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"The Forgotten Time II: Ashaya"
Rating: R (for occasional language) Author's Note: This story takes place between Kir’Shara and Daedalus. All Vulcan words are my best try from the Vulcan Language Database. :-) Chapter 10 “You probably shouldn’t have said that to Koss,” T’Pol reflected calmly, after a few moments’ lull in conversation. She was efficiently slicing vegetables at the counter, and Trip was adding them to the stir fry he was concocting upon T’Les’ heating element. Trip looked up from his sweltering task in surprise, perspiration already beading his freshly-showered forehead. “What… about his hair?” he asked, after thinking for a moment. T’Pol tried not to smile and nearly managed it. “No,” she clarified more severely, chopping large fori roots. “Alerting him to the fact that we suspect him.” “Ah, he’s too much of a blockhead to do anything about it,” Trip replied airily, liberally adding more of the spiced herbs he had purchased in the market and stirring them in vigorously. “Besides, like he said, he’s just an architect. I’m starting to think he’s as thick as he looks. Just ’cause you work for the government, it doesn’t mean you’re in central intelligence.” Trip tapped the spoon on the side of the pan, set it on the counter, and looked at her. “Yep—most government workers I know have pretty boring jobs.” He grabbed the pan and held it above the element. “Compared to us, that is.” He winked at her with a rakish eye, as he tossed the contents of the pan, only spilling a little bit. Unable to resist his infectious mood any longer, T‘Pol smiled. She relaxed into the feeling—watching him as he briskly swirled his handiwork—savouring something strong and good that didn’t have to knock her down. Trip glanced over at her, shaking a final dash of salt into his pan. He did a double take upon registering the wide, pleased expression on her lips, and set the pan down with a surprised bang. Teeth! She actually had teeth! “You’re smilin’!” he exclaimed. He came forward, smiling himself. “No—I mean, you’re really smilin’!” And he put his arms around her waist. “Maybe I kind of like you with your ‘defences severely lowered’,” he said mischievously, but as he looked into her eyes for a moment, his face sobered. He touched the tip of her pointed ear with a finger and swallowed. “You’re so beautiful when you smile.” His voice was startled; husky. T’Pol, no longer smiling, held herself motionless, looking up at him, pulse jumping at the base of her neck. The intensity of their shared gaze riveted them both for a strange, instantaneous, utterly stretched-out second, and there were queer scratchings in the air all around them—almost of another universe trying to get in—something—some sped-up, distorted voices. their voices? A nanosecond. Imagined. But it snapped the tension, distracted them for a split second. Trip shook his head. T’Pol looked away as if waking from a trance. “You okay?” T’Pol blinked and nodded. She stepped back a pace and rubbed her upper arms, though the evening was far from cool. “It’s weird, this thing with us,” Trip observed, turning back to the pan, but glancing at her. “Y’know? I mean, it’s nice…but it’s weird.” T’Pol nodded. “An extremely apt description,” she agreed fervently, hugging her elbows and watching Trip cook. Using the large spoon he had been stirring with, Trip sampled the sauce that was beginning to thicken on the bottom of the pan. “Still tastes practically like consommé! That old grocer told me that these were the strongest he had!” He frowned down at the hot edge of the steel serving spoon as he rolled the unacceptably mild sauce around on his tongue. “It is an unhygienic cook who sips from the utensils,” T’Pol commented undisturbed. She leaned over to sniff experimentally at the steaming contents of the pan. “Is this how you work when you invade Chef’s galley to prepare your mother’s cornbread for the crew?” Trip laughed at her arch expression and ladled up another bit of sauce. “Ah, you don’t mind my germs.” He lifted the edge of the steaming spoon to T’Pol’s lips and held his hand under her chin. “C’mon now, taste this and tell me if you don’t think it’s too bland.” He watched in anticipation as, after an initial distrustful glance up at him, she sipped some of the hot liquid. To her uninitiated Vulcan palate, the taste was fiery at first, but the nature of the bar-kas herbal spice he had purchased was that it flared quickly and was gone. Few Vulcans used anything piquant in cooking, but there were some, mainly the elderly, who liked to add a little pinch of something extra to their tea or plomeek. Trip had minced handfuls of the leafy herb and mixed it into the rice-like grains in the pan—along with bright vegetables and some unique other flavour combinations from T’Les’ kitchen cupboard—to concoct the spiciest dish he could manage on this taciturn planet. Trip smiled as T’Pol eyes widened in shock at her initial sip. She swallowed and blinked for a moment. “It is… definitely not too bland, she gasped. “But,” she took another tiny sip, and paused, tasting. “It is a most unusual recipe.” Trip grinned and stirred the mixture a few more times with the spoon. “Too much?” “Surprisingly, no,” T’Pol admitted. “Aha! You’re startin’ to come around now, see?” Trip proclaimed, fumbling behind his back to untie the large tea-towel he‘d used as an apron. “You’ll be eatin’ Cajun yet. Can you help me get this thing?” he turned and indicated the knot. “I doubt it,” T’Pol replied evenly, to the Cajun remark, as her deft fingers worked behind him at the damp, fabric knot of the tea-towel. “How tight did you make this?” she muttered in disbelief, bending closer. She picked at the edges with her fingernail, and finally her teeth, before she stopped and spied the sharp paring knife she’d been using earlier. Trip glanced back over his shoulder in time to see her cut the corner of the fabric with a single, upward jerk, releasing him from his self-inflicted, tea-towel bondage. Trip turned in surprise, the towel dangling from his hand. “You don’t mess around, do you?” “I do not,” T’Pol deadpanned, pointing the handle at him. Trip grinned as he took the knife from her and put it in the sink with the cutting board. He then picked up the stir fry and a covered bowl. T’Pol carried the salad, and they sat together at the nearby table. T’Pol looked about for a long moment, finding the domesticity of the scene suddenly daunting—and yet—somehow attractive. She had eaten thousands of meals at this very table. Had known that, one day, she would inherit the table and the house and everything in it. That day was now here. It was strange how unlike adults’ real lives were from the imaginings of children. She certainly had never expected to sit here alone with a human man. Trip passed her a napkin, breaking the momentary spell, and she realised she was starving. She shook her napkin out and settled it upon her knees. “Thank you for preparing the meal. It looks delicious.” Trip piled some of the food onto her plate. “No problem. It’s nice to get a chance to cook. And besides, I think you said before that it was traditional for the guest to prepare the morning meal. We didn’t get here early enough today for me to make anything, and I don’t know about you, but I plan on sleepin’ in for a bit tomorrow.” He winked at her again, causing her heart to jump. “But you haven‘t seen the best part yet.” He pushed the covered bowl towards her and removed its lid with a flourish to reveal golden, deep-fried cornmeal blobs within, lumpen and fragrant. T’Pol tentatively reached out and picked one up between thumb and forefinger. She looked at it. She looked at Trip. “What is it?” “Hushpuppies,” he said, and T’Pol could suddenly see a hundred different summer nights from Trip’s Floridian youth: the recipes and good times and good smells around the family table. The entire human dinner-table philosophy was alien to Vulcans, for whom food was merely an energy source—nothing more. However, in this instant, T’Pol found herself awash in a cornucopia of borrowed sensations and recollections, her mouth watering for that remembered taste. And, surprising herself, she bit deeply and trustingly into the strange-looking thing. Delighted, Trip watched her chew introspectively, swallow, and sit there for a minute. “Well?” he prompted, piling a few upon his own plate, and adding stir fry and salad. “There is a decidedly greasy residue,” T’Pol reflected, “but it is surprisingly palatable.” She took another small bite. “You love ‘em.” “I wouldn’t go that far,” she replied thickly through her food, to Trip‘s laughter. But she kept the rest of the hushpuppy on her plate and finished it along with her spicy stir fry and salad. “When did you make these?” “While you were on with the Captain. How’s everything up in the sky?” “I saved the transmission so you can hear it. It sounds as if tensions in orbit are increasing. He wants us back tomorrow morning with whatever information we have.” “Yeah, what little we have.” Trip made a face as he chewed and swallowed. “I can just picture our debriefing: ‘Well, there were these two fishy-looking guards, y’know, and they just didn’t seem quite on somehow… to us anyway. Oh, and then later, we talked to Koss, and he said he didn’t know anything about the attacks, so, y’know…’.” Trip spread his arms. “I mean, it just blows the whole case wide-open.” His sarcasm was not lost on her. “But do not forget,” she reminded him stoically, “Koss was at one of those monasteries, and he wasn’t injured. It is hardly evidence, but it could be a place to start.” Actually, she shared Trip’s gloomy view of their results. She chewed a bite of salad reflectively. Her ex-husband had probably simply run straight out into the hills at the first sign of a hostile ship. He didn’t know anything. And of course it would have to be Koss who saved his own neck, of all the people there. “Amen to that,” Trip replied as if she’d spoken, not even noticing she hadn‘t. “’Cause that is weird.” He stabbed some salad. “Once they give out those lists of missing and injured, I’d like to find out how many other people were at one of those flattened monasteries and made it back without a scratch. Probably a pretty short list hey? #1: KOSS.” Trip gestured with his fork and knife in the air to indicate a big, invisible list with one pointy name on it. He chewed, waving his fork at her for emphasis. “Y’know, if Koss is so religious, spending his time off at a monastery and all, I’m really surprised he’s foolin’ around with that guard chick. I mean, I thought most Vulcans had nothing to do with sex…except every seven years, of course.” “Of course,” T’Pol replied. She thought about his question. “You’re correct: most Vulcans maintain lifelong monogamous relationships. But I do not believe Koss and the…‘guard chick’…(Trip grinned) are necessarily involved in a physical relationship. His behaviour could be attributable to something else.” “C’mon.” Trip looked at her askance. “Little jealous?” T’Pol closed her eyes with something approaching longsuffering. No. Trip winced slightly as she singed his grey matter. “I am referring to the fact that that woman, T’Zela, or whoever she is, has extremely unusual abilities.” T’Pol showed him the feeling of the woman’s powerful psyche, as she had experienced it. Nothing definite so much as a hint—a tickle—of great facility. “I wondered briefly if she could be a priest, or someone else with special training. But after I felt her presence again in the marketplace….” T’Pol trailed off, frowning at the floor as the pieces of the past few hours finally whirled into place. She’s not Vulcan. They realised it simultaneously. It was obvious to them both now as they remembered together the strange behaviour of the woman T’Zela and her security partner. Koss’ anxiety in her presence. Even Trip, so well acquainted with how one particular Vulcan’s mind felt and behaved, could see, in retrospect, that T’Pol’s memory of this woman’s psychic aroma was most un-Vulcan. “I believe your expression was ‘hindsight is twenty-twenty’,” T’Pol commented wryly. “Ah, don’t kick yourself,” Trip advised good-naturedly. “What were you gonna do anyway? Put her in handcuffs?” T’Pol shrugged, unconvinced. She felt she had been careless in not noticing the woman’s distinct alien nature sooner. “Anyhow,” he continued, wiping his hands and mouth on his napkin, “the longer we stood around out there, the better the chance she was gonna see right through my soft, flabby, human brain.” Trip finally succeeded in extracting from T’Pol a small, rueful smile. “You have a valid point,” she admitted. “I wondered myself if she could possibly have seen into my own thoughts. Though I’m sure it was my imagination.” “Ah, yes,” Trip agreed, nodding. “That elusive imagination of yours. Now you see it, now you don’t.” “I have no idea to what you are referring,” T’Pol replied with false, total calm, (and voicing the ‘h’ in ‘what’). “Of course you don’t.” Trip smiled. “We are unlikely to run into the woman or her counterpart again before we leave,” T’Pol reflected, picking rather morosely at the last remains of her hushpuppy. “Chances are low that she has anything to do with the current situation. We probably could have saved ourselves the trip.” “True. But your divorce,” Trip reminded her bracingly, as he scooped the last bits of his food onto his fork with the help of a thumb. “Had to get that, didn’t you? So it wasn’t a total loss.” He glanced up and met her glare. “What?” he asked, naïvely. Men. She didn’t feel like explaining it mentally or verbally. “Nothing. It has been a very long couple of days.” “That’s true enough,” Trip concurred wholeheartedly, pushing his plate back. “A lot of ups and downs. But I am glad we came, aren’t you?” T’Pol stood and started to stack the dishes, reflecting. She had been dreading this trip back home for what felt like ages, though her mother’s death really hadn’t been very long ago at all. So many things had changed in the short time since then. The Kir’Shara, and the lives of the Syrranites, had altered her entire outlook on life. And then she and Trip had been finally, marvellously honest with one another, and this had altered it even more. But, no…she suddenly realised that was an oversimplification. Trip had been challenging her long-held preconceptions since the very moment they had met. He had been telling her to get rid of Koss since practically the moment they had met. And if not for Trip constantly demanding, compelling, insisting that she cut through the layers of self-insulation to her truest, best self…would she have been able to accept her mother’s conversion as she had done (albeit somewhat grudgingly)? Would the pre-Enterprise T’Pol have listened to her mother’s words, or simply flung dogma back at her in rejection? And how would she have felt if that had been her last conversation with Mother? M’aih. And how would she have felt? He had been working on her for years, she could see that plainly enough now. The Pre-Enterprise T‘Pol wouldn‘t even recognise her anymore: wouldn‘t have had anything to do with her, in fact. And she felt glad. Trip watched T’Pol’s face and thoughts as she stood, carefully considering his question. He underwent each of the emotions as they passed over and through her. And as she was reaching her conclusion, he got up, walked around the table to her and hugged her hard, sudden tears in his eyes. He too remembered their first meeting: his loud-mouthed handshake left hanging--and how far she had taken him since. How far they had both come, together. Words would have been clumsy, and so they simply shared their thoughts wholly, each drinking deeply of the other’s wonder. And their hands came together, and their mouths came together. Anything else would have been unnatural. After a few moments, they gently broke apart. But they remained where they stood, each trying to fit the feelings and sensations that the other was inspiring into their mental landscapes. Finally Trip spoke. “It’s too bad the Cap’n wants us back tomorrow. I like spending time alone with you for once. It’s been…,” Trip swallowed, touching her cheek, “Well, it’s been like a honeymoon.” Vulcans don’t have honeymoons. Both gasped, as a half-remembered thought sliced jaggedly against their minds. Wincing, they turned inward, hands to their temples for the flash of a blinding second. Thoughts bled, clotted: —you loved it—two weeks—best— And the burn instantaneously subsided--sucked away by an inside-out, vacuumy vortex of thought that wrenched the flashing distorted voices from their eardrums and left numb silence. Breathless, standing bent, one hand to his knee and the other to his temple, Trip looked up at T’Pol. “What the hell was that?” he gasped. She had gone white as a sheet and was gripping the back of the chair next to her with both hands. But she met his eye strongly, a shocked and flinty cast to her gaze. And after a moment, she helped him to the nearby sofa. Trip was unsteady on his feet, but managed the ten foot gap, grateful for T’Pol’s strong arm. They sat down together, heavily, both freezing cold in spite of the relentless evening heat. T’Pol watched as Trip tried to shake off the effects of the phenomenon. Bright specks still swam upon his retinas, and he rubbed his eyes with his fists, as his mind reeled still from the shock of receiving sudden, huge wads of imagery and sensations which he had no way to process. T’Pol still said nothing, but simply held Trip’s hands in hers and mentally guided him to rise above the maelstrom of images that had whipped so brutally through both of their minds. “Charles…?” Trip began tentatively to himself, then he frowned, looking even deeper inward. “--and Daniels!” Even now, T’Pol waited--sensing data still ticking, clicking into place within Trip’s frail, human psyche. Finally, Trip was able to slow and deepen his own breathing, to look at T’Pol with hammering heart. “You died.” And for both, it was a lock sliding free. Light shone suddenly, unflinchingly, into a place in their hearts and minds that had been made secret by a universe that didn’t seem to want them to be together. Secret, but still there--strong and firm. A stealthy niche, forged for them both by T’Pol in the final, cracking seconds of an insane, forgotten mission. Memories poured into the space in their minds that Daniels thought he had emptied for good: --don’t know what to call this--whispered T’Pol finally met Trip’s eyes, finally inhaled, finally pulled them free from the sucking quagmire of sudden, overwhelming recollection. They looked at one another, almost confused. T’Pol broke the silence with her first words as his wife: “So that’s when I started calling you Trip.” “Mystery solved,” Trip murmured in shocked assent. He pulled T’Pol tightly to his chest, stunned at what he himself had just realised. The smell. “T’Pol,” his voice was haunted, hushed, and he spoke into her hair, his eyes closed. “It was the smell. At the lava fields—that made me keep quiet about you marryin’ Koss.” “What smell?” T’Pol whispered against the rough knit of his cotton shirt. “Charles’ memory….” Trip’s tone sickened, “…of that day at the transport.” Now T’Pol could see into the borrowed memory. Trip had subconsciously witnessed it from within the mind meld that accidentally included Charles: The heat first. “Something held me back. I never told you,” his voice broke, “but for some reason I couldn’t say a word, that day at the lava plain. And I never could figure why, but it was a kind of hideous doom I was feeling. I put it down to fears of commitment, or some crap like that, but it was…like déjà vu, like I was there for a second. God, how did I remember?” His voice was flush with a strange relief that he hadn’t, after all, thrown his chances away in cowardice. That he had, instead, saved them both by his sorrowful sacrifice. Trip pulled back and gripped T’Pol’s shoulders. “You went on the trip, but it turned out differently. See? Your plan worked! It was brilliant!” He was almost laughing with relief now, and she smiled in response. “And I am your wife nevertheless.” He did laugh at that. “You’re right. We’ve been married all this time and had no idea. So this kind of is our honeymoon, really. We better be careful driving home.” They looked at one another with a kind of awe. T’Pol kneeled up on the sofa cushion and kissed him slowly, gently--in wonder--at what a human would call her unbelievable luck. Trip’s hands slipped easily up underneath her thin T-shirt to stroke the warm skin of her back, and within moments T’Pol climbed astride his lap, her hands in his hair, kissing him fervently. Trip slid to the floor with her, and his groping fingers found the small plastic catch at the back of her brassiere. * * * Moments later they found themselves breathless and sticky and satisfied upon the carpet in the living room. They lay on their sides, facing one another, hands and fingers entwined. It was too hot to lie close, now their passion was spent. T’Pol’s short locks—and Trip’s shorter ones—clung damply to their owners’ glistening brows, as the two lovers searched one another’s faces with serious, happy eyes. Finally Trip pulled one hand away from hers to tuck some of her wild hair behind a pointed ear. Her ears. One of his favourite things about her. He marvelled at their delicate, elfin shape every single time he touched them. Her cheek still pressed into the rough rug, T’Pol’s sleepy mind listened in on Trip’s loving ruminations, shivering as he touched her ear and as she recalled the very first time he had taken the liberty of curiously stroking her pointed helices—during decontamination after an early away mission. She had pulled sharply away from his gently inquisitive touch that day, shocked at the sensations he had inadvertently produced upon her ears, and neck…and elsewhere. Trip smiled at her thoughts as he, too, remembered those early decon experiences, their first neuropressure sessions: before they had learned to trust what their bodies and hearts were shouting. When every touch was a hot brand--burning unanticipated, unwanted, unwilling memory into quivering flesh. Finally, Trip stretched and sat up on one elbow, running his other hand through his sweaty hair. “Well, I reckon we’re probably the only two to have done it in this living room.” “Don’t be so sure,” T’Pol informed him languidly from her spot on the floor. “My family has owned this house for centuries. And a Vulcan in the throes of Pon’farr has little compunction as to where he or she mates, so long as mating occurs. Repeatedly.” She left the implications of this statement dangling, as she slowly eased her tired body up into a sitting position. Intrigued, Trip took the bait. “So what’s the deal with this Pon’farr anyway?” he asked, gathering up their scattered bits of clothing. “I mean, I’ve known you for four years, and you’ve never—” He broke off thinking. “Unless that other time on Enterprise was…?” he left the question unfinished. T’Pol stood, stretching, and spoke mildly. “I assure you: if ever you find yourself in the clutches of a Pon’farr-fired Vulcan, you will not need to ask. You will be quite sure.” “So, you haven’t—” Trip was unsure how far to take this line of inquiry, knowing what little he did from his abbreviated and short-lived research into the phenomenon of Pon’farr. Their database stated mainly how completely private a time it was, and how totally unwilling all Vulcans were to discuss the matter. End of article. Though he was pretty sure that they just didn’t want the universe knowing how very randy they got every seven years. But T’Pol was undisturbed, knowing she could trust Trip now--in this, as in anything else. “I had my first Pon’farr during my adolescence, at the age of 25.” T’Pol’s eyes took on a faraway cast as she remembered back to her youth. “The first plak-tau, the blood-fever, is an extremely difficult one. It is a sterile cycle. One goes to a special sanctuary, where bi-centenarian priests give psychic assistance in meditative techniques and self-control. Mating does not occur, and the young person is usually severely tested by their desire.” Trip, sensing the privacy of her hedonistic memories, didn’t pry; however, he couldn’t help intuiting the emotions she remembered: the frustration, the rage--the shock--at discovering her true, primal nature. “Sounds pretty harsh,” Trip commented, holding her hand, as by silent agreement, they walked together down the hall toward the bathroom for another shower. “It’s much worse for males,” she replied, without elaborating. Trip found the insight into her past and culture fascinating. It was rare she spoke of her early memories. In the bathroom, T’Pol activated the water spray, testing the temperature with her hand and adjusting it. She continued her recollections as she stepped into the refreshing, tepid deluge. “I had two like that, here on my homeworld.” She closed her eyes and tipped her head back to rinse her hair. “The next was in space, aboard the Besaya. I was 39. I would normally have taken the opportunity to marry and mate with my betrothed at that time, had I not been off-world, furthering my career. Koss and his family were most put-out.” Trip smiled. “Well, I’m glad you stuck to your guns. I mean it was pretty nice of you to wait for me, considerin’ I was probably in diapers at the time.” He put his arms around her under the pouring water. “I bet you wouldn’t’ve believed it---if you were told back then that some human toddler was gonna one day make you squeal.” He tickled a rib, causing her to yelp and jump aside. She tried her best to glare at him frostily. “I do not squeal.” “Well, whatever you wanna call it,” Trip replied equably, taking advantage of the entire shower spray while he had it. “So what do you do when you’re in space and you’ve got no mate?” T’Pol shoved her way back under the water. “As it is considered unhealthy and potentially dangerous to wait, it’s customary for adults to seek another willing partner if they are unavoidably separated from their betrothed or spouse during the time of Pon’farr. I chose, as some do, to waive this custom and spent the time alone in my quarters. There are certain medications that helped, but it was, as humans say, ‘no picnic’.” “I guess not,” Trip agreed, soaping T’Pol’s back--and more than somewhat awed at her resolve, as he saw into her chaotic memories of that time. “My last Pon’farr was six years ago, aboard the Seleya. The fever burned so severely, I needed to be sedated. Unslaked Pon’farr worsens with age. However, I still did not seek a temporary mate. The idea never appealed to me. “Koss, on the other hand,” she continued somewhat grimly, “exercised his rights fully on the four separate occasions we found ourselves apart during Pon’farr. He had an…arrangement…with a childhood friend. They used birth control, of course. The matings were simply to quench the plak-tau, not to produce offspring.” “Of course,” Trip agreed automatically, his head spinning. He hadn’t really considered the implications of an avowedly emotionless race to the functioning of the family unit. It reminded him of cattle. Finally, he realized something. “So, it sounds to me like you managed to be out of town--in fact, off in a pressurized cabin somewhere--every single time you knew you wouldn’t be able to keep your hands off Koss.” “You’re implying I was avoiding my betrothed mate and my marital duties.” T‘Pol stated. She did not contradict him. Trip smiled to himself, still soaping her smooth back unnecessarily and allowing her to have the full force of the water on her breastbone and forehead. “So, uh,” he began hesitantly, “what were you planning to do next year? Just smash up your quarters all by yourself?” “Perhaps.” T’Pol turned and arched a wet eyebrow up at him. “However, I went to a certain understanding member of the crew once or twice before in matters concerning my marital complications. Perhaps he would have assisted me in this also.” Trip imagined his possible responses to this request. “He would have loved to.” She kissed him once, slyly. “Perhaps he still will.” Trip smiled into her eyes, their noses touching wetly. “I don’t know; I seem to be doin’ a pretty good job of it already.” “Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet.” T’Pol grinned evilly, uncharacteristically, at his naïveté. “I simply hope you are ready when the time comes.” She slipped out of his grasp. “Me too.” Trip tried to ignore a faint wisp of future apprehension. T’Pol stepped out of the shower and started towelling off. “In any case, it is unusual for most Vulcans to have more than one sexual partner over the course of a lifetime. I expect it will be difficult for Koss, and it would have been nearly impossible for me, to find a mate among Vulcans now. He will need to look among the open-minded widows of the world. On Vulcan, we mate for life. Death is an acceptable reason to end a marriage. Careers involving human explorers, taking one off-world for many years at a time--less so.” Trip turned the water off and reached for his own towel. “So what were you eventually planning to do for a mate?” “I didn’t know.” T’Pol realised they were using the past-tense, having already comfortably married themselves in voice and inflection. She pondered as she considered her reflection in the mirror. The emotional strains of the day had made her feel odd, strung-out. “I suppose I expected to spend a good deal of my life in solitude.” Her voice slowed as she looked inward. “Well, not anymore,” Trip replied happily, towelling off. “Wife.” T’Pol was faintly aware of his euphoric manner as memories of a much younger reflection from her past suddenly flashed through her mind: the hair longer, the cheeks softer, the large eyes burning even more mutinously than they would in later decades. They had just received word of the humans’ first warp test. First contact. Finally, officially, they could begin to speak with them face-to-face. No more subterfuge. The humans had fascinated T’Pol’s fertile, young mind ever since her tiny, wise foremother had held her rapt with the strange history of her own mother’s adventures among them: trapped, living disguised on Earth--for months--nearly a century before. That night T’Pol listened to the netcast with her family, as the dour newsreader announced that the frail, self-destructive, enigmatic humans had suddenly, precociously, breached the hymen of their sub-light-speed universe with a small warp capsule…and could one day, foreseeably, land even upon her own planet. Her defiant heart soared at the notion, and far from detaching as taught, she revelled brazenly in her own secret breast, as thoughts swelled of one day travelling to Earth itself and working with the strange, delicate, emotional creatures. Her elders told her she looked flushed and made her lie down. After dark that night, alone in her bed, T’Pol dreamed of an endless white space and a human man with sandy hair and startling blue eyes. Friendly warmth and compassion hung around him like a heavy cloak. Tears slipped down his cheeks, and his joyful mouth smiled with its hungry desire for her. And he gently took her and touched her and touched her and touched her--and made her cry out, trembling--finally waking the household. They took her to the sanctuary, knowing her trouble. She was 25, what else could it be? But not they, nor the priests, knew anything of her real desires as she paced her cell, fevered, shouting out in Vulcan and gibberish. Strange, erotic cravings--almost as if handed down from her long-gone second foremother--to interact with the humans, to know them and their customs—their emotions--they filled her every excruciating moment of that first Pon’farr. And each one after that, too. She never could say why. Nor why it didn‘t bother her. Nor why she almost looked forward to it. T’Pol jolted from her sudden reverie to find Trip watching her in the mirror. She could not be certain now if his wet, sandy hair and clear blue eyes were a coincidence, as she had always assumed. Not after Daniels. Maybe she had known, even back then, that Trip was waiting for her, in this time and place. Maybe her feverish, adolescent self--as it tossed upon the bed that night so long ago--was somehow sensing the fiery, passionate, and gently agonizing things that she and Trip had hungrily done to one another, in exactly that same bed, just hours ago. She involuntarily recalled the devastating thirst she had felt both times: one left untended, burning out painfully; the other quenched heartily and thoroughly, with promise of much more later. She involuntarily rolled a shoulder back, shivering. Trip could read her thoughts easily: they smouldered so, in her sultry eyes, that they smoked. On impulse, and never taking his eyes off hers, he effortlessly picked her up and carried her away down the hall to her room, each unable to resist the other’s silent orders. * * * Captain Archer leaned back in his chair. Malcolm and Hoshi waited for his response. He ran his hands tiredly through his hair. “Look, I thought we were talking Andorians and Vulcans here. Are you certain about this?” “Dead certain.” Malcolm swallowed with the effort of trying to make his commanding officer understand. “These messages nearly passed us by undetected. After Hoshi caught them, she brought the transmission to me and we spent the next hour trying to crack into it. It really wasn’t a good time to be without both our chief engineer and our science officer.” Hoshi cut in. “Sir, I am absolutely positive of our findings. Once we got into the encrypted text, it became clear that the language was Suliban. The message has degraded too badly to make out much, but they are definitely involved in this thing with the Vulcans. We tried to establish the transmission‘s source. It originated within a quarter parsec of here.” “I’m willing to bet the Suliban’s time-travelling friends may have helped the ‘Sel’Tior’ out with their weapons too,” Malcolm added, almost petulantly. Certainly, no one had ever given him any fabulous futuristic weapons, whether they were colluding to take over the timeline or no. Archer resigned himself in the face of his officers’ evidence. The Suliban. Always a deadly disaster. “No wonder the Vulcans are being so cagey. I wonder if they know yet.” “I don’t think they can,” Hoshi replied. “It was only coincidence that I was scanning that bandwidth. It isn’t commonly used, as signal degradation is a factor. And if any are onboard the detained rebel ship, it wouldn’t make sense to give themselves away. Likely we’re the only ones who have any idea.” The three crewmates looked at one another. Suliban. You could almost feel them creeping along the ceiling above you. “Where are they now, do you think?” Captain Archer asked quietly. “I mean, are they all on that Sel’Tior ship, or do you think any have gone to the surface?” Hoshi used the captain‘s terminal to pull up a scan she was running from her console on the bridge. “I’ve begun preliminary scanning for Suliban biosigns,” she said, “but it’s difficult to pinpoint one--likely altered--biosign among so many billions. With all their DNA modifications, it might even be impossible to find them. And so far, I’ve only scanned the small area we happen to be orbiting above. With your permission sir, I’d like to ask Travis to put the ship into a search protocol orbit so we can cover ground more quickly.” “As soon as we’re finished here,” the captain approved. “I’ve asked Trip and T’Pol to wrap things up planetside for now, too. They’ll be returning with the shuttle in a few hours. Now, none of that,” the captain remonstrated humorously, in response to the covert, juvenile smirks of the other two, at the mention of their coworkers’ names. “We have no idea what you’re talking about, Captain,” said Malcolm after a moment, in a hurt and proper voice. “Right.” Archer pointed a finger at him. “Trip has told me on more than one occasion that you two are solely responsible for all the*” But what Malcolm was responsible for, he never found out. The captain had broken off mid-sentence in response to a beep from Hoshi’s scan. The three of them crowded around the screen. Hoshi impatiently tried not to shove either of her commanding officers out of her way as she calibrated the results. “Captain, I think I’ve got something.” She pointed. “Two distinctly bizarre biosigns, here, in the south-western province. We’re directly above them now. I’m almost certain they’re Suliban.” “The south-western province?” the captain echoed, “Isn’t that where T’Pol’s family home is?” Malcolm nodded as he enlarged the map. “I think Trip said the name of the town was T’Forti. Here.” He re-centred the map over T’Pol’s large hometown and magnified it. The two alien biosigns were less than 300 metres from the Eastern Quarter, where T’Les’ house stood. The captain looked at Hoshi. “Get Trip on the phone. Now.” “Captain, I just tried.” Hoshi’s large, round eyes were frightened, but she held her voice firm. “Someone’s jamming their communicators--from the surface.” |
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