Broken Bow - Diane Carey [32]
“So much?” Archer barked. “You’d better use the next portion of your long lifetime to go back over the records and see just how much we’ve done on our own, in spite of your cultural cowardice.”
“Cowardice?” Her eyes widened.
Over to the side, Tucker smirked and pressed his lips flat with delight.
Archer closed the step between him and her. “I’ve been thinking about Vulcans all my life. You’ve been in space a long time, and suddenly the game is complex. Vulcans are logical, but it won’t be enough. You’ve been advanced for a thousand years, and suddenly you’re being overrun by us rabbits. The clock is ticking. All sorts of species are moving out into the galaxy. Maybe you don’t need another volatile race out there, but guess what—they’re everywhere. The galaxy will be driven by passion, not prudence. You haven’t been holding back because you think we’re so primitive—if you thought that, you wouldn’t be bothering with humanity at all. Being logical allows you to say, ‘That is a new idea; therefore it hasn’t been proven; therefore I don’t have to pay any attention to it.’ ”
“Shall we give you the knowledge to rush out into the galaxy and cause chaos?” she gulped. “Humans claim some right to know that which has been earned by others—”
“We never said that. You offered. On the galactic scale, thirty years this way or that is nothing. When you see somebody is ready to walk, why hold back? There’s more going on with you people.”
He narrowed his eyes and unplugged the floodgate he’d been saving for Soval all these years.
“You’re not the cutting edge anymore, are you?” he badgered. “In a thousand years, why has Vulcan progress been so slow? And here comes Earth, making wild advances in less than two hundred years. You’re dragging behind, and now you need us more than we need you. Why else would you want to come and teach the apes how to sew? I think all this is happening because you’re plain scared of being out there alone anymore.”
Stunned, T’Pol parted her lips again. Nothing came out this time. She never blinked, as if staring at a flashing billboard declaring his words to the known galaxy. He was saying the Vulcans were doomed. Nobody had the guts to say that to their faces.
Archer backed off now, but pointed at her with a determined finger. “You get on that warp trail. And you’d better find something or be able to explain why not in very clear terms. Dismissed.”
T’Pol blinked almost as if he’d slapped her. She turned on her heel and exited without a word, taking a cloud of confusion along on her shoulders.
Hoshi squirmed a little and said, “I’ll ... I’ll keep learning Klingon.”
“Good idea.”
He handed her the padd.
When Archer and Tucker were alone in the steadily pulsing warp chamber, the captain finally allowed himself a moment of quiet contemplation. He flexed his shoulders, took a deep breath, and let his arms sag. He really wanted to talk to his father.
Instead, there was Trip Tucker, offering him a sympathetic and curious gaze.
“Maybe now we know why we had so many quirks and misdirections with the last three days before launch,” Archer contemplated. He turned to lean on the console that had provided such little information.
“You think they infiltrated before we left Earth?” Tucker said.
Archer shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a possibility. Getting off the ship is far less problematic than getting on, but where they went presents us with a goading mystery. I don’t like goading mysteries.”
“Yes, you do,” Tucker drawled. “They had a ship following us, and they went over there.”
“If we can find the trail, we’ll follow them. If not, I’ll go to Qo’noS anyway and start there. Klaang’s mother might know something.”
Tucker shook his head in worried respect for the sheer gall of that plan. “Why would these Sulibans want to blow our chances