by David Mack
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For the dreamers
Historian’s Note
This story begins nearly three years after the secession of Andor from the United Federation of Planets (Star Trek: Typhon Pact—Paths of Disharmony) and just three days after the dedication of the new Deep Space 9 starbase (Star Trek: The Fall—Revelation and Dust).
Concurrently, several Starfleet vessels have been deployed across the Alpha and Beta quadrants to bolster the Federation’s security and ensure the safety of its allies (Star Trek: The Fall—The Crimson Shadow).
The main narrative of this tale transpires between August 31 and September 19, 2385, CE. Its prologue is set five months earlier, and its epilogue is set one year later.
All a man can betray is his conscience.
—Joseph Conrad,
Under Western Eyes (1911)
Dream me a better world and I’ll find a better way.
—John Fullbright,
From the Ground Up, “Daydreamer”
Prologue
There was so much blood. Viscous and cobalt blue, it sheeted down Selleshtala’s thighs and traced erratic paths down her calves; it stuck to her hands and crusted her fingernails. Harsh light burned her eyes. Metal instruments colder than winter kissed her flesh as panicked whispers traveled the room. The world spun around her in a sapphire panic.
“Breathe, Tala.” Shayl’s voice was deep, but his angular face was cloaked in shadow and haloed by the surgical light behind him. The tall, slender thaan was the oldest of the four bondmates, and he struggled to project an air of soothing calm as he stood behind Selleshtala—Tala, to her bondmates—and cradled her head. “Breathe.”
Anxious hands clasped hers; fingers entwined in desperate clenches meant to comfort. Huddled on either side of the bed, the bondgroup’s delicately feminine shen, Mara, and its gracefully masculine chan, Thar, mirrored each other’s grief. Thar’s mask of courage betrayed only hints of his mounting fears, but the bitter tears on Mara’s face belied her faltering smile.
The Bolian doctor’s ridged, bald blue head poked up from behind a drape splattered with azure bloodstains. “You’re doing great.” His bland reassurance rang hollow. Like a nervous burrowing animal he ducked back out of Tala’s sight and whispered a string of medical jargon at his Caitian nurse, who scurried away, treading like a breeze on tufted paws.
Uzaveh, help me, Tala prayed. My children are dying and my fate lies in the hands of off-worlders. She’d have preferred to have been attended to by an Andorian midwife. That had been the plan. The bondgroup’s first shelthreth had ended in a miscarriage, a spontaneous termination of the two fertilized eggs inside Mara’s womb before she could transfer them to Tala’s pouch. That time the blood on her hands had been Mara’s, but then, as now, the tears were everyone’s. This time they had agreed to retreat to someplace quiet after the shelthreth, to get away from the stress of the cities and the pressures of their everyday lives, to give the new offspring a chance to grow and develop in peace. Shayl’s family had kept a second home in the south, in a sparsely populated area of Andor that had escaped the ravages of the Borg attack years earlier. It had seemed an ideal location from which to escape the madding throngs of the new capital, Lor’Vela. Not until the group’s second mating had taken a sudden turn for the disastrous did any of them realize how far they had traveled from qualified medical help.
Now, instead of a practiced Andorian obstetrician to guide them through this tragedy, they were at the mercy of off-worlders. The doctor and his nurse meant well, but they couldn’t understand the true horror of this moment. No off-worlder could.
The physician gently grasped Tala’s knee. “Hold still. This’ll take a few minutes.”
Tala reined in her wails of sorrow as tears kaleidoscoped her vision. She dreaded the inevitable reprise of old arguments the miscarriage would bring.
Thar would rail at the alien genetic sequences the fertility researchers had used to help him and Shayl fertilize Mara’s ova, and he would curse the Yrythny, and Thirishar ch’Thane and Professor Marthrossi zh’Thiin, who had brought the Yrythny’s biological legacy to Andor, and he would excoriate the Tholians for foisting the Shedai Meta-Genome upon them—while in the same breath denouncing Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets for concealing that same alien genetic data for more than a century while the Andorian population dwindled.
Shayl would blame himself, even though there was nothing he could have done to prevent the miscarriage. Mara would languish in guilt and self-recrimination and proclaim it all to be her fault for waiting too long—until she was nearly thirty years old—to conceive.
Tala knew no one would accuse her of failure, since zhen contributed no genetic material to offspring . . . but absolution brought her no comfort as the doctor began extracting the failed embryo from her weak and trembling body. She felt dull sensations of pressure through the dead zone of the local anesthetic.
Mara and Shayl whispered in her ears to distract her from the unpleasant scrapes at the end of the table and the steady drip of blood on the stone-tiled floor.
Shayl stroked sweaty locks of white hair from Tala’s forehead. “Hang on, zh’yi.”
“Try to relax.” Mara squeezed Tala’s hand a bit more tightly. “It’s almost over.”
It was a futile effort on their part. No matter how advanced, non-invasive, and antiseptic medical technology had become, there was no way to conceal the fact that the removal of dead embryos from a zhen’s pouch was a visceral horror. Tala closed her eyes and struggled not to hear the wet sounds of death that threatened to consume her.
Thar kissed her forehead. “We’re all here for you, Tala. It’ll be all right.”
She knew he was lying, but she loved him for it all the same. She loved them all.
A soft click resonated in the claustrophobic room as the doctor shut the lid of a biological waste container. He handed it to the nurse, who took it in both white-furred paws and turned away before making a swift-footed exit. Medical instruments hummed and whirred for several moments, and then—just when Tala was certain she couldn’t bear another moment of this ghastly but necessary procedure—the doctor leaned back and turned off the operating lights.
“All done.” He pulled off his smock and surgical gloves, stuffed them into a matter reclamation bin, and sidled up to Tala. “There was no damage to your pouch, and I stopped your bleeding, but you need a transfusion to get your blood count back up.” He looked at Shayl. “Can you three get her to a proper hospital in the next day?”
A small nod from Shayl placated the surgeon, who left the room with downcast eyes. By the time the door slid closed, the rest of the bondgroup had gathered around Tala, cocooning her in their sheltering embrace, shutting out the world so they could be alone with their sorrow and weep together, safe from the judgment of strangers’ eyes.
They talked not of the past, nor of the future. Their pain was too raw, too deep for any of them to dare speak of trying again. There were no yesterdays, and there were no tomorrows. There was only that moment and its bitter truth.
One failed pregnancy at a time . . . the Andorian people were dying.
Five Months Later
September 2385
One
Though the metropolis of Lor’Vela had become the capital city of Andor after the Borg leveled Laikan
, the city’s poorer quarters were still no place for a chan alone after dark. Thirishar ch’Thane—Shar, to his friends—hurried from one shadow to the next, clutching shut the collar of his nondescript gray overcoat, eager to finish his errand and turn his steps homeward.
Once I would have been proud to be seen in my Starfleet uniform.
His idle musing stirred bittersweet memories. Part of him missed the freedom he’d enjoyed during his brief time away from home—first at Starfleet Academy, then aboard the U.S.S. Tamberlaine, and later as the senior science officer on Deep Space 9.
He’d surrendered that hard-won independence to return, at the urging of his zhavey, to fulfill his childhood vow to his bondmates . . . but not before his bondmate Thriss took her own life. Thriss had been special to him, beloved in a way that the other two members of their bondgroup were not. Her death had gutted him; her absence had left him hollow and incomplete.
Shar pushed the painful reminiscence down into the darkest corners of memory. Years had bled away since Thriss’s tragic overdose. He had pledged himself to a new bondgroup and had helped sire a new child . . . who had perished, along with his bondmates, in the same Borg genocide that had reduced the planet’s former capital to ionized dust and molten glass.
Why does nothing good ever last?
After the Borg attack on Andor, the galaxy had changed so quickly that Shar had all but lost track of it. Allegiances shifted, rivals turned into friends, allies became enemies. Andor, a founding member of the United Federation of Planets, seceded almost overnight, forcing Shar to choose between his oath to Starfleet or his kinship with the Andorian people. He had no ill will toward the Federation, but he knew where he was needed: here, at home, assisting Professor zh’Thiin in the ongoing search for a reliable, universal solution to the Andorian fertility crisis. To their shared dismay, that noble goal remained out of reach, though neither was sure why. They had tested every possible permutation of the Shedai Meta-Genome data they had received courtesy of the Tholians, only to find themselves burdened after each test with more questions than they’d had when they started.
A snap of footfall was met by sharp echoes, and Shar halted in mid-step to look back. He saw no one behind him, but he knew that meant nothing. Someone could be tracking him with a motion sensor or following the cues of someone observing his movements by means of a starship or a satellite in low orbit. It was also possible that he was just being paranoid, but recent experience had taught him to anticipate the worst. A host of reactionary elements in Andorian society resented the work he and Professor zh’Thiin had pioneered, and those foes had powerful friends in the civilian government. Making matters worse, Shar’s current endeavor wasn’t, in the strictest sense, entirely legal. Ethical? Yes. But that would carry little weight if he was caught.
He ducked down a narrow passage between two ancient buildings and scurried down a steep set of stairs hewn from the mountainside and weathered by millennia of foot traffic. The narrow lane afforded him a few moments of isolation from his pursuers.
Seconds mattered now. Clutching a fistful of secrets, Shar raced downhill and navigated hard angles as he fled. Wind and momentum tossed his dreadlocked white hair. He cleared a railing with a one-handed vault and then he was in free fall, dropping more than five meters into a sliver-thin alley’s blank dead end. He crouched and rolled through the rough landing.
Above and behind him, frantic footsteps quickened. Sinister whispers spun into angry voices. The enemy was closer now. In the space of a breath, the hunt had become a race.
Ice-needle wind stung Shar’s face. Labored breaths fled from him, tattered gray veils of mist that vanished like dreams as he ran.
A phaser beam caromed off a stone wall above him, showering him with dust and sparks. He dodged left around a corner, shook off his overcoat, and sprinted for the dead drop.
Shar gave breathless thanks to Uzaveh the Infinite that the transom window facing the alley was open. He sprang upward as he passed by it and lobbed his tiny, precious cargo through the portal. As he landed, he crouched and turned over the empty feeding bowl that the uninitiated might assume was meant for the benefit of a stray grayth. That would be his contact’s signal to retrieve the message he’d left safely behind the door.
All that was left then was to run.
Hoarse shouts and the crisp reports of booted feet resounded from the path ahead of Shar, and within moments they were echoed by similar harbingers from behind him. He took a chance and detoured down an unfamiliar passage, hoping it might lead him back to a major street where he could use a crowd for cover. Instead, he arrived at a dead end and a locked door. Then he turned back to see several Andorian Imperial Sentinels aiming phasers in his direction.
“Stop! Thirishar ch’Thane, you’re under arrest!”
Shar heaved a tired sigh and raised his empty hands. “On what charge?”
“Espionage and treason.” The sentinel in command stepped forward and clasped magnetic manacles onto Shar’s wrists. The duranium restraints snapped closed with a cold finality—and then a sucker punch to Shar’s solar plexus put him on his knees. He gasped for breaths he couldn’t draw. The arresting sentinel loomed over him with a smug air. “That’s for making us chase you.”
Other sentinels stepped forward and lifted Shar by his arms. He kept his head down to hide his fear as they dragged him away. If I’ve made a mistake, we’re all going to die.
• • •
“Who gave the order to have him arrested?” Ledanyi ch’Foruta, the Presider of the Parliament Andoria, stood behind the crescent-shaped desk in his office and raged at three of his senior advisers, all of whom hung their heads and avoided his accusatory gaze. Ferrathross zh’Rilah, his willowy but iron-willed chief counselor, scrutinized her subordinates: Seshivalas th’Larro, the senior counselor for intelligence, and Hennisar sh’Donnos, senior counselor for justice. The silence grew, stoking ch’Foruta’s dudgeon. “I know it was one of you. Someone speak up.”
Affecting a sullen cast, the gaunt and weathered th’Larro cleared his throat. “Credible sources told us ch’Thane was about to share classified research with off-worlders. We had to move quickly.” He shot an imploring look at sh’Donnos. “She signed off on it.”
“I approved a surveillance order,” the middle-aged shen protested, indignant.
“And then he ran!”
The chief counselor struck an incredulous note. “According to his statement, he had no idea he was being pursued by Imperial Sentinels.” She added as an aside to the presider, “Judging from the sector in which he was arrested, that’s a plausible defense.”
Sh’Donnos scowled at th’Larro. “Not that he needs one. The law permits ch’Thane to move freely throughout the capital, just like any other citizen.”
“And since the police found no data-storage media on him when he was arrested,” zh’Rilah said, “we have no case against him for espionage or treason. Or anything else. At this point, we’ll be lucky if ch’Thane doesn’t sue the Imperial Sentinels.”
Vexed by the evening’s setbacks, ch’Foruta turned away from his guests, looked out his office’s towering, curved transparasteel window at the capital city, and sighed. “I’m not worried about ch’Thane. His mentor zh’Thiin is the real problem. When she’s not stirring up unrest by speaking out in support of the Progressives’ push to overturn the secession vote, she’s spreading false hope among the masses that she and her research team have almost found the real cure to the fertility crisis.” He aimed a withering look over his shoulder at his counselors. “And the more attention she gets, the crazier the fringe elements become.”
His observation seemed to amuse th’Larro. “Careful how you talk about our base.”
“We need their votes, but that doesn’t mean we let them run the party. They need to be kept in line. I won’t have the Treishya name sullied. I guarantee you: One riot and we’ll lose the moderates we need to keep this coalition intact.”
It always disquieted c
h’Foruta to think of how fragile his governing alliance was in the Andorian Parliament. His party, the Treishya, had seized power nearly three years earlier, during the uproar over the public revelation that the Federation had withheld scientific data acquired by Starfleet that might have helped reverse the downward spiral of the Andorian genetic crisis. But taking control was one thing; keeping it, ch’Foruta had learned, entailed very different challenges. Only a tenuous power-sharing agreement with the conservative True Heirs of Andor and several hard-liners from the centrist Visionist party had enabled the Treishya to wrest control of the parliament from the liberalist Progressives and their minor-party allies. But keeping his allies’ political desires satisfied—and their rhetorical knives away from his back—had proved to be a constant struggle. Pleasing one friend often meant aggrieving another.
The counselor for justice sidled up to the presider and joined him in looking out the window at the throng gathering in the streets far below. “What do we do about ch’Thane?”
There was no perfect answer, so ch’Foruta chose the simplest one. “Drop the charges.”
His order sparked outrage from th’Larro. “Sir! If we set ch’Thane free, we’ll be turning him into a folk hero for the Progressives!”
“And if we keep holding him,” zh’Rilah retorted, “we’ll make him a martyr. And then he’ll become a hero, when he humiliates us in court.”
The justice counselor shook her head. “We can’t just drop the force field on his cell and let him walk out. Imperial charges were filed. Even with an executive order, it’ll take at least a day to get the case dismissed and process ch’Thane’s release.” An anxious look transited her face. “I will have an executive order for this, won’t I?”
Disdain creased the presider’s brow. “Naturally.”