As the police secured the prisoners, Phlox hurried over to the group to assess their injuries. He reached Vaneel and Sun-woo first. “We’re fine,” she told him. “But I think Dani was hit.”
The tall, dark-eyed human was on the ground, bleeding but conscious. Phlox quickly assessed her as Archer knelt beside her, looking worried. “She’s been struck by shrapnel from the tree,” Phlox said. “It looks minor, but we should have her looked at promptly.”
“I-I’m fine,” Dani managed to get out. “I’m not . . . gonna lose a fight with a damn tree.”
Trusting in her determination, Phlox left Archer to tend to her and checked on Thesh, who had sustained serious burns from a near miss, much closer than the beam that had scorched Phlox’s ear. “Get an ambulance for this man immediately,” he ordered the nearest constable.
But his voice fell silent as his eyes fell upon the two Antarans. Pehle Retab was sobbing, crying out as if in agony. But Phlox could see that he had not been struck—except by the weight of his father lying atop him. No . . . the full force of the energy beam had burned its way deep into the body of Sohon Retab, once he had flung himself in its path to shield his son. Even from this distance, the doctor could tell that the older man was dead.
Phlox turned stiffly away, stepping toward the police as they took Mettus and his cronies into custody. Behind him, Vaneel, Sun-woo, and Phlox’s wives moved in to comfort Pehle and draw him away from his father’s body. Phlox left them to it. He was in no mood to offer comfort at the moment. Only a cold anger filled him as he watched a junior constable inform Mettus of his legal rights. Spotting the senior constable, Phlox introduced himself and asked, “Did he fire the shot?”
The constable, a lanky, black-haired female named Lonixa, spoke with the same sympathetic detachment Phlox used when delivering bad news to a patient’s family. “At this point it’s too early to tell. It was certainly one of these three. Either way, it looked to me like he was the one in charge.”
“Which makes him responsible,” Phlox replied without overt emotion.
Lonixa gave him a wary look. “The investigation will determine the facts. Believe me, I’m in no hurry to rush to judgment against your son.”
Phlox stared coldly at Mettus, who resolutely avoided looking back at him. “Do as you will, Constable. I have no son here.”
August 10, 2165
U.S.S. Pioneer
Even forewarned by the distress call from Vol’Rala, Malcolm Reed was startled by the composition of the fleet that intercepted Pioneer en route to the site of that vessel’s capture: a Ware command ship flanked by three Klingon privateers and two Balduk destroyers. He wasn’t alarmed; the opposition was significant, but Pioneer was accompanied by Thelasa-vei and sh’Lavan, and Reed was confident they could hold their own if it came to a fight. But he wasn’t sure what was stranger to see: the highly territorial Balduk supporting the technology that had enslaved some of their kind, or Klingon privateers allying with other races.
The face that appeared on the main viewscreen was the first hint of a method behind this madness. “Vabion,” Travis Mayweather growled at the sight.
The cadaverous Vanotli industrialist stood in the control chamber of the Ware ship, flanked by an alien built much like an ostrich or emu, but with a larger cranium, wide-set eyes, golden-orange feathers, and a hooked, quadripartite beak. “Captain Reed,” Vabion said, ignoring Mayweather. “We meet again. I trust you still speak for your task force?”
“I’ll do more than speak if I have to, Vabion,” Reed replied. “Your allies have committed an act of piracy against a Federation vessel. I demand the immediate release of Vol’Rala and its crew.”
The ratite alien cawed in apparent anger, but Vabion quelled it with a gesture. “This . . . gentleman . . . is Senior Partner Rinheith Chep of the Partnership planet Rastish. My allies acted on behalf of his world, defending it against an assault that would have devastated their civilization. It is Captain sh’Prenni and her crew who are the criminals here, and they shall be tried according to Partnership law. The crime is attempted genocide.”
The bridge personnel stared at one another in disbelief. “You’ve hit a new low, Vabion,” Mayweather said. “You know now how the Ware devastates worlds. You’ve seen the evidence. But you’ll still do anything to profit off of it.”
“The Ware is a tool, Mister Mayweather—only as harmful or beneficial as its users make it. The Pebru used it to devastate worlds, and if you’ll recall, the insights I provided you were instrumental in their defeat. But the Partnership is something different.” He frowned. “I prefer to conduct negotiations face-to-face. If you will permit me and Partner Rinheith to board Pioneer, we will explain the true situation to you.”
Signaling to Ensign Grev to mute the channel, Reed turned to his first officer. “He’s definitely up to something,” Mayweather said. “But at least we’d have him where we could keep an eye on him.”
“Agreed.” Reed turned back and nodded to Grev to reopen the channel. “Very well. But have your escort vessels withdraw before you attempt to board. I won’t lower Pioneer’s shields otherwise.”
“Of course. My only goal is to resolve this matter in a civilized way.” Vabion’s expression grew smug. “The question is whether you can say the same.”
• • •
“My people foraged and hunted across the plains of our world for uncounted thousands of generations,” Senior Partner Rinheith Chep intoned to the gathered personnel in Pioneer’s briefing room. “We sang great songs that spread from pride to pride, trading history, lore, philosophy, and myth. We studied our environs as best we could, learned how to thrive within their cycles and evade predators, watched the stars and developed intricate calendars to guide our migrations. From them, we developed abstract mathematics and theoretical astronomy.”
The Senior Partner, a member of a species called the Hurraait, sat with Vabion across the table from Reed, Mayweather, and Charles Tucker, with Ensign Grev on hand in the event of translation difficulties and Lieutenant Williams standing watch over the visitors. The final person in the room was Rinheith’s aide Fendob, a robust humanoid female with a hairy back and shoulders and a pronounced brow ridge. She appeared quite subservient to Rinheith and barely spoke.
“But there was little we could achieve beyond abstraction,” the Hurraait went on, “for, as you can see, we lack the advantages of your kind.” He spread his vestigial wings, emphasizing his lack of hands or other fine manipulative organs. “We have enough dexterity in our beaks and tongues to handle rudimentary tools. We could use them for some limited horticulture, for making basic traps for small animals, for the creation of art and mathematical notations. But we could not farm fields or build cities or invent the wheel. We never created a written language, for our society was never complex enough to require the keeping of records. And we never developed more than the crudest medical techniques or any understanding of disease. We were as intelligent as any race, but we were trapped by our inability to build a civilization.
“And then the Ware came. A gift from the heavens that could provide all the tools and medicines and scientific knowledge we could ever hope for. Yes, it demanded payment in raw materials and resources. It took us much time to scrape together enough minerals and rare chemicals to pay for the products of the Ware, but with those products came the equipment to mine more, and in time our prosperity grew. At last, we were able to make our dreams into reality, to use our minds to affect the world rather than merely describing it. We could enlarge our population, fill our world with more and wiser minds to bring greater knowledge and enlightenment. We could even travel through space and meet other species—others who relied on the Ware, making us part of the same community from the beginning, even before we formed the Partnership.”
“But sooner or later,” Mayweather said, “you must have realized the enormous cost.”
“We did
come to realize that the Ware demanded sacrifices, yes. For a long time, we and our fellow Partners endured this as a necessary cost of civilization. We developed a tradition of volunteers, brave individuals who gave up their lives for the sake of the majority. Some worlds in the Partnership selected sacrifices by lot instead.
“Yet we studied the Ware, hoping to find a way to modify its programming and free ourselves from this painful trade. It took us generations, but finally, our most brilliant minds found a way to penetrate the data cores and safely revive the sleepers. We still required volunteers to keep the Ware functional, but they need only sacrifice a small portion of their lives, after which they would be replaced by others. By staggering the cycles, awakening and replacing only some at a time, we could maintain the benefits of the Ware continuously without the losses it demanded.”
“You understand why we find that hard to believe,” Reed declared. “We read about you in the Pebru’s historical records. You gave them the Ware, exploited them as processors for it. They were hardly volunteers.”
Rinheith lowered his head. “As I said, it took us generations to find a better way. The Pebru were among our early members, centuries ago. Yes, they were victimized by the Ware, but so were all of us at the time. During our search for a better way, the Pebru discovered how to redirect the Ware to target other races. They presented this as the solution we needed, but the other Partners refused to prey on others to spare ourselves. The dispute could not be resolved, and the Pebru severed ties with the Partnership in order to enact their rapacious solution. Once we found our own solution, we offered it to them. But our separation had been acrimonious, and they did not trust what we offered.”
“For once, I’m with them,” Tucker declared. “We’ve seen how tightly the Ware holds on to its ‘property.’ Anyone who gets sprung from a data core gets hunted down and plugged back in.”
Vabion looked down his nose at the engineer. “The Ware does not bother to distinguish between individuals any more than you care for the difference between an electronic circuit and its replacement. As long as a new processor is installed to replace the missing one, the Ware is satisfied.”
“And what about the damage to the volunteers?” Mayweather insisted. “Loss of memory, cognitive defects, neurological problems . . .”
“Most of which,” Rinheith countered, “can be repaired by the Ware itself. Assuming a volunteer remains long enough for damage to occur at all. We monitor them closely to minimize the risk.”
“But the risk shouldn’t be necessary. There are other ways to get technology, ways that don’t require giving up so much.”
“That’s the trap of the Ware,” Reed added. “It’s designed to make you dependent, to give it more of what it needs in exchange for the benefits it provides.”
“And yet it has given us an independence we would never otherwise have had. And not only us.” He gestured to Fendob with a wing, prompting her to step forward. “As you can see, Fendob is like you, blessed with sensitive fingers and a strong back. But her people are not quite dexterous enough, either in fingers or in creative thought, to invent a sophisticated technology of their own, and they lack sufficient linguistic skills to communicate complex scientific knowledge. On their own, they would have been as incapable of civilization as we were.”
“Surely you have recognized the pattern by now,” Vabion put in. “I have seen Partnership records of the worlds whose Ware you have neutralized, of the species that occupy them. The Enlesri, a brachiating species with syndactyl forefeet, the digits fused together into a clamplike configuration—excellent for clinging to branches, but ill-suited to fine manipulation. The Nierl, methane-breathers from an environment whose atmosphere will not allow fire to burn. The Sris’si, sentient but blind aquatic mammals. And of course you know of the Pebru. Not one of these species is capable of creating high technology on its own.”
“That is what defines and unifies the Partnership,” Rinheith went on. “Every one of the Partner species owes its entire civilization to its membership in the Ware community. Through its bounty, we have built cities, enlarged our populations. We have traveled the stars and colonized worlds we could not otherwise inhabit. We coexist with races deeply alien to us, in environments that would kill us without the protection of the Ware.
“Do you not see, Captain Reed? This is the crime of your Captain sh’Prenni and her crew. By shutting down our Ware, she was not liberating us, but condemning us to the loss of our very civilization. And eventually to the death of most of our population.”
• • •
Reed was reluctant to believe the shocking claims made by Rinheith and Vabion. The Ware thrived on deception and false promises, and any ally of Vabion’s—let alone one who employed Klingon pirate crews—was not high on his list of people to trust. Still, he could not deny that every Partnership species encountered so far would have been incapable of developing high technology or civilization on its own—or sustaining what they now had without considerable assistance. He’d seen the difficulties the Pebru had faced in adjusting, and they had at least possessed a modest technological capability without the Ware. How much harder would it be for species with no such capability at all?
Once the Partnership representative and Vabion had returned to their command ship, Reed ordered Grev to contact Kinaph, the light cruiser that sh’Prenni had left behind at the planet Etrafso to assist its people following the shutdown of their Ware. Though Kinaph was a Sevaijen-class vessel of Andorian design, its home port was Arken II, the newest member of the Federation, and its name and most of its thirty-eight-person crew were Arkenite. Its captain, Kulef nd’Orelag, was a tall, pale-skinned member of that species who looked younger than his forty-three years, though he seemed to have aged significantly in the week since they had last spoken. Yet when Reed asked for a progress report on the transition process for Etrafso’s citizenry, Captain nd’Orelag was oddly evasive.
“I need specifics, Kulef,” Reed told him. “Captain sh’Prenni and her crew are in prison on a Partnership world, awaiting trial for attempted genocide. The Partnership alleges that it’s impossible for their civilization to survive without the Ware. I need to know whether there’s any truth to their claims.”
The Arkenite fidgeted. Even with his anlac’ven, the black, inverted-U headband he wore to stabilize his sense of balance away from the magnetic field of his homeworld, he seemed to have difficulty keeping his footing. “There have been . . . challenges, of course. This was bound to be a difficult process. But we are coping. Sh’Prenni would never have abandoned these people.”
“I appreciate your loyalty, Kulef. But you can best help her by telling us the truth. We need to know what we’re facing.”
Finally, with great reluctance, nd’Orelag spoke. “Captain . . . the situation is . . . desperate. The main population of this planet is Enlesri, who are adapted to warmer conditions than are natural for this world. Many are suffering from the cold, though we are doing all we can to restore power to their heating grids.
“But they have it easy compared to others. There are Nierl here as well, beings for whom the native environment is lethally hot and oxygen is a poison. They have environmental suits that are self-sustaining, but limited in their power reserves. There are also the Xavoth, a fluorocarbon-based species native to an extremely hot planet. Restoring their life support has been a top priority, but . . . we have already lost several thousand.” Reed winced. Beside him, Mayweather gasped audibly. On his other side, Tucker listened with disquieting stillness, revealing nothing. “It’s not just life support. They need food, and we do not have enough understanding of their biology to synthesize it. My science teams are attempting to retrieve the data from the Ware’s matter-synthesis systems, but the technology is beyond us.”
Striving to understand, Reed asked, “Why are there so many different species from such alien environments, living together on one world?”
“Apparently they migrated here to be closer to their fellow Partnership races and to have fuller access to Ware products. The Ware did not colonize their worlds as it did with the Vanotli or the Kyraw; they were visited by other Partnership races who shared the Ware with them and assisted them in developing technology and civilization.”
“And required them to offer ‘volunteers’ to the Ware in payment,” Mayweather said, though his anger was muted. If Rinheith had spoken truly, then every Partnership world paid the same price for membership.
“Kulef, why didn’t you report how bad things were there?” Reed pressed.
Nd’Orelag spoke haltingly. “I have requested assistance from Flabbjellah. And I’ve put out a call to the Tyrellians, requesting additional resources and personnel to aid in the transition.”
“ ‘Aid in the transition’? Captain, from what you’re telling me, you’re in the middle of a planetwide disaster! You should have notified me as soon as the magnitude of the problem became evident.”
The Arkenite straightened with pride. “Captain sh’Prenni charged me with the task of aiding the people of this world. I cannot fail in that obligation.”
Reed began to realize where this was coming from. The dominant Arkenite culture had a deep-rooted belief in the importance of debts and obligations, and Reed knew from experience that nd’Orelag shared that belief. “I know that sh’Prenni championed your captaincy, Kulef. You feel indebted to her, don’t you? You didn’t want to admit that her methods might have been . . . excessive.”
“My debt is not merely to her,” nd’Orelag said. “The Andorians sponsored our membership in the Federation. Even though they could have been vindictive about our struggle for independence from their empire, they chose to set aside the past and embrace us as partners. And Starfleet, the Federation—you welcomed us as well, and brought me to where I am today. I cannot be disloyal to that.”
Rise of the Federation: Live by the Code Page 13