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Author's note: See bottom for definitions of Denobulan words
Pursuit of Purity
"No! NO! They're here! They're here!" the child's frightened voice cried out in the darkness. Pure terror shone in his eyes, widely open although still caught in the nightmare. "Stop them! They'll kill me! They'll kill us all!"
Light flooded the room and an older woman, her hair silver and the boney ridges along her face slightly reddened with age came into the room. "Neblin. Don't not cry out so. There is nothing to fear," she soothed. "The Antaran's will never hurt you my child. Not as they hurt my sister and me."
The Denobulan boy blinked as the reality of his bedroom sunk in as he responded to his second grandmother on his third father's side, the fear still palpable on his face. "But I saw them, Mogna. Their teeth were red. Their battle markings of black clear between the vee on their forehead. Just like you described them. They were going to hit me with their amartoli sticks!"
She gently ran her fingers along the undeveloped ridges of his face to calm him. "No, Neblin. That ended a long time ago. Those demon jantars are no longer a threat to us. The last great war saw to that."
"Are you sure?" the boy asked, leaning into her ministrations and taking comfort from her words
"Yes. I am sure. I saw the pictures of their settlements. Thousands…maybe millions of them dead. General Lewox saw to their extermination. They'd breed like sirtarks but our doctors developed a biospecific virus that destroyed them and our military ships released it into the atmospheres of the planets they inhabited." Her voice became hard. "I just wish they'd pushed on to their homeworld. Now, from what I've heard, they are breeding again. This means that in time we will just have to go to war again."
"But my teachers say that as long as they remain in their home system, they are not a threat to us."
"What do teachers know? Do they carry the scars from the amartoli sticks like I do?" She raised her hair to show the reddened scar that still ran along her ear line. "Did they see their sister murdered by those evil jantars? No. Mark my words. We will need to go to war with them again."
"I guess, Mogna. Why can't they just leave us in peace?" The question was all innocence.
"Because it is not their way, Phlox. Now go to sleep. Mogna will stay with you."
ENTENTENT
Phlox walked into the communal dining room for his family. Although they lived in different houses on the compound, dinner always brought the family together. He was excited to tell his news. "Dwitna bought the tickets today."
"The tickets?" his second mother asked.
He sat at his place, between his first mother and second father. "To visit Hornwith. With the park about to be completed, the government's offering a special travel package. Dwitna checked into it about three months ago and we were placed on a waiting list. He bought the tickets today when he received word our group's name came up. We leave in a week."
"I still don't know why I can't go," his half-step sister born to his first father and his third wife asked. "I'm nearly your age."
"Because, I'm going with my friends, Tilwri. We can go later, but this is our time."
The conversation had continued, morphing as other issues from the family took center. Eventually, after the meal was completed and the dishes cleaned up, the various family groups separated. Phlox was about to head to his family group when his Mogna stopped him.
"Phlox, I would speak with you," the old woman said, directing him to an alcove where they could talk.
"What is it, Mogna?" he responded with a wide smile as he sat down.
"You cannot go, Neblin."
"Where?"
"To Hornwith."
"Oh, yes, Mogna. As I said at dinner, Dwitna got the tickets and…"
She sighed. "The tickets are not the problem."
"Then what is?" Phlox was confused.
"They lived there. The Antarans. Years ago. Before the final push." Her words were bitter.
"I didn't see anything in the literature about that," he argued.
"They just spent 90,000 gritsme on restoring it. Do you think they want to keep people away?" she explained. "It is too bad they had to throw good gritsme at a spoiled planet."
He was still confused. "Well, if it's restored, then I don't see why I can go."
"Because, Neblin, it is tainted. No amount of restoration can take that away. You are pure. If you go, you will no longer be. Do you wish for that to happen?"
Phlox was torn. They'd been learning about the wars in school. He'd learned the reasons for the bitterness between the Denobulans and the Antarans: the facts of border disputes, of abominations on both sides. "But Mogna. A lot of what you told me isn't true."
The woman looked stricken, her eyes distressed and her mouth slightly a gap. "I know what I saw, what I lived through. You think I made up that my sister died at their hands? You cannot go, Phlox. Not if you care about me."
The next day, the boy told his friends he would not be going.
ENTENTENT
The young doctor had been assigned to the Zwoplik outpost his mood speaking to his joy at having secured such a plum posting so quickly. They were on the third day of their journey to the outpost when the ship was diverted to the Mantiyn system. There had been an explosion in an old abandoned minefield and the doctors were asked to provide assistance to the indigenous population.
They had set up their field hospital and started to treat the injured. The carnage was great as there had been a large group using the open meadow for a gathering, the fact that it had been seeded with clustered landmines forgotten in the midst of history. Nothing had happened until enough pressure was exerted in the field and the entire area had gone up in one explosion. The survivors all exhibited multiple injuries, most life threatening. One of the local doctors had refused to treat one of his people and had angrily left; complaining loudly that the Denobulans could take care of the young man's injuries.
Phlox was shocked. It was one thing to accept the refusal of treatment by the patient, quite another for a doctor to unilaterally refuse to treat a patient who was expecting treatment. It wasn't until Dr. Tugroe, an older Denobulan physician, had explained after their shift that he began to understand what had actually occurred. There had been strained relations between several factions on this planet for years…residual feelings from a bitter civil war. The patient and the doctor were from opposite sides of that divide. When Phlox pointed out that the war had been over for years, Dr. Tugroe had shrugged. "It's not that different between us and the Antarans."
Phlox had immediately disagreed. However, after spending days treating the injured and nights in conversation with Dr. Tugroe, he'd begun to see a different truth. Maybe the stories he'd heard all his life were just that. Stories…or worse…pure propaganda and lies.
The Denobulan government had certainly put the past behind them and had even stricken laws off the books that had punished harboring or assisting an Antaran. They were archaic in any case. No one he'd known had ever seen an Antaran and likely never would. He'd long accepted the fact that his Mognahad been wrong on that point. As a physician, Phlox had rejoiced in that knowledge, not wishing to see any sentient being harmed by the senselessness of war. He could see no reason why his people would ever go to war with the Antarans again. Both species had simply decided to never interact again.
Getting back on the transport that would take him to the Zwoplik outpost after addressing the incident of the minefield, Phlox decided that someday, should he be blessed with wives and children, he would be careful about what they learned. Seeing the ugliness of prejudice on this planet had made it clear to him that was not at all the way he wished his children to be raised. He wanted them to remain uncorrupted by the repulsiveness of propaganda and lies. He would provide them with the truth, pure and simple. Perhaps then, the unpleasant memory of ethics ignored would be banished.
ENTENTENT
"Metus, you need to see that these arguments are false. What you've heard are lies," Phlox tried for what seemed the umpteenth time.
His youngest son looked at the Denobulan doctor with distain. "How do you know, father? Have you read the reports? Seen the documentaries? Why won't you believe what's in front of your eyes. They're evil. Purely evil."
"No. They're not. Has it occurred to you that some people simply hate and create the so called evidence to support that hate?"
Metus rolled his eyes. "Oh, now there's a stretch. I'm sorry father. I know you've worked with many species from many planets, but you're blind to the truth about our own enemies." The boy pressed a few buttons on his viewer. "Look at this. Look at the pictures of what they did to us when they tried to overrun our system. They pushed us out of our own settlements, took our children to be their slaves, and even killed us for sport. The evidence is here if you'd just look at it."
"And I'm telling you that not all of that is real…"
"Then you're blind." The boy put the viewer back in his pocket. "Anyway, I'm going to be late. We have another meeting of the Planetary Protection Society."
"Your hate group," Phlox spit out.
"The people that understand as you refuse to do," his son shot back.
Phlox was slow in his response. "I'm sorry Metus. Truly sorry, but if you wish to continue with these people, you are no longer welcome in this compound."
"Fine…father," Methus responded with a caustic emphasis on the title as he turned to walk out the door. "You'll not see me again."
ENTENTENT
He sat in his room. One he seldom visited when his sleep cycle was not upon him. He'd come from his latest attempt to satisfy the captain's requests. To find some way to help his patient. He understood the human's point of view. From their physician's standpoint, they should first do no harm. Usually that viewpoint dovetailed nicely with the Denobulan pillar to place the will of the patient above all other considerations.
Not this time.
He'd tried. He'd really tried. The captain had asked him to find some way to get the man to trust him. Captain Archer had asked him — and from what he gathered the Antaran as well — to put aside his pre-conceptions. That was what the human didn't understand. Pre-conceptions were not always based on falsehoods.
The last conversation preyed on his mind—everything this Antaran Xenomythologist had said. The Antaran had been relentless from the first moment he'd awoken in sickbay. With every word he spoke, he twisted the knife, blaming Phlox directly or indirectly for the atrocities inflicted on the Antaran's during their years of conflict. Phlox had felt the shame of knowing the Denobulans had not historically treated the Antarans fairly but the conflicts had ended long before Phlox had even been born. He felt, after this first meeting with this species that everything his Mogna had said had been proven true. That these…people…were exactly the way his grandmother had described them. Unwilling to accept anything but their own truths.
He knew he'd have to tell the captain there was nothing he could do. The Antaran was simply unable to be reasoned with. He decided to grab something to eat first.
The mess hall was empty as he made up his plate. He sat down and stared at the food. For the first time in awhile, he simply wasn't hungry. Not even a little. He wondered why he'd even bothered to try. As he was making up his mind as to what to do, a familiar figure entered the room, obtaining, he was sure, a cup of tea.
He was still stewing over his current dilemma when she asked to join him. He started to send her off but then, realizing how childish he was being called that back and invited her to sit. The two discussed the sad truth of the Antaran's refusal of treatment and he knew she understood how humans often didn't appreciate the — to them — alien viewpoints of ethical and moral behavior. After all, the reason both of them were on this ship in the first place was the captain's quite human decision to return the injured Klingon to his people even though the Vulcans had explained it was not the Klingon way.
He wasn't sure why but he decided to tell her what had happened those many years before. He went into the story about what had occurred when he'd planned to visit the Wildlife Park on Hornwith years before. He told her that he'd tried to raise his children differently. That he'd taken them to the planet and proved to himself that his Mogna's words held no truth. The planet had been truly spectacular with an ecosystem like none he'd witnessed before. Everything lived within the confines of the planet in perfect harmony. Everywhere was the sound of life from the waterfalls to the birdsong. Phlox had felt nothing but peace on Hornwith.
"Your children were fortunate to have a father who taught them to embrace other cultures," she responded to his tales, the look of respect pure in her eyes.
The emotions of the last two days came crashing down around him. Internally he scoffed that his self deemed enlightened attitude toward the Antarans had really taken hold. Rather, that image now crumbled as if it had been made of sand and water, unable to stand in the bitter wind of truth that swirled about him. Involuntarily his voice tightened and his eyes filled with moisture. He felt shaky as he answered. "I certainly tried," he responded in quiet anguish.
In hindsight, he would realize that her reaction to him at that moment was likely as much a catalyst for his further actions as anything else. She had reached out to him with concern, asking if he was all right. Her words and visage were both colored with such compassion that he needed, at that moment, to consider that response. He excused himself.
He decided, after some continued soul searching what his compassionate response would be. Maybe, just maybe the captain was right. This was an Earth ship. He didn't want to break his ethical standards but…
Still, he'd give the Antaran one last chance to choose life before he accepted the captain's order and acted in concert with it. Perhaps a pure and truthful conversation that didn't result in his rising to the bait would change things. All he knew was, he had to try or he would be the one tainted. It would be the only way to purify his mind from the wounds his Mogna had inflicted on him those many years before. She hadn't meant to do harm, but she had. Exorcising that injury required him to live his words. The time had come to put into practice what he had taught his children was right.
With that thought in mind, he entered Sickbay to prepare for the procedure required to save the Antaran's life.
FINIS
Definition of Denobulan words:
Neblin: Term of endearment meaning "my little love"
Mogna: Term of endearment similar to Earth term nana.
armatoli sticks: A ancient weapon of the Antarans similar to an Earth police baton
jantars: a racial slur specific on Denobula for the Antarans that carries with visceral hatred of that people
sirtarks: a type of rodent animal which live on a moon of Denobula.
gritsme: Denobulan currency similar to Earth credits