Vulcan's Soul Trilogy Book Two; Exiles

Following on from the events of Vulcan's Soul: Exodus (hardback 0743463560: paperback 0743463579), a bloody war is raging between the Romulans and the mysterious Watraii. Ambassador Spock, pursuing his dream of ending the centuries-old enmity between Romulus and Vulcan, must find and penetrate the home base of the Watraii, where long-hidden secrets that link this newly-discovered people to the ancient Vulcan race are finally revealed. Through masterful use of flashbacks to an earlier time in Vulcan civilization, Josepha Sherman and Susan Schwartz bring the history of Vulcan to life as never before in a stirring tale of explorers who took their chances amidst the cold and distant stars

Chapter One: Memory "We left Vulcan on the Fifth of Tasmeen. Since then, it has been a day of remembrance on all the great ships that survive." Before embracing exile, Karatek had been a physicist at the Vulcan Space Institute in a ShiKahr he would never see again. Now that Vulcan was receding fast, both in fact and in memory, the Fifth of Tasmeen had become a day of meditation and reflection. Thus, it was Karatek's duty to ask: Was it the fleet that needed the Fifth of Tasmeen, or Karatek himself? He glanced out into the long night. Here were few stars. No planets; therefore no new home. Beside the viewscreen were hangings woven in traditional designs. His consort had hung them in his meditation chamber to soften the severity of the bulkheads. They fluttered constantly as air circulated through the ship like blood through a heart. The air was cold. It smelled of chemicals, not the wild sweetness of the desert as the sun erupted up from the horizon, turning the cold into blazing heat and dazzling light, shimmering off the crimson sand. Karatek focused on the gleaming crystals and bloodmetal circuits of his coronet. Of all the tasks he performed as one ofShavokh'sleaders, Karatek thought the duty of remembrance was probably the most valuable. Certainly it was the one for which he was best suited. The thought, as it always did, brought some reassurance. He had reluctantly inherited the task of command, and it still came hard to him. Most of the people he would have preferred to follow were long dead. He adjusted the coronet. His hair was brittle from the air, even more arid than that of Vulcan. It had begun to gray earlier than it would have done on the homeworld, assuming he had managed to survive the battles that had been the Mother World's daily lot. From years of making this record, he knew that the great green gems that were the coronet's memory, created in an art banned by the adepts both of Gol and Mount Seleya, pulsed in time with the beat of the blood in his temples. Wrapped around the glowing crystals were fine-drawn unbreakable metal wires. Clad with bloodmetal, the wires formed intricate lattices that simultaneously ornamented the memory device and linked into his cerebral cortex through filaments almost too delicate to be felt. The tiny wounds those wires inflicted every time he set the coronet on his head stung for a moment longer as they healed. They would reopen when he removed the crown. But the pain did not matter. As Surak said, there was no pain. Certainly, there was not pain enough to interrupt the thoughts, memories, sensations, and even the emotions -- for even after years of study of Surak's disciplines, Karatek's emotional control remained imperfect -- that the memory device would capture and record for all the years of exile and afterward, when they finally found a new homeworld. If that day ever came in the long night of their exile. It was Karatek's habit to combine meditation and memory. But the task that Surak had personally entrusted to him turned bitter every Fifth of Tasmeen when he recalled events from the past year and sealed them in the coronet's memory. "I could make the calculation, if I chose, of today's date on the Mother World. At our current speed, while 3.9 years have passed on board this ship and its consorts, 25.86 years have passed on Vulcan. Obviously, today is not the Fifth of Tasmeen back on Vulcan. Although some who follow Surak deem hope to be illogical, I cannot agree: Surak might have been ruthless, but he was never cruel. Therefore, I believe it is not illogical to hope that the homeworld has survived and that finally -- after all the bloodshed -- it may live long and prosper, as Lady Mitrani wished us. She may still be alive. I hope she is well. "On all the ships that have survived thus far, other memories occupy us today. It is wi