The Empire's Destiny
By Asso
Chapter Fourteen
"Preparations"
Preparations? For what?
oooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooo
Now she was fully present to herself.
That strange, never before experienced, feeling of lightness, of rarefied serenity, of aloofness, even, that she had felt before, was gone, or better, was still there, in her head, inside her, in some way, but it was not such blinding, such dazzling, such... all-encompassing, behold, as to cancel everything else, to make her only want to abandon herself totally to it, to vanish in it.
Her eyes moved attentive and curious.
Where was she? Who were those two women, practically equal to her in their appearance? Vulcans? Like her?
Slaves? Yes, of course, slaves, dressed ... naked as they were, in that way.
Slaves, belonging to her own race, who were assisting her? At… her service? And... in that great room full of light and air, with that large window that overlooked onto that garden that could exist only in the palace of the Emperor?
Or in...
In a dream?
Could it be a dream? A... a beautiful dream? But dreams are not so... vivid, so real, as far as she knew. Oh sure. Because Vulcans do not dream, or rather suppress the memory of their dreams, since it is not possible for them - it is dangerous - to revive, inside themselves, their dreams. They would run the risk of being disrupted, not to say destroyed, by them, by their dreams, because the real world and the dream world, would not allow the Vulcans - if they were permitted to co-exist, to intermingle - to maintain the integrity of their well-ordered mind, unable ... well, yes, admittedly - unable to control two such different and colliding worlds. The Vulcans would end up being seriously confused. Lethal, this, for them.
Anyway, in any way things were, T'Pol was a Vulcan, and, therefore, the memory of her dreams vanished automatically in her, indeed, in her, as in all Vulcans, the dreams were forced to evaporate as soon as they hinted to appear to the forefront of sleep.
Consequently, it was impossible that she was having a dream. She did not dream. Period. Although... well, yes, she seemed to have done so. Recently. Indeed, just before waking up in that room. Or maybe ... maybe not. Perhaps she had not dreamed, perhaps she had caught a glimpse of ... something akin to dream, but true.
She... she did not remember.
Something confused was stirring in her, but she did not have memory of this, nor of that room, nor of how she had got there. The last thing she remembered, clearly, was a bed in an unknown infirmary, nothing else. And Phlox.
And... Tucker.
Alive and well, as the doctor, even though this one, actually, had not exactly appeared in... excellent conditions.
Tucker.
Who had gone away.
After having talking to her with... sweetness.
After having recommended to her to recover fully, to think only of that.
He. Just he. Tucker.
Whom she had greeted, telling him... telling him to be careful.
Because she wanted him to come back, safe and sound, to her.
No matter what he was going to do.
He.
Just he.
Tucker.
Who had saved her, had taken her away from that cage of horror, before...
Before...
T'Pol closed her eyes, unable not to tremble inside, at those horrible memories.
However...
However, it was weird. There was no longer, in her, that anguish ... yes, anguish, this was the word ... that anguish... even more, that agonizing terror, that she had felt in her Katra; that ... she realized it perfectly... had brought her mind on the brink of madness.
How was it possible? How come? What had happened that had made her healed? So well?
That made her feel so quiet?
And strong.
It was something that had happened after that Tucker had left her. Sure. Although ... yes, it was necessary admit it, a first, incomplete, wave of peace had already lapped her spirit when she had seen again Tucker and when the two of them had spoken to each other. Very strange, this circumstance, even embarrassing, in a way. Requiring much meditation. For sure.
Whatever it was, it was different, now. She couldn't remember having ever felt so good, with a mind so calm and yet alert. Yes, something had happened in the interval between the departure of Tucker and her awakening - her two awakenings - in that place.
But what?
She...
T'Pol clenched unconsciously her eyelids in a bid to concentrate, to bring into focus her mind, trying to remember.
But she did not remember anything. Or almost.
Vague sensations. And strange.
Also... unpleasant. Indeed distressing. But some of them even enjoyable. Sensations, both the first and the second type, which... yes ... which related to Tucker. One more time.
But she could not remember.
Regrettable, yes. Decidedly regrettable.
T'Pol was not at all pleased about this, not in the least. A Vulcan should not and can not have gaps in his rigorous mind. That's unworthy. And dangerous. But perhaps this was the result ... yeah, sure ... of her dreadful experience. No one, not even a Vulcan like her, and, in a way, this was... comforting, could go completely unscathed, without any wake, without some... unwelcome aftermaths, through an ordeal such as the one she had had to undergo. Atrocious, a Human would have said. And... it would have been correct. However, considering that she had been able to recover so well, perhaps, over time, she could also be able to go out from that state of... mnemonic incompleteness.
So she could have had an explanation for everything.
Also...
Also for that strange "thing".
A sort of vague murmur that she felt in her mind.
She was certain, she had already perceived it before, on her first incomplete awakening in that room.
And she felt it even now.
It was not unpleasant, in fact it was… nice. It was... was a sort of caress. This was the comparison that came to her mind, and this made it even stranger, because she had never received caresses, did not even know very well what they were.
Although... although... actually...
No, it was not really true. She had received caresses.
Rough.
But also... sweets. Pleasurable. And... terribly arousing.
From Tucker.
When she had asked him to meet her needs. Her Pon Far.
Tucker.
Again him.
Once again in her thoughts.
And... even this she could not understand... it seemed to her that the murmur inside her, that kind of soft and harmonic sough, gentle, had, it too, something to do with him.
A sort of... presence.
Telling her he there was, was alive.
And was there.
Somewhere.
With her.
T'Pol opened her eyes as if to make sure if, by chance, it wasn't true, if he weren't there, really, with her, and she saw that the two women were looking at her. One of them had something in her hand. It seemed a kind of communication device.
Had they communicated with someone? Had informed someone – Tucker. Tucker, was he really there? Got back? From where he had gone? - that she was awake? And restored? And fed and thirst quenched? And so, able to receive him, because in the condition he had told he would have wanted her to be, before he were willing to explain to her...
Enough. There were things that she could not know and that hopefully would be revealed by Tucker, when he would again been in her presence. He had promised her, had told her that he would reveal to her how he could be alive, after having been given up for dead by all; and how the doctor, he too, could be there with him, he too alive; and where all they were, she included; and what they were doing there and how he had managed to earn that rank - General - and who was that Alien, Vulcan and not Vulcan, who had entered the infirmary and who had said to him, Tucker, that the time had come for him to go to do what he had to do.
The Alien... who had frightened her. Yes. Illogical deny it. It was so.
Maybe, who knows, he, Tucker, or, more likely, the doctor, would also be able to reveal to her what had happened after he had left her, and how it could be that she felt so well. Why she felt so... at peace.
What was that thing ... beautiful ... inside her mind, which made her feel so good.
Which recalled to her mind… Tucker.
Tucker. Tucker. TUCKER. He always.
Why... why had she thought of him when ... when she was about to be overwhelmed by death and ignominy?
And even… - T'Pol realized this, now, for the first time, now that her mind was clear and calm, that her body and her spirit felt good as never they had been. - …even when... when her persecutors were preparing her for her execution; when they had locked up her, naked and helpless, and in the cold, in a cave of her own home planet; when they had reduced her to be blindly famished and thirsty, and had beaten and tortured her, pitilessly, to weaken her body and her spirit...
Even then, in those moments, even if her mind, too benighted by so much sufferings, had not even been able to realize it, she had thought of him.
Of his arms. As of the arms of her unique possible… craved... saviour.
His arms…
Why had she thought of his arms ... of his strong arms?
Why had she thought that they - they - could save her?
And why, how, could it have been possible for this to happen for real?
And...
T'Pol became even more busily pensive, her eyes tried to catch something she could not see.
And who - Who ever - could explain to her the incomprehensible, unheard of, attitude of... of... of sweetness that Tucker had had with her at her first awakening in the infirmary? And, even more, the incomprehensible, unheard of, feeling - Feeling, just so, something that she could not understand, not even grasp - which she – She, T'Pol of Vulcan - had felt for Tucker at that moment?
And which was still...
Which she still...
…felt.
*Feeling.*
A feeling that she… that she… had felt…
Had already felt…
Without understanding…
Before?
Before, when she had…
And the question, inevitable, arose in her. She had come to the point.
T'Pol had already wondered this question so many times, without daring to give an answer. She remembered well, sure, to have addressed this question to herself even then, when, on her waking in the infirmary, and in front of the unexpected and… welcome attitude on part of Tucker, she had responded him with an identical soft attitude, with that strange… feeling… within her. But this time the question was imperious. This time, now that her mind, her whole being were so clear, so crystal clear, as never before, and that somehow she knew that her fate was tied to that answer - she could not deny that it was so - she could not evade it. She could probably not have been able to provide an answer, a plausible answer. Logical. But she could no longer dodge the issue.
*Why?*
Why on earth had she had wanted him to meet her needs? Why she… had given herself to him?
What was the boost?
That ... that feeling?
Possible?
POSSIBLE?!
She... she had to know! She had to... she had to find someone able to give her the answers. All the answers.
THAT ANSWER!
It was important. Tremendously important. For her, for what she was. For what she would be. For what - T'Pol realized it, all of sudden - perhaps, she would have had to accept to be, to become.
And...
The enormity of the idea struck suddenly T'Pol with the force of a hammer.
...And for the fight, ultimately, that she had undertaken against the Empire.
Eh sure. Because that Empire was the same Empire against which Tucker had acted to save her!
Why, regardless of how it was possible that he was there, alive and well; regardless of how he could have become what he was there, the General Tucker, and no matter how far back in time - yes, it certainly could not be something that had matured in the short span of time that had elapsed from his alleged death - his hidden second career could sink... why, regardless of all that, Tucker had saved her? And after ... - Another feeling, a sense of ... of guilt - ... after what she had done to him?
Why had he rushed to her rescue?
Because... because he, just he, just Tucker, nourished a feeling for her? That maybe he did not even know to have and that had got revealed in his running to her aid and in the attitude that he had shown to her when she had woken up?
A feeling that, perhaps, he hoped could be returned? That he hoped that she, too, could have harboured for him?
A feeling as strong as to induce him to fight against the Empire? His empire?
But then that feeling, if it came to this, could have been important not only to her, for her future; it could also have been important for the future of her race. Of any race of the Empire.
For the Empire's destiny!
Because it was a powerful weapon! Frighteningly powerful! To the point to change Tucker, maybe. To the point, even... perhaps... to change also her.
Was it possible that the destiny of the Empire could pass through, could be changed, through... through Tucker? Through her? Through that feeling?
Through that...
T'Pol dared give it the most appropriate name.
Although unable to fully understand what it was.
Although frightened by it.
*…sentiment.*
That maybe Tucker had for her and that ... that...
T'Pol realized. She understood, at last. She surrendered.
And that, perhaps, she too had for him!
For a moment T'Pol remained inert in the body and mind.
Then her brain rebelled.
No! No no no, for the wisdom of Surak! It could not be so! She could not - HAD NOT TO! - feed such a feeling!
That sentiment!
She wouldn't search for any answer. She could not have that answer. She didn't want it!
It was not possible, was not eligible, that she could harbour feelings of... of ... oh Surak! Of what?!
She was a Vulcan. A Vulcan! She couldn't have feelings. SENTIMENTS! She couldn't indulge in them!
Feelings. Sentiments! And… and for whom? For a Human? A HUMAN?
FOR TUCKER?
The worst of the Humans!
No. It was not true.
It would have been not true even if it had been true.
And if it had been so true to be true, she would have fought against such sentiment.
With more strength and more determination than against the yoke of the Empire!
And she would make it.
It was - had to be - another after-effect, yes, another bad consequence of what she had been forced to endure. Sure. On the other hand ... on the other hand, much as she could feel splendidly, much as her mind could be clear and perspicuous as never it had been, it was also true that she was a little too emotional. Yes. Exactly. The perspicuity itself of her brain made her understand this. And this was not - could not be - because she was emotional per se, or ... or because she ... because she had become emotional by the fact that she had met Tucker in the road of her life, because he had made her so. Because he could exert such power over her!
It was a consequence of the ordeal undergone by her.
Exactly.
And it would disappear. With time.
She would have not surrendered!
And she would have won.
She would have returned to be the T'Pol of before, the T'Pol of ever.
And Tucker...
She... she would have used him again. She would have taken advantage of his new weakness.
She would have used that weapon - that feeling, that sentiment, which was only his, of him, not hers. Not hers! - to fight again against the Empire.
And to defeat it.
She had been given another chance and she would have not lost herself chasing silly mirages.
Too bad for Tucker, if indeed he harboured feelings for her.
She was T'Pol! T'Pol of Vulcan!
The logical law of case had put her in his hands, but she would have known how to reverse the situation.
It would have been enough to use the same means that she had used the first time, and with even greater chance of success, if it was true that the attraction which undoubtedly Tucker felt for her was such as to give birth in him to… to a feeling for her; such as to make him believe that she could nurture a similar feeling for him. She! T'Pol! T'Pol of Vulcan! A… a feeling… a sentiment!... for…
For Tucker.
He... he was nothing more than a means for her. A toy in her hands.
She had deceived him once and she would have done it again.
She would have fooled him.
Without second thoughts. Without any remorse. A Vulcan does not feel such ridiculous feelings.
And this time she would have made no mistake.
The decision had been made and it was time to act. T'Pol did not want to wait any longer.
A sort of frenzy seized her. She had to get up. She had to act! She had to... had to stop thinking!
But she'd also need to know, in order to act; to know at least something. She could not afford the luxury of making false moves. She had to have some answers; not all, only a few, the bare essentials. Just what she needed so as not to make mistakes, in that environment she did not know, in that situation that she could not dominate. Something. She had to come to know at least few things. Immediately. Just then. At that moment.
Those women. They had to tell her something. At least who they were, what was - where was - that incredible room where she stood.
And why she was there.
Why...
Another feeling, one more yet. Another strange sensation and... strangely pleasant.
Something…
A... a languor?
A soft, pleasantly poignant, languor.
... why she was supposed to meet Tucker there, in that room or...
An image in her mind.
An image of her and Tucker.
A vivid, intense image of her and Tucker.
...or in the garden...
In that beautiful, verdant, leafy, lush...
…and shady and wrap-around and… concealing… garden.
"Get up, Denobulan."
What the heck! The doctor was caught lost in thought.
One of the two guards had entered - the usual, the one to whom it had touched the thankless task of having to deal with the physician.
The doctor stood up. He was tempted to respond in kind to that harsh tone, but... best not to overdo it. He had managed to gain a little respect from those two guards, but, with the respect, you do very little, when you're under the ground.
And then, perhaps, it was the message that he was waiting for.
"At your service." A little good servility was not bad.
The guard raised an eyebrow. Damn! That Denobulan made him really lose his head!
"The two bondmaids send to tell you that the Vulcan female could be ready. They ask you to go check out. As established."
Ah, well! Well for the good news per se and also because it had been given ear to him. His position was definitely improving.
"Here I am. At your command. Let's go."
The doctor got out from the infirmary, in the hallway, where the other guard was waiting for him, escorted from the first on whose face, now that anyone could see, a more and more puzzled and bored expression was getting showing off.
For the beard of the Emperor! That man, that Denobulan, was disconcerting. You never knew what to do with him. He was able to make a man eager to make him into pieces and this could not be done, because you could not do, and that's that, but also because it was never clear if he was making fun of you or not, and for what purpose, in the bargain. Maybe that damned had remained too long along with Humans. It was known that Humans were disconcerting, that they were able to confuse the minds. Such as that damn Human General, that Tucker, who was said being able to bamboozle even Valdore. Gosh! It was certainly not to be envied their leader, since he had to do every day with the Human General, compared to whom the Denobulan was supposed to be little more than nothing!
Damnit, damnit and damnit! But why the heck, they, the big shots, had not despatched him in some suicide mission instead of putting him to watch that damn Denobulan doctor?
One hand, gentle but firm, stopped T'Pol.
"You may not get up. Not yet."
T'Pol stopped, with her upper body half lifted from the bed.
She looked quizzically at the woman who had spoken in a voice quiet but steadfast.
She and her partner had approached the bed, while she was lost in her ruminations, and now they were there, preventing her from getting up.
T'Pol was tempted not to listen to her. Enough with orders. What would have happened to her if she had ignored the order? All in all, she had got it, they were there to serve her. She, evidently... was important. She had been rescued by Tucker, but was also in his hands, in his power, therefore. In a nutshell, she… belonged to him, in a sense. Or perhaps... in the true sense of the word. But if she belonged to Tucker, as it ... well, yes... as it was clear, and if Tucker, as it was equally clear, was important, then so was she.
So then, what could happen to her if she had turned a deaf ear to that order, to say it in the manner of her Human master? To the order of two bangles? There, to serve her?
Nothing.
Or maybe not? The fact that she belonged to Tucker, did it mean that she too was a slave? And a slave, as important as she could be, could she go unpunished if she disobeyed an order, albeit coming from another slave?
Most likely not, even considering that maybe such an order from a slave could have been the reflection of an order coming from higher up, perhaps coming from Tucker himself.
And she could not afford the luxury of defying Tucker. Not yet.
Too many were still the things that she had to know, too many the answers that she had to have before being able to act, before being able to formulate a plan with some solid foundation. She knew nothing of where she was and of whom and of how were those to whom it belonged the place where she was and who had reduced to slavery those two women. She could only count on Tucker. She was really in his hands, for much more than for only one reason.
Nor, much less, she could run the risk of alienating those two women, the two slaves. They were on her same level, if not, perhaps, slightly lower down, in grace of the rank that evidently Tucker was holding. They could have been her allies, even if unaware. In any case, they were the only approachable hookup that she had, for now; the only available source of information to which she could presumably resort without venturing too much.
She could not antagonize them, putting them in a state of embarrassment, which could have had the effect to make them hostile to her.
T'Pol went back down without protest. But, probably, it had come the time to speak. Gently, quietly. A tranquil objection, made with kindness. Nothing more.
And also a probe. An initial exploratory approach.
"Why do I have to stay in bed? I feel fine."
Maybe it was not bad if she showed a little gratitude. And, after all, she really felt grateful. How strange. The side effects of her past disruptive experience made themselves really felt. Certainly, her past terrible experience; what else, if not that? Absolutely no other reason than that.
"Your thoughtfulness for me worked very well. I thank you. Both of you."
Neither the one nor the other bondmaids showed the slightest change in their expression, which had always shown and continued to be at all unemotional, almost stern. Just like that of a Vulcan. Were they really Vulcans, those two women?
However, and despite the static expression of her two possible fellow countrywomen, T'Pol felt that she had done well. If not, why that reply? It meant a lot.
"It is strange to hear a Vulcan say thank you", said the woman who had already spoken.
"It is not a trivial matter", stepped in the other.
"Especially in the place where we are", started again the first.
T'Pol pricked up her ears. Was it the moment? Could she dare?
"May I know where we are? And who you are? You seem... Are you Vulcan like me?"
It was a mistake. The two deadpan faces assumed for the first time an expression. They stiffened, and in those four beautiful dark eyes a shadow appeared, darker than them.
"We are on Romulus", said the first, in a cold voice.
"We are Vulcans", said the second, in an even colder tone.
Romulus! She was on Romulus! The planet of that unknown race that no one had ever seen, and from whose territory no one had ever returned.
That alien... that alien, the one who had frightened her, was he a Romulan, then? So resembling a Vulcan? And Tucker, how had he done to come into contact with them, namely with the Romulans? And those women, the two Vulcans, how had they done to end up there?
Quiet. Calm. Later. At the appropriate moment. T'Pol realized she had touched a sore point; had pushed herself too far forward. However, something, she had come to know, even if that something did nothing but multiply the questions.
She hastily resumed the subject of her first objection.
"Please let me get up. I'm very well, thanks to your cares, and I need to get up, to move, to walk."
The two faces relaxed. Good. So, it was fine.
"Not yet", said one of the two faces.
"Before, the doctor has to examine you", said the second.
"The doctor?"
"Yes", replied the first.
"The Denobulan doctor?"
"Yes", replied the second.
"Why should he examine me?"
"To make sure you're really ready", answered again the first face.
"Ready?" - T'Pol just believed to know what she had to be ready for. That room! That garden! – "For what?"
"You should ask: for what and for whom", resumed the second face.
So things were just so. And, on the other hand, how could it have been otherwise? But T'Pol wanted it to be said to her... clearly. At least she could finally have been able to stop making mere conjectures.
"What do you mean?"
"You belong to the Human General", said quietly the first woman.
"You shall give him anything he wants you to give him", said even more quietly the second.
"What is right that you give him", the first said again in a whisper, but firmly, in a tone that brooked no argument.
"Because you are his thing", the second ended in a sigh, which just in its feebleness resounded even more assertive.
She was his thing.
T'Pol had understood it very well, but, inside, she staggered, in hearing it said so, in that way. With that stony clarity.
A thing. This she was. A thing. His. Of Tucker.
And he would have used her as a thing.
T'Pol felt something within. A knot. Sore. She could not ignore it or suppress it.
Feelings? Sweetness? Fables. Nonsense. Fruit of her mind so severely tested, not yet capable of being lucid in its thoughts and perceptions in those moments, when she had painfully woken in the infirmary.
As instead... - T'Pol felt the knot hurt even more - ... it was now.
Tucker would have made her pay the price.
She had treated him as a thing, and now she was a thing belonging to him that he could treat how he wanted. As... a thing.
She had lured him with the promise of an encounter of love that she had not given him. Instead of love, she had given him deception and pain and now she would have been forced to give him what she had promised him and hadn't given him. And the power, the force, the control... the command... would have been his.
And… no sweetness in their new love encounter. No… feelings. Rough harshness. This. And, perhaps… most likely… surely… pain and suffering for her.
And maybe...
How strange, odd, this idea, this thought, that she remembered to have already had.
…Maybe she deserved to be treated thus by him. Maybe... maybe it was true what her frightened, benighted mind had thought when she had been locked up in that cage of horror. Namely… namely that she deserved to be punished.
In the worst way.
Because she was not able to act, if not by deception. Even now, she had planned to deceive him, Tucker.
That universe of deception was part of her.
But that universe of deception had deceived her, had made her see things that were not true, had repaid her with her own coin, and now it would have made valid for her its only law, that that, implacable, governed the balance of power between peoples and people, anywhere, anytime.
The law of retaliation.
She had done with Tucker all she had wanted to do. Now he would have done all he would have wanted to do... with her.
With the thing that belonged to him.
For this? For this had he saved her? For vendetta? Was he really so powerful, there, in that place, that he could afford to do such a thing? And his resentment toward her, could it have been enough to drive him to do that, to risk his life, and not only his, to bring her there and take revenge on her? And that thing she had believed to perceive in him, when they had spoken, was it really nothing, then? Really fables, nonsense? Had she really deceived herself?
And why…
Why she, who had decided to ignore the feeling that she had thought to feel in him. And… in her. She, who had decided to do to Tucker what she had done to him the first time. She, who was ready to use with him the same money that she had used with him the first time...
Why... she felt so disappointed?
In the end he was behaving with her any more or less how she had decided to deal with him. What reason there was to feel ... to feel…
*How? Sad? But Vulcans don't feel sad.*
Frustration. Anger, too. Yes. Maybe also fear. All this would have been if not logical, at least understandable. But the disappointment, the sadness, even... why ever?
What… what reason there was to sense that strange swelling of the eyes at the thought that she had deceived herself? At the thought that Tucker wanted from her... only that.
His revenge. Her humiliation.
And why... why, in spite of all that, in spite of everything, she felt within, still, again, that strange thing, that languor, sweet and poignant, that ... that tickle in her stomach, at the thought that, before long, she would have to give to his master, Tucker, what he wanted her to give him?
What was right that she would give him, because she was "his thing".
Because she was his thing...
As the ancient legends told that Vulcan women were for the men they chose as their masters. Masters of their hearts. Their… Aduns.
If she had been Human, T'Pol would have boggled, and for a hair's breadth she didn't.
But… what kind of idea was ever that? How could such an analogy have jumped into her mind?
Evidently her brain was working perfectly, okay, but maybe it was still a little prey to fatigue.
But in this case… in this case, perhaps... perhaps her mind could be mistaken.
Tucker had saved her only to take revenge? To humiliate her? By taking so big risks?
But no. No! This was impossible! She knew Tucker. She had known him… intimately. He was hostage of the emotions, like all Humans, but he knew also combat them, knew how to be cool and rational. He was not a fool! He was intelligent, and capable, and skilful.
His mind was as sharp as his body was mighty in… lovemaking.
So... then… maybe she had not deceived herself! Perhaps, after all...
Suddenly, T'Pol felt it again. Indeed, in reality, it had never gone away; simply, she had no longer paid attention to it, so much taken as she was by her ponderings, by the situation that she had to face.
Persistent, continuous, without break.
That unknown, sweet, rustling in her mind, that she had already felt when she had woken up the first time in that room, and also at her second awakening, and of which she had offhandedly got rid, by tagging it again as something residual, due to the overload of her mind.
That murmur, caressing, which, incomprehensibly, did not annoyed her; which actually she had pleasure to feel. Which… which… she would have been displeased, if it were gone off.
Which now, right now, seemed to grow more insistent, almost as if wanting to tell her that it was there, that she had to listen to it.
That whisper, honey and soft, which seemed to want to reassure her and which, in spite of everything…, really did it.
Which said to her... said to her...
What said it to her?
"Well, well, well."
Phlox! He was in the room. And she had not even realized it!
He was there, just beyond the threshold. There were two men with him. They had the same appearance of that Alien. Looked like Vulcans, but they were also different. Not too much, but enough. And they were Romulans! Now she knew it. What did it mean that extreme similarity between her race and that of the Romulans? And could this have had something to do with the presence of Vulcan female slaves on Romulus?
The doctor approached the bed, while the two men - Two guards? - stood by the door.
The two women retreated to the sidelines.
T'Pol looked at the doctor from under the blanket. He was emaciated and in disarray. He was certainly not the doctor she had known... before, but was not even the doctor that she had seen when she had woken up in the infirmary, when he had looked haggard. Haggard, yes. And there was no longer that scared and lost look on his face. He seemed more confident, although there was no sign on his visage of the harsh hardness of the past.
What had happened?
The doctor brought near her his medical tricorder.
He passed the device back and forth, from top to bottom, from right to left and back, on her.
Without pulling down the blanket.
Without discovering her, how he would, without thinking twice, the Phlox whom she had known, the Phlox to whom it wouldn't have cared a damn to expose her, naked, to the gaze of those two guards, as well as to the eyes of anyone, and who, indeed would have malignantly wallowed in her embarrassment and her discomfort.
"Very well. Looks really that you, my dear, are perfectly fine. Even the muscle tone is in order. Perhaps you will feel a little bit of instability in your first steps, but it will be only a matter of a few moments. Vulcans have a great control of their muscular- skeletal system."
He turned to the two women, with making sure, with authority. "The environment and your carefulness worked perfectly. I congratulate you."
He turned his head toward her, a huge crafty smile on his face. "It is time for you to be prepared. Spruced, attired and decked out in the most appropriate way."
The doctor turned back toward the two slaves. "Proceed. You have…" – He looked at his watch – "six hours."
Then he turned all the way to T'Pol. "Eh, my dear Vulcan, it takes time for you to be ready..." - He laughed loudly and openly – "to perfection."
Finally he turned and headed for the door. He stopped next to the two guards. "Come on, guys, the General waits for news."
And he went, the two guards in tow, both with a strange expression on their tough faces - To T'Pol it almost seemed a kind of unhopeful impatience.
The door closed behind the three men.
T'Pol stared at it for a moment, to be honest with her brain a little… in disorder, now.
"Now you can get up."
The voice of one of the two women, the one who always spoke as first, roused her.
She turned her head and saw that they were there, next to the bed.
The woman who had spoken leaned over her and forced her gently to lift the bust out of bed. The other woman came up to help the first. Both helped her to her feet.
She remained that way, standing stark naked in front of them.
They looked at her, scrutinizing her clinically from head to foot.
"Much work expects us." It was again the first woman.
"Yes, very much. The signs of the suffered trials are slight, but still evident." It was the voice of the latter.
"But the raw material is very good", said the first, indicating T'Pol in her entirety, with a sweeping gesture of her hand, without further talk nor too much compliments.
"Undoubtedly", resumed the second, nodding convinced.
"I'm persuaded the Human General will be satisfied with the result", said again the first.
"Surely", said in turn the second.
And with that, one headed towards a door on the bottom of the room, opened it and turned around, motioning for T'Pol to get closer to enter the place where the door opened and the other took her gently by the hand and began to lead her towards the door, while supporting her with one arm, from behind.
T'Pol let herself be meekly led, a little uncertain in her gait, leaning without shame on the providentially offered arm by her caring maidservant.
While she went towards the area where she should have been 'prepared', a strange, illogical thought peeped flippantly into T'Pol's mind.
The Human General Human, Tucker.
Her master...
Would he have been really satisfied with the result?
End of Chapter Fourteen
TBC
oooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooo
Well, my friends, what do you think?
General Tucker, will he be satisfied with the result?
We'll see.
However, do not forget, somewhere else, perhaps, other preparations are in full swing.
Do you remember a certain Empress and a certain snake in human form?
I believe that you have understood what I mean and to whom I am referring.
And General Tucker will have to be very careful, as much as the result - that result - might be good.