by John M. Ford
“They called it my ‘discharge kit,’ ” she said. “One of the nurses gave it to me, to carry all the records….”
“They found it?”
She nodded slowly. “They gave me some…‘pattern slides,’ they called them. Auloh can…match a shoulder joint to me now.” She looked at him. “Or anything.” She took a step toward the door, a little crookedly. “Too much time in bed…it’s been three days; I’d better check the station. Both of them.”
“Kreg’s done all right on the Bridge, and we haven’t needed Special Communications,” Krenn said. “But it will be good to have you back.”
“Pleased, Captain.” There seemed to be a light in her, as if the glow of transport had not entirely faded.
On her way to the door she stopped, said, “Is Zharn still…”
“For the rest of the day.”
She nodded. “I’ll find him.”
“Kelly—he doesn’t know us. He’s only still called Zharn because he had to have some name.”
“I understand,” she said. “But I’d like to see him anyway.” She reached into her bag. “Dr. McCoy sent this to you…and a message with it.” Kelly pulled out a roll of densely printed paper.
“What’s the message?”
“ ‘I guess I oughta be happy,’ ” she said, in a fair imitation of McCoy’s accent. “ ‘But I’m not.’ ”
Krenn felt a coldness as he took the paper; he nodded as Kelly went out, then unfolded the sheets. But there was nothing there about the Communications Officer.
THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, read heavy type at the top of the front page. There were several columns of text, each with its own heading shouting for attention. KLINGONS LEAVE BABEL, one said, DELEGATES EXPRESS RELIEF. But Krenn had no difficulty deciding which story he was meant to read.
ATLANTA INDUSTRIALIST DIES
Maxwell Grandisson III, billionaire local businessman and key figure in the “Back-to-Earth Movement,” died early yesterday afternoon in a freak accident at the Atlanta Regency, where he had resided for several years.
Grandisson plunged through the glass wall of one of the hotel’s scenic elevators, falling more than twenty stories to his death. It was suggested that fatigue stresses in the glass and frame, parts of which are more than two hundred years old, caused a sudden fracture when Grandisson leaned against the elevator wall. Ms. Sally Parker, a spokesperson for the hotel, said that as a historic building the Regency is exempt from certain types of safety certification.
The Fulton County Coroner officially declared cause of death as “death by misadventure.” No inquest is expected. It was established that Grandisson was alone in the elevator at the time of the incident, nor were any other persons in the deceased’s penthouse apartments.
Acquaintances could offer no likely motive for suicide, discounting the recent sharp decline in support for Back-to-Earth following the yet-unsolved murder of Starfleet Chief of Staff Marcus van Diemen. Ms. Parker noted that Admiral Douglas T. Shepherd, van Diemen’s successor as Chief of Staff, had breakfasted with Grandisson on the morning of the incident. Admiral Shepherd was unavailable for comment.
Grandisson’s personal physician, Dr. T. J. McCoy of Emory Medical Center, said, “Mr. Grandisson was a very healthy man, considering that he was nearly one hundred years of age. He’d had some reconstructive surgery that kept him from space travel, but otherwise he was a very well man, a very satisfied man. I can’t imagine anything so damaging that satisfaction as to make him take his own life.”
Memorial arrangements have not been made public. The Atlanta office of Back-to-Earth Inc. announced that it is seeking contributions for a Grandisson Memorial Fund….
It was almost painful to watch Zharn in action; he moved faster than the eye could comfortably track him. He seemed to flicker between the machines in the officers’ Gym as if transporting, rather than moving; only the rush of air gave away his passage.
Kelly stood up from her seat near the door and walked toward him; Krenn stayed behind. Zharn stopped as she approached, an effect as if a running tape had frozen on a single frame.
“Do not touch me,” he said, in a friendly tone. “I have a reflex—”
“The Captain told me.”
“Do you have a second mission for me?”
“No. My name is Kelly. I am the Executive Officer aboard this ship.”
“Honored, Executive Kelly. I am Zharn…I have not seen you, and I have been awake…for some days. Though there was the time I spent on my mission.”
“I was receiving medical care. My shoulder was badly damaged.”
Krenn leaned forward, wondering.
“I was badly hurt once,” Zharn said. “I’m told it was many years ago, but I don’t know.” He moved again, around the Gym and back to Kelly in seconds. Then he bent his head, pulled down his loose training jacket to show the back of his neck. Scars like ropes ran down it. “My nerves were all broken,” he said. “But the Thought Master Ankhisek mended them.”
“Ankhisek is known for his brilliance.”
Zharn smiled broadly. “Yes, brilliant! When he fixed them, they were better than new. The Thought Master says my nerves are four times as fast as they were before. And five times as fast as a Human’s. Have you ever seen a Human, Executive…”
Kelly replied, “Yes, I have.”
“They’re slow. Really slow. I did well, this mission…but soon they’ll freeze me, and I’ll forget.” He stopped still again. “I don’t like to forget, but it’s important that I not be wasted. So between missions they freeze me, and I don’t get any older.”
“You look almost my age,” Kelly said.
“Well, I’ve had a lot of missions. Even if I don’t remember them all, others do. And they say my record is glorious.” Zharn flew into the boxing ring, triggering a holographic sparring dummy: he knocked down the projection in a moment, punched it three times as it fell, kicked it before it could vanish. Another projected fighter appeared, and Zharn demolished it as well. He did not look back at Kelly. He had forgotten her.
Kelly went back to Krenn, and they left the Gym.
She said, “How fast does he age, when he’s warm?”
“Sixty-four times. Like the warp relation, to his nerve impulses.”
“Then he must be only…a few months older than when we knew him. In his mind, I mean.”
“He doesn’t know. Or care. Are you sorry you saw him?”
She shook her head. “But I’m glad it was now, after the hospital. Before, I…it wouldn’t have been good, to meet someone who was happy with not knowing who he was.”
Krenn’s communicator chimed. “Captain.”
“Captain Krenn, the Ambassador is ready to beam up.”
“Tell him there’ll be a brief delay.” He turned to Kelly. “Call Auloh. It’s time to put Zharn back in his box.”
Krenn pressed the door annunciator.
“Come in,” Dr. Tagore said.
Krenn went in. Dr. Tagore was seated in a corner of the front cabin, reading. He put the book down without marking his place. “Hello, Krenn.”
“Emanuel. I wondered if you would care for a game.”
“My regrets, Krenn…I don’t feel like playing just now.”
“Is the one well? Or…does the one ask the wrong question?”
The Human smiled. “The one is well. And is honored by the question. Sit down, if you will, Krenn.”
Krenn sat.
Dr. Tagore said, “I’ve told you about Admiral Yamamoto, have I not?”
“The three-fingered one, who played pokher well.”
“Yes. Did I tell you how he died?”
“No.”
“The Admiral was traveling by flier, alone but for attendants and a few escort fliers. There was a war, and it was a secret flight, but the enemy had broken the codes, and knew of it. And they sent out a squadron of hunters, to destroy the Admiral; which they did.”
Krenn nodded.
Dr. Tagore said, “It must be unde
rstood that the Humans who ordered this did not…hate the Admiral. There were some who did…and there had been lies told, that he had no respect for his enemy, that he thought them kuve; but in the end, it was not hate that did it, it was the necessity of the war, that had already killed hundred thousands. Next to hundred thousands, what is the one, when none are kuve?”
Krenn said, “Did the one die well?”
“In his ship. With his hand on his weapon.”
Krenn said, “Then perhaps we will meet. I will tell him of Maktai’s three fingers. And another I know, who had only two.” He understood the story, what it was supposed to say to him; he wondered if Dr. Tagore had told it to Admiral Shepherd.
Dr. Tagore said, “Diplomacy is the art of the possible. Have I said that?”
“Yes.”
“But not the art of the necessary. So why…why are the deaths necessary, when I know something better is possible?” Dr. Tagore was staring, not at Krenn but past him, tears standing in his eyes.
Krenn said, as gently as he could, “There is death, Emanuel. If you had carried a weapon, if you had ever killed, you would know—”
“What makes you think I haven’t?”
Krenn laughed, and said, “You told me, when you told Mak, that for all forty-four of your years…oh, I…misunderstood, Emanuel. Your ages are not like ours…you were older than forty-four.”
“I was seventy-three then. I’m seventy-nine now. In three months, two days, six hours…you see, this I keep apart from Stardates…it will be fifty standard years since I held a weapon.”
“You were a warrior, then,” Krenn said, satisfied. Now he understood—
“Oh, no. Though the state did arm me. They gave me the key, you see.”
“Key?”
“I put it in a slot…” He mimed the action. “…and turned it…and my wife was not in pain any longer.”
The disease, Krenn thought, that was like the agonizer. He looked at Dr. Tagore: the Human was weeping freely now, bent forward in his chair with his hand still extended, turning the key in the life-support machine. For the first time Krenn saw him as small, helpless; but Krenn did not feel strong by comparison. He felt sick.
“You must,” Krenn said, in Federation because klingonaase would never do, “you must have loved her very much, to do that.”
“Did I? But it wasn’t her I killed, you see. She had been dead a long time, her mind was gone…all I turned the key on was pain.
“I waited so long, while she suffered,” Dr. Tagore said, his voice thin but steady, “because I thought, there must be a resolution, both moral and compassionate…it was selfish, literally damnably selfish, if I believed in Hell. Which I don’t, any more than a Klingon. What extra purpose would it serve, in a universe already so backwards that death can be an act of love?”
His tears had stopped. He sniffled, a ridiculous sound. He said, “I don’t ask you to understand, Krenn.”
Krenn said, “I do not know if I do…but will you listen to a story of mine, that perhaps you will not understand?”
“Of course.”
“Then I will tell you about Kethas epetai-Khemara,” Krenn said, “and about Rogaine.”
“Serkash II,” Navigator Kepool said. “One light-day out from the Disputed Zone.”
“Zan Klimor, parking orbit,” Krenn said.
“Acting,” said the Helmsman.
“Zan Kreg, signal to the surface: prepare to receive a Federation Ambassador.”
Dr. Tagore stepped out of the lift. “We’re out of Warp early, aren’t we—Pardon me?”
Krenn said, “Grand strategic display.”
A large-scale map, on which the Zone was no more than a streak, appeared on the display. Mirror was a white three-armed cross, Serkash II a circle.
Just crossing the Zone were three blue crosses. Annotations read BEST ESTIMATED POSITION.
Dr. Tagore said, “But…we’ve recrossed the Zone. We’re in Federation space.”
Krenn pointed at the blue marks of ships. “That is a planetary assault squadron,” Krenn said. “It will arrive at our present location in approximately two hours. Its assignment is to destroy the colony on this planet’s surface: twelve million Federation citizens.”
“How do you know that?”
“It was in the Red File,” Krenn said. “Section Two. Which was deleted before the File was turned over.”
“Van Diemen’s war,” Dr. Tagore said softly. “How did he arrange this?”
“Our Admirals are not different from yours.”
“No. I suppose not. And it doesn’t matter if Starfleet arrives, does it…the result’s just the same.”
“Starfleet will not arrive, now that our escort has been evaded,” Krenn said. He touched the communicator key on his Chair. “Special Communications, is subspace jammed?”
“On all frequencies, Captain,” Kelly’s voice said.
“You intend,” Dr. Tagore said, “to fight them?”
“I intend to defeat their purpose,” Krenn said, “by whatever means are necessary.”
The Bridge crew turned, almost as one, to face Maktai. Mak stood up slowly from the Security console, pointed his hand past Krenn, at the Strategic display. “The Admirals have conspired to throw away Klingon lives as if they were kuve,” he said, in the coldest voice Krenn had ever heard him use. “This is no more than mutiny, and less honorable. Security stands with the Captain.”
The sound that followed was not so much a cheer as collective relief.
Krenn said, “Since there is the possibility that the squadron will attack this ship, I must put you ashore, Emanuel.”
Dr. Tagore said, “I…”
“You are the Ambassador. With you aboard, I may not unlock my weapons.”
“Yes…I know. Will you, however, do a thing for me first? Will you open a subspace channel to Earth, for one hour—time for a message and reply?”
Krenn opened link to Kelly, gave the order. “Ready,” she said. “Your message?”
“What is the Conference’s decision,” he said, “on Referendum 72?”
“Transmitted.”
Krenn said, “What is Referendum 72?”
“To close the Embassy to Klinzhai, and recall the Ambassador.”
“But—” Krenn said. “If they meant to hold such a vote, why wasn’t it done while you were still on Earth?”
“Because there was a Klingon ship in orbit above the Earth,” Dr. Tagore said, “and its guns were under diplomatic seal. They could not pass 72 until you were a long way off.”
“Kai the Babel Conference, tower of courage,” Maktai said.
“Strange you should call it that,” Dr. Tagore said.
Krenn said, “Would we have been any better? And we would not have trusted the diplomatic seal.”
“Perhaps you’re both right,” Dr. Tagore said. “There: that may be my last official diplomatic statement.” He went toward the lift. “I’ll be in my cabin…call me when the reply comes.”
Krenn went to him instead, along with Kelly, and Maktai.
Dr. Tagore opened the door, saw the three of them, said, “Oh, my, is it as bad as all that? Please come in, don’t mind the mess.” The Human had been folding clothes, stacking them on the furniture: his library was already folded into its case and sealed, sitting in the middle of the floor.
Kelly said, “The referendum to recall has passed. The final vote was—”
“Don’t tell me that…not yet. I’ll find it out soon enough. Just tell me—was it close?”
“Neither close nor overwhelming.”
Dr. Tagore sighed. “Not even with a bang. Well. Under the circumstances, I don’t suppose I will be allowed to travel to Klinzhai; someone else will have to close the Embassy office.” He said to Maktai, “Tell them to be careful, disposing of the encryption machine; it’s obsolete anyway, and it really does contain a destruction charge.”
Krenn said, “The squadron will arrive in seventy minutes. We have made arrangements
to put you ashore…they’ll probably meet you with weapons drawn, but I don’t think they’ll harm you.”
“I’m sure they won’t. I’m the most harmless of men.”
Krenn said, in the Federation language, “Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage amongst his books. For to you Kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned by the flicking of a finger.”
Dr. Tagore had stopped still, a half-folded shirt draped over his arm. “So now you understand,” he said, very quietly, “what it is the books have to say.”
“It is a Klingon faith as well.”
Dr. Tagore put down the shirt. “Yes…you told me….”
Krenn tensed. He had not intended that speech for Kelly or Mak. Yet he had said it, as if he wanted it heard.
“…that there were no more Thought Admirals.”
Krenn relaxed, nodded. “How soon will you be ready to beam down?”
“Oh, everything important is packed,” the Human said, indicating the library case. “But I’d like to ask the Captain’s permission to remain aboard. Until…whatever happens, is over.”
“And if there is a combat? I will not be able to lower shields, to transport you to safety.” It was only the truth: Antaan’s penetration technique would not work through Mirror’s shields. Nor anyone else’s, soon enough.
“Well, I am no longer an ambassador, which eliminates that objection. If there is a combat, I will do my best not to interfere. And not to be killed too early…
“Our destinies are already interlocked, Krenn. It is too late to separate them.”
Krenn nodded slowly. He turned to Kelly. “Have engineering rig a Flag Commander’s Chair on the Bridge.”
She said, “Dr. Tagore may use my station; I can control communications from the Special Room.”
“Which you cannot leave, if it burns?” Krenn said. Then, more calmly, he said, “No. We will all be on the Bridge. Emanuel is right; there are destinies that cannot be separated.”
Mirror hung still, shadowed by a planetoid, wrapped in electronic silence.
“Hostile squadron two thousand kilometers and closing,” the Helmsman said.