Here we are, my friends.
This is a very special chapter. It is all made of thoughts. In fact you could say that it is self-evident proof that I, your honest liar, I'm telling you nothing but invented things, fanfiction in fact, that have nothing to do with the historical reality that I, still me, your Asso, I claim to tell you. Why do I say this? But, guys, how do you think that my ancestor could be able to tell, as true, the "speculations" that you will find here? It is clear that he (and I, too, accordingly) was inventing.
But ...
But ...
Of course, what, I hope, you are about to read, has much likelihood. Deep down, if we do not limit ourselves to appearances...
This is a very special chapter. It is all made of thoughts. In fact you could say that it is self-evident proof that I, your honest liar, I'm telling you nothing but invented things, fanfiction in fact, that have nothing to do with the historical reality that I, still me, your Asso, I claim to tell you. Why do I say this? But, guys, how do you think that my ancestor could be able to tell, as true, the "speculations" that you will find here? It is clear that he (and I, too, accordingly) was inventing.
But ...
But ...
Of course, what, I hope, you are about to read, has much likelihood. Deep down, if we do not limit ourselves to appearances...
And in fact this is the title of this chapter, the seventh of...
And I would say that the subtitle is very explanatory.
How many animals! How many wild beasts, fierce and bad and dangerous!
And how often, under the human guise, lie wild beasts of this kind!
Dangerous animals, my friends, very dangerous, extremely dangerous.
Like the shark, that lurks under water and of which you can see, sometimes - when it is too late - only the fin, which cleaves, silent, the placid surface of the sea.
And how often, under the human guise, lie wild beasts of this kind!
Dangerous animals, my friends, very dangerous, extremely dangerous.
Like the shark, that lurks under water and of which you can see, sometimes - when it is too late - only the fin, which cleaves, silent, the placid surface of the sea.
Chapter Seven
Mayweather's eyes were glued to the screen. Well, like those of everyone else, on the other hand, including ... Her Imperial Highness, Her Majesty Hoshi Sato the first.
A slight smile of derisive sufficiency has almost curled his lips, which would not be easy to explain if someone had noticed it, considering the moments they were in and… his role; and granted, of course, that this someone had found the courage to ask.
The tough Empress, the glacial Empress, the resolute Empress, the cruel empress, the iron Empress.
The first woman who had become the ruler of the Human Empire and who had been capable of squashing the riot.
Mayweather hasn't been able not to smile sardonically to himself, even in the leaden poignancy of the present circumstances.
The Empress, sure; Her August Highness.
Mayweather reduced his eyes virtually to two chinks, while focusing on his thoughts.
The cow, which had managed to seize power, to ascend the throne, by grace of the hotness of her cunt.
Nothing strange, this for sure. In the fight with no holds barred that the Empire was, at least in the upper echelons, and even before the Empire was born, practically all along, in a world where women could not be more than women, subject to the weakness of their being females and inevitably immersed per se, as the men, in the cult of force that formed the basis itself of the history of Humanity, they - those of them who were in a position that would allow them to do it, whom a provident Nature had supplied with suitable means and who cherished some ambition - had always used sex to pursue their aims, to exercise power through the power of the men they had been able to ensnare by virtue of the shots of their pussy.
This was the world, this was the Empire, this was life. So it was and so it would be, forever. Everywhere and with every breed.
Mayweather practically frowned, inside: Everywhere and with every breed, including the Vulcans. Except for…
T'Pol.
It was incomprehensible for him that in this way, it seemed, it weren't for the damn Vulcan female: she was hard, distant, inaccessible, haughty, surely. And… free… so it looked, from the sexual power games in which all other women he had known were in the habit of indulging in order to reach their goals. It was something that had always made Mayweather think, and that he was unable to grasp: the attraction that had driven that Vulcan whore into the arms of Tucker - a secret that was all but a secret, and less than less for the discreet and careful observer that he was and that was his hidden strength - had seemed... had appeared genuine. Just so, genuine. Different, perhaps, from that of human women, far away, yet true and real. And not only that; there were other things, things strangely contrasting with the logic pathway that should have been the creed of a Vulcan as she was, mainly that stupid and irrational idea to embark on another rebellion, or rather a plot, hatched right there, just while Archer was tightening his hold, not... it seemed really so... not for personal purposes, but to give her people the freedom they had in that other universe, a universe populated by weak jellyfishes and that Mayweather was not able to understand.
What did that mean? Was it, by chance, the blind, silly courage and the force coming from a superior… - how was it called? - … from a superior ideal? And such an important ideal for her that she hadn't hesitated to disown her patent attraction itself, as far as this captivation could be disguised under the veil of her usual cold and haughty way of doing, for that bastard of Tucker?
Mayweather knew he was not deceiving himself, he knew - had realized and noticed and understood - things that nobody else knew. He had ears able to hear what the others did not hear, eyes able to see what the others were not able to see, a brain capable of understanding and interpreting what the others could not even perceive. In a world of wolves and jackals, he was the snake crawling in the grass, that no one was able to see and that saw everything, from below, without anyone could notice it, and that, at the appropriate time, playing on the knowledge and information it had been able to get and on surprise, knew hitting, with the deadly poison hidden in its concealed sharp canine teeth.
But precisely because of what he was, he was not able to understand what T'Pol had done, because really behind her contradictory and backhanded actions, it seemed hidden something he could never comprehend: the pursuit of an aspiration - an ideal, precisely. An ideal! - to which she was willing, perhaps without even fully being aware of how this was coming to blows with what she was and believed in, to sacrifice all her logic, and all herself, and even all attraction she could feed, without even realizing how this attraction was deep.
T'Pol... an idealist? Even if in the only way by which the malign universe where all of them were born had allowed her to be?
Nonsensical. And fathomless. And incomprehensible. And dangerous. DANGEROUS! Yes. A woman like this could be extremely dangerous. And even more, if one thinks about how she had been capable of fighting in that cage of horrors. She had been able to shake the asleep pride of her breed.
Mayweather became more and more pensive .
If luck had helped her a little bit more, if she had not been discovered, if she could be in a more fruitful and favourable position, it was not far-fetched that she could become the leader of her people, possibly even guiding them into a new rebellion and potentially much more redoubtable than that they were about to crush.
The Vulcans were a real part of the Empire, they were the first race that had fallen prey to the impetus of the Humans, but, at the same time, also those who involuntarily had made Humans what that they were. This made them, in a sense, privileged in the context of the races under the domination of man, not quite slaves, but rather faithful servants, even if in truth the boundary between one and other thing was considerably tenuous and blurred. But above all, this special status of theirs made them in some ways very close to the Empire itself, because they were now part of the fabric that constituted it, as well as - of course - not exactly well liked by the other races - these ones actually slaves for real of the Humans, and which could not but look with barely concealed contempt at those who, in truth, with their recklessness having contacted the Humans, had provided them, however unintentionally, with the means for their irrepressible expansionist activities.
On the other hand this peculiar position of the Vulcans made it so that they were very familiar with human things, and, therefore, if a wind of revolt had blown in their midst, this very special knowledge they had might even turn that wind into a very possibly destructive storm for the Empire.
If they had found among them or - the thought struck Mayweather with force - even not necessarily among them - someone capable of understanding all this, and if, in the midst of them was born a true leader, a man or… even a woman, who had been able to combine the intense but - in the current situation - sterile logic of today's of their race with the untamed fierceness and the savagery that was said they had once possessed...
Someone like that tiger in the shape of a Vulcan female that had appeared to be T'Pol...
Better, much better that she had disappeared, sure. Though… though perhaps, just into her disappearance, new and unsuspected dangers may be lurking for the Empire.
For Him.
Sure. For him. For Mayweather. The true new concealed ruler of the human Empire.
The so-said Empress wasn't an exception to the way women were acting, in the Empire and in the whole Universe. The real exception was, in reality, that she had done the big pounce. She had come out from the shade. She had proclaimed herself Empress. She had the intelligence, the force and the knowledge for being the first woman in the lead of the Empire. But the fact, however, was that Her Highness Hoshi Sato hadn't ever remotely thought to accede to the throne. She was smart, definitely, and ambitious, riotously ambitious; but certainly her brain was not capable of conceiving such a grandiose design, of picking such an unexpected and providential occasion. Exploiting the power of the others, the ambitions of the others, of the men to whom she had granted her charms, and through them acquiring influence and power. In this, yes, in this she was insuperable. Like she had been with Archer, exactly so. But extending to murdering him, so as to capitalize just for herself the new power and the new weapons that fortune had put in the hands of the unfortunately defunct new captain and ostensibly aspirant Emperor... Eh no, this was a flour that her mind wasn't capable of grinding.
But… - Mayweather allowed himself the luxury of a secret smile of satisfied self-complacency. - But his, yes, his mind was.
It was strange, but, after all, someway comprehensible how, just while on the screen was streaming the final scene of their - of his - victory, his brain was unfolding the thread of all this, of what had happened underground, behind the veil of what the others had been able to see, without being in a position to understand the true dynamics of the things, of the events, of the interaction between the main actors of the story and principally of the real interactions between him and that whore who now, owing to him, had put on the flamboyant attire of Empress.
And, consequently, had made him the real Lord of the Empire.
The sarcastic hidden grin of Mayweather increased a bit more.
The Empress' gigolo? Her redoubtable little-big paramour, as he had heard being called, with ill-concealed disgust, obviously in a very low voice? Him? Oh sure, the others… may all the others be able to think so, to believe it. But the Empress, eh she no. She well knew how things were.
The sex that she had used to climb the steps of the power had been and was continuing also as the chain of her slavery.
Of her dependency.
On him.
He had ensnared her, had taken advantage of her disappointment and her anger at being refused, ignominiously rejected, just by Tucker, something really hard to understand for Mayweather and perhaps even for Tucker himself, something that perhaps only that Vulcan witch could explain. And maybe not even her.
But, be that as it may, through that unpredicted and fluky crack, Mayweather, who had no power except that of his athletic and attractive appearance, had penetrated into the bed of the not yet imperial strumpet and under her skin.
And inside her brain.
He had become her brain.
And he had guided her brain and her flesh, trough the double-cross that she - and he - had played with that dull upstart Archer, too puffed up, too haunted by his dumb arrogance to realize that her bed wasn't ever cold, when he went under her sheets.
Oh yes, Mayweather had understood the needs and substance of that whore, she was made of his own dough, she was an adder, just as he was a rattlesnake in the shape of a python. Archer? Her way to have and exert influence: she had understood that that high-flying man could emerge victorious from the clash with the ex-captain and, therefore, she had tucked herself in his bed. After all, a little risk was acceptable for an ambitious woman like her: the lover of the potential new captain would have drawn immeasurable benefits from his success. It was enough just to be careful that no one noticed their relationship, at least until Archer could afford anything by virtue of his achieved power.
But, then, at that time, when Archer had at last got his aim, in the life of the poisonous and treacherous viper in a feminine form that had intoxicated him, into her living flesh, it had had already the chance to penetrate he, Mayweather, the snake that wraps its prey in its coils and clenches it in its stifling embrace, without ever letting it go; the tempting bewitching serpent, that has fooled Eve and charmed her dubious weak soul. The snake bearer of forbidden pleasure, from which the unknowing adder-woman harnessed in its spiral is no longer able to free herself nor she does want to do so, becoming his, even without knowing it; her will becoming that of her anguine mate, and allowing it to become what, by itself, it couldn't have ever become.
Just so, because there was one thing that nobody knew about Travis Mayweather, the dark guardian of the might and power of the chief, no matter who the chief: he was awfully ambitious without the force of being it.
He was not a wolf nor a jackal. It takes courage, to plunder the prey of the lion, too much courage. Never he could have found the strength to fight more or less openly to satisfy his ambition. But if he wasn't a wolf nor a jackal, yet he was the snake that charms and hypnotizes its prey, the snake by the powerful loins, sinuous and handsome, in his livery made of strong muscles.
Do not touch the serpent, do not fall into its mesmerizing trap, into its treacherous spell.
But Hoshi had touched it. And she had begun to hear, to experience - to savour - his murmuring, hypnotising voice.
He had whispered, insinuatingly, into her mind, as he enveloped her in his coil of lustful pleasure; had slid her along the road that he wanted her to go along, without letting her know that he was the driver.
And then, finally, for her there no longer had been anything to do: too much for her the need of his wrapping coils, her dependence on the cunning of his serpent-like advices.
Now, it was him, she could not longer do without.
And so the Empire had become hers, but the command was his, and, at this point, she had no choice but to continue along the taken road.
Of course, Her Highness the Empress was aware of everything now, now had understood, and sometimes she squirmed, but without anyone else at her side, able to make her free from the trap she had fallen into, there was nothing she could do to get rid of it.
Because she was alone.
No one else was there.
And then, to want to see well, the connubium was perfect: the spotlight, the strength, for the Empress, which was basically what she wanted, and the enveloping shadow of the hidden power for him, just as he wanted, as it wanted his soul of snake.
In her shade he could pull the strings, without being in the fullest light. The snake hates and fears the light, in bright light it may be sighted and hunted and fall prey of the wolves and then eaten by the jackals, but, in the shadows, it does not run hazards, and can make to be heard his chilling whistling without fear of being crushed by animals stronger than it.
Yes, everything was perfect and everything worked perfectly.
But ...
The complacency of Mayweather, his joy in these pleasant viperish considerations got deflated abruptly.
There was a stain in all this.
Inevitably, his mind returned to the thought that beset him and that for some instants had been lost in the delicious savouring of his power: the disappearance of T'Pol, and the dangers that in her disappearance could lurk for the Empire and for him.
Yeah, because…
Mayweather had pushed away this thought from himself and had made sure that Hoshi hadn't unnecessarily gotten lost behind such an issue without answer. There had been other and more pressing priorities, which he - and the Empress, of course, the Empress, too, sure - had had to face.
But ... now... now that they were about to reach their goal, to grab the complete triumph... now that his concealed concerns appeared to have been nothing but smoke without roast ... now that the fruit of the strategies that he had suggested to Her Highness could be picked up without anything and no one having thought about or been able to contrast his plans...
Just now... that thought ... obsessive, worrying ... reappeared in his mind, and, indeed, even more bothering at present, because of what had just before gone through his brain: *If Vulcans had found among them - or even not necessarily among them - someone capable of…*
Who had been able to weave such a well-planned, well organized, well-designed plan of action, right in the heart of the spectacle that had been set up to show to the entire universe the horrible punishment of that Vulcan bitch? Just at the right time? And, mind you, - this was the true, real obsessive thought of Mayweather - combining the strength of impact of such a striking military raid with the rescue of that whore? It was as if someone, with no strength sufficient to openly fight the Imperial forces or, anyway, not willing or unable, for some unknown reason, to engage in an open field, had deliberately chosen to take some sort of demonstrative action, by acting in the most spectacular ways, and, at the same time, by subtracting that bitch from her horrific fate.
And here was the point.
Might there be someone interested in targeting the Empire and at the same time in stealing T'Pol - especially in stealing T'Pol - from the horrible death which had been prepared for her?
In short, to reduce things to lowest terms, who could have been eager to snatch T'Pol from the jaws of her dreadful fate? In that way? And… who could have thought to remove Reed from the world of the living in that ugly way? Who could have had for him such a grudge?
Mayweather, and not only he, knew very well that there could be only one answer, or, rather, that there could be just only one logical answer, but this answer could not ... - He became even more concentrated in himself - apparently... apparently... could not be the correct answer.
Tucker.
But Tucker was dead.
Yeah. Sure. But let aside logic, that is to say let even aside the negligible detail that - in all appearances - the damn engineer had decided to leave this vale of tears, okay; but how would he have been capable of leaving the ship with his flesh still attached to his soul or whatever he possessed in the place of a soul? And, even more, how would he have done it, that bastard, to organize the rescue operation? With the help of whom? When and how ever could he get some ally, - and which damn ally, for devil's sake? - willing to fight against the Empire? And why? He, in any appearance, of the Empire the faithful, perfect, blameless servant?
Unless…
If there was anything Mayweather knew very well was that one thing is what you appear, or you must appear or you'd better appear; other thing is what you are, that others can't see under the guise that you show, or you must show or you'd better show the world around you. Mayweather was well aware of this truth for the simple fact that he was not what everyone else thought he was. He saw, heard and observed, from the obscure and quiet and secondary position which he had - which he had played and which in appearance he was still wearing. And he felt - he perceived - that Tucker, he too, was... had been?... most likely… not what others thought he was.
But, if it was so… in this case, Tucker… apparently not wolf… apparently not jackal… and surely not snake as was Mayweather… what kind of beast was he? A ... - The image was kindled suddenly in Mayweather's mind - ... a shark? That moves and works under water, just below its surface, hidden, unseen, weaving its invisible plot of concentric circles around the prey, just until its curved dorsal fin is revealed ... when by now, for the prey, it is too late?
The solitary Tucker ... the contemptuous Tucker ...
Tucker the friend of no one and confidant of no one; lone and remote, just as lone and remote as was T'Pol.
Tucker, by the frightening aspect ... perhaps ... perhaps more frightening, inside, than outside - his deformed face.
A face coming from a past that no one knew.
Oh yeah, because, to think about it, nobody had a clear vision of Tucker's past, and not even his curriculum was useful to have more precise information. Mayweather's new… position allowed him, now, to have access to the curricula of all people, and he wanted to know everything of everyone; it was… helpful. And, even if having news about a man who was no longer of this world could sound a little excessive, nearly at the limit of psychopathy, he had wanted to read also Tucker's resume.
And had found practically nothing.
There was, substantially, what couldn't be called in other way than a bunch of very sparse notes not at all exhaustive of all what this man could have been, before he had appeared on Enterprise.
The best engineer of the fleet, this was true. But everything else, what his resume recited ... was it really true? Or, better, even if it was true - and, to be honest, it could not be otherwise - why it was so damn scrawny, devoid of the small and large masses of information that always accompanied the report of the life of every man who served in Starfleet? It looked terribly - oddly enough - full of gaps, something that was unthinkable, inadmissible for a Starfleet officer. Why there was no news about his family? Did he have neither father nor mother, nor any kind of kinsman? But then, why wasn't this said clearly? And who had stood surety for him so that he became part of Starfleet? Someone must have done it, there was no other way for this to happen, but there was no trace of this in his curriculum.
To put it briefly, from Tucker's resume nothing definite seemed coming out, it was as if his life had been simply packed carefully.
Mayweather turned his attention to the screen. One could clearly see the chariots lined up in orderly fashion around the city, smoking and in ruins. Safety reasons had forced the interruption of any audio connection, but the vision was very clear. The devastating effects of the weapon that Terrans had developed thanks to the notes left by Tucker were clearly visible. The engineer would undoubtedly be very pleased with himself.
If he had been there to see.
But he was not there.
He was dead.
And his body had never been found.
Well, of course. How would it ever have been possible to recover something of him after the huge explosion that had reduced to ashes the place where he was, apparently - judging by the vital signs vital that had remained impressed in the recording devices - along with Phlox, who, of course, had been given up for dead too, and whose body, equally obviously, could not be not finished dispersed in infinitesimal particles? As that one of Tucker, naturally.
Tucker, a man robbed of his future, who came from an unknown past and ended up in a present equally unknown.
Eh sure. Because nobody had ever been able to determine which were the causes of the explosion.
Well certainly, no one had really worked himself to death to rebuild the exact course of events, but, on the other hand, what need could there have been of getting lost behind a question that seemed completely futile and irrelevant in the terrible bedlam that had happened in those tumultuous days? And afterward, who could have had or would have wanted to have care to see what had occurred, in reality?
Mayweather went on to follow the inner flowing of his thoughts, without breaking his concentration from what was happening now and without displaying the slightest sign of what was passing in his mind. He knew how to do it. Nobody, not even the bitch who now sat on the throne, really knew what he was capable of doing. A fact that, the more he thought of it, the more he went convincing himself, could be also true for the late lamented Tucker.
For example, what to say about the recording devices? Namely about the information that there could be in them about the tragedy that had put the word end to the lives of Tucker and of the doctor? Certainly nobody, who was not him, Mayweather, or also, with all probability, the deceased paranoid and psychotic Reed, could have thought to cast a glance at them. Why go to see if these devices, whose memory was stored in the database of the spaceship in which they now were, had recorded something useful to explain, even only partially, what had happened? There was no reason to do it, in fact. Only a very suspicious and circuitous mind could push a man to do so, a mind just like that of Mayweather, of the insidious and wary serpent that lurked within him and that had driven him to do it, following who knows which tortuous instinct born in him, after the unexpected and amazing raid that had led to the rescue of the Vulcan bitch.
And, once again, as in Tucker's curriculum, he hadn't been able to retrieve any really useful information. However something, after all, there was. There were no recorded images, but it was possible to hear, even if far from clearly, two voices, patently angry, altered. The voices of Tucker and Phlox. Then, everything was overwhelmed by the roar of the explosion. But before... just a few moments before ...
He was not sure what it was. A thrill, a reverb, a sound-not-sound, in the devices. He had never heard it before. Of course, it could be nothing more than an artefact, but...
And, also, just before, a sudden increase in energy. Sure, the explosion. But it was not there yet. Perhaps its prodrome? But the increase of energy did not seem limited to the enclosed space of the room in which Tucker and Phlox were; indeed, if it was true what that pretty little tart who was Hess had said, by an appropriate charge - Mayweather smiled graciously to himself: useful and pleasurable being the powerful and "potentially helpful" lover of the Empress - and without being set apart of anything that might raise her suspicions, that increase in energy seemed to come from outside, from outer space.
Exactly as the sudden increase in energy that the detection systems had picked up just some moments before it happened the unexpected raid that had led to the rescue of T'Pol.
The engineering department had worked hard to identify the causes of that increase of energy and the result looked hard to believe: it was suggested that something not detectable in the spectrum of visible light had appeared in the vicinity of Vulcan, where the ceremony of death which had that Vulcan sow as the protagonist was taking place.
And just after that abrupt increase of energy, also it coming from outside, from outer space, became clearly noticeable ... there was a thrill - a reverb, a sound-not-sound - never recorded before, or rather, not previously noticed by anyone else - by no one else except him - quite similar to what he had detected in the recordings of the last moments of Tucker and of Phlox.
He had not talked about this with his imperial lover, he abhorred and feared the flustered and thoughtless reactions the uterine Empress could have, even in all her calculated coldness. That stupid whore would put to work, without a second thought, the entire scientific staff with the result of unnecessarily putting all in alarm and foolishly diverting towards fruitless intents of personalistic revenge and, very likely, without any useful outcome, every available resource from the pursuit of what was to be their true purpose, namely the reorganization of the imperial forces and the intensive use - after a suitable and intense study of the new technologies which they had come into possession - of the new weapons and new knowledge that fate had gracefully put at their disposal, in order to quell the rebellion and tighten the grip of their recent power. There was not only to put down the revolt, for the devil! It was also necessary to worry to silence the inevitable backlashes that the forces remained loyal to the deposed Emperor, although practically impotent, were striving to deliver. And there was also to think that the dethroned Emperor was still living, though - which was very disturbing - he too had disappeared. How evaporated. It was not known where.
However and at any rate, in order to put quiet his visceral and august lover and take her mind away from the obsessive thought of vengeance, Mayweather had said to her that at the right time he believed it would be possible to trace the attackers, to go up to them. And, in fact, in the memory of the recordings of the moments of the incursion there were some tracks: actually there were traces of something, seemingly something that was approaching and then, after the raid's end, moving away, or better, losing far away. The problem was that those tracks had vanished into thin air, and trying to follow them, it would not have led to anything. Mayweather's own expertise, even if limited, and above all the interested but fruitful acquaintances of him suggested to him that things were in these terms. And, this time only his own expertise about Her Sublime Magnanimity the Empress, that it was better that she, at least for the moment, didn't know it.
But - and here was the point - those tracks, or - even more - the likeness of what he had observed in the records of the final moments of life of Tucker and Phlox with what could be observed in the records relating to the incursion meant something.
Meant that there was something that connected the two events.
Meant that something - someone – could have intervened during the supposed last moments of life of that bastard engineer, and that it wasn't airy-fairy that this something or this someone could be the same one who had intervened in the case of the raid.
Meant that - perhaps - Tucker was not dead. That someone had stolen him from his fate; perhaps - Mayweather could not fully realize why in him such an idea was born, but instinctively, and his instincts had never cheated him, he felt to be in the true - perhaps even that Tucker himself could have orchestrated the mise en scene of his death, and then also engineered the show of T'Pol's rescue.
Certainly, about the second event, assuming that Tucker was alive and in a position to go to the rescue of T'Pol, all could go plainly, so to say, whereas it was very hardly explicable how and why – how and why – Tucker should have set such a pretence, making everyone believing that he was dead when he was still alive.
Excepting that…
The brain of Mayweather was working, was mulling over and revising once again what he already had so often brooded and reworked and whose conclusions were always the same.
… Excepting that Tucker hadn't thought that the time had come for him to disappear, because of something, in order to do something, and he could count on someone's help - someone belonging to his foggy past - so as he could disappear, so as he could do this something.
The thoughts followed each other, relentless, in the mind of Mayweather.
Tucker's foggy past…
What would have happened - what would happen to him, Tucker - if someone had wanted to put his hand to his resume? If someone had wanted to know more closely the lone chief engineer of Enterprise? The times, things had changed, in the riotous days that had preceded the "death" of Tucker. Archer had come and Archer was not a man to trust to appearances, and in any case, he would not risk that anyone, not even his own mother, could jeopardize his newly acquired leadership. The forever late lamentedArcher would have wanted to know everything about everyone, including, especially including, the man who, more or less openly, was the lover of the Vulcan whore who had dared rebel and attempted to undermine his new power. Going further, if indeed Tucker was the unknown shark Mayweather suspected he was, he should most likely have the instinct of the shark; it was not impossible that he had sniffed out that Hoshi – that he, Mayweather - might eventually take power, with the condescending consent of that easygoing man who had been the defunct Archer. So, hard times would come for the dear Engineer: if the Empress hated T'Pol with all her forces, just imagine what she could do to Tucker, the lover of the loathed Vulcan female, a lover, for more, who had dared refuse the attention of Her Imperial Highness, even if she, at that time, hadn't yet become the Empress Hoshi Sato the First.
The shark would no longer have been able to swim unnoticed and undisturbed underwater to bite who knows what prey. So, better disappearing, better moving away in deepest waters, and, from there, at the appropriate time, with the help of the cited someone, doing the something that the ferocious lord of the sea had intended to do, and that the new circumstances had prevented him from doing, because the stirring of the shallow water where he had wandered so far could risk to shed light on his threatening shape.
But this time, no longer concentric circles around the prey, by approaching slowly. This time, a very fast and unpredictable running, slicing through the water like a torpedo, to bite the unaware prey, and then getting away soon after.To prepare a new, unexpected assault.
Mayweather stared intently at the screen.
On it, it was unfolding the final act.
In his mind, it was unfolding the final scene of the movie of his thoughts.
*The Empire is going to win, totally, and is about to give visual demonstration of its strength, live."
It had come to the final bars.
*The Empire is not vincible, in an open and frontal war, now less than before, given the new weapons and new technologies in its possession.*
Afterward there would no longer be time nor way to hold back the imperial tide…
*But there could be other ways to tackle the Empire, to counter it.*
… to perturb the triumph of the Human Empire…
*If out there, somewhere, there is really someone in ambush, an unknown enemy, possibly even headed by "somebody" who knows Humans well, their strengths and their weaknesses, even on the psychological side...*
… to diminish, to blur its victory…
*… "somebody" who, for unclear reasons, maybe for reasons rooted in his cloudy past, has decided to break down the Empire and has understood that there was need of different strategy than that one adopted by the rebels…*
… to instil in the breeds subject to Empire some shadow of doubt on the reality of its resistless strength…
*…"somebody" who is acting like does the shark, that turns around its prey, unnerving it, until, unexpected, swoops down upon it, bites it, then withdraws, for going back to sink its tusks into it another time, then another, and another, until the prey loses all its vital blood…*
… to turn the Empire's ultimate victory into the seed of a possible future defeat.
*…what better opportunity than this one which is being offered now? If you can not beat your adversary, unnerve him, dispirit him, weary him. Wear down him. By dealing well calibrated blows, in the more opportune moment, taking advantage of being unknown and hidden, making sure that the blows are clearly visible everywhere, so as to weaken the image of your enemy in front of the whole world and, at the same time, instilling in him a sense of insecurity and frustration.*
Mayweather was still staring at the screen and more, much more, within himself.
Strangely, now, just now, he understood fully that he was right. His mind was clear, he was not mistaken. He had realized totally, at last.
What could have happened if, suddenly, unexpectedly, "somebody" had cracked, with a fast and effective action, that image of irresistible force that the Empire was about to give? And without even dreaming of to go down in open field, but by resorting once more to a well-organized and unstoppable raid, so as to show in this way that the Empire was not invincible? That there was someone capable of opposing it? And victoriously? And this, every time that he had wanted to do it?
What could have happened if a breed, strong enough and organized, rich in a glorious past, as it could be - for example - the Vulcans, had regained its pride? If it had found a guide, a guide worthy, able to enliven this pride, to arouse in it the desire, the longing for its lost freedom?
A guide as T'Pol could be?
What could have happened if somebody, "somebody" rightly or wrongly very close to her, had given her the means to put herself up as such? To act as such?
What could have happened if the warrior princess, the tiger with the guise of the most beautiful woman, who had stunned the universe with her indomitable courage, with her adamantine fierceness, had been able to count on "somebody", a shark in a human appearance, lurking in the abysses?
Mayweather's eyes darted on the consoles of the monitoring systems, almost waiting for, rather than fearing that they could detect a sudden burst of energy out there, somewhere, and soon after, a strange thrill.
A slight smile of derisive sufficiency has almost curled his lips, which would not be easy to explain if someone had noticed it, considering the moments they were in and… his role; and granted, of course, that this someone had found the courage to ask.
The tough Empress, the glacial Empress, the resolute Empress, the cruel empress, the iron Empress.
The first woman who had become the ruler of the Human Empire and who had been capable of squashing the riot.
Mayweather hasn't been able not to smile sardonically to himself, even in the leaden poignancy of the present circumstances.
The Empress, sure; Her August Highness.
Mayweather reduced his eyes virtually to two chinks, while focusing on his thoughts.
The cow, which had managed to seize power, to ascend the throne, by grace of the hotness of her cunt.
Nothing strange, this for sure. In the fight with no holds barred that the Empire was, at least in the upper echelons, and even before the Empire was born, practically all along, in a world where women could not be more than women, subject to the weakness of their being females and inevitably immersed per se, as the men, in the cult of force that formed the basis itself of the history of Humanity, they - those of them who were in a position that would allow them to do it, whom a provident Nature had supplied with suitable means and who cherished some ambition - had always used sex to pursue their aims, to exercise power through the power of the men they had been able to ensnare by virtue of the shots of their pussy.
This was the world, this was the Empire, this was life. So it was and so it would be, forever. Everywhere and with every breed.
Mayweather practically frowned, inside: Everywhere and with every breed, including the Vulcans. Except for…
T'Pol.
It was incomprehensible for him that in this way, it seemed, it weren't for the damn Vulcan female: she was hard, distant, inaccessible, haughty, surely. And… free… so it looked, from the sexual power games in which all other women he had known were in the habit of indulging in order to reach their goals. It was something that had always made Mayweather think, and that he was unable to grasp: the attraction that had driven that Vulcan whore into the arms of Tucker - a secret that was all but a secret, and less than less for the discreet and careful observer that he was and that was his hidden strength - had seemed... had appeared genuine. Just so, genuine. Different, perhaps, from that of human women, far away, yet true and real. And not only that; there were other things, things strangely contrasting with the logic pathway that should have been the creed of a Vulcan as she was, mainly that stupid and irrational idea to embark on another rebellion, or rather a plot, hatched right there, just while Archer was tightening his hold, not... it seemed really so... not for personal purposes, but to give her people the freedom they had in that other universe, a universe populated by weak jellyfishes and that Mayweather was not able to understand.
What did that mean? Was it, by chance, the blind, silly courage and the force coming from a superior… - how was it called? - … from a superior ideal? And such an important ideal for her that she hadn't hesitated to disown her patent attraction itself, as far as this captivation could be disguised under the veil of her usual cold and haughty way of doing, for that bastard of Tucker?
Mayweather knew he was not deceiving himself, he knew - had realized and noticed and understood - things that nobody else knew. He had ears able to hear what the others did not hear, eyes able to see what the others were not able to see, a brain capable of understanding and interpreting what the others could not even perceive. In a world of wolves and jackals, he was the snake crawling in the grass, that no one was able to see and that saw everything, from below, without anyone could notice it, and that, at the appropriate time, playing on the knowledge and information it had been able to get and on surprise, knew hitting, with the deadly poison hidden in its concealed sharp canine teeth.
But precisely because of what he was, he was not able to understand what T'Pol had done, because really behind her contradictory and backhanded actions, it seemed hidden something he could never comprehend: the pursuit of an aspiration - an ideal, precisely. An ideal! - to which she was willing, perhaps without even fully being aware of how this was coming to blows with what she was and believed in, to sacrifice all her logic, and all herself, and even all attraction she could feed, without even realizing how this attraction was deep.
T'Pol... an idealist? Even if in the only way by which the malign universe where all of them were born had allowed her to be?
Nonsensical. And fathomless. And incomprehensible. And dangerous. DANGEROUS! Yes. A woman like this could be extremely dangerous. And even more, if one thinks about how she had been capable of fighting in that cage of horrors. She had been able to shake the asleep pride of her breed.
Mayweather became more and more pensive .
If luck had helped her a little bit more, if she had not been discovered, if she could be in a more fruitful and favourable position, it was not far-fetched that she could become the leader of her people, possibly even guiding them into a new rebellion and potentially much more redoubtable than that they were about to crush.
The Vulcans were a real part of the Empire, they were the first race that had fallen prey to the impetus of the Humans, but, at the same time, also those who involuntarily had made Humans what that they were. This made them, in a sense, privileged in the context of the races under the domination of man, not quite slaves, but rather faithful servants, even if in truth the boundary between one and other thing was considerably tenuous and blurred. But above all, this special status of theirs made them in some ways very close to the Empire itself, because they were now part of the fabric that constituted it, as well as - of course - not exactly well liked by the other races - these ones actually slaves for real of the Humans, and which could not but look with barely concealed contempt at those who, in truth, with their recklessness having contacted the Humans, had provided them, however unintentionally, with the means for their irrepressible expansionist activities.
On the other hand this peculiar position of the Vulcans made it so that they were very familiar with human things, and, therefore, if a wind of revolt had blown in their midst, this very special knowledge they had might even turn that wind into a very possibly destructive storm for the Empire.
If they had found among them or - the thought struck Mayweather with force - even not necessarily among them - someone capable of understanding all this, and if, in the midst of them was born a true leader, a man or… even a woman, who had been able to combine the intense but - in the current situation - sterile logic of today's of their race with the untamed fierceness and the savagery that was said they had once possessed...
Someone like that tiger in the shape of a Vulcan female that had appeared to be T'Pol...
Better, much better that she had disappeared, sure. Though… though perhaps, just into her disappearance, new and unsuspected dangers may be lurking for the Empire.
For Him.
Sure. For him. For Mayweather. The true new concealed ruler of the human Empire.
The so-said Empress wasn't an exception to the way women were acting, in the Empire and in the whole Universe. The real exception was, in reality, that she had done the big pounce. She had come out from the shade. She had proclaimed herself Empress. She had the intelligence, the force and the knowledge for being the first woman in the lead of the Empire. But the fact, however, was that Her Highness Hoshi Sato hadn't ever remotely thought to accede to the throne. She was smart, definitely, and ambitious, riotously ambitious; but certainly her brain was not capable of conceiving such a grandiose design, of picking such an unexpected and providential occasion. Exploiting the power of the others, the ambitions of the others, of the men to whom she had granted her charms, and through them acquiring influence and power. In this, yes, in this she was insuperable. Like she had been with Archer, exactly so. But extending to murdering him, so as to capitalize just for herself the new power and the new weapons that fortune had put in the hands of the unfortunately defunct new captain and ostensibly aspirant Emperor... Eh no, this was a flour that her mind wasn't capable of grinding.
But… - Mayweather allowed himself the luxury of a secret smile of satisfied self-complacency. - But his, yes, his mind was.
It was strange, but, after all, someway comprehensible how, just while on the screen was streaming the final scene of their - of his - victory, his brain was unfolding the thread of all this, of what had happened underground, behind the veil of what the others had been able to see, without being in a position to understand the true dynamics of the things, of the events, of the interaction between the main actors of the story and principally of the real interactions between him and that whore who now, owing to him, had put on the flamboyant attire of Empress.
And, consequently, had made him the real Lord of the Empire.
The sarcastic hidden grin of Mayweather increased a bit more.
The Empress' gigolo? Her redoubtable little-big paramour, as he had heard being called, with ill-concealed disgust, obviously in a very low voice? Him? Oh sure, the others… may all the others be able to think so, to believe it. But the Empress, eh she no. She well knew how things were.
The sex that she had used to climb the steps of the power had been and was continuing also as the chain of her slavery.
Of her dependency.
On him.
He had ensnared her, had taken advantage of her disappointment and her anger at being refused, ignominiously rejected, just by Tucker, something really hard to understand for Mayweather and perhaps even for Tucker himself, something that perhaps only that Vulcan witch could explain. And maybe not even her.
But, be that as it may, through that unpredicted and fluky crack, Mayweather, who had no power except that of his athletic and attractive appearance, had penetrated into the bed of the not yet imperial strumpet and under her skin.
And inside her brain.
He had become her brain.
And he had guided her brain and her flesh, trough the double-cross that she - and he - had played with that dull upstart Archer, too puffed up, too haunted by his dumb arrogance to realize that her bed wasn't ever cold, when he went under her sheets.
Oh yes, Mayweather had understood the needs and substance of that whore, she was made of his own dough, she was an adder, just as he was a rattlesnake in the shape of a python. Archer? Her way to have and exert influence: she had understood that that high-flying man could emerge victorious from the clash with the ex-captain and, therefore, she had tucked herself in his bed. After all, a little risk was acceptable for an ambitious woman like her: the lover of the potential new captain would have drawn immeasurable benefits from his success. It was enough just to be careful that no one noticed their relationship, at least until Archer could afford anything by virtue of his achieved power.
But, then, at that time, when Archer had at last got his aim, in the life of the poisonous and treacherous viper in a feminine form that had intoxicated him, into her living flesh, it had had already the chance to penetrate he, Mayweather, the snake that wraps its prey in its coils and clenches it in its stifling embrace, without ever letting it go; the tempting bewitching serpent, that has fooled Eve and charmed her dubious weak soul. The snake bearer of forbidden pleasure, from which the unknowing adder-woman harnessed in its spiral is no longer able to free herself nor she does want to do so, becoming his, even without knowing it; her will becoming that of her anguine mate, and allowing it to become what, by itself, it couldn't have ever become.
Just so, because there was one thing that nobody knew about Travis Mayweather, the dark guardian of the might and power of the chief, no matter who the chief: he was awfully ambitious without the force of being it.
He was not a wolf nor a jackal. It takes courage, to plunder the prey of the lion, too much courage. Never he could have found the strength to fight more or less openly to satisfy his ambition. But if he wasn't a wolf nor a jackal, yet he was the snake that charms and hypnotizes its prey, the snake by the powerful loins, sinuous and handsome, in his livery made of strong muscles.
Do not touch the serpent, do not fall into its mesmerizing trap, into its treacherous spell.
But Hoshi had touched it. And she had begun to hear, to experience - to savour - his murmuring, hypnotising voice.
He had whispered, insinuatingly, into her mind, as he enveloped her in his coil of lustful pleasure; had slid her along the road that he wanted her to go along, without letting her know that he was the driver.
And then, finally, for her there no longer had been anything to do: too much for her the need of his wrapping coils, her dependence on the cunning of his serpent-like advices.
Now, it was him, she could not longer do without.
And so the Empire had become hers, but the command was his, and, at this point, she had no choice but to continue along the taken road.
Of course, Her Highness the Empress was aware of everything now, now had understood, and sometimes she squirmed, but without anyone else at her side, able to make her free from the trap she had fallen into, there was nothing she could do to get rid of it.
Because she was alone.
No one else was there.
And then, to want to see well, the connubium was perfect: the spotlight, the strength, for the Empress, which was basically what she wanted, and the enveloping shadow of the hidden power for him, just as he wanted, as it wanted his soul of snake.
In her shade he could pull the strings, without being in the fullest light. The snake hates and fears the light, in bright light it may be sighted and hunted and fall prey of the wolves and then eaten by the jackals, but, in the shadows, it does not run hazards, and can make to be heard his chilling whistling without fear of being crushed by animals stronger than it.
Yes, everything was perfect and everything worked perfectly.
But ...
The complacency of Mayweather, his joy in these pleasant viperish considerations got deflated abruptly.
There was a stain in all this.
Inevitably, his mind returned to the thought that beset him and that for some instants had been lost in the delicious savouring of his power: the disappearance of T'Pol, and the dangers that in her disappearance could lurk for the Empire and for him.
Yeah, because…
Mayweather had pushed away this thought from himself and had made sure that Hoshi hadn't unnecessarily gotten lost behind such an issue without answer. There had been other and more pressing priorities, which he - and the Empress, of course, the Empress, too, sure - had had to face.
But ... now... now that they were about to reach their goal, to grab the complete triumph... now that his concealed concerns appeared to have been nothing but smoke without roast ... now that the fruit of the strategies that he had suggested to Her Highness could be picked up without anything and no one having thought about or been able to contrast his plans...
Just now... that thought ... obsessive, worrying ... reappeared in his mind, and, indeed, even more bothering at present, because of what had just before gone through his brain: *If Vulcans had found among them - or even not necessarily among them - someone capable of…*
Who had been able to weave such a well-planned, well organized, well-designed plan of action, right in the heart of the spectacle that had been set up to show to the entire universe the horrible punishment of that Vulcan bitch? Just at the right time? And, mind you, - this was the true, real obsessive thought of Mayweather - combining the strength of impact of such a striking military raid with the rescue of that whore? It was as if someone, with no strength sufficient to openly fight the Imperial forces or, anyway, not willing or unable, for some unknown reason, to engage in an open field, had deliberately chosen to take some sort of demonstrative action, by acting in the most spectacular ways, and, at the same time, by subtracting that bitch from her horrific fate.
And here was the point.
Might there be someone interested in targeting the Empire and at the same time in stealing T'Pol - especially in stealing T'Pol - from the horrible death which had been prepared for her?
In short, to reduce things to lowest terms, who could have been eager to snatch T'Pol from the jaws of her dreadful fate? In that way? And… who could have thought to remove Reed from the world of the living in that ugly way? Who could have had for him such a grudge?
Mayweather, and not only he, knew very well that there could be only one answer, or, rather, that there could be just only one logical answer, but this answer could not ... - He became even more concentrated in himself - apparently... apparently... could not be the correct answer.
Tucker.
But Tucker was dead.
Yeah. Sure. But let aside logic, that is to say let even aside the negligible detail that - in all appearances - the damn engineer had decided to leave this vale of tears, okay; but how would he have been capable of leaving the ship with his flesh still attached to his soul or whatever he possessed in the place of a soul? And, even more, how would he have done it, that bastard, to organize the rescue operation? With the help of whom? When and how ever could he get some ally, - and which damn ally, for devil's sake? - willing to fight against the Empire? And why? He, in any appearance, of the Empire the faithful, perfect, blameless servant?
Unless…
If there was anything Mayweather knew very well was that one thing is what you appear, or you must appear or you'd better appear; other thing is what you are, that others can't see under the guise that you show, or you must show or you'd better show the world around you. Mayweather was well aware of this truth for the simple fact that he was not what everyone else thought he was. He saw, heard and observed, from the obscure and quiet and secondary position which he had - which he had played and which in appearance he was still wearing. And he felt - he perceived - that Tucker, he too, was... had been?... most likely… not what others thought he was.
But, if it was so… in this case, Tucker… apparently not wolf… apparently not jackal… and surely not snake as was Mayweather… what kind of beast was he? A ... - The image was kindled suddenly in Mayweather's mind - ... a shark? That moves and works under water, just below its surface, hidden, unseen, weaving its invisible plot of concentric circles around the prey, just until its curved dorsal fin is revealed ... when by now, for the prey, it is too late?
The solitary Tucker ... the contemptuous Tucker ...
Tucker the friend of no one and confidant of no one; lone and remote, just as lone and remote as was T'Pol.
Tucker, by the frightening aspect ... perhaps ... perhaps more frightening, inside, than outside - his deformed face.
A face coming from a past that no one knew.
Oh yeah, because, to think about it, nobody had a clear vision of Tucker's past, and not even his curriculum was useful to have more precise information. Mayweather's new… position allowed him, now, to have access to the curricula of all people, and he wanted to know everything of everyone; it was… helpful. And, even if having news about a man who was no longer of this world could sound a little excessive, nearly at the limit of psychopathy, he had wanted to read also Tucker's resume.
And had found practically nothing.
There was, substantially, what couldn't be called in other way than a bunch of very sparse notes not at all exhaustive of all what this man could have been, before he had appeared on Enterprise.
The best engineer of the fleet, this was true. But everything else, what his resume recited ... was it really true? Or, better, even if it was true - and, to be honest, it could not be otherwise - why it was so damn scrawny, devoid of the small and large masses of information that always accompanied the report of the life of every man who served in Starfleet? It looked terribly - oddly enough - full of gaps, something that was unthinkable, inadmissible for a Starfleet officer. Why there was no news about his family? Did he have neither father nor mother, nor any kind of kinsman? But then, why wasn't this said clearly? And who had stood surety for him so that he became part of Starfleet? Someone must have done it, there was no other way for this to happen, but there was no trace of this in his curriculum.
To put it briefly, from Tucker's resume nothing definite seemed coming out, it was as if his life had been simply packed carefully.
Mayweather turned his attention to the screen. One could clearly see the chariots lined up in orderly fashion around the city, smoking and in ruins. Safety reasons had forced the interruption of any audio connection, but the vision was very clear. The devastating effects of the weapon that Terrans had developed thanks to the notes left by Tucker were clearly visible. The engineer would undoubtedly be very pleased with himself.
If he had been there to see.
But he was not there.
He was dead.
And his body had never been found.
Well, of course. How would it ever have been possible to recover something of him after the huge explosion that had reduced to ashes the place where he was, apparently - judging by the vital signs vital that had remained impressed in the recording devices - along with Phlox, who, of course, had been given up for dead too, and whose body, equally obviously, could not be not finished dispersed in infinitesimal particles? As that one of Tucker, naturally.
Tucker, a man robbed of his future, who came from an unknown past and ended up in a present equally unknown.
Eh sure. Because nobody had ever been able to determine which were the causes of the explosion.
Well certainly, no one had really worked himself to death to rebuild the exact course of events, but, on the other hand, what need could there have been of getting lost behind a question that seemed completely futile and irrelevant in the terrible bedlam that had happened in those tumultuous days? And afterward, who could have had or would have wanted to have care to see what had occurred, in reality?
Mayweather went on to follow the inner flowing of his thoughts, without breaking his concentration from what was happening now and without displaying the slightest sign of what was passing in his mind. He knew how to do it. Nobody, not even the bitch who now sat on the throne, really knew what he was capable of doing. A fact that, the more he thought of it, the more he went convincing himself, could be also true for the late lamented Tucker.
For example, what to say about the recording devices? Namely about the information that there could be in them about the tragedy that had put the word end to the lives of Tucker and of the doctor? Certainly nobody, who was not him, Mayweather, or also, with all probability, the deceased paranoid and psychotic Reed, could have thought to cast a glance at them. Why go to see if these devices, whose memory was stored in the database of the spaceship in which they now were, had recorded something useful to explain, even only partially, what had happened? There was no reason to do it, in fact. Only a very suspicious and circuitous mind could push a man to do so, a mind just like that of Mayweather, of the insidious and wary serpent that lurked within him and that had driven him to do it, following who knows which tortuous instinct born in him, after the unexpected and amazing raid that had led to the rescue of the Vulcan bitch.
And, once again, as in Tucker's curriculum, he hadn't been able to retrieve any really useful information. However something, after all, there was. There were no recorded images, but it was possible to hear, even if far from clearly, two voices, patently angry, altered. The voices of Tucker and Phlox. Then, everything was overwhelmed by the roar of the explosion. But before... just a few moments before ...
He was not sure what it was. A thrill, a reverb, a sound-not-sound, in the devices. He had never heard it before. Of course, it could be nothing more than an artefact, but...
And, also, just before, a sudden increase in energy. Sure, the explosion. But it was not there yet. Perhaps its prodrome? But the increase of energy did not seem limited to the enclosed space of the room in which Tucker and Phlox were; indeed, if it was true what that pretty little tart who was Hess had said, by an appropriate charge - Mayweather smiled graciously to himself: useful and pleasurable being the powerful and "potentially helpful" lover of the Empress - and without being set apart of anything that might raise her suspicions, that increase in energy seemed to come from outside, from outer space.
Exactly as the sudden increase in energy that the detection systems had picked up just some moments before it happened the unexpected raid that had led to the rescue of T'Pol.
The engineering department had worked hard to identify the causes of that increase of energy and the result looked hard to believe: it was suggested that something not detectable in the spectrum of visible light had appeared in the vicinity of Vulcan, where the ceremony of death which had that Vulcan sow as the protagonist was taking place.
And just after that abrupt increase of energy, also it coming from outside, from outer space, became clearly noticeable ... there was a thrill - a reverb, a sound-not-sound - never recorded before, or rather, not previously noticed by anyone else - by no one else except him - quite similar to what he had detected in the recordings of the last moments of Tucker and of Phlox.
He had not talked about this with his imperial lover, he abhorred and feared the flustered and thoughtless reactions the uterine Empress could have, even in all her calculated coldness. That stupid whore would put to work, without a second thought, the entire scientific staff with the result of unnecessarily putting all in alarm and foolishly diverting towards fruitless intents of personalistic revenge and, very likely, without any useful outcome, every available resource from the pursuit of what was to be their true purpose, namely the reorganization of the imperial forces and the intensive use - after a suitable and intense study of the new technologies which they had come into possession - of the new weapons and new knowledge that fate had gracefully put at their disposal, in order to quell the rebellion and tighten the grip of their recent power. There was not only to put down the revolt, for the devil! It was also necessary to worry to silence the inevitable backlashes that the forces remained loyal to the deposed Emperor, although practically impotent, were striving to deliver. And there was also to think that the dethroned Emperor was still living, though - which was very disturbing - he too had disappeared. How evaporated. It was not known where.
However and at any rate, in order to put quiet his visceral and august lover and take her mind away from the obsessive thought of vengeance, Mayweather had said to her that at the right time he believed it would be possible to trace the attackers, to go up to them. And, in fact, in the memory of the recordings of the moments of the incursion there were some tracks: actually there were traces of something, seemingly something that was approaching and then, after the raid's end, moving away, or better, losing far away. The problem was that those tracks had vanished into thin air, and trying to follow them, it would not have led to anything. Mayweather's own expertise, even if limited, and above all the interested but fruitful acquaintances of him suggested to him that things were in these terms. And, this time only his own expertise about Her Sublime Magnanimity the Empress, that it was better that she, at least for the moment, didn't know it.
But - and here was the point - those tracks, or - even more - the likeness of what he had observed in the records of the final moments of life of Tucker and Phlox with what could be observed in the records relating to the incursion meant something.
Meant that there was something that connected the two events.
Meant that something - someone – could have intervened during the supposed last moments of life of that bastard engineer, and that it wasn't airy-fairy that this something or this someone could be the same one who had intervened in the case of the raid.
Meant that - perhaps - Tucker was not dead. That someone had stolen him from his fate; perhaps - Mayweather could not fully realize why in him such an idea was born, but instinctively, and his instincts had never cheated him, he felt to be in the true - perhaps even that Tucker himself could have orchestrated the mise en scene of his death, and then also engineered the show of T'Pol's rescue.
Certainly, about the second event, assuming that Tucker was alive and in a position to go to the rescue of T'Pol, all could go plainly, so to say, whereas it was very hardly explicable how and why – how and why – Tucker should have set such a pretence, making everyone believing that he was dead when he was still alive.
Excepting that…
The brain of Mayweather was working, was mulling over and revising once again what he already had so often brooded and reworked and whose conclusions were always the same.
… Excepting that Tucker hadn't thought that the time had come for him to disappear, because of something, in order to do something, and he could count on someone's help - someone belonging to his foggy past - so as he could disappear, so as he could do this something.
The thoughts followed each other, relentless, in the mind of Mayweather.
Tucker's foggy past…
What would have happened - what would happen to him, Tucker - if someone had wanted to put his hand to his resume? If someone had wanted to know more closely the lone chief engineer of Enterprise? The times, things had changed, in the riotous days that had preceded the "death" of Tucker. Archer had come and Archer was not a man to trust to appearances, and in any case, he would not risk that anyone, not even his own mother, could jeopardize his newly acquired leadership. The forever late lamentedArcher would have wanted to know everything about everyone, including, especially including, the man who, more or less openly, was the lover of the Vulcan whore who had dared rebel and attempted to undermine his new power. Going further, if indeed Tucker was the unknown shark Mayweather suspected he was, he should most likely have the instinct of the shark; it was not impossible that he had sniffed out that Hoshi – that he, Mayweather - might eventually take power, with the condescending consent of that easygoing man who had been the defunct Archer. So, hard times would come for the dear Engineer: if the Empress hated T'Pol with all her forces, just imagine what she could do to Tucker, the lover of the loathed Vulcan female, a lover, for more, who had dared refuse the attention of Her Imperial Highness, even if she, at that time, hadn't yet become the Empress Hoshi Sato the First.
The shark would no longer have been able to swim unnoticed and undisturbed underwater to bite who knows what prey. So, better disappearing, better moving away in deepest waters, and, from there, at the appropriate time, with the help of the cited someone, doing the something that the ferocious lord of the sea had intended to do, and that the new circumstances had prevented him from doing, because the stirring of the shallow water where he had wandered so far could risk to shed light on his threatening shape.
But this time, no longer concentric circles around the prey, by approaching slowly. This time, a very fast and unpredictable running, slicing through the water like a torpedo, to bite the unaware prey, and then getting away soon after.To prepare a new, unexpected assault.
Mayweather stared intently at the screen.
On it, it was unfolding the final act.
In his mind, it was unfolding the final scene of the movie of his thoughts.
*The Empire is going to win, totally, and is about to give visual demonstration of its strength, live."
It had come to the final bars.
*The Empire is not vincible, in an open and frontal war, now less than before, given the new weapons and new technologies in its possession.*
Afterward there would no longer be time nor way to hold back the imperial tide…
*But there could be other ways to tackle the Empire, to counter it.*
… to perturb the triumph of the Human Empire…
*If out there, somewhere, there is really someone in ambush, an unknown enemy, possibly even headed by "somebody" who knows Humans well, their strengths and their weaknesses, even on the psychological side...*
… to diminish, to blur its victory…
*… "somebody" who, for unclear reasons, maybe for reasons rooted in his cloudy past, has decided to break down the Empire and has understood that there was need of different strategy than that one adopted by the rebels…*
… to instil in the breeds subject to Empire some shadow of doubt on the reality of its resistless strength…
*…"somebody" who is acting like does the shark, that turns around its prey, unnerving it, until, unexpected, swoops down upon it, bites it, then withdraws, for going back to sink its tusks into it another time, then another, and another, until the prey loses all its vital blood…*
… to turn the Empire's ultimate victory into the seed of a possible future defeat.
*…what better opportunity than this one which is being offered now? If you can not beat your adversary, unnerve him, dispirit him, weary him. Wear down him. By dealing well calibrated blows, in the more opportune moment, taking advantage of being unknown and hidden, making sure that the blows are clearly visible everywhere, so as to weaken the image of your enemy in front of the whole world and, at the same time, instilling in him a sense of insecurity and frustration.*
Mayweather was still staring at the screen and more, much more, within himself.
Strangely, now, just now, he understood fully that he was right. His mind was clear, he was not mistaken. He had realized totally, at last.
What could have happened if, suddenly, unexpectedly, "somebody" had cracked, with a fast and effective action, that image of irresistible force that the Empire was about to give? And without even dreaming of to go down in open field, but by resorting once more to a well-organized and unstoppable raid, so as to show in this way that the Empire was not invincible? That there was someone capable of opposing it? And victoriously? And this, every time that he had wanted to do it?
What could have happened if a breed, strong enough and organized, rich in a glorious past, as it could be - for example - the Vulcans, had regained its pride? If it had found a guide, a guide worthy, able to enliven this pride, to arouse in it the desire, the longing for its lost freedom?
A guide as T'Pol could be?
What could have happened if somebody, "somebody" rightly or wrongly very close to her, had given her the means to put herself up as such? To act as such?
What could have happened if the warrior princess, the tiger with the guise of the most beautiful woman, who had stunned the universe with her indomitable courage, with her adamantine fierceness, had been able to count on "somebody", a shark in a human appearance, lurking in the abysses?
Mayweather's eyes darted on the consoles of the monitoring systems, almost waiting for, rather than fearing that they could detect a sudden burst of energy out there, somewhere, and soon after, a strange thrill.
It was... yes, it was like an orgasm, or rather like the expectation of an orgasm.
She... she knew very well what this meant; She was... very experienced with this. She would never have believed, before, that the pleasure of power could be so similar to the pleasure of love. But it was so. It was overwhelming and irresistible, in the same way.
That waiting, that expectation, was like the expectation of an orgasm, that you know it is coming, that is just to get there and that you know that when it will arrive will make you melt with pleasure. It was the expectation that everything was about to be accomplished, that her power would finally be consecrated by the universal vision of the bloodbath in which the last followers of the rebellion were to be immersed. Yes, that expectation was like the waiting for an orgasm that you know that can not but be achieved, and like such kind of waiting, thus the expectation that she was living before the screen on which it flowed the images of death and destruction that her power, her strength, her majesty had established having to be inflicted, it was sweet and together overwhelming, as to be hard to be dissimulated under the cold unconcern she, being the Empress, should show.
The Empress. She was the Empress, to whom anything is possible, who everything can do, whom not even God can judge; above good and evil; source in herself of all good and all evil.
She, just she, the first woman to have thought of being able to take such a role, and who this role had taken.
A shadow thickened in the mind of Hoshi Sato the First, Empress of the Human Empire.
She struggled against it.
Yes, she was the Empress and she was this in grace of herself.
Behind her, she felt the great form of the one whom people called, although in an undertone, – she had heard this raillery! - the redoubtable little-big paramour; it was unknown if to mock cautiously him… or her!
They would have to paid dearly for this banter, at another time and place. At a different time and place.
Her paramour. Travis Mayweather. And with that appellative: little-big. And… redoubtable.
He… he was her plaything, only that. Only that! And… and he had nothing to do with what she was. No.
She had been the one who had led her to be what she had become, certainly not him!
Hers. Hers! The idea of taking power... had been hers, for the devil! Hers. Her muscular lover had nothing to do with it! Nothing! She was the maker of her own destiny. She only, only she!
He was nothing but her vassal, her faithful servant. Neither little nor big. And if there was anyone who should be feared, it was her, not him, for the hell!
Travis was her flunkey, yes. Her helpful flunkey.
Certainly. Helpful. Useful, very useful. Very good.
Full of useful and good ideas, useful and good tips, useful and good advice.
Really useful and good in planning action strategies.
And amazingly, superbly ...
The Empress has almost let slip a sigh.
... wonderfully good in bed.
But the power was hers!
HERS!
And she had taken hold of it.
Mayweather... he had done nothing but give shape to her own ideas when ... when, with his fluty voice by snake, had suggested that perhaps it was possible to take advantage of the foolishness of Archer, that arrogant jerk who believed he was able to use her - her! The great Hoshi! - for his own pleasure without having to pay the price.
Imbecile! How could he have thought that idiot, that ... that gorilla, yes, that gorilla all muscle and inane ambition, that, since he had had the unexpected good fortune of having in his hands the amazing opportunity to acquire the supreme power, she could have left this opportunity in his fist, continuing to be nothing more than his meek pleasure-bitch?
If at least he had been good in bed, dammit! At least that!
Blowing away that moron gorilla had been the easiest thing - and most beautiful and satisfactory thing - of the world, and Travis had had nothing to do with such a thing! NOTHING! His ingratiating words had been nothing but the reflex of her thoughts, of her ideas.
Hers it had been, the idea, hers it had been, the move.
And hers had to be the power.
Her August Highness, Hoshi Sato, the first woman seating on the throne of the human empire, settled herself more comfortably in her command chair, in front of the screen where the images were running testifying her power - absolute - and her strength - immeasurable. She was enjoying, in full, this power and strength. Soon all the forces that had deluded themselves to be able to counteract the Empire - which meant her - would be destroyed, drowned in their own blood, and the few survivors would have tasted her dreadful justice. The justice of the Empress Hoshi Sato.
Soon, nothing and no one would be able any longer to interpose between her and absolute power.
Nothing and no one.
The Empress sighed, with uneasy awareness, to herself.
No one except Travis.
Travis Mayweather, her lover and her right-hand man. And, in truth, far more than that.
The mind of the Empress focused on him. His presence was strong, behind her. She could felt it. It was… cumbersome.
He… Travis per se… was cumbersome.
Before, no. But now, it was so.
Now.
Strange, but after all maybe not too long now, just at these moments, just a bit before she will become definitely and without appeal the absolute and undisputed mistress of all things and of all creatures under the human heel and perhaps just because of this, she found herself thinking, clearly and plainly for the first time, that, from now on, something should change.
There was .. there was no longer room in that world, the world that was now hers, for Travis Mayweather.
He had been an excellent counsellor, as well as a very hot and satisfying lover, this was undeniable, but now it was time for her to get rid of the one who, in all respects, had become her éminence grise and who could overshadow her power. She could not - should not - share her power with anyone, even minimally.
She was the Empress Hoshi Sato the First, who had domain over all, she and she alone.
Though ...
Her sharp eyes and cold didn't diverge from the screen, but they were looking at other things besides those that were visible on it.
Though ... how could she do it?
The loneliness of power, of the power that was now hers, the power of the Empire, of the world in which all of them were born and lived, was also her real and… human… loneliness. She was alone, in the truest sense of the term, and without Travis... she would be even more alone and would also be highly vulnerable. If before she had been surrounded by suspicion and enmity, as a consequence of the way of being of the Empire and of her own way of being per se, now, at the very least, mistrust and enmity would be turned - had already de facto been turned - into guerrilla, more or less evident, and her power was still too recent for having been consolidated enough to make her unassailable. Only Mayweather was really at her side, even if for very personal and selfish reasons. She was not a little silly woman, far from it; she was a very smart and skilled woman, even before being the Empress; she knew that Travis Mayweather was a treacherous snake, willing to support her with the only purpose to use, in the shadows and under the shelter of her shield, the power that was up to her. She had understood, at the end, what he really was, a serpent by the powerful loins and twisted mind, devoid of the courage and strength to take the open field. He had used her... in all senses.
This was burning, infinitely. She was the one wont to manipulate men, and instead, this time, a man had manipulated her.
But, in spite of this abasing realization, there was one thing she couldn't nor should underestimate: even if in his sordid and ambiguous way, craven and cravenly interested, worthy of the snake that he was, Travis was at her side, her life was his life, now more than ever. By now, or by hook or by crook, they were inextricably linked to each other. He was tied to her to shine with reflected light, he not having the heart and boldness to dare shine by his own light; but she, on the other hand...
In this violent world and treacherous, it was impossible not to be able to count on someone by your side, even if only for reasons entirely personal and interested and this was even more true in her case, because power is tempting, and she was "new", so to speak. No one - and she knew it - was yet really willing to commit himself to her command, except by pure fear. Or rather, to say it all - the Empress virtually scowled within - except by the fear that Travis the snake knew very well how to silence even the slightest hint of impatience, by exploiting, by the serpent that he was, envies, desires, ambitions and lusts of each, and the skeletons in the closet that everyone had and of which he had great knowledge, true or boasted that it was; but even if such knowledge had been simply boasted, the skeletons existed, inevitably, and therefore ... caution, above all; this was everyone's first thought. By now as well as she had become aware of who Travis was, so the others were learning it. And nobody wanted to step on the snake's tail.
So, ultimately, the Empress had need of Travis Mayweather. Without him, on who would she have been able to rely? Or, rather, without him, how could she be able, alone, to defend herself from any possible or potential attack? She had opened the road, people knew, now, that it was not impossible to climb high, very high, just as she had done, even for people ... yes, even for people like her, without art or hand, without a real background, nothing else than mere improvisers, and of which the Empire, her ship itself, were full. There was nobody who, more or less consciously, was not ready to stab her, treacherously, in a real and metaphorical sense, if just had the opportunity been presented to do it. Certainly no woman: if before she was hated by women, for her ability to hook the males for her own purposes, now she was doubly hated, to the nth degree. Reviled. Viscerally, as only the fairer sex can do. No, certainly no woman and, least of all, no man. What man who was a true son of the Empire, would not have been happy to get rid of the female who had dared proclaim herself Empress? Such a fact was more than enough to stir up against her the vindictive resentment of every male crossing her way, and indeed if it had not been for the muscled and cunning serpent that was by her side ...
The Empress was watching the screen. The hour of triumph was approaching, and, just then, exactly then, her awareness of the reality of her position was getting perspicuous in her mind .
She could no longer deceive herself.
She commanded, but because there was Travis.
And it had not to be so.
She needed someone else and a someone else very special, a ... a lion, as well as her… paramour was a snake. She needed a lion, to drive out the snake.
And perhaps with a lion, she would also be willing to share power. With ... a true man.
Oh yeah, a man. Proud and strong, like a lion, as it should be a true man. A man worthy of the Empire; and worthy to stand beside her. A man capable of fighting, openly, without hiding in the shadows, or maybe even acting so, covertly, but in any case, not dastardly, not meanly, not fraudulently, without resorting to the use of the devious and disloyal weapon of the poison of the snake, but able when necessary to use fangs and claws. But where was such a man? Who could boast of such a name? Who could be described as 'a man'? A real man, tough and strong and smart, able to stand comparison with her, so that she could really want him next to her? And able to stand comparison with Travis... in bed?
At that point, one might say inevitably, to the mind of the Empress it occurred again, inexorably, a name: that name.
Tucker.
Tucker damnit!
She had desired him.
Perhaps for the only time in her life, she had desired a man simply because she wished it.
Why? She did not know and could not understand. She did not understand what had attracted her in that face devastated, and yet ... and yet still beautiful. Tough.
Strong.
A face that seemed…
She did not understand why, every time that she had found herself watching closely that face, it had seemed to her to see behind those lips perpetually distorted in a sarcastic grin the fangs of a lion, or... - An image, vivid and distinct, had suddenly painted in her head - … or, even more, the sharp and deadly teeth of a shark.
No, she did not understand why she had perceived Tucker emanate an impression such as that, as well as she did not understand what she had seen, what she had felt, such attractiveness, behind those brusque and unfriendly manners. Behind that appearance...
Yes. Appearance.
She had perceived it. There was something hidden behind that eye cold and derisive, in that ... in that solitude, yes, because Tucker was ... had been ... a man alone.
Apparently he had shared the life of the ship with the others, but in reality ... she had noticed it ... no one could really claim to know him, to know something about him, something that went beyond... the appearance.
Only ... only a woman, probably, knew very much of him.
A Vulcan woman.
That Vulcan woman!
Damn bitch! She, a woman of Tucker's own race, not belonging to an inferior breed as that lurid strumpet… she, the future Empress, had wanted Tucker. She had openly offered herself to him. And he ... he had refused!
But how was this possible? How? No true man born in the Empire, would have dreamed to disdain a woman! A beautiful and desirable woman. Like her! But Tucker had done it. Tucker then was not a man? But the squeals that Vulcan slut had let escape during that strange interlude in which Tucker and she had virtually disappeared from circulation, with no credible explanation... those shrieks that were told having been heard out of her room, they said exactly the opposite. Eh sure, because all world knew that Tucker was in her room at that time, and all world had laughed uproariously at the idea that a Vulcan female - that haughty and supercilious Vulcan female, always quick to repel any advances with the cold blade of her disdainful logic - had succumbed to the wishes of a human male. That human male, disfigured and, in the eyes of other men, as abhorrent as she was beautiful and appetizing.
But .. Tucker had refused her, Hoshi. So what? Those two had abandoned themselves to the good time ... why, in reality? It had been the cravings of Tucker or the wishes of that slut of Vulcan? Or, indeed, it had not been mere carnal lust? Was it possible - was it really possible - that Tucker, a male son of the Empire, had fallen prey of a Vulcan semi-slave? Of her charms? Of her blandishments? To the point ... to the point to bind himself to her and turn down other… offers? And, on the other hand, why the hell would that bitch have wanted him? Just him?
What did this mean?
The hatred, resentment, desire for revenge smouldering in the black heart of the Empress that, previously, the pressing of events and, now, the foretaste of her imminent victory had confined in the silty oblivion of the deepest shadows of her brain, suddenly exploded with virulence within her. She had to force herself not to show it, to avoid gritting her teeth with ferocious spitefulness.
What did all this mean? And who gives a shit? The fact - the one that really mattered - was that that damn tart not only was a traitor, a conspirator, a treacherous bitch; not only had ridiculed her by overcoming her in an open fight. She had also wolfed down the man she, the Empress, wanted. And she had conquered him to the point that not only that miscreated had disdained her, the Empress – the Empress, damnit! -, but he had also bent over backwards to save that Vulcan whore from the just vengeance that she - She, she, she! Her Majesty Hoshi Sato the First! - had prepared for her!
The Empress almost jumped on her command chair.
But what the hell...? She suddenly realized that she had unconsciously thought of Tucker assuming that it had been just him who saved that bitch. But he was dead, disappeared, gone. She had lost herself countless times behind what, in all respects, looked as an unsolvable enigma, without ever managing to get a plausible explanation: there was nothing and nobody in the universe who might want to save that slut and… to rub out Reed that way. Nothing and nobody except Tucker. But Tucker had decided to fly to a better world, so this was impossible. And then, even if absurdly he were still alive, by what means would he have been able to organize that perfect rescue operation? With the help of whom?
And yet ...
And if she - her subconscious - had not deceived itself? The unconscious often has insights that the conscious mind has not, linked as it is to the necessity of not nebulous reasonings, but the intuition in itself is often a higher form of reasoning, made of deeper and indefinable connections, and nevertheless no less true, indeed not infrequently shrewder, keener, more insightful, someway, than the conscious reasonings.
Of course, the Empress Hoshi Sato was unable to conduct such deep elucubrations, not even to conceive them from afar. As much as she could be smart and not without some culture, this was not bread for her teeth. However, one thing she could realize: if ... if her subconscious had understood - had guessed - something that her conscious mind could neither understand nor rationalize?
In other words… if Tucker had been alive?
Taking for not absurd this absurd idea, there was nothing absurd to go on ahead along the road of absurdity; so it would not be more absurd than the absurdity that Tucker was still alive the fact that he could have re-emerged from the shadows that had swallowed him up with someone at his side, someone willing to help him. And, on the other hand, there was someone - there had been someone - who had taken part in the rescue expedition, people unknown and never seen before. Therefore, there was actually someone – unknown and never seen before - who plotted against the Empire and who was not part of the ranks of the rebels.
The absurdly resurrected Tucker, could he have anything to do with this someone?
Absurd. All absurd!
The Empress lowered her eyelids quickly, lifting them immediately after, all in a flash, without appearing to.
Absurd.
But ...
She went back to what she had just thought about Tucker, to the sensation, strong and steady, she had always felt in front of him, a sensation that perhaps contributed to his charm, undoubted. The fascination of the dark. There was something in him, something dark, exactly that. Hidden. Unknown.
To the point to make possible the impossible? Real the absurd?
The Empress continued to follow what was going on the screen simultaneously with the course of her thoughts.
Thoughts ... pleasurable. Gently ... wickedly nice.
Intuition is the weapon of women, the most powerful. What men call women's irrationality is what makes women subtly strong. It is not irrationality: it is the ability to believe in something that is beyond the supposed and not infrequently fruitless rationality of the male.
Sometimes believing without wondering why, is worth more than getting lost in the vain search for a rational explanation. Women are often able to do it more than men, and therefore often they arrive where men are not able to get; and if there was anything that could be said of the Empress, it was that she was definitely a woman, perhaps not the kind of woman that a man could trust, but, as to being a woman in the body, in the soul, in the mind ... well, about this there could be no doubt.
The famous female intuition ...
Yeah, that.
Her female intuition. Perhaps ... it was worthy to follow it.
And, in this case ... Tucker was alive, and he had saved T'Pol.
So ... - The Empress could not help but smile wickedly to herself - ... so, finding her, it meant finding him. And... - the secret evil smile became most marked - ... and, in such eventuality, to the sublime opportunity to take revenge atrociously on that Vulcan bitch, it would be added to the possibility to appropriate him.
No revenge on him, no. Perhaps her… paramour would not be able to understand - another hidden malignant smile - at least initially. But thereafter ... yes, thereafter for sure. The best revenge on Tucker, fraught with important consequences and pleasant, would be to force him to yield to her, under the threat of inflicting on his Vulcan whore the worst sufferings of the universe if he had not agreed to be beside her… and inside her. It was clear, if she had to follow to the end her intuition, that between those two there should be a link, perhaps unwitting, - who knows? - such as to make him vulnerable - and pliable - in the face of the possible sufferings that whore could suffer. If he came out of the shadows, risking much, very much, - his life and perhaps something even more important to him - only to save that contemptible strumpet, he couldn't not bend in front of the tortures that she, Hoshi Sato the Empress, would inflicted on her ... her rival. Yes, her rival.
Then ... well, she would be well able to make him forget that frigid Vulcan. Her art of love would be irresistible, and he could not help but get caught in the snare of pleasure that she would weave around him. Of this she felt sure. In that snare, in that web, he would find peace (who knows why this idea dawned sudden and unexpected in the mind of the Empress.). In the heat of this mesh she would manage to make him forget everything else and he would become her Emperor.
Yes, she would be his Empress and him her Emperor.
With him, it would be nice to share power, taking refuge, safe, in his strength.
The Empress was almost oblivious of the events that the screen was showing: too beautiful, too, what her intuition was suggesting and showing; too captivating and engaging the fantastic images of the possible future that were being piled in her mind. Here it is, here them together, she and her lion: they are watching, close to one another, that Vulcan whore as she is pleading for mercy, naked, flayed alive, in a blazing tub. She implores him: Help me, save me! And he looks at her with mockery and contempt. And eagerly kisses her, the Empress, while the tart of Vulcan kicks the bucket between gasps of unspeakable agony and of disappointed dejection.
The Empress suddenly roused herself from her fancies. What the heck! What was happening to her? It was certainly not the moment to indulge in such nonsense!
But... all in all what her intuition was suggesting to her was not incoherent. After all it was true that only Tucker could have been interested in saving T'Pol and that only he could have feed the desire to inflict such a punishment on Reed, and it was equally true that there had been people belonging to a race never seen before, who had gathered for the rescue of that whore, in the context of a veritable military operation and well orchestrated. And it was true, she was certain, that there was something mysterious in Tucker, perhaps such to be able to explain the unexplainable. Consequently ... well, as that Vulcan bitch would say, if there are no logical answers, then it is logical to resort to illogical responses.
Apparently illogical.
Tucker was apparently dead? And yet apparently, only he, a dead man, could have been involved in the rescue of T'Pol? Have been its inspirer?
Then one had to think that appearances were deceptive and under those misleading appearances there was the true reality.
Moreover what is reality if not what appears to our senses? But our senses, our mind, our view, very often deceive us. Do not be fooled by appearances. We must sometimes look beyond, follow our intuition, look at what lies beneath appearances.
And so ...
The Empress thought back to what Travis had told her: the expedition that had led to the rescue of T'Pol had left traces. She had consented to his suggestion to postpone the issue of tracing the rescuers and after that the rebellion had been completely suppressed. In effect this had been a priority, the rest could wait. Furthermore, as her smart and wise mate-snake had pointed out, now they - their Imperial forces - were on the alert, surveillance had been greatly intensified, not even a needle could have pass through the barrier which surrounded her and him, and the fact itself that it had been a commando action implied that the unknown enemy did not have, very likely, forces enough to go down into open field against the Empire. Indeed, the facts had proved right the astute serpent. Nothing had longer happened.
But now, the revolt was virtually over, and there would be other priorities, for example - above all - tracking down the perpetrators of the rescue raid: no potential threat had to be ignored or neglected, so it would be appropriate and necessary to track down the unknown enemies, whoever they were and wherever they were, which implied that, when these had been found and detained, if what she had seen under the fallacy of appearances was true, she not only could put her clutches back on T'Pol, she would have also been able to put them... on Tucker.
At that moment, provided that she wasn't deceiving herself - but her female intuition told her that she wasn't - she would be able to make the lion roar.
Openly, in the end. Not in the undefined darkness of what was concealed behind its ravaged snout.
And the lion would have torn to pieces the serpent.
The Empress pondered on this thought for an instant.
She blinked her eyelids unconsciously.
No. No lion. The shark would have jumped out of the dark water, from which just its threatening fin poked darkly out, difficult, almost impossible to be spotted by those who didn't know how to look beneath appearances.
Appearances.
This word rang loud in the mind of the Empress.
Appearances.
She looked at the screen. Intently. Pensively. She stared at the images that appeared on it, at the death and blood flowing down there, on the planet, and that her will had provoked.
She looked at what the Empire would be, under her and under the snake beside her.
She looked at the future expected for the Empire, for those who would think to rebel against it; at the future itself of the Empire, the future that had been build on its past, that she had inherited and that she, being who she was - a... a serpent she too, an adder nourished by the gory muck of the Empire, not different, in last analysis, from what her paramour-snake was - wanted it to be.
And… she looked at the future that maybe, most likely, one day could be expected also for her.
Alone. Only with her treacherous and cowardly serpent.
A future that it wasn't easy to think could be caused to her just by him in person, by his own hand, if he had the opportunity, if he had thought he could do so with impunity, if he had thought he could lean on a viper more viper than her. The slippery and untrustworthy serpent!
She…. She needed…
She needed the shark! Yes, the shark.
The deadly, feracious, dire shark.
The shark!
The shark in human appearance, that would have leapt out at the surface, would have snapped at the serpent with its murderous teeth and rending, would have devoured it and would have kept her – and her Empire - safe from gorillas, wolves and jackals.
Possibly even from the venomous and bloodthirsty adder that nestled inside her.
And from any other savage beast and ferocious that could be lurking under human or nonhuman appearances.
She... she knew very well what this meant; She was... very experienced with this. She would never have believed, before, that the pleasure of power could be so similar to the pleasure of love. But it was so. It was overwhelming and irresistible, in the same way.
That waiting, that expectation, was like the expectation of an orgasm, that you know it is coming, that is just to get there and that you know that when it will arrive will make you melt with pleasure. It was the expectation that everything was about to be accomplished, that her power would finally be consecrated by the universal vision of the bloodbath in which the last followers of the rebellion were to be immersed. Yes, that expectation was like the waiting for an orgasm that you know that can not but be achieved, and like such kind of waiting, thus the expectation that she was living before the screen on which it flowed the images of death and destruction that her power, her strength, her majesty had established having to be inflicted, it was sweet and together overwhelming, as to be hard to be dissimulated under the cold unconcern she, being the Empress, should show.
The Empress. She was the Empress, to whom anything is possible, who everything can do, whom not even God can judge; above good and evil; source in herself of all good and all evil.
She, just she, the first woman to have thought of being able to take such a role, and who this role had taken.
A shadow thickened in the mind of Hoshi Sato the First, Empress of the Human Empire.
She struggled against it.
Yes, she was the Empress and she was this in grace of herself.
Behind her, she felt the great form of the one whom people called, although in an undertone, – she had heard this raillery! - the redoubtable little-big paramour; it was unknown if to mock cautiously him… or her!
They would have to paid dearly for this banter, at another time and place. At a different time and place.
Her paramour. Travis Mayweather. And with that appellative: little-big. And… redoubtable.
He… he was her plaything, only that. Only that! And… and he had nothing to do with what she was. No.
She had been the one who had led her to be what she had become, certainly not him!
Hers. Hers! The idea of taking power... had been hers, for the devil! Hers. Her muscular lover had nothing to do with it! Nothing! She was the maker of her own destiny. She only, only she!
He was nothing but her vassal, her faithful servant. Neither little nor big. And if there was anyone who should be feared, it was her, not him, for the hell!
Travis was her flunkey, yes. Her helpful flunkey.
Certainly. Helpful. Useful, very useful. Very good.
Full of useful and good ideas, useful and good tips, useful and good advice.
Really useful and good in planning action strategies.
And amazingly, superbly ...
The Empress has almost let slip a sigh.
... wonderfully good in bed.
But the power was hers!
HERS!
And she had taken hold of it.
Mayweather... he had done nothing but give shape to her own ideas when ... when, with his fluty voice by snake, had suggested that perhaps it was possible to take advantage of the foolishness of Archer, that arrogant jerk who believed he was able to use her - her! The great Hoshi! - for his own pleasure without having to pay the price.
Imbecile! How could he have thought that idiot, that ... that gorilla, yes, that gorilla all muscle and inane ambition, that, since he had had the unexpected good fortune of having in his hands the amazing opportunity to acquire the supreme power, she could have left this opportunity in his fist, continuing to be nothing more than his meek pleasure-bitch?
If at least he had been good in bed, dammit! At least that!
Blowing away that moron gorilla had been the easiest thing - and most beautiful and satisfactory thing - of the world, and Travis had had nothing to do with such a thing! NOTHING! His ingratiating words had been nothing but the reflex of her thoughts, of her ideas.
Hers it had been, the idea, hers it had been, the move.
And hers had to be the power.
Her August Highness, Hoshi Sato, the first woman seating on the throne of the human empire, settled herself more comfortably in her command chair, in front of the screen where the images were running testifying her power - absolute - and her strength - immeasurable. She was enjoying, in full, this power and strength. Soon all the forces that had deluded themselves to be able to counteract the Empire - which meant her - would be destroyed, drowned in their own blood, and the few survivors would have tasted her dreadful justice. The justice of the Empress Hoshi Sato.
Soon, nothing and no one would be able any longer to interpose between her and absolute power.
Nothing and no one.
The Empress sighed, with uneasy awareness, to herself.
No one except Travis.
Travis Mayweather, her lover and her right-hand man. And, in truth, far more than that.
The mind of the Empress focused on him. His presence was strong, behind her. She could felt it. It was… cumbersome.
He… Travis per se… was cumbersome.
Before, no. But now, it was so.
Now.
Strange, but after all maybe not too long now, just at these moments, just a bit before she will become definitely and without appeal the absolute and undisputed mistress of all things and of all creatures under the human heel and perhaps just because of this, she found herself thinking, clearly and plainly for the first time, that, from now on, something should change.
There was .. there was no longer room in that world, the world that was now hers, for Travis Mayweather.
He had been an excellent counsellor, as well as a very hot and satisfying lover, this was undeniable, but now it was time for her to get rid of the one who, in all respects, had become her éminence grise and who could overshadow her power. She could not - should not - share her power with anyone, even minimally.
She was the Empress Hoshi Sato the First, who had domain over all, she and she alone.
Though ...
Her sharp eyes and cold didn't diverge from the screen, but they were looking at other things besides those that were visible on it.
Though ... how could she do it?
The loneliness of power, of the power that was now hers, the power of the Empire, of the world in which all of them were born and lived, was also her real and… human… loneliness. She was alone, in the truest sense of the term, and without Travis... she would be even more alone and would also be highly vulnerable. If before she had been surrounded by suspicion and enmity, as a consequence of the way of being of the Empire and of her own way of being per se, now, at the very least, mistrust and enmity would be turned - had already de facto been turned - into guerrilla, more or less evident, and her power was still too recent for having been consolidated enough to make her unassailable. Only Mayweather was really at her side, even if for very personal and selfish reasons. She was not a little silly woman, far from it; she was a very smart and skilled woman, even before being the Empress; she knew that Travis Mayweather was a treacherous snake, willing to support her with the only purpose to use, in the shadows and under the shelter of her shield, the power that was up to her. She had understood, at the end, what he really was, a serpent by the powerful loins and twisted mind, devoid of the courage and strength to take the open field. He had used her... in all senses.
This was burning, infinitely. She was the one wont to manipulate men, and instead, this time, a man had manipulated her.
But, in spite of this abasing realization, there was one thing she couldn't nor should underestimate: even if in his sordid and ambiguous way, craven and cravenly interested, worthy of the snake that he was, Travis was at her side, her life was his life, now more than ever. By now, or by hook or by crook, they were inextricably linked to each other. He was tied to her to shine with reflected light, he not having the heart and boldness to dare shine by his own light; but she, on the other hand...
In this violent world and treacherous, it was impossible not to be able to count on someone by your side, even if only for reasons entirely personal and interested and this was even more true in her case, because power is tempting, and she was "new", so to speak. No one - and she knew it - was yet really willing to commit himself to her command, except by pure fear. Or rather, to say it all - the Empress virtually scowled within - except by the fear that Travis the snake knew very well how to silence even the slightest hint of impatience, by exploiting, by the serpent that he was, envies, desires, ambitions and lusts of each, and the skeletons in the closet that everyone had and of which he had great knowledge, true or boasted that it was; but even if such knowledge had been simply boasted, the skeletons existed, inevitably, and therefore ... caution, above all; this was everyone's first thought. By now as well as she had become aware of who Travis was, so the others were learning it. And nobody wanted to step on the snake's tail.
So, ultimately, the Empress had need of Travis Mayweather. Without him, on who would she have been able to rely? Or, rather, without him, how could she be able, alone, to defend herself from any possible or potential attack? She had opened the road, people knew, now, that it was not impossible to climb high, very high, just as she had done, even for people ... yes, even for people like her, without art or hand, without a real background, nothing else than mere improvisers, and of which the Empire, her ship itself, were full. There was nobody who, more or less consciously, was not ready to stab her, treacherously, in a real and metaphorical sense, if just had the opportunity been presented to do it. Certainly no woman: if before she was hated by women, for her ability to hook the males for her own purposes, now she was doubly hated, to the nth degree. Reviled. Viscerally, as only the fairer sex can do. No, certainly no woman and, least of all, no man. What man who was a true son of the Empire, would not have been happy to get rid of the female who had dared proclaim herself Empress? Such a fact was more than enough to stir up against her the vindictive resentment of every male crossing her way, and indeed if it had not been for the muscled and cunning serpent that was by her side ...
The Empress was watching the screen. The hour of triumph was approaching, and, just then, exactly then, her awareness of the reality of her position was getting perspicuous in her mind .
She could no longer deceive herself.
She commanded, but because there was Travis.
And it had not to be so.
She needed someone else and a someone else very special, a ... a lion, as well as her… paramour was a snake. She needed a lion, to drive out the snake.
And perhaps with a lion, she would also be willing to share power. With ... a true man.
Oh yeah, a man. Proud and strong, like a lion, as it should be a true man. A man worthy of the Empire; and worthy to stand beside her. A man capable of fighting, openly, without hiding in the shadows, or maybe even acting so, covertly, but in any case, not dastardly, not meanly, not fraudulently, without resorting to the use of the devious and disloyal weapon of the poison of the snake, but able when necessary to use fangs and claws. But where was such a man? Who could boast of such a name? Who could be described as 'a man'? A real man, tough and strong and smart, able to stand comparison with her, so that she could really want him next to her? And able to stand comparison with Travis... in bed?
At that point, one might say inevitably, to the mind of the Empress it occurred again, inexorably, a name: that name.
Tucker.
Tucker damnit!
She had desired him.
Perhaps for the only time in her life, she had desired a man simply because she wished it.
Why? She did not know and could not understand. She did not understand what had attracted her in that face devastated, and yet ... and yet still beautiful. Tough.
Strong.
A face that seemed…
She did not understand why, every time that she had found herself watching closely that face, it had seemed to her to see behind those lips perpetually distorted in a sarcastic grin the fangs of a lion, or... - An image, vivid and distinct, had suddenly painted in her head - … or, even more, the sharp and deadly teeth of a shark.
No, she did not understand why she had perceived Tucker emanate an impression such as that, as well as she did not understand what she had seen, what she had felt, such attractiveness, behind those brusque and unfriendly manners. Behind that appearance...
Yes. Appearance.
She had perceived it. There was something hidden behind that eye cold and derisive, in that ... in that solitude, yes, because Tucker was ... had been ... a man alone.
Apparently he had shared the life of the ship with the others, but in reality ... she had noticed it ... no one could really claim to know him, to know something about him, something that went beyond... the appearance.
Only ... only a woman, probably, knew very much of him.
A Vulcan woman.
That Vulcan woman!
Damn bitch! She, a woman of Tucker's own race, not belonging to an inferior breed as that lurid strumpet… she, the future Empress, had wanted Tucker. She had openly offered herself to him. And he ... he had refused!
But how was this possible? How? No true man born in the Empire, would have dreamed to disdain a woman! A beautiful and desirable woman. Like her! But Tucker had done it. Tucker then was not a man? But the squeals that Vulcan slut had let escape during that strange interlude in which Tucker and she had virtually disappeared from circulation, with no credible explanation... those shrieks that were told having been heard out of her room, they said exactly the opposite. Eh sure, because all world knew that Tucker was in her room at that time, and all world had laughed uproariously at the idea that a Vulcan female - that haughty and supercilious Vulcan female, always quick to repel any advances with the cold blade of her disdainful logic - had succumbed to the wishes of a human male. That human male, disfigured and, in the eyes of other men, as abhorrent as she was beautiful and appetizing.
But .. Tucker had refused her, Hoshi. So what? Those two had abandoned themselves to the good time ... why, in reality? It had been the cravings of Tucker or the wishes of that slut of Vulcan? Or, indeed, it had not been mere carnal lust? Was it possible - was it really possible - that Tucker, a male son of the Empire, had fallen prey of a Vulcan semi-slave? Of her charms? Of her blandishments? To the point ... to the point to bind himself to her and turn down other… offers? And, on the other hand, why the hell would that bitch have wanted him? Just him?
What did this mean?
The hatred, resentment, desire for revenge smouldering in the black heart of the Empress that, previously, the pressing of events and, now, the foretaste of her imminent victory had confined in the silty oblivion of the deepest shadows of her brain, suddenly exploded with virulence within her. She had to force herself not to show it, to avoid gritting her teeth with ferocious spitefulness.
What did all this mean? And who gives a shit? The fact - the one that really mattered - was that that damn tart not only was a traitor, a conspirator, a treacherous bitch; not only had ridiculed her by overcoming her in an open fight. She had also wolfed down the man she, the Empress, wanted. And she had conquered him to the point that not only that miscreated had disdained her, the Empress – the Empress, damnit! -, but he had also bent over backwards to save that Vulcan whore from the just vengeance that she - She, she, she! Her Majesty Hoshi Sato the First! - had prepared for her!
The Empress almost jumped on her command chair.
But what the hell...? She suddenly realized that she had unconsciously thought of Tucker assuming that it had been just him who saved that bitch. But he was dead, disappeared, gone. She had lost herself countless times behind what, in all respects, looked as an unsolvable enigma, without ever managing to get a plausible explanation: there was nothing and nobody in the universe who might want to save that slut and… to rub out Reed that way. Nothing and nobody except Tucker. But Tucker had decided to fly to a better world, so this was impossible. And then, even if absurdly he were still alive, by what means would he have been able to organize that perfect rescue operation? With the help of whom?
And yet ...
And if she - her subconscious - had not deceived itself? The unconscious often has insights that the conscious mind has not, linked as it is to the necessity of not nebulous reasonings, but the intuition in itself is often a higher form of reasoning, made of deeper and indefinable connections, and nevertheless no less true, indeed not infrequently shrewder, keener, more insightful, someway, than the conscious reasonings.
Of course, the Empress Hoshi Sato was unable to conduct such deep elucubrations, not even to conceive them from afar. As much as she could be smart and not without some culture, this was not bread for her teeth. However, one thing she could realize: if ... if her subconscious had understood - had guessed - something that her conscious mind could neither understand nor rationalize?
In other words… if Tucker had been alive?
Taking for not absurd this absurd idea, there was nothing absurd to go on ahead along the road of absurdity; so it would not be more absurd than the absurdity that Tucker was still alive the fact that he could have re-emerged from the shadows that had swallowed him up with someone at his side, someone willing to help him. And, on the other hand, there was someone - there had been someone - who had taken part in the rescue expedition, people unknown and never seen before. Therefore, there was actually someone – unknown and never seen before - who plotted against the Empire and who was not part of the ranks of the rebels.
The absurdly resurrected Tucker, could he have anything to do with this someone?
Absurd. All absurd!
The Empress lowered her eyelids quickly, lifting them immediately after, all in a flash, without appearing to.
Absurd.
But ...
She went back to what she had just thought about Tucker, to the sensation, strong and steady, she had always felt in front of him, a sensation that perhaps contributed to his charm, undoubted. The fascination of the dark. There was something in him, something dark, exactly that. Hidden. Unknown.
To the point to make possible the impossible? Real the absurd?
The Empress continued to follow what was going on the screen simultaneously with the course of her thoughts.
Thoughts ... pleasurable. Gently ... wickedly nice.
Intuition is the weapon of women, the most powerful. What men call women's irrationality is what makes women subtly strong. It is not irrationality: it is the ability to believe in something that is beyond the supposed and not infrequently fruitless rationality of the male.
Sometimes believing without wondering why, is worth more than getting lost in the vain search for a rational explanation. Women are often able to do it more than men, and therefore often they arrive where men are not able to get; and if there was anything that could be said of the Empress, it was that she was definitely a woman, perhaps not the kind of woman that a man could trust, but, as to being a woman in the body, in the soul, in the mind ... well, about this there could be no doubt.
The famous female intuition ...
Yeah, that.
Her female intuition. Perhaps ... it was worthy to follow it.
And, in this case ... Tucker was alive, and he had saved T'Pol.
So ... - The Empress could not help but smile wickedly to herself - ... so, finding her, it meant finding him. And... - the secret evil smile became most marked - ... and, in such eventuality, to the sublime opportunity to take revenge atrociously on that Vulcan bitch, it would be added to the possibility to appropriate him.
No revenge on him, no. Perhaps her… paramour would not be able to understand - another hidden malignant smile - at least initially. But thereafter ... yes, thereafter for sure. The best revenge on Tucker, fraught with important consequences and pleasant, would be to force him to yield to her, under the threat of inflicting on his Vulcan whore the worst sufferings of the universe if he had not agreed to be beside her… and inside her. It was clear, if she had to follow to the end her intuition, that between those two there should be a link, perhaps unwitting, - who knows? - such as to make him vulnerable - and pliable - in the face of the possible sufferings that whore could suffer. If he came out of the shadows, risking much, very much, - his life and perhaps something even more important to him - only to save that contemptible strumpet, he couldn't not bend in front of the tortures that she, Hoshi Sato the Empress, would inflicted on her ... her rival. Yes, her rival.
Then ... well, she would be well able to make him forget that frigid Vulcan. Her art of love would be irresistible, and he could not help but get caught in the snare of pleasure that she would weave around him. Of this she felt sure. In that snare, in that web, he would find peace (who knows why this idea dawned sudden and unexpected in the mind of the Empress.). In the heat of this mesh she would manage to make him forget everything else and he would become her Emperor.
Yes, she would be his Empress and him her Emperor.
With him, it would be nice to share power, taking refuge, safe, in his strength.
The Empress was almost oblivious of the events that the screen was showing: too beautiful, too, what her intuition was suggesting and showing; too captivating and engaging the fantastic images of the possible future that were being piled in her mind. Here it is, here them together, she and her lion: they are watching, close to one another, that Vulcan whore as she is pleading for mercy, naked, flayed alive, in a blazing tub. She implores him: Help me, save me! And he looks at her with mockery and contempt. And eagerly kisses her, the Empress, while the tart of Vulcan kicks the bucket between gasps of unspeakable agony and of disappointed dejection.
The Empress suddenly roused herself from her fancies. What the heck! What was happening to her? It was certainly not the moment to indulge in such nonsense!
But... all in all what her intuition was suggesting to her was not incoherent. After all it was true that only Tucker could have been interested in saving T'Pol and that only he could have feed the desire to inflict such a punishment on Reed, and it was equally true that there had been people belonging to a race never seen before, who had gathered for the rescue of that whore, in the context of a veritable military operation and well orchestrated. And it was true, she was certain, that there was something mysterious in Tucker, perhaps such to be able to explain the unexplainable. Consequently ... well, as that Vulcan bitch would say, if there are no logical answers, then it is logical to resort to illogical responses.
Apparently illogical.
Tucker was apparently dead? And yet apparently, only he, a dead man, could have been involved in the rescue of T'Pol? Have been its inspirer?
Then one had to think that appearances were deceptive and under those misleading appearances there was the true reality.
Moreover what is reality if not what appears to our senses? But our senses, our mind, our view, very often deceive us. Do not be fooled by appearances. We must sometimes look beyond, follow our intuition, look at what lies beneath appearances.
And so ...
The Empress thought back to what Travis had told her: the expedition that had led to the rescue of T'Pol had left traces. She had consented to his suggestion to postpone the issue of tracing the rescuers and after that the rebellion had been completely suppressed. In effect this had been a priority, the rest could wait. Furthermore, as her smart and wise mate-snake had pointed out, now they - their Imperial forces - were on the alert, surveillance had been greatly intensified, not even a needle could have pass through the barrier which surrounded her and him, and the fact itself that it had been a commando action implied that the unknown enemy did not have, very likely, forces enough to go down into open field against the Empire. Indeed, the facts had proved right the astute serpent. Nothing had longer happened.
But now, the revolt was virtually over, and there would be other priorities, for example - above all - tracking down the perpetrators of the rescue raid: no potential threat had to be ignored or neglected, so it would be appropriate and necessary to track down the unknown enemies, whoever they were and wherever they were, which implied that, when these had been found and detained, if what she had seen under the fallacy of appearances was true, she not only could put her clutches back on T'Pol, she would have also been able to put them... on Tucker.
At that moment, provided that she wasn't deceiving herself - but her female intuition told her that she wasn't - she would be able to make the lion roar.
Openly, in the end. Not in the undefined darkness of what was concealed behind its ravaged snout.
And the lion would have torn to pieces the serpent.
The Empress pondered on this thought for an instant.
She blinked her eyelids unconsciously.
No. No lion. The shark would have jumped out of the dark water, from which just its threatening fin poked darkly out, difficult, almost impossible to be spotted by those who didn't know how to look beneath appearances.
Appearances.
This word rang loud in the mind of the Empress.
Appearances.
She looked at the screen. Intently. Pensively. She stared at the images that appeared on it, at the death and blood flowing down there, on the planet, and that her will had provoked.
She looked at what the Empire would be, under her and under the snake beside her.
She looked at the future expected for the Empire, for those who would think to rebel against it; at the future itself of the Empire, the future that had been build on its past, that she had inherited and that she, being who she was - a... a serpent she too, an adder nourished by the gory muck of the Empire, not different, in last analysis, from what her paramour-snake was - wanted it to be.
And… she looked at the future that maybe, most likely, one day could be expected also for her.
Alone. Only with her treacherous and cowardly serpent.
A future that it wasn't easy to think could be caused to her just by him in person, by his own hand, if he had the opportunity, if he had thought he could do so with impunity, if he had thought he could lean on a viper more viper than her. The slippery and untrustworthy serpent!
She…. She needed…
She needed the shark! Yes, the shark.
The deadly, feracious, dire shark.
The shark!
The shark in human appearance, that would have leapt out at the surface, would have snapped at the serpent with its murderous teeth and rending, would have devoured it and would have kept her – and her Empire - safe from gorillas, wolves and jackals.
Possibly even from the venomous and bloodthirsty adder that nestled inside her.
And from any other savage beast and ferocious that could be lurking under human or nonhuman appearances.
End of Chapter Seven
The shark, that lurks under water and of which you can see, sometimes - when it is too late - only the fin, which cleaves, silent, the placid surface of the sea.
Yeah. The shark. That's going to jump out of the water to bite its prey.
How? Click on the image beside, my friends, and you will see.
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COPYRIGHT 2013 © Asso - [email protected]
COPYRIGHT 2013 © Asso - [email protected]