Holography 3
As a Reminder and a Promise
by
Pat Foley
Chapter 14
One thing Amanda had trouble adjusting to in her newly resumed life was the passage of time.
As chattel, time had dragged. She had little she'd been allowed to do, nothing to read, few thoughts she was even properly allowed to think. And one disadvantage to being in a telepathic bond with a Vulcan was that he was like Santa Claus in that respect. Though he'd have been horrified at the comparison, and though he perceived her emotions and with a little concentration the gist of her thoughts, rather than thoughts themselves, unless they were touching, still, he'd known when she was bad as well as good. And so she hadn't felt tempted even to daydream. Getting through each day had been surprisingly difficult. Until she'd mastered acceptance, and the serenity that came with it.
Now she was teaching again,with myriad demands on her time. And those same treacherous minutes didn't stick like thick molasses, they flew past. It took all the running she could do, to quote Alice in Wonderland, to stay in one place. She realized that anew when she got back to her office late from class, having been waylaid by teachers and students all glad to see her, only to realize she had – not forgotten she had an appointment to attend T'Pau – but forgotten how quickly time passed when one was not chattel - as her computer informed her when she returned to her office, buzzing irritatingly. She glanced at her watch, and blanched. "Oh, Damn!"
She'd have just enough time to get there, perhaps, if she hurried.
She broke every traffic law speeding to T'Pau's palace, flew through the palace's force screens so fast she barely gave them enough time to drop to her flyer's coded transmitter, slid into the hanger reserved for her family with an abrupt halt and a smell of overloaded braking systems, and literally ran pell-mell through the external gardens. The jogging in heavy gravity tugged her hair loose from its clasp and it spilled down her back in waves, but she had no time to spare for arranging it. And it wasn't as if T'Pau hadn't seen it unbound before.
But more than one guard was startled enough out of his Vulcan calm to turn his head as she flew past. When she reached the inner court where T'Pau worked in fine weather, she nearly collided with two of T'Pau's guard walking down the tree lined path, burly enough to be considered walking trees themselves, so big and broad and square she felt like Alice passing the card soldiers in Wonderland. Barely slowing, head down, she veered around them like a busy bee, an animated robot intent on its own tasks. And so intent was she, she yelped in startled surprise as one of them turned, plucked her up in mid-stride and caught her in his burly arms.
"Let me go!" She was at first too shocked to even struggle.
"The matriarch has requested your presence."
"I'm on my way to her. Put me down!" She tried to wrench herself out of the Vulcan's arms, even though she knew from years of marriage to a Vulcan she had no chance of doing so.
"She had requested you be brought. And so you shall."
Her temper flared, and didn't just flare, escalated to supernova. She didn't care whether she had a chance to get free or not. By this time, she just wanted to inflict damage. She did struggle then, determined to get in at least one blow – or a good kick. "Damn it, you let me go!"
He just ignored her, carrying her as if she were nothing at all. Which of course was all she was to him, no more encumbrance than a toddler would be to her. Less in fact. In her personal experience, Vulcan toddlers were a hefty burden, and they could kick too.
By the time she reached T'Pau's inner court she was furious enough that if she could have reached the phaser at his hip, she would have grabbed it and raised the whole house of Surak to its essential elements.
T'Pau didn't even raise an eyebrow as she was carried in. The guard set her on her feet, but didn't release her hands, eyeing her as if she were a wild lematya, holding her wrists tightly enough in one of his hands that he pulled her shoulders back painfully, looking from her to the matriarch he was sworn to protect with his life. The sharp pain momentarily sobered her and she quieted down, suddenly aware she was inches from having one if not both shoulders dislocated. Unlike Sarek, and even Sarek occasionally forgot his own strength with her, this guard wasn't used to tempering his force for human bones.
"Good afternoon, honored daughter. I see that you have finally arrived." T'Pau couldn't have been more blasé, which made Amanda's temper flare again, pain be damned.
"Tell this –this goon!" Amanda struggled again, only hurting herself against the guard's unyielding strength "– to let me go!"
"That will be enough, Sascek."
"Matriarch." He measured Amanda with a glance, then as a precaution took the weapons off his hip and handed them to the other guard, before releasing her hands. She turned to glare at him but she had as much chance of doing anything to him unarmed as a fly against a giant, and he knew it. And by that time, she was more angry at T'Pau.
He was already sauntering away, taking back his weapons from his companion, both of them clearly amused, surprised – and pleased, they might just has well been laughing, if you knew how to read Vulcans – with this unusual diversion to what had probably been a boring day.
She turned back to T'Pau. "Don't ever do that again!"
"Do what?" T'Pau asked, all innocence.
"I put up with a lot from this clan, and for it, but I draw the line at being dragged here by dagger brandishing, phaser-toting Vulcan G-men. Don't do it again!"
"Perhaps that is more in your control. Thee are late. I am accustomed to those who attend me doing so with all due diligence when they are summoned."
"I can't be more than a minute or two late." She realized how she sounded, like a plaintive child.
T'Pau merely raised an eyebrow.
Amanda flushed, realizing that how late she was could hardly matter. To be late could be construed as a terrible insult. Though she didn't think T'Pau would take it so, here she was, late again, and the onus fell on her to explain. "I lost track of time. I've been busy."
"Indeed. I see I am thus no longer of importance in thy life, now that thee has other demands."
She caught herself up, ashamed if T'Pau really thought that were true. She knew from Sarek, that despite all Vulcan's bravado regarding logic, they still suffered from hurt feelings. She drew a deep breath. "I didn't mean that. It's just…these past few days have just been…so hectic. I intended no offense. I humbly, very humbly, beg my honored mother's pardon."
"Attend daughter."
Amanda sighed at this inevitable command and crossed the cobbled court to her mother-in-law's chair, dropping to her knees, and offering her hands.
T'Pau waited until she had the human hands enfolded in her own. "I am not offended, daughter. I have been concerned for thee. And I see my concerns have not been unfounded."
Amanda lowered her head, the touch making T'Pau's concern clear to her. "I appreciate your concern. But there is no need." She looked up. "Really. I am fine."
T'Pau merely raised a skeptical brow, took both Amanda's hands in one of hers, and with the other took her daughter's chin and tipped up her face up. Holding her hands, fingers spayed from chin to temple, the light surface touch of her thoughts deepening to what Amanda recognized from Sarek was an assessment of her physical status. Her face burned as she realized what T'Pau was doing. And there she was, on her knees before the venerable matriarch, late and nearly in disgrace, and now been treated even more like an adolescent. And she was as helpless to prevent this as a child. Sarek had taught her to shield her thoughts. But she had no knowledge and perhaps no ability to shield T'Pau from assessing her physical state. Indeed this was a technique used by parents to assess their children's health. She had used this technique herself with Spock. She could tell from it when he wasn't well, though her ability to understand what was actually wrong with him was limited. And now T'Pau was using it with her, putting her startlingly in her place. It came clearly to her with the bleeding of minds across barriers that happened with mind touches, and with a sudden blinding shock as it never had before, that to T'Pau she really was little more than a child.
She had suspected, but never felt until this brush of minds, how clearly T'Pau regarded her as being in that age set that required the beneficent intervention of elders. And that some of her mother-in-law's initial resistance to her bonding had been due to that as well. T'Pau literally hadn't thought her mature enough to make such a commitment for herself. Hardly thought her mature enough now – at least not to take good care of herself. Her face burned anew.
T'Pau probably had no better knowledge of human physiology than Amanda did of Vulcan, but as she finished the assessment and dropped into light rapport one black eyebrow rose skeptically. And disapprovingly. "Thee are drawn. Thee are tired. Thee are not …fine. I am not pleased. To add to my displeasure with thy tardiness, is a greater displeasure with why thee are tardy."
Amanda lowered her head, pulling her chin away from the matriarch's cool fingers, unable to bear what she was feeling. T'Pau had become an important person in her life since her captivity. It hurt inexpressibly not to have her approval. To feel her displeasure magnified by the light mind touch hurt even worse. She'd never been on the distaff side of a parental bond, or felt what a child would feel in such circumstances. Until now. She had no parental bond with T'Pau, but the mind touch had given her the same feelings as if she did, and T'Pau's disapproval was …painful. She had to get hold of herself before she could speak. And she felt a sense of kinship for her son. No wonder he wanted far away from all these constrictions. "I'm sorry. I've just had a lot of catching up to do."
"Sit." T'Pau set a cup of tea before her. "Daughter, even a Vulcan cannot …catch up…such an absence in a few days. A human must especially not attempt such."
Amanda was so thirsty from her all out run and subsequent struggle that she forwent manners and drank the cup down. T'Pau shook her head and poured her a second. Amanda drank that one a little more slowly, but with nearly as much thirst and gave her mother in law a shamefaced look of apology. One of T'Pau's few weaknesses was good tea. She probably viewed her daughter gulping it, as Amanda had, the same way a human parent would regard a child gobbling sweets.
Her mouth set in what anyone would take as disapproval, T'Pau forwent her original lecture, and pressed a control. When T'Lean appeared, she ordered, "A carafe of water for my daughter." Turning to Amanda, she said, "Too much tea is not beneficial, child."
"I can use the caffeine," Amanda said wryly, but her face was heated with more than the warmth of the day, and her exertions. Since she'd walked – no, been carried in here, - she'd been made to feel about twelve years old. And it didn't help to realize her mother-in-law regarded her as little more than that.
She was not really used to having the matriarch in her life – in her real life. She'd barely known her before she'd been confined. T'Pau had only begun to speak of her – and deal with her – as a daughter in her house before she'd become chattel. After that, their relationship had been necessarily artificial and constrained. T'Pau had had little authority over her as chattel; for Sarek had owned her then. But now, she was back in the real world, back in the clan, not just as an unrecognized consort, but as an acknowledge wife and thus daughter. Not merely in the clan, but in the family. She had little experience dealing with T'Pau in that role, but T'Pau, it seemed, had considered her such, even though her confinement, and now was treating her as if the relationship was long given. Frowning at her in reproof as if she had been gobbling sweets.
"That I can well believe. It still dehydrates, and thee are human. Rest would be more beneficial than artificial stimulants."
"I don't have that option. I'm teaching eight classes and seminars, and I haven't read a thing in six months." Amanda pushed back her hair distractedly and realized that the clasp she'd fastened it with must have not merely come loose, but fallen and been lost in her all out run. "I'm so far behind in research."
T'Pau merely shook her head again. "My son is a fool."
"He was trying to be nice."
T'Lean appeared with the water and set it before T'Pau, who gestured that she was to serve Amanda. One of the guards approached and laid Amanda's lost clasp on the table. Amanda took it back and glancing at T'Pau in apology, began to pull her hair back in some kind of order.
"If this is how he is …nice, then I shudder to think what thee endured as chattel. Leave that, child. T'Lean will see to it. It is unseemly to do so thyself."
"He meant to show confidence in me." Amanda let go of her hair, and looked up in thanks as T'Lean poured her water, but so froze at the hostile look in the attendant's eyes that she almost missed T'Pau's next words.
"Yet there are less drastic methods of showing approbation than allowing a cherished wife to work herself to exhaustion," T'Pau said dryly, watching as T'Lean, with visible reluctance began braiding Amanda's hair. "Thee should have proper attendants to wait on thee."
"I can wait on myself."
"That is unseemly. Thee are entitled to attendants."
"I don't want them."
T'Pau gave her a direct look. "I repeat, I am most displeased."
Amanda lowered her head, chastened, unsure how to reply to that. She was feeling a little out of her depth here, verbally fencing with the formidable T'Pau as an equal.
T'Lean's warm fingers skimmed across her neck as she drew back another section. After twenty years of bonding, Amanda was sensitized enough to Vulcan touch telepathy that the woman's satisfaction to see her so chastised was almost palpable to her. She jerked her head away a little, uncomfortable and a little resentful at the sensation being imposed on her, even if it was a result of her own erratic shields. T'Pau had the right to chastise her, at least from a Vulcan maternal point of view. But T'Lean did not. In return, T'Lean pulled her hair back a little too abruptly, jerking her chin up. Amanda looked back up at T'Pau, more or less inadvertently. Between the guards' man-handling of her, T'Pau's chastisement, however well intentioned, and T'Lean's rough treatment, Amanda's uncertainty over the unfamiliar setting and encounter was solidifying into resentment.
T'Pau was continuing her scolding. "Thee are over working. This teaching is one thing, but caring for a household and preparing meals are not thy duty. Nor is it suitable for thee to be without personal attendants. Thee should be cared for, so that thee can properly attend to thy rightful duties."
"Are you saying I'm neglecting my household?" Amanda asked, dangerously.
"That I do not know. I am saying thy are neglecting thyself. That much is apparent." The matriarch looked up as T'Lean finished clasping Amanda's hair. "Leave us."
"I don't want them. Not the duties," Amanda qualified, as T'Pau glanced back at her, "the attendants. I don't need them."
"It is unnecessary and unseemly to be without them."
Amanda waited while the chief attendant gathered the tea things, with shoulders set in a chill reproof that needed no words to express, before continuing. "Isn't that my business?"
"Thee are my daughter; it is also mine. Thee are not responsible solely to thyself, but to the clan and to me. Thee will have them. I wish it. And even thy proper duties are overmuch. Thee must resign from some of these teachings."
Amanda drew breath, and glanced to make sure T'Lean was gone. She had no wish to embarrass her mother-in-law before her own staff, but she was not giving ground on this. "No." Amanda gave the negative the same emphatic inflection that Vulcans did when they really meant business.
T'Pau drew back a bit, startled, eyebrows raised, unused to refusal, particularly one so bluntly couched. Amanda wondered herself when the last time was that someone said no to the venerable matriarch, particularly with that inflection, but she was unswayed regardless.
"Mother, you don't understand. I cannot fail at the first thing I do upon being released."
"It is not a failure if thee-"
"No." She said it again, as unyieldingly as the first time. "My ego has taken quite a beating these past months. Coming back into the world is …hard enough."
"Precisely why-"
"If I did, it would be like saying I had changed, to fail at something I could do perfectly well before. It would say …that I'm not who I was. I won't do it."
"It would say that thee have the sense to recognize that any being has limits."
"That might be what it would say to you. What it says to me is another thing."
"T'Amanda, thee are not who thee was before."
Amanda drew herself up, shocked and hurt. "What a cruel thing to say."
"I do not say it to be cruel. It is a given."
Amanda's eyes narrowed. "You didn't know me - who I was - before. You shunned me for twenty years. You have not the facts to make such a comparison."
"Any being who has made the choices…the sacrifices…that you have made must necessarily have changed."
Amanda lowered her head. "I am all right. Look, I'll have caught up enough to get a handle on this in a few more weeks."
"I do not like what I am seeing, such that even a few more days seems unsuitable."
"Mother, you cannot expect me to look…as placid…as I was when I was confined – sitting around – with no duties. Naturally I am a bit …harried…now. But it won't be for long. "
T'Pau raised an eyebrow. "Thy duties then were many and of great importance. That thee are here, now, with both thee and thy husband alive and well – or well but for this most recent foolishness - proves thee are hardly a failure under adverse circumstances. I wonder why thee thinks otherwise."
"Because my duties then consisted of doing nothing with good grace."
"Neither I nor thy husband would agree with that assessment. Nor can I believe he approves of your condition now. Thee are overtaxed."
"I am not!"
"I do not say this as denigration."
"Sarek has faith in me. He doesn't think of me as some…village idiot."
"Nor do I."
"Then don't …lock me up again."
T'Pau's eyes widened. "That is not what I am suggesting."
"With or without a key, that is what you are suggesting. And for a far worse reason than his. I won't accept it."
T'Pau drew back. "T'Amanda-."
"I thought I had my life back, as my own. I thought I was freed. Why can't you just…just leave me alone to live it? Let me decide when I am overtaxed!" She was trembling.
The matriarch regarded her for a long moment, long enough that Amanda felt some shame at her hasty words. T'Pau was clearly turning them over in her mind, considering them seriously, considering her seriously before making some decision. But then the matriarch reluctantly shook her head.
"No. I cannot." She said it in the emphatic mode, in spite of her obvious regret in taking that position.
"Mother!" Amanda was shocked.
"I was silent before regarding my concerns. And nearly lost you both. I have done with silence. I have shunned you, and my son in regard to his marriage, with undesirable results and will stand apart no longer. From now on, I interfere where it seems I must."
"What are you saying?" Amanda asked, full of foreboding.
"For now, only that thee will rest the remainder of this afternoon. Thee are clearly overwrought."
"I am not!"
T'Pau ignored that. "When you are better rested, we will discuss this further. This must needs be a long discussion, and thee are in no condition for it."
"I have-"
"Enough." T'Pau snapped the word out, in a tone such as she had yet never used with her daughter-in-marriage. "This is not a request, but a command. Thee are my Daughter, a child of my house. Thee will do as I bid. I am accustomed to obedience in my children."
"I think you are accustomed to anything but," Amanda retorted, refusing to be cowed, feeling that way lead disaster, in spite of the sense of unreality she felt at attempting defiance to her formidable mother-in-law.
She was well out of her depth now. Sarek had defied his mother in marrying her, but he'd been an adult. Spock, as a child, had become virtually outcast – at least in Sarek's eyes - for defying his father. She wondered if she was going to gain and lose the status of Daughter in the same week. Still she refused to knuckle under. "I see no reason why I should be the first."
T'Pau raised an amused eyebrow, her expression almost smiling. "What thee says is true. All my children are …recalcitrant. Unruly. Defiant. And disobedient. These traits runs in our family. Very well. If thee chooses defiance, I am quite prepared to enforce my commands. Thee can go to thy home to rest, or thee will do so here. And thee can go obediently, or thee can be …carried…again. That much choice will I give you. And none other." She waved a hand, and from out of the shadows a guard approached.
Amanda stared at the guard, and back to T'Pau. "You'd do it too," she said, eyes wide, looking from him back to her, seeing that in T'Pau's unyielding gaze, in spite of the matriarch's amused brow.
"Indeed. Threats are illogical." Seeing her daughter was still resistant, she warned, emphasizing her words with the emphatic mode, "Do not test me, T'Amanda. Thee are too precious to me to risk in foolishness." Her visage darkened further. "And I am not my son, to so foolishly indulge thee. However my children behave, I am still accustomed to obedience, and obedience I will have. And I have the means well at my hand to enforce it. And will. Continue in this disobedience, and I could command thee to live here at the Palace. Try my patience, and live here thee…both…will." She raised an eyebrow. "Do not think that I would not command it."
In the face of that final threat, Amanda capitulated. "All right. Yes. I'll go."
"A logical choice." T'Pau held out her hands for the formal leave-taking.
Amanda was still smoldering but habit and tradition brought her to over to T'Pau. But as she dropped to her knees she looked up, rather than bowing her head. "I do not forgive this, Mother."
"Fah." T'Pau was unimpressed. "Such a fuss about a nap. I trust thee will be in better temper after."
"Don't count on it. You're correct in one respect, right now I am too tired to fight."
"Then I shall look forward to your arguments." As Amanda rose to her feet, she added placidly. "Sascek will see you to your home. And your rest."
Amanda turned in consternation. "Oh, no!"
"Indeed. Perhaps next time, daughter, thee will yield with better grace."
Amanda drew a deep breath, and then, at T'Pau's raised eyebrow, let it out, her shoulders dropping. She settled for a glare and a reminder, tacit threat of the freedom she had again. "I can still take that starship ride."
T'Pau looked at first astonished, and then amused. "As thee would say, "just try it", daughter."
Against her will, Amanda's lips twitched. But her humor fled as she recognized the steel in T'Pau's eyes and as Sascek approached. It was hard to tease, and be teased in turn, when the balance of power was so overwhelmingly against you.
And she'd been too recently chattel. As the huge Vulcan shadowed her steps she felt a cold chill steal through her, in spite of the Vulcan heat.
Escorted home, she found the guard stationed himself outside the door of her suite. Amanda just stood there for a moment, separated only by the door panel from him, her arms wrapped around her, her heart pounding in her ears. She could hear him shift position and settle for a long stint. And she swallowed, her heart now in her throat. T'Pau could be as amused as she liked, but she hadn't had a guard set on her. After a moment, Amanda crossed to the window, and looked out, seeing the cruiser with the markings of their clan and the emblem of the palace guard emblazoned on it. A visible symbol. And just beyond it, behind it, the fortress gate.
She stared at them, one superimposed upon the other. As if they were one.
Locked in. Locked up. By gates or guards, what did the method matter?
And felt disbelief wash through her. This can't be happening again. I was just freed. I was.
And this time it wasn't even Sarek who had confined her.
She turned swiftly, unable to look further, and ran into her own room, needing to put some space between her and the guard, slamming the door behind her, breathing hard. She looked around the room, the bed she had neatly made this morning, everything so normal and ordinary.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no…. I can't be locked up again!
Calm down! It's just a nap. T'Pau's heavy handed form of humor. Just do it. Then it will be over with.
This time. And next time? Do you honestly think you can fight her – any of them – when they decide what they want?
You always gave in to what Sarek wanted, from the very first. You're here, aren't you? You married him.
I loved him. I did love him.
And how much of that was in your own mind, and how much his?
That's not true!
Are you sure?
She tried to tell herself she was. But she was so confused she didn't know that she was sure of anything anymore.
You must be getting better though. It used to be, all Sarek had to do was look, and you folded. You handed yourself over to him in vrie without a murmur. Now it takes a guard.
A guard. I don't know what's worse, being locked up, or being shadowed by guards the rest of my life. And right now, I have both.
She pulled the clasp from her hair. She ran her fingers through it, and then looked at her shaking hand. She realized she was trembling from head to foot.
And at the back of her mind a litany had started, a new litany, but it seemed to come from somewhere deep within her.
I want to go home. I want to go home. Oh, please, please. Just let me go home.
You are home, you little fool. This is your home. It's a little late to start pining for the green hills of Earth. And if you don't do what she says, you might not even have this for long. Do you want to spend the rest of your life shadowed by guards in T'Pau's palace? I don't think Sarek would thank you for that.
No! She wouldn't do that. She wouldn't dare. And Sarek would never stand for it. .He would be-
You never thought Sarek would lock you up either. And this is T'Pau you're talking about. She can do whatever the hell she wants to do. And not even Sarek can stop her if she's really determined. Remember that. You've met your match in her.
Maybe it was better to be shunned. I'm not sure how much more of this I can take from these Vulcans.
She pulled the cover from the bed and tossed it on the floor, revealing the sheets she'd changed that morning. The sight of them made her shut her eyes, for this set was Terran made. She remade the bed with fresh sheets every day, lately sometimes more than daily, the way she and Sarek had been behaving. Since she'd first introduced him to them, Sarek had never lost his appreciation for variety in bed linens. Deep down, she suspected all Vulcans were sensualists at heart. Sarek certainly was. She bought everything from the finest Rigillian bee silk to functional Vulcan weaves made from the tassel of a grain plant. And alternated them all more or less randomly, unthinkingly. These were Egyptian cotton, Italian woven jacquard, elaborately hemstitched - as out of place on Vulcan as she. Just the sight of them made her wish for home even more. She was crying now, silently, shaking, cold all over. She pulled up the top sheet and wrapped it around her, a little piece of Earth, shutting out the Vulcan surroundings, the sight of the ruby red sky through the long windows. And cried herself to sleep.
To be continued...