—Chapter 14—
As Soval had predicted, a decision was quickly reached in the disposition of T'Pol's case for Vulcan law was clear on the matter, and so Soval had rendered invitation and sent a hire-car for Trip the next morning, which brought the Human to his house to confer in private.
"I love the house," said Trip, speaking truthfully, as Soval's Post-Reformation styled house was elegant, well-lit and attractively furnished. "Give it to me, Soval. I want it!"
"I will consider your request," said Soval, privately amused. "Come now, let us talk over brunch."
The Ambassador led Trip out to the smaller patio which was well shaded and constantly ventilated by the prevailing breeze, and better suited for intimate discussions. Once Trip was seated and comfortable, Soval excused himself, only to return a few minutes later with two covered trays, one stacked atop the other.
"You cook?" said Trip.
"I do not, but a restaurant I favor offers delivery service. Let me get the tea," said Soval, and then left, only to return briskly with two large glasses of mango infused iced tea.
"You need not have waited," said Soval.
Trip waved off the Vulcan's words, and removed the covers from the food trays and then set them aside, looking curiously at Soval's choices. It was the typical Vulcan meal. Rice, a legume dish, two braised vegetables dishes, a deep fried dough pocket stuffed with spiced potatoes, onions and chickpeas, a fresh salad, some pickled vegetables in a light sweet vinegar, and best of all, a large square of coconut cream pie.
Noting Trip's pleasure, Soval said, "A taste of home for you, Captain Tucker. I understand that you have a sweet tooth."
"I do," said Trip. "Thank you, Soval."
The ambassador nodded, and after they dug into the food, Trip looked at Soval and nodded appreciatively.
"This is very good," said Trip.
"Yes," said Soval, "but I did not bring you here for the food. As I suspected, T'Pol's logic was found flawed, and her engagement to Koss has been reaffirmed."
Trip nodded, for he'd expected as much since coming home, and finding T'Pol gone to court.
"There is more," said Soval. "The Bonding ceremony is scheduled ten days from now."
"May I impose on you to be at the ceremony, and translate for me, Soval? It will be more fitting, than fiddling with a translator app."
"Yes," said Soval, "I will be there, Captain Tucker."
"Is T'Pol returning home until the ceremony?" said Trip.
"No," said Soval. "She has been invited to remain in seclusion until she is Bonded."
Trip cut trough Soval's diplomatic speak, to arrive at the truth: T'Pol would be detained and the court's decision would be enforced. T'Pol would be Bound to Koss, and then the matter would be concluded, so far as the courts were concerned. After that it was a private matter.
"Wonderful," said Trip.
"Yes, it is wonderful," said Soval. "Because you have things to learn, in the brief time you have left before T'Pol's Bonding ceremony."
T'Pol sat cross legged on the floor of her suite which had been provided for her as part of the court's proceedings, and she was frustrated, for despite having sought the peace of meditation, it had eluded her the entire morning, as it had the night before, and likely would this coming night.
An hour later, when T'Les had come to spend the day with her daughter she had been dismayed by T'Pol's conduct, for her daughter paced the room restlessly like a caged animal, and when T'Les made mention of the dress she'd brought for T'Pol to try on, T'Pol had ripped the dress, and hustled T'Les from the room.
T'Les returned hours later, and if T'Pol was less agitated, she was also dismissive, sarcastic and unpleasant over the whole matter of being Bonded to Koss. The only thing which interested T'Pol was the doings of Captain Tucker, and T'Les had nothing for T'Pol on that front, as the man had been completely absent from the house. All she could tell T'Pol was that Captain Tucker was with Soval, doing only Surak knows what, and T'Pol was clearly disappointed that he had not sent a note for her with T'Les. Noting the bitterness of that disappointment, T'Les questioned for the first time in her own mind, if a match between Koss and T'Pol was still a proper match.
The intervening days passed passed too quickly for Trip, but soon enough the day appointed for the Bonding ceremony arrived, and as the sun rose, it lit up the Vor'esh Temple grounds and a larger than expected crowd, but then T'Pol had held Surak's katra when Syrran died, and she had brought his katra from the Forge for the benefit of her people, so the crowd was composed not only of members of her clan and Koss's, but also a large number of political dignitaries and representatives of some of the more notable clans on Vulcan. It was through this crowd that Trip slipped onto the temple grounds almost unnoticed, though his companion, Soval, was widely noted and greeted respectfully, in view of that Vulcan's honorable service, and long career.
While the crowd milled about the temple grounds, politely socializing, T'Pol stewed in one of the private rooms as a beautician artfully applied her skills to make an already beautiful Vulcan, even more striking, but T'Pol could not have possibly cared less, for she was angry at this enforced Bonding ceremony and she was angry at the fact that an unwanted intimacy with Koss would soon be thrust upon her this day, as his mind was linked to her's by a Vulcan priest.
Eventually, the time came to get this matter over with, and T'Pol walked through the temple halls guided by a young acolyte, and then she walked through the crowd of people, her eyes restlessly sweeping the crowd, in search of one face only and not finding it. Eventually, T'Pol made her way to the center, for Vulcan crowds invariably formed a circle for ceremonies, giving everyone a much better view of the proceedings, and from that place her eyes still swept the crowd for Captain Tucker: he had not abandoned her on the Seleya, and he would not abandon her here, and T'Pol wished only that this farce of a ceremony might be concluded quickly, so that she might take her leave of Vulcan by Captain Tucker's side.
Koss stepped up to her then, and after briefly glancing at his face T'Pol resumed looking for Trip, and finally found him walking with Soval, and her eyes followed them both until they took their seats next to T'Les. Soval made eye contact with T'Pol then, and nodded, but she only had eyes for Trip now, and it frustrated T'Pol that the man seemed to be consciously avoiding direct eye contact with her after sparing her a brief glance and a smile. When one of the officials coordinating this event stood in front of Captain Tucker for a bit, blocking off T'Pol's view of the man, she was unduly agitated and willed the Vulcan to move, move, move!
Koss, noted T'Pol's intensity, turned his head and followed her gaze, then turned back to T'Pol, and said, "You are shaming yourself, T'Pol. Try to remember where you are, and the purpose which brought us here."
T'Pol, looked up and said, "A constable brought me here, Koss, and you should remember the warning I gave you. Once this ceremony is concluded, I will take my leave of you, and Vulcan. As promised, when your time comes, and the pon'farr takes you, I will be nowhere to be found."
Koss gave a slight grimace at that, and said, "Once we're Bonded, that tie will bring you back to me when the time comes. Have no fear of that."
"So you say," said T'Pol, "but if the call is truly that undeniable, I'll vent myself out an airlock, before I yield to you."
Koss blanched slightly at that, then said, "We will see about that T'Pol, but what will be is already set. Now show some decorum, lest you shame your clan, and mine!"
T'Pol had a stinging retort on her lips, but then the Arbiter joined them in the center of the circle, and everyone fell silent.
Trip listened now through his comm's ear piece as the translation app did it's work, and Trip followed along as the Vulcan Arbiter droned on and on, towards the part of the ritual most pertinent to him and T'Pol. Finally, the Arbiter reached the proper stanza, and waited silently for a reply from the crowd, not truly expecting one, but the forms had to be followed.
"Now," said Soval, just before Trip was about to turn his head and question Soval.
Trip stood, followed closely by Soval, and every eye in the crowd turned to them.
"On behalf of Captain Charles Tucker, I extend challenge to Koss, for T'Pol's Bond," said Soval in Vulcan.
T'Pol had feared this possibility, and now that her fears were realized she could barely breathe, her gaze focused solely on Captain Tucker, and it would be fair to say that the already silent crowd was now stunned, although the Arbiter recovered first.
"The Human will have to verbally affirm your challenge, Soval," said the Arbiter. "Tell him the proper words in which to rende—"
Trip had gotten the gist of the Arbiter's words through his comm's ear piece , and looking directly at Koss, said, "Kal-If-Fee, Koss! Kal-If-Fee!"
The Arbiter spoke to Koss, and Koss nodded back to the official, and Trip knew that Koss had affirmed his will to answer the challenge.
"See that the testing ground is prepared," said the Arbiter to his underlings, and they rushed to obey.
"And what do you think that you are doing, Captain Tucker?" said T'Pau, who had rushed to Trip's side. "It will not further the relations of our two people's, when a StarFleet officer is killed by a Vulcan here today."
"I don't care about your political maneuverings, T'Pau," said Trip, as he'd taken a positive delight in tweaking T'Pau's nose for almost as long as he had known her: it was her disapproval of his relationship with T'Pol that started it all, but it had then taken on a life of it's own. "I've had enough of Vulcan to last me for a while, but I intend to take a hundred pounds or so of it with me, off-world."
An indignant T'Pau kept prattling on, a constant background noise expressing her disapproval of his actions, but Trip tuned her out, in favor of T'Pol, standing some fifty feet away, restrained by ritual, and guards in archaic Pre-Reformation costumes and carrying some impressive looking Vulcan polearms. Ritual demanded she go to the winner of the challenge, and she would remain where she stood until that victor was determined.
Since entering the ceremonial hall Trip had felt T'Pol's eyes intently focused on him, but he'd largely avoided them lest he be distracted and fumble the challenge, but he felt her eyes on him still, and finally allowed himself the pleasure of looking at T'Pol at length, brow raised in good imitation of her habitual mannerism. He expected to see condemnation in her eyes for his action, which she'd surely consider a foolish risk, and readied to respond to condemnation with an impudent grin which was certain to annoy her more, but instead T'Pol raised her right hand, and placed it over where a Human heart would be, a look of unadulterated love in her eyes. He gave T'Pol a slight smile in response, and would have gladly frittered away what time he had left before the contest gazing at T'Pol, but Soval interrupted their mutual admiration of the other.
"Captain Tucker," said Soval, "you do not have time to lose yourself in T'Pol's eyes. Remember what you have learned, and focus your mind!"
"Yes, Soval," said Trip, grateful for the ambassador's guidance.
For the past ten days he'd been privately tutored in the Vulcan lirpa by a skilled instructor procured by Soval. The lirpa was one of the two traditional weapons, other than the ahn'woon, with which a challenge would be conducted, and while Trip had seen the potential of the ahn'woon immediately, the intricacies of properly using a flexible weapon would take longer to learn than that of the lirpa, and so he'd gone with the lirpa, learning the basics of how to use lirpa versus lirpa, or lirpa versus ahn'woon, in case Koss chose that weapon.
Reaching into his pocket, Trip pulled out a Vulcan data chip: he held it out for Soval, and said, "In case I lose my head, this will cover the cost of my lessons, Soval."
Though Soval had laid out a tidy sum to secure the Vulcan instructor's services for ten days worth of twelve hour days, he waved at Trip, and said, "Put that away and quit wasting your time with trivial matters, Captain Tucker. Your instruction in the lirpa is more recent, but Koss will have been instructed in the use of traditional Vulcan weapons during his secondary education years, the lirpa amongst them, so focus on the matter at hand."
"Right," said Trip, pocketing the data chip.
Moments later, Trip was led away and given choice of less restrictive clothing, and he chose simply a pair of loose pants, navy blue, of some soft fabric, and a pair of thin soled, well fitting athletic shoes, and he did without a shirt, lest Koss use that shirt as a hold on him during the course of the fight. That done, Trip was shortly led to the testing grounds of the temple. The Vulcans were already there, Koss among them, and Trip was guided to the weapons rack, for both the ahn'woon and the lirpa came in a variety of sizes, and a number of configurations.
The ahn'woon was a flexible weapon composed of two weighted ends, joined by a variable length of tough fabric. The lirpa was composed of a hardwood shaft of variable length, capped at one end by a half-moon shaped axe head laid horizontally, while the other end was capped by a metal head, essentially a mace.
As the challenged, Koss chose first, and he selected an impressively sized lirpa, with a 14 inch wide ax blade, a five foot hardwood shaft, and an eight pound metal mace head. Koss verified its balance, then turned his back on Trip, and went to his appointed place. Trip estimated that the lirpa Koss had chosen weighed 18 to 20 pounds, and considered that too heavy even for a Vulcan, but if so, that was Koss's problem. Unless, that is, that Koss was confident enough in his skills to know that he could finish off his competition quickly, and there was no need to plan for an extended bout with an over heavy weapon. Now that was a troubling thought, as Trip was smart enough to know that if Koss managed to land a solid blow on him with that lirpa, it would become his problem: his last one.
For his own use, Trip chose the next to the smallest lirpa, a 4 pound model: 7 inch wide ax blade mounted atop a four foot shaft, with a two pound mace head on the opposite end. Trip then took his appointed place, glanced at T'Pol, noted her fixed gaze, and interpreted it correctly. She was terrified now, certain that he would soon be dead. She had no confidence that he would win. Great.
A gong sounded, and the Arbiter said, "Begin!"