Mestral’s Legacy: Chapter 17

April 13th, 2154
1:23 p.m.
Nukta Island, Home of Sui Generis Glassworks

It was early afternoon when Jonathan and T’Pol reached the island. After three days of rain, they were relieved to leave the house–and the smell of wet dog–behind. T’Pol was interested in visiting the glassworks where her short-lived candle holders had come from, and since Jonathan had no particular preference that was their first trip.

Having had no luck in getting maps from the worldnet, they had decided to try the general store where they had been buying groceries. The woman there explained that the island that they were interested in was part of the Eagle Crest First Nation. When that information drew blank stares she reminded them that when First Nations had been internationally recognized as sovereign states in 2047 some of them had withdrawn such things as navigation files and geographical information in order to keep the outside world out, or at least control its access.

In any case, they were told, the gallery down the street sold items from the artisans in the area. T’Pol was sure to find something suitable there. T’Pol, however, was undeterred. She wanted to visit the glassworks themselves, thank you. Eventually convinced that T’Pol would not be changing her mind, the woman reluctantly lent them her boat and collected the landing fee.

That was the only time when Jonathan thought that T’Pol might change her mind. Usually landing fees were minimal fees to defray the costs of hosting tourists. In the last century though, they had increasingly been used to discourage visits to some of the more remote islands. At one thousand credits each, Jonathan got the impression that they were supposed to be put off by the fee. Apparently they had not counted on a starship Captain who had not had anywhere to spend his credits for three years. He paid for both of them, since T’Pol had nearly exhausted her reserve of Terran credits on the house rental.

Now, having found the right island, Jonathan secured the boat to the dock and helped T’Pol out of it: all they had to do was find the glassworks. The landing fee receipt chip allowed them to use the dock, but it didn’t seem to buy much else. As he and T’Pol walked along the wooden dock toward the shore, they passed a number of other slips with moored boats. None of them seemed to belong to other tourists. There were fishermen coming in and going out, families leaving on trips, and kids running around with older siblings or parents watching over them. Everything seemed to stop as people noticed their arrival. Conversations became muted and the children gravitated towards their parents.

At first Archer thought that they were staring at him. He was used to drawing a crowd when he went out in public nowadays, but as he walked further along the dock he saw that people’s gazes were directed behind him. He stopped and turned around to see that T’Pol had fallen behind. In fact, she was rooted to the spot, frozen, as everyone gathered around her and stared at her. From Jonathan’s vantage point the crowd seemed to encircle her and pulse raced as he lost sight of her.

Pushing his way through the throng, he found himself standing in a clearing between the crowd and T’Pol. There was a one metre buffer all around her, which he crossed in two steps to stand beside her. The sight of a friendly face snapped her out of her immobility. She squared her shoulders and stood up straighter. This time they passed through the crowd together. He watched it part around them, the crowd always keeping its distance from T’Pol.

There was one woman at the edge of the crowd that seemed familiar. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, bronze skin like most of the others on the dock, long black hair, and lilac eyes. He had seen the eye colour in quite a few people in the area, but it was expression at seeing him, or maybe T’Pol, that caught his attention. He had the nagging feeling that he knew her from somewhere but couldn’t put his finger on where he had seen her before. Before he could talk to her, she had turned toward shore and walked away.

Jonathan and T’Pol reached shore without further incident, but by then the woman had disappeared. Glancing back they saw that everything on the dock had returned to normal, with only a few people still watching them intently. There was a gravel road that led from the dock up a small hill and then forked to lead in opposite directions around the island. At the top of the hill were a few small buildings–they turned out to be for smoking fish–and several older men sitting around enjoying the day and chatting in a foreign language. The chatting stopped as they approached, although there were a few whispered comments and nudges. At the fork in the road was a sign with a map. Walking over to it, Jonathan was disappointed to find that although it showed the roads on the island, there were no street names or other landmarks on the weathered sign and certainly no glassworks.

“Whatever you’re looking for, you won’t find it on there.” Jonathan turned to find that one of the old men had walked over to where he was standing. He couldn’t tell whether he was sixty or ninety. He looked ancient, but moved like a much younger man. The man pointed at the sign.

“Put up by the Canadian government before we got the place back. Used to be a public park,” he said, clearly thinking it a poor use of the land. Indicating the sign, he added, “those were the walking trails. Guess we should replace it, but everyone here knows where they’re going and we don’t get too many visitors.”

“Could you direct us to Sui Generis Glassworks?” T’Pol had joined them. Jonathan watched the old man look T’Pol up and down. He thought he saw the man frown slightly when he got to her ears, but as soon as the look appeared it was gone.

“Why?” The tone wasn’t unfriendly, but it wasn’t an idle question either. T’Pol answered him, but the old man wasn’t satisfied with the answer.

“What does a Vulcan government official want with Sui Generis?”

“I do not work for the Vulcan government,” T’Pol assured him, one eyebrow cocked in confusion. The man turned to Archer, “You going to vouch for her?”

“Vulcans don’t lie,” Archer said, suppressing the urge to smile at repeating the line that had so often irked him.

“Sure they do,” the old man said, eyes crinkling, “and I’ll bet you know it, too.”

“She isn’t,” Archer said patiently.

“What do you want with them?”

T’Pol explained about wanting to replace some candle holders. The old man looked at T’Pol for a long time and then briefly at Jonathan, before walking away abruptly. T’Pol looked at Jonathan quizzically, apparently thinking that as a human he would have more insight into the man’s behaviour.

They watched the man consult his friends. After a moment he called over a couple of girls from a group of kids playing soccer in a nearby field. After what looked to be a brief, animated conversation with the girls, the old man headed over to Jonathan and T’Pol. The girls trailed a few metres behind. The old man introduced them as his granddaughters. The younger one grinned widely upon seeing Jonathan. He groaned inwardly: it was his helper from the grocery store, the one that was convinced that he had a thing for T’Pol. Unconsciously, he took a step away from T’Pol.

“This is Tati,” he said, introducing the younger one, “and this is Kaylan. They’ll show you the way.” Jonathan looked around for other options, but the old man had already walked away and the girls had set off along the road with T’Pol following them. It appeared that he had no choice but to do the same. As he did, he heard a burst of laughter from the group of men, but when he turned around they were chatting with each other in their own language and paying no attention to him. Setting off after T’Pol and the girls, he hoped fervently that the older girl would keep Tati in check. He couldn’t imagine trying to explain any comments Tati might make to T’Pol.

They reached Sui Generis Glassworks after a circuitous forty minute walk that crisscrossed the island. If the girls had not insisted that they had arrived at their destination they would have dismissed it as just another house. There was no sign over the low one-story structure indicating the presence of a business. It sat in front of a house that was set back from the road and overlooked the beach. Although it wasn’t yet summer, the doors were all propped open. As they got closer, they realised why. The heat from the gas fired furnaces could be felt before they even stepped over the threshold. T’Pol stepped inside without a second thought, oblivious to Jonathan’s sudden hesitation at the threshold before following her in. The girls had already wandered inside ahead of T’Pol. Inside it was fairly dark aside from the light from the furnaces and a few windows.

A lone man was standing in front of one of the furnaces, blowing on a hollow pole as the bulb of molten glass attached to the end swelled with air. Intent on his work, the man pushed the glass and pole back into the furnace, rotating it constantly to prevent gravity from deforming the bulbous glass and then pulled the pole out and blew through it again. The procedure was repeated several times, and each time the glass swelled more, taking its shape.

Taking their cue from the girls they waited until the man pulled the bulbous glass from the furnace, turned to a work table and grabbed a metal implement and started to shape the neck of the vase, all the while turning the pole to keep the hot glass from deforming. He briefly acknowledged the girls’ presence, gave them a questioning glance as he spotted Archer and T’Pol, and continued his work.

The man was young, twenty if that. It was apparent from the older girl’s adoring stare and his obliviousness to it that she had a crush on him to the delight of her younger sister. Tati’s eyes gleamed mischievously. Jonathan recognized the look. Sure enough, it was only a matter of seconds before, according to Tati, Kaylan and Jesse were sitting in a tree.

“Shut up, brat.” Abandoning any pretense of decorum, the older girl rounded on her younger sibling. Tati wasn’t stupid. She had already positioned herself by one of the doors providing herself with an escape route. She scooted out the door with her sister in hot pursuit. Ignoring the sibling chicanery, Jonathan looked around the interior of the building.

The young man, Jesse, seemed amused by the scuffle but otherwise ignored the goings on as he finished working on the vase. Finally setting it down, he came over to talk to them.

“What can I do for you folks?” T’Pol handed him the two slips of paper that had been attached to the candle holders and explained what she was looking for. Jesse looked at them for a minute before handing the tags back.

“Oh yeah, sure we make these. But we don’t sell directly. Your best bet is to go back to the gallery you got them from.” He began to apologise that they had come all this way for nothing when T’Pol interrupted him.

“I was hoping to talk to the glassblower who made them.”

“Why is that?” The question was asked lightly enough but Jesse was giving them his full attention now.

“Vulcans and other aliens are ‘unpopular’ with Terrans these days. It is curious to produce candle holders with T’Khut as a subject matter in these circumstances.”

“Is that what that is,” he muttered under his breath.

“You didn’t know?” Archer asked scornfully.

“Actually, I didn’t make them.”

“You said–”

“Oh, they were made here, but not by me. The boss made those.” He turned back to his work as if they weren’t there.

“Could I speak with him?” T’Pol persisted.

“Not in today. Doc was down this morning, said he had a fever or something.”

“She can be overprotective,” said a voice from behind them.

They turned to see Vorak standing in a doorway–opposite from the one that they had entered through–that appeared to lead to the house behind the studio.

“You appear to have recovered,” he said to T’Pol. Archer looked at T’Pol out of the corner of his eye.

“Have you two met?” He didn’t like the idea; he didn’t like it at all. Vorak was young, male, and Vulcan. And he, Jonathan Archer, wasn’t. It got better, or worse–depending on your viewpoint–as T’Pol explained her rescue in Vancouver.

While T’Pol had recovered from the attack, Vorak appeared to have worsened since either Archer or T’Pol had seen him last. His skin was flushed and his eyes were slightly unfocused but he waved off their concern.

“I said my–my physician is overprotective. There is nothing wrong with her medical skills; I am fine.” Ignoring Archer, Vorak turned to T’Pol.

“You wanted to talk to me.”

“I thought the choice of T’Khut unusual for a Terran artist.” T’Pol said, realising her faulty assumption.

“A mistake, in retrospect. Still, few could be expected to tell the difference between T’Khut and Sol.” Vorak watched her carefully in a way that made Archer vaguely uncomfortable, “I did not account for you.”

T’Pol must have sensed it as well, because her voice was stilted when she asked about replacing the glass. He offered to have a set sent to her, but didn’t bother to take down their address.

“Everyone knows where you are staying,” he said. “Now if that is all, I am rather . . . tired.” Archer thought that Vorak looked more than just tired. Jesse had said something about a fever; Archer wondered if it was contagious and looked anxiously at T’Pol.

“Thanks,” Archer said, willing T’Pol to go. Whatever it was this Vulcan had, he didn’t want T’Pol catching it. Seeing that she was reluctant to leave without finding out more, he suggested that they could come back another time when Vorak was feeling better. This seemed to satisfy her and they headed outside. As he stepped out of the glassworks into the comparatively cool afternoon air, he failed to see T’Pol look back and shiver at finding Vorak watching her every move.

After the heat of the furnaces Archer was relieved to be standing in the yard again. He took a deep breath and tried to dispel the anxiety that had enveloped him inside with the heat and the flames. He looked around for their two young guides but they were long gone.

“Well, we might as well take a look around while we’re here. There’s plenty of daylight left. It would be a shame to waste it.” Not to mention my two thousand credits.

“There is one more question . . .,” T’Pol protested, looking back at the glassworks doubtfully. Before he could talk her out of it, she was back inside. Archer sighed, and made to follow her but the thought of the heat of the glassworks kept him immobilised. Breaking out in a cold sweat, he lowered himself to the ground and tried to focus on the present as the past wormed itself back into his consciousness.

Inside the glassworks, T’Pol found that it was curiously empty. The young man, Jesse, was nowhere to be seen and it took her a moment to find Vorak even though he was were she had last seen him except that he was sitting to the floor.

“Are you alright?” she asked in Vulcan, crouching down in front of him. His eyes were closed, but he had heard her; his breathing had changed at her presence.

“Go away,” he said by way of acknowledgement.

“Are you ill?” she asked, suspecting that this “fever” of his was not one that a physician could cure.

“Go away,” he repeated somewhat more forcefully. His eyes opened revealing a desire so primal that she started. For a moment she thought he was looking at her, until she was grabbed from behind and unceremoniously pushed aside.

“Get away from him!” A woman crouched down in front of Vorak and T’Pol realised that he had been looking beyond her, not at her. She tensed as someone grabbed her hand. She looked up to see that it was only Jesse offering to help her up.

“His physician?” she asked, dusting herself off. Her arm throbbed where she had landed on it, and she rubbed it absent-mindedly.

“Yeah,” Jesse said shortly, trying to guide T’Pol out. “It may not be possible to treat–,” she trailed off as she looked back and saw the woman caress Vorak’s cheek. She was obviously more than just a physician to him. As if sensing that they were being watched, the woman looked up and T’Pol was startled to recognize her as an Enterprise crew member.

“Just leave him alone,” Alaia said as she helped Vorak up and led him out the door. Jesse cleared his throat self-consciously before indicating the door. The young man seemed apologetic at the way that T’Pol had been treated, but nevertheless was determined to get rid of her.

Finding herself outside and the door unceremoniously closed behind her, she saw Jonathan sitting in the grass waiting for her.

They chose a path leading up a small forested mountain. At least they could find a vantage point to let them get their bearings.

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