by Diane Duane
“Then war,” tr’Kiell said.
“They will have forced us to it,” said Urellh, in a tone meant to simulate regret. “We will have no choice but to do what is necessary to recover our property…and our honor. An evil chance, but some good will yet come of it. At best we will push them some ways back from the spaces they occupy on the other side of the Neutral Zone; there are some choice planets there. At worst we will do the Federation great and memorable damage along the border—destroying as many of the monitoring stations along the Zone as we can, and forcing them to spend vast sums restoring and restaffing them and installing new infrastructure.”
“Hurting not only them,” said tr’Kiell, “but various others who will realize that they have misperceived our weakness.”
“Oh yes,” said Urellh. “And meanwhile, in the first hours or days of that war, the first-in task force will locate the woman, whether she shelters behind the Federation’s kilts or not, and destroy her and the Sword both, if need be. They shall not have her, or it; and she shall not live to keep it in our despite. Better it should be destroyed than fall into alien hands…if indeed she is not more than half alien herself already, in heart. Likely enough, bearing in mind who bore her company at Levaeri V.”
“And while we resolve the issue that started the war,” said tr’Anierh, “the war itself will yield its own rewards….”
“Perhaps more than anyone expects,” Urellh said. “Ahrm’n, have you ever had an infestation of ehlfa?”
Tr’Kiell blinked. “I have little leisure to notice such things. If ehlfa should become a problem around my property, I would have the hru’hfe of my house call the exterminator.”
“Ah, but if you watched the exterminator, you would see something worth your while. He puts down bait and tempts the creatures to leave their nest. Out they march in their little columns. They find the prize. They tell each other the news with their body chemistry. Wholesale they race to the bait, falling upon it, busying themselves with worrying it into little pieces to take to their home. And while they do so, the exterminator comes to their home, all empty but for the king-ehlfa and his courtiers, and burns it. With their home destroyed, their king murdered, nowhere to go, the ehlfa are left distraught and witless; they wander away in every direction, and are eaten by predators, and the infestation is shortly merely a memory….”
Urellh smiled. It was not a smile that tr’Anierh would have liked to have turned on him. “You are very bold,” he said softly, “to speak of this under the open sky.”
“In this company the news is safe,” Urellh said. “But no other. After the way Sunseed was betrayed, and the DNA acquisition project with it, some harsh lessons about the need to know have been learned. Not least by me.” He got a grim look.
“Can you actually be telling us,” said tr’Kiell, “that the package is ready?”
“Nearly,” said Urellh.
It was this news that tr’Anierh had hoped against hope to hear…even though it also frightened him. “So you are now suggesting,” tr’Kiell said, “that we could seriously contemplate its delivery to one of the possible recipients…”
“Or the other,” Urellh said. “It is a matter of seeing which homeworld would be the most likely to endure such a delivery with most of its assets intact. If the answer is similar in both cases…well, let both systems receive such a gift…. But for now there is only one package. The single prototype has not been tested, but testing it would reveal its provenance, and alert our enemies to a need to protect against it. So its first test must be its first use.”
Tr’Anierh actually shivered, hoping that neither of the others saw. “So many billions of lives…” he said. “Even against them… even if it is only used against the Federation, Urellh, there will be questions among our own people. What do we say to them, afterward, when they come to us and ask us about the billions?…”
Urellh gave him a bland look. “A thousand dead,” he said, “are a tragedy—a thousand million, merely a statistic. And anyway…they are only aliens. What about our people, and their welfare? Think of how it could be for the Two Worlds and the client planets, to live in a universe where there was no Federation…no Klingon Empire…not anymore. No more striving to keep every ell of space or every Elements-forsaken dustbowl of a planet on which some few pitiful scraps of food can be grown. Freedom to be what we are, no longer fenced in, hemmed in, oppressed. Freedom to grow, to extend our boundaries and our culture right through the galaxy, taking what is ours to take…”
“Freedom,” tr’Kiell said softly. “It is a noble dream.”
“Freedom,” said tr’Anierh, and for the moment said nothing else.
“What time does the Senate meet tomorrow?” said tr’Kiell.
“Eighth hour,” said Urellh. “I will stand and propose the diplomatic mission at the ninth hour. All the important personnel are selected; all that remains is to have the Senate come to believe it has selected them, and then approve the assignment of ships in the usual way. They can be on their way by the threeday’s end.”
“Until tomorrow morning, then,” said tr’Kiell, and saluted them both, and went on his way down the steps.
They watched him go, making his way down across the plaza and into the street leading to emn’Thaiven, the wide pale-paved Avenue of Processions. “There,” said Urellh, “we shall lead the traitress to her death in chains, in not too long a time. And afterward we shall set about putting things right; mending the world, the Worlds, to be as they should have been long ago.”
Tr’Anierh nodded, still saying nothing for the moment. The thought was in his mind: What in the names of Fire and Air has come to this man, that he speaks so openly? As if he had nothing whatever to fear from anyone?
He glanced over to find Urellh looking at him: a casual look on the surface, but there was no missing the assessment in it. “I must go,” Urellh said then. “Honor to the Empire, confederate.”
“Honor,” said tr’Anierh to Urellh’s back, as he swung away and went down the steps in tr’Kiell’s wake. Discreetly, from off to one side, Urellh’s personal secretary came down along the steps to meet his master and began to speak to him, head down, as they went.
Eveh tr’Anierh watched them out of sight. He was filled with fear, but he dared not show it. We are all riding the daishelt together now, he thought. No choice but to hang on tight to the horns, lest we slip back to where the claws can rend us….
He turned at last and went back up into the shattered building, to meet his own secretary and arrange matters surrounding the speech in the Senate tomorrow. There were some other messages to be sent now, as well. Eveh started composing the first one as he passed through the clear sheets that hung where the bronze doors should have; and in that hot wind that ran down the streets between the tall graceful buildings of the presidium, the sheets whispered together, saying aish, again and again, aish: the word for war….
James T. Kirk finished rereading the report that had been appended to his most recent orders on the viewer in his quarters, and let out a long breath. For the better part of a month and a half now, he had been wondering, as he occasionally had before: Where is Bloodwing?…Now he thought he understood why she had made herself more than usually scarce. But that’s about to change.
“It’s happening,” Jim said, “at last.”
He looked up from the viewer in his quarters at McCoy and Spock. Spock was wearing that look of complete calm that only a Vulcan could assume; but Jim knew what was underneath it…or at least he had strong suspicions. McCoy was frowning, but then he had been frowning a lot since he came home from his last leave, a “vacation trip” that had wound up taking him a good deal further away from home than many people would have initially expected.
“The orders,” Spock said, “are, on the surface, routine.”
“As if any orders containing the words ‘Romulan Neutral Zone’ are routine,” McCoy said. “Now or ever, but especially now.”
“But the orders contain
no such phrasing, Doctor,” Spock said. “They refer only to the space around 15 Trianguli…”
“You know as well as I do, Mr. Spock, that any space in the direction of Triangulum and further away from Earth than about fifteen hundred light-years is hotter than the insides of a warp containment vessel,” McCoy said, “and about as safe, at the moment. 15 Tri is plenty close enough to the Zone to provoke interest in some quarters.”
“Those ‘quarters’ being the Senate and the Praetorate,” Jim said, leaning back in his chair. “Who it seems, after the events of the last month and a half, are ready to start some serious shin-kicking.”
He looked over at Spock with some concern. “The moment we start moving at all directly toward that space,” he said, “word will get to the Romulans, either via moles in Starfleet or other intelligence sources here and there. And our movement will be taken as an excuse to start things rolling.”
“Your analysis is likely to be correct, Captain,” said Spock. “But the orders seem clear.”
“Everything about them is clear except the time frame,” Jim said. “They haven’t come right out and told me ‘Head in that direction but take your time about it,’ but that’s what the instruction factors down to. So I’ll take the time.” He thought for a moment. “Scotty has been complaining about some adjustments he wants to make to the warp engines’ matter-antimatter annihilation ratios: I intend to proceed at a leisurely enough pace to let him do that. At the same time, I know why they’re sending us to the neighborhood of 15 Tri. We are intended to meet a ship, quietly, out in the system’s fringes, to discuss a few things with its commander.”
“And while we’re doing that,” McCoy said, “I have this feeling a few other ships may drop by to chat about this and that. All very informally, of course.”
“Of course,” Jim said. “But the Triangulum area being as lively as you say, Bones, I think we may dodge over in the direction of alpha Arietis first…bearing in mind that we also still have a technological problem that we haven’t yet figured out what to do with.”
“Sunseed,” Spock said, somber.
“The trouble with technology,” McCoy muttered, “is that you can’t stick it back in the damn bottle once it gets out.”
“Any technology that allows a ship on the fly to create ion storms on demand,” Jim said, “is too damn nasty to let out into the world. But here we are, stuck sitting on the thing. The Romulans would have used it as a weapon—did use it—which was bad enough. We took it from them lock, stock, and barrel, which was something of an accomplishment…but since we’re certainly not going to use it, we need to find a way to make it unusable before it leaks out somehow…which it is eventually bound to, no matter how closely Fleet tries to guard it.” He folded his arms. “Scotty has a few ideas on the subject, but he says he could use some assistance at the theoretical end. So we’ll go get him some.” Jim looked at Spock. “Estimate of total time?”
“Four days and fourteen hours to alpha Arietis at warp six,” Spock said, “from our present position. Then five days, twenty hours at the same speed to the neighborhood of 15 Trianguli.”
Jim nodded. “See to it, Mr. Spock.”
“Captain,” Spock said, and went out. The door shut behind him.
McCoy paused. “There was,” McCoy said, “something else.”
Jim put his eyebrows up, trying to look surprised. “There was?”
“Jim,” McCoy said, “this is no time to start trying to play the wide-eyed innocent with me. You should have started years ago, or not bothered at all. Now, I’m not going to ask for details about the sealed portion of these orders…”
Jim’s mouth quirked into half a smile.
“But I wouldn’t mind knowing,” McCoy said, “whether I should start actively preparing myself to meet my Maker. Again.”
“I’d have thought that after your little holiday on ch’Rihan,” Jim said, “you’d be all caught up in that regard.”
McCoy gave him a dry look. “And whether our own side is as likely to wind up shooting at us as the other one. Or other ones.”
There it was: the same concern that had been riding Jim for the past few hours, while he digested the content of the orders he’d received—both the parts that he could disclose to his crew, and the parts that he could not—and started to game out the way he thought things might go in the next month or so. “Bones,” he said, “believe me, I’m going to be doing my best to keep matters straightforward. One side shooting at us at once is more than enough for me. But things can change fast sometimes…so you’d better fasten down anything that’s loose in sickbay. And keep a chair ready for me when I need to come to talk.”
“I’ll take care of it,” McCoy said, and went out.
The door hissed shut behind him. Jim sat down behind his desk again and leaned back in the chair once more. He held that position for a good while, his eyes resting on nothing in particular. Then he reached out to the computer console on his desk. “Computer.”
“Working.”
“Record a message and seal under my voiceprint.”
“Recording.”
“Latest communication received here confirms our last joint discussion on strategy. Meet us as previously arranged.” He thought of signing it “Jim,” but encryption was such a fragile and ephemeral art these days; the security of the message could not be absolutely guaranteed, and there was too much to lose should it be broken. Besides, he could just hear the laughter at the other end when the receiving party heard the signature.
“Code and send,” Jim said.
“Working. Sent.”
He hit the comm button again. “Bridge. Lieutenant Commander Uhura.”
“Uhura here, Captain.”
“I just routed a message to your system. What’s the subspace transit time?”
There was a moment’s silence. “Judging from the relay address in that message’s ‘capsule,’ I’d say fifteen hours.”
“Thank you, Commander. Mr. Sulu?”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Lay in a course to alpha Arietis, warp five, and execute immediately.”
“Aye, sir.”
“And Mr. Sulu—do you have a ‘tank’ session scheduled in recreation this evening?”
Sulu chuckled, very low. “Yes, Captain. We’re finishing up a round of tournament play.”
“Maybe I’ll stop by,” Jim said. “Kirk out.”
He switched his viewer to show the bridge screen’s view as Enterprise made her change of course, a big wide swing to the galactic “southward,” and added a warp factor or two, the blue-shifted stars pouring past her like so many burning arrows in the night.
I’d hoped I was wrong when I saw this coming, he thought. But I was right.
I just hope the trend holds. Otherwise…
He killed the external image and went back to studying his orders…looking for the loophole that would let them all survive.
Chapter Two
They came out of warp a scant light-week from Orundwiir, or alpha Arietis as the Federation stellar cartographers called it; a great blaze of a star, even at this distance, burning dazzlingly orange-golden in the long cold night. Bloodwing went sublight with all her weapons hot and her sensors stretched out to their utmost…and found no one there waiting for them.
Khiy looked up from his post at the steersman’s console. “Should we decloak, llhei?”
“No, not yet,” Ael said softly. “Let us wait our time.”
Her people kept their eyes on their instruments, saying nothing for the moment, and Ael watched the screen, sitting in her hard straight command chair, and said nothing.
“They’re late,” said t’Hrienteh, in slight amusement.
Ael looked over her shoulder at the ship’s chief surgeon, who had been doing part-time duty on scan and comm for some time now while training the ship’s last remaining junior officer in the position. “Possibly our time-ticks are out of synchronization,” Ael said. “It would not surprise me; the
computers have been through so much tinkering recently, and tr’Keirianh has not had time or leisure to look over all our shoulders and supervise as he would like to…”
“You mean constantly,” t’Hrienteh said. “Fortunately, the master engineer must sleep sometimes.” Her tone was wry. “But I very much doubt anything is really wrong with the computers, khre’Riov.”
In reality Ael agreed with her. What she would not voice was her concern, even after so much evidence to the contrary, that something might yet go wrong with her dealings with the Federation, now that matters were becoming genuinely crucial.
Ael stretched herself a little in the command chair, gazing at the screen and admiring the giant midsequence star centered in it. Even away out here the brazen-golden fire of it was extraordinary, like Eisn but easily thirty times the hearthstar’s size. No one else was paying the great burning monster much mind, though. She glanced around her at the familiar faces, all bent to their work at the moment. There were different familiar faces on her bridge than had previously been here, for Bloodwing had lost about a third of her crew component during the operation at Levaeri V, either in battle on the station itself or on Enterprise owing to her son’s final treachery, and it would now be impossible to recruit replacements. And will it indeed ever be possible? Ael thought. For there would always be the chance that any new crew picked up in passing would actually be an agent in the service of the intelligence agencies based on ch’Rihan, intent on Bloodwing’s destruction, perhaps even to the point of suicide. No, she thought, for the time being we must just scrape along as best we can….
“Incoming vessel,” t’Hrienteh said, and Ael glanced up. “Just dropped out of warp; subluminal now and decelerating fast.”
“On screen—”
The view changed, losing that burning core. Instead, a faint golden spark reflecting Orundwiir’s fierce orange light came coasting in toward them, the glow growing swiftly brighter as she came. Ael sat there and mused briefly over the numerous conflicting feelings that accompanied the sight of Enterprise, all gilt with the system primary’s fire, approaching with her screens down, graceful, massive and—in these spaces—massively unconcerned. How many times over all the years before Levaeri V did I wish much to see this sight, she thought, and to be lying nearby, cloaked, with weapons ready. And now the wish comes true. But how circumstances change with time, and how little satisfaction our wishes bring us once fulfilled! Yet another of the Elements’ small jokes with us…and if we are wise, we laugh.