Epilogue Chapter One
A Farewell to Vulcan
Malcolm Reed
So now, finally, it's over.
The red sands blow over the grave site that holds what remains of Trip Tucker III, and my presence here feels irrelevant; worse, an intrusion. T'Pol has no real use for my continued company. Whatever she feels, she'll deal with it like a Vulcan, and I daresay that for all our long truce she hasn't entirely forgotten or forgiven events in our dim and distant past – probably more on Trip's account than on her own. It's easier to forgive wrongs done to oneself than it is to those one loves, and any faint consolation I might be able to offer would certainly not be unmixed with bitterness.
As I walk slowly back to the compound, I'm aware yet again of the risk my presence poses to this place. Over the past few years, its peace has eroded my awareness of the fact that like everywhere else in the Empire, Vulcan is a world under suspicion, even if the autonomous home rule experiment has been successful. I doubt very much indeed whether the passage of time has eroded the authorities' anxiety to get hold of me and punish me for my crimes, and if it were to be discovered that this sanctuary has been given to me, many people who have risked their lives to protect me and those like me would pay dearly for their kindness.
Like Trip, I've done my best to make what repayment I could over the years. I'd like to think that my intel has been of value, that my interpretation of Imperial strategy and policy has enabled the resistance to be more effective. But my knowledge is long out of date, and it's been a while now since anyone even bothered to keep up the kind pretence that I might be able to be of use.
It wasn't so very long ago, it seems, when I regarded being 'useful' as the same as being 'used'. I'd had ample experience with being used, with having something very personal being taken from me – as often as not being wrested violently away without my consent, leaving me feeling battered, abused, alone, despised and diminished. A lifetime of being used had made me not in any way inclined to make myself 'useful'. I'd been used often enough as it was, I wasn't bloody likely to volunteer for more!
Then Trip decided I could be 'useful' in an entirely different sense of the word, and he taught me, with seemingly endless patience and boundless compassion, that although being used was the experience of having something taken from me, being useful was an act of giving that could actually be enormously gratifying when undertaken of one's own free will. From him, I learned, slowly – so very slowly because I resisted for such a long time – to measure my success by how much good I could do rather than the amount of power I had; and to take my sense of self-worth from the strange sense of satisfaction I got from using my power to benefit others rather than from the reinforcement of my own security through terror. It was he who showed me that while I'd isolated myself from the rest of humanity for perfectly sufficient reasons at the time, that isolation had also prevented me from experiencing the kindness that does reside in decent people – of whom, it seems, there are more than I'd ever suspected. It was only in reaching out to them that I found healing from the wounds that had tormented me for so long, and it was only in rediscovering my own moral compass that I began to achieve the ability to deal out justice rather than retribution on the world that had betrayed me.
It was a slow, difficult lesson. It involved me making myself vulnerable again, after the years and terrible experiences that had taught me that vulnerability invariably ended up with brutal pain and disillusionment. There were setbacks and crises, and nobody (least of all me) is going to claim that I ended up as some kind of Saint George figure; for one thing, in my case the dragon won, though I'm pleased to report the bitch got her comeuppance in the end.
And so, in terms of 'usefulness', I find myself critically evaluating my position here.
To be entirely, brutally honest, I'm a liability, nothing more. And though I've long since come to terms with the dry heat of Vulcan and the simplicity of the lifestyle here, I have a deep-seated sense of something still owing, a debt that I need to pay.
I take no farewells, just leave my cubicle neat and empty of everything but memories and the long, level evening light of 40 Eridani A. As I trudge towards the road, I glance sideways, and note the presence of the wraith lurking in the shadows of the cemetery gate, but give no sign that I've done so. In the distance, within the graveyard, a slight figure is sitting cross-legged and motionless beside the newest grave, her hands lightly linked in her lap in the traditional posture of meditation. Though I'd like to pay my respects one final time, I'm not so sentimental that I'd intrude on her private grief to indulge my own.
I neither hear nor see my ghostly stalker now, but I know the moment she breaks her cover and joins me on the path, and I smile to myself. My strength is failing, my reflexes are slowing and my intel is decades out of date, but I can at least take some smug pride in knowing that my instincts are as sharp as they ever were.
She's doing a good job of walking softly and varying the rhythm of her footsteps, and frankly, I'm not sure even I would notice the tail if I hadn't already spotted her and didn't know her as well as I do. I debate giving her the satisfaction of thinking she's finally managed to catch me unawares just this once, as it will be her last chance to achieve it, but finally I decide against it – partly because indulging her in such a fashion would not be in accordance with the logical and rational Vulcan upbringing her father wanted for her and mostly because I do not want to leave her on a lie.
"Your surveillance skills are improving, Elizabeth, but your hiding place left something to be desired," I say to the night, not bothering to slow my pace or turn around or even raise my voice. She has her mother's Vulcan ears, and her hearing as well.
I hear a giggle some distance behind me, and predictably, she scurries to catch me up.
"I wasn't hidin' from you, Uncle Mal," she says with an airiness that doesn't quite hide the note of reproach. "I was keepin' my distance so if you really wanted to just skulk off into the darkness, you could ignore me."
Elizabeth T'Les Tucker, my goddaughter, aged fourteen. If it was a surprise when T'Pol fell pregnant, imagine our shock when the baby was born perfectly healthy and unutterably beautiful. She mostly has her mother's looks, but except for having a bit more emotional control than an average Human child she is in all other respects every inch her father's daughter. She even learned to speak English with his distinct Florida accent, and hearing it now twists the knife of loss inside me.
"I could never ignore you, dear girl," I reply evenly, keeping my grief under control and out of sight; her own will be enough for her to deal with, without adding mine to it. "And I am walking, not skulking."
"But you don't mind creepin' out in the dead of night without so much as sayin' goodbye?" she demands as she falls into step beside me.
"Firstly, again, walking, not creeping, and secondly, it's barely sunset, hardly the dead of night. Don't exaggerate. Your father wouldn't approve the hyperbole."
I could bite my tongue as soon as the words are out and wait to see her reaction. Is it too soon to correct her by resurrecting her dead father's disapproving ghost? Though Trip was always proud of her and never hesitant with his praise, he was just as quick to correct her un-Vulcan behaviour, and sometimes she resented it.
To my immense relief, she doesn't burst into tears, but scowls and tells me, "You know as well as I do, Daddy would have said pretty much the same thing, except he'd have been shoutin' it an' probably usin' a few cuss words I'm not allowed to say."
Well, she's probably perfectly right at that, but I can't allow it to influence my reaction.
When Trip and T'Pol chose me as Elizabeth's godfather (or whatever the Vulcan equivalent is – as Vulcan words go, it's one of the more difficult ones to pronounce, and means something more akin to co-parent than spiritual role model), it was explicitly stated that I should at all opportunities support and reinforce her parents' expectations. More than just being a supportive adult in her life, I was to correct her and encourage her as if she was my own child, and, in keeping with my responsibilities, my opinions on how she should be raised were also to be solicited and considered. Rather surprisingly, it was T'Pol who insisted that a half-Human child should be encouraged to express her emotions while Trip felt a half-Vulcan child should be trained to think and act logically in all things.
More surprising still, it was I who brokered the compromise between them.
I could see Trip's point just by looking at my infant goddaughter. Except for the trademark Tucker nose, which is similar enough to a common trait among Vulcans to be unworthy of comment, there is nothing physical to mark her as a half-Human child. She's a bit tall for her age right now because Humans reach physical maturity sooner than Vulcans, but once she's done growing, there's no reason to imagine that she'll be unusually tall for a Vulcan. Her ears alone would guarantee her a miserable life as a slave back on Earth, but here, if she can learn to act like a Vulcan, she'll be able to pass as a Vulcan, be accepted by her peers, and have a decent life. So in that respect, it made perfect sense to raise her as a Vulcan child.
On the other hand, when T'Pol melded with Elizabeth as part of the mother-child bonding ritual immediately post-partum, she discovered her infant daughter already had a decidedly Human mind with Human temperament and Human thought patterns. She held that a half-Human child's brain simply worked differently to that of a full-blooded Vulcan child, and could reasonably be presumed to develop differently as well. Their daughter simply could not be expected to behave as her Vulcan counterparts would, because her mental functions were so unlike theirs. Emotional suppression was difficult enough for Vulcan children to learn; to require her half-Human daughter to do so would not only be self-defeating and discouraging, but also possibly detrimental to both her cognitive and emotional development.
To me the solution was obvious. I'd spent enough of my own life living in two worlds, that of the Pack and that of normal Humans, to know without having to think about it that we couldn't ask a child to repress half of her essential being. I think I'd have had an easier time severing one of my own limbs with my ivory boot knife than leaving the Pack for Liz or her for the Pack, and I was only coping with learned behaviours, not innate characteristics encoded in my DNA. Though I chose Liz in the end, even during our years on the run, the long months in the refugee camp, and even the visits to Grandmother's little shack in the desert, I often sought out solitude when my Pack instincts surfaced rather than have them tamed by forcing myself to comply with Human codes of behaviour. We can never escape what we are, and nor – in any reasonable, compassionate environment – should we be expected to. Such a constraint would only lead to suffering, failure and in the end, almost inevitably, to tragedy.
My suggestion that Elizabeth be trained and expected to behave as a Vulcan when she was among other Vulcans and allowed and encouraged to be as Human as she wished when among her family, intimate Vulcan friends, and other Humans was accepted by Trip as the logical solution to our dilemma and by T'Pol as the compassionate one. Elizabeth's Vulcan half would learn appropriate and acceptable behaviour for the community in which she was living, which, really, is a necessary thing wherever one finds oneself; and at the same time, her Human half would be allowed to develop a healthy and mature emotional side rather than being stunted and shrivelled by denying its existence. Then, when she reached the age of majority, she would be able to make an informed decision about how she wished to live her life and possess the necessary skills to follow whatever path she chose.
At the moment, though, I'm getting the full force of her emotional Tucker humanity as suddenly her façade collapses and her normally serene face crumples into an expression of blind anguish. She stops so abruptly I inadvertently leave her behind and have to backtrack several steps to embrace her and comfort her as she begins to sob softly.
How quickly she has grown up. How quickly the time has passed. How short a time it seems since she was placed in my arms during the ceremony that saw me formally accept the role of her godfather. It still feels like yesterday, and I still remember the way my sight blurred as the face of another baby momentarily superimposed itself on that of the tiny child I was holding.
Elizabeth. My Elizabeth. Little Elisheva…
I left my own daughter to be brought up as the child of another man because I had no means to feed her and no way of effectively protecting her. I had to walk away and find from somewhere some reason to go on living. Not because my life was of any value to me any more, but because Liz and I had promised each other that if something happened to one, the other would still go on trying to make the world a better place.
I always thought it would be me who went first. I thought it would be she who'd need that reason to keep going…
I blink back to the present, a time in which – I hope – this girl's mother no longer feels her child soiled merely by the touch of my hands, as she probably would have done when Elisheva was born, despite all that had happened by that time.
"Please don't … leave us, Uncle Malcolm," my god-daughter hiccups against my chest. "We jus' los' Daddy. We need you."
I sigh silently. Sometimes necessity masquerades as the worst form of cruelty, and it hurts beyond belief to have to steel myself to do this. "Oh, sweet girl, trust me, the last thing you and your mother need is an old geezer like me hanging about. I'd only cramp your style."
That said, I'm not sure Vulcans really go in for boyfriends, girlfriends and the whole teenage angst thing, but if they did, she's just about coming to the time when having a decrepit Human uncle about the place would be the height of 'uncool'. So better for everyone – even her, though she can't see it yet – for me to go while I can still go beloved.
"Why you gotta leave?" She pulls back, dashes a hand across her eyes and gives me a sad, sceptical glare.
The whining is most unbecoming, but I can't bring myself to correct her. For one thing, I understand how she feels. The older I get, the more memories of my childhood I seem to unearth, and while many of them are happy, a sense of desertion was omnipresent; with my father in the navy, it seemed that Mother and I, and later Maddie too, were always being left behind. More importantly, this is the time and place for Elizabeth to have the freedom to express her Human emotions. She'll have to suppress them soon enough when she returns to school tomorrow – although I'm quite sure that Vulcans mourn the loss of their loved ones just like Humans do, I'd imagine that displays of acute grief would be considered undignified and inappropriate.
"Because this is not the place for me any more, darling," I try to explain, grasping her gently by the shoulders and looking down into her eyes, which plead up at me to do the impossible and make things better by changing my mind.
We've all done our best to help Elizabeth to grow up feeling safe and secure without keeping her completely ignorant of the dangers of our world. I can't wreck what remains of her peace by telling her that my presence here puts her and everyone else at risk, but equally, I can't bear to think of her worrying that I'll meet a violent and untimely end if I leave the enclave. "I belonged here while your father was alive because I owed him such a tremendous debt and because I loved him like a brother, but now it's time for me to go."
"But don't you think he'd want you to stay an' take care of Mother an' me now that he's gone?" she pouts. Already her Vulcan control is asserting itself somewhat, though I note it doesn't preclude her from attempting a little Human emotional blackmail. "Don't you love us, too?"
"You and your mother are more than capable of looking after each other," I point out calmly. "And you know I love you. That's part of the reason I need to go. Were I to stay here very much longer, the two of you would end up taking care of me, and it is not my intention to ever be a burden on either of you."
Is there anything worse than ruining the end of a lifetime by collapsing into decrepitude, becoming a wreck and an encumbrance to those around you? I've never intended that to happen, and not even for Elizabeth whom I love will I change my mind. Especially for Elizabeth, whose memories of me I hope to leave ones entirely of happiness.
"I wouldn't mind," she says stubbornly.
"Well, I very much would," I tell her firmly, "and while she'd be entirely too polite to complain and would never think of doing anything to make me feel unwelcome, I'm sure your mother could find far better things to do with her time than running around looking after me."
"But, why…" She gasps, and then all pretence of control is lost and she is just a bereft teenager mourning her father. Her words are almost unintelligible, but I hear the cry of her heart. "Why you gotta leave right now? Daddy isn't even cold!"
I pull her into my embrace again, as much to comfort her as to hide my own anguish, which is too raw and too near the surface for me to control on demand. What she doesn't know is that her mother and father and I argued about this near the end. One day when she was at school, I sat down with Trip and T'Pol and told them both that I wanted to return to Earth. The reason I gave them was that it's Home.
Trip immediately encouraged me to go. I'm not sure why I was surprised. Maybe I was thinking he'd argue for me to stay here where I was, if not safe, at least safer than I would be back on Earth. Maybe I expected him to want his daughter to have at least one human influence during her adolescence.
I think we were all surprised when T'Pol offered the logical argument for why I should stay.
"You are still a wanted man," she said. "If you are captured, you could be interrogated, tortured, and forced to reveal the existence of this place."
I shook my head. "To be honest, I'd be surprised if Burnell doesn't know all about it already. With Trip and me out of circulation, the Empire would be happy enough to leave this place alone; we're not causing any trouble, from their point of view we're effectively in an open prison – if they should ever want to put a hand on any of us, they know exactly where we are, and in the meantime they can allow us all to fade quietly into obscurity without causing any waves by putting us on trial and reminding people what we did and why we did it.
"They'd only be interested in me because I was so notorious – bringing me to justice would be a headline-grabber, and damn few people are ever going to have sympathy with the likes of me. As for your common-or-garden rebel, or a public benefactor like Trip, it's far easier to let a few hundred or even a few thousand resistance fighters disappear to a quiet little backwater than it is to catch them and punish them without creating martyrs. And even I've been out of circulation for so long that, if I am captured, I'll probably just be executed and disposed of without fanfare."
To tell the honest truth, I'm not quite sure about that last part. I wouldn't figure as a martyr if I were captured and made an example of, but as an illustration that the Empire's memory is long and its reach practically infinite. And, of course, if the Powers that Be decide to make a parade of it, the audience figures to watch me get my comeuppance would probably break television history.
As for interrogating me, though, I doubt I'd survive long enough for them to make me talk if they wanted to. Even the agony booth, which causes no physical damage, can cause fatal shock in the frail and infirm, and while I may be in fine shape for a man my age, I am still a man my age, and a shadow of what I used to be. Still, I have plans laid, and I've always believed in playing for high stakes … and now finally for these, the highest there is.
"And that's just how you'd like it, isn't it?" Trip asked with a grin. "Just quietly disappearin' off the sensors. No fuss."
I nodded briskly. I suspected he knew as well as I did how unlikely it was that I'd be allowed that 'no fuss' end, but was choosing to act as though he believed I would; it will take enough courage to face it when it comes without acknowledging it beforehand. "Much more dignified, wouldn't you say?"
But whatever the manner of my departure from this world may be, the truth is, I'm going home because I have one debt left to repay. When that's done, I'd like to be interred with Liz. I don't think I believe in any kind of soul or afterlife, but when I think of having her nearby, the tension inside me melts into the conviction that whatever has to precede it, when it's all over and done with, a void within me that has ached for more than twenty years will finally be filled.
"Please, just stay until the Festival of T'Plana-Hath?" Elizabeth is pleading now. "It's only a few months away."
Again, I hold her at arm's length to look her in the eye. "It's more than half a year, young lady," I point out. "Can you give me one logical reason why I should wait?"
She sniffles at me and shakes her head. Of course she can't, because there isn't one; and she's not thinking this through, because there's not much worse I can imagine than the lingering agony of a departure delayed. There is nothing she and her mother need from me any more. She just doesn't want me to go, and while it pains me to hurt her, there is a good, logical reason for me to leave now.
"I need to go, darling," I tell her as gently as I can. "Earth is home for me. You know I had a wife."
She nods. "Elizabeth, but not the one I was named for."
"That's right. And I want to be close to her in the same way that your mother still wants to be close to your father. It isn't logical, but it will make me happy," I explain. "It will give me peace. And given that I must go if I wish to be close to her, it's best that I go now.
"Don't think it isn't painful for me to leave. I'll miss you and even your mother; but I've far more experience with grief and loss than you do, and I can tell you, however much it hurts now, having me leave so close on the heels of your father's passing, it's better to get it all over with at once. The spirit is capable of only so much pain before it becomes numb, which makes it easier to recover from one crushing blow than a series of lesser ones.
"When you miss me, sweetheart, think of me. Remember the things we did together, the conversations we had, the lessons you learned from me. That's what I'll do when I miss you and your father. It won't be the same as having me here, but eventually, with practice, you'll be able to enjoy the memories without the pain of missing me."
"Or you could just stay," she argues, jutting her bottom lip.
"You're not being fair, Elizabeth." I try to strike the right note of sternness and compassion. She's only fourteen, and she's just lost her father, whom she adored; now she's losing the other father figure in her life, and the long-buried grief of never being able to be a father to my own daughter saps my ability to be harsh.
"I know," she concedes, and throws her arms around me. "I'm being selfish."
We hug for a while. I make no attempt to break it. This is the last she will have to remember of me, and she has to find the strength to end it. Knowing the parents who produced her, I know she has more than enough, when she chooses to draw on it.
The silence endures for a time, while the wind stirs the sand and teases wisps of cloud across the rapidly darkening sky. Then, finally, she steps back out of my embrace, raises her chin and says, "I love you, Uncle Malcolm."
I smile proudly. Over the past fourteen years, I've learned that there's nothing more redeeming than a child's love; it's been a revelation to have had a relationship with someone who knows nothing of the horrors I have committed and the evil of which I am capable, someone who sees only the good in me. "I know that, and love you, too."
"So did Daddy, and she might be too proud to say it, but Mother …" My goddaughter rolls her eyes. "Well, she's Mother. She would say she has become accustomed to your presence, and she was grateful you were here for Daddy. I don't know that she would call it love, but she has found affection for you, believe it or not, and she will miss you."
"You shouldn't presume to speak for your mother."
"No, she should not," a voice comes from out of the darkness. "But she speaks correctly."
A slim form materializes, and T'Pol comes to stand beside her daughter. Elizabeth is already by a few centimetres the taller of the two.
"If you must go, then go, Malcolm, but do not leave on my account," she says gravely. "You are welcome for as long as you wish to stay."
"I'm not eager to leave here," I admit reluctantly, "but I am eager to go home." Home to Earth; home to Liz. Home – even if I never get to see her again – to Elisheva.
"Then travel safely." And holding up her hand in a familiar gesture, she adds, "Live long and prosper."
It would be entirely inappropriate for me to comment on the irony of the traditional farewell given my age and the fact that I'm returning to Earth as a man still wanted for treason, so I just raise my hand in the appropriate salute and deliver the traditional response.
"Peace and long life, T'Pol and Elizabeth."
With nothing left to be said between us, T'Pol puts an arm around her daughter and turns them both back towards the compound. I don't know whether they'll go on living there now, but no doubt they'll make that decision when emotions have settled down.
When they're out of sight and earshot, I resume plodding towards the road.
So, Malcolm is going home. What fate awaits him? Will he return to Rainbow Wells and get to know his daughter, Elisheva, as a young woman? Or will he live out his final days as a hermit? Could he possibly find some way to be of service to the resistance again? If you're still enjoying the story, please review.
