“Well, fine. Be that way.” Ruiz scoffed. “Me, I got recalled, too. No more alien miners allowed in the mines, no more plague to volunteer for, so the company’s shippin’ me out to an Earth colony. Zavi . . . Zavijavijavi . . . something. Five.” He chuckled, leaning in conspiratorially. “But you know what? I’m not going! I’m gonna stay right here. I’m gonna continue the work you got me started on. I’m gonna raise a fuss, I’m gonna make people see what Malthuselah-two-bits is up to, I’m gonna start a damn revolution if I have to!”
Tucker stared at him, worried. “All by yourself?”
“ ‘It does not matter how small you are if you have faith and a plan of action.’ A Cubano said that! And I know there are others who will join me. Others who feel like I do—like I thought we did.”
The agent studied the engineer’s face carefully. This was no drunken fantasy; Ruiz genuinely planned to stir up the very kind of trouble that Harris had warned Tucker against creating. “Listen,” he said to his friend. “I understand why you wanna do this. I swear, I do. We’ve both lost people. We don’t want to see others suffer. But . . . you gotta choose your battles, man. This one—well, if you took it on, you wouldn’t be on the Federation’s side.”
“Yeah? Well, so what? What are they gonna do about it?”
Tucker grabbed his arm. “Listen. It won’t go well for you if you don’t drop this.”
Ruiz stared at the hand on his arm, then at Tucker’s face. “Are you . . . are you threatening me?”
“No, I—” He realized what he’d been doing—how easily he’d fallen into the habit of veiled threat and intimidation. How could he talk that way to a friend? He remembered the look in Jonathan Archer’s eyes when they’d interrogated that Xarantine pimp last year. The pimp hadn’t been the only one afraid of what he might do.
“Look,” he went on in what he hoped was a friendlier tone. “I’m just trying to look out for your safety. You need to know that what you’re thinking of doing could be dangerous in more ways than you realize.”
Ruiz jerked his arm free. “And you’d tell them, wouldn’t you? Be the good little spy boy. I shoulda known. You just used me. Pretended to be my friend.”
“No. I didn’t have to make friends with you to do my job. I did it because we connected.”
“But you’d still throw me to the wolves. Well, fine!” Ruiz punctuated it with a roundhouse punch so sloppy that Tucker could’ve blocked it with ease. But he didn’t try, and ended up on the floor with his jaw throbbing. “Tell them to give it their best shot!” Ruiz went on over the ringing in his ears. “You know where I’ll be.”
The bouncer came over, ready for trouble, but Tucker held up his hands in an appeasing gesture and let himself be escorted out. He didn’t try looking back at Tony Ruiz. He no longer deserved the privilege of calling himself the man’s friend.
Freighter Harryhausen, outbound from Sauria
T’Pol found him in their shared mindspace that night. “It has been some time,” she said tentatively, her figure in stark silhouette against the white space that Trip currently lacked the will to embellish with his own mental imagery. “I had been growing concerned.”
Trip stood where he perceived himself to be, a few paces before her. “I’ve been far away,” he said. He fidgeted. “I still am, for the moment, but . . . I guess I needed you tonight.”
With the invitation given, it was no time at all before she was in his arms, or so his mind interpreted the comfort and love he felt from her now. “Can you tell me?” she asked.
He just held her for a while, soaking in her warmth against him. Finally he said, “I thought I was doin’ some good, T’Pol. I thought that justified all the compromises, the lies . . . the sacrifices. Now I’m not so sure.”
“You are no longer convinced that Section Thirty-one acts in the best interests of the Federation?” She kept her tone neutral.
“That’s just it,” he said. “Protectin’ the Federation is all that matters to them. So much so that . . . maybe they’re forgetting about protecting what it stands for.”
He pulled back just enough to face her. “Is that all we are?” he asked. “Just a place, a bunch o’ planets and governments and, and resources to protect? Can you defend a nation without defending its soul?”
She held his gaze. “I once believed so, when I served the High Command. My time on Enterprise showed me I was mistaken.”
He took her implied meaning. As a result of those experiences, she had resigned from the Vulcan High Command . . . and eventually played an active role in its dissolution.
Could he follow her example? Could he even survive the attempt?
“I don’t know,” he told her. “Section Thirty-one isn’t that bad.”
“Neither was the High Command, when I joined it. Corruption spreads.”
“But maybe there’s still time. Maybe if I stay in, I can fight the corruption, keep them on the right path.”
“Or you could succumb to that corruption. If you make too many compromises to remain, however noble your justifications, you will lose too much of yourself.” He felt her hand stroke his cheek. “I have no desire to lose you, Trip. For my sake, if nothing else—get out while you can.”
She kissed him, making the rest of her case without words. He responded in kind, giving himself over to the loving embrace he had craved for so long. But one lingering thought remained in the back of his mind: What if it’s already too late?
16
July 25, 2164
Orion homeworld
MARAS WAS AWOKEN from her nap by the sound of Navaar storming into the Sisters’ suite, cursing and shouting. She turned her head to gaze sleepily at her eldest sister. D’Nesh, who was getting her hair washed for her by a nude male Risian slave, raised her head in annoyance. “What’s going on?”
Navaar strode over to the middle sister and answered her question. “It’s that gisjacheh human! That scrawny drunkard, Charlemagne Hua.”
“What’s he done?”
“A new drug has begun to appear on the colonies he supplies. They’re calling it the Venus drug. It’s said to increase its users’ sexual allure and potency. To enhance their masculine or feminine attributes—and make them all but irresistible.”
Maras stretched kittenishly on the couch, changing position to give her a better view of D’Nesh’s reaction. Her curly-haired sister showed immediate recognition, but then stopped herself and spoke noncommittally. “So that would mean . . .”
“Don’t you get it, Neshie? He’s using Orion hormones! Selling them to—to rabble as a common street drug! Our gift, our sacred gift of power, and he, he, he reduces it to a, a—” She broke off, unable to find the words.
Maras rolled off the couch and slinked over to Navaar, putting her arms on her big sister’s shoulders. “You’re sad. Can I help?”
Navaar turned into her embrace, her hand reflexively going to clasp Maras’s. “Oh, sweetie.” They fell into a hug, and Maras felt Navaar’s tension easing. “I love you for asking, dear, but no, don’t worry about it. This is big-sister stuff.”
D’Nesh tossed Maras an annoyed glare that she ignored. “How did he manage to replicate our hormones? It’s been tried before—it’s not easy.”
“I had Honar-Des check the medical supplies,” Navaar replied. “His stock of hormonal supplements has been broken into. Half his supply was replaced with placebos.” D’Nesh looked worried. When Navaar broke free of Maras’s embrace and began to pace the room, her back to D’Nesh, the middle sister grabbed a mirror and looked herself over. After a moment, she sighed, seeming reassured. Not that that proved anything, Maras reflected; it could very well be that the placebo effect had prompted her body to produce more hormones of its own. It had been known to happen.
“I just wish I knew how the shechjuk even knew the pills existed. I interrogated Honar-Des thoroughly before I had him perform Vyun-pa-shan, and he swore on his children’s lives that neither he nor any of his staff had revealed their
existence.” Maras pouted on hearing that Navaar had ordered her lifelong doctor to kill himself. He’d been kind, and had always given her candy after her exams. But Navaar knew what she was doing. At least Vyun-pa-shan was quick and painless. It was the least the old dear had deserved.
“Well, it’s easy enough to find out,” D’Nesh told her, spreading her hands. “Rip the answers out of Hua before we rip his heart out.”
Navaar grimaced. “I can’t. We need him as an inroad to Federation space, now that you’ve cost us the Mazarites,” she finished pointedly. D’Nesh rolled her eyes. “Don’t take this lightly!” Navaar chastised her. “This whole alliance is falling apart. We lost Zankor. Garos has proved unreliable—we can’t risk letting him act unsupervised again. And Jofirek is barely worth the effort of keeping around. All while the Federation is getting bigger and stronger. This is not going the way I planned!”
Maras moved up to her again and nuzzled the side of Navaar’s head with her own. “Are the purple lizard people still our friends?”
Navaar chuckled, and Maras could feel her cheek pulling back in a smile. “Yes, sweet one. Maltuvis has proven a worthier ally than any of these others.”
“Good. They have cute eyes.”
Navaar stepped away and sighed, shaking her head at Maras fondly. “I envy you sometimes, baby sister. Life is so simple for you.” She tousled the hair atop Maras’s head and went back to D’Nesh to begin planning their next move. Maras was glad she’d made her big sister feel better.
After all, the poor dear could be rather slow on the uptake. She and D’Nesh had gotten where they were through their pheromones, not their intellects. And so they’d failed to notice some important clues. Mainly it was a matter of timing. Maras had noted that D’Nesh was beginning to lose her luster a bit, her control over her slaves weakening. The middle sister had gone to visit Honar-Des (the poor fellow), and since then she’d been as sexy as ever, if not more so. Conclusion: She’d been prescribed a hormonal supplement, the kind Navaar took when she thought Maras wouldn’t notice. But Maras noticed everything she could—like the fact that Jofirek had been in the clinic at the same time as D’Nesh’s visit. And the elderly Agaron had then brought Charlemagne Hua into the alliance. Navaar had been watching Hua clandestinely during that party where he had first proposed selling Orion hormones as a drug, but Maras, as was her habit, had watched the whole room, and noted Jofirek’s body language as Hua made the offer. He had been quite unsurprised and untroubled by the suggestion, unlike everyone else in the room. Which would make perfect sense if he’d overheard something about the hormone supplements while in the clinic, then made Hua an offer afterward.
The question was, what to do about it? It would be easy enough to make some seemingly disingenuous observation that would nudge her sisters’ thoughts onto the right track. She knew them well enough to manipulate them easily. But Navaar was so upset by the betrayals and failures of her allies. How hurt would she be to learn of another betrayal? Maras wanted to spare her that pain, or at least find some way to soften the blow.
But she was no stranger to taking care of matters in secret. It was how she’d survived this long. As soon as Maras had hit puberty, it had quickly become evident that her pheromonal potency surpassed even the considerable power of her sisters, and that had made her a potential threat to them both. She knew that Navaar truly loved her, but Navaar was also a pragmatist and a strategist who would do whatever it took to win, and D’Nesh was merciless and ambitious. Had Maras shown comparable ambition and intelligence in addition to her animal allure, it would have made her too great a threat for them to tolerate.
Fortunately, she had always been quiet by nature. And the traditional, structured education she had been given as a scion of a powerful elite lineage had been boring and limited, not firing her curiosity like the antique books her mother had collected as valuable heirlooms without ever reading, or like the history and art and science she discovered while searching the subspace information networks in her private chambers. So she had been easily distracted in her classes, resulting in poor performance. She hadn’t cared that her distraction was mistaken for a lack of intelligence—not until adolescence kicked in and cultivating that perception had become her greatest survival skill. In the years since, playing the fool had become a kind of performance art for her, a comedy routine for her private amusement, and for Navaar’s in a different way. And often a means to an end. People let things slip in front of her that they’d never reveal to anyone they thought was truly paying attention.
And others’ lack of attention could be quite liberating when there was something she needed to get done quietly.
• • •
Devna stood outside the door to Jofirek’s suite, preparing herself for the detachment she would need to service the ancient Agaron. She could look beyond outward appearance if a bed partner was kind, but Jofirek hadn’t lived as long as he had in his line of work by being compassionate. She knew from prior experience that she would have to retreat some distance inside herself.
But before she could go in, a hand fell on her shoulder. She turned to see Maras standing there. “Mistress!” she said, bowing her head. The last thing she wanted was to provoke a Sister, even one as . . . well, innocent as Maras. Not only did it bring the risk of punishment, but it could prompt a release of the pheromones that Orion females could deploy against rivals, causing Devna a headache or—worse, under the impending circumstances—a loss of concentration. True, Devna was attracted to women as well as men, and thus not generally troubled by another Orion female’s sex pheromones, but the pheromones of active hostility were another matter.
Maras put a finger under Devna’s chin and tilted her head up gently, meeting her eyes. “Don’t. I’ll take him.”
Devna stared, then chose her words and her tone carefully. “Mistress . . . he is very old. He might not survive you.”
Maras smiled slightly. “No. He won’t.” Her hand rested on Devna’s shoulder. “Tell them you had an accident. I wasn’t here.”
The erstwhile spy didn’t understand. Why would Maras want her to take the fall for the death of one of the Sisters’ chief remaining allies? Her breathy voice grew agitated. “Mistress, please . . .”
Maras pulled a data crystal from her cleavage and wrapped Devna’s fingers around it. “Tell Navaar you found this. She’ll understand.”
While Maras was inside the bedroom with Jofirek, Devna went to the terminal in the outer room to read the crystal. It revealed files from Jofirek’s private database, communications verifying that he had tipped off Charlemagne Hua about the Orions’ hormonal enhancement pills and worked with him to steal a supply, in exchange for a share of the profits from the sales of the so-called “Venus drug” that Hua had then reverse-engineered from the pilfered samples. Moreover, there were confidential details about Jofirek’s contacts and the logistics and interconnections of his underworld network—just the kind of confidential information the Sisters would need to take over his operation for themselves. Navaar would reward her handsomely for this information—and congratulate her for the death of a traitor. How had Maras, of all people, gotten this?
But after the sounds from the bedroom had finally ceased and Maras emerged freshly showered and contented, Devna had a more pressing question for her. “Why give this to me?”
“You’ve been punished enough. We could use a good spy.”
Devna studied her angular face, seeing depth there she’d never suspected. “Why . . . confide so much in me?”
Maras smiled, moving closer. Even sated and cleansed, she still reeked of pheromones powerful enough to overwhelm Devna’s control and arouse her intensely. “You’re quiet,” she said. “We quiet girls should stick together.”
The elite woman’s lips captured hers, and the helpless Devna expected to be taken and used. But though the kiss lasted long, Maras let it end softly and pulled away. She gave Devna a tiny smile loaded with meaning and promise, then slinked away.
Devna stared after her for a long time, reflecting that this unexpected and clandestine supporter could prove very valuable to her career—or potentially very dangerous. Either way, change lay in her future, and she welcomed it.
Epilogue
November 10, 2164
Federation Executive Building
Paris, European Alliance
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, announcing the first Federation Councilor for the United Rigel Worlds and Colonies: Kishkik Sajithen!”
Jonathan Archer joined in the applause as the regal Chelon stepped into the executive building’s reception room, took her bows, and moved to stand alongside her fellow new electees: Councilors Avaranthi sh’Rothress of Andoria, Nasrin Sloane of Alpha Centauri, Zhi Nu Palmer of Vega IX, and the only male in the group, Percival Kimbridge of Earth. The re-elected councilor from Mars, Qaletaqu, stood in the crowd applauding them, while his fellow surviving incumbents T’Maran and Gora bim Gral were still on their homeworlds until the next Council term began. The election had been some two weeks earlier, but it had taken this much time for all the new council members to arrive at Earth for the reception.
Archer was grateful that Sajithen’s fortunes had taken this turn. The exposure of her radical ties had cost the Chelon her directorship, just as Zehron’s own past secrets had cost him his. But apparently the Rigelian people had been grateful enough for her assistance in the recent crisis that, following their induction as official Federation members, they had wasted little time in electing her as the system’s first representative.
President Thomas Vanderbilt also stood nearby, beaming with pride as he saw his legacy made real before his eyes. The lean, bald man looked comfortable about his imminent retirement, turning to chat happily with the man who would replace him at the start of the new year, President-Elect Haroun al-Rashid. The younger, swarthier man looked confident and excited, but Archer knew he would have his work cut out for him. The Planetarist movement was still strong, and Councilors Sloane, Qaletaqu, and Palmer all supported its principles. Even after Thoris’s revelations, many of the more radical Planetarists were denouncing his findings as propaganda to discredit them, and the Andorian Lechebists and Vulcan Anti-revisionists still remained unbowed in their radicalism. Organized crime had suffered a blow from these events, and going forward it would find fewer havens at Beta Rigel, but Archer was still convinced that the Orion Syndicate had a hand in many of the Federation’s recent problems. As for Rigel itself, its political and economic reforms would be the work of years, and the economic strength and prosperity that Vanderbilt had sought to bring into the Federation would prove a more tarnished prize than he had hoped. Moreover, the growing dominance of the M’Tezir nation on Sauria was becoming a serious concern, and the incoming president would find himself faced with difficult questions about the standards the Federation applied to its trading partners.
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