I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
-- T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
Chapter Three – The Magical Properties of Coffee
Archer took a deep breath before opening the doors to Sickbay. Enterprise was six hours past the Nausicaan ship, with no sign of pursuit by the Askarinoc on long-range scanners. There was no comfort in that; he had the uneasy feeling that they were being tracked.
Since they had gone to warp, he had combed through the sensor data closely, convinced that there was something there. It was nothing he could put his finger on, or explain to T'Pol or Reed, but he knew it was there, like a shadow moving just at the corner of his eye. Every time he turned his head to look at it straight on, however, it was gone. Perhaps now, on top of everything else, he was starting to see phantoms and gremlins. Or, worse, maybe he was not.
He was nervous, too, about leaving the Nausicaan ship full of tamirite behind, but Enterprise had no containment field capable of keeping the substance inert. If they were caught under enemy fire, having the tamirite onboard would make destruction of Enterprise a certainty. Perhaps it would please, oh, please drift safely there until the Nausicaans could retrieve it. More likely, though, the way his choices always seemed to come back to bite him, he'd probably just given some unpleasant alien out there the means to ignite a nuclear holocaust. You are a danger to the universe.
He rubbed a hand over his gritty eyes. Maybe he would take advantage of the lull, however long it lasted, and get some sleep. The door swished open.
Hoshi was standing between the two bio-beds, translating the conversation between the Nausicaans and Phlox. From the sad expression on the young woman's face, Archer knew they were discussing the destruction of the Sassh. Hoshi held the UT unused in her hand; it could not convey the sympathy contained in the linguist's voice. The Nausicaan woman, Ketra, he remembered randomly, eyed him as he approached, and seemed to ask a question of him.
"'Where is my husband,'" Hoshi translated. She added, "She's been asking that over and over, sir."
Archer sighed. "I'm sorry," he began, but Ketra repeated her question, more urgently. The captain opened his hands helplessly. "There was nothing we could do . . ."
He had no time to finish the sentence. In a flash, Ketra launched herself off the bed and straight at him, screaming. He lost his footing and went down as she slammed into him and did her best to tear his head from his neck. His hands circled her wrists as she clawed at his face, and her knees drilled into his solar plexus. He felt a pocket of his uniform give way. Other hands tried vainly to pry her off of him. The shouting and keening jumbled in his ears. He couldn't make sense of any of it. Finally, the woman's body relaxed under a powerful sedative and she was hauled away by the security officer's arms.
"I'm sorry, Captain," Phlox jabbered, grasping his elbow to help him up. Archer jerked his arm away, rolling to his hands and knees, head down, trying to regain his composure. He could hear the security officers struggling the woman into restraints on the bio bed. Although sedated, she continued to wail. The words hung in the air, untranslated; with detachment, he decided they must be proper names, perhaps a roll call of her dead family. He pushed himself to his feet.
Phlox stood an arm's length away, his voice barely audible over the din. "Captain, I'm sorry. She has just been told that the Sassh was lost, and that the third crewmember we rescued didn't make it. There was nothing I could do."
"I'm sure," he cleared his throat, "I'm sure you did your best." Archer turned back toward the wailing woman, who was still struggling against the soft restraints. Markur appeared to be doing his level best to comfort her. Hoshi stood by the bed also, looking shaken but speaking in soothing tones.
"I don't dare sedate her any further, given her weakened physical condition," Phlox said, by way of explanation. Archer just looked at him, as if to say, Seems plenty strong to me.
The wailing went on and on at a vocal frequency that made Archer's eardrums throb until he couldn't think. He recalled watching news footage of a Middle Eastern funeral procession, and hearing the desperate ululations of a distraught woman about to bury her child after some natural disaster. The sound blended with the Nausicaan woman's cries and beat against the inside of his head. He glanced down at his ripped uniform and muttered, "I'll just . . . I'll be in my quarters." Before he started screaming himself, he turned quickly and left Sickbay.
Crewmen stopped and pressed themselves against the bulkheads as the captain stalked down the corridors toward his quarters, his face like a thundercloud. If he noticed any of them, he gave no sign. He reached his quarters and slapped the door control forcefully. One glare at Porthos sent the dog back to his pallet. He left his clothing where it fell and stepped into the hottest shower he could stand. After a moment, the shakes began, despite the heat, and he slid down to sit on the shower stall floor, knees drawn up, hands balled at his temples.
Seven million humans. Trip's baby sister. Did Trip's mother wail for her daughter like that? I can't do this. I can't. This is not what I signed on for. All I wanted was . . . That Xindi monster wondered how many were children. God, I gotta get us out of this place . . . How can you murder children?. . .Who knew there were so many . . . bad guys? I can't save the universe. . . I'm not strong enough . . .
Archer raised his face to the scalding spray and let the salt water flow down the drain.
x x x
Trip was back in Engineering, recovering slowly from his spacewalk scare. He looked up from the open access panel he was replacing to find T'Pol watching him. She had a way of gliding into the vicinity and standing there silently until a person noticed her. He had no idea how long she'd been loitering. When Trip was absorbed in a mechanical problem, she could stand and wait for his attention for as much as fifteen minutes at a time.
"May I speak with you for a moment, Commander?" she asked politely, indicating with a tilt of her head the closet Trip laughingly referred to as his office. He screwed in the last bolt, securing the panel, and rose, wiping his hands on the thighs of his uniform. Leading the way, he stepped into the small pocket of peace amidst the chaos of Engineering.
"Are you going to write me up for language unbecoming an officer, because of my little freak out?" Trip was still a bit embarrassed by the whole episode, now that he was safely back on Enterprise.
"That was not my intention," T'Pol answered gravely. "It was an understandable reaction, given the circumstances." He searched her features for any trace of irony. There was none. "No, I wish to discuss an issue relating to the captain."
"Oh," Trip said, instantly serious.
T'Pol clasped her hands behind her back. "Have you noticed that the captain has lately become more unsettled and moody?"
"He's been like that for a while, T'Pol," Trip answered, "ever since we got into this damned Expanse."
The First Officer nailed him with an impatient look. "For the past several days, the captain has also seemed fatigued, depressed, and unfocused. He has not been eating. He appears to have lost weight. In fact, Chef mentioned that the captain has not taken a meal in his Mess in over a week, and that every tray sent to the Ready Room has come back virtually untouched." She inclined her head slightly. "I had suspected that it might be an after-effect of the Insectoid toxin, but the doctor's scans have ruled it out as a cause."
Trip opened his mouth to defend the captain, an automatic response, then stopped himself. "Well," he said slowly, finding it difficult to bring up a conversation that the captain may have intended to be confidential, "he did tell me this morning that he hasn't been sleeping." The look on T'Pol's face, before she controlled it, clearly said, Great, another insomniac, but Trip went on. "He said he could sleep, but he just didn't want to. I think he's having nightmares, but he wouldn't admit it."
"But sleep is a necessary biological function," T'Pol pointed out. "A human cannot simply refuse to sleep."
"You're forgetting the magical properties of coffee," Trip replied. "It's like this. A person can want to fall asleep, but the body won't relax enough to achieve it. Like me, before neuropressure. I was dead tired, but just couldn't go to sleep. Right?" T'Pol nodded once. "Now, the cap'n, I bet, would drop right off to sleep if he stopped moving long enough. But when he does sleep, he might have awful nightmares, bad dreams where your subconscious tortures you and you wake up upset and scared and just as tired as you were before you went to bed. But the images stay with you.
"So, if you don't want the nightmares, you make yourself stay awake. You drink a lot of coffee, you exercise, you work. After a while, you lose your appetite, you find that you can't deal with little everyday things, you start to lose it. I think that's what's happening to the cap'n."
T'Pol considered the disturbing images that had haunted her since her initial exposure to trellium on the Seleya, apparitions she kept at bay only through careful and consistent meditation. Captain Archer did not meditate; no wonder he was becoming unbalanced. "Why does he not ask Dr. Phlox to sedate him?"
Trip sighed. Sometimes it was hard for T'Pol to grasp that the logical answer didn't always work with humans. "Well, first of all, if you're having nightmares, the last thing you want to be is drugged. Chances are, the drugs would make them worse, and it's harder to wake yourself up when a dream gets too intense, if you're sedated." He held her gaze to make sure she understood, then went on. "Plus, we're talking about the cap'n here. This is not a guy who can say, okay, I'm going to go hibernate for a while; you watch out for the ship. Enterprise, her crew, we're his life. He would walk through fire for us. A person like the cap'n doesn't lay down that responsibility, ever, and he doesn't delegate. You and I can talk to each other; I can hash stuff out with Malcolm. Everybody on this ship has someone they can confide their fears in. Except Jon.
"Earth is depending on him, in the most literal way possible. Talk about the weight of the world on your shoulders. That's exactly how he sees it. His shoulders. He's not going to turn to one of the crew and say, 'Here, you hold this burden for awhile. I'm gonna go take a little nap.'"
T'Pol watched concern and pain chase each other across the engineer's face. She was silent for a moment, thinking. Finally, she said, "Clearly, the captain is breaking under the pressure. The one thing he is convinced he cannot do is precisely what is required."
"You wanna be the one to tell him that?" Trip raised his eyebrows, imagining the explosion that would ensue if either of them suggested that Jon relieve himself of duty for a while.
"No," demurred T'Pol, "but Phlox might."
x x x
The doctor stroked his chin thoughtfully. He had suspected something like this when he had seen the captain earlier. He'd thought that Captain Archer's reaction to the Nausicaan woman's outburst – bolting in near panic – was uncharacteristic, to say the least. Now, Commander Tucker's and Sub-Commander T'Pol's observations confirmed his suspicions.
"Unfortunately," he told them, "I would need proof that his ability to command has been compromised. I cannot medically relieve him of duty, or insist that he do so himself, unless his judgment has been impaired. There is no sign that he is laboring under an alien influence," the doctor tactfully did not add, again, "and he has not given any orders which could be construed to be contrary to the crew's well-being."
"I suppose it would be unethical to slip him a mickey," Trip mused.
"Hmmm, yes, you suppose correctly," the doctor responded, giving the commander a hard look. "It is only a matter of time, however, before the captain begins to show the signs you are looking for: paranoia, uncontrolled violence, other indicia of psychosis. Document those, and I can relieve him of duty."
"I'm not looking to lock him up in the loony bin," Trip said worriedly, "I just want the guy to get some rest before he collapses or kills himself."
"Chances are, he will recognize the need for sleep long before he becomes psychotic, Commander. It may take some coaxing, but Captain Archer will undoubtedly do the right thing." The Denobulan called up some medical records on his desktop computer. "There are some natural remedies I can give him to allow for a dreamless sleep, when he is ready to take them."
"Well, thanks for your time, Doc," Trip said, heading toward the door. T'Pol followed, more slowly. "I suppose if all else fails, we can always stun him with a phase pistol again."
x x x
T'Pol approached the table where the captain was sitting by himself, pushing a piece of apple pie around a plate with his fork. It was what Commander Tucker often called "the wee hours of the morning." The Mess was otherwise deserted. She tucked her PADD beneath her elbow, and held her mug of tea with two hands, warming her palms in response to the human-cool atmosphere of the room. "Do you mind if I join you?" she asked, employing the roundabout human way of seeking permission to sit.
He half-stood, gesturing to the empty chair opposite his. "Not at all," he answered, and then, somewhat uncharacteristically, turned his attention back to his plate. There was an open thermos of coffee on the table, and the strong smell was a little off-putting. The captain was dressed in a white short-sleeved tee-shirt and casual slacks; she knew he had officially gone off-duty several hours ago. Oddly, his hair was mussed, an atypical look for the usually fastidious man, as if he had just gotten out of bed.
They sat in silence for a moment, Archer displaying no curiosity at all about why T'Pol might have approached him. Finally, T'Pol laid the PADD on the table, turned it upside down, and slid it across the surface. "I believe I have found an appropriate place to deposit the Nausicaan crew, as you requested."
Archer looked up at her, unfocused. "To what?"
She pointed to the schematic on the PADD. "There is a trading post, approximately a day from here at Warp Three. It's an inhabited moon, with a fair amount of traffic. The Nausicaans can disembark there."
"You think there's a transceiver there, or a beacon so they can contact their homeworld?" Archer glanced at the diagram. For a moment, it was a blue blur in front of his eyes. He had been staring at too many of the tiny screens lately.
"If there isn't one, they will undoubtedly be able to negotiate transport, or perhaps even contact another Nausicaan freighter to retrieve them."
"I don't want to just abandon them in the middle of nowhere," Archer muttered. "They've been through enough as it is." He rubbed his eyes.
"Captain, I understand your concern, but, as you know –"
"Don't you lecture me about the mission, T'Pol," Archer snapped. "I realize this will take us even further off schedule and off course, but it's the human thing to do." He shoved the pie to the side, as if he blamed the pastry for their current predicament. "These people have lost everything, their ship, their cargo, their families . . . children. I don't intend to leave them stranded on some outpost, unless there's a chance they can get home."
"I did not mean to suggest that you should," T'Pol answered mildly.
The captain sighed and looked down. He placed his elbows on the table, and gripped the hair at his temples with both hands, as if preparing to pull it out by the roots. T'Pol steeled herself and ventured, "Captain, are you feeling quite all right?"
He raised his eyes to hers, and she could see how reluctant he was to answer the question. She wondered for a moment if he might lie to her. Finally, he responded, "I had a dream, earlier, that I killed Charles."
T'Pol had a strong suspicion that he did not mean the Chief Engineer. "The Vissian?" she inquired, her eyebrow rising slightly.
"She was begging me to let her stay aboard Enterprise. I said no."
T'Pol said firmly, "You made the right decision under the circumstances."
Archer ignored her comment. "She was pleading for asylum, and so I reached out, took her by the throat, and choked her to death." There was no self-pity in his tone, only a strange detachment.
"Captain," T'Pol said slowly, "if you had known that the -- that Charles would kill itself, would you have made a different choice?"
"It's not that simple, T'Pol."
"Would you?"
He gave her a long look, then smiled bitterly. "No, T'Pol, I would have done exactly the same thing. Which just proves that in twenty-twenty hindsight, I'm still a shit." You must be stopped before more innocent people die. He abused his pie with his fork some more, then swirled the last inch of coffee in his cup and swigged it down. The acidity of the liquid didn't even bother him anymore. He grimaced and began to pour yet another cup from the thermos, fumbling with the lid.
"It was the right decision," T'Pol repeated. "You cannot impose your will upon another culture, even if you believe its values to be unjust. You may not fully understand their reasons for perpetuating such a system."
"Tell that to Dred Scott," Archer retorted. Then, as the Vulcan gave a questioning look, he added, "In human history, that was exactly the excuse people always gave to justify returning slaves to their owners." He hunched his shoulders. "Even when I make what you'd call the right decision, people die."
"That may very well be the case," T'Pol observed, "however, you have, to my knowledge, never intentionally hurt any being. It has been my experience that preserving life is a priority for you."
Archer snorted. "No, I don't hurt them; I just torture them. Tell me, T'Pol, did you come to this conclusion before or after I served you up to Tolaris to be violated? And infected with a terminal disease, to boot."
"It is not logical for you to attempt to take responsibility for the actions of Tolaris, or any other person not under your control." There was a slight tremble in the Vulcan's voice, and he heard the lie underneath her calm assertion.
He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then rested his fists on the table. "Everything that happens aboard Enterprise is my responsibility. My fault."
She placed a hand on his arm. He looked at her in surprise, and she immediately removed it. "Perhaps," she said carefully, "you would feel better if you slept, Captain."
"Sleeping isn't agreeing with me lately," Archer replied, his eyes on his cup. "Not all dreams are pleasant, as you might recall."
"There are Vulcan meditation techniques I could show you which may relax you enough to keep the dreams at bay," she offered.
"What are you, the ship's good time girl now?" he snapped, then instantly regretted it. "I'm sorry, that was way out of line. I apologize." He swallowed some coffee, unable to meet her gaze, aware that he was likely becoming more obnoxious with every caffeinated sip.
T'Pol took a moment to drink her own tea and to gather herself. Then she put the cup down and said, "Give me your hand, please."
Without thinking, he held his hand out, palm up, as if ready to have his fortune told. She traced a finger from the base of his wrist to the joint of his index finger, across the sensitive palm, producing a sensation so profound, so overwhelming, that Archer wanted to weep, just lay his head down on the table and sob his heart and soul out. Instead, he snatched his hand away and stood abruptly. Taking a pace backward, his hand curled into a fist, he said, "Don't -- I don't want you to touch me."
T'Pol blinked at his reaction. Then her face composed itself, and she retorted coldly, "I told you, Pa'naar Syndrome is not contagious."
Archer frowned and leaned forward across the table until his lips were millimeters away from her elegantly pointed ear. "Go to hell," he whispered. He turned on his heel and stomped out of the Mess.
