That Which Hides Under the Bed, by Linda - Chapter 3

That Which Hides Under the Bed

by Linda

Rating: PG-13
Genre: Mystery

~~~~

Chapter 3

Soval was worried. An emotion, yes, but not misplaced since Ambassador Motan had not been seen for two Vulcan days. His aide constantly called, implying Vulcan duplicity and issuing veiled threats. The only things missing from the ambassador’s quarters were a translator, a phase pistol, and the report on Amanda’s attack. “I should have seen this was a possible action that he would take.” Soval admitted this privately to Amanda, alone in their apartment. “If I had known that like me, Motan had prior surveillance experience, his going off alone might have occurred to me. Why is it that one much used career path to diplomacy is duplicity: spying and subversive operations, to be blunt.”

“I have no answer for that. Maybe it is good training in manipulating people? First blatantly, then more subtlety?” Amanda was thinking of her own foray into the world of diplomacy from the world of security operations.

“As usual, you come up with a plausible reason. I must go now to consult the Vulcan security people. I will see you and V’Lar for dinner.”

Amanda hated to be left alone with no assignment when others were dealing with a crisis. Still, she could do some strength exercises while waiting for V’Lar and T’Sena to arrive to escort her on a tour of the Vulcan Science Academy. The heavier Vulcan gravity, a debilitating influence at first, was making her body stronger. At her medical checkup, the Vulcan healer told her that her bone density had risen slightly, an adaptation to living on this world. Her lung capacity had also increased a bit in the thinner atmosphere, and she found she was not so winded when she exerted herself. It was amazing how life forms adapted to their altered surroundings. No wonder Soval had insisted on what she considered excessive exercise during his years on Earth, with frequent visits to his home world. She now felt she would not mind living for extensive periods on Vulcan.

The door chimed. Amanda pulled on a light colored cloak for protection against the rising heat of the Vulcan day, and joyfully left the apartment to join her new friends.

….

What was it in the report that made Motan go off to investigate? None of the Vulcan security force had any idea. They sent agents off on every lead that was suggested. Soval decided to follow the most mundane of the choices himself. He was sure it was a Vulcan that was able to over power Amanda, so he went off to the address of the known pickpocket, Romik. A person like this could be easily hired to steal identity papers under the guise of a robbery.

Romik’s home was empty. Not just of people, but of the meager furniture it might once have held. There was absolutely nothing there, and a neighbor said new people were moving in the next day. A dead-end. Soval liked that Human phrase. It was depressingly apt. Then he saw a discoloration between floor tiles. Using a pocket knife, he took a sample of this and hurried off to the security forces lab. As he suspected, it turned out to be Andorian blood.

….

After their tour, the three women had lunch in an outdoor restaurant shaded by a thick canvas awning. There was a slight breeze, which helped blow Amanda’s sweat away. She drank several glasses of ice water, which amazed her companions. Their bodies naturally conserving moisture, did not need the massive intake of liquid. T’Sena went off after lunch to her job as she only managed to get a half-day free. V’Lar was quiet for a few minutes, than asked Amanda to once again go over the mugging incident. More relaxed now after her lunch, Amanda suddenly remembered a detail she had not mentioned to the security people shortly after the attack. Half-conscious, she had heard the thief remark on the address of her apartment as he riffled through her papers: “Right across the hall from Talok!” he had said.
….

Talok wrapped a cloth around Motan’s wound. The damn pickpocket had struggled with the Andorian when he woke. The knife wound was not deep though, Motan would live to meet the death Talok planned for him. How fortuitous for him to walk right into the hands of his assassin. Though he had two others help Romik and his wife move out quickly, there had not been enough time to clean thoroughly. Perhaps it had been enough. No matter. There was no connection between him and the pickpocket and if he got rid of him too, all would be well.

But he wanted Amanda Cole involved. That would draw suspicion on both the Terrans and the Vulcans. Now that Motan was in his control, the manner of his death was more flexible. Whatever he came up with, the Andorians would never trust the Terrans or Vulcans again. Then the Romulans could start over in their quest to conquer Vulcan without the threat of an impending alliance. Too bad he could not have T’Pol too. He had always liked the looks of that woman. V’Las would have found some way to get her recalled if he was still in power. The disappearance of Koss would have been a simple matter to arrange, but this human engineer was a wild card. Oh well, there were plenty of other women. He had already entertained several in this apartment in the posh side of the city.

The door lock pad clicked. Pashan entered Talok’s apartment and leered at the prone form of the Andorian ambassador. “Well, our roles are reversed now. It was so irritating to listen to all your alliance talk. Your political cronies will fall away like the peace proffering cowards they are, after you are gone. And that Shran. We have plans for his ship. He will never know what really hit him. Blood is the only way to purge Andoria. I will be as that vampire Vlad the Impaler that your Amanda researched and cited as the origin of those Earth vampire tales. I will impale every last one of those Aenar when I and the Romulans have finished using them. We will be free of the fears of our past.”

Pashan knelt near Motan’s ear with an insane look. “Then I will become the culture hero who purged Andoria, the new mythic figure for parents to tell tales of. I will replace fear with pride and blood lust. I may even offer my services to the Romulans to help purge Vulcan. What a fool that Soval, taking a Human wife. He is one of them you know, those thought extractors. I will bind him and let my son stab him a hundred times for scaring the boy so. Blue blood, evil green blood, even that obnoxious Human red blood, will flow. But I will drink only the blue. I will drink YOUR blood. Although you are my opponent, you have been a worthy one.

….

V’Lar called Soval on her pocket phone and told him to meet them at Talok’s apartment right across the hall from his own. Then the two women walked right into it. Pashan beamed as Amanda was subdued, though it took him much longer than he expected. Pashan stunned her with Motan’s phase pistol, just after she gave Talok a bruise on his cheek which Vulcan healing would take days to overcome.

Romik had twisted V’Lar’s arm so that she collapsed without a fight. “Bet you are proud of overcoming an elderly woman,” said Amanda, trying to shake off the effect of the stun. “Too bad I did not have a chance at you first.”

Romik stepped over V’Lar to give Amanda a kick in the side. “You had your chance when I took your money and your papers.”

Though the kick knocked the wind out of her, Amanda’s eyes showed contempt.
“Some chance. How about a face to face fight you miserable excuse for a Vulcan.”

“Leave enough of her for the explosives to take care of, fool!” said Talok. Roughing up Amanda only wasted energy. And Talok did not like the mistreatment of V’Lar. It was a shame that now she too had to die. Although not a politically ally, Talok and V’Las respected V’Lar. Still, she would have been a factor in cementing this alliance, so reluctantly, she would have had to be neutralized at some point anyway.

Being distracted by the women, Talok did not notice the Vulcan security people until their coordinated attack came through the front door and the sliding door to the deck. Soval let the young team members subdue the bunch before he entered. Seeing Amanda bruised and bleeding, he turned to Talok: “Who did this to my wife?” Romik gave himself away be stepping behind the security woman guarding him. Soval was on him in an instant. “You! You will make amends by working off what you stole from her by cleaning sewers. Then I will humiliate you in a fair fight. Or maybe I will let her do that!”

“Ah. The Vulcan ambassador demonstrating the fine art of Vulcan pacifist philosophy,” Sneered Pashan.

Soval glared at both the would-be assassins, released Romik, and gave him a shove. “And what would you do if you found your wife in this state with her abductor standing over her, Pashan?”

Pashan’s eyes narrowed. “What I did was slowly, ever so slowly, remove the skin from his living body. That skin is now the rug at my bedside. The skin of the Aenar who was her lover!”

Soval’s shoulders relaxed a bit. “Thank you for this lesson in comparative barbarity. I only wanted to slap him around a little.” Soval went to V’lar and put his arm around her waist to help her to a chair. He then reached his hand out to Amanda, allowing her to stand on her own. Despite the pain, Amanda was glad he let her stand without the indignity of too much help.

Amanda took a chair near V’Lar, and regarded Pashan with his still evident sneer. “My husband settled for a mild shove because neither Romik’s olive skin nor your blue skin matches the décor of our bedroom. It was merely an esthetic consideration, so consider yourselves lucky!”

Soval’s eyes widened and Motan’s face shone with silent laughter. As the security people led Pashan, Romik, and Talok away, Amanda was trying to figure out what possessed her to respond to Pashan’s taunt. She knew Soval would have private words with her later, but what his take on her outburst would be, she could not guess. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw V’Lar smile.

V’Lar said, “Well dear, I am not surprised at your barbed tongue. You have had a teacher of the first magnitude.”

….

Later at the Vulcan Security Headquarters, Pashan, hands bound behind his back, raised his chin in defiance. “Telepaths are an abomination, no matter what species they spring from. It is simple. We have to eliminate them. The Romulans have evolved out of their telepathic origins among the Vulcans and wish to establish domination of the their original home world in order to control, if not eliminate, telepathy. We must eliminate the Aenar on our world. So why not team up with the Romulans to accomplish our parallel goals?”

Motan was aghast. He had no idea of his aide’s true political agenda or how far he was prepared to go to achieve it. The attitude of the man’s small son had not given him a clue, because the boy’s fears were common among Andorian children. “Soval, Amanda, V’Lar, I am deeply remorseful that one of my own aides has caused so much pain. At least there were no deaths. We Andorians, as a people, will have to do some soul searching into the values we hold. I realized that Amanda was struggling to understand her own home world views, while learning to live with Vulcan ethics. I wished to study her progress and so sought out her company. That was a revelation for me.”
“There is no going back,” Motan admitted. “We cannot live in isolation once we leave the relative comfort of our own home worlds. We must leave the fears of the childhood of our species behind, if we are to survive and grow in the larger universe. As Amanda put it, we must take a long look under the bed to see that the monsters are of our own making. It will take time, but I am sure we can form an alliance for mutual protection and trade, built on a respect for each other’s cultures. And we will have to accept the fact that all our cultures will change because of it. A culture which does not grow, dies.”

Soval reached for Motan’s hand. “An Earth custom. I found it unpleasant at first, but now I respect it and even consider it an appropriate way to acknowledge a new understanding.”

Motan took Soval’s hand without hesitation. He held it for a moment, feeling the telepathic tingle. Grinning, he said, “This is not so bad, once you relax. But I think I prefer the elegant greeting and parting gesture developed on your own world.” The Andorian ambassador then raised his hand in the Vulcan salute.

The End!

Return to Chapter 2

A hand of people have made comments

Very enjoyable. It's nice to know that Amanda is being accepted into Vulcan society, but I wonder how her family reacted to the news that she was going to marry Soval. As the public face of the Vulcan government, I suspect that he's not the most popular person on Earth. And Amanda brings him home to meet her parents! As someone with first hand experience of living between two cultures, I hope you're going to continue writing about these two.

Thanks for the encouragement! I'm starting to think about Amanda's family. And perhaps an old Human boyfriend of Amanda's who dislikes Vulcans?
That should give some dramatic tension. Having her hometown distroyed like Trip's should be interesting to work with although her family was ok (this is from Amanda's conversation with T'Pol that Myst reminded me of). It may take me awhile to put this together, because I'm kinda weird in that the characters have to 'come and talk to me'. That is just the way I have to write - as if it's not me doing the writing.

I like it very much

it reminds me of a good old times of when I first read story about Sarek and his wife

I liked this story very much, but I found it a bit rushed. Each scene seemed a bit short for me. She was attacked, then suddenly she was being taken home by Soval. If this could be expanded, man, what a story it would be.

There are other rushed scenes as well, but I'm only citing one as an example.

The scene with the Andorian child being scared by Soval is great, though! I was there. I sensed the child's fear. However, (and here is the beta coming out in me) how did Soval feel? We were told by Amanda how he felt -- hurt -- but what was going through Soval's mind?

She won over T'Lar's sister way too easily, I thought. I would have expanded this more as well. I also would have dispensed with the story synopsis as that gives a lot away before you even read the story.

Overall, I give the story a B+. Well done!

I love your transcultural perspective. Please write more!