xxx
Archimedes
They'd spent the entire day on the other side of the river which they could see when the trail came close to the edge and now they were stopped again. Again, the rebels had assembled on a patch of bare earth with the span of a rope bridge ahead of them.
Archer looked at it with a dose of fatigue-induced puzzlement. Why were they crossing again? Then he realized they'd walked the entire span of the rock formation on the other side and now they were going back to their original trail. An astute shortcut. The river was still several feet below, flowing briskly downstream against the cliffs of the rocky hill. It looked very familiar. Archer realized he'd seen this before while mountaineering. This was a gorge, smaller than a canyon. He wondered what they called it in the planet's language.
The column started crossing. T'Pol was ahead of him. The rebels had neglected to tie her hands back after they crossed the first bridge. Perhaps they forgot, perhaps they knew there was another bridge and why do what they'd had to undo again. She was holding the third rope with a white-knuckled grip, trying to keep her oversize pack balanced. It was clear she was apprehensive. Water always made Vulcans anxious.
Archer didn't think. Acting purely on instinct, he lunged ahead to where T'Pol was, grabbed her, and jumped straight into the waters below. They pivoted in the air as the heavy packs rotated under them to break their fall. Archer kept a death grip on T'Pol as they plunged several feet into water so cold it clenched his chest, before their packs self-inflated and popped them back to the surface. He was still holding her tight as the current took them downstream, she not even trying to swim, overwhelmed by the cold wetness all around. At least she wasn't fighting him. He could rely on Vulcan logic to keep her on this side of panic.
The angry yells and exclamations overhead were fading in the distance. The current was taking them rapidly away. They were already many yards downstream and he knew they would start firing next. Archer maneuvered the packs behind them to form a shield. A bend in the river hid them from sight. Now he could survey the land, figure out what to do next. He could see that the monolith hill was not a straight cliff down to the river. The foot of the rock was littered with boulders smoothed over by the ages. The lower third of the rock itself was pockmarked and gouged with crevasses and holes of various sizes.
The gorge was narrowing and the current intensified, churning the water. Archer flipped the packs in front of them as a protective barrier. T'Pol was making feeble attempts at swimming next to him, he almost told her to stop it already. A cat would have done better. If ever there was a doubt Vulcans didn't originate in water... They tumbled down a fast stretch of whitewater rapids, the packs ricocheting from boulder to boulder, shaking them without throwing them off.
The gorge widened and the river slowed back to a more leisurely pace, one that allowed Archer to check his surroundings. He spotted a natural pool between two mounds of boulders that were obviously the result of past avalanches. He grabbed his pack with one hand, the other still securely fastened around T'Pol's collar, and kicked hard a few times, managing to wedge his inflated pack at the opening to the pool. Quickly, before the buoyant bag could be jostled away, he grabbed the nearest boulder with one hand. The water was moving too fast to do much other than hold on. Now he was in a bind, holding on to the boulder with one hand and to T'Pol with the other. He scissored her with his legs, freeing his hand, and heaved the pack further towards the still water.
He grabbed her again, trying to bring her up to the boulder but her pack was dragging her downstream, water rushing over her head as it pulled her downward. He swung his legs and scissored her again. The pull on the pack was enormous. Still holding the boulder with one hand, he undid the bindings on her pack. For a few seconds he had it in his hand. Snagtooth had said the bags were chipped. The rebels would know if any weapons were missing. He reluctantly opened his hand and let go, watching the pack bob swiftly downstream until it disappeared from sight.
He was now able to pull T'Pol securely to hold the boulder before coaxing her to the safety of the still water, where he could finally push her out of the water onto a layer of smaller boulders and stones. She laid there, heaving and coughing, while he got up next to her and hoisted his pack out. A look around told him they were right at the bottom of a cliff. He waited until she was finally able to breathe normally again.
"I'm going to check the surroundings. You stay with the pack."
T'Pol nodded feebly, perched on one elbow, her breath whistling, shaken by great spams of sneezing. Vulcans simply didn't do water well.
By the time he came back, she was sitting up, her unisuit smoking as the water vapor quickly evaporated. Vulcan fabric was amazing.
"I've found a shelter!" he announced.
A quizzical eyebrow greeted him, "A shelter?" Her eyes were rimmed with green but her color was no longer off. It struck him that she'd been looking greener than usual for a while. He noticed her hands were not trembling anymore.
"Yes, Probably from past floods, there are nooks and crannies up thirty feet from the water line. A few big enough for both of us."
"You propose that we take refuge in a nook and cranny?"
"Unless you have a better idea, Commander," Archer snapped back. He wasn't sure why she objected. Then he realized, "Don't worry, it's a big one. We could fit the entire science team in it. Almost big enough for separate rooms."
A sudden memory of the vision of his kissing her filled him with embarrassment. He busied himself with his pack, keeping a running commentary, "We can't go downstream, that's where the packs will end up and the rebels can track them. Which reminds me, we need to make sure they find both packs." He was unzipping his pack. "They'll think that mine ruptured in the fall and that all the food was lost." He quickly emptied out the food items.
T'Pol was eyeing the dry goods doubtfully. "Did you find wood for a fire?" she asked.
"M'fraid there won't be a fire," Archer mumbled back. He'd mixed a handful of food with some water and was busy smearing the goop all over the inside of the pack. "The trees are on the other side of the river," he added. "Ever heard of a raw diet?" he looked up at her.
She didn't respond directly. "How long to you expect we can wait here eating raw food?"
'Tsk, tsk, tsk. Ms. Rationality', he thought. "We'll go downstream once the rebels have finished looking for us. By then Enterprise will be there." He was ad-libbing, he had no idea. Talking without knowing was what got them here in the first place and with a little luck that's what would get them out. Not that he had much else to offer.
xxx
Enterprise
"Doctor, you need to do something!"
Phlox turned around from where he was dosing compounds to stare at the speaker. It was Captain Tucker, fairly red-faced even for a Human.
Trip lifted the padd that was strategically positioned in front of him and Phlox understood what he was talking about. "Hmm, I see," he commented. "Is that what Humans refer to as pitching the trouser tent?"
"Very funny, Phlox." Now Trip was annoyed, "It just keeps happening! You have to do something!"
"Hmm," Phlox bounced on the balls of his feet twice, "Have you tried mechanical means? What is the expression, 'choke-"
"- It doesn't work," Trip hastened to cut Phlox off before he could finish. "It just keeps happening! I can't go to the bridge sporting an erection! Not with pirates about to attack!"
"Actually, the Nu'ugorians make a point of going to battles sporting erection, quite impressive erections, if I may say -
"Doctor!" Trip growled.
"Hmm, yes, yes." The doctor was looking through the containers on the Sickbay counters, "Let me see what I have to counter the effects..."
"Could we keep it to drugs with unpronounceable names?" Trip asked, not keen to have one of the doctors' creatures hanging on to his appendage.
"Of course, of course..." The doctor looked up, "... hmmm... we have to think that the 'stimulus' is not going away any time soon... a neural suppressant... Here!" he triumphantly showed Trip what looked like a flattened disk. "All we have to do is stick this to your spine, right about here." Phlox was showing on himself where the device would go.
"Just go ahead, doc," Trip dejectedly waved at him. He almost asked about possible side effects, decided he'd rather not know.
"There," Phlox said as the engineer readjusted his shirt, "that should protect you from T'Pol's hormonal fluctuations."
"You said we had another couple of months!"
Trip's tone was accusing but Phlox was not flustered. "We are talking about a biological process involving the physiological and endocrine systems. It's always going to be an imperfect science. You have to expect the condition will ebb and flow. The time can vary if anything affects the biological processes. Anything that stresses the system will accelerate the timeline. Anything that lowers the metabolic rate will slow it."
"As in...?" Trip was hard-pressed to think what could happen in the confines of a shuttle.
"Stress, injury, illness." Phlox stopped when he saw Trip's face. "I'm sorry to say, Commander," his voice was gentler, "but while it is always possible that this is a fluke, it is more likely that something happened that has accelerated the timeline."
Trip swallowed hard. "How long?"
Phlox sighed, "I don't know. The only symptom I have is what's happening to you. But based on that, I'd say the timeline has been shortened by a month."
Trip looked at the wall chrono, thinking. They'd already spent days getting to the Straits, meeting with the Vernes, navigating between the black holes. "So two weeks to a month?" he asked.
Phlox nodded. "I would guess as much."
"Great." Trip's tone was stern.
"But remember, Captain Archer's with her. Her life is not at risk!" Phlox punctuated that with one of his trademark smiles.
The withering look he got in return left him speechless. He watched the doors close on the Commander. Humans were so complicated. A Denobulan man would have rejoiced at the thought.
xxx
