Jim laughed in the way that had always been a substitute for crying, and would still do. “Seems to be the only one we’ve got.” He took a breath. “Let me look at you, James.”
James took his hand away. He grinned fractionally and saw Jim realize that he had raised his hands to touch his ears where he didn’t have ears.
But James did.
And he saw Jim register that this time they were right for the face—not the hasty cut-and-paste job, hardly better than a makeup job, which McCoy had done in the heat of battle when he had needed Vulcanoid ears. Spock had said that they were not “aesthetically pleasing” on the Human face—and Kirk had known that the Vulcan meant Kirk’s face, and was dead serious, for once, in an ear joke.
Kirk couldn’t have agreed more. He had looked and felt like an idiot.
But now Jim’s eyes said that this Kirk didn’t. He looked as if he were born to them and they to him.
James grinned. “Spock and the Commander,” he said. “Bones said they designed ‘em by computer and stood over him with a club.”
Jim laughed. “But of course he takes credit for the artistic touches.”
“Indeed.”
“Is it—logical—for me to tell you—my compliments?”
“We might both have to admit to being insufferably vain.”
Jim grinned. “Enough admissions for one day, already.” He sobered. “Almost. I have one for you. But first—Spock—You’ve been very close to him today. Seen him through hell. Now he has to see you go off into—a good enough version of hell. Your opinion-will he be all right? Between you and me?”
“Between you and me—he will be,” James said. “He’s as all right as he’s going to be for a while—and as all right as he’s always been. He’s—not so close to me, now. But you would know as well as I. I’d say he’s withdrawing a little behind the Great Wall of Vulcan. Needs it, after this day. There’s no way he could not react on an elemental level. My emotions—yours. And—he does not even deny it—his own. He descended into hell and brought you back, and me into the bargain. Threaded the labyrinth, fought the monster.”
“Legends,” Jim said suddenly. “As if the script were written by Omne.”
James nodded. “It was. The man of a thousand legends from a thousand worlds. But Spock wrote the ending.”
“Except that it will not end.”
“No. And Spock will need all the control he owns. He still believes we must express our emotions, and he must master his.”
Jim looked up to meet the eyes which no longer quite matched, But matched in this. “We may all need to be Vulcans, for a while.”
“Yes,” James said. “Take care of him.”
Jim smiled. “That’s supposed to be his act.”
James laughed softly. He’ll be hovering over you like a hen with one chick.”
Jim shook his head. “He has two chicks now. And—this chick doesn’t have to be a Romulan. How are you going to pull that off, by the way? And—what kind of designs does the Commander have on you, exactly?”
James shrugged and grinned. “Beats me. I’m not sure whether she owns me or I own her—or both. Neither. Whatever.”
“Doesn’t worry you?”
“Worries the hell out of me.”
They laughed together.
“Seriously—”Jim said after a moment.
James smiled. “Never more serious. I think the girl finally got the Captain. Or a reasonable facsimile.”
“Reasonable? You ought to have your head examined.”
“I have,” James grinned at Jim. “I come by it honestly.”
Jim made a rueful face. “I guess you do.” He let the face dissolve into seriousness. “James, are you all right? No metaphysical qualms? Philosophical hangups? Questions about—rights? The difference? You’re not just going off into the night?”
James shook his head. “All right—yes, as all right as I’ll be for a while. Night—no. For the rest: qualms—I don’t think so; questions—sure. Things I don’t know how to give up—yes. I’ll take some of them with me, find new ones, keep in touch with some old ones.” He spread his hands. “I don’t know any other logical solution. As for the difference, that may be the one saving grace. I have something you don’t have now, something which is mine—and she is my future, not only because she has to be.”
Jim looked solemnly into the new face as if wondering whether he couldn’t already see a difference that was not surgical. James knew that it was the way Jim would have wanted to take it himself, and that he wondered whether he would have had the courage. Some part of it, they both knew, would be the same kind of putting one foot in front of the other that he had been doing, would have to keep doing for a while. But some of it was more: the sense of a new challenge opening ahead. That, also, Jim understood. That would make it bearable. In time—all right. As all right as it could be.
“I can see it,” Jim said and reached out his hand. They locked arms for a moment in more than a handshake.
And then James remembered the Romulan gesture she had taught him. He released Jim’s arm and closed his hand into a fist, inviting the crossing of wrists Jim had seen.
There was a signal at the door to McCoy’s office and Kirk said, “Come,” but he answered the gesture and held it for a long moment before they turned, releasing it.
The Commander bowed her head and her eyes were very bright.
Spock stood quietly very close behind her with the stressed pose or Vulcan control, but with much the same look in the eyes which fastened on the two men who might have been brothers now—even if of different worlds—and not quite, twins.
McCoy stepped quietly around the small island of silence and went to Kirk. “Come on, let’s get on with it,” he grumbled softly, and his eyes swore at both of them a little. “I agreed with James that you’d want to say good-bye—assuming that anybody can—but you’re still my patient and you need a long rest.”
“Doctor’s orders,” Jim said with a sigh of mock resignation, accepting the cussing-out with his eyes and mustering a small grin. “The patient has a complaint.” He nodded toward James. “Why is he so infernally chipper and healthy? “
He hasn’t been through what you have, the eyes said accusingly. But McCoy rallied to the old kidding tone. “You can’t please anybody around here,” he grumped. “Why can’t you just tell me that he’s gorgeous?
Jim laughed silently. I wouldn’t touch that one with a pole, Bones. Anyway, that’s more in the Commander’s line.”
“He’s gorgeous,” she said, rallying too and bowing faintly to Kirk. “He always was.” Her eyes took on the slight crinkle of serious mischief. “But now he would make a very satisfactory Romulan—say from one of the matriarch colonies where men are properly treated as delicate creatures and not permitted to fight.”
She was at it again: James saw that Jim knew it with perfect clarity, and nonetheless couldn’t help bursting out with “That isn’t going to be your cover story?”
She shrugged, the eyes crinkling. “A logical possibility. I have to stop back to finish a matter which this crisis interrupted. There is such a planet which owes me a princeling as tribute and hostage. And a Warrior Princess there—the Ruler, the terms do not translate—who owes him to me as a debt of honor, and would as soon keep him if she had to hide him in the hills.”
“What worries me,” James chipped in with a rather feeble grin, “is that I’m not sure that you are kidding.”
She arched an eyebrow. “And if I am not?” She moved to stand near James at the foot of the bed. “It would solve a number of problems, you know. You would not be expected to fight, or to exercise with the warrior-men. And no one would think twice about your being under my protection as my property.”
It really was not possible to tell whether she was kidding, James thought. Teasing, certainly, but kidding?