Strangers From the Sky by Margaret Wander Bonanno Page B

picked up Strangers , intending to search for her, but hesitated. Maybe he didn’t want to know. He started flipping pages.
    If you’d gotten this on disk, you old dinosaur, he chided himself, using McCoy’s phrase, running one broad finger down the index on the odd chance that the word “blond” would pop out at him, you’d be able to code in that one word and the computer would present you with a list of every character in the book by hair color. Now, without a name or anything else to go on, you’ll have to skim through the entire thing hoping to find her….
    He slammed the book shut. Or hoping not to find her, he thought, because if he came to know her as intimately as he knew the others, he might never sleep undisturbed again. His nights would be daubed with Vulcan blood and echoing with her voice for the rest of his life.
    Kirk shoved the book in the drawer of the nightstand as if it might bite him, considered locking it in like a poisonous snake except that he was beginning to look foolish even to himself. He felt as if he was regressing into a wild-eyed boy hiding in the cornstalks. He realized he was sweating, out of breath as if he’d been running. In the dream he had been. The blood, the shouting, his fault—
    I have to know, he thought.
    He pulled the book out of the drawer and began to read again.

FOUR
    “Are you sure you’ve eaten enough? Are you sure it’s all right?”
    “It is—quite sufficient. Thank you, Tatiana.”
    She tried not to wince whenever he used her full name. At least he didn’t know enough to add the patronymic; that would have driven her crazy.
    He had made a meal of the bean curd and the steaming rice, cutting the dates and dried apricots she’d scrounged up into smaller morsels and adding them to the mixture, remarking on each item as he ate.
    “We, too, cultivate a number of glycine species. The dactylifera and prunus armeniaca are also familiar,” he reported solemnly. It was to pale-eyed T’Syra, geographer and botanist, that he owed his knowledge of Earth’s flora. Hers was yet another spirit to whom he would do homage. “But this species oryza sativa —rice?”—Yoshi nodded, dumbstruck at the extent of the young Vulcan’s knowledge—“is unknown to us.”
    “Maybe because it has to be grown in water,” Yoshi suggested. “If, as you say, your planet is mostly desert…”
    The human was hungry for details, plied the Vulcan with endless questions. He had dredged up the few astronomy books he owned and Sorahl had shown him the precise location of his world, using his navigator’s skills to sketch enlarged-scale starmaps from the perspective of both worlds.
    Tatya simply watched, speechless. She could not take her eyes off the young alien, memorized his every gesture, watched the movement of his long muscles beneath the thin sweater Yoshi had lent him, poured him endless cups of tea, which he drank hot and strong and without any sweetener.
    “Species theraceae ,” he observed between sips. In a human it might have been showing off. “Specifically camellia sinensis , I believe. We cultivate similar varieties on Vulcan, though we prefer the use of herbs.”
    “We drink herb tea also,” Tatya said excitedly. “I just didn’t have any on hand. When the Whale gets here I’ll order whatever you—”
    She stopped herself, horrified. What was she thinking of? She saw fleeting panic on Yoshi’s face, saw that Sorahl was watchful, waiting, but did not ask her what she meant.
    “You must be tired,” she said quickly. “You really should rest.”
    “I cannot,” the young Vulcan demurred. “I must keep the watch for T’Lera.”
    He did not elaborate, and they did not dare ask. There were so many other questions to ask first.
     
    “It’s amazing,” Yoshi said, holding his long hair out of his eyes, watching the rain sheeting against the port, the grumbling flare of distant lightning. Tatya, exhausted, dozed in the beanbag chair, but the two males were