T'Ria and the Rain Man 
			    by  Saavant
       2274

        "It's your turn," said T'Ria for the fifth time.
        Spock struggled to focus on the next move, but the chess board was reduced in 
his vision to a collection of shapes and outlines devoid of meaning. He leaned 
his head back for a moment, as though hoping that simple motion would restore 
his calm. The outlines moved and changed slightly with the shift in the 
location of his eyes, and it startled him.
        *There are three dimensions,*  he reminded himself.
        But there were more than three. There were at least four... and the fourth 
was to him the most dangerous.
        *Time.*
        *Time is about to kill me.*
        "Your turn," repeated T'Ria.
        And the voice swept him back to the past.

                        *       *       *

        To the past, to where time was no longer--or not yet--dangerous. To the day 
when the transporter beam had brought up the confused and bedraggled source of 
the distress call, moments before the last nuclear blast had sent the violent 
remnants of Symmetrian 
civilization to the only peace they had ever known.
        The planet had been an experiment in a new form of government. "Why should we 
celebrate diversity?" said Martha Colette, the leader of the Symmetry 
movement,  in her founding speech for the colony in 2263.  "What we need to 
celebrate is those qualities that make us the same. That is the only way we 
can live together in peace."
        And it was almost exactly ten years later that, for no reason known to the 
Federation, the colony of humans whose society was based on this seemingly 
logical insight went up in a blaze of sundered atoms,driven by their own 
hatred, that destroyed all the armies of haters and hated while simultaneously 
quenching every other sign of life on New Symmetria and sinking it deep into a 
nuclear winter that would render 
it unlivable for many years to come.
        The only survivor was a brown-haired, Caucasian-looking woman, by Earth years 
in her early twenties, who materialized on the transporter pad clutching a 
small red suitcase and the makeshift electronic device she had used to send 
the single distress call that was all the Enterprise knew of the planet's 
sudden and unexpected death. The little beacon looked a hundred years old, 
judging by its technological advancement, and seemed to have been built in a 
hurry out of whatever could be found. The suitcase had been monogrammed with a 
green marker, in large, artistically drawn letters: "Maria Susanne Schmidt."
        In some cases, the captain would have demanded in a harsh voice for the guest 
to identify itself,  but a woman just beamed out of a nuclear war instants 
before her planet was destroyed was in little need of being further 
frightened. *Besides,* thought Spock critically from the science station 
across the bridge, *she is female, and he is James T. Kirk.*
        "Welcome..." Kirk spoke gently, and then, glancing at the suitcase and hoping 
the name was hers, "...Maria Susanne?"
        Yes, he could see that she was female, despite her muddy, torn clothes, her 
dirt-streaked face, the matted and oily masses of her dark brown hair. Not 
particularly attractive, but female.
        "Bonehead," she answered, her eyes firmly focused on a small stain in the 
carpet.
        "I beg your pardon?"
        "I thought there might be someone in the galaxy who'd pronounce it right," 
she muttered. "But I suppose I must've been a little too hopeful. That's the 
curse in having a German name. You finally get a language with a clear set of 
phonetics, and terminology that sticks to it, and no, they go and  base your 
stupid Standard on the one language in the galaxy where words sound the least 
like the way they're spelled. Possibly excepting French. Let's start with 
`Susanne.' The first S is said something between an S and a Z. The final E is 
*not* silent, you say it the way you say the upside-down E in the phonetic 
alphabet. And the A is pronounced `aah',  not `eahh'." She retched the last 
syllable in a grotesque caricature of the American pronunciation. "Plus, you 
roll the R in `Maria.' Not Spanish rolling with the tongue in the front of 
your mouth. Rolling a German R is like this." Maria opened her mouth wide and 
made a noise remarkably similar to gargling.
        "Ah, I see," said the captain uncomfortably, looking at her with a certain 
curiosity. "May I simply call you Miss Schmidt?"
        "As long as you pronounce the M. I've had people not pronounce that M, and it 
gets on my nerves. Name like mine, you really get to like the letter M."
        There was some laughter on the bridge, but it was nervous. Except for the 
minimal motion of her lips for speaking, and an occasional twitch of her arms 
or neck, the new arrival had not moved at all since she had been beamed 
aboard. Even her eyes remained stuck to that one stain on the carpet.

                        *       *       *

        Days later, in the mess hall, every table was filled except for one in the 
corner. That table's only occupant was a young human female, almost 
unrecognizable as the dirt-encrusted, tangle-haired being  on the transporter 
pad a week ago. As soon as she had received guest quarters she had begun a 
schedule of regular bathing (apparently not a frequent opportunity on her 
previous war-torn world) which revealed the delicate, almost greenish tints of 
her skin and the flecks of gold in her brown hair.
         All her attractive points contrasted sharply with her dress and demeanor, 
however.  The red suitcase had apparently contained the only clothing she was 
willing to wear--today it was a close-fitting lacy red-orange tank top, 
obviously several sizes too small for her, with nothing underneath, and a pair 
of thick pink sweatpants stopping five centimeters over white tennis shoes 
fastened with something like Velcro.  Her face had not touched makeup in all 
the time she'd been on the Enterprise, and her hair had alternated from tight 
braided pigtails to the thick frizzy waves that resulted when they were 
undone.  Today it was in braids, and she was bent over her pasta, consuming it 
at a rapid rate and not seeming to care that she made conspicuous noises and 
that her face and shirt and the tips of her pigtails were gathering smears of 
Alfredo sauce rather quickly.
        "Miss Schmidt," Spock said as he approached her table.
        She looked up, not seeming embarrassed that she'd been caught eating like a 
wild animal. "Hi," she said brightly, then returned her attention to her 
pasta.
        "May I seat myself here?" he asked mildly.
        "Sure," said Maria Susanne, pausing with a noodle halfway in her mouth. Spock 
sat down in the chair directly across from her.
        "The captain has asked me to speak with you."
Maria swallowed the last bite of her food and looked up at the Vulcan. Her 
eyes examined his bangs, the top of his head, and his eyebrows, then came to 
rest on his left ear, from which they did not move for several minutes. "Am I 
in trouble?"
        "Not that we are aware of. It has merely been noticed that you seem to avoid 
interaction with the crew, and I was selected to... `bring you out of your 
shell,' as the captain put it."
        The girl smiled slightly and picked up her fork, to which she transferred her 
gaze from the pointed ear she had been observing. "No offense, Spock," she 
said, in an expressionless voice that should have contained a tone of humor,  
"but... why you?"
        "Others have attempted. I am the last resort."
        Maria narrowed her eyes in thought. "People have asked me questions," she 
murmured, as though thinking aloud. "I answered them. But nobody mentioned my 
being in a `shell,' as your captain put it."
        Spock looked at her curiously. She seemed, on the surface, nonchalant, 
uninterested... as if someone else were being discussed... but whether from 
his long study of human beings or through some unknown channel of telepathy, 
Spock detected an element of deep concern and bewilderment beneath her calm 
veneer. She cared, she just didn't know how to express it.  "I would not 
expect them to have directly referred to your state of introvertedness," he 
said gently. "The traditional method of `bringing someone out of her shell' 
involves discussing numerous subjects unrelated to the person's condition 
itself, in an attempt to bring her into a routine of casual conversation. The 
questions you were asked were probably not intended to gain information but to 
engage you in discussion as a form of entertainment. It is known among humans, 
I believe, as `small talk.'"
        "Wow," said Maria, toying with her fork. "You know a lot more about human 
behavior than I do." The brown eyes once more appraised his ear, the closest 
she had come to looking him in the eye. "Language was designed  to get across 
information," she sighed, thinking aloud again. "Why is there only one person 
on this whole ship who uses it for that purpose? And the person, no less, that 
the captain considers a `last resort.'" She ran the end of the fork down the 
back of her hand. "Small talk..."
        "You were not previously aware of this phenomenon? Are you not a human?"
        The girl sighed again. "You know, sometimes I think I'm not."

                        *       *       *
They had spent nearly an hour talking.
        "Out of my shell," Maria mused. "*I'd* just been wondering what kind of a 
shell *they* were in. I've been ignored here almost as much as at home."
        "Did you not say that several people approached to ask you questions?"
        "Yes... but when I answered them, they went away."
        "I believe one is expected to respond with questions of one's own."
        "But there was nothing I wanted to find out..." Maria's look of confusion 
gradually turned to one of comprehension. "Oh, yeah. Small talk." She had 
begun to break the tines off her plastic fork and stick them like little 
towers in the foam of her plate. "I'll have to remember that.  It's really not 
that I don't want to be friends with people, Spock. It's just that they speak 
a language I don't understand. Small talk... Humor, too. It wasn't too long 
ago I found out about humor. We were expecting a bomb and I had to cramp 
myself into the shelter with three sisters, a brother and eight cousins..."
        "That does not sound humorous."
        "It wasn't, but it happened so often, people had to come up with funny things 
to do when we were there. Especially my brother Matt. And Lily--she's a 
cousin. This time I was talking about, Lily sneaked some of Matt's rations and 
Matt pointed his fork at her and said, `I'm gonna kill you for that.' I 
noticed I'd seen people saying things like that a lot and it occurred to me 
that this was another of those secrets of human interaction that nobody'd 
bothered to tell me about. But when *I* tried it the next week, I got in 
trouble."
        "Possibly you did not correctly select the body language, voice tone and 
context?"
        "Probably not. I said it while jumping out from around a corner at Matt as he 
walked by. I yelled it pretty loud, and I used a steak knife instead of a 
fork."
        "I see the source of the difficulty," said Spock. He watched her dismember 
her fork in silence for a few moments more. "By any chance, were you 
attempting humor when you instructed the captain on the pronunciation of your 
name?"
        "Yeah," said Maria, blushing slightly. "I mean, I didn't say anything that 
wasn't true, but I expected people to laugh."
        "And I believe they had similar expectations from you. One usually smiles 
while one is making a joke. And..." he noticed that she was looking at him 
again, but this time shifting her focus between his hair and his right 
eyebrow.  "...one makes much more eye contact, as a rule, than I have observed 
you doing."
        Maria looked him straight in the eyes then, and the surprise of it... it must 
have been the surprise... sent a sudden shiver through him.
        "Fascinating," said Maria Susanne.
         Spock was sure she had never yet heard him use that word. And if she had, 
would she have been able to grasp the humorous implications of imitating him? 
It seemed quite likely that it was merely a favorite word of her own.
        "Fascinating. For someone who's not a human, you sure know about them, Spock. 
How do you do it?"
        "I have had years of practice," he answered her. "I am forty-one years old. 
By the biology of my species, I am approximately the same age you appear to 
be. But much of my life was spent among Vulcans whose behavior did not at all 
resemble that of humans. When I first came to the Enterprise, I found them as 
difficult to comprehend as you do. I still encounter numerous difficulties."
        "But you've learned?"
        "I have found them an interesting subject of study."
        "Thank you, Spock." She was not smiling-- perhaps she feared being 
interpreted as trying to make a joke-- but the genial warmth was palpable. 
"You inspiration."
*       *       *

        Spock had gone from there to Kirk's quarters, on hearing himself summoned to 
discuss a matter of importance.
        "What is the problem, captain?" he asked, when the door had been opened to 
receive him.
        "Not so much a problem," said Jim, leading his first officer to the computer 
terminal, "as a discovery. I'd been wondering about that girl we beamed 
up--she seemed somehow--different. Almost sneaky. Because if you've noticed, 
she never looks at your eyes. And she's always alone, avoids people--"
        "I had noticed, Captain."
        "But there seemed to be something... familiar about her. I've seen lots of 
sneaky people in my career, but her sneakiness has a uniqueness about it. I 
can't put my finger on it..."
        "You would not be expected to. It is an abstract concept, and impossible to 
come into physical contact with."
        "You know what I mean, dammit! I couldn't quite identify what it *was* about 
her, but I was sure this wasn't like anyone else I'd known. Except one. I was 
sure I'd seen *someone* who acted like her, sometime, that I remembered just 
vaguely. And I searched the data banks, and look what I came up with."
        Spock bent over the computer. "Maria Susanne Schmidt, youngest cadet ever to 
serve on the Enterprise. Took an internship in 2267 from stardate 3372.0 
through 3372.8, when she was fourteen years of age. She spent most of that 
time with Nyota Uhura,  learning the basics of running the communications 
console, as she was a language major and interested in a job in that field; 
her parents, being wealthy and influential, made sure she studied with the 
most highly acclaimed professionals..."
        "So you see," said Kirk excitedly, "that we've got to figure out how she got 
from being a student of language at the Academy and aspiring communications 
officer to being twenty light-years away on a planet that was for some reason 
destroying itself with atomic war... *and* being the only one who sent us a 
distress call."
        "There is no more information on her in the data banks?"
        "None. It stops there. There's a brief mention of her under `translators,' 
down here--seems she was a child prodigy with a gift for languages, and one of 
her parents was involved in building Federation ships' interpreting devices, 
and she was instrumental in some way at a very young age...eight through 
thirteen, I think.  She apparently helped design some of the specific language 
translators that paved the way for the Universal ones. But nothing about her 
after she ended her cadet duties with us."
        "Strange," remarked Spock. "I do not remember her as a cadet."
        "You wouldn't," said Kirk, smiling.
        Spock raised an eyebrow. "What brings you to that conclusion, captain?"
        "Never mind."
        They both paced the room for a moment more. "Spock, do you have *any* 
insights on this young lady?" murmured Kirk impatiently. "Have you learned 
*anything* about her?"
        His first officer looked up abruptly. "I did have the discussion with her 
that you had suggested to me."
        "Ah. Yes. Yes, Spock. What did she say?"
        "I learned a great deal about her character. She is, like me, a singularly 
logical person..."
        "Like you, of course." Kirk grinned.
        "...but unlike me, she has had either a deficiency of opportunities for, or a 
disinterest in, learning the patterns in human illogic."
        "You haven't had a disinterest in that, Spock?"
        "I have not had a deficiency of opportunities for it, captain."
        "All right, Spock." Kirk sat down at the computer. "But Miss Schmidt is the 
subject of conversation. While you were talking to her, did you notice any 
irregularities in her behavior that I've missed?"
        "No irregularities, captain. Her behavior appears to follow clear patterns of 
its own... perhaps more efficient patterns than those of most humans. I 
observed abnormalities...  she failed to make eye contact, exhibited unusual 
table manners, and called me `Spock' instead of `Mr. Spock' or `Sir'... 
abnormalities, as you would call them, but I suspect that they are normalities 
for *her* ."
        "Thank you, Spock." Kirk turned off his computer terminal. "You may go."
        As Spock headed toward the door, a call from his captain made him turn 
around.
        "Spock, you seem to be on her side."
        "I was not aware that our interactions with Miss Schmidt were a competition, 
captain."
        "You know what I mean."
        "I do not."
        "I said she looked sneaky."
        "And I heard you."
        "And you didn't seem to be of the same opinion. In fact, you seemed 
distinctly fascinated by her, if not?fond of her."
        "Your perception is acute, captain."
        "You don't agree with me that she looks like she ought to have an eye kept on 
her?"
        "If she does, it is for her own safety, and no one else's."
        "What do you mean by that, Spock?"
        But Spock was already gone.

*       *       *

        From the bewildering chess board in the dangerous present, Spock looked back 
to the slightly less dangerous past.

                        *       *       *

        They had had dinner together after that conversation with Jim. Maria made him 
promise to be quiet until they had finished eating.
        "Or at least don't ask me questions," she had said. "I don't do dinner 
conversation. It doesn't make the least bit of sense. Two activities that 
involve the same orifice in your body ought to take place at different times.  
Illogical otherwise."
        Spock raised a silent, admiring eyebrow. Apparently they had another favorite 
word in common.
         When their eating/communication orifices were no longer occupied by the 
former, they turned to the latter.
        "Tell me, Miss Schmidt," said Spock as he saw her wash down the last of her 
macaroni and cheese with a deep drink of milk,  "about your planet."
        Maria Susanne lowered her brows at him. "Is this small talk?"
        "Negative. I am genuinely interested. The entire crew is interested. We know 
nothing about the cause of the Symmetrian nuclear wars, nothing about your 
past and that of your people. Your apparent antisocial tendencies are being 
perceived as a barrier to the acquisition of this important knowledge."
        "Antisocial? I *told* you, Spock..."
        "I know.  But humans find it difficult to understand that one of their 
species would not automatically be equipped with instinctive understanding of 
their code of body language and social skills, and it is assumed that one who 
does not observe these customs does not wish to."
        "Spock." Maria Susanne reached into the pocket of her sweatpants and pulled 
out a thick cylindrical bottle that looked as though it had been through as 
many years of hardship and violence as her clothes, her suitcase and her. "Do 
you know what this is?"
        "It appears to be a medicine container of archaic design."
        "And look what's inside it." She poured out into her palm a seemingly endless 
series of small tablets and capsules, reciting their names as she did so. 
"Mellaril. Paxil. Tegretol. Prozac. Clonidine. Klonipin. Haldol. Rispradol. 
Dexedrine. Et cetera. Et cetera. Ad infinitum. Day after day.  Six of them in 
the morning. Eight in the evening. Do you know how much this costs? Do you 
know how many neurons it takes to remember how many I take, and when?  Do you 
know how hard it is to *swallow*  all of these?" She poured half the heap of 
pills in her mouth and downed them with another gulp of milk. "Do you think 
I'd still be carrying around this archaic medicine container full of archaic 
medicine if I didn't *desperately*  hope someday to be able to get along with 
my species?"
        Spock looked on in fascination. "What purpose do these medications serve?"
        "What I have," said Maria Susanne, pouring the pills out onto the table, 
"among several other things, is Asperger's Syndrome--mild autism, you know. 
We're not like most autistics, we're more verbal, we pass for normal more 
easily, but we lack social skills almost completely. There's no medication for 
Asperger's per se; they have to treat my symptoms individually. As well as 
those of my other disorders." She began to divide her medicine into small 
piles.  "These are for Tourette tics. These are for depression. These are for 
hyperactivity. These are for ADD..."
        "Who prescribes these for you? Who buys them?"
        "My psychiatrist and my aunt. Respectively.  As part of their Symmetrian 
celebration of the qualities that make us the same. Sure they help--the pills, 
I mean--but they're not really for my sake. An abnormal child is a shame on 
the family. Of course, now that the planet's been blown up, I'll have to buy 
them myself." She continued categorizing tablets.  "These are for obsessive 
compulsions. These are for other compulsions. Which you don't want to know 
about."
        "Which I do not want to know about?"
        Maria Susanne sighed. "I am the only person on New Symmetria who acts as if 
she's on drugs only when she is *not* ." She paused, then revised. "I mean, I 
*was* . Now, of course, New Symmetria is gone, and I can be the only such 
person on the Enterprise."
        Again, the nonchalant disinterestedness. Spock could sense little hidden 
concern this time. "You seem surprisingly calm about the destruction of your 
planet, Miss Schmidt."
        "It isn't my planet. It's a planet I was forced to move to, in a conspiracy 
to make me normal."
        Spock raised an eyebrow.
        "I was never normal. I never understood normal people. So what do my parents 
do? They say, `Let's move to a planet where people who aren't normal get 
ATOMIC BOMBS DROPPED ON THEM!'"
        There was a stunned silence. Spock realized he was on the verge of 
discovering New Symmetria's violent fate, and he knew now that there were 
discoveries it was more comfortable not to make. "I thought that the 
Symmetrian society was dedicated to the proposition that the universal 
similarities in human beings were to be celebrated."
        "Exactly. And that's where they messed up. Because they didn't reckon with 
one thing." Maria Susanne toyed with a Dexedrine capsule, pausing for effect. 
"*There are no universal similarities in human beings* ."
        The Vulcan eyebrows rose once more.
        "Oh, of course there are some. The most basic physical structure and such. 
But it doesn't sound inspirational to say, `Let's celebrate the fact that each 
human is composed of cells containing nucleic acids with the blueprints for 
his whole body!' Oh, no, you have to say, `Let's celebrate the fact that 
everyone has a heart to feel love and friendship!'"
        "And that is not true of all humans?"
        "Not all. Not of me." Maria Susanne tried arranging some pills on the table 
in a smiley face, then scattered them angrily. "I have never, for example, 
felt love.  Either familial love or sexual love. I am not heterosexual, you 
know."
        Spock barely concealed his surprise at such a personal statement being made 
so casually. He *hadn't* known... and what was this unpleasant response 
surfacing in him? If he were illogical, he would have identified it as 
disappointment.
        For which there was no reason. He was a Vulcan.
        "But I'm not homosexual either. I'm sort of... asexual. I have simply  never 
experienced that kind of attraction. Nor any other kind. I never loved my 
family.  Probably because they never loved me. I was a kind of trophy to 
them... a six-year-old who wrote sonnets, an eight-year-old who drew like an 
artist, an  eleven-year-old who'd taught herself to speak five languages 
fluently and invented two more.  They showed me off. I was a trophy. A tool as 
well. Dad's got the credit for five translating machines that *I*  invented."
        "You are mentioned in the data banks."
        "Excellent. I'd like to look through those sometime and see how far they 
managed to get from the truth." Maria Susanne began, slowly, methodically, to 
sort her pills once more, this time by color. "But being a prodigy wasn't 
enough. I had to be normal as well. Finishing my last year at the Academy, 
this close to graduation, and I do something or say something that it turned 
out wasn't the thing I was expected to do or say or whatever, and they say, 
`Let's go to New Symmetria. They'll teach you to be normal there.'"
        "And it did not meet with your expectations?"
        "Can't say it didn't. I expected it to be horrible and it was."
        "Horrible in what way?"
        Maria Susanne paused, coming closer to showing emotion than Spock had ever 
seen her. "They treated me beastly on Earth, of course. Absolutely beastly. 
But this was beastly to the eighteenth power. Do you know what `celebrate the 
things that make all humans the same' really means? It means,  set up a planet 
where only humans are allowed--because even the most idiotic of normal people 
can figure out there's no way to come up with anything all sentient beings 
have in common, or even to *define*  a sentient being, for that matter--and 
treat all those humans with equal love and respect... *except* the humans who 
happen *not* to have anything in common with anyone else. We become the 
outcasts. It was high school, on a government level. Martha Colette's founding 
speech became their Bible. `Everyone  knows what it is like to feel love and 
friendship'--I've never liked anyone and no one's ever liked me. `Everyone 
grieves when a family member is lost'--my parents died in the first bombing 
and I didn't care.  `A smile means friendship to everyone'--I was sixteen 
years old before I'd figured out body language that far.  So I was ruled, by 
unspoken social decree, not to be human."
        "You mentioned a bombing?"
        "There were several before war was finally declared."
        The war. He was finally getting to the bottom of this. "Yes?" Spock 
encouraged.
        "I think it took that long because the Symmetrians refused at first to take 
the enemy seriously. By all the laws of our great society, they didn't even 
exist. Oh, in a few years they got taken seriously, all right. But first it 
was them bombing us, and  us bombing them, and expecting the problem to go 
away, and then they bomb us again, and vice versa, and so on. I think each 
side had dropped half a dozen bombs before there was an official war."
        "Who was the enemy?"
        Maria Susanne began building a little tower of Clonidine. It was eight 
tablets high before she spoke again.
        "They called themselves the New Lazarus society. Something about `lazar' 
being an early word for `leper.' We called them the Nerds. They called us the 
Jocks.  *I* called them..."  Maria showed no reaction as her Clonidine tower 
toppled with the sixteenth pill.  "...*I* called them the people who had only 
one thing in common: that they had nothing in common with us."
        "You do not identify yourself with them?" Spock mentally rebuked himself for 
the question. When had the personal opinions of this young outcast become a 
more important subject to him than the Symmetrian war? The reaction was 
illogical, but he was not as surprised at the final revelation of the 
identities of the warring parties as he was at Maria Susanne's use of the 
words "they" and "we."
        "I couldn't. My family guarded me with an iron fist. I wasn't allowed to 
speak to them. They weren't allowed to speak to me. My sister Billie managed 
to run away and join them when I was about nineteen. I remember her saying 
that it was the last straw..."
        "What was?"
        "Being drafted. There was never much of a supply of people who liked dealing 
with electronics. Before the war, they were all forced to go into the most 
vital computer engineering fields--regulating the water supply, the energy, 
the transportation. When the war became more important than that, they had to 
design missiles. Billie refused. Before she ran away, she built me a beacon. I 
didn't tell you this, but contacting anyone off-planet was illegal, and the 
plans for hailing devices had all been destroyed.  She had to come up with the 
design on her own. Invent it all over again. I remember the last thing she 
said to me. Almost verbatim."
        The veneer of nonchalance was as thin as Spock had seen it. "What did she 
say?"
        "She said, `Look, Maria, I know we've never been close. You're a language 
nerd and I'm a computer nerd. But we both belong with people like New Lazarus, 
and if you've got any right to that 143-point IQ of yours, you'll run away 
first chance you get. I'm staying here to fight to the finish, but the best 
place for you is off-planet. When this thing tells you a Federation ship is 
coming by, you call them, and best of luck to you."

        *	*	*
"So it was your sister who was responsible for your distress call."
        "Yes. In effect, she saved my life." The emotional shield was up again--not a 
shield like Spock's, put in place to hide feelings, but a mere absence of the 
knowledge of emotional expression,  through which the emotions could be felt 
only by their sheer intensity within. It was up--meaning the emotions were no 
longer strong enough to show through as clearly--but her next words, if they 
had been spoken with the voice tone that they clearly deserved, would have 
been as expressive as any tears.
        "I wish she'd let me know earlier that she was the closest thing to a friend 
I ever had."
Spock studied her curiously for a moment, his own emotions stirring 
uncomfortably. "You never felt... sexual attraction... you never felt love for 
your family... and you never felt friendship either?"
        "How could I, when no one ever felt any of those for me?" Maria Susanne began 
loading her pills back into their container.  "Do you know what childhood is 
like, for someone with autism? Do you know what it's like for someone with 
Tourette's? For someone with OCD? With ADD? It was all of that for me, and 
then some. Do you know what it's like to be fifteen years old and have a 
social worker--one, mind you, who spells `its' with an apostrophe in the 
possessive, `a lot' as one word and `there' in whichever way it *isn't* 
supposed to be spelled at the moment-- come up to you and criticize you for 
shutting your locker too loudly?"  Maria's tone had never sounded more as 
though there ought to be emotion in it.  "Now before you answer, add this to 
the scenario: She doesn't say, `Maria, you shut your locker too loudly.' She 
says..." and the human affected a high-pitched, baby-talk voice.  "`*Now how 
do we shut our lockers, Maria*?'"
        Spock raised the eyebrow again, hoping this version of his one facial 
expression got across a sufficient amount of sympathy.
        "It was like that all through school. Tourette's and everything else aside, 
when autism alone gets on the record, the student instantly loses her 
identity. Do you know the 20th century? Movies they made back then? You heard 
of Rain Man? That's what happens when they know you have autism. You become 
Rain Man.  Or worse, the `mentally disabled child' stereotype. You can be 
sixteen and they assume you have the mind of a three-year-old. They ignore all 
evidence to the contrary. You can have an IQ of 143, you can create languages 
and write books and sonnets and draw pictures people mistake for photographs, 
it's all the same. I corrected my teachers' grammar in kindergarten.  Do you 
know what they did? They *yelled* at me. They sent a referral to my parents. I 
never missed a class, or a test, or a homework assignment my whole senior year 
of high school. Do you know what they did? Every time they saw me come in with 
my homework done? They said, `*Good choice, Maria*!'"
        " `Good *choice*'?"
        "That's Special Ed's idea of praise. They thought they had to hammer it into 
our heads that we made `choices' and they  had `consequences'--that's what 
punishments were called, too, by the way, 'consequences'--so everything we did 
was described as a `choice.' Correcting the teacher is a `bad choice.' Do you 
know what I told them, in junior high? I said, `Every event in the space-time 
continuum is affected by every previous event and affects every subsequent 
event, and is the product of a chain of events leading back to the beginning 
of the universe, and if the universe began all over again with all the same 
matter in the same places, history would be identical;  our actions are a 
result of physical processes in our brains determined by the physical effects 
of outside forces and the physical construction of our brains themselves, both 
of which result from similar chains of events, therefore, the choices we make 
are inevitable.'"
        "You said that?"
        "I said that. And do you know what they said that was?"
        "A... bad choice?"
        Maria Susanne nodded. "A bad choice."
        Spock picked up his tray, realizing that it was late and everyone else in the 
mess had finished dinner long ago. "And this was childhood for you?"
        "A small slice of it, but representative of the whole."
        "And then it was New Symmetria."
        "And then it was New Symmetria. But in between, there was one thing that made 
my life worth living." She began gathering up the remains of her meal, shoving 
the pill bottle back in her pocket. It made an asymmetrical lump on one hip of 
her ugly pink pants.
        "One thing?"
        "My time as a cadet on the Enterprise."
        He finally caught her gaze, and once more, the rare moment of eye contact 
was electric.
        "I am glad that you enjoyed it," he murmured.
        "You will never know how much, Spock.  For nine days I had a taste of the 
life I wanted. It didn't matter then, that my life up till then had been 
horrible, and I didn't know then, where I was going to spend the rest of it. I 
was *happy*. I was learning how to use the communications systems, I was 
showing off my talents and people were admiring me... and Nyota was so nice, 
so kind to me. She introduced me to her friend Christine. Christine was pretty 
nice too... except once she was really worked up about something... snapped at 
me and made me go synthesize a whole package of plomeek soup ingredients..."
        If Maria Susanne was watching him, training all her limited skills on gauging 
his reaction to what she said, Spock did not notice.
        Because now he realized what Jim had meant when he said Spock could not have 
been expected, at the time, to notice a new cadet...
        And he realized for the first time how long it had been since then...
        And for the first time he realized that time was dangerous.

                        *       *       *

        Not as dangerous as it was now, with T'Ria looking at him over the chessboard 
expecting him to make a move that his hands did not know how to make... when 
there was only one thing his body could do, for which the desire was raging so 
violently that the shreds of his mind that remained could hardly hold it 
back... and he knew he must not allow himself the release toward which his 
instincts drove him, even if it meant that he would die when the chess game 
ended, die slowly, painfully, and alone...
        Even three months ago, with the threat of destruction and with Maria 
Susanne's insanity claiming her as his even now was claiming him, time could 
never have been this dangerous...
        And once more, memory of the past enveloped him in its deceptive illusion of 
security, and three months dropped away as if they had never been there.

                        *       *       *

        To the past again, to the day he had discovered the feeling. Discovered the 
woman who was now at his chessboard.  Discovered understanding.

        It had been half a year since the distress call. For half a year Maria's 
relocation to a new home had been postponed and postponed again, Spock somehow 
always being the one to find an excuse for it. He studied her and he was 
fascinated by her, too fascinated to relinquish his new-found experiment. For 
she was an engrossing experiment, turning up in every conversation a new set 
of clues to his studies of the human psyche--and just as many new questions.
         Half a year spent in silent dinners with Maria, eating and watching her 
eat... in hours of conversation afterwards, reading her poetry and her 
invented languages and mentoring her on human behavior... and in solitary 
anguish in his quarters, trying to discover some means of protection against 
the danger of time.  His forty-second birthday had come and gone, and he had 
told no one. It was as he was leaving for another of the silent dinners he had 
come to enjoy that Uhura alerted the bridge crew to the incoming 
communication.
        They had just had a skirmish with a Klingon ship, some renegades afraid of 
some distant prospect of alliance and going around stirring up trouble between 
the Federation and the Empire. It had taken out their shields and damaged the 
hull considerably, but they had retaliated with a disabling shot at its 
weapons before it could take further advantage of their vulnerability. 
Understandably, however, there was tension when the communications officer 
announced, "Being hailed by an unknown vessel, sir."
        Spock turned around and reentered the bridge as Kirk announced, "On screen."
        The creature that flickered into view was humanoid, and an elderly male, so 
the baldness did not seem out of place and it took Spock a few seconds to 
identify it in his mind as a Deltan.
        "I am Captain Aili of the Federation starship Natl'ed," said the image. "I 
recognize you, Captain James T. Kirk. My starbase has given me a missile which 
I am under orders to fire through the hull of your beautiful ship."
        There was a stunned silence.
        Finally the captain broke it, saying in a faltering voice, "What is the 
reason for this?"
        "Dear sir, I have no idea. I was simply the only vessel between here and the 
base that was going your way--and that, I believe, is why I was chosen. I am 
not at all sure what the missile is for. I was only asked to fire it at you."
        "We have done nothing to incite that kind of reaction in anyone," said Kirk 
in bewilderment, "let alone the Federation."
        "I believe it was decided as a result of your recent conflict with the 
Klingon ship."
        "They attacked us first. We were fighting back. And we didn't even hurt them. 
We just took out their phasers."
        "But they damaged your vessel, I understand, which I believe is why it was 
decided that you should receive the missile at this time. You are very 
vulnerable to weapons at the moment.  Please, sir, I must fire it into your 
vessel. I have things of my own to do, you know."
        "Can we negotiate, at least?"
        "We can negotiate the time," acceded the Deltan, his good-natured look not 
shifting a millimeter,  "but according to my orders, the missile must be fired 
today."
        Kirk turned and paced for a while, and finally said: "Then give me eight 
hours to inform my crew."
        "Certainly, Captain Kirk," said the smiling Aili, and the viewscreen was shut 
off as Kirk moved to confer hastily with his officers.
        "The Federation would never order anyone to shoot us!"  objected Chekov.
        "Precisely. This is ridiculous. What do you think, Sulu?" 
"Captain, I think the only choice is to fire and disable his weapons before he 
gets the chance. With our shields out, plus the damage we just sustained, I 
don't think we can handle another fight."
"But what if we miss? I don't even think I know where the phaser banks *are* 
on a ship like that one."
        A communication from the area of the mess hall interrupted before Spock could 
voice his own opinion.
        "Nurse Chapel to bridge. Passenger Maria Susanne Schmidt is experiencing 
severe behavior problems. Thought we should inform you."
        And Spock did something very illogical.
        For no sufficient reason, following no rational thought process, he abandoned 
the bridge crew in a dangerous confrontation with an alien ship...
        ...to make sure Maria was all right.

                        *       *       *

        He found her standing on top of the table at which she usually ate, 
surrounded by a crowd of crewmembers and passengers.
        "I'm going to jump," she called, through fits of laughter. "I'm serious, I'm 
going to jump. Don't think I won't do it, `cause I will."
        Spock appraised the distance between her and the floor. It was little more 
than a meter. He turned to Chapel, who was looking with concern at Maria 
Susanne. "Nurse, what is the matter?"
        "Well, you can see for yourself, Mr. Spock..."
        "I meant, what is the probable cause of this lapse?" Spock could not believe 
how harshly he was speaking, how fast his heart was beating...
        "I think she forgot her medication, Mr. Spock.  She refuses to come down and 
take it. She says about once a minute that she wants to be calm, that she will 
be calm, and then starts laughing hysterically again."
        "I didn't take my meds," said Maria Susanne in a high sing-song voice. "I'm 
going crazy. Dammit, Spock, help me, I'm going crazy." She didn't seem to 
notice that Spock was there... seemed only to be calling to him hypothetically 
in her own insanity.
        And Spock ran to her side to catch her as she fell laughing convulsively from 
the table.
        His first impulse was merely to take her away, to remove her from the sight 
of all the crewmembers who didn't understand. Irrational anger flared up... 
they could not see her like this, she would not want them to. Seeing her dead 
would be better! Or unconscious... a nerve pinch? Somehow he recoiled from the 
idea;  it would be too much like restraint, like something a social worker 
would do.  He was painfully aware of how ridiculous they both looked as they 
stood there, almost in each other's arms, Spock breathing heavily in 
near-panic, Maria laughing like a maniac.
        Gently he moved his hands to the meld points of her face. The chaos of her 
unmedicated mind struck him unpleasantly as they met.  *Maria. Calm. Please.*
        His mind touch sobered her considerably.  *Oh, Spock, what did I do? Oh, 
no... everyone's looking at me, Spock, get me away from here.*
        And all he could do was soothe her confusion, smooth down the remaining 
madness as best he could. When it began to dissipate, he was startled by the 
order and clarity of this mind he had never touched before. He ached to 
explore it further...
        A small thought of his ventured into the corridors of her psyche, a 
disorganized thought, something about her, something about him, something 
about time... something also about the situation on the bridge, which must be 
getting desperate by now, and which he'd better go check on before anything 
more went wrong.
        Her mind explored his confused communication, caught out the part about the 
bridge, which she examined with interest.
        *You left that to check on me, Spock?*
        *I was worried.*
        *You were illogical. It happens a lot. It won't kill me.*
        *I am sorry I could not help you earlier. Before people saw you like this.*
        *Spock, go back there. Now. And take this. You'll need it.*  
Her mind shoved into his mind a tiny string of knowledge, wrapped up neatly. 
*Language, it's a mess. If only everyone could talk like this. Go, Spock. Go 
on! Now!*
        That was when Spock seemed for the first time to come to his senses. *Forgive 
me.  You have been logical, and I have not. Your mind is fascinating, Maria. 
Fascinating. Remember that.*
        And his thoughts were disconnected from hers, his hands from her face, and 
she was standing there as calm as ever, watching him rush away to where he was 
needed.

                        *       *       *

        "Has the matter been decided, Captain?"
        "We've decided Sulu's right. Either way, the maniac is going to shoot us, and 
if we get in the first shot, we've at least got a chance at hitting his 
weapons."
        The memory of the Deltan on the viewscreen surfaced in Spock's mind. Maniac 
was the word for him... and yet he didn't seem like a maniac at all,  in his 
look and mannerisms... a kind old man, excessively polite perhaps...
        The bundle of thoughts from Maria began to unfold itself.  It opened with 
rapid speed... the knowledge blared out at him, presented itself in a blaze in 
front of his eyes...
        "On screen!" called Spock suddenly.
        The Deltan appeared, the same polite smile on his face. "Yes, officer? Are 
you ready for our missile?"
        "Quite ready, Captain Aili. Fire it immediately."

                        *       *       *

        Minutes later the confusion had cleared,  the engineers were installing the 
new replacement part that would restore the function of the shields, and Spock 
was in the hall with Maria Susanne, walking her from the mess to her quarters.
 When they passed the bridge, Maria paused to catch what the captain was 
saying to Uhura as he walked out.
        "...And send a communication as soon as possible to the translator designers, 
Lieutenant, and tell them it's all right if a language has the same word for 
*some* things, but that a distinction between the Deltan for `missile' and 
`object which is delivered,'  not to mention `to beam' and `to fire,' would be 
a useful upgrade."
        Maria laughed softly in satisfaction and walked on.
        "I trust, Miss Schmidt, that this was not one of the translators that you 
designed."
        "Spock, I was *eight years old.* How was I supposed to know--"
        Kirk came up behind them at that moment, a grateful smile on his face. 
"Spock, I can't believe what you just stopped me from doing. We can always 
rely on the infinite stores of information between those pointy ears to save 
us in a crisis, can't we?"
        "Well, actually, it was..." began Spock, but Maria seized his hand in an iron 
grip, sending a clear message: *this is your moment, Spock. You deserve it.*
        *I do not,*  his mind replied through the touch. *You are responsible.*
        But then he realized her implied meaning: *Do not discuss it. Do not discuss 
the time when I gave you that information. Do not discuss what was happening 
to me. It is a state of mind I do not like to think about.*
        And Spock understood, all too well.

                        *       *       *

        At her door, he took his leave of her. "You have been most helpful today, 
Miss Schmidt. I am grateful to you on behalf of the entire crew."
        "And I'm grateful to you, Spock. About what you did for me in the mess hall. 
You'll never know how embarrassed I get, after something like that happens. 
Okay, I admit it, I do wish you'd gotten there earlier."
        "Did you receive sufficient nourishment during dinner?"
        "I'm still a little hungry. But I think I can hold out till breakfast. How 
many hours is it till then?"
        "Till your customary morning mealtime? Eight point three six five hours."
        "Rain Man," she teased.
        And then he realized just how well he understood her.

        Because the words "Rain Man" had completed the connection.

                        *       *       *

The shield of not knowing how to express...
         
The shield put up to control the expression...

No one liked me... I was ruled by unspoken social decree not to be human...

Running home crying from children in ShiKhar... You are not a true Vulcan...

It's not that I don't want to be friends with people, it's just that they 
speak a language I don't understand...

Human behavior is illogical...

I didn't take my meds... Oh, no... everyone's looking at me, Spock, get me 
away from here...

Captain, lock me away. I do not wish to be seen...

Seems she was a prodigy...

Eight point three six five hours... Rain Man...



Could any understanding, between any two beings, ever have been so great?

        And he knew that it was 2274 and he knew how many years it was since 2267 and 
he knew that there was only one person by whom he was willing to be helped.
        And that she could from that moment no longer be Miss Schmidt, or Maria, or 
Maria Susanne, but that his mind was even then giving her a secret name that 
she could never hear, but that would be whispered to her so often in his 
dreams...

        T'Ria.

 *       *       *

        And he also knew, three months later as he sat across from her at the 
chessboard in his quarters with time becoming more dangerous by the minute, 
that he had no right to what he wanted from her. That she would never 
understand what it was to be a social creature, of any race; that she had no 
idea of the commitment she would be making. That he must let her leave after 
the game was over, and die with her secret name on his lips.

        "YOUR TURN, SPOCK!"

        Blindly he reached out a hand, pushing the first piece his fingers came in 
contact with, hoping the direction in which he pushed it would turn out, by 
pure chance, to be a valid move. Only to get the game over with, to be alone, 
to be freed from this torment, this agonizing temptation!

        A moment, a small motion, incomprehensible to his eyes, on the chessboard.
        "I can't believe this, Spock," said T'Ria. "Check."
        Spock stared straight ahead, his coordination capable of accomplishing only 
one goal, and a forbidden one... the idea of moving another chess piece at 
all, let alone getting his king out of danger, was ludicrous...
        "Check," repeated T'Ria, smiling deviously. "In fact," she added, lifting 
some unknown piece and setting it back down some unknown number of spaces 
away, "check... and... *mate.*"
        And that undid him.
        There was no more control and Spock was pulling her across the chessboard 
into his arms, their minds and bodies clasping each other in passion, 
scattering the remains of their game all over the table, her knight and his 
king falling across each other on the space they now shared... and through the 
sudden contact his mind cried out to her, using the secret name without 
thinking.

        *Run away and leave me, T'Ria, before it is too late...*
        *I want this.*
        *I shall hurt you...*
        *I want this.*
        *Our minds will have to bond...*
        *I want this.*
        *T'Ria, you do not know the...*
        *If you say the `consequences' of my `choice,' it is quite possible that I 
shall scream.*

        There was a glance between their souls, a mind's eye contact.

        *I know what I am doing and I have wanted it for a very long time, Spock.*
        *I thought you were asexual, Maria.*
        *Call me T'Ria. I like it.*
        *T'Ria. I thought you did not feel love.*
        *I never felt sexual attraction. I never felt love for a family member. I 
never felt friendship. But I have felt something that was all three. There was 
one person I knew for a short time, long ago... one person I felt could be a 
friend, a brother and a lover all at once.*

        A smoke-wisp of confusion in the midst of the fire.

        *One person in the whole galaxy I finally had something in common with.*

        Clouds of bewilderment, flickering wordless questions at her.

        *Spock, do you know how many centuries I have waited for this?*
        *Centuries?*
        *Centuries.*
        *How many?*
        *Point zero seven.*

        The eye contact of her mind was as thrilling as that of the eyes of her face.

        *That's seven years.*

        Then the confusion caught fire from an understanding spark.

        *Do you have any idea how long that is? Seven years, Spock. Two of them on 
Earth, studying day and night trying to qualify for being a real officer on 
the Enterprise. Then another two on Symmetria, wishing my parents were dead, 
until the war started and they were. Then two more, hiding in bomb shelters 
every week and wondering how the human species had made it this far when they 
were such lunatics. Then finally a year with that damnable hailing device, 
trying to keep myself from smashing it against a rock every time it told me a 
ship was coming over but it wasn't a Federation one. All the time hoping you'd 
at least have the sense to get bonded before you'd need it, even if it wasn't 
to me. Frankly, I didn't think I had much chance. But I waited. Seven damn 
long years.*
        *Seven years...*
        *To the day. This is the septennial anniversary of you pasting Christine with 
the soup she made out of the ingredients I synthesized, and when I heard about 
that I would have laughed my butt off if I hadn't known you had a bondmate 
waiting for you down at Koon-ut-kahl-i-fee that I was even more jealous of. 
Can you blame me for quitting my internship early? How could I live with you, 
knowing you were hers? If I had to identify the happiest day of my life, there 
wouldn't be much competition, but I'd have to place it about a week ago, when 
I was finally sure that if she hadn't divorced you seven years ago you'd 
already be on Vulcan.*

        His mind flinched, and she realized she'd said something wrong.

        *Oh, Spock, I'm sorry. I'm an autistic bitch with no social skills. You had 
to kill someone, didn't you?*

        * It is a long story. I will tell you someday. But she is no longer my 
bondmate.*

        Dimly at first, them with growing clarity, he became aware that his mind was 
beginning to fuse together with hers... her thoughts, feelings, memories, 
desires all becoming his own...

        *You are my bondmate. We are joining. I cannot control it.*

        *If you tried, I'd hit you.*

        *Are you sure you are ready for this?*

        *You can read my mind, can't you?*

        He explored her mind, the incredible mind that was now his mind too, and 
found the thought, the burning desire, that was as urgent, in its own way, as 
his.

        *I want it as much as you do. And I know you do, Spock. You want to be bonded 
to me. You want to know what I'm thinking all the time. Because my mind is 
fascinating. You said so.*

        *Stay with me. Please. Will you stay with me forever?*

        *Of course. How can I not? We'll be bonded. I may leave the Enterprise, of 
course. I may go to the other end of the galaxy. I may become the captain of 
another ship. I may defect to the Romulans for all I know. Or I may go to 
Earth and stay there for the rest of my life. Which in fact I consider a 
serious option at the moment.*

        *Go to Earth?*

        *I've been a translator since I was eight--helping communicate ideas between 
the cultures of different planets. Now I think I'll try helping one species 
communicate with itself. There are people like me all over Earth, people who 
were born on the wrong planet. Half-human-half-Vulcans trapped in full-human 
bodies. With their Vulcan and human halves constantly struggling inside them, 
a desire and its goal stuck in every one of those heads with a wall between 
them, the side that needs to interact with the rest of the world fighting to 
push past the side that doesn't know how. And they need someone to teach them 
the... patterns of human illogic.*

        *Do you consider yourself prepared for the task?*

        *I learned from an expert. No--don't raise your eyebrow at me, Spock. You're 
an expert on illogic. And no, that doesn't mean you're illogical. Illogical 
people are never experts on illogic. You've got to be an outsider to study 
something right. And you've got to be an insider to relate to someone enough 
to really teach them what you've studied. I'm an outsider to more than ninety 
per cent of the human race. I'm an insider to a tiny minority --autistic, 
nerd, whatever. They need me. And I'll help them.  But I'll stay with you 
anyway, no matter how far away from you I go. If I remember correctly, the 
phrase to describe our present condition translates most accurately as "never 
and always touching."*

        *Never and always...*

        *I've waited seven years for this. To bond. To be never and always touching 
you, parted and never parted, less than married, more than betrothed, yours 
for ever and ever. And if that isn't an emotional enough declaration, I don't 
know what is.*

        *Seven years... how did you know? How did you know it, seven years ago? 
Everyone promised not to tell...*

        *And no one broke his promise. I recognized the symptoms.*

        He could no longer tell where they were, or what they were doing, in the 
universe outside their joined minds. The thoughts in that inner universe held 
him captivated.

        *Recognized...?*
        *T'Pau's archives on bonding rituals tell everything, Spock.*

        The blue flame was clearing to a golden blaze of comprehension.

        *A language interpreting device has to have at least some words about 
marriage in it...*

        Now he understood in blinding sunlight.

        *But if you read up on them, if you go paging through Vulcan literature 
figuring out from context the best translations for things like "never and 
always touching," you run across stuff in between them that your parents might 
not want you to see...*

        The fire of understanding was brightening like the rays of 40 Eridani for the 
two spirits between whom it could most brightly blaze in all the galaxy. And 
time was no longer dangerous.

        *I know about this, Spock. I know every `choice' I am making. There were 
words they didn't let me put in the first Vulcan/Standard translator, you 
know.*
        *Which you designed, T'Ria?*
        *When I was eight point five years old, Rain Man.*