The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [11]
In the aftermath of the destruction, T’Pau, Archer, and T’Pol had delivered the Kir’Shara to the Vulcan High Command, just in time to stop the traitorous Administrator V’Las from launching the people of Vulcan into an ill-advised war against the Andorians. Shortly thereafter, the High Command was dissolved, and a reformation of Vulcan government began. T’Pau had been made a minister, and since that time had led the movement to spread and adopt the philosophies and teachings of Surak on a planetary scale.
So if she was an ally of T’Les, and she and her society both got some real benefit out of what Archer and T’Pol did here, then why is T’Pau acting this way? Trip didn’t dare ask the woman, and didn’t really need to. He had dealt with enough Vulcans to know that their suppression of emotions made them seem uncaring and unkind much of the time.
T’Pol answered the minister before Trip could. “My mother was a highly respected faculty member at the Vulcan Science Academy. If for no other reason than this, she would have found the first offspring ever to be produced by a Vulcan and a human to be fascinating. That Elizabeth was the product of her own daughter’s genetic material would- I have no doubt- have encouraged her to accept the child.”
Before T’Pau could say something else that might make the tension even more unbearable, Trip held his right hand up. “Minister, if it’s all the same to you, we’d like to begin the ceremony for Elizabeth now.”
T’Pau nodded, almost imperceptibly. “Certainly. The priests have prepared the chamber for you. They have only to deliver the vessel containing the child.” She turned to walk away. “I will make certain that all work ceases until you are finished, so as not to disturb the proceedings,” she said over her shoulder.
“Thank you,” T’Pol said, her voice flat, and quieter than normal. She turned to look at Trip, her dark eyes wide.
He hesitated for only a moment before reaching out and pulling her into a hug with his uninjured right arm. He felt her frame stiffen against him before relaxing almost imperceptibly.
He knew the tension was not just because of the pending funeral service. It was more personal even than that. Their relationship had all but dissolved last fall- even after T’Pol’s divorce from her husband Koss, whom she’d been forced to marry in order to get her mother re-instated at the Academy- then seemingly rekindled almost two months ago.
The discovery just last week that, six months earlier, Terra Prime scientists had created a binary clone child, using stolen DNA from Trip and T’Pol, had hit them both like a tsunami. The radical Terra Prime isolationists had hoped to use the Vulcan-human hybrid as a way to show humans what would happen should they ally themselves with alien races. And although the terrorists were defeated on Mars, the one good result of their plans- the cloned child, which T’Pol had named Elizabeth to honor Trip’s late sister- did not survive long.
Doctor Phlox had explained that Elizabeth had died because of flaws in the cloning procedures used to create her, but that didn’t make the loss any easier on the girl’s “parents.”
During the few days since Elizabeth’s death, Trip and T’Pol had tried to comfort each other, but something seemed fundamentally broken now. Even when Phlox had related his subsequent discovery that whatever incompatibilities might exist between human and Vulcan DNA wouldn’t prevent Trip and T’Pol from reproducing together in the future, the news had seemed depressing rather than hopeful.
Now, Trip felt