Chapter Eight

“MRS. KHANTY … YOU SENT FOR ME.”

“Worf. Yes, I sent for you. One moment, please … all right, now … you were the one who kept the freighter from being captured by Starfleet.”

“How do you know?”

“I know. Why did you do that?”

“Because … I would rather not specify.”

The private office smelled of the wood fire burning at the other end of the room. Wood fires were popular on Sindikash, though unnecessary as of fifty or so years ago. Worf stood before Odette Khanty, who sat passively behind her carved 18th century barrister’s desk. He felt strangely small. Somehow the comforting smells and old-fashioned decor made him aware of how out of place he was. Every fiber of the carpet was another twist in the tightrope he walked.

She was wearing a thick velvet robe of some kind with brocade sleeves and a satin collar, posing Worf with an image of casual royalty. The robe must have possessed some kind of sentimental value, for the end of one sleeve was a bit frayed and no one had repaired it.

Worf was in privileged quarters here, for he was upstairs from the governor’s recovery suite, and no one—no one— came up here without personal and confirmed request by Mrs. Khanty and without jumping four or five hoops of security clearance. The fact that he was here, without any other guards, came as a message to him, direct from her.

“Then I’ll specify for you,” the woman said steadily, unintimidated by his presence or his size. “Because Ugulan and the other Rogues were going to let themselves be captured instead of destroying themselves as they swore to me they would. You didn’t want to be captured. But you also didn’t want to die. Isn’t that right?”

“True.” Straightening his back, Worf looked over Mrs. Khanty’s head at the sculpture of a hawk on a wall shelf and allowed himself to be honest for one flashing second. “I am not a man who will die easily.”

The governor’s wife leaned back in her chair, which with its drape of embroidered fabric looked more like a throne— and she knew that. Her neatly done hair fingered her shoulders. Her cheekbones caught the pale light.

“But you didn’t let yourself be captured either,” she said.

At her candid tone, Worf relaxed his stance and looked her in the eyes. For the first time, he felt as if he could speak as something of an equal.

“That would have been bad for both of us, Mrs. Khanty,” he said. “I am absent without leave from Starfleet, and you …”

He deliberately paused, but continued sparring with that firm gaze. He told her with that gaze that he knew what she was.

“Yes,” she murmured. “This was my chance to suck twenty percentage points away from the lieutenant governor. I could’ve handily won the election. Now, it’ll be close. I don’t like ‘close.’ I’m down to three days now. What can I do in three days? Do you know what will happen to you and all the Rogues if I lose?”

Several possible answers of varied degrees of intensity ran through his mind. Finally he plucked one. “The lieutenant governor will take action against us.”

Mrs. Khanty did not smile, nor did she in any way offer tacit approval.

“No,” she said. “I will.”

He stood before her in the amber aura of the imitation gaslights that pervaded the compound, and said nothing.

“I have an assignment for you,” she went on, “which is going to put you over the line into my complete trust. The Rogues have to pay for their cowardice.”

Worf frowned in protest, abruptly defensive about Klingons and cowardice fielding the same sentence. Right through his sudden distaste at defending the Rogues, he said, “It was not their fault that the Starfleet scout picked up the freighter.”

“Not that part,” Mrs. Khanty agreed. “It’s this other part. We had a pact. They swear allegiance to me, stay on my planet, enjoy expatriate status here, be my elite guard, gain influence and power, and in return they swore they would self-immolate before letting themselves be caught, which would cast me under suspicion. They didn’t hold up to that pact. They understand there’s a price. They will have to pay it. I want you to be the collector.”

The heat from a burning log snapping in the fireplace pressed against the back of Worf’s neck. Mrs. Khanty was completely unreadable. There was no inflection in her words, no evil gleam in her eye, no conniving enjoyment, no sultry threat. She might as well have been speaking to a chef while arranging a banquet menu.

“Choose any one of them. Make sure you don’t leave any flotsam,” she added, without waiting for him to accept the assignment. “I can’t have this kind of thing happening again.”

She paused then, and folded her hands on her lap, and crossed her legs. And waited.

He stood before her and simply could not think of a single thing to say. How did one accept a job to kill someone else just to make a point?

Since he first heard Commissioner Toledano’s claim that Klingons had inflicted torture and callous murder, he had wanted to kill. His gut had churned since that moment until this moment, and now he felt as if his innards had been pulled out. He was being handed a chance to kill a dishonorable Klingon. He could do it in the line of duty. He could do it …

“One question,” Worf said. “You have not asked me for my oath of allegiance. May I ask why?”

“Because I wouldn’t get it, would I?”

“No.”

Mrs. Khanty was evidently not interested in his oath or too used to no one’s ever defying her. She seemed perfectly comfortable with the situation.

She nodded, once.

“With or without an oath, don’t betray me, Worf,” she said. “It’s not a good idea.”

“You should’ve whipped out your badge and arrested her! This is great! We’ve got her! She just asked a Starfleet officer to go out and assassinate somebody so she could get her revenge and keep her hoods in line!”

Ross Grant spread his arms in victory, not taking it personally that he hadn’t been the one to “crack” Odette Khanty’s pretty cover. He spun about the room like wind, amazed at the audacity of their opponent.

Inwardly grateful for his friend’s generosity, Worf sadly shook his head. “She said it was an ‘assignment.’ Someone had to ‘pay the price.’ She told me to be ‘the collector.’ She was very careful. She said nothing that might not be taken in some innocent way, given some other context. And you know how skillful she is at twisting facts.”

“Do I!”

“Also, she made sure we were alone. There were no other witnesses. Sindikash law requires two, not one.”

Grant started to say something, paused, then shook his head. “Yeah, right, well … yeah, I know that, I know … damn.”

Glad not to have to make that point again, Worf sat down to adjust his boot. As he watched his fingers work down there, all he saw was those two knarled hands, strong and trained, closing around a Klingon throat.

“The larger problem still remains. She wants me to kill one of the Rogues as an example. If I do it, then she will trust me.”

“Oh, you bet,” Grant uttered. “She wants to kill two birds with—well, you know what I mean.”

“Yes,” Worf sighed, “and if I fail to do it, we could lose our chance to get you ‘inside.’ “

“Hell, don’t do that! Whatever happens, we can’t let that happen. I’m the only thing she can’t be careful against.”

Worf buckled his boot again and sat straight. His eyes ached from all these hard thoughts. “Yes … and in order to keep her trust, I must earn it by completely incriminating myself. She and I will be obligated to each other.”

Grant shrugged. “Standard mob procedure. Make your henchmen do something they definitely don’t want to get caught doing, make sure all the right people know it was done, so you’re not the only one committing crimes. Then they gotta stick with you. Oldest story in the book. Seen it a dozen times.”

Frustrated, Worf only nodded.

“Y’know,” Grant added, “this is a big step you’ve taken here. From what I’ve been finding out, she used to give these special jobs to Ugly-an. Now he’s out and you’re in. You watch out for that guy, bud. I don’t want you coming back without arms.”

“I intend to keep my arms,” Worf assured, and stood up. He drew a choppy breath, held it briefly, let it out, then headed for the doorway. “Be sure to lock yourself in.”

“Hey!” Grant called. “Where’re you going? You shouldn’t be going out alone. You want me to go with you?”

“Not this time.” Worf yanked the door open, squared his shoulders, and forced himself not to look back. “I have a Klingon to kill.”

The midnight sky lay upon the domes of the city complex. Gothic spires toyed with lowlying clouds. The scent of wet grass and steamy wool rode an inbound breeze from the herd of American bison grazing passively in the valley just outside of town.

Cafes and clubs murmured with laughter and music, from the twange of mandolins to the whistle of clarinets. Sindikash was a comfortable place with a great deal to lose.

Mud. Rain had come lately, but briefly. The cobblestones were greased, hard to walk upon. His boots slipped as he moved, and each slip injected him with a tremble of insecurity. This was not a good place to be.

In the darkness of the alley between a church and a post office, he could see nothing.

Not even his own hands.

He should not have come alone. No one alone was safe on Sindikash.

Since he was a child he had a sense of when there was someone else around. His father had been the same way. Suspicious.

Everything made him suspicious. The shivering wind. The click and whistle of music. The pale flickering lights from the street beyond, which caused a bizarre doorway of silver fog in the distance. That was the end of the alley. He wished to be there, so his spine would cease its quaking. This was a bad time to go alone.

As his hunger for the angled light at the end of the alley grew, he realized he was already halfway through. Now he could not turn back safely. He would have to go all the way through. How many steps had brought him to this point? How many were left? Usually he counted his steps. Tonight he had forgotten.

A buffalo mooed in the deep night. He longed to be among them, where the jab of a blade or the lance of a phaser might be blocked by a quick dive behind a furry body. Protection, protection …

The mouth of the alley glowed like battle before him. He wanted to be there. His own heartbeat pounded from his hips to his head with a drum that blinded him to all but the far light and its tinsel curtain of mist.

Step, step, mud, slip, feel absurd, balance, step again—

Suddenly his left knee buckled and shot out from beneath him. His spine screamed as it slammed to the mud-slicked cobblestones. One of them struck the back of his skull, dazing him abruptly and blurring the vision overhead of the tops of the buildings and the gauzy sky.

Then hands—fists—at his throat, dragging him to his feet—he struggled to react, but his hands were tingling from the fall and for a critical instant he couldn’t even find them.

Dizziness spun through his skull and his equilibrium snagged as someone hauled him to his feet—and no one could do that but another Klingon.

In an instant of panic, he clamped his numb arms to his chest, clumsily hoping to protect his vital organs from the blade bite he knew was coming—

But none came.

“Walking alone in the city,” a voice rumbled before his blurred eyes. “Not very wise, Genzha.”

“Worf! You!”

Genzha pressed back against the brick church, wildly thinking that he might be able to use the wall as a brace, but before he could raise hand or knee, or find his own dagger with these numb fingers, his arms were pinioned behind him and clasped with some kind of strap.

Unbidden fear dashed through him as he realized that he was being held down by a professional, trained soldier—a Starfleet-trained soldier.

Surprised that he wasn’t dead yet, Genzha gasped, “But Ugulan is the one! I was watching out for Ugulan! She chose you to do this instead of him?”

“She chose me. A strange universe we live in, where nothing is certain for long.”

“What do you want? I sicken of your gloating!”

“I want you to remain very quiet.” Worf’s breath was hot against Genzha’s ear. “Walk before me, and we’ll talk about who lives until morning, and who dies.”

“Transporter room to Riker.”

“Riker here. Data, what are you doing in the transporter room?”

“The trainee requested that I come here to handle a situation. I am, in turn, requesting your advice.”

“What’ve you got?”

“We accepted a parcel from Mr. Worf, sir, transported from an asteroid breaker, which picked it up from a Torkezzi fuel ship, which evidently received it from a container vessel out of Sindikash.”

“Okay, what’s in the parcel?”

“A very angry Klingon, sir.”

“A Klingon!”

“Yes, sir. Evidently he was drugged until seven hours ago, when he awakened on board the breaker and let his dissatisfaction be known.”

“Did he hurt anybody?”

“Negative, sir, his wrists and ankles were manacled. However he is very loud and no one could get close enough to gag him.”

“Have you got him under control?”

“I succeeded in gagging him, sir.”

“I guess there are advantages to being an android. Why would Worf send us a hogtied Klingon?”

“No idea, sir. We have only a request from Worf that the Klingon be detained in secrecy for an as yet undetermined period of time.”

“Hmmm … all right, we’ll do that, if he wants.”

“Where would you like me to detain the Klingon, sir?”

“The brig. He’ll be fine. Our brig is nicer than most.”

“But the charges, sir? He can be detained only twenty-four hours without logging charges.”

“I’ll think about that. Just lock him up for now. Make him comfortable.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Data?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Not too comfortable.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Riker out.”

“He’s late. What has he got to do that makes him late for a meal? He has no assignment, he has no duty, he has no reason to be absent from a Rogue supper.”

Worf listened to Ugulan’s trumpeting with a touch of amusement and said nothing. He sat at the far end of a long table laid out nightly with Klingon food for the Rogues. They were expected to eat together. It was the only way they could interact. Or keep an eye on each other.

But Genzha was breaking the pact. He was not here in time for supper.

According to the agreement between themselves, they could not begin eating until all were accounted for.

And Worf was hungry. Hungry and satisfied. He’d had a chance to kill, and he had found his reserve. He wished Alexander had been there to see it. He wished Picard had been. He wanted somebody to know.

And why not? What good was control unless he could gloat over it a little?

He glanced around at his ready-made audience. In a minute, they would all be afraid of him. He liked that.

“Genzha,” he said, “will not be joining us.”

Ugulan’s eyes widened and he rounded on Worf. “What do you know? Where is he?”

Worf leaned a casual elbow upon the table and picked up a stick of rolled meat. “He will no longer be with us. That is what I know.”

The other Rogues—Mortash, Tyro, all—suddenly turned stiff with realization, stared at Worf, then glanced at each other. None seemed to know what to say.

Also staring at Worf, Ugulan seemed the most shocked of all—Worf had just stolen his job.

Worf punctuated his point by taking a bite of the rolled meat stick.

Then, quite unexpectedly, Mortash broke out in a barroom laugh that rolled along the carpet-hung walls. He scooped up his tankard, raised his glass to Worf, and indulged in a deep swig. Tyro and Kev laughed then too, and soon Tyro and the other Rogues nodded in satisfaction and plunged into their food.

Momentary confusion gripped Worf as he tried to figure out what was happening. Why were they laughing?

These were not just guards—they were Klingon guards. Expatriates or not, Klingons needed structure. That was the reason for the supper together ever day, for their pact with Odette Khanty, and their agreements between themselves. Evidently, it was no mystery to them that one of their own had disappeared. Worf expected them to take revenge upon him for his actions against another Klingon, and his legs were tense for the fight he thought had been coming.

Yet they weren’t reacting that way at all.

Suddenly he understood what was going on. What he saw around him, this bizarre cheerfulness—except for Ugulan—was pure relief! They knew one of them was destined to “pay” for the freighter incident, and now that debt had been fulfilled. And each Klingon was glad it wasn’t paid with his blood. He realized with some loss that these were not only not particularly good Klingons, but not particularly good people.

They were cowards! Shameful!

His appetite withered. He put down the meat stick. All he did now was watch the others wolfing down their dinner.

They ate their meal with the joviality of water purging over a dam, gushing merrily past a blockade that had minutes ago seemed insurmountable. They talked and gulped, back-slapped, chewed and laughed in some kind of purging, and even seemed to be enjoying each other’s company.

All but Worf, and Ugulan. The two rivals sat in silence.

And they watched each other.