a little about how such a bond is formed
spontaneously, although exceptional telepathic compatibility
is, of course, a prerequisite. You mind-linked often?"

     Spock nodded.

     "The melds must have been extraordinarily deep to
have reached the subcortical centers of the brain. I would
hypothesize that they occurred in a condition of great sexual
excitation."

     Spock blushed a furious green, even though he knew
she had already seen all of this in his mind and that she was
speaking quite clinically. 

     With a pang of guilt, he reminded himself of the
urgent need to find treatment for this condition. He was not
at all sure he wanted to be "cured" of this condition. But he
had a duty to T'Val and their child.

     "Is it possible to inhibit a natural bonding reflex?" he
asked. Like all Vulcans, Spock knew that most reflexes,
whether conditioned or unconditioned, can be inhibited by
the formation of other conditioned reflexes. Vulcans
routinely use such conditioning to control pain.

     T'Aura shook her head. "If it were, that should have
happened when you were bonded to your wife.
Unfortunately, that bonding was ineffectual. What nature
binds together of her own accord is not easy for us to undo.
The only way to free yourself from this bond is the
*qarvah,* the method we use to 'break' a bonding when
one partner dies and the other wishes to survive."

     Spock's heart sank. He knew that the *qarvah* was
an extreme procedure that blocked all associations and
memories of the former bondmate from one's mind. 

     "In your case," T'Aura continued, "since the bond is
exceptionally strong and you seem to have a wealth of
associations connected with your former partner, the range
of memories that would have to be eliminated is far-
ranging."

     *A part of my life wiped clean,* Spock thought
bitterly. *Like a monument erased by desert sands.*

     "It would be as though you had never met. You
would not know him; you would not recognize him."

     *No!* He would not do it. If his memories of Jim
and their life on the *Enterprise were ripped away, he
would be little more than an automaton. "There is no other
solution?"

     "Of course, you could continue as you are," T'Aura
replied. "But that will depend on the continued cooperation
of your wife. You will not be driven to seek her out during
the Time of Mating. In the state of *plak tow,* you will not
even perceive her as a possible means of assuaging the
mating fever, unless she actively initiates sexual contact
herself."

     With a start, Spock realized that this was precisely
what T'Val had done in their bedchamber at the *koon-ut
kal-i-fee* when he had tossed feverishly on the marriage
bed and cried out for Jim. With desperate resourcefulness,
she had done the only thing she could think of; she had lain
down and pressed her body against his until the absolute
mating reflex took over and allowed him to copulate with
her. But what wife could be asked to service him,
mechanically, over and over again, in such a fashion? 

     He felt sick and ashamed as he remembered the
bruises and bites on T'Val's body afterwards, the less visible
injuries that were even worse ... No wonder Vulcan law cast
such a dim eye on purely physical copulation.

     Suddenly, he was overpowered by grief and anger,
grief for his loss of Jim, and anger at the absurd, primitive
trick of physiology that stood between them.

     T'Aura's eyes held nothing but charity and
compassion. Why should she judge him when he had
committed no fault? 

     "I think you should know, Spock," she said slowly,
"that the bond between you and your former mate is
probably strong enough to counteract the aggressive urge
you would naturally feel toward him as another male. I
would estimate a probability of perhaps seventy-five
percent."

     Spock was caught off-guard by this unexpected
piece of information. For a moment, he felt a surge of
impossible, irresponsible hope .. hope that turned to
bitterness as he considered the margin of danger that
remained, improved odds or not.

     "You mentioned aborting the *pon farr, Spock,"
T'Aura continued. "It is true that no reasonable prospect 
exists that a counteragent will be developed for another
tenyear, at least. But you must know that the Masters of Gol
are able to suppress the *pon farr* through the discipline of
*Kolinahr,* A Vulcan male who succeeds in following this
path need never enter the mating fever again."

     *Kolinahr.* He had once entertained the thought of
seeking that goal of total logic, in his youth when he had
wanted so badly to out-Vulcan all other Vulcans. Finally he
had realized that his interest in it was, paradoxically, an
emotional rather than a logical one, and that he probably
could never accomplish it, in any case. "I doubt I have the
mental discipline required of the Masters of Gol, T'Aura."

     She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Indeed. I have
just examined your mind, and I consider that you *do* have
that capacity," she assured him. "It is not a path taken by
many, but I must inform you of every available option."

     He rose to leave then, still shaking from the severe
knowledge he had acquired in this room. "Live long and
prosper, T'Aura."

     T'Aura raised her hand in farewell. She was an old
woman, and she had seen more of strong emotions in her
career than most Vulcans would care to admit had ever
existed in their world.

     "Peace and long life, Spock."

     He returned home to find that T'Val had miscarried.

             **************

     Amanda wanted to rise from her living room chair,
go over to her woodenly impassive son and give him a
thorough shaking. She felt as though the shards of his
ruined life lay scattered at her feet. 

     His stupid, stubborn, uncompromising refusal to
make the obvious choice infuriated her. Plainly, T'Val had
had no other choice but to ask for a dissolution of their
marriage. 

     For a few brief moments they had been united in
their regret for the lost child. Amanda was sure T'Val would
not have left him if he had not refused the *qarvah,* if he
had not insisted on clinging to his memories of the past.

     She was angry, angrier than she had ever been at her
son, and even more angry at the Starfleet admiral whom she
considered responsible for Spock's dilemma in the first
place.

     Of course, she knew of her son's relationship with
his former commander.   She had known about it since ...
when? Since shortly after he asked their help in arranging a
marriage so soon before his second *pon farr* was about to
begin.    She had been more than a little surprised that he had
gone so far out on a limb with a Human male, even though
she had always known that her son had the capacity for such
total commitment.

     She had analyzed the relationship to herself many
times, and had developed her own hypothesis about why
and how it had developed. It made little sense on the face of
it: James Kirk, whose name was practically synonymous
with "womanizer," and her skinny little son .... She still
thought of him as "little" despite the fact that he towered over
her by more than twenty centimeters. 

     She assumed that Kirk had taken pity on her son's
single-minded devotion to his commanding officer. No
doubt it had been a convenient arrangement for Kirk, to
have a loyal and discreet paramour on the ship as well as a
woman in every port.

     Oh, she was grateful to Kirk for being a friend to her
son when he needed one, for accepting him as he was
instead of wanting him to be something he was not. She had
never doubted Kirk's loyalty and generosity, but she was
equally sure those qualities did not extend into the bedroom.
She felt intuitively that the relationship could never have
meant the same to Kirk as it did to her son. 

    Spock had fastened all the buried emotions his lonely, 
half-Human soul was capable of on this one man. Kirk had 
let him do it. And it had ruined Spock.

     She had felt bitter when she first heard about it,
feeling that Kirk had patronized her son, had led him on,
and blinded him to the imperatives of his Vulcan heritage.
And then to learn that his relationship with Kirk had kept
her son from forming an effective bond with his wife!

     Most cutting of all was Spock's decision not to do
the local thing, and allow the healers to erase all memory of
Kirk from his mind. By refusing, he had cut himself off from
any possibility of a normal marriage and family, from any
sort of a normal life at all, Human or Vulcan. 

     She was angry not only for her son and T'Val, but
for herself as well. Once he joined the Masters of Gol, he
would cease to be her son in any but a strictly biological
sense. Their relentless discipline would soon extinguish any
spark of filial feeling he had ever held for her. It would
reduce his memories of her to machine-like mental circuitry. 

     So this was how important Kirk was to her son!
More important than his wife; more important than his
mother.

     All she could do was try to reason with him. "I don't
see what logic there is in the Kolinahr as a solution to your
problem, Spock. The end result will be the same as if you
had purged all of your memories of Jim in the first place.
The Masters' discipline will reduce those memories to bits
of data. You won't feel any personal connection with them.
You won't even remember them as things that happened to
*you.*"

     He was as expressionless as though he were already
one of the Masters of Gol.

     "All the same, there is a difference," Spock replied
simply. 

     To himself, Spock added, *Jim will still be in my
mind. He will still be a part of what I am. Subsumed,
rarified, reduced to abstract schemata, but still a part of me,
linked with me.*

     Our two souls therefore, which are one
          Though I must go, endure not yet
     A breech, but an expansion,
          Like gold to airy thinness beat.

     Amanda could not know that he had hesitated for
weeks after T'Val had left him, and even after the Masters
of Gol had accepted him. He knew the precise date when
Jim's one-year contract with Lori Ciani would expire. A
thousand times he had wavered, anticipating, imagining how
joyfully Jim would welcome him back. Everything could so
easily be as it was ....

     Then he had the dream again, an old dream he had
had many times on the *Enterprise*: of Jim lying lifeless on
the sand at the *koon-ut kal-i-fee.* Only this time, when he
bent to look at the stiffening body, he saw welts and bruises
and a tear in the shoulder where his teeth had sunk into the
flesh .... And the body turned out to be T'Val's, the tough
Vulcan body he had abused so shamefully in the mating
fever. 

     The worst of her injuries were not the visible marks
of his teeth and hands, but the torn clitoris and damaged
urethra that had required surgery to repair. Forty years of
Vulcan training could not protect her from his violence.
What would he do to Jim?

     He rose to say good-bye to his mother, and she
stood helplessly. He felt her rage and frustration that all the
Human concern and Vulcan logic she could summon could
not keep him here. But she behaved as a proper Vulcan
mother would, allowing only a slightly trembling "When will
I see you again?" to betray her feelings.

     Perhaps two point five years, Spock estimated,
before he would reach the state of *Kolinahr,* and another
four or five before he would be sufficiently adept to return
to society for a brief visit.

     He left her then. 

    After he left, Amanda watched the trajectory of
his aircar as it lifted toward the desert fortress of the
Masters of Gol. As her eyes followed him until he was too
small to see, her rage gradually spent itself, and she was left
with  the hollowness of despair and resignation.

    But what she was left with above all was a question:
What sort of passion had forged her son's bond with this 
man, that he would sooner be rid of passion itself than break it?

End of story.