“The voreborers appear to have spread themselves from their breeding ground to points throughout Neethian and Vissian space, using the local gravimetric anomalies and subspace distortions that run through this sector,” Cerebrar said. “Regions that Enterprise has mapped in detail.”
“Now that we have located the source of the voreborers,” Thenir said, “we may find ways to avoid encounters with them. Perhaps we can even find a means of eradicating them.”
“I would advise against any eradication campaign, if merely quarantining this region of space would suffice,” T’Pol said.
Archer coughed quietly, looking uncomfortable. “I’m forced to agree with my science officer.”
“But why?” Thenir said, his facial features remaining immutable and unreadable. “The voreborers are mere pests. Not to mention potentially deadly, as you have seen yourself.”
“Agreed,” Archer said. “But as you’ve pointed out, they’re creatures of space. Which means they must also be part of some larger, spaceborne ecosystem. Who knows what might happen to that ecosystem if you wipe out a piece of it?”
“Captain Archer is correct,” T’Pol said. “Perhaps the anomalous phenomena we have mapped throughout this sector—the very features that seem to nurture the voreborers—might become more widespread. Such a development would make interstellar navigation in this sector more dangerous than the voreborers ever could.”
“That is purely speculative,” Thenir said.
“True enough,” Archer said. “But if I’ve learned one thing since Enterprise left Earth, it’s never to disregard the law of unintended consequences.”
The two Neethians lapsed into a protracted silence, apparently digesting Archer’s words.
Thenir was the first to speak. “Your reputation fails to do justice to your wisdom. As does your name.”
Archer was smiling at Thenir, but the expression struck T’Pol as forced. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”
“Please understand,” Thenir said, “I merely report the observations of others.”
Archer nodded. “Feel free to be honest.”
“Very well. It is widely believed among my people that you do not take care in making decisions.”
T’Pol didn’t doubt that was because the story of the final moments of the Kobayashi Maru was circulating through Neethian space, probably in a progressively degenerating form.
Archer’s smile faded, prompting T’Pol to wonder if he was reliving the Maru’s unavoidable demise.
“I understand,” he said. “At least the part about my reputation. But what was it you said about my name?”
“Again, I mean no offense, Captain,” Thenir said.
“None taken, Captain,” Archer said, though T’Pol could hear an edge in his voice. “What about my name?”
The Neethians looked at each other as though fearful of saying the wrong thing. At length, Thenir faced Archer. “You have demonstrated yourself to be something entirely different from what your own language defines as ‘one who wields a weapon that slays at a distance.’”
Archer tossed the padd he had been reading onto his desk, then stormed over to his ready room port. Standing alone in the soothing semidarkness, he watched the Neethian vessel pull away from Enterprise’s main starboard docking port and drop into the limitless chasm of interstellar space. Within a few minutes, the immutable distant stars changed from fixed points of light to bright, distorted streaks as his ship returned to warp, headed for the next stop on her seemingly endless—and endlessly banal—itinerary.
The door chime sounded.
“Come,” Archer said as he turned. T’Pol stepped across the threshold.
“The Neethian vessel left fully stocked with both food and Earth alcohol, per your orders, Captain,” she said.
“Thank you, Commander. I trust you’re a little more comfortable now that our guests are back under way.”
“I found the Neethians to be a good deal more…fragrant than humans…or beagles. I hope no one noticed the…intensity of my discomfort.”
Archer chuckled as T’Pol cautiously looked around the ready room. “Don’t worry, T’Pol. Porthos is in my quarters.”
She nodded. “I have a question, Captain.”
“About Porthos? Or the Neethians?”
Unfortunately, T’Pol did not appear to be in the mood for banter. “About Enterprise, Captain.”
With a sigh, he walked to his desk and sat down heavily on his chair. Taking up a position on the nearby couch, T’Pol did likewise.
“All right. Shoot.”
“Why are we being so generous, Captain? The Neethians very likely had no pressing need for the extra consumables we furnished. In all probability, they merely took advantage of us. Just as many of the other species we have taken such pains to assist out here over the past few months have no doubt done.”
Archer couldn’t help but agree that it felt strange to dig so deeply into Enterprise’s stores for the needy and the greedy alike. “Letting the locals think they’re taking advantage of us is central to Enterprise’s current mission.”
“Hence the extra supplies we keep taking on from Starfleet’s matériel convoys,” T’Pol said. “Still, it seems a profligate use of resources.”
Archer grinned. “It isn’t as though we haven’t always made it a priority to render aid to other vessels.”
“But Captain, with Earth in peril, why are we not on the front lines?”
“Until we can ensure that the Romulans can’t seize control of Enterprise, we are a liability…I’m a liability.” The captain sighed. “So now we map to the Planck length everything in these sectors of space. We have one true mission priority. You could call it ‘ground-level’ diplomacy. Or maybe ‘sea-level’ is a better adjective.”
The slope of her eyebrows suddenly grew more acute. “I do not understand.”
He reached for his padd. “I have a piece of ancient Earth literature that may do a better job than I can of explaining why I keep spending our sous.” He touched a button on the padd’s display and tossed the device to T’Pol, who caught it expertly.
“Sous, Captain?”
“Gold coins, French currency during the time of the Napoleonic Wars.”
T’Pol turned her eyes to the padd’s display screen. “Hornblower and the ‘Hotspur’ by C. S. Forester,” she said, her dark eyes intent on the archaically constructed text.
“One of Admiral Gardner’s favorites.”
“I gather it’s a historical record of the Napoleonic Wars.” Archer hesitated. “No. It’s a historical novel about a British naval commander who quietly gained the upper hand against the French by gathering information—everything from charts of the tides and sand bars to enemy ship movements, even the local gossip from the fishermen who worked all along the French coastline.”
A look of dawning comprehension crossed her face. “Information that had to be purchased.” T’Pol began scrolling through Forester’s nautical narrative. “It seems illogical to use a work of fiction as the basis for a strategic plan.”
“Perhaps—”
The boatswain’s whistle of an incoming intercom signal interrupted Archer’s reply. He leaned forward and punched the accept button. “Archer here. Go ahead.”
“Ensign Leydon here, sir. You asked to be informed when we got to within four hours of the Vissian system, sir.”
“Very good, Ensign. Archer out.”
Archer hoped that word of Enterprise’s generosity thus far had softened the hearts of those from whom he hoped to obtain some help against the ever-advancing Romulan threat.
NINE
Saturday, December 11, 2156
Vissia Prime
AS HE WALKED BESIDE his science officer past the Palace of Technology and through the Hall of Deliberation’s ornate grand entryway, Jonathan Archer realized he had begun to believe that this day might never come—the day he would at long last be permitted to address the Grand Moot, the greatest political delibera
tive body on all of Vissia Prime.
T’Pol had evidently been thinking along very much the same lines. “I am gratified that the Vissians have finally deigned to give our request a formal hearing,” she said, pitching her voice low so she would not be overheard by the quartet of white-uniformed minders that guided them toward the main auditorium.
Archer nodded, keeping his gaze straight ahead at the broad, high wooden doors that had begun to part several meters ahead of the group. “Let’s hope all the stalling they’ve done so far has satisfied whatever grudge the Vissians might still be carrying against us.”
It had taken weeks to cut through all the official red tape that had stood between Archer’s request—made on behalf of the Coalition of Planets Security Council, the United Earth government, and Starfleet—and landing an Enterprise shuttlepod on Vissia Prime. During that time, word of Enterprise’s ongoing generosity could have filtered far and wide throughout Vissian society. But he had no idea if Enterprise’s recent actions had persuaded this world’s foremost decision makers not to punish Earth for Trip Tucker’s admittedly ill-advised interference with their cultural practices three years earlier. Indeed, the Vissian government’s official rejection of multiple diplomatic requests from Starfleet, the United Earth government, and the Coalition Security Council that Vissia share its technology—their photonic weapons, warp-drive technology, and trinesium starship hulls were more advanced than their Earth counterparts—augured badly for the outcome of today’s vote.
As Archer and T’Pol made their way to the main auditorium’s central dais, the captain clung to the hope that these people would see that helping Earth fight the Romulan Star Empire was in both their interests. Whatever hard feelings remained on Vissia because of Enterprise’s botched first contact, they had to be able to see that the Romulans were as dangerous to Vissia as they were to Earth. The Vissians, particularly their Captain Drennik, had struck him as reasonable people, if perhaps somewhat blind to the shortcomings of their society. Archer couldn’t think of anybody who wasn’t tainted by that very same blindness, at least to some extent.
There’s one thing I can say for sure about these people, though, he thought. They’ve never gone out of their way to take offense. Not like the Kreetassans, who go ballistic if an alien eats in front of them—or if Porthos happens to pick the wrong tree to pee on. And even they had accepted his apology—at least once the offending party had satisfied the Kreetassans’ perverse need to have them jump through various hoops.
But the captain’s hopes began to recede when he saw the hard glares on the faces of many of the lawmakers who were filing into the chamber to take their seats. A slender, white-garbed woman of apparent early middle age—an elderly male whom Archer took to be a sergeant at arms identified her as Grand Moot Moderator Fraddok—took the podium and brought the meeting to order with a minimum of ceremony. Although Archer wasn’t encouraged by the expressions he saw on so many of the Vissian legislators’ faces, he had to admire their efficiency; they made the Klingon High Council look positively indolent.
At the direction of their minders, Archer and T’Pol took seats in the gallery, which a long, curved railing separated from the seats of the Vissian lawmakers. After about fifteen minutes passed during which the Grand Moot tended to several pieces of tedious and all but indecipherable institutional housekeeping business, Moderator Fraddok raised her voice to a volume that must have been clearly audible to the very back of the vast chamber.
“Today the Grand Moot of Vissia Prime receives a visiting delegation from the Coalition of Planets. We will vote upon the delegation’s formal request that Vissia Prime assist the Coalition—specifically the planet known as Earth—in its war against the Romulan Star Empire.”
Fraddok’s gaze dropped from where it had been focused—the back of the hall—until her eyes locked tightly upon Archer’s. “Do I relay the essence of your request accurately, Captain Jonathan Archer?”
Archer slowly rose to his feet, and T’Pol followed suit. “It’s accurate, Moderator Fraddok. But maybe a little bit incomplete.”
She looked both irritated and intrigued. “Incomplete, Captain? How?”
It’s showtime, Archer thought. Summoning a smile, he said, “There are some fundamental things that you and your colleagues need to understand about the Romulans.”
“We already know a great deal about them, Captain. Thanks to our own interstellar space service, and our listening posts in the sector known on your star charts as Gamma Hydra, we understand that the Romulans are both aggressive and territorial.”
Mention of the Gamma Hydra sector evoked painful memories of the demise of the Kobayashi Maru. Archer put them aside, concentrating instead on his relief that these people weren’t burying their heads in the sand the way Vulcan, Andoria, and Tellar had. But if that wasn’t their strategy, then why did the Vissians still seem like such a tough sell?
“The Romulans are indeed both of those things, Moderator Fraddok,” he said. “In addition, they are expansionists. If you’ve been watching them over the past few years, then you don’t need to take my word on that. Therefore, joining in the Coalition’s fight will benefit Vissia as much as it does us.”
Fraddok shook her head, which caused a few strands of her short, neatly coifed hair to fall before her eyes. “Frankly, Captain, your Coalition appears to have little value at the moment. Haven’t its nonhuman members essentially left Earth to its own devices as the Romulans continue to advance?”
“I’d call that an oversimplification of what’s really going on, Moderator Fraddok.” Archer gestured to his right, where T’Pol stood. “You’ll notice that my second-in-command is not human. She’s from Vulcan—a core member of the Coalition.”
To Archer’s chagrin, Fraddok didn’t miss a beat. “But Vulcan is a member world that has refused to enter the fray. Isn’t that true, Commander T’Pol?”
“Moderator Fraddok, that isn’t fair—” Archer said.
“Captain, I was addressing Commander T’Pol,” Fraddok said, cutting Archer off. “Commander, isn’t that true?”
T’Pol exchanged a significant look with Archer before turning back toward the dais. “For the moment, Vulcan’s government has opted out of the war.”
“As have Andoria and Tellar,” Fraddok continued. “That leaves us with an invitation to join a theoretical Coalition of Planets that consists, in actual practice, of but one world, plus a few scattered human holdings in two adjacent star systems. And the one world in question is the very planet whose clumsy, arrogant, and ill-prepared explorers precipitated the completely avoidable death of a Vissian cogenitor—a death that not only robbed an innocent, hardworking Vissian couple of the prospect of becoming parents but also strained Vissia Prime’s already small cogenitor population.”
The room was immediately awash in a low buzz of hostile noise. Not good, Archer thought.
Moderator Fraddok called sharply for silence. Addressing Archer once again, she said, “Do you deny any of this?”
Shaking his head, Archer said, “No, you haven’t said anything that isn’t true, Moderator Fraddok. But this information is also incomplete.”
“Again, incomplete?” Anger pulled her face taut. “How so?”
“You’re not taking into account humanity’s capacity to learn. I’d be the last to deny that we have made mistakes. I’ve made a few myself and probably will again. But whenever humans stumble, we pick ourselves back up. We learn to do better next time.”
“Nevertheless, the damage remains done, Captain. Your words do very little to encourage me.”
“All I can offer you is the truth, Moderator Fraddok. The truth about Earth and the Coalition to which it belongs. The truth about the Romulans. And the truth about the difference between us and them.”
“And what is that difference?”
“The Coalition’s priorities are exploration and peaceful coexistence,” Archer said. “The Romulans are interested in fear and conquest, pure and simple.”
The room fell silent again. Archer could only dare to hope. Then Moderator Fraddok, her face a mask of nonemotion that must have impressed even T’Pol, called for an immediate vote.
* * *
The minders conducted Archer and T’Pol to the sprawling plaza in a courtyard adjacent to the spaceport from which they were expected to depart shortly in Shuttlepod One.
“These people digested the complete works of Shakespeare and Sophocles within a day,” Archer said when he was certain that they were alone. He leaned on his elbows across a railing and watched streams of Vissian civilians going about their various errands as the bloated Vissian sun slowly sank into the western horizon.
T’Pol nodded soberly. “There is no question that the Vissians have developed an extremely refined and intellectually rich culture.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” Archer said. “So what the hell is wrong with them?”
T’Pol raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Captain?”
“I mean, for such a brainy bunch they can be damned pigheaded.”
“The Vissians aren’t human, Captain,” T’Pol said quietly as she stepped up to the railing. “Therefore, applying human cultural standards to them can be problematic. I tried to remind Commander Tucker of that while we were making first contact with the Vissians. I can see that I need to do the same with you.”
Archer shrugged. “I know the Vissians aren’t human. I guess I just expected them to be more sympathetic toward us than the Klingons were, Trip’s…indiscretion notwithstanding. I must have screwed the grint hound today in the speechmaking department.”
“No, Captain. I found your words persuasive.”
“That’s flattering, T’Pol, but you’re not the one I needed to persuade. What do you suppose I did wrong?”
“Perhaps nothing. Moderator Fraddok evidently believes Vissia is advanced enough, at least in a technological sense, to neutralize any Romulan attempt to annex their homeworld. Therefore she may believe that any alliance against the Romulans would be superfluous.”
Star Trek: Enterprise: The Romulan War Page 7
