by Diane Duane
Llhran looked at her, then at Nveid. “Servants have better manners where I come from,” he said pointedly, and Arrhae blushed.
“Sir, I doubt that servants are so frightened where you come from,” she said, and ushered the pair indoors before either man could think of a suitably cutting response. “If you would follow me, I shall take you to Mak’khoi. And then I have work of my own that needs attention. Evidently”—and she watched Nveid carefully—“the Senatorial Judiciary have decided that their prisoner would feel more comfortable with a familiar face beside him—so before we go to the trial in Ra’tleihfi I must deal with everything that won’t be done while I’m away….”
“You are going to the capital?” Llhran clearly didn’t believe what he was hearing. “A servant?”
“Hru’hfe of an old House, Llhe’,” Nveid said. “Different places, different customs. She’s rather more than just ‘a servant.’”
“Oh.” He didn’t sound convinced.
Not that Arrhae was concerned; she was past worrying about anybody’s opinions other than McCoy’s and her own. “In here,” she said. “That is, if he isn’t in the garden”—and she smiled—“communing with nature….”
McCoy wasn’t, although he probably wished that he were. Instead, he was sitting with his head in his hands, mumbling legal phrases and looking very like a man with a sore head. Which was entirely accurate. Right now, never mind all his other troubles, what Leonard McCoy wanted in all the world was a twenty-mil ampule of Aerosal and a spray hypo. Dammit, he’d settle for three aspirin and a glass of water. He looked at his visitors without much interest, automatically registering their body language—both of them were extremely apprehensive about something or other, and trying not to show it, and the man in uniform had the air of someone whose opinions had been gently but firmly squelched—before turning his attention to their faces. Young faces, closed and wary, but inquisitive for all that. He summoned up a smile and nodded to them, began to shut down the reader’s input-output systems, shutting down his own “onboard” circuitry as he did so. At least that was getting easier. McCoy added the last data-solid to the stack that already filled his little table to overflowing, and wondered if the two Romulans had ever seen a Terran face before. He doubted it.
Arrhae introduced them to him as if to her lord, then made herself scarce and closed the door as she went out. McCoy wondered who had been giving her a hard time, and put his money on the centurion. That young man didn’t have the hardness of another tr’Annhwi, but there was a determination about him that suggested he wasn’t open for any sort of nonsense from his subordinates. The sort of mindset that would have put a lad who looked about eighteen into a senior centurion’s uniform. Or maybe he was just somebody’s sister’s kid….
“I recognize your House-names,” McCoy said, switching on the boxy Romulan-issue translator and trying to find somewhere to set it down. It balanced rather precariously on top of the smallest heap of computer junk, and he cocked a wary eye at it before he let it go. “Your kin on Bloodwing were in good health last time I saw them. Take a seat, both of you—if you can find one.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” said Nveid, offering him the ghost of a bow. Llhran began to salute, thought better of it in the presence of an enemy officer, and nodded his head fractionally instead. Once they were both seated side by side on the bed, very straight-backed and looking far from comfortable, Nveid cleared his throat significantly. It amused McCoy to find that sound used in exactly the same way it was back home. “Sir,” the Romulan began, “did the hru’hfe tell you that I spoke with her in i’Ramnau yesterday?”
McCoy shook his head. “The hru’hfe regards me as an unnecessary disturbance of the peace in this household. She’ll be glad to see me gone.”
Nveid frowned and muttered something to Llhran. Though he spoke too softly for either the translator or McCoy’s ears to catch the words, his tone sounded irritable. Good, McCoy thought with a touch of satisfaction, that should give Terise a bit more cover.
“What was the subject of the conversation?” asked McCoy, wondering if this was what Arrhae meant about him becoming overly popular, and whether that was a good or a bad thing. Nveid cleared his throat again, a mannerism that McCoy decided was mostly nervousness, mixed with just a bit of affectation.
“You were.”
“Oh? In what sense? Good, bad, or indifferent?”
“You may find it good, I trust.” Nveid took a long breath and glanced at Llhran tr’Khnialmnae, who nodded quickly. “Sir, there are many Houses on ch’Rihan who…”
“…and both duty and the obligations of honor therefore require that we do other than stand by while you are condemned and killed.”
“And what form would this ‘other’ take, Nveid tr’AAnikh?”
“We would endeavor to help you escape from ch’Rihan and from Imperial space, and return you across the Neutral Zone to your own people. The starliner Vega was released yesterday, after repairs to her hull were completed, and…well, we have supporters everywhere, those of us who have no love for the pirates who would try to run this Empire as the accursed Klingons run theirs. Several of our people are seeded among the traffic-control nets.” McCoy grinned suddenly. “They ‘acquired’ all of this tenday’s access codes for the inner-system approaches.”
“Even through the planetary defenses?” said McCoy, grinning even harder.
“Of course—all of the weapon-platforms run by automatics anyway.”
“Then bear it in mind for later.”
“Later…?”
“Yes. After I’ve been to the Senate Chambers and had a chance to study how the Praetorate runs this particular show.”
“Study them?” Llhran was halfway to his feet, shocked out of his military composure by McCoy’s declaration. “Doctor, they want you dead. Get out while you can!”
“Calmly, son, calmly. I know what I’m doing, and I’ve got my orders to back them up. Standard procedure: if a suitably qualified officer is in a position to obtain new social understanding of another intelligent people, it is incumbent upon him to gather such information as he deems useful to that end. Failing to comply, Centurion tr’Khnialmnae, would place my honor as a Starfleet officer in jeopardy, instead of just my life.”
“Ah.” Llhran subsided, understanding that particular argument as he might not have understood something with no parallel among the Rihannsu. Personal honor, especially among military personnel from the noble Houses, was a currency more widely used than any other.
“So what can we do to help you, Doctor?”
McCoy smiled a little to himself at Nveid’s eagerness to do anything at all, and do it at once. There was something about the young Romulan’s earnest enthusiasm that reminded him of Naraht when the Horta was a newly graduated ensign. When he had referred to the youngster as a “space cadet” he hadn’t been making fun. Nveid tr’AAnikh was a little like that except that he was a Romulan and therefore most likely susceptible to the use of violence in discussion. Any people that used suicide, whether genuine or enforced, as an instrument of political policy could aspire only to benevolence on their better days, and on most of the other days needed watching.
“Try this,” he said, choosing his words with care. “If your traffic-control system is anything like ours, there’ll be regular tests of the communications network—so have one of your people transmit a test signal of a standard geometric progression based on the first three prime numbers.” McCoy closed his eyes briefly and when they opened again they were staring intently at something only he could see. “Exactly one standard Romulan day after that, send a tight-beam tachyon squirt on a decohesive packet frequency of 5-18-54 to coordinates GalLat 177D48.210M, GalLong +6D 14.335M, DistArbGalCore 24015 L.Y. No repetition, no acknowledgment. That should do it.”
When his eyes slid back into focus, they met the suspicious stares of two Romulans who were plainly beginning to wonder whether the requirements of honor weren’t getting them into something more t
han they had bargained for. “Doctor,” said Llhran, speaking, McCoy guessed, with the full weight of his centurionate training behind him, “what will receive that signal?”
“Not an invasion force, Centurion. A single ship, and not even a Federation warship at that.”
“But cloaked with the device stolen from us by your Captain Kirk.”
“Ah, well. That’s history, isn’t it? Anyway, the ship’ll come in, pluck me from the very jaws of imminent dissolution, and whisk me away before the Imperial fleet is any the wiser.”
“So you say. Can we trust you?”
“Or I you?” McCoy’s shoulders lifted in a dismissive shrug. “‘Trust’ isn’t a word much used between the Federation and the Imperium. I think starting to use it is long overdue. Instead of taking the chance you offer me now, I’ll do what honor dictates and trust that when I’m on trial, you’ll have done your part to get me safely away. If you don’t trust me after I trust you, then I’ll die—I presume unpleasantly—and where does that leave the mnhei’sahe you mentioned so often?”
He sat back while the two Romulans muttered softly to each other, not trying to overhear what they said since he would be told their verdict soon enough. His hands were sweating. Not unusual. They sweated before he undertook any sort of surgery, and this excision of mistrust was one of the hardest operations he had ever performed.
Nveid and Llhran came out of their huddle, and McCoy was startled to see how much color both men had lost. Putting their own lives on the line was evidently one thing, but making a decision that might well be laying their homeworld open to attack was another matter entirely. “Very well, Dr. McCoy,” said Nveid. “Trust it shall be. If anything goes wrong, then Elements all witness that we acted as we thought best for all, now and in the future.”
“Come along, Doctor,” said Commander t’Radaik. “You have had quite enough time to set your affairs here in order.” She stood in the doorway of his room with armed and helmeted guards at her back and watched as McCoy bundled the few possessions he had accumulated into a grab-bag.
Enough time? he thought, nervous even though he hoped it wouldn’t show. No. There’s never anything like enough, not when there’s a trial and an execution in the offing. He was determined, however, not to resort to the black humor that was such a cliché on occasions like this. Granted that few of his psych patients had ever been in the gallows situation for real, but—
“Doctor…”
Now, that was the voice of a Romulan Intelligence officer whose patience was finally at an end. McCoy glanced quickly around the room, hoping that he had overlooked nothing of importance, then lifted his small bagful of property and took the first step of the last mile.
It was rather farther than a mile, and he wasn’t going to be walking it. The Senate Chambers in Ra’tleihfi were more than three hundred kilometers due north of H’daen’s mansion, an hour’s ride in an ordinary flitter, rather longer in the heavy military vehicle squatting like a gray-armored toad in front of the house.
Arrhae was standing beside it, looking ill at ease in the company of so many soldiers, and McCoy managed to summon up a smile for her especial benefit. The expression she gave back might have been a smile—it might equally have been the facial spasm of someone with indigestion.
“In,” ordered t’Radaik. They got in, surrounded by disruptor-armed guards; there wasn’t a lot of choice in the matter. McCoy looked back toward the house and saw H’daen tr’Khellian watching them. The man looked as uneasy as both of them, and McCoy thought about what H’daen had said five nights before. Something about this not being the way Romulan law should be interpreted. Well, just recently he had read enough of that same law to know that H’daen was being optimistic. Trials weren’t a nice, civilized judge and jury, with mannered arguments and reasoning from defense and prosecution, even in cases where the verdict and sentence hadn’t already been settled well in advance. The onus of proof was on the accused rather than on the accuser. “Guilty until proven innocent,” and God help you if the court decided that all they needed was a confession. Romulan judiciary inquisitors were supposedly so skillful that they could not only get blood out of the proverbial stone, they could also force the stone to admit that it was spying for the Federation.
McCoy thought of Naraht, young Lieutenant Rock, and put that line of reasoning as far out of his mind as it would go….
The flitter’s rearmost hatch rose with a hiss and whine of heavy-gauge hydraulics, settling into its hermetic slots and shutting off all light until the vehicle’s internal systems were switched on from the control compartment. After that it was only a matter of minutes before the flitter rumbled into the air and whisked off north toward Ra’tleihfi. Toward the Senate, and the Praetorate, and those scenic execution pits that Arrhae had mentioned.
Arrhae leaned over him, offering a small flask that by the scent contained good-quality wine. “Naraht?” With an appropriate lifting of the flask, she made the word sound like an invitation to take a drink.
McCoy accepted, taking a single careful swig of the liquor before handing it back. “Later,” he said. “In the city. When I really need it.” He hoped that the Horta could burrow to Ra’tleihfi as fast as Naraht had claimed he could, homing on the logic-solid buried in McCoy’s brain. Between Naraht and the as yet unconfirmed rescue ship all using him as a beacon, and Intelligence using him as an ambulatory information-gathering system, what McCoy most looked forward to about completing this mission and getting home safe was to lie down on a nice friendly neurosurgery table and let Johnny Russell take the hardware out of his head. Of course, if things went wrong, some Romulan would take it out—but McCoy doubted he would appreciate that surgery quite as much.
The four Romulan guards glanced at their charges, shrugged expressively, and since nobody was offering wine their way, they resorted instead to the ale-and-water mixture in their issue canteens.
The flitter reached Ra’tleihfi before noon, traveling through the high-level zones reserved for priority traffic. Even with the starships back on maneuvers in his stomach, McCoy had enough curiosity to open the shielding on one of the armored viewports and peer out at the Rihannsu capital city nearly a mile below. It was smaller than he had imagined; at the back of his mind had been an image of something like L.A.Plex, a sprawling metropolis that went on for miles. Instead, he saw a place that was more like New York Old City: clustered spikes of tall buildings crammed together into the smallest groundspace possible, all steel and glass and plastic, a strangely pleasing hybrid that was hi-tech out of Art Deco and a style of classic severity like that of the antique Doric order.
Scattered here and there among the towering crystalline columns were buildings antique in their own right, rather than through any similarity to an Old-Earth school of architecture. McCoy knew, because Arrhae had told him, that the Senate Chamber and the Praetorate building had both been dedicated directly following the tyranny of the Ruling Queen. That meant they had been standing in the same place, and had been in continuous turbulent use for more than a millennium. No building now standing on Earth could boast such a history.
The flitter settled ponderously into a reinforced bay at the rear of the Senate Chamber, crouched buglike on its landers for a few seconds, then slid underground. If the procedure was meant to unsettle prisoners, it worked. For prisoners who were unsettled already, it worked even better.
“Leonard Edward McCoy.” The Judiciary Praetor read his name with a passable Anglish pronunciation. McCoy watched her and wondered why every courtroom charge-sheet across the galaxy managed to look like every other charge-sheet, no matter how much they differed in form and style and material. The Praetor was reciting biographical information about the soon-to-be-accused, in considerable—and accurate—detail. McCoy wondered how many of the personnel at Starfleet Command were Romulan and Klingon equivalents of Arrhae/Terise.
He looked down at his wrists, snugged close together by a fine silk ribbon. It looked like no more than a token
binder, more symbolic of his position in this court than of any practical use. Except that he had seen how it had been heat-sealed, not the band of gray silk, but the monofilament running through the center of its weave. Token binding indeed. Honorable if honorably worn, the security chief had said as it was put on. Don’t test it and it won’t hurt you. Pull, and… He hadn’t bothered to say, but McCoy knew quite well enough without explanations. Any pressure on a strand one molecule thick—far too fine for the naked eye to see—would insinuate it between any other molecules it came in contact with. Pull, and both your hands fall off.
“Charges,” said the Praetor, her voice echoing through the marble chamber that had heard the same word God—or the Elements—alone knew how many times since it was built. With the marble floor that was so easily washed clean…McCoy began to pay attention, more through curiosity than real interest.
“Espionage. Sabotage. Conspiracy. Aiding and abetting the theft of military secrets. Damage to Imperial installations. Complicity in the impersonation of a Rihannsu officer. Actions prejudicial to the security of the Imperium and the public good. The sentence of this tribunal, duly considering all evidence laid before it, is that the prisoner is guilty of all charges and shall die by the penalty prescribed….”
Chapter Fourteen
McCoy swallowed. Anticipating something like this, no matter how accurate that anticipation might have been, hadn’t really prepared him for hearing his own sentence of death read out in open court. For maybe fifteen seconds he sat there sweating, with his guts in an upheaval that reminded him with acidic immediacy that he hadn’t eaten so far today. And then the feeling went away as a twinge of discomfort shot through a very certain filling in his rearmost right molar.
Phantom pain was one thing, tracking-sensor feedback was quite another. His equanimity reasserted itself somewhat. You’re the one with the stacked deck, he thought, don’t panic now. Besides, we all die sooner or later…. Not that he would not rather put off the “evil day.” He wiped his hands briskly on his pants legs, squelched the highly inappropriate smug smile that was threatening to take over his face, and got to his feet. Immediately he was the focus of attention, and the aiming-point for the phasers which by rights his guards were not supposed to carry within the Senate Chamber lest they dishonor the Sword in the Empty Chair. McCoy looked at them, and at the leveled weapons, then dismissed them all with a lift of disdainful eyebrows, and turned his attention to other matters. “Ladies and gentlemen—”