Danny Amor's Online Library/Danny Amor's Online Library - Volume 1.iso/html/startrek/incomplete/dancer.p1

Internet Message Format | 1995-08-20 | 7KB

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Organization: Penn State University
Date: Thu, 25 May 1995 02:26:16 EDT
From: Macedon <[e-mail]>
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative
Subject: Dancer I
Lines: 148
Xref: tivoli.tivoli.com alt.startrek.creative:10973

I received some nice feedback from "Interviewing Alexander" so I thought
I'd try something shorter.  This is essentially a *character study*, not
a full-fledged story.  Poor Tuvok hasn't had many stories written about
him, so I thought I'd remedy the situation.  Have been and always will
be a Vulcan fan.  <G>

The characters belong to Star Trek, and a few of the ideas to various
authors of TOS books (Bonanno, Duane).  The idea is mine.



                                 DANCER
                                       c1995, Macedon



The dancer moved slowly, face in shadow, back in light.  Braceletted limbs
flashed when the spotlight caught bronze.  She sang with her body, weaving
about him, passing through shadows and squares of brilliance, trailing hair
and chiffon.  When he reached out to touch the hem of a sleeve, she winked
out, like a spotlike, or a holo, or a dream.  He was left in darkness.
Alone.

"Krill!"

Tuvok woke with a start.  Dreaming.  He had been dreaming.  Again.  This
was absurd.  "Kaiidith," he muttered, just to remind himself, and got up
to fetch a glass of water.

Vulcans dreamed.  It was the mind's way of sorting through the past, and
Tuvok looked on dreams as a normal subconscious function for sentient
beings.  But Vulcans did not shout out in their sleep.  That pointed to
a level of psychological disturbance which should have been taken care of
in meditation.  He finished his water, then knelt in front of his firepot
and lit the focus-flame in its center, cleared his mind and slipped into
First Level.  She'oth, the All, was not restricted to the alpha quadrant.
It lay within him.

First Level came; Second Level came.  Third Level slipped and twisted
away from him like a disobedient child, like Challa at three when she
had had her mind made up and would not accept "No."

He stood abruptly.  This was getting him nowhere.

Going over to his desk, he did an illogical thing.  He took out the picture
cube of his family.  Krill and the twins, his mother, Krill's father before
Sejan had succumbed to lung-lock disease, Krill after the m'Kasha performance
three years ago still in costume, the twins as infants, the twins when they
had graduated from Secondaries last year: Challa standing behind T'Gaylin.

"What is the point," he said to himself, "in twisting the knife?"  He put
the cube back.  70 years.  His shorter-lived, human crewmates had made it
known in small ways that they did not consider his position as drastic as
theirs.  They did not know.  In three years, he--and Krill--would be dead.
Well, he would be at least.  If Krill did the logical thing, she would seek
out a priestess and have their bond dissolved so that she might marry again.
Part of him hoped she did.  Part of him, a small selfish part, resented the
thought of another man in his place.

Tuvok loved his wife.  It was not something he would have admitted aloud,
and not something he needed to admit to her.  She knew.  What he feared
even more than his own death was the thought that she might not, when the
time came, free herself.  As much as he would resent another man in his
place, he could not bear the thought that she might die.

"Our children should not be orphans, Krill."

The intercom beeped.  It startled him, though he maintained enough control
not to react.  "Tuvok here," he said.

"Tuvok, this is Janeway.  I apologize for interrupting your rest...."

"I was not not asleep, captain."

"Good.  WOuld you come to the bridge?  There's something here I'd like your
opinion of."

"On my way."

Tuvok was grateful for the distraction.  It would provide something to engage
his mind and avoid this ridiculous lapse into self-absorbed nostalgia which
served no useful purpose.

But his memories had been engaged.  In the lift on the way to the bridge,
he remembered his first meeting with Janeway four years ago.  He had been
new to Starfleet, a second-career officer, though an experienced security
chief.  He had served the diplomatic corps sixty years before deciding to
enter the Academy.  Janeway had been somewhat nonplussed at being assigned
a chief of security who was nearly fifty years her senior--and Vulcan.  She
had called him into her readyroom, offered him a seat, then paced around her
desk--a trait he had come to realize indicated a state of emotional distress
among humans.

"Ensign Tuvok," she had said, "permit me to ask one question, and if it's
rude, I ask your forgiveness beforehand.  But tell me--will you have trouble
serving under a female captain?"

His first reaction had been confusion.  "Captain?"

"I know a little about Vulcan; I spent three years in ShiKahr at the science
academy.  Vulcan is a patriarchy.  Will you have a problem serving under a
female captain?"

Tuvok had stood and faced her.  "Captain, if you spent three years at the
science academy, then you must surely have been in classes with female
professors.  Did any male student object to learning from her?"

"No," she said, shaking her head.  "But outside class, I saw those same
women professors walking two steps behind their husbands."

"Captain, permission to speak freely?"

"Permission granted."

"For the Vulcan, in the public sphere, competence is what matters, not
gender.  But the private sphere is subject to custom and Tradition.  Do
not confuse custom with a lack of respect.  Too many humans do.  If you
prove to be a competent captain, I will have no objection to serving under
your command."  He did not spell out the corollary; he did not need to.
She had looked rather nonplussed at his frankness, despite the permission
she had granted.  No doubt, she had expected to be reassured, not to be
given notice that he would be judging her performance just as she would be
judging his.  Yet he was *not* a twenty-four-year-old ensign.

Abruptly, her face cleared.  "Mr. Tuvok--thank you.  You just gave me the
bluntest answer I think I've ever had from a new crewmember.  I'll expect
it to continue."  She had grinned wryly.  He had nodded in acknowledgement.
"You're dismissed," she said.  "I'll see you a oh-eight-hundred for duty."

"Thank you, captain."  He had turned to go, but at the door, paused.

"Yes, Mr. Tuvok?"

He looked back.  "Captain, about being commanded by a woman--I have spent
the greater part of my life now in a house ruled by four of them."

Her mouth had dropped open.  "Why, Mr. Tuvok--is that a *joke*?"

Giving his best "offended" look, he had replied, "It was a statement of fact.
I live with a wife, two daughters, and my mother."  And he had walked out.

Of course it had been a joke.

Now, four years and 70 thousand miles away, he stepped out onto her bridge.
"Captain, Tuvok reporting for duty."


==End for the moment==