by Diane Duane
"Communication from Javelin, khre'Riov," said Lhian, exactly as if they were back on Bloodwing.
"Accept it," Ael said.
The screen wavered and settled down, and Ael took a long breath and relaxed. Oh, that bland, round, foolish, familiar face. It was LLunih tr'Raedheol, and the Elements had been kind to her after all, for if anyone in space needed killing, it was this one. A coward and a fool, and one who thought everyone else was just like him, too lazy to do more than exhibit just enough energy to keep Command off his back. "Commander tr'Raedheol," Ael said, companionably enough, "welcome to the Outmarches. You see we have found something rather interesting floating around out here. . . ."
"Yes," LLunih said, and the greed, jealousy and hate distilling behind LLunih's eyes should have killed the man on the spot. Unfortunately, he was immune to his own venom, like the nei'rrh he was. "So Command said. I should appreciate the opportunity to beam over and examine this tremendous prize for myself."
And try to figure out a way to cheat me out of it, you mean, Ael thought. "Oh, LLunih—may I call you LLunih?"
"Do," said the repulsive creature, and smiled.
Ael kept herself from shuddering in loathing. "I couldn't allow that as yet. We are still in the process of learning to handle the command systems aboard this ship. Its officers are understandably annoyed with us, and they have not been as cooperative as would have been wise. These screens, for example; we were working with raising and lowering them, this morning, and we thought they were down—but in an evil moment someone from Cuirass tried to beam over and hit a 'phantom' screen of which our intelligence had failed to warn us. An outgrowth of the cloaking device, actually; quite clever." She smiled whimsically. "But unfortunate, since one of my minor officers is now floating around this part of space, reduced to his component atoms."
Oh, I will pay for that one sooner or later. . . . "Until we're sure, I would rather you didn't take the chance. . . ."
"Oh, Ael, I quite understand. . . ." She lost his next few words, thinking of the old saying that a soiled name may only be washed clean in blood. He has enough of it in all that flab to wash all four of them clean, I'll warrant. We shall see.
"… find it hard to not want a look at the famous Captain Kiuurk. . . ."
"Oh, as to that," Ael said, looking wicked, and not having to try too hard this time, "I dare say I could let you see a bit of what would please you. In fact, I have been hearing complaints from the Captain concerning his present lodging; I was about to go down there and settle them with him when you called. If you will hold a moment, you may watch the proceedings."
"Surely."
Ael rose and nodded at Lhian: the screen went blank. "Warn them," she said.
"Khre'Riov," Lhian said, with one of his darkbrowed looks, "we're being scanned. Shields are up, but there's some signal leakage, and anything on ship's channels might be overheard—"
"True," she said. "Well thought. Wait till I'm about halfway down the deck eight hall, going toward Detention; then pick me up on visual and pipe it over to Javelin, following me. Hvaid, come along."
Young Hvaid leaped up from his post, and the two of them hurried into the lift. "Detention, deck eight," Ael said.
"Hvaid, when the lift stops, run ahead and warn the Captain and his officers. Tell them who has called and that we must play this very broadly; LLunih is stupid and unsubtle, and nods and winks will not do. If we do convince him, though, he'll convince the other ships when they arrive, and save us the trouble of doing all this again.—Then you'll have to run about to the various departments and tell everyone not to say anything damning on the ship's intercom until we are sure we're not being scanned; or can find a way to plug the leaks. Find some others of us to help you. Pull Lyie and K'haeth and Dhisuia off their posts; they're quick on their feet." The lift stopped. "Go now!"
Hvaid ran off down the hall. Ael leaned against the open door of the lift for a long, easy count of twenty, doing her best to slow her breathing down. It did not slow much, but finally she had to get out and walk, and found that the trembling in her knees wasn't nearly as bad as it had been. "Are you with me, Javelin?" she said cheerily to the air, using her upward look to disguise a glance around the corner she was approaching. Scan could not see it, but Ael could see Hvaid hurrying out of the door to Detention, around another corner and out of sight.
"We see you, Ael," said LLunih.
"Good. Here we are—"
She swung around through the door into Detention and saw the sight that many a Rihannsu had long desired to see: the Captain of the Enterprise and his formidable officers, one and all, crammed into a cell in the brig and every one of them looking ready to commit murder that would have no laughing about it. There was the good Doctor, his strange blue eyes flashing, and handsome Uhura looking as if she wanted a knife; and Mr. Scott with arms folded and eyes narrowed. He turned away from the sight of Ael as she came in; a pretty touch, she thought, and probably based on reality—for Mr. Scott had not yet forgiven her for the wounding of his precious engines. Even the Vulcan looked murderous—though in a restrained and decorous fashion. And the Captain, the courteous, genteel Captain, was from the look of him far gone in a cold rage that would have done the best of Ael's old commanders proud. Ael nodded the outer guards away from the forcefield controls on the door—poor Triy and Helev, looking as grimly triumphant as they knew how, and, Ael suspected, ready to break up laughing as soon as they knew they were no longer watched.
"Captain," Ael began, courteously enough; but the Captain didn't let her get any further.
"It is about time you found your way down here, lady," he said, with a stateliness of language that sorted bizarrely with his anger. "What are you doing with my ship! And my crew! You are in violation of—"
"You are in a poor position to be talking about violations, Captain," said Ael, motioning Triy to kill the forcefield. "You were the one we caught in the Zone—"
"Surely you would not mind if my crew watched this, Ael," said LLunih's voice from the intercom.
"Who the devil is that!" the Doctor shouted.
"Of course not," Ael said, as she stepped into the room and her eye fell on Nniol, who was doing inside guard duty.
O, by my Element, Ael thought, for Nniol's sister was on Javelin, and there was no possible reason for him to be on Cuirass—and there he was, his face shielded by a fortuitous angle for the moment, but the instant he moved a breath's worth, or she did, the pickup would catch him all too clearly. Her back was to it, at least; her eye flashed alarm at Nniol—there was nothing else she could do—
Then the fight broke out. At least it would have looked like a fight to any observer who did not stand where Ael did, who did not see the Captain swiftly cock back one fist and turn a little in the doing, just enough to exchange glances with the Doctor. The Doctor instantly put his head down and economically, savagely, butted Nniol in the gut with it. Nniol doubled over, his face safely out of the way of the pickup; but on the way down he clubbed McCoy two-handed and sidewise in the legs, and the Doctor came crashing down on top of him, concealing him further. Mr. Scott and the Vulcan got in the way, but Triy and Helev, shouldering in past Ael and the Captain, shoved or slapped them back out of trouble—rather easily, in the Vulcan's case, though the phasers pointed at his midsection and at the Captain, and their meaningful looks, might have had something to do with it. And as for the Captain's punch, that had started all this, it never fell. Ael blocked it, hard, blocked the second one harder, heard something snap, and didn't dare hesitate, but carried through, slamming the man backhanded across the face. He went flying, crashed up against the wall, sagged down it, didn't move.
Ael glared at Uhura and Scott and Spock, who stood at bay in the corner of the cell, with phasers held on them. "I had thought to offer you honorable parole," she said, "but I see now it would have been a fool's act. Have them bound," she said to Triy. "All their other people, too; I dare say this boorishness and treachery is typical. And tend to th
is one." She nudged Nniol with her boot. Nniol, who lay sprawled face down under the Doctor, stirred and groaned, but very prudently did not move otherwise.
Ael stepped over the carnage and out of the cell, dusting herself off. "Llunih," she said, while Helev assisted the doubled-over Nniol out of the cell and Triy sealed the cell up again, "I would stay for conversation, but you see that I have business to be about—interrogations and so forth; and these people are not going to make it easy for me, that's plain. I do hope you'll excuse me."
"Any assistance I can offer, Ael—"
"LLunih, I will surely ask. In the meantime, I would count it a kindness if your navigator and mine would consult together, so that yours can match my course."
"Certainly."
"Then a good day to you; I will pay you a courtesy call tonight or tomorrow, if you would be so gracious as to receive me. Perhaps we might have dinner." Though I say nothing of keeping it down for long.
"Ael, I would be delighted."
"Until later, then." She turned back to the glaring group in the cell and eyed them until Lhian said from the Bridge, "They have closed channels, khre'Riov. Shall I send a security detachment?"
"No, we're secure," Ael said. "As you were, Lhian."
"Commander."
—and she stepped forward and killed the forcefield, and bent down hurriedly to the Captain, as the others did. "That crawling slime," she said bitterly as she helped the Captain to his feet. "He so loves the sight of others' shame that he cannot resist spreading it around for the delectation of his whole crew. Captain, I have done you a great discourtesy! I shall do you a better turn some other time."
The Captain, for the moment, found nothing to say but a groan. She helped him stand from one side, while Spock assisted him on the other, being very careful of the injured arm. "There's this good at least come of it all," she said. "LLunih will gossip so to the commanders of Rea's Helm and Wildfire of how he saw Enterprise's great Captain struck down that they will give us no trouble. In fact, I would lay money on the creature's having recorded it to show them.—Doctor, I heard something break, I didn't mean to hit him that hard—"
The Doctor was running a small whirring scanner up and down the Captain's left arm. "Greenstick fracture of the ulna, Commander; that's this forearm-bone here. Nothing serious. Jim, are you slipping in your workouts! Since when do you cross-block backward like that?"
"You could do it better?" said the Captain, looking humorous through his pain.
"Well, I—"
"Never mind. Commander, that was the youngster you were going to send back?"
"Yes. I had no idea he was going to be here, though, else I would have warned him out. . . ."
"Murphy's Law," the Captain said. "At least we managed to cover for him. Nice work, everyone.—Bones, how long is it going to take to regenerate this thing?"
"About an hour. Less if you don't squirm when it itches."
"Captain," Ael said, "who was Murphy, and what was his Law?"
"One I should have learned the last time," said the Captain. "Never eat at a place called 'Mom's'; never play cards with a man called 'Doc'; and don't start fights with Romulan Commanders."
That was when the punch came that the Captain did not telegraph; and it slammed Ael back against the nearest wall so hard that the effect was the same as being hit twice, once in front and once from behind. She rebounded from the wall, tried to stand, staggered. Things spun.
"But if you do start one," the Captain said with an absolutely feral grin, "always finish it."
The room would not stop rotating; and Ael's mind was in such a whirl of rage, relief and merriment that she scarcely knew what to do. "Captain, your hand," she said, holding hers out and considering—just briefly—showing him that trick of N'alae's that he had so admired. But there would be no honor in doing it to an injured man. . . . He took her hand, and then grinned.
"Yours sweat too, huh?" he said.
"Captain," she said, "what a pity you're not Rihannsu. . . ."
"I bet you say that to all your prisoners. Let's get back up to the Bridge."
Twelve
Jim sat in his center seat and wondered at the strangeness of the world.
Here he was, deep into Romulan space, surrounded by Romulan ships; not even under way, his engines only producing enough power to run ship's systems and keep themselves alive. Another eighteen hours would see the Enterprise towed into a Romulan starbase. Yet he sat in his chair, and turning to one side, he could see Scotty leaning back in his station's chair, grumpily eyeing the nonexistent power conversion levels in the not-really-blown-up port nacelle, while delivering a rapid-fire lecture on the difficulties of the restart procedure to the slim dark Romulan man looking over his shoulder. Hvaid, that one was. Turning the other way, there were Mr. Spock and Lieutenant Kerasus and young Aidoann, Ael's third-in-command, deep in conversation about Old High Vulcan linguistic roots and their manifestations in modern Vulcan and Romulan. And Uhura would be—
She wasn't, though. Jim's train of thought was temporarily derailed. "Mr. Spock, where's Lieutenant Uhura?"
"She went down to Recreation, Captain," Spock said. "I did not catch the entire conversation, but there was some communications problem to which she felt Mr. Freeman from Life Sciences had the answer."
"Fine. Where's the Commander?"
"I believe she is also down in Recreation, Captain.
Lieutenant Uhura requested the Commander's presence there shortly after she left."
Jim got up, stretched—and stopped the gesture abruptly; his neck muscles still ached from the backhand the Commander had given him. "All right, Mr. Spock, mind the store till I get back."
"Acknowledged," Spock said. He moved down to the center seat, and Kerasus and Aidoann moved with him, the analysis of Vulcan phonemes missing hardly a beat.
"Sickbay," Jim said to the lift, and off it went. He leaned against the wall, rubbing his neck.
There was something bothering him about this whole business. Not a feeling that Ael or her people might betray him—not that specifically. But the whole matter of where the Enterprise was, of both capture and escape being out of his hands … Out of his control. That was it.
The old problem, Jim thought, with some chagrin. He remembered all too vividly that little incident back on Triacus with Gorgan the soi-disant "Friendly Angel," in which that fear, his worst one, had been inflamed to paralyzing proportions. This isn't nearly that bad, he told himself severely. And I did choose to do this. It was my decision. But all the same, it had been Ael who came to him with the idea all ready-made; and even when he had been ready to refuse her, damned if circumstances didn't force him to accept her plan.
Circumstances. Very convenient circumstances, too …
Oh, stop that! That's paranoia!
Still, it was difficult not to be paranoid about this woman. A Romulan, to begin with … Well, that by itself wasn't reason to mistrust her. But she had admitted to Jim that she had rigged most of the circumstances that had brought the Enterprise here—even to the point of paying a considerable amount in bribes to have the information about "something going on in Romulan space" smuggled out to Starfleet Command, planted where they would hear it. She had angled specifically and with great precision for Enterprise to be sent here—and she had managed it. And now his Bridge was full of her officers, and his Rec deck was full of her crew … and his neck ached.
She had him right where she wanted him … wherever that was. It was the not knowing that made him crazy.
Loss of control …
The lift slid to a stop. Jim stalked out of its open doors and down the hall toward Sickbay, brooding. It might have been slightly easier to handle if the woman were at least likeable … if she weren't so relentlessly manipulative, as sharp and cold as the sword she had been admiring in Spock's quarters. If only she didn't constantly seem to be maneuvering events with the same cool virtuosity that Spock exhibited while maneuvering pieces in the chesscubic. Though not q
uite the same. Spock's terrible expertise was always tempered, at least with Jim, by that elusive, almost mischievous compassion.
Then again, he couldn't set aside that wicked, merry, understanding flash of Ael's eyes at him, just after he had punched her out. . . .
He breathed out in disgust, gave the problem up as something he couldn't do anything about but would be pleased to see ended, and swung into Sickbay. And there it all was again, for here was Ael's chief surgeon, t'Whatever-her-name-was, those Romulan words were pretty to hear but impossible to remember—with Lia Burke beside her, showing the Romulan woman how to use an anabolic protoplaser in regenerative mode. They were working on the Romulan's own arm, apparently removing and regenerating the tissue of an old scar a little bit at a time, so that the Romulan surgeon could get a feel for the instrument's settings. "No, watch that, you'll involve the fascia and get the cells all confused," Lia was saying, her dark curly head bent down close together with the Romulan's bronze-dark, straight-haired one. "Try it a little shallower. One millimeter is deep enough where the skin is this thin.—Good afternoon, Captain; how's the neck?"
"I have a pain in it," Jim said, thinking more of the figurative truth than of the literal one. "Where's Dr. McCoy?"