Broken Bow - Diane Carey [15]
“I thought the whole point,” Tucker rasped, “was to get away from the Vulcans.”
“Four days there, four days back, then she’s gone. In the meantime, we’re to extend her every courtesy.”
Trip Tucker groaned low in his chest. “I dunno ... I’d be more comfortable with Porthos on the bridge.”
Archer smiled sorrowfully at the idea, and searched for something that might give Tucker a boost. He was interrupted before he began by the door chime. His spine snapped straight. “Here we go ... come in.”
No time to let the red flush go out of his face or the burn out of Tucker’s eyes.
There she was, coming in from the bridge on which she didn’t really belong. As if to rub in the insult, she was wearing a Vulcan commissar’s uniform. Or would it be worse if she were wearing a Starfleet uniform?
She offered Tucker not so much as an elevator glance, and handed a padd to Archer. “This confirms that I was formally transferred to your command at 0800 hours. Reporting for duty.”
He took the padd and gave it a cursory once-over, because she expected him to. He took the moment of silence to listen to the steam coming out of Tucker’s ears, and hoped it would wane. When he looked up at T’Pol, her nose was wrinkled, her neck stiff, and her eyes shifting back from a brief shot around the room.
“Is there a problem?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
“Oh, I forgot.” He glanced at Tucker, then over to the couch, where Porthos lay sleeping with three of four paws in the air and his snout off the edge of the cushion. “Vulcan females have a heightened sense of smell ... I hope Porthos isn’t too offensive to you.”
He pushed an inflection on the word “females,” just enough to prickle her if she could be prickled. The Vulcans were always prancing about how they had heightened this and heightened that, so he winged her with one. His goading seemed to ease Tucker’s posture. The engineer relaxed some and took joy in this discomfort for the pretender.
“I’ve been trained to tolerate offensive situations,” T’Pol announced.
Tucker perked up. “I took a shower this morning ... how ’bout you, Captain?”
T’Pol eyed Tucker, and held her breath as long as she could.
“I’m sorry,” Archer began, pausing just long enough for her to think he might be apologizing for stinkiness. “This is Commander Charles Tucker the Third. Sub-Commander T’Pol.”
Tucker jabbed his hand out toward her. “Trip. I’m called Trip.”
T’Pol took a slight breath. “I’ll try to remember that.”
Oh, enough. Archer allowed himself an annoyed sigh and plunged into the core of Tucker’s very legitimate problem with all this.
“While you may not share our enthusiasm for this mission,” he said to T’Pol, “I expect you to follow our rules. What’s said in this room and out on that bridge is privileged information. I don’t want every word I say being picked apart the next day by Vulcan High Command.”
If she happened to be insulted, he declared to himself and silently to Tucker, then her irritation would be due payback for her rudeness. The Vulcans prided themselves on their social decorum, but they were among the most discourteous people Archer had ever met. Truly sophisticated people treated others with more respect just as a matter of course, until given much better reasons otherwise than the Vulcans possessed. Humans had certainly demonstrated that Earth wasn’t going backward, wasn’t standing still, and wouldn’t be impeded by snobbery, so why not help? Like Hoshi, the Vulcans didn’t want to take any risks. Unfortunately, they also wanted to act superior about their own reticence.
Archer didn’t feel like letting them anymore, and he finally had the influence to make good.
“My reason for being here,” T’Pol began, feeling the pressure, “is not espionage. My superiors simply asked me to assist you.”
“Your superiors don’t think we can flush a toilet without one of you to ‘assist’ us.”
“I didn’t request this assignment, Captain,” she went on, “and you can be certain that, when this mission’s over, I’ll be as pleased to leave this