by Peter David
“I believe you, Captain,” Tsana said diplomatically. “ Ambassador . . . if we did do this . . . what was it?”
“Summit.”
“This summit . . . what would be the goals?”
“There are some matters, young Zarn,” Si Cwan told her, “that cause consternation and conflict, because the participants are emotionally too close to the situation. Time and generations have passed since any of your respective races have stood upon your homeworld. It is entirely possible that, with a possible return to Sinqay in the offing—and an awareness of the tragedy that disputes can cause—you and your counterpart here,” and he gestured toward Ebozay, “would be able to come to terms on behalf of your peoples. After all, you will be looking upon Sinqay in a different light, and that alone may bring new perspective and—hopefully—an everlasting peace.”
There was a silence then, and Tsana felt, rightly or wrongly, that everyone was waiting for her to say something first. After much consideration, she looked up and said, “I will speak to my Counselars, but I find the proposal . . . acceptable.”
“And I will address my peers upon the Ruling Council. But I will advocate its implementation,” said Ebozay.
“With one condition,” Tsana said abruptly. She had spoken with more force than she’d intended, but in doing so she had captured their attention firmly, and so she didn’t dwell on it. “The Gateways.”
“What of them?” Ebozay was suddenly cautious.
“We have one at our disposal. You do as well.” When Ebozay started to open his mouth in protest, Tsana spoke right over him. “This is no time to play games, Ebozay. Our futures are at stake, and the only thing that can save us is complete candor. My people are still concerned about attacks from the Markanians. If I ignored those concerns, not only would I be a poor Zarn, but I doubt I’d be their leader for long.”
Bristling slightly, Ebozay retorted, “It’s not as if the Markanians have no reason to fear assault by the Aeron! Or have you forgotten—?”
“I’ve forgotten nothing,” Tsana said. “But what’s being proposed here is a summit that will take both worlds’ leaders off their homeworlds, and also remove the protection that the two starships afford. That means both worlds could be open to attack. I only see one way around it. . . .”
“Bring the Gateway devices onto the respective ships?” said Ebozay slowly.
“You don’t sound pleased about the idea.”
“I’m not. It doesn’t please me in the least.”
“And I can understand why,” Tsana said, sounding quite sympathetic. “But it has to be done. It’s the only way to make sure. The Gateways have to be brought up to the respective starships. Once the captains have confirmed to each other that the Gateways are in their possession, only then can they leave orbit with a clear conscience.”
“That might prove . . . difficult,” Ebozay warned her.
“You think that’s difficult? Try going to bed as a beloved, coddled younger sister and waking up to find the floors running with your family’s blood, and having to grow up overnight because of it.” There was no trace of self-pity in her voice, no childish whining. Indeed, the absence of it made her words all the more chilling, even heart-wrenching.
“Even more difficult,” said Calhoun softly, sounding as if he were turning a knife, “is the threat of mutually assured destruction. Certainly mutually assured existence is preferable?”
There was a long silence then, and finally Ebozay said, “I will . . . see to it.”
“As will I,” Tsana assured him.
He looked suspiciously at Calhoun and Shelby. “Do you think the two captains may be trusted?”
“Oh . . . I think so,” said Tsana, and the edges of her mouth twitched ever so slightly as she kept her amusement, and suspicions, buried. “I think mostly they’re looking for us to survive. That would certainly look preferable to their superiors, I’d think.”
“Far less paperwork,” Calhoun said gravely. Shelby rolled her eyes.
“So . . . Ebozay . . . believe it or not, I look forward to meeting you in person,” Tsana said.
“As I do you,” he replied. “And may I say, Zarn . . . with all respect . . . that I have never, in all my life, encountered a nine-year-old of such erudition.”
“Well . . . I am almost ten,” she pointed out.
“We didn’t fool her, did we?” said Calhoun.
The Excalibur captain was in his ready room, looking at Shelby’s image on his private viewscreen. The holoconference had ended an hour earlier, and they were waiting to hear back from the respective planets’ surfaces regarding the transportation of the gateways.
Shelby chuckled, low in her throat. “I don’t think we did, no.”
“But Ebozay bought it. . . .”
“Oh yes, absolutely. You couldn’t really see over the holoconference, Mac, but I was standing there next to him, and I can tell you, he was sweating. When we started rattling our sabers, he absolutely believed that we were ready to start slicing with them.”
“Yet he was the first one to claim that we were bluffing.”
“He was trying to convince himself of that. Or possibly,” she added as an afterthought, “someone was trying to convince him. But he himself, I’m sure, believed.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Calhoun. “Those who are themselves capable of the worst are usually more than willing to believe the worst of others.”
“Either that or, at the very least, he was willing to believe that you’d be insane enough to take your vessel and use it to annihilate his people. I mean, we may have done a creditable acting job, but bottom line, he thought you were sufficiently nuts to commit the crime.”
“The holograph of Jellico helped,” Calhoun admitted. “Let’s hope Jellico doesn’t find out . . . although part of me almost hopes he does. Just to see his face.” He laughed softly at the thought, and then looked at his wife with a measure of pride. “And you played your part perfectly, too, Eppy. I’ve taught you well.”
“Oh, aren’t we just too full of ourselves,” she snorted.
“You’d never have been capable of pulling it off before you met me, Eppy,” he said teasingly. “Admit it. I’ve been exactly the sort of bad influence you needed.”
“Don’t overestimate yourself or underestimate me, Mac. Although . . .”
“Although what?”
She looked at him askance. “Would you be capable of such a thing? Really. Just between us. Using the Excalibur to annihilate a race?”
“I would never do such a thing,” he said promptly.
“You wouldn’t?”
“No. Because if I did, that would be a blatantly illegal act, and I would by necessity require my crew to become accessories to it. I’d be depending upon their loyalty to allow me to commit it. I couldn’t jeopardize them or their careers in that way.”
“So you wouldn’t do such a thing . . . out of concern for your crew.” She sounded a bit taken aback.
“That’s right.”
“But if you could do it without concern? If the power were at your disposal and yours alone? Could you take that responsibility upon yourself?”
He didn’t answer at first, but the muscles were twitching just below his jaw. “I do what needs to be done, Eppy,” he said finally. “I always have, and without regret. That’s never going to change. I hope such a circumstance never comes around, of course, but if it does . . .” He shrugged.
“That’s it? A shrug?”
“Hypotheticals are rarely worth more than that,” he told her. “People such as Ebozay will sometimes push us into situations that we would have given anything to avoid. Once there, dwelling on further ways to avoid it is pointless. We do what must be done.”
Shelby looked as if she wanted to pursue his thoughts on the matter, but then elected to change directons and say, “Do you think he spearheaded the attack that took her family?”
“Yes,” Calhoun said flatly. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if she also
thinks that he spearheaded it. But if she does, she’s smart enough and farsighted enough to keep it to herself. Furthermore, she did us a favor.”
“About bringing up the Gateways?”
He nodded. “The one flaw in our little plan was you or I having to bring that up. It was going to sound contrived no matter who said it, and possibly tip our hand. But because it came, unsolicited, from Tsana, it was unimpeachable. She saved us having to broach it. She’s quite a young lady, that one. Knows exactly what to say, and how to be brave.”
Shelby smiled a moment, and then said, “ ‘Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.’ ”
He blinked in surprise. “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That we . . .” He waved it off. “Never mind. What’s that from?”
“The Bible. It’s one of the Psalms.”
Her immediate knowledge of that caught his interest. He leaned forward, eyebrow raised, and asked, “You read the Bible, Eppy?”
“On occasion.”
“Are you a big believer in God?”
She laughed. “Now there’s a surprisingly hot topic.”
“What do you mean?”
Shelby waved off the question. “Nothing. Mac, I have to go. I’m getting a hail from the bridge. I’ll inform you as soon as the Gateway is aboard and we set off for Sinqay.”
“As I will with you. And, Captain . . .”
“My, how formal,” she said, one eyebrow raised in obvious surprise.
Calhoun let the remark pass, and with good reason: He didn’t want anything to distract from the genuine concern he was feeling. “There’s no way that the Gateway’s keeper is going to let it out of his sight. Which means you’re going to have an object of potentially huge destruction aboard your vessel. Be very careful.”
“I’m taking precautions, Mac. I trust that you are as well.”
“I was born cautious, Eppy.”
“Oh, and, Calhoun . . . I love you.”
“As well you should,” he said with mock gravity. “ Although I would venture to say that the Aerons and Markanians are giving us the longest odds you’ll ever see against our marriage lasting out the year . . . or even the week.”
“Are you kidding? They probably think we won’t even last to the honeymoon . . . whenever we might get a chance to take that,” said Shelby.
“You mean a real honeymoon . . . one where we’re not fighting for our lives.”
“Yes. That would be a nice change of pace.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Calhoun assured her.
23
AERON/MARKANIA
SMYT WAS UTTERLY INFURIATED, stomping around the room like a petulant child. “Out of the question,” said Smyt. Smyt was utterly infuriated, stomping around the room like a petulant child. “Out of the question,” said Smyt.
Tsana watched Smyt’s tantrum impassively. She was far more impressed, truth to tell, with the fact that she was sitting in the grand seat of the Zarn. Even though, technically, it was her place now, part of her kept waiting for her father to step into the room and say, in a tone that was part amused and part cross, “And what do you think you’re doing in my chair, young lady?” Her feet didn’t even quite touch the ground. She made a mental note to have a footrest put in, because she could feel her feet starting to get a bit numb.
Standing directly behind Smyt was Commander Gragg. Tsana had caused quite a stir when she had not only refused to have Gragg prosecuted for his bold slaying of Burkitt, but instead had promoted him to Warmaster. Although no one endorsed Burkitt’s cold-blooded murder of Tsana’s brothers, there was nevertheless some noise that, in putting Gragg into Burkitt’s slot, she was tacitly endorsing promotion through assassination. Tsana had waved off all such complaints, however, instead simply saying, “If you have any complaints with any of my decisions or promotions, I suggest—as custom dictates—you take them up with the Chief of Complaints. Traditionally, that job falls under the responsibilities of the Warmaster.” That deftly quieted protests.
Gragg simply stood there, arms folded, so immobile that he might well have been carved from rock. Only his eyes, never wavering, tracked Smyt as he stomped back and forth.
“You cannot give me orders!” Smyt was saying. “I’m not one of your people! I’m not bound by your laws!”
“You’re on our world,” Tsana said. “I am ruler of this world . . . and you are invited to show courtesy.”
“And you are invited to kiss my bony—”
He didn’t finish the sentence, for Gragg’s meaty hand lashed out and settled around his throat. Tsana’s expression didn’t flicker in the slightest as Smyt gagged, air cut off. “Let’s start again,” she said.
Ebozay watched Smyt’s tantrum impassively. He was surrounded by other members of the Ruling Council, and they appeared no more impressed by Smyt’s ire than he was. Naturally, Ebozay had not forgotten the powerful discharge of energy that Smyt had unleashed when threatened. But neither was he going to allow himself to be intimidated by it.
“I’m afraid it’s going to have to be put back into the question,” said Ebozay, the picture of calm. “The Ruling Council is in agreement on this. Matters have spun out of control, and this is our first, best hope of reining them in. And if it means bringing the Gateway up to the Trident, then that’s what we’re going to do. And you will cooperate in this endeavor, whether you like it or not.”
“You cannot give me orders!” Smyt protested. She was fuming so fiercely that Ebozay was surprised she didn’t have smoke rising from her ears. “I’m not one of your people! I’m not bound by your laws!”
Ebozay rose from his place and strode toward her. He knew beyond any question that it was vital he show her he was not the least bit intimidated by her. “Then you will be bound by ropes, chains, or whatever it requires to bind you,” he informed her heatedly. “We can be most inventive when the need arises. Right now your ego and your frustrations don’t concern me. What concerns me is the good of my people.”
“The Gateway is mine. I simply lease it to you for a price.”
“Indeed you do. And you’ll be happy to know that the price has gone up.”
She looked confused, which was what Ebozay wanted. “I don’t understand. You’re saying that you are increasing my price? You’re willing to offer more?”
“That’s right. And I think it’s a price you’re going to have a hard time walking away from.”
Tsana leaned forward, not the slightest flicker of concern upon her face. Smyt, for his part, was having no luck at all prying loose the hand that had clamped around his throat.
“We have a situation on our hands, Smyt,” said Tsana, “which means you have a situation on your hands. You are in a very delicate position right now. In case you haven’t been keeping up with current events, your sponsor—Burkitt—turned out to be a cold-blooded murderer. Two of the people he cold-bloodedly murdered were my brothers. That crime makes not only every action of his suspect, but every ally of his suspect. And right now—in case you have not been paying attention—his major remaining ally happens to be you. So your continued health is very much at risk.”
Smyt gurgled at that.
Continuing in a very sympathetic tone, Tsana said, “I would hate to see Gragg kill you. Do you know why?” Smyt couldn’t get a word, or even a sound out, so Gragg accommodatingly turned Smyt’s head back and forth slightly, so that it looked as if he were shaking his head. “I’ll tell you why,” she said without missing a beat. “Because I’ve had occasion to learn that, when someone dies, all sorts of really disgusting things are released from their bodies when all the muscles relax that final time. Fluids and waste matter . . .” She shuddered. “The aroma stays with you, no matter how long ago it happened. And the mess—! Well, you can imagine. Me, I don’t have to imagine. I saw it. I saw it, partly thanks to your now-dead ally. And the simple truth i
s that the floors are newly cleaned, and I would hate—absolutely hate—to see them get soiled with your bodily discharges. I’d prefer to avoid that, if I could. Who wouldn’t? So,” she continued briskly, “here’s the situation the way I see it . . . and you can disagree if you wish. The situation is, we’re going to bring the Gateway, and you, up to the Excalibur. That ship will then bring us to Sinqay, where we will meet with our opposition. We could, of course, simply ask you to bring us directly to Sinqay, but—and you’ll think I’m crazy, I know—I don’t trust you. I’d rather trust the man who threatened to wipe everyone out. It’s crazy, I know, but . . .” She shrugged. “What can one do in the face of such difficult choices? The fortunate thing is, your choice is much simpler. Do you cooperate? Or do you die?”
Smyt actually looked rather pleased at what she was hearing . . . until the click-clack of weapons being armed and charged up sounded from all around her.
From every corner of the Council Hall, armed men were stepping out. Every single one of them had blaster rifles aimed squarely at Smyt.
“I know from firsthand experience that you have your own offensive capabilities,” Ebozay said. He was leaning back against a table, looking quite calm about the whole matter. “You should be flattered that I’m going to all this trouble out of respect for those capabilities.”
“You traitorous bastard,” she mutterred. “Traitorous, my dear Smyt? To whom? To my people? What I’m doing now, I’m doing on behalf of my people . . . a people that you claimed you wanted to help. Remember? This was all about improving the lot of the Markanians. Well, I am telling you now that our lot is going to be improved by traveling to Sinqay and having this summit meeting with the Zarn. You see, Smyt, I strongly suspect that it is you who is the traitor. You brought us the miraculous Gateway . . . and then, lo and behold, the Aerons wound up with the exact same thing.”
“I already told you, I had nothing to do with that,” she said angrily.
“Yes, so you say. And that may be the truth. On the other hand, the truth may also be that—because of you—we stand on the brink of extinction at the hands of a couple of crazed Starfleet officers. That, I think—and I believe the Council agrees with me—may be far closer to the truth. We’re going to have to do something about that, and you’re going to help.”