by Diane Duane
Arrhae gave a startled squeak and took a hasty step backward, this time almost tripping over the low table that was one of McCoy’s few pieces of furniture. Though she caught herself from falling, she sat down on it hard enough to jolt the wind out of her yet again. She stared, wide-eyed and gasping, while the rock shuffled around to “face” her with the sound of one large slab of granite dragging over another. At least, so she presumed, because the rank insignia on the voder was now right side up and she had the definite feeling of being looked at—except that there was nothing that corresponded to eyes on the crusted, sparkling surface.
McCoy had eyes, though, and they were glittering with wicked amusement at Arrhae’s discomfiture. He was grinning at her, and she didn’t like it. “What goes on here?” she demanded. Shock, confusion, fear, and now more shock hadn’t made for a particularly good evening so far, and she had the nasty feeling that it would start to go downhill rapidly once her questions were answered. Always assuming that it hadn’t happened already.
“Commander Haleakala,” said McCoy, “allow me to introduce Lieutenant Naraht, U.S.S. Enterprise, on temporary assignment to Starfleet Intelligence. He’s acting as my backup.”
“He…? But it’s a rock—isn’t it?”
“No. A Horta.” McCoy grinned quickly as he realized something important. “Of course, you were landed on ch’Rihan before they—Commander, the Hortas are native to Janus VI; silicon-based life-forms that live in rock, burrow through it, and eat it.”
“You’re joking….”
“They’re also highly intelligent, and good-humored to a fault—which is just as well, otherwise Naraht would be very tired of hearing comments like that. Why say I’m joking when the proof’s right there in front of you.”
“I’m sorry. Excuse me, Lieutenant, I didn’t know people like you existed.”
“My mother thought the same about”—Naraht shuffled the shaggy sensory fringe that edged his body, seeming slightly embarrassed—“about carbon-based people. Like you and the doctor. No offense taken, Commander.”
“Um, quite so.” Terise looked at Naraht somewhat oddly. “What I don’t understand is why you’re not on fire.” McCoy looked up at her quizzically. “Well, I mean,” she said, “an oxygen atmosphere is the equivalent of a reducing atmosphere to a silicon-based creature. Or they always told us in xenobiology that it would be, if silicon-based life was ever discovered. How is he able to walk around without doing the equivalent of burning, or rusting?”
McCoy smiled, and if it was a look of pure triumph, then it was justified. The solution to the problem was his, and had indirectly made the introduction of Hortas into Starfleet possible. “He’s been sprayed with Teflon on his top layers and his tentacular fringe,” he said. “It seals the oxygen in our atmosphere away from his silicon, and doesn’t react itself to either the silicon or his ambient acids—since Teflon is less chemically reactive than even glass. His bottom layer doesn’t need it: it’s made of a natural Teflon analogue anyway, to protect it from the acid he secretes.”
“He sometimes secretes,” said Naraht gently. “I’m not such a glutton that I need to eat every time I move.”
“Well, I’m not sure you eat enough as it is,” McCoy said. “Boy your age should be half again your size. I’ve never been sure that starship food agrees with you. Wretched synthesized rock, it’s not the same as the real thing. Not enough minerals.”
Arrhae shook her head, still bemused. “But Mr. Naraht, how did you get planetside without being captured?”
“Meteorite-style.” Naraht might have had no face, but his voice smiled. “My carapace has a higher ablative rating than tempered ceramic or glasteel. Once we were in orbit over ch’Rihan, I arranged an explosion in the Vega’s hold and bailed out…and went down in free fall.”
McCoy nodded. “He’s a good navigator—could have worked out the accelerations and ephemera himself, the boy’s got a calculator in his head, like most of his people. But the Romulans obliged by putting us in a holding pattern up there.” He jerked a thumb a couple of times at the ceiling, then let the hand drop and grinned some more. “Congratulations,” he said.
“Why?”
“On the way you’re taking all this.”
“Dr. McCoy—”
“Bones, please.”
“Bones, there’s a saying here: ‘If the sword shatters, take its fragments to a forge.’ I’ve had a long time to put a lot of pieces back together, and I’m getting good at it.”
“‘If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade.’”
“I prefer the Romulan version.”
“Do you now?” McCoy looked at her very thoughtfully, but didn’t enlarge on his comment.
“It has more dignity….”
“Of course.”
“Now, why do you keep calling me Commander? What sort of ship is Vega, and how were you captured? What brought you to this house? And don’t deny that you were expecting to find me here! And tr’Annhwi’s back, trying to buy you from H’daen….”
McCoy had been smiling a bit indulgently at the stream of questions, but that last took the last traces of smile right off his face. “Perry didn’t reckon on that,” he muttered, knowing that he should have realized the possibility himself, after seeing at close range what Romulans were capable of doing when it came to honor-based grudges.
“Perry?”
“The Service,” McCoy said with some asperity, “takes care of its own…. Look, Commander—oh, you were promoted, don’t look at me like that—look, never mind the personal aspect, but I can’t be the subject of a personal vendetta just now. I’m supposed to appear before the Senate and…”
“I tried, Bones. I really tried. I thought that what I said, and the way I said it, would have made H’daen throw the whole dirty notion out, but he—well, it’s his only chance to do something for the reputation of his House, to lift it out of the gutter, and I think—” She stopped, and cocked her head to one side, listening. “Get Naraht out of here! We’re going to have company….”
Her ears were more attuned to sounds in the house, but after the noise of Naraht’s departure had faded—and McCoy was still amazed at how fast the Horta could move when he was in a hurry—the angry voices were distant but distinct. And the heavy slam of the frontmost door was completely audible. Silence fell briefly, and was broken after a little while by footsteps in the corridor outside. McCoy stayed where he was, sitting on the single low chair that was all his room could boast, but Arrhae rose from the table and took up a wary position in front of the storage door with its neatly, almost invisibly snapped lock.
And H’daen tr’Khellian came in. There was the print of an open hand across one side of his face, already greening into a bruise, and he looked crumpled, but not crushed. “I thought that I would find you here,” he said to Arrhae, and bowed greeting to McCoy with a stiffness that looked more a consequence of pain than of reserve.
“Yes, my lord,” she said, carefully noncommittal.
“I considered tr’Annhwi’s offer. And refused it, to his displeasure—as you might surmise from my appearance. But I decided that if his was an example of the honor of young and wealthy Rihannsu, then I would rather remain part of the old and poor. Here. A keepsake for you. The price of one alien, soon to die—or half the city of i’Ramnau.” He extended one hand and poured the snapped quarters of the prime-transfer card from his palm to hers, smiling as thinly and ironically as the indignity of a fast-puffing lip would let him. “It still isn’t enough to buy honor, not the old-fashioned kind.”
Arrhae closed her fist on the broken card and felt a sudden, ridiculous sting of tears fill her eyes. It had nothing to do with the small pain as sharp corners pricked her skin and drew small beads of emerald blood, nothing to do with that at all. She glanced at McCoy, wondering if he understood, or would ever understand, just what had been done for him. “Lord,” she said then, and doubled over to give H’daen the deep, deep bow that was his due as Head of House, and tha
t she gave him now for the first time because she wanted to and because he deserved such respect rather than because it was something that went with her role.
McCoy did understand, and was annoyed that there was no way he could show some form of respectful thanks without giving too many secrets away. He had to sit unconcernedly, “not knowing” what was being said until Arrhae thought to activate her translator, and hoping that H’daen didn’t notice they had already been talking without it.
“Since you seem likely to tell Mak’khoi what has happened whether I give permission or not,” H’daen said quietly, “I allow it. Tell him also…Tell him that he will be tried before the Senate in six days. That the sentence has already been agreed upon. And that it is not the way I would interpret our ancient laws. And Arrhae…?”
“My lord?”
“I intend to sleep late tomorrow. Very late indeed. This has been a tiring day.” He smiled crookedly. “But educational. Very.” He closed the door behind him as he left.
“Now, that,” said McCoy, “is a Romulan gentleman of the old school. Like a lady I once knew. Here. Wipe your eyes.”
Arrhae took the proffered handkerchief, only a big layered sheet of soft paper from the supply she had instructed should be put in here, but very welcome for all that. She hadn’t expected to cry into them herself. She hadn’t expected to cry about anything much, least of all H’daen. After a little while she felt better, apart from an inclination to sniffle, and managed a damp smile for McCoy’s benefit.
“You’re bearing up well, Terise,” he said. “I’m glad of that. We were worried about you. Seriously worried. No reports from you for two years, even though other operatives were able to tell us where you were and what you were doing.”
“You thought I’d gone over. Turned Romulan.”
“It was a possibility. One of the chances that were taken when you went out in the first place. I’m glad we were wrong. Now, Terise, I’m authorized to ask you this: when I’m pulled out, do you want to be pulled as well?”
“Pulled out? Taken out, you mean. In case you didn’t understand H’daen, or the meaning wasn’t clear, you’re going for trial in six days. But you’ve been sentenced already. Bones, you’re dead!”
To her astonishment he smiled. “I’ve been pronounced dead by people far more qualified to do it than you, Terise, and people far more certain of what they were saying. Yet here I am.”
“You thought that I might have gone native, or gone schizophrenic, or gone mad—have you ever thought of looking at yourself that way?”
He looked at her with ironic astonishment, and a little wickedness. “Don’t be silly,” he said. “I’m the psychiatrist here. I have paperwork that says I’m sane.”
From her expression it was plain that Terise had her doubts. “Doctor,” she said very slowly, as if speaking to someone with a hearing impairment, or an impairment somewhere more vital, “don’t you understand it? Your trial is nothing but a formality. They’re going to pull you to pieces, and they’re going to make an entertainment of it!—if you even make it that far. If someone else doesn’t come in here and make H’daen an offer he can’t refuse…or just come in and take you by force. You have to get out while you can!”
McCoy shook his head slowly. He was beginning to feel sorrier for this woman than he felt for himself, at this stage of the game, no mean accomplishment. “I have things to do,” he said. “Anyway, I’m not going to leave this planet without seeing the sights. The Senate Chambers. The Council of Praetors.”
“The scenic execution pits!!”
McCoy put one eyebrow up at her and grinned, a wicked look. “Think I’ll just give that last spot a miss. Don’t you worry about it. Meantime, I’ve got things to take care of, and I’d guess you do too. Why don’t you go take care of them.”
She looked at him rather helplessly. “Do you always hedge like this with your friends? What are you planning? How am I supposed to help you if you won’t tell me?!”
He sighed, and smiled again, a little ruefully. “You’re not supposed to help me…yet. You go on, Terise. Take care of things. You won’t be able to be any help to me if they fire you or something.”
She nodded, looking at him with extreme irritation that nonetheless had a sort of edge of affection and grudging admiration on it. It was a look he had seen from many a patient in his time, the “you won’t let me run things my way, dammit!” expression. McCoy was pleased. There was hope for her after all, and he could relax a little, as much as anyone can relax who has most of two planets out for his blood.
“All right,” she said. “Good night to you, Bones.”
“Good night,” he said. Then he remembered something. “Oh, and Arrhae?” he said to her back as she headed toward the door.
“Yes?”
“I’m told the soil in the back garden needs lime.”
He leaned back on his couch and smiled, hearing the sound of laughter go down the hall, laughter that was not hysterical at all.
Chapter Twelve
EMPIRES
“We were excited,” said the captain of the Federation vessel U.S.S. Carrizal during the postmission debriefing following its return from the Trianguli stars, a little more than a hundred years ago. “It was the first hit we’d had in nine months of scouring that sector. A hominid culture, obviously highly developed, a large population, it was everything we had hoped for. Better yet, the same people were on two worlds…an Earth-Moon configuration. Mike Maliani, our astrogator, suggested Romus and Remus as nicknames for the planets until we found out their real names from the people who lived there. After the twin brothers in an ancient Italian myth.” On the debriefing tape, Captain Dini smiles rather ruefully. “I was never a specialist in the classics: I wish I were. Mike’s misspelling of ‘Romulus’ is going to haunt me to the grave. But at that point I thought he knew what he was talking about.”
A pause. “Anyway, we were really excited. You know how few spacefaring species there are: the standing orders are to closely examine any we find. But we weren’t so excited that we went in without the proper protocols. We gave them everything we had: the classic first-contact series—atomic ratios, binary counting, pictures. You name it. There was never any answer, even though we’re sure they knew we were there. They had an outer cordon of defense satellites that noticed us, and after the messages from the satellites were received on the planets, the message traffic on the bigger planet increased by about a thousand percent. But there was nothing we could do with it by way of translation—after that first message there was silence, and everything that came later was encoded—some kind of closed-satchel code, very sophisticated, and no way to break it in anything short of a decade, without a supercomp or the code key.”
There is a long silence on the tape as Captain Dini shakes his head and looks puzzled. “We never came any closer to their planet than two orbits out,” he says, “right beyond the fifth planet in the system. We never came near them. We just observed, and took readings, and went away quietly. I’ll never understand what happened.”
What happened was the First Romulan War, as the Federation later called it. What it looked like, from the Federation side, was a long, bloody conflict started without provocation by the Romulans. From the other side it wore a different aspect.
The appearance of Carrizal caused such a panic as the Rihannsu had never known since they became Rihannsu. In terms of a Rihanha’s lifetime, it was thirty generations and more since the settlement, and the actual records of the appearance of aliens on Vulcan, all those many years ago, were not so much lost as largely ignored. People knew through the history they were taught in the academies what had happened on Vulcan in the old days…and the history had bent and changed, what with telling and retelling, and neglecting to go back to the original source material. Not that that would have helped much. The source material itself had been altered in the journey, but very few—scholars and historians—knew this, or cared. What the Rihannsu knew about this incursion into
their space was that it closely matched the pattern followed by the Etoshans so long ago: quiet observation coupled with or followed by proffers of peaceful contact. They were not going to be had that way again.
Ch’Rihan and ch’Havran had, over sixteen hundred years, become superbly industrialized. The Rihannsu have always had a way with machines: and this, coupled with their great concern for taking care of the worlds they found after such journey and suffering, produced two planets that were technologically most advanced at manufacture, without looking that way. Few factories were visible from the atmosphere, let alone from space. Aesthetics required that they be either pleasant to look at, or completely concealed. Many factories were underground. Release of waste products into the ambient environment, even waste so seemingly innocuous as steam or hot water, was forbidden by Praetorial indict, and a capital crime. A starship passing through, even one looking carefully, as Carrizal did, would see two pastoral-looking worlds, unspoiled, quiet. One would hardly suspect the frenetic manufacture that was to start after Carrizal’s departure.
There was frantic action elsewhere as well. In the Praetorate and the Senate some heads rolled, and the survivors scrambled to start working on the defense of the planet—or to otherwise take advantage of the situation. The defense satellites had not been approached closely enough by the invading ship to trigger their weaponry. Cannily, it had stayed out of range. There was no way to tell if the Two Worlds could be defended against the ship that had appeared there, no telling what kind of weaponry it had. But from their experience in air combat (almost every nation of each planet had its own air force, which they used liberally for both friendly and unfriendly skirmishes), the Rihannsu military specialists knew that even a heavily armed ship should not be able to do much against overwhelming numbers.
They got busy, digging frantically through ancient computer memories and printouts and film and metal media for the forgotten space technology they needed. Had the ships been spared, even one of them—had their data been preserved in one place rather than scattered all over two worlds—the Federation’s boundaries might be much different now. But even what remained was useful, and the Rihannsu were frightened. It is unwise to frighten a Rihanha. Within a year after Carrizal’s visit, ch’Rihan’s numerous nations had built, among them, some three thousand spacecraft armed with particle-beam weapons and the beginnings of defensive shields. Ch’Havran had built four thousand. They were crude little craft, and their cylindrical shapes recalled those of the ships, though there was no need for them to spin for gravity: artificial gravity had been mastered a century or so earlier.