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Are We There Yet?
Rating: PG Chapter Six Lizi had mastered the art of sitting up. This freed her hands to explore, which they were now doing. She had them deep in Fluffy’s fur. He whimpered whenever she pulled hard, looking to T’Pol or Trip with eyes pleading with them to make the baby stop hurting him. If no one came to his aid, he would lick Lizi’s face until she laughed, which made her let go. Now Lizi became tired and flopped over onto her side. From there she managed to roll onto her stomach, her knees tucked under her and her butt raised. Fluffy licked her back, then her neck and then gently combed a claw through her baby-fine hair. He found no parasites to eat, so he groomed himself and lay down beside her with a huge sehlat sigh. T’Sari knelt beside the pair, setting her tea on the floor. How peaceful they looked. She had been reluctant to let the sehlat in the house but her mate insisted the child needed her pet. As one of the few Vulcans who had been raised without a sehlat guardian, she was wary of the beasts. The only pets she had as a child were caged birds and caged mice. So she insisted that those were the only pets she would allow her own children, to the sadness of her mate who loved the lumbering, hairy, fanged behemoths. Tentatively, T’Sari ran her hand over the sehlat’s back. It seemed to allow that. But it growled when she touched the baby. “T’Pol,” T’Sari called over her shoulder, “I insist that you lock the beast in your camper when I baby-sit for you tonight. Otherwise the beast will not let me tend to Lizi properly.” Walking into the sitting room with her own tea, T’Pol studied the three of them on the rug. “I will do that. But you realize that Fluffy growls only because he telepathically reads your fear-aggression emotion. He cannot sort it out that you are afraid of him and do not have it in mind to harm the baby. Perhaps if you play with him more, you will relax and he will let you touch her. He already knows that this is your den and that you and I are friends. That is why he does not respond more aggressively to your fear.” T’Sari sighed. “In most things, I have excellent emotional control. But from my early childhood my mother repeated that horrendous story of watching her brother killed and eaten by a wild sehlat on a camping trip. Her touch transferred the sheer terror and helplessness of her remembered five-year-old self to me as a young child. Her impressions were so internalized in my young mind that the priestess-healer could neither purge nor repress them. You do not realize just how much control it has taken to just touch your pet.” “I grieve with you for the loss of your uncle who never got to grow up. And I deeply appreciate your allowing Fluffy into your home. In his way, he appreciates that too. Shall we take our tea out into your lovely garden? You promised some cuttings from your mother’s herb plants.” “Yes, of course,” said T’Sari, retrieving her tea and rising slowly so she did not disturb the napping pair on the rug. …. T’Pol hefted the strap of the woven basket onto her shoulder again. Shopping in a village meant walking and carrying purchases in an expandable bag. In the city, she would have stowed her purchases, one by one, in the cargo area of her vehicle, where it was necessary to drive between the shops she would be visiting. But here, everything was on T’Sari’s weekly walking curciut. They entered the bakery, the door frame blinking blue and a soft chime announcing their presence. T’Sari turned to take the bag from T’Pol and said “Of course I do some of my own baking, T’Pol, but Stavik’s skill produces irresistible akan-kep (exotic bread).” She turned to Stavik with her next remark “Na’shaya, Leipausu ( Greetings, Baker).” “Na’shaya, T’Sari,” Stavik said, stepping out from behind a counter. He gestured expansively at a display. “I have been productive today.” “As my eyes witness.” T’Sari inspected the case while Stavik stood still, hands clasped with forearms parallel to the floor. He waited. T’Sari took her time. “Adequate, as usual.” The subtle change from seeming lack of expression on Stavik’s face would be unnoticeable to a Human, but Stavik, in the Vulcan way, was beaming with satisfaction. “A sample perhaps?” T’Sari put a finger to her mouth, lowered it. “A sample would be required, of course.” Stavik gestured to a table nestled in an alcove and retreated behind the case. Soon T’Pol and T’Sari were seated with glasses of water and plates of Vulcan desert cake. “Would your Honored Guest wish to take samples back to her home city?” “I would,” T’Pol replied. When Stavik went off to aid another customer, T’Sari leaned foreword and whispered “Stavik would like to expand his business to Shir’Kahr where his son now lives. If he can show his son evidence of a customer base there, he thinks he can get his son to quit his employment in garbage disposal and come back into the family business.” “I wish him luck,” said T’Pol. “Perhaps I will have a small gathering at our home in the suburbs of Shir’Kahr and inform my guests of the source of my bakery.” “Take care. If you mention you are planning such a gathering, Stavik will load down your camper so that you will have to hold the baby and the sehlat in your laps.” When they left the bakery, T’Pol and T’Sari explored the linen shop, the pharmacist, and what might be called a hardware store if this was on earth. The families of the proprietors lived in apartments above the first floor businesses. T’Sari’s bag became heavy with purchases, so they climbed down to the public garden that hung over a ravine carved into the hillside by an ancient river. The steps here were natural shelves of bedrock. In a grotto, slabs of rock overhung and shaded small areas, almost like caves. Here, there were placed benches and tables of a terrazzo-like material . Water pumps had been fitted in the center of the tables, connected to pipes that ran back to the edge of the cliff and along it to connect to the village’s water supply. These water pumps with their long quaint iron handles were ancient. They were hand pumps like the one in Trip’s family’s lake cottage back on earth. Trip had told her how in 1899, when the original cottage was built, it was a marvelous luxury to have the pump inside the kitchen rather than outside on the lawn. The Human sense of history was deep, when you considered the shortness of their generations. They ended their tour by spending fifteen minutes meditating in the local monastic temple, where T’Pol was treated by a monk to a view of an ancient sehlat-hide notebook which was said to be the copybook of a student of Surak. …. As Trip undressed for bed that night, he said to his mate: “T’Pol, you are having such a good time with T’Sari, I hate to see it ending so soon. How about we ask her along on the camping trip? Her own children are half grown and away for the summer.” “How prophetic. I was going to ask you if it was alright if she came with us. Her mate cannot attend her much at this time because of a trip he must make to Shir’Kahr for business. I was thinking she would be lonely when we left.” “Go ask her now, she probably is not asleep yet,” said Trip yawning and climbing into bed. “But don’t stay up all night talking again. I heard a rumor that Vulcans sometimes need sleep too. Besides, I sleep better with you next to me.” |
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