“ Me?”

“You, Commander. So that someone could take some sort of action to recover my bondmates.”

A low growl was slowly building deep within Shran’s chest. “ That’show you justify abandoning Jhamel?”

“What could I have done against the attackers? What could anyof us have done?” Theras paused, as though allowing Shran time to assimilate the pain that was clearly audible behind his words. “You know that we Aenar are all committed pacifists, Commander.”

Pacifists.

As much as he admired Jhamel’s commitment to peace, Shran doubted that he would ever fully succeed in getting his mind around the concept of pacifism. Sometimes the choice was between fighting and dying. Otherwise scum like the Orions would inherit the universe.

But now was not the time to stage a philosophical debate, or to dwell on blame. Jhamel had been captured, or worse. The best‑case scenario was that she was being sped away from Andoria at multiples of the speed of light at this very moment.

“All right,” Shran said. “I willtake action, starting now. First, I need to alert the Defense Force about what’s happened here, just in case the Orions covered their tracks thoroughly enough to completely avoid detection on their way to and from Andoria’s surface. Maybe the military can track down the slavers before they find buyers for their latest…acquisitions.”

Shran closed his eyes, pained and enraged at the thought of his sweet, trusting Jhamel being condemned to the cruel uses of slavery at the hands of uncouth outworlders, the way her late brother had been.

“I pray that that this can be done,” Theras said.

Shran took a tentative step forward, realizing that he would be as blind as the Aenar until they found their way out of the crevasse.

“Pray all you want,” Shran said, clenching his right fist and ignoring the flaring pain of the burn on the back of his hand. “ Afteryou help me find my way back to my ship.”

“What if the slavers have found your ship?”

Shran paused for a moment before replying. “Then I’llpray, Theras.”

Six

Sunday, February 9, 2155

ShiKahr, Vulcan

AS CAPTAIN JONATHAN ARCHER walked alongside Minister T’Pau through the corridors of the Vulcan High Command headquarters, he considered how very differently they had been received here today as compared to six months ago. The last time he’d been here, T’Pau was the fugitive leader of the Syrrannite political faction, and the High Command, led by the power‑mad V’Las, was minutes away from starting an interstellar war with the Andorians.

After Archer had come into the Command chambers then, carrying not only the Kir’Sharaartifact that contained within it the true teachings of Surak, but also holding the actual katraof Surak himself inside his head, things had changed radically for Vulcan and for its ruling body. V’Las was forcibly removed, and his Council disbanded. The new leader of Vulcan’s civilian government, and its military affairs, now walked beside Archer.

“Here we are,” Minister T’Pau said, coming to a halt and gesturing toward a chamber outside of which two large–and heavily armed–guards stood, their bare, muscular chests mostly exposed underneath wide silver tunics and sashes. She nodded to them, and their stances relaxed only slightly as they stepped farther apart.

“Does the Kir’Sharareally require a clean room, Minister?” Archer asked as they stepped through a pair of pressure doors and into a large, brightly lit, circular chamber. In the center of it, on a table, sat the meter‑high pyramidal artifact that Archer had carried with him from its tomb underneath the T’Karath Sanctuary. The table was circular, and was ringed by an array of computer banks. Seated at a station in front of each computer screen was a Vulcan in white robes. Each of them were studying the symbols on their screens intently, and sometimes tapping data onto padd controls nearby.

T’Pau turned to Archer, one eyebrow slightly raised. “I would think that you, of all people, should understand the value of the Kir’Shara.”

Archer smiled slightly. “I guess you’re right,” he said simply. Despite his long‑held animosity toward the Vulcans, and his conviction that they had long held Earth back from making advancements in exploration, his time on Vulcan–largely spent while the soul of its greatest leader had literally lived insidehim–had made him somewhat more attuned to Vulcan causes than he’d ever been before. He wasn’t about to take up kal‑toh,the bizarre Vulcan puzzle game that T’Pol had once shown him, but he did at least feel that he understood what the Kir’Shararepresented to the Vulcan people: It was the embodiment of their highest ideals and aspirations, their living link with everything they regarded as noble and true.

“Thank you for showing me,” he said. “I’m glad it’s in good hands, and not in my backpack–or my head–any longer.”

“Your aid in retrieving the artifact–however unintentional its cause–has not been lost on me,” said T’Pau, her stony face betraying no acknowledgment of his jest as she turned away toward the door. “Nor on the many others who are presently organizing Vulcan’s new government. Your actions have done much to solidify positive future relations between humans and Vulcans.”

She stopped and looked up at him. “That is no small feat, Captain Archer. You have my thanks, and whenever possible, you will have my support.”

“I appreciate that, Minister,” he said. He knew she was referring to the twenty‑three ships she had sent to help those battling the mysterious Romulan drone ship that threatened to destabilize interstellar politics and start a war between the Tellarites and the Andorians. At the time, he had been slightly annoyed that she had responded so frugally, but upon reflection, he realized that she had been truthful in telling him that this was all they could spare during Vulcan’s protracted time of internal political upheaval and reorganization in the wake of V’Las’s ouster.

T’Pau leading, the pair stepped back through the pressure doors and into the corridor. Waiting to meet them, as planned, were Trip and T’Pol.

“Is everything loaded, Trip?” Archer asked.

“It’s all aboard the shuttlepod, Captain,” Trip said. His usually amiable drawl sounded flat and lifeless today.

Archer turned to T’Pau. “Then I guess this is where we say good‑bye for now.”

T’Pau nodded and held up her right hand, spreading her fingers into an elegant V‑shaped formation. “Live long and prosper,” she said.

Archer, T’Pol, and Trip each returned the salute, and intoned the ancient Vulcan saying. Archer had always found the hand gesture difficult, but during the last six months it had become a good deal easier. Maybe a little bit of Surak has rubbed off on me permanently,he thought.

As the trio moved through the hallways to a docking pad and boarded Shuttlepod One to return to Enterprise, Archer couldn’t help noting not only that Trip and T’Pol were not talking much, but also that they both seemed to be going out their way to avoid making any kind of physical contact.

It’s to be expected, I guess,Archer thought. He wondered how long the grieving process would take, and how it might affect his two top officers’ behavior and duties aboard Enterprise. On the other hand, perhaps being back in the shipboard environment–with Vulcan and its newest grave receding light‑years into the cosmic ocean–might be just what they needed to return them to normalcy…or whatever passed for it these days, given the volatile and unpredictable nature of their most recent missions.

Archer yawned as he studied the report on the padd that Crewman Baird had handed him when he went off shift. Archer had come to the bridge early, to relieve D.O., who had been fighting a stubborn viral infection since just prior to the Terra Prime incidents. He knew that it chafed the no‑nonsense officer to have been out of action during that crisis, particularly when he’d left the less experienced Ensign Sato in charge of the bridge in his absence. Though Archer sympathized with D.O., he sometimes wondered idly whether she, like Hoshi, would have held off from firing on Terra Prime’s Martian stronghold in those last, critical moments the landing party had needed to disable Terra Prime’s weaponry and arrest John Frederick Paxton himself.