The Romulan War_ Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Book 1) - Michael A. Martin [213]
Apparently eager to speak to her alone, Trip remained beside the sofa. “I’ll stay with her,” he said. “In case she needs any help.”
Pausing on the room’s threshold, the others nodded, then took their leave.
Once he was alone with T’Pol, Trip said, “All right. What really happened?”
Signaling for quiet, T’Pol rose unsteadily to her feet, shooing away his attempt to help her stand. Trip waited with unconcealed concern while she found her scanner and made another sweep for listening devices. As before, none turned up.
“You lied to her,” Trip said. “I thought Vulcans didn’t do that.”
“I thought that your association with a clandestine Vulcan intelligence agency might have disabused you of that notion by now.”
“All right. So you Vulcans are just bad at lying. And you’re such a bad liar that you telegraphed the fact that you learned something important during your mental ménage-a-four—something that nearly did you in.”
She nodded. “Some of what I saw is still fragmentary in my mind. I am still processing much of what I encountered. But I believe I can already state a number of things conclusively.”
“Such as?”
“You and Tevik. Or Terix. The two of you have something fundamental in common.”
“Besides the ears?”
She smiled, uncharastically. “Both of you have the same gap in your memory concerning your Achernar mission. Specifically, with regard to what happened in between the time Sopek captured you and when you found yourselves safely delivered back to Achernar II.”
“Ych’a was there, too. Do you suppose she remembers anything we don’t?”
“Unfortunately,” T’Pol said, “I wasn’t able to tell for certain during the meld; Ych’a has an extremely disciplined mind.” Nevertheless, she was beginning to suspect that the answer to Trip’s question was “yes.”
“I seriously doubt that Sopek would have let us go without a fight,” Trip said. “And he’s never been bashful about killing people in cold blood. Ych’a must have found a way to turn the tables on Sopek and rescue us.”
“Or else she simply persuaded him that you would all be more valuable to him alive than dead,” T’Pol said.
“Are you saying you think Sopek and Ych’a are in cahoots?” After she raised a questioning eyebrow, he added, “Do you think they’re working together?”
T’Pol bit back a tart response. “Ych’a is one of my oldest friends, Trip. I am making no such accusation. I merely find it strange that neither you nor Terix are presently able to access your memories of a recent shared experience.”
Trip stroked his chin thoughtfully, a peculiar mannerism for one who looked so Vulcan. “The therapeutic mind-melds are all about memory suppression. Ych’a has had to do them for months to keep Terix’s Romulan identity pushed down—to keep him convinced that he’s really one of the good guys, and that Terix’s memories are just stray odds and ends left over from one of Tevik’s old V’Shar cover identities.”
T’Pol nodded, though the notion appalled her. Romulan or not, Terix was still a sentient being with a basic right to the integrity of his identity. Violating that right was anathema to her. Still, she was pragmatic enough to understand that Terix could be an invaluable Romulan intelligence source going forward—he had already proved indispensable to Ych’a and Trip in their Achernar operation—and allowing his Romulan identity to come to the fore while he was on Vulcan would be irresponsible. But what of his future? The logic of practicality argued against his repatriation to Romulus, and the logic of ethics forbade simply killing him once his usefulness was at an end.
She wondered how Surak might have squared this particular ethical circle—and acknowledged with no small amount of relief that the matter was well above her pay grade; responsibility for such questions lay in Administrator T’Pau’s lap, not in T’Pol’s.
“Memory suppression,” T’Pol repeated, trying to remain