The Empire's Destiny
By Asso
Chapter Twenty-five
Bad Angels
There are bad angels?
It is not impossible, my friends, is not impossible.
And, thank you, my dear Dragonfly2, for having suggested me this.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
T'Pau and Delight looked, puzzled, at the two women.
They had not certainly expected to see them again, when the door had opened up. It was their saviour and master, Tucker, the one they expected would appear in the doorway, but, in front of them, there again the two slave-girls, one, the one who always seemed to take the lead, ahead, and the other, right behind her.
They entered the room, with that air of dignity and proudness so characteristic of Vulcans, although judiciously tempered by something humble and resigned, as it was logical that it was for two slaves such as they were. But, on closer inspection, it seemed to T'Pau and Delight that their air of dignity and proudness appeared a little too dignified and proud. Too ostentatiously dignified and proud.
So much as to sound false.
Rather, actually, no. Laboriously and painfully sought. Laboriously and painfully exhibited.
It was as if... as if something had cracked in them. As if they were cracked. They per se.
And it did not pass unnoticed from the sight of T'Pau and Delight, their bare skin's aspect; those wounds, awkwardly disguised, cleaned up as best; those bruises, those grazes, livid of green blood.
T'Pau and Delight said nothing. They stepped aside. Recoiled to the back of the room.
The door closed behind the two slave-girls.
They advanced in the room, until stopping, side by side, in front of T'Pau and Delight.
The two slave-girls' eyes didn't break away from them.
"Before we retire… somewhere, if… it's allowed us, we thought it was best to make sure the two of you didn't need anything else."
The voice of the slave girl resounded firm, low and respectfully modulated. Yet, somehow, it echoed weary.
In some way it sounded as if it were wounded.
Delight got closer to T'Pau. Both she and her companion stood silent watching the slave girl who had spoken, and who, somehow, looked weary. Like her voice. Exhausted, even.
Wounded.
Inside.
Like her companion. Like the voice of her companion. "We have been entrusted by the human General to provide for you. We do not want to disappoint him. He is powerful."
Sure. Obvious. Logical. The two slaves did not want to risk incurring the wrath of the human General.
Who was powerful.
And okay.
But... what ever they thought they could do more than what they had already done?
Why were they there, again, with that aspect so tired and drawn?
With those wounded bodies?
What had happened?
What did they want?
T'Pau perfectly understood something wasn't quite right. If the two slaves were there again, it was for a specific reason. Something had happened. Their bodies and the way they behaved, their faces, their expressions, their eyes, said so clearly. And it had to be something really important, if it had pushed them to return there, adducing those which, to all intents and purposes, couldn't be taken if not as specious excuses. They wanted something from them, from her and Delight, maybe they wanted them to do something, but they did not trust to speak openly. Their master, the Human, the returned to life Tucker, had said it, or, rather, had made it well clear. Prying eyes and ears could be lurking, and, of course, the two slaves couldn't but be fully aware of that.
But then, a fortiori, what had pushed the two bondwomen to return to them, it had to be important, terribly important, because, clearly, they were running serious risks, in being there. She, and - she was sure of it - even Delight, had perfectly realized that the reasons that the two slaves put forward to justify the fact that they were there again, were excuses, precisely, nothing more than excuses. So, if someone was really listening, wouldn't this someone have understood, him too, that those were flimsy excuses? Maybe not, maybe anyone would have noticed. One thing is talking to someone in person, being able to grasp in person his expression; other thing is listening and seeing from a distance, through the communication devices, maybe even sophisticated, but still mere trivial communication devices.
However, this someone could even comprehend. It was not impossible. Quite the contrary. It was highly possible. Therefore, the two slaves were exposing themselves to a big, very big risk. It was not supposed to be easy, life, in those parts, for people like them, judging by their present appearance. T'Pau almost flinched. For people… like her and Delight. Whose only chance not to run into the same… accidents in which the two slaves had patently incurred... this chance, this hope, rested in him. In Tucker.
In Tucker. Exactly. In Tucker.
Just so.
In him.
In… him…
Something, a sort of alarm, thin and indistinct, snapped inside T'Pau.
Tucker. Tucker… Tucker…
Tucker? And… and if…
Could it be… could it be that… that, despite the risk they ran, the two slave girls were there because... because…
Was it something that had to do with him? With Tucker?
To well think about it, it was of him, of Tucker, that the two slaves had spoken, without too much feigning, as if they wanted their attention, hers and of Delight, to concentrate, immediately and without delay, on him; and there had been something, something that seemed… apprehension, into the bondwomen's eyes, when they had talked about him.
T'Pau was able to recognize apprehension, she had seen it so many times in the eyes of the people who fought and died in the absurd hope of defeating the Terran Empire. And... she herself... oh yes, it would be illogical to deny it... she herself knew well what was apprehension, in first person. And if, before, there could be some doubts, now, after everything that had happened, no doubts could yet subsist, anywhere near.
But why that apprehension? Even taking as true the reasons that the two slaves had alleged for the fact that they had returned there, certainly their declared intent not to disappoint Tucker, perhaps even curry favour with him as much as possible, did not justify that apprehension.
To what was that apprehension addressed? Or maybe it was better to say ... to whom was it addressed?
To...Tucker?
A... a threat? For him? And consequently... consequently also for the two of them, for her and for Delight, whose fate was inextricably linked to that of the Human? And... and for Harrad-Sar; as well as, obviously, also for T'Pol.
But, if it was so, why should the two slaves worry for him, for the one, who, in effect, was for the two of them nothing more than only one among the many of their masters? And, probably, in their eyes, a master more contemptible than the others, because he was ... yes, after all he was a sinister betrayer of his race, a treacherous Being, of whom to beware. One that would not have been that bad if he had gone lost in the mists of nowhere.
And yet... and yet T'Pau perceived to be in the right. Her vulcan ability to connect with each other even the most tenuous traces, the most subtle clues, with the net of logic, whether consciously or unconsciously, had never deceived her, and now, in the situation where they were, this ability was more vivid than ever. She was aware of that.
It was necessary understand, to know.
But how? How could she do to find ways to allow the two slave girls to make clear what they wanted to mean, for real, without arousing the suspicions of those who perhaps might have been listening?
T'Pau nodded graciously, and talked, cautiously sounding out the land, while Delight watched and listened with apprehensive attention. "We thank you, but we do not need anything. Be sure. The powerful human General, our master, will not have anything to complain about you. We will bear witness to this, when he will come to us."
"You will say it to him?"
"Of course, we will do it."
The slave nodded. "Very well. We are pleased that you will say it to him. Maybe... maybe, well ... the two of us we will be able to count on his benevolence, he coming to know that we have applied ourselves with zeal to comply with his orders. He maybe will want to stretch over our heads his protective hand, if it would be the case."
The slave's eyes took on an expression intense, intensely keen. It seemed they wanted to talk, for real, as to give more significance to the words. "If he will want to do it, of course." The slave's gaze became even more intense, keener, if possible. Really it seemed to talk. "If he will be able to do it."
That look... that look that accompanied the words...
Those words! 'If he will be able to do it.'
"It is important for us that you say it to him, that you want to give us some chance to improve our fate.
And the way those words were uttered, emphasized…
"You... have the option to speak with him. To make him aware of what we, I and my companion, can't say to him."
A light went on in the mind of T'Pau. It was true. The two of them, she and Delight, had the option to speak with Tucker. He would have returned to them, and they could have talked to him. But the two slaves, instead, almost certainly did not have this possibility. He, Tucker, would no longer have had anything to do with them and the two bondwomen couldn't think to have anything to do with him, ever again, if not by mere chance. They wouldn't have been able to speak to him, ever again, like it would have been possible for her and Delight. They, the two bondwomen, wouldn't have been in condition to say to him anything. Nothing. Never again.
Of course, he had said that he would come to them when the two slaves would inform him that she and Delight were… ready. But it was very difficult to think that he was telling the truth. Most likely, it had been a joke, an irreverent puckish joke, one of those things that Humans make and Vulcans struggle to understand, made to having fun behind their backs, to put well inside their minds how much they depended on him. He certainly did not need the two slaves to know when it had been time to go back to the two of them, to her and Delight. It was him the one who would decide the moment. And, on the other hand, it seemed that the two slaves thought exactly that way.
And okay. Whether it was even so, to wit that the two slaves wanted the two of them, her and Delight, to do what they could not, namely to talk to Tucker and ... yes ... and put him on guard against some sort of threat.
But the issue persisted. Why ever should the two slaves have had to worry about him?
Unless… unless, even beyond the justifiable and clearly expressed desire of the two girls to improve their lives, the two options went, so to say, hand in hand.
Namely, the option of the usefulness for Tucker to know something that was better for him to know and the one of the usefulness for the two slaves that Tucker could know something that would have been better for him to know.
Could it be that these options were not separable? Just like their safety - theirs, hers and of Delight, and…of Harrad-Sar, as well as of T'Pol - their chance to get out from all this safe and sound could not be separated from the safety of Tucker?
From his ability… from his possibility… to keep himself safe and sound.
The war. The Secret War of Tucker. The war that she had perceived that Tucker was fighting.
The two slaves... had they too figured something out? Had they perceived, even they, that war? And had they realized that maybe this war was important also to them? That this war, if Tucker had won, would bring them far greater benefits than those resulting from having fully complied with the orders of the Human?
And... and had they known something that could jeopardize that war? That could prevent Tucker from fighting it? That could put him in danger? Compromising in this way the possibility that they, too, the two slave girls, could benefit from this war? Could it be so? Could it be that the two slaves wanted the two of them, her and Delight, to warn him? Because, somehow, they had understood that Tucker had to succeed in remaining safe and sound... even for them? For the miserable slaves that they were? Exactly as it was for her and Delight?
But, if so, about what should they, she and Delight, warn Tucker? What was the threat that loomed over him?
T'Pau stepped forward a little. Intentionally she looked at the slave. "The two of you were kind to us. Not only you have cared for us, but you have also provided us with important information that will be useful for us to behave the way that it is necessary that we follow here. Therefore, I assure you, we will not fail to let our master, the one of whom we two are spoils of war, know you have done all was in your power to do in order to comply with his orders, and even more than that."
T'Pau's eyes grew wide and deep.
Even they, such as those of the slave, seemed to speak. "And I do hope for you that he wants to stretch his benevolent hand over your heads." And those eyes spoke, in fact, even more than T'Pau's lips. "If he will be able to do so."
The slave spoke, in turn, her eyes locked with those of T'Pau. "It is said that he is able to do everything." T'Pau perceived that the hands of the slave trembled slightly as she continued. "That only the great Admiral Valdore knows the way to make him withdraw from his resolutions."
Valdore! The Romulan that they had seen at their wake, when they, she and Delight, had not even been able to understand what had happened! Where they were! The Romulan against whom the Human had fought - verbally - and had won an episode - now she understood this - of that secret and endless war that she had felt he was fighting. The Romulan from whose… care… the Human had managed to steal them two. And Harrad-Sar.
It was him? It was him the looming threat over Tucker?
But this was certainly not new. It was clear that between the Romulan and the Human for sure there was not a relationship of frank alliance. If those two were allies, their alliance was steeped in mistrust, an alliance, probably, out of sheer necessity. Of calculated opportunism.
Maybe though... maybe that Romulan, Valdore, now... now had something... some new mean… some sort of unknown weapon... that could... could hit Tucker to death.
Was this what the slave did mean? Did she want to say that Valdore possessed now the means to make Tucker withdraw from his resolutions... definitively?
It was needed to investigate. But warily. With caution.
"It's nice to know that I and my companion are in the hands of a man so powerful. In some ways, this is reassuring. If we know how to meet him, he, if willing, will be able to protect us. I hope... the two of us hope… that the great Admiral Valdore does not want to deter our master from giving us the protection that he has granted us. I do not doubt that the Admiral may be able to do it, if he wants."
The face of the slave girl - the faces of both slave girls - started to relax, seemed to get brightened up, somehow. They had understood that T'Pau had understood.
"The great Admiral Valdore has large capacity and major means. We, poor slaves, can not even imagine the means he owns. But... he owns them. And if he decides to use them, he is able to break down every obstacle, to destroy things and people that might hinder his will."
The slave concluded emphatically. Aloud. So that she could be heard well. By anyone who could be listening. "Which is the will of the Empire of Romulus. The great Admiral Valdore is the bulwark of the Empire!"
T'Pau said nothing.
There was nothing more to say.
Nor to know.
Both she and Delight had well understood and knew basically everything there was to know, or, rather, that it was possible to know.
So, things were that way. Valdore, it seemed, had the means to destroy Tucker. What were these means, it was not known. The two slaves were not aware of, but, in some way, they had come to know that Valdore possessed these means and that he wanted to put them in place.
So what they wanted from the two of them, from her and Deligth, it was to warn Tucker that Valdore had the means to hit him. To death. They wanted the Human being aware of the threat, new and different, that Valdore was now for him. They hoped that, in this way, he were able to fend off that threat.
A meager hope. Nothing more. But what else could there be in that Universe, cursed by Gods and Men, if not the hope? Had not been the hope, the absurd hope, that had lit the fire of the rebellion? And had not been the hope, the absurd hope, that had pushed Harrad-Sar to do what he had done? But that hope had become translated into reality; Harrad-Sar had made it! He had saved her and himself! And had given new vigour to the hope.
To the hope that the rebellion could regain force. Because if he was alive, there was hope that the rebellion, too, could in some way remain alive.
But it was necessary that he could remain alive, and, in order he could remain alive, it was necessary... - it was clear by now, it was evident, it was obvious, it was perspicuous - ...it was necessary that Tucker could remain alive!
Tucker. The enigma made man.
Who was he? What was he?
What was... what was his personal secret hope?
Why was he fighting that strange, secret war?
Was he... was he - exactly him - possibly, the hope?
T'Pau watched the two slaves who, after launching a long look at the two of them, walked away and, in silence, went out of the room.
She and Delight remained alone.
Alone with their hopes.
Hope.
One must not lose hope. One must feed hope.
One must protect the hope, even with the most meager of forces, with the most meager of possibilities.
Like those that T'Pau and Delight had.
They had to protect Tucker.
Even with their meager forces.
With their meager possibilities.
As much as it was in their power to do.
Because he... Tucker...
Now T'Pau was certain.
She was sure of that.
She felt Delight grab her hand, felt that she was holding it tight. She felt that Delight was thinking just what she too was thinking.
He was the hope.
Elsewhere, distant, but, in the end, not too much, in a wonderful garden, a Garden of Pleasures, now immersed in the quiet of a faery night lit by a splendid moon, on the shore of a calm pond on which the moonlight broke into thousand silver glares, a man - a human man - sitting on a boulder at the edge of the pond, clasped in his arms his woman, his beloved, huddled on his lap - a vulcan female.
He was a man in love.
She was a woman in love.
They were the most unlikely of lovers.
But they were.
And in their minds, in their hearts, now, there was only their love.
And that love, now, demanded sweetness.
And words.
"We must do something!"
"Delight, you're right, but we can not do anything but wait. Remember what we were told by the two slaves. Out of here, alone, without our master, we could..."
"I know, I know! But it may be too late!"
"It's possible, but..."
"We must dare! We must go to him!"
"Delight, we do not even know where he is."
"We'll find him! We can do it! We must!"
"But Delight, be reasonable! We..."
"I do not want to be reasonable! I want... I want..."
Delight suddenly fell silent. And not because she had realized that she was raising her voice too much; that, thus, there was a real risk that someone could hear. And understand.
She... her heart...
What was happening to her heart? Why didn't it want to listen to reason? Why the only thing that her heart, her mind... she... could understand at that time was that the two of them... she!... had to... had to protect him... their master... their grim and terrible, and ... and handsome master... from the threat looming over him? And immediately! Right now! Before it was too late!
"Delight."
T'Pau took her hand gently. Between the two of them now there was something... something profound, which bound them to each other. She no longer had - she didn't feel; she no longer could feel; she was not even concerned to no longer feel - any hesitation to act towards Delight that way, so far from the way of behaving of a Vulcan.
But she was well justified.
No Vulcan had gone through what she had passed in; no Vulcan had been able to understand, as she was now able to understand, what it meant mutual support, mutual protection, affection for who in some way is entrusted to you. Who relies on you.
And… no vulcan... no vulcan female…. had met Harrad-Sar... had had the opportunity to know him.
Really.
As it had happened to her.
"Delight."
Gently. As perhaps, even in that perverse world, you had to talk to a child. As she had heard from Syrran that you were to talk to a child. As she felt she had to do, at that time, with Delight, who was not a child, but was behaving like a child. Because ... T'Pau suspected to figure out why. It was strange, illogical, sure, but not impossible, that Delight... for Tucker... for their saviour and lord…
It was certainly not a coincidence that T'Pol had given herself to him! She could understand this. Now she could understand. And... Delight... perhaps could understand even more than her.
"Delight. What's going on?" The shadow of a tenuous smile rippled T'Pau lips. "Aren't you the one who wondered why you had saved him?"
"And I was wrong! I was wrong! I... I..."
Delight fell silent again. She crouched on the ground, in front of T'Pau, as if unable to hold the weight of her body. She raised her eyes to the Vulcan. They were veiled. "T'Pau..." Her voice was trembling. "T'Pau... I can not think... I can not think that he... he..."
T'Pau held out her hand to her, pulled her with kindness, made her get up, made her lean her head on her shoulder.
"T'Pol was not wrong, huh, Delight?"
Delight lifted her head. Her wide open eyes stared at T'Pau, full of wonder. Then she closed them.
Surrendered.
To her heart and to the truth.
She leaned back her head on the shoulder of T'Pau.
"No, T'Pau." With a thin voice. "T'Pol was not wrong. Not at all. And... and she..."
What was it? A sob, by chance, the one that shook Delight's shoulders?
"She's lucky."
The man lowered his face; he dipped it in her hair. He inebriated his nose with its scent.
Then he lifted his head a little. Just a little. Very little. Just to allow his mouth to be free to speak.
"It all began with the wound on my face. From there it all started. From the scar that scarred my face and my soul."
The woman clung even more tightly to him.
"This injury has marked my life."
His voice was a very low whisper.
"It made me what I am. It marked my destiny."
He lowered his head again, resting it on her head. His hand stroked her hair.
"I hated this wound, this scar. The reasons why I carry it on my face. The awful reality on which it has made me open my eyes. The destiny to which it condemned me."
The man stopped talking for a moment. Then he went on. Very low. Exactly on her ear.
"Now I love this wound. It has plotted my destiny and in my destiny… "
He stopped speaking again for an instant. Very short.
"There was you."
He gently kissed the tip of her ear.
"You, my pretty vulcan doll."
She, simply, sighed in his arms.
"Delight..."
T'Pau stroked the tousled head of Delight, leaning on her shoulder.
What a strange thing was what Humans called fate. How it was able to change things and people.
How it had changed her!
"Delight, it's... it's true. T'Pol is lucky. And both of us…"
T'Pau gently parted Delight from her. She took her softly by the shoulders. She looked straight into her eyes.
"Both of us wish that her luck may last, don't we?"
Delight stared at T'Pau for a long moment.
"We want it, don't we?" T'Pau raised slightly her tone. "Don't we, Delight?"
Finally Delight nodded. She sniffled. And, in a barely audible voice... "Yes."
"Very well." T'Pau nodded in turn decisively. She pulled away from Delight and, with a determined air, headed for the bed.
She sat down and, looking at Delight, tapped with her palm the bed at her side. "Come on, Delight. Sit down here beside me. And..." T'Pau narrowed a little her eyes. Her gaze hardened slightly. "...let's try to reason."
Delight nodded again, docilely, and, docilely, obeyed.
Without thinking too much, T'Pau put an arm around her shoulders.
"Let's see. Beyond..." She looked pointedly at Delight. "...our personal feelings, all we can do is waiting for our master to come back to us. Then, we will be able to warn him, in some way – how, we shall see - about the threat hanging over him. And, hopefully, he will be capable of finding a way to effectively defend himself from this threat."
"Yes, but..."
"How are we going to put him on guard if we do not know what is the threat? This is what you want to say, Delight?"
"Exactly. All we know..." Delight lowered her voice even more, cautiously looking around, sidelong, and attempting carefully to take a not suspect air. "...all we think to know is that the threat lies in..." Her voice shook. "...in that horrible Romulan. Valdore."
"Yeah. It's true. All we know is this."
"Yes. However..."
"However, Delight?"
The Vulcan looked with interest at her companion. T'Pau had now realized that she was fitted with... what was the name of that thing, that instinct, that she had heard that Humans possessed in abundance and that... sorry to admit it, but it seemed like it was just so... it was so often able to outstrip logic?... Ah, yes. Intuition. Delight was equipped with intuition. Acute intuition. A kind... a kind of ability of internal and external perception that seemed to allow her to perceive things and facts that escaped her, T'Pau. And... and it was nice to know that, as her logic could be helpful to both, the same way the intuitive talent of Delight was something on which both could count.
Delight watched T'Pau thoughtfully. "T'Pau, there is bad blood between the Romulan and the Human."
A slight sigh escaped Delight. That Human whom she had so much feared in her nightmares of a young girl, and who now...now...
She made a gesture as if to dismiss the importunate thought. "It seems obvious, do not you think?"
"Sure, Delight. That's right."
"Can't it be ... can't it be that he too suspects that our master... (Our master ... her master. But someone else ... another woman... was mistress of him) ... that our master is fighting a bloody war and secret that could eventuate... could eventuate, if he will be successful in coming out as winner, in a harm, a tremendous harm, for the Empire of Romulus?"
T'Pau stared at Delight. And, must be said, her expression was frankly admiring. "It is possible, Delight. Indeed, it is more than possible. It is decidedly logical."
And indeed it was so. Leaving aside any more or less logical explanation of how it was possible that he, the well-known engineer-wizard of Earth Starfleet, was also a General of the Romulan Empire - matter about which she was in possession of no data able to provide some useful information – it was more than clear that that man, Tucker, had duped everyone. Even death. So then, couldn't you think that he was tricking even the Romulan Empire? And that Valdore, for some reason, maybe connected... but yes, of course... not with the fact that Tucker had saved T'Pol. This could make sense, if, as it was logical to believe, the Romulans were thinking to take advantage of her in some obscure way against the Human Empire. She had earned on the field such an honour, her credibility as a banner of struggle against the Terran Empire.
And not even with the fact that Tucker had also saved Harrad-Sar, because if a standard existed capable of uniting peoples and nations under its waving, this was certainly Harrad-Sar. If Romulans were pursuing, in the dark way that it was known was their own, namely acting in the shadows, ideas of conquest against the Terran Empire, what better than trying to exploit Harrad-Sar?
But the two of them? Her and Delight? Why Tucker had saved them too? The two of them... the two of them couldn't for sure be of any use to those which probably were the plans of the Romulans, plans of which, evidently, the Human was part. A very active part.
So what? Why saving her and Delight? And at the risk of jeopardizing the rescue of Harrad-Sar, which was what Tucker clearly wanted. He himself had said it, when he had harshly prodded her and Delight to make up their minds to follow him.
Now the two of them knew it. They knew why he had saved them. He... was not what he seemed.
And... and also Valdore perhaps had understood. Indeed. He had understood.
But he had no proofs. He had only suspicions. So then perhaps...
"He needs proofs, T'Pau. That horrible Romulan needs proofs."
T'Pau nodded, convinced. Really, Delight's intuitive talent was indeed remarkable. In one moment, she had realized what her logic had struggled to systematize. There was to wonder if somehow Delight weren't equipped with some sort of indefinable supra-verbal communication skills.
"I agree, Delight. And perhaps..."
"Perhaps he has found a way to obtain them."
T'Pau nodded again. "Logic suggests so."
"That's fine. Agree. But how?"
T'Pau concentrated. What could logic suggest? She spoke to Delight and herself, trying to bring order to the ideas. "Let's see. Tucker is, among these people, a General."
"It is not a trifling military rank."
"It is not. You will not earn such a rank in a month or in a year or in a lustrum."
"You mean..."
"That Tucker collaborates with the Romulans since a long time."
Delight eyes widened. Marvelled. And admiring. "Our master is more than an incredibly skilled deceiver! He's... he's..."
"Humans would say an evil genius."
"Or... a genius of the good, T'Pau?"
"The good, Delight? What is the good? Does it exist?"
"I... I think it does."
"I have heard that there are Humans who think that there are luminous Beings who fight for the good. They call them Angels. Think, Delight. Just they, just Humans, who believe in such tales!"
The blue of Delight's skin became more intense. If she were human, one would have said that she was blushing. She remembered, remembered very well, her twisted thoughts on Tucker, when she had thought that he might be an angel. And even a devil. When into her mind, for the first time, it had budded, indistinct and confused, the thought, the idea... the idea that ... that he could be an angel and a devil at the same time. But, above all, a man ... a man to love.
"But maybe they exist, T'Pau. The Angels, I mean."
"Come on, Delight!"
"Oh I know, I know! It makes no sense. However, it is nice to think that they may exist and that they fight for the good."
T'Pau raised an eyebrow. "As Tucker, Delight? He would be an Angel?"
The blue of Delight's skin veered toward a blue even more intense. "I... I do not know, T'Pau. But who knows... maybe... The fight doesn't leave anyone immaculate, T'Pau. Evil remains attached to you. And an Angel, in his fight for good, may be forced to be bad."
T'Pau's eyebrow arched further, but her words didn't ring ironical. "A bad Angel, Delight? Contaminated by evil? Forced to be bad to make triumph the good? This would be our saviour and master?"
Delight remained silent. She was conscious of the absurdity of her thoughts and her utterances. She could understand all the perplexities of T'Pau, though... and this was rather strange... she didn't perceived disapproval or derision in her.
She roused herself. "Excuse me, T'Pau. I'm dragging you into silly and useless discussions, when it just is neither the case nor the moment."
T'Pau sighed. Visibly. She realized that the same thing had happened to her. Tucker, bad angel or not that he was... was really endowed with... with strange powers. The mind could not become estranged from him, whether he were present or not.
"Me too, I let myself drag, Delight. Let's resume."
"Yes, let's resume."
"So. The alliance, unknown to everyone, between Tucker and the Romulans, dates since long a time."
"Yes."
"And in all this time, if what we think is true, he has managed to fool the Romulans exactly like his compatriots."
"Yes."
"But now Valdore has understood that Tucker is deceiving him."
"Yes."
"And has found a way or possibility to bare the deception."
"Yes."
"What has occured, new ,that might have given Valdore this possibility? If it is true that Tucker is perpetrating this deception since a long time, it is illogical to assume that Valdore can think of to seize the Human in foul."
Delight held her breath. She grabbed the hand of T'Pau. "T'Pau!"
"Delight?"
"T'Pol!"
"T'Pol?"
"Yes, T'Pol!"
"What do you mean, Delight?"
"T'Pol is the new fact! If he... if she..."
T'Pau understood. "If it is true that Tucker is... is..."
She could not pronounce that word, but Delight could. "In love with T'Pol."
"And if she, in turn..."
To Delight, it cost a great effort pronouncing it, but she said it. "Is in love with him…."
T'Pau's eyebrow stood up again. "A vulcan female doesn't..."
"Come on, T'Pau! Do not start again! Do not call it love, if you do not want, but we both agreed that she will want... how have we said?..."
"You said that T'Pol will understand; that she will want and will be able to feed the fire struggling to flare up in Tucker. That she will be able to melt the ice that envelops his heart."
Delight sighed. "Yeah. I said so."
T'Pau seemed to ignore that sigh, but in turn she squeezed the hand of Delight. "And then, Delight? What does it mean, that?"
"T'Pau, if between a man and a woman love is born, if they really love each other, they trust each other. They tell each other everything of them. Everything. Love is trust. Confidence."
"Everything?"
"Everything.".
"You mean that..."
"That our lord and master, if what we think of him and T'Pol is true... and…" - Delight's voice trembled imperceptibly – "…and it's true, will reveal things to her that certainly is better that Valdore does not know."
T'Pau was patently struck. And you could see it. "Valdore... he... he... could ... could..."
"He could order to spy on her."
"Surak! It's true!"
"And might know!"
"But T'Pol... T'Pol... she doesn't certainly be a naive and unwary fool! She will be well able not to be caught in a foul."
"But perhaps Valdore has the chance to make spy on their encounters... their encounters..."
"Of love." T'Pau said it. But it certainly was not the case, now, to go too fussy.
Delight swallowed. "Just like that."
"For Surak. Tucker must not tell anything to T'Pol. This could..."
"T'Pau!"
"What is wrong? What is it, Delight?"
"Where... where do you think him to go, our master, when he left us?"
T'Pau could not help but open wide her eyes. "To... to..."
"To T'Pol! He is with her, right now!"
All the olympian calm of the Vulcans abandoned T'Pau. "Oh Surak!"
Their hands clenched each other.
Delight's lips parted to give shape to her inner invocation.
"Do not say anything to her, master. Love her, but do not tell her anything!"
"And now, my lovely vulcan doll, you'll know how it happened, how it happened for real, that my face has been marked by this scar."
Crouched on his legs, curled up on his lap, sweetly resting on his breast, wrapped in his arms like in a cloak able to protect her from everything, she nodded happy in his chest.
His mouth breathed softly on her delicious pointy ear.
"Now you'll know everything about me."
End of Chapter Twenty-five
TBC
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Yes, there are bad angels.
But they are still angels.
Filled with scars and secrets.