Carlisle 2138


With a certain meditative care, T'Pol placed a series of books into the moving crate. Her books! Probably the very strangest thing about life in these grand rooms, in this grand house, in this chilly northern city was that somewhere along the way she had begun to acquire possessions.

The boy, Malcolm, owned so much that anything she expressed a particular interest in was tacitly declared hers, and not missed by him at all. And, if he saw anything strange about his possession acquiring some small aliquot of his other possessions, he made no mention of it.

She had learned a lot from the books, crammed as they were, with Imperial propaganda. For beneath the jingo and the bluster there was knowledge. The speed of light, the secret chemistry of plants, the beauty of light as it bounced around a portrait, the sublime rendered in white paint.

And now it was ending- this unexpectedly bearable life, was ending. Malcolm - and T'Pol with him- was being shipped across an ocean to the prestigious Imperial Military Academy, a position which must have been bought with money, rather than any particular promise on the boy's part. From what T'Pol could see, the boy's principal talent was enduring things.

Her books packed, T'Pol turned to her clothes. The boy's mother was apparently under the impression that clothes lasted for only three or four months. At the end of this period, the mother's entire wardrobe was replaced at considerable expense and it was from the discards that the boy was accustomed to clothing T'Pol - occasionally remembering to have things altered to fit her, but usually not. T'Pol folded each such garment into an efficient package and stacked them carefully next to the books.

A knock startled her. It was likely Lloyd, and the thought pleased T'Pol as she moved to the door.

But it wasn't Lloyd.

T'Pol had scarcely clapped eyes on The Father in the years she had lived in Carlisle - he had existed in this suite of rooms only as the ogre of the boy's rantings- but there was no mistaking him. He stared at T'Pol in a way which made her acutely aware, and vaguely horrified, that she was wearing his wife's old clothes.

"Do you know how expensive you were?" he slurred. "No of course you don't. A creature like you could never understand that sort of money. You are fit, though, aren't you? Wasted on that mewling pup of mine, that's for sure."

The world seemed to slow as he grabbed her. You could kill him, she thought, But then you would be killed. And first you would be made to suffer more than you are now. Do you want to live?

She refused to let the thought go. She grabbed on to it, put it to work, spinning around and around in her mind. She refused to notice anything else that was happening to her.

Do you want to live?

And then someone cleared their throat. Lloyd cleared his throat. "Excuse me, sir. I apologise for the interruption. But there has been an urgent communication from the base. An emergency has unfolded at the base. You are required."

"Now?" the father demanded. T'Pol allowed herself to see him for a moment. His forehead was bright red and beaded with sweat.

"Indeed, sir," Lloyd replied blandly, and with those words, and a flurry of sweat, flab and dishevelled clothing, the father was gone, and T'Pol was alone with Lloyd.

She did not seem to be able to move.

"It hurt," she whispered to no one. "The cucumber didn't hurt, but this..." she trailed off.

Lloyd responded by disappearing to the bathroom and returning with several towels. "Do you require medical assistance, Rosalind?"

"I...no," T'Pol began, and then pulled herself together, taking the towels and clutching them to her chest with one hand, smoothing what clothing was still on her person with the other. "Is there really an emergency at the base?"

Lloyd slightly inclined his head. "There will be, by the time he arrives."

T'Pol nodded slowly, her head spinning and a strange sound ringing in her ears. "Then I think, perhaps, that a different woman, one called T'Pol, might have cause to thank you, Lloyd."

A long pause followed before Lloyd answered. "And I think, Rosalind, that a different man, one called Soval, might wish he could accept your thanks without asking else of you. But he cannot."

T'Pol nodded again, wondering if the nod was smooth or if the bone feep trembling she couldn't help but fell was betraying her. "Go on."

"You might turn your mind, Rosalind, to the idea that men do not live forever. And when men meet their ends, timely or not, then their property becomes that of their sons. And a son is not his father. One wonders if a son might be prevailed upon to release his favourite, and perhaps another of her choosing, from his service and into the service of the Imperial military. For there, a favourite might find that the seeds of her vengeance, the seeds of rebellion, are even now being carefully sown."

At this, T'Pol nodded once more. "I shall meditate on your wisdom, Lloyd. For, indeed, all men shall someday die."