by Diane Duane
“So Sempach says, Doctor,” Spock said, “though it will be a few seconds yet before we have visual without magnification.” He stepped back to his scanner and looked down into it. “There are six Romulan vessels in system, IDs coming in now—” He broke off.
Jim turned around. “Something quite massive dropping out of warp,” Spock said. “Very close.”
The viewscreen blazed with rainbow light as a shining ovoid shape came plunging in along the vector Speedwell had used, bremsstrahlung fire sleeting and sheeting away from it, dying back to leave only the fierce sheen of RV’s light on what was now revealed as a great, sleek, egg-shaped hull. Behind Jim, McCoy’s hands tightened on the back of the center seat.
“What in Beelzebub’s name is that?” McCoy said.
The huge thing decelerated hard and fast, and seemingly without effort, slipping up to ride behind and above Speedwell and matching her speed and Enterprise’s perfectly. It was like being paced by a small moon. “That,” Jim said, “is the neutral vessel. The Lalairu ship.”
It filled the entire viewscreen in aft view; a massive and perfectly symmetrical “egg” of plasteel, which reflected the glare of RV Tri in some places and let it through, somewhat diminished, in others. “Look at the size of that thing!” McCoy said in a hushed voice. “I bet it gets to be neutral anywhere it wants. How many crew are in there?”
“I don’t know how many of them are crew as such,” Uhura said, “but there are about nine thousand entities aboard, of all kinds of species. Then again the Lalairu aren’t a single species, anyway, but a family…and by their standards, that’s probably not so much a ship as a city. It IDs itself as Mascrar.”
“I hope they do not expect us to take care of them if trouble breaks out,” Chekov muttered.
“On the contrary, Mr. Chekov,” Spock said, “the Lalairu are most likely more heavily armed than any of us, and ‘if trouble breaks out’ they will take whatever measures are necessary to see that it does not affect them.”
Mascrar continued to follow behind them, demure but impossible to ignore, and the Enterprise slipped in closer to where the other ships were awaiting her. Well this side of the asteroid belt, there were Lake Champlain and Hemalat hanging in the darkness, with Sempach and Nimrod decelerating to take a stand with them. And there, at a little distance, were the Romulan ships.
Jim got up from the center seat again and folded his arms, looking at them. “One quarter impulse, Mr. Sulu,” he said. “Bring us in to park with the others.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Is it just me,” McCoy said from behind him, “or do those ships look bigger than the ones we’ve seen before?”
“Some of them,” Jim said, “yes.” It looked to Jim as if someone in the Romulan space services had decided it was time to update their “signature” design somewhat. In the newer ships—replacements, Jim thought rather unrepentantly, for ones we blew up at Levaeri V—someone had taken the original flattish bird-of-prey design and decided to go for curves instead of angles. The curves drooped downward, as did the bows of the ships, giving them a look that still made you think of some big predatory bird, but one with a more lowering, dangerous quality to it. Jim smiled a little grimly. Whoever had been at work on these ships knew one of the rules of starship design: if you were designing warships as such, you should try to make them look to your enemy like something he or she would prefer not to tangle with. Worse, for someone who knew the old bird-of-prey designs, these suggested that the designers were hinting at some kind of secret—one that was not going to be in your best interests. And these were not merely takeoffs on Klingon ship design, either; this particular look bore a different kind of threat.
“Interesting,” Spock said. “This transitional design would seem to suggest that they too are experimenting with warp field augmentation…”
“Better than our newer ships, you think?” Jim said.
“It is difficult to tell at first glance,” Spock said. “Certainly we are meant to think so.” He was already stepping back to his scanner to get some readings. “But the hull design is suggestive…And here are the ship IDs for you, Captain. Gorget is that largest one, and its companion of the same class is Thraiset. The others are Saheh’lill, Greave, Pillion, and Hheirant.”
They were mostly new names to Jim. But a lot of the older Romulan ships with which he was familiar, ships with which he and Enterprise had skirmished in the past, were gone following the events of the last few months—the notable exception being Bloodwing.
Jim went back to the center seat and glanced at McCoy in passing. “Is this pre-meeting formal dress?” the doctor asked, rubbing his neck meditatively.
“Afraid so, Bones,” Jim said as he sat down again. “It’s the tight collars for both of us.”
“As long as it’s nothing tighter,” Bones said, looking at the Romulan ships with slight unease. “Though last time we met, they were more likely to shoot me than hang me, as I remember.”
“The Lalairu take their neutrality very seriously, Doctor,” Jim said. “If the Romulans tried to kill you, they’d almost immediately have cause to be extremely sorry.”
“Not half as sorry as I would be,” McCoy muttered.
Uhura looked up at that. “The city manager of Mascrar, the Laihe as it calls itself, would like to meet briefly with the Federation negotiating team and the captains of the on-site ships about an hour before the first informal meeting with the Romulans, Captain. Just to restate the conditions under which the negotiations are taking place and to clear up any last-minute difficulties.”
“That’s fine, Uhura,” said Jim. “Tell it we’ll be there.” He got up and headed for the lift. “I may as well go get changed.”
The Lalairu vessel turned out to be as spectacular inside as outside. Because of all the species that made up the Lalairu extended family, their architecture was a farrago of the styles and mannerisms of many worlds, sometimes bizarrely blended, sometimes welded into a surprisingly effective unity, considering the unlikeness, or unlikeliness, of the component parts when taken separately. The city inside the egg-shaped structure was arranged around a core “spindle” that ran from one end to the other of the ovoid, and buildings—spires and domes and arches of every shape and kind—were arranged right around that cylinder, so that the huge airy inside of the egg looked as if someone had stuffed a bottlebrush into it. Everything glittered with light, not just from RV Trianguli but from the interior lights inside the outer shell that came on to maintain minimum light levels for the parts of the city that were rotating into darkness.
The building where the captains and the Federation team were meeting was at the far end of one spindle, near the top of a spire that jutted from the end of it. As they materialized inside it, McCoy was muttering, “Don’t know how this thing stays where it is, Spock. You’d think it would have to be fastened somewhere.”
“Doubtless it is secured, Doctor,” Spock said, “but by inertial pressors and other such non-visible mechanisms. There are, after all, Hamalki among the Lalairu, not to mention Sulamids and members of other species that have great reputations as builders and engineers.” Jim glanced around him at the space in which they now stood—a circular room about fifty meters in diameter, completely surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows, and containing what seemed to be a small forest of trees reaching to within several meters of the ceiling, some twenty meters up. The ceiling proper glowed with warm, golden artificial light suggestive of a K- or G-type star. In the middle of the “forest” was a large, irregular circle of various kinds of comfortable seating, in muted colors. At the center of the circle stood the Laihe.
Jim made his way over to it with the other captains and their executive crew. The Laihe was a humanoid, though an unusual one—most likely a member of a species native to a low-gravity world, to judge by its extreme slenderness and its height, nearly three meters. Its skin was ebony black, its eyes and long shaggy mane of hair a gold that almost perfectly matched the color of the ce
iling light, and it was clothed in a coverall of some material that managed to look more like topaz-colored glass than anything else, transparent in some places and translucent in others, but not the usual ones. As the Federation group approached, it bowed to them, a graceful, curving gesture that took its head right down to the ground and up again to look at them with those golden eyes.
“Gentlebeings, you are welcome to the city Mascrar,” the Laihe said. “I am the city manager.”
“May we ask how we should properly address you?” said Commodore Danilov.
“We give up personal names during our term of office. Laihe is the only name I have right now—besides the ones people call me in the course of business.” The Laihe produced an expression which by hominid standards would pass for a smile, but was so edged with irony that Jim suspected that in emergencies it could be used to shave with. “In any case, I thank you for agreeing to meet with me before the main event begins. Will you all sit?”
Everyone sorted themselves out into the kind of seating that best fitted their physiology. “I just wanted to make sure that we had everyone’s understanding of the physical arrangements for the discussions,” the Laihe said, seating itself also. “For the time being we would ask your group of ships to stay on the opposite side of our city from the one where the Romulans are orbiting. There have occasionally been breakdowns in communication in such circumstances, and when discussions of such delicacy are in train, for the sake of our own reputation as facilitators, we prefer that the aggressor be easily determined from the start—by putting ourselves in the line of fire, and thereby ensuring we are best able to judge from which direction fire initially came.” It smiled that barbed smile again. “Naturally we will respond robustly to any such occurrence. I mention it merely in passing, since you obviously would not be the cause of such a situation.”
“Of course not,” Commodore Danilov said. Jim had to smile slightly, for he had a strong feeling that the Laihe had used exactly the same wording with the Romulans. “And we appreciate your willingness to assist both sides in this matter.”
“You are most welcome,” the Laihe said. “The formal discussions are scheduled to begin ten standard hours from now, in another part of this building, which is our ‘city hall.’ Coordinates will be provided for you, and we will pass a broadcast of the proceedings to each ship for dissemination to involved personnel. If the various captains will coordinate with our communications center and sort out the details, I would take it very kindly. Meanwhile, is there anything with which the city can assist you? Do you have everything you need to carry out your business here?”
There were murmurs of thanks and polite refusal from most of the captains. Jim glanced around and said, “Laihe, I would appreciate an exchange of ship’s libraries, if possible.”
“My pleasure,” the Laihe said. “There is no higher aspiration than the preservation and distribution of knowledge.” It smiled again, a less barbed look this time. “But then I am a Telkandai, and I would say that. I will gladly coordinate with your science officer in this matter.”
“Thank you, Laihe.”
“Is there anything else, gentlemen and ladies? No?” The Laihe rose again. “Then let us repair to the informal meeting. Your opposite numbers will be arriving there now. The transporter pads are over this way.”
It led them through several small spinneys of trees into a niche where a good-sized multiple transport pad was sited, and led the first group of Starfleet officers onto it. Jim hung back a little, letting them go with the Laihe, and as they shimmered away, Bones leaned a little closer to him and muttered, “Was that a warning, you think?”
“A tactful one, anyway,” Jim said. His mind was on something he had been reading the night before, and the warning struck him as unusually apropos. “They’re not a trigger-happy people, at any rate. I wouldn’t be overly worried, Bones. They’ve never been involved in the beginning of a war.”
“First time for everything,” McCoy muttered as they stepped up onto the pads themselves.
The shimmer took them out of the “forest” room and into a place where the lighting was dimmer, more subtle. Jim stepped down off the pads…and took a long breath.
The word room would have been a poor description for where they were now. The place stood at the top of the spire—the very top. It was surrounded by inward-leaning walls of something transparent—clearsteel, glass, or plex—from the floor to the spearing ceiling. The view beyond was of the stars and nothing else. The outer walls of the city-ship at this end had, for the moment at least, lost their reflective quality, and the stars showed through clearly. They circled around the cynosure of the peak-spire as if around a polestar. No matter how angry or nervous any being had been on entering that room, it had to stop and gaze up, and if it had so much as a breath of wonder in it, it would stop and let that breath out, for the view was dazzling.
Jim let his own breath out, very impressed indeed. Then he looked across the huge room and saw the Romulans there, waiting.
They were gathered fairly close together, as if trying to present a united front. Some of them were glaring at the Federation people; others looked nonchalant. Some were sneaking repeat glances at that amazing view. They were all splendidly dressed, some in formal robes and cloaks along vaguely Vulcan lines, others in the dark uniforms of the Romulan armed forces or space forces—tunics and breeches or skirts or kilts of various lengths, usually topped with diagonal or vertical sashes of subtly glittering colors. Jim knew enough about Rihannsu uniform conventions after consulting with Ael to realize that some of the people here were very senior indeed, in either the military or civilian mode. They were apparently intent on not insulting anyone by sending negotiators of inadequate rank.
“Buffet tables over there look pretty good,” McCoy said. “Do we have to wait for introductions or something?”
“I am sure the Laihe would have mentioned such a necessity,” Spock said. “I would guess you may by all means feel free to go indulge your appetites.”
Bones snorted. “Thanks a lot.” He paused, then smiled slightly. “Think I’ll mosey on over there and annoy a couple of people.”
“Oh?” Jim said. “Doctor, don’t get us off to a bad start here. Who did you have in mind?”
“See that tall lady in the dark robe with the green sash?” Jim nodded. The woman was easily one of the tallest members of the group of about twenty. She was striking, with high cheekbones and long, very dark red hair, and looked like a candidate for the recently vacated position of Wicked Witch of the West.
“The sash,” McCoy said, “is for a blood feud presently ongoing. With you, Jim. That’s the wife of Battlequeen’s late commander. A Praetor, and hence pretty much at the head of the line of people who wanted to see what color my liver was, a month or so ago. Hloal t’Illialhlae, her name is.”
Jim nodded. He remembered her from McCoy’s report, and now privately thought that he had not understated the woman’s potential dangerousness. It was always unwise to assume too much about facial expressions across hominid species, but humans and Rihannsu were alike enough in some regards that Jim was pretty sure t’Illialhlae did not have his best interests, or Enterprise’s, at heart. “If she hands me a drink,” he said softly, “I’ll let you scan it first.”
“I fear the Lalairu would not appreciate that, Captain,” Spock said. “They have guaranteed our safety while we are under their roof.”
“I’ll grant you, it’s some roof,” McCoy said, glancing up. “But all the same, I won’t let her serve the punch while I’m nearby. Speaking of which…”
He headed off across the room. Jim, for his own part, glanced around among the final group of Federation people arriving, and as Ambassador Fox headed past Jim toward the Romulan delegation, Jim suddenly caught sight in the ambassador’s group of a face he had been expecting to see, though he hadn’t been sure of exactly when. A small man with sandy hair and a wrinkled, genial face, wearing a beige and brown singlesuit that looked
as if it had been applied to him with a shovel, and carrying the unmistakable telltale of a big book under one arm. The sharp eyes in that face caught Jim’s and lit up.
“Sam!”
Samuel T. Cogley, Esquire, headed across the acreage of floor toward Jim, reached out, and shook him vigorously by the hand. “Been too damn long,” he said. “Too long by half. Hello there, Mr. Spock! Nice to see you. How are you, Jim?”
“Concerned by the circumstances and the surroundings,” Jim said as they walked off a little way, and he nodded for Spock to come with them, “but otherwise, fine. How’ve you been?”
“Oh, a little busy, working on this case,” said Cogley. “After all, asylum law was hardly a specialty for me. But it’s like anything else—you start getting interested, and then it’s too late…”
Jim chuckled. When it had become obvious how things were going, he had strongly suggested to Ael that she was going to need some form of help on the Federation side that did not have phasers attached to it. “Certainly,” she had said, “if you know someone who handles lost causes…” Jim had grinned and immediately sent off a message to the best handler of lost causes he knew.
Afterwards he’d gotten a sneaking feeling that Starfleet might have preferred some other defender at these proceedings, but there was nothing they could do about it when Sam Cogley volunteered his services. Merely knowing and having successfully defended James T. Kirk was not enough to disqualify a counselor who was known for many other successful if positively quirky defenses here and there in Federation space. In fact, there were certainly people in Fleet who would have taken Cogley’s involvement as a sign that the best had been done—was being done—for Ael, and they were perfectly willing to let him go ahead, since the chances were better than even that the best might not be good enough.
“Have you had a chance to look over the preliminary paperwork?” Jim said.