Past Deeds
Bloody Norah, it's just a bloody bathtub! Malcolm berated himself mentally for his treacherous body, which gave away his terror by shaking and shivering. He realized that T'Pau had not let go of his hand, even though it was wet from ice-cold sweat rather than the hot water.
"We must look like quite the picture," he snorted, trying to hide his uneasiness behind British sarcasm. "Hoshi must be so pleased with herself. You couldn't have done it any better if you planned it. "
"I believe she did," T'Pau said, slowly releasing his hand. "She correctly surmised that I would be curious and try the facility in private. You meanwhile are a fighter. After having been seen quite vulnerable during the mind-meld, she foresaw that you would try to face your fear in private, trying to battle it, rather than repeating the mind-meld."
"By setting us up in here together, she didn't exactly improve the privacy part, did she?" he said, satisfied that the shivering started to subside.
"I believe that to be part of her plan," T'Pau analyzed. "Realizing that bathing without any clothing is a most agreeable sensation is a finding that I could have made in private, yet I would have escaped the real issue – being in company of others while doing so. I doubt I would have taken this course of action if I had known that I would not be alone. And I would venture to say that you might have backed out of your intention to overcome your fear if it wasn't for my presence."
"She had us worked out quite well," Malcolm said with admiration.
"Indeed," she agreed. "In hindsight it is now clear why the facility was available for booking so shortly after the end of the day shift – a time which would logically see it in high demand.
"And incidentally just before their usual congregation," Malcolm added with a sly grin.
"Do you think she is trying to impart some sort of message on us?"
Malcolm threw his head back in laughter. "Why do people think that Vulcans don't have a sense of humor?"
"We rarely get the chance to demonstrate the talent," T'Pau explained drily before fixing him with an inquisitive look. "How are you doing?"
"Better than I thought," Malcolm admitted. "Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea not to go in here alone. Once I am in the water, it's ok. The real test will be if I can get into it again."
"It can be easily tested." T'Pau said with a raised eyebrow.
"Righto…," Malcolm sighed and got out of the water.
=/\=
"Hostile contact on two-five-six mark three," the young Vulcan behind the tactical console reported calmly. "They are taking heavy fire."
"Bring us between them and the attacker," Lorian ordered with the calm of someone, who had commanded battles for almost a century. The distress call had reached them shortly after they started their first patrol flight. With two Kumari class cruisers, the two NX-class vessels Soyuz and Endurance and four D'Kyr class frigates, Lorian had a well balanced squadron at hand to save the beleaguered ship from the Romulan sneak attack. The decision to attack with just two war birds seemed patently illogical.
"Fire at will," Lorian ordered without looking back at the tactical console. Despite his relative youth, Lieutenant Lorak did not need any reassurance by the captain. Without answering the captain's command, he released a full volley of nine torpedoes at full spread, garnished with several blasts from the phase cannons.
"That was way too easy," Lorian muttered when the warbird exploded in a huge fireball. "Direct fire at second hostile."
Lorak still did not see any necessity in verbally acknowledging the Captain's orders and just carried them out in a calm and calculated manner. Despite the same payload as in the first volley, the second warbird merely took damage as opposed to the first one.
"As we thought," Lorian analyzed calmly despite the ship being rocked by disruptor hits. "They have taken the cloaking device out of some of their ships. Concentrate on their propulsion systems Lieutenant."
"Their shields are down to twenty percent, our own holding at sixty," Lorak reported when a second volley of torpedoes impacted the Romulan vessel.
"What is the status of the ship in distress?" the captain asked.
"They are venting atmosphere. The Tar'hana has docked with them to provide help.
"Keep them shielded," Lorian instructed Karyn Archer, who expertly flew without the need of constant directions. For someone used to keeping an ailing ship out of weapons range of Kovalaan battle cruisers, creative evasive maneuvers were second nature.
"Hostile destroyed," Lorak reported when the second warbird self-destructed after a crippling hit from Endurance's phase cannons.
=/\=
"Bloody hell," a shaking Malcolm swore as he lowered himself into the water for the fourth time. "How hard can it be to enter a bloody bath tub?"
"It is illogical to expect that you can overcome a life-long fear in just an hour," T'Pau said. "A promising start has been made however."
"Well, you seem to do quite well in comparison," Malcolm replied as the shaking subsided.
"A perk of being Vulcan," she explained dead-pan. "We are good at keeping up appearances. Just because you cannot see my uneasiness does not mean it doesn't exist."
"I can't really get my head around it," he confessed, trying to start a conversation to distract him from his fear. "What did the High Command gain from making Vulcans believe that taking off their clothes for a bath was deviant?"
"It was the most easily available false pretense to outlaw the ritual communal baths of Vulcan clans. I admit I did not make the connection until the Eldest Mother alerted me to it. "
"And in which way were naked Vulcans taking a bath threatening the High Command exactly?" Malcolm asked with a perplexed look.
"It was not the activity that threatened them, it was the fact that the clan members met at all," T'Pau explained. "When wars among clans were eradicated after the time of awakening, it was no longer necessary for clan members to settle within the clan's territory. Vulcans of this time do settle where it is convenient. Over the centuries the communal baths at the height of summer became the last congregation of the whole clan in one place. By eliminating this ritual the High Command had a most powerful tool to diminish the influence and social cohesion of the clans. "
"If it wasn't so dastardly, you could almost admire their cleverness," Malcolm said.
"Indeed," T'Pau agreed and an eyebrow rose when she saw three new entrants in the facility. Krei Charles, T'Pol and Hoshi stood near the pool. The humans wore most amused face expressions.
"I hope you've saved some hot water for us," krei Charles stated, while he removed his bathrobe. The three joined them in the bath tub.
T'Pau saw Hoshi take the place next to Malcolm where she rewarded him with a kiss. "I'm so proud of you."
"Don't praise me. Thank the young lady over there. Without her I would probably have backed out."
"How fortuitous then that there has been a 'misunderstanding' with the bookings," T'Pau said dead-pan, much to the amusement of the three humans.
=/\=
a week later...
Trip sat in his office, pleased with the progress over the last week. The ship was progressing faster than expected. Especially the seemingly inexhaustible Vulcans were a real asset. They easily pulled 24 hour shifts without looking as much as mildly tired. If they could keep up this rate of progress, the ship could well be finished ahead of time, but 10 years in the engineering corps had taught him not to be too optimistic, something could always go wrong.
On the private front things seemed to progress nicely, too. With all the entertainment facilities on the Galena, life on Jupiter station made him almost forget that they were at war. He was really happy for Malcolm, who seemed to make good progress in his quest to overcome his fear of water. He and T'Pau had become 'training partners' in their joint quest to overcome their specific fears associated with using the bathing facilities, occasionally joined by Hoshi, who would have to take over 'Malcolm watch' once T'Pau returned to Vulcan. They would commandeer the facility an hour before the usual neuropressure training with Hoshi making sure to keep the spa free at the time and he and T'Pol would join later.
Progress for Malcolm was slow, but steady. He still had problems entering the bathtub without either T'Pau or Hoshi nearby and everything deeper than 1.20m was basically impossible. An attempt to jump into the 'water hole' after a sauna session had ended in a massive panic attack after his head had been submerged in the water. But at least he was now able to enter the spa without freaking out and given enough time, he was sure that one day Malcolm would prevail over the traumatic experiences of his childhood.
In T'Pau's case he was willing to bet a substantial sum that her problem didn't even exist anymore. He was convinced that the petite leader of the High Council merely used 'getting used to it' and her status as the only companion beside Hoshi, whom Malcolm trusted enough to help him enter a bathtub, as an excuse to use the spa. Of course for someone supposed to out-Vulcan the rest of the planet it was somewhat difficult to admit to having taken a shining to skinny-dipping. The give-away was T'Pau's all too eager acceptance of T'Pol's offer to use T'Les' former house – now their possession – for a light spot of private, naked sun-tanning. It was hardly an activity she could enjoy in the council chambers, although he wouldn't put anything past the spunky youngster. After all she wasn't supposed to go on a bender with a bunch of Andorians either.
She was also hardly the only Vulcan, who had discovered how much 'agreeable time' could be spent in a facility with several bodies of water. T'Len was a rocket in the big swimming pool, making the best Humans and Andorians look like lame ducks and she and Sonos were regular users of the Spa, as were Amanda and Terval and if rumors about unmistakable noises were any indication, the Eldest Mother need no longer wonder if the two regarded mating a part of their courtship. Not that he would have pegged Amanda for the celibate type anyway.
Of course Feezal and whoever happened to be her troubadour of the day were regular items on Hoshi's booking list, too. Trip started to wonder if he and T'Pol were the only ones, who hadn't done the nasty in the sauna yet. He could definitely scratch Malcolm and Hoshi off the list after the two of them had 'discreetly retired' to the sauna last night, completely forgetting that he and T'Pol were still there. Thankfully T'Pau had already left. He certainly wasn't going to complain about T'Pol's enthusiasm once they had reached their quarters, though.
Chuckling he directed his stray thoughts back on the documents before him, which mainly were engineering reports about the ship's production and several research projects dealing with improving Malcolm's newly evolved force-fields and the in-organic matter re-sequencer.
The beep of the communications console interrupted his thought process. Pushing the connection button, he was greeted by the face of Admiral Gardner.
"Admiral."
"Fleet Captain, you have your offspring incoming with a Kriosian ship in tow."
Trip felt a distinct uneasiness.
"They had a run-in with a Romulan warbird and we want you to repair that ship. The Kriosians have so much Deuterium, it's coming out of their ears. We need to foster good relations with them, something I'm told you have a bit of a head start on."
"Why do they drag that thing here across half the galaxy," Trip asked. "We didn't exactly rebuild Salem One as a decoration."
"Tucker, First Monarch Kaitaama herself is on that ship," Gardner replied. "She was slated to arrive here a week ago for formal association talks between the Coalition and the Kriosian Empire. But that was before the Rommies decided to shoot at them. We can hardly park her on a remote outpost with someone as 'diplomatic' as Rear Admiral Zhukov."
"Archers logs said that you had struck some cord with her. We need your help on this one. None of us knows their secret hand shake," Gardner concluded bluntly.
"I'll do my best, Admiral," Trip sighed.
"See that you do. They'll arrive tomorrow," the Admiral said and terminated the connection.
"T'Pol's definitely gonna kill me," he groaned. "She's gonna kill me to death."
=/\=
T'Pau walked into the spa and to her surprise she only found Hoshi in it. When she had hung up her discarded bathrobe, she used the shower and joined Hoshi in the hot water of the bathtub.
"Are the others not coming?" she asked.
"I don't think so," Hoshi answered and T'Pau wondered why she was amused about the absence of her friends. "Trip, T'Pol and Malcolm have a bit of an emergency session. During the second year of our mission Trip rescued a princess from two abductors – a very cute princess."
T'Pau raised her eyebrow in curiosity.
"Well, we never really got the truth out of him, but Malcolm said that when they found them, there was little doubt they had become very close for a time."
T'Pau thought about that for a moment. She had gotten to know Hoshi good enough to deduce that her innuendo meant that she was convinced that krei Charles had engaged in sexual relations with another female.
"And that female is now coming to Earth," she guessed.
"She is," Hoshi confirmed. "It all happened before Trip and T'Pol became close. There's no doubt about Trip. T'Pol trusts him enough to be my practice target for neuropressure. That's how devoted he is to her, but we don't know about Kaitaama. Rumor is that she really took a shining to him and they are thinking about ways to let her down gently without causing an inter-planetary incident."
"It appears Vulcans are not the only species, who are adept at keeping up false appearances," T'Pau remarked drily. "Krei Charles obviously has a much more illustrious past than I thought. Malcolm is much less reserved than he usually appears and T'Pol is the most unusual Vulcan I have ever met. Only you seem to be one, who does not hide her true self, except perhaps your aversion to wearing clothes when not strictly necessary."
She was confused by Hoshi's silvery laughter. Obviously she was hiding an unexpected history, too.
"First of all," Hoshi said as she regained composure. "I'm pretty convinced you share that 'aversion', too. I think your problem to be in here without a swimsuit has been gone for days already."
T'Pau raised an amused eyebrow, but offered no comment.
"But you are wrong. I have quite an 'illustrious history' myself. Did Trip ever tell you that I was put on probation by Starfleet for breaking a superior officer's arm?"
"Certainly not," T'Pau said with interest. Listening to recollections of humans' past deeds had become a most interesting activity lately.
"Well, the official story that everyone except Malcolm believes in is that I ran a gambling scheme at the Academy. It wasn't strictly illegal, as gatherings were held only on weekends, but one of my superiors didn't like it and when we got into a fight I broke his arm."
T'Pau looked at the petite human female before her. Somehow it was hard to believe that the always friendly Hoshi would run semi-legal gatherings for people to engage in games of chance for monetary gain. And despite her slender appearance she was supposed to be a vicious fighter, too.
"The notion 'official story' suggests that this recollection of events is not entirely true."
"It isn't," Hoshi said with a giggle. "The truth is, I kicked the raw stuffing out of my superior when he tried to feel up my behind while I was performing a striptease."
"What is a striptease?"
"It's a form of dance during which one undresses in a suggestive manner," Hoshi explained and T'Pau's eyebrows threatened to circumnavigate her head.
"You undressed in front of an audience?" she asked in disbelief and saw Hoshi nod with a grin.
"The truth is, I have an exhibitionist tendency. That's people, who like to be looked at. And I like being naked. It certainly was a popular feature at the gatherings. But, as I said – I like being looked at, not touched, when I'm naked. That particular superior did not understand that distinction."
T'Pau looked at Hoshi with curious interest.
"There you have it," Hoshi said with a smile. "My dark secret is revealed."
"It becomes obvious why you prefer the official version of events. Knowledge that you used to undress for an audience would severely damage your authority."
Hoshi nodded. "From today's point of view it sounds like a silly idea, but back then I had an absolute ball."
"Like going to the antarctic with a group of Andorians," T'Pau replied in dry amusement. Hoshi laughed.
=/\=
"Are you really ok with this?" Trip asked, happy that T'Pol seemed less upset about the upcoming visit than he had feared. "What if she... I don't know... makes advances."
"That would be severely uncomfortable for you," T'Pol explained. "You know that our bond causes averse reactions if one of us is approached by others with intimate intentions."
"Don't remind me," Trip groaned, replaying the incident with a young civilian engineer, who didn't know that he was taken. Her blatant flirting had upset him badly. Her attention had made him physically sick and it had been a major pain in the back-side to let her down gently. And now it was the same all over again only that this time the woman would be a queen and they couldn't really afford to upset her.
Sighing, Trip sank down on his chair. "Hell, guess I'll just have to ride it out. It's not like I'm completely blameless in this. But one thing is clear. If I'm forced to choose between upsetting her or upsetting you, she won't like my answer."
"Neither would she like mine, if that decision changes," T'Pol answered hotly and Malcolm jumped over and took her hand.
"Calm down, T'Pol," he said soothingly, thinking calming thoughts. Their touch-telepathic contact allowed him to influence her at least slightly.
"Thank you, Malcolm," she said after regaining her composure. "I apologize."
"Mal, as long as she's here I want to have either you, Hoshi or T'Pau with T'Pol at all times," Trip said. "It'll be hard enough to turn her down without diplomatic consequences. I don't want T'Pol to kill someone on top of it."
=/\=
"Discovered a sweet tooth?" a voice said and T'Pau took her concentration off the piece of pecan pie before her. On the opposite side of the table sat krei Charles' father.
"I admit, although unhealthy, it is a most agreeable dish," she said.
"So, have you enjoyed your time here?" he asked.
"It was a most enlightening experience. The thought of my stay ending is actually quite disagreeable."
"You're the head of government, you could always decree to have your stay extended," he noted.
"My fellow clansmen have already had taken too much of their time solely for accommodating me. I do not wish to further impose on their hospitality. I have mastered the Eldest's challenges. It is time to return to Vulcan."
"Have you really mastered all challenges?" he asked. "I'd say you missed the most important one."
"I do not understand," she said, putting the fork down. Krei Charles' father remained a mystery to her. He used a sort of accent that made him hard to understand and by what she had learned about humans, that particular accent was associated with stereotypes of lacking intelligence and social skills, but he seemed to be a most intelligent individual.
"Well, how do you feel about going back, honey?" he asked.
"I do not wish to," she admitted after thinking about it. "The Eldest Mother challenged me to find my own identity and learn about humans, but the more I respect her wishes, the less I feel that her intention is being met."
"You'd rather be drinking with some Andorians on a foolish tour rather than meeting Ambassadors and petitioners all day. You think it is more than enough to decide on the lunch menu rather than deciding where the fleet goes," he claimed.
Thinking about it, she realized that he was right.
"Indeed."
"Well, honey, have you ever considered that this is what the Eldest Mother wanted you to find out? That you're not quite ready yet to lead the whole damn planet?"
"The Eldest used a similar logic."
"You look quite a deal younger than T'Pol, honey. And T'Pol is a young woman by human standards. For all I know about Vulcans, you could still be a teenager."
"I am thirty-three," she admitted. Considering that the older Charles was a clansman, it was not unseemly to divulge that information. "By Vulcan standards I have still seven years left until I reach full maturity."
"And they pressure you into leadin' the whole damn planet," she heard him say and saw an expression of genuine concern on his face. "Wouldn't it be better to use those seven years to do all the things that will be considered taboo once you're an adult?"
"I do not know if this will be possible," she admitted. "I grew up in the desert, far from civilization. I never received formal schooling. I have not learned any profession. If I were to depart from the High Council I would not have any means to provide for myself."
"Leave the providing to the four love birds," he dismissed her sentiment. "They all like ya a lot, as do my wife and me. That's six people lookin' out for ya. Wouldn't you think it was somewhat more logical to ditch that job o' yours and catch up on that lack of schooling?"
"I admit it is a viable alternative," she said, looking at this aging human with growing respect. Her mind ached at the thought of never having had such a considerate parent.
"I don't know your Eldest Mother," he explained. "But Trip thinks the world of her. If she is half as wise as Trip makes her out to be, she didn't send you here to become a better leader. She sent you here to find out that you shouldn't be leadin' yet in the first place."
"I begin to understand that," T'Pau said and following an impulse, she took his hand.
The gray-haired human smiled at her.
=/\=
"So you have finally realized child," the Eldest Mother said and T'Pau looked at the view screen with interest. She was sitting in her guest quarters on the ship called Fairbanks.
"Will it not diminish the standing of our clan if I resign?" T'Pau asked.
"Do not concern yourself with the standing of our clan," the matriarch demanded. "This is no longer a matter of holding power. The only thing at stake is your well-being, T'Pau-kan. Soval is the preferred candidate to follow you and his application is backed by several clans. He is the Vulcan with most experience in inter-species cooperation. You child, need to find your own identity. You rightly said that making up leeway on missed education is important. Charles, his parents, T'Pol and Lorian's En'ahr'at will support you."
"I am not comfortable imposing on their hospitality," T'Pau.
"Have you ever made the effort to talk to them about it?" T'Para admonished her. "Charles and T'Pol have offered to undergo a human ritual called adoption, which would legally declare them your parents. They consider your well-being with the same priority as if you were their child."
"I did not know that," T'Pau admitted.
"I do not think a formal ritual is necessary. You are less than a decade away from maturity. I did however consent to their petition to become your En'ahr'at."
"A most agreeable development," T'Pau conceded. "I have developed a great respect for them and krei Charles' parents."
"Then use the opportunity you are given, child," the Eldest demanded. "One day you will be asked to assume the post of First Minister again. Use the time to prepare yourself for that day."
"As you wish, Eldest Mother."
=/\=
Trip and T'Pol were hunched over the plans of the engine assembly, when the doors to his office opened. He looked back to see T'Pau enter. He turned around to greet her and to his surprise...
She hugged him.