Pathways - Jeri Taylor [218]
Sek, at least, was more restrained, and moved with appropriate speed to his mother’s bed. “I hope you are well, Mother,” he said. T’Pel extended her arm to him, as well, and both boys enjoyed an embrace from their clearly exhausted mother.
“I am well. As is your new brother. Go to him, and see what you were like in the first hours of your birth.”
The boys moved toward the large cradle that stood near the bed, circling around the nurse who had come to help with the birthing. Tuvok sat next to T’Pel, holding a look in which their thoughts fled back and forth between each other, calming and reassuring.
“He is a strong, healthy boy, Tuvok. We are blessed again.”
“I believe you had hoped for a daughter.”
“I am grateful for my healthy boys. This one was the largest yet, and he’s already suckling strongly.”
Varith called out to them. “Look, Father, how tiny he is!” Tuvok turned to see Varith’s teeth showing once again and realized he was smiling. “Close your mouth,” Tuvok said automatically, and the teeth disappeared.
Tuvok moved to the cradle to inspect his newest son. The baby was lighter-skinned than the other two had been at birth, and his mother’s curly hair lay in loose ringlets on his head. His mouth was moving in sucking motions, rather like a fish, but he wasn’t crying and seemed content for the moment. His diminutive fists waved in the air, and Tuvok was reminded of the orchestra conductors he had witnessed on Terra. Perhaps this child would be musical; neither of the others had shown any propensity for music.
Varith had managed to insert his finger into the baby’s small grasp and was wiggling his arm back and forth. “We’re going to play dak’lir together,” the child announced solemnly. “I’ll show you how to dodge the runners so you can be the first one through the rings.” Then Varith looked up at Tuvok. “What’s his name? What will we call him?”
Tuvok looked over at his wife and lifted an eyebrow. They had had a difference of opinion about the baby’s name, Tuvok preferring a name in the Surak tradition and T’Pel preferring to bend that custom and give him a more original name. “The choice is yours,” he told her. The child was healthy; a name was unimportant by comparison.
She held his look for a long moment, then finally she said, “His name will be Elieth.”
Though he did not betray it, Tuvok could not have been more surprised. His aunt Elieth, who had been Eldest Mother, had recently died, leaving the mantle to his mother, T’Meni. Conferring the name of an Eldest Mother on a male child was an honor of the highest sort and could only be bestowed by the mother of the child, not the father. It was said to portend extraordinary events in the child’s life.
Tuvok nodded at his wife to signify his acceptance of her gesture. It was a particularly astute way to have solved their difference of opinion, and he noted to himself that T’Pel was truly remarkable in her ability to achieve these compromises.
He returned to the cradle where Sek and Varith were both stroking the baby, talking to it, as though it were some kind of small pet, a newborn sehlat. “Children,” he said, “this is your brother Elieth.”
They found this pronouncement singularly unremarkable, and Tuvok made a mental note to instruct them more fully in the significance of Vulcan names. Varith might be excused for not understanding, but there was no justification for Sek’s not grasping the importance of this designation.
As he regarded his three sons, grouped together now as though for a family portrait, Tuvok wondered if he was fulfilling his duties as a father satisfactorily. He had determined at Sek’s birth that, unlike his own father, he would take an active role in the upbringing of his children. His father had spent his days at the temple—a worthy endeavor, to be sure—and left Tuvok’s training and education in the hands of his mother. And while Tuvok had nothing but the greatest respect and esteem for T’Meni, he had often wondered if a greater presence by his father might have inculcated better disciplines