The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [167]
“Looks like we’ve both done the political math the same way,” he said after she’d finished making her case. “Don’t worry, T’Pol. Your people’s secret is safe with me. And I’m just as sure it’ll be safe with my… associates here on Earth. And with Captain Archer, too. As far as I know, that’s everyone else who’s seen the dirty family linen. I’m sure it’s going to be kept strictly off the record.”
She gathered Trip’s meaning clearly, despite his often perplexing human metaphors. Relief swept through her, like the cooling winter nightwinds that blew so infrequently across the desiccated sands of Gol.
“And your secret is safe with me.” She felt certain that there was no way she would voluntarily reveal to anyone what had actually become of him. Being officially dead was his best protection, considering the dangers inherent in interstellar espionage, and the consequences, should his true fate and activities be revealed, were too grave to be contemplated.
He grinned again. “I know, T’Pol. And I think I finally came to understand that when I was in Romulan space and thought I was going to die there….
“I only wish I’d realized it sooner.”
He approached her closely then, put his arms around her, and gathered her in for a kiss. Though surprised, she did not resist, and even found herself reciprocating.
Nearly as soon as it had begun, the kiss was over. “So long, T’Pol. I’ll see you again after this Romulan business is finished. I promise.”
Then he turned, headed for the door, and was gone.
T’Pol stood in the tiny dressing room for several minutes, stunned and silent, alone with her thoughts and her regrets. So much still remained unsaid between them, though she supposed that neither of them had any real need to hear any of it spoken aloud by the other. After all, the vestige of their mind-link still remained.
She knew that the only constructive- and logical- thing she could do was to look forward, hoping, if not entirely believing, that their paths would indeed cross again someday.
But she was also logical enough to know that no one could entirely avoid taking at least an occasional backward glance.
Reaching into the small hip pocket on her uniform, she extracted a tiny gleaming metal bracelet and raised it nearly to eye level. The dressing room’s bright lights immediately brought out its finely etched inscription:
Elizabeth T’Les Tucker.
Her dead infant daughter, and Trip’s, named for Trip’s dead sister and T’Pol’s dead mother. Created with test tubes and incubators by a craven Terran criminal, the child’s remains now lay buried on Vulcan, though she wasn’t born there, nor anywhere else, strictly speaking. T’Les was buried under those very same sands as well.
Whatever else she could have been or might have become, little Elizabeth now represented the vanishingly small chance that T’Pol and Trip might have had for a future together.
Silently, T’Pol put the bracelet away.
Then she allowed herself to weep once again, this time for everything that might have been.
Archer found the air in the open-dome stadium damned cold, despite the relative thickness of his dress-uniform jacket. Standing under an overcast sky, his heart was lodged firmly in his throat as he stood at the podium, facing countless thousands of people hailing from no less than nineteen planets, including Earth. Addressing them, as well as the cameras that would carry his words to billions more, was a daunting prospect, to say the least.
And a lot of these people consider me a hero, dammit! he thought, cursing himself for his continued nervousness. He looked up from the lectern that concealed his padd, imagining all the faces that he couldn’t see clearly in the enormous, faceless crowd, while focusing his gaze on the nearest rows. These were filled with luminaries of numerous species, and many of them would affix their signatures to the historic Coalition Compact later today.