The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [164]
“Whenever you’re ready, sir,” the ensign said after coming to attention before him.
Archer nodded to the ensign, dismissing him, and the young man immediately disappeared back up the steps, no doubt to join the detachment charged with guarding the various dignitaries and speakers who would be using it throughout the day as the formal Coalition Compact signing ceremony neared. Beyond the anteroom, Archer could hear the murmur of the crowd receding as his date with destiny approached. They were waiting for him.
“Well, I’ve got three wives waiting,” Phlox said, walking toward Archer. “I’d better go and join them.” He paused beside Archer for a moment and placed a fatherly hand on his shoulder. “I’d wish you good luck, Captain, but you’ve always had an ample supply.” Phlox’s warm smile stretched until it became impossibly broad.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Archer said, then watched the doctor’s back as it retreated from the antechamber. Turning toward T’Pol, the captain favored the Vulcan with a wry grin. “You’d better get out there. You don’t want to miss me screwing this thing up.”
T’Pol looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable. “I’m going to remain down here, if you don’t mind.”
“You never liked crowds, did you?” Archer said, smiling. Padd still in hand, he turned toward the stairs and began ascending them while trying to construct an emotional levee to contain the rising tide of nervousness he was feeling. They’re waiting for me out there!
T’Pol spoke behind him. “You look very… heroic.”
Archer paused on the staircase in mid-step, allowing this rare compliment from the usually stoic Vulcan to wash over him. He turned back toward her and stepped back down into the antechamber.
He stood face-to-face with T’Pol, not wishing to trivialize the moment by smiling or joking about it. Although he knew it went against everything he understood about Vulcan propriety, he gathered her into a warm but platonic embrace. He wasn’t certain, but it seemed to him that she was trying to return the hug, at least insofar as a Vulcan could consent to making such an apparent display of emotion.
The embrace lingered for a measureless interval until Archer heard the ocean-tide noise of the crowd rising again. They were still waiting for the day’s first speaker, perhaps checking their chronometers and wondering what had become of him.
As he gently separated from her, he remembered the note that Trip had entrusted to him- a note that Archer hadn’t looked at and whose contents Trip hadn’t explained. He reached into his coat and extracted the single folded sheet, wondering whether it contained a final farewell- and if he’d see his oldest friend ever again.
Archer wordlessly handed her the note, then withdrew a few paces as she unfolded the paper and read its contents, her unlined face betraying not the slightest reaction as her dark eyes absorbed Trip’s message.
Then something unidentifiable, and perhaps even worrisome, passed behind T’Pol’s dark eyes.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come up and watch the speeches?” Archer asked.
She nodded. “Thank you, Captain. I am quite certain.”
Archer nodded silently, then walked back to the steps that led up to the dais.
It’s finally showtime, he thought, his heart racing as he ascended the steps yet again. He mounted the stage and strode onto the dais, clutching his padd nearly hard enough to shatter it.
And as he tried vainly to take in the impossible hugeness of the audience, Archer decided he’d much rather face a dozen bloodthirsty, d’k tahg-wielding Klingons.
Fifty
Wednesday, March 5, 2155
Candlestick Park, San Francisco
AS T’POL OPENED THE DOOR to Archer’s dressing room, apprehension and eagerness struggled within her even more vehemently than the debates between Sessinek, T’Karik, and Surak that her mother T’Les had told her about so often during her childhood.
She was greeted by a young-looking male Vulcan who sat in the small room’s single