Holography 3
As a Reminder and a Promise
By
Pat Foley
Chapter 53
T'Lean walked through the garden court and through the hall into the kitchen. She stood there a moment, looking on the cozy group. T'Rueth was sitting with her feet up on a hassock, half asleep over one of Amanda's antique cookbooks, one of a stack of which she'd had T'Jar, with Amanda's permission, bring down from the media center.
"This recipe for crepes Suzette says it requires a silver skillet. Silver," T'Rueth mused. "We have skillets of various constructions, but none in silver. Still, it's a very interesting recipe. We have oranges in plenty. And if a skillet made of silver is required, I am sure Sarek would agree that we obtain one."
Sascek had his weapons neatly laid out before him, a sheet of inert paper protecting the wood table, and was carefully cleaning them and checking their power cells, and loading one with sleep darts.
T'Jar sat across from him, chin in hands, eyes wide, deep in another book she had taken from the shelves upstairs, Alice au pays des merveilles.1She finished a chapter and sat back with a sigh. "It is wonderful."
Sascek spared her a glance. "I don't see the logic in reading juvenile fiction. And not even in Federation Standard, nor English, but some even more arcane outworlder tongue."
"It is not merely juvenile fiction, it is a logical allegory. My Lady Amanda told me so."
"What can a human know of logic?" Sascek said skeptically.
"What does a palace guard?" T'Jar returned haughtily. "It was written by a Terran mathematician. And quite fascinating. There is another volume, Alice Through the Looking Glass. All the action takes place on a chess board."
"It would have to be a very large chess board," Sascek countered.
"Perhaps Terrans make them life size," T'Jar said, looking doubtful.
"What is a looking glass?" Sascek asked. "Some sort of visual scanner?"
"I am not sure."
"It doesn't seem to me you understand it at all. Perhaps you had better read it in English. Perhaps you'd better read it in Vulcan."
"I am quite practiced in English," T'Jar said, stung. "I am using this to help master my French."
"Surely one outworlder language is enough."
"But the Federation Council meets often in Geneva, on Terra, and there French is spoken as often as English. I wish to learn it well enough to not be an encumbrance."
"You expect to go?"
"Why not? My lady will require some attendants who will be willing to accompany her to Terra. And it is not likely that -" her gaze fell on T'Lean and she rose respectfully, and in some surprise. "T'Lean. Welcome back to your duties."
T'Rueth woke fully. "T'Lean." She gave the formal ritual congratulation Vulcans expressed upon a conclusion of a Time, a polite euphemism, and T'Jar and Sascek echoed them.
T'Lean didn't return the traditional response.
The three Vulcans traded glances among themselves. T'Lean was back less than three days from when she'd left. Pon Far lasted anywhere from three to as many as twelve days, depending on the strength of the cycle. Most couples took at least a week for themselves, even for the shorter spells. T'Lean's husband was elderly and it was true they lived apart, so perhaps her rapid return was inconsequential. "Are you well T'Lean?"
"I am merely …fatigued."
"Of course you are," T'Rueth said kindly. "Would you like some tea, before retiring?"
"No." T'Lean shook herself. "No. I will go to my room."
"Rest well," T'Rueth said, to T'Lean's back.
Sascek waited a moment and then rose. "I believe I will retire myself." He looked to see if anyone in the kitchen was surprised at this, but T'Jar had returned to her French Alice in Wonderland, and T'Rueth had brought her book to the table and was laboriously copying the recipe from the antique book to the portable file she was using to store the recipes she found most palatable to Vulcan tastes, translating it for the necessary ingredient substitutions as she went. She had plans to publish her translated recipes. Amanda had agreed to write the introduction, which guaranteed it would get a wider audience than merely on Vulcan. Neither one spared him a glance. He was both grateful for this, and yet, as a Vulcan male, slightly miffed at it, and he went out of the kitchen to make sure T'Lean only went to her bed, slipping his weapons on his belt, dismayed at his own superfluousness.
And T'Lean had intentions of going straight to her room and meditating. But passing through the courtyard to the servants' wing, she heard Sarek's voice, and it stopped her in her tracks. She found herself edging closer, lurking in the shadows.
"It is, after all, incumbent on me to keep you …sufficiently engaged."
"Sarek, when will you stop using that excuse?"
"Indeed, my wife, it was a requirement laid by you upon me from the first days of our courtship."
"So you say. I say it was your mistaken inference."
"My memory is quite clear on this point."
"It wouldn't be the first time I've accused you of having a very selective memory," Amanda teased.
"Selective," Sarek said. "Indeed. I can be selective in that regard. I selected you, then. And do now as well. And strive merely to meet your requirements. Is that not correct?"
"Hmmm." She regarded him. She had a desk full of work, but she was sorely tempted. In three days nothing had happened to frighten or distress her, though her diary had never turned up. Her spirits had risen accordingly. "It is true that 'an engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is…satisfied with herself.'"2
"Precisely. I would have you well satisfied my wife. And very agreeable."
"There's much to be said for being agreeable," she agreed.
"And considering the past six months, we have much to make up for, in that regard."
"Yes, we do…half an hour? I really have to finish an article."
"Let it not be said I delayed the pursuit of science."
As they went hand in hand up the stairs, Amanda murmured, only too aware of the Vulcan ears in the kitchen, "You know Sarek, sooner or later we are going to have to grow up."
"Indeed. May I remind you, my wife, that by Vulcan standards, you have twenty years and more in which to be considered in many respects still a child." He pushed open the door of their suite, pulled her inside, and kissed her behind the door. Like a couple of kids. Amanda laughed in a combination of delight and amusement.
She looked up at him and smiled. "Twenty years ought to be just about right."
T'Lean edged into the hall, standing in the stairwell, and listened to their hushed voices and whispers as they went up to their suite. And heard the door close on the human's unmistakable laughter.
She walked a few paces into the hall. Put one foot on the stairs. As if she would go up.
The pain sobered her. Pain from the recent Pon Far she'd been subjected to, her husband's violent attentions. She was not seriously injured. She was only bruised and sore. She would soon heal.
But the human's laughter, Sarek's ardor, Amanda's delighted response, reminded her anew of what she had lacked, what she had even eschewed in her own marriage. Now past. In the hope, the expectation of a man who thought nothing of her. Still thought nothing of her.
She didn't recognize the emotion she was feeling as jealousy. Few humans would even believe a Vulcan could be jealous in this way. Could desire the mate of another. Even the bonded could; it was not outside of Vulcan behavior. Rare but possible.
She was jealous. And her jealousy pained her, even more than her aches from Pon Far. And the two, in contrast within her, plus the fallout from her recent activities, spurred something in her, something far past reason.
She had done with waiting. Waiting for Sarek to come to his senses, waiting for the human to tire of Vulcan passions, Vulcan need. Waiting for Sarek to tire of Amanda, send her away, waiting for Amanda to leave.
She would not suffer longer apart from whom she was entitled, by birth and expectation.
That human would pollute this house no longer.
She would rather see her dead.
To be continued…
1 Carroll, Lewis, Alice in Wonderland
2 Austen,Jane, Mansfield Park
