“There are dignitaries here from eighteendifferent worlds,” Phlox said in his customarily punctilious but upbeat tones. “It’s a good sign. I wouldn’t be surprised if this alliance begins to expand before we know it.” He paused to fix his azure‑eyed gaze firmly upon Archer. “You should be very proud of yourself, Captain.”
Archer waved his padd in the air, then returned to studying his speech. “I’ll be proud of myself if I get this speech out in one piece.”
Phlox shook his head in gentle reprimand. “That’s notwhat I meant.”
Archer allowed the hand that held the padd to drop to his side momentarily, and met Phlox’s mild gaze. “I know what you meant, Phlox. And I appreciate it. But this is not about me.”
T’Pol looked annoyed, at least for a Vulcan. “Why do so many humans refuse to take credit where credit is due? There are times when modesty and humility are quite illogical.”
Archer noticed some movement in his peripheral vision. He turned toward the stairs that led up to the dais, and saw a young, shaved‑headed male Starfleet ensign walking resolutely down the steps toward him.
“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 chair as if he had been waiting for her to arrive. The first peculiarity she noticed about him was his rather prominent brow ridge.
The second was his voice.
“Hello, T’Pol,” he said. Although his face was unfamiliar–unless, she thought, she had glimpsed it once before in a dream–his voice, though altered, was unmistakable. After all, very few Vulcans had ever picked up an Alabama‑Florida accent.
“Trip?” In spite of what had been written on the extremely surprising note the captain had delivered to her–an apparently genuine handwritten message from Trip Tucker that purported to have been written today–she could scarcely contain her surprise at seeing him.
A sheepish grin spread itself across the man’s face, confirming his identity as conclusively as had the sound of his voice. “Maybe I dreamed it, but I’m prettysure I told you we weren’t going to lose touch,” he said. “By the way, that Starfleet uniform looks really good on you.”
He approached her and gently took the folded white sheet of paper she still carried between her suddenly nerveless fingers. “Mind if I take this back? I have to keep the fact that I’m still alive a secret. From mostpeople, that is.” He folded the sheet again and tucked it into a pocket inside his black traveler’s robe.
It occurred to her then that the instinct she had experienced immediately after Trip’s “death” now stood vindicated. Her early, and apparently illogical, conviction that Trip–along with the mind‑link she’d shared with him before their romantic entanglement had dissolved–had indeed somehow survived had been borne out. She was dumbstruck for a seeming eternity, until she found the one word that best expressed her bewildered state of mind:
“Why?”
His smile faded, and a look of intense regret colored his now uncannily Vulcanoid features. “The Romulans were about to perfect a new warp seven–capable spacedrive. Somebody had to infiltrate the project and stop them. Somebody who already had some close‑up familiarity with their technology.”
“And did you succeed in stopping this project?”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “You know, I’m still not completely sure about that. I guess we’ll all find out soon enough. I can only hope I did a better job on that front than I did in preventing their attack on Coridan.”
“The devastation on Coridan Prime would have been far worse had we not warned them. I assume you had something to do with enabling us to do that.” She paused, then added, “ Youwere Lazarus.”
Trip nodded. “I warned Captain Archer about what the Romulans were planning for Coridan as quickly as I could. I wasn’t quite quick enough, though. But I keep telling myself my warning made somesort of difference anyway, just so I can get to sleep at night. Sometimes it even works.”