by John M. Ford
Kelag was contemplating the floor. After a moment, Vrenn realized he was asleep sitting up. Vrenn stood, took a step, meaning to stretch the ensign out flat on the bed, but then he stopped. He did not look up. Security did not like any signs that one knew they were watching. They were much more likely to find something wrong with what they saw.
Vrenn turned out the lights—let them watch by infrared—and went to bed himself. He was instantly asleep.
Security had a Rom in the cube. It was running live on ship’s entertainment channel, and in the [89] Inspirational Theatres. Most of the newer officers had traded duty to watch, but Vrenn had stayed on the helm. Kodon laughed; “You’ve gotten to like the conn quick enough. I know what that’s like.”
The Weapons officer had the Examination picture on her repeater screen, sound too low for Vrenn to hear. If he looked that way, he could see it clearly enough. The right side of the screen showed the information display: a green outline of the Rom’s body, with blue traces of major nerves and yellow crosses where the agonizers were focused. On the left, the Romulan sat in the chair—very firmly so; Blue Fire’s Specialist Examiner had set the booth foci so the Rom’s muscles shoved her down and back into the seat cushions, leaving all the restraint straps slack. It was the work of a real expert, showing off just a little.
Vrenn supposed his view was really no worse than that in the Examining Room itself: the agonizer cubes were supposed to be entirely soundproof, with phones for the interested observer to listen at any chosen volume.
There had been three Romulans at the Imperial outpost where Kodon’s Squadron stopped. They claimed diplomatic protection; Kodon was hardly interested, and the outpost commander was only too happy to stay out of the Squadron Leader’s way—especially after the Executive made clear that he was next in line for cube time.
The Ambassador cut her own throat, by Romulan ritual and admirably well. The Romulan Naval Attaché tried to be a great hero by overloading his pistol, but mis-set the controls. Kodon gave him to the surviving Marines from Death Hand. That left the Mission Clerk, who was in the cube, while the Security analysts did similar electronic things to the coded recordings she had carried. Security was pleased with their catch: clerks often knew more useful things than the bureaucrats they served.
The Rom slumped over. The Weapons Officer [90] yawned and turned away; on the screen behind her, the agonizer foci shifted to new nerves, and the clerk’s head snapped up again. “So hey, Krenn,” the Gunner said, “how long before we get someplace with thick air? I hate these little outposts, flatulent rocks.”
Vrenn was getting used to the officers ennobling his name, though it couldn’t be final until the Navy made his promotions official. Which might, he knew, never happen. Not everything a privateer captain did, lasted. But for now, it made the conversations easier. “Three days to Aviskie, Lieutenant, if the Squadron Leader wants Warp 4.”
“He will. Got any plans?”
The Romulan was bleeding a thin green trickle from the corner of her mouth.
“I hadn’t,” Vrenn said.
“I think you do now.”
Vrenn tried not to laugh, but did anyway. The two other Lieutenants on the bridge were carefully watching their boards.
“So what am I supposed to make of that?” the Gunner said. “There may be too much Cadet fuzz on your ears to know it, but you’re on the warp route, Thought Ensign.” Kodon’s half-mocking title for him had spread. “Ever hear of the Warp 4 Club?”
“I have got duty.”
“You can’t conn the ship for three khest’n days.”
Vrenn grinned. The Gunner had no serious faults he could see—except, perhaps, the rank badges on her vest: Vrenn wondered if he ought to wait, just until his Lieutenancy came through in cold metal.
But then he wouldn’t be a full member of the Club.
The Romulan began to convulse, then went rigid: her lips moved, forming words. The Gunner turned up the sound: it was barely understandable as a string of Romulan numbers.
“Here come the code keys,” the Communications Officer said, slapping his thigh.
[91] “You see?” the Gunner said to Vrenn, laughing. “I hope your timing’s always this good.”
The rental room in Aviskie Column Five was dark, and finally quiet, and damp with room fog and perspiration. The incense in the bedside holder had burned out a little while ago.
Light lanced in, and cold outside air. Vrenn rolled off the bed, fingers arched to claw: on the other side, the Gunner had been just a little faster, and was already saluting.
“Come with us, Lieutenant,” Ensign Merzhan said. Behind him were a Navy Commander with a silver Detached Service sash, and two armed enforcers, from the port complement, not Blue Fire’s.
Vrenn saluted: it did not occur to him to disagree. “I’ll dress—”
“Why?” said Merzhan. The Commander made a tiny gesture, and Merzhan’s face froze. The officer said, “Go ahead.”
Vrenn pulled on trousers and boots and tunic, and finally his vest and sash, waiting for someone to stop him donning the rank marks. No one did. The gunner stood at parade rest.
“Let’s go,” the Detached Commander said, in a voice with less character than a ship’s computer’s. He looked at the Gunner, eyes not so much appraising as measuring her. “We weren’t here.”
“Nobody was,” she said, and as Vrenn was led out he thought that she did not sound frightened at all: just rueful.
Vrenn sat in a bare conference room, windowless, with three Naval officers: Koll, the Commander who had come to his rental room, Commander Kev of Blue Fire, and Captain Kessum of Two Fingers. Vrenn had not seen Kodon. All the Security men had gone, so they were certainly watching by other means.
[92] “This is not a tribunal,” Koll said, “nor any other sort of official meeting. In fact, this meeting is not taking place, and never will have taken place. Is this understood?”
“Perfectly,” Vrenn said.
Kev nodded. Koll put a rectangular object on the table; an antenna rose from it, and several small lights began to flicker. Vrenn realized that the Detached officer, whatever he was, was quite serious about the nature of the meeting: now, not even Security would be listening.
Commander Koll said, “As a result of certain Romulan decrypts, we have learned of a series of secret negotiations between the Komerex Romulan and a faction within the Komerex Klingon. Had these discussions resulted in a treaty, a neutral zone would have been established between the Komerexi, supposedly inviolable by either side. While such a treaty has often been proposed in the Imperial Council, and discarded, this group might have been able to enforce the support of an agreement presented as an accomplished fact. ...”
Vrenn felt his liver shift in his chest. He knew one proponent of Rom Neutral Space, only one. The idea was related to the principle of center control in the game called chess.
“... an excuse for destruction of Klingon frontier vessels on charting or colonization missions, having no effect at all on Romulan incursionary forces—”
“Commander,” Kev said, “that’s background.” Kev looked at Vrenn, with his impaling eyes; Vrenn tried to puzzle out what the look said.
“Yes, correct,” Koll said. “The point is that now the treaty conspirators have been identified. Among them is Thought Admiral Kethas epetai-Khemara.” Koll gave Vrenn his mechanical, measuring look. Kessum tapped a hand on the table, the two-fingered right hand that gave his ship its name.
Kev said abruptly, “The point is this. Squadron [93] Leader Kodon thinks that you are not involved in this conspiracy, and are too good an officer to be disposed of for the sake of mere caution. I agree with both points. Now, we have worked very fast, faster than Security can follow, we think, so listen carefully. There’s an independent command waiting for you, if you want it. A small frontier scout, but it’s Navy, and it doesn’t have to be a khesterex thath if you stay as clever as you’ve been.”
Vrenn sat very still. He wonder
ed if the stars above this world were clothed or naked now. Here was his ship, then; here too was its price.
“If the one hesitates,” Captain Kessum said formally, “for the breaking of the chain of duty, let certain terms of the negotiation be stated.”
Kev said, “The Roms wanted some proofs of the negotiators’ intent. They wanted information on the next frontier raid. They got it.”
Vrenn said, “Did the one—”
“The one knew,” said Commander Koll. “The one verified it.”
So there was only the komerex zha, Vrenn thought, and the pieces of the game were only bits of wood in the fire. “The Navy honors me,” he said, “and where I am commanded, there I shall go.”
“Kai kassai,” Kev said softly, but his look was still steel needles.
Vrenn said, “If I might take formal leave of Squadron Leader Kodon—”
Captain Kessum said stiffly, “This one is here for Kodon.”
Yes, of course, Vrenn thought. Blue Fire lived, but Death Hand was dust. And there was the question of strategy, that least Klingon of sciences, whose practitioners made strange things happen; as Kev had said once before, if you did plan this, do not let it be known.
“... it is of course understood that you will not operate in this part of the frontier.”
“This need not be said,” Vrenn said.
[94] “Then it’s done,” Koll said, and reached for his sensor jammer.
Commander Kev said, “You’ll have to change your name now.”
Scout Captain Krenn was eighty days out on an exploratory cruise when the recordings arrived, scrambled with Krenn’s personal cipher; there was no originating label.
He watched the taped deaths of Kethas and Rogaine twice through. They were competent kills, as the law of assassination specified: that indeed was the reason for taping at all.
Krenn was pleased to see that Rogaine fought very well, stabbing one assassin, blinding another with her nails after her body had hypnotized him. It served the fool right for such carelessness.
Kethas fell near his gameboards, firing back as he collapsed, upsetting the Reflective Game set that had been his favorite. Kethas’s hand closed on the green-gold Lancer, and then did not move. The camera swung away. On the second play, Krenn stopped the image, enlarged it; he realized that the epetai-Khemara had not been reaching for the game piece, but toward his consort’s body.
Krenn stopped the tape again, thinking to rewind and watch for Kethas’s look, exactly as Rogaine died; but he did not do so.
The record covered only two of the house kuve. Little black-furred Odise was shot from a balcony, fell, landing in a wet and messy heap. Tirian they stunned, and agonized for a time, then carried aloft in a flier. His tunic was slit down the back, and the scars of his wings shown to the camera. Then they flung him out, perhaps twelve hundred meters above the dark twisted mass of the Kartade Forest. Vrenn did not rerun that scene.
He burned the cassette, thinking It simplifies things enormously when honor claims are absent.
Krenn stepped out onto the Bridge. The Helmsman [95] saluted, not too sharply, and the Sciences officer turned. They were enough Bridge crew; it was a small ship. But a Navy ship, and perhaps not a dead command.
“Anything of interest?” Krenn asked Sciences.
“Dust and smaller dust,” Specialist Akhil said. “Your message?”
“Some bureaucratic housecleaning.”
Akhil laughed. Then he said, “Is this a good time to ask a question, Captain?”
“As good as any.”
“My oldest uncle was on a ship under a Captain of the Rustazh line. Are you any—”
“They’re all gone,” said Krenn tai-Rustazh. “The name was free for use.”
“So you are starting a line,” the Helmsman said.
“Why else would anyone be out here?” Krenn said. “To play the Perpetual Game?”
Then he laughed, and the Scientist and the Helmsman joined in.
PART TWO
The Naked Stars
Negotiation may cost far less than war, or infinitely more: for war cannot cost more than one’s life.
—Klingon proverb
Chapter 4
Spaces
“We’ve got the ship on tractors, Captain.”
“Pull it in. Zan Kafter, keep the guns hot: one through the command pod if her energy readings change.”
“Affirm, Captain.” The crew of Imperial Klingon Cruiser Fencer went to work, towing in the depowered but intact Willall starship: it was their twelfth such prize, and they knew the drill.
Captain Krenn vestai-Rustazh sat back in the Command Chair, folded his hands and rested his chin on them. The Willall vessel showed up magnified in the forward display: a boxy thing, without a hint of warp physics in the design. Willall ships all looked like outdoor toilets with warpdrive nacelles wired on. But those ridiculous-looking ships had made a very serious dent in Imperial space.
They didn’t have any strategy, beyond just raiding [100] the next planet they stumbled across. They didn’t know any tactics, either, other than shooting and swooping. Willall was shorthand klingonaase for their name for themselves, which fully translated said in much more grandiose fashion that they were the race which would command all the possible realities.
But they fought like—“like drunken Romulans” was a popular expression, here on the other side of Empire from Romulan claims. And their junk ships could absorb a lot of fire, and put out a respectable volume.
Still, even determined shooting and swooping only did so much. “Tactics are real,” Krenn told his crew. Fencer had proven it, destroying Willall until Krenn was bored with that.
He and his Engineer had put on environment suits and gone probing through one of the Willall wrecks. They found a couple of weak structural points, where low-intensity disruptor shots would break the main superconducting lines to the warp engines, sever the Agaan Tubes. So now they didn’t destroy Willall; they wrapped them up and sent them to the Emperor.
“Got her readings, Captain,” Akhil said from the Sciences board. “Life, armed, all small weapons. No ship’s systems above emergency levels.”
“Transporter clear?”
“No spikes, no transients. Safe enough for the Emperor.”
Krenn nodded. “Communications, open to the prize’s bridge.”
The image was fuzzy, made up of scan lines: Willall vision technology was no superior to the rest of it. Half-a-dozen aliens were looking up at the monitor. They always reminded Krenn of unbaked dough, or putty sculptures; soft and colorless. Kuve.
“I am Krenn of the Fencer,” he said, slowly enough for the translation program to keep up. “I have destroyed your ability to resist the Empire. If you attempt any further hostility, I will destroy you. Is this understood?”
[101] The Willall spoke, a sound like bubbles in stew. Several of them were talking at once; they had some kind of group command structure, and the Security analysts had not decided which of them did what. The cube was worthless: agonizers made Willall nerves fall literally to pieces.
“It is understood,” the translator finally said. “The group is in isolation. It ceases.” The aliens put their hand weapons in a pile on the deck.
Kuve, Krenn thought again. Yet they were correct, of course; had they not disarmed ... well. There were several things he had done, in the course of a dozen captures.
This game was beginning to bore him as well, he knew.
“I will put Klingons aboard your ship. Some of these will repair the damage to your engines. When this is done, your ship will proceed to a world of the Empire, and there surrender.
“You may, as you choose, pilot the ship yourselves. However, there will be Klingons aboard to prevent errors in navigation, and others to protect the navigators and engineers. You will interfere with none of these, and aid them as you can.”
The Willall crew flooped agreement. Krenn broke the link.
He went aft to the transporter roo
m, for a last word with the prize crew. They were in a high enough mood: it would be easy duty, with a good welcome waiting for them when they turned the ship in.
“Ensign Kian,” Krenn said.
“Captain?” Kian looked like he had just won a banner in the Year Games. He would, however briefly, have full charge of a starship: never mind that it was not a Navy ship, or even a Klingon ship.
Krenn indicated the portable computer Kian carried. “Don’t use that unless you have to. You’ll be in command; command.”
“Of course, Captain.”
[102] The small computer contained a special set of navigational routines, in the event that the Willall refused to cooperate. They had never yet done so, at least, not as far as anyone knew. Two of Krenn’s prizes had never arrived, but many things could have happened, and in tin-plate ships like the Willall, who could tell?
Klingons would have found a way to attack their captors. Romulans or Andorians would have, even if they were all certain to die. Humans and Kinshaya were almost too devious to leave alive as prisoners. Even Vulcans, Krenn supposed, would use all their logic to find a flaw in the terms of surrender.
But these Willall just obeyed. Like any servitors. Perhaps the geneticists were right, and something in the kuve blood and flesh made kuve.
Krenn thought that was a stupid idea, but it was a private thought.
Akhil stepped out of the lift, went to the transporter controls; the petty officer there stepped aside at once. The prize crew straightened up to full attention: the Captain’s own transporter operator made this an authentic heroes’ sendoff.
“Ready to transport,” Akhil said.
“Zan Kian,” Krenn said.
“Captain?”
“Take care of our ship.” He had chosen the possessive very carefully.
“This need not be said, Captain.”
Krenn nodded. “Energize,” he said, and Akhil pushed the control levers. The crewmen and Marines dissolved into spindles of light and were gone.