* * *
When you left me on Romulus, I was a man with few resources other than a great vision and a few good and true friends. On these foundations I intended to build a movement that would change Romulus forever. A mission doomed to failure one might think—and I did fail, but not for the reasons one might think. The fault was in the stars, this time, and not in ourselves. By the time the Romulans entered the Dominion War—that is, within the space of five years—our little group had gone from a handful of hopefuls in a cave to a burgeoning dissident movement positioned to declare itself. Let me tell you a little of how this happened—and then what went wrong.
For my first year on Romulus, I seemed to be in constant motion. A few days hidden in a house; a few days in transit; a few days hiding in another place. I was in the capital for almost the whole of this time, with occasional journeys into the countryside nearby, and I saw the place through glimpses. Ki Baratan, the capital is called—the sleepless city. Its old name is Dartha, the city of walls. Both of these are apt. The Tal Shiar are always watchful, and the people of the capital press back against the walls and hope to pass unnoticed. The streets are like a maze: alleys that come to a dead end; routes that meander and go back upon themselves. One does not easily find a way through. This secrecy, I came quickly to understand, was deeply engrained in Romulan culture—its organizing principle, in fact. Architecture, art, music, literature—everything created such that something was always kept hidden.
I could not help but compare Ki Baratan with my home, ShiKahr. The faces around me were similar, but the city itself could not have been more different. Where ShiKahr valued diversity, Ki Baratan enforced uniformity. Where I might walk the streets of my home and see dozens of different species, here I saw only Romulans. ShiKahr’s towers soared; its open spaces spread out. In Ki Baratan, the buildings huddled near the ground, as if to go unseen; walls were everywhere, and if there were windows, they were shuttered. The air is thick and stuffy, not the heady air of home. The sky seemed always clouded and I rarely saw the moons. This last, perhaps, is less truth than fancy—I was, after all, mostly living undercover, as hidden away as any Romulan citizen.
With time, I began to understand the place a little better. I found pleasure in the sudden discoveries one might make: a small garden, found unexpectedly near a tram depot; the intricate puzzle of the maze through which one must pass to visit an acquaintance; the delicate courtesies shown through polite and allusive enquiry about the health or wellbeing of another. I found myself thinking, oddly, of my friend from my academy days, T’Kel, who taught me that the life that I had led on Vulcan was not how everyone on my home planet lived. As I passed through Ki Baratan like a ghost, I wondered how the ordinary citizens of Romulus must live. What were their homes like? How did they spend their days? How did they show love, and care, and intimacy? Did they close these emotions off, as many did on my homeworld—as my father had done? Or did they reveal themselves to a trusted few? This, I realized, was the Romulus that I wanted to know. Not the world of senators and praetors and politicians and diplomats. The few meetings that I had with people such as these went nowhere. My mission would have to start elsewhere if it was to succeed: with ordinary people. But as I came to understand this, I came to understand too the difficulty of the task that I had set myself. Romulus was a world in denial, one that had made secrecy a cultural imperative. Each one of them was deeply disconnected from everyone around them, even from their families, their spouses, their children. The only shared emotion, and even this went unspoken, was fear of discovery, fear of the Tal Shiar. My mission was to connect and unite.
One evening, after yet another unsatisfactory meeting with yet another junior sub-administrator and traveling wearily back on the tram with my current minder to my current home, I sat observing the faces around me. All were turned inward. Nobody spoke to the person next to them, not even those who were traveling together. The state broadcasting network was playing through the carriage: music, of the intricate, unresolving, and unsatisfactory kind most heard on Romulus. There was no news. Below this one could hear the rattle of the tram and the occasional sigh. I began to observe the woman sitting opposite me. She was middle-aged, of the service class known on Romulus as jich’rethro, and tired. Her clothes were poor; her hands worn; her eyes closed. As the tram slowed before the next stop, she opened her eyes. She rose from her seat and picked up her bag. She stepped forward. I reached out and put my hand upon her arm. When she was looking straight at me, I lifted my free hand in salute, and I spoke.
“Peace,” I said to her, with all my heart, “and long life.”
She was stunned. Then, I saw it—the flicker in her eye. The connection. Only for the merest second, before her cultural conditioning reasserted itself, and she was shuttered once again, moving past me and off the tram. But I had done what I wanted to do. I had told this woman that she was not passing through this universe unloved. I hoped that she would carry this knowledge with her, that when the loneliness that her civilization induced in her became too great a burden, she would recall this moment, when a stranger wished her well.
I looked up. All around, I saw Romulan faces, looking at me. Some were shocked; some were hostile; but one or two, I observed, were looking at me with guarded interest. My traveling companion was in shock. She jumped out of her seat, pulled me from mine, and, just before the tram pulled out, hustled me out onto the platform, into the street, and down a nearby alley. We did not stop for another five or ten minutes. At last, she paused, and said, “Ambassador, sir—whatever possessed you to do that?”
“I am here to unite us,” I said. “This seemed the best way to proceed.”
“You may well have cost us our lives,” she said, but, to her credit, she did not complain further, she merely worked to prevent that happening.
We did not return that night to the house where we had been staying. In fact, we did not remain in Ki Baratan. My comrade led me, through back streets, to an area of small factories and light industrial units, where, under the steady thump of large-scale replicators, we waited until a vehicle arrived. We drove through the night, coming to a small villa in the countryside as the first light of dawn silvered the clouds. I remained there for the next month, until we considered it safe for me to go back to the city. But during that time, my mission came into focus for the first time. I was wasting my time with the powerful. They were interested only in the status quo, and in how they might use me to gain an advantage. I did not know, yet, what my encounter with the jich’rethro woman meant for the practicalities of my mission to Romulus. But I knew that it had reminded me of some of my most powerfully held beliefs: that all sentient beings long for some confirmation of their connection to the universe, and that all civilizations, when examined closely, are more finely grained than any superficial analysis allows. What I wished to tell the people of Romulus—all the people of Romulus, whatever their caste or hopes or dreams or fears—was that outside the grey prison of their minds lay a universe of wonders, peopled by strangers who were not hostile, but who wished to greet them with curiosity and love. I knew, too, that, after almost a year, I had spent enough time in the shadows, and the time had come for me to proceed openly, and without fear.
* * *
I went to live in the Turruk district of the city, an area inhabited by many jich’rethro, in a small apartment that was part of a much larger building. These structures are huge, and dominate the cities, but their entrances are concealed, with many false doors and windows. Inside, each structure is all different, the ways through mazelike, and the individual homes are closed off from one another, each one a cell in the vast and labyrinthine Romulan prison. I went about my daily life, but I did not stay indoors. I removed the false windows and opened those that were there to the iron air of Romulus. Each morning, early, I opened the front door and went outside to meditate. Then I sat on a chair on the step and read and wrote, and whoever came past, I would greet.
“Jolan tru,” I woul
d say, and give my salute. “Peace, and long life.” I asked no questions. I merely announced my presence to those that I saw.
At first, people hurried past. If I caught their eye, they would look quickly away. But, in time, they became used to me. One or two would nod; I saw the occasional wry smile.
“Jolan tru,” someone said, one evening; a face I had come to recognize as one of my neighbors. We exchanged greetings three more times before she stopped. I could see her torn between interest and the Romulan instinct not to ask a direct question.
“May I tell you my name?” I said, and she nodded. “I am Spock,” I said. “I come from Vulcan. I have come in peace, to meet you and to learn about you.”
She shook her head. “You’ll not be here long,” she said. “They won’t have it.”
“Perhaps,” I agreed. She went on her way, but she stopped again the next evening, and every evening after. One night, someone else stopped. Then another, and another. None of them had ever heard my name before, although they had heard of Vulcan and the Federation. They all, naturally, thought I was quite mad. But they tolerated me, became used to me, and sometimes found me useful.
My presence of course attracted the attention of the local police, but my behavior baffled them, and they were not certain what to do. Two of them came to speak to me one day (I saw my neighbors hasten inside, but the shutters on the windows remained open a crack). One of the officers—they were both very young, but he seemed slightly the superior—said to me, “What are you doing?”
“I am sitting here reading. Sometimes I talk to my neighbors. Sometimes I watch the children while they play.”
“Talk to your neighbors, eh? What about?”
“Most often, I ask what they intend to cook for dinner. They never tell me.”
I heard a laugh, quickly smothered, from behind one of the half-closed windows. The more superior of these young men stared at me and said, “Who are you?”
“I am Spock,” I replied.
This time, it seemed that my reputation preceded me. He burst out laughing.
“What is so amusing?” I asked.
“You can’t… Here? No!”
“I assure you,” I said, “I speak the truth.”
“He talks like one of those women,” muttered his companion, obscurely.
“Ambassador Spock? Here?”
“Unlikely, I admit,” I said. “But true.”
“We should arrest him,” said the other one.
“Are you sure about that?” I asked them. “Do you want to be the cause of a diplomatic incident? More pertinently, do you want the eyes of your superiors to fall upon you?”
It seemed that they did not, very much. Slowly, they began to back away. “Just mind yourself,” said the older one. “We’re keeping our eye on you.”
“I am grateful for your interest,” I replied. They hurried away. My neighbors were back out again in a shot (I would like to think that perhaps at least one of them might have come to my aid, should the need have arisen), and I noticed a sense of subdued elation about them, as if some small victory had been won. I found the whole encounter, and the aftermath, quite fascinating. After this, I observed that more of them came outside more often, throughout the day, and spoke more openly to me.
One morning, a woman in blue approached me where I sat. I recognized her habit immediately, and with considerable shock. Long blue robes, hat and veil, a staff on her back: this was the woman from my vision, all those long years ago. Had the Red Angel returned? What might this mean, for my mission, for myself? As the woman drew closer, I realized my mistake. She was not human, but Romulan, although unlike any Romulan I had met before.
“Are you Spock?” she said.
“I am Spock,” I said.
“I am Theneen.” She looked behind me at my small home; the books and papers stacked around me. She sighed. “You are plainly an idiot. But you will join us at our house tonight.”
“Will I?” I replied.
“Oh yes,” she said, turning to go. “You will.”
And indeed, I did. Curiosity, at the very least, would have driven me there; there was also some force to Theneen’s way of speaking that, while she did not command, nevertheless compelled behavior. I know from your mission reports to me, Jean-Luc, that you have met the Qowat Milat, and the role that they played in assisting you. I know, more importantly, that you are familiar with the Way of Absolute Candor, that imperative of their order that requires them not to lie, that sets them in complete opposition to the Tal Shiar. Fearless, vital, and utterly infuriating—my mission too would have died an early death without their assistance. From the moment I entered their house, I knew that I had found kindred spirits. I knew that our work and beliefs overlapped. I also knew how warmly, how affectionately, I was an object of derision, humor, and delight. They thought I was the most hilarious joke. They were not entirely wrong. I know this because—true to form—they told me.
“It’s the t’ha’est!” one old woman, sitting on watch outside their house, called back to her comrades. “The Vulcan fool! Hurry, sisters, you do not want to miss this!”
Thus I joined the Qowat Milat for dinner for the first time, almost the jester at their feast, and I learned about their work in this area, protecting their fellows from the worst excesses of the Tal Shiar, and I saw many ways in which we might work together. They continued in their belief that I was a fool, but they also offered me their friendship, and I was grateful for this. The next people to pay me a visit were from the Tal Shiar.
I knew them at once. They appear from nowhere. They are not always in uniform, but something infiltrates the space around them. Ordinary people hide away. Soon, there was nobody else there but me, and the two of them. And then—four women, staffs ready, forming a barrier in front of me.
“Get away, tok’tzat,” said Theneen to the Tal Shiar. “Or we will break your bones.”
Their leader jeered back at her. “Is that a promise, sister? I thought promises were prisons.”
“Not a promise,” she said. “A statement of fact.”
They stood in abeyance for a while. The Tal Shiar were armed with disruptors, although I personally would not have tested the speed of response these four women had with their staffs. It is very easy to break a wrist, when one knows how. After a little while, the Tal Shiar officer made his decision, and moved back. The easy fight they had been expecting—giving an old Vulcan fool the beating of his life—had not materialized. I was, for some reason, under the protection of these women, and they were formidable friends. After that, I was watched, certainly (who on Romulus is not watched?), but I was not again so directly threatened. My daily activities continued unimpeded. I sat and read, I spoke to my neighbors, I watched their children, I made friends. In the evenings, people would come and join me for something to eat, and we would talk to each other. I would answer their questions about my long life and experiences; I would ask them questions about their lives and experiences. We took comfort in each other; we talked and, more often, we laughed. So simple, one might think—and yet, like so many simple ideas, the promise was great.
Isolation is at the heart of Romulan life. Keeping secrets is instilled in them from a very early age. Even within family groups, the children are taught self-reliance and to ask for help only in the direst need. Pain is felt alone; grief is felt alone. Pleasures and joys are solitary. What grander purpose this might serve I do not know, but certainly one effect is to make the population more docile, more controllable. If one cannot turn to those closest for aid, to whom, then, can one turn? Perhaps—a stranger. And when the habit of turning to him for something as simple as a moment of shared happiness, or consolation, is established, then it becomes easier to turn to those around you. Week by week, month by month, I watched the households around me open more to each other. People who had lived alongside each other for years started to become neighbors. Practical help was given: to mend something, to help with something, even to provide financial assistanc
e. One neighborhood. Was it possible to remake a whole empire? I was only one man, after all. I was pondering this impasse, when another visitor arrived—an old friend.
“Well,” said Saavik, staring at my little house, “you didn’t make it hard to find you.”
“That,” I replied, “is the general idea.”
* * *
Sending communications back to Federation space had not been easy, but I had maintained semi-regular contact with Saavik throughout my time on Romulus. She had come to help, and she told me there were more people on their way, other Vulcans who saw reunification as a necessary step for both our civilizations. I was of course glad to see her, but also concerned. Saavik was a child born of great violence; she had good cause to hate the Empire, and had, I know, always struggled to love that part of her that was Romulan. And yet here she was. My presence here was one draw, but, as I learned through the many conversations that we had in the time that followed, she was still seeking some way of finding peace with her Romulan nature. Saavik does not lack courage. Coming to Romulus was, I see now, always going to be necessary. That she might at the same time assist her old mentor, her old friend, was of great benefit to both of us.
At first, she was dumbfounded by the simplicity of my life and activities. As she lived among us more, she began to see something of my purpose. In a culture as secretive as Romulus, my openness was seen as a kind of delusion, but one which had the power to disarm. My time spent being amongst Romulan people at close hand was teaching me again T’Kel’s lesson, which I passed on now to Saavik, that the closer one looks, the more complexity one finds, and here each of us might find how we might connect to something strange. Saavik took these lessons to heart. She thrived on Romulus, as part of our mission. Still, it came as something of a surprise when she chose to join the Qowat Milat. Perhaps it should not. It was at last a way for her to reconcile both parts of herself—the Romulan and the Vulcan—in a way which did not betray either of them. It was in talking to Saavik that I came to my fullest understanding that reunification was not an endpoint, or a process, it was a fact of life. Romulans and Vulcans were already connected, as all life in the universe is connected. What mattered was allowing these connections to be overt, to become established as the norm. Romulus was a world in deep denial, one that made disconnection and secrecy a cultural imperative. Simply to speak openly—as the Qowat Milat know—was to rock, however gently, the foundations of the Empire. It can rock the foundations of many empires. Look at how they punish those who speak.
The Autobiography of Mr. Spock Page 20