Secret Thoughts

It's so strange to sit in this rather uncomfortable seat, to sit across from these people, with another on my left. I feel a little cornered, a little scared, although I'll be drowning in the watery depths of hell before I'll ever admit to that. My eyes focus on the person that speaks as they open their mouths, but I'm more watching, lip-reading than listening. It's a habit of mine, I can make myself go deaf, tune sound out completely, but still understand everything around me, everything that's said, and no one notices a thing.

I'm not entirely sure why I do it, when I was younger, a boy, sound was my world. Music, spirits, music was my life! It still has a large part of my life within its grasp. I don't really write songs much these days, except maybe silly little tunes for my nieces and nephews. I've a new one for them from being on this human ship. It involves Soval laughing and that pet of Archer's, which I've learned is a dog. I needed something to distract myself from the dreariness of these talks. Spirits, I'm bored! I know, I know, these talks are crucial, but they are tedious and difficult. I know pink-skin blames this on me, because I'm being far too unyielding with my demands. He doesn't understand how hard this actually is for me. He doesn't get why I hated-no-hate Vulcans.

Soval has just spoken of a compromise, that we divide Weytahn between us. Not a chance! We can't give you what we worked to create. Don't you understand that we're not possessive like a territorial sehlat? We came to love the land we cultivated, we cared for it, made it liveable, made homes upon it and you took that away from us. It's the love of the planet that makes us so angry at your treatment to us. We'd behave no differently if you invaded Andoria. Soval, you don't understand us at all.

I understand Vulcans. At least I firmly believed I did. It's a strange thing, because I'm not sure when I stopped thinking this. I knew their logic was their life. I knew that they were repulsed by emotions from anyone, disapproved of the displays of anger and love. The thing I have never been able to comprehend is how does one repress their emotions? Not the method, but truly, how can they? An emotion is a hormonal reaction, it's an instinct, how can they repress that? I was afraid of this ability, from the time when I was a child and my older siblings would scare me with stories of Vulcan demons that would come and suck out my yeu, my emotions, my heart, my spirit, and devour it while I slept. Even now, although not so much, I'm still unnerved by the lack of emotions I see on their faces, in their eyes.

I wonder what changed. A few years ago, if anyone had told me to talk with Vulcans, I would have solidly beaten them up and then gone out with my team or my ship, and find some Vulcans to slaughter. Now though, I don't really want to. It's been gradual, this… would one call it calming? I'm not sure. But at P'jem, when Keval suggested we behead one or two of the monks, I actually felt angry at him for suggesting it. I played along, hoping Archer would tell me what I wanted to know, but once Archer was gone I told Keval exactly what I thought of that idea. He was shocked to say the least. I was always the one to encourage that sort of treatment, now I was suddenly condemning it? What was the matter with me?

It wasn't that I was any less determined to find that fabled sensor array, or any less hating towards the Vulcans, I just didn't want to kill them unless I was given no other option. And then, when we finally found it, when we'd really gotten them, I found I didn't really care. I was more shocked at being uncaring than about the array itself. This was the sort of thing I lived for, I had caught the Vulcans out completely, and they wouldn't be able to talk their way out of it and yet… it was an empty feeling for me.

I tell Soval that the suggestion is out of the question bluntly. Why mince the truth? He looks close to sighing, a sure sign he's getting frustrated. I won't yield to him though, I can't. It's enough that I'm sitting here with him instead of trying to rip his windpipe out. It's enough that I'm seeing his face instead of the other one.

'You have a weak mind'

Those words haunt me to this day, almost thirty years later. I was still a boy to Andorian people really, legally I was an adult, but to those who knew me I was a boy. Being the baby of my small family of twenty-six children didn't help that image. I was in the Imperial Guard, fresh out of the Imperial Guard Academy, top third in my class, but on my second mission, the ship I was assigned to was destroyed. I managed to get to an escape pod and get away, but the resulting blast sent me straight into Vulcan territory. I can still remember how dark it was in that pod, all alone for, quite possibly, the first time in my life. It only got worse.

I lost track of the time I was in that pod, or I chose not to remember, either way the relief when it opened was quickly replaced with honest horror when I met the cold eyes of my first Vulcan. I think I started fighting, I'm fairly sure I did, but I was one, and they were many and I was knocked out. When I woke up I was in the closest place to hell there could possibly be.

Senai is a legendry prison camp, known for its harsh treatment of its prisoners, all Andorians, by the guards, all Vulcans. Well that's where I ended up. It's where I spent the next five years of my life. Boiling days and sticky nights, constant work, and no emotions. To look at the expressionless faces on Soval, T'pol and Nirak, is a reminder of how we'd be punished for frowning, for smiling, for crying. We were punished for other things too. Like touching food with our hands, even if it was an accident. The guards had acquired Klingon pain sticks, and they wasted no time in using them if we stepped out of line in their eyes.

The man, if he can be called that, who was in charge, was named Velik. He was a man I came to hate far more than I'd ever hated, or ever would hate in my life. He claimed to be doing what he was meant to, that he was doing this for our benefit. Right, sure. How is murdering us good for us? How was taking a zhen who's suffering from mental damage due to the severance of her marital bond and leaving her outside to starve to death in the blistering heat benefiting us? How was what he did to me for my benefit?

He saw I wasn't going to break, he saw I would just become angrier as time passed. Maybe he liked that, I know he wanted to indulge in emotions, otherwise he wouldn't have done what he did. Emotions were like a drug for him, he was addicted to them. I had what he wanted and I made sure he knew it with all the arrogance my kind at my age possessed. He waited for me to give him an excuse, and I gave it to him after four years.

I couldn't stand seeing the empty and broken eyes of the others, even in Keval, Thon, and Tholos, who I'd met, and befriended, along with another, Jalek. We were so close the five of us, like brothers. So seeing them like this was more then I could stand. So I started riling them up, giving them energy, and at the same time I unnerved the guards who became reluctant to come near us. He ordered that I be brought before him and when we met I attacked him out of my pure anger and hatred. He had me restrained and brought to a room with only one door, no windows, and little light. I barely got a look around before my body suddenly dropped. I couldn't move. Not a twitch. I couldn't even talk, barely blink. Paralysing agent. He had us left alone and then he did it.

He reached out with those ice-cold fingers and touched my face, and forced his way into my mind. The pain was unlike anything I'd ever felt, and I couldn't even scream. He burrowed into my mind, took my memories, my feelings, my desires and he mocked me. Used it all against me. I was a mess after he hissed spiteful things about the people I loved. When I finally could move again I was too weak to do anything but curl up and cry. It was just the beginning for me and our little sessions. For anything someone else did, I got punished. For a whole year it was like that. I asked him why, and he told me,

"You have a weak mind."

Was that the truth? Did I have a weak mind? I'd never have thought so until he said it, but it made horrible sense, why else would he pick me? Why else would I have been chosen? Even now that statement dogs my steps, makes me angry enough to kill. So that's what I did, I killed Vulcans. But only recently have I realised that I never can remember the victims faces, only Velik's. I saw it every time. In every face of a Vulcan I shot or interrogated with my team, I would see Velik, I would believe it was him I was hurting, like he hurt me. Now though… I see Soval's face, I see Nirak's, I see T'pol's, I don't see Velik anymore. I hope I never do.

Archer shifts and opens his mouth and I watch his lips move, reading what he's saying. It's a bit harder with Human language, but I'm a natural at languages, probably because I've got a good ear, so I can understand what he'd telling us about compromises. I tell him that if what he says is true then the talks have been a success. I wonder if they really have been. As I watch Soval's lips move in the familiar way of Vulcan language that I know too well, I realise that his statement doesn't aggravate me, it does make sense after all, but it's so strange for me to not want to contradict him. Suddenly I feel a little guilty that I've been so difficult, but if he could only understand how hard it is to fight the beliefs you've carried most of your life. I decide to try and make an effort, after all if these talks are to work I need to try.

"Join me…" I tell him, the first time I have ever said such words to a Vulcan, "in a drink." I add on a small joke, to try to show my attempt to be friendly, "To celebrate our mutual dissatisfaction." I set the bottle down, with a little smile, which is really all I can manage. I'm not in the mood for smiling, not after the betrayal of Tarah, but I'll try.

"Vulcans don't drink." Soval may as well have hit me. I feel my old anger flare up, and for a brief moment I see Velik's cold eyes sneering at me. "But this occasion merits an exception." The look on Nirak's face is too perfect for words, but I keep my face straight. We all stand and raise our glasses.

"To the Cease Fire." I cannot believe I just said that to a Vulcan! It may seem that I'm fixated on one little thing, but that single thing made up my life for nearly thirty years. I can't just let it go. But if it's for the good of Andoria, for the good of my family, then I'll try my best. "It wouldn't have been possible without the help of our human friends." Hmm, is Archer a friend? I'd like to think so. The man is honourable, truthful, and he has a sense of humour. In this line of work we need all the humour we can get.

"And to the continuation of these talks on Andoria." I find my lips curving into a smile, but hide it by knocking the ale back, grimacing very slightly at the burning sensation. Soval only has a sip, in fact I'm the only one who drank the full amount. What? Do Vulcans or Humans never get drunk? Hmm… now there's an idea, Soval drunk. I could make that into my personal 'stay sane by causing trouble' mission. If I'm successful, I shall see Soval drunk, and maybe even singing a Klingon drinking song my dark skinned associates in the Empire taught me a few years ago, if I'm really lucky, or Soval is really drunk. I have plans to plot.

Reviews would be greatly appreciated.

Night's Darkness