by John M. Ford
Krenn stroked his forehead ridge, his jaw. “I’ll be in quarters, ’Khil.”
“I’ve still got some of that Saurian brandy,” Akhil said.
“Not this time.” Krenn got into the lift car. “If I’m still there when Kian calls, ring me. Won’t do to give formal leave from the bath.”
[103] Akhil said, not at all lightly, “You’re thinking too much again, Thought Ensign.”
Krenn grimaced as the lift door closed. He’d never found out where Akhil had heard of that title. But the Executive was careful never to use it except when they were alone. Just Krenn and Akhil and Security’s monitors.
It was just possible, Krenn thought, as he undressed and slid into hot salt water, that he did think too much. Could a scientist believe that? Even a Klingon scientist?
Of course, he thought, as his senses began to dim. He had only known one Klingon who trusted all in thought. And the epetai-Khemara was dust six years.
Chiming woke Krenn. “I’m awake, ’Khil, I’m awake,” he lied, stumbling out of the bath; he remembered to suppress vision before turning the intercom on.
It was not Akhil, but Kalitta, the Communications Officer. “Captain, I have a yellow-2 priority from Navy Command. It’s an immediate recall of Fencer. To Klinzhai, Captain.”
“Yellow priority,” Krenn said. It was not a question: he could see the lights on Kalitta’s board. Yellow-2 didn’t mean the galaxy was exploding, but it was close enough. And to the homeworld? “Open link to Ensign Kian, aboard the prize.”
“Acting.” The picture stuttered and blanked: Kian appeared, through Willall scan lines. “Acknowledging Fencer,” he said, looking slightly puzzled.
“Stand by, zan Kian.” Krenn grabbed a gown and tossed it on, then switched on his vision pickup.
“Captain?”
“We’ve been called home, Ensign. Warp 4 plus. No more time to spend on that thing, and we can’t drag it along; prepare to transport and we’ll cut it loose.”
Kian looked startled, and angry. Krenn thought that [104] was reasonable; he felt the same way. The Ensign said, “We’ve got less than a third of a shift’s work left, Captain. Zero problems so far.”
“This is a priority recall, Ensign. We don’t have a third of a shift to wait.”
Kian stared up at the screen. Krenn saw him chew his tongue. Then he said, “A moment, Captain. We’ve got some transmission problems.” He reached for his portable computer. “You’re breaking up very badly, Captain. I don’t know if it’s safe to transport—”
Krenn almost laughed. “That’s a good try, Kian, but you’re perfectly clear to me.”
Kian stopped with his hand on the black case. “Yes, Captain,” he said calmly, “I suppose I am.”
Krenn did laugh then.
Kian said, “Leave us behind, Captain.”
“You’re still depowered. Suppose you can’t start the engines? This is the frontier; you might eat each other, but you can’t breathe vacuum.”
“We’ll get power. I’ll take responsibility.”
Krenn’s smile froze. Even bold young ensigns did not say that very often. Not and mean it, and Krenn could see Kian meant it. “And the rest of your crew? What about them?”
“It’s my command, Captain Krenn.”
Krenn looked into the hot yellow eyes on the sketchy screen, wondering if he had really looked like that, when Kodon first gave him Blue Fire’s conn. When he became a full member of the club.
“Yes, Ensign,” Krenn said finally. “Your command. Bring home glory. The klin is already in you.”
“Captain.” Kian saluted, and then broke the link on his superior officer: Krenn had to grin. He wouldn’t have given the old starburst time to rethink, either.
Krenn killed vision again, hit the Call key. “Captain to Bridge. Prepare to cut tractors and get under way. Tell Engineering Warp 4 is expected, 4.5 would be better.”
[105] Akhil’s voice said, “Transport signal’s clear.”
“No one’s transporting. The prize goes as she is.”
“Affirm,” Akhil said, sounding cheerful, or satisfied, or both. Krenn wondered if Kalitta had left the link open, on the Bridge ... well, if he hadn’t wanted it heard, he wouldn’t have said it.
Kalitta said, “Statement to the crew, Captain?”
“Just tell them we’re ordered to travel. Krenn out.” He snapped the link, said to the air, “Unless you know something I don’t?”
Just this once, he hoped Security was listening.
It took Fencer 112 days to reach the Klingon home-world: she had been far enough on the fringe of the spiral arm that Warp 4.85 was possible for the first twenty-plus days, and the Engineer was muttering about a record. The officers and crew were talking too: not many had visited Klinzhai itself, and fewer still had lived there: to them it was the ultimate of leave worlds, paradise with hotel service.
So the three-cruiser escort waiting for them in high orbit was a surprise to most of Fencer’s complement. So was the strict warning about leaving the escort’s “protection”—that is, their cones of fire—or launching shuttles, or transporting down. Only one aboard was authorized to leave the ship—and Krenn was not surprised, not really. He was in fact rather pleased to be beaming down alone; it meant his crew was safe, for now.
He was met at the discs by a Security team in dress armor, wearing light weapons; they were polite, which did not at all mean that Krenn was not under arrest. He did not waste effort asking the team leader questions.
Krenn was taken through empty corridors to a room that might have been in one of the Throne City’s better hotels. But its door would not open after the Security team departed. The communicator and the computer screen were both khex. There were no windows.
[106] The meal slot did function: Krenn punched for pastry and fruit juice, and sat contemplating a clearprint on the wall of a D4 cutting up a Kinshaya supercarrier.
The thing he liked least about particle transporters, Krenn thought, was that the signal could be relayed: one could not really know where one was going. He might be in the Throne City, or someplace very different. Even aboard a ship: but he felt the gravity and doubted that.
The door opened, and three Klingons came in, and Krenn got his first real surprise.
One of them was Koll, the Commander who had come for him six years ago. He still wore the silver sash of Detached Service, but now had a Captain’s stars. There was a heavyset Admiral with a parcel under his arm, and a tall, powerfully built Security officer without badges of specific rank—which meant, very high rank.
“Captain Krenn, I am Captain Koll.”
Of course, Krenn thought; we’ve never met. Krenn was a little glad, in a backhand way, to have the Security super grade there: whatever this meeting was, at least it would exist.
“Captain Koll. Honored.”
“This is Admiral Kezhke zantai-Adion ... and Operations Master Meth of Imperial Intelligence.”
Intelligence? Krenn thought, feeling muscles tense. He knew Navy officers who feared Imperial Intelligence as they did not fear to die cowards; he had heard that Security feared them. And high rank indeed. Meth would be answerable to no one but the Emperor ... and if II functioned as Krenn supposed it must, perhaps not the Emperor.
Admiral Kezhke had his package on a table and was unwrapping it; he set out four spherical glasses and a bottle of Saurian brandy. “Pleased to finally meet you, Captain Krenn,” Kezhke said as he worked at the brandy stopper. “You’ve got a stormwalker’s dinner of a record, you know.” The plug came out. “Drinks?”
Only Koll declined. Krenn took a very small sip, on [107] the small chance that it was genuine Saurian. It was. Krenn felt as if he had been kicked in the liver. But (as Akhil said, over glasses of the reasonable fake he kept in his desk) it was a wonderful kick in the liver.
Kezhke stoppered the bottle again. “Only one of those to a meeting,” he said. He smiled at Krenn, a bland look that might cover anything.
�
��Good rule,” Meth of Intelligence said, and put down his half-emptied glass. He was not smiling, but his voice was pleasant enough.
Krenn felt his own voice coming back. “May the one ask the reason for urgent recall?” he said, perhaps a little too quickly.
“That much formality isn’t necessary,” Meth said. His expression was very still—not empty like Kezhke’s or frozen like Koll’s, but literally immobile. As Meth spoke, Krenn realized that most of his facial flesh was cosmetic plastic—whether a prosthetic, or a disguise, Krenn could not tell.
“The Admiral mentioned your record,” Meth said. “It is rather extraordinary. No one, within my knowledge, has a similar rate of captures of intact ships.”
“There are several with more captures,” Koll said, not a correction but a machine annotation. “But none in so short a time. And none with a single ship.”
“It’s a talent,” Meth said, “which shouldn’t be wasted.”
Krenn looked at Koll, but if the phrase registered in the Detached officer’s mind, there was no sign. Not for the first time, Krenn wondered if the Aviskie meeting really had been nonexistent: if only he remembered it at all.
“We have a mission for you, Captain,” Meth said, still echoing. “It’s rather particular in its requirements, and no one seems better qualified than you.”
Krenn squeezed another sip of the brandy down his throat. He knew perfectly well—and these officers must know that he knew—how often best qualified for a special mission meant most expendable.
[108] If that were the case now, then if he refused, they would simply expend him and call the next name on the list. So, bite deep. “I am honored,” Krenn said. “What is the mission?”
Meth touched his glass, but did not lift it. His hands were also surfaced with plastic. “We need one brought to this world. It will be a rather long cruise.”
“On the frontier all cruises are long,” Krenn said.
“This one will exceed a year, at Warp 4 speed.”
“In each direction?”
“In each direction.”
That meant it was to somewhere outside Klingon holdings. Krenn had a sudden thought of just how they might have chosen to expend him. “To Romulan space?”
“Not the Roms,” Admiral Kezhke said. “The Federation.” He gave the brandy bottle a hard look. “They want to send us an ... ambassador. A ship must travel, under peace signals, to bring the one.”
“Peace signals,” Krenn said.
Captain Koll said, “The Imperial Council has, for the situation, agreed to the Federation idea that a ship bearing an Ambassador must not have combat.”
“But this calls for a squadron,” Krenn said, trying to think moves ahead in the game. Why would the Council consent to disarming a ship, and how could they expect to find a Captain for it? “With escorts, who may use their weapons—”
“One battlecruiser,” Kezhke said. There was an authentic-sounding distress in his voice.
“And if we are attacked by ... perhaps, Romulans?” Meth looked at him, and Krenn was suddenly afraid to even think what he never would have said: Or, perhaps, Klingons. Imperial Intelligence was said to know things they could not know by any natural means; they were said to know thoughts. Krenn did not believe this, and still he was afraid.
“A Romulan attack would be a diplomatic incident [109] between the three Empires,” Koll was saying. “By the komerex federazhon law, an act of war.”
Krenn wondered if that were the strategy. He imagined it would please certain of the Imperial Council very greatly if the son of Kethas, who had died trying to make peace with the Romulans, were to die igniting a war with them.
Meth said, “Are you declining the mission, Captain Krenn?”
“I am questioning it,” Krenn said. “Only a servitor goes blindly to the death: I serve the Empire, but I am not the Empire’s servitor.”
“Kai, klingon,” Kezhke said, with something like relief.
“We do not think it is the death,” Operations Master Meth said. His tone was almost conciliatory. “The Federation has strong ideas about its own laws.” He picked up the brandy glass. “But the mission is not commanded. Only offered.”
“I would take Fencer and my crew?”
“Fencer and any crew you like,” Kezhke said.
“But time is short,” Meth said. “Some of your crew will doubtless need leave and rest; they may need replacement from the pools.”
Of course Intelligence would put its people aboard; if Krenn tried to fight that, II would still get them aboard, and Krenn would have even less idea who they were. “I’ll need my Sciences Officer; he’s also my Executive.”
“You’ll get him,” Kezhke said, before Meth could speak.
Meth said, “You accept the duty, then.”
“I accept.”
Meth nodded. Koll reached into his tunic, brought out several computer cassettes. “Your navigational tapes. A message of introduction from the Council. And a dream-learning tape of the Federation language.”
Meth said, “If you would rather take the language by [110] RNA transfer, it can be arranged. We have a native fedegonaase speaker, freshly spun down.”
“This will be adequate,” Krenn said, taking the cassettes.
Kezhke said, “There’s a dock space waiting for your ship, and priority orders. She’s in good order?”
“Yes.”
The Admiral smiled. “I knew she would be. Tune and trim, then. Image will matter, this cruise.”
Meth said, “Tell your crew that leave has been arranged for them, at the Throne City port. At Imperial expense, naturally.”
“They will be pleased.”
Meth gave his unreal, dead-faced smile. It was impossible to tell if irony was meant. “Then hail the mission and its success.” He drank the rest of his brandy. “We’ll let you return to your ship, then. There’s a lot to do, in a little time.”
The door opened for the officers. The Security team leader was standing in the hall, without his team; Krenn had not seen anyone summon him.
Krenn was taken back to the transporter room. Just before the underofficer energized the disc, Admiral Kezhke came into the room. “Leave us for a moment,” the Admiral said.
The Security man looked unhappy, but obeyed.
Kezhke motioned for Krenn to step off the transport stage. After he had, the Admiral pushed the transport levers halfway up. The discs flickered.
“Loose energy khests the monitors,” Kezhke said. He looked straight at Krenn. “I knew the great of your line, vestai-Rustazh.” He held out the bottle of brandy.
“This is a misapprehension I often find,” Krenn said. “The name was—”
Kezhke was shaking his head. “No error, Captain. I knew both your fathers.”
Krenn accepted the bottle, took a swallow.
“Listen to me, vestai-Rustazh, Khemara. You must bring the Federation Ambassador here, and you must [111] bring him alive, and without any incident. No matter what you are told, or think you are ordered, you must do this.”
Krenn felt he was listening from light-years away. If this one was close to the sutai-Rustazh and the epetai-Khemara, then what was he doing alive, speaking to the one with the secret of both lines?
Krenn began to wonder if a Rom war would be such a bad thing to die for. Kahless, the greatest of all Emperors, had died so, and Kahless was known as The One Who Is Remembered.
What Krenn said was, “I understand the mission, Admiral. I do not mean to fail in it.”
“I hope so,” Kezhke said. “I hope you understand.”
Krenn held out the bottle. “Keep it,” Kezhke said, and went to the door; he let the Security transport operator in, then stood in the doorway. “Much glory, Captain Krenn,” he said, which was the last thing Krenn had expected him to say.
The homeworld faded out.
Fencer faded in.
“Did you meet the Emperor?” Akhil said, smiling.
“Not unless he goes around in
clever plastic disguises.”
“What?” The Specialist’s look fell on the object in Krenn’s hands. “That isn’t really—”
“Have some,” Krenn said. “Let’s both have some, right now, ’Khil. And then I’ll really make your head spin.”
The air turned to fire above the diamond grid of the cargo transporter, and a crate materialized, displacing a small breeze. Fencer’s Cargomaster ran a coding wand over its invoice plate and registered the load on his portable computer.
“What’s that one, Keppa?” Krenn asked.
“More whitefang steaks,” the Cargomaster said, with something close to awe. “Well, if we’re captured, we can just eat ourselves to death.”
[112] “It’s a two-year cruise, with no stops to forage.”
“That wasn’t a complaint, Captain,” Keppa said quickly. “Any time they want to load meat instead of Marines, I’ll clear the space.”
Krenn laughed. “I know how you’d do it, too. But decompression’s hard on the hull.” Akhil was approaching, making notes on a small scribe panel. “Keep the steaks coming, Keppa.”
“Affirm, Captain.” The cargo module was lifted on antigravs; Krenn turned away.
“Keppa says another quarter-day to load stores,” Krenn said to Akhil. “How are the other preparations?”
“The weapon interlocks are installed,” Akhil said.
Krenn pointed a finger, and he and Akhil passed, quite casually, between two cargo modules. Krenn said quietly “My way or theirs?”
“Yours. Any time outbound, your personal cipher will get us disrupters.”
“Good.”
“And I got these last night.” Akhil handed Krenn a pair of cassettes.
“Where did you get them?”
“A friend in the Institutes of Research for Language. That’s their latest revision of Federation Standard, set up for dream-learning. And that’s all that’s on them.”
Krenn took the black plastic boxes. “They offered me an RNA drip, too.”
Akhil tapped his scribe on the board. “Human?”
“That’s what Meth said.”
“Do you really think they were planning to program you?”
“I know they meant to program me,” Krenn said. “I don’t know if there was anything clever on the dream-tapes.”