Articles of the Federation

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “It’s not that simple, Velisa. The last legal issue surrounding Daystrom was a similar case to this one, but it was also a purely Starfleet matter, as both parties in the legal dispute were Starfleet officers—a Commander Bruce Maddox and an android officer, Lieutenant Commander Data, since deceased. In the end, Data’s sentience was made into law.”

  “Excuse me, Artrin, but isn’t B-4 a prototype of Data?”

  “Yes, Gora. B-4 was also constructed by Noonien Soong.”

  “So if it’s the same thing, why is there a jurisdictional issue?”

  “It isn’t the same thing. To begin with, in the previous case, all those involved were Starfleet, as I said. In this case, the complainant is a civilian, who is not under Starfleet’s jurisdiction. Ironically, Maddox, who’s a captain now, is now arguing the opposite side. Plus, B-4’s status is as yet undetermined.”

  “Wouldn’t this be where it was determined?”

  “Yes, Gora, which is one of the reasons why it’s taking so long.”

  “And people wonder why there are complaints about government not getting anything done.”

  “Turning to foreign policy for a moment, Secretary Safranski, can you tell us anything about the investigation into the destruction of Klorgat IV’s moon?”

  “Well, Velisa, the Starfleet Corps of Engineers’ preliminary report was inconclusive, though the evidence seemed to point to it being an accident.”

  “Do you think this will finally be the straw that breaks the back of the peace between the Klingons and Romulans?”

  “Actually, as someone who served on ships that patrolled both empires’ borders over the years, I’d like to answer that, if I may.”

  “Of course, Commander.”

  “The Klingons live for conflict, but not for stupid conflict. One of the reasons why they haven’t gone into all-out war with the Romulans is because there was no guarantee that they would win, and the entire Klingon population would fly into a supernova before they’d subject themselves to Romulan rule. Now, though, thanks to Shinzon’s coup, the Romulan Empire isn’t a quadrant superpower anymore. They’re in almost as bad a shape as the Cardassians. So the Klingons may well be gearing up for a war that they’ve been itching for ever since Narendra III.”

  “Speaking of which, the aid to Cardassia is up for renewal this session. Despite the many setbacks they’ve had since Cardassia Prime was decimated at the end of the Dominion War, Federation aid has continued. Gora, what’s your sense of how the council will go on this?”

  “Well, you wouldn’t think that it would be an issue, but there are rumblings around the Palais that helping Cardassia is putting good resources after bad, and that it’s taking away from other postwar relief efforts, not to mention other efforts that were curtailed before the war and really do need to be gotten back to. Still, I’m sure the opposition will be token at best.”

  “Do you think that—”

  Silence.

  “Hey! I was watching that!”

  Lagg rolled all six eyes at her husband’s words. “You were asleep.”

  His tentacles flapping in denial, Rakos said, “I was not asleep, I was just resting my eyes. Put it back on.”

  Sitting down in the acid pool, Lagg said, “I could hear you snoring.”

  “I was just muttering about the weak commentary.”

  “You don’t even know what they were talking about,” Lagg said with a laugh.

  Rakos’s tongue slithered out of his mouth. “They were talking about that baseball team the president likes.”

  “Wrong. They were talking about aid to Cardassia. Some Trill reporter was babbling on.”

  Frowning with both mouths, Rakos said, “Really? Hm. I guess I did fall asleep.”

  “Come join me in the pool, dear, your skin is looking too smooth.”

  Rakos clambered out of the seating dish and slithered over to the acid pool. “Yes, dear.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  DOGAYN 418 WALKED OUT of hir fourteenth-floor office into the warp core, to see Eduardo de la Vega standing at the desk of hir assistant, Mikhail Okha.

  Eduardo gave Dogayn a pleading expression. “Doh, will you explain to this crazy man that I’m an old friend of yours, please?”

  Mikhail turned and said, “Dogayn, this man claims to be a friend of yours.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Dogayn smiled. “Do you have any proof of this, whoever you are?”

  Rolling his eyes, Eduardo said, “Oh come on, Doh, will you just for once stop this crap?”

  Laughing, Dogayn said, “It’s all right, Mikhail—we used to be in the trenches together. Eddie here is an aide to Councillor Huang.”

  Turning a withering gaze, which Dogayn had already learned to fear, onto Eduardo, Mikhail said, “You could’ve said you worked for Councillor Huang in the first place.”

  “Sorry,” Eduardo said in a small voice.

  Mikhail turned back to Dogayn. “You have the transportation meeting in twenty minutes.”

  “I know. Are the latest stats on my padd?”

  “How should I know, it’s your padd.”

  “Of course.” Dogayn resisted the urge to say something snide. Having once been an assistant hirself many moons ago, s/he knew better than most how important it was not to antagonize one’s assistant, as one’s life depended on that person more than most. Mikhail had not been Dogayn’s choice—s/he’d inherited him from hir predecessor as deputy chief of staff, Xeldara Trask—but s/he wasn’t about to complain. This was the opportunity of a lifetime, and the young Hermat wasn’t about to make waves by complaining about hir assistant.

  At least now I know why Trask didn’t take this guy with her back to Tiburon, s/he thought with a grin as s/he invited Eduardo back into hir office.

  “Actually,” Eduardo said, “I was wondering if you wanted to have lunch.”

  Dogayn tried to remember the last time s/he had had time for a lunch that wasn’t a lunch meeting. S/he failed. “Eddie, honest, I can’t. You just heard, I have a meeting in half an hour—”

  “Twenty minutes!” Mikhail cried with a long-suffering tone.

  “Those things never start on time anyhow,” s/he said to hir assistant, then turned back to Eduardo. “Anyhow, I’ve got a meeting with the arts commission after that, then I have to do prep for the Trinni/ek visit tomorrow, and then something on fifteen that I don’t even remember what it is.”

  Without missing a beat, Mikhail said, “The president wishes to discuss tomorrow’s council session with you and Ashanté.”

  “There you go. That’s a late-afternoon meeting with the president, it’s guaranteed to start at least half an hour late and go on two hours longer than scheduled. I’m sorry, man.”

  “That’s a lot of meetings.”

  “It’s normal, apparently. When Esperanza Piñiero sold me on this job, she didn’t warn me about how many more meetings there’d be.” Dogayn smiled. To hir surprise, Eduardo didn’t. Something’s obviously on Eddie’s mind. Dogayn wondered what it was. They’d known each other since their early days in the world of politics, Eduardo as an aide to the councillor for Alpha Centauri, Dogayn in a like role for Councillor Saltroni 815 of Hermat. They’d both moved up to senior positions on the staffs of their respective councillors, Dogayn as Saltroni’s chief of staff, Eduardo as Huang’s primary legislator.

  “Some other time?” s/he asked.

  “I kinda need to talk to you about something right now.”

  Dogayn shrugged and moved back toward hir office. “Fine, let’s talk here. I have a door that closes all by itself and everything.”

  “The thing is—”

  As Dogayn approached it, the door to hir office opened three-quarters of the way, hesitated, then opened the rest of the way. “Of course, whether or not it ever opens again is, you’ll pardon the pun, an open question. Mikhail, have you—?”

  “Maintenance looked at the door this morning before you came in.”

  “And?”

  “The
y said it was fine.”

  Dogayn rolled hir eyes. “It isn’t ‘fine.’ Doors that are ‘fine’ don’t open partway, take a coffee break, and then open the rest of the way.”

  “If you feel it’s necessary, I’ll call maintenance again.”

  “I feel it’s necessary.”

  “Very well.”

  Turning back to Eduardo, s/he said, “Anyhow, I’ve got twenty minutes—”

  “Fifteen now,” Mikhail put in.

  Ignoring him, Dogayn went on. “—so let’s talk now.”

  Eduardo hesitated. “Thing is—”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this here. You and I have a closed-door meeting, people will notice.”

  Dogayn frowned. “Eddie, we’re not having a closed-door meeting. We’ve known each other for ten years, we’ve worked together on a dozen pieces of legislation over the years, and you’ve just come up to see how I’m enjoying my cushy-tushy new job.”

  Eduardo just stared at hir.

  “What?”

  “ ‘Cushy-tushy’? What does that mean?”

  “It means my job is finally better than yours. Now will you please get in here?”

  Letting out a very long breath, Eduardo finally said, “Fine, we’ll talk here.”

  Dogayn entered hir cramped office. The office was a quarter of a circle in the center of the fourteenth floor of the Palais, matching those of the other three deputy chiefs of staff, with smaller offices and desks surrounding them, where their assistants and staff sat. It was smaller than hir previous office with the rest of Saltroni’s staff on the eighth floor, but it was also better by virtue of hir not having to share it with anyone.

  Offering Eduardo a seat on the only one of hir three guest chairs that wasn’t piled with padds, s/he said, “So what’s so urgent?”

  “Cardassia.”

  Dogayn shrugged, assuming Eduardo was talking about the renewal of aid to Cardassia that was to be voted on the following day, and not the planet itself. “It’ll pass in a walk, why?”

  “It won’t, Doh.”

  That got Dogayn’s attention. “What?”

  “It won’t.”

  “How can it not pass?”

  “Well,” Eduardo said dryly, “the usual method is to not get enough votes.”

  “Very funny,” Dogayn said, though that was the first sign s/he’d seen that Eduardo had regained his sense of humor. “Who’s left the Neutral Zone?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Glaring at hir old friend, Dogayn said, “If you’re not sure, then how—”

  “All I know for sure is that Huang’s voting against it.”

  That brought Dogayn up short. “What?”

  “She’s voting against it—and before you ask, I don’t know why. All I know is that she told me not to bother drafting a decision on Cardassia.”

  “Which she wouldn’t do unless she was voting against.”

  “Yup.”

  “Damn.”

  “This is why I didn’t want to tell you this in a meeting in your office.”

  Dogayn still didn’t get this. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because I don’t want Huang thinking I’m going behind her back to Bacco.”

  “Eddie, you are going behind her back to Bacco.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want it to look like that.”

  “Fine.” Dogayn sighed. “If anyone asks, you just came here to set up lunch.”

  “I hope that works.” Eduardo got up.

  Dogayn did likewise. “Eddie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why did you go behind her back?”

  Eduardo hesitated. “Remember that trip to Cardassia a few years back, after Ghemor was elected?”

  Dogayn nodded. S/he hadn’t taken that trip because Saltroni hadn’t, but Huang had, and she’d taken her top aides, as part of a goodwill trip that several councillors had taken in order to help lend legitimacy to Alon Ghemor’s rather fragile government.

  “When I was out there, I met this reporter from FNS. She took me out to where they weren’t letting the councillors go. We had to sneak through some checkpoints, and I swear to you, Doh, I thought for sure we were gonna get killed. And what she showed me…” Eduardo shivered.

  In over a decade of working together, Dogayn had never seen Eduardo look like this.

  “Children, Doh. Little children, who were skinnier than my finger. They were gathering stones from the rubble of bombed-out buildings in order to make some kind of shelter for themselves. The reporter told me about three kids who died when their shelter collapsed in a storm, crushing them to death and giving them their own grave, all in one shot. And things have gotten worse since then. We can’t just stop helping them.”

  Dogayn didn’t say anything for several seconds. Then, finally, in a weak whisper, s/he said, “Thanks, Eddie.”

  “Just do what you can, okay?”

  With that, Eduardo got up and left.

  Moments later, s/he activated hir intercom. “Mikhail, I need the next five minutes Esperanza has.”

  William Ross sat across from Esperanza Piñiero as the latter read over the report on the padd the admiral had given her.

  “They’re sure about this?” she finally said, after reading it for the fourth time.

  “I know the S.C.E. crew on the da Vinci,” Ross said. “If they say that Mendak did it, then Mendak did it.”

  Although Esperanza wasn’t familiar with the folks on the da Vinci in particular, the S.C.E. in general had always impressed her with their ability to build anything that wasn’t there, and figure out how to work anything that already was.

  “All right, I’ll bring this to the president. Thanks, Admiral.”

  Ross nodded but didn’t smile. “You realize what this means, right, Esperanza?”

  “Maybe.” She let out a breath. “On the other hand, maybe Mendak is a rebel.”

  “That doesn’t fit his profile.”

  Esperanza regarded Ross frankly. “Does anything on Romulus fit its profile anymore?”

  “Good point. Still, I just don’t see the hero of Brasîto as someone who’d be working without the express consent of the praetor.”

  “I don’t see the hero of Brasîto as someone who’d be too thrilled with the woman who helped engineer Shinzon’s coup as the praetor, either.”

  “Another good point.” Now Ross did smile as he got up from the guest chair. “I need to head back to San Francisco.”

  Esperanza nodded.

  After Ross left, she opened the intercom. “Zachary, is the president free?”

  “I can check, but Dogayn wants to talk to you about something.”

  That surprised Esperanza. Dogayn 418 had proven to be a fine replacement for Xeldara, especially given hir knowledge of the first floor after working for Saltroni for so long. The Hermat also hadn’t been one to ask for sudden meetings. In fact, that was one of hir qualities that Esperanza preferred over hir predecessor—Xeldara would ask to talk about the most ridiculous things at the most inconvenient times. Over the past three months, Dogayn had seemed happy to wait for the next scheduled opportunity.

  Had it been Xeldara—or even Z4 or Myk—asking, Esperanza would have asked to put it off until after she could talk to the president about Klorgat IV, but the novelty of this type of request from Dogayn made her willing to take it. “Tell Mikhail I can give hir five minutes, no more—and check with Sivak about the president.”

  “Okay.”

  Two minutes later, Esperanza was told that she could see the president at noon—which was only fifteen minutes away—and that Dogayn was outside her office. “Send hir in.”

  Before the door had a chance to even close behind hir, Dogayn said, “We’ve got a big problem. Cardassia’s not gonna pass.”

  Esperanza blinked. “What?”

  “It’s not gonna pass.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Don’t know, but Huang’s voting against it.”

&
nbsp; Now Esperanza was confused. “Who else?”

  “Not sure yet, but if Huang’s voting against it, it’s not gonna pass.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  Dogayn shook hir head and took a seat in Esperanza’s guest chair. “Unless the matter relates directly to Alpha Centauri, Huang has never, not once in twenty years in the council, voted against the majority on anything. She doesn’t take stands, she doesn’t go against the flow—again, unless it directly involved the homeworld. This doesn’t, and if it looks like she’s going against the tide, then that means the tide’s shifted.”

  Esperanza got up from her chair and started pacing in front of the window that gave her a view of the Seine. “We can’t just abandon aid to Cardassia now—they’ll fall to pieces.”

  “My guess is the argument will be that they already have fallen to pieces, and why waste time picking those pieces up?”

  Esperanza turned to stare at Dogayn. “What do you think happened?”

  S/he rubbed hir chin. “Last year, during the Tezwa mess, Enaren wanted to introduce a bill that was cosponsored by Gleer and zh’Faila. It was to cut off aid to Tezwa and increase reconstruction on Betazed, Tellar, Andor, and a bunch of other worlds.”

  “What?” Esperanza didn’t remember anything about this.

  “The bill was pulled after Zife threatened to veto it,” Dogayn added. “So it was never discussed on the first floor.”

  And therefore, Esperanza realized, never in any official record.

  Dogayn continued. “But everyone was talking about it in here. It’s possible that Enaren’s looking to get back to that notion now, and Cardassia’s aid renewal is the perfect time. If he’s got Gleer and zh’Faila on his side again, then they can probably deliver all the votes they need. Gleer’s been steaming ever since Krim’s appointment, and he knows the aid’s important to Bacco, so this will stick it to her. He’s also got favors to call in because of the complete lack of support he got when he tried to block Krim—and even if he didn’t, you know what Gleer’s like when he gets on the warpath.”

  Esperanza snorted and walked over to the replicator. “Yeah. You want anything?”

  S/he shook hir head.

  “Tea, raspberry, iced.”