“I would,” James said carefully. “And how would that be any better than being your Human captive and bed warmer? Or—help me to rise in the Empire?”
“Oh,” she said innocently, “infinitely more status. A noble tribute-liege is highly prized. An accomplished one is highly regarded. A gorgeous one is to be envied. It is not rare for one to become court favorite and center of intrigue, the power behind the throne—or the command chair.”
“Like a—” Jim could not stay out of it and could not finish.
“Woman?” she finished smoothly. “Captive princess? Gift to the conquering ruler? Why not? You have had those customs. Your ancient history even includes matriarchies, and even an occasional society where the roles were truly reversed and men regarded as delicate, vain, talkative, rather silly creatures. I learned a great deal about Human and Vulcan culture while I was with you, and I have been something of a student since.”
“We also had slavery,” Jim said. “Doesn’t prove we haven’t outgrown it—or that attitude toward women.”
“No?” she said. ‘Then why object so strongly to some aspects of that role for James? Actually, even our warrior-men have grown surprisingly tolerant of such men from the reversal planets. Consider them rather poor dears to be protected and cherished, but permit them in quite high noncombatant positions. Rather like women in Star Fleet.”
“We have women who can fight,” Jim said, but looked as if he heard a certain tone of defensiveness in his own voice.
She raised a commenting eyebrow. “You would not care to contend that there is no difference?”
“No,” Kirk conceded glumly, “but then, there is a difference. Physiological. No matter how much we try to be fair about it, when it’s a matter of muscle—”
“Precisely, Captain,” she said, and Jim’s eyes widened as he saw the trap close. “That is exactly the difference for James, where he’s going.”
Jim was stumped for a moment, James knew and considered letting his face concede it. But he was prepared to argue for both of them. “No,” he said. “That’s not all of the difference. Your princeling idea won’t work It’s a waste. Illogical—and dangerous. James has all the instincts, reflexes, mind, will, guts, of a fighting man. Bluff. Presence. Whatever it is that makes most men concede without testing. It’s your if-you’ve-got-it-you’ve-got-to-use-it principle. Try to suppress that and you’ll not only cross-circuit all his reflexes, but everybody else’s. Subconsciously they’ll respond to him half as ‘poor dear’ and half as alpha male—and he’ll really be in trouble.”
She raised an eyebrow with a lift of admiration. “Neatly argued, Captain. And I perceive that you do not scruple to call him gorgeous when it counts.
Jim’s face flushed, and James wondered whether he, also, was blushing—and was he blushing Romulan?
“Well, it’s a—metaphysical problem,” Jim said sheepishly. “But what I said is true.”
“It is,” Spock cut in, “but it is also true that you are a most accomplished actor—both of you.”
“Whose side are you on?” James complained.
“Both,” Spock said. “I cannot quite imagine you as a ‘poor dear,’ but your imagination might be equal to the task. There would be major advantages. A princeling who gradually became a power. It is possible that this is a case for thinking outside the reflexes.”
“I’m not sure I want to get that far out,” James said. “In fact, I’m sure I don’t.” He looked down at the Commander. “And I’m sure your fertile mind has considered other alternatives.”
“You would be surprised at what my fertile mind has considered,” she said. “I can write you fourteen scripts for rising through the ranks—provided that I can train you sufficiently to keep your stiff neck unbroken. I can write you seven in which I own you, one way or another.”
“I can write you one in which you never will” James said with some heat. “Not if you mean that literally.”
“Can you?” she said. “And how literal would that have to be? What if I, too, have some need to own the unownable? It is not your custom, and in truth I am not much of a believer in customs, including my own, but in this case I might make an exception. And in truth we cannot settle this now. Whatever script we choose must be chosen with care, for a lifetime—the public one and the private one. What if the public one is the princeling script? Or the private one different than you can imagine? Would you still come with me? The only real question is whether you can let me walk out that door—without you.”
James turned her to face him. There is another,” he said. “Could you walk out without me?”
She lifted her head. “No,” she said, “but then I could just pack you off.”
McCoy stiffened, but Jim caught his arm with a touch, and James saw the Vulcan straighten almost imperceptibly behind her. She wouldn’t, James thought, and was not altogether too damned sure. All her knowledge of Human language and customs which made it too easy to think of her as if she were Human did not, in fact, make her Human. She was an alien from an alien culture, as Spock was, even with his half-Human heritage, but without even that—and possibly without the Vulcan’s fundamental civility.
She was a Romulan warrior. And she was herself—one of a kind. Outside the phalanx.
And putting it to James straight that he would have to be outside, too.
James laughed. He looked over her head to the Vulcan, caught Kirk and McCoy with a quick glance. “If it comes to that, I wouldn’t count on it,” he said. “Or on finding all that too easy even if you had one mere Human in your clutches.” He took her face in his hands. “Even when you do have. Poor dear. I’m afraid that you’re stuck with me—and I’ll have a word or two to say about those scripts. That should make it interesting.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “There we agree.”
“There will do, for now, will it not?”
“It will,” she said, but her back was rather stiff.
James slipped his fingers back into her hair, traced the upswept ears, pulled one of them close to his mouth. “And what,” he whispered perfectly audibly, “—what if I need to own you? “
The stiffness melted. She leaned back and looked up at him with a silent laugh. “Can you afford the luxury?”
“My I ask the price?”
She looked suddenly stricken, and James knew with perfect certainty that she—that all four of them—suddenly heard Omne’s heavy voice saying: “The usual. Your soul. Your honor. Your home. Your flag.” And all four, even five, knew that that was exactly the price James would now have to offer.
She didn’t say it, and James had been caught in the exchange and had not quite seen it coming.
He caught a breath and found a smile. “Done,” he said firmly. “But you had better wrap me up and take me with you.”
CHAPTER XXIII
The Commander said, “Indeed.”
James was bending to kiss her, but she caught his face firmly between her hands, her paired fingers touching his temples and the tips of his upswept ears.
The customless kiss from between the stars had been right for the man who had been Captain Kirk.
But this was her innocent princeling, whatever the script, who would come to her on her own ground, where the way of the beginning prevailed, and he would come in her way.
She held him with her strength and touched him with the most ancient kind of mind-link, and not with the restraint of the Vulcan.
The Vulcan was still there with his restrained link. That would not do, not for much longer, but it would do for now, and it did not deter her. James caught his breath under the new touch, and she could even feel, through the resonance, Jim catching his. That did not deter her, either. There were precious few secrets around here today.