The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [157]
Those words were, after all, going to be delivered live before an audience of nearly one hundred thousand humans and assorted other sentients from across the sector and beyond, to say nothing of the billions who would view the day’s ceremonies remotely from their various homeworlds. All of them expected to see history made when the Coalition Compact was finally signed later this afternoon by the assembled representatives of four diverse worlds.
Archer started when he heard a sharp knock against the dressing room door, then forced his jangled nerves back under control. Rising from his seat once he felt reasonably composed, he turned to face the door.
“Come.”
The old-fashioned door, doubtless centuries old, swung open on its steel hinges and admitted a characteristically stoic T’Pol. Archer glanced down at her right hand, from which dangled a small suitcase; he knew it contained a small cache of personal effects that was bound for Trip’s parents. Like T’Pol, they had been given no alternative to believing the lie to which Archer had been a party. Once again, guilt clutched at his heart, though he knew he had no choice other than to endure it in silence. He noted that T’Pol was holding the case’s handle gingerly rather than squeezing it in a death grip that might have shattered it. Not for the first time, he envied her Vulcan composure, though he couldn’t help but wonder how much the effort was costing her.
T’Pol quickly looked him up and down, then raised a critical eyebrow. “I’m gratified to see that you are already wearing your dress uniform, Captain. However, I would have recommended that you don it while the room’s lights were activated.”
Archer sighed and tugged at the buttons that fastened the uniform’s somewhat constricting white collar. “Very funny, T’Pol.” He turned toward the mirror, from which a very tired and nervous-looking man stared back. “It’s not like I wear one of these every day, you know.”
“Indeed.”
“Does it really look that bad?” He turned back toward her.
She set the suitcase down and approached him. “Stand still,” she said as he silently endured the indignity of allowing her to finish straightening his slightly skewed collar. Just as she finished, her communicator beeped, and she backed up a few paces to take the incoming message.
Archer retrieved his padd and returned his attention to its display while fervently wishing that he’d stayed in his quarters aboard Enterprise to finish preparing his speech. The comforting presence of Porthos, as well as the absence of a multitude of hero-worshipers just outside his door, would have gone a long way toward calming his frayed nerves. And the ever-loyal beagle wouldn’t have even considered offering him any unsolicited sartorial critiques.
He doubly regretted having left the ship after he heard T’Pol’s next utterance: “Captain, Commander Tucker’s parents have just arrived.”
Charles Anthony Tucker, Jr., had always been tall and broad in the shoulders, not at all given to putting on excess weight. But after Lizzie’s unexpected death nearly two years earlier, his frame had become much sparer, almost gaunt. Since he hadn’t wanted to look as though his apparel had come from a tent and awning company, he’d had to buy all new clothes a few months after the Xindi attack.
Today he felt certain that he’d soon have to replace his entire wardrobe yet again.
During their nearly four decades of marriage, Charles’s wife, Elaine, frequently told him that he had the face of a man who loved to laugh. He wished he could still be that man, if only for her. If he could, then perhaps he might be able to do something about the deep lines of pain and stress that stood out in sharp relief across Elaine’s once smooth and porcelain-like features.
But Charles had never felt less like laughing than he did today. He and Elaine had come to Candlestick Auditorium, after all, essentially to bury the younger of their two sons- even though there was, of course, no actual body to bury, thanks to the “burial in space” clause Trip had