It was very early morning. She was sitting alone in the apartment that had been allocated to her (quite a palatial one, situated in the wing of one of the High Command's administration buildings) when her communicator chirped.

Her personal device was a rather more sophisticated one than the type used as standard by Starfleet officers. Her communicator from Enterprise was still back at T'Les's house, since she had fully expected to return there to take her farewells of her mother and collect what remained of her things before returning to duty on the ship. Now, however, events had intervened to make it uncertain whether she would ever see Enterprise again.

The caller, whoever it was, was apparently not listed among her contacts. In the circumstances, when she needed all the peace she could contrive in order to continue the agonizing over what her next actions should be, she would ordinarily have denied the call. However, though her thumb hovered briefly over the 'reject' icon, she changed her mind just before she touched it. Illogical as it might be to be glad of something which had the potential to be an irritation, the interruption would provide a welcome break from the endless indecision in which she was still locked.

To whom did she owe her greatest loyalty – her captain or her mother?

If she betrayed the one in the effort to save the other, and despite her testimony Archer somehow contrived to escape, then the enraged High Command might decide she had not tried hard enough and destroy T'Les regardless. And quite certainly her own chances of a commission in Starfleet (which would almost certainly have been forthcoming after her services during the Xindi crisis) would be at an end either way, though she had tried her hardest to put that consideration aside. To be sure, in that case she could swallow her pride and appeal to her husband for support – she could imagine the satisfied magnanimity with which he would offer it, though even now the mental images this conjured up were enough to make her clench her fists and swear Never!

The display did not identify the caller, which was strange. Moreover, one of its warning icons was flashing: the incoming transmission was encrypted.

It would be usual for messages from Starfleet to be encrypted, but they would usually declare an identifier, which would appear superimposed on the official blue and silver logo of the organization. This call had no name, number or logo.

It would be the work of moments to switch on her own encryption program, but it was beyond belief that there would be no recording devices at work in the apartment. Even if this proved to be an entirely innocent call (unlikely, given that it was encrypted, but not impossible) she had no intention of sharing it with the High Command.

The device came with a number of brief auto-responses. She selected one and thumbed it, even while saying aloud, and sharply, "I am still on leave. Please contact me again when I return to the ship."

Now she had ten minutes in which to locate herself in an area where she could hold a private conversation.

Difficult. Admittedly there were gardens outside where she could walk (spare and elegant, if not particularly lush, given that water was a precious commodity on arid Vulcan), but there were armed guards outside her door and it would be unlikely they would keep a polite enough distance not to overhear what she might discuss. Even though she had not – as yet – been charged with anything, the authorities were clearly taking no chances; she was going to be kept under close watch until she made a decision. Presumably T'Les was being kept under surveillance too, if probably not so open and obvious. If her daughter made the wrong choice, the net would fall…

It went without saying that her communicator signals would be intercepted. Vulcan spyware technology was so advanced that she probably would not be safe even in the sonic shower, whose high frequency sound waves had at first been even more successful than the sound of running water in disguising conversation from listening ears.

Nevertheless…

Service alongside Commander Tucker had honed her engineering skills as well as developing a facility for devising unorthodox solutions. It did not take her long to break open the communicator and establish the frequency at which the illicit transceiver (there was always going to be one inside) was operating.

There was a service panel alongside the shower. Without the correct tools it was a little difficult to get into, but not impossible. Aware of time ticking away, she carefully adjusted the shower's frequency so that in close proximity the two would create a feedback loop.

It would not take long for whoever was monitoring to adjust one or both of them accordingly so that service would be resumed. She would estimate sixty seconds, depending on how long it took to realize what was happening, track down the appropriate control settings in the system and make the required changes.

Sixty seconds was not long, but a great deal would depend on who was on the other end of the call…

She had a little over one and a half minutes left before her preparations were complete. She closed the control panel, removed her clothes and inserted the ear defenders. She would remove one of them if and when the communication began – the cleansing frequency was supposed to be harmless to hearing anyway, although defenders were worn as a precaution. Depending on the volume and pitch of the feedback, it would probably make hearing less than optimum even for her, even with the device held to her ear to block out the disruption, but there seemed little alternative.

With the seconds now counting down, she took a deep breath and stepped to the shower cubicle, switching on her communicator as she entered it. Instantly the faint but unmistakable shrill of the feedback began, and almost in the same moment the communicator vibrated.

She opened it, removing the ear defender, and pressed it to her ear. "T'Pol."

"Sub-commander, can you speak freely?" She recognized the voice: Ensign Sato.

"No."

"Are you in danger?"

"No." Not precisely accurate, but for the present – as long as she was a potential witness for the prosecution – she was safe enough. If she decided not to co-operate, the situation would undoubtedly change rapidly.

"We can't contact the captain or Lieutenant Reed. Are they in danger?"

"Yes."

"Is it something to do with the Xindi?"

"Not directly."

"Are Starfleet aware of it?"

"Yes."

"Should we contact the civil authorities?"

"No."

"Can we help you?"

"No."

A tiny pause. She imagined Sato biting her lip, trying to phrase questions in such a way that a 'yes' or a 'no' answer would produce useful information.

"Would it be helpful if we contacted Admiral Forrest?"

"No."

"Are any of the rest of us in danger?"

"No." Although some of Captain Archer's actions later in the mission had been not merely immoral but completely illegal and therefore anyone who had aided and abetted him could theoretically be prosecuted as accessories, the thrust of the campaign concerned the events aboard the Seleya. If Soval's information was correct this was being driven by relatives of the dead crew, and however much Vulcan's ruling body might hold up their hands in horror at torture, theft and murder, the captain had not employed any of those against Vulcan citizens or allies on later occasions. In hindsight it was just as well that problems during the attempt to collect trellium ore for their own use on Enterprise had prevented Commander Tucker and Ensign Mayweather from flying the shuttle to the doomed ship, else it was wholly possible that the High Command's vindictiveness might have seized the opportunity to spread the accusations to them as well, however slight their involvement might have been.

"Do not attempt to contact me again." She closed the call. At a guess her last couple of replies had been detectable, but her words were hardly a mine of information, and hopefully Ensign Sato would take warning from her final words. More calls would increase the High Command's suspicions and T'Pol's danger, and quite possibly spread the risk to whoever was trying to communicate. It was unlikely that anyone would ask questions about the call as it stood (after all, there were certain difficulties in asking 'Why did you make sure we couldn't eavesdrop on your conversation?') but until she had declared herself one way or the other they would be most unhappy about her receiving contact from anyone in the outside world.

As for what the results of the call would be, she could only hope that she had said enough to alert the ensign to the danger of pursuing enquiries. Sato was not acting alone – she had specifically said 'we' – but given that for the present everything was being carried out in the utmost secrecy, neither Starfleet nor the High Command would be pleased by any of the remaining Enterprise officers becoming involved.

She could not quite suppress the unworthy hope that she was right in suspecting who else might be behind this strange call. Ensign Sato certainly had the expertise to make it, but was she likely to have simply decided that her inability to reach Captain Archer and Lieutenant Reed when they were officially on leave was so suspicious that she ought to contact the ship's XO in so markedly guarded a fashion? Without doubt the linguist had known or suspected the conversation would not be private. The encryption might protect the electronic signal, but prompting answers that could provide little or no information to any listener was a precaution that proved she was already aware that things were not well on Vulcan.

T'Pol sighed, leaned out to rest the communicator on the nearby shelf and changed the settings on the shower. High powered jets of air struck her body, removing the dirt and shed skin cells that the high frequency sound pulses would have detached. Suction pulled them into the floor grating. It was not perhaps as pleasurable as the water showers she had become accustomed to aboard Enterprise, but it worked, and there was no need to towel oneself dry afterwards.

But when she stepped out into the room again and dressed in clean clothing, she was no nearer a solution to her predicament.

To whom should she be loyal – to her mother or to her captain?