Notes: My main Andorian character, Tholos, appears in two episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise - The Andorian Incident and Shadows of P'Jem. In this chapter, Tholos thinks back on his first meeting with humans, which occurred in The Andorian Incident. I wanted to account for his less-than-admirable actions there in a believable way, but one that would also be consistent with my development of his character.
Acknowledgements: Thank you to my proof-readers, editors, advisers, and all-around supporters - Casper, Chelsea, and Olivia! You guys are the best!
Responding to the Reviews:
To: That Fragile Capricorn: thank you so much for commenting! I appreciate both your enthusiasm and the corrections you offered. I'm so glad that you are enjoying the fiction, and hope to bring you more Tholos/Elinor interaction soon!
To: thatfriendlyghost: thank you for another comprehensive review - I really appreciate the time you take to go through both your general responses as a reader, and your thoughts as a writer. I haven't had the chance yet to go back and look at all of your specific points - I wanted to get chapter four posted! - but I will soon. As always, keep the thoughts coming - I do value your feedback!
Chapter IV: Shadows in the Mist
The rain had stopped by the time Tholos emerged from the medical clinic, but the nighttime air was still redolent with moisture. A thick fog had settled over the Shengars, shrouding everything in a disorienting white mist that muffled sound and disguised shape. The clinic stood in a small hollow on the border between the north and south parts of the district, not far from the banks of a murky river that ran out from the city and down to the nearby sea. When there was fog, it was always particularly dense here. The commander grimaced in distaste at the feeling of the humid air on his antennae and skin. On Andoria, water was chiefly to be found in its frozen state, as ice or snow, although there were the occasional underground hot springs, kept active by the planet's abundant geothermal energy. Still, there was nothing at all akin to this cool, moderate moisture that settled on the skin like a wet film, clinging in such a way that it was not to be escaped or dislodged.
Standing just outside the gates of the clinic's compound, waiting once again for Mareg to join him, Tholos dismissed his discomfort with a flick of an antenna. Behind him, inside the walls of the clinic, his comrade's life hung in the balance. Andorians rarely recovered from phase-related infection, once it set in, and he had never seen a case worse than Kelev's. Be that as it may, now that he had shared his blood, there was nothing more that he could do for his friend and newfound brother, save leave him in the hands of Dr. Cameron and her assistant, and hope for the best. The doctor was an odd mix of timidity and firmness - nothing at all like an Andorian woman, he reflected - but she seemed competent enough. As for the enigmatic Connor Dowd, he was obviously more than just a nurse, although it seemed the doctor was unaware of that fact. It was a risk, trusting the humans to keep Kelev's presence a secret, but there didn't seem to be any other choice.
It should have come as a surprise to him to discover that a human doctor had opened a medical clinic in the Shengars, but somehow it didn't. Humans seemed to have a talent for popping up where you least expected them. Glancing around impatiently for his Coridanite contact - was the man ever on time? - Tholos thought back to his first encounter with humans, at the Vulcan monastery at P'Jem. The Ahm Tal had long had reliable information that their enemies were using the monastery as a cover for their spying on Andoria, but somehow the Guard had never been able to uncover their listening station. Acting on a tip from an informant who worked on one of the cargo ships supplying the monastery, Tholos had convinced his commanding officer to make one last attempt to discover the truth. Of course, Commander Shran hadn't really required much persuasion, being as eager as his second to expose the Vulcans, inexplicably viewed by half the sector as paragons of honesty, in all their deceptive treachery.
Into this volatile situation had come the human Captain Archer and his officers, one of them a Vulcan. Members of an alien species never before encountered by Andorians, the pink-skins had seemed in league with the enemy, and their professions of innocence, their claims that they had been prompted to visit P'Jem by simple curiosity, had been treated with the scorn such seemingly obvious lies had deserved. Tholos had certainly not believed their protestations, and had even suggested beheading a few monks, during Commander Shran's interrogation of the human captain. What were a few Vulcan monks more or less, after all? Unlikely as it seemed, however, the arrival of Archer and his subordinates at that time had indeed been by purest chance. Visiting an alien shrine because one happened to be passing by was just the sort of thing a human was likely to do, he had subsequently learned.
New to spacefaring, their species seemed eager to see everything they could, and willing to believe that everyone they met was a potential friend. Even after their own rough first contact, in which Archer had been assaulted (and his science officer deliberately insulted), when the truth about the monastery had emerged, they had taken sides with the Andorians. They had a sense of honor, even if that honor was not Andorian, and they clung to it in the face of every challenge. Shortly after being beaten by Shran, Archer had been determined to do his attacker's people justice. He had also, despite numerous professions of distaste for the Vulcans, been willing to defend his Vulcan science officer, both from Tholos himself, intent on provoking a response from the monks with his suggestive comments, and later on, from her own people. They had a way of defying expectations, these humans, with their desire to know the cosmos, and their unlooked-for generosity toward friend and foe alike. No doubt Dr. Cameron's presence on Coridan was yet another example of the human passion for exploration and seemingly inexhaustible eagerness to come to the aid of everyone they met.
Tholos stiffened as he heard the sound of footsteps approaching. "Commander?" a soft voice enquired, and Mareg emerged from the fog a few feet away.
"Good, you're here," he replied, speaking just as quietly as his informant. The Shengars were a crowded place, and with this fog limiting his vision, it was difficult to see if anyone else was near. Annoying as it was, the commander realized suddenly, the mist might prove quite useful in the work before him that night.
"How did you find Commander Kelev?" the Coridanite man asked.
"Not well," Tholos replied briefly, before turning fully to face the other man. "I thank you for caring for him this last month."
"It was my brother Lorat who found him, and his family who took him in. I spend most of my time at the compound with the Rashan."
"Thank your brother for me," Tholos replied, uncomfortable with the knowledge that he owed his informant's family such a debt. He would have to repay it somehow...
"He was glad to do it," the Coridanite replied. "Commander Kelev is well liked." He stopped there, although his listener immediately understood the unspoken, perhaps even unconscious addendum that he, Tholos, was not as well liked. The Andorian commander was not offended. From the time he had first known him, Kelev had been the more popular of the two. His antennae almost wiggled in amusement. The more popular?! It wouldn't have taken much to be more popular than he had been, with his Dara background and his naturally taciturn demeanor. Kelev, on the other hand, had a way of winning the immediate confidence, even affections, of those around him, regardless of the keth from which they came, or the position they held in society. Apparently the trend even extended to aliens! Perhaps it was because of the unfeigned interest he had in everyone he met, although his charm went a long way as well, Tholos thought sourly.
"Where is the drinking establishment you mentioned?" the commander asked, turning to the business at hand.
"To the north of here, perhaps a ten minute walk."
"And the men who attacked Kelev will be there?"
"Yes. They like to drink there most nights, before returning to the compound."
"You can point them out to me?"
"Yes, Commander," Mareg replied, before he turned and, gesturing for the Andorian to follow him, walked back into the mist.
Following closely behind the informant, lest he lose sight of him in the fog, Tholos strained to distinguish the sounds of activity around him. These odd and uncomfortable conditions didn't just impede his normally sharp vision, they also distorted sounds, making it difficult to determine whether he was hearing something close by, or whether it was occurring farther away. Still, what blinded him also blinded his enemy, and he would have the advantage of surprise on his side. Flicking his antennae - futilely, as the cool moisture that clung to them remained unaffected - he kept his eyes on the man ahead of him.
Not for the first time, he found himself wondering what drove someone such as Mareg to join a dissident faction like the Rashan in the first place, if he was willing to betray its cause for money. His kind was useful to the Ahm Tal, of that there was no doubt, but why did they do it? Was it simple opportunism? A matter of taking the best option at any given time, and continually changing one's loyalties, depending upon who was offering the greatest reward? If the Coridanite's only concern was getting a reward, why hadn't he and his brother turned Kelev over to Toran and the men he had dispatched to attack the alien in their midst? If, on the other hand, the man had some notion of honor, however unlike it might be to his own idea of honor, why was he selling secrets for money? It made no sense.
Realizing that he was starting to think in circles, Tholos flicked his antennae in an impatient gesture of dismissal. It was enough to know that such people were not Andorians. Ahead of him, he could hear the sound of talking and singing. Mareg slowed, and motioned him off the path.
"It's just ahead, Commander," he whispered, gesturing toward the source of the noise. Tholos could hear voices raised, and glasses clinking. "The men you're looking for should be coming out soon. Toran doesn't like them to be absent from the compound for that long."
"Won't he question your own absence?" Tholos whispered back.
"Everyone knows Lorat lives in the district, and that I spend time with his family. When I'm not at the compound, they assume I'm with him."
Tholos nodded, and the two men stood silently, side by side at the head of an alleyway branching away from the main path. Soon the sound of voices raised in farewell could be heard, and three burly Coridanite men came through the mist, their voices slurred, and their steps somewhat unsteady. Mareg nodded at the men, and Tholos nodded back, to indicate he understood. The informant made a movement with his hand - a gesture of farewell?- and turned, silently walking away up the alley. Tholos drew his hrisal, and fell into step behind his quarry.
The men walked single file, the first and obviously most alert in front, with the other two straggling behind. The man at the rear, the one directly in front of Tholos, staggered, leaning against a nearby wall, and the Andorian commander's antennae curled in on themselves. It was almost too simple, he thought in disgust. The man in the front called back to the others, urging them onward. Soundlessly, Tholos stole closer to his target, waiting for him to respond to the leader.
"I'm coming, curse you!" the man shouted, his words muffled by the fog, and slurred by his own inebriation. Standing directly behind him, Tholos waited until he heard the sound of the others continuing on their way. Then, reaching around the man, he took him in an iron grip, crushing his throat and cutting off his air so quickly that he was unable to make a sound. With a quick, vicious thrust, he stabbed the man through the heart, holding him tightly in the brief moment it took his body to stop shaking, and then lowering him silently to the ground. Quickly, aware that his other targets were still on the move, he placed the body by the side of the path, arranging it to look as if the man had passed out, and set out again in pursuit.
It wasn't honorable combat, but then, these men weren't worthy of a traditional challenge. They had been ready enough to attack Kelev while he lay unconscious, and now they'd pay the price. The second man was dispatched in much the same fashion as the first. Quick and neat work, hidden by the fog and accomplished in total silence, it was far too easy to offer much of a challenge, especially for an operative of Tholos' training and experience. Arranging his second target much as he had the first, the commander removed a flask from the dead man's pocket, swiftly uncorking it and sprinkling its contents over the body. The scent of sour alcohol was almost overpowering, and the Andorian's antennae curled in on themselves again, almost as if seeking to escape the nauseating odor. Any passerby would be sure to smell the corpse well before stumbling upon it, and would no doubt take it for one of the district's many drunkards, passed out on his way home from the local drinking hole. Wiping his hrisal on the inside of the man's jacket, Tholos stood and set out through the mist, once again in pursuit.
The leader hadn't called back to his fellow drinkers again, no doubt impatient with their slowness, and willing to consign them to whatever fate lay in store for latecomers at the Rashan compound. Little did he imagine, Tholos thought with grim amusement, as he swiftly and silently approached him from behind, that none of them would be making it back at all. This one was far more alert, the Commander realized, his steps steadier, his reflexes undoubtedly sharper. Gripping his hrisal, he sped up, shifting from a loping jog into a flat sprint. One minute the Coridanite was plodding comfortably along, the next a blue shadow emerged from the mist behind him, knocking him flat on his stomach. Feeling a knife at his throat, the man ceased his struggles.
"Don't be a fool," he gritted out. "I'm a lieutenant in the Rashan! It will be more trouble than it's worth, killing me."
Tholos sneered. No doubt the man took him for a thief. "It is you who are the fool, for attacking the Andorian," he said softly, wanting at least one of the men he killed that night to know why he was dying.
Realizing who was holding him down, the man began to struggle anew, but it was already too late. Tholos slit his throat the next instant, muffling the man's final cry with his own scarf. Wiping his hrisal, he stood looking down at the man, feeling oddly dissatisfied. Thinking of Kelev, fighting even now to stay alive, he wished these men's deaths could have taken longer, been more painful. As always, though, duty came first, and he had a lot to accomplish on Coridan. Bending, he grasped the still-warm body and slung it over his shoulder. There was a marshy area between the Shengars and the sea that was infamous as a dumping ground for corpses, where the quicksand pits made short work of anything cast into them. He'd need to move quickly, if he was to dispose of all three bodies before dawn...
0-0-0
Elinor was exhausted. She had been up all night, working with Connor to stabilize Commander Kelev's condition, and to get the outside utility shed set up as a temporary treatment room. Fortunately, because it housed the compound's generator, the shed had a power supply, and they had been able to set up a small device that would allow them to monitor the Andorian's vital signs in the hours and days ahead. The main sorting table had been cleared of the supplies normally stacked upon it, and converted into a temporary bed. The patient was resting upon it now, made as comfortable as possible by the two humans caring for him.
The treatment they had administered for his fungal infections had been brief and uncomplicated, at least in comparison to the lengthy process of trimming the necrotic flesh from his many wounds. Although she had administered an initial painkiller when Kelev had first been delivered to the clinic, Elinor had been hesitant to give him another, even though her use of the laser scalpel in cutting away his dead tissue must have been very painful. With all the shocks his system had sustained of late, it seemed wiser not to give him anything that might have a sedative effect. Despite that fact, her patient had shown no hint of waking during the procedure, nor when Connor had carried him out to the shed. He lay so still now, as she stood gazing down at him, that were it not for the low beep of the monitoring device, she might have taken him for dead.
Elinor turned slightly at the sound of the shed door being opened. Her assistant walked in, carrying the counter-top stasis unit with Commander Tholos' blood in it. How odd it had been, she thought to herself, that the Andorian had hesitated to donate, when Kelev was his brother! Given his strange paralysis upon entering though, perhaps it hadn't been unwillingness, but rather an after-effect of shock.
"We'll be all set up in a moment, Doc," Connor said, his cheerful tone giving no indication that he too had been up all night. "Have you ever given a transfusion to an Andorian before?"
"No, I have only read about it, and watched a holo-vid of the procedure. Fortunately, it isn't very complicated." As the nurse took out the first vial of blood and handed it to her, she reflected on the very different circulatory system that the Andorians possessed. With only a few veins, all deeply embedded in the torso, and far from the surface of the skin, it was impossible to give or take blood in the same way one did with humans and many other humanoid species. She would have to inject this fresh supply intramuscularly, and trust that it would disperse naturally.
"I think it would be a good idea to change the security code on the shed," Connor said quietly, watching her work. "That will prevent Dr. Togar from accidentally stumbling across our patient. If he should discover that we have a new code, we can always say that we changed it after noticing some disreputable characters hanging about, last night." Pausing, the nurse added with a slight smile, "It wouldn't be that far from the truth..."
"I don't understand why all this secrecy is necessary, Connor," Elinor replied, reaching for the next vial of blood. "I feel ridiculous, going to such lengths to hide Commander Kelev's presence. We've treated men here before that we suspected were criminals or insurgents, and never needed to hide it from Dr. Togar. Surely an Andorian commander is no different."
Connor hesitated for a moment, and Elinor unexpectedly thought of her brother. Alex would often pause in just that way after she'd said something he considered particularly naive, as if wondering how best to explain matters to her.
"The Andorians aren't meant to be here, Doc," he said after a moment, "and I don't just mean because they have no official diplomatic presence on Coridan. One of their treaties with the Vulcans - the Tau Ceti Accords, I think? - explicitly forbids them from interfering in Coridanite affairs. They do anyway, of course, and everyone knows it, but there's a big difference between knowing that something illicit is going on, and having concrete evidence of it. It could lead to quite the diplomatic incident if Commanders Kelev and Tholos were found here, especially in light of this new United Federation of Planets we've all entered into."
Elinor flushed in embarrassment. She really shouldn't have needed that spelled out, she realized belatedly. After all, she'd read the security dossier that Alex had prepared for her, when he'd finally realized that she couldn't be talked out of departing for Coridan. He'd hoped to prepare her for the reality on the ground, she thought fondly, even if he hadn't quite approved of her mission, or had much confidence in her ability to process everything he'd shared. She'd always been hopeless at that sort of thing, utterly oblivious to the political maneuvers and diplomatic subtleties that were the all-consuming preoccupation of most of the Cameron clan. With a mother who was an influential member of the United Earth Parliament, and a father who served as an admiral in Starfleet Intelligence, her childhood had unfolded against a backdrop of high profile political and security affairs which, whether discussed openly around the dinner table or treated with scrupulous silence, had dominated the family home.
Alex had been ideally suited to such an environment, always managing to be well informed about the latest parliamentary campaigns, always familiar with the changing face of interstellar geopolitics. Whether they were her mother's many political cronies or her father's Starfleet colleagues, her brother invariably knew who their parents' guests were and what to say to them. He'd never seemed to have trouble keeping everyone straight, nor had he ever been uncomfortable chatting with any guest in the Cameron home, no matter how celebrated or influential. From the time he was a young child he'd been the darling of their parents' circle, and their father had been known to declare, a note of pride in his voice, that Alex had begun networking with Starfleet's Admiralty before he had even entered high school.
With Elinor, it had been another matter altogether. Hopelessly tongue-tied in the presence of the many great personages that passed through the family household, she had been like a silent shadow in their midst - the quiet Cameron girl. She never had any idea what to say, and the few times she had opened her mouth it had inevitably led to disaster. There was the time she had inadvertently insulted the MP from eastern Brazil by mistaking him for his colleague from Venezuela, when apparently the two were bitter political rivals. The feud between the men had been in all the newsfeeds, and it had only been with the greatest difficulty that Grace Cameron had convinced her colleague that Elinor's mistake had not been meant as an act of deliberate insolence. Then there was the time she had offered chocolate to a staff-member from the Vulcan consulate, blissfully unaware that the cacao bean had an intoxicating effect on Vulcanoid physiology, and that the staffer in question was noted for his stiff propriety and disdain for human frivolity.
She was never sure which was worse: the astonished and vaguely contemptuous impatience with which her family greeted each new case of awkward bumbling, or the eventual entertainment that such incidents provided to the entire clan, when they were shared at family gatherings. She could just hear her mother now, relating the tale of Elinor's latest social faux pas, her smooth, cultured voice full of amusement...
"Doc?" Connor spoke gently, as if worried that he had somehow upset her, and Elinor gave herself a mental shake. This wasn't the time to be indulging in maudlin reminiscing about the difficulties of growing up in a family of politically active super-achievers. I'm here on Coridan to get away from all that, she reminded herself, to make my own way.
"Of course you're right," she said. "I just don't like the idea of lying to Dr. Togar, when he's always been such a supportive partner. If it weren't for his involvement in that last phase of our negotiations, I'm not sure that the Coridanite government would have allowed us to set up the clinic at all."
"Doc Togar is a great man, for sure. But we really had no other choice. I don't think Tholos would have let us continue treating Commander Kelev, if we hadn't agreed to keep his presence a secret."
Elinor sighed, and murmured in assent, knowing that the nurse was correct. It seemed that, whether she'd wanted to or not, she'd gotten herself involved in some political maneuvering after all. Suddenly recalling her conversation the night before with their Andorian visitor, she turned to her assistant. "Connor, are you armed?"
Her assistant hesitated for a fraction of a second, his eyebrows raised. "What makes you ask that, Doc?"
"Commander Tholos said that you were, when I told him we were here to help people, rather than to fight them."
"Trust him to know," the nurse replied dryly, his lips twitching in amusement.
"Then you are armed?!" Elinor asked again, too astonished to hide her incredulity.
"Sure, and it seemed a reasonable precaution to take, Doc, given that our clinic is located right in the middle of the most dangerous area on the planet. We're surrounded by Coridan's most notorious smugglers, black-market profiteers and terrorists - we need to be able to defend ourselves." Seeing her look of alarm, he hastened to add: "We need to stay safe ourselves, or we won't be of much use to anyone else, Doc. It's nothing to fret over, I know what I'm about."
Connor's gentle, patient tone made Elinor feel foolish once again, and she realized with chagrin that it had been naive - extremely naive, given her family background - not to have been aware that her own lack of concern for security wasn't shared by everyone. She thought once again of Alex, who had been inordinately preoccupied - or so it had seemed to her, at the time - with the issue of her safety before her departure from Earth. She had to admit, thinking of the brutal attack on Commander Kelev, and the sudden surprise visit from Tholos the evening before, that she felt a little bit shaken, and even a little grateful to have someone around who knew how to fight. She certainly wasn't any good at it, despite all of Alex's efforts to convince her to take up martial arts as a teenager, or to learn how to shoot a phase pistol while in college.
Laying her hand on the nurse's arm, she looked up at him. "I know you want what's best for me, and for the clinic, Connor, and I do appreciate it," she said warmly. "I just don't want us to develop an adversarial relationship with the locals, or to think of them as the enemy. We're here to help the people of Coridan, and to build bonds of trust and friendship with them."
The Irishman smiled down at her. "I'm with you, Doc! If I believed any different, I wouldn't have signed on. I just think we need to take some basic security precautions as well."
Elinor couldn't help smiling in return. Somehow, with his quiet confidence and easygoing charm, Connor always managed to make her feel better, even in the midst of a crisis. "You're just like my brother, Alex!" she declared with a laugh. "He's always trying to find ways to protect me from myself as well!" To her surprise, the Irishman flushed a bright red, and looked embarrassed for a moment. Then he grinned down at her, and gave a mocking miniature salute.
"All right then, little sister, I'll be taking this stasis unit back into the clinic. Dr. Togar should be arriving soon, and I want everything to look normal." Picking up the unit, he smiled down at her again, before turning and heading for the door.
Left alone in the shed with her patient, and the soft beeping of the monitoring device, Elinor reflected once again on how lucky she had been to find someone like Connor. Her family, aghast at the notion of her setting up shop in the notorious slums outside of Coridan's capital city, had wanted her to take a dedicated security specialist along with her. She'd refused, of course, insisting that all she needed was a nursing assistant. How fortunate that that assistant had turned out to be Connor! He was like a nurse, mechanic and security guard, all rolled into one.
Absorbed in these thoughts, Elinor was turning to leave herself when she heard the sound of movement and a low groan behind her. Whirling around, she saw that her patient was half awake, struggling to move. His antennae were twitching, while his hands were patting the surface of his temporary bed, as if trying to ascertain what he was lying upon. Rushing over, she laid a gentle hand on the Andorian's shoulder. "It's all right, Commander Kelev, you're safe here," she said reassuringly. Then, seeing that he was attempting to speak, she leaned down.
"Where am I?" the man asked, his voice a hoarse and raspy whisper. "And who are you? What have you done with Lorat?"
"You're at the free medical clinic here in the Shengars, Commander. My name is Elinor Cameron - I'm one of the doctors who run the clinic." Seeing his confusion, as he attempted to process what she was saying, she continued: "I don't know who Lorat is, but you were brought into the clinic last night by two Coridanite men. They said they found you, after you were attacked."
The Andorian's eyes fluttered open, looking up at Elinor blurrily. "You're human," he croaked out.
"Try not to talk," she replied, walking over to the nearby sink to get some water. Returning with a glass, she helped Kelev to lift his head enough to take a sip. "You need to rest quietly, and grow stronger. We're treating your phase infection as best we can."
The blue-skinned alien looked up at her, his gaze already sharper. "There is no treatment, Doctor," he said briefly, before closing his eyes again, as if even their brief exchange had exhausted him. He opened them again immediately, however, looking up at her intently. "When I die, I need you to pass along a message for me..."
"You are not going to die!" Elinor said sharply, unaccountably angry at the very suggestion. "You've survived too long to give up, especially now that you'll be receiving proper medical treatment."
"Doctor..." the Andorian began again, his patient tone so similar to the one Connor had taken a few minutes before, that Elinor felt the urge to throw something.
"You are not dying," she interrupted again, forgetting for a moment, in her passionate denial, that she herself had thought Kelev looked more dead than alive, just a short time before. "Your brother was here last night, and he donated his blood to you. Surely you want to live long enough to see him again?"
The commander went very still, looking up at Elinor with a searching gaze. "My brother...?" he repeated questioningly, almost as if he were tasting the word for the first time.
"Commander Tholos..."
This time it was Kelev who interrupted. "Tholos was here?" he asked, an intense, almost fierce note in his voice.
"Yes," Elinor said slowly, sure there was something about the Andorian's reaction she was missing.
"And he called me brother?"
"Yes."
"He gave his blood for me?"
"Yes," Elinor replied, continuing, "so you see, you cannot die..." But it was clear that her patient was no longer listening. His gaze was fixed on something she could not see, and he had an odd smile - half amused, half pleased - on his face.