Chapter 17: What to wear to a Vulcan wedding

T'Les emerged from her meditation and observed her daughter sitting opposite her. The negotiations with Koss and his family had been trying and the aroused many emotions that must be suppressed. A good meditation session in the aftermath had been essential. Ostensibly, T'Pol was meditating as well. T'Les observed her with a keen eye. She noted T'Pol's eyes flicking beneath her lids, the tension in her shoulders, the occasional shift in her posture and the slight shake in her hands. All these things pointed loudly to the fact that T'Pol was barely reaching a first level state. It was disquieting.

She thought back to the intense way the Commander has been watching her daughter for the past few days. Like an overprotective parent waiting for a newly walking child to fall, he had hovered over T'Pol, bringing her food, urging her to meditate, suggesting that she sleep. T'Les had suppressed some annoyance at his fussing, but now, looking at her daughter failing to achieve a state of meditation that even a five year old Vulcan could master, she considered that he had been observing something in her daughter that she herself had refused to see.

T'Les rose gracefully from the meditation cushion without disturbing her daughter, and followed her ears and nose to the back of the house, to find Trip servicing the condenser for the climate control unit. If nothing else, T'Les thought pragmatically, this week had resulted in every single one of her appliances being serviced, fixed or upgraded in the human's attempts to distract himself from the knowledge of her daughter's impending marriage. She would have to arrange for him to visit the following year, she thought sourly, so he could repeat his good work.

Trip heard the back door close and looked up from the filter he had been attending to with the small sonic cleaner T'Pol had shown him on their first day on Vulcan. The scarcity of water on Vulcan meant such devices were common place and he had been fascinated enough to pull it apart and reassemble it to get a better concept of how it worked. He was fairly confident he could reverse engineer a similar unit for the Enterprise which would institute greater water conservation for the ship. When he saw T'Les coming towards him, he was aware she would only seek him out if she had something specific to speak about.

"How can I help you T'Les." He asked politely.

It was fascinating, T'Les noticed, there seemed to be such a culture of service amongst humans, as if they were the galaxy's waiters, always eager to attend you. It seemed so at odds with T'Pol's assessment that they could become leaders in the sector.

"I was wondering if you were able to reach your friend on the communicator?" She asked. After her conversation with T'Pol about humans, she had begun to observe his behaviour and had noticed that he rarely began a conversation with the item pertinent to him. He seemed to have the illogical habit of asking about something that was of no interest to him whatsoever but was important to the person he was talking to. T'Les suppressed a feeling of faint ridiculousness at the irrelevant question, in whose answer she had little interest, but she tried to follow her daughter's example and communicate with him in his own terms to smooth the process.

"I did, thanks," he smiled one his polite smiles, that T'Les interpreted as meaning he acknowledged her good manners and her interest in his life. T'Les felt a sudden surge of satisfaction at her recognition of his signals. T'Pol was right, their emotions were like a language, it would be fascinating to study and catalogue them from a scientific perspective. She forged ahead gaining confidence in this new language she was learning.

"And was your conversation satisfactory?" She watched him closely. The emotions could be fleeting, so full attention was required. She was surprised to see a number of negative emotions cross his face. She recognised anger, frustration, panic. She wondered if the question was inappropriate. T'Pol had warned her that Vulcans and humans often had different ideas about what constituted private information, perhaps she had crossed some line.

"I wouldn't say it was satisfactory." He said resignedly. He looked up at her and stuck his tongue into his cheek. She observed the behaviour carefully, trying to interpret it alongside his words. She drew the conclusion that it was not her question that had provoked the negative emotions, but the content of the call itself. Now he was considering how much to reveal to her.

Trip looked up at T'Les, observing him so intently he felt like a bug under a microscope, and wondered how much he should tell her. The call she seemed so interested in had been to Phlox. It had taken him several days to track Phlox down. The Denobulan had travelled to Mars to meet with a large group of his family who seemed to have rented an entire hotel and, it transpired, he was never in the same room twice, if he was at the hotel at all. Trip felt like he'd spent two days talking with every member of Phlox's family, including an extremely uncomfortable conversation with Feezal, who had twittered and flirted with him to the point that he had wanted to vomit into his plomeek broth, all without seeing hide nor hair of the man himself.

Finally that morning, while T'Pol and T'Les were at the negotiations, an extremely jovial Phlox had returned Trip's calls. As he had told T'Les, the conversation had not been satisfactory. Phlox, bound by his oaths, could not give specific details about T'Pol's condition so they had danced around the topic talking generalities and hypotheticals, all in a very specific way.

The news had not been good. In theory, Phlox agreed that a Vulcan suffering from Pa'nar and showing symptoms Trip had described, may be suffering a progression of the disease. It was likely, given the disease's affect on the neural pathways and the endocrine system, that a Vulcan experiencing extreme stress, would suffer progression of the disease. It could also create a kind of negative feedback loop, in which the stress triggered the disease; which would affect sleep, meditation and appetite; which would in turn increase stress; which would cause further progression of the disease and so on.

Yes the progression could be rapid. Yes, treatment provided early enough will prevent permanent damage. No, any treatments the, hypothetical Vulcan already had would not address the current imbalance. Said Vulcan would need to consult a medical professional and have a serum formulated specifically to balance precise enzymes and hormones that had fluctuated in response to the stress event. No there is no Doctor on Vulcan that can treat the disease, the only Vulcan he knew of that researched this syndrome worked at a private institute on a colony.

Yep, that call had been deeply unsatisfactory. Now the mother of that self same 'hypothetical' Vulcan was examining him like a lab specimen. To make matters worse he couldn't figure which was worse: if T'Pol never forgave him for telling her mother about her illness; or if he never forgave himself for not telling her. It occurred to him there was nothing T'Les could do even if he did tell her, it would only add to everyone's worry.

"I have a friend, who's ill. I was just following up on her condition." He told T'Les eventually. Not a lie, but not the truth. T'Les didn't have to be an expert in human body language to know that Trip was equivocating. She deduced he had sought some kind of advice about T'Pol's odd behaviour but if he declined to tell her it remained his private business.

"I thought you would like to know that the negotiations were completed today." In the end T'Les was Vulcan and one did not pry into the private matters of others, no matter what their species. "T'Pol and Koss will perform the ceremony tomorrow."

"So soon?" Trip's face was a study of grief. It didn't take a student of human emotions to identify it.

"It would be illogical to delay." Her eyebrows arched, questioning his surprise. To her the timing was obvious, there was nothing to wait for. Vulcans approached weddings in same way they approached all things, without emotion.

"Koss has agreed to waive, for one year, the requirement that T'Pol to reside with him. She has indicated her duties at Starfleet require her to report urgently to Earth and she has arranged transport for you both the day after tomorrow." This time Trip's eyebrows had gone up. Either T'Pol had told an outright lie, or T'Les was paraphrasing with impunity. Trip had thought about what T'Pol had told him three days ago.

"She won't come back here, you know, not as long as she's married to him." he told T'Les candidly. He figured T'Les should know she would never see her daughter again. "She's doing this for you, so you can get your job back. She's prepared to pay the price and marry him, but the price you have to pay is not seeing her again."

T'Les' expression did not change. "I had deduced that that was her intention" Vulcans lived a long time, they learned to use never carefully. "Her life will be longer than yours, at least this will leave her the option to return if she desires it".

"Isn't there any other way?" He suddenly asked, desperation making him more human in his interactions.

T'Les regarded him frankly. There was, of course, another way. It would seem barbaric to a human but it was accepted as part of Vulcan culture. She had debated whether to provide him this information, but her observation that T'Pol was not coping with the idea of marriage had made up her mind. She would supply the human with this knowledge of Vulcan tradition. What he did with it would be his decision.

"There is the kal-if-fee." Trip looked up sharply. Perhaps there was hope.

"What? What is that. Why aren't we doing that?" Trip was like a condemned man being offered a stay of execution.

"It is the challenge. Another potential mate may challenge Koss for the right to T'Pol's hand." She could see the hope in Trip's face. It was illogical that he did not deduce there was a fatal disadvantage to the Kal-if-fee, or T'Pol would have declared it immediately. "The two males must fight to the death for the right to mate with the female."

To the death! Trip's mouth hung open, his eyes wide. He considered fighting Koss to the death. As a Vulcan Koss would be stronger and better adapted to the environment than Trip. But Trip had recent training in hand-to-hand combat. Maybe he could take him, but what if he failed. T'Pol would still have to marry the guy. He shook himself, surprised at how easily he accepted the idea of killing someone to keep T'Pol safe. He looked up at T'Les who was observing him as the emotions passed over his face while he assessed his options. Suddenly a pertinent factor occurred to him and she noted the evidence of it in his expression. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. "I guess Koss' father is pretty unlikely to give you your job back if I kill his son?"

"It does seem improbable." She agreed with a slight sparkle in her eye. Trip detected just a hint of amusement in her voice it could be the obviousness of his statement or perhaps it was his assumption that he could kill Koss.

T'Les watched the human as he considered his options and was surprised at the certainty that, whatever course he chose, it would be the one which he assessed as being in the best interests of her daughter. She realised that she respected this human. Once she had been advised to look past her prejudices against his species, she had discovered an intelligent, honourable man who would be a good mate to her daughter. She must content herself with that.

Trip smiled at her sadly. "So, what do you wear to a Vulcan wedding?"