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beatrice-otter · 6 years

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Fic: Solvigant (Star Trek/Classic Hollywood RPF)

Title: Solivagant Author: Beatrice Otter Fandom: Classic Hollywood RPF/Star Trek Betaed By: Karios AN: I love old musicals, and way back in 2013 I watched the end of The Band Wagon and noticed that in the song "That's Entertainment" when they sing the line "is the art/that appeals to the heart" and Cyd is supposed to put her hand on her heart … she puts it on her side, about where a Vulcan's heart would be. That was enough for this plot bunny, which I have had languishing on my hard drive ever since. I finally decided to polish it up and post it, and here it is. Summary: The chain of events that had led a Vulcan woman to Earth, alone, crashed on an alien world light-years out of her way, was quite improbable. But statistics said that even improbable things must happen sometime. Or, the one where Hollywood star Cyd Charisse was a Vulcan. On AO3.

T'Lasid held herself very still in her crash couch for almost eight full minutes before removing her harness and standing up. Part of that period was spent cataloging her physical state after the impact, to assure herself that she had sustained no injuries. But fully half of it had been simply a time of waiting to see if some other catastrophe was about to befall her. Wholly irrational, of course, but even Vulcans had not yet triumphed completely over the instinctive hindbrain response.

The chain of events that had led her here, alone, crashed on an alien world light-years out of her way, was quite improbable. But statistics said that even improbable things must happen sometime. It had started when Orion pirates had attacked their trade convoy; the guard ships and the armed merchantman had held a rear-guard action while the rest of the convoy tried to outrun their pursuers. The Llasgelice, the ship on which T'Lasid and her husband Tavin served, had been a small cargo ship, specializing in items which required delicate handling and conditions while en route; it was fast, but carried no armaments. They had been in the forefront of the convoy as they fled, and had some hope that whatever pirates got past the guards would pick off the slower ships to the rear.

Unfortunately, the pirates that had attacked them were not alone. Another group of ships had appeared, right in the path of the convoy. It might have been an ambush; it might have been an unrelated syndicate seizing an opportunity. With Orions, one never knew. But it had been the end of hope for the convoy. There were more convoy ships than pirates, so they had scattered; some, at least, should be able to escape before the Orions could round them up.

The Llasgelice almost slipped by; the Orions had focused on the larger ships. But Llasgelice had taken several direct hits in critical areas, and although they eluded the pirates their situation remained dire. Theirs was a small crew, and both of their cargo handlers were killed when one hit took out the aft port hold and the shuttle bay. Communications had been completely disabled, as had much of their sensor net; while the interior components of the system had survived, the arrays along the hull to transmit their words were completely burned away … and Llasgelice did not carry enough spares to replace them. Worse, their engines had been damaged and could not long maintain their current speed. They could not call for help; if they remained where they were, the pirates were likely to find them again. The same held true if they reset their course to their destination and limped along at warp one, the best speed their engines could maintain long-term. In addition, life support was also damaged.

Their captain had ordered T'Lasid to set a course for the nearest Minshara-class world, warp one, while they made what repairs they could. If the ship was repaired en route, they could resume course for their initial destination, but would hopefully be far enough off the normal trade route that they would make it through unscathed. If repairs took longer, a Minshara class planet would provide resources in the event the life support system failed completely. So T'Lasid had found a Minshara-class world only a few light-years distant, and they set course. Unfortunately, it was inhabited by a pre-warp civilization, at least two centuries from being eligible for contact; but the inhabitants—they called themselves "Human", which probably meant "People" in one of their local languages—looked very much like Vulcans. Their ears were different, but the crew of the Llasgelice could brush their hair over their ears and wear hats, if contact was necessary.

As the ship traveled, they opened interior hatches and set fans blowing between compartments to compensate for the places where damage prevented the air ducts from working. By policy, interior hatches should be closed in a damaged ship lest there be a fire or a hull breach, but some of the systems in need of repair were in confined places where there was no room to wear oxygen tanks and gas masks.

They had still been a day away from the unimaginatively-named planet "Dirt" when the next disaster hit. Some of the control canisters for the special environmental system their cargo in the remaining two cargo bays required had developed hairline cracks in all the commotion, which a visual check had not revealed. They had been leaking various flammable gasses into the air, which the damaged environmental system had neither caught nor filtered out. Long-term exposure could have caused health problems in all exposed … but unfortunately they did not have enough time for that to become a problem.

T'Lasid had been manning the bridge alone while all her fellow crewmates, including the captain, worked on repairs. By some coincidence, the bridge itself had remained largely unscathed, its portion of the life support system intact, and so the hatch to the bridge was the only one that remained closed as per standard procedure.

So when a spark somewhere in the ship ignited the gasses that had filled the whole ship, T'Lasid was the only survivor.

She had known it instantly. How could she not? Tavin, her husband, her bondmate, died. It was neither quick nor painless; burning to death amidst the exploding shrapnel that the engine room had become was an agonizing death, and T'Lasid felt every second of it.

The shock of it had left her mind adrift for a short while. By the time she came fully back to herself, there were no other minds on board the ship. T'Lasid's telepathy was nothing out of the ordinary, and she had never noticed the presence of other minds on a conscious level, except for Tavin's mind in their bond; but their absence left a gaping chasm that T'Lasid had never imagined.

A quick check of her board revealed no contact with the rest of the ship. No environmental data, no communications, no internal sensors of any kind. They were still on course, but they had dropped out of warp. If there was a warp-core breach, she could not tell. T'Lasid retrieved an oxygen mask, a flashlight, and a hand scanner from one of the emergency compartments and set out to check the rest of the ship.

The ship was hot, but not unbearable. Even the emergency lights were out, and there was a dense smoke filling the corridors. T'Lasid accounted for all of her crewmates: all dead. She checked the ship's systems as best she could, not being an engineer. The warp core was not currently in an overload that might lead to a breach, but given the damage it had sustained that must come soon. But even had the warp core not been dangerously unsafe, there would have been little she could do. It did not take her long to come to the disturbing conclusion that even a full shipyard would be unable to do anything with the Llasgelice besides scrap her. There was little that could be salvaged for more than the inherent value of the alloys and materials it was made from. She was alone on a dead ship with a dead crew.

Fortunately, one of the escape pods looked to be in working order. Dirt was within its range, if she added some of the emergency oxygen masks that Llasgelice would no longer require. She scavenged for food, water, first aid kits, clothing—anything that might be of use to her on Dirt—and piled what little she found usable in the pod. Then she laid her crewmates' corpses out as best she could in the limited time available and set the navigation computer to take the ship into the local star once T'Lasid had abandoned ship.

Ejecting from the ship gave the pod a sharp jolt; she set a course for Dirt and watched through the porthole as Llasgelice retreated and turned away from her on its final journey. She sang the funeral blessings quietly, mindful of her oxygen use. When that was done, she set an alarm to rouse her when the oxygen grew low and she needed to switch to an oxygen mask, and put herself into a light meditation trance to slow her metabolism.

And now, here she was, on Dirt, quite possibly for the rest of her life. The pod had an emergency beacon that would transmit its coordinates to any passing ship, but Dirt was not on a Vulcan trade route. Any other race that passed by near enough to hear might not even bother to pass the message on to her people. The Llasgelice had been far away from its planned itinerary when it met its end, and rescue ships searching for the remains of the convoy would almost certainly assume they had been taken by the raiders or destroyed outright. Tavin was dead, and her children and the rest of her family might as well be, for she would probably never see them again.

Procrastination was illogical. She gathered the pack of supplies she had prepared and opened the hatch. The air was thick, but she was pleasantly surprised that it was warm and dry. Records indicated that it was a cool, damp planet, but this was almost pleasant.

Sticking her head outside of the hatch, she found that the pod had impacted in the walls of a broad canyon. Half the pod was embedded within the rock around it, and dust from the collision filled the air. She was near the bottom, but not quite at the canyon floor; the canyon itself stretched for miles with no sign of sentient habitation. There were many small trees and bushes, more than would grow in her homeland without irrigation. T'Lasid had seen greener places on other worlds, but to her it looked lush. However, her scanner indicated that none of it was edible. She would have to make contact with the Humans and hope that some of their food would suit Vulcan physiology. Should she climb up or down? If there was still water in this canyon, it was not within sight, nor could she hear it; perhaps whatever river had carved it now had changed course. If there had been water, she could have followed it along its course until she found a settlement. However, if she went up to the rim of the canyon, she would perhaps be able to spot a sign of civilization.

T'Lasid brushed her hair over her ears, in case there were any Humans about that she had not spotted. Then she began the climb to the canyon rim.

She marveled at how much easier it was than she expected. The gravity was so low, she almost felt like she was floating, and even the mass of the pack added to her own mass probably weighed less in Earth's gravity than she would have weighed by herself on Vulcan. In addition, the canyon walls were sloped and not sheer, and the brush on them gave her secure handholds and footholds. In a relatively short time she was at the top.

The rock her foot was braced on gave way, and T'Lasid flung herself forward as the canyon edge gave way in a landslide. It took a desperate scramble to get to solid ground, and she lay panting with adrenaline as she listened to the crash of rock and dirt and debris hit the canyon floor.

After a few minutes to let things settle, she crawled back to the edge and peeked over. The pod was well and truly buried by the landslide. She was fortunate she had brought the supply pack with her on her first scouting run; it would have been difficult to retrieve. There were items she had intended to bring with her that had not been in the pack, but digging them out would probably not be worth it at this point. She could come back if she needed them.

It was quite convenient that the canyon itself had taken care of hiding the evidence of her arrival. She had not been looking forward to the necessity of finding some way of camouflaging the pod, half-buried in the canyon wall.

T'Lasid backed away from the edge of the canyon and stood up, slowly turning around to take in the whole area. There was no one in the canyon that she could see, and the plateau she stood on was similarly deserted, save for a large herd of four-legged animals. Possibly cattle of some kind? T'Lasid continued her survey, squinting into the distance. Yes, that did appear to be a motor vehicle moving slowly across the plain. Perhaps there was a road there? With the pod inaccessible, she would need to find a Human settlement for food and water sooner rather than later. She took the tablet from her pack and double-checked that the pod's beacon was transmitting its distress call, and that it would alert her to any response, before starting off.

Once she had reached the road, she faced another dilemma: which way to go? North or south? She had seen only the one vehicle; she decided to follow it north. This was a hard-surfaced road of asphalt, stretching out as far as the eye could see in both directions. For many pre-warp worlds, this would be an extravagant expense for an area as sparsely populated as this one was. This planet evidently possessed some industrial might. She settled her pack more squarely on her shoulders and turned north.

She had been walking for 1.7 hours when she heard an engine approaching. She stepped off the road for the vehicle to pass, but it rolled to a stop beside her. It was a cargo vehicle, with a large engine in front and a small cab, with a cargo area behind. By the smell of it, it was an internal combustion engine that burned some form of liquid fossil fuels. A man sat behind primitive controls in the front, wearing a blue shirt with long sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Beside him sat a child in similar clothes, and a woman in a floral print outfit. T'Lasid wondered what they thought of her gray ship's coveralls, stained with grime and smelling slightly of smoke. The cargo area was filled with furniture and boxes, all tightly strapped down. There was a mattress in the middle, with two prepubescent children sitting on it, one with longer hair wearing a dress and one with short hair wearing pants.

The woman stuck her head out the window. "Where are you headed, dear?"

T'Lasid was relieved to find that the universal translator could handle the local language. There hadn't been any reason for a cargo ship to procure one of the top-of-the-line versions found on exploratory ships or diplomatic vessels. "The city," she said, figuring it was a safe enough answer. "I am looking for work." There would surely be a city—however Humans reckoned such things—somewhere. In a city, she would be less noticeable, and surely she could find some form of work.

"Canyon or Amarillo?" the short-haired child in the cargo area said.

The other child punched him in the shoulder. "Silly, John, Canyon isn't a city. It's just a town, and not a very big one at that!"

"Mary Pat!" the woman said, "that wasn't very ladylike. Apologize to your brother."

The girl scowled at her brother but apologized. She had long hair, and her mother had long hair which was pinned up at the nape of her neck. The man, on the other hand, had short hair, as did the boy in back. (The small child in the cab was as yet of indeterminate gender.) Perhaps long hair was a gender signifier?

"Well," said the woman, "We're going to Amarillo, too. Through there, at any rate; once we hit Amarillo, we'll turn west on Route 66 and follow it all the way to California, where we'll be looking for work, too. I'm Patsy Ellen Finklea and this is my husband Enos Finklea. Billy here," she gestured to the toddler snuggled against her side, "is our youngest son, and that's John and Mary Pat in the back."

"I am T'Lasid."

Patsy Ellen Finklea—Finklea was probably a clan affiliation of some sort—frowned. "Tula Sid? Is Sid your family name?"

T'Lasid paused, trying to figure out how to answer the question. The woman seemed to be looking for a clan affiliation, but T'Lasid had no idea what a Human-sounding clan name might be. "Sid is what my younger sister called me as a child," she said at last. Her clan name would be unpronounceable to Humans. "My family name was Llasgelice."

"Llasgelice?" Enos Finklea said with a frown. "That's an unusual name. Don't suppose I've ever heard one like it. Where'd your people come from?"

"Enos, don't be rude," Patsy Ellen Finklea said. "You know perfectly well there's a lot of Americans whose family came from someplace where they have strange names. But we're all Americans now, that's what matters." She turned to T'Lasid. "Don't fret, honey, he don't like strangers much but he's got a good heart. He's just never been off the farm, before. Now, me, I grew up in Chicago. And let me tell you, I know people with a lot odder names than yours! If you'll hop up into the back with John and Mary Pat, we can take you to Amarillo with us."

"Thank you," T'Lasid said. Enos Finklea frowned but did not contradict his wife, so T'Lasid walked around the vehicle until she found a good spot to climb in and over the furniture. There were no safety restraints of any kind, she noted.

There was another window in the back of the cab, and from this vantage point she could see that the woman was also wearing a dress. Five people of varying age was a very small data sample, but pants and short hair seemed to be a masculine trait, with robes and long hair being feminine. Yet she was in pants and short hair, and it had not yet raised a mention. She settled in a comfortable position on the mattress and the vehicle started off.

"Where are you from?" Mary Pat asked.

"I have lived in many places and travelled a great deal," T'Lasid said. Until she could figure out what would the inconspicuous answers would be, sticking as close to the truth was probably best.

"Are you married? Where's your husband?" John asked.

"I was," T'Lasid said, a lump forming in her throat. She looked away. It was shameful to show her emotions this way, but she had not had time to meditate and settle them. It would take months, probably, to work through her feelings; for now, they drove her, instead of being accepted and put into their proper place.

"What happened to him?" John persisted.

"John Finklea, you be polite!" his mother called.

"He was killed in a fire," T'Lasid said, and the memory of his agony washed over her. Tears prickled her eyes, and she covered her face. "I heard him …" she whispered.

"Oh, honey," Patsey Ellen Finklea said, "you poor thing. And you so young, too—you can't be more than eighteen. Poor, poor dear."

T'Lasid looked up, and saw the other woman turned around in her seat, looking at her with tears in her own eyes. In fact, T'Lasid was approximately forty-three years old in Human years (she did not know the planet's orbit well enough to calculate more accurately). Did she truly look so young to Human eyes?

"You smell like smoke," John said, "did it just happen?" He looked at her curiously.

"John David Finklea, I'm ashamed of you! Stop pestering the poor woman, can't you see she's in tears?"

"Thank you," T'Lasid said. She bit her lip. How much to tell? Better to test things, now, where grief gave her an excuse for any slips. "Yes, it was … recent. I couldn't … there wasn't much left, and I couldn't stay. I took what I could salvage, and left."

"With not much more than the clothes on your back, and them not in good shape," Enos Finklea said. "Well, we don't have much ourselves, but when we get to Amarillo we'll see about finding a church with a charity box, see if we can get you a few things."

"You're welcome to come with us out to California, if you like," Patsey Ellen Finklea said. Her husband shot her a look.

"You're pretty enough to be in a magazine," Mary Pat said. "I bet you could be a model, or maybe even a movie star! I want to be a movie star when I grow up."

T'Lasid hesitated. It was a tempting offer, to find a place to belong, however temporarily. But it would be better to stay anonymous at least at first, as she learned about Human culture. Once she knew enough to reliably pass herself off as a native, then would be the time to establish a permanent identity. "Thank you for the offer," she said at last, "but for now I would prefer to stay closer to home."

"Jobs are scarce out here," Enos Finklea said, gruffly. "I hear things are better in California."

"Then perhaps I shall choose to go later," T'Lasid said. The first people she had met had offered her a ride; hospitality seemed to be a virtue here, which she approved of.

Conversation died out for a while, as they passed through the small town of Canyon and then on to Amarillo. The Finkleas stopped at a church outside of town and asked a few questions; in short order they had been directed to a Baptist church that, they were told, ran a food and clothing charity. Obviously, T'Lasid would need to learn about Human religious organizations. At the Baptist church the food and clothing charity was not open on that day, but the women of the congregation had gathered to sew and have a religious study session, and once Patsey Ellen Finklea had told them what she knew of T'Lasid, they were more than happy to open the doors for her. At that, Enos Finklea insisted that his family head off to find Route 66, and they said farewell.

"I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Laskell," said Mrs. White, the leader of the Baptist women. (The name T'Lasid had given the Finkleas had been further garbled in transmission; T'Lasid had not corrected them, as whatever they came up with would probably sound less alien.) "We don't have any black dresses right now; and with your husband so recently dead, I'm sure wearing mourning would be a comfort to you."

T'Lasid filed away the association of black with mourning. On Vulcan, the color of mourning was yellow or, in some areas, brown. "I will be grateful for anything you can give me," she said. "I would like to get out of these clothes and into something more proper." Hopefully, they would tell her what proper was. She kept her breath shallow, so that their smell would be as inoffensive as possible.

"We also don't have anything pretty enough to do you justice, Mrs. Laskell," said Mrs. Buchanan, who was rather younger than Mrs. White. 'Mrs.' seemed to be a title for women—though not all women. A few of the Baptist women, two elderly and five younger, had been introduced as Miss. It couldn't be age, but they hadn't needed to ask T'Lasid which, so it must be obvious.

Mrs. White glared at Mrs. Buchanan. "I doubt a recent widow will be considering such things as fashion, Mrs. Buchanan."

"I would prefer to look as inconspicuous as possible," T'Lasid said.

"Of course, dear," said Mrs. Griffin, smiling at her. All the visible emotion was … unsettling, and making her own control difficult. "A new widow, all alone, and so young—you'll be wanting to grieve without men pestering you."

"Yes," T'Lasid said, swallowing. Would men pester her? From the admittedly small sample she had seen, Humans were as likely to be married as Vulcans. She had assumed that unless she went to a matchmaker she would be assumed to be uninterested.

Within a very short time T'Lasid had been equipped with two dresses, a pair of shoes, and a hat that came down low over her ears. A few phone calls had found her a place to stay in a 'boarding house' sharing a bedroom with another woman and a few jobs cleaning homes that would pay her room and board. She would have preferred a room to herself, that she might have a few hours a day when she could stop pretending to be Human, but could not afford it. So, with no further ado, she began to settle in to life as a Human.

She hated it. Humans were very intrusive people. They did "pester" her, men and women both. Some men seemed to think they had a right to her time and her attention, and took her avoidance as an insult. As for the rest of the Humans, men and women alike, they seemed to feel they had a right to her emotions, which was even more disturbing. T'Lasid was a Vulcan; her manner of grieving was to meditate on her experiences and the emotions they caused and work through them privately. Showing them in public was counterproductive to her mental stability. And she could hardly cry on cue.

On Vulcan, her family and close friends would have grieved with her and given her the support she required, but they would not have pried as these Humans seemed to take for granted.

Attempting to maintain her privacy was difficult; doing so offended her roommate and several of the women—"ladies," they called themselves, though there did not seem to be any formal aristocracy—who had helped her.

T'Lasid spent every free moment she had in the public library. It had been a boon to find it; there was so much information about Human society and culture there (starting with basics like the English alphabet and how to read it), and people inside were not supposed to talk. It was almost Vulcan. If she ignored the silence in her mind.

Three months later, she packed her few possessions and got on a bus without telling anyone she was leaving. She bought the ticket in the name of Mrs. Harris, and got off in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was a larger city than Amarillo, and T'Lasid hoped to be anonymous, there.

The attention she had paid to womens' magazines and gossip allowed her to style her hair and use makeup to appear older and more worn, and therefore less noticeable. She got a job as a waitress in a diner across town from Route 66. When people asked, she said Mr. Harris had been dead for several years.

She still spent most of her free time in the library, and she still needed a roommate to afford her rent. But she made a little extra money and could eat whatever food from the diner she found edible (mostly soups, which were often vegetarian), which reduced her expenses. She was able to build up some small savings. It would not take her months to scrape together a bus ticket again.

There was a movie theater not far from her boarding house, and T'Lasid would go, occasionally. She did not enjoy the movies, very much, but they were an excellent window into the way Humans thought and the patterns they expected life to fall into. Also, if anyone bothered her about what she did for fun, she could tell them about the latest movie she'd seen. She could hardly speak of meditating on the loss of Tavin and her people, the loss of the children back home on Vulcan that she might never see again.

The musicals were her favorite.

The plots were no more comprehensible or enjoyable than any other movies: formulaic, by turns maudlin and elated. And the music was jarring. T'Lasid did not understand the Human fascination with brass instruments. But the dancing was enjoyable. Dancing was a hobby of T'Lasid's. As a child, her proficiency with the traditional dances was above average, though not so great as to warrant advanced training, and when the Llasgelice had space in the cargo bays, dancing was her preferred form of exercise. On the many worlds Llasgelice travelled to, T'Lasid always found some dance performance to watch. While the actors were dancing, she could almost convince herself that she was simply waiting for their next cargo to be ready.

Almost.

T'Lasid spent five months in Albuquerque before she moved on, this time settling in Gallup, New Mexico. She had started to think long-term: it would be years, if ever, before she was found and rescued; she would have to establish a long-term identity eventually. Surely it would be logical to try out a variety of personas and careers before settling on one for permanent use?

In Gallup, she got a job in a laundry, cleaning other peoples' clothes and linens, and doing housework on the side. There were many miners in the area who came from elsewhere; given Human gender prejudices, the majority were men, many of them single, who were willing to pay someone else to do the "women's work" even when they could scarcely afford it.

There was no point resenting Human gender prejudices, even though she now found herself on the wrong side of them. The jobs open to women were very limited, but anger would not change her options. T'Lasid could try for a more intellectually stimulating job, but in a university or business setting her gender would draw attention, which was the last thing she wanted. In any event, T'Lasid's specialty was starship navigation. There were no jobs on Earth that were even remotely like it; to get a job navigating an ocean-going freighter, she would need to learn how to navigate afresh. Sailing under the stars required different skills than sailing through them.

She could become a secretary, but although she no longer required her universal translator to speak English, her facility with the language was still developing. In fact, her decision to turn off her translator and speak English was the reason she could not get a higher-paying job as a waitress: her accent convinced people she was an Indian or a Mexican (or perhaps some sort of half-breed, given the American name she was using), and that limited her options even more than being a woman did. Still, she would take the opportunity to practice here before moving on and re-establishing herself as a "White" woman in another city.

At any rate, a proficiency in English would be required for a secretary, and then she would have to take a course to learn shorthand and typing. Shorthand she might learn from the library, but typing at speed required practice. That might be a long-term goal.

It was almost laughable to consider what she might choose to do given the opportunity; there was nowhere on Earth she wanted to be and nothing on Earth she wanted to do. She enjoyed dancing, and there were professional dancers on Earth; given her superior Vulcan strength and discipline, learning to dance well enough to make a living at it would not be difficult. But Human dances required touching, and T'Lasid was none too fond of touching hands with Humans and hearing their thoughts by accident.

On the other hand, she thought as she batted a man's hand away from her buttocks as she handed him his clean laundry, at least as a dancer on stage she'd be in control over who was touching her and when. Most Human men were no more likely to grab a woman without her permission than a Vulcan man would, but there were unfortunate exceptions. And apparently, being thought an Indian or a Mexican only emboldened such men; she would have to make sure she passed for "White" in her next identity.

It took her almost a year to master a passable American accent, and when she could "pass" as White, she moved on to Flagstaff, Arizona, and another job in a diner, under another name. This time, she had a room to herself, though it was barely more than a closet, and the house was a "boarding house" which meant that her meals were included in her rent. The mistress of the house had never heard of vegetarianism and thought it odd, but was quite happy to accommodate it—vegetables were, after all, cheaper than meat, and this close to California even fruit was not terribly expensive.

In Flagstaff, she concentrated on learning secretarial skills, so that eventually she might have options other than working as a waitress or cleaning lady. The library was again very helpful, and her landlady had a typewriter T'Lasid could practice on so long as she supplied the ribbon and paper. Once she was proficient, she would find a job and settle down, preferably in a decently-sized city where she might continue to live without attracting much notice. Somewhere far away from Amarillo, the one town where she had not managed to stay unobtrusive and forgotten.

As it happened, her plans changed in Flagstaff.

Across the street from the diner where she worked, there was a dance studio for children. It had large windows facing the diner, and so T'Lasid could stand behind the counter and watch the lessons when she had no customers to serve. Given her Vulcan hearing, she could also hear the music accompanying it, though she doubted a Human could have.

Some of the lessons were for the same types of dance she saw in the movies. But they also offered "ballet," which was more graceful, set to the tune of less jarring music, and involved touch only rarely. That she could do with satisfaction. She began practicing the exercises she saw them do, using her dresser as a barre.

The instructors sometimes ate at the diner, and it only took a little prompting to get them to talk about their work and what opportunities there were available for dancing.

"What, are you kidding?" said call-me-Joe Briscoe, the owner of the school. "There's so few jobs for ballerinas—every little girl wants to be one. Bet you were one of them, eh?"

"How did you guess?" T'Lasid said as she continued getting things out for the coming dinner rush. She gave him a slight smile to encourage him—Humans responded very well to smiles in general, though even long hours of practicing in front of a mirror had not made her smile look natural.

"Thought so—there's a look, I can always spot it. Ever take lessons as a kid?"

T'Lasid shook her head.

"Shame. It's great exercise, really helps you develop stamina and strength and flexibility." He smirked at her, looking her up and down. "Every woman needs stamina and … flexibility."

She had come to recognize at least the most obvious attempts to seduce her, and usually she shut them down quickly. But he had information she wanted, and so she must play his game.

"I think I do pretty good already," she said. "Though, of course, I'd love to learn more. Don't suppose you have any classes?" She widened her eyes. Humans liked large eyes.

"Maybe … special classes," Joe said. "One on one lessons, maybe." He patted her hand, and she had to stop herself from shaking him off. "We only offer regular classes for children, and besides, for ballet if you don't start building up young, you'll never be a true ballerina. But I'll bet you could come pretty close, with those legs of yours. I'd have to see them better to know for sure, of course." He winked at her.

"I don't know about that," T'Lasid said, unsure how much was innuendo. "I couldn't afford private lessons."

"Maybe we could work something out," Joe said. "We could meet over drinks tonight to discuss it. What time do you get off?"

"Nine," T'Lasid said.

"Perfect!" Joe said, smiling. "I'll meet you at 9:30 at the Night Deposit. You know where that is?"

"I do," T'Lasid said. It was a bar just a few blocks from the diner, in the opposite direction from her boarding house.

"I look forward to it," Joe said.

After he left, Max, the cook stared at her through the window to the kitchen. "All the guys I've seen you shut down and brush off, and that's the one you're going out for drinks with?"

"Yes," T'Lasid said shortly.

He shook his head, whistling softly. "I will never understand dames."

The entrance of a customer—the beginning of the dinner rush—saved her the necessity of answering.

The Night Deposit was smelly, dark, and loud—hardly a place T'Lasid would spend much time voluntarily. But a night here would be worth it to learn what she needed to know in order to become a ballerina, if such a thing might be possible.

It took only a very short time to ascertain that Joe was not interested in giving her any such information, and any "private lessons" would be only a cover for sex. If she were a Human woman, she might have become frustrated.

As a Vulcan, she had options. They were, after all, at a table in the back, where no one was watching and even a dedicated observer could would be hard-pressed to see what they were doing. "Joe," she murmured in his ear after he'd had a few drinks and was well on his way to becoming inebriated, "I'm a telepath. I can read thoughts."

"Whazzat? Some kind of psychic?"

"Yes," T'Lasid said. "May I read yours?" She placed her fingers delicately on the meld points of his face.

"Sure, baby," Joe said, "you can read anything you want!"

It was not informed consent, but it was as close as she could get to it. She dove into his mind, ignoring all the personal things (he was probably a "creep", in Human terms, she decided, when she saw what his hopes for the evening were). But he did know a lot about dance. It wasn't a lack of skill that brought him here, to Flagstaff and this small dance studio, but rather a difficult economy. She took everything he knew of ballet, examined it, and memorized it. When she was done, she blurred his memories of the night, aiding the alcohol in its work. He would not remember her as anything other than a waitress in a diner. When she was done, she slipped out the back and went back to the boarding house. She knew better how to practice, now, and how to evaluate her progress.

She only stayed in Flagstaff a few months after that. Contrary to Joe's belief, it was not impossible for an adult to learn ballet well enough to try for a professional spot; it was merely impossible for a Human adult to do so. T'Lasid's muscles had evolved on a much higher-gravity world, and were therefore stronger than a Human's were; building up enough musculature in her legs and ankles and feet to hold herself en pointe in Earth's light gravity was hardly difficult. And while she had never been a professional dancer, she was an avid amateur; the moves were different, but her body was accustomed to disciplined gracefulness. And she would rather spend her time off practicing than anything else available to her on Earth. Consequently, her skill improved rapidly.

San Bernardino, California was the largest city she had been in so far on Earth. Again, she found work in a diner, although this time her strategy was different. Humans expected aspiring ballerinas to be young; therefore, instead of aging herself to avoid notice, she styled and dressed herself as young as she could. It was much easier than the reverse; her skin was firm and did not yet bear any signs of age. She wore her hair in two braids instead of pinned up, although she was still careful to keep her ears covered. And her job in the diner was washing dishes and bussing tables instead of serving. It seemed to work; her claim to be fourteen raised no eyebrows, or at least none for long.

San Bernardino was only a temporary stop, however. While there, she began a correspondence with various ballet schools in Los Angeles, posing as the parent of a daughter with an aptitude for ballet. When two great ballet artists came to Los Angeles, T'Lasid was ready.

"I'm here to dance for Madame Nijinska," T'Lasid said to the man guarding the entrance to the studio.

"Dancer for an audition?" The man looked at the sheet on his clipboard. "Oh, yeah, they're getting ready to do A Midsummer Night's Dream, and there's a ballet sequence in it. This is the wrong entrance for the auditions, though." He gave her directions to the right building. The Warner Bros. lot was large and busy, but T'Lasid had made it in good time. She changed into a leotard and tights and pointe shoes, and joined the assembled women and girls in warming up. The warm-ups were led by a short woman with brown hair piled on top of her head and a thick accent. Three men watched from the sides, studying the dancers.

T'Lasid hoped that the bandages she had used to strap her breasts down didn't show through the leotard. She needed to appear as young as possible. Her face had no lines, but her figure was very well developed for the girl she was pretending to be.

At a break she approached the three men. "Is one of you Mister Nico Charisse?" she asked.

"I am," said the youngest one, who was lounging against the wall. He was dark-haired and fair-skinned, and he looked her up and down with an appraising look. "You're quite good, though you could use some polish. Who have you studied with?"

"No one, really," T'Lasid said. "Just ordinary dance schools back home. My mother's written you—my name is Tula Finklea. My family calls me Sid."

"No," Charisse said, straightening up. "I know she said you looked old for your age, but I would have said fifteen, not thirteen."

T'Lasid looked down. "I'm almost fourteen!" She copied the indignance of a child as best she could. "I know I look older than I am."

"Then there's no point in auditioning," said the short, balding man. "Even if you do look old enough, child actors are required to go to school. That would interfere with your dancing, and we don’t have time for that in the chorus. You might as well pack up and go home."

"Why did you come here?" Nico said. "And where's your mother?"

"She had to go back home to Texas," T'Lasid said. "My father's business isn't doing well; we can't afford to pay for me to live here and take lessons, like we thought. I wanted you to see me dance—you said there might be scholarships, if I'm good enough." She could work full time to earn her living, or she could dance full time. She could not do both.

"Your age, and dancing like that?" Nico said. "I'll see if something can be arranged. Why don't you continue to dance for the audition, just to show us what you can do, and I'll talk with Madame Nijinska." He cocked his head. "Determined little thing, aren't you. Well, not little at all. She'll like that." He shook his head, a grin on his face. "You better hope you've stopped growing," he said. "You're on the tall side as it is."

"My mother reached her full height pretty young," T'Lasid said.

"Right," Nico said, and went off to the woman who had been running the warm-ups. As they spoke, the woman—Madame Nijinska—eyed T'Lasid. With a nod, Nijinska called the women back to work, and began running them through their paces once more. Throughout the day, their numbers were pared down, but T'Lasid remained. Finally, it was over, and the name she had given was not called as one of those chosen for the movie.

After she had changed back into street clothes, she found Madame Nijinska and Nico Charisse waiting for her.

"You have great power for one your age," Nijinska said. "Great strength. But your precision is lacking."

"I can learn precision," T'Lasid said, "if I have the right teacher."

"Perhaps," Nijinska said. "I have trouble believing you are really as young as you say."

"I'm not lying!" T'Lasid said. "I can ask my parents to send you my birth certificate." T'Lasid had reached the end of what she could teach herself off of Joe's memories—now she needed a real instructor if her skills were to progress. And the older they believed her to be, the less impressive her skills were and the less likely they were to take her on.

"Do so," Nijinska said, "and we shall see. You should have training to develop your potential."

It took a week for T'Lasid to procure a forged birth certificate. During that week she lived in San Bernardino and several times phoned Madame Nijinska and Nico Charisse. It was fortunate that she had a tablet computer and a few other pieces of equipment; she had been able to tap into the phone lines and convince the operator that she was calling from Amarillo, Texas; she was also able to write a program to disguise her voice, so that they could not recognize her.

Birth certificate in hand, she travelled back to Los Angeles and danced for Madame Nijinska again. This time another man was with her, named Adolph Bolm.

It didn't take long for things to be settled. She would live with Nijinska and go to school part-time, dancing the rest of it. Nijinska, Bolm, and Charisse between them would tutor her, both in private lessons and group classes. If at any time they felt she was not measuring up, they would put her on a bus for Amarillo. If she progressed adequately, they would help her find work as a dancer as soon as possible—probably with one of the companies formed by former members of the Ballets Russe, which both Nijinska and Bolm had danced with before becoming choreographers.

"Thank you," T'Lasid said.

The next two years were better than T'Lasid could have imagined spending on Earth. She enjoyed learning, and she enjoyed dancing. It was not home, but in the studio her solemnity and focus were considered admirable instead of strange, and she was allowed her solitude. She showed her gratitude by performing any chores she could, so that Madame Nijinska might concentrate on her work. Before long, she was assisting with teaching the youngest pupils in Nico Charisse’s studio.

If the opportunity to return home to Vulcan had presented itself, she would have taken it in a heartbeat. Every night, she checked that the pod's beacon was still active and communications relayed to her tablet. But there was never a message waiting for her.

"There is a new company forming," Madame Nijinska said one day, as T'Lasid stretched after her lesson. "Massine and Blum have fallen out with de Basil, and they are forming a new Ballets Russe company, the Ballets Russe de Monte Carlo. They will need new dancers—it is the perfect time for you to audition. You shall need a stage name, to join the Ballet Russe,” she continued. “Some of its fame is due to the romance of its history. You have been trained in the Russian system, but the audience must think you are Russian.”

“Of course. It will not be a problem.” T'Lasid did not, after all, use her real name to begin with; what was another? This was the first indication that the time for her debut as a professional dancer was near, but she had been anticipating it for some time. “What do you suggest?”

“Felia,” Madame Nijinska said, tilting her head. “Felia Siderova.”

“What does it mean?”

“Felia? I don’t know. It’s not a Russian name.” Nijinska shrugged. “The important thing is that it sounds Russian, enough to fool the audiences who will see it, and yet they will be able to pronounce it easily. Siderova is Russian, but again, it is easy to pronounce.”

“What do you think my chances are of getting in to the company?” T'Lasid asked.

“You will get in, do not worry,” Nijinska said. “Your dancing is precise and your technique is perfect. You do not have the brilliance to be a prima ballerina, and probably never will, but you will fill out the corps de ballet admirably. Your ears are a problem, but costuming and hairstyles will fix that. And you do not have the temperament that many dancers have; you are easy to work with. And last but not least, you have been trained by me, and I was one of the greatest dancers and choreographers of the original Ballets Russe, back when Diaghilev was still alive.”

And so it was. Nijinska’s name opened the door, and T'Lasid’s dancing secured her place. Quite soon she was touring Europe with the Ballets Russe de Monte Carlo.

“Don’t you want to go out with us?” Katerina, a fellow dancer, asked one night, as they removed their makeup and costumes after the show and soothed aching feet. “We don’t have call tomorrow until eleven—and several of the company’s backers will be at the party. It is good for them to have pretty ballerinas smile at them.”

“And good for us, too, if they smile back,” put in Natalia, who had several very nice pieces of jewelry from patrons who had smiled back at her. Some of the near-by girls laughed.

“You’re still just a girl, but you don’t look it, and there’s no harm in flirting and wearing a pretty dress,” Katerina continued. “You can borrow one of mine. And it won’t be only old rich men there; there will be some young ones, too.”

“Thank you, but I am tired,” T'Lasid said, checking over her shoes for wear. “And I am looking forward to having some privacy for a change.”

“You are a strange one,” Natalia said. “You never want to do anything fun on the rare occasion that we have the opportunity. But no matter. More for me!” More laughter.

T'Lasid had learned to counterfeit a smile, though only a very small one; she had been told that anything bigger looked fake.

“Well, you’ll soon change your mind about which is more important, privacy or men,” Katerina said.

T'Lasid returned to the hotel with the few other girls not going to the party, and sighed with relief when she closed the door to her room behind her. Her roommates would not be back for hours; she had time to meditate in solitude for the first time in many months.

As she began to focus her mind, though, Katerina’s words came back to her. The other woman was right, though not in the way she thought. T'Lasid’s last pon farr had been one year before the crash. Her next was due within the next two years, although trauma and the strange environment that was Earth might postpone it for a little while. How would she handle pon farr on this alien world, with her husband dead and no matriarch to make other arrangements for her?

T'Lasid was more content than she had been since she was marooned on Earth; there must be some way to handle the matter. If she were a man, it would be easy. She could take a vacation for a few weeks, rent an apartment in a city, and hire a prostitute. But if there were male prostitutes—at least, ones who catered to women—T'Lasid had yet to meet one. With the way Human men looked at her, surely she could find one who would want to bed her for a while? Natalia could probably teach her how to tell. But it would mean giving up her few solitary evenings, and she could not bear to do that.

Monsieur Massine clapped his hands as the music stopped. T'Lasid was disappointed; she was not weary, and the music by Rimsky-Korsakov was some of her favorite to dance to. "Yes, yes, very well done," Massine said. "If you all perform like that tonight, we shall have another success. Go home and rest, all of you—I want you in top shape tonight. And remember that there is a party afterwards, and you will all be there, and you will all make yourselves pleasant to our backers—who, if I may remind you, put up the money for this performance that has paid for your salaries and costumes and shoes and the orchestra and this hall, not to mention my choreography." He stared at T'Lasid. "And you will not slip away early."

"Do not worry, Monsieur Massine," Natalia said. "We have been educating our dear Sid in the right way to talk to men—and we will see to it that she does not smile and scare them off!"

A round of snickers went around the stage. T'Lasid could manage a fairly decent facsimile of most Human facial expressions, but her smile was notoriously fake-looking.

"And we'll stay by her to make sure she doesn't wander off," Katerina said, to the chorus of more laughter.

"I wouldn't," T'Lasid said. "I know how important this is." It was by far her least-favorite thing about being a ballerina, and she had serious disagreements with the way Humans funded their artistic endeavors, but she was quite well aware of the importance of making sure that those who did provide the money remained happy—and female attention, on this backward world, was a commodity for that purpose. If she wished to keep dancing, she must trade attention for money to run the company. No matter how irritating that attention would be.

In the past year, Katerina had dragged her to one movie after another. All of them featuring sultry film stars who tantalized and teased men while holding them at arm's length. "Men see what they want to see," she said. "You have assets; let's use them. If you can fit into a type, they'll project their own fantasies on you, and you can just stand back and let them do it."

"Since I don't actually want to entice them, it seems to be the best way of handling those parties I can't get out of," T'Lasid agreed.

"You'll never be the bubbly, vivacious type," Katerina said. "You'll have to be the femme fatale. It's perfect for keeping men at bay. And for that, you have to know what men expect."

"And the movies will teach me that?"

Katerina nodded. "Yup. Memorize some good lines, look mysterious and serious, that's all you'll need."

With Katerina's help, T'Lasid had indeed memorized appropriate lines, and learned how to turn her normal blank mien into the mask of the dangerous female.

Alas, now she had even more trouble keeping Human men from grabbing at her.

During a brief break from "entertaining" their backers, T'Lasid sipped at her champagne and repeated various warp-speed calculations—she must do something to keep her boredom from appearing on her face, after all.

The smell of an approaching Human male broke her reverie. "You've grown up quite well, Sid," Nico Charisse said as she turned to face him. He looked her up and down. As Human males went, he was inoffensive about his attentions.

"Thank you," T'Lasid said. Charisse was now a colleague, not a backer; she did not need to 'shmooze' with him. Ordinary politeness would do.

"I was surprised to see you on stage tonight," Nico said. "I didn't see 'Felia Siderova' in the program."

"My stage name has been changed," T'Lasid said. "I am now billed as Maria Istomina."

"Well, whoever you're billed as, your dancing is excellent," Charisse said. "That's quite a piece you guys premiered tonight—you're so fortunate to be working with Massine. What he's doing for the art …" His voice was wistful. Charisse was an excellent dancer, but there were even fewer spots available for male ballerinas than female ones.

"It is an honor to work with him," T'Lasid said with a nod. "I know our work will be long remembered." She took another sip of her champagne, but Charisse said nothing more of the performance, watching the crowd with her. "What brings you to France, Mister Charisse?" That was another thing Katerina had taught her. Ask questions about them and pay attention, and Human men will be flattered.

He shrugged. "I sold the school, wanted to see how things were here in Europe. If things keep heating up the way they are, who knows when I'll be able to come back? If things stay calm, I can work here. If not, I can go back to Hollywood. There's always work for a good teacher there."

"Any particular job you have in mind, Mister Charisse?"

He smiled. "Call me Nick," he said. She could smell his interest in her. It did not make him in any way different from the majority of the men present. But she found herself looking his body up and down with genuine interest, rather than feigned sultriness. It was another sign that her body was preparing itself for her next cycle. She needed to make plans. Soon.

Nick chatted away about his plans, and the European political situation, and the latest developments in the dance world. T'Lasid was required to make very little contribution to the conversation, but that was nothing unusual; Human men did not listen to women. It made dealing with them far easier than dealing with Human women, who paid better attention to her (and not just her body). A few interjections here and there on her part were quite enough to keep the conversation going.

She missed Tavin, suddenly, deeply, with a pang that almost brought genuine emotion to her face. (It was her approaching Time that made her vulnerable. And the lack of privacy for meditation.) They had been bonded at age seven, and had shared thoughts until the day he died. With him she could have talked, sharing all the things that Nick—and all the rest—would either dismiss or find strange.

He was dead. And she would never see Vulcan again, never feel the touch of another's mind, never see her children or her parents or friends, never be able to reveal her true self.

And her pon farr was coming. And she must either die or mate. And she did not like these Human men, however convenient they were, but she did not want to die.

Only fifty years of discipline kept her from being overcome. (Perhaps she had less time than she thought.)

Nick noticed nothing, as he continued to talk.

Eventually, one of the managers caught her eye and frowned—she was supposed to be chatting up potential backers. She excused herself from Nick, and began to do just that.

"Hey, you okay?" Natalia murmured in her ear as they browsed the buffet.

"Yes," T'Lasid said. "Why?"

"I dunno, you just looked … strange, there for a sudden, when you were talking with Nicky."

"I am fine."

"Bet you'd rather still be talking with him, huh? So would I. He doesn't pinch a girl's bottom unless she's flirting with him. And at least he knows what he's talking about with dance."

"Indeed."

T'Lasid turned to see a man in an expensive suit giving her an appraising look. She arched an eyebrow and gave him a cool glance as her fellow dancers had taught her. His respiration quickened. She steeled herself and walked over to him.

That night, after the others were asleep, she slipped into the light meditative trance that was all she could manage lying down. (Some of the women slept lightly, and woke during the night—she had been disturbed before.)

She took inventory of her body, her volatility, her greater-than-normal reaction to male physique, her emotionalism. If she was not to run visibly mad, she needed to take precautions, sooner rather than later. She had been doing research on what her options were in Human society. A woman who took a lover would be shamed; but dancers were held to looser standards. She would not be fired for it … unless her Time came during the season (as it was likely to do) and she had to miss too many days of dancing. She could claim illness, but her fellow dancers would know that she was not staying in bed in their rooms. However, if she were to marry—and time the ceremony to the beginning of her Time—she would be given at least a few days for a honeymoon, and that should be sufficient.

She loathed the idea of marrying a Human. Not one of them could match her Tavin, not in the ways that really mattered.

But she wanted to live, and Tavin would have understood.

There was no possibility of finding a Human to whom she could reveal herself and form a proper bond. They were too provincial, too closed-minded, too emotional.

Which left what? A marriage on Human terms, her masquerade intact. If it didn't work, there was always divorce, which Humans were stunningly casual about. (Though perhaps that was an artifact of the marriage being a legal bond, not a telepathic one. Divorce for a Human did not require tearing one's mind apart and remaking it.)

What characteristics did she require in such a mockery of a marriage? Without the bond to focus her interest, a partner must be physically attractive enough to catch her attention. For any kind of long-term relationship, a certain degree of obliviousness was beneficial; but this was a common enough trait among Human men, at least where women were concerned. Those were the two most important factors. If she had a choice, she would prefer a man who was at least relatively honorable and good. Not 'sleazy,' as her fellow dancers would describe it.

She considered the men of her acquaintance, and ranked them.

Nico Charisse came out at the top of the list for attractiveness. There were others more oblivious, but he was sufficiently disinterested in women's minds to stay a candidate. And his personal character …

Unlike many of the men she had encountered in her time in Los Angeles, he had never appeared to notice her sexually once he had been convinced she was an adolescent. (His pheromones had revealed his attraction, but he had never once acted on it.) He took no pleasure in pain, nor did he cause much trouble for others. His temper was not unreasonable, for a Human.

He was probably the best candidate.

She checked the tablet for the status of the escape pod's beacon. It was still functional, and still had received no reply.

As anticipated, it took very little work on her part to attract Nick's attention, and keep it. Timing the relationship to her approaching pon farr was marginally more difficult, but she was quite familiar with the biology of it both in the abstract and as she, personally was affected. And, although true candor was impossible, she did warn him as much as she could about what their relationship would be like.

"So what you're saying, is that you're likely to blow hot and cold?" Nick said, after she'd explained what little she could about pon farr. "Doll, that is not news to anyone who knows you. I think I can get your motor running." He gave her a salacious wink.

"I highly doubt it," T'Lasid said as neutrally as she could. Although it was not her intent, she believed from his smirk that he took it as a challenge. "My normal personality is quite … frigid." At least by Human standards. It had been thrown at her more than once as an insult, one that revealed much about Human gender double-standards. "In any case, I am not territorial, and if our marital relations were unsatisfying for you, I would have no problem with your taking a mistress, as long as you were discreet and disease-free."

Nick laughed. "Do you have any idea how many men would give their right arms for a woman like you? If you're trying to scare me off, that's an incentive."

"Good," she said. "I am not trying to scare you off. But I believe that marriage is far preferable when both parties come to it with open eyes and realistic expectations."

"Lady, your expectations are ones I can really get behind," Nick said.

"There is one last thing," T'Lasid said. "I was a sickly child, and contracted several severe illnesses. The doctor said it was quite likely that I would not be able to bear children." This was not true, of course, but given the widely different biochemistries of the two species it was highly unlikely they were interfertile. T'Lasid was not a xenobiologist, nor a geneticist, but given that their blood was not even based on the same element, crossbreeding in the wild should be effectively impossible.

"I couldn't care less about kids one way or the other," Nick said. "And it's better for your career if you don't have a child. So, no problems there. Anything else? Me, all I've got in the way of warnings is that my mother will be upset you're not French, and she'll be devastated if we never have kids, but as I haven't seen her in person in five years and she can get grandchildren out of my sisters, I don't see a problem."

"Fair enough," T'Lasid said. And it was done.

The pon farr was as she expected: the single most alienating thing she had experienced on this planet. Nick would have noticed anything more than the lightest telepathic touch, and it wasn't as if she particularly wanted to know his mind any deeper than she already did. It was nothing like the deeply meaningful congress of body and mind she had shared with Tavin. For the first time, she understood how Humans could consider sex "cheap" and "tawdry."

After the honeymoon, she was back to dancing and Nick was back to his work. They didn't spend much time together, which neither of them minded. Nick got the sex he wanted, T'Lasid got time alone in their room to meditate daily, and being married was a perfect excuse for T'Lasid to avoid other men.

This lasted until the day T'Lasid showed up for morning class to find her fellow dancers milling around, not even in their leotards yet. "What's wrong?" she asked Katerina.

Katerina's eyes were wide. "Germany and the Soviets have both invaded Poland," she said.

"Have you heard from your family?" T'Lasid asked. Katerina was from Poland, though like T'Lasid she was billed as a Russian.

Katerina shook her head. "No. But it won't stop there, you understand—there will be a larger war, sooner or later. Britain and France against Germany, just like the last time. They're not sure—René wants us to stay here, he thinks we'll be safe in France. After all, Paris was safe in the last war. But Léonide wants us as far away as possible, he wants us in America."

"We're already booked for a long stay in New York this winter," T'Lasid pointed out.

"Yes," Katerina said. "But the question is, what happens after that? Would those who want to come back to Europe to be with their families be able to do so, if the war spreads? And the Original Ballet Russe is going to share our spotlight in New York—Colonel de Basil wants out of the hot seat, too. They just announced it, I don't know how long they've been working on it."

T'Lasid stared at her. "It was hard enough when we were fighting for the same audience in London," she said. "New York isn't a ballet city—there's so little interest in ballet in the States. How will they manage it?"

Katerina shrugged. "Probably by cutting back on dancers and sharing us," she said.

"It would have been better if de Basil had picked another city," T'Lasid said. "Chicago, maybe."

"I know," Katerina said. "They're already asking if anybody wants to stay in Europe when the company goes. Will you and Nick, do you think? He's French, isn't he?"

T'Lasid shook her head. "He hasn't spoken with his family in years," she said. "And I'll be staying with the company if at all possible. You?"

Katerina sighed. "I'm certainly not going in to a war zone to see if I can find my family. They would want me to stay safe. When things settle out—however they settle out—then perhaps. Meanwhile, I'll stay with the company, too."

They did, eventually, have class that day, and then rehearsal, and then performance. But while they danced, Nick was in the office making decisions without her.

"No," T'Lasid said.

"Honey, it's Hollywood!" Nick said. "I've got contacts, I can get you dancing in the movies, easily."

"I don't want to dance in the movies, I want to dance in the company," T'Lasid said. Hollywood dancing was partner dancing, which meant having to touch Humans, which meant hearing their thoughts whether she wanted to or not. The corps-de-ballet, where she danced as part of a company and rarely touched anyone, was perfect.

"Well, there's not a job for me in the company in this weird mish-mash they're putting together out of the two Ballets Russe, so I'm going back to Hollywood." Nick ran his hands through his hair, frustrated.

"That doesn't mean I have to go to Hollywood," T'Lasid said. "I could stay with the corps, and come out to California on the off season."

Nick reared back and stared at her, eyes narrowing. "What a sweet and dutiful wife you are."

"You knew who I was before you said yes, Nick," T'Lasid said. "In fact, you said you liked it that way. You don't get to have it both ways."

He stared at her, anger radiating from his mind and down the weak link that T'Lasid hadn't quite been able to prevent. "Talk to Léonide, if you want," he said at last. "I doubt it'll do you any good, they want to cut both companies down to make them more economical, and you don't have either the seniority or the dancing to be sure of a spot." He stalked off and slammed the door on his way out.

Nick had been right, and there hadn't been a place for her; even if they hadn't been whittling down the company, Léonide didn't think a married woman should be apart from her husband. Vulcan couples were so often apart that it hadn't occurred to her that without telepathic bonds, Humans might do things differently.

California was, at least, warmer than Europe had been, and their apartment afforded her more privacy and better living conditions than she'd had since she arrived on the planet. Nick got a job right away, and she did a bit of modeling and whatever dancing she could get. She didn't need to work, not with Nick's income, and as a married woman was not expected to, but she needed something to fill her time.

She was restricted, however, by her ears. They could be passed off as a birth defect, but not all jobs would allow her to wear her hair over her ears, or a hat. Once, on a photography shoot that wanted a ballet dancer on a beach, they had an artist alter the picture so that her ear appeared to be Human. It made her vaguely nauseous to see herself with rounded ears and a smile. She rarely saw her own work, but that one in particular Nick liked and got copies of to show his friends at work. She knew why; the angle of the camera and her position and swimsuit exaggerated her buttocks, which Nick believed to be her best feature.

It turned out, the nausea was not due to the sight of herself as a Human. It turned out, she had been wrong about the ability to crossbreed with Humans. It turned out, she was pregnant.

It was a boy. They named him Nicky.

When the time came, T'Lasid went out by herself in the desert to give birth. If she stayed in town, she would not be allowed to be alone, and in the blood and muck of a birth, her copper-based blood would be sure to be seen. She found a hidden, out-of-the-way spot to park the car and laid a tarp on the ground near the hood. It was, thankfully, no more difficult than the birth of her children with Tavin had been, and she missed him and them so terribly. In the stress of birth, she had not the control to keep such thoughts from her mind.

When it was done and the child was nursing, T'Lasid rested against the car and considered.

She had been on Earth for many years, and the homing beacon in the escape pod was still functional but had yet to draw a response. If it had, she would have left without a second thought. But now there was a child.

His ears looked Human, and she could tell already that he had not inherited her telepathy at all, but he almost certainly had her blood. How else could he have survived the womb? She pricked him with one of the diaper pins, just to make sure. Yes. He bled green. But with those ears, and the lack of telepathy, he would have no place save as a curiosity on Vulcan. If a ship were to come today, she would have to decide whether to leave him with his father—and to the inevitable furor the first time he fell and scraped his knee and was discovered to have green blood—or take him to a place he would always be visibly an outsider, a place where his lack of telepathy would always put him at a disadvantage.

She couldn't leave him here alone. Even if Nick had any desire to be a father, the child's best chance would be with her here to protect him and hide any differences.

She would have to turn off the beacon.

Perhaps when the child was grown, she could turn it back on.

One of the fun parts of Nyota's job was as the one who got to see the news first. When Enterprise was outside the Federation's borders, their contacts with the Federation newsnet was limited to databursts at certain times of day, unless there was something important enough to justify a special transmission. Which meant that everything came in to the Communications console at the bridge, and she—or whoever was on duty—had a chance to look it over before releasing it to the rest of the ship.

Today's news had nothing notable in the general headlines, but in the social news … Nyota's eyebrows went up. They'd found an old Vulcan escape pod which had crashed on Earth in the early 20th Century? And discovered that an old movie star had been a Vulcan in disguise?

She pulled up a list of the Vulcan movie star's movies and played them on her screen, sound-track coming through her earbud. Her eyebrows went up even higher as she watched. After a bit of thought, she released the news but locked up the movies on her authority as Communications chief. Only the Captain and first officer could override it.

Nyota turned around to face the Captain. "Captain Kirk? The news just came through."

"Anything important, Uhura?" he asked, turning to face her.

"Nothing serious," she said, "but something in the social news I think everyone will find interesting. They just found a Vulcan escape pod on Earth, which crashed in the 20th Century. There was only one survivor, a T'Lasid, and she apparently found herself a career as a dancer in Hollywood movies."

"That is … most improbable," Mr. Spock said. "If for no other reason than that a Vulcan living on Earth, pre-contact, would wish to remain anonymous."

"And also, wouldn't Hollywood want someone who could … act? Like a Human?" Mr. Sulu said. "I'm having trouble seeing a Vulcan being able to act emotionally enough to get a job as a movie star."

"I don't know many of the details, having not had the time to do much study," Nyota said, "but I would like to suggest a movie night, tonight, with one of her big movies."

"Sounds good," the Captain said. "Will you arrange it?"

"I would love to," Nyota said with a smile.

Nyota watched as the rec room filled up with people, grabbing popcorn and chatting as they sat down. This was going to be good. She was planning on sitting up front so she could see peoples' reactions.

"I don't know why we're here," Doctor McCoy was grumbling as he came in with the Captain. "It's not like I expect a Vulcan to have been a great actress."

"Well, she must have been decent enough to become a movie star," Captain Kirk said.

Nyota suppressed a smile and shook her head. Once the room was full and it was time, she stepped forward. "Thank you for coming tonight, I think it will be an interesting evening. T'Lasid was a navigator on a cargo ship which was attacked by Orion pirates in Earth's 1920s. They limped to Earth's solar system when the ship was virtually destroyed by an explosion in their cargo. T'Lasid was the only survivor, and she took an escape pod down to Earth. It took her a few years to find her feet, but she had been an amateur dancer and used her strength and agility to start a career as a ballet dancer. Eventually, she ended up in Hollywood during the first great era of musicals, and despite her low acting abilities, her dancing skills got her roles in some of the greatest musicals of the era, under the name Cyd Charisse. She was married twice, with two children, one from each marriage, Nicky Charisse and Tony Martin, Jr. When the era of musicals ended, her career was largely over. She died in 2008, at the age of a hundred and twenty-one. Young for a Vulcan, but she had no real medical care on Earth and there was apparently some lingering damage from hazardous materials the ship had been carrying.

"Tonight we're going to be watching her first major starring role, in a movie called The Band Wagon, a movie about a washed-up movie star and a ballerina. But first, just prior to that she had a major role as a dancer in a classic called Singin' in the Rain. Since that dance number is pretty self-contained and is definitely the thing she was most famous for, we're going to start with that. T'Lasid appears four minutes in to the sequence. With no further ado, here is the "Broadway Melody" from Singin' in the Rain."

It was a nice dance sequence, although not very much to modern tastes. The audience was interested, but Doctor McCoy probably spoke for most of them when, about three and a half minutes in, he asked if they could skip to T'Lasid.

"Patience is a virtue, doctor," Nyota said. "It's setting the scene. Not too much longer."

"Not too much longer to what?" McCoy grumbled.

Not too much longer, he found out. Gene Kelley skidded to a halt, on his knees, to a hat held out on the toes attached to a very shapely leg. As the camera panned slowly up that leg and up the body it came from, Nyota watched the crowd. (She was recording this moment for posterity, too.)

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The captain's mouth dropped. Spock raised both eyebrows. Doctor McCoy sat up straight. Sulu's eyes almost crossed, and Chekov said "Bozhe moi," with quiet emphasis.

On screen, 'Cyd Charisse' leaned back and brought her leg up. More murmurs filled the audience, and the combination of shock (in all) and arousal (in those attracted to women) was entertaining.

"So how does it feel, not being the first Human-Vulcan hybrid anymore?" Nyota asked Spock. They had been playing and singing together for a few hours, as they did regularly, and were both packing their instruments away.

Spock carefully hooked the brackets in place that would protect his ka'athyra from being tossed about the cabin should the inertial dampeners falter. "I was never the first hybrid; the first was Elizabeth T'Les Tucker, 2154-2155."

"Oh, right," Nyota said. She vaguely remembered the tragic case from her Federation History classes, though of course Spock would remember more about her.

"And while Nicky Charisse and Tony Martin, Jr. were also Vulcan-Human hybrids, their lives were entirely different from mine. I was raised to be Vulcan; they were raised to be Human. I find it," he paused, "difficult to conceive that we are alike. Perhaps if we could ever have met, we would have found commonalities."

"It must have been a hard life, for them and their mother," Nyota said soberly. "They must have been so alone."

"And yet, they had each other," Spock said. "I would have given much for another like me, as a child."

"I hope they were happy."

"Indeed," Spock said. "The hybrids would have known no other life, and would not have suffered from bigotry or prejudice as they spent their whole lives passing as Human. Though passing brings its own stresses."

"Yeah," Nyota said. "T'Lasid knew what she was missing, though, the only Vulcan alone on a planet that didn't even know aliens existed. I suppose she built a life for herself, even so; and she chose to turn of the beacon herself. So she can't have been too miserable."

"She was, by all accounts, a woman who loved dancing," Spock said. "And she managed to make a life out of it. And her second relationship lasted until her death, which given Human relationship patterns seems indicative of contentment."

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