Before T’Pau could say something else that might make the tension even more unbearable, Trip held his right hand up. “Minister, if it’s all the same to you, we’d like to begin the ceremony for Elizabeth now.”
T’Pau nodded, almost imperceptibly. “Certainly. The priests have prepared the chamber for you. They have only to deliver the vessel containing the child.” She turned to walk away. “I will make certain that all work ceases until you are finished, so as not to disturb the proceedings,” she said over her shoulder.
“Thank you,” T’Pol said, her voice flat, and quieter than normal. She turned to look at Trip, her dark eyes wide.
He hesitated for only a moment before reaching out and pulling her into a hug with his uninjured right arm. He felt her frame stiffen against him before relaxing almost imperceptibly.
He knew the tension was not just because of the pending funeral service. It was more personal even than that. Their relationship had all but dissolved last fall–even after T’Pol’s divorce from her husband Koss, whom she’d been forced to marry in order to get her mother re‑instated at the Academy–then seemingly rekindled almost two months ago.
The discovery just last week that, six months earlier, Terra Prime scientists had created a binary clone child, using stolen DNA from Trip and T’Pol, had hit them both like a tsunami. The radical Terra Prime isolationists had hoped to use the Vulcan‑human hybrid as a way to show humans what would happen should they ally themselves with alien races. And although the terrorists were defeated on Mars, the one good result of their plans–the cloned child, which T’Pol had named Elizabeth to honor Trip’s late sister–did not survive long.
Doctor Phlox had explained that Elizabeth had died because of flaws in the cloning procedures used to create her, but that didn’t make the loss any easier on the girl’s “parents.”
During the few days since Elizabeth’s death, Trip and T’Pol had tried to comfort each other, but something seemed fundamentally broken now. Even when Phlox had related his subsequent discovery that whatever incompatibilities might exist between human and Vulcan DNA wouldn’t prevent Trip and T’Pol from reproducing together in the future, the news had seemed depressing rather than hopeful.
Now, Trip felt T’Pol push away from him, away from his embrace, away from the safety of his arms, away from his emotions. She did not look up at him, but turned quickly.
“We should go,” he heard her say, but all the strength was gone from her voice. She may not have been crying outwardly–her face displayed no emotion–but Trip had never heard her soundso…crushed.
As T’Pol walked away, he couldn’t help but wonder if thiswas really the moment when their relationship finally ended.
The torchlight flickered over the chamber walls of the room chosen to commemorate T’Les. Each of the Syrrannites who had fallen at the sanctuary was interred in a different chamber, with each commemorated by a small monument to mark his or her sacrifice.
T’Pol had initially been surprised at the presence of the monuments, since it seemed an extravagant, almost emotional response to death, mandated by T’Pau. But the minister had reminded her that symbols helped to focus memories, and focused memories were more easily controlled and brought to heel with the stern rigors of logic. While she couldn’t argue with the statement, T’Pol still perceived a certain sentimentality attached to the various obelisks, spires, and markers.
As she attempted to meditate, kneeling on the floor opposite Commander Tucker, T’Pol recalled one of the last conversations she had had with her mother, elsewhere in this very sanctuary. They had argued about the Syrrannites, whom T’Pol had opposed. They had quarreled over the aims of Surak’s teachings, the efficacy of the leadership of the High Command, and the overly forceful manner in which T’Pau had tried to retrieve Surak’s katrafrom Captain Archer. “I shouldn’t have come here looking for you, and I don’t want anything more to do with you,” T’Pol had told her. Minutes later, when the High Command attacked, her mother had been mortally wounded.
T’Pol was holding her when she died, shortly after T’Les had admitted that she had joined the Syrrannites’ cause to help her daughter learn to control her emotions. “I have always been so proud of you,” T’Les had said, just moments before drawing her last breath.
Much had changed for T’Pol since then, at least concerning her understanding of Vulcan philosophies. Although she had always steadfastly refused to believe in the existence of the katra,the experiences that Captain Archer shared–with what he felt was the living spirit of Surak dwelling inside him–were difficult to dismiss. Something had led Archer to the Kir’Shara,and had given him the knowledge required to activate it, thereby revealing the true, undiluted teachings of Surak. Whether that was actually Surak’s katrawas something she still debated even now, but even if it was solely some kind of trace memory engram of a man thousands of years gone, it was proof that Surak had lived on past his death, at least in some limited fashion.
And if he had–or if his katrahad–then it was not hard to imagine the katras of others surviving somehow still, beyond the physical bounds of living flesh.
Meditating here, in front of the sepulchers that contained the remains of her mother and of her own daughter, T’Pol felt herself clinging to the hope that neither of them was truly gone. That perhaps their katras didexist, perhaps embedded in the very stone, sand, and soil of this hallowed place.
Of course, she also had to admit to herself that her hope was undeniably born of emotion. Her mother had often admonished her for having so little control over her emotions, and while she didn’t agree with that assessment, in the nearly one‑year period since she had conquered her addiction to trellium–the substance that allowed her to free herself from the grip of logic and emotional constraint–she had known that her ability to control her emotions was now clearly, perhaps irrevocably, damaged.
There were times when she blamed this damage for her continued feelings for Charles Tucker, and yet she knew that even that explanation was disingenuous. Love, while commonly thought of as an emotion, was certainly possible for even the most logical and restrained of Vulcans. Partners loved each other, family members loved each other…it wasn’t the love itself that was the issue, it was the emotions that accompanied it. Joy, sadness, ambivalence, anger, fear, comfort–all of these had come to her, and had sometimes threatened to overwhelm her, during the times she’d shared with Trip.
Even now, as she looked over to him, kneeling on the stone floor, his head bowed in prayer, tears streaming down his dusty cheeks, T’Pol felt herself torn. She wanted to go to him. She wanted to comfort him and seek his comfort in turn, but she also wanted to reject him, to gird herself against weakness and vulnerability.
She knew that their love was undeniable. Just as she knew it was untenable.
Unbidden, she felt a sharp laugh escape her throat from deep within her. It was a laugh born not of mirth, but rather spawned by something very akin to despair. It seemed to echo inside the chamber for an uncomfortable eternity, though she supposed it had probably remained in the air only long enough to cause Trip to open his eyes and look at her.
In that moment, she was lost. T’Pol squeezed her eyes tightly, willing away the tears that welled up in them. She clenched her teeth as her lips trembled. She felt the IDIC symbol that hung from the chain around her neck–the centuries‑old symbol, delivered to her by her ex‑husband, but given to her by her mother. The metal and stone in the symbol were cold in her hand. Cold and dead. As was her mother. And her child.