380 pages, double columns. Color covers to each volume by Suzan Lovett. Interior artwork by Liz, Deeb, Shelley Butler, and Iracema Marianne Mueller. Edited by D'Anne. Published in July 2005. Available as a printed zine and on a CD.
In the Shade is the third novel in the Sharing the Sunlight series, written by Jenna Sinclair. This novel can be understood and enjoyed by anyone who is not familiar with the series. Enough information about previous events is presented in the first few chapters for readers to easily catch up.
(Note: Previous novels in the series are Sharing the Sunlight, available from Merry Men Press at www.merrymenpress.com, and Promises to Keep, available here. Short stories and novellas that take place between STS and PTK are compiled in Setting Course, available here.)
Here's a excerpt from Chapter One:
The healers had kept them waiting for more than twenty minutes. Every once in a while the low murmur of voices came from the rooms that Kirk knew existed on the other side of the wall behind his back; that was the only reason he had to believe that Sluman and T'Braggia were actually present this morning in their consulting suite on a quiet, tree-lined side street in San Francisco. Vulcans didn't countenance illogical delays. It was assumed that patients would arrive punctually, and then they would speak with a healer. He and Spock had already done that twice since the Enterprise had eased into orbit over Earth, and Kirk had approved the logic in well-timed appointments. What could be delaying them now? This visit was at their unexpected request.
Next to Kirk, Spock's head was tilted as he examined the abstract painting that graced the opposite wall. He didn't seem to be infected with Kirk's own impatience. After forty years of practicing the ways of control, he didn't allow his anxieties to show.
The rain pelted against the window as the wind gusted outside, and the energy of the elements pushed Kirk into action, too. He abandoned his pretense at contentment, jerked up off the couch and stalked across the room.
He forced himself to focus on the view outside: past the weeping, rain-streaked windowpane, to the two trees with a few leaves clinging to their branches, to a hurrying pedestrian. But the static visages of three-story brownstone houses with their attendant shops at street level could not capture his attention for long, and eventually he saw something else, a distorted reflection in the glass: his Vulcan, lean and dark and handsome in his blue and black dress uniform, sitting in silence and pretending to examine a third-rate work of art to which he wouldn't have given a second glance at any other time.
Kirk watched as a raindrop streaked down the window, splitting his former first officer's image into blurry halves. He frowned at the overt symbolism. It didn't mean a thing. He'd learned long ago that worrying didn't contribute to the solution of a problem. Or to put it another way, a different way from his but no less valuable: It is illogical to speculate. What is, is. Cor yhr mahr.
Better to focus his attention on the positive. Debriefing and separation were almost over. Another week, maybe two, then the Prime Directive Committee would release its official report, and he and Spock would be free to start new assignments and new lives, the bridges they both had to cross before time found them again together on a refitted Enterprise. Thirty-two months at least she'd be in drydock, with the possibility of the new transwarp engines at the end, and when she left on a new mission Kirk intended to be in the command seat with Spock by his side again. Why not? Nogura and the gray-haired officers on the Assignment Board would come to see the logic in it.
His thoughts were interrupted by the chirp of his communicator.
"Kirk here."
"Andersen here, Kirk. No thanks to you, I've managed to rearrange some of those interviews you canceled on me. Li from The Shanghai Express at 1745, then Randolph from The Galactic News at eighteen hundred Paris time. Two short exclusives. I'll have one of my people meet you when you beam over. You will be here, right? No more changes?"
"I'll be there."
"Good. Andersen out."
He slapped the communicator back on his belt with unnecessary force. PR gave him a headache. He rotated his neck and reached up to massage the tight muscles there.
It was a relief when Spock spoke, his words pulling Kirk away from his contemplations.
"I am concerned that our choice to schedule this consultation today was a mistake, especially if the healers do not see us soon. You have but a few hours before the promotion ceremony, and it may have been wiser-"
Kirk stopped him with a fierce look. "Spock."
"Yes, Jim?"
"Don't be stupid. It doesn't become you."
A light appeared in his Vulcan's eyes, and Kirk returned the smile with a small one of his own. The top layer of his anxiety, the part that had kept him silent, evaporated.
"You know," he said conversationally, leaning against the windowsill and gripping it lightly from behind, "I think my mother was impressed by you. It helps that I've been telling her lies all these years, that you're the best thing since the Guttenberg press."
"It is difficult to understand how you can gauge her opinion from the short lunch the three of us shared weeks ago. And considering your mother's background in journalism, I fear that she will become disappointed upon closer acquaintance."
The human's eyes softened. "Not a chance."
A gust of wind drove rain against the glass, in the same way that small asteroids had once pelted the shields of their ship. Spock spoke over the rising weather.
"Your mother will be able to join us after the ceremony tonight for a late dinner?"
"Uh-huh. She's over in Prague at some media conference anyway, so it's a short trip for her to Paris and then back. I've got reservations for midnight at a restaurant I've been to before. Small and quiet, on the Seine, where I hope the reporters will leave us in peace."
"And you still plan to speak to her concerning our relationship tonight?"
"I think it's only right, don't you? Before we move in together."
"I concur. However, I cannot help but speculate that your mother's reaction might not be as positive as you anticipate."
"Don't worry about her. Her life is Kirk Communications, her small group of newspapers, and she hasn't meddled in my life in years. She'll ask if I'm happy, say congratulations, and then it'll be back to work for her. Mom's a workaholic."
"Like her son?"
Kirk laughed quietly. "Not exactly. Wait until you get to know her better, you'll see. I think I know how to relax. If I ever get the chance."
A short silence. Kirk listened to the raindrops, turned around to watch the rain again, and thought of how long it had been since he and Spock had managed to relax together.
Starfleet Command separated captains and first officers to grill them over the five years they'd spent together in space˜to ensure an honest appraisal of all mission assignments˜so he and Spock had rarely been in the same room or even the same building when they faced questions from boards of sober-faced commodores and admirals. Fortunately, Starfleet PR, as directed from the CinC's office, saw things differently. At least some of Kirk's media interviews and public appearances had been in Spock's company, especially in the past month. "Part of the spin for this campaign is to push you two as a team," Commodore Andersen had told them shamelessly. "It's effective ammunition against the arguments of the Eternists. The different races of the Federation working together on a starship˜that's what we want to present." And though Kirk had grown sick of the sight of his own face on the holovids, he had to acknowledge the public seemed to be lapping it up. The previous day he'd been told that Starfleet approval ratings were on the rise, and if that meant the anti-alien, secessionist movements of the Eternists could be checked, then he'd smile at even more cameras.
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