Decision at Council
By
Amanda’s council attendant brought a scheduling notice to her attention with the daily summaries.
“My lady, there is a decision requiring the vote of all Council members, not merely a quorum. You must therefore attend Council next Secanth. I have put the relevant documents in your computer files.”
“Thank you, T’vian.” She pushed aside the draft of the academic paper she was writing and went through the Council documents. And then she drew a breath in dismay. She read through them again and then hit the print key, spreading the High Vulcan documents out before her.
The case was a simple one. The situation was this. T’Lisel, a young woman of the distant Soton
clan, and the consort of Sarumel, had applied and been accepted to
Her own ear keyed to anything involving Starfleet, Amanda had heard of the case on the news as it wound its way through the Vulcan judicial system. Spock, of course, had sidestepped the Vulcan paperwork by having petitioned for dual citizenship, and obtaining a Terran Federation passport. And of course he was male, so he avoided T’Lisel’s particular problem. T’Pring might have disapproved of her bondmate entering a Federation military service, but she had no legal recourse to stop him if she did. As Sarumel had. T’Lisel’s appeal had failed at the lower council levels, and now it was to be heard at High Council. And as it was a case that affected Surak’s philosophies, and thus Vulcan society as a whole, all High Council members were required to sit and render judgment. Including her.
This was a case she had found …disturbing, not merely because it involved Starfleet and made her think of Spock’s leave-taking. It raised another issue she tried not to think about.
Vulcan was a highly civilized society -- in most respects. But it fell down alarmingly when it came to anything related to Vulcan biology. Particularly in its attitudes toward women.
Women had equal rights on Vulcan for all ostensible purposes. And the highest voice on the planet, the court of no appeal was T’Pau, the Matriarch of all, though she used her power rarely.
But there was a subtext outside of the obvious whereby not all women had equality. Women unbonded or widowed did have the same status as men. Chattel, those who challenged, had no rights at all. But wives, consorts, female bondmates had a curious, peculiarly Vulcan status. Such women were the legal equivalent of men in almost every respect. They could vote, own property, sign contracts, run a business, testify or bring a case in court, sit at council and render judgment. Virtually no profession was closed to them, though Amanda had never actually seen a female guardsman. In almost every legal and personal interaction, they had equivalent rights. But an ancient Vulcan law claimed that although equal in every other respect, such women’s physical persons were the legal property of their bondmate.
It went back of course, to Pon Far, as most of these outmoded customs did. Societies tended to develop rituals, taboos, and customs to appease certain unworkable or frightening situations. How many independent human cultures had mid-winter ceremonies, a reassurance when the light was at it shortest? And Vulcans in ancient times had fought for possession of women, still did today in their divorce ceremonies. So it was no very great surprise to discover, in a race where the males had a potentially fatal mating fever, that their legal system provided for the succession of the race by this questionable device. She had been advised of it before she married, and she couldn’t say it hadn’t given her pause. One of many things that had given her pause before she’d taken that fateful step. But when she’d tried to talk to Sarek about it, she just got that slightly puzzled look from him. Vulcan males didn’t really think about it, it was as natural a scenario as gravity to them. A cultural blindness. And Vulcan women took it with equanimity too. Or seemed to. Her few attempts over the years to discuss it, with such few Vulcan women as she had felt equal to broaching such a question, had given her the same, slightly puzzled brow. And so she had just dropped it.
That technically she was legally Sarek’s property had seemed to have little bearing on most aspects of her normal life. She had her career, she sat on the highest council on Vulcan, and though Sarek could, technically give her orders in the emphatic mode, orders he had every right to expect obeyed, he seldom did. He did manifest an occasionally proprietary attitude. He did sometimes tend to be overbearing when it came to issues of her health or safety. But his life was, after all, somewhat tied to hers and thus a logical concern of his. But in her normal daily life, the most obvious aspects of the Vulcan laws were the fact that he apparently had a legal right not to let her cut her hair, and that, of course, he could take her to bed whenever he wished. As if any Vulcan bondmate would stop a Vulcan male in that pursuit. As for her hair, it was too long, but she’d adjusted to the nuisance. Like every other Vulcan wife.
So she’d grown used to the law, if not entirely comfortable with the idea of it. It had been challenged before a few times in distant history, but never overturned. But now was being challenged again.
She grabbed her documents and went in search of her husband, entering his office without preamble.
“Sarek. Do you know about this case?”
He glanced at the sheaf of papers she put on his pristine desk. “Naturally. It comes before Council next Secanth. You must attend to render judgment.”
“You expect me to rule on this?”
He blinked and looked at her. “It is your responsibility as clan leader.”
She sank into a chair opposite him. “But…Sarek. You can’t expect me to rule against this?”
Sarek paused. “Do you plan to approve her request?”
“Do you plan to uphold the current law?” Amanda countered.
“Yes.”
She eyed him, and then looked down at the papers before them. “I know you don’t approve of Starfleet. You would have done anything to keep--” she hesitated over saying the name.
“My opinion on that organization has no bearing on this decision.”
She was shaking her head, thinking of the upcoming vote. “Sarek…how can I do this?”
For a moment he stared at her, his expression blank. “Amanda, you must. All the High Council must render judgment in a case involving Surak’s constructs. It is the law.”
“But you’re going to vote against it.”
“Yes.”
“How will it…it look, if I vote for it?”
He sat back, shaking his head. “How will it look?”
“To …to appear to oppose you. Publicly. Before all of Vulcan?”
Sarek’s brow creased in puzzlement. “If you so vote, you will not be the only one holding that position. You will not stand alone, regardless that I vote in opposition.”
Amanda shook her head in frustration. “Oh for -- then, how will you feel?”
“How will I feel?”
“Would you stop repeating what I say?”
“Amanda, you are required to render judgment as clan leader in your own right. Your opinion need not be in accordance with mine.”
“Logically, perhaps, but I’m not talking about logic.”
“Then I don’t understand.”
“You intend to vote, for the continued legal status of woman as the physical property of their bondmates. If I vote against it, do you think it wouldn’t change anything between us?”
Sarek regarded her calmly. “Amanda, I think you misunderstand this situation. This resolution legally must be brought before Council. Lower courts simply cannot rule on a major change to Surak’s constructs. That it appeared before High Council was inevitable from the first petition. But historically such proposals have been brought before and have been defeated by a wide margin. While such… radical views… have had their proponents, this simply does not have enough support in Council to pass.”
“That’s not what I meant. I was talking about us.”
“About us.” Sarek shook his head again. “Amanda, as I have tried to make clear, however you vote, it is extremely unlikely your personal legal status will change.”
“Not my legal status. Us.”
He tried harder to make her understand. “We will not change.”
She was flabbergasted at his denseness. “Sarek, that is so … How could we not?”
Sarek paused, thinking about that, eyeing her warily. “Are you saying, you would be…angry…with me, for voting in opposition to you?”
She drew back a little at having the conflict laid out so bluntly. “I haven’t said definitely that’s how I’m going to vote.”
He conceded that point with a flick of a brow. “I speak hypothetically as well. But you have not answered.”
“No, not angry, but…. This has got to have some impact on us. And I want to know what we’re getting into before we start.”
He shook his head, his black eyes nothing more than slightly puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
Her own brow creased and she sighed. “I’m not sure I do either, at the moment.”
Sarek shrugged. “Then I strongly suggest you meditate on the issues and reach a conclusion. Swiftly,” he added. “Council convenes to vote on this in three days.”
She stared at him, open mouthed. And then, not sure what to think, she picked up her papers and left.
xxx
When she was confused about things Vulcan, and especially when she was potentially in opposition to Sarek, her best advisor was still T’Pau. She requested an audience with the matriarch. And when it was granted, she went with a particular purpose in mind. T’Pau owed her more than a few favors. She was determined to collect on at least one of them.
The ritual pleasantries over with, Amanda cut to the chase.
“T’Pau, regarding this upcoming council vote. I think you must somehow see me excused.”
T’Pau raised a brow in mild surprise. She found her human daughter’s directness sometimes amusing and sometimes refreshing. It was a minor indulgence in her later years. “Must I, indeed?”
Amanda flushed. No one told T’Pau what to do. She wasn’t above the law, but she was above all the clans. “Forgive my impertinence. I spoke in need.”
“But it is impossible, my daughter.”
Amanda was dismayed. “You can’t expect me to rule on this issue?”
“Thee consider thyself different from other women there who must rule?”
Amanda looked at her. “Very funny. You know that I am different.”
“Thee are a clan leader who must render judgment. Thee are wife to a Vulcan. In those two most relevant points thee are the same.”
“But there is a difference in how I feel about it.”
“Do you think so?”
Amanda did a double take, looking at T’Pau. “May I ask how you are going to rule?”
“Against.”
Amanda drew a breath. “Then you don’t feel as I do.” She shook her head. “Forgive me for presuming to ask. I didn’t mean--”
“T’Amanda, one must make this decision based upon the merits of the case, and on the analysis of Surak’s constructs.”
“I’m hardly his biggest fan.”
“That does not make thy interpretation any less valid.”
“T’Pau you know Surak’s constructs. The commentaries on them. You know them by heart, you can recite them backwards and forwards. So does Sarek. And all the other Council members. I’ve only read them. I am the rankest amateur. There is a difference in our qualifications.”
“Are thee less qualified to rule on this issue than any other previous issues thee has ruled upon -- without seeking to evade that duty?”
“You put me in Council,” Amanda accused.
“No. Thee did. When thee chose to marry my son.”
“You know,” Amanda pointed out, with some asperity, “when he asked me to marry him, he never exactly told me who he was. You could have said something to me then too, before all this started. I could claim false advertising. Or something.”
“It is rather late for that, T’Amanda,” T’Pau reminded her.
Amanda returned to serious business. “I am not qualified to rule in this case.”
“Is it thy qualifications, or does thee now protest because this decision is painful to thee personally?”
She winced at that. “It is painful. But more importantly, it is dangerous. You know the risks to Sarek--”
“Personal considerations are outside of Council duties.” T’Pau said blithely, and glanced at Amanda. “I think the risk is small, even if you vote in favor. Sarek is equal to it. This is not a personal matter, T’Amanda, such as what troubled your household before.”
“How can I oppose him publicly in Council? If I so chose? I’m his wife.”
“And his possession and will likely remain so. There are not the votes in Council for this to pass.” She raised that brow again. “Even with your support.”
“Then why bring it to Council?”
“It is the law of the land. The lower courts cannot render judgment on Surak’s constructs. Council must reaffirm the law before this challenge.”
Amanda winced at the word. “You say it matters not. But I am still concerned. He shouldn’t have minded, so very much, that Spock went to Starfleet and yet--”
“He is free of the vrie. Surely you see that? It is obvious in his manner.”
“I don’t want to bring it back.”
“It seems unlikely this could do so. T’Amanda, I wonder if thy concern is truly for Sarek? Or for thyself?”
“For him. For us both. For all of it, his health, our marriage, And if the law won’t pass anyway…”
“Then what matter if you oppose him in Council?”
Amanda drew a shocked breath. “No. I can’t.”
“I think thee are conflicted, my daughter. Duty is not always easy.”
“That you don’t need to tell me.”
“Perhaps not. But while you have undertaken difficult duties before, you had …emotional motivations for doing so. Motivations that served you to do so. Your motivations seem to be in opposition to your sworn duties here.”
“I don’t know what do to here. Or how I should vote. So, yes, I’d rather not vote at all.”
“As to the latter, that I cannot help you with. It is your duty. You must attend Council. And you must vote. As to your decision, that you must come to, on your own. I can only suggest you meditate on the situation. And swiftly--”
Amanda winced at being given the same advice from T’Pau that Sarek had given her. “Yes, I know. Council votes in three days.”
“I trust thee will do thy duty as always.” And T’Pau held out her hands, a clear dismissal.
And no hope there. Amanda knelt to her in ritual obeisance and took her leave and her problem away unsolved.
xxx
As she went through the next few days, she kept wondering why the planet wasn’t up in arms in one way or another. Whatever the Council decided, this would be a major decision, affecting the lives of most adults in one way or another.
Yet the event was only perfunctorily reported in the news, and if Vulcans were concerned about it, she saw no signs. She spent the next couple of days thinking about what she was going to do. See-saw-ing back and forth over how she was going to vote. Sometimes, teaching, or conferring with a colleague, the issue would creep up on her as if she was unaware and she would be amazed that she’d even considered voting against T’Lisel’s petition. Hadn’t she helped her own son leave Vulcan for Starfleet? Wasn’t it hypocritical of her to put obstacles before this girl now? Did she believe just because T’Lisel was a girl, that she shouldn’t have the same opportunities? What if she herself had borne a daughter? What would it say about herself if she didn’t?
And didn’t she think this was a law that should change? It was an archaic, out-moded law. Surely a culture as advanced as Vulcan didn’t need to hold half their adult population as property.
Did she really think she could vote to keep herself in a state so antithetical to her own views of women?
The idea of voting against it was ludicrous.
But then she thought of Sarek. He was Vulcan. She was not. And he had surprised her more than once with how alien he could be, outside of her human expectations. And Vulcan biology, Pon Far and all the attitudes that went with it, was real and serious. She had surely learned her lesson in underestimating that syndrome. It might sound barbaric to humans. But if Vulcans needed it…
How could she – who was she – to vote against such a traditional part of Vulcan culture, millennia old, even pre pre-Reform. She a mere human. Who could hardly be said to be facile on Vulcan law or Vulcan ethics.
Unable to resolve it for herself, she tried to resolve it for the Vulcans she was supposed to be representing. She watched couples, families, women, men compulsively that week. She watched mothers with children. She watched mothers with sons.
She began to wonder if society should be tailored for those that wanted to leave it, or those that planned to stay within it.
And then she thought of T’Lisel, prevented from leaving Vulcan, as Spock might have been if she had not been human, and she was torn again.
She still had no idea how she was going to vote.
xxx
She had to cancel a class to vote in Council. It was already in session when she arrived for the vote. She filed into the chamber with all the other Council members who were not normally present on a daily basis and were attending now only by the mandatory nature of this vote. She slid into her place next to Sarek, a little breathless from rushing. He spared her a glance but he was always at his most Vulcan in Council and there was nothing personal in his look. T’Pau favored her with a distant nod.
The legal advisors who had brought the case to Council ran through a précis of the case. Amanda saw with a trace of alarm that T’Lisel was also present at Council as was her bondmate, sitting each with their representatives. She looked at the girl searchingly, but there was no expression in her dark eyes, or on her features. She didn’t look like Spock. She didn’t appear to care one way or another about the outcome of the vote. Of course, she must know it was not going to pass.
But she thought of her own son, only a few years ago, desperate to be free, and her heart broke a little for her.
The voting had started and she listened to it absently. There were more in favor than she’d suspected, but nothing near a margin for the proposal to pass. On a case such as this, a mandatory vote affecting the Constructs, votes were cast verbally, one by one. And her clan voted last so there were hundreds of votes to be cast before hers. Lulled by the repetitive polls, she listened in almost a dreamy state as Vulcan after Vulcan voted, most giving the expected No.
The Vulcan reading the roster had a strong accent. She didn’t recognize her name when hers was called, half abstracted by her thoughts and the mesmerizing tenor of the vote.
“T’Amanda of the Xtmprszqzntwlfb clan?”
Sarek shifted infinitesimally next to her when she didn’t respond.
She started out of her dreamy state and sat up.
“T’Amanda of the Xtmprszqzntwlfb clan.” The speaker looked at her inquiringly.
Amanda swallowed and said nothing for a moment more. Looking down at her hands. Her palms made a damp imprint on the table,
that dissipated immediately in the dry air.
I don’t want to do this.
“T’Amanda of Xtmprszqzntwlfb clan” the speaker said, a third and final time, eyes now a little wide in astonishment.
She found her voice at last. And drew a deep breath. “No,” she said clearly.
He recorded the vote and moved to the next on his roster. “Sarek of the Xtmprszqzntwlfb clan?”
“No,” Sarek said beside her.
“T’Pau, Matriarch of all Vulcan?”
“No,” T’Pau said.
And the vote was over. The speaker announced the petition had failed, and was giving tallies and percentages. Amanda raised her eyes to T’Lisel, but the girl had not changed expression and was already being escorted out of the chamber.
This vote concluded the session, and the rest of the council was also filing out, but Amanda didn’t move. She heard Sarek deal with a few Council members, business issues, meetings, upcoming votes, all as casual and prosaic as if this were some agricultural bill on plomeek subsidies. She felt Sarek turn and look at her, but she didn’t, she couldn’t look up. Finally she felt him slide into his seat next to her.
“Did it make a difference?” he asked.
She did look up then. If he were being flip about this. If he was teasing her… But his eyes were serious. Calm. A little puzzled and curious. But not amused.
“To the Council vote? No. Just as you said.”
“I meant between us.”
She looked up again, searching his eyes. She couldn’t read him. He was still being very controlled. “You voted against it, Sarek.”
“So did you.”
She drew up, at that betrayal by him. “Oh, for very different reasons!”
“Do you think so?”
She lowered her head. “I don’t know what to think.”
He was silent a moment. “Then do not judge, Amanda.”
“I didn’t have a choice in that.”
“Don’t you?”
“So I’ve been told. I was required to be here, and I came. And the vote is already past. It’s a little late to tell me not to judge.”
“I meant do not judge me.”
She looked up at him again. But there was still no expression in his eyes or on his face. She felt a million miles away from him. “Can we talk about this?” she asked. “Is it even possible that we can discuss this?”
Sarek tilted his head. “Have we anything to say?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure if we can ever meet on this decision.”
“You rendered a decision. One in accordance with mine, though I confess I am puzzled by that given your previous--”
“Can you even understand how I feel about this vote? About this issue?”
Sarek drew a breath. “I think…that I do.”
“But you voted no, anyway. How could you?”
Sarek paused, considering her. “Did you think this would be an O. Henry scenario, Amanda? Your sacrifice for mine, mine for yours? That you would vote no , and I yes?”
“I told you I don’t know what to think.”
“It is not such a scenario.”
“So I have discovered.”
“You surely did not expect it.”
“I didn’t know what to expect, even of myself. I’m finding this all very hard.”
“Some decisions, my wife, are not personal.”
She looked up at him. “But the outcomes are.”
Sarek caught her hand. “Amanda. Nothing has changed between us.”
That was not the answer she wanted to hear. She slid her fingers out from his, rejecting the gesture. “I have to get back to the Academy. My task here is done.”
xxx
She taught the rest of her morning classes and then before the noon break, received a message to attend T’Pau. The attendants had laid out a pretty mid-day meal, T’Pau’s main meal, for the matriarch never ate a heavy meal in the evening now that she was in her later years. But Amanda could not join her at the table. Instead, she paced, railing at what she had just been through. T’Pau watched her.
“I hate it, she said. “It is so barbaric.”
“Pon Far,” the Matriarch said.
“Not the Time itself. But what it means to Vulcans. What it does to Vulcans. You don’t even speak of it, you don’t even name it, in public. But you build your lives and your culture around your fear of it. It is so ridiculous. Tell me your suppression of emotion isn’t just your warrior past, but also related to your fear of Pon Far? I think it is.”
T’Pau was unmoved. “Named or not, Pon Far is a force of our nature.”
“Nature is cruel.”
“Yes.”
“Vulcans are not. Warrior past aside, this …continued obsession is unworthy of you. Surely with all your abilities, your technology, you can find some alternative. Some drug, some treatment.”
“There were attempts. They caused many deaths.”
“But you are so technologically advanced. And now you have the combined forces of the Federation -- You could be free.”
“We accept our biology, T’Amanda. It is what we are.”
“How can you say that,” Amanda scorned. “You don’t accept your emotions. They are also what you are.”
“Life is a paradox. As a race, as a leader, one must choose options that are best for one’s people.”
“Best?
“That save the most lives. That advance civilization. Vulcan lived in continual clan wars before Surak’s philosophies and his peace.”
“Making woman property advances civilization? I fail to see how.”
“Not women. Bondmates.”
“A fine distinction.”
“T’Amanda, males fought constantly, and killed over women, or died in the mating fever before our marriage laws and customs. You are free in every way, save one, and that you have already forsworn to your mate. What matter the law holds you so, when your own oaths bind you? And I know you do not forswear your oaths.”
“It matters.”
T’Pau shook her head. “Daughter, your emotions are not serving you well now. You are exhausting yourself. Sit.”
Amanda sank down. “I voted against myself, T’Pau. I voted against myself.”
“Did you?”
Amanda twisted in her chair. “I am human. Freedom…it’s practically my birthright. Oh, yes, in the Federation other beings practice slavery as an established system. But in the history of humanity, no state of slavery has ever long endured. It is inimical to our basic nature. To me. And yet I just upheld one.”
“Thee considered thyself a slave?” T’Pau raised a brow ironically as an attendant began to serve luncheon. “If so, thee are a privileged one, to sit at Council and render judgment on a world. On many worlds, Vulcan and all her colonies.”
“Slavery isn’t always chains.” Amanda argued. She waved away the offered meal. “If women are property, it’s slavery of a form. And I agreed to it. I am so ashamed of myself.”
“If thee voted in favor, thee must believe in it.”
Amanda just raised her eyes to T’Pau. “Believe? Believe that I, that any woman, should be some man’s property?”
“Why so vote, then?”
Amanda lowered her head, cheeks flushing in shame. “I thought of Sarek. I thought of Spock.”
“Yes.” T’Pau nodded her head.
“And not just them, all the other Vulcan males.”
“Yes.”
“It’s my freedom. Our freedom. And it is dear to me. But it’s their lives.”
“Yes.” T’Pau nodded, agreeing again.
“How could I choose otherwise?”
“Yes.”
“But what an awful -- what a terrible, monstrous, choice.”
“Yes. Thee understands perfectly.”
Amanda curled in on herself. “No. Because I know it isn’t Vulcan, for me to feel this hatred. For I do hate it! All the circumstances that require this terrible choice. Vulcan biology and passion and custom and tradition. I hate it, I hate it, I hate all of it!”
“And still thee chose.”
“Yes,” Amanda echoed. “I chose it. And I’d choose it again. The alternatives being what they are.” She looked at T’Pau. “I had no choice.”
T’Pau regarded her passionlessly. Then rising carefully for her aged bones and crossing to Amanda, she lifted her face. Looking at the tears swimming in her eyes, that Amanda tried to blink away. “I think, my daughter, when I am gone, that someday thee will make a very wise matriarch.”
Amanda did cry then, while T’Pau stood above her, hand on her cheek, the tears rolling on the matriarch’s aged skin.
xxx
She pulled herself together, went back to teach the remainder of her classes. Coming home at the end of the day, listening to the news on her flyer’s communication systems, she heard the Vulcan newscaster reporting the decision of High Council to vote down the petitioner T’Lisel’s request to overturn the existing property laws regarding wives and consorts. The voice rattled off the vote tallies and the major clans positions pro and con as unemotionally as if it were no more than a plomeek subsidy. The newscaster’s voice was young, female; she was no doubt bonded, consort or wife, and Amanda wondered how she felt about it. Or if she felt anything at all.
The newscast didn’t mention Amanda by name, but it reported that clan Xtmprszqzntwlfb voted unanimously against the petition.
Hearing it broadcast to all the planet, all the colonies, all the Federation, made her cheeks flame anew. What had she done?
Everything looked the same when she arrived home, a little late, given she’d made up her noon office hours after classes. The guard met her as she flew through the forcescreens and took her flyer off her hands to the hanger. Another guard let her through the gates, bracing as she passed. Inside, a gardener, pruning one of the elaborate topiaries in the formal gardens, nodded deferentially, at his feet a bird’s nest he’d disturbed in his pruning. The evicted birds perched on the garden wall above him. T’Jar came tripping up and told her tea would be ready on the terrace shortly. And that Sarek was home already and waiting there for her.
For a moment, she paused in the great hall, almost unwilling to see him. She really didn’t want to see him. She wanted to go to her room, curl in a ball, throw a sheet over her head, and never come out.
Fine clan leader she made.
And so she drew a breath and went out to the terrace.
He was discussing something with an aide, and she paused, hesitating, unwilling to break in on their discussion. But he looked up, saw her, and sent the aide away.
Amanda approached the table reluctantly. “I don’t want to interrupt.”
“Our discussion was concluded. Come.” He gestured with a hand, and she noticed as if for the first time, how assured he was. Always was, really . But today she felt like she’d been through a wringer. And there he sat, calm, controlled, logical. As if nothing had happened today at all.
She sat down, not knowing where to look, or what to think.
“Amanda?”
She shook her head. “I can’t, Sarek. I can’t pretend nothing has changed, that things will go on just as they had before.”
He frowned slightly. “You perceive that something has changed?”
“Of course something has changed.”
“Because of Council.”
“Yes.”
“Amanda…the resolution was not upheld. The laws remain the same.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You perceive something has changed between us?”
“How can it have not?”
His brow furrowed. “Do you think that I have changed? Toward you? Or in basic philosophy”
She shifted uncomfortably. Sarek had never indicated before any great dissatisfaction with the status of female bondmates, wives, on Vulcan. “No. You haven’t changed.”
“Then as the laws remain unchanged, and I have not changed, you must perceive the change within yourself.”
She flushed anew. But didn’t answer.
He looked at her pointedly. “Is that not so?”
She shivered, then trembled, resisting it. “No. Sarek. I can’t do this.”
“But …you did.”
“You made me do this.”
“Amanda, it was your sworn duty to--”
“Not the Council vote, ” she said. “But how I voted. How could you make me feel this way?”
“Amanda,” Sarek drew back, startled.
“When we married,” she said, “You promised me you’d never make me Vulcan.” She closed her eyes, turning her face away. “And you broke that promise.”
“No,” he shook his head. “I did not. Amanda, this you came to on your own. I confess to some…surprise…at your vote in Council. I do not understand myself how you came to that conclusion. But I respect that you had the right, the obligation, to so choose. Your choice – and your feelings – you came to on your own.”
She said nothing for a long moment.
“Amanda?”
She drew a shaky breath. “Will I ever be the same again, Sarek? As I was before?”
Sarek paused for almost an equal time, evaluating her distress then said, “Perhaps not.”
She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “Can you even love me?”
Sarek’s brows rose in astonishment. “Can I--”
“I’m not what I was before. I’m not even sure I like myself – after what I just did. No, I don’t like myself. I can’t. What I did was --”
“Amanda.” Sarek shook his head. “Do you think yourself less for this? It is not true. Making such a difficult decision -- you are more than you were.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
“No.” Sarek considered, watching her. “I expect that it would not.”
“I never thought anything not physical could hurt this much.”
“I am sorry.” He looked at her doubtfully. “Do you regret your decision?”
She laughed, wiping her face. “You can even ask?”
“I meant, were you to vote again, would you change your decision?”
She swallowed hard. “No.” She looked up at him. “Would you vote the same way, now?”
He nodded. “Yes. Without hesitation.”
“Why?”
“It may not be a perfect solution for every individual. But it has worked well for our people.”
She shook her head, not liking the answer. But she did not have a better one. She looked around her, the gardens, the staff here and there, the ruby sky overhead, all prosaic, unchanged. Vulcan. And then looked at Sarek. Who met her eyes, undaunted. Unashamed.
“I’m the only one that’s changed,” she said.
Sarek hesitated at an unqualified affirmative. And settled for, “Everything changes every moment, Amanda. We change, continually.”
“And some things don’t change.”
“True. Your …status…has not changed in that regard. You are as you were before.” He said it almost hesitantly. As if it might help.
“But before, I didn’t choose it. Then, it was just what was.”
“You did choose it.”
“No,” she denied, and when he said nothing, she said. “I didn’t understand.”
“Amanda. You were well advised. You did.”
“I was twenty. I was in love. I didn’t care.”
“The latter is certainly not true.”
“Even if I did, I chose it only for myself.”
“And now you share the responsibility of choosing for others. Even those in opposition to your decision. The duties of a clan leader are not always pleasant.”
“It’s an awful legacy I’ve just given.”
“It is a compromise. Civilizations are built on compromise.”
“I hope the future forgives me,” she said. “Because I’m not sure I can.”
“You do not bear this responsibility alone.”
“Yes. But you are wrong in one thing. It is personal. I made it for myself as well. I never had to do that before.”
“You did. When you chose to marry me.”
“Oh, Sarek, you give me too much credit. I didn’t really understand. And when I did, I tried to ignore it. Gloss over it. Not confront it. It’s not at all like slamming the door of the cage on an entire sex. Which I just did. And now I feel…like a bird in that cage. Wings beating.”
“But you are not alone.”
“No. I just consigned my fellow sisters to the same fate.”
“That was not my meaning. I meant there are two birds in the cage, Amanda. You are not alone.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not property.”
“No.” Sarek said. “I am a Vulcan male.”
“And as your wife, I’m your property, under the Vulcan law I just voted to uphold. And I don’t like it, Sarek. I don’t like it one bit.”
“Do you think I do not feel your pain?”
“Not as I feel it.”
“No. But nor can you know mine, precisely.”
She looked down, shamed. “I know. Yes. Vulcan biology is an awful monster. To hold us so in its thrall. Both of us. I know it holds both of us.”
“But it is not as awful, when met together.”
She looked up at him. “Can we say it really is together, if one of us isn’t …free?”
“Amanda, neither of us is free.”
“You must feel more free than myself. At least you don’t have a law that--”
“Laws can be changed. Biology is inescapable. I am far more a prisoner, Amanda. As is every other Vulcan male.”
“Still, do you have to hold your women in legal thrall?”
“You voted for the law to be upheld. Knowing you, you must have had the strength of your conviction to vote that way.”
“And if I had voted against it?”
Sarek tilted his head. “I would have known you had a good reason.”
She looked at him mulishly. “And what if I had organized a political action committee to get the votes in Council to change the law.”
“You were welcome to try. The biology would have remained unchanged. There would be, perhaps, some more deaths.”
She winced at the thought.
“But there have always been casualties of Pon Far.”
She looked at him. He was usually reluctant to speak the name, but he had been calm, his control unwavering throughout this situation. Had he known her that well? Or had the situation, the knowledge that nothing would change in Council, left him so unmoved. While she, who always had been impatient with how Vulcans over-dramatized Pon Far, had been the one torn in shreds here. “Let us not discuss it, Sarek. I know there is no simple solution. But there will be no additional deaths based on any decision I make in Council.”
“We are in reasonable accord then,” Sarek said. “As much as we can, given our separate circumstances,” he added when she looked at him.
And she still couldn’t just go on. “Tell me this will hurt less, in time.”
Sarek hesitated, considering her. “In time, you will feel it less.”
She shook her head sadly. “That’s not the same thing.”
“It is not. You will…gloss over it. Not confront it. Try to overlook it. But you will always feel it. As shall I,” he added.
“Yes,” she agreed, convinced of that. And reached across the table and took his hand. For a moment, they sat there in silence, under the ruby sky. Across the court, the gardener pruning the topiary finished his work and restored the bird’s nest. She watched the birds fly down to examine their changed home. Sheathing his tools, the old gardener moved on to the next task.
She sighed softly, in acceptance, and felt Sarek’s fingers tighten on hers.
And then, just like every other evening, T’Jar brought out the tea.
Fini
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Decision at Council
By
Pat Foley
Part of Holography, Series 3-D
November 2005
At Brookwood
References:
Henry, O, “Gift of the Magi”, Four Million, 1906