"Grebfoot didn't hurt me," Chekov said quickly. He knew the child had intended no harm; in fact, the pounce had seemed more an invitation to join the play. Chuckling, he said, "My boots are strong enough to protect me even from a Grebfoot."
"Are they?" Distant Smoke looked extremely interested, as if Chekov had said something entirely different.
Chekov thought of the little ones scrambling up their mother for protection and said, "I think Ketchclaw needs protection more then I do. Perheps you would explain to me: how do the bebies climb her without clawing her to little pieces?"
There was a squawk from the center of the free-for-all and Distant Smoke instantly turned his full attention on the four children. Just as quickly, the fighting stopped. All four were suddenly a good two feet from each other, just beyond arm's reach, and were ignoring each other with a studied indifference.
Except for the shiver at the very tip of TooLongTail's overly long tail, one might never have known anything had happened among them. "Are you all right?" Distant Smoke asked. "Come let me see."
The child did, and the others crowded around as well, to look her over and to lick her rumpled fur. By the time they were finished, she looked five times as rumpled as when they'd begun.
"I thought," said Chekov, "thet you would lick the fur in the direction it grows, not against the grain."
"It would seem sensible, wouldn't it?" agreed Distant Smoke. "But, believe it or not, there's a good medical reason for licking it backward. It stimulates their circulation and warms them, which reassures them. Catchclaw says that's probably the reason for the instinct to lick anybody injured backward." He hefted the child and she scrambled onto his shoulder and clung there, now preening her own fur back into place the right way.
"As for climbing," said Distant Smoke, returning to the question the squawk had interrupted, "they use their claws, of course. But adults have a heavy tangled undercoat- those sharp little claws never reach skin." He offered his side to Chekov. "Go ahead," he said. "Feel for yourself."
Chekov did and found that he could readily hook his fingers into the undercoat. He gave a slight tug. "I see," he said.
"See what?" It was Stiff Tail. The four children scrambled away from Distant Smoke and climbed all over her by way of greeting.
She gave them each a good lick hello as Chekov explained, "How they climb you without scretching you to pieces."
"Oh," she said. She took what seemed to be a bouquet from a hook on one side of the tent. Having just eaten the same thing with Distant Smoke, Chekov knew it was dried meat of some sort, and very good if a trifle tough. She chewed thoughtfully and passed small pieces to the clamoring children. "Bet you don't eat like this at home," she told them, looping her tail in amusement. To Chekov, she explained, "Most children like to nurse as long as they can get away with it, so they only eat solid foods when they're visiting.... I think I'll tell Catchclaw on you." This last drew a minor storm of protest from the little ones until Stiff Tail assured them she was only pulling their tails. "But," she said pointedly, "it's not as if you don't have teeth!"
While the children concentrated on the meat, their ferocious chewing serving to confirm her observation, Stiff Tail turned again to Chekov. "I have learned something about your people that I must tell to Distant Smoke," she began. "Will it disturb you to listen?"
"I don't mind, unless you prefer to speak privately."
"I prefer to have your reaction and any corrections you might wish to make," Stiff Tail said. She told first of Wilson's fight with Fetchstorm. At Chekov's exclamation, she quickly reassured him that Wilson was fine, as far as Catchclaw knew, then added, "But your friend doesn't know enough to squawk when she's hurt!" She made it sound like the local equivalent of not knowing enough to come in out of the rain.
"They all seem to share that trait," Distant Smoke said, pointing to the mark Eager Talker had left on Chekov's hand.
Stiff Tail gave an exasperated sigh and said, "I have cuffed Fetchstorm for his disobedience."
"I'll bet the keptain cuffed Dr. Wilson, too." At her ears-back surprise, Chekov explained with a mock swing, "Not physically- with words."
"Is that effective?" Stiff Tail asked, and Chekov blushed, remembering a few times the captain had done it to him.
"Wery," he said.
Stiff Tail nodded thoughtfully. Then she said, "I have learned another very important difference between our peoples." She gave a very long recital, detailing their differences in memory. Chekov was astonished as she explained how it happened that she learned this. He himself could hear very little difference between Spock's version of the event and Brightspot's, but there was no doubt that Distant Smoke found the variance between them shocking.
When she had finished, Distant Smoke said, "Now I understand, Pavel Chekov. I thought it very strange when you said you had neither the memory nor the skill with materials to recreate my design, but you meant that, didn't you?"
Chekov leaned toward him, nodded, then said, "I want to be wery correct about this. You gave me the gift of a design, to use whenever I wish. I hev not the memory or skill to duplicate thet design. I do not wish to offend you by trying and failing- and to fail at such beauty would be terrible! But I want you to understand thet I eppreciate what you hev given me."
Distant Smoke said, "After what Stiff Tail said, I thought it impossible to make you a gift...."
Chekov shook his head vehemently. He tapped his tricorder. "I hev taken pictures. When I return to the Enterprise, I will hev those pictures trensferred to paper so I can see them whenewer I wish. They will be with me always- and they will remind me of you and your people and your kindnesses. They will always give me pleasure."
"Still," said Stiff Tail, "if you wish them to remember, you must ask them to turn on their memory machines. It is- unsettling."
Spock stared hard at his tricorder, as if by sheer will he might force it to tell him the answer to his questions. "Illogical," he said at last. It was the closest to an insult in his manner of delivery that Jim Kirk had ever heard him come. Vulcan or not, Mr. Spock, he thought, if you had a tail, it'd be twitching right now. "We still have insufficient data, Captain. I do not understand this culture.... I beg your pardon, Brightspot, but confusion is often the result when two peoples as different as yours and mine first meet."
She had been watching his work with absorption. Apparently, it made no difference to her whether she looked at the screen right side up or upside down. She twitched her whiskers at him. "It's all right. I think you're confusing, too. I never met anybody who kept his memory in a machine." She looked down again at the tricorder. "Can't I help? I remember everything."
"Then you will remember that we have no wish to cause difficulty between you and your mother," Spock told her.
The tip of her tail swept up and quivered. "Yes, I remember- I was only hoping you wouldn't."
"Hoping to take advantage of our weaknesses, Brightspot?" Kirk grinned at her. Children, he thought, would be quick to see the possibilities.
She stepped to his side. "When you put it that way, it doesn't sound very nice. I guess it wasn't very nice, was it?"
"It's nice of you to want to help," he said, "even if you're devious about it. And some of my best friends are devious- isn't that right, Mr. Spock?"
Spock lifted an eyebrow. "I have no idea what you mean, Captain."
Brightspot's tail looped in amusement. She said delightedly, "You just pulled Mr. Spock's tail!"
"Indeed he did," said Spock. "May I ask how it is you were able to recognize that, knowing as little of our relationship as you do?" Brightspot looked startled. "You said he was your friend. Is that a baby question?"
"I believe so."
"And the captain- did I use that right?- always pulls his friends' tails, even if they don't have any. Besides, your -" Momentarily without a word, Brightspot drew an arc in the air with the tip of her tail.
"Eyebrow?" suggested Kirk, pointing to his own.
"Eyebrow," she repeated in Standard, "went up- it's almost as good as a tail- and your smell changed." Spock's eyebrow lifted a second time. "Now you're very curious," said Brightspot with complete assurance. "That's a different smell."
A glance passed from Spock to Kirk. Kirk said, "I'm curious, too, Brightspot. Can you tell that as well?"
"It smells different on you than on Mr. Spock, but I can tell."
"Brightspot, I think I'm going to... shock you again. I can't tell when someone is curious by the way he smells."
She was indeed taken aback. "You can't?" she said. "Mr. Spock?"
"Nor can I," said Spock.
She fell silent to consider the two of them. At last she said, "I think you must miss a lot."
Kirk grinned, but it gave him an idea. "Brightspot, do you remember smells the way you remember words?"
"Yess."
That came out in Standard English, too; Brightspot was picking up their words as well as their expressions. He went on, "Do you remember the first time Lieutenant Uhura spoke to Jinx?" She made what was clearly a scoffing sound, and Kirk grinned again. "Sorry, I forget how good your memory is."
Her tail went into a virtual paroxysm and ended up wound once more around his wrist. When she had gotten herself under control, she said, "You mean, when Lieutenant Uhura talked about- the You-Know-Whos?"
"Yes. Tell me, what did you smell?"
"First," Brightspot began, then, seeing that Spock had turned on his tricorder, began anew, addressing her remarks directly to it: "First, I smelled very strange smells. I never smelled any human or Vulcan smell before, but I did smell that you had come through the stand of green velvet just outside the camp.... Do you want to know how my people smelled, too?"
"Please, Brightspot," Kirk said.
"Mostly curious, but some frightened," she said and added scornfully, "Catchclaw's babies ran away."
"That is a logical response for the young when confronted by an unknown," Spock interjected.
"I suppose so. Better that than stick their tails in a slicebill nest. But I'm old enough to walk," she said, clearly for the record. "I stayed."
"You did," Spock acknowledged, also for the record. "Continue."
"Well, when Lieutenant Uhura sang to Catchclaw's babies, most of the smell of fear went away, and it was only curiosity- until she mentioned the You-Know-Whos." Her ears suddenly flicked back. "That's odd!"
"What is?" Kirk asked.
She spoke slowly, as if thinking it through aloud. "Most of us still smelled curious, but Winding Path and Catchclaw and Settlesand smelled... guilty, ashamed. The way Fetchstorm does when he's been told not to do something but he's done it anyway. Stiff Tail smelled that way when she cuffed you- and that's not usually how she smells when she cuffs somebody- usually she smells angry! Left Ear, too!" She caught and shook her tail vehemently. "When I asked about the You-Know-Whos! Everybody I asked smelled either curious- or guilty!" She stared at Spock and concluded, "You're right, Mr. Spock: it is illogical. I don't understand it at all."
"Kagan's Law," said Kirk.
When he had explained that for Brightspot, she nodded and said, "I'm going to find out. I'm going to find out why I don't understand my own people.... Do you need any more baby questions answered right now?"
"No, Brightspot. Thank you, I think you've answered a big one."
"Okkay"- again she spoke Standard- "I'll see you later. I have some baby questions to ask." She walked away, the tip of her tail flicking behind her.
"Guilty," said Kirk, thinking aloud. That confirmed what Left Ear had told him. "After two thousand years?" He turned on Spock as if expecting an answer.
"The Eeiauoans still bear a guilt of their own," Spock said.
"How the hell do we fight two thousand years' worth of stubbornness, Spock?"
"As you pointed out, Captain, you yourself have considerable talent in that direction. Perhaps, in this instance, it may be of value."
"Why, Mr. Spock, I do believe you're pulling my tail!"
"I am merely stating a fact, Captain." Spock's expression was as bland as ever, and Kirk found himself wishing Brightspot had not left before she'd sniffed out the truth for him.
Uhura left Jinx's tent in a pensive mood. Jinx had not recognized ADF syndrome from her description of the symptoms. That might be a good sign; that might mean the disease had been wiped out on this world- or it might mean that ADF was a new disease for which the Sivaoans had no cure. Jinx had assured her Catchclaw would know, if anyone did. Uhura said a small silent prayer that Catchclaw would know.
The commotion of welcome-homes drew her from her thoughts, and she waited to see what new arrivals there might be. Making as much noise to announce their arrival as the welcome-homes had, a hunting party emerged from the wood. The eight of them, male and female, waved and shouted their triumphal return until they drew the rest of the camp from tents and trees to look. Whatever their catch was, it was certainly bright. She walked over for a closer look.