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"Want Of A Nail"
Rating: G Part 2 Daniels Ship: Time Frame Indeterminate Daniels opened the door and they stepped through into a dark corridor that stretched into invisibility in both directions as far as her eyes could see. The only light came from small fixtures attached to the ceiling at three meter intervals. The floor, walls and ceiling were sound absorbing black. A narrow track of light gray carpeting ran down the center of the deck. Otherwise she might have been walking through the emptiness of intergalactic space. The Temporal Agent turned left and set off down the passageway. “Are you familiar Commander, with the old Earth saying ‘for want of a nail’?” “No,” she snapped impatiently. “What possible relevance does this have?” Daniels sighed. “I am trying to explain what happened to Elizabeth and why your daughter died when she should not have.” “Oh,” T’Pol said, suddenly subdued. “I apologize. Please continue.” Daniels nodded. “I am sure you know what a horse is. I presume you also know about horseshoes, and how they are nailed onto the horse’s feet?” T’Pol looked quizzically at him and nodded. Daniels continued. “If the shoe is not nailed on securely it can work loose. This sometimes has been known to cause the horse to stumble, throwing the rider. This potentially can injure or even kill the rider, so it is important for safety that the shoes be secured properly.” “I am aware of the basic information,” T’Pol told him with barely restrained frustration. Daniels glanced at her. “Please bear with me Commander, I am getting there. Try to keep in mind that my genetic makeup is fifty-nine sixty-fourths human, so I have a tendency to ramble a bit. Anyway the saying I was referring to is very old. It dates back to the time when messengers were the fastest way to pass information during battles. The full saying goes like this.” Daniels cleared his throat and started to recite. “For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of the shoe the horse was lost. For want of the horse the rider was lost. For want of the rider the message was lost. For want of the message the battle was lost. For want of the battle the kingdom was lost.” He finished up and looked over at her, noting her thoughtful expression. “I see you get the point. It teaches that big problems can be caused by small oversights. That is what happened with Elizabeth. It all started with the alien incursion that you discovered when you returned from destroying the Xindi weapon.” “You told Captain Archer that the time line had been reset,” T’Pol accused him. “It was,” Daniels sighed. “But resetting a time line is not quite the same thing as re-aligning a phase pistol. There are an almost infinite number of variables involved. Most of these are not critical. In the long run it doesn’t really matter whether a farmer decides to plow his back forty on Wednesday or Thursday. Or whether a house painter decides to start on the north side of a house or the west side. The vast majority of these variables are simply irrelevant to the time line. But some of them are not.” “What happened and why?” T’Pol asked him bluntly. Daniels told her. “The answer to your ‘why’ question is that the aliens chose to interfere with the history of Germany. Throughout the entire nineteenth and twentieth century, Germany was one of the most advanced nations on the planet in terms of scientific research, particularly in biochemistry.” T’Pol abruptly stopped short. Daniels paused and turned to look at her. “Exactly. What happened is simple. At one point in some obscure lab a small bit of relatively unimportant research work did not get completely finished. Had it been completed properly, the results would have been used to fine tune a theory. Since they were not available, the theory was never quite as precise as it could have been and should have been. As a result, the medical advances that were based on that theory were slightly inaccurate. They were not totally wrong, or they would have never worked at all. But they were not as effective as they might have been.” T’Pol clasped her hands together. Suddenly she felt cold for some reason. “The bottom line is this,” Daniels said soberly, “when the Terra Prime technicians cloned Elizabeth they were using the best information they had and did the best job they could. But their information was not good enough. The knowledge they were using was flawed. Just a little bit flawed. It was good enough to let them create her, but not good enough for them to create a viable hybrid clone that could survive long-term.” Daniels sighed. “They should have been able to do it. In the original time line they did do it. But the information that was supposed to be there had been corrupted by the previous temporal incursion. So Elizabeth died.” T’Pol did not care that tears were silently dripping down her cheeks. She had long since reached the point where nothing mattered anymore. Daniels turned and continued onward and T’Pol followed silently. They walked together for several minutes before Daniels spoke again. “Through this door is some medical equipment and two people I want you to meet.” He grinned. “I think you will find them interesting.” He touched a spot on the wall that to T’Pol look identical to every other spot, and an invisible door slid aside. She followed Daniels into a large, brightly lit room. The center of the room was filled by a large incubator that was connected to a bewildering array of diagnostic equipment. T’Pol acknowledged to herself that even in a modern hospital she probably could not have identified all of the machines. With thirty-first century devices she did not even try. Besides which, there was a more pressing issue to be addressed. The sound of their entrance caused two individuals at the far side of the room to straighten from their bent positions over a work bench. The pair turned to face T’Pol and Daniels with curious expressions and advanced slowly, clearly trying not to startle her. Daniels smiled and said, “T’Pol, daughter of T’Les may I present T’Prell, daughter of Alicia and Chief of Xeno-Pediatrics at the Medical Academy of T’Pol.” At her expression Daniels chuckled. “At this point in time the city is named Kah’dhar. They renamed it in your honor approximately fifty years after your death.” T’Prell shot him an annoyed look and shook her head in vexation. T’Pol noted that despite her Vulcan name the young woman seemed completely human in appearance. She had cornsilk blonde hair, deep green eyes and a pale complexion. Her ears were round and her pale eyebrows did not arch at all. Daniels turned and gestured to the dark-eyed, dark haired Vulcan man standing impassively beside T’Prell and said, “This is George Hopkins, M.D., J.D., Ph.D., M.S., M.A., B.S., B.A., and most likely PDQ and QED too for all I know. George is currently chairman of the Interspecies Council on Genetics. He agreed to take time off from his busy schedule to help us with this little problem because he has a personal fascination with the specifics of the case.” Daniels grinned even more broadly until it seemed his face was about to spilt apart. Then he stepped back and gestured broadly. Dr. T’Prell, Dr. Hopkins, may I present your great to the nth grandmother T’Pol of Vulcan.” T’Pol froze and stopped breathing. T’Prell and George made identical head bows of respect. Then T’Prell crossed her arms in the traditional manner and tentatively approached. “Foremother,” she asked in perfect Vulcan, “may I be permitted to offer greeting?” On autopilot T’Pol watched her arms cross themselves and her hands form the required positions. The instant that their fingers touched, she knew it was true. The precise relationship could not be determined from a simple touch, but that this woman was family could never be denied. Moreover it was beyond any question that not only was she blood kin, she was blood of T’Pol’s own blood and flesh of T’Pol’s own flesh. T’Prell was her descendent. George approached with the same gesture and was accepted. He also proved himself to be blood kin. These two were her child’s children. It was beyond debate. T’Pol forced herself to maintain her shields and withdrew as quickly as decorum would permit to keep her grandchildren from detecting her turmoil. She summoned up her reserves and demanded of Daniels, “What do you need of me?” He replied solemnly, “What we must do Commander, is bring your daughter here so that T’Prell and George can heal her. The only point at which we can retrieve her from the time line with minimal disruption is to take her out of Enterprise's sickbay just before she dies.” He looked at her seriously. “Now you understand why I need your help. Captain Archer doesn’t trust me. Your earlier self doesn’t trust me. Commander Tucker doesn’t trust me. If we are going to do this we will need to move quickly. Elizabeth doesn’t have much time. We can’t afford to waste precious seconds arguing and trying to convince them. I need you to come with me and make them believe what we tell them. Quickly, while we still have time to act and save her.” “Understood.” T’Pol straightened grimly. “I am ready.” Daniels looked at the two doctors. “Prepare the equipment then. We will be right back.” They acknowledged the order and started gathering tools and supplies while T’Pol and the Temporal Agent walked out into the corridor. Daniels told her, “It would be best if we could simply walk in and pick her up when no one else was around. I suppose it would be too much to hope that she was ever left alone at any point?” “No,” T’Pol shook her head firmly. “I was with her constantly, as was Trip once we returned to Enterprise.” Daniels nodded. “About what I expected. The next best thing would be to find a time when it was only the two of you with her then. Do you remember that night well enough to help pinpoint a possible time interval we can aim for?” T’Pol’s memory of that time had been branded into her brain with white hot knives of unspeakable pain. Every nanosecond of it was instantly available to her. “There was a point when Phlox had administered an injection and then returned to his office to look up something,” she said thoughtfully. “He was gone for approximately 17.3 minutes.” “Perfect,” Daniels said. “Can you give me an approximate time?” he pulled out a small instrument and stood with his fingers poised over it. T’Pol considered. “The injection was for pain. He informed us that it would take effect in three to five minutes. It actually began to take effect in three minutes and eleven seconds, reaching maximum effectiveness at four minutes and two seconds. Two minutes and five seconds later Phlox went to his office.” She thought hard. “He administered the injection at precisely 23:15:48 hours.” Daniels nodded and input the data without hesitation. Then he withdrew two small strips and handed one to T’Pol. “Wrap this around your wrist please. When we step through it will keep us synchronized. Then when we return it will key us to return to this point, along with anyone that comes along with us.” She obeyed and saw Daniels hang the the instrument from his belt. “Let’s go.” Enterprise: 2155 They stepped forward and into Enterprise's sickbay. Despite having been through the process before more than once, T’Pol still found it disorienting. While she got her bearing Daniels stepped forward silently. Just ahead of them two figures stood whispering with heads bent over an incubator where a baby was laying far too quietly. T’Pol couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She stared immobile at her younger self as that earlier version talked to Trip and stared at Elizabeth. She remembered standing there. She remembered the feel of the plexiglass under her fingers, and the plaintive longing to pick up her child and hold her. The warmth of Trip’s closeness next to her and the puff of his breath flowing across her skin was etched into her mind, along with the tortured sound of her daughter’s faint rasping breaths. Trip burst out in a quietly strangled sob, “There has to be something we can do for her! There has to be!” “There is,” Daniels said calmly. Two heads snapped around and stared at him in disbelief. T’Pol, standing behind and blocked from view by Phlox’s animal cages, escaped their notice at first. “Daniels,” Trip growled in frustration. “What do you want now? We don’t have time for your games.” “I am here to help Elizabeth,” the Temporal Agent told them. “You must let me take her with me to-” “NO!” Trip’s frustration boiled over into irrational anger. He needed to strike out at something and right now Daniels was available. “You are not going to drag our daughter into your damn time games. Can’t you leave us alone for once! Can’t you see she’s dying!” T’Pol broke free of her paralysis. The sound of Trip’s voice broke everything free. Her paralysis, her control, her grief, her fear, her need. She began to weep without shame and strode forward past Daniels to confront her younger self and her ashayam. Trip stopped with his mouth open, transfixed by the sight of a duplicate T’Pol, especially one with tears streaming down her face and being wracked with sobs. The younger T’Pol stiffened and her eyes widened incredulously, then narrowed in suspicion. “T- T’pol?” Trip stammered. He looked back and forth between the two women. “What...” “Believe him Trip,” T’Pol’s voice sounded raw even to herself. “It is our daughter’s only chance. I watched her die once. I will not watch it happen again.” She turned to her other self. “You doubt me. This is only logical. But you know that Elizabeth is dying. You know that Phlox cannot save her. You know that Daniels does possess the technology to save her if he chooses to use it. You know all of that. What do you have to lose?” Her younger self stared in calculation for precisely 3.4 seconds. Then she moved with eye blurring speed, reaching for the latches of the incubator, opening the lid and lifting Elizabeth out. “We are coming with you.” “Of course,” Daniels said impatiently. “This way.” Daniels Ship: Time Frame Indeterminate The four of them stepped forward and the older T’Pol found herself once more aboard the darkened ship with Daniels striding down the gray carpeted corridor. Trip and young T’Pol hurried after him with Elizabeth while she followed and tried to settle her shaking nerves. They entered the room full of medical equipment at a half run and Daniels barked, “Put her in here,” pointing at the incubator. T’Prell and George stood nearby. As young T’Pol tenderly placed the baby in the diagnostic bed Trip look defensively at the strangers. “They are... they are doctors Trip,” older T’Pol forced herself to say. “They are thirty-first century doctors that Daniels brought here to help Elizabeth.” Trip nodded and relaxed as the two medical personnel moved into action. The younger couple stepped back a pace to get out of the way and watched fixedly as the blond human woman and the dark Vulcan man checked instrument, made adjustments and applied medicines. “Immuno-rivalry syndrome,” George muttered. T’Prell grunted agreement. “Standard complex but with complications because it was allowed to progress this far.” “I recommend Thragloykryjar 44 cc’s to start.” “Affirm.” The hypo hissed. “BP is currently 73 over 50, much too high. We need to dilate the vessels and administer Locolotel to get it down.” “Too high?” Trip screeched. “Yes,” George replied without looking up or missing a beat. “Her physical configuration conforms closely to Vulcan patterns. But her human heritage is attempting to drive her blood pressure up to human standard, which is much too high for what her circulatory system is designed to handle. We need to get her pressure down to Vulcan normal levels.” “Oh.” Trip subsided and shook his head in tired confusion. Worry and fear shone in his eyes which never left the tiny form. T’Pol locked her jaws. “I cannot wait. I must tell her now before I miss another chance. I dare not risk any more.” She reached over to her distracted other self and deliberately placed her fingertips on the back of her hand. They both jumped as if they had been electro-shocked. The younger T’Pol turned to look and met a gaze that pinned her to the spot. Clearly as if spoken aloud she heard her older self transmit the telepathic message, “We must speak privately. There is much to tell and little time to say it. Trip’s life is also at risk. You MUST know these things. Come with me NOW.” Her younger self’s eyes flew wide and shot toward their bond mate. He was still engrossed in the doctors working over Elizabeth and paid no attention as they drew back toward the doorway. Daniels caught her eye and walked over. He keyed the door for them and followed them into the corridor. He waited without speaking as older T’Pol fumed for a moment. “This is a private conversation,” she finally managed. “I can well imagine,” Daniels told them both. He focused on the older version of T’Pol and told her bluntly, “My primary concern here is to save Elizabeth and prevent Commander Tucker’s premature death. Those two aspects are the Temporal Authority’s priorities.” At his words younger T’Pol’s face tightened and paled slightly. “Frankly, whether or not the two of you stay together and ultimately marry is one of those non-critical aspects that I talked about. Whether you are together or apart, you will still be Elizabeth’s mother, and Trip will still be Earth’s top warp field theorist. Your private lives will not change these things.” T’Pol lifted her chin. “You know why Trip died,” she said bitterly. Daniels raised a single eyebrow in Vulcan fashion. “You blame yourself? I am afraid that you are mistaken. Our psychologists have analyzed the situation quite thoroughly you see.” He looked back and forth between them. Then he renewed his focus on the older version of T’Pol. “I don’t want to cause you any more pain than you are already suffering, but simply losing you would not have been enough to destroy his will to live. It hurt him deeply, of course; it broke his heart and left him a bitter and lonely man. But he would have eventually recovered and learned to love again. No. I am afraid that the reason Trip stopped caring whether he lived or died was because of what happened to Elizabeth. It was because of her that he chose to die the way he did.” T’Pol bowed her head. Her breath burned in her throat as she whispered, “I could have saved him.” “Perhaps. Perhaps not.” Daniels looked at her in pity. “It may be that if you had stayed together you might have been able to help him heal from the loss. Or perhaps not. Trip’s psych profile shows that his familial bonding coefficient is unusually high. He might still have been emotionally crippled for life, even if you had not left him.” “Left him.” Her younger self’s voice cut in like black ice. There was no trace of mercy in it. T’Pol looked up. “Yes. I left him. Just as you were going to leave him.” Young T’Pol glared denial. “Just as you have always left him when faced with any kind of challenge.” She met her younger alter ego eye to eye and saw her falter. She told Daniels, “If it is not a critical factor to you, then you cannot logically have any objections if I converse with my earlier self on the matter.” T’Pol drew from some unsuspected reserves and stood tall and strong for a moment. “We are working for the same goals. And you did say that in your original time line Trip and I were married, did you not?” Daniels nodded. “Yes I did. I never said I disapproved. But I cannot actively work to support you in this. It is entirely up to the two of you. If you want a private place to talk I have some guest quarters you can use. Follow me please.” He led them a short distance down the corridor to what looked like a small motel room. Neither woman was interested enough to pay close attention to details. Both noted a bunk, a table with a two chairs and soft indirect lighting. Daniels waved a hand at a small square panel on the wall. “If you want anything, the replicator works just like the resequencer aboard Enterprise. Tell the computer what you want and it will provide it. Not just food or drink, anything you need can be provided. I will get back now. I imagine Trip is getting impatient.” After he left the two women stared at each other a moment. Then the older T’Pol said, “We have no time. I cannot give you six years worth of information in spoken words with the time we have available.” Her younger self nodded understanding. “You suggest a meld?” “It seems the logical solution.” “Agreed.” They moved as one to sit beside each other on the edge of the bunk and reached for the proper contact points. Connection came almost instantly. T’Pol stared into her eyes and felt the weight of her mother’s IDIC amulet pressing on her breast [as she saw the amulet shining in the dim light] while her older self looked at her younger eyes [and saw the tiredness of long years alone] while the red uniform made her pale face stand out even more sharply [and the sight of her own robes seemed so strange on another who was also her] but not her yet the other must be told before it was too late. “I hear your thoughts My Mind To Your Mind My Thoughts To Your Thoughts Our Minds Are Merging Our Minds Are One.” “We are one.” She remembered. She who was one and yet also two roamed across the years in memory. She saw what had been and what must never be allowed to be again. She saw. She remembered. She understood. They broke the connection. Older T’Pol turned her head to look away. Younger T’Pol sat swaying for a brief instant, then she leaped to her feet and ran for the head. The sound of explosive vomiting came clearly for quite a long time. When the younger version of T’Pol finally emerged her older self told her, “Now you know.” T’Pol stood trembling in the aftershoocks of the meld and the weight of terrible new knowledge. “How did you survive?” “Trip might say,” she smiled sadly, “that while there is life there is hope. As long as there was still life I refused to surrender hope. He had always forgiven me before you see. Eventually. It was foolish perhaps. It was too much to hope for. But I could not force myself to stop hoping. It was all I had.” Her younger self couldn’t stop trembling. She rubbed her face and said, “And now I am you.” Her counterpart raised an eyebrow enquiringly. “The only difference between us was memory. Now there is not even that much difference. I am you now. You have your second chance and my future is pre-empted.” “Your illogical babbling approaches the point of idiocy,” her older self snapped impatiently. “I recognize your fatigue and emotional strain. But refrain from inflicting such inane comments on me please. You are yourself as you have always been. The memories you hold are merely warnings, no more. They are not yet real. If you manage to avoid the mistakes I made they will never be real. Stop talking like a fool.” She watched her younger self initiate the breathing exercises that brought calm and control. Eventually she said, “You should go back to him now. I have done all that I can. The rest is up to you.” Younger T’Pol looked at her. “You are not coming?” Her counterpart shook her head. “No. I... cannot.” Unspoken and unnecessary were the rest of the words. I cannot bear to be there, seeing him. Seeing her. Younger T’Pol nodded assent and turned to leave. Suddenly Older T’Pol said, “Wait.” She stood and took off the IDIC amulet. “Give this to Trip. Please.” She took the necklace from her older self’s fingers with sudden understanding. “Are you certain?” She did not refer to the amulet. “Yes.” The older T’Pol told her calmly. “I have done what I needed to do.” They shared a look and then her younger self turned to leave without a backward glance. After the door closed she sat back down thoughtfully. A few moments later Daniels entered without knocking. “I see politeness will never enter your exhaustive repertoire,” T’Pol told him dryly. “One character flaw of which I have never stood accused,” Daniels admitted cheefully. “Tell me Daniels,” T’Pol asked him thoughtfully. “After they return to Enterprise with Elizabeth, what will happen to me? Will I simply disappear? Cease to exist because I never did exist?” Daniels looked troubled. “That is a thorny philosophical question Commander. I am not trying to be evasive. The truth is I don’t really know. We have been debating that issue ever since time travel because feasible, and no one has ever proven a definitive answer. In my time the experts are about evenly divided on the issue. Half of them think it is as you said, that when the time lines change those individuals and things from the altered time line simply disappear into oblivion. The other half have a different theory.” “And what might that be?” Daniels looked at a far corner of the room. “Some people theorize that we do not actually change time lines at all. Instead they propose that what we are doing involves selecting among multiple possible variations. By this reasoning when we return Elizabeth to Enterprise we will not be re-setting the time line per se, but rather we will be re-routing it. Sending our own particular universe down a different pathway through the multiverse. The other time lines will still exist in some real or quasi-real form as alternate branches in space-time, but we will no longer be aware of them unless and until someone does something to reactivate them.” “So it is possible that I might continue my life just as it was in my own world,” T’Pol asked him without a trace of emotion in her voice. “I might survive and be forced to return to the world I left.” “I don’t know,” Daniels repeated. “I am sorry. I just don’t know.” “Understood,” T’Pol said simply. “It has been a very stressful time for me. I find myself fatigued. If you do not mind, I would like to use this room to rest.” Daniels look at her for a long moment. A sad look flickered across his face. Then he forced a kind smile and told her, “Of course Commander T’Pol. You are more than welcome here. And while I have the chance, no matter what happens, I want to say that it has been an honor and a privilege to work with you. I promise you that I will do everything within my power to make sure that things work out for your loved ones.” T’Pol’s eyes shone with gratitude. “Thank you Mr. Daniels. It has been an honor to work with you as well. May you live long and prosper.” Daniels bowed low, turned and walked out. T’Pol sat for a moment with a tiny smile on her face. Then she laid down carefully and arranged her robes neatly around her. Daniels stepped along the corridor of his ship with a grave expression on his face. Sometimes his job was unbearable. |
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