Unification - Jeri Taylor [11]
“In fact, I recall Spock coming to me with optimism about a continuing dialogue with the Romulans at one point. And I told him it was clearly an illogical expectation.” Sarek smiled slightly and said, as though in an aside, “Spock is always so impressionable.”
He walked to his magnificent wall of windows and gazed out at the Vulcan gardens, at the tan-and-ocher sweep of the desert to the red mountains in the distance. “This Romulan Pardek had no support at home. And of course, in the end, I was proven correct.”
He turned and looked at Picard with a shrug, as though to say, How do you tell a child what to do?
“I tried to give him the benefit of experience, of logic,” he said mildly, “but he never listened. He never listened…”
Picard saw Sarek losing the train of thought .as though it were a whiff of smoke rising in the air. He couldn’t be sure how much more he would get from the man. Clearly his lucidity was fragmentary at best. But he had to try. “It has been suggested that he may have defected.”
Sarek fixed him with a stern glare. “Never. I can accept many things, but never that.”
“But you believe he might be there to see Pardek?”
Sarek looked puzzled. “The Romulan senator? How do you know Pardek?”
“I’ve heard of him.” Picard figured it wasn’t worth trying to retrace Sarek’s tortured steps. The old man was nodding, still pacing.
“That’s what he’s done. Gone to see Pardek.”
“Do you know what business they could have together?”
“No.” Sarek turned away and walked toward the bed, showing signs of exhaustion. “I never knew what Spock was doing. When he was a boy, he would disappear for days at a time. He would take his pet sehlat, I-Chaya, and climb into the mountains. His mother would be beside herself.”
Sarek turned back toward Picard, who couldn’t tell if the man was recollecting the past or creating it. But Sarek seemed to have an urgent need to reveal what he was saying.
“I asked him where he had gone, what he did… he refused to answer. I insisted he tell me, but he would not. I forbade him to go~.. he ignored me. I punished him… he endured it silently. And always, he returned to the mountains.”
His eyes sought Picard’s. “One might as well tell the river not to flow.”
Picard saw that Sarek’s eyes were wet once more, tears welling up, threatening to overwhelm him. But still he needed to speak. “Secretly, I admired him… that proud core of him that would not yield…”
And then he was silent, tears coursing a path down his cheeks. Picard was incredibly moved. It was as though Sarek’s anguish were his own, and he was suffering as Sarek suffered. He even felt tears beginning to sting his eyes.
“Sarek, we are a part of each other. I know Spock has caused you pain. But I also know you love him.” A cry burst from Sarek at this and he looked imploringly at Picard.
“Tell him, Picard…”
Then his eyes began to glaze over slightly, and Picard sensed a slight panic in the man as he struggled to maintain control for a moment longer. He looked toward his hand, lifted it, and tried to form the Vulcan salute. But his fingers wouldn’t obey. They trembled and shifted position and refused to go where they should. Gently, Picard reached over to him and put the fingers right. Sarek smiled and held the hand toward him. Picard formed the salute himselfi
“Peace and long life, Sarek.”
“Live long and… and…” He stopped, confused, his mind drifting. “Live long and…” His voice trailed off vaguely, his hand losing the salute and his mind losing reality. Sobs welled up in him and he turned away, stooped and frail, rampant emotions claiming him once more.
“Spock… my son…” He cried softly, choking with ineffable sadness and longing.
Picard felt a chill as he watched Sarek cry like a child, the name of his son occasionally punctuating his sobs. He knew it would be the last time he saw this man.
“And